#and then ill be stuck in this shitty apartment in this fucking town in the state ive never left

[badfanfictionaire]

It’s not unusual for a vampire to go their whole existence wishing to find someone to spend forever with.  They’ll probably have five or six lovers over their lifetime, until they inevitably got snuffed out by some happy-go-lucky monster hunter and perish like a pathetically mortal soul.  But, they’ll probably never find the one before that. Eddie’s never heard of a vampire meeting their soulmate, at least not in real life.  Lore would suggest that women swoon over vampire lords, and swear allegiance to them for as long as they both shall live.  But, lore would also have you believe that all vampires can turn into bats (which, bummer, they can’t), and that they’re all allergic to garlic (which again is untrue, garlic bread is delicious) (Why is it that only the shitty parts of lore are true, like the whole stake through the heart bit?). In Eddie’s experience, the minute you ask a girl if she wants to spend forever forever with you, she freaks the fuck out and takes off.  (Which, ouch??)

Needless to say, Eddie doesn’t even consider the possibility that he might meet his soulmate backstage at a talent show in some podunk town in Indiana.  Life gets boring as hell when you’ve been alive for six hundred some odd years, so, from time to time he liked to get creative with his human persona.  In 1980 he decided that with a buzzcut and ill-fitting clothes, he could probably still pass as a middle schooler, especially if Wayne told the school he’d been held back or something.  So he decides to try going back to school.  He kind of underestimated how different school was going to be in 1980 though, given that he hadn’t been in school since the 1960s.  Things had changed a lot, and he stuck out like a sore thumb.  

He met Christine Elizabeth Cunningham on September 12th, 1980, and he just knew he had to win her over some how.  By 1986, he’d realized that was going to be a lot harder than he’d anticipated…

But, in March of that year, he caught a break, Chrissy broke up with her long-time boyfriend and needed a shoulder to cry on.  And it just so happened he had not one but two leather-clad shoulders to offer.  And so, offer he did.  As luck would have it, having existed for six hundred-some-odd years finally paid off, because if there was one thing he’d become quite proficient at in his life it was being a good listener.  Tearfully she told him everything, from how controlling her mother was to how much of a moldy schnitzel Jason was. 

Somehow they ended up back at his place and got high, laying with their faces inches apart on his bed. 

“Can I tell you a secret?” 

She nods. 

“I’m a vampire,” he whispers.

She giggles. “Sure don’t look like one to me.”

“No? Not even with the pale skin and the whole dark aesthetic?” 

“No,” she says, making grabby hands at him, “You’re too squishy.” 

She scooches a bit closer and her hands land on his shoulders, “You listen to me, Eddie Munson, you are not a mean scary vampire like everyone says you are.  You’re just a big soft teddy bear who wears black and… well, you’re too hot to be a crusty old vampire anyway.”

His breath catches in his throat with the way her big blue eyes bore into his soul, but then she lets out another giggle and he can’t help but laugh too. 

Later, when they’re starting to sober up, he rolls over to face her again. 

“Can I tell you something serious?”

“Anything,” she says. 

“I really am a vampire.”

Her eyes rove over his face, and don’t see any hint of it being a joke. 

“Oh.” 

“Wanna see?” 

“See what?” she asks, her eyebrows furrowing together. 

“My, uh, crusty old vampire fangs?” 

Hesitantly she nods.  Maybe she’s expecting him to produce a pair of those flimsy imitation fangs they sell at Party City, but he knows she’s probably not expecting him to open his mouth and protract his fangs. 

“Holy shit,” she murmurs, her eyes wide.

“I’m sorry,” he says, immediately retracting them and regretting having frightened her.  She was just so disarming, he couldn’t help it.  He wanted her to know him, the real him, even if it meant they only had today. 

“What for?” 

“I’m a monster, Chrissy,” he says, feeling his face flush with embarrassment. 

“Hey, look at me,” she says, her tiny fingers pushing his chin back up so his eyes meet hers again, “You are not a monster, Eddie.  I mean, maybe in the literal sense, but, in all the other ways? I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone who was less of a monster than you.”

“Sweetheart-”

“Whatever self-deprecating you’re going to say, I won’t hear it.”

“I shouldn’t have sprung that on you,” he says. 

Chrissy gives him a one-shoulder shrug. 

“You know, you’re not what I thought you’d be like,” she says softly. 

“Mean and scary? Not even with the fangs?” 

She nods, then, “I’m not scared, you know.” 

“You should be.” He brushes his thumb against her cheek. 

“Kiss me?” 

“Are you sure?” 

“Please,” she urges sweetly. 

And so he does, gently, tenderly, with every ounce of himself.  

“I’ve loved you since I first laid eyes on you,” he breathes when they separate for air, “Even back then-”

“Back then?”

“The middle school talent show,” he says, remembering it fondly. 

“I’m sorry, I don’t remember,” she replies, averting her eyes in shame.

“I wouldn’t remember me from back then either,” he assures her, “But, perchance, we could continue from here? Where we are now?”

“I’d like that,” she says, a contented smile replacing her frown. 

It’s much too soon to ask her to be his bride, or to ask for her to join him in the afterlife, but he knows deep down in his heart that one day she’ll agree to both propositions.  He’d wait another hundred years if he had to, as long as it meant he would finally have his soulmate by his side where she belonged.  Thankfully, it doesn’t take nearly that long for his dream to come true. 

In the year 1990, Edward James Munson and Christine Elizabeth Cunningham are united in both holy matrimony and the afterlife.  And so, the young man who once believed he was destined to wander the Earth alone forever, found he was no longer trapped in solitude.  Instead, hand in hand, he and his true love would navigate the world as one.  (Until, ya know, they inevitably got snuffed out by some happy-go-lucky monster hunter and perished like any other pathetic mortal souls.)

👻👻👻👻

(read on AO3)

[peculiar0ne]

okay

so for the record because i've never officially mentioned it- i have a chronic illness. it is (as of currently due to financial reasons) undiagnosed, but that's besides the point.

it mostly affects my legs, they're always in some sort of pain. tolerance has gotten lower over the last few months and my cane that i only used on my worse days quickly became almost useless, except as an assistant in getting up and down stairs in my apartment. i recently was lucky enough to be able to have my friends scrounge up enough cash so we could get me a wheelchair, as my health has declined so rapidly and i was losing most of my independence, having to rely on my boyfriend for most basic things.

i was able to take a day trip with some of my friends just yesterday, it was not only my first time using my wheelchair in public (minus a literal 5 minute walmart trip the day i got it), but also my first time using it in a completely different place from home. we were in a town that we all travel to quite frequently, but because of how far away from home we were (hour 45 minutes), and the fact that my comfort person, my boyfriend, was back at home stuck at work, it was extremely difficult for me to enjoy my day the way i wanted to.

because yesterday i experienced my first ableism encounter(s) since becoming an ambulatory mobility aid user in general. i've had ableist comments over my autism, adhd, and ocd countless times before...but this stabbed me right through the heart.

i've had my wheelchair for i believe 4 days in total now, i'm still getting used to it and i still have very mixed feelings about myself having to use it (internalized ableism, but mostly just fear of not being independent enough). i have already sat and cried countless times, worrying that my partner will eventually give up on me because of how dependent i'm slowly becoming...

yesterday i was in a location in which i have always felt safe in with my close friends. i've visited said place over 30 times in my life because it's so close to home, and not once have i had a moment where i've had to stop to sit and hold back tears.

tears of rage i think, mostly.

but also devastation. i knew ableism was shitty especially to those of us who are visibly disabled in some way shape or form (whether that be using a mobility aid or being a fancy walker, etc.), but holy fucking shit i am absolutely in ruins over what humanity has become.

i was wheeling alongside one of my friends to go to a store in our favorite mall while our other two friends stuck behind at the arcade, which we all agreed to meet back up at. when leaving the store to quickly visit another one, i heard a group of three boys saying "tokyo drift" behind us.

at first, i pushed it aside. i figured they were just pointing out something or watching some sort of clip on their phones. but then when i glance behind me, as i have caught myself doing as a cautious approach to still not being fully used to my chair, they're smirking cockily at me.

again, i push this aside.

but i shouldn't have because the moment i turned back around i hear "they see me rollin'", followed by a chorus of immature giggles, and the boys running away laughing and looking back at me and my friend.

i immediately dropped any evidence of happiness on my face. i was disgusted with myself. honestly it's only been 12 hours, i still am pretty disgusted with myself even though all i was doing was minding my own business.

now, my friends that came with all either have adhd or autism, much like myself. the specific friend i was wandering the mall with at the time has selective hearing because of her adhd therefore she did not hear these horrid comments, but she looked over to me and asked what was wrong.

i tried NOT to sound like a dick but lowkey i kind of growled when i told her what happened and she just death glared them and then took me to build-a-bear (our original destination) and bought me a kuromi plushie to cheer me up.

fast forward about an hour, the four of us are just finishing dinner in the mall food court. at this point, i was still upset but i had cheered up a little as my mind was able to be elsewhere for a while.

just as we're getting ready to go to the arcade, i'm falling a tiny bit behind. but the arcade is about 100 feet away so it's not a huge deal, right?

wrong.

two other boys, completely separate from the three earlier, look down at me with stupid grins on their faces and say "do a trick!" as they're walking away.

again, my friends were a bit ahead of me, and we're in a crowded food court so they didn't hear.

thankfully they all spend the rest of the night trying to cheer me up (i do not deserve them) but i'm sitting here typing this and trying not to cry.

it's so stupid.

but the stupider thing?

all five of these guys were ranged 18-25 at most. one of the guys in the first group looked to be 16, but i'm not sitting here about to assume that shit. it just devastates me that these people can just look at someone in a wheelchair and think "OMG THAT'S SO FUNNY GUYS" and all his friends will fucking agree.

disabilities are not funny.

mobility aids are not a joke. mobility aids are necessary for us with disabilities to get around.

honestly, i hope you don't look at your grandfather in a wheelchair and start laughing. because there's really no difference there besides age.

just grow the fuck up and start respecting us disabled folks.

that or kindly go fuck yourself!

thanks for coming to my tedtalk, i will now go contemplate my life and worry about my crippling medical bills :)

[despite-everything]

im sitting outside my partners apartment in my car and honestly i shouldnt have come. im pretty upset (with both of them, but one in particular) because of some shit and id been debating not coming down to see them (i live an hour away... i have a thing in this town tomorrow night, so rather than just driving down for that i was coming today so i could spend the night with my partners and enjoy time with them) and i convinced myself to visit anyway and i shouldnt have. if i didnt have to be in this town tomorrow id actually just turn around and drive back home. i thought itd be best if i still came because id be embarrassed to tell my dad (who i live with) why plans changed and im tired of lying about shit like this. i need to talk to my partners aboutthis because if nothing changes i will break up with them - i understand that these problems that are arising are due in part to mental illness, but its not fair to expect me to just have to adapt to shitty treatment because of it. we're all fucking mentally ill and if they can't improve their behavior after months of promising to them im just fucking done. this has happened to me so many times before in friendships and relationships and its fucking embarrassing!! if i was anyone else i'd be saying to break up immediately but i don't want to.

im just fucking venting here but i dont know who to even talk to about this other than my partners and while that's going to happen eventually im just like... im fucking upset. every few weeks, i drive for more than an hour each way to visit people who live in a town i used to live in. they rarely come see me. i spend money on food and gas when i do this and have to account for it in my monthly budgeting. i stay with people who say they have no plans and want to prioritize us spending time together, but when i get there, they almost always have made separate plans while i'm there that i am not part of, and rarely give me a warning so that i can adjust my schedule or make other plans of my own. i mention that this is an issue, they promise to do better, then they dont. i adjust to texting a few days in advance to check their schedule, and despite doing so,they consistently make or have "forgotten" other scheduling conflicts that they bring up either the night before i drive to visit or when i arrive. thats the scenario, right? this has happened to me before. last time, it was with my high school friends who continued to string me along until i decided that it hurt too much and i slowly backed out of the friendships. no one has reached out since. this time, it's my fucking partners. the main difference is that i have a key to my partners apartment, meaning im not stuck in my car/in parks when they're busy. but thats just so fucked up. especially since my partners used to encourage me to step back from my old friends who were hurting me this way.

im just venting so i can get some of this shit off my chest before i go inside. to my knowledge, one of my partners is inside napping, while the other is in some meeting they didnt tell me about until last night. i dont even know what the fucking meeting is about or where it is.

i dont want to go inside because... what? am i supposed to pretend everything is fine and hide my feelings so they dont feel guilty? thats not fucking fair. if i let my upset show, they're going to act like kicked puppies and im going to feel fucking awkward because i dont want excuses and i dont want groveling or a hundred "im sorrys". i dont want that. i want their fucking behavior to change.

[need-a-fugue]

Trustworthy (Chapter Two)

Summary: You’ve spent the last three years teaming up with Santiago Garcia on every mission you had a hand in coordinating… and the past several months plotting with him to take down the biggest bad to hit your radar. But even all your time at the DEA and all your experience in the field couldn’t have prepared you for this.

Pairing: Frankie “Catfish” Morales x Fem!Reader (slow burn)

Warnings: Language... shitty language. And maybe sheer size? This one’s nearly 6,000 words... I may have gotten a little carried away. 😬

It began as a drunken joke, a flippant what if…

“If no one else is gonna do it,” you’d slurred out, voice barely above a whisper despite the cantina being utterly empty aside from the two of you, “we should take the motherfucker out ourselves.”

He’d laughed at the time, and promptly cut you off before insisting on walking you home. He helped you along the uneven streets of Leticia, held back your hair as you blew chunks into a dark alley, even slept on your couch that night just to make sure you didn’t die in your sleep. That’s what he told you, anyway. But you suspected that Santiago stuck around that night because he just couldn’t get your words out of his head.

You hadn’t been so drunk that you’d failed to notice the way he went eerily silent following your seemingly ludicrous suggestion. You hadn’t been so far gone that you’d missed the sudden glint to his eyes, nor the crooked smile that wrapped around his face as you said the words, “I want Lorea dead.”

That next morning, he brought it up casually, asking – before you even had the chance to brush your teeth – if you remembered what you’d said. When you told him you remembered every part, he simply told you to go on, nodding slowly along as you dove headfirst into a painfully impulsive proposal, your words still tinged with a lingering, drunken idealism. You spilled out the disparate thoughts you’d been harboring for months, if not longer – the ones that together formed little more than the ill-conceived beginnings of a damn stupid plan – only to discover that they were precisely in line with what he’d been contemplating as well.

By the end of the week, you were introducing him to your longtime informant, a woman who’d worked for Lorea in some capacity for years. A gorgeous woman, whom you’re almost entirely certain Santi fell into bed with later that same night. And after just a few months of nearly constant off-the-record investigating – both of you becoming utterly consumed by the thought of bringing Lorea down – that crazy, ridiculous, fucked-up joke you’d made had become a highly illegal, morally questionable, might-just-get-you-fired-and-thrown-into-a-federal-prison plot for ending the reign of one of the premier drug traffickers in South America.

You’d started it. There was no denying that. You’d started the whole damn thing.

For nearly three years, you fought the good fight with Santiago Garcia down in Colombia. He was one of just a handful of people there whom you trusted. He actually was one of just a handful of people there you even really knew.

If you ever got to chose an advisor to head up a mission, he’d be it. Any raid that fell within your purview, he’d help to organize. Intel was slow in coming, CIs dropping off, bosses telling you not to leave Leticia and to remember to stay in your lane? No problem. Garcia to the rescue.

He was able to operate largely independently – unlike poor, bound-by-the-rules-and-regulations-of-the-DEA you. Local cops and the surrounding military actually liked him and never balked at bringing him in, mostly because he was more than capable of playing along with their bullshit. Hell, he was so good at it, that for the first few months you knew him, he had you convinced that he either completely bought into the very obvious corruption surrounding that Amazonian paradise, or – if he really didn’t see it – he was dumber than a fucking box of rocks.

But Santiago Garcia never missed a damn thing. And while he might have seemed to have written off the actions of certain officials or the peculiarities you both encountered, he never ignored – nor forgot – the individuals he suspected of collusion. He was just smart enough to know when to act.

You, on the other hand, well, you never were very good at not calling people out. For all your life, if you saw something that seemed funky, you’d say something… immediately. If you ever suspected someone of lying, plotting, taking bribes, just plain being dirty, you’d raise an accusing finger high. Hell, that’s the main reason you got sent down to that southernmost point of the country, transferred away from what you saw as being the real goings-on, to simply help keep an eye on the drug runs taking place at the border.

Santiago taught you to quell your initial reactions of raising a stink when you believed something was amiss. He urged you to stop seeing the word in a never-ending list of black and white rules. He showed you how to keep from boiling over and calling people out, a thing that undoubtably kept you from getting yourself reassigned somewhere you’d be less of a nuisance… again.

He also fed you intel, shared specifics of his suspicions, and helped get you into military-run raids where DEA might otherwise have been shut out. And in the time in between – when you would normally just stalk around your small apartment all alone or perhaps stalk about the city… also all alone – he provided friendship, that not-so-tiny thing you’d been lacking ever since getting transferred from your post and away from the workmates and friends you’d had for years in Mexico.

He was fun and sharp-witted and outgoing, eager to make friends with just about anyone. He invited you out for drinks, dancing, into local card games. And though you often wondered why – did he feel sorry for you because the local police and military alike treated you like a damn leper? Was he trying to show others that you were alright, despite being a gringa DEA agent? Did he simply want to fuck you? – you’d be lying if you were to say that you didn’t feel damn lucky he’d stumbled into your life and forced his friendship upon you.

And how did you repay him? For all of the invites he’d extended, all the drinks purchased, all the intel he threw your way, all the military-run raids he somehow managed to get you in on? All of the trust and faith he invested in you?

You’d set him on a path to ruin.

000

The bar was much larger than you’d anticipated, the quick drive-by you did on your way to the motel earlier this afternoon making the freestanding structure – out in the middle of nowhere, like everything else in this Bumblefuck, USA town – appear small. Maybe it was because the massive parking lot dwarfed it. Maybe it was because you were only half awake, at best, and just didn’t notice the size of the place. Maybe it was because Santiago drove past it at 65 miles per hour, alerting you to it – that’s where we’ll meet up tonight – just as you flew by, allowing little more than a meager glimpse.

Regardless, you expected… less.

But the place is huge. There are two bars on either side of the sprawling building and tables flanking the wide-open center, which you could only imagine would at some point be flooded with drunken townies, eager to dance the night away.

When you first arrived – well over an hour ago – it had been just you and a handful of incredibly loud bros populating the place. You took off for the far bar, ordered yourself a drink, and slinked into a large table in a dark corner, eager to remain invisible until Santi arrived with his friends… his crack team. But – just as you’d come to expect from Garcia – he was nearly an hour late, and by the time he and his brothers-in-arms strolled in, you’d already been spotted by the douchebags at the bar and had to fight off the advances of two separate assholes, each of whom only approached you when making their way back from the bathroom.

“I’m sorry, bonita,” Santiago had proclaimed with a wide smile and a not-at-all-stifled laugh after you told him of your troubles. He turned to face the group of strangers at the bar, caught the glares of a few of them, and shouted over a simple dictate to, “Fuck off!”

And that had been the cap to your introduction to your new co-workers. They strode in, all smiles and laughter and blooming drunken glows, coming from what must have been a great fight night, undoubtably made all the better by being together once again, only to be forced to shake hands with you… a jetlagged stranger, washed out in the low light, obviously frazzled by having a guy fresh from the men’s room – who probably didn’t even bother to wash his hands – wrap an arm around your shoulder and tell you that the bathroom door locks… in case you wanted to check it out with him later.

They took your uncomfortable story in stride, exchanging pleasantries and apologizing again for their tardiness – well, Will apologized at least – before grabbing some drinks and then plopping down at the isolated table you’d chosen.

For a bit, the group of them just talk to one another, tying up loose ends to the conversations they’d been having before arriving. You catch snippets of nah, man, she’s gone… didn’t work out and do you have any idea how expensive kids’ soccer is? as their conversation flows around you, seemingly oblivious to your existence. For those first ten minutes or so – save Santiago’s paltry threat shouted across the bar and Benny’s rather flirtatious introduction – the whole team settles in around you and acts as though you aren’t even here at all.

The only exception during this time is the pilot, Frankie Morales – had Santi called him Fish? He keeps quiet as the others speak, cracking a smile at their comments every now and then, but mostly nursing his beer and awkwardly picking at the label in silence. Every so often, he steals a glance over at you, as if to say, yeah, I know you’re here. His eyes are warm and friendly despite the otherwise utterly unreadable expression planted on his face.

Maybe you’re simply intrigued by the fact that he’s the only one actively acknowledging your presence, or it could be that you’re just rather curious to figure out what his placid expression is hiding. Or perhaps you’re merely a fan of the subtle beauty that his sharp profile paints on the background of the dark, seedy bar. Whatever the reason, you find yourself not just staring but gazing at the man long after he looks away.

“So, shoot me straight,” Will says suddenly, nudging your shoulder and tearing into your thoughts as he turns to face you. Your eyes bounce wildly away from Frankie’s face, a heat creeping up your neck as you light on the patient smile of the man next to you. “That file… it’s your work, right?”

“Hey,” Santiago scoffs from across the table, leaning over to backhand his friend in the chest. “What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

Will’s face cracks and a deep rumble of a laugh spills out of him as he bites out, “It’s good work. Too good to come from your sorry ass.”

Santi scoffs, his hand flying to his heart with a wounded quality. You simply shrug, small smirk perking your lips as you feel some of the initial tension of the gathering – and the strange concern that you might actually have somehow become invisible – finally start to lift. “He helped,” you say, tone coy.

“Oh, c’mon,” Santiago gripes, giving you a slightly irritated, definitely amused look. “Half that intel came from me. The PNC, Colombian military, they barely even acknowledge you’re there.”

You interrupt with a snort and a scathing, “Yeah… it’s really fucking annoying when people do that,” before choking down the rest of your beer.

If he understands the jibe about your current situation, he doesn’t let on, instead pushing his point that, “None of them would’ve given you jack shit.”

“And the one informant who actually got all this started?” you counter, accusing brow raised high. “Who’s informant was that?”

His face begins to blush, just a bit of redness seeping into his cheeks, as he reaches out to grab your empty bottle. “She was mine in the end,” he mutters, shoving back from the table and rising from his stool. “I’ll get the next round.”

“Yeah,” you call out after him. “You owe me more than just a beer for stealing my CI!”

“I’ll get you a shot too!” he throws over his shoulder, never looking back as he makes his way to the bar.

You turn back to the men surrounding you, each of them now eyeing you warily, and a part of you wants to go back to when they ignored your presence entirely. Tom – what did Santiago call him? Redfly? – is the first to break the awkward silence, ticking his chin in your direction. “So,” he starts before pulling a long breath in through his nose. “DEA.” He overenunciates each letter and states rather than questions your affiliation, despite there being an inquisitive – or is it accusing? – glint to his eye.

“Yeah,” you say with a lingering nod. “Yep. DEA.”

“They teach you about this kind of thing?” Will asks, his drawl deep and languid. You turn to look at him, the imposing man by your side, and feel your shoulders tighten all over again when you see that the stern expression he had worn when first shaking your hand has returned. But then something lightens, the corner of his mouth ticking up just a bit, his gaze softening as your eyes meet. You’re certain that he can sense the rise in tension, understands with just a glimpse of your face that you’re way out of your element here. Intimidated. Nervous. And while the softening of his countenance doesn’t wipe away your anxiety completely, you do at least appreciate the attempt.

Ben, the tall, younger man flanking your other side, must notice the unease building up inside you too. He leans in and bops you with his shoulder, a light, buoyant laugh bursting out of him. “Aw, hell,” he emits breathily. “Leave her alone. If Pope trusts her, she’s got to be good.”

“Not saying she’s not good,” Will intones, shooting you a quick wink that, oddly, really does manage to set you at ease. “Just wondering how much experience she has with ops like this.” His eyes start to sparkle as they lock onto yours once again. “So, sweetheart, you ever pull a recon mission deep in the jungle?”

You offer an evasive shrug and release a tightly held breath. “I got lost in a corn maze once. Had to find my way out on my own. Probably would’ve starved in there if I hadn’t had the presence of mind to bring a funnel cake in with me.”

On your left, Ben snorts out another laugh, and across the table you see Frankie try to maintain that straight, impassive face. But Will’s deadpan expression doesn’t shift in the least. “Well,” he says with a sigh, bringing his nearly empty beer bottle up to his lips. “I guess that is pretty damn close.”

“Ha, ha,” Tom mocks. He waits to go on until you look his way, and once you do he levels you with what can only be described as a fatherly stare – oddly disappointed and imploring, stern and warm all at the same time. “We’re all very glad to hear that you have a sense of humor.”

“Very glad,” Ben interjects with a wide grin.

“But,” he continues, “You’re not gonna go in there and be part of this unless you can convince us that you’re capable.”

Santiago’s voice cuts in then, sounding over the clink of beer bottles as he lays out the next round on the table. “She’s capable,” he states simply before sliding back into his seat next to Frankie. “We’ve been on…” he glances over at you, “how many raids now?”

“At least a dozen,” you answer.

He gives a firm nod and lets his eyes drift between the men at the table. “She’s done good every time. Stays outta the way, does what she’s told.”

Your brow wrinkles and tugs tightly together, deep frown taking over your face. “Jesus, Garcia. I’m not a fucking dog.” He gives a quick laugh, but says nothing, prompting you to defend yourself. “I’ve worked with military advisors for years. Most of my career has been spent working alongside foreign armies and police forces. I’m not just some kind of desk jockey, I promise you that.”

“This is different.” The words flow across the table, the deep rumble sliding just beneath the reverberating bass coming from the jukebox in the corner. You look up and lock onto Frankie’s eyes, note immediately the hesitancy building behind them. He raises his brows as he looks at you, almost into you, and says simply, “This isn’t a raid. This isn’t some amateur hour bullshit put on by the local cops. And you won’t have the military or CNP or the US government at your back if something goes wrong.”

You nod, wanting – for some inexplicable reason – to pull your gaze from him, but finding that you just can’t. “I know. I get that.”

“Do you?”

Santiago gives his friend a little shove, just enough to cause him to look his way, breaking the odd hold he has over you. “She’s a good shot,” he tells him, tells all of them. “And she’s done enough undercover work for me to know that she sure as shit can keep her head.” He looks over at you again – “I still don’t know how you managed to get out of that shit in the comuna last year.” – and then gives a wry little laugh as his head shakes absently.

“Alright,” Tom mutters just as he slams down an empty bottle and reaches over to grab a new one. “She follows orders and keeps her cool… at least we can work with that.”

Benny nudges you with his elbow and when you look up at him you’re met with the widest, sunniest of smiles – never mind the deep split in his lip from the fight that he claims to have won just a few hours prior. “Hear that? That’s just about the best kind of approval you’ll ever get from Redfly.”

“Approval?” Tom shoots across the table. His voice drops an octave as he aims a serious stare over at you. “I’m still not convinced that we can actually trust you.”

“Jesus,” Santi breathes out with an annoyed air. “You really think I’d bring her here… hell, you think I’d have put all this together with her if I didn’t think – know – that she can be trusted?”

