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chaotic-jjk-fiction · 2 years ago

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Do No Harm

Doctor Getou Suguru x reader

TW: General Yandere themes, stalking, obsession, medical setting, injections, IVs, Lying about test results, Masturbation, drugging, kidnapping, mentioned death of readers parents due to cardiac events, murder, and I can’t really sugar coat this... death of reader

A/N: I don’t really think I can call this a valentines day post, but let’s pretend it is! This is probably my darkest fic yet, so reader discretion is heavily advised. Happy late valentines day everyone!

Word Count: 1.8k

Was it unprofessional? Undeniably. Did he care? Not one bit. How could he be expected to not fall in love with you? He knew intimate details about your body that no one else did, you confided in him, and most importantly, it was his job to care for you. On top of that, the details he was privy to as your doctor made it all too easy for him to grow even closer to you. He knew where you lived, he knew that you were single, he knew that you were an only child, and that both of your parents had died young from sudden cardiac arrest.

After your first appointment, he knew the two of you had a connection. So what if he ordered some blood work and scheduled a follow-up appointment with you to go over the results even though it was only an intake appointment and there was no clinical indication it was necessary? The number of people who have vitamin deficiencies and don’t know it is quite high. Was it really that bad if your yearly physicals happened twice a year instead of just once? That didn’t seem evil to him, on the contrary actually, he was doing his duty as a healthcare professional and taking your well-being seriously.

Of course, the repeat blood tests every three months might have been a little bit excessive, especially because you weren’t actually deficient in any vitamins and had no reason to be taking a supplement, but it gave him a reason to see you. Despite the fact that normal lab results were typically discussed on the phone, he couldn’t resist having you come into his office.

Because of your family's cardiac history, the health of your heart was of great concern. Getou always made sure to perform a thorough cardiac workup at your check-ups. The way you allowed him to listen to your heart and touch the tender flesh on your chest was a delight for him. You were so trusting. Getou would expect nothing less though, he was your doctor after all. As your doctor, one of the hardest things was the uncertainty of whether you would drop dead of a heart attack the same way your parents did, or if you would have no complications at all. At first, this didn’t bother him, but as time passed he found himself obsessing over it more and more. A need for control started to well up inside of him driving him to stock your daily life.

After one physical where you complained of new-onset chest pain, Getou couldn’t take it anymore. He knew that there was only one thing he could do to ensure his control and guarantee that you wouldn’t suffer. He had really been hoping it wouldn’t have to come to this. He loved you and he wished that you could have loved him too, but it seemed as though that was not in the cards you two had been dealt.

Due to your chest pain, Getou ordered a two-week continuous heart monitor. The data collected from the monitor wouldn’t change his resolve, but he had another important use for it. After placing it and reminding you numerous times not to remove it or let it fall off before the two weeks mark, he let you go on with your day. Little did you know that you and Getou had not actually parted ways when you left his clinic.

You had a terrible habit of leaving the door unlocked. Just more proof to him that your chances of living a long life were quite slim. At the same time, it was quite beneficial for him. He loved to slip into your closet and wait for the sounds of your vibrator to fill the room followed by your moans. The lewd sounds you made when you thought you were alone seemed like music to his ears. He always jotted down the date and exact time he heard the vibrator, this information would come in handy soon.

After two weeks of wearing the heart monitor, you handed it over to Getou who told you it would take another week to analyze the data. This wasn't exactly true though. It would probably only take a few days to check for any arrhythmias, but that was not of interest to him. The data Getou sought was related to that list of dates and times he had collected earlier. By looking over the continuously recorded metrics during the times when you masturbated, he could watch the way your heart rate had spiked, the peaks when you came, and its slow return back to baseline when you had thoroughly pleasured yourself.

His dick grew hard as he looked at the EKG readings in front of him, remembering the noises of sexual satisfaction you made. He began to rub his cock through his pants as he continued to line up your times of self-pleasure with the information from the heart monitor. Getou could feel the pre-cum leaking out of his tip wetting his trunks. Eventually, he decided to stay on the data from one of your various sessions and allow himself to finish.

It felt below him to jerk off, but right now he didn’t care. Grabbing a box of tissues, he sat back down and allowed his erection to spring free. He spit into his hand for good measure before slowly starting to stroke his throbbing cock. Due to the prior stimulation and the level of arousal he was feeling, it didn’t take long for Getou to reach his point of climax. What helped push him over the edge, sending ropes of cum into the tissues he got, was the slight drop in heart rate after you orgasmed followed shortly by another spike as you chased that high again. As he wiped off the semen from his dick, he made a mental note to call you first thing tomorrow and schedule your follow-up appointment.

Only a few days later you were seated in his exam room once again. His face was stern as he looked you in the eyes and lied, “your heart monitor revealed prolonged QT intervals. This is a dangerous arrhythmia that can spontaneously cause ventricular fibrillation which can be fatal.” You sat there stunned, unsure of what to say or how to react. Getou continued, “There is an injection I can give you that should help. If you would like, I can give you the first dose today.” Your brain still hadn’t processed the news you had just received, but you nodded your head before confirming, “yes, I would like to have the first dose today.” “Alright then, I will go grab it if you would like to roll up your sleeve.”

He came back a few minutes later carrying a tray with the syringe, an alcohol pad, and a bandaid. “I just want to warn you,” Getou cautioned as he put on his gloves, “this injection can cause people to pass out sometimes, so don’t be alarmed if you start to feel dizzy, just lay down and let me know.” You nodded in understanding and tried your best not to flinch when the needle pushed its way into your arm. For the first few minutes after the injection, you felt fine. Getou was able to clean up and dispose of everything, but then the room started to spin. You laid back and your vision started to get spotty, “Doctor Getou” was all you managed to squeak out before everything went black.

So sweet and trusting. Suguru looked at your unconscious body in the rearview mirror on his windshield, you looked so innocent laid across the backseat of his car. In a different life, he could have had the future he dreamed of with you. As your doctor, however, he was sworn to do what was best for you and to do no harm. In order to abide by these principles, Suguru needed to move you to a different facility where he could do what he deemed necessary. “Don’t worry, darling. Soon you’ll be cured.”

You awoke disoriented. Despite the fact that your eyes were closed, you could tell you weren’t in the clinic anymore. The sensation of an IV in your hand caught your attention and you wondered if you were in the hospital. You didn’t have time to question it for long when you heard Suguru’s voice, “I really don’t know if you can hear me, but I hope you can.” You tried to turn your head in the direction of his voice, but you found yourself unable to move. “The sedatives and paralytics in your IV drip are just enough to keep you from being awake and able to move, but not to the point where you need a ventilator.” You could hear him moving around the room as he continued to talk. “As your doctor, I only want what is best for you, and I know you know this. I love you dearly, but the oath I took when I graduated from medical school comes first.” Your mind was swimming, trying to understand what was happening and what Suguru was going on about.

He paused for a minute, letting out a heavy sigh “I just want you to know that the data from your heart monitor will forever serve as a reminder of you, and every time I finish to those perfect EKG waves, I’ll be picturing your beautiful face.” You wanted to crawl out of your skin. How could he say that? Your thoughts continued to race. “I think it’s time we say goodbye now.” A feeling of terror consumed you. “I’m glad I was able to create a plan to cure you, not many doctors out there would care enough about their patients to go to the extreme lengths I am going to for you. The best part about this cure is that it is completely painless. One injection of about 30mg of morphine and everything will be better.” His voice sounded almost cheery.

The next sensation you felt was a needle pricking your inner elbow and viscous liquid being injected slowly into your vein. “There we go, treatment administered.” After disposing of the syringe in the sharps box, he quickly returned to your side. Your skin was turning pale and the heart monitor began to beep as your heartbeat and breathing rate fell dangerously low. He muted the monitor. Nothing was going to disturb the two of you in these final moments.

He reached for your hand, it felt cold as he held it, gently running his thumb over your knuckles in a soothing motion. You wanted to open your eyes, your mouth, ANYTHING. You wanted to scream. Your brain was becoming too foggy to even remember how screaming worked, even if it did, it wouldn't matter though and you knew that. It was almost like Getou could read your mind, and as your ears started to ring and the world crumbled away, he pressed a soft kiss to your forehead, softly cooing, “Shhh. Don't worry, no harm will ever come to you again.”

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aimless-imagines-for-fun · 4 years ago

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Damian Wayne Dating HCs

Pairing :: older/adult!Damian Wayne x fem!Reader

Headcanon :: How Damian gets into and acts in a relationship

Word Count :: 1,676

Warnings :: N/A

A/N :: The image I’m using I created with Artbreeder.

I didn’t call Damian “Robin” and referred to him as a vigilante because Dick stopped being Robin at 25, Jason 22, and Tim 18. The Damian I’m writing is 22. We don’t see much of Older!Damian, and when we do he’s either taken up the mantle of Batman or The Demon’s Head for The League Of Assassins

Getting into a relationship (all of this is in roughly a year) :

Neither you nor Damian know when you started dating, it just sort of happened

He met you at a bookstore you worked at, and you noticed he always came in buying older books about history, warfare, and strategies.

You found the warfare and strategies odd at first but chose not to question it

You asked him out first.

“Why do you always buy these books?” “I like history.” “Oh cool, I do too... Wanna hang out and talk about the First Battle of Tarain?”

You were joking, he said yes to get out of doing a thing with Tim

You each thought it was going to be a small amount of time spent together at some local cafe. You two ended up staying until closing talking about history.

This becomes a bi-weekly thing, you meet up at the cafe, talk until it closes, or go out and talk in a nearby park until sunset.

Damian’s family notices, but choose not to question what he’s doing because it’s seemingly making him less annoyed with people

Dick starts getting curious when he sees Damian smile just a tad bit looking at a text from you

You text him random facts all the time, but they’re weird. “Did you know squirrels are behind most power outages in the US?”

Eventually, you two stop talking about just history and start talking about other things that interest each of you and your personal lives.

You open up more than Damian

Damian pays close attention when he notices you’re talking about something you’re genuinely passionate about He pays attention to detail in general.

For your birthday he got you a leather swiss army medic bag from WWII. You cried tears of joy and jumped onto him for a big long hug.

That was the first time Damian’s heart skipped a beat. After seeing you overjoyed, he realized he likes seeing you happy. It gave him a warm feeling, but he doesn’t know yet he has feelings for you.

Yours and Damian’s first “official date” was to a fancy Wayne Ent. event. This time Damian asked you. He’s super stiff.

“Would you like to accompany me to the upcoming-” “Are you asking me out on a date??” “No, I’m asking you to accompany me-” “I’ll go.”

No one in his family knows your coming, except for Alfred because he was asked to pick you up and bring you to the manor the day of. Alfred is confused the entire car ride because you act super chill

When you show up, the other boys surround you. Dick realizes who you are instantly, Jason thinks you’re not human, Tim is afraid you’re like Damian.

Bruce is silent, and a bit thankful his son found a normal human

Damian picked out your outfit: A fancy dark Sacramento green dress with black heels, a pearl necklace, and pearl bracelets to match.

You panicked when you saw the jewelry and Damian instantly goes into “comfort mode” to reassure you it’s fine. The family is shook.

At the actual event, you feel SUPER AWKWARD. Your family had enough to get by in life, so you feel very out of place around all the rich people

Damian can tell you’re uncomfortable and so he tries to hold onto you at all times to help you feel comfortable

Ex: He holds your hand, puts a hand on your shoulder, stands directly next to you so your arms are touching.

You eventually feel comfortable, but, you’re both bored there, so you suggest hiding in the outside garden

Finally alone, you two start talking about the other batboys

“Does Dick always try to show off odd party tricks?” “Only when he sees a pretty lady.”

“Why was Jason just standing in the corner looking at everyone?” “He doesn’t like dressing up.”

“Come on, there’s no way Tim’s actually happy here.” “Did you see him on the dance floor?” He has awesome dance moves, he’s just very energetic.

You eventually start talking about something else.

You can hear the music from inside, so you two start slow dancing together.

He’s holding one of your hands and has a hand placed on the small of your back. You rest your head on his shoulder and have your free hand flat on his chest.

It’s in this instant you each realize you have feelings for one another.

You two swayed around slowly until the song eventually ended.

When you two pull away, you stare into his green eyes briefly before you place a hand on his cheek and pull him down for a kiss.

Once In A Relationship :

You and Damian are a good pair because he’s serious and you’re go-with-the-flow. If he starts over-analyzing something, you start relaxing him.

You two spend at least one day a week together, and you constantly text each other basic messages like “How was your day?”, “Are you okay?”, “Good morning/night”, “Have a nice day”

If you take over an hour to reply to Damian he gets anxious something bad happened to you.

He legitimately gets ready to start searching EVERY PART of Gotham until he gets a text “Sorry, I was taking a nap. Long day at work.”

When you two are together, you’re usually out or at your apartment. He only takes you to the manor if none of the other guys are there.

He took you once with everyone there. Never again.

Dick: “Oh my god! Look! He has a little girlfriend! How cute, Damian’s growing up.” “I’m 22.”

Tim: “You… You look so nice. Why? How is she so nice and you’re so… you.” “I’ll murder you and make it look like an accident.”

Jason: “How? Did you threaten her? Is he threatening you?” “Dames is super sweet.”

When you call Damian “Dames”, your nickname for him, they all lose their shit.

“DAMES?” “YOU HAVE A NICKNAME FOR HIM?” “DA-ME-SSS?” “DO YOU HAVE MORE?” “D-A-M-E-S?”

Your nicknames for Damian: Dame, Love, and Mr. Serious

Damian’s nicknames for you: Beloved, Love, and Sunflower

He briskly drags you away before you can say anything else, and you just go with it.

“??I thought we were going to talk more to your brothers??” “They’re not my brothers.” “Okay. I appreciate you.” “.....I appreciate you too.”

You two don’t say “I love you” very often. Instead, you say “I appreciate you”. You do say “I love you” in private/intimate moments, but in public/at random you say “I appreciate you”

Damian isn’t possessive, just protective. There’s a difference.

He’s never been in a serious relationship before and he’s never loved someone romantically like with you before, so he wants to make sure you’re safe and comfortable 24/7

The first time a random guy catcalled you while you were with Damian, he instantly defended your honor.

“What did you say?” He grabs the guy and easily raises him a foot off the ground. He forces the guy to apologize and lets him fall on the ground after.

Quickly, you reassured Damian he doesn’t need to go to such lengths to “defend your honor”. You tell him to ignore people like that guy because they’re nobodies.

After a few months, you start to pick up on the fact you two rarely spend time together after sunset.

You questioned him once about it and he quickly told you it’s because he helps his father with Wayne Ent. You never questioned him again.

You didn’t 100% believe his answer, but trust he wouldn’t do anything to hurt you

One time you called him crying at night. He was about to go on patrol, then dropped everything to go to your apartment and make sure you were okay.

Damian got a key to your apart about a year into the relationship.

There are times you go to sleep alone and wake up with him asleep, arms wrapped around you. He doesn’t do this often, only after a rough night on a patrol or a particularly dark mission.

Damian’s usually a realist, but when he sees you smile and laugh, he becomes an optimist for a split second

He isn’t big on PDA, so depending on his mood sometimes you hold hands when walking, other times you just lock your pinkies together.

When one of you notices the other is upset though, then you get touchy to calm the other down

Sometimes, when you two are alone at your apartment or the mansion, you don’t speak. You just rest and enjoy the silence while laying on top of one another.

If you lay on Damian, you’re literally on top of him snuggling into his chest. He holds one of your hands and rubs your back.

If Damian lays on you, you’re usually sitting and he places his head on your lap. You love playing and messing around with his hair.

When you found out Damian’s a vigilante, it was a massive accident

You called him while he was on patrol, whispering in a shaking voice that two men had broken into your apartment.

He booked it to your apartment and busted through the window, in costume.

After taking care of the guys and handing them over to the authority, he starts questioning you to make sure you’re okay. When you don’t answer he realizes he’s still in costume talking to you now.

You’re in shock because now a lot of things make sense.

You’re upset for about an hour(because Damian knows how to make you happy when you’re angry) and then you’re utterly fascinated by Damian’s other life

Damian tells you he doesn’t want you to know a lot because it could put you in danger and you’re the one part of his life that’s normal

You accept his wishes and continue with your relationship as normal.

There are only two things that changed:

One: Damian moves you to a more secure apartment and makes sure you have plenty of bats or batons you could use to protect yourself “just in case”

Two: Damian spends almost every night at your apartment after patrol now

#damian wayne #damian wayne x reader #damian wayne headcanon #damian wayne fanfic #damian wayne fluff #damian wayne fanfiction #damian al ghul #older!damian wayne #adult!damian wayne

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luvspence · 4 years ago

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my plus one

spencer reid x reader

synopsis: y/n needs a date to her family friends wedding, and she told her parents she was dating someone. so she brings in spencer as a decoy. little does she know spencer has a huge crush on her

word count: 1.3k

master list

——————————————

“heyyyyyyy spencerrrr”

you walk up to his desk and lean over the side

he turns around in his spiny chair to face you

“what’s up?”

“do you love me spencer”

“yes of course i do”

“will you do me a HUGE favor”

“what is it?”

“so pretty much, my family friends are getting married and my parents have been pressuring me to get a boyfriend and i wanted them off of me so i said i did and now they want me to bring this boyfriend to the wedding, and i have no boyfriend. so i was wondering if you would go with me?”

he secretly was doing a little happy dance

“yeah i can do that”

he was trying to play it as cool as possible, in reality he has a massive crush on you and you didn’t know.

“thank you so much!”

you went in to hug him, spencer took a long breath in, you smelt like lavender and green tea.

“okay so it’s next sunday, thank you so much spencer!!”

he sighs happily, just so happy to spend time with you.

——

sunday:

you guys were at your apartment getting ready

you were talking to spencer as you curled her hair

“okay so what’s our story spence?”

“we need a story?”

“yeah, in case my parents ask”

“we met at work, i mean that’s works and it’s also the truth”

“well yeah but when did we start dating? who made the first move? what was our first date?”

