#anyways someone ask me how to fix sterling

[gooopy]

Song that fits my oc event 1000000 injured 9000 killed

[the-down-upside-finch]

I just want to ramble because there is no way to explain just how excited I am to get to publishing the part of Minding Q's where Nic and Chase are introduced

Because here’s the thing. Their relationship is simultaneously the most wholesome and most unhinged of anyone in the story so far, and also

Chase is literally the world's biggest jerk for his entire intro sequence. This is because Nic woke him up at 5am and told him they were going on a surprise roadtrip. "You’re driving." Imagine being stuck in a car with the most hangry and sleep-deprived person ever because that’s basically what happens.

Nic spends the entire intro being like "I SWEAR HE'S NOT ALWAYS LIKE THIS I JUST REALLY SCREWED UP THIS MORNING I PROMISE HE'S A SWEETHEART I PROMISE" while there’s this hulking used-to-be-wrestler-now-artist getting ready to kick his legs out from under him (not really but he’s thinking about it)

And then someone asks Nic why he calls Chase his companion instead of his boyfriend and it escalates to "So is it a friend thing or a romantic thing?" And that's literally the one thing that will certainly make Nic snap

Nic threatens Chase with lo-fi music

Chase threatens Nic with "I will flush your wallet down the toilet" "I will throw you into the street" "I will yeet myself out of the window if you do that again"

Chase is the only one that is allowed to carry Nic, but Nic is so tall that Chase is the only one that is actually capable of throwing carrying him

Chase is the one that cooks. Nic thinks it's funny to keep gifting him goofy aprons and yes. Yes it is funny.

Back to the intro scene. Even Sterling knows that Chase is usually a dork. a goofball, if you will. So seeing him fly off the handle in search of pancakes is very concerning. "MY COUSIN LOVES YOU SO PLEASE CALM DOWN SIR--"

Chase will not drink anything that was poured by or opened by someone other than himself. Nic knows this and keeps bottled drinks in the fridge just for Chase as well as juice boxes and Caprisuns because those are pretty hard to tamper with.

"Hey wanna play that new game you got?" "Nic, it's a single-player game." "Yes I would like to watch you play and I can keep an eye out for treasure you miss." (Ten minutes later, "WHY DIDN'T YOU PICK UP THE SHINY THING IT WAS RIGHT THERE" "NIC MY INVENTORY IS FULL")

Nic constantly having to ask Chase what he's drawing before peeking over his shoulder because Nic is SR ace and Chase draws NSFW stuff for a living

Nic coming home from work going "I got a new plant" "WHERE ARE WE GOING TO PUT THAT WE ALREADY HAVE SO MANY" and then their weekend project is building a new shelf

Chase saying things like "You need a new toothbrush." And Nic is always just like "IF YOU SAY SO???" So Chase just swaps it out with a new one when Nic’s not home.

Chase and Brooke (Nic's twin) having a phase where they are both really into bardcore music and keep playing it around the apartment and they have a bet going to see how long it takes for Nic to break

Nic and Chase know each other so well that they can order for each other without even asking. They just know. There’s never been a single panicked text saying "MAKE SURE YOU GET ME ____" when the other person is getting food. There's complete trust on that front.

Chase gets cold really easily. He chooses to fix this with hugs.

"I found a recipe for Velveeta fudge, can we try it" and Chase just stares at Nic in a brief moment of horror before going "f*ck it we ball" and grabbing his keys to go get the ingredients.

Nic makes it a hobby to find unhinged recipes for Chase to try cooking. Most of them turn out bad but they have fun making them anyways and Chase has a cast iron stomach anyways so nothing really goes to waste

"Hey Chase if I were an animal what animal would I be" "I already told you I'm not drawing you a fursona for free"

Nic going with Chase to the gym just so he can help make sure no one tries to bother him

It's the "Do you think stars have feelings" dynamic except with conspiracy theories instead.

Sorry I had to get that out of my system because I just love my characters so much.

[insufficientchill]

👻🎩🧸 for the miscellaneous symbol headcanons ask game?

Ahh thank you so much! This was fun. <3 Con and Kell in combination, since they go together.

👻 - How does your muse handle feeling scared? Do they enjoy horror? Do they believe in the paranormal? What calms your muse down? Do they have any scary stories?

Conall is extremely good at compartmentalizing and, while he is frequently afraid (of falling, of failing, of not being enough), he remains extremely reserved and collected in most circumstnces. Even when he’s alone he tends to tell himself that he can’t be afraid—can’t in the sense of mustn’t but also can’t in the sense of isn’t able to, because pawns don’t feel. Kell mostly notices this as Conall constantly flexing and stretching his fingers, and, assuming they’re just sore from casting, Kell will catch hold of his hands absentmindedly while talking about something else and massage them the way he’d massage a comrade’s sword-hand after a long day on the road. Fortunately this does in fact help. 

Kell will happily tell you he’s a coward, but what he really means is that he’s not particularly bothered about honour or glory, and he’ll gladly cut a deal to end a fight quicker. Actual in-the-moment fear is something he’s almost desensitized to; he’s had a lot of near-death experiences, and at this point he’s good at laughing them off. He knows some hair-raising ghost stories and tall tales, and he also knows how to string them out as long as someone keeps buying drinks.

They both absolutely believe in the paranormal (how could they not). Conall doesn’t particularly enjoy horror—fiction generally is a luxury he doesn’t allow himself unless he feels it reveals something useful about the world—but Kell likes any rollicking story with twists and turns.

🎩 - What would your muse wear to a formal event? Do they dress more modestly, or do they go all out?

Kell hates looking too pulled together—it kind of undermines his whole easy-lazy-please-underestimate-me thing—so, unless under duress, his preferred formal-wear involves open collars, leather breeches and rag-and-bone-shop velvets. He sort of cultivates an air of decayed luxury, with mismatched jewellery and even more kohl than usual. Might swing for a black silk eyepatch, maybe. There’s probably some cologne going on (smoke, sandalwood, damask rose). 

Conall’s default approach to formalwear is to ask if what he’s wearing now will do, and if not, to find the plainest black robes possible: he’s just a loyal servant, after all. It's not the choosing that bothers him so much as the spotlight on choice; really he's fairly picky about what he wears day-to-day, as long as no one points out that he seems to have a preference. Kell has to cajole him into dressing up—c’mon, people are going to think I don’t treat you right—and even then he’s so unsettled by the process he just ends up telling Kell to pick something for him anyway. (He might, after too long trying on clothes, let his eyes fix on a silver-chain pendant for a moment—moonstone, set it sterling—and Kell might buy it for him, or nick it, depending on whether he likes the seller. Kell also tries to get Con to do “something nice” with “all that hair,” but Conall usually doesn’t got for it.)

🧸 - Does your muse own any sentimental objects from their past? What makes it/them so special?

Kell still has the bootknife that was his first dagger, left to him after its owner—a hard-living “old man” who, in retrospect, can’t have been more than 45 or so—fell in a meaningless little scuffle on the mountain road. It’s not a well-made or elegant thing—a heavy-bladed hunting knife, honed and sharpened down over years into a poorly balanced, oddly narrow blade that happens to fit between the joints of a knight’s full-plate—but it has a wooden handle polished to a shine by many hands, and it still serves its purpose. 

Conall has a pouch on his belt with a few things in it: a smooth river stone, a steel fishhook, a cracked and charred red gem cut for a pommel, a single dried flower, a twist of leather cord. He has no memory of what these things mean, but he takes them out sometimes to look at anyway. 

Miscellaneous Symbol Headcanons <3

[lenoraslament]

Lenora’s Love: A Tom Riddle Fanfiction

Chapter 6: Worth It

In which our favorite bad boy Tom Riddle duels our favorite sad boy Cygnus Black for trying to take what is his. Lenora.

The knights looked at each other "someone needs to distract her" they said at the same time.

Abraxas groaned, "she's going to maim all of our opponents".

"Black seemed to be doing a good job" Lestrange said and Abraxas cringed shutting his eyes tight.

Tom's wand barely moved and Lestranges chair shot out from under him making him land on his back with a grunt.

Avery stood up, "I'm out so I'll do it" he said Tom glared at him "I'll have her sit with our moms, they're over having a picnic by the lake with most of the other ladies" Avery said picking up his hands.

Tom nodded, "Go then"

Lestrange stood up slowly fixing his chair.

"You're up Lestrange" Mr. Mulciber nodded towards the ring.

"Who's he dueling?" Abraxas asked

"Black" Tom said, "Although I'm not exactly rooting for either. I can only hope they both lose".

Mulciber laughed so hard it made the rest of the boys laugh too.

"Come on Lenora" Avery said placing a hand on her shoulder, "Time to act like a lady".

She turned grimacing at him, Black stood, "it's my turn anyway".

She looked back at Avery, "shove off Avery, I want to watch Cygnus duel".

Avery gave Black an annoyed look.

"If you watch I couldn't perform to the best of my abilities" Black smiled at her, "your beauty is distracting".

Avery resisted the urge to roll his eyes. He tugged on her arm and she stood following him out of the area.

"Hello Sterling" the mothers purred, "we see you found our straggler".

Lenora sat on the blanket and someone passed her a glass.

"Is it lemonade?" she asked and Avery sat next to her.

"Nettle wine" her mother smiled, "see we know how to have fun too!"

Avery guarded her from leaving, redirecting the conversation to her whenever she seemed restless. He knew too well about the women he sat with. Another three refills of the nettle wine and Lenora was leaning back on her arms looking a little blissed out. Her mother was braiding her hair and they spoke about something vaguely political.

Avery excused himself quietly making his way back to the duels.

"What'd I miss?" He asked sitting between Malfoy and Mulciber

"Riddle and Nott. Prepare for a bloodbath".

Tom bowed to Nott who walked away like something was chasing him,

"You win Lestrange?" He asked looking around for Black.

"Piss off Avery" he shot back, "have fun playing tea party with the slut?"

Mulciber shook his head.

"Careful Rudolphus, if our Lord hears you he's going to do worse then a simple stupefy" Black walked up behind them and sat next to his defeated.

"You're lucky, I was distracted from the commotion before" Lestrang grumbled.

"Wouldn't be the first time you lost" Malfoy quipped leaving them all to be quiet and watch.

Tom and Theo returned, "Much better Nott" he had a generous hand on Theos back,

"You kept me busy".

Ten consecutive victories had elevated Tom's mood.

His face soured when he saw Black sitting.

"Last chance to bow out Cygnus" he hissed.

"I wouldn't miss out on the honor my lord" Black gave him a cheeky smile.

Lenora looked up at the sky now a paintbrush of gold, red and orange. Her mother had successfully managed a braided updo that swept her hair up. She tried to sit up but the wine made her legs wobble. Her mother giggled, "oh darling where are you going?"

"I wanted to watch the duels" she whined and her mother smiled. Her daughter was never quite content enough. She secretly loved that about her, she knew she was a strong witch. For a moment her heart ached for her knowing that Nora had wanted to compete.

"Take this first" she handed her a small vile of blue potion of sobering draught.

"Thanks mommy" she said and took it like a shot. It cleared her head right up.

It was brutal, Black was a most excellent duelist but Tom made him look like prey.

"Alright Riddle my boy!" The minister called out.

He hit him with two stinging hexes after the leg locking curse knocked him down. They had been dueling for nearly an hour.

Black winced in pain from a third stinging hex.

"Hey!" Mr. Mulciber called out, "four stingers are a disqualifier Tom".

Tom couldn't hide the smirk when Black started blathering. Then the image of Black kissing Lenora ran across his mind. Time to teach him a lesson.

Crucio he thought

Crucio

Crucio.

Black yelled out in incoherent pain, panting.

Tom threw the fourth stinging hex dropping his silent Crucio.

"Black is the winner by disqualification.", Mr. Mulciber announced to polite cheers from the audience.

"Really Cygnus, it's just a stinging hex. It doesn't hurt that bad" Tom tried to laugh off in good humor for the others in the crowd who joined him. He stood over Black who looked up at him in anguish but said nothing.

Tom removed the hexes and grabbed his arm to pull him up,

"It was fucking worth it to lose. I told you to back off her" Tom whispered in his ear.

His hand kept a vice grip on his shoulder and brought him to Mr. Mulciber who gave him a small medal. Tom kept a charming smile on congratulating him loudly.

A very sober Lenora stood next to Abraxas in the crowd who elbowed Avery.

"She was drunk and distracted when I left her" Avery whispered.

Lenora stood with her hand over her mouth too stunned to think.

As Riddle and Black approached she walked towards them.

"Cygnus are-" she reached for his arm. He shrugged her off.

"Not now Nora" he said gruffly, walked past her.

Immediately she turned to Tom her face full of rage. He sweetly took onto her arm walking her back to the guys.

"Don't you dare embarrass me" he said practically pinching the back of her arm.

She looked around at who surrounded them and angrily clamped it shut.

A reception was to take place inside. Most of the onlookers had headed towards the house. Tom had kept Lenora in a vice grip, by his side. Every time she tried to find Black he called over another important person to come schmooze with. He knew her too well, he knew this was her element. He knew she would behave.

Finally it was only their group and a couple of stragglers who already started to migrate to the Manor. Faint music had began to drift where they stood. As the last of the guests left them Lenora practically threw herself away from Tom.

"You're evil" she took a step back, "why did you have to hurt him so badly?" Angry tears strung her eyes as her words broke.

Abraxas rubbed her back, "he's okay Nora, Mulciber healed him went they went inside he just told me".

Nora only shot daggers at Abraxas ignoring him.

"He's supposed to be one of you!" She followed after Tom enraged he was walking away to join the party.

"Excuse me if I didn't spare your little boyfriend" he turned around for a brief moment.

She drew out her wand, "shut up."

Tom threw his head back laughing sardonically, "or what!?"

He looked back to the house for a brief moment. Abraxas and Avery stood with their wands out ready to stop them. Lestrange only rolled his eyes.

"I will..." she looked at Abraxas and Avery at the ready and put her hands on her hip.

"Will you two stop!" She looked at all of them, "I do not need protecting!"

They looked at Tom, he took his wand and put it away.

"Give it a rest darling" he realized what he said and swallowed, "I don't have time to fight with you".

"Don't call me darling you-" Abraxas clamped his hand over her mouth and Tom walked off with Lestrange and Avery in peace.

Abraxas kept her arm as they walked towards the house.

"Why do you defend him?" she said nearly pleading.

He huffed and knelt on the ground in front of her, "Look at me Lenora," he held her face, "I'm going to tell you and only this once".

He took a deep breath.

"You know what we are. Right?"

Lenora pursed her lips and nodded. She did know. Their little meetings, their infiltration of all pure blood society. Their beliefs. They were hers too.

"Yes Brax but-"

He shook his head and interrupted.

"No! There is no "but". Tom is our leader. We are not in school anymore. You are not a child anymore dammit"

Tears fell down her face. She felt so much on the outside.

"You need to grow up" he said wiping her cheek.

He stood up and offered his arm but she just shook her head, tears still blurring her vision. Abraxas scoffed and walked inside frustrated.

When she finally composed herself she pushed the door open. Music roared inside, people were eating and talking. Someone had enchanted the tables to sweep to the side to make room for impromptu dancing. Wives, sisters, daughters had arrived in time for the reception. Lenora gasped at the sight, embarrassed at her own tear stained face and crumpled dress.

"Dear what happened?" A voice from her side said as they touched her hand. It was Lilith. She put her arms out and hugged her sobbing onto her shoulder. Lilith put her arm around her pulling her up the stairs.

"Let's get you cleaned up, Nora" she said helping her away.

Read More Here:

[kismetkween]

An exchange of control

“I try in vain to be persuaded that control is anything but the intersection of rage and desire.” 

Today is an odd one, I went to my dad’s for Easter I did not pressure Ben to go. He had plans to fix his truck and help Chrissy move. The past week Ben and I have been sitting in the wake of the news that I am moving to Ohio. We decided not to divorce quite yet and play it separate. This has been very casual, and everyone is digesting it well. 

His GF(ish) is moving into a new apartment and starting over from scratch. He has offered her some of our furniture from the garage storage to give her a head start. Kurt and I continue to work towards a life together we don’t know what that looks like, but we know we want to love and support each other in our quest to be the best versions of ourselves. 

Ben and I have been together for 16 years. He has always yelled, and we broke up a lot and our day to day has been touch and go. Highest of highs and lowest of lows. I always thought we were a relationship and we loved each other and were strong and resilient and stayed together for better or worse. 

Then there came a time when he yelled at me when I did anything I enjoyed, or when we tried to have a discussion or debate or if I did not respond to something he said properly. I carried guilt for losing interest, but it was not that, I can see that now. It was not wanting to put myself in the way again.  

I lost my interest in sex but, … Who can bring them to fuck someone who hates them. I am not trying to be emo hate is the appropriate word. 

Anyone, (even your partner) Who finds the places and times you are to be the most vulnerable (in your home) and then chooses to be the most malevolent presence in your life, they are not your friends and they do not like you. 

If I am wrong how else am I to tell? Name-calling? check. Knowing the things I hate and doing them anyway? check. Being petty? check. 

If I was going to a party and found out this person was going to be there… I would not go. If I found out this person was to be educating my son, I would not allow it. Why do I go home? Why do I allow? 

I no longer feel bad. 

It does not mean he is a bad person I do feel these things that spark his rage are born in a conflicting place for him. I just don’t want to participate in it anymore. 

An example that became relevant today,  

A few months ago, (find date) I was working, from home, I was trying to update a game so Sterling and I could play together later.  

I asked Sterling to get my controller and start the update. Ben started helping him look, of his own volition, and I suggested moving the couch. To look under and in it. 

 He said something about the clearance of the couch to the floor and how would it fit under there, I did not understand why I was supposed to know that and why he was upset about me not knowing that. 

 We fought about it really badly, He called me a fucking idiot in front of my son. We went back and forth a bit longer about it and eventually got quiet. Noah stood between us, and I mumbled, “No wonder I want to fucking kill myself this is what happens when I try to have a good morning.” He piped back up that if I wanted to kill myself it was not his fault, it was because I was a weak person especially if that is all It takes to make me want to die” I called my dad and his mom. I wanted to leave but I didn’t. 

Cut forward to today he is hauling around furniture he bought me to give to her. Here is where things confuse me. I have no interest, even at times I have tried to force myself or move parts of me around, they are burned and can no longer connect with him.  

I even feel as though I have moved on at a higher level. I have found and loved and lost people more dynamic and more interesting. I am literally in love, and it is the best feeling ever. All he has done is like… fucked another and that does not interest me. 

I definitely don’t envy her, or him...  

I do, however, find it very very hard to admit I am not worthy of love. I cannot understand how she, a person he barely knows, is worthy of more respect and effort than his wife and the mother of his child. The person who does a lot for him. Who is always there to love him the day after he has fucked up. I have huge issues with these feelings of inadequacy. 

He does not treat me as a person he loves or has ever loved. 

I have written about this a million other times, but If I ask him to do something, or need his help with anything, it is always a huge fight. The kind with ugly words and screaming not the kind where you finger wag and say “boys will be boys” the kind where you wonder to yourself, who in their right mind wants to fuck a grown man who throws a fit about cleaning up after himself. 

But honestly, he is generous and helpful... Just to everyone but me. Free car work for his friends and family, his sister or mother need painting, moving, yardwork? He is on it.  

Others, people who only call when they need something, they had him for a whole weekend and he will call me annoying or needy if I called him and ask him when he is going to call him because I want him to spend time with me or his son. 

Last week he and I got in to a screaming match where he mocked me and made fun of me and threw my words up in my face. Because he was laid up in bed all week with some girl and wanted me to do all the dishes while I was out of town. I refused.  

His own dishes. 

This sounds like old sitcom wife stuff but it bothers me on a fundamental level that is “why them and why not me... and if them and not me... why do I?” 

But he moved an entire garage full of furniture for her on his only day off, on a holiday he could have been spending with Sterling. She needed it and she deserved it and he should have. It is not a matter of her getting more than me it is me seeing a baseline of his efforts and what he is willing to do for those people and then questioning why I do not qualify for those same efforts. 

What is wrong with me and my all and why does it not compare to a common person and their bare minimum? I sometimes am just embarrassed. 

 Embarrassed that I am still here, embarrassed that I have not done anything effective to stop it. Embarrassed that, I have changed so much of myself to make it work, and given so much of my time to a person who does not want good for me. Who does not want me to succeed. 

I think I am mostly embarrassed because it took me so long to realize. There is a part of me that is baffled, as I am not able to function in any other environment when I am humiliated. I don’t know how I am able to keep it together here. I think because I am using all my energy at home I do not have enough to do anything and it is just cyclical. 

When it comes to the yelling itself. I have asked for it to stop for the entirety of our relationship and he says he cannot help it but it is a weak excuse. 

 In the past 16 years, I have seen him get so angry, blood boiling mad at his siblings, friends, and bosses and other people and he has never yelled at them. I have tried to counter this in anyway. I have tried fixing the issues that he is mad about, I have tried talking to him, emailing him calmly, I have tried walking away, shutting down conversations and even try yelling back. 

 When I consistently used that approach, it was when his niece was here, this was just following I would say, that happiest period we had, the most relationship success we had. I complained a few times to him mom and sister who simply replied “yell back” it seemed just that simple. Maybe I had been overthinking it. Also it seemed to solve the issues I was having with my niece witnessing the yelling. I didn’t want her to think I was just, “taking it” I wanted her to see strength but instead I showed her desperation, being backed in a corner. 

 Either way the irony came when he sent me an email telling me that if I cannot stop yelling I need to leave his house along with several other threats to my security (not my safety.) 

So why does he do it to me if it is unsuccessful, and it is not a method he uses with anyone else? If I ask him I always get confirmation of my greatest fear. The problem is me, my issues, my health, my inability to understand. I am constantly changing. There is no way that every single version of me has been a problem. 

I know he is wrong whether he means it or not. He does mean it though. If he is in a good mood later, if he is better and open to discuss it I have begged for apologies that he has told me I do not deserve. I have given him a thousand sorries he has not earned just so he does not have to carry the weight around with him. I donot believe he does not care how I feel, I believe he wants me to feel badly. 

I have seen his behavior with Chrissy, He wines and dines her, goes to restaurants he hates, he showers, he cleans the room, cleans the house, he doesn’t disrespect her, he helps her with tasks. He treats her like a person.  

He won’t clean up after himself if it helps me, he WANTS me to work around him. He will not even wash the sex of someone else off of him before he crawls into my bed in the middle of the night because he wants me to be uncomfortable. 

I want to be treated like a person by everyone but especially a person I have to face at my most private and vulnerable, in my own home. I want all I do for him to be valued and in return I simply want to not be abused. 

He could have done these things for me, when I asked him too, long ago. He didn’t because he didn’t want to. He did not want to give me effort. If I say these things need to change or I go, and he does not fix them, he wants me to go. 

The amount of time I have stayed where I am unwanted is embarrassing but It took so long for me to realize this is abuse. Halloween really did it for me I have written about it a bit but not always in the mood to reflect on it. 

Now that I have a plan to leave though… I cannot put it back in the box. I cannot unsee it as abuse. Even if I am humiliated I need to go back to whatever lobotomized state that allowed me to stay and ignore the obvious. 

 Because the fear, and humiliation and anger at wasted time makes it so hard to stay. I don’t want to waste another minute. 71 days I keep telling myself. I just can’t pretend enough to make me stay or ruin all my progress. I think that is what scares me the most. 

Long story, less long. As he was moving the couch, after all the damage has been done and we both have new partners, when I can never look at him again without seeing every name, he has ever called me, the controller fell out of the couch.  

I don’t care about the controller. I bought a new one that day without rage. Knowing things get lost, living in the world in which we have to pivot. Where abuse will not unlose things or unruin relationships, or uncall someone an idiot.  

But it has taken me months to realize that he never cared about the controller either. When he found it, He brought it to me, beaming with pride, waiting for me to thank him. Waiting for me to tell the story where he was the hero. He cared not about the controller but control. For so long, he wanted to control me. Not even for what I was offering just so things don’t change for him. I used to be more angry, more willing to fight, sometimes I was the opponent he needed. I would fight my own nature to be what he needed. I think it validated him. I think all his life he has waited for someone to fight for him and not against him. He has trauma too and I acknowledge that but when mine has been an issue, I fix it. I take time off work, I get medication, I talk to therapists, I change things. When I asked him straight forward, are you going to change, and he said he had no interest in changing, I knew there were no longer things here that he can control. 

