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fumingspice · 4 years

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All The Things She Said

Requests are open!

Part | 1 2 3

Pairing: Lana Winters x Reader

Summary: almost caught by Lana’s husband. Dinner with mom. Brief mentions of having a bad relationship with food. Slightly irritating ending but its okay because I hate me too

There had been many close encounters. Too many to be overly confident in the situation. Her husband coming home too early during particular heated make-out sessions. Teachers passing by in cars while you walked through towns outside of your own during dates.

Weeks flew by and the rollercoaster of a relationship you had with your teacher went up and down like the waves of the ocean that you could see from your bedroom window.

The worst had come on a sunny Friday. You had taken a hard tumble on your run outside of Lana's help and you stumbled your way to her front door for some help. She gasped when she saw you.

She offered her arm to do as you limped into a kitchen and helped you to sit on her counter.

"Gosh, Y/N. This isn't a good look," she muttered, grabbing the first aid kit from one of the drawers.

You chuckled through your pain. "You're just annoyed that you can't get me on my knees." Lana raised her eyebrow and tilted your chin down to see your eyes.

"I could, still."

You shook your head. You knew Lana would never touch you like that before you left high school, the promise she had kept this far. Lana dabbed your cut-up knees and shins with cotton balls dipped in alcohol. Blood had dripped down your legs and gathered and your socks. The brunette padded your knees and taped them with some medical tape she had found. They were pretty nasty gnashes after all.

Lana wiped blood from a smaller cut on your chin and dried it. It wasn't bleeding anymore. Your arms and palms were a different story.

You had unconsciously clenched your hands while you walked through Lana's house and upon opening them realised that blood had pooled.

"Oh, baby-" Lana started, stopping herself when she realised what had come out of her mouth. She went straight to cleaning your arms and applying bandages to your other injuries.

"Did you just call me 'baby'?"

"I'm sorry, I just wasn't thinking straight."

You cocked your head at her. "I didn't think there was ever a straight thought in your head, baby."

Lana stared at you with a shocked expression.

"Too much?" You asked. You answer was a kiss as Lana pulled your legs around her waist and carried you over to her couch.

Careful not to disturb any of your injuries, Lana knelt between your legs and her tongue beckoned entrance to your mouth.

Your hands found at each other’s closed as you shift your bodies to straddle her.

Lana stripped off your running top and threw in onto the couch while you worked at the buttons on her blouse, only to be interrupted by the sound of the turning lock at the front door.

You hissed a profanity as you got your shirt back on as quickly as you could and fetched a glass of water to seem less suspicious whilst Lana tidied herself up.

“Afternoon, Lana,” her husband muttered as he strod towards her, taking her by the waist and kissing her. It almost felt as though he knew to prove something to you. Like he wanted to show you that on paper Lana was his. You bit your tongue and turned away, a pang of annoyance coursed through you as you saw Lana's lips on another, even if you knew she didn't want it. Even if you knew that he was completely cold towards her.

Oliver glared at you. "Why are you over here this time, hm?" he asked. "Isn't it a little inappropriate to be in your teacher's house so often?"

You rolled your eyes hard to keep the absolute diva inside you at bay. You turned to him and gave a coy smile. "I'm here as a neighbour," you retorted. Your heart smiled at Lana's silent chuckle. "I fell outside, and Ms. Winters cleaned me up." You motioned to the pads on your knees which were almost beginning to bleed through.

Lana shook her head at you, blushing slightly at your tone. Oliver shrugged as if your answer was satisfactory enough for him.

"I also came over because my mom wanted to know if the both of you wanted to come for dinner tomorrow night," you said. Lana's eyebrow raised as if to ask when you would stop trying to grind at Oliver. You knew rightly that he left for New York in the morning.

Oliver hummed to himself. "I'm afraid I won't be able to come, but I'm sure Lana would feel more than comfortable by herself."

Lana stared at him. "What does that even mean?"

Oliver shrugged. "Well, you're very comfortable with your student and her mother as it is. You don't need me around anyways," he said, he gripped Lana's wrist hard for a moment and released again when she winced.

Oliver stalked out of the kitchen and you stayed where you were until you hear his office door close upstairs.

Lana breathed a sigh of relief and clasped her hands to her head as you approached her with open arms. Lana lent into your embrace. “That was far too close, Y/N,” she whispered, her fingers tight around your arms. “Maybe we should stop doing that for a little while.”

You pursed your lips. You had felt Lana growing more detached for a while, worried that someone would find out before you would make it known.

Lana pressed her lips against your neck softly, laying them up to your jawline. “I like you, Y/N,” she whispered softly. “I can’t let anything bad happen.”

You shook your head to get her to stop talking. “How about you just come around tomorrow? We can watch a movie before my mom comes back. A little movie date, hm?” You played with a lock of her hair and put your forehead against hers.

Saturday morning came quickly. Your mom was still at work.

8am.

Oliver would have been gone for two hours and you had another few hours before your mom came home in the late afternoon.

You were quick to change into something comfortable and grab something to eat. Your relationship with food had been rocky for a while. Somedays you found yourself comfortable with your eating; you were careful with what you consumed out of your enjoyment for en bon santé which your mother often beamed upon, simply happy that her daughter didn’t have a constant craving for junk food. Other days however, you often found yourself over-calculating the calories in your head. It was so often a game of numbers that you were determined to win. Spitting snacks into the bin without thinking.

Lana had noticed your behaviour straight away and walked you through old tips.

“Food is not your enemy, sweetheart,” she told you as she watched you throw a napkin into a bin. One of your dates, you had got boba and waffles together.

You shrugged it off, but Lana stopped you. “You don’t get out of talking about this, Y/N,” she said. You had walked through a park and sat in the roots of a massive oak tree. You were against the tree and Lana lay between your legs with her back against your stomach.

“It’s nothing, Lana,” you said. It was true, in fairness you hadn’t thought about it as much other than a way to have a few snacks without worrying about what you were eating.

Lana propped herself up on you. “Well, no matter what it is I’m here for you to talk, and I’m not going. I was a teenager once too; I remember the pressure. But-” The brunette took your face in her hand and planted you a kiss. “-for what it’s worth, I’m so fucking proud of you.”

A knock came at your side door, followed by its opening and Lana walking in through your kitchen as you had advised.

“Hey, sweetheart,” she cooed as you strode into her arms for a hug. She planted a kiss on your forehead then stood against the counter, watching you make breakfast.

Your excitement to see your soulmate had almost made you forget that you were standing with only a crop top and shorts on. Although Lana clearly didn’t mind. “What are you staring at?” You giggled with a plate of pancakes in hand, reaching in to give Lana a quick kiss on the lips.

Lana rolled here eyes at you playfully and took your outstretched hand. “Any movies you want to watch?” You asked, smiling at the gratification you got as you felt her lace her fingers through yours.

You used your hips to force your bedroom door open, letting go of Lana’s hand for a moment to walk in. You noticed she wasn’t moving.

“Y/N, I meant what I said when I don’t want to go further than kissing you before you left school,” she said quietly.

You chuckled. “You don’t know me as well as you think. I don’t have sex in my bed. I like it too much to ruin the sheets,” you replied. Lana still looked unconvinced. “I only brought you up because I want to cuddle. In my bed. If it makes you uncomfortable, we can go to the living room with a blanket. It’s up to you, baby.”

Lana thought it over for a minute before straightening up and following you to her bed. She lay down first, and you lay down on top of her with your head between her chest and shoulder, your arm and leg draped over her body slightly.

You had chosen to watch Nine-To-Five. Brilliant movie in your opinion. Jane Fonda, Lily Tomlin, and Dolly Parton. You used to watch it all the time with your mom after she left your father. It was one of those movies from the 80’s which always made you feel on top of the world after. Or maybe that was just Jane Fonda’s general influence.

You relaxed into Lana as you felt her hand lay down on your back, tracing swirling patterns in your skin that made your heartbeat at a hundred miles on hour.

You talked during the movie. Lana told you about anymore nightmares that Oliver had stirred up for her with the divorce that seemed to be going nowhere. She had even stopped wearing her necklace unless she knew that only you would see it.

Your mom came home a few hours later, after you had changed your clothes and went downstairs to look a little less inconspicuous. Your mother seemed to the think nothing of it, but for Lana it was a different story, and you could sense it in her.

“You better not be up to what I think you’re up to, Y/N,” your mom muttered when Lana excused herself to the bathroom during dinner, looking straight at you and taking a sip of her wine.

“Which would be...?”

Mom set her glass down hard. “You know exactly what I’m talking about. She’s your teacher.”

Your mother’s ability to clock almost every single little thing never failed to amaze you.

“I’m nineteen in two weeks.”

Your mom waved. “Oh yea, sure. You’re nineteen in two weeks, that changed everything,” she muttered, her voice heavy with sarcasm. “Are you crazy?”

You debated answering that, given that it would’ve been a “yes.”

“The only reason that I’m not absolutely swinging arms with her, nor is she on my hit list, is because I saw the necklace,” she said.

“What about them?”

Your mom glared. “What do you mean, ‘what about them?’” She had a way of repeating what you said in a humorous tone when you said something silly. “I know that she’s your soulmate, Y/N. It still goes that you’re a student and she’s your teacher. Please, for both of your sakes end it for collage before one or the both of you get into trouble, hm?”

Your mom left to clean her dishes and Lana returned, your mom’s words still haunting you.

At the end of the night, your mom hugged Lana goodbye, telling her she was welcome over anytime. When your mom was visibly distracted you walked Lana outside.

“You know I could hear the conversation with your mom, right?” She spoke. You had been hoping to avoid having a conversation about this. “I don’t necessarily think she’s wrong.”

You broke away from Lana’s eyes and trained them on the ground, trying to compartmentalise her words.

“Listen, so far we’re just casual. Let’s put this to rest before something bad happens, and then as soon as your finished school I’m going to take you on a date to the nicest restaurant in the state,” she said.

“Casual,” is what she called it. You nodded your head and muttered goodnight. Lana, although noticing your behaviour, replied back, and left to her own house again.

Your mom stood in the hall. “I’m impressed,” she said. “I honestly didn’t think you would do it.”

You shrugged. “I didn’t.”

After that night, school was less enjoyable. You had even went as far as lodging a request to move to another class. You had barely been able to bring yourself to look at Lana from the sheer embarrassment. The request, to your dismay was denied and you had to face the added humiliation of Lana knowing that you had tried to leave the class and failed.

“You could at least talk to me about it,” she said when she asked you to stay behind. “You’ve barely glanced at me in the last two weeks.”

You shrugged again.

You felt like you had nothing to stay. Still stung from “casual.”

It was clearly bothering Lana, and you knew that her ego was the only thing that was keeping her composure. You knew it clearly didn’t help when Manny, the quarterback on the football team gave you a massive promposal in the cafeteria.

It was a gimmick. You’d been best friends with Manny since you were a child and he often flirted with you jokingly in class. Lana didn’t know of the extent of your friendship with him and you knew it stung her with jealousy to see the handsome, popular, insanely talented football player giving you all the attention.

Even Manny’s boyfriend, who lived in Arizona, teased you about the joke flirting.

You turned around, noticing Lana’s eyes fall when you looked at her.

You accepted, and boy were you in for it with Lana now.

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dreamiesdotcom · 3 years

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you've been fooled! | p.js

Summary: There's something about coffee, breathless moments, and watching memories of the many April 1st you've shared that makes it so hard to resist.

Word Count: 2.1k

You've always been fine with being alone. Being alone afforded you silence, and that's all that you need to have the illusion of peace of mind. That's why months before entering this school, you considered it your mission to not get too much attention on you — if possible, none at all.

Only that it fails the moment you step in, an angel-faced boy asking you if God sent you to this school to guide him.

'No, my parents are the one who sent me here and it's so that I can get an education, not babysit kids.' You politely said, and now you can't even count how many people keep on praising you for doing that! How rare is it to see someone tell others to leave them alone? You swore that one more person trying to talk to you when you're trying to have a sandwich and you're —

"New kid?" a voice rings from behind you, and you turn your head back a little so you could see who's speaking. He grimaces a bit. "Oh, Y/N from the rival school, huh. I've heard fun things about you."

...perfect. Now, you can forget your mission and die.

Your day instantly glooms, and you turn back to your meal. All your plans of starting fresh has just been washed away, and you take an angry bite off your sandwich before someone completely ruins lunch for you.

"If it's about that video, leave me alone."

Silence.

"Donghyuck! Oh God, I'm so sorry..." suddenly comes another boy, slightly panting as he pats the mean one's shoulder a little too harshly. His eye-smile makes it a little better.

"Hyuck's not trying to be mean, he just speaks like that. 'm so sorry!!!"

You squint at him, skeptical.

"Oh, I meant when you told Jaemin to back off when he tried to flirt with you on the hallways." Ah, that. What a fresh start, huh?

Said Donghyuck scratches his nape, looking sheepish as he takes the seat beside you. "Did I sound like I was picking a fight again?"

You chuckle to yourself. That probably explains the cut on his lips pretty well.

"Yeah, you kinda did. Sorry, bro, but I would've slapped you."

"What a way to spend your first day, then." He rolls his eyes, motions for his friends to move tables, who does with little hesitation, "Welcome to this hell hole! It's not the best, but it's as good as Satan's den could be."

You laugh, but you quickly notice curious stares directed at you. The person in front of you smiles shyly and looks away when you meet gazes, and honestly, you don't know how you went from there to a year later, Park Jisung shamelessly holding out a drink at your direction.

"Just drink it, it's iced chocolate! I made it myself!"

"That's nice, Sung... but I only drink coffee." you warily smile, "I don't like sweet things."

The sly smirk Renjun sends you from the other side of the table only encourages your little act, and it takes you all the self-control you could muster to not crack up then and there. Of course, you know what day it is. Of course, you're not gonna fall for his antics, nor the kicked-puppy expression he wears as he insists, "Liar! You live for sweets!"

But, you must admit that it did make you waver.

"No? I like strongly flavored stuff, Sungie," you point out with a grimace. Just for show, you point to Jaemin's cup beside you. "Like this: Nana's coffee, really bitter and strong. This is what I like."

Chenle holds in his laughter. "Since you made it yourself, why don't you just drink it?"

Jisung's eyes widen, "What? No!"

"Drink, Sungie!" comes in chants, alongside multiple repeated versions of 'Jisung! Jisung!' seems to hit something much like his pride, and he lifts it with an expression not suitable for the situation; he looked way too afraid of the chocolate drink. Everyone's holding in their giggles as they watch Jisung grimace and take a gulp out of the cup, trying to play cool even though he chokes not even moments later. Your smile widens.

The salt must be a nice twist.

What a classic, huh? Donghyuck grins, Cheshire and smug, and then he claps.

"Happy April Fool's day, everyone! Park Jisung has fooled himself!"

###

No way in the world are the only words circulating in your head as you pace around, and it's not at all helping. You heave a big sigh only to hiss at him, "What do you mean 'no pranks this year'?"

He shrugs and flops down his bed, "You know we're running out of ideas since Christmas."

"Oh," you widen your eyes, dropping down next to him with your palms covering your face in disappointment. You peek through your fingers, "This is bad."

The plastic stars you've plastered on his ceiling together with Renjun look sickly green at the moment and everything feels out of place. After all, what is April 1st without pranks? What's gonna happen now? You thrash around the bed. You muffle a scream and just hope that he'd open his mouth and come up with something.

"Hey, what about we go on a date as a prank?"

And as usual, his mouth is better off closed.

"Is this your way of flirting, or is this your way of asking me out?"

Jisung makes a confused sound, "What? It's gonna make them freak out, what do you mean?"

"Are you acting out on your feelings or do you actually think that's a good idea?" you take your hands off your face, sitting up and then shrugging at him, "Lines blurred."

"Err. Could be a prank, I guess..." he follows suit, sitting cross-legged in front of you. He smiles, "Unless... you want it to be a real date?'

"Dude, I don't know. When did you get this confidence? Years ago you were stuttering around me." You huff, not knowing where this conversation is going, but a flush creeps on your cheeks. You look down on your fingers as you mumble out the next words, "But if it is... well, sure. I'll go on a real date with you."

You didn't know what falling in love felt like, but in the middle of his room, something felt way too raw and surreal. What is it that says so much about him? Is it the plastic stars? The globe laying on his desk? The map taped at the side of the room? The way dull blue paints his walls, or the way constellations speckle his eyes? Maybe it's the yellow hoodie he's wearing? You don't know which, but right now, something feels strange — something in the scent of cinnamon and cocoa and shades of yellows and blues just feels unabashedly Jisung, and somehow, you just thought that it must be like this.

It should be legal to feel this good.

"Ha! You're kissing, aren't you— oh..."

You both startle to look at where the door swings open, everyone in your friend group standing behind an accusing Jaemin, each one of them looking at him with the eyes of murder. You crack up a laugh, falling over the bed laughing; alone is slightly less entertaining of a thought when you have friends.

"Aish, Na Jaemin —" Jisung groans, standing up while clapping at the older. "Happy April Fool's, you've fooled yourself."

###

Knees pressed together, head down low, eyes closed, mind empty. Anguished and cold.

"But I've tried my best...." you dejectedly whisper, holding the paper in your hands that said 'Second' in silver delicate swirls. You look up to her with hopeful eyes, "All I need is a chance, mom. You see, Renjun's really good at that subject, he could help me—"

"Those friends again! 'You see', this is why you didn't make it as top of your class!"

"It's... it's one subject, mom. If I try harder, I can —" you scramble to explain, chasing after her as she moves up the stairs. "You're... mom, you're not taking me away, aren't you?"

The despair in your tone doesn't even shake her. "One day. Go have your fun, and then we'll leave. I'll ask your brother to focus on you more."

"Mom, no! We said that if I study well here, I won't have to leave!" you reason out. "I really like it here, and I have important people here, and I'm trying hard. We agreed that I'd get to stay if I don't cause trouble, and mom— mom, no, listen!"

"That's my choice. It's for the betterment of your academics—"

"But what about the betterment of my life? What about my choice, mom?" you hate the way you feel so weak and your voice cracks, but through the blur of fears and your unshed tears, you croak out, "What about me?"

Anguished and cold. So cold, freezing. So loved and all on your own.

"Last time you made a choice, you shamed yourself and this family. You don't deserve your freedom, Y/N." She grimaces. The memory fills your gut with guilt, "And look at you, answering back at your own mother! It's those friends, isn't? They've ruined you more than you've already ruined yourself!"

Quickly enough, the remorse is gone and anger floods you. How dare she?! You look up to her in disbelief, "This is about you ruining my trust, mother. Not them."

"The boy, then." she muses, and it's where you decide that there's no changing her mind. "Love, Y/N, will get you nowhere at the moment."

But it's what kept me alive until now.

You inhale sharply at your thoughts. How does one make forever out of a day?

Maybe you can walk every street, every corner. That date you and Jisung never got to go to, you could do that too because heaven knows how much you wanted that. Maybe you can go take them anywhere, somewhere, and waste away. Maybe you could fall asleep staring at the stars, sharing your dreams, and maybe, just maybe, time wouldn't matter. Better yet, maybe you can change your mother's mind.

Maybe if you just try again, this time much fiercer although you've always been the fiercest, it might be possi—it's impossible. You realize it's impossible as you look out the car windows, watching the city change landscapes in blurs.

Maybe it's really just a different kind of heartbreak to be doing all that you could and still not get the results you wanted. More than it proved that now is not your time again, it also made you feel like a failure. Like you're lacking, insufficient. Never enough.

But you really, really thought you could stay. You hoped.

"Happy April Fool's..." you whispered to no one but yourself, meeting your mother's gaze as she smiles at you through the rearview mirror. You lean your head to the glass, eyes closed and mumbling under your breath, smiling on your own, "I've fooled myself."

And just like that, you were alone again.

###

"Good Morning, may I take your order?"

You press your lips in a thin line as you hear the muffled voice, phone in between your shoulders and ear as you search for your pouch somewhere around your bag. Hurriedly, you muster up your words, "Oh, yes, good Morning too! Just one Iced Americano, please—"

That voice... who?

Looking up, your heartbeat halts, and you try not to look so stunned, something you miserably failed. At least, that's what you read in his amused expression. You stay in silence as you wait for him to finish up your drink, carefully pushing your card towards him as you take your drink from his hold.

"I... I see you're still helping Yongie, huh?" you smile softly, hesitant. "Thank you, Jisung."

Flashbacks, sweet smiles, children at play every day of the year no matter how old — free. When was the last time you've missed such freedom?

He returns the favor, that saccharine expression, and you drag yourself out of the place before you decide to do something stupid. Why is it so easy to see the past years when you're watching it flash by through his eyes?

Standing outside the Cafe wistfully, you look at your cup, tracing over his messy handwriting of your name, basking on the nostalgia of seeing the same hastily written letters that somewhere in time occupied most of your cards, notebooks, and journals. A fond chuckle leaves your lips as you read the post-it note attached.

Happy April Fool's day!

I thought I'd give you hell once you come back for leaving, but well, Park Jisung's fooled himself, huh? My number's still the same. Let's talk sometime soon.

I missed you.

#nct dream #nct dream imagines #nct dream x reader #nct dream blurbs #nct dream drabbles #nct dream oneshots #jisung #jisung x reader #jisung timestamps #park jisung blurbs #jisung drabbles #jisung imagines

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angelisverba · 5 years

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so precious, if only you knew

in which y/n thinks her brother’s best friend sees her as a little sister, and Jason, her brother’s best friend, thinks she’s too cute for her own good.

word count: 9k give or take some :D

pairing: y/n, and her brothers best friend, Jason (from the snl skit)

notes: inspired by project x. that’s all.

When Jason and his friends were in their freshman year of high school, they made a pact.

To have a party.

A party so big, everyone got laid. A party so big, celebrities came. A party so big, the police feared it.

One where they would loose their virginity. Get drunk so they couldn’t remember how they lost it (although, now it’s too late ‘cause none of them are virgins). And maybe, just maybe, participate in the illegal consumption of illegal substances such as drugs and or alcohol.

At the time of their promise, it was unknown if this party would be any sort of celebration, or just for the hell of it. The four, gangly, skinny, face-full-of-acne, boys had been so fueled by the simple idea that they just had to make their party so legendary future alumni could only imagine imitating an ordeal as great as the one they created. As time passed, they argued over who’s birthday, or what holiday would be the cause of, as it had come to be named, G.C.B.B. Get Crunk and Bone Babes. Pronounced gee-sea-babe, because somehow the two b’s had morphed into ‘babe’. GCBabe, in the end, was endowed to Jason when he made a bet that he would score the winning touchdown and win the league for his high school during his junior year. Andrew and Kent, slightly peeved but more relieved that they had a reason to celebrate (they’d settled on Jason’s birthday), and had shifted their focus to the hows, when, wheres, and whats of the situation.

This was the only thing they ever talked about the closer it got to the date, Feburary 1st, and everything they did revolved around spreading the word, obtaining booze, weed, and whatever else they planned on having. Andrew, who’s uncle so conveniently ran a radio station, not only announced a message himself on said radio station, but also convinced his uncle’s dj coworkers to email any celebrities they knew.

Kent, more on the brainy side of things, was working on the booze and drugs. He snuck into the school and used that machine they had to make student id’s and created a fake state id for himself. He would buy booze in a store where workers didn’t know him. Maybe drive 30 minutes to the next town for beer and the lot. His cousin had told him not to worry about weed and the sorts, as long as he received payment.

Jason, ever the spoiled brat, would pay for everything. Even if it was his birthday.

No, no, because it was his birthday.

The thing is, his parents were going out of town to celebrate their anniversary, which just so happened to fall on Jason’s birthday (what a wonderful gift to Jason’s dad), and had given him a generous sum of money to make up for the fact that they wouldn’t be there to celebrate his 18th birthday party. So, he had the house, the money, and the birthday to celebrate.

“YOU’VE HEARD IT ONCE BEFORE, AND YOU’LL HEAR IT AGAIN TILL THE END OF THIS SCHOOL’S TIME,” yelled Andrew, who stood on the back of a golf cart, megaphone in hand while Jason and Kent drove him up and down the lunch tables, “PARTY AT FUCKING JASON’S HOUSE, THIS SATURDAY. MISS IT, AND YOU’LL DIE.”

“Andrew!”

The cart came to a stop in front of a very disgruntled-looking y/n, Andrew’s sister. She stood comically, with her hands bunched up into tiny fists at her hips, lips in a frown at her brothers actions. “Are you trying to cause a riot? Miss it or die,” she mocked, pulling a funny face and cocking her hip to the side as she does so, “Yeah, think I’d rather die, thanks. Now shut up and put that cart back before they take away your senior privileges.”

Kent laughs, and Jason, leaning with his forearms crossed on top of the steering wheel, snickered into his wrists.

“Well, I’ve got news for you sissy,” said Andrew, his tongue poking out at her playfully, “Coach Barnwell let us borrow his cart, and all the snitch staff is in a meeting, so I’m not gonna get into trouble,” He makes and L with his forefinger and thumb, pressing it on his forehead, “Loser. Now, scram. Go study for chem or... something.”

Y/n laughed at her brother, knowing that he was only joking with her, and flipped him off. She walked away with, as Andrew said, her chem book tucked underneath her arm, and shut herself in a little nook at the library for the remainder of the lunch period. Away from the ‘get crunk and bone babes’ nonsense, god knows she heard enough of it at home. Jason this, and GCBabe that. Sheesh, it was terrible. All she ever wanted to do was study and do her homework in peace... and maybe steal a few glances and Jason here and there.

But we don’t have to talk about that. What y/n really needed to do, was study for the chem test she had on Friday. Tomorrow. She was the best in her class, always raising her hand to answer a question, but for whatever reason, she just couldn’t get the hand of stoichiometry if she didn’t have a sample problem in front of her. She didn’t want to have to, but grades mattered, so all day she had been thinking of way to cheat. How to write what she needed. Which letters to shorten. Where to hide the slip of paper.

She’d done it before.

Cheat on a test, that is. The pressure there was to ensure good grades, well it was an insurmountable force. Her entire life, her parents told her academic success led to success in life, and you don’t want to end up homeless under the bridge do you, y/n?

She didn’t. It was her biggest fear. Studying hard for a nice home and car, and enough money to support herself and her kids was a constant thought in the back of her mind.

It’s because of this that the tip of her nose was always stuck in a book, her fingers always wrapped around a pencil that transcribed notes in her neat writing. It was all she knew.

Because it was all she knew. It was no surprise to her parents when she pulled all-nighters to study for tests. Or when she declined offers to eat dinner out because ‘mom, I have a test to study for’ or ‘dad, i really need to finish this essay’. That night, was no different. Y/n stayed up to study, her thumb pink because of all the pages she was flipping through. Her wrist her from forcing her writing to be as small as it could, so she could fit all she could on an index card she cut in half.

In the morning, Andrew cheered a loud, “WHOOP! WHOOP! MY SISTER ISN’T SUCH A GOODY TWO SHOES AFTER ALL!” when he saw her place the card up her shirtsleeve after she put her seat belt on. Y/n, had she had the energy, would’ve pushed his shoulder, but instead chose to take a nap during the measly 15 minutes it took to get to school. Her head jostled against the headrest with the cars movements, and she almost cried because she couldn’t doze off. Somewhere along the way, she felt fingers against the side of her face, cradling her head. She jumped, startled, but she heard Andrew say,

“Relax, its Jason. Picked him up cause he needed a ride to school.” and she was out like a light.

Andrew got out of the car once he parked, and Jason circled around the passenger seat so he leaned over the console, with his palm still on the other side of her face. He rubbed up and down her forearm to wake her, murmuring, “We’re here, y/n. S’time to wake up.”

Y/n woke up disoriented, starting with a deep breath and her eyes blinking open slowly, looking around and landing on Jason, who was smiling at her tenderly. She smiles back at him, tilting her head to the side as she does so. She hopes he can’t hear how fast her heart is beating.

“Good morning,” she said to him. The warning bell rings not long after that, and she turns away from him to reach for her backpack. Jason grabs his own backpack, too, swinging it over his should and stepping out of Andrew’s car. Andrew stands at the front of the car, texting someone on his phone while he waits for Jason and his little sister to step out.

“C’mon guys. Big day today!” yelled Andrew. It seemed as if he was always yelling. His voice, ebullient and clear, held an electrifying energy today, amplifying itself to the max. He whooped and hollered, locking his car carelessly and comically skipping away, but not before turning back and blowing a kiss in Jason’s general direction, yelling, “This is for you, big boy!”

Y/n snickered at her brother, and at Jason’s shocked face. “That was for you, big boy,” she repeated after he brother.

“You forgot the kiss,” he said, pouting and pointing his chin down at the floor. Her heart doubled over in her chest, and she struggled to contain her swoon.The little 13 year old in her, having been the first time she ever felt anything for Jason, squealed like a banshee, and the rational 17 year old in her, shushed her by taping her mouth closed. Having seen Jason’s blonde, skinny, cheerleader girlfriends, she knew it would never happen. Jason was only nice to her because she was his best friend’s little sister.

