#but 'being a child provided stability by someone else' quickly will become 'as a young adult achieving stability is harder to do' | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

queenshelby · 3 years ago

Text

Time for Change – Part Two

Pairing: Cillian Murphy x Reader

Warning: Smut

Words: 4,356

Notes: Not based on Cillian’s life. This is fiction guys!

YOUR POV

Your night had to be the worst one yet as you received a photograph of your husband in bed of another woman from someone who contacted you via Facebook.

The person who contacted you went by the name of Lucas and Lucas had a story to tell. He asked whether he could call, speak to you about your husband and, of course, you agreed.

You were intrigued and you needed to know what he was up to.

When Lucas called you, he informed you that the woman your husband was with was named Emily and, of course, you knew all about her. She was his secretary back when you lived in New York. She was the reason you demanded to return to your home country of Ireland and he promised you that it was over between them after a yearlong affair.

But Lucas told you that it wasn’t. And Lucas also told you something else which came like a blow to your face.

According to him, Emily had a young child, a child which had been fathered by your husband.

This, of course explained everything. The constant business trips, money disappearing from your joined bank account without explanation and him getting up in the middle of the night in order to go for a walk.

Lucas’s phone call was like a plea for help. He wanted you to know. But why did he, you wondered? He had no vested interest in their relationship or yours, or did he?

He never told you who he was and you didn’t question it once you received pictures of your husband’s daughter via Messenger. On the pictures, your husband was holding her, cuddling her and feeding her. He looked happy and that made you feel guilty.

A child was what you could never give him after you lost half of your reproductive system following an accident in 2001. You were devastated but, at the time, you didn’t realise what consequences this accident would have on your life.

You tried, many times over to conceive and he pushed for you to try harder, to go through the IVF process, which was something you decided against. Instead, you pushed for adoption and this is how you met the most important person of your life, your daughter Chloe.

Chloe was three years old when you both adopted her and she was everything you ever cared for with all your heart. But, to your husband, she was never really his daughter. He never loved her the way a father should because she wasn’t his and he blamed you for it ever since.

Now, you were 32 and Chloe was 10 and you were happy. But obviously, your husband was not and sought the comfort of another much younger woman. Now, she gave him what he had always wanted, a child of his own and you felt as though you should be happy for him. But you weren’t. You were saddened by how your life had turned out. Yet, little did you know that your life was about to change.

CILLIAN’S POV

Cillian’s night wasn’t any better than yours. His wife Danielle had called him from her mother’s house, telling him that she wouldn’t be home until the weekend.

‘What am I going to tell the kids, Danielle?’ Cillian asked angrily and annoyed by the fact that, once again, she ran off.

‘I don’t know, you figure it out. Why is this always my problem, Cillian?’ Danielle asked, causing Cillian to huff.

‘What is all this about. Please enlighten me Danielle’ Cillian then said, wondering why she took off once again.

‘What do you think Cillian?’ Danielle asked, causing Cillian to huff and sigh again.

‘For starters, you rather spend time with Marina and Natasha instead of calling me and your children when you are away filming. Then, when I call your PA, I am told that you are busy. You are always fucking busy’ Danielle said angrily and Cillian realised that, of course, this fight was about his work again and the fact that Cillian had been away for months until recently to shoot Season 6 of Peaky Blinders.

Danielle never supported his career. She hated it and didn’t support his choices and her attitude towards it had become relentless over the past three years as he became more famous.

She was jealous, continuously, and alleged him having several affairs over the years. Every time there was a young and attractive woman on set, she would become possessive and, when Cillian didn’t call her every night, she would lose her mind. But, unlike your husband, Cillian didn’t cheat on her, not even once and her allegations created constant tension between them.

Whatever Cillian did, was never good enough for her. He wasn’t a good enough husband and he wasn’t a good enough father. Yet, on the other hand, she enjoyed the financial stability and the fact that she didn’t have to work as Cillian was able to provide for her and his family.

After their latest fight, Cillian surely had enough and, whilst he had stayed with Danielle for his children, he didn’t know how much longer he could sustain a relationship like this with her if, all she did, was walk out on him whenever she thought that he done something wrong.

DINNER TIME

With both of you torn, upset and lonely with Cillian’s children at camp and your daughter at her grandmother’s house in Galway, dinner, a movie and some wine seemed like a fantastic idea and you texted Cillian at around lunchtime, confirming your date.

Whilst it felt somewhat weird to you, cooking dinner for your brother-in-law without the presence of your step sister Dannielle, you were somewhat excited to spend some time with Cillian.

You always liked him, his sense of humour and his intellect. You were likeminded and both enjoyed music, movies, books and theatre. You always had plenty to talk about and it was nice to not be surrounded by children for once.

***

‘Are you still coming over at 7 o’clock for dinner and some Netflix? Bring some wine because I know you are picky with the reds’ you texted him.

‘Says who?’ Cillian texted back.

‘Your wife’ you then responded.

‘Will do. See you at 7’ Cillian texted.

***

At exactly seven o’clock, you heard the doorbell ring and there he was, your brother-in-law with not one but two bottles of wine and a book.

‘Right on time as usual’ you said as you invited him inside and he couldn’t help but look at your cleavage again, surprised by the fact that you were wearing a tank top with no bra underneath. Did you have your nipples pierced, he wondered?

‘Cillian?’ you then asked as, clearly, he didn’t hear your question as he was too busy staring at your breasts.

‘What?’ he then said as he collected his thoughts.

‘Which bottle did you want me to open?’ you asked again, laughing as you did.

‘Whichever one you want’ he then said before offering you some help in the kitchen.

You quickly declined his offer, telling him that everything had been done, before walking into the kitchen to open the bottle of wine.

As you walked off, Cillian couldn’t help but watch you again, moving your hips and causing your rather short and flattering skirt move from side to side.

You weren’t wearing anything special. Just a plain skirt and a tank top, no shoes, no stockings, possibly a pair of panties for what he could tell. But that was it. It was a warm day and he wasn’t really surprised by your outfit. Your figure was immaculate so why not show it.

You eventually returned to the living room with two glasses of wine and sat down next to Cillian.

‘Dinner will be about 30 or 40 minutes, sorry. I had to play around with the oven for a while to get it working’ you explained, noting that your kitchen was rather dated.

‘That’s perfectly fine. Thank you for cooking’ Cillian then said before handing you the book which he brought along.

‘Oh damn, you found it. Thank you’ you said excitedly as Cillian and you had talked about this book which he had read about five years ago and you were rather intrigued by it.

***

Following the initial small talk, you told Cillian over a glass of wine what happened to you over night, about James and his child in the US.

He was shocked but couldn’t stop himself and ask why you never had children together.

‘We tried for five years but I can’t have children’ you sighed, taking another sip from your wine.

‘I am so sorry Y/N’ Cillian then said, placing his hand over yours gently.

‘It’s alright Cillian. I made my peace with it and I do have Chloe’ you explained with a warm smile.

‘Well, she is one good kid, that’s for sure. You should count your blessings’ Cillian said with his hands still on yours.

‘I do, every day’ you said before asking him whether he had heard from Danielle.

Without hesitation, Cillian told you about what had happened and about the problems they were having over the past few years, her jealousy and her possessiveness. He also told you that, today, he had finally seen a lawyer to talk about his options. He wanted to file for divorce. It was long overdue.

‘Well, I can’t say that I blame her for being a jealous although the way she is acting seems excessive if you have never given her a reason to distrust you’ you then said, cheeks flushing as you reached for your wine glass again.

‘You can’t blame her? What do you mean by that?’ Cillian chuckled.

‘I think she is lucky to be with a man like you and she probably knows it. Men like you are rare. You are a great father and husband and, well, you are quite attractive so I can see how she gets a little worried’ you said somewhat embarrassed, the wine helping you tell the truth.

‘You think that I am attractive huh?’ Cillian asked equally embarrassed as he took a sip from his wine.

‘Yes’ you said, your cheeks now red like fire as you got up suddenly.

‘I think dinner might be ready’ you then said quickly as you disappeared into the kitchen and Cillian followed you shortly thereafter to help you plate up.

***

‘So, 45 next week, are you doing anything special?’ you then asked but Cillian simply shook his head.

‘Thanks for reminding me how old I am Y/N’ he then laughed and you couldn’t help but giggle before grabbing your empty plates and taking them to the sink.

‘You aren’t old Cillian’ you said as he followed you, helping you to clean up.

‘Coming from a woman in her early thirties. I take this as a compliment’ Cillian then chuckled.

‘You should’ you smirked. ‘In fact, I think, at 45, you are in your prime’ you then said with a cheeky wink as you filled up the sink. Like most other things in your house, your dishwasher was broken.

‘So, I am in my prime, huh?’ Cillian laughed and, just as the sink filled up completely, you felt Cillian touch you from behind.

‘Yes’ you murmured as the heat emanating from him was incredible and it took all of your willpower to just stand there and wash the dishes while he reached for the kitchen towel by your side, beginning to dry the dishes.

You desperately wanted to turn around in this moment and kiss him, but he was your step-sister’s husband and it was wrong.

This continued on for a while, in your small kitchen. You could feel Cillian’s warm breath behind you, his hands brushing against you so many times that you lost count until, finally, he put the last dry dish on the bench and leaned over your side to hang the kitchen towel up to dry.

Suddenly and somewhat unexpectedly, you felt Cillian’s warm hands run over the skin of your arms and a hot pair of lips kissing your neck. You wanted to move, you knew you had to, but you couldn't. Your body had started sweating and you felt him pull you closer as his lips continued to kiss your neck.

‘I am sorry Y/N, I should stop’ he then said as you stood there almost frozen.

‘No, don’t…please’ you huffed out, staring at the splashback behind the sink as Cillian kissed you gently.

Then you couldn’t resist your urges any longer and, with one swift movement, you turned around and pressed your lips onto his while your wet and soapy hands took hold of his hair.

The kiss was urgent and passionate, unlike anything else you had ever experienced before.

‘We shouldn’t be doing this’ you huffed out as you pulled away from Cillian to take a breather.

‘I know’ Cillian then said as he gently played with your hair, moving your long streaks out of your eyes.

Then, he moved his hand to the side of your face and caressed your cheek. His touch was gentle and he was so close to you that your voice was gone from your throat and you couldn't say anything. Couldn't stop him, you didn’t want to stop him, you just wanted to feel his touch.

Within seconds your lips were connected again and you couldn’t help your urges and desires any longer.

‘I can’t stop’ you then huffed out in between kisses while his hands travelled over your back and then down to your ass.

‘Neither can I’ Cillian said and, just as he did, you moved your hands from your chest down to his stomach and lifted up his t-shirt.

‘I need you Cillian’ you said as he helped you pull his t-shirt over his head and lifted you up onto the kitchen counter.

‘I suppose if Danielle already thinks that I am cheating, I might just as well’ Cillian said, no longer caring about her and giving into his needs.

Within seconds, Cillian lifted your tank top over your head and saw that, indeed, both of your nipples were pierced.

‘I saw you look at them when you walked in’ you giggled as Cillian gently ran the palms of his hands over your breasts.

‘Fuck’ he barely managed to breath out and, when you looked down at his skinny jeans, you could see his cock hardening beneath the denim.

While Cillian was playing with your breasts, giving some attention to your nipple piercings, he pressed his lips onto yours softly at first, gently kissing you, and slowly sucking on your lips.

His kisses were caring, loving, and not at all what you had expected. He parted your lips with his and soon the kisses became more and more passionate again. His tongue slipped into your mouth and his lips moved all over yours.

You could feel his hand trace from your breasts down to your stomach before pushing your legs further apart and finding its way beneath your skirt.

‘Jesus Y/N’ Cillian groaned as he could feel how wet your panties were and he pushed aside the fabric before running one of his fingers through your wet slit.

‘Oh god’ you moaned, causing Cillian to smile. His touch was almost too much to bear and, after just minutes of teasing, Cillian picked you up in his arms and took you to your bedroom. Of course, he knew where it was. He had been at your house many times.

After Cillian placed you onto your bed gently, he pulled off your skirt and panties together in one go and you suddenly bit your lip, feeling somewhat embarrassed about lying there completely naked in front of your step-sister’s husband.

‘You are stunning’ Cillian then said, mesmerised by your naked beauty right there in front of him.

‘If you say so’ you giggled, waiting for him to join you on the bed.

‘Are you sure that this is what you want? Because there is no turning back after this’ Cillian then asked as he stood in front of the bed and unzipped his jeans

‘Yes, I do…and I must admit, I’ve been fantasising about this for a while, but I would never have acted on it’ you said with some embarrassment.

‘That makes two of us then’ Cillian chuckled as, finally, he pushed down his jeans and briefs, causing you to let out a sigh of excitement when his hard cock sprung free.

Cillian joined you on the bed, caressing your body while kissing you gently. Eventually, he moved his hand lower and started pressing his palm on your pubic bone. He pulled you close to him and his hard cock was poking against your thigh. You could feel his pre-cum dripping from his cock onto your skin while the pressure and movement of his palm on your pubic bone was sending subtle vibrations to your pussy. It was getting wetter and your nipples were getting harder.

Your mind was reminding you of your morals, your vows, and values, but your body was no longer listening. Your body wanted pleasure and release and so did his.

‘You are beautiful Y/N. James is a lucky man’ Cillian said in between kisses as his eyes were filled with a lust and fire you had not seen before. Not even in James’s eyes.

He moved his hand to your breast again and fondled it tenderly. He closed his thumb and finger around the nipple. Then he pinched it and a sharp jolt seemed to go through your body. He squeezed your nipple again and your pussy reacted with an involuntary spasm.

Then, his body began to shift, hovering over you and he started kissing the soft flesh of your breasts. He was leaving marks on them as if he was marking them as his territory. What was James going to say, you didn't know, but your body didn't care.

Cillian eventually took one of your nipples in his mouth, sucking on it gently and causing you to moan. His mouth was so hot, you felt it would burn your skin. He pulled his head back, letting your breast slip out, till your nipples was between his teeth and then he gently bit on it. Shorts of pain as well as pleasure rippled though your body and another moan escaped your mouth.

By this time your pussy was so wet that drops of your juices were tricking out of it and down your thigh. You loved this kind of foreplay, something James never bothered with but, clearly, Cillian enjoyed it a lot.

But this wasn’t all of it. Cillian wasn’t done with the foreplay just yet and, when he was satisfied that he had left enough little bruises on your soft flesh, he sat up on his knees and began loving your lower body.

He pushed your legs apart and began planting small kisses on your upper thighs, and licking small trails up and down, stopping short of your mound every time he did, causing you to squirm and moan. He wanted to break your resolve completely and he wanted you to beg. That was going to be his power over you and, as much as you didn’t want to do that, your moans kept escaping your lips. And even though you couldn't see his face, you would imagine his smile.

‘Oh fuck, please Cillian, just do it’ you moaned out loudly and, just as you did, you could hear him chuckle.

Then, finally, you felt it; his tongue on your wet pussy lips. It was a slow broad stroke that sent jolts of pleasure though your pussy, up your spine and exploded in your brain.

‘Oh yes, oh god, fuck’ you moaned before you bit your lips. Your whole body shivered and you felt week in your knees. Then you felt his fingers work their way to between your legs to your pussy.

You squirmed at the intensity. James usually didn’t pleasure you like this and it was overwhelming having Cillian do this to you. He pushed your legs apart widely and forced you to open up, making yourself accessible. His finger traced a line along your pussy lips as his tongue started to twirl circles over your clit. He stroked there, not attempting entry, just teasing your entrance while his tongue worked its magic.

‘You are so fucking wet Y/N’ Cillian observed and then you felt his fingers open your lips, using one finger each from both of his hands. Your body seemed to open to him like a flower. The dampness that was in you started coating his hands. You were enjoying this more than you should and your mind was fighting it, but your body betrayed you. It was welcoming, eager.

‘Oh god, Cillian’ you moaned again his tongue traced the glistening slit on your open pussy. Then, your legs began to quiver as his tongue entered your open hole.

You knew you were going to cum any second as Cillian was rubbing your clit with his lips and fucking your pussy with his tongue. Your pussy was flowing profusely and Cillian must have been gulping down every drop. Suddenly your whole world exploded and you came with thunderous force. You pushed up against his mouth and let out a muffled scream through bitten lips as you came. Your nails were digging into the back of his head but Cillian still didn't stop.

‘Holy fuck, oh god yes’ you screamed out while your legs began to shake as Cillian gave you the most intense orgasm that you had ever experienced.

You don't know what happened next, if you had passed out or not, but the next thing you did remember was lying on the bed with Cillian on top of you. He was kissing your lips and you could taste your own juices on his lips.

‘Hmm fuck this was good’ you moaned, drawing Cillian’s lips closer for another kiss and you could feel him smile against your lips. His cock was touching your wet pussy and the heat emanating from it was incredible.

‘I could spend fucking hours between your legs’ Cillian then smiled, starring down at you with lustful eyes.

‘I wouldn’t object, although, for now want to feel you…all of you’ you said, biting your lips and urging him to push inside you.

Your legs were spread and open with his hips holding them apart. You felt the head of his cock slide across the mouth of your pussy, teasing you and collecting some of your wetness.

‘Please, stop teasing’ you then moaned, bucking your hips and his cock followed your movements before, suddenly, forcing its way several inches into your body.

You were gasping for breath. You were in the grip of some primal emotion as you groaned Cillian’s name loudly and he slid out to the end again. This time, your body moved with him, like it didn't want to feel him leave your confines.

‘Oh god’ you moaned and Cillian slammed into you burying the full length of his member deep into your pussy.

‘Fuck, you feel so good…so tight, Jesus’ Cillian groaned as he pulled out, then drove in again. The power of his thrusts caused an almost violent reaction in your body, as it met his thrusts with powerful thrusts of its own.

Your hips were now rolling with his every move, trying to keep his cock deeply in your pussy. Your mouth was open, you were panting, moaning. Your resolve to keep calm was being sorely tested as you gave in to Cillian’s thrusts.

But it was difficult for him too as he hadn’t slept with Danielle for six months and was starved of intimacy and now, here you were, the woman he had desired for a while right beneath him for his taking.

‘Cillian, I am close, fuck’ you moaned since you really needed to cum. It seemed your whole being was centered on Cillian’s cock splitting open your pussy, almost like it was the first time you had sex. You may as well have been a virgin, since Cillian angled his movements in way that he was reaching places that James, the only man you ever had sex with before tonight, hadn't even known existed.

You pulled Cillian close for a passionately kiss and your fingers clawed down his back, scratching him wildly. You were out of my control. Your body had become a vessel for his use. You heard the screaming and you knew it was your own.

‘Fuck me, Cillian. Oh my god fuck me’ you shouted out as you gave in and then you screamed as your body reached its high.

‘Fuck, Y/N’ Cillian groaned as he picked up speed and, within seconds you could feel his cock erupt inside you, pulsing and pumping as he did. He emptied string after string of cum into the warmth of your pussy while your walls contracted, milking him until there was nothing left and you were a shaking mess.

Finally, through panting lips, Cillian kissed you and pulled out. Just as he pulled out, you could feel his cum leaking from your pussy and onto the sheets. There was a lot and you couldn’t help but collect some of it with your finger and bring it to your mouth.

Cillian raised an eyebrow at you, wondering what you were doing.

‘I just wanted to see what you taste like’ you smirked as you licked his cum from your finger which is when he realised that he probably should have pulled out.

‘Fuck, I am sorry…I shouldn’t have cum inside you’ Cillian then said somewhat embarrassed.

‘It’s fine, really. In fact, I enjoyed feeling you cum like this’ you said, biting your lip and kissing him again gently before asking him whether he wanted to stay with you for the night.

