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uni-seahorse-572 · 2 years ago

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my heart a fool and yours laid bare (part 2)

anyway. it's after midnight I think and I'm not coherent. writing schedule went to crud somewhere during this piece so it took way longer than intended sadly. but this is 7K. literal 7K. this was not supposed to be 7K. the entire fic was meant to be 5 at most and I've already hit 10. I can't live like this. i'm 90% sure my writing style changed partway through and guess what! i'm still not editing

also! there will most likely only be one more part to this which I hope to post in a timely manner but won't inevitably

taglist (aka those who are cursed to deal with my tomfoolery): @song-tam @gay-otlc @rainbow-frog-earrings @synonymroll648 (lmk if you'd like to be added / removed!)

From there, Keefe quickly begins to realize something entirely new about himself, something scary: he’s an incredibly tactile person when he’s allowed to be. Constantly, he finds himself bumping his shoulder against Fitz’s and slinging his arm around him, hugging him loosely at any opportunity where it seems acceptable; Keefe will muss Fitz’s hair and flop over him limply, dramatically just to feel Fitz’s exasperated fondness. Fortunately, Fitz doesn’t seem to mind, as while occasionally he’ll stiffen at the sudden contact or put up a good show of grumbling he never really complains—not even, say, when Keefe’s weight on his chest must be stopping up his breath in his lungs.

This constant contact means that Keefe gets used to the ebb and flow of Fitz’s emotions. Most people’s are hard to detangle, as they feel different for everyone, but he becomes so familiar with Fitz’s that he can decode even what he can glimpse through the tiniest brush of their skin.

A week before things will change forever, though Keefe doesn’t know it yet, he makes himself at home on Fitz’s bed without the hesitation that once characterized his every movement. The bedroom door is closed, unlike the times when he drops by Biana’s room nearby to complain about her brother or discuss music, usually dwarvish but never elven and only sometimes the smuggled human stuff (because despite what Fitz seems to believe, their tentative friendship doesn’t only center around terrorizing him—that’s a fringe benefit).

Fitz’s settled against the bed’s headboard, reading, the absolute loser, fully focused on the newest in some overly thick series he’ll gush about to anyone who’ll listen. Which isn’t many people, so that usually falls to Keefe. It’s a human one, Keefe knows, judging by the foreign shapes of the symbols inside, and Fitz never does explain how he gets any of them no matter how much he tries.

“What if,” Keefe says idly, wondering whether Fitz would kill him if he painted his horrifically dull ceiling with those spiders he’s so scared of, “instead of going to Foxfire, we harvested triceratops wool for a living? One way to get out of exams, am I right?”

“Tragically, yes. But triceratops wool is horrendously scratchy, so you couldn’t make much of a living out of that,” Fitz says distractedly, though his foot starts tapping back and forth. One way, the other, again and again as his leg becomes a pendulum broadcasting the depth of his stress. He’s awfully predictable, honestly. “I think I’ll stick with my tests.”

Really, things would go so much easier for Fitz if he’d just give up wanting to do well already. Keefe did that! And it’s going great, if he ignores his parents’ lectures. Which he always does. Sadly, Fitz has never been one for abandoning caring, even when it would make his life exponentially easier.

Rolling his eyes, Keefe reaches out one hand in an offer that needn’t be spoken. Fitz takes it without a moment’s pause. The two of them fit together like they always have.

With the years of closeness between them, Keefe has quit worrying about extrapolating too much from his Empathy entirely. He’d never use any of Fitz’s feelings against him. By now, it’s grounding for both of them when they’re connected, bonded by skin touching skin. Keefe has grown so used to Fitz’s emotions they’re as natural as his own. Sometimes, they may as well be one and the same.

Which—on some level—will never stop feeling wrong. How is it fair that he knows this much about Fitz yet the same isn’t true in return? Empathy picks up on even the things the person themself might not know is there. While Fitz has spent quite a bit of time in Keefe’s head, he sticks to surface-level thoughts, which are basically what Keefe wants him to see along with a few stray bits of nonsense Fitz can never understand.

Right now, despite the constant chill of Fitz’s long, spindly fingers and freckled palm, the emotions Keefe can sense are all warmth—sweet, hazy contentment intermingling with swelling fondness. A ribbon of nervousness cuts through the warmth, though, darting with its unease and shivering between every other feeling to send them spiraling off kilter. “Something wrong?” Keefe asks, absentmindedly running his thumb over the back of Fitz’s hand, slow slow slow and steady as he tries to impart some of his own heat.

Fitz’s protest comes seemingly without any consideration behind it. “Nothing,” he insists, at last turning to look at his best friend, their hands still interlocked between them. Yet his gaze resolutely avoids Keefe’s, cast down at the ticking anxiety of his own constant fidgeting (the same kind that ‘somehow’ always manages to go away at Foxfire, replaced instead by a subtle tension in the straining set of his shoulders). “I’m a bit worried for those tests these week is all. No need to mother hen.”

“I’ve never mother henned in my life and you know it,” Keefe retorts. “C’mon, Fitz. We’re best friends. That not only means you can trust me with anything, but also I have access to your hair products. And food. Just about everything, really.”

“So apparently trusting you with ‘anything’ doesn’t, in fact, include my stuff?” Fitz asks drily.

Unbothered, Keefe shrugs. “You knew what you were getting into when you met me, Fitzy.”

Still without deigning to put down his book, Fitz huffs. “Don’t call me that.”

“Oh yeah? What are you gonna do about it?” Keefe adopts a carefully crafted innocent expression, though of course Fitz knows far better than to fall for it—truly unfortunate, that. “Fitzy, Fitzy, Fitzy-a-roo,” he sing-songs, finding progressively more ridiculous twists on the nickname and adding each to his taunt with a solemn mischievousness.

“Keefe.” Fitz draws his name out until the single syllable lasts an eternity, finally setting his book outside. “Okay, I give in. I’ll indulge your insatiably childish need for attention if you’ll just stop already.”

“Or you could actually tell me what’s bothering you. I’ve heard it works wonders, venting and all that.” Keefe makes the words sound like a challenge, needling Fitz out of his shell—he knows all the right buttons to push, just from the precise waves of irritation and subtle joy emanating from where their hands meet.

Fitz throws both his hands up in the air, thereby disentangling their only point of contact. “You’re impossible. I’m entitled to my privacy, aren’t I?”

“File that among the things you should’ve thought of before letting me into your lame, lame life.” For an eternal moment, Keefe stares Fitz down, one eyebrow arched high in a silent challenge. He smirks, rather deliberately, before springing forward and tackling Fitz into the bed.

Sputtering, Fitz wriggles out from under him, twisting one of Keefe’s arm’s behind his back. Keefe promptly drives his other elbow into Fitz’s stomach, sending him sprawling backwards. Even as Fitz lashes out with his unfairly long legs, Keefe strikes, pinning Fitz’s shoulders down to the bed and sitting on his torso.

Fitz glowers up at him, chest heaving. “Get off me,” he huffs, dark hair arrayed messy around his head, “you jerk, what’d you go and do that for? A warning wouldn’t hurt.”

“Expect the unexpected,” Keefe pants. “Tell me what’s bothering you.”

“That can’t really be what this is about,” Fitz complains, rolling his eyes grandly as though he expects that to prove his point. “You’re heavy.”

Keefe lets out an unbothered hum, bouncing up and down slightly so as to achieve his full irritation potential. “And I’m staying here until you spit it out. I’ll have you know I could do this all day. You’re rather comfy.”

Fitz returns to his ineffectual glaring, not seeming to realize how unintimidating his scrunched nose and crinkled brows are as always. His emotions seep out into Keefe, a quiet storm. A low, thundering rumble of anxiety paired with the cleansing rain of airy happiness, soaring skies of uncertainty and the steady grassy ground of comfort, all cut through by lightning strikes of something undefinable. Strikes that ring with excitement and flash with fear, warm yet tentative and new as flower buds. The river of Fitz’s breathing winds through Keefe’s Empathy and the real world, a bridge keeping him tied together.

With heated cheeks, Fitz glances away and carefully avoids any and all eye contact. Keefe frowns. “Whoa. You okay?” He pauses, removes his hands from Fitz’s shoulder. The constant input through his Empathy softens around the edges. “Those are some pretty intense feelings I’m getting.”

“Yeah, that’d be my desire to push you off the balcony,” Fitz grounds out, seeming to find Keefe’s face again. He’s trying to deflect now, then. That’s a familiar dance of half-forced frustration.

“Very convincing,” Keefe says drily, but he lets up on Fitz regardless, rolling over to fiddle with the things crowding his bedside table. “Oh, hey, I knew you had that kelpie Prattles pin I lost, what, a year ago? How long has it been since you cleaned this off?”

“Shove off,” Fitz mutters, rising and rummaging through his Foxfire bag to grab and start scanning through his Elementalism text. “Since I last had the freetime and energy to do it with, probably. So who even knows.”

Keefe subtly sends Fitz a long, searching look and keeps his answer too quiet to be heard. “That long, huh?”

The difference, he knows, between him and Fitz is that Fitz still cares. Caring is harder. Caring makes him tired, consumes him, while Keefe can just drift and let it all go crashing down only to live in the rubble. The last time he neatened up his own space is never because his dad’s appalled expression is funny, despite its consequences.

The subject slips away. Keefe lets it.

If Foster is a mystery, she’s a forbidden one.

The first week, Keefe avoids her; the second, he tries to annoy her into being scared away. Her emotions are entirely unguarded. The moment he steps into her vicinity, they strike—overwhelming, suffocating him with their force and making it nigh impossible to even think about anything else.

Yet that’s not the only reason why he has to stay away. Every time he’s near her, he can hear Sir Richard and Lady Merewyn’s voices ringing inside his head. It’s an invasion of privacy. He doesn’t even have the option of asking like he did with Fitz, because this doesn’t rely on contact. Sophie’s not his friend, really. She’s not in his inner circle. This shouldn’t be possible. It certainly isn’t right.

Fitz, on the other hand, has no such reservations. He doesn’t need to. With the sheer amount of time he spends around Sophie, Keefe is virtually alone with little hope of reprieve.

When he gives up on all reservations, admits that Sophie’s too persistent to allow him to avoid her so easily, it is—miraculously—worse. Far, far worse.

Everglen, compared to Candleshade, serves as a refuge. The house is far from kind. It holds that same coldness, repackaged in intricate, colorful crystal designs and rich-toned wood, but yet lacks any true comfort. The furniture is elegant, but always too stiff or strangely shaped or itchy, and fragile creations lie around every corner and topple at the merest breath. At least Candleshade doesn’t try to hide its nature.