I see the irony, the OCD girly is remarking to others about control, but I am also willing to change to be kinder. To be nicer and I need an environment that supports that. 

I don’t know how to say this other than the fact I am wildly dynamic. But I don’t think he is bad, I don’t think he is a bad guy. I think we are like most couples, we did fine for a long time and somewhere along the way we started putting fights off for later and so many unresolved issues came up, and everytime we speak ot think of the other so much hurt and ugly comes out and no one wants to be hurt and ugly all the time.  // I know this just seems like a wild rant with no point but the point is, I am releasing my guilt, I carry it no longer. I do have a touch of guilt about introducing Ben and Chrissy, I don’t think it was very “girls’ girl” of me but ... I don’t think he will be cruel to her. I think they can find peace and happiness and I don’t believes he deserves to be alone.  

 There is so much more to discuss but I hope to be more coherent with my thoughts.. 

https://kismetkweenx.wordpress.com/about/

[awkwardspontaneity]

Hello. This is my first request for the Legend of Zelda, so I do not know how to write it correctly. I don't speak English and I'm writing this in a translator, so there may be mistakes here, sorry. In general, I want to see how the reader will react to the fact that Revali, Link and Sidon cheated on her. (something made me feel sad) Thank you in advance ╹▽╹

I'm so sorry something happened to upset you. If it's along the lines of this request give me a name😤👊 anyways thank you so much for requesting!! This ended up being so much longer than I intended but I'm pretty happy with it. I hope this is what you're looking for!

✨ requests are open✨

Warning: angst, cheating

Revali🐦

I think with his prickly nature not a lot of people would stick around long enough to get to know how much he cares

But some bitch saw how much he was training to perfect his powers to help Hyrule and couldn't resist

It started off as bringing him lunches and heat pads after a long day of training and then it escalated

They would wrap his wings up and suddenly he was letting them fix his braids. He never saw it as much more than a fan helping him out but you saw differently

It ended up in a big fight when you finally brought up how Revali was allowing this fan to hang off of him like they were his partner not you. You brought up excellent points like how he took such a long time to even trust you with braiding his hair and that he could at least let them know he's in a relationship.

Revali got upset (probably cuz ur right and he can't admit it) and snapped that at least they appreciated him

Yeah bad move. You walked out and bird brain left to train away the pain

You came across his first and decided to head to the shooting range with some peace snacks but what do you find?

You walk up the slope towards the archery range, a container of Revali's favourite snacks in hand. As you approach you see something sitting inside the hut and assume it's him. Sterling your breath you walk into the hut and what you find takes your breath away- not in the good way either. Revali sat there with his wings wrapped around them, too caught up on their liplock to notice you standing there.

CRASH

The container hits the ground with a shatter, ruining their little scene.

"Y/n-"

"Don't even try it." You wish your voice didn't sound as broken. No matter how much your heart squeezed in pain from the betrayal, you wanted to come off so much different- angrier. Because you were angry. "Just because we have an argument does not give you the right to run off with your new friend."

Revali flinches at the word and you feel a sick glimmer of satisfaction. He opens his mouth to protest, ignoring your glare. "I-I'm sorry." Your glare darkens and he immediately flounders for the right words. "You accused me of something I didn't do-"

Yeah, not the right words. You wish you could do something, anything to hurt him like he hurt you. But you had to be the bigger person no matter how much you wanted to snap that precious bow of his in half.

"I accused you, not have you permission."

"We can work through this, together" his wing reached out to you, but you recoiled to fast.

"We're not together." You walked towards the entrance "I hope it was worth it."

Link 🗡️

Link is a closed off person. Sure he has people worship him for his title as the hero of Hyrule, but he would never let that get to his head. You could tell this boy he's amazing and it still wouldn't get through his insecurities

Maybe it's cruel but, that almost reassured you he would never break your heart like that. You felt secure in your relationship

That's why it was so shocking when you found out he had fallen for Zelda.

It wasn't meant to ever be more than knight and princess. And you never should have found out.

You were walking towards the stables of your party was staying at. It was supposed to be a simple trip to complete some research out in the plains. Of course your trip was ambushed by an energetic princess who begged to come along for research purposes. You couldn't complain because the addition of the princess also came with your boyfriend Link.

Now you were looking for him outside the small ranch. You fully expected him to be caring for Epona like he always did after a long trip. His love for his horse was something you had always loved about him. The way he would stay later than everyone else to make sure she was okay. It had made stables kind of your spot. Hanging out at the end of a long day to talk and spend time together while caring for your steeds.

Maybe that was why your heart felt so utterly shattered when you did find him, standing next to the stable, with the princess in his arms. Maybe you could have fooled yourself into believing he was being friendly if he hadn't pressed a long loving kiss to her forehead followed by both her cheeks, chuckling softly as she giggled.

You knew they had always been close. I mean they spent all their time together. You'd just never thought that Link would do something like this to you.

You walked away from the stables fighting backs the tears in your eyes. It was only when you found you had walked into an older area, a spare shack outside, that you finally let the tears fall. Your heart twisted in pain as sobs tore from your throat.

Why hasn't you seen this? Why weren't you enough?

------

Your research trip was almost over. You had gone back late into the night to find Link on the edge of his bed head in his hands. He had shot up to demand where you had been when you finally walked in and although he looked like he wanted to argue, he accepted that you had been organizing your research supplies and notes in quiet.

That had been 3 days ago. You had spent the research trip sticking close to your colleagues, poring over each plant and testing their uses. The princess was too distracted with her own interests to really notice how you shied away from her presence. Link had though. And he was about done with you brushing him off in favour of your work. You both were busy so not having time was nothing new. But this was different. You couldn't meet his eyes and he had caught you staring at him and Zelda as if you were about to cry before. He was at a loss and now he needed to figure things out for himself.

However he wasn't quite ready for the answer.

"I saw you and Zelda together."

His throat closed up. He wanted to say so many things. How sorry he was. How he wished he could have told you himself. How he wished he could hold you and forget how complicated things were.

"it's okay." Now that, he wasn't expecting. "I thought I could be mad at you. Both of you. But I guess... It just makes sense." You sniffled softly. You really didn't want to do this. You hated that it had to be you who gave up. But we're you really going to fight? No. As much as it tore your heart into pieces, you would stand aside for them. "I wish that things hadn't changed but, clearly you don't feel the same anymore and I don't want to hold you back. I love you. So much. But I don't deserve this, and I won't put either of us through the trouble. I hope you two are happy together Link."

As you walked towards your friends to head home Link felt his heart clench. You deserved so much better.

Sidon🦈

You were a princess from another kingdom, betrothed to Prince Sidon of the Zora. We all know how these things go, neither of you were all that fond of the idea but you would go through with it. For your kingdoms

You tried to be as understanding as possible of the situations, knowing that the prince was just as trapped as you were. So you played along with your parents wishes.

You two went on dates and spent time together, getting closer and closer until finally you kissed him.

Things were great. You were planning your wedding and enjoying the time you spent with your fiance as you prepared for your future

It wasn't until a few days before the wedding when you were trying on your dress that things fell apart.

Your dressmaker had been in a bad mood, grumbling as they worked and even sticking you with needles a few times. You would have brushed it off as a bad day if not for the facts that they seemed so unapologetic.

You finally brought it up, softly asking if there was something wrong and if you could help. They snapped, going off about how you were ruining the princes life and that he didn't love you and was only marrying you for his kingdom and that he deserved to be happy.

They realized their mistake and left quickly, leaving you alone in your wedding dress with shocked tears slipping down your face.

You later made you way to Sidons office, hoping to clear some things up and maybe seek comfort from the one you loved.

What you didn't expect was to find him already comforting someone. Your dressmaker.

You watched as he whispered sweet nothings and reassurances to them. It was when he said no matter what they were the one that he loved when you broke away.

You stood in your room, packed bags beside you. You knew there were better ways to deal with this. You knew that your kingdom was counting on you and thus marriage. You just couldn't go through with it. Not anymore.

"Y/n?"

You sound around to find the Zora princess standing in your doorway. Mipha had become a close friend in your time in the Zora domain, even feeling like family as you worked closely planning the wedding. She had once told you that you were everything she could hope for in a sister and wife for her brother. You guessed it didn't matter in the end.

Finally you choked out pained words "I can't... I just... I can't do this anymore."

"If you are feeling nervous, I can assure you my brother would never hurt you."

This made you laugh. It was cold, similar to the ice creeping into your veins. "He would. And he did." You cut off Mipha's confusion, wringing a hand through your hair, "Sidon is in love with someone else. I made every effort to work through this engagement despite our... rocky beginning. But he didn't choose me back. He never wanted me, and I won't ruin his chance to be happy."

The room was silent after your outburst. You only noticed the tears when your friend wiped them from your eyes. She offered you a small smile, sharing the pain you felt. She was losing you and still understood it was best for you. You needed to move on and save yourself from a life of pain. A life of being chosen second.

"I hope one day we can meet again, sister."

You let out a choked mix of a son and laugh. Hugging the princess before you grabbed your bags and walked out the door, out of the kingdom that stole your heart and crushed it in its hands.

"I love you, always."

[sgtbradfords]

“Is that my shirt?” For a Chenford prompt! Love your writing♥️

Thank you for the prompt anon! I hope this does the prompt justice 😉

Send me a prompt from this list!

When Lucy Chen woke up that morning it wasn’t to the sound of her alarm, no. It was to the sound of a fist banging on her front door before Jackson West barged into the room.

“Chen! Let’s go, we’re going to be late!” She heard as she startled awake, sitting up.

“Shit!” She yelled throwing back the covers as she stumbled out of the bed, her body wavering as her feet hit the floor.

“What happened?” Jackson asked from the doorway as Lucy began to run around her room.

“I don’t know! I think my phone died last night while I was on the phone with-“ she began telling him as she threw on the first articles of acceptable clothing she could find. “Can I borrow your charger in the car?”

“Sure. But hurry we're going to be late.”

“Thanks roomie!” she yelled as he walked out.

Lucy hurriedly finished getting dressed, throwing on a pair of flats to go with her outfit before grabbing her duffle bag, keys and phone before running out of the apartment. She took the stairs down, two at a time, towards the main floor, swinging the metal door that separates the inside from the outside as she sprinted to Jackson’s waiting car.

“This is not how I wanted to start my Friday!” she huffed to her roommate and friend as she shut the door, buckling quickly as they headed out onto the street.

Jackson held out his right hand, a wrapped breakfast bar laid in his palm. “I grabbed you breakfast.”

Lucy took it, unwrapping and taking a bite as she plugged up her phone. “Thank you.” She said between another bite.

“So, who were you talking to so late last night that caused your phone to die?”

Lucy grimaced. “You caught that huh?”

Jackson nodded. “If you’re not ready to talk about it, that’s ok. But at least tell me you ran a background check on him.”

She snorted. “I did and I promise that his intentions are sound.”

“His intentions?” Jackson questioned, looking over his sunglasses to the girl in the passenger seat. “And just what is that supposed to mean?”

“It means that it’s kind of serious.” She shrugged. “We’ve been on a few dates. He’s been to mine, I’ve been to his. He even FaceTimed my parents once.”

“He’s met your parents? And just how long has this-“

Jackson began to ask as Lucy’s phone charging in the cup holder began chiming. She picked it up, scrolling through her missed messages.

“Huh. That’s weird.”

“What?”

“I got a message from Grey telling me to plain clothes it today. Wonder what that’s all about.”

“Special assignment maybe? We are P2s now.”

Lucy furrowed her brow as she fired off a text message before she began fixing her hair into a bun. “Maybe, I guess we’ll find out during roll call.”

They made idle conversation going down the road as Lucy fixed her light make-up, Jackson steering the car into the parking lot, parking in their normal spot. “Hey, did you finish that report about the robbery from yesterday?”

Lucy grabbed her things, exiting the car. “Yeah, I need to thank Nolan for the backup. If he didn’t show when he did, I would hate to think what could have happened.”

They enter the department, Lucy telling Jackson about the two men who tried to rob the convenience store granny before they went their separate ways to the locker rooms.

Lucy placed her bag into her locker, grabbing her badge, holstering her gun, and double checking her ankle holster before she pocketed her knife.

“Hey, good catch yesterday with the Gardner Twins. They’re regulars, always in and out of jail but I heard that the old woman held her own?” Nyla congratulated as she adjusted the duty belt she just put on.

Lucy laughed, heading for the door. “Yeah, when I pulled up on scene, she had one held at gun point and the other at cane point which would have been nothing if it wasn’t for the blade sticking out of it.”

“Sounds like that is one grandma not to be messed with.”

“Definitely not, she had brass knuckles and pepper spray in her purse too.” Lucy told Nyla as they entered the meeting room, both taking their respective seats with the others at their tables in the back.

Angela Lopez walked in, sitting down beside Lucy. “Morning.”

“Morning.”

Angela turned around to Nyla, asking a question before she turned back around to the front. “Nice shirt.”

“Than-“ Lucy began saying as she looked down, stopping her words in their tracks. ‘Oh no.’ her mind repeated frantically. In her haste to get dressed she didn’t pay attention to the shirt she put on, sure she knew the olive green color, knew it would match her dark washed jeans but ‘I should have looked in the mirror.’ was really a statement she needed stamped on her forehead.

“Morning.” Tim said as he sat down in the chair next to Nyla. “You get a special assignment or something?” he asked, looking at his former rookie.

Lucy was still amidst her internal conflict. ‘Should I go change? How could I have been so stupid, this is what I get for not laying my clothes out last night.’

“Boot!” Tim said sternly, his voice a tone he hasn’t used on her in a while, pulling her out of her stupor.

“I’m sorry, did you ask something?”

“Yeah, what’s with the plain clothes?”

Lucy shrugged. “Grey told me to dress down.”

“And that means wearing your boyfriend’s shirt?” snorted Angela as she took a sip of her coffee.

Lucy panicked. “Oh this? This isn’t my boyfriend’s, it’s Jackson’s.”

“Jackson was in the Army?” Angela smirked, pointing out the green shirt with black lettering.

“No, it’s Sterling’s. He wore it on that military movie he made a few years ago.”

Angela looked at her incredulously before glancing at Nyla and Tim who was watching the interaction with great intent. “Uh-huh.”

“Alright let’s settle down and get to it…” Sergeant Grey said as he took his place behind the podium.

“What’d I miss?” Jackson asked as he quickly sat down in the other chair opposite of Lucy.

“My funeral.” She mumbled.

Jackson turned slightly “What?”

“Nothing.” She said quickly as Grey glared the two down.

Thirty minutes later Sergeant Grey had given Lucy her assignment, assisting the Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco Firearms and Explosives undercover at a local bar that was serving alcohol to minors.

“Hey, wait for me.” Said the voice of her former training officer behind her. She slowed her steps, allowing him to join her. “You want a ride?”

“Sure. You set?”

Tim motioned his head towards the garage bay, “Let’s go.”

Lucy may have been the most under qualified of all the female officers in the department to go undercover, but she had what the ATF was looking for and everyone has to start somewhere. She felt a sense of relief when Sergeant Grey partnered her with Tim for the day, the newly appointed Sergeant providing backup in case things went sideways.

“So, what’s your cover again?” Tim asked. He would be parked nearby, listening in with another ATF field agent as Lucy went on a ‘date’ with one of their agents while two others attempted to get served alcohol.

Lucy read the paper in her hand, the information vague besides the location of the bar and who they would be meeting with outside of the bar.

Tim nodded. “Did you bring another shirt?”

“No, Grey didn’t tell me anything other than to wear plain clothes, which I didn’t see till I had already left my apartment.”

“Isn’t that my shirt?” he asked, smirking.

“Apparently I feel asleep talking to someone on the phone last night and never plugged it up, which caused my phone to die, so my alarm to never went off and Jackson had to wake me up. I was in a bit of a rush this morning getting dressed and thought I was putting on my olive swing top.” She glared.

“I’m not complaining, you look better in it anyways.”

“Yeah, well I’m pretty sure Angela knows it’s yours.”

Tim shrugged “She’s a Detective for a reason. It was cute you know.”

“What was cute?”

“Hearing you snore.”

Lucy opened her mouth “I do not snore!”

“You do.” He laughed. “I can’t believe I never noticed it before last night.”

“I was tired, yesterday was a long day. Besides, it’s probably nothing compared to the logs that you saw at night.”

Tim looked at her before agreeing with what she said. “I’m not going to deny that. But at least my feet don’t feel like blocks of ice.”

“I can’t help that my feet stay cold! I don’t like wearing socks to bed.”

“Lucy, I don’t mind being your personal heater but maybe it wouldn’t hurt to keep an extra blanket or two next to the beds.”

Lucy thought for a moment as she pulled her hair out of its hold, tousling the brown waves. “Fine.”

“Or we could just make it bed, as in singular.” He offered as he parked the shop next to the curb.

“Is that your way of asking me to move in with you?”

“I don’t know, is it? We've been together almost a year, we're both in a good place right now and half of your closet is in my bedroom closet."  He reminded her as he grabbed the handheld radio mounted to the dash.”7-Adam-19 show us out for special assignment.”

“7-Adam-19 10-4.”

“You don’t have to answer now, we can talk about more after shift.” He told her as he stepped out of the car. “You ready?” he asked as Lucy nodded her head, moving towards the small group of people on the sidewalk. “Let’s knock ‘em dead boot. Agent Edwards? Sergeant Tim Bradford this is Officer Lucy Chen, glad we could assist you today.”

[afraschatz]

Leverage: The 12 Steps Job

It‘s been a while since I‘ve done one of these, but I‘m rewatching Leverage yet again (SHOW, I MISSED YOU) and here are plenty of things I love about ‚The 12 Step Job‘: I love…

… The montage of Hurley in the car and how he walks into his office. Man, that is one NEAT character introduction because when you first watch this, of course he could pass as an absolute jerk and the baddie of the week – despite the client‘s description of him as enthusiastic and sweet. But at the same time this is just how he is later on in this ep and when he returns in The Boys‘ Night Out Job: An absolute slob and a complete mess but also very congenial (how much he knows about all his co-workers? Sweet) and with his heart in the right place.

… Nate being a complete dick and so fucking in denial about his alcohol problem here. I haven‘t watched season one in a while and it‘s so interesting how his and Sophie‘s relationship is so different here (the biggest shift of course being between s2 and s3 where Nate decides to take a vacation in prison and Sophie runs the crew in the meantime – this changes things forever). But it‘s so cool how Gina‘s acting walks the thin line between being the one who is absolutely in the right here and being just that bit annoying that allows Nate to justify implying that she‘s overly dramatic

… Eliot‘s hair is ON FIRE in that episode, wow and that blue shirt *chef‘s kiss*

… how the team works together in figuring out where Hurley might be. Yes, it‘s season one and Nate is very much calling the shots – and he is the one narrowing it down here – but Eliot and Hardison specifically absolutely pitch in.

… Sophie‘s and Eliot‘s little eyeroll at Hardison‘s dropping strip club knowledge

… ‘if Billy was a drunken sex fiend’ – hahaha, Parker, spot on as always – and Eliot‘s and Hardison‘s responding expressions. Come on, boys, don‘t deny it, you‘re in love with her already.

… that look on Nate‘s face when he figures out how to find Hurley. His whole expression changes, his gaze focusses, he leans forward and that drunken haze is gone for the moment

… how Eliot and Hardison constantly share the same frame <3

… Eliot‘s little DELIGHTED smile. Okay, his and Hardison‘s delight in strip joints doesn‘t quite fit later seasons, so we all can just agree that Hardison asking for change for 100 in singles is just because they really want to tip generously for the chicken wings there or something :)

… Eliot‘s and Hardison‘s synchronized walk off

… ‘Don‘t get mad, Eliot, I may have spilled slushie in your car’ and his badly acted expression of contrition hahaha, no one is buying that, Hardison

… Eliot and Hardison being extremely sexy in sitting in Eliot’s car (and as so often, look at the perfect way that shot is lit! Hardison’s and Eliot’s faces both fricking glow)

… very smartly dressed random thugs

… the messy way the fight scene is shot – close ups and very wobbly camera moves, and how you can still tell how efficiently Eliot fights and how… well not all that efficiently Hardison is. And yes, again, it’s season one, so Hardison grabs the gun and shoots it, too, instead of just sitting back and chilling while he watches Eliot beat people up (which is way better than the strip joint idea anyway)

… Eliot being annoyed with Hardison

… ‘Is he sleeping?’ LOL, yes, Sophie, that’s why Hurley is using the air bag as a pillow

… Nate looking progressively more like the absolute mess he is as the episode progresses

… - how confusing is it that Sterling’s Theme is used and Sterling isn’t immediately around the next corner? That is SO cool because yes, he shows up later, or rather: withdrawal!Nate hallucinates him; and so his theme music this early in the episode is almost like foreshadowing

… everyone in group therapy apparently understanding Sam perfectly well aside from Nate

… Parker having to read from the cheat sheet she wrote onto her lower arm to get her three-sentence-character-intro right

… Hurley’s massive list of addiction, with the climax of “Tacos”

… “Uh-huh” - and Sophie and Nate having another fight while everyone else in the group is already tired of it. Especially Parker, if one were to judge by her VERY subtle expressions.

… Parker aggressively chewing on the meds the doctor gave her. I absolutely LOVE the way she constantly gives other people this uncensored WTF-look in season one

… Eliot being smart in the parking lot. I have so much love and respect for how that’s played here again – Eliot is the one who has to have 360 vision, it’s his job to anticipate problems in all forms and sizes

… Hardison’s bricks-on-the-seat plan. That’s so great because he might be the smartest guy Eliot knows TM, but he is fucking afraid here and panicking and that’s not conducive to coming up with super clever plans, is it?

… Hardison and Eliot working together while bitching at one another - “Yes, there are a lot of wires! It’s a Com-Pu-Ter!!”

… Hardison’s brain rebooting as he figures out that it’s a computer bomb and the system needs to be re-booted

… Eliot trusting Hardison’s knowledge, and Christian’s acting here – knowing Hardison is right, being low key annoyed by it, being just a bit unsettled (that lip quiver!) “Run that sack of bricks by me again...” - “Are you ready?” - “NO!”  and his trembling hand - he is so good at rapidly changing expressions and tones

… “I’m gonna go and freshen up a little bit. Maybe cry a little”

… Hardison thinking on his feet and that sweet Jamaican accent – Eliot thinking that is sexy, and backing him up with a bomb

… and again, Kane’s acting – that beat and that look before he says “Sure” when Hardison asks whether he’d have saved him as well

… Nate’s withdrawal. So well done. Over all, the show is SO good at showing that alcoholism is a sickness and a serious problem, even if (especially if!) Nate doesn’t acknowledge it

… HARDISON AND ELIOT’S DATE AT THE RECEPTION DESK. - So, while in the scene before, Hardison takes the lead in acting their way out of the situation, here it’s Eliot by shamelessly flirting with the receptionist. And Hardison’s FACE throughout this. Like, bro, do we have time for this? DO WE? - And then “I’m with him”. And Eliot trying so hard not to burst into laughter, especially when Hardison is doing that thing he is famous for which is shamelessly over-acting just to piss Eliot off. - The ringing of the reception bell and “Bring yo ass”. And none of that even being mentioned in the next scene. - So much quality content in this episode.

… Sophie taking over for Nate when Nate very obviously can’t, and her tone of voice changing to what we’ll get to know from season three Sophie

… Parker coming up with a believable story and selling it. Up to the point where her make believe parents found gold under their trailer…

… Nate’s withdrawal getting worse, Tim’s acting is brilliant here.