He shrugs. “You haven’t really known her that long,” he mutters thickly, his expression slipping back into something wary as he folds his arms across his broad chest and falls into a speculative silence as he mulls over his friend’s words.

You watch him closely, trying to discern what exactly he’s thinking. But long before you’re able to draw any sort of conclusion, Benny bumps you with his shoulder again and says simply, “Don’t worry about it, darlin’. He’s onboard.”

There��s a part of you that balks at the darlin’, just as you had almost called Will out on his use of sweetheart. But the truth is – both times – the names are uttered with a casual, even reassuring, cadence that you’re certain holds no demeaning intent. And you’ve been in enough male-dominated circles over the years to be able to discern at least that much. Even the way Ben’s looking at you now – genuine grin and kind eyes – seems to hold no innuendo. So you let it slide.

“How long did it take him to trust you?” you ask, the tension in your shoulders lifting when a throaty chuckle bubbles out of him.

“Oh, I don’t know that he does. I don’t know if Tom really trusts anyone.”

A snort of a laugh rings from the other end of the table, surprisingly coming from the Doubting Thomas himself. “You’re so full of shit,” he mumbles as he sits back upright and grabs his beer. He takes a giant swig and tacks on for good measure, “Besides, nothing wrong with being… cautious. My being – ”

“A distrustful prick,” Santiago interjects brazenly.

“Whatever you want to call it,” he counters with a faux-saccharine lilt. “It’s saved all your asses more than a time or two. Hasn’t it?”

There’s a quick round of almost wistful snickers from nearly all the men, each seeming to light onto a particular memory, their gazes faltering and ticking briefly off towards nothing. The exception is Frankie, who simply stares down at the battered beer bottle in front of him, sticker half peeled off and clinging to his fingernails as he continues to work at it with a frown. “What about this informant of yours,” he says, low voice slicing into the newfound silence. He shifts nervous eyes over to the man at his right. “You’re sure she can be trusted?”

Without hesitation, Santiago nods. “I’m sure of it. And besides, we’re not basing all of this just on her word. You read the file, right?” He glances over at you and ticks his chin in your direction. “We checked it out. We’ve been out there enough to get a lay of the land. We’ve seen the deliveries of cash coming in… and not going back out.”

Will speaks next, his words soft and slow. “Could all be a setup… a giant, well-planned setup.”

You shake your head. “No. No, it’s legit.” Five sets of eyes turn to you, drilling into you for something more substantial. But the truth is, all that you have is in that file. And, yeah, it could be an elaborate setup. Or – more likely than that – just a really, really bad idea. But your gut says it’s neither. Your gut says that this whole damn thing is the only way to put an end to Lorea’s ever-growing cartel.

Tom’s eyes narrow at you once again, suspicion still lingering in his glare. “How’d this all happen, huh? How’d you even get involved with this… this shit-brain scheme?” he asks before the serious countenance begins to crack and he blows out a harsh chuckle. “How’d Pope sucker you into all this?”

Santiago answers before you get a chance to even open your mouth. “I didn’t sucker anybody into anything. And I don’t use the same callsign down there, so…”

Your eyes flash over to meet his, face splitting into an insolent grin. “Pope…” you mutter, popping the p at the end. “How exactly did you get that name, anyway?”

He rolls his eyes. “You don’t need to know.”

“He spent his first firefight hailing Mary through the coms,” Will chimes in with a teasing lilt. “All damn night.”

“I was nineteen.” He defends… almost whines. “You wanna tell her how you got Ironhead?”

He shrugs and takes another pull of his beer. “I’m not embarrassed.”

Frankie smirks from the other side of the table as he issues out under his breath, “You should be.”

Your eyes bounce eagerly back and forth between the men, silently pleading for someone to tell you the story of Will’s ridiculous moniker. But it seems that you’ve once again gone invisible.

“Hey, he held that record for a solid decade,” Benny mutters beside you. “And I’m pretty sure that dipshit, MacCovey, cheated to take the title.”

“How can you cheat at that?” Frankie asks with an incredulous laugh.

“He cheated.”

“Cheated at what?” you blurt out, eager to just hear the tale. “Ironhead’s a title? With a record? For what?”

Will pivots in his seat, flashing you a smug grin as he rather haughtily announces, “Record for the most concussions sustained during basic training. And no one can take Ironhead away from me… especially not some hardheaded kid from freaking New York.”

“How do you know he was from New York?” Santi asks.

Frankie cocks his head at his friend too. “You met him?”

“Didn’t he die?” Tom interjects, confusion suddenly weaving through the lot of them.

“Did he?” Will asks. “Shit, guess he wasn’t that hardheaded after all.”

Benny leans forward to address them all. “He didn’t die. Just lost a leg. Roadside bomb.”

“Shit,” his brother repeats solemnly.

“Was supposed to be his last tour too. Well, guess it still was.” He looks down for a somber beat before lighting on Frankie. “And I heard that he never actually hit his head when he fell off that tower, so… cheated.”

Throughout all of the back and forth, you just sit, eyes wide, expression both amused and deeply concerned. “Jesus,” you finally breathe out once everyone falls quite. You turn to Will, look a little closer at him as though you might be able to discern some of the damage done so many years ago. “Are you… okay?”

He lets out a hearty laugh and raps his knuckles on his skull. “Nothing to worry about here,” he tells you with a wide smile. “Ironhead, remember?”

Tom snorts and shakes his head skeptically. “Tune’ll change when that CTE shit kicks in… start wandering around the neighborhood, talking to yourself, picking fights with people in grocery stores.” He stops short and flashes a shit-eating grin. “Oh wait…”

The joke – if there even really is one – is lost on you. But Will must get it, because his face flashes in irritation, a mere, “Very funny,” falling from his lips as he brings his beer bottle up to meet them.

You let out a sigh – “I’m confused.” – and choose to ignore Tom in favor of getting more of the story from Ironhead himself. “Did you get concussions on purpose? Why does this seem to be some kind of source of pride?”

“It wasn’t on purpose…”

“What about that full can of soup you tried to crush on your head?” Frankie interjects with a raised brow.

“Yeah, alright, there was that one,” he concedes.

Your forehead furrows deeper. “If you were always getting hurt, why didn’t they call you something like, Falls-a-Lot or Unlucky Charms or just Blockhead?”

He stares at you for a long moment, face hardening into a stoic set. “Wasn’t Tom asking how you got yourself into all this? Wasn’t that what we were talking about?”

You offer a nonchalant shrug. “Don’t think we were really talking about it…”

“She basically started it,” Santiago states simply. “I mean, I was in the minute she brought it up, completely in. But it was her shit-brained scheme from the get-go.”

“Really?” Tom smarts, skeptical look once again riding his face as he takes a pull from his beer.

“Look,” you begin, tone painfully sincere, “I’ve been on the losing end of this battle for years. And the people down there, the families… the kids he recruits…” You stop for a beat and slowly, bitterly shake your head. “Lorea, and all the others like him… It’s their turn to lose.”

Tom nods, his gaze never breaking from yours. “You do realize you sound just like him,” he mutters, ticking his chin towards Santi. “Seriously,” he begins, stare serious, but tone glib. “Did you two hatch this crazy little plan together in bed?”

You glance over at Garcia, quickly taking note of the burning blush creeping up his neck as he hides beneath his baseball cap and tries not to laugh. Then, on their way back to Tom, your eyes light on Frankie. He too is ducking his head. But he doesn’t seem to be laughing like the others. Rather, from what you can make out beneath the shadow of his hat, he looks… embarrassed. No. Dejected.

Your heart skips a beat and you blurt out suddenly, “We’re not sleeping together,” a little too loudly to come across as anything other than agonizingly defensive. The laughter intensifies and you clear your throat before going on to say, “Garcia’s usually too busy fucking his informants to ever even think of giving me the time of day.”

Benny just about loses it, his body pulsating with fits of giggles as he leans back a bit and reaches out to give you a high five. You oblige, a small, crooked smile tugging at the corner of your mouth as you see Santiago shift across from you. He peers at you from beneath the ballcap, eyes dark and smile wide as he says, voice deep and honeyed, “Oh, bonita, trust me, I’ve thought about it.”

You roll your eyes and tip back the nearly empty bottle to your lips, draining the last dregs of your beer before rising and stating, “I’ll get the next round… as long you guys promise to do nothing but regale me with embarrassing stories about Pope for the rest of the night.”

000

Jetlag. It’s something you’ve experienced countless times over the years, hopping from place to place, office to outpost to field. And yet you’ve never really managed to get used to it, the bone-deep fatigue kicking your ass after each and every trip you’ve ever taken. A full day of travel, and now a full night of drinking, and by the time the lot of you stumble out of the bar, you’re barely able to put one foot in front of the other.

“Lightweight, huh?” Benny jokes as he pushes past you on the way to his car.

You grumble under your breath, something akin to, shut the fuck up, though your words aren’t all that put together right now either. But Ben doesn’t hear any of it anyway, he’s already giving his brother an unforgiving shove in the nearly empty parking lot and laughing maniacally as he dodges the lazy retaliatory punch.

“Don’t mind him,” Frankie mutters from behind you. You stop and turn, squinting through the harsh halogen light piercing your eyes as you look up at him. He notices the pained grimace you give and lets out a light chuckle as he takes your elbow and swings you back around to lead you to the car. “You seem more tired than drunk to me,” he says with a lilt as he easily slips his arm beneath yours for a little extra support.

Without thinking, you let your head tip to the side and rest on his shoulder. “Soooo tired,” you bemoan. A deep rumble of a laugh pulls from Frankie’s chest, reverberates up and through his entire body so that you feel it vibrate into you. It makes you smile. It makes you tuck yourself in a little closer. You stumble a bit, your toe catching on a crack in the pavement, and before you can even think to right yourself, his arm pulls away and reaches around, the warmth of his hand splaying across your hip as he steadies you. “Maybe a little drunk too,” you admit with a sigh.

If he thinks it’s odd that you’ve burrowed so close to him, or if he’s the least bit uncomfortable with your fingers now clinging to the back of his shirt, or if he’s irritated at having to slow to a crawl to help you to Santiago’s car, he doesn’t show it. Instead he easily slows his pace to match yours, giving your hip a little squeeze as he says, “Hey, sorry about earlier.”

Your shuffling stops as you pull back to look up at him with a confused frown. “You mean telling that story about Santiago’s ex? I don’t think I’m the one… to apologize…” Your brow furrows even deeper as you try to sift through what you just said, trying to determine if it makes any sense.

He lets out another low laugh, the sound quickly becoming a new favorite tune. “No. I mean about…” He hesitates for a moment, the smile slowly melting from his face. “When I was… questioning you. Whether or not you’re up for this. And, you know, whether or not you’re getting played.”

“Oh,” you bark out, far louder than intended. “Yeah, no.” You wave it off and waste no time at all – fatigue and alcohol both wiping away any embarrassment you might otherwise feel at plastering yourself up against a near stranger – falling back into him.

He chuckles again as he hikes you a bit higher and leads you over to the tiny blue rental car in the corner of the lot. “It’s just… I know you put a lot of work into gathering the intel. And I know this is… important to you. Or you wouldn’t be here. But still…”

You turn your face into his shoulder, his chest, unabashedly breathing in the musky scent from the collar of his jacket as you mumble into him, “I promise not to fuck it up. At least not too bad.”

“Hey!” Garcia calls out from the car, swinging the back door open as you two approach. “You getting handsy with my girl?”

Frankie snorts out a laugh, incredulous, almost sardonic, and not nearly as endearing as the ones that have been rumbling into you for the last however many glorious minutes it’s been. “Not your girl,” you mutter blandly. “Too risky… too many possible diseases.”

“Hilarious,” he deadpans, standing back as Frankie helps you into the car, his palm pressing gently on the back of your head to make sure you duck inside safely. “She took like five Xanax on the flight in,” he tells his friend with a snicker. “Probably shouldn’t have let her drink so much on top of that.”

“Hate flying,” you breathe out as you settle back, harshly tugging at the seatbelt to your left.

Frankie shakes his head in amusement as he watches you grow increasingly frustrated with the non-cooperative seatbelt. “How can you hate flying?” he asks, crooked smile stretching across his face.

You stop the infernal struggle and collapse back into the seat, “Fucking hate it,” coming out of you in a petulant whine.

“Alright,” he murmurs amid a snicker as he leans into the car, easily tugging the seatbelt out and reaching around to buckle you in. Your eyes droop further, slipping closed as he pulls back out of the car, fading into the night. “You guys good?” you hear him ask, the deep tenor of his voice sounding even more melodic when penetrating the dark.

“Yeah,” Santiago tells him, fatigue drowning just that single word. “We’re over at the Motor Inn. Just a few miles up. Listen, Frankie… thanks for this. Really. This…” You almost open your eyes again, want to just to see if the expression on Garcia’s face matches the earnestness in his tone. “This isn’t just a standard op, you know. To me. To her. This is… just… thanks.”

“Yeah,” he replies simply. “Well, uh… I’ll see you Thursday.”

The only other sounds you hear before slipping away entirely are the door gently closing beside you, the engine starting up in a soft roar, and Santiago muttering, seemingly to himself from the front seat, “I am not carrying your ass to bed.”

Taglist: 

@tweedlydumbtweedlydoo @icanbeyourjedi @greeneyedblondie44

[hakasims]

Shitty Luca Movie Recap, Episode 4

Can’t Watch Nina, Even For Luca?

Don’t Worry, Me Neither. Goodbye.

.

..

...

Ok, fine, I’ll talk about the damn thing.

So it’s a warm September night, and I’m in the mood for a Luca Marinelli feature. In my infinite wisdom I choose Nina. “It’s directed by a woman,” I reason, “and women know what’s up.” ‘What’s up’ in this particular case is code for ‘how to frame beautiful men for the female gaze’. Because women can be auteurs, too, and being an auteur means making movies about your own personal wank material.

Turns out, sometimes a woman’s wank material consists less of a gorgeous male form and more of fascist architecture. We’ll discuss the former in due time, but for now, what’s Nina even about? Well, at its core it’s a simple story about a young woman who doesn’t know what she wants, set against the backdrop of the Rome that is almost entirely empty due to most people leaving for the summer. This could have been a fairly straightforward coming-of-age film, but Nina is too indie and up its own ass for that. Literally nothing of note happens in this movie, and it’s all long static wide shots of empty streets, endless stairs, and domineering largeness of Rome’s most famous fascist buildings such as the Palace of Italian Civilization, the Sapienza University of Rome, Palazzo dei Congressi, and, most prominently, the Fountains Hall. (Google what they look like if you don’t know.) Now, I’m guessing those locations weren’t chosen by accident. They could have easily added to the creepiness of the movie — and I’m assuming creepiness was intended; otherwise how do you explain these hoverboarding nuns?

Anyway, the employment of the locations could have been atmospheric and thematic had the shots not been so bland. But they are. Bland, flat, and always looking the same no matter what is happening in the scene. Usually audiences are willing to sit through slow uneventful movies because of interesting visuals or characters worthy of attention, but Nina has neither. The titular character herself is tedious. Even her bad fashion sense is bad in a boring way that doesn’t tell you anything about her. Is she stuck in perpetual adolescence? Is she searching to get in touch with her sensuality? Who knows. The only thing I’m certain of is that she needs to learn to tuck her tops into her bottoms.

Nina spends her days giving singing lessons, going to Chinese calligraphy classes, eating cake, exercising and taking midnight walks in the empty city. She wants to go to China in September — it’s the closest thing to a goal she has — yet she’s done no preparations, and instead of learning Mandarin she’s studying calligraphy. And she’s real bad at it, too.

There are reoccurring visual elements in the movie besides the vast emptiness: stairs, white columns, a jogger, a red dress, animals… You’d think those were very straightforward symbols, but they’re used too sporadically and inconsistently to hold any meaning. For example, animals. Nina is tasked with both helping out in a pet store and house-sitting an apartment with a German shepherd (a good boy named Homer), a guinea pig and a tank full of fish. The instructions she’s given are absurd, like feeding the dog sleeping pills and putting the guinea pig on a diet. And then there’s a supposedly American TV show always playing in and out of diegesis about dogs living in cages and swimming happily in pools, and it looks and sounds like a video off the political section on the dog version of YouTube. It contains timeless classics like “You are a dog born in the age of consumerism” and “Depression is an evil illness now spreading amongst dogs of every breed, dogs belonging to every social class.” The butter commercial from Crazy Ex-Girlfriend could never. And I wish the whole movie was as surreal as this TV program but unfortunately it’s as bland and directionless as Nina herself.

And boy is it directionless. There aren’t any subplots in the movie, no cause and effect, no acts, no structure, no flow; only scenes that happen, and I can’t even find any reasons for the order in which they happen. The scenes also don’t start or end; they just interrupt each other, not leaving any emotional impact. For example, there’s a scene where Nina sees her future self. She’s on one of those midnight walks with the good boy Homer when she sees a couple being romantic. The woman is wearing a long red dress, and the man is in all black. The shot is wide, so it’s impossible to see their faces, but the woman is obviously Nina:

And the man is definitely Luca. I recognized his ass. I’m not joking, guys. It’s his ass:

Also I was later directed to the website of the photographer who took the set photos, and yes, it’s Nina and Luca.

I never forget an ass.

Anyway, Nina, who at this point hasn’t properly met Luca’s character, Fabrizio, sees herself from the future acting romantic with him, and doesn’t react. We don’t even know if she recognizes herself or him or whether it’s even a real scene or a dream. How are we supposed to empathize with a heroine who isn’t allowed to react to her environment?

Whatever, it’s time to talk about Fabrizio. He plays the cello and he’s obnoxious. That’s it. He first appears as a patron of Caffé Palombini, the real-world café Nina frequents (and buys her cakes at). She’s drinking her usual milk shake and reading. At some point, their eyes meet, but neither says anything, and then Nina gets up and runs after the good boy Homer who decided to take a little stroll by himself. She leaves all her things behind: her milk shake, her handbag, at least three books, a whole stack of paper for calligraphy, and her diary. It’s obvious she’s going to come back as soon as she gets the dog. And yet before her feet are even out of frame, Fabrizio gets up, goes to her table and fucking steals her diary!

His next several appearances are random and sporadic, and it looks like he’s stalking Nina, but by the time of his first actual scene she is following him for some reason. Obviously, he can’t let a woman outcreep him, so he ambushes her:

He tells her blankly, “You’re following me,” but I think this scene deserves better dialogue. Thankfully, we have a whole well of predator/maiden media to pull from.

Though I personally believe this is the most appropriate line:

Fabrizio lets Nina know he has her diary in the dickiest way possible: he quotes from it to let her know that he’s read it. He then informs her that he’ll only give it back to her if she continues following him. And it’s not blackmail; “it’s an agreement.” What an asshole! I’m weeping for the dignified cuckoldry of Joseph.

And what was the purpose of that “agreement” plot point if the next time they meet is by chance? Quirky love interest writing, duh. So quirky that the accidental meeting happens when Nina is walking past a phone booth where Fabrizio is… doing a phone prank? I don’t know, I got nothing. Anyway, he’s annoyed their meeting is unintentional on Nina’s part, but he returns her diary, and I guess they start dating? He watches her sing once with what could only be described as a complete absence of emotions:

In the next scene she watches him play the cello after which they go on a date. Nina is wearing the red dress from the vision, but Fabrizio’s shirt is different. I fucking give up.

Their next (second?) date is a romantic dinner on Nina’s roof, and they’re dancing for entirely too long. She then tells him she’s scared of how much she’s enjoying his company, gives him a ridiculously chaste kiss goodnight and… completely ghosts him afterwards. And if you didn’t dislike Fabrizio before, you will now as he starts calling Nina at ungodly hours (including 5:30 am) and leaving her very whiny and increasingly more passive-aggressive, entitled, and accusatory voicemails. At some point he even leaves a voicemail for the fucking dog! He’s like, “Homer, I’m worried, meet me at the café.” Again, quirky love interest writing: extortion, phone pranks and a voicemail for a dog.

Fabrizio then lets Nina know he’ll be leaving town in three days in case she’d like to see him one last time or whatever. And she never fucking does! In any other movie she’d be chasing through the airport, but here she just drops him like he’s a well-tucked shirt! She tells the kid she’s befriended (she hangs out with an eleven-year-old boy the whole movie, don’t worry about it) that she’s afraid to be “like everyone else”, with a job and a boyfriend, so she doesn’t even say goodbye to Fabrizio. At some point she goes for a walk with the good boy Homer, and Fabrizio is also there, and they just miss each other. Even fate isn’t interested in that romance.

And then all the fascist buildings get covered in gigantic paper figurines, and the red-dressed Nina runs into Fabrizio’s arms. Because of course.

Nina is one of those movies where the main theme — a struggle to grow up — is obvious, but the rest of the elements are a mess only the writer-director could decipher. And I don’t really care. Again, I had to read Japanese postmodernists at university. What I do care about is the male form I mentioned at the start. I know I have no one but myself to blame for my expectations of how the director should have framed Luca’s body or face, but it’s one thing to frame him blandly and a completely different thing to isolate him as the only character (or actor) she’s deeply uninterested in filming competently. Everyone else in the movie gets their fair share of close-ups and decent lighting whilst Luca — whose name is literally second in the credits — gets, um, neglected.

This is his introduction:

These are literally all his close-ups:

Should I even count this last one? What’s with the lighting? Like, this is as well-lit as his face gets:

Oh, the shot is too wide and you can’t see his face properly? Well, tough poop:

Are you kidding me with this shit?

Nina may not be objectively the most terrible of the movies Luca’s been in: I’d argue both Mary of Nazareth and L’ultimo terrestre are worse, as is Slam, whose time’s a-coming. Nor is it the movie where Luca appears the least (The Great Beauty’s literal one minute of screen time is saying hi). But it’s the only movie I have no reasons to watch: it’s blandly shot, poorly structured, badly themed — and it’s actively obstructing Luca’s beauty and charisma. So no matter which film you’ll ask me to do next, at least in terms of the visual component of my posts, we have nowhere to go but up.

[violasmirabiles]

Rules: Answer 30 questions and tag 20 blogs you want to know better.

i got tagged by @ruskatuska which i somehow forgot to mention first jesus christ why am i like this

1. Name/Nicknames: ali

2. Gender: who tf knows

3. Star Sign: aries

4. Height: 160cm

5. Time: gonna be 1pm in a bit

6. Birthday: march 26 so yall still have time to get me presents 

7. Favourite Band: pink floyd and wigwam are my go to bands to put here but really there are So Many

8. Favourite Solo Artist: also So Many but bowie and kate bush are safe choices

9. Song Stuck in My Head: rufus wainwright - cigarettes and chocolate milk

10. Last Movie: it chapter two

11. Last Show: uhh. god i dont know. 

12. When I Created This Blog: late 2011. like late november, early december. i know it was before i saw paul mccartney in helsinki and that was on dec 12 2011

13. What I Post: whatever fandom shit im into at any given time, bands/artists/music i like, whatever pretty and or interesting and or funny catches my eye. just posted a selfie, i do some of those. some text posts. i do use this blog to vent and i do have a shit brain so yeah

14. Last Thing I Googled: the model of my vacuum cleaner so i could find the right kind of filters i need for it lol

15. Other Blogs: @ihmekukkavesi for my photography, @shineondoc for university hell with some stephen king peppered in there. but it like. its relevant

16. Do I get asks?: sometimes. not super often. but like, i dont reblog those ask memes very often and the one good update this piece of shit website ever did is the chat system so thats good

17. Why I Chose My URL: i mean i wanted something related to my name (it is, trust me), coulda been another species but this one can also be a sneaky reference to a character from a thing im into so . yeah lol. also aesthetic. i mean it looks cool. pretty.

18. Following: a lot of people, many of whom arent active anymore but i keep following them anyway because what if they come back one day

19. Followers: a little under 2300

20. Average Hours of Sleep: eight-ish so thats good

21. Lucky Number: dont really have one of those but if a number is even OR divisible by 5 its a good number. i like 12 more than 10

22. Instruments: i have a 20-year-old shitty electric piano my dad gave me when he needed room for a newer, better electric piano. only in my current place i dont really have enough room for it even though i need it to practice choir stuff independently and just like having it because sometimes i just like to fuck around with it yknow? not calling myself good cos im not im super out of practice cos ive never been diligent abt that sorta thing but i can accompany myself and thats enough. so i keep it under my bed, not the best place, and practice on the fucking floor. cant even use pedals that way and that sucks ass. one day i will move to a bigger apartment and set it up again. i also have a baby blue ukulele with a picture of jack nicholson as jack torrance doing his heres johnny face taped on it. i got it in 2019 from my brother and his girlfriend as a christmas gift and was doing my ba thesis at the time, which i think a lot of the people who follow me know was about the shining. also also i can play guitar and bass but am not excellent at either because i never practice either of those and have neither in my apartment. and i never practice the ukulele either so even though i know a few chords i fucking suck. maybe someday.

23. What I Am Wearing: black leggings. black shirt. one black sock and one white one

24. Dream Job: i want to be able to write in some capacity and get paid for it but thats all i know and if i think too hard on it ill work myself up and wont be able to sleep so im gonna leave it at that  

25. Dream Trip: right now i just want to be able to visit my True Home Town which is not this piece of this place where i live and study and also happened to be born in

26. Favourite Food: yeah. not olives

27. Nationality: finnish

28. Favourite Song: feel like this woulda been more appropriate with the other music/art questions but hey whatever. also how the fuck am i supposed to have a favorite song when so many different gems exist. go listen to the musical box by genesis though it fucks me up every time i dont care what it does to you

29. Last Book I Read: still working on white noise by don delillo im fuckin slow i didnt use to be this slow

30. Top 3 fictional universes I would love to live in: the one where i can fucking FUNCTION, the one where i can Fucking Function and am also some sort of professional™ writer™ , and uhh. yeah idk

im gonna tag @panwriter, @appelssiini, @stokoetopia, @slip-sliding-away and @kukkahattumursu but no pressure or anything no ones gotta do this if they dont feel like it

[randomfandomfiction]

An Introduction to Ereri

All your required reading in one place!

king of carrot flowers by unhappy_turtle (23k, Mature)

It's a Sunday. He's washing his favorite mug and trying not to pay too much attention to the funeral that's going on across the street.

---

(Levi lives across the street from a cemetery and Eren's father has recently passed away.)

Corp de Ballet by Dominura (26k, T+)

The Royal Stohess Ballet school is almost as esteemed and as world renowned as the Royal Stohess Ballet Company itself. It brings students in from far and wide with the hope that they too could join the ranks of the most elite dancers in the world.  Mikasa and Eren can hardly believe they’ve made it this far, the chance to be able to dance in the company of their dreams fills them with hope. Along the way they meet new people, make new friends, and enemies. However, they learn that you can never judge a book by its cover.

In my opinion this is one of the more underrated Ereri fics - I think it deserves a lot more love because I really really enjoyed it

Fireside by twisting_vine_x (37k, Explicit)

A/N: Essentially, the one in which Levi ditches his car and ends up half-frozen on Eren’s doorstep, and then falls harder for Eren in four days than he’s ever fallen for anyone in his life.