That was all she’d ever be.

“Oh I have no doubt you’ll get plenty of those tomorrow,” she said, waving her hand dismissively. When she noticed the groups of students getting smaller and smaller, she started walking away, eager to get to class and not be late. She’s only taken three steps when Jason calls out her name.

“I know you’ll do great on your test today,” and he has the goofiest smile on his stupidly handsome name and y/n just wants to go over there and slap him for making her heart to pirouettes.

“Thank you,” she said, and turned to walk to her class.

Jason felt as if he was in one of those indie movies. But, the ones from the 80′s. Ironically, he’s leaned up against the car, one foot propped up, hand clenching the singular strap he wore on his left shoulder. Entranced, he stared after y/n as she walked away, brows dipped over his eyes and his leg bouncing jitterishly.

When he was 16, a sophomore, and she a freshman, he’d stumbled upon her on a rainy spring day. He’d been on his way home from his (now ex) girlfriend’s house, and she was huddled underneath a large birch tree, the canopy thick enough so she wasn’t getting wet, but the winds strong enough that she was chilled to the bone. Her knees were banged up, and her ankle was twisted. Jason remembers asking her what happened, and she said nothing, instead jumping into his arms when he knelt down beneath her. He remember hissing because she was so cold, her clothes soaked through. She’d whispered to him a weak don’t tell my parents, please take me to your house, and he did. He took her to his house, carrying her because the poor thing had to hop on one foot. This was around the time he was bulking for wrestling, so he didn’t have a hard time lifting her and carrying her the rest of the way.

She fell asleep on his bed wearing a pair of his sweatpants and his hoodie after she took a warm shower. They never talked about. Not even once. But Jason swears that every once in a while, the skin of his neck still burns where she pressed a kiss to it after he got in bed next to her because she was ‘still cold’.

Since then, Jason harbored feelings for her. His yearning of her dainty hands to press against his chest while she cuddled into him was squashed every time he heard Andrew yell at another guy in the locker room for sexualizing his sister.

It was a dangerous game he played. Sneaking looks at her in car rides to and from school. Wanting to kiss her like he did then. And when she wore plaid school girl skirts, he wanted to press her up against the wall and hold her by the throat while his tongue snaked into her mouth. All while he sat next to Andrew.

He knew that one day, he’d say fuck it all and do it. He wasn’t an idiot. His back burned when she stared a him from her kitchen isle while he played video games with Kent and Andrew in the living room of her house. He knew every little thing she tried to pass as discreet, because he did the same thing too.

One day, and one day soon, he’d say fuck. it. all.

Y/n was very nervous.

Well, she always get nervous when she’s getting ready to take a test but, today was different. She was on edge, leg bouncing and head pounding. She was stressed. Her english teacher had assigned a paper that was due at midnight, and her math teacher had given her a surprise quiz she knows she failed. And this test was her chance to bring her B+ to an A-. Not to mention, if she got caught, she’d be sent up to the office with a referral.

“You have until the end of class to complete this exam. If you fail to complete before the class period, you will be granted five minutes after the bell. You may begin,” the teacher, Mrs. Prowe, sat down after the little announcement, and turned her full attention to an adult coloring book she had set up on her desk.

Y/n stared at the first question for a solid 2 minutes before any of the information actually sunk in. To which does He belong? a. metals b. metalloids c. non-met....

The first few questions are always easy. Review from past chapters, all of which y/n understood. The first page, front and back, were a breeze. She bubbled in circled on her answer sheet without hesitation. The back side, however, was a different story.

Her palms began to sweat at the sight of brackets and subscripts on letters. Her pencil started slipping. Y/n’s heart started to race, the edges of her eyes blurring. Don’t cry, don’t cry. Fuck. The note card. She took it out with no second thoughts. Within seconds, she had finished the first problem. It was almost exactly like the example exercise she had copied down, only the letters had been changed; different elements. Halfway through the period, the teacher announced how much time was left, and y/n was nearly done.

On the last page, however, was one problem she knew she wouldn’t get. It was one of what the teacher called ‘irregulars’, because you needed to follow certain rules that pertained to the elements or whatever the heck it was. She stared at the paper with her eyebrows raised, and all the dreadful feelings she had felt before tumbled back. Her pencil began to slip, her eyes began to blur. Shit, shit.

The bell rang. She didn’t want to doddle any longer, cut she needed to answer this last problem, and she didn’t fucking know how. Her leg was near violently shaking, the table quivering with her movements. Her breathing grew tight, and she figured, she could lose one point. Knowing Mrs. Prowe it wouldn’t matter because that last one is most likely worth half the test. Y/n felt herself go rigid, body nearly frozen as she walked against student traffic to place her test on the teachers desk.

She was the last to exit the classroom. She did so with her head hung low, her feet dragging slowly on the tiles. Lips trembling, fighting to hold back tears.

That was how she bumped into Jason. Shoulders drooping and eyes shining wet. She bumped into his chest so hard, she would’ve fallen back if he didn’t catch her.

“Y/n?” He asked after he stumbled back a bit. He’d seen her coming, and he was looking at her, ready to smile when she looked up, but she hadn’t. “What’s wrong?” He followed her gaze to try and make eye contact with her, but she shifted her eyes to the floor, and let the tears slip.

“Y/n? Y/n? Hey, look at me,” Jason’s voice was desperate and panicked because he wasn’t really sure what was wrong. Y/n started to curl in on herself, her hands coming to clutch opposite shoulders. When she didn’t look up at him, Jason gingerly lifted her chin up with his curled forefinger. “What is it?”

“It’s too much. I-I,” was all she managed to whisper before she started crying, she body swaying with sobs. Y/n knew, she knew she was crossing the same lines she had that rainy spring day, but she needed to feel her arms around him. She needed to feel secure.

So,

she took one step forward, and wrapped her arms around his neck awkwardly, Not a full millisecond passed, when she felt his arms encompass her, a secure bind around her waist. His chin propped on her head, on his hands rubbing up and down her back, and she had her face tucked into his neck.

“S’okay, y/n. You’re okay,” He cooed into her ear, making ssh-ssh noises every now and then.

Slowly but surely, y/n felt herself come down from the self-destructive place she put herself in; the knot in her throat untangled. She began to retract her arms from Jason’s neck, when his arms tightened around her. She stilled, unsure of what to do.

For a second, Jason had forgotten his situation. Why he couldn’t get close to her. He was so close to saying fuck-it-all. He wasn’t sure what held him back. Maybe it was her teary eyes. Or the fact that a teacher had come out of their classroom. But, he cleared his throat and pulled away from her, stuffing his hands in his letterman jacket to avoid reaching out to wipe the tears from her cheeks.

“Sorry about that,” she said, sniffing and attempting to laugh to brush off the back that she had a mini-breakdown in his arms. “I-”

“It’s okay, y/n. Don’t apologize. I just want to to know what had you so upset,” Jason said, his words coming out slowly to make sure that she truly understood how much he meant them.

“It’s just,” she sighed, “school. It’s a lot.”

He scoffed, “I bet. You do so much. More than you give yourself credit for, I think. Deserve a break.”

“This weekend; s’gonna be my break. Yours too, no? Are you excited?” She confessed, turning the other way and beginning to walk. She was sure that Andrew was waiting for them at the car. Jason walked alongside her, as soon as she started moving.

“Yeah. It’s been all me, Kent, and Andrew have wanted since freshman year.” Jason stops talking for a minute, and scrunches one side of his face.

“But?” Y/n prods. Looking at him out of the corner of her eye. He scratched the back of his neck, and his jacket inflates where his bicep flexes. Jason notices her looking, and smiles at her while giving her a side-eye look. Blushing, she turns her face straight forwards, like that didn’t just happen.

“But, some of the novelty has worn off if I’m being honest.” When she hums, almost knowingly, he adds quickly, “Don’t tell Andrew or Kent I said that.”

She giggled, and murmured, “You’ve kept my secrets, I’ll keep yours.”

Jason, surprised at her subtle acknowledgement of what happened nearly 2 years ago, turns to look at her, shocked. He wants to say something. Anything to get her to say more, but he sees Andrew and shuts his gaping mouth.

“There you are- hey, y/n, are you okay?” Andrew’s chesire cat grin drops from his face when he sees that his little sister’s face is splotchy and swollen red from past tears- a look he recognizes all to well from the times she’d come into his room in the middle of the night asking to be held.

“I’m good,” she smiled at her brother, a sad smile that revealed she wasn’t okay, but didn’t wanna talk about it. “Let’s go home.”

Their ride was full of quick gibber and banter over tomorrow. How thing would go down, who they hoped to see and, in Andrew’s words, fuck. What music they would play, etc. etc. Y/n laughed at their enthusiasm under her breath. As much as she loved her brother, he could be such an idiot sometimes

They dropped Jason off at his house, which was being prepped by Kent by the looks of it. His car- a red corolla- was parked in Jason’s strip of a driveway. Andrew promised he’d be joining them later that night, and pulled out.

He pulled the windows up, and turned the music off. Then, he said,

“Y/n, what happened?” Andrew, as much as he was a fuckboy an party animal, cared about his sister if he cared about anything at all. Maybe a little too much.

Pushing air past her lips, “I’m fine now, Andy. I promise. That stupid chem test really had me going, that’s all.”

“Are you sure, y/n? No one was bothering you?” Andrew looked at her quickly, hesitantly turning away from her to look at the road.

“Andy, I’m okay.” She reassured her brother.

Jason wasn’t a bother.

Saturday morning, y/n woke up to an eerily quiet house.

A difference to the pasts months. She’d gotten used to Andrew yelling ‘GET CRUNK BONE BABES!” all over the house. Hell, their parents knew of the entire party ordeal, and were quite skeptical about it. Knowing their son, they didn’t try to stop him, they just told him time and time again to ‘be safe, Andrew.’ So many nights he had come home excited and drunk, and shown them videos on his phone of what had occurred at whoever’s house he’d been at before

Their dad, in fact, had watched the videos with amazement, and never bashed on anything other than the fact that he shouldn’t be drinking when he wasn’t the appropriate age for it yet. Y/n and Andrew were lucky to have such laid-back and relaxed parents that focused much more on safety and well-being rather than the semantics of it.

As y/n crept down the stairs in her silky pj’s (a christmas gift from her 26-year old aunt who liked to shop at Victoria’s Secret), the murmurs of her parents in the kitchen became louder and louder.

“Heard it on the radio, for godsakes,” said her mother, laughing as she stirred whatever liquid she had in her mug.

“I wonder if Jason’s parents know, about the whole thing,” said her dad, his back was to her, facing his wife.

“They must, I mean, it’s the only thing these boy’s have wanted since they started high school, Jason proba- oh hey, y/n!” Her mom smiled wide when she saw her step off the last stair. At the mention of his daughter’s name, her dad turns around, and y/n can see that he has a mug in his hand too.

“Good morning,” y/n croaked, her voice froggy early in the morning.

“Big day today, no?” Her dad teased.

“I guess so,” she murmured, taking a seat on the kitchen counter and drumming her knuckles on it. Her mother makes her a small plate of what was left over from their breakfast, eggs, bacon, and a slice of toast with jelly. Picking up the slice of toast, she takes a small bite out of it and pulls out her phone from her back pocket, and starts scrolling through her social medias. It consists of people’s dogs, food, photos of Brad Pitt, and....

Her brother had posted a snap from the night before. A short video, not even 3 seconds long. Jason heading into one of the rooms in his large house, with a girl trailing behind him. She wore shorts that barely covered the swell of her butt, and a bikini top. It was captioned crudely: pre-birthday head for the birthday boy.

“Y/n?” Her dad, or maybe her mom, she didn’t know. Her stomach started twisting, a sour taste settled in the back of her mouth. A weird underwater filter covered her ears, making it seem as if her head was underneath the water, and her parents were speaking to her from above the surface.

Forcing a smile onto her face, she hummed a response, not taking her eyes off her phone screen. It was weird, the feeling that overcame her when she spotted Jason with another girl. Every time, the same thing. Nausea on her tongue, a heat covering the back of her neck and ears, and a dreadful feeling settleling in the pit of her stomach.

“So, you’re going tonight then?” One of her parents asked.

Taking a few seconds to think, taking into consideration what she could be doing instead of watching Jason....”No, I don’t think so.” Her voice is sure, and strong, loaded with finality.

A load clink of ceramic against marble echoes in the kitchen. She looks up from her phone then, placing it on the counter face down. Her mother was staring at her with her lips pressed together in a hard line. “And why not?”

“Because a party isn’t my scene, mom.” Y/n responds tentatively, alarmed at her mothers hard and inquisitive tone. Her dad stood quietly watching the interaction, stepping to the side to that there was nothing on between y/n’s line of vision.

“And how would you know that if you’ve never been to the one. You’re brother loves them! And I think that you need this break. Andrew told me what happened yesterday. You need to let loose, y/n.” Her mother argued, her words going from agitated to coaxing. “Go to this party.”

“No.” y/n said, looking at her mother straight inn the eyes. She didn’t want to go. She wanted to spend a calm night at home,, all cozy in her blankets with a book, and not having to look at Jason with a pain in her chest.

“Fine,” said her mother, taking her phone out of her pocket.

“Thank you,” responded y/n, relieved. Her dad nodded, and opened his mouth to speak, when her mom said,

“If you don’t go, Andrew can’t either.”

Both y/n and her dad gasp. Her mom was lifting her phone up to her ear, the dial tone ringing in the room.

“N-no, you can’t do that! Andrew’s gonna be so upse-”

“Hello? Andrew? I’m doing good sweetie, uh, listen. Your sister doesn’t want to go to the party, so you can’t go either. However, if YOU MANAGE TO CONVINCE THEN YOU CAN GO,” Y/n’s mom’s voice raises to cover her brother’s protests, “THAT’S FINAL. GOODBYE.” Yn’s mom hangs up the phone and places it next to the kitchen sink.

Not even a full second later, while y/n stares mortifies at her mom and dad, her phone starts to blare the theme song to The Simpsons, the ringtone for her brother.

She picks it up with her jaw still dropped. She answered the phone.

“Y/n! Y/n, PLEASE. WHAT’S GOING ON? PLEASE COME TO THIS PARTY, Y/N, DON’T DO THIS TO ME, Y/N...” her brother’s voice fills the room even when she doesn’t have him on speaker. he’s begging her, his voice truly distraught.

She knows she has no other option that to agree. She couldn’t do that to her brother, not when it’s the only thing he’s talked about for the past month. She wasn’t mean enough to do that to him.

“... FOR TWO WEEKS. I’LL DO ANYTHING, PLE-”

“OKAY! I’ll go, fuck,” Y/n yelled back, exasperated and defeated. She pinched the bridge of her nose, and stares down at her plate, not bearing to look at her mom and dad.

“Thank you! Oh my god, thank you. I’ll pick you up at 5, so-”

Y/n hung up on him. Glared at her mom, and the went to mope until 5 in her bedroom.

Somewhere along the line, moping turned into pre-party prep. She turned her speaker up all the way, and sang at the top of her lungs. Y/n was going in with the mentality of drinking and keeping to herself. Observing, or locking herself in on of the rooms and fall asleep. She was dreading it, but wouldn’t deprive her brother of this because it meant so much to him.

Her parents tried coming in several times, and every time she refused to open her door.

Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad, she thought to herself, I’ve got this.

Once it got closer to 5, she put in some jeans and her favorite t-shirt. A faded purple short-sleeve with a smokey image of Prince on it. She totally didn’t wear it because every time she wore it, Jason complimented her on it.

It was 4:57 when Andrew knocked on her door.

“Y/n, y/n, y/n, my sister whom I love so much, can you please-“ he’s knocking rapidly on her door, and y/n throws on a green knit sweater at last minute before opening the door, and her brother knocks right on her eye.

“Ow!” She helps, the hand that wasn’t holding her shoulder bag reaching up to cover her eye. Andrew gasped, and started to repeatedly apologize.

“I’m so-“

Y/n, irritated and upset, held up her palm and shook her head. “Just shut it. Please.” Andrew tried saying something, and y/n just pushed past him, staring ahead coldly, “lets go.”

Her previous attitude about this party had returned. She was mad and couldn’t be more bothered to attend. A tiny part, deep in her heart, ached and pulsed wildly. She wasn’t really sure how the night would end, and she didn’t like that. She wanted to know that by 10, she’d be falling asleep after a bubble bath, or reading a book safely in her bed.

Not drinking and partying with nobody she knew (none of her friends-the little she had- were going). And she was damn sure that Andrew wouldn’t stick around the entire night. No, he’d be eager to be at all places at once, included in all the action. All. The. Action.

They walked to Andrew’s car in silence, she strutting and fuming with attitude, and he, with his head bowed and cowering like a shunned puppy. Sure, he was older, bigger, taller, buffer than y/n, but when she was mad, he became a scurrying mouse who bent at her command. Not because she was mean or anything like that, but because Andrew loved her and he wanted to see her with a smile, and he figured listening to her was the first step.

So, he shut the fuck up, and followed behind her, listening closely in case she ordered something else. To clarify, y/n didn’t order. She said things. But Andrew (again) loved her and took those sayings very seriously. It wasn’t like she was the Wicked Witch of the West with a whip in her hand. It was more like she was a disappointed mother, and he her kid who loved his mom and didn’t want her to be upset at him anymore. Their dynamic was like that.

Not even a full 10 minutes later, Andrew was pulling into Jason’s driveway, and pulling into his six-car garage, next to Kent’s car. Pulling the key out of the ignition, he sat for a moment, not turning to look at his sister.

He didn’t have to.

Without glancing at him, she said, “I want a margarita... please.” Then, she turn to look at him with a tiny smile; a piece offering. She’s forgiven him. And she has. Well, she wasn’t angry at him to begin with, but her irritation is gone.

Andrew laughed, his head thrown back and his ha, ha, ha’s bellowing. “Yes, ma’am. Strawberry or Mango?”

“Both.” Y/n opens the door to the car, and walks through the garage door that leads to the house. The doorway opens into the kitchen, where Kent and Jason are seated on the kitchen isle, a blunt mid-pass from Jason to Kent.

She stops in her tracks, eyes wide at the smell, and the smoke exiting in grey ropes out of Jason’s lips. Andrew pushes past her like nothing, and opens the steel fridge to look for fruit. Jason grins, a slow and lazy spread of his spit-slicked lips. Kent coughs after he inhales.

“Hellooo y/n,” Jason sing-song’s, drawing out her name and laughing. Kent snickered.

“Long time to,” Kent makes a c-shape with his hand, “see,” and bursts out laughing.

“Gimme some of that, dickheads.” Andrew makes a ‘come here’ motion with his fingers.

Y/n fakes a gasp, and hoists herself up onto the counter. She’s been surprised, and a tiny part of her itches because marijuana is a drug, but she can’t really do anything to stop them. They’re half gone and if she said something, she was a party pooper. Tucking her legs underneath herself, she takes a long look at Jason’s kitchen. She’s been in it plenty of times before, when his mom invites her and her brother other for dinner, or breakfast. She’s even helped prepare meals.

But it never gets old.

It always look bright, the lights on the ceiling shine in a way that fills the space, and the reflection off the cream marble glint against the steely surfaces of all the appliances. Toaster, fridge, sink, stove, all a grey color. There was an oven built into the wall, and another right next to it to cook pizza or bread. The kitchen isle in the middle was 7 steps long (she counted once) and 4 steps wide. There was a stove on the counter, and a sink next to it. Jason sat next to the stove, and Kent in the alcove that stretched and transformed into the sink up against the wall.

“... bringing booze and 6, and says he’s got Snopp Dog as DJ. Ben is on back up DJ, or alternate if Snopp wants to.” Kent says, coughing and waving a hand in front of his hand as he does so. Y/n’s ears perk up at his revelation, and her head turns in a peculiar motion.

“Wait, wait, did you say Snoop Dog?” She says, the top half of her body leaning forward. Andrew looks up from his task at the blender, dunking in cut strawberries with ice.

“You heard right, sissy. Snoop Dog!” whooped Andrew, pumping his arm in the air.

“Jesus Christ,” Y/n murmured underneath her breath, shaking her head.

“Raise your hand if you’re staying to fix this place up tomorrow,” said Jason, lifting both of his arms up in the air.

Kent crosses his arms as if he were in a straight jacket, and Andrew laughs and says, “Jason the party keeps going tomorrow.” He presses a button, and the machine starts blending, the loud noise blocking out whatever Jason said next. Whatever it is, Andrew and Kent catch it and bend over laughing, while y/n just watched in confusion.

Once the machine stops, Andrew pours the thick, pink substance into a sugar-rimmed glass, and gives it to his sister. Y/n takes it from him, and looks over at all the ingredients next to the machine because she hadn’t seen what kind of alcohol he put in it. She sees a squat bottle with a green sticker and a cork top; Ciroq.

It’s when she’s puckering her face after her first sip, that the first group of people come in. Andrew and Kent spring forward to answer the door, and Jason just watched them push each other to see who would get there first. Her and Jason are alone in the kitchen, and even though she sees perfectly clear where Kent and Andrew are, she seizes this as her chance to ask Jason what may be her only chance for a stress free night.

Climbing down, she walks over to where Jason sits,and poked his jean clad thigh. “Jason?” She tries not to let her eyes linger on the spots where his plain white shirt pulls tight across his chest, his pectoral muscles rippling. His blonde hair is unruly today, parting down the middle so strands of hair glittered in front of his green eyes.

“Mmm-oh! Yes?” He said, his eyes blinking owlishly at her, slow reflexes when you’re high and all that.

“Is it okay if I lock myself in your room? Or a guest room? Please, I just d-” she started to explain herself when he interrupted her.

“Yes.” Jason placed his hand on her shoulder in a comforting manner, his eyelids drooping a little further than they already were.

“Yes?” She asked, surprised.

“Yes. Si. Oui. Andrew told me what your mom did. And I’m sorry. You can lock yourself in my room. I’m the only one with the key.” He said. Jason stretched, yawning and raising his hands over his head, the bottom of his shirt raising up and revealing the hard lines of his abdomen, the two lines that form a ‘v’; a make shift runway to what lies underneath the waistband of his pants. Y/n, having seen only one other penis, a leaked celebrity’s nudes, is surprised to see that Jason’s doesn’t have a ‘happy trail’.

Clearing her throat, she said, “Thank you. I’m going up there now, okay?” Y/n backed out of the kitchen, Jason’s nodding at her and turning his attention, and what a surprise this is, the blondes that had just walked in with a few dudes who carried packs of beers in their arms. The girls, five of them, all looked like barbie dolls in bikinis.

Rolling her eyes, y/n trudged up the stairs and walked down the hall to Jason’s all-to familiar room. She entered again, into the place she had mulled over many nights in a row.

Jason’s room would be her sanctuary, like it had been that one rainy spring day.

It was just like she remembered it.

For a teenage boy, Jason was very neat. He had a bamboo four poster bed, with Japanese art covering the space above his puffed-up white pillows. His comforter was the same eggshell color of his walls. In front of his bed he had a record player, and a wooden box with records in it. He had a mahogany bookshelf as well, every crevice stacked with books, straight across, and sideways in the spaces between books and the self above it. His room faced the backyard, and y/n had a clear view of the pool and the people that gathered around it. Jason had a window ledge large enough that he could sleep in it comfortably, and judging by the looks of it, he had. There was a tartan quilt and quilt laid out messily on the expanse of it, a book titled Norwegian Wood open with the pages-side down next to the pillow.

His room smelled like him too. No clothes lay scattered in any place, but his scent permeated the room. Sandalwood and vanilla; his musky and sweet scent of boy.

Y/n kicked off her shoes at the foot of Jason’s bed, and set her barely-even-touched margarita on his bedside table, next to a pair of clear lens glasses. That’s funny, she thought, I didn’t know Jason wore glasses.

She tucked herself into his bed, lifting the comforter out of its tucked position, and nestled tightly into the warm cocoon. Taking a deep breath or Jason, her eyes shut themselves, and snapped back open seconds later. Did I lock the door?

Fuck. No, she didn’t. She had to get back up and lock it. Jiggled the knob for extra measure, just to make sure it was locked. Once she was satisfied,she returned to the bed, and tucked herself in. Her eyes were closing once again, when the thrum of the bass in whatever rap song it was blaring the house, shook through Jason’s room.

No matter. She was out like a light not even 5 minutes later, Lulled to sleep by the smell of Jason.

Jason, Kent, and Andrew were having the time of their fucking lives.

Andrew had forgotten all about y/n after Jason told him she was in his room, and had downed a total of 6 body shots, all on different people. He lost track of how many people took shots on him. Cloud nine, this is what cloud nine is. He was everywhere and nowhere. Try looking for him and you’ll only catch his shirt-tail because he was already moving on to the next scene. If you saw a flipped red solo cup, then he had been there. He was absolutely reveling in the mass of sweating bodies. His yelling inn the cafeteria had paid off.

Everyone and their fucking mom came. He’d seen everyone he knew from school, and twice the amount of people he knew from school that he didn’t recognize. True to his word, his friend had brought Snoop fucking Dog, and he was up by the pool, dj-ing with five towering giants surrounding him. This only brought more attention. The party had spread out to the streets.

Kent was out of his mind, with how high he was. Don’t tell his mom, but he didn’t know what drug it was making it look like the guy passing the blunt had an elephant head. The lights made him feel like he was in a galaxy, sitting on the rings of Saturn with two topless babes under his arms. He sat with a ring of boys in the den, where you couldn’t see past your nose with how much smoke there was in the air.

And Jason? Shit, Jason was having a really hard time getting his dick up. He was in the pool with more than TWENTY topless babes he was supposed to be boning. It was his birthday after all. Andrew had posted a sign on the shallow end of the pool that said ‘only naked babes allowed’, and would appear every five seconds to remind said ‘babes’ to “TAKE YOUR TOP OFF!!!”

No matter how hard he tried, Jason just couldn’t get hard. The girl who pressed her tits in his face- a real 10 really, with bee stung lips and all- was starting to get confused, and Jason was starting to feel like a real tool.

There he was, his party was crazy, police having been chased off, a racoon being passed around on a leash, Snoop Dog having a literal concert inn his backyard, and far off in the distance there was the shinning light of a news helicopter. And he wasn’t having it.

He did for the first hour. Did some shots, smoked more weed, grinded on some people, got grinded on. Someone had inflated a whole-ass bouncy castle next to his garage, and it was filled with nothing but naked girls (which also did nothing for him). And it was fun seeing it build up. It gave him a bit of a heady adrenaline rush, knowing that ll these people where there because-

“So are you gonna let me give the birthday boy, his birthday present?” said the girl who was topless on his lap, her voice sultry and velvety smooth. She was licking a stripe up Jason’s throat, her hips swiveling against his groin.

Jason, still wearing his clothes, jeans and white shirt and all, looked up at his bedroom window, and what he saw made his heart crack in two. Y/n, his precious y/n, was looking at him with horror, tears painting her cheeks not unlike the way they had yesterday in the hallway, and a hand cupped over her mouth. The other hand was lifted up to her ear, and Jason saw that her mouth was moving.

She was on the phone.

He started to feel dirty, like slime. Guilty, was more like it. He realized then that the reason why he couldn’t get hard is because the girl in his lap wasn’t y/n. And seeing her, in his room all alone and in pain, made him feel like scum.

Pushing the girl off without remorse, he said, “No, I don’t think so.” He ignored the girl’s protests, and also whatever the hell Andrew yelled after him. Jason looked straight ahead, striding with intention to his room. It was difficult, with all the bodies and high-fives and bro-slaps he had to give on his way up the stairs, but he made it. He was dripping all over his floor, but he made it.

He hesitated, placing a hand on the door. As the bass of This is How We Do It vibrated through the wall and against his hand, he wondered what would happen when he opened the door. He wanted to console her. Ask her what was wrong, even though he had a large inkling he knew why she was upset- that it might’ve been his fault.

Jason dug his hand into his pocket, using his fingers to peel apart the cloth because it stuck together, and felt for the key to his room. Once he found it, he fed it through the lock, and turned it, the door giving away a sliver to which he was able to peek inside.

Y/n was on the phone. She was sitting at his window ledge, on her knees, still looking out. She hadn’t heard him coming in. Shutting the door closed behind him, Jason held his breath and listened.

“Am I an idiot?” she squeaked, sniffling to the other person on the line. “Why? Well, isn’t it clear. Donna, he’s constantly surrounded by all these skinny, tall blondes, and I’m not like that.”

Jason’s eyes widened. His heart felt as if an arrow had been shot through it.

“I’m so stupid, really. How could I ever think-”

Yes, yes?

“-that Jason could like me?”

He was appalled. Frozen in his tracks, because god did she really think like that? How could she not realize it. She was so precious; all Jason ever though about. If only she knew. If only she knew-

Well, the thing is- and it might be the weed talking, but- she could know. Jason didn’t have to keep it from her anymore. He could tell her. Fuck it. Fuck it all.