Tag List:

@lilymurphy03 @deefigs @theflamecrystal @desperate-and-broken @weepingstudentfishhorse @livinginfantaxy @rosey1981 @atomicsoulcollecto @peakyboyslover @nerdy4itall@elenavampire21 @hanster1998@mariapaiva13 @fairypitou @harry-is-my-sunflower @zozeebo @lauren-raines-x @kasaikawa @littlewierdalien @sad-huffle-nerd @theflamecrystal @peakymalfoyscullymulder @themissthang@0ghostwriter0 @stylescanbeatmyback @1-800-peakyblinders @datewithgianni @momoneymolife @ntmynouis @lilymurphy03 @mcntsee@cloudofdisney@missymurphy1985 @peakymalfoyscullymulder @otterly-fey @janelongxox @uchihacumdump @basiclassy @being-worthy @chaotic-bean-of-smolness @margoo0 @chocolatehalo @vhscillian @ysmmsy @littlewierdalien @crazymar15 @stickyknightflowerbailiff @im-constantly-fangirling @goldensunflowe-r @tellingyouastory @captivatedbycillianmurphy @namelesslosers @littlewhiterose @ttzamara @ttzamara @cilleveryone

@severewobblerlightdragon @ysmmsy

Cannot Tag (please check your settings):

@l0tsofpennies @trolleydolly @avonlady1985 @chrisevanshoeee @daydreamingnymph @fookingshelby @thenattitude

#cillian murphy #Cillian Murphy x Reader #cillian murphy imagine #cillian murphy smut

94 notes · View notes

zellerysworld · 3 years ago

Text

『 Comfort 』

Sukuna x F!Reader

Word count: 2.1k

Tags: Fluff???, Established Relationship, Angst, Mentions of death, self hate, and abuse, slightly insane reader, slightly soft Sukuna

A/N: Readers abilities are touching people to make them sleep, transfer memories, and see past (for those with DID, talk to the souls within the persons mind). She serves as a informant by going inside victims heads to look in their pasts for curses that were around them; informing her teammates of location and grade level. She can also gain powers from whomever she touches for a short period of time.

Ex: Sukuna can give Malevolent Shrine to her for battle, but after one use/within five minutes, it vanishes. If she uses powers that are harsh on her body, (domain expansions or strong cursed manipulation) she faints/gets nose bleeds.

Your feet dragged against the brutally cold floors of the first-year dormitories at Jujutsu Tech. Everything around you was dark, dim light being provided by the full moons reflection through the windows. The corridor felt like a never-ending strip as you silently sobbed under your h/c locks.

Today was… hard. Usually, you can handle the painful endeavors of reaching into the depths of stranger’s minds, but today was different. Todays victim was a young boy, not even a teen, who was abused by his own parents. When you grazed his swollen cheeks as he lied motionless on the floor, the fear he felt as his mother raised a hand to him engulfed your body. Then and there on the scene, you began to cry uncontrollably.

Doing the same thing every day, seeing the same pain in people’s memories, reliving all of their fears within seconds- it was beginning to rip your soul apart piece by piece. At first, it was manageable. However, over the past year of being at this damned jujutsu school, all you seem to feel is excruciating aches in both body and soul.

Recalling the child’s memories, you fell against the wall of the corridor while burying your tearstained face into the same shaking, gloved hands that touched him. Gojo Satoru picked you to be a student because of your “Stability”, yet you were turning into the opposite. The way you viewed death and the nature of It was what impressed Gojo and everyone around you the most, though you have never seen yourself as impressive. All you do is touch people and relay information, nothing too complicated, right?

A door creaked open after your fall emitted a loud thud in the room behind you. When you lifted your head to apologize, you noticed it was none other than Yuji Itadori- Sukuna’s vessel in other words. The young sorcerers’ eyes widened at seeing you in such a distraught state, hastily running over to you. Yuji scanned your body for wounds but was only able to find a pair of empty eyes. “Y/n? Are you alright? C’mon, lets get you to your room.” He scooped you into his arms, carrying you as a mother does with her sleeping child.

Yuji opened the door, gently placing you onto the silk sheets of the rooms bed as you silently cursed yourself for being so weak. The expression you bared made him pained, so he attempted to make you comfortable by taking your shoes off. After doing so, he sat to side of the bed. He held your shielded hand into his bare ones before recommending, “How about talking to Sukuna?”

Your voided eyes closed as you slouched into the headboard. Sukuna would be disappointed to see you in such a state, him possibly refusing to secretly work with you anymore if he saw this mess. Or even worse, he’d stop loving you. From that thought, your mind continued to spiral.

While stuck in your self-pity, Yuji was removing a glove from your hand. “Gojo makes you talk to Sukuna for information, but I know you enjoy talking to each other. He thinks about you a lot.”

Hearing Yuji’s words made your eyelids flash open like lightning as he removed the glove completely. Gojo assigned you to become an informant for him by touching Yuji to go into Sukuna’s domain, however that plan backfired. Overtime, you began to tell Gojo you couldn’t get anything from him, while secretly falling for and scheming with Sukuna. There was a pact made between the two of you: In exchange for touching Yuji to temporarily gain sukuna’s abilities, you must kill with those powers.

You grew to hate violence over the years; having seen multiple forms of it through people’s memories. But you made an exception, being that violence should be used against those who use violence with malicious intent. Although it is a bit of a hypocritical way to think.

When going out with Yuji and others, you take advantage of the surroundings by stalking your next prey. You do this by “accidentally” bumping into people on the streets and reading their memories to search for any abusers, cheaters, or murderers. Although you were technically a killer too, you knew one day you’d have to pay for your sins. Lately, that day seems to be snaking its way closer to you.

“Y/n?” Yuji questioned with a slight tilt of his head; his voice snapping you from your train of thought. Raising the hand he ungloved, the fingertip of your index finger tapped against his forehead. With the tap, his body relaxed before falling into a deep state of sleep. His head fell onto your lap, giving a perfect opening to use your ability. You took the smooth palm of your bare hand, and cupped Yuji’s jawline. This was how you opened communication into someone’s memories, or in this case, into someone’s personalities.

Although you were nervous to see what sukuna would think of you in such a ruined state, Yuji’s words made you feel relaxed. Sukuna was your partner after all, he should be able to see you like this. But then again, he was the king of curses, not just some human guy you picked up on a dating website. In the end though, your want of Sukuna’s comfort overlaps your fear.

Your eyelids shut, then reopened in a different place. It was still nighttime at this location, but it was not the physical world that humans are used to- even if it felt like it was. A vast plateau of flowers swayed in the man-made dream you were in. Constellations of multiple forms helped the moon light up the colorful night sky. The cool air caused you to slightly shiver as it brushed through the grass.

“Why did you bring me here, brat? I was sleepin’ on my throne.”

Sukuna’s rugged voice didn’t seem to faze you as you gazed upwards to the moon. Instead, it oddly comforted you. Although most are terrified of his presence alone, it did not budge your already cracking mind in any shape or form. It slightly annoyed Sukuna that he couldn’t scare you, but it felt comfort in knowing that there is at least one person in this world who doesn’t flinch at the sound of his name.

When you didn’t respond to his question, he lifted a brow in confusion. The robed man slowly stepped through the tall grass, his hands staying in his pockets of course. “Hey,” he started as his warm palm gripped your right shoulder, “Answer me.” His tone became serious, but if you squint, you can see the worry in it. The sound of your silence was so damn loud.

Sukuna jerked your shoulder, revealing your heartbroken expression to his red pupils. You leaned your head downwards, feeling embarrassed that he had to see you like this, but who else could you have gone to? “Yu-Yuji told me y-ou,” you hickuped while trying to speek, trying to hold back your tears from him, “He t-told me you… think about me.” Your tears looked like melting diamonds as they fell from under your locks and into the moonlight.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=3qrKjywjo7Q

(For those that want to feel the moment.)

He didn’t know what to feel, nor what to do, until you muttered out, “I’m sorry…”

In that moment, you felt your knees go weak. Your legs gave out, making you fall into the grass. Sukuna quickly grabbed your waist, falling into the grass with you as your cushion. He nuzzled his tattooed face against your puffy cheeks while whispering, “Show me what happened.”

You lifted a hand, cupping his jawline to open communication into his nervous system. Through the line, you showed him the memories you saw and how they hurt you. Sukuna couldn’t have been less fazed, seeing as he is the king of curses and was a mass murderer. But when he saw the expression you made when ripping your hand away from the boy, his spirit felt like a nail went through the center of it.

He sighed, moving loose hairs from your forehead so he could have a full look at your bloodshot eyes. Your e/c orbs told him how drained you were beginning to feel from the mortal world. He cooed, “I wish I wasn’t trapped in this brat. I would destroy the entire world for you, Y/n… You wouldn’t have to deal with any shitty pains like this.”

Sukuna hated everyone, except you. As the saying goes, Heroes would sacrifice you for the world, while villains would sacrifice the world for you. He enjoys telling himself the lie of “Y/n got on my good side”, but Sukuna always knew the truth of why he couldn’t help but care for you so much: You changed him. Out of billions of people just on this planet alone, you were the one to take his heart, mind, and philosophy and then mold it.

Killing was killing to Sukuna, and that’s all there was to it. But he found his goals shifting when he meant you. The insanity that filled your eyes as you’d hold a fresh blade against the neck of your enemies. Human or curse, it didn’t matter to you. Bad was bad, good was good; things were black and white to you as they were to him, but in a different manner. Your bravery was another factor to his care for you. The fact that you went unarmed into Yuji’s mind after he ate the finger just to get a view of Sukuna’s throne without any care for consequences was such a curious thing to him.

You both saw things the same way, yet not. The complexity of your careless philosophy was something to applaud in his eyes. But as you lay in your despair, Sukuna is grimly reminded you are still a human that must endure the torture that is a fleeting life. He wanted you to be a curse like him, enjoying the comfort of eternity in a paradise he could build for just the two of you.

But in the end, you were just a human. And although it sounds like something he is absolutely disgusted by, it’s not. If anything, the fact you are just a human girl catches him off guard even more. A human girl managed to move a god’s heart. A human girl somehow has the power to see people’s pain and was never moved until many years later. Sukuna didn’t know if he should have been happy or terrified to find someone like you.

His thoughts were cut off by the sound of your silent sobs, making him close his eyes in uneasiness. It took him a few minutes, but he soon realized what he could do to relieve your pains. He saw what you saw and felt what you felt, therefore he knew just how helpless and weak you were feeling. To him, you werent weak at all, and he needs you to see that.

“Y/n.”

Your crystalized eyes looked to his blood-colored ones.

“Let me show you what I see.” His voice was soft, yet still had a rugged tone to it.

He pulled you upwards, making you sit up across from him while waving grass continued to surround the two of you. Leaning into you, his forehead leaned on yours as you snaked a hand across his palm, entangling your wrist with his fingers. The hand you were snaking tightly gripped at your forearm before you gripped onto his. Using this technique is a more intimate way of opening a line of communication. Both of your eyes closed to open it completely.

In Sukuna’s memories, you view things how he views them and see things through his mindset. It felt like a wave of ease flow throughout your body as you became comforted in the way he sees you. Most of the moments you saw were when you would smile, fight, or annoy Sukuna in general. Which, by the way, you were the only person who could ever taunt Sukuna and live to see the sun rise.

When your eyes fluttered open, he felt your lashes against his skin. This prompted him to open his eyes as well, and he found a pleasant surprise upon opening them. “What?” You questioned with a hint of sass, feeling your tears dry as your aching mind became soothed. Sukuna smirked, enjoying seeing a temporary tint of red over your normally e/c orbs.

Usually, your eyes don’t change colors after a connection, so it struck him as pleasant while it lasted, “Nothing, you are just a giant ass baby.”

“Oh shut the fuck up. You are the same person who got mad and came out when I ate a croissant that was meant for yuji!”

“I can taste whatever this brat eats, you realize that right? Those butter ones are tasty…”

Your eyes reverted back to their normal state as you bickered with your partner in the moonlight lit field. While back in the physical world, Yuji was snoring away on your bed in a very unflattering position. Although you don’t get to see Sukuna in the physical world, you still find comfort in feeling his soul In the spiritual world.

⥈⥈⥈⥈⥈⥈⥈⥈⥈⥈⥈⥈⥈⥈

My request are open. <3

Edit: on my god thank you guys to much. ❤️❤️ I’m getting so many requests! I’ll start working on them when I get home from work today. They will be posted within 2-3 days because these requests are actually pretty good ones that are really long 😂. But my requests are still open so don’t be afraid to submit something!

#anime #jjk sukuna ryomen #jjk ryomen sukuna #jjk #jujutsu sorcerer #jujutsu kaisen #Sukuna #sukuna x you #sukuna x reader #yuji #yuji itadori #fanficton #romance

144 notes · View notes

dinner-djarin · 4 years ago

Text

dar'manda (Mando x f!reader)

Chapter 1: The Only Way Out is Through

Summary: Things have been quiet since The Mandalorian's disappearing act on Nevarro. However, things change quickly at his sudden return, and the changes are sure to impact your own life. That is, if you don't screw it up for yourself.

Warnings: Canon typical violence, yearning/awkward flirting/reader doesn’t know how to act around Mando, Cara Dune lol (I feel like she needs a warning)

Word Count: 3.8k

Prologue - Next

In the weeks that the Mandalorian had been gone, things on Nevarro had taken a turn for the worse. Ever since making his grand escape, remaining Imperial officers seemed to get word of a Mandalorian bounty hunter gone rogue. He took some sort of “package” right out of their hands, and they really didn’t like that. So, they sent out every bounty hunter idiotic enough to go after a Mandalorian. And to double their efforts, they effectively made Nevarro their new base.

Well, that probably wasn’t exactly accurate, but either way it seemed like every stormtrooper left was sent to keep watch in case their prize ever returned.

You could not imagine that anyone would be stupid enough to come back to the place where they so flagrantly disregarded every rule of the Guild, and yet – there he was. Walking into town at the side of his...former boss. As he approached however, you noticed he probably wasn't there by choice. His hands were bound in front of him, and a muscley looking woman, with a very large gun, was not too far behind them. Well then, you think to yourself, I guess no one crosses the Guild, not even Mando.

Just as they enter town you being to consider the precarity of your own situation. With the town being occupied by stormtroopers, times are tough. Curfews have been put in place and wandering through town is highly discouraged. The marketplace has turned into a ghost town as people have become less and less inclined to spend time outside of their homes. They might come by for the basics, but business is definitely not what it used to be. So, you often find yourself with “free time” – moments you should realistically be working – where you instead spy on the invaders who have ruined your already unpleasant life. Basically, the exact thing you were doing in that very moment.

It's a matter of fate that he showed up just as you made your way to the town entrance. Even more so when you overhear a conversation between the Guild leader and the Mandalorians captor.

“Things got really heated once Mando crashed the safehouse” you hear the Guild leader say.

“Slip him his blaster” whispers the woman. These words bring you utter confusion. Did she mean slip Mando his blaster?

“Not yet,” he says under his breath.

And suddenly you are more confused than before. Why would she say something like that? How did any of this make sense? You’re thankful you were not seen as they pass by you, but you think you perceive a subtle change in the reflection from the shiny metal helmet that your eyes have been locked on to. His gaze fell to the metal orb that was trailing the trio through the city centre. When he looked back up however, he did not return his gaze to the direction he had been looking previously. Now you think, and you know it’s completely self-centred of you to do so, but you feel like he is staring straight at you. You don't think he would be able to see into the shadows that were providing your cover, but something about the angle of his visor as he walks by sends a shiver down your spine.

The three of them and the metal orb enter the cantina and you adjust your position in attempt for a better view. Only a few minutes later does a blaster shot eviscerate the long transparisteel window on the front wall of the building, allowing you a glimpse of the chaos inside. A plethora of various blaster bolts ricochet through the building, evidence that the situation was drastically more complicated than you initially observed. However, the next events prove that things could still get worse for the group inside.

From the safety of your hiding spot, you see the scene unfold. The entire courtyard of the village is filled with stormtroopers in seconds, and then you hear it. The unmistakable screech that has haunted you since you were young. A sound that would forever be branded into your head, as it signaled the end of your childhood. The last time you heard that sound was the last time you saw your father and brother.

The Tie Fighter lands right in front of the cantina, completely blocking your view of any further events. You take that as your sign to get the hell out of there, knowing the level of destruction that is sure to follow. Even with the high amount of adrenaline pumping through your veins, you manage to keep a level head and find your way back to the marketplace, where most other citizens are gathered.

You quickly alert everyone to the impending danger nearby, and although some are slow to react, they begin to gather their belongings and search for safety.

Luckily, you recall a nearby alley that would lead to the part of town furthest away from the calamity, and you tell them all to make their way there immediately. Once you were sure that no one was left behind you head towards the alley only for an explosion to go off somewhere near the cantina. And although the source of the blast is far enough away not to injure you, the shockwave ripples through a one of the buildings, whose integrity was already questionable, causing it to crumble and block your previously secure exit route. With your mind in panic mode, you glance over to a spot which had caught your eye a hundred times before, a spot you kept noticing the Mandalorian disappear to.

You quickly run for cover hoping no other buildings decide to fall apart in the meantime, and you find the passageway was actually concealing a staircase which led to the sewers. Unsure of where to go next, your adrenaline high mind keeps you moving fast, taking random turns, having no understanding of where the tunnels lead to and where the safest exit may be. It wasn't until you rapidly took a corner and ran straight into an armoured chest plate that your mind stopped running wild.

A few second too late you realize it wasn’t the armour you would have hoped to see. The Mandalorians captor stands in front of you, with a package wrapped in her arms. Beside her is the Guild leader. You stand there dumbstruck and panting, unsure of what move to make.

The Guild leader approaches you, but you recoil, stepping back.

“What did you do to him?” is all you can think to growl at them.

“He’s just sleeping.” She attempts to assure you, “Wait how do you know the kid?” the woman asks, evidently confused by your accusation.

“What kid? No, the Mandalorian. You captured him. I saw you two walk in to town with him handcuffed”

“Young lady, I think you are confused. Please allow me to explain our situation.” the leader states, taking another step closer to you. This time you stand your ground, making clear you want answers.

He explains his name is Greef Karga, and the woman is Cara Dune, an ex-rebel shock trooper. And despite walking into town with Mando handcuffed by their sides, they were actually all in on the plan together. However, it seems that once they got inside things went south, a habit Mando seemed to be making for himself. It turns out that this elaborate scheme was set in place in an attempt to save a tiny green baby from the Empire, which now rests in the woman’s – Cara’s – arms.

You have no idea what to think. There's no way any of this can be true. Although, you then recall the conversation you overheard as they entered the town, and everything else seems to line up with your own experiences of the past hour.

You also realize that the Child must be the reason Mando went rogue in the first place. And after sneaking a peak at his resting wrinkly face, you completely understand why. After only one look, you’d probably jump in front of speeder for that little guy.

But before you can make up your mind on whether to believe Karga or not, Mando rounds the corner being supported by a very tall, very thin droid that you recognize to be an IG unit. As they approach, Cara hands off the baby to the droid and attempts to support Mando, and for some maker-forsaken reason you decide to help too. As you slide your arm under Mando’s shoulder and rest your hand on his back you feel him tense – you know you’ve made a mistake. But it’s too late to turn back now, so you carry some of his weight and continue on down the ominous path. The only way out, is through.

Your mind is running at 100 parsecs per hour. This is the closest, physically, you’ve been to anyone in years, and if that weren't enough you seem to be in the middle of both your wildest dream and worst nightmare. You can’t remember the last time you were tucked under someone's arm, and pressed up against them so tightly, if you ever were. And in your panicked state you start to realize you’ve basically been holding your breath this whole time, making your heart beat erratically and your head throb. But just as you think you might pass out from your stupidity, the Mandalorians voice shakes you back to reality.

“Stop.” His word sends you into a new panic. Were you thinking out loud? Could he read your heartbeat through his helmet? Did he know what a complete mess you were at his touch? “I can stand,” he says, finishing his thought.

Oh thank the gods.

He lets go of you and switches something in his helmet to look for tracks, and you allow yourself to finally take a deep breath.