… Sophie talking differently to Nate than before. Yes, she still seems to focus on Nate and how Nate is being a dick to them and particularly her, but her voice is different and she uses the real emotion between her and Nate’s exchange to get what they need from Hurley; the list of people he wronged. Brilliant little twist here, because of course Sophie is focused on the con and on helping their client, especially now that Nate is threatening to lose his focus entirely

… that Genesis? Veeeeery subtle product placement, Leverage hahaha

… “I checked your notes - he seems like a deeply troubled man” - Thank you, doctor, yeah. Nate IS a deeply troubled man. And again: Nate’s withdrawal getting much worse, and the con threatening to get out of hand. I said it before, and I’ll say it again: It’s really great how they used this episode to focus so much on Nate’s alcoholism. It’s something so important not only for later seasons but also for the upcoming s1 finale, and we’ve watched enough episodes at this point that we understand WHY this happened to him. And this episode doesn’t offer an easy fix, nor do the following seasons. “Just give me something to do” is what Nate says here, and Sophie has to decide whether or not this is really the right thing to do

… “He is an addict, he knows how to manipulate people, my father was an addict, my grandfather was an addict, I know how these people operate” - yes, Nate, we know who you’re talking about. And so does Sophie

… Sterling as the one Nate hallucinates. Because Sterling knows him, because they used to be friends, because Sterling is as ruthless as Nate is (well, nearly), because Nate is still projecting and in denial that he is in fact talking about himself. So what does he do? He imagines his former friend who is now on the other side, chasing him. - I’m not too big a fan of Sterling in later seasons but this is such a STELLAR use of his character, and Mark’s acting is brilliant here, and so is, of course, Tim’s.

… “Knocking on heaven’s door” - ouch

… Nate’s aggression towards Hurley, first in a physical form and that is scary but also less dangerous because it’s unfocused; and then when his mind has something to focus on, that sharp sharp focus – fuck, he’s one scary dude indeed, it’s rather disconcerting that one is looking at Hurley for emotional reassurance in this scene…

… Parker’s strange walk because of her meds and the return on her focus when her thief-self kicks back in

… “If you’re doing it to help someone, doesn’t that make it okay?” Good question, Hurley. Your answer, Nate?

… Nate shoving Hurley in the hallway rather than explaining what’s going on. Funny, and sliiiightly sloppy, Mr Ford

...Tacos :)

… Eliot and Hardison sharing the same level of annoyance and then acceptance. So in tune in this episode, these two

… re-using that bomb. Everyone does their part in sustainability and careful usage of resources ;)

… the thugs thinking the bomb thing was done by the Jamaicans, aka Hardison and Eliot

… Eliot’s and Hardison’s reservations in the flashback. “Uh---why?” from Hardison and Eliot’s emphatic headshake

… the cash in the tire. Very practical choice, Hurley

… HURLEY JUST WANTS A HUG

… Hardison going the extra mile with Hurley’s new identity by getting him a gym membership

… Parker’s brilliant drawing!!!

… Parker smelling the Sharpie

… Parker running, PARKER HUGGING ELIOT AND HARDISON!!!! OT3!!!

… and that song, that is a variation of “What shall we do with the drunken sailor”, right?

Seriously, this is such a dark episode for Leverage standards because of that focus on Nate’s addiction, and yet, it’s counterbalanced by so much Hardison/Eliot fun and competence porn, by Sophie’s strength and by the fact that the villain of the week has a redemption arc. I love this show so much and this mix shows why again; such a delicate balance, so beautifully handled

[didsomeonesaydaddydraco]

You suck, you should fix that | d.m (requested)

Request: yes (@ brycelahelalover)

“Hii, I'm a new follower of yours and I have a request. So the details are: my reader's name is Orchid Sterling. She has achy blonde kind of hair, green eyes. And she's a Gryffindor for the sake of the story. Draco Malfoy. Where the reader is Dumbledore's granddaughter and part of the golden trio. And she and draco go from enemies to lovers kind of thing. She never really bothered with his insults and always ignored them by rolling her eyes or something? Anyways, thank you”

World count: 2805 

Do you know the feeling when you just want to stay in bed all day long and do absolutely nothing? Well, it was one of those days for me. Most of my weekend was spent with Harry, Ron and Hermione at the library, working on a big essay for our Potions class with Professor Snape. And if all the school work wouldn’t be enough, Harry wanted to wander around the Castle because he thought he heard weird noise coming from the walls even after the Chamber was officially closed, and wanted to found out what it really was or where it came from. Of course we all went with him, and almost get detention for not being in our dorm rooms past our curfew.  We hardly had any time left to relax and have fun by the Great Lake. So when Monday rolled in, I only wanted one thing: to be done with the day.

- Don’t you look just drop dead gorgeous this fine Monday morning, sweet Orchid? – I groaned at the voice which greeted me when I stepped into the Great Hall to have breakfast with my friends.  I rolled my eyes at him when I walked past Draco and his group of fans.

- I’m so tired – Harry put his head in his hands and I was positive he was seconds away from passing out. We only slept for a couple of hours before we had to wake up to go and attend our classes – We shouldn’t have stayed awake for that long last night.

- Oh, you don’t say? – I asked, my voice filled with sarcasm. We were lucky, that we weren’t caught last night, sneaking out of our dorms once again, but this time to go to the library to find something odd about the Castle that might be an explanation for the voice Harry had been hearing – Maybe we should just sleep at night, instead of going on little adventures. Snape will literally hex us if he finds one of us outside of the Gryffindor’s Dormitory past out curfew again.

Ron and Hermione tried to stay out of the conversations, both of them being quite busy with eating or reading something. Harry thankfully dropped the subject, and instead of talking, he took a few minutes nap on the dining table. I was enjoying my morning pumpkin juice, when all of a sudden, a paper cane came flying in front of me. I slowly opened it:

“What? No witty comebacks for my lovely morning greeting? – D”

I sighed and torn apart the message. Draco and I had been enemies ever since we arrived to Hogwarts at the age of 11. It started with me talking back to him, and Malfoy not liking the fact that someone wasn’t afraid of him. There wasn’t a day without us fighting about or over something. He irritated me with his arrogant and selfish attitude, but at the same time I found something very amusing in the way he always got so angry and frustrated at something I said or did. The fact, that Dumbledore was my grandfather, didn’t really helped to develop our relationship with each other. Draco finding every possibility to come at me with this fact. In exchange, I never failed to remind him to go and tell his father about someone who talked him back. I swear to Merlin, telling his father everything and anything was his hobby.

- You know – Hermione giggled, when she figured out the reason behind my sudden annoyance and anger - Malfoy and you are the living proof that you can hate and love someone at the same time. It’s very amusing to watch how you both cannot go a day without bothering the other.

- I have no idea what you’re talking about – I drank the last of my juice and started to pick up my stuff to leave for my DADA class, when the huge doors of the Great Hall flew wide open and a rather angry Professor Dumbledore barged in. All eyes were on him.

- Orchid Sterling-Dumbledore – his voice echoed through the huge Hall. He stopped right in front of us, and his usually kind eyes now were filled with anger and worry.

- Hi, Grandpa – I smiled at him innocently, but I knew it was already a lost case when he put his hands of his waist. I looked at Hermione, who was already looking at me with a “what have you done now?” look.

- Don’t Grandpa me now – he said – You, Mr. Potter, Mr. Wesleay and Ms. Granger go to my office in this second – he ordered. Love of Merlin. We all knew why he was so pissed at us. Harry, Ron and Hermione quickly picked up their bags and followed Professor Dumbledore.

- You too, Mr. Malfoy – Dumbledore said to the smirking blond and dragged him with us by his robe. The four of us were changing confused glances between each other, not knowing why he had to come with us as well. Mentally, I was prepared for my Grandfather’s speech about the dangerous of sneaking out of the dorm rooms at night, knowing very well that Voldemort was back and tried everything to reach Harry and kill him. Along with everyone who would try to save him. All five of us were sitting silently there, watching Professor Dumbledore walking around his room, listening as he went on and off about how many times we had already broke the rules of Hogwarts, putting ourselves exposed to anyone who would try to hurt us, and disobeying our Professors and Prefects’ orders. I knew for sure I wasn’t going to hear the end of this during Christmas break.

- And not to mention – he looked at Malfoy and me – Duelling at the courtyard? You two aren’t supposed to use your wands for such activities, only if you are in danger.

- Malfoy started it – I shrugged – I was only trying to protect my nerves from him. He tends to like getting on them and…

- ENOUGH – Grandpa yelled – All five of you, detention. Harry, Ron and Hermione you are going to help Professor Snape cleaning his equipment for Potions class, and will do as he orders. Three days. And I don’t want to see any of you out of your dorms after dinner, am I clear?

- Yes, Professor – they said in union and were free to leave, leaving Malfoy and I behind.

- As for you Ms. Sterling and Mr. Malfoy – he sat down by his huge desk – You two are going to spend your detention together. In that case, you might learn how to act like civilized witches and wizards. You two are going to put away the books in the library, so you cannot scream at each other.

- Excuse me, Professor – Malfoy spoke for the first time since we had arrived – I might have zoned out a bit, but why am I getting detention?

- For the same things as Ms. Sterling over here – he gestured to me with his hand – You were in the duel as well, throwing back spells, and also left your Dorm after the curfew. I know you had the best intentions by telling Professor Snape that they sneaked out, but you followed them, and broke the rules too.

If eyes could kill, Malfoy would have been dead by the time Dumbledore dismissed us. I rushed to find my friends and tell them it was Malfoy who snitched on us to Snape, and he was the reason we got detention. In the middle of my rage, George and Fred joined us in the courtyard, and watched me with smirks on their faces.

- Young love – Fred sang and danced around alone, while George tried to stop him from bumping into something. I scoffed at them and sat down next to Ron, who was eating chocolate frogs and looked like he didn’t care at all for getting detention and him being forced to spend even more time with Snape. Of course he didn’t mind, he had Harry and Hermione with him. He didn’t have to be with his sworn enemy for a whole week.

- It’s funny how much you love each other – George added and ruffled up my hair.

- Were you even listening? – I asked them angrily – I was literally going on and on for hours who much I hate Malfoy for being an arrogant git and…

- All we heard was, you talking about him nonstop – they giggled – Like you have been doing for the last couple of months. You know Orchid, the more you hide your feelings from someone, the more you fall for them.

I glared at my friends, who found my situation rather funny. None of them tried to help me out, confirming my hatred towards the Slytherin boy. It was like, they were all on the same page.

- Alright – I sighed – Maybe I don’t hate him. Hate is quite a strong word, and he might have his reasons why he’s acting like a total jerk, but still. I’m just not necessarily excited about Draco’s existence.

- Talking about me, Princess? – an annoyed groan left my lips when I heard him from behind me. There was his usual smirk on his face, and he looked quite satisfied with himself. I checked my watch to see it was almost time for us to serve our detention at the library – Grandpa dearest wasn’t too happy about you sneaking out in the middle of the night, right?

- Don’t mess with me now, Malfoy – I hissed as I walked past him, bumping my shoulder into his. I heard his footsteps following me and soon enough he appeared in front of me, walking backwards so he could face me.

- Or what? You’ll hex me? – he laughed and bit his lower lip – You are one of a kind, aren’t you? Black sheep of the family? Always getting in trouble, talking back and so on. I wonder if you weren’t related to Dumbledore, you still would have been sorted into Gryffindor. Or you might have been a Slytherin – he stopped when we reached the entrance of the library – You know, I offered my friendship to you on the train and warned you about who you are befriending.

- Oh shut up, Malfoy – I pushed him inside. We went to find Madam Pince. She told us our first task and asked us to stay silent for the sake of the students who came to the library to actually do school work or just read. I tried everything to stay away from Malfoy, but he always find a way to join me and bother me with the most nonsense questions or just tried to make me feel uncomfortable. For some unknown reasons, I started to think about all those things the twins and Hermione had been telling me. Was it possible? Did I really had feelings for him? Even if I did, it must have been Stockholm Syndrome, cause there was no way a normal mind would fell for such an arrogant asshole. But at the same time, on days, when he was too tired or was busy with something else, I missed his attention. Him always having something to argue about, picking on me, bullying my friends or just being himself and getting on my last nerves. So on days like those, I always find something to tell him. Most of the time we ended up being pairs in classes, and even though be argued through the whole class, we always managed to be ready with a high mark on our assignments, gaining House point for Slytherin and Gryffindor.

- Thinking about be? – he suddenly appeared behind me as I was collecting a few books from the furthest table in the library. He put his hands on my sides, locking me between his body and the desk, not having any exit for me to escape. My senses were filled with the warmth of his body, and with his signature cologne and mint scent – I don’t mind at all. You haven’t left my mind for the last couple of months… – his minty breath tickled my neck, and goose bumps appeared on my arms.

- Bullshit – I rolled my eyes and tried to escape, but Draco pushed me against the desk, his body brushing against mine – What do you want now, Malfoy?

- Well, I have a few things in my mind – he whispered in my ear and his hands found their way to my hips, squeezing it lightly – But I want to know why you hate me so much.

I turned around in his embrace, and I couldn’t tell if my cheeks were red because of the boiling rage in my body or I was blushing because of his touch and sudden mood change. I looked up him, seeing that he honestly wanted to know.

- Where have you been all this time? – I raised an eyebrow at him – We have been like this ever since we first met each other. You’re an asshole, and I cannot tolerate your arrogant and selfish behaviour, and I haven’t even mention the fact that you somehow find amusement in bullying everyone who isn’t a pureblood or a Slytherin.

- Come on, Sterling – he laughed a bit – We both know this is something you had gotten over a long time ago.

- Fine – I sighed - I’m not saying I hate you. What I’m saying is that you are literally the Monday of my life. Always pissing me off, always having something to surprise me with and…

- And? – he pulled me closer to his body. Draco’s icy blue eyes were shifting from my green eyes to my lips, than back to my eyes again. His light pink tongue ran along his slightly plump bottom lip as he played with the ends of my blond hair. I could feel the tension growing second by second and I was glad we were far away from the few students who were left in the library.

- You suck, you should fix that - I pushed him away from me and picked up the long forgotten books from the desk to go and put them away. I walked to the correct section and started to put away the books, when he appeared again out of nowhere, scaring me a bit.

- You know – he leaned against the bookshelf – When I think of you, I have this weird feeling. It’s like I want to throw you off a cliff, then rush to the bottom to catch you.

I looked at him with raised eyebrows. I wanted to throw some witty comeback at him, but I was caught off guard and all I could do was rolling my eyes at him. When I turned my back at him, Draco suddenly pushed me against the bookshelf with such force, a few books fall out of their places. One of his hands were on my hip, keeping me still, so I couldn’t leave, and the other pulled my hair softly, so I was looking into his now darkened blue eyes.

- Fuck – he breathed into my face – You drive me crazy. The way you roll your eyes at me, or when you bite your lip after a good comeback – his lips were almost on mine. I could almost feel how soft they might be – Or when you get all frustrated at me. Damn, I want to drive you crazy too.

And he did. When his lips met mine we both knew we were screwed. We kissed each other like there was no tomorrow. Lips moving in sync, while our hands tried to explore each other’s bodies as much as we could. I failed to cover up one of my moans, when Draco started to leave small kisses along my neck, and sucking on one point to leave his mark. My fingers were pulling on his platinum blond hair, leaving it a hot mess.

- What happened with throwing me off a cliff? – I asked jokingly. Draco growled and bit my shoulder.

- The only place I want to throw you at is my bed, woman – he answered and pushed his toned body against mine even more – But for now – he whispered – Shut up, Sterling.

- Make… - he didn’t let me finish it and kissed me again. This time with even more passion. They were right. Young love. From that day, we were the same. We argued, picked on each other, always bothered the other with something but there was something new. We kissed and held hands. He got overprotective and jealous, for which he usually ended up in detention, but that was his way showing how serious he was about our unfolding relationship.

[crystalwillow]

Relighting The Spark, Part 2

A/N: Thank you to @brycelahelalover for agreeing to do this collab with me! I’ve wanted to do one for so long now and the fact you wanted to do this means the world to me. Also, thank you for coming up with the plot for this fiction, without you it seriously wouldn’t exist, and part 3 will be handled by @eleanorbloom, which thank you for agreeing to do :D

Anyways, here is part 2 of Relighting The Spark. I hope you guys enjoy it 😊.

 Pairing: Bryce x F!MC (Tesse Sterling)

 --- Present Day ---

Tesse stood in the main atrium of Edenbrook hospital with a bunch of other interns who were chatting eagerly as they waited for the attendings at the front of the group to start talking to them. Wanting to find a friendly face to approach and talk to whilst they waited, she let her eyes roam over the crowd that was gathered together. She was about to stop scanning the crowd when her eyes locked with a pair across the room that were all too familiar. The pain from the memory of the last time she saw the person they belong to, flooded back into her brain, causing her to almost have a panic attack. Breathing heavily, she tore her gaze from the persons and clutched her chest as she bent over, trying to get her breathing under control. “Hey. Are you okay?” a small yet concerned voice sounded from beside her as she felt a hand touch her forearm. With her eyes closed, Tesse just nodded her head as she continued focusing on her breathing. “Wait here. I’ll get you some water.” The voice said, their feet then quickly retreating to the nearest water machine as Tesse lowered herself into a nearby chair, her legs feeling weaker by the second.

It’s not him is it? It can’t be. She hasn’t seen him for years. Why would she suddenly be seeing him now? And here of all places!

“Here you go.” The voice spoke as feet stopped by Tesse. She looked up and was met by a kind smiling face of a woman no taller than 5ft 3in, her hair tied to one side in a plait. Her face makeup lightly done, but her nails painted in a beautiful blush colour. “Thank you.” Tesse sighed out shakily as she took the water. “Big crowd. Don’t worry. I’m nervous too.” The woman continued to smile at Tesse, taking a seat next to her. “No offense but, who are you? And why are you being so nice to me?” Tesse asked, sounding a little harsher than she wanted to.

“I’m Sienna. Or Dr. Trinh. Pleased to meet you!”

“Hi. My name’s Tesse. Or well... Dr. Sterling in a professional setting. And sorry for sounding so harsh. I... keep a guard up these days.”

The two women smiled at each other.

“It’s okay. I can understand.”

“You’re too sweet. It’ll get you in trouble someday.”

“My parents say the exact same thing!”

Chuckling, Tesse finished her water and took a deep breath before rising to her feet. Sienna copying her action, just as an attendings voice boomed from the front of the room. “Okay interns! If we could have your attention to the front please! Alright...”

Tesse stood with Sienna as they listened to the introduction to the hospital and instructions of what they were to do to start off their time there. The entire time Tesse could feel his eyes burning into her side as he looked in her direction every now and then, though she kept her focus trained on the front, focusing on everything that they were being told. “Any further questions you have to interrupt my day with before we finish here? No. okay great. Interns please disperse.” Tesse made her way to where she had been told to go, but before she could take more than 5 steps she felt his familiar touch and heard his voice. “Tesse?”

She closed her eyes and took a deep breath, pushing away any feeling arising before turning to him. When she looked into his eyes, the hopefulness that was in his tone was matched there too. She didn’t say a word, just shrugged his hand from her shoulder and turned her back to him. Continuing on her way. He stood and watched her go, tears in his eyes before snapping out of his trance upon hearing his name. “Yeah. I’m on my way.” He responded with dejection in his voice as he turned and went in the opposite direction.

The first day anywhere always feels like the fastest, but for Tesse that was the complete opposite. She was in a building with her ex-boyfriend who broke her heart the night before their prom. She had managed to find a spot where she could be alone at lunchtime and only purchased a bottle of water from the canteen. She sat in her spot sipping the water thinking back on the painful memory of him riding off on his motorcycle, leaving her there in the grass of their spot. A spot that was never the same after that night. For days all she felt was pain, she tried to reach out to Bryce and sort things out, but he never responded. She was always left on seen and eventually. Blocked. She thought back on all the happy moments they spent together, the fact that they were each other’s first’s in a lot of things. But never I being intimate beyond a kiss. They’d made a promise to do that when she was ready. But it was a promise he broke, just like he had broken her heart. She was so focused on reliving the memory that she didn’t notice the person standing next to her. “Excuse me for being rude but I saw you this morning. You’re new. Intern lunch break was over 30 minutes ago, get back to work.” A harsh voice sounded causing Tesse to flinch. “Yes. Sorry. I didn’t mean to..” she spoke through her tears as she stood up, wiping the tears she felt on her cheeks away and sniffing, heading back to work. When she walked back onto the floor she was supposed to be on, she was met with another harsh voice.

“Dr. Sterling! Tardiness is not accepted here at Edenbrook. Especially as a first day intern!”

“I’m sorry, Dr. Mirani. It won’t happen again. I just-”

She started to explain but cut herself off before she started crying again, looking away as she blinked back her tears. “See to it that it doesn’t!” Dr. Mirani demanded before stalking off, Tesse’s kinder attending, Dr. Delarosa, giving her a sympathetic smile before following him. The rest of the day went past in a blur, somehow along the way she’d managed to start a few new friendships and met up with those people outside.

“There she is!” one called out in her direction brightly

“She looks like death.” Another commented

“Jackie!” Sienna scolded

“Hey guys.” Tesse smiled as she stopped in front of them.

“No offense but you look like death.”

Before she could answer Jackie herself, the reason for why she looked so tired sounded from behind her. “Tesse?! Tesse wait!”

“Can we go?” Tesse urged as she looked at her new friends. Jackie immediately knowing what was up, stepped in front of her back, putting a barrier between her and the guy running over to the group. “Who are you and what do you want with Tesse?” Jackie snapped. The man looking at her with bemusement for a minute before replacing it with a scowl of his own. “What does it matter to you?” he snapped back. “Oh it matters. So unless you want to be wearing your ass on your head in the literal sense I suggest you answer my question. Pal.” Jackie sneered getting into the guys face, which he had to admit was a little terrifying. “I.. I’m her ex-boyfriend. I just want to-” he started to explain when Tesse stepped out from behind Jackie, a mixture of rage and hurt across her face as she kept her voice level.  “You do not get to come over here and try to talk to me Bryce. You are the one who broke my heart. You are the one who left me. You... You broke me long before I broke you.”

Sienna stepped up and hugged Tesse’s side, rubbing her back soothingly. Elijah and Aurora crowding around her too, all of them scowling at Bryce as Tesse stood there with a steely gaze of her own. “I mean it Bryce. Now get out of here and leave me alone.” She continued, feeling empowered by the support of the people around her, standing protectively glaring at Bryce.

“Tesse please. I just want to talk to you.”

“You had your chance to talk to me all those years ago when I tried to contact you before you blocked my number. You knew where I lived. You knew how much I loved you. I didn’t care about your dad’s criminal dealings or what people said about me because I loved you, Bryce. None of the other stuff mattered. I just wanted to be there to support you, and Keiki who was so young at the time,  through it all. But you... you dumped me thinking you were protecting me, but you weren’t you’re the one who hurt me the most. You broke me, Bryce Lahela. I was emotionally fucked up for so long.  I didn’t eat properly for months after what you done. I went back to that spot over and over again, sitting in the grass, crying as I looked out over at the ocean in the distance. Those three years we were together meant everything to me, but to you? It must have seriously meant nothing if you could drop me over something your father done. And right now, I’m done with you. Leave me alone. I don’t want to hear anything you have to say to me right now.”

“Tesse. You.. you said.. l-loved. That’s past tense. You don’t.. You don’t love me anymore?” Bryce whispered as he choked on a sob. Tesse turned around and started walking away, not wanting anyone to see the tears that were now about to fall. She couldn’t hide them anymore, she needed to get out of there. Seeing his face was too painful and the memories only added to the pain. She was half a block away by the time her new friends caught up with her. She was hugging herself as she sniffled and sobbed walking down the street towards the place she was renting out.

“Tesse! Hey, wait up!” Jackie called out as she jogged up to her side, placing her hands on Tesse’s shoulders to stop her, giving the others a chance to catch up. Jackie tried to get Tesse to look at her, but her face dropped as she saw the tears rolling down her cheeks. As she stood there, body facing Jackie, but her eyes fixed on the ground as she tried to forget the pain. “Hey Tesse? Don’t worry about him, okay? If he can drop someone as beautiful as you after three years over an in-family issue, he isn’t worth your time, thoughts or tears okay?” Jackie said comfortingly, pulling Tesse’s head to her chest. Patting her head soothingly. “Yeah. And he shouldn’t come near you again. I promised him if he did, I’d rip him a new one.” Aurora scowled in the direction of Edenbrook where they had just stormed off from Bryce. “You look exhausted Tesse. Why don’t you sit on my lap and I’ll give you a ride home in style.” Elijah suggested with a playfulness to his tone as he spun himself round. “See? Style.”