“Y/n?” He said. Clearly, not loud enough because she didn’t turn around. He walked to her, close enough that his knees pressed against the ledge of the window seat, and close enough so that he could grab her wrist.

She yelped, surprised, and whipped her head around. When she saw it was Jason, even though he was smiling a dopey, sweet smile that made her want to fall into a puddle, her face fell into one of mortification. He took the phone from her hand and hung up, tossing it on the pillow.

“Oh, y/n.”

“Jason, I-” Her cheeks flushed. Her words died in her throat, her tears frozen on her lips.

“I like you, y/n. More than you know.” And his clothes were wet sure, but it didn’t matter because fuck. Fuck it all. Jason pulled her up, wrapped a hand around her waist, and kissed her.

A soft, gentle, press of his lips against hers, their noses bumping. She squeaked and tensed, her fingers squeezing his biceps. His thumb rubbed circled to the sliver of skin that peeked from the place where her shirt rode up.

He pulled away from her, and she leaned forward with her own lips puckered, whining because he pulled away.

“I’ve been wanting to do that, for so long, you know?” He told her, placing her back down on the ledge, while she stared back up at him dreamily.

“Why didn’t you?” she asked him.

“Because Andrew would beat me to a pulp,” he said, laughing. “But it doesn’t matter anymore.” Jason reached for the bottom of his shirt, and pulled it over his head, y/n watching with cheeks flaming at the way his skin rippled and tightened with every movement. After a beat she says,

“Why’s that?”

“Because I’d rather get beaten to a pulp, than be away from you any longer.”

super proud of this. THERE WILL BE A PART 2!!

much love, -abigail

#Harry Styles #harry edward styles #harry styles fanfiction #harry styles blurbs #harry styles fic #harry styles angst #harry styles fluff #harry styles soft #harry styles smut #harry styles smut oneshot #harry styles fluff oneshot #harry styles writing #harry smut #harry swriting #harry styles x y/n #harry styles x reader #harry oneshot

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stonecoldjerseyfox · 3 years

Text

Jersey on my mind (part 37)

“Although I’ve been away so many lonely nights, you know I’m back today…”

While John Martyn sang out the first line, Mila exhaled at the two first, soft chords on the scrapy cassette tape; C, G, and inhaled at the two following; A and F.

“We’re home, malysh.” Mila said faintly, like a loud whisper, as she turned on the usually busy, well trafficked Broad Street onto Rumson, after miraculously making the 1000 mile drive from Missouri back to New Jersey all safe and sound.

Outside the car window the darkness laid thick. Was it a Thursday or a Wednesday? The last few days she had had a harder time remembering the days. They kind of floated together more and more and remembering dates felt unprofitable. It was night, that much she knew at least.

It had been raining just hours prior to their arrival and the puddles resembled deep dark oceans in the thick darkness, only enlightened by the car lights. Much had changed since they left Jersey a couple of months earlier. Broad Street resembled a graveyard, quiet and spookily empty. Broad was never entirely quiet or empty, just more or less trafficked and more or less scattered with people, depending on the time of the day. It was a main road, with a homey feeling to it. A mix of businesses and homes in neat rows. The houses were well maintained, the lawns cut and the constant aromatic atmosphere, thick as a blanket, consisting of a variety of different sorts of food and exhaust fumes almost stunned the mind; rocking the residents in a warm feeling of security in the Red Banks and Little Silver area. But the safe, homely blanket had disappeared and Broad lied all empty and ghostly.

“-You know without you honey, all I do is worth nothing. And girlie, don't cry for me-” John Martyn sang on.

“We’re home.” Mila repeated faintly, while steering the car between the debris, having a hard time wrapping her head around the fact that this was Little Silver. That they actually had made it back. It felt surreal.

A tipped over shopping cart rested in the middle of the wet road, filled with what looked like stacks of magazines, or what once was. Now they lay scattered around the street and sidewalk, crinkled up like papier mache from the rain, having dried up in the breeze into nodular shapes. The drugstore window was shattered, raided, as was the grocery store. Everything felt like being in a movie set for Dawn of the Dead. Mila swallowed as she scanned the otherwise very familiar, cozy area for movements, from both living and dead creatures. They had been lucky ever since they left Missouri, hadn’t crossed paths with anyone. If they’d seen people, they’d kept out of sight, watching them from afar.

Juri gestured at her in the rear view mirror, letting her know that he too had a hard time recognizing the neighborhood.

“I know, malysh.” Mila replied as John Martyn continued to sing:

“Although there might be other people in my life. Honey, on my mind, you will always find there's only you-”

As she slowly cruised further down Rumson Place, Mila felt how the tight belt of anxiety eased around her chest a little. It wasn’t all so different. The trees looked the same, the street lights were dark but otherwise it felt as usual; the street she’d learned to love, to feel safe at, to call home. That sense of safety and calm disappeared. Chaos had reached the quiet, lush Jersey suburb as well. This part of Little Silver also lied dead quiet, ghostly and abandoned; cars were left in the street with their doors open, empty driveways and boards over the windows at some of the houses. The usually well cut lawns were left uncut and the bushes looked ravaged and bewildered. Juri twisted and turned in his car seat to look out of the window, looking mildly shocked. Mila couldn’t get her mind around it either. It felt bad, wrong. Where was everybody? Hiding inside their houses? Or had they fled the field? And in that case, where had they gone?

“Don’t worry.” Mila said automatically, but felt how wrong the words tasted on her tongue. All she could feel was worry, as soon as she saw the Galka house. They were finally home and it didn’t feel at all like she’d imagined it. “We’re here.”

When she parked on the driveway to the two storey house she’d called home for the past years, Mila shut off the car, killing the sound of “Back to stay” mid sentence. She threw herself out of the passenger seat, grabbed Juri from the backseat and ran onto the porch. She pulled the handle on the door, decorated with a wreath of oak leafs, acorns and a ribbon. Locked.

“What the-” Mila started banging on the wood, but there was no answer. ”Joe?” she cried, hesitated to do so because of the risk of attracting attention. ”El?”

Still no answer. No lights going on inside or any sign of life. With Juri locked on her hip she ran to the kitchen door, only to find it locked as well.

”Billy? Adam?” She called out.

Juri tugged at her jacket, signing questioningly ‘where are they?’

“I don’t know, Malysh.”

Mila ran back to the car and managed to get the keys out of her old, trustworthy handbag with shivering fingers. Still with Juri on her hip, she ran back up on the front door porch, fiddled with the keychain before finding the right key and unlocked the door.

“Hello?”

She received no answer. Ellie Galka didn’t come out of the kitchen and greeted her with a hug and Joe didn’t wave at her from the living room couch. No Adam or Billy who ran down the stairs to smolder her with bearhugs. Mila and Juri seemed to be the only ones there. The blinds were pulled down and the shutters closed. She put Juri down on the floor and walked through all the rooms on the ground level, only to find them empty. Then she ran upstairs, checked Billy’s and Adam’s room, only to find them dark and empty as well. Panic arose up her throat as Mila ended up in the master bedroom. There she haltered with a pounding heart. The drawer was extracted, the wardrobe was wide open and the framed picture on El’s nightstand, picturing ‘her three kids’ was gone. Mila couldn’t take it anymore, her legs folded under her, and she collapsed on the floor, kneeling in front of the bed. They had left. She was alone, again. Plan B had failed and she didn’t have a plan C. She sat there crying uncontrollably, until Juri found her. Tightly he squeezed her neck, pressed himself against her, allowed her to cry into his hair.

“It’s gonna be alright, Juri-” Mila sobbed between her crying breaths, understanding that she had to pull herself together. “I promise.”

It had to be alright, but how?

Still crying she stood up on shaky legs, lifted Juri from the floor and put him down in the big bed where they made themselves comfortable up against the pile of soft pillows. While Mila brushed her tears away with the back of her hand, Juri started fiddling with his walkman, pressed “play” and cranked up the volume. Through the leaking foam headphones the raspy sound of strings were heard, followed by a male chuckle that sent chills down Mila’s spine. Then the voice, oh god that voice, started to sing “Highwayman” in a wailing, southern-way, causing her whole body to ache. Jim made that tape just for fun; no biggie, just a messy recording of him fooling around with his guitar singing some of his favorite country songs, “I won’t back down”, “When I went down to Georgia”, “Highwayman”, “Your man” … - Right there and then it was more precious to them than anything else in the world. Mila closed her eyes and pressed Juri against her body as she could, clear as day, see Jim in front of her. Clear as if he was there in the room with them. The luscious brown hair, thick beard, the funny face he made when he sang in that southern, country way she liked so much. Juri squeezed her hand tightly and Mila opened her eyes, feeling them tearing up.

“I miss him too, baby.” She stuttered while caressing the blond hair. “So, so much.”

A tear ran down her cheek, then another one. Outside the window it was pitch black; Mila wondered if it had ever been that dark in Little Silver before? They lied there, curled up on the bed in the master bedroom under complete silence, only broken by the faint sound of the wind, while Jim sang them to sleep.

Mila woke up the next morning by the room bathing in morning sunlight, making the sheer yellow curtains resemble sunbeams. Juri lied curled up next to her, snoring loudly underneath the covers. Mila remembered their whereabouts, how they got there and that they were alone in the house. Once again her stomach shrinked, but she couldn’t give up at this point. There surely was a logical explanation to why the Galka’s had left, they must’ve gone to some collecting site, somewhere safe. What if they came back? Why hadn’t they left a note? Would they come back? It was possible. They had to wait and see, defend the house from potential scavengers.

Mila got up from the bed and ran downstairs into the kitchen, where she peered out the window through the wooden shutters. After making sure the coast was clear, she turned the locks and opened the door, snuck out, and began to unload the car in a hurry. Back inside she locked the door again, made sure no one had seen her and turned to watch the cellar door.

Mila knew Joe kept weapons down there, in the weapon cabinet, decorated with stickers from different fishing competitions and the local football and baseball teams. It was a big cabinet that Ellie, under no circumstances, wanted to have upstairs in the house. Now Mila needed to get inside that cabinet. Joe couldn’t possibly have brought all of his guns with him when they left.

Mila went into the living room and further into the office, where Joe kept the family’s small safe, containing important papers and documents, jewelry and the key to the gun cabinet, hidden inside a copy of “The Heart of a Woman” by Maya Angelou, taped to the inside of the binder. No wonder Joe was the family’s undefeated master of hide and seek. Inside the safe Mila found the key and went back to the kitchen. She found her copy of the key to the basement on her keychain and unlocked the door, turned the light switch and went downstairs. The basement smelled like gasoline, old, dried paint, very basement-y. A year after she moved into the Galka house, Joe renovated the laundry room next to the kitchen, moving the washer and dryer from the basement to the upper floor. Before that, during Mila’s first year with them, the smell of freshly dried sheets used to hit her in the face as soon as she opened the basement door. Well, no more. At the end of the stairs she looked around. Shelves with motor oil, red plastic gas can, an old football, Joe’s rubber boots and fishing rods... everything looked normal. At the right she saw the weapon cabinet. Big, green and frankly, ugly. Once she had managed to unlock the lock, she pushed the heavy door open. To Mila’s relief she saw that Joe hadn’t been able to bring everything from the cabinet. To her surprise, Mila also saw a weapon case she recognized. It didn’t belong to Joe or anyone of the Galka’s, but-

"I’ll be damn-” She took out the fabric case and looked at it. It felt like several years since she last saw it, then in a completely different place, on the other side of the earth. Papa’s rifle, from Russia. How was that possible? She hadn’t seen it for years. A patch was pinned to the shoulder strap. She looked at it. “Confiscated at customs, cleared by Joseph Galka at New Jersey Police Department for safe handling.” Mila read out loud. “Accompanying Sergey Volk-” she paused mid sentence.

So it really was his rifle, she thought, without becoming the least bit wiser. He must’ve brought it with him in his luggage when they left Russia, that was the only logical explanation. What’d he planned to do with it? Mila didn’t want to think about it. He was obviously capable of doing anything, she knew that now, and as a highly regarded city official he could bring whatever the hell he wanted in his luggage without consequences it seemed like. Or at least he thought so. Mila hugged the cloth case, it felt like an old jute sack between her hands. She had used the weapon in her youth; shot cans with it in the countryside during the summers and a pigeon or two. Well, papa didn’t need it, not anymore. Mila set it aside, considering it as hers from now on and went through the other black plastic cases. Some were empty, but she found two handguns as well as ammunition and a big knife Joe used for gutting fish with. It could definitely be used for other things as well, like killing those walking dead creatures, formerly known as people. Mila returned upstairs with her findings and put it down on the kitchen table. She could hear Ellie’s distressed voice inside her head:

“No- oh, not on the table! Christ sake!”

Well, El wasn’t here now to see the mess she’d caused. Mila’s eyes swept over the table. She was armed, so now then? She began to go through the cupboards in the kitchen. They needed food, that was priority number one now that she was armed. Luckily Ellie Galka was Little Silver’s unofficial champion of grocery shopping. El always took the biggest shopping cart in the grocery store, the shopping lists were meticulously designed to make shopping smooth and she always made sure that everything that could be needed was at home in the cupboards. If one of her ‘kids’ wanted banana bread, or just mentioned it in passing, they could be sure to find a steaming fresh banana bread under a soft baking sheet an hour later without El having to go shopping before. Everything, from bananas to flour, was always at home no matter what it seemed. Mila didn’t find any brown bananas hiding behind the flour or baking soda in the cupboards, but there were a lot of cans and dry goods stacked away. She and Juri didn’t have to starve just yet.

From that day they settled into the Galka house in Little Silver on their own. They slept in Mila’s old bedroom, that the Galka’s had kept for when Mila, Juri and Jim came to visit, armed with both Adam’s trustworthy baseball bat and all of the weapons she had found in the house.

Days turned into weeks. They had everything they needed, and if they needed something else or ran out of food, they slipped out of the house, out on the streets of Little Silver and Red Banks, to collect supplies. Sometimes Mila dared to leave Juri at the house and go scavenging alone, making him swear to hide if someone broke into the house. Luckily that never happened, but Mila encountered the dead creatures every time she went out the door. There were plenty of them. Neighbors suddenly turned up as walking corpses behind trash cans, cars and roamed around downtown like delusioned pigeons. It took awhile for her to not feel bad about killing them, and to understand their weaknesses and weak spots. Aim for the head and put them out of their misery quickly, was her conclusion after a while. At first it was horrible, made her think of Jim, but after a few killings she felt mentally numb. One thing was sure, she could not get her head around papa’s perverse tendencies to kill out of sheer desire.

She tried her best to keep a routine, for Juri’s sake. Making sure his reality and routine was kept intact and nice was everything she could think off. Making sure he had everything he needed, felt safe and happy. She woke up at eight in the morning, exercised, woke Juri and they ate breakfast together. Then she dressed him, they played or went out exploring. If she went out on her own, scavenging and exploring, she did so by bicycle. She went to the library and collected books to read, to Blockbuster to get movies and the grocery stores for food. In the nights they curled up on the couch and watched movies in the living room, thanks to Joe’s ‘mega disaster generator’, operating on gasoline.

“What if there’s a tornado, El?” Joe said when he returned home, with the big piece in the trunk one day, to Ellie’s horror, about a year prior to the apocalypse. “Think about that for a minute. This bad boy might save lives, I tell you.”

Joe, just like Mila, loved disaster movies, but unlike Mila, Joe was extremely influenced by what he saw and could, without blinking, begin to prepare for a presumed doomsday, well… half-heartedly. The generator was a much welcomed addition to the situation whatever Ellie had thought about it that day, Mila thought to herself as she put ‘Terminator 2’ on VHS into the player to watch one night, when Juri was asleep. She used to stay up late, watch another movie and get batshit drunk. Joe had a bar cabinet that was only opened when they had guests over. He rarely drank otherwise, so Mila did him a favor and made sure the booze didn’t go to waste. Her drinking soon spiraled into a ‘around the clock jagg’; she was never sober, just more or less drunk, to the point when she started to hallucinate. After a while, she began to think that Jim was with them in the house. At first it was comforting having him around, but that quickly turned. It was painful, to the point where she thought she was going crazy for real.

“We gotta get out of here, Juri.” Mila monotonously expressed one day, mid a Clint Eastwood movie and halfway through the last bottle of Buffalo Trace from Joe Galka’s bar cabinet. “We can’t stay here.” She looked at the bottle in her hand. Fuck, she hated Buffalo Trace; had she lost all sense of taste and class? “Not like this.”

Juri, lying on his belly on the carpet surrounded by colorful drawings and chubby kids crayons, looked up at her and nodded. He was fine either way it seemed. A month, maybe two, even three or four, Mila wasn’t really sure, had passed without any sight of the Galka’s, or anyone for that matter. The streets were desolated. There wasn’t anyone around that was alive anymore. Down the street Mila had, to her horror, seen Mr and Mrs Paulson pressing up against their barricaded windows, looking like melting wax dolls with blood running down their mouths. No sight of their two kids. Mila could just guess what had happened to them. Considering their absence from the window and their parents blood stained faces, she had her suspicions.

No, they couldn’t stay any longer, Mila thought as she lay on the couch. She was starting to get mad from being locked up inside the house. They needed to go back out on the road, leave their comfortable but isolated hideout. For what she didn’t really know. A sign? Or a miracle? She didn’t believe in signs or miracles, didn’t believe in any God either for that matter. But they couldn’t stay here hiding for all eternity. It was much better to get out of there. Maybe they would find the Galka’s while on the road. The possibility was minimal, but Mila really wanted to believe that there was a slight chance, despite it being one in a million.

One early morning, Mila shut off the generator. She packed their belongings, locked all of the doors and painted a red cross at both the front door and the kitchen door, to imply that the house was unsafe to enter, hoping it would leave it untouched. She drove the car out of the garage, having loaded it the night before. She had hid a filled gas can up the beams of the roof of the garage, if she ever needed to come back there for some reason, she at least knew she had extra gas. After backing out of the driveway, she just stood there on the street, looking at the house. Would she ever come back again?

“Look at it Juri.” Mila sighted and hugged the wheel tighter. “Look closely. Remember it. I don’t know when we’ll be able to return.”

As she said it out loud, she could have swore she saw Jim looking out at her from the upstairs window, peeking out behind the curtain. She swallowed hard. I’m hallucinating, he’s not real, she repeated inside her head, but couldn’t take her eyes from the window. She just had to accept it and continue to live, survive, for Juri’s sake.

#jersey on my mind #daryl dixon fanfiction #daryl dixon x oc #daryl dixon fanfic #daryl fanfiction #daryl dixon #twd daryl #the walking dead daryl #twd #twd fanfic #twd fanfiction #the walking dead fanfic #the walking dead fandom #the walking dead fanficition

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marveloussupernerd · 4 years

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Halloween Bash - Jaehee Kang

Hello and welcome to spooky season! For the next week I’m going to post a Halloween one shot every night. I random number generated the post order, prompts, and other little details about it, so I’ll be including those at the beginning of the story

Prompts: RFA party, bobbing for apples, stay all night

Summary: the RFA is throwing a little Halloween bash for its members. You and Jaehee dress to impress

You and Jaehee had put a lot of thought and effort into the RFA Halloween party. Rika had done it once before in the past and you wanted to bring it back and hopefully make it a fun tradition. You planned to have a costume contest, bobbing for apples, and the Monster Mash on repeat.

Jaehee had left the costumes up to you. It took you a while to find good costumes (there were a zillion Hetero couples costumes but you really struggled to find something creative for the two of you), but when you saw it you knew it was perfect. Of course, you couldn’t both win the costume contest, but you definitely wanted to match.

You walked into the coffee shop where Jaehee was hanging a streamers, and plopped the costumes onto the table next to her. “Are those the Scooby Doo characters?” She asked, glancing down at the costumes then focusing her energy back to the task at hand.

“Velma and Daphne! Jaehee, don’t tell me you didn’t know their names,” you sighed, plopping onto the chair next to her.

“I actually did watch Scooby Doo as a kid, but it’s been a while,” she smiled. She stuck one more piece of tape then carefully got off the chair she was standing on to sit next to you. “I think it’ll be quite cute.”

“Oo! I also got this hairspray stuff for you that temporarily dyes it orange. It might be kind of unnatural but-“

“You want me to be Daphne?” She cut you off, her eyebrows raised skeptically.

“Duh! I think you’d look really nice as her. Why? Would you rather be Velma?” You glanced down at the costumes. Fortunately you two were nearly the same size.

“No, I just. I don’t know... I assumed you’d want me to be Velma. I did look a lot like her...”

“Yeah, because Jumin made you. You look so beautiful now and I want you to embrace those changes! Putting on a short wig and glasses would do the exact opposite.”

She leaned across the table to grab your hand. “Thank you. I don’t think you understand how much that means to me.

“Of course. Now if you’re done with the decorations can I help you do the hair?”

“I set one banner up...”

You looked around. Huh. She was right. “Whoops. Got so excited I didn’t even notice that. Let me help you set things up first then.”

The two of you were an excellent team, obviously, and made quick work of setting up the decorations. Jaehee had splurged on some nice decorations. Lots and lots of pumpkins and pumpkin banners (to go with your pumpkin treats you had made ahead of time) and even a very realistic cauldron for the bobbing for apples game. Granted, her decor was very mild and not scary, spare one thing she splurged on. She set up one of those spiders that jump out at you when you walked past it, then put it by the entry.

“Jaehee... I didn’t know you were so diabolical...” you chuckled, putting batteries in the machine to get it running.

“I just want to see Mr. H- I mean Jumin, jump. He has a fear of spiders you know.”

“I’ll be sure to get it on camera,” you winked at her.

The next step was getting all dressed up. You started with the hair dye, which blended surprisingly well with her now-long hair. It wasn’t too neon, but enough that you could tell she was now a redhead. You helped her with some winged eyeliner, as she had never done a wing herself, and some sparkly pink lipgloss. Once she was all dressed, you took a step back to admire your handiwork. “Jaehee, you look kinda hot,” you complimented, suddenly feeling extremely embarrassed.

Her cheeks shot red from the compliment as she worked hard to look anywhere but your eyes. “You don’t think it’s too much?”

“No, I think you look exactly like her. Now will you help me get this wig on?”

Turns out getting a wig on is a two, probably three honestly, person task. Especially with your baby hairs that kept falling out of place. Luckily, Jaehee helped you fix it until it was absolutely perfect. You got all dressed next. “What do you think?” You asked, doing a little spin.

“They really didn’t include the glasses with the costume?” She asked, turning the bag upside-down to ensure you hadn’t missed anything. “Huh. Well, luckily for us I think I still have my old pair.”

Jaehee disappeared to the back. You heard a lot of rustling through drawers before she came back victorious. “No prescription or anything, just regular frames.” She carefully put them on your face. “Perfect. Now you look the part.”

You opened your phone camera to check your outfit. “We look GOOD! Best couples costume ever.” You glanced at the time. “And just in time too. We’ve gotta get to the front so we can see everyone get scared by the spider.

Jumin and Yoosung arrived together, no surprise since Yoosung was still his acting assistant. Jumin jumped slightly at the spider, but it was nowhere close to Yoosung, who backed into Jumin so quickly that he knocked the both of them over. You and Jaehee couldn’t contain your laughter, not making any movement to help them up.

Luckily there were no injuries, as the two got up relatively fast and made their way over to you. “Oh Assistant K- I mean, Jaehee,” Jumin said to you, “Some days I miss you more than others. And this is definitely one of those days.” He obviously did and didn’t mean it at the same time; he was teasing Yoosung. But oh! More pressing matters at hand.

“I’m not Jaehee,” you giggled. Jumin’s mouth fell open in shock. Obviously you were right; your voices were quite different, but you really pulled a fast one on him.

“Forgive me. I just thought... well, what are you two anyways?”

“You don’t know? They’re from Scooby Doo!” Yoosung yelled, very surprised that Jumin didn’t recognize it.

“Scooby huh?”

“Scooby Doo! It’s a kids show. You’re... more hopeless than I thought,” he said sadly.

“You two look nice! Frankenstein and his monster. Very creative.” You complimented them.

The conversation was halted when Zen walked in the room, bumping into the glass door as he jumped away from the spider. You all laughed this time.

Zen was quickly followed by Seven and V, who were not shocked by the spider at all. Figures. Zen was a vampire, V was dressed as a pirate, and Seven was... oh god why was he in his maid costume.

“You all look nice!” Jaehee complimented. “Let me get some music on and then we’ll start everything up.”

“Jaehee, that’s you!?” Zen exclaimed. “You look great!”

“Thanks!” She called. The Monsrer Mash started playing. She made her way back to the group. “Although it wasn’t exactly my idea.”

“I am a genius, I know.” You commented, accepting your praise. Jaehee hit your shoulder playfully and you got the party started.

The activity of the night was bobbing for apples. Was this a good idea? Probably not. But it’d be fun. You got to man the station and time how long it took everyone to get their apples. Jumin took the longest... literally over three minutes because he didn’t want to hurt his teeth. Zen was the quickest, trying to make sure he beat Jumin, which was not challenging to do.

Jaehee finished her turn and got right in the middle of the times. Her lipgloss was smeared down her face. “You know, maybe this idea had a few flaws,” you giggled, grabbing a paper towel to help her dry her face off. You very gently patted her face dry, using your finger to gently wipe the lipgloss away. It was strangely intimate and the two of you were both flushing messes, despite the fact that you were literally dating. No makeup problems for you though! The only issue was that the glasses fell off in the water, traditional Velma style, and the game became bobbing for glasses.

Zen’s prize for winning was a caramel apple designed to look like a pumpkin. Pretty creative from you and Jaehee to be honest. He rubbed it in Jumin’s face nonstop, and you figured he would for the next year until the next contest.

When it came down to voting for the best costume, it was no surprise to read out the results. Everyone had voted for Jaehee. There was one vote for you of course, because Jaehee was a supportive girlfriend and would NEVER vote for herself. Even Seven didn’t vote for himself which was, honestly, quite a relief. You were proud that her costume was so good Seven considered it better than his “Mary Vanderwood III” getup, whatever that meant.

Jaehee’s very special prize was homemade chocolate and pretzel bark the two of you had made the other night. Honestly, you were glad she won because it was so good and she would share it with you.

The two of you stayed all night. You sort of had to, considering it was taking place at your coffee shop. But you had a great time dishing out (non alcoholic) drinks and pumpkin cookies and candy.

You played pin the stem on the pumpkin (which V actually won, which honestly should not surprise anyone) and spent most of the time hearing everyone complaining about the Monster Mash playing for the fiftieth time. It wasn’t your fault. There weren’t that many Halloween songs and this one was Jaehee’s absolute favorite.

Once everyone left, the two of you plopped down on the sofa in the corner of the shop. “I’m so tired,” Jaehee groaned, resting her head on your shoulder and propping her feet up. “You sure we can’t just sleep here tonight?”

You laughed, chest shaking as you giggled, causing Jaehee to shift slightly. “We still have to open tomorrow at 6. And as much fun as it sounds to stay the night here, I’m worried your hair will become permanently orange if we don’t wash it out.”

She let out an exhasperated sigh, standing up and taking your hands to help pull you up. “Okay, but only if you help me wash it out. I’m too tired, and I don’t think I’ll be able to get the back.”

You winked at her. “Sure, whatever you say, Jaehee.”

#mystic messenger #mysme #jaehee Kang #Halloween

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ollieofthebeholder · 4 years

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leaves too high to touch (roots too strong to fall): a TMA fanfic

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Chapter 31: Jon

Fortunately for Jon’s nerves, Halloween week means Research is inundated with statements, mostly false ones, so the first week following Tim’s ill-advised adventure means they’re all helping out with disproving piles of utter nonsense, which in turn means none of his assistants putting themselves in harm’s way. They do get a live statement midway through the week, in the form of the exterminator who handled Jane Prentiss’ body, but as there’s nothing to really investigate regarding his statement, that’s harmless enough. Tim insists on sitting in on the statement, and against his better judgment, Jon agrees.

It’s probably a mistake, though, as over the course of the following week Tim begins having frequent headaches. They seem to pass quickly, at least at first, but they get progressively worse. Martin adds a box of ginger tea to their stash; Sasha keeps a giant bottle of paracetamol at her desk; Jon tries to reduce Tim’s workload as much as possible. Tim only accepts the first two. It worries Jon how hard Tim is throwing himself into the research, regardless of how much the others tell him he doesn’t have to make up for lost time. Even Jon Prime expresses concern, in a careful, hesitant way.

Martin Prime, on the other hand, is a lot less careful and a lot more blunt, telling Tim not to be a self-sacrificing idiot and to stop tearing himself apart trying to draw attention away from the others, because it won’t help anyone if he gets hurt, or worse. Tim laughs, but the look on his face and especially on Jon Prime’s face makes Jon hold onto Tim extra tightly that night.

In the long run, and even in the short run, it doesn’t help. Three weeks into November, Martin finds Tim crumpled in a ball on the floor in the depths of the shelves, clutching his temples and barely conscious. The mental image of Martin, pale and frightened, cradling Tim in his arms like an infant and striding across the Archives as if he weighs nothing isn’t going to leave Jon in a hurry. The doctor at the clinic can’t find any obvious cause for the headaches, but he recommends Tim go home and rest and Jon is only too happy to sign off on that.

