#and both of this idiots would have a happy life with engineering stuff and avoiding questions

[yashmel]

[princecharmingmendes]

Heart by Heart | Chapter I | Raul Mendes

                                           *secret agent AU*

Y/N and Raul have been friends ever since they could remember. And falling in love with your best friend can be pretty tricky and messy 99% of the times, add that to the fact they're constantly risking their lives side by side on the field since they're both secret agents, and the best team that's ever existed. Perfect recipe for disaster.

Helloo, this is the first chapter of this series and I'm super excited about it. Please read the warnings on this one, if you don't feel comfortable with the contents listed on the "warnings" section, please read something else, there are a lot of other works on my masterlist and on the "fic rec" hashtag on my blog. I plan on posting a chapter weekly, which means new chapter every Thursday (and maybe a sneak peak every monday). Please give me some feedback and I hope you guys like it as much as I did. I'll stop rambling now, byee. Happy Reading!

                                                     masterpost | next chapter

*Word Count: 3.4K+;

*Warnings:  cursing, descriptions of violence, blood, injuries, hostage situation and a whole lot of teasing. Please don’t read it if any of this subjects make you uncomfortable, feel free to check my masterlist for other writings. 

*Posted: July 1st, 2021.

                                                     -*-

Raul Mendes was a pain in the ass. Y/N loves him way too much for her own good, but he was a pain in the nonetheless. 

He was the only person she knew who could be in a possible life-or-death situation and still make fun of her through their communicators. And sure, that made the whole thing lighter and less scary, and sure, he was the best agent she’s ever met, but damn did he get on her nerves. And Raul always knew how to get her frustrated or squirming, he enjoyed it more than he was willing to admit. Sure, they’ve been friends for a long time and she should be used to him, but it never got easier. The fact he had a killer smile, the looks of a legit greek god and had this whole tough guy exterior, but secretly had a soft spot for her did not make her case any less complicated.

Y/N and Raul knew each other ever since they’re basically born. Their parents met when they worked together at a company of secret agents, it was only a small corporation back then, and they were known as the best agents at the time. After they retired from field missions and eventually desk jobs, they became only advisers and emergency contacts. But despite that, they kept their friendship going though all the years and that’s how Y/N was introduced to the triplets. They’re always together, doing everything with each other and protecting themselves. And of course she loved Peter and Shawn with her whole heart, they’re like family to her, but Raul was different. Y/N wished it wasn’t, but there are certain things in life you can’t exactly control. Like falling in love with your best friend.

And it’s not like she stood a chance, to be honest. Regardless of his looks, he treated her like she hung the moon and stars on the sky. Sure, he was a tough guy, who rode motorcycles and wore leather jackets, and wouldn’t admit alive that he cried while watching Lion King. But he took care of her when she was upset or having a bad period, he would take her driving around town at midnight on random occasions just because he knew it would make her feel better, and would always be so mindful of everything involving her. And yeah, he teased her endlessly, but it was part of it and in reality, Y/N didn’t mind it that much. 

So when they started growing older and decided to follow their parents career, it only made sense they trained their asses off and got the job together. The company their parents worked for grew a lot, a team that was originally formed by 15 agents turned into a massive business, with over 100 employees, doing various functions. Shawn was picked for a more diplomatic field, always in meetings with important people and traveling around the world. Peter became a tech engineer, developing the coolest gadgets and weapons imaginable, something out of Totally Spies! Raul was clearly a field agent, an expert on body combat and weapons, best out of the four when it came to their physical test. And Y/N was the one who guided the operations, the hacker and responsible for strategies, also for the tech part and best sniper out of the three of them. 

That made her and Raul an unbeatable team and the best duo ever. Their chemistry on the field was recognized by their bosses on the first week, basically glueing them together for every future mission and it worked. For the company. But it only dug her little crush deeper on Y/N’s heart. And obviously no one knew it. She was a spy for fucks sake, she knew how to lie and she wasn’t going to be the one to tell him. Raul didn’t date, working on this field made  everyone’s love life a bit harder than it was already, and he never seemed interested enough in anyone with the same career to have a long lasting relationship with. That didn’t mean there where a lot of people interested, which made Y/N’s heart twist in her chest. 

“Sweetheart, you still with me?” Raul’s voice came through her earpiece bringing her back to reality.

“Of course I am, you idiot, I take this job really seriously” Y/N replied rolling her eyes as if she didn’t just daydreamed a bit. 

“Oh sorry, doll, didn’t mean to insult you hard working” he chuckled “but could you please check in the corridor number 6, half the team is heading down there right now”

“Sure” she quickly typed on her computer changing cameras really quickly, perks of being Peter’s best friend is that she could usually take extra stuff and the newest gadgets on the market “It’s clear and, by the way, you look pathetic with this glasses”

Raul laughed clearly amused, throwing his middle finger up in the air in the direction of the security camera he found “Oh really? Tell that to Peter, he’s the one who created them” 

“Technically their still a prototype, so make sure to let him know”

Raul scoffed playfully as he climbed another set of stairs, the man and woman with him following without questioning, used to his ways of leading “Of course, I’m sure he’ll like to hear your fashion critiques to his million dollar glasses”

“I’ll write it down, now careful, you’re approaching the level where they’re at”

“Sure, mom, I’m always careful” he said in a hushed tone signaling to his teammates to keep quiet and try to find the possible security team they left to watch the hostage.

“Shut up” Y/N said trying to hold back the smile from stretching her lips, already letting the airway team know to be ready to pick them up as they approached their target. 

They’re currently in the middle of a mission where they needed to recover another agent who got caught up in an ambush two weeks ago, and now they’re being kept as a hostage. Raul’s leading a team to retrieve the agent as quickly and as silently as they could, two with him and three other on the opposite side to meet halfway. All that while Y/N’s on the under construction building across the street seated among her gear, gun in hand following their every step and guiding them through the camera system and the big windows that other building had. It’s not the worst mission they’ve ever been, no apparent violence or blood bath, just a simple rescue mission, but they still felt a little jittery and always worried about each other’s lives. And through the years, they noticed that their copying mechanism to make this less stressful (at least a tiny bit) was through light banter and jokes. That somehow brought a bit of normality to their very non ordinary job. 

Y/N did her best to keep them hidden while they crashed into the building as quietly as possible, trying go unnoticeable since they didn’t have enough munition or people on the tactic team. It would also prevent them from moving the target around or opening fire. And despite the fact Raul kept on trying to joke around and that she’s been doing this for at least four years, the fact that they’re working with a less experienced and fresh out of the academy crew made her a little jittery. Not that she didn’t trust Raul to command everything and boss everyone around if things got messy, she just didn’t want him to get in the middle of a crossfire again. 

He had the terrible habit of playing the hero in the most inconvenient times, like when they were little and a guy twice his size, with three friends mocked her pigtails. He didn’t stand a chance, but he went after them anyway. They ended up having to run as fast as they could so they wouldn’t end up with a black eye or something. And that was nothing compared to the stupid shit he could do on field. And Y/N couldn’t be more pissed whenever he came home with more bruises then he should just to play Superman or something. Sure, that was admirable and the fact that he put everyone on his team on his top priority was definitely something fantastic for a captain, but not for Y/N’s heart. 

And for that reason, she was always extra careful, but when he had a newbie joining him on the field, Y/N tripled the attention to avoid putting the kid in danger, and, consequently her best friend. 

Raul was quick to take down two man on their level without raising much alarm, grabbing their munition, dragging the unconscious bodies away from where they’d be easily seen and moving forward to another set of stairs. He was a very skillful agent, with great physical development and worked great under pressure, with quick thinking and a natural leader. So it didn’t shock her when he was able to do that as if it was the most natural thing in the planet. While Raul was more of a passionate person, Y/N was more rational, was analyzing every possibility and coming up with creative solution, she was also really cold on work (she just had one exception) and was a quick thinker, great person to rely on. It’s almost as if the complimented each other and that’s why it worked. That’s why when she tells him to shoot, he does without thinking, or to jump, he wouldn’t blink before doing it head first. 

And that’s why they’re able to reach the hostage without much trouble. 

“Told you to chill out, I knew we could make it” he murmured through their coms and she giggled, shaking her head incredulously.

“You should watch the entrances while your teammates take care of the hostage”

“That’s why I have you, sweetheart” he said with his infamous smirk stretching his annoyingly pink lips.

Y/N shook her head when she felt her face warming up a bit, stupid boy “Well, actually I’m pretty busy calling for our ride, so watch your own back this time, you’re a big boy, I’m sure you can do it”

Raul scoffed but did as she say either way “fine, are we clear?”

“On your floor yes, climb three more levels and meet me on this side of the street, don’t stall champ, they’re going to notice there’s something wrong with the cameras and their man who aren’t responding, so be quick”

Raul chuckled as he helped balance the hostage on Roman’s arms and signaling them to climb the stairs again “Yes, ma’am, anything to keep you from frowning and scolding my ass”

Y/N rolled her eyes smiling, sighing in relief that half of their mission was done and it went as smoothly as it could have been “Great, now get your ass out of there now, Raul” 

The tactic team started moving to the floor they’d have access to jump, and everything was going too smoothly to be true, not even a minor inconvenience. And that was not normal, at all. That’s when Y/N started getting worried. 

Everything was great until Seth, from loosing a lot of blood and being severely dehydrated, started loosing his conscious, making Roman’s job a lot more complicated and making everyone move slower. And while that was happening, Y/N saw when one of the guys saw his partners laying limply on the corner of a hallway and finally the pieces clicked. Luckily she was able to caught it quickly enough to be able to mess up their coms, so instead of a dozen men, they’d have to deal with two. She was also quick to let Raul know, so he jumped into action, telling everyone to rush and grabbing Seth’s right side, basically carrying him alongside Roman up the stairwell. 

But as they’re almost reaching the door, Raul heard footsteps rather close, rushing Roman up the rest of the way, warning he’d be right behind him, that he was only to be a bit far back so he could hold whoever was coming. 

He ran downstairs, quickly blocking the door to the staircase with a fire extinguisher, running all the way upstairs to reach his teammates and jump to go home. But as he had just reached the door, his colleagues waiting for him with their gear (and also his) ready to cross to the other building, he felt the barrel of a gun touching the back of his head. Raul raised his hands in surrender, his teammates staring at him with horror in their eyes as they aimed their guns to whoever was behind him, but he knew they couldn’t do much before he got shot. He also knew they’re too young, apart from Roman and Cara, who were both holding Seth up, they weren’t experienced enough to do something like that. But before the person could pull the trigger, they grunted in pain and Raul felt the barrel slipping away. 

He turned around to watch the guy on his back in the floor, clutching to his left ribs, a little pool of blood already forming underneath him and gun long forgotten. Raul looked around to see if it was anyone from this guy’s side or anyone on the stairs, only to be met with silence and a single security camera with the green dot on, meaning Y/N was still in their system. He shook his head in disbelief, dragging the whining man outside of the room, quacking his gun down the stairs and managing to lock the door so they could escape safely. 

“Still with me, baby?” Y/N’s voice teased mimicking the way he said it earlier. 

Raul shook his head with a smirk on his lips, before moving to where his teammates stood still a bit shocked with all that happened in front of them “Wouldn’t dream of leaving you, sweetheart”

“Alright boys, the helicopters are coming for us, meet you all on the roof in three” Y/N said through the coms for the whole team, quickly shifting to a line only the captain, Raul, could hear “and if you dare be late just to make a big entrance or another dramatic scheme you can think about, I swear to God I’ll leave you behind”

“You wouldn’t dare”

“Try me” Y/N sing sang picking up her stuff and quickly shoving them down in her backpack, gathering the rest in her hands before turning around to climb to the rooftop. 

As she climbed the last set of stairs, Y/N saw their helicopters approaching as the seven agents she was waiting for used a special gun to shoot a line to her building, before locking them in place before zip-lining their way to meet her. She helped Seth, the agent that was kept hostage climb up the little wall since he was in a pretty bad shape, throwing his arm across her shoulders and basically dragging him to where they thrown the stair to climb up to the helicopter with the medical team waiting for him. Cara and Roman climbed first since they’re going to report what they saw and assist Seth as best as they could. Roman grabbed him and the rope stair, shouting to pull them up so he could be taken care of. 

Raul was the last one to arrive, as always staying behind to insure everyone got there safely and no one would try to kill them or anything. He graciously climbed the all as if it was nothing, pulling the gun from the string and cutting it so no one could follow them up there that quickly. Raul told everyone to climb onto the helicopter and they’re quick to follow his order, only one person stubbornly waiting for him, as always. He held back the relieved smile from stretching across his features, noticing how warm and relaxed he felt only by seeing Y/N standing besides the hope ladder. She looked worried, a frown on her beautiful face and Raul wanted to smooth his fingers over it as if it would ease all of her troubles away.

She nodded as soon as he was close enough, Raul being quick to pick up the heavy backpack she was carrying and leaving the rest to her “Are you okay?”

“What? Of course, Why do you ask?” he knew why she was asking, hell, his heartbeat was still a bit too fast to be normal, and yeah, partially was because he was standing in front of Y/N, but on the other hand he almost got killed. She only arched her brow at him and he sighed in defeat “Of course I am, doll, you know me, I’m always okay” 

“That’s what’s scares me the most” she said with a sad chuckle and started climbing the rope ladder to the helicopter and Raul was quick to follow behind.

“Dude, that was insane, I can’t believe you didn’t miss or accidentally shot Raul from across the street!” the youngest guy from the mission shouted as soon as they reached them on the vehicle, Raul closing the door behind them. 

Y/N only giggled in response “yeah, a bit crazy, isn’t it?”

“That’s because she’s the best, Tommy, but she won’t believe it” Raul said as he sat on one of the vacant seats, waiting for her to join him. 

“Oh shut it” she said unable to stop the smile from forming.

They kept on talking about the mission for a while, Tommy and the other two kids who recently joined still high from the adrenaline, but Y/N couldn’t be more worn out and Raul was quick to catch it. He leaned closer to her and she automatically laid her head on his shoulder, a movement that was almost mechanic to both of them. He gently grabbed her hand that was placed on her knee and interlaced their fingers together, letting her play with his hand to pass the time. 

Y/N sighed and mumbled after a while, when most of the kids were too distracted to pay attention “Are you really okay? Don’t say that you’re always fine, I mean it”

Raul had mastered the art of the poker face. He could easily be having the worst time of his life, but he would never let it showcase always with a quick sarcastic remark and an easy smirk on his lips, ready to flirt with anyone to distract them from the real problem. Raul was not the best when dealing with feelings and emotions, always thought it was easier to push them away, but Y/N saw right through him. She always did, ever since they were little. After that, he never tried to hide it again from her, always being as honest as he could with her about how he was, and obviously it didn’t always work, but she understood and respected it. It’s not like he needed to say anything for her to know. 

But at the same time, she didn’t know that he would always be fine, as long as she was safe and right next to him, the rest didn’t matter. 

“I promise you I’m fine, you saved my beautiful ass and we’re going home, I’d say we’re fantastic” he said after a while, pressing a long kiss to the back of their laced hands. 

That seemed to be enough to convince Y/N, since she huffed through her nose and let out a tiny giggle, before leaning closer to him and Raul took it as a sign to drape his arm over her shoulder pulling her closer to his chest “your beautiful ass is really annoying, you know that, right?”

“Oh, I do, but you love it anyway” he said with a giggle, pressing a kiss to the crown of her head, as she just showed him her middle finger, making him laugh even more. 

Yeah, he was definitely fine. For now. 

                                                     -*-

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*xoxo

-🌙

[boop-le-snoot]

PARTY FAVOURS I CHAPTER 38

💖 first time reader click here 💖

Fluff and snowball fights. Forgiveness is a path and everyone's making their happy way down it. Friendly Steve slander. Hulk interaction!

"So, what now?" I asked, eyes still closed, not resisting the desire to remain under the covers, nested snugly into Stephen's side. On his other side, Tony snored away, sprawled like a starfish in what looked to be the first decent shut-eye he got in months. I could smell the coffee and omelettes from Tony's kitchen and the soft jazz music playing where Bruce was taking care of the breakfast.

It was an unambiguous decision to take it easy after the last battle. Bucky and Natasha had been ironing out the details from the interrogation after Stephen had un-possessed Cabre, Wanda and Loki were itching to get a minute with the mercenary on their own and Veddie, as I started calling my uncle and his symbiote after experiencing the incredibly immersive symbiosis with Venom, hovered nearby in case Cabre would make a good snack.

"What do you want to do?" Stephen's morning voice was, ahem, an experience. He put Corpse Husband to shame and I knew that it wasn't only me who got hot and bothered by it but Tony as well...

Speaking of Tony, I still had no idea where we stood. My engineer had been less than happy about my actions and I thought I blew it. He wasn't as warm and playful, and while I kept telling myself that it was just the exhaustion from weeks of stress and worry, I knew better.

"I don't know. I didn't think this far," I admitted, damn well knowing what I wanted. I wanted things to be like they were - clear, honest, easy. My mother's voice rang out clearly again. I was being childish. Of course I was.

"I'm sure Tony will have my head for this, but seeing as there's no stopping you, I'm sure Natasha and Barnes will be happy to train you," Stephen sighed, his breath warm in my hair.

I blanched, stiffening in his arms, confused. "Where did that come from?" My eyes finally opened to stare at his sleepy face.

His eyebrows rose. "You don't want to..?"

"Be a hero, like you? No," I shook my head, then snorted. "I was trying to figure out how to tell you I don't want to go to college just yet, maybe take a gap year. In fact, I want to avoid actual in-person classes as much as humanely possible. And I still don't have a clue what major exactly I want to pursue." I was being honest, prepared to be judged. In-between my three men, there were at least ten PhDs whilst I was only nearly done with the first step of my education.

"So what, it was a one-time deal? Let an alien parasite take over your body for a coupla' hours and then continue with your life?" Tony's scratchy voice startled me; apparently, he'd been awake and actively eavesdropping.

I wasn't prepared for this conversation, but then again, I'd never be. Might as well rip the bandaid off. "I'm not that flavour of stupid," I immediately retorted, heart beginning to pick up speed. My mouth was gonna get me in trouble. "I am not delusional, I know things aren't and won't be the same. I did what I did because there was no other option, I'm not sorry and I will do it again if the need arises. It's not what you want to hear but it's the truth." I paused, well aware that my speech was becoming quicker, I was well on my way to nervous rambling. "I'm not hero material, I won't go on a death march for a rando," Justifying my actions? No. I stopped myself again. "I am sorry for lying. I am sorry for hiding things. But I am not sorry for putting my own ass out there so we can get some fucking peace." I finally settled, fisting my pajama top under the blanket in an attempt to release some of the tension.

Twin sighs erupted from my men, as if their bodies synchronized in response to my stubborn nature. Stephen's hold tightened on me as Tony rolled over, sleepy eyes blinking from the space opposite of me on Stephen's chest. Tony's hand reached for my face, stroking the side of it wordlessly - he wasn't the most vocal about his feelings but his eyes said it all. Tony was sad, hurt, a little bit angry but mostly he was relieved. It was the way he moved - nearly no traces of the tension that had gathered on his face in the previous weeks.

"Natasha should still train you, some basic hand to hand and weapons training, in case someone has it out for any of us. SHIELD's security has holes, you're basically one of us now. Everyone and their mother saw Clint hauling you to the quinjet," Tony finally grumbled, admitting his defeat. Everyone knew that if it had been up to him, I wouldn't leave the tower without an armed escort at all times. Thankfully, Bruce was there to screw on Tony's bolts right each time he wanted to go overboard. They thought I wouldn't notice, but I did.

Stephen's free hand landed in Tony's hair, the sorcerer effectively calmed both of us down with his gentle, unobtrusive support. He was far more empathetic than he liked to show. "That seems like a smart idea," He rumbled as my eyes began to drift shut once again.

With each steady breath, my heartbeat slowed and the feelings of guilt and dread began to dissipate. Tony might not had forgiven me yet but I was on my way to inner peace once more. I remembered feeling exactly the same way before our relationship, when every time I took a step inside Tony's lab, I tensed inwardly, shielded my feelings from his eyes, too focused on the outcome I thought would be absolutely disastrous. I had always thought he'd laugh at me, and yet... Laying on Steph's chest, inches away from Tony, my past panic seemed ridiculous.

"What's so funny?" Stephen asked, amused.

I didn't even notice the snort that managed to escape me. "Nothing," I answered immediately, feeling my face heat up. Oh my Loki, what kind of an idiot I had been...

"Sure," Tony's finger poked my cheek without preamble. "Staging a world domination plan, aren't we?" He snarked, much more like his usual self.

"I was just remembering when I was so terrified you'd find out I have a crush on you and you'd laugh at me," I mumbled, willing to placate Tony to avoid any more unnecessary lies and deceit.

Tony, did, in fact, laugh at my confession, but so did Stephen and I am pretty sure I heard Bruce snort from the direction of the archway leading into the spacious bedroom. The bed dipped as the scientist sat down, running a palm over my leg.

"I was pretty sure you would laugh at me," He admitted just as quietly and bashfully. Stephen and Tony only laughed harder. I heard the sound of a pillow hitting Steph in the face. "Let's go, Princess, let's leave the mean geezers alone. I made breakfast."

I could practically hear the pout in Bruce's voice and couldn't resist to comply, leaving a grumbling Tony to stretch and roll out of bed like a disgruntled cat.

"You're older than me, Bruce," Stephen rolled his eyes, I could feel his stare linger on my exposed thighs before Bruce picked me up. My sorcerer boyfriend switched to staring at Tony's bare back, which was an action I wholeheartedly supported.

"Cocky bastards," I stuck out my tongue a moment before we turned the corner and then all I could focus on was the feast of gods Bruce had made for us. The man was really too sweet and too kind, he never ceased to make me mushy and stuff. I stole a kiss, and then another one, and another one, until Tony's whining about the toast burning interrupted our moment.

The bread was fine. Tony was just being himself.

Our phones beeped at the same time - mine being already in my hand, as all normal young people did in the mornings - I looked at the message expecting another assemble and feeling my eyebrows crawl up at Steve's suggestion we all get some fresh air that day.

It had snowed. The whole city was covered in white, crisp snow, and Bucky has been liking nothing but other people's snowman pictures for several days. I suspected the brunette had convinced his boyfriend to take him out to build one or something, but as Steve was known to be exceptionally dense at times, Cap'n Jolly had unanimously decided it was a team bonding-slash-relaxing opportunity.

I relayed my thoughts to my own boyfriends, all of us giggling at Steve's eagerness to cater to his boyfriend and his cluelessness when it came to all things romantic. I was tempted to shoot Steve a text explaining his epic gamer moment but before I could even open the app, Bruce's eyes turned green briefly as he had a very obvious internal conversation with Hulk.

"Is that offer to spend time with Hulk still up?" The scientist asked timidly.

I had a lightbulb moment. "Absolutely!" I replied, watching my other two boyfriends. They didn't even bat an eye, evidently at peace with the green situation. "As long as the snowball fight is had with Thor, Steve or other enhanced individuals." Personally, I had no desire to be flipped over by a snowball the size of a watermelon. Or get any of the pretty but cold stuff under my clothes.

Bruce's responding grin was mostly Hulk.

It was a couple of days before Christmas. I was never one much for the holiday season, but something magical had seeped into me - it wasn't the shiny lights throughout the tower, it wasn't Clint's ugly Christmas sweater and the smell of gingerbread cookies and cinnamon that came from Wanda's apartment. I had no clue what it was, but it seemed to be tied to my boyfriends and Loki and many others who lived in the tower.

Bruce was all but wiggling during the car ride to the park - rationally, I knew it was the Hulk being excited but I still couldn't take my eyes off the usually reserved man. Bruce was happy. It made me smile and hold his hand like we were middle-schoolers in love. The rest of the team pretended to not notice it, or maybe they didn't care, or maybe they had already gotten used to my unconventional relationship.

Either way, Bucky had whisked Steve away almost immediately and I did what every kid ever had dreamed of. As Bruce went to a more secluded space to transform into the Hulk and Tony went to retrieve his thermos of coffee, I ushered Sam over to Steve's car and unlocked it, retrieving his shield from the trunk. It was heavier than it looked but did it stop me and Sam from running up the nearest hill and fighting over who gets to go first?

No, it did not. In mere moments, my ass was being frozen to the metal despite my snowsuit as I parked it inside the shield , holding onto the straps as Sam pushed on my back, hollering "Yeet!" at the top of his lungs, sending me in a steep slide towards where Thor was enthusiastically explaining something to the rest of the team.

"Oh shiiiiit!" I screamed, unprepared for the sudden increase in speed and the surprisingly good gliding abilities Captain America's shield possessed. "Watch o-o-out!" I yelled as the group scattered at the last moment. I heard some strong Russian words coming from Natasha, paired with snorts of badly concealed laughter.

The tree line grew closer by the second but the shield had no plans of stopping any time soon. Whoda thunk that things made of vibranium had all the characteristics to be the perfect sled? Something green entered my field of vision, stopping my crazy train with a grunt.

I answered with an oof of my own. One green palm was securely wrapped around me and the other held Steve's shield. "Hello," Hulk snorted, lifting me up like I was but a feather and setting me on his shoulder. "Puny Princess, don't hurt yourself," He stated firmly as I looked down at him, intrigued by the sudden change in his speech patterns. He sounded almost human.

"Hey, Big Guy," I ruffled his hair. "Aren't you cold?"

"No," He replied, setting me onto his shoulder. Hulk appeared to be completely unaffected by the December cold in his purple shorts. I felt my rear end begin to thaw, such was the heat that he emanated from his body. Meanwhile, Hulk caught Steve's eye, preparing to hurl the shield back to the frowning Captain.

