#also this paper is from action shop so it will probably want survive long

[kaledo-art]

a triptych of abominations

Watercolors on paper

[drowningbydegrees]

Something Ordinary - Part 1

This is my Novigrad Exchange gift for @aalizazareth who asked for fluff, road trip, or hurt/comfort, and I figured how about all of them? I hope this delivers! 

A huge thank you to @goodheavensgwen​ for betaing, but also for all the brainstorming and cheerleading along the way. This fic is so much better for having your input. <3

It’s in the same verse as Noonwraiths and Other Woodland Forest Creatures, but it’s not necessary to read that to understand this one. Not, this is largely fluffy and ridiculous, but there’s some canon typical mention of blood and injury.

Read on AO3

Ordinary people don’t… date witchers. Granted, Geralt has been coming to the diner where Jaskier works for the last year and a half, just about. Twenty-one months, but who’s counting? It isn’t a precisely educational experience, but between the pancakes and mediocre coffee he’s come to realize that Jaskier is anything but ordinary.

Geralt had never meant to do anything with that information. If he sometimes goes out of his way to stop in between contracts, it’s no one’s business but his own. It’s just nice to have one place he can go where someone is genuinely happy to see him. And alright, Jaskier is more alluring than he has any right to be. And perhaps Geralt spends his visits wordlessly nursing a cup of coffee just to have an excuse to listen to Jaskier chatter on about nothing in particular a while longer.

Well, he did, anyway. Things are different in the months since they exchanged numbers after Geralt stumbled in half dead after a contract. Jaskier’s conversation demands more participation, his smiles are more intentional. And though Geralt would like to think he put up at least a token resistance over these last few months (in which he has received what he’s sure are more text messages than his entire life before), somehow Jaskier has pulled Geralt right along with him.

The point is, Geralt doesn’t do this. He doesn’t let himself get attached to people. He doesn’t give himself a reason to maybe stay in one place a little more. He definitely doesn’t go for coffee shop dates. The fact that their current circumstances started with an attempt to do exactly that is completely coincidental.

Wednesday

2:15 p.m.

Like many things in Geralt’s life, things go sideways before they even start. They don’t even make it inside the coffee shop before his phone rings, and given the only person who calls him for frivolous reasons is right next to him, it’s probably important. All of which is why Geralt had to cancel and is pulling into the gas station before a six hour trip to Oreton.

He’s still not sure how Jaskier got here, though. It’s a bewildering leap from a coffee date to committing to hours in an enclosed space together, but by the time Geralt wraps his head around that Jaskier is already in the passenger seat.

“I’ll get snacks,” Jaskier offers, already opening the car door. “Do you want anything?”

Geralt motions to a box in the back seat. “I’m good.”

“Are those granola bars?” Jaskier makes a comically disapproving noise, sliding out of his seat. He leans over enough to poke his head back in. “Do you know who thinks granola bars count as road trip snacks? My grandma.”

“What’s wrong with…” Geralt starts, but Jaskier is already gone.

To Jaskier’s credit, he’s emerging from the gas station once more by the time the gas tank is full. Well, Jaskier along with a bag of what looks like more candy than someone could eat in a week and the two cups he’s juggling.

“I promised you coffee! I can’t guarantee it’s good coffee, mind you, but it is coffee,” Jaskier explains before Geralt can ask, circling the car to press a cup into the witcher’s hands.

He doesn’t do this, and supposes he could be mistaken, but Geralt is pretty certain the coffee isn’t actually the operant word in ‘coffee date.’ Still, it’s… it’s something he doesn’t quite know what to do with. Jaskier has always been friendly, but he’s taken up doing all sorts of things as of late that can’t be chalked up to it being his job, and they never seem to leave Geralt any less unmoored than he feels right now, staring at the paper cup aggressively warming the palms of his hands.

“It’s for drinking,” Jaskier prompts, and as silly as it is, the whole thing only gets more absurd. Because the glare Geralt responds with is normally enough to make people shy away, but Jaskier doesn’t even have the decency to pretend to be alarmed. He laughs, soft and lilting in a way Geralt never wants to let go of, like there’s nothing strange about any of this. Like the two of them are made for these ordinary things Geralt has never given himself the space to want.

But Jaskier has never been ordinary.

3:07 p.m.

He’s made a terrible miscalculation in this plan, Jaskier privately acknowledges about thirty miles from home. This plan. The one that was definitely an actual plan and not just an impulsive desire to go on an adventure and see Geralt in action. Does it count as a plan if he invents a purpose? Maybe he’ll write a song about it. The subject matter is a little niche, but that’s half the appeal.

The other half of the appeal is the man sitting in the driver’s seat, silently watching the nearly empty highway stretch out in front of them. He’s always pretty, but working third shift Jaskier has never really gotten to see Geralt like this, drenched in sunlight that softens his features and mutes the slight frown that seems to own permanent real estate on his face. It’s haunting, the way it lights up Geralt’s silvery white hair, like some particularly attractive ghost.

Therein lies the miscalculation, because the thing is, Geralt is no different than any other time Jaskier has been around him, which is about as talkative as the pet rock he had when he was six. Normally, that’s fine. Geralt tolerates Jaskier’s chatter at the diner. And since it’s Jaskier’s job, he usually only wanders to Geralt’s table for minutes at a time. But there are no places to wander off to in the passenger seat of Geralt’s car, and he’s barely gotten three words out of the witcher since the gas station.

“So, what are we hunting?” he tries, because it’s the one topic he’s seen loosen Geralt’s tongue. A lot, actually. He doesn’t remember even half of what Geralt tells him, but it’s terribly endearing all the same. Even if it leaves him longing to know more about what else Geralt cares about.

“I am hunting a leshen. You are staying in the car,” Geralt replies without so much as a glance his way. If he notices Jaskier’s exasperated sigh, he gives no indication.

“I… remember you mentioning those, I think,” Jaskier focuses on the leshen because it was very definitely on the list of things Geralt told him about the first night he successfully got the witcher to have anything resembling a conversation. He resolutely ignores all the words Geralt just said around that. If he doesn’t lie and say he’ll stay put, then he won’t be lying when he inevitably does not do that. Sheepishly, he ducks his head. “In my defense, there was kind of a lot going on that night. Maybe tell me again?”

That earns Jaskier a smile, however small and brief it is. It’s a win as far as Jaskier is concerned. Now if he could just wrangle a conversation.

“Tall. Sort of humanoid. Covered in branches.” Geralt says nothing else until Jaskier clears his throat, trying to prompt the witcher to give him something at least. “They have antlers.”

“Very informative,” Jaskier chides, shaking his head. He supposes he should have known better than to assume this would work. “Anything else?”

“They live in the forest.” Jaskier is so surprised to actually get an answer, he almost misses the way the corner of Geralt’s mouth twitches upward. “You know, like noonwraiths.”

Jaskier gasps, holding a hand up to his chest as if in shock. “Was that… I’m sorry. Was that a joke I just heard?”

It’s been a ridiculous joke between them for a while now, but it hits differently this time. It’s always silly, but for the first time it sinks in that it’s theirs. They have A Thing, and it leaves Jaskier all but vibrating to realize because that’s… well, that’s significant. It feels significant at any rate.

“You were serious about the woods though, right?” Jaskier asks once he remembers they were in the middle of a conversation.

“I was serious about the woods.”

Jaskier cocks his head to the side, trying to make sense of that. “Then, how is it an emergency?”

“This one was in someone’s yard,” Geralt clarifies. As much as Jaskier would like to be annoyed by the brevity, he has to admit that that actually more or less clears it up.

Jaskier tries to imagine this tree branch antler person… thing creeping over the fence of some poor, unsuspecting homeowner like a nosy neighbor. It’s a mistake, because Jaskier doesn’t know the shape in which those descriptors fit together, so it’s much more comical than frightening. He tries and fails to stifle an amused huff of laughter, but of course that would be the thing that finally gets Geralt to look at him for a second.

“Sorry, I…” Jaskier pauses, not sure he can actually explain why that’s funny since Geralt has the benefit of knowing how all his sparse descriptors fit together. “So, what are you going to do? Bribe it to go home?”

“Not this time. They’re intelligent, but you can’t reason with them. Most creatures kill because they feel threatened or to survive. Leshens are hostile. Always.” The explanation makes sense. It doesn’t sound like there’s any way around killing the creature, but Jaskier knows he isn’t imagining the sadness clouding Geralt’s features.

He has no idea how someone could possibly meet Geralt, who never takes a life if he can save it, who spends his existence keeping people safe, who has so much compassion for even the most unlovable of things, and think witchers are anything but good. Underneath the caustic disposition he shields himself with, Geralt is kinder than most humans. It makes Jaskier yearn to coax the world into seeing what he does.

Maybe he can. There’s the beginning of an idea, but before Jaskier can follow that thread, he’s distracted by Geralt. More specifically, he’s distracted by Geralt being distracted, something finally luring the witcher’s eyes briefly from the road. So, of course Jaskier turns his head to see what could possibly be so interesting.

“Horses?” Jaskier winces when he realizes he’s asked the question out loud. It’s not really even a question. They were definitely horses, one chestnut and one gray, happily grazing along the fence containing them.

“Witchers used to travel that way,” Geralt murmurs, before Jaskier even asks a question. It’s a good tactic, giving one piece of information to steer away from Jaskier’s pursuit of another. Or it would be if Jaskier wasn’t onto him.

“Yeah. Witchers and everyone else. It’d be pretty inconvenient now though, what with all the… highways and stuff. So, I’m not sure I’m following the significance.” Jaskier watches carefully, but Geralt’s expression betrays nothing. “Unless this is the part where you’re gonna tell me you’re three hundred years old or something.”

Geralt is conspicuously silent. Jaskier has never met someone who can express so much with the various ways he chooses to express nothing. It’s an exasperating quality, but impressive.

“Wait. You’re not actually, are you? I mean, not that that’s a problem, per se. Just that—” Jaskier pauses in the midst of his babbling when he catches Geralt turning his head away just the tiniest bit. It’s not fast enough to hide that Geralt seems to be biting the inside of his cheek to keep from laughing.

3:34 p.m.

There’s a lot of farmland out this way, miles of cornfields, sure, but animals too. Jaskier briefly entertains the notion that maybe Geralt grew up on a farm and is homesick or something. He’s a storyteller by nature, after all, and Geralt is such an enigma, surely he can’t be blamed for trying to fill in the gaps. Jaskier curiously watches Geralt when they lapse back into silence. They’re surrounded on both sides by… actually, Jaskier has no idea what those fields are. The only crop he actually recognizes is corn. But whatever it is, if Geralt has any attachment to it, his expression betrays nothing.

Jaskier is about to write his previous observation off as him reading too much into something ultimately unimportant when crops give way to a green, open meadow. It’s the kind of place Jaskier thinks looks about perfect for a picnic or laying out to watch the clouds drift by, or something. It’s also the kind of place where someone keeps a rather striking-looking horse, its coat a shade of gold just a touch warmer than Geralt’s eyes. “I’ve never seen one like that.”

“It’s a palomino,” Geralt replies, though Jaskier doesn’t think he’s actually looked that way. Either Geralt is even more subtle than Jaskier gives him credit for, or something about that merits remembering.

“The breed?” Jaskier presses. This is even more fascinating than coaxing Geralt into talking about monsters. It’s not a subject Jaskier knows a damned thing about either, but it’s an unexpected thing Geralt seems to be interested in, and that all by itself makes it worth pursuing.

“It’s not a breed.” Maybe ‘talking about’ is a little too charitable a description for the handful of words Jaskier gets Geralt to part with at any one time. That’s a puzzle too. Jaskier hasn’t quite sussed out whether Geralt actually doesn’t like talking or if it’s a side effect of the way humans tend to respond to witchers. It’s a shame either way. Jaskier quite likes listening to him.

“Okay…?” Jaskier prods. It’s only afterwards that it occurs to him that if Geralt truly isn’t interested in talking, maybe when the witcher is stuck a foot away from Jaskier and can’t extricate himself from the situation is not the right time to push the matter.

“It’s a color.” After a slight pause, Geralt adds, “Gold coat. White mane and tail.”

There’s more after, not that Jaskier can keep up with most of it. Often, even when Jaskier is actively trying to engage, all he gets from Geralt is a wordless hum or a raised eyebrow. So, the fact that there are a number of words in a row is noteworthy already. That Geralt is continuing to speak without being prompted is nothing short of a miracle. Maybe pushing wasn’t the problem so much as finding the right subject matter.

And thus, a new game is born. Whether out of some sense of dignity or something else, Geralt doesn’t actually mention when they pass by horses. It’s the very slight shift in Geralt’s body language, something Jaskier would probably say was him perking up if it were more explicit, that clues Jaskier in if he doesn’t see them himself. But the minute Jaskier mentions them, Geralt appears all too happy to talk about the precise measurement that differentiates horses and ponies (14.2 hands or less, which then becomes an extended conversation about why horses are measured in hands), the Lippizaner stallion troupe (which Jaskier will admit he would really like to see if they’re even half as impressive as Geralt suggests), and that one breed of wild horses that are maybe possibly completely divergent from domestic horses (Jaskier immediately forgets how to pronounce their name, but he does remember they sort of look like especially stocky donkeys).

“How do you know all this, anyway? I’m starting to think you should have gone to work in a stable or something instead of being a witcher,” Jaskier teases after a particularly emphatic explanation about what an utter failure Redania’s wild horse adoption program is. “I mean, it would definitely be my loss, but…”

He trails off, teasing smile immediately fading as he happens to look over at Geralt. Even when he’s happy, Geralt’s expressions tend to be a bit muted, but there’s no trace of anything like happiness now. His head is subtly bowed, like he’s ashamed of something, and that just won’t do at all. There’s nothing shameful about the details that make up a person. Before Jaskier can ask what exactly dampened the mood, Geralt softly replies, “I was going to.”

“You were?” It might be a mistake. This was meant to be fun. It’s just that Geralt so rarely gives Jaskier anything about himself, and Jaskier so desperately wants to know him. He rationalizes that if he drops the matter, Geralt will think he doesn’t care and won’t ever try again. “What happened?”

“Not important.” The words are clipped, but Jaskier has at least known Geralt long enough to differentiate between the witcher being actually irritated and any of the multitude of other emotions that make him sound irritated. This is definitely one of the latter.

“Of course it’s important if it makes you look like that.” Impulsively, Jaskier reaches out to lay a hand on Geralt’s shoulder. The way Geralt nearly jumps out of his skin is a stark reminder that he’s not quite so instinctively tactile as Jaskier is. Geralt doesn’t pull away, but he doesn’t answer either, so Jaskier only lingers briefly before pulling his hand back into his lap.

“I thought everyone was exaggerating about how things would change when they made me into this,” Geralt explains, so quiet that Jaskier has to listen carefully over the engine. It’s an aching, vulnerable thing, as human a confession as Jaskier has ever heard before Geralt’s expression abruptly shutters.

“I’m so sorry… Wait, made you?” Jaskier realizes, not for the first time, that he knows nothing about witchers. Nothing true at any rate.

But whatever strange magic had coaxed Geralt into speaking has passed, and the witcher doesn’t even acknowledge Jaskier has said anything. He longs to know more, to soothe whatever it is that hurts so much, but Jaskier has at least enough sense to realize that if he presses now, Geralt will think twice about telling him anything later. The minutes stretch out between them like taffy, the silence deafening until Jaskier absolutely cannot take it. He impulsively reaches for the radio, turning the dial until the static of a station that’s long since out of range is coming through the speakers. “So… music!”

Geralt’s lips purse in… actually Jaskier isn’t all that familiar with this particular expression yet. His default state is so grumpy, it’s hard to tell this time if he’s annoyed or uncomfortable. Neither one is what he’s going for, so he pointedly does not ask what that station is, immediately setting about adjusting until a melody cuts clearly through the hissing noise. Fic Masterpost

[tundrainafrica]

Title: A Tale of Two Slaves (9/?)

Summary:  “Soulmates don’t exist. Fate doesn’t exist. Everything is a choice.” At that moment, Levi could only watch as she made the choice for him.“

Reincarnation AU. Levi remembers everything from their past life. Hange doesn’t.

Other Chapters: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 

Link to cross-postings: AO3

The oval stretched out in front of him, much wider than his range of vision but Levi felt no need to look around him and take in the whole view. It was the largest oval in his city and having been one of the more active high jumpers the past five years, he had been there enough to memorize it inside and out.

That particular day, instead of being out there in the field doing warm up jumps like he had been for the past decade of his life, he was on the bleachers, a few seats away from the front. He was merely a part of the audience, an oddly surreal experience. For years, Levi had never given the audience a passing thought after all. His world during those few hours on the track had consisted of the bar he had to jump over, the jumper before him, his coach and teammates on the bench and maybe some the interviewers who would flock to him after the medal ceremony.

Although he had gone to that track so many times before, somehow it felt like he was experiencing it for the first time.

He was unprepared as well. Levi found himself pushing his hands farther into his hoodie huddling for whatever warmth it could afford him. Possibly it was the long days he had spent indoors that had made him unready for how cold mid autumn could actually be.

The past two weeks leading up to that particular night, Levi had not left the comforts of Hange's apartment much aside from for the occasional check up or regular therapy session. When he wasn't writing or making sense of new dreams, he spent most of his days catching up with schoolwork or trying to help around her apartment even with his injury.

With the long hours he had spent indoors, he was almost sedentary in comparison to the twice a day training and it was a drastic change. As he watched the other athletes warm up on the track, he was unable to fathom how he had survived long ago in light athletic wear. He started to wonder how much he had changed. If his knee wasn’t casted or buckling at the slightest weight, if he had a perfectly good knee just like a few weeks ago, would he have still been able to jump.

Was that sudden sensitivity to the cold he was feeling a product of his psyche or did his body just suddenly get weaker due to his long stint indoors?

To think I used to actually win these events. With the disbelief that came with that passing thought, Levi suddenly remembered why he had hesitated to join them in the first place. Everything from the atmosphere, to the warm up jumps found a way to hurt him. The few whispers he could hear from his place on the bleachers about the Ackerman kid, who had achieved a college record less than a year ago suddenly sidelined for life, were reminding him why exactly he had cooped himself up in the first place.

At first, he had attributed a huge chunk of that to the healing process, the writing process and the general lack of necessity to go out. At that moment, he was watching athletes do the jumps he knew how to perfectly execute yet was sure he would never be capable of doing again. At the same time, he was listening to whispers that could have been very much about him with the smatters of conversations on knee injuries and wasted talent.

He had looked towards Hange for comfort, an almost instinctive movement. Ironically, that movement had him rubbing more salt on his already reopened wounds. He had ended up watching Hange fall so easily to a state of a daydream and Levi did not need to look back at the oval to know why. She was watching the athletes go through the motions of the jumps.

He recognized that same look to be the one she had given Elijah and those athletes on her instagram feed. He would have given a lot to be able to go back to the Levi of a few weeks ago, the Levi who had been the subject of her hyper fixations. The inevitability of time had him hating himself a little more.

Levi cleared his throat in an attempt to swallow the lump that had settled there and willed himself to look back at the field. The temptation to space out was strong.

He had decided on watching the high jump event for a reason though and he was determined to make it worth it.

                               A Tale of Two Slaves

"Mike and Nanaba?” Levi repeated. The names flowed out of his mouth so smoothly so easily as if he had said those names many times before. Of course, he knew them. They were the subject of Hange’s case study years ago, the one he had read in preparation for meeting Hange.

“Mike Zacharius and Nanaba Briete,” Hange repeated. “Two friends from high school. They’re both participating in the high jump event so I thought of watching."

Mike and Nanaba. As Levi soon found out though the names weren’t cold to his tongue. They didn’t feel as stiff or professional despite their clear origins from an academic paper. It was almost second nature for Levi to attach faces to both of their names.

And that had been a breakthrough at that moment. For the past few days, he had been struggling to dream something different. Ever since Hange had given him a dream catcher, the dreams with Erwin and Hange had surprisingly been clearer and those scenes he had pictured had so easily flown from mind to paper, particularly his dreams to see the outside wall, his drive for atonement, his heroic sacrifice. It had also made him familiar with more subtle things like the long hours he had spent in the office, the amount of time he had spent joined to Erwin’s hip as his right hand man, and the trust he had put on him all the way until the end of his life.

He had squeezed what he had taken out of every memory and every dream and suddenly one day, he woke up to find himself completely intimate with that dream Erwin. Yet the story wasn’t complete, he just had to find inspiration elsewhere.

In an attempt to support him, Hange had been doing her part too to invite him out when she could.

She had suggested movies, shopping or dinner out. Levi could see behind it though and knew Hange would have preferred hiking, park hopping or working out. Not wanting to settle for bland ideas, they probably would have both slogged through, Levi declined all of them despite Hange’s insistence.

Ironically, her mention of plans to watch his college track and field event of all things had been an exception. "I'll come with you," Levi said without thinking.

Hange frowned in concern. “You sure?”

“Why? You don’t want me to come?”

Hange shook her head. “It’s not that…. I’m just surprised that you seemed a little too eager. I talk watching something like that might be torture for you.”

“I haven’t gone out in so long. I’m fine with anything at this rate.”

“We could start with a trip to the mall? Or we could go out for dinner?” Hange lightly suggested.

“I wanna get to know your friends too,” Levi said.

Hange raised one eyebrow at him as she eyed him a little too suspiciously. “You never seemed like the type to actually enjoy meeting new people.”

Levi avoided her gaze. If it were any other friends, he probably wouldn’t have cared enough to leave the comforts of Hange’s apartment. In fact, meeting his classmates and having face-to-face classes were a burden he was happy to avoid. Those names which Hange had mentioned, the faces that suddenly clicked in his brain, which were further confirmed by a quick google search had him all the more invested. “Nanaba and Mike seem like interesting people,” Levi finally admitted.

Her reaction was unexpected to say the least. Levi found himself practically jumping out of his seat in shock at the explosion of laughter that came out of your mouth. “Why the hell are you laughing?”

Eventually, her laughter did die down but Levi wasn’t counting the seconds until it did. He had been too busy enjoying the way her eyes crinkled and her nose wrinkled as she smiled. “Wait ‘til Nanaba and Mike hear this. The quiet antisocial guy who beat them out of first place every single fucking time is actually interested in getting to know them

“Wait. I went against them?”

“Aaaaand you don’t even remember.” Hange flailed her hands up exaggeratedly. “I should have known.” She shook her head. Her voice still had the remnants of the loud laughter of a while ago and she didn’t look like she would be getting rid of that playful demeanor anytime soon.

“And now you’re just making fun of me.

Hange wiped a tear from the side of her eye. “I’m sorry. I probably look so weird right now. I know I shouldn’t be acting like this.” As she put her hand down, she looked back up at him, her smile visibly wider than it was a second ago. “It just never dawned on me till now how weird it just feels. If I told my past self I’d be sharing an apartment with jumper extraordinaire Levi Ackerman, past Hange would have tried to slap some sense into me.”

Jumper extraordinaire Levi Ackerman. Somehow, Levi was recalling the way she had held his hands and stared at him, the first time he had laid eyes on her. I heard you’re the best one in the team… I’d love to see you in action. The glimmer in eyes and the excited tone in her voice that fluctuated between highs and lows with every syllable, it was the same as it had been then when she first called out to him.

Hange took a deep breath. “The tournaments were the only times Nanabe and Mike would visit this part of town so they’d invite me to watch every year…”

“And you watched it every year…” Levi didn’t need to confirm anything. It was all in her eyes.

As if she knew she had given it all away through her eyes, Hange quickly looked away. She had done nothing though to hide the pink in her cheeks. She probably couldn’t have done anything to hide it anyway. “When the super rookie Levi Ackerman scored an almost record breaking upset win…” Hange recounted so mechanically as if she were reading a headline. “I was in the crowd. And I never stopped following him since.”

And I never stopped following him since. The moment Hange said it, she dropped her shoulders to the side, so quickly and so eagerly, Levi wondered what kind of baggage she had been holding for her to look so free as she said those last words. His mind shifted elsewhere before he could ponder it any longer.

It was a long shot but Levi still found himself looking back, scrambling to recall his first every competition through lasting sensations from the cold breeze, the blinding lights and the cacophony of cheers mixed with announcers’ commentaries.

As if by some miracle, he remembered it. He remembered it as he mentally prepared for the most crucial jump. The bar was a good two meters up in the air. His legs were aching, his heartbeat was getting wilder. Before he jumped, he had glanced at the bleachers as the murmurs and cheers got stronger and consequently more difficult to ignore. On the bleachers, more specifically on the fifth row from the front, sat Hange. Her hair still as brown and untamed as always, her eyes held the same wonder it always had. And maybe a little surprise? That had been his first tournament after all.

He had only given her a passing glance then. Within a split second, she had blended with the scenery as he ran towards the bar. The jump that came quickly after was strong and exhilarating.

And as Levi landed on the cushion on the other side of the bar, welcoming explosions of gasps and wild cheers as he did, he couldn’t help but reflect on it.

Rookie Ackerman bags gold in the Regional Cup with record breaking height.

That first tournament jump had been life changing, inspiring. Possibly it was the jump that had paved the way to the years of victory that followed.