Basically, this story shall contain roaring fires, hot chocolate, a whole roster of adorable animals (cause Eren’s spending his reading week watching over Hanji’s farm in frozen Alberta, whereas Levi is an author who lives in Vancouver), a bunch of cuteness with Eren and Levi bonding over nerdy shit; and, essentially, Levi and Eren being trapped together for days, with both of them realizing just how compatible they are, and with both of them aware of the fact that they're from different worlds and live entire provinces apart.

- - -

 Levi’s known this kid for maybe four hours. There’s no reason for him to feel this protective.

 The wind’s still howling outside, though, and Levi still can’t feel his toes.

 Eren may well have saved his life, by opening his door.

 Maybe Levi’s allowed to feel a bit protective in return.

Art Of War by catsonfire (52k, Explicit)

Noisy neighbors, nursling dinosaurs, satanic box cutters, shitty convenience store management, the word 'fuck', hereditary (but not really) homosexuality, beer and ramen, pennies, truckstops, strippers, closets, semi-public defacing, rings, house parties, "recreational" drug use, accidental rendezvous, toxic stew (don't eat the stew), nice abs, housewives--batteries not included, over-educational movie sessions, copious domesticity, kittens named after landlords, a shit joke at participating locations, and many, many happy endings. A modern AU in which Eren moves into the apartment directly above Levi's.

Hands Clean by Ashke (55k, Mature)

Eren's your typical high school student, despite his anger management problems. One day, he has to visit the nurse's office to only discover that the usual nurse has been replaced by a man with steel gray eyes and a mouth with no filter. Eren's interest is piqued.

A classic and must-read! Very well-known amongst fanfic readers

The Little Titan Café by pocketsizedtitan (65k, T+)

Just another cliche AU in which Eren works as a barista in his mother’s café, specializing in latte art. And then there’s Levi, who’s not exactly your typical patron, because, well, he’s blunt and rude (which Eren supposes isn’t that much different from regular customers) but mostly he just confuses Eren’s poor little homosexual heart.

I have always loved this fic! It’s one I regularly reread, just because I love the slow burn and development of the relationship between these two. This one is also pretty much a fandom staple and very well-loved

half light by foreverautumn (66k, Not Rated)

He wouldn't say that they're friends, really. They're not quite just acquaintances either; the more he thinks about it, Eren's not sure how to describe their relationship. They sort of... tolerate each other, in different ways.

But yeah, the more he thinks about it (and he does think about it quite often), Eren thinks that he'd like for them to be friends.

(AU where Eren tries to figure out what you do when friendly feelings turn into something more.)

Love.exe by anonymous (69k, Not Rated)

All Levi wants to do is drink tea, run his goddamn convenience store, and not have to deal with this kid who keeps coming in to leech his wifi bringing down high-end corporations.

Please note you need an ao3 account to read this ^

Holding Hands In The Rain by twisting_vine_x (106k, Explicit)

A/N: Basically the one with thousands of words of Eren and Levi crushing like crazy on each other, and being absolutely freaking ridiculous together, and slowly falling in love against the backdrop of modern-day Vancouver.

- - -

Levi only realizes how much he’s not paying attention to anything around him when there are shoes beside the puddle he’s drawing. Looks up to find Eren standing right there in the rain, the hood on his jacket pulled back, and his hair plastered down against his head. He’s just standing there, and – he’s watching Levi with an expression that looks so fond it actually hurts; and Levi’s just managed to get his breath back and open his mouth when Eren moves closer, and Levi loses his air all over again.

Chasing Summer by Dressed_in_Darkness (115k, Explicit)

Two more weeks left before Levi Ackerman graduates from high school and leaves the small town of Shiganshina. He can't wait for the moment that he can finally put that dreadful town behind him. But when a Grisha Jaeger becomes the new family doctor, bringing along his ill son that breathes new life into the town he desperately wants to escape, will Levi find a reason to stay?

I normally reeeeally dislike first-person written fics (I just find them super difficult to get into and generally won’t read them) but this is an exception! Honestly I can’t even explain how big a deal that is for me

An Unlikely Alliance by Monsoon (117k, Explicit)

When Scouting Legions main trading partner, Wall Maria, is experiencing economic strain from constant attacks by the neighboring kingdom Titan, the leaders of the two nations come to an agreement: Scouting Legion will provide military protection in exchange for land and financial aid for the still growing nation.

Their new alliance will be sealed with the union of King Jaegar's son Eren to the Scouting legions strongest soldier, Lance Corporal Levi. But how will the cold, impassive soldier warm to his new husband, who is far from the weak, spoiled princess he was expecting?

1994 by Vee (124k, Explicit)

Before cell phones. Before the Kardashians. Before internet porn. The year is 1994. Eren, Mikasa, and Armin, poor kids from the wrong side of the tracks, have been transferred with the rest of their neighborhood to the posh, uptown Trost High (Home of the Titans). Mikasa and Armin seem to fit in well enough, but Eren isn't quite so lucky. Of course, most of this has to do with Eren's personality. When he accepts a bet to lose his virginity (and actually prove that someone likes him) by the end of the semester, it's hard for him to deny the improbability of winning. After all, the only one he seems to be talking to these days is the weirdly pretty (and just plain weird) goth working at the donut shop down the street...

An absolute classic and must-read! Much loved and well-known, this is definitely a fandom staple

The Strange and the Usual by lalazee (126k, Explicit)

When Eren finds himself stuck in what is essentially a halfway house for supernaturally inclined misfits, there's no stopping the veritable shopping list of events that leave him pushed closer and closer to ex-exorcist, Levi. But when is it ever that simple?

I. LOVE. THIS. I have recced ^ before and I will continue to do so for a very long time!! This is my absolute favourite Ereri fic. It has been years since I read this for the first time and I have never forgotten it. Please read and support the author!!

Click on my Heart by CocoaChoux (140k, T+)

Levi is a well-known, full-time let’s player on YouTube who just so happens to take care of his deceased relative’s child. Content with his punk/gamer life, he did not expect to one day click on a video of fellow YouTuber, QueenPastelEren. He especially did not expect to be so smitten within the first few seconds of watching the pastel goddess with green and gold eyes.

This was one of my first Ereri fics and I’ve never forgotten it. Eren is lovely, Levi is adorable, they are so cute together, and the way the author expresses body dysphoria here is really excellent to read and understand.

Haute Couture Love by SailorHeichou (163k, Mature)

Eren Jaeger is sharp, determined and hard working but doesn't consider himself beautiful or good looking in the least. When he lands his dream job, working at Survey Corp Publications as the Executive Assistant to a high-end Fashion magazine's Editor-in-Chief, his life is turned Topsy-Turvy. All he wants to do is work hard to become an Editor, but his boss Levi seems keen on making his life a living hell.

Levi is a notorious playboy who gets what he wants both in and out of the bedroom. As Editer-in-Chief of New York's best selling high-end Fashion Magazine, Levi is forced to work with an overly determined, hot-headed brat with a rat's nest for hair and the most incredible eyes he's ever seen and it's all because of Erwin Smith.

Another fic that makes me put aside my dislike of first-person narration!! I love sassy Levi!!

[paulwalltran]

Dungeons and Dragons Loneliness

Another interview with lofi music. Today was a pretty shitty day, alot on my mind. Here to unload. 

Today’s mood: Fuck it all...

It’s a mad addiction, a horrendous one. It’s all I think about, it’s all I want to talk about. Or almost anything fantasy related. I’ve recently gotten a little closer with one of my co workers. Delerner Banks, everyone calls him Del. He’s always in the tunnel, and always brings warhammer books to read and do work (whatever it is he’s working on.) We talk about fantasy related things all the time, and sometimes we bounce ideas off each other, feeling out our thoughts of settings and lore. Talking to him about some fantasy before leaving work made me feel alot better. The loneliness inside has been eating at me.

I know it’s salt, I know its jealousy, that I’m mad at my friends. They been hanging out more without me, playing cards and shit. Its not a passion of mine, its fun sometimes, but its still not me. Its what they bond over, its what they do together, and that’s what theyre into. If I had to guess, they’re okay with Dungeons and Dragons, but even my best friend said that I take it too serious. Its fallen out of their favor, it eats up a lot of time, and they each have their version of what a fun campaign would be like. In me, I said to myself, “Fine, fuck it. I’ll have to assemble another crew to play with.” Tough situation then isn’t it? Wanting to play a social game that needs bodies, during an age where social gatherings are frowned upon, because they carry a potential to spread a virus... Still, this is what I want to do. I want a group of friends, who share the same passion I do. My current friends must think ill of me, they may just want to hang out. They think that if they come hang with me, I’ll want a game of DnD without a doubt. They just want to chill and kick it, they don’t want to roll dice. But ask me once and I’ll tell you yes twice, to playing DnD. 

I love it with all my heart, all of the contents and materials are here, ready to play. No extra investments, no money needed to be spent, we can get going off of nothing like we did back then. A table top roleplaying game, we started with cardboard and lego figures, and just two books to share. But there was fun to be had, and a few heated sessions. But fun it was, the more we played the deeper i grew fond of the game. I’m even willing to experiment with other systems if I have someone to guide me. With cards, you gotta constantly update your arsenal to keep up with the meta, and let’s be real, not playing anything remotely close to meta isn’t as fun. Different formats allow different decks, and to keep current you gotta keep up. I dont have the fundings for it, I dont have the luck. I would rather buy a module that’ll last for years, versus a pack of cards. I have two books that have skyrocketed in value, cards go up and down like stocks. But thats the appeal I suppose, I don’t care for it though.

Back to the thing at hand, I’m in their group chat as they make plans. I can’t be there for all that. But fuck it, that’s all Im going to say. Fuck it, on repeat, until its engraved into my head. Pride is getting the best of me, I refused to be denied again. If it’s not something they want to do, so be it, I need to look out for me in the end.  I must muster up the courage to start playing online again, the first one wasn’t bad, but it fell apart. I need to get the courage to be social, and get over the fear that everyone expects you to be a pro player. I’m scared going into this green still, roll20 isn’t my forte. But if I want to play DnD, this seems to be my only option. It may fulfill my wish, to find friends who are just as passionate as I. My other friends, they’re over on the other side. Its fine, it truly is, they have one another, and I need to be strong. I need to find the strength in this loneliness, even though its tearing me apart. My circle becomes smaller, thats just the way of the world. Adapt to survive, be formless like water...

Dungeons and Dragons, my greatest escape. I can be anybody, and do things I normally can’t. I can clobber up bad guys, indecent folk, and finesse my way out of punishment from the law. I can save a village, a town, a kingdom, when I can hardly save myself. I can fly, cast spells, break locks, imagination is my only limit. I can hoard and amass vast amounts of riches, I myself can even become a dragon. I don’t have to be me, although a bit of me resides in everyone I’ve made before. I can never truly separate myself, from those Ive breathed life into. For hours on end, I can go anywhere, do anything, I melt into the world thats placed before me.

 Because the reality is that I’m practically shit, and nobody. The world is fucked up and jacked up and spiraling down the drain. I’m mentally fucked and my physicality is pretty much the same. I’m stuck in place when the world is demanding me to change. I lost with no real direction. No map in hand, no guide, and I’m scared out of my mind. I don’t know whether to trust the process or commit suicide. Im not sure where I’ll end up, if it’s good or bad. Im struggling, I’m suffering, and there seems to be no end. I could say I’m trying, but I would be lying, if I had to look at the brighter side. The positive things in life are so hard to identify. But my emotions are raw and hit hard, slamming against the walls in my skull. Demanding me to give them attention...and attention I give them, as they tear me up. Like being pulled at by the limbs, drawn and quartered is the method it seems like today. I was thinking that I couldn’t drink forever, my body would eventually reject. But what if I drank energy drinks on end, a heart attack to get me out of this place. I can down those all day long, so whats stopping me from taking that way out of it? Less grotesque and violent, it’ll probably be painful as hell. An organ seizing up, as the body ceases the function. I get said thinking about it sometimes, but one day, enough will be enough. But damn that lady...damn her for speaking those words... Tomorrow. If nothing is better by tomorrow, then do as you may. But sleep it off, tomorrow is another day. 

It’s not verbatim, but its the gist. Just wait for tomorrow, and hopefully things will change. The choice is still mine to make, and something in me pushes me forward, keeps me going on. Sometimes I think about who I’m leaving behind, and maybe how much it’ll hurt. The evil darkness inside me says that they’ll get over it, they have to, and time doesn’t wait. I won’t be immortalized, I’ll simply end up a statistic. That maybe itll be a few years the sadness remains fresh, but wounds always heal. Discrediting my actual existence, and any form of relations. Like I wouldn’t have made any actual impressions, people don’t weep for me now. People kind of forget I exist already, what makes me think they won’t after I’m gone? 

I think about my folks, my grandma, my girlfriend, my second family, and other close dear friends. I think about how many last will letters I would have to put out there, before I call for the curtains. Sometimes, I say I will start writing them, but they give me pause. I end up not wanting to leave this world, after pouring out my heart. Because I don’t want to leave any questions behind for people who matter, I want them to know how I felt before I passed. I want to leave with them apart of me, so they would never forget. 

Still it doesn’t change, shit is rough as of lately, work has been eating me up. I feel like Im never hundred percent, and me back on gaming is making it worst. I’ve gotten back onto Elder Scrolls Skyrim, its been my virtual version of DnD. Waiting for the Outer World Expansion, so I can get addicted to that again. All I want to do is play Dungeons and Dragons, the question is how do I make that into a living? I think being a Matthew Mercer is one in a million, I don’t think I’m that great. I’m willing to learn, grow, evolve because it is my passion, but I’m always scared of making mistakes. To be one of the greater Dungeon Masters, to be THE Wizards of the Coast Dungeon Master, it may possibly be the dream. To eat, sleep, breathe, Dee en Dee. My obsession isn’t that crazy though, I’m still behind on the lore of creatures and settings, I haven’t studied at all. But with the right drive and motivation, I would, especially with something as real as a legit group.

Enthusiastic players, who show up every week, bi weekly, once every month even, to play this fantastic game. Group of chill folks who is willing to take the Dungeon Master Mantle with I get burned out and have the desire to be in the player seat. One of those is the driving force, they make me want to plan. They make me want to make the world, the style, everything in general better, with the constructive feedback. I mean it’s been so long as I was a player in a campaign until the end, I’m beginning to think paying for a Dungeon Master wouldn’t be so bad. Once a month? A couple of hours? I mean I’m thinking like seven USD per hour? Eight isn’t bad, but after that it becomes a questionable amount. It repeats in my head, “No DnD is better than Bad DnD”, this much is probably still true. I say still because I still might want at least one session with said game, so I can at least say it was the worst after having attempt it, rolling something. Ha ha, I kid myself, I’m lying because I know the rage would be all to real and caution is my game most of the time. But I mean, I just might have to start exploring the idea, I was definitely going to ask on FaceBook if any Roll20 games was recruiting a newbie. 

Alas, today won’t be the last time I speak on the matter, Dungeons and Dragons haunt me everyday. I stare at minis, I stare at the upcoming books and modules, and I watch youtube where they tell RPG Horror Stories, Its become a huge part of my life, such as dancing once was. It almost links right into my earliest talents...writing. I love to write, just like I’m doing now. Im fairly decent at the writing game if I must say. Hey, real life failed Bard here, I should make one who always ends up playing big bro, and end up being friendzoned by all his interests. Im short, so Halfling is very true. Am I charismatic? Who knows, I can’t say for sure. But yes, I feel like this is what I need, a solid weekly game, maybe once every two weeks, hell, once every month would still be great. Something to look forward to the very least, in this life of routine and mundane. Something to look forward to for me, something that’s my own. Something I don’t need my closer friends to be apart of, since they’re not interested anyhow. I’m really talking shit because I’m hella salty, but at least I’m being upfront. Get it all out now, before the typing is done. 

It’s been a productive session, I may have to attribute it to Lofi it seems. The Lofi Hip Hop Radio on YouTube, also found on Spotify. Some tracks still strike me deep in the chest, giving me horrible flash backs and feeling in my chest. Others keep me going, forward, almost propelling. I’m currently training myself to be accustomed to the sounds, because I at first was very scared. That it would just transport me to a dark place and keep me there. I’ve been trying to confront my feelings more with this music, I think I felt better after last session like this. The more I faced myself, the better I became. Yes, I most definitely referenced Persona 4, another amazing and loved title because of the message it portrays. I always wondered what my shadow self would look like, and what they would say. But eh another time, I’m about to start rambling again. I have to conclude here, before I get off topic.

Until next time Tumblr...

[tyriannical]

HEY I’M SAFE SO I CAN TALK ABOUT THIS PUBLICLY NOW!!!

so a lot of you already know that my family fucking sucks. like. they fucking suck. they’ve spent most of my life abusing me and the last few years fucking tormenting me. i was forced to go to college when i explicitly said i didnt want to, they claimed my mental illness was being used as a crutch and an excuse to be lazy and a brat, they made offhanded negative comments about my sexuality and my identity in general, they judged my friends, they ignored my pleas when i was bullied out of a school, they refused to understand my fear of living in a conservative town after the election, they screamed at me, they starved me, they denied me medical care for multiple things, and eventually they made me so fucking scared that i ran away and went to live with my now-boyfriend.

they threatened to call the police on me for having the car and then refused to help me in any capacity or understand my needs. when the home we were in got abusive and we were threatened with physical violence, they agreed to help us find an apartment out of state, then they took that back to the state we were in, then to tennessee, then with them, then for only three months, then they started threatening to kick us out after about two weeks of being there. then they stuck us in a shitty apartment with no extra help where we suffered relentlessly dealing with bills and fucking mold growing in our walls. they also stalked me online and had the town watching me. i literally had people i had never met calling me by name and reporting back to them.

it wasn’t until @stormfloret found out about this that she decided to help us out so now we live with her and her dad and it’s only been about a day and a half but you know what? i like this shit! i feel so much better!

so anyway i’ll get to replies later and i’ll get started FINALLY on the commissions i have since i’m done running from my fucking abusers but yeah here we are and here that is and thank you guys for being so fucking awesome

[fuck-bowers]

reality problem (henry bowers x reader) chapter two

ser·en·dip·i·ty (noun): the fact of finding interesting or valuable things by chance.

You woke up slow like a sunrise.

The light against your eyelids indicated it was morning. You’d slept hard and fast the previous night, having closed your eyes for only seconds in bed before falling asleep.

You were about to sit up and open your eyes, but you suddenly noticed how odd the bed felt beneath you, the once soft cot now akin to a stone army bunk. The room, without even having to look, seemed off. The air was different, smelled different, felt different.

Different from what, your old room in Baltimore?

“Hey!”

An unfamiliar and frightened voice cried out, only a few feet from you.

Jolting up out of bed, your eyes shot open and you sat up in the direction of the noise. You were given sensory whiplash.

You weren’t in your bed. You weren’t in your room. You were on the floor, beside a bed that wasn’t yours, in a room you didn’t recognize.

In this foreign bed sat a rotund boy with brown hair and hazel eyes, more green than brown. These hazel eyes were opened as wide as you imagined they could be, trained directly on you, and he was covering himself with the bedsheets in similar manner to a bathing woman whose shower curtain was rudely drawn back by a stranger. His expression was of utter shock.

Doing your best to recollect last night’s events, you realized what happened.

“Fuck.” You hissed, knitting your eyebrows in disbelief, squinting your eyes shut in frustration.

It’d been months since you’d randomly woken up miles away from where you’d gone to sleep. It was about as embarrassing a habit as an adolescent peeing the bed at a sleepover - yet certainly far more dangerous.

If this kid had been an adult instead, you’d probably be in the back of police car right now, just like last time.

What luck.

Scanning him over once more, you debated how easy it’d be to explain this and have him understand and keep quiet. After a moment of hesitation, you knew it would be near impossible.

Despite this reasoning, you stood up, dusting yourself off, and tried to do it anyway.

“This happens a lot. I’m so sorry.” You confessed, as if it was a common accident amongst teens.

Momentarily wondering why it was his bedroom you’d unconsciously teleported to, you remembered.

You had fallen asleep on the cot in your new room last night, in your new apartment. Your parents slept in the master bedroom with the door locked, silent as mice. You too had no problem falling to sleep that night, though your thoughts were occupied with Henry Bowers again, as they had been for a majority of the day since lunch.

There was certainly something special about him. Your former peers of the past who ogled you like a circus freak after you lifted a textbook with your mind, or broke a pencil in half without touching it, or convinced the teacher to let the class play heads-up-seven-up for the entire period without words were not as calm and collected as Henry had been. And sure, he was scared, but it was like he had a respect for what generated the fear.

You fell asleep while simultaneously trying to dig inside who he was, attempting to navigate the dank, dark room that was your natural born ability, feeling for personality traits, for history. Your consciousness slipped into the river of sleep right at the moment that you identified something. 

It was small, but it was something. He’d spat an insult at someone that day, that morning, right before he sat at your lunch table.

“Fat fuck.”

Exiting your memory, you audibly gasped. The boy backed up as you stared at him, but he hit the bedside wall. His gaze never left you.

“You’re that kid.” You murmured. It was probably rude to forego an explanation, but it was a whole lot better than saying, “You’re the fat fuck Henry was talking about”, for sure. Just by looking at him, with even a mere glance into his eyes, you could tell he was a genuinely nice boy. Henry had no business being a dick to him.

“What an asshole.” You muttered under your breath. You rose to your feet and moved towards the nearby window, brightly illuminated by the morning sunlight.

“Who are you?” The kid asked, a little loudly, likely feeling he was still in some sort of danger, considering you hadn’t answered a single question as to why you were unconscious on the floor. Considering you were muttering random shit.

You didn’t bother to turn and face him. Scanning the walls, you noticed an assortment of sketches hanging up depicting buildings, scaled and revised and erased and redrawn. They were paired with a handful of missing kid posters and the torn out pages of books. How interesting.

“I’m Y/N. I’m the new kid.” You told him.

What a way to introduce yourself, you thought.

Ben sniffled.

“I’m a new kid, too.” He noted out loud, as if to make you feel better about it.

Finally, you turned around to look at him.

“What’s your name?” You asked.

He gulped.

“Ben.”

You knew you shouldn’t still be talking with him, that you should be busy wiping his memory instead of interrogating him. The mind-wipe was pretty much unavoidable; he saw and knew too much. Even though it was your fault, Henry Bowers already impeded your fresh start; you didn’t need another Henry out there telling your secrets.

Walking towards him, you mentally primed yourself to force him out of consciousness, when his aura stuck out like a hand demanding you to wait.

Ben Hanscom was scared, not just in that moment, but all the time. Scared by the high school, a new school, with all these new faces judging him. The yearning for acceptance was still alive in his heart. Despite feeling like no one liked him, he desperately hoped someone would. 

The scattered remnants of childlike innocence, more than you’d seen in others, gave a luster to his mind. Henry Bowers, just one of a few bullies he’d encountered in his life, elicited genuine fear inside him, threatened to ruin that innocence. 

Derry itself made him incredibly uneasy, for a myriad of reasons. Ben felt there was something bad about the town. You agreed with him.

Dammit. How were you supposed to wipe his memory now?

Giving you the-deer-in-headlights look, you put a hand on Ben’s shoulder and rather than turning out his lights, you soothed him. As soon as you touched him, his eyes filled with fog.

“I’m sorry I scared you.” You mused. “I’m sorry Henry Bowers is such an asshole. I’m sorry Derry didn’t roll out their welcome mat for you. They didn’t roll it out for me, either. You’re a good kid, and you deserve much better than this.”

His eyes that glazed over with your words suddenly cleared like smoke in the wind, and he looked at you like you’d relieved all of his ills. Words escaped him.

Patting his shoulder with a half smile as a means of a shitty goodbye, you turned around and walked towards the door, decorated with a giant New Kids on the Block poster.

“Wait!” He called. You stopped in your tracks, closing your eyes and pivoting your body to face him with a cocked eyebrow.

“Are you going to school?” He asked, shyly.

You shrugged. “Yeah. I guess.”

Ben quickly got out of bed and motioned for you to leave. “Wait for me in the hall, we can walk together.”

Staring at him for a second more, you quietly obliged. A part of you wanted to groan at the prospect of having someone attached to you, and so quickly. 

Another part checked off this newly forged friendship like an accomplishment. You made a friend despite starting off on a terrible foot.

‘My second friend at Derry High’, you shyly thought with the ghost of a grin, shutting the door, waiting beyond the door like he’d asked.

“I haven’t made too many friends yet. You’re one of the first people to really talk to me outside of school. And I mean really outside of school.” Ben enthusiastically chattered.

“Yeah, it must’ve been quite a scare for you this morning.”

The two of you trudged towards Derry High, Ben flashing the occasional odd glance at you.

“I wish you’d tell me how you ended up in my room.” He begrudgingly added, like a child that was denied a bedtime story.

You cleared your throat, rummaging through your backpack mindlessly as you strolled.

“I sleep walk. When I was younger, I taught myself how to jimmy locks effortlessly, even while unconscious. You wouldn’t believe how many locks I can break through without trying.”

Well, it wasn’t totally a lie.

“That sounds like a lie.” Ben noted, smiling up at you. You shrugged.

“Believe what you want. I sleepwalk for miles. I collapse once I’m through.”

Ben furrowed his brow, pointing at your bag. “Hey, since when did you have your backpack?”

This kid was quick. Most people don’t notice stuff like that, you thought to yourself, almost in admiration.

“I’ve had it the whole time. Boy, are you paranoid or what?” You shook your head with a smile.

“Do you blame me, Y/N?” He asked, your grin apparently contagious, and you laughed out loud.

“Nope. Not at all.”

Henry thought of you the entire day since lunchtime, his conscious singed with the memory of that cigarette, lighting up brighter, the color changing like leaves in autumn, suddenly burning out like you’d personally delivered it a small winter.

You put it out yourself. Nothing could convince him you hadn’t. Eyes upon it, you snuffed out the fire. Cigarettes didn’t go out like that. He’d smoked plenty. He knew.

He knew. He wasn’t crazy.

But you weren’t either.

That was something else he knew, without debate or question. It was clear. The power you showed him was something so genuine and so fleshed out. You knew exactly what you were doing. You weren’t some crazy, bog-witch-wanderer babbling to herself.

Then again, you did set a house on fire on apparent ‘accident’. He’d seen you talking to yourself.

He didn’t know what you were.

The mystery kept him consumed all night until morning, in which it swallowed him up again. It was noticeable to the guys after lunch, as Henry stayed silent the entire time.

He wanted to tell Patrick about you. Of course he’d understand. He was basically crazy. He was the most likely to believe what Henry had to say, to believe who you really were.

Whatever you were.

Still, a small fear rested within the solution: Patrick was so crazy, that he might try to tie you up and experiment on you. Or at least try his hardest to get you alone and do… Whatever. He’d probably be desperate to fuck somebody who had special powers. Maybe worse.

Maybe this wasn’t a good idea.

Whatever. It wouldn’t happen. And he had to tell someone.

“What’s up, Henry?” Vic asked, his voice akin to odd background noise against the loudness of his thoughts.

Henry turned. “Where’s Patrick?”