“We’re close,” he states. After a moment of stabilizing your heartbeat and focussing on your breath900, you quicken your pace, subtly placing yourself just behind Mando’s left shoulder as he leads the group through the tunnel. You’re close enough to catch when he mumbles, “I know you.”

“And I know you,” you respond playfully, disregarding the severity of the situation you’ve found yourself in. You’re not quite sure how Mando’s mere presence can affect you so brutally, to the point of forgetting how to act like a normal human being.

“From the market.” He doesn’t ask.

“That’s me, good to see you in one piece. I was worried when I heard about the stunt you pulled. Crossing the guild...not sure I've ever heard of anyone getting away with that.” Oh man why are you talking so much. You just need to shut up now. Literally no one wants to hear-

“Worried?” a hint of genuine curiosity hidden in his question. Well of course he found the one word in your entire sentence that incriminates you. There’s no way he doesn’t know about your crush now.

“Umm well of course, I think everyone was. It’s all anyone could talk about for weeks. Nothing that exciting has happened around here in a while,” you quickly blurt out. He turns his head for a moment and examines you.

He is silent, evidently noticing the way you awkwardly avoided his question. You stare at him trying with every muscle in your face to remain composed. You know he sees right through you – must be that bullshit reader – but you think if you maintain eye contact long enough, he’ll just move on from your stupidity. And he does.

“How did you get here?” He returns to his task of following footprints. The question and abrupt change in topic jars you, although if you had to guess, you think he must have picked up on your complete awkwardness, possibly confusing it for suspicious behaviour. You hope he doesn’t think you untrustworthy because if it.

“There were explosions, and I tried to help everyone out, but the path became blocked and the only way out was some curtain hiding a staircase.” Your explanation, you realize, now sounds completely ridiculous, especially in the flustered manner you are depicting it in. Even so, you continue, “I went to hide but it turns out it led straight down here. So, I tried to find an exit, but I bumped into them instead,” you finish, glancing behind you towards Cara and Karga.

“If you came in from the market you should have passed the covert,” Mando stated almost accusingly, increasing your worry over whether he thought trusted your story.

“I’m not sure I didn’t really see any-” but his question is immediately answered by the pile of discarded Mandalorian armour in front of you.

The Mandalorian stops, and you can see just how suddenly his body language changed. Even injured, he looked deadly as he led you through the tunnels, but at the sight of the remnants of his clan, he is weak. You can feel the sadness, remorse, and pain emanating from him all at once. And as you stand beside him you barely realize you’ve gently reached for his hand, gripping it tight and squeezing it to convey your condolence for his immense loss.

But after a moment, he moved forward and away from your grasp to kneel at the sight of his fallen brethren. Cara suggests the group leave, but he won’t. He will not leave the armour in its discarded state.

Suddenly, the mood shifts, and you see the Mandalorian transform before your eyes. He storms towards Karga, accusing that he and the Guild members must be responsible. Karga denies, but you think Mando might be on the verge of strangling him when suddenly another modulated voice fills the tunnel.

A golden warrior stands before you. Her presence shocks you. It reveals some element rooted deep, a feeling you can only describe as warm… or familiar? She explains, as she gathers the scattered armour, how revealing the covert brought the presence of Imperials. When Mando offers her to join him, she rejects, maintaining that her place is to gather the remains of her people.

You all follow her into a small room with a forge in the centre of it. “Show me the one who’s safety deemed such destruction,” she demands.

“This is the one,” Mando responds. Gesturing to the baby that was wrapped tight to the IG unit’s chest.

“This is the one that you hunted, then saved?” she asks.

“Yes. The one that saved me as well.” And with that statement you find both an answer, and more questions. That baby saved him? How the-

“From the mudhorn?” she asks.

“Yes.” he responds, making you even more confused than ever. The baby saved him from a mudhorn?

“It looks helpless” she states.

“It’s injured, but it is not helpless. Its species can move objects with its mind.” As if this conversation could get any weirder. Move objects...with its MIND.

The Armourer begins to detail battles between Mandalore the Great and some species of wizards; the species this child belongs to. She also tells Mando that he is now responsible for the baby – his foundling. And finally, she tasks him with finding these sorcerers and returning the baby to them. When Mando questions the outrageous turn of events the woman has only four words in response:

“This is the Way.” Suddenly that warm comfort you felt before resurges, but only for a moment, as Cara reminds the group of the urgency of their situation. You need to find a way out before Imperials catch your tracks. The Armourer then suggests the group find a river of lava that will lead all of you out of the tunnels. Right…

River of lava, or Imperial Troopers. What the heck did you get yourself into? Either way it seems you don’t have much of a choice. After receiving a mudhorn signet on his pauldron, the Armourer pronounces that he and the child are bound as father and son; a clan of two. Cute little family they’ll make. When the droid gets ready to defend the group from incoming Imps, it hands Cara the child who looks very uncomfortable with it, so she passes him to you.

Stunned and confused you look to the Mandalorian who shows no sign of discomfort with you holding his now adopted son, not that you’d probably be able to tell. Either way, it seems you’ve acquired a new responsibility.

Blaster fire rings just outside the room as the woman hands Mando some flying contraption, and your group decides you might need to get a move on.

You approach the lava river, only to notice the boat has melted to the docking point. Karga and Mando struggle to free it, but Cara just gives you a smug look. “You boys mind getting out of the way?” she warns only to blast the points where the boat was attached, successfully freeing it from its molten chains.

The boat quickly begins to drift from the dock, but just as you start to lift your foot over the edge to make your way inside, you feel a strong hand against your lower back, guiding you the rest of the way. Once you steady yourself on the boat you glance up at the visor which is pinned straight ahead, unwavering and unwilling to meet your gaze. His seemingly disinterested reaction makes you anxious to know the true intention of his touch. He must just realize your safety is attached to the bundle you are currently cradling against your chest. Obviously, he is only looking out for the child, you just happen to be the person responsible for his transportation. If Cara were the one holding his son, he’d probably be helping her instead. Right? Simple as that.

Even so, you can't help but notice the way his hand flexes after it returns to his side.

For just a moment your mind slips, and you let yourself think that there might be something there. That the short conversations and fleeting looks shared all those weeks ago might have held more weight than you believed. That when you were admiring his head-to-toe armor upgrade, he may have been examining you back. That he might have actually liked the fact that you worried about him in his absence. You allow yourself to think that underneath that metal, stands a man who might be gentle, and kind. A man who helps you into a boat when he himself is injured. One who is willing to leave behind everything he knows in order to ensure the security of a child.

You snap back to reality, however, when Karga notices the light at the end of the tunnel. But just when you think that your journey is almost over, Mando informs you otherwise. A battalion of stormtroopers line the edges of your only exit route. No one in your group can come up with any satisfactory solution, until the IG unit comes forward.

“They will not be satisfied with anything less than the child. This is unacceptable. I will eliminate them, and you will escape.”

Mando is quick to point out that the droid would never make it past the troopers, but the droid insists. Apparently, his manufacturer's protocol dictates that he cannot be captured and must self-destruct. He asks that Mando look over the Child once he is gone, and you swear you can hear a hint of sadness through his filtered voice. Your hypothesis is confirmed by the IG unit, and your heart warms slightly for the metal man. The droid reaches over to say goodbye to the child for the last time, patting him gently on the head, then steps into the lava river and heads down towards the mouth of the cave. You all stare silently as you watch him approach the troopers when suddenly-

Fire consumes your vision, and it overwhelms your senses. Not having actually seen an explosion in your life you seem to be the only one on the boat who is at all fazed by the sudden wall of heat and deafening boom created by IG-11’s sacrifice. In the process you cover the child with your body and wince back into the hard wall behind you. Cradling the child and shielding yourself, you almost don’t notice when the wall grabs your hip and steadies you in front of it.

Suddenly, you’re flushed with embarrassment, realizing all at once the wall was the Mandalorian and both of his hands were still gripped onto you, holding you tight against his chest plate.

But your shock only lasts a moment before the unsettling screech of a Tie Fighter pierced your ears for the second time that day. And before you could process, the Mandalorian was using his body as a shield, protecting you and the child from the blasts, and simultaneously shooting at the new threat barreling towards your group.

Will this day ever end, is the only thought in your head before Mando is flying through the air using the jetpack given to him by the Armourer only minutes ago. However, you distinctly remember her saying he would need time to get used to it before it would ‘listen to his commands’. Nevertheless, he jerks through the sky in a desperate attempt to bring the Tie down.

You watch as one of the wings are ripped off by an explosion and the tie crashes to the ground. The Mandalorian lets go just in time and falls quickly towards the ground, igniting his jetpack at the last second to make a rough landing right in front of you.

The child squirms in your arms at the first sign of peace so you set him down gently. He awkwardly runs over to Mando and hugs his leg, creating possibly the cutest sight you had ever seen. Again, your heart can’t help but melt for the new little family, and you wonder how these two are going to get by. A child with magical powers, and a father who’s built to kill. Not a pairing you would bet on.

Cara and Karga then try to convince Mando to stay on Nevarro and help the both of them sort out the aftermath of today's events. But the Mandalorian insists on sticking to his mission. The child is now his first priority and finding a group of near-extinct ancient sorcerers does not sound like easy work.

“We have a long road ahead of us, but the journey is necessary. I must return him to his kind, no matter how long it takes.” You hear him reason with the pair, refusing their kind offers to remain on the planet with them.

If you know one thing about the Mandalorian it's that everything he does is completely intentional. No one could force Mando into something he doesn’t want to do. If he is sure of this path, he will follow it through till the end.

And from your short interactions, you know he spends time forming his thoughts in order to get his point across. Each sentence is carefully crafted so that they are clear and concise. You know he means every word.

Maybe that's why the next words out of his mouth come as a complete shock to you.

“Would you like to join us?” he asks directly to you.

What the kriffing heck did he just say? You're so taken aback that you embarrassingly bark out your response, your brain evidently getting no time to process the question, so instead if vomits out the first word it can think of: “No”.

You follow it with polite ‘thank you’s’, hoping to erase the awkward tension in the air, and the Mandalorian jetpacks off with the child leaving you to dwell on your utter stupidity.

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

Chapter 2

Notes: Honestly, I hate this chapter too wow. I really spent so long trying to edit this into something I could bare to publish, but I still really hate it. I did not want to write a chapter like this, but I also needed a way to put the reader into the story and the only way I could think to do that was by using an existing episode. So here we are. But I SWEAR, after this it gets good. Like not only does the story get good, but so does my own writing (relatively) so if you just bare through this, I think you’ll enjoy the rest.

Taglist: @peppywitch @tobealostwanderer @thecraftyartist

If you wanna be included in the tag list let me know! The next parts are gonna get great. I hope

#mando x reader #mando x you #the mandalorian #din djarin #din djarin x reader #mandalorian fanfic #mando fanfiction #pedro pascal #mando #din #the mandalorian season 1 #the mandalorian x reader #the mandalorian x you #din djarin x you

64 notes · View notes

ripples-of-thought · 3 years ago

Text

Abortion in 1987

My junior year in high school I met a young man from a rival school during a New Year's Eve lock-in at a roller-skating rink. This is about what happened about 8 months later, just before my senior year.

Since I had a steady boyfriend, I started on "The Pill". My mother knew I was having sex with him and supported my decision to use birth control. At the time I was not living with her, so I went to Planned Parenthood. Although I could not have afforded them full price, PP allowed me to purchase them on a sliding scale. It worked well for months; however, as time passed I started to get a little sloppy about taking my pill on time every day. Some nights I'd forget altogether, and the next morning I'd swallow the previous night's pill with a prayer that this one time wouldn't be the one that got me pregnant. One month at the end of the summer, my period didn't show.

I was anxious about getting pregnant, so I got a home pregnancy test as soon as I was a week late. The next morning, I peed on the stick. One line was negative, two lines... yes, the two lines right there on the stick... that meant positive. I was pregnant. I told my boyfriend, the one I was "in love" with. He meant the world to me, and would be my rock. Since my menses were normally very regular, I was pretty sure there was no mistake, but before being able to do anything, I would need a doctor's confirmation anyway. Back to Planned Parenthood I went, where they were able to verify the results, again at a price even a high school student in the 'burbs could afford.

The fact that this doctor's visit, and the potentially life-changing nature of it, seemed so routine that, years after, I've nearly forgotten it, is a testament to the professionalism of the care I received at that clinic. Everything was calm that day. The anxiety of deliberation all came afterward.

I told my parents. Being a pregnant teenager is scary, but I had two parents who loved me, and a mother who told me she'd support whatever decision I made.

She very much wanted me to be able to follow my own heart and mind about this, and I admire and appreciate that. I knew the history of abortion in the USA, had seen Dirty Dancing, I knew other times and other families had provided neither the freedom nor support that mine did. I was, and am, grateful for that.

But to no fault of theirs, I was not able to freely choose what to do with my body - whether to use it to continue growing this other human, or have the procedure that would end my pregnancy. My choice was smashed to pieces by my "rock".

For, while I was weighing the options - whether my family, my education and means, had room for an infant at this time... whether I was strong enough to carry a baby to term only to give it up to an adoptive family to care for it beyond my ability... whether to terminate the pregnancy and carry on with life's plans (such as they were) as if I'd never been pregnant... my boyfriend was thinking about his future career in the military.

His only ambition his entire life was to be part of an elite military unit such as the US Special Forces (the Green Berets) or what he saw as their modern equivalent, the Airborne Infantry. He was already a career Boy Scout, and an Eagle Scout, something he took great pride in. He'd talked to recruiters and was ready to enlist as soon as he graduated. And he saw my pregnancy as a threat to that.

At least, that's what he told me. I really can't understand his reasoning now... and I'm not sure I even seriously questioned it then. When I told him that I was considering adoption instead of abortion, he refused to even consider it. He couldn't stand the thought of "his" child being "somewhere out there" ...raised by someone else. He told me that if I did not have an abortion, I would never see him again.

There's a lot of hurt behind that statement... hurt that actually has nothing to do with him. Because while he had plans for a career after high school, I did not. I had vague ideas about what I wanted to do... I wanted to be artistic. I wanted to paint and write... but beyond that... I had no idea. I certainly didn't have plans for university... I didn't have the money to pay for it myself and I didn't have the grades or extra-curricular activities to get me a scholarship.

I knew I wasn't cut out for the military. I lacked the discipline and the physical fitness for that kind of life, whatever the film STRIPES made it out to be. So that left ...what? Becoming someone's domestic help? Being a grocery checkout clerk? Becoming a ...housewife? And with graduation looming ahead, I knew my days as a carefree teen were numbered. My mother had said so, jokingly, a few years before. I took it way too literally and way too personally. Mom had quipped about my dad's brother living in his parents' house in his 30's... "When you turn 18, you're on your own, kiddo." She didn't mean it. Hell, she wasn't even really talking about me at all! It was about her ex-brother-in-law, but I didn't realize that at 14 and I didn't realize it at 17. And so it went until that day... My self-esteem defining me through my romantic partnerships, never as the hero of my own story. So when he said my pregnancy threatened his future, and said he'd walk if I didn't terminate, I saw my future, the only future I could envision, endangered. I saw this pregnancy as a threat to the marriage I expected and all the children he and I might have in the future.

When I told my mom about my decision to terminate, I didn't tell her why. She took it calmly, but told me years later that she had been hoping I would choose differently. She offered to be there for me, she paid for part of it, and my boyfriend paid the rest. She drove me there and took me home after.

The Planned Parenthood in Beaverton did not perform abortions, and they referred me to a clinic in Northwest Portland, close to downtown. I had to make one appointment for "counseling" in which I had to lie and say that nobody was forcing me to get an abortion, and then I could set the appointment for the procedure.

I suppose that, in my mind, it wasn't really a lie. If I had been a stronger personality at the time, I could have refused to abort the pregnancy and sued him for child support... I never think about this event without a list of "what-ifs" as long as my arm.

I remember it as quiet, clean, with a neutral palette. I don't remember any of the other young women. It was the most normal thing really... just a trip to the doctor... just an "outpatient procedure". The table, the stirrups, the speculum... just like any gynecological visit I'd ever been to. I didn't pay much attention to the aspirator (the machine that provides the suction) and just focused on breathing slowly and staying relaxed. I was given local anesthetic and it was over very quickly.

I remember waiting in the recovery room for my mom to take me home, and I was relieved that it was over with. I was sorry that I had felt the need to do it, and I remember even apologizing to the fetus. I had already started believing in reincarnation as a teenager, and hoped that in the future, the same spirit might grow within another body that mine would build, when I was ready to have children. This was just not that time.

What followed the next week was pretty much what I usually went through during my period. Cramps, bleeding, and then... life went on.

I do want to write about that arms-length list of "what-ifs"... but this post, this blog, is not about what could have happened. It's about what did happen. And what did happen was not nearly as traumatic as some would have you expect.

It didn't result in any more depression than I was already experiencing due to undiagnosed chronic conditions. It's far more truthful to say that my depression led to needing an abortion than that my abortion caused depression.

I was not wracked with guilt afterward... although years later when I went through a Christian conversion experience I did feel a sort of guilt about not feeling guilty...

One out of four women in the USA have an abortion at some point in their lives. The reasons they list for having one are usually complex, involving multiple facets of their life; most often some intersection of emotional and financial stability. My story is not rare. It's common. It's normal.

It's okay.

For more information about the effect of unwanted pregnancy and abortion on the women who experience it, I recommend reading The Turnaway Study.

#abortion #reproductive rights #teen pregnancy #sexuality #reproductive health #gender equality #reproductive freedom #right to life #pro life #pro choice

7 notes · View notes

hidiingplace · 3 years ago

Text

TODD HEADCANON + PARENTAL FIGURES.

general. Todd has a variety of parental figures in his life. Many of which are no longer in his life, but have made a huge impact on him... mostly in the worst of ways. Todd in general has a very wary relationship with parents, but he is partial to his scepticism of mothers in particular. here’s why. (PS SORRY IT’S SO LONG.)

celine. She was Todd’s adoptive mother. She began as his foster mother when he was first given up for adoption at the very young age of 18 months. before this time, Todd suffered intense neglect, but he does not know that until much later in his life when he meets his maternal grandmother. Celine took Todd in and raised him up in her house hold as a single mother. She was quite wealthy, and just before Todd’s 4th birthday, she officially adopted him before moving to Paris with him to further her career in high fashion. Despite adopting him, she never changed his last name to her own. After the adoption, Todd’s personality became far more boisterous as he became comfortable with Celine as his mother and was becoming a growing young kid. He was made of trouble, and was considered to be a very exhausting, unpredictable, volatile little kid who had terrible separation anxiety, strange eating habits, and was just over all very difficult. Celine grows angry and eventually decides that Todd is not worth the effort. Despite adopting him, she leaves Todd at the edge of a farm in the France country side when he is 6 years old. Todd has very few memories of Celine, and most are shrouded with her disappointment, annoyance, and blatant abandonment.

1st foster family. Todd’s first foster family was an okay foster home, but it wasn’t great. The family wasn’t wealthy, and were the type of people who took children in in order to collect the checks from the government. It resulted in an overcrowded, under-maintained household in which the foster mother and foster father would often express their frustration towards the children. They were known for putting locks on doors to keep children locked up and quiet, making them share clothing, making them share beds. violence between children was not uncommon in this home, and more often than not the foster father would ignore it entirely, while the foster mother seemed to try a little harder. Todd went hungry a lot, and because of his smaller size, red hair, and freckles, was often teased brutally.

2nd foster home. after his first foster-home was shut down due to complaints, Todd moved on to another foster home that appeared much better. It was. Todd had clean clothes, a nice bed to sleep on, and was well cared for by a single foster mother. She was a woman who loved her biological children and who they had turned into, and wanted to have another child around to rear. However, the older siblings were not so kind and often abused Todd. When Todd fought back and defended himself, the foster mother would always blame Todd for being the ‘bad kid’ and often disciplined him but never the older siblings. While this foster mother appeared to care deeply for Todd and provide him lots of affection and attention, it was always a double edged sword. Todd’s behaviour eventually became very aggressive when he started to try and express his frustrations without knowing how to. He would break things, throw things, have tantrums, and yell at his foster mother for being unfair. It got so bad that at only the age of 7, Todd was checked into a group home for troubled kids.