“well umm, 2 months ago? and you obviously i don’t think they’d believe if we said i did. and our first date.... museum of natural history?”

hes beet red just thinking about it

“perfect, we have ourselves a nice little story dont we”

you say as you squeeze his hand, you finished getting ready and stand in front of spencer.

“let’s go reid”

he looks at you and manages to mumble out

“o-ok, you look great”

you smiled at him as you got in the car.

the ceremony was at a local garden, as soon as you step out the car you grab spencer’s hand, it definitely catches him off guard

“spencer,,,”

“sorry just not used to it”

“it’s okay my love”

spencer could definitely get used to this “dating” thing

you guys walk into the hall and look to your names

“y/n plus one”

“here we are”

you guys sit down and start talking, you guys were pretty early so the hall was quite empty.

your mom and dad walk in and sit next to you.

“hello mother hello father”

“y/n why are you like that! would it kill you to be a little casual for once”

“indeed it would”

you just liked to mess with your parents as much as possible

“now who is this handsome gentlemen?”

your mother asks, motioning towards spencer

“this is dr. spencer reid, we work together”

your dad chimes in “y/n i thought you worked at the fbi”

“father i do”

“with a doctor?”

spencer begins to speak “well a-actually i’m not a medical doctor, i have doctorates”

“doctorates? plural?” your mother asks

“yes in chemistry, mathematics and engineering”

“oh wow you must be some sort of genius”

you and spencer said in unison “indeed”

the ceremony goes on and it’s pretty average, spencer was still trying to get used to the hand his his hand.

afterwards, you guys went to the reception.

“so how’d you guys meet? when did you guys meet? i want all the details” your mother asks

you gave spencer a ‘ i told you so’ look and you said

“we met nearly 5 years ago through work but we didn’t start dating until 2 months ago”

“ah i see” she still wanted to hear more

“yeah i made the first move i mean how couldn’t i hes so cute” you said as you smushed his face with your hand and he started to laugh.

your mother was quite amused so she left.

“see spencer shes crazy”

“y/n i wouldn’t say she’s crazy”

you sighed and rested your head on spencer’s shoulder, you could honestly get used to this as well.

you spent the rest of the night talking to spencer, eating the food and talking, you two were honestly having so much fun. you parents started to call you over

“y/n! you should dance with spencer!”

they said as the floor started to open up and others got onto it.

“spencer?”

he nodded and joined you, you started with your hands around his neck and his hands around your waist, it was a little awkward. but soon both of you got more comfortable and started to slump into each others bodies

“did you know research also proves that dancing also reduces stress and tension for the mind and body. studies by the national heart, lung, and blood institute have shown that dancing also prevents heart disease in particular.

“i didn’t, but that’s interesting”

you said as you twirled one of his curls around your finger

“maybe we should do this more often, for our heart health of course” you mumbled through his chest

“of course” he said with a smile

afterwards you decided to go into the photo booth

“okay okay what’s the game plan”

“one nice, one funny, and then just a random one ”

you flashed a nice smile for the first one, you and spencer both did the classic tounge out peace sign and the last one was counting down

you both were kind of just sitting there in confusion the machine was counting down

“5,4,3”

“kiss me” you said without even thinking

“HUH”

“2,1”

before you could think you grabbed spencers face and went in for a kiss, it lasted a good 5 seconds before you drew your face away.

“i’m sorry i don’t know what just possessed me i-“

before you could finish spencer went in for another kiss.

after the 2nd kiss ended you both stared at each other awkwardly and shuffled out side of the photo booth.

you and spencer didn’t talk for the rest of the night, just sitting awkwardly together, still holding hands to “sell” the relationship to your parents. as the reception ended you and spencer walked back into your car.

“okay spencer listen i-“

before you could finish he brought you in for another kiss, this time longer and more intimate.

you were both blushing intensely

“spencer you need to stop doing that”

“i can’t help it!”

you guys sat in silence for another moment and spencer started to speak

“i’ve had a crush on you from the first case we worked together y/n. from the first time you came up to me on the jet to play chess. i love the way you speak to a crowd and the way you so effortlessly take down serial killers, and how you’re always listening to my rants. i love you. and i love you so much that i was willing to keep it a secret for 5 years because i didn’t wanna loose our friendship and i just wanted you to be as happy as possible, and i didn’t know if i could do that for you”

you paused for a moment

“spencer you know the real reason i brought you here”

he nodded

“my parents weren’t even bothering me that much about it, i just wanted to pretend to be your girlfriend for a night”

he sighed, he obviously wished you flat out told him, but that was hypocritical given his situation, he replied

“well how about we stop pretending?”

you nodded aggressively

“ssa y/n l/n i am officially asking you to be a real girlfriend”

“well then dr. spencer reid, i accept that title graciously”

you pulled him in for another kiss, in between kisses you mumble

“my perfect plus one”

#criminal minds #spencer reid #spencer reid fanfiction #criminal minds fanfiction #spencer reid fluff #spencer reid fluffy #spencer reid x fem!reader #spencer x y/n #blurb #fluff #fluffy #fluffyblurb #fluffy spencer reid #imagines #spencer reid imagine #spencer reid blurb #mgg #mgg imagine

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britishassistant · 3 years ago

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The Villainous Paranoiac Experiences Culture Shock

The Hannya of the Gracey and its Kitsune.

Tricky, cruel, deceptive, jealous, ungrateful.

That’s what you’ve been called ever since Nanji settled. It’s been whispered behind your backs and said outright to your faces.

Ever since Chichiue told you to take a more appropriate form if you both were going to eat dinner properly with the family, and his eyebrows drew down when you stuttered out that you were trying, you were, but Nanji couldn’t change back from the red fox that quailed under the glare of Chichiue’s eagle.

You were sent to their room in the middle of the meal because of that, Asahiko-nii-sama’s exaggerated faces of disgust, Leota-nee-sama’s quiet yet smug vindication and Enji-nii-sama’s open glares of disapproval following you both as you left.

Seven isn’t an…uncommon age for a dæmon to settle. Unusual, to be sure, enough to raise and lower eyebrows, prompt the start of a inquiry before the asker remembers which family they’re about to question.

But it’s just edging into more common for “early bloomers” that it’s usually assumed that you were closer to eight than seven when Nanji did settle. Besides, there are kids out there who have had their dæmons settle at younger ages, after all.

All the studies you’ve read say this phenomenon is near uniformly a result of a traumatic event or hostile living environment. But that’s probably more of a generalization than anything.

Still. At least the names and insults weren’t so bad. They were just words after all.

At least the people using them would steer clear. Keep at least a two foot distance between themselves, the Hannya of the Gracey, and its Kitsune. As though you and Nanji actually had any power to curse anyone with.

At least they wouldn’t try to keep fucking touching your dæmon every five minutes.

So pause. Rewind a bit. You and Nanji and your old middle school crush and his dæmon (who you’ve certainly gotten over, and who does not look any better than he had in middle school now his Sonata has settled, thank you very much) have been transported to another world. This world is called Twisted Wonderland.

The people of this world are soulless assholes.

Because none of them have dæmons.

And the vast majority of them you have met so far are assholes, in some shape or form.

You have yet to ascertain whether the latter is dependent on the former.

And yet they keep acting like normal people in spite of this absence, rather than the traumatized wrecks that are in textbooks in history class, all dead-eyed and unresponsive. So maybe there’s something to the headmaster’s claim that their dæmons are…inside them, somehow.

Though that just gives you the awful mental image of a person lifting a mouse or an insect dæmon to their lips and just…swallowing. Nanji nips your hand for putting that lovely idea in both your heads.

But back to the topic at hand: The people here don’t have dæmons. They have never had dæmons. So it’s understandable that initially all of them don’t quite understand that there’s a difference between them and just another talking animal, like Grim.

That it is NOT OKAY to try to scoop them up or punt them around like they do to Grim (and honestly, you’re not really okay with them doing that to Grim either— it’s why you and Yuuken trade off who has the monster cat perched on their shoulders or in their arms and out of harm’s way whenever you both can). That’s just down to cultural differences. You can understand it, if you cock your head, squint your eyes, and are very, very sleep-deprived.

What is not understandable is the assholes who think it’s hilarious to try to keep touching Sonata and Nanji even after you’ve repeatedly told them “no”.

Some of that might be Nanji’s fault. Though at the time it hadn’t seemed like a bad idea, considering how many curious would-be touchers immediately jerked away and lost interest permanently after he blurted out, “It’s a sex thing!!”

(It’s not exactly a sex thing, more of an intimacy thing at most. But there’s something much more visceral and back-the-fuck-off about “touching a dæmon is like shoving your hands down a stranger’s pants” compared to “touching a dæmon is the realization of a very deep and intimate bond between you and your partner”.)

But of course, many is not all.

And there’s always going to be some assholes who think that seeing how easily they can get away with harassment is a “fun game” rather than a creepy and messed up power play. Just like back home.

Yuuken and Sonata have it much worse than you and Nanji.

You’d thought the muskox form she settled into was noble, dignified, a perfect embodiment of Yuuken’s diligence and strength. (No, it has not made your crush on him worse, shut up.)

The only problem is that a muskox is not as small a creature as a fox. So while you can physically pick up Nanji and move him out of reach if some punks decide they want to cause trouble, poor Sonata has no such defense. She has to move away if they get between her and Yuuken, and their distance limit is so much smaller than your own, and both of them look so trapped—

It surprises everyone but Nanji and yourself when you take a page from Deuce’s book and ball your fist up to punch the asshole trying to bury his hand in the thick fur of Sonata’s flank.

The resulting crack is not from the asshole’s nose breaking, unfortunately.

You haven’t ever really punched anybody before, hadn’t ever been in a situation where you were justified in your retaliation.

Of course you manage to fuck it up on your first try.

Nanji does not thank you for the resulting limp in his one good leg until your hand and his paw heals, even if he understands why you did it. You give him lots of petting in apology, carefully avoiding the spots where his fur is now patchy and the skin is ridged with scars.

(And isn’t that a fun experience, whenever the ex-overblots’ eyes wander over him, catch sight of what they inflicted on you both, and suddenly can’t look at anything else fast enough. None of them have actually, explicitly apologized to either of you for it.)

Yuuken and Sonata hover over you both like concerned mother hens, despite how often and repeatedly you tell them this is not their fault and you’d do it again in a heartbeat. Sonata actually offers to let Nanji ride on her back while he heals.

You try joking you’d get jealous, so it’d be better not to, only for Yuuken to offer to piggyback you around campus as well.

Ace teases you mercilessly for how strangled you sound when you squeak out that that won’t be necessary, and Nanji buries his head under his tail and refuses to come out for the rest of the day.

Deuce is more concerned with teach you how to throw a punch properly, so you don’t hurt yourself next time.

Jack provides Nanji with a smaller version of the splint he sometimes uses if he hurts his paws when in Wolf Mode, which does help a bit, even if it does feel slightly surreal to feel the phantom press of the medical implement on your hand.

Grim delights in setting the assholes on fire whenever they’re within reach. Whether he can get away with it is another factor he doesn’t seem willing to take into consideration.

Crowley scolds him and the rest of Ramshackle by extension for “violent behavior on school premises”, and resorts to subtly threatening to cut off your food money whenever you try to pressure him to actually do something about your harassers, as though it’s somehow your and Yuuken’s faults for having dæmons.

As though it’s Sonata and Nanji’s faults for existing.

You resort to scribbling increasingly insulting caricatures of the stupid birdbrain headmaster for your theory wall to vent your frustration, in absence of any concrete way to get back at him. Nanji chews the cushion in your armchair to near rags as you pin them to the wall with more force than is strictly warranted.

Yuuken and Sonata turn out to be far more proactive than you when it comes to dealing with grudges of this kind.

Or, at least, more willing to go along with plans that allow them to do so.

You know Ace had a hand in it. His brand of vindictiveness and humiliation is pretty distinctive. Ortho is also clearly a culprit, thanks to the technological mishaps that had one of your tormentors in actual tears. From the garish, clashing pink and petty sparkles that have been added to Crowley’s attire, you’re fairly sure Epel was involved too.

Sebek…is a participant you’re on the fence about, for his conflicting claims that it was a childish prank to pull on the bullies and headmaster and that both parties had whatever fate they now suffered coming to them. Even if he wasn’t directly involved, you’re pretty sure he was in on it enough to not spill the details.

But the sudden influx of logs, which would require someone with an above average level of strength and/or the help of an animal that specialized in moving large burdens over distance?

Combined with the fact that Jack and Deuce were as mystified as you, Grim, and Nanji at the results of the prank?

Well, even if Yuuken hadn’t shot you a subtle wink (which most certainly did not have your cheeks heating, no sir) in Ramshackle’s kitchen while the two of you prepared dinner to the sound of Sonata’s quiet laughter, you’re pretty sure you would’ve worked it out sooner or later.

For now, you and Nanji are just glad that they’re both here with you to help navigate this Twisted Wonderland of soulless assholes.

Even if some of them aren’t as bad as the others.

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gumnut-logic · 4 years ago

Text

Callisto (Voyage - Bit 2)

Prologue Incident - Bit 1 | Bit 2 Fallout - Bit 1 | Bit 2 | Bit 3 Voyage - Bit 1 | Bit 2

As I continue to write the Prologue, have a little Lee Taylor and Jeff with some Johnny and Scott on the side.

As always, many, many thanks to @tsarinatorment @scribbles97 and @janetm74 for the ongoing support, as well as my technical advisor @onereyofstarlight for the geek out fest on the weekend ::hugs you all::

I hope you enjoy this. I’m certainly enjoying the challenge :D

-o-o-o-

Jeff stared after his son for a long moment. Emotion swirled in his head and tangled with his stomach. That lightspeed jump did mess with his innards more than he would admit.

But Virgil’s words messed him up even more.

What weren’t they telling him? What had happened to Scott while he was gone?

He had read a good percentage of the mission reports and backtracked through Tracy Industries’ history over that eight years. Scott’s conduct was exemplary. He couldn’t be prouder. Both organisations had flourished under his sons’ management, Scott being the major driving force, but his younger sons stepping in where needed.

Hell, even Gordon had dabbled in aquaculture and Tracy Industries was now a major player on that front.

Something soured in his gut that had nothing to do with lightspeed travel. Perhaps he needed to be a little more honest with himself. Maybe things had gone so well, that in truth, his return wasn’t really needed.

Scott was brilliant, his brothers…hell, Jeff was ever so proud. His sons were everything. They had accomplished so much.

But what did that leave for Jeff?

He cursed under his breath, disgusted with himself. His natural competitive tendencies did not need to be deployed against his own children.

But that vacant feeling of loss and lack of purpose swelled. He hadn’t even thought about not going on this mission. He had grabbed it like a lifeline and now, somehow, he had managed to alienate those brilliant young sons and caused pain and worry where he had no intention.

“Jeff? Where the hell are you?”

Lee.

Despite himself, Jeff smiled.

Pushing off from the bed, he floated through the door and into the corridor. Lee was expertly manoeuvring down one wall, his experience showing in every movement. “I have to say that this baby of yours definitely hits the spot. I’ll have two for the Mars colony, please.”

Jeff snorted. “Get in line. The GDF are already on my back.”

Lee pulled up alongside. “You gonna give them one?”

“I doubt it.” He sighed. “Val is ready to vouch, but from what I’ve read from the last eight years…I don’t think they can be trusted.”

“Then what are you going to do?” They drifted down the corridor towards the mess. “This technology is a great step forward.”

“Yeah. So much power, Lee. I’ve worried about the Thunderbirds getting into the wrong hands. This….hell…Brains and Michael make a formidable team.”

“Your boys make a formidable team, Jeff. You should be proud.”

“I am.”

Lee pulled him to a halt with a hand. “Then what the hell are you doing out here, Jeff? Gerry had me on the pipeline frantic.”

Jeff blinked. “Gerry?”

“The swimming one.”

“Oh, Gordon?”

Lee waved a hand dismissively. “Yeah, whatever. But he was upset. Said you were trying to kill yourself.”

“What?!”

“Said your health wasn’t up to a long space flight. I know you know better than that, Colonel.” Blue eyes pinned him.

Oh, for the love of-

“I’m fine, Lee.”

“Bullshit. You may not be using that cane of yours, but I saw your medical charts when you got back. You fried your bones good, and your circulation has seen better days. Don’t think I’m an idiot. Gerry may be the excitable one, but he’s not dumb. Hell, even I can see Vinnie and Steve ain’t happy either.”

Jeff stared at him, caught between outrage that his best friend still couldn’t remember his sons’ names and the thought that Lee was also ganging up on him along with those sons.

“I am perfectly capable of handling this voyage. It is short. It is safe.”

Lee snorted with derision. “I know you know that there is nothing ‘safe’ about any space voyage, Jeff. Hell, you’re the one who taught me that. What are you playing at?”

That got his back up. “What am I playing at? Berry and Ju are missing, Lee.”

“Don’t you trust your boys?”

“I trust them!”

“Then let them do their jobs. You’ve done enough.”

Jeff glared at him. “I don’t see you retiring your space legs.”

“I didn’t go missing for eight years and fry my bones. You don’t have to do this. Your boys will find Berry and Ju. I’ve seen them in action. You should trust them.”

Jeff’s shoulders dropped. “I do.” It was an exhale. But... “Lee, I have to. I can’t sit on the sidelines anymore.”

Blue eyes stared at him, appraising. They weren’t unlike his eldest son’s eyes and probably shared the gene through Lucille.

The thought of his wife clenched his heart like it always did. Lee didn’t look much like his sister, but there were traces.

“Well, you’ve argued your ass out here. Looks like you’ve pissed half your family off in the process. I’d tread carefully. That eldest of yours looks ready to chew iron.”

Jeff grunted.

Lee reached out and grabbed an arm. “They’re good boys.” A swallow. “Lucy would be very, very proud.”

It was targeted and it hit perfectly. His throat tightened just a little. “I know.”

No more than breath. “I know.”

-o-o-o-

“I want to know why.”

John looked up from his tablet to see Scott floating in the doorway.

The astronaut knew this was coming. Hence his retreat to Thunderbird Five for a ‘systems check’.

“Because Dad needs this.” He turned back to his tablet, poked the device and shut down the scan he was running.