No sane athlete would have memorized the faces in the crowd. For him though, it felt criminal that he had only noticed it then as she admitted it to him herself.

She had been a part of that experience too.

                            A Tale of Two Slaves

Eventually, Levi did get tired of torturing himself. He knew the way to the barely used locker rooms in the building next to the oval and he seeked solace there. Somehow, he found it worth it to make a slight scene as he struggled to keep his balance and he maneuvered his crutches down the bleachers.

When he got to the empty locker room, with only the dark ceiling above him and silence, that made even the dripping of water deafening, he was able to forget the embarrassing and frustrating journey there. And within a few more minutes, he did forget the onslaught of emotion that had culminated into a wave of incomprehensible emotions, manifesting as demons in his head.

With a lack of stimuli to remind him of his reality, he was once again numb. And numbness tended to lead to dreaming. The old locker room was no place to fall asleep though and Levi found himself trying to focus on whatever faint stimuli could reach him as to stay rooted in his reality.

Faint cheers made their way into the dark room. Levi had watched more than enough jumps to know the cheers flowed with the movements, always at their loudest when the athlete is at their highest. Oddly enough, he had managed to drown out the cheers more easily when he was in the middle of them.

Although they were faint, they were still much louder and more rattling than Levi had ever experienced them to be. And the cheers did rattle him to the bone. His body shook every time the cheers reached their crescendo and he wondered if Hange was watching too. Was she screaming? He could imagine her cheers so easily and he found himself trying to pick it out among what could have been hundreds of other voices.

Her voice was unique, nostalgic, memorable. It should have been easy. But the cheers were too faint. Even in the silence, he found it difficult to split them into individual voices, let alone isolate one out of hundreds. He leaned back on the cold wall, slipped onto the floor and closed his eyes.

“Levi?”

Levi had assumed it to have been a dream at first. The voice he had been raring to pick out among the crowd was right next to him. He willed himself not to open his eyes for fear that the voice might just disappear.

That small voice had opened up to sounds of steps then the brush of cloth on tiles. He felt a warm hand behind him, pulling him gently away from the wall and the warmth of something around him. Levi let out a cough, only then, when the cold was replace by warmth, did he realize how chilly the room actually was.

“You can really sleep anywhere huh?" Her voice had been too near, right next to his ear. Her breath tickled his ear and brushed past his neck. Even before he realized it, he had opened his eyes, Levi was already returning the subtle smile Hange had given him.

“What were you dreaming about?” It had become routine for Hange to ask that question. Levi couldn’t blame her. When he was at his worst, sometimes that was the only thing he was willing to talk about.

“Nothing. I wasn’t sleeping. I was just thinking,” Levi answered. “How are the results?”

Hange shrugged. “You saw it yourself. Elijah grabbed gold in the vertical jump. Mike silver…” She paused for a second.

“So none of the other jumpers after them got higher scores?”

“They still didn’t beat your record from last season.”

“I don’t need that reassurance,” Levi said. “This would have been my last season anyway. I’m gonna graduate, find a job, forget this sport then find out some other kid beat my record in a few years.”

“Why did you leave after Elijah cleared the 2.3 meter bar then?” Hange didn’t at all sound like she had wanted to provoke him. Levi was certain all she had wanted were answers.

“Why were you staring at Elijah like that when he jumped?” As he thought back to the final straw that had made him stand up and brave the stairs and the whispers from the crowd just so he could leave the field mid tournament, he realized exactly why. Hange hadn’t even noticed the way her eyes lit up at him. Somehow, that was enough to have Levi shaking as he saw the confusion in her eyes.

“Staring like what?”

“Your mouth was wide open and your eyes were stuck on him.”

“I just got a little excited I guess. When I see jumps that high, sometimes I feel like I’m flying myself,” Hange said. “Or I dunno, I’ve never flown before but it’s just so easy to get lost in it sometimes.”

“Did you feel that same way? When I jumped?” Used to jump. Regret weighed on him. As the seconds ticked as he waited for her answer, that regret gradually took over and pushed at his chest, making it more difficult to breath. It had been that one movement after all, that impulsive and reckless decision that had him there in that dark unused locker room instead of outside in the tournament.

It was his last season anyway. He had consoled himself so many times before. But it wasn’t the season and the career-ending injury that had him heavy hearted at that moment. Impending retirement in sports loomed for most college athletes, especially in their senior year. Levi had prepared himself for it already.

At first, it had been the loss of that one unique sensation, the blue sky above him, and the his body detached from the earth for that split second, the loss of that memorable and unique experience of having both air and gravity as his enemy as he flew through the air with the wind blowing through his face as if executing their own plans to stop him. When the dreams returned and when he had started to write them out, eventually the weight in his chest lightened, replaced by another one.

As he spent more time observing Hange and talking to her in between her thesis writing and his own writing, he noticed it fester slowly. Only when his chest lightened, set free from that other weight, did it start to make itself known.

Hange never stopped watching jumps, turns, tumbles, runs and spins. Sometimes, she would turn on the tv in the living room to some athletic meet. Sometimes, she’d just be scrolling through her timeline, liking whatever inhumane stunts an athlete was showing her at that moment. She had those same raised eyebrows, that same gaping mouth, those same dilated pupils and that same glimmer in the eyes that he wished was just the glare of the screen.

And I never stopped following him since. Had she looked at him with that same expression? That same exact expression she had given Elijah? Would there ever be away to look back at those moments, zoom into her and look for everything from the raised eyebrows, gaping mouth, dilated pupils and that glimmer in her eyes?

Did you look at me that same way? That was all he had wanted to ask. Hange wouldn’t have known though.

“Of course I did.” Hange answered. Levi could only wish it were true. Without seeing that same expression, he would never know.

“But I’ll never jump like that again. So I don’t think you’ll get that from me anymore.”

I can get it elsewhere. Levi had prepared his heart for that reply. He was at least ready enough not to lash out.

“Because you offer other things,” Hange said. “These stories about Captain Levi and Hange Zoe… Commander Erwin Smith? When we’re up late at night and you start talking about those contraptions that get us flying through the air like birds? I don’t know if it’s the way you describe it or if it’s the passion in your eyes but… it’s like I could have been flying too.”

“You were flying.” And Levi held on to the image so tightly, that the words flowed too naturally out of his mouth. If he hadn’t been staring at the blank ceiling above him, recalling easily how she had tumbled and turned so freely in the air, he probably would have been conscious about how much of a madman he had sounded like.

Hange didn’t seem to mind though. “Even if just in my own dreams, it would be nice.”

The dim room only made the transition from consciousness to unconsciousness a little easier. The coat over his shoulders and the warmth that it kept close to him didn’t help keep him awake either. His dim surroundings blurred into nothingness, the last two sensations he made out was the arm around his shoulder and the faint discomfort as he dropped his head onto what could have been a bony shoulder.

You were flying.

It was as if his dreams had heard the conversation of a while ago. Squad Leader Zoe, Commander Hange Zoe. Dreams of her came in snapshots, in crumbs that indulged all his five senses. The whizzing of cables, the explosion of gas, familiar yet distant screams of excitement, week old sweat.

Her greasy hair on his hands. Then Levi found himself on horseback, his and Hange’s faces were a little too close for comfort. It didn’t take much to remember why though.

She had said something about wanting to meet an abnormal titan and he was in the mood for jokes.

                                A Tale of Two Slaves

“Of all the years and tournaments you could have ditched, it had to be the tournament with my first ever golden medal performance.”

“Nanaba, I’ll make it up to you promise…”

“To think you’re the one who roped me into this sport in the first place…”

They had the whole taxi ride to start an argument. Levi was grateful at least the conversation only reached that topic when they were already in the elevator on the way to Hange’s apartment. Hange had prepared some hard drinks, some soft drinks, some chasers and a lot of water. He was sure that the argument with devolve into something a little less coherent and might actually fizzle out within an hour or so with the right cocktail mix.

He had gone through that same bout of adventure with his own teammates after all. Nanaba continued to talk her ear off while Mike and Hange cleared out the dining table. Levi sat on one of the chairs, making himself useful by opening up the bottles handed to him by Moblit.

“I’m gonna need something hard first. Imagining being awarded that gold medal then looking in the crowd for the person who inspired me to try high jumping in the first place.” Nanaba sat to Levi’s left pouring what could be a nauseating amount of gin into the cup and emptied it within seconds. “And lo and behold, it looks like you were hiding out with wonderboy here in one of the old locker rooms.” She turned to Levi. “So… What were you guys doing there?”

Oddly enough, Levi didn’t understand the question at first glance. It could have been interpreted as an innocent question. When he wasn’t taking into account the cat-like grin, the raised eyebrows and the wide-eyed gaze.

It was Moblit who confirmed her intention. He turned to Hange. “There isn’t anything between you and Levi though right?”

“No one needs to be in a relationship to do anything.” Mike added, begrudgingly wise words from the most quiet one in the room.

“Nothing really…” Hange sat next to Nanaba and poured her own glass of gin, mixing it with some soft drinks. “I just kept him company. And he fell asleep next to me.”

Nanaba turned to Levi, her cheeks much redder than they were a second ago. “You sure?” She cupped her hands over her mouth and whispered in a still very audible volume. “Blink twice if you need help.”

“I don’t remember much, I fell asleep.”

Everyone in the room jumped as Nanaba abruptly slammed her hand on the table. “And you just let your biggest fangirl get away with doing whatever she wanted with you huh?”

“Biggest… fangirl?” Levi asked.

Nanaba turned to Hange. “Don’t you have a folder of pictures of him on your phone?” She dove under the table. From where Levi sat he could only hear the frazzled protests of Hange.

“The pictures aren’t on my phone anymore!” Hange screamed.

“What pictures?” Levi asked, trying his best to ignore the slams and the sounds of struggle from below.

“We did go to all of your competitions.” Mike admitted. “They went for personal reasons… I went for my own research.”

Levi noted that Mike and Elijah tended to alternate second and third place between the both of them. According to Hange that is. He never looked beyond his own experiences and his own injury had made him all the more hesitant to research high jumping stats.

“That sounds reasonable.” Levi managed to say. Small talk had never been his forte. Especially when his conversation partner wasn’t leaving much opening to continue.

For a while they were both silent. “It’s a shame. You made the competition interesting. If this didn’t happen, you could have pushed the sport to new levels.”

“Accidents happen. Someone else will show up and do it,” Levi kept his voice toneless as if he were just rattling off a list of inevitable events. That probably was going to happen anyway. His current inebriated state just convinced him that it wasn’t worth pondering at that moment.

“Moblit! Keep my phone and Nanaba, just go the fuck to sleep already.” Hange’s tone and her face then that managed to be both cold and furious at the same time was terrifying. Maybe, because it was the first time he had ever seen her so angry.

“You’re one of my closest friends Hange…. Be happy…” Nanaba slurred.

Happy. Hange always seemed happy, barring that one sleepless night he did see her cry. At that moment though, Levi instinctively looked towards her, his brain somehow expecting to see a smile on her face.

Of course, with what happened just a while ago she wasn’t smiling. She pressed her phone onto Moblit’s hand and whispered something to him. She returned back and sat next to Levi, taking Nanaba’s seat of a while ago. “Well, I had pictures to be honest but just for a few months I guess? I mean I really liked your jumps and I wanted to keep them...”

“No. It’s nice to know I had a secret admirer.” No actually, Levi probably would have found it odd if it were anyone else. He was doing the equivalent of writing fanfiction about her and somehow, keeping a secret folder of photos of him seemed mild. Although she had mentioned deleting it, Levi found himself clinging to the hope that she might still have kept a few.

“Hange, Let me make it up to you,” A voice and a pair of arms came up from behind Hange and wrapped around both of their shoulders. Levi could smell the strong alcohol in them.

“Nanaba, I think you should go to sleep now…” Moblit said. He stood up and started to prepare one of the mattresses Hange had laid out on the side of the room.

“Make it up to me by going to sleep…” Hange mumbled visibly uncomfortable.

Nanaba ignored her. “Levi, could I ask you one favor?”

“What is it?” Levi asked, keeping his eyes fixed on the still half fall glass of tequila in front of him. He had only been taking only small and cautious sips after all.

“Could you kiss Hange?” Nanaba asked “At least, just a peck on the cheek?”

“Kiss?”

“Nanaba! Go. to sleep.”

Levi could hear the rattle of her chair and from his peripherals he could see Hange moving to stand up but before he could have even processed anything else, he felt a hand on his head, a slight push.

And within a split second, he felt wet lips, he tasted alcohol, he saw scenes and he heard voices.

Within another split second they were all gone.

Hange had gone red, he could see it in her cheekbones. She had her hand cupped to her mouth, her eyes wide with what could have been shock or embarrassment. As Levi felt the blood run through his cheeks and his incapacity to do anything but stare, he started to wonder what he had looked like.

“Weren’t you wondering how his lips tasted? During that one tournament?”

“That was a joke…” Hange said. She swallowed a lump on her throat and as she narrowed her eyes, Levi could see the beginnings of what could have been tears. Was it really a joke?

“Nanaba. Let’s get you to bed.” Mike appeared from behind Nanaba and guided her back to the mattress Moblit had prepared. He started whispering to Nanaba so slowly and gently, Levi almost admired him for his patience.

That exchange between Nanaba and Mike had only lasted a second. By the time Levi did look beside him, Hange was already gone and he could hear the door slam behind him.

Levi took a quick glance at both Moblit and Mike who were still trying to subdue an overly excited Nanaba before he stood up. Not bothering to even grab his crutches from the other side of the wall, he hobbled the few meter distance toward the door of her room.

“Hange?” Levi opened the door just wide enough to see it. She hadn’t locked the door at least.

“I still have the pictures on my phone.” She sounded apologetic. She sat at the foot of her bed, her face towards the ground. Levi could tell by the crack on her voice that she was in no mood to look up.

“The pictures of me?”

“I can delete them if you want. I know it’s creepy. I shouldn’t have taken so many during tournaments.”

“And you wanted to kiss me?”

Hange fell limply on the bed and looked up at the blank ceiling. She had looked like she was avoiding his gaze. “It was a weird passing thought. I mean, I know a lot of girls have those types of things but I guess it really is creepy when the person isn’t as big of a celebrity as boy groups or actors. But I’ve wanted to be an athlete since before I could remember. I wanted to jump, to see how it feels like flying through the air. And when I saw you jump, I swear you could have had wings on your back with how well you were able to control yourself up there. You made me feel like I could fly too and I guess I got a little obsessed and ended up thinking a lot of creepy shit. I know it’s weird and I sound like a stalker…”

“No it’s not. I still have the stories about you. I’m just as weird,” Levi looked towards the wall, a gesture of respect for Hange who looked like she was in no mood to look at him.

“But, you only started writing them after we met.”

“But the stories are so detailed, it’s embarrassing,” Levi said. “if I made you feel so strongly about this, you felt obsessed enough to sneak pictures. Just remember, you made me feel things too. And these things I felt, ended up making me write. And I’ve never written in my life.”

“How did I make you feel?”

“Like I could fly too.” His dreams could attest to the fact that he wasn’t lying. Levi chose that moment to look at her and their eyes locked even before he consciously tried to follow her gaze. She had lain on the bed, looking more relaxed than a second ago.

Hange scooched over. Levi noticed then with the slight movement that his right knee was starting to ache, having taken the load of all his body weight as he hobbled.

Her scooching over could have been a subtle movement more than anything but with his aching legs, Levi decided the risk was probably worth it. He approached the bed on the side Hange had opened up. “I thought of stuff I wanted to write... Nanaba and Mike were in those dreams too. For a time we would go out for drinks after a long day of training. Meat was hard to come by but sometimes, we would have the budget to blow on a plate of meat and we’d share it. Erwin would be there too. And sometimes, they would joke that we bickered like a married couple.”

“You really built your whole world huh? What inspired you to think that up this time? The alcohol? Meeting Mike and Nanaba? Having our heads bashed together?

The kiss? The visions of the split second chose to remind Levi of their existence at that particular moment. “The kiss?” The words rolled off his tongue so easily and so fluidly.

“You don’t have to call it a kiss if you don’t want to.” We didn’t decide to do it. So technically it isn’t right?”

Levi had wanted to argue. Hange’s denial of that kiss only made his memories clearer and the emotions tied to them much stronger.

That peck had been satisfying, euphoric. It was a cathartic release of pent up emotions. Yet at the same time it had only lasted a split second. In that silent room, on the bed next to Hange, he had enough of a breather to reflect and maybe articulate that particular gesture. His feelings were strong enough to at least convince him to keep it as is. “It’s a kiss,” he said.

The silence stretched for what could have been eternity. “It’s a kiss then,” Hange said. “Did it make you feel anything?”

“I liked it.” Levi kept it to those three words. If he gave his mouth and his emotions free reign, he might just say something he would regret.

“Did you see anything? Did it inspire you to write something else about Captain Levi and Commander Zoe?” It was just like Hange to pull those words out of his mouth anyway.

“If they weren’t constantly fighting for their lives, they might have ended up kissing.”

“And you’re not going to write a kissing scene?”

“They didn’t kiss.” Of course, they wouldn’t kiss during the war. They were fellow soldiers, subordinate and superior, it wouldn’t have been professional in the battlefield.

“Maybe after their relationship develops then.”

“It won’t develop.” The words came out automatically.

“Why not? What about after the war?” Hange suggested. Words like why always bring up more questions than answers and Levi found himself racking his brain for it.

The dreams and the memories or as Hange liked to call it, bouts of inspiration, came in images and scenes and sometimes pieces of information. From what he could tell, Hange and Levi had a strong bond and it would have only been natural that they had stayed close long after the war ended.

And a kiss probably wouldn’t have been too far off. But why didn’t they kiss? Why didn’t their relationship develop? Levi asked himself, as his mind caught up to the words he said.

Maybe because the war hadn't ended yet. But after that there should be potential to develop.

With time, Levi had started to realize a pattern to the dreams though. The answers to the questions came gradually. They came in meetings, conversations and dreams. If he waited patiently, if he just opened up, those questions would be answered right?

Before Levi even noticed it, he had settled on the bed next to her and had fallen asleep to those questions. His brain chose those moments in between the sleeping and waking world to go through the voices and visions that went through him in that split second kiss.

One day in the barracks, he had overheard three of his squad members talking.

“You know I’ve been working with the commander closely right?”

“Yeah?”

“After the meetings, Levi always stays in the room with her and every time I see them together. I can’t help but think, there might be something between them.”

“Maybe you’re just overanalyzing it. You do analyze a lot

“Hey, he was right about the titan shifters and their locations back in Shiganshina."

“We’re talking about romance here, not military intelligence. Besides, can you even imagine the captain and commander kissing?”

“Just because you can’t get a girl with your horse face.”

[matrixaffiliate]

Awaken

New Story! - FFN and AO3

For the wonderful, darling, amazing @the-words-in-my-head-12 as part of the @harryandginuary Gift Exchange!

It's been ten years since Harry finished Hogwarts, ten years since he and Ginny decided to say goodbye, and ten years since he's seen her. But that all changes when he turns the corner on the pavement in Magical London. This chance encounter might just gain Harry a second chance at the one that got away. Magical AU-No Voldemort.

Awaken

Chapter 1

The busy streets of Magical London in August just before the sun finally starts to sink in the sky give Harry a sense of what a can of sardines must feel like, cramped, slimy, and surrounded by a stench that he doesn't want to name. He has realized over the last ten years of having to come into the city that he hates it, but growing up in Godric's Hollow, out in the sprawling green of Gloucestershire, one can hardly blame him for it. Harry reminds himself for the umpteenth time that he'll be out of it in just an hour or so. He's only here to grab a few things, stopping at those specialty shops that won't survive unless they place themselves in the middle of the largest group of people they can find. It's when he turns the corner towards one such shop, the only place he's ever found that makes broomstick polish that doesn't stain his clothes, that he collides into her.

He doesn't realize it's her at first, gripping the person's shoulders to keep them both from falling, but then she cries out to apologize and he freezes because he knows that voice. He hasn't heard it in ten years, but it's like he's seventeen all over again and Harry looks down and she's staring up at him with her lips parted like she might have continued her apology until she realized exactly who she was looking at.

"Gin."

As if her name is an incantation, the images from his last year at Hogwarts come rushing back to him. Lying out on the grounds with Ginny in his arms. Quidditch practices, after Quidditch practices, her lips on his, searing, frantic. The stress of his NEWT year, being Gryffindor's Quidditch captain, the newness to their relationship wearing off, the fighting, the night they decided it was best to call it off, best to let him go out and start his life, best to let her finish her NEWT year without a long-distance boyfriend, best to bring it all to an end. They were seventeen and sixteen and while letters from home had helped a little in the fights, Harry feels like they were both ill-prepared to try and work through anything without someone coaching them through it. They were so young.

"Harry." She smiles up at him, though he notices her eyes look as far away as he feels.

"Hi," he finally manages to whisper before they're jostled and shoved against the building to his right. Instinctively he pulls her into him to keep her shoulder from also hitting the rough bricks. That action brings more memories, more images, more of Ginny rushing back to his mind as he smells that flowery scent again for the first time in a decade. Merlin, they had been so young.

"Hi," she pulls back, and Harry realizes he's holding her far too close. They aren't seventeen and sixteen anymore and trying to be together. He's twenty-seven and she'll be twenty-six at the end of the week; they're past that part of their lives.

He drops his arms and she pulls away entirely and Harry can't begin to describe the ache in his chest. It's almost like when they called it off at the end of his seventh year, but that had a feeling of relief, knowing she'd be happier mixed in with the hurt and the frustration. This time, all those feelings are replaced with this overwhelming desire to pull her back.

"How, er, how have you been?" It's a silly question, he's still best mates with Ron, he knows roughly, vaguely, how her life has gone - small things like her Quidditch career and how mad she was when Ron and Hermione chose to elope - but it's the only question he can think to ask.

He realizes a second too late his hand is already in his hair. She smiles though and he can't help but smile back.

"I've been good, and you?"

"Good," he nods and then they stand there, staring at each other in silence as London whizzes around them. It only takes London ten seconds to jostle them again though and it seems to bring both of them back to reality.

"Well," she hesitates, looking him in the eye a moment longer before she starts again, "I should probably-"

"Of course, sorry," Harry steps back, "It was good to see you."

"You too," she bites her lip and Harry receives a new rush of emotions as that image comes back to him in so many different situations from their roughly eight months together.

She brushes his arm as she steps past him and Harry unconsciously breathes her in before she disappears around the corner.

Gone.

Again.

He's in an off mood for the rest of the day as he runs his errands, and he blames it on the city. He blames it on one of the stores being out of what he wanted. He blames it on the heat of the day. He blames it on everything other than the glaring fact that he saw Ginny again.

Because she's just an ex-girlfriend. He has a few of those now, it's nothing out of the ordinary, everyone has an ex or a few, so it isn't seeing Ginny that's caused this feeling that everything in his life is wrong.

It's the long week he's having. It's how work has been stressing him out lately. It's the way the big city affected him today.

It has nothing to do with Ginny.

Besides, he reasons, we were so young back then; we've grown apart as we've grown older.

Merlin, they'd been kids! Blowing everything out of proportion, seeing only as far as the end of the next hour, too scared to really be open with each other, too inexperienced to realize they needed to be; he's amazed that they made it the eight months they did because he's rather ashamed of a lot of his behavior from his teens. His family assures him it's how most everyone feels; being a teenager is no one's forte. But Harry knows he hurt people; he hurt Ginny, and that's a sour pill to swallow. But he pushes it away to try and focus on making himself some dinner. It's not like he can go back and fix it.

Harry stops midway from setting the pan on the hot pad as his brain latches on to the flippant thought, racing through ideas from letters of apology to showing up on her front doorstep.

"No." He says it out loud, though it's only him in his little two-bedroom home. He isn't going to go barging back in on her life, for all he knows she has a boyfriend.

To his great surprise, the monster in his chest from when he was a teenager comes roaring back to life as if it hadn't been dead and gone since he and Ginny broke up.

Harry had attributed its absence to him growing up, maturing, becoming better, because it hadn't come back after Ginny. He mutters darkly at the feeling, trying to banish it away. He's not jealous. He's not that type. He's secure. Trusting. An adult more importantly.

Besides, Ginny isn't his!

He groans and sets the pan down to dish himself his dinner. He needs to stop. This train of thought is only going to drive him mad, and probably make him do something stupid; he is James Potter's son, after all, so the odds are high he'll do something that he'll wish he hadn't.

The battle is fought all evening, but it's a lost cause because his mind has decided to be a Pensieve, playing their whole relationship through his head again and again and again. He can't help but realize he's never done this with the other women he's dated. Even on the occasions he's run into them after they've ended things, he's always been able to brush it off within a few hours.

It's guilt, he reasons. He was a self-centered, inconsiderate teenager; he was older than her and should have known better; he knows that he hurt her and he's feeling guilty for that because he never properly apologized to her for it. Even when they broke up, he didn't apologize. Yes, that's what this is, it's guilt; if he can apologize to her, it will go away. And so, he pulls out a paper and pen and sits down to write.

A letter is a pretty regular task, tedious even, but as Harry sits at his little table, it feels more difficult than spell manipulation, something he does on the daily for work. The pen seems heavy in his hand and his mind slows, unable to come up with the words to put on the page.

