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simplydannie · 6 months ago

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I’ve been thinking about doing an infection AU that of course involves some of the Under Rageous AU elements as well as the Poison AU elements. I’m trying to see how to work this one out to make it different than the other amazing infected AUs out there. Here’s a preview and spoiler to what will happen if I continue this.

I am so sorry in advance 😭

“Keep on running Tye!” Branched continued to pull the little Troll behind him.

They were almost there, he could sense it…he could feel it. Tye’s breathing grew heavier and heavier, tears still stinging his eyes. Everything that happened was only hours ago, maybe more? Time was weird now.

The ground continued to shake underneath as they were being chased. Despite them being so small, this virus gave the infected a keen sense of smell, making it hard for anything to hide. Branch turned behind him, he could see the glowing eyes get closer and closer as the infected grew nearer and nearer…He got a closer look as he saw it was a Rageon…it was always a Rageon.

“We’re not going to make!” Tye yelled.

“Yes we are….We have too…We promised …We promised them..” Branch said. He continued to pull Tye along keeping him close, “This way!” He pulled Tye into a large log that lead lower into the cliffs. As they hit the bottom, the Trolls went into some underbrush. Branch placed a finger on his lips as Tye covered his own mouth.

The hiss and grunts the infected could be heard above them. Branch dug into his cloak and pulled out a small knife…Veneer had helped him make that…

“Small enough for you, but strong enough to cause some hurting!” Veneer had said. A lump formed in his throat at the memories…

“We’re going to make it…we promised.” He said again. The hisses and grunts grew nearer, they could hear the infected smelling the air for the small Trolls, the groans and cries were eerie, an echo of the person they once were. “Get ready to run when I say so.” Branch whispered to Tye. The young Troll nodded…Soon, the noises had disappeared…there was nothing but the silence of the outside world.

Branch let out a sigh of relief.

“How far?” Tye said wiping the tears from his eyes.

“Close. Very close. Judging by what Floyd had said, they have BergenTown completely barricaded, but we will be able to make it through.” Branch said.

“Aren’t they being careful who they let through? Making sure no one is infected?” Tye asked.

Branch nodded, “You have the white cloth right?” Tye took out the piece of cloth from his little bad. “Wrap it around a stick. We need to be ready. Those things are gone…for now.”

Tye grabbed a nearby twig and safely secured the cloth around it, he paused, he hands grew shakey as the tears come back. Branch heard the sniffling coming from his tiny body.

“Hey?”

“We….we were so close…” Tye said in between tears.

Branch finely swallowed the lump in his throat, “I know…I know.”

“Was there anything we could’ve done?”

“I….I don’t know….I guess we’ll never know.” Branch peeked into his bag, good, the valuables were still secured and safe…He needed to get them to Floyd. “…We got to make it though…for them…remember we promised.”

Tye nodded. Wiping the tears from his eyes he stood up and secured the twig safely in his bag. “I’m ready.”

“Let’s go.”

They quietly walked out from where they hid, the sound of breaking twigs and leaves were heard from afar…the infected hadn’t left, they were still near. The Trolls continued as quiet as they could.

“Keep going. Only a matter of time before….” The wailing, eerie cry of an infected sounded through the air as it smelled and spotted the small Trolls. “RUN!” Again they were off. Reaching into his bag Tye took out some seeds, Insomnia Seeds.

“Let’s hope this also works on the infected!” He tossed them behind him, a mist of dark purple pollen evaporated into the air. A few infected fell to the ground unconscious, but a few continued to chase after them. “Worth a shot.”

“No it did work! There are less of them now…I see it! I see the Bergen Castle! We’re almost here Tye!” The Trolls ran as fast as their tiny feet could carry them…but the infected were much bigger, they were gaining on them. Using their hair, they slingshotted themselves as far as they could, before they knew it, they were on the main road. Barricades erected from the ground surrounding the town, keeping any infected Rageon or Troll out…or any other species for that matter.

Standing on the walls were Bergen guards, “Hey look!” One called out pointing towards the distance. Using a spyglass, the other Bergen peeked through. “Trolls…and it looks like they got a small army of infected chasing after them.”

Branch noticed the Bergens on the watch tower, “They’re watching us! Wave the cloth!” Tye pulled it out of his bag and began waiving it in the air.

“…They have a white cloth! Non-infected?”

“I don’t want to risk it. Get ready to light of up the fire blooms!”

Coming from the stairs below was a tiny Troll, “Wait!” Floyd called out as he jumped on the Bergen and peeked through the spy glass. “Branch…It’s Branch and Tye!” He peeked again, “But were is….”

“Branch? Let them through, let them through!” Poppy demanded.

“But Queen Poppy?”

“They have a white flag! They’re clean! Please just let them through before you set off the fire blooms!”

They allowed for a tiny opening to appear, big enough for the Trolls. “Hurry Tye! They’re gonna light this place up!” Tye got nearer and neared to Branch. He looked behind as the infect grew close.

“Branch!” Tye cried.

“Get ready….Jump!” Branch and Tye slid through the opening just as the area behind them was set on fire��.along with the infected Rageons.

They heard the small opening close behind them as they finally slowed down and made their way to safety. As they appeared from the entrance Branch and Tye collapsed as they tried catching their breath…Tye began to hurl as the nerves finally over took him. Branch patted his back, “It’s okay. Let it out. Let it out…We’re safe now.”

“Branch!” Poppy ran up and hugged him tightly, tears beginning to run down her face, “Oh Branch! I’m so glad you’re safe! You’re back!” She held him so tight and close…she didn’t want to let him go…it had been too long.

“Branch! Thank god!” One by one his brothers came in and embraced along with Poppy, tears all filling their eyes. Branched looked at Tye.

“Everyone, this is Tye. I met him back in Under Rageous.” Branch smiled. Poppy extended her hand and picked up the young Troll.

“Thank you for taking care of him.” She hugged him, “Thank you so much.”

“He…He took care of me and…” Tye’s words cut off as the tears began to fall. A concern grew on Poppy’s face, looking at Branch.

“Branch!” Floyd’s voice called out, “Branch!” Floyd hugged him. “You made it! I knew you would…but where is…” Floyd looked around, noticing the absence of two tall teens. Branch eyes grew distant, they grew sad. He put the bag he was carrying down beside him, before he continued, he looked at Floyd.

“Floyd. Things got hard. Me and Tye could hide easily…But…but the twins…They were trying to protect us…to protect each other…” Branches voice broke, “There were to many….” He fell to his knees and broke down in tears. Floyd kneeled beside him, he peeked inside Branches bag. Reaching in, the first thing he took out was a piece of a gem, a beautiful pink gem…one of the rarest gems through the world.

“This…this looks for familiar…” Floyd said as he stared at it. His heart was telling him what it was, but he wanted to be wrong.

Branch finally looked up at Floyd through teared eyes, “….It’s part of Velvet’s pink bracelet…I had to bring something of her to you…I had too…”

“..Th-thank you…” Tears began to fill his eyes. He reached in and pulled out a purple string…He knew, he knew the familiar purple hue… “Veneer…”

“His beanie…I grabbed a string of his beanie….I couldn’t save them Floyd. I couldn’t bring them to you….I’m sorry!” Branched buried his hands in his face, tears overflowing. Floyd embraced him, he pulled Tye to embrace too…he was there, he had seen what happened to the twins, he was suffering just as much as they were.

Everyone stepped back to give the three boys their space to mourn, to cry…to remember.

“I know you did…You did bring them to me…” Floyds voice grew shakey as he began to cry along with his brother, “You did bring them to me…” He held the small piece of gem and string near his heart, “You did Branch, thank you…”

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acowardinmordor · 6 months ago

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A preview of chapter seven, for your sanity, and mine:

The bed was huge, incredibly deep and soft, mounded with pillows and layered with downy soft sheets and blankets. They fought an interdimensional wizard. They were laying next to each other in the dark like they were an Amish courting couple minus the board. They had a full day of school. They should be exhausted. They were exhausted. She had her headphones on, playing softly. Manic Monday wasn’t her absolute favorite, but it worked well enough to get them through the night, and it had repeated enough times to become white noise. It was four am and neither of them could sleep.

Somewhere in the house, he could hear the not-quite-sound of others talking. Not shouting or fear or anger. It was the kind of murmuring he remembered them all doing after climbing back from the Upside Down.Planning. Consoling. Stupid jokes to make each other smile.

“Eddie?” Chrissy asked, giving up the pretense that they were going to get any sleep. “When did you find out? You said you saw things, and the others said… So, when did you see it?”

“Lunch,” Eddie’s voice broke on the single word.

“Oh my god.” Chrissy’s voice was barely more than air. “And you immediately just came to talk to me? That’s… oh my god, that’s why you were like that at my locker? Why you were trying to get me to skip the game?”

“Yeah,” he managed, “I’m usually more eloquent than that. I’m weird, but even I’m not normally that weird. Sorry. If I’d had a minute to think, I wouldn’t have made it seem like I was trying to seduce you.”

“Yeah,” she echoed, “Everyone seems really sure you were flirting with me.”

Her voice sank at the end, something like disappointment. Eddie leapt to try to fix it.

“Shit, sorry, I wasn’t, I promise! Unless, uh, wait, I thought we— do you want me to be flirting with you? Cause I can do that. I can totally flirt with you. You’re great! You’re a goddess walking amongst peasants!”

“Eddie, no, you don’t need to —” she breathed out a little laugh, “It’s okay. I just didn’t really think that I was your kind of girl.”

He made an awkward noise in reply. She wasn’t his type. She was objectively adorable, and Eddie wasn’t blind, so she wasn’t not his type, but then again, he'd always put more value on personality than looks. Aesthetic crushes, sure, those happened, some people were beautiful, and, embarrassingly, those kinds of infatuations were most likely to show up for jocks. Shameful for his reputation. But thinking someone was hot didn’t mean he liked them.

On the other hand, knowing that Chrissy could face down an evil wizard, win, and still have a sense of humor on the other side was affecting the scales. Same as the memories he had of Harrington in the Upside Down. Which, again, was incredible, but was not worth the risk and the blood loss. Scars were hot, but he wasn’t going to wish trauma on the guy.

That wasn’t why he wasn’t trying to flirt either. Everything she just went through? Not the right time. Too much of his head was fixated on her staying alive. If he heard a twig snap he’d probably freak out again. Maybe after it was over, if he came back to Hawkins after it was all said and done, once Steve and Nancy and the others had saved the day, after supergirl showed up, maybe after all of that, he could talk to Chrissy again and see something other than a victim in need of saving.

He couldn’t say that though. Calling someone a victim wasn’t empowering, and Chrissy needed to feel empowered.

“Pretty sure you could be my type of girl if I was looking for one,” he offered.

#my writing #flip the board #I adore these two

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kasienda · 1 year ago

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love remains for the wip ask game? sounds painful 😭 but in a good way?

I’m stoked to start sharing this one hopefully soon! But was trying to finish the pregnancy fic first.

In this one, Marinette gave up the box under battlefield conditions and lost all her memory. I’m playing with the essence of a person and identity formation. If Marinette has the same strengths and skills and personality, but different formative experiences what changes? What stays the same? I also assumed she lost her recall memory, but not her procedural memory or subconscious and that’s been fun to play with.

It developed into this weird thing where she’s learning about her old self and is not sure she measures up or not sure she wants to be that person sometimes. She falls in love with Chat who won’t let anything happen because he knows she was in love with another boy, but doesn’t know who, which really really posses her off.

…

Preview:

Six Days Since Marinette Lost Her Memory

Marinette stood in the center of her own room. The pink walls were adorned with sketches and photos, and other unfamiliar souvenirs of her life. Her eyes jumped curiously from a hand made purse to a bowler hat decorated with a feather to a cork board covered in pictures of her friends.

She loved her room. Which made sense, she supposed. She had theoretically been the one to decorate it, but she didn’t remember decorating it. And now, the room was like a cave filled with treasure. Because each little piece of it held a secret - some part of herself that meant something to her, a clue to what her life had been like before…

Before she had woken up in the arms of a boy wearing a magic black catsuit. His heartbroken sobs had caused something in her chest to twist painfully. She hadn’t understood why then, but from that very first moment she knew she had wanted to make things better for him.

She had no idea how to do that now that she understood what she had lost. Sixteen years worth of memories.

The echoes of which were papered onto the walls and notebooks of her room just waiting to be rediscovered.

No one else seemed to share her excitement. Like Chat Noir, her parents had been devastated. She hadn’t known what to do in the face of their grief. She hadn’t known how to comfort or assure them.

They had brought her to the hospital where she had spent four excruciating days being poked and prodded, scanned, interviewed, and asked to fill out questionnaires and surveys until they all blurred together.

The neurologists found nothing wrong with her. Other than the missing memories of course. There was no apparent cause of her amnesia. In fact, her memory loss didn’t line up with the usual progressions and symptoms of any known type of amnesia. It was almost as if she hadn’t actually experienced any neurological disease or injury at all. It was more like her mind had just been erased. And with unprecedented symptoms and no discernible cause, the doctors had been unable to say whether her memory would return or not.

Which had upset her parents all over again.

But not her.

Which was puzzling. It seemed like she should be upset that she had lost all of her life. But she only felt a curiosity towards the events that came before her memory began. She was curious! It was her life.

But she wasn’t sad. Or angry. Or anything like that.

Perhaps it was because she didn’t know what she had lost. And they all did. How could she miss what she couldn’t remember?

She grabbed her new sketchbook and a pencil from her desk and headed downstairs to the kitchen. She opened a cabinet and pulled out a tin filled with jasmine tea, and then set a tea kettle to heat on the stove. She moved to a different cupboard and unerringly pulled out a jar of honey.

It was strange. She had realized the day before that as long as she didn’t think about it, she knew where everything was. She could find craft supplies in her drawers and boxes. She could thread her sewing machine and apparently stitch actual clothes together. But if anyone asked her if she had something or where something was she couldn’t answer.

After adding a spoonful of honey to her empty tea cup, she took a seat at the table. She opened her sketchbook, apparently one of many that she owned, to a blank page. Within minutes she was blocking out her father’s face, a face that still filled her with warmth and security. Even though everything she knew about him she had learned only that week.

Most of her sketchbooks were filled with designs for hats and dresses. She didn’t feel any connection to those. They were pretty enough she supposed, but ever since she had woken up for the first time as far as she knew, she had only felt inspired to draw faces.

Faces seemed to hold something familiar. She still didn’t recall anything, but she felt something.

…

Thanks for the ask @thelibraryloser ! I genuinely think you’re going to love this one!!

#miraculous ladybug #wip preview #love remains #amnesia #ask answered #ask me about my wips

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sixpossumsinatrenchcoat · 2 years ago

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The things we leave behind

[Three years after the true end, Sunny wakes up in White Space. There's something wrong with Headspace. But if he wants to set things right, he's going to need a little help from his friends.

A Headspace AU set in the ruins of a discarded dream, feat. the Sunny-Omori team-up we never got to see. Series link below the preview!]

When Sunny opens his eyes, he’s lying on his back in a white room. His twelve-year-old self glares down at him.

Weird. Why would Sunny be dreaming about Omori? He hasn’t dreamed about Omori for years, not since he finally accepted him. (Absorbed him? Whatever). He’s not sure what to make of the fact that they’re separate again. He doesn’t think there’s anything he’s hiding from. But he wouldn’t know, would he? He didn’t think so last time, either.

It’s a troubling thought.

…Maybe he’s just doing so mentally well that he doesn’t need Omori anymore, so his brain is trying to—expel him, or something? Like an appendectomy, but for out-of-use trauma responses.

“Yeah, no,” Omori scoffs. “Definitely not.”

Right. Of course not. But— “Then why? Or do you not know either.”

“When did you get so chatty?” Omori asks suspiciously.

Sunny shrugs. “Past three years.”

“...Three years, huh.” Omori digests that. “And you’re not even taller?”

“Taller than you.”

“Whatever,” Omori hisses, his pupils contracting to hateful little pinpricks. “At least I don’t look like some fucking loser poseur Hot Topic-reject freak. Are those piercings even real?”

Sunny’s mouth twitches. “You wanna see?”

“No!! Shut up!! I hate you!!”

Sunny can’t help but smile. It’s strangely good to see him again.

He knows that he’s being silly. It hasn’t really been any time at all, because everything that was Omori is part of Sunny now. But even so. Omori—this Omori—was there for Sunny in the darkest time in his life. For four miserable years, he was the only one there. It was awful, obviously. The worst years of his life. But that’s not Omori’s fault.

“It’s good to see you,” Sunny tells him.

“Ew. Stop. This isn’t a social call. I need your help. Or… you need your help. Or else your whole stupid life out there is screwed.”

Sunny frowns. “Is this a Headspace dream, or a dream dream?”

“Will you stop asking stupid questions for ten seconds?”

Sunny sits up obediently. He’s listening.

“Thank you.” Omori glances over his shoulder. For a moment, he looks almost worried. “We shouldn’t stay here… Come on. I’ll explain on the way.”

###

The day Sunny fought Omori—

(“The day I beat you, you mean.”

“Will you shut up? Or is that your new gimmick? That you never shut up??”)

—and resolved to live in the real world, he left Headspace for good. But Headspace didn’t disappear. It existed before Sunny found his way in, and it’ll exist long after he’s dead. Though concepts like ‘before’ and ‘after’ aren’t all that helpful here. Because time moves differently in Headspace.

Which explains why Omori looked so surprised to learn that it had been three years. Sunny frowns. “How long has it been for you?”

“I literally just said to stop asking stupid questions.”

“So…”

“So I don’t know!! God!! Time here isn’t all boring and stupid like it is out there. This place is... outside of time, I guess. From your perspective. Why did you think we kept wearing that eyepatch when you still had two eyes?”

Interesting. Sunny had wondered about that, after. In the end, he’d chalked it up to a coincidence. They do occasionally happen.

Though it still doesn’t totally add up. “It seemed mostly linear before…”

“Because you were holding its shape. Obviously. You came back every night and put everything back how you like it. So there was only so much it could change.”

Until Sunny left Headspace for good. Now that he isn’t keeping it grounded in the laws of physics that his mind finds familiar, Headspace is running wild. Fragments of memory, echoing forward and backward through time. Habits and impressions, rippling out from things that have happened or will soon. Things the waking world forgot. Disorganized chaos.