Scott pushed off the door frame and pivoted to a vertical stance - as a commanding posture as he could get in zero-g.

John raised an eyebrow, but didn’t comment, forcing himself to relax in his partially seated position. He knew his brother was unhappy with him and he understood why. So, the question was a pertinent one.

“Dad does not need more illness and that is exactly where this is leading.”

“We won’t be out here that long.”

“How do you know? We don’t know what has happened? We won’t know fully until we are on site.”

John let his brother’s ire wash over him. “Scott, what are you going to do the day they say you can no longer fly?”

Blue eyes stared at him a moment. “What has that got to do with anything?”

John’s lips thinned. “Deny it all you want, but you know exactly what I mean.” He held his brother’s glare. “Dad has been grounded for nearly two years. Put yourself in his place. How do you think you would feel?”

He could see the inner turmoil on his big brother’s face. He hated going against Scott. It didn’t happen often, but it did happen and each time it hurt because it felt so wrong. Someone had to stand up for Dad in this and John feared the day he would be in his father’s place. To not be able to go into space. To never be able to see the stars unfettered by atmosphere again…he dreaded it. Just like he knew Scott dreaded losing his wings.

It was inevitable and they would both fight it as long as they could.

Just like their father.

But understanding didn’t make it any easier from a son’s perspective either. John knew in intimate detail exactly what his father’s health issues were. He empathised with him in ways that perhaps only Alan amongst his brothers could possibly understand. If he wasn’t careful, this was his future, too. Perhaps not as severe, perhaps not quite the same, but the risks were there.

His father’s cane reminded him every time he saw it.

Scott had already changed his rota on Five, Alan standing in more often, John on solid ground enough for cursed gravity to keep his systems running as they should.

Virgil had become hypervigilant as well, medical checks increased. He had once caught Dad’s chart up on display right next to his own, Virgil’s eyes comparing symptoms, obviously worried towards preventing issues before they happened in his little brother.

It had been a taxing couple of years.

“Okay, you’ve made your point.” It was grudging. “But it doesn’t remove the fact that his health is at risk. After all he’s been through…he’s been hurt enough.”

“Him or us?”

“Excuse me?”

“We have all been through hell and back. This isn’t just about Dad, Scott. I know. I’m just as scared as you.” He was, but he was shunting it away. He couldn’t afford it. “But this is who he is. You know that. He’s not going to wrap himself in a blanket, sit in a chair and rock his life away. If he did, he wouldn’t be Dad.” He blinked. “How do you see your twilight years? Are you going to slow down any time soon?”

“John-“

“He’s got all of us. He’s not alone out here. We’ll keep him safe.”

Blue eyes continued to stare at him, but there were no more words for a long time.

John simply stared back, calm and waiting.

“I am so angry at you.” The words slipped from his brother’s lips in frustration.

“I know.” John tilted his head just slightly. “Because you know I’m right.”

Scott got angry a lot, but he was rarely blinded by it. He couldn’t afford to be. And while Virgil tackled their big brother in his own way, John, in the few times Scott turned to him in this kind of situation, found that waiting him out with calm words usually worked. Not always, sometimes his brother just exploded more. But this time, this time John knew he was right and that Scott would understand, if he would listen.

His brother’s lips thinned, obviously with reluctance. “I want a medical monitor on him at all times. I want Five trained on him at all times.”

John arched an eyebrow, reached over and thumbed a switch. Their father’s vitals flickered into all their holographic glory. “Virgil already beat you to it. Wouldn’t let him on board without it.”

Those eyes tracked the readouts but Scott didn’t comment. “Keep an eye on him.”

John sighed and picked up his tablet again. As if he would do anything else. “Just like I do with all of you. They don’t call me the ‘Eye in the Sky’ for nothing.”

A grunt and Scott moved back towards the door. John poked at his tablet and resumed the scan he had been running. It wasn’t often humans were in this chunk of space and he planned to record everything he could.

If he was non-verbally dismissing his brother, it was on purpose. Scott needed to process and John was not needed for that.

And John had work to do before they jumped again.

He didn’t notice his brother leave.

-o-o-o-

#thunderbirds are go #thunderbirds #thunderbirds fanfiction #Jeff Tracy #Lee Taylor #John Tracy #Scott Tracy #callisto

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in-tua-deep · 4 years ago

Text

tua rewatch with the roommate

Episode five

Oh fuck the “I found you. all your bodies.” scene

“We died?” “Horribly.” throwback to the ben convo o o f

“If perfectly arranged under rubble and otherwise unharmed counts as ‘horribly”’ - roommate

I like that Diego says he’s going to kill Hazel and Cha-Cha like it’s a challenge?? lol five doesn’t care if they live or die he only cares if u do you big dumbass

“Well I know none of the main characters die bc there’s a season 2... and i’m pretty sure they’re all in s2... like all of the family?”

I mean luther is kind of valid for being frustrated that five didn’t share about the apocalypse but also like,,, the first person five told about it (Vanya) suggested he might be insane. so. i can understand some reluctance on his part on top of the whole “the last time my siblings fought this the Whole World Died Including Them i would like them as far away from apocalypse stuff as possible”

okay okay so five says “they turned me into the perfect instrument” so do y’all think that implies experimentation like in the comics or ????

all i can think about during the kennedy scene though is my high school history teacher. he went over the assassination in intimate detail and i’m pretty sure he was writing a book about it and everything. mr. hansen if you’re out there -

i like feral beard five more than mustache five tbh if i’m picking

“Someone ELSE shot the president? Was he supposed to shoot kennedy or was he supposed to kill the person who shot kennedy?” - Roommate

love that five tells luther to grow up over murder,,, though to be valid pretty sure they did actually murder people as kids SO. grow down?

fuck i love mary,, will you love me like you loved me in the january rain??? just shoot me in the heart

GOD rob is such a good actor

“wait a second... how is he wearing pants?” oh roommate you have a big storm coming

i have some serious questions about the commission and their methods of communication. where do?? the tubes come from? where do they go after?

Allison: i have a bad feeling [about leonard]

where are these instincts for everything else tho??? her marriage?

“Vanya. she really is trying to look out for you. i really would trust her. you could invite her to come along so she can see he’s perfectly fine??” - Roommate, whose instincts regarding not trusting leonard-harold are spot on

apparently my roommate knows people who put salt in their coffee. i have. so many questions.

“That’s suspicious?? that’s suspicious right?? did he do that? is he a secret serial killer? is he a FUCKING secret serial killer?” roommate when they talk about helen cho going missing

“What do you mean stop showing up it’s been like. a day” - I mean. the roommate has a point.

Klaus’s depression bath is a mood :(

did klaus put eye shadow on before his bath or did he get his hands on eye shadow in vietnam?? the questions that will never be answered

Five is so enthusiastic about having someone who understands... he doesn’t even notice absolutely Not Being In The Mood,, klaus is grieving and five is just like !!! where did you go!!!! like it was a vacation

klaus: yeah i’m ten months older now. when i’m done being depressed i will lord that over diego for the rest of our natural lives.

does five write in all caps all the time?? why?

roommate: I wonder what the upper size limit on the knives her can use. like is it machete length? forearm length? what are the limits on his powers. if he sharpened a very sharp mechanical pencil could he use it? if he sharpened a piece of the chandelier? at what point does something become a knife?

me: could he hurl mia (my cat)? mia and her knife feet?

allison also writes in all caps to write leonard’s address

we stan agnes and hazel in this household

“I never said we didn’t !! i just thought she was just a random extra in the first episode and every time we cut away i think that’s the last we’ve seen of her” - roommate because i keep saying that this is an agnes stan household

“OH THERE’S THE PATCHWORK COAT i was afraid it didn’t come back” - okay though good question he definitely didn’t have the coat on the bus. what is it with klaus and his magically appearing coat????

oh :( oh klaus :( every time klaus is sad i am also sad :(

honestly a family conversation IS the threat in this family

god though this random vet in this bar is actually an asshole though like. klaus doesn’t owe him shit. klaus served. he’s clearly having a moment with the photo. that could have been a family member or something who died i don’t even know

agnes: i’m a twitcher :)

“like a twitch streamer?” -Roommate

PLEASE give me twitch streamer!Agnes au

look i just enjoy hazel and agnes

roommate: honey you’re too young for her

me: NO DON’T BE MEAN TO THEM,,, agnes deserves a boytoy

“does diego drive a manual?” my roommate once again focusing on things that i do not

five: i have to find the people whose deaths could save the timeline

my roommate: is it agnes?? is he going to kill agnes????

i’m still laughing about that fact that luther is holding dolores.... over the fire escape... she couldn’t drop that far lads

luther’s dumb sometimes but he does have some nice heart to hearts with his brother,,,, honestly he and five get along pretty well in the early episodes. kindred spirits. body dysmorphia and isolation squad.

my roommate has to keep remembering social media doesn’t exist in this universe

i am still confused as to why

that won’t stop me from giving everyone iphones and youtube accounts in my aus though

diego can curve ANYTHING he throws, usually knives, according to cha-cha’s research. but that doesn’t explain the spoilers i have seen about s2 sO

Klaus: You also told me that licking a nine volt battery would give me pubes

HOW DID I FORGET THAT LINE

oh diego got a bullet graze forgot about that as well?? does he ever get like. medical attention for that? diego?????

it really has been like. maybe two days since helen cho died. is no one??? concerned????? they just immediately jump into replacing her??????????????????? hellO?

“very clear camera angles to show that this actress did not actually play the violin for this role” - i mean that’s fair but ellen is trying rip

me: who’s your favorite character so far? roommate: that’s a tricky question. klaus is very entertaining to watch. allison is the most reasonable and i’m very interested to know, well, she seems like the best combination of reasonable and has the least selfish intentions. diego and luther i feel like are both good in a bland way in that they’re both doing good in the best way they can which usually involves punching people. five is fun. five is very fun. five is as fun to watch as klaus, they’re both very fun actors to watch on screen. they’re more expressive than diego and luther tend to be. me: so which is your favorite????? roommate: first instinct says allison, though she probably has the least dynamic or interesting arc so far

are hazel and cha-cha the best because their victims never see them coming?? like. they aren’t really THAT competent.

“I do LOVE the aesthetic of an ice cream truck playing ride of the valkyries” - my roommate is valid

“LOVE the hypersaturated background in this scene. it’s more fun that having it be desaturated.”

five looks so baby in this scene with the handler :(

still unsure where five got that handgun but i’m vibing

hate when she touches his face !! awful!!!

the handler’s little “all of them??” like yeAH ALL OF THEM even though they irritate the living FUCK out of each other. siblings man

ben gets shotgun for the getaway !!! go ben!

“I’m starting to think... given how space and reality seemed to be warping during her playing... that her medication... isn’t for anxiety...” - oh, oh roommate

ah i blocked out the leonard vanya make out as well

“DIDN’T YOU MEET HIM TWO DAYS AGO?” - yeah i feel u roommate

yup there’s helen’s body

“CSI call crime scene investigation - that’s going to start to smell real soon”

pogo: and you understand that the children can never know

me: actually pogo fuck you

and that’s episode 5 everyone thank you and goodnight

episode six

i do love a good flashback to klaus

klaus: sees a shirtless soldier and instantly falls in love

they don’T EVEN QUESTION HIM just “KATZ GET THIS MAN A PAIR OF PANTS” and they go with it?? he just APPEARED and they don’t even care

klaus was really just vibing in the 60s huh

wait this is like 1962 or 63 right

when does s2 take place?? also the 60s right???

didn’t kennedy die in 1963 i feel like what i know about s2 contradicts that date but i could have sworn they said a round trip to 1963??????

luther is SUCH A MOOD in the family briefing.

“aww he’s a bad liar” - roommate

“I realize that [the umbrella] was necessary for the title drop but where the fuck did that come from”

@ the handler please stop touching five,,, but also five has such. non reactions to her touching him. which worries me. like she grabs his shoulder walking alongside him and he doesn’t even look at her

why are there gas masks in the briefcase room...

can you IMAGINE if your boss toted a child into the room and introduced him as the Legendary Time Travelling Assassin that the whole office had a betting pool over who would die that one time and is Definitely approaching 60 not 13... and then called him LEADERSHIP MATERIAL. implying that this child will probably get a promotion before you do?? can you IMAGINE?

“again... two days ago...” roommate about leonard and vanya

vanya really chose literally just the worst time to come back to the academy huh

okay but vanya going off?? valid, but also,, i mean. it IS their dads fault that they don’t have any relationship with vanya?

luther: it’s about the moon roommate: critical role moon theory

hey like. how did the family get together in the first timeline holy fuck. it’s hard enough to get them together when they Literally Know The World Is Going To End

so remember diego getting grazed with a bullet yeah well he has a sling on now which makes sense!! and yet. when five got grazed by a bullet he SLAPS A BANDAID ON IT. someone please address this.

five is such an asshole coworker i love it

i wonder if dot is a mother. or just a nice coworker. she keeps trying to talk to him and invite him to lunch aww

i wonder if it’s purposeful on the handler’s part to call him “mr. five” instead of “mr. hargreeves” to like... further isolate him from his family? by removing his last name they’re sort of removing his ties to his siblings considering it’s not like they’re related by blood

forgot how much i hate the bathroom scene !! wow !! hate it so much!!! there’s so many violations of social etiquette in such a short scene! it’s so deeply uncomfortable!

luther: stop it pogo! you know everything our dad did

i am remembering once again how much i hate pogo all over again!! reginald literally locked klaus in a mausoleum!! he abused the kids! pogo didn’t even speak up about sending luther to the MOON,,, oh luther :(

he just learned his dad exiled him for no reason he has lots of rights his entire world view was just shattered wow i am like infinitely more sympathetic to luther on the second watch

“I knew allison and luther was a thing. you told me allison and luther was a weird thing. still not a fan.” - my very valid roommate

they could have made the fort so much more sibling-y instead of romantic and it would have been so much better honestly

oh dave :(

“I wonder who her primary care physician is and if she can find out what that medication was...” roommate i wish i knew

“I’m trying to decide if he knew ahead to time to try and get at her specifically or like... i don’t know when he took the figurine I was like ‘doesn’t he own an antique shop is he there to steal antiques from the family home’.” roommate on leonard

forgot the handler gifted five a suit. also don’t like that. don’t like her talk about his body and everything either.

“is it too much to ask to give him two outfits? one he can wear now and one with the new body?” - roommate

honestly with hazel’s talk on budget cuts i’m not surprised he only gets one suit

STOP TOUCHING HIS FACE,,,, HANDLER. STOP TOUCHING HIS FACE

five and his sweet tooth. don’t take the candy five. come on. what did your father TEACH YOU. honestly reggie probably was like “let them get kidnapped it will probably teach them a life lesson”

“there were like... villages that needed rebuilding after disasters. he could have been sending these packages to legit lunar research facilities. legit facilities would have adored to have that information.”

okay but people KNEW he was on the moon. cha-cha mentioned it. it was in vanya’s book. why were scientists not knocking down reginald’s door demanding the research??? if i was a moon scientist i would have the mansion staked out trying to demand info jesus

“love his eye fluttering in the way of ‘oh shit i got something in my eye i can’t break character scene is still going scene is stILL GOING’“ - hilarious observations from the allison luther fort scene 2.0: grown up version that gets erased

did they just leave the fort up all those years. did no one USE the green house??? did grace lovingly work around it all that time?

oh :( dave :(

grace is capable of lying and pogo is a shadowy motherfucker

“okay now that they’re actually putting it into the plot i understand why you don’t think he’s trustworthy but you really got on my back about that”

in my defense i just hate him tbh i did not like him when he first showed up and i never particularly liked him tbh

allison: i think you’re the only person who knows who i am and likes me anyway

me, remembering the theory that allison rumored luther to love her: HMMMMMM

okay but i think the luther and allison dance scene is fucking HILARIOUS. absolutely ridiculous. i mean i hate that it’s incest but also the fucking LIGHTS DESCENDING. the RANDOM WARDROBE CHANGE.

roommate likes the green underskirt thing under allison’s random dance dress

are they just doing this in public???

ugh. the kiss. ugh. erased that from my memory as well

“they clearly want romance in this show but they painted themselves into a corner with the siblings thing” - roommate

five and his fucking STAPLERS isn’t this the second time he’s knocked someone out with a stapler?? the bank robber and now gloria??

five please your siblings were finally doing some decent work on their own issues :/

five is the kind of dramatic as fuck entrances

“love how he just grabs [allison’s] coffee. kid needs a coffee after all that.” - roommate

five actually does a good job of rallying the siblings though?? they just broke the fuck up in the og timeline

“something tells me that harold jenkins might be leonard”

oh roommate

episode seven

uh oh harold was born

i feel vaguely bad for him

“me the night before a convention” - roommate on harold’s tape and cosplay and everything

okay but how did reginald even KNOW harold jenkins had no powers?? did he? keep tabs on all the forty some kids not just the seven he kept?

but also why the fuck are these people laughing at An Actual Child fuck all of them honestly

“did HE kill hargreeves?? I mean. he’s got motive.” - roommate

harold really said “i think my superpower is actually this hammer motherfucker”

how did he get twelve years?? was he tried as an adult?? was he in juvie? how old WAS he

twelve years ago... they’re 29 soooo seventeen? he did NOT look seventeen? he was NOT seventeen in that flashback what???

roommate theorizes that harold ran off after the murder and committed petty crimes until caught and tried for murder when he was seventeen so was maybe 13 in the flashback

okay so i looked up the timeline and he got out in 2014 or something so he was like 13 in the flashback which makes SO much more sense honestly but also what the FUCK was he doing for five years

“he’s actually laying out all the facts as he knows them and I appreciate that.” -roommate about five briefing the team

five?? the only member of the family with communication skills? it’s? somehow more likely than you think?