"Well, write her name," He chides himself, but even that action feels heavy as his pen loops the G and dots the I and adds the comma after the N. He briefly wonders if he should write out Ginny and not Gin, but he never really called her by anything else when they were together. To the point that his whole family only called her Gin as well - something he never thought to ask if she minded. But it was all because 'Ginny' was Ron's baby sister; 'Gin' was his.

Harry pushes his hands into his hair and groans. He's twenty-seven years old! He should be able to write a simple apology!

Again he picks up the pen and this time forces himself to start.

Gin,

Seeing you today, it was it reminded me of a lot of things how I was. Mostly what a prat I was when we were teenagers dating. I wanted to apologize. I should have apologized the moment I saw you today. I should have apologized back then. I know it’s been ten years, that this is very past due, but I am sorry. You didn’t deserve a lot any of the rubbish I dished out, and I know wish this wasn’t such a late apology, but late or not, you deserve to have it. Hope life is well, and happy birthday Sunday.

Harry

He reads it ten times before he forces himself to fold it up and attach it to Hedwig's leg. "If you don't find her just take it to the Burrow. I have no idea where she's living now." Hedwig tilts her head at him like he's stating the obvious, which he realizes he is. Harry sighs and opens the window. "Off you go then."

Hedwig floats out into the night and Harry expects to feel lighter, which he does, but what he doesn't expect is how his mind won't let Gin go. Now though, instead of the feelings of all the things he did wrong, his mind plays all of the good things over and over again.

The laughter - he doesn't think he's laughed as much since then - their private jokes, the way she'd roll her eyes anytime someone said something she found tedious or ridiculous, how quickly she caught onto everything, from course work to their friends' problems she always seemed to get to the heart of things, her smile going soft when he'd whisper in her ear, her small hand in his, her lips pressed against his, her body tucked up against his, her blazing brown eyes staring up at him with fire, the nights where they would talk until four in the morning in the common room while they stole kisses, and it would always end with him finding excuses to have her run her fingers through his hair because it was just the most calming feeling in the world to have her fingernails run along his scalp.

The memories invade his dreams that night, and Harry can't honestly say he minds. Ginny was always fire and blazing, and when things were good between them he basked in the glow of her bright smiles and the warmth of her very presence.

But it's passed now, he reminds himself the next morning, even as his mind tries to replay a particularly happy hour spent down by the lake. She's certainly moved on, it's been ten years after all, and while he might be unattached right now, he has moved on too. He tries to think of the other women, the ones he's been with since Ginny, but the memories have to be dredged out of the archives of his mind, dusted off, held up to the light, and even then they're fuzzy.

It's because I saw her. He tries to reassure himself. If I hadn't seen her it would be just as hard to remember her. But that feels like a lie and he knows it probably is because the truth of the matter is that he's always been able to pull the memories of Gin out at any moment he cares. Thinking it through, as he's getting ready for work, he realizes that he's actually pulled these memories with Gin forward more often than most of his memories.

But it's only because so much reminds him of her.

She plays for the Holyhead Harpies, so Quidditch is always a reminder of Ginny. Red usually reminds him of her hair, comparing if it's brighter or duller or darker or lighter than the bright red that he thinks of as Gin's. Half of Britain has freckles and so he remembers hers just about any moment he's close enough to see someone's freckled face. She always bought Fizzing Whizzbees to eat while she revised and so anytime he sees them he thinks of her while his mouth waters, whether from the candy or the memories of her eating them he isn't sure. The list goes on and on. The girl is simply everywhere.

She isn't a girl anymore, though. His mind pulls back to looking down at the woman she'd become. Yesterday, his hands on her shoulders, when he pulled her into him to shield her from the wall they were pushed into, she didn't feel like the slight teenager she'd been ten years ago. She'd grown into herself, in so many ways, her face was more confident now, it lacked that desperate need to prove herself, and while she was still about the same height, her body had finally caught up with the height, filling in her curves and making it very obvious she wasn't a sixteen-year-old anymore.

In frustration, Harry shoves his hand into his hair and pulls, trying to gain control over his wandering thoughts. That's when Hedwig taps on the window and Harry's heart stops for a full second when he sees that she has a letter attached to her leg.

Slowly he opens the window and removes the letter, breathing in relief that it isn't the one he sent out but feeling the anxiety build from the writing on the front of it. It's from Gin, her handwriting still so familiar to him even after all this time, and he chuckles at the drops of ink her quill splattered near the corner of the parchment.

Harry,

Thank you. I'm sorry too, I know I wasn't the easiest to put up with back then either. I'm impressed you remembered my birthday, it's been a really long time. What are you up to these days?

Gin

Harry stares at the note, trying to determine his feelings because they are coming at him in a rush right now and he can't sort them out individually. He can, however, look at the pieces of what's happened so far. It's the same process he uses when deconstructing spells, and it's the only thing he can think to do as he stares at her pretty handwriting.

She wrote him back. He thinks this is the first thing to examine. He didn't expect a response. He's not sure he wanted one, but now that he has one, he's rather glad of it. It seems important somehow that he can converse with her, even if it's just mundane pleasantries via owl.

She accepted his apology. That's the next thing he thinks on, and he's able to pull out that he's relieved because he wasn't sure she would.

She apologized as well. This is more difficult to decipher how he feels about it. While he knows it takes two to tango, so to speak, he definitely feels he's more to blame than she. Still, her apology brings a small smile to his face, and even though he doesn't think he deserves it, he's appreciative that she felt to do so.

He impressed her by remembering her birthday. This feeling is a little easier to identify: embarrassment. He wished her a happy birthday and it's been a decade since they saw each other. It's a miracle that she's only impressed because he's aware of how obsessed it must look that in ten years he hasn't forgotten her birthday. Regardless of the fact that she doesn't seem to think it weird, he still shifts uncomfortably as he reads that line.

It's the last line of her letter that leaves Harry the most internally unsure of what he wants to do. Her last line, the question of what he's up to, it's an open invitation to contact her again, to respond to the letter, to not go another ten years without knowing at least something of what's going on in the other's life. There's a part of him that wants this, wants to know if they could start a friendship after everything that's transpired, maybe let it grow into something more again, like it did the first time. But another part of his mind tells him to stay away, to write a vague response that doesn't open the door for more interaction, and finally close this part of his life.

The clock on his wall chimes and Harry sighs; his time to think this through has run out. He slips the letter into his pocket, grabs his wand, and Apparates to work.

He realizes as the day wears on that he shouldn't have brought it with him. The letter is constantly on his mind which means Gin is also constantly on his mind. The last time Gin was constantly on his mind, it was just his school marks on the line. Now it's his job.

"Harry, what is going on?" Sirius asks after he's beckoned him over.

Alright, so maybe his job isn't on the line - working for one's dad and godfather does come with its advantages.

"Sorry, I'm preoccupied, I'll focus."

"What are you preoccupied about?" James comes up behind him and Harry holds back the groan that tries to escape his lips.

"Just stuff from my school years, realizing that I haven't properly apologized to a lot of people."

His dad laughs and throws an arm around him. "Say that around your mum, you'll make her proud."

Harry laughs and Sirius ruffles his hair. "Remember that most people do move on with their lives Harry, even when offenses aren't formally acknowledged and amends made."

"You're right," Harry tries to focus on the lightness he feels with his father and godfather and tells his brain to think about Gin later.

This works for the rest of the morning, but after lunch, when he's supposed to be documenting what he went through and found this morning, his mind wanders back again and he can't seem to get a grip. The problem is that he promised his dad this would get done today, so he has to get a grip. But his mind is spinning with all the things he could tell Gin, all the things she might tell him, everything that they've missed between each other in these ten years.

I'll just write it out, he thinks as he grabs a clean sheet of paper and his pen. If he can write the letter he'll be able to work and then he can decide tonight if he's going to send the letter or not. Just because the letter is written doesn't mean it needs to be sent. He has all afternoon to decide.

Gin,

Thank you, I don't particularly think I deserved your apology, but I'm glad for it all the same. I do still remember your birthday, but I promise it isn't mapped out on a dozen different calendars around my house. However, if you do show up on my doorstep don't take it personally if I take a few minutes to open the door.

I work with Dad and Sirius, I'm sure you remember they were trying to decipher all the parts in spells when we were in school, figure out what made them work and not work. Well, the Ministry was keen to know what made dark spells work and not work and how people can manipulate them, so Dad and Sirius started contracting with them. We still do our own work to map out spells, but we now spend a lot of time working with the Aurors to pull apart dark spells, often having to work backward from what the effects were to get to the actual spell that caused it, then determining where the weak points are. I love it, but I won't keep boring you with the details.

I saw that you made the starting team a few seasons ago. Congratulations on that. Is it everything you'd dreamed? I remember it was your favorite thing to talk about back then, imagining what it would be like when you made it to the big leagues, star chaser on a top team. Where do you go from here? Planning on being the head coach now?

I'm really glad I ran into you yesterday. Well, I'm not glad I bashed into you, but I'm glad I saw you. It's been a long time.

Harry

He signs his name and feels some of the tension ease out of his neck and shoulders. He chuckles at how quickly the words came once he quipped about how he wasn't secretly obsessed with her, it felt like the way they'd joke back then. He doesn't struggle to work for the rest of the day, and he feels like a dark cloud has been lifted from over him. So much so that once he's home, he doesn't even read the letter a second time, he just ties it to Hedwig and sends it out.

He's shocked when Hedwig returns about ten at night, Gin's response tied to her leg.

Harry,

You're sure you aren't harboring stolen calendars, all with the month of August pulled out so that you can circle the eleventh on each one with a bright red pen? I think I'm actually disappointed at the thought that you don't.

Working with your dad and godfather must be fun. Not that I would want to work with my family, but your family was always a guarantee for a laugh. How is everyone on your side? I don't know if Ron keeps you abreast of what's happening with our side other than himself and Hermione, so I won't risk boring you with things you might already know.

Being a starter has been a dream come true, though I had no idea what I was really in for back then. It's so much work outside of training and games. There's the press, the briefings before and after the press, the paperwork, the reading and examining of our playbooks, the meetings. I swear it's a wonder that we manage to make it through everything in a training day.

To be honest, I don't know what's next. As long as I don't get injured and keep playing at the level I am, I probably have five to ten more years to be where I'm at with the Harpies. I've thought about coaching, but I don't know if that's really what I want after this dream is over. I was so focused on achieving this dream, that I never considered what should come next. It's funny how we forget those long-term things when we're kids. We forget that there's life after our dreams too.

But I won't let things get gloomy here, because I'm really happy we saw each other yesterday too. It's been too long, and I thought we were good friends back then. Even with how everything turned out, you were one of my favorite people.

Gin

Harry grins down at Gin's letter like a fool. It isn't the contents of the letter as much as the fact that it's there, that she's talking to him, or writing rather. But as he reads it a second and a third time, he realizes it's not just that the letter is there, it's what she said in the end, that he had been one of her favorite people, even with how they let each other go, let their relationship end. She had been one of his favorite people then, and it occurs to him that he's still more than fond of her now. So much so that before he realizes it, he's pulling a fresh sheet of paper out and sitting to respond to her letter, regardless of the fact that he should be going to bed. But then Hedwig nips at his knuckles before hopping to her cage and immediately going to sleep, and Harry realizes that if he writes this letter now, he'd want Hedwig to send it out tonight, and he should let her sleep.

He does let Hedwig sleep, putting his paper and pen away, but his thoughts keep going back to Gin, and this new sort of friendship they're forming, and it takes him far longer to fall asleep than his owl.

His imagination swings from memories of how they were to how things would be different now, and all this serves to tell him is first that he's going to be very tired in the morning and second that while he and Gin are becoming penpals, his mind doesn't think that's enough. His imagination can't unsee her from the day before, and it's really unfair to him that she had paused mid-word when he looked down because her lips were parted and he knows what it feels like to lean down when her lips are slightly parted and bring his lips to hers, slide his tongue across her bottom lip, and smirk when her breath catches before she nips on his lower lip and tells him to shut up and kiss her.

Harry gives himself a firm mental shake. How had he not realized he had never really moved on from Ginny? He tries to come up with the same sort of scenarios with the other women he's dated, and while he can bring them to mind, it's not nearly as easy as it is with Gin, and it certainly isn't bringing up the same...feelings.

Merlin, how did he never realize this before now?

The anxiety blossoms anew and Harry's now agonizing over what to do, because this could simply be his brain making the one that got away feel like more than it was. Things hadn't been all wonderful, he reminds himself. But another part of him argues that they'd been children. They'd even fought like children, over childish things. They're adults now, they've learned how to have a relationship, the give and take. Why wouldn't they work now?

On and on his mind spins as he tries to sleep, but it doesn't seem to come until nearly four in the morning and the few hours he gets are filled with dreams of Gin, dreams from their past, but also dreams that his brain creates from what he saw for that brief moment with her, how much she is no longer the sixteen-year-old girl that he held ten years ago.

In the morning he has to take a cold shower to snap himself out of it all.

How had they let it go? How had they let it slip away? How had they been so short-sighted?

Harry has no answers to these questions, and when he finishes his quick shower he knows there's no time for letter-writing before work. Which results in him being just as distracted as the day before and exhausted as well.

"I know it's Friday but would you please not mentally check out before we've finished up?" His dad laughs at him.

Harry groans, which turns into a yawn. James watches him before motioning them out of the protected room that allows them to cast all manner of spells and not accidentally destroy the building. Harry forces his eyes not to roll and follows after his dad.

"What's really going on, son?"

Harry rubs his eyes and tries to determine if he wants to bring his dad in on this or not. His gut reaction is no, but he could really use someone else's input because he's at the point where he's running circles in his head with no end in sight. Besides, he isn't a teenager anymore, he knows how to push away his more problematic feelings and ask for help.

"Harry?"

"Do you remember Ginny Weasley? Ron's little sister."

James nods, "You two dated your last year of Hogwarts."

"Well, I ran into her in London on Wednesday." Harry leans his shoulder up against the corridor wall and goes silent as he tries to figure out how to say this.

"And…?"

"And I haven't been able to stop thinking about her since." Harry stares at a random spot on the floor. "I thought it was because I'd never apologized for what a prat I was at seventeen and how I didn't treat her as well as I should have. So I wrote a short apology and sent it out. She responded and now we're becoming penpals or something, poor Hedwig has been out on the daily. But what's really bothering me is I'm starting to think that I never really moved on from Ginny when we called it off."

"What makes you think that?" James asks as he mirrors Harry's stance.

Harry presses his forehead into the wall, still struggling to make his thoughts align into words.

"I haven't been able to stop thinking about her. It's been ten years but I can still pull up all those memories like they were yesterday. Nothing feels like time has passed, whereas every other ex it's hard to bring up those old memories, and there are holes in them, things that I don't quite remember how they happened. But not with Gin, I could probably make you something like Mum's movies right now if you have a Pensieve handy because none of it is fuzzy, it would play out with perfect clarity."

Harry turns back to look at his dad and finds his square-framed eyes looking back at him with mirth.

"So write to her and ask to meet up tomorrow."

"Her birthday is Sunday, I'm sure she has plans with her teammates."

Harry watches his dad's eyebrows rise up into the bits of gray starting to mark his black hair.

"You remember her birthday?"

Harry groans and pushes his forehead back into the wall.

"Alright, don't suggest the day, just tell her you'd like to meet up and ask when it works for her. But, son, if you still feel this way about her, you won't move on until you've been able to gain some closure, whether that's getting back together or finding out the two of you have grown too far apart to make anything work."

Harry glances back at his dad and lets the idea sit for a moment.

"Alright, I'll see if she's willing to meet up, but what do I do if she's not?"

James places his hand on Harry's shoulder, "Then you'll know it's time to move on and we'll go from there."

It sounds sort of terrifying, but the same argument Harry's been coming back to the last two days resurfaces - they aren't children anymore. He isn't a child, and he's not going to start things off with Gin this time around as the same scared and awkward seventeen-year-old specky git he was before. She deserved more then, and she certainly deserves more now.

"Well, at least I don't have to think about what the letter should say when I write it tonight."

"Good on you, mate," James pulls him into a quick hug. "Now, let's get this spell figured out so we can head out."

"Are the two of you still not done?" Sirius comes out of one of the other rooms.

"We're on it, Black," James waves the door open and gives Harry a gentle shove. "Come on, before the boss over there fires us."

The decision to ask Gin to meet up with him is what gets Harry through the workday, but when he finally sits down to write the note, there's a part of him that feels like a panicking seventeen-year-old again.

"Don't be a wanker," Harry kicks himself and forces his pen to write her name on the index card he's chosen to keep himself from getting long-winded.

Gin,

This letter writing, while I can't think of a better penpal, is a bit cumbersome, don't you think? Would you be willing to meet up sometime? I don't want to get in the way of any birthday plans but if you have time, I'd like to see you outside of crashing into you on the pavement.

Harry

He reads the note three times, trying to decide if he should actually respond to her letter or not before deciding he won't; he'd rather talk to her in person about everything in her letter. Before he can talk himself out of this, he ties the note to Hedwig's leg and watches her fly off into the sky, the sun slowly sinking towards the horizon.

[tomtenadia]

Island Dreams - Chapter 6

* Insert greeting here according to your time zone.*

So, chapter 6 is here. A bit of development fro our two idiots. Hope you like it.

I have chapter 7 and 8 down but they need heavy editing. Also, last night I was inspired and I did manage to plot the skeleton of the story, so I know exactly where I am going. There should be 28 chapters and an epilogue.

Well, I hope, in the meantime that you will enjoy this one.

Spot the HoF references :)

---------

The next day Rowan was back at work. He opened on time as usual and a couple of tourists came into the shop but left quite quickly. Probably not impressed by the lack of tacky touristy stuff. He was working on re-organising a shelf when the door opened and he was not ready to see again the person who crossed the threshold. “Hey you.” The woman smiled at him tenderly. Rowan forgot how to breath. Aelin had her hair in a braid and a straw hat on her head. A nice colourful shirt and then his gaze trailed south. She was wearing shorts and the sight of her long tanned legs almost killed him. It looked like Aelin was ready to go on a tropical beach to suntan and relax all day. She was a goddess. And she was in front of him. Smiling. “Back at you.” He said, getting up slowly, not trusting his legs. He felt he could faint anytime at the sight. “I am here for my book.” A timid smile appeared on his lips then his legs finally moved and did manage to cover the few steps taking him to the counter. He grabbed the book and handed it to her. He hesitated for a moment, as if to try and have a conversation but then decide against. What was he going to say anyway?

“Have fun.” That was the safest comment he could make. “I bet you are dying to know how it finishes.” Aelin grabbed the book quite eagerly and held it to her chest “Hell yeah. The fake queen has lost her marbles and she deserves to die. Painfully if possible. And I can’t believe that the main couple got separated, they are at the opposite extremes of the continent and that bastard of trusted member of her court told her, her lover was dead. And the plot twist at the end?” Rowan laughed. Actually laughed and for Aelin it was the most beautiful sound she ever heard. The smile reached his eyes and he was even more stunning. “Be ready for a lot of angst though.” Aelin dismissed him with her hand “I eat angst for breakfast, lunch and dinner.” They were talking. Not about what happened but he did not care. “Have you read The cursed kingdom?” “Of course.” “Well, if I survived the angst of that book I can survive anything.” She explained. “I have a present for you.” Her book went on the floor and she began fumbling in her backpack, clearly looking for something. “Ah! Here it is.” In her hand there was a small rectangular packet wrapped in bookish paper. Rowan took it suspiciously and opened. At the sight of the gift a roaring laugh erupted from him. Such a genuine laugh that left Aelin stunned. That could not be the same person who told her she was nothing to him. “So now when you open the fridge you will think of me.” She explained, pointing at the tacky fridge magnet with Stornoway written on, now in his hands. He smiled and attached the magnet to his metal pen holder on his desk “I spend more time here than at my fridge. Now it will always be in front of me.” They were talking and laughing, it looked like somehow the fight they had was just a bad memory, but he could not forgive himself for what he said to her. How could he apologise for his behaviour? He was terrible at this kind of things. How was he going to explain the chaos that was his heart at the moment? Then he remembered about the dark haired guy and the book and sadness engulfed him. “I wanted to apologise.” She surprised him searching for his gaze. Her blue eyes met his and he could not look away. “I said horrible things.” She continued. Aelin placed the book on the counter and moved a step in his direction, closing the distance “I was having a bad day and I think I exploded and took it out on the wrong person.” Rowan moved a step closer to her as well “I said horrible things too. You were being nice and brought me coffee. It’s just that…” he paused. He was so bad at this “I am not good at communicating with people as you can see. You are not just a customer….” “Mo charaid” he heard her whisper and smiled. “You are learning…” he added. He extended his arm and took her hand in his “I’d love to try an be your friend.” With a swift motion he pulled her to him, to his chest and she felt amazing against him. She was shorter and her head fitted just under his chin. Her arms caught him off guard when they wrapped themselves around him. “I am a mess.” It was a whisper from her but he heard it “I am a mess. My life is going belly up and some days I feel like drowning.” She looked at him and for a moment he was speechless. There was so much pain and anguish in those beautiful blue eyes of hers. “I am lost…” She whispered never removing her gaze from him “…and I don’t know the way.” At those words, his heart ached. He hugged her tighter and hoped that his action would help. Maybe his actions would convey better his feelings. A hug was all he could give her just now, but he hoped it helped a little bit. “I am a bit of a mess too.” Finally he confessed to her. She was being honest to him. She deserved a bit of his honesty too. “A bit stuck, as my aunt would say.” She is stuck too. Aelin leaned back from the embrace and put a hand on his chest, near the heart “When you are ready.” His hand covered her on his heart “When we are both ready, we will tell each other our stories.” “We will help each other.” She added softly “And maybe we could find our way back together.” He nodded and felt lighter for a moment “Together then.” “To whatever end.” Said Aelin in a solemn tone. Rowan grinned “that’s cheesy. It sounds as if it came from an epic adventure where the main hero is ready to embark in a dangerous mission. Sitting on his horse, sword wielded high and he shouts that.” “I did read it in a book actually.” Commented Aelin, laughing at the scene he had painted. With a huff she pulled away from him and walked to a shelf, grabbed a book and when she returned she shoved it in his face “You even sell it.” Rowan grabbed the book from her hands and set it aside. He was definitely going to read it. “If you spoiler it, I’ll kill you with my own hands.” She stopped again right in front of him and looked up “To whatever end…” a faint smile painted her lips “It could be our motto.” He grabbed her hand and put it back on his heart “Sounds epic enough for the two of us.” They had made some progress but he could not stop thinking about the other guy. And he could not risk asking her. She had probably seen the note which meant she knew that he knew, but he decided to give her some space. Also, the two of them were just friends. But a pang of jealousy hit him nonetheless. Anger flooded in him at the thought that he might kiss her. Or worse. It was not his place to be so possessive but that nasty emotion had been festering in him since the day the stranger had come to buy the book for her. He pushed the bad thought away. Having her back and being her friend had to be enough for now. He could not give himself to her completely until he had dealt with his life and his issues. Then she looked past him and noticed the books on the floor and the empty shelf “were you rearranging books?” “Yeah, I was playing with history section. It needed a sprucing up.” He looked at her face lit up in joy. “Can I help you? I love rearranging books. Please? Pretty please?” There was no way he could resist her. Not when she pleaded with her radiant smile. He gave in. “Fine. come.” He moved away and all of a sudden he missed the contact with her hand. They both went to the shelf and Rowan started explaining her how he was planning to reshuffle the display. “We can put some of the best historical books on display on the table, to advertise them.” She grabbed a book about the neholitic settlements “Like this one. Or this one about the Iron Age house in Bosta.” She continued “It’s such a cool place.” “And how do you know about Bosta?” “I… I was there.” He saw her hesitate and wondered if she had been there with the other guy and hated the thought of the two of them together. It should have been him to take her to all these places. Take her to Callanish and make her smile with all the myths connected to the place. Go at night and have a picnic under the stars and the Milky Way. It should have been him. That was jealousy. Dark, horrible jealousy. “Did you like it?” Aelin nodded “But my favourite was Callanish…” she looked at him and thought about the book and his note “It was such a magical place.” “It is. I have to take you there at the Solstice.” The big smile painted on her face was so beautiful it hurt. “I… felt something when I was there.” She started trying not to feel like an idiot for what she was about to say, “I sat down with my back against one of the stones, inside the circle and the chambered cairn and I just felt something.” She chuckled “Gee, now I sound like a lunatic.” Rowan placed a hand on her shoulder “You don’t. I have felt things too. Can’t actually describe what, it’s not something you can put into words easily. Especially at the solstices. I always go there for both winter and summer solstice.” “Ever seen the shining one walking down the avenue on midsummer’s dawn?” Rowan shook his head “No, he/she is still eluding me.” “Well, wonder if this year is the year we’ll see him.” “And…” he stifled a chuckle “Where else have you been?” “I have seen Callanish VIII. The stones on Great Bernera.” “Oh, so you have been busy.” He joked, while emptying the shelves to try and concentrate and hide from her his true emotions. If only he had been nicer from the start… “A bit.” Aelin took a few copies of the book he had chosen for her about Callanish and arranged them nicely on the table in a very attractive display. She then grabbed a few other different books and piled them nicely to fill the table. At the end she took a step back and admired her masterpiece “I am a genius.” Her arms folded at her chest and a big grin on her face. Rowan looked up from his position and felt suddenly the desperate desire to kiss her “You have a high opinion of herself.” He mocked her, adoring the expression painted on her face, nose scrunched up. “Give me a week. I swear, you will finally start to sell these books. If I win, you buy me lunch. If you win, you can ask me one question about myself.” Aelin hoped he took the challenge. She wanted to say that if he won he would have to confess something about him, but after his reaction, she decided it wasn’t a good idea yet. “I just hope that you are ready for a mortgage because I’ll get the biggest lunch your aunt can cook and make you cry.” “Ha.” He shouted pointing a book at her “Maeve is my aunt, she will not make me pay.” “Whatever, I still get my free lunch.” Rowan stood and eyed her display and he had to admit that she was quite good “This is actually quite nice.” “Well, at least I know that now that my medical career has gone to shit, I can always become a bookseller.” She added sadly. “You are a doctor.” Rowan added stunned by that confession and by the realisation that apart from her name he knew nothing about her. “I was, am… I… it’s complicated at the moment.” and she gave him her back. Gently his hand touched her shoulder and Aelin turned to face him and Rowan noticed her eyes filling with tears. Withe the back of her hand she wiped her face and pretended to be strong. Although in reality it hurt. Sometimes so much that she could not breath. There was anger in her, so much anger, and despair. “I am fine.’ She sniffled “Don’t worry about it.” “Aelin…” his hand was about to caress her cheek but she grabbed his wrist and stopped the gesture “No. I don’t need your pity.” She grabbed quickly her backpack, book and hat “I should go. I wasted enough of your time already.” She turned and left the shop not looking at him. Rowan stood immobile with a book in his hands and stared at the spot where she had disappeared. And all of a sudden he knew what question he wanted to ask. He wanted to know more about this woman. Discover what horrendous things had happened in her life to bring her to tears that quickly. She was hurting. Badly. Then all of a sudden he thought of the perfect idea to bring a smile back to that gorgeous face of hers.