He makes him stay home the next morning, too. Tim doesn’t argue, which tells Jon he probably really isn’t feeling all that great. He does promise to get rest, not strain his eyes, and definitely not go off on any unauthorized field trips—all of which Martin is very emphatic about. (Jon’s never actually seen Martin in full mother bear mode, and he decides it’s best for his sanity not to admit that he finds it weirdly attractive.) Martin makes him a cup of tea before they leave and reports, when he comes back to join Jon, that Tim’s fallen back asleep again.

The morning is fairly straightforward. Sasha and Martin work on their usual research work; Jon has a stack of statements to record. Mostly these days he only does the ones that are going to end up on the Discredited shelf, the ones he can record on his laptop, tending to leave the real ones for Jon Prime. Still, there are literally thousands of statements in the Archives, and Jon is prepared to bet even money that no more than ten percent of them are actually real. While that’s still probably enough to sustain both him and Jon Prime for the rest of their natural lives, even if they never get another live statement in, he does still have to record the others. He’d grumble about him and his stupid ideas if he didn’t now have seventeen months’ worth of examples of ideas far stupider than suggesting to his boss that he make audio recordings of the statements in the Archives, and not just his own.

Jon powers through about a dozen statements, narrating them into his laptop and supplementing with his team’s research. He’s just finishing a scathing indictment of a would-be writer who claims to have stayed in a cottage with a haunted lamp when the door cracks open and Martin pops his head in. He catches Jon’s eye and smiles, then waits until Jon signs off the recording before speaking. “Hey. Lunch?”

“Thank you, but I think I’ll do a couple more of these first.” Jon gestures to the rapidly-diminishing stack on the right side of his desk. “I’m on a roll.”

“Better than being on a sesame-seed bun. I’m going to call and check on Tim while I’m at it, unless you’d rather?”

“Go ahead. Ask him if he wants us to bring anything home tonight.” Jon offers Martin a smile. “Enjoy your lunch.”

Martin smiles back, his cheeks turning faintly pink. He nods and withdraws from Jon’s office.

Jon finishes two more digital statements and then pulls over the next one and begins to dictate it. Even before he gets done with the introduction, however, he can feel the static on his tongue and stops. Playback confirms his suspicion—this is a real one. Somehow, they missed it.

He skims the file. He remembers this one now—a claim of a still-living mummy in a tomb containing ancient dice and nothing else. Sasha, who, in her own words, “went through an Egyptology phase like every other girl in the nineties”, wrote out a list of every reason she could think of that the description of the tomb didn’t make sense. Even Tim’s charm wasn’t enough to get any help from the Egyptian government, and since all the names were fake except the statement giver’s, all Martin has been able to find out is that she’s currently training to be a teacher. Even with everything they know, it seems…unrealistic.

But as he flips a page over, it dislodges a sticky note from the back of the folder. Jon catches it as it flutters through the air. It’s Tim’s handwriting, and it glitters faintly, which makes Jon frown—not because he objects to glitter ink (although if they use it on anything official he doesn’t want to imagine what Elias will have to say), but because Tim’s only been using these pens for a couple of weeks, since he traded Charlie one of his old fountain pens for the pack. Which means Tim went back and added something recently.

Jon studies the note. The first words are scratched out, but the rest is easily legible: I think this one is real.

For a moment, Jon considers leaving the statement for Jon Prime to read, but he finds he can’t. Now that he’s started speaking it aloud, he has to finished. Damn it. With a sigh, he sets up the tape recorder, then checks to make sure his secondary recorder has a tape in it. He depresses the RECORD button on both and picks up the paper again.

“Statement of Donna Gwynne, regarding an unlicensed archaeological dig near the Red Sea in Egypt,” he begins.

He always sinks into the statements, at least when they’re real—which is good, because once he finishes, it’s hard for him to keep his contempt for Ms. Gwynne out of his voice as he dictates the results, such as they are, on the follow-up. Certainly he has no qualms admitting that he’s somewhat satisfied the woman is being forced into a job she’s stated repeatedly she hates the idea of.

“I feel anyone who brings me a statement about mummies deserves everything they get,” he concludes. “I’m just glad she doesn’t live in London. End recording.”

He presses the STOP button on both recorders, then hesitates. He started recording secondary back-up tapes after Michael’s visit, partly out of growing paranoia and partly so that he would have a record in case anything happened, and he’s never really stopped. He needs to let the others know about it, he just…hasn’t yet.

Sighing, he pops out the official tape and labels it, then sets it with the file before drawing the second recorder towards himself and pressing RECORD.

“Supplemental,” he says. “I’m…worried about Tim. His headaches have grown so severe over the last week that I actually had to make him stay home today. I’m sure they have something to do with these statements, with the research and all of it, but I don’t know how to prove it. And I don’t know why he’s looking into statements we’ve theoretically finished the research on. I’m…grateful, of course, that he spotted that this one was probably real, although I wish he’d left the note in a more obvious place, but I don’t know why he was even looking, let alone how he figured it out. There’s no supplemental research, no notes other than the single sticky note he put in the back. I can’t quite make out the first word, as it’s been heavily scratched out, except that it starts with a V or a W. The next two are also scratched out, but it’s a little easier to make out: The End, with a question mark. He wasn’t sure, but—of course, it’s fairly obvious. What else would mummies be? And there’s a parallel to—”

The door to his office opens abruptly, and a voice that does not belong to one of his assistants says, “Excuse me, do you have a moment?”

Jon almost topples his chair over backwards, despite the fact that the small part of his brain hanging onto rationality points out that an entity of fear likely wouldn’t be so (relatively) polite about interrupting him. A second later, the rest of his brain catches onto the magenta-tipped brown asymmetrical pixie cut, the string of black stars dangling from one ear, and the expression that manages to be somehow disdainful, sheepish, and concerned all at the same time.

“Miss King—uh—how did you get in here?” he manages, hoping he doesn’t sound like she almost gave him a heart attack.

“Sasha let me in.” Melanie King steps fully into his office and lets the door close behind her. “Are you all right?”

“Hmm? Sorry?” Jon tries to look nonchalant as he shuffles Ms. Gwynne’s statement to the bottom of the stack.

“You look like hell,” Melanie tells him.

“It’s been a rough few months.” Jon feels his old prickliness rising up in him, feels the need to puff up and bluster, but then he stops, collects himself, and really looks at Melanie. There’s a slump to her shoulders, a weariness in her bearing, and dark circles like bruises under her eyes, which look…well, haunted. “And if I look like hell, you must be in a far lower circle than I am. Are you all right?”

Melanie seems surprised that he asked, which, fair enough. “Fine. I—um—I actually need your help.”

Dread creeps up Jon’s spine, but all he says is, “Interesting.”

“All right, can you not be an arsehole about it?” Melanie snaps, visibly bristling. “I just need access to your library.”

“So talk to Diana. She runs the place,” Jon points out.

“Yeah, I don’t exactly have the academic credentials you guys demand, so apparently I need someone to vouch for me,” Melanie says. Jon sighs in annoyance, not at Melanie or her tone, but at the generations of stuffy, upper-class white men who equate university degrees with value. “And you’re basically the closest thing I have to a friend here.”

Jon can’t help but laugh at that. “We’ve spoken once, and we ended up screaming at each other—”

“Yes! And that’s more than I have with anyone else here.” Melanie tugs at her hair in frustration, hard enough that Jon’s afraid she might actually yank it out of her scalp by the roots. “Also, uh, Georgie actually has some nice things to say about you. That came as a surprise. You didn’t even tell me you knew her.”

It surprises Jon, too, enough that he blurts out the honest truth without thinking. “It was a long time ago—before she started doing What the Ghost. I didn’t think she would have anything nice to say about me, to be honest. We didn’t exactly part on the best of terms.”

Melanie hums skeptically at him. Jon almost tells her everything, but catches himself. “Look, what exactly do you need from us, anyway? Can’t your showbiz friends help you?”

“No,” Melanie snaps. “I’m, uh—most of them won’t talk to me anymore.”

“What happened? Did word get round you’d talked to us ‘credulous idiots’?”

“Not exactly. In my business, your reputation is all that you have. The industry is full of skeptics pretending to be believers pretending to be skeptics.”

Jon almost snipes at her that the word she wants is charlatans, but one look at her expression and his heart isn’t in it anymore. He thinks about the Primes’ description of her as an Archival assistant, the “painting” from Martin Prime’s statement about his journey back in time, the slightly wistful look in Jon Prime’s eye when he talked about her resignation. And then he looks at her now, determined and angry and despairing all at once, and he resolves, then and there, not to ever let her get to that point.

He’s the closest thing she has to a friend? Fair enough. They’re going to get closer to that even if he has to do all the work himself.

“And none of them are helpful,” he guesses.

Melanie starts to bristle at him, then sighs heavily. “Look, Ghost Hunt UK split up. I mean, not formally, but, you know, Pete was always a flake, and the others just…drifted away.”

“I’m sorry,” Jon says, as gently as he can. “I did notice you weren’t updating anymore.” It’s a bit of a white lie—the Primes told him that—but she doesn’t need to know, not now.

Melanie continues, rambling a bit about her attempts to get a new crew together, then her solo expeditions ending in disaster. Jon can’t help the noise of shock and concern that slips out of his throat when she mentions getting arrested; she evidently takes it as interest and gives him the whole story. “After that…”

“Your reputation went with it,” Jon concludes.

Melanie looks away. The set of her jaw suggests she’s trying to hang onto her resentment, but also trying not to cry. “Yes,” she says tightly. “Look, I have leads that I really need to follow up on, and as far as my colleagues are concerned these days, I’m the ghost.”

Jon nods. “All right. Come on, then.”

Melanie looks back at him, obviously startled. “What?”

“Come on,” Jon repeats. “I’ll take you up to the library and vouch for you. If all else fails, I can claim we’re borrowing you as an adjunct for a few weeks or something. U-unless you’d rather wait?”

“Oh,” Melanie says, sounding taken aback. “No, the sooner the better. I—just expected a bit more of a fight, to be honest.”

“Yes, well, I know what it’s like to be itching to follow up on a lead and have your every effort frustrated. And I believe I owe you for being…dismissive of you before.” Jon suddenly realizes he hasn’t turned off his tape recorder. “Uh, end supplemental.” He presses the STOP button and stows the recorder in his desk, then gestures for Melanie to head out of the office.

Martin is just hanging his jacket on the back of his chair when they emerge; he looks up and offers Jon a slight smile, which freezes when he sees Melanie. “Uh…heading to lunch?”

“Eventually, but I’m going to see if I can convince Diana to let Miss King here use the library,” Jon tells him. “Unless you’d rather.”

Martin laughs nervously. “That would have the opposite effect, trust me. Besides, I, uh, talked to Tim.”

Jon bites back the hot words he wants to unleash in Diana’s direction. “How is he?”

“Fine, he says, and I believe him, but he asked if I would—” Martin hesitates for no more than a split second, then flicks a finger very quickly in the direction of the trapdoor “—run something down for him?”

In other words, Tim has a question he thinks the Primes can answer. Jon nods slowly. “All right. Just be…cautious. I don’t want a repeat of last month’s incident.”

Martin shakes his head vigorously. “Nope. No incidents. Nope. I’ll be back up before you get back from lunch.”

“Right.” Jon offers Martin a warm smile, which Martin returns, before leading Melanie over to the stairs.

Melanie, for a wonder, stays silent until they’re back up on the main floor, then says, “Does ‘last month’s incident’ have anything to do with all those scars he’s got?”

Jon bristles at the implied criticism of Martin’s appearance. “Those are months old. Did you not see the worms when you were here last time? We had an…infestation. It came to a head a couple weeks after your last visit. He was badly injured.” His voice shakes slightly as he says it. Even close to seven months later, he still has trouble sometimes shaking the memories of the black terror of that night.

“I’m sorry.” Melanie actually seems to mean it. “He seems all right now, though.”

“As I said, it was some time ago and he’s had time to heal. Last month’s incident was…it didn’t leave physical scars, but one of my other assistants looked into something he oughtn’t have.” Jon pauses. They’re just rounding the landing towards the first floor—the library actually spans the entire height of the building, save the basement, but for reasons he’s never understood the only way in or out is in the middle—and it’s deserted this time of day. Sound has a way of carrying, but they should be safe enough here if he speaks honestly, as long as he keeps his voice down. “He ran into your Sarah Baldwin.”

Melanie stiffens, but when she speaks, she manages to sound derisive. “You were just looking into my statement?”

“I contacted you when we initially did the research,” Jon reminds her. She grunts, either in acknowledgment or impatience. “This was a completely unrelated incident. I told you, I owe you for being dismissive before. You were right.”

“I wish I was recording this.”

“All right, no need to be—” Jon checks his temper. “Look. She’s dangerous. Or at least she belongs to something dangerous. You were extremely lucky to walk away in one piece.”

Something in Melanie’s face shifts. “Related to…whatever was at the CMH?”

“I—I don’t know. I don’t think so. I think they’re separate, but…there were things we know now that we didn’t know then. We may have to revisit your case.”

“Just so you don’t ask me more questions. I’m still having nightmares about it.” Melanie shoots him a glare. “You’re in them now, too, so thanks for that.”

Jon winces. “Ah…yes. I didn’t know about that at the time, either. I suppose I owe you an apology.”

“What?”

“Look, do you want to do the library today, or come back to the Archives and interrogate me? I can explain more, but it’s not something I want to do on the stairwell,” Jon says impatiently. Elias Bouchard’s office is on the first floor as well, and the last thing he wants is Elias actually listening to this conversation.

Melanie stares at him for a minute, then sighs. “Library. The less I have to talk to you, the better.”

Which is fair enough, Jon supposes. “All right, then. This way.”

Rosie’s office, door open, is just at the top of the stairs; from the way she peers over her computer monitor at them, Jon guesses she at least heard their voices, if not what they were actually saying. Melanie glances over her shoulder as they pass. “Why is she staring at us?”

“That’s Rosie.” Just about anyone who has reason to pass her door calls her “Nosy Rosie”, actually, but Jon isn’t going to mention that in earshot; despite all appearances, he’s not a complete arse. “She’s Elias Bouchard’s personal assistant. It…behooves her to keep her finger on the Institute’s pulse, I suppose.”

“She’s a snoop, in other words.”

Jon can’t help a small, humorless chuckle. “Aren’t we all.”

Between the door to Elias’s office and the library, at the end of the corridor, there’s a room with an incredibly solid door, firmly shut. It’s one of only two interior doors original to the Institute, the other being the library’s, and as such it’s windowless. It’s also unlabeled. Melanie eyeballs it. “What’s in there?”

“Artifact Storage.”

“So…what, haunted dolls, cursed music boxes, weapons belonging to serial killers…”

Jon stops and shoots Melanie a look. She shrugs, completely unrepentant. “All right, so I’m curious. Sue me. Not like I’m going to ask to go in.”

“Good, because I wouldn’t let you,” Jon tells her firmly. “It’s not a museum. It’s more of a…science lab, I suppose. They keep artifacts in there, yes, but they also study them, attempt to replicate their effects or discover why they do things.”

“Hmm.” Melanie studies the door for a second. Jon’s about a step away from grabbing her by the elbow and dragging her away when she falls into step with him. “You go in there a lot, do you?”

“Not if I can help it.” Jon leads Melanie to the end of the hall and the ornate double doors of the library, then pushes one open and ushers her inside.

Melanie’s jaw drops, which is the usual reaction among employees seeing it for the first time, from what Jon’s been told and what little he’s experienced. Three stories high, with balconies ringing the upper two, it’s near floor-to-ceiling shelves, every one packed with books. Tables and chairs litter the ground floor, and here and there on the upper levels are smaller rooms for private study. A bored-looking junior clerk sits behind a curved, ornate wooden desk with her back to the dizzying drop, filing her nails; elsewhere, other library assistants sort, stack, and shelve books from carts and precarious stacks.

“I always thought it looked like the library from Beauty and the Beast,” Jon admits in a low voice. From the startled look Melanie shoots him, she was thinking the same thing. “Come on. I’ll try and track down Diana.”

“What can I do for you?”

Jon and Melanie both jump at the boisterous, barely-contained voice from behind them. Whirling around, Jon takes a deep, steadying breath. “Diana. I…didn’t see you there.”

“That’s unusual.” Diana smiles—almost leers—down at Jon. In height and in breadth, she can give Martin a run for his money, and she towers over the two of them. Melanie nips smartly behind Jon, and he throws her a look. “What can I do for you? New assistant?”

“Ah—no. Diana Caxton, Melanie King.”

“The ghost hunter?” Diana raises one impeccably sculpted eyebrow almost into her hairline.

“Y-yes,” Melanie manages to choke out.

Jon takes a half-step back so he isn’t looking up Diana’s nose. “Miss King needs to use the library for some research. I know she’s not the…usual student type, but I’m willing to vouch for her seriousness, as well as her right to be here. I’m certain she will treat the books with the respect and care they deserve. And the subject matter, of course.”

Diana’s eyebrow raises higher. “You’re not going to put this in your show, are you?”

She says this at a normal volume, and a number of nearby heads snap towards them. Jon fights the instinctive urge to shrink into himself and hide. Melanie, on the other hand, folds her arms over her chest and manages to meet Diana’s eyes. “No, ma’am. I just need to follow up on some leads to make sure I’m informed enough on my end to go places safely.”

She’s lying. Jon knows intuitively she’s lying, but he keeps his face carefully blank. Diana studies Melanie from her great height, then finally nods. “Have to run it by Mr. Bouchard first, but I’m sure he’ll agree. I’ll have a ninety-day pass set up for you at the front desk. Come by tomorrow morning and we’ll get you started.”

“Thank you, ma’am.”

“Oh, Jon,” Diana says as Jon starts to turn away and lead Melanie back to the front. “Do tell Martin hello, will you? I hope he brightens your Archives as much as he brightened our library. We miss his smiling face up here. Tell him he’s welcome any time.”

“I—of course,” Jon says, not sure what else to say.

Melanie waits until they hit the landing to ask in an undertone, “Is Martin the one who said—?”

“Yes,” Jon says shortly. He’s going to have a talk with Martin about his self-esteem issues, not that he can really be throwing stones. But Diana seemed to genuinely mean it.

He bids Melanie farewell at the front door, then ducks into the canteen to grab a sandwich before heading down to the Archives again. Sasha’s there, making herself a cup of tea. She looks up and smiles when she sees Jon, but her expression turns puzzled. “Hi. I thought you’d be at lunch with Martin or something.”

“He’s…running something down for Tim,” Jon says carefully. Worry churns at his gut.

Before Sasha can respond, though, the trapdoor opens and Martin comes out. His face is pale and he looks shaken, which doesn’t help Jon’s worry. “What is it? What’s wrong?”

“N-nothing. I don’t know.” Martin carefully shuts the door and comes back over. “Tell you later.”

They don’t say anything else about it. Not then. But at the end of the day when they lock up the Archives, Sasha loops one arm through Jon’s and the other through Martin’s. “Mind if I invite myself over?”

“Yes, we can’t stand you and we’re thoroughly glad to get rid of you at the end of the day,” Jon deadpans, eliciting a tiny smile out of her. “Thank God you don’t live with us or we’d be constantly miserable. Oh—Martin, I forgot to ask, did Tim want us to bring anything home?”

“He said he’d put in an order at that takeaway place for us to pick up on the way.” Martin’s voice is unusually soft, and it makes Jon’s worry compound.

Tim looks a lot better when they get in the door, white boxes in hand. He greets them with a smile, which vanishes instantly when he sees Martin. “Oh, God, what? What happened? What is it?”

Martin shrugs out of his jacket. “Well, I asked them.”

“And?” Tim prompts, voice full of dread.

Martin sighs. “And they didn’t know.”

Tim blinks. “What?”

“They didn’t know. Had no idea what I was talking about. I’ve never seen Jon Prime look that confused.” Martin reaches for Sasha’s jacket, but she takes his instead and hangs them both up. “They were considering coming over tonight, but Martin Prime thought you might want to talk to us first.”

“Yeah. Yeah, that’s…probably not a bad idea.” Tim runs a hand through his hair. “Fuck.”

“Let’s eat. Then you can explain,” Sasha suggests.

Dinner is largely silent, except for the scrape of fork on plate. Jon does explain the purpose of Melanie’s visit to the others, and Martin frowns slightly when he repeats Diana’s words, but doesn’t say anything. Once they’ve all eaten and cleaned up, they head back into the living room to talk.

Tim sits on the edge of the loveseat, elbows resting on his thighs and hands clasped beneath his chin. “Where do we start?”

Sasha nudges Martin’s ankle with her foot. “What were you asking the Primes about?”

“Tim told me to ask them about ‘the color of fears’,” Martin replies. “They didn’t know what I meant. I didn’t know what I meant, except…” He looks up at Tim. “Except I think it has to do with your headaches.”

“It does,” Tim confirms. He takes a deep breath. “It’s…something I’ve been noticing lately. Since the Trophy Room, really. When I was there…when Daniel Rawlings looked me in the eye? His eyes were glowing. Like there was a light inside them. Right proper spooky. And when I got back to the Archives that day…I thought you’d put special bulbs in or something, at first, but I blinked and it went away. Then I was talking to you, Jon, and your eyes were glowing, too.”

“My what?” Jon touches the corner of his eye gingerly, like he can feel the luminescence.

Tim manages a small grin. “It’s not…it went away when I blinked, too, and I thought I was just imagining things. But it’s been getting…worse. Random flashes at first, but when the exterminator came in…he glowed for a second, too. After I sat in on that, it started getting stronger.”

“Hence the headaches,” Jon says. “Tim, why didn’t you—”

“I wasn’t sure. And…well, I wanted to experiment a bit. Because, see, here’s the thing. Rawlings’ eyes—when they glowed, they were this deep indigo, but the Archives, and your eyes and Sasha’s—and Martin’s lips once or twice—they glowed green. The exterminator was kind of green, too, but it was kind of a greenish-yellow, really, and the next day I—” Tim flushes and looks up at Martin. “I was watching you, and—your scars started glowing. Same color as the exterminator did, but your mouth was still the darker green, it’s how I could tell they were different colors. So…I started thinking, maybe that meant something?”

“Oh, God,” Martin says softly. “The marks.”

“Yeah, that’s what I’m thinking,” Tim says. “I—I’ve been sort of trying with some of the statements. It’s hard to see with them, really, because everything in the Archives glows green just about, and if I try too hard I get the headaches. But sometimes I could…pick out different colors in them, kind of. Sort of. Mostly. I-I thought maybe if I could look at them and see the fears’ marks…”

“You’d know which ones were real,” Jon completes. Tim nods. “You still shouldn’t have done that without telling us.”

“I know. Especially…well, I thought I could handle it. I’ve been getting better at only seeing them when I try to, and I thought I’d—give it a shot. I walked back into the shelves yesterday and just…let loose with my eyes. I tried to See what was on the couple of shelves nearest.” Tim sighs heavily. “But it was—it was overwhelming. There was just so much. It was like—like standing in the middle of a room made out of mirrors, and someone was shining all sorts of different colored lasers at them, and they were just bouncing off and refracting and amplifying and going everywhere. Like I was drowning in color, or like it was screaming at me. I can’t really explain it, but it was too much and, well, that’s when you found me.”

Martin exhales heavily. “Christ, Tim, that scared the hell out of me.”

“I know, and I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have tried that without warning you all. I-I really didn’t think it would be that bad.”

Jon bites his lip. “Is that how you knew—that statement, Ms. Gwynne’s, about the mummy?”

Sasha frowns. “The one that reads like the plot of a knockoff of a Brendan Fraser film?”

“Yes. I went to record it today and—it came out distorted. I didn’t see the note until after I realized it didn’t work on the laptop, but…Tim thought it might be real.”

Tim nods. “Yeah. I looked back over some of them. Started off with the ones we knew were real, and then I started looking at a couple that we weren’t sure of. That one…I wasn’t sure, but I think it’s the End?”

“Makes sense. Mummies. Death,” Martin murmurs.

“It was white. I mean—when I looked at it hard enough, it glowed white. Or at least I think it did,” Tim says. “Made the green kind of…pale, anyway. The other ones we’ve marked as being Terminus statements were the same color. But the problem is that the green of the Eye is so strong, it’s hard to really be sure what other colors there are, except if I’m looking at a person who’s been marked. That’s why I was asking about the color of fears. I-I was kind of hoping the Primes would be able to confirm what I’m thinking, but—”

“But they had no idea,” Martin completes. “Which means that, unless I just explained it very badly, Jon Prime can’t see those colors. Can’t see the marks.”

Jon rubs his temples. “I suppose it’s good to know that I don’t have to consider that, but…why? Why can you see the marks when the rest of us can’t?”

Sasha gets a faraway look in her eyes, and there’s a faint sound of static as she says, “Because that’s what’s important to Tim. Knowing when danger is coming, what danger is coming. You said yourself, Tim, you’re going to help and you’re going to do whatever you can to protect us. The Eye gave you the ability to Know what entities are around, or have got hold of someone or something, because it knows you’ll lean into that and use it for good as long as you can, up until it’s got a tight enough hold on you that you can’t get away, even if you want to.” She blinks hard, and the static fades as she puts a hand over her mouth. “Oh—oh, God, sorry, I—”

“It’s fine.” Tim manages a smile for her, but there’s a look of distress in his eyes. “It’s good to know.”

Jon’s distressed, too. “Tim you should have told us. Jon Prime’s been working with us on control, if we’d known you had powers already we’d have—he should be helping you, too. You can’t—” He takes a deep breath. “Promise me you won’t keep this sort of thing to yourself anymore.”

Tim reaches over and squeezes Jon’s hand. “I promise. No more unauthorized research, of any kind. I won’t even check books out of the library without telling you what I’m after first.”

“I appreciate that.” Jon smiles and squeezes Tim’s hand back. “Now then. Someone get a notebook and pen. We need to write down as much of this as we can.”

#ollie writes fanfic #leaves too high to touch (roots too strong to fall)#tma #the magnus archives #oof sorry this one's so late today guys

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harry5232860 · 4 years

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Week 7

Image 1 - I started this task by drawing my orthographic projection of the bottle. I decided to use a shape from one of my initial sketches rather than final task for week 5 as i though the cutout middle section would come out interesting in a 3 dimensional model.

I also included a section for the middle of the bottle so i could create a template of the solid are from this section in order to shape the cutout midsection area of the design and the top view template would allow me to do the opposite side.

I found im getting a bit faster at making the orthographic and finding that i now tend to piece together all of the steps necessary before attacking the page with pencil.

Image 2 - These are the initial templates that i will use to create my object out of foam, at the top can be seen the two templates created from the top view and section view. These will be transferred onto cardboard in order to add some more rigidity to the templates in order to have them act more accurately and easily.

Image 3 - I started construction by cutting it rough into shape. I was lucky to have a few tools around as ive been also shaping a surfboard recently and a lot of these tools transfer over well to the blue foam although many are too large to be useful also. I used a push pull saw for these initial cuts and I would recommend this tool to others as well as it was quite cheap at Bunnings, is flexible and the teeth are quite fine so it can do some semi detailed cuts if used slow enough.

Image 4 - As the basis of my form is a rectangular prism I decided to make a squared sanding block so that I could use the flat factory side of the foam to start and press it against the side of the block and sand down all other faces to match. This is another tool I had from surfboard blank shaping however I had to make this one smaller than the ones I had handy.

This block also worked well for sanding off all the edges as it could rest against the non-sanding side and flatten each sharp edge. I then rounded off the flattened edges with a flexible sanding pad as being flexible it naturally attacked any high points and seemed to do a lot of the work for me.

The major thing I found in this step was to go slow. I could always take more foam off but making foam reappear would be something of a challenge I believe.

Image 5 - Something else I learnt through learning about surfboard shaping was to use masking tape as a guide for where you do not want to sand. The masking tape is a visual guide but also doesn’t sand through too easily with fine grit paper ive found.

Image 6 - I realised sanding out that small area for the indentation area would be quite difficult. My solution was to update my trusty right angle block and glue some sandpaper to one of its smaller edges. This meant I could run this edge down along the sandpaper and move it side to side to sand out the desired area. The extra template I made came in handy her. Smoothing off worked well again with the flexible pad.

Image 7 - Overall im quite happy with how it turned out. I only had spakfilla on hand so Polyfilla would have worked a little better hopefully. Looking back I think having a very small rectangular extrusion or piece of timber as a sanding block would’ve helped square up the tiny edges on the indentation and made them just that little bit more square and clean. The overall form however im quite happy with.

Ive always found reduction methods of creation quite challenging as I always have to slow myself down and not take too much off or force myself to restart the whole piece. Im quite happy with how I paced myself on this one and it was a good lesson in the idea of being slightly over-prepared with the tools at hand as its hard to know from the beginning what will help the most.