Steve caught it effortlessly while Bucky ignored the interaction whatsoever, caught up in rolling an obscenely large ball of snow a ways from the group, tongue all but hanging out in concentration. I caught myself thinking he was gonna build a snow dick instead of a man and it made me feel...

"Wanna build a snowman?" I asked my green companion, rubbing my mittens in excitement.

The Hulk pondered for a brief moment, adopting that mischievous gleem, eyes shooting to Tony and Stephen who stood regally on the side of the clearing, sipping their hot beverages like the adult men that they were supposed to be. I snorted and Hulk echoed the sound, taking quick strides to a patch of land opposite Bucky. "No," Hulk shook his head. "We build a fort. Then smash," The green bean was all but vibrating in excitement.

Realistically, I knew I was gonna get snow stuck in uncomfortable places and might even get knocked over by an overeager person with super strength. But was I gonna pass up an opportunity to show off my superior construction skills? Hell naw.

It wasn't long before Stephen and Tony wandered off to us and began to pile up snow with a resigned huff, unsuccessful in their attempts to rebuff me ordering them around. In the end, we split in three teams, snow flew everywhere and by the time the battle was in peak heat, all of us were cold, wet and red-faced.

"To the death! BLOOD AND VINEGAR!!!" I screeched, hopping up and down after a series of small rapid snowballs I threw hit their target - Steve had a face full of snow and Bucky wasn't faring much better next to him, having had let a few of them hit him in the chest because he was distracted, doubling over in laughter at Steve's indignant, red face.

"You're bloodthirsty," Tony smirked from my side, dumping a fresh batch of ammo between me and Stephen. "It's hot."

@another-stark-sub @mostly-marvel-musings  @vozit @littlegasps @pilloclock @shereadsinquiet @downeyreads @hermione-grangers-wife @individualistfem @sleep-i-ness @capbrie @lillsxd @agustdowney @dee-vn @justanotherblonde23 @fanngirl19 @persephonehemingway @softie-socks @schemefrenzy @letsby @romeo-the-cactus @jelly-fishy-babie @mikariell95 @gladiosamicitias @warrior1-19 @toomanyrobins

[gumnut-logic]

Hi Nutty. I span the random whump generator and this is what I got. Character = Alan please 😁

I dunno if there was much whump in this, but there was something :D I hope you enjoy it :D

Spin the wheel and send me a prompt :D

-o-o-o-

Well, this just sucked.

Alan fiddled with the restraints holding him to a bulkhead. Nope, not a thing he could do about it.

Other than him, the room, more a cargo hold than anything else, was empty except for an airlock door on the far side.

Why couldn’t he be kidnapped by an idiot? These ones had actually removed his baldric and his helmet, effectively cutting him off from Thunderbird Five.

Except for the tracker in his wrist, but they didn’t need to know about that.

The nerve, though. He was out here to help. He had thought he was saving a private space yacht that had engine trouble and was making a good attempt at colliding with a satellite or two.

But no, it had all been a trap. Probably to get a hold of his ‘bird.

Why couldn’t the bad guys make their own Thunderbirds and stop messing with theirs.

Oh, yeah, technology and all.

Then go invent your own technology, you assholes, and leave us alone.

Alan gave his restraints another tug and grunted as they bit through his uniform.

Of course, the astronaut in him was having a mild fit. He was stuck in an unknown craft of unknown safety specs with people who undoubtedly did not have his best health in mind, and he had no helmet.

He might as well be naked.

No, don’t give them ideas, you idiot.

Okay, focus. He had his training.

And he had his brothers.

While he had no wish to worry said brothers it was kind of reassuring to think exactly what those brothers might do to the persons responsible for this. If there was one thing he could say, it was that he was ever so proud of his family.

Scott would be pissed. That had both its positives and its negatives. There would likely be tactical scenarios in the future to prevent this from happening again. Scott was all about prepared and strategic readiness.

Couldn’t blame him really. The list of incidents in his brother’s resume was extensive. No doubt, Scott had learnt the hard way.

Now Virgil, Virgil was the softy. He smiled to himself. His tank of a brother was almost as much a worry wart as their eldest brother. He was less likely to get angry, but when he did, the whole house knew about it and avoided him. Only Scott and occasionally John would weather a Virgil snit, simply because it was terrifying. Add the list of equipment the engineer had at hand and buildings had the potential to be reduced to rubble. Nah, you didn’t want to piss off Virg.

But then there was John. No one, just no one dared rankle his middle brother. Alan snorted. John was the quiet one, and that fooled a lot of people. To their detriment. Gordon...it was always Gordon...had once taken a step too far and his music streaming still hadn’t recovered...six years after the incident. There was still whining. John just raised an eyebrow and smiled that gentle smile of his and flickered out.

Bit hard to chase a brother down who was literally thousands of miles away, yet had access to every personal detail, ever digital print, every part of your life.

Not that he didn’t trust John. No, he trusted him with his life, but hell, you did not want to piss him off.

The ship around him suddenly shook and Alan found himself thrown against the bulkhead. A grunt as his suit armour took the brunt, along with his shoulder guards.

These guys were really starting to piss Alan off, much less his brothers.

The ship stilled again and he was left wondering what the hell was going on. What did they want?

He pictured his next eldest brother beside him and the smart ass grin that came with the image. Gordon. Alan couldn’t help but smile. Gordon could be an ass, but he was an ass who was always on your side. The two of them had done so much...often to the ire of the above three brothers, but that just made it more fun.

Alan found himself grinning and he wondered if the assholes had a camera on him. Good luck to them if they did, because Gords was always going to make him smile.

His fish brother was amazing. Alan had seen him go through absolute hell, but his spirit was ever so strong. Alan admired Gordon. He was a role model.

That had him snickering. Scott’s frown at that thought was hilarious. 

But it wasn’t the pranks - though they were hilarious - it was Gordy’s view on life. His ability to keep smiling, stay in the positive, even when everything was absolute shit.

That was a thought for right now. Chained to a bulkhead in a strange ship, possibly abandoned, possibly kidnapped. What would Gords do?

A snort. Put jello in their knickers before kicking their asses out into space.

But Gords wasn’t a fan of space, was he? But his bro was brave and would kick ass anyway.

That was Gords.

Alan swallowed. Would Gords be as scared as he was at the moment?

Possibly.

But he would kick ass anyway.

Like Kayo.

Kayo.

You never pissed off Kayo and lived. Again it was Gordon who had tried exactly that. At the time, Alan had thought his brother was upset. That could be the only reason for tempting death.

He’d been partly right.

The dye in Kayo’s shower rose had prompted her focussed attention. She had cornered Gordon and the next thing Alan knew she had thrown his brother so hard around the spar mat he had bruises.

Which led to a Scott lecture of epic proportions. The smile on Gordon’s face had said so much more.

Alan still questioned his fish brother’s sanity.

And admired him for his bravery.

The whole ship shook around him and Alan startled.

The door on the far side of the bay stayed closed.

Scott, where are you?

And there was the truth of the matter. Scott had been his go to for so long, he was the default he yelled for when he needed help.

He would love to see him walk through that door.

Hell, he would love to see any and all of his brothers and his sister put a fist in these assholes’ faces and set him free.

Honestly, it wasn’t a matter of if, more of when. You don’t piss off a Tracy.

Any of them.

Because they would all kick your ass.

Even the littlest. 

Alan straightened where he floated. Yes, he would kick necessary ass anytime. He may be the littlest, but he was a damned astronaut, he knew stuff.

The restraints were still too damned tight.

The door on the other side of the room suddenly hissed and cracked open.

Alan spun and readied himself. He was not going down without a fight.

A familiar blue helmet peered through the door. “Alan?”

“Scott!”

And his big brother was there. A laser cutter and he was free and enveloped in a strong hug. “Hey, Allie.”

Before he knew it, he was being towed towards the door.

“How? Who?” He swallowed as Scott shoved the door wider and pushed him through. “What?”

But the answer was there before him.

Virgil was hovering in the space version of his exosuit, monitoring a forcefield over a massive hole in the side of the spacecraft’s cockpit.

Gordon and Kayo had three men hanging upside down from the ceiling wrapped in so many restraints, breathing appeared optional.

And John was muttering to Eos as he hovered over the controls of the craft. There was snarling.

Oh, dear.

“Here, we found these.” Scott’s hand hadn’t left his shoulder, but his other hand suddenly had Alan’s baldric and helmet hovering in front of him.

“I...”

There was a hum as a scanner was whisked over him from the direction of Virgil.

Scott’s eyes questioned the engineer, but he must have received the info he needed because a second later those eyes were once again trained on Alan.

As Alan took his baldric and snapped on his helmet, both of Scott’s hands landed on his shoulders. “You okay?”

There were so many eyes trained on him at the moment.

Alan straightened. “Yeah, I’m good.”

One of the bad guys whimpered and Gordon prodded him.

Blue eyes flickered but didn’t leave Alan. “Three is secured, though John is not happy.”

Another snarl issued from his red-haired brother.

Alan arched an eyebrow.

Those hands squeezed his shoulders. “Let’s get you home.”

Alan stared at his four brothers and his sister and smiled. 

“I’m driving.”

-o-o-o-

[thepancakeboi]

An Unexpected Growth Spurt

So it barely took five minutes before this idea by @hetyra sent me down the rabbit hole of getting ideas and hyperfocusing on it rather than my current stuff. Whoops? No regrets. These types of fun reactions, where Ren is being such a goddamn menace towards Goro, are among my favorite to write. I will disclose this right now: I know very little about the storyline of Persona 5 Strikers outside of “sequel set in the summer after Persona 5 events″. As a result, it’s only there as a timing thing and a reference, but it’s fine. Anyway, I hope you enjoy this writing that gave me dopamine and serotonin in spades!

01/01/2018, 10:39 AM > Ren: Meiji Shrine it is! I can’t wait to see you.

I keep looking at that last text over and over as I stand here by the torii, awaiting Ren’s arrival. It’s been over a year since I last saw him. I’m lucky I was even able to get in touch with him, but...was coming here a mistake?

I’m not the type to get nervous, but I never thought I would see him again. With everything that happened between us, he shouldn’t even want to meet up with me. That and he probably assumed I was dead. The last time I saw him was in the engine room of Shido’s Palace. That place should have been my grave, yet somehow I had survived. I hadn’t told anyone. Truth be told, I hadn’t wanted anyone to know I was alive.

I...simply wanted to disappear.

Even now, I have the urge to leave before I can potentially reunite with Ren. Whatever had come over me last night, in that spur of the moment decision to text Ren after a year of silence, is gone. This whole idea is a mistake. He has much better ways to spend his time than wasting it on me. He’s probably been with his precious friends doing who knows what. There’s no way he needs someone like me in his life. He’s got all the people he could ever want. That’s it. I’m leaving now, before-

“Goro? Is that you?”

I freeze. His voice is a little deeper than I remember, but I would know it anywhere. I turn around, my heart leaping in my chest at seeing Ren. Although he’s not wearing his glasses this time, he hasn’t changed a bit. Even his hair is as unkempt as ever. It’s almost like I went back in time, to days where I wasn’t his (attempted) murderer. There are so many things I want to say, but all I can manage is a simple, “Hey, Ren.”

And he grins. Yet another thing that hasn’t changed: that beautiful smile. I can tell he’s barely stopping himself from running and pulling me into a hug as he approaches. I’m thankful for his restraint. There’s no telling what my reaction would have been. “Hi, Akeppi.”

I huff, shaking my head. “I was hoping you forgot that damn nickname.” And me as well, some small part of me silently adds.

“You know you like it.” Smug as ever, the menace. “I missed you. Where have you been? You never told me.”

Straight to the point, I see. I had very purposefully avoided the dogged questions about how I was alive or where I’d been. It didn’t seem like the type of thing to discuss through instant messages. This needed to be a face-to-face conversation. “I was at a rehab center, believe it or not.”

“You were?”

Nodding, I force myself to continue. He deserves to know what happened. “It’s outside of Tokyo...and it’s where my mother would go. I went there on Christmas Eve without an appointment, but they accepted me anyway. The only time I had left between then and now was when I heard word that you were being detained.”

“Oh?”

“I couldn’t just sit by and do nothing. After all, you did change Shido’s heart for me. So, I helped your friends track down the woman in your assault case.”

“Wait, did they know you were alive and didn’t tell me?”

“No, nothing like that,” I reassure him, letting Ren know that his friends hadn’t kept my survival a secret from him. “I gave them what information I could find, anonymously, of course. They probably wouldn’t have accepted it if they knew who it came from.”

“Come on, give them a little more credit than that.”

I don’t think I can, especially when two of my victims had been Futaba Sakura’s mother and Haru Okumura’s father. “Either way, what about you? You’re a third-year now, yes?”

“Yeah. A lot’s happened since...” He stops for a moment. Something tells me the reason he stopped isn’t pleasant. Could it be he was about to say “since our last fight”, or something of that caliber? He quickly snaps out of it, though, beaming once again as he continues. “Oh, I saved Christmas by summoning satan to shoot god in the face!”

If he were any other person, I might have figured him insane. Even so, I can’t hide my surprise as I stammer, “You...what?”

“We went into the depths of Mementos to find its treasure. Never want to go there again. And then we fought the holy grail, which was really a god who was controlling everyone. I summoned this huge Persona, Satanael, and we shot god in the face!”

I chuckle at that. It all sounds so impossible, yet anything’s possible in the Metaverse. “If only I could have seen such a sight.” Upon seeing Ren’s melancholy look, I quickly add, “What else happened after that?”

“I went back home in March.” He doesn’t seem too thrilled about that detail. I know he preferred living at Leblanc over with his own parents, who never seemed to contact him while he was on probation. “And then I came back for summer vacation with the rest of the Phantom Thieves. But then the Metaverse came back, and these places called Jails were showing up, and...well, it’s a long story.”

“Perhaps for another time. Your life certainly has been interesting.”

“I wish you could’ve been there, but I’m happy you’re still alive. I...didn’t know what happened to you. Everyone else thought you were dead, but I just couldn’t believe it. I kept hoping that you weren’t. I really did miss you, Goro.” And I believe it, somehow.

“I apologize for not contacting you until yesterday. I know I should have. I cannot imagine what you must have gone through, and-”

“It’s okay!” he replies, a little too quickly. It makes me wonder how he handled my supposed death. I won’t pry. If he wants to tell me one day, it’ll be when he wants. He finally pulls me into the hug he’s likely been waiting for this whole time, gently running his fingers through my hair. “Your hair’s shorter than before.”

“Is that a problem?” I know it’s only a simple observation, but I can’t help but assume he doesn’t like it.

“No. I just noticed. That’s all. You look cute with short hair.”

“I’m not cute,” I immediately retort.

“Are too.”

“Well, you haven’t changed a-” I pause. Some small detail is pulling at my attention, but what is it? “Wait a minute. Did you...?”

“Did I what?” he asks, clearly as confused as I am.

I move out of his embrace to back up a few steps, looking at his footwear. He isn’t wearing heels, which means... “Have you...grown since we last saw each other?”

“Hmm? Oh, yeah, a little. Why?”

“How much?”

“I dunno, five centimeters?”

“Damnit,” I hiss. “Who said you were allowed to have a growth spurt!?”

Clarity lights up his face as he realizes the reason for my irritable reaction. “Oh, right. You hated when I was taller as Joker. Does it bother you that I’m taller than you now?”

“Shut up.”

He laughs. “I love it. It’s nice seeing you as the smaller one.”

“Oh, fuck you.”

He fake gasps. “He swore! Are you angy, my adorable little detective?” he asks, his voice sounding all cutesy. Goddamn menace.

“What do you think!?”

He is obviously smug that he’s now taller than me by two centimeters. His grin only widens as he pats my head. I try to smack his hand away, but he moves it away before I can. “You’re cute when you’re angry.”

“Shut the fuck up.”

“Even more so since I’m taller than you.”

“Infuriating as ever,” I snarl, my patience running thin. He’s being so cocky that I want to fucking strangle him. “I should wear heels just to be the taller one.”

“I don’t think you could.”

“Is that a challenge, Ren?”

“I dunno.” He shrugs, but I see right through the gesture. He knows exactly what he’s doing. “You tell me, detective. Is it a challenge?”

“I think it is, and I don’t intend to lose. I can and will wear heels. Watch me.”

“Even if you did, I could just wear heels as well,” he replies with a shit-eating grin to match his tone, “and run in them, too.”

I sigh in frustration, crossing my arms. I hate that I know he’s right. The Metaverse is enough indication of that. “You little shit.”

“You’re the little one, not me.”

“Shut up, Ren.”

“Make me,” he says as he gets right in my face, smirking as I instinctively lean back. “You could always kiss me into silence.”

There’s no hiding my flushed reaction to his suggestion. “You fucking wish, you idiot,” I snap, trying to ignore just how hot my face feels.

“Yeah, I do, my little tsundere pancake.”

Oh, of course, he had to mention the pancakes. Of fucking course. “I hate you so much.”

“I still don’t believe you. We both know that’s a lie.”

“Damn you and your two centimeters,” I say right before I recklessly kiss him on the lips.

I can see the ever so slight surprise on Ren’s face. He hides it well. His mirth at the unexpected kiss is clear as he asks, “Now, was that really so bad?”

“Yes.” No.

“Why’d you do it, then?”

“To get you to shut up.” I’ve been wanting to for a while now.

“Sure, sure,” he laughs. “Hey, would you want to get some lunch together? My treat.”

I’m glad he asked first. Truth be told, I wanted an excuse to spend more time with him. I’ve missed Ren more than I care to admit. “Sounds delightful. You can choose the location, but I’m paying.”

“Hey, no. I’m buying lunch, and you can’t stop me.”

“I’m paying, and that’s final.”

“Okay, how about we leave it up to chance? Whoever ends up with the bill pays. Deal?”

“Very well. You have a deal.” I’m still not letting him pay, though, even if it means resorting to more...underhanded methods.

He takes my hand in his, the small gesture of affection almost causing me to tear up. No one’s cared about me like Ren has. I don’t deserve it, but I doubt arguing that with him would get anywhere. It would be fruitless. All I can hope is that he’ll be happy around me.

And, for the first time in a year...I smile.

[marvelous-imagines-for-all]

“The Police Chief” Oscar “Spooky” xReader OnMyBlock

Based on: “Oh my god. Praise the lord for your account. You have imagined of all the characters I like. And they're grammatically correct. Do you know how hard to find that is? Omg. Okay, so. I have two ideas for imagines. The first is an Oscar x Reader where the new chief of the freeridge police moves in and becomes neighbours with Oscar?”

Author: Alana

“Only three more boxes, (y/n).” You encouraged yourself, walking back outside of the house to retrieve more boxes from your truck.

You were new to the neighborhood, having just moved from San Francisco, CA.

You were transferred from the San Francisco Police Department to take the position as Chief of the Freeridge Police Department.

You were nervous about the move for multiple reasons. 1) Because you were becoming the youngest police Chief in the state of California, at the age of 22. 2) You had heard about a lot of gang business that goes on in the area you were moving to and 3) You were often belittled, not just by the ones you arrested, but also by your fellow officers because you were a female officer.

You tried to push the negative thoughts aside as you grasped a crate, full of DVD’s, from your trunk. You slowly began to pull the crate towards you, trying to be as careful as possible with the fragile discs.

You heard a car pull up in the driveway next to you, but you didn’t bother to look. You grunted softly as you lifted the heavy crate, holding on for dear life so you wouldn’t drop them.

“Of course dad left the heavy stuff to me.” you rolled your eyes.

You slowly backed away from the trunk, now fully holding the crate. You sighed in relief, “Now I just have to make it to the front door. I’ve lifted dummies heavier than this, during training. I’ve got this.” You gave yourself a mini pep talk, taking a large step towards the front door.

Your eyes widened as the sudden action caused the crate to slip from your hands, yet the crate never hit the ground.

Another pair of arms caught the crate for you, “Let me help you with this.” A gruff voice offered.

You looked up to meet breathtaking brown eyes. You stared into the stranger’s eyes and found yourself smiling like an idiot, “Thank you..”

He stood there with an eyebrow raised and chuckled softly, “Where should I put this?” He asked, waiting for your instructions.

You snapped out of your daze and blushed, “Oh right! I’m sorry,” You apologized, “Right through the front door and to the left. There should be some space on the ground for it.” You informed him, motioning to the door.

He nodded and walked off, following your directions.

You looked around, wondering where he had come from you. You noticed that the car that pulled into the driveway next to you had the driver’s seat door ajar, with the engine still running.

You smiled more to yourself, realizing that he came to your rescue as quickly as he could. At least I have a nice neighbor!

He walked back outside and grabbed your last two boxes with ease. Not bothering to wait for your permission.

He came back outside a few moments later, walking straight to his car. He turned off the engine and walked back over to you. “Hi, I’m Oscar.” He introduced, approaching you with his hand out.

You gingerly placed your hand into his large, callused one. Shaking his hand, you introduced yourself, “Hi, Oscar. I’m (y/n), your new neighbor.” You quickly caught yourself, “Wait, that was obvious. I don’t know why I said that. I’m sorry.” You apologized for the second time to him.

Oscar thought your rambling was cute, but he didn’t show that on his face. He nodded his head down at you, “It’s nice to meet you, (y/n).” He continued shaking your hand slowly, neither of you letting go. “What brings a beautiful lady like you to this neighborhood?” He asked, genuinely curious.

Okay, he’s either going to be into this or he’s going to be intimidated by my position. You cleared your throat awkwardly before locking eyes with Oscar, “I’m the new police Chief for Freeridge Police Department. I’m Chief (y/l/n).” You said proudly, feeling no shame for your accomplishment. You worked your butt off to become the youngest Chief.

Oscar’s eyes widened a bit before he quickly retracted his hand.

You frowned to yourself, concluding that he’s the intimidated type. Well there goes that chance.

Shoving his hands into his pockets, Oscar smiled a little and nodded his head at you, “Well it’s nice to meet you, once again, (y/n). But I have to get going.” He excused himself, walking back to his house.

You sighed to yourself. Closing the back of your trunk, you made your way back to your new home.

Boxes and crates and bags were tossed all about the living room, recklessly. It looked like a tornado had come through. You weren’t going to complain though, because you enjoyed organizing and decorating rooms. So this was just another project for you to do until you started your job in a few days.

Walking over to an empty spot on the floor, you laid down and just stared up at the ceiling. Needing only a second to relax and think about the day’s events thus far.

Your eyes fell closed and Oscar’s face immediately popped into your mind. He’s not the usual guy you would give a second glance to, but he was pretty attractive, you couldn’t deny that.

His eyes were captivating and you even caught that little smile he was trying to hide. But every chance you thought you could possibly have with him vanished once he quickly pulled his hand from yours after hearing you’re a police Chief.

Your restless thoughts were interrupted by your cellphone ringing. You groaned softly, sitting up to answer your phone, “Hey, dad.”

-

Cesar watched Oscar’s interaction with you from his window. He smirked to himself, knowing that Oscar isn’t one to willingly go and help others. He only helps if it benefits him in some way. Which means that he must like you or something.

That’s why Cesar was beyond confused when he witnessed Oscar pulling his hand from yours and abruptly turning around.

Cesar knitted his eyebrows in confusion as he opened the door for Oscar to enter. “Dude, what was that about?” Cesar asked, stepping aside for his brother.

Oscar walked into the house, straight past Cesar. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” He brushed off, heading to the kitchen.

Rolling his eyes, Cesar followed Oscar with a knowing look. “You wouldn’t have helped her if you didn’t like her.” He stated with a factual tone. “So why did you suddenly bail on her?” Cesar interrogated.

Oscar grabbed a beer from the fridge, twisting the cap off with his bare hand. “She’s a cop, mano. But not just any cop, she’s the new Chief.” Oscar informed, taking a long sip of his beer and finally looking at Cesar.

“Ohhhhhh... yeah, that explains it.” Cesar shrugged off, “But she still seemed nice. Don’t you think you should get to know her a bit before you dismiss her, Oscar?” The younger Diaz reasoned.

Oscar shook his head, “I already know how this’ll play out, Cesar. She either finds out who I am and avoids me the rest of her time here or she arrests me for the gang business that we are so clearly involved in. I mean come on, the guys are on our lawn like every day.” Oscar sighed, taking another sip.

Cesar quietly watched his brother for a minute, thinking of how he could disagree with his brother’s reasons.

Leaning against the counter, Cesar nodded at Oscar. “Okay, you’re right.” Cesar began, acknowledging his brother’s thoughts. “But how about you just go tell her who you are before she has to hear it from someone else? Then it won’t be a huge deal or anything.” Cesar suggested, like it was the most obvious idea in the world.

Oscar couldn’t argue with Cesar’s idea. It was a good one. And hopefully there would be no negative affects from it. Worst case, you just don’t talk to him, right?

-

You were tired, but you figured it would be easier to unpack some of the boxes now rather than later. Then there would be less to do in the future.

You quickly caught the ceramic mug that had slipped from your grasp, “What is up with me today?” You asked yourself, setting the mug inside of a cabinet, along with the other mugs that you had just unwrapped.

Where’s the silverware? You wondered, leaving the kitchen.

You walked through the maze of boxes that were placed all around the living room and kitchen, looking for the box labeled “silverware”.

“I know I brought it in.” You huffed quietly to yourself, lifting up a box to check the name.

Suddenly the doorbell echoed throughout the house, causing you to knit your eyebrows in confusion. But you opened the door nonetheless.

The door was pulled open to reveal Oscar Diaz standing there looking down at your welcome mat.

He smiled at the mat before looking up to lock eyes with you, “Hey.. I’m sorry about earlier when I suddenly got weird, (Y/n).” He apologized, kind of awkwardly, seeing as he’s not used to apologizing to anyone.