“allison’s pants that she’s wearing now are the most perfectly tailored things i’ve ever seen. not even a wrinkle when she’s standing still. do you know how hard that is to do?” again my roommate noticing the things i absolutely do not

five. five. you have a GUT WOUND and also jumped a BUNCH OF TIMES. you are not blinking into the police station and getting the file. you need some SLEEP. and REST. and WOUND CARE FIVE FOR FUCK’S SAKE. you still have a GUNSHOT GRAZE on your upper arm and a SLICE on your wrist from DIGGING OUT A TRACKER. FIVE.

diego wants to be batman SO BAD.

five crossing his arms and Not Uncrossing Them because he’s literally HOLDING HIMSELF TOGETHER.

wow luther is really handling this so much worse in this timeline rip

luther is losing validity points for CHOKING KLAUS i knew this happened but i didn’t remember how awful it was !!! bad and terrible! and luther is very drunk and very sad and very angry. oh. he’s saying he never left the house and never had friends for nothing :(

klaus had the realization that reggie was an asshole YEARS ago and he’s just kind of like “aww. luther :(”

klaus is trying so hard

“Klaus has had the most heart to hearts with the most siblings honestly.” - roommate

allison at the beginning making her laugh in the office with the EYES, five on the steps of meritech, diego after the vet bar, luther on the couch...

wow cha cha really thought hazel was talking about how meaningful his partnership was with her when he was talking about agNES

five limping up the lawn and staggering up the stairs and clinging to the rails baBY SIT DOWN. YOU ARE BLEEDING.

“inspiring leadership” “one of the greats” what a sibling moment honestly.

five really said “i think i will pass the fuck out now”

five really said “hey i am literally willing to die for this mission because this mission is the safety and lives of my entire family and i love you guys :(”

except he doesn’t because five is decent at information sharing but getting feelings out of him feels like pulling teeth at times smh

is leonard trying to vicariously live his “normal child born on the umbrella academy day discovers they have had powers the WHOLE TIME” dream through vanya??

we yell about how leonard and vanya have known each other for like a week but i mean same for hazel and agnes!! he’s literally asking her to run away with him and she says yes !!!!! agnes is here for the romantic adventure with this man she’s really living her first hot girl summer and living for it

“she’s having her own little rom com! she thinks she’s living in a rom com not a dark sci fi!” - roommate accurate as usual

she just called ben the emotional support ghost and i mean... she ain’t wrong

honestly klaus should have just left luther to his rave, he didn’t get to party in his teens or during his college years or anything

i do appreciate the viking yell of “B R O T H E R” that luther greets klaus with though because that’s exactly how i greet my own siblings whenever i see them

oh klaus :(

he’s having war flashbacks, cravings, is in withdrawal, AND experiencing sensory overload while reliving one of the more traumatizing moment of his life

oh klaus :(

five in a bed for the second time of the season which is nice for him. if only the first time wasn’t because he passed out drunk and the second time wasn’t because of a whole shrapnel wound. i am now that captain of the Let Five Sleep brigade holy SHIT like at least they imply that the others sleep five is just feral and ready to go at all times

are the police allowed to just. remove someone’s arm sling? is that permitted? his arm could be fucked up? i mean. it is? he was shot?

“I saw everything my brothers and sister could do ruin their lives” VANYA some REALIZATION up in here,,,, admitting that the umbrella academy wasn’t exactly a desirable place to be is actually some real growth for her and leonard just fucking shuts her down? fuck that man

VANYA SEE THE RED FLAGS FOR WHAT THEY ARE COME ON

oh klaus :( oh luther :( oh :(

“love his corset side pants, like benedict from violet evergarden” - on the topic of Klaus’s pants

“I made everyone else so I must have made you” says god except for the fact that the kids just... surprise popped up instead of coming about the natural way. maybe god DIDN’T made them????????

oh klaus :( prepare for disappointment :(

oh i didn’t notice the photos of the umbrella academy in the barbershop the first time i watched this

so klaus gives an age for the mausoleum... thirteen... do you think that was before or after five left? statistically it’s probably after bc it was only a couple of months after they turned thirteen that five vanished

Klaus’s “we were just kids” breaks my heart every time

if i was one of reggie’s kids i would have just not gone to the funeral. rip to the hargreeves kids but i’m different

he doesn’t even call klaus klaus in death, he still calls klaus number four. fuck that man.

“i was gonna say i’d have been very very surprised if they kept him dead” - roommate on klaus waking up

“Five bucks says he set these guys up to try and get something out of her” - the roommate being very perceptive

cha cha is VERY rude to my girl agnes

honestly why DIDN’T hazel just kill cha cha after her whole speech and threats about killing agnes slowly in front of him???? like he literally watched her try to kill him as well

why wasn’t diego arrested in the original day that wasn’t actually?? he was being considered already. he still left the house, albeit with grace instead of allison. why wasn’t he arrested then????????

roommate thinks it’s interesting how committed the show is to their old timey shit. she used a nicer words like anachronisms but the point is: w h y

are these episodes even longer than i remember?? holy SHIT

#tua rewatch #honestly these are half proof to my sister that i am watching tua #she keeps yelling at me about s1 #there can't be that many more episodes right #apparently there are ten episodes in s1 #that's a whole 'nother three hours #jeebus #and then ten more hours for s2 #so LONG

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mymarvelbunch · 5 years ago

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Be Your Own Hero - Steve Rogers x Reader

This is my first imagine, so feedback is greatly appreaciated!

Masterlist

Summary: (Y/N) has lost all her family and most friends in The Decimation (I refuse to call it The Blip). Refusing to believe their deaths are permanent, she dedicate years to find a way to reverse it. When she finally finds something that might help, she searches for the Avengers. It’s Steve Rogers x Reader, but there is also a lot of Badass!Reader. Also, Non-American!Reader. If you are American, think of a country you’d have loved to be born into :D

Warnings: for now, only a lot of sadness.

Note: Y/Co = your country. Y/Ci = your city

Steve won’t be featured in this part, only mentioned, and not in any romantic light, since the reader hasn’t met him yet.

Part One

A week after The Decimation

A huge memorial was prepared for every inhabitant of (Y/Ci) who dusted away. It was raining, as if Mother Nature was mourning with them. You stood in the far back, black umbrella open, all by yourself. There weren’t many people to keep you company. The few friends who survived had family members to stay with.

The vice-mayor (who was actually mayor now, since the old one was gone) made a heartfelt speech in honor of the fallen ones, but you barely paid any attention to it. Mentally, and in whispers, you recited the names of all the loved ones you lost: your mother, your father, your two older siblings, your sister-in-law, your only uncle and his wife, your 5-year-old cousin, your 89-year-old grandma who blissfully escaped Alzheimer’s. You had around forty friends, close and not-close, but now only twelve remained, and only two of them could be called close friends. Not to mention your college class, cut down from 48 to nine. You haven’t even counted the college staff.

It was surreal. Mass extinctions have happened before in history, but not like this. This wasn’t natural. The Avengers have called international press to explain what happened, but for most it was hard to understand.

For most. Not for you.

You searched Captain America’s video with the full, most detailed explanation and watched a dozen times, writing everything he said down. Apparently, an alien ingrained with Malthusian mentality used powerful items to wipe out half of the universe, believing that it would delay civilization’s self-destruction due to lack of resources. At one point he slipped the term ‘infinity stones’.

You haven’t had time to search about those ‘stones’ or anything else from the video (like the alien’s name, Thanos), but you fully intended to. Because there was surely a way to bring everyone back. Their deaths were result of magic (or whatever they called it), and magic can be reversed.

You refused to believe your family was lost forever.

You refused to believe that so many lives, families, hopes, dreams and achievements were gone for good.

There had to be a way out. And, while she hoped the Avengers would find a way, you decided to take matters into your own hands too. Everyone was mourning; you had the ‘advantage’ of having no one to comfort, meaning more time in your hands.

The memorial ceremony was over. After most people left (around two hours later), you walked over to where your family’s names were. “Mom, Dad”, you whispered, “I’ll do everything in my power to bring you back. I promise.”

A year later

Your graduation party was small and intimate. Your dusted classmates were properly honored, and, thanks to everyone having got closer in the following year, you all had a good time together. It was, overall, incredibly sweet.

You were now a doctor. Not so long ago, you’d be overjoyed by finally getting your medical degree. You were still happy, but the feeling was overshadowed with grief. You wish your family was there to celebrate with you.

At least your two close friends were there. They even brought their remaining parents to help cheer you up.

But now, you had a task: work to save money to keep your research.

The year had been productive, especially given the mess that was college. Thanks to Black Widow’s leaks from 2014, you progressed rapidly.

The so-called Infinity Stones had a few mentions, notably concerning the Battle of New York in 2012. The ‘Tesseract’, which seemingly fell in that category, had been mentioned in SHIELD files since the 50s; apparently, Captain America himself had come in contact with it in his war time. There is a mention of a Captain Marvel and the Tesseract in the 1995 files, but all were vague, as if SHIELD itself didn’t know who were dealing it. Probably an alien.

There was a mention of an Aether in 2013, which seemed powerful enough to be an Infinity Stone. The leaked files, obviously, ended in mid-2014, meaning there is nothing on the incident on Sokovia.

News sites and channels mentioned that the AIs created by Tony Stark had been powered by ‘an unknown object that seems to be a remain of the alien invasion of 2012’. There was no description, but there were pictures of Vision that featured a glowing yellow round-shaped thing. There was no way to be sure, but you’d guess it was also an Infinity Stone. Besides, Captain America’s announced that Vision was destroyed by Thanos right before the Decimation. Wouldn’t it be reasonable that the alien did that to steal a Stone?

Of course, you were far from being the only person researching on the Infinity Stones. In fact, so many were doing it that the Avengers (Natasha Romanov this time) had to make a press conference for a few statements:

1. There were no Infinity Stones in their possession.

2. They would not confirm nor deny whether they were ever in possession of a Stone or not.

3. As it was too dangerous, they would also not disclose information on the Stones.

It meant you had to hack into... somewhere to find more information. That held you back, since you didn’t have time to learn hacking abilities and finish college at the same.

Now that you graduated, you had more free time in your hands. You’d work few hours a week, enough to get money to survive. All your family’s inheritance belonged to you, which granted you more than enough money for you self-assigned mission.

Seating down, you opened your computer and started the next step of your research.

Early 2020

Hacking was useful, but not in the way you expected.

There was little new information concerning Thanos and the Infinity Stones. Most things you found were conspiracy theories, most of which were absurd and didn’t match the knowledge you already had.

However, Deep Web proved useful in one thing: you found out about the Mystic Arts and its Masters.

Information was vague and of questionable reliability, but you managed to gather that they possessed knowledge of many things ancient and alien. You also managed to find out their nearest temple’s location: Y/Ci! Ha! There was even an address!

It was near Valentine’s Day, meaning streets were crowded. You decided it was the best moment to search for that temple (which they called Sanctum). The best to hide, in your opinion, was in a big crowd.

Your first place of search was the given address, of course. Its street was crowded as hell, since it was a commercial one, full of shops that were perfect for buying valentine gifts. Good thing you didn’t find a boyfriend; there was no one to distract you from your goal.

(Were you obsessed? Maybe.)

The number on the address belonged to an oriental-styled house, something not really common in Y/Ci. You knocked on the door of the supposed tarot-reading house, hopeful that there was more about that place.

“Good morning, miss”, the woman who opened the door said. “Are you here for tarot reading?”

You took a deep breath and said, in a low voice, the sentence you read as being the password for entering a Sanctum: “Oh, I’d love to know if I was a Titanic victim in my past life.”

(God, it was such a ridiculous phrase. That was probably why they picked it; not even an insane person would willingly say that in a tarot house.)

The woman arched her eyebrows. You bit your lip, waiting for her to call a psychiatric ambulance, but she simply smiled. “Follow me, sister.”

You released your breath.

Next part

------

Hey, everyone! Hope you liked it! Feedback would be greatly appreciated :D

The MCU barely acknowledges the repercussion of Natasha’s leaks in Captain America: The Winter Soldier. I imagine most people wouldn’t read all leaked files, but, after the Snap, many would try to find explanations in those leaks. After all, Thanos was an alien, and everyone knew SHIELD was behind the Battle of New York (among other events). I do suspect there would be little information on Captain Marvel (a codename to hide Carol Danvers’ identity), since there is nothing said about her until the after-credits scene in Infinity War, and no one aside from Nick Fury and Maria Rambeau (who is not SHIELD) really knows what happened in 1995.

I’m not sure whether the events of Thor: the Dark World would actually be on a SHIELD file, since I haven’t watched Agents of SHIELD, but I guess the more information the better! However, there is no indication in the movies that SHIELD ever came into contact with the Master of Mystic Arts, which is why the reader doesn’t find anything on them until she goes to the Deep Web to find answers.

Part Two will be set mostly in the Sanctum and focus on what the reader finds there. If you have any suggestion on what you’d like to read in this part, you’re welcome to tell. The reader won’t meet Steve until part 3, but I think she’ll meet one or two Avengers by the end of part two, so stay tuned!

Taglist is open if anyone is interested! See you next time!

#steve rogers imagine #steve rogers x reader #marvel #marvel cinematic universe #Steve Rogers #captain america #infinity stones #steve rogers x y/n #y/n #imagine #marvel imagine #avengers: endgame

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ibijau · 5 years ago

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I’m Dying and I’m Bored because medications have friend my brain so, uh. I guess, why not post the start of that AU where Huaisang inherit his brother’s Lan fiancé when Mingjue dies in a tragic and unpredictable accident that no one at all could have prevented?

Warning for mentions of sex + for plot reasons, Nie Mingjue’s mother is still around (but not NHS’s mom)

A loud sound came through the door just as Huaisang was about to turn the page, and he sighed before attaching a new talisman to the wood. Did these two really need to be so noisy? Silencing talismans weren't easy to make, and Madam Nie was starting to ask why he always needed so much paper. She suspected he was using it for painting, of all things, as if talisman paper were any good for that.

His brother had better get a new fan for his efforts. Maybe that pretty one they'd seen last week in Qinghe, if it was still there? Lan Xichen has said he found it pretty, which meant Mingjue wouldn't be able to disapprove of it. Of course he'd rather paint his own but he'd take what he could.

Footsteps coming this way forced Huaisang to give up on his book for good. It didn't sound like anyone important, but even a servant could look at the silencing talismans, see Huaisang alone at the door when he was supposed to be chaperoning, and understand what was going on. He jumped to his feet and ran toward the danger. Luckily it turned out to be one of the few servants who were well disposed towards him, so it was easy to convince her that he'd been sent for some tea, so could she please being some and not tell anyone he'd left his brother alone with his fiancé? He knew he shouldn't have but he was bored and he'd wanted to stretch his legs, right?

She ate it up easily, turning around to do his bidding. By the time she returned, the other two should be finished, and no one would suspect a thing.

Huaisang wasn't wrong in his assumptions. When he reached his brother's room, Mingjue had opened the door and was inspecting his talismans with a critical eye.

"They're too weak," he complained. "You shouldn't have needed this many."

Huaisang wanted to shrug and point out that his brother, who had tied his robes wrong and was still flushed from exercise, wasn't in any position to criticise anyone. Instead he smiled, thinking of that pretty fan with mountains on them.

"I'll practice and improve them. Oh, I asked A-Ling for tea, I hope that's fine?"

Mingjue grunted his approval, tearing down the talismans and crumbling them in his hand. Huaisang followed him inside and sat at the table, pretending not to see Lan Xichen by the bed. He wished they'd taken longer. His book was interesting and he'd rather have continued it than pretend he couldn't smell what these two had been doing.

He was going to scream if Mingjue didn't get him that fan.

Or at least, he would privately sulk and feel cheated and not do anything about it, which was as close to screaming as he could get away with.

"Maybe we should light some incense?" Lan Xichen suggested, finishing to tie his forehead ribbon.

Unlike Mingjue who couldn't bother tying his damn robes right, Lan Xichen looked as collected and pristine as if he hadn't just been breaking half the rules of his sect. Huaisang grinned to himself. To think just a few years earlier he'd been a student in Gusu, in awe of the untouchable elder Jade… Well, he knew just how touchable the man was by now, so long as the right person attempted it. Made sense, though. Everyone had something they were willing to compromise over.

"Huaisang, light the incense," his brother ordered. "And go answer the door when the tea arrives."

Huaisang nodded with a smile, and rose from his seat. It was all for that pretty fan. Although, if Mingjue kept that up, he might try to ask for a second fan. He'd have earned it.

Trying his best to keep a perfect composure, Xichen's eyes followed his fiancé's brother as he lit some incense and placed it by the window, where a small breeze would let its perfume flow through the whole room. Nie Huaisang then remained at that window, wistfully looking outside even though it was raining.

Xichen never knew what to make of that boy. He was usually dismissed by everyone as harebrained and silly, too interested in frivolities and not enough on his cultivation, but sometimes his eyes would scan the room as if he had measured every person around him and knew exactly their worth. He'd certainly made the best of Xichen and Mingjue's… bending of the rules, if nothing else. Mingjue often complained about needing to buy him all sorts of trinkets to encourage him to keep their secrets.

"Let's sit," Mingjue suggested, grabbing Xichen's waist and dragging to the table.

They sat closer than was proper, but Xichen knew protesting on that front would only result in his fiancé pointing out it was too late to worry about that. Propriety had been thrown to the wind back during the Sunshot Campaign and lost for good.

"Have you talked to A-Yao recently?" Xichen asked before he could get distracted by other matters. "He asked about you last I saw him. He's very worried about… That thing."

They both glanced at Nie Huaisang, still standing at the window and looking utterly uninterested by their conversation.

"I regret telling him," Mingjue grumbled. "It's none of his business."

"He's your friend, and he cares. He's started learning the guqin you know and I was thinking…"

"Are you the one teaching him?" Mingjue cut him. "Bet he must like that."

Xichen smiled, amused by that jealousy when they both knew Jin Guangyao was very happily married, and the two of them would be too before a year. He was about to tease his fiancé about that, but a knock on the door prevented it.

They watched as Nie Huaisang went to the door, taking a tray from a servant and bringing it to the table before serving the tea. His gestures were measured and elegant, careful in a way that felt somewhat wrong in the Unclean Realm where strength and emotion ruled. Nie Huaisang might have fit better in Carp Tower or Cloud Recesses… Or he might not, since the main complaints Xichen heard against him were his lack of ambition and of control.

"You can sit with us," Mingjue offered, making it sound like a great demonstration of generosity.

