#baby's first attempt to start with greyscale

[multiiocular-mushroom]

a metamorphosis;

a confession.

[255940g]

Any title ideas guys? Ch.11 - What I thought would happen

Chapter Summary: This is like a directors commentary for a movie. Also known as what I thought would happen with different scenes from the original fic, but didn't.

Inspo fic: Don't say you'd rather waly by Greyscales

Meeting Ironhide:

“Hey, Ironhide. Nice to officially meet you I guess. Before you take them out again, you know damn well that your cannons are cool. Why do you need validation?” Sam panted breathlessly while fearlessly approaching the larger being.

“How do you know my designation?” He asked

A good distance away Sam sent a quick smile looking him directly not his optics “It’ll be better if I tell everyone at once.”

Ironhide accepts that and stays by her neither speaking much. (that scene with Bumblebee and the ‘Are you ok?’ was far too sweet and it sets it up during the rest of the book where something hugely dramatic happens probably to Sam, but she starts to comfort those around her, mainly Bee. Like this happens after suddenly meeting the other Autobots and killing Frenzy, then after killing Megatron by getting far too close for anyone’s comfort to both the power of the Allspark, Megatron, and Megatron’s spark, after she wakes up from changing species for the alien species. Beautifully done. I adore all of it!)

When she meets the rest of the Autobots:

After exchanging hellos, and calling them by name. Pulls out from under her shirt a hidden satchel and then holds it out to Optimus. “Here are the glasses you’re looking for. Unfortunately, The location is no longer accurate as sector 7 already found the Allspark and is holding it and Megatron under the Hoover dam somewhere. Apparently, a ton of concrete around both of them is able to hide their signatures. They’re keeping Megatron still by basically keeping him at or near arctic temperatures, that’s going to fail when they take Judy Ron and me in a few hours. They can track the benign radiation coming from your sparks. They can currently only trace the larger signatures off of organic materials” gesturing to herself with a little bit of a shrug. “It’s inevitable that anyone interacting with you all will have a similar signature. Thinking of Sector 7, the agents have already started to experiment with the radiation coming off of it. They have a whole chamber that locks from the outside. They place a piece of tech - which came around after they started experimenting on Megatron so there might be a connection with that - and combine it with the radiation of the Allspark. There’s an angry baby cybertronian inside, so they start to electrocute them until they die and take the corpse for experimenting and further researching.” Taking the time to glance around and seeing the confused and slightly dubious reaction, Sam assumes that it's due to humans having reverse engineered and developed a way to fully kill a cybertronian and so explained “Ratchet when you landed, you landed on a few power lines and were shocked pretty badly, but you merely lifted your helm and said something like ‘what a rush, right?”

“That was my exact words and actions”

“Alright, it’s gonna be like that but heavily amplified. That’s a sabot shell. They hurt like hell, which if Bee decides to interrupt their kidnapping attempt of Judy, Ron and me then he’ll experience that torture first hand,” hearing Bee’s gears whir Sam turned around in his palm, “So instead of stepping in between, maybe you could follow us to the Hoover dam and keep track of things like that, or even hacking them and saving the files that when Megatron gets free - which he will in a matter of days. The system keeping him down takes up a lot of energy and rightfully, he’s harbouring extreme anger and prejudice against humanity as a whole. So he decides to take out as much of the information they’ve gathered. If you keep a copy of the obvious lack of ethics they have and the prejudice against Cybertronians, it’ll be very likely that getting the official treaty and an actual base of operations much easier as concessions out of the massive budget of the American military has.”

Everyone pauses for a moment of stillness where Sam believes them to each be digesting the information she’s dumped on them.

In reality, they are sharing an extensive amount of information over the comms, where Bee explains that she knew his name, then apologising that she stopped some tentative plans he was going to try to get chosen and into her care by literally destroying all the other cars in the lot, and some details which she rightfully shouldn’t know, all within the first 5 minutes of getting into his cab. Ironhide collaborates her story by saying she was initially startled and called his exact designation he decided on not even a few klicks before and called out his usual greeting by subverting it herself and acknowledging that yes, his cannons are very cool.

Ratchet says that not only did she exactly state what he said, she retired the main action he did, and also that she was using the correct closest cybertronian term for their body parts and the human variety for humans.

Jazz piped up about she knew literally all of their names in order and their rank, in the order that oh so long ago they agreed upon.

Ratchet:: She definitely knows something::

Interrupting their comms, Optimus stated expertly hiding how off-kilter and unplanned this meeting had gone “What do you want us to do with this information?”

“Ideally, this would be 100% up to you Optimus, I’m absolutely no strategist, but I’ve definitely had different ideas as I’ve stewed over this in the past year. You want to trust me, but you need to verify what I’ve said. So why not just split into two groups? One to follow the coordinates in the glasses and the other to follow whenever the path Sector 7 makes. Trust but verify, Ratchet’s continual scans will say that at the very least, I’m believing every word that comes out of my mouth as the absolute truth, also sorry about the high spikes of anxiety, I’ve been diagnosed with it, unfortunately. I can only offer suggestions based on what knowledge I have. Thinking of which do you want me to remove the glasses from the cases. I tried protecting them as best as I could from Frenzy and Barricade, but they aren’t exactly friendly Cybertronian digits.”

:: I am. Not a single lie or obfuscation either. Even down to the rates of anxiety.::

Optimus took the lead again “And why start out with sharing so much information?”

“Why wouldn’t I? This is knowledge and patterns which directly affect your very life. Like someone is likely thinking, I have more information that you’ll need to know patterns to hopefully make everything easier, foreknowledge is forewarned. But, I’m more worried about the next threeish days. Whatever knowledge I have about the Mission City battle and what leads up to it, I’ll share. So while there is a saying about change negating knowledge, and knowledge negating change, I haven’t changed much. I didn’t try and sell the glasses via eBay, I stopped Bee from ruining a guy’s livelihood, and I'm not freaking out about Cybertronians, so the average police officer isn’t aware of what's up.”

They separate and unknown to Sam they do actually follow her idea and plan, because like she said trust, but verify. The usual in the fic happens, Sam gets the sparkling and the cube to shrink down while alerting the people that sabot rounds work better against Cybertronians. Ironhide and Bee start to try and get through the door and Sam recognises Ironhide and gets out of the base faster while the two bots are still in surprise about the sparkling and the cube. Approaching Bee, but briefly glancing back at Willian Lennox “I’m also going to assume that you, Mr Lennox, were about to tell Mr Epps about being able to get a signal out to some of your people and they’ve prepared to pick up at Mission city?”

“You know my nickname?” Epps muttered staring at the kid in front of him.

“How the fuck did you know that I was about to do that?” William practically demanded.

But all Sam did was turn to the two Autobots in front of her “Mission City,” In a disgusted voice. “Don’t forget to pack Sabot rounds for against the ‘cons!” she calls back to the soldiers as she speeds up towards Bee and Ironhide.

Sam bonds a little with the sparkling in her arms, but gets the attention back by announcing Starscream's attack, then the second one “Bee, on the second strike you need to be extra careful, that's where you lose your legs. This time there’s no Mikaela around to drag your torso around on the back of a tow truck.

However, this pre-warning only amplifies that she absolutely knows something and is to definitely be looked after and out for. Saving Jazz’s life - Bee only was just barely able to get him to stop from beginning the climb up the building.

The fic battle happens as per usual. The bots and Sam get back to Sector 7’s base and Sam is officially in the dark for this section of the movie; however, this is how I thought the whole interaction would go.

A random sector 7 agent walks slightly up and tries to get her to come over to the human side “So we can protect you from them.” (as per usual in the fic)

“I'm more protected with them than going with the agency which commits mass infanticide.”

The random agent pauses and asks “What do you mean by infanticide?”. This is seen by Simmons and William’s herd of agents, all of which are carefully observing everything.

Snapping her fingers Sam continues as if the agent hasn’t spoken “You’re right, infanticide is just killing a ton of children. What Sector 7 did was worse. They brought infants to life, then tortured them to death only to experiment on the corpse. Don’t even try to mentally hide behind the idea of ‘just following orders, that hasn't worked as an excuse for a lack of personal morals in around half a century, in all fields. I have more important things to do.” Completely turning on her heel Sam approached Ratchet “Hey Ratchet, do you have any extra time to add one to your patient list? I wasn’t fast enough to stop the electrocution. I want to make sure they’re alright. Gently bouncing the sparkling in her arms.

Ratchet leaned down to place his hand near the floor in an invitation that Sam willingly took. Going as far as to sit on the palm. Ratchet teased “Only if I can add one more to the list.” Sending a significant look towards Sam.

“Sure Ratchet. You haven’t done anything to discourage my trust.” Meeting his optics head-on with a beaming smile and raising an eyebrow.

The growing smile on his faceplate let her know that she wasn’t just talking about since they crashlanded on Earth, but in whatever future, she was able to see. Also that it was another verbal slap in the face to the listening-in agents that an alien who she’s officially met once garnered more trust than her own species.

Playfully narrowing his eyes “And you’re undergoing the basic evaluation?” the two of them knowing that he had her base scans already taken during their initial meeting.

“Of course. That's standard when you go to a new doctor, or even just go to see the doctor. Sparkling first, though.”

Ratchet looked at Ironhide “See this is how to be a decent patient. Preemptive care and recognising when things are out of their own medical knowledge. Be more like Sam.” while carrying Sam and Ellie in his servos to a corner of the temporary base.

After getting home from learning that her memories were affected.:

So Sam absolutely shuts down, but her memories are at stake. She knows that Fate, Destiny Karma, whoever is going to do the worst thing possible. So Sam starts up her computer after Ellie is done and wants cuddles and love before slipping into recharge. Sam starts up the computer again and begins to write as accurately everything that she knew before becoming Sam. If she was right then she would lose these memories. If she was wrong then they were going to be of use to the Autobots either way and finally they could be shared as a recording for her, later.

To everyone else, Sam is practically mute and always typing things down but interacting with Ellie. Her time inside Bee is half silent and pondering the other half is being in Bee’s cab and frantically typing. No one knows what she’s typing and she isn’t talking from the surprise. But she’s eating and sleeping and slowly greater frequencies. Ellie still gets her time on the computer while Sam is introspective and Sam interacts with Ellie but the world shifts down to those three things.

After Sam says something and is moved to the Autobot base and is with her first exam with Ratchet. Where she says “I’m putting down all the information I can of the future. I want at least you and Optimus to have full access to all of the information. You said last time that it was already affecting my brain and memories. I need to have this information known so you can be aware of the trends to look out for.”

“Ratchet is both floored at this secret and forbidden knowledge but also highly concerned with the concern and responsibility that comes from even glimpses of the future. With the knowledge she had, she saved Jazz’s life, Ellie's life, and most likely Bee’s well-being.

Sam continues in her now much softer voice even through the discomfort that she admitted to earlier “Please Ratchet. I need to get this out. I need to try and prevent you from being hunted for years before being torn apart for parts while your processor and spark are barely kept alive so some random ass company can pick at it for the information you have on Cybertronians, so this company can forcefully make their own.”

If he were human Ratchet would have already been pale from the information but this frankness of how he could possibly die if she didn’t share it, along with the miserable existence he could possibly lead to and the sheer weight that this information would have, along with the unimaginable stress that she was carrying. He would have glitched if it weren’t for his protocols demanding his attention on his two now distressed patients. (Sam and Bee were the actual distressed patients. Ellie was only distressed because Sam an Bee were. Once the two of them calmed down, then Ellie was easily put into a happier mood.)

[mittensmorgul]

As Above, So Below

I’m still trying to pinpoint exactly why the focus on “heaven is fixed and actually a paradise now!” is just so deeply unsatisfying to me. And I think I need to preface this with a bit of backstory about me, because I think that gives the rest of this essay some relevant context.

I know this isn’t relevant to my main point here, but this is a metatextual and thematically identical example of the exact thing I’m gonna lay out, because context is always helpful. So please forgive this seemingly irrelevant detour, because I promise it will be relevant by the end.

(plus, would it really be an Essay By Mittens™ without at least one baffling tangent? no, it would not!)

Tangent time!

I think everyone that follows me knows how skeptical I was... or should I say how WARY I was of the way Eileen was returned to the narrative this season. We were warned in the PREVIOUS EPISODE how much Chuck was attempting to interfere in their lives. I was accused of some very nasty things, of hating the ship, or hating the character of Eileen, or of hating Sam and not wanting them to be happy. No amount of pointing at obvious warning signs in the text, no amount of yelling about Sam’s God Wound or the absolute klaxon warning that the wound had become “quiet” and his Chuck-O-Vision Nightmares had apparently stopped seemed to matter. I was declared “wrong” and told to shut up.

And then 15.09 happened, and basically everything I’d been wary of was shown to be what actually happened, but there were still unresolved issues. Eileen doubted her own feelings and walked away. She doubted what was actually real. And at the time, I said many times that I would be thrilled to see those issues resolved by the end of the season, and for her to truly know that what she’d felt growing between her and Sam was real. And by the end of the season, despite my personal horror at her previous situation (and having that personal horror compounded by the fandom literally gaslighting me and attempting to bully me into ignoring this basic actual plot detail of this specific growth process which... in the context of what my personal objection was to accepting her return at face value in the first place having been personal trauma associated with gaslighting and manipulation...) by the time 15.18 aired, I was 100% convinced that Sam and Eileen had fully chosen each other, and felt the traumatic pain Sam suffered during that text conversation with her during the snap. She NEEDED to come back, because she had been set up to be part of Sam’s Win. They were clearly each other’s future.

The show literally put in all the work to make even *me* feel this to be True and Right and Good. And then after that point we never even hear Eileen’s name again. We never were told that she was even returned at the end of 15.19. Sam, who had been so entirely devastated by her disappearance in the previous episode that he couldn’t even process it was apparently hit with an amnesia hammer and just... never even thought about her again through a long greyscale life with a blurry baby Dean factory vaguely in the background of a single scene of his life. I can’t credit or justify how after an entire year invested in making us all truly care about Sam and Eileen and the happiness they found in each other if only the cosmos would allow them to choose each other in the end would just... erase all of that in the series finale.

Which brings me to the second tangent, which is specifically about *me,* and how I feel about the cosmic order in the television show Supernatural. Because I feel a lot about it. Probably more than most people ever did. And this is also important to understanding the main underlying point I need to make here.

Something I’ve been most looking forward to, for YEARS, about Supernatural eventually ending someday was writing a book, or a thesis, or even just organizing and compiling all my observations into a cohesive narrative specifically about the cosmology of the Supernatural universe. I’ve been cobbling together my observations and realizations about the nature of heaven, hell, purgatory, the empty, the alternate universes we’ve seen, and yes, even the cosmic function of the mundane level of the story as told by events that transpired on Earth. So of everyone watching this dumb show for the last 15 years, I don’t actually know anyone who cared more that I did about finding a satisfactory resolution and transformation of every plane of existence-- the mortal world AND the “afterlife realms” we’ve experienced on this show. And in the wake of the finale, I feel cheated out of that. Because in the end, it wasn’t about the triumph of free will and a flip of the script, it was just more of the same.

And now that I have those two preliminaries out of the way, I’ll finally get to the point. :’D

(hooray, it didn’t even take 1k words to get there for once!)

The “main stage” of Supernatural has always been Earth. It’s always been “Humanity.” At the very start, we meet two men whose lives had always been dictated to them by higher powers. At first, that “higher power” was their father who raised them in his vengeance mission, who trained them to hunt the supernatural. It was the inciting incident of the entire series, after all, their realization that forces outside of their control had irrevocably altered the course of their lives. It had forever torn down what they’d trusted in family, in personal safety, and would become something they couldn’t outrun or fight back against for long before another wave of cosmic discord would settle over them once more.

We watched this story play out in ever increasing spheres of cosmic significance, until Gabriel laid it out on the table for them in the simplest possible terms (in 5.08).

GABRIEL: You do not know my family. What you guys call the apocalypse, I used to call Sunday dinner. That's why there's no stopping this, because this isn't about a war. It's about two brothers that loved each other and betrayed each other. You'd think you'd be able to relate. SAM: What are you talking about? GABRIEL: You sorry sons of bitches. Why do you think you two are the vessels? Think about it. Michael, the big brother, loyal to an absent father, and Lucifer, the little brother, rebellious of Daddy's plan. You were born to this, boys. It's your destiny! It was always you! As it is in heaven, so it must be on earth. One brother has to kill the other. DEAN: What the hell are you saying? GABRIEL: Why do you think I've always taken such an interest in you? Because from the moment Dad flipped on the lights around here, we knew it was all gonna end with you. Always. A long pause. SAM and DEAN look down, then at each other. DEAN: No. That's not gonna happen. GABRIEL: I'm sorry. But it is. GABRIEL sighs. GABRIEL: Guys. I wish this were a TV show. Easy answers, endings wrapped up in a bow...but this is real, and it's gonna end bloody for all of us. That's just how it's gotta be. ***

And isn’t that all even 1000x more painfully ironic that it all still happened even 10 years later? It was always going to end with them. And lol, “I wish this were a TV show” because if it was then it wouldn’t have to end bloody.

But this… was a Major Acknowledgement that the meta level of this story was consistent, and was telling us something important. It demonstrated that the Cosmic Structure Itself was the cause for Sam and Dean’s “destiny” in this story. But that’s not what the point of this story has ever been.

Nobody (including me, who is literally obsessed with this aspect of the story) has ever invested themselves in the narrative of Supernatural because they cared about the fate of the cosmic order over and above the fate of the characters who had committed to overthrowing it all, to “tearing up the pages” and writing their own destinies. I mean, we became invested because Sam, Dean, and Cas as characters took us by the hand and invited us to come along with them as they battled against fate for the good of EARTH and HUMANITY.

And certainly, Heaven being a horrific sort of eternal replay of the “highlights” of individual souls greatest hits, where free will didn’t apply as everyone was just boxed away into their individual holodecks to serve as some sort of giant Heaven Battery powering the furtherance of this narrative, this “cosmic order” that had become so powerful it dictated the events and manipulated the lives of people who still existed in the ostensible realm of free will and human life on Earth… that couldn’t stand in the end. But what the narrative (and people I’ve seen attempting to justify the finale as narratively sensible) seems to have forgotten was that all of that was Chuck’s construct to begin with. That without Chuck holding his kingdom in Heaven together, the walls of all those soul cubicles ceased to even be relevant.

After spending their entire lives to this point constantly fighting their way to the absolute pinnacle of the As Above, So Below narrative and pulling the plug on the original creator himself, Humanity should’ve triumphed. And I’d argue that it DID, through Jack restoring the missing essential “humanity” to the divine condition. And, silly me, I thought they’d achieved the promise of “paradise” heralded by Jack’s birth at last, and truly “flipped the entire script of the narrative.”

Ever since they thwarted the original apocalypse, I had hope that they would continue to achieve the same result right up the ladder. Metatron trying to fill the role of Chuck Junior hit his own narrative wall in TFW, while Dean’s battle with the Mark of Cain, and Cain telling him he was “living my life in reverse” and would succumb to destiny by killing his loved ones in the “reverse order” to Cain’s own path to downfall cemented this for me. Dean not only failed to kill any of his loved ones (you didn’t kill your own brother. why?), he SAVED them. He didn’t fulfil the prophecy in reverse, he subverted it. He UNMADE it.

Perhaps I was thinking on too grand a scale, that the ultimate inversion wouldn’t be “God is overthrown and replaced by more of the same,” but “God is overthrown and the entire order of the universe is restructured from the bottom up rather than the top down.

I’d hoped against hope that the conclusion of the narrative would be “As below, so above,” with the fundamental power of human love becoming the new foundation of the cosmic order. It never even occurred to me that “taking back the narrative to rewrite it for ourselves” was not the ultimate goal of Team Free Will, or the ultimate expression of their biggest win.

This whole “well heaven really needed to be rebuilt, there was still work to be done!” seems… irrelevant to me if they’d truly won free of the cosmic narrative. The entire structure of the universe-- including Heaven and Hell-- should’ve defaulted to the paradise state that Jack was literally born to bring to fruition. Wasn’t that the point of his entire role in the story, ultimately?

And if that wasn’t the case in the end, why did we never learn the fate of Hell? Was it just… irrelevant and unchanged after this? Or just… abandoned as a concept entirely? It’s just strange to me to put such a focus on heaven being the sole sphere of import in the end that it undercuts the essential humanity of the narrative for me.

The story itself had kept Heaven on a back burner for years, only occasionally mentioning that the structure of the place was falling further and further into disrepair with a dwindling force of angels struggling to keep the walls in place at all, that it seems like it could’ve been an afterthought at the end of the series rather than a focus so large it required the death of both main characters to make sure we all understood that Heaven Had Changed Now. Because TFW had never been fighting to make Heaven right. They’d been fighting to save the world itself, for humanity to all have a chance to live their lives as their own.