You weren’t expecting to see Oscar again any time soon, but it made you happy to see that your job didn’t completely push him away.

“It’s alright. You’re not the first to react like that and I’m certain you won’t be the last.” You smiled softly, leaning against your doorway and watching Oscar.

“Well, look. I figured I could make it up to you by taking you to one of the best places in town to eat for dinner.” Oscar offered, “That is, if you would want to.” He finished.

Now that you thought about it, you were starving. You’ve been so busy with unpacking that you didn’t realize it was already dinner time.

You glanced back at your messy house and sighed, “I would love to, but I really should keep unpacking or I’ll never get it done.” You smiled apologetically, looking back up at Oscar.

“Well if you wanted some help unpacking, we could always order delivery from that spot.” He offered with a shy smile. “That way we could tackle both things at once.”

You couldn’t argue with this reasoning. Besides, you would get to spend more time with your new hot neighbor. So you agreed to letting him help you unpack.

-

Oscar released a booming laugh as he pulled out a ceramic flamingo statue. Holding it up, he looked over at you amused, “Who keeps flamingo statues? That’s so weird, (y/n).”

You scoffed as a blush crept to your cheeks, “Excuse me, I didn’t allow you to help me unpack so that you could judge me, Oscar. Besides... it was on sale..” You giggled softly, breaking down a box in front of you.

“I’m judging you a lot right now.” He chuckled deeply, setting the statue on the counter and opening another box.

You playfully rolled your eyes and tossed the broken down box onto the floor. “If I felt like being judged about what I buy, I would have had my mom help me unpack, you know.” You noticed Oscar was about to say something else when the door bell rang.

You followed Oscar to the front door. “Delivery for (y/n) (y/l/n).” The delivery man smiled once you opened the door.

“Yes, that’s me. How much do I owe you?” You asked, reaching into your pocket for the money.

Oscar gently nudged you aside, “It was my idea. I’ll pay.” He reached into his pocket, pulling out a wad of cash. “How much?”

The delivery guy froze and stared at Oscar horrified, clearly knowing exactly who he was. “I-it was $20.95, s-sir.” He stuttered out, avoiding eye contact with Oscar.

You watched the interaction closely, looking at Oscar confused and then back to the delivery guy. Oscar placed $30 in the man’s hand and took the bag of food. “Keep the change.” He said, closing the door and walking towards the kitchen with the food.

“What was that about..?” You asked with a raised eyebrow, hopping up onto the counter and pulling the food out of the bag.

Oscar thought back to what Cesar told him, “But how about you just go tell her who you are before she has to hear it from someone else? Then it won’t be a huge deal or anything.” But he couldn’t do it. He didn’t want to risk you walking away from him after finding out who he is. Especially not after spending hours with you already and beginning to like you.

Oscar cleared his throat and grabbed plates for you both, “You know, some people just panic when they see the tear drop on someone’s face.” He brushed off, motioning to the tattoo on his left cheek. “I’ve gotten used to it. But anyway, tell me about yourself, (y/n).” He encouraged you, beginning to eat.

-

Over the next few days, Oscar came over to help you unpack in the evenings. You both were getting to know more about each other, which led to you starting to like him.

You learned that he has a younger brother, Cesar. And that he practically raised him after his mother passed and dad went to prison. But despite all of that, Oscar seemed to turn out an amazing guy.

He even seemed to start liking you as well. For example, last night you both fell asleep on your couch while talking. He had his arms wrapped around your waist, your head laying against his chest as you both breathed in sync. Occasionally he would wake up and trace his thumb against your arm as you slept quietly.

You were woken up by your alarm, reminding you that it was time to get ready for your first day of work as the Police Chief. “Wait, I never set my alarm last night..” You reminded yourself as you walked to the bathroom to brush your teeth. “Which means that Oscar did it for me.” You smiled more at the realization. It was the tiniest things that were making your crush on him grow.

You quickly got changed into your uniform and headed off to work.

The day flew by pretty quickly. For the most part, many of the officers were respectful and nice. But of course there were a few who gave you dirty looks, which you ignored and kept on with your work.

The day was finally over and you were about to head out. “Chief (y/l/n), I have that background check you asked me to run!” A petite woman said, approaching you with a folder.

You smiled at her, taking the folder, “Thank you, Nancy. I’ll see you tomorrow.” You headed out.

-

You arrived home and sat in your car for a bit. You pulled the folder that Nancy gave you into your lap. You opened up the Background check to reveal information on Oscar “Spooky” Diaz. You felt bad running a background check on him, but you can never be too safe.

You eyes scanned over the words on the papers quickly, but immediately stopped when you read one simple phrase. “Leader of the Santos.” The Santos.. I was informed about that gang before I moved here. That’s one of the most notorious gangs in the area. You froze, rereading that phrase over and over again. Why didn’t he just tell me? What else could he be hiding?

You were snapped out of your thoughts by Oscar knocking on your car window with a smile. He stepped back, waiting for you to get out of the car.

You bit your lip, contemplating getting out of the car and facing him or not. You knew that you had no choice, it was now or later. “Why did you lie?” You questioned, stepping out of the car and slamming the door behind you.

Oscar stepped back a bit, confused about what you were talking about, “What-“

“I know that you’re the leader of the Santos, Oscar. And don’t even try to lie about it, because I did a background check on you and I know everything!” You glared at him, clenching the folder in your hand.

Oscar stood their expressionless for a moment before anger crept to his face, “You ran a background check on me? How could you do that, (y/n)?” He asked slowly.

You stared at him in disbelief, “Don’t you dare try to turn this around on me. It’s my job to do stuff like this! And I always run background checks on people I consider dating. It’s so I can protect myself! You should have just told me the truth, Oscar!” You argued, taking a long deep breath.

The anger on Oscar’s face quickly disappeared. “Did you just say you run background checks on people you consider dating..?” He began to smirk a little, “As in you’re considering dating me, (y/n).” He said with a teasing tone.

You didn’t realize what you had said until he repeated it back to you. You were quickly trying to find the right words to say, “W-well I was considering dating you until you lied to me! So now I’ll have to reconsider.” You huffed, pushing past Oscar and making your way to your front door.

Oscar’s eyes widened and he quickly turned around, grabbing your arm, “(y/n), wait!” He said with a hint of eagerness in his voice, “I know I should have told you.. but I was just scared you wouldn’t give me a chance.” He sighed, sliding his hand down your arm to hold your hand. “If you give me a chance, I promise I won’t keep anything else from you.” He pleaded with his usual gruff voice.

You could tell by the look in his eyes that he meant it. “Okay. You get one chance. But there will be boundaries in this relationship.” He nodded in agreement, continuing to listen to you. “You don’t tell me of anything illegal you’re doing, then I won’t have to arrest you. And you can’t ask me about any police business.” You said, pointing a finger at his chest. “Deal?”

Oscar tugged you closer to him and wrapped his arms around your waist. He placed his lips barely against yours and smirked while whispering, “Deal.” He agreed before kissing you gently.

You wrapped your arms around his neck and smiled into the kiss. You didn’t expect for the relationship to turn out like this, a Police Chief and a gang bang leader, dating. Then again, when does life ever make sense? The one thing you both knew for sure is that you would make the relationship work.

[border-spam]

AU Troy Character Timeline

Right, so I saw an incredible breakdown of Troy’s mental journey/state of ego last night ( that I’ll see if I can get permission to post at some point ) that really kicked my confidence into overdrive for writing out a definitive timeline for the version of him I write about in drabbles/fics etc as it was so amazingly similar. This isn’t complete, it couldn’t be because man I have a lot of stuff for this guy, but I hope it’s interesting for people maybe looking for a somewhat logical bunch of HC content that works well with the info we were given ingame. 

Writing this was like doing a jigsaw puzzle. Except ten pieces are missing, and you have 2 dominos and a Mrs Cupcake card instead. If you like any of this, feel free to use it. I’ll eventually expand on it in my own works.

Pre Pandora Era - 28  years pre BL3

Severe self esteem / image issues from very early childhood. Leda’s death left Typhon both terrified of Tyreen and desperately paranoid about her safety, leaving Troy to feel far less valued and loved as he found himself constantly failing to compete for attention from his remaining parent. 

Typhon never outright called Troy a freak, but he overheard plenty of discussions with his mother and with Tyreen explaining why he was so sick all the time, why he looked the way he did, why he was broken. He never discussed these, they festered in the back of his mind for the rest of his life. 

Strived from an early age to be useful, being useful gave him the belief he was valued, and a “Great job kid!” from his father felt good enough that it could almost replace feeling loved.

Misses his mother intensely from the day she died, for the rest of his life. Had no one else to have platonic intimacy with bar his sister, which never felt as freely given as with his mother. 

Developed an extremely crippled sense of social behavior and rules. The only people the Twins could interact with till they landed on Pandora ( which I HC was between 18 -19 ) were each other, and their Father. 

Left alone on a giant empty planet with no one to tell them no, or instill an understanding of social rules to them regarding others, left them with only a feeling of personal value for each other. This is an extremely dangerous state of mind for any person who will need to function in a social structure, especially a person in power. 

Had it hammered into them over and over by their father that the galaxy outside their home was filled with murderers. Animals. Bandit filth. Not like them, not like their parents, horrible, vicious things that would kill them the second they could. 

Internalised that to the point where it was a crucial part of their development of self as children. The twins would genuinely struggle to comprehend any other human they met was a person, because they were told their whole developing lives that no one they would meet bar their father would be.

 Pre COV - 8 years pre BL3

Lands on Pandora with Tyreen. Woefully underprepared and worried sick, didn’t want to leave Nekro but had no other choice but to go with his sister or die. Misses his father immediately, but avoids talking about it, knowing it will cause an argument.

Disliked that their father had kept them on Nekro intensely, but not enough to hate him the way Tyreen did. This never changed and the regret for leaving him only rotted inside him over the years. 

Very excited to finally meet new people, but his social skills are learned through watching old echos and while he can mimic them, he doesn’t understand social intricacies as well as he’d hoped. This sabotages their first few attempts to communicate with Pandoran non bandit natives. 

Comes across as weird. Stutters, not good with eye contact, awkward in body language and very unnatural in appearance. Extremely tall (6″7), very thin and sickly looking with sallow skin and dark under eyes. His missing arm and quarter of his shoulder draw far more attention than he had ever expected and he becomes instantly self conscious of the damage to his right side, strongly disliking how it’s pointed out every time they try and interact with one of these idiots.  

The twins only had the clothes they had travelled in and at this point they are pretty much rags patched together over nearly 2 decades. Didn’t understand how much appearances were going to matter, Troy had been sure he’d be able to “Mingle with the locals no problem.”, and now feels like he’s letting his sister down by failing to perform the way he’d been so sure of. They move onto the bandit clans once they get laughed out of the first small town they try to impress.

Their first few interactions with bandits have very bad results. They both get mocked a lot, Troy gets insulted even more. This is the first time in his life he’s met other men bar his father and the harsh reality that he is not like other men is really starting to hit hard. He’s monstrously tall, he has no muscle, he’s bony and sick and the bandits make very clear to him that he’s a freak.

Unable to defend himself verbally to people that don’t seem to speak a coherent language, he feels impotent and emasculated. Troy’s gift with words has always been his strong point, something he was proud of, and the bandits barely even understand what he’s saying. Any interest he’d had towards them as other people gets quashed. They clearly aren’t the same as he and Ty, they are beneath them. Savages. They aren’t people after all. His dad was right.

This is the point where he fully switches to seeing almost all others as non-persons. They aren’t people, they aren’t what he and Tyreen are, or they wouldn’t act like this in response to the twins. Any possible empathy he could have developed over time is aborted at this point, and he begins to craft the God King persona he understands he will need to disguise his shortcomings under if he’s going to be in the public’s eye.

Begins to create it piece by piece. Designs their outfits, designs his tattoos and mods, his monstrous arm, their name. 

The Calypso twins are born, and the COV with them.

Early COV Era - 7 years pre BL3

As he learns how to communicate with bandits and craft a persona for Tyreen that they will be drawn to, the COV starts to form. While the huge majority of their followers are people they see as not even being the same species as them, they do also begin to fill the higher ranks with people they are meeting over time that they see as having value. 

People with skills in categories they don’t, engineers, media experts, accountants, are drawn to the COV for the same reasons as the bandits. Opportunity, just a different sort.

Joining in the early days means having the twin’s ears, and those who have excellent ideas, or bring talent to the upper echelon that the twin's don’t have themselves, eventually end up as high priests and Saints. Department leaders (eg: Mouthpiece ). These are the kind of people he sees as people, though still not on par with himself or his sister in value. These are the few he would be capable of having functional conversations with, building simple relationships. 

He has found value in his ability to be very useful within the COV. Leading the Media and Propaganda department has given him a huge amount of power, even if he still physically feels extremely frail. 

He’s settled into living in Tyreen’s shadow, she’s the star, but he’s the puppeteer, and he’s happy for it to be that way for the most part. While she can sometimes step out of line or treat him like he’s not equal, he’s quick to remind her of her place during these outbursts, and their relationship is relatively stable.

Troy is fiercely loyal and surprisingly gentle with people he has a bond with. Despite his desperation to have meaningful connections, to be cared for and liked as himself, they don’t stay around him long.

No matter how hard he tries to give them what he thinks they want, they eventually leave, and he doesn’t understand that they are distancing themself because of how he treats other people, not them.

Troy’s complete inability to view the vast majority of people as people means he has a total lack of empathy towards almost everyone else, and this is a terrifying thing to experience first hand. He doesn’t understand this is why his “friends” leave, why they stop being friendly with him, or request to be transferred to another district.  

“Why did you do that to them..?” - “Huh? Ohhhh, relax haha, it’s just a bandit.” - “What do you mean, just a bandit, they felt that Troy, what’s wrong with you?’ - "The hell? No, it’s a b.a.n.d.i.t. It’s not like us, it’s not like you, it’s just.. you know, a bandit! Doesn’t matter what I do to em.” -shrug- - “-horrified silence-”

He blames himself each time this happens and damages his already fractured self esteem further. He can’t comprehend that his actions are the problem, because he simply has no way to understand his actions are bad. 

Each time someone close to him leaves, it’s another hit to his already crumbling self worth. He has absolutely no strong bonds with anyone bar his sister, who at times seems to barely like him, and he is genuinely desperate for validation and care from someone who likes Troy, not Calypso, not the God he pretends to be.

Every time another one of his “friends” vanishes, another of his little connections to his own humanity breaks. He gets angrier, and sadder, the God King a little more snarling and quicker to snap. It’s a sore point Tyreen tends to dig in during arguments too.

She doesn’t need anyone else, but she’s seen the near manic excitement and happiness he has when he connects with another person over a shared interest or they show actual genuine kindness towards him and not his title. If that person then becomes upset with his lack of empathy, or scared of it and abandons him, it’s another open wound on the already dying soul inside him that’s barely still breathing.

He has a complete and defined understanding of right and wrong, but those rules only apply to people, and his social development from infant to adult left his comprehension of other people so stunted, he cannot fathom that the vast majority of others are people. 

God King Calypso is a fucking nightmare to anyone bar the select view he sees as “people like him”. A feral, cackling monster, as likely to airdrop a million dollars onto a tiny village and record the reaction, as he is to rip a bandits arms off during a raid and live steam them bleeding out. All the same to him. Just background NPCs in his game. Placeholder actors in his life. They don’t matter. All that does matter is how they make him feel, or how they further his sister’s goals.

Every year that passes by leaves the God King more polished and defined, more in control a persona, while inside its impenetrable shell Troy DeLeon is slowly being suffocated by the weight of his own sins, without having the ability to understand he had been sinning at all.

God King Era - 4 years pre Bl3

By this point, Troy’s isolation is now deadly. He is a deity, worshipped by billions, with absolutely no points of human contact in his life to anchor himself to reality. No one to help him understand how to apply his sense of right and wrong to his followers, only his sister, who is even more toxic and vicious than he is.

Every day since starting the COV, he’s distanced himself further from the worshippers, the bandits, the acolytes. They are screaming war meat now, they are chips to barter with, numbers on a viewer count, flesh to tear into when he wants to feel something.

His relationship with Tyreen is crumbling. She’s quicker now to imply he’s not as important, he’s not the Siren. She’s called him a parasite in front of a merger board, a burden during a discussion with department heads. Each new crack at his inner ego only strengthens the persona further. Makes it more attention seeking, more willing to lash out at others, more vicious.

His “friends"are long gone, either fled from the behemoth the COV now is, or far away in other districts, planets, cities. The people he is close with now in working relationships are held at arms length. He doesn’t let anyone near him anymore, he’s afraid they will leave too if he does. 

The isolation pushes him further into the God King persona every day. If he’s Troy Calypso, he doesn’t NEED anyone else. The further he sinks into it, the more aggressive, the more twisted his actions become, but he doesn't see it that way. This is what his followers want, so it must be fine. Why wouldn’t it be fine to ravenously tear into heretics on livestream if 8 billion people are tuning in to watch?

He’s becoming cruel, he’s becoming vicious, but the man he was before he reached Pandora is still whispering that Tyreen is treating him wrong. That this isn’t how it was meant to be, that he’s not weak or a burden.

But listening to that voice means also having to listen to the one telling him he’s warped into something disgusting that his mother would be so let down by, that his father was right about him being a broken monstrosity. He continues to ignore it, and he loses himself further every day.

The deeper he recedes into the God King, the more he starts having nightmares, the more those whispers in the back of his mind get louder. He does what he can to ignore them, but sometimes something will set him off.

An argument with Tyreen, a momentary feeling of regret for leaving his home, a pang of loneliness. He often can’t sleep, and he knows if he starts to wonder why, clarity for the horrors he’s done could crush him.

Drugs, sex, bloodlust, he tries anything to take his mind off the intrusive thoughts that grow day by day. That he’s a failure. He’s a freak. He’s a cold blooded murder, but every now and then he’ll wake up in a cold sweat and hate himself so much that he wishes he’d never been born. 

The feeling passes very quickly as the God King shifts back into place and swallows it down, but while it’s there it’s horrific. He see’s himself from other people’s eyes for just a moment and god what has he turned into. What has he done. He’s a fucking monster.

The man he had been is so damaged under the mantle of this vicious God he’s wearing as a skin that it’s barely alive anymore, and it’s what begs him to kill it in those fleeting moments where he sees past his own facade, where he just for a second realises how many people he has hurt.

He tore his throat out a couple of years before the start of the game story in a moment of lucidity after being sleep deprived for days on end. Tyreen reached him in time when his implanted vitals tracker each twin keeps for the other alerted her to his condition, but it was close enough that he was bedridden for days after her energy transfer closed the wound.

She had been furious with him and made sure it was was kept hushed, the rest of the clergy believing he was on reprieve. Only the twins know the truth of what happened.

He never takes the collars off anymore now, the scars are still there. Convincing Tyreen that it had had happened during a nightmare when he’d left his prosthetic on by mistake was easy. Convincing himself to try and forget he’d been lucid and how it still feels like the right thing to do, is not. 

By the point the story begins, Troy is in a constant state of exhaustion, and knows deep down everything he has been through and done to others was for nothing. Tyreen doesn’t care about him the way he does her. She may never have, or she changed, he doesn’t know anymore. 

What he does know, is that he won't ever be a real God, and that the only reason he’s still alive is because he is useful. 

Maybe he should never have tried so hard to be useful.

 Phew.

I guess in a nutshell, my Troy’s greatest downfall is the God King persona.

As long as that shit is active, as long as it’s being worshipped, he’s never going to snap into reality. The reality that other people are there, that he’s been hurt so badly as a person, it’s all impossible long as he is being treated as, and believes, he is a God. 

The manic moments of clarity he has in the later stages of the COV rule are few and far between, but they eat him alive as he can’t understand why he suddenly feels so terrible, why he’s filled with such consuming remorse.

Peel the God King off the broken man underneath it and you leave him bare, confused, scared. You make him have to deal with reality, with people, with himself. That’s when you get him to show regret, and understand what he’s done, and understand what Ty has done to him.

That’s the redemption.

When he realises the game he was playing was real for billions, and suffers for it. It ends where it ends as my Troy ain’t dyin’ :P I’ll get to my rewrite eventually.  I hope to keep exploring these ideas in the future. Just desperately wish I’d as much to work with for Tyreen as I do Troy. GB YOU HEAR THAT? YOU HEAR THATTTT??

[overwhelmed-ravenclaw]

Admitting Having PTSD

Admitting something like this is extremely hard for someone. For me, it was especially hard because of the fact of how my family is. They have toxic tendencies and the other side is majority toxic in general. So I am not precisely safe from them playing blame game if they even admit it to themselves that I do have PTSD.  I hope this helps someone else who has to admit their family or to other people about PTSD. Also, I would like to point out that I didn’t tell my whole family (I won’t tell my whole family) and I will also like to say that others may have even more different reactions. It is something scary and no one knows what to precisely expect. I was trying to be trigger wary while writing this. TL;DR at the end I’ll have a line separating them. Everything I pre-typed for this is undercut.  @ptsdconfessions​

My family like most is complicated. It feels to me like mine is more so than a lot of others but I know that probably isn’t the truth. My mom left when I was young, which is important to this but not what this is about. I had accepted my mom left because she wasn’t happy in her marriage to my dad. She explained to me she didn’t know where she was going so she couldn’t take us with. She didn’t want to put us in any kind of danger by accident. For a 7-year-old, I understood she was trying to protect us and get out of a loveless relationship. 

I have 4 older sisters, but one doesn’t play a role in this till years later, so I am going to skip her for the time being. (She was adopted after my mom left and around the time the PTSD started to form)  My counselor and Therapist both had repeatedly suggested I explain more than “I have depression” to my family. They knew that I knew I had PTSD. The reason behind it varied to a bunch of things that most of which happened before I was 13 and there was nothing I could do about it. Some of the stuff that happened later in life adds onto that but I am going to stay vague to avoid triggers as much as I can. None of my PTSD had to do with my mother leaving, or at least very little did, because if she was there then a lot of it wouldn’t have happened.

So I first sat down with my sister and uncle who lived with me. I am going to call this uncle (huge family) U-D, the sister at hand is L. L’s reaction was “So you are mentally insane, that means you can get disability and quit your dream of whatever it is, I don’t know it doesn’t make sense.” My dream is to help children that dealt with same past like me and make sure they don’t end up as bad as I did, so I became a paraprofessional (Fancy word for special needs aide) The other part of my dream is to become a published author. Not through self-publishing but a big name company. I don’t care if my books don’t sell, I want to know that I have at least tried to be an author.

U-D stated that he doesn’t understand how I have PTSD because I was never in the army or warzone. Later on, he learned what happened to me when I was little, or at least small bits, from my sister B. Let just say after learning some information he had dropped that I couldn’t have PTSD and just went with it. L kept pushing me to do things that she knew would trigger me till finally not one but four councilors had all sat down and explained to her what she was doing, she kept it up. She saw that if she can keep triggering me then I will do what she wants to make her leave me alone. Then eventually I told my aunt AD and my Dad. Dad stated he could tell that I had PTSD because of the fact that he was a lousy dad. Which is partly true. If he would have done what should have when I was little then I wouldn’t have it this server. He isn’t fully at blame but he admitted he did things wrong and knows it. AD then learned a few of the things through dad and me. She was supportive and wanted me to seek deeper help. Which I did with her encouragement and her nudging me on the path of healing. Next person I told was my grandmother on my mother side. Up to this point, I have only talked to the family who is on my dad’s side and I can be face to face. My grandparents on my dad’s side passed away years ago and my grandfather on my mom’s side passed away while I was still a baby. So this grandmother was the only one I could talk to. Her reply to finding out made my stomach feel like I had eaten lava and nauseous. You know the feeling that you just did something bad and disgusting and you get after that? Well, that was my version of that feeling. I am getting it now, but I want to get this story out here.

My grandmother’s reaction which a lot of my PTSD does ties back to her in my childhood… was the simple saying “It is your mother’s fault. She left you at such an impressionable age. It caused you to have depression. If you would stop living in the past your doctor wouldn’t mistake it as PTSD. So start smiling more and live in the future!” Which I ended our conversation with a quick “My phone is dying, talk you later” then it took me 2 months to be able to call her again.

My Aunt who works at the hospital AB was next and AB snorted. “I have known that since you were twelve. You on medicine now for anxiety? What kind so I can check it against my copies of your old medical records.” Which was a huge Wait, what? So I told her my meds, she then told me to ask the doctor about lower doses because I don’t take medicine. I never liked to. Which the doctor agreed and gave me lower doses and the kind my aunt requested because, after a second look, the doctor stated that it would be better for me. I have nightmares that make me have insomnia. (Solution to that is lots of caffeine. Mainly coffee.)