Keefe meets Fitz on the grounds. The landscaping makes a simple distance wind through towering, flowering hedges, dance through hidden alcoves of trickling fountains and shaded benches, elaborately built and carefully maintained. He still gets lost out here sometimes.

The day is cool, a chill wind cutting through the air, but Fitz’s arms remain bare. No wonder his skin’s always so cold to the touch.

Sophie stands out on the grounds too, shifting her weight from foot to foot and smiling a smile that speaks more of nervousness than it does joy.

“Hey!” Keefe calls, staying as far away from her as he can without it looking odd. “What’re we doing, Fitz? Two-against-one Basequest doesn’t seem fair, you know. You guys deserve a chance too.”

Fitz rolls his eyes. “Hilarious. Nah, we were practicing Channeling. Sophie’s still struggling a bit in P.E.”

“Can’t imagine why, after you flung pretty boy here into a wall.” Keefe snickers at the memory. Good times.

“The drive to beat Fitz doesn’t exactly work with Channeling,” Sophie says drily. In the breeze, her blond hair whips wildly around her head, lashing against her face. The way she leans into Fitz carries an unspoken emphasis Keefe doesn’t need Empathy to decode.

Keefe moves to sling an arm around Fitz’s shoulders, yanking him closer (if that happens to pull him further away from Sophie, well, that’s just an unexpected consequence). “Personally, I find that works for just about anything. After all…”

He trails off, freezes. The roar of Fitz’s emotions has hit him harder than usual. There’s so much tangled there, shades of feelings he’s not fully used to, not with Fitz.

Affection, soft and sweet, paired with fondness and admiration. Exasperation (at Keefe?). And more than any of those, there’s something strong, something warm. It washes everything else away. It’s old and new at once, unyielding, and its power sparks a surge of bittersweetness deep within Keefe. He knows what this is. Or at least, he thinks he does. It’s not an emotion he picks up on often. It’s too raw for that, too filled with protective fury and passion and tenderness all at once. There’s no perfect word for it. Usually, he’d call it love, and that would serve well enough. But not now.

Fitz is in love. Fitz is in love, and the force of it is more than it has any right to be. That’s not even the most sickening thing.

He’s in love with Sophie. Why else would it be this strong right now? This present? Why else would his face be warm, tinged red, his smile be this soft around the edges? There’s no other explanation, and Keefe’s more upset than he has any right to be. He should be happy for his best friend, right? No, of course he’s happy for him, there’s no reason not to be. He’s just terrified of being left behind. That’s all. He doesn’t need to be distressed over a simple crush.

No simple crush, Keefe’s traitorous brain argues. Sophie feels the same, just look at her. And who wouldn’t? Fitz is possibly the best person out there. He’s too good for you in the first place. There was never any chance of him sticking around.

Keefe’s hand tangles together with Fitz’s, and he refuses to let it mean anything. This doesn’t get to mean anything. The moment he starts reading too far into the little thing sthey share, he knows he’s doomed. Keefe needs to pretend that they’re just friends.

Because Fitz is always aflutter around Sophie. Always blushing, stumbling in love, and it’s obvious that Keefe has already lost a game he didn’t even know he was playing. He needs to be happy for them. He can’t.

“Hey, Keefe?” Fitz cuts into his thoughts, tethering him back to reality when Keefe would rather spiral further into his moping. Sometimes it’s a shame Fitz knows him so well. “Everything all good? You kinda blanked out on us for a moment there.”

Sophie nods in agreement. Keefe almost wants to hate her. Is she really good enough for Fitz? Does she even truly know him? “Yeah, it was starting to get creepy.”

“I’m very sorry to be telling you like this.” Keefe says, with a long, dramatic sigh, “but I’ve been possessed by a ghost that makes me do things, like blank out. Or like—this!” With that, he snaps up a clump of mud with his Telekinesis and whips it into Fitz’s face before he can so much as blink.

Fitz splutters at him, using the back of his hand to wipe the mud off. “I can literally taste it,” he complains. “What are you, twelve?”

“Out of ten,” Keefe fires back. “Though, really, you’ve gotta add extra points for the hair.”

“Not if it’s covered in mud.”

With a wink, Keefe says, “You’ll have to catch me first”, and darts away, laughing at Fitz’s growing glower.

Later, when all is said and done, all three of them covered in the outdoors with heaving sides and racing hearts, Sophie jokes about how that was probably a better lesson in channeling than traditional practice would have been. Keefe grouses so much about being tired that Fitz agrees to give him a piggy-back ride, their sweaty bodies pressed tight together, and all is right in the world.

Or it would be, if not for the pulsing love that still coils within Fitz.

Keefe decides, afterwards, that he’s scared of change. Sophie’s a huge one, particularly if the spark between her and Fitz does end up becoming something more, and so of course all of this is scaring him. One day he’ll wake up and Fitz will be spending all his time with a girlfriend, maturing into the man everyone expects him to be, and Keefe will just be there. The exact same, spinning every serious moment into a joke and still refusing to grow up and accept ‘reality’ as his father would say.

One Foxfire Tuesday, then, Keefe turns to tradition. Not the dull kind, but one of his and Fitz’s own making. He skips detention for something-or-other (he never knows what anymore, he’s pretty sure he’s booked through until the end of his time at Foxfire) and drags Fitz with him to the library instead. Not the cafeteria, because a mentor would surely notice him there, but there are certain places among the towering bookshelves where it’s simple to hide.

Fitz doesn’t ask questions. He settles himself on the floor, resting his back against a couch rather than properly sitting on it, and Keefe does the same.

“So,” Fitz says, softly, like he’s internalized the rules of library quiet to the extent that he can’t help but follow them.

“So,” Keefe echoes.

Fitz glances at him, and shakes his head. He curls one hand atop Keefe’s knee, and Keefe leans his head on his shoulder. “What was so bad about detention today?”

Right. Most of the time, Keefe only skips when the mentor or their assignment is particularly unbearable, but today he wasn’t thinking about that. He was thinking about Fitz. “Nothing. Just didn’t feel like it, I guess.”

“You’re really not worried about what consequences they’ll try if they can’t even keep you in detention?” That’s a typical Fitz question, given that the only rules he’s ever broken have all been at his best friend’s… not pleading, really, because some of the time all it takes is a simple question and he’s giving in. Usually he even follows the stupid ones like ‘don’t make dinosaur noises in the hallways’ (a rule added solely because of Keefe, which belongs solidly on his list of greatest accomplishments that would exist if he didn’t despise making lists).

“I mean, what else can they even do?” Keefe would shrug, except his shoulder lies against Fitz’s and he doesn’t want to jostle him. “Anything drastic, dear ol’ dad’ll bail me out. Might finally tick him off enough to see the next color on the ‘Lord Cassius’ anger spectrum. The most his face has ever turned is purple.”

“You’re an idiot,” Fitz says, by which he means, I’m worried about you and I know you’re lying and please, please just tell me how I can help and I swear I’ll do it, just say it. Sometimes Keefe wonders what, exactly, Fitz can divine from his own mannerisms, quirks in speech. He hopes it isn’t nearly as much.

“But a handsome one. Also, unrelated note slash complete topic change, any idea why Bee’s been in such a mood lately? I haven’t seen her like this since I filled her pillowcase with spiders.”

Fitz tips his head backwards, exposing the fragile lines of his throat and lifting his face to the fading sun. “You mean since she beat you up so badly she got grounded. Dad’s making her try and be friends with Sophie. I don’t think Biana likes her for whatever reason, but I’m sure she’ll come around. Sophie’s great.”

Keefe makes a noncommittal noise. Neither Biana nor her grudges are easily swayed.

“Oh, and according to the rumor mill you’re dating Thyra,” Fitz says with a flare of an undecodable emotion. “Crush cuffs and everything.”

“Of course I am.” Keefe snorts. “I think we’ve spoken, like, twice.”

“You can’t forget the time you took that midnight arthropleura ride through Atlantis,” Fitz says very seriously.

With a grumbling sigh, Keefe tucks himself closer to Fitz’s side. “I’m sure that particular story’ll pass soon.”

“They always do.” Fitz rests his head against Keefe’s hair, tucking his knees up so they lie partially on Keefe’s outstretched legs. “Remind me again when we have to be in class?”

“Healthy hour, I’d say,” Keefe says.

“What about what the bells would say?”

“Like, twenty minutes, probably. But I’ve never been on time once in my life and that’s added surprisingly little to my stock of detentions. Sufficiently imaginative excuses will do you a world of good if you play it right.”

Fitz chuckles. “I’d rather just be punctual.”

From his bag, Keefe grabs his sketchbook and a pencil, idly drawing something out. “Where’s the fun in that.”

It doesn’t take much time for him to become absorbed in his artwork. The shapes he creates are abstract, messy, slowly melding into a form like a shadowed man. The steady scratch of his pencil beats out the only sound other than their own breathing. Around them, the scent of dust and paper permeates the air, and the shelves stretch seemingly endlessly onward. They march towards an infinity of ephemeral things caught on pages.

When he looks back at Fitz, his eyes are closed. If he’s sleeping, he surely needs it, but the cast of his feelings says otherwise. In sleep the heart is remarkably quiet.

But right now that same love is there, tucked between his atria. Despite the fact that Sophie is nowhere near, it’s every bit as strong as it was before, only softer. It shouldn’t feel like it does. There’s a marked difference between newly sprouted love and the kind that’s grown between partners that have spent years with lives intertwined, and this seems disconcertingly closer to the second. It doesn’t make sense.

It doesn’t make sense, and it’s there nevertheless, defying all logic. Keefe could drown in it. Strange that his Empathy would let him experience this love, the sort he doesn’t ever expect to hold towards another or to be directed towards himself. Yet it may as well beat beside his own heart.

Never has he been this close to love as an Empath. He hadn’t realized there was so much to it. It had seemed simple, the way people talked about it, and after all his mentors in the matter had been his parents. Whatever their loved looked like, it certainly had never been this. Keefe finds himself thinking that he’s jealous. Fitz has fallen, fallen deeply, and it had taken him too long to notice it. He’s sure to find the life he wants, as everything in his future settles into place.

And looking at him, face calm and the traces of a smile curling up the edges of his lips, Keefe can’t help but want that for him too.

So. That’s decided, then.

Subtlety is the name of the game. Or, at the very least, it’s scribbled all over the rulebook, because Keefe is determined to do this right. He won’t mess this one up. He knows, as he has always known, that he’s usually the problem, so to speak. It’s Fitz bailing him out of trouble with a few carefully placed pleas to Dame Alina and Fitz spinning stories to convince Cassius to let his son do this or that. In the grand scheme of their friendship, it’s always him helping Keefe out, so rarely the other way around. Keefe’s sick of being the screw-up.