Aelin left the shop and took the road to get to Lews castle. She followed the path through the park and ended up at the marina and eventually crashed on a bench in a spot a bit far away from civilisation. She took her phone out and called Lysandra and her friend answered after a couple of rings. “Darling…” Lysandra’s voice sounded out of breath. Shit had she interrupted something? “I guess you finally have a day off.” “Uh-uh…” said her friend “It happens you know?” “Lys, are you with Aedion just now?” “A bit.” Aelin laughed “So, I guess his hands were good.” “You have noooooo idea.” Aelin smiled “Hey, have fun you two. I’ll call you tomorrow.” She paused “Just… don’t make an aunt yet.” She said her goodbye to Lysandra and stood and then went and leaned again the pier barrier and admired the sea and the marina. She needed to talk to Lysandra. She had to tell her her current situation and how she was torn between two men who were completely the opposite of each other. She liked them both. They were both interesting and fascinating people in their own respective way.

Shit. She was in such deep, unending shit.

[voyd-is-in-a-portal]

How to End Up Being an Inventor (In 5 Actions).

We consulted with numerous expert inventors to boil down the tricks of the craft. Some have made jobs out of an invention, others have found markets. If you're sitting on an idea that might be the next terrific American invention, below's your playbook.

1. Cultivate an Idea.

The record of the invention is studded with one-hit marvels, inventors whose solitary blockbuster suggestion made them a fortune. However one of the most prolific inventors can not switch off the idea maker. They are also troubled as well as creative. Inventors just see life's many obstacles in a different way than the average person, according to medical-devices inventor Robert Fischell. "The key to inventing is the awareness that a problem is a trigger from which an invention can be created," says Fischell, who holds more than 200 patents for advancements such as an implantable heart defibrillator and also enhanced stents. "When I'm in the operating room as well as a doctor tosses a device against the wall in irritation, I claim, 'Great, here's an opportunity.'".

Fischell, who at the elevation of his profession filed a new patent application every six weeks, wastes no time in determining whether his most recent concept satisfies the patent test of being brand-new, beneficial, and also nonobvious. He goes right to the U.S. Patent as well as Hallmark Workplace's database of released patents (patft.uspto.gov) and performs a search. "If you review a patent, as well as someone, has currently resolved the issue, after that you're still an inventor. You just arrived late," he says.

If, after an initial search, your idea verifies unique, after that continue developing it. Be reasonable concerning what you're obtaining right into. "The moment you commit will be dual what you believe it will be, as well as the buck amounts you devote will be 4 times what you assumed," Leatherman states.

Make drafts, execute examinations, expand principles, and keep comprehensive notes. Patent lawyers suggest their customers preserve a visit a completely bound notebook that obtains stamped by a notary public frequently. A logbook becomes essential in cases before the U.S. Patent and also Trademark Workplace including similar technologies, as the burden of proof is up to patent applicants to demonstrate that they were the initial to conceive of an invention.

At this onset in the video game, your investment of personal time and money will have been minor compared with what is around the bend. Before the case, you'll need to ask some hard questions about both your concept as well as on your own: Is my idea significantly different than any that precede it? Exists a large market for the product? Can it be developed and made at a reasonable expense? That is the client, and why should they get my product as well as not a competitor's? Am I prepared to devote myself fully to making this concept do well?

Inventors who have been via the process care not to undervalue the psychological and mental determination called for. "If you can't afford mentally and intellectually to fail if your vanity would certainly be wiped out after that don't do it.". see also InventHelp TV Commercial

2. Develop a Model.

With the schedule of powerful computing and computer-assisted layout software application like Autodesk Inventor as well as SolidWorks 3D CAD, inventors today live in what Kamen describes as "the utmost sweet-shop." The earliest versions of Kamen's first invention, a wearable mixture pump that provides specific dosages of medicines such as insulin, sprang to life out a computer system display yet in a workshop set up in the basement of his parents' home on Long Island, N.Y. Kamen was a teenager at the time.

Also when made in a highly exact digital CAD atmosphere, an item ultimately has to leap to the genuine globe in the kind of a model. Depending on the materials entailed and the complexity of an invention, the expense of making a high-quality prototype can empty a financial institution account as well as compel an inventor to look for financing at an extremely early stage.

Tim Leatherman supports taking a DIY technique. During an experimental phase lasting three years, he constructed prototypes of his groundbreaking multitool from cardboard, wood, as well as steel till he picked advanced layout. "By collaborating with my hands," he says, "I found out about barriers to performance as well as manufacturability.".

When you have your prototype, it's time to repair your invention. Obtain outside your head and go-to experts in the field, Fischell suggests. "Ask, 'Do you believe my suggestion has business benefit? Would certainly you utilize it?' Make them authorize a privacy arrangement," he says. For inventors, the possibility of copyright burglary is very actual, but way too much caution can become immobilizing. Privacy, or nondisclosure, the contract permits you to field-test in confidence.

Responses from Mario Salazar's target audience-- woodworkers-- compelled the Colorado Springs inventor to adjust his digital miter gauge. The mechanical prototype he constructed in the cellar with a blowpipe, an oscilloscope, and also a milling maker noticed eBay worked efficiently as well as felt ideal to Salazar, yet the tradespersons wanted it bigger as well as much more inexpensive. "You can't fall for your invention," he states. "Obtain responses and also make alterations accordingly.".

In the agitated company world, a patent protects the inventor by providing the unique right to leave out others from making, making use of, or offering his invention for 20 years. "When other people see you making cash, your patent will be the only methods you have for keeping control of the market," claims Lonnie Johnson, founder of Johnson ElectroMechanical types of equipment as well as the inventor of the Super Soaker water weapon. Follow inventhelp for more advice:

https://www.linkedin.com/company/inventhelp

https://twitter.com/inventhelp

3. Submit a Patent.

Patent law is made complex things, so get an experienced patent lawyer to write and also file your patent application. Anticipate to pay in between $3000 as well as $10,000. "Work with a patent lawyer who additionally has a level in the field you're making an application for a patent in and who understands your market," Salazar encourages.

A knowledgeable lawyer can prepare a wide patent that safeguards an invention against violation from any angle. In the case of Richard Phillips, proprietor of International Survival, his well-crafted patent application made it impossible for anybody to replicate the slim, shock-absorbing material he developed for his protective paintball vest. "My legal representative spread out the patent out thus far over and below my laminated foam product's residential properties that a competitor's vest would certainly have to be so hefty the wearer couldn't walk approximately light that the vest falls apart when struck," Phillips states.

On standard, patent authorization takes 3 years and may call for going back as well as forth several times with patent examiners. From the moment a patent application arrives at the USPTO up until it is either provided or abandoned, an invention is covered by patent-pending standing. In the situation of John Marsden, that created Pour 'N Shop, a bartending system of plastic containers, and also put spouts for beverage mixers, a pending patent amounted to a suit of paper armor.

According to Salazar, any kind of inventor has to be all set to do battle. "I'll have my attorney send out a cease-and-desist letter if somebody infringes on my patent. As well as in the end, a patent is just as great as the thickness of your pocketbook.".

4. Examine the Market.

When the patent application is in total, the inventor needs to change from developing a suggestion of developing a service. Rare is the innovative brilliant behind an invention that likewise has business chops-- or the interest-- to look after the manufacture, advertising, and also selling of his production. Even the brightest innovative minds can drop victim to the countless rip-offs and also doubtful invention-promotion companies whose advertisements clutter the Internet. Many expert inventors urge care with any kind of attire that requests for cash upfront to shop your suggestions about.

Tim Leatherman built up important know-how in business and also production by joining with Steve Berliner. John Marsden, the Pour 'N Store designer, partnered early on with service school grad Ed Harrigan. "If I had not had Ed, I probably would not have made it," he says.

Marketing research studies-- perform your own or appoint a market research company-- will certainly provide you data concerning market patterns and customer demographics. There is no substitute, nevertheless, for putting your invention in front of potential consumers as well as manufacturers, providers, and distributors to get a sense of its market value. For the inventor, this is an anxious time.

Salazar is a big believer in showing your items at trade shows. "You'll figure out who is doing what, whether you'll be able to contend and if somebody wants to get what you have," he claims. "However you're additionally dropping your cabinets and every person will see what you've obtained. Your item had better be 95 percent complete. Be ready to answer concerns: Just how huge is the market? That's mosting likely to buy it?".

5. Sell It or Make It.

Inventors make cash in two means: collecting aristocracies by certifying the right to produce their invention or production, distributing, and marketing the invention themselves. Louis J. Foreman, owner, and also the primary executive of Enventys, an item style as well as a design firm in Charlotte, N.C., and writer of The Independent Inventor's Handbook, has personally encountered that problem several times as the holder of 10 licenses as well as has encouraged many inventors as a lead court on the PBS program Everyday Edisons.

Then it's time to ask yourself one more round of questions: First, exists enough upside potential to merit the threat of bringing the item to market on your own? "Consider opportunity costs also," Foreman says. "If you have to quit a job that pays $100,000, can you make enough to counter that?" Second, do you have the financial resources to pull it off? If you don't, then where is the money most likely to originate from? And lastly, do you have the competence to run an organization? "It's one point to come up with a remarkable item, however, are you comfy marketing it, can you distribute it, restore it as well as satisfy orders if Walmart offers you a 5-million-piece purchase order?" Supervisor claims.

No question licensing is the less complicated path to getting an invention to market. It requires less dedication of time as well as up-front resources and frees inventors to do what they do best: invent. However, expedience comes with an expense. Royalty prices on patents-- created on the list price, production run, as well as various other variables-- average less than 2 to 7 percent of retail sales. Still, for a first-time inventor brief on funds and also know-how, a licensing contract can be the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.

[coasamt]

Ghost/Roach for the ship headcanon meme 👉👈😳

Holy shit- I didn't think someone would really ask me this 😂😂 But here we go, I guess:

Ship headcanon meme: Simon "Ghost" Riley/Gary "Roach" Sanderson Edition

1. Who makes the first move and how?

Tbh I think Roach would make the first move...but subtly. Like, he knows that Ghost is a bit detached from everyone else and only gives concise response when he's being asked about something. So Roach kinda tried to get to know Ghost first (his feelings are genuine, I swear, he really admires Ghost; kinda why he wants to know about the lieutenant more and apparently it grows into something completely different). Roach would occasionally greet Ghost when they cross each other's path, sometimes he'd sit with Ghost on the mess hall during lunch or dinner (with Ghost's permission ofc).

2. Who is the most insecure and what makes them feel better?

I'd say Ghost is the most insecure? He's not sure whether he's the right someone for Roach because he's afraid he'd be like his damned father–afraid that he'd do nasty things to Roach and all. All he needs is for Roach to be there, either holding his hand or embracing him as Roach tells him that Ghost is not like his father (which is wbk it's true btw). We know Ghost wouldn't talk about his feelings much so Roach would have to kinda pry on it a little. No force though.

3. Who is the most romantic?

Ghost ftw!!! I mean, look!!!! He's super compassionate when it comes to the people he loves! I'm sure as heck he'd try his best to spoil Roach on special occasion, or just giving small gestures like rubbing Roach's arm when the younger's anxious before an op, etc etc. There's too many in my head and I can't write it all here so just come to my DM if you'd like to discuss about this, Anon-san ❤️

4. Who can’t keep their hands to themselves?

I'D SAY BOTH, AHAHA. I MEAN, Ghost likes the feel of Roach's presence and when they're standing or sitting side by side, Ghost would probably give small touches to Roach like gently patting his thigh (no intended meaning, I swear 😂), patting his head, patting his back, and so on–just gentle innocent touch like that when on public; Roach would kinda do same thing dgshhdj bet he'd deliberately brush their fingers or smth and then giggles out of it–he'd also give light pat on Ghost's back as a gesture of "good luck today" every single morning just before they start the PT.

When in private 🌚, wbk their hands would freely roam each other's body. Ghost likes to learn about his partner more, and Roach really admire how Ghost's body is defined (in conclusion: muscles 👀 /SLAPPED).

5. Who says ‘I love you’ first?

Would be Roach, honestly. He's the one who's able to identify what he feels. Ghost is rather uncertain of what he was feeling until Roach say the L word first 😳.

6. Who would they ask if they ever had a threesome?

Ghost and Roach: Threesome? Never heard of that.

(Ofc they know, they just don't like to share 🌚).

7. What do they get up to on a night out?

Either they visit a cafe and talk all night long there until the cafe is about to close, or they visit a local park and just sit there, enjoying the breeze while catching up on things 😳

8. What do they like in bed?

Both like spooning tbh, with our Ghost here as the big spoon. Sometimes, they'd just lie on bed facing each other, staring at each other's face and tell themselves that this is real, that they're here together, that they're alive and loved, and that this is more than enough.

Also, hot make out session 🌚

9. What is the most embarrassing thing they have done in front of each other?

For Roach it would be him slipping on his feet when he's on his way to Ghost and fall face first on the mud after PT just outside the base 😂

For Ghost, it would be him having a slip of tongue when he talks with Roach because his mind is elsewhere. Like when they're in the middle of discussing their next mission in the rec room when Ghost was exhausted and Roach said "don't forget to bring the additional ammo/equipment", Ghost would accidentally say "yeah, I'll bring the pillow" , then fell silent, before the silence was broken by Roach's laughter 😂

10. What two songs, two books and two luxury items do they take to a desert island?

Roach:

Songs: Not Ready to Die - Avenged Sevenfold; M.I.A. - Avenged Sevenfold. These are pretty much his jam.

Books: Would be a book about survival and a book about plants/animal that can be eaten.

Luxury items: his cot and a pair of fresh clothes.

Ghost:

Songs: No Destination - Hoobastank; War - Poets of the Fall. Kinda represents himself and is his comfort songs (probably).

Books: The Life and Adventure of Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe, and a book about survival.

Luxury items: his cot and a compass

As long as it's useful for them, those items are luxurious 👌🏻

11. What do they hide from one another?

I don't think Roach would hide anything; he's pretty much an open book, wouldn't be able to hide something from Ghost anyway. As for Ghost, maybe he'd hide his feelings when he's uncertain about what he feels (if this counted). Other than that, Ghost doesn't have anything to hide from Roach; he doesn't really like to lie to his s/o unless he really has to (for urgent matters).

12. What first changes when it starts getting serious?

It's about the relationship right? I think what changes first would be how both Ghost and Roach even more aware of their fear of losing each other. Military life is full of unexpected deaths, so...that's pretty much it.

13. When do they realise they should get together?

I think it's some time after Loose End event, during their recovery times. And yes, they're alive. No one can tell me otherwise.

14. When one has a cold, what does the other do?

Ghost would tell Roach to just rest on bed, preparing the meds and food, then left him to finish things at the house. If they're on base, Ghost would visit Roach's room to tale him to the med bay before escorting Roach back to his room, then he'd bring his meds and meals.

Roach would pretty much do the same as Ghost. He'd bring Ghost his meals and meds, and leave to finish things around the house before getting back to accompany him.

15. When they watch a film what do they choose and why? Who gets the final vote?

Ghost would choose zombie apocalypse kind of movie (like World War Z) and Roach would choose military action (like Black Hawk Down, etc). They don't really watch romantic/drama/romcom movies unless it really catch their interests. Roach would get the final vote because he's surprisingly good at rock-scissors-paper HAHA

16. When the zombie apocalypse comes, how do they cope together?

Just like how they always do during mission, I guess? They'd professionally cope to find a settlement first, watching each other's back, remain alert and all. Once they find a good settlement for the night, they'd take turn on an overwatch.

17. When they find a time machine, where do they go?

Honestly? They'd go back just before the Loose End mission starts to tell the Ghost and Roach from past to set up a secret plan B and to tell them not to go to the General's chopper.

18. When they fight, how do they make up?

By apologizing tbh. They're not children and mature enough to know where they did wrong and they'd have a talk about that matter like just like how adult supposed to do before apologizing to each other.

19. Where do they go on their first date?

Roach's favorite cake shop 😳😳 Ghost wants to witness how his bug eats his favorite cake...and he'd take picture of it and keep it on his phone dhsjsjdk.

20. Where do they go on holiday?

They'd go and hike a mountain and have a camp night out there, or to a unvisited lake/forest. They like to spend time in nature.

21. Where do they get nervous about going with one another?

This question is really confusing tbh 😭😂 But hopefully I don't answer it wrong:

Roach is quite nervous when he's engrossed in something he found interesting in front of Ghost since he'd go "Ohh!! That's cool!! How could that happen??"–it's like he behaves like a curious child and he's just afraid that Ghost would find that annoying (hint: Roach is just easy to amuse :9).

As for Ghost... I don't think he'd be nervous about himself in front of Roach. He's a confident bastard lmao. If being nervous about how he'd look vulnerable in front of Roach counts, then that's probably it.

22. Where does their first kiss happen?

In the armory, just after they finished cleaning their weapons on a nice evening. This takes time probably a few days after Roach confessed to Ghost and vice versa 😳

23. Where is their favourite place to be together?

Back on the base, their favorite time to be together would be just outside the barracks; it's quiet out there especially on the evening. They like to just be there, standing or sitting next to each other while talking about things.

Outside the base, it would be the local park. At house, their bedroom is just the ultimate favorite place for them to be together 😳

24. Where do they first have sex?

At the base's shower room honestly. Takes a few days after their first kiss, it was after training and they both just happened to be the only ones in the shower room since the others scrambled to their rooms right away aha-

25. Why do they fight?

Usually it's because out of concerns towards each other's safety and well-being, like when Roach did something risky during a mission and vice versa. They don't fight much, but then they do it's because of this kind of thing.

26. Why do they need to have a serious chat?

Because they need to get things straight such as after they're fighting, or to discuss something that would lead their life to a completely different level or to discuss matters regarding their relationship.

27. Why do their friends get annoyed with them?

Because they're such an ass when it comes to PDA AHAHA; sometimes they're purposely being all lovey dovey in front of their teammates just to see their reactions shsjskjd. Another thing that'd make their teammates annoyed is how oblivious they are towards each others' feelings, I think. 141 boys are so supportive towards each other ok.

28. Why do they get jealous?

They don't usually get jealous, but when they do, it's probably because there's this someone that flirts with their either Ghost or Roach and this someone has crossed the line by either touching their s/o or whatnot,,,, That's when they'd step in.

29. Why do they fall a little bit more in love?

Honesty it's because how attentive and caring they are towards each other...like they just love the fact that their s/o really does care about them. Kinda "action speaks louder than words" thing here. Also, how could they not fall a little bit more in love when every little thing always remind them of their partners 😳

30. Why does it work (or not work) between them?

I believe it works between them because of how they are truly understanding towards each other....and because of how patience Roach is when he has to deal with Ghost's fears and insecurities. They both take it slow, enjoying the ride, not rushing things out. Believe it or not they're that kind of couple who have quite a good communication between them despite how bumpy their road is. (aight what am i talking abt???) They always manage to talk things out and sort things straight (gay) between them.

OK Y'ALL IM DONE. Hopefully this doesn't seem OOC :( Sorry if this turns out super long 😂 Thanks for the ask, dear Anon!

[inkbloodpaperandbone]

So this is a follow up to this drabble that is also cross posted on my ao3 account here

On the anniversary of the tsunami Buck gets a new tattoo. This time Eddie and Christopher go with him.

It's been three months since Eddie all but jumped Buck in the station's changing room, unable to hold back his feels upon seeing his son's drawing on his now boyfriend's skin.

It's funny but in hindsight not all that suprising how well they've transitioned from best friends to lovers. It's not exactly smooth sailing, no relationships ever are but in a way very little has changed. Only more kissing and umm other stuff.

In the week leading up to the first anniversary no one at work has braved speaking of the upcoming event. It's a date that marks a extremely traumatic time for both men, and Bobby - both the station captain being cautious about any potential risk of having the two at work on such a emotionally charged day and Bobby the friend, wanting to allow them time for themselves to - had given the two men the day off.

Neither had protested.

The city of LA still bore the scars of that fateful day in the streets and sidewalks of the most affected areas. In the buildings still under construction and renovation to repair the damage left by the water and debris. As the date drew closer new memorials for the dead and the missing where remade. But LA and it's people were healing. No matter how slow.

 

They're healing too, this little family of three they've created Eddie thinks on the morning of the anniversary as he watches Christopher cheerily eat rice crispies giggling around each mouthful whilst Buck dramatically throws away the toast Eddie burnt and proceeds to make more. It's a scene he's seen almost everyday now for the past couple of months but it hasn't gotten old yet.

Christopher still had nightmares, although they were becoming fewer and further between. He was still going to therapy and had even begun swimming again. In the shallow end clinging to his dad or Buck but it's progress.

Since learning that Buck had gotten a tattoo of his drawing Christopher has steadily been filling the Diaz household with new tattoo designs. Crayons and markers have been worn down to unusable stubs and there probably isn't a shred of paper that hasn't been doodled on.

Eddie doesn't mind, and has found himself perusing the arts and crafts section of the local superstore, Buck in tow for new supplies.

The news Buck getting a tattoo in reminder of surviving the tsunami (and the subsequent upheaval of the lawsuit, Eddie's fight club drama and the actual work of just dealing with it all) came during the billionth rewatch of Finding Dory with Buck confiding to Eddie in a low voice as not to disturb Christopher who was lodged between them fast asleep on the sofa, that he was thinking of asking Christopher to draw it.

Of course Christopher took to the task with all the enthusiasm a nine year old could muster- which was a lot.

He and Christopher had spent several nights after dinner huddled around the coffee table surrounded by paper and crayons working on it.

The end result wasn't anything elaborate or big - in keeping with the rest of Buck's tattoos.

Buck had also suggested that they made a day of going to the tattoo parlor on the tsunami's anniversary, to replace a bad memory with a good one.

Christopher finishes with his cereal, he rinses out the bowl as Eddie's taught him before hurrying off to get ready for their outing. Both Buck and Eddie where already dressed, Buck looking over the final design fondly as they wait in the lounge.

The design was three small fishes swimming in a wave.

There's been around ten different versions before now, but Christopher has become somewhat of a perfectionist and had deemed each preceding "not right" and thrown away.

Christopher has been telling everyone, friends, family, school teachers, random strangers in the street, everybody, that he's going to be a tattoo artist when he grows up.

Secretly Eddie worries that Chris will be heartbroken if this latest career dream doesn't pan out, although Christopher is likely to change his mind soon enough. He is nine after all and it's less frightening than his kid wanting to be a firefighter or astronaut. The thought of his little boy millions of miles away in outer space - nope not happening, no way.

Christopher's dexterity is good for a child his age with CP, his handwriting is improving and his art - though Eddie is definitely basis - is great for someone his age. Who knows. Maybe.

Christopher emerges from his room a suspiciously full backpack slung over his shoulder. Buck takes it from him and peers inside. When he shows the contents to Eddie, he can't help but laugh. Christopher has crammed a box of crayons, a paper pad, several power rangers and a couple of handfuls of Lego in side.

Buck slips the folded design inside before scooping up Christopher to carry him to Eddie's truck.

Eddie follows locking up behind him.