Everyone laughed at him as he wiggled his eyebrows and Tesse gave a little chuckle, wiping the tears from her face on the cuff of her jacket. “Thank you Elijah, but I’m not too far from here. It’s just down there and round the corner.” Tesse replied with a small smile. “Are you going to be okay?” Aurora asked, concern in her eyes as she placed a hand on Tesse’s shoulder. Tesse nodded and looked at them all gratefully. “We should trade numbers, that way if you need us. Were only a text or call away.” Sienna suggested as she pulled out her phone and handed it to Tesse. They stood on the street corner for another five minutes as they traded numbers and goodbyes before heading their separate ways. Sleep didn’t come easily for Tesse that night, the pain she was still feeling from memories flooding back after seeing Bryce, her encounter with him, and the small, cramped space she was in, made it horrible conditions for sleeping. She was tossing and turning all night. She didn’t want to but all she could think about was Bryce. The pain on his face that night when he ended things was the same pain she saw a few hours prior when she said that she loved him. She had hurt him and although she knew he deserved to hurt in some way from her words because of how badly he had hurt her, she hated the fact she had hurt another humans feelings. Ex-boyfriend or not. The next morning she had just stepped outside and was making her way to Edenbrook when her phone pinged with a message. Taking a quick glance at the screen she saw it was a group chat.

- 8:02am –

Sienna: hey guys! I hope you don’t mind that I made this, but I just had an amazing idea!

Jackie: ugh. It’s too early for this much energy in a message. Well in any form really.

Aurora: What she said.

Tesse: Guys don’t be mean! What’s your idea Sienna?”

Elijah: Yeah! Tell us!

Sienna: I’m out the front of the hospital. Meet me there?

Elijah: I’m in the cafeteria. I’ll come out!

Tesse: I’m almost there.

Jackie: Now coming round the corner.

Aurora: I hate this. but fine, give me an hour and I’ll be there.

An hour later everyone was heading inside to start their shifts when Aurora shouted to them from behind.

“Guys! Wait up!”

They stopped inside the main atrium and waited for her, Aurora catching up and they walked over to the elevator. As they ascended to their floor, Sienna started talking about her plan.

“So. I was thinking, what are you guys living arrangements like?”

“Poor. Too cramped.” Elijah said.

“Same here.” Jackie and Tesse agreed.

“I’m living with my aunt.” Aurora said

“So.. what if we got a place together?!”

There was a silence as the elevator pinged and they got out on their floor, Elijah going a little ahead of everyone else.

“I’m down if you guys are.” He smiled

“... you know what? Yeah! Let’s do it!” Tesse answered enthusiastically

“Yeah. If it means leaving my aunt’s place I’m in.” Aurora shrugged nonchalantly and everyone turned to Jackie waiting for her response. After a moment she rolled her eyes with a sigh, a slight smile playing on her lips. “I guess I could put up with you lot. ... Whatever, count me in.” she said. Sienna let out a squeal, “We’ll talk more later?” she asked with a little question in her voice. They nodded at each other and headed off to do there work. Tesse was halfway through her work making sure a patient was ready for surgery, she was just throwing her gloves in the bin and was washing her hands when the person who was going to take her to the OR walked in. “I’m entrusting you with my patient. Don’t get her killed, please.” She joked, “Wow. That’s the friendliest you’ve been to me since we’ve been here.” a deep voice commented casually. Tesse froze at the familiarity of it and let out a small sigh. “Don’t get used to it.” she snapped softly then binned her paper towels, leaving the room and moving on to her next job. “Tesse wait!” Bryce shouted and stuck his head out the room.

“What?”

“You haven’t given me any information.”

“You’re smart and can read. Figure it out yourself.”

“Look, Tes- Dr. Sterling. Are you really going to let our personal past interfere with your professional career?”

“Why don’t you look Bryce? I cannot be around you without breaking all over again. You want information find Dr. Delarosa.” and with that she turned on her heel and stormed off towards her next job, almost bumping into another doctor as she rounded the corner. “Oh. Sorry.” She apologized with a polite smile and walked around them. “Rookie.” The persons voice said sternly. Cringing, Tesse stopped in her spot and spun around. “Dr. Ramsey! Uhh, I really am sorry. I wasn’t-” she started explaining but he held a hand up, cutting her off. “Are you okay? You look... well for lack of a better word, deflated.” he said as he observed her tired features and the bags under her eyes. “I’m fine, Dr. Ramsey. I promise. It’s just not easy finding out that you’re going to be working at the same place as the person who broke your heart. But I’ll be fine. My patients aren’t suffering! I swear!” she said slightly panicked. A moment of silence passed before Ethan nodded his head and looked her in the eye, “Good.” He said flatly and then carried on. Still slightly stumped from the interaction, she spun around and carried on her way. Later that afternoon Sienna and Tesse bumped into each other during a quick break, Sienna beamed at her brightly but Tesse just waved back with a small smile, making Sienna stop in her tracks and hold Tesse’s arms. “Are you okay?” she asked, concern on her face. Tesse nodded with a sigh.

“I keep seeing Bryce everywhere today. He took my patient to surgery this morning. I’ve seen him about 6 times since and every time I see him... I just want to hug him and for things to be normal again. I want for him breaking up with me to have been a hoax because I loved, no I love him so much. I have never stopped loving him. Not really and-”

“Tesse? ... I think you should um...” Sienna interrupted, pointing behind Tesse who turned around to be faced with Bryce, hope in his eyes and his lip pulled between his teeth in the cute way he always did when he got hopeful about something. His frame looked smaller than usual, less broad and he had a timid energy about him as he stared at Tesse, who looked back at him, shock on her face from the fact he probably just heard her confess she still loves him, when she’s been nothing but mean to try and squash those feelings.

“Tesse.. Do you really?”

“Bryce.. I um..”

“I think I should give you two some space. Meet up with us at the bar later?” Sienna asked, Tesse nodded in response and the two hugged before Sienna left, heading in the direction of the nurses station.

“Sooo... you still love me huh?”

“... I guess I can’t deny that now can I?”

“Look, I just want you to know I regret doing what I did back then Tesse. The last thing I wanted was to be the one who broke you.. I...”

“Bryce. I need to apologize. I said some things last night to hurt you and I should never have done that. For what it’s worth.. I’m sorry.”

“I’m sorry too. For breaking your heart. And you. I honestly never wanted... never meant to hurt you.”

“I have 10 minutes until I need to get back to work. Do you have time to talk a little now or are you busy?”

“I uh.. I can spare some time to talk. Where did you-”

“Follow me.”

Tesse spun on her heel and started walking to a secluded part of the hospital where anyone hardly went, pulling out a chair and sitting down. Bryce taking a seat on the floor and leaning back against the wall.

“You may as well start. I feel like you should explain yourself before I pour out anymore of my emotions on you.” Tesse said flatly as she looked at the floor near Bryce’s feet.

Bryce took a deep calming breath as he decided what to say. “...What do you want to know?”

“Everything. Why did you dump me, truly? Why at our spot that was so special? Why ignore me when I tried to reach out for these answers all those years ago?”

“Okay. Well... It truly was because I couldn’t have you and your name dragged through the mud like it was being anymore. It was hurting me that people were saying such horrible things about you because you were my girlfriend and my father done something so incredibly dumb. Why did I dump you at our special spot? I.. I don’t know. Unlike you, I haven’t been there since. I couldn’t stand to go there. And I ignored you because I thought it was what I needed to do to protect you. That’s all I ever intended to do Tesse. Please tell me you see it?”

“...I- I don’t know Bryce.. I wanted to be there for you. The negativity towards me didn’t ever bother me. If you had’ve given me a chance to tell you that instead of driving off and leaving me there.. You would have known. Everything I told you last night about how difficult it was for me... it was true. I hurt for months. I cried myself to sleep a lot of the time. I would hardly eat because I.. I never felt hungry. I just wanted to wake up one morning and have it all just be a nightmare. I wanted to open my front door and find you there on the driveway, leaning on your bike ready to throw me that easy yet extremely flirty smile as you said good morning and gave me a kiss. I haven’t had anyone else since because I refuse to let that happen again. We had three good years Bryce, and you threw them away for something your father done. I can see you may have been sad and broken too but you’re way more resilient than me, and you must have bounced back faster than I did. Seeing you yesterday.. it.. it killed me inside and all the emotions I was starting to get over came flooding back and-”

Bryce could see her spiraling into her feelings and got up, standing next to her and pulled her into a hug, stroking her hair as he rubbed her arm to calm her down.

“Tesse. Stop, you’re going to have a panic attack if you don’t. I’m sorry okay? Truly sorry for how bad I broke you. I-”

Against her better judgement in a moment of what most would call weakness, she stood up pulling his lips to hers, kissing deeply. Bryce stood surprised for a moment before relaxing, resting his hands on her hips and kissing back. When she pulled away, she looked up into his eyes that reflected the same raw emotion as hers, and in that moment she knew he wanted her back as much as she wanted him...

[fire-the-headcanons]

Follow the Beacon Taiyang—Fair Grounds

[Link to Masterpost]

[Oof, Tai’s chapters are long.]

*

"Okay, that's enough," Tai said, standing up and stretching.

"Huh?" Qrow glanced up from his notes for half a moment. "...Oh. Thanks for your help."

"What? No. I'm not bailing, I'm saying we need a break." He lifted the book out of his hands and snapped it shut. "Aren't you hungry? We've been working for hours."

"Uh… yeah."

Qrow had fallen pretty far behind during his bout of "flu", but at least he was eating and talking again. Since… well, since then, they'd been careful not to leave either of the twins alone too much. Which meant spending a lot more time holed up in their room.

Not that that's a bad thing, he thought irritably as his scroll buzzed in his pocket again. What part of taking some time off made Dan think he wanted to text with him all day?

He glanced over at the girls, also bent over their desks. Raven was still unusually withdrawn—which, for her, meant that her average words-per-day had gone from fourteen to about six. And Summer…

It was like losing Sterling all over again, finding out he was murdered. At least—that's how Tai felt, and it wasn't even his dad.

That really had been the worst winter vacation ever, hadn't it.

"Let's go check out the fairgrounds," Tai said to the room at large. "They're supposed to be setting up for the Vytal Festival today."

Qrow paused, one hand still reaching for the book in his fist. "I thought Professor Mikado said that was next year."

"The Tournament happens on a bi-annual basis, but people celebrate every year." He grinned. "And it also means that our first official missions as Huntsmen-and-Huntresses-in-training are coming up too."

"Oh yeah." Qrow scratched the back of his neck. "I forgot."

"What kind of job should we pick?" Tai asked, setting the book on Qrow's shelf before opening the door and holding it for everyone else. Slowly, they got up and gathered their things. "Search and destroy? Wall patrol? ...Migration tracking?"

"Ha, ha," Summer rolled her eyes as they followed him into the hall.

"We are gonna have to pick."

"...What about a bounty mission?" Summer asked absently.

Tai stared. She'd never talked about doing that kind of work before—was she thinking about revenge? He glanced back at the twins and found a dual reflection of his own shock. When had she told them?

She glanced back at the three of them and scowled. "It's just practice—godssakes, Tai, it's our first mission. I'm not saying we should fly to Anima!"

"...I…" he scrambled for a way to tell her that no, this is a terrible idea and also I think we should talk about this, maybe with your mom, but all he managed to say was "I don't think they let first years take bounty missions."

"Oh, yeah," she muttered, pushing out of the exit. "I forgot."

The door clanged shut behind her, everyone else still stuck in place. "She told you about her dad?"

"N-no?" Qrow stammered. "Is… is she okay…?"

Summer probably wouldn't mind them knowing—and he could really use help talking her down. "We thought he died on a mission, but we found out over break that he was…" It was still so hard to say. "Murdered. I guess she's taking it harder than I thought."

"I'm sorry. That's awful."

"Come on, we'd better catch up."

Summer was only a few paces ahead, and they hurried after her. "So, should we stay in Vale or head out into the wilds?" she asked, as if nothing happened.

Raven folded her arms against the chill. "Why don't we just go with Professor Mesánychta?"

"Because you're the only one she likes."

"She likes me," Qrow protested.

Tai grabbed her hand. "Summer. Don't you think we should talk about this?"

"Aren't we?" she asked, barely glancing at him before pulling away. "I'd like to get out of the Kingdom. It'd be good experience, even if you two laugh at our outdoor skills the whole time—"

"Summer!"

She stopped, finally turning to face him directly. "What?"

"Are you planning on going after them?"

"I don't know who they are," she said evenly. "But we'll run into them when we start working for Ozpin. Fighting people is different from Grimm, that's why it's a separate career track. The earlier we start, the better prepared—"

"Is that what you want to do? After we graduate?"

"Of course. Don't you?"

Tai rubbed his arm, eyes dropping to the sidewalk. "I… I haven't thought about it, to be honest."

Summer shrugged, turning back down the path toward the fairgrounds. "Are you going to the dance with Dan?"

Oh. Forgot about that. "No." Probably why he keeps calling me.

"Want to go as a team then?" she turned, smiling as she turned to walk backwards and gauge their reactions.

"Sounds good to me." Dan might leave him alone if he was with his team the whole time.

Raven almost flinched as the attention turned to her. "I can't meet the dress code."

"Well, you've been eyeing my sewing machine since I brought it back from break," Summer said. "Let's alter something from Ramparts and I'll teach you how to use it!"

"O-okay."

"Maybe we should go now, then," Tai said, checking the time. "You'll probably want tomorrow to work on it. The dance is Friday and who knows how much homework we'll have this week."

"Who's 'we'? Summer demanded, taking Raven's arm. "Dress shopping is strictly Girl Time."

Tai leaned toward Qrow and fake-whispered behind his hand, "Except when it isn't."

"Huh?"

"Anyway, you two have fun. We're going to see if any of the food stalls are open yet," he continued aloud, carefully putting his arm around Qrow.

"But—"

"My treat. I want to eat outside."

"Great! See you at dinner!" Summer shouted, pulling Raven toward the docks. Tai didn't want to risk jostling Qrow's bad shoulder wrong so he let him go before continuing on toward the fairgrounds.

"...Think I can get away with just wearing the uniform?" Qrow muttered.

"Well I'm not renting a tux. We'll make some bow ties out of scrap fabric and change it up, how about that?"

"You mean I'll make some bow ties," he teased, quietly. "You can't sew."

"If the three of you are going to keep making fun of me, I'll have to learn." They rounded the forge, and the rows of tents finally came into view. Three or four were fully set up and a couple dozen were nearly finished—Tai hadn't expected it to go so fast.

"They're still not done?" Qrow asked.

...But not fast enough, apparently. "Okay, well, not all of us are intrepid hunters-slash-wilderness explorers," Tai joked, "and only put up tents once or twice a year at most." That got a laugh out of him. "Camping is just too in-tents for us city-dwellers." That got him a laugh and a light punch on the arm. "Hey, I thought you liked my puns."

"Yeah, but Summer's not here so I thought I'd fill in."

They walked around the outer edge, trying to stay out of the crew's way as they looked around. Most were food stands from restaurants in Vale, popped up to serve the tourists from outlying settlements that always flocked to Beacon this time of year.

Qrow shuffled oddly on his feet for a step, pulling Tai's attention from the activity around one of the largest stalls back to his teammate. He walked normally for a few more steps, and then limped again. A few more paces and Tai realized he was stepping on the tent stakes as they walked past them, trying to push them deeper into the ground before moving on.

"Oh come on, we're not that bad with tents," he said the next time Qrow's pace faltered.

He froze. "Uh—"

CRASH.

They both jumped about a foot—the largest tent, that most people were working on, had collapsed on a truck full of lights. Even several paces away, and buried under torn fabric and snapped poles, he could see a whole lot of scratched paint and broken glass.

"Ouch. I stand corrected."

Qrow stepped back, horrified gaze fixed on the accident. Hands shaking.

"H-hey, man, what's wrong?" Tai asked, and his eyes snapped toward him, stretched wide in fear. So this is why panic is the first thing we learn about in first aid, he thought in a detached way as he slowly stepped forward to put his arm around Qrow, holding his elbow instead of his shoulder. "It's okay. Take deep breaths with me." It only took about a minute for the shaking to stop. "…You want to get out of here?"

He nodded.

"Sounds good." Tai started back toward the castle, guiding Qrow along with him. "We can just grab some to-go boxes from the cafeteria. I don't think any of the food stalls are even open." Ugh, that was just typical of his luck lately. It had upset Qrow and it would have been pointless to boot. "Do you want to talk about it?"

To his surprise, Qrow slowed to a stop.

"…Qrow?"

"They…" he swallowed, eyes fixed on the grass, choosing each word. "They hurt me when I messed up the tents."

Tai's stomach churned. Gods, what was he supposed to say to that? What could possibly make that any better? "I'm sorry." The words tasted flat. "They were shitheads. You deserved better." He shook his head. "Man, they can't be bothered to deal with their own tents and then they hurt you for making a mistake? People are worse than Grimm."

Qrow blinked. "I never thought of that."

"Oh. It's, uh, something our parents said a lot."

"They…" Qrow didn't seem to hear him. "If they'd taken six fucking seconds to check their own damn stakes they would have been fine."

Had he helped? Gods, he hoped that helped. "Can… can I ask you something?"

"…What?"

"Why didn't you leave? Sooner, I mean."

He fumbled with his thoughts for a moment. When he spoke he couldn't meet Tai's eye. "I was scared."

"Of being on your own?"

His eyes stayed fixed on the ground as he picked through his words like walking through a field of Creep burrows, and the answer was barely above a whisper. "They kill people who run away."

Tai's whole body seized with a chill like he'd been dropped in ice water. Instinctively, he grabbed at Qrow's hand. "Are—are they looking for you?"

"N-no. We—" he swallowed again, and Tai squeezed his hand. "We convinced them to send us here. So we could protect them."

Who in their right minds would send someone they'd treated so badly to a Huntsman Academy? Then again, Dan had proved that Qrow didn't have a malicious bone in his body. "Don't go back."

Qrow shook his head. "Never." The word rang with lethal certainty.

"…What happens when they realize?"

"If I can earn Valian citizenship, I won't have to go back to Anima, at least. …I didn't really think I'd make it this far," his voice petered out and Tai's stomach twisted. From what Summer said, he almost hadn't. "P-please don't tell Raven I said any of this. It's supposed to be secret."

"I won't," Tai promised with a pang of guilt. So far he had a great track record with Qrow's secrets. "…What about Summer?"

After a moment, he nodded. "As long as Raven doesn't find out."

Should he push his luck? "…What's been going on between you and her?"

This time, Qrow really did whisper, and he almost missed it. "She wants to go home."

"What?" Tai breathed. "Why? After what they did to you?"

"She—" he picked through the words again, selecting them one by one, "—they didn't hate her. She felt safer there."

"But why?" Tai cried. "What did we do wrong? How—how could she be more afraid of us?"

"It…" He had to think. "…It was easier to tell what people wanted."

"We want to be your friends. Qrow. You—you know we would never hurt you."

After a moment, he nodded. "You're…you're nothing like them." The next words had to fight their way out if his mouth. "W-we—I—"

"It's okay. It's okay." He pulled him into a loose hug, throat tightening at the way he shivered. As much as Tai was desperate to know more, he'd probably pushed Qrow far enough for one day. "Come on, we should get something to eat."

He nodded gratefully. "Y-yeah."

[Oh look more accidental Taiqrow. And next week's chapter with the girls ended up about 80% more Rosebird than intended]

Next Chapter: Raven—Strictly Girl Time

[thisartofeveryday]

For those of you who thought I should make my life story into a book…here is the outline. For the sake of clarity as you are reading, let me explain who the characters are. The kids from my Dads first marriage: Jim1, Patty, Seana. The kids from my Mom’s (Mary Ellen) first marriage: Mary Jane and Jim2. My brother that I am a full sibling to is Charles (chuck).

I think you might know that 95% of our lives are lived from the unconscious mind. From birth to age 7 a childs mind is in Theta wave (hypnosis) and everything that they learn in those years (mainly through observation and repetition) is the program that their minds run for their entire lives. Knowing this – I look back on the first 7 years of my life.

I think we moved 7 times in those 7 years. I am certain it was because of Dads extreme anger management problems and the fact that he is a sociopath, a pedophile and a rapist. Zero stability or chance to make lasting friendships. My dad was sexually abusing me and unpredictably violent. I was terrified of him. I was being terrorized/bullied by my brother, Chuck, who was every bit the sociopath that my dad is. My mom was overwhelmed by the number of children she was responsible for - none of which she actually wanted- and add to that, her husband was sexualizing all of the kids, so really being the last of her kids I was the last of her problems. Being the youngest (and as traumatized as I was), I was quiet and easy to forget about or push to the side. The older kids were the ones in the spotlight and where all the attention went. They were enrolled in activities and they were more the same age, so they were a unit. I was just an observer of them. I felt so left out and forgotten. Always.

I was a mistake and a burden (dads exact words to me on my 11th birthday). Mom made sure I knew that she thought I was mentally retarded- she would joke about it all the time. (I guess she never made peace with her sister being autistic) She also loved humiliating me even when I made it clear she was hurting me. Remember her sausage fingers joke or how many years I got called Boomer? I absolutely hated both of those things, made it clear, and yet she refused to give up the name calling and humiliation. There was very little respect for my personal boundaries. Dad would assault me in the middle of the night and I would wet the bed out of fear- then he would make me sleep in it to teach me a lesson. Mom would do nothing to help me, though she was awake in the middle of the night when I would work up the courage to go into their room to ask for help. She let him treat me like that. Goddamn…I remember the night terrors and being scared to be in my room at night because the scary man was sitting in the rocking chair, in the dark, next to my bed.

I have a memory of being in the garage in our house in South Windsor. I was playing with our basset hound, General…I was crawling around on the floor and the dog mounted me and was dry humping me. Dad got this sick laugh and let it happen. Mom walked in and got mad at him, but did nothing to help me. My personal boundaries were nonexistent. Nobody was protecting me from him. I remember him eating the food off my plate at dinner…or kissing me on the ear or touching me when I would tell him I hated it and to stop. I remember the baths dad would have me take with him and how he taught me to touch and work his dick. I remember the photos he would take of me after the bath. I remember being 7 years old and trying to lay on his bed and be sexy enough for him. I remember kissing mom passionately the way that dad taught me to and mom getting upset and asking me where I learned that. I remember having a baby doll that I drew all over, angrily, with lipstick. I remember being scared because my ass was bleeding and I told mom while her brother and sisters were visiting and she shushed me and scurried me away. I remember him also beating the shit out of me…sometimes for no reason. I remember being deeply attracted to and absolutely terrified of him. I was 7.  These are the only memories I have of my dad. I don’t remember him being there for me, or interested in me as a person, or engaged in anyway. I just remember him being what I now know is a predator.

7 to 13: I remember some stability in Connecticut because we stayed there for three years… but I also remember having moments of being deeply depressed and hiding in the basement of the house writing notes that I hoped someone would find, asking for help to get me out of there. When I look back, those were my first experiences with disassociation from stress and waves of major depression. While I was being assaulted during those years, those years were all about Mary Jane, Seana, and Jim2. These three had each other. These three were a team. I was just an observer to your lives. I had no voice, no opinion, no importance, never truly included and absolutely my feelings went unheard and did not matter. We can say it was the age difference, sure, that’s part of it…but that’s also just an excuse. Things could have been done to validate my importance too.  I had Charles bullying me….I had my Dad assaulting me. I was so alone.

My internal voice wants to shout: Why did nobody see this? Why did nobody help me? Where were my siblings? I guess everyone was doing the best they could…

Literally anyone looking in knowing the truth could have easily assessed that this was a horribly destructive environment for any child to grow up in. I know dad was doing this to all the kids. I wasn’t the only one. It is absolutely stunning to me that through the years of my life I have consistently been blamed by my Mary Ellen (narcissist/borderline personality disorder) and the people who chose to listen to her twisted opinions that there was something wrong WITH ME.  I mean, logically the mental health issues I have faced my entire life are perfectly normal and healthy reactions to a situation that was deeply flawed. But somehow the blame has always fallen on me.