The setup, to convince Yasmin Hadi to throw a party this weekend with all of his charismatic knowhow, is accomplished easily.

The rest of the necessary machinations require more precision. Fitz, when it comes down to the wire, is rarely so easily swayed. He can sense a setup a mile away—his instincts, what with those he’s surrounded with, have become incredibly fine-tuned to the presence of a scheme. Not that this is a scheme, of course. Only close.

Keefe catches him by his locker (surprise, surprise, Sophie’s there too, but that actually works rather in his favor) and doesn’t hesitate before hooking an arm around his shoulders.

“Yasmin’s throwing a party Saturday,” Keefe says.

Fitz spares a second away from running through carefully written flashcards to shoot him an incredibly skeptical expression. “That’s good for her.”

Keefe rolls his eyes. “Alright, alright, so you’re really making me spell it out for you? We should go.”

“We really shouldn’t.”

“Still hung up on the Rigged Ripplefluff Incident, eh?” Keefe says.

Sophie glances between the two of them. “Do you call everything incidents?”

“Well—”

“That one’s not worth mentioning,” Fitz interjects.

“He makes it out to be a bigger deal than it is.” Keefe ducks Fitz’s rather half-hearted elbow, raising his own hands in mock surrender. “Fine, fine. My point is, we shouldn’t deprive Sophie of her first ever elven party, right? Maybe even first ever party period?”

“I don’t know about that,” Sophie says with an awkward chuckle. One hand goes to her eyelashes, tugging gently, and she shifts her shoulders so half her hair whooshes in front of her face. “I don’t think I’m the sort of person who’d like parties. You’re welcome to go without me.”

“I promise it’s not as bad as you think.” Finally, Fitz stows his notecards, turning instead to face Sophie fully and knocking Keefe’s arm off in the process. It disconcerts Keefe, lacking that thrum of connection. “I’m pretty sure humans do it worse.”

Keefe nods sagely. “So I assume you’re in agreement that we should show Sophie how elves live it up?”

“You don’t have to,” Sophie says.

“Keefe, you bring me so much pain,” Fitz grumbles. “Of course I’m in. You’re helping me make up for lost study time, though.”

“You’re a liar and a fraud if you’re seriously claiming you’d be studying Saturday evening,” Keefe says.

Because he’s a terrible, terrible person, Fitz grins at him. “Well, now, I’m studying Thursday evening. With you. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’d like to get to my next session before I’m given detention just for hanging around you two outlaws.”

Sophie laughs. “I think he basically just played you. You sure that’s worth it?”

Keefe grumbles out something unintelligible. It’s worth it. It has to be worth it. It isn’t for him, after all, it’s for Fitz, and if that study session is part of this so be it. Very soon it’ll be harder to find time alone with his best friend, in all likelihood. Maybe the price of this is a mercy too.

Yasmin Hadi’s house, at the overly reasonable hour of four in the afternoon, pulses slowly with the milling footsteps and clustered chatter of Foxfire’s finest. Its great, elaborately-carved wooden doors swing thrown open like every one of the window shutters. The breeze winds through the front entrance and twists through the thrown-open patio doors, nudging the entire first floor into that gray space between outside and in.

Outside, amidst the party’s nucleus, Yasmin herself shines softly, waving heartily at each new arrival and pulling them into the fold. People group together in bubbles of quiet activity, distinct collections of two and three and five and fourteen like islands on the same sea. They recline on cushioned furniture and take glistening refreshments from green-glass tables. Over it all rests the music’s hum, the sound of a babbling brook occasionally intermingled with trilling birdcalls set to a sharper tempo. Several partygoers sway to the rhythm.

“When you said ‘party’,” Sophie says, glancing around as though in a dream or a fae ring, “this is decidedly not what I pictured.”

“Human thing?” Keefe guesses, to which she nods. “Wait, what were you thinking of? I’ve heard some wild stories—”

Fitz cuts him off with a pleading, “Don’t tell him, for my sanity’s sake.”

Shaking her head at the two of them, Sophie snatches a square of mallowmelt from a nearby table and takes a thoughtful bite. “I don’t know. Something like in all the movies, maybe? Loud music, flashing lights, people bouncing around in close quarters, someone probably doing something exceptionally dumb?”

“Sounds like my scene.” Keefe heads for a calm alcove, abandoning his usual routine at parties like these. He can’t lose sight of his mission. Tonight provides the perfect opening, and he’d be damned if he didn’t take it and take it right… especially after already having purposefully created the opportunity in the first place. All Sophie and Fitz need is a little nudge in the right direction. Or maybe a giant shove, whatever works.

The three of them settle onto a long, low-lying couch, far from the bustling center. Carefully, Keefe sits close enough to Fitz so that their knees brush, so he can keep tabs on everyone’s emotions and make sure everything proceeds in the right direction. Much as his friends like to joke that he lacks caution, lacks subtlety, he is an Empath. That gives him an automatic edge on this and similar matters, and his plan is already unfolding perfectly in all its complex designs.

Mentally, he casts about for any potentially useful avenue of conversation, yet one begins before he can quite get there.

“You’re really sure this is edible?” Sophie peers at a translucent sunset orange orb, rolling it in the palm of her hand so that the tiny, sparkly flecks swirling within catch the light. “It doesn’t look edible. Unless you think marbles look appetizing.”

“I’m not really sure what that is,” Fitz admits, “but they’re edible. I don’t think I’ve ever been to a party that didn’t have them.”

Keefe snorts. “Right. Because you let me drag you along to parties so often.”

Fitz swings one leg out, over and over, all jerky movements in a jarring rhythm so familiar Keefe’s tempted to join in with a melody. “Not everyone likes parties.”

Still squinting at the spherical confection, Sophie squishes it in her hand, considering it for a last moment before popping it into her mouth. She makes a scrunched-up face and scrapes her teeth along her tongue. “Considering that this just seems like free food, I’ve a feeling most people really do like elven parties.”

“Do you even like the food?” Fitz asks.

She points one overdramatically accusing finger his way. “Free food is free food.”

Keefe leans back against the couch, trying to fade into the background so that he can watch without interruption. The two of them play off of each other well. Through where his leg is pressed against Fitz’s own, he can sense a convoluted mix of nervousness and joy. It’s going well, then. They just need a bit of a push.

Carefully, he concentrates on a cup of rich blue liquid a refreshment table away, managing to slowly lift it with his mind. It bobs gently in the air as it floats towards him. When it finally nears, he lets loose some of his control and leans into the way it wobbles back and forth. A little more, a little more—

The glass tips. Its contents arc downwards, vibrant blue splattering as it spills, all directly onto Sophie’s white tank top. It drips down her shoulders, coalesces in the hollows of her collarbone, and seeps into dark stains on her shirt.

“Whoops,” Keefe says, trying for a passable imitation of being genuinely apologetic. “I’m, uh, sorry I ruined your shirt.”

Sophie brushes him off with a quick shake of her head. “It’s fine. I’m sure I can get it out when I get home, though I wouldn’t mind some napkins.”

“I’ll grab some,” Fitz offers. He gets up without waiting for a reply, and Keefe focuses in on Sophie.

Keefe sighs. “Foster, Foster. Think of my image! I can’t be seen with you in public if you’re covered in blue. Talk about a fashion faux pas.” He wiggles his eyebrows. “I bet Fitz could lend you his jacket…”

Naturally, Fitz chooses that exact moment to return, a bundle of napkins in one hand. “What? You’re the one who spilled. I’m cold enough wearing it.”

“Yeah, well, your jacket matches her shirt better,” Keefe argues.

“Yours is literally the same color,” Fitz says.

“I don’t need anyone’s jacket.” Sophie squints between the two of them, unspoken questions dancing in her gaze. Fitz shrugs in reply, as if to say he’s just as bemused as she is. “Also, honestly, it’s pretty warm here anyway.”

Narrowing his eyes, Keefe considers whether to concede on the matter, though he doesn’t have much of a choice. His first attempt at matchmaking is officially a total failure. Unless… what if both of them were so cagey about it solely because they liked each other? What if they were at least partially aware of their mutual crush, or one side of it anyway, enough so that certain actions felt awkward and charged? If anything, that meant try one was a strange success: it confirmed the likelihood of meeting the mission goals overall. Score one for Keefe, cupid extraordinaire.

Still. He does need to change tactics—and he knows the perfect opportunity is coming up, if he can just ensure he’ll be able to seize it. “So,” he says, not bothering to hide his own abruptness, “how are you settling in to the elven world, Sophie? Was neglecting to introduce you to elven parties an oversight or has Fitz fully failed you as a tour guide?”

Sophie shifts in place, managing a half smile. “It’s weird here, sure, but nice so far. And I really haven’t had time to explore the Lost Cities yet.”

“Awfully polite way of throwing Fitz under the arthropleuras,” Keefe comments.

A group of party guests drifts closer towards them, laughs alight and shining on their lips, and their noise nearly drowns out Fitz’s next words. “For once, Keefe, you may have a point. Do you know what sort of thing you want to see, Sophie, if anything?”

“Food sounds good,” Sophie says with a laugh. “You can’t really go wrong knowing the best places to go for a snack.”

Oh, there it is, the great golden beacon of opportunity. Keefe strikes. “In that case… Fitz, do you remember that bakery in Atlantis we went to last month?”

“The one where everything was so small you had to order, like, four things just for a regular portion?” Fitz’s gaze flits back towards his best friend, soft with the memory.

Keefe nods. “You have to admit they were so good though.”

“I nearly choked on an almond,” Fitz says.

“But you were fine! Thanks to my quick thinking and excellent reaction times you’re still here with us today.” Keefe slings an arm around Fitz’s shoulder, mainly for the simple pleasure of being able to reach up and ruffle his hair. The point of having a best friend is to know and do what annoys them with impudence… plus, Fitz’s hair is just soft. “Also, I still distinctly recall you asking for the recipe.”

Fitz huffs. “Not the almond bar-cookie-thing. I would’ve had more time to compare notes with the bakers if not for you.”

“In my defense—”

“—you have never once managed to finish that sentence with a valid defense—”

“—hey, if you listen, maybe you’ll find this is the first time. Point is, it wasn’t my fault this kind from our level dared me to telekinetically lift a table or two.” Keefe shrugs. “What did you want me to do, back down from a dare?”

“Um, yeah, that’s exactly what I wanted you to do. And it wasn’t a table or two, it was all of them. I still haven’t gotten the sound of crashing dishware out of my head.” Fitz shudders, perhaps a tad overdramatically. “You still didn’t even manage the stupid dare.”