1st group home. Todd was put into this group home as the youngest kid there. The conditions weren’t great when it came to care for the children, and acted more like a prison than anything else. The rooms had locks on them, the windows had bars on them, you had scheduled play time, scheduled amounts of chores, scheduled visits with friends. It was far too much structure for a child who had never experienced stability and structure. At only 7 he wasn’t able to handle it. The group home was run by two woman who often played on this role of ‘good cop and bad cop’ with the kids. They were never consistent, and often the children had no idea when they were the good guys or the bad guys. Todd was routinely punished. While he was never physically struct in this home, he was routinely restrained, locked in his room, forced to skip meals, given extra chores, and labeled as the kid who was easy to blame when things were stolen. Todd only remains at this group home for 4 months after he lashes out violently and pushes one of his fellow group-home kids down the stairs in a fit of rage.

2nd group home. This would be Todd’s worst group home, and his last. The conditions were similar to his first group home, but it was run by a woman who was far more strict and cruel than the other group home he had been at; at least the other woman were nice sometimes. While much of the rules were the same as before, violence was used on children who wouldn’t behave properly. Yelling, screaming, emotional abuse were the most common. Threats of violence were always used before actual violence, but it wasn’t uncommon to wake up to screaming fights between the kids in the group home or even the kids and the caretaker going at it. Todd was once again labeled the violent trouble maker and the thief. He often stole food, toys, clothes. He lied a lot, and about everything. He was able to start fights between two people without even throwing a punch or getting directly involved just by manipulating people the way he had seen previous caretakers and foster-siblings do. He was aggressive with other children as well, and the fellow group home kids made jokes that Todd was going to grow up to be a murderer all the time. Todd eventually leaves this group home by slowly filing the bars off his window and slipping out in the middle of the night.

avery rebane. Todd’s biological mother is technically the first mother he ever had. She raised him until he was 18 months old before giving him up for adoption after discovering that having a child and caring for it wasn’t fun after you couldn’t use him to manipulate your family members into giving you money any more. After giving him up for adoption, Avery spends the next 17 years using and manipulating, as well as abusing her romantic partners for her own gains (including her ex, Joey Hamilton, who she kept Todd’s birth a secret from while Joey was sobering up). When Todd officially turns 18, she quickly looks him up and is able to track him down as living in Paris. With the hope of using him for money (assuming that he was still raised by someone wealthy), she flies to Paris on the credit card she stole from her mother and ‘reconnects’ with Todd. Todd is just excited to have a seemingly good parental figure in his life. Avery tells Todd that giving him up was the worst mistake of her life and that she wants to live with him here in Paris and build a relationship. She manipulates Todd so friecely and with such boldness that he doesn’t even see it. Todd jumps at the chance to have someone in his life care for him like this. It isn’t until his girlfriend at the time informs Todd that she’s done some digging on Avery that Avery’s story beings to fall apart. It’s then that Todd tracks down his maternal grandmother to get some information on Avery, and what he learns shatters him. After his grandmother tells him the full story, Todd cuts Avery from his life and decides to move to Canada to be with his grandmother. Avery STILL routinely harasses both Todd and Joey for a variety of reasons, and Todd has an anger for Avery that is unparalleled. Both Todd and Joey have a restraining order on Avery, which he actively ignores. She’s a long-term drug addict and many of her rage fits and incidents happen when she is experiencing withdrawals and is desperate to get money for her addiction.

grandma faye. Todd’s connection with his grandmother is instant. When he speaks to her on the phone regarding Avery, she bursts into tears. She reveals to him that Avery used and abused him when he was first born, and that more often than not, Faye was taking care of him for those 18 months until Avery gave him up for adoption without telling her. She warns him of Avery’s habits, and Todd believes her. After moving to Canada, he quickly moves in with her and helps her. She’s dying, so he spends as much time with her as he can. He learns about his maternal grandfather who has passed away 5 years ago, and learns that his grandmother actually knows who Todd’s father is, but has kept it a secret all these years. A few weeks before she passes away, she gives Todd Joey’s name, but Todd decides at first that he doesn’t want to know the man. Todd becomes the benefactor of everything Grandma Faye owned (which wasn’t much), but it’s more money than he’s ever had in his life time. When his grandmother dies, he realizes its the first time he’s ever actually bonded with someone the way a child and parent should. It destroys him that she’s not around and in a last ditched effort to find that again he goes to Joey.

joey hamilton. Joey’s reaction to Todd is disbelief at first, and it isn’t until Todd begins to tell Joey the stories he heard from Grandma Faye that Joey begins to believe Todd is actually his son. The relationship is awkward at first, as Joey holds a lot of guilt over not being there for Todd. Todd keeps much of his past a secret from his father, not wanting to make the guilt worse. Eventually, Todd moves in with Joey after Todd helps settled his grandmother’s will and testament. They eventually become incredibly close and develop a real father-son relationship that Todd never imagined he would have. When his father starts dating Mickey, it only gets better.

step-mother. Mickey comes into Joey and Todd’s life about a year after Todd and Joey connect. Todd is actually very skeptical of Mickey at first. He doesn’t trust many people, and certainly not parental figures. She seems bubbly and kind, and actually reminds him at first of his second foster mother. However after a long few months of patience and Mickey simply being herself, Todd does a 180. After a certain breaking point where Avery returns to Joey and Todd’s life after hearing Joey has moved on to dating Mickey, Mickey proudly stands up for Joey and Todd in a way Todd has never experienced. Mickey defends them, and even goes as far as to call Todd her son rather than Avery’s. It’s this display that changes Todd’s mind about Mickey, and later that night she is actually the one who holds him while he gets tearful about not understanding why his biological mother was so awful to him and his father and didn’t want him. Mickey and Todd from that point on have a quickly bonded relationship. Todd will actually seek out comfort from Mickey before seeking it from Joey. He will also be more inclined to talk about his past and his emotions with Mickey than anyone else –– including his father, and step-sister.

#todd rebane ( general ).#todd rebane ( headcanon ).#abuse mention tw #foster care mention tw #neglect mention tw #drug addiction mention tw #violence mention tw

2 notes · View notes

razzle-zazzle · 5 years ago

Text

Don’t be Long, For the End is Near

Raised By Serpentine AU, Constrictai Tomb

3571 Words

Warning for mentions of death

<+><+><+><+><+><+><+>

When Skalidor was somewhere in his young teens, he met her. Asha, daughter of Shane, the current Master of Earth, and leader of the Constrictai and Tomb Dwellers alongside Krusch. She was no more than a child then, tireless and intrepid in her constant exploration of the tomb. It wasn’t long before she knew everyone, as small and closely-knit as the community was, and no sooner than that everyone knew her, and her bright smiles.

Skalidor could remember in detail what Asha had looked like when she had only just taken up the role of leader after her father’s passing. Standing there beside Krusch with a steady confidence that belied her inexperience, the nervousness that hid underneath her steadfast smile. They had talked then, as they often did, but about a very different topic.

Krusch, as strong as he was, was beginning to show signs of age, tiredness and arthritis seeping into his bones. He had asked Asha to pick his successor, having no children of his own.

Skalidor had recommended Sutara, citing her speed and wit. But Asha had smiled, and asked him to take up the position, as her friend.

Four months later, Skalidor was officially given the title of General.

The years after that were a bit muddied for Skalidor, the small details getting lost within the feeling of responsibility that had grown inside him as he gained experience.

But he remembered in almost perfect detail when Asha had introduced to him Lou, as if they had never met. Even though they had never talked before, Skalidor knew of Lou, had seen the poetry carved into the tunnel walls for all to see. He had talked to Lou’s parents about the boy’s tendency to go too far when spelunking in the unexplored caves, and he could clearly recall the vigor with which Lou participated in festivals and slither pits.

So when Asha, strong and steady Asha, dragged Lou, energetic but nervous, over to Skalidor to share the news, Skalidor wished them well.

While he never quite came to know Lou as well as he knew Asha, Skalidor could say with a certain sincerity that they had become friends. He’d express his concerns over disputes to Lou, the peppy young man offering the occasional piece of advice. And Lou, in turn, would come to Skalidor with his anxieties over his art, or whether he could ever be as good to Asha as she was to him. They’d discuss at length the songs passed down by their forefathers, the cave system that provided the tomb with food and extra space, and sometimes, when nearly everyone else in the tomb was at rest, they’d talk about family. Skalidor supposed he might one day find his partners; Lou was tightly bound to his. On some days, they never saw each other, too busy with their own duties to take the time to chat and catch up.

They were friends, and Skalidor never wanted that to change.

+=+=+=+=+

When Cole was born, Skalidor was in his early forties, still single, but happy all the same. It was a good year, the number of deaths hitting an all-time low and the harvest bringing in more food than usual; there had been a festival to celebrate. Asha had made her appearance, but had spent most of the night at home with her husband and son, leaving it up to Skalidor to oversee the event. The first chance he got he’d slithered off to Lou and Asha’s cavern, to see Cole with his own eyes now that the child was more than four weeks old.

“He’s… sso ssmall.” Skalidor commented, watching attentively as Lou rocked the child back and forth in his arms. He hadn’t been expecting Cole to be so small, it didn’t fit with the image of four-year-old Asha in his mind. “Are all infants this ssmall?”

Lou smiled, slowing down when he noticed Cole stirring. “Cole’s actually a bit big, Skal. He’ll probably grow to be taller than me.” Given the way Asha towered over Lou, Skalidor didn’t doubt that.

But was the size of a human infant comparable to the size of a freshly hatched Serpentine? Skalidor thought of the few Serpentine couplings he knew; none of them had had a clutch yet. Sutara and her lovers were expecting, but their clutch wouldn’t hatch for a while yet. Perhaps Skalidor could ask to watch the hatching? He didn’t have a coupling yet, but maybe one day… and it certainly couldn’t hurt to be prepared.

“You ever think you’ll have this?” Lou asked, breaking Skalidor from his musings.

“Have what?” Skalidor asked, already knowing the answer.

“You know.” Lou shrugged. “A family. Lovers. Children. You ever think you’ll have that, as old as you are now?” The jab at his age meant nothing to Skalidor, who would outlive Lou by decades, but it did get him thinking.

“I don’t really know��” Skalidor concluded, crossing his arms as he mused. “Nobody’s really caught my eye, and with how busy I’ve been managing everything, I don’t think I will.” He locked eyes with Lou, “There’s a reason the title of General isn’t hereditary.”

Lou laughed quietly, standing up to put Cole to bed. “I’m sure your someones are out there, Skal.”

“I would have met them already if they were, Lou.” Skalidor said, picking up his staff as he made his way to the entrance. “I’m just happy to see everyone else doing well.”

“Well,” Lou said, meeting Skalidor by the entrance, “Just don’t forget to take care of yourself, Skal.”

Skalidor nodded. “I won’t.”

Thoughts of family followed Skalidor all the way back to his cavern.

+=+=+=+=+

The next few years passed by uneventfully, save for the occasional death. The yearly harvests had been shrinking, but not so much as to cause fear.

Cole was growing more confident each day, going from crawling around the cavern to running through the tomb with the same abandon his mother once had, Lou chasing after him frantically in the hopes of catching the toddler before he got into trouble.

Skalidor had developed a fondness for the child, likely due to all the time he’d had to watch over Cole while Asha and Lou went off into the caverns for alone time. There weren’t many places for young couples to get away from the community, so it wasn’t uncommon to find young teens—both Serpentine and human—laughing and wandering the caves.

This time, Asha had left to ensure the stability of the tunnels after a recent earthquake, Lou accompanying her to look for signs she might miss. Which left Cole, a toddler with a tendency to get into trouble at a moment’s notice, in the care of Skalidor.

Honestly, Skalidor had faced more perplexing challenges. Cole wasn’t old enough to have met anyone in the community yet—a tradition that Asha had seriously been considering breaking, it didn’t make sense to isolate her child for so long—but Skalidor was more than capable of entertaining the toddler for a few hours, keeping Cole in place by setting him in the coils of his tail.

Cole was babbling, stacking the rocks Skalidor had given him and knocking them over with shrieks of laughter, so Skalidor had taken a moment to glance at this year’s census, absentmindedly noting that the harvest had been delayed again this year. It was then that Cole had chosen to go silent, prompting Skalidor to turn back to the toddler.

Cole was staring up at him, big brown eyes (Asha’s eyes, Skalidor thought) full of curiosity. Skalidor stared back, his tongue flicking in and out of his mouth out of habit.

Cole stuck his tongue out, as if in imitation of Skalidor. He did it again, and again, and suddenly Skalidor was chuckling, his tail shaking as Cole giggled in response.

“Uh!” Cole said, holding his arms out. Skalidor obliged, picking up the toddler and shaking him slightly, making Cole laugh.

Skalidor didn’t need a family; he already had one.

+=+=+=+=+

The prosperity surrounding Cole’s birth didn’t last. The harvests became fewer and further in between, reports of a blight coming in droves. Starvation had always been a worry in the tomb—they needed something more reliable than what they could find in the caves—but it had never been this bad. By the time Cole was four, eight humans and one serpentine had died from starvation—and the number of those who were malnourished was more than thrice that.

Serpentine didn’t need to eat as much as their human friends, meaning the blight impacted the humans the most. It was disheartening, watching friends and family suffer and not being able to do anything about it, but the community pulled through. They always did.

It all came to a head when Cole was six—Skalidor could remember, in near perfect detail, the apprehension on Lou and Asha’s face when they explained where they were going.

They were searching for another source of food, Asha had said. And if they were lucky, a way aboveground, where the sun shone and crops could grow and maybe things wouldn’t be as bad. It was a long shot, but they had hope. And so they went, down into the tunnels, far further than anyone had been before, promising to return with good news.

By the third day, Cole had grown restless in their absence, becoming moody and disagreeable no matter what Skalidor did.

By the seventh, the effects of their absence reached the community, tensions and anxiety rising as the lack of news made room for fear. Skalidor was called out to break up more than twelve disputes on the eighth day alone.

The community couldn’t continue like this, Skalidor decided. If Asha and Lou didn’t return before twenty days had passed, then he’d send out a search party to look for them.

It was on the thirteenth day. There had been a commotion in the central chamber, sending Skalidor slithering out to see it. When he got there, he stopped in his tracks.

Asha had returned.

Relief mixed with anxiety as Skalidor noted Lou’s absence, which quickly became dread when he saw Asha stumbling towards him, badly injured.

“Get a medic. Now!” Skalidor hissed, watching as Chokun ran off to grab one. Skalidor made his way through the crowd, repeatedly telling everyone to disperse, make way.

“Hey, Skal.” Asha said breathlessly, her face far too pale. Her shirt was stained with blood. “Had to come back early…” She trailed off, gazing at the floor. “Lou’s—he’s—” she choked out a sob, “The cave fell in. I couldn’t get him free in time. I—” Skalidor had put his arms on her shoulders to steady her, but Asha simply crumpled, shoulders shaking.

The crowd parted to let in Vera and Sutara, who quickly ushered Asha away to treat her wounds. She didn’t protest as she might have before the journey, letting them guide her through the tears blurring her eyes.

As she left, Skalidor felt something tighten in his chest. He should have done something, should have had them be accompanied by someone—anyone. This shouldn’t have happened. He should have done better.

What was he going to tell Cole?

+=+=+=+=+

The moment he was able, Skalidor rushed into the infirmary, Cole at his side, to see Asha. “Will she be alright?” he’d hissed, worry turning his tone hard. Sutara nodded, gesturing to the bed where Asha lay.

Cole was already at her side, crying quietly as he held her hand. Skalidor let out a sigh of relief. Asha would live. She’d be okay. But Lou…

There was nothing Skalidor could do now. He could only focus on who was still alive. He didn’t have time to mourn his friend just yet.

“Hey, Skal.” Asha said quietly, sitting up in bed. She’d pulled Cole up onto her lap, running her fingers through his hair to calm him. She smiled at Skalidor, but this smile did not hide her exhaustion.

“Asha…” Skalidor wasn’t sure where to begin. There were so many things he needed to say, with no idea how to say it. He wanted to comfort her over Lou’s death, he needed her to begin leading again, he wanted her to stay in bed and recover—he didn’t know what was the right choice, and what might lead to even more lives lost.

“It’s alright, Skal. I’ll manage.” She was staring at Cole, who’d stopped crying, still playing with his hair. Skalidor watched awkwardly, not sure what to say.

“Cole,” Asha began, Cole turning to her attentively, “Can you go get Sutara and ask her for some water?” Cole nodded fiercely, jumping off the bed and running off to find the serpentine in question.

“He won’t be gone long.” Skalidor cautioned, catching on to what Asha was doing.

“Then we’ll make this quick.” Asha said, her voice firm as it was normally. Her hands were trembling. “Lou…”

Skalidor couldn’t stand by anymore. With a gentleness that belied his imposing presence, he wrapped his arms around Asha. She broke down then, returning the hug as sobs wracked her frame.

“There was nothing I could do, yet I still feel responsible. If we hadn’t gone down that way, or if I’d noticed the instability sooner, then—”

Skalidor hushed her with a hiss. “Of coursse it lookss like there’ss ssomething you could have done. Guilt is like that.”

“Yeah” Asha agreed. “Guilt is just like that.”

With that, they parted, Skalidor leaning back to let Asha resettle herself. After a moment of adjusting, she looked to him again. Her words, though they were spoken softly, cut through Skalidor like a knife.

“How do I tell Cole that his father is never coming home?”

Skalidor didn’t have an answer for her.

+=+=+=+=+

Five days later, Chokun found Cole crying over his mother’s body, begging her to get up.

Her stitches had broken, and she’d collapsed on the floor from blood loss.

By the time Sutara and Vera arrived, she was long gone.

+=+=+=+=+

Cole hadn’t been adjusting well. Between the grief of losing his parents and the change of switching caverns, it was a wonder the boy hadn’t crumbled in on himself. No, Cole had suddenly gained a stark solemnity in his actions and words, and he’d isolate himself in the corners of Skalidor’s cavern, refusing to speak to anyone. Skalidor was worried, because what reasonable adult wouldn’t be, but he struggled to make time for Cole more and more each day, what was once a shared burden of leadership between him and Asha falling to him and him alone.

Worse, something was wrong with the other humans. Some kind of sickness, one that nobody had seen before, had started claiming lives a few months after Asha’s death. The Serpentine were (mostly) fine, but that did nothing to dissuade the panic that gripped the community. The tomb they called home was becoming a prison, rendering everyone subject to sickness and blight.

Skalidor and the other Serpentine did what they could; some even went so far as to induce hibernation to allow the humans bigger rations. Sutara had expanded the infirmary, using all of her resources to combat the sickness that plagued the tomb.

But it was in vain. The humans, who had once numbered more than a hundred, were reduced to barely fifty in the following years.

It was clear that all of this death was having an effect on Cole—it was having an effect on everyone, the choking fear turning the once homely tomb into a death trap—the boy refused to eat, insisting that others needed it more. He had only become more gloomy when Sutara came with mixed news—Cole and Asha had an immunity to the sickness, but Asha had likely been the one to bring it to the tomb. Cole had run off to the empty cavern where Asha and Lou once lived at that, refusing to come out for more than a week.

It hurt Skalidor, not being able to do anything. All he had was a staff and a title, and look where it had gotten him—General of a prison, a death trap that nobody would escape. Cole was nine now, he should be learning how to control his powers from his mother, should be dancing at the festivals and trying to fight in the slither pits, but no, here he was, growing up as everyone around him died, and there was nothing Skalidor could offer Cole beyond false reassurances—

“Skalidor?” Skalidor turned over to face Cole, staring blearily at the child who’d woken him o late. He stood up, offering his coils to Cole.

“Yesss, Cole?” Skalidor asked, as the child in question settled in among the coils, curling up within.