The very first thing I think when I think of my mom is her asking me “Whats wrong with you Melissa”. Ive lost count of how many times she has asked me that very question.

I now know that its just deflection. Queen Narcissist cant take responsibility for her actions so she puts it on the person who she always denied a voice. That’s nice. Very loving and motherly. Doesn’t fix the 40 some odd years of my life that I believed her and wanted to die.

Right around age 9 or 10, we move again. I remember it being a big scandal – I think the truth came about that my dad is a sociopath, a pedophile and a rapist. (By the way, that’s in my DNA. I get to live my life connected to that. I look just like my dad. I think like a Painter. It’s fucking unsettling.)  I remember all the pressure to say nothing about the move and to constantly behave as though we were the perfect family and nothing was wrong. So incredibly demented.

I remember a HUGE fight about Seana and Jim2 staying behind in Connecticut. (by the way: I also remember Jim1 leaving for the Marines and wondering where my brother went and why he never talked to me. At one point he came back to visit and gave me a beautiful geisha doll in a glass box that mom destroyed in a fit of anger at me…she intentionally violently knocked it off the top of my dresser in one of her vindictive off the handle rages…Im sure at 8 years old I totally did something to deserve it, right.)

And, of course I remember the night Seana was killed. (why did the man that killed her not serve jail time? Why are bad people never held accountable?) Dad wasn’t there. Again, Dad wasn’t there. As I recall he was having an affair with some woman in Arizona? Mom was already distraught to be back in Michigan. That night, I remember being awake before the call came in…watching the clock radio in my bed… it had a short in the wire that would spark. I was listening to the Beatles: My guitar gently weeps…. To this day, I hate the Beatles.The phone rang. Mom screamed to you “Mary Jane, OMG, Seana is Dead”. I didn’t understand what happened. I just knew we were packing up like we did so many times before to take yet another long drive across country. It felt to me like another move. I didn’t understand death or that my sister was gone forever. I didn’t get it.  

(an aside: I struggled in school. When I was in Beginning Algebra One for some reason that class would make me check out and I would always soul travel to the night Seana was killed and it felt like it was happening to me. I took that class 4 times including summer school before I passed.)

(later, when I was maybe 13, my dog got hit by a car in the street and now I knew what death was so I freaked out like Mom did when Seana died and I remember Mom shaming me: You cried more over than damn dog than you did at your sisters funeral. Very nice. Very motherly. Very supportive and kind of her.)

At Seanas funeral, I remember not knowing what was expected of me. I was just so focused on getting it right and who I was supposed to kiss (because that sexualized stuff was already so ingrained).

There were so many goddamn rules for behavior, (rich white republican ex-military country club going family that we were) and I remember getting it wrong and being scowled at all the time. Mom was always angry and stressed out. We had to BE someone and over and over again: “Don’t forget the family name” and how important our clan was (hilarious that she kept the Sterling last name because her current husband is too ethnic and this sounds classier to her than her own actual last name)….

Meanwhile, My developing sense of self was being assaulted and neglected/ignored out of me and I felt wrong all the time for every single action I took.

I think we moved back to North Carolina briefly and then to Florida? Whatever the case….

Then we move again. Again. Again. Now we are in Florida. Im 10. My parents are getting divorced. Mom is deeply goddamn depressed. My family is falling apart. I don’t know where my brothers and sister are. Everything is exploding. Im powerless and hostage to all this. I cannot underline the importance of that sense of being hostage to a situation that I was powerless to escape and having my feelings and my personhood completely ignored and erased. It consumed me. I wanted to die. I am, as always, the least of moms concerns.

In Florida I was so incredibly dissociative. I was experiencing C-PTSD. I remember feeling numb all over. Having no ability to react to this little girl that fell off her bike in front of me….I just stared at her…the adults nearby yelled at me for doing nothing. I went further into my head. I was so checked out. People just thought I was quiet or shy or retarded. I was deeply traumatized and needed help.

I remember Mary Jane and I sitting on the bed watching this music video by The Cars. In the video there is a woman who is laughing and crying. I remember asking MJ what she was doing because I do that too and I think she told me she was having a mental break down.  

I remember getting a Walkman and listening to the Police nonstop. That was my only retreat from how much I hurt. WHY DID NOBODY SEE THIS AND HELP ME?

I remember during that time that I was given another baby doll. I remember MJ and mom watching me play with it to see what I would do. I felt scared of them both and the creepy way they were lurking to watch me. I felt ganged up on. I couldn’t trust anyone. I was so alone. I wanted to die.

In Florida, I remember my birthday and dad cocking his fist back like he was going to punch me in the face…he did that sick laugh and told me he wished I was never born and that I was a mistake. (later when I told this to Patty she explained he punched her in the face on her 11th birthday. Im related to all that. That’s in my dna.)

My body was changing. I was getting my period. I felt crazy. I was in that HUGE school in Jacksonville and I had no friends and I was so scared. Everything was terrifying….and Dad was getting more unhinged thus Mom has Jim and Lynn move in to protect her and had you come back… and then I remember walking in to the living room in the middle of a sunny afternoon and mom on the pull out sofa, trying to make dad jealous, was fucking the guy who was there to buy the house  that we had just moved in to because we were MOVING AGAIN….

Not to mention, I remember MJ and I quickly taking Dads gun to the beach to bury it so he because he wanted to kill us all.

Im not even 13 yet….. Are you exhausted?

Any one of these things would make a fully functioning stable adult fold like a house of cards. “Whats wrong with you Melissa?”…. It took something like 20 years of therapy but now I have some clues to answer that question. Here are some more clues:

We finally make it to Boone. Mom followed her best friend, Mary Jane. After all that… that incredible pressure cooker of my pre teen childhood we arrive in bumfuck nowhere, North Carolina….and everyone is gone except the sociopath brother. The house is basically empty. Everyone abandoned ship. Where did my brothers and sisters go? I remember coming home after school and there would be nobody home. For my entire life I had come home to my family but now there was no one. I would sit on the couch and watch the clock with growing anxiety and cry until mom came home from work. It was beyond torturous. And then she would be pissed off that I needed her because she just got home from work. At this point Mom is just angry and exhausted all the time. She had to get a job outside the home for the first time in her life which she hated, she was sick of being a mom…she wanted it all to be over so she could have HER life. Charles was getting more and more abusive- physically and mentally and had to be sent away for our protection.

And then she starts dating Don Bailey. I think the sex must have been amazing because the guy was an utter low life. He was living off of her/my child support money… and beating the shit out of her. Their fights were never goddamn ending. I would hide in my room after school and not come out. I was so alone. I had no friends and no escape. Mom was friends with Mary Jane, not with me. Mom wanted nothing to do with me. One day we were driving home and I was so attached to her. I needed my mom so goddamn bad… I was struggling to make friends at yet another new school and the PTSD made me feel so distant from everyone but I had no words for what was wrong with me I just thought I was terrible at making friends (I remember this: pathetically I checked out a book at the library: How to be your own best friend)… She pulled the car over and told me “we cant be friends.” Mom has some glorified memory of us driving around looking for our favorite tree in Autumn… the only thing I remember is that conversation…her rejecting me when I needed her the most… after we moved to the town my sister lived in so she could be close to her.

Again, still no help with the major depression, the CPTSD… just a lot of blame “why cant you be happy Melissa…whats wrong with you?” and I cant be clear enough about this: all her spare time at home was spent on Don, not me. I didn’t have clubs and groups and activities that she as sure to enroll me in. I didn’t have my brothers and sisters there with me. It was just me, after all that, trying to figure it out.

I was a burden to her. She couldn’t wait to get rid of me and be done. I felt it always.

An aside: When she was unsure if she wanted to stay in Boone, I remember her asking Charles if we should stay or go back to Florida…after he chimed in with his answer, I gave my opinion which she angrily scoffed at me and told me it didn’t matter what I thought, Id go where they tell me to go.   My voice didn’t matter, I was a burden to her. I had no value as a person. I was powerless. So there I was in my bedroom that was the walkway between the living room and her room… at the mercy of whatever happened with no privacy or power over my life….. whats new.

Another aside: During that time we had gotten a dog that was a total pain in the ass for her to take care of. She gave it away while I was at school. I came home and the dog was gone and I was tearful thinking it ran away. She gave my dog away without telling me.

Then we moved out to Valley Crusis (9 miles outside of town…so isolated. I was so alone. The isolation was killing me. Where were my siblings. I needed help. I needed someone who was just there for me.) and Dons abusive behavior got even more extreme. I remember him picking me up from a concert that I was at….because he had sent Mom to the hospital with a sprained wrist and a busted lip. He was laughing about it when he told me to get in the car. Another time I remember Don looming in my bedroom door when Mom was at work and it was just us in the house… telling me: “Go ahead and call the police, nobody will believe you anyway.” I remember the woman who lived up the hill from us, with the curly hair…I think her name was Susan… coming down to the house while Mom and Don were gone and telling me If it ever gets too bad, you can always run up here. The neighbors knew I needed help. Where were my brothers and sisters? Where was my Mom? FUCK.

I remember Mom having many off the handle rages at me because I looked like a boy and my hair was crazy and I was so fucked up. I remember one morning after she had raged at me so hard that I was in stunned silence… we were sitting at breakfast at St Sinners and MJ kept looking at me, she knew something was wrong, I was clearly checked out and fucked up. I needed my sister. I had no voice or ability to speak up. I was scared of her husband, Glenn. Nobody helped me. Mom was the star of the brunch party!

I remember getting my first job at 15 and working at St Sinners…. Then, when mom bought the restaurant I stopped getting paid. She cut me off from my paycheck and told me it was my “duty to the family”… but she had Jim2 and his first wife Lynn there working and they were getting paid…and also stealing her money to fuel their coke habits. She didn’t value me, or my efforts but her golden son Jim can do no wrong even when he is fucking her out of her business.

I remember Jim2 offering me coke at a house party and John Golden and another friend getting me out of there away from my own brother. I remember Lynn being LIVID that I would stop by their house when I was lonely and wanted my family but instead I got shamed for thinking I could stop by and see them…and mom would tell me that “they had BUSY LIVES and I should leave them alone.”

I remember being so fucked up and alone in Boone….I mean, I now know I was just in shock and experiencing major depression. Mom kept asking me Whats wrong with you Melissa…when I was your age I had to choose between boyfriends… etc. Its incredible to me how Mom normalized my childhood abuse and completely erased my feelings or my personhood then blamed me for somehow being a problem child or wrong in whatever way….more incredible: people believed her.  

During those years in Boone I remember her doing things like openly making fun of me when I thought I might be gay, fixing regular hamburgers and telling me they were tofu when I became vegetarian…starting a burn pile in the back yard full of toxic things after I told her how important recycling was to me and laughing at me as I cried…..every chance she had to make me feel awful about being me and disrespected she took.

Once I visited her at her office and she told me I was “too ugly to look at and she didn’t want anyone to know I was her daughter and to never come to her office again.”

Shes right, we were not friends. She was a jealous mean girl, obsessed with appearances and her shitty boyfriend.

Lets not forget when she, with Mary Janes help, stacked my portfolio with MJs lithographies and coached me how to lie to get me in to Governors school for the summer. She wanted me gone and she got her wish. I remember feeling like a fraud that summer. I wasn’t good enough to be there. I had to lie to be included. I remember she didn’t even drive me there. She had Don do it. He harassed me in the car all the way there, 3 hours…. then dropped me…16… off on the curb in front of the college and drove away. All the other kids had parents excitedly helping them get set up in their rooms…excited about their major accomplishment of getting in to Governors school… I was there with my milk crate of shit, a fraud. alone. Acting like a tough girl who didn’t need anyone. I was a pro at that. Mission accomplished, she was rid of me.

I remember how deep my depression was becoming by the time I was 18. That last year of high school I would bang my head against my bedroom wall in an attempt to knock myself out, in hopes that I would get sent away to a treatment center or something. I couldn’t take all the fighting between her and Don. I fucking hated him and he was in my house and there was nothing I could do about it. I tried to throw myself down the back stairwell at school. I barely graduated high school my depression was eating me alive.

Amazing that nobody IN MY FAMILY SAW THAT I NEEDED HELP. I was invisible. Mary Ellen cast her proclamation that all was well, she was amazing and I was a problem child and that was that.

I have a million stories about Mom demoralizing me during those years…. Whats weird is that I have no memory of my Mary Jane there. I think she was so involved with Glenn and way up the mountain, I had no way to reach her. And I was scared of her husband Glenn. And, we were never close. And, she was Team Mary Ellen…. So I was just alone and wanted to die. Sincerely. Goddamn. Let it end.

I remember Don telling me that Mom was using my child support payment to make her car payment. So I asked her about where my child support was going and she told me she used it for my Blue Cross Blue Shield Insurance…. So I called the insurance company to see if I had coverage…. They had no record of me. She was, again, a liar….

When I graduated high school she couldn’t get me out of the house fast enough. She pawned me off on my boyfriend Gebeaux and expected him to simply take care of me. We broke up. He didn’t sign up for that. I was basically kicked out of the house in valley crusis. I wasn’t prepared for life on my own. I wasn’t ready. She just wanted to be done being a mom so Hey..I came back to the house one day and all my stuff was packed and that was that. I had to figure it out. Fuck me.  

At one point during that time I was living in a trailer with my friend Stacy. Mom was horrified about this. I was getting food stamps and she was so ashamed of me for being so low class. She came to the trailer and was completely off the handle. She said there was “no air” in there and grabbed a 2x4 and smashed out all the windows. Mind you from her perspective it was just another example of what a loser I am, living in a trailer on food stamps how did I end up such a piece of shit when she is such a wonderful mother… it must be because there is something inherently wrong about me.

She has seen me as trash who is incapable of being anything great my entire life.

Somewhere in there she stopped dating Don and started dating lawyer Rand Sterling…who broke her ribs multiple times and literally pushed her out of a moving car and then she walked 5 miles back to his house to be with him.  That relationship took her to Texas. She followed the money. The insanity of that relationship is all I heard about from her. She needed Jim2 to come protect her from her husband multiple times. I absorbed all of this through her very rare but insane emails to me. She has always used me as her emotional manipulation dumping ground.

I had my first total mental break right around 19 years old. I was fetal position on the floor at my girlfriends house… Jenn… I couldn’t stop crying for multiple days and I felt my mind split in two. I literally went into a black hole and was begging for death. Jenn and the next door neighbor scooped me up off the floor and drove me to the Watauga County Mental Health and got me some help… but at this point I was having a total mental collapse… the part of me that was traumatized was a child denied her voice or any recognition of her Self, so I had no way to articulate what was wrong and Mom had denied and normalized the abuse and denied me voice and my personhood for so long that I had ZERO chance of articulating what was wrong… it was buried so deep inside of me and I was so scared to trust anyone…. I was experiencing schizophrenia and Major depression.

Jenn helped me with my depression. Jenn made sure I was housed and fed. Jenn took care of me. I owe her my life.

I mean, that is an extreme mental health episode. Where was my family? How could none of the people who were supposed to love me the most see any of this? Why did none of them help me? Why did all of them think I was to blame? (my guess: Team Mary Ellen)  

Somewhere in that year my friends were moving to Chapel Hill so I packed up the car that my child support paid for and I went down the mountain. She threatened to call the police on me for stealing the car.  She told me I needed discipline and needed to go into the Army. She just didn’t know what to do with me…such a problem child. If I remember correctly, you echoed her sentiments. Everyone was always so angry at me for being so wrong and so bad. None of my family (meaning MJ and mom because my brothers had long bailed on me and my extended family has never made a single attempt to reach out to me or know me at all.)  were my friend, or loving, kind or compassionate.

I got away….I went to Chapel Hill and lived with my best friends Kerry, Lesley, Julie, and two other guys in Kerry’s Moms rental house. I was working at the Columbia Street Bakery and dating this boy, Richard…. Who happened to be a really abusive drug dealer… who held me down one night and violently orally raped me and when I called mom for help she told me with the exasperation of a mother who had supposedly tried so hard to do the right thing and raise her child with love and support but that child was just tragic and terminally fucked :

“I don’t know whats wrong with you Melissa, I guess you just like the bad boys.”  

Again, no self reflection on her behalf…she did nothing to help me.

I didn’t know how to get away from Richard who was playing mind fuck with me and I was getting high with him (LSD) …which was basically, me being drugged and him using me for sex but not being loving or kind in any way (felt like home)  Eventually, Richard got busted for selling a page of lsd to an undercover cop and threatened to kill me because he thought it was my fault… so I had to get out of there and I went to New York to chill out and work for the summer at the Omega Institute of Holistic Learning… to just be around hippies and eat good food. I hung out with Baba Ram Dass and Ben & Jerry…and took a class on the whirling dervish… These moments when I wasn’t in the pressure cooker of my life were both brilliant because I needed healing but also the worst because all this trauma would start to surface and I didn’t know what it was or how to speak about it. I would start to shatter again.

I believed it was my fault and there was something inherently wrong with me.

I was so lost. I needed help. I needed a parent or loving compassionate family or someone trusted to guide me through that time in my life. I had no one but my friends from North Carolina who were just as fucked up as me. I needed help. I needed help. Oh my god, I needed help.

Omega ended…I had no money to get out of there, nobody to turn to for help, no clue what to do next, I certainly couldn’t go back to Mom who hated me and was living with Rand so fuck that… I had no idea where my brothers and sisters were and no relationship with them so that wasn’t on my mind as an option…..so I caught whatever ride I could get and ended up in Boulder. One of my friends from Omega hooked me up with her cousin for a month and I tried to make it work… it was basically winter in Colorado at this point and I was out there door canvassing for Green Peace making no money and freezing to death. Just walking door to door for Greenpeace… looking in on other families and their loving lives together. I was so fucking sad. I was hungry and scared and completely out of options. I had to get out of there.

I called Mom for help. She said: “You got yourself into this, get yourself out”…. And hung up on me. The bitch hung up on me. I was stranded and so scared and I needed my mom. She hung up on me. She blamed me. She wanted to punish me for being such a problem. She was done being a mom. She hung up.

I remember having gone to the Planned Parenthood to get some medical help because I was sick. I explained my situation and the nurse looked at me incredulously and said “where are you parents?” I explained to her that Mom hung up on me.  I was devastated, living in a constant state of shock. Scared out of my sense of self or ability to connect to the present moment.

I was a fractured soul in every possible meaning.

My month at my friends place was over and I had to find an apartment or live on the streets. It took me another month of begging whatever guy I could find to give me a place to stay and then I contacted the boy I was dating at Omega, Scott, and asked him for money to get a bus back to North Carolina. He helped me. Bless him. He got me out of there.

I got on the Greyhound and ended up going to Idaho to visit with my friend Stacy (who I lived in the trailer with) and stay with her for a couple weeks to get grounded and feel safe with a friend for a minute. My mental break was coming back full force. I was inconsolable.  I remember laying on her bed fully having an out of body experience from the stress and being so disoriented. She is so patient and kind. She took care of me. When my time with Stacy was up, the next layer of insanity: I got on the Greyhound and took a 5 day no sleep, no food journey across country. I got chased down, carrying all my bags of things and looking like a little hippie… on a layover, by a group of drunk men in Wyoming…they almost got me but I found a laundromat that was open and full of people so I ran inside and hid until my bus was leaving again. I was terrified. By the time I made it back to Lesley and Kerrys house in Chapel Hill it was New Year night…I got some hours back at the Columbia Street bakery I was working at and got some money rolling in.

I want to mention that Poverty, which I have lived most my life in, is no joke and more damaging than anyone outside of the experience can understand. It is cyclical, like bi polar…. Living paycheck to paycheck or however you get just enough to maybe hold on for a moment longer but never knowing if more will be coming is a terror. Always feeling like the bottom is going to drop out…and never knowing when youre going to eat…and what that does to your hormones and your mental health…. Poverty is proven to damage people on a cellular level and have lasting effects that lead to chronic illness.

After making it back to NC, few weeks later the boy from Omega came to Chapel Hill and told me he wanted to marry me and wanted me to move to Boston with him. So we took a little road trip and eventually ended up in Boston. As a surprise to no one sane, that was not a lasting relationship. So after a year of misery in Boston, (more poverty, more loneliness, more no family) Scott drove me back to Chapel Hill and that’s when the girls and I all moved up to Asheville. All the while, checking in with Mom who was yelling and shaming me for being such a fuck up.

I can’t underline enough: I was disassociating the entire time. I was having episodes of schizophrenia. I was experiencing major depression and bi polar disorder. The stress of my entire life was more than I could handle and I had no support and no compassion and nobody validating my experience or me as a person. People just thought that was who I was. I was just fucked in every way possible and believed she was right and all that was normal and I was a terrible piece of shit. She had everyone believing that.  

Mary Jane believed her. She echoed her sentiments to me. Go Team Mary Ellen.

I moved up to Asheville and got somewhat stabilized. I was again living with my friends and I got a decent job at the Laughing Seed Cafe. I met Mark and I had decided to go to college because I thought that would make Mom happy and I needed to DO something with myself.  

Mark and I were together maybe 8 weeks before we moved across country and started a life together. Eight weeks.

I was so adept at being a high functioning  dissociative major depressive and I had no way to articulate what was wrong with me (all that stuff that had been normalized and ignored…all the ways my feelings and personhood was erased)… I just knew something evil bad was in me and it took me out from time to time. I thought it was my fault and I was ashamed of myself.  I was living in a constant state of shock. CPTSD.

So, I get myself into college and thanks to Mark and his truck we move across country.

When I hear my friends now talking about saving money for their kids college and really setting them up for success by helping them choose a school and get settled in or making sure they don’t have to work so they can focus on their studies and have a healthy social life with friends and do activities Im so confused. I didn’t know parents and families helped their kids with such things. I didn’t understand that in other families they help, protect and support. I made it through without any of these blessings.

Mark and I get a shitty apartment (the ceiling caved in out of rot and the place was full of roaches. The property managers stole my drum set and we would catch them on the roof at night peeping through the skylight to watch us), I get a full time job managing a restaurant…in addition to schooling full time...Im overwhelmed by the workload, scared to be across country, freaked out by college and the expectations… it was too much. I was away from the source of my abuse and things started to surface… I NEEDED HELP.

I needed my family except, honestly, I have none. Additional mindfuck: when I tried to talk to people about this I get the old trope about how everyone has tough relationships in their families and I need to love my mom and work it out with her.SO I KEPT GOING BACK FOR MORE WITH MOM BECAUSE I NEEDED HER LOVE SO BAD AND I THOUGHT THE PROBLEM WAS ME. Further, because I was so regressed I just sounded like a petulant child when I tried to talk about the abuse I had no accurate words for so nobody outside the experience really got it or could conceive how bad things really were for me… why would they? My family is extraordinarily fucked up, like nobody I have ever known.

In college, nobody comes to check on me and make sure Im ok. Nobody was calling. Id get rare emails or letters. When I would tell mom how hard it was, mom would mock me and tell me to suck it up when I would reach out to her and “complain” about how things were going for me… See, because its always my fault and Im never measuring up.

An aside: To this day, 40 years later, Jim2 has yet to even send me a single email to check and make sure Im ok or get to know me at all. He has never responded to the multiple emails I have sent him, so I stopped reaching out. I used to cry to mom about it and she would tell me that he “has a busy life” and I had to understand that’s why I wasn’t a priority to him. Personally, I cant imagine anything being more important than making a connection with your little sister, but I guess Im biased and not like him: busy getting high and drunk and being a cool party guy.  

During my college is when he married Lori. I worked over time and got a plane ticket to be at his wedding. I was sick to my stomach at the idea of having to be around my family but I love my brother and I wanted to be there. He ignored me the entire time I was there. I was a HUGE FUCKING DEAL that I could afford the ticket and made the effort to be there for him. I showed up for him….He ignored me. I was devastated and felt invisible and so worthless.