“I live in shame every time I see Bellamy to this day,” Keefe says solemnly. “Yet I did all I could to rise to the challenge.” He pauses. “I also live in shame and hunger every time I’ve passed that bakery since.”

“I stand by their choice to ban you,” Fitz grumbles. “I’m just lucky they didn’t ban me too.”

Keefe chuckles, meeting Sophie’s eyes again and trying to tamp down his own sappy emotions. He needs to focus, no matter what. “It’s a great bakery.” His voice comes out softer than he’d like. “A great memory.”

The warmth emanating from Fitz is deliriously strong and sweet, fond and familiar. It’s so intense Keefe almost can’t take it, even after so many years of living through Fitz’s feelings right along with him. And Keefe has the power to make sure this feeling sticks around for Fitz.

“Sounds like it,” Sophie says, a smile working at the edges of her lips.

“You should go,” Keefe suggests, and there it is, the play perfectly in place. “Just the two of you, of course, I’m positive they still know my face there.”

The two of them both offer easy agreement. There. Clearly, the thing with the jacket was just a misstep, which was obviously bound to happen somewhere along the way. No matter. Keefe has obviously gotten into his groove. He’s a genius.

It may not have been phrased as such, but the bakery thing is literally a date. Anyone could see it. A romantic shop in Atlantis? Just Sophie and Fitz, with Keefe conveniently automatically out through an incredibly ironclad excuse? A lesser matchmaker could, and probably would, go ahead and stop now. This is basically already victory, right? But Keefe refuses to see this halfway through. He’s going to make sure his best friend’s happiness is completely and totally secured by the end of tonight, Keefe style.

Subtly as he can, Keefe flashes Yasmin the signal, so she knows he’s ready to move on into the next essential stage of his plan. From across the patio, she shoots him a thumbs up.

It’s go time.

The first bracelet falls nigh unnoticed, like an autumn leaf, drifting down to rest in a bowl of shimmering liquid a couple of tables away. Slowly, though, they begin to fall in full force, beads twinkling in a multitude of vibrant shades. Gasps spread outwards from the first person to grasp one, excitement buzzing through the air and bringing with it a clamoring chorus of reinvigorated chatter.

The bracelets find their places littered across the ground and resting atop people’s heads, but eventually, the result is the same as always: everyone holds one within their palm. Chaos breaks out in a flurry of activity. There’s blushing, giggling, even crying.

“What’s going on?” Sophie asks warily, twisting her bracelet’s red beads over and over in her hands.

“An elven party tradition.” Keefe gives a nonchalant shrug. “It’s like a mini version of crush cuffs, I guess. Everyone’s supposed to give theirs to the person they’d most want to be matched with and any pair who both chose each other all slow dance to the next song.”

Fitz’s staring rather determinedly at his lap, voice strangely quiet. Oh. That’s definitely nervousness, but there’s nothing to worry about, not with Keefe at his side. “It’s a bit of a weird one. If you’d rather abstain…”

“Don’t be boring,” Keefe goads. “I mean, it’s not that intimidating if you give them to each other…”

Glancing between the two of them as though they’re a puzzle she still can’t quite work out, Sophie says, “It’s fine. We all know no one in their right mind would let me slow dance anyway—no need to double the amount of feet I might trip over.”

Maybe they’re a bit more anxious about all this than Keefe thought. Which makes sense, he supposes. They’ve both never even been on a date before, right? All they need is the right push towards confidence. “C’mon, the dance moves are easy. You can’t miss out on this, uh, spectacular elven thing.”

“You could dance with her too,” Fitz points out.

Keefe frowns. Does his best friend really not see he’s doing this to help him out? “Nah, too dorky for me. Luckily, though, you two are dorks!”

“Thanks,” Sophie says drily. “Look, Keefe—”

“I’d be neglecting my duty as a friend if I didn’t—”

Severing all contact between them, Fitz rises to his feet, one arm wrapped firmly around his waist. “Could you please just drop it?”

“It’s just a silly party game. Lighten up, dude,” Keefe tells him. “Do you not want to dance with Sophie?”

Sophie turns a glower towards him. “What’s with you tonight? It really doesn’t matter tp me.”

In exasperation, he throws his hands up. “I don’t get either of you right now. Mostly Fitz. I get that you’re nervous—”

“Would you cut it out already?” Fitz snaps. “I’m sorry, okay? I’m sorry about my ridiculous feelings and the fact that you have to deal with them. I’m sorry if you’re sick of it.” His voice breaks, splitting in two like a gaping canyon of understanding Keefe can’t cross, because none of this makes sense. Nothing’s making sense. “But this? This is just cruel.”

“What on earth are you saying?” Keefe stands up too, reaching out towards his best friend. Maybe, if he could just get a read on him the same way he always does, he could sort this out. He could get down to the root of whatever’s got this whole situation scrambled into shattered pieces. This wasn’t supposed to happen. He doesn’t even know what this is.

Fitz backs away, raising his hands in desperate defense. “Stop pretending you don’t know,” he whispers. “You’re… you’re such an asshole, Keefe.”

“Fitz, come on!” Keefe shouts, but it’s too late. Already too late. Fitz is vanished, shoving forward into the crowd, swallowed up by a sea of bodies. The evening’s cold around him but he doesn’t feel it. For the first time in his life, Keefe doesn’t feel anything, icy numbness sinking deep into his bones.

Keefe sways. His head’s pounding.

How did this happen?

He doesn’t understand. He can’t understand. None of this is adding up. Everything he planned, everything he put in place just to make his best friend happy, has fallen to pieces around him. He’s an idiot and an asshole and he doesn’t even know why.

But it’s worse than that. Of course it’s worse than that. Because for the first time since he found his person, the one who was for so long the only contact and comfort he had, Keefe is alone. Totally alone.

There’s nothing left.

And somehow, it’s all his fault.

#ari writes #ari can words #kotlc #keefitz #keefe sencen #fitz vacker #this is. certainly a fic. that's all i've got #this chapter really did fight me though and i have no idea how it turned out #but i wanted to finish it and again after midnight #i refuse to be blamed for my actions on a tuesday #this does NOT feel like seven thousand words #will be sleeping now

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yoonpobs · 4 years ago

Text

we don't talk together | myg

pairing: min yoongi x oc

genre: angst, hurt/comfort, growth! exes that remain exes

words: 2, 842

summary: it's hard to say it's over

What they don't tell you about goodbyes is that it isn't the end.

It's far from the closing of a book. Goodbyes are the itch that urges you to pick up an old book from the shelf just to feel what you first felt when you re-read certain parts of a book; the same remorse you felt when a character you grew attached to didn't get the ending they deserved. Or, maybe it was the villain that was misunderstood—your own heart wishing to reach out to the sad soul that couldn't even be recognised when all they do is speak.

But some books will end up dusty, forgotten, tucked away in the corner of your shelf; or in the most drastic of cases: lost.

"The park looks ... different," Yoongi speaks up for a lack of a better conversation starter.

You hum. What would you say? That it wasn't the same from when we used to spend our Spring's blended into Summer's until it got too hot for us to lay in each other's embrace?

It was still too fresh even though it's been nearly a year.

"There are more dogs," You point out the moment a tan pomeranian runs past the two of you, the owner an old couple laughing away under the cherry blossoms.

He nods, fingers stuffed in his trench coat. You note that it's the same one he wore on your anniversary, plans abandoned when there was a mix-up with the reservations until the two of you stumbled across a hidden gem that soon became your go-to date place.

You will yourself to look away so no more memories can resurface. It seems like every part of your life has somehow seamlessly intertwined itself with traces of Yoongi that it was impossible for you to exist as just yourself.

"How are things at the firm?" He asks after the two of you walked side-by-side in complete silence as more and more chatter fill your ears.

"It's ... going," You chuckle dryly.

Yoongi raises an eyebrow at you, shooting you a brief glance over until the two of you reach a bench. You dare say it's muscle memory that dragged your heavy feet into the direction of the only bench that you've known in the park. The compressed reminder of the initials of your names that you carved as teenagers likely still staining the years old wood. It was meant to be an emblem for wisdom, the ring of growth that meant to be the endgame for the two of you.

You almost laugh in bitterness and how literal the metaphor was.

"Everything okay?"

Yoongi takes the first step to sit on the bench because he always did. Ever the gentlemen when he opened doors for you, let you into the car first, waited until you stepped ahead of him to trail behind like a shield.

The first date, first kiss, first confession.

The first one to decide that it was over.

"My boss is just being sexist, as usual. I thought I'd get used to it after spending two years there but ... there are some things that you just stay unfamiliar, you know?"

It was very like you to speak in double-entendres without intending to. But it was also like Yoongi to pick up on it, especially after years of learning all the best and worst parts of you; he was and probably will be one of the few people in your lives that will always foresee your next move.

The two of you sit a fair distance apart on the bench even if it was a battle for space anyway. You didn't have the liberty to lean into his embrace anymore and he wasn't in the position to say that it was okay for you to breathe, to relax.

"You shouldn't get used to those remarks. There are times where you learn to grow used to constructive criticism but if what he's saying makes you question your worth because of very arbitrary reasons like your gender then that isn't criticism, nor is it constructive. It's bigoted and chauvinistic."

You look down to your thumbs as you fiddle with it, his words comforting you. It was woeful that you still chased validation from him even after learning to be that person to yourself.

"Yeah, I guess."

Then how did you get used to things?

If time didn't make things familiar then what did? Was it not the five years with Yoongi that led you to see him build an empire for himself all the while destroying the relationship that you had? Or was it because he was the person that you thought of doing the most minuscule things?

"By the way," He clears his throat, eyes still set forward, "Namjoon says hi."

You raise an eyebrow, surprised to hear the name of a mutual friend—or more appropriately, friend by association and acquaintance when that link was broken.

"He knows that you're with me?"

Yoongi nods his head.

"I needed to let someone at the studio know and ... well, he's the only one that knew of our situation."

You chuckle bitterly.

Of course. The suggestion of his work only made your heart drop because as much as you wanted to be supportive of him, even after the break-up, the name of his studio or songs only reminded you of the battle that you helplessly lost.

"You can tell him that I'm still a text or phone call away. No need to play messenger," You return.

The atmosphere is more reflective than awkward. You know that the two of you had your pieces to say, your own narrative to tell but neither brave enough to break the calm that you were settled in. It was a nice difference from the way that things ended, and you supposed that you were similar enough to believe in a mirage than the inevitable truth.

But you didn't call him out after six months to sit in silence to walk away with your heart feeling heavier, nor did you invite him out just to remember what it feels like to have him next to you—even in complete silence.