It doesn't matter that Sunny moved on. Headspace didn't. And without Sunny around to hit the reset button every night, it's changing all on its own.

“Is that why you’re still here?” Sunny asks tentatively. “Even though you’re also…”

“Inside you? Ew, by the way. But, I dunno. Probably. I’m part of this place. So it doesn’t matter if you forgot me. Headspace can’t.”

“I didn’t forget you.”

Omori turns away coldly, but the tips of his ears are red. “Like I even care.”

Sunny smiles a little, and then stops smiling. He still doesn’t understand why Omori would need help from him. Omori is the one who knows this place. Sunny can remember a lot of their time here, but it’s like remembering a story he heard secondhand. Or like something he saw in a movie. He could see what was happening, but he wasn't holding the camera. He was just a passenger. Riding shotgun behind someone else’s eyes.

Besides, by now Omori must be level 50 at least. He's got knives and skills and magic hands. Whereas Sunny's got art school stats. He takes damage just getting out of bed.

READ THE CHAPTER IN FULL ON AO3:

#omori fanfic #omori spoilers #omori sunny #omori omori #omori kel #post sunny route #headspace AU #timeskip #group therapy #no ships just vibes #the faraway gang visits Headspace #i just finished the Omori route #and could not move on with my life without showing a lil love to my fave anthropomorphized trauma response

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ashintheairlikesnow · 3 years ago

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Time Apart

CW: Trauma survivor, referenced noncon and assault, heavy internalized victim-blaming and self-loathing/anti-asexuality (Chris has serious issues from his conditioning around this)

(references events from this small series)

I think you should spend time apart, not with me.

When Chris picks up his phone, it's not at all the message from Laken he expected to see. Not the kind of thing they've ever sent before.

He has to read it two times, then three. The letters swim and shake along with a dull pounding inside his head, but no matter how he tries to make them into other words - tell himself he must have misunderstood, must be missing something - they come back together the same in the end.

I think you should spend time apart, not with me.

Each letter is as crisp and clean as a sterilized blade between each rib, one by one by one by one.

The words are a body blow. They're a hundred blows, beating him into a barely recognizable shattered shell of himself. It wasn't supposed to happen this way - it's been a bad few days, yeah, a bad week really, but until yesterday's fight it had never occurred to him that Laken might give up on him.

The fight was his fault, anyway.

He meant to apologize last night, but then Nova had come into his room, and he'd lost the rest of the night to lying next to Jake, trying to remember how to stop living inside his head again, how to stop being still.

He'd woke up this morning with his stomach doing butterfly flips inside him, nervous, but he'd really wanted to say he was sorry, for the fight, for all the weirdness lately. He'd wanted to apologize for being difficult.

Instead... he'd woken up to find a missed text from the night before, sent after he'd shoved Nova away but before he could stand to look at anything again.

I think you should spend time apart, not with me.

There it sits.

He hasn't unlocked his phone yet. Instead, he keeps tapping the button to light up the screen, looking at the message preview that has all he needs to see. Lets it go dark again. As if one of these times he'll click and it'll say something else.

But it doesn't,

It just says the same damn thing.

I think you should spend time apart.

Not with me.

He's still staring at it when another one comes in. He feels the soft pulse of his phone in his hand, and the screen lights on its own.

LAKEN - NOW Did you see my message?

He thinks maybe Kauri had it easier when he was the age Chris is now. Back when Kauri carried on entire conversations in emoji form, letting the nuance and ambiguity take over, the recipient working through the meaning on their own. With this, each letter is merciless, each word is unmistakable. He can’t misunderstand it.

Can he?

He opens the phone with shaking fingers, types back yes, presses send, and turns his phone off.

Then he throws it at the wall.

He’s grateful for the heavy plastic case that makes it bounce off and drop to the floor without breaking. There's a strip on the back, textured and a soft purple, gray, white, and black. He rubs his fingers over it sometimes in class to keep himself from rocking and being distracting.

Now he just... stares at it.

Laken bought that for him. They bought the shirt he's wearing right now-

He yanks it off his head before he can think, balls up the soft fabric and throws it as well. It just sort of drifts pointlessly to the floor, a single eyeball from the print of a band he likes staring back at him.

Laken has ranted before about people who break up by text message, and Chris has to breathe through a physical ache in his chest that tightens every muscle at how awful he must be that they're not doing this face to face. How awful, how used-up, how shredded apart, how fucking pretty he is.

After all, he and Laken have been together for more than a year, and he still held perfectly still for Nova to touch him before he remembered how to move. After all, he’s a grown man who still cried and fell apart when Jake was hurt. After all, after all, after all...

He scrambles across the floor for his phone again, turns it back on. Part of him hopes he’ll see a new text saying they take it back, they didn’t mean it. Or just asking him to apologize for what he’d said that night before, for how he’d thrown their confusion over his reaction to something back at them, echoing out the way Kauri fights sometimes, talking about himself the way he thinks everyone else might be thinking about him, so he says the insult first and no one else gets to surprise him with it.

But there’s nothing new.

He manages to open the texts again, barely, and breathes in gasps, nearly pants, as he types out, you don’t want me at your place?

Not right now.

Is it because of what I can’t do?

It takes them a minute to answer. Every single second ticks by with a slowness Chris hasn’t felt since his days in the cold white room, tied down to stillness, forced to endure every minute that passed in perfect silence or to the soundtrack of his own tears and pleading for it to stop.

When they do respond, it’s just, it’s because of what you won’t do.

His breath catches in his throat. The ache in his head starts to pound harder, and he has to close his eyes against a sharp stab behind them.

What he won’t do.

They’ve never cared before. How-... how could they suddenly care now? The fight had only a little bit been about that, it’d really been about something else. About his nightmares, how he’s not sleeping, not seeing his friends, skipping therapy. It hadn’t even been about... that. About what Chris can do and what he can’t, in bed.

But that was the thing - the fight had started when Chris had flinched back from Laken’s touch to his back, and snapped at them, and accused them of wanting too much, and...

And now this.

It’s like they knew about Nova. Knew that he could be good just fine - better than fine, Handler Petrus said he was one of the best he’d ever worked with once - he just... wouldn’t. Won’t. Doesn’t want to. Never wanted to.

Can’t do it without tearing himself to pieces all over again.

It was always a scream inside his mind, but should he have pushed it down and tried harder to be more like everyone else? Is he losing Laken because of it? Did Nova pick up on something Chris himself doesn’t know?

Should he have... tried?

Even if it hurt?

He drops the phone again, then kicks it viciously under his bed, listening to the scrape of it sliding across the floor, the thump as it hits the wall. He hears it vibrate again, but this time he doesn’t care what Laken has to say.

They’ve said enough.

He understands.

Part of him expected this eventually.

He leaves the room, doesn’t bother to pull on his compression shirt, even. He lets his skin prickle bare and exposed to the air. He accepts the discomfort, the uneasy feeling of being too seen, too felt.

The house is quiet, this early.

He makes himself toast with butter, wincing at the scrape of the knife against the crisp bread, the sound boring into his ears. But eventually it’s done, and he slumps into a chair at the kitchen table, willing himself to cry. Somehow, the tears just... don’t happen.

He can hear Jake snoring softly from the living room. He’d been up with Chris until nearly 4 am, then Chris was awake again at 6:30, looking at that text, looking over and over and over again. Two hours of sleep leave him weirdly euphoric alongside his despair. Like he’s floating in some nightmare place that isn’t awake and isn’t sleeping, either.

He’s probably slept nine hours in three days at this point. He keeps seeing Jake with a knife sticking out of him every time he closes his eyes. Jake, screaming as Antoni pushed cloth into his wound to stop up the bleeding. Jake with a bullet wound, sitting up against the wall, staring at him with wide eyes whispering, It’s okay, Tristan, I love you, it’s okay as he dies.

He can’t sleep. He can’t leave for long. He can’t breathe. He can’t think.

Him being what he is, it’s the reason Jake is hurt. If he hadn’t been his brother, he wouldn’t have decided to run a house for Romantics, and he wouldn’t have ended up dealing with all the dangerous bits about them.

Jake said it himself, didn’t he? It’s a mistake, running a house for Romantics. Not his best idea. A mistake.

Chris is a mistake.

Him being weak, and cowardly... it’s hurting Jake, making his life harder.

He makes everyone’s life harder.

There’s a soft sound of footsteps behind him, and he turns to find Nova in the doorway, staring back. She’s in a sleeveless gray dress and has her long dark hair pulled back from her temples, spilling in a waterfall down her back. Her eyes are dark and fathomless, and she gives him a faint, slight smile.

She had smiled like that with one hand down his pants.

Chris turns around, too fast, his head spinning a little, and hunches over his toast. “Good... good, um, good morning,” He mumbles.

She clears her throat. “Morning. Chris, about-... about last night...”

“Don’t, um, don’t-... don’t don’t don’t worry about it.” He takes a breath. He doesn’t want his toast any longer.

“I’m sorry,” She says, simply. “I spoke to Sarita about it, and... and she said this happens with us, and I should apologize, but, um. So I am. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have-... I thought I was helping.”

“I... know you did.” His words are slowing down. Chris can’t hold on to his thoughts, they want to drift away somewhere else, somewhere safer. Somewhere darker.

“When I was with-... with my Miss, she would always say, if you are sad the best way to fix it is to make your body forget that feeling, replace it with something else. And that was what we replaced my sadness with. So, you were sad and upset, and I thought I could fix it that way.” She pauses, flushing a little, looking down and to the side as she moves with effortless grace to get a glass and fill it with water, take a small sip.

“Kauri used to... to do that,” Chris says after a pause, thinking about it. Kauri, who would show up in the small hours of the morning reeking of liquor and someone else’s cologne, or just didn’t show up at all. Kauri, who would laugh instead of crying, and laugh with someone’s arms around him, a guy whose name he didn’t know.

Kauri, who ran and ran and ran and can do things and be things that Chris can’t.

Or... won’t.

What if he’s been hurting Laken this whole time and didn’t know it, because he was already hurt himself?

His foot starts to tap tap tap on the floor until he stops it.

“Did he? Did it-... work for him?” Nova asks it with genuine curiosity, and her eyes are so pretty. He looks up at her, and then down again, pushing the plate of toast away from himself.

“I don’t know,” Chris whispers. “I, I don’t know. He’s happy now, but...”

“Was he happy then?”

“No. But, but, but... maybe we aren’t supposed to be. At least... not with, with anyone... who isn’t like us.”

“Jake isn’t like us,” Nova points out. Her presence in the room feels heavy, like a weight pushing down on him. But what does it matter? He’s not with Laken anymore, anyway. If he wanted to, he could stand right up and kiss Nova right now, press her back into the counter, and learn what it’s like to be the one doing things and not just having them done to him.

But his body doesn’t stir at the thought. It never has.

“He is,” Chris answers. “A, a little bit. I’m, I’m, I’m sorry, too, Nova. Sorry that I-I can’t.”

“No, I know. You have a partner, and I shouldn’t have-”

“I don’t have... I, I, I I don’t have a partner anymore.” Chris stands up, leaving her there with his plate of untouched toast. The sky outside is bright as the sun rises, as if mocking the way he feels like a stormcloud inside.

Nova watches him leave, and whispers to herself, “No partner?”

Chris goes outside, pulling a sweatshirt that hangs on the coatrack on over his head to protect his skin, curling up on the porch swing and watching cars pulling out of driveways as the neighborhood starts to head to work in ones and twos.

He doesn’t cry.

He sits very, very still, and he is silent.

Upstairs, under the bed, his phone vibrates, again and again, unnoticed.

Just go talk to Nat, Chris. That’s all I said. Just go see Nat and get a night or three away from the house. Being there all the time is overwhelming you. Are you even looking at these? Chris you can’t just ignore me every time I say something you don’t like Chris answer me ... ... Oh shit, Chris, my phone autocorrected earlier and I didn’t notice I meant “some time at Nat’s”, not apart Chris? Are you seeing my messages? Baby? Chris, please check your phone and answer me. Please.

@burtlederp @finder-of-rings @endless-whump @whumpfigure @astrobly @newandfiguringitout @doveotions @pretty-face-breaker @gonna-feel-that-tomorrow @boxboysandotherwhump @oops-its-whump @cubeswhump @whump-tr0pes @downriver914 @whumptywhumpdump @whumpiary @orchidscript @nonsensical-whump @outofangband @eatyourdamnpears

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yurtletheturtlehenderson · 3 years ago

Text

COSMIC - S3:E4; Chapter Four, The Sauna Test - [Pt. 1]

A Will Byers x Reader Series

𝘔𝘪𝘬𝘦, 𝘓𝘶𝘤𝘢𝘴, 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘞𝘪𝘭𝘭 𝘳𝘦𝘤𝘳𝘶𝘪𝘵 𝘌𝘭, 𝘔𝘢𝘹 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘠/𝘯 𝘵𝘰 𝘩𝘦𝘭𝘱 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘮 𝘭𝘦𝘢𝘳𝘯 𝘸𝘩𝘰 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘔𝘪𝘯𝘥 𝘍𝘭𝘢𝘺𝘦𝘳'𝘴 𝘩𝘰𝘴𝘵 𝘪𝘴 𝘸𝘩𝘪𝘭𝘦 𝘙𝘰𝘣𝘪𝘯, 𝘚𝘵𝘦𝘷𝘦, 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘋𝘶𝘴𝘵𝘪𝘯 𝘳𝘦𝘤𝘳𝘶𝘪𝘵 𝘴𝘰𝘮𝘦𝘰𝘯𝘦 𝘵𝘰 𝘴𝘯𝘦𝘢𝘬 𝘪𝘯𝘵𝘰 𝘓𝘺𝘯𝘹.

📝: Thank you guys so much for being patient, I really didn't expect an update till after I had finished moving but your excitement and comments from this preview alone inspired me and I found moments here and there it got me on a roll so thank youu!!

⚠️: anxiety attack, kidnapping and nightmare sequence featuring the following; strangulation, kidnapping, possible claustrophobia triggers(??)/imprisonment [skip markers for all, one for anxiety the second for kidnapping and dream sequence] and finally, not a warning but I feel like I need to make this not so depressing but SO MUCH GAY FLUFF YALL 🌈🌈🌈

||𝐑𝐄𝐀𝐃𝐄𝐑'𝐒 𝐏𝐎𝐕||

Another bolt of lightning flashed across the sky, and a sudden bright light filled the bathroom.

After leaving Heather's house, the three of us had decided to crash at Max's. Neither of us really wanted to be alone after everything happened today, so one quick call to my mom and a note at the cabin and here we are.

I stood before the bathroom mirror with slightly sunken eyes and the tap running on cold as I brushed my teeth mindlessly. The clothes Max had found that would fit me felt snug and warm, just out of the dryer and they smelled like her. It was a welcome change to my drenched clothes now in the wash.

The thunder was mostly muted from inside but not altogether, and I could hear the muffled voices of Max and El from down the hall as I brush my teeth. I try to focus on the gentle pitter-patter of rain on Max's roof and the calm lull it brought to the atmosphere but it was of little help. I could still hear Billy's voice clear as day,

"What a pleasure it is to meet you El. And of course, who could possibly forget..."

《•••》

I watched as Billy slowly wrenched his head towards mine, his hollow gaze falling over me.

•••

I step out onto the porch, slipping the hood back over my head when I feel it again.

•••

She winced as she whipped around to face him, his sunken, darkened eyes widening as they pierced her own.

•••

The sound of my name on his tongue made my skin crawl, his voice all the way in the back of his throat.

《•••》

You

[■■■■■■■■Anxiety Trigger■■■■■■■■]

Another clap of thunder explodes in the distance and I drop my toothbrush, gripping the edge of the counter. Swallowing deep gulps of air, I try to remember the breathing technique Joyce told me about.

Breath in for four.

I draw in a slow deep breaths, letting my eyes flutter closed.

Hold for seven.

As I count the seconds, I follow her instructions and try to focus on my other senses to ground me. I first notice the water running in the sink and the pitter-patter of rain on the roof. The smell of coconut from the hand soap. And even the warm feel of the clothes from the dryer.

Breath out for eight.

I release the built-up air in my lungs in a steady puff but I don't feel my grip on the counter loosen any. The chill is still in my bones, and I can still feel his eyes on me.

Breath in.

The cold, hollowness in his eyes.

Hold.

The blood all over this very bathroom, and El's frightened cries on the floors of the locker room.

I double over the counter, releasing the air tightening my lungs before I can even get to five. I sigh, steadying my breathing and regaining any I had lost as I stare nose-first into the running water disappearing down the drain. I feel hot tears stinging my eyes as the panic builds and I curse under my breath.

I haven't had an attack in so long.

[■■■■■■■■Over■■■■■■■■]

Sighing again, I cup my palms under the water and splash it over my face, fighting a wince when the hot water burns my face.

I wipe away the beads of water dripping over my cheeks and brow, feeling as the air turns it instantly to cool and that's when I frown.

Wait.

Quickly, I swipe the excess water off my eyes and look down at the tap.

It was all the way on cold, as it was when I first turned it on.

I look back at my hands, noting their usual s/c shade. No hint of light or heat in sight. I look back in the mirror, searching my eyes and lips for hints of my usual strain but I find nothing.

My eyes drop back to the running tap, my face written with confusion and head cocked as I watch steam pour out from the stream of running water. I test the metal spout pouring out water and sure enough, the metal is already warming confirming my suspicions.

A sudden familiar voice spoke out from the other side of the closed door, but it wasn't enough to pry my frown away from the running water.

"Y/n?"

It was Max.

"You alright in there?"

My heart was still beating sporadically and my skin was flushing familiarly but I tried to remind myself where I was. That I was safe. And clearly, the Mayfields needed to have their plumbing checked since their heating was flipped.

The thought was enough to expel a sharp breath of relief, and I seemed to snap back to reality. Mostly.

I switched off the water, the cold water tap squeaking as I did so. Quiet returned to the room, and I shook out my hands in the sink and cleared my throat.

"Yeah, I'll be right out," I say, wincing at the waver in my voice.

I picked up the dropped toothbrush and shook out the droplets, finally deciding to tuck it away on the counter where I could deal with it later. Thankfully, it hadn't actually been mine but a spare they had among a pack of unopened toothbrushes.

I look back at my reflection, drying the remaining water off my face with a towel, and sigh.