“What’s the sky supposed to look like?”

Skalidor stood there. Okay. He hadn’t been expecting that question; he hadn’t heard it since Cole was five.

“Well, it’s ssaid to be big, bigger than anything you’ve ever seen before.” Skalidor began, happy to have this chance to connect with Cole.

Cole wrinkled his nose, sticking out his tongue on habit, “Bigger than the central chamber?”

“Yess.” Skalidor hummed, pulling Cole closer. Cole leaned into the touch. “It’ss big, and bright, and full of—” what were those things called again? Oh, yes, “—cloudss.”

“What are clouds?” Cole’s voice wasn’t as quiet now, some of the old curiosity returning.

“Hmmm, let me think,” Skalidor tapped his chin, trying to recall what he’d been told. “They’re like the mossss in the cavess, but white.”

Cole stuck his tongue out at that, as though musing it over. “And what does the sun look like?”

“Like fire” Skalidor whispered, “But brighter than any fire you’ll ever find in the tomb.”

Cole was silent for a moment.

Skalidor supposed the boy was satisfied, when—

“Do you think we’ll ever see the sky?”

Skalidor smiled. “I can only hope.”

+=+=+=+=+

“We can’t go on like thiss.” Sutara whispered, wary of Cole who was playing with Chokun and Bytar nearby. “There’s not enough humanss left to keep the community alive, even if the ssicknesss were to dissappear right now.”

Skalidor nodded. “We’ll just make do for as long as we can, then.”

But they both knew those were empty words.

+=+=+=+=+

When Cole was ten, there was a tunnel collapse, bigger than any before. It was the same set of tunnels that were hit directly by the earthquake all those years ago, Asha’s precautions finally failing.

“Give me a damage report.” Skalidor hissed, watching as Serpentine—the remaining humans not caught in the collapse, less than ten, were far too sick to leave the infirmary—cleared away the rubble in the hopes of finding survivors.

“The tunnelss that collapssed were ssuppossed to be unoccupied, sssir.” Chokun stated.

“But…?” It was more of a statement than a question.

“The Sserpentine who chosse to hibernate were there. And the humanss who were still healthy were tending to them.”

“Which meansss we may have just lost all of them.” Skalidor concluded, gripping his staff far too tightly. This wasn’t supposed to happen, it wasn’t supposed to end this soon, how, how were they supposed to recover from this? The blight’s effects were reaching the Serpentine; more and more had started hibernating every day. There had been more than fifty sleeping in those tunnels.

They couldn’t survive down here much longer. They had to find a way out. But trying to do just that had cost Lou’s life and brought upon the sickness. There was no way out that didn’t end in tragedy.

Skalidor growled. He’d never paid much thought to the surface dwellers before, their existence becoming a distant memory, but now he needed someone to blame. Now he needed someone to take his frustration out on. The surface dwellers had been the ones to seal the Serpentine away, the ones to condemn everyone in the tomb to this fate. Were it not for them, Cole might have had a life up there, below the sky, where he should have been. Were it not for them, the Serpentine wouldn’t be watching their human brethren die off slowly, while starving off themselves.

If Skalidor ever lived to see the tomb open, he’d make the surface dwellers pay.

+=+=+=+=+

Cole was the only human left in the tomb, and that made him precious. Of course, he’d always been viewed favorably, being the son of the Master of Earth, and thus the next in line to lead and protect, but now almost everyone kept an eye out for him, doing what they could to keep him alive.

The next four years passed without much incident—Serpentine continued to die, just as eggs continued to hatch—and Cole was growing fast.

It was on a day like any other when, for the first time in more than 200 years, the tomb opened.

Skalidor wasn’t sure he should trust the Anacondrai standing before him, but the words of revenge and the promise of a better life swayed him. He’d assist this “Pythor” in his goals, but only to the point where it served the Constrictai. Only to the point where it wouldn’t endanger Cole.

Cole was the first Tomb Dweller in 200 years to see the sky. It was just as big as the stories said. Skalidor had watched as Cole reached up towards it, his eyes squinted in the bright light, had smiled when Cole laughed, joyous and carefree.

The Serpentine were his people. Cole was his family.

Skalidor would give anything to protect them all.

62 notes · View notes

takerfoxx · 5 years ago

Text

IM Swiftly Descending Darkness, Chapter 1

The Yagamis died the same night that the storms came.

Storms. Consider that concept. To many reading this, storms are mere inconveniences, a time when things get wet, dark, and cold. When one is on its way, we go inside, close the doors, shut the windows, maybe bring a few valuable possessions and fix up the odd leak, and just wait. It could even be exciting, a fun break in the normally calm weather. And when they are over, we go outside, clean up the mess, and go on with our lives.

Even in a wild land such as Gensokyo, where civilization is a luxury rather than a standard, there are places where storms aren’t much more than a time throw up the protection charms, get everyone inside, and keep themselves entertained until the cacophony had passed. Sure, there was danger and damage, but they were temporary problems, not life-changing disasters.

To all of the above, I say this: try living in Wilds sometime. Try keeping your family alive as torrents of rain thick as a waterfall come gushing out of the skies, as blasts of wind powerful enough to throw a full-grown man off his feet rip through the countryside, as lightning rips down from above to strike anything foolish enough to poke its head up, as hillsides collapse, as rivers turn into raging floods, as cellars are swamped and food stores ruined and roofs destroyed and walls pulverized. Out there, far from the safety of the Human Village, the Youkai Mountain, or any other pockets of stability, storms are far from troubling changes in the weather. Whipped up by the untamed country’s natural magics, the storms of Gensokyo are monsters to be feared and respected, and no amount of preparation can guarantee your safety.

But the worst of it wasn’t even the storms themselves. Those were dangers, yes, sometimes even lethally so, but the worst of it were the darker sorts of youkai, the savage sort that kept travelers close to the paths in large groups to avoid. That sort was bad enough, but something about the stormy season whipped them up into a frenzy, and then no one, not even other youkai, were safe.

As such, as soon as the skies started to turn gray and those sensitive to such things felt an all-too-familiar tingle, the call went out. All across the Wilds farmers, loggers, hunters, travelers, and anyone else who lived out there gathered their families together and made for the shelter provided by great halls of the villages and hamlets.

By the time the first of the rains started to fall, the great hall of Three Springs Village was already packed. From his place by the door, Elder Suzuki surveyed the place. Everyone in the village itself was already there, as were most of the inhabitants of the local farmsteads. The children of the Aoki Yume Children’s Home and their caretakers were of course all there, having been among the first to be brought over. A few new faces were there as well, mostly travelers and the occasional magician. There were even a few youkai there as well, mostly low-power fairies and other spirits known to be friendly to the village. They were also welcome. After all, the storms threatened them as well.

However, it wasn’t everyone. Elder Suzuki was halfway through his sixties, and he had seen many a stormy season come and go. As such, he knew the name of everyone that ought to have been there. And there were still three families missing: the Momoes, the Yagamis, and the Naitos. A team of the village’s strongest was out there, sent to find them and bring them to safety, along with any other stragglers they might find. Elder Suzuki prayed for their safety as well.

Despite how crowded the place was, it was eerily quiet. Oh sure, people were talking, eating, and even laughing, but it was mostly in hushed voices, and any laughter died quickly. Everyone seemed to be on edge, listening for the first sign of an approaching youkai gang. Tensions were high, and occasionally an argument would break out, though it was always quickly diffused by the others before it could become a fight.

As for Elder Suzuki, he remained sitting right where he was by the door, all of his senses extended, and what magic he knew was focused on the ring of warning charms set up around the village. The moment anyone set foot past the border, be it Human or otherwise, he would know. That was the worst of it, waiting for that signal, not knowing if when the alarm was sounded, it was going to be their friends or something else.

Silvia, one of the women, walked up to him with a steaming bowl of hot onion soup and a cup of water. He would have preferred wine, but he needed to keep his head clear, so he just accepted them with a nod of thanks.

“Has there been any sign?” she asked as he blew onto the steaming broth.

“Not yet,” he said.

Silvia bit her lower lip. She had friends out there, he knew. She had worked on the Momoes’ farm while growing up, and her husband’s brother was part of the team that had been sent to seek them out.

Sighing, he reached over and gently took her hand. “They’ll be fine,” he said. “Hiromu’s leading the team, and he’s the most capable man I know. If anyone can bring them home, it’s him.”

“I know,” she said. “It’s just-”

Then Elder Suzuki went stiff. The low tingle on the back of his neck had suddenly flared up. Someone had just crossed over the border, setting off the alarm charms.

Then another one did.

Then another.

And another.

Seeing the look in his eyes, Silvia spun around, stuck her fingers in his mouth, and whistled shrilly. What little noise there was silence immediately, and everyone turned to see her gesturing for everyone to remain silent.

His heart pounding, Elder Suzuki extended his senses, trying to get some hint of who was coming. Normally the charms themselves would tell him, but in that rain it was all they could do just to send any kind of signal. Whoever it was, there was a lot of them and they were heading for the great hall.

Then, through the door and through the rain, Elder Suzuki heard voices. Human voices.

“It’s us!” called a familiar voice, followed by a heavy knocking at the large door.

Elder Suzuki felt some small relief, but didn’t allow himself to relax just yet. He got up, opened the small panel in the door, and peered out.

Then he finally let out the breath he was holding. “It’s them!” he called. “Open the door!”

The locks were undone and the heavy door creaked open. A blast of wind roared inside, and heavy rain pelted at anyone standing anywhere near the door.

In they came, eight men escorting a miserable gaggle of men, women, children, and even five more fairies and a couple of other youkai as well. As the young men helped them inside, Elder Suzuki quickly scanned the group, checking off names from the list in his head. To his further relief, the entire team had made it back. He also saw the entire Momoe family there, as well as the rest of their household. Silvia rushed forward to embrace them as her husband ran over to greet his brother.

The Naitos were there as well, which was very good news. They were hunters and furriers that lived far from the village and had little in the way of defenses. Of all those threatened by the storm, they would have been among the most vulnerable.

“Elder Suzuki!” called the young man leading the group. Though his features were covered by the thick hood of his heavy coat, Elder Suzuki recognized him immediately.

“Hiromu,” he said, placing a hand on the young man’s shoulder. “Well done.”

Behind them, the last of the stragglers was brought inside, and the doors closed with a heavy thud, exiling the storm outside. As the other watchers bolted and locked up, Elder Suzuki looked over the group again. “Did you find them all?” he asked. “I don’t see the Yagamis.”

Hiromu pulled the hood off, revealing a mustached face that was very wet and very tired. “No,” he said. “I found everyone I could, but…”

Elder Suzuki’s heart fell. It was as he feared then. “Come,” he said, hoping to get all the details before anything grisly was let slip. “Warm yourself by the fire.”

As the group dispersed to their families, Elder Suzuki and Hiromu walked over to where the other elders were sitting around a blazing fire pit. Someone gave Hiromu a cup of warm wine, which he accepted with a grateful nod and practically collapsed as he sat down.

“What happened?” Elder Suzuki said after Hiromu finished draining the cup.

Hiromu set the cup aside and wiped his mouth with his arm. “It was bad,” he said. “The Yagamis’ farm was the furthest out, so we had to go there last. But it wouldn’t have mattered. A youkai gang had hit it before we even set out.”

A small murmur of dismay went up from the group. Elder Suzuki closed his eyes and whispered a prayer for the souls of their friends.

Hiromu continued. “It was a slaughter. I saw old Junko split in half. The farmhands had all been ripped to pieces, same as Rocco. It looked like they had been trying to defend the place. And the girls-”

“That’s enough,” Elder Suzuki said hastily. He already had enough mental images of people he knew being murdered and defiled. “We don’t need to know that.”

“Of course. I apologize.”

“No need. There were no survivors then?”

Then Hiromu smiled, showing those white teeth that had helped made him a favorite of the young women of the village. “Well now, I wouldn’t say that.” He leaned back and craned his neck to look over to one of the men that had been part of his rescue party. “Watanabe! Bring her over here.”

Watanabe walked over to them. It was then that Elder Suzuki noticed the small bundle wrapped in blankets held in the man’s arms.

Elder Suzuki’s brow rose. “Really?” he said.

Watanabe nodded and smiled. He pulled aside the blankets, revealing the small, chubby face of a sleeping infant girl, one only a couple months old.

She had her mother’s straw-blonde hair and her father’s round little nose. Though he had seen many a marriage in his time, Elder Suzuki still remembered the day that the child’s parents were wed. Rocco Yagami had been so nervous that he nearly repeated the same line of his vows no fewer than three times before Elder Suzuki had gently reminded him of the next part. Not that Miho, his bride, had done much better. She had been so lightheaded that she almost had walked right past her groom and right into the wall. She had claimed that it had been the fault of the veil. But when the two of them had been joined in the eyes of their family, of their friends, of their ancestors, of the sky, and of the gods, they looked so radiant together that their earlier missteps had not mattered in the slightest.

And when they had welcomed their first daughter into the world, it had been difficult to imagine couple that had been more happy or more proud.

Elder Suzuki had seen so much death in his years, so many friends gone, so many fine people taken before their time. The Wilds were hard, often cruel, and even if one escaped becoming a snack for the youkai or evil spirits, then there were several dozen other ways to die, from disease to disaster. It was always hardest when it happened to children, while was far too often the case, especially when man-eating youkai were involved. They took children. They preferred children, and there was quite often little left to be found.

The Yagamis and their household were all good people, and they would be mourned. Still, Elder Suzuki knew what a miracle it was that even one had survived, much less their youngest.

“How?” he said.

“Their safe room,” Hiromu answered. “They had it made special, hidden beneath the barn. Would’ve passed right by it, but as it turns out, Watanabe here helped them build it.” He clapped his friend on the shoulder. “Did a damned good job of it too, thing was so hard to find. Found her tucked away down there, fast asleep.”

Watanabe smiled proudly, though it didn’t last long. He had been Rocco’s friend after all.

“Amazing,” Elder Suzuki said, shaking his head. “Though I wonder why no one was down there with her.”

“Who knows?” Hiromu said with a shrug. “The dead keep their secrets, and keep them well. I’m just glad we found her.”

“I remember right after she was born,” Watanabe said sadly. “Rocco was in the tavern, and he was just so happy, buying drinks for everyone and singing songs. I said to him, ‘Rocco, you’ve got four now, and they’re all girls! When will you make a proper heir?’ You know what he did? He looked at me like I was crazy and said, ‘Let me tell you something: when my girls grow up, they’ll be able to whip any boys in the village hollow. Guarantee it. I don’t need no boys when I have them.’” He shook his head and sighed. “Gods, the poor bastard.”

Elder Suzuki laid a hand on his shoulder. “He would rejoice, knowing that even one escaped alive.”

“I know. But still…”

It was then that the tiny bundle in the stocky man’s arms starting to stir. The girl blinked her brown eyes. Then her face contorted and she started to cry.

“Oh,” Watanabe said, looking alarmed. “I, ah, don’t really know what to-”

Turning to the rest of the crowd, Elder Suzuki raised his voice. “Satoko!” he called over to a small group of adults surrounded by children. “Satoko Yume!”

The middle-aged woman in charge of the Aoki Yume’s Children’s Home looked up in surprise.

Elder Suzuki crooked a finger, beckoning her over.

Still bewildered, Satoko gently set down the young boy she had been holding and made her way over to Elder Suzuki and the others. “What’s wrong?” she said when she neared.

In answer, Watanabe showed her the fussing girl in her arms.

“Oh!” Satoko said in realization. “Oh, the poor thing. She’s all alone, isn’t she?”

“Only survivor of a youkai attack,” Hiromu told her as Watanabe passed the child over. “Whole family gone.”

“It was the Yagamis,” Elder Suzuki said. “They had a farm, far out in the Wilds. Apparently they got hit before the storms even started.”

To this, Satoko bowed her head. “The good spirits guide them safely across the River Suzune.”

“Agreed,” Elder Suzuki said. “Her name is Rumia. You…will look after her, won’t you?”

“Of course I will!” She sat down and started rocking Rumia back and forth, shushing her soothingly. “That’s what I do, after all. Rumia is more than welcome-”

“Is that a baby?”

The new voice was loud, childish, and obnoxious. Everyone looked up to see a small blue-haired fairy with six crystalline wings rushing toward them.

Most of their group scowled, no doubt partially because of the rude interruption but also because none of them were feeling particularly friendly toward youkai of any kind. Elder Suzuki was much more tolerant of their magical neighbors, so long as they were of the benign variety, but even he wasn’t exactly in the mood to put up with their nonsense.

Heedless of this, the fairy shoved herself practically into the flustered Satoko’s lap, trying to see the child. “C’mon, let me see!”

“All right, no,” Hiromu said, getting up. He seized the fairly by the arm and roughly yanked her away.

“Hey!” she said, whirling to face him. Planting her hands on her hips, she thrust her lip out and scowled. “Don’t touch me, or I’ll freeze your arm off!”

“Try it,” Hiromu warned. “Try it, and I’ll-”

Elder Suzuki cleared his throat, drawing both of their attention. “The child is scared and tired and needs her rest,” he said to the fairy. “So it’s best to leave her alone.”

The fairy’s scowl deepened. “But I wanna see the baby!” she whined.

“Didn’t you hear him? Leave the poor thing alone!” Hiromu waved the fairy off. “Go on. Get!”

The fairy gave him one last glower. She stuck out her little pink tongue and pulled down one eyelid with her finger before turning to run off back to her friends.

“Obnoxious little nuisance,” Hiromu growled as everyone settled back down. “Why do we even let them in?”

“Nuisances they might be, but even they deserve protection from the storms and what the storm brings,” Elder Suzuki told him, his tone gently chiding.

Hiromu sighed. “Fair,” he admitted.

That done, Elder Suzuki turned his attention back to the squirming bundle in Satoko’s arms. She was rocking little Rumia back and forth, whispering to her in soothing tones.

Elder Suzuki shook his head. The poor Yagamis. They did not deserve what had happened to them; no one did. It was just one of the many dangers that they had to accept living out in the Wilds like they did, but it never made it easier when it happened.

As for Rumia, the fates had done her a cruel turn, but at the very least she was alive and would be cared for and loved. Satoko was a good woman, who cared deeply for the children that had been brought into her house.

Then he cast a dour glance, not at anyone within the hall, but to the northwest, where sat the Human Village, the center of Gensokyo’s Human population.

Satoko was a good woman, and those she cared for were innocents in need of all the support and protection that could be provided.

Unfortunately, not everyone agreed.

…

Twelve years later…

This was torture.

Rumia felt the yawn forming and didn’t even try to stifle it. What was the point? Everyone else was ending toward sleep, lulled off by the warm Sun and Ms. Haruna’s droning voice.

Ms. Haruna Ishii looked like a boulder. She stood about a meter and a half high, was nearly as wide as she was tall, had no neck, and a face like a pit bull’s. No one knew her age, and no one had ever mustered up the courage to ask. And while she certainly knew a lot about numbers and what one might do with them, she had never bothered to figure out a way to pass that knowledge in a way that didn’t immediately make Rumia’s eyes start to cross and her brain to shut off all non-critical functions purely out of self-defense.

To help keep herself awake, Rumia looked around the room, hoping to find something interesting to amuse herself.

Unfortunately, all she found were more kids looking as bored as she was.

Fat Keiichi Matsuda was scribbling something on his chalkboard that probably had nothing to do with numbers. Loopy Kana Anaberal, who was usually at least interesting to watch, wasn’t doing anything weirder than follow dust motes in sunbeams with her eyes. Even Rumia’s mortal enemy Haruko was of one mind with Rumia in that she was struggling mightily to keep her eyes open. The only one that seemed to be paying any sort of significant attention was that outsider girl Melissa Garcia, and that was probably because she honestly didn’t speak great Japanese and was trying to just make sense of anything she was hearing.

Rumia sighed. If the other kids couldn’t be counted on to be entertaining, them what good were they?

