#and while working full-time PLUS being sick with a cold has made for a tough week even with a long weekend

[thedeviousdevilxx]

ugh I hate taking a test and you focus on all the wrong things LOL honestly I'm pissed they crammed so many modules for this ONE quiz it could have easily been better divided? Anyways I studied way more on the math equations and guess what was about only like four-five questions on the entire test? the math! UGH.

I technically passed but still. lol

[cottoncandyjester]

Yan oc squad when jealous

Okay so I'm currently working on backstory posts for all the boys as well as kinkmas stuff so til those come out enjoy random quick headcanons about the boys or any request people want to give about..well anything

Theodore

He hates getting jealous

It's a bad feeling

When he sees you smiling and laughing cause of someone else a dark feeling fills him

He can't help but think of horrible thoughts like you finding someone else

These feelings control him and cause him to do foolish things or things he would seem as idiotic

If you're talking to someone he will quickly come to you and hold you simply staring

He is far too much of a gentleman to make a scene

He shouldn't be so jealous but as he watched you giggle with an old a friend during what was supposed to be a coffee date, he gripped his cup as he felt like some sort of third wheel. Everytime he would try to interrupt you he was cut off by your friend and their obnoxious talking

Soon fed up with it he stood up now grabbing your arm feeling you tense lightly, he simply flashed a sweet smile now holding your hand

"I'm sorry to interrupt this conversation but we really must go, right sweetie?"

Before you could speak the male was pulling you out the cafe and towards the car, his grip on you firm as his sweet smile turned to a friend now glancing over at you

"don't talk to that person ever again, she is bad for you okay?"

"I'm an adult I ca-"

Theodore pulled you roughly infront if him his eyes wild with rage but he simmered down now smiling as he reached out and placed a hand on your cheek

"what did we talk about hmm? You make bad judgements, you're too sweet and kind and everyone will take advantage of that..so trust me when i say they are bad okay?"

You gulped and gave a small nod, you did trust him since he always knew best but he still scared you. You had no choice but to agree and as the two of you went home you could feel the tense jealously coming off him..he truly wanted you to himself

Hikaru

Is a very very jealous person

He had a photoshoot in korea and of course he had to take you along for the ride

It was a lovely vacation

During the shoot his photographer would ask you questions

His photographer seemed to like you

And hikaru did not like that

Of course hikaru kept his cool but after a while he got fed up

He sent you back to the hotel so he can deal with this

After getting very violent he comes back blood soaked and takes his anger out on you

Hikaru has been gone for hours but you figured nothing of it, maybe photoshoots take a long long time. You sat on the hotel bed scrolling through your phone before you heard a click and the door opened

You rushed to greet your boyfriend only to see him covered in blood now using a cloth to wipe his face, his eyes still dangerous and wild. When his blue eyes landed on you a chill went down your spine before he reached out and gripped your wrist

"it's your damn fault y'know? Its cause people think your so fucking attractive. I'm all dirty cause of you, damn pig."

As hikaru now squeezed your wrist panic set in as you tried to pry him off of you and maybe calm him down before he get any more angrier

"b-babe I didn't know this would happen and plus, you know I love only you"

Your stumbling and stuttering only seemed to make him more pissed as he now yanked you to the bed before pushing you down now throwing his coat off and eyeing you with utter disgust

"then fucking prove it, prove that my piggy only loves me and maybe I won't be so mean anymore kay?"

Prince

Instantly gets into a fight

Just no questions asked gets into a fight

You two were just walking around the park with his dog, queen

Prince let you alone for a single minute just to grab some food

Did not take long for some Chad to get to chatting with you

Queen was not happy

And when prince came back he was not happy either

So he got into a fight

You scolded him while you were patching him up

"prince.."

"yeah my beautiful and amazing love who I adore everyday?"

You shot the male a glare as he lit a cigarette before taking a smoke, he clearly did not like upsetting you and was definitely stressed

"as much as I love your protectiveness, getting into fights isn't a good thing"

"I can't let someone steal ya away from me baby, just won't allow it"

You shake your head as you put the last band-aid on before feeling something crawl into your lap, you stare at the Pitbull who laid her head in your lap

"-and you! You were supposed to protect her queen! At least bite the son of a bitch or something!"

You couldn't help but laugh at the male's antics, you didnt really see much of the fight since prince told you to wait in the car but you figured the guy was fine

Prince on the other hand simply smiled as he though about how he took care of the situation, queen was such a good dog though he hoped that eating that bastard wouldn't make her sick.

Yuki

Also gets into a fight

You both were at a cat cafe enjoying your time

Yuki fell asleep..no surprise there

You knew he was tired so you let him nap while you played with the cats and ate more yummy snacks

Yuki did say you can order as much as you want and anything you want..

When a worker came to the table and saw yuki sleeping he decided to shoot his shot

Did not take long for your green haired boyfriend to wake up after hearing awkward laughing coming from you

One violent fight later and you two were home while you patched yuki up

He only responds in pouty grumbles and grunts cause you scolded him

Gives you the cold shoulder

But he can't stay mad at you

"yuki, stop being a baby"

"...."

"yuki, look at me"

With still no response you groaned lowly now sliding into the male's lap and seeing him tense up lightly but he simply turned his head away from you with a scowl as he tried not to give in, he was angry that you weren't taking his side on this

Someone tried to steal you away and he protected you! Yet you scold him and tell him not to do it again?! He doesn't get it at all

"yuki narukami you look at me!"

He jolted at the use of his full name and he looked at you with a shocked expression before you squished his face together causing him to get even more confused

"you were going to kill him if you kept punching him, that's why i was mad. Thank you for protecting me though I love you and it's sweet"

Yuki paused before simply wrapping his arms around you giving a low grunt now nuzzling his face in your neck as a dark Expression pooled his eyes.

So, protecting you is fine but he has to make sure he can't kill infront of you? Good to know. As yuki held you in his arms he couldn't help but smile

You were so interesting to him.

.

Axis

It's always the baby types you have to watch out for

You both were at a new amusement park that opened up a few weeks ago

You two were having fun

But after two big drinks axis had to pee while you both were waiting in line for a ride

He told you to hold the spot

You were of course worried your blind boyfriend is going to find a boyfriend on a crowded area but he reassured you that he will be fine

You let him go and It didn't take long for someone to come up to you and try flirt

When axis came back

He tried to play tough guy

But being 5'4" has its downfalls..

Axis was getting tunnel vision, they were laughing at him..he claimed to be your boyfriend and they called him a kid, how can he protect you if he can't even protect himself..how?!

"leave him alone! He's my boyfriend so just go away!"

You had to step in, it was embarrassing. Axis felt you grip his hand tightly now feeling nothing but anger and jealously bubble within him even as the situation diffused he thought about it

Did..you take him seriously?

"[y/n], am I hot?"

The question made you jolt and you looked at him with a choked laugh. You laugh only made him more upset but he tried to remain calm

"am I hot? Yknow like sexy and everything like that?"

"ax, you're adorable! So cute! I mean you were pouting when those jerks were talking to me and it was just so cute!"

Cute...? Cute..?!

He snapped and hugged you close, his face mask had a zipper and you never did know what the purpose of that was but next thing you knew you felt a sharp pain on your neck along with something trickling down your shoulder

You winced in pain now trying to pull the male off but with no progress, when he did pull back he had blood all around his mouth

"treat me more seriously, you're mine. I won't let anyone else take you, come on let's go home..I'm not done marking you up"

A sense of fear hit you and you never felt this before, axis has always been your adorable boyfriend but this..was new.

Axis Definitely show you just how much he owned you when you two got home and it was something you definitely never forgot.

[loving-barnes]

BUCKY BARNES – FIRST (1/2)

(A/N): This one is a bit different and I hope that you will not judge Y/N because... well, you will read. There were parts where it was hard to put them down. I don’t know what else to add.

Pairing: Bucky Barnes x f!reader

Summary: Bucky talks to Y/N about her insecurities and she reveals more to him than to any man before. 

Warning: nudity, sex talk, insecurities, 

Words: 4200+

FULL MASTERLIST |

BUCKY BARNES – FIRST (1/2)

I turned my head over a shoulder, eyes instantly capturing his whole being at the pool table where he was chatting with Sam and Steve, smiling and drinking a beer from a glass bottle. How a man could be this handsome; no, better: how could I be so lucky to be in a relationship with this man, I would never fully understand.

When his eyes found mine, he simply smiled at me. The team knew about us, but we were not in a state where we would fully show our relationship. It was an early stage of the relationship. So far, these were the most beautiful two months of dating and slowly falling in love with this man. However, I insisted on taking it slow and not rush to anything. Bucky accepted and I was relieved.

“So,” Wanda sat down next to me, holding a glass of wine between fingers. “How is everything going with you and Barnes?” she asked with a smile.

“Steady,” I replied easily, taking a sip of my water. “There is no rush, nothing wild. I like how things are going.”

Natasha joined us, leaving Clint and Bruce with Tony and Rhodey at the other side of the room. “What are you talking about?”

“I was just asking Y/N how things are going between her and Barnes,” Wanda replied.

“And?” Natasha sat next to the witch.

“Everything is going fine,” I replied, trying to hide my blush behind the glass. “There is nothing much to tell, to be honest.”

Both women looked at me with a grin. “So, give us the details and we mean the spicy details. We want to know everything.”

“Yes,” Wanda nodded. “We are like the teenage girls that are desperate to know everything about your sex life.”

That was a topic I was not ready to talk about. It was mostly because there was nothing to talk about and also, there was another story that I was not ready to share.

“Uh, there is nothing to tell. We didn’t do anything so far,” I replied nonchalantly, trying to act as if it was a normal thing. “We are taking our time.”

“Oh, come on, Y/N,” Natasha sighed, quickly changing her seat and sitting down next to me. “With this job and everything that is happening in the world, you need to find relief when you have a man by your side.”

I rolled my eyes. “I know…”

“I have noticed Bucky being a lot in the gym when we finish a mission,” said Wanda. “Because you are not letting off some steam, he has to do it alone in the gym.”

For a split second, I felt bad for him. Maybe he was already expecting something and I was not able to provide it. I sighed and drank the rest of the water.

“I love you girls, but I don’t want to talk about it,” after that, I stood up. “I just… can’t,” was the last thing I said to them and went into the kitchen to clean the glass. It was enough that I was struggling with it. I was not ready to talk about it with anyone, not even Bucky.

I could feel their confused glances when I walked away. I could only hope they would not follow me and talk about it. However, it was my lover that came to the kitchen to check up on me.

“Hey,” he smiled, stopping a few steps away from me. “Are you alright?”

Of course, their expression would make Bucky worry about me, so I put a simple smile on my face. “Yes, sure, you don’t have to worry. Go, have fun with boys. I’m going to my room to read a book or do some reports from the last mission. Few things are missing so I will put them there.”

“Alright,” he came closer to me and his hands wrapped around my waist. “I will come to check on you when I am done beating Sam’s ass.”

Him holding me like that made my knees weak. “You winning, Barnes?” I winked at him, grinning.

“I think I’m having a very lucky day today,” he deeply looked into my eyes. I wasn’t able to reply to it so he continued. “I mostly enjoy how angry he is when he loses. To be honest, we are just a game away until he’ll break something,” he laughed. After that, he kissed the top of my head. “Don’t work too much, alright, darling?”

I put a gentle smile on my face. “Of course,” and with that, I left him standing alone in the kitchen. My stomach was turning in every way and I became nervous. I knew what the sentence about being lucky was – he was hoping to finally sleep with me. Or maybe not and my mind was just playing with me.

I went back to my room and immediately started to work on the reports just to keep my mind occupied. I have noticed some spelling mistakes in Steve’s reports – it was mostly the old English that he knew, so I had corrected the sentences and closed the files, marking it as finished.

I had no idea how much time had passed. A knock on the door brought my mind back to the present and I turned to them. “Yes?” I answered, waiting for the intruder to come in.

Bucky stepped inside, wearing comfy sweatpants and a loose shirt. “Hey, you are still up?” he asked with a gentle smile.

“Of course I am. It is not that late.”

He had to laugh. “It is almost two in the morning. Are you still working?”

I took my phone and looked at the screen. I had no idea it was that late. “Ugh, yeah, I was working and finished like minutes ago, but I am done now. Thanks for checking on me. How was the game?” I closed my laptop and went to sit on my bed where Bucky joined me.

“Well, Sam had too many beers so it was very awkward to play with him. The girls also let loose a little so it was an interesting evening. We missed you there.”

“Well, next time, I will try to be there longer,” I yawned.

“Can I stay here tonight?” he asked with a genuine smile on his lips. “I would like to spend more time with you.”

I took a deep breath, quickly trying to say something. Should I let him stay the night or not, I thought. My lower lip trembled and I crossed arms over my breasts. “Uh,” I made a weird noise. My hands turned cold.

Bucky sighed and turned his whole body to me. “Alright, we need to talk. I can see that something is bothering you. I have noticed it a while ago. What is it? I am here for you. Talk to me.”

He was a sweetheart, worrying about me. “I-uh, is there?” I was becoming more nervous.

“Yes, there is. I can see it. As if you were afraid of something. Is it me?” The way he asked if it was him made my heartache. “A-are you scared of me or the hands?”

“No! No, of course, it is not you,” I quickly grabbed his hands into mine. “Don’t you dare think like that, Bucky. I am not afraid of you or scared of you or anything.” One of my hands went to his cheek and stroked it gently. “Never think that again, please. You are like a cute giant teddy bear that can be very protective of me,” I laughed a little, thinking back when he protected me at all cost during a mission.

He sighed in relief. “Well, I am glad. But there is something. I can see it in your eyes and the way you react. Please, talk to me and we will figure it out.”

There it was, the moment I had to let it all out and explain it to him. I was not prepared but I had to do it sooner or later. I made myself comfortable on the bed, as he did, facing each other. Immediately, I grabbed one of my pillows and hugged it.

“I am not ready to sleep with you,” I said quickly. “Because I- I have never slept with anyone.” Somehow, I couldn’t look into his eyes. The shame was unbearable. No, I was not ashamed. The other things were worse. “And there is a huge reason behind it.”

“Alright, tell me more,” he said calmly. “And please, don’t be ashamed. It is alright. I never wanted to pressure you or anything. I kind of figured it out.”

The way my face unpleasantly grinned made him chuckle. “Great so now that is out, I should start talking about the reasons why I have…” I was not able to form a proper sentence. “At first, I want you to think about one thing: have you ever seen me in something like Natasha or Wanda would wear - skinny clothes, beautiful, sexy dresses and bathing suits?”

I could see he was thinking very hard; trying to deep dive into the past months. “There was this one time that you wore this gorgeous dress at Tony’s party.”

“Yeah, that was the night we finally made the move and become a thing – Wanda was the one that picked the dress for me.”

“Well, she did a great job,” he winked at me. “Otherwise, I must say no.”

Taking a deep breath, I decided to deal with it like a normal adult – or, I tried. “I used to be fat!” I shouted it. My nerves got the best of me. “And there are some post-fat things still happening. I have loose skin on my stomach and my boobs are terrible and I just can’t…” I buried myself into the pillow, ready to cry. It was a tough thing to say out loud. My whole body was shaking. “Every time I wanted to be intimate with someone, I couldn’t… I still can’t. I am sick to my stomach and once the action starts I just want to vomit.”

There they were – the tears falling down my face. It was all too much for me. “I so want to but I can’t. I am fucking ugly and my body is devastated and it is my entire fault. Plus, my body just reacts the opposite way it should.”

“Oh, baby,” he sighed sadly and pulled me closer. His hands wrapped around me. “It’s okay. I will not pressure you or anything,” he whispered into my ear. “If you want, we can work on it together but believe me, you are not ugly. You are so beautiful and I love you so much.”

I stopped breathing for a moment and I had to look at him. “You love me?” I was surprised.

“Of course I love you, Y/N. I love you so much,” he brushed a strand of hair behind my ear. “In my eyes, you are perfect. You know, I have imperfections too and you accept me the way I am.”

“But you have the body of a god,” I sighed. “You are a handsome man and I don’t deserve you. You could have the most beautiful, perfect woman and here you are, stuck here with me.”

“Stop,” he put a hand over my mouth. “Don’t you dare do this to you,” he said strictly. “We will work on this and I will help you see yourself the way I see you – beautiful, sexy and perfect.”

“You think that?” I asked.

“Yes,” he nodded and kissed me lovingly on my lips. “Now, let’s go to bed and get some sleep, alright? I want you to relax. I will stay here tonight and we will get some rest, alright? And starting tomorrow, we will work on this, alright?”

I gave him another kiss. “Thank you, I love you too,” I whispered to him.

The smile he gave me afterwards was everything I ever wanted.

…

It was hard to believe that I finally found a man like Bucky. He didn’t force me to do anything I wasn’t comfortable with and, which made my heart melt, he was the one who started to show his love publically – or in front of our friends.

I was in the kitchen with Steve and Rhodes when Bucky came there too and headed right to me. He spun me around and deeply kissed my lips. “Hello beautiful,” he whispered and kissed me again which made my head spin. To be honest, I was enjoying this very much.

“Now that is a surprise,” Steve said.

“So now you two are full-on PDA?” Rhodey asked with a frown.

Neither of us reacted to them. “Want to go train to the gym?” Bucky asked me, eyes never leaving mine. He grabbed me by a hand and started to drag me out of the kitchen.

“I don’t have a choice,” I giggled.

Once we were away from the kitchen, he turned to me. “Today I have prepared something for you,” he said it calmly but my nerves were on high alert. “I have got you a new working outfit.”

“Oh,” I was relieved. “Alright, care to describe it for me?”

He smirked. “With Natasha’s help, I have a new pair of sculpting leggings for your and a sports bra.”

“And?” I was waiting for a shirt.

“That’s it.”

I sighed. “I can’t work out without a shirt,” I complained.

When we came to the gym, the outfit was waiting for me on the bench. The leggings were black with a purple stripe on sides. The bra was also purple. “Go put it on. No one will be here with us today.”

“Bucky…”

“Go,” he stroked my shoulder and kissed the top of my head. “I will be waiting here for you.”

Without any other choice, I went to the dressing room to change into the clothes. It took me more than dressing should. When I saw myself in the mirror, I wasn’t that terrified of the look as I thought I would be. The leggings were with a high waist and they formed my legs pretty nicely. My breast looked a bit smaller but also in better shape than normally.

I came back to the gym, ready to work out when I have noticed Bucky staring at me with an opened mouth. “You look sexy in those,” he pointed at me and grinned. “I think I did a good job.”

“You did,” I nodded. “And I don’t mind the skin that is showing under my boobs because that is not the worst part of my body,” I had to laugh. “Thank you Bucky,” a loving smile appeared on my face.

While we were working out, I have noticed the way Bucky was eyeing me. Occasionally, I have noticed how he had a hard time to focus and it made me blush a lot. And when I bent over to grab some weights, he was done. “Fuck, I can’t help it,” he groaned and came to me. His hand rested on my ass and he stroked the left cheek a little. “You are so fucking sexy Y/N. You have no idea what you are doing to me right now.”

Leaving the weights on the floor I stood up and turned to him. My eyes landed on the prominent hard-on he had. I had to look somewhere else because my face became red as hot pepper. “I- ugh…” I was speechless.

“No need to be ashamed,” he said. “At least you know what you do to me and how sexy you are,” he said it proudly. “I think our training is over. I need to take care of this,” he pointed at his crotch and I again blushed hardly and had to close my eyes.

“I feel bad,” I sighed. “I have brought this to you and I am not able to help you with that. Fuck,” I gulped dryly.

“It’s alright. I can take care of it,” he quickly kissed my cheek. “I will see you later, alright?” and after that, he quickly went into men’s dressing room.

I felt bad. I could feel how many men and women were judging me.

…

A few days later, we arrived back to the headquarters after a short but tough mission. All of us ended with bruises and cuts – some of us, including me, needed a few stitches. And, as always, I was lucky enough to have Bucky with me the whole time. He knew how scared I was of needles. I asked him if he could stay until it was done and he accepted with a tired smile.

After I was all patched, we went to an elevator, ready for a shower. “Can you come to my room once you are showered and changed?” Bucky kissed the top of my hair and I nodded. “We will have some food in my room and we can relax while watching a movie.”

“Sounds nice,” I said simply.

After that, our ways departed. I took a long hot shower and cleaned my body properly – getting rid of dirt while making sure my scares were protected from the water. I felt a new wave of energy hit me once I was fully dressed in comfortable loose clothes – no bra under the ACDC shirt, shorts, fluffy socks and wet hair up in a messy bun. Before I went to Bucky’s room, I made us a kettle of hot tea and brought it on a table with two mugs.

When I arrived in the room, the first thing I heard was the sound of running water. Bucky was still in the shower. I put the trey on a night table and made myself comfortable on his bed. I could smell his scent all over the sheets and it made me smile. Not only was he a fucking good looking man, but he even smelled good.

A minute later, I was spread on his bed as if it was mine and sniffed his pillows like a cat. How come his bed was more comfortable than mine? My eyes focused on the closed doors of the bathroom. If only I had more will to go there, get naked and just seal the deal. But no; here I was, rather staying on his bed, not doing anything and panicking when thought about sex came across my mind.

Why was I so afraid? That man said he loved me and I love him too. I huffed and buried my head under the sheets.

The door to the bathroom opened and I peeked up, to see Bucky. When my eyes landed on him, my mouth fell on the ground. He was standing there in nothing but a towel that was hanging low on his hips. My cheeks reddened and I wanted to hide into a hole. Yet I couldn’t help but keep my eyes on him, taking in his beauty and toned muscular body.

“Wow,” escaped my lips.

“Like something you see?” he asked mi with a wide grin on his face.

“I do,” I admitted quickly. “You are so beautiful, Bucky.” And a second later, I felt terrible. I was dating a very hot guy that could have a better woman by his side – a sexy one that would please him the way I couldn’t. And there it was, the damn feeling making my stomach turn in every direction. What if I was cursed and this was my punishment? “Maybe I should go,” I swiftly stood up from the bed, ready to leave.

Bucky grabbed me by my wrist and pulled me closer to his almost naked body. “No, no, no, darling,” he sighed and stroked my cheek with his vibranium fingers. “I can see your thoughts.”

“It’s just me and y-you, I mean you look… Have you seen you? And I’m just this…” I was rambling fast, slowly mentally falling apart. “I can’t do this to you. It’s not fair and you do deserve someone better that will give you everything that I can’t.”

A second later he made me sit back on his bed and he squatted in front of me. “Breathe,” he said gently. “First, I am not trying to make a move tonight,” he started to explain. “However, I did want to know your reaction seeing me like this,” he pointed at the fact that he was wearing a simple towel. “It’s cute that you are blushing and having this reaction. On the other hand, the way you still think that any other woman would be better for me – now that is a fucking bullshit. They would never be able to give me what you can.”