Clearly, it had been a stressful night and things were starting to get to me. That's all. I don't know what's up with Billy, but something's definitely wrong. I know I'm not wrong either if El can feel it too.

Breath in.

I double-check the counter, checking I have everything. The image pushes itself into my head again, and I wince but I don't stop my breathing exercise.

Hold.

"And of course, who could forget..."

Y/n counted each painful second as she held the air captive in her lungs, trying with everything in her to focus on her breathing over the hollow voice of Billy Hargrove echoing in her mind. As she did so, she turned and made her way for the bathroom door, unknowingly leaving behind the still undrained ice bath that was now beginning to boil.

"You."

⊹ ⊹ ⊹

"Which one?" Max asks with an adorable grin.

"I don't know," El mumbled weakly with a shrug. She peered up at me as I returned to my spot in between them on the floor. "What do you think?"

I settle myself under Max's comforter and into her rainbow sheets on our makeshift nest on the floor. As I readjusted myself on the pillow, I shrugged half-heartedly, not really trying my best to act totally present.

Max sits up, growing serious, and grabs both our gazes.

"Hey," she says, her voice soft. "there's nothing to worry about anymore, okay?"

The fake smile fell off my face and my eyes fell to my hands. They were wringing together in my lap. El's eyes flickered to me, her face dropping a little as if she recognized my state and spoke up.

"It doesn't make sense,"

"What doesn't make sense?" Max asks.

"What does?" I say under my breath, wringing my hands tighter.

"Heather," El continued. "The blood. The ice."

"Heather had a fever, so she took a cold bath, but she's better now. That has to be it," Max says, sounding almost as if she's trying to convince herself as well. "I don't know where that blood came from, but... we saw her."

She looks between me and El, trying to look as reassuring as possible.

"We all saw her. She's totally fine."

El didn't seem to buy it any more than I did.

"What about Billy?"

"What about him?"

"He seemed... wrong." She says and I nod.

Max gave a weak chuckle. "Wrong is kind of like his default. But it's nice to know he's not a murder, because that would've totally sucked."

I finally break my silence with an involuntary scoff. My next words come tumbling out without me thinking.

"Yeah, especially on top of everything else,"

Max replicates my scoff and I look at her almost desperately.

"Okay, but you get what I'm saying, right? I've met him and he does not act like that Max," my voice lowers a bit from its almost defensive pitch. "I don't think I need to remind you what he did to Lucas, or you, or how he treats me. I may not know him like you, but he's never that polite, even to people he likes, and I know you know it too,"

Max just stares for half a moment, not saying or doing anything but biting her lip. Finally, she sighs at her lap, pensively.

"I get what you're saying," she says, looking between El and me again. "Both of you. He was being totally weird, I'll give you that. I just really think we need to be careful about this." She shrugs. "For all we know, he was probably trying to impress the Holloways."

She makes suggestive eyes with a disgusted, uncomfortable laugh as she elbowed me. "Maybe he really wants to get closer to Heather,"

I laugh, making a face.

"Oh, barf,"

A small smile finds its way onto El's lips and she reluctantly joins into our laughter with a frown. "What?"

"You don't want to know," I chuckle, burying myself further under the sheets.

El seemed satisfied enough with my answer and followed my lead. She shivered a little on my right, as Max got settled back in on my left. I looked over at El when I felt her shifting around. She was snuggling closer, and her arms wrapped around my left like a koala bear, her eyes threatening to close. I watched her with a small flutter in my stomach as she nuzzled her head into my shoulder and gave a content sigh. "Warm," I heard her mumble.

I didn't dare move, other than grinning down at her and tucking my head on hers as we both looked over at Max and the pile of comics she had.

Not letting go of my arm, El sat her head up a little and pointed to the only cover with Wonder Woman on it with a curious look in her eye.

"Who... is that?"

Max and I both perk up as she grabs the comic.

"See, this is why you can't just hang out with Mike all the time." She explains. "This is Wonder Woman. A.K.A. Princess Diana,"

The three of us simultaneously lean back against our propped-up pillows on the wall, snuggling into one another. I take hold of the comic for Max, turning to page one as Max and I begin pointing out different pictures on the page.

"She's from Paradise Island, which is, like, this hidden island there are only women Amazon warriors."

El smiles and I point to her lasso of truth.

"Yeah, and she's devoted to bringing good to the world, like most superheroes. She even has this lasso - which is kind of a long rope tied in a circle - that helps her fight crime, and it can even make people tell the truth..."

"It's super cool," Max jumps in.

That flutter grows as I watch El point out different things on the page with a smile that only grew the more she learned. Or the more Max would light up with another Wonder Woman fact. And minute by minute, as the night crept on just like this, the more I forgot about the horrifying questions of today and more on my best friends beside me.

I was safe.

For now.

[■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■]

When Tom Holloway awoke, he immediately knew something was wrong.

His hands were bound behind his back, some sort of cloth was wrapped around his head and stuffed in his mouth as a gag and he felt nauseous. Never mind the fact his head was throbbing and bleeding, and he was somewhere dark, cold, and unknown.

That's when he remembered.

Heather.

The girls in his living room had just left, his wife Janet was acting strange and... she was drugged. And it had been his Heather. His little baby Heather and that boy.

He had to get out, he had to find them. He had to get to his family.

He fights with a grunt against the restraints around his wrists. He winces as the rope stings his burns his skin and as he squirms he gets a better feel for what he's tied to. It's some sort of pipe.

And yet he's so focused on his escape and finding his family, he doesn't realize his wife is by his side.

Her muffled, horrified shrieks as she comes to.

"Tom!"

He lets out a sob when he sees her, in his voice a jumbled mixture of relief and sorrow. She looked no better than he felt, and steady tears streaked down her cheeks with mascara.

A pair of footsteps grab their attention to two figures approaching from the shadows. The very same people to have brought them here.

Heather and Billy.

Tom lets out another involuntary whimper as his daughter approaches him, a blank faraway look in her eyes.

"Hi, Daddy,"

He watches tearfully as she kneels down to his height, and removes the bounds from his mouth.

"Heather..." he gasps, swallowing fearful tears and the lump in his throat. He throws one cautious glare over her shoulder at the young man before softening again at his daughter. "Sweetie... whatever this is, whatever he's got you into, you don't have to do this. You can stop this."

"There is no stopping it, Daddy," she says in an unusually cold voice. "You'll see."

With the ghost of a smile, she cups his tear-stained cheek and he cries again.

"No," he silently begs.

But she's already on her feet, returning to Billy's side as he approaches Janet as Heather had Tom.

Her whimpers grow more frantic as he reaches for her, and before she knows it she's wriggling free from the cloth gag he removes from her mouth. She wastes no time in crying out to her baby girl.

"Heather, please! Heather!"

The words died out into a fearful whisper when Billy's finger pushes against her lips, silencing her. She feels her whole body tremoring as he leans in close, his voice that same gravely tone he let slip earlier that night.

"Try not to move."

They fear the worst only to watch confused as he rises to his feet and retreats up the steps with their daughter.

"No," Janet mumbles tearfully after them. "No!"

"Heather!" Tom cries, fighting hard against the restraints no matter how hard they hurt. "Heather!"

Something in the dark abyss of shadows stole their attention. Something Tom almost misses at first It was a most unusual sound. Something low and otherworldly... almost like a growl reverberating off of tin.

They watched with widened, bloodshot eyes as they try to make out the great beast emerging from the shadows.

"Jesus Christ,"

It's all Tom can bring himself to say, his voice in a trembling whisper.

What marched out from the shadows on its six, wobbling legs was something else entirely. A monster, he was not sure he was seeing. A demon he was not ready to face. A horror, he could not possibly fathom.

The Mind Flayer.

He had evolved past his shadowy form, yet he always lurked in darkness. He was darkness. His features remained spider-like, six long legs as tall as the ceiling it was now scraping, branching out into smaller tendrils like one grotesque, haunched tree.

But the worst part of all - the sickening detail that revealed itself as it grew closer.

The Mind Flayer was made entirely out of flesh and bone.

Tom's cries for help were stolen right out of his mouth when he felt the first touch of the monster.

Tom couldn't register much through all the fear. He felt the cold, slimy grasp swallow up his face just as surely as beard his wife's horrified shrieks. He tried to scream, tried to breathe but any and every effort in doing so brought with it more icy sludge entering his system from the source. It was like swallowing sand as he drowned, gasping in large gulps of seawater that slowly filled his lungs.

Only worse. Tom was alive to feel it. To live through it, to breath through it.

All Tom Holloway could do was peer up at the snarling monster from his one uncovered eye as he feels the icy darkness envelop him completely.

⊹ ⊹ ⊹

"What on earth are you doing here?" He asks. "Is something wrong?"

"We just... wanted to make sure everything was okay," Max stammered, just as confused as her friends.

A look of concern flashed over Billy's face as he inched closer. "Okay? Why wouldn't it be okay?"

"You know damn well why," I grumble, my gut lurching at my sudden bravery but Billy doesn't seem to notice.

In fact, no one did. I look at Max and El, but they haven't even flinched, neither have the man or the woman sitting in the dining room.

I looked to my left at El expectantly, as if I know she's going to speak. As if I've lived this moment before.

I'm relieved to see she doesn't seem to buy into Billy's act either.

"Where is she?" El all but growls.

I shifted on my feet, barely noticing the familiar tug of those words in the back of my head. But what would Billy say?

His eyes snap to El, and she could have sworn she almost saw that mask break.

"I'm sorry," he said slowly. "Where is who?"

"Well, they're a little burnt, I'm sorry,"

All eyes turn to the chipper young girl striding in with a tray of cookies in her hands and a lingering smile on her face.

"Heather," I gasp, feeling a wave of relief and fear all at once.

The only troubling thing about her was the crisp cinnamon cookies in her hands. She had trailed off upon noticing the three young visitors.

"Heather!" Billy smiles, welcoming her as if she was an old friend.

I just felt like I'm seeing a ghost.

"This is my sister, Maxine," Billy chirps, turning back to the three confused girls. "And I'm sorry," he says to El, with an almost edge to his voice. "I did not quite catch your name."

I inch closer to her, my shoulder wedging over hers in a protective stance but that felt useless.

With a determined look in her eyes, she matches his steely gaze.

"El."

I grimace as Billy forces a smile. It was chilling. Truly haunting. But he was still angry, I could tell.

In fact, he was livid. Why was he so livid? What had El done?

"El." He hums. "What a pleasure it is to meet you El. And of course, who could possibly forget..."

His eyes lurched to mine and I felt my stomach drop, maybe as fast as the temperature in the whole house. Like I was plunged into ice.

I wanted to move, I tried to run but I couldn't. My legs were rooted to the spot like they were when it really happened.

And then...

His voice was a growl that grew in the back of his throat, his lips curling back in a snarl as he bared his teeth.

"You."

His hand was around my throat and my feet left the ground. I tried crying for help but my voice was gone, leaving me no choice but to claw at Billy's arms as I fought for breath. My legs were finally moving again, kicking and squirming as I tried to reach him or even the ground but they never did, no matter how close.

I had to fight to look at El and Max but they were gone, as were the Holloways. Fading away like smoke.

"Let me go!" I somehow cry. "Let me go, now!"

He blinks at me, his face a clean slate. Nothing in his features, he's almost like a projection.

My feet return to the floor and tears flood my cheeks. But I'm not free, not any more than he had listened.

He started off down the hall, where we first came from, my throat still in his grip. I was dragging along the floor, my feet kicking and shoes grabbing the wood linoleum for traction but the hall just kept getting longer.

I was crying heavily, pleading with him to let me go. I tried and tried with all my might to hurt him, but no matter what I threw at him he just kept dragging me down the hall.

He took a left and I watched behind us, still fighting as the walls gradually changed from olive-green to grey.

I sent another long, hot burst of air up at him but he didn't flinch.

The grey paint turned to white.

I clawed and scraped and melted his skin, or at least I tried to but his grip never loosened.

The white painted walls turned to a white brick.

I got more frantic, kicking and even harder and screaming at the top of my lungs, embracing the hurt. The walls shook and cracked but Billy kept walking, dragging me along.

The white brick turned to white tile as we made another turn.

"No! No! NO!"

Billy looked down at me for the first time since he grabbed me. There was a haunted, almost painted-on smile on his face as he peered down. The large fluorescent lights above our heads tinged a sickly green, hurting my eyes almost as bad as the pad of my feet trying to grip the linoleum floors.

"But you belong here."

"NO! LET ME GO! LET ME GO!"

I continue to wail and kick and scream, even as we come to a slow. He yanks me to my feet, and I hear a dreadful click of a lock that makes me shudder.

"No," I sob. "I can't. I don't... I don't want to be here,"

Billy looks deep into my eyes, feeling like a whole other person entirely. A third person, more specifically.

Not only that, he sounds horrifically familiar.

He pushes something over my shoulder and I hear the creak of a door. And before I can protest, my body is thrown into an all brick white room as the voice continues I believe to be Billy but I realize is an all too familiar doctor.

"You don't mean that, my dearest Nine," I hear his withering voice echoing all around me as I catch my breath on all fours where I had fallen. "I know you don't want to upset your Papa,"

Tears fall from my cheeks, my rage and fear building as I prepare to throw everything I have at him. No matter what it costs.

With heaving breaths I push myself off the cold tile floors and turn to the door I was just thrown through. But all I'm met with is the same white walls. There's no door, no way out. And no one else around.

I'm all alone.

It's then I remember, I've been here before. I'm brought here often. Somewhere in the back of my head I finally register this is a nightmare but I'm too deep inside to pull myself out. Instead, in a plight of anger, I throw my fists in the wall repeatedly as I cry out in anguish until I have no breath left.

My eyes snap to my arm when I feel an excruciating pain concentrated onto my left inner wrist. I choke on another sob as I stare at the three black numbers tattooed into my skin.

𝟶𝟶𝟿

Growing more frantic, I pace the walls as my tears return, running my hands along the wall for any sort of false door or hatch until my nerve ending in my hands are shot and numb.

I collapse into the corner, hugging my chest and the white, spotted lab gown over my body.

Everything's building in me, heat sizzling off my shoulders and melting the wall and for a moment I think I found my way out. I can melt the walls, break them down but I try and try and-

[■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■]

||𝟑𝐑𝐃 𝐏𝐄𝐑𝐒𝐎𝐍 𝐏𝐎𝐕||

"Y/N!"

The girl shot awake, kicking off the sheets that clung to her sweating skin, and gulped down desperate breaths of air. Max and El jumped when she did, but it Y/n moments to realize they were sitting opposite her. Farther away.

Realizing what had happened, she doubled over and threw her face in her hands with an exasperated sigh.

"Shit..." she mumbles, rubbing at the sleepiness in her eyes. "Guys, I'm sorry. I should have warned you. I've been having really bad nightmares lately and... guys?"

Y/n had to really look to see them, more specifically the looks on their faces. Hardly any light was streaming in through the windows, the sky a light and bright cobalt. But it was enough to barely accentuate the worried frown on El's face and the painful wince Max wore as she clutched her forearm and the thin layer of sweat coating their skin.

"What-? What happened?" She croaked, looking to Max. "Are you okay?"

Max shot you a quick, forced smile as she still clutched her arm.

"I'm fine, but... are you?"

Her stomach dropped and turned all at once, her mouth falling into a gasp as she brought her hands in towards herself and away from her friends.

"Did I... did I do that to you?"

She shook her head quickly, trying to examine her arm in the dark and that's when Y/n barely makes it out: a spot on her paled skin was almost the size of a coaster; dark and festering.

"Oh, my god, I didn't mean- I am so sorry, I-" Y/n's mouth remained open but the words kept getting stuck in her throat.

Finally, she jumped to her feet and kicked off the sheets still sticking to her legs, and made her way to the door.

"Oh, my god. Oh, my god. Oh, my god. Oh, my god. Oh, my god. Oh, my god. Oh, my god. Oh, my god. Oh, my god,"

El and Max watched as she began speedwalking out into the hall and heading for the linen closet, her voice trailing off with her in a familiar Henderson fashion. They knew they would be unable to stop her, especially in this condition.

Instead, they looked to one another, silently sharing their worry at what had just transpired.

El had stirred from the sudden and intense heat that took over Max's room, her plastic water bottle now nearly half empty and filled with condensation. And Max had awoken not from the heat but the sudden, subtle tremors shaking the house and the small glow that was peaking through her eyelids.

When she had cracked her eyes open, she had seen Y/n on the neighboring pillow, a pained look on her tinted face. Hints of her veins were cropping up on the edge of her lips and she had then felt the light kicks of her friend. She had pulled herself up, rubbing at her eyes and that's when she noticed how much she had been sweating.

The room was still in a steady rumble and El was already awake.

"What's going on?" El had whispered from across their friend.

"I don't know, I think..." Max peered down at Y/n with a pitiful look. "I think she's having a nightmare. I think she's mentioned those lately."

"What do we do?"

Max shrugged, jumping slightly when the rumble had grown loud enough for concern.

"Well, we gotta wake her," Max had said, anxiously.

Y/n's kicking had returned and soft whimpers were escaping her lips and Max felt something tug on her heart.

She reached forward, only for a hand to grab around her forearm.

Max looked down at El's hand then at El with a confused frown.

"What?"

El shoots an unsure look between her and Y/n, her face written with unease.

"Try another way," she whispers.

"I'm not sure what else to do," Max says with a shrug. "Do you?"

El frowned again, finally shaking her head in defeat. Whimpering cries grew louder and they looked to Y/n who was freely crying. And looking less than compliant, and against her better judgment, El let's go.

Max wasn't naive. She knew the likely dangers of waking her friend but she didn't want her to suffer. So instead, she bunched up the blankets over her hand and began to softly shake her.

"Y/n..."

No response. She just continued to cry, and Max had continued to shake the more she grew worried. Before she knew it, Y/n had thrown herself on her back, her hands grabbing for Max's.

Y/n kept tossing, speaking in a clear voice. "Let me go."

Max felt the intense flare of heat in her arm and she yanked it back, scrambling backward as she hissed an impressive string of curses. El had jumped, looking desperately to Max as they both felt the air grow increasingly hotter.

She watched wide-eyed as she clutched her arm, and it hadn't been until El intervened they finally got her awake.

El returned her eyes to the lesion on Max's arm and her face grows soft.