“Must be sick or something. I haven’t seen him.” Vic answered.

Course. Great.

Standing outside the high school, right as the post-lunch bell rang, Henry suddenly spotted you, his lungs filling with invisible flame as he stared. You weren’t alone.

That stupid, fat, fucking-fuck new kid was with you.

The two of you looked to be laughing together. How on earth did Ben become friends with you overnight? Of all people, one of the dumbest kids at the school?

Thankfully, you and Ben parted ways after bidding an annoyingly long held out goodbye, and Henry saw his chance to strike.

It took a few minutes of following Ben to his next class, but thankfully it was gym, and the new kid wobbled off towards the secluded boy’s locker room.

Right before Ben could enter, Henry pushed him hard against the brick wall of the outer gym, tightly holding the sides of his shirt. Ben stared with shock at the bully before him.

“How do you know Y/N?” Henry questioned in a rush.

Ben opened his mouth, unsure of what to say, moreover, why it was being asked. He cleared his throat nervously.

“I met her just this morning on my way to school. That’s all.”

Ben was a terrible liar, bad enough that Henry could sense that it was probably made up on the spot. Still, it’d be a process to drag the correct answer out of Ben, and Henry was aware of that as well. 

It was much too early to be getting the knife out. What a fucking hassle this all had to be.

“Tell me the truth, fatty. Don’t you know she’s dangerous?”

Ben couldn’t help but crack a smile. Henry, of all people, wielding the word ‘dangerous’ in the same way a mother would warn her son or daughter against walking the streets at night.

“Dangerous?” Ben asked, his voice delicately suffused with disbelief, despite secretly knowing what Henry referred to.

Realizing how ridiculous it must’ve seemed to someone who hadn’t seen the same girl manipulate fire, Henry threw Ben back against the wall in utter frustration and walked off in a huff.

Patrick was probably playing hooky, and that meant Henry knew just where to find him.

chapter one

chapter three

taglist: @pinkey629

[almostafantasia]

tenderly, tragically, beautifully

Summary: In which bad things happen to the people who deserve them the least and Lexa learns that although cancer can be treated, the scars it leaves behind take much longer to heal.

Read on AO3.

Trigger warning: Clarke has cancer in this fic but it’s non-terminal and she doesn’t die. There’s a fair amount of angst though.

She feels as though every pair of eyes is watching her from the moment that she steps through the school gates. Which is just paranoia at its absolute finest because the reality is that not a single person is actually looking at her, but with the very obvious way in which the other kids are deliberately trying not to stare at her as she walks up to the red brick school building, Clarke might as well have a giant flashing sign above her head.

A giant flashing sign reading this kid has cancer, with a vertical neon arrow pointing down at her.

Clarke knows that they all know. Even if Raven hadn’t already filled her in on everything that happened while she was in the hospital, this is high school so gossip spreads faster than a race car speeding around an asphalt track.

“Yo.”

Raven makes an unnecessarily loud entrance, clattering into the row of lockers beside Clarke’s and dropping her shoulder bag to the floor with an unceremonious thud. It catches the attention of those nearby, but upon realising that Clarke is there, those heads quickly turn away for fear of being caught staring.

“Everyone’s treating me like I’ve got a deadly virus. It’s cancer, it’s not contagious!”

She raises her voice with this last bit, startling the group of freshman boys who cross to the other side of the corridor in order to give Clarke a wide berth as they pass.

“Clarke,” Raven hisses, resting a comforting hand on Clarke’s shoulder.

“I’ve been here for two minutes and I already wish I was back in that stupid hospital,” Clarke complains through clenched teeth, taking a heavy textbook out of her bag and throwing it into her locker with slightly more force than actually necessary.

“They probably all heard the word ‘cancer’ and assume that you’re on your deathbed,” muses Raven.

“I’m not.”

“I know,” Raven agrees, as she reaches out to give Clarke’s fingers a reassuring squeeze with her own. “You’re going to be fine, you’ve just got a few shitty cells in your body.”

“John Murphy’s got more shitty cells in his body,” Clarke comments, as the shaggy-haired boy saunters past the two girls with his hands buried deep in the pockets of his leather jacket, giving Clarke the side-eye as he passes.

“Well unlike Murphy, your shitty cells are going to be killed by the chemo. He’s stuck with his for life.”

Clarke appreciates what Raven is trying to do, but that doesn’t mean that it works. As grateful as she is for her best friend’s insistence that she’s going to survive this new obstacle in her life, it doesn’t really detract from the fact that she has months of having her body pumped full of chemicals to get through first.

“Raven…”

“What? I’m just letting you know that I’m sticking by you no matter what.” With a wicked smile, Raven adds, “I’ll always be your best friend, even when you go bald.”

“Oh god, don’t remind me,” Clarke whines, shutting her locker and turning around to lean against it dramatically.

“You finish treatment just before Thanksgiving, right?”

“Yes,” Clarke nods, wondering in which unpredictable direction Raven’s train of thought is heading this time.

“So you’ll be rocking the cutest pixie cut in town by Christmas.”

Clarke lets herself imagine it for just a second. She hasn’t had her hair shorter than shoulder length since a disastrously bad haircut at the age of ten, but when she pictures herself with much shorter hair, barely long enough to curl ever so slightly around her ears and the top of her neck, she smiles slightly. Mostly at the realisation that with virtually no hair to have to deal with each morning before school, she’ll be able to get out of bed a whole fifteen minutes later than usual, but also at the thought that with minimal effort and a bit of strategically placed styling cream, she can probably make herself look hot as fuck.

“Thanks Raven,” Clarke smile gratefully.

But Raven’s brain is always moving way faster than Clarke is able to keep up with and she’s already onto the next thing.

“Hey, do you think the chemo is going to give you superpowers? Wouldn’t it be awesome if you got x-ray vision or invisibility or something even cooler?”

“Raven…”

Class is weird. Raven walks her to the door of her classroom like a mother dropping her young child off for the first day of kindergarten, and when Raven departs with a final wave over her shoulder, Clarke feels exactly like that scared five year old, out of her depth in a world that seems far too big for her.

It’s pretty much exactly the same routine in the classroom as it was out in the school corridors, except that now, in this more confined space, Clarke can’t really do much to pretend she hasn’t noticed how everybody is behaving around her. Each pair of eyes fall onto her as she passes, then glance away when they realise who has just walked by.

And then the hushed muttering starts. Clarke’s classmates must be seriously misinformed about the symptoms of cancer if they think that she isn’t able to hear the whispering as she makes her way to her usual seat on the far side of the classroom.

As the clock on the wall just above the teacher’s desk slowly ticks away towards the start of another day at school, the desk next to Clarke remains empty. Finn Collins, the desk’s former occupant, who Clarke is ninety-five percent certain was flirting with her in the few weeks leading up to the discovery of the tumour in her back, has moved to a previously empty seat in the back row next to Atom. It’s too much of a coincidence for Clarke to blame this on anything but the cancer. Who would want to flirt with her when there are plenty of other much prettier, much healthier girls in the school to flirt with, all of whom are still going to have a full head of hair in a few months’ time?

“Hey.”

Ten minutes into her first day back at school and already so used to being treated like a bomb that is waiting to go off, Clarke actually startles in her seat a little bit when the girl in the seat in front of her turns around to say hello.

“Oh, hi Lexa!”

Lexa Woods was Clarke’s elementary school best friend until the two of them slowly drifted apart as they grew up and their interests changed. Not to say that they no longer get along, but that they move in different circles now, with nothing more than a polite smile if they pass in the school corridors.

Until now.

“This is for you.”

Clarke’s eyes widen in surprise, then her entire face twists into a confused frown as Lexa places a thick ring-binder down on Clarke’s desk, upon which lies an envelope.

“Um, thanks,” Clarke replies tentatively, picking up the envelope and sliding her finger into the small gap at the edge to tear it open and remove its contents.

It’s just a card, white with pastel coloured butterflies surrounding the embossed words ‘thinking of you’ in a pretty cursive font. Surprised, Clarke flips it open to read the message inside.

Dear Clarke,

Wishing you all the best over the coming months for a speedy recovery.

Lots of love, Lexa xx

It’s pretty much exactly the same as the twenty other cards she has at home from various relatives and friends of the family, empty words that don’t really detract from the potentially life-threatening illness that resides in her body, but it somehow means so much more coming from Lexa than from anybody else. Coming from Lexa, who could quite easily have done exactly the same as Finn and everybody else in this godforsaken school and blatantly avoided having to go anywhere near the girl with cancer.

“And this is everything that you missed while you were in hospital,” Lexa continues, opening the folder to display the thick wad of handwritten notes inside, neatly colour-coded and underlined and separated into subjects by labelled dividers.

“Lexa, what the…?”

“You missed two weeks of school and you must be really behind in all your classes so I wrote out my notes again so that you could have a copy,” Lexa explains hurriedly, a pink flush rising to sit on her sharp cheekbones. “If there’s anything you don’t understand when you read through it, I’d be more than happy to go over it with you.”

“Lexa,” Clarke sighs, feeling a rush of affection for her former best friend as she flicks through page after page of Lexa’s impeccable handwriting, laid out under clear capitalised titles and broken up with nearly drawn diagrams and tables. “You shouldn’t have.”

“It was good revision for me,” Lexa shrugs, as if the gesture is insignificant.

“Wait,” frowns Clarke, as she reaches one of the coloured dividers and enters a different subject, “do you even take Chemistry?”

“No, but I know Monty through the debate club so I borrowed his notes and copied them out,” Lexa answers. “They might not make much sense because I didn’t understand a lot of it but I’m sure that Monty would be able to explain it if you need help…”

“Lexa, this must have taken you hours…”

“Yeah, well you’ve got cancer, it’s the least I can do to help.”

The word hits Clarke like a fist in the gut. It’s been two weeks since the diagnosis, two weeks where Clarke’s mind has been consumed with nothing but that one singular word going around and around in her mind until she’s half crazy. But Clarke realises that maybe the problem is that the word has only been in her head since the diagnosis – nobody around her has been brave enough to say the word aloud since the doctor who gave her the bad news two weeks ago. Even her mother, a doctor herself, skirts around the word at home, as if saying it out loud makes the whole situation far too real to comprehend.

It’s just a word, it shouldn’t hurt so much.

Except that it’s not just a word anymore, it’s a way of life. It’s chemicals being pumped into her body, and being ignored by even those who used to flirt with her, and the inescapable unsettling worry that despite the assurances of the oncology nurse, maybe she isn’t going to make it to the other end of this ordeal with her life.

“Sorry, did I say something wrong?” Lexa’s voice pulls Clarke out of her thoughts with a lurch, and she shakes her head to focus herself back in the real world.

“No, it’s just…” Clarke tries to explain, her voice just a croak as she tries to push past the lump that forms in her throat. “It’s still quite new to me.” Trying to articulate aloud for the first time, Clarke continues, “It’s weird because it’s all I think about but it still takes me by surprise sometimes. I’m so used to everybody skating around it like they want to pretend that it’s not happening, so it surprised me how forward you were.”

“Sorry,” Lexa mumbles, bowing her head apologetically. “I shouldn’t have…”

Reaching out a hand to touch Lexa’s shoulder in reassurance, Clarke says, “Lexa, it’s fine, I…”

But she doesn’t get the chance to finish. The classroom door clatters open as the teacher enters to start the lesson, and within an instant Lexa is facing the front once more with wide, attentive eyes.

The teacher’s eyes scan the classroom as his voice fills the room to get their attention, but he stumbles mid-sentence when he spots Clarke in their midst. There’s a moment that feels like an eternity, a moment in which Clarke knows the teacher is trying to decide whether to acknowledge Clarke’s return to his class, a moment in which Clarke wants nothing more than to melt into the hard plastic chair as if she has never even been here at all, but then it passes, and the class continues as if nothing has happened.

As if Clarke doesn’t have cancer.

But she does.

“Lexa,” Clarke hisses, when the teacher turns his attention to the computer and pulls up a powerpoint presentation for the lesson. Lexa turns around to frown inquisitorially at Clarke, who forces the resentment out of her mind and the sadness from her eyes as she smiles gratefully at her former best friend. “Thanks for the notes.”

Lexa thinks about it a lot, probably way more than she should think about somebody who she so rarely speaks to these days, but it really plays on her mind. Why somebody so young, somebody with such a bright future, somebody with so much joy and happiness and vitality should get diagnosed with cancer when there are so many bad people in this world that it could happen to instead.

It sucks, and Lexa isn’t even the one with cancer.

She almost wishes that she was. And yes, she knows that’s a terrible thing to think and that she should be grateful for her own good health, but it’s the truth. If there was a medical procedure that could suck the illness from Clarke’s body and transfer it to her own, then that’s exactly what Lexa would do. Clarke has everything; a big friendship group full of nice people that nobody in their year group seems to dislike, good grades, good looks, and an aspiration to be a doctor. Lexa, meanwhile, feels as though she has nothing in comparison - only a few people that she would consider friends, two parents who somehow manage to straddle the line between loving her too much and not loving her enough, and an unhealthy dose of anxiety. It should be her that has the cancer, but instead there seems to be an unjust system of reverse karma in place, where bad things happen to good people.

There are bad people in the world, and there are good people. And then there is Clarke. Clarke, who is so good and pure that Lexa isn’t entirely convinced that she isn’t an actual angel reincarnated in human form. Clarke, who on the second day of kindergarten, helped a tearful and bruised Lexa back to her feet after being pushed to the ground by John Murphy, then declared them to be best friends for life, though only after kicking Murphy in the balls for hurting Lexa in the first place.

Nobody deserves to be diagnosed with cancer less than Clarke.

Lexa almost wonders if Clarke’s illness is karma punishing her. Perhaps fate is saying a massive fuck you to her, not to Clarke, by forcing her to stand by helplessly as the girl she loves suffers. Because there is absolutely no doubt that Lexa does love Clarke. She’s known it for about a year, though she’s probably loved her since the day that six year old Clarke offered out a hand to help Lexa get back to her feet.

But what hurts the most is knowing that there’s absolutely nothing she can do to help Clarke, nothing she can do but sit by and watch as Clarke’s health deteriorates and the side effects of chemotherapy kick in.

Lexa has never felt more helpless.

Lexa almost doesn’t recognise the girl who walks into class the following Thursday morning with bright pink hair. Nothing has changed other than the hair colour – she wears the same worn out jacket she’s owned since freshman year, the same slightly pitiful frown that’s been on her face since the diagnosis a couple of weeks ago – and yet the vibrant pink that frames Clarke’s face makes it seem like she’s an entirely different person from the girl with the beautiful golden tresses that Lexa has known for most of her life.

“Clarke!” Lexa gapes, as Clarke drops into the seat beside her, Lexa having moved back a row now that Finn Collins has taken up his new seat at the very back of the classroom. “I – wow!”

Though Lexa, quite deliberately so, does not ask for an explanation for Clarke’s sudden and drastic makeover, Clarke gives her one anyway, as if she feels like she has to justify her new fashion choice.

“I’ve always wanted to dye it,” she shrugs, reaching up with one hand to play with a single pink curl, “and I might not have hair for too much longer so it seemed like as good of a time as any to get it done.”

As Clarke glances away, a brief moment of sadness passing across her face as she does so, Lexa’s insides lurch unsettlingly at the thought of Clarke’s hair falling out against her will. She quickly remembers that Clarke will be taking the day off school tomorrow for the first of many chemotherapy treatments, which explains the unexpected change of hair colour mid-week, and just tries to imagine for a second how terrified Clarke must be at the prospect of going into hospital for such a daunting treatment.

Lexa flails silently for a moment, wondering what, if anything at all, she can say that might ease Clarke’s mind ahead of her hospital visit but nothing comes to mind that won’t do more harm than good. Lexa settles instead for saying something a little different.

“The pink really suits you.”

Eyes wide with surprise as she lifts her head to look up at Lexa, as if she hadn’t been expecting the compliment at all, Clarke softly mumbles, “Thanks,” before reverting back into a glum silence for the rest of class.

Clarke’s absence on Friday, despite her only sharing a couple of classes with Lexa, feels somewhat akin to Lexa having to spend the day without one of her arms. She’s a mess for pretty much the whole day, distracted with pondering thoughts of where Clarke is, of what the doctors will be doing to her, and of hoping that none of it is as bad as the scary word chemotherapy makes it all sound.

When she arrives home from school that afternoon, Lexa collapses on her bed with her phone in her hand, the screen unlocked and opened on a message conversation with Clarke, but she hesitates with her thumb hovering over the keyboard before she sends anything. Nothing that comes to mind quite seems right for the situation - casual well-wishes seem too impersonal and asking how the treatment went seems far too invasive and unsympathetic.

Lexa exits the conversation and locks the phone with a sigh, shaking her head in dissatisfaction. She wants to be there for Clarke, she really does, but there’s no class at school for how to be a good friend to somebody with cancer and it’s not really something that Lexa can do on intuition alone.

She decides, forty minutes later and after some assistance from her mom, on a simple Facebook post; an old photo of the two of them with their arms around each other and toothy grins on their faces at Clarke’s eighth birthday party, which she captions “Found this looking through some old stuff - partners in crime since kindergarten!” and then tags Clarke in it. Nothing fancy. It’s simple, it’s irrelevant, and it will hopefully let Clarke know that Lexa has been thinking about her all day.

She definitely doesn’t spend the next few minutes eagerly refreshing her new feed, waiting for a notification that lets her know that Clarke has seen the post.

It never comes.

She doesn’t know what she was expecting, if not a comment then perhaps at least a like, but each time the little red bubble pops up in Lexa’s notifications, it is with somebody else’s name and not Clarke’s. A selection of school friends like the post, both from their high school and old friends who knew the girls back around the time that the photo was taken. Some names are ones that Lexa doesn’t recognise, presumably friends of Clarke’s from elsewhere. Octavia Blake reacts to the post with a red heart that Lexa wishes came from Clarke instead.

The first comment is from Raven; “Double denim? Griffin, you were such a style icon!”

It hurts more than it should, two minutes later, when Lexa’s post remains unacknowledged but the little blue thumb icon appears underneath Raven’s comment with Clarke’s name next to it.

Clarke is back at school on Monday morning, almost as if she was never gone. There’s no indication that she missed a day of classes for the first of many life-saving medical treatments, no missing hair, no hospital gown or big sign around Clarke’s neck saying I had chemo. And Lexa curses herself for even thinking that things would be different.

(She decides that Clarke’s pale skin and tired eyes are just a figment of the imagination that is looking for something different in Clarke’s appearance.)

“Hey,” Lexa greets Clarke in their first class of the day. “How was the … uh, the treatment?”

Raising a single eyebrow at Lexa, Clarke replies, “You can call it chemo. That’s what it is.”

“Sorry,” apologises Lexa, feeling the mild burn along her cheekbones that is no doubt accompanied by a pinkening of the skin there. “I’m just new to all of this.”

She regrets the words the very second that they leave her mouth. The way that Clarke’s face falls, disappointment filling her blue eyes as her brow knits into a furrowed frown, is enough to inform Lexa that what she has just said was insensitive on every level.

“You’re new to this?” Clarke asks, her voice soft but laced with bitterness.

“Sorry, I didn’t mean it like that,” Lexa says dejectedly. “That was insensitive of me.”

Lexa is more disappointed in herself that she would care to admit. She’s spent more than a little bit of time this weekend on her laptop, googling questions like what to say to a friend with cancer and the overwhelming number one piece of advice she could find was to not make it about herself and how she feels about Clarke’s diagnosis. And yet, all that research is for nothing as she lets herself down within the first thirty seconds.

“It’s fine,” Clarke assures her, though Lexa can’t help but feel that this isn’t fine at all, nor will it ever be until Clarke’s treatment finishes and she gets the all clear in however many months’ time. “I get it, you want help but don’t know how. The best thing you can do is to just act normal.” Lexa nods along earnestly as Clarke reaches out a hand and rests it tenderly on Lexa’s forearm, before continuing. “And Lexa, I appreciate what you’re trying to do. You’re treating me like a human, not like a time bomb. That’s more than I can say for most of the rest of the assholes in this school.”

“I’m sorry,” Lexa attempts to apologise a final time, but the arrival of the teacher for the start of the lesson means that she isn’t given the chance to take her apology any further.

“By all means, come on in,” Clarke says to Raven, pushing open her bedroom door as she leads her best friend inside. “But fair warning, it looks and smells like a hospital.”

Clarke wrinkles her own nose as she steps into her bedroom, the nasty smell of cleaning product invading her nostrils. Her bedroom doesn’t really feel like home much at the moment, the various medications prescribed to her for combatting the side effects of chemo scattered haphazardly across all available surfaces in the room. The smell, despite her desperate pleas, comes from her mother’s insistence of giving the room a thorough disinfect almost every other day so that Clarke doesn’t catch anything while her immune system is reduced.

“Jesus Christ,” Raven blanches as she follows Clarke into the room, lifting her hand up to her face to cover her nose and mouth. “Do you not have any air freshener?”

“I’ve asked my mom to get me some,” Clarke answers. “She insists on keeping this place spotless. I’m already sick, a few germs isn’t going to do any harm.”

Raven’s hand reaches out to Clarke’s, her fingers clasping around Clarke’s wrist to get her full attention.

“Hey. No. Mama G is a medical professional, you listen to what she has to say, okay?”

“Jesus, Raven,” Clarke whines, dropping onto the bed with a plop that rumples the freshly washed sheets. “Are you my mom now?”

Raven launches herself belly first onto the mattress next to Clarke, propping her head up with one elbow as she sends a wicked smile in Clarke’s direction.

“Shut up,” says Raven, rolling over onto her back, where she steals half of the pillows and cushions that decorate Clarke’s double bed and sets them up against the headboard behind her. “Are we gonna watch a movie or what? It’s so awesome that you’ve finally got a TV in your room.”

Shrugging and reaching for the remote control that sits on top of a pile of untouched pamphlets from the hospital, Clarke points it at the brand new television that sits on top of the dresser against the opposite wall and says, “Cancer perks.”

The end of the school year and the start of the summer break between Clarke’s junior and senior years of high school comes around two weeks later, shortly after her second chemotherapy appointment, and Clarke has never been more grateful to have a couple of months off school.

She can already feel some of the changes in her body – most notable is just how lethargic she’s starting to feel. Clarke has always been the number one advocate for power naps but since starting the treatment, she’s found herself passing out pretty much everywhere, including in class, though two hours of calculus on a Monday morning is probably enough to send anybody to sleep.

The other thing is her hair. It hasn’t started to fall out yet, not properly, but Clarke has started to notice a bit of thinning. Each pull of her hairbrush through the newly-dyed pink hair tugs strands out from her scalp that get caught around the bristles of the brush and when she showers, there is slightly more hair than usual to pull out of the drain at the end. It isn’t noticeable in the mirror yet, but Clarke knows that the worst part – when actual clumps of her hair start falling out in uneven patches across her scalp – is almost imminent, and she’s grateful that she won’t have to go to school during this in-between stage.

Lexa is thankful for the arrival of the summer break. Junior year has been a lot of work and she knows that her final year at high school will be even more tiring. As much as she’s looking forward to throwing herself headfirst into another year of challenging schoolwork and college applications, the two months she has before that to mentally and physically rest is exactly what she needs right now.

And yet, three days after the last day of school, she finds herself already missing the crowded corridors and the uncomfortable plastic chairs.

Well, maybe not those, per se.

She finds herself missing Clarke.

Their friendship is by no means rekindled to the level that it was at before they started drifting apart in middle school, but Lexa likes to think that they’ve reached the point once more where they can text each other and make social plans without it being weird.

Clarke, on the other hand, seems to disagree.

Lexa Are you free today? We could catch a movie or get lunch if you like! Or something else, I’m open to suggestions.

Clarke I’m pretty tired actually. Think I’m just gonna stay at home.

Not yet disheartened, Lexa is already prepared with another suggestion that might suit Clarke a little better.

Lexa I could come over and we could watch something at yours?

Clarke I think I just want to sleep tbh

Lexa tries to think of something to say, anything to let Clarke know that she’s always going to be welcome to hang out with Lexa later, but everything she tries typing out just falls flat. She doesn’t want to seem needy, doesn’t want to force Clarke to exert herself any more than she’s physically capable of doing right now, doesn’t want to make Clarke feel guilty for the way that the side effects of the chemotherapy are inhibiting their social interactions.

She just wants Clarke to know that she isn’t alone.

Lexa No problem!

Clarke stands in front of the mirror and adjusts the beanie on her head for what is probably the hundredth time in the last ten minutes.

“You look good,” Raven says. “Don’t worry about it.”

Except that Clarke is worried. Because Octavia is throwing a party tonight and Clarke has been coerced (by Octavia, by Raven, even by her own mother) into attending and it’s the first time she’s left the house for anything other than a hospital visit in the three weeks since school finished. And the first time in almost as long that Clarke has worn anything except for pyjamas.

Not to mention the fact that it’s the debut of her new hairstyle. If you can even call a patchy buzzcut a hairstyle. Hence the beanie.

“Are you sure people aren’t going to notice?” asks Clarke, turning to look at Raven, who is sprawled across Clarke’s bed, playing on her phone as Clarke gets ready.

Pushing herself up into a seated position, Raven grins up at Clarke and answers, “The only thing people are going to notice is how hot you look. Because damn girl.”

“You’re just saying that.”

“I’m not,” Raven insists, shaking her head. “Everybody is going to wish they were you.”

Clarke arches an eyebrow, because she’s pretty certain that there is not a single person in the world who would want to be a kid with cancer.

Raven doesn’t miss the look that Clarke shoots her and she jumps up to her feet, crossing the room to stand beside Clarke as they both look at Clarke’s reflection in the mirror.

“You’re hot,” Raven tells Clarke again. “The colours really suit you, your tits look great in that shirt, and you’re totally rocking that beanie. Fuck the cancer, you’re awesome!”

And for just a moment, Clarke believes it.

Parties aren’t always Lexa’s thing. She not a huge drinker, nor does she like big crowds of people, not to mention the fact that she doesn’t fall into the right social circles to get invited to most of the parties thrown by the kids in her year at school.

But for some reason Octavia Blake, who has never taken the time to talk to Lexa much off the soccer pitch that they share during training for the women’s varsity team, personally insisted that Lexa just had to come along to the party that she’s throwing tonight.

It’s not Lexa’s scene at all. Music thumps from two loudspeakers positioned on either side of the living room, questionable drinks are being poured into cups from a large keg being manned by Octavia’s college-aged brother, and sweaty bodies are crammed into every corner of the Blakes’ small house. But Lexa doesn’t get invited to parties often and she’s determined to at least try to enjoy this one.

(Her attendance has absolutely nothing to do with the possibility that tonight might be the first time she sees Clarke since school finished for the summer. Nothing.)

There’s a big shout from the already quite tipsy Octavia when Raven arrives at the party, and Lexa’s eyes desperately squint towards the door for Clarke.

And there she is.

Oh boy.