“Please, stop,” I put a finger over his lips to make him silent for a second. “I am also afraid that once you have a way with me, and see what is underneath the clothes, you will dump me the morning after. I am scared to believe you most of the things you say to me.”

“Someone did hurt your mind and soul,” he grabbed my hands into his. “I promise you that everything I say to you is true and I will do everything in my power to prove it to you. I will do whatever I can to make you feel comfortable, loved and sexy in your skin. That is the least I can do for you. You care for me, accepted the monster I am…”

After those words, I jumped onto him, wrapping my arms around his neck and kissed him deeply. Tears fell on my cheek. It hurt me that he thought he was a monster. “Don’t you fucking dare to say that word to yourself,” I said, crying. “You are not a monster; you never were. Those fuckers did that to you, to an innocent man. You are so much more than you can imagine.” I took a deep breath. “I fucking love you so much, James. You deserve the world and someone better than me.”

“I’m going to stop you right there,” he wiped the tears away from my cheeks. “You want the best for me and you wouldn’t let yourself to have the same treatment.”

It made sense of what he said. I would do anything for him, even take the pain, but I would not let him do the same for me – I would not let anyone do the same thing for me.

“Don’t be afraid to let me in. I will not hurt you,” he added.

“I know,” I nodded, eyes falling on the floor. It was a struggle not to look between his legs where his towel was ending. “I want to let you in, I am trying.” Suddenly, I smiled. “I want to do everything with you, you know? Be playful, be clingy. Do the missions and work as well as doing the dirty stuff,” I blushed.

He laughed but instantly kissed my forehead. “We can do everything you want. But hear this – I will always be too protective of you, even during missions. I will not be forcing you into things you are not comfortable with and when it comes to the dirty stuff, we can slowly work on that as I promised.”

“And I will try to not be a prude.”

“You are not a prude.”

Just as Bucky stood up, his towel let loose right in front of my eyes and it fell on the floor. The moment we had was instantly gone and he was standing in front of me in all his glory – naked. My eyes widened and my cheeks were red as a tomato. Holy shit, he was thick.

“Sorry,” he laughed and took the towel, covering his penis.

“N-no, no, uh, i-it’s totally fine,” I stuttered. “I’ll just have something to think about.”

Bucky went to his drawers to pick up some sweatpants to put on. “Get into the bed and find a movie. I’ll be right with you.”

I did as told and hid under the covers, trying to find something on his TV that was on the wall, opposite the bed. Minutes later, Bucky was by my side, getting comfortable in the bed. I handed him a cup of tea and we started to watch Detective Pokémon – because I wanted to show him what my childhood was.

“Now I understand why you loved these creatures so much,” he said mostly to himself, but I heard it and laughed a little.

It was cute and I was glad that Bucky came to my life. I knew it was worth opening up to him and being more available. Thinking about everything that happened between us the last week or so, I kept going back to the feeling when something was about to happen between us. Maybe, it was not fear that was going through my body, but anticipation.

I took a quick look at Bucky who had his eyes focused on the screen, occasionally laughing. I smiled lovingly. This man was the one I was looking for.

[yourfavewriteress]

rocky road | jonathan toews

Teaser: “We gotta figure this out because I don’t want to keep fighting you every single day.”

Jonathan and I were currently in the middle of a rough patch. The Blackhawks weren’t doing as well as expected this late in the season. The transition from winter to spring was having its effects on my mood and migraines. Work is killing me everyday to the point where I hardly do anything once I get home except shower and get in bed. To top it all off, Jon and I have barely talked in almost two weeks, aside from the frequent bickering.

We have never been the couple that fights excessively. Jon isn’t the type to go back and forth over something small and petty. He doesn’t like to argue, he likes to talk. Whenever we crossed the line from having a conversation to bickering, Jon always suggested a pause to refocus the conversation and come to an agreement. Yet, lately our fights have been getting less conversational, and more unproductive. 

The one thing that attracted me to Jon the most when we first met was how quiet and driven he was. He was a man in all aspects of the word and I loved that. While I dealt with the stresses of my job, Jon knew that I couldn’t be the trophy wife that many guys in the NHL desired. Although his job is a priority for him, my own job is a priority for me. I never felt like I was taking care of him, or him taking care of me. We were partners who have mastered scheduling their lives around each other, and the condo we had moved into seven months ago. 

When I brought up our current relationship situation with my friends, they assured me that we were simply going through a phase “and, yes, even perfect couples like you guys have them.” I wasn’t unhappy with Jon at the moment, but we have definitely been better. 

As I prepared myself for another day at work, I made my morning coffee and checked over the day’s schedule. While I would be gone until around 7 today, Jon had a busy day until 9:30. My coffee was barely finished before Jon appeared, rubbing the sleep out of his eyes.

“Hey,” He mumbled, walking towards the refrigerator.

“Morning,” I responded. As I waited, all that could be heard in the kitchen was the coffeemaker and Jon’s movements. I poured my finished drink just as he spoke again.

“Did you turn the thermostat down last night?”

“Is it too cold for you?” I watched as he looked over at me.

“I’m kind of used to it at this point,” He responded.

“I did turn it down before I got in bed, why are you asking?”

“Can we compromise and keep it above 60?” 

“You live here, too, so if that’s what you want,” I shrugged.

“You really don’t have to be like that,” He sighed. “I’m just asking.”

“I’m not being like anything, Jon. Maybe you’re reading into things a little too hard.”

“You hog the blankets, which I don’t mind because I know you don’t do it on purpose. But it felt like the North Pole last night and I don’t want to get sick.”

“Oh, trust me, I know. We cannot let the star captain get sick when he has hockey to play,” I mumbled.

“Y/N,” He ran his hands over his face. “We gotta figure this out because I don’t want to keep fighting you every single day.” I didn’t say anything and Jon closed the fridge and looked at me. “You have to realize we can’t even talk to each other without arguing, right?”

“Mhm.”

“And, you don’t see that as a problem?”

I scoffed, rolling my eyes. “Are you seriously asking me that? I asked you a week ago to talk yet here we are.”

“I had a game that day,” He defended. “I had to focus on that.”

“I’m happy that you so boldly point out that hockey comes before me, especially when we’re both going through a tough time. But, what about the next day? I’m pretty sure you had two days off and we still haven’t talked.”

He looked down at the counter, “Hockey doesn’t come before you, you know that.”

“Say that to me when it’s actually true. Other than that, don’t lie to my face,” I grabbed my cup, moving towards the hallway. “I have to get ready for work.”

I walked back to our bedroom, going straight to the bathroom and closing the door behind me. I turned the shower on, beginning to get undressed. I sipped my coffee slowly as I let the water heat up.

As mature as I was, I knew I had my moments where biting my tongue would have been the better option. I would absolutely be respecting Jon’s wishes about the temperature of our room, because it was our shared space. But, he didn’t have to know that yet. Especially when I have already told him he could change the thermostat whenever he was uncomfortable.

I showered and brushed my teeth quickly, wrapping my towel tightly around my body. I exited the bathroom to see Jon buttoning his shirt. He looked up when I entered the room.

I moved to my walk-in, grabbing my clothes for the day. Rushing myself to get dressed, I stumbled around the closet for a few minutes. When I walked out, Jon was fully dressed, reaching into his bag.

“I’m not gonna be back tonight til after 8,” He said.

“I know,” I responded, brushing through my hair.

“Make sure you actually eat today,” He said, followed by the zipping of his bag. “I’ll see you later.”

“Bye.” I did my best not to frown as Jon walked out of our bedroom. 

In the past two weeks, I could count on one hand the amount of affection that we’ve shown each other. We used to kiss or be touching each other in someway at all times. But now, the only time Jon was within three feet of me was when we were in bed. I guess that’s a plus, that we still sleep next to each other. I would be lying if I didn’t notice the deliberate space between us under the covers, though.

As the front door closed behind Jon, I continued getting ready for work. Until I had to stop. 

Washing my coffee cup in the sink, I felt the familiar sensation in my eye and head, signaling the migraine to come. I groaned to myself, pausing to down a full glass of water. 

At the on-site of migraines, I always had a decision to make. I could either one, power through it and continue on with my day or two, call it and get back in bed. The frequency of my migraines increased with stress so I wasn’t surprised as my left temple began to pulse. Looking at the time, I had over an hour before I had to be at my desk and thirty minutes to leave our condo. Already feeling nauseous, I decided that today would be the day that I called it. I would have all day to recover, with Jon being gone, and I could get a much needed break from work and the world. 

After calling my boss and explaining the situation to her, she agreed before I even finished. Annoyed at the fact that I was already dressed and basically ready to go, I changed back into sleep clothes. I didn’t realize until I walked past the mirror that my sleep clothes consisted of one of Jon’s shirts and a pair of his boxers as shorts. 

Forcing myself to eat, I made a small breakfast of eggs and toast before climbing back under the covers in our dark room. In the past, I made sure to tell Jon when I was experiencing a migraine so that he knew. I wasn’t sure if it was anger towards him or my sleepiness but as soon as my head hit the pillow, I was out. No message to Jon. 

I spent the day in bed, slipping in and out of consciousness. Other than to use the bathroom, I stayed under the comforters as the sun set that afternoon.

I assume I slept through the entire day as I awoke to movement in Jon’s closet and the light on. I blinked a few times, trying to adjust my eyes after them being closed for basically over 12 hours. Jon walked out his closet and I watched as he looked around the room, his eyes landing on me.

“Hey,” He said, noticing that I was now awake. He moved closer to my side of the bed, crouched down so we were at eye-level. If my head hadn’t of been hurting, I would have noticed how close he was for the first time in awhile. He searched my face, “Are you okay?”

“I have a migraine,” I mumbled. 

“Did you eat?”

“A little,” I responded.

“You know you have to eat more than a little,” He said, standing up. “I’m gonna change and then I’ll make you something.”

“You don’t have to,” I sighed. “I’m sure you’d probably prefer to not be around me right now.”

“Not responding to that,” He called from his closet. “I always want to be around you, no matter what’s going on.”

I turned over in bed, pulling the covers back over me. “That sounded like a response, Jonny boy.”

The nickname slipped out before I could even think about it and when I looked back at him in his closet, he was smiling softly. I looked away just as I felt a smile creep onto my lips. It was the first time in a few days that our expressions towards each other were anything but annoyance or indifference.

“Can you see okay?” He asked after a few moments.

“Yeah, the aura went away a couple hours ago.”

“And, your head?”

“Pounding,” I said, simply. I heard Jon sigh before I felt his hand on my leg.

“Do you want to come downstairs to the couch?”

I nodded, moving to sit up. “How was practice?”

“Fine,” He shrugged. “Can we talk later though? I’ve been thinking a lot today.”

“I was being a bitch earlier, I’m sorry,” I admitted. “It was a simple request.”

“I’ve been an asshole for two weeks,” He responded. “This morning was nothing compared to that.”

He moved so that he was sitting on the edge of the bed.

“Hockey is tough right now, I get that. We’ve been through this before, Jon. Work is kicking my ass, too, and it’s overwhelming,” I said. “I don’t know why we’re clashing so much but we know how to communicate. I know how to talk to you and you know how to talk to me, but…”

“...But, we're still fighting,” He finished, nodding.

“I know I can be a lot, and you have to worry about not only me but your team, too. I can’t imagine how much stress you’re under right now but you have to let me know what you need or want from me. I can’t just keep walking on eggshells while I’m stressed myself. It’s not fair.”

“I know,” He sighed. “I didn’t realize how much I was pushing you away. I don’t ever want you to be walking on eggshells around me. You live here just as much as I do and I’m sorry for everything. I know I can forget to stop bringing hockey home with me every night and I’ve clearly been doing that. I’m not gonna make excuses for it because we already talked about this. I’m sorry.”

“I don’t care if you bring hockey home. Obviously, I would like it if I didn’t have to sit through hours of guys slamming into each other on the ice, but I would do it if it’ll be helpful for you. I don’t mind watching hours of hockey. I know it’s a priority for you right now, and I don’t expect that to change. But, we’re a team. I want to help so you’re not beating yourself up every single day.”

He smiled, “I know.”

“It’s not just you, I know I can be better, too. When I’m stressed, I know I can be a handful and a half and you’re an angel for dealing with it. I’m not easy to talk to and you still take care of me. I don’t deserve you.”

“You deserve the world,” He said. “But, I don’t care how much of a handful you think you are, I love you and that’s not gonna change.”

“I’m just sorry,” I mumbled, looking down.

Jon moved closer, pulling me into his chest. “I think you’re just being nice because your head hurts. I’m equally at fault for this, if not, more.”

I laughed against his chest, immediately regretting it as I was reminded of my migraine.

“I mean it,” I said once he pulled away.

“Okay, so we’re both sorry, and we’re both gonna do better, yeah?”

“Yeah.”

“Good,” He kissed me and I sighed against him.

“I missed you,” I said. “Even though we’ve both been here.”

“I missed you,” He smiled, pecking my lips again. “But, your head still hurts so dinner first.”

He helped me out of the bed, wrapping his hand around mine as we walked downstairs. 

“I’ll get you some water and bring it over,” Jon said as I sat down on our couch, leaning against the arm. I watched as he dimmed the lights in our apartment, looking over at me to hold up his thumbs in question. “Is this good for you?”

“Yeah,” I laughed softly. “Did you know the lights did that before you showed me this place?”

He nodded, smiling. “Thoughtful, eh?”

“I guess you could say that,” I shrugged. He walked over to me, handing me a glass of water.

“You don’t think I’m thoughtful?” He raised his eyebrows in question.

“I think you’re a sap when you want to be,” I laughed, making my head throb. I flinched, leaning back slightly.

Jon leaned in, pressing his lips to my temple. “Stop laughing at me, you’re making your head worse.”

I puckered my lips to him in response. He smiled, shaking his head while standing up straight. “You’re trying to distract me. I have to get you something to eat and then I’ll kiss you.”

“That’s unfair,” I whined.

“Once you eat, I promise you’ll have my full attention, baby,” He laughed. “So needy.”

“Hurry up, Jonathan. We have a lot of making up to do.”

[shibalen]

1/2! Hi! could I have a male romantic hq matchup if thats ok? w a dark box + a jewellery box pls! I'm 5'5, she/her w long dark brown hair w the front half of my right side dyed white, green eyes + tan skin! I'm super bubbly, loud, naturally v flirty + my love language is physical touch! I LOVE working out + I'm a HUGE foodie. I'm stubborn + impulsive, luv rain/storms, coffee + PDA. I'm emotional, confident, bold, giggly, energetic + observant! I ramble but I'm a gd listener + v playful!

2/2 im v playful + luv teasing! I'm spontaneous, optimistic, passionate + ambitious but I tend to overwork myself. I'm empathetic + love comforting others, it takes a lot to make me super angry too! I'm pretty straight forward - I try my best to be upfront about my feelings! I LOVE autumn/winter, cooking, BOBA + outdoors (but also love cosy nights at home) I really value honesty + loyalty. my ideal type is someone tall, protective + doesn't mind physical touch! (I also luv late night adventures)

Sorry I ran out of characters but I just wanted to say thank you so much in advance! I literally had notifications on so I didn't miss your matchups being open lmao <3 a nickname incase u need it is Ains btw!

♡︎ matchup for @hvnlydmn

hello, dear! aww, i'm so happy you think my matchups are something worth not missing. thank you for requesting, hopefully you enjoy this!

haikyuu: i match you with . . .

osamu miya !!

• under that calm exterior Osamu is competitive and has a small wild streak in him. you would do good in bringing out that side of him more often with your extroverted nature !!

• he finds your boldness and passion endearing and will help you keep your feet grounded in cases your impulsive tendancies might cause trouble for you.

• while your external demeanours differ, you hold the same core values which is incredibly important. like you, Osamu prefers being honest and will understand your point of view even though he might have a different opinion.

• that being said, you're both extremely patient and heated arguments take place only once in a blue moon. even then you manage to work out your differences quite fast.

• maybe it's because of your profile pic but i get the feeling you were a fan of Atsumu first, being part of the cheering squad in high school.

• you had no problem approaching either of the twins despite their popularity. they liked your confidence and energy so quickly accepted you.

• at first you wanted Osamu to help you get closer to Atsumu, but oops, along the way you two ended up falling for the other instead ! your personalities complimented each other, plus you had lots of common interests !

• i love how your first impression dynamic is the fun ray of sunshine x the quiet chill one even though y'all can be equally chaotic and observant ♡︎

• Osamu puts action over words and likes showing you his affection through small, casual touches as you go about your day. locking your fingers, putting his arm around your waist or shoulders, caresses of your cheek/head/hands.

• also, giving you massages after a tough day !! it's sweet and intimate while you can talk about anything and everything, or say nothing at all ♡( ◡‿◡ )

• insists being the one to brew you coffee. he knows his coffee is the best and it's what you deserve.

• playful teasing 23/7 (including snack breaks) just saying. having a brother like Atsumu has had its effects.

• Atsumu and you sometimes gang up and lovingly bully him. don't worry though, even against the two of you Samu can stand his ground (or be petty and give you a cold shoulder to tease you even more).

• though if someone else starts crossing the line while they're teasing you, Osamu will lowkey throw hands. he won't make a scene but anyone with the guts to brother you should be prepared to face pain the consequences.

• your dates often consist of visiting new restaurants/food booths, home-cooked dinner dates or picnics + hiking. sometimes he'll join working out with you.

❦︎ darkbox, timeskip

• it started with the little things: missed calls, skipped dinners, forgotten good-mornings. with Osamu busy with the restaurant and you having your hands full with your own job, your schedules only seemed to drift further apart.

• but then the words you exchanged irl became less frequent and finally the physical touch between you faded nearly into nonexistence because you hardly even saw each other.

• it was like a ticking time bomb. Osamu and you were aware of it but neither of you knew how to stop it.

• though you talked through messages and calls it just wasn't the same. stressed and worried, you did your best to remain calm, however this only made things worse.

• to you, it felt as though Osamu didn't care about your relationship anymore since he always looked and sounded the same, ever so nonchalant. yet in truth he was trying his hardest to look composed so you wouldn't worry.

• in the end, you both saw it best to take a 'break' until your careers became stable again. the saddest part: you did it for the other though neither of you wanted to.

• to forget your depression you became more involved in your work than before, up to the point of overworking yourself.

• meanwhile, Osamu, too, drowned himself in exhaustion. no matter how stoic he appeared it was clear he was all but focused. he kept wondering if you were okay, eating properly, getting enough sleep, or even if you wanted to start seeing someone else.

• worries if you'd rather have broken up with him for good because he wasn't good enough.

• thank goodness Atsumu, being the better and smarter twin™, called his brother out on his bs. too bad Osamu was a stubborn bastard and took forever to realise he loved you too much to be taking some 'pause' from you.

• his blood ran cold and his heart dropped to his stomach, however, when you weren't answering any calls or texts for days. you always answered him after a day at most.

• gosh, he was so anxious something had happened to you that he cancelled everything to rush to your place.

• it turned out you were taking a a week off from the world after too much work and getting sick. all well and good but the boy almost stumbled to his knees from the relief.

• instead, being himself, he just went: "stupid. ya really have a talent for getting yourself into situations like these."

• but thankfully you knew what he meant and how to comfort him. obviously you both fessed up that despite the problems you didn't want to be apart from each other again.

• from that incident onwards you agreed to always openly talk about your feelings. even if it meant being a little selfish, you knew the other would always be there for you ♡︎

𑁍 jewellery box

— favourite memory with you:

after a loss at an important game, you were the one to cheer him up. it was mid-autumn so the nature was filled with colours. you invited him out to rake leaves and jump into the heaps. Osamu thought it was ridiculous at first but couldn't help but smile at your sweet attempts to help him. you weren't together yet back then but it was definitely the moment he realised he felt something stronger for you than friendship ♡︎

— favourite activity to do together:

cooking and taste-testing! it's just so domestic. he gets to cook and spend quality time with you—what could be better? also, image standing in front of a stove, just cooking, when he comes up to you from behind, quietly wraps his arms around your waist and nuzzles your neck.

— favourite place to kiss you:

your forehead and neck. he jokes you're too short for him to reach your lips when he actually just loves the intimacy of it, same with your neck.

— favourite nicknames to call you by:

short-stack, plum, Ains. just your own nickname or something silly/teasing. he doesn't think having a nickname is that important.

— favourite thing about you:

how empathetic and understanding you are. many have gotten the wrong impression of him of being aloof before, so he loves you for caring to look further than meets the eye. not only with him but everyone else as well.

runner up: Kotarō Bokuto

this is my first time writing the extra additions so feedback is warmly welcome. remember to take care ♡︎

[apollosvotive]

PETRICHOR — PROLOGUE 

the last he sees of nataliya

also available on wattpad here

(in continuation)

Kursick is a grey town. Dump town. Dull and morose. An air of sickness hovers over everything in an ever-present shroud. Houses are dirty and squat and made of crumbling brick, slumped against each other as if huddling for warmth against the cold too. Everything around them acts as a reminder of how depressing this town is. Dead trees, black leaves, the ground steeped in shit and piss. No wall is ever too pristine to be fully white. Even the snow that descends lightly around them is tinged grey with a polluted quality to it.

At this age, Nataliya is smart and sharp. She’s a pair of beady black eyes darting back and forth, scanning her surroundings and drinking in information. As much as he hates to admit it, she’s the backbone of the two of them. She’s the reason for their escapades’ success, the sole cause for their survival. It’s been a few months since they’ve settled into this rhythm, uncertain at first, then slowly growing steady as they acclimatize to the newness of each other’s presence. They steal together and flee together. They split the profits of their latest raid between them equally and revel in the flush of their victory. They’re good together, able to match each other without much effort. Quick and efficient like a good set of hands. But for all the time he’s spent with her, Nataliya remains an enigma, shrouded in mystery. The inner workings of her mind are a puzzle. She’s a tough read, or not a read at all, and Thomas has always prided himself on knowing what people want.

“Here,” she signals. The two slink across the street, the cover of night protecting them like a cloak. The only source of illumination is a street lamp emitting an orange glow. The streets are empty, save for the stray vagabond who clutches a coarsely cut knife in his hand threateningly.

The house belongs to a military officer from the city center, Azus, who is stationed in Kursick to monitor the ruined village, no doubt another out of the hundreds of men populating the rich capital with an overabundant belly and grubby fat fingers. He stands in a long line of victims. Anyone from Azus who comes to Kursick are buffoons. They’re essentially positioning themselves like low-hanging fruit in the reach of a town full of ravenous people, just waiting to be plucked. While the people of Kursick stole and fought and killed for something to sustain themselves, these officials lined their tables with roast chicken and attested to their generous helpings of food with their big potbellies.