"Really okay?"

Max nodded. "Yeah. I'll be fine."

On cue, Y/n had returned from the hall with a wet washcloth, aloe vera, and a thin bandage.

"Again, Max, I am so so sorry,"

"It's fine, really. I know you didn't do it on purpose," she winced again when it stings. "Can't say it feels great, though,"

"Here,"

Y/n flipped on the light on Max's bedside and returned to her friends' side with the supplies.

"I hadn't realized how bad it's been getting lately," Y/n explains as she begins tending to Max. "My dreams I mean, and all this,"

She looks between El and Max with a weak wince before giving Max a warning look. The redhead nods and Y/n places the washcloth onto the wound and Max hisses. It was barely colder than room temperature but that helped.

"Sorry, sorry, I know," Y/n says. Thinking twice, she hands it off to Max with a guilty smile. "Probably better you hold onto that,"

Max nodded and took the washcloth in hand as Y/n prepared the aloe vera.

"What happened?" El asked suddenly.

Y/n looked curiously at El before she realized she was asking about her dream. Her stomach dropped again, and she fought the urge to touch her throat.

"Just some freaky, memories and... well, not memories I guess. It's hard to explain."

"You can tell us," El said, touching her arm as she remembered the words Y/n had spoken to her so long ago that she had always cherished. "If you need anything... at all... we're here."

A grateful smile broke out on her face as she looked at her best friends. "Thank you."

Returning to the twist cap, she pours out a quarter-size drop of the green sludge and Max peels back the washcloth, reluctantly.

"Don't worry, I'm all cooled down," Y/n laughed. Max nodded and handed out her arm and Y/n got to work as she talked. "It really is hard to explain," she sighs. "It was last night, with Billy... but it wasn't. He was after me, and he... he hurt me. And the next thing I knew I was being dragged back."

"Back where?" The two girls both ask.

Y/n pours another drop on her fingers and continues to spread rub gentle circles into Max's skin as she looks between her friends. She bites her lip, almost afraid to bring it up in front of El.

"...at the lab." El subtly stiffens. "Which I know is impossible cause I've never been there. But it felt so real. To be honest, I've been having dreams like these - of there - a lot lately."

"That's awful,"

"I'm sorry,"

Y/n shrugs, grabbing for the ace bandage and thin square of gauze. She delicately places it over the wound and she grimaces when she gets a better long-term what she had done. It was dark red and puffy, and Y/n hoped her makeshift treatment would work.

"Not really much I can do," she says, Max holding one end of the strip as Y/n began to wrap. "I just try to remind myself I made it out."

Securing the bandage, she instinctually places a hand over the cloth, securing her work, and smiles. She turns to El, a new seriousness in her eyes and Y/n takes El's hand in her own, giving it a quick squeeze.

"We both did,"

El's smile returns and she feels a warmth spread through her and into her chest. A comforting one, much unlike the heat still lingering in the room.

At the thought, El looks at Max curiously.

"Do your windows open?"

"Yeah," she frowns. "Why?"

El flicks her head and a soft click goes off behind them, followed by the suction of air leaving the room suddenly. Y/n and Max yank their gaze to the window to see it peeled open, letting in a cool breeze through the half-shut blinds.

She swipes at her nose, and the room falls silent as the three meet eyes and a grin breaks out on all three as they begin to laugh.

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ryuu-to-sobakasu-hime · 3 years ago

Text

Ryuu to Sobakasu no Hime (Belle) Novel | English Translation | Chapter 3

**This is a machine translation. I put it together by extracting text page-by-page from a .pdf version of the Japanese novel, and running it through Google translate. I have only minorly edited some of the more confusing lines to make it more read-able. It is still a very rough translation, but it’s good enough to understand what’s going on. If there is anyone out there who wants to properly translate the novel, I am more than happy to edit it, if you’ll contact me.**

———————————————

Chapter 3: Memory

"Mother."

"What is it, Suzu?"

When I called, my mother turned around and replied.

Eleven years ago. The house was still new. There was no garage yet, and potted flowers were lined up all over the garden. "Do not cut my hair."

I told her that and ran down the slope in front of my house. Mom walked down the stairs opposite her, resting her hand on her waist and waiting. I ran away in the opposite direction, bouncing, saying that I would never let my hair be cut. But I was taken back without a hitch. She was seated on a bench in the garden and dressed in a haircut cape. “I’m going to make you look cute, Suzu.” After cutting my hair, I don't like the tingling of my hair. She shook her legs and sharpened her lips. But when she held the scissors without hesitation, she cut my hair all at once. "Because you’re going to be an elementary school student," I hope the hair on both sides doesn't stick to my shoulders. The bangs were far above the eyebrows. Even when I went to school, my neck was tingling for a while.

I played a lot with my mother. I took a sumo wrestling on the lawn of the riverbed in the evening. I pushed her by force and my mother rolled on the grass. I won, I laughed happily. Mother also laughed. I asked why? Won’t she cry if she loses? Mom shook her head. “I'm glad that the weak Suzu has become stronger.” Dad was laughing while lying on the grass. My mother often made salted seared meat. She lightly sprinkles salt and roasts the bonito stabbed on a gold skewer from her lenticel over an open flame on the stove. I was staring from the top of the chair. Since the fat drips, the microwave oven will not get dirty if you bake it while sucking it with cooking paper. When it gets burnt, dip it in ice water to cool it, and then drain it. It was a style. So as a kid, I had a hard time holding a thick piece of salted meat with chopsticks, and I had a hard time putting it in my mouth. Mom was waiting for dad's return, holding a mug and watching my struggle.

My dad was a salaryman at that time, and he wore a tie and went out to the city every day. Perhaps because of that, we had some money in our house in the old days. Mother bought a state-of-the-art smartphone at the time. I decided to try out the performance of the on-board camera, and on dad's lap, I pointed my smartphone at my mom. I asked dad to help put mom in the frame and pressed the shutter. She is dressed in white.

The smiling mother, she was beautiful. The photo of her was printed on paper and is still at the house. I was a cheerful child running around, unlike now. I definitely liked playing outside rather than inside the house. If there were trees, I climbed, if there were leaves, I tore them, and if there were insects, I chased them. But it didn't burn in the sun. I must have been such a constitution. Instead, my face is freckled.

I was often injured. My knee was also full of scratches. In the woods, on the riverbed, on the slope in front of my house, I often stumbled and fell. My mother ran up in a hurry and she hugged me tightly, crying in pain. Mysteriously, it hurts somewhere. That's when I was happy. I don't know how many times I fell because I ran around vigorously and wanted mother to hug me. Every time mother rushed in as if it was a big deal for her daughter and worried. Every day was like summer vacation. I clung to mother doing the laundry and cleaning and played. After lunch, she opened the tatami mat, laid a summer futon on the tatami mats, and we took a nap together. The smoke of the mosquito coil was rising slowly. When I woke up, most of the time, I couldn't see my mother sleeping next to me, and she was busy doing housework. In retrospect, she never been told me that she is busy. She was always with me when I asked for it. Since my house was in the mountains, I rarely went out to eat somewhere, and instead my mother cooked any kind of food. One day she saw it in a picture book, and she said she wanted to eat yakitori. She had never eaten it before. My mother made yakitori by sticking chicken on skewers one by one. For the first time in my life, I saw yakitori with the naked eye. I didn't know how to eat it, so I couldn't do well by chewing the meat and removing it from the skewers. Dad and mom were staring at me. Never missing what her daughter experiences for the first time in her life. The place where we, who live in the mountains, go out to play is not an amusement park or a shopping mall, but a campsite further in the mountains from our house.

On a sunny summer day, my mom and I wore a wide-brimmed hat and crossed the subsidence bridge. Dad was carrying a lot of camping equipment. The water crystal pool in the depths of the Yasui Valley was a breathtaking blue color even for us living in the area. The water is so transparent that you can clearly see your shadow on the bottom of the river. I feel a little scared as if I were floating in the air. My mother was an advanced swimmer. She boasted that her mother, who was once a local kid, swam like a kappa every day in the summer. She knew all about the fun of the river. At the same time, she never let her swim in dangerous places on dangerous days. Mom wraps around me, floating. She dived into the water to show her off her skills. Still picked up by her, I became anxious and called out. “Mom, don't go.” But mom, she swam in the blue water, as if she couldn't hear me.

One evening, I was playing with my mother's smartphone and saw a strange app. I put it on. When you launch the app, you'll see white and black horizontal stripes lined up. I pointed to what this was and asked my dad who was next to me. Dad looked it and twisted his neck, calling mother, who was preparing dinner. After dinner, mother's hand fixed the smartphone I was holding vertically. I laid it down and found it to be a piano keyboard. As prompted, I pressed one of the keys. There was a "do" sound. I looked at my mother's face. My mother also saw my face, saying that she had come out. It's mom’s music production app. Only then did I look around my mother's room and notice. Old records, cassette tapes, and CDs are lined up on the shelves to the end. And if you set them on a record player or cassette deck and pass them through an amplifier, music will be played from the left and right speakers. The collection was a brilliant one that accurately captured the main points of the history of classical, jazz and rock. I didn’t know at the time, the value and meaning of such a lineup being packed in a room at the end of the world.

In that room, I pressed the keys of the app one after another and recorded. When played, each sound sounds in the order in which they are arranged. Even if you enter an insane scale, it will play back in a lawful manner. I was so happy that I bounced on my chair. My mother was laughing too. Warm incandescent light was illuminating us. After that, I was crazy about this app. I had my mother lend me a smartphone and I was playing around with it day, night and morning. The operation was intuitive and easy to use. There were words that I couldn’t read because it wasn’t a children's app. And there were many functions I didn't understand. But I was absorbed in that kind of thing. I was completely absorbed in the exciting new experience of writing songs. I composed a number of songs and previewed them in front of my mother. The mother who finished listening gave me advice in short words each time. If you do xxx, it will be better, or the trick is to do xxx. She sometimes took out some of the records in the collection and listened to them for reference. My mother is neither a musician nor a composer.

I think each piece of advice is accurate even if I look back on it now. Over and over again, she listened to my melody, and she said she noticed something, and she sang herself to make sure it was. When I asked, she said it wasn't bad. She said she was smirking at me as she said. I put the sound in a place that I wouldn't normally put it. I'm sure this song was a failure, and all the work I've done so far will be ruined. But as it gradually takes shape, it seems strangely cohesive, she said. I felt as happy as I wanted to. I'm sure it's my parents' favor, but even if my mother added, I was happy. For me, I'm not making it with the intention of letting someone else listen to it. It would have been nice if only my mother could listen to it. My mother sings along with the song I typed in. Take the tempo with her right hand and sing gently. The voice of mother, who was also a member of the chorus made by her friends, echoed and was transparent.

She listened to my weird songs many times. I was happy and sang along with it. Anyway, it’s a song that is as nice as my mother.

I couldn't. Happy memories of me and mother suddenly end here. And that August has come. After this, all I have is a painful, painful memory. The voice of a little girl crying and crying echoed in the riverbank. A girl was left alone on a sandbar. Is she 4 or 5 years old? She looked smaller than I was. It was so sunny just a while ago, but I noticed it wasn't a blue sky, and it was covered with overcast clouds. The beautiful and calm river was cloudy, flooded, driftwood-filled, and surprisingly fast. I can imagine that it is raining heavily upstream. Before this happened, there were people happily making noise on the opposite bank when the flow was still transparent. They are now staring at the girl on this shore. She wore colorful outdoor clothing that made it easy to see that she probably came from the city, not a local. The girls' clothes were also bright colors that I had never seen. Why did people from the city overlook the girls' flashy colored clothes? Why did she forget her existence and she came back to this shore? What to do with friends, their families, and those who enjoyed fishing and canoeing on the riverbanks.

It seemed that she couldn't do anything, and she had no choice but to stand and look like a stick. It's no wonder you're standing. The violent flow of the river separated the girl from the people. Everyone realized that it couldn't be helped. One of the adults was talking to someone on his cell phone. However, everyone can see that where the girl is, is gradually narrowing. Everyone is aware that it is very unlikely that the rescue team will arrive in time. Therefore, I have no choice but to stand up without being able to do anything. Is it just listening to the girl's crying as it is? At that time, someone picked up the red life jacket beside the canoe.

I went forward while staring at the girl. She was a mother. Mommy, and I hurriedly clung to the hem of her mother's clothes. She realized that what her mother was trying to do was too dangerous. She wouldn't have been anxious. She screamed and pulled hard, trying not to let her go. Mom crouched down and squeezed my hand, and she told me something. At that time I can't remember what mother said. Maybe I was screaming and not ready to hear the words. Mom stood up to shake off my chasing and ran, locking the buckle on her life jacket. I fell down on a stone in the riverbank trying to chase her. Still, I got up and shouted at mother's back. Don't go. I think mom didn’t hear my words. While checking the girl's whereabouts, I went around the river, went into the water, and got in the stream to help. It started to rain.

How long has it passed since then? Suddenly the surroundings became noisy. The girl was rescued from the river. Adults are pulling the soaked and tired girl out of the river. I was staring at while getting wet in the rain. People running up. A mixture of joyful voices and crying voices. Are you okay? Open your eyes. I'm glad I was saved ... The girl was wearing the same red life jacket that her mother wore. At that moment, I understood at once what was happening. Mom isn’t here.

"Mother ..... Mother .....!"

I looked left and right, searching for her.

Not anywhere.

"Mother ...!"

In the distance, I heard an ambulance siren. The girl was wrapped in a blanket.

Carried by many adults, she leaves the riverbank. Everyone is crazy about it and realizes that my mom isn't there.

She isn't.

"Mom!" Only I raised my voice and kept calling. Many times. Many times. Many times. I don't remember much after that. When I heard that my mother was found all the way down the river, it seemed like a lie. It wasn't long before I realized that the mug that mother was using was missing. Dad put a picture of mother, which he took someday, in a picture frame and put it in a corner of the kitchen. He had to add flowers every day next to it. Neighbors bothered to talk to me every time I met them on the road, listened to me in a friendly way, and encouraged me with tears. Meanwhile, the Internet was flooded with anonymous posts about the accident.

"It's a suicide act to jump into a river flooded by rain"

"It seems that she was confident in swimming, but it's different from the pool."

《It is irresponsible for my child to help someone else's child and die》

《If there is an accident, playing in the river will be a nuisance and annoying》

《Because helping people is a good person, this is what happens》

The person who wrote it probably didn't know anything about the actual situation, and the day after he wrote it, he probably forgot what he wrote. However, the person who wrote it keeps sticking in my chest forever. Immediately after the accident, an acquaintance told me with resentment that it was terrible when I saw this. In front of these words, I was too young to understand all the meanings. However, as I grew up and became able to understand the meaning of the words accurately, I continued to suffer from the unconscious malice contained in them. Losing mother.

How should I pass on these writings as a bereaved family, even though I still can't accept them, as if the mother who helped me was all bad?

Aside from me, my mother just smiled in the picture frame in the kitchen. From that accident, I think something has changed decisively from what I used to be. One evening, in mother's room, where dust began to build up, I stood on her chair, hoping to return to her happy memories. And I sang the song I sang with mother. But when I started singing, I realized I couldn't sing at all. My voice became stuck in the back of my throat and couldn't get out of my mouth. I was confused. Something in my heart was suppressing me from singing. Why can't I sing? Tears came out.

Hey mom. Why can't I sing?

It was clear that the reason why singing was so fun and necessary was because my mother listened to it.

However, just because you can't sing... You don't have to worry about anything. Even if you can't sing, no one will blame you. Life just goes on. I went to a local junior high school. The jumper skirt uniform was stuffy. Many of the elementary school classmates went to the town as they went on to school, and there were not half of the students remaining in the local area, so even in junior high school, it became a compound class. Therefore, the chorus practice was accompanied by the vice-principal teacher, and it was decided to sing in all grades. There were three people in all grades. Because there were only three people, I quickly realized that I was just lip-synching without singing. I was asked why I didn't sing, but I didn't say anything. I thought they would get angry, but they didn't get angry. It means that only I can visit from the next practice.

I sat alone in a corner of the music class and watched everyone practice. I may have looked like a lethargic girl who was just silent. But inside that, there are things that can't be translated into words.

I think it was swirling. When I left school and returned home, I irresistibly entered mother's room in the twilight. The twilight light was shining through the window. Cardboard boxes containing tableware and seasonal home appliances that are no longer in use are piled up on the table. It was completely turned into a storeroom. It's been many years since then. It has passed. I listened to the large number of records there, one by one from the edge of the shelf. Days, days, days. By listening earnestly, I managed to calm my rough feelings. But one day, there was a moment when I thought I couldn't bear it anymore. Upon returning, I entered my mother's room, sat down in front of the keyboard, quickly opened the report sheet, and began to write fiercely with a pen to spit out the incomprehensible feelings in my chest. I was almost suffocating if I didn't spit it out. I turned over the paper and continued to write forever. -Why did mother leave me in the river? Why did she choose to help the child who she didn't even know her name rather than live with me? Why am I alone? Why, why, why – I added paper, supplemented with post-it notes, and wrote long, long lyrics. The scale that springs up is notated long and long. Those that were neither were spit out as pictures. It was a swirl of many kinds. It was like a whirlpool floating on the surface, like a black hole that swallowed everything, and like a hole in the top of my head. The floor of the room was filled with pieces of paper with a mixture of lyrics, pictures and sheet music. But suddenly..... I returned to myself and stopped writing. Right now, I've noticed the worthlessness, meaninglessness, ugliness, and helplessness of the words, pictures, and scales I wrote.

What are you doing? I broke the paper. Everything I've written so far.

I threw it in the trash can without hesitation. The bundle of paper looked like a vomit that I had just spit out. Then I became a high school student.

I finally found myself worthless. The uniform tie was stuffy. I crossed the subsidence bridge while looking down and went to school. I took an exam and passed the exam at a junior and senior high school in the center of the city, and transferred from high school. There, I met my childhood friend Shinobu-kun again.

"Shizu.."

"Shinobu-kun ..."