The drive to the tattoo parlor is a short one - well short for LA, only a little traffic since the morning rush hour has long since died - they arrive twenty minutes before the booked appointment, Christopher audibly excited as the truck pulls up.

The parlor is situated between a fancy free weight gym and a organic vegan coffee shop, it's larger than Eddie expected, there's a huge mural of flowers and birds in mixed styles reaching out over the shop front.

Glass doors lead into a spacious waiting area with a floor to ceiling shelving unit decorated with action figures and retro toys acting as a divider between said area and the actual work space.

Christopher drags his dad over to the shelves for a closer look whilst Buck confirms his appointment with the cheery receptionist a young guy with a purple mohawk and tattoos on every exposed bit of skin besides his face, he introduces himself as Luka and directs them to the couch to wait on before hurrying off to fetch their artist.

Both Buck and Christopher are practically vibrating in excitement. It's cute Eddie thinks as he ruffles his son's curls.

Chris has got the design stored in his backpack along with his latest sketchbook and some crayons to keep himself entertained. The little boy rummages through his bag whilst they wait, occasionally shoving unwanted items into Buck's waiting hands until Chris triumphantly pulls out his drawing.

"Is this the famous Christopher?" A lilting voice calls out. The owner, a short women probably in her mid-forties, the visible skin of her arms and legs adored with flowers and Disney characters, comes into view around the dividing wall.

She hurried over hugging Buck before turning to Eddie, hand out in greeting, they shake hands quickly. "I'm Mara, you must be Eddie, and you must be Christopher."

She shakes Chris hand too making him giggle.

"Well let's get this show on the road."

Lead into the main shop, Eddie looks over the room, more tattoo inspired murals cover the walls, one of which has a large flat screen TV hanging from it. There are three workstations with cushioned benches, wheeled stools and a desks. One station is already occupied, the burring of an ink gun travels the room.

Mara's station is already partly prepped, the bench and it's adjoining rests wrapped in plastic, several ink bottles line up along the desk. As she sets up her equipment Mara explains each step to Eddie, Buck and Christopher, although Eddie notes that she's directing the conversation to his son. Chris is utterly enraptured by it asking questions and peering closer.

Buck sits down on the bench rolling up his t-shirt sleeve to his shoulder. Eddie takes a seat on one of the free chairs, beside it, laying a hand on his boyfriend's thigh. Christopher comes over and Eddie picks him up to set Chris on his knees.

Christopher's backpack and crutches are leant against the leg of the second chair out of the way.

Mara demonstrates to Christopher how his drawing is printed on to a transfer sheet, " Like the temporary tattoos you can get with sweets,"  she explains, " it'll let me trace the design with my gun so it'll match perfectly with your drawing."

Mara, sitting on her stool, scoots up the side of the bench to were Buck is waiting.

"Okay Christopher now I'm going to wipe Buck's arm.." Buck makes a face at Chris as Mara does so causing the little boy to laugh.

"...where the tattoo will go so that the skin is all nice and clean and then we press the transfer paper on like so.."

The transfer paper is pressed to the inside of Buck's right bicep, Mara rubbing the paper to get it to stick down smoothly.

"Hold that there sweetie." She tells Buck as she moves to ready the ink gun with the first needle before turning back to Buck and starts removing the transfer.

"Now we peel it back and the design should now be on Buck's arm." Mara explains shooting a grin at Eddie and Christopher.

It looks really good already" Christopher chimes as the design comes into view.

"Sure does buddy." Buck agrees flexing his bicep like an old fashioned boxer, Eddie rolled his eyes, good god he loves this dork.

There's a part of Eddie that is still scared by how much love he feels for the man in front of him. Scared by how deeply that love has rooted it's way into his heart.

Eddie has had only three great loves in his life, Shannon, Christopher and now Buck. And each love is very different. Shannon was his first love, a highschool sweetheart turned wife and mother of his child. Despite their estrangement, their fumbled reconciliation and her untimely death that love still lives, though it no longer romantic in nature. A nostalgic love, a remorseful love but still love all the same.

His love for Christopher is all consuming. It is fierce and unbreakable. The love of a parent, wildly protective and proud. A love that for a long time was the only real thing Eddie felt he could show the world. Not just another role to play. Another title add to the list, like dutiful son, loving husband, war hero veteran, firefighter etc, etc.

His love for Buck grew out of the kind of friendship Eddie hadn't had since childhood, an easy friendship (despite the rocky start) that filled in the cracks left by Shannon's abandonment, his parents disapproval, the stress of single parenthood.

It grew as Buck began nudging his way into the life Eddie and Christopher were building in LA.

It grew from Buck introducing him to the godsend that is Carla Price. It grew from the endless random trivia Buck spouted. It grew from their seamless partnership on calls, from joking around with their friends.

Most importantly it grew from Bucks devotion to Christopher, his ability to work out ways to make that little boy laugh, to work out ways to help Chris do the things other kids could do. To have Christmas with his dad despite work. From Buck's sheer desperation to find and protect Christopher during the tsunami to his utter relief he was found alive and unharmed. The fact he loves Christopher so much he didn't think twice about getting a tattoo of a silly little doodle just because.

Eddie thinks of this love as Buck holds his arm still whilst another of Chris' drawings is permanently etched into his skin.

All in all the whole tattooing process doesn't take long given the size and simplicity.

Christopher has charmed Mara and her fellow colleagues who come over to say hi and is reaping the benefits of being a cute nine year old as the adults scramble to accommodate his every whim from choosing what to watch on the TV to being set up at a spare desk to draw when he gets bored to getting a chocolate milkshake from the café next door when the parlor's intern goes on a coffee run.

Eddie hopes Chris will never use his cuteness for evil but doesn't protest the spoiling.

Buck turns out to be terrible at sitting for a tattoo. He fidgets and winces. Makes faces and keeps nearly distracting Mara with random questions and jokes.

But Mara is clearly used to this, barely batting an eye and steadily working on.

When the last of the ink is applied and the the excess is wipe away she gives them a chance to look over the work.

It looks good even as the skin starts to redden, Buck is grinning from ear to ear.

"Pretty great huh Chris"

"Yuh huh." Christopher nods excitedly as he scrambles in for a closer look, hand reaching out to poke at it.

"Does it hurt?"

"It does if you poke it buddy." Christopher jerks his hand back.

"Sorry."

Buck laughs and pulls Christopher into a one armed hug, he looks over the boy's head and gestures to Eddie who moves to join in as Mara comes back to finish wrapping up Bucks arm.

She gives him a well rehearsed run down of after care, joking that she knows Buck knows what to do but that she also knows with his luck it's best to be on the safe side.

By the time Christopher's things are cleared away back into his backpack, buck has already paid.

Christopher shuffles shyly up to Mara and hands her a bit of paper. It's a drawing of a tattoo gun, a bit wobbly but clearly it's meant to be a tattoo gun.

Eddie watches as the woman smiles, a little teary eyed and thanks his son proclaiming the drawing will have to be hung up somewhere in the shop.

Christopher preens.

The day's still young as the trio get back into the car, Buck suggests getting some ice cream which Christopher enthusiastically agrees. Eddie knows that ice cream on top of a chocolate milkshake will mean trouble come bed time. But how can he resist the double whammy of both Christopher and Buck's pleading eyes.

They'll be the death of him for sure.

But Eddie doesn't mind.

Today maybe the anniversary of one of the worst days of their lives, but so far it's been pretty great.

So they go and get ice cream. Christopher will make a monstrousitity of chocolate, whipped cream, sprinkles and gummy bears he won't be able to finish. But will get brain freeze from eating his too quickly and will pester Eddie for kisses to make it better. Eddie will pretend to be annoyed but secretly enjoy his boyfriend's silliness.

Today will officially become a cheat day when Buck orders from their favourite Chinese restaurant too tired to cook after running around the backyard with Chris for hours after they get home.

And when Christopher has finally crashed and has been tucked into bed Eddie will grab a couple of beers and they'll sit and watch nonsense on TV.

It'll have been a good day, better than expected but nothing majorly special. Just the three of them, together happy and healthy and whole.

And if Eddie is honest he can't imagine anything better.

Tagging @evaneddie I finally posted yay!

[thelightofthingshopedfor]

so, okay, I meant to do some looking back/looking ahead posts a week ago, but one of the things I’m trying to do this year is spend way less time self-flagellating about things that genuinely don’t matter, so I’ll just say that years and decades are basically human constructs and move on.

it’s been a weird decade, in general. in 2009, depending on the time of year you’re looking at, I was either finishing undergrad or starting grad school. I hadn’t really gotten into the MCU fandom because it basically didn’t exist yet, and the Loki aspect definitely didn’t. I was still living in a nice house and I don’t think my dad had moved out yet; at that point I had some idea that my parents could get their shit together. I got Scully about halfway through that year. I was just starting to get into video games, but I wouldn’t start learning console games for another year. I had just barely begun to question my conservative, evangelical upbringing, because in college I learned that gays and liberals weren’t just Bad People and then that feminism was maybe, actually, a reasonable point of view describing the world as it really was, instead of perpetual victims looking for things to take offense at. (when I say I was raised conservative...) I think I was identifying as a “conservative feminist,” at that point. I still basically didn’t swear, even if I’d at least gotten more okay with hearing it. I can’t remember exactly when I first encountered the idea of asexuality, but I think I was tentatively identifying as “demisexual but still basically straight” when I finished grad school two years later, and it took even longer to realize how Not Straight I am and to start identifying as queer in general.

in 2009, if someone asked me to imagine where I’d be in 10 years, I probably would’ve assumed I’d be married to a dude and I might even have kids, so like...there’s that.

there are other things I assumed/hoped I’d do that still disappoint me, mostly in relation to finishing and publishing some original fiction, but...honestly, I did do a lot. I graduated from college and then grad school (and wrote a thesis for both, plus a paper I’m still proud of about Tess of the D’urbervilles that represented my early understanding of rape culture), and I learned from teaching freshman English as a TA that I absolutely do not ever want to teach. I spent a long time trying to get a decent job and finally ended up with one that actually makes use of my education, and I’ve had it for five years. I did some freelance editing and I was pretty damn good at it, even if it was also kind of miserable. I got majorly into a new fandom and met a lot of great people because of it (and wrote a decent amount of fic). I went to several conventions and got into cosplay. I did some more international traveling, some of it completely by myself. I played a whole bunch of video games, which was a great new hobby. I got into customizing action figures and opened a little Etsy shop. I started collecting Loki stuff. I got a tattoo. I had a seizure and was in a car accident (unrelated and several years apart, but they were both...alarming). I dealt with my parents’ protracted divorce, which is also the biggest thing that made me recognize the fundamental hypocrisy of what I’d always been taught. I loved Scully with all my heart for almost the entire decade, and when he finally got really sick, I made an incredibly hard decision because I wanted to do right by him and said goodbye to my furry little boy. I adopted Hazy probably too soon after, so the transition was a little tough, but pretty quickly I discovered I loved her with all my heart too. I did a lot of work to manage my depression and anxiety; I also spent several months feeling much more actively suicidal than I ever had before, and I survived it. I gradually made an 180° shift in my convictions about--well, politics, but really everything else too, and I got a lot more politically engaged because of it. I woke up to a whole lot of realities about the world, basically. I started regularly calling my representatives, wrote at least a couple hundred postcards to voters, and volunteered with a couple local campaigns (one was unsuccessful, but I also spent some time working to defeat a nasty bathroom bill, and we won that one). I gradually realized I was super asexual, and then that I was also aromantic, and then that I was hella queer in general. I went to Pride for the first time. I started realizing I probably have ADHD and trying to get help for it (no luck so far, but...I’m working on it).

aside from not publishing anything, the one really negative thing about the past decade is...I feel like I’ve lost a lot friends. nothing dramatic happened, but it was easy to drift apart from people I knew in college and grad school after I graduated and I wasn’t with them all the time. the part that bothers me more is the friends I originally met online. a few of them stopped talking to me entirely and I never knew why; others have just kind of drifted even though I’ve tried my best to keep them, and I miss them, and I really...don’t know what to do about that. (I mean, is there any possible way a conversation that boils down to “why don’t you talk to me much anymore” or “do you still care about me in general” is going to go well? because I figure there isn’t.)

in general, though--it’s been a weird, long decade. waking up to the realities of injustice has been tough because it means I spend a lot of time trying not to despair about those realities, and in some ways it was a lot easier when my views were more black and white and I didn’t realize just how ugly life could be. I’m a lot angrier, to be honest (and a lot more existentially exhausted). but...between recognizing my own queerness and gradually shedding the toxic beliefs that informed the first 2/3 of my life, I feel like...I have a much better idea of who I am as a person. I am far, far more fully myself than I was when I just believed what I’d always been taught about the world and about the supposedly default states of being, and I like that person a lot more. I’m really, really proud of myself for how much I’ve changed over the past decade, because frankly that was a lot of work and it’s hard just getting to a point where you can realize that maybe everything you’d always taken for granted was wrong, especially when nearly everyone else in your life still believed it and didn’t understand why you’d reject what they’d always taught you. so that’s really not bad, in terms of things I accomplished, and that’s something I need to remember. 

[dolphiana]

People’s statements concerning Corona...

You know what time it is? Rant time! Because I spent waaaay too much time on Facebook and Twitter and read SO much ( excuse my words ) bullshit, that I need to talk about it. A disturbing amount of people still think this whole Corona mess is fake, a conspiracy, „just a flu“ or a bioweapon attack. Of course a random Youtuber, influencer or guy on Twitter is smarter than all scientists, doctors and politicians combined because they „woke up and see through everything that happens“ right now.

I guess they inhaled too much toxin while making their tinfoil hats, but let's take a closer look at those statements.

- „Corona is fake, people are not dying from it, they die from the panic that is caused!“

So hundreds, no, thousands of people are suffocating and their lungs are giving up because of media information? They hear that they are not allowed to go shopping at the mall anymore and gasp for air? They realize that restaurants are closed and that they have to cook meals themselves now and drop dead from the shock? Seriously?

- „It's a conspiracy, THEY want to control us, THEY want to change the system and distract from other things!“ None of those morons ever mentions who exactly THEY are. Lizard people? Illuminati? Toilet paper manufacturers? We'll never know.

Anyway, someone who seriously thinks that should think further. Why should THEY do this? The global economy is crashing, borders are closed, tens or hundreds of thousands have or will lose their jobs, people have to stay at home, governments have to invest billions to save their countries. Newsflash, governments usually want to earn money, not spend it.

More unemployment = less tax revenues.

Basically it's like someone usually earning $2000 per month, then suddenly they have to pay high bills for their broken car, get a new computer to continue working and help their sick parents while suddenly only earning half of their income.

And seriously, can you imagine all leaders of the world sitting down on one table in a secret Fortress of Evil and scheming a plan to terrorize and enslave humanity? Most of them only care for their own country and why would anyone risk driving their own country against the wall?

- „It's just a flu, lots of people die from the flu, it's normal.“ The flu  doesn't affect the lungs that badly and people's bodies often simply give up and they die at home. Corona directly attacks the lungs and many of those who catch it badly need to be taken to intensive care unit and be intubated. It's way more contagious than the flu and the dangerous part is that most people will never know they actually had it, but ran around and infected others who could die from it. The death rate is higher than the flu. Flu : roughly 0,1% Corona : 2-10% ( Numbers vary from source to source, but it's definitely higher than the flu. )

- „In Germany 25000 people died from it in 2017/2018, the country didn't shut down because of that either.“

I checked those numbers. 25000 is a rough estimation, including deaths where flu was assumed to be involved in the deaths. The cases that were actually tested and proven were less than 1700.

By the way, a flu season lasts 5 months and the Corona craze merely started a few weeks ago. Just saying.

The main problem here seems to be that people can't think ahead. Exponential increase is too complicated for their simple little minds. Corona spreads like crazy, so with the aforementioned higher death rate, if more people get infected then more will die. The only reason we don't have more deaths yet is because governments took action and everyone tries to keep the number of infections low.

So what do you want? Every country waiting for the number of Corona deaths to surpass those of the average flu first and only then starting to do something against it? I'm convinced those people would be the first ones to scream „Why did no one do anything sooner!?“

-“It's a bio weapon from China which they used against us!“ Nevermind the fact that a team of international and independent scientists examined the virus last month already and assured it's natural. Even if it spread from the Wuhan Institute of Virology accidentally, that's what it was, an accident. Why on Earth would they want to endanger their own people? Their economy? Everything?

-“The average age of the Italian people who died from Corona is 79. The average lifespan there is 83. It's all normal, nature and such.“ Wow, just...wow. I wonder if they would still be as cold and heartless when their own parents or grandparents died a painful death from lack of air. „Well, sorry, Mom, you're 67, no one lives forever.“ Average means that there are older and younger people. Some are in their 90s, 80s, 70s, but some also are far younger than that. My grandma, for example, is 93 and still pretty healthy for her age. Someone who died because of Corona in their 70s could have lived for another decade or two.

-“There's only a risk for old and sick people, I'm young and healthy so I don't care. Survival of the fittest. I still wanna go out and have fun!“ Oh, so you risk the health/life of your parents, grandparents and lots of others just because you can't keep your damn ass on the couch? Survival of the fittest, natural selection....you're lucky that intelligence and empathy don't have anything to do with it or you'd be screaming bloody murder and begging for someone to finally end your suffering already.

Btw, there are numerous cases of young people ( we're talking around age 30 here ), who never smoked, are athletic and never had any health problems.

-“Corona is the revenge for those old white people causing climate change!“ Does anyone else get the urge to slap those who seriously said that? I do. Those old white people are your and your friends' parents and grandparents! The people who worked all day to afford your lifestyle, to buy you smartphones, computers and nice clothes, put food on your table, drove you around the town, took you on vacation, spoiled your ungrateful asses! For months young people went on the streets demonstrating for change, for realization what's happening around us, for actions. And now many of them ( not all of course ) prove that all they care about is themselves and that they're not an inkling better or even much worse than the „old white people“ they see as the ultimate enemy.

-“I keep hearing about hospitals being overcrowded, that's new, never was a problem before so why is everyone locked at home now?“ You probably lived under a rock for the past years, but hospitals are understaffed everywhere. Keep in mind that there are not only Corona patients needing medical help or a bed at the intensive care unit. Think of all the other reasons why someone needs to be at the hospital. Illnesses, cancer, tumors, heart attacks, strokes, pregnancy, broken bones and the normal flu. Those don't suddenly stop because Corona showed up. If hospitals are overcrowded because of Corona patients then people who have something not Corona-related will also be in danger because if they don't get the medical help they need then they could die as well.

Imagine you or someone close to you has a car accident and there's no hospital that can give the help which is needed, resulting in death. Taking the situation more serious now? China didn't quickly build 16 emergency hospitals just for fun.

There's probably more I wanted to mention, but I guess this journal is long enough already. To anyone who read it, thank you. Please feel free to use this against everyone who still doesn't take this situation seriously.

Be safe, everyone. We're in this together. *virtual hugs*

[archivist-bones]

❝ cause we live in a house of mirrors / we see our fears and everything ❞

𝖖 𝖚 𝖔 𝖙 𝖊 𝖘

“To abstain from politics is, in itself, a political attitude.” - Simone de Beauvoir, Prime of Life

“All that I am, or hope to be, I owe to my angel mother.” - Abraham Lincoln

“The presence of evil was something to be first recognized, then dealt with, survived, outwitted, triumphed over.” - Toni Morrison, Sula

“Take your foot out of the graveyard, they are busy being dead.” - Anne Sexton, A Curse Against Elegies

“There is a stubbornness about me that never can bare to be frightened at the will of others. My courage always rises at every attempt to intimidate me.” - Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice

“I can, with one squinted eye, take it all as a blessing.” - Flannery O’Connor, The Habit of Being: Letters of Flannery O’Connor

“And perhaps there is a limit to the grieving that the human heart can do. As when one adds salt to a tumbler of water, there comes a point where simply no more will be absorbed.” - Sarah Waters, The Little Stranger

𝖇 𝖆 𝖘 𝖎 𝖈

NAME:  Amelia Susan Bones NICKNAMES:  Amy, chicken little [ Edgar, Gideon ], bossy Bones, bubala [ sweetie, dear, used by Amelia’s maternal grandparents ], little Susie [ used by her paternal grandparents ]. AGE: 23 BIRTHDAY:  December 28th, 1957 GENDER: Cisfemale PRONOUNS:  She/her

𝖋 𝖆 𝖒 𝖎 𝖑 𝖞

MOTHER:  Esther Bones née Levy [ 52, muggleborn ] FATHER:  Edwin Bones [ 54, pureblood ] SIBLINGS:  Edgar Bones, Gideon Bones [ deceased ]

𝖕 𝖍 𝖞 𝖘 𝖎 𝖈 𝖆 𝖑 𝖆𝖙𝖙𝖗𝖎𝖇𝖚𝖙𝖊𝖘

FACE CLAIM:  Maude Apatow BUILD:  Amelia is 5′4 and slender, moving into a “waif-like” territory. HAIR:  Long, pin straight without any intervention. Amelia either pulls it back in a bun for work or curls it to have loose waves. HAIR COLOR: Brunette EYE COLOR:  Brown SKIN COLOR:  Caucasian DOMINANT HAND:  Right-handed ANOMALIES: A deep scar on Amelia’s left knee from childhood. She had been riding her bike, hit some rocks, and fell off. Gideon had to carry her all the way home as she sobbed. SCENT:  Rose and bergamot perfume. Freshly pressed laundry. ACCENT:  Normal English accent for a girl from Devon, England but Amelia has a rich vocabulary. Sometimes making her sound a little snobby, especially when she’s trying to explain something to you. ALLERGIES: Nickel jewelry, discovered when she was twelve and got a severe rash from a necklace she’d gotten on a shopping trip with her mother. DISORDERS:  Amelia has always been a little anxious and worrisome but after Gideon’s death it has been a lot worse. She’s suffering from a lot of grief, depression, making her much more reckless and less likely to think through the repercussions of her actions. FASHION:  Neat and bookish but stylish all the same. Feminine blouses, thick sweaters over collared shirts, pencil skirts and low heels with stockings. Looking professional helps Amelia feel more confident and prepared to face the day. When she’s at home or working on something, she’ll dress more comfortably, in jeans and t-shirts. NERVOUS TICS:  When Amelia is nervous, embarrassed, or afraid she’s in trouble, she hates looking people in the eye. Embarrassed by her own emotions and fearful that she might have disappointed someone. She also will compulsively push her hair behind her ear, over and over, if it’s down and she’s feeling nervous. QUIRKS:  Do not leave your muggle pens unattended with Amelia, the only thing she would never feel guilty about taking. She’s liable to chew on them when she’s studying or working [you won’t want them back ].

𝖑 𝖎 𝖋 𝖊 𝖘 𝖙 𝖞 𝖑 𝖊

RESIDES:  Moving between London and Ottery St. Catchpole BORN:  Ottery St. Catchpole, Devon, England RAISED: Born and raised in good ole Ottery PETS:  A 2½ year old male ragamuffin cat named Humphrey

CAREER: Archivist, Department of Magical Law Enforcement EXPERIENCE:  Amelia’s father worked for the ministry and would often take his tiny daughter along with him while her brothers stayed home with their mother. Edwin Bones is a man very interested in politics himself so it was natural for daddy’s little girl to pick up on that as well. Amelia was well known at the ministry before even getting a position there, volunteering in her father’s department during summer breaks. EMPLOYER: Ministry of Magic

POLITICAL AFFILIATION:  Amelia is aligned with the Order. The Bones children were raised to be forward-thinking and accepting of others. Amelia might seem a little uptight but she’s open-minded and empathetic. She believes in advocating for fair treatment of all people and social services for the less fortunate. BELIEFS:  Amelia is a feminist and would probably be considered a democratic socialist. Her mother’s family are Jewish. Amelia considers it ethnically a part of her identity but is not religious. MISDEMEANORS: None FELONIES:  None DRUGS: No SMOKES: No [ yes, she’s a goody goody ] ALCOHOL:  Occasionally Amelia enjoys firewhisky or a pint on a night out but she is a notorious light weight. DIET: Amelia eats well most days but has a real sweet tooth and prefers desserts over everything. She’s notorious for forgetting to eat or knowingly skipping lunch when she’s distracted or obsessively working on something. She also doesn’t eat when she’s anxious or feeling depressed.