It is important that they do this. It is important that they take from the selfish and the privileged. The city people are scoundrels to allow them to survive like this, cold and haggard and starved to the bone, while they drape themselves in tapestries made from finer material that people from this town could ever imagine. Stealing from them is an act of vengeance that barely paid a morsel of the price.

East Kosenyka is the affluent neighbourhood. It’s a gated estate with houses built on either side of a road that stretches throughout the plot of land. It opens at a metal gate, where a guardhouse is situated. The street is heavily surveilled, which is why hardly anyone tried to steal anything from the residents here. It’s only Nataliya who looked at the gold window of light from where they crouched in the dark one day, with a look in her eyes that told him the plan was already forming in her head. Turns out that that plan was the thing that would feed them better than anyone ate in this stupid town. This time, though, it seems that there is an entire battalion parked outside the street. It has to be someone important, then. Nataliya narrows her eyes.

In this distance, Thomas can see several more soldiers pacing outside a house. The lights in the house are all switched off.

“What the fuck is this?” Thomas hisses. In all their time spent raiding, he’s never seen such security for a single official before. “How do we get in like this?”

Usually, they will scale the gate to get into the neighbourhood, but they can’t now.

“There has to be a way in.”

Nataliya scrubs a hand through her hair in frustration. It’s black and cropped at her shoulders. Thomas remembers when it used to be long. They were on another one of their righteous escapades, just about to slide through the cracks of the estate and escape, when the end of her hair got caught on the gate. Without a moment’s hesitation, she sheared the entire lock of hair off with a paring knife. There was no emotion in her eyes.

Thomas swears. “Damn it, Nat. I’m fucking starving.”

“Shut up, Thomas. I didn’t say there wouldn’t be food tonight.”

Nataliya stalks off in the opposite direction. Thomas trails behind her. They circle the perimeter of the street, careful to remain hidden. The moon hangs like a silver orb in the sky. He wishes it didn’t. The night isn’t potent enough. It’s not dark enough to keep them hidden. Plus, it doesn’t help matters that the entire city center’s supply of soldiers has been emptied out in this street, right in front of the house they are going to rob. Anxiety prickles in him, flooding his senses.

“Nat. Nat,” Thomas snaps. “We shouldn’t. It’s too dangerous.”

Nataliya’s back portrait doesn’t falter. The cadence of her footfalls still goes strong. “We can find a blindspot. I know we can.”

“We can starve for a night.”

A sigh. “It’s not about that. Didn’t you hear when we were in the marketplace this morning?”

“What about?”

Thomas tries to recall the moment but can only remember the gloss of a green apple staring back at him. He was ravenous then. He’s ravenous now.

Though he can’t see her, he can imagine her shaking his head.

“There’s a new king. Military officials are going to be sent back for the coronation. No one’s going to be coming to Kursick for a while. And in between everyone fighting for the apples in the orchards and the food in the shophouses, I already know there’s going to be a food shortage. We need to gather a supply of food now.”

“We can steal the reserves from the apple orchards now. We don’t have to steal from here.”

“It’s apples,” Nataliya says. “We’re gonna rot in between the time in next official comes. Think about it, Tommy. Rich chicken breast, sweetcorn, sugar bread. Don’t you want that kind of feast again?”

Thomas can feel himself salivating, but dread pools in his stomach. “If we get caught, they might kill us.”

“They won’t.” Nataliya sounds so sure, Thomas wants to believe her. Because if there is one thing that he has learned about her during the course of their time together, it’s that he should put all his faith in her and trust that she knows better than him. She has never failed them and she wouldn’t now. She has always been the smarter out of the two of them. He remembers their first encounter —the feeling of his father’s meaty fist curled into the fabric of his shirt, holding him over the water before letting him plunge in. He thought that that was it for him, the end of a sorry life of an insignificant boy, but before he could even comprehend what was going on, he felt himself rising to the surface and being dragged to the bank. Once he finished shuddering and gasping and spewing out water, he found himself staring into curious black eyes. His first thought went to organ harvester. It was not that uncommon. Many people might have seen a scrawny, helpless kid and thought to make some use out of him, but she just fought away his hostile hands and patiently fended off his bite. When the fight finally seeped out of him, they’d stared at each other with a kind of uncertainty and a knowing that this, this thing between them, was something that did not belong in a place like Kursick.

They walk until Nataliya stops in her tracks. She’s looking at the back of the estate, where a young soldier fumbles with his rifle. In total, there are three soldiers along the perimeter. Two at either ends, and the young one, squarely in the middle. He’s standing in front of their usual entrance, the section of loose bricks which they have come to find with detailed scouting will give way with a slight push. The young soldier is still pockmarked, with the faintest trace of hair at his chin. He carries the rifle like he still doesn’t know how. This time, Thomas knows what Nataliya is thinking without her having to say it aloud first.

“Distract the other two,” Nataliya tells him. “I’ll deal with that one. After that, join me through the hole. I’ll wait for you at the entrance.”

Thomas makes a noise of assent.

“Done and dusted,” he replies, and slinks away to the side of the street. Neither of them looks back at the other.

Heart thumping a lopsided rhythm against his chest, he picks up a rock and dashes it across his skin. The stinging pain follows more as an afterthought. He’s weathered worse. A rivulet of blood leaks out from the gash. He composes himself. Then he bursts out of the undergrowth, yelling: “HELP! HELP ME!”

There are sounds of a rifles being cocked. So many shutters all at once, like a flock of birds taking flight. He collapses onto the ground, holding out his bleeding hand for everyone to see.

“There’s a wild boar chasing me. Help me, please!”

He keeps yelling until he’s sure it reaches the four corners of this street. There’s the heavy sound of footfalls as soldiers run over to see the commotion. The line of soldiers along the back of the estate draws nearer to him as planned. Thomas doesn’t dare look up. He keeps his eyes trained on the ground because he’s sure if he does so, he’ll see a million gun barrels pointed at him and his stomach will go lurching. He just hopes Nataliya makes it in.

Cold metal forces his chin up. He has to open his eyes. The stern visage of a soldier is outlined in silver in the moonlight. This is a soldier from the city center. Azus’ own army. He hates them. He hates them so much, though they are generally harmless. They’re the claws of a buffoon king, a fat man who has grown complacent and idle on top of the throne while his kingdom withers, and so it comes as no surprise that the army has all the efficiency of its leader. They’re all bark and no bite. Usually they will make fun of him, shove him around, spit on him, but in the end let him go more or less in one piece, because even for the luxurious city center the morally decrepit place is masquerading as, they still have appearances to upkeep. The life of a small Kursick boy is still a life, no matter how insubstantial.

But this night a red beret rests atop the soldier’s head, a new addition. Realisation dawns on Thomas. The new king and his army. This is completely different threat they were used to dealing with.

“What do we have here? A street rat?”

The man’s voice is slow and rumbling, like a thunderstorm.

“Please, sir, help me. I was searching for food in the forest when a wild boar started chasing me.” Thomas clutches his injured arm harder for emphasis.

The soldier smiles. It’s horrifying. Skin pulls away to reveal a set of gleaming white teeth. He looks like he’ll eat Thomas alive. A sudden flood of regret fills him. He should have just insisted to Nataliya that they leave. Now the bad feeling is real and alive, beating inside Thomas like a second heart. He needs to get Nataliya out of there. This is far more than either of them anticipated.

“Look at the poor boy,” the soldier murmurs. “He can barely help himself. This is why I hate Kursick. No one can seem to fend for themselves. Always complaining about how the capital doesn’t feed them when they don’t even want to do the work themselves.”

Thomas opens his mouth to respond, but a dull thwack across his jaw sends his mind ringing. The force of impact is so great and filled with such brute strength that death flashes before his eyes. This is not the first time he’s experienced this, in fact he’s well-acquainted with it by now, but it still sends adrenaline coursing through his veins. His heart batters against his chest furiously. His vision blacks out for a split second, and it returns just to catch a glimpse of gold before it flickers out of view. The soldier signals to another soldier. “Get him out.”

With only those words, he’s picked up by his arms and thrown out at the front of the street. Pain explodes on his body. His shoulder joints pop and squeal. The thought of Nataliya pulsates frantically in his mind. The moment he lands in the dirt, he sprints back to the spot where he and Nataliya stood minutes ago to find the young soldier standing the same way they find him, still pacing about with uncertainty. Thomas turns his eyes up to the house they are protecting, where a single light that wasn’t turned on a few minutes ago now is.

If he knew this is the last time he will be seeing Nataliya, what would he have done? It will be months of waiting by their usual spots, of surveying the crime scene over and over till there’s nothing more to make out of it, of sitting by the freezing lake waiting for her familiar presence to make itself known to him before he finally understands that she’s never coming back. In time to come he will find out she’s right. Food will turn scarce and everyone will be fighting, man against man for that last apple in the orchard. There will be nights when Thomas will circle the perimeter of East Kosenyka but will never actually steal from them again because it’s simply not the same without her. He will grow cold and hungry and alone. Not that he wasn’t these things before, but it’s just that there used to be the warmth of her presence, her always-there presence, to stave them out of his mind. He will have nowhere to go. Home has nothing but fire and fury and bloody fists. He will press up against the dirty cinderblock, shivering and alone, feeling like a stranger in the only place he has known as home. But it won’t always be like this. He shouldn’t underestimate the lengths that his honed survival instinct will bring him to. In time he will come to love this place, this terrible, shoddy town, like a parent learns to love the face of an ugly child. He will learn what it means to survive and what one will do. Kill or be killed. It will come to be the thing which he finds the most true in this world and the governing principle of his life. He will learn to make a name for himself. He will adapt to the loss of an important limb — the most important limb — and traverse through the grey snow with ease as if he has never lost something crucial to him. He will never think of Nataliya again. Never, except in his moments of piercing sobriety, which he finds will be incredibly rare, when he is held ransom to his wandering thoughts.

But for now he is thirteen and stupid and cold. Always cold. It occurs to him that the last he sees of her is her back. Her small, scrawny frame, the dogged set of her shoulders, the jagged crop of her dark hair. The portrait burns its way into his memory forever.

taglist: @noloumna @cinnamonboba-writes @apricotwrites @atbwrites (ask to be added or removed)

[shittyfandomimagines]

that Queen shirt- S.M

Hi, I’ve been super absent and I’m so sorry. I’m starting to heal and move on with my life, so I’ve taken time off of writing, but a life without writing is not one I want. So, here’s a shitty imagine I wrote in like 30 minutes.

“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me,” I mumbled to myself as my coffee hit the ground, my heart exploded with it.

“That’s not a very nice word to say.” A kids voice behind me states loudly, I could’ve jumped out of my skin. When I turn around, there was the cutest little girl standing there; her brown curls flowing down her shoulders.

“It wasn’t nice at all, I��m sorry. Where are your parents?” I ask and she frowns for a bit. “My mom had two boyfriends.” She states and I had to hide my laugh, I loved when kids overshared their parent's information.

“My daddy is somewhere, I can’t find him. I’m scared.” Her lip started to tremble and I crouched down to her level, engulfing her in a hug. “Do you know your dad's number, darling?” I ask and she nods. “He made me memorize it but I don’t have a phone.”

I handed her mine and she slowly typed in the numbers, I mean she did pretty well for a 5-year-old. I took the phone from her small hands and put it on speaker.

“Hello!” A voice frantically answered and I could tell from her eyes lighting up that it was her dad.

“Daddy!” Her little voice echoed and I heard a sigh of relief.

“Hi, this is y/n. I’m here with your daughter, she came up to me, she’s okay but a little scared. We’re on the corner of 5th Avenue, right by Joe’s Coffee Shack.” I explain while the little girl held on to my hand tightly.

“Okay, thank you. I’ll be there in like 2 minutes thank you.” The phone hung up quickly and I bent back down to her level.

“Your name is Y/n? That’s a pretty name.” She mumbled and I smiled. “What’s your name girly?” I ask while buttoning up her coat. “Millie.” She mumbles again and I grin. “Millie, what a pretty name for such a pretty girl.” I grin when she looks up hopefully.

“Really?” She asks and I nod quickly. “Of course! You’re a little superstar!” I lightly grab her hands.

I looked at my watch to see how long it’d been since the call, not even a minute yet.

“You’re a brave girl, asking for help. How’d you choose me?” I ask I was pretty curious about it.

“I was hiding over there and I saw you walking, you have the same shirt as my daddy.” She pointed to my Queen shirt. “Oh, so your dad is a music guy?” I ask and she giggles. “He’s famous and everything!” She yells and I smile. “Oh, I’m sure he is.” Seems like an adoring child who thinks their dad walks on water.

“Millie Alli Mendes, what in the world were you thinking?” We both look over, well fuck. She wasn’t lying about her dad being famous. I mean I hardly listen to newer music but everyone knew Shawn Mendes. He looks like a straight-up God. She also wasn’t lying about the shirts, we had on the exact same white T-shirt with the band's logo.

“Daddy, I’m so sorry. I saw a puppy on a leash and I followed it, it was so pretty and fluffy. I’m sorry.” Her eyes were watering and his face softened. “Don’t ever do that again, I almost had a heart attack.” He picks her up, finally taking a glance at me.

“Thank you so much —“ he waited for my name, Millie beat me to it. “Y/n. She has a pretty name, doesn’t she daddy?” She asks and he nods. “Very pretty name.” He grins widely. I had told him my name on the phone but I’m sure the adrenaline blocked it out.

“Looks like you dropped your drink, let us buy you a new one. You’ve helped me out today, it’s the least I could do.” He begs and I smile with a nod. “Sure, I can use another one.”

“When she dropped her drink, she used a very bad word daddy.” Millie giggled and I scrunch up slightly. “I did, in my defense, I was really looking forward to the drink before I spilled it.”

However, in my mind, I was thinking about how I wasn’t sure about this situation all, I was being taken to get a drink from a celebrity who lost their adorable child. But I’m not gonna be weird about it, I really wanted my marble frappe.

We ordered and sat down, Millie climbing into my lap a good 3 minutes in. “Millie, be polite and use your manners, maybe she doesn’t want you crawling over her.” He scolds and I shake my head, locking her into my arms. “No, she’s fine. I’ve grown quite fond of her.” I smile towards her, letting her eat a piece of my chocolate muffin.

“Well, you obviously have a great taste in music.” Shawn breaks the barrier, I nod. “I mean, what can I say, you do too apparently.” I joke and he shakes his head.

Time passed as we continued to talk about Millie, music, and stupid shit. It honestly felt so good, I felt like I was catching up with an old friend who I hadn’t seen in a while.

“Well, Millie has dance lessons. Maybe I can see you again soon?” He asks hopefully and I smile.

“As long as Millie is attended to when I first see her.” I joke and he rolls his eyes.

“So it's a hard yes, she’s not leaving my sights like that again.” He smiles

“Yeah? Then where is she right now?” I ask, knowing she was hiding under my legs, plus I heard her giggles.

His eyes widened in a complete panic, I almost felt bad for him but I grabbed his hand gently. I pointed toward the ground and his face relaxed dramatically. He squeezed my hand tightly before letting it go.

“I’ll see you soon. Millie get up here, now.” He sounded stern and I give him a look to be nice.

“I’m telling your grandma about what you did.” He threatens as he walks out of the door, I giggled at the goofiness between both of them. Something about them made my heart feel different, a good way but still different.

————— year & 1/2 later

“Can you please help me tonight baby? I know we’re supposed to go on our date but Mil has a fever and is sick. I can’t get ahold of the nanny, Millie won’t stop crying.” Shawn’s frantic voice filled my phone, my heart sad at the thought that he’s so stressed and that Mil was sick.

“I’ll come over, it’s gonna be alright babe. Bye.”

I stopped into the store to grab some soup before making my way to Shawn’s house, which was right down the road from my apartment.

“I’m here.” I sigh while dropping the soups onto the counter. “Thank you so much, I’m so sorry.” He pleads and I grasp the back of his neck. “Hey, you don’t have to apologize to me. I’m more than happy to stay in and watch Netflix. I can fix soup all night and give her Tylenol every 4 hours. I’m here.” I kiss his lips softly and he shakes his head. “You’re too good to me.”

“I know, but I also know you’ll find a way to make it up to me.” I wink and he shakes his head, small grin on his lips. “Yeah, I think we’ve established that before.”

“Maybe you should see her, she’d be glad to see your face instead of mine. She stopped crying 10 minutes ago when I told her you were on your way.” Shawn adds I nod. “Can you make some soup while I change, then I’ll take it to her,” I suggest and he nods. “Already laid out one of my shirts on my bed.” He smiles and I blushed slightly. “What a gentleman.”

I walked into his room, I’ve spent plenty of nights in here. It was such a beautiful space, the bed was huge and took up most of the room. Our pictures and pictures of Millie filled the halls leading to the room and the room itself.

I walked out of the room with his Queen shirt on, it fit better than mine did. I always insisted on wearing his instead, it smelled like him too, so it was a selling point.

I grab the bowl full of soup and a can of sprite, then head towards her room, her door was open and the tv slightly up.

“Y/n!” She hoarsely let out and it broke my heart. “Hey doll, I brought you something to eat. It’s so good, daddy and I had some in the kitchen.” I lied to make her feel better about eating it, Shawn had explained she didn’t want anything all day. He had to force some crackers.

She took a few bites before pushing it away, sipping on sprite slowly. Usually, this girl was like her dad, eating everything before you could blink. “I don’t feel good at all.” She groans and I take her hand into mine, other one combing through her damp curls.

“It’s gonna be alright. You’re such a tough girl and it’ll be okay.” I smile down at her, she half-heartedly smiles. “Are you staying with me? I don’t want you to get sick.” She whines and I chuckle. “You don’t have to worry about that, if I get sick I’ll just make your daddy take care of me.” I joke and send a small wink.

I could tell she was too tired to hold a full conversation, so I gave her some more Tylenol before heading out of her room with the bowl of leftover soup.

“She ate some of it, took some Tylenol and she looked almost out of it.”

“Thank you so much, I’m sorry again. I’ve just been here all day while she vomits or coughs herself to death. I mean it’s the first time I’ve seen her this sick since she was like 3.” He admits and I frown.

“Well, my years of working in a daycare where sickness spread like gossip are about to be handy.” I joke and he giggles.

“I’m so glad you’re here, you know how to make any mood better.” He groans in a delighted way.

“Well, I’m gonna eat that macaroni salad you had leftover and lay on the couch.” I grin and make my plate, taking it to the couch.

I played AGT while we ate, I heard Millie sneeze or cough occasionally.

—-

The sound of cries filled my ears, I shot up quickly and so did Shawn. “I’ve got it, rest,” I told him and I saw the hesitation in his eyes, but I pushed him back down and made my way to her room.

She was in the bathroom attached to her room, she had got sick again, luckily in the toilet. I stood over her to put her hair up in a bun, in case she did it again. I got a rag to put on her, but the feeling of her skin told me she needed a quick cold shower.

“Baby, let’s get in the shower,” I told her, she started whining and didn’t want to get in. So, I started the water and held her while we both stood underneath the cold water. I’m glad I like cold showers, or my ass would be frozen to death.

I got her out of the wet clothes, she was so whiny the whole time, as expected. Her fever was down and she went straight back to bed.

“Please don’t leave yet, I’m scared.” She called out and I nodded before sitting by her bed.

“It’s okay doll, I’m right here. It’s gonna be just fine. Let’s take some of this medicine and eat some crackers, it’ll help.”

She has finished a few saltines and took a kids NyQuil and Dramamine. By the time the medicine started to work, she was drowsy and ready to fall asleep again. “Goodnight doll.” I kiss her forehead, starting to leave the room.

“Night, mommy.” She mumbled and it stopped me in my tracks, a big smile played on my lips and I felt butterflies all over.

I made my way back to Shawn, shaking his body to wake him up. “Let’s go to bed Shawn, you’re gonna hurt your back.” I tug at his arms. “But, what if she needs us?” He asks and I continue to tug at him. “She took Dramamine and NyQuil, she’s gonna be okay.” I get him up and make our way to the bedroom.

“Why is your shirt wet?” He mumbles as he collapsed onto his bed. “She didn’t want to shower alone,” I explain shortly and he had a small grin on his face. “You’re the best girl I’ve ever had in my entire life.” He smiles up absentmindedly, I shake my head at his goofiness as I change into a different tee.

I lay beside him and he just stares at me warmly. “What?” I ask and he just shakes his head. “You’re just amazing.”

“She called me mom. I know it’s not that big of a deal because we’ve only been together for over a year and a half, plus she’s on drowsy medicine, but it warmed my soul.” His eyes widen and then went back to normal after I said it felt good.

“I mean you’re the most mom figure she’s ever had. I guess you should just move in with us.” He sounded like he was jokingly saying it. “Yeah, okay.” I laugh and he sits up a little to look over at me.

“I’m being serious now like you can move in with us. You won’t have to move that far, unlimited access to Mil and I. We love you and want you here.” He adds and my heart explodes.

“Shawn, are you sure? I’m always here or whatever, but this is different. I don’t want to rush you into this.” I brush out some of his curls, he sighed contently.

“What other girls our age, who isn’t already a mom, going to stay with someone else’s kid to make sure they make it through a virus? Or to jump in a cold shower with them? I don’t want to imagine any other good night or bad night with someone else, it’s gonna be you. I’m sure the mom role isn’t gonna be the easiest nor do I expect it from you because you’re my girlfriend, but someone like you in her life is the best I can get. You’re an outstanding woman and I don’t think I’ll ever be this close to perfection again. There’s no rushing this, it’s you.”

“Baby,” I mumbled with tears in my eyes. I mean he can’t just give me a speech like that and not expect me to want to marry him right now. “You’re the sweetest human on this earth. I just really love the two of you and I mean I love kids because I worked in a daycare, but my love for Millie is so much more. I literally just don’t want her to ever get hurt and I want to watch her grow. I love her most because she’s you, she lacks a mom but she has you and is just like you. You’re as amazingly wonderful and it’s like the tiny human form.”

“So, is that a yes to moving in or a big pretty speech before you crush my soul?” He asks and I chuckle.

“Yes I’ll move in with you, I don’t wanna do this without you guys.”

I watch his face light up more, he kisses all over my face and bear hugs me. “God, this means I get to wake up to your beautiful face every day.” He exclaimed while squeezing the life out of me.

“Can you believe that your daughter saw my Queen shirt and it led to this? Like this whole new life for us?” I ask and he chuckles into the crevice of my neck, the hot air tickling me some.

“Good thing she wasn’t scared off by your potty mouth.” He whispers and I slap his back lightly.

“Hey, don’t be a dick! I dropped my drink.” I pout even though he can’t see it.

He hums approval before nuzzling further into me, arms tight and patterns being traced.

It was calm and almost full silence before he broke it, in a quiet manner though.

“And if the mother role gets to be too much, just tell me. The last thing I want is to lose you from being pressured into it.” He whispers and I shake my head.