Lexa doesn’t know if it’s the jungle juice catching up with her or if the sight of Clarke entering the room behind Raven is really that mesmerising, but her head starts to swim a little bit. Clarke looks a little thinner than before, a little more tired, but Lexa hardly notices that because Clarke is still just as beautiful as ever. There’s a dark gray beanie pulled over her head, hiding her hair (or lack of it, as Lexa quickly realises may be the case), but it just emphasises everything else. The sharp plane of Clarke’s jaw. The blue in Clarke’s haggard eyes. The dip of the neckline on Clarke’s rather revealing tank top.

Jesus Christ, when did Lexa become so fucking gay.

Lexa’s heart is racing, and the only thing that stops her from passing out, or from locking herself in a quiet and soundproof room for the duration of the party, is that Clarke has an expression on her face that matches the same startled-slash-terrified feeling that Lexa has too.

And so Lexa pushes her own anxiety aside and makes it her main aim to make Clarke feel as comfortable as possible in this scary new environment. Lexa takes a sip from her drink for courage, then plasters a smile on her face as she pushes through the crowd to cross the room and welcome Clarke.

“Clarke!” Lexa beams, her smile genuine as she throws her arms around Clarke’s neck in a greeting. “I didn’t know if you’d be here tonight.”

Lexa didn’t know, but she hoped.

“Yeah, Raven came to my house and basically dragged me out of bed,” Clarke shrugs. “Also, my mom threatened to cut off the wifi at home if I didn’t leave the house. She’s worried I’m becoming a recluse. I swear parents are supposed to worry about kids going to wild parties and getting involved in underage drinking and sex, but apparently when you get cancer they actively encourage it.”

“Then why are you complaining?” Lexa teases Clarke. She gestures towards the kitchen, then asks, “Do you want something to drink?”

Clarke squints at the plastic cup in Lexa’s hand, inspecting its contents with a wary gaze, before she answers, “Sure. Why not?”

Clarke’s hand seeks her own so that they don’t get separated as they slowly navigate their way through the mass of drunk teenagers, and Lexa tries to ignore the erratic pounding of her heart in her chest and the feeling of Clarke’s warm palm against her own. It’s stupid to get so worked up about such meaningless platonic intimacy, but this is Clarke, who gets Lexa’s pulse racing by just looking at her. Lexa knows that being with Clarke in that way is beyond her wildest dreams, but even an act as simple as having Clarke’s hand squeezing her own as she leads Lexa towards the kitchen, is more than Lexa thinks she deserves.

“Are you having another?” Clarke asks, when they make it to the keg where Bellamy is pouring his homemade concoction into plastic cups and distributing it to the teenagers that surround him.

Lexa glances down at the cup in her hand and takes a moment to think, before knocking bag the dregs at the bottom and nodding as she passes it across to Bellamy for a refill.

“So,” says Clarke, when they both have their drinks, leading the way out of the kitchen and through the glass doors into the back yard, where the music is quieter and the air much cooler than the warmth indoors that feels heavy with the scent of cheap alcohol and teenage sweat. “You seemed surprised to see me here tonight, but I’ve never seen you at a party before.”

“Yeah, parties aren’t usually my thing.”

They reach the far side of the yard, where a rusty swing set stands under the branches of a tall oak tree, and Clarke sits on the seat, looping one of her arms around the chain to keep herself steady, while Lexa stands nearby.

“What’s different about tonight?” asks Clarke.

“Octavia was very persuasive,” replies Lexa. She takes a quick swig of her drink for courage, and then continues, “And I was hoping you’d be here. I wanted to see you. To know that you’re doing okay.”

The cover of the darkness, lit only by the crescent moon ad a few twinkling stars in the sky, does a good job of hiding the blush that rises to Lexa’s cheeks when she confesses that seeing Clarke was a motivator for pushing herself beyond her usual comfort zone.

“I’ve been bad at replying to your messages,” says Clarke. “And I’m sorry for that. Sometimes I just don’t have any energy and then I forget and…”

“No!” Lexa protests quickly, holding up a hand to stop Clarke before she can apologise any further. “You don’t have to say sorry. I probably text you way too much.”

“I like that you message me,” Clarke says in a soft voice. “It’s nice that you think of me.”

“Of course I think about you,” says Lexa, laughing softly under her breath, because there is hardly a moment that goes by where Lexa isn’t thinking about Clarke, even subconsciously. “You’re … I mean, you’re you.”

“What do you mean by that?” Clarke asks, an inquisitive smile on her face.

Lexa’s cheeks burn in embarrassment and she’s grateful that it’s late enough that the shroud of darkness hides her red-tinged cheeks.

“You’ve always been special,” Lexa shrugs as she answers, avoiding eye contact with Clarke out of fear that she’ll fluster and stumble over her words. “You were my first friend in Kindergarten. Do you remember that?”

“I do,” replies Clarke, and when Lexa finally looks up, it is to find Clarke grinning fondly at the memory. “Murphy pushed you over and I kicked him in the balls.”

“My hero,” says Lexa, mockingly fluttering her lashes in Clarke’s direction.

“God, even back then you were an adorable nerd,” Clarke teases, taking a swig from the plastic cup in her hand.

“Wait, you think I’m adorable?”

“I don’t think I said that,” Clarke denies resolutely, though Lexa can see that she’s trying to fight a smile that gives away the truth.

“You definitely said that,” insists Lexa.

“I also called you a nerd,” Clarke reminds Lexa matter-of-factly.

“Yes, but that’s old news.”

They fall into silence, and as Clarke gently pushes herself back and forth on the swing with her feet against the lawn, all Lexa can see are flashes of memories from years past, of two small girls chasing each other around the nearby playground and seeing who can fly the highest on the swings before losing their nerve.

“I’ve missed this,” says Lexa, smiling to herself at the memory. “Missed us.”

“So have I,” agrees Clarke, scraping her feet against the grass to bring herself to a standstill. “We should do this more often. Hang out, I mean. If you’d like to.”

Lexa’s eyes widen in surprise.

“Yeah, I … I’d love to!”

Lexa can’t remember why she was ever so worried about coming to this party in the first place.

The thing about promises is that they are easy to make and even easier to break. So when Clarke and Lexa promise to spend more time together, to rekindle a friendship that has been not much more than a pile of ashes since middle school, it’s far too easy to just let things continue how they did before the party.

It’s not that Lexa doesn’t try. Because she does. She sends Clarke occasional messages, links to things she’s seen online that she’s found funny, photos of the mundane happenings in her day to day life, little anecdotes that she thinks Clarke might enjoy. And Clarke replies most of the time, but it’s very rarely more than a one word answer or a laughing face emoji. When it is something more, the conversation fades out within the two or three messages after that.

Lexa tries her best not to push Clarke, because as much as she wants Clarke’s friendship to be the same permanent fixture in her life that it used to be, she also knows that Clarke is having a difficult enough time right now without having to fend off the unwanted attention of a former best friend who has a massive fucking crush on her.

When three weeks have passed since the party, three weeks since they promised to spend a little bit of time together, three weeks in which virtually nothing has changed since before their conversation at the party, Lexa decides to attempt to initiate a face-to-face meeting.

Lexa Woods Do you want to hang out later? We could have a movie night? You wouldn’t even have to leave your bed!

She doesn’t have to wait long for Clarke’s reply.

Clarke Griffin Yeah, might be fun

Lexa Woods Cool! I’ll bring popcorn! What time do you want me to come over?

And that’s it. There isn’t a reply to that message. Lexa checks her phone over and over again, just in case she has accidentally missed the ping of her text tone, but there’s still nothing. She assumes that Clarke has fallen asleep, that her message goes unanswered for a completely legitimate reason, but Lexa soon starts to second guess herself and doubt begins to creep into her mind.

Maybe Clarke doesn’t want to hang out with her.

Maybe Lexa is being too pushy.

No, Lexa tells herself. Clarke likes you. Clarke wants to spend time with you. It’s not her that’s pushing you away, it’s the cancer.

With that in mind, Lexa slips into her shoes, grabs a jacket, and decides to head over to Clarke’s house.

When Lexa arrives at the Griffin house, she is nervous.

Nervous that Clarke won’t be in the mood for socialising and that she’ll be turned away at the door.

Nervous that she’s going to be invited inside and will have to somehow find a way to cope with spending two hours watching a movie with a girl that she’s basically in love with.

The fluttering of her heart is almost enough to make Lexa go home of her own accord before she can enter the house.

Lexa musters all of her courage and raises her hand, tapping on the front door sharply with her knuckles. While she waits for somebody to answer the door, Lexa’s heart pounds so hard that she can hear the blood rushing through her ears.

It feels like an eternity that Lexa is waiting on that doorstep, but the door finally swings open and Abby Griffin peers inquisitively at her.

“Hello, can I-?” Abby stops mid-question to peer closer, and recognition seeps across her face as she realises who is on her doorstep. “Lexa?”

“Mrs Griffin,” Lexa nods, smiling politely.

It’s been years since Lexa has been to the Griffin house, years since she’s seen Abby, and though things have changed – there are different cars on the drive, a new rug in the hallway just behind Abby, more gray in Abby’s hair and more crinkled lines around her eyes and mouth – Lexa feels like no time has passed, like she’s still a bright-eyed middle-schooler visiting for a slumber party with stolen candy and whispered secrets beneath the sheets long after the rest of the house has fallen silent.

“Please, call me Abby. And come in!” Abby steps aside, welcoming Lexa into her home and closing the front door behind her, before she continues, “It’s good to see you. It’s been far too long since we had you in this house.”

Lexa nods in agreement, and then asks, “Is Clarke around? We said we’d have a movie night.”

“I haven’t seen her for a while,” Abby answers with a frown, pausing to think before she speaks again. “She came down and made herself some toast just after two but it’s been quiet since then. She’s probably been sleeping.”

“Oh, okay,” says Lexa, trying to mask her disappointment.

“You can go up and see her if you like,” suggests Abby. Abby’s eyes widen as she has an idea, and she explains to Lexa, “I tell you what, I haven’t planned any dinner tonight so we could order pizza for your movie night. How does that sound? Why don’t you go and wake Clarke and ask her what she wants on her pizza? You remember where Clarke’s room is, don’t you?”

“That sounds great,” says Lexa, the anxiety from earlier starting to be replaced with comfort as Abby makes her feel welcome in the place that used to feel like a second home.

She can only hope that Clarke does the same.

Leaving Abby alone downstairs, Lexa ascends the staircase to the upper floor of the house and makes her way to the door that she knows leads to Clarke’s bedroom. And yet again, she hesitates outside the door as nerves begin to rise within her gut at what she might find inside.

After two deep breaths, Lexa knocks lightly on the door and then, when there is no response, she pushes it open and peers inside.

Clarke is asleep. That much is apparent straight away. Her eyes are closed, her mouth slightly agape, and she snores softly. One of her arms is flung casually above her head on the pillow, while Lexa can just see a few toes decorated with chipped red nail polish peeking out from beneath the covers at the foot of the bed.

The most glaringly obvious thing in the room, and Lexa tries her best not to stare at it for too long, is that Clarke has no hair.

Lexa always knew that Clarke was going to end up losing her hair at some point, but she immediately regrets not preparing herself for the sight. Clarke’s scalp is stubbly, like the hair has been shaven close to her scalp at some point in the last few weeks, but the little hair that remains is thin and wispy, like that of a newborn baby before their proper hair starts to grow in thick. It only adds to the childlike image that Lexa gets of Clarke, sprawled out on her bed like an infant taking a nap, and Lexa wants nothing more than to wrap Clarke up in bundles of blanket as she presses soft kisses to her forehead and whispers promises to keep her safe.

Grateful that Clarke is asleep and therefore unable to witness Lexa staring at her almost-hairless head, Lexa forcibly drags her eyes away from the sleeping girl and takes in the rest of the room. Though it’s still the same room that Lexa remembers from her childhood visits, it’s much different. The room feels smaller and less inviting, is Lexa’s first impression. It smells clinical in here, but that’s not it. Across the dresser, there are an assortment of medicines in bottles and boxes, labelled with names that are just as terrifying as they are long. Lexa had no idea that cancer treatment required so much medication.

A giant corkboard leans against Clarke’s closet door, upon which Lexa can see various information pamphlets from the hospital pinned up with brightly coloured pins. Most of the corkboard is dominated by a huge yearly wall planner, which Clarke has decorated with coloured stickers to denote which medicines she needs to take on which days, as well as written in all of her hospital appointments. At the bottom of the board, there’s a handwritten sign that says 12 days to next treatment, with a homemade flip chart to change the numbers as she counts down. Around the edge of the board, Clarke has pinned up a few inspirational quotes, and Lexa smiles to herself as she reads one in particular - scars are like tattoos but with cooler stories.

It’s all very strange to Lexa, seeing the evidence of Clarke’s cancer all over the same bedroom that she used to have playdates and slumber parties with Clarke in, but the reality of it sinks in a little more that it has before. Lexa feels a tinge of sadness at the realisation that this is what Clarke’s life has become now, but also a huge swell of admiration for how Clarke is refusing to let the cancer take her down without a fight.

When Lexa glances back at the girl still soundly asleep in the bed, she feels as though she’s looking at her in a different light.

“Clarke?” Lexa says in a hushed voice, crossing the room and sitting down gently on the edge of Clarke’s bed, trying not to cause the mattress to jolt suddenly under her weight as she takes a seat. Lexa is torn between wanting to wake Clarke up to spend time with her or leaving her to continue her peaceful slumber, but it is the selfish part of her brain that wins out in the end. “Clarke, it’s me. Lexa.”

Clarke stirs ever so slightly and Lexa reaches out with one hand to brush the back of her fingers against Clarke’s warm cheek, stroking the soft skin tenderly. Clarke leans into the touch, and her bleary eyes flicker open just a fraction.

“Your mom is going to order pizza for dinner,” explains Lexa. “Does that sound okay?”

Clarke lets out a little grunt that Lexa assumes is an affirmative, and so she continues her line of questioning.

“Great, what do you want on yours?”

“Cheese,” mumbles Clarke sleepily.

“Just cheese?” Lexa asks for clarification. “No other toppings?”

“No.”

Clarke rolls onto her side towards Lexa, tucking her legs up to her chest as she curls up and pulls the covers over her shoulder. Her eyes are closed once more, as if she never stirred at all.

“Do you want me to leave you to sleep?” asks Lexa, her voice just a whisper as she tries not to startle the sleepy girl beside her.

Clarke lets out a low hum that Lexa interprets as an affirmative, and Lexa slowly gets to her feet, careful not to disturb Clarke as she crosses the room and backs out into the hallway, closing the bedroom door with a soft click.

Once she is back downstairs, Lexa relays Clarke’s pizza order to Abby, as well as her own, then takes a seat on the couch in the Griffin’s living room.

“She’s fast asleep,” Lexa says, once Abby has phoned the pizza restaurant and placed their order. “It was almost like she was talking to me in her sleep.”

“She does that,” nods Abby. “Sometimes I can go into her room and have an entire conversation with her and she’ll have no recollection of it when we speak later in the day.”

“Wow,” gasps Lexa. “She must be really out of it. Does she spend a lot of time asleep, then?”

“You could say that,” Abby laughs softly under her breath. “Now, Clarke has always enjoyed her sleep. It’s difficult enough to get her out of bed in the morning at the best of times, but since she started the treatment, she spends most of the day in bed. She’ll surface a couple of times a day for a snack, but it’s rare to see her awake for more than a few hours at a time.”

“I…” Lexa starts, but then trails off, wondering if the way her thoughts are going aren’t appropriate for a conversation with the mother of a cancer patient. But Abby looks at her with warmth in her eyes and an encouraging smile on her face, and it makes Lexa feel a little like there isn’t a wrong thing that she can say, and so she continues, “This is probably going to sound really ignorant, but I’ve never known anybody with cancer before, and seeing somebody go through all of this is so different to how I imagined it to be. I don’t mean that to sound so…”

“No, Lexa, there’s no need to say sorry!” Abby is quick to shut Lexa down for she can start apologising. “I’m a doctor – I deal with people suffering from all sorts of things on a daily basis, and I even did a placement in an oncology ward when I was a student doctor – and there are things about Clarke’s treatment and the side effects that surprise me.”

Lexa smiles gratefully at Abby’s words, and then continues, “It’s just, media makes it seem like cancer is about your hair falling out and being connected to a machine by a tube.”

“And there is an element of that to it,” Abby interjects.

Nodding, Lexa adds, “But it seems like it’s so much more than that.”

“There is,” agrees Abby. “You also have to remember that not everybody experiences cancer in the same way, so the way that Clarke’s body responds to the chemicals fighting off the disease is not necessarily the same way that mine would, or yours.”

“Clarke is … I know it’s stupid for me to be saying this when it’s mostly my fault that we aren’t as close as we used to be.”

“Lexa,” says Abby, reaching across the space between them on the couch and resting a comforting hand on Lexa’s arm. “You and Clarke have been an important part of each other’s lives. It’s perfectly natural for you to be affected by what she’s going through.”

Lexa smiles gratefully, Abby’s words doing a little to quell the guilt that Lexa feels for finding it difficult to talk or even think about Clarke’s health.

“Clarke is special,” Lexa confesses to Abby. “Clarke has always been there for me. She’s been looking out for me since the day that we met, and it feels like it’s my turn to repay that favour, to look out for her.” Lexa pauses, before she admits, “And I’m worried about her. She doesn’t seem the same as she used to be.”

Lexa wonders for a moment if she has said the wrong thing, when Abby’s brows furrows and her eyes fill with sadness at the changes she’s seeing in her only daughter.

“She’s not,” agrees Abby. “And she may never be. But whatever she may seem like now, she’s going to be a much stronger person when it’s all over.”

Lexa is reminded of another one of the quotes she saw pinned to Clarke’s corkboard up in her bedroom - Cancer is always going to lose, because though it tries to make you weaker it only ends up making you stronger.

“To quote Kelly Clarkson; what doesn't kill you makes you stronger,” says Lexa, and Abby laughs softly at her words.

“Mom?”

They both startle at the sound of Clarke’s voice, having not heard her descend the stairs, and look up to find Clarke rubbing her tired eyes as she enters the room,  wearing pyjama pants and an oversized hoodie.

“Who are you talking to? I thought Dad was away toni-” Clarke stops mid-sentence when she notices Lexa. “Lexa?”

Lexa gives a meek little wave. Clarke looks completely surprised to see Lexa in her living room, as if she doesn’t remember either inviting Lexa over or even the short conversation that they shared in her room earlier. Lexa remembers what Abby said about Clarke often having entire conversations that she’s too tired to remember later and realises that must be the case.

“Told you she wouldn’t remember,” Abby's says, quiet enough that only Lexa can hear her.

“I came up to your room earlier to ask you what you wanted on your pizza,” Lexa explains to Clarke, smiling kindly in an attempt to reassure Clarke that it’s completely fine if she doesn’t remember. “We had a conversation.”

“We did?”

“Pizza is on its way,” says Abby. “Probably about half an hour.”

“I don’t know if I’m hungry,” Clarke protest, her voice feeble. She drops into one of the armchairs and curls her knees up to her chest, wrapping her arms around them to keep them close to her body as her head drops back against the cushion behind her.

“That’s fine,” Abby tells her. “But it’s there for you if you want it. Lexa says you two are having a movie night.”

“Oh shit, I totally forgot about that!” sighs Clarke, eyes widening as she remembers inviting Lexa over.

“Language, Clarke!” Abby scolds Clarke, though there isn’t actually any trace of anger in her voice.

“Sorry,” mumbles Clarke.

“I can go if you want me to,” says Lexa, trying to mask the disappointment as she makes to get up onto her feet.

“No!” says Clarke quickly, leaning forward in her seat slightly and letting her feet slide onto the floor as if preparing to chase Lexa if she tries to leave. “Stay! Please?”

Lexa drops back into her seat perhaps a little too eagerly, just pleased that she’s finally going to be able to make true of the promise they made at Octavia’s party and spend some time with Clarke. If her heart picks up its pace in her chest, then Lexa vehemently ignores it.

“Let’s use the den,” says Clarke. The Griffins have a room at the back of their house that they call the ‘den’, a small-ish room with a couch, a television, and several towering bookshelves along one wall, and Lexa remembers the room well from her childhood visits here, she remembers eating chips in front of cartoons, and making a fort to hide from the grown-ups. “My bedroom is too much like a prison.”

Lexa nods, her only concern being Clarke’s comfort at all times. If Clarke would rather host their movie night in the den, rather than the bedroom that has become almost like her own private hospital ward at home, then Lexa isn’t going to put forward any complaints.

“That sounds like a great idea,” says Abby. “Why don’t you girls go and set up in there? There’s some spare blankets and pillows up in the spare bedroom if you want to make it more comfy in there. I can bring the pizza to you when it arrives.”

“Thank you, Mrs Griffin,” says Lexa.

“It’s Abby,” replied Abby, a twinkle in her eyes, “and you know that, Lexa!”

They build what can only be described as a nest on the couch in the den, cocooning themselves in a warm bundle of blankets and cushions while they choose a movie from Netflix. When the pizza arrives, Abby brings it through to them and smiles at the sight of their heads peering out from under all the blankets.

The pizza box sits between them on the couch, resting on a small cushion, and they help themselves to cheesy slices while the movie plays in the background. Despite her earlier protests that she wouldn’t be hungry, Clarke’s stomach gives a traitorous growl when they lift the lid, and she manages almost two slices before she gives in and says that her appetite has gone.

Clarke falls asleep about halfway through the movie, and with her stomach full and the nest of blankets keeping her cosy, Lexa can feel her own eyes drooping with the onset of drowsiness not too long afterwards. She tries to fight it, to stay away and watch the movie, but her eyelids are heavy and she quickly succumbs.

When Clarke wakes up, she is uncomfortable.

Which is weird because she’s bundled up in blankets on the soft couch cushions in the den, with Lexa fast asleep against her side. She should be the epitome of comfort.

There’s an unsettled feeling in Clarke’s stomach, and it takes her a few sleepy moments to realise that she feels nauseous. The need to be sick is not an urgent one, but it is there, but as soon as she realises that she’s feeling queasy, it takes over her entire body and she can’t think of anything else.

Clarke tries to extract herself from the blankets without disturbing Lexa, but with the other girl asleep against her side, her head resting on Clarke’s shoulder, it’s a harder task that it seems. The blankets are tangled around their limbs and as she tries to remove herself from their warmth, Lexa stirs against her and her eyes blink open.

“Are you okay?” Lexa asks, her voice raspy in her newly awakened state.

“Just gonna go to the bathroom,” Clarke says, trying not to let her discomfort show. The last thing she wants is for Lexa to worry about her.

Lexa looks on in concern, but she nods silently and lets Clarke leave, helping to remove the blankets so that she can make her escape.

Clarke knows the drill by now. She reaches for a hair tie and pushes her hair back into a loose bun, then sits on the edge of the bathtub within reach of the toilet basin. She takes deep breaths, trying to stop the bile from rising in her throat, but by this point she knows it’s going to happen.

When she can’t fight it anymore, Clarke leans over the basin and retches, emptying the contents of her stomach into the toilet bowl. When she doesn’t think she can be sick any longer, when there is nothing left to throw up, Clarke scrabbles with one hand for the flush, while the other reaches for a square of toilet paper to wipe the disgusting dribble from her chin and lips.

“Clarke?”

As if things couldn’t get any worse, Clarke glances up from where she is huddled on the bathroom floor to find Lexa leaning against the doorway with concern on her face. The very reason that Clarke rarely has friends over at her house is because she doesn’t want them to see her like this, but the illusion that she’s dealing with cancer with her dignity still in tact is lost the moment that Lexa lays eyes on the way that Clarke is clinging to the toilet seat with her own drool coating her lips.

“Go away, Lexa,”

“Can I do anything to help? Do you need anything? Water?”

Clarke is loathe to ask for help, but her throat burns and there’s an acidic taste in her mouth and water sounds like heaven.

“There’s a bottle of water that I left in the den,” Clarke reluctantly says to Lexa.

“I’ll go get it.”

Lexa hurries out of the bathroom obediently like a dog rushing to fetch a ball, and Clarke is only left alone for a moment because the commotion brings her mom along in Lexa’s absence. Abby enters the bathroom and takes a seat on the edge of the bathtub, rubbing a soothing hand up and down Clarke’s back.

“Clarke, are you okay honey?” she asks.

Clarke glances up and puts on a forced smile, as she replies sarcastically, “Peachy.”

Lexa returns with the water bottle, filled with fresh water, and gives it to Clarke with a worried expression still on her face. Clarke accepts the bottle with a grateful nod of her head and takes a huge gulp, swilling the water around her mouth to wash away the taste of her own vomit, before she spits the water into the toilet basin and takes another sip to actually drink.

“Lexa, I don’t want you to see me like this,” says Clarke, now that her throat isn’t quite so dry and scratchy.

Though Lexa looks as though she wants to say something, she remains silent.

Pushing herself up into a standing position, it is Abby who comes up with a solution, leaving Clarke on the bathroom floor beside the toilet as she says to Lexa, “Lexa, how about I make up the spare room for you and you can sleep there tonight?”

Lexa keeps staring at Clarke with a frown on her face, eyes full of pity and something else, before she finally glances up at Abby and nods silently. Abby ushers Lexa out of the bathroom, leading her down the hallway, and it is only when Clarke has been left alone in the bathroom that she lets herself break down, tears cascading down her cheeks and her chest heaving with sobs as she collapses on the bathroom floor and just cries.

School starts up again at the end of the summer and so begins Lexa’s senior year.

Clarke doesn’t show up on the first day, nor on the second, and when she does finally show her face on the third day, she looks wearier than Lexa remembers, and her words are much more negative.

“I just don’t want to be here,” complains Clarke, when Lexa meets with her during morning break to give her a copy of Lexa’s notes from the two days she’s missed. “I don’t see the point.”

“Of course there’s a point!” Lexa tries to assure her. “This is senior year, your last year!”

“And what?” shrugs Clarke dejectedly, slumping against her locker. “I have to miss school for appointments but what about the days like yesterday where I physically couldn’t get out of bed? I’m tired all the fucking time!”

“I’m sure the teachers will be able to help you catch up on the work you’ve missed,” Lexa suggests.

“The teachers don’t give a shit,” replies Clarke. “I’m not in school enough for them to care. They’ve already written me off as a hopeless case. I’m just a kid they’ll talk about in a few years, like ‘remember when we taught that girl with cancer, such a sad story’. That’s all I am to them, a story.”

“Then I’ll help you!” promises Lexa. She hates seeing Clarke like this, hates how the cancer seems to have drained all of Clarke’s positivity. “I can come over to yours and help with the stuff that you miss and it’ll even help with my own revision.”

“I can’t ask you do so that.”

“I want to,” Lexa shrugs, her voice soft.

Clarke looks at Lexa in confusion, her eyebrows furrowed into a frown, like she’s trying to work out why Lexa hasn’t written her off in the same way that nearly every other person in the school has.

“But why? There’s no point. My life lost all its worth the moment they did the scan and found a tumour.”

Clarke chokes on her words towards the end, and Lexa catches her reaching up to rub at her eyes, as if wiping away tears. Within a few seconds, Clarke’s chest is heaving with sobs and her cheeks are damp.

“Come on,” says Lexa, putting an arm around Clarke’s shoulder and guiding her into the nearby girls’ bathroom.