My sisters B and M (adopted one I said I would skip for time being) both knew about me having PTSD but because my dad wouldn’t seek help for me when I was little there was nothing they could do until I was an adult. By then they thought I already sought help, but only did about 2 years ago. I haven’t told my eldest sister, because a huge chunk of it is because of her and her husband. I also haven’t explained properly to my mother because I don’t want to make her worry, she has PTSD too. I know I will have to eventually. That just left one uncle that I was extremely close to. AD’s husband. When I finally told him about it he dismissed it stating “Everyone has PTSD.” Which made me confused and I stated that. “Listen, you are perfectly normal. You are fine. Nothing is wrong with you. What they claim is PTSD is normal for everyone. Everyone has it. It is like breathing air, it comes naturally to us. You just have to ignore it and move on in life. Not take the medicine they give you and become a pill popper, man.” ((He’s an old school hippy)) He then started to use that tone that parents do when you have done something wrong when I tried to explain that it wasn’t sadness or depression that I have actual flashbacks and nightmares. That I have physical issues once triggered that too much happens at once to explain in dept. Which one he started to give me that look and down talking me saying basically what he said before. He stormed off and act liked I was an idiot. I was heartbroken because out of everyone, I figured he’d understand. He was drafted into a war when he was 17 so he should have understood, right? Talking to AD later, I explained what happened and I could see the emotions in her eyes seemed to scream in annoyance. Not at me, but at her husband. She then explained to me when she first met him in her teenage years, he was already married but they were filing for divorce, they became good friends since they worked together. She was a waitress, he was the cook. He then told her about how he has been forced to see a doctor who he thinks was coo-coo (her words) he had been diagnosed with PTSD from the war, though he was just a sailor who picked up injured soldiers and brought them home, and he was diagnosed Bipolar. He didn’t like how the medicine made him feel and react so he stopped taking them declaring that they were trying to make him into a pill popper, which she stated it took him months to stop having the withdrawals from the medicine. In the 80s before his daughter was born he tried again, and again he didn’t like how they made him feel and once stopped taking them the withdrawals were the worst thing he has ever encountered or at least that is what he told AD. So much like how older people in our small town area is still using racist words but not in a racist way, only because their mind is set to that programming that can’t be overridden, he is same way about medicine for “fake mental illnesses” and that was why he was so hard on me. He still is hard on me whenever someone brings up about when I need to take my medicine and he is around. It got to the point I have actually started to try to avoid him as much as I can. I hate that because I love spending time with him at his house, we do crafts together and bounce craft ideas off of each other. He used to come over to mow the lawn for me so I didn’t have to use the old push (not engine mower it is an actual push contraption with opened blades and you have to put your weight on it to make it cut the lawn) He does it with his actual mower that is run on gas. Now avoiding him, he started to avoid me too and I hate the feeling of loneliness I got. In my family, it is rare to hear someone to say sincerely “I love you” he did. No one else in my family besides, my mom, B, and M do that. Everyone else does it as if they rehearsed it and don’t mean it. Like it is something that they are supposed to say. Which when I hear it so sincerely from him or my mom or my two sisters that do that, it puts me in tears of happiness because my normally numbed emotionally body is filled with this comfortable warmth. Any bad thoughts or images that popped in my head or even the worst day imaginable, once I hear those words with someone being sincere, it is all out of my mind and I am too happy to care about anything else.

TL; DR // Summary

So each had a different type of reaction to me coming out.

L - Money, thinks she is going to get to control me because I can leave my job (I am not getting money because of PTSD) 

UD - At first not understanding then he is. He makes sure I eat and when triggered he normally gives me chocolates and make sure I take my meds.

AD - Love, lots and lots of love. She buys me random stuff (including lunch while I am working at the school) and my favorite yet is when she baked me a freaking cake because I was annoyed at my sister trying to trigger me before I got to school that day.

Dad - Guilt and understanding.

Grandmother - Blaming everything and everyone else not even caring what was the true cause, when that didn’t work then stated I don’t have it just living in the past.

AB, B & M - They knew already and thus why they were always loving and supportive of me (besides B always states “You are my baby girl, of course, I love you” Then I normally get roped into really tight hugs that make all my bones pop.)

Hippy - Denile. Claims that PTSD isn’t real. Set in old time ways of thinking when really damaging to me but he doesn’t mean to be. He is trying to be helpful.

I’m leaving my mom out, I rather her think for now until I have to tell her, that I just have depression. It is easier on her mental health and I don’t want her to stress and worry about me.

[razieltwelve]

Reply (RWBY Snippet)

Note: This is a followup to Letter.

X     X     X

Weiss groaned and clutched at her head. She should have known better than to try to outdrink Yang, but she was not the sort of person to back down from a challenge. Yang had accused her of being a lightweight, and Weiss had sworn to prove her wrong.

Alas, her grand intentions had fallen afoul of reality. Yang was seemingly impervious to the effects of alcohol. Weiss was not. The last thing Weiss could remember clearly was stumbling back to the dorm room and then sitting down at her desk. She had been writing something and…

Weiss sat up, headache forgotten. She’d written a letter, and not just any letter. If her alcohol-addled memory was correct, she’d written some kind of sapphic ode to Ruby that involved comparisons to cookies and other such nonsense. It wasn’t that she disagreed with the contents of the letter. On the contrary, she agreed with the contents most whole heartedly. What worried her was that she sounded like a lunatic in the letter. Oh, and the fact that there were about a billion better ways to tell Ruby.

“Good morning, princess.” It was Yang, and the smirk on her face turned the blood in Weiss’s veins to ice. “How are you feeling?”

“Where is the letter?” Weiss blurted. “Yang, where is the letter?” Her gaze shot to her desk, but the letter wasn’t there. “Where is it?” she shrieked as she  tumbled out of bed and then began to search the room in a shambling whirlwind of hungover motion before lurching toward her teammate and grabbing her with both hands. “Yang, tell me where the letter is!”

“Relax,” Yang drawled, calmly prying Weiss off her. “I know exactly where the letter is.”

“Where is it?” Weiss would have strangled the blonde. Unfortunately, Yang was much, much stronger than her. 

“Ruby has it. You kind of put it on her bedside table before you passed out on your bed.”

“…” Weiss staggered over to the window. A sharp tug on the window failed to open it, and she motioned for Yang to join her. “Help me get this open.”

“Why?”

“Because I’m going to defenestrate myself.”

“Defenestrate?” Yang chuckled. “You’re pretty articulate for someone who is hungover. But sorry, no can do, Weiss. You’re not allowed to toss yourself out the window until Ruby gives you her reply.”

Weiss sank to her knees. “My life is over. It really is. I sounded like a lunatic in that letter, Yang. Ruby is going to think I’m completely insane and more than a little creepy.”

“Yeah, I won’t argue with you too much there.” Yang patted Weiss on the shoulder. “I mean… you did ask Ruby if you could be her cookie.”

Weiss’s face did a good impression of a nuclear inferno. “If I can’t throw myself out the window, could you at least let me stab myself. I am never, ever going to live this down.”

Yang’s expression softened, and she sat down beside Weiss. “Look, I might enjoy teasing you, Weiss, but I am your friend. Trust me. Things will work out.” She paused. “Although you might want to avoid getting drunk ever again. Who knows what you’ll do next time? You might write an entire essay comparing Ruby to the four seasons or something before asking if you can be the milk to her cookie.”

Weiss punched Yang. Sadly, all that did was provoke another round of giggles from the blonde.

X     X     X

With the steely determination of the condemned, Weiss watched Ruby march into their dorm room. Blake and Yang took one look at Ruby and evacuated the room. The Faunus at least had the decency to look sympathetic whereas Yang just made finger guns and pointed them at Weiss’s heart.

The Schnee grimaced. If only those were actual guns.

“Weiss,” Ruby said once they were alone. “I… um… I read your letter.”

“…”

“It… it wasn’t easy,” Ruby continued. “I mean… it was really well written and everything, but you kind of rambled on a bit, and you used a lot of weird words, and it kind of looks like you spilled alcohol on the letter, and… and now I’m rambling.”

“…”

“I just… I have some questions about the letter.”

Weiss looked heavenward. Alas, the ground did not swallow her, and no bolt of lightning crackled down from the sky. She did, however get a glimpse of Yang and Blake out the window. Her teammates might have evacuated the room, but they had also borrowed a ladder, so they could watch the whole sorry debacle that was about to unfold.

“I see.” Weiss took a deep breath. She could do this. She was Weiss Schnee, the Heiress of the Schnee Family, a paragon of poise and calm, an eidolon of composure, a scion of stoicism, a…

“Weiss, are you listening to me.” Ruby waved one hand in front of her face.

Weiss snapped back to the present. Apparently, she turned into a thesaurus under pressure. How utterly demoralising. “Yes, I’m listening.”

“Okay…” Ruby pulled out a list.

“You have a list?” Weiss blurted.

“Um… yeah.” Ruby winced. “I was kind of worried that I’d be too nervous to remember, so I thought I should write a list down in point form.”

Weiss looked heavenward again. Her life was about to disintegrate in point form. It was a pity that Yang and Blake were at the window. It was looking awfully tempting, and even if she couldn’t get it open, she could throw herself through the glass. “I… I suppose you should get started then.”

“Okay.” Ruby nodded resolutely. “Do you really think I’m pulchritudinous.”

“Pulchritudinous?” Weiss blinked.

“Well, you said you liked gazing on my pulchritude, which would make me pulchritudinous.” Ruby paused. “Do you really think that?”

Well, Weiss thought, she might as well go all in. It wasn’t a matter of gathering the tattered scraps of her dignity so much as it was a matter of hurling those tattered scraps onto a bonfire and hoping she didn’t freeze to death. “Yes, Ruby, I do.”

“Oh.” Ruby nodded slowly. “But why?”

Weiss’s eye twitched. “I don’t know. I just do.”

The smile Ruby gave her was almost enough to make Weiss feel like something other than a total idiot. It was like watching the sun rise over a flowery meadow filled with puppies and kittens. 

“Okay. Next question. Do you really like me Weiss, as in… like like me.”

Weiss blinked. “Like like?”

“You know… like like.”

“No, Ruby, I do not know what like like means.”

“But…” Ruby blushed. “You know… like like.”

“Use words, Ruby.”

“I am using words.”

The window opened a fraction.

“She’s asking if you really are interested in her romantically, you dunce,” Yang shouted before she gave Ruby a thumb’s up.

“Oh.” Weiss took a deep breath. “Yes. Yes, I am.” She paused. “I am not a dunce, Yang.”

“Says the girl who wrote a confession letter while drunk.”

Weiss glared and looked to Blake for the support.

“She kind of has a point,” Blake said. When Weiss hurled a vicious glare her way, she did the smart thing. She pulled Yang back, and the closed the window.

“So…” Ruby began. “Uh… you want to go out with me?”

“Yes, Ruby, I want to go out with you.”

“As in out out?” Ruby asked.

“Out out?” Weiss made a choking sound. “Yes, out out.”

“Okay.” Ruby made a serious face, and Weiss braced herself. What next? “I just have one more question.”

“Go ahead.”

“Why would you want to be my cookie?”

“…” Weiss wasn’t sure how much Ruby knew about… intimate matters, but…

The window opened again. It was Yang because of course it was. “It’s because she wants you to eat -”

WHAM.

Yang clutched at her head as Blake lowered her hand and shut the window once again. Weiss silently forgave Blake for every bad thing she had ever done in the entire history of forever.

“Is what Yang said true?” Ruby asked. “Do you really want me to eat you?”

Weiss bit her lip. How should she reply to that?

“Because I’m not a cannibal, so eating you would be kind of weird and…”

Weiss blinked. “…” Cannibalism had been just about the furthest thing on her mind when she’d written that. “Not that kind of eating.”

Seeing the expression on her face, Ruby screeched to a halt. Weiss could almost see the gears turning in the younger girl’s head before Ruby turned the same colour as her cloak. “Oh. That kind of eating.”

Weiss blushed, and the next few moments were a silent competition to see which of them could do a better impression of a fire engine. Finally, Weiss mustered the power to speak a coherent sentence.

“Why don’t we just go out first, you know… out out.”

“I can do that,” Ruby said. “Out out sounds good.” She paused and then, turning a delightful shade of red again, she leaned forward and pressed her lips to Weiss’s cheek. “But, you know, Weiss, I don’t want you to be my cookie.”

“Huh?” Weiss once again demonstrated the depths of her eloquence. Truly, her oratorical skills were the stuff of legend.

“I don’t want you to be my cookie.” Ruby smiled. “I’d much rather you be my Weiss.”

THUMP.

That was the sound Weiss made when she hit the floor in a dead faint. Apparently, it was possible to pass out from being too happy.

[mybullshitsensesaretingling]

Well Adjusted Adults

Request: Would you do a Star Trek imagine with bones where he's been super grouchy and kind of down right mean to everyone for a couple days and everyone's getting a bit exasperated with it before they realize that the reader had a fight with bones and isn't speaking with him so like Kirk and others kinda come around and ask her to talk to him because he's unbearable to be around? I thought it'd be kind of funny 😂

“I didn’t think he was going to actually shoot.” Kirk hissed as Bones moved him to a biobed.

“And I didn’t think I was gonna have to put my foot up your ass. The world’s full of surprises.” Bones looked up from the readings on the tricorder screen and was confronted with Kirk’s shocked expression. “Sorry,” he apologized very unconvincingly.

“Are you ok?”

“It’s been a long week. For fuck’s sake. Damn unreliable…” he growled smacking his tricorder lightly against the edge of the biobed then raising his voice, “Chapel, I need-”

He didn’t have the chance to finish, before Nurse Chapel was at his side, handing him a different tricorder.

“I’ll put in another work order.” She smiled at Kirk politely before walking away.

Grumbling a thank you, Bones went back to his examination. He was rougher than usual, yanking Kirk’s arm this way and that. His words remained harsh the entire time.

Bones could be moody, but Kirk had never seen him seen him be down right mean. It concerned him, but he knew better than to ask Bones any further questions. Instead he asked Chapel, who was more than happy to tell him every things she knew. Unfortunately it wasn’t a lot.

-

“Good morning, Hikaru,” you smiled, sitting across from him, and dropping your tray to the table.

“Morning, (Y/N).”

“You had a call with Ben last night, didn’t you?” you asked.

His face lit up. “I did.”

“How’s he doin’? And Demora? It’s her first day of school today, right?”

“He’s doing pretty well, and yeah, it is. She’s ecstatic. Can’t wait to meet her new teacher,” Sulu told you. “I miss that feeling.”

“It’s a good feeling,” he agreed. “Don’t you usually eat breakfast with McCoy?”

“Yes. Uhuh. That is- mhm” You tapped a finger nervously against the table top before bolting out of your chair and making a quick exit.

Sulu stared in shock at where you had just been, then got to his feet and headed over to where Kirk and Uhura were talking

“He yelled at me, Captain,” she told him.

Kirk’s eyes widened. “But no one yells at you.”

“You need to fix this.”

“I will once I know what this is about,” he sighed.

“(Y/N) isn't talking to him,” Sulu said, joining them by the door to the senior officers dining room.

“What?” Kirk looked slightly offended that neither you nor Leonard had mention that you were in a fight to him. Uhura looked at him expectantly. “Yeah, I'll fix it.”

-

With a book in one hand and a half eaten sandwich in the other, you crossed the room in five long strides. When you reached the edge of your quarters, you turned and went back to the window on the other side. All day you had been filled with an impatient energy. It prevented you from focusing on your work for any length of time, leaving you with a longer shift. You had tried to burn it off at the gym, but it stuck with you like a vengeful spirit. You wouldn’t have minded so much if it had come from a positive place, excitement or inspiration, or at least a neutral place, but it came from aggravation and disappointment.

Your bell rang and without looking up, you called, “Come in.”

“Y/N.”

You raised your eyes from your book and furrowed your brow at Kirk.

“Captain,” you smiled despite your confusion at his visit. “To what do I owe the pleasure?”

Suddenly you wished you had changed into something besides your pajamas after the gym. A feeling that, along with your confusion, increased when Uhura and Sulu walked in behind him. Something about the way they all looked at you made you defensive.

“Why do I feel like I’m about to get an intervention from Nyota and the Sunshine Boys?” you asked setting your book down on the coffee table.

“No, this isn’t an intervention. It’s just a...” Kirk looked to Uhura.

“It’s an intervention.”

“Yeah, it’s an intervention,” he said apologetically.

“Well, lay it on me,” you said, taking a seat on the couch. You had a feeling you were going to regret so willingly inviting this.

“You need to talk to McCoy,” Sulu told you.

“What makes you think I’m not talking to him?”

“Look, he my best friend - I love the guy - but he’s acting like a giant corn on the cob,” Kirk sighed.

You raised your eyebrows. “Aren’t you supposed to be convincing me to talk to this corn cob? You’re not doing a great job.”

“He’s only acting this way because you aren’t talking to him,” Sulu explained.

“Did he tell you this?”

“His tone did,” Uhura crossed her arms, clearly still sour about whatever had happened between the doctor and herself.

“Why don’t you tell us what you're fighting about?” Kirk suggested. “We might be able to help.”

“We aren’t fighting about anything.” Their unconvinced expressions caused your calm exterior to deteriorate slightly and a uneven fast paced flow of panicked speech to leave your mouth. “We’re just a couple of people - not a couple. Just two people - that occasionally occupy the same space. Just because we have not been occupying the same space at the same time lately doesn’t mean we’re fighting. You’re all jumping to conclusions.” You took a bite of your sandwich in an attempt to appear casual.

Uhura and Sulu stared at you in shock. Kirk narrowed his eyes, analyzing the subtleties of your outburst.

You sighed, in defeat. Might as well tell them what you did. “I ran into a lake.”

“You what?” Sulu asked.

“On our last mission together. He was talking, and,” you paused trying to figure out how to explain what had happened. “Nyota had been saying all this stuff about how he had feelings for me and his words and demeanor were agreeing and..”

“And you freaked out and ran into a lake?” Kirk offered.

You nodded and covered your face with your hands. “The marine life was so territorial.”

“Honey, did you get attacked by fish to avoid your feelings?” Uhura asked.

“Why would you do that?” Sulu questioned.

“I don’t know,” you groaned.

“I get it,” Kirk said.

You looked up from your hands. “Really?”

“No, that’s insane. You’re an adult. Just talk to him.”

“What? I can’t do that. He yelled at me. And then I yelled at him. I’m not even sure what we were arguing about, but there was a whole lot of yelling.” You got to your feet again. “No, no, I can’t talk to him. That’s something well adjusted adults do.”

“Which you definitely aren’t,” Sulu said.

“You ran into a lake,” Uhura agreed.

“But it’s okay because Bones isn’t all that well adjusted either,” Kirk told you. “Just talk to him.”

-

You hit the bell on Bones’ door before you could over think it. You were determined to take Kirk's advice. You were going to talk Bones. This drama needed to come to an end.

You were determined. But when his voice came over the intercom telling you to enter, your resolve disappeared. Panic rose in your throat, sending you quickly back down the hallway to the safety of your own quarters.

Unfortunately, before you could disappear around the bend, his voice sounded again. “(Y/N)?”

You stopped mid step, standing completely still.

“I’m not a T-rex. I can still see you.”

Slowly, you turned around, biting your lip and giving him a guilty look. Now that he could see your face, all his confidence drained from him and all he could do was stare at you. Neither of you could move or speak, paralyzed by your own minds.

Finally something in your mind let up and you broke the silence, “I’m sorry!”

“No, I’m sorry!” he yelled back.

“I was an idiot!”

Bones looked around the corridor at the people walking to other destinations and opening their doors to see what all the yelling was about.

“Do want to come in so we can keep our business our business?” he asked.

You stared at an engineer as she walked past you, before shouting, “Yeah!” You didn’t walk as quickly as you thought maybe you should have. The closer you got the more you thought about how accepting his invitation trapped you. You’d soon be stuck between four walls and a door with no witnesses.

He waited in his open doorway for you, letting you go in first when you finally reached him.

“Where were we?” you asked, standing in the open space by his couch with your arms wrapped around yourself.

“You’re an idiot,” he reminded you.

“Right.”

“You gonna tell me why you ran into monster infested waters?” He crossed his arms over his chest.

“Yes.”

Bones looked at you expectantly.

“Oh, you mean right now? Okay. This is gonna make me seem both juvenile and stupid so prepare yourself.”

“We’ve already established your an idiot. I think we’re good.” He sat down on his couch and nodded at one of the other cushions, but this time you didn’t take him up on his offer, preferring to stand. Or more accurately, preferring to pace.

“Nyota kept saying that you had feelings for me-”

“Probably because I do,” he said casually.

“Yeah, and,” You did a double take. “I’m sorry what was that?”

“I like you,” he restated. “Please go on.”

“No. No, you can’t just say that like it doesn’t mean anything. What’s wrong with you?”

“You ran into a damn lake, but you want to know what’s wrong with me?”

“I ran into a lake to avoid my emotions,” you said like that somehow made it more reasonable. “Which you caused, by the way.”

“How’s that workin’ out for ya?”

“Real bad,” you sighed, dropping your head back. After a second, it dawned on you and you looked back at him with a smirk. “You have feelings for me?”

“Real bad.”

You grinned but then your face fell.

“You yelled at me,” you said quietly.

“I did.”

“You’ve never yelled at me,” you reminded him. “Not once in the four years we’ve been friends have you raised your voice to me.”

“I know.” With a sigh he got back up off the couch. “You got attacked, got yourself hurt. You can’t do that to me.”

“Oh.” Studying his face, you let out another sigh, “When did this get so complicated?”

“When our hearts got involved,” he told you .

“Oh.”

“You okay with that?”

“Yeah.”

[spacebrick3]

Experiment S-80 Part 8

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 |

Year 3, Day 174: 2.14.2385

Jacenty Hintzen knocked on the door of the hangar. She didn't know why her new job was in the Eyre Building, which everyone she had talked to had said was abandoned for years. Then again, she noted, it was some sort of government project. She had to sign a secrecy waiver and everything just to be here, waiting for someone to let her in. With the League-Charter war still raging five years in, it made since they would want to keep some things secret.

The door opened a crack, and a tired-looking scientist glared out. "Are you the new hire?" she asked. "What was it - Hintzen, right?" she muttered. "I'm sorry, it's been a long day or two. But you are Hintzen, right?"

"I - yeah," she said, slightly taken aback. "And you would be the project manager here?"

"That's correct," she said. "You already got all the paperwork done - good for you," she said. "I think Fostre still hasn't gotten all his forms in, but that's because he's a useless idiot."

Perhaps wisely, she didn't respond to that. "Alright, come in," Jensky said, gesturing her inside. "I don't know how much you know about what we're doing here-"

Jace shook her head. "Nothing. I think they were worried about me being a secret spy or something. Crazy, right?" She ducked into the building and peered around. It looked like a lab on the inside, but almost an unfinished one. A lot of the space inside was still hangar, with only a few temporary structures scattered around and then a retrofitted block in one corner. She thought it might have been the old control tower, from when ships were still being built here.

"You'd be surprised," Jensky said, starting to walk towards the tower. Jace hurried to follow. "It's not really my business to criticize what the Charter government wants to - half because, you know, I work for them, and half because I honestly don't care."

They stopped at another door into the tower, and Jensky pushed it open without even breaking stride. Two left turns and a right brought them to a meeting room, with a low buzz of chatter coming from inside. Someone was shouting. Jensky muttered something under her breath - she caught the word "Fostre" in there - then pushed the door open. It immediately fell silent. "Fostre, I'm expecting something at least bordering on common courtesy here," she said. "Hughes and Karim…don't screw this up." She reached out and grabbed Jace by the shoulder, towing her into the room. "Meet Jacenty Hintzen, our new materials scientist."

There was a chorus - well, given that there were only three other people in the room, chorus might be the wrong word. The three other scientists in the room muttered "hello" in various states of annoyance. That mostly came from one man sitting in the corner, who she guessed from the bright-red face was Fostre. She gave a small wave back. "Hello! It's nice to be working with you all!"

"And I'm sure we'll enjoy working with you," another said. She snuck a glance at their name tag, which read Sanya Karim. "But what," he asked at Jensky, "do we need with a materials scientist? I'm not objecting or anything, but it just seems that we'd want to hire another bio-electric person to replace Chance rather than-"

"Yes, well, that's the thing," Jensky snapped. "We're working with highly specialized materials here, and people like Brillk believed that materials science, especially in the field of crystalline metalloids, would be more helpful to our cause."

"And that's me!" she said. "I've worked with gallium especially as liquid conductor, because it has the potential due to the fluidity of the molecules to be able to transfer more charge more effectively. I think I have some notes on my research here-" She reached for her bag. Just in case, she had made sure she had all of her papers in case they wanted to question her about it.

Jensky cut her off. "That won't be necessary," she said. "Though we will be making use of it very soon."

"Well, that's good. Right?"

"Sit down." Jace sat. "As you know - but you don't," she said, pointing at her, "we recently were forced to fire our bio-electrician, Ari Chance, for unprofessional conduct that may have contaminated our experiment."

She raised a tentative hand. "Er - what is your experiment, anyway? No one's been able to tell me."

"We're working on implants that will be able to help ground soldiers - or pilots," she said with a sigh. "Improving reflexes is one, of course, as well as acuity of sight, increased memory or retention ability - basically, if we can squeeze it in, the Charter wants us to do it."

Well, that was interesting. There'd been lots of attempts for that kind of stuff in the past - everyone wanted their very own enhanced super-soldiers if they were fighting a war - but none of them had really worked. "And - how are we testing this?" she asked. "I mean, especially with some of them, it seems like it would be difficult to test exactly how they affect people, unless-"

"Unless what?"

"Uh - I mean, unless we were testing them on actual people. In which case, we'd be able to get more reasonable feedback," she said, letting her brain run on autopilot as she caught up to what she was actually saying. "But we wouldn't actually do…that…right?"

It didn't escape her how Jensky's gaze flickered away. "The government has said they want our product as fast as possible. Unfortunately, that requires a slight…loosening of protocol."

Sanya leaned over and whispered into her ear before she could speak. "One: she means, yes we are. And two-"

"We're doing WHAT?" she hissed back. "The hell? Don't you know just how-"

"Shut up," they whispered angrily, cutting her off. "Listen to me. Every scientist who's left this project - even Chance - they've all disappeared. No one knows what happened to them. So it doesn't matter what you think of this-"

"What I think of this? It's awful! I mean, it's scraping the very bottom of the barrel of scientific morality and is a disgrace to-"

"Sure! Whatever! But you can't leave," they said. "No matter what. Because then you'll disappear too."