“It’s all gonna be alright, Freddie Mercury would believe it’s all gonna work itself out, so I will believe it too. We’re gonna be just fine, love.”

[galadrieljones]

That he may hold me by the hand: chapter 8

Pairing: Arthur Morgan x Albert Mason  

Rating: Mature (Adult Themes and Situations, Violence, and Sexual Content)

Summary: After saving Albert from stumbling off a cliff in the Heartlands, Arthur invites him to Valentine for a drink. What ensues after that is a quiet love story, in which both men find themselves completely undone.

Masterpost | AO3 | Epigraph

Chapter 8: St. Denis was never enough.

“Goddam cemeteries,” said Arthur. He was loading his volcanic. It was early night, and they were creeping through the mausoleums. It had become imperative for them to play errand boys, running out grave robbers in their final push to bring Jack back. It was by far the most ridiculous bullshit with which they had ever been tasked. There was a dog barking somewhere amongst the tombstones, and they kept finding vagrants crouching here and there as if the dead could somehow keep them warm. It all made Arthur feel sick in his bones. “This place is hellish.”

“I appreciate you being here,” said John. He seemed nervous, but not by ghosts nor vagrants. He was terrified about Jack. “Seriously.”

“Of course I’m here,” said Arthur. "Don't be a moron."

“Braithwaite Manor weren’t no picnic. I still smell like smoke.”

Arthur lit a cigarette. He was smoking it and feeling dry in his throat and in his eyes. He was tired. He hadn’t slept properly in two days. “Ain’t sure what you expected.”

“Dutch is losing his mind, Arthur,” said John. “Don’t you think? I ain’t too keen on what I see.”

"I don't see much of anything no more."

“I ain’t sure how much of it I see neither. Seems an awful waste. Of a life? All this time, and running? I don’t even know what he’s talking about half the time.”

“You really ought to leave,” said Arthur, looking around. There was a sad dove singing somewhere nearby. It was creepy. Arthur swore under his breath.

“Leave and go where?” said John. He stopped, like he had got confused by his location.

“I don’t know,” said Arthur. “Anywhere. We get Jack back, and then I reckon you ought to wrangle him, Abigail, and leave. Ain't no reason to stick around no more if you don't follow.”

"What about loyalty?" John said.

Arthur said nothing of it at first. In his mind, he had traveled far from the notion of loyalty. His loyalties had changed. He didn't know what the goddam word meant anymore. "Be loyal to what matters," he said, pulling words out of his ass. But they sounded true.

John seemed pensive on this. He had stopped cold and Arthur along with him. They were officially lost, but neither of them seemed to care, or even notice. “Interesting,” said John. "Real interesting. What about you then?"

“What about me.”

“You and Albert.”

Arthur looked at him, taken off guard. John was unwavering in his resolve, gazing through the fog. “Come on,” said Arthur, ignoring the question. “Let’s get a move on.”

“You can tell me the truth,” said John, following behind. “I ain’t—I would never judge you, Arthur. Not for that.”

“For what?”

“For loving a man. It ain’t like that. And hey, maybe I’m wrong? But I’m just calling it like I see it.”

“You ain’t wrong,” said Arthur. He had the cigarette crammed between his lips. He’d started to get freaked out by the atmosphere of the cemetery, so he holstered his volcanic and opted instead for his repeater. He looked back at John who was earnest and reminding him of a dog who had wandered into a field of corn. He looked so young, thought Arthur. He looked as young as he had the day Arthur took him out that noose in Chicago. Arthur remembered how he’d had ligature bruises on his neck as if he had been dragged for a mile, and when they got him back to their camp in Putnam all the way over on the Illinois River, he did not speak for two days. It still broke Arthur up inside, to think of it.

“Arthur?”

"It’s just—” He shook his head out, to get brave. “You ain’t wrong. Okay?”

John nodded. He didn’t push nor prod. He just said, “Okay.” He seemed satisfied. “I think the place we’re looking for is just ahead.”

“Thank Jesus.”

They finished the job upright and got out clean inside twenty minutes. As they rode home, John struggled with Jack, who seemed enamored of the brief, fancy life he had lived while sequestered at Mr. Angelo Bronte’s. He talked in ecstatic, shiny terms, which intimidated John at first. Arthur mostly found it amusing, though he understood. He was relieved to have Jack back. He was relieved. He had known all along how bad it could have gone, and he had to close his eyes to shake the old fear from his heart.

It wasn’t long before they were back at Shady Belle, and the gang was celebrating Jack’s heroic rescue along with the false comeuppance of all those who had wronged them. Arthur smoked idly and stood off grooming his horse so as to avoid Dutch and even more so Hosea who was sick and getting sicker and whose love he knew to be true but constantly misguided by his thirst for the life. Arthur had never felt any such lust for anything and standing now, in the swamps of southern Lemoyne, he felt farther away from his own life and his own love than he ever had. It took him a great deal of will to finally enter their camp that night. A big haunted house in a big haunted country.

It had been four days, and Albert, in a fit of boredom and cabin fever, rode his horse out of the city and to a safe camping spot, north of Rhodes near Dewberry Creek. It had been so long since he’d slept outdoors that he was beginning to wonder if any of it had ever happened. The creek was an Arcadian dream, full of Whitetail, fox, rabbits. Scarce boar. He tracked a twelve-point buck for a while and took its picture, felt free and alone and calm. He built a fire and his tent, fished a fish in the creek, cleaned and cooked it up for his dinner in the manner taught to him by Arthur. He poured a glass of bourbon whiskey and ate as the sun went down behind the tangled tree line, feeling proud.

Before he had left St. Denis, Albert stopped at the post office where there was waiting for him a letter from his mother. He had been looking forward to her correspondence for a couple weeks now. Before he went to sleep that night, he leaned against a fallen tree trunk, sipping more of the whiskey, and he read that letter by the light of the fire. His mother’s letters were long, requiring time and commitment. They often read like opinion editorials full of immaculate grammar and journalistic observations upon her own life and his and the lives of those she deemed worthy of conversation in the high society of Philadelphia. She was a good writer, educated at Vassar College prior to marrying Albert’s father, the son of a prominent businessman from New York. She was into her mid-fifties now, living in Philadelphia, and she had been alone for many years. He worried about her, sometimes. She had always seemed a tough cookie, but knowing Arthur had tough him well that a strong armor is worth little more than the human sadness it protects.

In his last letter, Albert had told his mother of Arthur—not in a bid for her approval. He just wanted her to know.  The letter he received in return now was several pages long and full of life, but it did not mention Arthur until the very end. He smoked several cigarettes as he read, and by the time he got to the final paragraph, he was happily drunk and sat up off the fallen tree, leaning closer to the fire, for what he read would serve to change his life—

Well, dear Al, we are nearing the end of this most current exchange, and in the spirit of your previous letter, I would like to close things with a quaint proposition for you. You remember my brother, your Uncle Matthew, who recently purchased a large stake of land out on the central coast of California? Well, Matthew has taken a wife, and together they have purchased a home in San Francisco. In the wake of things, he has offered the ranch to me, free and clear. I have taken him up on his offer, of course, and plan to leave in three weeks time. As you well know, I have been aching for departure to the west for many years, and as a result will be closing up the Philadelphia estate indefinitely.

The property in California is comprised of 200 acres of terrain with water, plus a wide stable and two free-standing homes. It also holds a significant quarters for farmhands and stable boys and finds its end on a cliff that drops off into the wide, blue Pacific. I have seen photographs, and it is quite beautiful. Obviously, it is far too much for me to occupy by myself, however, and what I mean to propose is that, should you and your Arthur find yourselves in need of a home once your stretch in St. Denis comes to a close, you should pack your bags and get on a train to Monterey. Technically it is in a little place called Carmel-by-the-Sea, but you catch my meaning. I hope you’ll come. I am certain you would discover a wealth of inspiration for your work out west, Al. And Arthur as well, for I know how you mentioned he is an artist.

Please be in touch, hastily, as if the two of you plan on coming to stay, I will need to ready the property. I like to be prepared! Good luck with your opening, and remember how I love you. Give Arthur my warm regards. I do hope to meet him soon. You sound happy.

Your Loving Mother,

Cynthia

Much later, with the night winding down, Arthur stood chain-smoking on the swamp as a thunderstorm now raged over the horizon of the Lanahechee. With the adrenaline wore off, his body felt beat as he looked at the dark water ahead of him. It seemed endless and humid. Behind him there was the party, still going on and on as ticker tape. Javier played the guitar while Karen sang with Miss Grimshaw and they drank whiskey by the fire.

The colors of the world in which Arthur lived were changing, all around him. He felt sour and uncomfortable there, held up inside and anxious to unleash himself from the life to which he had been yoked for so long. Having forged a life of his own, separate from the interests of the gang, this was now all that Arthur could think about. He knew that it was selfish but he could not remember any other time in his life in which had allowed himself to entertain his own needs long enough to even register what selfishness felt like. He was bored and agitated as he looked out at the swampy river’s edge.

Mary Beth came down at some point and stood beside him, a welcome surprise. She had a pale scarf tied around her hair as if to protect from the occasional blowing rain. Arthur gave her a cigarette, lit it for her off the burning end of his own. Together they stood, looking at the lightning for a while, and smoking like old times.

“You did good, Arthur,” she said after some time. She glanced at him from behind the scarf like she was hiding part of herself. Thunder went off in the distance and shook the land. “Getting Jack back. It was a real good thing you did for John.”

“I know,” he said. “Thank you.”

“I’m supposed to tell you that Dutch wants to talk to you.” She said it half-heartedly. She did not even look at him.

Arthur said nothing.

“Anyway, John’s inside,” Mary Beth went on, smoking. “He’s with Abbie and Jack. Things seem good between them, for once.”

“I’m glad.”

“Arthur?” said Mary Beth.

He looked at her, sensing the curiosity and the concern on the edge of her voice. She wore it so often with him. They had been friends a long time. “What is it?” he said.

“I’m gonna ask you something,” she said, watching the water, “and you don’t have to answer. I won’t mind. I promise. But if you do answer, please tell me the truth. Don’t spare my feelings.”

“Go ahead, Mary Beth.”

Out on the edge of the horizon, lightning threaded the sky. The storm was moving fast. It was headed to sea.

“Mr. Mason,” she said, looking at her hands, “do you love him?”

He smoked. He finished his cigarette, tossed it to the earth and put it out with the heel of his boot. He nodded, gripping his belt, glancing to her and her freckled cheeks. “Yes,” he said.

Her breath did not catch, and she did not hesitate. She simply nodded, took a drag, and blew the smoke out in the air. “Okay,” she said.

“Mary Beth,” said Arthur.

“It’s okay,” she said. She smiled at him, through a fierce façade, as if she were trying desperately not to cry. “Please don’t apologize. I’m glad you found somebody, Arthur. Somebody decent. I surely am, as I want you to be happy. You deserve love.” She put the hair behind her ears and looked at her cigarette. “I never held no expectations for us. I know it sometimes seemed that way but I swear.”

“I know,” he said, studying her. “I know.”

“We’re friends. Ain’t we?”

“Always.”

“Good,” she said, like she was relieved. “You know I used to be filled with all these fantasies, especially when I first joined up with you boys. Knights in armor, all that. They saved my mind for many years. You always fit that bill.”

“I ain’t no knight, Mary Beth.”

“You are to me,” she said. “And I ain’t forgotten.”

“I will always protect you,” said Arthur. “Any way I can. And I am thankful for you. Taking care of me after all that nasty business, in ways that no one else would. For listening to me. You will find love, Mary Beth. If that is what you desire. I know it.”

“Thanks, Arthur.”

“You’re welcome.”

They smoked. The sky churned. “I been saving up, you know,” said Mary Beth, finishing her cigarette, throwing it into the water. She adjusted the scarf in her hair. “I got more than $800.”

“Saving up for what?” said Arthur.

“For leaving the gang,” she said, like a revelation. “It won’t be long now. I been reading a lot, about the Midwest. There are places up there I could live forever, on a much longer dime. I could get a room, with a desk. Maybe even a cabin. A place to write all these stories I been cooking up in my mind. I don’t doubt they’re terrible, but still. They’re mine. I want to make something, Arthur. I can’t do that here. Try as I been, it’s too much running, too much uncertainty.”

“I get that,” said Arthur. “And I think that’s a fine plan.”

“You should go, too,” she said, growing wistful, like she had stars in her eyes. “With Albert. He loves you. He has money. He can take you away from here. From all this. You should let him, Arthur.”

Arthur looked at her, and then he glanced back to the party where he could not see nor hear nothing but debauchery. It was a mixture of those he loved and those he no longer understood, and he knew that in time, all would draw to a close, and it would make no difference. None at all. The hour was growing late now. The night was long. He did not go to see Dutch. He breathed.

The next morning when Albert returned from his camping trip on Dewberry Creek, he opened the door to his apartment and found Arthur inside, waiting. He had been sitting on the sofa, sketching furiously, and when Albert came in, he looked up, relieved, stood and closed his journal.

“Where you been?” he said.

“Arthur,” said Albert, happily surprised. He set down his valise and his tripod, and he removed his hat. “How did you get in here?”

“I uh—I picked the lock,” said Arthur. “Sorry."

"Don't be sorry," said Albert.

"I got here late last night. You wasn't here."

“I went for a ride,” said Albert. “Don't worry. Did you find Jack? Is he okay?”

“Yes,” said Arthur. “He’s back with his family now. Thank you for asking.”

“Of course,” said Albert. “I’m relieved. It seemed so serious.”

They stood across the room from one another now, as if yet too hesitant to cross. Both of them looked at their shoes for a moment, very still in this liminal space.

At some point, Albert finally came over, and both of them sat down on the couch. Albert reached for Arthur’s hand and held it steadfastly. They looked at each other. Arthur studied Albert’s face closely and said, “So, you went for a ride, huh? You look a little windswept.”

“Yes,” said Albert. “I went out camping, just one night. Over on Dewberry Creek.”

“Dewberry Creek?” said Arthur. “That’s pretty country over there. Bold move, Mr. Mason."

“Well, we are untamed," he said, smiling to himself. "I got some wonderful shots of a twelve-point buck. I caught a fish as well.”

“You did?”

“I did.”

“Very good."

“Thank you,” said Albert. He blushed. “I got a letter from my mother yesterday.”

“That sounds nice,” said Arthur. He ran his thumb across Albert's knuckles. His whole body calm, safe. His heart was quiet. “What did she have to say?”

“A lot, actually,” said Albert.

“Oh yeah?”

The morning sun was pouring in through the windows, soaking the room and making it warm. There were some loud and joyful noises then, coming in through the wide open French doors from the bustling street outside. It sounded like a bunch of kids, getting loose, playing tag, being free.

[iliketowrite1996]

Announcements and Alumni part 2

   TRIGGER WARNING- PARENTAL DISAPPROVAL, DISAPPROVAL OF RELATIONSHIP AND MARRIAGE, FEELINGS LIKE A BURDEN, INSECURITY, MENTIONS OF UNCLE BEN.

It has been a week since you and Peter became Mr. and Mrs. Parker,and you couldn’t be more thrilled. Your wedding night was spent in a small,crowded dorm room and you got a hotel room the next night, but it was wonderful. You’ve felt like you were walking on air, like you could do anything. These last few days have been stress-free for the most part, and yo and Peter loved and savored every second of it.

   Now it is the day of your joint graduation party that Mr. Tony Stark himself is hosting for you, and you feel queasy and ill.

   Because he and May still do not know that you and Peter tied the knot, exchanged vows, got hitched.

   In short, they don’t know that Mr. Parker’s plus one (okay, not really because it’s your party, too) is his wife and vice versa.

   Worse case scenario?

   They flip out and don’t speak to either of you for a really long time.

   Best case scenario?

   They just flip out.

   You're hoping for best case scenario here.

   ‘’Are you nervous,’’ Peter asks as the two of you make your way to the venue where the  event is being held.’’

   ‘’Of course I am. Aren’t you?’’

   ‘’Oh, I’m terrified. Mr. Stark and Maya Are gonna flip out when we tell them, but we knew that when we decided to go ahead and get married anyway,’’ he reminds you.

   ‘’You’re right,’’ you sigh as your short walk from the hotel room you’d booked last night to the venue ends, ‘’Are you ready?’’

   ‘’Ready,’’ Peter responds, pressing a kiss to the skin on the back of your hand before opening the door for you.

   The ballroom is extravagantly decorated, with flowers that seem to actually be glowing under the light form the crystal chandeliers that hang from above.

   The room has a soft glow to it, just like your skin (‘’Some post-wedding week, huh?,’’ Shuri had said yesterday, wiggling her eyebrows).

   ‘’This is so expensive,’’you swallow thickly, ‘’Peter…’’

   ‘’This is just in his style. He won’t be mad. We’re still graduating, we just took a different route with our relationship.’’

   That’s easy to read on paper and east for the both of you to understand, but something tells you that Mr. Stark and Aunt May won’t see things like you and Peter do.

   So you are careful not to let her see either of your hands as he pulls you both into hugs, pressing kisses to your temples and exclaiming how proud she is of you Mr. Stark or May were to bring up your nuptials, he’d definitely spill the beans.

   The sinking feeling in your stomach only intensifies, and Peter starts to look -and feel- uncomfortable.

   It isn’t until your friends are filingin that he really worried.

   Peter knows that Ned will blurt out just about anything when he’s nervous. It is for that reason that Peter Is basically attached to his hip until cocktail hour is over, and dinner is served,

   When Mr. Stark stands up to make a toast and congratulate you two on your impending graduation ceremony, you feel the rock that has sunk to the bottom of your stomach disappear only to be joined by bubbles that make you feel sick all over again.    

From the way that Peter is clutching his tummy, he probably feels the same way.

   May standing up and saying how proud she is of you two is what takes the cake, though, and you two pull her and Tony aside to talk things out.

   ‘’What’s going on, you two? Why do you look like you are about to vomit,’’ she questions, wrapping a arm around the both of you, ‘’Do I need to take you both home?’’

   ‘’No,’’ Peter gently takes her arm off of his shoulder, before taking your hand and moving you sos that you are cuddled up against his side, ‘’But we do need to tell you something.’’

   Tony and May look at each other before cooking back to you, silently urging you to continue.

   ‘’So, we’d both been thinking a lot about how you say that we are too young to get married,’’ Peter begins, spring a glance at you before continuing on, ‘’But we truly love each other. We want to be together forever. We know that we are young, but we also know that we can make this work;;

   ‘’And perhaps you can,’’ Tony begins slowly, ‘’When you are older.’’

   ‘’You both just finished yout college courses. You don’t have an apartment together  or anything. Where would you stay?’’

   ‘’In the apartment that we just paid first months’ rent on,’’ you clear your throat, ‘’We got signed yesterday.’’

   ‘’Well this is news to me,’’ Tony raises an eyebrow, ‘’May?’’

   ‘’This is my first time hearing about it, too.’’

   ‘’There’s more,’’ you say timidly taking in a deep breath before Peter continues for you.

   ‘’We got married. Last week at the courthouse.’’

   May and Tony look at you, searching for any sign that the two of you may be kidding.        Tony’s expression is unreadable, but Mya is obviously livid.

   ‘’What the f-’’

   ‘’How dare you two go against your orders,’’ Tony asks quietly, softly.

   ‘’With all due respect, Mr. Stark, you're always the one that’s telling me to chase my dreams, no matter what anyone says. And, me marrying her was my dream and now it's a reality. So if anything-’’

   ‘’Kid,’’ Tony snaps, using a phrase towards Peter that he hasn’t used since the man started college, ‘’Don’t you dare say that this was my fault. I told you to go after your dreams academically. In your career. In your work. You know full well that this was not what I meant.’’

   ‘’Have you two any idea what you’ve done? Marriage is a commitment, alright? This isn't something that you should have rushed into. You two,’’ May adds., pointing between the two of you, ‘’have made a mistake.’’

   ‘’No, we have not. We love each other. We don’t take this lightly. We asked you months ago-’’ you try to say.

   ‘’And we told you no,’’ Tony steps in, cutting you off, ‘’I can’t imagine that your family is too thrilled about this stint.’’

   ‘’We haven't’ told them yet,’’ you quietly confess, ‘’We’re going to tell them at graduation.’’

   Tony shakes his head, turning away from the both of you and looking out the large, square window that overlooks the city.

   ‘’You are children in the grand scheme of things. You don’t know what you’re getting yourself into. Ben and i might not have been married that long, but it was tough. It can be tough when life throws things at you.’’

   ‘’I’m sorry I was just thrown at you,’’ Peter’s voice cracks, but his facial expression never budgies, like itis st in stone.

   May fixes him with an icy look, ‘’Don’t you dare, Peter Parker. You know that I love you and I don’t regret taking you in. We all know that’s not what this is about.’’

   ‘’It’s about you two not thinking things through. We didn’t want you to get married before you get out there into the world after college. If your relationship got through that, okay, then. Get married. But you two had to rush  ahead because you think you know better than we do.’’

   ‘’Mr. Stark, it’s not like that. May, you know me better than that. Look, I’m sorry if you two can’t accept this, but it is what it is. We’re married. We’re adults. We’ve made our own decision.’’

   Tony laughs bitterly, and Peter’s hand tightness over your.

   ‘’Fine then, kid. Since you think you’re so grown, and don’t need me anymore, I’ll give you what you want. Don’t count on me coming to that graduation,’’Tony walks aps the two of you, pushing through you to make you and Peter disconnect your hands.

It feels like anomen, almost. That a relationship will be broken and never fixed again.

The feeling and the tightness in your stomach area only intensified when may leaves without another word, sparing you one last look as she shakes her head.

Decisions were made.

Relationships were tested and some seemed to have fizzled out.

In order for the star that is your marriage to continue burning bright two other relationships fixed and fell right out of the night sky and onto the cold, dark, ground.

It’s too early yet to decide if it was worth it.

You and Peter don’t talk about it that night. In fact, you barely talk at all. You go to bed,a s does he. Your backs face each other as you sleep on the blow up mattress, grateful that some of your friends helped you impromptu move in today.

Things don’t go back to normal so soon. Peter hands you your morning coffee with a smile that doesn't reach his eyes and you kiss him with passion that had long been forgotten and is now easily replaced by routine.

You don’t really talk until two days later, where you decide that just because your relationships with May and Tony, and his relations with May and Tony, ended, doesn't mean this one should be left behind, too.

So Peter holds your hand as you both enter the arena for graduation, decorated caps perched on your heads and black gowns clothing your bodies.

       Ned and Miles are talking while Shuri helps Michelle go over her speech for the commencement ceremony.

   Peter’s hand rus smooth circles on the small of your back as you watch parents and family mill in and out and around to find students and greet them before they must take either seats and you all must go to the graduate waiting room.

   T’Challa an Ramonda have come all the way form Wakanda to see Shuri.

   Michelle, Miles, and Ned’s families are all here.