With the model itself, i found the final 3 dimensional form to be a fair bit bulkier than it appeared on paper, perhaps smaller in all aspects would be nicer. I also found that although i was following the templates i was adjusting the model as well as i went to what naturally felt better or looked more pleasing. Overall a relaxing experience in terms of a class activity.

*From the class feedback i have noted that ill need to diversify my tool selection for model making. My next model making purchase will be a set of rasp files to add in more complex features in a more efficient manner.

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handmadecp · 5 years

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‘Leaf’ Pouch, full Build along.

Hi guys, This week I’ve been busy with lots of little projects, all of which I will show on here all in good time. Also busy right now trying to go Self Employed with this which takes forever to sort out here in the uk because there ‘is’ help...but not much and what there is takes a long time to get, anyhoooo, moving on to the fun stuff. Some of you may have seen a few W.i.P’s added to keep you all up to date on whats actually going on, I hope you are enjoying the short snap shots through out the week, I thought it might grab your interest and also just to give you a quick taster of the coming blog. So here it is, the ‘Leaf’ pouch build. This build is ok to try if you are a beginner...but probably more suits people wo have had some experience with stitching, dying, cutting with a swivel knife and tooling. I am now four years into my Journey into this amazing craft but still learning new stuff all the time, so although there will be projects that may seem a bit advanced for Beginners, I will still be alternating between the ‘Beginner’ projects, intermediate and advanced ( As I learn more I will share.) So , lets get on. I First Purchased for about £3.50 (Uk) from a great Lady goes by the name of ‘Downtoearthcreations’ you can find her on Youtube she is a prolific maker and sells some great patterns and has build along tutorials I’d advise you to go have a look, I then down loaded the Pattern.

First go to Downtoearthcreations on youtube, find the Leaf bag tutorial video and the purchase this pattern, it’s not expensive and is very easy to follow.

I then cut all the pieces out as shown here and stuck them together where needed with decorators paper tape....why?...coz that’s what I had, no other reason. then Transfer the pattern shapes to the leather of your choice, I used a 2-3 mm veg tan, it takes tooling well, but just be careful, it’s not very thick, don’t press the swivell knife too hard or else it will go right through, how do I know this...guess. Well that’s not hard to guess, Yes I cut through my first one, I’ve always said I will mention successes and failures on here, it’s the only way to learn I think.

For any really ‘New’ people who maybe don’t know yet what ‘Casing’ means I’ll quickly explain, it just means ‘wetting’ the leather to a ‘certain’ point of saturation..NOT..completely saturated as you might do for wet molding, but that’s a whole other thing. so for now just wet it evenly, whenever I wet leather I usually wet it all over , even the areas that I won’t be tooling, I have learned from other more experienced folk that if you only wet the area you need, you can end up with a ‘tide’ line and the water actually does darken the leather so when you come to dye it the will be a difference in shade between the area that was wetted and the one that wasn’t. some people don’t mind it...but personally, I wet it all over, your choice. Then you have to leave it until it almost looks dry again, then it’s ready for cutting and tooling. First you need to draw your veins on the leaf, you can free hand this part if you are confident enough or trace the given pattern with a ball point stylus tool or similar to get the pattern on the leather, then, use the swivell knife to cut in your design, adding any extra veins or cuts you might like. Take a Pear shader tool as shown above and using the bigger edge..’smash’...in a controlled way...the edges of the leaf as shown above..

Here you can see how I’ve gone all around the edges and basically flattened them, also here the ‘veins’ have been cut into the leather it’s now ready to tool it. You can leave it exactly like this as it will still look great but for a little extra ‘depth’ to the design I’m tooling mine.

Here I’ve decided after several ‘Coats of Looking at’..that I wanted the veins to really stand out so made a second cut as seen here,

Once the veins are all tooled with the beveler (Number B802) I dampened it a bit more..not a lot as before because it still retains some moisture and I just want to mould it a bit not soak it. (This molding is completely different to ‘Wet Molding’ as such, as with wet moulding you are shaping pouches and bags etc...this is just a thin leaf. If you do think you have over watered it, just leave it to dry off for a while at room temprature, don’t try putting it in the oven or under the grill or using a heat gun..as you will make it solid and brittle...again..yes..I know because I’ve done just that in the past, luckily..I do learn from my mistakes. I then manipulates the leaf into a more acceptable shape, I did this several times before getting a shape that pleased me.

Look closely you will notice I added some small ‘cuts’, just my own preference, you decide what you want if making one of these yourself.

I Layed down lots of paper, got myself gloved up, had some paper towels and old cloths handy, a small tub of water and a sponge, then I got out the Gel Antique dye, made by Eco-Flo. I decided on a Dark Brown. Couple of things here if you’ve never used Gel Antique dyes...firstly get some gloves on because this stuff will dye you and take weeks of hard scrubbing to get off. secondly, this is expensive stuff..for a reason, it actually works. I love it, but you have to get a whole bunch of it on your sponge to then spread it on your piece in circular motion as fast as you can..because then you need to get off the eccess with your towels, the reason is because the antique dyes go darker the longer its on, so get it on...get it off, if not dark enough for you then repeat until it is. this stuff also buffs up really nice. A good video on YT to watch is by a guy called Chuck Dorset at Weaver Leather Craft , go watch him first if you’ve never done this before. If it all looks a bit dark when you’ve finished don’t worry, antique gel dyes can be toned down by wiping with a ‘Damp’ cloth or sponge until it is a shade you like. You also don’t want this stuff on your clothes or furniture...you have been warned ( hahahaha ). Good luck...the results are worth it.

See how it’s getting lighter as it dries out.

I Like to use a piece of Canvas cloth to buff up my projects, it almost Burnishes them as seen here. note how I’ve twisted some of the ends of the leaf points, the Lady at Backtoearthcreations taught me that neat little trick on her YT video...once again..I advise you go have a look you’ll enjoy it.

So now we need to think about the stitch holes, I’ve used quite a wide gapped stitch iron as you can see on the following pic’, this is so that when it’s stitched we get the ‘style’ that I want. keep going you’ll see at the end. First I put stitch holes in the front piece, then laid that in position and made the first four holes just to give me the opposite position. I did use a Divider to draw a line to keep my stitch holes straight if you zoom in on the next pic you can see the line, this will be hidden by the thread when finished.

I have also made a strap loop which comes with the pattern, my advice...make it slightly longer so that a 2″ belt will fit through it. it’s ok as is...if you just rivit it ‘flat’ but if you want the extra ‘look’ you get from bending the strap over as shown here it can get a bit tight...your choice. I used a couple antique brass rivits top and bottom to hold it in place. Oh..nearly forgot, by this stage I had already coated with resolene to ‘fix’ the dye, but I guess you can do it at the end too. I dyed the flap side of the pouch on the inside dark because if you twist the leaf points you can see the ‘flesh’ color, didn’t want that, but I left the inside of the front peace ‘flesh’ colored and untouched so that when searching in the pouch in bad light it helps to light the inside of the pouch a little, just another little tip I got from someone far more experienced which I’m happy to pass on to you. I would have left it all flesh colored if not for the leaf points.

I decided to use an antique brass snap stud as a fastener for this pouch, so punch the hole BEFORE you start putting it all together...it’s just easier. ( guess how I know ???...hahahaha...yup you guessed it..what can I say..I didn’t have people pointing this stuff out to me, but hopefully by sharing my mistakes it will save you from doing the same thing..)

Not everyone has a snap stud fitting machine but the hand tools are easy to learn.

Starting to look like a pouch a bit more now.

So, all the pieces are almost ready, just the Gusset to make now, I chose a soft leather in Maroon color as seen here, again I drew a line about a quarter inch in as a stitch hole guide. The gusset section is deliberately cut a bit longer than needed and will be trimmed once done.

Finally it’s time to stitch it all together, I chose a veg tan flesh colored Lace and I had to stitch it all by hand with nothing more than a scratch awl to widen the holes. ( As I didn’t have the necessary Flat Lacing needle at the time ) but I personally enjoy stitching without a needle. so, I lined up the gusset, at this point you may do well to have the ‘Down to earth’ Leaf Bag Tutorial on as she demonstrates quite well how to begin the stitch which is a little difficult for me to explain on here. Ok, so once you’ve watched how she starts the stitch off you are basically ‘away’ and just keep going to the end and tie off as shown on the YT instructional video.

Here you can see the scratch awl in my hand whilst I’m ‘gently’ pulling the Lacing tight. Use good quality lace as there’s nothing more annoying than it keep snapping when you tighten it.

Really starting to come together now, the contrast between the Maroon and the antique colors is amazing...well, to me at least. Here now you can see why I used a wide gap stitching iron for the holes, it leaves a nice gap between each stitch which adds to the over all look of the project.

Here I’m trying to show how I finished off the stitching on this side of the gusset. as I came through with the last four stitches I pulled extra thread through so I could widen them on the inside allowing me to back thread the lace as shown here, I then pulled it through and snipped it off.

Then I went back and pulled all of the four stitched tight to hold the cut off end tightly. there are more than four widened here but as you saw I threaded it through four, you can do two if you like but I felt that four would hold better.

I then just snipped the end .

I slotted it in place and ‘snapped it closed just to get an idea how it was looking and have to say I was very happy at this point.

Then it was on to side two.

Annnnd..’Voila’ one really nice Leaf Bag / Pouch suitable for every day wear if you are into that sort of thing, or Renaissance / Larping / fancy Dress / medievel / basically any kind of costume event even Steam Punk if you just added some Steam punky bits to it. Well guys there you have it another little project from our new workshop, many more still to come, I’ll keep showing little snap shots through out the week to give a taste of whats going on in the w/shop just to show what I’m getting up to. Hope you have enjoyed this build along set, also hope you have a go yourself and as always I’m free to answer any questions and always happy to receive constructive advice. I’m still not professional, still learning and still sharing it all after nearly four years...yes my little Blog will be four years old next month. Till next time then, Stay crafty and watch this space.

#leather #leathercraft #medievel #larping #costumes #bags #pouches #leaf #leaves #renaissance

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fire-the-headcanons · 5 years

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And now we're going to be teammates with Crow and Raven for four years. He glanced up at the screen where their pictures were arranging themselves in order, a letter fading into view under each face. S, T, R, —Q? What? How did he spell his name? Qrow? Qurow?

Follow the Beacon Taiyang—A ROOK-ie Mistake

[Link to Masterpost] [Whew! This is a long one, but I really wanted all of this from Tai's POV. I like to think Summer was the leader, but Tai was the glue that kept the other three from killing each other, especially in the beginning. I love Tai's emotional intelligence in the show]

"Where the hell were you?"

The drone of Ozpin's voice lecturing the assembled students on the importance of flexibility, resilience and teamwork with unlikely allies barely masked Dan's angry words.

"In a tree with a sprained ankle," Tai hissed back. "Where were you?"

"I headed to the temple and waited for you! For like an hour!"

"Well, you were gone when we got there." He could stand on his own now, at least that was something, but his leg throbbed and healing had eaten through a good chunk of his aura. How do you always have enough energy to get angry? The last thing he needed right now was an argument.

"Tiffany Sativum, Robin Dickinson, Tan Jack, and Lisera Madder, please come to the stand." Two partnerships stepped forward, one from the edge of the crowd of new students and the other pushing their way from the middle. In the stands above, the upperclassmen clapped politely. "The four of you retrieved the white pawn pieces during your trial. From this day forward, you will work as team TRTL, led by Tiffany Sativum."

Tai's heart sank as Summer seized his arm. " He's using the relics to put the teams together? "

"Which one did you two take?" Dan demanded.

Tai swallowed, trying to clear the sudden foul taste from his mouth. "A black rook." The next pair of partners took the stage, the hapless owners of the black pawns.

"Dammit, I had a white knight!" He glared up at Ozpin standing on the stage. "This is a stupid way to form teams!"

"Maybe Crow put the piece down," Summer muttered, rising on tiptoes to search the crowd. The Taupe twins were on the opposite side, and they appeared to be arguing.

Tai sighed, deeply. "He did not."

"Oh, no. Oh no… "

Couldn't have said it better myself . Crow seemed nice enough, if a little weird—a cape? Really? —but Raven was weird and…prickly.

"Don't like your new teammates?" Dan asked, voice still taut with anger.

"She's a bad-mannered Grimm magnet!"

Harsh. But true. "Well, look on the bright side. Ozpin probably won't make her the team leader."

"And you have someone you know on your team," Dan complained. Across the field, the twins had abandoned arguing in favor of glaring at the ground with identical scowls and folded arms.

Absolutely nobody was happy with this, huh? Time to lighten the mood. Tai grinned, making sure he had both of their attention, and shrugged. "And, y'know. They're not unattractive."

Summer glared at him. "Godsdammit, Tai."

Ozpin cut her off, calling the next group to the stand, and Dan stepped closer as she focused once again on the stage.

"Careful, I might get jealous," Dan teased, quietly enough she wouldn't hear.

"Shhh." Tai elbowed him. "Unless you want to tell Summer now?"

"You're no fun."

At last, Ozpin made it to the rooks. As the newly formed team CIMN "Cinnamon"—that was a bit of a stretch, even for Ozpin—Tai and Summer started pushing forward.

"Taiyang Xiao Long, Summer Rose, Crow Taupe, and Raven Taupe. You retrieved the black rook pieces." A few of the upperclassmen whooped and shouted as they stepped forward, and Tai's cheeks burned with embarrassment. How many people knew how badly he'd messed up?

And then the four of them were lined up onstage under their photos, and Ozpin was smiling down at them despite their obvious discomfort."From this day forward you will work together as team STRQ, led by Summer Rose."

She sucked in a nervous breath through her teeth, with only a half-glance at Raven. Oh. Of course, the only thing that could potentially be more difficult than being on a team where Raven was leader… was leading the team Raven was on.

Although, she didn't look like she wanted to start a fight. For once. More like relieved—both the twins were. They're so weird.

They retreated gratefully from the stage and returned to their seats, clapping along with the rest of the school as Ozpin introduced the last few teams, and then they were free to leave.

"Well…" Summer began, but trailed off immediately.

Tai yawned. "I'm exhausted. Is anybody else exhausted?"

"Probably because of your aura healing you," Raven said, quietly. After so many harsh words the softer tone was almost jarring, but anyone would know that . Was she trying to get under his skin? Again? Why?

He certainly wasn't going to rise to it. "Uh…yeah…"

"…You knew that already," she muttered, staring at the ground. A few yards away Professor Lionheart called everyone to pick up their things and go to Dorm B.

"Yeah."

"I'm sorry," she said, still not making eye contact. "I was… impatient, in the forest. I didn't realize we'd be working together …I don't want to make trouble."

Oh. She was trying to be nice? Tai scratched at the back of his neck, somehow even more uncomfortable. The next four years were going to be all flavors of interesting.

"Well, let's start over." Summer said, offering her hand for Raven to shake. Tai had known her forever, could tell she was just as uneasy, but also knew she was willing to recognize when someone was making an effort. "I'm Summer Rose. It's nice to meet you."

"Raven Taupe," she replied with a small smile. "You too."

Summer smiled, only a little forced, and swiped Tai's bag from his hands to sling it over her shoulder with her own. "Come on, let's go find our room." she said, rushing a few steps ahead.

"She really thought Ozpin was gonna make one of us leader?" Qrow muttered under his breath, one eyebrow raised. Tai stifled a snort, trying not to glance at Raven, but she was just nodding with her mouth pressed into a thin line.

Their room was on the second floor, near the end of the hall. A piece of paper had been taped to the door with STRQ scrawled in large, neat letters. "Home sweet home," Summer muttered nervously, pushing her way in. Four beds took up most of the space, with a couple feet between each. Two desks were crammed side-by-side in the middle, under the window, and as they filed in they found the other two pressed against the wall on either side of the door.

No curtains around the beds or for dividing up the room. "…Not real big on privacy, are they," Tai said. The dorms at Signal had been co-ed, but not this co-ed.

"Ugh, I hate getting used to a new mattress," Summer complained, flopping down on one of the beds against the wall. The twins immediately moved to claim the two at the other end of the room, leaving Tai with the one next to her—well, he was perfectly fine with that. He dropped his bag at the foot of the bed and started digging through it. Soap, towel, change of clothes, detergent, toothbrush…

"I'm gonna shower," Tai said, tossing the bundle over his shoulder. "I feel like I have bugs crawling all over me from that stupid tree."

*****************************************************************************************

"Dude, are you okay? You've been in there for like…forty minutes." Tai called tentatively. He didn't have his scroll, but Qrow had gotten in the shower while he was still trying to get his boot off his injured foot. He'd massaged his ankle, showered, and started a load of laundry since then.

The water switched off almost instantly. "I'm fine!"

Tai just shook his head and began to brush his teeth. Are these two really this weird or is this culture shock? he asked his reflection. I mean, we were eight when we moved to Vale. I don't remember Anima that well, and it's a huge place. In truth he couldn't even remember exactly where they'd lived…Ayame was closer to Mistral than not, right? And Qrow had said they weren't too far from there either.

The metallic clink of something metal hitting the porcelain a couple sinks down jolted him out of his thoughts. Qrow was now wearing a shapeless T-shirt and drawstring pants that Tai could only describe as dingy—faded colors, thin fabric. He'd tossed his combat gear into a sink and was filling it with water.

Tai spat, rinsing his toothbrush. "What are you doing?"

Qrow froze, hands dripping with soap. "…Laundry…?"

"There's a machine free," Tai gestured at the wall of washers next to the door. Actually there were several open.

"…Never used one before," he muttered, continuing to scrub.

"Oh." Tai blinked. They'd had a washer growing up, but Ayame was a relatively large town. Not everyone in the reigon had reliable Dust power outside the cities. "Uh… you can use my detergent…?"

"Really?"

"Yeah, what are teammates for?"

Qrow grabbed his stuff from the sink, trying to wring it out a little but still getting plenty of water on the floor, and shoved it into the washer. "Can I ask Raven if she has anything?"

"Sure!" He hoped the cheerfulness in his voice didn't sound as strained to Qrow as it did to him. Once his new teammate had vanished into the hallway, the forced smile slid from his face as Tai's head dropped into his hands. "What have we gotten ourselves into?"

"You're telling me."

His head snapped up—but it was just Dan. "You're on our floor?"

"Best news I've heard all day." He wrapped his arms around Tai's waist, pulling him close. "I thought he'd never leave."

"He's just getting more stuff to wash," Tai mumbled, letting his head rest on Dan's shoulder. He was so tired.

"How's your ankle?"

"Hurts if I step on it too hard or move it too much." Dan let him go, and he jumped up backwards so he could sit on the counter and get his weight off it.

"I'm glad you're okay. Sorry I got so heated in the auditorium. I just really wanted the three of us to stay a team."

"Speaking of which, when can we tell Summer we—" Tai broke off as Qrow walked back in. "Got it?"

"Yeah, thanks," he said, tossing a small pile of red, black, and gray-brown into the machine. Tai hopped off the counter and started to measure out the detergent.

"Uh, hi, I'm Qrow Taupe."

"Dan Effeuiller."

Tai squinted down into the washer. Even with both the twins' clothes, it was barely half full—and the only color in the pile came from their battle gear. Most of their things were the same drab grays, browns, and off-whites in various states of well-worn.

"Actually, I think this is silk," he said, reaching in to pull Raven's sash out. "This does need to be handwashed—"

"Did you steal clothing from a female student?! " Tai jumped about a foot as an older boy yanked it from his hands, face purple under a golden blond mustache.

"I-It's my sister's," Qrow stammered.

"Oh." The mustache twitched. "Right you are. My apologies, Mister Taupe. I am Peter Port, the floor supervisor. I'm also a TA for Grimm Studies. Though…this is not how I wanted to make an introduction."

"You know us already?" Tai asked.

"Indeed I do, Mr. Xiao Long," he said. "Fortune favors the prepared! If there is anything you need, my door is at the end of the hall. I'll be seeing you all in class tomorrow!"

They breathed a collective sigh of relief as the TA left the room. "Anyway, uh, use warm water unless the clothes say not to on the label…" All their clothes looked very handmade. "And make sure you use the Dust-enhanced setting on your combat gear, it'll make it last longer."

"What happens if you wash silk in there?" Qrow asked, glancing at the sash.

Tai rolled his eyes. "Summer hits you for ruining her cosplay." That had been a fun day, when her Grimm Reaper cloak had come out of the wash all rippled and bubbly.

"Uh…" Qrow clearly didn't get it. "Okay. Thanks. I hate doing laundry."

He snorted. "Anyone would if you had to do it all by hand!"

[Qrow: Fortune favors the people at the other end of the hall from me. Sorry, Tai]

Next Chapter: Do You Want to Get Stabbed?

#rwby #rwby fanfiction #strq #team strq #taiyang xiao long #summer rose #raven branwen #qrow branwen #peter port #dan effuiller #follow the beacon

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megalony · 5 years

Text

From the end- Part 2

This is the second part of my latest Ben Hardy series which I hope everyone will like.

Taglist: @lunaticspoem @butlegendsneverdie @langdonzvoid @jennyggggrrr @luvborhap @radiob-l-a-hblah @rogertaylorsbitontheside @chlobo6 @rogertaylors-lipgloss @sj-thefan @omgitsearly @luckytrashgooprebel @scarsout @deaky-with-a-c @killer-queen-ofrhye @bluutac @vousmemanqueez @jonesyaddiction

Series masterlist

Enjoy.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

A sudden buzz rushed through (Y/n)'s veins when her eyes set on her next patient walking through the door.

Sometimes she felt worried or anxious if a patient was one who could lose their temper easily. If she was assessing someone who clearly wasn't all there in their head, that was a tricky situation. She had to work to know their triggers to avoid them, she had to work to search their minds with their permission and get a feel for who she was talking to. Sometimes she knew that it was dangerous in her office. Cameras dotted around to record every conversation was all well and good until her patient turned on her. Then she would have a minute or two where she was vulnerable until help from reception could get to her.

There were times, of course, when (Y/n) felt happy or excited at the next patient she would have. She could feel herself already going over the questions she had prepared on the paper in front of her. She could feel her adrenaline spiking at the need for answers.

This job was like reading a book for (Y/n), she couldn't wait to turn the page or move onto the next chapter to find out the answers she was so craving to know.

Her eyes followed Ben as he took the same seat that he did two days ago, sitting himself down on the sofa that was a bit worn and torn in places. His back was straight, pressing up against the back of the sofa as opposed to last time when he hunched over. She watched his eyes dance over to the glass of water sitting on the table the same as last time, placed near to him for if he needed it.

(Y/n) took a moment to scan over the notebook sitting on her lap where she had jotted down notes from last time. They had left the session off where Ben had talked about the crash in little detail. It was always hard for people to open up and everyone had different boundaries that (Y/n) knew not to push or cross. She couldn't push Ben too far to talk in the first session, he was intrigued by her but he didn't trust her making him more likely to close off rather than open up.

She had two weeks to do her initial evaluation, that should be enough time for her to work out if Ben was alright in his head as he put it. Something told (Y/n) that even if he seemed alright, more sessions would be needed so he stayed that way. Talking over what happened was an effective way for helping people especially people with PTSD like Ben had due to the crash he was reluctant to open up about.

"Hello, Ben. How do you feel today?" (Y/n) tapped the end of her pen against the corner of the page very rhythmically in a slow tempo that seemed to entrance Ben even if he could only just hear it.

A smile found its way onto (Y/n)'s lips as she watched Ben tap his temple with a curve of his lips that seemed to cause his eyes to narrow. Giving him the look of someone who was thinking of something they shouldn't. (Y/n) nodded to the silent question of was she referring to how he felt in his head. Tilting his head back and lifting his chin, Ben shrugged his shoulders as his smile seemed to change. It was still curved one side more than the other but it wasn't crude or even slightly menacing. It was gentle, quiet and shy.

"I'll take a guess that you're like some of my other patients, some days are hard, others are easy. Was today a hard day or did you feel motivated to come here today?"

Some people didn't know how they felt and Ben was one of those. His head wasn't rattling with screams or thoughts he didn't like which he had experienced before. His head was... calm and that was something he was not used to but it also meant he wasn't sure whether he felt good or bad. If he felt he had to work hard to motivate himself to come here today then that was a sign that he wasn't feeling the best. If he came here with no opposing thoughts at all, he was having a very good day.

"I wanted to come and talk to you." Ben's words took (Y/n) by surprise but she let the smile creep onto her features when he smiled in a way she had seen in some of his interviews. Their first meeting showed her that there were two sides to Ben, one that the public saw, and one that he seemed to show to her but not the world. Now he was showing his public smile, the one that was infectious but (Y/n) couldn't decipher if this smile was one he simply put on for others or if it was genuine. "I want to go back to work soon too, I need you for that, love."

Ben leaned his head to the side as he chewed on his lower lip at the way her brows raised at either his words or the nickname that simply slipped from the tongue.

Ben loved his job, he loved how it wasn't nine to five like everyone else's jobs. He loved how it was always different in every sense, different costumes, different hair, different emotions and people and friends. Everything was always changing and although some people didn't like change, Ben welcomed it. He welcomed not knowing what would come the next working day whereas people in offices or cleaners or bar workers always had some level of solitude, some things that would never change.

Even (Y/n) had that solitude in her work, the patients changed and so did the stories she heard and the faces she saw. But she was always in the same office, she had relatively the same working hours and she had the same environment. She still had the same paperwork to sign, notes to take and files to record.

"Let's get you back to work then. So, tell me the next chapter of book one. Who was in the car with you?"

Instead of tapping her pen against the corner of the page, (Y/n) hovered the tip of the biro on the line beneath the question she just asked. There were a few questions jotted down that she wanted to ask so she could get a full picture of what Ben had gone through and then work back to the beginning. Sometimes it was hard to listen to the story from the end but (Y/n) had seen how this worked for some people and as long as she got all the information that she needed, it wasn't going to pose as a problem.

"Nicki." Although Ben only said one word, his tone was very clear and not to be mistaken. He didn't say her name with a tone that would refer to a loved one who you had lost. Ben spoke her name almost with a tone of malice as he looked down at the glass of water as if it had just lit up like a beacon for his eyes.

Reaching his hand out, Ben grabbed the glass of water firmly as (Y/n) saw his still battered and bruised knuckles pushing up against the skin containing them to the point she wondered if he was going to shatter the glass.

"And who is Nicki?" (Y/n) leaned her head to the side as she glanced up at Ben who brought the rim of the glass to his lips, holding his trembling breath in order to take a sip of water. His trembling breath caused ripples to flow through the water before he set it back down. Narrowing her eyes, (Y/n) wrote down the name before adding a question mark next to it. Whoever this woman was, she was having a bad effect on Ben.

He seemed to have gone from having an essence of brass and cockiness about him to looking almost frightened by the name of someone who had died. Someone who could not hurt him or pose any threat or annoyance to him yet still had a name that imposed fear onto the actor.

"My ex."

"Right." (Y/n) nodded her head as Ben slowly lifted his eyes to meet her own, a sense of worry flooding through his emerald orbs. "Can you tell me about her? Did you not get along well with her... was she worrying or threatening to you?" (Y/n) didn't want to be too pushy if Ben still didn't feel trusting enough to open up to her but it was her job to ask in order to help.

She could see it in his eyes that he wasn't comfortable when talking about Nicki and there was something in the way that he glanced down to his knuckles before back up to (Y/n) as if he was trying to convey a silent message to her. (Y/n) had to ask if Ben was afraid of Nicki- well, had been afraid of her- because she had seen so many people that were afraid of their partners or a family member and Ben fit that category. Ben was uncomfortable saying her name, he was almost frightened even though she was no longer around showing whatever had happened, she still had a lasting effect on him.

"She... worried me at the end. I didn't want her in the car with me but she wouldn't leave me alone. In the last chapters of book one, she would get abusive."

Ben feathered his fingers over his bruised knuckles as he closed his eyes tightly as if to ward away unwanted memories. His index finger brushed over two knuckles on his left hand which was placed in a bandage to keep them together. Before his finger skimmed over his middle and index finger which were taped together, presumably because they were broken.

His actions indicated to (Y/n) that either Nicki had broken those knuckles and fingers or she had done that before. (Y/n) had Ben's files and she could easily get in touch with his doctor for his medical records, but in her opinion, Ben's injuries were from his crash. He had a healing cut to his forehead which had clearly had stitches, there was yellow, fading bruises to his cheekbone and a cut along his sharp jawline. (Y/n) had suspicions that beneath the jeans and hoodie he would have extensive bruising to the chest from the way he couldn't sit still and how he had to be careful when breathing quickly.

It seemed unlikely that his injuries were from Nicki this time around even if it was clear she had hurt him before.

"I'm sorry to hear that. You aren't obliged to answer all of my questions, especially if they are too upsetting for you but if you do answer, for your evaluation I need you to be honest with me." (Y/n) had to give a pre-warning before she ventured with a question that was written at the bottom of her page. A question which she wasn't sure if Ben would feel capable of answering or not but it was one that would help with his evaluation if he did answer.