LANGUAGES:  English, German, French, Hebrew

PHOBIAS:  Failure, pain, grief, torture HOBBIES:  Biking, reading, embroidery [ though she’s not very good at it ] TRAITS: { + }:  Empathetic, steadfast, analytical, perspicacious, ambitious { - }:  Headstrong, overbearing, critical, obsessive, anxious

𝖋 𝖆 𝖛 𝖔 𝖗 𝖎 𝖙 𝖊 𝖘

LOCATION:  The garden in her childhood home, the archives of the ministry. At Hogwarts, Amelia’s favorite places were the library or McGonagall’s classroom when it was empty. SPORTS TEAM:  Holyhead Harpies GAME:  A girl in her year at Hogwarts introduced Amelia to Clue one snowy night in her second year, it quickly became a favorite. MUSIC: The Clash and David Bowie [ Joe Strummer is the only man for her ] MOVIES: Funny Girl FOOD: Sticky toffee pudding with vanilla ice cream. BEVERAGE:  Espresso, specifically a cortado. Amelia would never turn down a nice butterbeer either. COLOR: Blue

𝖒 𝖆 𝖌 𝖎 𝖈

ALUMNI HOUSE:  Ravenclaw WAND (length, flexibility, wood, & core):  10½”, willow wood, unicorn hair, quite flexible AMORTENTIA: Espresso, mother’s perfume, toffee, fresh parchment, challah bread PATRONUS:  Magpie BOGGART:  Dead loved ones, Lord Voldemort

𝖈 𝖍 𝖆 𝖗 𝖆 𝖈 𝖙 𝖊 𝖗

MORAL ALIGNMENT: Lawful Good MBTI:  INFJ MBTI ROLE: The Advocate ENNEAGRAM:  Type 1 ENNEAGRAM ROLE: The Perfectionist TEMPERAMENT:  Melancholic WESTERN ZODIAC:  Capricorn CHINESE ZODIAC:  Rooster PRIMAL SIGN:  Bee TAROT CARD: Justice, The High Priestess, Queen of Wands TV TROPES:  Beware the Nice Ones, Action Girl, Reasonable Authority Figure, Academic Alpha Bitch, Wise Beyond Their Years, Go-Getter Girl, Lawful Good SONGS:  

Au Revoir Simone - Stay Golden » I’m feeling better every day / And emptiness still leaves a space

Jenny Lewis & The Watson Twins - You Are What You Love » The heart attacks I’m convinced I have / Every morning upon waking

The Big Moon - Your Light » I wanna speak but I’m wondering how / And I wonder since when was my voice a foreign object in my mouth

Beabadoobee - If You Want To » Experience is nothing compared to / The nights I’m always up so late

Kacey Musgraves - Good Ol’ Boys Club » Never been too good at just goin’ along / Guess I’ve always kind of been for the underdog

Marina - Can’t Pin Me Down » Do you think I’m stuck-up / ‘Cause I’m always picking fights

Joy Williams - Speaking A Dead Language » And somewhere in all the talking / The meaning faded out

IDEOLOGIES:

Amelia always hated using in quills in school, much preferring muggle pens. When twenty pages deep in a paper about the applications of the veritaserum when you have no interest in potions, saving time is key.

Amelia very much believes in the old adage, you can sleep when you’re dead. Not really a night owl or a morning person, she’s caught somewhere in between where she basically shirks sleep until it overtakes her.

Amelia would take a cup of coffee over tea any day.

Amelia is wholly convinced that David Bowie is a wizard, don’t fight her on this. She’s got a theory.

Amelia hopes that the Order can make a difference but is concerned that they will be overpowered. She wholeheartedly believes that it is better to do something than stand aside and do nothing. This viewpoint extends to her interest in ministry politics.

[lady-divine-writes]

Klaine one-shot “On Your Mind” (Rated NC17)

Summary: Blaine is sitting at a bar, ill-advisedly looking for Mr. Right ... and failing. But as he plans to leave, he sees an incredibly gorgeous man who captivates him. He sits back down and watches him, fantasizing about who he is, what he's doing, and why he's there. But before too long, Blaine discovers that this man is far from ordinary. (3448 words)

Notes: This is a re-write. 

Read on AO3.

Being a New Yorker isn’t for the weak-hearted. Living here is rough.

And as the days go by, it doesn’t get any easier.

The city can be cruel. But it’s exciting, too. Blaine loves living here. He may be a small town boy, but he can’t imagine living anywhere else. But he’d be lying if he said it wasn’t overwhelming.

Back home in Ohio, people wore their hearts on their sleeves. That made it easier for him to survive as the token gay kid at his high school. From bigots to allies, he pretty much knew where everyone stood from the start. But in New York, everyone has their own unique brand of armor, forged through the give and take necessary to thrive in a diverse metropolis. It’s harder to tell from the outset who’s truly on his side and who’s faking it.

When Blaine first moved to New York, he stumbled into a few hornet’s nests. He learned a valuable lesson, but now he has a habit of being super-cautious about everyone, over-analyzing behavior, picking actions and conversations apart in search of clues.

It keeps him safe, but it also leaves him lonely.

He feels the weight of that as his butt falls asleep on the hard-as-a-rock barstool he’s monopolizing, stirring the watered-down rum and coke he’s been nursing for over an hour. He doesn’t actually like rum and coke too much. He’ll drink it, but it’s not his preferred choice overall. If he wasn’t so concerned about looks, he’d order a strawberry daiquiri. But a tall curvy glass filled with pastel pink drink and topped with a colorful umbrella isn’t the impression he’s trying to give off. He’s afraid it might scream flaming gay. A rum and coke always struck him as a man’s drink, probably because that’s what his dad used to order. And if there was a man’s man anywhere out there in the world, it was definitely his dad.

But Blaine, sighing in the solitude that is his corner of the bar, really wants a daiquiri.

He runs a hand over his tired face and up into his hair, mussing what was once a helmet of meticulously plastered curls, though he figures that the way he looks far from matters now. If not a single man looked him up and down when he was fresh faced and crisp as a brand new hundred dollar bill, then no one’s going to look at him now.

Not anyone who’d want to spend more than one night with him anyway. And even then, he’s giving them too much credit. More like fifteen minutes in the bathroom. And as much as Blaine has had fun in his fair share of bathrooms, he’s really looking for something deeper. Something more.

Of course, this bar that he’s scored most of the ass he’s tapped since he’s lived in New York probably isn’t the smartest place to go looking for it.

But his choices are limited. He’s a creature of habit, and this bar happens to be a block away from his apartment. Aside from that, he’s a certifiable workaholic, and he doesn’t like to shop at work. He’s a producer and a songwriter, currently slumming the orchestra pit down at the Lyceum Theater as a favor for a friend, and even though Broadway is rife with gay men, the ones he’s hooked up with have mostly been social climbers, warming his bed, hoping for the opportunity to snag something better than chorus line.

Blaine Anderson is no one’s stepping stone.

He takes a sip of his drink, checking to see if it’s any more salvageable than it was five minutes ago, and since the answer is no, he reaches into his back pocket for his wallet, preparing to settle his tab and head out. Who knows? Maybe if he hits Whole Foods on the way home, he might stumble across a nice, eligible bachelor in the organic produce department.

And this is where his imagination runs wild.

They’ll both reach for the same Asian pear. They’ll brush fingers, giggle bashfully. Blaine will offer it to him, but the man will insist Blaine take it instead. Small talk will ensue. They’ll find out they have tons of stuff in common. They’ll go for coffee and end up talking till five in the morning because time will fly by. And as the sun peeks over the horizon, they’ll share Blaine’s pear, along with a few sweet kisses …

It’s the rom-com variety meet-cute New York City is known for.

The romantic in him says it’s worth a shot.

The realist in him says don’t hold your breath.

He puts a tenner on the bar and tells the bartender to keep the change.

High-pitched laughter cuts through the murmur of drunken conversation, stopping Blaine cold, half-standing with his hand thrust awkwardly down the back pocket of his pants. He doesn’t understand why he has such an extreme reaction to it, but it calls to him, goes through him – in his ears and around his brain like a silk sheet, sliding down his throat like a rich mouthful of hot chocolate and settling in his belly. He’s never had that reaction to a laugh before. It’s almost ludicrous. He waits for it to continue, but it doesn’t, and the heat in his belly begins to cool.

But I didn’t just imagine it! he thinks as the sensation drifts away. It was clear as day!

He turns his head, eyes sweeping the dingy bar for whoever made that sound, pausing at the front door as traffic flows in and out. A thin stream of average, uninteresting faces make an appearance but nothing that fits that voice. A few faces later, Blaine decides to go with his first instinct and leave, but he stops for a second time when a gorgeous, almost otherworldly man with pale skin and impossibly blue eyes walks into view. He turns to the bartender as he passes Blaine, not even sparing a glance for the man staring numbly like a dumbstruck teenager. When the stranger speaks, his voice sounds even more magical than before.

“Shirley Temple, extra cherries if you please, Ronnie.”

Ronnie, a surly manticore of a man with a handle-bar moustache and bright red suspenders, raises a hand to acknowledge his order.

“Sure thing,” he says, his gruff, smoker’s voice sounding happier now that he – whoever he is �� has arrived. Other patrons at the bar turn to welcome him with a wave or a smile. Blaine notices that the overall atmosphere of the bar has become lighter, less depressing, as if whoever this man is swept in and cleansed the aura of the room.

Or maybe the rum, weak though it is, is finally hitting him.

Either way, this man, taking a seat at a table not too far from him – this ethereally handsome, fashion-forward man with the sea blue eyes, and (Blaine can’t help noticing) incredible ass stuffed into ridiculously tight jeans - convinces Blaine to sit back down and hang out a little while longer.

Whoa, those jeans are tight! he thinks. I mean, I guess I can’t talk. My pants are pretty tight, too. But those look dangerously tight. Like … health endangering tight.

The man sits up straight and runs his hands down his thighs, stopping briefly at his knees, then continuing back up to his hips again. Blaine leans forward at the sight of this man touching himself, stroking the dark denim pulled tight over trim legs, and nearly falls straight off his stool.

Blaine pinches his lips together tight before he can accidentally moan out loud and make a fool out of himself.

N-not that I’m complaining. If you’ve got it, flaunt it. And you definitely got it. I mean, have it. And that voice … are you a singer? I think I would have heard of you if you were a singer. You’d have Broadway wrapped around your finger if you were …

The man bites his bottom lip, holding back a smile, eyes searching the bar, looking for someone. His hand trails up the buttons of his shirt, fidgeting with his open collar, touching his neck lightly with his fingertips.

He must be waiting for someone special. Probably a lover with a reaction like that.

Looks like I don’t stand a chance, huh?

Blaine watches his fingertips move, envisioning opening the man’s shirt, button by button, following with a kiss to every newly revealed patch of skin, ending at his long neck, tracing a path up to his ear with the tip of his tongue. Blaine blinks his eyes, snapping back to reality.

Okay … I don’t know where that came from …

The man looks distracted as he peers off into the crowd and swallows hard, his Adam’s apple bouncing when he does. A waitress comes up to his table with a tray carrying a single drink – a bubbly beverage overflowing with crayon red maraschino cherries. The man’s eyes flick up to the waitress and he smiles, the distracted look dissolving with his enigmatic grin. The waitress sets a napkin down in front of him, and then the drink on top of that. The man nods and watches the waitress walk away before he regards his drink.

Blaine has become positively fascinated with this man, every minute detail of him, even though apart from being inconceivably sexy he has yet to do anything more extraordinary than smile and sip his drink.

But that smile.

It has more character, more personality than the half dozen men he’s tried talking up this week.

The man reaches into his pocket and pulls out a folded piece of paper. He opens it up on the table in front of him and looks at it intently, reaching for his drink again and forgoing the straw this time to take a healthy sip.

That’s an awful lot of cherries for one poor drink, Blaine muses. And here I was, stressing over a daiquiri …

The man looks up from his paper (list? letter? Blaine can’t tell from where he’s sitting …) and chuckles. He pauses for a moment, as if he’s expecting something to happen, gaze shifting left and right, and then returns to the words on the page. The smile on the man’s face drops an inch, than an inch more, until none of it remains.

Sucky news, huh? Blaine commiserates. I understand how that is. I hope that’s not a Dear John letter. Blaine’s mind drifts to thoughts of an envelope resting against his lamp on his bedside table, the letter inside months old but read so many times that creases from the folds in the paper are tearing.

But the edges are still sharp enough to sting.

Someone with gorgeous eyes like yours shouldn’t have to read something like that, he thinks with a sigh.

The man sighs as well, eyes skimming the last few lines. His smile returns. He folds the letter back up and puts it in his pocket.

Guess not, huh? Well, good for you. A man like you deserves love letters … and poetry …

The man shakes his head, but this time he’s staring straight ahead at someone approaching his table. Another unspectacular man from the bar - this one wearing a long, tan coat - walks right up to the only vacant chair at the table and sits down without being invited.

Rude, Blaine thinks. The man he’s been watching for the last half-hour raises both eyebrows and nods his head once, as if he agrees. Blaine watches the second man closely, observing the way he sits, how his eyes bounce from face to face around him, how he keeps his hands folded in his lap, suspiciously close to his hip. The waitress comes up to take his order but the man waves her away, and Blaine gets it.

This second man is a cop.

Suddenly, this show he’s been watching has just become way more interesting. His thin rum and coke forgotten along with all pretense of ever leaving this bar, Blaine focuses on the couple, no longer concerned whether they know he’s watching them or not. He debates finding a chair closer to their table so he can hear what they’re saying, anything to give him a clue as to what his mystery man is up to.

The cop monopolizes most of the conversation from what Blaine can see. He starts talking, low and calm at first, but then more and more animatedly, gesturing with one hand since he keeps the other pinned to his side, probably where his holster is. Blaine prides himself on the fact that he has watched enough episodes of Law and Order that he’s well-versed in many aspects of police behavior by now. In fact, he’s considered becoming a police officer. He thinks he’d be really good at it. He’s athletic and smart (if he does say so himself). And he can be assertive. Only problem is he’s not too keen on guns … or chasing after people … or getting shot at …

In the middle of the officer’s speech, the man with the iridescent blue eyes starts to laugh, apparently at an inappropriate moment because the officer stares at the man with mouth agape and eyes wide, offense written in every line of his strained face. The blue-eyed man peeks up at his companion and waves a dismissive hand. It looks to Blaine like he’s assuring the angered officer that he wasn’t laughing at him or anything he said. He quiets down, gesturing for the officer to continue.

Blaine watches in silence as the two talk back and forth, concentrating on their lips to see if he can catch any snippets of conversation. He narrows his eyes until he gets a migraine, but the only words he thinks he can catch are ‘lost’ and ‘help’, and maybe ‘dead’, though it could have been ‘den’ or ‘desk’. Blaine’s eyes begin to cross, and more and more he’s starting to wish that the police officer guy would just leave so he can go back to unraveling the mystery of this man with the prismatic blue eyes.

The man (Blaine has decided to call him ‘Noel’ since he bears a striking resemblance to a young Noel Coward) closes his eyes and puts his fingers to his temples, pressing and massaging tiny circles into his skin.

Is Captain Overbearing bothering you? Blaine thinks. Is he giving you a headache? I know people like that. They walk into the room and pow! My head throbs. I used to let them walk all over me, mostly because we’d been friends forever. It happens with my brother, too. I could tell them to eff off, but I guess I have a phobia of not having any friends. But now, being a New Yorker for the past decade, I opt for revenge. Not the big kind of revenge. I mean, I don’t think I could hurt anyone, or ruin their lives, or anything. I have been known to slip a few drops of Visine into their soda. Gives them the poops for hours. That’s fairly satisfying …

In the midst of massaging his temples, the man smiles. He opens his eyes, throws his head back and laughs, and again the officer looks entirely put off. The man shakes his head, leaning toward the man across the table, putting a hand up to either amplify his voice or shield his lips from view. Blaine pouts, feeling intentionally left out of the conversation. Even though his lip reading skills have so far gotten him nowhere, now he has no hope of finding out what’s going on between Noel and his police officer friend.

The officer nods, his eyes performing a cursory glance of the bar one last time before he gets up and heads for the exit. The man at the table stands as well, reaching into his back pocket, squeezing his hand into the tight fit and pulling out his wallet. Blaine deflates when he sees the man pull out a bill along with some other thin piece of paper, something that looks suspiciously like a business card, from his wallet. He places the bill beside his half-drunk Shirley Temple on the table, and then turns on his heel. Blaine expects the man to head out the door after the police officer, but instead he looks straight at Blaine.

Blaine pivots his head left and right, then turns his head completely around and glances behind himself to be sure, and yes, he’s the only one in Noel’s sight line at present. He heads right for Blaine, eyes locked unnervingly on Blaine’s face, and for a moment Blaine becomes confused and frightened all at once. The man is striking, but he also has an undeniable air of confidence and power that makes Blaine want to drop to beg for forgiveness and do whatever this man tells him to do. But why does Blaine feel so guilty? He hasn’t said word one to the man! He’ll admit, he has been staring, but that’s all.

Maybe he should have just gone home when he’d planned. Now he’s about to get into a fist fight in a bar.

Not really. Blaine has no intention of throwing a single punch.

The man stops before Blaine, hands resting on his hips, doing nothing but look at him, eyes going over his body from head to toe. A range of emotions pass over his face from amusement to sympathy to curious. He lands back on amusement and stays there. He holds the thin card out to him. When Blaine just stares at him, speechless, he leans forward and slips it neatly into the outer pocket of Blaine’s button-down shirt.

“The name’s Kurt,” the man says, “not Noel, but I appreciate the compliment. Also, I appreciate your concern about the effects of my pants on my health, but I promise you, they’re no tighter than I can handle.”

Blaine leans against the bar, knocked out of his stupor by the man’s opening line.

“Believe it or don’t, I understand what it’s like to feel alone in a city of 8 million people. We have that in common. And by the way,” the man Blaine now knows is Kurt, not Noel, says, “I’m not a big fan of rum and coke, either. So when you take me out on Friday night, just order the damn daiquiri? Life’s too short for shitty friends and crappy drinks.”

Kurt pats Blaine’s pocket where the card is safely tucked and winks, turning and heading toward the entrance where the police officer has ducked back in to wait for his companion to follow.

Blaine still hasn’t said a word, stunned into silence as he watches Kurt leave. Kurt says something to the officer at the door, motioning vaguely in Blaine’s direction. The officer’s eyes find Blaine and the weary man smirks. He holds the door open for Kurt, who turns one last time to see Blaine stuck in the same position that he left him. He raises an arm and waves, blowing Blaine a kiss. He steps out the door with a satisfied grin, and like that, he’s gone.

Blaine waits a moment longer after Kurt has gone, trying to wrap his mind around everything that happened. But try as he might, it’s too surreal for him to comprehend. Noel – not Noel, as it turns out, but Kurt – had called him out on everything he’d thought while watching him. But how? How in the hell is that possible? Well, he works with a police officer. Is there a chance that maybe he … what?

What, Blaine? he asks himself. What on God’s green earth could possibly explain all of that?

Remembering the card waiting for him in his pocket, he pulls it out carefully, not willing to lose it and the opportunity to contact that fascinating man. Blaine reads the words embossed on it, then he reads them again. He reads them over and over, close to a hundred times, and after their meaning sinks in fully, he’s not sure if he should laugh or find the nearest rock and hide under it.

Blaine mentally goes over everything he saw tonight – every inflection Kurt made, every movement, every shift of his inquisitive eyes. Blaine has spent the past ten years of his life being a skeptic, constantly questioning everyone’s intentions and emotions, feeling like no one he’s met has truly understood him, nor has ever really wanted to. But after tonight, none of that matters.

This might be the beginning of a beautiful relationship.

Kurt E. Hummel

Medium

Psychic Investigator

[scenariosofkonoha]

Oooh...what if Kankuro and Gaara marry sisters? I don't mean like a double wedding (I think that may help the brothers if they go through it together though), but if Kankuro meets the eldest first and the youngest comes along later.

I had a lot of fun with this one! I certainly hope you like it Space! ~ Admin Little Lace

Kankuro

Temari always knew that whoever would end up with Kankuro would be just as much of a handful as he was. He sister wasn’t wrong

Kankuro’s S/O is a wild child. The sassy shinobi had been a known trouble-maker even in her youth in the village. She was often known to say how she felt and fight anyone who felt differently.

Although Kankuro had known of her when they were young, neither of them had run in the same circles. When they officially meet at a training ground when they are a little older. The meeting falls more along the lines of a confrontation.

She brazenly states that  “well isn’t the puppet doing most of the work? I’d just end up fighting the puppet. Aren’t you strong enough to take me on solo?” This puts the two of them at odds and they end up sparring. When neither comes out as a clear victor they become rivals.

And I mean rivals in everything. Though they may spar and often, they challenge each other on who can lift the most, haw fast they can navigate the caverns, who can eat the most (who can survive the longest without getting sick after said challenge) even down to long drawn out sessions in shogi.

When the scores are tallied and they still come up with the two of them escalating to pranking one another. Simple tricks like finding snakes in his puppets to her being glued to a chair only go further when chakra threads and transportation scrolls become involved.

The two spend most of their teenage years this way. Petty challenges give way to vigorous training sessions. Taunts of bet you can’t do this,” and “you’ll never beat me,” turn to “it’d be cool is Black Ant could do this,” and “If you use that jutsu after the initial attack it would be more effective.”

In the words of her sister their relationship is kind of frighting. They constantly seem to be at each other’s throats but also having the time of their lines.

“No one asked you!” She snapped as they walked through the market.

“Kami woman, why are you so loud?” he grumbled.

“If I’m so loud, I’ll eat by myself then.” She snarked paying for the ginger.

“After you bragged for weeks that you can cook?” He deadpanned pushing her buttons.

“I can cook. Maybe I’ll just poison you instead.”

“I’ll come back and haunt you,”

“Great so the suffering never ends.”

“Oh, you’re so lucking to have me!”

“That’s what I tell myself, every morning.”

“You’re not funny,”

“Your face is funny enough for the both of us.” she glared as they continued their shopping.

They are always like this. To the point that people wonder if they are mortal enemies or a married couple.

Instead of what their thinly veiled threats and aggressive sounding conversations may sound like they are very close. She will always come visit him in his workshop, even though it is to push his buttons she does want to know what he is working on. All in the name of beating him, she swears. Kankuro puts her on the village’s ANBU Black Ops. But definitely not because she is incredible but so he can make sure she isn’t embarrassing the village.

Neither of them allow the other to date. Each time someone approaches interested leave it to either of them to find a way to ruin it.

“His got desert mites,

“She’s possessed,”

“Sorry he’s in an arranged marriage.”

“Tough break, she’s got a family in the Hidden Leaf.”

“He’s building the perfect puppet wife.

“She’s celibate for her heathen gods.”

“He’s addicted to eating glue.”

“She’s not your type.

‘Hes a eunuch,”

Her little sister is still indeed scared. The girl is the one that begs her sister to admit her feelings for the middle sand sibling. Anytime the attraction is brought up, both party’s blush and deny. The sister stating.

“Why would I want the purple striped idiot?”

Kankuro is a tad bit more honest.

“She’s not interested in me,”

In comes Temari, older sister and voice of reason, persuading the boy to be honest with her.He words trigging his resolve.

“If she didn't like you, I’m not sure she’d want you around.”

Kankuro is the one that makes the move. Half way through bickering he turned to the girl and kissed her. No warning just an impassioned kiss. Stunning them both. No one says anything for the longest time in their “friendship.” Well until she pokes his arm, blushing heavily telling him his an idiot.

From that point on they are together. Their relationship just as verbally volatile as it ever was. But there is a certain spark. Pokes and “love taps” aren’t as blood thirsty. They stand closer, touches don’t look like attempted murder and…she smiles. Often.

As happy as the two of them are they aren’t very public about it. Everyone knows they are together, the “private looks” are a dead giveaway.

Her younger sister is the only one brave enough to lightly tease them about how happy they look.

“I only wish I’m as happy when I find my someone,” she gushed at them, hearts in her eyes with a soft dreamy look on her face Kankuro met his lover’s eyes from across the work bench. His smirk holding a secret that was too good for her to ignore.

Gaara

Gaara had been watching the girl for as long as he could remember. She is known throughout the village as a sweetheart. It is a stark contrast to her elder sister that felt the need to fight the world.

It was her sister’s personality that aided in her reputation. Every time the elder started a fight, pulled a prank or her presence became a nuisance, the younger would draw up a apology note. That notes one very well done, her pristine calligraphy and gentle artwork. They are famous Suna her thoughtfulness and kindness well renown.

When Gaara begins engaging more with people he notices her and feels things for her, he hadn’t felt anyone else he knew. And he hadn’t even spoken to her.

Upon discovering his brother infatuation with the girl, Kankuro tires to go and check her out. Instead he is stopped by her sister berating his puppetry skills.  The sparring match that resulted caused the girl to seek Gaara out. She kindly apologizes to both him and his family for her sister’s behavior leaving him with a note.

It’s easy to see for the older sand siblings that Gaara is deeply interested int he girl. They decide to work to get him to probably speak to her more than his simply “thank you,” he had given her. Temari goes to see the girl.

Unlike her sister, she is not a ninja or training to be one. She works and studies the trade under her grandparents at their shop. Temari visits and secretly vets the girl. As she decides that the girl would be good for brother, she slowly becomes friends with both sisters.

Kankuro was suppose to be doing the same  but instead gets wrapped up in the older sister. Sparring pranking and causing the younger to make more notes. Though she tries to give it to the others, each of his siblings make sure she always gives the apology to Gaara.

Gaara always shyly says thank you, that feeling in his chest never lessening. He at one point believes he might be sick. She makes sure he receives a get well card, his ‘conditions’ worsens.

As time goes by his feelings never waver only growing with every card he receives and every passing conversation they share. He has various birthday cards, numerous holiday cards and a good luck plaque she created when he was announced as Kazekage.

Their relationship doesn’t change very much as Gaara can identify the emotion now but isn’t sure what to do about it. Temari’s advice of “just say something” doesn’t inspire much action on his part. Now he can hide from his feelings behind work as well.