   Your family is here, too, sitting off in the right balcony after having said hello to ou and Peter at breakfast this morning.

   But two people are missing, and yo and Peter know that this day could never be the same without them.

   ‘’I’m glad I’m not too late.’’

   You turn to see May dressed in a white, floral gown, carrying a small box and a bouquet of flowers.

   Peter lets go of your hand, leaving your side for the first time all day to embrace her.

   Her tears soak his graduation owners she takes in the vision of her one and only nephew, standing tall and ready to walk across the stage in just a half hour.

   ‘’I’m glad you came,’’ Peter’s voice cracks, and she presses a kiss to his cheek.

   ‘’You know I wouldn't miss this,’’ May reminds him, turning to you and opening an arm for you, initiating a hug.    

Words go unspoken, but not is not the time.

   Some things are better left unsaid anyway.

   That stands true when, lo and behold, Tony Stark shoes up moments later.

   Peter releases himself from his embrace with May, strolling over to the older man.

   Peter and Tony stare at eachother, dark brown eyes meeting hazel ones.

   No words are said but a conversation is definitely being held.

   Whatever is spoken between the two, it causes Peter to fall into Tony’s arms sobbing as the older man embraces him,

   It’s a moment that feels so private that you almost look away.

   That is until Tony motions you over, and pulls you into a hug, too.

   ‘’I’m proud of both of you. You’re adults now. Gonna have to get use to letting you make your own mistakes and your own choices.’’

   There is so much more left to say.

   Things that you don’t want to hold onto until after the ceremony, but that you'll have to.

   So you bid them a goodbye, telling them to get to their seats as you, Peter, Miles, Shur, Ned and MJ file into the room where the rest of the graduates are waiting.

   Things were left unsaid, and conversations will definitely have to be held.

   It doesn’t matter, right now though. You cheer and clap when Peter crosses the stage. He does the same for you. You and all of your friends endure the ritual of pictures being taken and even meet each other's families.

   It’s an hour after the ceremony is over that you and Peter finally walk hand-in-hand towards May, Tony, and the rest of your family.

   It shocks you that you use the word ‘’rest’’ but , then again,it doesn't’. It’s true. The conversations can, and will, wait for later. You're celebrating with your family right now.

   There will be plenty of time for everything else later.

   So you snuggle into Peter’s side as Tony tells a joke, making the whole table laugh.

   Soon, you’ll tell them you’re married,

   Then, you’ll talk to May and Tony about your plans.    

Finally, you'll fall into bed with Peter, ready to say goodnight and kiss each other before drifting off to sleep.

   ‘’I love you, Mrs. Parker,’’ Peter whispers low enough for only you to hear.

   ‘’I love you, too, Mr. Parker,’’ you respond back before giving him alight kiss.

   At least for right now, that’s definitely more than good enough.

DISCLAIMER- I OWN NO RIGHTS TO MARVEL CHARACTERS OR THEIR FICTIONAL WORLDS, I AM JUST USING THEM BECAUSE THEY INSPIRE FANFICTION

@ashanti-notthesinger​ @destinio1​ @afraiddreamingandloving​ @starsshines-blog​ @airis-paris14​ @syreanne​ @chaneajoyyy​ @90sinspiredgirl​ @shemiahsmelanin @zillmonger @skysynclair19 @bidibidibombaclaat @marvelpotterlove @constantlycravingtheunknown @imaginewhoever @wakanda-inspired @pocmarvelworks @theunsweetenedtruth @dreampovx

[spookyyenna]

Power Rangers Wing Commanders: Episode 1: Wings of Change Pt. 1

Greetings everyone! It is I, Spookyyenna! I’ve decided to return to Tumblr and give it another chance. And along with that, here is the first episode of my PR story! So if you’re a Power Rangers fan, then this is the story for you! Leave a comment and enjoy the story.

In the deep, dark, depths of space. There were multiple stars and planets orbiting around the cold and quiet atmosphere, but, suddenly a massive portal appeared and out came an alien spacecraft that was in the color of fuchsia with a hint of grey. It had two engines in the back and two sets of missiles under each wing. Inside the spacecraft were reptilian-like foot soldiers, otherwise known as, Nexors, were either carrying an alien blaster or a laser-blade. Their attire consists of a magenta battle armor and holsters for their weapons. Most of them patrol through the corridors, while others were guarding the more private parts of the ship. However, the only flaw about these reptilian-like beings was the fact that they lack basic knowledge and had tendencies to not follow simple directions. Luckily, there were four other beings that had more sense than these incompetent fools. 

At the front of the ship, stood three different figures; each of them being an anthropomorphic animal. The tallest one was the timber wolf named Rag-Zar. He was a mighty warrior with a ferocious temper, a powerful saber, and a pack of mysterious daggers. The wolf also had a serious demeanor that meant business and most definitely wasn’t the type to fool around or to make “jokes”. He was also a general of sorts and he expects everything to go his way. Unfortunately, the other two weren’t so agreeable. One was a female spotted hyena named Sheira; she didn't fit the stereotypes about hyenas, although, she was fierce and was not to be underestimated. In combat, she fights to win, even if her opponent parishes in the process. Sheira also happens to be the master of blades. Whether it be a knife or a short sword, the cunning hyena will use it to her advantage. However, she doesn't work alone. By her side is her twin brother, Zerrick, a tough spotted hyena with a twisted personality and an underbite to boot. Unlike his twin sister, the spotted hyena can only handle one blade and solely relies on his gauntlet that he wields on his dominant wrist. These twin hyenas are extremely dangerous, especially when they work together. However, because they're brother and sister, they have a tendency to get into squabbles, in which, gives both Rag-Zar and their master a living headache. Unfortunately, it makes the latter more angry and more likely to punish the two mammals. However, when it comes to their undying loyalty to their master, there’s no doubt that they will be by their master’s side until the bitter end. But, for now, they all have their eyes set on conquering a new planet. A planet that is known throughout the entire universe; a planet known as, earth.

“How much longer until we reach the planet!? I’m dying to cause some destruction!” Zerrick asked with impatience and confidence in his voice.

“And as I told you 10 minutes ago...you impatient malcontent...we’ll get there WHEN WE GET THERE!!! NOW STOP PESTERING ME BEFORE I USE YOUR HEAD AS AN ORNAMENT PIECE!!!”  Rag-Zar yelled as he was getting sick of the hyena’s constant questions. “Why don’t you go bother your sister or something!?”

“Because she threatened to rip my fur off if I continue to pester her…plus she told me to bug you,” Zerrick pouted. “And must you always yell?! I swear you’re gonna lose your voice one of these days.”

Rag-Zar rolled his eyes before replying, “Not if I lose what’s left of my sanity and brain cells talking to you first.”

Zerrick took an offense to that statement and whipped out his gauntlet as he got up and personal in the ill-tempered wolf’s face. “Listen here snaggletooth! I may not be the brightest mammal in the room, but, I will NOT tolerate your petty insults. So take it back or I’ll-”

“Or you’ll what!?” Rag-Zar growled as he started to size up the hyena. “In case you forgot: I’m a wolf, I’m twice your size, I’m better than you in combat, and if it was up to me or even our master, I would’ve launched you to the nearest and biggest black hole that we can find in this galaxy.”

But before the two mammals could go any further with their confrontation, a sudden ear-piercing sound waived through their ears and caused them both to fall onto their knees and grip their ears in pure pain and agony as they whine and beg for the sound to stop and go away. Fortunately for Rag-Zar and Zerrick, the sound went away. Unfortunately, the source of the sound came from someone that they both feared and respected; their master. He was a tall individual with a dark demeanor and an aura that was made out of pure evil and darkness. He also wore a metallic-silver suit of armor with a hint of light green in some areas; most of his body, except for his mouth, was covered by the armor. In his dominant hand, which was his right, he wielded a mighty spear that glowed a dark purple-ish color when releasing the powerful sound waves. He then proceeded towards the two mammals as they were getting their second wind from the horrible ringing in their ears.

“Get up...Now!” he demanded as he stomped his spear on the ground. “You were supposed to be warriors. Not childish brats fighting over a toy! Sheira has more common sense than the both of you combine!” he continued as he glared at the two grown mammals. “If I hear any more of this nonsense between the two of you, I will turn you lot into fur and dust!! Am I understood!?” Dark Sparrow growled.

“Forgive us, Master Dark Sparrow!” Rag-Zar and Zerrick said in unison as they got back on their feet and bowed to show respect and forgiveness towards their master. Once that was said and done, both warriors stayed quiet and kept their distance from each other to avoid another confrontation. Dark Sparrow was satisfied with this result and walked back to his throne with a quiet but stoic look on his face as he had his mind on other things. But, suddenly, his train of thoughts came to a close when he was approached by his second-in-command; Sheira.

“I must apologize for my brother's childish behavior master,” bowed Sheira. “I'd say he needs more ‘home training’ but, I'm positive that it'll just go through his empty head. Like his brain!” she added, in which, earned her an embarrassing glare from her twin sibling and a light chuckle from Rag-Zar. “Anyways, I came to inform you that we are getting close to the designated planet.”

“Excellent!” Dark Sparrow smirked, “Engage the ship’s thrusters and prepare the Nexors for battle. I want to hear the inhabitants of this planet scream as we destroy their homes and watch them plea for mercy.” he smirks once more as he makes a tight fist.

“As you wish, Master.” Sheira bowed once more and proceeded with Dark Sparrow’s instructions as he took his seat on the throne. But not before giving a sinister laugh that echoed throughout the entire ship.

*Time: 8:00 am.

*Location: Earth.

*Destination: Finn Hill, California.

“Good Morning Finn Hill!! FHN Reporter J.B Bell, here reporting live from Downtown on this beautiful Monday morning!” The news reporter announced with great enthusiasm in his voice. He was an anthropomorphic blue jay with feathers that were groomed to the touch. He also wore a grey business suit with a white shirt and a blue tie under. “The Mayor will be holding a special celebration in honor of the city's founder; Finnigan Weston Hill. We will keep you guys updated at the station as preparations for the big event is in progress. This is J.B. Bell, signing off.” and with that, the avian news reporter took a huge breath relief before retreating to the news van and grabbing a bottle of water. “That was exhausting…”

“Nice work J.B.!” Said the cameraman as he turned off the camera and put it into the van. He was a middle-aged man with light skin, jet black hair and a slightly receding hairline. His uniform mainly consists of a leather jacket with a crimson t-shirt underneath, a pair of navy blue jeans, and grey sneakers. “You always know how to start everyone's day.”

“...Thanks, Leonardo.” J.B. yawned. “I'm not used to being out so early in the morning...not since high school at least. But enough about me, how you've been doing since...you know…?”

The cameraman, Leonardo, got quiet and sheepish. He knew what question his boss and friend was about to ask, and it made him uncomfortable every time. But Leonardo knew, if he doesn't talk about it, it'll drive him crazy for months. “I-I’ve been alright...I guess… it's just something new for me to deal with..”

“Leo…I'm sorry. M-Maybe it was too soon to bring it up,” Said J.B. “If you don't feel comfortable talking about it, I understand.”

“Jerome-Bernard Bell,” Leonardo started. “It’s okay. I’ll be alright. Getting divorced can have different effects on people; Ava needs her space and our son is handling it in his own way. Although, I can’t imagine he’s hurt about this.”

“Yeesh...the only people that full-named me were my parents, my partner, and our boss. But I didn’t think you had it in you...” J.B. replied bashfully. “But you make a good point tho Leo. C’mon! Let’s go make sure the equipment is set up correctly. That should take your mind off things.” he says as he smiled at his cameraman.

Leonardo appreciated the suggestion from his news partner/friend as he follows him back to his van. Suddenly both individuals and their vehicle were overcast by a massive shadow. They looked up at the sky and saw a massive spacecraft hover over them until three figures teleported to the ground with their weapons in their paws. J.B. and Leonardo were stunned with fear and couldn’t move a muscle. All they could do was watch as the three figures walk up to them with the female one pointing one of her blades at the frightened avian’s throat.

“Alright, bird boy. Unless you want to be a featherless bird, you better start talking.” the female figure threatened. “What’s the name of this civilization that you, earthlings, call ‘home’?”

“F-Finn Hill...Finn Hill, California. T-That’s the name of our city. I swear that’s all I know.”

“Hmph! Smart bird. I’ll let you live. For now. You might get lucky and get enslaved for all of eternity. Now for your friend over here,” she says as she puts one arm around Leo’s neck, with the other one wielding a blade that is aimed at the side of it. “So, ‘quiet one’ who’s the leader of this place, that you call Finn...Hill…?”

Leonardo stayed quiet for a few seconds which honestly felt like forever. He wasn’t sure if he wanted to talk or not. But, he knows if he doesn’t speak, the female figure and her two companions could hurt J.B. or worse. “...our ‘leader’ is Mayor Suzuki. That’s all I know as well. Please, we both have families. I couldn’t forgive myself if anything happened to them…” Leonardo pleaded.

“Save your pity party for the next group of invaders who actually cares about your simple lives,” the female figure sassed. “Rag-Zar, be a good boy and take care of these two. We got all of the information that we needed.”

“I’m not your little ‘puppy-dog’ Sheira! But as you wish.” said Rag-Zar, as he began to, murmur an ancient spell with his paws and eyes glowing a bright orange-ish color. Once he was done with the spell, the male wolf zaps the avian and human, as he put them both in an energy sphere, in which, puts the two in a sleeping trance. “Shall I leave them here? Or do we allow the master to deal with these two witnesses?”

Sheira smiled devilishly at the energy sphere, before replying with, “Don’t worry. The master is already in the midst of a plan.”

Time: 9:00

Location: Finn Hill High School

BRRRRIIINNNGGGGG!!!

As the school bell ranged, students of all shapes, sizes, colors, and species were roaming all over the hallways. Most of them trying to find their classes or their friends in all of the chaos. But before it can get any louder and crazy, a large brown bear in a blue blazer with matching trousers walked into the middle of the hallway with a cup of coffee in one paw and a silver whistle in the other. He then proceeds to blow into the small instrument, in which, got every student to quiet down and give their attention to the large mammal in the center.

“I hate to ruin your meetups and conversations, but the first bell just rang. And If you don’t like to spend your first day back at school in detention, then I suggest we all go to class, Yes?” the mammal smiled.

“Yes, Principal Bernstein…” the crowd of students replied with a few of them grunting and rolling their eyes in annoyance.

“That’s better,” said Principal Bernstein as he started to make his way back to the office. Along the way, he said good morning to a few students and fellow faculty as they all headed off to their individual classrooms and offices. Suddenly a blur, which was in the form of a student, flew past the principal. Miraculously, the bear already recognized the student and immediately stopped him in his tracks. “Running late again...Mr. Jones?”

The student stopped in his tracks and turned around in a very awkward matter. He also had a sheepish grin on his face. “Heyyy, Principal B! How’s it hanging? Did you do something to your fur? It looks so smooth and ravishing” the student said as he tried to sweet-talk his way out of the situation. But alas, this wasn’t going to end well.

“...Detention?” the student sighed.

“Same time after school, Mr. Jones. Don’t be late,” said Principal Bernstein as he gave the student a pink slip before heading back to his office.

“Yes, sir...I’ll be there,” the student sighed once more as he shoved the slip into his back pocket and proceeded towards his classroom. “Smooth move Roy Jones. ‘How’s it hanging’!? God that was cliche. I need to come up with some better material.”

Inside one classroom, the teacher was given a history lesson about the city of Mariner Bay and the ancient burial ground that is located underground. But before the teacher could go any further with her lesson, the classroom door was opened to reveal super-late student, Roy Jones, who quickly took to his seat as he was getting menacing daggers from his teacher and awkward stares from his fellow classmates. Especially from one student who was not only a friend of his, but he was also a German Shepherd; he had blue eyes, tan fur, black markings on his nose, ears, and his tail. He was also wearing a sleeveless green t-shirt and a pair of blue jean shorts.

“Let me guess: Trying to impress a couple of girls? Failed to skip class? Or better yet, tried to stay home sick?” the shepherd raised his eyebrow.

“Worst my canine compadre,” Roy replied. Overslept, missed the bus, and got the infamous pink slip from good ol’ grizzly butt.”

“Ouch. That’s what happens when you have an all-night movie marathon. And I told you to get your rest too.” the shepherd scolded. “Plus, as your friend, I think you need-” but before the teenage canine could finish his sentence, his teacher stormed over to his desk and slammed a pink slip on his desk. “Oh no…” he groaned.

“I’m sorry Adrian, but you already know that I have a no talking policy in my class.” said the teacher as she gave the shepherd a disappointing stare before returning to the classroom board.

“I never get detention…” Adrian whined as his ears folded to the back of his head. “Ugh, my parents are gonna kill me..”

“Aww c’mon dude! Cheer up,” said Roy. “Your boy, El Roylando, will keep you company!” he smirked.

“Joy…” Adrian replied in a deadpan tone.

Down by the football field…

A group of students in gym uniforms was lining up at the front of the track for their daily classroom laps. On the sidelines were the two P.E. coaches; one was an anthropomorphic Red-Tailed Hawk in a male uniform and a school official cap and the other was a female coach with a tan muscle tone and in a female uniform.

“Alright, everyone! Listen up!!” said the avian coach, “I want you all to run your fastest! I want you to sweat! And I don’t want any bland excuses--unless your paw or ankle is twisted, suck it up and run. Am I clear?”

“Yes Coach Talon…” the students mumbled.

“I said...AM I CLEAR!? OR DO I NEED TO ADD 50 PUSHUPS TO EACH LAP?” he shouted as his feathers start to ruffle from anger.

Without another peep, all of the students got into their starting positions in fear of making their coach angrier. Three students, in particular, were having a private conversation amongst themselves. Two of them were male and the third one was a female; one was a Red Doberman, the other one was a Welsh Corgi, and the third one was a Caucasian female with a grey pixie cut.

“Yo, what’s birdbrain's problem?” the Doberman grumbled, “It’s not our fault that we’re tired and not in the mood to run.

“Exactly bro!” the Corgi added, “I was working my tail off this entire summer! My paws and body ain’t build for this stuff! What am I? A Pitbull!?” he scoffed.

“Don’t be such a puppy Billy,” said the female student. “You’re a squirt, yes, but you need to get rid of those extra pounds. Especially in the gut area,” she added as she poked his belly.

“Hey! I may be short, but, I am not fat! And you know it, Mira.” Billy growled.

Mira laughed as she watches her short canine friend try and fail to be threatening. But to the teenage girl, it was both entertaining and adorable. “Poor Billy...so ‘scary’ and cute.”

“...Forget you, Mira.” Billy blushed with embarrassment as he rubbed his belly.

“Okay you two, save the insults for a chump that deserves it,” said Nelson as he glared at a male student with red hair, light green eyes, and freckles on his nose. “You’re going down Anderson...that I can promise you.”

And with that, the female coach blew the coach and all of the students took off in a matter of seconds. Most of the canine and feline students, with the exception of the red-haired student, taking the lead. The red-haired student was completely focused as he kept a good and steady focus on running until something, or someone broke his concentration and made him fall to the ground. Once the student got back on his feet, he heard immense sounds of laughing and teasing from the trio of students. Mostly from the Welsh Corgi and Red Doberman. They then proceed to whip out their phones and start recording the student.

“Is that even necessary Nelson?” asked the student, “like your ego needs to be any bigger than your test scores.”

“What do you care Jerry-boy!? I think it’s about time that a ‘good guy’ like you be put in his place!” Billy smirked. “Ain’t that right Nelson?”

Nelson nodded before saying “You may be the ‘star’ of the track team Anderson...but you’ll always be a goody-two-shoes loser!” the Doberman laughed.

“Ha! Good one bro!” said Billy as he joined his friend in the laugh.

The student rolled his eyes in annoyance as he proceeded to catch up with his fellow classmates. But just before he could get a running start, he was forcefully tackled to the ground by Nelson. As he tried to get his bearings, the Red Doberman kept him pinned to the ground as he got in the student’s face before saying, “Going somewhere, Anderson…? You and I got some unfinished business.” as he said that, the canine grew a cruel smile, and made his paw into a fist before striking the student in the face.

Back at the bleachers the female coach, otherwise known as, Coach Eloise Landers was patching up the red-haired student’s injuries after his sudden encounter with Nelson Skuller, the Red Doberman that loves to terrorize other students that are scared of him.

“Coach Landers, I’m fine! It’s just a couple of bruises.” said the student as he winced from the stinging sensation of alcohol being dabbed on his cheek.

“Maybe so Jeremy,” said Coach Landers. “But those bruises aren’t going to heal themselves. However, though, I’m just glad you didn’t turn it into a full-on-brawl. As for Nelson...he’ll be punished for not only his brash actions but, for also attacking another student. Is that okay with you Jeremy?”

“Yes Coach Landers,” Jeremy replied. “And besides, Nelson has had it for me and other students since last year. But I’m not gonna let a bully like him bring me down. And if he gives anyone else problems, I’ll be sure to tell Principal Bernstein.” he reassured.

“I’m glad to hear that Jeremy,” Coach Landers replied back. “And it looks you got some visitors,” she says as three of Jeremy’s classmates and one of the cheerleaders walked up to them.

“Yo, Jeremy, are you okay?” An ocelot student asked. “Nelson was a real punk for throwing that punch.”

“I agree,” a female deer student added. “I’m surprised you didn’t knock that malcontent’s teeth in. Or at least retaliate against his goons.”

“C’mon Natalie!” said another student. “You know Jeremy isn’t the type to pick a fight with someone like Nelson. He’s more of a peacekeeper anyway.”

“Okay guys, I’m sure Jeremy would like some alone time now,” the cheerleader smiled. She was African-American with light-orange eyes, all black hair with a streak of yellow in the middle, and she was also wearing an orange and purple cheerleader’ uniform. “And about Nelson; he’s just a big puppy with a childish grudge.” she winked.

“Hehe! Thanks, Kayla, thanks, guys.” Jeremy smiled.  “I appreciate all of you checking on me, but I’ll be fine, get back to running before Coach Talon loses any more feathers.”

Agreeing with their friend and not wanting to tick off the already agitated avian coach, Jeremy’s classmates went back to the track to continue their laps and Kayla went back to practicing her routine with the other cheerleaders. But, unbeknown to them they were being watched by two mysterious men inside of an all black SUV. One man had his hand on the wheel and was looking through a pair of binoculars, while the other man was talking through a communicator in his ear.

“No signs of any suspicious activity Commander. But we’ve identified both Mr. Anderson and Ms. Hopkins, no sign of the other three yet.”

“Excellent work Agent! Knowing Mr. Jones and Mr. Cooper, they’re most likely in class. As for Ms. Garcia, she’s probably playing hooky or in detention. She’s rebellious--but she has spunk. Keep me posted agent.”