"Would you have really quit?"

This time, you gather all the bravery that you've built over the past few months to ask the question that has been mulling in your mind since the night you decided that it was officially over.

It was a painful break-up. Even if you expected it when Yoongi came home earlier one night with bags under his eyes and his keys that he usually left at the studio because he knew you'd always be home to open the door for him.

"I'm sorry?" He seems taken aback.

You don't blame him. You've always been more passive in dealing with confrontation due to your conflict-averse nature—but that didn't mean you didn't get angry or annoyed—or hurt. But if you learned anything, it was to stop asking yourself questions that you'll never have the answer to.

"Would you really have left the company to save our relationship?"

You chose your words carefully. Instead of saying to be with you, knowing that he lost the love, he had for you somewhere along the way—you point out the one hole that he held on to for the sake of stability. The one thing that was constant in his life with how unpredictable the music industry was.

"Yes."

Somehow, the answer doesn't make you feel better because even with time apart you knew he was lying to save your face.

"You don't owe me anything to lie to my face, Yoongi." You frown.

Yoongi sighs, rubbing his hands across his face as he leaves your statement hanging in the air to mull over his answer.

You prefer the silence that way. It showed that he was at least listening, or cared enough to decide his next set of words. Nothing like how much it pained you to acknowledge the responses you got from him when you were crying were just out of obligation than sincerity.

"No, I wouldn't have."

You nod your head, expectant of the answer but you needed to hear him say it himself rather than drowning yourself in ruminating thoughts of how there was still a semblance of hope that he would've given it up for you, for your relationship—or the life that you were meant to build.

"I wouldn't have asked you to, anyway." You confess.

Yoongi turns his head to look at you and for the first time since you've met at the park, he notices the absence of a necklace around your neck. The necklace that you never took off. He wants to comment on it, ask where it went or if you've pawned it off out of pettiness but he held no remorse towards you. You were tolerant with the break-up even as you sucked in your tears when he knew that it killed you on the inside. Yoongi didn't have the heart in him to ask you.

"Oh."

"You were the one that said you'd quit so we could stay together," You say softly.

Yoongi doesn't respond as he looks back to the night where the two of you sat down to talk about the standing of your relationship. It was a rollercoaster of emotions that started off with an amicable discussion that eventually led to the two of you yelling until you surrendered to your tears and just left the battle completely.

He said a lot of things that night. From things that he's been bottling up for months, to things that he's always wanted to tell you and things that he didn't remotely mean, and things that he's regretted the moment it left his lips.

"I guess I did."

You sigh, leaning back into the bench as you observe a couple walking in front of you, passing your bench as they share an ice cream on a cone; bickering on who'd get the first lick. To anyone, you and Yoongi would've looked just like a couple that has reached a comfortable point in your relationship where intimacy was just sitting next to one another.

But you admit, there was something oddly intimate and heart-breaking about sitting next to someone you've loved with your whole heart and feel nothing but ... weightlessness. Like the burden of your concerns was lifted ever so slightly just being here.

"I wouldn't have made you choose between your relationship or your dream, Yoongi. I would never have done that to you."

Yoongi knew you would never have made him do something as abhorrent as that. You were far too understanding. But you had wanted from him too, that he wasn't willing to provide just yet. He didn't know if it was because of the expiration date to your relationship or because of the stress he was under at work—but he convinced himself that it was you that was asking for too much instead of him compromising too little.

"I ... I know," He whispers, "I'm sorry."

You purse your lips. You try not to let your emotions appear on your sleeve. You were tired of allowing your face to speak before you did. You needed to use the voice you had.

"I loved you so much, Yoongi," You murmur, "I loved you so much that I would have taken anything I could've gotten with you just so I could be with you."

Yoongi stays silent at this.

"I didn't mind if you spent more time at work than at our home. I just wanted to know if I was ever in the picture when you were talking about the future. I know how much you love music and I supported you through every audition and failure ... and to know that I was just—" You swallow, the words still painful to say. But you needed to make your peace with it, "—that I was just someone that would wait for you instead of your partner. That's when I knew that you didn't love me the way I loved you."

Yoongi chokes to speak up but you shake your head.

"No, Yoongi. You loved me, you did. But somewhere along the way you stopped and you just pretended that we were okay even when I was trying my best to fix the seams. I wasn't your girlfriend anymore, I was just someone familiar to you and I didn't deserve to feel that way." You tell him sternly.

Yoongi surrenders to his silence as you take a deep breath to continue.

"Maybe I loved you too much in a way that you couldn't understand."

"_______, don't say that—" His eyes widen when he tries to reach a hand to yours to comfort you, but your body language remains stoic as you keep your hands in your lap.

"—and that's okay Yoongi. I loved you but not in the way you needed. I'm not here to make you feel bad about what I chose to do on my own because it wasn't my fault that I couldn't be what you need." You say sadly, but a small smile on your face as you finally say the words that have been eating at you for months.

"... okay," Yoongi accepts.

"We all have different ways to love and be loved. I loved you and that was enough for you at one point but love isn't all a relationship needs. You loved me too, in your own way and I accepted that but just because it was enough for me doesn't mean it was enough for us." You glance over at him to see him staring at you intently.

"I'm sorry that things turned out this way," Yoongi says softly, eyes gentle.

You wave him off.

"I don't think I'll ever love someone as much as I loved you, though," He confesses, eyes returning to the scene in front of him filled with different colours of life that seemed to look vibrant under the Spring sunset.

You shake your head and chuckle softly.

"You say that now but you'll meet someone one day and you'll remember all the reasons why you love in the first place. And it'll be enough for you, and them."

He shrugs, a small smile itching on his face.

"I really did love you," He says, "But I'm sorry for not being honest with you. I owe you that much of an apology."

"We're not here to forgive or forget, Yoongi," You look at him kindly, "We're here to move on."

He purses his lips and hums, nodding his head.

"I hope you get that promotion at work you were talking about months ago, ______." Yoongi offers, a gentle grin marring his face.

"I did," You shrug.

It feels liberating to have achieved something and only feeling content by acknowledging it yourself. Months ago, you would've hurt at the fact that Yoongi didn't know. But the change you welcomed after the end only showed you that there was a new path for you to walk on.

His eyes widen, but eventually, he chuckles and shakes his head, muttering something under his breath that sounded a lot like knew it.

You push yourself off the bench, dusting your hands on your pants as you offer him one last smile before you say goodbye for the second time.

"I hope you find someone who you'll love more than you ever did with me." You tease.

He rolls his eyes.

"Impossible," The grin on his face is easy, and your heart still clenches at the nonchalance, but you don't expect the feeling to go away so easily—nor do you mind. It just shows that you needed to wait and that you were willing to do it.

"Of course you will. You're a musician, Yoongi. You need a muse," You smirk at him as you turn around, a small wave on your hand to say goodbye.

As you walk away and his body gets smaller and smaller from your vision, you turn around to say:

"We don't talk together is a beautiful song."

Yoongi's smile is genuine, and so is his goodbye. A gentle acknowledgment of his hand as he stands up himself, walking to the other direction of where you were headed.

You still had a love for Yoongi, and you suppose you always will. Just like how you would feel pleasant when rediscovering a childhood hobby that triggers a fond memory, or how you love different things in your life in different ways. Whether or not you love someone more than you've ever loved Yoongi isn't your concern, because when love comes in one form, it goes in another.

When you still take the same route you'd usually take with Yoongi after your walks back home, you pass the cafe you used to frequent to see that it's replaced with a new bar. You smile fondly to yourself, shaking your head.

You loved that place.

But eventually, you'll find another cafe with a beautiful interior and a latte to match, and you'll love it too.

#bts fic #bts imagine #bts fics #bts imagines #bts yoongi #bts fluff #bts angst #yoongi x reader #yoongi fluff #yoongi angst #yoongi exes #yoongi imagine #yoongi fic #yoongi breakup #angst #fluff #yoongi #min yoongi x reader

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chokemeanakin · 4 years ago

Note

idk if you do like song request sorta things, but could you do a fic based on the song "night bus" by gabrielle alpin? especially the "suddenly i know that i'm on my way home to you for the last time" part--maybe an angsty sort of thing where the reader and anakin's relationship gets discovered and she gets sent away or smth? idk i couldn't stop thinking ab it last night and i have no motivation to write it myself and i love your writing so maybe?? tysm!

Oh sis this was so much fun to write. Even though it is sad... idk i liked getting in the feels. Anyway I hope it meets your expectations. If it didn’t, well, pls write it yourself and tag me! I’d love to see what your vision was ❤️🤗

Masterlist

Read it on ao3

WC: 1.8k

Night Bus - Anakin x gn Reader angst

You swore this would never be you. You promised yourself it would last. If two people love each other, there should be no reason you couldn’t be together.

That’s childish thinking, you tugged your jacket tighter around you. Your boots dragged through the grey sludge of the sidewalk, remnants from a lazy downpour of wet snow a few hours before. Your mind whirled and stomach churned as the streetlights began blinking on one by one, the markets closing up for the night.

It should have been a peaceful thing, but you felt sick. With each step closer to your destination, you felt as though a current was dragging you back, the darkness closing in around you. You knew as soon as you reached him, it would be for the last time. Your fairytale would come to an end, and as you walked through the bitter streets of Coruscant on your way to the Jedi temple, you prepared yourself to say goodbye to your prince charming.

“It’s selfish, what you’re doing,” Master Windu had hissed at you. You were still reeling from his admittance that he knew about your and Anakin’s relationship. You had been so careful to keep it a secret, you had no idea how he found out.

“Obi-Wan told you,” your lips felt like rubber.

“He did not,” Mace leveled his gaze at you. “He knows, I’m sure of it. But he respects Anakin too much to give him away like that. A flaw on his part, which will be dealt with later.”

Your head was swimming. What did this mean for you? For Anakin? For the both of you together? Obviously you knew what was next, but your mind couldn’t wrap around it, couldn’t accept it.

“You need to let him go,” Mace declared, not a hint of mercy detected.

“I can’t.”

“Then he needs to let you go.”

“He won’t.”

“Then you will be the fall of the Jedi!” His sudden outburst made you flinch. Your heart beat fast, blood swishing in your ears. His body was still as a statue, but his eyes were wide and his chest was heaving with an anger that was barely under control. Master Windu was of the more… pessimistic Jedi, but you had never really seen him lose control so completely. Now, you could see he was overwhelmingly stressed. No, not stressed-- panicked.