There are two girls in there when they enter, standing at the mirrors touching up their eyeliner, but upon seeing Clarke in tears, they seem to sense the need for privacy and quickly gather their belongings, vacating the bathroom to leave Lexa and Clarke alone.

“It’s okay,” Lexa soothes Clarke. “Let it out.”

“Why me?” sobs Clarke. “What did I do to deserve this?”

“Nothing” says Lexa, as she pulls Clarke in for a hugs and wraps her arms around Clarke’s shoulders. Clarke’s own arms circle loosely around Lexa’s waist and her head falls on Lexa’s shoulder, her tears soaking the sleeve of Lexa’s t-shirt. “You did nothing. You don’t deserve any of this and it makes me so mad that it’s happening to you.”

“I had it all planned out,” says Clarke, another sob tearing through her body as she trembles in Lexa’s arms. “I was going to get a good GPA and go to med school and become a paediatrician but none of that is going to happen anymore.”

“It can still happen if you want it to,” Lexa tries to reassure Clarke.

Clarke pulls herself out of Lexa’s embrace and walks into one of the toilet stalls, emerging a few seconds later with some toilet paper scrunched up in her hand, which she uses to dab at her eyes and then blow her nose.

“That’s the other thing,” Clarke says to Lexa, tossing the used tissue in the nearby trash can. “I’m not sure I even want to be a doctor anymore. Why would I want to spend the rest of my life working in a place that reminds me of what I’m going through now?”

“Then that’s fine,” Lexa answers without hesitation. “There’s still so many other things you can so. You can still go to college without deciding what you want to major in yet, or you don’t have to go to college at all if you don’t want to.”

Clarke’s eyes narrow and she looks at Lexa with an expression on her face like she doesn’t understand why Lexa is so insistent that Clarke’s life isn’t as bad as she thinks it is.

“Why are you doing this?”

“Doing what?” asks Lexa.

“Being so nice to me.”

Clarke still looks at Lexa with incredulity in her eyes, like the very idea of somebody showing her kindness is one that she can’t begin to fathom.

“Do you remember in Kindergarten when you helped me up after Murphy pushed me over and then kicked him in the balls?” asks Lexa, and Clarke’s glistening blue eyes soften with traces of amusement as she nods through her tears. “You’ve always had my back and now that things aren’t so great for you, I want to have yours.”

Lexa omits the part where she’s basically in love with Clarke and would do anything to ensure her happiness.

“I mean, Murphy hasn’t done anything but if you want to kick him in the balls anyway, it would really cheer me up.”

“Noted,” smiles Lexa.

Though her cheeks are blotchy and there are red rings around her eyes as evidence of her tears, Clarke is no longer crying and Lexa is grateful that she seems to have cheered up a little. She thinks that seeing Clarke like that, seeing the emotional impact that the cancer is having on her, is far worse than it is to see all of the physical changes on Clarke’s body. Even seeing Clarke hunched over a toilet bowl emptying her stomach that time Lexa went over for a movie night was more bearable than this, because at least Lexa knew that the nausea would pass. Seeing Clarke so upset and feeling like there is nothing she can do to help only leaves Lexa feeling completely helpless, and she wishes that there could be steps for her to take to ensure that Clarke doesn’t have to feel like her life isn’t worth anything now that she’s sick.

“Seriously, though,” Lexa tells Clarke, who has now turned to the sink and is splashing water over her face from the faucet. “I’m here for you. I know that things aren’t going your way at the moment, but I don’t want you to ever feel like you’re alone, because you’re not.”

Clarke’s eyes are still red and the skin around them puffy from her tears, but there’s something much deeper in them as she looks at Lexa, like maybe she might be finally starting to believe that what Lexa is saying is true.

Something changes in Clarke.

Lexa hardly notices it at first, because in many ways nothing changes at all. Clarke still misses a lot of school and when she does show up, she is still just as weary and down about her situation as she was at the start of the school year, keeping her head down on her desk for often entire lessons and secluding herself from most of her peers during break and lunchtimes.

But there’s definitely something different too. Something in the way that Clarke’s eyes seek out Lexa’s in the school canteen and her tense shoulders relax visibly as she comes to sit at Lexa’s table. Something in the way that Clarke will always choose to sit next to Lexa in the classes that they share, even if she ends up sleeping on her desk for the entire lesson. Something in the way that Clarke has started inviting Lexa over to hers after school every now and then so that Lexa can help her with the work she’s missed, even though their ‘study sessions’ usually end up with them binge-watching TV and reminiscing about memories from years past until their cheeks hurt from smiling too much.

Lexa likes it. Well, she doesn’t like that Clarke is still struggling, but she likes the way that even though Clarke is having a tough time, she’s giving Lexa the chance to try and make it a little less difficult.

Clarke has her last treatment in early-November and Lexa spends the entire day glued to her phone. Or at least as glued to her phone as she can be at school without the teachers noticing it and confiscating it from her. She checks it as often as she can, waiting for a message from Clarke to say that she’s out of the hospital so that she can congratulate Clarke on making it to the end of a gruelling six months of chemotherapy.

There isn’t a message, but when Lexa checks Facebook during her lunch break, there’s a post from Clarke at the top of her feed, dominated by a goofy selfie of Clarke at the hospital with a dumb filter that distorts her face and gives her a pair of animal ears.

Lexa taps the ‘like’ button instantly, then scrolls down to read the caption that Clarke has posted below.

Clarke Griffin 34 minutes ago Last ever chemo today! It’s been a difficult six months but I’m coming out the other side stronger and I couldn’t have done it without the most incredible support from the best friends and family I could ask for. Thank you to each and every one of you for sticking by my side during these tricky months. I love you all! All there’s left to do is to wait for the scan to confirm that the cancer is gone and then I can start growing my eyebrows back!

Lexa’s eyes prickle with tears and she wipes them away immediately, before anybody else can see her crying in the middle of the school canteen, but Lexa can’t stop the smile that spreads across her face with the growing pride that she feels for Clarke and the struggle that she has overcome as she types out a comment on Clarke’s post.

Lexa Woods So proud of you and the strength that you’ve shown! <3

It doesn’t come close to expressing what Lexa is really feeling, but when the notification pops up a few seconds later telling her that Clarke has replied with a heart emoji of her own, Lexa hopes that maybe it’s just about enough.

On the day that Clarke goes for her final scan and gets the all-clear from the doctors, who tell her that the chemotherapy has been successful and that she’s in complete remission, they go for milkshakes and donuts to celebrate.

“To you,” says Lexa, holding up her milkshake glass when the waitress brings them their drinks, and Clarke meets it with a soft clink of her own against Lexa’s, “for being the strongest and bravest person I know and kicking cancer’s butt.”

“To you,” adds Clarke, keeping her glass raised even after Lexa lowers her own, “for sticking by my side when so many others turned their backs.”

Lexa wraps her lips around the straw and sucks up some of her milkshake, sighing at how refreshing the drink is, before she puts the glass down on the table.

“Of course I stuck by you,” Lexa shrugs. “I just didn’t want you to feel alone.”

“I appreciate it,” smiles Clarke. “As long as we’re still going to be friends now that I’m healthy again?”

Clarke has genuine concern in her eyes, like she actually thinks that Lexa might stop being her friend now that she no longer has the excuse of wanting to help Clarke through her difficult times.

“Of course we are,” Lexa promises Clarke. “I’ll always be your friend, even when you have hair again!”

Clarke’s face cracks open into a grin and Lexa flushes with delight at having made Clarke smile, a sight that has been so rare over the last few months. It’s nice to see Clarke relaxed for once, instead of exhausted and void of hope, and Lexa can’t tell if Clarke is actually more radiant than before or if it’s just Lexa imagining things. Either way, Clarke looks beautiful as she sips on her milkshake, even more so when she smiles, and Lexa is reminded of all the un-friendlike feelings she has for Clarke as her heart stirs in her chest and makes its presence known by thumping rhythmically against her ribcage.

To distract herself from her racing heart, and to stop herself from doing anything stupid like telling Clarke that she looks beautiful and accidentally confessing her love, Lexa gestures to the box of donuts on the table between them and asks, “Powdered sugar or chocolate sprinkles?”

“Like you even have to ask,” grins Clarke, reaching for the donut decorated with chocolate icing and multi-coloured sprinkles.

The cancer might have gone, but Clarke’s social anxiety definitely has not, and the nerves that she feels upon entering the party that Octavia is throwing at her house for half their year is almost overwhelming. Her hair, barely starting to grow back and still a closely shaven fuzz on her head, is hidden beneath a comfortable gray beanie, and even though it has been months since she had long hair, Clarke still feels self-conscious about her current look.

The other partygoers greet her as if nothing has changed, as if she hasn’t spent months going in and out of hospital appointments and barely showing up to school. There’s the people who have always been her friends, even through it all - Raven wraps Clarke in a tipsy hug when she first sees her, Jasper greets Clarke with a fist bump and offers to pour her a drink from a suspicious-looking homemade concoction stored in an old plastic water bottle, Octavia drags Clarke straight into the middle of a makeshift dance floor in the living room and starts grinding up against her instead of Lincoln - but there’s others, people who have barely acknowledged Clarke during the last six months, who greet her and smile as she passes as if she has never had cancer at all.

It’s weird and Clarke doesn’t like it.

When Clarke has finally managed to escape from Octavia’s inappropriate dancing, using an excuse of needing to go somewhere a little cooler, Clarke makes her way to the slightly quieter kitchen and pours herself a drink.

“So the cancer is gone, huh?”

Clarke glances up, bottle of soda in one hand and a red plastic cup in the other, to find Finn smirking across at her. Finn, who was definitely flirting with her before the diagnosis, but who hasn’t even looked her way since, let alone spoken to her.

“Well,” says Clarke, trying not to let her disinterest in conversing with Finn creep into her voice. “I’m in complete remission, so…”

“So you’re basically cured.”

Clarke knows that she used to be attracted to Finn, though in this moment she can’t possibly remember why. Perhaps the chemotherapy has killed all traces of the former attraction along with the cancer.

“Finn, it…”

“When is your hair going to grow back?” asks Finn.

He must think that he’s flirting, because he wears a smirk on his face and leans closer to Clarke. Clarke decides that they must be living in alternate universes, because Finn clearly thinks that his advances are wanted, while Clarke is struggling to think of anywhere she would rather be less than here with Finn.

Except for perhaps the oncology ward with a tube pumping chemicals into the port on her chest, but it’s an incredibly close call.

“What if I like it short?” Clarke replies haughtily, folding her arms indignantly across her chest.

Still undeterred, Finn says, “I think you look really pretty with long hair. You know, how it was before.”

“Well, if you like it short then I guess I have to grow back.”

Finn completely misses the sarcasm in her voice because instead of getting the idea that Clarke doesn’t care about what he has to say and backing off, he instead leans yet closer and says, “How about we go and talk somewhere a little more private?”

It takes all of Clarke’s self-restraint to stop herself from rolling her eyes.

“And by ‘talk’, you mean hook-up?” she asks him, raising her eyebrows in disbelief.

“Well, I guess. If you like.”

Clarke loses it.

“No, Finn,” she snaps, spitting his name out like it’s a nasty taste on her tongue that she can’t wait to be rid of, “I don’t like. I don’t like the way that you think you can ignore me for six months and then as soon as I finish my treatment, you decide that it’s okay to start flirting with me again because you no longer have to deal with a girl who has cancer.”

“Clarke,” whines Finn, “I only meant that…”

“Well, guess what, Finn?” continues Clarke, barely allowing herself time to take a breath before she launches off again, not giving Finn the chance to try to wriggle his way out of this one. “I’m always going to be the girl who had cancer! You don’t go through something like this and just forget about it. This experience has changed me and I’m not the same girl who had a crush on you last summer. And if you didn’t want to be around for that change then that’s on you.”

“Clarke…” protests Finn.

“Finn, I don’t care,” Clarke tells him bluntly. “If you didn’t want to be my friend when I had cancer, then you don’t get to be my friend now that I don’t.”

Clarke is pretty proud of herself for that one, but she becomes aware that her rant at Finn has drawn a little bit of attention from the handful of other people in the kitchen. They watch her with mild fear on their faces, as if worried that she’s going to turn on them next and give them the same kind of treatment that she’s given Finn.

But Clarke is done ranting, and from the way that Finn is finally silent, Clarke thinks that maybe she might have got through to him.

Clarke decides that she has to make a quick exit to escape the judgement of the other people in the kitchen, but when she looks up at the door out of the kitchen, she notices that Lexa is standing there watching her, and Clarke realises that she must have seen the entire exchange with Finn.

With her conversation with Finn fresh in her mind, Clarke realises that Lexa is the only person outside of her tight-knit friendship group who has even looked Clarke’s way during the last few months, let alone tried to support her through the biggest challenge of her entire life, and the realisation has everything clicking into place.

Clarke pushes past Finn and walks towards Lexa, grabbing Lexa’s hand with her own on her way out of the kitchen and pulling Lexa with her.

“Come on, Lexa. We need to talk.”

We need to talk.

Put together in that order, they are probably four of the most ominous-sounding words in the English language, but Lexa has no time to process what they might mean or what Clarke wants to talk about. Clarke’s hand grips her own and Lexa is being dragged down the hallway of Octavia’s house, past a few other kids in their year, until Clarke opens up the front door and leads Lexa outside into the chilly December air.

“Clarke, what…?”

Clarke kisses her. Like actually kisses her, lips gently moving against Lexa’s while one of her hands comes up to tangle itself in Lexa’s hair.

It’s not at all what Lexa imagined their first kiss to be like - and Lexa has probably imagined and re-imagined a thousand different scenarios in which she and Clarke share a first kiss. Lexa has pictured it being tentative and clumsy, she’s pictured it being fiery and fuelled by lust, she’s pictured it taking place right after Lexa has delivered a smooth line to knock Clarke off her feet, and she’s pictured it happening in the darkness of her own bedroom late at night during a slumber party. In fact, had you asked Lexa just thirty seconds ago, she probably would have said that there is not a single version of their first kiss that she hasn’t already imagined.

But she never once imagined it to be like this, never thought that it would happen on Octavia Blake’s front step while a party rages on behind the closed front door, never expected that Clarke’s lips would be so soft or that her hand would caress Lexa’s scalp in the way that it does, never once predicted that Clarke kissing her would make Lexa’s heart beat in her chest like it’s having its very own high school house party in her chest.

Lexa tries to be as present as she can be, a task which is a lot harder than it seems when her entire body feels like it’s floating off the ground and soaring into space. She tries to kiss Clarke back, and she lifts her own hand to cup Clarke’s jaw, where her fingertips dip just beneath the soft material of the beanie that Clarke wears and her thumb traces patterns along the bone of Clarke’s gaunt cheek.

The kiss is a bit of a surprise - as far as Lexa is aware, her feelings for Clarke have been entirely one-sided until now - and Lexa can’t help but wonder what has changed in Clarke’s mind to bring them to this point. When Clarke draws back from the kiss to change the angle, Lexa pulls back from the kiss, though she keeps her hands on Clarke to hold her close, trying to let Clarke know that this is just a temporary pause, not a permanent halt on their kissing.

“Clarke, what…?

“Finn was hitting on me and it made me realise that there’s only one person I want to be doing that,” explains Clarke. When Lexa stares at her dumbfoundedly for a few seconds, not quite believing what she’s hearing, Clarke elaborates by saying, “You.”

Lexa’s jaw drops open like she can’t quite believe what she’s hearing, even though she already has the physical evidence that Clarke wants her from the way that her lips are still tingling from the recent pressure of Clarke’s mouth sliding against her own.

“Listen, this isn’t going to be easy,” says Clarke, dropping the hand that is buried in Lexa’s hair so that it’s draped around her neck and bringing the other one up to match it. “I still have to go to the hospital for tests every few months and there’s always a chance that the cancer could come back. And I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but mentally I’m a bit of a fuck up right now.”

“Clarke…” protests Lexa, shaking her head.

“What?” shrugs Clarke. “It’s true! I’ve still got a difficult journey ahead of me but I want to make that journey with you. I want you to still be by my side, because I can deal with the cancer - not very well, I admit - but I can deal with it. I don’t think I could handle not having you in my life.”

There’s a question in Clarke’s eyes, as if she’s waiting for Lexa to promise that she’s never going to leave. Lexa can’t find the words to do justice to the way that she’s feeling, so she decides to do it with actions instead. Her hands tighten on Clarke’s waist, pulling her closer as she leans down for a second kiss that feels like Lexa is arriving home.

“Just to be clear,” Lexa mumbles against Clarke’s lips, “are you asking me to be your girlfriend?”

Clarke lets out a little noise, something that Lexa decides must be the audible version of an eye roll, before she answers, “Yes, idiot. Be my girlfriend?”

Lexa doesn’t know how she manages to keep kissing Clarke when her mouth is threatening to crack into a huge grin, but she manages it, only pulling back for long enough to say, “Yes.”

[onestowatch]

Q&A: Homeshake Talks Touring With Mac DeMarco, His Love for Migos, & Has an Existential Crisis

Peter Sagar, more popularly known as Homeshake, found his first bout of success as the guitarist for Mac DeMarco. But success was never what Sagar was in search of. Rather, the Canadian artist wished to pursue solitude, a sentiment that bleeds out in his airy, downtempo R&B. Having since left Mac DeMarco some time ago to fully invest himself in his Homeshake project–with no ill feelings, as the two regularly hang out when they find themselves in the same city– Sagar rarely tours despite his rapidly growing cult-like fanbase. In many ways, Sagar’s own fans embody the same frenzy that came to be associated with DeMarco’s live shows, but Sagar is the one in control now. His latest album the critically-acclaimed Fresh Air, is the culmination of that complete creative freedom.

A Homeshake show is a rare sighting, and much like the rarest of sightings, it is not be missed. His most recent show saw him play The Natural History Museum in Los Angeles, to an audience of avid fans, taxidermy dioramas, and prehistoric fossils. An odd venue for music by all accounts, but an all too fitting one for Sagar. Homeshake’s otherworldly music, often amplified by his penchant for vocal modulation, feels as if it’s perfectly designed for unique moments such as these. So, as I sat down to speak with the reclusive artist, adorned in a Sade shirt, I was introduced to an entirely new Homeshake than what I had come to expect. Instead, I learned of a Homeshake who was quick to express his love for pop and trap and who had come to find joy in making music entirely on his own terms.  

OTW: Any plans while you’re in town?

Sagar: Um, I got a lot of friends that live out here.  

OTW: Yeah, you have Mac out here, right?

Sagar: Mhm, yep. We had tacos with him last night.  

OTW: So, speaking of this whole set up. Pretty cool venue to play, right?

Sagar: Yeah, I like it. I really like this kind of museum, there’s one in Edmonton, and I used to always love it. I loved going there on school trips. Specifically, I liked the animal dioramas with all the weird … what’s it called? What is this stuff? Dead animal stuff?

OTW: Taxidermy?  

Sagar: Taxidermy! Yeah, all the taxidermy displays. So sweet.

OTW: Yeah, I used to go on school trips here a lot growing up. Have you played any cooler venues?

Sagar: I don’t know. All the venues, all the memories disappear.  

OTW: I want to say that I love all of your album artwork and everything that’s associated with it. I’m very embarrassed, but I’m wearing one of your shirts right now. My girlfriend gave me so much shit when I was leaving the house. I know your partner Salina does all your artwork. How does that collaboration come about?  

Sagar: Well, it just worked out very well because we’ve been together for like nine years. She started helping me make covers and stuff while we were still living in Edmonton, and a couple of times I would tell her an idea of what I thought looked good, but that never worked out well. So, I generally just let her do whatever she wants. It’s the best way. It’s the best way to just let Salina do whatever she wants, and it will be amazing.  

OTW: And does she just listen to the album and go from there?  

Sagar: I think so! She asks me if I have any ideas and I’m like, “No, we’re not going there. You can just figure it out.” And then it’s always perfect.

OTW: So, in the early days when you were first releasing music as Homeshake, you were still touring with Mac right? Was there a turning point when you decided that you wanted to fully devote yourself to Homeshake?

Sagar: Yeah, I was just in a very dark place and it was sort of just a never-ending tour schedule. Then trying to balance that and Homeshake and my relationship, it was just impossible. So, one had to go, so I choose Salina and myself.  

OTW: That was a good choice.

Sagar: Yeah, I think so. It worked out well.

OTW: So, now that with each new release you're growing a similar cult following. Do you ever worry about not being able to balance everything?

Sagar: No, I’m in control now. So, things only happen as I want them to. The difficulty with Mac was just that I had no control really because everyone else was down for everything, and I wasn’t going to be the wet blanket all the time. I still was. Now I just choose everything, so that’s why we tour so little.  

OTW: So, you’re originally from Edmonton, but then moved to Montreal and that’s where you adopted the name Homeshake. I saw that you just let go of all your other projects at that point. What were the earliest days of Homeshake like?

Sagar: We lived in a really small apartment in Montreal, and it wasn’t even cheap enough for how small it was, it was so shitty. We were there for like two years out of just laziness. I would make stuff on some really, really bad gear in my living room, and then I recorded some stuff in Mac’s living room. I recorded some stuff in a studio that I ended up renting and rehearsing at for a long time. It was just like slow, because I would be working on it and then suddenly have to go on tour for like seven months. So yeah, everything just took a long time.

OTW: What is the creative industry like in Montreal, as opposed to places like Los Angeles?  

Sagar: I mean, I don’t really know what it’s like here. It’s like all famous people, right? Everybody is famous? Every person in LA is famous?

OTW: Every single one. Yeah, just in this lobby alone. (laughs)

Sagar: (laughs) In Montreal the majority of it varies from neighborhood to neighborhood. Like there’s a lot of intense punk kids, but I don’t go there. But most of the musicians I know are DJs, everyone’s a fucking DJ in Montreal, and that’s fine. But yeah, it’s a lot of parties and a lot of raves, and I don’t participate in any of it all.

OTW: Not a big raver?

Sagar: No, I like dance music a lot. I like electronic music, but I don’t participate. I don’t know what Montreal is like anymore, I checked out. Not interested, really.

OTW: Speaking on your own music, it’s obviously very R&B driven which seems so different from your influences, well you have a lot of influences, but you like top 40s, trap, Migos…

Sagar: Mmm yeah, I love Migos.

OTW: Yeah, Migos are amazing. Have you always loved R&B, or did that come at a certain point?

Sagar: I wasn’t into it when I was younger, but when I was a kid, like the late 90s, early 2000s, I would watch everything that was on MTV, and like 80% of the music videos were R&B. So, I knew all the songs, and it was kind of like a guilty thing. I liked guitars, and I thought those were cool. So, I was wrong obviously (laughs). So that stuff was always kind of like inside my brain. And then it was actually Salina that kind of drew it out of me because she has a very encyclopedic knowledge of ‘90s R&B. It takes her a long time to remember whatever it is, but she always knows the song. It’s all her. I just steal the things she likes. (laughs)

OTW: So, speaking of Fresh Air, I read that name for the album came from smoking weed and just stepping out onto the balcony for fresh air. I wasn’t sure if that serious or not…

Sagar: Yeah.

OTW: Are there any other inspirations behind Fresh Air besides just good weed?

Sagar: (laughs) I don’t know, they all kind of have something. Most of the songs are pretty specific. I would have to look at a list of them and think about it for a really long time.

OTW: One thing that I really like about your music is what I’m guessing is vocal modulation. Particularly, the ones that kick off each album. They remind me of those rap skits from old hip-hop albums for. Where did that come from?  

Sagar: I don’t know, I just like sped-up and slowed-down voices. I used to record everything on cassette. And I would just always slow it down, speed it up. The regular speed is really boring. Yeah, I love high voices and low voices. I think they are kind of funny and kind of scary. So yeah, I’m not sure where I lifted it from. I just used to listen to a lot of screw tapes, so that probably gave me the idea. It’s certainly not an original idea by any means.

OTW: Well, you do it well for sure.

Sagar: (laughs) Thank you.

OTW: I also wanted to talk about how outspoken you are about political issues. As an artist with a platform, do you feel there’s a certain responsibility to be as outspoken?  

Sagar: Yeah, like I’m no expert. I don’t know all the details. You know, we are all stuck in the infinite scroll looking at headlines, but then you have to keep scrolling. It’s also like inescapable shit, so I kind of slowed down on it because it was such a constant inundating flow of information. It just feels like white noise at this point. Yeah, you kind of have to make your opinions clear, because what if I never did and then a bunch of Nazis liked me? That’s my fucking nightmare. So, I did an interview that came out at the beginning of Fresh Air and some of it was about how I got into some arguments online with some fucking alt-right losers that had previously liked my music, but now no longer do and that was good. It’s good to shed the trash from your life.  

OTW: Do you think you’d ever make a protest song or anything along those lines?

Sagar: No. (laughs) I can only sing about myself being like a sad loser. I could never take on real issues like that.

OTW: Do you have any favorite protest songs or albums?

Sagar: My favorite band until I was like seventeen was Rage Against The Machine. The other day we were in Texas, and I just was craving Rage Against The Machine, so we listened to some on the way back to the venue and had it at full blast as we pulled up in front, like cutting through the line of kids outside. It was kind of embarrassing, but it was amazing.

OTW: Such a good time.

Sagar: God, I love them.  

OTW: I mean, hopefully, they’ll come back one day soon.

Sagar: Yeah, Tom Morello is the greatest guitarist of all time.

OTW: So, I have definitely used a lot of your songs for mix tapes for friends and it definitely got me a girlfriend or two I’d say, so thank you for that. It just has such a vibe to it. What would you say is the ideal setting to listen to your music in?

Sagar: Just a relaxing one for whoever is listening to it. The place where I can write from is wherever I’m most relaxed and calm. That’s, I guess, why I don’t make like weird, screechy, angsty music or anything. I like comfort and solitude. So that’s probably what it would lend itself to the best.

OTW: And is your songwriting typically one of solitude?

Sagar: Yeah, I haven’t collaborated with anyone in a long time. I had for the three records I put out. I had guys running the board and helping me mix and stuff, but I write alone. I don’t remember what it’s like to collaborate with people. I’ve been trying to do that lately, and it’s been a real struggle. It’s like, “I don’t know what you want.” (laughs) I’m just really selfish. I was trying to produce for some people, just passing some things around, but I never want to give out the ones I really like, I want to keep it for myself. Yeah, very alone in it.

OTW: Just a sad lonely boy.

Sagar: (laughs) Yeah, something lame like that.

OTW: So, I know you’ve mentioned Fresh Air existing as part of a trilogy, with the first albums being the first parts of the trilogy, but there is still more Homeshake to come right?

Sagar: Oh yeah, I’m always working on more stuff. I was recording up until the day we came here, in between the Texas tour and before that. One of my most essential music machines at the moments is really on the fritz, and I think I have to like ship it back to its maker to get it fixed, so I don’t know what the fuck I’m going to do for like three weeks while that’s happening. It’s freaking me out.  

OTW: So, what’s the plan to make music until then? 

Sagar: Oh, I don’t know, I’ll just have to use something else to make it. I just won’t be able to use my sampler drum machine which is the core of what I’m working on right now. I don’t know, I guess I’ll just make ambient music until it gets back.