“Yes, sir. Signing out,” the agent took his fingers off the communicator and put his attention back on his partner and the students of Finn Hill High School. “How’s it going?”

“Like you told the commander,” the other agent replied. “No signs of suspicious activity. And may I ask? Why are we spying on five specific teenagers? I’m sure the commander or at least the professor has a good explanation for this.”

“They do actually,” said the first agent. “It’s for a ‘Top Secret’ project. Otherwise known as, Operation: Wing Commanders.”

Up in the sky, a military aircraft carrier was hovering over Finn Hill. It had four powerful engines that keep the entire ship airborne, state-of-the-art weaponry, a runway to launch and land all aircraft vehicles and cargo, and a built-in cloaking device to keep it hidden and safe from enemies to uninvited guests. Inside the carrier was a huge base where multiple agents and soldiers were hard at work at monitoring the activities of the city while others are deployed and tasked with secret missions. At the center of the base was a middle-aged man who donned the uniform of a commanding officer; his facial features include a grey mustache, sideburns, and a scar on his right eyebrow. Next to him was a male anthropomorphic Red Fox, who was donning a lab coat, a purple t-shirt, and a pair of grey slacks. He also had golden eyes and was sporting a pair of spectacles.

“Remind me again Ethan...why teenagers?” asked the vulpine. “And please don’t say ‘because they have the attitude!’, not only is that a common stereotype about teenagers, they always have an attitude, they constantly complain about everything, and they have the attention span of a-”

“Well, Jonathon,” Ethan replied. “I’m 100% sure that most of the things you just said are common stereotypes about teenagers. Am I wrong?” he smirked.

“Alright, alright, don’t be so smug of yourself,” Jonathon rolled his eyes. “Anyways, about Operation: Wing Commanders, I made some minor adjustments to the ‘gears and tools’ that we need for the five chosen teenagers.”

“That’s good to hear John,” Ethan nodded. “How long until they’re ready?”

“Just a little bit longer,” John replied. “I need to make sure they don’t malfunction during battles and work any bugs out of the system.”

Suddenly, an emergency alarm went off and the entire base was repeatedly flashing red lights. Some of the agents and soldiers went to their stations to track down the source of the emergency alarm, and others were trying to get all of the monitors turned on to see live footage of the potential threat. Once the screens were turned on, live video footage played of Dark Sparrow and his minions in the middle of town, with their now three hostages, trapped inside the same energy orb from before while still being in an unconscious state.

“Commander, who is that?” one of the soldiers asked.

“I don’t know,” the commander replied. “Turn it up! I want to hear what he has to say.”

“Attention! Earthlings of Finn Hill! You probably don’t know who I am. But, allow me to introduce myself; I am Dark Sparrow. An intergalactic space pirate, conquer of planets, and destroyer of the weak! Now then--the reason I came to your planet. It’s a simple reason; I want to rule it. But not just rule it. I want to enslave all life on this threshold you call home. Some of you will become warriors of my army or even my personal slaves. Whether you like it or not. Because, as of today, I am your new ruler! And if anyone dares to defy me...here’s what happens:"

Dark Sparrow aimed his hand at the energy sphere as he fired a jolt of dark energy which caused the hostages to scream in pain and agony. Along with this, Rag-Zar and Sheira launched multiple blade slashes at several buildings which resulted in all of them exploding and crumbling down to the streets below. People and children were screaming and crying as they ran to take cover and find shelter. Unfortunately, some weren’t so lucky and got badly injured in the chaos.

“Your time is running out Finn Hill! Make your choice: Accept me as your new leader or Perish along with these hostages and the rest of your precious city. Tick-tock, tick-tock, tick-tock."

End of Transmission

“Oh my god…” Jonathon gasped. “H-He can’t be serious…”

“This is a Code Red Emergency! All hands on deck! NOW!!” Ethan commanded. “I need a medical team and an evac team down to the city! We got casualties who are severely injured or worse. This is not a drill people, I repeat, this is Not. A. Drill.”

“SIR! YES, SIR!” all of the soldiers shouted as they prepare to deploy down to the city.

Ethan placed his hand on his fox companion’s shoulder before saying, “Professor, how fast can you get those ‘gears and tools’ done?”

The vulpine readjusted his spectacles and gave his commanding officer and companion a reassuring smirk. “Faster than you can say Lightspeed, Commander.”

“All I needed to hear,” the commander nodded before turning on his earpiece. “Agents, assemble the rangers.”

Back at the school, Principal Bernstein was in his office, drinking his second cup of coffee, and reading the reports about a troubled student who has once again caused mischief. The Ursa sighed in frustration, knowing that, this wasn’t the first time he had to deal with this particular student. Ironically enough, it was only the first day of school. It's going to be a very long day.

“Mrs. Evans, would you kindly send Ms. Garcia into my office please?” Principal Bernstein asked, via intercom.

“Right away sir,” she replied back. “Here she comes now.”

And right on cue, a female student walked into the office and made herself comfortable by sitting in one of the available seats and planting her pink sneakers on the principal’s desk. The student was wearing a pink hoodie with a plain white shirt under, a pair of baggy jeans with holes in the knee area, and a pink beanie with a bunny skull in the center. “What am I in for this time chief?”

“That’s Principal to you, young lady,” glared Principal Bernstein. “And as for what you’re in for; playing hooky and spray painting ‘PINK PUNK’ all over the lockers of FH High students, Nelson Skuller, Billy Blake, and Mira Thompson. Care to explain, Ms. Garcia?” he raised his eyebrow.

“What can I say? Social Studies isn’t my forte,” she shrugged nonchalantly. “And as for those three chumps, they deserved it. They think because they’re the ‘Alphas’ of the school, they have the everloving right to harass anyone whenever and whatever they want! Someone’s gotta stand up to them.” she says as she crosses her arms in defiance.

“Ms. Gar--Lucy,” Principle Bernstein cleared his throat. “While I understand your concern. And I really do. But I don’t think vandalizing a fellow student’s locker is the right way to get back at a bully.”

“Then what would you do!? Let them off the hook!? Someone has to stop this!” exclaimed Lucy.

“Lucy, please try to listen. You can’t just put matters into your own hands and expect bad students to stop bullying other students.”

As Lucy was about to give the principal another piece of her mind, one of the mysterious men in black walked into the office and grabbed the teenage girl by her arm. “Lucy Garcia. I’ll need you to come with me.”

“Hold up business dude!” Lucy struggled. “Who the heck are you!? Where are you taking me!? And how do you know my name!?”

“All of your questions will be answered soon. But for now, I need you to calm down and come with me,” The man replied as he calmly took Lucy out of the office. Leaving the poor principle dazed and very confused.

“...I’m switching to decaf.”

Meanwhile, the other mysterious man in black was escorting Adrian and Roy, outside, towards his vehicle.

“So...are you with Secret Services? or the CIA?” asked Roy. “Because if you are, I’m willing to joy. If the pay is good of course.”

“That’s confidential information, Mr. Jones,” the man replied. “And I’m going to have to ask you to refrain from asking any more questions until we reach our destination.”

Roy nodded to the man’s request, but, he decided to open his mouth once more. “But can I just say-”

“Roy,” Adrian said sternly. “Please shut up. I got detention for the first time, I might get grounded until I graduate High School, and we’re possibly being kidnapped,” Adrian added as he starts to rub his temple from all of the stress. And with that, Roy kept his mouth shut as he and Adrian entered the back seat of the man’s vehicle. Once they were inside, they were greeted by two other students, Jeremy Anderson, and Kayla Hopkins.

“Well, well, well,” Roy smirked. “It seems we have a cheerleader amongst us. How's it hanging sunshine?”

“Get a reality check, Jones.” Kayla sassed. “We all got ‘escorted’ out of class by a couple of dudes in business suits, and you’re choosing now to make flirty advances? Not your brightest moment.”

“Agreed,” Jeremy and Adrian said in unison.

“Oh, who asked you guys…?” Roy grumbled. “But in all honesty, why are we here? We didn’t do anything wrong.”

“I’m with Jones on this one,” said Kayla. “They must’ve had a good reason for why they chose us four and nobody else.”

“It’s about to be five,” Jeremy pointed out as he saw one of the men in black came back with a reluctant Lucy who was trying to break free of his grip. He soon got out of the way as she ferociously opened the door to the vehicle and sat next to the teenage redhead.

“Sheesh, they got you guys too huh?” Exclaimed Lucy. “So who am I stuck with? The pretty boy, cocky smartmouth, madam pep squad, and the good boy.” she snarked.

The other four teens made very unamusing expressions at Lucy, as they weren’t a fan of the rebel teen’s nicknames for them. “Tough crowd,” she says. “and I thought my abuela and tia were hard to laugh.” Lucy shrugged as she sat back and enjoyed the ride.

And so, the five teenagers were assembled into the vehicle and are currently being transported to an unknown location. Unbeknownst to them, their lives will never be the same. Once they were on the highway, one of the men in black, who was driving, started to pick up speed in a very increasing rate. “Prepare for flight mode.” said one of the men.

“Roger that,” the other man replied. “Should we give them the heads up? This might be a bumpy experience for them.”

“Nah, let them experience it for themselves,” He smirked. “It's always fun to watch the newbies scream and squirm. And besides, they’re teenagers. I’m sure they’ve been through worse.”

In the backseat of the SUV, the five teenagers were starting to get weary and notice something was wrong. Adrian was looking out the window and noticed that they were going a little bit faster than usual, Roy was trying to comfort Kayla by putting his arm around her shoulder, but, all he got was a hard elbow blow to the side, Jeremy was wondering where he and his fellow schoolmates were going, and Lucy was keeping herself distracted by listening to her music. Then suddenly, the SUV started to pick up even more speed and it forced the teens to sit back and tightened their seatbelts.

“Why are we going so fast? Don’t they know about the speed limits here?” asked Adrian.

“They’re probably in a hurry to get somewhere...” said Roy as he began stretching. “Wake me up when we’ve reached our abductor’s hideout,” he says as he starts to fall asleep.

“You’re a lost cause Jones…” Kayla mumbled.

Meanwhile, outside the SUV started to transform. First off, jet wings started to appear on both sides of the vehicle, then the wheels began to hover, in which, caused the whole vehicle to float above the ground and start to take flight, and finally a pair of twin thrusters formed from the back of the vehicle and were starting to power up. Inside the vehicle, a female A.I. voice came on and stated the following: Preparing for Launch! Please make sure all seatbelts are fastened, secured, and everyone is in their assigned seats. Thank you and have a nice day~

“Well that wasn’t too bad,” said Adrian. “At least we can relax now.”

Initiating Countdown: In 5…

“We’re doomed,” Adrian sighed.

4…

“Get ready guys! This is gonna be intense!” informed Jeremy.

3…

“Thanks for the heads up Red,” said Lucy as she gives Jeremy, a mocking salute. “I think we’re completely aware that we may possibly die.”

2…

“Would it kill you to not be a sarcastic smart alec for five minutes?” Kayla asked in a frustrated tone, “I mean seriously, don’t you care that we might not see our friends and family again?”

1…

“Of course I do!” Lucy replied. “But you should be telling that to Prince Snoozy-Butt next to you,” she says as she nods her head at Roy, who was not only snoring but was starting to drool a little.

Ignition!

And just like that, the vehicle blasted off into the sky in a matter of seconds. Leaving only dust and groups of drivers in their path. The two men in black were enjoying their flight to the atmosphere. The man that was driving, however,  grew a huge smile on his face as he can hear the sound of the teens screaming in possible awe or terror. “Tch, newbies.”

Once their vehicle was in the air, it started to slow down its speed and proceeded towards its designated location. The military carrier, that was hidden, thanks to its built-in cloaking device. “Commander Hunter, Sir, we got them. Permission to land?”

“Permission Granted! And hurry! We don’t have that much time.”

“Yes, sir.”

And so, the two men landed their flying vehicle on the runway as it and the entire ship instantly turned visible. The two then proceeded to let the five teenagers out. Fortunately, they made it in one piece, unfortunately, some of them were feeling groggy and kinda sick.

“...I think I’m gonna throw up…” Adrian groaned.

“Yay! We’re alive,” said Lucy. “and on solid ground,” she says as she hugs the pavement.

“Ugh, hey, who turned on the lights…?” Roy yawned as he just woke up from his nap. “Where are we anyway?”

Jeremy and Kayla were the last two to get out of the vehicle. Kayla was regaining her bearings as she took a second to look at the new environment she’s in, and Jeremy cautiously walked towards the edge and noticed that they were no longer in the city anymore. “Uh, guys? You might want to see this,” he says as he looked down at all of the clouds and buildings down below. The others came to see what their schoolmate was talking about, and they were surprised by the massive view.

“That’s a long way down,” said Kayla. “Good thing I'm not afraid of heights.”

“Hate to be the poor sucker that slips and fall to their doom,” Lucy added.

But before anyone else can say anything, the five teens were escorted inside by the two men in black. Once they were inside they took a quick look at their surroundings and were impressed by all of the technological wonders within the place; from massive computers to odd inventions that have never been seen before. Soldiers and workers were scrambling all over the place, while some of them took quick glances at the teenagers and were mumbling things like “That’s them?”, “I didn’t think they were teenagers.”, “Why is one of them a dog? Why not a wolf or something?”. As they continued with their walking, they were soon approached by the commander.

“Commander Hunter, Sir!” The two men saluted.

“At Ease, you two,” said the Commander. “I’ll take it from here,” he says as he motions Jeremy and the others to follow him.

“You’re probably wondering where you are and who I am,” he acknowledged. “Well, allow me to finally answer them for you: My name is Commander Ethan Hunter and you five are in a state-of-the-art military carrier! In other words, it’s a secret base in the sky and the main headquarters of the W.C.O.”

“And what exactly is the ‘W.C.O.’?” asked Jeremy.

“The Wing Command Organization, or, W.C.O. for short,” replied the Commander. “tactical military ops that specialize in dealing with ordinary and unordinary threats. Both in the sky and on the ground. We’re also tasked with keeping Finn Hill and all of its citizens safe. And that’s where you five come in.”

“Wait, wait, wait,” said Roy. “Why us? We’re just teenagers. We don’t know anything about being part of the military. Heck, I’m barely passing history.”

The Commander stopped in his tracks and was in complete silence. He stayed quiet for a few more seconds until he cleared his throat, and gave the five teenagers a stern but serious stare. “Tell me,” he started. “Have any of you five...ever heard of the Power Rangers?”

Jeremy, Roy, Adrian, Kayla, and Lucy, were completely thrown off by the commander’s question. However, they were familiar with the legendary team of heroes. Especially Adrian, whose tail was wagging like crazy. “Seriously!? Who hasn’t!? I’ve always wanted to be one since I was a pup! And, and-ahem-I mean, of course, they’re pretty well-known heroes.” he says as he grabs on to his tail and attempts to hide his embarrassing blush.

“You’re such a nerd dude.” Roy chuckled.

“I don’t know,” said Lucy. “I think it’s cute that he’s a fan.”

“Good, so you’ve heard of them…” nodded the commander. “I need to show you all something,” he says as he directs them into a room with a large square table, a silver briefcase, a monitor, and an anxious Professor Foxworth.

“Yo, who’s the fox dude?” asked Roy.

“Roy…” Adrian elbowed Roy’s arm.

“Show some respect,” Kayla scolded.

“It’s quite alright,” Professor Foxworth sighed. “I’m kinda used to it by now,”

Commander Hunter walked towards the male red fox and rested his hand on his shoulder. “I would like you all to meet Professor Jonathon .H. Foxworth, the leading scientist here at the W.C.O.”

All five teenagers said their greetings to the male vulpine before taking a seat at the table. Once everyone sat down, both, Commander Hunter and Professor Foxworth stood at the front before proceeding with the briefing.

“We have a Code Red Emergency! Earlier today, we got a video message from an individual, that calls himself, Dark Sparrow.” said the Commander as he replayed the footage from earlier. “He’s an intergalactic space pirate whose sole purpose is to conquer and enslave other planets. Unfortunately, Planet Earth is his next target.”

“It gets worse from there,” said the Professor. “His forces have leveled several city blocks, destroyed multiple buildings, and innocent civilians were hurt in the attack. And to add the cherry on top--he has hostages. One of them being the mayor herself…” he says as he displayed images of the hostages.

The five teens watched in horror and anger as they watched their city get destroyed, and innocent people and mammals running for their lives, as they all try to escape the chaos and destruction; Jeremy was clenching a tight fist to display his anger, Lucy was speechless and possibly scared, Kayla was trying to hold back tears as she feared for her own family’s safety, Adrian covered his ears to muffle the sounds of all the people crying and screaming, and Roy was stunned because he recognized one of the hostages. “This isn’t happening...” Roy mumbled.

“What is it Mr. Jones?” asked the Professor.

“I know one of the hostages…” Roy replied. “The cameraman...its my dad!”

To be Continued...

Next time on Power Rangers Wing Commanders!

The Rangers are given their morphers and are soon put to the test when they make an attempt to rescue the kidnapped hostages from the clutches of Rag-Zar, Sheira, and Zerrick. Meanwhile, Dark Sparrow unleashes a horde of Nexors and a monster upon the city! Can our new heroes work as a team and save the day? Or will this be the end of Earth and Finn Hill?

That’s next time! On Power Rangers Wing Commanders!

[chibioniyuri]

So, I wanted to share my current medical status with y’all, but only if you want to actively read it, so I’ll be throwing it behind a cut. Plus it’s pretty long. So there’s that.

So, I have a brain tumor.

Only, technically not. It’s within the skull but outside the dura mater, the protective membrane around your brain itself. So, technically not a brain tumor.

But let’s start from the beginning.

Starting around summer of last year, my grandmother was in and out of the hospital. Falling without being able to get up on her own, leading her to spend the entire night sitting on the floor waiting for someone to visit her because the phone was out of reach. Pneumonia extending her hospital stay. Getting home and refusing the home health care my uncle and aunt set up for her. Falling again. Repeat.

Around August-ish, my aunt was cleaning her apartment for her and found pain killers stashed all over the apartment. In bottles. Free pills on her walker. Next to the phone, in the kitchen, in the bathroom, stashed in both nightstands. Turns out she’d been asking nearly everyone who visited her to bring her bottles “because she was running low.” Including us. We could get large bottles of Excedrin from Sam’s Club for cheaper than were available in her country. We’d bring over two extra large bottles. We didn’t think anything of it; our visits were spaced roughly four years apart. But concurrently, some tests were showing the beginning stages of liver and kidney damage that could be caused by self-medicating in the way my grandmother was.

Cut to me. “Wa-oh,” says I.

For like two and a half years, that I could remember, I’d been having trouble sleeping. Beyond the normal, that is. Taking over an hour to fall asleep, sleeping roughly three hours at a time, eventually needing to take naps on my days off just to function safely on my work days. I didn’t think much of it at the time. I was finishing school. Looking for a house. Moving back into my parents’ house so I wouldn’t have to break a lease when I finally found “the one.” Exposing myself back to my dad’s special brand of tough love. I figured it was just stress, and that it would go away when things were less hectic.

They didn’t.

Right around April of last year, my headaches starting spiking. Again, I didn’t think much of it. For most of my life, I’ve dealt with headaches. I’ve become a pro at the art of ignoring the headache away. But suddenly, I was having migraine-level headaches, frequently. I explained it away as lack of sleep. This was about a year and a half into the lack of sleep saga. It seemed reasonable to me. And I was more concerned about the nearly-falling-asleep-while-driving and the crying on the way to work and the endless feeling of “I don’t want to be here anymore.”

But these new headaches were debilitating. So... I started self-medicating. A lot.

I really should have been more aware; I mean, as a medical professional, there were so many red flags. But nothing like that could ever happen to me, right? I was just weak. Attention-grabbing. I just needed to suck it up and get back to work. My dad, after all, had never taken a sick day in twenty years, even if he was sick. He’d had some baaaad headaches, too, and he just powered through. I needed to do the same.

My grandmother was a wake-up call for me.

I finally convinced myself to do something about it September of last year. I thought it was just my thyroid. It controls so many things: your sleep cycle, your metabolism, your temperature regulation. My doctor initially agreed with me, and blood tests corroborated it. My thyroid hormone was low.

Something must have niggled at my doctor though, because she ordered more tests. Then more. First blood tests. I was stuck so many times, it was ridiculous. I counted 9 vials in one sitting, which.... personally, is a record. I can’t speak about the standard levels for anyone else. Then an ultrasound of my thyroid. Nothing too abnormal. Some nodules that were enlarged, but nothing alarming. An MRI of my brain. Just a precaution, she said. Some of my medical history meant that she wanted to fully rule some things out.

I had my MRI on a Wednesday. That Friday, her nurse called me. Said that my doctor wanted to talk to me about my results. That I should just name a time that day and she would make sure it was available.

Oh shit.

I called my mom. I remember thinking that I wasn’t reacting the way I thought someone who received bad news should. I was acting like I had a particularly juicy piece of gossip. Jovial, almost.

“Hey mom,” I said. “That thing I was joking about, back when she first mentioned the MRI? Tumors and cancer? The thing I said wouldn’t happen to me? Pretty sure she found it.”

“What?”

“Her nurse just called. Told me to name a time I can come in today. Whatever time, and it would be available. That only happens with bad news, right? She found it. Mom, I have a brain tumor.”

My mom told me that I had to hear the actual words from my doctor’s mouth before I could worry. And that if it was real, we would deal with it. And that I should call my dad so he could come with me.

So I did. He told me roughly the same thing, that I couldn’t be sure until the doctor said it herself. And that I should schedule it so my mom could go with me.

“I scheduled it for roughly an hour from now.”

“Oh. I guess your mom can’t go with you, then.”

No mention of him going. I was too afraid to ask.

I found out later that he had already started drinking and was too afraid that someone would figure it out. He’s the type of alcoholic that feels like, since he named himself an alcoholic, that’s it, kumbayah, crack open a cold one, but instinctively lies to medical professionals about his level of intake. He excused it away by saying he wasn’t really an emotionally supportive guy anyway, and he didn’t offer because he didn’t think I wanted him there. Plus, he said, he would’ve started crying and that’s not being emotionally supportive. I agree that he would’ve. I also think he fell into a mild depressive state because his employer declared bankruptcy and he was without the job he’d worked at since being honorably discharged from the military in 1995 and was having an identity crisis because so much of his personal identity is tied up into his work, and without it, he’s nothing. But you’re not here to read about my analysis of my dad.

So I sat alone in that room while my doctor told me I had a tumor on my pituitary gland. That it was pretty large and probably the cause of a lot of the lethargy and difficulty sleeping. That I should let her know if I start having headaches.

“I’ve got those,” I said.

“You didn’t mention it to me?”

“No. I mean, I’ve had them since puberty, really. They were more frequent, recently, but I thought it was the not sleeping thing.”

She made sure I walked out with a referral to the neurosurgeon in my hand and advised me to call him right away. Well, as soon as my insurance cleared.