And we didn’t need to see that in the final hope they might get their own lives on Earth to explore. In the end, the fundamental narrative that Life On Earth was dictated by the cosmic structure of creation was never fully subverted. And for me, that’s the main reason I just… can’t accept the finale. It wasn’t a victory of free will and humanity, in the end it was just more of the same.

I appreciate the attempts to take the essential bones of the story we did get and apply a different polish to the surface of the skeleton, but to me it still feels like we’re looking at completely different beasts in the end. Like… to me this was as jarring a revelation as those drawing of modern animals reimagined as dinosaurs entirely based on their skeletons. Like, all along the narrative told me I was looking at a swan. They told me this skeleton they’re building out from is definitely a swan, without a doubt.  I know what a swan looks like-- a graceful feather-covered bird with magnificent wings. I trusted that in the end it would be at least remotely swan-looking. And then the finale ended up looking like this

and I just don’t even know where everything went so wrong. Or maybe all along I just assumed they actually knew what a swan looked like, but weren’t sure they could actually pull it off and settled for whatever the heck this is instead. Either way, I’m actually kinda grateful to the finale for being so entirely disappointing on every level, because otherwise I probably would’ve tried to adopt the monstrosity of it anyway. And I’m really, really glad I don’t have to.

[argylemnwrites]

Why Are We Still Waiting? - Chapter 3

Pairing: Drake Walker x MC (Riley Liu)

Book: The Royal Romance (It Couldn’t Wait Another Moment universe)

Word Count: ~4900

Rating: PG-13 (brief language)

Summary: A trip to meet the newest Beaumont isn’t off to the greatest start.

Author’s Note: So, since it has been ages since I updated this story, I feel like a quick recap is in order. Drake and Riley are in Cordonia to meet Savannah and Bertrand’s new baby girl, Caroline. They just met Liam’s new girlfriend, Iris, and her innocent questions about their postponed wedding made it clear that Drake is very frustrated by the fact they aren’t married yet. To catch up/jog your memory fully on this series, you can check out the It Couldn’t Wait Another Moment masterlist (link in bio).

“Oh, for Christ’s sake,” Drake groaned as Riley reached forward to start scanning across the radio stations.

“What?” she asked. He noticed her give a tiny shrug out of the corner of his eye as she leaned back after settling on a Greek Top 40 station.

“I knew it. I swear you pick this one just to annoy me, Liu.” Drake had made the mistake of complaining about this particular station on one of their first trips back to Cordonia, right before she’d gone back to university. It was all over-produced and sugary, and the DJs were just fucking obnoxious. Of course, that last point probably didn’t actually bother Riley, since she couldn’t understand a word they said.

“Maybe I just like this station.” 

Drake glanced over and took in the giant shit-eating grin plastered across her face and just rolled his eyes. “Uh huh, sure. Let’s ignore the fact that this station plays a ton of songs in Greek.”

“I’m just trying to broaden my cultural horizons.”

“Says the woman who refused to watch Parasite because it has subtitles.’”

“If I wanted to read something, I would pick up a book,” she said, but she did lean forward again to flip over to a different station. 

“Thank you,” Drake said, clicking on the turn signal as he switched into the right lane.

“You make it too easy sometimes,” she said, Drake noticing that she shrugged a little out of the corner of his eye. “If you didn’t act like that station was pure torture, I probably wouldn’t enjoy it so much.”

All Drake could do was shake his head. “You know, some people might not be so open about liking something out of spite.”

“No, it’s not spite.” Drake glanced over and raised his eyebrows at that, so Riley elaborated. “Spite is mean-spirited. I know you like my teasing too much for it to be spite.”

“Really.” Drake deadpanned, although he wasn’t able to hold back his grin and fully play along.

“Uh huh. What other explanation is there for you hanging around me after all these years?”

“I can’t think of a single one,” he said, earning him a flick of her fingers against his shoulder.

“Well I guess I will have to keep teasing you then. Otherwise I might have to settle for a guy who would have made me get up before six this morning.”

Drake looked over at her at that. Even after years together, her ability to jump from intensely sarcastic to gently sincere in an instant still amazed him. Last night, Maxwell had called and offered to pick them up from the palace after dropping off Mom and Aunt Leona at the airport, but they had a very early departure time. Drake had turned him down, feeling like it would be a shitty move to force Riley to wake up early on vacation, particularly since she never complained about using her limited vacation days to visit his family. Yet here she was, appreciative of his gesture that cost him nothing.

“Maybe I just didn’t want to spend two hours in the car with Maxwell.”

She let out a laugh at that. “Well, at least I rank as better company in your book.”

“Always, Liu. Always.”

“Seriously though, thank you.”

“Of course.”

Her left hand settled on his shoulder and gave him a little squeeze at that, but she didn’t say anything else, just glanced out the window as Drake turned off the main road and onto the smaller one that led to the Beaumont’s estate. Within a few minutes, they were pulling onto the driveway. As they climbed out of the car, they heard an excited little voice calling from the direction of the estate’s entrance. 

“Uncle Drake!”

Drake closed the driver’s door and pivoted around quickly, crouching down and extending his arms. Bartie ran across the drive and threw his little arms around Drake’s neck, laughing as Drake scooped him up and hugged him tightly. 

“We saw your car diving! I wanted to go out. Say ‘hi’ like Mommy or Daddy. Uncle Maxwell said I had to stay inside. Had to stand still ‘til you stopped,” Bartie rambled off, barely taking time to take a breath. 

“Thought that a little toddler darting in front of the car might not be the best start to your visit,” added Maxwell, strolling over to their car. “Hey, little blossom,” he added as he hugged Riley.

“Oh, you don’t get to just ‘little blossom’ me after you convinced Liam to keep me away!” she chuckled as she gave him a playful shove. “What happened to me being a Beaumont and always welcome here?”

“He told you guys?” Maxwell asked, turning to glance at Drake.

“Of course he did!” Riley said, drawing Maxwell’s attention back to her. She laughed a bit and shook her head before walking around the car to Drake and Bartie. “Hey, Bartie! Wow, you’ve gotten so big!” Drake passed Bartie over to her, watching as she gave him a squeeze, but Bartie started squirming in her arms, clearly wanting to be released from the obligatory hugs.

Riley placed him down, and he turned right back to Drake, grabbing his hand and tugging on it. “Uncle Drake, come see my new playhouse!” he said, attempting to drag Drake along after him as he started moving back towards the estate.

“Hey, my favorite dude, do you remember why Aunt Riley and Uncle Drake are here?” Maxwell said, crouching in front of Bartie. 

Bartie kicked his foot against the driveway before he answered. “Everyone wants to see Caroline. But she’s boring. She doesn’t do anything!”

Drake was trying to figure out the best way to deal with his nephew’s clear jealousy, but Riley stepped forward and bent down next to Maxwell. “I would love to see your playhouse, Bartie.”

“What do you say?” added Maxwell. “Why don’t we show Aunt Riley while Uncle Drake goes to see your mom and dad and sister?”

Bartie was silent for a few moments, but then nodded, grabbing Riley and Maxwell’s hands and heading inside without a glance back. Maxwell chuckled, twisted around, and called out to Drake, “You remember where the nursery is, right?”

Drake nodded and raised a hand in acknowledgment, taking the time to pop the trunk and grab their luggage before venturing inside himself. He went straight upstairs, pausing only to place their bags in their usual room, before heading down the hall, turning to the left and entering the private quarters, making his way to the small room located all the way towards the end of the hallway, the last door on the right.

It seemed like just yesterday he was building a crib in there for Bartie when Savannah was moving in. The room looked much the same, the walls still a pale grey, the furniture all pure white. The layout hadn’t changed much, with the crib placed against the far wall beneath a painting of stars shining over a lake with a squid waving a tentacle in the air, the changing table right next to it, and the dresser next to the rocking chair in the corner. The only thing that looked different, as far as Drake could remember, was the sheet tucked around the crib mattress. Back when this had been Bartie’s room, the sheets were covered in a variety of zoo animals, the only splash of color in the otherwise greyscale nursery. Now, they were a black and white check, much more subdued.

Laying in the center of the crib, wrapped tightly in a light pink blanket, was a sleeping baby. Drake didn’t have a lot of experience with infants, but even he had heard you never wake a sleeping baby, so he stepped further into the room carefully, trying not to make a sound. When he reached the crib, he couldn’t help but stare. This was Caroline. His niece.

He wasn’t sure how long he stood there, just taking her in, but eventually Savannah’s voice caught his attention.

“Didn’t anyone ever tell you it’s a bit creepy to just sneak into someone’s home and watch their child sleep?”

Drake turned his head to look over his shoulder. His sister was standing in the doorway, her arms crossed over her chest, an eyebrow cocked. “Hey, Sav. Maxwell sent me up here.”

“I should have known,” she said, walking over to join him by the crib, wrapping an arm around his waist as she gave him a half-hug. “I see you’ve met Caroline.”

“She’s beautiful,” Drake said, looking down again at the little baby in the crib, a few fine brown hairs covering her head. His niece. She was so tiny. It was kind of overwhelming, seeing her like this. When he’d met Bartie, it had been such a total shock that he even existed. Plus, he had been so much older than this. “Congratulations.”

“You can pick her up, you know.”

He shook his head. “I don’t want to disturb her.”

Savannah let out a few little chuckles. “She is the one who disturbs everyone most of the time. Besides, she’s just about due for a feeding.”

“I don’t know…”

“Come on, Drake. Just go wash your hands, and then you can hold her.”

And so a minute later, Drake found himself being handed his niece, so small and fragile-seeming. “Is this okay?” he asked, trying to make sure he walked the fine line between being gentle and holding her firmly as he tucked her against his chest.

“You aren’t going to hurt her!” Savannah laughed out.

“I just… I’ve never held a baby this little before. I don’t want to mess this up,” Drake said. Caroline felt so light in his arms. She was blinking, slowly becoming more alert after being shifted from her crib. Her bluish-grey eyes finally seemed to lock on his. “Hey, Caroline,” he said, “I’m your Uncle Drake.” But before he could think of anything else to say, she opened her mouth and let out a piercing wail.

Drake glanced over at Savannah. “What do I do?”

She laughed again. “God, what is Riley going to do with you when it’s your kid? She’s a baby, not an alien. She’s either hungry, sleepy, or has a dirty diaper.” But before she could poke fun at him any further, she reached over and shifted Caroline into her arms. “And since she’s hungry, I’m really the only one who can handle that.”

“Oh, do you want privacy or should I…”

Savannah shrugged. “I use a nursing blanket since Barthelemy walked in on me and made things real awkward.” And with that she settled onto the rocking chair, adjusting her top, positioning Caroline, then tugging a little cover over herself.

“What did Barthelemy do?” Drake asked as he moved to the side wall, leaning against it.

“Just acted real weird about the whole thing, talked to Bert about reminding me how a duchess should comport herself.”

“What a jackass.”

Savannah let out a sigh. “Bertrand was very apologetic when he relayed the message. But using a nursing blanket is not a big deal, and if it makes things easier for Bert with his dad…” She trailed off, staring down at Caroline, reaching under the nursing blanket to adjust something before she spoke again. “Having him around here has not exactly been some big happy family. I don’t know if his illness changed him, or if my memories of him were just fuzzy, but he’s an odd duck.”

Drake glanced over to the doorway. “Uhh, Sav. Not that I care, but the door is wide open and-”

She laughed and shook her head. “He’s at his rehab and physical therapy appointment this morning.”

“Ahh, gotcha. Any more talk of him trying to regain the title of duke?” Back when Barthelemy had returned to the estate, Sav had confided that it seemed like he was hinting that Bertrand should renounce his title and return it to his father. But since their wedding, it had seemed like most of that talk had died.

“No, he and Godfrey laid on the pressure after the honeymoon, but as soon as we announced the pregnancy, he backed off. His new mission seems to be to convince Liam that either Bartie or Caroline should be appointed as heir to the throne, which is crazy to think about, but it keeps him busy, so…” Savannah tilted her head to the side and raised her eyebrows, letting the thought just hang there in the room. 

Drake was bothered by the implications of that statement, but he knew that pressing Savannah on it would not really get him anywhere. As inappropriate and concerning as he found the implication that Savannah and Bertrand weren’t shutting Barthelemy down completely with that shit, he knew voicing his objections now would not solve anything. Discussing this all with Liam would make much more sense. So he just filed the statement away and moved to change the subject.

“Is it easier this time around, knowing what you are doing?”

Savannah smiled before glancing down at Caroline. “I think it’s more that I have a support system. And yes, I know it was my choice to not have one before,” she added before Drake could interject. “I guess in some ways at least I know what to expect, but Caroline is way more cranky than Bartie was at this age. Besides, I don’t think any parent ever really feels like they know what they are doing.”

“Nah, you seem to have it down.”

“It’s just a lot of trial and error. You’ll see when you guys have a baby.”

Drake ran his hand across his jaw, glancing down and watching his toes nudge into the baseboard. “I have a feeling that’s gonna be a while for us.”

“Oh come on! Don’t you want your kids to grow up with their cousins?”

Drake swallowed before taking a breath. “Of course I do.”

“Then what are you waiting for?”

“Well, getting married to start.” Shit. “Not that I think people have to be married to raise a kid or-”

“Relax, Drake,” Savannah said, cutting off his apologetic ramble. “It’s not like Bartie was a planned pregnancy.”

“Neither was Caroline,” he thought, but kept his mouth shut, not wanting to risk offending his sister or make her feel like he was judging her and her family. 

“I know you have an old-fashioned streak-”

“Hey!” Drake interjected, but Savannah just kept on going.

“-but I think you guys should think about having kids soon. You were going to be married by now anyway! And isn’t that the modern, New York thing to do?”

Drake didn’t know where all this was coming from. Why she was so insistent about something that didn’t involve her. But man, he wished she would move on to any other topic of conversation. Because what could he say? That he was ready to be married with kids? That he would have no problem starting a family with Riley tomorrow? He couldn’t share that with his sister, at least not without sharing things about Riley he was pretty confident she would never want Savannah to know.

The fact that she had decided on a birth control option that would last for three years made it pretty clear where her head was at with the whole kid thing. She wasn’t really ready, not by a long shot. And until she was ready, there was really nothing he could do about it. Drake was just going to have to wait until she felt like the time was right, whenever that might be.

Maybe it was just that he was four years older than her. Maybe that’s why he felt so ready to take those next steps when she seemed so unbothered, so willing to just roll along. And to be fair, it’s not like they were ever going to be a couple like Hana and Catherine, who had timelines and life plans and five year goals. But deep down, Drake couldn’t help but wonder why Riley seemed so ambivalent about them getting married and starting a family. Was she unsure about something in their relationship, unsure about something with him?

It’s not that she didn’t want kids ever, as far as he knew. She’d mentioned wanting kids before. And they’d planned that first wedding without issue. But now it seemed like she was stuck. No rush to get married. Not thinking about having kids for years. And Drake didn’t know how to approach the whole topic without seeming like he was demanding things. Putting pressure on her. He was happy. They were happy. It was something his younger self would have never thought possible, and it should definitely be enough. But maybe he was selfish, because there were times where it just didn’t feel like enough.

Maybe it would be helpful to talk to someone about this, but that would feel like violating Riley’s trust. He knew Riley had her therapist she talked to, and he was sure their relationship was a topic of conversation there, but that was different. The therapist wasn’t someone who knew Drake, who was his friend or family. Anyone Drake would feel comfortable talking about this with knew Riley. Knew her well, quite frankly. 

So for now, he was just going to have to keep moving forward. Keep hoping that Riley would start to feel ready soon. And at the moment, that meant sidestepping his sister’s questions and prodding.

“Geez, Sav! We haven’t even been here for an hour, and you are laying it on really thick.”

“Sorry, sorry! I know it’s not my business! If it makes you feel better, it’s not just with you. Kiara also told me I needed to back off when I started asking her about when she and Oliver were going to have kids right after their wedding.”

“Wait, when did Kiara get married?”

“Oh, Drake! At least you have an excuse for not knowing all the news now that you live abroad.” she said, shaking her head. “They eloped maybe… four months ago?”

And then Savannah was off, filling Drake in on tons of gossip he didn’t give two shits about. But it made her happy, and it was a safe topic of conversation, so who was he to complain?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 

Riley sat crossed legged on the floor in Bartie’s room at a little table, Maxwell seated across from her. Meanwhile, Bartie was hard at work at his toy kitchen set, organizing pieces of plastic food on plates. He wanted to show off and make “lunch” for them. Riley supposed that this was probably a common way for a three and a half year old to want to play, not that she had any such memories from her own childhood. What wasn’t common, she was sure, was the formal table setting Bartie had carefully placed in front of each of them, the perfectly pressed white apron he’d asked Maxwell to help him tie on, or the fact that he was arranging his plastic lettuce, eggs, and meat on actual china.

“Looks excellent, my favorite dude,” said Maxwell as Bartie carefully carried over several plates to the table. “What’s on the menu?”

“Steak tartare with a fresh greens salad,” he said before turning and heading back towards his little kitchen.

“Wait, aren’t you going to join us?” asked Riley, trying to keep from bursting out in laughter at the thought of a preschooler preparing such a meal.

“Aunt Riley, no aprons at the table!” he said his eyes wide as he turned back to face her.

“Yeah, come on Aunt Riley, where are your manners?” Maxwell winked before twisting to look over at Bartie. “You need any help untying your apron there?”

“No, I can do it,” Bartie ground out, tugging on the ties without much luck.

“Okay, well I’m right here if you do need help,” Maxwell responded. Within five seconds, Bartie was back, standing right next to him.

“Thanks, Uncle Maxwell!” he said, happily pulling the apron off and jogging over to hang it up nicely once Maxwell had it untied.

“You’re working hard to maintain your title as best uncle.” Riley said.

“Every time you guys come to visit, he suddenly wants to go fishing and camping instead of having dance parties with me.”

Riley laughed at that. “We’re new and exciting, what can I say.”

“Easy for you to say, you’re the favorite aunt by default.”

“What does default mean?” asked Bartie, plopping down on the floor next to them.

“It means no other choices, dude.”

“Oh,” Bartie said, nodding before picking up his silverware, pretending to cut into the plastic in front of him with surprising coordination.

“So has Uncle Maxwell been hanging out with you a lot since your sister came home?”

Bartie shrugged. “I guess.”

“We’ve definitely been seeing some jealousy,” Maxwell said with a nod. “I kind of thought this might happen, so I made sure to clear my schedule for a handful of weeks around the due date.”

“That was thoughtful of you.”

Maxwell tilted his head to the side and smiled. “Hey, I’m favorite uncle for a reason.”

“Uncle Drake is my favorite,” said Bartie, causing Riley to burst out laughing.

“Dude, that wasn’t the deal! You’re gonna pay for this,” Maxwell said, leaning over and wiggling his fingers. “The squid’s about to attack.” With that, Maxwell started tickling Bartie, triggering wild giggles and Bartie rolling backwards on the floor.

“Bartie!” Bertrand’s voice cut across the room. Riley twisted over to find him standing in the hallway, his eyes scanning over the scene in front of him. “We don’t make our guests sit on the floor, do we?”

“No, Daddy.”

“Bertrand, it’s fine-” Riley started, but he held up a hand, cutting her off.

“What do we say, Bartie?”

“Sorry, Aunt Riley.”

All Riley could do was nod, accepting an apology from a toddler that felt entirely unnecessary.

“Good,” said Bertrand, “Now go wash your hands and get cleaned up for lunch.”

Bartie scampered out of the room, turning to his left in the hallway.

“I offered to play with him, Bertrand.”

“Well, he was told that you were coming to visit Caroline. He should have known better than to monopolize your time.”

Riley opened her mouth, ready to respond, but Maxwell grabbed her wrist and shook his head. 

“How are you, by the way? I apologize for not being there to greet you and Drake.”

“I’m good, Bertrand,” she said as she pushed herself up on her feet, walking over and giving him a loose hug. “Congrats, by the way.”

“Yes, thank you. Drake and Savannah have Caroline in the private lounge if you want to go meet her. If you’ll excuse me, I need to go check and make sure Bartie isn’t making a complete mess in the bathroom.”

And with that, Bertrand was off, following the path down the hallway that his son had just taken.

“Yikes,” said Riley as soon as he was out of earshot.

“Yeah, I know,” replied Maxwell, looping his arm around her shoulders and guiding her in the opposite direction. “That is another reason I made sure I didn’t have any need to be on set or in LA for any writers meetings for a few months.”

“He’s more of a tight ass than ever.”

“I think he’s very anxious because he missed this part of Bartie’s life. The amount of research he did and the number of parenting books he read is insane. But any time any little thing isn’t what he expects, he flips out.”

“What does Savannah think about that?” Riley asked, following Maxwell down the stairs.

“Either she’s too sleep deprived to notice, or she’s just pretending not to see it. I decided to give him two months to settle into things. If he’s still snapping at everyone then, well… I guess I’ll have to stage an intervention or something.”

“Wow. Well at least you’re here to look out for the kid.”