Now that I was in high school, Shinobu-kun looked tall and shining, all different. On the other hand, I didn't seem to have grown at all since then, and I was irresistibly embarrassed and couldn't even talk. What have I been doing so far? I started a new life going to the city from the mountains, but I couldn't get into studying. Even though I had a hard time taking the exam, I just looked out the window during class. Knowing that this shouldn't be the case. Club activities didn't go anywhere. There were very few such students. On the way home, you can see the students devoting themselves to club activities. The track and field club is jumping the training hurdle in a line in the courtyard. The volleyball club is running on the ground. A percussionist in the brass band with a metronome in his ear is striking a stick in the hallway. The Naginata club sits upright in the martial arts hall with a good posture, and thank you for your cooperation, saying before the practice. The first-year students of the baseball club, who have not yet been numbered, stand side by side and watch as if they are digging into the practice of their seniors. I didn't belong anywhere, so I left school quickly. It was already winter. There is a river called Kagami River that flows from east to west in the center of the city. Since the flow is often gentle, the TV tower and buildings on the opposite bank are reflected like a mirror. When I returned to the station through the road beside it, the girls of the light music club carrying the "Chahahaha" musical instrument case overtook me with a light step while laughing. A cute cat-shaped stuffed animal attached to the school bag is shaking. Attached to my school bag was a cheesy plastic plate of "Gutto Koremaru". "Gutto Koremaru" is an egg-shaped character who can poke his hand against the wall and endure the pain. I have a crack in my head, probably because I endured it too much. Of course, it's not cute.

In a dark and narrow corridor.

I resisted, "I can't do it! Hey!", But I was pulled into the room, saying "OK." The soundproof door slammed behind me. Shinboku "Ah!" There was a flashy room in a karaoke box, and the pink and purple lights were spinning mysteriously. It smells of incense. Only for girls in the class.

I heard that it was a social gathering, but when I saw the frenzy of the girls standing on the sofa and shaking their heads, I thought that I could not get into this tension very much.

"Peggie Sue is cute"

"This is the one that is popular in" U ", isn't it?" On the monitor screen on the wall, the popular Az of "U", Peggy Sue, was seen singing in a black rubber dress. Purple lipstick that shakes silver hair. An eccentric beauty with red eyes. Peggy Sue? "U"? Az? Is it popular? I don't know anything. It's like an event in a different world from me. Then, Hitomi suddenly offered a microphone, "Yes." Sing, and so on. "Huh?" Puzzled. Neither the coat nor the muffler is taken off. But "yes" the microphone was pointed again. Why for a child like me who is at the end of a class?

"Sing together?"

"Hey, sing."

The shadows of the girls press the microphones. What do you mean?

"Are you not going to sing alone?"

"Isn't it a lie that you can't sing?"

I see, so it’s this situation.

Dozens of microphones are forced against my face one after another. "Uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu"

"Sing"

"Hey, sing?"

"Sing"

Those voices sound like a threat.

"You're telling me to sing."

"Sing!"

Ahh!

Immediately, the microphone popped off and fell to the floor.

The girls dancing on the sofa suddenly saw me. It's calming down as if I was taken aback.

"What happened? Suzu-chan"

The mic and the shadows of the girls disappeared like a phantom.

"No, nothing. I'm sorry. Hey ..."

Without saying anything, I pushed the door of the karaoke box open by force and went out like crawling. Someone might have heard and told everyone that I couldn't sing.

When I got off the bus, powder snow was flying. I almost slipped down the slope from the bus stop. Even in Kochi, it usually snows in the mountains, aside from the city. When I crossed the subsidence bridge, I heard a crackling sound of thin ice. The surface of the concrete bridge is frozen.

Cold. It's not dexterous enough to get used to everyone, and it's not divisible. On the other hand, I’m not strong enough to be alone, not prepared, and have no idea.

I don't do anything selfish. Rumors that you can't sing, that's a lie. I'm just not confident in myself for a while. I want to get along with everyone. Really. I know. Of course I know. So "Ah ... Ah ..."

In the middle of the bridge, I impulsively exhaled my voice.

"Ah ... ah ... ah ah"

As I breathed in, cold air sank into my throat. Still, I sang towards the river. "Ah..”

Did I sing? It didn't match a song. It's just a growl. The bag slipped off my shoulder. Will you forgive me if I sing? Can I get along with everyone if I sing? It doesn't help to sing alone in such a place. It's like a scream of a dead end before being crushed. Still, I sang that song with my mother with a squeezed voice. I was happy back then. It's different now. Powder snow was swirling in the flow of the river. Suddenly, in front of me it became pitch black. Nausea swelled from the back of my stomach, and I held my mouth with both hands.

"Uuuuu!"

I crouched on my knees. However, I couldn't stand the momentum of the backflowing gastric juice. I pushed my body forward and vomited towards the clear stream under the bridge. The vomit that was about to kneel and vomit fell to the surface of the water, creating a number of ripples. I spit out everything in my stomach and fell on the bridge. My hair is messed up and my mouth is smeared with gastric juice and smells. It's already spicy. I want to get rid of everything. Shivering and crying as if groaning. Drops of tears ooze on my cold cheeks and tingle. I wish I were gone.

I could hear the slight sound of powder snow folding and piled up right next to me. A notification came to the smartphone that slipped off my bag. It was a message from Hiro-chan.

<< Look at this, Suzu. It’s so amazing that I’m seriously laughing. >>

There is a link to somewhere.

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

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Dcx2NedPVBEdbfQaU-WC0pJMRmn20ASn7HSC0KY9R7E/edit?usp=sharing ~ Google Doc of the English-translated novel.

ryuutosobakasuhime.wordpress.com ~ English fan-site for Ryuu to Sobakasu no Hime where translations, scans, and other content is posted.

#belle #belle movie #ryuu to sobakasu no hime #ryu to sobakasu no hime #ryu #ryuu #studio chizu #mamoru hosoda #竜とそばかすの姫 #belle 2021 #hime

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prettywordsyouleft · 4 years ago

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10 Dates | The Wedding Date (Final)

Summary: Kim Junmyeon was the epitome of a perfect catch - he was successful, handsome and everything you currently didn’t want in a man. Yet after agreeing to his request to give him 10 dates in total to change your mind, you realised you might have been looking for someone like him all along.

Pairing: Kim Junmyeon x reader

Genre: dating au / romance

Warnings: none

Preview | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10

You shared a watery smile with Junmyeon as you listened to the vows being spoken around the wedding venue right now. He beamed back at you, mouthing that he loved you. You raised your hand to your chest to let him know it was mutual and then turned back to the couple before you, your tears spilling down your cheeks when Kelsi choked on her words.

You never had expected to feel this overwhelmed watching your longest friend get married, and to Chanyeol, Junmyeon’s business partner, no less. You also weren’t prepared to look beside you to Ayla now sobbing openly, her hand clamped over her mouth to muffle some of her emotions. Smiling, you reached for her free hand and gave it a squeeze.

Weddings were just beautiful to be a part of.

And once Kelsi and Chanyeol were announced as husband and wife, you watched their first kiss together, glancing behind the loved up pair to Junmyeon again. You could tell he held the same thought as you did right now as well.

You could still taste that very kiss from your own wedding two years ago.

And once the photographer had taken enough photos of the wedding party afterwards, you moved into your husband’s arms, staring up at him lovingly. “It was beautiful.”

“Yes, you are,” he murmured before kissing you softly.

“Junmyeon,” you chided when he pulled away, smiling at you mischievously. “I meant the ceremony.”

“So did I. You looked beautiful the whole time.”

“Which wedding are you talking about?” you wondered with a small smirk and Junmyeon tenderly ran his hands over your bare arms.

“Sue me for thinking of our wedding, Mrs Kim. Though this one was very nice, and you look breathtaking today too.”

“You’re wicked.”

“You’re the reason I couldn’t concentrate. I’m happy for Chanyeol and Kelsi, but I can’t help but think of our special day either.”

“I’m guilty as well,” you admitted with a giggle and Junmyeon grinned, pulling off his suit jacket and slinging it over your arms. You shook your head in wonderment. “How do you know whenever I’m cold?”

“Isn’t that my duty as your husband?”

“What’s mine then as your wife?” you asked and Junmyeon leaned in so he was close to your lips again.

“To accept all my love.”

“I do that every day, you cheeseball.”

“Look who’s talking,” another voice commented and you turned to see Ayla standing there, dabbing another tissue under her eyes. “You’re both cheesy.”

“Jealous, Ayla?”

“Intensely. When does the bar at the reception open? Maybe if I drink enough wine, I might feel less lonely.”

You smiled and stepped over to take your friend’s hand. “Or maybe you can accept that you keep making eyes with Oh Sehun and go share a drink with him.”

“And what, suggest he takes me on ten dates? That might have worked for you and Kelsi, but it won’t for me.”

Junmyeon chuckled. “You never know, Y/N was adamant it wasn’t going to work for her and now look at where she’s at.”

You glanced up at your husband and smiled happily.

Those ten dates sure had a lot to answer for. And knowing Kelsi had tried the concept with Chanyeol herself only made it seem more dreamlike. Admittedly, Chanyeol had needed twelve whole dates before he decided she was the one for him.

You had known much sooner than that.

The reception wore on and toasts were shared, along with more tears – mostly from Ayla. She had cried at your wedding, and now she was crying on Sehun’s shoulder, the tall man attempting to calm her down as Kelsi and Chanyeol shared their final farewell before taking to the honeymoon suite in the hotel the reception was being held in.

And as you moved up to your suite for the night, you felt Junmyeon’s love before he even reached to taste it from you once the doors were closed.

Much later, now entangled against his bare body, the moonlight cascading over his skin, you leaned in to kiss his arm gently, leaving a trail of kisses until you found his swollen lips. You were spent from all your love-making, and further, from the day.

Weddings were beautiful, but they were also exhausting.

“Love you, Y/N.”

“Love you too.”

“Can I ask you something?” he said a moment later and you opened your eyes to cast your gaze to his face. Despite his satisfied, love-drunk appearance, Junmyeon was strangely curious and the tiredness within you was replaced with curiosity. You nodded once. “I noticed, you know.”

“Noticed?” you echoed, your eyebrows knitting together.

“Mm,” he hummed into your skin, kissing your bare shoulder. “You didn’t take a single sip of alcohol tonight.”

“Oh, that.”

“When were you planning on telling me?”

“I’m not sure if I am or not, but I didn’t want to take any chances.”

Junmyeon kissed your neck before continuing. “Have you taken a test?”

“It came back positive this morning.”

“No wonder you didn’t tell me,” he breathed, sounding relieved that you hadn’t known long. “Fancy taking a pregnancy test on the day of our best friends’ wedding.”

“It’s not the right time to go announcing anything like that. Let them have their honeymoon first,” you mentioned and Junmyeon nodded against you. “But I think we’re pregnant, Myeon.”

His hand immediately moved to your torso, rubbing at it affectionately. Giving him a look, he laughed at you. “I’m doing this to promote growing vibes.”

“That’s not how babies are made.”

“No, I’m well aware of what it takes to make one,” he replied lowly, the embers that had died within his eyes from your passion heating back up. “So if one hasn’t started growing in there yet, I’ll just have to keep trying.”

“Is that so? Do I need to be pregnant?”

“I want a mini-you.”

“That’s not fair, I want a mini-you first.”

Junmyeon chuckled. “So, twins?”

“Why am I not as outraged as I should be about this?”

“Because you want it as much as I do. Our family is growing.”

“Is this what you imagined when you were younger?” you asked, referring to when he had crushed on you as a teenager. “Did you ever think you and I would end up married and debating over how many babies we want to have?”

“I don’t think I was quite so ready to consider children when I was barely done with being one myself. But I was hopeful for a lifetime with you.”

“It’s so weird to think you hoped for that. How did you know back then that I was the one?”

Junmyeon smiled. “I don’t know, it’s just always been you for me. Maybe you’re my soul mate.”

“Maybe I am,” you mused, leaning in to kiss your husband. Pulling back, you grinned. “When we’re back home, let’s make an appointment to confirm if I’m pregnant or not.”

“Sounds good to me.”

You soaked in his elated expression, running your hand over his face gently, in hopes you could feel the emotions under your fingertips. You couldn’t love this man more even if you tried. Smiling, you thought back to when it wasn’t like this for you, when you had almost turned him away. How foolish your past self had been towards such a pivotal person for your world. Your smile grew and Junmyeon pecked your palm as it crossed paths with his mouth.

“What are you thinking of now?”

“You know, I don’t think I’ve ever thanked you for liking me so much.”

“You don’t have to thank me for liking you.”

“I do,” you countered, sitting up a little. “Had you not fought for us back then, I would have walked away from all of this.”

“You’re right.” Junmyeon became thoughtful. “Okay, so maybe a thank you is in order. And you’re welcome. I knew I wasn’t going to let you go by me this time around. So thank you for staying with me after Italy.”

“Which Italy trip?” you asked with a giggle, having returned to the place where the magic had truly started to happen between you for your honeymoon. This time you had taken a month there, and whilst you still loved the place, it wasn’t your dream anymore.

Junmyeon was.

“Both. You could have decided after the honeymoon that married life didn’t suit you.”

Rolling your eyes, you shook your head. You fell silent as you continued to think about the earlier parts of your relationship. One thing stood out to you. “We never finished all ten dates.”

“We both agreed we didn’t need to count them anymore. Besides, we’ve had hundreds of them since then.”

“Still… can I count today as the tenth one?” you asked and Junmyeon waited for you to explain. “Remember when you said; give me ten dates to see if there was something worth trying for?”

“Baby, we’re married already. You can’t say no now, you definitely said I Do two years ago.”

“Humour me,” you stated and Junmyeon smiled, knowing he had asked you to do just that on that fateful first date.

“Okay, today is the tenth date. Was it worth dating me this long?”

Leaning in closer, you nodded as you cupped his face in your hands. “You won’t regret being with me forever?”

“God no. Forever seems too short anyway.”

You nodded in agreement. “Good, because after ten dates with you, I only hope for an eternity more of them.”

“An eternity with you?”

“Would you rather just another ten dates?”

“Let’s space them out if that’s the case,” he encouraged, holding up both his hands so he could eliminate fingers as he counted. “A pregnancy date, sleepless nights with a newborn date, crying together when we drop them off at school for the first day…”

“You’re clearly only thinking of me being pregnant now. What about us? We don’t go missing just because we’re going to have a child.”

“Twenty years together,” he tacked on, and starting listing off other events that would lead up to your elderly years.

“Let’s have our very last date when we stop breathing,” he announced with a tearful smile, joining you in being overwhelmed of the future together. “A death date might be fun.”

“By then, we might be excited to return to how we look just now too.”

“You’ll age beautifully, I just know it.”

“I can’t imagine a day where you won’t be handsome to me,” you breathed and he nuzzled you affectionately. “Well, we did say until death do us part.”

Junmyeon shook his head. “We don’t part in death. Didn’t you just ask if I would be with you forever?”

“Stop before I really start crying, Kim Junmyeon,” you whispered and your husband caressed your face, trailing his thumb under your eyes.

“Give me your forever,” he requested earnestly and you choked a little on your tearful laughter.

“Just forever in total?” Junmyeon nodded at your recycled line from your first date. You nestled into his chest, listening to his heart beat erratically. “Alright, let’s see where forever take us.”

_________________

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prairiedust · 4 years ago

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More Last Holiday Musings...

I want to poke at that interdimensional geoscope a little more, because upon reading it over again, I think I splashed it up a little fast and there are a couple of points I’d like to be clearer about. I meant to queue this up to post last night but also want it to be up before Gimme Shelter so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

This is more blue curtains lit crit with a dash of folklore and an honorable mention for post-structuralism. And we’re talking about Supernatural after all, so this is sort of... well, it’s about endings.

Last Holiday was not a typical “filler” or even a typical MOTW episode. It felt extremely insular, possibly more so than any other episode I can think at any other point in the series. As opposed to the usual crowd of “locals,” a spate of victims, and a couple of red herring suspects, the only other people in this ep besides the Winchesters (including Jack) and Mrs. Butters were the two vampires and Cuthbert Sinclair. There was no “case” as in a usual MOTW-- there was no Chuck Struggle, either, and the lack of mytharc was strange against the lack of “filler” schema. That lack of “MOTW investigation” marked this episode also as being about “curiosity”-- the Winchesters all-too-quickly took Mrs. Butters for granted-- Dean even dismissed her as a “Magic Roomba” and that seemed to settle the matter. Furthermore, the moment that Dean spotted Mrs. B in his room, the stage was set for Antics ™ when she held up his goofy Scooby boxers, and indeed a zaniness, an almost manic energy drove the action forward at a breakneck pace. [Spoiler alert, we do get “investigation” in the next episode, 15x15 Gimme Shelter, as stills and the preview show that Castiel and Jack will be teaming up together, in yet another shake-up of the usual “MOTW” template, almost like we can expect the other side of a coin when Sam and Dean switch places with Cas...] These features set Last Holiday apart as not so much “filler” as “between,” as in there was struggle before, and there will be struggle after, but for a while there was cake. (Contrast this to the usual “peril of the threshold” that usually shrouds liminality if you’d like.)

At the end of Last Holiday, however, we finally get to find out what that old blue telescope really is, and with that name we get confirmation that there are no more alternate universes-- Chuck has burned them all. Viewers are left to come to the conclusion that in retrospect the telescope-thing could have changed the course of season 13 completely. The reveal is played off as darkly funny, but it’s also kind of a gut-wrenching moment, too. All the heartbreak of the last two and a half years, reviewed now through the lens of “if only.” If only they’d known about Mrs. Butters from the time they found the bunker, “none of this would have happened”… they’d have had monster radar, they’d have had the geoscope, they would have had supernatural help of a completely different level.

The temptation to read Last Holiday as a Chuck-free episode is strong, but fraught-- the threat of Chuck’s involvement has been established by a pattern this season (well the pattern is woven throughout the whole series really but Dabb has deliberately structured these last three seasons with an exponentially increasing frequency.) I feel like we’ve been conditioned this season in particular to hold ourselves in a perpetual flinch, to be afraid of what we’ll learn “in retrospect.” That geoscope was really_good_subtext, and it is entirely possible, even encouraged, at this point in the plot to take information we’ve learned from the naming of the object, examine our own conditioned response to this episode, and apply both things to the structure of the season so far and make a prediction as to what might happen in the main plot. That’s what I mean about subtext getting loud. We’ve been given the green-light to make a prediction about The Struggle and march forward with it, and see if we will be correct by extrapolating the pattern, or if that expectation will be subverted (the twist is set up to run either way, so either outcome is satisfying.) It is Melville-esque architecture of the highest degree;I could write another thousand words just about that. So I have a prediction that I’m hanging on to, because of what we’ve learned from the geoscope, and what kinds of clues were hung up in Last Holiday, and I’m super excited to either have my hunch confirmed or be frightfully and delightedly surprised. I mean, where the fuck did Jeremy Adams even come from? He’s like our own Mrs. Butters, showing up in the last quarter to run a couple game-changing balls into the end zone, it’s bonkers. I mean, I know writing mysteries is hard and requires still AND cunning, but damn, son.