“He needs me,” you replied shakily, unwilling to stand down. Anakin had made it clear over and over again that if you just said the word, he would leave the Order for you. The only reason he was still here was because you wouldn’t let him abandon his purpose for you. Windu may think you would be the downfall of the Jedi, but you were the reason it hadn’t completely fallen yet.

“You’re a poison to him.”

It looked like neither of you would be backing down. Windu saw this, and took a deep breath. He closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose. When he opened them, he strolled to his seat, and then motioned for you to take the one beside him.

“Let me explain myself,” his voice was much calmer now, but the hard look in his eyes remained. “Anakin is important. Not just to the Jedi, but to the balance of life itself.”

“He never asked for any of that.”

“But he still is,” Windu argued. “There’s no changing that fact. He is powerful. He has potential. And he’s unstable. He was before he met you, and he is now-- even more so.”

“Because of me?”

“Because of how he feels about you.”

You clenched your fists and glared at Windu. “How could being in love ever be a bad thing?”

“Love is an attachment. When one is attached to something, it can be taken away. When it is taken away, it breeds anger and hate and resentment, a path to the dar--”

“Oh, spare me the lecture,” you spit. “I know of your Jedi laws and morals. Now tell me why our love is so forbidden if all it’s bringing him is happiness and peace?”

“For now. It’s happiness and peace for now, because it’s new. I should have stepped in sooner, should have stopped it before it was too late. But with the start of the war, I lost sight of it, got too distracted…” Windu shook his head. “If you end it now, he’ll be able to move on. The damage won’t be permanent.”

“I don’t understand,” your chest stung.

“He loves you. Any Jedi can sense that. And you love him, too.” You couldn’t meet Windu’s gaze. “If something happens to you, and you are taken away from him, or-- Force forbid-- you die, it will break him. He will be consumed by anger and hatred and he will fall to the dark side. His emotions are strong, far too strong to be handled easily. If Anakin goes to the darkside, the Jedi will be no match for the Sith. We will perish, and the war will be lost, and so will any semblance of peace that exists in this life.”

Mace’s tone softened as he saw the tears build up in your eyes. “This path is inevitable, and it needs to be prevented. The only way we can be sure is to remove you from his life. It was a mistake letting you two get so close, and the Council takes full responsibility. But now, you must let him go.”

“How certain are you,” you forced the words from your aching throat. “How certain are you of this future?”

“Yoda had a vision.”

Your breath left you like a balloon deflating. You were glad you were sitting now, because you didn’t think your legs could handle the weight as you felt your world crumble around you. Anakin’s smiling face flashed through your mind, and a tear trailed down your face.

“You have until sunrise to leave Coruscant,” Mace’s tone was back to authoritative, formal and commanding, leaving no room for argument. “You can never return. Not as long as Anakin is here. You may never come in contact with him ever again.”

“And who’s going to stop me if I do? Who’s going to stop him?”

“If you have any respect for every innocent living being in this galaxy, you will do what needs to be done. Now go. You have a job to do.”

You swore you could hear your heart drop and shatter to the ground in a million tiny pieces as you stood from that chair and walked out of the council room. You spent the day mulling over your conversation, crying, pacing, and pulling at your hair. You tried to think of anything you could do to be with Anakin-- pretend to leave him and be even more secretive, get a different identity so you could stay on Coruscant, run away together. You knew he would if you asked.

But deep down, you knew Windu was right. The Jedi needed Anakin, and you were his weakness. If Anakin left, or fell to the dark side because of you, it would be the end of the galaxy. Just because it wasn’t a possibility now, doesn’t mean it wasn’t one in the future. Yoda had a vision, after all, and the fear in Windu’s eyes told you it was serious.

Now here you were, walking to Anakin’s place to spend one last night with him before you had to leave him. Forever. Your body ached from the cold, the grief, and from packing your belongings all afternoon. You could barely form words as you booked a ship off the planet for early next morning. Then, you had numbly pulled on your jacket and boots, and began your trek to Anakin one last time.

Cars whizzed overhead, the honking distant in your hollow ears. You were shaking, but not from the cold, as you caught sight of the Jedi temple ahead. The entrance was only a few feet away. You just had to walk through the door, sneak down the hallway, and you’d be there. He’d open the door, offer you a blinding smile, pull you inside, and warm you up with a drink and a kiss. You would put something on the holonet like you always did, just for background noise, and lay down on the bed and just be together. Talk, or kiss, or hold each other. Feel his laugh vibrate through your body because he was pressed so close to you, watch his curls bounce as he shook his head, listen to the soft sounds of him sleeping. The moonlight always made him look like some sort of space prince as it glistened off his cheekbones, painting him in a pale blue. You would trace your fingertips along his face, and he would pretend to still be asleep as he smiled and kissed your fingertips. So happy, so at peace, so in love--

You stopped in your tracks.

I can’t do this.

The pain was building up again. You thought your heart had already shattered, but the ghost of it kept cracking. Something awful was breaking in your chest with each breath, each second, each step toward your goodbye. There was no way you could face him and be okay tonight. The tears were already making an appearance.

“You need to let him go,” Windu’s voice battled your sorrow. “You will be the fall of the Jedi.”

The breath you took was like swallowing razor blades as the cold air filled your lungs. Steadying yourself on the wall of the temple, you pushed your way past the entrance and entered the main hall. The familiar smell worsened your nausea, and you kept your hood up and head down as you walked the familiar path down the hall, taking the elevator up, and then crossing the last hallway before you found his door.

You schooled your features and shoved down the swirling tempest threatening to spill out of you. Once your hands stopped trembling, you brought a fist up and knocked on the door.

Anakin opened the door. He was smiling brilliantly, blue eyes sparkling in the light. The image of his face falling, eyes clouding over in confusion and hurt as he searched for you the next morning and found you gone flashed through your mind. You knew he would never stop searching for you. This is not what he would have wanted. But Mace was right-- he would heal, in time, and he could live the life he was supposed to live; as a Jedi, a General, and the Chosen One.

“Anakin,” you forced yourself to smile. “Hi.”

His smile turned from charming to soft, hands immediately moving to pull you into his room for the last time. “You’re freezing, my love. Let’s get you warmed up, I already made you something to drink.”

#Anakin Skywalker #anakin skywalker x reader #anakin angst #anakin x reader angst #anakin fic #star wars prequels

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frenchpuppycormier · 4 years ago

Text

Prom Night!

(ao3)

word count: 2k

rating: T

Shoutout to @krdnvrs for being my number one fan and cheerleader on all of my random ideas, and for listening to me complain. Another thanks to @red-cape-morgana for being my glorified cheerleader ;)

They were in Midvale, working a case, when it happened.

Somehow Lex managed to lace the water supply with kryptonite, the team got wind of it, and so they went to investigate.

Lena, now an integral part of the team, tagged along.

Alex, J’onn, Brainy, and Nia went first to make sure everyone was safe and that the kryptonite wouldn’t harm anyone, while also checking to see what kind of kryptonite it was and how it would affect Kara.

Kara and Lena are staying back at the town line. Waiting patiently. Some more than others.

“Will you please stop pacing? You’re stressing me out,” Lena rubs at her temples.

Kara stops mid-step, skidding on the loose gravel, and sighs. “I’m sorry. I’m just really anxious right now, and I’m scared of what they might find. I mean, what if—Eliza lives here! I can’t just—

“Hey,” Lena interrupts by placing both hands on Kara’s forearms. “It’ll be fine. Eliza isn’t even here. She’s out of town, remember?”

Kara lets out a deep breath and nods.

“Can I—Kara, can I give you a hug?” she asks, timidly. Lena won’t openly admit it, but Kara’s the only one she openly and freely gives hugs to. Anyone else and it’s touch and go.

Kara smiles, “Duh! You don’t even have to ask, you know that.” She wrangles her arms out from Lena’s hands and wraps her own around the CEO’s shoulders, burying her face in raven hair.

Lena grips her hands tightly around the hero’s back and inhales deeply, the sweet smell of honey and lavender from the blonde's shampoo, and the hint of earth which makes Kara, Kara.

The moment was quickly disrupted by a chirping in Kara’s ear. She steps back slightly so one arm is still resting on Lena’s shoulders while the other presses the comm. “Alex?”

Lena is moderately perturbed at Alex in this moment, but doesn’t let it show. Instead, she loosens her grip and slides her hands to rest on Kara’s hips, giving them a reassuring squeeze.

“You guys should head into town,” Alex supplies.

“What is it?” Kara asks while absentmindedly playing with Lena’s hair.

“Everything’s fine, but you’re gonna wanna see this for yourself.”

Kara frowns. “Okay, we’ll be there shortly.” She clears her throat and Lena eyes her warily.

“So?” Lena steps back and crosses her arms in front of her chest.

“Alex says she has something to show us,” Kara replies. “So,” she moved her arms in a swooping gesture, “Ready to go?”

Lena shakes her head. “No. We are not flying there.”

“Suit yourself,” Kara laughs and begins to take off. Lena stops her with a hand on the wrist before she can. “Change your mind?”

“Just promise to go slow,” Lena huffs, giving Kara permission to scoop her up bridal style.

“Yes, ma’am,” she smirks.

___

“Blue kryptonite?”

Alex nods.

“What is his endgame?”

Alex puffs her cheeks up and releases hot air. “It seems he wants to get rid of your powers. And apparently he thought starting here would be the best course of action, knowing you grew up here and you’d come this way. Fool proof plan, really.” A sudden serious look clouds over her. "And I have a feeling this is only the first step in his nefarious plans."

Kara groans, "Well, is everyone okay at least?" She puts her hands on her hips, in the classic hero pose.

"As far as we know, it doesn't have any negative effects on humans. In fact, we think it does the opposite."

"Of course!" Lena interjects from her spot. She's stayed quiet and let the sisters discuss things, until now she remembers information that could help.

"Lena?" Kara raises her eyebrows in question.

"When Lex was researching ways to hurt Superman, he discovered blue kryptonite," she rolls her eyes. "Blue kryptonite can drastically improve the health of any non-Kryptonian organism, such as livestock, crops, and humans. Continual consumption of blue kryptonite-irradiated water puts humans in a perfect state of health. I'm almost positive he's been drinking the stuff for years."

"Well, fuck," Alex huffs.

Lena shakes her head. "I wouldn't worry about it too much. It doesn't make him super-powered or anything. Actually, now that I think about it, the blue rock makes humans more prone to mental irregularities. If that's the case, it would explain a lot."

"Is there a way to counteract it?" Kara asks.

Lena sighs. "If I'm hypothesizing correctly, I'd bet my life on lead getting the job done."

Kara nods and looks to Alex. "Okay. You got all the rock bagged up then?" Alex nods. "How long until the water supply is back to normal?"