Then she turned her head to look over to the opposite side of the classroom, where her two closest friends were sitting, one right in the front of the other. The one in the front was Kohta Momoi, a boy her age with naturally spiky black hair and eyelids so narrow that it often difficult to tell if they were open or closed, a quirk that he often exploited to his advantage, as he was now. Kohta sat with his back leaning against the chair at a slight angle, face directed toward the blackboard, and hands folded on the desk in front of him. At a glance it would appear that he was paying rapt attention, but he was in fact fast asleep, having long figured out the perfect pose to let his body settle into without giving away the game. Rumia deeply envied him for that.

Behind him was a girl who did not share his skills or natural advantages and was struggling mightily to keep from nodding off. Though she was of the same age as Rumia and Kohta, she looked to be only about half that, with a scrawny little body and shimmering silver hair cut straight just below her ears. Keine Kamishirasawa had been at the orphanage as long as Rumia and Kohta, but she didn’t complete their trio until a few years ago, when the two of them had caught a few of the others bullying her and had driven them off. While neither of them were averse to killing a few idle minutes by tormenting some of their fellow orphans, they preferred to save that sort of thing to those who really deserved it and could at least fight back. Picking on someone just because they were smaller than everyone else and looked kind of weird was just unsportsmanlike. After that, Keine stuck around with them for safety, and before they knew it their duo had grown by one.

Rumia eyed the two, calculations running in her mind. Getting their attention without attracting Ms. Ishii’s attention was going to be tricky, as a few unfortunate failed past attempts had taught her. At the moment Ms. Ishii was facing the kids as she droned on and on, but sooner or later she would turn around. To prepare, Rumia scribbled a brief message on a piece of paper. Then she stealthily tore up a second paper into pieces and crumpled them up. That done, she waited.

Oblivious to the conspiracy that was hatching right under her nose, Ms. Ishii went on and on about stuff that nobody cared about. Rumia tensed up. Any second now. Come on, any second now.

Then Ms. Ishii turned her back to the class to write something boring on the chalkboard. Now!

Rumia tossed one of the paper wads right at Keine. It had to be Keine. There was no guarantee that she would be able to wake Kohta with that alone, and even if she did, if he awoke too abruptly it might catch Ms. Ishii’s attention, as they had learned on one unfortunate occasion.

Unfortunately, her first toss failed to clear the classroom and hit the floor right next to Keine’s chair without her so much as noticing.

Scowling, Rumia tried again. This time her aim was true and the wad landed neatly on Keine’s desk. Startled, the silver-haired girl jerked back to full wakefulness and blinked down at the new addition to the clutter on her desk. Then, putting two and two together, she glanced over to Rumia, one eyebrow quirked in askance.

In answer, Rumia held up her chalkboard. On it was just a quick sketch of a chocolate chip cookie and a question mark.

Eyes widening in realization, Keine quickly glanced back to Ms. Ishii to see if she was going to look their way anytime soon. When it was clear that she wasn’t, Keine looked back to Rumia, smiled, and gave a quick nod.

Okay, that was two of them. Number three would be up to Keine. She slowly reached up and gently shook Kohta’s shoulder, which they had learned was the best way to wake him without scaring him. It wouldn’t do to have him cry out in surprise, after all.

Kohta jerked slightly, but made no sound. He glanced over his shoulder at Keine, who then directed his attention to Rumia. Within the space of three seconds, Kohta had scanned the message, comprehended it, and gave Rumia a sly grin and a quick thumb’s up. All right, three for three. The game was set.

Then Ms. Ishii turned toward them again, and they quickly snapped back to their original positions, all traces of their plan removed. Rumia was satisfied. Their path was now set, and all she had to do was wait those last few minutes in order to carry things out.

…

Night was falling on the orphanage. Classes were done, sunlight was retreating, and the belabored staff were all taking a few much-needed moments to relax.

In other words, the perfect time to strike.

Three small figures crept down the hall on hands and knees, careful to avoid any boards that creaked, shoes off and socks covering both their hands and feet. Ahead of them, the door to the kitchen was slightly open, and from within a low, repetitive sound could be heard.

Slice. Slice. Slice.

The three of them lined up along the crack of the door, Kohta on the bottom, Rumia on his back, and Keine on hers. The three of them peered in.

The Children’s Home kitchen was a long, rectangular brick room, lined with counters. A wooden table sat in the middle of it like an island, and on the right-hand side were windows to the outside, right over the sink. The evening meal was being prepared, and all sorts of ingredients were out. A young woman stood at one of the counter, methodically slicing onions with a large knife.

Slice. Slice. Slice.

The three children exchanged grim looks. Their path was a dangerous one, but rewarding. On top of a shelf at the far end of the kitchen sat a large ceramic jar. And within that jar was their prize.

Cookies. Sweet, succulent cookies. A prize more than worth a little risk. They just had to get past the woman.

And…therein lay the problem.

Keine slid off of Rumia’s back and Rumia off of Kohta’s. The three of them retreated back from the door and huddled together. Nothing was said. Rumia merely nodded, and the other two scampered off down the hall, to the door to the outside.

Now alone, Rumia inched back to the door and watched. The others would do their part. All she had to do was wait.

Oblivious to the heist taking place right under her nose, the woman continued on, reducing leeks to pieces in slow, mechanical fashion.

Slice. Slice. Slice.

Rumia tensed up. Any second now, any second…

“WAAAAAAHHHH!”

Showtime.

The woman’s head jerked up, and she abandoned what she was doing to rush over to the window. Throwing it open, she practically leaned her whole body out and called, “What happened?”

“Keine’s hurt!” Kohta’s voice called back. “She slipped on a rock and skinned her shin! Oh my gods, there’s blood everywhere!”

The woman sighed. “Oh, for the love of-” She shook her head. “Hold on, I’m coming!” She flung open a cabinet, grabbed a bag of bandages and other treatments and shot outside. She didn’t even bother with the door but instead leapt right through the window in one smooth, graceful motion.

Rumia’s window of opportunity was now open, but it wouldn’t be for long. She bolted into the room, scampering across the floor, under the table, and toward the far counter. Snatching up a three-legged stool, she propped it against the counter and climbed on top. Then she stood on her tiptoes and stretched up, reaching for the jar.

Almost there. I’m almost there. The jar was just out of reach. Stretching her legs even further, Rumia’s fingers brushed the jar’s edge.

Then a wooden spoon came whistling through the air and struck the back of her hand.

Crying out in pain and surprise, Rumia lost her balance and, to her horror, started to fall backward.

Time slowed. Rumia watched as the shelf and its maddeningly faraway treasure moved further and further away. Her gaze moved up to center on the ceiling, which was also drawing away. She was dimly aware of the impact that awaited her, and to her surprise she was not afraid.

Well, I guess this is it. Oh well. Everyone has to die sometime.

Then she stopped.

Rumia gasped out loud. She had stopped in a vertical position, at a perfect ninety-degree angle from the stool, her heels still on the edge of the stool top, with the rest of her body hovering in the air, unaffected by gravity.

I’m flying, she thought numbly. Holy cow, she was flying! She didn’t need to take the class after all; she had figured it out all by herself!

A wealth of possibilities revealed itself to her mind. She could shoot through the sky, dipping and darting through the clouds. She could play with the fairies, chase birds, be unstoppable at tag, anything! She could hover on the ceiling, just out of sight, and drop whatever she wanted on whatever poor sap that wandered by! She could go wherever she wanted, whenever she wanted, and nobody would be able to-

Then Rumia became aware of something pressing against her back, and her joy evaporated. She was not flying after all. Quite the contrary, something was holding her up.

A sinking feeling started to form in her stomach, and her gaze went upward. Sure enough, there was a face glowering down at her, that of a woman with pale skin, dark red eyes, and silvery lavender hair that was almost white.

The woman smiled, and Rumia cringed. Oh crap.

Suddenly the hand set against her back suddenly yanked back, pulling Rumia off the chair. The woman held her up by the back of her collar, lifting the child up as easily as if Rumia were a stuffed animal.

It was then that Rumia saw that she was not alone. Both Kohta and Keine were also dangling by their collars in the woman’s other hand. Kohta looked quite put out, probably annoyed that their perfect plan had failed so spectacularly, while Keine just had her head bowed in shame. Her knee was still dripping with the chicken blood they had smeared all over it for effect.

“Well, well, well,” said Miss Fujiwara no Mokou, the orphanage’s cook. “Look who it is. Really, guys? Really? This trick again? I mean, fool me once and all that. Did you really think you could pull it twice?”

Rumia sighed and slumped.

“And come on. Now? You’re pulling this now, with flying lessons right around the corner? Can you really afford getting another strike? You know they’ll just make you sit them out.”

Rumia jerked in shock, and given the stricken looks on their faces her friends felt the same. Oh crap, they hadn’t thought of that.

“So now I’m wondering if I should just turn you three in now. I mean, I’d hate to leave you all tethered to the ground for the rest of your lives while all your friends go soaring through the air, but rules are rules.”

“It was me!” Kohta suddenly blurted out. “It was my idea, I talked them into it! So don’t-”

“Yeah, no,” Miss Mokou said flatly. “That’s really noble of you and all, but give me a break. It doesn’t matter which one of you gets the original idea, the other two are always down for anything. Seriously, it’s like your minds are linked or something. Besides, aren’t heists usually Rumia’s thing?”

Still dangling in the air, Rumia crossed her arms and sulked.

“That’s what I thought.” Then Miss Mokou got a thoughtful look. “Still, kids will be kids, and making you sit out flying lessons seems a little harsh, so…”

The three waited with bated breath as Miss Mokou mulled over the situation. If one were to ask Rumia, the cook was taking her sweet time doing it too.

“Okay, how about this?” Miss Mokou said at last. “I won’t turn you in, and exchange you three get dishes duty.”

That was it? What a relief. Cleaning dishes wasn’t any fun, but it was loads better than never getting to learn how to fly.

“For the rest of the week.”

Oof. Ouch. Rumia grimaced. A whole week of scrubbing pots and bowls sounded like a nightmare. There were so many mouths to feed that the sink was often a disaster area by the end of the day. Sometimes it would take them hours to get through them all, and they always felt greasy disgusting when it was over.

Still…it was better than the alternative.

“Well?”

Rumia exchanged a look with her friends. They didn’t seem anymore happy about it than she was, but after a moment they all nodded.

“Good to hear.” Mokou abruptly dropped to the floor, which caused Keine to squeak with surprise. “Now shoo. Off with you.”

As the three failed bandits retreated from the kitchen, Kohta muttered to the others, “We should have just left her in the snow.”

“I heard that,” Mokou called after them. “Just for that, you get the big pot.”

“Nice job, lunkhead,” Rumia whispered back as Kohta’s face fell with dismay.

...

Well, here goes nothing. I suppose I should mention that this story’s been brewing in my head longer than Walpurgis Nights has even been a thing.

Anyway, like I said, I’m going to try for updates every other week this time, with this baby going up on FF.net sometimes next year.

Until next time, everyone!

#touhou project #imperfect metamorphosis #rumia #keine #fujiwara no mokou #fanfic #touhou

9 notes · View notes

mutantsrisingrpg · 5 years ago

Photo

Congratulations DAISY! You’ve been accepted as NIX.

I did my waiting... twelve years of it... until we finally got our Nix! Daisy, let me start this off with how happy I was to see an app for Luke in our inbox and that happiness only grew when I read through it. At the very end of your details section you said that Luke is contradictory to a fault - which is the very much something I was looking for with him. Luke is a danger, yes we all know this, but regardless of that he wants to protect his family and he has everything as his fingertips that could make him “holy.” I’m so excited to see where you take him!

Welcome to Mutants Rising! Please read the checklist and submit your account within 24 hours.

Out of Character Information:

NAME/ALIAS: Daisy

PRONOUNS: She/Her

AGE: 24

TIMEZONE & ACTIVITY LEVEL: EST // I work a few part-time jobs, so my free time is mostly reserved to the evenings and weekends, but once I have muse for a character and find a great writing community, I really commit to the rpg! I would give myself a 7/10, with some weeks dipping down to a 6 just because of work schedules and such. If there’s ever a time I can’t be on for longer than usual, I’ll definitely let you know!

In Character Information:

DESIRED ROLE: Luke Espinosa / Nix

GENDER/PRONOUNS: Cisgender male & he/him

DETAILS & ANALYSIS: This is where you show us who the character is to you! The format of this doesn’t matter, whether it’s in bullet points or in para form, and can be as long as you’d like it to be. Feel free to get creative!

Luke — “light giving” / Espinosa — From the Spanish word, “espino,” which means “hawthorn”

It’s an irony that’s not lost on him, a simple name bestowed on him by a simple man, yet perfectly matched to his own particular talents. Privately, he smiles at the memory of his mother calling him ‘Luca,’ a nickname he’s revealed only to Isabel. (Naturally, she’s the only person he’d allow to call him that now.) Still, there’s a certain saintliness to the name that he feels is an ultimate disconnect to the man he believes himself to be: hateful, spiteful, and altogether brutal — in other words, totally undeserving of anything remotely ‘holy’. The hawthorn tree is often thought to symbolize love and protection, and are often beloved by birds for their many branches and fruits to aid in nest-making and hatchling development. Personally, I feel as though Luke wouldn’t give much thought to his surname, given the memories of the man who gave it to him. Still, I can’t help but think that this last name suits him exceedingly well, especially when I consider the arc I’d like to see him go through. Currently, Luke is someone full of anger; he’s bitter, rages often and relatively indiscriminately, and rejects responsibility out of semi-unfounded fears. He’s a weapon even though he wants to be a shield, too destructive to truly protect anyone from the wrath of the world — or worse, his own. He’s not a simple man, per se, but the outside world would be forgiven for thinking him little more than a bad-tempered, ill-mannered creature of habit, forever searching for something to destroy whether through punch or power. And yet, he manages to be more than all the red that typically surrounds him, and rather evidently, too; there’s rarely a day that he doesn’t return to the apartment if only to whip up a quick boxed dinner for Isabel and Isaac and bask in their company, sharing a laugh over Isaac’s latest mishap. He’s someone who will fight for his family, die for his family, even though he never wanted, expected, or asked for them. He struggles to balance the undeniable need to protect them against his utter lack of faith in himself and the world around them. It’s not that he doubts his powers; truly, he knows exactly how dangerous he can become, how all-consuming his light can be when his internal state reaches somewhere overwhelmingly dark. So, on the days he truly needs to get away, it’s not in the boxing rings of The Jungle or the bar at The Green Mill that call to him, but instead the rooftop of some nearby building, as close to the sun as the smokey city will allow, recharging and resetting in silence. Within the Blackburn Syndicate, he’s tough, some might even call him brave — and it’s partially true, though not because of some gallant side to his personality usually cast aside in favor of sulking in the shadows. Rather, his bravery displays itself largely in times of fear; scared for the safety of someone else, he’ll often volunteer to be put in harm’s way, though not without throwing some wayward remark about the other person’s inability to handle their job. Luke knows he’s an asset, a machine, a means to an end for the Syndicate. He’s quick to protect by means of a fierce onslaught of attack — which happens to make him the perfect weapon. He’s built his career, if not his whole life, on being menacing, on instilling fear into a person in any way he can and beating whatever’s left, out. Simply put, it’s just what he knows. In terms of truly unleashing the full extent of his powers, there are so few lines he’d be unwilling to cross. Still, when the question of family comes up, it’s not hard to imagine him setting the world alight just to keep them safe. In short, although the baseline of his personality could default to a simple ‘angry boy’ trope, I think Luke is so much more than just that. I see him as someone so craving of stability, that the fear of not having it makes it impossibly easy for him to run away; someone with the power to absorb light, yet utterly incapable of providing it for himself; a shield with no defense — contradictory to a fault.

BIO:

[ TW for violence, death, marital/family abuse, alcohol ] Fighting had always been in his blood, and he knew it. When he closes his eyes, he still remembers coming home from school to find his precious mother, still heavily pregnant with his unborn sister, bloodied and battered on the floor, bruises formed all over her body and cuts marring her pretty face. And his father, gruff and hulking, liquor evident from his smell and the arrhythmic steps of his heavy feet, ordering the young boy to help clean up – i.e., get rid of – his fatally wounded mother. He was nine then. A boy by all measures, but the ‘monster’ within claimed his youth, clawing from the depths of his grief as he clung to his mother’s life-drained body. At a moment so dark, his body emanated light and heat, overwhelming and blinding as his tears shed freely until the world around turned black with ash and fear. At ten, he was a child trapped in a plastic prison hundreds of feet underground, blocking out all sources of natural light after enough tests determined he drew his power from the sun. His body grew weak — no, he was made to be weak, forced by human powers greater than his own — though his appetite for destruction only augmented with each passing day. When the scientists deemed him feeble enough that he’d have little chance of full-powered recovery, he was placed into a foster home with fellow mutants. Fortunately for Luke, they vastly underestimated his body’s ability to At best, their foster parents saw each of them as little more than the monthly check; at worst, they saw their ‘children’ as nightly entertainment, watching with eager abandon as the kids with control of their powers beat up the ones whose powers hadn’t fully manifested. Unlike some of the other kids, it wasn’t the pink hair he’d seen first, nor the trembling fingers he’d recognized all too well — a trademark of someone not fully in control of their powers, yet still grasping at some invisible force in the hopes they would come back. He saw the fear in her eyes, the silent plea for help in a moment of desperation, and on instinct, he stepped in front of Isabel, shielding her from the cruelty of kids competing for a love they wouldn’t receive from ‘parents’ who were anything but. They weren’t fast friends, exactly, but something deeper: family. In a world where choice had been so quickly taken away from them simply by the nature of their genetic makeup, this act of protection without care, of love without thought, was the loudest kind of rebellion two kids confused by the world around them could muster. Soon enough, their powers grew in harmony, working with each other to learn new tricks that complemented each other’s skills. And at twelve, after enough foster homes to last a lifetime, they arrived in Chicago with nothing but a backpack between the two of them, holding little precious trinkets they’d collected or — in Luke’s case — stolen along the way. Isabel caught notice of the Blackburn Syndicate shortly after they’d settled in the snow-strewn streets. He was hesitant and prideful, believing he’d be able to provide for the both of them through whatever means necessary. He knew his aptitude for fighting could land him some money, even if it meant getting some teeth knocked out every now and then, but when he saw her knowing fear and constant shiver, he conceded once more, letting her dreams dictate their future. His apprehension for yet another home claiming to welcome them and treat them kindly remained even after Alma agreed to take them in; the distaste only grew when it was clear ‘impressing’ the woman came in the form of Isabel fainting from over-exerting her powers and an altogether destructive showing of his own. Isabel assimilated quicker than he did, finding her footing well before him; half-scared to commit himself to this new environment and half-terrified that he’d lose her if he didn’t, Luke accepted menial jobs within the Syndicate as he worked on mastering his powers. When he turned eighteen, he took an under-the-table job at The Jungle, taking and encouraging bets for certain fighters in exchange for proper lessons. Here, he studied the best of the best until he was ready for the ring himself, and by twenty-four, he carved a reputation for being quite the fearsome fighter. “The Silent Striker,” the crowds dubbed him, when his quick but quiet fighting style emerged supreme against fighters twice his size. For the past few years, he’s kept the extent of his fighting a secret from Isabel and Isaac, telling them that he liked to go just to watch, or because he was on a special assignment from the Director. It’s not that he doesn’t trust them — on the contrary, he trusts them a little too much and believes that admitting to liking, perhaps even needing The Jungle as a form of release and rush would scare them away or cause them unnecessary concern. As much as they were his saving grace, they could also be his undoing and, in turn, his desire to protect Isabel and Isaac often meant shielding them from the truth of his being — the harsh cruelty he inflicted on others in order to make sure they’d all be taken care of, outside of the confines of the Syndicate. After all, the havoc he wreaked with just his hands was nothing compared to what he could do if he let light consume him, and when all was said and done, it was safer to have them wonder, “What is he doing?” rather than “What won’t he do?” Then again, when the question of family comes up, it’s not hard to imagine him consuming the world in order to keep them safe.