Another aside: I was 24 and that very first Christmas on the west coast Mom calls me, driving herself to the ER to get her stomach pumped from a suicide attempt. She was dramatically telling me her goodbye in case she didn’t make it. I was stressed and powerless beyond the telling of it. I cried all the way through that Christmas. Again: Mom always uses me as her emotional manipulation dumping ground. Out of all her children, Im the one with heart and she gets the sympathy she is working me over for.

During my college years, I would ask Mom for help she would mock me “Im sending baby Sava (MJs daughter) a care package…are you a baby? Do you need one too?”

Mean girl jealousy that I went to college and her life was taken from her by her children….

In college I had no friends, just Mark. No time for activities and my mental health was so fragile I had no ability to form friendships. I was barely hanging on. I would be catatonic in my time at home. We had this geometry screensaver on the computer and I would be frozen staring at it for hours while my brain felt like it was going to shatter. I was an absolute wreck and a shell of a person…but I was determined to prove I could graduate college and I wasn’t a fuck up. I wanted Mom to be proud of me.

I guess it should come as no surprise that after 4 years of no time off, working and schooling 80 hours a week, getting zero support emotionally or financially from my family …. that absolutely NOBODY FROM MY FAMILY CAME TO CELEBRATE ME AT MY GRADUATION.

Nobody came. Nobody celebrated me. Nobody saw the value in me or my hard work.

I remember being on the phone with Jim2 the day of my graduation. I had called him to ask why he wasn’t there for me. I was in tears. He told me that if that was the worst thing that ever happened to me, congratulations on your nice life. He thought it was bullshit that I was so upset. He thought I was being a baby. This loser dropped out of college which he had a scholarship for and did nothing with his life but drugs and alcohol and saw no value in me or what I did on my own. He didn’t show up for me.

Me going to college and graduating on time with full credits was a major fucking accomplishment on so many levels.

Not one of my family was there for me and I will never forgive or forget that.

We moved to the same fucking town Mary Jane was in when she was in college and never ONCE did anyone come to check on me and be interested in what I was doing or validate how amazing it was that I was in school and making it happen on my own.  

When I talk about how alone I feel in life, its in my bones.

I had worked over time to get Mom a plane ticket so she would be there for my graduation and she called me a couple days before to tell me pathetically “She couldn’t get the day off work.”  (Lie: I think she has some legal issue and couldn’t leave the state or something like that.)

After she called to bail on my graduation… at 27 years old… I had a heart attack on my walk home. I collapsed in my living room. Mark found me on the floor when he got home from work. She literally broke my heart. I was devastated. I was in shock. I was dissociating. I was so fucked up. I needed help. Poor Mark. He didn’t know what was wrong and neither did I.

Shortly after my graduation, MJ graduated and she drove to see her and was sure to tell me about it. I mean, they are BFFs so, no surprises there. GO TEAM MARY ELLEN, right?  

Whats wrong with you Melissa? My family. My family is whats wrong with me.

During college I was stressed to the point of being catatonic when I wasn’t at work or school. My mental health was tanking in every possible way… but the pressure cooker of school and work kept me hemmed in and my desire to prove that I was someone worth loving (because god knows I wasn’t going to be loved just for being me…No one was simply going to show up for me or simply be there. I had to earn it.)

…. then we moved to Seattle and I had three years at Amazon in that pressure cooker of a job… (10 to 14 hours a day, 6 days a week) working as a Lead running a team of 200 people to keep me too busy to feel my feelings or connect to emerging myself.  

At some point after I graduated and it no longer mattered, I remember MJ came to visit me one time. That was nice of her. Thank you for trying, MJ.

But heres the fun part: Mark. Mark loved me.

Mark is the very first and to this day ONLY person who has been intimately involved in my life who loves and respected me just as I am.

It was Mark loving me that allowed me to start developing a voice and for that very young very traumatized person inside of me to start coming to the surface. Mark was the very best thing that has ever happened to me….and, ironically, it was because he loved me that all that evil finally came to the surface…and was our demise.

All the things dad did to me, all the never ending abuse from mom that sought to vilify and demoralize me… all of the hurt from the abandonment from my brothers and sisters… all that evil came up because he Loved me enough to make me feel safe and supported…I just didn’t know that then and couldn’t see or feel that he was the most tremendous gift this life has ever given me ….

and I started sexually assaulting myself in my sleep (woke up one time with an entire box of tampons inside of me and had to go to the doctor to get them all out). I would throw punches in my sleep. I was having an utter mental breakdown/ breakthrough… and then I started acting out sexually with other men that I met online. I felt like I was being puppet mastered from some evil unknown source. I was manic and acting out sexually. That default programing from my childhood was calling the shots. I didn’t have a sense of self so I was acting from what I knew and what Dad taught me about myself and the self-worth that mom made sure I didn’t have.

I say acting out sexually. What I should say is reenacting the trauma…which there was so very much of. I was on auto pilot and at that time if you asked me if that’s what I wanted to be doing I would have said yes out of programming but the core truth of who I am knew it was not at all right or who I am or what I wanted…that core didn’t have a voice yet.

2001, Amazon had laid us all off. I got hired working at a treatment center for abused youth.  I was major depressive and would be fetal position on the floor and cry for a month at a time but I didn’t know why or what was wrong… I was just deeply goddamn depressed and wanted to die. All the time. Goddamn. Let it end.

Poor Mark. He didn’t know what was happening. He was the perfect boyfriend. He tried so hard to help me. I honestly could not have asked for a more perfect man to come in to my life…and he was stuck with me. Mentally fucked Melissa with no clue what was wrong… and worst of all, I thought I had to get out of my relationship with Mark.

Crazy,right?….I asked Mom for help. She had no relationship with me and no clue what was going on in my life…She is a complete train wreck of a human and so deep in her own denial and so wrapped up in her latest abusive relationship with a rich man that she could honestly give a fuck about me and thought the worst of me anyway… so yeah, break up with him and oh my god Melissa I don’t know what to do with you.

I kept cheating on him over and over again. I was off the rails with my manic depression. Spending, fucking, driving my car too fast…. Through a chat room, I got mixed up with a man that felt like Dad to me and I was entranced and captive to him. Mark asked me to marry him and I broke up with him, moved out.. I was off the rails with the sexual acting out/re traumatizing myself.

(Mark immediately met the woman he has since married and has been with for the past 18 years. I would give anything to have that man back in my life…Throughout these years, my memory of how he treated me has been the standard by which I have held all other men and nobody measures up….Beyond his character and integrity, the art, music and intelligence that lives within this handsome and kind man is incomparable. I blew it. Fuck. I pushed away the most incredible man I ever knew and he loved me. I still love him to this day.)

At that same time I heard a rumor at work that one of the counselors (reggie, 24) had slept with a client(raya,16). I knew reggie was capable of it (I had slept with him) so I reported it to the Unit manager, Big Mike. ……What I didn’t know is that Reggie, Mike and the guy I was so into, Cash were all friends who grew up together and in the same gang……

and so it was that month that I moved out from Mark that the man that I was so “in love with”, Cash, drugged me at a house party and raped me with 4 of his friends to teach me a lesson for reporting Reggie.

I remember sharing a beer with Cash and then feeling tired and dizzy and asking to lay down and then multiple hours of being barely coherent and having no control over my body and being passed around for everyone to fuck over and over again.

Cash was a sex trafficker and grooming me all along. No wonder he felt like home. My need for family and my daddy issues in full effect, I couldn’t break the spell. I was terrified of him and wanted him to think I was so sexy…..He was masterful with the mindfuck and kept me under his thumb at all times which felt like attention and love to me and was intense enough that I could feel it.

At that time, in Washington, you had a statue of limitations of 8 years to report a rape.

Mind you, I was so dissociative and still had no idea I was a person or had any rights to my thoughts or my body… I was really goddamn checked out at that point in my life….I was in shock. The childhood assault trauma was just surfacing and I had no words for it because it had been normalized and my feelings negated by my parents So, I didn’t know if I had been raped or not….it took me years to figure out that its wrong to drug someone and have all your friends fuck them…

I didn’t know I should or could ask for help. I didn’t believe I could be helped. I didn’t think anyone would help me. I didn’t know I was a person. I didn’t know I had rights. I didn’t know I could escape or how.

ANYONE CONFUSED ABOUT WHY I DIDN’T KNOW HOW TO GET HELP OR THAT I DESERVED IT???????

Whats wrong with you, Melissa?

In the meanwhile, Cash was making sure I wouldn’t report it.

He knew I was away from Mark, had a history of sexual assault and no family, and that I lived in absolute poverty so there was zero chance I could escape him.

I was in so much trouble. I needed help. I called Mom. I explained that it all to her. I explained that they were a gang. That it was sex trafficking… that I needed help…. To which she said “Let them play godfather. Whats the worst they can do?”….. (nice way to minimize the extreme danger I was in and negate me as a person, don’t you think?)

that bitch loves to see me suffer and struggle, doesn’t she. Doesn’t it make her look amazing when I look like shit? So she didn’t help me. She shit talked me to the rest of the family like I wanted to be in that situation because I was trash. Nobody helped me.

I remember talking to Mary Jane around that time explaining that I was getting counseling and she, like mom, shamed me and told me I didn’t have bipolar or something like that… She was Team Mary Ellen all the way and me getting counseling was just attention seeking or something like that.

See, this is why MJ and I have never been friends or close. I cant trust her. Shes not someone I think of as an ally. Sorry about that, MJ. Im not trying to be mean but… look at why I think that.

I really do look up to her though. She is so smart and capable. But I cant trust her and this is why.

By the way, here’s just a few of examples of the worst they can do while “playing Godfather”: They were so invested in making sure I never spoke about the rape they made sure I was living in such constant fear for my life (mental domination) that I was too scared to talk to anyone about it:

*They had voyeur cameras in my house…that they were making money off of.

*They had software on my laptop to collect all my personal data (social security, passwords, answers to security questions) so I am owned by them to this day.

*They had GPS on my car to track me everywhere I went and would leave notes on my car to let me know I was constantly being watched.

*They flipped my therapists office and stole all her files to make sure there was no record

*They poisoned my dog every day for a month while I was at work…I would come home to Milo cowering in the corner like he had been abused all day long and diarrhea all over the floor until one day I yelled out in my home with nobody there that I would find Cashs son and do the same to him…and I went online and found his childs home address…yelled that out to my empty apartment…and after that day Milo was never sick again….

*Then there are the 2 times they broke into my apartment in the middle of the night, drugged me in my sleep and did whatever and dumped me at the park. One of those time I woke up with half my face slack and paralyzed as though I had a stroke. By the grace of god I got the feeling back but to this day its still a little droopy.

*They sent their equally psycho boy Alex into my life to keep watch on me. He was horribly mentally abusive. I was so broken and demoralized. I needed to get away. Instead, I got pregnant. Alex also gave me syphilis ..and so I had an abortion. I had to get two Orders of Protection to get Alex away from me. When I called mom for help with the pregnancy, she was off the rails hysterical and I was yet even more scared and alone. Mom blamed me for all of it. Further evidence Im trash. I got pregnant by a mistake by a black man.

There is more, I mean it was 8 years of daily torture… but I think you get the idea. Complete mental domination was the name of their game.

I had no friends. None. I was so fucked up. I was terrified to speak to anyone because everything felt like danger. Just these men showing up when they felt like to to fuck me and terrorize me. Eight years. My 30s. I was miserable beyond the telling of it.

Whats wrong with you Melissa. I needed help. I was so scared. I needed my family. I got yelled at and shamed. I was so alone. I wanted to die. I was so depressed and fucked up. Goddamn. Let it end. And the worst of it all is that I really didn’t even have myself. I never had a chance to be safe enough to develop a self. I was a shell of a human. I was out of my head. I was so checked out with the PTSD and the trauma of it all. I was scared to be alive. Soul fracturing is real.

This was how I spent my 30s. Somehow pulling myself together to go to work during the day because I didn’t want to be homeless, coming home and having a total mental collapse at night and all the while being mentally tortured by a gang of sex traffickers and when I reached to my family for help I got blamed for being a fucked up piece of shit.

I had no one. When I talk about my isolation and how alone I am, its cumulative.  Its all this and more.

I don’t need to volunteer at a shelter on Christmas to be with someone for the holidays. I don’t need to get a dog. I need family. I need to be validated on a daily basis that I matter and am loveable just as I am. I need someone safe who is simply there. I need people in my life who celebrate me without me asking. I need people who are there for those simple mundane acts of living that define us…I need to come home to love.

The miracle: I kept myself employed and was successful in my corporate career path, I kept myself housed, and drug and alcohol free the entire time. I had the where with all to get counselling and try to work through my shit. I never gave up on myself even though I didn’t yet know who I am and my family had absolutely written me off from day one.

Then the Recession happened. I, of course, had never learned money management skills so there really wasn’t any savings to rely on. I was comfort eating like a motherfucker, I had student loans, a car payment and insurance and a foolishly large and expensive apartment, I had these lecherous men that were taking advantage of me financially too… I was manic depressive… I was paying for counselling (which if I am not mistaken over the years has totaled $100k) But to be honest, I don’t know where my money went… so when the Recession hit it took about 2 months before I was selling off everything I own and living in my car….where I stayed for the next year with my dog.

Nobody help me stay safe or in my integrity. I had no friends in Seattle to turn to. Mom told me to put my things in garbage bags and throw it all away…take the dog to the pound… and work with my counselor (she was angry about me getting help because she perceived it as being me trying to vilify her and this was her chance to punish me for getting help) and find a shelter to check in to because I wasn’t welcomed at her home.

Let me say that again: My mom knew I was losing everything, told me to throw my life away, dump my kid at the pound and told me to check into a shelter, I wasn’t welcomed at her home.

MY MOM.

Shes sees me as trash. She threw me away. Doesn’t she look amazing when Im failing?

Work in Seattle was impossible to find. I literally had 700 resumes out. Understand, I have held a job consistently since I was 15 years old and somehow mom thought this moment was me being a lazy piece of shit and just trying to manipulate her for money when I asked for help.

Sure. Ok.

I spent the next year in my car with no money coming in other than whatever odd jobs I could grab on craigslist to make my car payment. I drove back to North Carolina to seek help from my friends and my brother. My friends back home were not in a position to help me in any long lasting way but bless them all for what they did…

but Jim 2, who lives in Raliegh, was. He just declined. He made me a sandwich…told me there was nothing he could do for me (he has three houses)…and I spent the night in my car outside my brother’s house.

I had an ex acquaintance from Seattle who lived in Raleigh. He was part of the abuser sex trafficking gang. He let me sleep on the floor but would beat the shit out of me if I tried to sleep on the couch. I was so demoralized and out of my head, I needed literally anyone to be there for me….so, I stayed there, on the floor, for a month.

My brother was 15 minutes away, could have kept me safe but my brother chose to do nothing to help me.  

Whats wrong with you Melissa. My family. Definitely gonna say my family.  

When it was clear that North Carolina wasn’t going to be any better for work than Seattle I decided to drive back to the west coast. I had to drive through Texas and I didn’t stop at Moms house. I didn’t even try. Why would I?  I was so hopeless and out of my head with depression and PTSD. I was screaming into the great black nothing. I was cutting myself all over to get the evil out. I would punch my own face black and blue from self loathing… again, thinking it was all my fault and that I was defective. I mean… my own family didn’t want me. Nobody did. It was me. I was a horrible piece of shit and deserved to die. Nobody loved or wanted me. Nobody kept me safe. I was deeply lost in the void. I wanted to die. Goddamn. Let it end.

That year in the car was by far worse than the 8 years of being tortured by sex traffickers or the 13 years of living with my sex predator father or the 7 years of being stuck in bumfuck North Carolina with my moms abuser boyfriend stealing the show.

Without question having nobody and knowing that nobody cares if you are safe, in your integrity, have a door to lock, privacy of any kind, if you are fed or showered… knowing for a demonstrated fact that there is not a single person on earth who cares enough to validate your humanity is the absolute worst feeling I have ever known.  Being completely dehumanized, demoralized, erased. I begged for death.

Whats wrong with you Melissa?

Fun fact: during that time, instead of helping me or offering me a job at her business doing the exact job I did so well at Amazon (I asked for one and told her I would sleep in the attic at the office and she told me No), to mock me and show me what a failure I am and that I was just trying to manipulate her for money because Im a lazy loser

Mom went to her local Costco and applied for a job to show me how easy it was for her to get hired.

I mean, if youre going to be void of a soul, you should really go for it. Kudos, Mom.  

I drove through California on the way back home to Seattle and met my sister Patty for the first time. We look like two peas in a pod. We think exactly the same. She is undeniably my sister. It was the most incredible feeling.

For the first time in my entire life I actually felt and thought the same as someone else.

She casually declined to introduce me to her family. They kept looking at me incredulously because we look just the same… but she would shoo them away when they would come over to talk. I met her at her restaurant and then she took me to her palatial home. She has a huge family. She had tons of photo albums… and then she started talking about Dad…like she was in a trance and talking about a favorite lover… it was clear that Dad had sexualized her and maintained that relationship with her well into her adult life and that was the reason she had no contact with us and didn’t want a deeper relationship with me. One conversation was all I got with her. I slept in my car outside her home. My sister didn’t help me. Whats wrong with you Melissa???

In one shot from LA I drove back to Seattle. I figured out that the Queen Anne neighborhood had the lowest crime rate so I parked there. I was so sick to death of all the nights that year that I would wake up with someone trying to break in to the car. Thank god I had Milo with me. He saved me multiple times from intruders that year. My body was a wreck from car living and shit food. My mental health beyond destroyed. I was really just done. Run through. All the way run through.

I did a brief stint staying in Silverdale with my friend from NC that I managed to re connect with on my drive back… but the hour drive into Seattle from Silverdale was too much so I lumped it and just slept in my car in Queen Anne once I secured my job…..

I went in to Top Pot Doughnuts every day for a month and demanded a job until they gave me one. I was 8 weeks into that job, still sleeping in the car but I had forward momentum when I totaled the car. I had the very last car payment in the seat next to me I had worked so fucking hard to maintain my payments in good faith despite it all and come out of that situation with my car but nope…fuck me. I was on my way to the gym and I was giving myself a pep talk telling myself everything was going to be ok….and I ate it…40 miles an hour into a stopped truck on the West Seattle Bridge. Entirely my fault. Milo went to the pound. All my earthly belongings went to the impound yard. I went to the ER…. And I called every single person I knew and who I thought could help me.

Just when you think you have nothing left, turns out you can go lower. Nobody returned my call.  

Me, the unwanted, loveable piece of shit. I could die and nobody cared. Whats wrong with you Melissa?

I got out of the hospital, I had made contact with my online friend Rishad and he let me stay for a couple days… BLESS HIM… In those two days I got on the bus. I took the bus that goes through Capitol Hill and up to Queen Anne where my job was. I wrote down every apartment for rent phone number I could see and I started making calls. In the first true lucky break I had in years, this apartment manager woman at a really sweet little apartment on the hill heard me out…heard my story… it was the 15th of the month. I had my car payment check and I cashed it and gave her the money… She gave me the keys and a wink and told me I could move in “on the first”, that’s what the money I gave her would pay for…. and that she definitely didn’t know anything about a dog so no pet fee was needed.

I went right upstairs, LOCKED MY OWN DOOR and laid on the floor with literally nothing left to my name and cried so fucking hard.  

I had whiplash from the accident. I fractured 4 molars on my steering wheel and over the years as my dentist promised they have slowly one by one fallen out of my face. I had broken both my feet and wracked my knees…. But I had a place that was my own and a job and that’s all that mattered.

I went right to the pound the next day and got Milo. I went to the impound lot and got what was left of my life. I missed a sum total of two days of work…. I was so thankful to have a job again I blocked out the pain from my broken body and I just kept going.

(Mind you the only thing Mom has ever been proud of me for in my lifetime is losing weight. That’s what got her attention…that’s what she was impressed by. I went on a diet.)

That next year, I lost 70 pounds at the gym. I perceived my training team as the family I never had and I was good at lifting weights. They weren’t honestly my friends or family but it was something consistent and I needed that stability and I needed them so fucking bad. It took 5 years to start to return to a somewhat functioning human... Lifting helped me get back into my body and stop checking out so much. My nutrition plan made me focus on myself every moment of every day…and nothing beats depression like clean food and working out. Structure and consistency.

My PTSD was off the rails though. I was worse than a soldier coming back from war…I never signed up for that shit and it started when I was a child. I was suffering. I wanted to die. Every moment of every day. I was miserable to be around. Nobody wanted to be my friend. So, trust me…just work and the gym with my illusion that people were there for me and me inappropriately and overly attached to them.

The irony is that I looked amazing and strong and I was, yes. The reality is that I wanted to die. I begged for death. I had two suicide attempts in those years….I surprised myself and cut my wrist with my house keys on the way to work one day and another time I walked into traffic but the car swerved.

Coming out of all that happened and processing all that trauma took more will power and resolve than anything I have ever done. It was so dark. I felt demon possessed. I was out of my head. I would find myself walking out of my place into public with no skirt on just my tights or other crazy shit like that. I was talking to myself, having heated arguments with nobody there all the fucking time. I was punching myself in the face. I was cutting and other such self harm.

It was really bad. I was hurting so fucking much.

And, I had another sociopath boyfriend taking full advantage of my disadvantage…keeping me fucked up because it kept me there for him. Thomas was in my life for 7 years. Absolute Scum. But he was the only person who would show up in person for me. I needed to be held. I was so out of my head and I still had no friends in my life…just people on the internet.… So again, this familiar situation: I just let him use me so I could have literally anyone there. The social and emotional isolation was killing me and I was convinced I was in love. He felt like home. He kept telling me we would be together if I waited. That he loved me. That I was the Key! I was the only time he was happy. The reality was he wouldn’t speak to me during the week. He would just show up on a Friday or Saturday night when he felt like it, from 1am to 3am…literally show up with his dick out to fuck me…very often wouldn’t speak to me when he was there…then he would leave and that was what I considered my relationship and love. It was about 2 years into our “relationship” that the truth slowly started to surface that he was in a long term relationship and he lived with her….

The details of how twisted he is and how he manipulated my daddy issues is disgusting. How he used neglect to keep me working so hard for him to be there and begging for his attention….really sick.

He felt like home which is the worst part. He was exactly like home.

It took me three years at the doughnut shop to get emotionally stabilized enough to make a plan for next steps. I was too emotionally fragile to go back to corporate work or be in an office environment. I knew I wanted to go to massage school and I really thought it could be an answer for me even though Mary Jane and mom had previously shamed and mocked me when I said I wanted to go. Mom didn’t think I could be anything better than a waitress. She told me to stop complaining that I hated my work and just go do it.

It was around this time that I had to move out of the apartment because they raised the rent by double on my sweet apartment and I found my way into squatting in my Art studio, where I have been for the past 7 years.

This studio has been so needed and healed me in so many ways. It is private enough to have a complete mental collapse and since it was a former isolation tank/jail… Nobody can get in here….bars over the windows and a steel door…so, I could sleep at night for the first time in years. The rent is crazy affordable which allowed me to go to school and later afford activities to try to learn social skills and be a real person in the world…. This place is my everything.

When I had my first art show… consisting of the photos that I took when I was living in my car. One of the ways I survived and changed my paradigm to get out of the car alive was that I would walk around and task myself with Looking through the eyes of Love. I would try to find one thing each day that I could see beauty in so I could continue to see good in the world…thus my collection of flower photos that I maintain to this day as my gratitude practice.

Mom picked up the phone and called me the night of my show.