"Why - why are you telling me this?"

"Because no matter what they say, Chance was my friend," they whispered. "And you seem like an alright person. So I don't want the same thing to happen to you."

"Are you quite done?" Jensky asked coldly.

"Oh! Yes," she said, scrambling to regain her composure. "Yes - totally."

"And you have no objections?"

"I…" she started. "Yes. I do have objections. Several. But I've also heard what you do to colleagues who voice those objections and who leave. So whatever I may think, I can't leave. Is that right?" Behind her, she heard Sanya sigh deeply. Well, I'm not just going to do this quietly, am I? They never said I needed to act happy about it.

"I don't-" Jensky said, then regained her composure. "You are certainly free to go. However," she emphasized, "I cannot guarantee how…vigorously the government will choose to exercise your secrecy waiver."

"Screw you."

"If that's all, we're going to move on," she said, ignoring Jace. "Like I said, Chance may have contaminated the experiment. However, Brillk has forbidden us from seeking out new subjects, saying that he believes the experiment can continue and also citing the financial expenditure already invested in our existing subjects."

"You mean people," she said. "You're talking about people."

"Thus, we are moving onto the next stage of our experiment," Jensky said, still ignoring her. "Each of the subjects has been moved into a separate, isolated room in order to prevent further corruption. Starting tomorrow, we're going to being installing the gallium-ion readers to increase the storage and reactivity of the existing implants. You can see why we hired Hintzen, of course."

She didn't say anything now. From the way Jensky was glaring at her, she guessed she was about a comment away from abrupt firing. And while it would be nice to let her know exactly what she thought of the experiment, the life expectancy of scientists who were fired was likely even shorter than those who left. So she held her tongue.

"Which of the - er, subjects," Sanya asked- Coward, she thought bitterly - "are we going to be working with first?"

"I thought we'd work our way up. Starting with S-80, and working up through 84, 85, and 87. Both because working up subjects like this is actually the technically correct way to do it, and because S-80 was the one most affected by Chance. So it's imperative that we move on in order to collect data from the next stage of the testing as soon as possible."

"And I do mean as soon as possible," she continued. "So Karim and Hughes, you're going to make sure that the preparations are in place for secondary installation. It shouldn't require the same preparations as the initial installation - it's engineering, not surgery - but some precautions will be necessary when handling S-80 still. Hintzen, you're going to work on materials. Gallium-ion reading is the way we're doing it here, so it's your job to make sure it'll be able to etch the correct data onto the silicon. Clear?"

What had she gotten herself into? "Will I at least be able to meet the people you're experimenting on?" she asked. Maybe she'd be able to help them. "I mean-"

"No," Jensky said. "I'm sorry, but no. There's too much potential for skewing the data." She paused. "It's better this way."

——————————————————————————————————

Year 3, Day 175: 2.15.2385

ROOM 84: Maryn lay on the ground, legs up against the wall. She fiddled idly with a loose thread on her jumpsuit. It'd been three days since they'd been moved out of their own rooms, and, not coincidentally, three days since she'd seen another human being. It wasn't getting to her yet. Of course, that's what everybody says, isn't it? How do I tell if it's getting to me if I'm the one who I have to trust to make that judgement?

No. That wouldn't help. They had been avoiding the topic of escape, both because the scientists tried to monitor their every word as well as the fact that it - well, it would mean that they'd have to face the reality. That they weren't going to be let go. That this wasn't temporary or anything. Some people - herself included, she admitted - had been deliberately avoiding that because then their last bit of hope would be gone. It'd mean they'd actually have to face up to the situation and take what responsibility they could for it.

But they had to. It was too late to pretend things were going to get better. If they wanted to get out of here, they'd have to do it themselves.

ROOM 85: What's going on? Why haven't I seen anyone in three days? Blue paced around the room, eyes flickering from side to side on the ground. Was something going on? Were the others alright? Or were they just the last one now? Maybe the scientists had finally snapped and gone full on lightning-and-evil-laughter, and they were simply the last one on the list. All the others might be gone already - Sadie, Maryn, Evan. It'd been three days now.

Or maybe it wasn't. Who knew? Not them. Maybe it was just all some fever dream. After all, this couldn't really be happening. That was the one certainty they'd clung to throughout all of this. Because if it wasn't happening, then they didn't need to worry. That made sense. They'd lived in the Charter for years now, and they wouldn't just pluck their citizens off the streets and subject them - hah, subject them - to whatever the hell this was.

ROOM 87: Evan stood on top of the bed, straining to reach the light strip on top of the ceiling. They couldn't be monitoring him all of the time - that was the downside of splitting them up like this. Plus, he'd heard that someone had been fired, which brought the total of working scientists, minus the technicians and security officers who scuttled around sometimes, to four; one for each of them. No one could stay up twenty-four hours and watch him.

The problem was, they probably had a computer script check over the footage and check out any suspicious bits. That was why he'd been standing on the bed for the last three hours, waving at the camera. With luck, it wouldn't be able to tell this action apart from the others, and he'd be able to-

There. He pried open the casing and pulled out a handful of wires and screws, swearing under his breath as it burned into his hand. The light flickered and a section went out, hissing and sparking as it went. He pulled back abruptly, hoping it looked like he had just broken the light by accident and not that he was hiding components from it. Because something had changed. Something was different now, and it wasn't for the better. He just hoped he could get out of here before it went worse.

Tagging @cogwrites, @lady-redshield-writes, @no-url-ideas-tho, @ratracechronicler, @ken-kenwrites, @ravenpuffwriter, @cirianne, @lonelylibrary @maxbeewriting, @endlesshourglass, @micastarsandmirrors - if you want to be added or removed, just let me know!

[choisgirls]

How would the rfa and Saeran react to MC being an irl princess of some foreign country? Like... honest to goodness royalty? Thanks!

A/N: I hope this was everything you wanted! I don’t really know much about royalty so I just kinda rolled with it.. If it’s not good I’m sorry! Anyway, if there are parts that don’t make sense i’M SO SORRY I HAVE A FEVER but i’m using this time to write requests because my bby followers deserve it. Sorry for being gone for so long! Thank you all for the support you give us, 404 and I are working hard on requests right now <3 ~ 626

*YOOSUNG

this poor boy had no idea, he doesn’t pay muchattention to pop culture like that

one day you invite him over to play games atyour house because you have a super huge tv and you knew he’d love that!

when he’s at the gates of your mansionhouse, he calls you because there’s no way this can be your house???

“MC, are you pranking me??? It was bad enoughlast time when you put toothpaste in my oreos!”

“Just come in, you dork”

when he hears the gate buzz, he finally realizes that you’re rich as hell

it all makes sense now??? You always take himout to super expensive restaurants and for Christmas you got him an amazinggaming computer???

he’s about to faint oh my god yOU’RE SO RICH

when he’s roaming around the hallways of yourmansion looking for your room (he refused the butler’s help, he could do ithimself), hE SEES A PICTURE OF YOU AND YOUR PARENTS AND YOU’RE ALL WEARINGCROWNS???

nah, no, there’s no way you’re royalty, you guysprobably did a photo shoot, there’s no way this is possible

wait isthat an entire row of pictures where your dad is meeting important people

is thatBarack Obama? Is that the pRIME MINSTER OF SOUTH KOREA???

he faints

when he wakes up, he finds himself in a huge bedand you’re sitting next to him playing a game

“You’re finally awake! I’ve told you that youneed to take care of yourself, did you even eat today?”

“MC ARE A YOU A QUEEN?”

“No, but I will be in the future”

Aaand he faints again

Once he finally gets used to the idea of youbeing a princess, it makes so much more sense to him!

You’ve always sounded really polite and elegantwhen you speak, and you handle the RFA fundraisers so easily, no matter whatcrisis comes???

He loves seeing you all dressed up, you’re socute and beautiful!!! <3

You’re his Princess Zelda

*ZEN

He thought your name sounded familiar when youintroduced yourself in the chat, but he didn’t really think about it

But when he finally gets to meet you, he’s in somuch denial???

It can’t be, a princess fell in love with him

If you thought his ego was big before, it’sthe size of the Titanic now

It’s even bigger when you tell him youwatched his movies before you talked to him on the app

It never really hits him until you go shoppingwith him one day and you buy him a Louis Vuitton suitcase aS IF IT’S NOTHING???

wAIT YOU’RE BUYING LIKE 5 BAGS TOO???

Like yeah he makes decent money from acting, butholy hell you’re rich

He honestly loves this so much though

You two are an amazingly dressed power couple!

You’ll take over the political world and he’lltake over the pop culture world <3

You end up giving him “prince” lessons

You teach him how to deal with the pressure ofthe public and how to speak politely but firmly

You make him walk with books on his head andrecord him even though that’s something you never had to do

You get him to quit smoking by telling him atrue prince would never do such a thing

He almost cries

HE LOVES DOING PHOTO SHOOTS WITH YOU, HE WILLUSE AN EXCUSE TO BE IN A MAGAZINE WITH YOU

“it’s your half birthday”

“it’s national best friend’s day”

“it’s tHE ANNIVERSARY OF THE DAY WE FIRST DID IT

zen pls no

He wears his future crown at home when no oneis around

He’s really happy that you’re a public figure sohe can flaunt you when you guys go out <3

*JAEHEE

She knew the second you introduced yourself inthe chatroom!

She’s honestly dazzled, a real life princess???What is this???

But she kept herself in check, she realized youprobably have a lot of people who hound you on a regular basis, she didn’twanna be one of them

But she honestly loves talking to about yourcountry’s political system

With your leadership skills and Jaehee’sorganizational skills, you both work together to implement programs forunderprivileged children

You two are a power couple omg, literallyunstoppable, you two even consider starting clean water projects in othercountries???

Unstoppable

Jaehee considers opening a coffeeshop chainin your country

She loves seeing you dress up!!! You’re soadorable and beautiful in all the elegant clothing <3

She totally doesn’t take pictures of you whenyou aren’t looking, there’s no way she has an album of 300 pictures of you

She’s really afraid of how the world will reactwhen they find out you two are actually together???

Dumbass tabloids think you two are “gal pals”

But you don’t care, even if you have to stepdown, you don’t care

“Listen Jaehee, I love you. You’re my bestfriend and I would not trade that for the world. If my country wants me to stepdown because I have a girlfriend, I will. I’ll find a life with you because Icannot imagine a life without you.”

tEARS SO MANY TEARS

Jaehee  highkey lowkey uses you to meet famouspeople (but she loves you, es okay)

You don’t really mind though, it makes her happy

So you take her to as many events as you can,you want to make her smile as much as you can

You love this precious little bean and you are going to give her the world

*JUMIN

Of course he knew who you were, he wasn’t anuneducated idiot

And while it was nice to know that you weren’twith him for the money

He was kinda disappointed???

You’re a princess, you have the entire world atyour feet

He wanted to spoil you, but you??? Have???Everything you want or need???

But with the help of Zen but with hisbrilliant mind, he was able to come up with stuff he knew you never got!

hE WILL MAKE SO MANY THINGS FOR U

He started making food for you <3

And yes it tastes terrible at first but it gotbetter after awhile!

At the beginning he was the type to just putthe entire egg with the shell in cake mix

hE’S SO CUTE IN AN APRON OMG

He takes knitting classes???

He knits you everything he possibly can, asweater, scarf, gloves, beanies

He totally doesn’t knit a baby blanket andbaby hat for your future kids

He supports your decision not become queenbecause you decided you wanted to do other than things than run a country

Like be his totally hot secretary

You eventually move into his place and he lowkeyfeels ashamed bc it’s so much smaller than what you’re used to

But you assure him that you prefer his placebecause smaller places feel so much more homey than mansions

You’re actually much busier than Jumin when itcomes to work so he’s always home before you and he spoils you so much

When you come home, you can always expect ashoulder/back massage

There’s always a warm meal that he makes because he’s not letting someone else dosomething for you that he can

When you have really bad days at work, he runs anice, hot bubble bath couple with candles and rose petals

He’s pretty much ur house spouse, who knew Jumincould take on such a domestic role???

But he’s still senpai in the sheets

*SAEYOUNG

Ofc he found out when he did a background searchon you

And he’s so fascinated by you???

You help run a country??? You do so many goodthings

He’ll never understand though

How didsomeone as great as you fall for someone as terrible as him

Everything you do is so great and he’s stuck ina field of work that could get him killed

But with your power, you’re able to get him outof his job

And he’s so, so thankful to you

He doesn’t really let himself be vulnerable infront of you but when you told him you could help him, he cried for hours

What did he do to get someone as amazing you???

He doesn’t know it but you totally gotsomeone to assassinate his dad

You actually help him get a job as an engineer<3

He hates using you for your connections but heknows he deserves the job, he’s not going to deny his talent and ability

He’s so thankful for you

And he becomes your right-hand man??? Anytimeyou need to make a difficult decision about your country, he’s there for you!!!

He gets a pet monkey so he can comparehimself to Aladdin

“Listen children,,, you don’t know how hard lifewas for me,,, I was a beggar,,, always stealing food to survive,,,”

“Saeyoung, stop lying to the children andactually teach them, I wanted you to get the kids interested in computers”

“I was nothing but a boy with a monkey and amagic carpet,,,”

You two come up with a plan to get kids moreinterested in computers and he’s in charge <3

He loves teaching all the children! They’re allsilly and goofy like him

He has no idea where he would be without you andhe’s so glad he met you

*SAERAN

This boy has no idea, like none at all

Rika chose you to retrieve the phone, and he wasjust supposed to follow you

And he knows like nothing about pop culture “It’suseless information that’ll take up space in my brain” so he didn’t knowwho you were

He finds out one day when he sees an articleabout you helping open up a school in a third world country???

Like he thought you were amazing before

You were the one who helped him through histherapy, through all the nightmares that plagued his nights, through all thebad thoughts that overwhelmed him

In his head, you’d always been his queen

But it turns out you’re actually a princess?!?!

And youhelp so much around the world

He could deal with you being a princess if itweren’t for the fact that you were a huge philanthropist

You educated women in India about reproductivehealth??? You helped teach disabled children in China??? yOU DONATED 25 MILLIONDOLLARS TO A HOSPITAL IN SEOUL???

He actually killed someone and you helped peoplelive longer and better

He actually avoids you for a few weeks after hefinds out

He’s just having a hard time coming to termswith it? You’re a goddess and he’s thedevil, why are you with him?

But you weren’t having any of it, you literallykicked his door down, you gave him his space and now you were going to talk

He ends up crying in your lap

But you manage to talk it out with him and youmake it very clear that you aren’t goinganywhere

“I love you, okay? You don’t have to understandwhy I do, but you need to know that I do. I don’t care if you think I deservebetter because I choose you, Saeran. Iwill always choose you.”

He eventually decides he wants to help peoplewith you

Yes, he made a huge mistake in the past, onethat he is so sorry for, and he will spend the rest of his life trying to makeup for that

He’s no V, he’ll never be an angel, but he’ssure as hell gonna make the world a less crappy place

He comes up with so many great ideas!

Music programs for underprivileged children!Reading classes for uneducated adults! Programs that help teenagers get workexperience!

He creates so many outreach programs and he’s sohappy that you gave him the chance to do that

Started from the bottom now we’re here

*V

This boy is as clueless as Saeran

Between photography and Rika and being adumbass, he doesn’t pay much attention to the world

·     He ends up finding out through Jumin??

“Oh by the way MC’s father is going to bevisiting my father, we’re going to talk about having MC model for one of ourproducts”

“wHAT”

He’s honestly so happy though

You’re such a fantastic person who else couldput up with him pining after Rika for so long and you deserve everything

You deserve all the praise and attention you get

He totally doesn’t fantasize about becoming aprince

And he so doesn’t go around singing Disneysongs

“anD AT LAST I SEE THE LIGHT”

“what was that honey?”

“Thinking about the top 10 things a blind personwill never say”

This boy is such a saint, you two implement aprogram to help disabled children

And not only does he help implement the program,but he actually participates in it???

Crying cause V deserves the world

He becomes your family’s official photographer!

This happens because he was lowkey salty whenyou hired someone else for an event

“Oh you need my help getting something from thehigh shelf??? Why don’t you ask that photographer?”

V pls shut up

But you do drag him to one of your photoshootsand after that he’s as addicted as Zen

You two make such a beautiful couple, how couldhe not be addicted???

He has pictures of you everywhere in hishouse

And he knows how much you love him, he canalways feel it, but he absolutely adoresthe expression on your face when you’re looking at him and seeing it from anoutside perspective makes him want to cry

He loves you so much, you’re his goddess <3

[persuadedproject-blog]

Chapter 11

     Anne was interrupted from her light morning reading of The Yellow Wallpaper by a gentle tapping on the hotel door. Swinging the door open, she found Hazel, hair plopped on top of her head in a top knot, feet bare.

    “I thought you might be up!” she stage whispered. “Do you want to go walk on the beach?” Anne decided that for a bit of friendship and the ocean, her reading could wait. Hazel curled up on the bed while Anne changed out of her pajamas.

    “What are you doing up anyways,” she called in the direction of the bathroom. Anne’s head popped around the corner.

    “Just geeky research stuff.” Hazel flopped back on the bed.

    “I won’t do another second of it once I get out of college,” she groaned. “If I have to learn one more way to cite a source I’ll scream Right there in class, I’ll just stand on my desk and scream. They’ve already made me learn MLA, APA, And Turabian - there can’t be many more, can there? Oh, Anne. No! You can’t wear a cardigan.” Anne tugged at the offending sweater.

    “Why not?” she asked, tilting her head in the mirror.

    “First of all, it’s summer. The season of pumpkin spice lattes is a long ways away. Secondly, we’re at the beach. Thirdly, that’s a perfectly nice shirt you have under it, and Lauren Conrad says not to layer just for the sake of layering. Fourthly -”

    “Cease and desist!” Anne was cracking up. “Look, I’m putting the cardigan away. Does that make you happy?”

    Once they were padding through the hotel hallway, Anne asked quietly,

    “What got you up this early? You normally need more rest than this.” This was a tactful way of saying that they never usually had a Hazel sighting until ten or eleven.

    “I’ve just been thinking,” her usually carefree face drew into a small frown. Anne nodded wisely. Thinking could be a troublesome thing. “About Chuck and me,” Hazel clarified. “I think being around Ben and seeing him be so miserable after losing Faith, it made me wonder what would happen if Chuck - went away.” They were outside now, so they could talk at normal volumes (for Anne, still quiet, for Hazel sincere and a little loud). “If anything happened, Anne, I’d just die. Whatever Chuck and I have, it’s good, and I would be an idiot to let it go.” Anne smiled, glad to see that Hazel’s own ponderings had brought her around to this conclusion. Both Hazel and Louise stood a chance to grow into their parents; good, kind people with their heads screwed on straight. Once they were on the sand, the topic pivoted.

    “I think the beach is good for everyone!” Hazel declared. “The sunshine, fresh air - even the salt water is good. If you’re sick, it helps you get well, and if you’re healthy, it only makes you better! I really think Doc Shirley should retire to the beach, sooner rather than later. His arthritis is only getting worse. He and Miz Shirley have spent their lives working and doing good, but it’s sort of depressing to think of them living out their last days in tiny Uppercross, isn’t it? We should suggest that they retire here. I just doubt we could convince him to stop work, but we really shouldn’t glorify the ‘work til you drop’ philosophy, should we? Chuck could do his job just as well, I bet. And he shouldn’t run himself ragged, that would just break Miz Shirley’s heart.” Anne just smiled and nodded, with an occasional,

    “I think so,” or “Definitely.” It was clear Hazel needed to get her thoughts out in the open, and since it seemed to the advantage of everyone in question, Anne tried to be as encouraging as she could.

     “I wish Mrs. Russell were around Uppercross. I’ve always heard she had great sway over everyone, and she’s able to convince anyone of anything! Of course, I’m a little afraid of her, because she’s so smart and so influential, but I respect her a lot. I wish we had a neighbor like her. She could convince Doc to retire.” Anne thought it was funny how the things that advance our plans suddenly become the best option for other people - and how anyone who can help bring the plan to reality became valuable. She only had time to say,

    “She has been a wonderful neighbor,” before Hazel spotted Wentworth and Louise coming toward them. They had also decided to go for a walk before breakfast, but as soon as the four were all walking together, Louise remembered that she needed to buy something in Beaufort. They were all invited to go along, and they all did.

    When they came up to the narrow wooden steps that ran up and over the dunes, a guy who had been planning to walk down at the same time politely stood aside, to let them come up. As they passed him, Anne’s face caught his eye and he looked at her with a sincere admiration she could not brush off. Anne was looking attractive; time outside had restored a bloom to her face, and her eyes had sprung back to life, as if reflecting the movement and energy of the water. It was clear that this stranger took notice, but not in an ogling way. Wentworth looked back at her immediately in a way that showed the stranger’s admiration had not gone unobserved. He gave her a quick glance, that seemed to say even he could see some of the old Anne Elliot again. Louise led the still somewhat sleepy band of people into town, and picked up her necessities at a gas station. Hazel and Anne had to wait outside, because of the faded ‘No shirt, no shoes, no service’ sign that was peeling on the door. After that, they meandered back to the hotel for a continental breakfast. Anne slipped upstairs to slip on some shoes, and nearly bumped into the stranger from the steps on her way off the elevator. She had wondered if they were staying in the same hotel. Once again, he seemed happy to see her, and to think of her - well, Anne could see that he thought she was beautiful. He apologized quickly, and when she tried to blame it on her absent-mindedness he would not allow any of the fault to be hers. He was about Anne’s age, maybe a little older. Although he was not strikingly handsome (certainly not a movie star in the making), he wasn’t an eyesore either. He carried himself well. When the elevator doors shut, and Anne was alone with the sleepy jazz music, she wished she had gotten his name for future stalking (when admirers are few and far between, you have to make the most of them).

    Breakfast was the usual free hotel fare: burnt coffee and watery orange juice, stale bagels, cereal that had lost its crunch, thin yogurt, and waxy fruit for the health conscious. The company was what made breakfast nice, and from her past five years in and out of conference centers, Anne knew how to make the buffet offerings into a decent breakfast. Toasted bagels don’t taste nearly as old, especially when slathered with whatever butter substitute they are serving. Drink as much of the orange juice as you can stand, and eat a banana - at least the fake skin comes off of that. Since they were in the breakfast nook alone, they could spread out however they liked. The whole room was brought to the window when the owner of the beautiful red convertible parked by the window loaded his suitcase, and started up the engine.

    “That’s a classic car, isn’t it?” and the purr of the engine was enough to bring Charles bounding over to the window, and Wentworth’s seemingly off-handed,

    “Oh! That’s the exact same guy we passed this morning,” was enough to bring everyone else. He said it with a quick look at Anne, so she made sure to take her time walking over. The Musgrove girls agreed that it had to be him, and they all watched until he disappeared around the corner. They all returned to their seats and stale breakfasts. Soon enough a disinterested college student in an oversized uniform wandered over to the buffet to check on the stockpiles of food. As soon as he spotted him, Wentworth asked,

    “Do you know who the man who just checked out was?”

    “Since it’s only me on duty on this floor, yeah.”

    “Just you? That’s rough.”

    “I guess.”

    “But who was he?”

    “Um, a Sam Beckett? Wait, that wasn’t a breach of client confidentiality, was it?”

    “Since you are neither a doctor nor lawyer, I don’t think so. Thanks!” Wentworth clapped him reassuringly on the shoulder, and the kid looked longingly at his desk.

    “Sam Beckett?” Mary, usually the most clueless person in the room (or maybe the state), for some unfortunate reason remembered this name. “I thought I recognized his face! He was friends with our sister Liz. Anne, Charles, don’t you think it was him? He almost was going to take over the firm - did he say anything about Elliot Political Consulting?”

    “No, but I think he’s planning to get a good job soon enough. Like, big money. He was talking about moving into a new house and getting new business cards made. His old card said something about waffles, I think?”

    “That has to be him!” Mary said triumphantly. “How bizarre is it that we see him after all these years! I wish I had looked at him more closely, I was just looking at the car. How amazing!” The employee retreated to the safe haven of his desk as soon as Mary’s interrogation had finished.

    “The chances of meeting an old friend in a town like this are small enough,  it has to be predestined that you didn’t actually meet him.” Wentworth said amusedly. When she could finally wrangle Mary’s attention, Anne quietly tried to convince her that running into this particular Mr. Beckett would not be a good thing.

    “Our dad hasn’t spoken to him since everything happened,” she informed her. “Not to mention Liz would be furious if we were friendly to him.”

    “Well now she’s found her zen or whatever, surely she’s over it be now. It’s not like a breakup years ago is worth losing the connection. You’ll have to mention seeing him when you hear from the Hyannis crowd.” Anne did not respond - convincing Mary she was wrong at this point would be about like having a debate with a sand dune. While Mary was in the habit of sharing any and all information, Anne censored information to avoid irritation, conflict, and possible damage to the Hyannis Elliot’s ego. Mary never communicated with them herself, so it was up to Anne to keep up a sporadic and unsatisfactory talks with Liz.

    Just as they were finishing up breakfast, the Harvilles and Ben Wick walked through the lazily sliding doors. They had gotten a babysitter, and were going to show the Uppercross contingent the sights. Thanks to a trolley-style bus, they could leave their cars behind and see the town mostly by foot. The plan was to see all the highlights, have a late lunch, and then get back to Uppercross. Wentworth had a meeting in D.C. the next morning, and Mary wanted to make sure Mrs. Musgrove was not feeding the boys all junk processed food. Once they started walking, Anne found Ben gravitating towards her. Much to her delight, their conversation the night before had not driven him away. She got to see the town with Ben at her side, comparing notes on Byron (interesting poetry, rather awful human). They walked by the house where Blackbeard the pirate had supposedly hung his wife and killed her lover on the stairs.