EXPANDED CONNECTIONS:

ISABEL ACOSTA: He might never say it out loud, but she is most definitely his saving grace. She’s more than a friend, more than family. Isabel is the first person who chose him, who saw him for what he was and didn’t shy away from it but instead welcomed him — hell, even needed him. He might not have known it at the time, but he needed her just as much, and certainly needs her now. When push comes to shove, he will follow Isabel no matter the consequence, no matter the reward because he knows there is no greater advantage than having her by his side. In terms of future ideas, I’d of course love to explore the depths of his relationships with Isaac and Isabel more. The concept of ‘found family’ comes with the territory of choice, which, for a man shuffled from one house to another and utilized as a weapon for about as long as he can remember, is something precious, if not nearly divine. I’d love to see these relationships tested and tried, and really pull and poke at the bonds those characters share just for Luke to realize the depth of his choice and see the lengths he’d go to ensure their safety. I’m a sucker for angst and tension and, naturally, would love to see Luke’s faith in his family falter, to play out possible betrayals or missteps if only to see him inevitably find his way back home.

CAIN DOUGLAS: The great shame of any fighter’s life is knowing that fighting is simply in their lifeblood, something they can’t escape and something that they won’t necessarily accept, either. When he enters the ring to fight Cain, it’s exhilarating, enthralling, and ultimately exhausting. Each match between them is an excuse to learn and train, each new bruise and bloodstain practice for the ultimate fight that’ll come between the two of them, somewhere outside of The Jungle and upon the unending concrete of the city. In my head, Luke wears some sort of mask/head covering when he fights in order to separate this exceedingly brutal side from the calmer, safer person he needs to be around Isabel and Isaac. The only reason that Cain knows his identity is because he once bested him in the ring and part of his reward was unmasking the other man. From that moment, Cain’s known his identity, which pushes Luke to train harder and harder until he can defeat the man both in and out of the ring, potentially with the intent of silencing him forever. He knows that The Jungle is mostly safe for mutants, but it’s the threat of exposing his family to something so dark, so uncontrollable, so all-consuming that scares him to his core.

EXTRA: Here’s my insp tag for Luke! (The second post in that collection gives me such Luke vibes.) And here are some headcanons:

For obvious reasons, he’s weakest in the winter. During this season, he spends most of his free time around plants, which have their own special way of storing energy from the sun, as limited as the exposure is. Luke was born and ‘raised’ in a veritable ghost town somewhere in the southwest United States, and still speaks with a kind of southern drawl. He has a sweet tooth like no other and regularly starts his day off with a hot chocolate, add two sugars. Luke doesn’t know how to drive and typically relies on Isabel to get him anywhere that the city’s transportation system can’t reach.

ANYTHING ELSE: None, thank you! But if there’s anything you need to discuss about my app, please feel free to contact me @nfwmb !!

#accepted: nix

1 note · View note

santamonicaroleplay · 5 years ago

Photo

❝ A SHORT LEASH AND A SHORT FUSE DON’T MATCH. ❞

NAME: Hunter Lowell GENDER/PRONOUNS: Male, He/Him DATE OF BIRTH: October, 1st 1991 BIRTH PLACE: Harrisburg, Pennsylvania CURRENT RESIDENCE: Santa Monica Pier/Ocean Avenue OCCUPATION: Actor FACE CLAIM: Gregg Sulkin

BIOGRAPHY

trigger warnings: violence, death, mental health issues, drug use, lgbt+phobia

Growing up under the watch of Pastor Lowell was nothing short of a burden. The zealous preacher who was never at a loss for words or prayers to his flock of faithful was an entirely different man behind the closed doors of his home. Aloof, bitter, and extremely demanding, Roger Lowell never gave either his child, Hunter, or his wife, Karen, any rest in his pursuit of the sacred. With his holier-than-thou posture, Pastor Lowell was someone who had always attempted to control his household with an iron fist, often turning to arbitrary, severe punishments – which were more-often-than-not physical – when any one of his rules were infringed. Karen Lowell, on the other hand, was a great mother… Not that there was much she could do. But she would go as far as the short leashes Roger kept around their necks would allow, to give her child some semblance of what a normal childhood should have looked like.

That sweet, short-lasting illusion was quickly dismantled, though, after Karen died in an accident. At first, it was all heartbreak and fallen tears, misery shared in silence at the dinner table, between the two Lowell men. For a moment, it seemed as though the passing of Karen had brought the two closer together; another foolish illusion that, yet again, was rapidly dismantled. Pastor Lowell was quick to turn to his faith as a refuge, nose-diving into the word of the Almighty, thoroughly devoting himself to his services, and unsurprisingly falling back into his old habits. But Hunter found his own refuge, as well. The drama classes at school were a safe place where he could exude all his emotions without the fear of unjust judgment or punishments for his complicated feelings or for being who he was. There, he found a safe haven, a place to discover himself and grow, and soon enough, what started as a pastime became a passion. Unsurprisingly, those endeavors were all done stealthily as Pastor Lowell would never have approved of his son’s favored activity. Regardless of Roger’s stance, however, Hunter was wholeheartedly devoted to his acting, not only because he loved the feeling of going on stage and walking into someone else’s skin, but because the theater also helped him overcome the pain brought along by the loss of his mother and to navigate the turbulent years of adolescence.

Without Karen’s presence to ease the preacher man with her kind words and sweet gestures, Roger’s rules became more strict, his punishments became more relentless, and arguments between him and his son became more physical. However, as it usually happens with teenagers at the edge of their youth, the more rigid a parent’s constraints become, the stronger is their child’s willingness to rebel. Sneaking out soon became something he could do with his hands tied, missing services to hang out with his friends became a habit and, of course, heated arguments with his father subsequently became more usual than ever. But Hunter didn’t pay much mind to his father’s words, usually sneaking out through the window – a few cuts and bruises bruises decorating his youthful skin – right after having been sent to his bedroom to ponder and pray.

It wouldn’t be long until Hunter and Roger Lowell’s strained relationship hit rock-bottom. It took something simple as a kiss, shared between Hunter and another male, and accidentally witnessed by his father, for the Pastor to turn his son’s life in that house of God into something hellish. The strength Hunter had built through years of facing his father’s severity hadn’t prepared him for what occurred afterward, but the marks – both physical, and psychological – that he still carries, can attest to his survival instinct. Still, although he hadn’t been accustomed to receiving compliments from his father, being called “atrocious” and “a child of the devil” by a man who’d known him all his life definitely took a toll on him…

Gathering just the necessary – a couple of clean clothes, a photo of him and his mother, and the few hundred bucks he had saved – Hunter fled that same night. After crashing on some friends’s couches for while, not entirely certain of what to do, after all, he all he had was a high school diploma and about five hundred bucks to his name, Hunter decided to take a shot at his lifelong dream and hopped on a bus to Los Angeles. Bars and coffee houses were his main source of income for the first few months in the city of Angels until he finally found himself at the right place, at just the right time… Teen soaps were never his favored genre of entertainment, but he’d heard that those young actors had been making quite a lot of money from their thriller shows and romcoms, and so he figured acting on something you’re not particularly fond of is better than not acting at all, especially if it paid the bills and allowed him to live with a little more luxury than a lousy one-bedroom apartment with four roommates.

Although he had acted with a little more passion than the strictly necessary for that type of gig, Hunter had passed his audition to the lead role in a new CW drama with flying colors, and soon enough, his name became pretty important in the industry, headlining romcoms and teen-addressed thriller Netflix movies, having Hunter Lowell as part of the cast made anything pretty much an easy sell with the younger audiences. For a while, it was all wonders and excitement, expensive clothes, and fancy cars. But the amounts of zeros on his paychecks couldn’t afford what he was really passionate about. Hunter wanted projects he believed in, complex characters in complex storylines filled with emotion, passions, and fears. He enjoyed the money, of course, better than that, he needed it, but money had never been the reason he’d gone into acting…

Opting for more serious movies addressed at different audiences than what he was used to was a bold move which was not really well-received by his agent who, unsurprisingly, managed to pull some contractual strings to get Hunter back on the track he’d designed. With the million-dollar fines and compensations that would come, should he ditch the deal with his agent, there was no contractual way out for him. The heated arguments à la Roger Lowell that began to pop up, sometimes even escalating into physical brawls, were the obvious consequence, yet to no avail. In the end, Hunter would just end up leaving his office angry, or frustrated, or sad. A toxic combination of emotions that resounded back to his adolescence and awoke his dormant unresolved conflicts, which were better off silenced in some dark corner of his mind. His sexuality, his bitterness towards his father, the traumas of a childhood permeated by abuse, and the loss of his mother. All he had done all those past years was control those issues with some anti-depressants and eventual visits to a psychiatrist whenever he needed a refill for his stock. But with all those internal struggles emerging at full force and the frustration of being unable to take his career and his own life into whatever direction he wanted, his mental stability spiraled down a turbulent path.

Hunter had known alcohol and drugs from a young age, using both mostly out of spite for his father’s rigid stance towards them, but never before was he close to losing his grip when it came to those. Still, as nervous breakdowns began permeating his every night, when he would sit alone in his balcony and cry or punch at the walls for hours on end, became a thing of habit, he couldn’t help but seek the cheap, effortless refuge provided by drugs to ease his mind, more and more each time.

Until, one day, he was found unconscious at his home, the official diagnostic being that he had almost overdosed on his antidepressants, which of course, hadn’t been made public for the sake of his career, but was definitely speculated by many, especially after the news he had signed into rehab had leaked to the tabloids… There was no great damage to his career, especially since he’d made quite a quick recovery, returning home just two months after being admitted, smiling and waving sympathetically to the paparazzi who waited for his arrival just outside his apartment building. Some contracts were dropped here and there, but Hunter’s agent managed to maintain the most significant ones, subsequently managing to keep his short leash around his neck… Now, a few months after a scandal, a conflicted and frustrated Hunter finds himself at a crossroads, uncertain of who he is, who he wants to be, and which way to take to get there and to keep himself from spiraling again.

#Hunter Lowell #Gregg Sulkin #all #ocean avenue #takenm

4 notes · View notes

cathygeha · 4 years ago

Photo

REVIEW

Tell No Lies by Allison Brennan

Quinn & Costa #2

Detective Kara Quinn is on leave from her job with LAPD working with FBI Agent Matt Costa and his mobile unit. She is a “cop” through and through but is unsafe in Los Angeles. Matt & Kara worked together in book one of the series, had a romantic interlude, and now are working to find the murderer of a college student who was killed while searching with her boyfriend for a toxic waste dump impacting the dessert environment. With team in place the story begins just after Billy rushes Emma finds Emma and tries to save her. Will the team be able to find the murderer? Is toxic dumping taking place and if so, by whom? Will the romance between Matt and Kara continue? And, what else will be unearthed as the story unfolds?

What I liked:

* Kara: intelligent, quick thinking, loves her job, a chameleon, does what it takes, uses her childhood con artist skills in her current undercover jobs, interesting, fierce, capable…someone I am becoming more and more invested in.

* Matt: intelligent, a bit of a workaholic, work has impacted his relationships in the past, cares about his team, an enigmaMichael, interested in learning more about him.

* The relationship development between Kara and Matt – not much at first in this book but see a great deal of potential as the series progresses.

* The complexity of the case: started simply and became more involved as the story progressed.

* The FBI team members: Michael, Ryder, Zack – the bits and pieces about each one that were shared in this story made me wonder about them and want to know more. It will be fun to see how these characters (and others) grow as the series continues.

* The many threads, that at times seemed too many, all being pulled together by the end of the story. Better than a simple plot executed quickly.

* Billy: I felt for him and hoped that in the future he would heal and be able to move on. I also wondered if he might end up joining the FBI when he finishes school.

* Frank: Emma’s boss, a good man, haunted, focused, provided a safe haven to more than one in the end.

* The dark, gritty, harsh, realness that immersed in the story.

* The twists and turns.

* That there was a resolution to the case even if some were not 100% satisfied with the results

What I didn’t like:

* Knowing that such things happen all too often

* Having to wait for book three ;)

Thank you to NetGalley and Harlequin-Mira for the ARC – This is my honest review.

5 Stars

BLURB:

New York Times bestselling author Allison Brennan's newest thriller again features an edgy young female LAPD detective and an ambitious special agent, both part of a mobile FBI unit that is brought in to investigate the unsolved murder of a college activist and its alleged ties to high stakes crime in the desert Southwest.

Something mysterious is killing the wildlife in the desert hills just south of Tucson, Arizona. When Emma Perez, a college-intern-turned activist, sets out to collect her own evidence, she too ends up dead. Local law enforcement seems slow to get involved. That’s when the mobile FBI unit goes undercover to infiltrate the town and the copper refinery located there in search of possible leads. Costa and Quinn find themselves scouring the desolate landscape that keeps on giving up clues to something much darker—greed, child trafficking, other killings. As the body count continues to add up, it's clear they have stumbled on more than they bargained for. Now they must figure out who is at the heart of this mayhem and stop them before more innocent lives are lost.

Brennan's latest novel brims with complex characters and an ever-twisting plotline, a compelling thriller that delivers.

EXCERPT

Prologue

Two months ago

Tucson, Arizona

Billy Nixon had been waiting his whole life to have sex with Emma Perez. Okay, not all his life. Two and a half years. It just felt that way since he’d fallen in love with her the day they met in Microeconomics, on his first day of classes at the University of Arizona. Love at first sight is a cliché, and until that moment in time Billy didn’t believe in any of that bullshit. His parents were divorced, his older sister had been in and out of bad relationships since she was fifteen, and his friends slept around as if the apocalypse was upon them.

But in the back of his mind, he remembered the story about how his grandparents met the day before his grandfather shipped off to the Korean War, how they wrote letters every week, and how three years later his grandfather came home and they married. They were married for fifty-six years before his grandfather died; his grandmother died three months later.

That’s what Billy wanted. Without having to go to war.

It took Emma two years before the same feeling clicked inside her. They’d been friends. They both dated other people (well, Billy pretended to date because he couldn’t in good conscience lead another girl on when he knew that he didn’t care about her like he cared about Emma). But it was three months ago, when Emma lost her ride home to Denver for the Christmas holidays and he found her crying in her dorm room, that he said, “I’ll drive you there,” even though he was a Tucson native and lived with his dad to save money.

From then on, she looked at him differently. Like her eyes had been opened and she saw in him what he saw in her. From that point on, they were inseparable.

The morning after they first made love, Billy knew there was no other girl, no other woman, with whom he wanted to spend the rest of his life. Call him a romantic, but Emma was it. He had started saving money for a ring. They were finishing up their third year of college, so had a year left, but that was okay. He did well in school and had a part-time job. He already had a job lined up for the summer in Phoenix that paid well, and he could live there cheaply with his sister—though the thought of spending two months with his emotional, self-absorbed sibling was a big negative. And the idea of leaving Emma for two months made him miserable. But if he did this, he’d have enough money, not only for a ring, but to get an apartment when they graduated. And—maybe—his job this summer would be a permanent thing when he was done with college next spring, which meant he’d have stability. Something he desperately wanted to provide for Emma.

Emma rolled over in bed and sighed. He loved when his dad was out of town and he had the house to himself, since they had no privacy in Emma’s dorm. Billy kissed the top of her head. He thought she was still sleeping, or in that dreamy state right before you wake up. It wasn’t even dawn, but how could he go back to sleep with Emma Perez naked in his bed?

“Billy?” she said.

“Hmm?”

“Can I ask you a favor?”

“Anything.” “I need to go to Mount Wrightson today. The Patagonia side of the mountain.”

“Okay.”

An odd request, but Emma spent a lot of time these days in the Santa Rita Mountains and surrounding areas. She was a business and environmental sciences double major who worked part-time at the Arizona Resources and Environmental Agency—AREA, as they called it—the state environmental protection agency.

“For work, school or fun?” he said.

“Last week my Geology class went out to Mount Wrightson and we hiked partway down the Arizona Trail. I noticed several dead birds off the trail. My professor didn’t think it was anything, but it bothered me. So I talked to my boss, Frank, at work, and he said if my professor didn’t think it was unusual, then it wasn’t. But I couldn’t stop thinking about it, so went back a couple days ago on my own. One of the closed trails has been used recently. And I found more dead birds, more than a dozen.”

“Which means what?”

“I don’t know yet, but birds are especially vulnerable to contaminated water because of their small size and metabolism. Remember when I told you my boss got an anonymous letter two years ago? Signed A Concerned Citizen and postmarked from Patagonia? The letter writer claimed that several local people were being made sick and that the water supply was tainted. Frank tested the water supply himself after that, but he didn’t find anything abnormal. So he dismissed it. But no one has been able to explain why those people were sick.”

“And remember—there was no evidence that anyone was sick,” Billy said. “The letter was anonymous. It could have just been a disgruntled prankster. Didn’t Frank talk to the health center about the complaint? Didn’t he investigate the local copper refinery?”

“Yes,” she said and sighed in a way that made him feel like he was missing something. “Maybe two years ago it wasn’t real,” she said in a way that made Billy think she really didn’t believe that. “But now my gut tells me something’s going on, and I want to know what.”

“You told your boss about the dead birds. You said he was a good guy, right?”

“Yeah, but I think he still thinks I’m a tree hugger.”

“You certainly gave that impression when you first started there and questioned their entire record-keeping process and the way Frank had conducted that original investigation.”

“I’ve apologized a hundred times. I realize now how much goes into keeping accurate records, and that AREA uses one of the best systems in the country. I’ve learned so much from Frank. I really believe I can make a difference now, and be smart about it too. All I want is to give him facts, Billy. And the only way I can do that is if I go back up there.”

Billy didn’t have the same passion for the environment that Emma had, but he loved her commitment to nature and how she continued to learn and adapt to new and changing technologies and ideas.

“Whatever you want to do, I’m with you,” he said. He’d follow her through the Amazon jungle if she asked him to.

“It’s going to be a beautiful day,” she said, as if he needed encouragement to do anything for her. “I just want to check out the trails near where I found the second flock of birds. We can have a picnic, make a day out of it.”

“Good call, bribing me with food.”

She smiled. “I can bribe you with something else too.” Then she kissed him.

* * *

An hour later the sun was up and they stopped for breakfast in the tiny town of Sonoita, southeast of Tucson where Highways 82 and 83 intersected. Emma had been quiet the entire drive, taking notes while analyzing a topo map.

As they ate, Emma showed him the map and her notes. “The dead birds I found last week with the class were Mexican jays. The ones I found after that on my own were trogons. I’ve been studying both of their migration patterns. The jays have a wider range. The trogons are much more localized. It seems unlikely that they just dropped dead out of the sky for no reason. I’m thinking, logically, they might have been poisoned. I don’t see any large body of water near where I found them, but there’s a pond here that forms during the rainy season.” She pointed.

While Billy couldn’t read a topo map to save his life, he trusted her thinking.

“That pond, or this stream—” she pointed again “—are right under one of their migration routes. I’ve also highlighted some other seasonal streams, here and here.”

“That seems like a huge area. North and south of Eighty-Two? How can we cover all of that in one day? Where are the roads?”

“We can hike.”

He frowned. Hike, sure. But this looked like a three-day deal.

“Emma, maybe you should talk to your boss again, show him the map and tell him what you suspect.”

“But I haven’t found anything yet—just on the map!”

Tears sprouted to her eyes, and Billy panicked. Don’t cry, don’t cry, don’t cry. “Okay, what are we doing, then?”

“If you don’t want to help me, Billy, just say so.”

“I do, Emma. I just need to know the full plan, and I don’t understand your notes. I don’t even know where exactly I’m going.”

“This is the town of Patagonia, see?” She trailed her finger along one of the paths that went from Patagonia up the mountain. “And this is Mount Wrightson, to the north.”