But anyway, back to the geoscope…

I’m perplexed, from a very “lit crit” perspective, but this is where I’m at and why I referenced blue curtains-- if you shine too bright a light on subtext, does it evaporate-- like looking through an interdimensional geoscope and not seeing anything-- or is “subtext” sometimes not some ephemeral fever-dream that we as viewers conjure up through our experiential interlocution with the text but something a writer has steeped into the narrative as part of their craft? Or when you’re talking about an evolving iteration of writers, is it possible that one picks up a thread that another wove in for something else, repurposing or amplifying it? And, when perhaps is something deliberately instilled in the text in order to become “text” at just the right time? In Moby Dick, [spoiler alert lol] Quequeg’s coffin-- formerly one of many symbolic vehicles used to foreshadow the doom of the Pequod-- is repurposed as a life buoy and becomes the actual object that saves Ishmael’s life, transforming it from a portent of disaster to a symbol of salvation and then to one of Ishmael’s guilt for surviving Ahab’s madness-- the guilt that had been made text by the very opening line of the book, “Call me Ishmael.” In retrospect, the connotations of wandering, exile and salvation behind the name that the narrator gives himself become crystal clear. The problem that the post-structuralist model of “reading” as simultaneously “creating the text” has manufactured is that the idea that “subtext” can often be discounted as something dreamed up wholecloth by the reader, and thus inferior, imaginary, even delusional (and I use that last word knowing what a loaded term that is in the spn fandom, but this is not about a ship, even) where once it was considered to be a valid and measurable part of the text itself, like that dang coffin. It was the basement, the underpinnings, the catacombs below the opera house sure, but it helped to hold up the structure. And for some reason, putting subtext into a piece of media has become passe, or cringe? Anyway, not to be bitter on main but it didn’t used to be this way, at least not in the heady early days of postmodernism. So that green light? Critical hit against blue curtains. And while yes, some readings are going to be better supported than others, and the wild variety of checklists in this fandom mean that some conclusions have been drawn which can’t pan out, if you’re paying attention to the structure, the subtexts, the alchemical/psychoanalytical/postmodern themata, the ending will be very satisfying.

So. What was once speculated to be a symbol for emotional lows or turning points (among other things) in the bunker was textually hit with a bright green light, then Dean got curious about it in text, and we were told-- in text-- that oh it’s just a fancy spyglass, and now that the other worlds are gone, it has no purpose…. that’s what I mean about the geoscope now being “pure”-- it wasn’t clear whether the telescope ever had any function, subtetxtual or not, and now that it’s certain what it’s “function” was, it’s now freed up as a “symbol”-- unless like in Moby Dick it’s new “purpose” is revealed later, but right now it’s caught in this liminal place of not-quite-clue and not-quite-metaphor...

However, and I didn’t put this in my first post because I was trying to be fast and not a wet blanket, but I felt like finally naming the geoscope was an ending.

This is literally Singer, Dabb, and Co tidying up the house before locking it behind them.

I think when Dean said he didn’t see anything through the “telescope thing,” that we’re to understand that maybe this was the last hurrah of the cute, zany, campy “subtext” or even “metatext” if you’d rather that so many of us have been parsing and which has gotten so weird and bright since season 12/13. I think I said in one of the folklore posts that writing about some of the things I write about feels like making daisy chains in the endzone during the big game. Which is fun, that’s how I personally got through having to be in AYSO soccer for four years, by looking for four leafed clovers and eating orange quarters. And we got a wood nymph in this episode, textually even, so I could easily check the “folklore” box on this one. But the sheer euphoria of Last Holiday and all the sparkles it brought into the story aren’t meant to last. When you look back on fifteen years of text, a lot of it is bleak, miserable stuff. That’s not to say that episodes like Yellow Fever and Hunteri Heroici and Fan Fiction et al shouldn’t be celebrated. But I think from here on out, things are going to be less “golly gee, three birthdays!” and more “There she blows! --there she blows! A hump like a snowhill!”

This episode was a gift in many ways, not just for the sense of glee it transmitted-- it also did so much work and there are things I want to yell about in the way language was hit, the red versus green lighting, the way the backwards holidays worked, the projector as a metaphor for Mrs. B projecting her regrets and fears onto Jack, the amount of food that was created and consumed, how that smoothie was also an echo of “fairy food” or an underworld pact if you squint-- but the stakes are so high now. We haven’t been shown the next valley-- there was no final scene of Chuck rubbing his hands together like the villain from a melodrama, for example-- but the last image we got was Jack blowing out a candle. After the candle is blown out, the cake is dismantled and consumed. Once the story is over, all the themes that are so hard to grapple in a text like a television show can be gathered up and analyzed. (IS that all, though? After all, Dean made his own cake later, which, like, echoes of the “oh two cakes” comic lol...)

Since I really never want to leave anything I toss out on this blog on a last note of doom and gloom, however, I do want to say that I too understand what that last image meant. It meant, as Sam said, make a wish. Think of the future, think of free will, and hope for something wonderful to happen. (or do like me and wonder what the hell Jack wished for with dread and anticipation ha ha ha.)

#the poststructuralism of supernatural #the folklore of supernatural #no more tags right now #tag later

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theawesomeally · 3 years ago

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Before We Met (Preview)

Prologue

In a world inhabited by mythic creatures, love was commonplace several millennia ago, though difficult to master. After his training advances over the decades, his powers became obsolete and were largely discarded.

[The camera zooms in on the city and two blazing specks of light dash all over the place as one shoots lasers at the other. We then see an enemy aircraft flying throughout while it's chasing a young man, who is running from the pursuer. We see full closeups of a guy in his craft and Rocky as he runs. The scene freezes after an explosion with Rocky barely missing it.]

[voice over]

Through the years I have been known by many names. Marshmallow, The Furry Lover, The Daredevil, Frisky Two Times and then The amazing Ryan Reynolds. But to most, I am Rocky, the awesome one!

[Some other women, leaning across the wall, and Rocky getting his shades from his pocket. Put it onto his eyes. While he puts his hoodie onto his shoulders. Rocky was dressed like a gentleman, but he fought with honor or dignity and pulled at the knot into his tie. Females are not meant to grab his attention, and if it does. To be fair, he heard most of what he'd said up to this point. The parts that weren't of his interest, anyway.

Okay, maybe that wasn't much]

His sigh is heavy with exasperation,

"Can you keep your dick in your pants at the gala?"

Grab his phone from his pocket, automatically switching it out of Bluetooth mode, and bring his earphone up to his ear.

I will never forget you, Margarita. [The female stops and cringe after hearing the name. His blue prominent eyes were not well adapted to winking. They were rather of the sort that closes solemnly in slumber with majestic effect.

Rocky pretend to consider as Rocky step out of the car and button his tux jacket. "Hmm."

"Nice wheels, sir," the valet says, unconcerned that he was on the phone. Rocky pull out his wallet and flash a fifty-dollar bill. "Take care of her and this is yours."

"Yes, Mr. Rocky."

"I mean, Rosa. Uh...sorry. I think maybe I should go.???." She wrapped her arms over her chest and shook her head with a smirk curved across her face. Rocky grinned and raised an ironical finger in salute Rocky starts backing away. "You can't get away with it." the security guard muttered, holding out one hand. He was moving very slowly, thinking Rocky was the enemy or something. Blinks at her as a farewell, but glance with a smug as he sees the vampire's ring. Mind was so wrapped up in thought that he didn't notice the familiar vampire standing behind him. A vampire with bad breath psycho. "Hey, come on, dickie! You're trashing public property here!" He is thinking about how he had to sneaked up onto the roof and is currently standing a few feet behind him.

Rocky then gently slides the ring off the vampire's finger using his katana.

Light glinted off a myriad of his Katana and the vampire ring. Spray from the dust to blew up into his face, but sweat more than seawater moistened his palms as he gripped the eagle. His eyes were as blue while the vampires eyes were cold as the stormy weather.

"Hey, it's Gale calling," says Rocky called over his shoulder to one nefarious vampire. "Love the shiny suit. Really brings out the sex trafficker in your eyes." Rocky had commented, half jokingly and straight up confident, how that guy would have been considered handsome - if he ever bothered to smile.

Cut to a shot of a cliff.

A grim expression again carved itself into the soldier's face as he gazed up at the jeering vampires, their bodies smeared with blood, upon the cliff tops. Even the most cowardly of tribes in Gaul would fancy its chances from such advantageous ground, one being was mused. The sound of their jeers was occasionally accompanied by the high pitched swish of an arrow, as the odd archer tried his luck. Invariably the missile would zip harmlessly into the sea, or at best a thud could be heard as it struck as a human shield or the solid surface of the earth.

Cut back to the fighting scene. Rocky is skewering a guy with his swords, and kicks the vampire in the chest, sending him back down and puts his sword away. The guy gasp and starts fighting with Rocky. This continues for awhile until Rocky get's away again. Using two fingers he salute the vampire as a goodbye.

Making a soft chuckle. He flicks the vampire ring up into the air. It comes back down and lands into one of the streets, causing his background to explode. The shards of fire fell in slow motion behind him.

He is consumed in the explosion, as his body can be seen flying off the ground, flipping off the camera as it goes. "Oh, fuck." Rocky mutter under his breath. "Oh, I'm sorry." A small apology leaving his lips with a smirk.

"That will teach you, not to mess with me," A familiar voiced ask, up righting his head as he walk over the circles and appeared in front of him,

(narrator)

So, I know what you're thinking. Why is that incredibly handsome guy being chased by a madman with a huge shiny fangs from the Civil War?

[The scene freezes after an explosion sending Rocky flying off the ground from the ground. After the dust settles, leaving Rocky lying unconscious on the ground.]

This guy's got the right idea. Well, to be honest, it feels like I've been the captain of my whole life. Is this too much? Am I going too fast? It's kind of what I do--You know what? Let's back up.

[We see the whole fight going in reverse as well as frames of future clips for a split second each time, one passes as Rocky mimics a rewind sound effect] Cut to close-up of Rocky gets up to his feet. Cut to him sitting on the side of the gable roof at night. Wondering how long it would be before he saw the city again. He had been born with a wandering heart, and he embraced adventure, unafraid to face the dangers often presented by journeys into unknown places. Leaving civilization behind for the wilds of the frozen north, legs dangling over the side as he listens to his Walkman next to him playing 'Shoop.' Rocky was vaguely singing along, making hand gestures along with the lyrics, but he was focused on his own drawing, while listening to the music and coloring a picture with crayons. We see that the picture he's drawing is him shooting the vampire in the head, he was doing it with some crayons he had with him.

It was fun to see that getting shot in the head, even if it was just a crayon drawing. He'd never soon change it to a reality. And then turned his head and stared directly at the camera, or the person reading, or just whoever balls happened to be paying a lot of attention to him.

Wha- Oh! Oh, hello. I know, right? Who's balls did I have to snap to get my very own story? I can't tell you, but it does rhyme with dick. And let me tell you; he's got a nice pair of fucking underwear, he finished in an Swedish accent.

They'd get that joke, right?

Anyway, I got places to be, a kiss in the ass to fix, and - oh! hot weird vampire to kill.

He watched eagerly as the flashes of light began to appear below him – lots of rippers were a very dramatic little shit, after all – we're panning quickly towards the edge of the roof he was sitting on. Now having an appointment to keep, Rocky was quick to get onto edge of the roof and, in one fluid motion, opens a music playlist called Tunes of Anarchy on his Walkman, and the song "Where Evil Grows" by The Poppy Family stays playing in the background as he jumped off the roof, landing in one of the coolest bar in Mystic Falls. It seemed that they had been drinking peacefully, listening to 'Angel of the Morning,' but when Rocky landed and that's when their peaceful night was over.

They look around for which they finally see as Rocky stands at a wooden doorway wearing a cowboy hat, black sunglasses, and red a white hoodie as he opens a music playlist called Tunes of Anarchy on his Walkman. Opens up and the door swings open and the music resumes with people dancing and lights flashing as he goes inside the bar.

Nothing.

Absolutely positively not a fucking thing.

First one person turned, noticing him. Then more followed, until the whole patron was hushed, waiting. Everyone was watching, the same bewildered look on all of their faces. Eyebrows raised and narrowed eyes, etc. God, for months he'd played this moment over and over inside his mind. It most definitely never turned out like this. Whatever this was.

As he walks up to the bar. The room was narrow and about 90 feet deep. Light did manage to worm its way into the establishment, though. It seeped through the windows scattered along the walls, and through the gaps in the door between its wooden panels. A bar on the left at the front, then some upholstered horseshoe benches, then a cluster of freestanding tables on what, on other nights, might have been a dance floor. Then the stage, with the band on it. The band looked as if it had been put together by accident after a misfiling incident at a talent agency. The bass player was a stout old black guy in a suit with a vest. He was plucking away at an upright bass fiddle. The drummer could have been his uncle. He was a big old guy sprawled comfortably behind a small, simple kit. The singer was also a harmonica player and was older than the bass player and younger than the drummer and bigger than either one.

The guitarist was completely different. He was young and white and small. Maybe 20, maybe 5-foot-6, maybe 130 pounds. He had a fancy blue guitar wired to a crisp new amplifier and together the instrument and the electronics made sharp sounds full of space and echoes. The amp must have been turned up to 11. The sound was incredibly loud. It was as if the air in the room was locked solid. It had no more capacity for volume. But the music was good. The three black guys were old pros, and the white kid knew all the notes, and when and how and in what order to play them. He was wearing a red T-shirt and black pants and white tennis shoes. He had a very serious expression on his face. He looked foreign. Maybe Russian.

I watched them for a minute, and then I looked away. My name is Rocky, and once I was the most wanted man, with heavy emphasis on the past tense. I have been out nearly as long as I was in. But old habits die hard. I had stepped into the bar the same way I always step anywhere, which is carefully. One-thirty in the morning. I had ridden the train to West and walked south on Sixth Avenue and made the left turn on San Francisco bar and checked the sidewalks. I wanted music, but not the kind that drives large numbers of patrons outside to smoke.

His attention was taken away from patrons. It was at that point that he saw the young beautiful woman alone at her table, Her name tag read Katy, and her shirt clung tightly around her chest. Her hands worked quickly and gracefully with the bottles as she poured them another and took the empty's away.

I watched her in the gaudy, reflected light, with the music shrieking and pounding all around me. The two guys watched her. Her bodyguard watched her. She watched the guitarist. He was concentrating hard, key changes and choruses, but from time to time he would lift his head and smile, mostly at the glory of being up on the stage, but twice directly at the girl. The first of those smiles was shy, and the second was a little wider.

What met my eyes was a beautiful girl with golden hair and a bright smile that melted my heart. She was blond and blue-eyed, American woman who have a glow, and a smoothness complexion. She lives in New York, singing, listening to a band, and I was in love with her angelic voice. That was clear. There I was, a guy further back in the room, stood in the room staring at her. I was 6ft tall, wide man with a white hoodie and a black leather jacket under a hoodie. She was part of the reason I was here with her back in a city when we were at the age of 19 or less.

It wasn't the kind of glossy place that had a policy about dating rich girls, either for or against. Some call it a gold digger, and I guessed they had looked at her and her minder and made a snap decision against trouble and in favor of tips.

The part of her gaze that wasn't wary was filled with adoration, and it was all aimed in his direction. She was rich. She was alone at a table near the stage and she had a pile of A.T.M fresh twenties in front of her and she was paying for each new bottle with one of them and she wasn't asking for change.

She was a waitress and I loved her.

The woman stood up. She butted the lip of her table with her thighs and shuffled out from behind it and headed for the counter in back. I got there first. The sound from the band howled through it. The ladies' room was halfway down. The men's room was all the way at the end. Rocky leaned on the wall and scanned the room. As Rocky watched her walk in and squeeze through the crowd and she sat down on the bar stool, 1 feet away from him.

"Hey, Raoul, look what this kid dragged in. Oh, wait! That is the guy!," but they didn't hear. Too much noise. He caught them by the elbows, one in each hand. They spun around, as if ready to fight, but then they stopped. Fortunately for him, the first two who approached her were quick to heed her dismissal. She wasn't there to mingle with huge ass in leather jackets. She was just there to grab a drink and relax and pretty sure she made that pretty clear when she shot the first couple of idiots down.

The third guy, however, wasn't ready to take no for an answer.

"How about you let me buy you a drink, sweetheart?"

Their sex appeal eyes pried upon their eyes from the television screen above the bar and looked at the newcomer. With his hair greased back and one-size-too-big biker jacket on, the guy looked like prime wife-beater material. Perfect. Just what they needed to interrupt his evening.

"Thanks, but I'm good," she said curtly, gesturing to the beer bottle in front of her.

"That's it? You're gonna chug that shitty beer and call it a night? Come on, let me get you a real drink."

She scoffed. "What? Like those idiots you got over there?" she glanced past him at the table where he and a couple of his friends had been sitting.

"It's a warm-up. Trust me, honey, we're just getting started over there. You should join us."

She wanted to roll her eyes. "Like I said, I'm good."

She made the move to turn away and focus her attention back on the football game on the television when the guy grabbed her by the arm.

"What the hell's your problem?" This guy gripped her arm tightly, this guy's face practically scrunched up in a beastly snarl. "I don't like to be ignored, y'know?"

She yanked her arm out of his grip and stood up to face him directly. She knew pretty damn well where the conversation was headed and sure as hell were not about to get in a bar fight with their ass glued to the seat.

Before she could open her mouth, a familiar voice spoke up from behind her.

By hearing it and raising their head to turn to his voice, her smile grew a tad wider, recognizing the voice immediately. They simply looked so annoyed, at least much more than usual. His lips pulled into a tight frown, while their eyes narrowed, eyebrows furrowed, back hunched over slightly if you'd look hard enough. Yep, those guys are just being grumpy as usual, but seemingly much more grumpy, except with their eyes laced with the slightest bit of concern. For herself, most likely.