    “They say the blood stain still seeps through the stairs, no matter how much they clean it, or what carpet they put over it,” Ben said, seeming to relish the macabre interest of it all. Most of the highlights of Beaufort were admittedly pirate related - the Maritime Museum (in an old ship builder’s shed) was centered around artifacts dredged up from his old ship, sunk just off the coast. In the church graveyard, surrounded by rough old stones and Spanish Moss, Ben provided more ghost stories. Most of the other sights involved food: legendary fudge, ice cream, and craft beer at The Queen Anne’s Revenge - local bar and sandwich shoppe.

    When they were walking along the main street boardwalk, she found Ben replaced by Will.

    “Anne,” he said quietly, “I can’t tell you how much good you’ve done Wick, getting him to talk that much. It can’t be good for him to be shut away here, I know, but what can we do? We have to stick together.”

    “Time will give some distance to everything that will help,” Anne encouraged him. “He is still a young mourner. Give him more time, he’ll come around to himself if you give him the chance to. I understand you lost Faith last winter.”

    “Last November,” Will nodded painfully. “And I didn’t have the heart to tell him. Plus he was...unavailable at the time, due to work. Wentworth was the only one who could get to him. He stayed with Ben for the week, flew home with him, and supported all of us through the funeral. I don’t know what his superiors thought, but we were all so busy with arranging - everything. It feels like Ben is the last part of Faith left. We loved him for his own sake of course, but you can imagine how important he is to us now.” He was clearly overwhelmed by the subject, and after abruptly clearing his throat he changed the subject. Anne went along the rabbit trail with him, and helped him by pointing out a boat inscribed with the name Thanks a Yacht.

    After lunch they were all supposed to go their separate ways, but Will mentioned that there was one more sight to be seen, if they could find the time: Fort Macon. Mary and Charles were not sure if they had the time, but after hearing about the views, Louise became determined. And now once she was set on something, she was a force to be reckoned with.

    “It won’t take long,” she argued. “We’ll just walk through the fort, take another quick walk on the beach, then we can go. We checked out this morning, so we can just leave straight from the fort.” The group agreed, and in half an hour they were all at the old Civil War fort. The fort was mostly brick and cement, with iron intertwined and an occasional well-groomed patch of grass. All of the old passages were open to the public. The hallways all connected in an off-kilter pentagon, kitchens led to mess halls, to bedrooms that would have been packed with bunks, to long stables. The Uppercross tourists and their hosts spread out into pairs, some taking in everything in at a glance, others wandering slowly and reading the plaques. Anne found herself bringing up the rear with Ben. Considering the location, where you could see the ocean and flyers for the Marlin Festival were everywhere, The Old Man and the Sea simply had to be discussed. Anne was glad to have his company, and gave him her full attention. She told him about dusting off work on her thesis, and his eyes lit up. He offered to review it, once she was finished.

    “Not that I could teach you anything, obviously,” he added quickly. “But if you want another set of eyes on it.”

    After they had climbed fifty shallow steps to the lookout, they soaked in the sun and wind for as long as practical time constraints would allow, when they filed back down. Everyone else was happy to walk quietly, except for Louise. Spotting Wentworth solidly on the ground, she said,

    “Look out, Captain!” and jumped the rest of the way down. Thinking quickly, Wentworth caught her outstretched arms and swung her safely to the fort’s brick floor. They were in the habit of exchanging playful, affectionate contact, so this did not surprise anyone in the group. Anne wondered if he could feel the eye roll she wanted to release. Louise thought this little thrill was fun, and to show her admiration for the catcher, ran back up the stairs, stopping higher than before.

    “That’s too high, Louise,” he said offhandedly. “You can’t even jump that far, much less have me catch you. Louise just gave him a cocky grin and said,

    “I’m determined, so I will!” and launched herself off the steps. A second too late, he started after her, arms outstretched again. Her jump had been thrown off by catching her foot on the step. With a thud that reverberated off the walls of the fort, her head hit the bottom step. Her body went limp, her eyes closed as her head lolled to the side. For a split second, they all stood still and silent, trying to process the horrible sight. Then all was movement and noise. Wentworth, who was closest, gathered her up, trying to wake her up, searching her suddenly pale face for signs of life.

    “She is dead! She is dead!” Mary wailed. Hazel panicked, and would have tripped herself on the steps if Anne and Ben had not caught her between them, and lowered her to sit.

    “Just stay put,” Anne instructed with a gentle squeeze of her shoulder.

    “Can no one help me?” Wentworth burst forth desperately. Ben and Anne rushed down the steps, and Charles disentangled himself from his panicking wife. Fearful of too many cooks in the kitchen, Anne stood on the periphery, calling out prompts to help take care of Louise.

    “Is she breathing?” Anne asked.

     “Yes, very shallowly.”

    “Just - keep her head very still.” Anne whipped out her phone and with trembling hands dialed 911. While it rang, Anne caught Ben’s eye.

     “See if they have a medic on call at the visitor’s center. Or ask around for a nurse, anyone with medical training.” He went sprinting across the grounds and over the drawbridge. Seconds were flying by. Of the three rational forces there, it was hard to tell who was the most distressed: Anne, Wentworth, or Charles, who was really a loving brother, hanging over his sister’s face, rogue tears running down his ruddy face. Anne was trying to quiet Mary, comfort Hazel, and rack her brain for anything they could do.

    “Anne, what next? What next?” Charles asked brokenly. Wentworth, in a daze, also looked to her.

    “Check gently for other wounds than that one on her forehead, and try to get a read on her pulse. We can’t move her, but try to elevate her head just a little.”

    By the time the ambulance showed up, a small group of concerned onlookers had gathered. With dread they retraced their steps of just an hour ago, Louise on a stretcher, Anne and Wentworth on either side. Charles rode with her in the ambulance and the rest of them followed in the entourage. They were all resigned to the waiting room to sit and hope for the best. After the sun and warmth all day, the blasting AC felt frigid. It was difficult to keep track of time - ER waiting rooms have their own logic and time, florescent lights flickering, and nurses in all matching scrubs passing - how could they stand short sleeves? The TV looped local news over and over again. During one of the commercial breaks, Wentworth came over and sat beside Anne.

    “Someone needs to call her parents,” he said in a hushed voice that excluded all of the other waiters from their conversation.

    “We shouldn’t call anyone until we’ve seen the doctor, and know more about what is going on - what good could calling them with no conclusions and a passed out daughter do?”

    “We can’t keep it from them.”

    “Just not now. If we haven’t talked to anyone in another half hour, one of us can call Mr. Musgrove. He’ll know the best way to break it to her mom.” Wentworth nodded, and Charles poked his head out of the swinging door, waving to them.

    “Anne! Wentworth!” They walked over, leaving the rest with a reassuring thumbs-up from Charles. “She came back to, but hasn’t talked much since. The doctor seems to be hopeful.”

      “She has a small fracture in her skull,” the doctor said, pointing to a small line on the X-ray. “Fortunately, her brain is mostly untouched. There is a small concussion, but no bleeding.” Wentworth leaned against the door frame, as if all the energy he had been using to keep himself together had just left him. “We will need to monitor her carefully for several days, and keep her for a week, just to make sure she doesn’t show any signs that will make me rethink the diagnosis.”

    “And after that?” Anne asked.

    “She’ll be recovering for six to twelve months. The worst of it will be in the first weeks, after that she’ll just have to be careful.”

      The anxious group waiting in the emergency room stood up when Anne reappeared, then flopped back on the chairs in relief. All of their worst fears - permanent damage, hours to live, paralysis, all of them were quelled. The Harvilles had rounded up food from a nearby McDonald’s, and the whole group inhaled it in the parking lot, heat radiating from the pavement. Emergencies have a tendency to steal your appetite, then eventually make you ravenous. The pressure had been released, and they could start working out the logistics. Louise obviously had to stay put. Charles refused to leave Beaufort - they had barely been able to drag him away from the hospital bed for food. Wentworth positively had to go back to Washington for the mandatory meeting. Hazel was, in her own words, virtually useless. She couldn’t stand still in the hospital room, and the sight of her still sister made her nervous. Anne accidentally walked into the pow-wow happening behind Charles’ car.

    “So I will take Hazel home,” Wentworth was saying, “And Mary - I assume she’s wanting to get back to CJ and Walter now. If anyone’s going to stay and help you look after Louise, it should be Anne. No one could take care of someone like her. She’s capable, and has a good mind for it.” Anne stumbled to a halt at the trunk, trying to process his words and the emotions that came with them. Then she rounded the corner, and Wentworth immediately turned and said,

    “You would stay, I know. Will you stay and help Charles take care of her?” His tone was urgent but gentle, in a way that can only be understood with years of relationship groundwork. She felt blood rush to her face, and he seemed to remember the situation and take a step back.

    “Of course, I am happy to be here as long as I need to be,” she said, noticing the relief and a flicker of admiration in his eyes. It all seemed to be arranged. Suitcases were shuffled to the correct car, hotel reservations made. Wentworth’s car made a coughing, sputtery sound when he tried to start it, and no degree of coaxing or jumper cables would get the engine to start. Anne offered her car, and after another game of musical chairs with the luggage, everything seemed finished until Mary got wind of the plan. All of the created peace was thrown to the wind.

    “Why on earth would Anne stay?” she demanded, tears pooling in her already red eyes. “Anne is nothing to Louise, and I am her sister. It’s not fair! I can be just as useful as her, probably more because of all my medical research.” Anne could not be sure, but she thought she heard a snort from Ben’s direction. Maybe it was just a cough. Mary carried on her torrent of words for as long as Charles could stand, then her husband caved. Anne had never yielded more reluctantly to the insistent bad plans of her sister, but there was nothing to be done. Everyone was saying their goodbyes while Wentworth drove the car off to fill it with gas. Anne stuck her hand out to Ben,

    “Goodbye for now.”

    “Goodbye for now,” he repeated. “You should know that I will find you on Facebook. I expect lots of vague posts about wrestling with that thesis.”

    “You can count on it.”

    Hazel wanted to be in the back seat, to try and sleep, which left Anne hopping in the passenger side with a bewildered and obviously dismayed Wentworth.

    “I - thought Mary was going back,” he spluttered, trying to politely filter his thoughts and explain his almost horrified expression.

    “Mary wanted to stay,” Anne explained simply.

    “And what Mary wants, Mary gets,” he added in frustration. This cool reception was humiliating to Anne. Apparently she was only valuable when useful to Louise. Anne tried to bring her mind, whirling at a thousand thoughts per minute, in check. She needed to be fair. Everyone was under a great deal of pressure. Then again, his job was being under pressure all the time. Anne could not help but wonder if he was rethinking the opinion that a decided will was some great universal good. Like all other things, ti could turn into a monster if it was not balanced out. It could not escape him that a flexible will is sometimes more conducive to happiness than an iron one.

     They both set themselves looking straight ahead, and this was the way they left Beaufort, with all of their emotions turned inside, eyes focused on the road. Anne was not sure how four hours on the road would go, but it was surprisingly natural. Both of them were focused on taking care of Hazel, whose eyes had not returned from the hundred yard stare since Louise’s head made contact with the ground. Whenever Wentworth talked, it was with the goal of making her feel better. After recovering from the jolt of Anne joining them in the car, his voice was even, quiet. Everything was set in order to keep Hazel from working herself back up. Only once she had been snoring quietly for a long time did Anne venture to quietly say,

    “I wish we had never gone to that fort -”

    “Please don’t talk about it!” Hazel startled, and he lowered his voice again. “If only I had not given in to her that one split second. If I had done what was right - but she looked at me, so eager, this sweet look in her eyes -” his hands tightened on the steering wheel.

    “We all agreed to go,” Anne reminded him. “And I’m not sure you could dissuade Louise from doing anything right now, whether it’s putting her hair in braids, or - well, you know.” Soft classical music filled in the silence that hung in the car. He revved the engine, and the car pulled away from the ocean and towards Uppercross, hugging the curves of the winding back roads and pulling California stops at all the stop signs until they pulled into the Great House driveway.

    When they crawled up the driveway, Hazel was still fast asleep, her hoodie pulled over her face.

    “I have been thinking about what would be best for us to do. She shouldn’t hear the long term risks, at least not tonight, but I don’t want her to wake up alone and get confused. Will you wait with her, while i go in and talk to the musgroves? Does that sound like an okay plan?”

    “Affirmative,” she said, a half smile tugging at her mouth. He started to get out of the car, looked back at her like he wanted to say something, then changing his mind quietly shut the door. The question made her happy, as a sign of friendship- but even better, a respect for her thoughts. It became a proof she hung onto that the old respect was still there, even if the love was not. Once the parents were brought up to speed and pulled back together, Hazel was brought in and put to bed. With everything settled, Wentworth drove to D.C. in one of the musgrove’s cars, which he would return to them in Beaufort as soon as the morning meetings were over.

Chapter 12 : http://bit.ly/2uEfqy5

[shima-draws]

OH MY GOD those ocs of yours are so cute! Can you tell us more about them??

AAAAA THANK YOU!! And of course I can omg! Sorry for the late response btw typing this out and drawing stuff for it took longer than I originally thought

There’s actually three separate “phases” to their story arc, and during each of these phases their outfits and other things change.

This got to be extremely, extremely long like really REALLY long I am so so so sorrylol so–drawings and explanations are under the cut! :D 

All of this is actually the very paraphrased version of what goes down lol. I don’t want to give ALL of my plot points away XD But yeah I have the real long version written out on my computer and it’s around 5k words. Wow.

Okay, let’s begin!

Phase one is the one I mentioned already–Gifre works for an underground crime organization known as the Python’s Blood. This organization is dedicated to research and experimentation on elementals. Thanks to his space elemental powers, he can “portal jump” in order to escape from any threatening situations. This ability to open portals and travel through them is a very rare skill among space elementals. This is extremely useful when he’s out on missions! He’s best at running away. This is the only reason he was allowed into the organization in the first place, because his shapeshifting abilities are…um, a bit lacking. Of course, very few space elementals can shapeshift, but those that can can transform their entire bodies, while Gifre can only change his arm.

Anyway! Meanwhile, we have Elias, who was found as a baby and taken into the guild. (Remember, it’s the sister guild to Shima’s.) Elias grew up with his caretaker who is also an inventor, so he was surrounded with machinery and engines all the time. He fell in love with tinkering and experimenting, and now he’s the guild’s official mechanic! Elias aspires to be just like the legendary inventor and sorcerer Elymas (who is another OC of mine). Elymas created hundreds if not thousands of inventions back in the day that are still being used now, by combining his talents of inventing and elemental magic (this is a very very hard thing to accomplish). He’s a freaking genius, and Elias adores his work.

Here’s phase one Elias! Before he loses his arm lol

Gifre is tasked with infiltrating Elias’ guild to basically keep an eye on all of them. The higher ups refuse to tell him why, but they pay him a lot of money to prevent him from asking questions so he just goes along with it. Gifre visits the guild on a daily basis, taking jobs there and chatting it up with all of the members. And then he meets Elias…and is immediately smitten with him. At first he just pesters him and bothers him with harmless flirting, to which Elias brushes him off, but eventually he develops deep feelings for him. Gifre starts avoiding Elias after overhearing him say he’s too overbearing and annoying, but Elias starts to worry about him after several weeks pass without him showing up. Gifre apologizes to Elias for his behavior, and they start acting better to each other. Slowly but surely as Gifre reveals more and more of his true character, Elias starts to fall in love with him as well…Gifre doesn’t notice of course lol, but he is happier about them becoming closer!

Skip ahead a month or two. The leaders of Python’s Blood reveal their true intentions for sending Gifre there…and they want Elias. Gifre of course is absolutely shellshocked and refuses to capture him (because he’s head over heels for the idiot, he’s not gonna give him up like that ya know). They decide they’re not gonna put up with Gifre’s shit and knock him out. When he wakes back up Gifre discovers they’ve kidnapped Elias and are preparing to begin an experiment on him. They reveal to Gifre what their plans are because they’re going to kill him shortly (because he basically betrayed them and he knows too much of their secrets). Turns out that Elias is actually an invention made by Elymas. Crazy, right? Elias isn’t entirely human, but he’s not completely “robot” either. So…it’s an inbetween sort of thing, and a bit hard to explain lol. But he functions just like a human and acts like a human, so nobody was ever able to tell the difference. Python’s Blood wants to take a sample of Elias and use it to create their own artificial humans, so they cut off his arm as the sample ;w; And that’s how Elias looses his arm. RIP. So then after an epic battle and rescue mission by the members of the guild, Elias and Gifre are brought back to the guild. Fast forward a couple weeks–Elias is almost completely recovered and is working on building himself a prosthetic arm. Gifre tells Elias he’s going to go on a journey of self-discovery, some cheesy cliche crap like that lol. Elias begs him not to go and asks him to officially join the guild, and Gifre says he will when he returns. He leaves, and that’s the end of phase one! Phewww!

Now for phase two! It takes place a year or two after phase one. Gifre’s “journey of self-discovery” is actually more of a manhunt. He’s going after members of Python’s Blood, trying to shut their operations down. He calls himself the Python Hunter, and he has a really nifty tattoo and his hair is grown out so he puts it up in a little ponytail. Every now and then he sends letters to Elias to keep him updated.

And here’s what phase two Gifre looks like ;D

On Elias’ end of things, he’s pretty damn lonely without Gifre there. He gets letters of course, but he isn’t allowed to respond to them (safety reasons on both ends). Several of his guildmates come and try to cheer him up by showing him a flier for a robotics competition. Having nothing better to do, Elias decides to enter it and participate. He goes through several ideas that don’t work out, and after getting some advice from his best friend and fellow mechanic, Ava, about creating something inspiring, he decides to make a robotic version of Gifre, since Gifre inspires him the most (and he misses him severely). After a couple months and several tests, Gifre-bot is brought to life! (Gi-bot or Gibo for short hehe.) And I’ve already posted stuff about Gi-bot, so yeah :D

And this is what Ava looks like!

Now, unlike his original inspiration Gi-bot is stubborn, a trickster and absolutely refuses to speak, just to spite Elias lol. Gi-bot can speak but prefers not to, he’s pretty silent, unlike Gifre who enjoys talking. Gi-bot mainly uses tons of robotic noises to communicate–chirps, whirs, clanks, you name it. Gi-bot also extremely protective of Elias, and the only people he’ll let near him are a very few friends from the guild, otherwise anyone else who tries to talk to him gets growled at. He’s not the nicest robot around, he’s a bit of a hostile one. Elias tries to fix this but realizes this is just part of Gi-bot’s personality as a whole. Gi-bot has a lot of problems at first, like his fascination with water always shorting out his systems (he goes out in the rain several times and comes back with oil spurting out of his body, and his body itself starts to short-circuit and release little electric charges, which sometimes shocks Elias), and not listening to Elias’ directions all the time, and destroying any other inventions that may threaten his purpose…but eventually they come to an understanding, and Elias becomes very very fond of Gi-bot and vice versa. Gi-bot is actually revealed to have a very caring side, such as looking out for Elias when he’s not paying attention, and does several things to cheer him up when he’s depressed. One of my favorite scenes between the two of them is when Elias is having a really rough day, so Gi-bot and Ava team up (despite the fact that they kinda hate each other and are always getting into spats with each other lmfao) to cheer him up! Ava borrows an old phonograph and plays a song, which coincidentally is a song Gifre used to sing to Elias sometimes back in phase one. Gi-bot sings along with it, as best as he can without actually speaking lol, and dances with Elias. Elias gets super emotional and starts crying and the two of them flip out, Gi-bot gets angry at Ava since it was her idea and she apologizes, “I didn’t think it would make him sob like a baby! Geez!” Elias tells them how happy he is, and they spend the rest of the day all dancing together~ Lol they’re like my friendship OT3. Elias, Gi-bot and Ava <3 (I’m totally gonna do some of those goofy draw the squad memes with the three of them lmfao) Eventually Gi-bot begins to sense Elias’ attachment to him and realizes it stems from his feelings for Gifre, so he tries to act upon these feelings (basically he surprise kisses Elias! OMG) Elias lets him for the first couple seconds but then he totally flips out. (Keep in mind, Gi-bot is a fully functioning AI who is sentient and can make his own decisions outside of his core programming! So he can feel human emotions like love and jealousy and all that. Also, Elias isn’t entirely human either–remember he was created by Elymas. So we have like…two-half robots here. (I uh, ship them quite a lot behind our usual Gifrias lol)) Elias explains to him the whole thing between him and Gifre, and he thanks Gi-bot for trying to fill the gap inside him that Gifre’s absence left. They don’t get into a relationship of course, though they would be capable of that–Gi-bot just becomes an extremely close friend that Elias can rely on. (They cuddle together a lot, Gi-bot has an internal heating system so he’s always really warm hehe.)

As for the competition! They enter that, of course. I’m not going to go into too much detail about that, but I can say Elias and Gifre do very well and impress the judges during every round, even though Elias almost fails the first round since Gi-bot decides to be a little shit and doesn’t listen to anything he tells him to do. But when Gi-bot notices people making fun of Elias for making a faulty creation, and Elias being the sweetheart he is is almost in tears, he gets pissed and shows off what he can do, impressing the judges and everyone in the room basically. (Then he gives El a big smooch on the cheek just to embarrass him and get him to stop crying lmfao) While the judges are blown away, some of the other competitors find this to be totally stupid and grow jealous of Elias. After the second round is over (they pass, of course) some of the others manage to get Elias alone while Gi-bot is getting a checkup from the robotics committee or whatever. They all start insulting Elias, accusing him of cheating and bribing the judges. One guy gets super pissed off since Elias denies all that, and tries to sic his own robot on him. Luckily Gi-bot comes to the rescue just in time! But he gets horribly “injured” and is in dire need of repairs. Elias is in tears, Ava is terrifyingly angry and threatens to tear the dude’s head off, and after the whole situation dies down the guy gets disqualified for trying to injure another competitor and for ruining Elias’ robot. Once Gi-bot is completely fine, Elias tells him that he’s dropping out of the competition, afraid that Gi-bot is going to get hurt again. Gi-bot gets upset and insists that they keep going, and eventually with enough persuasion Elias agrees, and then they pass round three and are up for round four! But before Elias and Gi-bot can think of something to do, out of nowhere someone arrives and kidnaps Elias in the middle of the night. Gi-bot comes online after hearing the commotion and manages to follow them to where they’re going just in time…

Back to Gifre! When he hears the news that Elias has been captured (again!) he discovers that it’s not actually Python’s Blood who kidnapped him, but something entirely different. One thing leads to another and Gifre actually ends up meeting and teaming up with Elymas (who is still alive after half a millenia–he’s a brilliant sorcerer, so of course he knows how to prolong his life). They find out that Elias has been taken into the Mirrorplane, an invention created by Elymas. So the second half of phase 2 is basically about Gifre and Elymas’ adventures in the Mirrorplane trying to save Elias! (Technically this should really be phase 3, maybe I’ll change that lol)

And this is what Elymas looks like c: He’s the best cutie sorcerer njgfnjgnfj

On Elias’ side of things, he meets the Mirrorplane version of Gifre, and is tricked into believing that he’s the real Gifre. Gi-bot apparently malfunctioned, so he’s off being fixed somewhere. Elias worries for him. Of course after seeing the other inhabitants of the Mirrorplane and how different they are from the counterparts he knows, Elias eventually realizes that Mirror!Gifre isn’t the one he knows and loves. Elias tries to escape from him, but unfortunately Mirror!Gifre has developed a very unhealthy and possessive obsession of him and absolutely refuses to let him go. He sets up his sentry robot, Mirror!Gi-bot, or going by his nickname, Error. Error was originally created to be a fighting robot, but did not obey any of M!Gifre’s orders and there are tons of flaws and errors in his system (hence the nickname). He’s actually very gentle and not as hostile as the original Gi-bot, and he is tasked with watching over Elias whenever Mirror!Gifre isn’t around. Soon, through some coaxing, Elias comes to discover that Mirror!Elias is dead, and has been for a very long time. Mirror!Gifre didn’t even have the opportunity to meet him, for he died years and years before he was even born (remember, Elias was created by Elymas, so Mirror!Elias was probably also created by Mirror!Elymas but did not survive…) Mirror!Gifre begs him to stay in the Mirrorplane, having been watching him for quite some time from inside that world, and only wanting his happiness. He had seen how upset and depressed Elias became after Gifre left, and promises him he won’t ever leave him and will always stay by his side, sappy crap like that lol. Elias hesitantly agrees to a sort of bet with him to get him to shut up (“If your Gifre doesn’t come to get you by the end of the week, you stay with me forever”). Elias feels really bad for the guy, because he has a very compassionate nature;; At the end of the week, Gifre miraculously shows up with Elymas in tow. Mirror!Gifre sends several of his underlings including Error to prevent them from getting to Elias, who he has locked up in a magical darkness chamber thing. I haven’t really figured out what to call it. Eventually they break through. (Error gets totally destroyed and Elias cries like a baby over that, but he’s repaired later in phase 3, no worries!) Mirror!Gifre throws an enormous hissy fit and his powers go berserkers, destroying half of his palace. Gi-bot manages to escape his prison and eventually reaches the whole gang. Elias tries to reason with Mirror!Gifre and notices that he’s very off; his eyes are bright red and he doesn’t seem to be listening to anything he’s telling him. Elymas tells him that Mirror!Gifre is so attached to him because he’s directly connected to Elymas himself, who discovered the existence of the Mirrorplane and connected it to it’s parallel world. So Elymas is sort of the Mirrorplane’s “god” and basically everyone who exists there all have a connection to him. I hope that makes sense? Then Mirror!Gifre’s powers go out of control and he really isn’t himself anymore because of Elymas’ and Elias’ presence. In one last desperate attempt to get Elias to stay with him, Mirror!Gifre attacks Gifre, trying to kill him. Gifre gets really badly injured, like half of his face gets totally wrecked and his throat too and it’s. Very bad. He almost dies ;m; Mirror!Gifre immediately shuts down after seeing what he’s done, and Elias leaves him with some pretty sweet words of advice before kissing him goodbye. So yeah, Elymas, Elias, Gi-bot and Gifre escape the Mirrorplane and rush to save Gifre’s life ;w; Lol these phases seem to end with somebody getting hurt.