It was part of (Y/n)'s job to ask intrusive questions because she had to delve into Ben's mind. She had to pick around in his head for the answers that would help her see how his mind worked and if he was in danger of becoming unstable or not.

Ben didn't have to answer. If a question was asked which made him feel insecure, vulnerable or just upset then he had the right to stay quiet or ask to change the subject. This was about Ben at the end of the day and he wasn't here to be made to feel uncomfortable or to send his mind into a place that he didn't want to be. But the more tough questions he could answer with as much honesty as he could, the quicker his evaluation could be done and the quicker he could be helped.

"I understand, love."

There it was again. That little slip of the tongue that came with an understanding curve of his lips that showed his teeth but not in the way that would look concerning or even shark-like. He looked rather youthful, small, loving even, when he smiled like that.

"That's good. So, you told me in our first session that Nicki passed away and that you believe she deserved to be the one out of you both who died. Given that you were dating at one point or another and that she has been abusive, are you now happy that she's dead?" Ben had said that he felt he deserved to live but Nicki didn't. He had also confided in (Y/n) that he had been in an abusive relationship even if he hadn't saif for how long the abuse had happened.

That left Ben vulnerable to feelings that may contradict his values and beliefs. He may feel that because she hurt him, she deserved to die and that would come with a feeling of relief and possibly even happiness that she had died.

"I... I wouldn't say that. Is it bad to feel relief that she's gone?" Ben looked at (Y/n) through hooded lashes as he clasped his hands just that little bit tighter together that send shockwaves through his knuckles and fingers of his left hand. He could never say he was happy that she had died. They had been a couple, he had loved her and had dated her and had gotten to know her, Ben would never let himself think or say that he was happy someone who had been close to him was dead. But he couldn't deny that he felt relieved.

"No, your mind is working out that a threat has gone. This would normally result in feeling relief or even happiness that you are 'free' of this threat now. I'd be worried if you didn't feel something like that." Ben's lips twitched at the sides as he nodded, looking more relaxed now he had gotten that confirmation. "What about when you said before that you deserved to live but she didn't? Explain that to me because I don't think you're a... crude, kind of person who would say that."

"I said that in terms of karma, not my personal judgement love." Ben corrected as he raised his brows at her wording. He understood what she was saying, of course he did.

Ben wasn't the kind of person to be full of themselves or crude enough to say that he believed he was better than anyone else and that he deserved to live. He didn't think his life was more valuable than the next person's life and Ben needed (Y/n) to understand that. Everyone was equal but Ben thought there was something to karma and in terms of that, he hadn't done anything that would backfire on him whereas Nicki had.

"I can't condemn someone or say they deserve to die, that's not up to me. B-but karma gives you a punishment for a wrongdoing, she hurt me, she didn't make it out of the car. I got used by her, and I got out of the car. I deserved to live because I didn't do anything, she wasn't so lucky."

Ben was not God, he wasn't in control of any life but his own and so he could only say for himself that he knew he didn't deserve to die because he hadn't done anything wrong. He knew that but for Nicki, he knew she had done many wrong things and karma had gotten back at her in a way Ben didn't necessarily like but one that made him feel relief. He had been hurt and his compensation for that was to live. Nicki had hurt him and her punishment was dying in that car with him.

"That's an interesting way to view things."

#ben hardy #ben hardy imagine #ben x reader #imagine #borhap #from the end

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lilithrebellion · 5 years

Text

Lilith Rebellion Chapter 10 Preview

Happy New Year! Here’s your gratuitous make-out scene.

Yeah, anyway I couldn’t wait until the chapter was done so you’re getting the first part early. Also 2019 was the 100th anniversary of Yuri, so here’s to starting off the new era right, and to many more wlw works to come!

Relationship (F/F): Yui Komori/Amaya Yuuki (OC) Content: Asexual Relationship, Non-Sexual Intimacy, Cuddling and kissing, Everything is fluff and nothing hurts, all the consent, stupid flirty Amaya

Soon enough, the two were walking through the door of Amaya’s apartment.

“Ahh, it’s so good to be back!” she said, clearly in high spirits as she stepped up from the entryway.

“Are you sure it was really alright to leave without saying anything?” Yui asked as she followed after her.

She shrugged before heading into the bedroom to drop off her bag. “I left a note.”

Said note was just a piece of paper taped to Yui’s door that read “Went out. Be back Monday. XOXO. Amaya and Yui.”

Yui sighed. She could already tell that Amaya’s message was not going to be well received. “When they see that, I just know they’ll—”

“Okay, that’s enough of that!”

Yui's sentence was cut off when Amaya gently pressed a finger to her lips. “We came here so that we could take a break from all of that. So how about for the next couple of days, they just don’t exist?”

Yui blinked. “They don’t exist…?”

Amaya smiled. “Exactly. Besides, we don’t need their permission to do anything. So you don’t need to worry about what they think or if they’re gonna be mad. Because that doesn’t matter!”

As soon as she heard those words, Yui felt the remaining uncertainty being washed away. She nodded and placed her bag on the bedroom floor beside Amaya’s. “Yeah, you’re right. Then, is there anywhere you want me to put my things?”

“Wherever you want. There’s plenty of space.”

“Okay.” Yui then knelt down to unzip her bag and took out her nightgown. It was around the time when they usually went to sleep so she should probably get changed for bed. However, it occurred to her that Amaya was right next to her and she began wondering if it was alright to change in front of her.

Yui glanced over to see that Amaya had already taken off her jacket and was hanging it up in the closet. She glanced back at her for a second and then they both blushed before quickly looking away again.

Yui stood with her nightgown clutched to her chest, trying to think of the best course of action. Well they were both girls, so it should be fine for them to change in front of each other. Except that Amaya was attracted to women. But that shouldn’t matter, should it? And besides, they were dating so did that make it extra okay? Or maybe…

Before she could decide, she felt a hand on her wrist and she was pulled to the side. Yui yelped in surprise as she was thrown onto the bed. She barely had time to process what was happening as Amaya climbed on top of her, knees around her hips, palms on either side of her head. Yui felt her face heat up at the intimacy of their position. She hadn’t expected Amaya to do something so forward.

“Yui,” the tenderness with which Amaya said her name had Yui’s heart slamming against her chest as she stared up breathlessly at the earnest passion burning in her eyes.

“You said that I should be more honest about my feelings so…”

She took a shaky breath, her cheeks reddening as well.

“Yui, I love you. But just saying it isn’t enough. I want to show you exactly how I feel. I want to kiss you, to touch you, to hold you tight and never let go...” She briefly looked away, still clearly nervous. “I-Is that okay?”

Her voice was so soft and sweet, it made Yui feel like she might melt right then and there. She smiled and reached up to place her hand behind Amaya’s head.

“Of course it is.”

With that, Amaya leaned down for a kiss as Yui pulled her closer. Their lips pressed together, more insistent than ever before. Love filled every inch of her with a pleasant warmth as she enjoyed the feeling of Amaya’s hands running through her hair and her labored, airy breathing as their lips came together and parted over and over, alternating between deep and soft.

Yui let out a soft moan as she felt Amaya’s chest press against her. Although modest in size, the slight softness still had her mind spinning wild with desire. She draped her free hand across her back, wanting to bring them even closer together.

Gradually, Amaya began moving away from her lips to press kisses along her cheek and jaw, working her way down to her neck. Yui tilted her head to the side to give her more room, becoming completely undone at her girlfriend’s gentle touch.

Girlfriend…

The word made Yui’s heart flutter with joy.

That’s right, she was her girlfriend now. The happiness that followed upon that realization was nearly overwhelming.

A small gasp escaped her lips at the feeling of Amaya's fangs brushing against her skin. It didn’t seem intentional and Yui knew that she would never bite her, but it was still enough to give her a not unwelcome sense of thrill, like an arc of electricity through her veins. She tightened her grip around Amaya’s shoulders, as if doing so might keep her grounded amidst her bubbling emotions.

“Does that feel good?” Amaya whispered, her breath tickling her skin.

“Mm…” Yui nodded lazily, too caught up in her own ecstasy to say anything else.

“Okay, then let’s try something else.”

Hearing the bed creak as Amaya pushed herself off of her, Yui opened her eyes curiously to see her settling into a kneeling position before her legs. What was she planning?

Amaya met her eyes, smiling with a hint of mischief as she reached forward to lift up her leg. And then leaned down to plant a kiss on her inner thigh near her knee.

“Ah!” Yui cried out, taken completely by surprise at the boldness of Amaya’s actions. For someone who usually got flustered so easily, it all seemed to be coming out of nowhere. Although, she didn’t hate it.

Amaya smirked, clearly amused by her reactions, and again placed her lips against the increasingly sensitive area.

“Nn…” Yui trembled, her heart hammering in her chest as she reached up to grasp at the pillows with what little strength she had left. But it didn��t do much to make the waves of pleasure from each delicate little kiss any more bearable.

Glancing back down, Yui suddenly felt a jolt of apprehension when she noticed that Amaya’s kisses were slowly nearing…a certain area. Yui tensed, the suggestiveness of it making her stomach do flip flops. She wasn’t exactly sure how two girls were supposed to, well…go all the way, and although she loved it when Amaya kissed her, she wasn’t sure if she was ready to do that with her.

Despite how her breath was coming out in hot, heavy pants, Yui tried her best to form a coherent sentence. “I thought you said…you weren’t interested in…that kind of thing…”

Amaya paused to look at her questioningly. She then glanced down and her eyes widened in realization before looking back up to meet her eyes in reassurance. “I won’t go that far but…” She delicately placed her fingers on the back of her thigh. Yui shivered at the coolness against her burning skin. “There’s plenty of other ways to pleasure you, right?” Amaya said far too seductively as she gently traced her fingers up to the back of her knee.

Yui let out a gasp and couldn't help but squirm at the sensation of that impossibly light touch. She bit her lip and averted her eyes, her resolve crumbling before her girlfriend’s newfound flirtatious side.

Amaya’s expression returned to one of hesitation as it occurred to her that maybe Yui wasn’t as receptive as she had originally thought. She started to set down her leg. “If you’re not comfortable with it, I won’t—”

“…Don’t stop.”

“What…?”

Yui’s cheeks burned, but she couldn’t keep the words from spilling out. “…It feels really good so don’t stop.”

Amaya smiled. “Alright then.” With that, she leaned in again and continued to trail feather-light kisses along her legs.

“Ah-hnn...” Clamping a hand over her mouth, Yui tried to prevent herself from making any more strange noises, but a few whimpers still managed to escape.

Amaya giggled softly against her thigh, which did not help the situation whatsoever. “You can be as loud as you want, you know? It’s not like anyone else will hear you.”

Yui was sure her face was about twenty different shades of red. “... It’s still embarrassing.”

Amaya hummed and made her way back up until she was leaning over her again. “Well I think you sound adorable.”

Yui didn’t get a chance to reply before Amaya sealed their lips again, turning her indignant squeak into a heavy moan with another deep kiss that left her breathless all over again.

By the time Amaya pulled away, Yui had been reduced to little more than a blushing, gasping mess beneath her. She smoothed a stray lock of hair behind her ear and smiled in satisfaction, a devious glint in her eyes and one fang peeking out of her mouth in a devilish yet frustratingly cute manner.

Slightly annoyed that she was just letting Amaya have her way with her, Yui shot a glare up at her. Although it probably came out looking like a pout at best, Amaya’s expression turned startled all the same.

Not wasting a moment, Yui reached up and pushed as hard as she could. Amaya yelped as she was now the one being flipped onto her back. Before she could recover, Yui pinned her by her shoulders and dove down to deliver a kiss of her own.

“Mn!?”

The angle was a bit off since she had moved in so fast, but it still did the job. When Yui lifted her head, she was treated to the sight of Amaya rendered speechless as she lay below her, wearing that lovely flustered expression that had captured her heart.

Yui took a deep breath and despite her own embarrassment, spoke to her in a serious voice. “I-I don’t want to just be receiving your love. I want to show you how much I love you too!”

Amaya’s eyes went wide in awe. But soon enough, her smile shifted to become playful again. “Hm? So you want to try taking the lead?”

She tilted her head slightly, making Yui's heart tighten at how painfully alluring she looked with her dark hair spread out against the pillows. “Then, how about you kiss me again?”

Drawing in a shaky breath, Yui leaned down and did just that.

She kept it soft and sweet, wanting to convey to Amaya just how earnest her feelings were. Just in case she still had any further doubts. Yui was determined to dispel them right now and spell out in no uncertain terms that she was absolutely worthy of her love, and that she wouldn’t rather have anyone else by her side.

It seemed to work, as she sensed a tiny shudder run through Amaya’s body and heard her let out a contented sigh.

Seconds later, Amaya was wrapping her arms around her waist as she slid her hands up her back and sides beneath her shirt, earning another unsuppressed moan from Yui’s lips at how the coolness of her touch was amplified against her feverish skin.

Not to be outdone, Yui cupped Amaya’s face in her palms and gently caressed her cheeks and neck. Amaya squeezed her tightly in return, and Yui felt her purr happily against her continued kiss.

She was sure Amaya could feel how heated she was, and although she knew she couldn’t warm up the same way, it didn't stop Yui from trying her best to do so anyway.

“You know…ahh…if you're hot you can just…nn…take it off…”

Yui pulled back with a start, the suggestion nearly making her heart stop.

Amaya reddened in embarrassment under her gaze, her voice turning into a stutter. “Y-you don’t have to…uh…I’m sorry. I-I don’t know why I said that…”

Smiling at her nervousness, Yui pushed herself up onto her knees and although her hands were shaking, began to lift up her shirt. Amaya had sat up as well and watched with fascination as Yui pulled off her sweater, and then her shorts, discarding both over the side of the bed and leaving her in a slightly frilly pale blue bra and matching panties.

She felt self-conscious at first, but that quickly disappeared once she saw how Amaya was looking at her. Her eyes shining and filled with awe, as if she were in the presence of an angel from heaven.

Feeling it was unfair that she was the only one in such an exposed state, Yui smiled and reached forward to grip the hem of Amaya’s shirt.

Her eyes widened for a second before nodding for her to continue. Before her nerves could get the better of her, Yui pulled her shirt off over her head and unzipped her shorts, revealing simple black undergarments. She left her stockings on though, liking the way they accentuated the shape of her thighs.

Yui drew in a sharp breath as she fully took in the sight before her, eyes sweeping over her subtle curves, lingering a bit longer at the swell of her breasts. Her smooth skin almost seemed to glow in the moonlight, giving her an ethereal kind of beauty.

Amaya shifted shyly under her gaze and shrunk into her shoulders a little, although this simply succeeded in making her boobs squish together in an even more enticing manner.

“Don’t stare at me so much…it’s embarrassing…”

Heart melting again at the softness in her voice, Yui moved forward to gather her up in a warm embrace. “Sorry, I was just thinking how lucky I am to have met you.”

“Really?” Amaya said, hugging her back and burying her face into the crook of her shoulder. Her whispers were gentle beside her ear. “Because how I see it, I think I’m definitely the lucky one.”

Yui slowly loosened her grip to meet her eyes and the two shared a tender look before coming together in another passionate kiss as they fell back against the sheets.

It would be an unforgettable night for the both of them as they eventually drifted off to sleep, hands clasped together and still tangled up in each other’s arms.

=====

End Notes:

Number of times author’s soul left her body while writing this: too many to count.

Also I’ll just go yeet myself into the ocean now because what the Hell am I saying!?!??!

This isn’t even the whole chapter how will I survive....

#Diabolik Lovers #yui komori #amaya yuuki #myfic

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soveryanon · 5 years

Text

Reviewing time for MAG136!

- In a very interesting way for an episode dealing with The Web (both as an active force outside of the Institute and… very close to it: Annabelle sending Alison there, Jon being unable to focus on his lighter), this episode dealt, in a lot of small ways, with the idea that members of the Archives team are… regaining control of themselves and their lives?

Melanie is attempting therapy! She’s cautious about it but she’s taking measures to try and get better, she’s putting efforts into it, she wants to feel better!

(MAG136) ARCHIVIST: If you don’t mind me asking, [STATIC:] where are you off to…? MELANIE: Therapy. [STATIC ENDS] … Wait. ARCHIVIST: Oh…! Oh, God, Melanie, I’m, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to, uh… MELANIE: [EXASPERATED SIGH] It’s fine. I would probably have told you eventually, anyway. ARCHIVIST: Even so, I shouldn’t have– MELANIE: Just… forget it. [SILENCE] ARCHIVIST: [SIGH] It’s good, though. I–I’m glad you’re getting help. MELANIE: Yes, well. We’ll see. There’s a… a lot of crap therapists out there. ARCHIVIST: I guess. Still, it–it is a good step.

Jon is right on this and… there was already something hopeful in the way that Melanie didn’t explode at Jon for accidentally compelling her; she wasn’t pleased by it but… she could have shut the conversation down. Instead, she tried to minimise a little what Jon had done and asserted her boundaries, which she did again with the therapist, but without cutting either of them out. She’s clearly not in the bestest of places, was uncomfortable with the topic… but I’m so glad and proud of her for taking this “step”, for deciding that she had to deal with her demons – possibly from way before she even came to the Institute for the first time?

Meanwhile: it wasn’t so much about Jon’s actions but about what he finally admitted – that he’s aware that he made a choice, that he’s actually had… a very twisted and casually self-destructive way of facing the coffin and of considering his own life since he’s woken up:

It has been a process for Jon, too; the theme of “choice” has been sneakily prevalent in season 4 so far, following up on season 3:

(MAG087) Georgie: [SIGH] Look I’ve, I’ve got work to do. You listen, or don’t listen, or cross-record, or whatever you want, just… just think about it first, okay? You can choose to leave it alone. [DOOR CLOSES] ARCHIVIST: [SIGH] [TAPE PLAYER IS LOADED] [CLICK]

(MAG092) ARCHIVIST: I never chose this! ELIAS: You never wanted this, no. But I’m afraid you absolutely did choose it. In a hundred ways, at a hundred thresholds, you pressed on. You sought knowledge relentlessly, and you always chose to see. Our world is made of choices, Jon, and very rarely do we truly know what any of them mean, but we make them nonetheless.

(MAG111) GERRY: Thing is, it’s harder than it looks. What’s out there doesn’t care about blood. […] But they care about your choices, your fears.

(MAG117) ARCHIVIST: [SIGH] You– you know what, no. I’m… I’m done with that. No more paranoia. It’s almost got me killed more than once, and… Georgie was right. If I am… slipping, then I need people I can trust. And I… I don’t think that can happen naturally for me an–anymore, so… I’m making a decision. I trust them. All of them. E– except Elias, obviously, that’s not– I mean…

(MAG121) OLIVER: The thing is, Jon, right now, you have a choice. You’ve put it off for a long time; but it’s trapping you here. You’re not quite human enough to die, but – still too human to survive. You’re… balanced on an edge where The End can’t touch you – but you can’t escape him. I made a choice. We all made choices; now you have to– […] Make your choice, Jon.

(MAG132) DAISY: I don’t want t–to be a s–sadistic predator again… I–I don’t want to… hobble around, like some pathetic, wounded prey either… I don’t know which would be worse. And I’m sc–scared, now, that I’ll never get the choice… ARCHIVIST: One thing I’ve learned, Daisy, is that we all get a choice. Even if it doesn’t feel like one.

(MAG134) PETER: … Look. I’m not gonna pressure you into doing anything you don’t want to. It won’t even work unless you’re willing to commit.

(MAG136) DAISY: Get over yourself! You’re always talking about choices – we all made ours. Now I’m making the choice… to get some drinks in. Coming?

So, although his memories are still missing and he might not remember Oliver either (Jon has never mentioned him so far, and given how Jude had been able to kick Jon out of her dreams, he might have done the same thing despite giving a live-statement), Jon is aware that he made a decision – maybe without knowing in the details what was at stake (there could be a few things we could still scream at Elias in MAG092 re: informed consent :w), but he was faced with two options and elected one over the other. It has its own shades of tragic undertones and heartbreak, but it’s also… his own choice, this time around, and still more controlled than “sign papers to become Head Archivist of an eccentric Institute (sells your soul to a Fear god that you’ll now have to feed through other people’s terrors or your own)”. By pushing and questioning Jon, Daisy had been able to make him say what he chose to do (and as seen above, why), and his handling of the coffin was one of such things. Even if, indeed, the Web sent him in that direction (leaving MAG131’s tape for him, maybe manipulating him to some extent through the lighter), Jon, like Martin, is still appropriating what they did as being his own decision:

(MAG134) PETER: What does puzzle me, though, and I mean that genuinely, is… why you were piling tape recorders onto the coffin, while Jon was in there. [PAUSE] It’s a question, Martin, it’s– it’s not an accusation. MARTIN: I don’t know. And I just… felt like it might help. He’s always recording, I thought… it–it might help him… find his way out. PETER: Interesting. Were you compelled? MARTIN: [SULLEN] … I don’t know. … M–maybe? I–I, I definitely wanted to do it… PETER: But? MARTIN: I’m… I’m not sure where the idea came from.

(MAG136) ARCHIVIST: I… [SIGH] I don’t feel like I’m exactly in the best place to judge the… intersection [CHUCKLE] between free will and humanity. Still trying to figure that out myself. [SILENCE] DAISY: Jon… when you went into the coffin. Was it you choosing to do that? Did you actually think you could save me, or was… that something telling you to do it? [SILENCE] ARCHIVIST: It was me. I was… drawn to it, I’ll admit, but it was my decision.

Jon agreeing to Daisy’s proposition to go get drinks may also be going in his own right direction – back in season 1, Jon would have probably shrugged off the offer? But as Helen told him, “people change” and right there, Jon had a micro-choice; he could have refused and, still, after a small hesitation, decided to go along with it instead.

Of course, when it comes to reclaiming their life back in this episode, the most striking was Daisy; Daisy, who had already explained who she wanted to be (MAG132: “I d–, I don’t… I don’t know who I am without, without the chase… I just know… that I… I don’t like who I was back outside. I don’t want to be her again. I want… to be… better…”) and who, so far, has managed to stick to that; Daisy, who handles herself as best as she can even (especially!) though it requires other people because she wants to avoid being alone for PTSD reasons:

(MAG133) [CLICK–] DAISY: You sure? ARCHIVIST: No, uh, it’s, hum. It’s fine. DAISY: It’s just… Basira’s busy.

(MAG136) MELANIE: Well… uhm. Daisy’s been, erm… I’ve been keeping her company. Er, while… while Basira’s busy. She’s, er… ARCHIVIST: Oh, no, I, uh… I–I know. […] DAISY: [QUICKLY] You’re not babysitting me, alright?! I know that’s what the others think, sometimes, but… that’s not it. I just… don’t like… being on my own if I can help it. You know. Flashbacks, panic attacks, the usual. Just trying to avoid it if I can. ARCHIVIST: I know, Daisy, I–I do. It’s hard. DAISY: Yeah, well. Don’t let me get in your way.

There is currently something so strong in what we’re seeing of Daisy? In the way she’s aware of her limitations and manages to prevent the conditions leading to potential breakdowns? I feel like she’s following the same logic as when we knew her as a Hunter: when she was seeing a problem, she would just… neutralise it. Hence beating up Mike, hence immediately going for Jon’s voicebox; hence her Cold Factual Violence overall against spooks/vampires/“monsters” of various kinds. Basira had said that she liked Daisy because she was “solid”, because of her certainty, and this is still the same Daisy – though not hurting others anymore! And she pulled an incredible power move:

(MAG136) ARCHIVIST: It, uh… Hm. Is, uh… Weird question, but… I… [EXHALE] I haven’t seen you in my dreams? The last couple of weeks? DAISY: … Oh, uh, no. I… I work here, now. I figured it seems to protect the others, so… ARCHIVIST: Oh. Right, so… Wait, did you talk to Lukas, or…? DAISY: [CHUCKLE] Broke into Elias’s old office. Found an employment contract; filled it in, and signed it. ARCHIVIST: And that worked. DAISY: Seems so. ARCHIVIST: And you’re not… worried about… DAISY: Basira’s trapped here. So are you. Not gonna be going anywhere anyway. ARCHIVIST: … I suppose not. So… no more dreams. DAISY: Not of you and your weird eyes. Just the coffin. ARCHIVIST: Is that better…? DAISY: ’T’s mine. ARCHIVIST: … right.

She weaponised what they have gathered, through experiences and guesses, to get free of the dreams she hated! It’s not absolutely clear whether she signed to become an Archival assistant or a regular staff member; on the one hand, Jon’s concern hints towards archival assistant, since as far as we know, the Archives seemed to be their own business, including trapping their staff (though damn, I remembered MAG102 being more explicit on the matter but: actually, no, since Martin saying that regular crew are able to quit was immediately followed by “Hannah just left to have her baby, though.”: was that “though” a “by the way” or a way to tamper what he had just said, and this is the most they can do, but still not quite quit…?); on the other hand, Daisy hasn’t specified what it was.

Anyway: it’s such a POWERFUL MOVE to… 1°) break into Elias’s office, 2°) just sign herself up like that?, 3°) ESPECIALLY given how Elias had initially coerced Basira into signing herself up to avoid turning the scene into a bloodbath, even before being told of the repercussions (that she couldn’t quit, that Elias dying meant that they would die too). What Daisy did sound like a direct answer to MAG092, and I’m loving it, loving that Daisy… just used what they had learnt of the dreams’ mechanism to protect herself and chose to bind herself to the Institute while exactly knowing what it meant, without anything blackmailing her into it. Elias hadn’t bothered to tie her down for who she was? Watch as she’ll decide that for herself.

This is also the first person of Extended Team Archive to… have given herself to The Eye fully knowing what she was doing. You better be grateful for the gesture, Big Eyeball!!! The others had to be misled or coerced into serving you, and Daisy, of all people, chose to give herself to you!!!

(- If Daisy became an Archive Assistant: I hope that she’ll get to read a statement at some point? Well, technically, best thing would be for nobody to read a statement but. Martin did it a few times (and read one in MAG134!), Tim ALMOST did it, Melanie did it twice, Basira did it once… it’s a bit of a Tradition. (And who wouldn’t want to hear Fay Roberts for almost an entire episode outside of Daisy’s own live-statements?! I’m a simple woman, okay.))

- I’m really curious about how Elias and Daisy would interact, now. Would it be biting/tense/mutual snarling, or taunting about Daisy still being a “rabid dog” at heart…? Or precisely not anymore: because Daisy acknowledged in front of Jon that Elias had not been that off about her (MAG132: “Did you ever hear the, the story Elias told me? About what I did. How I am… He, he didn’t get a detail wrong. The Hunt… Hunger was in me all my life.”)…? I also… get the feeling that maybe, the current Daisy might be perceiving her encounter with the Institute as a chance, since it ultimately led to her snapping out of the Hunt (though she would have reasons to want to break Elias’s arm for the fact that Basira got trapped because of him).

- I wonder if Martin saw Daisy’s name pop up amongst the new staff members? Or if Peter just told him right away what she had done? Is Daisy now actually getting a salary from the Institute? (I’m not sure that Elias “We really don’t have the budget for that” (MAG067) had even bothered to pay her when he was using her ~services~ so… drain Peter’s money, Daisy, gogogo!! And Use Your Powers to give everyone in Team Archive a raise, Martin :w)

- The fact that Daisy said that she had broken into “Elias’s old office”… Well, Elias’s office had been characterised by the clock in the background; since we could hear one in MAG126, I was assuming that Martin and Peter were in there (especially since Martin was doing Peter’s directorial work) but had noticed that there was no such sound in MAG134. Were they outside of the Institute? Or has Martin stopped working in Elias’s office since Daisy had forcefully gone inside of it, deeming it unsafe?

- Anyway: Jon-Melanie-Daisy seem to be creating an awkward support network, right now, and it’s ADORABLE and good (+ extra cookies to Melanie for seeking therapy!). They still have trouble talking: there were sooo many pauses and silences when Melanie was in front of Jon; Daisy is still not… super at ease speaking about how she feels (while she’s way chiller when it comes to describing how she broke into Elias’s office. Daisy, ilu.); Jon searched for his words a bit to describe how he was perceiving himself at the moment… But they’re trying and still getting those words out and explaining themselves to each other a bit. And it’s PRECIOUS, godsdamnit.

- ALRIGHT, NOW TO DIVE RIGHT INTO THE SILK-STICHED MEAT OF THIS EPISODE:

(MAG111) GERRY: Nice lighter. You a spider freak, then? ARCHIVIST: What? Oh! Er, no. I-I never really, uh… I never really thought of it. I–I’m Jon. I’m with the Magnus Institute.

(MAG136) DAISY: [SCOFF] She’s… Web. Spider’s sneaky like that. [PAUSE] Like that lighter you’re always using. Where’d you get that? ARCHIVIST: Mm. [STATIC] Good point. We should keep our eyes open. Anyway, how’s Basira doing?