(Mind you, she has never been there for me. Over the years since she kicked me out I think we have talked on the phone maybe 10 times. There have been years where she refused to give me her phone number…she made a game of it for years…I would email and ask for it she would say she was going to give it to me in her reply but never would. Then she finally did and a week later she changed it again. Psycho. Another time I can remember a time we talked on the phone and I ended by saying I love you and she was silent and struggled to say it back. Whats incredible is that she has always pretended to be someone who knows me and knows whats going on in my life and talks about it with such authority. This is a narcissistic abuser in action. What she was doing was scanning my social media and whatever scraps of information she could get and twisting it into whatever story she needed to support her storyline about me being a problem child and a fuck up and what a wonderful mother she is so she could continue to live in denial. She cant face the past and she has never done any work to own her part or apologize. So, now Ive cut her off. She does things now like call the place where I get my mail and had the people who run the PO box office tell me my mother called and she is worried about me and she asked them for whatever information they had on me -so I had to get a new PO Box place where the owners have English as a distant 2nd language-  or she will go through my friends list on social media and contact people to see if they will keep tabs on me for her and share her story about what a problem I am and how she is just a loving mother who I have scorned and of course people believe her. She said the magic word: Mother. Nobody would suspect what kind of Mother she actually is and they see me all angry, regressed emotionally like a child and so fucked up and struggling in the world so she must me right about me, yeah? Text book actions when you try to break away from a Narcissist)

So…I get into the studio and Im all set up for my show and she called me to say this: “So, youre having an art show huh? You think youre so great. Youre still alone though aren’t you? (the mean girl was jealous that I somehow retained a sense of self and did something neat to be proud and again, she wanted to punish me…the woman is demented.) You know, the longest relationship you’ve ever had is with that damn dog.” And then she laughed at me. Made some shit comment about my basement studio “not having air” and some other bullshit and we ended the call. My party guests were arriving. My self-confidence was missing in action for the rest of my night.   Nice, right? That’s my mom.

Shortly after I get in to the Studio Milo got sick. Really really sick. As I promised him from day one, I would never let him suffer for my own selfish reasons…. So, I rented a car, took him to the vet and had him put down. The love of my life and my great protector. This sweet soul that was my constant source of love and hope for 14 years. When I posted on my facebook thread about his passing, mom commented that she was devastated at her loss. Because, you know… Milos death, this dog that she wanted me to throw away, was about how it impacted HER.  …yeah….ok.

I want to mention out of the context of a clear timeline that somewhere in here I trained for and ran two Tough Mudders. They are 12 mile courses with 20 really fucking hard obstacles. They are designed to be run with a team. I ran them both solo because nobody wanted to join me. On the days that I went to the events, neither my Trainer or the man I was so in love with, Thomas, sent me as much as a good luck text to wish me well or acknowledge my accomplishment. My previously 215 pound ass had shrunk to 140 pounds and, at 40 years old ran a team event solo and made it through in TWO AND A HALF HOURS completing every single obstacle, no excuses…. And nobody who should have been excited and invested in my success said a word.

I was still invisible. I still did not matter. I was still not celebrated by the people who should have been there for me.

I want to point this out: Even I did not think I mattered or what I was doing was noteworthy. I was still so checked out and erased to myself that it didn’t click in my head that my life and all that I was doing and surviving was me doing the impossible.

My friend Luke (who I met online dating but I knew we were meant to be solid friends for life) made a point to come with me to the first Tough Mudder. He spent the entire day out there and he took photos of me… He is the reason that I can now reflect on what I did and actually SEE MYSELF. That gift is immeasurable. Luke evidenced me. Im here today as a whole person in part because of him.  Also of note, the transition time between the apartment and the studio: Luke let me stay with him. He kept me safe and he was my sounding board and my true friend. I have nothing but the deepest most heartfelt love and respect for him. His story is equally harrowing and he is a miracle in action. Thank you Luke. I love you. Youre in my inner circle for life.

Now that Milo was gone and I was feeling somewhat more stabilized as a human, I knew it was time to make my career plan and try to get into massage school. Here is the next great stroke of luck in my lifetime: I went to Discovery Point and I talked to the women that run the school I explained my situation and that I was completely broke. They let me go to school for free in those 9 months with the understanding that I would clean the school on the weekends, make what payments I could as I went along and work out a payment plan immediately after graduation and that they would hold my diploma until that was complete.  OH SWEET MERCY.

My days during those 9 months were 17 hours long. I would manage the café in the morning 5am to 1pm, go to the gym to lift and run from 2 to 4, then to school from 5 to 10pm…all the while walking to get to each place. I was getting something like 12 miles a day. I did it. I made my 9 months of cleaning the school and keeping my life on track ( no cheering section, nobody doing laundry, cooking, keeping bills paid or there to comfort me but me: Whats new?) , I passed my exam and I was on track to move my life forward.

I feel like there should have been a celebration when I graduated because that’s fucking astounding…. but, hey… nothing happened, nobody in my life said a word of congratulations about it. Surprise.

I live alone. I have no friends beyond those that exist on the computer, acquaintances from community, and a few co workers that I have hung out with from time to time and I always make a big deal about that on social media which gives the illusion that I have people, but I really dont. My only contact with others is at work. I go home to an empty room and there is no support or comfort. Its really impossible to describe to people who have people what it is like to live with this constant isolation and utter lack of emotional intimacy and how it eats you alive…but this has been my life.

People who don’t understand tell me to get a dog or volunteer or pay for therapy for companionship. That’s a cruel tone deaf response. People need people and it is reasonable to want to be loved, intimately, from the outside in. What I want is to simply matter, and be loved and valued, and have someone who is there without having to do something to receive that…..

Because I have yet to be understood when I talk about it, I have for the most part stopped talking about my isolation that is to this day very real for me.

Im so lonely I just want to die. Whats new.

In the next year, I was waiting tables still and somehow managed to pay off $10k for my license… on a year where I only made $24k. again, no celebration when I told my co workers about it…. I thought it was a big deal.

During that year I went to the doctor and discovered that I was literally malnourished. I was pushing it too hard with working out and keeping everything on track and my personal trainer wasn’t actually reading the food journal I sent him each night… so I got pneumonia as well….but just kept going.

I also got my Personal Training Cert and my Nutrition Counseling cert that year and started working as a Personal Trainer while I looked for a Massage job. Things were lightening up for me. The tremendous crushing weight of my entire life was lightening up.

But the reality of who my Trainer was and what a fraud he was came to the light. He was sleeping with some of his clients and I have a laundry list of unethical things he, and his business partner, were doing. When I held him accountable that was the last straw for him. He was sick to death of weathering my PTSD and how fucked up and sick I was and how fucked up I was over Thomas all the goddamn time… and additionally I was calling out all the ways he was unethical: I was bad for business. I was bad for him in the fitness community.

He kept gaslighting me to try to get me to leave but that was my community for 5 years and I didn’t know what to do…….So, Matt did whats guys do: Shes crazy… and shit talked me throughout the fitness community.  He kicked me out of his gym and I now have no gym to work out at and no trainers willing to work with me. Thanks Matt! Super appreciate you!

I maintained my own lifting program for another year but honestly, I was in it for the community and sense of belonging that I never had before in my life. Without that and with Matt shit talking me in the background so I had no support elsewhere my program started to slip…. Add to that, I had begun  working full time in massage and my shoulder got burnt out. I have a repetitive stress injury from my Amazon days that was made worse at Tough Mudder when I got my arm yanked nearly out of its socket in an obstacle… so, Lifting started to fade… and honestly, I was burnt out on the regiment of it all. I needed a break. I deserved a huge break.

I think it was right around 2014 when Mom had me come to Houston for Thanksgiving as though we are friends or she was a Mom. The highlights of that visit include her telling me the reason I wasn’t welcome in Houston during the Recession was because her husband Rumi forbade it.

(I forgot to mention that all through the years of her being with Rumi she has painted this picture of him being physically and emotionally abusive. That she was hiding money to escape him and what a horror he is. She had some secret email account that she sent me emails from at one point and told me that she was trying to hack his email to see who he was having affairs with or some other drama….. but you know if you ask Jim2 who his best friend is, its Rumi…apparently they text all the time…so, you know…she loves to lie and paint these horrific pictures of who people are to support whatever her manipulation is to get sympathy or whatever pay off)

Anyway, While I was in Houston visiting her she was acting like everything was normal and fine and that I had just made up whatever it was that I went through during the Recession. She reminded me that since I “left home” at 18 she has had to give me something like $20k in support and implied what a burden I am and how I always have my hand out. She has kept track of the financial support she gave me as a parent and wanted me to feel like shit for needing her. Cool….

Another example of how mentally deranged she is: While I was there we went out to lunch. Mind you, I have maybe $100 to my name at that time. I offered to pay for lunch at this fast food place and after we ordered she commanded me to go pick a table. So I got a booth with a chair. I sat on the booth side so I was facing the café and could see her when she came out of the restroom… I waved her over and she sat in the chair. Unbeknownst to me, the booth side made me taller than the chair side…. She got this twisted angry look and became livid that I thought I was better than her. Paying for lunch and sitting above her like that….. The next day Mom and Rumi started playing a really fun game where they forgot my name and kept calling me “Savannah” (my niece) for the remainder of the time I was there …. You know… because at 44, they saw me as a child. Nothing like a little game of erasing your daughter’s person hood and replacing it with infantilism to let your daughter know you really see her and respect her.

I really hope this is making clear why I have a strict no contact in place with her that I will never change.

Now its 2017 and I get hired at my dream job. The Spa that I am at is beautiful. My co workers are the best. I make really fine money. My mental health is slowly coming together. I got Thomas out of my life and have enough mental clarity now to really see him for who he is.  I had spent yet another holiday season alone and the isolation was killing me, as per usual…so I decided that the best thing for me to do to help pull me out of my PTSD and stop being so scared to be seen or heard would be to go to music school…. Learn how to make friends for the first time in my adult life and be with people who were not my co workers. Try to trust people again. Try to trust that I could be liked for who I am….though rejection has been a very prevalent theme in my life… Try to learn some social skills that I missed out on basically my entire life.

How to simply hang out and play….was brand fucking new to me. Music school was really really really hard… not to mention I have no musical ability and I get triggered by stress pretty quickly and freeze… but I knew it was the right thing to do to reparent the kid inside me who never learned to make friends or be in activities with others and who wanted to play drums…. So hell yeah. I did it.

Thank you to Katy,Tracy,Melissa,and Kiyan for coming out to see a couple of those shows and being there to support me. You have no idea how much that meant to me.

I thought if I could make friends there I would have people to go out with and maybe could have a chance to meet a man and have a relationship… but all the women there were married with children and had little interest in going out at night, and I still wasn’t fully integrated as a Self yet… so that was a bust.

Music school was really me making up for my 20s and 30s when I should have been out at shows and hanging with friends and making art and and dating but instead I was being mentally tortured by my entire life. I gave it a good shot, but Im a mixed media artist not a musician and that’s really that. I have to take it in stride: Bless my heart for trying. Thank you to all my bandmates for being so kind and supportive of me and for being stellar humans

I was in my first year of Music school when I met the most amazing man, Joe. He was magical. He honestly loved me for me and I loved him right back. It was fast and deep and I felt so completely seen and wanted by him and OH MY GOD I NEEDED THAT FOR SO LONG. He made incredible things happen and took me on dates that made me feel like a Queen…. But Joe was terminally ill and two months later took his own life. I was in shock again….but kept going as I do.

Also out of context of timeline: When I got into that sweet little apartment I would go down to Edge of the Circle which was just a couple blocks away and get Tarot readings from Raven and Kiyan. I didn’t know how to simply ask for friendship so I would buy Tarot readings to have someone to talk to. These two helped me so much in so many ways…through their compassion and through helping me develop my Self and my skills. Over and over again these two have shown up as real people who have treated me with integrity. People who genuinely care about me and support me in my developing personhood. Ive made it through because of them and so many others along the way.

The shitty thing about being knocked out of your self is that even though you have people around you who care, you often cant see it or feel it and like a dick minimize what people are doing for you because the all-consuming feeling that nobody is there is so much larger than the gentle loving efforts of those around you…. And what happens: you push away the people who are there for you because they have self-respect and youre unwittingly being a dick. I want to say Im really sorry about this because I know for sure Ive done this.

Also out of context of timeline: Somewhere in here I started working in Tarot and caught a lucky break and got hired at Percys to be their Reader. Huge shout out to Krista who made that so possible for me. That Tarot night did more for my sense of Self and well being than I can explain and I was a success there largely because Krista made it so beautiful and kept that night going for me.

I also want to say Thank you to Tracy, Katy, and of course Brian who were my friends and co workers at the RowHouse Café… through those early massage school years. Endless support and encouragement from these guys, even when I was too fucked up to really receive it or reflect it back. Im really lucky to have met you and have had you in my life.

It was right around the solar eclipse and the night before that hurricane hit and flooded Houston and moms house got flooded that I emailed her a long list of things she had done that hurt me and explained that I would be taking time away from her and Id let her know when we could speak again. The next morning after I sent that email I again felt puppet mastered…. But this time by the little kid inside me… I literally woke up, jumped out of bed and started to dance. I was filled with glee. I was amazed by myself. I don’t know where that came from except to say that the kid inside me was OVERJOYED to be free of her.

In the coming years I kept proving to myself that I wont let her back in and that Im safe now… and as I have been staying true to this practice of not letting her, or anyone like her, back in my life… I have become happier and more whole as a human being…. More capable of making good choices in friends and finances….

She made an attempt to contact me around the holidays this year. I saw her call but let it go to voice mail. The message she left was something to the tune of her wanting to know if I had forgiven her yet and gotten over it. …See, because its about me and what I need to do because its my damage that is the problem here…. Nothing had changed with her. It was still my fault. No apology. No self reflection. Had I forgiven her yet. For fucks sake: I will never forgive her.  

I have learned to celebrate myself, take my self on vacations and to my great delight I had friends who spent time with me and took care of me!!!!!! Incredible!!!!!, give myself the compassion and nurturing that I always wished I had and reasonably should have had from my family. I have been working on being able to see the love that is there for me from the people that I have in my life, though I still struggle with that.  I have been working so hard on Self Love, Self Respect, Healthy boundaries, creating safety and stability in my life in all way and I know that Im doing great work because my inner me, those little kids inside of me that needed a parent are really responding to the parenting Im giving them…. Check this out:

A month or so after I declined her call I was out at the café in my neighborhood, having a treat and a coffee and doing some writing. I was sitting at the table and this incredible feeling came over me as though a golden light was shining on me and I could see it glittering down on me. I started laughing and crying like when you cum really hard and youre filled with ecstasy and bliss. And then I had a vision of being in a hospital room that was in the forest… it was just two walls of the room and then the woods…I could see deer and birds. In the hospital bed there was a person in a full body cast. The cast had moss growing on it and tiny sprouts of pine trees. The Doctor walked in to the room to check on the patient. I was both the Doctor and the Patient. I told myself: Hey, its time to get you out of there. And I grabbed my circle saw and started to cut my cast from end to end and crack to open like a sarcophagus. I told myself Welcome Back! We are so glad you are here!!! Go slow, take your time getting up. No rush.

I was so elated. I walked home immediately. Upon arriving at my studio I had another vision of all the ages of myself, down to the youngest and up to the oldest and wisest all linking hands. I recognized these women as my Sisters/MySelf… all of us agreed that the next would watch out for the next and that nobody would ever hurt us again. SOUL RECLAMATION.

For the first time in my life I am here, in this body, in this present moment. The first time in my life I am ME. Im currently 6 months in to my actual LIFE. THIS IS ME. I AM HERE. OH MY GOD. I MADE IT.

Yes now, of course, the world is ending and my career in massage is tenuous at best and I might be fucked again…. But so not worried because honestly, Ive survived worse with less. So I will figure this out and keep myself alive, housed and fed.

Over the years my attempts to talk it out with Mom were pointless… she would erase my feelings and angrily tell me that it was hard on all of us. She would hold no space for me and just be my mom and have some compassion for her baby girl. Nope: It was hard on all of us so stop complaining… but see, I was a child and they were my parents and that was my family and I had no choice…. So really, at this point, Im done. Im better off on my own.

I don’t know what else to say other than those yearly years were tremendously bad for everyone in my family, yes. I can now at this time in my life see and understand why everyone did what they did…. That my parents were also victims of abuse from their parents and all that and yeah, I have compassion and Im really sorry they had to go through that….But it doesn’t make it ok or make mom someone I will let back in my life. I mean, I went through it and Ive dedicated my lifes work to helping others heal and I try to be so good to everyone around me so…. No excuses. And, I still have questions like: Fuck, why did dad never go to jail? Im guessing it was about the money…..and really, how did nobody in my family see that I needed help?

Anyway… Ive done epic amount of self work to be here today as a whole person and really change my reality to one where I have value and can share love. Im still working on it… My social anxiety is still the worst. I can barely form words into sentences when Im out in public and I dont have a job to do as my role to play....but you know, I keep trying and its easier and keeps getting easier… and I have amazing friends like Brad to have mini adventures with… and I have my Studio to do my art in and now that Im feeling so much more whole as a person I think I might actually see some work through to completion that I can be proud of… and I have a job that I love and Im getting training for some other skills to expand my skillset and I feel that things can only get better from here so

I feel so lucky to be alive and so fucking grateful to be me and I really like myself. It’s a miracle. All things are possible if you just remember: LOVE IS THE KEY and keep moving in that direction.

That’s my experience and now you know.

[rheyninwrites]

In From the Storm Part 9

When you arrived home Friday night, expecting to take Arthur out again, you opened the door to the smell of cooking food. In the kitchen, Arthur was hunched over the stove, humming happily to himself. You smiled. It was a picture of domestic bliss.

“What’s going on in here?” You asked, making him look up with a start.

“Hey! Just thought I’d make some dinner for tonight, so you don’t have to spend no more of your money on me.” You rolled your eyes, ready to reassure him again, but he stopped you. “I know you say you don’t mind, but the truth is, I feel like a damn fool, sitting around here doing so little. I feel like no matter what I’ll never be able to repay you for all you done for me, so I thought I’d do this, at least. Now sit down and eat, before it gets cold.”

After a few minutes of eating, you finally told him what was on your mind.

“You know, I wish you wouldn’t worry so much about doing enough to repay me. Honestly, just having you around for company is enough for me.”

“Well, I ain’t much company.”

“Sure you are. We get along, we like a lot of the same things. You make me laugh. You’re a good friend.”

“Friends, huh?” You couldn’t help but notice the slight scowl as he said that, and you rushed to reassure him that you meant it.

“Yeah. I haven’t had a lot of friends. Not real friends. Mostly my friends have all been people who I just happened to see often, but didn’t really have a lot in common with, or who used me for whatever they could, but never gave anything back. I . . .” You swallowed hard. “I guess I’ve had a pretty lonely life. Kinda pathetic, I guess.”

He looked at you sadly. “I don’t think you’re pathetic.”

You tried to shovel in a few more mouthfuls of food, to get your thoughts off of the way he was staring at you, but somehow you’d managed to scare away your appetite. After a minute, instead of forcing yourself to eat anyway, you headed to put it away, sorry you wouldn’t get to eat it fresh. He got up from the table, following you.

“I’m sorry, Arthur. It’s delicious, I just- I can’t eat it right now.”

You turned to him, half expecting him to be angry, but instead, he was still looking at you with those deep, sad eyes. You tried to hold back, be strong and not let it get to you, but seeing him look at you that way was too much. Tears stung in your eyes and were soon trailing down your cheeks.

When you tried to turn away so he wouldn’t see, he grabbed your shoulders, turning you back around and wrapping his arms around you. Soon you were sobbing into his chest while he stroked your back, resting his chin on your head. Unable to help yourself, you put your arms around his waist and soaked up the comfort he gave like your life depended on it.

When your sobs had settled down some, you leaned back, wiping your eyes.

“You know, it wouldn’t be so bad if it was just a few friends, but . . ,” you inhaled deeply, sterling yourself for the confession you were about to make, “it’s everything. Everyone. I haven’t had a single relationship with anyone that wasn’t all about the other person’s needs. If I dared want anything, I was in the wrong. No matter how much I gave, it was never enough. I was never good enough.”

A dry chuckle from Arthur. “I guess I know what you mean there.” He stroked your hair while you leaned in against his chest, enjoying his warmth. “ But I think anybody that doesn’t get how amazing you are is a goddamn idiot.”

You laugh, completely devoid of humor. “ You realize that would be literally every person I’ve ever met, right?” You lean back to look in his eyes. “I’m serious. All I’ve ever heard my whole damn life is how awful I am. How I’m horrible, ugly, and never good enough at anything to be useful. Hell, my goddamn parents told me that. So, thanks for trying, but I doubt the whole world is wrong.”

“If that’s what the whole world says, then maybe it is wrong. Cause I don’t think that at all. You’re wonderful. You’re gentle, and kind, and,”he pauses for a moment to tuck some hair behind your ear, “you’re so goddamn beautiful.”

Panic rose in his chest as he realized what he’d said, but he knew it was too late to take it back. His eyes chased out yours, trying to see how big of a mistake he’d just made, and if he would be able to fix it, but he couldn’t read anything in your sad smile, or the way you thanked him and turned away.

Though you’d moved to face away from him, he let his hands linger around your waist, not quite able to face letting you go just yet. You tried to thank him again, to tell him he was being an incredible friend in putting up with you through this, but something about the look in his eyes when you faced him again stopped you. Your thoughts turned back to what he’d just said.

He’d called you beautiful, ‘so goddamn beautiful’. But that didn’t mean anything, right? Why would it? This was a man who, despite the dismal view he seemed to have of himself, could have his choice if women here, in your world. Once he understood that, he’d never even think about you again, even as a friend.

It had to happen eventually. You pulled him over to the sofa, taking out your laptop. Soon, you had website after website up, each one filled with people talking about how attractive he was, and how much they wished he was real. You showed him, watching the confusion filter across his face.

“You see what you mean to people? How many people think you’re absolutely incredible, and would give anything to be with you?”

He shook his head. “I ain’t nothing special. Why would anyone want me?”

“Because you ARE special, Arthur, no matter what you think of yourself. As soon as I can figure out some way to get you legal, in the system, and able to cope on your own, you can have anybody you want, Arthur. Anyone.”

He reached over, carefully closing the laptop. “I don’t want just anybody. I only want one person, more than I’ve ever wanted anything before. But I know I can’t have ‘em, cause there’s no way someone like them could want someone like me. Except as a friend?” His hand slid over the top of yours as he looked in your eyes.

“Arthur- you don’t want me. I know you don’t. Give it time. I’m disgusting, unloveable. I’m probably the least desirable person on the planet.” Tears spilled from your eyes. It hurt to say it to him, but you knew it was true. There’s no way he could be happy with you, not when he could do so much better.

He moved his hand. “If you ain’t interested, you can just say so. It won’t be the first time I made a goddamn fool of myself.”

“Dammit, it’s not that! I do want you. You’re fucking amazing, Arthur, and if I thought you could be happy with me . . . .” You look down into your lap. “I’m broken. I think I always will be.”

He shifted positions, kneeling in the floor in front of you to look in your eyes. “I’m broke too. But you make me feel like I ain’t. If you’d let me, I’ll try my best to do the same for you.”

The two of you sat there, stomachs in knots, for what felt like ages. Finally, you spoke in a quiet voice. “You sure? Really sure?”

He put his forehead against yours, wrapping a hand against the back of your neck. “First time I saw your face, that night I showed up? I knew I had to be dead, because I figured nothing that beautiful could exist in the world. You looked like an angel to me. Still do.”

[television-overload]

16x24 Fanfic

Yall, I'm tired as heck, but after tonight's episode I needed to try to find a way to tie this storyline into Ziva, even if the actual show writers don't go through with it. So this is kinda a fix it fanfic for an episode that hasn't even aired yet. Wow. That's kinda sad.

Anyway, I had this idea, and I was gonna try to pass it on to someone else to write. But then I decided I want the satisfaction of writing this nice ending, so here you go. After hours of typing this on my phone, this is what you get. My version of the season finale and Gibbs' hallucinations of Diane Sterling-Fornell. Etc. ;)

-.-.-

"Diane?" Gibbs asked, shocked to see the woman at his door.

She smiled, and pressed forward. "Aren't you gonna let me in, Jethro?"

Gibbs stepped aside, too stunned to say anything in response.

The redhead made herself comfortable, shedding her jacket and surveying the living room.

Gibbs shut the door and joined her, watching her carefully. "You shouldn't be here," he said, and it was true. She had died years ago, on a rooftop, right in front of him.

Diane scoffed. "What, Mike Franks gets to stop by, but I can't?"

Gibbs sighed, walking tiredly toward his basement. "Not this again," he mumbled.

Diane followed him, trudging down the wooden staircase and taking a seat on the sawhorse. She waited expectantly, her typical stubborn and nosy demeanor not lost in her ghostly form.