“Yup, figure I can keep things normal-ish for him. Though I will say between watching Bertrand spiral and hearing Caroline’s shrieks, any faint consideration I might have given to parenthood has gone straight out the window.”

Riley laughed, prompting Maxwell to keep going. “I’m serious! I know I told you I was pretty sure I was good being the fun uncle, but these past few weeks have really locked in that decision. Don’t tell anyone I told you this, but Bartie is right - Caroline is boring. And loud. And I am so glad she is not my responsibility.”

All Riley could do was laugh more. “Do you need me to make up an excuse for you so you don’t need to be in the same room with her?”

Maxwell nudged her with his shoulder. “Oh, laugh it up! I don’t have any issues with her. She just confirmed that fatherhood is not for me, no matter how cute she is when she isn’t screaming her head off.”

At that point, they entered the lounge, so Riley dropped any further teasing she had for Maxwell. “Hey, Savannah. Congrats!” she said, walking across the room and giving her a hug.

“Thank you, Riley. It’s so good to see you!” Savannah replied as they pulled apart. Riley moved to sit down next to Drake on the couch, who was cradling a baby against his shoulder.

“This must be Caroline,” she said, watching as Drake tapped his hand against her back lightly.

“Either that or I have a lot of explaining to do,” Drake said, glancing over at her. Riley just smiled and nudged him lightly with her elbow.

“Drake, why don’t you let Riley hold her?” Savannah asked. “She should get to meet her aunt, too.”

“Do you want to?” Drake asked, his eyebrows raised.

“Of course,” said Riley, reaching over and helping him peel the tiny little girl off his chest, nestling her into her own arms.

Caroline was awake, her eyes roving around as Riley shifted back onto the couch more fully to try and get comfortable. After a few seconds, they seemed to settle on Riley’s face. All she could really do was stare back, taking in this child, this baby girl who might not have been planned, but would certainly be loved by so many.

“Yeah, I know I’m a stranger right now. But in a couple of decades, I’ll be the one you come to when you want nightclub recommendations in New York City.”

“Hey, I want in on that invite,” said Maxwell as Savannah let out a few chuckles. Riley glanced over at Drake, expecting him to be rolling his eyes or shaking his head, but instead was caught off guard by the intensity of his gaze. He was staring at her holding Caroline with such passion, such longing, she felt almost exposed. All she could think to do was drop her eyes back to the baby, not wanting to dwell on what that meant at that moment.

Unfortunately, Savannah must have noticed Drake as well, because she said, “Oh, I see that look. ‘A while’ my ass. I bet you’ll be pregnant by the end of the year.”

Drake let out a sort of sputtering cough at his sister’s comment, but before he could say anything, could so much as get a word out, Riley felt her own mouth opening. Her own response spilled out so glibly, without a second of thought. It was almost like she heard someone else saying the words, even as she knew she was the one speaking.

“Don’t give him any ideas.”

She felt Drake stiffen beside her, saw Maxwell shifting in his seat, and heard Savannah mutter out a little apology, but all of that was just background noise as her brain screamed at her. How could she have been so fucking stupid? What possessed her to say that? Or at least to phrase it like that? There were ways to shut down Savannah’s prying without implying that Drake had baby fever and she wanted no part of it.

The uncomfortable silence in the room was broken as Bertrand and Bartie entered. “Lunch is ready in the dining room,” said Bertrand, gesturing to the door behind him. Bertrand then stepped over to Riley. “I can go put her down,” he said, gesturing at his daughter still in Riley’s arms.

“Oh, sure thing,” said Riley, passing him Caroline before standing up. Savannah, Maxwell, and Bartie had already left the room, but Drake was still seated, his eyes locked on his knee that was bouncing up and down.

“Drake, I-” she started as soon as Bertrand had stepped out, extending her hand to help him to his feet. But Drake ignored the gesture, pushing his hands into the cushions of the couch instead.

“I’m hungry. Let’s just go eat, Riley.”

“I’m sorry, I don’t-.”

“It’s fine, Riley, Really. We can talk later” He nodded at her and started walking towards the door, leaving Riley to follow after him. And more than the brush off, more than his refusal to hold her hand, the fact that he’d not called her ‘Liu’ let her know that she had made a huge fucking mess.

Perma: @walkerswhiskeygirl @octobereighth @kimmiedoo5 @mom2000aggie

TRR/TRH: @twinkleallnight @iaminlovewithtrr @mskaneko @axwalker @jovialyouthmusic @marshmallowsandfire @kingliam2019 @sirbeepsalot @texaskitten30 @princessleac1 @ladyangel70 @debramcg1106 @masterofbluff  

Drake/MC: @no-one-u-know  @iplaydrake

ICWAM: @thequeenofpixels @sunnyxdazed @sammie0220​

[jenonctcity]

My Ending - Part 1

Differences – Na Jaemin

Part of the Bad Boy Series.

Badboy!Au, Streetracer!Au

Disclaimer: This is going to be a very dark themed story, please do not read if you are triggered easily by the mentioned subjects in the warnings. 

I recommend reading Jeno’s story first so that it’s easier for you to understand the timeline and plot of this story.

Warnings: Minor Character Death, Mention of Suicide Attempts, Mental Health Issues (Depression and Anxiety), Mentions of Drug Use/Overdose, Mention of Drug Addiction Effecting Baby After Birth. 

Word Count: 5k

Jaemin was used to living his life in black and white. His whole life had always been a mix of muggy grey, never having experienced enough positive emotion for a long enough period that flecks of colour could mix into his greyscale life. Of course he had happy moments, excited moments, moments of enthusiasm, and moments of hope. He wasn’t a robot. But he found that it was the sad moments, fearful moments, moments of anxiety, and moments of anger that outweighed all other emotions and lead his world to darken in colour. It all started when he was born. Born to a drug addict mother, and a father who had long since ran away from the responsibilities of raising a child. He had been born a month early  with his body uncontrollably shaking, his body craving the heroin that his mother had been shooting when she was carrying him. He had been taken from her immediately and his grandmother on his fathers’ side had stepped up to take on the responsibility of raising the precious, underdeveloped baby.

The first few years of Jaemin’s life had been rough. He was significantly smaller than most of the children his age, and he didn’t start walking until he was two years old, almost a year later than he should have, and he had such a low immune system that he was constantly falling ill and being taken in and out of hospital. It was a tough challenge for his grandmother, but she adored her little miracle and did everything she could to keep him alive and happy. They’d hoped that Jaemin’s growth would catch up with him by the time he started school, but their hopes didn’t pan out, and he was still much smaller than all of the other children. On top of that, he struggled to keep up with the level of learning and was picked on by the other children for his tiny frame, lack of knowledge, and also, lack of parents. His teenage years weren’t much better. Even though he soon caught up with everybody in the height and education department, it wasn’t the bullying that bothered him anymore, it was the emotional scars that sat inside of his head like a poisonous fog, taunting him like those kids had through all of his school years.

He couldn’t understand why his mother had done what she’d done, and why she didn’t love him in the way a mother should love her son. He had seen his mother so little that he could count each encounter on one of his hands. Which is why as he walked back into the apartment, wearing his suit and holding the funeral programme that had a picture of his mother on the front, he felt numb. He let out a soft sigh as he sat down on the sofa beside Jeno, chucking the papers onto the coffee table in front of him and running a hand through his blond hair as he tried to gather his thoughts. Jeno didn’t physically react to Jaemin’s arrival apart from letting a soft smile tug at the corners of his lips. After a silence of five minutes with Jaemin just started absentmindedly into thin air, Jeno spoke up.

“How did it go?” Jeno’s voice was soft, his head still facing towards the quiet television as reruns of spongebob played.

“How did you know it was me?” Jaemin glanced at his blind friend, raising an eyebrow and trying not to put too much amusement in his tone, not feeling like he should be joking around after being to his mother’s funeral.

“Haechan is in his room, and Renjun is out picking Jiyeon up. I heard the door open and couldn’t hear Jiyeon shouting for one of her uncles so I just did the mystery solving and figured out it would be you.” He shrugged, a weak laugh vibrating off of his chest before he sighed. “You didn’t answer my question Jaem.” Jaemin sighed once more, wiping his sweaty palms on his thighs and resting his head back against the sofa.

“It was fine…” He couldn’t quite pinpoint the feelings rushing around inside of him. He felt anger, sadness, a dash of regret, but mostly relief. Anger because he was angry that she never made a proper effort with him, just brushing him aside and acting as if the drugs she owned were her precious child rather than the actual baby she’d made and given birth to. Sadness because he could never make amends with her and have the bond that most mothers and sons have. Regret because he knew once he hit the age of sixteen and was able to make sensible decisions for himself, he could have been the one to make the effort. And relief because he knew he didn’t have to spend nights worrying if the money he had sent his mother was being used to buy drugs instead of keeping food in her mouth. Relief because she couldn’t hurt herself anymore. Relief because the reason his depression was gone. Not that she took his mental health problems with her to the grave, but it gave Jaemin a horribly sick satisfaction that he could only diagnose as revenge. Which made him want to weep at how his brain could even think of something as horrid at that. Jaemin felt awful that he was thankful for Jeno’s blindness, so that he couldn’t see the tears that dribbled down his cheeks, silent sobs for the mother he spent so many nights crying over as a child, wishing for the mother he never had.

“Are you sure? It’s okay not to be okay.” Jaemin wanted to squeeze Jeno for how sweet the boy was being, but he just let out a huff of a laugh and wiped his tears away. He glanced down at his hands, gulping back the lump in his throat as his mind drifted to the nervous breakdown that Jeno had experienced only a week prior. Jeno had hit his breaking point and had expressed how much he worries about Jaemin, because of Jaemin’s previous failed suicide attempts that had clearly chipped away at Jeno’s mental stability. Jaemin felt the pit in his stomach he usually got when he was at his lowest mentally, but he didn’t want to pile more worries onto Jeno’s plate, so he faked a smile, despite Jeno’s lack of sight, it was more for himself than anyone else. Besides, it had been over two years since Jaemin had last attempted to take his own life, and he felt like he’d moved on from that stage of his life. He hoped.

“I’m fine, you haven’t got to worry about me.”

“Okay, because my kid is going to need its Uncle Nana to be a happy bastard not a moody bastard.” Jeno let out an amused laugh, trying to lighten the tone. It worked, the thought of Jeno’s unborn child bringing a big smile to his face.

“Uncle Nana is going to be its favourite per-” Jaemin was cut off by the sound of his phone ringing in his pocket. He fished it out of his blazer pocket and answered it quickly when he saw the caller ID. “Hello?”

“Hello, is this Mr Na?” An unfamiliar male voice sounded through the phone, the voice calm and deep.

“It is.”

“I’m just calling to inform you that your grandmother has had a fall, the paramedics are with her now and the carer who was there when it happened is still there. I’ve been told that there hasn’t been any extensive damage, but I thought it would be best to let you know, as you’re the emergency contact.” Jaemin felt his world almost crumble in on him for a moment, the words about her not having much damage cooled him down slightly, but the panicked fire burning in his stomach was still very much alight.

“Okay, thank you for letting me know.” He hung up the call and gulped down the fireball of anxiety blazing in his throat. He was on his feet before he knew it, digging his keys out of his pocket. “My grandma fell over; I’ll be back soon.” He mumbled to Jeno, his mind foggy so he didn’t even hear Jeno’s gasp and quick ‘Is she okay!?’ before he was out of the door, sprinting down the stairs, and practically jumping into his car. He didn’t even look at the speed he was driving at because he didn’t care, all he cared about was seeing his grandmother and confirming the man on the phones statement that she was okay. He stopped out the front of her house and ran to the door, letting himself in with shaky hands and looking at the paramedics as they packed up their stuff in the entranceway.

“I’m her grandson, is she okay?!” His words came out so fast that the paramedic he’d aimed the question at almost didn’t understand what he’d said. “Is she?!” He repeated, a sheen of sweat on his forehead from his panic.

“She is, son,” The male paramedic addressed Jaemin, giving him a calming smile and pat on the arm. “We’ve given her some pain medication, and she’ll have a large bruise on her hip, but she didn’t fall hard enough to break anything. She’s just gone to sleep; I would leave it a little while before you disturb her though.” Jaemin nodded along, taking in all of the information with a small sigh of relief.

“Okay, thank you so much for taking care of her.” They bid their goodbyes and left, shutting the door behind them as Jaemin made his way into the kitchen. He stopped dead in his tracks in the doorway, his eyes trained on you stood by the kitchen sink with your back to him, wearing what looked like hospital scrubs over the tops of a long-sleeved floral top. Your shoulders were shaking gently as you let out all of your emotions, having assumed you were now alone in the house seeing as you heard the front door shut. Jaemin cleared his throat, causing you to squeal in surprise and turn around fast, a spatula that you’d grabbed out of the washing up bowl now in your hand being held up as a weapon.

“Who are you?!” Your eyes were wide, and if it wasn’t so comical, Jaemin would have been absolutely speechless from how stunning he found your features. He had an amused smile on his face as he quickly held his hands up in surrender.

“My name is Jaemin, I’m the grandson! Please don’t…spatula me.” You sighed in relief, lowering the spatula onto the drying rack. “I didn’t mean to scare you, I apologise.” He stepped forward, giving you a small bow. You bowed back and smiled politely, trying to ignore the heat that flooded your cheeks from the embarrassing encounter, also he was gorgeous, and it took you by surprise. You suddenly remembered your wet cheeks, using the back of your hand to wipe your tears away. “Are you okay?”

“Apology accepted, I’m (Y/N), I’m fine…it was just, really…hard to watch you know?” You nodded, sending him a weak smile with a quick nod. He tilted his head and poked his tongue into his cheek in thought.

“You’re my grandma’s carer?” He took a seat at the dining table, fiddling with the tablemat as he kept his eyes on you. The more you looked at him, the more you recognised him from the photos that were dotted around the house. He looked a lot different though, more mature and with more tattoos. One of the tattoos that you noticed were the roman numerals vertically written on his neck, just underneath his left ear, you were curious as to what the number was and to what it meant. He looked handsome in his suit, and you wondered what the occasion was as to why he was wearing such formal wear.

“I am, I haven’t seen you here before…she talks about you a lot.”

“All good things I hope.” He chuckled, giving you a cheeky wink. You felt the wink inside of your stomach and giggled nervously.

“She adores you!” You sat opposite him at the table, brushing some of your hair behind your ear as you thought about all the stories, she’d told you over the past few months that you’d been one of her carers. “I’m surprised I haven’t bumped into you before; she says you visit her a lot.” You furrowed your eyebrows, not being able to understand why you hadn’t seen him in person before.

“I usually visit in the evening times, but I have met a few of the other carers who stop by.” You were only one of the carers from the company who stopped by her house daily. Jaemin was incredibly thankful to the people who took care of his grandma when he couldn’t. He had moved out of her house on his own accord just after Jeno was arrested. He knew he was getting too much of a burden on his grandma, coming home late, throwing up on the carpet when he was too drunk and scaring her when he would admit to being high. And for good reason, considering how he was born addicted to heroin. But despite how much shit Jaemin had gone through in his life, he’d promised his grandmother that he’d never consume heroin. He didn’t want his grandma to be stressed over him, so when the opportunity came about to move in with his friends, he snatched it up as soon as he could. A year after moving out, his grandma stopped being able to get around as much as she could before, and the simplest of tasks got too much for her. So Jaemin took it upon him to hire a carer company to come in throughout the day and cook her meals, wash her clothes, and keep her house tidy. He felt bad that he couldn’t do it himself, but with his dodgy job, he either didn’t have the time, or didn’t want anything bad to happen which could be traced back to his grandma’s house. He dealt with a lot of dangerous people in illegal street racing, and he couldn’t risk his grandmother’s life, that’s why his visits were scarce and in the evening times when it was less likely he was being tracked by anyone. “I must say, you’re definitely the beautiful one.” He winked shamelessly, causing your face to flush. You had to stop yourself from letting out a whine at the compliment, not used to being complimented like that by men you’d only just met.

“Thank you.” A smile tugged at your lips, your hands coming to rest on your hot cheeks. Jaemin smirked and bit his bottom lip, his eyes flicking over your face subtly as he checked you out. You felt your phone ding in your pocket, signifying that you had finished your time at that house and had to move onto the next. “Oh, I have to get going. It was nice meeting you.” You jumped up from the table, grabbing your jacket from the coat rack by the front door and slipping it on. Jaemin followed you and dug his hands into his pockets.

“Likewise.” He opened the door for you and motioned for you to go through first. “I should get going anyway.” He had a race tonight and he needed to get himself ready for it, mentally and physically. He locked the door behind you both and walked down the path to his car. You paused, your mouth popping open as you laid eyes on his expensive looking car.

“Woah…is that yours?!” You almost squeaked, your eyes flicking from the Navy-Blue Mustang Shelby GT350, back to Jaemin. He looked very proud, his posture straightening out and a wide smile on his face.

“Yep!”

“Woooow…” You looked over at your own car, it was super cheap, and you were probably the fifth owner of the run-down looking thing. “It a lot nicer than mine.” You laughed awkwardly, getting out your key to unlock the door, you put your key in the hole and jiggled it around, trying desperately to unlock the old piece of crap. The door almost flew open after you’d succeeded in opening it, and Jaemin smiled kindly at you. “Anyway, see ya around Jaemin!” You hopped into your car, not giving him a chance to reply as you started the rickety engine and slowly drove away. Jaemin got in his own car and let out a soft sigh as he thought back on your slightly odd exchange. He didn’t know you, but he knew he wanted to know you. And he had the perfect plan.

---

Jaemin probably should have felt bad that he was only visiting his grandma twice as much as he normally would because he was hoping and praying to run into you again. His grandma had sensed something was up, and he didn’t even have to admit to her, she already knew that he had the hots for you. Many of his attempts of being at her house when you were there were successful, and he’d helped you in your daily tasks of helping around the house until you heard the familiar sound of your phone alerting you that it was time to leave. He hated that sound. You saw Jaemin as a happy, positive soul, who would do anything to make you laugh. It worked, he often had you in absolute stitches with his comical stories about his friends and the pranks they played on each other. He found out a lot about your life, like how you came from a large family, the oldest of four children and you still lived with your parents due to your job not paying a huge amount of money. He was curious to know why you didn’t bother going to university, instead jumping straight into work life. When he’d asked, you’d simply told him that you just couldn’t wait to start your life, not wanting to spend anymore time in education. It was when you expressed your want to get married and have kids within the next ten years that had Jaemin’s head confirming what his heart was thinking. He had a huge crush on you. It was after you’d found out that the numbers written on his neck signified the date of his grandmothers’ birth, that you realised you had a big fat crush on him too. Jaemin always wore long sleeves shirts, or hoodies, so you didn’t know if he had anymore tattoos on his body apart from the neck tattoo and the rose tattoo on the back of his right hand. But you were curious to find out.

With a stomach full of butterflies, a whole month after your first encounter, Jaemin had finally asked you out. So that’s why you found yourself sat opposite the beautiful boy in a café at 1pm on your day off. His hair was now a light pink, and you thought it suited his face and personality perfectly. He had on a long-sleeved white shirt, with black skinny jeans and a leather jacket. It completing his aesthetic off flawlessly. Also you’d gotten to ride in his fancy car, which was exciting in its own, since you’d never been in a car that expensive before. Jaemin sipped at his black coffee, his eyes meeting your own and causing a tender smile to tug at his lips as he continued on with his story.

“And Jiyeon, Renjun’s daughter, threatened to pee on the floor if she didn’t get a cookie. You should have seen Chenle’s face, it was a comedy gold!” He laughed at the memory, picking at the muffin between you both. He had told you about all of his friends, so you were kind of keeping up with the names. He talked about Chenle a lot.

“Did she get the cookie?” You needed to know how the story finished, your eyes sparkling as you found out more and more about the mysterious boy opposite you. So far all you knew was that his grandmother raised him because his mother was a drug abuser, she died recently, and he lived with the boys he saw as brothers, which included the kids and girlfriends of said brothers. He’d also dished out the gossip on Haechan’s current girlfriend being Jeno’s ex-girlfriend, and Jeno now being blind with a baby on the way. Quite the scandal.

“Of course she did! Uncle Nana gave it to her.” He smiled widely and raised his eyebrows. You titled your head in confusion.

“Uncle Nana?” You asked, curiosity in your tone about this mysterious Uncle Nana.

“That’s me, my last name is Na, so I got the nickname Nana when I was growing up. Nana is easier to say than Jaemin when you’re a toddler.” He popped some of the muffin into his mouth and licked his lips.

“Cute!” Your eyebrows raised and you gazed at him with adoration in your eyes.

“You think so?” He winked, loving all the attention you bestowed upon him, even if cute wasn’t really the image he was going for.

“Mhm!” You sipped at your lemonade and gazed out of the window, seeing Jaemin’s car parked where you’d both left it and turning back to Jaemin. “You must have a good job to afford a car that…wow!” You didn’t miss the way Jaemin’s eyes avoided your gaze, leading you to believe there was more to him owning the car than just a normal job.