Since October, I’ve struggled to feel it was real. I’ve sort of stepped aside from it, I guess. I’ve viewed it as one of those interesting case studies from nursing school. “Mary’s MRI results show a 2cm growth on her pituitary gland. Her growth hormone levels are __. She complains of headaches, lethargy, insomnia, and weight gain. What nursing diagnoses would apply to this case? What interventions would you consider implementing?”

I’ve analyzed my reactions and compared them to the stories I’ve read, fictional and anecdotal, about others dealing with serious medical issues and found myself lacking. I’ve thought of how I would write this situation. Definitely dread, I decided. Fear. Worry. A sense that suddenly, the world is crashing down around you. And alternately, a sort of freeing feeling. Suddenly, you can go out into the world and really live like it’s your last day.

And then I looked at my bank account. I looked at my insurance paperwork. I decided that I couldn’t afford the surgery to remove it until next year. Definitely couldn’t take the time off to process it. Gotta make that money, pay those bills.

“You’re so strong,” one of my fellow nurses tells me. I want to tell her I’m not. I’m just incredibly aware that I’m financially precarious and that I can’t afford anything else. And it’s so much easier to fall into routine and focus on caring for someone else. Avoidance at its best.

So why am I sharing this all of a sudden?

My surgery is in less than two weeks: April 4. And it’s definitely real now.

Suddenly, all that stuff that I imagined writing is happening to me. The closer that date crawls, the worse I feel. At first, it was mild concern. It’s approaching absolute terror now, though.

I’m about to let someone send some tools up my nose, poke around in my brain, and remove some bits of myself that have gone renegade. I’ll be in the ICU in case of complications. I’ll need someone with me for a while afterwards, when I finally get discharged. I have absolutely no idea how I’ll pay for it, considering my credit card has wracked up a truly impressive balance due to my car breaking down last year, and then all the lab work, diagnostic tests, and specialist visits, which let me tell you, are a special sort of expensive hell. Add on my mortgage and my student debts, and I squeak by every month. I’ll probably pick up a second job to help out with whatever costs I accrue.

One good thing about this is that my dad has stopped asking me “do you want mine?” when I mention I have a headache. But now he’s joking that I’ll be in the hospital for ages because, “I hate to say it like this, but you don’t do so well with the pain thing.” Fuck you.

The truly good thing: my brother got leave from the Air Force to come home for a week. We haven’t seen him since last July, when he came home for our it’s-been-four-years-time-to-go-to-Germany trip. I’m so happy about that, I could cry. I probably will before this whole thing is over.

So, there you go. The full update.

I’ll probably be typing more things up to work through this. Typing all this out has been oddly cathartic.

[junker-town]

Should you drink low-calorie IPAs at your Super Bowl party?

Staff photo By Nicolaus Czarnecki/MediaNews Group/Boston Herald via Getty Images

Advances in brewing have given us lite IPAs. Has science gone too far?

Michelob Ultra is the third-best selling beer in the United States. This is impressive, because it tastes like someone wrung out a bar rag soaked in better, tastier beer into a half-glass of flat seltzer.

The fact Michelob’s hard right turn from “1980s lager” to “beer-adjacent beverage for fitness enthusiasts” is a testament to our need for a social beer. At 4.2 percent alcohol and at a higher price point than your typical — uh — budget brews (Beer 30, Steel Reserve, anything made by Minha’s), no one is drinking Michelob Ultra to get community college wasted or put a hard day of coal mining behind them. But at 95 calories, it’s a beer you can have two or three of while more advanced drinkers hang out nearby without filling up or feeling like you’re out of the social circle.

In other words, it’s the perfect beer for awkward, small sips at a party where you only know a handful of people. Like, say, a Super Bowl party.

If you are interested in beers that actually taste like something, you can do better. In fact, plenty of craft brewers — some independent, others owned by giant brewing conglomerates — are betting on that.

Low-calorie IPAs are a thing now

There’s a massive market for light beer that doesn’t taste like light beer. Its steady rise has begun to intersect with the freight train of craft brewing. The rise of local breweries across our country has also created a rising tide of increasingly-hopped pale ales. While that trend has been stalled by the American advent of barrel-aged stouts, sours, and other adventurously-flavored brews, there’s no one type of beer that screams “CRAFT BREWERY” (often through a bearded face and ironic glasses) quite like a heavily-hopped India Pale Ale.

The problem with these beers is a high gravity double-shot that hits both on alcohol by volume and caloric content. Karben4’s Fantasy Factory is a delicious hoppy beer with quite possibly the best label in the game, but it clocks in at 6.3 percent ABV — 1.5x the volume of a Michelob Ultra — and somewhere between 180-190 calories. Elysian’s Space Dust is a juicy, bitter-ish beer that’s out of this world (I am so sorry — I don’t know what just happened) but it measures out a 8.2 percent and something like 250 calories.

Beers like these are a tough sell iff your plan is to fill out four hours of Super Bowl drinking while still either:

a) Driving home b) Working early Monday morning c) Speaking at a normal volume while explaining how Andy Reid seems like a pretty good dude

Fortunately, there are other options. Session IPAs have been a constant in recent years, providing the hoppy balance of a pale ale with a sub-5 percent alcohol content that makes them more appropriate for yard work or tailgates. That includes “crushable” drinks like Terrapin’s RecreationAle or Ale Asylum’s Demento. While those are less likely to make you blurt out stupid comments about Jimmy Garoppolo’s handsome face, they’ll still enact a relatively heavy toll of around 150 calories each.

There’s an in-between for that now. Breweries — typically larger craft brewers with stable financial backers — have been experimenting with light IPAs. These beverages clock in on the lower side when it comes to how fat and how drunk each beer will make you, while trying to retain the slightly bitter but still smooth hoppy-ness of their other brands. Harpoon has their Rec League brew (3.8percent, 120 calories). Lagunitas is home to the DayTime IPA (4 percent, 98 calories). Dogfish Head makes the Slightly Mighty (4 percent, 95 calories).

But, for my own experiment, I turned to Goose Island’s newest offering: So-Lo IPA, which measures in at 3 percent ABV and 98 calories.

So what’s it like?

I gave the low-cal IPA craze a Super Bowl test run in a similar situation. On the night of the 2020 Royal Rumble — one week before Super Bowl 54 — I set out with four cans of So-Lo to see how the low-cal, low-booze beer treated me at my own Sunday evening watch party.*

I started with one cold beer, swigged directly from the can. It’s a light beer, so it has the kind of hollow watery ring all light beers do, but there’s no mistaking the effort the hops have put in to differentiate itself from the pack. It’s great if you’re thirsty — but as I’d soon find out, there’s a limit to that.

The first beer went down without incident. I poured the following three into a one-liter stein to facilitate their egress down my throat.

Taken out of the can, the beer pours a much prettier pint (or, in this case, liter-plus) than your typical light lager. The head lasts a decent amount of time and the brew smells great. All in all, it’s an inviting drink.

The good news: you can drink a lot of it because it’s a light beer with as much alcoholic gravity as a wine cooler. Unfortunately like many IPAs, the bitter wears on you. One of the reasons marzen beers work so well in liter steins is because is because the flavor stays crisp and malty. When you’re dealing with a lo-cal IPA instead, you’re going to run into a bit of fatigue from the taste.

Sure, you aren’t meant to pour out 36 ounces of them into a stein and go from there, but if the whole point of a light (lite?) IPA is that you can drink three or four without worrying about having to drive or ruining your diet, that’s something worth talking about. The flavor is strong enough that you’re more likely to get sick of drinking this mostly-faithful approximation of a true IPA than you would a tasteless light beer.

And there’s the rub! The flavor is good and the end result is a relatively guilt-free experience. You aren’t going to feel awful at any point after drinking a low-cal IPA — not from hangovers (I think I wound up more hydrated than when I started, if we’re being honest) and probably not from a beer gut standpoint. Given the choice, however, I’d rather ration out two full-strength beers over the course of a Super Bowl party than continually sip my way through four half measures.

Or, to put it in Michael Scott terms:

I’m not here to beer shame anyone. Drink what you like. If Michelob Ultra is your thing, then by all means bring that six pack to your Super Bowl party.

But if you’re into mixing it up, you’ve got options. You can drink a medium amount of good beer, or a whole bunch of pretty good beer.

Have a nice Super Bowl. I love you.

*One person showed up. I blame this on the fact all my friends are both too sophisticated for battles royal and all unwilling to keep their young children awake past 8 p.m. and not the fact I am generally unlikable.

[mythomagically-delicious]

The Second Funeral

Dad didn’t cry at Grandpa’s funeral. Neither did mom. Grandma was ostensibly loud, but I never actually saw a tear. My uncle though. He was made of stone. I mean, at least the rest tried to look sad. But Uncle Stan stood in the back and his face was angrier than I’d ever seen it.

I was 22 when Grandpa Pines died. By that time we’d moved cross country and I was in my last year of undergrad. Computer Science was the hot new field and I was naturally interested in computers growing up. And all sorts of other gadgets. Dad started me with tin soldiers, but somehow I always ended up with the tinker toys.

My parents lived in South California. I went to school further north. My one uncle lived in Oregon, but he was closer than Mom and Dad. Grandma and Grandpa still lived in New Jersey. I got a phone call from Mom about the news. Told her thanks for calling and we discussed school for a bit before hanging up.

Didn’t bother me over much. I had a paper due in two days that bothered me more, to be honest. Grandpa Pines always made me feel like a disappointment when I was a kid, without even saying a word.

Plus, when I was 17, Dad had finally told me the story (as he knew it) behind Uncle Lee and Grandpa. It’s a good thing we’d already moved, or else I would’ve done something stupid. Like egg his house or bust up some of the shop. As it was, I had some buddies of mine from back home bust up his car. Key it, TP the shop, just punk stuff that’d been going on for years. All at once. Dad wasn’t too happy to hear I’d done that.

Uncle Stan, on the other hand, had offered me a high 5 ½.

(I’ll get to that later)

Anyway, Grandpa died when I was 22 and my first thought was if that meant I could push back my paper’s deadline because of a death in the family. (The professor was pretty tough, but a few fake tears and he broke down into a human being again. My professors are better with machines than people, mostly).

I called Uncle Stan the day I got the call after class. We talked about some of my homework for a while, and he even helped me get unstuck from this problem I’d been having in my upper level math for a while.

Then I asked if he’d heard the news. Uncle Stan is a guy who could talk even the most obnoxious know-it-all in circles, under any circumstances. I’d heard the stories and seen him in action, on occasion. But when I asked this, a part of him seemed to drop, and I heard him take a few quick breaths on the other end of the line before he answered with a shaky “Yes.”

To be honest, I wasn’t sure what I expected from him. Dad had told me most of the story between Uncle Lee, Uncle Stan, and Grandpa, but he’d only gotten it secondhand. When all that happened, I was almost two, being watched by Grandma the night it happened. It weirds me out to think that the last time I saw Uncle Lee alive, I’d barely been old enough to walk.

Mom had been at work, waitressing. Dad had been serving too, overseas somewhere. Here’s how Dad told me it happened:

My Grandpa Filbrick was a hard man, hard to please, hard to get a word out of, hard-pressed to show any emotion except anger. My dad was their first son. Older than Uncle Lee and Uncle Stan by almost ten years.

Grandpa had been hard on the tree of them, but he’d been the worst on his second children. Twins, unexpected, and ‘a burden from day one.’ Dad had heard Grandpa Filbrick saw a few too many things about Lee and Ford over the years, some while drunk, some stone cold sober. That’s just how Grandpa was.

Dad said Grandpa hadn’t paid a lick of attention to either of them unless they were making him look bad—or if they had the potential to make money. (Some of this is how Mom saw things too. Once they argued about who had the better perspective on it, all things considered. I’m not sure either of them won).

When my uncles were 17 (turning 18 that summer—I had just turned 2 that January) Uncle Ford was suddenly in the running for a full-ride scholarship to one of the best sci-tech colleges in the country. The principal told ‘em all it could be the opportunity to make them millions one day. Mom said from that moment on, Filbrick saw Ford as a talking dollar sign, and didn’t see Lee at all.

Something happened to Ford’s project—the one that would get him the full ride—and Lee was blamed. There was a huge fight at home, and only four people know exactly what was said, two of which are now dead. Filbrick kicked his son Lee out of the house, banning him from coming back until he could make up the millions he’d stolen when he’d supposedly ruined Ford’s project.

Ford didn’t help his brother. Too angry, he turned away when Lee called for help.

The real kicker in the story, though, is that Grandpa had already had a bag packed for Stan. He had just been waiting for the opportunity to do it. Dad said my Grandpa bragged about that one night after a few too many rounds at the local bar. Dad had come to pick him up and carried him half home, taxis all gone. Dad said he’d dumped him on the curb to let him find his own way after he’d said that. I would have punched him first. But I’m not really a fighter. I’m a big guy, but I’m no good at throwing that weight around.

Anyway, that’s most of the story. Uncle Lee took Grandpa’s words seriously, until ten years later he died in a car wreck on his way to talk to Uncle Stan.

That rally seemed to tear Uncle Stan up. That’s when he changed his family nickname from Ford to Stan. That’s all I’ve really known him as.

That’s Dad’s version. When I was 17, Dad told me all that. When I was 18, I’d gone up to Uncle Stan’s for a couple of weeks before school started. He gave me the story between the cracks. It was a hundred times worse coming from him.

He told me how Grandpa Filbrick had yelled and roughly handled Uncle Lee. He told me of the justified anger he’d felt at his brother. How his Pa’s reaction only egged him on. How he turned away when his brother needed him most. Then immediately threw up, sick with what he’d done.

But, how, over time, that anger and justification was continuously fed and fueled by his father. Filbrick kept the wound fresh. And Ford let that anger for his brother fester. The desire to prove himself fueled him through finishing college on time but with two extra degrees. How he came out here to continue studying.

It led only to dead ends and disappointments. He hadn’t talked to his father since his first year in Gravity Falls, when he made it clear he didn’t care about making money, he just wanted to study. Filbrick had practically disowned him as well, at that.

Apparently Grandpa’s greatest skill was alienating himself and everyone around him.

Uncle Stan told me how it felt, all those years. The guilt and anger warring within him for so long. He told me what it did to him when he lost Stanley when he was so close to seeing him again. He told me a lot of things that made me shudder and wipe a tear at. I couldn’t even dream of putting it all here. It’s too much.

So when I asked if Uncle Stan had heard the news, I wasn’t sure what to expect from him. I asked if he’d be going back for the funeral. He said he oughtta help his Ma pack away the shop. I hadn’t thought about that.

I asked if I could help. Uncle Stan wanted me to stay at school, not get distracted by old bones and dust. I agreed to stay at school if he agreed to let me visit after he got back. He laughed and joked about my flourishing skills as a negotiator, claiming all the credit. But he agreed and we moved on to lighter topics, talking about small nothings for another few minutes before I let him go.

Uncle Stan has come to mean a lot to me these last ten years. I met him when I was twelve. I hated to think he was up there alone during another bad time. Knowing our family’s history made it harder for me to just try and let him suffer through another death in the family by himself. But he’s a tough guy, and he hates showing what he thinks of as weakness in front of other people. He lets his guard down with me, sometimes, but it’s hard to crack through.

The funeral was rough, but afterwards when we were talking, most of the anger had melted off his face. I had to leave soon after to hop on a plane and get back in time for classes. But next time I saw him, there were a few reminders of Filbrick hanging around the Shack. Most noticeably, his old, weird fez. I helped out with tours and the gift shop, and took Unlce Stan out to the diner a few times. You can never really tell what Uncle Stan is thinking, but I think for the few days I spent with him, he was thinking about the good part of family, not the terrible kind his dad gave them.

[benefits1986]

Year 7: Final Year Na Ba Talaga?

Today, I was greeted by the watch mom gifted me with before she passed on 7 years ago. Nakakatakot. Pota. Pero it made me smile inside out. Well, after shaking my head, that is. Tomorrow is her birthday in heaven and nagpapaganaps na naman siya in her own way and style. I guess it’s one of the reasons why I hate to love and love to hate my home in Manila. It is filled with too many memories of my life’s most defining chapter.  Funny how mom never fails to let me know that while I seem to be so crappy with how I deal with my life after she passed on, she reassures me that no matter what, it’s toward the right direction. Ako lang ‘tong takot sumabak at pabebe in a way na I’d rather keep my comfort zone than to be the palovean wander and wonder girl that I am all these years. By wonder pala, I mean, laging out there for adventure and always has a hefty dose of curiosity.  The past months have been particularly interesting, the most interesting parts of my life, no matter how sedated and boring and “downgrade-worthy” they appear. The past months have been spent in Palawan then back to Manila mostly with my dogs as I prune my seven years of being stuck in a really, really bad cycle of denying myself of the bucket list that I try to postpone just because I’ve already been on a track where I’ve done more than I can inspite failing many, many times miserably.  For someone who’s strategic and really, really aware of compartmentalizing my emotions to the point of concealing them very, very cleverly and artistically, admitting that I need to take a huge step back is extremely death-defying. Notice that I use the word death-defying because for such a long time, I have denied vulnerability in order to survive a life without purpose --that is a life without my mom.  Looking back, all the doors that opened no matter how promising did not make sense. I thought back then that I do not deserve them. I thought that I am not worthy mainly because I dream dreams that have turned to realities when I lost my mom. I took so much of me even when there’s not much left of me without anyone else knowing how fucked up I am because, hey, ego over heartbreaks, right? Back then, I severely punished myself because I felt alone and cheated. Even when people tell me that I am doing a decent job or even a good one, I felt so small and so insignificant. It is because of this immense blow that I found myself OD-ing on work. Yes, work that I am kind of decent with but something that I vehemently disapprove of. I figured that every time I spent away from my family is a step toward proving something to myself --a world where my mom’s memories cease to exist, or so I thought. 

Every deadline, every goal met, every KPI delivered felt addictive. And so, it progressed to higher dosages as I found myself more unhappy, more unstable and heck, even more miserable, after the high wears off. It’s for this reason that I seem to be a weirdo when I say I hate my world and most especially my work but I keep showing up never mind the fuck ups I cause along with the chaos that is part of my strategic and creative process. Hah. So much for shit, yes? And then it progressed even more. I wanted to turn back time because I felt my mom betrayed me, hence I moved to a bigger organization in the hopes of getting into an even bigger world I denied myself of before graduation --a world where I know is tough and will eventually corrupt me, but, hell, yeah, a world that I’ve been dreaming of just because I felt that I can finally prove to my mom of all people that I’ve made it big without her help, without her approval, and without her, at all. Twisted to the core, but back then, I don’t give a shit. Really. And being the go-getter girl that I am, I managed to wiggle my way to the bigger world where I finally got face to face with even bigger matters that made the already problematic plot even thicker. The OD on work topped with a brimming social calendar and the thirst to get to the even bigger world got the best of me. I don’t even know if it’s considered the best of me when I am an autopilot mode each day because the high no longer mattered, literally and figuratively. I somehow managed to theorize that it may be because I am getting old and that YOLO is no longer part of my vocab nor my mantra. Wrong. I was beginning to see the perils of OD-ing on things that do not make me breathe and live anymore. That’s when I started thinking more and more and more and more about killing myself without anyone knowing it. Hah. That’s how fucked up I was. My reason was not that nobody loved me nor valued me. I simply wanted things to end because it’s no longer worth wasting time on. I felt that my breaths are not mine. I felt that I am taking up too much space in this already densely populated planet. And most of all, I’d like to take my chances if there’s indeed a world after this world. In short, I missed my mom and I wanted to be with her. Simple as that. No fancy shmancy shit that involves family or friends who did not look after me or watched over me. No lack of love life or dating or flirting. No loneliness. No shadows of the past. Just plain old “thank-u-next” life kind of vibe. And so, one fine day, I met a car accident, my first to be specific. And, guess what? It was a total car wreck. 

Though the car may look decent enough, thing is it’s matic, hence, the car insurance company declared that I’d rather be given a full damage claim rather than fix it. Imagine. My first ever car accident was a total car wreck. How awesome is that, ain’t it? I can never forget that day where I chose to OD once more on work. Hah. This bitch ain’t giving up back in those days. Showed up to work at 11:30 am and ended my day at around 5 am. Had decent performance that day because I was able to swing a bigwig meeting with the board of directors and our CEO and our seniors PLUS handled a trending event with co-workers while drinking and doing shamncy live social media reportage. Little did I know though that this particular OD will cause me to lose control that I thought I had all these years. You see my adrenaline is on its A-game all my life even when I lost my mom. I remember asking Manila Memorial and Trinity in the calmest and collected style if they offer 0% on credit card payments for their services. Also, I slept like a baby an hour after mom died. See? Adrenaline A-game, bitches! 

However, because I was on OD with something that kills me without me knowing it, I felt my ground shake that very early morning after my car wreck. I felt my body shut down as I quivered and felt cold sweat. Another first. I felt the pain of the whiplash I was not aware of, hence, I was shook thinking I might have unknowingly gotten a fracture. And oh, after drinking and smoking like a crazy AF kid, I discovered I had a lump on my forehead and that lump was quite big and throbbing. All these while I succumb to hailing a cab because Grab drivers think my location is out of their bounds. I cried in the cab and thank you, universe, for the driver whose face I can no longer remember. He simply assured me that everything will be okay and that I just needed to rest and calm down. He even shared that car accidents ought to be traumatic and that eventually, I’d be back on the road because I should not be intimidated by these normal occurrences. At that moment, I felt like he was Rafiki in The Lion King and that The Circle of Life is playing in the background. And I was this fucked up young Simba gone adult. 

Things seemed to be back to regular programming, inside I began to see I was rotting. I began to question why I’ve been living in a material world that I totally believe to be immaterial. I began to feel the pull all the emotional shutdowns are causing my physical stance. I began getting sick to the point that the heartburns would not allow me to get up from my bed. Flashbacks of the car wreck became random thoughts even when I try my best to go back to OD-ing with work again. And then, a glorious system failure happen. I missed deadlines. I learned the realities of this world -the small, the big and the bigger worlds. I began to see that this world that feeds me is the same world that would kill me before I know it. And that now that I finally know that this world is killing me, I am pretty much veering toward shutting it down for my sanity. Problem is I don’t want to. Problem is I choose not to know how to. Problem is I already built a life that I can’t sustain without this world. Problem is I keep making excuses because, heck, yeah. I am that strategic girl, right?  And so, I came back to a place where my dreams turned nightmares began. I somehow convinced myself that my dreams in this bubble were dreams that not only belonged to me, but were part of a grander purpose, something bigger than who I am and who I thought I am. So, after trying it out with all that I can, the OD-ing were no longer enough. I found myself in a very, very dark place that is ultimately hollow. Imagine. Dark and hollow in one go. Shit gets more and more real. I thought that if I have a dream with a dream team, things would be better and that eventually, I’d be back to regular programming. But, dreams turned realities are usually more messed up because they go beyond deadlines. They fuck up with your lifelines, big time. 