OTW: I heard at one point you did want to make a droney ambient project.

Sagar: Yeah, I like that but when I try I don’t think I’m very good at it. There’s a real textural ASMR thing to that, and I need to work on it.  

OTW: Who are your Ones To Watch?

Sagar: One is definitely Un Blonde from Montreal. They’re very, very, very spectacular. Let me just scroll through the old music thing here. Yeah, he’s an amazing songwriter, Jean who’s like the center of that project. Oh God, I only listen to like super pop music these days (laughs). I really like Yves Tumor, I don’t know how small he is, but he should be bigger. He makes spooky, weird shit that I like a lot. Mmm, I know I’ve got friends.  

OTW: Anyone in the band make music? 

Sagar: Yeah! Brad is the lead-guitarist in another band called Nap Eyes. I feel bad because they’re on tour without him in Europe right now, but he’s here with us. So definitely shout out to Nap Eyes because I just took their fucking guitar player. Greg used to play drums for a lot of bands, but he moved from Montreal to the woods in BC now. I don’t know. I’ve totally isolated myself from everybody around me in Montreal, so I don’t even know what any of them are doing anymore. Oh God, very crazy reality check.  

OTW: Having an existential crisis right now?

Sagar: (laughs) Yeah, a little bit. I don’t know, I do like a monthly NTS show where I put all the weird stuff that I like. So, my ones to watch are whoever I played on it that last month.

OTW: Oh one quick last question. What’s your favorite dinosaur? 

Sagar: Brontasaurses. I’ve always loved the absolutely massive ones.

[immawritethat]

In the Summer’s Heat

Hello! This story is written in some-what accompaniment with The Price of Heroism, as both are prequel works to my project With the Assist!

WARNINGS: Swearing (a lot of swearing), infidelity, gun mentions, child abuse, alcohol mention, high fever, runaway teenagers, and miscarriage mention.

Length: 7494 words

It hadn’t been a bad day at all. The weather wasn’t too shitty, even though it was kind of humid, and Andi managed to get through finals without wanting to blow her brains out. Her mother had been so excited about her ultrasound that she hadn’t started the morning out by falling victim to a long lecture that began somewhere along the lines of “Andrea Margherita Rossi Bianchi, you are nearly sixteen years old and have no excuse not to do your own dishes!” (Which she did, of course. There was a WNBA match she had to watch more than anything) Now with her parents gone and no homework to ignore, Andi had little to do but dirty up some more dishes and relax. The field hockey try-outs wouldn’t start up until August, which meant she was free to eat garbage and kick her feet up. Well, as long as her parents didn’t see.

With a shit-eating grin on her face, Andi spared no time getting into little more than a sports bra that didn’t smell like the asshole of an oversized chimp and a pair sweatpants that were arguably a size too big, but would cling to her hips if she tied the drawstring tight enough. She sat on the same, shit brown, overstuffed couch that her family had owned back when they had little more than a cramped two bedroom apartment when she was a kid. While Dad now made enough money that they could afford a way less shitty apartment and new furniture, for some reason he never wanted to part with the damn thing. She’d assumed there was a sentimental value in it somewhere, but she didn’t want to find out if it was in any sort of sexual way so she never asked.

As just was her luck, mere minutes after settling herself splayed out across the couch with a bag of off-brand potato chips and a bottle of water—sports top only—loud pounding filtered through the room from the door. She scowled, turning the volume up on the TV. Sure, there was no game on right now and the only thing interesting on were re-runs of movies and war documentaries she’d already seen half a million times, but there was no way in fucking hell she wanted to get up and answer it. She wasn’t expecting anyone, so no one should have been at the damn door. The pounding didn’t seem to receive her telepathic messages to shut the hell up and fuck off, so Andi finally pushed herself off the couch and stalked towards the door—which wasn’t really a far walk anyway, but she hated to do more than she had to.

She threw the door open, preparing her usual speech—no we’re not buying anything, we’re already Catholics, I don’t give a damn about your candidate, there’s a Ruger in the next room if you don’t go away already—but that flew from her mind as she had to catch a fist from smacking her straight in the face. Throwing the fist back, Andi hardly had time to pay any attention to the woman in front of her before she snapped.

          “What the hell was that? Do you have fucking eyes?” She growled, swinging the door closed. The woman stuck her foot in the way before it could shut. She stared at Andi with wild eyes, like that of a wounded animal.

          “Please, listen to me! Gabriel. I need to speak to Gabriel.”

Andi bristled at the mention of her father’s name. She didn’t want to know who the hell this crazy bitch was. Or why she knew her dad and where he lived. Why she would have the gall to come to their apartment and beg for him. Nothing good could come out of it and things were finally good. After the fighting and the miscarriage and Andi’s school problems, things were finally almost like a normal fucking family. She wasn’t going to give it up.

But she couldn’t help herself.

          “And just who the hell are you?” The teen asked, neither opening nor closing the door any further. She hung on the doorframe, gripping it for dear life. She hadn’t really been able to recall a time she’d been afraid before now, hadn’t been able to recall a time where she sincerely sent a prayer to the man upstairs from her own free will.

          “Jacklyn, it’s Jackie. Go get Gabriel, he knows who I am.” Her speech was panicked, each word slipping into the next as though each passing second were more urgent. “You need to get him for me.”

Andi wrinkled her nose, a familiar scent wafting off the woman’s breath.

          “Ohmygod, are you wasted?” She gaped, eager to shut the door on this encounter. If she were just drunk, there couldn’t have been anything to it. Or at least anything that wouldn’t drive her crazy enough to want to stab her own goddamn eyes out. “You need to go. Take a cab or whatever, but you can’t be here. Leave me and my family alone.”

The woman burst into tears, reaching into her handbag. Andi could feel the sweat beading at her forehead, reaching her own hand back. She wished she had the foresight to bring the Ruger along with her, or hadn’t been a dumbass and would’ve closed the door already. Echoes of distant gunshot rang out in her memory, back when they had lived in a shittier neighborhood in a shittier town.

But rather than a weapon, the woman held up a creased and crumpled photo. A young girl grinned up at her, probably no more than four or five years old. She seemed just as annoyingly vivacious as any other kid her age—smiling as if there was nothing but rainbows and sunshine in the world, her hair hideously chopped off in sections likely by her own hand. She wore a bright yellow t-shirt sprinkled with black polka dots, which was miraculously unstained—probably newly put on.

          “Please,” the woman begged, shoving the photo closer. “My daughter. Our daughter, Evie. She’s…she’s sick. My job isn’t covering the bills, but she needs help. I need money, I need, I need…He needs to…!”

The woman began sobbing, burying her face in her hands, words incomprehensible through hiccoughs. Andi stared, discomfort stuffed in every molecule of her body. She stepped back, staring at the woman broken down on her doorstep. Her daughter was seriously ill, and she was drunk and she was desperate. She had said our daughter after begging to see her father.

She couldn’t do this.

          “You need to go…” Andi muttered, getting the woman’s attention. Her chest burned as she looked at the tearstains on the woman’s face. She repeated herself, more assured this time. “You need to go or I’m calling the cops. There’s no Gabriel here.”

She slammed the door closed, wincing as the harsh sound filled the room. Shame washed over her as she staggered back towards the couch. She was always an asshole, but this was a different sort of low. Staring blankly at the TV, she felt nothing but guilt gnawing at her insides.

For once, she was actually looking forward to her next confessional.

As the day wore on, Andi failed to push the scene out of her mind. Her usual distractors were useless. Food brought no taste. Her attention span was short lived, flipping from one channel to the next, one device to the next, one game to the next without interest. The sounds were nothing but static blur; the video not receiving in her mind as anything but a wash of dull color against some shitty, worn out canvas. She almost considered praying to pass the time and clear her conscience, but the words wouldn’t come.

She sat for an eternity, running her thumb along the edges of her rosary, the same thought coursing through her mind again and again. She needed to know the truth. She needed to know how and where and why. Her father had plenty of unappealing colors—ranging from the sickly yellow to the broken purple of a molting bruise— but she hadn’t expected this. At least, never on this level.

At some point, she locked herself in her bedroom, sinking into her mattress and staring at a tasteless popcorn ceiling. She stayed there, somewhere between sleep and consciousness, until she heard the front door slam closed. The miniscule bit of common sense warned her to stay inside, and forget the whole thing.

But, as usual, her impulse won out.

 Andi crept into the hall, trying not to wince as she spotted her father rifling through a stack of mail. There was nothing different about him. He was in the same old band t-shirt and jeans he had left in earlier, and he still wore his near permanent scowl—something Andi herself had inherited. He looked up at the sound of her footsteps, nodding at her in acknowledgement.

           “Did you see the sun today?” He asked rather than greeting. Andi knew she was being weird, especially when she only replied with an honest no rather than some roundabout joke or insult like usual. Her gaze washed over the room, although it looked the same as she had left it.

           “Where’s Mom?” She asked, picking at the dirt underneath her fingernails. Her father looked up at her with a frown, trying to determine what was wrong.

           “She went to pick up some groceries for dinner. Why? Is it a…” He waved his hand in the air as he searched for the word. “You know, a lady thing?”

           “It’s a kind of lady thing. But not like a vagina thing, like, a person thing,” Andi mumbled. Her father quirked an eyebrow upwards, his expression an amalgam of disappointment and confusion.

           “So you were serious about that dyke thing, then? What, you want dating tips from your old man instead? Your ma don’t know too much about snagging a woman the way I do. Sure, she is one, but wooing them is different.”

Andi tried not to snap that her bisexuality was not at all the same as being a butch lesbian, instead focusing on the fact that he had left her a perfect segue. She had to approach it calmly, and collect herself. She could handle her temper just this one time. She had done fairly well so far. Frankly, she deserved a damn prize for it.

           “Yeah, well, I sure as hell know you can do that fuckin’ fine,” she sneered, gaze off to the ground. Her face slowly flushed as she realized she had only escalated an already difficult situation, but she couldn’t turn back now.

           “Excuse me?” He gaped, folding his arms across his chest, no doubt giving his trademark disappointed glower. “You want to run that by me again, Andrea Margherita?”

Andi swallowed the reservation burning in her gut, trying to dismiss memories associated of having her ass handed to her as a child soon after that phrase. She was in high school, for Christ’s sake, and she had something important to say. She’d never sleep soundly again if she never addressed this, and if she didn’t bring it up now, there would be no time.

           “A woman came by while you were gone,” Andi’s words were clipped as she spoke. She forced herself to stare her father in the eye, fire burning in her own. “Some Jessica or Jacklyn or something. She asked for you—by name—and said her—your— daughter needed more money. You wouldn’t happen to know anything about that, now would you, Dad?”

She didn’t need a word to know it was true. His jaw fell slack like a marionette’s, waiting for a puppeteer to provide him with a convincing act. His dark eyes were wide, as if he were free-falling off the crest of a cliff side with nothing to cling to and nothing to slow his descent. She blinked back the tears that burned in her eyes, disgust churning in her stomach. She wanted to say so much—how she hated him, how could he?, why hadn’t he just divorced her mother years ago?, how he managed to live with himself knowing he had another family on the side. She wanted to spit on his face and take her mother and never see him again for the rest of her life, but she couldn’t even find it in herself to say “fuck you.”

Her father recovered far faster. A stinging pain blossomed against Andi’s cheek, sending sparks in her vision. Closing the distance between them, he gripped onto her jaw, pushing her against the counter. His temper, much like hers, was short and explosive, but she had never seen him this livid. Veins throbbed from his neck as he gripped tighter until Andi whimpered from the pain. Fear fluttered through her chest as she found herself unable to look away from his face.

           “You’re not gonna say a fucking word or your ass is out on the street. I’m not fucking around, I’m a hundred-fucking-percent serious. I’ve finally worked out a decent goddamn life for us, and you want to throw it away? It’s not going to happen. You’re almost out of school anyway, and your mother and I can start all over again. Your brother wouldn’t even have to know he isn’t the only one.” He growled down at her, inches from her face. Andi’s breath was ragged, but she refused to let herself cry. “Of course, if you tell her, he may not even turn out right. The stress can literally kill the bastard, or at least fuck him and your mother up. You don’t want to do that to her, especially after what happened the last time.”

Andi winced, a combination of the pain and the memory. She had been about five years old, but she hadn’t ever felt more alone in her life when it happened. She’d hardly understood what a pregnancy was, and she certainly didn’t understand where the baby had went and why her mother had been so sad. She spent the first few months of kindergarten just causing trouble because otherwise her mom hardly looked at her, and her dad spent time working late or going out drinking. Her household had always been broken, but it seemed all but irreparable then. It had seemed like a miracle that things had smoothed out now, and even more that her mother had finally conceived again.

If she ever learned about this…

Andi glared at her father through tears, clutching the hand that gripped onto her. He was right. The traitorous, cheating bastard he was. She couldn’t tell. She dug her nails into his hand, but he didn’t give any indication that he felt a thing. She choked on a sob, grinding her back molars.

           “Fine. Let me go,” she demanded. “She won’t know. I promise, just let me—”

Andi didn’t finish her request before he released her jaw, slapping the side of her head. She followed the motion, trying not to let her neck get tweaked. She winced, but stepped out of his reach as soon as she could. She had never hated anyone so much and done nothing. By now, she would’ve gone apeshit on any other person, either making them bleed or bleeding herself. Glowering, she stalked her way towards her bedroom, which she had never been more thankful was in the back of the house where she could hardly hear anything.

           “Not a damn word or else! You hear me?” Her father called after her. She slammed the door shut, the frame shaking as violently as she was. She turned the lock with no satisfaction. She looked around her bedroom, practically twitching with the urge to shatter or smash something. It had been nearly a year since she had been this angry—back when she had heard Officer Fakhoury had been sacked from the department—and the only way she handled that was by kicking the crap out of a punching bag at the gym for the next week. There was no way that she’d be able to live here and look at his face every day knowing he was nothing more than human garbage. She was never good at hiding her emotions, so her mother would know something was up. There was no way in hell that just running down to the church and confessing would get this off her mind.

Something snapped inside Andi. She dove for her backpack and dufflebag, shoving practically everything her eyes came in contact with. She didn’t have to stay here. Fuck him. He couldn’t threaten her like that. He didn’t get to hit her and leave her dangling like some bug caught in a web. She’d keep his stupid secret, but she was going to do it on her terms. It wasn’t like she hadn’t slipped out the fire escape a million times. It would be just a little permanent. She knew where plenty of women’s shelters were if she needed, thanks to a project she couldn’t have avoided even if she wanted to, and she was pretty sure she could just drop out of school soon enough and things would be fine.

Hell, she would have moved in with Officer Fakhoury if she wasn’t such a law-abiding tight ass who would probably just ship her right back home. Plus, she had hardly spoken to the woman since she was fired. She didn’t know what she was up to anymore, although she hadn’t really cared to ask, either, which made her feel like shit. At this point, it was a little too late to just shoot her a text and ask how things were after being turned into a scapegoat and having her face fucked up with burn scars. She sure hoped her husband was being supportive about it, or she’d have to kick his ass.

Andi did a quick once over of her things—a few pairs of clothes, a second pair of shoes, her wallet, a blanket, and snacks. She eyed her phone charger warily. She may have been impulsive, but she wasn’t dumb. They could track her phone and she’d be screwed. But she wasn’t sure what she’d really do without it. Sure, school was out for the summer, but people expected to keep in contact with her. And she sure as hell didn’t own a watch in this day and age. With resignation, she turned it off and shoved both it and the charger in the bag. She’d save it for emergencies. Snatching her laptop off the desk, she quickly tossed that inside as well. She’d use that first for contact. Twitter DMs worked just as well as a text ever did, and a Starbucks was never hard to find.

Throwing open the window, Andi hopped out without hesitation.

Fuck him. Fuck it all. He could pretend his sin didn’t exist; he could pretend nothing was wrong in their world and they were the happy little family they had always wanted to be.

There was no way in hell she was going to do it alongside him.

Days later, Andi stumbled through the city, head stuffed like an oversized pillow. Just her luck, her immune system had decided to take a vacation when she needed it most. She’d slept like shit, eaten like shit, and now she felt like shit. At least the slap in the face hadn’t left any long lasting mark—although the welt had been useful long enough that the shelter let her in without much question or proof. But being a minor, they wouldn’t let her stay past the first night. Some sort of legal issue, apparently. Andi thought it was bullshit. Plenty of kids went through far worse, and they needed a mother to stay, when half the time the mother was part of the problem?

God, she hated all adults.

She had spent the past few nights bouncing between different homeless shelters, no longer bothering to be honest. She was more than grateful for the fake ID she and her friends had made to sneak into an eighteen plus hard rock concert a few months before. Sure, her parents had found out and she had been in major trouble, but they never did manage to find and confiscate the ID. It’s not like she’d wanted to do anything that illegal, like binge drink until she was shit-faced stupid. She’d seen enough of her dad becoming a total dick after drinking that she didn’t want to try that in any lifetime.

She spent some time in the church they used to go to, back before her dad had some sort of petty-ass argument with some of the congregation. She only vaguely recalled what it was, since she spent half the sermons sleeping and the rest trying not to be mentally present. It had been especially fun when the local state vote for gay marriage was on the up and coming. Although, she didn’t expect much out of a bunch of Catholics. They were a bit more fire and brimstone and far less love thy neighbor in her experience. She knew that she was at least kind of welcome, and it felt weird to be constantly lying, have nowhere to go, and a million secrets without going to confession.

There were a lot of things she hated about church, but she did enjoy the catharsis of confession. She didn’t really think her sins were being forgiven, but she could at least purge what was weighing down on her. But she couldn’t spend all her time in church, nor did she want to. The Starbucks was a nice hangout, a clean bathroom, although she felt guilty not ordering anything. Things were so damn overpriced that it made her realize how much she really hated capitalism, too. And most isms. And everything. But she hated her father more than any of those things, so she’d shell out for a cake-pop or some tea. The public parks were nice, but loud and the library air conditioned, but stuck up. Not to mention she had late fees up the ass and no way did she intend on paying them now.

It was tempting, though. She was sweating like a pig, even though the sun had fallen below the cityscape, shrouding the streets in shadow. Her throat burned and ached from the inside out, as though she had spent the day sipping on Molotov cocktails instead of a Big Gulp. Sweat stuck to her forehead and the base of her neck, threatening to drip down her spine. She had pulled off her coat by now, but things weren’t any better. She would’ve sworn she was burning from the inside out if she hadn’t known any better.

Andi gripped onto her backpack, gritting her teeth as she trudged on. She couldn’t let it be obvious she was off her game. She may have been stupid enough to spend her day on the streets, but she sure as hell wasn’t dumb enough to spend the nights on them. There wouldn’t be a morning if she did. Or, if there was, it would be in a broken, bloody world she despised even more that before.

It was only a few more blocks, but with the streets swollen with traffic, she wouldn’t be able to make it back on time. She couldn’t spend the night on the street. She wouldn’t. And she wouldn’t crawl back home either.

Andi took in a breath, poised to make one of the stupidest fucking decisions of her life. Even going into it, she knew it was a shit plan. Turning the corner, she made a beeline for the alleyway.

It was dank and dark and smelled of boiled piss—which she had been expected but didn’t stop her from retching as she hurried along. Step after step, she told herself. She only needed to keep walking. She needed to. Sweat rolled down the side of her forehead, even though she wasn’t exerting herself any harder than before. Breath came out in burning huffs, dragon’s smoke spewing from her lungs. Andi’s legs shook, leaving her with staggered, drunken steps.

She brushed against the wall, arm hitting brick with loud scrape. She hissed in pain. It was just a stupid headcold. What was her issue? Her eyelids seared when she blinked, her vision freckled with black spots.

She was dying. She must have been fucking dying. Alone. In an alleyway. Like some stupid addict. Her legs gave out from underneath, liquid she didn’t want identified splashing at her face. Andi moaned from the pain and discomfort, pressing her lower body upward with what strength she still had.

           “Someone…” she murmured, almost inaudible to her own ears. “I need help…” Molten tears pricked at her eyes, spilling down her cheeks. She sniffled, breath shuddering with a weak wheeze.

           “Someone help me! Please!” She cried out in desperation. She wasn’t supposed to die this way. She wasn’t supposed to die this young. What a stupid, stupid bitch, getting herself into this mess. Loathing burned at her throat, mingling with the raw ache of her throat as she shouted. As she paused for a breath, she could make out the tail end of a sentence.

           “…hear something?”

Relief dripped into Andi’s heart. Maybe there was a God out there on her side after all.

           “Please,” she begged, a frail, meek sound that made her sick.

           “Yo, man, you’ve gotta check that shit out. I said no fuckin’ witnesses, and I meant it.” A gruff voice hissed to no one she could see.

Oh God.

She wasn’t a witness, she wasn’t, she swore she wasn’t. She’d never say a word, anyway. No names, no faces, no details. She couldn’t snitch anyway because she couldn’t risk going to the police anyway. They’d send her back home. Andi curled into herself, squeezing her eyes shut. This had to be a nightmare. The whole endeavor was a nightmare. She’d wake up from this insane fever dream any minute now. She always woke up before anything bad actually happened.

Just in case, she prayed.

Thwak.

Andi winced, the sounds of skin smacking against skin a sound easily identified—between her household and the fights she used to get it, it was unmistakable. She held herself tighter, not wanting to find out what was going on. Her lungs burned as she tried to catch her breath, consciousness dizzy and distant with each passing second. Two deep grunts sounded the end of the encounter with some finality. She opened her eyes, willing herself to move. But she couldn’t even catch her breath.

A figure loomed over her, but the colors blurred together unrecognizably. Her vision had become no better than a kaleidoscope, simply suggesting some possibility of what might have been there. The dark spots exploded across the colors. Her heart only raced faster.

She heard one thing before she lost consciousness.

           “Andrea?”

Andi moaned, shivering hard enough to send whatever was beside her rattling. Her body felt as though each and every cell had decided to step outside for a cigarette break after skinny-dipping in a bath of gasoline. Her mouth ached as though she had been gnawing on batteries and the acid had pooled against her cheeks. She tried to push herself up to view the world around her, despite the fact that she could hardly keep her eyes open.

A gentle touch pressed against her shoulder, icy and inviting against her burning skin.

           “Stay down, Andi,” a familiar voice commanded. Her focus pulsed in and out as she tried to place a face to it. Someone strong, but comforting. Not a stranger, but not family. She squinted up, trying to see despite the searing pain. She could make out tawny skin, blotched and shriveled across the left side.

           “Ah…Officer Fakh...?” Her voice fell away like the ashes of a cigarette. Nasira Fakhoury shushed her, laying a damp cloth across her forehead. It must have been the delirium, but Andi swore she heard it sizzle as it came into contact with her skin.

           “I need you to listen to me right now and do what I tell you, do you understand me, Miss Bianchi?” Her voice didn’t hold the same bite that it had when she lectured Andi over her aggression and petulance. Even in her haze, Andi could detect the concern weaved between her words, seeping into her tone. Andi offered a weak noise of agreement. “You can make it through this, but you’ll have to trust me. You’ve caught something very dangerous, and if we can’t cool you down, you’ll burn from the inside out. You’re going to be very uncomfortable, but you’ve got to hold on. You’re a strong girl. I know you’ve got it in you.”

A wave of heat flushed through Andi’s body. She was going nuclear.  She groaned, scraping at her skin in hopes of finding something to cool her down. She’d peel off her damn epidermis if she had to. She’d never been so hot in her life. Her blood must have been boiling.

           “Omar is drawing an ice bath. I must warn you, the worst is yet to come. Let me help you stand.” Nasira lifted Andi, propping her up with a feather-light touch. If she was bothered by the heat radiating off her skin, she showed no sign. Andi winced, sluggishly falling forward with each step. She felt more like a sack of coals than a human person, heavy and awkward as she tried to move. “You’re a fighter, I know you are. You’ll be alright.”

Andi wasn’t particularly comforted, since all she could feel was heat and pain and heat and pain and heat. She preferred idea of dying in Officer Fakhoury’s apartment instead of on the street. She liked the woman better than her own mom half the time, and she definitely kicked way more ass. While her own mom gave birth to a college student’s baby in high school, Officer Fakhoury had been organizing a guard for her hijab-wearing peers. She had even confessed to Andi that she had even gotten into a few fights to protect the other girls. And now here she was, trying to protect Andi, too.

She was a hero. Andi wanted to die in the presence of a hero.

           “’m glad i’s you…” Andi’s speech was slurred, her tongue and brain too exhausted to work together. Nasira pushed open the bathroom door, all but dragging the teen along behind her.

           “Hey, keep talking to me, okay? I’m glad it was me, too. I’m not sure anyone else would know what to do with you…” She muttered the last sentence underneath her breath. “Can you take your clothes off yourself? Are you comfortable needing my help?”

Andi shrugged, her focus fading in and out. She pulled her top halfway over her head before stumbling backwards, only to be caught and righted by Nasira.

           “Sorry,” she murmured, shirt muffling the sound of her voice. “Help...I guess.”

Nasira helped her undress, informing her of what she was doing before she did it and apologizing for each accidental scrape and brush. Andi may have been mortified in any other scenario, but she wanted to bury herself in the ice as fast as she could. Relief was immediate, cool ice melting instantaneously against her skin.

But it was temporary.

Despite the goosebumps that lined her skin like an army of tin soldiers, Andi was still hot. She thought she saw steam rise where flesh met water.

           “You need to stay hydrated.” Nasira insisted as she filled a glass in the sink. “I know it’s hard, but drink, and drink slow. Think of it like when you’re competing. Keep it steady, and don’t rush yourself.”

Andi nodded, trying to ignore the roiling nausea in her gut. She wasn’t sure she could keep the water down, preferring the way it sat against her parched lips. She took a sip anyway, for Nasira’s sake. The droplets trickled down her throat without much effect, so she took another sip and another and another. The glass was about halfway empty before another heatwave wracked her body again. Her hands convulsed, blurry in her vision. She gripped onto the sides of the tub, trying to stop it, but to no avail.

This time, the heat didn’t pass. The burning remained. Andi whimpered, trying to slide herself deeper into the water. Maybe further down the water would be colder. Maybe if she submerged herself it could all just stop. It had to stop. She needed it to just stop.

Nasira grabbed her forearm, pulling her head away from the waterline. She pulled her own hand away, shaking it as if she had been burned, hissing underneath her breath.

           “Andi, Andi, you have to listen to me. You have to stay level-headed. You’ll make it through this. I know it hurts. I know that this is one of the worst pains you’ve ever felt in your life, but you can make it through. If I did, you can.” She insisted, holding a steely gaze.

That piqued her interest, despite her lurid sense of focus. Andi looked at her the best that she could, attempting to dissect what she had said. Officer Fakhoury had been through the same thing. But what was this?

           “’ficer…Wha’s happ��nin’?” She asked in a slurred whisper. Nasira reached for a small bowl, pouring water atop Andi’s head. Her scalp tingled and stung, accompanied by a raucous assortment of pops and fizzes.

           “I can’t tell you for certain,” Nasira admitted. “I don’t know the cause, or the reason behind it. But what you’ve caught will change you if it doesn’t burn you to ash first.”