“I…okay I’m going to be transparent with you.” He sat up in his chair, leaning in closer to you across the table so that he could lower his voice, audible for only you to hear. “I race cars. That’s not my only car, I have a garage with four other cars in it and I race them to earn my living.” He kept his eyes locked with yours, trying to determine your reaction simply from the look in your eyes. Jaemin liked to think he was good at reading people. He’d been doing it his whole life, having experienced plenty of different emotions from people throughout his life. He couldn’t see anything other than question in your eyes as your narrowed them, trying to wrap your head around it.

“Oh!...is it…legal?” You whispered, running your hand up and down your glass, the condensation on the cold glass smearing and forming little droplets of water under the ministrations of your fingertips. He shook his head, an awkward smile marring his beautiful features.

“No, it’s not. If you get caught racing, you get fined. If you get caught racing more than once, you get your vehicle seized and fined. Then its three strikes and you’re out. Prison time is the punishment for getting caught a third time.” His words had your mouth opening in shock, a little gasp leaving your throat.

“Have you ever been caught?” You didn’t really know how to feel about his confession. You hadn’t ever thought about your opinions on illegal street racing, and it wasn’t fair for you to make a quick judgement about something you knew nothing about, despite it being illegal. It wasn’t really any of your business, so you didn’t care too much. The way you saw it, if you didn’t do anything illegal yourself, then you weren’t in the wrong.

“Nope, I have come close, but no, I’m pretty good at outrunning the police.” He smirked, clearly proud of himself as he sipped at his coffee. “If you aren’t comfortable with it, then we haven’t got to talk about it. I can keep it quiet from you, or we could…go our separate ways after I take you home. It’s your decision.” He sounded slightly sad as he spoke the last words, his head lowering slightly to watch your fingers playing with your glass.

“Oh, no! I…er…like you a lot, and I want to see you again, obviously only if you want to!” Your cheeks felt like they were about to burst into flames, your heart suddenly making you aware of its existence in your chest.

“I want to.” His voice was soft, and his hand snaked across the table to detach your hand from your glass. He wound your fingers together and a pink tinge that resembled the pink rose tattoo on the back of his hand flared up on his cheeks.

“Cool!” You blurted out and then used your free hand to face palm, cringing at your random word vomit.

“Very cool.” Jaemin laughed with you, grabbing your hand to pull it away from your face. “I guess we’re both just super cool!” You both visibly cringed at that and sniggered.

---

The next week was a complete rush for you. But a good rush, a rush you wouldn’t change. You had work five days out of seven, and as soon as your shift had finished, Jaemin would pick you up from your house, and whisk you away on a date. So far, you’d eaten in 7 different restaurants and had enjoyed every single minute of your time with your new boyfriend. That’s right, boyfriend. The two of you made it official on date number three after you both realised that you were basically perfect for each other. The night had ended in a sweet kiss and a long cuddle on your doorstep, which your siblings had roasted you for when you’d walked through the door, because obviously they’d been spying on your from the window as soon as they heard the loud purr of Jaemin’s car stop outside. And on your two days off, Jaemin had spent the both of days entertaining you and impressing you with his date spots. One of your favourite moments was when Jaemin had asked you if you trusted him whilst he was driving. You didn’t even hesitate to give him a quick nod and utter ‘yes’. You felt such a rush inside of you when the car speed up so fast that you felt yourself being pushed into your seat. You also felt a rush at how quickly you’d put your trust in a man you had only known for a month, a man who had admitted to doing illegal things. Jaemin had kept glancing at you, his heart blooming with an unfamiliar feeling when he saw the look of pure joy etched on your angelic face as you found elation in his passion. Of course he kept his driving on the safer side in order not to scare you, and even though he was confident in his driving abilities, keeping you safe was his new priority.

Day number 8 of your date streak found you sitting in Jaemin’s bedroom, legs folded underneath you as you sat opposite Jaemin with a glass of wine in your hand, one of his large hoodies covering up your cocktail dress to keep you warm. You’d been to a bar with him hours earlier, and you’d both drank a little bit too much. So his invite for you to join him in his bedroom had quickly been accepted, and there you sat, sipping at your wine as you laughed at a corny joke he’d cracked.

“Jaemiiiin,” You whined endearingly, leaning your forehead on his shoulder and hiccupping. “I want to know more about you, we should play never have I ever!” Your tipsy brain had you thinking that was the best idea ever, and Jaemin seemed to think the same thing, as he jumped at the opportunity, causing you to sit back again and grin at him.

“Okay! Me first.” He cleared his throat and took a quick mouthful of beer. “Okay, never have I ever…tried oysters.” You sniggered at his choice of words, furrowing your eyebrows at him and not raising your glass.

“I haven’t either! Okay, never have I ever…smoked a cigarette.” He rolled his eyes and raised his bottle of beer to his lips, gulping down a mouthful before pausing to rack his brain for things he hadn’t ever done.

“Never have I ever worn high heels!”

“Oh come on that’s not fair!” You squeal but didn’t hesitate to take a big swig of your wine. “Fine, I’m turning the heat up. Never have I ever had sex anywhere other than on a bed.” You were actually taken aback when he made no effort to drink, a smirk growing on his face. “You haven’t?!” You raised your eyebrows, placing your glass of wine on his bedside table and shuffling closer to him on your knees. He shook his head, biting his bottom lip as he placed his hands gently on your hips, guiding you into his lap.

“You’re surprised.” He laughed softly at his observation, his eyes flicking down to your lips before he leaned in and placed a lingering, hot kiss to your parted lips.

“You’re so hot and kind, I just thought you’d be…kind of experienced in that department.” His lips nipped at your own lips, drawing a silkey kiss between you with his tongue coming out to trace the lining on your bottom lip. “Your turn.” You whispered, sitting all of your weight onto his crotch, confident with how he pulled you closer to his own, warm body. He took a deep breath, a deep laugh vibrating from his chest as he kissed down to your jaw, leaving hot kisses on your smooth skin. His next confession had your heart pounding in adoration and your mouth popping open in surprise.

“Never have I ever…had sex.”

---

So this is the start to the end main parts of the series! What are we thinking is going to happen? Let me know! (Please be nice lol) <3

[lavalampelfchild]

Lava’s Art Masterpost

Hey, all!  Welcome to my art masterpost!  I have no idea if this is a thing that is done typically for art, but oh well, I like organizing things, so here we are!  What you’ll find here is mostly Dragon Age, with a few non-DA pieces in there, and there’s a range of styles I like to use, depending on my mood.  But a lot of what you’ll see will most likely combine lineart with some other form of coloring/shading.

Feel free to browse at your leisure, and I hope anyone who stumbles upon this enjoys what they find! :D And thank you to anyone who sees this and likes, or reblogs, or even just stops by to peruse a bit!  

All that said, away we go!

Digital Portraits:

1. Portrait of Nameless Woman, 2020 - This one is just an experiment with a watercolor brush that I did.  It’s not anatomically perfect, but I enjoyed playing around with shading.

2. Sketch of Aja Amell, 2020 - This one is basically sketch practice with my Amell~  Not really the most expressive pictures, but it’s a start toward drawing her more expressively.  Full disclosure: Aja is one of those OCs of mine that I have had trouble with deciding on a definitive appearance for several pictures, and I really want to work on upping my level of consistency when drawing her.

3. Long-Haired Fenris, 2020 - Exactly what it sounds like; this was for practice drawing Fenris’s features (I love how distinct they are), but with long hair because I am weak for it.  This one was a fun piece to shade, and mixing the stylized lineart that I normally use with a greyscale shading spectrum was really enjoyable.

4. Portrait of Ilorin Lavellan, 2016 - This is an oldie.  Basically practicing expressions, and it is technically a WIP, but I’m still very happy with how the shading turned out, especially because this is actually (aside from the unfinished hair) one of the more minimal pieces I’ve done in terms of lineart  It’s still there, and it still shapes the flow of the picture in some ways, but it also ends up flowing with the shading instead of standing out next to it, which I like.  (Both styles are good, though, and I love seeing other artists try both too.)

5. Old Portrait of Aja Amell, 2016 - Much older picture I did of Aja; she... honestly looks very little like the newer one, I think, and that consistency is something I’m still working on, but this one was the first picture of Aja with that particular hairstyle I drew.  What I like about this picture is how young she looks; it fits with her image as a fresh and sheltered Circle mage who’s only about 20 years old at the time of DAO.

6. Old Portrait of Trilyn, 2016 - They very first piece of art I posted to tumblr~ It’s not exactly how I envision Trilyn anymore, but it was still very fun to draw, and helped me get a feel for drawing him in the future. 

Dynamic Movement Pictures/”Moment’s in Time”:

1. Tabris in Arl’s Estate, 2020 - TW: blood.  I am super proud of this one.  My ultimate goal is to draw all of my Warden DAO OCs, and I could not believe I’ve never drawn my Tabris, and so here she is.  This was, in large part, practicing expressions because I absolutely love art that depicts characters in motion, or capturing some kind of expression.

2. Velyn in the Rain, 2017 - This one was actually based on some art that I saw in a Teen Wolf fic!  It was an experiment with a more expressive style (and one of the first pieces I did without lineart left in the finished version) and it was a huge step out of my comfort zone.  But overall, I am extremely happy with how it turned out.

3. Jem Nocking an Arrow, 2016 - And here is the lineart version.  This was entirely an excuse to draw my DAI baby, Jem, and to do a cool archer pose because archers are my fav, and I love characters in motion.

4. Solas Teaching Trilyn Fade Magic, 2016 - This one was a painterly picture that was also (like the Velyn picture) something which I tried to keep lineart out of.  Overall, I am proud of a lot of parts of the pic, but I think I would definitely go back over it and change a few things now if I had the patience.

5. Trilyn Closeup WIP, 2016 - TW: injury, blood, mention of abuse in the author’s note.  A lot of early pictures I have are of my OC, Trilyn, and this is one of my absolute favorites.  His entire upper body is technically in the picture, but I hadn’t finished rendering it yet, so this was what I posted.  And it was an experiment with a cross-hatching style with the pencil tool for some texture, with air brush shading and a blurring tool.  It’s a style I had fun playing around with!

6. Trilyn Blood Ritual, 2016 - TW: blood, injury (the slight cut used to supply the ritual with blood).  This one was definitely a sort of “captured moment” from a backstory I gave Trilyn, and I think what I was really going for was an atmospheric piece that could fit with any potential fic I wanted to write for Trilyn.  And then it ended up being practice for extreme lighting/shading techniques, and drawing the blood and the gross mass of demon ichor (or whatever the heck that is) turned out to be highlights of making the piece for me.

Art + Text:

1. Freedom and Control, 2020 - TW: scars, but very difficult to see.  This one was ambitious for me!  It started originally just as Solas and my Tal-Vashoth OC, Saara, facing each other, because I love the dynamic I’ve built for them in my head, but then it turned into an attempt at a tarot-esque background, and just sorta grew from there... Overall, I’m happy with how it turned out, especially with how Solas and Saara themselves turned out.  The version you can actually see a larger view is here.  

2. Marianna and Delia Codex and Art, Pt. 1, 2020 - I love writing my own codex entries, first off, and I love combining art with text to create a (hopefully) seamless work.  This work was an attempt to flesh out these OCs of mine with both art (because unique facial structures are hard for me to get down, but so important regardless) and text (because writing~).  I think it turned out well overall, but there are elements of the portraits that I might at some point touch up a bit.

3. Marianna and Delia Codex and Art, Pt. 2, 2020 - Part 2, with what I refer to as a “DAI Outfit Change” because I have always loved seeing fans show their own OCs as they look in DAO, DA2, and then finally DAI.  So I absolutely wanted to jump on that bandwagon myself.  The skin tones are a little off (and I’m sorry about that!) because I was playing with the watercolor brush at that point, and it dilutes the colors I use.  Still working to figure that out, but I was very happy with the overall lineart and structures of the faces.

4. Alistair/Aja Amell Picture with a Blurb, 2017 - Ooooold, old, old, old, OLD!  I still love the art, and I’m soooo happy with how the interaction between Alistair and Aja turned out (drawing kisses is extremely difficult for me; I always end up creating a distorted weird lip-creature, instead of realistically puckered lips...).  I’m not as happy with the blurb that went with it?  At that point, I was still very much figuring out my own DAO worldstate, and the characterization for everyone, so, eh.  Take it with a grain of salt!

Unfinished Costume Designs:

1. Ancient Elvhen Armor with Dwarven Influence, 2018 - People who do costume design work are amazing and mystical beings, and I wish I could do what they do.  This was an attempt at merging the Keeper robes from DAI with a more dwarven armor aesthetic, solely because I created an ancient elvhen character, Ceda, who was taken in by the Cad���halash dwarves mentioned in the Witch Hunt dlc, and I wanted this character to have a mix of the elven style of armor and the dwarven style.  I’m overall decently happy with it, but there’s still that persistent level of self-criticism present.

2. Herald of Andraste Outfit WIP, 2016 - This was a very old picture, not one I showed around a lot, but the idea for this was entirely born of my intense interest in how fashion and outfit designs could be used to create a symbolic image for the Herald of Andraste.  In general, I love the combination of ceremonial armor with long and flowing cloth, so that was what I went for here.  I’m still actually very proud of how this came out, and headcanon something similar for my Herald in my canon DAI worldstate.

Pencil Sketches:

1. Quick Saara Sketch, 2019 - TW: saarebas mouth scars.  Exactly what it says; very quick sketch of Saara I did in a small notebook I carry around with me.  This was basically a test for myself to see if I could manage to draw Saara with the features and facial structure I envisioned for her without needing to use a lot of references.

2. Mass Effect Character Sketch; Jesse, 2018 - Similar reason for drawing this one as the above Saara sketch!  With these characters, I love sometimes the way they can turn out with the specific character creator used for them, and when I draw them, I enjoy trying to create a definitive look for them using what I get from the CC, and my own knowledge of Hooman Faces.

3. Saara Sketch, 2017 - TW: saarebas mouth scars.  A more detailed sketch of Saara than the one above, and one I definitely put more time into overall.  It’s currently the profile picture I’m using for ao3, and is the definitive go-to reference picture I use whenever imagining Saara in a fic, or for other Saara pics I make.  I am extremely proud of this picture, and feel like I should work in graphite more often.  It’s such fun, and the texture is so nice to look at.

4. Sketch of Nameless Alamarri Woman, 2017 - This was a sketch I did of what I envisioned some Alamarri tribes to look like; I used artistic depictions of Gaul tribes and hairstyles for inspiration, and have used this as a go-to reference for my version of Alamarri tribes.  Nothing super notable about this one, but I really liked the way the shape of her face turned out.

Events and Gifts:

1. Another Scar, 2020 - TW: blood, injuries, gore.  The most recent piece of art on the list, and a gift for @cartadwarfwithaheartofgold; featuring sisterly love between Rica and fem!Brosca, which was her requested prompt.  This was a tough piece for me because of the difficulty with the lighting I dealt with.  For some reason, that one particular element of it gave me so much trouble.  Overall, I’m very happy with how it turned out, though, especially the skin tones of the sisters; Brosca I always sort of like as having this greyish, more gaunt look to her, while Rica I like seeing with a darker, richer, and warmer tone to her.  

2. A Very Cousland Christmas!, 2019 - This was for a holiday exchange for a server, and I drew a friend’s Cousland (Elissa, the girl on the left) with my Cousland (Gazza, the girl on the right).  I love kid-fic, and I love kid-art, and so I decided... baby Cousland art!  Drawing kid proportions was the toughest part, I recall, and I thiiiink it turned out well, and I’m still quite proud of it overall.  Elissa’s design came entirely from my friend, but I added the holly~

3. Exchange Gift with Dis Brosca and Mabari, 2018 - This was an exchange gift for @fanfoolishness, using her lovely Dis Brosca, and was my first real attempt at backgrounds... I struggled with the coherence of the foreground and background a bit, but I’m still very proud of how it turned out, especially with the colors I had to work with.  What I also really enjoyed working with was the lighting and the expression on Dis’s face.  Backlit subjects are always fun to play around with!

4. Inktober Picture, “Deep”, 2017 - TW: scars, injury, mentions of abuse in the author’s note/attached dialogue snippets.  This was for an Inktober prompt (the only one I’ve ever done, sadly... because I am bad with deadlines...), and again features Trilyn.  Trilyn’s backstory has him a former slave in Tevinter, and a lot of the early works I do for him are sort of deep-dives into his life there.  It’s all meant to be an exploration of the things he endures, and then those moments when he overcomes it all and takes back his own autonomy and self.  This art is definitely provocative, and I can understand if not everyone likes it, but to me, I just wanted to show just what he faces (without glorifying it) before showing the moment of his own triumph.

5. Christmas Holiday Picture with my Brosca and a Friend’s Amell, 2017 - This was a piece of art drawn first by a friend of mine, @nanahuatli~  She drew the Amell, the background, the mistletoe, etc.  All I did was add my Brosca to the mix to finish the image.  It was a lot of fun to do, 1) because it was fun trying to match her style so that the picture looked cohesive, 2) because I love doing collabs with friends, and 3) because it was just such a fun thing to imagine my surly short Brosca, looking at this weird plant/fungus/thing dangling over some puckering human!  It was an absolute joy to do this collab with her!  

6. OC Kiss Week Pic of Jem and Saara, 2017 - TW: saarebas mouth scars.  A spur-of-the-moment thing meant to demonstrate just what kind of dynamic my OC, Jem, has with my other OC, Saara (both of whom are members of Leliana’s network in DAI).  This was a very quick picture (deadlines...) and was mostly just to have fun drawing these two characters interacting, and to see if I could make them look like themselves.  I think I did a decent job with it overall, especially with Jem’s kissy-face!  (Again... drawing kisses are the bane of my existence, although hands and feet take a close second.)

[fortunatelylori]

I’ve been thoroughly enjoying all endgame theories on your blog. Thank you for your great takes. When I try to guess, there seems to be foreshadowing for so many different things (Sansa’s kidnapping, Sansa falling, a baby, maybe a baby switch, Tyrion fighting for both the green and black sides of Dance 2.0, Tyrion ending up on the Wall or even as a “gargoyle” because of greyscale, Bran warging a dragon) that I can’t get a read on how it will all happen. But I wonder if a poisoning will happen.

(cont.) The “For the Throne” trailer shows Jaime reacting to both Myrcella’s and Joffrey’s poisonings. In addition, in season 7, Cersei poisoned Tyene, and Jaime poisoned Olenna. In Arya’s storyline, the Sansa actress hired a Faceless man to poison the Cersei actress. Also, in the books, Sansa is accused of taking part in Joffrey’s poisoning and suspected by readers of helping to poison Robin Arryn. Dany also narrowly escapes two poisoning attempts (the wine merchant and the locusts).

(cont. 2) The third time should be a reverse. Will Cersei try to poison Sansa or has she met her poisoning quota? I don’t think Dany will die of poisoning, but will there be a reverse and she will attempt and fail to poison Sansa? Or will Cersei try to poison Dany, and Sansa will be falsely accused with consequences? Will Jaime finally be able to save someone entrusted to his protection from poisoning? Finally, people have written great metas comparing Sansa’s story to Snow White.

(cont. 3) The original Snow White also included poison. The evil queen tries to kill Snow White with three objects a corset that is too tight, a poisoned comb, and a poisoned apple. So far, Queen Cersei gave Sansa a tight-fitting dress for Sansa’s wedding to Tyrion, and the Queen of Thorns indirectly caused Sansa to get a poisoned hairnet. Is a poisoned apple next from another queen next (or perhaps poisoned apple brandy given that Sansa doesn’t like ale)? What do you think?

Hey, nonnie!

Thank you so much for your comment. I’m glad you’re enjoying my speculation. :) I absolutely agree with you on the theories front. There are so many theories that are making the rounds that it’s hard to make heads or tails of it or figure out which are likelier to happen than others. 

The way I personally approach this issue is by trying to fit a theory in with the pieces of information we have or already established theories that I’m fairly certain will happen. If a theory fits neatly with that, then I start digging further. If not, I either keep it in a maybe pile or discard it all together, depending on how preposterous it sounds to me. 

In regards to your poisoning theory, I think you’re really onto something and it would fit pretty well within Sansa’s story line. I’ll focus on the show in terms of foreshadowing. 

As you mentioned, she was already involved in one poisoning and there’s also the foreshadowing with the actresses in Braavos. 

Although I’m not sure why you would need a reversal in that case. In the first instance where Sansa is involved in the poisoning of Jofferey, she was used by Olenna and Littlefinger as an unwitting fall girl for their assassination. In the second instance, the poisoning of the Cersei actress by the Sansa actress was thwarted by Arya. 

Going by that logic, the third time Sansa will go through with it and will be successful in poisoning someone. 

A while back, a theory circulated in the J0nereys circles speculating that Sansa would try to poison D*ny in an attempt to make her miscarry by giving her moon tea. I swear … all of their theories end up being about b0atie. For two half-assed lines of dubious foreshadowing, this b0atie baby that will never happen has essentially taken over the internet. 