Phase three begins with Gifre’s recovery! Elymas lends a hand with mending his injuries, and makes it so his face doesn’t look as marred. (Bless you Ely.) Unfortunately they weren’t able to salvage everything; Gifre’s right eye was torn out and his ear was ripped to shreds, and the injury on his throat was the worst–his vocal cords got so messed up that he can’t speak anymore. Eventually he wakes up and realizes he can no longer talk. Or see or hear from one side. Poor…poor sweetheart. Luckily after he recovers Elias makes him a mechanical eye and a special earpiece thing, but there’s still the problem of his not being able to talk anymore. And that’s really hard on both Gifre and Elias…eventually they learn to communicate, Gifre normally uses a mini chalkboard where he writes things out, and sometimes they try to use sign language lol. Buuut after some time, Elymas helps Elias invent a device that attaches to Gifre’s throat and allows him to speak again! But not with his mouth, more like his brain sends signals down to the device and his voice comes out that way, so he doesn’t even have to move his mouth at all. (He thinks it’s the coolest shit ever.) And yeah I really like drawing phase three Gifre, he’s smol and soft and injured and I just want to hold him.

Poor, poor son ;m;

Continuing forward, Elias, Gifre and Gi-bot work to upgrade their living quarters and Elias’ workshop. Lots of goofy shenanigans go down between Gifre and Gi-bot, since they’re finally sort of meeting and getting used to each other. Elymas is also staying with them, since he and Elias are sort of like brothers but not exactly? But yeah he sticks around, showing up every now and then, along with Ava. Finally, the upgrades are complete! Things start getting busy for Elias, who has somehow become famous after mysteriously disappearing during the robotics competition (he vanished into the Mirrorplane before round four, don’t forget! And this caused a huge uproar since everyone predicted he would win so they freaked when he disappeared). Gi-bot helps him with repairs and building new things, while Gifre tries to help them in his own way. As a thank you to Gi-bot for all of his help, and also as a way to make things easier on their busy lives, Elias creates a robotic version of himself as a companion, Elias-bot, or Eli-bot (Eliot) for short hehe >w< Surprisingly Gi-bot warms up to Eli-bot quite quickly, and they kinda become a couple. Robotic couple. Lol. Eli-bot is a sweetheart, honestly, he’s so kind and nice and always wants what’s best for everyone. He is a soft…soft son. So Gi-bot becomes very possessive of him, wanting to protect him from the outside world. They’re so cute…And yeah, I’ve already drawn them quite a bit! Here’s their concept sketch:

BABIES

And then we go back…to the Mirrorplane. Le gasp! You thought Mirror!Gifre is done? Nope! After that terrible experience with nearly killing his counterpart and greatly upsetting Elias, M!Gifre feels extremely guilty and lonely. He repairs Error, who starts avoiding him and not answering his orders out of spite for all that he’s done lol. Missing Elias, M!Gifre attempts to copy what Elias has done and make his own Eli-bot, failing several times. After a massive failure with trying to create an Elias-bot, he completely scraps that project and decides to seek out Mirror!Elymas instead. He asks him if there’s any chance of being able to bring Mirror!Elias back to life. M!Elymas tells him it’s impossible, he’s tried. But, M!Elymas is different than the other Elymas in that he specializes more in magic than in inventing, and says he may be able to grant a wish to M!Gifre. M!Gifre wishes to have his own Elias, and M!Elymas warns him that the Elias he gets might not be the one he’s thinking of (since the Mirrorplane counterparts are different in personality from their originals). M!Gifre says he doesn’t give a shit lol, and M!Elymas grants his wish. And so…a new Mirror!Elias is created! Unlike Elias Mirror!Elias is a total asshole, arrogant, and altogether a huge jerk. But he has a softer side as well. Even still, M!Gifre is in love with him anyway, despite all of his faults. M!Elias hates his guts at first but eventually warms up to him. AND MEANWHILE! With the help of Mirror!Ava, who works for M!Gifre, Error somehow finds the discarded Eli-bot M!Gifre had tried to create a while back. Using his robotic knowledge, Error brings M!Eli-bot to life. M!Eli-bot is riddled with more glitches and bugs than Error, and has a very hard time speaking, but Error develops a fondness for him anyway, and with M!Ava, decide to dub M!Eli-bot Glitch. (Get it? M!Gi-bot has an E name, and M!Eli-bot has a G name! Genius~~~) So yes…now we have:

Elias,Gifre,Eli-bot (or Eliot),Gi-bot (or Gibo),Mirror!Gifre,Mirror!Elias,Mirror!Gi-bot (or Error),and Mirror!Eli-bot (or Glitch).

Lmao I know that’s a lot to keep track of. And yes, all of the other ATS characters have mirror counterparts as well, I just haven’t really thought too hard about what they’ll be like yet.

Hmm…idk if I’m going to make anything else happen after this–they all go through enough shit and phase three ends pretty happily, with Gifre being able to speak again and him getting into an official relationship with Elias, and the bots also happy with each other, and the mirror counterparts all set and good, so yeah!!

Alright, that’s all of it!! If you read all the way through you’re really awesome omg. I really hope you enjoyed reading about my boys’ difficult yet inspiring journey~And yeah, please don’t steal this idea? It’s mine, I worked hard on it and this is probably one of my favorite story arcs in ATS now, even though it won’t be a part of the main storyline I definitely want to do something for it in one way or another. :D

Feel free to make fanart! I highly encourage it and it would make my day if someone drew my sons! Just make sure you tag me if you post it on your own blog, or submit it here! There’s nothing an artist loves more than getting art of their own children ;w;

And here’s some extra doodles hehe

Elias gets a nifty labcoat in Phase 3 lol

Also, a bit of extra information:Gi-bot runs on pressurized air, making him a pneumatic robotAnd Eli-bot runs on oil and pressurized liquids, making him a hydraulic robot c: (Yes, I actually went and did research on this lol)

AND DONE! That’s all!

[marigoldbaker]

Bravery (18/?)

writing jenny and xander and willow as a Scooby Family warms my soul tbqh

(it’s also on ao3)

“It’s more of a—” Jenny made an effort to clench her fist, but her left hand still had one last bandage around its thumb. “Pretend my thumb’s on the outside,” she instructed, “and just go from there. Putting your thumb inside your fist and punching someone could really hurt your thumb.”

“Yeah, but you should see the other guy,” Xander joked.

“You’re making a fist!” said Willow delightedly. “How does your hand feel?”

“Do you two want me to train you?” Jenny inquired with amusement. “I’m going to need your full attention.”

“But your hand,” Willow persisted, beaming and reaching out to link her fingers with Jenny’s. “You can hold things. And pick things up.”

“Yes, something that won’t do me any good if I die on patrol, which will most likely happen if I don’t have two capable kids who I feel okay sending off into a spooky graveyard.” Jenny directed a pointed look at Willow, and had a feeling it wasn’t as strict as she’d like it to be.

She was happy to have a functioning hand, and it was a little strange to be happy when the first person she’d ever fallen in love with might never come back into her life. She felt like she should be a lot more off-balance than she was. But Willow and Xander both seemed so determined to fill any and every empty space in her life, and it didn’t leave much time for sadness. She suspected that it was their way of thanking her for staying when Rupert and Buffy didn’t, and when she of all people had the fewest reasons to keep living in Sunnydale.

“So you’re saying we’re not capable?” Xander said, feigning a hurt expression.

“I’m saying you have potential,” Jenny replied patiently, “and that you need to learn how to utilize it.” She sat down on top of the library table, picking up one of the target pads and tossing it to Xander. “You hold this, Willow punches,” she instructed them both. “Twenty times and then you switch, okay?”

“How many vampires are we gonna catch with a right hook?” Xander objected.

“It’s about building muscle and accuracy, not technique,” Jenny reminded him. “Technique comes after your punches start actually having an effect.”

“She’s got you there,” Willow giggled.

“Hey, you too,” Jenny said pointedly, but she had a feeling she was smiling. 

She wasn’t quite as good at Rupert’s businesslike approach to training, and she had next to no idea what she was doing (save for the bits and pieces she’d picked up while sitting in on some of Buffy’s drills), but she’d looked up some stuff online with her newly healed fingers and had decided that Willow and Xander knowing some things was better than them running into dangerous situations with no way to protect themselves.

Like going into a mansion with a crossbow and broken fingers, she thought, and felt a little glad that she hadn’t mentioned that excursion to Rupert during their big fight.

Willow was throwing punches. Jenny reminded her not to lock her elbows before getting up and beginning to sort through the weapons. Some spare stakes, a few bottles of holy water, some garlic—honestly, Rupert never really utilized the garlic, probably because it was more useful for protection than for fighting. One couldn’t really fight vampires if they were repelled by the garlic. Jenny picked up a handful of garlic, pocketed one of the bottles of holy water, adjusted the cross around her neck (her fingers traced the bumpy edges of her scar), and headed out to check on Willow and Xander.

“You punch like a girl,” Willow was teasing Xander.

“Buffy’s a girl,” Xander objected, “and besides which, that’s sexist.”

“Okay, then, you punch like a Xander.”

“Now I’m really gonna get you,” Xander informed Willow, which made her double over giggling.

Jenny rolled her eyes fondly and walked past them both with the garlic, careful to avoid Xander’s flailing arms. “Accuracy,” she reminded him, setting the garlic down on the library table.

It felt a little strange to be training like this. Rupert had almost always been in the library when Jenny was here, and Buffy had always been the only one to use the equipment Willow and Xander were going at. Jenny almost felt like she was intruding, like they were playing at being Watcher and Slayers. There was a lively grin on Willow’s face that Jenny had never seen on Buffy’s when she was training.

“Who’s gonna train you?” Xander asked suddenly, looking over at Jenny and nearly punching Willow in the face. “Yikes—sorry, Will.”

Jenny considered this, and then smiled slightly. “I’ll just be your Watcher,” she said. “Like Giles, except cooler and with more broken bones.”

“And minus the liking-Buffy-more-than-us,” Xander added in a low voice to Willow.

“Xander,” said Jenny reprovingly.

“She only ever uses that voice with you,” Willow teased.

“It’s pretty justified, I think,” said Jenny, crossing her arms and fixing Xander with the stare Rupert had once described as “able to cut diamond.”

“He left,” said Xander stubbornly, “and if you guys had broken up while Buffy was here, he would have stayed.”

“It’s not a fair comparison to make,” said Jenny, and the words were the hardest she’d ever had to say. The last thing she wanted was to defend Rupert’s actions (especially when she personally thought he was being an idiot), but she was learning fast that her own personal biases weren’t things that she wanted to force onto Xander and Willow. “He’s spent his entire life preparing to be a Watcher, and Buffy’s a big part of that.”

“Yeah, well, life changes on you,” said Xander sharply. “It’s not fair for him to be so—fixated.”

The part of Jenny that was still bitter about the breakup and angry that she missed Rupert so much wanted to say that yeah, Xander, it wasn’t fair, it was stupid and awful, and she hated that all of them had to deal with Sunnydale problems without proper resources, and she hated that she was teaching kids to punch when her broken thumb wouldn’t let her make a fist, and she was tired and sad and she wanted to go home to the guy she was still stupid enough to be in love with. But she looked up, managed a smile, and said, “We make do with what we have, Xander, and we don’t dwell on what we can’t change. Okay?”

Xander didn’t say anything.

“Okay?” said Jenny again.

Reluctantly, Xander nodded. Then he said, “It just—doesn’t seem fair to you.”

“I’m touched,” said Jenny, and meant it. “But I think I’ll be okay.”

They trained for about two hours until Snyder came in and kicked them out, saying that they shouldn’t be hanging around school when school was out and just because Ms. Calendar was a teacher didn’t mean she could make impromptu visits with students and things like that. Jenny stopped listening about thirty seconds in, but stayed there for a few minutes to give Willow and Xander time to vacate the premises.

“You owe me big-time,” she informed them upon reaching the parking lot. “That was the worst thing that happened to me all year.”

“Worse than breaking up with Giles?” Xander asked.

He was grinning, in the same way that he did with Willow and Buffy, and it wasn’t a smile that Jenny had ever remembered being directed at her. She felt herself smiling back. “Much worse,” she said sardonically.

“Worse than Angelus?” Xander persisted playfully.

With anyone else, Jenny would have been offended. “Have you seen Snyder on a disciplinary kick?” she replied, quirking an eyebrow. “You guys are lucky. You don’t have to sit through the endless faculty meetings and get called out for PDA.”

“I’m pretty sure he calls everyone out for PDA,” Willow pointed out. “That might not just be you.”

This sparked a conversation between Xander and Willow regarding what kind of PDA Snyder would approve of, and what they’d been called out for, and whether or not Snyder had ever actually known the touch of a woman (that was mostly Xander; Willow seemed thoroughly disturbed by the concept). Jenny unlocked the car and the kids got in the back. She’d specifically bought a small VW a few years back, seeing as she’d never thought she’d have more than one person in her car at any given time, but the kids always managed to squeeze into the back. Maybe she’d need a bigger car.

The thought made her grin a little as she started up the engine. Normally, she wouldn’t have driven the kids around, what with her broken fingers, but she had one and a half working hands (even though her wrist hadn’t completely healed yet) and it was enough for her to manage to drive a car pretty effectively. The streets were usually empty this time of day, anyway.

“Music!” Xander called from the backseat.

“I’ll turn on the radio,” Jenny called back, smiling to herself as she did so. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d been in a car full of people she cared about. Not only that, people who she was certain cared about her.

Abruptly, painfully, she thought of Rupert. Wherever he was, he wasn’t going to have this kind of community and loyalty to fall back into, especially not now. She wondered if he knew what he’d given up, if he missed it, if he was lonely. She wished that she wasn’t so damn forgiving, because there was a part of her that wanted to hunt him down and kiss him until they were both laughing again, take his hand and lead him back home.

She’d thought home was where the heart was, and she’d thought her heart was with Rupert. It was strange to consider the fact that maybe she had been wrong on both counts.

Jenny was jolted from her thoughts by the sound of Willow’s slightly off-key singing, bright and cheerful even while it was somewhat flat and grating. She looked up into the rearview mirror and saw Xander tapping to the beat on the car door, grinning at Willow with a proud expression.

She loved these kids. She hadn’t expected to love them so much, but she loved these kids, and she got the sense that they didn’t get as much love or attention as most kids did. Willow’s mom never seemed to be around, and Xander got a closed-off expression whenever Jenny brought up his parents, and it was strange to think about Willow and Xander as outsiders in their own homes. She’d never known that they’d had that in common.

Jenny hummed along to the music, quietly, and felt a new kind of joy at Willow’s delighted laugh. This was different from the rush she’d gotten after she’d translated the curse, or the way she’d felt when Rupert had told her he loved her. She realized, suddenly, that she felt safe and warm on the sunlit street, Xander and Willow in the backseat. Maybe she had done something right, at least by Xander and Willow. She’d never managed to hurt them through her inaction, or with her action, or anything, really. They were happy that she was here.

“Can we stop for ice cream?” Willow called.

“I have some in the fridge at home,” Jenny called back, and smiled.

[ghost-oftheriver]