With the new couple formed Kankuro and his S/O decide to take a more hands on approach.

With Temari, the girl’s older sister does her best to get the younger girl’s opinion of Gaara. The girl blushes not sure how to feel about the red-haired man.

“Oh, Lord Gaara is very kind and-” she blushes, much like her sister, giving her companions the confirmation they needed for the next step.

Since it is all up to Gaara to do something, his brother and his S/O to push the two together. They do the tried and true method of telling their siblings they need to meet with them at the perfect spot, both of them having no intention of showing up and allowing the potential love birds to talk.

Much to their dismay neither show up. Instead Gaara continues to work and the young sister comes in to bring him yet another apology note.

“I apologize for my sister…” she faltered with a sigh “again… I will make sure she doesn’t bother you Lord Kazekage.” She gave a deep bow, thinking that she will probably be here next week as well.

His heart beat faster as he accepts as he always does. She then sees all the paperwork on his desk and everything he needed to accomplish for the day. She then, much to both of their surprise, offers to help. Just as an apology for the antics that take him away from it.

Just wanting to see her more Gaara accepts and she sets to organizing the paper work allowing his work to move more smoother as they get through it together.

Later Kankuro and his S/O go to the office to see the two sharing a cup of tea. They leave them to get more acquainted.

Eventually Gaara will formally ask her out but only when she has gotten the proper chance to get to know him and fall for him as well.

Bonus: Tiny Wedding Details

As much as a joint wedding would assist him in Navigating such a momentous occasion, due to Gaara’s station, the wedding would unfortunately have to be separate. But that doesn’t stop Kankuro from being with his brother every step of the way.

Kankuro has his first, a small affair with just friends and family. It is very private per his new-wife’s comfort level. Though loud and brash, she is super shy and the whole event is a little uncomfortable to her. She spends the most of the night blushing calling the whole event unnecessary and giving death glare to her new husband as he teases her.

Gaara’s wedding much to his dismay, is treated most political than he would like. It isn’t just one event but a several different events that make up their wedding. It is filled with smaller engagements traditions and slowly make him wish they could marry quietly. His brother and Naruto are there to assist him with it all as well as his wife. Throughout whole tedious happening his bride is there smiling and guiding him along helping him though.

Even though the two are the more quiet of the couples no one can question their love for each other. The soft smiles and shy glances are a dead giveaway, much to their elder siblings teasing.

[lazaretflowers]

Malik Angst

Quick Summary: Basically it’s Malik’s final days before he ends up at the Lazaret and then a snippet of Asra’s reactions to finding out what became of his friend. It’ll make more sense if you read Malik’s backstory (which I have a page for on my blog)

its long so the angst/story is under the cut

Malik couldn’t fight the pit of guilt in his stomach as he walked back to Julian’s clinic. He knew he had upset Asra. Asra wanted them both to leave Vesuvia. With this plague starting it wasn’t safe. People were catching it left and right and there was no cure. Malik couldn’t go, though. He needed to something good in his life for once. He couldn’t run away again, not this time. He had been apprenticing under Julian anyways he’d be okay. He told Asra that when this was all over they could meet back up in his shop and catch up over some tea. He didn’t know why he said it, maybe because he hated seeing Asra so sad, maybe because he had to believe he was going to make it through this, that they would survive this plague. Technically Malik was still just an apprentice, but Julian had been called away to the castle to research a cure so he left Malik in charge of the clinic. Malik missed Julian’s humor, missed having someone around that wasn’t sick or dying, but those thoughts made him feel selfish. If Julian could find a cure then everything would be okay. He didn’t need to be distracted by worrying about his apprentice. As the plague spread the days just seemed to get bleaker. Malik was trying everything, his magic, the tonics, leeches, anything and everything he’d been taught but it just wasn’t work. All he could do was ease his patients pain while they waited for the inevitable. At first Malik kept his plague mask on, trying to be as careful as possible, but slowly he lost hope. All the mask did was scare his patients and fill his nose with herbs and spices. There were many nights that Malik was tempted to write to Julian with a topic that wasn’t just the death rates.

Malik was truly alone. For the first time since he moved to Vesuvia he had no friends, no one to comfort him. He was wracked with guilt. He wanted to help. He needed to help, to save at least one person. He had to save someone... but nothing was working. Everyone he helped died anyways. Logically he knew there truly wasn’t anything he could have done more, but he took it as more blood on his hands. Every night he would hold the back of his neck, feeling the brand of a killer that would always be there. He couldn’t help but start to believe it was true. He wasn’t trying to kill anyone, in fact it was the last thing he wanted, but his actions always ended in death. It happened back in his homeland and it followed him to Vesuvia. The night where he truly broke was after one of his most heartbreaking cases. A young girl had contracted the plague just days ago and she was withering before his eyes. He couldn’t wear his mask in front of her because it would scare her and make her cry. Malik knew there was nothing he could do. Her family couldn’t visit because then they’d risk being infected. All Malik could do was try to comfort her while they waited. He would read to her, let her draw with his paper, even show little magic tricks to try and get her to smile, but death always came. It hit him hard, harder than the other patients he’d lost. She was so young. She didn’t deserve this. He cried for what felt like hours. His eyes stung and his throat sore from trying to stay silent as to not alert the patients just outside of the office. He stayed in Vesuvia because he wanted to help, to prove he was no longer the criminal he had been. But in staying, all he had done was allow death to find him again.

Malik had trouble sleeping normally, but after that night he barely slept at all. He kept researching, writing notes down, documenting what was happening to the victims and how fast the plague would take some, how others seemed to cling onto life even though they knew they would die eventually. The patients noticed a change too. Malik was quieter, more reserved. He didn’t bother to wear the mask or even cover his mouth or wear gloves. To Malik he was trying to just give his patients comfort, show them that they were still people and not just subjects to be studied. Somewhere deep down he knew it was because he was giving up. He was so tired of caring so much for these people only for them to wither away before him with nothing he could do, so tired of being alone. His heart ached for someone to hold him, run their hands through his hair and reassure him that there truly was nothing that he could have done. The streets he had called home for years were now so empty. Buildings boarded up in hopes to keep the infection out. His own shop was a mess as well. He was so busy with the clinic he rarely returned to his shop. There was no point really. Everyone who needed him knew to go to the clinic instead. Maybe he kept going back in hopes to find Asra waiting inside, or Julian... but they never were there. He never got mad about that fact. Things hadn’t... ended well with Asra. Asra was upset and hurt. Besides if Asra was here he’d risk getting sick and the thought made Malik’s throat constrict and eyes blur with tears. No, he couldn’t watch Asra just wither before him leaving Malik unable to do anything for him. Julian was looking for the cure with some of the best doctors in Vesuvia. His job was too important to come back.

Malik sighed heavily, his breath stuttering as he wiped away a few tears that had slipped from his watery eyes. He pulled on his sweater, breathing in the familiar scent. Technically it was Julian’s, but Malik had “borrowed” it months ago after he and Julian went to the Rowdy Raven. As he exited his shop he put up a small protection spell before heading back to the clinic. He kept his head low. The city had started sending the infected to the Lazaret. Too many were dying and they didn’t have enough people to bury them and they didn’t want the dead piling in the streets. His own patients were even being taken there. He hated to do it, but at a certain point there was just no hope of curing them. His eyes were dark as he entered the clinic. He lit the lamps with his magic and shrugged off his bag as he entered the office. He’d been feeling worn down for a few days and he had a sinking feeling this wasn’t just a cold.

His suspicions were confirmed just days later. He looked into his mirror after washing his face. One of his eyes had the tell tale scarlet hue. There was no point in fighting it. Even the most determined of his patients really only lasted two weeks after contracting the plague. Malik sat down and began to laugh despite the tears rolling down his cheeks. He never wanted to die alone. He hated being alone so much. It made him feel as if everyone around him was looking down at him, peering into him and seeing that he was not the man he claimed to be. It left him alone with his thoughts, his guilty conscious that had only grown louder with every lost patient. At least he wouldn’t be alone for much longer.

That night he drew up two letters in the heat of his fever. One for Asra, a letter stained with a few tears and spattered ink drops from hasty writing that simply said, ‘I’m sorry I’m going to miss tea. I really was looking forward to catching up with you. Give Faust a chin scratch from me, keep the fire salamander happy. I’m sure he’ll be lonely by now.’ What Malik didn’t realize was that he had also scribbled at the bottom of the note was his breakdown just scratchy lines saying ‘I’m such a fool... this was never going to work! I’m alone... alone... I don’t want to die alone...’. The next letter was for Julian. He tried to keep this one neat, though his hands were shaking terribly. He didn’t want to make it too long, it was hard to focus anyways so he simply wrote, ‘Keep looking for the cure Julian. I’m sorry I won’t be able to help further your research anymore, sincerely y̶o̶u̶r̶  Malik.’

The sky was starting to brighten as Malik left the clinic for the last time. Both eyes were now sporting the red sclera and he felt so weak and light headed. He needed to go to his shop one more time. It took him longer than he wanted to to undo his protection spell and enter. He headed upstairs and gave the salamander a very large pile of wood to feed on while he was gone. Hopefully Asra would return before it was gone. Malik grabbed the one keepsake he had from his home country, a picture of him and his brothers. It was worn and tattered around the edges, but it gave him comfort. They were probably all dead... at least he’d be meeting the fate he was destined for years ago. He left the letters on the table he kept in the back, Asra’s letter had the keys to the shop attached to it as well.

When Malik left he didn’t bother locking up the shop or protecting it. There was no point. He nearly fell as he walked to the docks, but one of the doctors taking the infected to the Lazaret noticed and caught him. Malik didn’t know if they recognized him, maybe it was his fever but he swore he saw just a flash of sorrow across their masked face. He had been one of the few doctors left in the city that was working to help the people in their homes, but now he was just like the rest.

The boat to the Lazaret was quiet. They all knew their fate. Malik was still wearing Julian’s sweater. Maybe it was selfish. He had always been planning on returning it, but... it was the only thing he had of Julian’s. He was sad that he hadn’t got to see Julian again before this, but he wasn’t mad. In fact he was happy Julian wasn’t going to see him like this. Malik knew the toll of watching people you cared for wither away despite everything you were doing. He had grown so close to his patients and they never survived. He only hoped that Julian was spared from such torture. He shivered and wiped away tears he didn’t know had fallen. Malik clutched the picture of his brothers close to his chest and closed his eyes, ducking his head to avoid looking at the island in the distance. The sight of the Lazaret made his heart race. Just because he had accepted the fact that he was going to die didn’t mean he wasn’t terrified of it still. He didn’t want to die. He wanted a life. He wanted Julian to come back announcing he had a cure for everyone. He wanted... well it didn’t matter what he wanted. He had been slated for the noose nine years ago. His fate had always been death. All Malik had done is postpone it for a while and maybe show that he could be a better person than he had all those years ago.

Malik spent about a week on the Lazaret before it was his time. The doctors were impressed with how long he was lasting despite his condition. Malik hated it. He sat on the beach, watching the boats arriving on the island. Sometimes hoping Julian would come off of a boat, but mostly he was just watching the sky and trying to enjoy nature before he was made to exit this world. The sand between his toes was cold and as the water  lapped against him he would smile weakly. Sometimes he could imagine his brothers sitting next to him as if they were just enjoying a day at the beach. His mind always ruined it though. He’d end up with red tears falling down his cheeks and apologizing to seemingly nothing with a voice so broken and quiet it made the doctors give a sympathetic wince. “I’m sorry... I’m so sorry... I left you all behind and you’re probably dead. I should have saved you I shouldn’t have ran... but death caught up to me anyways. I’m so sorry... please don’t hate me... I don’t want to be alone.” They didn’t know who he was talking too, though they guessed it had to do with the brand on the back of his neck. A guilty man apologizing for past sins on his deathbed.

His last day was torture. He was shaking from fear but he could barely keep his own eyes open. His stomach felt like it was ripping itself apart. He kept his hands clutched around the picture he held to his chest. It was all he could do. The day was just a blur of doctors realizing his condition, mumbling apologies... He could hear the furnaces getting closer and began to cry again. I don’t want to die... not alone... He wanted someone to hold him. He wanted to be comforted, even something as simple as someone resting their hand on his shoulder, but it didn’t come. He was waiting outside of the furnace room. His back pressed against the cold stone. He could barely keep his eyes open. He was curled into a tight ball in the corner, eyes leaking a steady stream of tears leaving a red trail going down his neck. The doors opened. His heart seized in fear and he held onto his picture, held onto the sweater...

Asra always felt the guilt for how he left Malik. He shouldn’t have yelled. Malik just wanted to help those affected by the plague... even if it was dangerous. He hadn’t said it at the time but he did hope to meet him for tea upon his return. Ara needed time though. He was terrified of the plague. He didn’t want to catch it, he didn’t want to have to see the people he’d grown up with and cared for get it and wither away. Asra knew he couldn’t stay away forever. Vesuvia was his home. It was where Malik was, and as the months went by Asra found himself yearning to hear Malik laugh again.

“Malik?” He heard Faust and smiled a little.

“Yes I miss him too. Stay close once we get there Faust. I don’t want you to get lost or hurt.” Asra didn’t know what state Vesuvia would be in, but he doubted it would be pleasant. If that was the case he was sure Malik could need someone to talk to.

The streets were so quiet. Asra knew it was because of how many had been claimed by the plague. A few people who weren’t infected were out, presumably going to or coming back from getting food. He didn’t like how when they saw him only sorrow flashed across their faces. Was it because the plague still wasn’t over? Some part of Asra knew, deep down, but he wasn’t ready to admit it. He followed the familiar streets home, back to Malik’s shop. He was about to knock and dispel the protection wards but there were none. Concern began to grow and he opened the door. Maybe Malik was just at Ilya’s clinic and forgot the wards because he was too busy.

“Malik?” He called out, hoping for a reply. He even closed his eyes and cast out his magic to see when the last time someone had been here was. The state of the shop should have given him his answer but he didn’t want to believe it. All of the plants were dried up and withered. Dust was covering every surface. His magic gave a small hint of Malik’s presence, not enough to be him, but something that belonged to him.

Asra quickly followed it until he found the letters on the back table. One for him and one for Ilya. Both had a small cover of dust over them. He quickly opened his, eyes quickly reading it over. Asra covered his mouth and felt tears rushing to his eyes. Oh Malik... I’m so sorry. Asra’s chest felt so tight. He had never admitted it, he was afraid to perhaps, but he loved Malik. They were so close. Every time Asra was in town they would catch up over tea. Asra would tell Malik about the new spells he learned and Malik would let him know what had happened since he was gone. It hurt when Asra realized that Malik had more feelings for the doctor, but he was happy too. He’d never seen Malik smile so much.

Asra shoved the letter into his bag as well as the one meant for Ilya. He didn’t know why the doctor hadn’t grabbed it yet. It looked unopened... That didn’t matter right now. He needed to find Malik. Maybe there was still a chance. Maybe he was still alive on the Lazaret just hanging on until a cure was made. Malik was always strong. If anyone could hang on it would be him.

The magician felt his pull to Malik as if it was a string. He passed the clinic, pausing to see if Ilya was there but the clinic looked abandoned. There would be time to investigate later. Asra’s feet moved without him thinking. He was running to the docks, past the doctors stationed there. He didn’t care if they needed the boat, he needed to find Malik. As he jumped in he dipped his hand into the water, using his magic to take the boat to the island. His heart was pounding. Malik had to be there. There was such a strong pull to him, so it had to mean he was hanging on right? Asra hated seeing the plumes of smoke. The island seemed to radiate just waves of fear and sorrow. So many people died here...

The boat reached the sand and he jumped out, the waves lapping at his feet. Asra was holding the strap of his bag, nervously wringing it in his hands as he followed the pull. “Malik?” He called out again and again as he rounded the perimeter of the island. He was prepared to call out again but it died in his throat as he saw the stretch of beach. There were piles of sand, clearly acting as burial spots. He felt all of the warmth leave his body. One in the distance had such a strong pull to it.

“No... no no no it... it’s not true...” it couldn’t be. Asra didn’t even get to say goodbye. He ran to the spot, falling to his knees. He wasn’t thinking straight and began to dig with his hands. It wasn’t true... it couldn’t be. He was supposed to come back and see Malik in his shop. They were going to have some tea just like always. They were going to laugh together and Asra would comfort Malik after having to deal with so many plague victims. Maybe he’d even convince Malik to leave with him this time and get away from it all, keep him safe. Asra’s throat was tight and his whole body tense as he kept digging. Tears were streaming past his white eyelashes. His fingers gave a dull ache but he didn’t care. He could feel Faust’s worry from his bag but he didn’t care. This pull had to be a cruel trick, just some mistake...

His fingers scraped against something hard, making him whimper in pain. He began to move the sand away from it before it became clear. What he had unearthed was a charred skeleton that was unmistakably Maliks. The feeling he sensed from those bones was all to familiar.

Asra’s vision began to blur and his shoulders just sagged. Malik was gone. He could feel the faintest bits of emotions from his bones, a final impression onto his being before death. When Malik died he had been terrified and so... so alone. It felt like Asra’s heart was truly breaking. His chest ached and he couldn’t stop the flow of tears or the sorrow he felt. He knew Malik hated being alone. Asra hadn’t been there...

It couldn’t be true. This wasn’t supposed to be how it ended. Malik was an amazing magician. He had a good heart... Asra had to fix this. He... He didn’t know how but he was going to fix this whatever it would take. He wasn’t thinking clearly. His emotions were clouding his judgement but all he wanted was to have Malik back.

Asra didn’t know how long he’d been on the Lazaret. The sky was dark, threatening to break into a storm. His hands were bleeding as he finished covering Malik’s bones again. It would be just until he could bring Malik back. Faust was wrapped around his neck gently, nuzzling him and trying to comfort him, but Asra felt numb. His eyes were dark as he made his way back to the boat he had taken. He needed to do some research. His library didn’t have anything on it, but he knew one that might. It meant seeing him again, but for Malik? He’d do anything.

[macgyvermedical]

This Year and Beyond- My Year in AmeriCorps NCCC

I will get things done for America.

To make our people safer, smarter, and healthier.

I will bring Americans together to strengthen communities.

Faced with apathy, I will take action.

Faced with conflict, I will seek common ground.

Faced with adversity, I will persevere.

I will carry this commitment with me, this year and beyond.

I am an AmeriCorps Member, and I will GET THINGS DONE!

-The AmeriCorps Pledge

My name is Ross.

I’m a 25 year old Registered Nurse, EMT-B, and Wilderness and Remote First Aid Instructor from northeast Ohio. On January 9th, 2018, approximately 316 days ago, I left my family, my apartment, my job, and very close to all my personal belongings to fly 602 miles to a small town I’d never heard of, with people I’d never met, to do work I didn’t choose, manage people who didn’t like to be managed, learn and grow more than I ever thought possible, make friends I’ll never forget, and become the person I’d always seen myself becoming.

I want to underline the hubris with which I embarked on this journey.

I graduated nursing school less than 2 years prior to entering the program. While there and in my first year as a nurse, I transitioned from female to male, was an RA for 2 years, survived a 3-year abusive relationship and 4 horror-story level roommates, and struggled with picking, hair pulling, compulsive lying, and generalized anxiety.

I thought, nothing could be more difficult than what I’d just gone through. This was going to be a break. I’d go, develop my leadership skill, meet some cool people, serve my country, and come back ready to tackle whatever came next.

Heh. Heheh... it didn’t exactly go like that.

First, some background. If you’ve never been in the AmeriCorps NCCC world before, it’s a pretty foreign place. You hear about military life a lot as part of popular culture, and Peace Corps is at least a household name. But I’d be willing to bet that unless you know someone who’s served, you probably don’t know much about (or possibly haven’t even heard of) the National Civilian Community Corps...

(Note- this is a really long post, something like 5,000 words. But its also pretty cool if you’ve got the time, or are interested in AmeriCorps NCCC. Also, there’s definitely some triggery stuff in here, so you may want to skip it if mental health, suicide mention, and anything along those lines doesn’t sit well with you.)

To avoid some confusion, AmeriCorps and NCCC are not synonymous- AmeriCorps is a larger organization that oversees several different civilian national service programs, including Volunteers in Service to America (VISTA), State and National (which is itself many, many programs), and the National Civilian Community Corps (NCCC, pronounced N-Triple-C).

NCCC is the program I was in. I don’t have proof of this, but having lived it, NCCC is likely one of the most intense domestic national service experiences one can have. It’s often billed as a “team based, residential national service program for young people aged 18-24.” And it is, but that doesn’t really capture the intensity of the experience.

For one thing, when they say the service is “team based” they mean it- Not only do Members work 40+-hour weeks together, but they truly act as a team- you live (sometimes all in the same room) with the team, train with them, eat with them, work out with them, have mandatory meetings, reflections, and team building activities, participate in 1:1 meetings, grocery and other shopping trips, and share one 15-passenger van for all transportation needs.

You live in a residence hall while on campus, but while away on project (called “SPIKE”), housing could be anything- cots in an office building or church basement, a cabin at a summer camp, the classroom floor of a Boys and Girls Club or YMCA, a school gym, a local college residence hall, the semi-completed portion of a house you’re actively building, or basically anywhere vaguely flat and dry enough to put a mat and sleeping bag.

Personal belongings- or, more accurately, space for personal belongings, is also at a premium. For SPIKE, you get a “red bag” with enough space for uniforms, underwear, a couple of sets of personal clothing, toiletries, and your personal protective equipment. You also get your sleeping bag/bedding bag (a space life saver, you can stuff any small belongings that didn’t make it into your red bag in here), and a personal backpack. You’re given a military style duffle (your “green bag”) to store out of season clothing, bedding, and other personal belongings on campus while you’re away. But that’s it. You learn to say no to free stuff pretty quickly.

There’s also TONS of rules, most of which are related to safety or reputation. We like to say “Someone did something stupid 5 years ago, and now we have to wear hard hats while gardening.” It’s funny, but its so close to true, it hurts. In context, it makes sense- NCCC is a government organization, and when you join, the government assumes total responsibility for your wellbeing. They pay for your food, your medical care, your housing, and your transportation.

In return, you do anything that might pose a risk to any of the above on their terms- even if you would never wear safety goggles while painting or make a passenger get out and ground guide you into a parking space at home, you do here, because they’d have to pay for it if you got paint in your eye or ran into a pole, and they reeeeeally don’t want to. NCCC, being a government-funded service organization, also can’t afford to do anything that could jeopardize their funding situation or reputation- so if you’re wearing “the A” (uniform items that have the AmeriCorps logo on them), swearing, drinking, jaywalking, and really any other unwholesome activities are expressly forbidden.

On the more logistical end of things, the 10-11 month “service year” is split into training (a month of team leader training (TLT) and a month of combined corps member and team leader training (Corps Training Institute, or CTI)), and 4 distinct, 6-8 week “Rounds” of (1-2) projects with week-long prep/training segments in between. There’s a week-long midyear break and a long weekend at some other point where you can go home or chill on personal expense, and 3 personal days that can be taken throughout. Otherwise, you’re either on SPIKE working, or at campus training.

Projects can be a lot of different things. Most common projects at my campus were working with environmental groups removing invasive species and building/maintaining trails, working with neighborhood revitalization organizations and police departments improving the look and condition of neighborhood buildings and empty lots, providing supplemental staff at non-profit summer camps, Boys and Girls Clubs, and YMCAs, and building houses for low-income families. Other projects might include tutoring children, general maintenance at non-profit or government facilities, building or maintaining parks or schools, entering data, conducting surveys, mucking and gutting disaster-affected homes, staffing shelters, creating lesson plans, piloting community events, and other tasks organizations need completed, but don’t have the reliable manpower to do themselves.

Before each project, you research the area and work and present a “briefing” to your unit leader, assistant program director, and unit support team leader (team leaders who live and work on campus supporting staff and teams in the field, and who act as a reservoir if field team leaders drop or need to go on extended medical or other leave). When you return from a project, you prepare and present a “debrief” and “portfolio” documenting your work and its impact. The briefings and debriefs take about a half hour each, and portfolios are 12-25 page papers on your project work, which will be used to justify the continued presence of the NCCC.

But just the work is not enough- each corps member has one or more “rep roles” or jobs that support the campus or team. “Official” rep roles include the Project Outreach Liaison (present to and try to get organizations to apply for NCCC teams), Recruiter (present to and try to get people to apply to be members and team leaders), Service Learning Initiator (responsible for facilitating team reflections and secure learning opportunities for the team), Media Rep (coordinates media coverage, writes press releases and articles about projects, creates social media posts), and Yearbook Rep (who creates a yearbook page and/or team video for each Round). “Team” Roles include Assistant Team Leader, PT Coordinator (organizes workout times, places, and activities), Food Point of Contact (creates shopping list, manages food inventory and budget), Cleaning Point of Contact (makes sure housing is ready for weekly inspection), and Team Builder (puts together activities and outings for recreation and team building/bonding).

The program is set up to be an immersive and intense experience. Teams of between 6 and 14 members travel throughout one of 4 assigned regions (Southern, North Central, Southwest, and Pacific) for SPIKE projects. They are led by a team leader, who mentors members, coordinates work assignments and tasks at the job site, does paperwork, responds to emergencies, and pretty much just makes sure all required things get done. Teams are organized into units, which have between 8 and 12 teams. Team leaders report to unit leaders, who remain on campus for the majority of the year.