Burn her to ash? She really was melting, then. She wasn’t hallucinating—the popping and the hissing and the steam were real. She was burning from the inside out. She was going to die in this bathtub by literally catching on fire. Was this spontaneous human combustion?

Andi grew dizzy, unable to catch a full breath. She couldn’t think straight. She couldn’t make herself stop. She couldn’t breathe. She was going to burst into flames, literal flames, if she ever left this tub. She scooped her hands into the water, splashing water against every piece of dry skin she could find, wincing as it popped back off of her. She couldn’t catch on fire if she was wet. She had learned that much in Chem.

           “Andi, stop.” Nasira grabbed her wrist, snapping her out of her panic. “You’ll make it worse the more you move. You need to stay as still as you can. It only aggravates the condition. Right now, you’re all but a match. Too much friction and you’ll light up. I’m here. Talk to me. Tell me what you want, and I’ll make sure that you’re okay. I’m here for you.”

Tears boiled in Andi’s eyes, spilling over her cheeks when she blinked.

           “I’m scared,” she admitted, hardly above a whisper. “I didn’t…I shouldn’t…God…” She hiccoughed, brushing the tears from her face, turning her head to the ceiling. She was so stupid and so weak. If she hadn’t left home, none of this would have happened. “O my God, I am heartfully sorry for having offended thee, and I detest all of my sins because of Thy just punishment…” She bit her tongue, trying to suppress sob building on her chest. “But most of all because I have offended Thee my God, Who is all good and deserving of all my love. I firmly resolve, why the help of Thy grace, to sin no more and to avoid the near occasion of sin. Amen.”

Nasira stayed silent, filling the glass with water again. Andi felt some shame, knowing she probably would have felt uncomfortable if it were reversed, and she had someone dying in her bathtub rattling off prayers in Arabic. She silently handed her the glass, her gaze glazed over.

           “I’m going to message Omar and tell him to bring more ice. It’ll be melted soon.” She scooped the bowl full of water, pouring it overtop her head. The hissing was quieter this time, more of a faint protest than a bold refusal to disappear. “Your temperature is declining but we’re far from in the clear. There can be heatwaves that come in after you’ve thought you’ve seen the worst of it.”

           “I’m sorry…” Andi curled her shoulders inward. “I’m so stupid, I shouldn’t have ever—”

           “Shh, shh,” Nasira interrupted. She brushed Andi’s damp bangs from across her forehead cleanly to the side. “Apologize later. I mean it. I’ve hear more apologies from you tonight than I’ve ever heard from you in years. You can save them for the morning. Relax. Drink.”

Andi sniffled, but did as she was told. She wasn’t convinced everything would be alright. But she trusted Nasira would do everything in her power to fix…whatever it was that was going on. She held onto that thought as her mind grew fuzzier and fuzzier, and her grip on the cup slackened.

Andi awoke with a sharp gasp, jolting forward. Sweat stuck to every damn crevice she knew she had and some she hadn’t explored before. She may as well have been caught outside in the rain. She certainly would have preferred pretending it was water instead. Her head felt like a sack of bricks as she held it in her hands.

Which were hot. And glowing like coals.

She must have still been dreaming.

The door creaked open, spilling enough light into the room to dim the glow. Andi stuffed her hands underneath her arms for safekeeping. Omar Fakhoury met her gaze, a bowl and washcloth in his hands. After a few moments, he smiled before turning back towards the door.

           “Nasira darling! She’s awake for certain this time!” He called as he stepped out of the room. “I am glad to see you well,” he added with a nod to Andi before he closed the door.

She was in the Fakhoury’s apartment. Her head spun in circles, as though some playground bully wouldn’t stop slapping at the roundabout, trapping her inside. Pinching her brow between her thumb and forefinger, she squeezed her eyes shut, trying to remember everything. She remembered running away, and she remembered passing out on the street. And then she’d woken up in her former mentor’s house. Been shoved in an ice bath that she managed to melt in mere minutes. Passed out again. And now she was here. In Officer Fakhoury’s house. Still.

           “How are you feeling?” Nasira asked as she entered the room. She looked increasingly worse for the wear—her dark eyes bloodshot, still wearing the same wrinkled clothing Andi recalled seeing her in before. She probably hadn’t slept a wink, which made Andi feel like shit. Nasira had always been way too good to her.

           “I don’t feel like I’m dying anymore.” Andi shrugged, staring at the sheets over her legs. “My throat hurts and I feel like I tried to win a staring contest with the sun and…what happened?”

Nasira sighed, sitting at the foot of the bed. Her shoulders slumped forward, but she reached for Andi’s hand. It no longer felt of ice in comparison.

           “I don’t know where it comes from. Or why it infects who it does. But if my suspicions are right…” She hesitated, a rare fear coating her eyes. “Have you noticed anything different, Andrea? About yourself.”

           “Well shit I’ve been awake for, like, five minutes, so, uh.” The glowing hands. “Why?”

Nasira’s grip tightened.

           “If you do, please call me. You know I will always answer for you.” The smile she offered was soft, but pained. Andi’s face flushed with shame.

           “I…I know,” she said. She should have called before. She should have talked to Nasira about everything that happened. “This shouldn’t have happened. You shouldn’t have had to do this. I should’ve been home.”

Nasira nodded, a signal for her to go on. She stroked her thumb across the back of Andi’s hand. She winced, wishing the shame would just go away on its own.

           “I ran away.” Nasira’s eyes grew wide, but she withheld her thoughts. “I was just so pissed and so worried and so, so fucking pissed. I mean how could he—and then he! I should’ve hit him right damn back, but instead I thought I’d get even, you know? He’s gonna threaten me like that to keep his dirty little secret, then I’d just go and steal away any power he had over me.” Anger boiled in her chest as she recalled it all. He deserved a real punishment. The only person she had hurt was herself, maybe her mom.  “I fucking hate him.”

Her heart pulsed. The bastard. Absolute bastard. She wanted to burn his world to nothing but ash.

Heat prickled up her arms, dozens of white hot needles pressing themselves against her skin. She ignored it, grinding her teeth at the thought of her father. He deserved so much worse than he had. It wasn’t fair. She should have shown him. She would show him.

           “Andi, stop!” Nasira shouted, yanking the girl’s arms up. Andi jolted back in surprise, eyes narrowed, ready to tell her off when she saw the flames. Her arms were engulfed in crimson fire, and Nasira just held onto her like it was nothing.

Andi stammered, trying to find any words to express how she felt, but she couldn’t quite land on a single thought. She was on fire. She was literally on fire. Panic bubbled in her chest. She was one of them now, wasn’t she? As if being a gay delinquent wasn’t enough of a reason for people to look at her twice.

           “It’s changed you the same way it’s changed me,” Nasira confessed. “You don’t have to—”

           “Is that why you were in that alley?” Andi blurted out. “You’re the vigilante, the one from the news. Aren’t you?”

The fire extinguished itself as suddenly as it started. Nasira let out a heavy sigh before nodding.

           “I’m trying to align myself with P.E.A.C.E., but in the meantime, yes. I don’t want you to do as I’ve done, Andi. The power we have is dangerous, but it can be controlled. If you let me, I can teach you to control it.” Andi’s eyes sparkled at the notion. She’d fight side-by-side with a vigilante. As a vigilante. “And I don’t want you to follow my path. I’ve told you time and time again that fighting is dangerous and foolhardy. I won’t muck that up with dragging you into this.”

Andi scoffed in disbelief. “Dragging me into this? I’d be fighting for a reason, right? That makes it some totally different shit, doesn’t it, Supernova—that’s what they’re calling you, isn’t it? The woman who burns as hot as the Sun. Take me as, like, an apprentice. You can make sure I stay out of trouble, and teach me to actually keep my cool in a dangerous scenario!”

           “Andrea, we are not discussing this further. You have a family looking for you in desperation, and we will not be making things worse by putting you directly into danger. You need to go home. I’ll speak with your father, but I can’t keep you here. They could charge Omar and me with kidnapping if they find out.”

Andi’s posture deflated. She glared at the blankets over her lap. She didn’t want to go back. She wanted anything but to go back there, or look at his face ever again. Nasira’s touch was light against her shoulder, but she pretended like she couldn’t feel it. Maybe there just weren’t any adults to trust.

           “Andi. I promise I only want what’s best for you.”

           “Then train me!” She snapped. “When I was getting into fights at school, you recommended that I make something of my energy, use up my anger, and I made JV field hockey freshman year. And now I’m more pissed than I’ve ever been and the human equivalent of Smokey the Bear’s worst freakin’ nightmare and you want me to just sit at home? Stuck all summer with him? He’s got another family, Officer Fakhoury. He cheated on my mom, and he threatened me not to tell her. He’s dead to me, and I want him dead. But if you train me, if you let me help you out, I might just keep my head. I’ll listen to every order, every word, everything. I promise. But don’t make me stay there without anything. Please.”

Nasira took in a deep breath, slowly exhaling as she weighed her choice. Andi held hers, fearing whatever response was about to come.

           “I will consider it based on how your control progresses. This is dangerous, Andi. I don’t think you understand, but perhaps showing you may be the only way.”

[wisenedup]

Why I’ve been so quiet so long(the gist of it is ‘intense family drama and really shitty health’, it’s very long sorry)

As y’all should know by now I have just like, an entire laundry list of mental health issues; I’m autistic(itself not a problem), have BPD, a severe anxiety disorder, depression, ADHD, and maybe C-PTSD it’s hard to say with everything else. Pretty much everything I have comes with the fun symptom of executive dysfunction, which basically makes it difficult to start and complete tasks- such as reading, writing, eating, cleaning, self care, etc. Basically it makes being alive difficult.      Late 2016- long story short my mom moved out of the country and I had to find my own place and moved in with my boyfriend of at the time 5 years(now 7). He and I had been talking about moving in together for like 2 years before that, he was well informed of my MI stuff(including how hard/impossible it is for me to do dishes and things that involve leaving the house like garbage and laundry) and was very supportive; we agreed that he would be responsible for the dishes and whatnot.      Fast forward about a year and a half, the house got so dirty we had 3 back-to-back gnat infestations, a pile of pizza boxes up to my waste, and maggots and mold in the dishes in the sink because Nathan hadn’t washed them in so long. At one point management of the apartment complex was notified and just *gestures* it never got that bad but it kept cycling back to ‘pretty bad’ because Nathan’s run so hard at work that he just will not do anything around the house and I ask him to do stuff and he complains and takes like 4-7+ days until he does it- I had to throw out my favorite pot because it got entirely coated in mold, we had over 6 garbage bags in the spare room at one point because he wasn’t taking them out, etc.      Cut to about 2 months ago, we hadn’t been shopping in literally a month. We were out of food and I hadn’t eaten anything except a lil candy and like, 1 serving of McDonalds in like 2 weeks. My mental illnesses got about as bad as they ever have been and I napped for 2+ hours every day because I was so tired and miserable- I made a plan and the main reason I didn’t go through with it was because I couldn’t get the items I needed thanks to not being able to order stuff online or get to a store IRL.        Blah blah blah other stuff blah blah, about 3 weeks ago Nathan’s like ‘I’m gonna go visit Bear(his friend who he talks to for 2+ hours every day) for a month starting April’ which like, great. Shit already barely gets done while you’re here, you’re gonna take a month off of your like $10.00 an hour job while I can’t work(I’m on SSI) to fuck off and have fun with your friend and leave me, a person with a severe anxiety disorder and no ability to leave the house, alone.      A couple days after that I hear from my mom that she’s gonna be moving back to the states very soon, getting home before Nathan leaves for Florida actually. She’s gonna be in Ohio to visit me and auntie and pick up her car. Because we have a spare room and I don’t do well living on my own(I start to get anxiety attacks after about 3 days and they escalate to panic attacks after about a week), I was like ‘why don’t you stay with me while you’re here’.       Blah blah blah, a little more drama(her ex-husband’s an asshole and was being a pain about giving her car back, she doesn’t wanna be here while he’s here, he’s threatening to call the police on her, etc etc) and lots of shifting plans(Nathan figuring out when he’s gonna go and come back, mom figuring out when she’s gonna get to the states, come here, go home, etc), we’re currently on “Nathan’s leaving on the 18th of April and coming back the 22nd of May” and “Mom’s coming the 21st of April and leaving probably before Nathan gets back”.      My mental health always gets worse around my birthday(which was the 12th) and it was even worse with the entire thing with Nathan, him hardly helping out around the house, etc etc.      I ended up doing most of the cleaning and he finally helped and he hasn’t been as much of a pain about it- but he’s also been working under the excitement of ‘I’m gonna be gone for 5 weeks’ soon and he always punches up the helpfulness around birthdays and anniversaries. He’s had like 6 days off in the past 2 weeks and while yes he finally has helped out a lot with stuff that needs done(I’ve had dirty clothes in the hamper for over 8 months, the fridge and counters are finally free of dirty dishes), there’s still more to do and he’s spent most of his free time on the computer, playing PS4, talking to Bear, and complaining about how much he has to get done before he leaves.       On top of that, all this time(starting before our month-long absence of groceries and my literal starvation) I’ve been complaining to mom about how he doesn’t help out like he said he would and how he complains so much when I ask for help, how he won’t come serve himself when I make dinner, etc etc. I told her how we hadn’t been shopping in a month and I was literally starving and desperately suicidal for like 2 weeks and along with the topic of her moving back to the states she was like ‘well why don’t you move in with me’.      After about a month of thinking, cleaning, mulling, talking with a bunch of my friends with it... It’s not good for me to stay here. I realize and completely understand that his job is hella stressful, but it’s not the most stressful job anyone has ever had. The other manager screws him over and he gets stuck with shitty shifts, but he has 3 days off every week and accepted responsibilities around the house. I definitely believe part of his problem is that he never fucking eats; the difference in mood and energy I had after going from ‘barely/not eating at all’ to ‘eating not necessarily well but at least once daily’ is astounding and it’s just insanely frustrating living with someone who doesn’t do the things they said they would do, complains when I ask for help, and lets the house get so bad we get maggots, fruit flies, and mold. Our respective mental health stuff plays VERY poorly off of each other and when the house gets bad(aka all the time), my mental health nose dives. Never mind how rarely we go shopping, translating to how rarely we have food, made even rarer because the dishes are so often dirty and the counters are so often covered, making it impossible to cook.      My mom on the other hand, even when she was working like 60-65 hours a week 6 days a week(compared to his ~40 over 4 days), while less stressful than his(she owned a vape shop in a small town), still got chores done every week, helped me do them, helped me cook when I couldn’t, and went grocery shopping EVERY WEEK.        After a lot of deliberation- I don’t want to screw him over by not being around to clean any more and once my SSI isn’t helping pay rent and bills any more he’ll be left with about $190 a month after rent and bills for food or anything**- my friends have helped me realize that me leaving isn’t throwing him under the bus-- he’s already done that. Me leaving is me pulling myself out from under the bus. So. That’s been rough. I’m gonna talk to mom about it while she’s visiting but at this point it mostly comes down to whether or not I can bring my cat, since I refuse to leave her here or rehome her. **Also he’s made a few comments about ‘I know I complain about my job being shitty but who else an afford to take 5 weeks off with no pay!!’ and I’m like... NOT FUCKING US. You’re a shift supervisor at a KFC, dude. I’m on SSI.      We have so much extra money because we never go grocery shopping(that right there would take care of over $400 a month), we don’t have a car, we don’t have any insurance, we never go anywhere(shopping or otherwise. cabs in town are $6 one way and Nathan likes to tip a dollar or two, so that’s at least almost $30 a month we aren’t spending), we never clean so we aren’t spending money on laundry or cleaners(the use of the laundry machines alone would be $10-$20+ every month that we aren’t spending), so like. There’s over $450 we just aren’t spending every month because we DON’T DO THE THINGS WE DO. And he always harps on about how ‘wow we’re responsible adults!’ RESPONSIBLE ADULTS EAT, CLEAN, AND WASH THEIR CLOTHES, NATHAN. Responsible adults don’t blow over $1,500 on a 5 week vacation with no pay when they make $10 an hour. Just. Ugh      Things have been pretty alright the last few days because it’s my birthday and nathan is always way more helpful around my birthday so we’ve ogtten most of the cleaning and stuff done and I was feeling bad about thinking about leaving but just like, dude. Shit is so bad and he’s acting like it’s not. This is even longer than I was afraid it was gonna be :/ Thanks if you read it all and just. Ugh. Yeah. Finally got most of the house cleaned up and my birthday’s behind me and my mood’s improving some, so I’m gonna be trying to get active on here. Nathan’ll be gone for 5 weeks soon so I won’t have the stress of having him around for a while and I’ll be able to cook for myself without fear so that should help... but also I get so anxious alone in a house. Probably will be limited activity while mom is around too because we’ll be hanging out and we’re gonna go out to eat at a bunch of places and to at least the Aquarium. Nathan’s gonna blow insane month we don’t have on visiting his friend? I’m gonna blow money on mom and me. I have over $1,000 in cash because, again, we never fucking shop, and I won’t be able to spend any of it until at least after the 21st and I’ll get another $750 on the first, so I’ll be set for a while, but I’m gonna try to save a good portion for if shit works out and I end up moing back in with mom.

[dwarrowdams]

Lately I’ve realized that my childhood was certainly unhealthy—I don’t think I’d classify it as abusive, but my dad’s done a lot of stuff that are definitely things that parents (or anyone) shouldn’t do.

He sat on my sister and me to punish us, which I wrote off for years as “oh, he worked with juvenile delinquents so obviously he’d be strict with his own kids” but 1) apparently it’s a Basic Parenting Rule™ that you’re not supposed to punish your children with your physical body because if you do they’ll be scared of you (spoiler alert: this is totally true bc I’m still scared of my dad at 24) and 2) there is a HUGE fucking difference between your kid who talked back to you/didn’t put their toys away and a juvenile delinquent who refused to comply.  (The worst part is that every time I tell someone this, they laugh like it’s a joke and not something that’s made me terrified of my dad even though he hasn’t sat on me in nearly 20 years.)

He’d go through my/my sister’s stuff and throw away everything that wasn’t put away neatly.  I literally didn’t recognize this as problematic until someone I follow on Twitter posted about the same thing with a trigger warning for abuse.  I always just thought it was him being strict and a neat freak.

(Side note: my mom also worked with juvenile delinquents [which is how they met, actually, even though she didn’t do it for as long as my dad did] but she never punished us this harshly.  She always stuck up for us when my dad took things too far and the worst thing I remember her doing was yelling at me.)

This isn’t really a borderline abusive thing, but I was basically his source of emotional support after my mom died, which is not a thing that your adolescent daughter (or any one person) should have to do.  And of course he never thought “hey, my 11-year-old daughter who just lost her mom and is going into puberty might need some actual emotional support from like, a therapist or something” because it would’ve been a hassle for him, which I understand, but like...would you rather drive your kid to therapy once every couple of weeks or have her grow up with a shitload of emotional issues that caused and/or contributed to her mental illnesses.

It should’ve been obvious when I put a shitton of weight at age 12-14 from overeating constantly, but the only thing I heard about that was that the doctor told him that I “must be stuffing [my] face behind [his] back.”  

No “oh hey it looks like your kid might have depression or an eating disorder or some other mental illness because her mom died and she is doing more emotional labor than any one person—let alone a CHILD—should do...maybe you should have her see a therapist.”  Just surface worries about me being fat with absolutely no thought to the possible mental illnesses behind it.

Also: I turned eighteen just before my last year of high school and my dad constantly held the “you’re an adult, so I don’t legally have to be responsible for you” thing over my head.  I came home one night from dance class to a note from my dad telling me that I’d be kicked out if my room wasn’t clean.  I spent an hour sobbing as I picked up the mess in my room, praying that one of my friends would take me in because there are no hotels or apartments in my shithole town and even if there were I probs couldn’t afford to live in them for longer than a month or so.

Would he have actually done it?  I don’t know.  But to threaten your eighteen-year-old daughter with that as a punishment for having a messy room is colossally shitty, whether or not you actually intend to follow through.

Things are better now that I’m adult and I don’t spend as much time with him, but it’s jarring to realize that it took me this long to realize that my childhood was fucked up, even for someone who lost a parent at a young age.

[supernaturalghostwriter]

Night Of Blood Terror! (Bloody Jack and Jason)

((in case you're curious, Jason is Bloody Jack's great great great great grandson, he belongs to me along with Bloody Jack who also belongs to me)) it was raining. raining so heavily in a small town. it was now 12 am. Jason was walking down the streets to his apartment. he was 20 years old. he was skinny also but built a bit. he was just getting back from the book store and getting some things. now he walks home quickly and got inside the apartment area. "fucking weather" Jason ran his fingers through his wet hair. he was soaked to the bone. he got to his apartment door and dug in his pocket. he got out his keys and unlocked the door, stepping inside and shutting the door. after locking it, he set his things down and signs. "never going out again in shitty weather" Jason rolls his eyes, who was he talking to? himself. he lived alone. he liked being alone. it brought his mind at peace. he set his keys on the counter, he didn't had a car because he prefer walking. he walked to the bedroom and went inside. he close the door and signs. he strips off all of his wet clothing. then he got out a pair of clean clothing. he got out boxers, pajama pants and a long sleeve. he yawns softly. he walked to his kitchen and went through the fridge, getting a bottle of water. he open it and took a sip, sitting on the couch. then he remember his medicines and got his anxiety medicine and others to help him sleep. he put the meds in his mouth and swallow it down with the water. he looks at the time, soon it will be 12:30 am. he signs, figure he get some sleep. he got up and went back to his room. he got onto the bed and under the covers. he turn on his side to get comfy. then he saw a picture on his nightstand and looks at it. it was a picture of him when he was 10 with his parents and big sister. he looks at it for some time before putting the picture face-down. he turns, facing the window, closing his eyes, listening to the hard rain outside. but after a hour, Jason awoke to something. he open his eyes and listens. he closes his eyes, thinking his mind was playing tricks on him. then he heard it again, footsteps. he slowly sat up, looking at his bedroom door. slowly he got out of bed and edge slowly to the door. he reaches for the door handle. but Jason froze, he was feeling funny. his chest was tighten, his heart was pounding. he felt....scared now. he didn't know why. but then something pushes him onto the bed with force causing him to gasp out and struggle but he was stuck. "W-WHAT THE?!?!?" then he heard laughter and looks at the door. the door was wide open and a figure in all black stood, smirking. "hello grandson" the figure purred. Jason growls. 'who the fuck are you?" he demanded. "rude and sharp temper, sounds related to me" the figure walks out into the light which was now on and Jason's eyes widen to this. the figure had light purple hair, light pink eyes, a eye patch over his eye, a beanie and baggy black clothing on, extremely pale and built a bit but very skinny. the man smirks down at his victim. "wow, quite a way to welcome your greatest grandfather' the man smirk. Jason struggles. "don't bother, my powers have a good grip on you little boy" Jason narrows his eyes at him. "again, who are you?!? and what the fuck do you mean grandfather?!?" he shouted, angry. the man signs. then he got on the bed, smirking darkly at the man under him now. "names Jackson Andersaw....name ring a bell?" Jason gasped. he remember his grandmother on her dying bed, telling him something when he was 13 and in their kind. 13 year old Jason was holding his ill grandmother's hand. the elderly lady looks at her grandson and smiles softly, caressing his hair. "my dear Jason, don't cry" Jason tries to wipe his sad tears as he sobs, holding her skin and bone hand. 'Jason, listen to me" his grandmother spoke. Jason looks at her. "w-what is it grandma?" he asked. the elderly lady held put his hands. "you know, you're related to Jackson Andersaw....my mother told me he was a good man....but his life was cut short on a terrible day....it says he is now a evil demonic spirit....who eats heart some say....a demon who never ages when he died at age 23....going by the name......" everything else was faded. Jason looks at the man, shocked, no wonder this demon looked so young. "Bloody Jack....." Bloody Jack chuckles and smirks more. "so you remember what your grandmother told you right?" he asked. Jason then growls and head butts the demon in the face. "there's no way in hell am i related to a fucking murderer!!" he then was held tighter to the bed. Bloody Jack wipes his face and his eyes narrow, smirking darkly. "my dear Jason, we are all related, you have my blood in you" Bloody Jack leans down, whispers in his ear. "i could eat your heart right now...." Jason shuts his eyes tightly. "but since you're my greatest grandson, i won't kill you" Jason opens his eyes to see Bloody Jack sitting up, straddling him, his ice cold hands holding the human's wrist tightly, hard enough to bruise. Jason shuts his eyes again, not liking being held down. "my dear Jason...." Bloody Jack leans down, whispers against his ear. "open your eyes my boy" he snarl. "open them!" Jason gasp, his eyes wide open. he was not in his room. he was in the streets. but this one was familiar to him. he looks around, confused. "remember this?" he turn, seeing Bloody Jack was standing there, looking at something in the distance. "this is a memory you tried so hard to erase but never can" Jason looks at what his grandfather was looking at. there was a car driving down the streets. Jason remembers it. "my family's car....." "yeah, it was history made to relive over and over.....i lost my family in a car crash too....so this is sweet history in the remaking" Bloody Jack spoke, smiling softly insane. Jason watches widen eyes to the car going side to side then hitting another car and both set on fire. he was shaking as a bloody 10 year old Jason crawls out, badly hurt. then the kid saw this and was crying, screaming. "MOMMY! DADDY! CASSANDRA! SOMEONE HELP!" the child scream, sobbing. Jason fell to his knees, shaking. he didn't know he was crying. tears shed down his cheeks as he saw people pulling his child form away from the scene and people putting out the fire. Bloody Jack watches this then he smiles darkly at his grandson. "was this too much?" he asked. Jason held his head, shaking, sobbing. "m-make it stop....please" he spoke, trying not to break. the demon chuckles, walks over and knelt down, hugging his shaking grandson. "so fragile you are my child" then Jason saw they were back in his apartment room, but it was darker and colder. Jason step away from Bloody Jack and looks around. "welcome" he turn, seeing Bloody Jack smirking darkly, his light pink eyes glow with a insane look to them. "i'll be your nightmare for the evening" he snaps his fingers and 2 other figures stand next to him, one was mummified and the other wore a demon mask. their eyes red and glow also insane, the mummified one's eyes were sloid red and the demon masked one's were like Bloody Jack but red, shadows moving behind them, forming monsters. "so tell me Jason" Bloody Jack stated. Jason was shaking horrified. his eyes widen in fear, more tears fell, hearing those dark words. "what are you afraid of?" then followed by laughter, very loud insane laughter. Jason screams as he quickly sat up in bed. he was panting hard, looking around. he was in his bedroom. he saw it was 4:51 am. nothing was disturbed. he signs shakily, hugging his knees tightly. he slowly started to cry, shaking as he brokenly sob into his knees. that dream, that demon, it felt and was all too real. he got out of bed and went to the bathroom. he washes his face with cold water and shakily sign, clutching his chest. Jason pants softly, trying to calm down. he step back and slid again the wall, sitting and hugging himself, trying to stop crying but he couldn't. that demon broke his very core of humanity. his safe place and broke to tiny pieces. Jason manages to stand but arms wrap around his waist. he gasp, widen eyes in horror as Bloody Jack smirks behind him. "welcome to the end of humanity and the beginning of your nightmares"