………………. It was impossible to tell whether or not there was static back in MAG111 (at least for me: there was a constant static-y background due to Gerry being there), but here, yep, there was some. So something is DEFINITELY preventing Jon from lingering too much on the lighter (like an oily surface his attention keeps slipping on?) and what it means. … And apparently, he still has it with him – I had wondered if he hadn’t lent it to Martin for MAG118’s plan, burning statements? I mean, maybe he did and the lighter found its way back to Jon anyway, or it was still with Jon during the Wax Museum explosion, but Jon still has it with him at the moment.

How many silken strings have tied around Jon’s body and head without him noticing, I wonder… the episode was about a “Puppeteer”, after all (or… maybe a bit more about the puppets.)

……………….. Sounds like Jon is back to smoking again, too, given Daisy’s comment? And Jon’s smoking habits have been Smelling Like Web Spirit: he had apparently stopped around the time he began to work at the Institute (since he told Leitner he had “been quit for five years now” in MAG080, in February 2017); Elias had ranted about Jon smoking in MAG039 (“He’s not smoking again, is he?”: was it because he knew of Jon’s smoker history? Or because Jon had gone back to… smoking a lot since he discovered that the lighter had been delivered to him in MAG036?); Tim implied that he might have noticed that Jon had been smoking again recently at the end of season 2 (MAG079: “he’s going to do something, and it’s going to be bad. And I don’t mean like ‘sneaking a cigarette’ bad. Like properly bad.”); Jon ~conveniently~ felt the urge to smoke a cigarette and left Leitner alone to face his death (Elias.) in MAG080 (Jon minimised it at the time, but… it means that he had cigarettes on him.); and after that, we only got the mention from Daisy digging through his stuff in MAG091, and him offering Gerry a cigarette in MAG111.

One thing that makes me Hysterical every time:

(MAG091) DAISY: One wallet, brown leather, no cash. One packet cigarettes, Silk Cut. One lighter, gold, spiderweb design.

OF ALL THINGS, JON SMOKES “SILK CUT”

“SILK

CUT”

COME ON, SPIDER, COULD YOU TRY TO BE A BIT SUBTLE WITH THAT BOY?!

- Actual footage of Jon forgetting about his lighter (ft. Daisy):

- I find it very interesting that Daisy was able to notice the lighter and Jon’s lack of oversight about it since… when Daisy was introduced through Basira’s words, Basira explained that Daisy had first been sectioned over a Spider-related case:

(MAG043) BASIRA: […] Daisy was sectioned years before I was even on the force. She’s never been that forthcoming about any of her own experiences. Takes Section 31 very seriously. The most I could get out of her was that she was originally sectioned for something she referred to as “spider husks”. The way she described it, it sounded like she’d found a bunch of shells. The sort crabs leave behind when they grow, but… I could never figure out if it was meant to be the husks of people-sized spiders, or the spider-like husks of people? And Daisy never seemed like she wanted to clarify. I’m sure she mentioned vampires once as well, but… I think she was joking. … Probably. … Maybe…

We have learned, since then, that it wasn’t exactly true: Daisy’s first section’d case had to do with the coffin, but Daisy also told Jon that only her superior had known about it prior to Jon's pulling the story out of her (MAG061). So Basira couldn’t have known that Daisy had lied or dodged to tell the truth, but still… one of Daisy’s first cases had to do with Spiders.

(And Daisy has been ~taking care~ of the vampires, too, which are known for their mind-controlling powers. When Trevor had met a Spider-Woman, he had mentioned that his experience with vampires had probably helped him to identify that the compulsion to get out and get high wasn’t his own… So it seems like Hunters might have a little immunity or at least resistance to manipulation. I’m EVEN MORE RELIEVED that Jon got Daisy back.)

(… And afraid, oh so afraid for Daisy’s life-expectancy, since she’s already so important when it comes to potentially dealing with threats, and being a presence which allows the Archive team to re-form a bit.)

- MAG110 and MAG136 are quite good to listen to one after another, besides Neil Lagorio’s existence – they dealt with the same movie-making world, of Web apparently, and there were some tiny things which were quite interesting? Both statements were given by women isolated from their peers and put into a situation they probably wouldn’t have picked if they’d been allowed to retain more options and Choices:

(MAG110, Alexia Crawley) “I’d held some ambitions about directing myself one day, but it soon became obvious that that wasn’t going to happen. Maybe if I’d got a feature under my belt before I was outed as trans, it might have been different, but… as it was, this revelation burned too many bridges, and when the dust had settled, it was made abundantly clear to me that I was never going to get a movie of my own. And it was either cinematography, or nothing. So I stayed.”

(MAG136, Alison Killala) “He even kept in contact when I left to have my baby. It wasn’t planned […]. Anyway, even once I’d sorted out childcare arrangements, I found myself… more and more unwelcome in the industry. It wasn’t that people weren’t willing to hire me – by this point I had a hell of a special effects resumé – but the hours you were expected to be working, the way shoots were set up, the culture of drinking, networking… none of it was really possible alongside parenting.”

There was, also, the obvious theme of… the fictions reshaping reality, or becoming a reality: Dexter was obsessed with a Spider that seemed to only exist in his dream of a story, and he recreated it on the set in the end. Neil managed to finally recreate his last story with himself:

(MAG136, Alison Killala) “he would twist his fingers into all sort of bizarre, intricate shapes, until I could see the strings flowing over them… ‘We made them dance,’ he would say, wonder and nostalgia in his voice. ‘Oh… how we made them dance.’ […] He told me later his… greatest regret was not being able to finish his final film. An arthouse piece simply titled Dancer. He never explained what it was about, nor do I think it actually… came out in the end. […] And as I walked away from Neil, the last time I saw him alive… he was dancing. The cables shifting, and moving him in a graceful, sweeping ballet. And he was crying with joy.”

On the theme of “smoking” as related to the Web, it’s ~curious~ to note that it was also present in MAG110 and MAG136’s statements, and not in moderation either:

(MAG110, Alexia Crawley) “[Brandon Alma] took to the role immediately, with a gravity and a weariness that I don’t think could have been entirely feigned. He was the only one who didn’t seem excited by the movie, and spent his off-hours smoking and reading quietly in one of the trailers.” (MAG136, Alison Killala) “I had to fight every instinct inside me, everything that wanted to burst out in admiration for his work and his… profound effect on my life. But instead I chain-smoked and laughed, trying my best to come across as my hero’s peer…!”

So, hum. Smoking hadn’t been exclusively a Web-thing before (there was of course the Anglerfish’s baiting, and its shells smoking to disguise the odour of death), but I still find that noticeable.

- There is an OBVIOUS problem with the timeline of Neil’s death, from MAG110 and MAG136’s given mentions:

(MAG110) MARTIN: Martin Blackwood, archival assistant at the Magnus Institute, recording statement number 0121403. Statement of Alexia Crawley, given March 14th, 2012. (MAG110, Alexia Crawley) It seems like a sick cosmic joke that that was the day the press broke the news of Neil Lagorio’s death. Half an hour after the cast walked into that building, one of the grips stumbled across the news story whilst idly checking his phone. Lagorio had been privately suffering from Parkinson’s for almost a decade, and had been bedridden in his Connecticut home for the last year.

(MAG136) ARCHIVIST: Statement of Alison Killala, regarding her time as friend and carer to special effects artist Neil Lagorio. Original statement given 1st December, 2012. Audio recording by Jonathan Sims, the Archivist. (MAG136, Alison Killala) “It was almost six months ago when the woman came to our door. […] I don’t know how long I was watching those films. They don’t… It was hard to keep track of time. According to my daughter, I was missing for five months. When Annabelle let me out, Neil was dead. […] She told me to come here. She told me to give them to you. I resisted for some time, but I’m done now. She’s won. And I’d… very much like to go home.”

If Annabelle visited Neil’s house six months before Alison gave her statement, it should have been in June; while Alexia’s statement put Neil’s death before March (presumably February, since Martin added as part of the follow-up that “Apparently, over the last five years, every February, a corpse is found washed up on Redondo Beach.”). It’s not clear either if Alison lived in the UK but she did mention the “UK press” at some point; while according to the official version given by Alexia, Neil had lived and died in the US.

So what happened…? Has someone in the Archives been purposely messing up with the dates regarding The Web…? Were there two “Neil Lagorio”s towards the end…? Did The Web messed up the files a bit through someone? (Noticeable, too: Jon who ~listens to all the tapes~ didn’t mention the echoes with MAG110’s statement, which was read by Martin. Did he listen to this one, or had the tape… disappeared when he went back?)

(I know that the popular theory regarding MAG114’s statement and what was happening in Hill Top Road is “parallel worlds”, but it always sounded textbook Spiral to me – we also have been demonstrations of entities rewriting reality to erase people or twist people’s memories, see the Not!Them and what happened to the statement-giver’s husband in MAG038. But I’m a bit short on explanations regarding the obvious problem of timeline in MAG110 and MAG136……………..)

- Relistening to MAG110, I just realized that someone had completely flown under my radar: Brandon (Brendon?) Alma, the main actor, who… was the one controlling the story and the set, actually?!

(MAG110, Alexia Crawley) “Most impressive to me though, was a guy named [Brandon Alma]. He was playing the closest thing the film had to a protagonist, a… homeless ex-Methodist minister who’d found himself on the island by chance and served as a connecting thread, wandering between the scenes and the vignettes of the inhabitants, after each ended with their march to the Spider. Brandon took to the role immediately, with a gravity and a weariness that I don’t think could have been entirely feigned. He was the only one who didn’t seem excited by the movie, and spent his off-hours smoking and reading quietly in one of the trailers. It was a shame because, for whatever reason, he also seemed to be the only one that Dexter would listen to. I only saw them talking once or twice but every time, Dexter would be wrapped, nodding at… whatever Brandon might have to say. […] [Dexter] then gathered up the cast and, with Brandon leading them, took them through a small door in the side of the workshop. And they disappeared inside.”

He was playing a character who was the “CONNECTING THREAD” between people getting eaten by the spider, Dexter “would be WRAPPED” and agreeing to everything Brandon told him, and Brandon was the one to lead the actors into the workshop where they were all killed/consumed/drunk hollow, UHUHUHUH. Maybe the book that Dexter had found wasn’t actually the (only?) thing that messed up everything? Or did Brandon come from the book? Was he actually the spider himself, or just there to ensure that the spider would emerge and be fed…?

(MAG110, Alexia Crawley) “I don’t know when he first mentioned his spider film. It didn’t… bubble out into a full obsession until two years ago, but I know he talked about it plenty before that. […] [蜘蛛が食べている] (Kumo ga tabeteiru). I think that was the name, anyway, something like that; he was normally slurring quite badly when he said it. He thought it translated to “The Spiders That Devour” but a Japanese friend once told me it was actually closer to just “Spiders Are Eating”. According to Dexter, Kumo was an old tokusatsu movie which, he believed, had come out sometime in the mid-to-late sixties. It was about a Spider – just the one, despite the title – that grew to a colossal size and terrorized a small unnamed island off the coast of Kagoshima. What struck him about it, though, was the utter absence of anything resembling a hero or a protagonist. No one fought against the monster, and although there were vignettes in the lives of those under the Spider’s shadow, they all ended the exact same way – with the character in question marching slowly, and calmly, into its waiting jaws.”

(And it would sound EXTREMELY Web to have all the attention focused on Dexter… while the true puppeteer would be somewhere else, hidden.)

- Something striking in many Web mentions is that: it likes Order (… and apparently drinking people hollow – requiring the fluids to sustain itself? To be able to moult and grow in size?)

(MAG127, Breekon) “We had some luggage once. A thrumming, silk-wrapped thing of The Spider, hiding away in an old steamer trunk. We stepped heavy through the dining car and found an old woman near the caboose. 'Something strange in the luggage car,' he said, and I finished as was our way. 'You should come and see it.' She stood and walked with us readily enough, though tears flowed silent down her cheeks and pattered onto the faded carpet. The Spider’s always an easy job – no fuss, no complication, everything planned and prepared. It knows too much to truly be a Stranger, but hides its knowing well enough to endure. We knew she wouldn’t scream as she was hollowed out and drunk.”

(MAG110) MARTIN: Apparently, over the last five years, every February, a corpse is found washed up on Redondo Beach. It will be a shrivelled husk, with all moisture and internal organs apparently removed.

(+ Daisy’s early Section 31 case with the “husks” of people/spiders/etc.)

On the matter of order: the victims in Kumo (MAG110) also weren’t making a fuss when they marched off to get eaten, it was the same behaviour as what Breekon described. Regarding Alison’s story, it seems like although she was officially the puppeteer of Neil’s body… SHE was the one who had been puppeteered around:

(MAG136, Alison Killala) “I became his carer a few months later. It just seemed to make sense. A frugal life, lucrative career and… prickly personality had left him with lots of money but no real support; while my life had left me in a position where I cared… deeply about his well-being and was in… desperate need of money. Everything just… lined up so neatly. […] he threw himself into a new project, one I would never have expected, but that suited my engineering background perfectly. […] I protested, of course! This man was my hero, I–I loved him, and there was no way I could subject him to this… awful indignity. But my objections were ignored, as always, and Neil insisted that this was what he wanted. So I built that… strange contraption. Using the skills I had developed across my whole life, to fill every corner of Neil Lagorio’s house with wood, and steel, and cable. […] I barely even noticed when the harnesses were no longer necessary; when the loops for those hooks were now embedded directly into his body. I must have asked him about it. But at the time, it just seemed like… such a natural progression.

Neil had exactly the Right Person available for what he needed when his body started to shut down; Alison wanted to refuse and ended up accepting. Even before Annabelle came in, it… doesn’t really sound like Alison had been the one in control in that whole situation.

And on the matter of people being at the right place at the right time for The Web’s purposes: SQUINTS at the fact that 2012 was when Jon started working at the Institute. We witnessed Melanie, Basira and Daisy’s first steps there, we know that Tim went to get a job there because he was looking into his brother’s death, Sasha might or might not have been interested in the supernatural for years (it could have been the Not!Them rewriting that bit; we at least know that Sasha wasn’t particularly well-off so… maybe she just plainly needed the money); we know that Martin just happened to be hired after submitting his CV everywhere he could (the question of why ELIAS, who PERSONALLY INTERVIEWED HIM, hired him is… another Big Question), but… why did Jon start working at the Institute? He didn’t particularly expect to Georgie to identify what the Institute was, so it wasn’t a life-long dream of his that he would have mentioned many times as a student…

(Re: the Web and Order, SQUINTSSQUINTSSQUINTS again towards the one particular person who has mostly been associated with that: “loves scheduling”, has specific days on which he eats lunch with the Institute’s librarians, insisted on Tim doing the paperwork for his absences, That One Thing About Keeping Receipts If You Want To Claim Your Expenses (Unless You Die)… that guy.)

- I still wonder how the Web works on people exactly, though… especially given all the talks about making choices and decisions, it would seem a bit odd to end up concluding that “anyway, the Web will make you want and do whatever IT pleases, you can’t do anything about it”…? (Though yeah, THAT is frightening.)

Given that Alison compared herself to Frankenstein, I wonder, in her case, if despite her ~adamant refusal~ to puppet her friend and idol…

(MAG136, Alison Killala) “Even pyrotechnics, while… impressive and visually spectacular, they just didn’t give me the same sharp joy as making something that could move, that came alive, directed and controlled by my hand… I always felt Frankenstein should have been an engineer, not a medical student, as reading that book I couldn’t help but see myself in that obsession. But I suppose everyone’s already done the-monster-as-the-robot, haven’t they?”

… some parts of her didn’t actually want it? And this is how The Web might operate overall? Humans are complex, we’re always mixing up emotions and different desires at the same time; maybe The Web mostly just brings to the surfaces the ones it needs to push people in the direction it wants…? (In that case, re: Trevor and the Spider Woman… it wouldn’t be surprising, as an ex-heroin addict, that some part of him would still feel the tinge of the craving…)

- What was Neil, in the end? Was he a Web avatar who found a way to feed his god mostly through fictions? Was his ex-partner “Gabe” Gabriel, the Spiral’s Worker-In-Clay…? Was he a plain person, able to use some powers here and there? The thing is:

(MAG136, Alison Killala) “his satisfaction with his latest and… as it turned out, last… foray into horror, with The Harvestman. He’d always had a fondness for spiders, he told me. And I of course reminded him that harvestmen… weren’t technically spiders.”

She is right! Though this could be a case of misleading us to focus on the symbols rather than their effects; Neil’s work was… indeed clearly linked to the idea of hidden control:

(MAG110, Alexia Crawley) “he claimed to be working with Neil Lagorio to make the Spider. Now you might never have heard his name before, but I guarantee you you’ll have seen his work. From the mid-seventies right into CGI, Lagorio was THE name in Practical Creature Effects: suit work, stop-motion, animatronics, whatever the method, he was the master. […] I’d had the pleasure of working with him way back in 1989 on Orbit – a medium-budget sci-fi vehicle for some… aging action star. Neil was working on a twelve-foot tall animatronic robot that featured heavily in the climax. The picture was, unsurprisingly, a flop; but I still remember his work. How he brought a… lump of wood and steel to life. Th–the huge, intricate mechanisms that allowed his crew to puppet it into motion that was so natural you could forget that the back of it was completely hollow…!”

On the one hand, he sounded pretty harmless. On the other hand, there were these “original cuts” (and the cruel broken SMILE you could hear on Jon’s face when he mentioned them while reading the statement was… gosh.). Was Dexter Banks invited to one of those screenings, and is that why he was haunted by the memories of a movie he couldn’t find again…?

-… So, what does it mean for ANNABELLE to send these original cuts to the Institute?

(MAG136, Alison Killala) “There were two sorts of people in the world as far as Neil saw it: those who were worth his time, and those who were not. And if you were in the latter group, he honestly couldn’t care if you lived or died. Not that most people could tell which side of the line they fell on; there were even days that… I wasn’t sure myself! Sometimes, I remember, he would invite people over to his studio that I was sure he hated, for screenings of his “original cuts”. I was quite… jealous of this at the time, as I’d never got such an invitation. But it was probably for the best. I didn’t… realise it back then, but… [SIGH] those guests… they never quite looked the same afterwards. […] She told me to take the films. His… “original cuts”. She told me to come here. She told me to give them to you.”

[…] ARCHIVIST: [INHALES] Statement ends. Hm. Neil Lagorio… You ever see any of his work? DAISY: No. Not really into films. ARCHIVIST: Oh, they were… Well, let’s just say that it’s not a complete shock there was something unnatural to them. Didn’t know we had copies in the Institute, though; let alone original cuts. [CHUCKLE] Records indicate they [PAPERS RUSTLING] ended up in… Artefact Storage. DAISY: Probably best that they stay there. ARCHIVIST: … Yeah. Yes, of course.

(…………. You could HEAR that Jon was dangerously close to going to check them out if Daisy hadn’t reminded him that Jon, No.)

At the time, Gertrude was still running the Archives… but, again, it’s also around that time when Jon integrated the Institute as a researcher. (He said he had been working there for “four years” in MAG001, which was set sometime in the second half of 2015 – though I wouldn’t past it s1!Jon to round up, like, 3 years and 20 days to “four years” to sound… more impressive. However, we know for sure that Jon was working at the Institute in 2012 (MAG051: “One of my first cases as a researcher for the Institute in 2012”).) So why did Annabelle send the “original cuts” to the Institute, and who were they for…? Was it to send a message to Gertrude? Was it because the Web was veeeeeeeeeeeerrrry aware that the boy who had ~gotten away~ (el-o-el) was now working there (and was apparently a bit versed in Neil Lagorio’s work)? Was it a way to sneak into the Institute? Was it for Elias? Was it to avoid the “original cuts” affecting innocent bystanders? Was it a proclamation from Annabelle – demonstrating that the older generation was fading out and now she was taking over?

That last point is something that I really felt with Annabelle’s visit and Neil finally dying (… or moulting like a spider). It’s interesting that in both MAG110 and MAG136, there was something about the character the story was about… not having a keen relationship with modern technology:

(MAG110, Alexia Crawley) “And so it was for the first few weeks. Dexter… clearly wasn’t sleeping. He had insisted on using old equipment and avoiding digital almost entirely, to the point where several of the crew were using pieces of kit they’d never even seen before. This meant that workprint had to be made manually for the dailies, something he refused to let anyone else do.”

(MAG136, Alison Killala) “We stayed in touch over the next few years, even worked together on the Wire-Runner, his one, underwhelming foray into CGI.”

We saw in MAG123 that Annabelle had started working using Internet, though using someone else to achieve it. I don’t have many theories or speculation about that one – I only find it curious that, given how MAG065 had introduced the idea that tape recorders… are digital, too, we’re still not sure about what it is that prevents Spooks from recording on Jon’s computer. Gertrude had commented that the tape recorders were a bit ~old-fashioned like her~ to defend her use of them to Lucia (MAG130), so… I don’t know! But potentially, I wonder if there might be something about the younger generation of avatars being more fit to use modern technologies, because some elements are their own idiosyncrasies while older techs were their predecessors’.

- Hi, do you sometimes get just PUNCHED IN THE GUTS by Jon.

(MAG136) ARCHIVIST: My– [PAUSE] [INHALE] [SIGH] My memories of the coma are not clear. But I know I made a choice; I made a choice to become… something else. Because I was afraid to die. But ever since then, I… I don’t know if I made the right decision; I–I’m stronger now, tougher, I can… … If I do die, now, or get sealed away somewhere forever… I don’t know if that’s a bad thing. And I don’t want to lose anyone else so, if I can maybe stop that happening, and [DRY CHUCKLE] the only danger is to me, I– I’ll do it in a heartbeat; worst case scenario… the universe loses another monster. DAISY: That’s messed up. ARCHIVIST: [LOW SELF-DEPRECATIVE DRY LAUGHTER] … Yeah. I suppose it is. DAISY: Did you know the coffin wouldn’t kill you? ARCHIVIST: I– guess I thought imprisonment wouldn’t… wouldn’t be as bad as it was. DAISY: [SHAKY SIGH] ARCHIVIST: And it’s a lot easier to make that choice than it is to actually… endure the result. You might have noticed when I was in there with you, I… I had regrets. DAISY: Yeah. I remember. ARCHIVIST: Plus, I thought… [PAUSE] W– [SIGH] Well, I didn’t know what being down there had done to you. DAISY: You thought I was gonna kill you? ARCHIVIST: I was a possibility. DAISY: Guess so. […] ARCHIVIST: I am alone, Martin is– DAISY: Busy. doing. paperwork. Not like he’s dead. Beside, he’s not the only other person here, you know. There’s me; Melanie; Basira– ARCHIVIST: Traumatised; traumatised; and paranoid, because of me.

;; I’m worried about these missing memories and what it means / what happened… Jon had told Basira that he could remember most of The Unknowing:

(MAG122) ARCHIVIST: My turn. What… what happened to me? BASIRA: How much do you remember? ARCHIVIST: I don’t… Music. Everything was wrong. Gertrude was there, and then… dancing. I think? Then… pain. And I was somewhere else. Dreaming. BASIRA: Dreaming. ARCHIVIST: Yes. …

(MAG123) ARCHIVIST: Two years ago. … That doesn’t seem right. It doesn’t feel like… … There’s just this… great… gap of time, where I wasn’t.

Back in MAG122, I had feared that he would have gotten something cauterised in the process, probably guilt, hence Tim’s death being erased… But no, it’s FAR from being the case: Jon has been a guilt-ridden ball of softness and caring and heartbreak since the beginning of season 4. So why are these memories still absent…? What happened in his dreams, for him to not remember exactly how he got to choose…?

(EXTRA-WORRIED since Elias had told Basira that Jon was “at a very delicate stage right now” in MAG127; and as much as I think that Elias probably doesn’t want to risk Jon managing to successfully compel him or extract a statement out of him right now… I’m Really Worried about the fact that he described Jon as being in transition. Choosing should have been the end result, right? So… so what is the next step……………)

Sobbing a lot about the fact that Jon isn’t sure that coming back was worth it, and that he’s been very casually self-destructive about the coffin. He kind of finished his sentence from MAG132 here:

(MAG132) ARCHIVIST: I’m… I’m scared. [SHORT CHUCKLE] When does the fear go away…? A–anyway, I–I’m sorry. You too, Basira, if you’re hearing this. I know you’d… stop me. You’d be right to, but… But if this goes wrong, all you lose is– … I’m not risking anyone else.

“If this goes wrong, all you lose is” / “worst case scenario… the universe loses another monster”. A o u c h. He’s been the most outrightly emotional we’ve ever seen him in season 3 and 4, he was so afraid of becoming inhuman starting MAG092, he finally chose (and is aware of it) the avatar option because he was afraid to die (that’s one of the most human things he could possibly admit…?), and, since he’s woken up, he has dealt with rejections one after another: Georgie was thrown-off by him badly enough to leave (clearly dissatisfied with… the fact that Jon kept saying he was “fine”, when a normal human being shouldn’t have been), Basira was extremely cautious and still refuses to trust him, slaughter-infused Melanie BLAMED HIM FOR TIM&DAISY’S DEATHS, Martin avoided him time and time again:

(MAG122) ARCHIVIST: Honestly, I… I, I think I’m alright? I mean, that’s… good, right? I… GEORGIE: After a six months coma? No. It’s not. This isn’t how it’s supposed to go, Jon. ARCHIVIST: I… What? Y–you, you’d prefer I was… brain-damaged? Dead? Or– […] Georgie, I– GEORGIE: Jon. If this really is a second chance… please, try to take it. But I don’t think that it is. ARCHIVIST: Georgie, I don’t und– GEORGIE: Take care of yourself. ARCHIVIST: [SIGH] [DOOR OPENS AND CLOSES] [SILENCE] ARCHIVIST: … What about you? Disappointed to see me alive? … Basira? BASIRA: We can deal with that later.

(MAG123) MELANIE: Tim is dead. Daisy is dead. And you, what? You’re just fine? ARCHIVIST: No, I’ve been in hospital for six months! MELANIE: Something has been in hospital. Something that’s got your face like– I warned Basira, I said not to let you back in here, but she just doesn’t listen! [STOMPING? AND FURIOUS STRANGLED NOISES] ARCHIVIST: Melanie, Melanie: it’s… it’s me. MELANIE: Oh! Okay, so what, “Hi Jon, how are you, get anyone killed lately?” ARCHIVIST: … I… MELANIE: Wipe that look off your face. Like you’re not the reason all of this is happening. Like you’re any better than– ARCHIVIST: [MESSY STUTTERING] MELANIE: –than him! ARCHIVIST: Basira said Elias was gone!

(MAG124) MARTIN: … Look, Jon, I, I’ve really got to go, so… ARCHIVIST: Oh, er, okay… MARTIN: I’m, I’m sorry that you– ARCHIVIST: Wowowow, it was… good t–, it was good to see you. MARTIN: … Yeah. [STEPS LEAVING] ARCHIVIST: … yeah… [CLICK.]

(MAG129) MARTIN: Please, stop finding me. ARCHIVIST: … What happened, Martin? [SILENCE] MARTIN: You died. ARCHIVIST: I came back. MARTIN: Yeah. [OPENS DOOR] I’m not gonna let it happen again. ARCHIVIST: … wait… Wait! W– [DOOR CLOSES] [SIGH] [CLICK.]

(YES, GRATUITOUS QUOTE-COMPILATION, BECAUSE THAT’S A LOT.)

It’s been a rough two months since he woke up, alright. I’m so glad that he managed to get Daisy back: not only it was a victory that actually felt like one (the removal of Melanie’s bullet meant that things got… strained), but Daisy has been asking the right questions and they’re so… like-minded? kindred spirits? lately, two Survivors able to understand each other, that it feels good and… a bit more hopeful.

(- I still want Jon to get the chance to have a discussion with Georgie, to explain himself and what happened, to explain that even though he decided something she’s disapproving of… he still wants to do some good, as much as he can? é_è To thank her for having watched over him and having given him so much valuable advice? For Georgie to accept that Jon did the best he could do in the situation he was in? Basira used to listen to Georgie’s podcast while in the car with Daisy so maybe Daisy heard some bits of it. Let Georgie and Daisy meeeeeet too!!)

- So much for Jon getting a stronger hold on his power, he still accidentally slipped and compelled:

Still too curious and not the best at self-restrain, though… he had been doing way better lately. I think the last time he had accidentally compelled was in MAG114, with Tim? On the other hand: it looks like his Insights are a bit more controlled since, unless he reveals that he has Known for a while, he… doesn’t seem to know about Basira’s activities. So maybe sternly forbidding him from peeking worked with that one, given that he had motivation to not screw things up (even more) between them…? He was a bit more relaxed with Melanie this time around! (Well. And Melanie was way more relaxed around him too, which… says something considering their previous exchanges.)

- What is wrong with Jon’s body. This makes the second mention of casual weirdness, after Jared commenting about Jon’s rib:

(MAG131) JARED: Huh. That’s a weird one. Not sure I like it. Still. Mine now.

(MAG136) DAISY: Not of you and your weird eyes.

Too many eyes, or something else…?