"I'd rather not," his brother quickly retorted, annoyance flashing on his face for a moment before his usual placid smile returned. "I'm sure you have important things to discuss with Zewu-Jun, I don't want to disturb! I'll just stay over there, call me if you need something."

Mingjue didn't insist, and his brother returned to the window where he stood as still as one of his paintings.

"I think you should give A-Yao another chance," Lan Xichen said, taking the glass Nie Huaisang had prepared for him. The tea was stronger than he preferred, but not unpleasant. "I know there is bad blood between you two, but he really wants to make things right. He's learning Cleansing so he can play it for you. It is not an easy melody, but he is working very hard on it."

"I've got you for that, don't I ?" Mingjue retorted with that smirk that always made Xichen knees a little weak. "That bastard can go play for someone else."

Xichen frowned. It was upsetting that two of his favourite people, once so close, has dug such a deep rift between them. There had been faults on both sides, but only Jin Guangyao was putting in the effort to mend the damages done to their friendship.

"It would mean a lot to me if you let him have that chance, Mingjue. Please, consider it at least. He worries about you and so do I. You know…"

"Yes, I know," Mingjue cut him with a glance toward his brother. "Fine, I'll think of it."

While he smiled at the news, Xichen couldn't help looking at the boy still gazing through the window. He found it rather funny that Mingjue would easily let his brother know of and help with their intimate mischief, yet treated him as a child when it came to their family's history of Qi deviation. Perhaps he thought it did not concern him. In spite of Mingjue's efforts, Nie Huaisang was notoriously pitiful with a saber, and with cultivation in general.

"Enough about that snake," Mingjue grunted. "How's your brother?"

"He's doing better lately," Xichen answered with a wider smile, before giving details of Wangji's progress and how he was hoping his brother would be well enough to attend their wedding.

From this, the conversation soon went to that wedding, and to what their life would be like after. They had waited long for it, the time never quite right because of the war, because of unrest, because of Wangji's illness, but it was finally about to become real and Xichen couldn't have been happier.

#nielan #lan xichen #nie mingjue #nie huaisang #xisang #not in that bit but eventually #mo dao zu shi #fanfic

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dammitadolfnomorecake · 5 years ago

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I’m crying 😂😂😂 I’m sorry! I have no excuses after 8 days we should be past here

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quesselfships · 5 years ago

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FO February day 2-weddings!

So I have quite a few FOs that I'm married to, and I thought I would just talk about some of the various ways we've celebrated:

Valery

-you can actually find a bunch of stuff tagged "wedding: succulent success" on this blog!

-we did the bouquet and garter toss over a makeshift Berlin wall

-and we probably played Rasputin by Boney M a dozen times

Kylo

-we had a pretty intimate wedding

-our kids were already born, and my ring is their birth stones. Family is so, so important to Kylo.

-we did kinda bail out early... We both get easily overwhelmed and tired.

Edward

-he mostly planned the wedding and he discovered his love for wedding planning

-we had a brunch! We decided to have an early morning wedding, because Edward wanted it to have a religious component, so we did an awesome brunch with a make your own omelette bar.

-I wore a gorgeous green wedding dress. Green and black are our colours

-the only thing that I wanted was a green smoke machine so that it looked like his entrance on American Horror Story

Gabriel (and Jaime really...)

-since today is his birthday...

-we never really had a formal wedding until we both also married Jaime

-it was a more traditional Westerosi wedding, which in all honesty Jaimie didn't know all the details about so we kinda filled in the gaps with generic pagan handfasting

Dave

-this was your classic "go down to the courthouse and sign the documents"

-we didn't want anything big, and this was shortly after I had a weird experience driving

-so my family and I were going to this leather furniture maker and this really famous pizza place. I think it was not quite Toronto but near there. Anyway, I'm in the back listening to music, this is before I had a smartphone so I can't really do much else. We're driving along this road called Gore Road. I'm also listening to Blue Danube waltz. And I just... Its hard to breathe, I feel restless and twitchy and strange.

-I think I drive down part of this road now for work...

Dukat

-in Cardassian weddings, instead of toasts, you have to roast the bride and groom.

-Phasma had a fucking field day because, again by Cardassian standards, Dukat has a micropenis. And he's incredibly sensitive about it.

-in contrast, I was roasted about having "ample mammalian breasts" and it was implied Dukat had a nose fetish, because I have a nose ring and we know his history with Bajorans....

-we didn't get married until his medication had leveled out and I think that was helpful for him to form the habit.

-our first dance was Spaceship by Kesha.

-we also had muh-fuckin' space fireworks. Cardassians have fireworks that work in space and we got married in front of big window in DS9, so we had them.

Maul

-we had a quick, almost emergency wedding after we had discovered that we had a miscarriage. We hadn't been planning a baby and we kinda knew if we did plan it, we'd need some medical help so it wasn't all that surprising.

-Qui-Gon Jinn, who is dating my sister, married us.

-we went out for dinner after, it was pretty low key

This isn't all my weddings, but these are the ones with the best stories.

#fofebruary #romantic f/o #imagine your f/o #f/o #f/os #f/o wedding #about wedding stuff #tag: valery #Tag: Maul #Tag: Dave #Tag: Dukat #Tag: Edward #Tag: Kylo #tag: jaime #Tag: Gabriel

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nikkoliferous · 5 years ago

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He doesn’t bother explaining why he’s here.

This is early on, late May, a few months into the race, but he is already of the belief that he is doing something extraordinary with his presidential campaign — something that’s never been done before. The trouble is describing it. There’s no word for this in modern politics. It is, he believes, “a new way to communicate with the American people” — though he won’t say this until later, and only when asked. Even now, long after he’s put this work at the center of his campaign — at his events, in ads, on Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube — he won’t talk about it much. He isn’t sure it’ll work, or if people are “picking up on what we’re trying to do here.” The media, he believes, has always believed, can’t fathom what’s at the heart of this.

So when he arrives at the house, a small mobile home 40 miles outside Montgomery, Alabama, over the Lowndes County line, in one of the poorest places in the country, with five reporters and his own camera crew, he steps through the front door, greets his host, and begins with no clear mention of what he hopes to accomplish here or how it will help him become president.

Pamela Rush, a 49-year-old mother of two, is showing him the problems with her home: the floor tilting visibly to one side, the sheets of plaster peeling off the wall, the broken pipes, the broken cabinetry. He stops in the room where her daughter sleeps. “Do you guys wanna…?” He motions for everyone to come closer. His videographer shuffles forward. On the bedside table, there’s a ventilation machine, the kind used for sleep apnea. A tube of ribbed plastic connects the device to a mask resting on the bedspread, which is patterned cheerily with tiny elephants. Because of mold in the house, Pamela’s daughter needs the device to breathe in her sleep. “How old is she?” the candidate asks. She’s 10. Pamela holds up the mask so he can see up close.

“Show them, not me,” he says, gesturing toward the camera.

She shows the camera the mask.

The visit continues like this. “Show them,” he keeps saying. “Show them.” He speaks only to ask questions, prompting Pamela to “explain” this or that, pointing her to an unseen audience on the other end of his camera lens. It’s like he’s directing his own video — except the video isn’t about him or his campaign or his policy agenda. He is, it seems, somewhere offscreen, an omniscient narrator, felt maybe, but not seen or heard. This is not a public event. There is no crowd. There is no podium, no speech. Mostly, there is silence. The leader of the political revolution — a man who has spent 50 years of his life trying to talk about his ideas — is not saying much at all.

In his first campaign, a third-party bid for US Senate in 1972, he lugged around a 2,000-page, two-volume study by the House Banking and Currency Committee, liberally quoting its findings to the people of Vermont. He spent that year telling anyone who would listen about the fact that a mere 49 banks were trustees of $135 billion and held 768 “interlocking directorships” with 286 of the country’s largest 500 industrial corporations. To him, the phenomenon of interlocking directorships was not arcane or irrelevant to daily life in Vermont. It was an urgent outrage.

In Congress, he developed “the oligarchy speech,” a bleak overview of income inequality in America. The speech became the basis of his public events, his lengthy posts on Facebook, of an entire book — title: The Speech — consisting solely of the transcript of an eight-hour speech he delivered on the floor of the Senate.

And in 2016 — the rallies? The arenas? He had 2,600 in Iowa’s hulking Mid-America Center — largest crowd of the caucus season. He hit every city he could: 5,000 people in Houston, 8,000 in Dallas, 10,000 in Madison, 11,000 in Phoenix, 15,000 in Seattle, 27,500 in Los Angeles, 28,000 in Portland — plus overflow! All those people showing up to hear an hourlong speech they already knew by heart: wages down, median income stalled, one family with more wealth than the bottom 130 million… As he spoke, they’d mouth along to their favorite lines: “Congress does not regulate Wall Street—” “WALL STREET REGULATES CONGRESS,” the crowd would shout back. “Enough is—” “ENOUGH!” they roared. The succession of grim facts — “but let me tell you what is even worse!” he’d say — became a ritual. When a small bird, later identified as a common house finch, once landed on his lectern, an entire stadium full of people cheered wildly, mouths open, their arms raised to the sky, eyes turned upward — not to God, but to the image of the bird and their candidate on the Jumbotron. There was power in the speech. He believed, aides have said, that he was literally changing a generation, person by person, line by line, with every rally.

That was the whole thing — Bernie Sanders, talking.

This is something different.

“Pamela,” he says gently, “why don’t you explain it.”

“And be loud so everyone can hear you…”

Bernie Sanders is sorry for your troubles, but that’s not the reason he’s asking you to talk about them — which he is, everywhere he goes. He wants you to talk about your medical bill — the one you can’t pay. He wants you to talk about losing your house because you got sick. He wants you to talk about the payday loans you took out to keep your kid in school. About the six-figure student debt that’s always on your mind. About living off credit cards, or losing your pension, or working multiple jobs for wages that won’t be enough to support your family.

He would like you to talk about this publicly, in detail, and on camera. He will ask you to do this in front of reporters, or in a room full of strangers at one of his town halls. Of course, the Bernie Digital Team will be there — they are always there — taping your story on camera, or streaming it in real-time to his own mass broadcast system on YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter. On any given day, he is capable of reaching millions of people.

“Who wants to share their story?” he’ll say. “Don’t be embarrassed. Millions of people are in your boat.”

He has, it turns out, built an entire presidential campaign around an open invitation to speak — to talk plainly about the “reality of life” in this country — to be “loud so everyone can hear.”

His suggestion, by asking you to speak up about your private anxieties, many of them financial, is that you and the millions of people in the proverbial audience will begin to see your struggles not as personal failings, but systemic ones. He is less interested in explicitly presenting solutions than naming the problem — that “we have millions of people in the richest country in the history of the world who are struggling every single day,” which is a phrase he repeats daily, almost like an exhortation, as if to grab the American working class by its shoulders. He doesn’t deal in pity or reassurance. Yes, he’ll give hugs — one arm, from the side, other hand still clutching the mic. But mostly he’ll just listen and nod, gaze lowered. Or he’ll shake his head at the crowd, like can you believe this? And then, from the gut, a clipped scoff, like of course you can believe it. That’s the point. He has heard your story before, because it’s all part of the same story: a broken system, driven by profit and greed, built to reinforce the notion that if you’re bright enough, if you work hard enough, then you can travel the path to the middle class. And if you don’t make it there…well, maybe you’re the problem. And who wants to talk about that?

He believes his presidential campaign can, he says, help people “feel less alone.”

He is trying to change the way people interact with private hardship in this country, which is to say, silently and with self-loathing. He is trying, in as literal a sense as you could imagine, to excise “shame” and “guilt” from the American people. These are not words you hear often in politics, but in interviews this year with the candidate, his wife, and his top advisers, they are central to his strategy to win. He is imagining a presidential campaign that brings people out of alienation and into the political process simply by presenting stories where you might recognize some of your own struggles. He is imagining a voter, he says, who thinks, “I thought it was just me who was struggling to put food on the table. I thought I was the only person. I thought it was all my fault. You mean to say there are millions of people?”

He still has his rallies, but “it’s a different campaign, and we do things differently,” he says. “I can give the greatest speech in the history of the world, but it will not have the significance and the impact that the real-life experience of ordinary Americans will have.” At many of his events, the antiseptic macro focus of the “oligarchy speech” — the anonymous actors on Wall Street, the greed of the American corporation, the rigged system — has been replaced by the most intimate details of someone’s life. The outrage in his voice, a booming rasp amplified across three tiers of an NBA-size venue, is softer now. The arena itself has morphed into a digital platform for one voter’s story.

Show them, he says. Show them, not me.

We understand presidential campaigns, in their most basic form, as a conversation between a candidate and the American people. The conversation is happening all the time, in person and online, directly, indirectly, at every possible scale: It’s a handshake, a speech, a television ad, a sponsored post on Facebook. It’s a policy rollout. It’s the signage at a rally, the way an American flag is steamed and hung just so on a stage. Every dollar of every campaign is spent on shaping or beautifying or amplifying some message from the candidate. Bernie’s first presidential bid, in a sense, was the unprocessed, stripped-down version of that conversation: It was the speech. In terms of the mechanics of the thing, as he put it in late 2016, he wasn’t “reinventing the wheel.”

Four years later, he is attempting to run a presidential campaign that facilitates an entirely different conversation — one between people like Pamela and the American people. The stories he collects and broadcasts across the internet aren’t just voter testimonials produced to validate the campaign or its policies — they’re aimed, in Bernie’s mind, at people validating one another.

After 50 years, this is an unlikely place for the political revolution to land. It’s more human. More empathetic. More personal than what you’d expect from a man who’s willingly played along with his persona as a perma-“outsider” and, as he put it in 2015, “grumpy old guy.”

There’s this idea that Bernie Sanders is “a man of the people who doesn’t like people” — just issues. That’s not exactly right, though the precise balance between the two can be difficult to pin down. “Policy, policy, policy,” says his wife, Jane, who is a strategic partner on her husband’s campaign. “Fight, fight, fight — which is true, but he’s also about people.”

He arrived in Vermont in 1968, full of ideas about movement politics, and began his career by raising his hand at a local third-party meeting. He settled in Stannard, a remote town with no paved roads, populated by fewer than 2o0 people, where he learned to live in isolation. But in politics, he also discovered that he liked talking to strangers about the issues of the day. In the ’80s, he hosted his own public broadcast show as mayor of Burlington. In the footage, unearthed by Politico earlier this year, he can be warm and dryly funny. On the campaign trail in Vermont, he liked to take impromptu walks and kept a pair of trunks in the car in case he passed a swimming hole. In Washington, he kept more to himself. Interviewed in 1991, fellow members of Congress described him as a “homeless waif” with a “holier-than-thou” attitude who “alienates” his potential allies, who “screams and hollers,” one said, “but he is all alone.”

Part of the problem, of course, is that Bernie Sanders is not an open book. He will snap at reporters when they ask him to talk about himself or, god forbid, how he’s changed as a person, because what does that have to do with Medicare for All? “You’re asking about me, and I’M not important,” he once said in an interview. “What’s important are the kinds of policies we need to transform this country. OK?” The conversation was over after six minutes. His interior life, to the extent that it is acknowledged among his campaign staff, is a subject only a few people can address with any authority. A simple question on the subject — have you ever seen him cry? — recently reduced senior aides to various forms of lawyer-speak. “I’ve seen him emotionally affected,” one said after a long pause. Another, as if the question had been unclear and possibly even sinister, said only: “What do you mean?” With Jane, he’ll call from the road to talk about his day, but questions like “How did that make you feel?” are not a part of the discussion. “Oooh, no,” she laughs at the suggestion. “Oh no, no. Yeah, no. He doesn’t do that. No. No. Neeevver.”

He can be harsh with staff — short-tempered and demanding and sometimes rude. “Some people say I am very hard to work with. They say I can be a real son of a bitch. They say I can be nasty, I don't know how to get along with people,” Bernie told his press secretary in 1990, according to a memoir by the former staffer. “Well, maybe there's some truth to it.”

His mood is under careful observation. Aides are always noting things like “He’s in a good mood today.” When he is happy, everyone is happy. When he’s not, everyone is quiet, especially in the SUV, where he will ride shotgun with his iPad, a red Vitaminwater at his side, scrolling through tweets from @BernieSanders, maybe only speaking up to dispassionately observe that people must really care about education in this country because a tweet about education is getting a lot of engagement today. Everyone knows which staffers make him feel most at ease — a special currency on the campaign. Small signs of interpersonal comfort — watching an aide make him laugh, watching another gently brush dandruff from his navy blue blazer — can feel like extraordinary acts of intimacy. In 2016, when discussing the campaign at a bar, some staffers got in the habit of referring to him as “Earl” or “the old man,” because at the end of the day, he is 78 years old. And who would have expected this — the most emotionally driven, intimate, borderline touchy-feely campaign of the 2020 election — from “a real son of a bitch”?

Correction.

“I don’t like the word ‘touchy-feely,’” Bernie Sanders says curtly.

Everyone is sensitive about how to describe this. There’s been a lot of “experimentation” with this, one of his advisers will start to explain — before doubling back to say that, actually, “I think ‘experimentation’ is the wrong word.” There’s no precedent for it. Joe Biden and Elizabeth Warren often invite you to consider your story through the lens of their own. Bill Clinton said “I feel your pain,” but he never asked people to reorient the way they feel about their own pain.

Bernie says he is trying to “redefine our value system.” Jane talks about breaking down decades of societal muscle memory: “It seems to be the American way,” she says. “That we all think it’s our fault — instead of recognizing there is a system that is making it unfair for them.” They are, as they see it, trying to dismantle the ideal of “rugged individualism,” an entire era of political thought. Ari Rabin-Havt, a top adviser who travels with the candidate every day, puts it more tangibly: The campaign is a “megaphone” for working people, he says. Briahna Joy Gray, his national press secretary, has likened the effect to “catharsis” from nationwide “gaslighting.” On the podcast she hosts for the campaign, she compares her boss to Robin Williams in Good Will Hunting: the therapist who tells Matt Damon, a young man who was abused by his foster parent, “It’s not your fault. Look at me, son. It’s not your fault… no, no, no, it’s not your fault.”