The said person stopped, and looked over their shoulder to the voice. She put on a mellow look close to her usual one. Confrontation- unnecessary confrontation- was not exactly his thing. He tended to avoid fights like these. He could hold his ground better than most, but he preferred to keep out of the brawls and spats that others got involved in.

A voice caught his ear, she sounded like she needed help, despite the overconfident tone the stranger used. "Look, I don't wanna interrupt, but is this guy bothering you?" he looks up at her and says greeted casually, as casual as someone could be hanging for dear life. She looked up at me, startled that he was there. "I'm sorry. Did I scare you up?" he softly asked, when she turned to get a good look at the stranger in his handsome voice. She wasn't expecting the sight she was met with. A pair of piercing blue eyes smiled over her, puffing out her cheeks childishly when she looked at him. After she looked to her right to find Rocky taking his place beside her. Her pinkish lips turned up in a small smile as she ducked her head briefly with a laugh before tucking her hair behind her ear, "No, you did not," she said. He couldn't keep the amusement out of his voice. She turned her head to look at him, catching his gaze with her own. He gave a small smile, stroking her hair softly with his index. "So, What exactly are you doing here?" she said softly, trying to maintain an even tone of voice.

"Oh you know, I was just passing through the neighborhood when I thought I caught a whiff of filthy human garbage coming from this place," he said,

"And sure enough here I am."

Desire pools dark and deadly in his groin. Gaze up at her, releasing her lip. Katy flush a deep crimson in her cheeks, and he runs his index finger down her cheek before handing her the headphones. "I'd like to kiss you, too, but you won't let me down, are you?." Rocky asked her. Besides, he's pulled the straps so tight he can barely move.

Amused smile on his lips, he's wearing his enigmatic half smile. He glances down at her, light blue-gray eyes alive, he glances up when she looks at his way and their eyes lock. And in that brief moment, she was paralyzed, staring at the impossibly handsome man who gazes at her with some unfathomable emotion. His gaze hot, burning into her, as they lost for a moment staring at each other.

It's there in the air between them, that electricity. It's palpable. He can almost taste it, pulsing between them, drawing them together.

"Oh my," she gasps as she basks briefly in the intensity of this visceral, primal attraction. The two men stood back, saying nothing, but looking at him with hard eyes.

Katy had, somehow, stammered out some sort of reply that must have made her look insane. Coby, hearing her, had come over to check on her and had ended up having her go make Rocky's a drink while they chatted. Ever since that first meeting, though, Katy had completely fallen for Rocky. There was something about his smile, or maybe it was his eyes? Whatever it was, it made Katy's entire body feel light as a feather.

To be continued....

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the-dead-sea-trilogy · 4 years ago

Text

WIP Wednesday: Ophelia and the King’s Madness

expected to be about 100k+ words total, 50% complete

Hi and welcome to another WIP Wednesday!! Today I’m sharing Ophelia and the King’s Madness, which is a spin off from my Hardenshipping Dead Sea Trilogy that focuses on Colress, the novelty third wheel, and his time in Team Plasma.

Ghetsis hires Colress to look after his daughters who, despite being adults, live completely isolated from the outside world. But Anthea and Concordia find themselves smitten with the man who brings so many strange and wonderful things to them. But as their relationship develops, Concordia slowly discovers the truth of who he and her father really are, and must face the choice to leave everything in her world behind.

Hit me during quarantine while I was...... stuck inside all day and couldn’t leave my house........ funny how life does that to you.

There will be mild - but not explicit - sexual themes. But today is just a preview! Colress and Ghetsis dunking on one another.

I ripped this straight off my google doc so enjoy all my typos and funny musings ✨

Link on AO3

Ko-Fi Tip Jar

(Full text below the cut)

Chapter 0.5??? (AT RISE? CURTAIN???)

Colress Achroma had seen every sight there was to see in Castelia City. There was nothing new about the subway station, the cars, the lights, the people, the noise, and even his own apartment. Nothing fulfilling about the bars, the clubs, the drinks, the parties.[---maybe mention something about the people who lurk in the subway station/swers and how weird they are--]

And while it was objectively true that there were perhaps hundreds--if not, thousands--of new things to do--drink, fuck--every day, for Castelia City had no shortage of people like him--nothing felt particularly new. Not since he had moved back from the Hoenn region, where he had completed his PhD, which had grown especially underwhelming in its own regard. While he had certainly missed the sheer expanse of the city in that time--ever since getting his PhD--which had turned out to be nothing but dull barrier after dull barrier--he felt incredibly, painfully understimulated. And so, he sat in the [bleak] alleyway in the dark, grimy underbelly of his hometown, spinning the petals of a white rose in his hand, waiting for something new.

No, he wasn’t there for a hookup. He knew better places than here for that. He knew this underground tunnel system perhaps even better than the subways themselves, even as it ran adjacent to them. Admittedly, the cryptlike sewer system had become something of a second home to him, ever since he was a kid. Here in his favorite corner, for instance, there were still even smears of ash from when he had started a fire when he was 14 and narrowly escaped the police. That, particularly, was the first of what was soon going to become many narrow run-ins with the law. No, he wasn’t here to sell or solicit, even though he was told someone would meet him here.

Okay so when put like that, it might as well have been a hookup.

But as he sat perched up on a ledge, scanning shadows in the dim, yellowy light on the wall--down past the shadows that scooted across the filthy waterways--he saw a long, black shadow emerge from the darkness. [add in the flower ‘he loves me, he loves me not’ thing?]. Although, it was more as if the cloak had pulled off and carried teh darkness with him. The man was large; and wore a long, black cloak; his footsteps, which would have otherwise been almost soundless and serpentine, were interjected with a thud from his cane--forcing him to walk in an uneven, cacophonic rhythm. He leaned into his left, and leaned into it hard. In fact, with the hsape of the cloak, and the way he walked, even from here, it would appear almost as if the man entirely lacked a right hand.

Colress dropped another white petal down from the ledge. “He loves me,” he said, then glanced up at the man and smiled. He slid down off the ledge and stared up at the large man, the grossish yellowish light grossly illuminating his face. “You came.”

“I was told I could find someone here.”

“Well, you found correctly,” Colress said, waving the flower around. “Now, what exactly is it you want? I’m not accepting clients, if that’s what you’re after. But, there are plenty of girls down here who, if you pay them right--”

“Enough,” the man said, spitting on the ground at Colress’ feet. His voice boomed, nearly echoed down the chamber. “I’m not here for a prostitute.”

“The polite term is ‘sex worker,’ actually, but--”

“I’m looking for a scientist, not a whore.”

“Lucky for you, I’m both,” Colress said, smiling. The man stops and stares at him, incredulously, like he doesn’t think he could be serious. Colress flashes some sort of badge at him. “How can I help you?”

“You can’t be serious.”

“Oh I am,” Colress said. They stare off again at one another, Ghetsis is like “Nevermind this has to be a mistake” and starts tot turn to go.

“I thought you might be a little apprehensive, given our location, but I promise, only the best of the best gather in the nighttime here in Castelia City,” Colress said, reaching into his bag. “After all, how would you have gotten your contacts to get ahold of me? I prepared for you my entire CV--” he extended the document to him [basically traps him from leaving]. The man raised his eyebrows, but tentatively accepted it. “Although, you should know this is quite the unusual place for a job interview.” [Colress gives him a devious grin.] “I dig it.”

“Jesus Christ,” the man muttered, scanning over the document.

“What? Overwhelmed and amazed at my outstanding credentials?”

“No,” the large man said. “I had heard the rumors. I just didn’t believe they were fucking true .”

“Ah, so I have a reputation I see! That’s good news,” Colress said. “You should have a clue as to who I am, then. However, unfortunately I’m still not sure with whom I have the pleasure of--” Colress paused, now seeing the profile of the man in the low light. “Wait a moment,” he said, beginning to recognize the face. “I’ve see you before. You’re…” [the memory comes to him] “You’re Ghetsis Harmonia,” he said. “The leader of Team Plasma. All those ones going around talking about all that ‘Pokemon’s Rights’ bullshit--”

“Pokemon liberation.”

“Oh and the airship! Quite a mechanical wonder, I have to admit. I’ve always sort of wanted to get up close and personal with that antigravity machine,” he said. He leaned in to Ghetsis with a sing-song tone. “Are you here to give me a ride~!”

“Only if you’re useful.”

“Useful?” Colress asked. “In what way?”

[is he like a court jester to a king????]

“I’ve already told you I’m not accepting clients. That’s never been my game anyway. Useful? To Lord Ghetsis Harmonia… isn’t that what they call you? My lordship? My king? Leader of a selfless, benevolent organization devoted to the freedom of Pokemon. It’s quite ambitious, I have to say. I’ve never really seen anything quite like it.”

Ghetsis was silent.

“But what could a proud, noble, and upstanding lord want with a--ah, what was it you called me?”

[MAKE SUR EHE CALLS HIM SOMETHING BEFORE THIS]

“‘A sewer rat’ like me…?”

“Research,” Ghetsis said, shortly.

“Oh?” Colress asked. “Of what kind? Surely we didn’t have to meet in such a remote location to go over my CV. We could have gotten lunch. Oh, or brunch--! ”

“Enough,” Ghetsis said, more sternly. “I won’t tolerate this level of [silliness? Pfffft No better word].”

“Then what do you need of me, my lord?”

“I need you for research. A very particular kind of research my own scientists believe you to be capable of.”

“Oh, scientists from down here?” Colress said. “Word certainly does get around. But what makes you think so?”

[Ghetsis hands him some kind of flyer from a battle or tournament or something]

“How’d you do it?” he asked.

Colress raised his eyebrows. “What do you mean?”

“Your thesis was about DNA and Mega-Evolution,” Ghetsis said. “And this,” Ghetsis pointed again to the page. “You enhanced its power for competition.”

“I didn’t enhance anything,” Colress said, flatly. The flatness in his voice, however, spelled sarcasm. “The ‘power of friendship’ did that. If I had enhanced anything, that would be cheating, wouldn’t it?” Colress paused. Examines Ghetsis. “Of course, the ‘power of friendship’ in this scenario might involve a few extra nuts and bolts. Nothing more.”

[ Ghetsis like grunts or makes one of his Ghetsis noises. Colress kind of turns and looks at him. Ghetsis maybe says something like [We could pay you well to do it again] or something etc.]

“But what would a noble Lord want with a researcher like me? What would an upstanding and noble, pacifist organization like Team Plasma possibly want to do with Pokemon battling power? And, with you coming to me in such circumstances, I’m beginning to think that you’re either horny, or Team Plasma isn’t exactly what it says it is.”

“We have certain aspects that we keep only to the initiated.”

“Well, it’s a cult, isn’t it?” Colress said. “I mean, Team Plasma is a cult. You all walk around in hats and robes, handing out pamphlets and preaching about love and destiny and higher wisdom. And you at the very helm.”

Pause.

“Well, if this is a personal invitation to join your freaky little cult, I’m afraid to tell you I’m not really religious, and I don’t really plan on ‘being saved’ any time soon--”

“I heard you weren’t satisfied with your day job.”

“Day job? What day job?” Colress laughed. “I don’t need to work for a living.”

“Exactly.”

Long pause.

“I do what I want. I’ve been waiting for the right opportunity to come around.”

“And what exactly is that opportunity, Colress?”

[Long pause. Colress decides it’s time to spill. Something pulls him to know to understand what Ghetsis is there for, air of malice.]

“Have you heard of an organization called Cipher?”

“Faintly.”

“They were a criminal organization responsible for the ‘Shadow Pokemon’ incident that happened about a decade ago in the Orre region.”

Ghetsis raised his eyebrows, interested.

“They operated in secret laboratories in abandoned warehouses scattered throughout the region. Their laboratory director, Ein, was behind the conception of the project,” Colress said. “In his profile, he is described as someone ‘long on ambition and short on emotion,’ something to which I think we both can relate.”

“Mhm,” Ghetsis siad.

“Ein was the pioneer behind the creation of these creatures--Shadow Pokemon. Pokemon capable of entering this hyper-empowered state.”

[Maybe more nods.]

“I always sort of wished I could talk to Ein. But, unfortunately like any other criminal organization, they were eventually found out, and their records destroyed.”

“So what was the point in you telling me all that?”

“Please let me monologue.” [Say something about how like if he’s going to join an evil organization he’s only going to get a chance in this once in his life--also maybe it’s like he’s given ghim a sales pitch??]

They stare at each other.

“What they were doing was highly illegal, of course. Though, I couldn’t stop myself from wondering, if, given the opportunity, I could do better.”

[They have a moment where they’re on the same page.]

“Cipher’s mistake was that the Pokemon were strong, but ultimately uncontrollable,” Colress said. “Their approach, ironically enough, was too emotional. This flimsy control maxed out Pokemon’s power, but brought them into a manic state that made them lash out uncontrollably. This lack of control also made it an easy effect for anyone to reverse. A handful of people were known for doing so. They called it Purification. ‘Opening the door to a Pokemon’s heart,’ that’s what they called it. In fact, that’s even how Ein himself chose to define it,” Colress said.

[Colress turns and then laughs]. “That’s what he called it. Can you believe? ‘Opening and closing the doors to the heart…” what the fuck does that even mean? Some bullshit phrasing they made up to describe the process of divorcing a creature from its emotional integrity. ‘Hearts’ and ‘doors’ aren’t measurable data. It was a chemical they were using. A wave. Cipher’s true methods, as I’ve said, were unfortunately lost to time. But, we do have the work of Professor Krane, who developed a more regimented procedure for purifying these Pokemon,” Colress said, smiling. “It’s a wave. They used EM waves.”

“Congratulations.”

“The way I see it, Cipher’s approach likely targeted the limbs, so to speak, rather than the creature as a whole. This left weak points that Krane and other purification scientists were able to exploit. If they wanted to truly be successful, they would have had to find a way to overrun the entire mind of the creature,” Colress said.

“So success would mean absolute control?”

“Yes,” Colress said. “Precisely.”

“That I can agree with you on.”

Another pause. “Theoretically, one would be able to use the work put forth by Professor Krane to reverse-engineer the way that Cipher created these Pokemon, and then build upon it for their own ends. To do so would be highly unethical, of course, and cause quite a stir in most procedural review boards,” he said. “So it remains a fantasy that I’ve considered, but never fully entertained. The bureaucrats win out again, and for good reason, I suppose.”

“That’s quite a tale you’ve spun for me.”

“Isn’t it?” Colress asked. “I always thought so. But that’s not what we’re here about, is it? We’re here for you,” [he turns to him and smiles]. “So, Lord Ghetsis Harmonia… cult-leader, king. What is it that I can do for you?”

“By the sound of it…” Ghetsis said, slowly. “Exactly what you want.”

Colress [does something], smiling. “Then, gratefully, my lord, I am ever at your service.” [Maybe kisses rose and tosses it at his feet? → this ties him back to Concordia]

#wip wednesday #the dead sea trilogy #ophelia and the king's madness #colress #concordia #team plasma #ghetsis harmonia #n harmonia #team plasma colress #look i understand this is kind of a weird slash rare pairing ok but look #we dont choose our fics our fics choose us #anthea and concordia #ghetsis #my writing #my fic #this whole thing is one big godiva commercial but a psa against colress

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esamastation · 5 years ago

Text

Because i am writing it and wanna see what people think

Sneak preview of hithertho unnamed sequel to “True” Reality

Nothing is True.

Nothing is there.

Desmond doesn't so much float in the nothingness as he… just… is. He doesn't know how long it's been, he's kind of lost the sense of why of it, too. He thinks he minded it, way back when, an eternity ago, he wanted to leave, maybe? It doesn't really matter. Nothing matters. There's nothing.

Well, that's not exactly true. Not True true, just true. There's something – just enough of a something for him to still be sticking around. It's like a string inside him, a cord frayed to its last sliver, gently waving in the nonexistent wind, just enough to remind him that, that he's still there. He's not gone yet. He's here, here is nothing, and he's in the nothing.

No one would ever see him here. No one would find him. And no one would care.

The Lonely savours him slowly, digesting his slowly ebbing, flowing misery like a tasty morsel. He's a candy on it's tongue, and it's wearing him out slowly, so slowly, tasting every aspect of his Aloneness and humming with the drawn out enjoyment.

The knowledge that he was always alone. Surrounded by what amounted to paper cutouts of people, rather than real individuals. They stand up in his memories now like stand-ins, all hollow and two-dimensional, repeating the same hollow, meaningless words.

Get up, Desmond, the words echo, sharp enough to cut, to bring forth a reaction, to make him twitch. Dad, calling him across the training ring. Get up, Desmond, he says, and never holds out his hand, never helps him up, never does anything. Get up, Desmond, he snaps, impatient enough for Desmond to hear it in his voice, but also distracted, like he's looking elsewhere, his attention on something else, like whether Desmond actually gets up or not doesn't actually matter. Get up, Desmond.

And the Loneliness whispers, No one ever asked if you needed help. No one offered a hand to pull you up. Did anyone ever give you their arm, their shoulder to lean on? Did anyone ever lift you to your feet? Did they hold you?

His mother's hands, cool and perfunctory on his cheek as she dabs stinging antiseptic on a cut. Her fingernails feel like paper cuts, and her disapproving tutting sounds like distant static. "It's just a cut, and you're a big boy, Desmond, you don't need my help."

Desmond knows, theoretically, that his mother helped him. He remembers it. But he also remembers the holes in those memories, the parts where they don't exist. Dad is easier, Bill Miles actually made an appearance in his life, such as it was, but his Mother is only a voice. Voice, and vast holes of absence, where the game creators hadn't bothered to fill up his background. Seventeen years worth of memories.

The Lonely has filled them, bit by bit, with cold shoulders from her, with dismissal, with distracted disregard as she turns away. Just enough care to make him feel it, a hand on his shoulder, a band aid on his lip, just enough to make him long for more – and then the Lonely takes the image and turns her away from him, leaves him at the mercies of a father, who turns more and more callous and cold as the memories twist and turn and...