Now this is, of course, part of a larger speculation on Dark Sansa who has been a no show for 2 seasons but people still keep on dreaming about it. I think season 9 will be their season. 

However, coupled with the kidnapping theory, I think there’s a pretty good chance Sansa will try or succeed in poisoning someone. The likeliest candidate is Cersei, I think. This could also fit really well within the Younger More Beautiful Queen prophecy. 

I’ve read a theory recently about the effects of shade of the evening, the drug that the warlocks in the House of the Undying, take. The theory suggested that if you give someone this drug they’re much easier to manipulate and insert visions or thoughts into their heads. This speculation is supported by the visions that Aeron has in the Winds of Winter sample chapter, where, after taking shade of the evening, his visions change at Euron’s suggestion. 

Going by that speculation, if Sansa feels like she can’t kill Cersei, she might attempt to make her easier to control. Sansa is going to have to be pretty inventive in trying to evade Cersei’s wrath and since she’s not a fighter and she’ll be alone for quite some time, poisoning/drugs fells like a natural choice.

I don’t think she’ll end up being the one to kill Cersei because of the valonqar theory but seeing Sansa and Cersei interacting, while knowing that Sansa is slowly poisoning her with shade of the evening would be really interesting to watch and also switch the tables on the Cersei/Sansa relationship, where Sansa was always the defenseless victim of Cersei’s cruelty. 

But perhaps it’s not Cersei at all but instead the Mountain or Qyburn? Cersei doesn’t have that many allies left. Theon is going to keep Euron pretty occupied, I should think so if Sansa eliminates Qyburn she’ll make Cersei much more vulnerable. Or perhaps a trial by combat will be arranged and in order to make sure zombie Mountain doesn’t win, she slips him a poison before the fight. 

There are a lot of scenarios where I could see this poisoning theory being used. I like it. It’s going in my yes pile. :))))

Thanks for the ask!

[trash-the-tozier]

Greyscale

Title: Greyscale

Length: ~10.8k words

Summary: Soulmates are what make the world vibrant, colors getting brighter and brighter the closer a pair of souls get to one another. In usual cases, the world starts off black and white and changes as a person travels, but for Mike, colors have always been there. Faint, but there, and that doesn't change until the night his friend Will goes missing.

Warnings: canon-typical violence, small changes made to the canon to fit better within the story

A/N: My sister and I were talking about the bond El and Mike managed to form over just a couple of days and she was like "they're soulmates obvs" and I just went !!!!!!!! bc I love soulmate aus more than I love life itself. This takes place throughout the entirety of season 1. also posted on ao3 here

​Mike's world was always dull. Not by his friends, or his experiences; that's what made it all worthwhile. It was way the world looked. Everything was almost in greyscale, the colors just barely there, so nearly faded out that Mike had to concentrate to clearly see the saturation. If that was just the way it was, he wouldn't complain; he wouldn't know he could. But things loo​​ked muted. They felt muted. With fairy tales boasting worlds full of incredible sights, Mike couldn't help but feel frustrated. He supposed this was how it was for everyone though. That's just how the world was, is, and will be.

Except it isn't, as he comes to learn in kindergarten. They have a day learning about colors, the teacher bringing a color chart down from the wall and placing it next to her chair. They sit on the floor around her, looking up.

Each color is in its own row, ranging from incredibly dark to pale light as it travels horizontally across the poster. Mike reads each of the names, stopping at "orange" and "purple", having to sound them out slowly, like he's been taught to do when he encounters any other word he doesn't quite know yet.

"This is a color chart." Mrs. Anderson explains. "Each color is different, and they make up what the world looks like."

Mike nods in agreement. While it's a little hard to see, he can tell that "red" has this warmth to it that "blue" just doesn't have. Even at their darkest points, there's something inherently brighter about "yellow" than "purple".

A boy sitting next to Mike named Lucas raises his hand. He's frowning, his eyes still on the chart as he speaks.

"They're not different." He says. "They look the same."

Mrs. Anderson gives him a gentle smile.

"They look that way now. One day though, when you meet someone special, colors will show up. It's like that Hot and Cold game. Have any of you played that one? When you're trying to find something, and the closer you get, the 'hotter' you get, and the further away, the 'colder' you are? It's like that. The closer you are to your special person, the better and brighter colors will be. Life will take all of you to many different places, so a lot of you are too far away from your soulmate to see colors yet. But don't worry about it. Colors will happen with time."

Then it's Mike's turn to frown, his friend Will catching his eye and looking concerned by his expression. Mike doesn't understand. He can already see colors, even if it's just barely. Does that mean his soulmate is nearby? It has to, right?

He asks his mother about it that night as she tucks him into bed, confiding in her that he can already see colors a little bit, and that he isn't like the other kids in his class. She gives him a strange expression, a smile that he doesn't realize until years later is a little bit happy and a little bit sad.

"That is fantastic, Michael." She brushes his bangs back from his forehead, tucking some of his hair behind his ear. "She must live around here! In this state, or in this town, maybe."

Mike doesn't really get it. Sometimes, he would rather be normal, like the other colorblind kids in his class. Does it have to be a girl? They're all annoying and giggly, and Will says Jonathan told him they all have cooties. Mike doesn't know what cooties are, but he doesn't want any.

Dustin is fun and talkative, and when he joins their group in third grade, the rest of them become more talkative too. Mike ends up confessing about his color vision at a sleepover the following year (he blames it being late for making his tongue loose, despite it only being three minutes after midnight; that's late when you're nine years old) and despite trying to emphasize how faint the colors are, all of his friends bombard him with questions. They spend a few weekends riding around town to see if the color gets stronger or weaker, but if it does change it's not enough for Mike to notice. He likes that his friends know, though.

In fifth grade, Lucas starts asking him if his clothes match. Mike doesn't really know what he's talking about--"fashion, you know? looking good?"--and thinks it's kind of stupid, but he still tries to help. He’s usually just nodding or shaking his head at random because it's all still mostly grey anyway, feeling a bit bad sometimes when he realizes how much Lucas is taking his criticisms to heart. Will usually has a quiet question or two about soulmates, but Mike usually can't answer them. He may be seeing colors, but he's as clueless as everyone else.

He begins unknowingly taking comfort in the incredibly greywashed hues he can see, and as a result begins hating it when his family goes on trips out of state, or even out of town. He doesn't like it when the brown fades from Nancy's hair, or he can't see the blue in the eyes of his new baby sister, Holly. The limitation of his vision fills him with unease, even his dreams playing out completely in black and white, and he hopes for the sake of his soulmate that they don't feel as unsettled as he does when the distance grows between them and the colors fade away. He just hopes they know he'll return.

His first year of middle school is the first time the colors disappear. He's in the middle of class when everything snaps to black and white, and it's so sudden that he nearly falls out of his chair. He has to leave, getting shakily to his feet and running from the room, ignoring his teacher's angry voice yelling after him, and a concerned Dustin calling his name. His legs feel shaky and he doesn't even get all the way down the hallway, bumping hard into the wall of lockers with his shoulder and stumbling in an attempt to steady himself.

The disappearance wasn't gradual, as though his soulmate was moving farther away from him. It was instant, quick as a blink, and now Mike feels as though he's gone blind. He knows that colors don't disappear when soulmates fall asleep, so consciousness isn't the problem. It's more permanent than that. Farther away. It's as though his soulmate is dead.

The whole world sways and Mike feels himself sinking to the floor. Almost as soon as the thought hits him though, the colors are back, still dull, still as washed out as always but there, and Mike takes in a shaky breath.

"Mike!" Will's voice, calling his name, pulling him from his haze of hopeless confusion as his friends run down the hallway. They all crouch next to him, Lucas putting a hand on his shoulder.

"Are you okay? Are you going to throw up? You look like you're going to throw up."

"What's--" He looks around at them all, trying to reclaim his breathing. "What are you guys doing?"

"Worried about you." Will explains briefly. He catches Mike's eyes and holds them, and Mike knows he can tell how shaken he is. "What happened?"

"I... I was just sitting there, in class, and then all color disappeared. Like my soulmate was just gone. I thought maybe my soulmate died, or... Or something."

Dustin lets out a low whistle.

"Oh man."

"But it's back now. Colors, I mean. I don't know what happened."

He looks at them all, hoping for a solution, but a few clueless shrugs follow his eyes. Then their teacher sticks her head out into the hallway. She looks incredibly peeved.

"Oh, yeah." Dustin gives Mike a sheepish grin. "She wouldn't buy into the idea that all three of us needed to pee at the same time, but we ran out anyway. So we all have detention this afternoon for 'making a scene' to help you." He gets up, pulling Mike to his feet too, and despite himself Mike feels a small smile on his face.

Detention gives them time to think of theories, swapping them as they walk home together. Some of them are otherworldly or extraterrestrial--"no, his soulmate isn't an alien, shut up Dustin"--and by the end of it Lucas's idea is the most plausible, as much as Mike hates it.

"Maybe she's sick. Maybe she flatlined, but the doctors used those electric shock things to bring her back."

"Defibrillators?" Mike asks uncomfortably, the word long and clumsy on his tongue. He doesn't like the sound of that. He doesn't want his soulmate to be that sick; it sounds horrible. He can only hope it's a one time thing.

It's not. It takes nearly a year for it to happen again, but then it begins increasing in frequency. By the fall next school year, this "flatlining" is happening once or twice a week, and it terrifies Mike every single time. He always holds his breath, and if colors haven't come back by the time his lungs begin to burn, he starts feeling panicky. But the flatlining begins lasting longer and longer, and when a fifteen minutes one passes during lunch on Friday, Mike fears his soulmate might be gone forever. He hadn't realized how much he cared about having a soulmate until the threat of losing them came.

Three days later, Will Byers is declared missing. He rode out from Mike's after a D&D session and never came back. His bike is found, but he's not on it. He's nowhere to be seen. It's all surreal, Mike feeling as though he’s not even in his body when he hears the news, strangely terrified and disconnected. It’s almost unbelievable. The police question Dustin, Lucas, and Mike himself, but Mike feels like their answers don't help much.

The colors before Mike's eyes are noticeably brighter, fluctuating as he goes throughout his Monday, but he barely notices it. He's too worried; too distracted, though he does wonder if the two events are somehow connected. But the colors aren't disappearing, and either way there isn't anything Mike can do about it, so he focuses all of his energy instead on helping Will, to somehow find his best friend. He completely disregards both his mother's curfew and the police chief's orders and gathers up Lucas and Dustin, heading out into the night.

It probably isn't the best idea to go out into the woods in the dark, in the rain, alone--walking through the same spanse of ground that Will was last seen, as Dustin has anxiously reminded them five times now--but Mike knows it’ll be worth it if they can manage to find anything helpful. He’s squinting through the heavy raindrops and the flashlight beam can only go so far, Mike and his friends stumbling over roots and stray branches as they make their way through the forest. They try a few times to call out Will’s name but it feels useless, their voices swallowed up by the trees overhead and the whistling storm.

Then Mike hears something. It's faint but it's there and he tells his friends to shut up, standing stock still. It's the sound of a figure approaching, a jump in Mike’s chest when he realizes the figure is small like Will, thin and shivering. Then he turns and points his light at the silhouette, and his breath dies in his throat.

It isn’t Will. It's a girl, small and shaking slightly, soaked to the bone in what looks like nothing but a giant t-shirt. The shirt is so yellow that it has Mike stumbling back a few paces in shock, looking over the rest of her. She's pale from cold, her lips pink, the end of her nose bright red, her hair incredibly short and her eyes a dark brown. She’s the most colorful thing Mike has ever seen, as though she's the center of the universe, the crystal that all light passes through to fracture into pieces and color the world.

She's looking at him in the same surprise that Mike's sure is on his face, Lucas leaning close and whispering harshly into his ear.

“What the hell do we do now?”

“W-we have to help her.” It takes a moment for Mike to find his voice. “She's wet, and, and she's cold, and it's raining, we need to--” He reaches out to put a hand on her shoulder but she flinches back, and he freezes completely. “She needs help.”

His friends’ faces obviously don't agree, but they seem afraid to openly seem rude in front of another person, and don't say a word as Mike turns back out of the woods to their bikes. The girl is silent as well but she follows very closely behind him, just a step or two away. Dustin and Lucas don't talk to him either, though Mike does overhear Lucas asking what the hell it is Mike is thinking. Honestly, Mike isn't sure. All he knows is that he can't leave her alone in the rain like this.

They make it back to his house, entering the basement unnoticed, and as soon as Mike walks into the downstairs room he’s immediately assaulted with a wash of colors, browns and reds and greens and oranges all over the place in a mismatched hodgepodge.

Dustin bumps his shoulder to get past him, jostling him out of his surprise and back into action. The girl is still shivering, looking around the room with wide eyes, and Mike grabs a big tan coat laying across the couch, offering it in her direction. She just stares so he begins draping it gingerly over her shoulders and then she understands, pulling it quickly around herself. He gestures to the couch and she sits without question, the action more of a collapse than anything, and Mike feels worried for her. He looks over her again and sees that despite the reservation on her face she's clearly exhausted, her eyes downcast.

He asks the first logical thing he can think of.

“Is there a number we can call? For your parents?”

She looks up at him and Mike swallows. Her eyes are big and dark, the same color as the buzzed-short hair on her head. Of course, that's what Dustin asks about. He first asks what happened to it, then if she has cancer, and Mike is brought back to Lucas's “flatlining” theory instantly, asking the girl if she's in trouble. Then Lucas says something about blood, reaching towards her with a pointer finger. Remembering the way she flinched back when he tried to touch her earlier, Mike bats his hand away. They've all battered her with questions but she's barely moved, just sitting there, wide eyed.

“Stop it! You're freaking her out.” He tells Lucas. Lucas gapes at him.

“She's freaking me out!” He insists. After a bit more arguing and a rather offensive deafness test, Mike realizes that the girl is still in her soaking wet clothes. He rushes to get something for her, a pair of sweats that he hopes will keep her warm. She nearly takes her clothes off in front of them and Dustin completely flies off the handle, Mike realizing by the look on her face that she's doesn't know what's wrong. Somehow, she doesn’t know that girls and boys aren’t supposed to just change clothes in front of each other. It worries him a little bit, but he takes her quickly to the bathroom and tries to close the door.

“No.” Her voice is soft, but insistent all the same.

“Oh, so you can speak!” The words sound dumb as soon as they leave his mouth, but he can't help it. He’s too surprised. He’d nearly just assumed she couldn’t talk at all, but he’s glad she can. Her voice is nice, he thinks, but once he realizes the thought he shakes it away. He leaves the door open a crack and returns to his friends, where Dustin still hasn't put his head back on his shoulders and Lucas is nervous about the whole thing.

Lucas’s claims about an escaped convict and the looney bin make Mike upset for reasons he can’t really describe. When he reveals his plan to let the girl spend the night in his basement both of his friends turn on him in disbelief, but he doesn’t think it’s that crazy. Kicking her out into the rain isn’t even an option in his mind, and their parents would get mad at them if they tried to do anything about her tonight. So she has to sleep here.

Lucas and Dustin go home, and he sets up a little hideaway for the girl to sleep in, getting her any pillows or blankets he thinks she could want. Thankfully, he finds that his clothes aren’t too big on her, and she curls up in her alcove. She’s quiet and wary, flinching back when Mike reaches for her, and he berates himself when he draws his hand back. He should have remembered that touch makes her uncomfortable. But he just can’t help it; she pulled back her sleeve when he asked her for her name, and there's something etched into her arm.

“I’ve never seen a kid with a tattoo before.” He explains in apology. The ink on the inside of her forearm doesn't form letters, but three numbers instead. 011. Eleven. “What’s it mean, eleven?”

She meets his eyes, tapping her chest with a pointer finger, the action deliberate.

“That’s your name?” He asks, confused. People aren't named after numbers. Or, they shouldn't be. But she nods.

“Oh, okay. Well, my name's Mike, short for Michael. Maybe we can call you El, short for Eleven?”

She gives a small, consenting nod. El. It feels strange, like he just named her, but it's not as though she's a stray dog. She's a person, a girl, and she's spending the night in her basement. His friends’ disbelief of his plan hits him then, just a little bit.

It's horrifically past bedtime, and though Mike still feels wide awake, the girl--El, he reminds himself--probably needs to sleep. Whatever she’s been through, it’s taken a lot out of her. Mike gets to his feet.

“Night El.”

“Night, Mike.”

Her voice again, soft but steady, and when he hears her say his name, something about the world shifts. It’s as though something that was off is finally amended, and he feels it as his heart clicks into place inside his chest. Everything feels right.

It takes until he's laying in bed and staring at the ceiling to realize why. Because the world is completely in color now. Because she’s his soulmate. This is what having a soulmate feels like. Mike hugs his arms around himself, the feeling strangely comforting, and lets his eyes close.

The next day, El refuses to talk to Mike's mom. She flat out says no and doesn't get up, and Mike doesn't know what to do. Eleven doesn't want help. She's lost, homeless, with nothing to her name--a name that's a number, no less--and she doesn't want help. There's only one explanation Mike can think of, and it makes his limbs feel weak.

“You're in trouble, aren't you?”

It's barely a question, and she doesn't answer, just glancing up at him, but Mike knows he's right.

“Who… Who are you in trouble with?”

He hopes it's something small. She's in trouble with her parents, maybe. Mike knew a kid in third grade that got taken from his parents and moved out of state after a couple months of not being able to bring a lunch to school. The other kids didn't like him because it didn't seem like he wasn't able to wash his clothes very often either, and sometimes he had bruises on his arms, but Mike and Will would sit with him and share their lunches. Then he moved away to live with his aunt. Eleven is demolishing the Eggos he'd brought downstairs for her so quickly that it reminds Mike of that boy, and he hopes maybe that was it. Just that. But then she speaks, and his hopes are dashed.

“Bad.” Her voice is grave, barely a whisper.

“Bad? Bad people?”

He wants to help her. He wants to help her so much that his chest aches in a way he's never felt before, but first he needs to know what's wrong. She nods.

“They want to hurt you? The bad people?”

She shapes her fingers into a gun, pointing at her own temple, and Mike feels his stomach twist. Then, unblinkingly, she shifts the barrel of her gun to Mike's face instead, her fingers mere inches from his face, pointed straight for his throat. She meets his eyes.

“Understand?” She asks him, and he does. They can't tell his mom about her. They can't tell anyone, because the bad people want to hurt Eleven, and if they find out she's here, they'll hurt him too. They'll hurt everyone. Mike needs to keep her safe.

His mother calls for him, and it's time to go to school. He rides his bike about a third of the way there, watching colors fade slightly before he doubles back, skipping class to stay at home with El. Everyone has gone out so he lets her leave the basement, showing her his house and his things. He knows that she's only half paying attention to him as he talks about the stuff he's pointing to, but that's because she's trying to focus on everything around her at once as she looks around.

It's a bit strange to him, how fascinated and vaguely worried she is by everything, everything familiar that Mike calls home. It makes him wonder if she's ever had a “home” before. It seems impossible for her not to have, and he knows she couldn't have simply wandered around the woods her whole life, but still. He wants to know what happened to her, but he knows better than to ask.

It's strange for him too, though. He'd tried to keep it off his face that morning, teasing his sister as he wolfed down his food. He couldn't let anyone know he can see colors now, because his parents would have questions. But his house is so incredibly colorful. The furniture, the walls, the floors, and the trinkets that line the shelves are all little pops of color, instead of being so dull, and it isn't until now that Mike understands what Lucas meant about 'looking good’. The colors around his house are a mess, and he briefly wonders why nothing matches. But then El walks up to his father's La-Z-Boy, the thing muted despite his newfound color vision, and Mike hurries over excitedly, wanting to show it to her.

El likes his father's chair. It makes her smile when he reclines it and pops out the foot rest, nervous at first but nodding trustingly, the concerned expression melting into a smile when the chair rocks, and he has to smile back at her. Cute, he realizes, and this time he doesn't let himself shake the thought away. Her hair is nearly completely buzzed off, and her teeth are a little crooked in the front, and she's cute.

Mike has found a few people cute before. Holly could be cute, when she was sleeping or not screaming or something, but this is different. This is cute the way Alice from Science class was cute when she wore her hair in a bow for picture day, or the way Will is cute sometimes when he gets excited and smiles and jumps up and down. It's the kind of cute that makes Mike want to hold her close, keep her around and keep her safe. The different, good kind of cute. He likes that she makes him feel that way.

They're in his room, looking over his science fair trophies when she points to Will. It makes him a bit sick to his stomach to see the shocked, scared expression on her face when her finger touches the photograph.

“You know Will?” He asks. Maybe she saw him out, the night they'd gone to look for him and they'd found her instead. He tries to press her for answers, for anything, but they both whirl around when a car crunches into the driveway. His mom is home. El needs to hide.

The downstairs instantly loses itself as a viable option, so he drags her back into his room and begs her to hide in the closet. She's hesitant, and he promises not to tell his mom about her.