It really started late this spring, around the time he went to Alabama. The campaign YouTube page started pushing out stories like Pamela’s: a family living without clean drinking water in South Carolina; a family with inadequate low-income housing in San Francisco; workers at Walmart. On Twitter, he asked people to reply with stories of “their most absurd” medical bill. He got 50,000 responses in a week. By the fall, he was holding more town halls than rallies. In rooms from Iowa to Nevada, one person would raise their hand to speak, then another, and another, and another. “Don’t be nervous,” he’d tell the crowd. “You really are among friends.” Not every event has been as affecting as the next. On one trip, he visited a woman’s home in Des Moines to document her problems with contaminated well water. His host happened to be a fan and prepared two trays of homemade brownies for the occasion. Bernie, already late for his next event, declined to eat a brownie and left after 15 minutes. But more often than not, he is an attentive and genuine listener. At one event last month, a woman stood to say that people are “embarrassed if they don’t think they make enough money.” Bernie told her this had been “instilled” by “the system.” The campaign posted footage of the exchange on Instagram. As you watch the video, bold capital lettering runs across the top and bottom of the screen like an emergency weather alert: “THE SYSTEM WANTS YOU TO BE ASHAMED.”

“What we are doing,” he says, “is really speaking to the working class of this country in a way I’m not quite sure any candidate has ever done before.”

Eventually, when asked, he comes to describe this as core to his strategy to win.

“Here’s the gamble,” Bernie says. The gamble is there are millions of working people who don’t vote or consider politics to be relevant to their lives. “And it is a gamble to see whether we can bring those people into the political process,” he says. “One way you do it is to say, ‘You see that guy? He’s YOU. You’re workin’ for $12 an hour, you can’t afford health insurance — so is he. Listen to what he has to say. It’s not Bernie Sanders talking, you know? It’s that guy. Join us.”

And yet, on a Tuesday night, in one moment, the full force of the political revolution, all 50 years of it, came grinding so unquestioningly to a halt by one blocked artery. He will spend two and a half days in the hospital — and he will lie there hooked up to their beeping machines, and he will yell at the doctors when they try to ask him stupid questions, and he will quiz them about health care policy and obsess over what all this would cost without insurance — and there will be a crisis over what to say in the press release and when to say it and if it can wait until Jane is able to deliver the news in person to the seven grandkids before they see it on CNN, and there will be reporters stalking him outside the building, and all sorts of people will want to visit — and for days, he will say over and over again, “I can’t believe I had a heart attack… I can’t imagine how I had a heart attack… I can’t imagine…” like this is a fact he simply cannot accept, because he feels fine as soon as they finish the procedure and because he’s always had terrific “endurance”... Never thought it’d be his heart to cause him problems… Ran a 4:37 mile in high school...!

But not once, in all that chaos and frustration, will he consider dropping out.

ii.

Here is what Pamela explains to Bernie Sanders: that her family bought this mobile home in the ’90s for a trumped-up price of $114,000; that she lives on $1,000 a month; that she still owes $15,000 on the house; the house she fears will harm her daughter’s health; the house where her mother caught pneumonia and died; the house where, “when a storm comes,” she says, “we have to stay in the mobile home and just pray.” He learns that Pamela’s sister was arrested because she couldn’t afford to pay for the county garbage service. Another sister was arrested because she couldn’t afford to buy into the sanitation system. He turns to a reporter in the Alabama heat. “Really something, isn’t it?” he says. He is frowning, jowls gathered slightly at the neck, but there is no shock or judgment in his face. It will become a familiar expression over the summer and fall. He is not always an obviously comforting presence, but there is never judgment.

“So this is where the waste goes?”

Everyone is outside now, around back. Sanders wants to see where the waste goes.

He learns that Pamela, like many residents in Lowndes County, is also “straight-piping” her untreated sewage from the bathroom to her yard. She is here with Catherine Flowers, an activist who has worked with Congress on the pernicious tangle of issues facing Lowndes County: criminalized poverty, environmental degradation, inadequate infrastructure.

He peers down at a line of dark, matted grass where, a few paces from his feet, inches from the base of the trailer, sewage flows via exposed PVC pipes into a shallow open-air trench. “Is this uncommon in this part of the world?” he asks, steering the conversation for his unseen audience, and the cameras swing back to Pamela and Catherine.

The sun is beating down. Bernie rolls up his sleeves and starts talking gravely about how this is the richest country in the history of the world... “Today we’re in Lowndes County, Alabama, in an African-American community,” he is saying. “Tomorrow we’ll be in California in a Latino community, or in West Virginia in a white community, and the stories will be the same.” You can see his bald head turning shades of pink and red. Everyone is sweating. Pamela is talking about her mother’s death. It is not an easy conversation. “This is America,” he is saying.

Back in his Washington headquarters, the digital team is waiting for the footage.

In the supercharged world Bernie inhabits, the decision to stay in the race was considered not only reasonable, but obvious. Here, there is no confusion about “what we’re trying to do here.” The candidate moves amid a swirl of people you would classify uncynically as “true believers.” It’s a lot of passion in one place. The stakes always feel high. But the hard and fast question of whether they can win the nomination is, to a certain extent, supplanted by the general sense that the movement is a just and right cause and, therefore, in the end, the cause will prevail, likely in a shocking fashion when no one anticipates it or believes it can be done, à la Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. And so they are always on guard against outside forces — people who will doubt them, or underestimate them, or try to actively destroy them.

This is how things go in “a politics of struggle.”

In “a politics of struggle,” as Sanders explains it in a 2015 foreword to his first memoir, setbacks are expected. There will be defeats before there can be the “breakthroughs” few people imagine possible. In a politics of struggle, the goals are “transforming a city, a state, a nation, and maybe the world.” It is already understood that this is “about more than winning an election.”

It’s in this environment that the advent of the heart attack became another motivational “setback.” Ocasio-Cortez decided to endorse. Supporters only hung on tighter. Campaign staffers spoke in grave tones about the “sheer terror” of a world without Bernie. “What is happening right now,” Briahna Joy Gray told her subscribers on the campaign podcast, “is that an old man is carrying the most colossal imaginable weight on his shoulders.” By the time he is back on the trail, the mission of the campaign takes on newly urgent, almost philosophical importance.

He’s in Iowa — a town called Toledo, Tama County, population 2,341 — coaxing people to talk to him about how they feel. “What about health care?” he says at a local civic center, roaming out from behind the podium. “Don’t tell me what I wanna hear! — I want YOU to think about it. Should health care be a human right?” The crowd, not quite warmed up yet, signals a yes. “WHY?” he replies, voice booming. “Who wants to tell me why? Don’t be shy…”

This is his first campaign swing since the heart attack. Five events in 24 hours.

He has to address the age question, of course, so he does. “I've been criticized for being old. I plead guilty. I am old!” he says at his first stop of the trip. Reporters ask him about it. Pundits analyze why it matters. Dr. Oz, the heart surgeon and television host, provides his unsolicited opinion that Bernie’s “protoplasm is strong,” a you-know-it-when-you-see-it term in the medical community for physiological sturdiness. Voters also weigh in, as if to offer reassurance. “Seniors rock!” a woman says at a town hall in Marshalltown, Iowa. Moments later, a middle-aged man raises his hand to tell the candidate that, by age 39, he’d had three heart attacks, a stroke, and a triple-bypass surgery — “and it doesn’t have to get in the way of living, all right?” Bernie takes these remarks in stride, smiling back gamely. He is in a good mood. Though you get the distinct impression that he would rather not be discussing the state of his protoplasm, or himself, at all.

During the town hall in Toledo, Jane and a few staffers can hear Bernie speaking through the walls of an adjacent hold room. She and Ari Rabin-Havt, the deputy who was with Bernie in the hospital through the whole ordeal, are sitting at a small table talking about the heart attack like family members who, maybe years later, are finally able to look back at the whole thing and laugh. Except here, it’s been days, not years. Jane is going into her own Bernie impression: “He’s like, ‘I feel fine. I don’t understand… You’ah tellin’ me I had a heart attack?? I don’t — I, I don’t understand.’”

The thing that bothered him so much about it was the relative smallness of it — like this was needlessly, stupidly about him, “and I’M not important,” remember? What did his aging body, in his mind a vessel of little consequence, have anything to do with the reality that “millions of people in the richest country in the history of the world are struggling every single day”? The answer, of course, is everything: This, like any endeavor in electoral politics, hinges on the will and presence and personality of its leader. The political revolution is no less human or fallible.

And there he was, having to ask for a chair during an event in Las Vegas — he rarely sits on stage — because of chest pains. “Ari, can you do me a favor?” he looked around the room for Rabin-Havt. “Where’s Ari? Get me a chair up here for a moment. I’m going to sit down here.” Staffers found their jobs suddenly transformed. They were dealing with the questions of a health crisis: Should they take him to the hospital? And which hospital? The closer one, or the one with the better cardiology center? But this was Bernie. Everyone knows Bernie. There would be a scene. People would ask for selfies in the waiting room. Reporters would hear about it. They did not want that. It was Rabin-Havt, in the end, who approached the front desk at the urgent care center behind the MGM Grand and discretely flashed his boss’s driver’s license — 09/08/1941, SANDERS, BERNARD — so the nurses would usher him into the back quietly and without delay.

“They're like, ‘Look, we're gonna have to put him in the cath lab,’” Rabin-Havt says. Jane, seated to his right, hasn’t even heard this part of the story yet. So they got him in the cath lab. The doctor asked, how much pain are you in on a scale of 1 to 10, which Bernie rebuffed as a useless question. Then they asked him to please remove his wedding ring. “Really?” he growled, removing the ring. Then they asked for his glasses. And that’s where he drew the line. “JESUS CHRIST! I'm not gonna do that,” he said. That night, Rabin-Havt and another staffer took turns wearing the wedding ring so they wouldn’t lose it. “Oh my god,” Rabin-Havt says. “It was the scariest part.”

The next morning, when Jane arrived from Vermont, she found her husband unchanged. He was talking about how someone without insurance maybe wouldn’t have gone to urgent care at all because of how much it would cost. “That’s his brain,” Jane says. She turns to Rabin-Havt. “Did he say anything to you?” “Not during,” Rabin-Havt says. “The next day when he woke up, he was like, ‘What do you think this is going to cost?’”

His room became the center of activity in the hospital. He held policy discussions with the nurses. He asked the doctors about the hospital's finances. That was a relief, Jane says — to see “the same old Bernie.” Back in Washington, the press team kept obsessive watch over the news coverage, demanding corrections from reporters who described the stent procedure as a “surgery.” There was no surgery, they said breathlessly. It was a procedure! “I’m talking to the doctors,” Jane recalls, “and they’re saying ‘procedure,’ not surgery. It was not a surgery.” Rabin-Havt nods: Not a surgery. Once they finally got the diagnosis — “heart attack” — they needed a statement. So they hunkered down in a hospital break room. The doctors (multiple) started dictating to Rabin-Havt, who tapped out notes on his iPhone. Their first draft was a bit medical — too much jargon. One of the physicians, an English major in college, cut in: “No, no, no — we can do this so the press understands.” So then that doctor tinkered. Once they had their finished product, Rabin-Havt emailed it to the doctors and asked for a formal reply affirming the statement as their own. Proof in writing, presumably, in case of conspiracy theories.

“Yeah, it was fun,” Jane says, laughing. “Well, it was — it was not fun.”

You might wonder, reasonably so, why a 78-year-old man would rather be here, back in Iowa, still doing this, likely at some risk to his health, when he could also just drop out, endorse Elizabeth Warren, and spend his days at the family home on Lake Champlain. Maybe this is especially true if you also believe that Bernie Sanders stands no real shot at winning the Democratic nomination and probably knows it — but will take his diehard supporters, his loyal 15%, a big enough chunk to influence the debate and stay relevant, as far as they can carry him. But then, of course, you would be ruining his good mood and missing the point entirely.

“Honestly,” his wife says, seated at the small table, “I think things are getting worse. Things are getting worse.” By which she means wages, costs, bills, just not knowing if you can keep a roof over your head. “And this is an opportunity. I don't know that the opportunity was there in 2016, where it was so widespread in the same way, the feeling among people of, ‘Wait a minute. We deserve better. This is not OK. The system is completely broken.’ There were some people who saw it in 2016, but it has gotten so much worse over the last two or three years.”

“We’re losing ground as a people. And that angers him,” she laughs dryly, and from the other room, you can hear that he does sound angry — angry about how people go bankrupt for getting “CANC-AH,” angry about our crumbling “IN-FER-STRUCHRR,” angry about his colleagues in Congress who say everyone “LOOOOVES” their private health insurance. “THAT TRUE?”

He is yelling, yes, but Bernie Sanders is “happiest and most comfortable in rooms like this,” Rabin-Havt says, gesturing to the event across the hall. “When you put him in a room full of political hacks — like, phonies — that’s not his room. He’s not going to like it.”

Jane nods. “And he’s going to be gruff.”

“He’s going to be gruff,” Rabin-Havt says, “and he’s not going to know how to deal with it. You put him in a room with real people telling their real stories and—”

“And he’s a different person,” Jane says. “If you have politicians and, uh, media personalities just trying to play gotcha politics or talk about the polls or other candidates — and never asking the real questions about what's affecting the people, he has no time. He has no time.”

Jane, like most everyone around her husband, is a true believer. The two grew up in the same area of Brooklyn — 10 blocks apart, where her father worked as a taxi driver — but they wouldn’t meet until 1980 in Burlington. She was a community organizer. He was running for mayor. She had never heard the name “Bernie Sanders” when she helped organize a debate for the candidates at a Unitarian church in town. “Nobody liked the incumbent mayor in the community groups. Being a good Catholic girl, I greeted him and made sure he was all set up. I didn't even talk to Bernie! But everybody was interested in Bernie. And then I sat in the second row, and I listened to him, and so did the entire Unitarian Church,” she pauses, then continues slowly, “and I felt that he embodied everything I believed in. The first time I heard him speak. And I knew I would be working with him from that moment on.”

There is a stunning intensity in the belief — one made very real by the heart attack, one held firmly by his staff, his wife, by the candidate himself — that if Bernie Sanders isn’t going to be telling the American people these stories, then no other candidate will.

“It was a gut check for a lot of people,” Jane says. “Everybody was thinking cerebrally, ‘well, you know, we'll see how it plays out. The polls don’t seem to be doing that well right now. Who knows whether it's gonna be Biden or Elizabeth or Bernie…’” She waves her hand in the air.

“And then when people — I mean, I felt it very strongly from so many people — when people heard that he had a heart attack, it was like, ‘Oh my god.’ And envisioning, OK, without Bernie's voice, oh my god, this would be a totally different race. It would be a totally…” her voice trails off. “People understand that he's the one that can affect real change…”

“This is not a, uh, an intellectual discussion.”

At some point, the sound of Bernie’s voice from the other room drops out.

Jane goes silent. The staffers go silent.

Everything is abruptly quiet, and there is an instant, a half of a split second, when the mind imagines that maybe something’s happened — and then there’s the sound of Bernie Sanders speaking again.

“Somebody was just asking a question,” Jane explains.

“Oh, OK,” Rabin-Havt says.

“OK.”

iii.

The video team is still rolling outside Pamela’s house.

After about 25 minutes, the visit is over. They are all standing in the front yard — Bernie, Pamela, and Catherine. Two campaign vans are idling silently in the driveway. Both women have dealt with politicians before: Catherine has worked on legislation with US senators, including another presidential candidate, Cory Booker, to address rural wastewater problems. Pamela has testified before a congressional forum on poverty convened by Elizabeth Warren.

“Thank you,” Pamela tells her guest.

“I want to thank YOU,” he replies. And suddenly, there are tears. Catherine is hugging him, and then Pamela is hugging him too and crying into his blue button-down shirt — and then they are all hugging together. “We won’t forget you,” he says. “This is just the beginning.”

After they leave the house, he turns to one of the political reporters with him. “Learning something?” he asks.

The visit is still heavy on his mind. There is some light conversation about the trip — and then you see his face turn to a grimace. The reporter asks about Joe Biden. At this particular juncture in the horserace, there is a thirst for conflict between the two candidates.

“One day at a time…” he responds.

The reporter tries again: “Do you think Biden’s message is resonating in the South?”

“We’ll take it one day at a time, I have no idea. Nor does anyone else.”

He is, of course, annoyed. “You have all heard me rant and rave,” he starts telling the group. “I don’t think that the media is the enemy of the people, that it’s fake news. God knows I don’t think that.”

“But I do think we have to do a better job in looking at issues that impact ordinary people.”

“There are millions of people in this country…”

Later in the day, he relays Pamela’s story to the crowd at his town hall. The following month, his campaign releases a two-and-a-half-minute video about the trip, titled “Trapped.” Eventually, it hits 750,000 views.

In the middle of an interview, he bats back a question to ask one of his own.

“Do you know what it’s like to live —”

He is about to say “paycheck to paycheck,” but he stops himself. As he sees it, the media doesn’t know anything about that. Reporters, even the well-meaning ones, he thinks, don’t have a clue. “I mean, I do,” he says. “I grew up in that family.” His father, a paint salesman, worked hard but never made much money. The family lived in a three-and-a-half-room, rent-controlled apartment in Brooklyn. Both parents died young. As a young politician in Vermont, Sanders had to borrow gas money to campaign. The windshield wipers on his Volkswagen bug didn’t work. He struggled to pay bills. After his swearing-in as mayor of Burlington, he bought his first suit at age 40. He was, in those days, the same voter he’s trying to reach now. His old notebooks, legal pads fished from the archives by a Mother Jones reporter earlier this year, include rambling notes on his inability to do better for himself and his young son. The internal commentary is scathing and unkind. “Not only do I not pay bills every month — ‘What, every month?’ — I am better now than I used to be,” he wrote, “but pretty poor…”

The secret, it turns out, is that in addition to taking this work very seriously, Bernie Sanders also takes it very personally. The secret is that a mostly solitary man — a man who has spent most of his political career on the outskirts, who’s never really fit into someone’s idea of a politician, who’s “cast some lonely votes, fought some lonely fights, mounted some lonely campaigns” — is now trying to win a presidential campaign, maybe his last, by making people feel less alone.