Months later, the OD-ing pulled me to a place where there is absolutely nothing except me, myself and I. Again, nobody knows this back then because I am that strategic and creative critter. Physical tolls kick in harder. The emotional turmoil escalated all the more. The self-inflicted shit fest came in handier. The deadlines kept piling up and honestly, that was the first time that I did not care at all. I thought that I was selfish, but in retrospect, that was me crying out for help not from others, but from me --the me that is still somehow breathing under all the shit pile that is above and beyond me. Of course, I was trying to solve these because I need to be fed by the world I chose to be part of, but, I failed more than ever. I had some A-game wins but the wins were at the expense of my sanity. And again, this is the first time that I am totally experience shutdowns both in the physical and the mental spheres, and I am not kidding when I say that these shutdowns make me feel more than nothing. It’s so difficult to explain, so let’s save that for another entry, shall we?  And so, I decided to make a full stop amidst everything. I just woke up one day and told myself that it’s time that I allow myself to look after myself. I just realized that I ought to be wasting my time beautifully. And that beautifully meant I am the only one to define it. For the first time in my life, I was able to let the voices inside me have a decent conversation with any trace of OD-ing on anything.  Today, I am still learning. I am still afraid. I am still figuring things out.  Today, I can say that I am back on track even if it seems like I am still lost. I can say that I finally managed to live my truths even when it seems that the world I was once in look down on me, and yes, I don’t give a shit. After all, I am still the strategic and creative girl, but now, I am also a work in progress in the name of things that make me more of the me I always dreamt of without having to run away from my mother’s memories. I am a work in progress who’s on her way to live with intent as I make more sense of how to die beautifully in my eye. Of course, I still want my mother’s approval, but now, I realized that I don’t need it. Sweet, right? 

[jungnoir]

take a breath;

park jimin | on days like this, jimin thinks he should really thank his mom for putting up with him. | 1.9k words. | fluff. requested.

Jimin doesn’t do this often. Take a breath, that is.

He’s usually cracking his eyes open at six in the morning when the dog has to pee, and he sleepily counts the things he has to do that day on the Mickey Mouse themed calendar magnet-pinned to the fridge while Connie poops in circles in the backyard. When the relieved cocker spaniel finally makes her way back inside, it’s time for breakfast and time for his day to start.

He flips on the coffee pot and sets out your traveling mug; at the same time, he’s cracking several eggs into a warming skillet and setting out the right amount of bacon to fry and enough bowls to fill with cereal. Connie sniffs at his ankles, barely covered by the toasty warm pink socks decorated with Princess Aurora’s face on them that the middle oldest had chipped in to buy him for Christmas. It’s quiet, save for the sizzle of eggs in the pan and his mind running at a million miles an hour. In about fifteen minutes, the eldest, Ji-hye, would make her way downstairs in a none too graceful manner and berate her father with questions about where her calculator went or if he could help her comb and braid her unruly curly mane two minutes before the bus arrived. Jimin thinks he should receive an award for fastest fish tail braid in the world, at least.

His days move like this often, except for Sundays and Saturdays when he’s granted an extra two hours of sleep curled into your warmth before the kids come to wake you both up. He doesn’t mind the (usually rough and rowdy) greeting of several little girls propelling themselves onto Jimin’s back. Mainly because he’s smothered in wet mouthed kisses as his daughters wish him good morning. The three of them plus their mother cuddling into his chest makes for a pretty nice wake up call, even if he does complain that Soo is kneeing him in the abdomen and Minah is sitting on his ankle.

Jimin had, surprisingly, been the first to start up a family out of the seven of his friends, Jungkook being the second. Meeting the mother of his children had been an accidental slip up at the airport; you had meant to buy the seat next to your best friend, but instead spent the thirteen hour flight to LA next to Jimin because your friend’s seat partner refused to give up her window seat (and when your friend had seen who you’d be sitting next to for the rest of the flight, she had promptly lied to Jimin’s face that she was perfectly fine where she was, shooting you a wink as you walked away). In the end, Jimin and you had become friends so quickly that by the time you both landed, you had exchanged numbers and met up for coffee in the city during the duration of both your vacations.

A coffee date or four turned into silly arcade dates and roller skating with each other to Bruno Mars, and fast forward three years later, Jimin was popping the question in front of your favorite ramen restaurant and catching you as you squealed and threw yourself into his arms. You two had barely waited to officially wed, and even less waited to start on a family. You had truly found your soulmate, and it felt so fairytale that you had to pinch yourself sometimes when you looked into his eyes.

Mornings like these, when you would shuffle downstairs to get ready for work, assured there was no pinch needed.

The strong aroma of coffee hit your senses just as soon as you woke up, and you’d known immediately that it was another day with the man you loved. Watching him flip bacon and set up backpacks for the girls’ day at school was like a dream you were glad was a reality. You weren’t sure if he knew how much you loved him, so you made sure to make it known at every possible moment.

Even as you simply leaned against the island in the kitchen, arms folded and eyes lovingly sweeping Jimin’s sleepy figure in, you knew he could feel the literal hearts you were shooting at him through your gaze.

“You should get dressed, honey. Traffic is a killer at the beginning of the week, you know.” Jimin says, glancing over his shoulder at you. His messy dark hair shrouds his eyes some, but you can see the brimming reprimand he’s firing up for you if you didn’t get moving. Instead, you give him a lopsided smirk in response.

“Can’t I look at my handsome husband a little longer? We haven’t been on a date in a while.” “The last ‘date’ we had, I recall, resulted in the littlest one currently whining her way out of bed right now.” Jimin chuckles under his breath.

“That’s cause you were too desperate to grab a con-” You can barely finish your sentence, having sauntered over to his side, before he leans in to press a warm kiss to your lips to shut you up. He doesn’t move and neither do you, simply relishing in the intimate feeling. This, too, he rarely got to do without six pairs of prying eyes around the corner. Right now it was just you and Jimin… and maybe Connie, but Connie was busy licking up spilled peanut butter on the floor from Jimin’s hasty attempt at making PB&J earlier.

Jimin raises his hand and cups your cheek as he pushes you back, even as you lean in with a barely audible whine, upset he’s denying you a longer kiss. His soft fingers brush away the sleep from the corners of your eyes as you lean into him, relishing in his warmth. The feeling is so intoxicating that you start to lull against his side, and he can tell.

Gently wrapping an arm around your waist, he shuts off the skillet and lets the bacon cook a little longer on the fleeting heat before scooping it up and setting it on a plate beside your arm. Breakfast is finished, yet he can’t give you his full attention just yet.

As the kids rush down the stairs, Jimin does the usual with an additional onlooker peeking from her spot on the kitchen counter. Jimin does braids and ponytails and buns, he fixes blazers and corrects crooked bowties, and he makes sure every mouth is fed before helping them to the door, right on time for the bus as always. He crouches after opening the front door and he’s blessed with three quick kisses in succession, a chorus of goodbyes to both their father and mother filling the morning air before they’re being taken to school and out of sight.

When Jimin enters the house again, you’ve yet to make an attempt to get dressed, and your coffee has long since gone cold. “Calling in sick?” He murmurs, knowing all to well the look you give him as he quietly walks toward you with hands deep in the pockets of his shorts.

You nod and hold your arms open for him, which he gladly sinks into with a chuckle. You press your face into his neck and inhale, making him squirm in your hold. “That tickles.” Jimin complains, pushing at you lightly.

“Take a breath, Park Jimin, my loving husband. Today is all about you. Take a breath and let me take care of you.” Your voice is barely above a whisper at his ear, and yet just like that, he melts into you like the weight of the world has finally fallen off his shoulders. His arms encase you in a needy hug and you hold him back just as tight, unable to fight the loving smile you press into his hair as he sighs. For the first time in a while, Jimin lets go of the stresses of being a perfect dad for three beautiful angels and an equally perfect husband for the angel who gave him them all. He sinks into you and relishes in your caring touches that remind him he’s not the only caretaker in the home. You’re there too, loving and supporting him every step of the way. You’re there, and always have been.

Jimin hadn’t really seen himself becoming a stay at home dad all those years ago when the group first started. He hadn’t even known he’d find someone who he’d want to settle down with so quickly. He had opted to be a bachelor like Yoongi for as long as possible (”it’s for solidarity, hyung”), but his plans had long since been whipped and skewed to the point where Jimin was no longer in the business of making promises for anything.

Though it was tough, being the only man in a home full of girls, Jimin had since learned one by one that it was much tougher to be a parent than he had expected. The worried feelings that bubbled inside his stomach every time one of his little girls grew a year older and a year smarter left him wondering how long it’d be before they too started exploring their own world and nature. He wanted them to do so in the safest way possible, but he also knew that he could not be too picky. He had been used to giving advice on it for so long that when it had been spit back at him, he had gone blank.

“I don’t want her to get hurt, Jimin… she’s my whole world.” Jungkook had barely given his child a chance to escape his arms since Jimin had showed up at his friend’s humble home. If Jungkook could propel hearts through his eyes, the newborn in his arms would be absolutely drowning in them by now.

“She’s going to get hurt whether you like it or not, you know. That’s just the way of the world.”

“How are you going to fare, then? If I’m having this much trouble with one, you’re gonna have three times as much!”

Jimin, for the first time, is stunned into silence by the kid. Jungkook watches on with a know-it-all look on his face and smirks, but it is not to mock Jimin so much as it is to prove his point silently. Jungkook would only have to righteously defend one daughter from nasty pubescent germ-carriers called teenage boys at least a handful of times. Jimin would have to go through it again, and again, and again…

“…Well, It’s me, (Y/N), Connie, and the rest of you boys. We should be able to defend them all just fine.” Jimin smiles, nudging Jungkook with his shoulder, careful not to wake the resting baby in his arms. He watches with great amusement as Jungkook’s hold tightens just a little bit in fear that Jimin hit too hard and his grip would come loose. Jimin was awfully pleased he’d be seeing Jungkook grow as a father firsthand, if it meant experiencing his awkward fumbles like this all the time.

With cautious steps, Jungkook lowers his little girl into her crib and lets out a content sigh, “I just had a bad thought, Jimin,” the eldest of the two’s ears perk at this, only half paying attention while his hands fumble with a little stuffed teddy bear in the corner of the nursery, “what if… one of the boys has a kid too, and one of our girls fall for them?”

On days like this, Jimin thinks he should really thank his mom for putting up with him.

[faeriekim-blog]

P.I.S.T. - Chapter 3

               His heart was thumping in his chest as he washed the wound.  Never before had he woke up with physical marks following an episode and this was a bad one.  His arm was open wide with a long gash from elbow to wrist.

               He should probably go to A&E, Andrew reflected as he held the arm under the cold tap in the bathroom.  It didn’t seem very deep though even though it hurt like hell. Plus he always felt embarrassed about his condition and would rather talk to his GP about it.  After all they had been friends since University and she knew a lot about his episodes already, so that he wouldn’t have to answer any uncomfortable questions about it.

               He washed away some of the blood and then towelled it dry.  Then he left the bathroom to find the first aid box in the kitchen.

               He had rushed straight to the bathroom on his arrival.  It was all so strange.  It was the day of his episode.  Regular as clockwork, they always struck at midday on a new moon.  So he had taken the day off work and fallen asleep on a bench in the park.

               He had experienced these episodes ever since his early teens and had been on medication all his adult life.  Every month he had to go out to a park or somewhere else outside.  On the one occasion when he hadn’t he woke up with bumps and bruises all over him and his front room was a mess, with furniture upended and books and papers all over the place.  God only knows what he had got up to while he was having the episode.

He never remembered, you see.  All he knew was he dreamed of being a crow and then woke up again unaware of what had happened.  He had learnt long ago that if he wanted to avoid people looking at him funny and holding on tight to their children around him, then he would have to pick a secluded spot outside when the episode happened. The dreams seemed so real!  But it was harmless enough usually.

But this time he had dreamed he got into a vicious fight with another crow.  It had pecked and clawed at his wing until the feathers had come off and the flesh was raw.  Then he woke up in the park with his arm bleeding.

What was going on?  Was he genuinely becoming insane now?  Had he deluded himself that his dreams were real somehow?

He sat on the couch in the living room and pulled out a bandage from the first aid box, using some of the antiseptic cream on his wound. Then he found something he didn’t expect to find.  There was something stuck to part of the newly forming scab.  He thought it was dirt in the cut, so he tried to remove it. Wincing with pain, he picked it out. To his surprise, caked in dried blood and all shrivelled up was a tiny feather, like the downy feather birds have on their bellies.  What was that doing in his wound?

Andrew rubbed some more Savlon on the area he had pulled out the feather from and then he applied the bandage.  He rang the doctor for an appointment and luckily got one for the following afternoon.  Then he went back up to the bathroom to clean the sink.

As he returned to the bathroom sink he found three crow’s feathers, the large stiff ones that birds have on their wings.  Two of them were on the ground and one was in the sink. How did they get there?  What was going on?  Had he really been attacked by a crow?  Were the feathers his and the dreams were real?

He shook his head.  Don’t be ridiculous, Andrew, he thought.  I have a mental condition.  I dream I’m a crow and get up to things I don’t remember later.  Maybe I fought a crow.  But I sure as hell didn’t become one.  Start thinking that way and they’ll lock you up for sure.

But as he walked back out of the bathroom, he couldn’t help but wonder to himself.  What if he actually did turn into a crow?  What if the dreams were real somehow?

 The next morning he felt miserable.  He had been like this every morning for the past three months.  He lay on the couch, watching the television in his pyjamas and eating a bowl of cereal.

“So tell us about your latest book, Marvin,” the TV chat show host was saying.

“Well, it’s all about how astrology can help you in your pursuit of happiness and success,” Marvin Edwards explained.

Andrew wasn’t really listening.  TV psychics were largely full of crap.  But this had become something of a ritual for him, to watch the Larry Evans show while eating his breakfast.  He knew it wasn’t healthy.  He knew he should let it go, but he couldn’t.

That was the man who stole his wife.  Larry Evans, chat show host, preacher, charming smooth talker, wealthy breadwinner, romantic and virile, everything that Andrew wasn’t. The man his ex-wife was currently in love with.

Why did he do it to himself?  Why must he continue to torture himself every day?  But his heart was still bruised by the rejection.  It had taken him several weeks just to stop checking his phone and his emails constantly for messages.  He missed her.  He wanted her back.  But there was nothing he could do.  Every time he tried to talk to her about it, to make things up with her, the more she pushed him away, told him all his failings, made him feel even worse about himself.

Andrew let out a deep sigh and stood up with his empty bowl. He turned away from the TV set and walked into the kitchen.  Maybe that was why his episodes had been getting worse, he reasoned as he washed the bowl in the sink.  Maybe the misery, the heartbreak, the obsessive inability to let go of the love of his life were causing his episodes to reach new heights of intensity.

It wasn’t his fault.  He couldn’t help that his condition meant that he could barely ever hold down a job because he had to take days off every month.  He couldn’t help that it meant they barely got to go away on holiday because he had to use his holidays to cover his illness.  He couldn’t help that half the time he couldn’t even bear to make love to her because he suffered from vivid memories of dreams in which he had been fucking another crow, and it messed him up and made him go soft.

Why must he suffer all his life because of a mental illness that he never chose to have and that nobody ever understood?

He returned to the living room and looked at that big cocky face on the screen.  The smooth, dark skin, the big cheesy smile, it made him feel sick in his stomach.  He hated that man.  He came swanning in with all his ego, all his slimy charm and all his money and he stole Andrew’s wife from under his nose.  He wooed her and seduced her and won her heart and Andrew was left all alone.

Tears squeezed their way out of Andrew’s eyes and he switched the TV off in disgust.  That did it. He must phone her up.  It had only been three weeks since the last time.

He dialled the number, knowing full well that he really should learn to leave her alone now.  “Yes, Andrew,” she said in a voice that made it clear that she really didn’t want to talk to him.  “What is it?”

“I’ve hurt my arm,” he told her.  “I had a really bad episode this time.  I wish you were here.”

“I’m sorry you’re injured,” she replied, “but we’ve been over this already.  I’m with Larry now.  It’s over.”

“I just wish I had someone to confide in when things are tough,” he explained, “and somebody to hug it all better.”

“Then get a girlfriend,” she said, “or go see a therapist. You’ve got to let go, Andrew.  I can’t always be there for you.”

“I know,” he said.  “I just wish…”  She hung up. That was rude.  But what did he expect?

He sighed again and sat down in silence.  Something had to get better for him soon.  It just had to.

 Sophie hurriedly closed a window on her computer screen as Andrew arrived but not before he had seen the cute, smiling face of the Chinese girl she had been speaking to.

“Was that Tina?”  He asked.  “How is she?”

“Oh, you know,” Sophie said, looking slightly embarrassed.  “The same old Tina, obsessed with her gadgets and her comic books.”  Andrew sat down and Sophie turned to face him.  “But don’t tell anyone I’ve been messaging my friends at work.”

“Your secret’s safe with me, Sophie,” Andrew said with a grin. The doctor’s office was clean with white walls.  There was a couch and a curtain on one side of the room, several desks and chairs, a computer and printer, much like any other GP office.  There were posters on the wall about various medical matters, and some empty specimen vials on one of the desks.

“Please,” she told him, “call me Doctor Chandra when you’re seeing me in my professional capacity.  Now, what can I do for you?”

“It’s my arm,” he said.  “I injured it yesterday during one of my episodes.”

She unwrapped the bandage and inspected the wound. “You really should have got this checked out at the hospital,” she told him.  “Still I can’t see any infection and it doesn’t seem too deep, mostly a surface cut.  How did you do this?”

“I don’t remember,” he explained.  “I was dreaming that I was fighting with another crow. Then I woke up with my arm bleeding.”

“You’re still getting episodes?”  She asked, still touching his arm and tilting her head to examine it.  “Are you taking the tablets I prescribed for you?”

“Every day,” he answered.  “But the episodes are getting worse if anything.”

She began to clean the wound as she continued to ask him questions.

“Are they occurring with the same regularity as always?” She asked.

“Exactly the same,” he told her.  “Regular as clockwork, once a month at midday on the new moon.”

“I’ve never known anyone with a condition like yours,” she explained.  “And I can’t find any literature on it either.  You appear to be something of an anomaly, Andrew.”

He couldn’t help but feel amused by that.  “Thank you,” he said with a grin.

“Well, I’m not too worried about this wound,” she said, applying a new dressing.  “Keep it covered and let it heal naturally.  But what I am more concerned about is the ineffectiveness of the medication you’ve been taking.  Can you explain in more detail why you said that you think the episodes are getting worse?”

“Well,” he explained, “I’ve never experienced anything as violent as this last one.  That bird was really pecking and clawing at my wing until the flesh was raw.  And then I woke up with this wound!”

“Have you been watching any violent nature documentaries?” She asked.

“Not really, no,” he replied.  “I barely watch anything these days apart from Doctor Who and the Larry Evans show.”

She finished redressing his wound.  Then she let go of his arm and he let it fall to his side again.

“Larry Evans?”  She questioned.  Her tone of voice suggesting that she wasn’t impressed.  “Isn’t that your ex-wife’s current boyfriend?”

“Well, yes…” Andrew answered sheepishly.  “But…”

“And does it make you feel sad, or angry?”  She asked.

“Well, yes…”

“I think you should stop obsessing about it and move on,” Sophie explained.  “It’s not healthy for you, Andrew.  And I think the anger and bitterness you’ve been feeling has contributed to the violent nature of your latest episode.”

“But don’t you think it’s strange,” Andrew argued, “that I dreamed a crow was pecking at my wing until it bled and then woke up with my arm bleeding?  It’s as if it really happened!”

“It’s possible that you were acting out your frustration while in a delusional state,” she explained.  “Which is why I think it’s very important that we review your medication. You’ve already injured yourself. I don’t want you hurting anyone else.”

“And I found feathers in the wound,” he interjected. “What if it’s actually possible I could be turning into a crow every new moon?  You hear stories about werewolves and the like.  What if I’m a werecrow?  I know it sounds crazy.  But I actually had crow feathers in my arm, an arm that had been injured after I experienced myself fighting with another crow!  What if my condition isn’t a form of psychosis after all, but an actual event, a physical change?”

Sophie looked at him with a look of scepticism and disbelief. “You’re an intelligent man, Andrew,” she said.  “You know there’s no way that a human being could turn into a wild bird.  It’s scientifically impossible.  Maybe you really did fight with a crow.  But as a human in the grips of a psychological episode.  Now, I’m going to prescribe you some new tablets. These are powerful antipsychotics, ok? They should hopefully work better in suppressing any delusional beliefs or hallucinations.”

“I’m surprised you have any drugs left that I haven’t tried yet,” Andrew commented.  “I’ve lost count of how many times my medication has been changed.  Nothing has ever worked.  What if you’re treating the wrong kinds of symptoms?  What if it’s not psychological at all, but physical?”

Sophie seemed to give this serious thought.  She sat back in her chair, put her hands together under her chin and made a pensive noise while staring into space.  “Well,” she said at last, shaking herself out of her reverie and looking Andrew in the eye.  “Take these new drugs I’m prescribing you.  But since you raise the issue of an underlying physical cause, and to put your mind at rest, I will also take a blood sample for analysis.”

“I’ve not fasted,” he told her.

“If we need a fasting test for another sample, I’ll let you know,” she explained.  “But for now, let’s see what turns up from this one.”

She got him to roll his sleeve up on his good arm.  She placed the tourniquet around his bicep and tapped the skin on the underside of the elbow joint.  Then she put the needle in and withdrew some blood into the vial.

It was over very quickly, just a sharp scratch and a few seconds wait, then she removed the needle, put on a tiny plaster and took off the tourniquet.

“If there is anything physical causing your delusions,” she explained, “then I’m sure we’ll find it.  In the meantime, keep taking your medication and look after yourself. Not just physically but emotionally too. Stop dwelling on the past and things that make you angry or anxious, ok?  And look after that arm.”

“I will do,” Andrew said as he stood up to go.  “And thanks as always for the opportunity to talk about what I’m going through.”

“You’re welcome, Andrew,” Sophie replied.  “I worry about you.  Not just as your doctor, but as your friend.”  She smiled.  He smiled. They said goodbye and Andrew left the doctor’s office and returned home.

Maybe she was right and it was just a product of his own emotional issues.  Maybe he had done something weird like fought with a crow as a human.  But as he walked home, the possibility she dismissed still haunted his mind.  What if those feathers had been his?  What if he really was some kind of shapeshifter?

I’m only posting the first 8 chapters of this story on this blog.  You can read all of The Psychic Investigation and Study Team by buying it on Amazon.com or Amazon.co.uk