- I’m so emotional over the fact that Daisy is… currently giving back to Jon? Telling him that his way of thinking or his overall situation is “messed up”; reminding him that he’s not responsible for everything that’s happened to Melanie, Basira and herself; pushing him to snap out of it and have a nice time…? The fact that she included herself in the (short) list of people around Jon, and that:

(MAG136) ARCHIVIST: And you’re not… worried about… DAISY: Basira’s trapped here. So are you.

She listed him alongside Basira when justifying why her decision to tie herself to the Institute was worth it – they’re in this together and it’s not only just “with Basira” in her mind. It includes Jon.

- … and not Melanie there, BUT!! PROGRESS:

(MAG112) DAISY: Yeah. Couldn’t find Tim, but he’s gone with Martin and… the other one. BASIRA: Melanie. DAISY: Sure.

(MAG136) ARCHIVIST: I am alone, Martin is– DAISY: Busy. doing. paperwork. Not like he’s dead. Beside, he’s not the only other person here, you know. There’s me; Melanie; Basira–

She marked a verrrry slight pause before saying Melanie’s name but still: Melanie is now her own person in Daisy’s mind!

- And I’m SO EMOTIONAL OVER MELANIE OVERALL but also so proud that… apparently, she took it upon herself to take care of Daisy, and went as far as to go ask Jon to replace her when she couldn’t do it?

(MAG136) MELANIE: Well… uhm. Daisy’s been, erm… I’ve been keeping her company. Er, while… while Basira’s busy. She’s, er… ARCHIVIST: Oh, no, I, uh… I–I know. MELANIE: W–well, I’ve kind of got to… uhm. I’ve got somewhere to be. Do you mind if, if… she hangs around, with… […] [IN THE DISTANCE] Hum, yeah, he’s, he’s fine with it. So… […] DAISY: I didn’t ask her. To do that. ARCHIVIST: I–it–it’s fine.

I’m glad that Melanie makes sure that Daisy doesn’t end up alone, and that… she went to Jon for this ;__; Melanie knew better than everyone how it felt to be not emotionally supported by someone, namely Basira (MAG131: “Basira is… um. Basira deals in ‘intel’ these days, in usable data, assets. Not feelings. Not people.”), so I find this super-sweet that she… is apparently making extra efforts to not replicate the situation with Daisy? Some feeling of community/teamwork has been recreated lately, all around Daisy, and aaaaah… I’m so glad ;; Really sad that Martin isn’t there and that Basira is still closing herself off, but so glad about the faint Melanie-Daisy-Jon dynamic… (And so worried. Because now, I wonder how Jonny is planning to rip it away from us.)

(Though: Melanie didn’t try to set-up for Helen and Daisy to stay together. Is Helen mostly absent/can’t get out of her door much…? Or was it because Melanie didn’t absolutely trust Daisy’s Hunter instincts to not kick back in, if she was too close to a Spook-she-doesn’t-know-yet for long…?)

(I wonder if it’s Helen who suggested therapy to Melanie, or if they talked about it? In any case, having Helen around seemed to have helped Melanie a bit, overall ;__;)

- Though logistically: it’s hilarious that Melanie&Basira probably still live in the Archives, that Daisy is probably doing the same (unclear whether or not Jon Still Has A Home outside)… and that Daisy didn’t even mention that hi, she had signed some paperwork and was now an Official Member of the Institute. It took Jon two weeks to learn about it, and only because he asked about his dreams. (Daisy must have done that quite fast after getting out of the coffin? For someone who “missed dreaming”, she reacted immediately x”))

………………… I’m not sure that Basira will take that the news that Daisy is now tied to the Institute kindly, though, given the current state of things.

- Elephant in the room, Melanie’s ~therapist~ is ringing SO MANY warning bells:

(MAG136) THERAPIST: Right, have a seat. Do you mind if I record our sessions? MELANIE: I do mind. Yes. THERAPIST: Ah? I mean, it’s just for my own notes. MELANIE: I categorically and completely do *not* give consent for you to make any recording of me, ever. Turn it off. Please. [SILENCE] THERAPIST: I… I see. Yes. Of–of course. [CLICK.]

…………………. See, even besides the use of a tape recorder (who would use that in 2018 for very professional, serious and health-related purposes, if they’re not spooky?!), it’s how the therapist handled the act of recording in itself which makes me shiver. During a first session, a first encounter, when you’re supposed to not make the patient uncomfortable, turning it on before asking Melanie if she would be fine with it. Trying to argue with Melanie’s refusal when Melanie explicitly said she would be bothered by it. That small silence before complying – while Melanie was just stating her rights… (Though on that last one, Melanie’s background as a podcaster is showing; she was very efficiently able to state her will without leaving room for any loophole!)

There are many options for What The Deal Is With That Therapist:

1°) A totally normal person who just happens to use tape recorders in 2018 and was startled by Melanie’s professional-sounding declaration.

2°) Someone tied to the Lonely…? It would be a terrifying job for a Lukas, totally twisting the purpose of a therapy by… cutting you off from others? ;; (Peter had mentioned the possibility of therapy to Martin back in MAG120: “Oh! And if you want to talk to a counsellor, the Institute will of course cover any cost.”)

3°) Someone tied to Beholding: Gertrude had the contact information for one (MAG130: “If that’s your primary goal, my dear, I would suggest you speak to a qualified counsellor. We can suggest one, if you like […]. Hang on, let me see if I can find you the number for that counselling service. They’re actually quite good.”), and that last “I see” was quite striking, Avatars tend to make small references to their patrons all the time – though this one could have also been a nod to Melanie’s…

4°) … since the therapist seemed so taken aback by Melanie offering a resistance: … W e b…? Annabelle was even created during, specifically, a psychological experiment (though we don’t know if she was a psychology postgrad herself, or just a random test subject with a different background; the voice sounded maybe a bit too old for someone who still looked like a “student” in 2012, but then Elias is supposed to be middle-aged so, eh). It wouldn’t be the most subtle thing ever but then: given that Jon didn’t give any reason, why did he pick this specific statement this time around? Outside of the statement, who is a “puppeteer” in this episode? Which would raise, once again, the question of What Is Behind tape recorders; and, if Web, what allowed Melanie to not obey: was it because she used to be Slaughter-infused…? (I had wondered, especially after MAG125, about the relationship between the Slaughter and the Spider: the way Elias had specifically mentioned that Melanie had a “visceral hatred of being trapped” in MAG102, was run by “the self-determination you prize so highly” in MAG106, and the fact that Melanie had described him as “pulling all the strings” in return, had left me with the lingering of impression that… potentially, there was more something about Web than Beholding at work here, and that obviously, The Slaughter, being uncontrollable violence and chaos, wouldn’t be the best of pals with the Eight-Legged-Mrs.-Order Fear entity…)

The way Melanie described therapists at the beginning of the episode (“We’ll see. There’s a… a lot of crap therapists out there.” and it’s true, and she’s still trying!!! Good!!) already introduced cautiousness about the whole process; if this one turns out to be Bad, it wouldn’t be representative of every one of them. Still, kinda hoping (for Melanie) that unless this one manages to prove that her first few seconds were absolutely not representative of what she can offer, Melanie will try to find another one elsewhere ;; I’m impressed that she didn’t just go “Nop ahaha bye” when the tape recorder began to get used… without her consent. It wasn’t good when Jon was doing it, but from a therapist, there is something very, verrrry chilling, and this new character absolutely managed to sound as untrustworthy as Peter in just a few seconds ;;

- On the list of worrying things: URKKKKK that… Basira apparently still hasn’t told the others about her visits to Elias. She’s likely doing her own researches, as Elias had suggested, to check if there were some truths amongst what he told her about The Dark’s activities… but URRRKKK that she hasn’t said a word about it yet. Not good, Basira ;; Elias is spilling his poison and she’s drinking it raw – it will most likely mess her up… and mess up the others, too, if they’re not aware that Elias still has, in all likehood, Plans.

… On the other hand, I got the impression that her relationship with Daisy had improved a bit? Daisy sounded less… heartbroken, this time, giving me the impression that, yes, things aren’t perfect, but not excruciating either?

(MAG136) ARCHIVIST: I haven’t seen her much since… Well, she seemed a bit… tense, the last few times we spoke. How are you guys– DAISY: [CLEARS THROAT] ARCHIVIST: –doing? DAISY: N–no, Basira, she’s… She’s been good. We’re… together so it’s good. [SIGH] Wish she wouldn’t keep treating me like a china doll. But it’s alright. ARCHIVIST: That’s understandable, I suppose. DAISY: [BREATHING HARDER, FASTER] Yeah, well… What do you think?

See, I can’t really decide whether Daisy’s awkwardness was because it was a touchy subject and she was aware that no, things aren’t fine… Or if it was a matter of “oh lord, no, I can’t tell Awkward Nerd Guy that YES, things have been super-steamy in the tunnels lately, he would probably faint if he knew we were doing it in his Institute.”

(… reminder that in this episode, Jon had to read “He even kept in contact when I left to have my baby. It wasn’t planned, but while I may not have had much time for make-up and monster suits, the bodies inside of them were, er, a different matter.” with his own tongue.) (That’s not topping Timothy Hodge’s statement and Jon’s annotations from its patreon Deluxe transcript, but eh, it was still a beautiful line <3)

And the parallels between Daisy&Basira and Jon&Martin keep piling up! First Basira and Martin both were “busy”; now, it’s the single-minded longing for the other when they’re separated – Daisy having thought that she would never see Basira again when she was in the coffin, and now… Jon’s first reaction when Daisy taunts him about acting like he’s alone being to say that YES HE IS… because Martin isn’t there.

Holy Arceus on top of Giratina, Jon, what would your season-1 self would say about the Current You. (“Things change. People change.” Helen told him a few episodes ago, AND YEP. Y E P.)

- I’m… a bit worried about how Daisy handled Martin, however. It fits her and the… individualistic? bits of her that we had seen: if she sees a problem, she’ll try to deal with it through her own actions – Jon is sad because Martin isn’t there? Then no, she’s not going to drag Martin kicking and screaming back to Jon if she wants to cheer Jon up; she’ll push him to stand back up on his own.

(MAG136) ARCHIVIST: I’m, I’m not “swanning around”– DAISY: “Boo-hoo, I’m so alone and a monster!” ARCHIVIST: I am alone, Martin is– DAISY: Busy. doing. paperwork. Not like he’s dead. Beside, he’s not the only other person here, you know. There’s me; Melanie; Basira–

1°) She’s partially not wrong? Though I still feel like, without knowing what Martin is doing behind the scenes together with Peter, there would be causes for concern and that Martin… is not in a good place nor there on his own: his lines in MAG124 and MAG129 sounded, more than anything, like he was straightforwardly blackmailed into not talking with the others (we know that, from Martin’s point of view, it’s a bit more complicated and not the end-goal; but still, his insistence to Jon about how he couldn’t hear what he had to say, had to leave, etc…. weren’t reassuring at all). Daisy might be projecting a bit on that one since she has deepened her network since she came back, probably because Basira was astray: she now remembers Melanie’s name, she listed Jon together with Basira as people trapped within the Institute (implying that she would not leave them behind). She might see Jon as hyperfixating on something that can’t be resolved right away, like her situation with Basira…? Unless it’s plainly because “Blackwood” hadn’t impressed her much in season 3 (she doesn’t know him! Even if Jon cares for him, maybe she doesn’t see him as all that valuable), or because… spooks are happening and the Lonely is managing to cut the ties that Martin die have with people, who are now just not finding him relevant anymore…?

2°) So nowadays, people are aware that Martin is doing “paperwork” – are they aware that he’s basically doing Peter’s work as an ~assistant~? Or are they plainly assuming that “Peter Lukas” is his alias…?

3°) ;; I’m super happy about Daisy inviting Jon for drinks, and Basira possibly joining them… but also worried about how Peter might just rub that into Martin’s face? Jon used to not be… social with the assistants. It would be so easy to tell Martin that it’s finally happening because Martin is not there… (And yes, Martin made his choice to protect the others, presumably Melanie&Basira, because Jon was away! And nowadays, it still stands, the fact that it would also protect Jon was only added to the pile! And he was told by Peter in MAG126 that he might “not want” to share what had happened with Jon at the end of it, implying that he would change; Martin knows these aspects of the deal! But Martin is not absolutely selfless either, and there could easily be some envious outbursts at the idea that Jon seems to be… happier, nowadays…?)

(… Martin had been so snappy to Basira in MAG088, and there was the whole talk between Basira&Melanie about how Martin seemed to think they would “steal his precious Archivist” in MAG106; who would have thought that Daisy and Jon would ultimately be the ones to go out for drinks together.)

- ANYWAY, Jon & Daisy & potentially Basira are going out for drinks and I don’t know if it will be an awkward mess or a nice time for all but. The potential for silly Tipsy Activities is strong – trying to make Jon guess ridiculous trivia facts through his Insights? Basira noting that Jon is behaving exactly like Martin presumably did at the end of MAG098 (talking a lot about a certain someone who isn’t really there at the moment)? Daisy sharing cop stories?

(… I also can’t help but think about the whole assistants-and-assimilated gang going for drinks during Jon’s kidnapping between MAG099–MAG102. Worst moment ever until they’re too inebriated to Coherently Think about why their lives suck and… see, that episode from Brooklyn 99? Going out of their way to find the most ridiculous kinda-harmless ways to exact revenge on what’s pissing them off at the moment, ie Elias? … Going to his office to wrap his whole desk in cellophane. While he’s standing there, just unable to do anything (they’re too many and too far gone for his power to work). While Tim is throwing serpentine streamers everywhere, Martin is crying because Elias’s paperweight suddenly reminds him of Jon, Daisy is seductively slurring the worst pick-up lines to Basira, and Melanie had stolen a spoon in the bar and tries to recreate “The Horribly Slow Murderer with the Extremely Inefficient Weapon” on Elias, again and again and AGAIN AND AGAIN– (maybe Basira told the truth in MAG106 and Melanie had indeed managed to make Elias cry, she just can’t remember about it). Basira was absolutely sober through it all, but when Elias tries to get explanations from her passiveness, it’s a mix of Her Iconic “I don’t know.” and the fact that she’s trying to get better at this new job of watching without doing anything. Elias would almost begin to regret Gertrude.)

Title for MAG137 is out and W O W is that an interesting one?! I have no idea if it will deal with one of the current threads or give information about other ones; it’s… a broad title which works for a lot of things. Tied to a very small mention we got in MAG105, so could be dealing with Gertrude’s studies on The Slaughter (and possibly her dealing with that one’s ritual)? If dealing with The Dark again, there are many angles which could work: attack on the Institute (get to meet The Creature, Jon.), Julia in present-time, Robert Montauk in the past, orrrr even something about the Elias-Rayner relationship that we now know was a Thing? (Though I feel that, if we get some information about that last one, it’s likely to be given in Ny-Ålesund.) Could also work for Hill Top Road, specifically Agnes and Ray? Could work for The Corruption (since The Hive had… personal feelings about The Institute) and maybe shed some light on whatever it was trying to achieve in the tunnels with the ring of worms (ritual attempt, or had Gertrude taken care of that one already?), or even something about John Amherst (Melanie… ;;)? Could work with Gertrude’s activities overall – with Elias, with Peter, with Jude… (Would be hilarious if it was about Elias and Peter, what the heck are you to each other, you terrible beings.) Could also work for Annabelle if it’s about balance? Aaaah, so many possibilities!! And it’s probably not even one that I thought of! =D

… and we’ll be getting a mid-season break, after all. Given how the break had been narratively inserted in season 3 (matching Jon’s kidnapping), will it be the case again and, if it is: what could possibly go wrong that we wouldn’t get a recording in-universe for three weeks? Four episodes left, a rushed trip to Ny-Ålesund could still happen before that and… leave them (/the surviving ones) in tatters afterwards, uuuuh…

#1 #2 #3 #4 #5 #the magnus archives #tma liveblog #tma season 4 #mag136 #long post/

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their-destinys-writer · 5 years

Text

Misadventures in Reporting #3

About the series: Misadventures in Reporting is a series of short stories about the adventures of a normal reporter living in an abnormal world.

Rating: PG-13 for mild cursing and violence

Word count: 2,576

Also in: Wattpad

Support this series in Ko-fi or Patreon (Posted on early access in the latter)

#3 - Teleman’s Mark

“I don’t even know where to begin with you.”

Melinda gulped under the scrutiny of Mr. Sullivan. Boy, was she in so much trouble. But nobody told her doing the right thing would be cheap. The reporter took a deep breath, weighing her options. Apologize? Defend herself? Wait for the boss to say his piece? Perhaps the third option. She was in enough trouble as it was.

“How many times have I told you not to push the deadline?” Mr. Sullivan hissed, almost barring his yellowish teeth.

Wait, am I supposed to answer that?

“A million times I’ve told you,” he continued. With every word he spoke, the desk between them felt smaller and smaller. Had he always looked so large behind it? “And yet, you give me one of the most important reports, if not the most important report in months with and hour to spare for printing. We had to cut the last two paragraphs because we didn’t have time to look through the whole thing!”

The woman winced. She had hoped only one paragraph would have to be cut. But alas, most of it got through without major changes.

“And now,” Mr. Sullivan raised his voice, “now we got a Porsche in the redaction floor, thanks to your little stunt. Do you have anything to say for yourself?”

Melinda’s mouth opened, but it suddenly went dry, so she closed it back up. Was she willing to put next month’s rent at risk just for ‘doing the right thing’? Was it worth sacrificing several months of electricity or water for being right? Was she right?

“I didn’t think he’d take it so bad,” she managed to say at last.

“The guy held up a damn crane with his mind,” the aging man deadpanned. “What did you think he was going to do? Throw confetti?”

The woman’s gaze darted to the surface of the desk. It wasn’t until that moment that shame started to invade her. How could she be so thoughtless? Over three-hundred people worked in this newspaper. Her article would reflect on the company, and thus, her coworkers. Someone could have gotten hurt.

“I’m sorry, Mr. Sullivan,” she said quietly. “It won’t happen again.”

The man snarled a sound of disgust, giving her an exasperated look.

“Give me one good reason I shouldn’t fire you right now,” he hissed.

A loud thudding resounded from Melinda’s insides. Her heart was drumming hard against her chest. She could feel a drop of sweat trickling down the side of her face, despite the cold air conditioning.

The article broke my career, she concluded.

“I don’t know,” she admitted.

“Tsk.” Mr. Sullivan shook his head. “You really are dense.”

Well that’s uncalled for, Melinda thought, rising her gaze to his once again. His expression still seemed exasperated, but now he was looking outside his office.

“Mr. Sullivan, I—”

“You can’t get fired because you proved your point,” he interrupted. Melinda frowned. “Three years here, and you still can’t put your deduction skills to use under pressure. So, let’s try this again: give me one good reason I shouldn’t fire you this instant.”

It was like a light flicked on in Melinda’s brain. He wasn’t firing her, he was testing her. Why does he have to be so mean about it, though?

“Because,” she started, still hesitant to respond back, but determined to keep her job. “Because if our—my—allegations were false, the proper response would’ve been to call a press conference denying the claims. Throwing a car through our building dampers his own reputation, and it’s an attempt against freedom of press. It’s a threat against not only us, but anyone who dares talk ill of him.” The woman smirked. “Not very superheroic, if you ask me.”

“Exactly.” Mr. Sullivan slammed his fist against the desk, startling Melinda. “That piece of shit is trying to shut us up. This isn’t like that Cronus guy. That was self-defense. Teleman just made a declaration of war against us and the free press. We can’t back out now. So,” the man slammed his hands together and rose from his chair, “I’m gonna need everything you got from this story. Notes, sounds, transcriptions, anything you can share by today. The earlier the better. We need to write tomorrow’s editorial piece.”

“Yessir!” Melinda blurted, jumping to her feet.

“What are you, a soldier?” Mr. Sullivan chuckled. “Just get to it, Martínez. Go, get!”

“Y-yes, Mr. Sullivan.”

Without needing to be told again, she scampered out of the office and headed straight to her desk. As she approached it, she realized it wasn’t where it was supposed to be. Where hers and several others had been there was yellow tape and half of the Porsche she saw from outside.

A shudder went up her spine, as she realized Teleman’s target had not been as random as she initially thought.

---

“It was horrible,” Melinda complained.

Thanks to a certain superhero, two thirds of employees had been relegated to simple tasks that day. For security reasons. This created one of those rare opportunities where the journalist’s group of friends from the Latest News Division got to eat lunch together. As they made the line to order their food, Melinda took the opportunity to answer the constant what-happened-with-Sullivan question.

“You’re blowing it waaay out of proportion,” Kevin, the photographer, muttered as he tinkered with his new phone.

“I thought I was gonna self-combust,” she whined, slumping her head back. “Why does he have to be so mean about it? I was already planning my life as a homeless bum living on storm drains.”

“You know how it is,” Will, another reporter like her, chuckled. “That old man would rather torture you to death than be direct.”

“Who cares, anyway,” Beatriz, a graphic designer, drawled. “You didn’t get fired. That’s what matters.”

“At the cost of my sanity!” Melinda argued. “I’ve never been so scared to lose a job in my life.”

“Eh, you would’ve gotten a new one in a week,” Kevin commented, without looking up from the screen.

“No way,” the reporter in question argued. “Nobody would’ve wanted to hire the woman who made a superhero angry enough to throw a car through a building. My career would’ve been finished.”

“Nah, you’d be fine. Hey, Will,” the photographer suddenly called, raising his phone. “Look pretty for me, will ya?”

“Man, you know I don’ like it when people take pictures of me,” the reporter complained.

“C’mon, I wanna test the resolution on this thing,” Kevin insisted.

“Why me?”

“Hm, you’re right, you can’t smile. Melinda, smile for me.”

“Dude, I’m having a mental breakdown,” the journalist huffed.

“Why?” Kevin whined. “You’re still working. You kept your job. Why are you so upset?”

“Have you been ignoring me this whole time?”

“Not…ignoring,” Kevin shrugged. “Just listened to half of what you said.”

Melinda groaned, but Beatriz waved her hand dismissively.

“Mija, you gotta chill about this whole thing,” she said. “But honestly, Kevin’s right. You’re worrying too much. You kept your job, that’s what matters. Who knows, you may actually get promoted for this.”

“If Teleman doesn’t kill one of us first.”

“Occupational hazard,” Will shrugged, joining the conversation again after ordering. “Who’s next?”

Melinda offered herself and stepped up to order her lunch.

“Will that be all?” the young woman asked, and the reporter agreed. “That will be twelve-fifteen.”

“Here,” she said, handing her credit card.

“You buy your morning coffee here too, don’t you?” the cashier suddenly said, as she made the transaction.

“Closest good coffee to work,” Melinda responded automatically, her mind still wandering back to that morning.

“You work nearby?” the young, blonde woman asked as she took her time ripping the receipt from the card reader.

“Yeah,” Melinda shrugged, taking the piece of paper. “Thank you!”

She turned around to her friends, who were all giving her a look of incredulity.

“What?”

The other three looked at each other, as if debating who would be the one to speak up.

“Imma look for a table,” Will pipped up, quickly deserting the group.

Melinda frowned, and stared at the other two, who now looked defeated. With a shrug, they turned to the cashier and made their orders, while the reporter rolled her eyes and waited for hers and Will’s food. After a few minutes, all four sat at a round table with their meals.

“Is anybody gonna say it?” Beatriz said.

“Say what?” Melinda frowned.

“For a journalist, you can be very unobservant,” Will muttered loud enough for the rest to hear.

“Not unobservant,” Kevin chimed in. “Just oblivious to the language of love.”

“Here we go again,” Melinda sighed. “You guys really think I’m thinking about romance when a Porsche destroyed my desk?”

At last, Kevin’s eyes were pried away from his phone. Will and Beatriz followed suit.

“I thought it was random,” Beatriz said. Kevin and Will exchanged stares, while Melinda shook her head.

“I don’t think it was,” Melinda said, as she started poking around her salad. “My desk wasn’t the only one next to a window, yet it was the only one made into pieces. If I had gotten to work earlier, who knows what would’ve happened to me.”

As she bit into a cherry tomato, she could feel the awkward silence shared between the other three people on the table. In all honesty, Melinda felt proud of finally getting through to them on the seriousness of the matter. Although she appreciated them trying to cheer her up and distract her, talking about it felt like the thing she truly needed at that moment.

“But he didn’t get you,” Will cut through the silence. “And that’s what matters. That you’re safe and alive. And I know the newspaper will work hard to keep it that way. Even tactless Sullivan. He doesn’t show it, but he cares about us.”

“He actually has a point,” Kevin said, eyes back on his phone. “Sullivan just sucks at showing other emotions other than uncaffeinated-angry.”

“Regardless,” Beatriz jumped in, “in any case, we’re here for you. And if you don’t feel safe in your apartment, you know abuela has no problem with you staying over.”

“Thanks, Bea,” Melinda said.

“So how’s this,” Kevin said, now raising his phone, “in case anyone of us gets fired, or murdered by a harassing superhero, we’ll take a selfie to remember the good times. Before everything turns to shit.”

“Oh yeah, that way we have a picture to mark exes on our faces as we die one by one” Will deadpanned.

“Psh, we’d all be dead in a horror movie,” Beatriz stated, waving a hand.

“Guys, I’m trynna make a cute moment, don’t ruin it for me.”

“Fine,” the reporter rolled his eyes good naturedly.

Without needing anymore prompting, the group moved their chairs and huddled together in the hopes of fitting in the frame. Kevin extended his arm, with the front camera of his phone activated for a selfie.

After taking the photo and replacing their seats, Kevin spoke up.

“By the way, the cashier’s name is Katie—”

“Oh my God, stop!”

---

The sun had almost completely set when Melinda walked by the sidewalk leading to her apartment building. It had been a long and exhausting day, despite spending most of it in the office. She hadn’t realized how emotionally draining being the targeted reporter could be.

But she chose this path. And she was sticking to it, as long as she had the support of her boss and the company.

She started going up the steps to the front door of the building, when she couldn’t help but feel watched. Melinda stopped mid-step. Her arms swung as she turned on her heels, hand holding tight to the pepper spray on her keychain. Her eyes shifted from side to side, looking for whatever was giving her that gut feeling.

Yet she saw nothing. Slowly, she lowered her arms back to the sides, and started back to the entrance of the building. She carefully started unlocking the door.

SMACK

Melinda’s face slammed against the iron door, and a hand pressed against the back of her neck kept her pressed to it. She tried pushing back, but whoever was attacking grabbed her flailing hands and held them tight.

“You’re Melinda Martínez, aren’t you?” a voice whispered into her ear, sending a chill down her spine.

“Who wants to know?” she dared quip.

There was a pause. Ever so slowly, Melinda’s feet started leaving the ground, yet she was not being pushed up from her neck. In fact, she felt more like she was…

Floating.

Teleman.

“I guess you could say I’m somewhat of a critic of your work.”

“H-Hey, listen man,” Melinda started desperately, “I was just doing my job.”

“Isn’t your job reporting on both sides?”

“You’re a hard source to find!” she pleaded. “I tried, really. But even with your version, I still had to write what was published. Honestly, I wasn’t trying to take you down or anything, it’s just my job.”

“Your job sounds very… convenient for me.”

Melinda frowned. Was he being sarcastic? Was he threatening her? Was he going to kill her? Or worse…

“I was wondering how long it would take for the information to get out,” he continued, the air of his breath threatening her neck. “It took, what, five months?”

“Victims of sexual assault are not usually very talkative when they know the other person has more power,” Melinda dared shoot back.

“You people have the strangest rules. Perhaps next time I should be a little more explicit.”

“We people?” Melinda breathed. “What the hell are you even talking about? You sound like…” she swallowed. “Like you wanted to get caught.”

“My business is none of yours,” Teleman hissed. “But I have to say, I’m starting to enjoy some of the perks of this job.”

“I thought you were a superhero. One of the good guys,” she said quietly.

“I am,” he whispered back. “Just like one of those who likes to prance around using names of old Greek gods.”

With those last words, Melinda was suddenly dropped to the ground. The jolt of it made her stumble to her side and collapse against the wall. She turned just in time to see a blur of blue shoot up into the sky.

With her heart still running at a hundred miles, Melinda unlocked the door and ran all the way up the stairs to the third floor. Once in front of her apartment, she hastened to unlock it, almost dropping her keys.

After opening it, Melinda jumped into her living room and closed both locks on her door. At last, she slammed her back to it, panting from the run.

Melinda clapped a hand on her mouth, just as tears started spilling out. She knew being a journalist had the potential to be dangerous. She had heard stories of reporters disappearing in Central America and seen videos of others being decapitated by terrorists on the other side of the world. But in a city, the job dangers were reduced to rude politicians and snobby CEOs.

This was not supposed to happen to her. Much less by someone who was supposed to protect them. Covering superheroes was supposed to be fun, every journalist’s dream.

And yet, as she slid to the ground silently sobbing, speaking the truth on superheroes was starting to feel more like a nightmare.

#Misadventures in Reporting #MiR #Melinda Martínez #original fiction #fantasy #sci-fi #short story #series

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