This is his campaign, his theory of change, though he’s done very little to explain it to a wider audience. “I care less about the coverage, in one sense,” he says. “What I care about is that someone turns on the TV, and there’s someone who works at Walmart, or someone from Disney, or McDonald's. And they say, you know, ‘that’s me.’” He wants those people to do the talking: the people who worry about their electric bill. The people who wonder if they can afford to have another kid. People for whom “the idea of taking vacation” — he scoffs as he says the word — “is not even in their imagination even though they work all the time.” In his mind, he was those people.

He is not among the politicians “whose mommies and daddies told them at the country club that they were born to be president,” as he put it last year. He suspects his parents were Democrats, but he isn’t sure — it’s not something they discussed. So he is not drawn to Washington in the usual ways. Which is not to say that he doesn’t have ego. In 2016, staffers watched him adjust with unexpected ease to his new power and popularity: The guy in the middle seat, coach class, was suddenly flying private and showing up to watch the Golden State Warriors play the Oklahoma City Thunder in Game 7. But he does not have what one former president called “that wretched mania, an itching for the White House.” He is driven by a different compulsion.

You get the sense, without exaggeration, that he will keep doing this for the rest of his life. That he would die before he stops. There are some signs, after the heart attack, that this is playing on his mind. “At the end of the day,” he told his supporters in a seven-minute video he recorded after his release from the hospital, “if you’re gonna look at yourself in the mirror, you’re gonna say, ‘Look, I go around once, I have one life to live. What role do I wanna play?’”

But for the most part, his mood is notably light. His return to the campaign trail, ever since the heart attack, aka “heart incident,” as senior aides refer to it in the press, has been a happy, bordering-on-joyous affair. He starts cracking jokes during his speech. He plays basketball. He hosts his staff at his house in Burlington, demonstrating the best way to build a fire in a tiny stove. He announces plans for his own New Year’s Eve party in Iowa with food, drinks, and live music: “Bernie’s Big New Year’s Bash.” Inexplicably, he ends up dancing at a labor solidarity dinner in New Hampshire. “Our revolution includes dancing!” he declares. And then, to the sound of ABBA’s “Dancing Queen” and The Temptations’ “The Way You Do the Things You Do,” he sways his hips from side to side, grinning, and twirls woman after woman across the banquet hall.

The major papers describe this period as a “renaissance” and “resurgence.” In polls conducted since the heart attack, he has either maintained his position or become even more competitive. He has a shot at Iowa. He looks good in Nevada and California. He remains the only candidate with more donations than Donald Trump. And he has some $1.67 million coming in each month from people who have signed up for automatic recurring donations.

On one afternoon in late October, he travels to Brooklyn to do a few interviews.

The plan is to walk up Henry Street to the Brooklyn Promenade, a pedestrian area overlooking the East River and downtown Manhattan, but he makes a turn onto Kane Street instead — spontaneous! — another indication of his good mood, which an aide quickly notes aloud.

He walks a few blocks, greeting passersby, before ducking into Francesco's Pizzeria & Trattoria, where he orders a slice of pepperoni. His staffers also order pepperoni. “See!” Bernie says. “Can’t think for themselves!” Jane shrugs. “Well, I got cheese,” she says.

The guys behind the counter open the oven and pull out a slice of pepperoni, wet and shimmering in its own hot oil. No one is concerned, apparently, about whether pizza is a wise choice three weeks after a stent procedure. Jane doesn’t blink. His staff doesn’t blink. No one blinks. Bernie takes his plate to a corner table, where he sits for a brief interview, giving polite but clipped answers about his decision to stay in the presidential race after the incident.

In one swift hand motion, as if to dispense with this line of inquiry entirely, he lifts the slice from its white paper plate, folds the crust lengthwise, takes a large bite, and swallows.

“This is my life,” he says.

The statement is, for Bernie, as straightforward and uncomplicated as it sounds. Everyone seems to understand this. Of course he should eat pizza. Of course he is still running for president.

“Well,” Jane says a few days later, “I mean, it would be kind of ridiculous if it didn't affect him in some way.”

“I think the way it affected him was, ‘OK, this… This is my mission in life. This is my purpose. I'm here for a reason.’”

On that long flight from Vermont to Las Vegas, she thought about what she should do when she saw him in the hospital. “If he wasn’t doing well,” she thought, she would put her foot down. She would tell him no. “If he was in danger, I would absolutely say, ‘I’m sorry. You can’t.’”

Jane pauses. “But honestly, I don’t know that he would have listened to me.”

#i totally didn't cry while i was reading this #not even a little bit #bernie 2020 #bernie sanders #2020 us election #2020 democratic primary #political revolution

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koncreates · 4 years ago

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this is a real question and not trying to be mocking, feel free to not post if u dont want and discourse ((if this counts as it)) but is it transphobic to not want to date//have a sexual relationship a, lets say a transwomen, while being a lesbian because youre not... attracted to dick? if that makes sense? not that youre denying shes a women, but u dont like dick? im sorry if this is wrong. im just wondering

I am extremely not an authority on this since I neither have a penis nor am a lesbian, and I will be honest that this ask sounds a fuckton like bait to get me to say something transphobic or lesbophobic. But, like a fool hoping that it is a genuine question and giving you the benefit of the doubt, I’m going to do my level best to answer it for you!

Just to set the record straight: i’m a transmasc dude who does not experience sexual attraction or desire, in a relationship with a nonbinary person who DOES experience sexual attraction and desire. While that’s... almost the exact opposite of what you’re asking about, I think there’s potential that i can offer a little insight.

First of all: People should be romantically (i.e. wanting to date, if you experience romantic attraction) people to you first and foremost, not genitals. Personality traits and hobbies and quirks and favorite colors and the sound of a laugh and the look of a smile, not a penis or vagina.

If you meet a girl and you like to hang out with her, and want to date her, but learn she is transgender and immediately recoil and lose all the attraction or positive feeling you had for her based on her personality, looks, interests, ect before knowing intimate details such as her genitalia or medical history, then yes, I would say that is transphobic. (Bolded for ease of TLDR)

She wasn’t fooling you with being trans. You were attracted to her just the same way you would be attracted to a cis person. The fact that she didn’t start a conversation with “Hello, I have a penis actually” is exactly the same as how you don’t start conversations with “Hello, I don’t shave my pubic hair actually” or “Hello, I have a genetic predisposition to strokes from my mother’s side of the family.” It is intimate information that you don’t usually share unless you are close with someone and believe you can trust them.

HOWEVER. The act alone of not wanting to have sex with a penis does not make you transphobic. I will talk more on this a bit further down.

Now here’s a pitfall I think people fall in to a lot: If you find someone unattractive because of their looks, personality, politics, or whatever reason you are not attracted to them, you aren’t required to date them. You don’t have to give a reason why you don’t want to date them, and it’s generally seen as the right thing to do that if someone who does not fit your standards of attractive asks you out, you politely turn them down. You should never feel pressured into any relationship, and if anyone hounds you for an answer as to why you don’t want to date, that’s on them. If you don’t know someone/don’t like their personality/don’t feel romantically attracted to them, you are not required to date them!

Nobody is required to find any one thing attractive, but boiling a person’s entire identity down to what is in their pants is in essence dehumanizing. An intersex girl might have a dick as well, would you feel the same way when you found out, or is it the transgender title that gets to you? I’m not trying to be accusatory, but it’s a very important factor to think about.

If your only reason to not date someone is “she’s trans” it does still make you transphobic. If this is the case, I really encourage you to think about why exactly you believe this. If, according to all your other standards, you would date her, why does her being transgender matter to you?

From the letter of your ask, it sounds like you would be fine dating a girl if she had bottom surgery. That’s intimate knowledge that you would probably only learn after dating her for a while or at the very least being friends with her for longer. Would her status of having had surgery or not having had surgery affect your feelings for her? I’m not saying that she would or should keep being trans a secret from you for a long time during dating, but the main takeaway here is “Would you feel revolted immediately just by hearing her say she was trans? Would you be constantly wondering about if she had or hadn’t gotten surgery?”

I Hope this next section will be very helpful to answering your question and hopefully easing some of your fears about dating a trans person.

There is a lot more to dating than having sex, and there’s a lot more to sex than genital on genital contact! You can go on dates and can enjoy each other’s company, you can have long talks and get sentimental, you can go out to dinner and watch lights on the water by the beach. There is plenty to a relationship that is not sexual, and even without being asexual I think it’s an important thing to make sure you don’t form a relationship souly on the basis of sexual actions.

With that being said, there are plenty of sexual things you can do that don’t require penis-in-vagina contact? If her penis makes you uncomfortable by existing (and if she’s dysphoric, she might feel similarly), it’s a conversation that you should have when you get to that point in your relationship. If after dating her for a while yall decide to have sex, you should discuss ways that don’t involve penetration and don’t involve you giving her oral and, just like in any other relationship, it’s important to express boundaries. You can figure out toys that you enjoy using on her, you can find toys you enjoy when she uses on you. You can figure out plenty of ways to satisfy each other that do not involve touching her penis and either making you uncomfortable or her dysphoric. It just takes communication.

Most trans people (including myself) are ready and open for conversations like this from our significant others. We want happy relationships, and we know that requires communication. I don’t think your girlfriend is going to react to you saying “I’m uncomfortable with the idea of penetration/touching your penis” with rage and vitriol. She shouldn’t, in fact. It’s the same as if I said to my partner “I’m uncomfortable with the idea of you eating me out”. It’s a boundary that you should share and that she should listen to.

If you’ve been together for (however long it takes you to want to sleep with someone you date) you should both be comfortable enough with each other to act like the adults you are and have a conversation with one another.

If any transwomen following me have something to add on or correct me on, please feel free. Like I said, I’m a transman, and my experiences are vastly different from what theirs might be. I am absolutely not a scholarly source to get information from. I’m just, quite literally, some guy. These are just my opinions based on what I’ve seen said by transwomen and lesbians. To get a better perspective on this, you should really find a transwoman to ask off anon.

I tried to be general and think about this from the perspective of if it were “My boyfriend is uncomfortable with me having a vagina”, but there is a lot of room for error there as well. So again, transwomen and NB people with dicks and trans lesbians and cis lesbians with trans girlfriends please feel free to add on your take and personal perspective!!

Also TERFs/SWERFs/RADFEM/Transphobes do NOT fucking touch this post or get blocked on sight.

Trumeds should also watch their step because i do not take kindly to your exclusion.

#asks #anons #lgbt #trans #transphobia #cw #transphobic #ask to tag #kizza speaks #long post #anonymous

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dammitadolfnomorecake · 5 years ago

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Caramel Skin update...