"A week? Maybe two. Just don't go drinking the water at mom's house, got it?"

"I'll stick to bottled," Kara smirks.

___

As they’re flying to Eliza's later that night, Kara notices her old high school is bustling with people and everyone is gussied up. She gasps loudly in Lena’s ear. “Lena, look!”

“What?”

“It’s prom night!” she slows down and finds a spot behind some bushes for cover. Once grounded she practically beams. “Let’s break in!"

Lena guffaws.

Kara stares at her with a gleaming twinkle in her eyes.

“Are you serious?” She asks incredulously.

Kara nods furiously like a bobble head. “Yeah, totally! I remember you telling me once how you never went to prom, and then I promised you if the opportunity ever arises I’d take you myself. And I'd dance with you.”

“You said no such thing,” Lena states, highly amused.

“Okay, well," Kara visibly flusters, "Maybe I never said that part out loud, but I still thought it in my head. And...I mean it.”

“Kara, that’s very sweet, but look at us,” she gestures between them, “I’m dressed like I’m ready for a board meeting, and you,” she glances around to make sure no one can see or hear them and whispers, “You’re Supergirl.”

Kara looks down and pouts, “Oh. Right.” It doesn’t keep her down for long though, because she speeds away and comes back in a dress before Lena can even blink.

“Wow. Don’t think I’ll ever get used to that,” Lena chuckles. “You didn’t think to grab anything for me?”

The hero frowns while looking Lena up and down with an intense gaze, causing Lena to feel immensely self-conscious. With a finger to her chin Kara says, “I think you look perfect. You’re basically wearing a suit, anyway, just one that probably costs more than anyone in that building can afford.”

Lena raises her eyebrows haughtily.

“Shall we?” Kara holds out her arm.

Lena rolls her eyes fondly, before relaxing, and hooks her arm through the blonde’s. “Alright, MacGyver, how are we doing this?”

“Easy,” Kara shrugs. “I’ll just open the door to the gym with my super strength, and sneak in the back. Piece of cake.”

“Famous last words.”

___

“Ha! Told you we could do it!” Kara exclaims as they make their way through the gym, where fairy lights are strewn about everywhere, and the ceiling is decorated with cheesy cotton drapes. Surprisingly, no one even notices the two women, and if they do they don’t care.

“The night is still young,” Lena points out.

“Oh quit being a downer,” Kara teases. As they find a secluded spot in the corner, a slow song starts to play. The lights cast a glow on Lena making her seem ethereal, and Kara gapes in awe.

"You look beautiful, Lena."

"I could say the same for you," she blushes.

“May I have this dance?” Kara playfully bends forward with one hand outstretched.

“You’re such a goober,” Lena laughs and takes her hand.

They slow dance for a while, the heat between them hanging in the air. As soon as Kara thinks about asking Lena the question that's been niggling her for the past few months, she notices a man poking around in the corner of her eye. He makes eye contact with her and begins making his way toward them. Kara panics.

“There’s a man coming our way. What do we do? He’s probably gonna kick us out!”

“Shit, I don’t know! This was your idea!” Lena hisses.

Kara thinks fast and makes a decision. A decision she never thought would happen, here in Midvale, in her high school gymnasium of all places. A decision that will inevitably change their lives forever.

“Do you trust me?”

“With my life,” Lena answers immediately, with a wistful smile plastered on her face.

Kara nods and takes a moment to compose herself. Just a tiny moment. Because they’re kind of running out of time here. Before she can second-guess herself, she takes Lena’s face in her hands and kisses her.

She kisses her like her life depends on it. She’s waited for this moment for so long and it’s finally here. At a high school prom she wasn't even invited to. The thought makes her want to laugh. But she can't, because she's kissing Lena. And Lena is kissing her back with just as much ferocity! It’s funny, she never imagined she’d be back here, years later, with the prettiest woman in the universe at her side, yet that’s what was in the cards for her.

When what feels like minutes of absolute heaven go by, Kara pulls back slightly, breathing heavy. She slowly opens her eyes and whispers, “Do you think it worked?”

“Excuse me?”

The voice startles them from their little bubble and makes the women jump apart in surprise.

"Gosh, you scared the crap outta me," Kara shudders, clutching at her heart. She gathers her wits and when she sees the man, realization slowly dawns on her. "Kenny?"

The man, presumably Kenny, frowns. "I'm sorry, do we know each other?"

"It's Kara. Kara Danvers!" she smiles with hesitancy. The gears in Kenny's head start turning and he puts his hands on his head in utter bewilderment.

"Kara!"

Being the tactile person she is, Kara envelops him in a bone crushing hug. When they pull back she asks, "What are you doing here?"

"I'm the principal," he replies bashfully. Kenny smirks and tilts his head. "What are you doing here?"

Kara blushes a deep red and clears her throat. "Um, well...I'm just visiting, actually." She adjusts her glasses awkwardly. "You know, see how everyone's doing since I left..."

"And who's this?" Kenny asks, peering behind her, effectively cutting off the inevitable ramble about to happen.

The blonde swallows. "Oh geez, where are my manners?" she bonks herself on the head and turns to Lena. Kara gently pushes her forward by the small of her back, and rests her hand there. "Lena, this is my friend Kenny from high school. Kenny, this is my....Lena..."

Lena chuckles and holds out her hand. “Lena Luthor. Nice to meet you.” His grip is firm when they shake hands.

“Pleasure’s all mine,” he replies.

Kara grins after seeing her former (dead?) best friend meet her current best friend (maybe more?) chat with one another.

She explains why they’re there and that they essentially snuck in.

“I won’t tell a soul. You have my word,” Kenny winks at them. “Keep in touch, yeah?” Kara nods enthusiastically, and gives him one last hug before departing to the other end of the gym, where he sees a student spiking the punch bowl.

"So..." Lena starts, "That's the Kenny you told me about?"

Lena notices Kara's eyes crinkle and one corner of her mouth lifts up, in that cute way it does when she's thinking deeply about something. "Yeah. He died though, in my timeline." She frowns, and her eyes dart around the floor like the cracks and scratches have all the answers. "This whole universe...reset...thing is mind-boggling."

Lena reaches up and rubs softly at Kara's little crinkle with the pad of her thumb. When it disappears, she drops her hand and plays with the blonde's fingers instead. "Nothing's ever easy in our lives, is it?"

Kara hums an affirmation in response.

"You can tell me about it, if you'd like," Lena offers.

"That'd be nice," Kara smiles, then like a flip of a switch she's throwing her a flirty smirk. "But not right now," she joins their other hands together and pushes them forward and back, as if they're on the cusp of telling each other exciting news.

"No?" Lena plays along.

"Nope," she raises their hands up so Lena's rest on her shoulders, and Kara pulls her forward by the waist. "I was kinda hoping we could talk about that kiss."

"Mhmm, I was wondering if you were gonna bring that up," she inches closer so her forehead touches Kara's, and she encircles her arms around her neck, the distance between them practically nonexistent.

"I should've asked," she connects her hands on the other woman's back.

Lena shakes her head, the action causing their noses to bump. "You never have to ask to kiss me." Before Kara can properly respond, Lena connects their lips together again, shutting her up in the best way possible.

They still have a lot of things to figure out, a lot of demons to fight-both literally and figuratively-but Lena relishes in the thought that at least she has Kara.

At least they're doing it together.

After all, it is their life motto: stronger together.

#supercorp #supercorp fic rec #supercorp fic #my work #kara danvers #lena luthor #supergirl season 6

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shysweetthing · 8 years ago

Note

Hi I really loved your YOI fic "Call Everything on the Ice"! I was also just wondering, though, how long have you been studying Japanese? Could you give some advice or resources how you're learning? I'm planning on going to Japan for my Asian Studies degree and hope to learn Japanese (or at least get a head start) before taking that leap. Hope this isn't a bother!!! Thank you if you have the time to answer!!!

Okay, so perhaps people have noticed that I tend to overanswer things? Yes, yes, that happens.

Me: Maybe only explain this a little bit.Me to me: Who are we kidding? Have five, count ‘em, five separate numbered lists.

Answer to question #1: I’m at about *glances at watch* four and a half months of studying Japanese, and while I’ve been spending about 3-4 hours a day on this, I’m still really new. This means that I am inevitably doing something inefficiently and so you should take everything I say with a grain of salt. I haven’t been doing this very long and other people are much better resources!

That being said, my tendency to overexplain, my general pedantry (own it if you are it, whatever), and my deeply weird overanalytical brain means that maybe something I’ve done in breaking down my experience thus far will be helpful to you.

All five numbered lists below the cut.

Further disclaimers: I know how I learn and what I’m good at, and this means that I am really really good at telling when a course of study is Not Working For Me. This is because I am Relatively Tumblr Old and have learned a variety of relatively complicated things with a high degree of success in my lifetime.

It is very unlikely that your brain works like mine, and so to further qualify this, I’m going to tell you how my brain works.

1. For me, the death of learning is boredom. I cannot, repeat, cannot, do boring things for much longer than about five minutes. You could offer me a half-million dollars a year to do a job that has twenty hours of boring work a week and I would quit in desperation after two weeks. Or, more likely, I’d take the job and stay up nights for months on end automating it and then you’d fire me when you realized that I was now doing nothing at work except reading AO3 articles. This means that time-efficient but boring study methods are completely inaccessible to me. I don’t care how effective it is. If it bores me, it is not getting done.

2. I have an incredibly good recall for sounds, and a basic amount of musical training. One of the ways I used to commit things like relative electronegativity to memory was to make a song, because I could remember the most ridiculously long strings of information that way. Ditto for memorizing monologues in school. (This is relevant).

3. I have an absolutely excellent memory for other things, too, when I’m paying attention. If I’m not paying attention, I will remember nothing. (Yes, I’m on the ADHD spectrum–I hyperfocus like nobody’s business, and if I’m not hyperfocused you might as well fuck off because I’m not paying a lick of attention.) I am much more likely to trigger my hyperfocus with physical activity–either walking or writing things down.

4. I am very goal focused. Give me just about any concrete goal and I will make a spreadsheet detailing how to get from point A to point B with every intermediate step in the way, which I will adjust on a biweekly basis to correspond to my progress and what I learn. My goal in this case was to be able to understand spoken Japanese well enough to get the gist of the raw Yuri on Ice feeds so that I didn’t have to wait 3+ hours for the Crunchyroll translations by the time Season 2 came around.

5. I am the person who will spend 40 hours fixing a persistent problem that takes me one minute of boring work every month. I am so damned impatient that I’ll spend three hours a day every day for two years so that I don’t have to wait three hours. Let’s hear it for the few, the proud, the delightedly inefficient.