Okay, so that was maybe a lot of background. But I think it is important to provide that information- unless you read the blogs or know someone, there’s not a ton of depth officially available as to what to expect.

But here’s my reflection on the year-

It started in Team Leader Training. I remember arriving with a lot of expectations. I’d come for the purpose of honing my leadership skills, getting some experience in disaster work (NCCC teams can be pulled off projects to respond to declared emergencies), and taking some time away from being a nurse before I settled down into my forever life. I’d read all the blogs and news articles, corresponded with a unit leader, and talked to people online. I felt I knew everything there was to know about NCCC despite never having met someone in it. I felt so ready.

Team Leader Training was amazing. It was everything I could have ever wanted. I was learning how to do a job I’d fantasized about since I was 17- how to manage members, work with site supervisors and sponsors, coordinate team roles, do necessary paperwork, mediate conflict, drive a 15p van, foster team bonding, balance a budget, etc… It was some of the coolest training I’d ever done. We got up at 5:30 for PT, trained until 5PM, and did homework and hung out in the evenings. By the third and fourth weeks, especially during our training “mini-SPIKE,” tensions among the TLs rose somewhat, but looking back, it wasn’t anything horrible. We were all pretty competent and like-minded people, doing something we loved and creating a network of support that would carry us through the year. I’d never been more comfortable with a group of people in my life. We didn’t get a ton of time off, but it was interesting enough and important enough that we didn’t care.

Then, February 13th, everything changed. Suddenly, where there had been 32 TLs learning to interact with each other, now there were 31 TLs (one went home) and 190 Corps Members. The place was swarming, and each TL was in charge of 8 or 9 CMs they had to mold into something they barely understood themselves. I remember totally flopping on my first meeting with my CMs. I already felt like I was drowning.

We now got up at 5:15 for PT, had “Muster” (morning meeting) at 6:45, trained and conducted trainings/meetings until 5, had team dinners, team meetings, and then were up until 9 or 10 at night submitting daily behavior logs for each member, preparing other paperwork, and preparing for the next day. It was utter and complete chaos. If yours was the team on duty that night, you probably didn’t get to sleep until 1 or 2 in the morning.

Then, suddenly, it was March 9th- departure day. My team, Cedar 2, drove a mere 2 hours to Wapello, IA, but it might as well have been to a foreign country. My campus-based support of other team leaders and staff was suddenly pulled out from under me. My Unit Leader was available by phone, but I struggled hard to find the time to talk to her. The team took the transition to SPIKE life hard, pushing back on the norms and expectations- PT, food shopping, team dinners, team meetings, etc…- as much as possible, making sure I knew how stupid every decision I made and action I took was. I kept it up the best I could, but I quickly became tired and depressed. Every day was a struggle to get people to follow rules, to get them to come to dinner and do their work. They complained, loudly, about everything, said extremely mean things to my face and behind my back.

I remember after a long day of of some pretty scathing 1:1s, sitting in the middle of a field away from my team and sobbing to my mom on the phone and begging her to give me some reason to stay in the program. I was sick with a stomach bug for over a week, and my CMs called me a hypocrite and a lier for taking a few hours out of the day to go to an urgent care. I felt for sure I wouldn’t be able to make it through the year. I began thinking of hurting myself. I contacted an old counselor to see if she did phone sessions. She didn’t, and I didn’t know where else to turn. I thought, hey, If I got caught, maybe I would get kicked out. The idea seemed almost nice.

We started the year with a “split round” project, meaning we spent 3 weeks in Wapello, IA doing trail work, and then 4 weeks in West Branch, MI doing construction at a summer camp. In between, Cedar 2 spent 3 days back on campus, which helped reset the team. We had many meetings with our unit leader, remade our team charter, and came up with a lot of plans to improve our dynamic. I felt like maybe things were looking up, that maybe Wapello would just be that dark time we would look back on and then never speak of again.

When we got to West Branch, things were better, but not good by any stretch. The team had lost a member and had turned somewhat on each other, forming 2 cliques. There was bullying against one of the members that I noticed and felt horrible about, but also powerless to stop. I went almost 2 weeks without more than an hour or two of sleep a night during this project, and my only contact with the outside world was a landline telephone in the (public) camp office and 1 bar of service if I walked to the edge of the parking lot. We had WiFi the first few days, but only rarely after that. We got snowed in for weeks. I got cussed out and screamed at by a CM when I asked him to put on safety glasses while operating a tile saw (I did successfully maintain calm and talk him down, which was a particularly shining moment during this time). I had problems with CMs not doing work that I didn’t know how to address without it becoming a much bigger problem.

I was still kind of a wreck, but I had figured out at least one thing I wanted to do- recruiting for nurses in the US Public Health Service was starting in May, and I couldn’t wait to start that process. By the time I graduated from NCCC in November, I could have a position with them.

It was an interesting project though, and due to our reset, we now did everything exactly by the rules. 3 PTs a week, 3 official team dinners with someone cooking 5 days a week, everyone wore their PPE or suffered the consequences, participated(ish) in team meetings, turned in their weekly reports, and we left with glowing reviews from the sponsor and site supervisor. Attitudes were still objectively bad, they might have hated it, they might have grumbled, but it was an expectation now, and they did it without being overly hellish towards me.

During this project, we also gained a new member who was very competent, polite, but who I couldn’t really read. He’d come from a sister program of NCCC called FEMA Corps (similar in structure to NCCC, but the only projects they do are through the Federal Emergency Management Agency) after failing a background check. I was a little concerned about his integrating into the team, but he seemed okay, and would talk to me at the job site when I talked to him, and actively tried to boost team morale, which was more than anyone else did and something I greatly appreciated.

We went back to Vinton for “1st transition” (the week of training between first and second rounds), presented our debriefs and portfolios, and prepared our briefing. It was the first time I’d seen “Team Green” (the NCCC name for the team leaders collectively in reference to our uniform shirts being green instead of the grey CM shirts) since the end of CTI. Some TLs had had a blast on their first rounds, while others, like me, looked positively gaunt. You could absolutely tell who’d been through hell their first round, and who, like me, hadn’t been able to communicate that until now. We swapped horror stories while training for our next projects, and I finally felt some hope for making it through the year.

The USPHS had unfortunately decided not to open recruiting for nurses after all, but I’d come up with another plan for LAA (Life After AmeriCorps)- I was going to graduate school instead. I had a plan to start applying early in our next round.

Our next SPIKE was a 7-week project in Yankton, SD doing a particularly extensive number of projects. We worked at a Boys and Girls Club, cleaned and packaged artifacts at a museum for a move to a new facility, painted a residence hall and did interior demolition on some bathrooms at a local college, and taught archery classes to children. I felt like a soccer mom, shuttling my CMs from project to project, and trying to spend at least a couple of hours at each site each day. I still dreaded 1:1 days and had to deal with some members’ poor life choices now that they were in a town, but the sun was out, the days were warmer, and due to the nature of the project, everyone was getting quality time away from each other. Thank heavens.

Despite this, I was personally still having some issues. I spent a lot of time hiding from my team after work. It was the only way I could see myself getting through the 7 weeks until midyear. I went for long walks and admired the architecture, hid with my computer watching TV, and leading DnD type medical adventures on Discord. Cedar 2 totally avoided our problems and it was exactly what needed to happen to get us through the round. Nothing got resolved, but people did what they were supposed to do, got great work experience, and no one got (seriously) hurt.

And I got accepted into a program at Kent State for Environmental Health Science! Woot!

And something else was on the horizon. We would return to campus for half of a transition, then enjoy midyear break, then return to… A brand new team! Staff had told us at the beginning of the year that there would be a midyear team switch, but hadn’t told us exactly what that would look like. But finally it had been confirmed. Everyone’s team would be shuffled, and new teams created, with no TL getting any of their former members on their new teams. I was extremely hopeful the next team would be better than the last, and I’d get to use what I’d learned from the first 6 months I’d endured.

The Cedar unit was also disbanding, and Cedar 2 would be absorbed into the Oak unit. When I returned, I would become the TL for the brand new Oak 11.

And holy crap, Oak 11 was awesome. Unique people who said good morning and cleaned up their mess, sat and talked after dinner, wanted to cook for the team (and were great cooks), planned great outings, participated in team meetings and team builders, and were pretty consistent about their work ethic and dedication to the team. Everything wasn’t perfect, but it was so much better than it had been on Cedar 2, and I was thrilled- it wasn’t all me that had screwed it up after all. I’d gotten a team who just brought out the worst in itself.

But I found, to my dismay, that even though the team was great and our project (Erie, PA doing neighborhood revitalization work) and housing and location were all awesome, I was still having problems. Thoughts of self harm were coming back and I was even sliding somewhat into suicidal thinking with graphic intrusive thoughts. I knew the team was working hard and doing what needed done, but I constantly mistrusted them. I would misinterpret situations and respond inappropriately to them, which significantly hindered my ability to lead the team. I leaned heavily on exact execution of the many, many rules of NCCC, but had no energy to enforce them and therefore just felt terrible about my abilities as a leader. I felt I was useless and not at all what the team or anyone deserved to have to deal with. My new unit leader was great, but he wasn’t the touchy feely type and I didn’t think I could get much support from him.

I tried again to contact my counselor, and she agreed to start seeing me over the phone. It was nice to have someone to talk to, even if that meant I had to pace in a public park while talking about very personal things in order to have some privacy from my new CMs, but it also didn’t help a lot. I would hash out the same situations over and over, and my counselor would point out my reactions were exaggerated, and I was convinced she just didn’t understand how intense the program was. After a few sessions, we talked about me quitting the program to get some more intensive help, and about me going on medication. And, if I was going to stay in the program, I had to start checking in with a friend every day, and my mom three times a week.

At this point, I wanted to stay in the program more than anything, and I didn’t want to feel like I was giving up. I had been very against medication from the first time I’d started seeing a counselor 6 years prior, but I was pretty sure I wasn’t going to make it through the last 3 months in the program if nothing changed, and I’d rather do something of my own volition than end up hurt or fired. I ended up taking 2 personal days- the first 2 I’d taken all year- to travel home to Cleveland and see a doctor about the mental health issues and a chance of getting a hysterectomy when I got home in November.

I ended up going on medication. The transition onto it was a little rough, but fortunately I was going into fall break (a long weekend) and then a transition week, and by the time we were on project again (Willow River, MN, doing maintenance at an environmental education center), I felt a lot better. Suddenly, I was functional again. I could lead a team and do what needed done. I still had some issues, but for the first time I was completely confident I would make it to graduation. My CMs noticed the change. I’d decided not to tell them about the mental health stuff in anything but extremely vague terms, or about going on medication, but it made me happy to hear other people noticed how much better I felt, and how much more I could do now that I could trust my perceptions of situations and didn’t feel like crap all the time.

The team went through a couple of hard weeks in the latter half of the project- including one day when every single person on the team asked to take a mental health day on the same day (mental health days are expressly not allowed in the Corps, but you can get around this with creative paperwork). Instead of doing PT that morning, we sat in the living room and talked out some things. It didn’t resolve much, but it did help people feel that they weren’t the only ones having problems. Only one person ended up staying back from work that day, and I looked at it as proof I was getting better- I had looked at a situation and instead of following the rules to the letter, I had bent them in a way that was absolutely helpful to the team.

The project felt like it was at once the fastest and the slowest project we’d done. We drove back to campus with a feeling of finality. This was it. We weren’t prepping for another project. Once we finished these last two weeks, we were going home for real.

A lot of my CMs struggled with that concept. Some had homes to go to, some had homes they wanted to get out of as fast as possible, some were successfully setting up jobs, some were planning to wing it when they got off the plane. Overall, going home would be a change for everyone in the Corps- people who were now very used to the schedule and the rules associated with NCCC life.

The day after I returned to campus I finalized my LAA plans too- my insurance had gone through and I would be having a hysterectomy in December! Woot!

Then it was just the long haul. Closure felt like CTI again except waaaaaay more relaxed. We did a couple of trainings or teambuilding things a day, but usually just hung out or did end of round paperwork and caught up with everyone we hadn’t seen all round.

We had an awards ceremony and a nice graduation that was streamed to Facebook so family living hundreds of miles away could watch. Less than an hour later, we drove our teams to the airport. Oak 11 stopped by a fast food place on the way and had one last team meal together before parting.

When we returned, the campus was empty. As 25 TLs, we scrubbed and returned our vans, and then each got assigned a staff member who put us to work preparing things for the next class.

The night before the TLs left, the night I’m writing this, we went out to the one mexican restaurant in Vinton and hung out for the last time. Some people went out to the bar after, but I hung back and wandered the halls of campus for the last time.

I walked past the gym where Rob Levis led PT at 5:45 on freezing January mornings. I washed my hands in the sink where Silvia shaved my head a few days into TLT. I wandered the classrooms where I’d trained and the kitchens where I’d cooked (and where the vent exploded that one time). I looked at all the rooms I’d stayed in on campus, sat on the couch where I’d stayed up way too late processing my first set of end of round paperwork after Wapello. I stuck my head in the room where I’d done team building for the first time with both of my teams (I didn’t stay long, there was a FEMA Corps team having a meeting). I walked the tunnels, the lounges, said goodbye.

Tomorrow morning at 9am, I will load my green bag and 2 backpacks into a 15 passenger van and ride to the airport. At noon, I will begin the journey back to Ohio.

The year has been so incredibly growth-inducing for me that I don’t know how I ever could have gotten to this point in who I am without it. Like thousands before me, I owe so much to the NCCC.

Even though it sounds corny, I will carry this experience with me, this year and beyond. I am an AmeriCorps Member, and man, did I get things done. 

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[imaginetonyandbucky]

Hi!! Thanks opening prompts; I was wondering if anyone is interested in writing a Post TWS fic where the WS is on the loose and kidnaps Tony to be his new handler since he's good with mainteance for his arm and giving out orders and falls for him bringing sparks of Bucky back. While Tony alrrady knows (through Jarvis searches) that WS was responsible for his parents deaths and while he is angry he's tryibg to survive snd wants to help Bucky. Both see how damaged the other is. Xo, Katie

A/N: I tweaked it a bit so that I could turn it into a sequel for my story One More Light, which you might need to read for context.

Also on AO3!

Out of Ashes Chapter 1: Falling

“It’s probably just a coincidence,” Tony said out loud, back in his lab and spinning around in circles in his office chair.  In his pocket he was turning the dog tag over and over in his fingers, trying to resist temptation.

“What is, sir?”

“Nothing, JARVIS.”  Tony put the tag in the top drawer of his desk and closed it firmly.  He wasn’t going to look up Barnes, James Buchanan.  Because it was just a coincidence.

“I mean, lots of people probably have that name.”

“What name, sir?”

“Never mind, JARVIS.”

Tony lasted thirty minutes before he opened the drawer again.

It took him ten to determine that there has not been another James Buchanan Barnes in the US military since the James Buchanan Barnes; there was a James Brantley Barnes twenty years ago, but that’s all. There was a James Buchanan Barnes out of Little Rock (sandy-haired and twenty years old) and one out of Fort Wayne, Indiana (fifty years old if he’s a day).   The man he’d seen was the spitting image of Bucky Barnes, if ol’ JBB had gone on a week-long bender after growing his hair out.  But no way the man he’d seen was over ninety years old.

Tony rubbed his hands over his face and stared at the picture on the screen, the hat tipped at a jaunty angle, the confident smirk and the dark, guarded eyes.  He ran his thumb over the raised letters of the dog tag for a moment before he closed the windows on his computer and tucked the tag into his pocket.

“Alright JARVIS, open up the files on the palladium, we’re going back to the drawing board.”

Beware the read more

The next day, and then the day after that, and the one after that, until it became a daily habit, Bucky checked the newspaper - first the headlines, then the obituaries, just in case.  He knew it was kind of silly, because there was no reason for him to believe that if Tony did decide to go through with it, his death would even make the news, but he did it anyway.  Gradually it evolved into also doing the crossword puzzle, then the crossword and the Sudoku, until he realized that he had made himself a whole morning routine, complete with a coffee shop where they knew his order as soon as he came in.

The first time he realized he had become predictable he panicked and hid out for days, calling out of work and jumping at shadows.  He spent one whole day wedged into a corner under the Brooklyn Bridge with a pistol in one hand and a knife in the other before he finally calmed down enough to crawl out of his hiding spot in order to find food.  Eating made him sleepy, and as soon as he got to a safe place he crashed for twelve solid hours.  When he woke up his body felt shaky, fragile, but his mind was clear. And when he finally slunk into his coffee shop, still feeling vaguely embarrassed by his overreaction, the barista greeted him with a huge smile.

“I saved you the paper,” she said.  “Your coffee will be right up.”

Bucky smiled shyly and thanked her, taking his usual seat near the rear exit with his back to the wall.  He sipped his coffee and did both puzzles before he started flipping through the paper itself.

Then his brain stuttered when he saw the headline. STARK EXPO ATTACKED, it said in big letters, and underneath Iron Man and War Machine Defeat Rogue Robots. The main picture on the page was of the Stark Expo convention grounds mostly destroyed and still aflame, but above the fold there was a small picture of a man with a cocky grin and a distinctive beard, looking out at the camera over a pair of colored sunglasses.

“Tony…Stark?” Bucky read incredulously, hand drifting to the watch on his wrist. Jesus.  No wonder Tony hadn’t believed that Bucky didn’t recognize him. But in Bucky’s defense, he had pretty much been living under a rock for the past few years. He devoured the article, which took up the front page and half of one farther into the paper, not counting all of the related articles, one of which was about some guy named Justin Hammer and another about Colonel James Rhodes. “Rhodey,” Bucky said under his breath, folding the paper up neatly and draining his coffee.  Nothing in the paper talked about Tony’s mysterious not-cancer, but defeating a small army of robots almost single-handedly didn’t sound like the actions of a man on the edge of death so maybe he figured out whatever he’d been looking for.

Bucky let out a long exhale and relaxed back into his chair, feeling like a weight had come off his shoulders. Tony was ok.  He’d obviously made up with Rhodey and he was going to be fine. “Good for you,” he murmured as he grabbed his bag and tossed it over his shoulder.  He waved goodbye to the barista, feeling a real smile curl his lips for the first time in days, and when he went back outside he tilted his head up and inhaled deeply, feeling the crisp spring air filling his lungs.  He took a moment outside the coffee shop to close his eyes and feel the sun on his face, because, damn, he’d forgotten what happiness could feel like.

He didn’t realize someone had come up behind him until a voice whispered “Sputnik” in his ear. Bucky sagged to the ground, suddenly trapped in a body no longer under his control.

                                                               ***

Two Years Later    

“Who in the hell could do something like this?” Tony said, staring at the photos of the crime scene that was Steve’s apartment.  He studied the bullet holes in the brick wall, each the size of a quarter, and then pulled out the map with the shooter’s location marked on it. “I mean, that shot was just…unbelievable.” When he glanced up Rhodey was glaring at him repressively and Natasha was rolling her eyes. “What?” Tony said defensively.  “I used to sell sniper rifles, I know what it would take to make a shot like this!”

“All I know about him is that he was fast,” Steve said absently, staring down at the wooden table that dominated the SHIELD conference room. “Strong.  And he had a metal arm.”

If Tony hadn’t already been looking at Natasha he would have missed the way her eyelids flickered when Steve said metal arm, even as the rest of her face stayed impassive.  She was holding herself tightly in the way that people did when they were afraid they were going to fall apart. “Alright,” Tony said slowly, still watching her closely.  “Metal arm. That’s pretty distinctive, I’ll start digging.” Steve nodded, something else clearly on his mind as he stood.  “Natasha, a word?” Tony said, shuffling the photos and papers on Fury’s assassination back into the folder as the conference room emptied.  She raised an eyebrow but lingered, giving Interim Director Hill a brief squeeze on the arm as she walked by.

“What is it, Tony?”

“Not the first time you’d heard of a guy with a metal arm, Nat?  Because I gotta say, I stay pretty up to date with the latest technology, including prosthetics, and I’ve never heard of something like Steve’s describing.”

Natasha exhaled and looked at the conference door, making sure it was closed firmly.  “Look, most of the intelligence community doesn’t believe he exists,” she said, voice low. “And the ones that do, call him the Winter Soldier.  He’s assassinated over two dozen people in the last fifty years.”

Tony raised his eyebrows. “So he’s a ghost story. Or like the Dread Pirate Roberts.”

Natasha pressed her lips together. “Look, Tony. One time, I was extracting an engineer from Odessa.  The Winter Soldier shot out my tires, and then shot my engineer straight through me. So I know he’s real. But going after him is a dead end. Believe me, I’ve tried.”

“But I haven’t.”  Tony offered her a crooked grin, tapping the folder against the table.  “You dig on your end, I’ll dig on mine.”

“You know Steve’s not going to sit still on this,” she warned.

“Uh, you think? After his boss was killed in his own living room by a mysterious metal-armed stranger?” Tony opened the door to the conference room, gesturing for her to lead the way. “Were you planning to babysit?”

“I was going to watch his six, yes.” Her heels clicked sharply on the tile floor as she pushed the button for the elevator. “And you? Are you going back to New York?”

“No.” As the elevator dinged and the doors opened, Tony texted Happy to bring the car around. “Something strange is going on at SHIELD and I’m going to find out what.  Let me know if you need backup, ok?”

“Sure thing,” Natasha said with that small smile of hers that said either ‘I’m way ahead of you’ or ‘I’m going to agree and then do whatever I was going to do anyway,’ which more or less amounted to the same thing.

                                                                ***

“Son of a bitch,” Tony cursed as his call went to voicemail for the sixth time; neither Steve nor Natasha had been answering their phone for the past twenty minutes.  “JARVIS, where are Steve and Natasha right now?” He asked as he continued sprinting down the stairs to the garage, taking the steps two at a time.

“Sir, there has been no trace of Ms. Romanov’s since her last update in New Jersey, but the tracker installed on Captain Rogers’ shield indicates that he is in the middle of the Potomac.”

That made Tony’s steps slow in confusion.  “What?  Did he decide to go for a swim?”

“This may provide some clarity, sir.”  Tony glanced down at his phone at the footage JARVIS downloaded; it was a clip from a news channel showing three helicarriers emerging from the river next to SHIELD’s headquarters.

“Son of a bitch,” Tony said again, and continued down the stairs.  Thirty minutes ago JARVIS had finally broken through SHIELD’s encryption.  Twenty-seven minutes ago Tony’s search query started turning up decades and decades of documents relating to the Winter Soldier project and the man with a metal arm, including security camera footage of a gravel road that Tony knew very well.  Twenty-two minutes ago Tony realized the implication of finding all of this information on SHIELD servers, and fifteen minutes ago he started getting a really bad feeling about not being able to reach Steve or Natasha.

Tony was three floors away from the garage where his suit was stored in the trunk of his car when a shudder hit the building, making Tony miss the last two steps and hit the far wall of the landing heavily. “Sir, one of the helicarriers has hit the building,” JARVIS said.  “There is an emergency exit on the first floor, evacuation is highly recommended.”

“No kidding,” Tony said under his breath. “What about my suit?”  He held tightly to the railing as the building shuddered again; there were no windows in the stair well, and the concrete walls muffled any sound coming from outside.

“Sir, it is mathematically impossible for you to reach the emergency suit before the building collapses. Evacuation is highly recommended,” JARVIS repeated with emphasis.

As Tony hit the emergency exit door at the base of the stairs, he was greeted with chaos.  Two helicarriers were tilting drunkenly in the sky, cannons and rail guns still firing at each other with a noise like thunder.  The third cast a long shadow over the grounds of the Triskelion as it fell from the sky, taking the southeast corner of the building with it in a cloud of smoke and rubble. Helicopters circled at a distance, and the air smelled of smoke and fuel as debris rained from the helicarrier battle.   “Holy shit,” Tony breathed.

“Sir, you are still not at a safe distance,” JARVIS said disapprovingly.  “Please continue to-”

“Where’s Steve?” Tony said instead.  “You said he’s on one of those things, right?”

“Captain Rogers’ position has not changed.  Sir, I cannot recommend that you-”

“JARVIS, if Steve went up against that metal armed bastard he’s going to need back up.  I’m not leaving.” Tony swung a leg over the stone balustrade that lined the patio area he was currently on and dropped down to jogging across the parking lot.  It wasn’t long before he was in the woods that lined the Potomac, trying to keep an eye on the helicarriers as he approached Steve’s last known position.

“Any updates, JARVIS?” Tony asked, cursing under his breath as he tried to make his way through the underbrush.

“Captain Rogers’ signal has moved a thousand meters south of your position,” JARVIS answered, making Tony groan.

“I don’t suppose there’s a trail or something-” Tony was yanked backwards as an arm wrapped around his throat, tight and implacable, cutting off his air. Tony’s hands came up to scrabble at the arm around his throat as the edges of his vision went dim. He spent the last of the air in his lungs trying to twist out of the grip but it was fruitless; he might as well have been fighting one of his own suits. He felt his hands drop limply to his sides as the dappled leaves of the forest went black.