"I know you're not much for words, but seeing as I am a figment of your own consciousness, maybe you should start the conversation," she finally spoke, causing Gibbs to look up from the bourbon he was busy pouring for himself.

"What do you want me to say?" Gibbs shouted suddenly, the frustration from the situation with Fornell boiling over. "Your daughter is laying half dead in a hospital, and Tobias is losing it. What am I supposed to do about that?"

"She's not my daughter, she's Diane's," the hallucination reminded Gibbs, who grumbled in annoyance.

"I've lost every daughter I ever had," Gibbs spoke after a moment, sadness lacing his voice. "I lost my wife. Now the same thing is about to happen to Tobias, and I can't do anything about it."

He had seen so many others encounter the same misery he had experienced. Vance and DiNozzo quickly came to mind.

"I wish I could stop it all. All the suffering."

Diane nodded. "It's consuming you. You want to put an end to every injustice and every bit of suffering in the world. But it's too much for one person to bear."

Gibbs shook his head and took a big swig of bourbon. "I tried to let others help, but their fates were the same," he admitted. Kate. Ziva. Clayton. Who would be next? Everyone around him suffered, and Gibbs was very clear about his thoughts towards coincidences.

"My daughters," Gibbs spoke sadly, glancing up at his boat, fittingly named "Ziva."

Diane nodded again. "Kelly was important to you, but you lost her. In a way, she is the reason you are here."

Gibbs looked at his ex-wife, and suddenly her forehead dripped with blood. She, however, didn't seem to notice.

"I had others," Gibbs said plainly, his voice rough and scratchy from the hard liquor. "Other daughters."

"I know you did," the woman spoke, only her voice had changed. When Gibbs looked back at her, it was no longer Diane, but special agent Caitlin Todd.

"Kate," Gibbs whispered, his heart sinking at the sight of her and the bullet hole in her head. He stood from his perch on the workbench and made his way closer. She was so real, his mind was playing tricks on him.

Kate smiled, the corners of her eyes crinkling a little. "Hello, Gibbs."

Gibbs shook his head, feeling altogether overwhelmed.

"I'm sorry, Kate," Gibbs spoke, reaching out to her forehead, but stopping short of her wound. He knew she wasn't there. There was nothing to touch, just open space.

After Kelly, Abby and Kate had come along and started to heal the old festering wound left by Kelly's absence. Abby, of course, was alive and well, but he had come close to losing her too. Kate wasn't so lucky.

"Isn't saying sorry a sign of weakness?" Kate challenged, staring expectantly at Gibbs, who made no effort to answer. "Or has that rule been thrown out too?"

Gibbs closed his eyes and rubbed his temples with his fingers.

"It's all a mess," he said finally. "This whole time, rule 10 has been a lie." All these years, Gibbs thought he was the poster child for his rule book. But it turns out, he had been breaking them as long as they were around.

Kate smirked. "Just because you make a rule doesn't mean you always follow it."

Every case weighed on Gibbs, even though he liked to pretend it didn't. It was almost like he left behind tiny pieces of his soul in each case file. Now he had hardly any soul left to give.

Maybe Grace was right. He couldn't keep going this forever.

"I'm getting too old for this," Gibbs admitted, taking another big gulp of bourbon.

"You and me both, Probie," a rough voice replied. And now in Kate's place stood Mike Franks.

Gibbs stood motionless before speaking to his old mentor, who was Gibbs' most frequent ghostly visitor. "Can't seem to leave me alone, can you Mike?" he said exhasperatedly.

"I could say the same thing to you." Mike responded with a deep, wheezing laugh. "You really need me to knock some sense into you every time you have a mental breakdown?"

Gibbs poured himself a refill of bourbon before responding.

"Let's just say, it's times like these I miss our little shack in Mexico by the beach," Gibbs mused, sending a humorless smile Mike's way.

"Running from your problems won't work this time," Mike observed. "Didn't work so well last time either, if I recall."

Gibbs remembered his brief attempt at retirement all those years ago. He had felt so free of all responsibility, but maybe that had something to do with the memory loss. Now, knowing that he can make a difference and lock up the bad guys, he can't just sit idly by. But what was he sacrificing for this job? Ellie and Kasie, his newest daughters, he couldn't lose them too. Nick was headstrong, quick to act, but thoughtful. He had become a part of Gibbs' team, and was now his responsibility as well. They all had stories. Some more tragic than others, but no one had it easy. Maybe it was something about Gibbs' brokenness that drew other broken people to him.

"If I stay away, people get hurt. If I get too close, people get hurt," Gibbs lamented, clutching his jar of alcohol much too tight. "How am I supposed to protect them?"

There was no response, and then a soft, gentle voice cut through the silence. "I thought that's what your rules were for."

Gibbs nearly dropped his bourbon upon hearing her voice. She spoke so calmly, so confidently.

"Jenny."

The woman smiled and gave him a nod.

"I burned rule 10," Gibbs announced, expecting a reaction from Jenny, though perhaps he shouldn't have. She did, in fact, know everything he knew already.

"And..." she prompted him to continue.

Gibbs sighed. "And...I broke rule 4."

Jenny's eyebrows raised. "Any other rules you'd like to throw out? I've noticed rule 12 has been somewhat of an issue lately. Or maybe always carrying a knife isn't so practical. I mean, do you really need a knife when you take a shower?"

Gibbs grunted in frustration. "I don't know what to believe anymore."

"How about you get your head out of the past and look at what is right in front of you for a change," Jenny challenged, her voice becoming stern.

"Because I NEED the past. I have to learn from my mistakes." Gibbs countered, his voice and temper matching hers.

"But you also say to let go," Jenny pointed out. "You tell others to ignore their feelings, to block out their emotions and move forward. How do you reconcile your rules with that?"

Jenny's voice of reason was unwelcome.

"Leave me alone. All of you!" Gibbs shouted. "Get out of my house! Get out of my head!"

Jenny promptly stood and left, her heels clicking on the hard basement floor. Gibbs watched her ascend the wooden staircase, and turned away with a huff once he was sure she was gone.

These apparitions had been pestering him for long enough, and it wasn't helping him with any of his problems. Fornell was still close to losing his daughter, and Gibbs had already lost several. He had dragged everyone he ever cared for down into his pit of suffering and despair. He had gotten emotionally involved in every case he ever worked, and he was only just admitting that to himself. It still weighed heavily on him. He carried every case, especially those dealing with the deaths of the people he loved, with him everywhere he went.

Gibbs heard a squeak on the top step of the wooden staircase, and anger filled him once again. "I told you to leave me alone," he said gruffly, taking another sip of bourbon. When the apparition didn't speak, he turned around to see who it was this time.

Ziva.

There she stood, at the top of the staircase, right where she was when she killed Ari to save Gibbs' life. Of course.

"Not you, too," Gibbs said, exhausted from all this speaking with the dead business. "I suppose you're here to tell me that it's okay to have an emotional connection to a case, and that rule 10 was a mistake all along."

The woman's eyebrow furrowed.

"Go ahead. Tell me about how my rules pushed you away, made you feel alone, and got you killed. Say it."

Ziva started descending the stairs, confusion and sadness evident on her face.

"Gibbs," she said softly, approaching him slowly.

"What?" he asked. His patience was wearing thin.

Suddenly, she jumped into his arms and held him tight, tears streaming down her face.

Gibbs' heart skipped a beat. Slowly, he began to realize that this was no apparition. This was Ziva, truly alive and breathing and standing in his basement.

"Ziver?" he asked, choking on the word as his arms made their way around her torso.

She nodded into his shoulder, sobs wracking her body.

Gibbs stood there in disbelief for several minutes before pushing her back to take a look at her. Unlike Diane, Kate, Mike, and Jenny, she looked different than he remembered her. Her cheeks were a little fuller, and her hair was cut shorter, about shoulder length.

"You're alive," Gibbs murmured, his hand framing her face and inspecting her for any sign that this wasn't real.

"Yes," she choked out, clinging desperately to Gibbs's shoulders. Gibbs was reminded of the moment he remembered who Ziva was, and what she had done after that time that he lost his memory. Their bond had always been deeper than others realized. Bound by death and trust. Right here in this basement.

Gibbs pulled her to him once more, afraid that if he didn't hold her close, her solid form would slip away and he would be left with a ghost again.

"Tony and Tali?" Gibbs inquired.

Ziva shook her head. "I will tell you everything later.

That suited him just fine. For now, he had his daughter back, and the guilt over rule 10 being her downfall was no more.

A tiny glimmer of hope appeared for Emily, Tobias' daughter. And Gibbs was no longer spiraling out of control, not knowing who he was or what he believed.

Now he knew.

He was Special Agent Leroy Jethro Gibbs. And he believed in family.

-.-.-

Any comments are much appreciated! If I screwed up anything, blame autocorrect or my big fat fingers. Thanks for reading!

[january3693]

Someone We Used to Know - Part 16

(This is a Marauders Era AU about what might have changed if Sirius was expelled after the Prank. Here’s the Master List if you’d like to start from the beginning or find a specific part)

Sirius doesn’t have friends, not anymore. He knows plenty of people he counts as friendly acquaintances, but no true friends. Not like the Marauders.

He tells himself that after what happened at Hogwarts he prefers it that way. Sometimes he even believes it.

He might not have found new friends after his expulsion, but one thing Sirius hasn’t shied away from finding new teachers. Some he sought out, others found him. From them, Sirius learned things Hogwarts would never teach him. Languages, magical theory, wandless magic, conceptual charms, or dangerous potions.

Then there’s Laverna Foley.

A squib born to a pureblood family in Dublin, Laverna was cast out of her family when she failed to show any signs of magic. With one foot in the wizarding world and another in the muggle world, Laverna was forced to make her own way in a cruel and terrible world. Even if that meant breaking a few laws.

It’s a sad story. It might even be a true story.

Here’s another true story though. Of all of Sirius’s post-Hogwarts teachers, Laverna was the best of them. She taught Sirius the fine points of forgery and art theft and how to run a confidence game against both Muggles and wizards.

“Bonjour!” There’s a familiar Irish lilt behind the French greeting when Laverna answers the phone.

“I fucked up,” Sirius replies.

There’s a pause, then an almost serpentine hiss.

“I told you! Didn’t I warn you? Didn’t I tell you not to go to fucking London? I specifically remember telling you in these exact words that ‘Dark Lords are bad for business.’”

Knowing they won’t get anywhere until he admits he was wrong and she was right, Sirius sighs. “Yes, Laverna, you said exactly that, and I didn’t listen.”

“I’m guessing you didn’t get the Chiaroscuro then, unless that ‘gas-pipe explosion’ I saw on the telly this morning was your doing,” Laverna says. “If so, it was ballsy, but it lacks your usual subtlety.”

“The explosions weren’t me,” Sirius says. He leans against the wall and lets himself slide down it until he’s sitting on the carpet, his hotel telephone cradled in his arms and the receiver pinned between his ear and his shoulder. “It was Voldemort’s followers, idiots in masks and stupid-looking hoods. I guess they’re openly calling themselves Death Eaters these days.”

“Coincidence?” Laverna asks, though Sirius knows she doesn’t believe in coincidences.

“As far as I can tell…but that’s not all. I saw someone I knew last night,” Sirius confesses. He wraps his fingers through the curly phone cord and wishes there was more vodka in the minibar.

“Among the fucksticks in masks?”

“No…an old friend from school,” Sirius says. If he closes his eyes, he knows he’ll see Remus’s shocked expression, his wide amber eyes. He’d looked good in a tuxedo, though Sirius still can’t fathom what Remus was doing at an art museum or fighting Death Eaters.

“Well,” Laverna says, “that certainly explains the phone call I received this morning.”

“What phone call?” Sirius asks, sitting up straighter.

“Your friend from school, would his name be Remus Lupin by chance?” Laverna asks. She pronounces Remus’s name with an audible sneer.

“Shite!” Sirius says, viciously raking a hand through his tangled hair.

“Precisely,” Laverna says acidly. “You gave the museum one of the phone numbers that rings back to me, and somehow your old friend got ahold of that information. Merlin’s poxy cock, Black! I thought you’d had this heroic streak beaten out of you. How many more blows to the head is it going to take to get it through your thick skull that you’re not Robin Hood?”

“It’s not like that,” Sirius protests. He doesn’t dare tell Laverna that when the fighting started, he jumped in and helped.

Laverna sighs, she seems to know anyway. “Do me a favor then. Find a mirror and let me know when you’re standing in front of it.”

Sirius looks up from toying with the telephone cord. There’s a mirror on the wall directly across from where he’s sitting. He stares at his reflection, wondering what he’s supposed to see besides a cut on his forehead in need of a plaster and a suit no dry cleaner is ever going to be able to fix.

What had Remus seen when he’d stared at Sirius last night? Had he noticed the sharpness that had never quite left Sirius’s face after those first few hungry months on the streets of London? What about the lump halfway down his nose from when it had been broken and Sirius couldn’t figure out a wandless episkey to fix it? The suit would have hidden his tattoos and most of his scars at least.

“Are you looking in a mirror yet?” Laverna asks sharply.

“Yes,” Sirius replies.

“All right then, tell me what color your hair is.”

Sirius frowns. “What does that have to do with anything?” He reaches up and tugs on a short strand of black hair.

“And your eyes?” Laverna asks. “What color are they right now? Did you bother to disguise yourself at all last night?”

“I didn’t see the need,” Sirius protests feebly. “I was just getting the layout and security specs, not actually stealing the painting.”

“So, you went back to the one city in the world where you’re most likely to be recognized without so much as changing your hair color?” The sarcasm is rolling off Laverna’s tongue. “I don’t know who you wanted to find you Black, but it sounds like you’ve succeeded. Congratulations.”

“That’s not—I didn’t want this to happen! Sirius snaps.

“If that’s true then go to the airport and get on the first plane leaving London, Laverna says.

“What about the job?” Sirius asks.

“Fuck the job,” Laverna snaps. “Tell the buyer the painting’s too hot to touch right now. Considering there was literally an explosion while you were casing the museum, he should believe you. Even if he doesn’t, fuck him anyway.”

There it is, the advice Sirius wanted. The second opinion to back up his own instinct to run. He closes his eyes and pictures Remus, wand drawn, fighting as elegantly as other people dance.

“I need to finish this,” Sirius says. He’s not sure in that moment if he’s talking about the painting or something else entirely. He just knows he can’t leave London. Not yet.

There’s silence on the line for several long seconds. Sirius counts them with twists of the phone cord around his fingers. Laverna might have a soft spot for him, but she’s not his friend.

“You’re on your own, Black,” she says finally. “Don’t get sentimental.”

With those final words, she hangs up on him, and Sirius feels very much alone as he listens to the dial tone.

He puts the receiver back and sets the phone on the floor next to him. Before he has more than a minute to contemplate the decision he’s just made, the phone rings again.

“Mr. Sterling, this is Helen from the front desk,” a woman replies when Sirius ansers. She has that forced cheerfulness familiar across all service industries, but beneath it she sounds a little confused and guarded herself. “There are guests here asking for you,” Helen continues, “a…Messrs. Moony, er, Wormtail, and Prongs?”

Well, that was fast.

(Part 17)

[thisisthe-way]

Torn

The soft flicking of keyboard keys echoed against the walls of Bakugou’s apartment as he typed up the rest of his reports.

His brow furrowed as he growled, the muscles in his arms spasming as he jerked his fingers back from the keyboard.

He flexed his fingers, his eyes slanted downward angrily.

“Kacchan!!”

Bakugou’s eyes snapped toward Midoriya and he snapped, “Get out of here, Deku!! I don’t need your help!!”

“Watch out!!” Midoriya cried as a large villain, his Quirk that of a rock Gollum, grabbed Bakugou by both of his grenade bracers as he launched himself st the creature. The villain roared and crushed the bracers like soda cans, as Bakugou’s arms slid out and he started launching explosions at the creatures face with his bare arms and hands.

Deku roared as he launched himself against the villain, knocking him down, the enemy rolling into wall of the building across the street.

But he stood back up, yelled loudly and started to rush Midoriya. Despite knowing that the One-for-All hero could handle the battle himself, Bakugou leapt between them, shooting off stronger, hotter explosions, blasting over and over until he felt the very fibers of his muscles tear and stretch, breaking and shredding as he gasped, quietly, and pulled back, his ears picking up one finely, “SMAAAASH” from behind him as their combined strength finally bested the rock villain.

Bakugou sat on the asphalt, his arms completely destroyed, though not outwardly, simply from stubborn pride. When Midoriya came to help him up, he pretended he was fine, swatting the man’s hand away with normal arm movements, causing intense pain.

Now, Bakugou sat at home finishing the reports he was supposed to have done in the office before end of day, but the pain had been so excruciating that he had to take breaks between typing, and he didn’t need his boss seeing him and insisting he needed to take more time off. He had already taken enough the last time he got hurt.

He’d just work through it. 

He heard the click of the lock on his front door, and his red eyes slid toward the front door, a tiny smile playing in his usually scowling lips when he saw Uraraka come through the door with a bag. 

“Hey!!” She cried, “I brought dinner! How was your day?”

“A day,” Bakugou replied, standing up and stepping toward her, holding out his hand to take the dinner bag from her. He didn’t anticipate that it might be heavy at all, and when it hit his hand, sharp pain shot up his arm, causing him to yell and drop the bag, the containers of ramen within spilling everywhere.

Uraraka’s eyes immediately widened in concern as he gripped his forearm. “Katsu! What’s wrong? What’s wrong??” She knelt to examine his arm, finding no physical signs of damage. “Katsu?”

“It’s n-nothing. Probably just a random muscle spasm,” he mumbled. “Sorry about dinner. If you’ll clean that up, I’ll make something.”

Uraraka frowned, watching him, eyes full of suspicion and concern. “O....okay, anata.” She frowned down at the soup, chewing her lip thoughtfully, anxiously, before trailing down the hall to find the cleaning supplies.

As Uraraka began to scrub the soup stains out of the carpet, and heard another yell and a growl, and then clatter and shatter of dishes. She jumped up and immediately ran into the kitchen, where Bakugou was kneeling, squeezing his fists open and closed as his entire set of soup bowls lay shattered on the floor, the high cabinet they were being kept in still open.

“Bakugou Katsuki, Tell me what the hell is haplening, right now,” Uraraka cried, concern and frustration heavy in her voice. “What the hell is wrong with your arms?”

“What are you, my mother?! Nothing!“ He snapped back, glaring up st her with red eyes glistening with unahed tears of pain.

“Tell me now or I swear I’ll call Deku-kun,” Uraraka threatened. “I saw the articles online; I know he helped you take down that villain.”

“He wouldn’t know anyway,” Bakugou growled, having kept this particular secret pretty well under wraps through most of their school years. Only three people knew about it, and they were all U.A. faculty.

“Katsuki, what’s going on—I thought we were past keeping stuff from each other,” Uraraka whispered, touching his forearms. “What’s going on? Why can’t you tell me?”

“Because I can’t afford to take anymore days off! This is not what pros do—they work through shit! All Might worked through his fuckin’ stomach being ripped out of his body!!” He roared back, and winded when he tended the muscles in his arms too much in his anger. “Fuuuuck.”

“Katsuki....” She asked again, gently, touching his cheek when a tear fell. “You’re obviously in a lot of pain. Please?”

“I have to be number one. I have to pass Deku. I have to pass Hot-Cold—I can’t—I can’t—“ He groaned, clearly suffering physically. He looked up st his girlfriend with a pathetic, pained expression.

“Katsuki,” she said for what felt like the hundredth time.

He sighed and continued to open and close his fists. “I...shredded the muscles in my arms.”

“WHAT?! Katsuki!” Uraraka shrieked, immediately pressing gently into the muscle and immediately noticing the difference as her boyfriend hissed in pain. “Oh my god, I’m taking you to the hospital. Right now! Right now; get up!”

“No!! They’ll make me take time off!” He barked, eyes flashing dangerously.

“Bakugou Katsuki, Get your ass off of this damn floor and follow me or I swear I will float you all the way to the hospital on a string!!” Her eyes flared with just as much angry passion.

Somehow he knew she wasn’t kidding. Groaning and griping, he stood, arms now hanging limp in front of him so he didn’t have to try and use the muscles, he nodded reluctantly, and followed his girlfriend out of the apartment.

/////

“Kiiiiiissssss.“

Recovery Girl removed her healing lips from Bakugou’s arms and gave him a stern look. “We talked about this when you started doing intensive training with All Might and Aizawa, didn’t we?”

“Tch,” Bakugou scoffed, glancing away.

Uraraka frowned from the corner of the room. “Recovery Girl?”

“Bakugou and Midoriya are more alike than they like to admit,” the healing hero said, her voice slightly playful before she turned to Uraraka. “It’s s good thing the hospital called me in. Bakugou’s Quirk, Like Midoriya’s, is extremely powerfull. Harness it correctly, with the right training and equipment, it can be a useful tool in a battle.”

She looked back at the young man, as if expecting him to offer the rest of the information willingly.

He scoffed again and crossed his arms over his chest, before lifting one hand and staring intensely into his palm. “Sometimes, if I use my Quirk at full force for too long without my grenade bracers to syphon the power, it...messes with the muscles in my arms.”

“And your bracers got crushed like tin cans in your fight today, didn’t they?” Recovery Girl asked, handing Uraraka an iPad with pictures of Midoriya and Bakugou after the battle. And Bakugou was sans bracers.

“It almost happened in my fight with you first year,” Bakugou said, suddenly, realizing he’d never told her. “You fought so hard that you pushed me almost to my limit.”

“....that blast,” Uraraka said, looking up st him from the iPad. “That blast at the end of the match was all you had, wasn’t it? You—you’re always...so reckless!! It’s not this important to be the best, Katsuki!”

She turned the iPad and pointed at the article. “You tried to upstage Deku-kun and nearly ruined your arms permanently!!” She looked down at her feet. “We talked about this. You’re not just you anymore. You care so much about beating Deku that it makes you forget you’re supposed to care about us.”

“I’ll leave you two alone,” Recovery Girl said, realizing they needed to talk, before exiting the exam room.

Bakugou glanced up at her from his seated position on the exam table. “Ochako...”

“No!” She snapped, slamming the tablet down. “No. Katsuki, you need to fix this. You don’t care enough about me, or yourself, to realize how damaging this is.” She lifted her eyes, and they were full of tears, and somber determination. “And until you do, I think maybe we need to take a break.”

His eyes widened suddenly and he stood up, towering over her suddenly. “What?! Ochako, no, we don’t need a—“

“This is the second time you’ve decided being some arrogant hot shot hero is more important than your life. Or our life together,” she replied, taking a step back from him. “I can’t...I can’t be here to watch you destroy yourself. It would kill me.”

Bakugou’s hands began to spark, involuntarily, and he followed her step with his own, moving close to her again. “Ochako, don’t—“

But it was too late. She had turned and gone without even an explanation from him.

Maybe because they both knew what his answer would be. He had tried to turn it off—the jealousy and arrogance. The need to be number one. To an extent he had, and it was easier around her.

But Deku’s face still managed to piss him off. Deku jumping into his fight.

Maybe he did need to work on some things. But he didn’t know how he could do it without her. Sterling himself, decided, he rushed after her, using his natural physical prowess (and no Quirk) to catch up to her and wrap his arms firmly around her from behind, burying his mouth and nose in her hair.

“Okay,” He whispered. “You’re right. I—I need you. I need us....more than I need to be better than Deku. And I....I’ll do whatever it takes to fuckin’....figure myself out. But I need your help—don’t go, marui kao. Don’t go. I was a way worse person without you—I can only get better with you.”

“That isn’t true,” she whispered back, leaning one of her round cheeks against his arm, not looking up at him. “You’re already a good man. You just feel like you have someone to be good for now. Look, I don’t want you to stop being you. I just don’t want you to disregard your life so much in battle that you act reckless. You’re worth so much more than that.”

She finally tilted her head back and looked up at him. “To me.”

He sighed against her hair. “I know. Deku’s dumb nerd face still pisses me off. But I guess I can imagine your dumb cute face instead and maybe I won’t blow my arms open anymore.”

She laughed a little and shrugged, leaning back against him. “Well,” she murmured, “It’s a start.”