“Promise?” She asks in confusion.

“A promise is something you can't break.” He explains. “Ever.”

He isn't sure she understands but they're out of time, and thankfully she lets him hide her. He lies easily to his mother, who believes him to be too distraught to go to school, convincing her even after there's a loud bump from upstairs.

The sound has Mike confused, but that's nothing compared to how he feels when he goes upstairs and finds her on the floor, tears on her cheeks. She's upset and he doesn't know what to do, unsure of how anything could have happened in the time that he was gone, and he doesn't believe her when she says she's okay. He doesn't believe her even when she promises, but she gets to her feet, and doesn't elaborate. He doesn't hug her despite wanting to, knowing she probably wouldn't appreciate it. It makes his chest hurt, that same kind of hurt he felt when he found out she was in danger.

He didn't expect such a strong reaction from himself either, watching her curl up into a sitting position on his bed. He's a little scared by the pain on her face, feeling a surge of anger at whatever could have caused it. He shouldn't have left her alone, he thinks. She can't go back to the basement so they spend time in his room, Mike talking to her quietly, walking around his bedroom and exclaiming over all of the different colors of all of his things that he's never really noticed before.

“These colors are here because of you.” He tells her. “You can see them too?”

She nods.

“Colors.” She says, and Mike's heart swells, making a promise to himself then and there that despite what may have happened to her before she was found, he would never let her get hurt again.

Lucas and Dustin come over and meet her all over again, with her name this time. Mike tries to explain the situation about El’s knowledge of Will and the Bad People but Dustin is too baffled to listen and Lucas is scared, so scared that he doesn't listen either. He tries to leave but Eleven doesn't let him, slamming and locking the door. Slamming and locking the door with her mind, that is, and Mike is amazed. He can't do anything but stand and stare, blood running slowly down her nose, deep and red. It's the darkest color Mike has ever seen.

They talk about her powers, and about Will, and teach El the word “friend”. Dustin thinks she's really cool and Lucas doesn't trust her, and they decide to go out again the next day and look for Will after school, but with El this time to see if she can help.

But they have to go to school first. At recess Lucas teases Mike about El, laughing and saying he's in love with her, and while he's just joking, Mike feels conflicted. He doesn't know if he loves her or not. He feels as though he should, since they're soulmates and all, but love is such a big word. He knows there's something special about her, but isn't sure of much else. Either way, he doesn't tell his friends that she's his soulmate. It but feels too weird and embarrassing to let them know, and he genuinely doesn't know that he could get the words out if he tried, simply telling Lucas to shut up. Maybe he'll tell them when he figures it out and maybe he won't, but they're his best friends, so he knows that sooner or later they'll find out somehow.

Despite his promise to himself just the day before to keep Eleven from getting hurt, she gets hurt anyway. By him, no less, as Will's body is dragged from the water at the quarry. All of the false hope El had given him, about knowing Will and being able to find him is withering and dying before his eyes, and his chest hurts so badly and his eyes sting and Mike whirls on her, in too much pain to see her own surprise and confusion and try to understand what that must mean. And he yells. He yells at her, because everything hurts too much and he doesn't understand how she could do this to him. Because Will's dead. He gets on his bike and goes home, the vibrancy of the world fading around him as he makes it back, letting his bike clatter on its side in the driveway and running straight into his mother's arms.

He's still crying when Eleven comes home. He's on the couch in the basement, holding a pillow to his chest, his sobs having subsided to a slow stream of tears down his cheeks that are beginning to seem constant. Colors start coming back to him slowly and he knows that means she's on her way, closing his eyes and pressing his face into the pillow, unsure of how he's going to feel upon seeing her again. He opens his eyes just in time to see the room awash with colors, and then she slips quietly through the door. She's visibly upset, shaken and shivering and sitting down in her alcove.

“How did you find your way back?” He asks quietly. Despite it all, he feels bad.

“Colors.” Her voice is quiet and a little raspy, as though she's been crying too. They sit in silence, Mike able to feel it every time she looks over at him. He wonders what she's doing, or if she wants to say something, but she doesn't try, so he doesn't ask. He gets up, pulling out a binder he's kept of things Will has drawn for him, looking through, seeing the pictures fully in color for the first time. Will's colorblindness is evident, human characters having purple skin, or shooting green fireballs. Somehow though, Mike likes the pictures better this way.

Eleven gets up too. She takes his supercom, fiddling with it, the sound annoying and distracting. He tells her to stop but she doesn't seem to care, and it makes him angry all over again. He wants to explain himself but his words come out harshly, getting worked up and losing his message halfway through. Her eyes are wide and pained as she listens and a small part of Mike is almost glad of that, so full of hurt that he desperately wants to pawn those bad feelings off on another person. He turns back to the drawings, but then the supercom clicks again and Mike hears a voice. Will's voice.

Eleven’s nose is bleeding, the same as it did when she used her powers before, and Mike realizes that she wasn't lying. She'd never lied to him. Will was still alive, but they couldn't see him. They couldn't reach him. He could only be reached by magic, by whatever it was El was doing to the radio. And she needed a bigger radio.

They realize that for that, she needs to go to their school, and for her to even leave the basement she needs to look like a normal girl. They take Nancy's stuff, old stuff that Mike is pretty sure she won't miss, and the three of them do their best to make her look as normal as they can.

They don't succeed. She steps from the bathroom in her pink dress and blonde wig and she looks nothing like any normal girl Mike has ever seen. She’s different. Mike can't figure out what's wrong with himself because he just can't stop staring, and then a word comes out of his mouth before he realizes he's going to say it.

“Pretty.”

Because that's what she is. She's pretty, she looks so pretty, and Mike doesn't even care about the look Lucas is giving him when El offers up a small smile back. Then he cares very, very much, and tries to save face.

“...good. Pretty good.”

It doesn't work. But El goes to the mirror, looking over her reflection and murmuring the word quietly to herself, and she looks genuinely happy for possibly the first time, so Mike doesn't regret saying it.

Mike knows that the best way to keep his friends’ teasing at a minimum is to stop looking at El, quit staring at El, no, no, look anywhere but El, but he can't help it. They make it all the way to the AV Club room before being caught by Mr. Clarke, and Mike feels a little bit badly about lying to him, especially after Will's name is mentioned and he gives him that same strange sort of smile that all adults have been giving them since Will went missing. With a promise to be able to use the ham radio later, the four of them are forced into the gym for an assembly.

Mike doesn't want to be here. He doesn't want to be at a pseudo-memorial service for someone who isn't dead, surrounded by people who only now are pretending to care. Though not everyone is pretending. Troy and James are being loud and rude and laughing, and while Will may not be dead he's still lost and alone and in danger, and anger swells up in Mike again.

He doesn't really realize the weight of his actions until Troy is on the gym floor and the whole school is watching. But it's good that they are, because when Troy pulls back to deck him in the face he's frozen instead, and pees his pants in front of the entire student body. There's some laughter and chatter and Mike is amazed, turning around in time to see El catch his eye, smile the smallest bit, and wipe a tiny amount of blood from her nose, heading towards the gym exit. The word “stunned” doesn't even begin to cover how Mike feels, simply following after her.

They make contact with Will, and it's terrifying. Lights flash and they hear him crying out to his mom, but he doesn't hear any of their attempts to reach him. El’s eyes close and black and white starts closing in on Mike and he feels panicked, worried about her, reaching in her direction when the radio bursts into flame and everything stops.

He asks El if she's okay, but she's obviously not. She needs to get home, and with the help of Lucas and Dustin they remove her from the AV room as the sprinklers rain down on them and the fire alarm blares. Eleven can barely walk, her face pale, her eyelids fluttering, and Mike is so afraid for her, unable to properly breathe until they get her back in the basement and lay her out on the couch. Dustin suggests that she needs fuel, offering her some of his trail mix despite Lucas's protests that she's not a robot. But she eats all of the trail mix, even the raisins, and nods when Mike asks her if she feels better. Then it's time for some research.

Mike doesn't understand the point of dressing up in a fancy way for a funeral. When he asks, his mom doesn't really answer, saying that funerals are about being respectful and celebrating Will's memory. Mike knows that. But all of the memories he has with Will are happy ones, running through the woods and playing games and sharing secrets and eating junk food until they both have stomach aches. In not a single one of these memories is Will in fancy clothes, but his mother is distraught, so he decides not to argue. The funeral has Dustin completely unbothered, but the sight of the casket does get to Mike a little bit, with the grey rain and the grey sadness all around them, and he finds himself wishing Eleven was here with him. He would ask to hold her hand, trying to imagine the colors of the flowers around them at their full vibrancy to help him feel better. It works a little bit.

During the food and drinks, they find Mr. Clarke at a table and ask about dimensions. His answer is helpful, helpful enough to know they're looking for a gate, and he excuses himself to go talk to Will's mom. Lucas says he wants another cookie, getting on his feet, putting on his sad-about-Will face and walking back into the crowd of people. Lucas is best at doing the sad face, so good that sometimes Mike had to wonder if he's actually pretending or not. Dustin turns to him. He looks excited.

“This is crazy, Mike. Your girl can communicate across dimensions. Dimensions!”

“My girl?” Mike splutters, knowing his face is heating up and trying to frown the feeling away. They're not really supposed to talk about her outside of the basement, but Mike can't just let the statement stand. “Why is Eleven my girl?”

“She lives your house, for one.” Dustin points out, and Mike can't really dispute that fact. “You're the one that named her--”

“She already had a name, I didn't--”

“--and you can understand her, somehow. She says like two words at a time, and you guys have full conversations. It's like your brains are linked, or something weird.” He regards Mike for a moment. “Do you think she can use her powers to read your mind?”

The thought is a scary one, not to mention extremely embarrassing. He hopes not. Considering El’s powers though, he doesn't think so.

“Probably not.”

“Either way, I wouldn't want to play charades against you guys.” Dustin says. “Lucas and I wouldn't stand a chance.”

Mike tries to imagine that, playing charades with El. Playing any games with El, really. Eleven being their friend, attending their school with them and going out to the arcade or the theater. The thought of going to see a movie with El heats his face up again, but he likes the idea, too.

“She's our Mage.” Dustin says.

“What do you mean?”

“She’s our Mage.” He repeats. “She’s the Mage, You’re the Paladin, Lucas is the Ranger, and I’m the Bard. And we’re on a campaign to find our Cleric and bring him back from the Realm of Shadows.”

The simplification of the problem does help a little. Mike frowns.

“But we’re up against a demogorgon. We’ll need to roll a lot of twenties.”

Dustin shrugs.

“Sure. But with real magic on our side, I feel alright about it.”

What none of them expect is for a member of the Party to betray them. Mike doesn’t believe it. He doesn’t want to believe it. He should have noticed it though, he thinks, because El has been looking gradually weaker throughout the day, walking slower, her hand going up to her nose. He’d been trying not to watch her though, as part of his ongoing effort not to stare. But she’d misdirected their compasses and led them in a circle. Mike is angry and hurt, but he remembers back to the night Will's body was found, trying to push those feelings down, knowing now that there must be an explanation and that they just need to find one. All she can say is that it isn’t safe, looking at him pleadingly. She’s afraid for them, and doesn’t want them to go to the gate. But they have to.

Lucas doesn’t accept her answer, too frustrated and frightened to be patient and he's rough with her instead, and when he calls Eleven a monster and Mike sees the stricken look on her face, he can’t hold it together anymore. She doesn’t deserve to be attacked for trying to protect them. He tackles Lucas to the ground, but Lucas is stronger than him and soon wrestles his back onto the grass. Both Eleven and Dustin are yelling at them to stop fighting, then a scream splits the air. All colors blink before Mike’s eyes and Lucas isn’t on him anymore, thrown into the air and skidded across the ground and slammed into a slab of concrete. His body is limp and still and panic swells in Mike’s throat, running to him, he and Dustin trying to shake him awake to no avail.

“Why would you do that?” He shouts, whirling on El. She’s crying, fear on her face and blood coming from her nose, the color deep and as scary as she is. “What’s wrong with you?”

She just opens her mouth, no sound coming out, looking almost as though she can’t breathe. Mike turns back to his friend in need, trying to wake him up, letting out a breath of relief when he opens his eyes.

Lucas is disoriented, tears pricking his eyes as he struggles into a sitting position. He bats both Mike and Dustin off of him, getting up and striding away. Mike doesn’t want to let him go, still worried for him, but Dustin holds him back. And that’s when he remembers he yelled at El again, feeling sick to his stomach when he looks around and notices that not only are colors more grey than normal, but they’re fading fast.

“Where’s El?” He asks Dustin, who looks around too. The junkyard is empty save for the two of them, without even footprints to suggest where she had went. She’s just gone. They yell for her, searching until they have to go home, but Mike’s vision stays frustratingly grey-washed. He sleeps in the basement that night, lying on the couch with his eyes on the door, but she doesn’t come home like last time. Dustin comes over early the next morning to find Mike pacing in front of her alcove.

“I just… I can’t believe she didn’t come back.”

“She’s got to be close.” Dustin rationalizes. Mike nods a little. The colors are a bit brighter than they’d been before he met El, which means she’s in town, and closer than she used to be. But he feels guilty and terrible, absolutely horrible for yelling at her the way he had, her horrified expression etched into his mind.

“Mike, this isn’t your fault.” Dustin argues, as though reading his mind. Mike realizes he’s right.

“Yeah. It’s Lucas’s.”

“Wasn’t his fault either.”

Mike turns to him, wondering if his friend is joking.

“It wasn’t his fault?”

“No!”

Mike can’t believe what he’s hearing.

“So you’re saying he wasn’t way out of line?”

“Totally, but so were you!”

“What--”

“And so was Eleven!”

No. Dustin was not dragging her into this too.

“Oh, give me a break.”

Dustin purses his lips, taking a step forwards, his voice raised. He looks a little angry, but mostly exasperated at him for reasons Mike doesn’t understand.

“No Mike, you give me a break!” He exclaims. “All three of you were being a bunch of little assholes. I was the only reasonable one. But the bottom line is, you pushed first. And you know the rules: draw first blood--”

“No!”

As soon as Dustin says it though, Mike knows he’s right. He drew first blood, so he has to apologize. But he doesn’t want to. He’s not sorry. He’s mad at Lucas for calling El a traitor and a stray dog and a monster, he’s scared for El because he's supposed to keep her safe but she's still missing, and he’s mad at himself. He’s a little mad at Dustin too, for being so reasonable. But the rule is law, and Mike loves his friends too much to let himself be banished, so he agrees with Dustin’s plan to talk to Lucas and find Eleven. They’re outside, backpacks on and about to mount their bikes when Dustin fixes him with a look.

“What?” Mike has to ask.

“Why do you care about her so much?” Dustin asks. The question would have sounded rude, but with the way Dustin asks it, it doesn’t. He’s genuinely curious. “We’ve known her for like… A week, maybe. She’s cool and stuff, super cool, but even before we found out that she has magic powers you’ve just… I don’t know. Been like this.”

Mike looks down at his hands, his fingers curled around the handles of his bike. He swallows.

“She…” It’s not really embarrassing now, admitting it. He looks back up, meeting his friend’s eyes. “She’s my soulmate, Dustin. You know, colors and stuff.”

It obviously isn’t the answer he’s expecting and he stands there for a moment, his mouth slightly open. Then he blinks once. Twice.

“Oh.”

“Yeah.”

Dustin slings his leg over his bike, his face set with determination.

“Let’s find her then.”

Mike asks Dustin not to tell Lucas though, especially if he’s still angry. And he is still angry, and it makes Mike angry too. While Dustin tries to be a moderator, Lucas still doesn’t accept his apology, shoving them aside and going upstairs, so they look for Eleven instead.

At Dustin’s suggestion, they try to use the color vision as an actual “hot and cold” gauge, like they’d been told about in elementary school, but it’s really difficult. Mike has a newfound appreciation for how Eleven had managed to find her way home before, in the dark even, because he can barely tell when colors change to be brighter or dimmer. A busted up shopping center has Eleven’s handiwork all over it, and that helps their search a little, but in the end, it’s her that finds them.

Troy and James find them first. The bullies chase them to the quarry, and Troy has a knife and he’s so, so angry. He holds the blade to Dustin, threatening to use it unless Mike jumps, and despite Dustin begging him not to, Mike knows he doesn’t have a choice. There are rocks below, the water dark and dangerous, and he steps off the edge and towards the abyss.

He’s only falling for a few seconds before the air seems to catch him. Colors are coming back, steady and sure, and he’s lifted over the heads of everyone, placed back down on the ground. He turns and there Eleven is, her wig gone and her skin streaked with dirt, stalking forwards with a near-deadly expression on her face. She dispatches the bullies easily and they run, Dustin yelling after them, but Mike barely notices; he can’t even describe how relieved he is to see her, happy and thankful and shocked all at once.

He’s looking at her, but she’s not looking back. Her eyes are downcast, and she blinks a few times, swaying on her feet. Mike realizes what’s about to happen a second before it does; saving him had weakened her, and she falls to the ground. They run to her, but by the time they reach her she's flat on her back, and there are tears in her eyes.

“Mike.” Her voice sounds almost broken, and Mike’s chest aches. “I’m sorry.”

“Sorry? What are you sorry for?”

“The gate. I opened it.” There’s blood coming from not only her nose, but her ears too. Up this close, it doesn’t look scary, or dangerous; it’s a show of weakness, a sign that she needs help. She made herself bleed to save him. “I’m the monster.”

“No. No, El. You’re not the monster. You saved me.”

She searches his eyes at those words, her face screwing up again as a new wave of pain goes over her face, her eyes welling up and threatening to spill over. He places his hand on her arm. He needs her to understand that she isn’t bad.

“Do you understand? You saved me.”

He pulls her up from the ground and into his arms, pressing her head into his shoulder, holding her tight. Despite all previous misgivings about being touched, Eleven doesn’t pull away. She holds him just as tightly, and though they’re crouched uncomfortably on the ground, Mike doesn’t ever want to let her go. It feels right to have her in his arms, like he’s found where he’s supposed to be in the universe. Right here, right next to her, wherever she may be.

Dustin joins in, his arms around the both of them, and Mike feels Eleven swallow roughly, wiping her cheek on his shoulder and nestling closer.

It’s also Dustin that moves them back into action. Eleven needs to be cleaned up, and she needs food. They walk back to Mike’s house slowly, coming in through the basement. Dustin keeps staring at them, making a face at Mike and smiling, and Mike has to resist the incredibly strong urge to tell him to shut up. They go into the bathroom to wash the dirt off her face, and while Mike knows Eleven doesn’t need the help, he doesn’t really want to let her out of his sight just yet. He’s as gentle as he can be with the washcloth, and her eyes never leave his face.

“That’s better.” He says when she's clean, letting his arms fall to his sides. Both the makeup and the wig are gone, but she’s just as pretty as she was before, if not moreso. She turns to the mirror though, obviously missing them, her expression sad as she puts a hand to her short hair.

“You don’t need it.” He tells her earnestly, and she spares a glance at him.

“Still pretty?”

“Yeah, pretty.” He says, willing himself not to blush. “Really pretty.”

She looks back to the mirror, and thankfully, she smiles.

“El?”

“Yes?”

She’s looking at him now, with her big brown eyes, and he finds himself wondering if there’s a word prettier than pretty, because pretty doesn’t do her justice anymore.

“I’m happy you’re home.” He confesses.

“Me too.” She says, and she smiles again. When he meets her eyes he realizes that he wants to kiss her, but to his surprise, it’s her that steps closer. Nerves are welling in Mike's stomach the closer she gets, not much space between them at all when the bathroom door bursts open. They both jump, El turning to the source of the noise. It's Dustin, exclaiming that Lucas might be in trouble.

He is. The bad men are coming, and Mike knows that they're coming for Eleven, telling his mom to say he's left the country, because he's willing to bike all the way to Canada to keep Eleven safe. The bad men follow them in an army of big white vans, but they still manage to meet up with Lucas. Then a van turns up the street, coming right at them, and being so surrounded makes it feel like they're out of options.

Mike doesn't even have time to slow his bike down. He feels El’s grip tighten on his waist, his color vision flashing to black and white for just a second, the same as it did when El threw Lucas into the air. This time, she flips an entire van.

Time seems to stop as the giant vehicle soars over their heads. Even Dustin, who had been yelling near nonstop, falls silent as they watch it go, Mike's legs completely ceasing to work. The van lands with a deafening crash behind them, and they all look around at each other. Then El’s grip loosens, her arms weak around him, her head dropping onto his shoulder.

“El?” He asks quietly. She makes a small sound so he knows she's still conscious, and they carry on. The four of them make it back to the junkyard, dismounting their bikes. Mike is worried for Eleven, realizing how exhausted she must be from saving him twice in a row. Dustin is yelling again, completely in awe, Lucas's voice cutting him off. He kneels down next to Eleven, apologizing and placing a hand on her back.

“Friends… Friends don't lie.” She says quietly. “I'm sorry too.”