6. Along the lines of hating boredom: I absolutely love figuring out how things work, and so I tend to jump onto solutions that prioritize understanding how a system works first and then moving from there to increasing fluency. I will happily spend 10 hours figuring out how something works even if it only saves me an hour of time. You’ll see what I mean a little later.

7. Also along the lines of having ADHD: I need to feel that I am accomplishing things along the way, which means that if I’m taking on a two-year project, I need to be able to point to things that I am accomplishing along the way, or I will get frustrated and give up. In this regard, I am like a small child. If I can’t pinpoint an immediate benefit to something, I get frustrated and give up. From experience, I have gotten very good at pinpointing accomplishments so that I am constantly affixing little medals to my own chest, but it also means that I “waste” (in some senses of the word) time doing things that probably are more about keeping my mental state chugging along.

8. This bears mentioning, but one thing about my being old and being good at fixing persistent problems? I have disposable income, and only about half of it goes toward purchasing Victor nendoroids. Some of the resources I list here cost money. I am naturally cheap–I don’t like spending money if I don’t have to–but I have learned to be cheap with my time, and to value people who provide useful or lovely things.

9. I am deeply introspective. If something is worth analyzing in my mind, it’s worth overanalyzing to death.

Okay, enough about me! Here are my thoughts on what I have done so far to learn Japanese, which I’m going to divide into sections.

Listening to Japanese (with some speaking)

I’m not going to have the temerity to explain spoken Japanese at this point, so google elsewhere. Here are useful resources:

1. JapanesePod101.com: https://www.japanesepod101.com I started a one-week free subscription to this site at the beginning of the year when I knew basically nothing, and then they had a huge membership sale at the beginning of the new year which I glommed onto immediately. I listen to about 4-6 podcasts a day–when I’m driving, when I’m out for a walk, when I’m shopping. I shadow the Japanese parts (this is what shadowing is: http://learnanylanguage.wikia.com/wiki/Shadowing). I listen. There are criticisms you could make of this podcast, but it’s rarely boring, the people on it are likable, and the lessons once Naomi-sensei gets on board are fantastic.

2. Crunchyroll. This is one of those “need accomplishment” things that I use regularly. Some people advocate putting anime on as background and letting your brain cogitate; my brain is EXTREMELY good at not paying attention to things and so I don’t think this would be effective for me. I watch anime. I’ve gone from maybe sometimes hearing a name, to understanding set phrases like Victor saying “Ohayou!” or Yuuri saying “Tadaima” to (at this point) being able to understand the simple sentences, and pick words out of the complex ones. I pause a lot, for instance, when I understand all the words in a sentence but one. I try to sound the word I think I heard out in a Japanese-to-English dictionary (tangorin.com is free, I think?), and if that doesn’t work, in google translate (sometimes it’s two words, and that makes it hard to look up).

3. I try to watch ice skating videos in Japanese. There are some that have subtitles in Japanese and English, too, which is cool.

Independent skills that I have had to actively force myself to learn in order to listen to Japanese properly (still working through this list):

1. Timing things. English (or any of the other languages I’ve studied) isn’t overly concerned with syllable length or breaks between syllables. That makes it hard to distinguish between a two-mora vowel and a one-mora vowel, or to make your mind pay attention to the small-tsu break. You have to really work to pay attention to train your mind that this is important and it needs to stop filtering those things out. It took me probably two months to retrain my mental filters, which I mostly did by banging my head against trying to figure out what words I heard, trying different combinations, and then going back to the word I heard and relistening to it once i figured out what it was, until I was hearing the thing I wasn’t hearing.

2. Vowels. In English, we can mess around with vowels a LOT and it works just fine as long as the consonants are vaguely in the right place. That’s why people can write sentences with misplaced/swapped out vowels and your mind will basically make sense of it anyway–because we use consonants a lot to tag words. This means that a brain fed a diet of mostly English squishes a lot of vowels together into one mushy sounding sound. It’s why some people hear “Hai” as “Hi” and not as a two-mora, two vowel sound. There’s a point at the end of episode 4 where Yuuri says something like “Victor and my season is finally beginning,” and I understood all the words except 'finally,’ so I tried to sound out the word I heard that was probably 'finally’ as an exercise. I tried EVERY FREAKING COMBINATION of “よよ” and “ようよ” and “ようよう” and finally realized that I just wasn’t hearing the two-vowel combination properly: “いよいよ.” Again, the way I dealt with this except to repeatedly force myself to do exercises like this again and again while listening, sounding out what I heard and then listening to it again and again when I was wrong until I could hear the thing I missed.

3. Pitch accent. In English, pitch plays a role in intonation, and there are accepted pitches, but there’s a lot more pitch variation, and we mostly use stress to indicate meaning. In Japanese, pitch is far more important, with relative pitch between words being important, and increasing differences in pitch indicating increasing importance. It took me about a month into trying to learn Japanese to hear the words “pitch accent” and then another month to start really paying attention to words to try and determine the pitch accent, and then only very recently, discovering resources that break down what pitch accent is and what the rules are to it (OMG I didn’t know there were rules, I love rules!) in a way that made me say, yes, this is amazing. You want to visit Dogen’s site for this: https://www.patreon.com/dogen/posts – I found his videos accidentally, but they’re amazing. The first handful are free; the next handful, you need to pledge to his Patreon. Some of the things he says are difficult for English speakers to learn are not difficult for me–I suspect because I have basic musical training, and it turns out that those lessons where I learned to identify intervals taught me to hear pitch changes.

4. Language parsing. The thing I’m working on now is a straight-up language parsing issue. English functions much like a stack: Words go on the stack in the right order, and your brain assigns function and meaning on the basis of where in the stack they land, and improper stacking leads to breakdown. Stack issues in English are why it’s completely fine to say “friendly little brown fluffy Japanese dog” but “Japanese friendly fluffy brown little dog” is just wrong. English is, to use a metaphor that will be almost completely inaccessible to the current generation, rather like the BASIC I used on the Commodore 64–executed in mostly linear fashion with a handful of awkward and inelegant GOTOs that I only learned to cringe at when I took a computer science course many years later. Japanese also has a little bit of a stack issue, but a stack-parsing order is inappropriate. In a sense, it feels closer to a language in which particles function as meta-tags. It feels…more appropriate, I guess? to parse from particle to particle and from conjugation to conjugation. Japanese is closer to Java in many, many ways. I figured out that I needed to parse differently about a month ago, and have been slowly working on upgrading my internal interpreter.

5. Next stages: A lot of Japanese is indirect, and so absorbing indirect equivalents (or where there is none, getting the gist) is probably going to be a lifelong process.

Speaking

1. Some people like talking to other people. I hate it with a burning passion. I prefer people who use pixels. I did try a Japanese Skype conversation partner through italki.com. It was very, very useful. I learned a lot. I hated it so much that I have myself permission to not do it for another few months. (I do use italki to practice the other language I know–where I’m fluent enough that I can have an actual conversation about, like, the constitutionality of Trump’s executive order on immigration, for instance, instead of the name of someone’s rabbit. I don’t particularly hate that.)

2. I talk to myself, out loud, a lot in Japanese, even if I only say very stupid things. I try to express things I don’t know how to say.

3. I give my cat orders in Japanese. He listens to me in Japanese as often as he does in English, so this is a huge success.

4. I am not great at speaking, partially because my goal is not to be able to speak to people.

Reading and Writing

1. You’re gonna have to memorize the Kana. Just do it. I did it, and I hate boring things.

2. I spent some time looking at various speed-Kanji-learning methods, like Remembering the Kana, WaniKani, and Kanji Damage. The most useful thing I got was this description of Kanji from KanjiDamage http://www.kanjidamage.com/introduction and the description of Kanji as an orthography: http://www.kanjidamage.com/kanji_facts. This made me think of Kanji as words composed of radicals laid out on a two-dimensional canvas, as compared to English, where words are are composed of the letters of the alphabet on a one-dimensional canvas. Once I saw that, then you see that some connections and combinations are meaningful in the same way that evocative, advocacy, and vocal are related. Some connections are totally illusory and trying to find meaning or explanation for it is a fool’s game. Having understood that, I tried the basic method behind these and found that it did not work at all for me because it was boring as all get out, and I didn’t feel like I was learning anything (even though I was).

3. My current method is absolutely not the most efficient but I am making headway with it. It goes like this: find really easy reading materials, and learn the words that are in it. It took me about a month before I could read even the most basic of texts. (I started with the graded Japanese readers, level 0). Is this method of learning words scattershot as fuck? YES. ABSOLUTELY. But I feel like I’m accomplishing things because I am reading books, and I am willing to accept substantial amounts of inefficiency if it results in continued motivation.

4. At some point–my guess is somewhere around the one year mark–I’m going to have to transition to something a little more systematic. My hope is that once I reach that point I will have encountered those kanji enough that I will feel like I’m forming connections, not just learning disparate disconnected material, and I will not be bored.

5. Along those lines, Anki is my everything. I do about 20 cards a day, which means I’m learning around 70 words a week. Some of these words are great, like 難しい or 簡単. Some of those words are skating related, like 4回転トエループ. Some of those words are just really random things that showed up in the graded reader and I learned it because I’m stubborn, like 苦汁 (“bittern,” or a concentrated solution of magnesium chloride) or 納豆菌 (bacillus subtilis natto, the bacteria used to ferment soybeans into natto).

6. My Anki vocabulary cards have the English word on the front. On the back, I have the word in either hiragana or katakana, color-coded according to pitch accent, a recording of the word in Japanese, the kanji for the word, and sometimes the stroke order for the kanji. Yes, I write down the kanji–my memory is triggered by using muscles, including a pencil, and so this works for me.

7. This is what one of my Anki cards looks like, minus the spoken recording + stroke order. Blue is low pitch, red is high pitch, and the color of the heart at the end indicates the pitch of the particle at the end. It would be way more efficient to import other people’s Anki decks but I am (in addition to all the stuff mentioned above) deeply demand resistant and I only want to learn things that I have decided I should learn, with the precise information I want, no more, no less. I end up resenting other people’s flashcards so much that I’m stuck wasting time doing my own.

8. I’m also using a textbook (みんなの日本語). My textbook work lags substantially behind my comprehension, as driven by JapanesePod101, mostly because it’s boring until I understand it well enough to not have to stop and check every damned thing all the time. It is good to do exercises, though, and then to use the exercises as templates for saying and writing my own sentences which are of far greater interest.

Um, I think that’s everything I have for now?

Welcome to my brain.

#replies #how i'm learning japanese #my brain is not normal #that's okay it's okay to not have a normal brain

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