You were a thing they raised, a fruit of labour, the culmination of a bloodline. They married for lineage, not love, they didn't love each other, they didn't love you – you were just a thing they made, an Assassin of Assassins, the Assassin, their Chosen One, alone and strange and…

Desmond drifts. He thinks he might be floating. He has enough will left to know that this is kind of – not wrong, exactly, though it's that too. The Lonely wants his suffering, his slow anguish, his Loneliness, his Aloneness, his Solitude – and his knowledge of it, too. Wants to make him feel it.

But it doesn't come naturally for him. He can feel it, but it's artificial, in the end. Those people never existed, and those experiences never happened, and he knows it. He knows what he is. The Lonely can't take that away from him – it's the main thing it's feeding on.

He's a Solitary Existence, artificial, hollow, fake, empty, the Lonely can digest him forever. So it won't make him think he's human, not all the way. Whenever he threatens to tip over the edge of that knowledge and into delusion of humanity, it reminds him – he's just code, code, code, nothing but symbols on a screen, unloved and unreal, a thing no one knew, a thing that shouldn't be – and that breaks the illusion of suffering.

Desmond sighs, and the Lonely drinks it up all the while breathing in on it, like blowing on a hot coal, making it blaze in his chest. Alone, alone, alone, and unknown.

Desmond has no idea how long it's been going on. Doesn't know if there's time in this place. There probably isn't. The Lonely can and will feed off on him forever, and he's more or less… fine with that. Would be nice if it wouldn't try and fake it, though – it doesn't feel right. He knows loneliness and isolation, and it can be so nice. So much nicer than fake social isolation. He's never minded social isolation, it's never done that much for him. Sure, he was sad, at times, but true isolation, the feeling of being properly removed from everyone and everything…

That's sweet.

Desmond jerks in the Nothing and in the Emptiness, and around him the Lonely shifts and breathes. There's – something. Like a tug in Desmond's chest, in his soul – in his code screen, or whatever it is he has. The empty space that's his body is feeling a drag, though. It kind of feels like he's -

Gasping, Desmond convulses and grabs at his chest, as the Lonely disperses like so much mist around him, and the faked illusions of social isolation and dismissal fade. There's a tether – Desmond can almost see it, and he can definitely feel it. Someone's got a hand around his story and is tugging at his words, at the strings of his code, and he's -

Out there, someone Knows him.

He's Known.

He's Seen.

The string is tugged – and then released. Desmond stares in dismay as it goes taut and then snaps, withering away like smoke in the wind – the mist of the Lonely eats it up, wears it out, until Desmond is left holding just a – a bit of it, hanging from his chest. It's – thin, and black, plastic.

A… tape? It's thin and flimsy and takes Desmond a bit to actually remember what it is, but… yeah, it's tape. Cassette tape. "Huh," he says out loud, as the thin flimsy string of it loops loosely over his fingers, almost too light to be felt. Been – never, since he's seen this stuff, actually.

"Statement of Desmond Miles," the cassette tape announces into his fingers in a firm, brisk male voice. "Regarding his… existence…"

Desmond's skin crawls and he knows, instinctively, that it's Another. Another what, he's not sure, but it's Another. It feels like – like sandpaper against his senses, like anathema, but also like kin. It's a weird mixture of sensations, not entirely pleasant nor unpleasant. Kind of… tingly, like an itch that's satisfying to scratch.

It has to be the story, the one he made to the Eye, just like that old guy said – that has to be – someone out there, someone with power, just did something with his story. Recorded it on tape maybe? He isn't sure, but…

He has his hands again. And legs. So that's kind of nice.

Slowly, shakily, Desmond finds his feet enough to stand on them, peering around curiously. The Nothingness hasn't changed, the Lonely is still there, looming upon him, wishing to smother him, but – he's Known now, and that changes things.

"You're hungry," he says, which – is probably a weird thing to say, but it's what he feels. "I'm sorry, I'm not that kind of meal. I don't fear being lonely – it's all I've ever been. Can't fear the only thing you've ever known."

The Lonely doesn't answer, of course not, but it leans in, hungry and withering, whimpering and savouring. No one loves you. it whispers in his own voice, which is right enough. No one wants you. You're safe here. No one can hurt you here.

They're not really things it's saying, though, more like stuff his mind is saying at himself, as a placeholder for the things it craves. It kind of – it has the feel of a petulant, lonely child, mumbling into its knees, bitter and unintelligible.

The weird thing is, though it's been slowly digesting Desmond for eons, now, Desmond kind of feels bad for the thing. It's pitiful. Lonely things usually are… at least until they learn to live with it. And Desmond did, a long time ago… given the value of living, maybe, but… still.

"Here," Desmond murmurs, and gives the Lonely not his sadness, because he doesn't really have any to give, but his… serenity, the masochistic, drawn out edge of it – the moments spent alone in his flat, feeling self-righteously bitter about having to turn down an invitation to a party because someone was filming there. He feeds the Lonely the moments in abandoned gas stations when he was at his most desperate, his most alone, and with no one to turn to he turned inward instead, and felt worse for it. The moments of dissociation just after using the Animus, when he felt disconnected from everything, body and soul…

The Lonely flexes around him, and Desmond draws a shuddering, shocked breath. "Yeah," he croaks, shaky. "Now you get it." His mouth feels like dry parchment and tastes like mothballs at the end of a cabinet that hasn't been opened in decades – like an empty tomb in an abandoned castle, where Altaïr sat alone for centuries. "Isn't that better?"

The Lonely lets him go, and Desmond grips the shredded cassette tape in hand, and turns to follow it out.

So, Desmond the avatar of the Lonely? Taking place somewhere early on season 4 of the Magnus Archives. Yeah.

#fanfiction #crossover #the Magnus Archives #assassin's creed #tma #ac #desmond miles #the lonely

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booksanditsseriesormovies · 4 years ago

Text

GX Month Day 5

September 4th: “Pass The Salt”

No story is perfect. So what is something you wish you could have seen in the story of GX?

Oh boy where do I start

While I love GX there are quite a few things a would have done differently.

The case of Daichi Misawa

We are all more than familiar with Misawa and his fall from grace, from one of Judai’s potential top rivals, to a recurring joke even for the other characters (”Oh, Misawa, you’re here”). I get it, GX has a HUGE cast, like seriously huge. And we went from having 5 to 7 important characters in DM to around 15 in GX. Not everyone was going to survive the chopping block. Another victim of this was Hayato, but he was gone so soon (and with dignity) I didn’t really mind it. But Misawa’s case in S2 and S3 is just sad. I wish they could have done something better for him. At least he helped everyone get back from the other dimension and got Tanya in the end.

Johan vs Hell Kaiser Ryo

So, I don’t think I am the only one who thinks the duel between Ryo and Yubel (Possessing Johan) is one of the best if not the best in all of GX. It’s absolutely mind blowing.

But I think that the duel between Ryo and Johan in the first arc of S3 to bring everyone back from the other dimension is one that goes under a lot of people’s radars. Call me biased because Johan is my favorite GX character, but I was really digging that duel. Like even without Rainbow Dragon, Johan was putting up a serious fight against Ryo with the way he used the Crystal Beasts. So I am forever salty that they could never revisit this duel (vs actual Johan, not Yubel).

I get it, this duel served more as a preview for what was to come when we saw they would duel again. And Johan was barely in S4 and Ryo could hardly duel anymore given his heart condition. But for Ryo to have said that Johan had been the only one besides Judai to make him feel excited in a duel and who could have Judai’s unlimited potential...I think it would have been very very fun and exciting to watch, specially with Rainbow Dragon.

“Everyone’s dead....JUST KIDDING”

I know it’s a kids’ show, and it would have been extremely tough to follow another season without like 3/4 of the cast. But having everyone come back alive from the Hell Dimension felt like a bit of a cheap move that also makes some of Judai’s character development lose some significance.

So everything he went through from the moment his friend’s died (becoming the Supreme King out of pure helplessness and desire for revenge, then coming back from that with a terrible, terrible case of PTSD basically leaving him unable to duel, coming to terms with everything he had done and learning to use the strength of the Supreme King without letting it overtake him), it was all for nothing? Then all the people the Supreme King killed are alive and well?

It also takes merit from the other characters’ themselves and the circumstances of their deaths. Kenzan, Manjoume, Asuka and Fubuki being sacrificed, victims treated as collateral damage to create a super powerful card, right in front of a collapsing Judai as their hearts were corrupted too. Jim and O’Brien (the two most emotional deaths in S3 for me), who sacrificed themselves to bring Judai back and bury the Supreme King away. Edo, who sacrificed himself to try and save Echo (who gave her life away for someone who took advantage of her feelings), and Ryo, who even though he said was only looking for the ultimate opponent, tried until the last minute in the duel to separate Yubel and Johan. Hell, Ryo basically died twice (because of his heart failure and losing the duel), yet he survived.

As I said, I know the show would have been extremely hard to keep going. But it took away from the serious, dark story S3 was becoming. It takes away from Judai, and the ones who died because they all came back brand new.

Reincarnation

It’s not that I didn’t like it, Reincarnation is a trope that I LOVE. But in GX we literally got it dropped on us out of absolutely nowhere. We literally had no clue Judai could have had a past life and that’s where his story with Yubel came from.

Like idk, maybe some flashbacks or random shots of the Supreme King’s backstory (which wouldn’t make sense until we find out it’s Judai and would have made it pretty cool) would have made it better, IMO.

PTSD? Only Judai can relate

Another thing that I found weird was how quickly everyone got over what happened in the Hell Dimension except for Judai. We can see he is depressed and dealing with the aftermath of what S3 did to him. But what about everyone else? Weren’t they supposed to be in like a dimension of pain and suffering even if they were alive? I am glad so many main characters got their time to shine in S4, but, as we wrapped each story, a nod to what happened to them in S3 would have been nice. It’s all part of the process of growing up, too, learning to deal and cope with out most painful moments.

S4: “Overseas champions? I don’t know them”

Yeah, so given the HUGE (LIKE REALLY HUGE) role the Overseas Champions played in S3, barely seeing them in S4 was a bit of a whiplash. I am glad we got O’Brien dueling Mr. T and him playing with his mind with false memories was heartbreaking yet super interesting to watch. But we got literally no Jim and Karen, at all. The guy gave his life and his supernatural eye to try to bring Judai back. I had hoped we would have at least seen some of him in S4. We literally have no idea what the hell happened to Amon, my theory is that he stayed in that other dimension to build his perfect world and become its Monarch. But we literally have no clue about what became of him. And did Echo come back, too? Is she with Amon in the other dimension?

And then we have Johan. Considering Judai went to basically Hell to rescue him, I thought we would see a bit more of him in S4. Like at least bidding each other farewell? You know “Thanks for rescuing my soul from my card and saving me from your eternal guardian who was corrupted by evil and almost ended the Universe as we know it”? No? Okay then. I am so so glad we got him in that Battle Royale against Fujiwara tho, that kind of made up for it :)

Edo’s fate

From the start we know Edo is one of those characters that know they are fucking amazing at what they do and make a point of it. He is at the top of the food chain. The young pro duelist, talented beyond his years (for Pegasus to say he was just below Yugi, Kaiba and Joey?!), rich, refined, confident and a bit arrogant.

Then how is it that the last we see of him is receiving a direct attack from Ojama Yellow straight to the face? I know Manjoume was meant to win this duel, but it would have been great to see him summon Plasma and that Manjoume had summoned Armored Dragon, or maybe using the Ojamas with the Spell Cards to banish monsters from the field or to summon Ojama King. Like Edo didn’t even want to duel, it was all a scam from his former manager and they still made him go out like that :( I wanted a more epic goodbye duel for our Edo tbh.

Then again, I am biased because Edo is my second favorite character in GX.

Season 4 rushing

5D is very cool and all....BUT WHY DID THEY HAVE TO CUT GX SHORT FOR IT.

S4 is so obviously rushed and for me it Darkness was a bit of an underwhelming villain after the AMAZING villain that Yubel was for S3. Fujiwara just popped out of nowhere and we got no development of him in comparison to Yubel or even Saio (I won’t say that of Mr. Chairman because he literally popped out of nowhere in S1).

I just wished we had gotten a proper, full S4. More GX to fawn over.

Wow that was a lot of salt now I sound like I hater but I promise I love GX as much as Manjoume loves Asuka (lol).

#gxmonth2020 #yu gi oh gx #Yu-Gi-Oh!#i sound so salty omfg

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writeyouin · 5 years ago

Note

Reader human SO comes to Zim begging him to help them engineer and build a really elaborate and creepy Halloween costume of some weird and unsettling creature/monster.

Invader Zim X Reader - Cthulhu

A/N – I cannot name a better monster than Cthulhu, so please, enjoy this.

Warnings – None.

Rating – T

“Come on Zim, please,” You begged, hands clasped tightly in a ball.

Zim considered your plea, wondering why you weren’t dropping the matter. You had asked for a Halloween costume and he had repeatedly told you that he wasn’t going to waste precious hours of his plotting time making you anything to do with the pit-staining holiday. Usually, when he rejected your incessant human needs, you would shrug and go about your day, totally non-plussed, but this time you just kept talking.

“No,” He growled, finally getting irritated, which took him a while, considering he’d gotten used to how much of a pain GIR was compared to you.

“I will clean your lab for a month.”

“No.”

“I will make GIR stop pestering you for a while.”

“No.”

“I will find a way to shove Dib into a pig’s mouth until he’s digested.”

“Those creatures eat people? I KNEW IT!”

Your eyes lit up hopefully, “Is that a yes?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

Zim slapped his face, dragging his hand down it exasperatedly. “(Y/N), if I make a costume for you, then I have to make a costume for GIR and that will be far, far too much hassle. ON TOP OF THAT I DON’T WANT TO. When did it become a rule for me to entertain you or any of your other FESTERING BABOON KIND?”

“It became your duty when I found out what you are, didn’t tell anyone, and then you asked me to teach you about human courtship rituals,” You harrumphed, sick of being Zim’s plaything whenever he wanted, whilst receiving nothing in return.

Zim made a series of frustrated noises, pulling at his antenna to relieve the tension. He didn’t know what to do with you when you were like this.

GIR, having heard the majority of the argument from inside a random pile of haggis that had no rightful place in the lab, started laughing hysterically, “Somebody’s in trouble.”

“GIR, DO NOT MOCK ME! HELP ME GET RID OF (Y/N) SO I CAN WORK IN PEACE.”

“IMMA FIX YOU UP,” GIR replied, throwing a book at Zim’s head and ducking back down into his haggis pile.

Zim read the crayon on the front aloud, “The GIR guide to relationships.”

Sticking his lip out in consternation, Zim read on silently, skipping past the pictures of rainbows and flying moose to a page called What to Do When They’re Angry.

Apparently, he was supposed to ‘Smooth things over’ by asking you why this event was important. Although Zim pretended not to care about you, he did very much so, ever since he’d received his first ever compliment from you. Moreover, he loved showing off his human mate to Dib, who also had something of a crush on you; it annoyed the tiny-brained Dib more than anything whenever Zim got close to you.

“On my planet, we have only one holiday,” Zim stated in a superior manner. “The day of the ALMIGHTY TALLEST. That is a day of true importance, unlike this DISGUSTING candy nightmare day. WHAT IS ITS PURPOSE? WHAT SECRETS DOES IT HOLD?”

You knew that was Zim’s long-winded way of asking what the holiday meant to you and you looked to him pleadingly, “I don’t really know how to put it Zim, but imagine if I told you that you couldn’t celebrate your one holiday properly.”

“HERECY!” Zim screeched.

“Exactly. Halloween- Well, it’s a day to be scarier than the things that scare us, among other things.”

“Hmm,” Zim held his hand to his chin thoughtfully.

Stuck in his thoughts, Zim continued making the sound for no less than half an hour, by which time you had got bored and left with GIR to watch TV upstairs; it wasn’t worth interrupting Zim when he got like this, he would only have to start his thought process over again if you did. Finally, Zim had an idea of such evil proportions, the Tallest would have to be impressed.

“COMPUTER! Search the most evil, the most horrifying, the most abominable Earth nightmare you can. This Halloween will be the first of a new era, THE ZIM ERA! THE HUMANS SHALL RUE THE DAY-”

“Are you done?” The computer moaned boredly.

Zim held back a choked cry of outrage, if only to look at the research his computer had uncovered. When he read the new document, he grinned, the grin quickly turning into a maniacal laugh that echoed in the lab. Yes, you would have your costume, and it would be horrifying.

“What is it?” You asked dubiously, staring at the little orb that Zim had just proudly pressed into your hand.

“Your costume,” Zim stated as if it was the most obvious thing in the world.

“…It’s just a ball.”

“NO! This is a marvel of Irken technology. When you go outside, crush the ball in your fist and billions of my nanobots will form an exoskeleton around your body, creating THE BEST HALLOWEEN COSTUME IN THE WORLD!”

Your eyes lit up animatedly, “Really? That’s so cool.”

“Indeed, it is freezing on the scale of human appreciation. Now, what are you waiting for? Let’s go.”

Zim dragged you outside to the sidewalk, where he gave you an encouraging nod to crush the ball. You couldn’t wait to see what kind of costume he’d designed for you. The second you crushed the tiny orb, you felt the nanobots, cocooning you safely inside their costume. A helmet appeared first, letting you watch as your new armour was built around you. You watched as the bots interlinked, making you taller and broader. You could just see the tentacles that grew on your helmet, a slimy texture coating them.

A lady with two children further down the street started screaming, yet you could do nothing as you grew even taller, towering over the surrounding buildings.

“UH, ZIM!?” You cried out, the costume transforming your voice into a monstrous roar. “ZIM, WHAT’S HAPPENING?”

“YOU WANTED TO BE A MONSTER DID YOU NOT?” Zim cackled. “THEN BE A MONSTER!”

You had no control over your limbs as you started destroying the buildings around you. A timer appeared on a computer screen next to you. ‘Time remaining as Cthulhu, twelve hours and counting.’

“ZIM, WHEN I STOP DESTROYING THIS CITY, YOU AND I ARE GOING TO HAVE A SERIOUS TALK ABOUT CONSENT!” You bellowed, crushing your neighbours house with a desperate apology.

Zim only laughed harder, chasing after you to make sure Dib could not get in the way of his master plan; you were right, Halloween was a good holiday.

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#Zim #invader zim #invader zim x reader #zim x reader #gir #reader #you #reader insert #fanfic #fanfiction #halloween #cthulhu #Anonymous

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