Then Mike holds his hand out for a handshake, and Lucas accepts it.

They try to formulate a plan. Lucas tells them about Hawkins Lab, insisting that the gate has to be in there somewhere. But there's no way to get in, what with the barbed wire fencing surrounding the place and the armed guards everywhere. They don’t really get any farther than wondering that on earth it is they’re supposed to do when a helicopter starts heading their way. The bad men are still after them. Scrambling in a panic, they stash their bikes under a rundown bus and dive inside, the helicopter passing overhead. They’re all fugitives now.

They fill Lucas in on what they had done. He offers Eleven a high five when he hears about her defeat of the bullies, but she has no idea what the gesture means, so they have to teach it to her. But they don’t come any closer to an idea on rescuing Will, and Mike has a hard time even seeing any viable options.

When the Chief and Nancy reach out to them, Mike decides to trust them. He doesn’t really know if the decision is good or bad, but as soon as Dustin starts pacing and fretting about Lando Calrissian, he begins to regret it, because now he has a weird fear in his stomach that someone is going to make it out of this with only one hand left. Though if this situation is really like Lando then he should be more worried about cryogenics, and now he has to shake his head to clear it.

Thankfully though, Chief Hopper comes for them. He takes them to Will’s house, where Nancy, Jonathan, and Will’s mom are all there. They have to explain everything, and in the process they find out that not only does Eleven know what the gate is, but she’s seen it. She’s been inside the lab. El tries to contact Will, as well as Nancy’s friend Barbara, but she can’t, and Mike knows why. She’s exhausted. When she returns from the bathroom though, she says she can find them in the bath.

They build a sensory deprivation tank in the middle school gym, and it’s arguably the strangest thing he’s ever done. Nancy asks him if he likes Eleven and he completely lies his ass off, but he can’t admit it to her. Besides, he’s pretty sure she’s lying to him about how she feels about Jonathan, so they’re even anyway.

When Eleven lies in the water and falls still, the lights flicker, spark, and Mike’s world plunges into black and white again. It’s like all those times it happened in middle school, the exact same feeling, that flatlining that had happened before. Except El isn’t dead, she isn’t dying, and it feels wrong for colors to be gone when he’s so close to her. He wants to touch her, to reach out and grab her hand, but he knows he can’t. He hates this, worry and fear all tangled up inside his chest, his breathing going shallow. They find out that Barbara is dead, and Will is in Castle Byers, but his voice is faint. Eleven begins to whimper, her voice coming out as desperate cries through the supercom, and Mike very nearly jumps in the bath to help her before El pulls herself out of whatever trance, or void she’d entered. She yanks the goggles off her face, her breathing heavy and her face already screwed up in tears, blood running from her nose as she holds tight to Mrs. Byers’s arm and cries.

It’s Lucas who breaks the shock and stillness that's fallen over all of them. He runs off and finds a towel for Eleven and they pull her from the water, sitting her down on the bleachers. She’s nearly too weak to hold herself up, but Mike is more than willing to offer up his shoulder and she rests against him, getting his clothes wet, but he doesn’t care. Lucas wraps the towel around her shoulders, and Dustin pats her sympathetically on the knee.

“Hey, El?” Mike asks softly. Not only does El angle her face up to look at him, but Dustin and Lucas look over as well. The question isn't going to be private, but Mike doesn't really care. He's too curious.

“Mike?” She prompts.

“When… When you're all in the upside down, or whatever… Is it black and white down there?”

“Yes.” She says. “No colors. I don't like it.”

Mike nods a little.

“When you do that, I can't see colors either.” He confesses. “It always scares me.”

“But colors are here.” She says. Her voice is gentle, and he almost laughs; she's weak and wet and shaken, and sounds like trying to comfort him. “Colors are with you, Mike.”

“Yeah.” He swallows, nodding. “They are with you.”

Eleven replaces her head on his shoulder, scooting a little closer. Out the corner of his eye, Mike sees Dustin grinning ear to ear.

“Wait, what?” Lucas asks. His voice is loud. “Eleven, she's… She's your… Your…”

“Yeah.” Mike says, before he can get the word out. Lucas gapes at him.

“No wonder you look at her like a lovesick puppy all the time! You are one!”

Mike can feel himself blushing.

“Shut up Lucas.”

“Mike and Eleven, sitting in a tree, k-i-s--”

“Shut up!” Mike exclaims again, because Nancy and Jonathan are walking up. Jonathan gives Eleven his jacket and the two say that they have something to do. Then they're gone, and it's just the four of them at the middle school, alone. Dustin goes out in the search of chocolate pudding, Lucas following after him.

“We should go.” Mike tells El. “We probably shouldn't split up. Besides, you can eat whatever Dustin finds.”

Eleven nods, musters up her strength, and gets to her feet. Her first step is wobbly and Mike reaches out to steady her, his heart pounding when she takes his hand. Dustin yells when he finds the chocolate pudding, and Mike leads Eleven down to a cafeteria table.

“Are you feeling any better?” Mike asks her. She gives a little half shrug, then fixes him a more curious look.

“What’s ‘putting’?”

Mike chuckles a little, a small, warm feeling in his chest at the question.

“Pudding, it’s… It’s this chocolate goo you eat with a spoon.”

Eleven makes a face, Mike realizing how gross the description was. He tries to reassure her that when this is all over, she won’t be reduced to eating junk food all the time. She’ll eat real food, and sleep in a real bed. His parents could take care of her. She’ll be able to come home like she’s supposed to, because Will will be back and they won’t be fugitives and she won’t be a secret anymore. She smiles when he tells her all this, about her having a proper family, with his mom as a mom and Nancy as a sister.

“Will you be like my brother?” She asks, and Mike can’t shake the idea away fast enough.

“What? No, no.”

Eleven doesn’t understand, and he gets himself tongue tied trying to explain.

“I was thinking… I don’t know… Maybe we can go to the Snow Ball together.”

“Snow Ball?” She asks back. He tells her about the cheesy school dance, and that you definitely aren’t supposed to go with your sister. You’re supposed to go with someone you like, and he likes her so, so much.

“A friend?”

“Not a friend.” She doesn’t understand, looking a little put out with how much he’s contradicting her. “Someone like a…”

He doesn’t know how to put his thoughts into words, the sense of belonging he has when he’s with her, the happy feeling that spreads through his whole body when her eyes meet his own. So instead he moves forward, across the cafeteria bench, and presses a kiss to her lips.

He’s got a whole garden’s worth of butterflies in his stomach when their lips touch, and he pulls back quickly, nervous for her reaction. She’s surprised, but she meets his eyes again and seems to understand what he was trying to say, a little smile growing on her face.

“Like… A soulmate.” He manages out. The sound of a car driving up reaches them and Mike assumes it’s Nancy, but when he goes to check, it definitely, definitely isn’t. It’s the bad men, and they have to run. Mike takes Eleven’s hand without hesitation and she holds it so tightly that he can feel how afraid she is, running through the dark school halls. They’re cornered, and just as Eleven said before the bad people are all holding guns, and all of their guns are pointed at them. Fear closes around Mike’s throat, Eleven gripping his hand even tighter, staring down the blonde woman in front of them. Colors flicker and begin to fade, and as they watch, blood begins to run from the bad peoples’ eyes. They drop to the floor all around them, dead, El’s hand ripped from his own as she falls too, her eyes closed, her body completely limp. Mike’s stomach twists and he drops to his knees next to her, because she isn’t moving, she isn’t waking up, and all the colors around them are going grey. She needs help.

“Leave her.”

The male voice is commanding, an older man stepping down the hallway towards them, completely disregarding the mass of dead bodies as he walks. Mike tries to defend Eleven, to tell him to back off, Lucas shouting for them all to eat shit, but guards jump them from behind, and Mike can only watch as the man sits Eleven up. He promises to take her home. Eleven knows who the man is, but she whimpers when he touches her, cradling her head in his hands. Mike thrashes, every fiber of his being fighting to be there, to help her, but the guard holding him is too strong.

“Bad.” Eleven’s voice is broken and weak, the word causing the old man to freeze. “Bad.” She begins to struggle weakly against him, looking over, meeting Mike’s eyes, looking exhausted and helpless. “Mike, Mike.”

Then the lights begin to flicker, and the demogorgon is here.

The guards all drop their grip as the creature bursts through the wall, pulling out their guns and firing and they spare no time, scooping Eleven off the ground and running. They make it to a science classroom in the back of the building, setting her down on a table. Eleven grabs for Mike’s hands and holds them tight, so tightly it almost hurts, despite how weak the rest of her is. Fear is coursing through Mike’s entire body so strongly that he feels sick, tears stinging his eyes. He needs to keep her safe. He has to. He can’t lose her.

“Just hold on a little longer, okay? He’s gone. The bad man’s gone.” He tries to promise her the future, trying to smile, and she smiles back just a little. Color returns to the room, grey around the edges but bright when he looks at her. “We can go to the Snow Ball.”

“Promise?” She asks. Her whole body is shaking.

“Promise.”

The demogorgon bursts down the door, everyone yelling as Lucas fires at the monster with the wrist rocket. It’s all flesh and teeth and death, advancing on them, and some part of Mike already knows that they can’t use rocks to stop it. It’s too big. It’s too strong. It’s going to get them.  

Then it’s slammed into the chalkboard, screeching as it’s held down to the wall, and Eleven is on her feet, blood flowing from her nose as she advances towards the creature. She’s trying to save them, but she’s too weak; Mike can’t let her do something like this. He rushes forwards desperately but she flings him away and he lands hard on the floor, his back against the cabinets.

She reaches the monster before turning back to them, and there’s a sick dread heavy in Mike’s chest, because he can feel that no matter what, this won’t end well. He feels tears on his cheeks as she meets his eyes, colors fading around the both of them as El’s power drains her.

“Goodbye, Mike.”

The last thing Mike sees is her face, her scream echoing in his ears. Then his world snaps completely to black and white, and he’s left alone.

[gotgifsandmusings]

GoT 7x01 Musings

My initial reaction to “Dragonstone”

Jess summed it up best in her review when she said there was nothing overly offensive, or interesting, or really...anything. I couldn’t find a ton of ironic enjoyment, because this whole episode was just...beige. Unlike Cheryl’s map. That was damn vibrant.

Arya Todd and...William Sherman

I’ve given up on being pissy about the way faceless man mask magic works. Of course she created it off-screen. Of course she could wear it with a puffy coat and stand on a box and change her voice and becoming convincingly Walder Filch

Do the FM give a shit that she’s running around with their methodology to personal vendettas? Will this catch up with her?

Apparently ALL THE FREYS are in this room, and female Freys are incapable of perpetuating a House. That makes a lot of sense.

Like. What are we supposed to make of this? Are we supposed to be happy? Is this supposed to be poetic justice? It was just so out of place for “oh and then this shock happens” that we have to accept off-screen poison making and implementation (guess she still has control of the kitchens), and frankly separated from the moment where this would have had any impact anyway--her murdering Walder in the first place.

To make matters worse, she THEN stumbles into nice Lannister men, making her rethink her broad-brushing (just like Jonny didn’t want to!), so....does she take back her Smirk of Empowerment? Are we supposed to view this as a negative now? Why show us the “parallels” of Cat and Walder’s death in the “previously on’s” then? I’m just so confused, and once again it’s obvious the show has no idea about it’s own messaging.

We’re glad Maisie Williams got to meet her favorite artist. That was the point of that scene. Gr8 writing. Glad “Hands of Gold” was just shoved in, because it’s not like that context had mattered or that it was foreshadowing anything, or written on the spot about Tyrion and Shae...

Anonymous said to gotgifsandmusings: For what it's worth, I had no idea who Ed Sheeran was until people started complaining about his scene, and if you've never heard of him and don't recognize his face, it really doesn't come off as mugging any more than any of D&D's other "let's cut in a close-up reaction shot!" shtick. I think people (not you, but people) are getting too hung up on this to notice the real awfulness of the first episode, like literally everything about Euron.

I think you can walk and chew gum. If you know it’s obvious and cringe-inducing.

Bran and Gloveless Meera

The Army of the Dead looked kinda cool, but I still think of Pirates of the Caribbean

Did this scene need to exist? It wasn’t bad, or anything really, but they’re quite obviously not wildlings, and I fail to think we would have been lost had we jumped to them already inside Castle Black. Hell, one line of establishing dialogue would have taken care of it.

Sam hunts for Nicholas Flamel

Poor Sam finds himself both in a sitcom and Harry Potter. What the fuck was that montage? Why is this novice training?

The Archmaester Slughorn scene was just for some bad Maester exposition from what I could tell. Are we meant to believe Sam wasn’t asking for assistance before this point? Also this whole thing really highlighted how dumb it was to send Sam here when the army was literally approaching and had just res’d the entirety of Hardhome

Why did the maesters put books about Dragonstone and the Long Winter in the restricted section? Did they know it was dramatically important to the plot?

Okay, correct me if I’m wrong, but the plotline as we know it is: Stannis tells Sam that there’s dragonglass at Dragonstone. Sam forgets about this and goes to the Citadel. Sam gets reminded by turning to a random page in a random book that there’s dragonglass at Dragonstone.

Amazing Shrinking Baby grew!

GREYSCALE JORAH! Omg that was fucking hilarious. Stop trying to touch the novices, dude

Can’t wait for next week: 

expecto pa-groan-um!

Sandor Specs Destro

@saintjustitude said to gotgifsandmusings: The preview bringing back that peasant father and daughter just to remind the viewers who they are when we see that they are soooo dead seems like another example of their narrative sadism and acedia phenomenon. Except now they do it with previews of scenes long forgotten from past seasons. (Unless they've already done it before and I missed it somehow.) -_-

I mean, it’s not out of that pattern, but I think the intent was to instill some meaning in Sandor’s arc? He’s like...coming to face his past demons. And rejecting his formerly nihilistic attitude? Except all we saw was him embracing this last season, so...

Also those skeletons looked ancient.

I guess it’s nice that there was actual character growth? If that’s what you call it? He just kind of suddenly had these fire-seeing powers.

Is it because he almost died? Do other people with near death experiences have these powers? Has he always had this and he just never looked at fire?

Boy oh boy those signs in the fire were beyond detailed for someone who’s never done this before

Where was any of this seeded? Like, was it when he asserted the complete opposite views about faith and how to navigate the world?

They kept trying to tell us it was poetic because it’s “fire based”, but it felt like such a random moment it’s hard to connect it to anything at all. Why did he go on a rampage with the Shire? What was any of that?

Cheryl’s Cartography and Coalition Building

No one questioned the logic of the floor map. Why floor map? How does this help plan troop movement?

Anonymous said to gotgifsandmusings: to be fair we don't know what kind of paint was being used for the map (there are ingredients you can add to paint to make it dry quicker) and we're in King's Landing which is pretty warm - even during winter.

DUDE JUST LET ME HAVE THIS

So Cheryl talks about how everyone is an enemy, including Olenna who is a “traitor” (what? She teamed up with you before your dumbass brother forgot basics of military strategy). Is there a reason she decided to provoke the North by sending that letter? Doesn’t she have other things to deal with, apparently?

They talk about Tyrell bannermen which is a good fucking point, since the Lord Paramount of the Reach kind of blew up. But then…why would they have any chance of getting them to follow them?

Cheryl wants to build a dynasty, Larry points out that they have no heirs, and then Cheryl says “a dynasty for us, then.” That’s not…what a dynasty…ah forget it

She says Tommen betrayed her, and it’s presented as her refusing to process grief. This is actually fine, tbh?

My main issue is that this situation is completely unsurvivable for the Lannisters. Even with an Ironboor alliance, they don’t have the resources, have no sizable allies, especially for land-based warfare (oh ALL THE FREYS are dead and I guess there aren’t other River Lords), and have pissed everyone off, which by all rights should include smallfolk. The idea that there aren’t riots every day is stupid, and there’s really no tension here since they’ll clearly get smushed like a bug. Unless...

That’s right, Euron the new Villain Sue! His fleet is already massive because that’s how many trees they have on the Iron Islands.

And...okay, we’re told Euron is going to be “worse than Ramsay” this year but he comes in with his stupid eyeliner, leather diesel jacket, and new Johnny Depp-esque persona, with the first words out of his mouth being a long whining speech about how mean his niece and nephew were to him. It’s like some drunk pathetic rock star wandered onto the set and was sad he got snubbed for a Grammy. We’re supposed to take this moron seriously?

Also, Cheryl INVITED HIM. She even told us this marriage proposal was coming. Why would she reject his offer? Did she know that he was going to double down on his attempts to win her, even when he has a history of unpredictability, and oh yeah...he could just sit happily as king of the Iron Islands without getting involved with this idiocy?

Boy it would be shocking if his magically materializing fleet secured major military victories. Shocking.

Was Larry given Jorah’s accomplishments from the Greyjoy rebellions?

Winterhell

I’ve had it up to here with Lyanna Mormont’s Feminist Speeches (which demonstrate a complete lack of political and military awareness). OMG all the women will fight! (What a rare trait for Bear Island.) They won’t just be sewing, a complete societal necessity. Yahhhs slayyy empowermentttt!

This could have had a lot more poignance on Jonny’s part too, if we had seen any female Wildling fighters past Ygritte and Smurfette. Like if they had given a Night’s Watch Castle to spearwives, for instance. The Wildlings have all been dudes for a full season at this point, and Jonny’s idea seems to come out of basically nowhere.

How many Wildlings are still alive at this point? Or anyone for that matter? Before the Vale Lords swooped over the battlefield like the army of the dead, there looked to be about a few hundred left in Jonny’s army?

I love how easily this room is won over by whoever speaks. Royce idiotically wanted to tear down castles (was he worried the Army of the Dead might take them and set up reinforcements?), and Sansa is like “no that’s dumb. We should obviously give them to people who helped us” to uproarious applause.

Then Jon just gets really pissy, mostly because she spoke, and decides the hill he’s going to die on is letting castles stay in the hands of the family they’ve been in historically, even though that also means asking a 10-year old to be commanding what’s left of his bannermen at these strongholds of strategic necessity. And the room agrees.

It’s a good message I guess? Though does that mean we’re supposed to look back on Arya’s slaying as a bad thing? When the music was empowering? And it was framed as coming from such a petty place on Jon’s part that I’m just not sure what to make of it at all.

Anonymous said to gotgifsandmusings: Sansa: Ned died because he made stupid mistakes. Sansa, a minute later: Cersei kills her enemies no matter what. Sooo... which one is it?

Whichever makes creative sense, of course.

Oh and Sansa admires Cheryl. I wonder if she might betray Jonny?? It’s so mysterious. And glad they’re having the same arguments over and over.

If Ayra picks Jonny over Sansa in this tiff because Jonny is so much more smarterer and badass (the show seems to think so), I’m going to flip something.

Then we cut to Brienne punching Pod in the face to impress Tormund? I honestly have no clue. I’m sure it was really funny to someone.

I actually did like Sansa telling off Littlefinger, even if the dialogue was clearly written in 2017, but it also begs the question: why doesn’t she tell the Vale Lords the truth about him selling her to the Boltons or murdering Lysa so she can be rid of him? Brienne digs it.

Deadpan touches sand

I can’t help but feel this segment would have been more emotionally poignant at the end of a season than the first we see of her. We already saw her sailing West an new this was coming. All this consisted of was us marveling at the set design, while trying to get back into “oh yeah this is what it means to Deadpan” mode. For some people, they just watch this show the 10 hours it’s on and don’t think about it for a year, you know?

I guess it was fine? “Shall we begin” is kind of hilarious since I’d have to assume they were planning something on the ride over, but whatever.

And yeah, totally unmanned castle. Way2Go Stannis. I think it’s hard to believe no one attempted looting it (they’d need a boat but people are like starving and junk), or that there was just NO ONE THERE. The doors were nice and unlocked, at least. Drama.

Top 3 Nitpicks:

Sewing is not necessary during war

The Maesters locked up the books of plot-based knowledge

Euron’s GIANT fleet

[elizaschuylernet]

Breaking the Rules (Hamliza Soulmate AU)

Eliza Schuyler had never been one for breaking rules.

She knew the way things were supposed to be. She knew how the world worked, the structures and paths that were all laid out for people to follow and she saw no sense in trying to go against all that. Of course, some people called the system restrictive. It did cause its problems. When one person’s world suddenly exploded into colour when the others stayed resolutely black and white. For two people on opposite sides of some divide or other, some imaginary line, to only find themselves staring at each other in full colour with just the brush of their wrists. When two people brushed up against each other in a train station, in a busy crowd on an apparently normal day, for one person’s world to suddenly tilt on its axis, for the black and white to jolt away only for them to turn around and find whoever had caused it just gone. Lost in the crowd. A person’s life could change at any moment, with no warning and no way out of it.