Over the next week Lance steadily improved. That had a lot to do with Daehra and less to do with traditional Earth medicine. Lance’s team had finally arrived, bringing the Talula when they’d come to Earth, Daehra had continued to make onboard improvements as she scolded them for giving birth in “such an unsafe place” and “where she couldn’t provide assistance even though they could have called her”, though that wasn’t what had helped Lance. As loathe as Keith was to allowed her, she’d given Lance a carefully measured half-dose of the golden painkiller in order to speed up his healing process after Lance’s doctors started lowering his pain medication. Whether something had come up about Lance’s history during their talks to Coran or whether they’d simply thought it time, Keith didn’t know, only that one day they were pumping Lance with painkillers and the next he was receiving a half dosage that left him semi-numb, but not numb enough to alleviate the feeling between his husband’s legs. His husband was left constantly uncomfortable, no matter the position he tried, Keith ordered to play body pillow in Lance’s pursuit for a pain free spot. Again, Keith wasn’t Lance. He wasn’t able to gauge how Lance felt from a physical aspect, only what his husband told him and he liked to believe that if Lance felt he was slipping back into bad habits that his husband would have told him as he’d done when he’d slipped up before. He and Lance both knew allowing pain medication to begin with would be risky, but didn’t have a good excuse to deny the medication without confessing. The half-Galra felt sick to his stomach for drugging Lance, as if he was no better than the vile bastards who’d hurt him, but he also felt... he felt relieved. The day after the injection his husband had woken able to move. He’d been able to hold his sons, both their boys, crying softly over how long he’d been made to wait for proper cuddles, or at least Keith thought he was as most of what his husband was saying was in Spanish. For hours Lance had sat there that first day, Laith and Hunter in his arms as he sang softly. Each time his scent would shift to an anxious sickly smell, he’d look up to Keith. With a soft smile, his husband would return it brightly as the marks on his cheeks grew brighter, tell him how happy he was, then look back to their boys and was back off in a world of them three of them. If the medical staff had noticed the unknown substance in Lance’s system, they hadn’t made mention of it, only that he was “healing remarkably well”, which Keith would take any day of the week over Lance in chronic pain... even with the possibility of the scarring causing future complications. He wanted to live in the now and enjoy the fact that his family was safe and happy. With Lance healing nicely, the conversation had moved to when his next surgery was. The date settling two weeks later with the procedure taking place on Erathus. With the date then set, the medical team deemed it was time to work on Lance regaining strength and independence. He was still very weak, sudden movements made his flinch and without Coran in their corner Lance would have been sentenced to stay cooped up. His husband was allowed up to shower, with the use of a shower chair. Keith was allowed to “help” but when it came to Lance’s more intimate areas, his husband’s face had clouded with guilt as he’d whimpered away from Keith’s touch. He wasn’t ready to let anyone touch between his legs, nor was he any better at handling being examined there. With a returned consciousness of his surrounds sleeping had also become an issue. Keith had forced himself not to hold Lance every time he slept, not until after the injection. Sometimes he’d sit up waiting for the nightmares, other times he’d accidentally fall asleep, then wake to Lance softly crying for him. Kosmo had used the bed Krolia had gotten placed in the room more than he had, still very protective of Lance and growing gradually more and more protective of the twins. He hated hearing them crying, that was one sure way to get him off the bed and cowering under it, but their fur son was getting better. Lots of pats from Lance seemed to do the trick so well that Keith had started thinking maybe Kosmo was putting on act for more pats. The first time Lance had used the bathroom his husband described as “feeling like his insides were falling out his arse” and “he’d try again tomorrow”. Keith sympathised, unable to do anything other than wait outside under Lance’s orders. He was sure he’d ever want to use the bathroom again, much less look at a toilet the same way, if he’d been the one giving birth. Lance then looked ready to die of embarrassment when the medical staff enquired into what happened in the bathroom. Keith was sure if he could have been kicked out for the questioning he would have. Or at least Lance would have preferred he had his ears covered. Anything that meant his husband didn’t have to listen to the details. Walls had gone back up between them in some aspects, though he had to mentally agree that he didn’t need to know the exact details of his husband going to the toilet, only that he’d survived the encounter and nothing had hurt too badly or bled. They had enough to worry about without the toilet becoming some new mental burden. At least Shiro and Curtis weren’t there for the conversation. The Atlas had been called in to deal with the clean up from dealing with the rebel faction at the request of Kolivan. There were people that needed help with rehabilitation after the death of the faction leader. Krolia had asked if she should stay, but honestly Keith had been looking forward to being able to spend time with his husband and their sons. Miriam has already returned to Cuba, Daehra and Lucteal were also down there under the insistence of Marco. Today Pidge would be flying them down to rendezvous with Lance’s team, which was only allowed due to Coran’s insistance over Daehra’s medical skill, and assurance that Lance would be in safe hands. Now he was packing to leave, Lance’s room had transformed into something that wouldn’t look out of place in the most extravagant of gift stores, as Lance watched on with the corner of his lips turned down, neither of them would miss the Garrison’s medical wing, especially Lance who was still convinced they didn’t want him there. Despite being surrounded by expensive and extensive gifts, the only thing Lance really wanted in the space was their family. * Lance knew they were going somewhere. He knew they’d had to have talked about it, yet he couldn’t remember. Just like he couldn’t remember his parents leaving, Marco visiting and whatever the details of this trip were. Keith was being overly attentive, struck by some kind of anxiety as he pushed the wheelchair Lance was being trying hardest not to be annoyed over being stuck in. Resting against his shoulders, his sons were both awake. Hunter was blowing spit bubbles against his neck, while Laith had a weak grip on the loose shirt he was wearing. They’d had to have talked about their boys, but again it was something he couldn’t remember. He couldn’t remember a lot of things, then other things he could only remember in fragments. He remembered giving birth. He remembered that’d hurt like quiznak, yet he couldn’t remember how’d he gotten to the Garrison. They’d said he’d had seizures, yet he couldn’t remember those. His head was busy, yet it was like watching an out of tune television with nothing sticking. He wanted to remember. He wanted to remember every single moment since their sons finally came into their lives. Maybe it was how mesmerising they were that was leaving him dopey to the rest of reality. They were both so tiny, yet so big. Wide purple eyes stared up at him like they knew he was their mother... father... whatever he was. Wide purple eyes so much like Keith’s that his heart clenched each time they stared up at him. They were amazing. So soft and pure, so warm and heavy in his hold. He never wanted to let them go... but at the same time... he was so fucking scared. Scared by the holes in his memory. Scared of having a seizure and... and forgetting that they’d even existed. Scared of having a seizure while holding them. Keith seemed to be the only one who trusted him to hold them. To hold them and to “help” take care of them. Keith was a natural with them. For all his fears his husband was amazing. He was gentle, so very gentle, someone had taught him how to change a nappy and how to bathe them. Each little cry was met by a fussing Keith. Lance knew he should be happy, and he was that the boys had such an attentive father, but... but it fucking hurt not to be able to be the one to hold them when they cried. Not to be the one feeding them as they drank down hungrily from their bottles. His breasts ached with the need to feed them, yet he wasn’t allowed and he wasn’t sure he knew why he wasn’t. All he wanted was to be the best father he could for his sons. Keith continued to fill the silence the whole way to the hangar, Pidge all smiles as he wheeled him over to where she was waiting “What took you losers so long? I could been there and back by now. And how are my favourite minions?” Lance hung his head. Was it his fault? He didn’t know if it was his fault... He didn’t know what they had planned, only that he wanted to go for another nap with his boys. Nudging his shoulder, Kosmo let him know he was panicking with a wet nose and small whine. He had the best fur son “You’re not funny, Gremlin. We’re late because you, and everyone else, decided we needed our own personal gift shop” Pidge wrinkled her nose “Booo! I’m hilarious. Besides, we couldn’t help ourselves, for a couple of losers you make cute minions. Buuuuuuuut, if you’re going to be like that I’ll send you the bill” “You’re still not funny. Lance is still healing and your lameness is likely to do him. Are we ready to go?” Pidge faked offence before cackling “Look at you making jokes. Being a father’s worked wonders for your personality” “Lance has worked wonders for my personality, haven’t you, babe?” Dropping a kiss on his head, Lance just hummed. It was as non-committal as he could get “Right. That’s enough love. Keep it above the belt guys. I love my new minions, but I don’t need another pair just yet. Time to get you down to Cuba!” Lance’s head shot up, Cuba!? They were going to see his family? Why hadn’t Keith told him they were going to see his family? He wouldn’t have had to worry... Well, he would, but he’d be seeing his Mami again. He wanted to see his Mami. He wanted to see his Papi and apologise for all the times he made him worry when he was kid. The twins could finally meet his pop-pop and his abuela... and see Nadia, and Sylvio, and Juana. She’s be so big now. He hadn’t seen her in nearly a year. He’d barely talked to Luis... His brother probably found him gross. He kind of was. He wasn’t meant to be able to give birth. He shouldn’t be alive. He wasn’t meant to come back, but Allura has brought him back. He was back and now he had two children that’d be brandished as freakish as him. Maybe they shouldn’t be going to Cuba. He didn’t want to cause trouble for his family. He didn’t want his family on edge or splintering again. He didn’t want to make trouble there if everyone was happy. He didn’t want to put his Mami in the middle of things. Wherever he went he’d be causing problems for people. He didn’t know what to do. He didn’t want to go to Cuba... He just... he didn’t want to be a burden “Babe? You ready? Mami says she’s got everything set up for us” So he was the last to know? Or had he known and forgotten? Dios. If he wasn’t so stupid he’d know. If he wasn’t so stupid he wouldn’t be making Keith worry. He didn’t want Keith to worry. His husband was probably nervous over staying in Cuba with his family... Mami and Papi adored Keith, but if Veronica came home she’d pick a fight with him. She’d pick a fight leaving Acxa caught up in his family drama. Rachel... He honestly didn’t know how Rachel would feel. She was excited to be a tia. She wasn’t exactly maternal, but she loved her family fiercely. What if... what if she didn’t like the boys? Or what if she got mad at Keith because he gave birth in a “bad place”. Whining softly, Kosmo dropped to lay on his stomach beside the wheelchair. Recognising Lance was panicking before he had “Pidge, why don’t you fire up the pod. I’ll get Lance and the twins on board” “Finnnne. But only because if we don’t get out of here soon, mother dearest is going to track me down and make me go to class. You two have no idea how stressful it is working with your mother. She won’t even call me Pidge. Noooo. It’s “Katie, wear a dress”, “Katie, why weren’t you at dinner last night? Don’t tell me you were in your lab again”, “Katie! Don’t think you’re running off to space again without telling me where you’re going”, “Catherine! You’re supposed to be teaching! You cannot make your students double check the security protocols of illegally downloaded Coalition data”. Honestly. She’s as bad as Lance when he used to send me to bed” “Lance used to send you to bed?” Pidge’s rolled eyes bled into her tone “He sure did. He was all like “Gremlins need sleep too”, and “Pidge, don’t make me have Coran lock you out of your lab”. Pidge is going to start the pod. Don’t take too long, I’m hiding as it is” “We won’t. I just need a moment with Lance before we go” Leaving them, Keith lifted one of their sons off his shoulder as he crouched down in front of the wheelchair “Babe? Wanna tell me what’s wrong?” Nope. Nope, he didn’t want to admit anything. Not when it’d hurt Keith. Resting their son on his shoulder, Keith placed his free hand on Lance’s knee “Is it Cuba? Are you anxious? Mami is ready for us” “I’m fine... just tired” He was. He was tired of forgetting things “You can have a nap when we get there. Miriam’s made up a room for us. She’s excited we’re coming down. Jorge was great with the boys. He even looked after Korra for Mum. He’s been really good with them and he’s really happy we’re coming to stay” They were? They both were? Keith hadn’t said anything about his siblings... Was Rachel even home? What would Lisa think? “Sorry... I didn’t mean to make you worry. I’m just... really tired” Keith seemed sceptical but let it slide, squeezing his knee “I know you are. Your body went through a huge shock, you’re alright now and I’m here. The drugs in your system really knocked you around, but we’ll be there for the next week, meaning plenty of time to rest. And these little boys are just fine too. We’ll take a nap together when we get to Cuba, Mami will probably have to fight Jorge for who gets the first cuddles. You just have to stay awake a little longer, babe, then we’ll nap. Okay?” Lance nodded... He wished he could feel as okay with everything as Keith did. He thought he’d be nervous but evidently not. He was sure he’d missed something there too. His family adored Keith, but for Keith to let them in, to accept he was loved and wanted... it was a huge step for his husband in all the right ways. Naturally his Mami would have shoved her love down Keith’s throat until he had no choice to accept it... Lance just wished he could remember the moment that Keith finally accepted he had a permanent Keith sized space in his family forever. Rising to his feet, Keith held his hand out to him “Let’s go, Sharpshooter” Taking Keith’s hand, Lance was sure he was going to regret this. * The flight down to Cuba was uneventful other than the twins serenading then mid flight. Pidge’s love for “her minions” decreased as both boys wailed their discontent over the short trip. Being a seasoned pilot, Keith had grown use to the occasional and random “popping” of his ears due to pressure. His poor sons had never flown before, so were left unhappy with the changing altitude. No amount of hushing or bottom patting calmed them, Lance in tears as he rocked Hunter and reassured him that he was sorry and that he only had to endure the pain a little longer. Though the pod was small, Keith had hoped to maybe talk to Lance about his anxieties before they landed. Miriam was cooking a large family dinner for them all in celebration of Lance’s, albeit temporary, release from hospital. Rachel would be staying at the town house during their stay, not wanting to crowd Lance. Luis and Lisa would be there too for the evening, Nadia thrilled to meet the twins even if she didn’t understand how her uncle was now a father without a mother. It wasn’t exactly something that was easily explained away, especially when Lance still looked pregnant. He wasn’t exactly as large as he had been, but he wasn’t flat either. Tomorrow they’d be meeting with Lance’s grandparent so Keith had been sure to pack the onesies they’d been gifted. The half-Galra was quite sure that if it hadn’t been for Miriam’s love and support he would have been as scared as his husband seemed to be over their return. Landing the pod near the family farmhouse, Pidge was the first one out the door without comment, snagging the two bags Keith had packed on the way. Kosmo took some gentle nudging with his booted foot before his fur son sulked out the pod. Discovering freedom he teleported away from his crying brothers. Sitting in the passenger seat, Lance hadn’t seemed to notice they’d landed, let alone the door was open to where Miriam was rushing out to meet them. Marco yelling something in the distance as Keith awkwardly hung back, not completely sure how to proceed. His boys were screaming their lungs out, his instincts screaming just as loudly to protect them, yet his husband was a tangled mass of nerves. He only had two hands, and both were taken up trying to calm Laith. Their sons had been relatively quiet, much quieter than he’d expected, and this whole screaming thing had hit notes louder and longer than he thought two tiny babies could wait. Tears were already welled unshed in his eyes from not being able to take the altitude pressure away from his little boys. It broke his heart to hear them cry like they were. It broke his heart further that Lance was scared to come home, especially after he’d seemed so happy to before. Coming to his rescue, Mami didn’t shy away from a screaming Laith. Her gentle hand resting on Keith’s shoulder as she placed her other hand on Laith’s head “Oh dear, oh dear my sweet nieto. What is wrong my love?” “His ears popped with the change in pressure” It was the only excuse Keith had. The pod should have withstood the change in pressure just fine. Miriam sighed softly “Give him to me, he’ll settle down in no time. We’re all seasoned professionals here. Marco! Come help your brothers!” Taking Laith, Miriam kissed his beanied head, hushing Laith before passing him off to Marco. Pulling a face at his nephew, Marco left his nose wrinkled, Laith screaming louder at his uncle than he had at his grandmother “What did you do to him!? Was that daddy of yours picking on you? You come tell your Uncle Marco all your worries. I’ll protect you from your mean parents” Keith’s weird instincts were insulted at Marco’s joking. He knew it was a joke and he was grateful Mami had freed up his hands, but now he didn’t know how to approach Lance “His ears. Take him up to the house and get him settled” “Pffft. I do know how to take care of a baby. I used to take care of Lance” “And you never dropped him? Not even once” Marco’s cheeks reddened “It’s not my fault babies are so squishy. Keith, I’ll see you up the house. Star’s been talking all morning about your arrival” For a tick, then a second and third, Keith wracked his brains before remembering that “Star” was Daehra “You drop my son and I’ll drop you into the nearest star personally” Backing out the pod, Marco made a show of being careful. Now left with Lance, he didn’t want to take Hunter away from him “Is he alright?” Asked softly, Mami was staring at Lance who still yet to move. The sigh that escaped his throat was an unwanted traitor “All new mums need some time to adjust. Would you like me to take Hunter?” “How do you know he’s holding Hunter?” Keith didn’t like to admit but more than once he’d relied on Hunter’s birthmark to tell them apart “A grandmother’s intuition” There was a touch of mischief in Miriam’s eyes leading Keith to guess she’d gotten lucky with her guess “I don’t want to seperate them... He’s... nervous about coming home” “Of course he is. You should have seen when we brought Luis home from for the first time. Jorge was tripping over himself fo make sure everything was baby proof and perfect” “If I hadn’t seen him with Korra and the boys I wouldn’t have been able to picture that. It might be better to just give us a moment? If that’s alright? He was pretty tired before we left. But he also talks more when he is... but he wasn’t talking so I think it’s more anxiety than anything...” That and his husband scent wasn’t exactly pleasant in such a small space “You take your time. Marco may act like an idiot but he’s just as good as Lance with the little ones. Veronica and Rachel are the ones with no patience. I’ve made up his old room, I thought a bit of familiarity would help him settle” Turning to his mother-in-law, Keith wrapped his arms around her. Miriam quick to return the brief hug. The action didn’t even cross his mind as being weird. He was happy to see her again. Happy she was still... that she was still her, no matter the change in setting “Thanks, Mami” “It’s quite alright. You boys come up when you’re ready. Pidge said she’s staying until dinner” “That’s probably because she’s skipping out on work again” “Oh dear. Colleen will be on the phone before I know it. I better give her a call and let her know” “Better you than me” Miriam gave a light laugh “Don’t worry, she scares me too. I’ll see you soon” Left in privacy, Keith squeezed himself into the small amount of space between the pilots seat and passenger seat. Trying to crouch wasn’t going to happen, leaving him leaning awkwardly over his husband. Placing his hand over Lance’s, Lance was forced to stop patting Hunter’s back. His face downward leaving Keith looking at the top of his head “Babe, we’re here now. It’s time to get out the pod” Not responding to him, Keith tried a little louder. Hunter was making taking a careful approach hard with his vocal talents “Babe? Lance, can you hear me? We’re in Cuba” Jolting as if he’d been woken from a nap, big blue eyes looked up at him as tears raced down his cheeks “K-Keith?” Choking his name, Lance sniffled loudly as he continued trying to calm Hunter “Babe. Here, let me take him so you can get up. We’re in Cuba now” Lance turned his gaze back to their son, letting out a shuddering breath before hiding his face completely against their baby boy “He won’t stop crying... I-I’m sorry...” “It’s not your fault. They just didn’t like the flight down. Once we get them up to the house and settled they’ll be happy. Then you can have cuddles while you rest” Lance continued to weep for a few long moments, then finally shook his head “I can’t... I can’t... You take him... I can’t...” Taking Hunter from Lance, the guilt on Lance’s face was too much. Moving to make space he’d had to move towards the open entrance so Lance would be able to manoeuvre himself out of the tiny cockpit. Waiting until his husband reached him, when Keith went to wrap his arm around Lance’s waist his husband slapped his hand away, before covering his mouth. The Cuban was supposed to be taking things slowly, yet that didn’t stop him as he fled. Striding after him, Lance refused to slow down. Passing through the open front door his husband was already halfway up the stairs by the time Keith made it to the door mat, careful not to walk too fast and jostle their boy, while also trying not to let Lance out his sights. For a man who’d been laid up in a hospital bed and then stuck shuffling around, Lance was far too spry for Keith’s heart. Disappearing completely, Keith waited for the thud of a slammed door, yet it failed to come. Rising from the arm of the sofa she’d been sitting on, Mami came to his side. Holding out her hands, Keith passed Hunter over to her semi-reluctantly. Laith, who’d seemed to have started to settle was drawn back into the screaming duet by his brother “Mijo?” Still watching the stairs more than his mother-in-law, Keith wanted to be up there right now. Feeling Miriam’s hand on his arm, he forced his attention to her “Sorry, Mami. He... feels pretty bad that Hunter didn’t enjoy the flight” Mami sighed softly, but not softly enough for it to be drowned out “That boy. He can’t control everything. They’ll be just fine once they settle. Will you check on him?” “Yeah. I need to make sure he hasn’t had a seizure... I might try and make him have a nap... It’s... it’s not easy listening them to cry” “It never is, but you can’t blame yourselves. They’ll cry, then sleep, then it’ll be like it never happened. Babies are like that” Keith swallowed down the lump in his throat. He felt quiznakking awful that they’d cried so hard. Lance had been off since before they landed, and now he was a wreck “Thanks, Mami. I’m grateful for you help. I have no idea what I’m doing” Miriam gave a soft laugh “You’re doing your best to muddle your way through this. Just remember, the only person who expects you to be the perfect parent is you. As long as you love them then you’re already doing your best. You’re part of this family now. You and Lance aren’t alone in this” “I know. I know you’ve told me enough times. Um... I’ll be back as soon as... it feels weird leaving them” “All parents feel that too. I promise they’ll be just fine. Let me work my magic and you’ll see” “I didn’t think you’d believe in magic” “It’s something Lance used to say. My magic made the pain go away” Keith felt the smile creeping onto his lips. He could picture Lance with a skinned knee and Miriam kissing the wound so the pain would go away. How he wished he’d known Lance when he was a gangly little kid. He wished he’d seen all those moments his husband was proud of and all those family trips he’d talked about “He’s always been smarter than he gave himself credit for. Can you let everyone know he’s ok, just tired and a little stressed from our boys?” “We all know what it’s like. No explanation required. Now off with you. I’ve got my two gorgeous grandsons to tend to” Heading upstairs Keith checked the bathroom on the way, grateful to find it devoid of his husband. Following Lance’s lingering scent, he found himself at Lance closed door. Knocking lightly, so as not to scare Lance by suddenly throwing the door open, Keith then let himself into the room. The creaking of the hinges made it impossible to remain quiet, leaving him giving up the idea of a stealthy approach. Curled up on top of the covers Kosmo had found his way back to his human, Lance with his back towards the door and Kosmo with his head resting on the Cuban’s hip “Babe?” Calling softly, Lance sniffled loudly in reply. Moving over to the bed, he didn’t want to startle Lance by shoving his way between his husband and their son, nor did he want Lance to feel pressured into talking if he needed to sort his head space out before he could find the words. Sitting himself down on the floor beside the bed, he rested his hand close but not touching Lance’s right hand. With another sniffle Lance took his hand and squeezed it hard “I’m sorry” “Shhhh. Hey, you don’t need to be sorry” “I couldn’t stop him from crying...” “I couldn’t stop Laith either” “I don’t know why he was crying. Did I do something wrong?!” Raising Lance’s hand, Keith kissed the back of it “No babe. I guess you lucked out and your ears didn’t pop when we left the garrison” Wiping at his messy face with his sleeve, Lance kept blinking at him through his tears “D-did yours?” “Yeah. I’ve been Earth bound so long my body forgot what it was like to catch a pod” Keith’s voice wobbled slightly, his joking tone fell flat as Lance cried harder “Hey, babe, what’s wrong? It is just the twins? Or is it your anxieties? You can tell me and you can tell me if it’s too much to talk about right now. I won’t be mad... Is your head all busy?” “R-red... oh god, I’m so s-sorry” Keith wanted to climb up and wrap his arms around his husband and kiss his pain away. Instead he forced himself to stay down on the floor, rubbing circles on the back of Lance’s hand with the pad of his thumb “That bad? Do you wanna take a nap? Marco’s got Laith and Miriam has Hunter. Both of them are calming now the feeling’s passed” Lance nodded, his bottom lip wouldn’t stop quivering “Okay. Do you want me to stay? We can cuddle?” Lance blinked at him again, not giving much away with his expression “I... I need to... need to calm down...” “I don’t mind going. Kosmo’s right here with you. And I’ll be right downstairs if you need me... but that’s only if that’s what you need. If you want me to stay you better expect the best cuddles of your life” “I... wanna... I...” “You wanna be alone. That’s fine. I love you and whatever your brain is telling you isn’t true. It’s being a total dick, because you’re the most amazing and beautiful person I know” Lance snorted than grimaced at the snot bubble “I’m sorry” “Enough apologies. You take your time” Taking his hand back, Lance slid it under his pillow. His husband seemed far too fragile as he tried to curl up further. Forcing himself up Keith found a blanket draped over a the chair in the corner, beside the cot he hadn’t noticed before. Retrieving it, the half-Galra tucked his husband in around Kosmo, before kissing him on the forehead. He’d have to wait a little while until Lance had fallen asleep then sneak back up to keep an eye on him. He didn’t want Lance to think he’d been abandoned simply because they were back in his childhood home. All of this sucked. Telling himself it was simply a hiccup didn’t make him feel any better about it at all. Lance needed to rest and recuperate, not be taunted by his traitorous mind. His whole family needed to rest. He’d never tell Miriam, but now he was left wondering if the cabin would have been a better place to let Lance have some breathing space.

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