Halloween - by Eviann1994 on DeviantArt

Your life shall hang in doubt before you. Night and day you shall be in dread and have no assurance of your life. Deuteronomy 28:66 31/10/2015 Dear Diary, I had vowed. I had vowed to myself that I was not going to write in a diary ever again in my whole life since I left the clinic, but here I am now, breaking the only promise I had given myself in a desperate hope that things would get better, that they would genuinely get better for me, and I wouldn’t feel the need to write in a diary again. But here I am now, writing down my thoughts as the doctors patiently taught me back in the days, because I’m beginning to think that something is terribly wrong   that I’m losing it again. It has been a week; only a week has passed since I joined my family once again, coming out from the clinic and returning to my ordinary life that I had given up in the last three years. And I’m not complaining; I’m not complaining at all. Seattle was pretty much the way I had left it, with the busy streets and the gentle rain pouring down non-stop during the winter. My two younger sisters had already grown up to be two amazing girls, with the middle one Amy in her first year of high school and the little one, Coco, going in elementary. I am truly happy to see them again, as well as my mother and father. All of them were happy and confident that I would be able to live with them once again and maybe, just maybe, we could be a normal family again. I was so happy to hear from the doctors that I would be granted this one wish. Things were stable and looking good for me, as the new medication kept my condition under control for the first time after so many years, so I would be released and allowed to live a happy, fulfilling life, and I was so happy about it, that I couldn’t stop myself from smiling like an idiot all the time. Or at least I thought so. I…. D-MN IT ALL, D-MN IT ALL AND EVERYONE!!! WHY?! WHY DID IT HAVE TO BE ME?! WHY ME?! Control. I have to keep myself under control……yeah…… where did I put those pills? So, the problems started right as I passed the front door of my house. Problems couldn’t even wait for a few days and give me some moments of peace and quiet with my family. No, they couldn’t. From the moment I passed those d-mn doors, the same feeling that I was being watched arose once again inside my mind. I had managed to keep it away for a really long while, keeping my thoughts in the direction I wanted them to go and not the other way around, patiently pushing away any thoughts that would pose a threat to me once again.  But may God forgive me, this time, the feeling of just a single pair of eyes burying themselves on my back, made shivers go down my spine, because it was so real, as the air I was breathing, as the ground I was standing upon… Yet… I knew it wasn’t real. How could it be real, since I had felt it in the past as well…not in the same magnitude as now, but still…… it was more than enough to make my wary feet come to a stop and my body to freeze in place. Father grabbed me gently by the shoulders and helped me inside, as my mother gave me an encouraging smile, saying that it was only normal for me to be hesitant about returning to my very own house after so many years. Maybe she was right. Yeah………yeah………yeah she is right, she’s got to be, I mean, she is my mother and the very first person to notice that something was amiss inside of me all those years back…  The rest of the night passed really quickly, with the obnoxious feeling completely disappearing, thank God, and before I even knew it, I was already laying on my bed as my father turned the switch off and exited the room. The moment the door closed behind him, the same feeling of someone watching me overwhelmed me once again. D-mn it! I tried to shake it off and eventually started to fall asleep, but as my eyes were closing, I could have sworn I saw a bright orange glow flashing outside my dark window. Mother was the one to wake me up the following morning. It was a nice change to wake up and not find yourself in a hospital room, surrounded by strangers. Don’t get me wrong, I loved my doctors very much, but it still was different when my mother sat beside me, handing me a warm cup of milk and my pills. We had a nice talk, chatting about if I had slept okay and how was I feeling, before we both went to the kitchen for a nice breakfast.  My dear mother. I can’t believe how much I had missed her smiling face and always happy aura and the fact that she had taken a few days off work just to be with me, only made me happy and excited to spend some time with her. Surely, I was under the impression that she kept a close eye on me, but I casually kept taking my pills throughout the day and kept myself under strict check, just to make her happy that I was doing well. I mean, who wants to see their mother sad or worried? Even I, with my messed up self, didn’t stray away from this fact.  Father did not take long in coming, picking my sisters up from school and our whole family had a nice dinner. Amy couldn’t stop talking about the A+ she got on Chemistry and Coco was holding on to me for dear life, showing me her drawings that she had made that day in class. After so many years apart from my family, I was once again feeling my heart being welled up by emotions of love and companionship. I was once again home…… I was once again safe…… I am once again sane and happy……  Aren’t I?... That night was a horrible one for me. I don’t know whether or not the pills Dr. Acels is giving me are causing me any side effects, since I didn’t notice anything up until now, but the fact that he had doubled my dosage might be the cause of trouble. Or so I believed then . I was having a lucid dream once again, dreaming that I was looking at the ceiling of my room that was quite dark, since the streetlamps are far enough from my window and I was under the strong impression that somethingsomeone was looking back at me through the shadows, a feeling that was so strong that I swear I saw two bright orange spheres flash inside the total darkness, seemingly staring at me…at…me……I actually saw them…. I could swear that they seemed real… or so I think……were they? ....were they real?.....what is real?.... what is a dream?.........… I mean, I had lucid dreams in the past as well, but never did they become so real, so…… tangible…….so…..alive……     Still, I knew even back then that something was wrong… Looking back now, I would have even tripled the amount of pills I took the next day, before calling Dr. Acels and notifying him about the experiences I had up until then. That lame excuse of a doctor He reassured me that everything was okay, it was only natural to have some incidents of no real importance now that I was home, since it was a sudden change to my surroundings and my heart and mind were working overtime due to stress. I should just take my pills and avoid too strenuous activities and emotions, but if the incidents continued in any possible way or got any worse, I should notify him immediately. Looking back now, after a week, I can’t help but agree that the man is a total idiot and a loser. Who in their right, medically trained mind would blame stress for all of this?! Stress…… plain, idiotic STRESS!!! WHO WOULD HAVE THOUGHT THAT ALL THESE WERE CAUSED BY SOMETHING AS SIMPLE AS STRESS?!! I WAS GOING INSANE AGAIN! IF I ALREADY WASN’T!! THE F*CKING INCIDENTS ARE HAPPENING TO ME ALL OVER AGAIN! IT IS FOUR YEARS BACK ALL OVER AGAIN!! AND IT IS ONLY HAPPENING INSIDE MY MIND! I- D#mn it. I broke my glass of water. Sh*t some of the diary is stained with blood and the bandage is too tightly wrapped around my palm. I must continue though, I must continue writing everything down before I lose the little fragments of sanity that I have left. Where was I? Oh yeah.. After I hung up the phone with the doctor, mother saw that I was in a distress and suggested going to the supermarket to help her around with the shopping for the upcoming Halloween. She told me that it would be a great opportunity to get some fresh air and maybe calm down a little bit, since I shouldn’t be worrying myself too much. Needless to say that after nearly ten minutes and despite my denial to go along and leave the house, I found myself sitting on the passenger’s seat as mother turned the engine of the car on. Of course, making me go along with her, didn’t help at all with my temper and bad mood. Why can’t this woman take a hint that I want to stay home?! Dragging me along the aisles, I had to greet all the people that I hated, including some of my old classmates with their mothers. I wonder how mother would react if she knew that all of my classmates we said hello to that day, where in fact the ones that bullied me back in the days. I’m sure that she wouldn’t be smiling to them and neither to their parents. And as if that wasn’t enough, it appeared that only I noticed the full of hatred comments that escaped their lips, as they talked away about my condition. I seriously wanted to punch them in the face or shove them inside one of the fridges to rot in there for what they said, but of course mother not only failed to help me out with the mean comments, but didn’t notice them at all, calling it all nonsense when I pointed them out for her later. It was all inside my head and I shouldn’t pay attention at all. Sure, sure. Because ‘her devastating condition’   while pretending to worry, was only inside my head. F*%king c&nts. My bad mood continued for the rest of the day, and I isolated myself inside my room, doing random stuff to pass some time, going out only to eat dinner and returning to my room shortly after to continue. Little did I know, that a few seconds after I sat down like a normal human being –mark the irony in that one-, the lights of the house went off, submerging my room in complete darkness. Greeeeeeeat. I heard my father yelling from downstairs that this was just a black out and that he was going to fix it right away, saying that we should remain calm. And calm I remained, mind you. The moonlight that pierced through the windows was strong enough to illuminate the place around me, but just to be sure, I rose to my feet and went over to my library, searching through the books for the flashlight I had stuffed in there a few years back. Finally finding the damn thing, I tried turning it on, but nothing happened. Great. Just my luck, diary, just my luck. I threw it on the bed with a light swear, deciding that it would be alright without it, when it happened. I saw them …… I actually  saw them… The two orange gems that haunted me these last three days that I have been home, were right outside my window, flashing through the dark leaves and branches of the tree opposite from my room, piercing inside, looking at me steadily and intensely. I could feel them, damn, I could actually feel them falling on me, burying themselves on me, eating away my skin and my bones under their constant stare, reaching deep down within my soul and draining her from the last remaining sanity.  They didn’t blink…..they didn’t even move! There was something so scary and terrifying in them, that I wanted to scream! I wanted to scream at their view, but still, I couldn’t gaze away! I begged myself to turn away! To avert my eyes away from their hypnotic stare! I could swear that they were eyes! I can now swear to you that they were eyes, looking upon me, draining away my sanity, draining away what little was left of myself! But once I heard it , my mind was set ablaze. If there was something much more unnerving and unsettling than the eyes looking upon me, that was the sound that followed them. It rang inside my ears, making me want to scream, to scream till my lungs would be torn in half, till I would be found by my parents, dead and cold on the floor from the screams.  And that was….the chuckle…  All merciful Lord in Heaven, have mercy on my poor soul… It was a low, barely audible laughter, that made me question at first if it was just my wild imagination…but no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, D*MN NO IT WASN’T!!! It sounded right inside my mind but it was not my imagination! It was a low, menacing, poisonous laughter. It ripped my mind in half and tears rolled down my face as I kneeled on the ground and screamed. I screamed and screamed and screamed, grabbing my head and trying to open it up myself as the laughter only intensified within it, making me scream louder than my pain, my nails tearing away the skin on my head along with my hair desperately, trying to get it away! I just wanted it to stop! I just wanted to be left alone! What have I done to deserve all this?! I screamed and cried and begged for it to just stop, to be left alone! Then, there was a sound that made me grow cold and freeze on spot, my head bleeding from the wounds I myself had inflicted. And what the sound was? A gentle ‘thump’. A simple sound. A little, simple ‘thump’, which made me freeze on the hard wooden floor, the chuckle disappearing inside my head. Was I free? Did the torture end? Did the eyes finally go away? The time that passed until I managed to make my head work again seemed like an eternity, an eternity that I spent cradling myself on the cold floor, my head on my hands, rocking back and forth with tears and blood running down my face. This couldn’t be happening… This just couldn’t be happening to me only a few days that I’ve been away from the clinic. No, no, no, no……what had I done to deserve this? I was petrified to look up to the window and see if the eyes were gone or not, and suddenly, the total lack of electricity seemed to wear me off more than it should… What wouldn’t I give to be bathed in the light right now! Where were the others? Haven’t they heard me screaming? But most importantly, where were the eyes? In a rush of adrenaline, diary, I looked up………………… and I screamed. I have never screamed so much before in my entire life… I couldn’t even believe that it was humanly possible to scream so loud, to feel so much terror without the heart giving out on you… I couldn’t believe in God right at that point and I can’t stop my tears from staining you diary, so I’m sorry for that too….but it was right at that moment, that I realized I was living in a nightmare… my……oh my……..GOD!.......  God was not going to save me…… no one was going to save me… because the eyes were no longer in the tree opposite and away from me…… no, they were outside my window…… they looked straight at me, as I was screaming my lungs out, as my tears were becoming one with my own blood, as I couldn’t turn away from the dark figure that was clawing itself out of my window, with the fragile glass the only thing that divided us, the only thing that remained as a barrier to my sanity and my body, as the figure stood outside, its features completely hidden in the shadows of the bright moonlight, with the only exception being the eyes. Those bright orange, cat-like eyes. I remember them so clearly, I am sure that they will be the last thing I will remember when my final hour comes. They were shining as brightly as the moon behind them, their orange light reminding me of a fire, as they were looking at the screaming me, blinking slowly and carefully, as the lion does when it spots its victim. What happened next, happened in slow motion. The window broke and opened up widely in front of me, the cold night air rushing inside the room and chilling me to the bone, as the creature started to set foot inside my room, with myself being completely frozen to do anything to prevent it… I was going to die…… I braced myself for death… Then, the lights above our heads flashed, filling the room with a brightness that blinded me for a second, as two hands grabbed me hard by the armpits. The last thing I saw was the window of my room. It was closed. No one had opened it. And no one was standing outside or inside. I woke up in the hospital the following morning. My head was carefully wrapped in many bandages and so did my hands and torso. The doctors said that I had inflicted them on myself before my dad busted the door open, answering my screams for help and taking me to the hospital immediately, with the doctors sedating me for the rest of the night and keeping a close eye on me. Mother and father didn’t even look at me until doctor Acels came and explained to them that it was only normal, that small incidents like that were bound to happen in the first two months that I was out of the clinic, especially in the very first week. There was nothing to worry about and they should just help me through the episodes. I don’t really know if he is right… I mean, I saw the dark figure being outside my window, looking at me, chuckling darkly inside my mind, making me scream till I no sound came out. I saw it kicking the window open and stepping inside the room, right before the lights went on. I saw those bright orange eyes falling on me, immediately triggering my sheer terror that seized my whole body mercilessly. God only knows what it would have done to me if the lights didn’t light.  But…… as my father told me again and again, there was absolutely no one inside or outside my room and the window was tightly closed and locked from the inside the whole time! The blood on my hands was there as a proof that I had done this to myself, that I had scratched my head, torso and arms all by myself, no matter the fact that I didn’t remember scratching anything else other than my head. They were all self-inflicted wounds. They were all done solely by me. Me… Only me… The ride home was a silent one. No one dared to speak and I was too submerged into my own mind to start a conversation what-so-ever. Maybe I was losing it again? Maybe all this did happen inside my own head and there was no creature standing outside? I didn’t know anymore. It was easy for me to take what my eyes saw as a concrete reality, but… Did my eyes see correctly? In the past, I had trouble trusting them, along with all of my other senses, but was that the case even now?  I popped some pills inside my mouth, downing them without much effort, as the car turned in the small road our house was placed. Everywhere around me, I could see many houses already decorated for Halloween, with pumpkins and fake skeletons decorating the green lawn or the front porch of the houses. One of our neighbors had gone as far as to decorate his huge cedar tree with toilet paper and spider webs. That would be a complete disaster if it rained, I had thought to myself. Finally reaching home, I waited for no one and went out of the car, heading straight to my room and laying there, just looking at the ceiling. I didn’t want to deal with my parents, much less with anyone else, as thoughts of doubt started penetrating my mind. Maybe I shouldn’t be outside. Maybe I should have just stayed inside the clinic, where I had a whole team of doctors looking after me. Maybe I was simply the freak that my classmates accused me of being, way back then. I can’t trust my instincts on this one; my instincts were the ones that put me in that clinic in the first place.  I bet the creature from yesterday was just another fraction of my imagination, another trick that my mind decided to play with me. I just wanted all this madness to end… I JUST WANT ALL OF THIS TO END! WHY? WHY IS EVERYTHING HAPPENING TO ME?! DOES THE UNIVERSE WANT ME TO DIE? WILL I ONLY FIND SALVATION IN DEATH? WHAT SHOULD I DO TO LIVE A NORMAL, HUMAN LIFE HUH?! KILL SOMEONE?! No, I can’t afford to lose my temper again, I can’t afford all this anymore. That afternoon, Amy came to my room, asking if I was okay. There was something calming in her aura that always seemed to relax me since we were little, and that time was no exception. She sat beside me on my bed and assured me that she wasn’t going to ask me a single question about last night. She only wanted to ask me if I was okay and feeling well. What a golden heart she has hidden within her. I literally love her so much. I couldn’t possibly lie to her; if I lied to my own sister then there is no part of my sanity left for me to exist, so I told her exactly what I was feeling.  Confused. Doubting my own self. She tried to make me relax, by asking me a question that had been bothering her for a long time now, since I first left the house: How was it to live in a hospital? Did I like it there? My dear diary, no one and I mean no one had ever asked me that question. Not my parents, not my doctors, not even myself. It was the first time that I found myself unable to answer her; it wasn’t bad living there, but it wasn’t good either. It was what it was. We spend the next hours talking and talking, until our mother came to tell us it was bed time already. Amy hugged me tightly before leaving the room, wishing me goodnight and giving me the brightest smile I had seen in days, making me smile back and think that not all of my family thought of me as a burden. Mother stood by my door, making sure that I had swallowed my cocktail of pills for sure, before she wished me a laconic ‘goodnight’ and turned the lights off, allowing me to make myself more comfortable, resting my wary head on the soft pillow. I had the feeling that she might have started to have second thoughts about taking me back in the house again, but sleep found me a lot faster than my thoughts on the matter. I was woken up by a sudden sound coming from the ceiling. At first, I thought it was just my imagination or just my dream that was so vivid that it eventually woke me up, so I turned on my other side and decided to fall back to sleep, with the pills that I had taken previously making it far more easy for me. Still, as my eyes were a moment from closing again, allowing me to drift into dreamland, the same sound echoed again. My eyes flashed open and a pure wave of adrenaline rushed inside my veins as I stayed perfectly still, waiting to hear if the sound would echo again……minutes seemed like an eternity……or was it just seconds?..... I can’t remember clearly… The sound echoed again, making me almost scream from my terror, shooting myself up in a sitting position, my eyes immediately darting in the wooden ceiling….what was that?....could it be any acorn fallen from the trees that surrounded the house?.... no, it couldn’t be, it was too loud to be just an acorn…… Then it sounded again. And again and again and again. Someone was walking on the roof! The sound seemed to come closer and closer to the edge of the house, near to were the second window of my room was, exactly besides my bed. OH GOD! I didn’t even realize when I threw the covers to the side, landing my feet hard on the wooden floor and making a run for it towards the door, only to not notice my shoes, leading me to trip over them and land hard on the floor, wounding my hands and knees. I remember that I immediately turned on my back, my eyes growing wider as I looked upon the window beside my bed, trying to get as far away as I could, towards the door, but there was no one there. The steps had stopped and there was no one clawing on the window, nor anywhere close to it. I was just looking outside, still trying to get away, by breath coming out hard as I tried to hear even the slightest sound. But, everything around me was eerily silent. Then…  A head leaned suddenly towards the window, appearing from above and the same pair of orange eyes nailed itself on me. My scream drowned by itself inside my mouth, as the same terror that I had experienced before started coursing through my mind once again. The creature had grabbed itself from the edges of the roof and had leaned its head downwards, in order to be able to gaze into my room, spotting me immediately. I don’t know if my brain functioned for a split second and took in all the information that were presented to it, but I can swear that I saw its hair shining in the moonlight, a sea of blood red that formed curls on the edges, throwing dark shadows over its face and hiding away everything but its eyes. I don’t know if my brain functions properly anymore, but at that time, it actually did. This time, my scream echoed loud and clear, as I averted my gaze and rose to my feet, literally throwing myself against the door to my room, looking towards the window, only to see the creature starting to reach out for it once again. I had to hurry! Now! My fingers curled on the cold doorknob and turned it with force… only for the door to do nothing! I almost lost my mind right at that moment! THE DOOR WAS F*CKING LOCKED FROM THE OUTSIDE!!! I screamed loudly and threw another fast gaze towards the creature that was close to opening the window, so I turned and started to turn the doorknob with force, cursing loudly and screaming for someone to hear me. I pounded on the door frantically with all the power my fists could gather up, screaming for help again and again, trying to wake up anyone, just anyone inside the house, just to get someone to help me out, with tears rolling down my face hardly when nothing seemed to happen!  I didn’t want to die! Not here! Not now! Why wouldn’t the door open?! Who locked it?! Who the F*CK DARED TO LOCK MY DOOR?! I WANTED TO GET OUT! GET OUT I TELL YOU! LET ME OUT NOW! WHY WON’T THE DOOR BUDGE! I HAVE HIT IT AGAIN AND AGAIN WITH ALL I’VE GOT, JUST LET ME OUT! IT’S ALMOST HERE! HELP SOMEONE!!! PLEASE! PLEASE! SOMEONE! There was a loud bang and turning, I almost died on spot when I saw the window wide open and the creature rising on its feet from the ground. From the faint body structure that I could see through the darkness and tears, it must be a female, a little bit taller than me and with her hair reaching down her waist. I couldn’t see her face due to the darkness, but a strong feeling washed over me that she was grinning widely…. at me.  My blood froze inside my veins and I started to scream and hit the door with my whole body, my eyes locked on the menacing figure that was coming towards me. I would die… I saw it in her bright eyes…The bloodlust and the madness… in the eyes that reminded me the ones of an animal, so when her low, menacing and mostly animalistic growl left her lips, it only turned my mind crystal clear for a single second. I took a single step back as she leaned her torso forward and when she lunged at me, I ejected myself against the door with my whole body. I felt something sharp grazing my shoulder, barely scratching it, but deeply enough for me to immediately feel a burning sensation, as I crashed against the door, with the wood breaking under my pressure. The next thing I knew, I was in the dark corridor of my house, fallen among the broken wood and with various wounds and scratches decorating my body from the sharp pieces, along with my almost shredded pajamas. It pained me like hell, but there was no room to think about that, as I picked myself up and lunged towards my parents’ bedroom. It seemed like I was running for an eternity, the time around me slowing down to prevent me from  reaching salvation as I brought my body to the limit, trying to get away from her, screaming with all the capacity my lungs had, tears staining my face. I didn’t dare to look back; I could feel her hot breath on my neck, her dark chuckle echoing inside my head hard, and I knew she was close behind me, if not reaching me at this very moment. But I didn’t dare to look back.  I covered my ears with another pained scream and continued to run straight ahead, my heart pumping hard inside my chest and my ears, sending a rush of adrenaline through my body, with darkness itself following me close behind, breathing inside my hair, barely touching me, as my eyes fixed on my parents’ bedroom door. I can swear to you that I felt her hands almost grabbing me hard as I catapulted myself against that door that opened immediately, with me landing on the floor of my parents bedroom, screaming loudly and thanking my mother for leaving her bedside lamp on, lightly illuminating the room. They both woke up immediately, screaming at each other urgently and at me, but ignoring them, I turned to see where the creature went, only to see the hallway totally empty and illuminated by the light that was on in my room. As my parents were finally awake, they listened to my story closely, but I could see that they didn’t believe me totally, something that only intensified when we got back to my room. Except from the broken door that my father proved to me that it wasn’t locked by showing me the actual lock, everything else inside my room was just as I had left it before I went to bed. No broken or open window, no lights off, no nothing. There was absolutely nothing that was out of the ordinary and even my shoes were carefully placed under my desk, so there was no possible way for them to have made me trip as I was ‘supposedly’ trying to get away from this ‘creature-woman’. I kept telling them that what I saw was real and even made them search the whole house, but there was nothing. Nothing…..nothing…..absolutely nothing…… Was I going mad? Did all that happen or not? I…I couldn’t decide that myself……  Needless to say, they called Dr. Acels who rushed immediately here to check up on me and treat me to some heavy medication, while hearing the story from my parents about what happened, and then mine. I could tell he wasn’t taking me seriously, no matter the wounds that I had on me, which he dismissed as another round of ‘self-inflicted’ ones. For him, I was just having another episode, larger in magnitude than I ever had before, but still, perfectly normal for my distressed state of mind. All those things were nothing more than my wild imagination, which was altered by my condition severely, making me think that what I saw in dreams where actually true. For all we knew, I might be dreaming all that time during the episode and only woke up to get away. In his opinion, my parents should keep up with my new medication and notify him immediately if anything new happens. If the incidents continue, then he would most probably take me back to the clinic. Maybe I wasn’t ready for all this just yet. I was listening to him with heavy eyes, since the medication with which he injected me, left me sleepy to the bone, but still, I was relieved to see that the sun had begun to rise in the horizon, signaling that I was safe from ‘her’. Because I knew what I had seen. Didn’t I? You know, for patients with Paranoid Schizophrenia, such as myself, reality and imagination collide in many cases. When the symptoms had first started, back when I was fourteen, I just had auditory and bodily hallucinations, with the voices inside my head telling me that everyone around me was out to get me, to hurt me and my family, so I had to do something about it and fast, mocking me and laughing at me when I did nothing and tried to ignore them. I had to protect them no matter what, they depended on me. So I did; I attacked one of my classmates and send him to the hospital, only for me to be sent in a deranged state at a local psychiatric clinic. For three years I was out, not knowing or remembering what I did, finding out only one year before, when I finally came to my senses, with the kind nurses telling me that I usually just talked to myself, screamed and scratched my own body. I was insane. I am insane. I thought I was doing good, but am I really? Is the woman that attacked me just a fraction of my imagination, of my insanity? The others tell me that she is, and despite what I saw and felt, I’m starting to feel the same…… Maybe it’s all inside my head. No, it is sure that everything is inside my head. Mother told me today that if I started to behave myself, she won’t let me go back in the clinic. But I must behave. Today is Halloween and they can’t risk me having a psychotic episode in front of so many people, it would embarrass them and show to everyone that I’m still a threat. And I’m crying as I’m writing this, because I don’t believe that I’m a threat to anyone. I just want to live! Why don’t the voices just leave me alone, why do I have to suffer in my delusions that some creature-woman is after me?  Thankfully, the medication that I took today is stronger than before, so no matter how hard I try, I can’t agitate myself. This is good…… this is perfect…… I can live with that, because I want to be around my sisters. I love them so much to let myself be any less sane around them. What if I hurt them? What if my delusions lead me to think of them as a threat? But to tell you the truth, diary, I really believe that the woman is- -(The rest of the page was torn and missing)- Halloween this year was going relatively good. Many people were roaming the streets, dressed in so many different costumes, that after a while, I just stopped trying to guess who dressed like what. There was so much variety in the costumes, that it really did strike me as odd that so many people chose to dress less like famous characters and instead chose to make their own costumes, something that I found uniquely sweet and amazing. The first trick-or-treaters arrived at our doorstep, roughly around nine o’ clock, consisting mostly of kids around Coco’s age and I greeted them myself with a big smile and a bowl full of sweets. Everything appeared to be normal, quiet and peaceful, all three of us sitting in the living room and taking turns answering the door, with mom and dad pretty occupied with some last-minute chores. It was fun to see them dressed up as vampires and I’m guessing that, from the many times they both looked at the clock that hung on the living room wall, they just couldn’t wait to go to a neighbor’s house that was hosting a Halloween Party, only for grown-ups as they told us. Eh, it wouldn’t be that bad for us to spend some quality time all together and away from their watchful gazes for once, it would kind of help us now that we were together and thankfully, the aura among us was calm and happy, responding to the energetic vibe that Halloween gave off. So as the clock struck midnight, mom and dad gave us all a kiss in the forehead and a warning to behave ourselves and don’t feed Coco too many sweets, before they went out the front door, locking it the moment it was closed behind them. They would have fun, I could bet on it. Everything around the house was quiet, with us sitting together on the comfortable sofa, the movie Nightmare Before Christmas playing on the TV, since it was kind of a classic that fitted both the spirit of Halloween and Christmas. Needless to say, we all had a big bowl of sweets in our hands, eating what was left, with the trick-or-treaters having stopped with their visits at last. I was enjoying both the movie and the company, as we were finally free to talk to our hearts content with my sister, and since Coco was too young to understand many things, we were soon laughing hard, with the little kid being the only one that was focused on the movie. I hadn’t had fun like this in years. Still, at some point, I could swear that I heard a small ‘thump’ noise coming from the ceiling, but I dismissed it as just my wild imagination, or some brat throwing something on the roof, but that lasted until it sounded again and this time, my sister also heard it, as I saw her head immediately raising so that she could look at the ceiling, doubt painting her face. The sound continued, sounding further and further on the roof, as if someone was walking on it, until there was another loud ‘thump’ and I could have sworn that the bushes right outside our window shook violently. My sister rose to her feet, still carrying her bowl of sweets and walking casually towards the window that looked over the side of the garden where the sound came from, pulling the curtains and looking outside silently. What followed next will haunt me till my very last breath. I saw her eyes pop open in total terror and her mouth half opening, her face turning pale white, almost as white as a sheet, the glass bowl leaving her suddenly trembling hands and crashing loudly on the floor, dissolving into millions of little pieces. Immediately, her hands flew to the curtains and pulled them violently, covering the window once again and turning, she stormed towards us, grabbing Coco in her hands and me from my wrist, yanking me up. ‘We must run NOW!’ I barely made out her words as she screamed at me, running towards the stairs and dragging me along with her with a desperation that I felt for the first time coming from a single person. ‘What is happening?’ was the only question that came out of my mouth. ‘You must hide Amy! We must hide!’ we ran over the corridor, running towards our parents room, with me still having a load of questions inside my mind and Coco being strangely silent, but there was apparently no time for questions, since I thought I heard a window in the living room break. I wasn’t sure if that was indeed the case, but my sister practically threw us inside the room, slamming the door shut behind her and locking it up, proceeding to pull whatever furniture she could get her hands on in the front, her movements frantic and confusing. When she was finally done, she turned to us and grabbing us both again, pulled us with power towards the side of the room, passing the bed and grabbing the nightstand hard with her hands she threw it out of the way, revealing the sizeable air duct that was hidden behind it. It was then though, that I finally found my voice. ‘What the hell is happening?! What are you doing?!’ I demanded to know, looking at her as she grabbed the cover, and pulling it with all her might, managing to get it out of the way, revealing the large interior. ‘There is no time for questions, you must hide NOW!’ she grabbed Coco, kissed her in the forehead and placed her carefully inside, before she turned at me and grabbing my hand, ushered me inside as well ‘Do not, and I repeat, do not come out whatever you hear.’ She said and gave me the phone that our parents always kept in their bedroom ‘Call the police immediately and don’t come out until they come to get you. I’m going to pull the bed in front of the air duct, so that you are hidden but you can still get away easily. Do not make a single sound, do not look outside, and do not come out if the police are  not in the room, do you understand?’ she ordered me strictly. The only thing I could do at this point was nod at her eyes, full of seriousness. ‘I want you to know that I love you so much and that I’ll always love you. Now Amy, cover Coco’s ears and whatever you do, don’t scream.’ She gave me a kiss in the forehead as well, before she pulled back and using all her strength, pulled the bed in front of the opening, concealing our presence completely.  I didn’t quite understand what was going on, but the seriousness in her voice made me not question her motives or what was going on at that moment, so I obeyed, calling 911 and notifying them that there was an intruder inside the house and that we were currently hiding, before I hung up and turned towards Coco, burying her inside my protective arms and keeping her from hearing anything. But was there anything to hear in the first place? The whole house seemed to be quiet and not a single sound could be heard, other than my breath and Coco’s. Maybe I imagined things? Then why were we placed in here? What was outside the house that made my sister so nervous and scared? The air duct that she had placed us in was rather a good hiding spot and a really spacious one, but I was kind of troubled as to why she chose to stay outside. Turning my head lightly, I could see her feet on the other side of the bed, as she was facing the door, obviously waiting for something to happen. But was there anything to happen in the first place? Minutes passed, minutes that seemed like hours and all was well, nothing seeming to be amiss. Right when I was about to look once again above my shoulder, a loud bang reverberated inside the deadly silent room. Someone had just hit the bedroom door. And they had hit it hard. I turned my eyes towards Coco again and hugged her even tighter as the second knock sounded, harder than the first. I could have sworn that I heard my sister gulp, but right then, another loud noise filled the room and I heard her scream loudly, as the door not only opened, but it was broken down. I could bet on it. ‘WHO ARE YOU? WHAT DO YOU WANT FROM ME?!’ my sister’s voice filled the room, but instead of a response, I heard her scream once again. It wasn’t just a regular, full of terror scream, no, it was a bloodcurdling one, one that sent shivers down my spine and tears to roll from my eyes. I heard various things break around the room and loud noises slashing the silence of the night in half, making me want to scream out from my sheer terror and struggle to swallow the screams up, in case we were discovered. My sister screamed again and again and so many times that I actually lost count after a while, making me want to cover my ears to stop this horrible sound. I just wanted all this to stop. I just wanted for my sister to stop screaming. For whoever was out there to just stop hurting her like that. I could almost see her putting up a fight, as the sound of her body moving was revealed by screams full of determination, but I could also hear her screams of pain, as her body must be crashing against many things inside the room. It was horrible, horrible! I wanted to throw up, but there was no room for it, an urge that became stronger as the screams that were sounding now, where ones of full despair, pain and terror. No screams of fighting back. Just pleading screams.  The sound of nails being dragged against the hard wooden floor made me shiver as I was almost seeing my sister trying to get away from the monster that was attacking her. Where on earth were the police?! I had called them like an hour ago! Or was it minutes?! I just didn’t know with all those screams….All I knew was screaming and suffering. But something other sounded right then. Something a lot different that the screams.   It was laughter. Someone was laughing. Or rather, a girl was laughing, a girl which wasn’t my sister. It started out as low, barely audible, until it gradually rose, until it became a frantic, full of madness and insanity laughter that it was impossible to be pulled by a human, it just couldn’t. It was insane, maniacal, and animalistic, and it rang in my ears like a gunshot, sounding above the screams. Whoever was doing this, she was having fun with it. I couldn’t hold on anymore. I leaned as far behind from Coco as I could and threw up. I was just sitting there, as my sister had just started choking on something that I highly doubted that it was water, and the monster that did all that to her was laughing, she was laughing nonstop, making me sicker and sicker by the passing seconds. Something heavy was dragged against the floor at that moment, reminding me of heavy stones, but the sound soon disappeared, before the loud cracking sound reverberated, as something came hard in contact with what sounded like wood?  No. Bones? I just didn’t want an answer to that question, as the same sound filled the room, echoing again and again. The screams had stopped. There was not a single sound inside the room, other than the horrible cracking one. After some more moments, silence was restored. I didn’t even dare to look back and see what had happened to my dear sister, so I sat there in silence, hugging my little sister with all I had, listening to the sound of footsteps, as the monster walked around the room. But shortly after, another sound was heard. The police sirens. Never have I felt happier in my life for a sound that seemed heaven sent at that moment. I closed my eyes and waited. It didn’t take long for the police to find us. The officers pulled the bed out of the way as I yelled in order to be located, pulling us safe and sound out of our hiding place. I had made sure to wrap a random cloth around Coco’s eyes, since I didn’t want her to see something that would scar her forever, but coming out of the air duct, the first thing I noticed was that there was no body. Despite that, gazing upon the room, I immediately bend over and threw up what food was left inside my stomach, reacting to the gruesome spectacle. All the walls were bathed in blood- in my sister’s blood and not only that, but a message was left behind on one of the walls, written in her own blood.  ~Witches claimed her soul~ Halloween  My sister Mira was a brave and loving girl. Despite her mental condition, she went up against a monster to save me, Amy, and our little sister Coco. She fought fiercely, but in the end lost to the monster that attacked us that night. Her body was never found, but the police said that they found small pieces of her skull scattered inside the room. She was announced dead right away. Four weeks after her death, I searched through her belongings and discovered this small diary, deciding to complete her entry and allow the world to see it, just so they know that the monster that killed my sister is still out there. I never found the missing page. I was saddened by the fact that no one believed her and that was definitely the fact that lead to her death, and I sincerely wish from the bottom of my heart that I’d done something earlier. Still, I am here, and searching for clues about this monster. I will find it. I swear on my sister’s name. Amy   3/11/2015