But those stories were few and far between. For most people the system worked fine. At some college party or maybe at your new workplace or maybe even the grocery store on some drizzly Saturday morning, a brush of skin and the black and white world you’d known since you first opened your eyes would slide away and that was it. Your soulmate. And your new life along with them. You introduced yourselves and made arrangements, simple as that. There was no awkward fumbling or uncertainty in most cases, just the knowledge that you and this person were meant to be together, in whatever capacity they saw fit. Love and marriage, in the majority. Unshakable friendship in others or a brotherhood stronger than anything, just a deep rooted, bone level bond between two people. It was security and safety and it couldn’t be denied, not with the evidence right there in front of you. Everyone knew that as soon as you made contact with your soulmate, then the black and white world became full of colour. Couples who had been together for years spoke fondly of the wonder that was colour, of being able to apply the simple concept of the word green to the leaves on the trees, of blue to the roiling sea, of red to the sky on a particularly beautiful evening. Of having abstract words become a gorgeous reality, all thanks to the one person who understood you and loved you in a way no one else could, thanks to finding your soulmate. From that very first touch.

Because those were the rules. First touch, a world of colour. Soulmates. Such a simple formula.

Eliza was more surprised than anyone to find that she was the one person who had broken the rules.

Eliza had grown comfortable in her world of black and white. It never bothered her the way it bothered some people, people who sought out their soulmates like they couldn’t possibly be happy until they found the person who could bring colour to their world. But Eliza didn’t think it was that bad, there was beauty in simplicity, a sense of comfort in being happy in your own company. Often, she’d steal away on sunny days to go and sit in the grounds of the Schuyler mansion and lie on her back in amongst it all. She’d think to herself that she didn’t need to know what the colour of the soft grass beneath her was, or the colour of the dappled light falling across her patterned dress, she could still feel it? It still warmed her, it still felt soft and real and there. It was still beautiful in its own way.

But when she thought of having it all flood away in a tide of colour, to have everything she knew uprooted and to know that he life was inextricably tied with another person’s. Another person she might not even know. Who would hold her heart in the palm of their hand, to do with as they pleased. Soulmates didn’t equal happiness. That was a truth hidden beneath this whole system that most people ignored but for Eliza, it kept rising in her mind when she tried to imagine the idea of anyone changing her world, bleeding both colour and consequences into it.

Her older sister Angelica, who she trusted more than anyone else she knew, she found her soulmate in her first year of college, a graduate student from England, John Church. She knew her baby sister’s hesitation and tried to soothe her fears, she couldn’t stand seeing Eliza scared, Angelica had always been able to make her feel better. She’d found her looking thoughtful and a little morose out on the balcony at the engagement party, knowing exactly what was wrong in an instant. She’d tried explaining how it was for her; to have her hand brush his at a party as he passed her a glass of champagne. To have a sudden, shocking rainbow of watercolours bloom forth from that glass, that was the focus of it all. And to have everything suddenly make perfect sense and the path of your life made clear. Angelica liked knowing where she was headed. Eliza had nodded and hummed thoughtfully, letting Angelica get back to her party, promising to be back through in a minute. But her heart has still felt heavy with a shifting fear that just wouldn’t shift.

“It will be okay, Eliza. I won’t let you be unhappy, I swear it,” Angelica had promised, her steady voice as calm and believable as ever. A voice that implored Eliza to put her faith in her big sister, like always.

Eliza had nodded and given her a small, painted smile, “Get back in there or Mama will kill you. You look too damn good in that dress to be stuck out here with me and my insecurities. Off you go.”

That had been enough, Angelica had given her a nod and a fond smile, leaving her to her thoughts. There were a lot of them.

Eliza had stretched out her hands over the railing like she was a little girl again, like if she just believed hard enough she could take hold of the clouds, those dark plum smudges in the night sky like bruises. She had thought that it was safer in this world of black and white. Her world. The one she understood and knew and trusted. Better to keep her feet on the ground than to fall; the rules could exist for other people, that was fine, for her sisters and her parents and her friends, but she wanted no part of it. She was happier outside of the system.

And then she broke it and its rules into tiny pieces. Without even realising she was doing it.

 -

 If there was anyone who was going to break the rules and overturn what every other person in the world knew to be fact, most people would choose Alexander Hamilton. Eliza included.

She liked him, of course, he was her best friend. He had been her best friend since they’d first run into each other, quite literally, as Eliza was getting a little overenthusiastic with her dancing at Lafayette’s party. She’d apologised as she’d suddenly found herself in the arms of a surprised, sincere looking young man, his dark hair tied back in a messy bun and an attempt at a goatee framing his bewildered, shocked smile. There had been a long moment between the two of them where this stranger had looked like he wasn’t quite sure where he was. Eliza had been a little worried but then he’d only chuckled and insisted it was fine, it was a surprisingly romantic start to the night.

And that had been all it took. Eliza liked people who made her laugh and believed earnestly. Alex liked people who weren’t afraid of being kind and could put up with him talking for more than ten minutes without getting frustrated. The fact that they’d become best friends felt almost inevitable. Before long, they saw each other nearly every day, either for impassioned debates in their favourite coffee shop or taking long walks around the park; Eliza insisted that Alex needed fresh air after being indoors for nearly forty-eight hours straight and his only concession was that they got a slushie on the way. Chatting was much more fun with blue and purple tongues, though of course Eliza’s mind had to fill in what she only saw as smudges of a lighter shade than their greyscale tongues. She could taste it though, that was enough. Or they spend evenings curled up together on her couch, watching old, classic films that Eliza was incensed Alex had never seen and cheesy creature features that Alex was incensed Eliza had never seen.

And the day Alex suddenly didn’t turn up when her and the guys were headed to the bar, when she’d gone to check he was okay and found him lost in a panic attack, curled up shivering and crying in bed, he’d let her hold him. He’d let her stroke his hair and settle him and tell him everything was okay. People cared about him. He’d let her make him an appointment to see the clinic about it and even gone with him when she realised how nervous he was about it, comforting him and reassuring him. After he’d had a successful first meeting and gotten himself a prescription for some medication, as they’d sat next to each other in the pharmacy while they waited, he’d shyly confided that he’d never told anyone else about it before. She was the first. And she hadn’t been afraid or disgusted, she helped him. That had made her smile and rest her head on his shoulder.

These days, most of their time was spent in the library at their usual table, on one of what Alex affectionately called their ‘hot dates’ which meant holing themselves up for hours amongst mountains of assignments and textbooks that needed reading and completing. Eliza would roll her eyes whenever he said that, asking him jokingly what wasn’t romantic about paper cups of molten hot, rank coffee and getting dizzy from lack of sleep?

She pressed one such cup into his hand that day, ruffling his hair as she did. Most people would say it needed cutting, given that it hung down to his shoulders at this point, but Eliza liked it just this way. She thought it framed his narrow face perfectly and it suited his nature, his kind of unruly, disjointed way of thinking about things that somehow resulted in something good.

“Eliza Schuyler, you are a saint on Earth,” he groaned as he took it from her, not caring if the drink tasted like battery acid, it had caffeine and that’s all he cared about.

“Oh, I know,” Eliza laughed.

She couldn’t help but notice the moment, the split second where her forefinger brushed against his knuckle as the cup exchanged hands. The gentle brush of skin on skin.

She’d been noticing a lot of moments like that recently.

Alex must have noticed the faraway look in her eye as she sat down across from him, “Betsey?”

He was the only one who’d ever thought to call her that. It was sweet and playful, she’d known from the very first time he used it that she liked it a lot.

She jumped like a tiny electric shock had run through her, “Oh. No, I’m fine. Just sleep deprived I guess. Two more hours and then we’re stopping, okay, we both need a nap.”

“Can I crash out on your couch again?” Alex asked hopefully, “It’s genuinely comfier than my bed.”

Eliza give him a disbelieving snort, “Yeah right. You only liked it cos you got to eat all my Oreos when you woke up.”

“Well, that too?”

That made them both snigger, loud enough that it echoed around them and they gave each other a conspiratorial, guilty look as they were shushed. They both turned back to their work for a while, Alex replacing his other earbud that was softly leaking out the strains of some nineties rap song.

But Eliza’s mind was far from her essay.

She was watching Alex, bent over her notebook but her dark eyes were fixed solely on him. The way his hair fell over his eyes, must be irritating him and tickling him but he made no move to fix it, like he was too lost in the words he was writing to notice. The way his mouth moved subtly as he scribbled, sounding out the words he spilled onto the page like he was testing the ebb and flow of the sentence, like he needed to know how it felt as well as how it sounded. The way his eyes caught the light and held it, the way his shoulders jerked and twitched adorably in a very low key kind of dance to the rhythm pulsing in his ears…

Being with him was so easy. Like breathing, like running just for the hell of it. It was fun and simple and didn’t exhaust her mentally the way most other people did. He was just him and she could just be her and that was it. It made sense.

Eliza paused. She wondered why it had made her stall again, that moment back there. This must have been the fourth or fifth time this week that such basic contact with her best friend had made her throat close and her heart lurch and it was becoming worrying. Almost like each one was a small disappointment, a let-down, a missed train, a friend’s party you couldn’t go to or forgetting daylight savings and realising you were an hour late for class.

Why?

Eliza blinked quickly, a familiar fear suddenly taking up residence in her chest. The fear of colour. The fear of change.

Why would she be feeling that now? She’d long ago decided that there was nothing that could possibly tempt her out of this world she knew, her black and white and grey cathedral that kept her safe. She’d made peace with it, put it behind her and took ownership of it within her own mind.

But here she felt it, like some part of her brain had dredged it back up in order to prove a point to another part of her brain. A part of her brain, a renegade faction, that was having thoughts the rest of her mind didn’t like. But what thoughts…

That was when some bass or beat must have hit in Alex’s song and he beatboxed along with it for a few moments, catching her attention, drawing her eyes back to him. The way everything about her these days seemed to draw back to him…

Oh no.

She couldn’t. She didn’t.

Oh god, that wasn’t fair.

 But of course, once the idea slipped into place, that was it. The puzzle was complete, the picture was clear and she couldn’t take it apart again and scatter the pieces away so they might never meet again. There it was and what it was couldn’t change or be ignored.

She liked Alexander Hamilton. She might even be in love with him, in that ethereal, confusing way people were in love without knowing whether it was reciprocated or valued.

And she had no idea what to do about that.

All her life she’d been afraid of having to find it in her to love her soulmate, whoever had been randomly picked for her in some insane kind of cosmic lottery. But now the opposite had happened. She’d found someone to love. But her world had stayed black and white when she’d fallen into his arms, they weren’t soulmates. And wasn’t that the worse kind of fucking joke?

“Bets?” Alex’s voice interrupted her storm of thoughts. He was watching her with cautious eyes from across the table.

That was when she realised her eyes were wet and a few hot tears had escaped down her cheeks. She hurriedly made to clear them away, not wanting to have to explain their reason, oh god, she couldn’t do that to him…

“I’m fine, just…stressed. Tired, you know?” she mumbled, wincing at how thick and heavy her voice was, “Worried about the test next week…”

Alex dropped his headphones immediately, moving towards her, “Aw, no. Eliza, it’s okay! Don’t worry about it, you’ve worked really hard, you’ll ace it.”

Eliza saw his hand reaching for her arm and she got up suddenly, acting like she was gathering up her things to leave and not desperately trying to avoid his touch. Avoid that moment of crippling disappointment.

“I should go, should get some sleep,” she mumbled, trying and failing to act casual.

“Let me walk you home, you’re right, we should accept defeat,” Alex got up too, starting to try and control the inevitable paper hurricane he always made when he was studying.

Eliza tried not to act like that bothered her. She just wanted to run home by herself, curl up and cry and call her sisters and rant to them. But then Alex would ask what was wrong. And he was stubborn when it came to friendship, he’d get it out of her, he always did.

So, Eliza could only lapse into a tense kind of silence as they wandered their usual route home, letting Alex take over most of the conversation as he was happy to do.

That was, until her heart betrayed her brain. As they stood on the stoop of her apartment building, the renegade part of her lurched forward before she could claw it back and asked, “Alex, have you met your soulmate?”

He was surprised by that question and it showed on his face. True, they’d never talked about it, there’d been none of the little clues in the way he spoke, the little tics that suggested a person could see in colour. Asking if someone had a soulmate was akin to asking when their birthday was, a simple icebreaker question.

But they’d never broached it. Eliza wasn’t in the habit of asking people and Alex had never offered the information but now, now she asked.

There was a long pause as Alex fiddled with the drawstrings on his hoodie, unusually lost for words, before eventually coughing up in a small voice, “Yes. I have.”

Eliza’s stomach twisted painfully, “You…you have?”

Alex gave a little nod, turning and pointing at a car rolling past, “Red.” And the next, “Blue.” And the next, “Red, again.”

He turned back to her with a little shrug. Of course, Eliza didn’t know if he was right or not but there was certainty in his voice that gave her no reason to suspect he was lying. As much as she desperately wanted to believe he was.

“Oh…who?” Eliza shifts, looking at her feet, “If you don’t mind me asking, I mean.”

There’s another pause, a little harsher than the last.

“Why do you want to know?”

Eliza raises her eyes to him, the myriad emotions she’s feeling obvious in them, “That doesn’t answer my question, Alex?”

“And that doesn’t answer mine,” he folds his arms, his voice level.

They both looked at each other and Eliza couldn’t help but wonder what she looked like to him. In colour.

After a while, Alex just sighed, hugging his arms around himself, “Sorry. I shouldn’t have asked that, it doesn’t matter really, I…I’ll see you tomorrow, Eliza.”

Eliza’s mouth fell open as she watched him turn back into the night, her heart thumped, panic taking hold of her, “Alex, wait!”

Her hand shot out before the fear could stall it, reaching out and taking hold of his bare wrist.

And then she yelped in surprise.

 It wasn’t like Angelica had said, there was no gradual bleed, it was like a sudden rush to the left, like the film reel of her life had suddenly caught and burnt away and she was left with…this. Colour.

And she began to cry because, God, it was so beautiful.

Alex looked alarmed, whirling, taking hold of her arms, “Eliza? Eliza, are you okay?”

And she could see him, really see him. The soft dark strands of hair, the amber of his skin, the warm brown of his eyes. Every part of him in a comforting palette. He really was the most beautiful thing Eliza had ever seen.  

Alex’s expression shifted as he saw the way she was looking at him, “Do you…do you see it?”

Eliza didn’t have to ask what he meant, her voice an awed whisper, “Yes. I do.”

She wasn’t quite sure what she was expecting from Alex after she confessed to him that he had filled her world with colour. But she certainly wasn’t expecting him to laugh delightedly and pick her up, twirling her around like they were suddenly Ginger Rogers and Fred Astaire, totally ignoring the fact that he was only a few scant inches taller than her and he was seriously playing fast and loose with the laws of physics.

But Eliza was soon laughing too, blurs of new colours swirling around her as he danced with her, her heart felt like it was glowing, “What? What is it?”

“I just…” Alex put her down, still beaming, his eyes damp with delighted tears, “I just never thought you’d see it too, I thought it was only mem I thought it was just one sided…”

“Wait!” Eliza’s jaw dropped, cupping his face with her hands, “I’m your soulmate? I’m the reason you see colour?”

Alex gave a little laugh, the tears finally breaking free and streaking his face, “Eliza…Eliza, I’ve seen in colour since that first night you fell into my arms.”

That made her gasp a little, eyes opening wide. The way he’d looked at her…

“You never said…” she breathed, running the balls of her thumbs over his beard.

“Because I didn’t think you felt the same, it didn’t happen for you so I thought…” he trailed off, face suddenly flooding with confusion, “Wait? How has this happened? This isn’t how it works, is it?”

It wasn’t how it worked, not at all. The rules were lying in ragged shards around their feet.

“I don’t care,” Eliza murmured, her smile growing.

Alex gave a little laugh, “Yeah? Me neither.”

Eliza’s first kiss dispelled the last of her fear, as Alex’s lips met hers, all she felt was love.

Eliza Schuyler was done with being scared.

[mukyoucom]

Game of Thrones: Season 7 is Coming

From Playstation Blog USA

Warning: spoilers below!

In a world where nothing is sacred and no one is safe, the outcome of The Great War for the Iron Throne is anyone’s guess. Game of Thrones Season 7 is poised to debut on July 16, and we wanted to arm PlayStation Vue members with a skimmable guide to the biggest developments last season so you’re ready for the big day.

Season 6 begins with Jon Snow dead — killed by his brothers of the Night’s Watch.

After many attempts, the Red Woman Melisandre resurrects John Snow; we also learn that Melisandre is much older than she appears. After executing his treacherous brothers, Snow leaves the Night’s Watch for good.

Meanwhile, Sansa Stark and Theon Greyjoy escape Winterfell while the villainous Ramsay Bolton murders his father, stepmother, and new baby brother. These killings make Ramsay Warden of the North.

Sansa reunites with Jon Snow, and they decide to take back Winterfell, sparking the Battle of the Bastards. Jon Snow and the scrappy Wildling army attack Ramsay Bolton’s larger force. Just when it seems that Jon Snow will fail, the knights of the Vale sweep in and crush Ramsay’s army.

Afterwards, Jon Snow is named King of the North. It’s later revealed that he is the son of Lyanna Stark and Prince Rhaegar Targaryen, which makes Snow cousin to Arya, Bran, and Sansa Stark — and the nephew of Daenerys. In other words: Jon Snow is a rightful heir to the Iron Throne.

Meanwhile in the East, Daenerys is taken prisoner by the Khalasar and forced to join the downtrodden widows led by Dosh Khaleen.

Jorah Mormont and Daario Naharis join forces with Daenerys and return to Meereen, but not before Daenerys sets fire to her captors and earns the following of the surviving Khalasar bloodriders. Ser Jorah reveals himself and regains Daenerys’ trust. She orders him to find a cure for his debilitating Greyscale disease.

Elsewhere, Tyrion Lannister and Varys rule the city of Meereen in Daenerys’s absence. Upon her return, a fleet of slaver ships launch an attack on the city. At great risk, Tyrion releases Daenerys’ captive dragons to save Meereen.

Theon and Yara Greyjoy show up in Meereen and offer Daenerys the Iron Fleet to sail across the Narrow Sea to Westeros and claim the Iron Throne.

At King’s Landing, the tension between Jaime Lannister and the High Sparrow rises. With a little help from the Tyrell army, Jaime confronts the High Sparrow and attempts to free Queen Margaery Tyrell. He discovers that the High Sparrow is manipulating the child king Tommen — there will be no freeing the Queen.

Elsewhere in King’s Landing, Cersei Lannister declines an invitation from the High Sparrow. This creates a confrontation, and Cersei’s silent hulking bodyguard, revealed to be an undead Ser Gregor “The Mountain” Clegane, beheads a Sparrow in the scuffle. Naive King Tommen punishes his mother by putting her up for trial in the Sept of Baelor alongside Ser Loras Tyrell, and denies her trial by combat.

On the day of the trial, Cersei uses planted Wildfire charges to destroy the Sept, killing the High Sparrow, Ser Loras Tyrell, and Queen Margaery. King Tommen, Cersei’s son, jumps out of a window in grief after witnessing the death of his wife, Queen Margaery. By default, Cersei becomes the new Queen of the Seven Kingdoms — again.

Elsewhere in the world, other important characters are on their own journey that will surely lead back to Westeros.

Bran Stark and the White Walkers Bran is still beyond the Wall and having visions. He discovers that the Children of the Forest created the undead White Walkers to protect themselves against the First Men, and his visions reveal Jon Snow’s true heritage. The White Walkers are marching south toward King’s Landing, setting the stage for a climactic final battle.

Dragons Mystical creatures and Daenerys Targaryen’s loyal pets. Drogon, Rhaegal, and Viserion have an important role to play in the war for the Iron Throne. Will they even the odds against the White Walker horde?

Samwell Tarly Samwell visits home and receives an unwelcome greeting from his surly father. With Gilly in tow, Sam steals his family’s ancestral sword, the Valyrian steel Heartsbane, and makes off for the Citadel to become a maester. Helpful hint: White Walkers are vulnerable to Valyrian steel.

Arya Stark Arya regains her sight, but she intentionally fails another assassination. As punishment, the Faceless Men send the Waif acolyte to kill Arya. Arya defeats the Waif and leaves the House of Black and White for good, heading home.

Petyr “Littlefinger’ Baelish Master manipulator and Lord Protector of the Vale, Petyr still commands a powerful army. His goal is to sit on the Iron Throne with Sansa as his queen. He questions Jon Snow’s right to be King of the North and puts doubts in Sansa’s head about Jon’s loyalty.

The playing field is set and the pieces are moving toward a final conclusion. Who will be the last pawn standing? Will it be fan-favorite Daenerys Targaryen, Mother of Dragons? Or the underdog Jon Snow, now revealed to be of royal lineage? Will it be the cunning Cersei Lannister, who always seems to be one step ahead? Or will a surprise contender like Lord Petyr “Littlefinger” Baelish swoop in to steal the prize? No matter the victor, you either win or you die.

Season 7 of HBO’s Game of Thrones premieres July 16. Watch live on PlayStation Vue or catch up with every episode available now On Demand. Start your free trial today.

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