Billy had hiked to the peak of Mount Wrightson once. He wasn’t into nature and hiking like Emma, but he liked being outdoors, so he took a conservation class that doubled as a science requirement. His idea of being outdoors was playing baseball or volleyball or riding his bike.

“Okay.”

“We need to hike halfway up Wrightson. I found a service road that I think we can use to get most of the way to the trailhead. Okay?”

“If you’re sure about this,” he said.

She frowned and looked back down at her map. He hated that he’d made her sad.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “It’s fine.”

“You don’t want to go.”

“I do. I just don’t want us to get lost.”

She smiled sweetly at him. “Stick with me and you won’t.”

That was the smile he needed. He took her hand, interlocked their fingers. “I trust you.”

“Good.” She gave him a quick kiss, and they left the café and got back on the road.

Several hours later, Billy wasn’t as accommodating. They’d parked at the end of a dirt road near the trailhead halfway up the southeastern side of the mountain and been hiking through rough terrain ever since. The landscape was dotted with some trees and pines, but not as dense or pretty or green as on the top of the mountain. The land wasn’t dry—the wet winter and snow runoff had ensured that—so the area was hard to navigate, and the paths they were on weren’t maintained. Billy doubted they were trails at all.

The hiking had been fine up until lunch. At noon, they ate their picnic, which was a nice break, because then they had sex and relaxed in the middle of nature. It wasn’t quiet—they heard birds and a light breeze and the rustling of critters. A family of jackrabbits crossed only feet from them as they lay on the blanket Billy had brought. Afterward, Billy suggested they head back to the truck. He was tired, and they had already walked miles, which meant as many miles back to the truck.

But Emma didn’t want to leave. He was pretty sure she didn’t know exactly what she was looking for, but that she had this idea that if she walked long and far enough, she’d find evidence to support her theory that something nefarious had been happening out here to kill all those birds.

So Billy kept his mouth shut and followed her.

By four that afternoon, Billy was pretty sure Emma had gotten them lost. They had seemed to zigzag across the southern face of Mount Wrightson. He was tired, and even the birds had gone quiet, as if they were getting ready to settle in and nest for the night, even though sunset was still a few hours away.

He stopped next to a tree that was taller than most and that provided much-needed shade. It was only seventy-six degrees, but the sky was clear and the sun had been beating down on them all afternoon. He was glad he’d thought to bring sunscreen, otherwise they’d both be fried by now.

He dropped the large backpack he’d been carrying that contained their picnic stuff, blanket, water, first aid kit and emergency supplies. He knew enough about the desert not to go hiking without food and water to last at least twenty-four hours. Like if his truck didn’t start when they got back, they needed to be okay. So he had extra water—but he didn’t tell Emma that. It was for emergencies only.

“We’re down to our last water bottles,” he said. He’d paced himself so he had two left, whereas Emma had gone through all six of hers.

He handed her one of the two. “Drink.”

She sipped, handed it back to him. “Thirty more minutes, honey. See this?” She pointed to the damn map that he wanted to tear into pieces now, except without it he was positive they would be lost here forever. “That’s the large seasonal pond I was talking about. It’ll dry up before summer, according to the topo charts.”

How she could stay so cheerful when he was hot and tired and, frankly, bored, he didn’t know.

“How far?”

“Down this path, not more than two hundred yards. Three hundred, maybe.”

He looked at her. Implored her to let them start heading back.

“Why don’t you stay here and wait,” she said.

“You don’t mind?”

She smiled, walked over and kissed him. “Promise.”

Twenty minutes later she was back where Billy waited. She looked so sad and defeated. “I’m ready to go,” she said.

“We’ll come back next weekend, okay? We’ll bring a tent and food and camp overnight.”

She looked surprised at his suggestion, a smile on her face. “You mean that?”

“Absolutely.”

She threw her arms around him. “I love you, Billy Nixon.”

His heart nearly stopped. “I love you, too,” he said and held her. He wanted to freeze this moment, relive it every day of his life.

“We’re actually closer to your truck than you think—we made a circle. First we went north, then west, then south, now we’re going east again. When we get back to the main trail at the fork back there, we go left rather than right, and the truck is about half a mile up.”

He was impressed; he had underestimated her. Maybe they weren’t as lost as he thought; maybe he was the only one with a shitty sense of direction. But that was okay, because Emma loved him, and they were going to be together forever. He knew it in his heart and his head, and she’d always be there to navigate.

They drove down the mountain, the road rough at first, then it smoothed out as they got near town. They headed west on 82, deciding to drive the scenic route back to Tucson. Emma marked her map to highlight where they’d already walked, when suddenly she looked up. “Hey, can you get off here?”

“Have to pee again?”

“Ha ha. No. There’s several old roads that go south. Sonoita Creek, when it floods, cuts fast-flowing streams into the valley. We had a couple late storms this winter. I just want to check the area quickly—we’ll come back next weekend. But if I see anything that tells me the streams were running a few weeks ago, I want to come back here first. Okay? Please?”

Billy was tired, but Emma loved him, so he happily turned off the highway and followed her directions. They drove about a mile along a very rough unpaved road until they reached a narrow path. His truck couldn’t go down there—there were small cacti sprouting up all over the place, and the chances of him getting a flat increased exponentially.

Emma got out, and Billy reluctantly followed. She was excited. “See that grove of trees down there?”

He did. It looked more like overgrown brush, but it was greener than anything else around them.

“I’ll bet there’s still water. This is on the outer circle of where the birds could have flown from. I just want to check.”

“The path looks kinda steep and rocky. You sure about this?”

She kissed him. “I’m sure. Stay here, okay? I won’t be long.”

“Ten minutes.” “Fifteen.” She kissed him again, put her backpack on and headed down the path.

He sat in the back of his truck and watched Emma navigate the downward slope. He doubted this “path” had been used anytime in the last few years. From his vantage point, he saw several darker areas, plants dense and green, and suspected that Emma was right—this valley would get water after big storms.

Emma was beautiful and smart. What wasn’t to love?

He watched until she disappeared from view into the brush.

He frowned. He should have gone with her. Was he just sulking because he was tired and hungry?

Predators were out here—coyotes, bobcats, javelinas. Javelinas could be downright mean even if you did nothing to provoke them. Not to mention that these mountains bordered the corridor for trafficking illegal immigrants. Billy had taken a criminal justice class his freshman year and they touched upon that topic. He didn’t want to encounter a two-legged predator any more than one on four legs.

What kind of man was he if he couldn’t suck it up and help the woman he loved?

So he grabbed his backpack and headed down the path Emma had taken. He was in pretty good shape, but this hike had wasted him. Emma must have been fitter than he was, because she’d barely slowed down all day. After this, they’d go to his place, shower—maybe he could convince Emma to take a shower with him—and then he’d take her out to dinner. After all, they had something to celebrate: the first time they said “I love you.” They’d go to El Charro, maybe. It was Billy’s favorite Mexican food in Tucson, not too expensive, great food. Take an Uber so they could have a couple of drinks.

He wished he were there right now. His stomach growled as he stumbled and then caught himself before he fell on his ass.

He was halfway down the hill when a scream pierced the mountainside. Billy ran the rest of the way down the narrow, rocky trail. “Emma!”

No answer.

He yelled louder for her. “Emma! Emma!”

He slipped when the trail made a sudden drop as it went steeply down to a small pond—the seasonal one that Emma must have been looking for. The beauty of the spot with its trees and boulders all around was striking in the desert, and for a split second he thought it was a mirage. Then all he could think about was that Emma had been bitten by a rattlesnake, or had fallen into the water, or had slipped and broken her leg.

But she didn’t respond to his repeated calls.

“Emma!”

He stood on the edge of the pond, frantically searching for her. Looking for wild animals, a bobcat that she may have surprised. A herd of javelinas that might have attacked her. Anything.

Movement to his right startled him, and he turned around quickly.

In the shade, he saw someone. He shouted, wondering if Emma was disorientated or had gone the wrong way. But whatever he thought he saw was now gone.

Then he saw her.

Emma’s body was half in, half out of the pond, a good hundred feet beyond him, obscured in part by an outcrop of large rocks on the water’s edge. He ran to her and dropped to his knees. His first thought was that she had slipped and hit her head. Some blood glistened on her scalp.

“Emma, where are you hurt? Emma?”

She didn’t respond. Then he saw the blood on a hand-sized rock on the edge of the pond. And he felt more blood on the back of her skull.

“No, no, no!”

He saw her chest rise and fall. She was alive, but unconscious. He pulled out his phone, but there was no signal. He had to get help, but he couldn’t leave her here.

Billy picked Emma up and, as quickly as he could, carried her up the steep hillside to his truck.

As he drove back to the main road, he called 911. An ambulance met him in the closest town, Patagonia.

But by then Emma was already dead.

BOOK INFORMATION

Tell No Lies : A Novel

Allison Brennan

On Sale Date: March 30, 2021

9780778331469

Hardcover

$27.99 USD

432 pages

Buy Links:

Bookshop.org: https://bookshop.org/books/tell-no-lies-9780778331469/9780778331469

Indie Bound: https://www.indiebound.org/book/9780778331469

Barnes & Noble: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/tell-no-lies-allison-brennan/1136909250;jsessionid=BE5869D36ACCCEF44F21FF4A05BC5D62.prodny_store01-atgap04?ean=9780778331469

Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0778331466/httpwwwalli0f-20

Books A Million: https://www.booksamillion.com/product/9780778331469

Kindle: https://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B087JTYYSY/httpwwwalli0f-20

Nook: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/tell-no-lies-allison-brennan/1136909250?ean=9781488077142

Kobo: https://www.kobo.com/us/en/ebook/tell-no-lies-16

Google Play: https://play.google.com/store/books/details/Allison_Brennan_Tell_No_Lies?id=RHDeDwAAQBAJ

Ibooks: https://books.apple.com/us/book/tell-no-lies/id1509698872

About the author:

ALLISON BRENNAN is the New York Times and USA TODAY bestselling author of over thirty novels. She has been nominated for Best Paperback Original Thriller by International Thriller Writers and the Daphne du Maurier Award. A former consultant in the California State Legislature, Allison lives in Arizona with her husband, five kids and assorted pets.

Social Links:

Author website: https://www.allisonbrennan.com/

Facebook: @AllisonBrennan

Twitter: @Allison_Brennan

Instagram: @abwrites

Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/52527.Allison_Brennan

Q&A with Allison Brennan

Q: How much research do you do before beginning to write a book? Do you go to locations, ride with police, go to see an autopsy, etc.

A: Research is one of my favorite parts of writing. Because I’ve been writing for more than a decade, I’ve been doing research for just as long. I’ve been to most locations I’ve written about, though sometimes long ago (and I rely on Google Earth, books, and friends to keep me up to date about changes.) I’ve gone on ride-alongs with law enforcement, I’ve been to the morgue twice and observed not only an autopsy, but have talked to technicians and toured the crypt.

I also went through the FBI Citizens Academy in 2008, when I was in the middle of writing my 8th book. After that, I had multiple agents to call upon for help with details; I toured Quantico twice, the national FBI Headquarters, interviewed both senior and brand new agents about their different experiences in the academy and on the job, and participated in numerous SWAT training drills as a “role player.” What does that mean? I’ve played the part of the bad guy, a hostage, and a victim based on the scenario they were training for. I’ve observed dozens of different scenarios as they drill them, including high-risk traffic stops. I once observed a live ammunition drill from the catwalk, which was both scary and exhilarating.

I recognize that I can’t put everything I learn into my books, and that because I write fiction sometimes reality is too slow and I need to speed things up (trust me, you don’t want to watch my characters doing paperwork!) But I try to write my books to be as realistic as possible.

Q: What’s your favorite part of writing suspense?

A: Everything! I love suspense. I read it as a child (Trixie Belden, Nancy Drew, Agatha Christie, Stephen King) and I read it now. I love romantic suspense (I’m a sucker for happy endings); police procedurals; and race-against-time thrillers. When I’m writing, my absolute favorite part is when everything comes together near the end and I have that “AHA!” moment. It’s exhilarating and worth every struggle along the way.

I’d also have to say that suspense is part of every story. If there’s no suspense, it’s a boring character study. I want to have that physical reaction in my story -- the sense of impending doom and “OMG, how are they going to get out of this?” -- and if I get it while writing, my readers will feel it when reading.

Q: From the books you’ve written or read, who has been your favorite villain and why?

A: The Man in Black, Randall Flagg, is one of the most compelling and scary villains I’ve read, created by the master Stephen King in THE STAND (though Flagg has also shown up in other books.) Favorite? Maybe not. But definitely the villain that stuck with me for the rest of my life. In my books, I’ve created a couple of villains who I’ve actually sympathized with (while condemning their crimes) because their backstories are so tragic -- such as in TEMPTING EVIL. My favorite villain to write was Elise Hansen Hunt who popped up in several books, including the recent COLD AS ICE. She is young, reckless, violent, and I never knew what she might do. I’ve written several serial killers, who are always scary because you never quite know what’s going to happen with them. For example, in the first Quinn & Costa book, the killer was so focused and determined I worried he would outwit my good guys.

Villains should be both believable and realistic, so sometimes the most compelling are those who you can almost sympathize with, or at least understand, even when you are horrified by their crimes.

Q: What hobbies do you enjoy?

A: Reading (duh!), baseball (go Giants!), television (too many shows to list), hiking (except during the Arizona summer), shooting at the gun range (my daughter is a cop and great instructor), video games (with my boys -- at least that’s my excuse.) A little known fact about me … for years I used to make my own soap. It was fun, relaxing, and always made the house smell amazing.

Q: Do you write under one name for all books across genres or do you have other AKA's?

A: Just me! Allison Brennan is my legal name. In fact, I once told my husband if he ever left, I was keeping the name. Ha.

Funny story -- I bought my website domain allisonbrennan.com right after I sold my first book. This was 2004. I wanted to make sure I had it when I had books to put up there. A year later I got an email from someone named Allison Brennan. She tried to buy the site but couldn’t -- she was also a writer (a journalist) and wanted to know how I picked the name and if she could buy it from me. Small world! (There’s also an Allison Brennan who is a Olympic diver, an Allison Brennan who is a gymnast, and an Allison Brennan who lived in my town -- we used the same pharmacy, the same vet, went to the same church, and both had sons named Luke. Yet we never met!)

Q: Do you have pets?

A: Yes. Life just wouldn’t be as much fun without animals. I used to have chickens when we lived on a couple acres in California. I miss them--they were so much fun, and fresh chicken eggs are so much better than store bought. Now, we have two cats and a dog (a ten-year-old black lab). My son has a bearded dragon (lizard) who I adore as well. Who would have thought lizards could have so much personality? And we have a goldfish named Filet.

#Allison Brennan #Quinn & Costa 2 #Suspense #Thriller #Mystery #Crime #Romance #Fiction #FBI #Under Cover #Toxic Dumping #Environment #Harlequin-Mira #NetGalley

0 notes

kunalkarankapoor · 5 years ago

Text

The character study of Mohan Bhatnagar.

This is the seventh part of the character study of Mohan Bhatnagar. Tomorrow I will be posting the final parts which revolve around the character of Vasu.

17) Mohan and Megha

vimeo

Video Link: Mohan/Megha Relationship Study

I desire the things that will destroy me in the end.

Plath

This. This was a relationship that I thought a lot about, turning every scene and spoken work in my head, scrutinising it all to figure out if perhaps I was being too harsh when I concluded that Megha was Mohan’s bane. But regardless of how much I wanted Megha to be good for Mohan, to be right for him, it was not happening. The song choice was on purpose, of course. Because there were times when I wondered if perhaps Mohan was wasting his life, his young years, on a woman who was not worth the fight, in the end. Harsh? Yes, perhaps. But I would like to start from the beginning.

The initial clashes between Mohan and Megha were not of a romantic sort. Mohan would be chasing Koyal around Indore, distracted, impatient, and Megha would somehow end up in his path. He would be sarcastic, provocative, and not bother with any explanations. Frankly, it was refreshing. It was refreshing to see a character that was not swayed by external beauty; to see a character that was incredibly passionate about his work. Their collisions never ended well. They ended with Mohan flapping sarcasm in her face and Megha insulting him in return. Provoking her quickly became Mohan’s favourite pastime, more so when she was employed at the exact same publishing house as him.

However, Mohan was not a cocky bastard despite being downright rude at times. There was a giant heart inside his chest; one that empathised with others – even if he masked it well. Mohan could not ignore someone’s pain, regardless of how hard he tried (e.g. Nanhi in the elevator, Papaji when he lost the case in court and had an asthma attack, Megha when Nanhi “ran away from home” and she could not find her, or when the parents of the victims in the crash came to Mohan for justice). Mohan had to help. It was in his blood, in his nature.

A friendship soon formed between Mohan and Megha despite his article on Amar. However, much like their romantic relationship, it did not stand on a solid foundation, but often crumbled. In its initial phase, there were some quite entertaining situations where Mohan and Megha bonded without even realising it. An example would be the “elevator” episodes in which they were both stuck in an elevator at the mall, forcing them to spend “quality time” together. Mohan almost convinced Megha that if they jumped, the elevator would move. It was one of the rare times that one saw Megha with a childish spirit as she jumped alongside Mohan in order to reactivate the elevator.

What provided a feistier side to their relationship was their opposite world views, e.g. when they debated the content of an article and Mohan was much more focused on the story whereas Megha focused on the people in the story. (However, this did not fit into Mohan’s characterisation because being a reporter of crime, his mission was justice to the people. Thus Megha was given a dialogue that actually should have come from Mohan. The other reporters might have been mechanical and cold in their approach with news/articles, but Mohan was depicted as a reporter with an extraordinary empathic ability.)

Yet Mohan respected Megha despite her opinionated nature, even though her pride tended to hijack her emotions and she refused to admit it when she was in the wrong about something. The fact that Megha made mistakes did not deter Mohan. Instead he would confront her (e.g. when she slapped Nanhi in front of him and later scolded her after they found her in a park). Mohan was always very patient with Megha’s stubbornness and pride, even when he reached a breaking point. The only time that he took the choice out of her hands was when he confessed his love in front of her entire family (and even then, he did not force her to choose him). He had stayed silent because he did not want to put Megha in hurtful situation. But when he confessed for both of them, it was one of the most courageous and right decisions of his life. Waiting for Megha to break the news would have been hopeless since she would have married the doctor (that is, if her family had not demanded the truth from her in the wake of Mohan’s confession).

I was immensely frustrated with Megha at this point. I realised one essential thing about her character. She always victimised herself. She pitied herself. It was a habit that she might have developed around the time that she lost her husband. But either way, it was a frustrating habit that simply made her desicions so completely irrational and inconsistent. When she refused to marry Mohan, she made his mother the reason for it. Then, later, she changed her mind, making Mohan’s happiness the reason for her refusal. Yet she would continue to send him mixed signals – pulling and pushing him with a look, a word, or a question. Mohan would find hope and lose it and find it again and lose it again. Megha’s reasons for rejecting him were barely even circumstantial. If she rejected him because because of his mother, then she could have simply been honest with him about it and given him a chance to deal with his mother. With time, she would have accepted Megha (and she evidently did — despite how Megha treated Mohan). If Megha cared for Mohan’s happiness, in the first place, then she should have said yes since Mohan’s happiness was her. But perhaps she failed to grasp that.

To be honest, I would have liked and/or respected her more if she had rejected Mohan because she did not trust him with the responsibility of her children. I would not have branded her an evil witch for having trust issues. In fact, single mothers might have been able to relate to her situation based on the reason mentioned above. Mohan was young and restless. In fact, he could barely even take care of himself. How would he take care of a wife and two children? For Megha, it would have been a fair question. More so, it could have been shown that Megha wanted him solely for selfish reasons, i.e. she wanted to marry him for her own happiness and the guilt of it could have kept her from surrendering to his proposal. If that had been the actual case, then she might not have appeared a selfless and self-sacrificial saint, but she would have been human. And we do not relate to saints. We relate to humans.

I wondered about Mohan; about why he fell in love with Megha. I enjoyed their chemistry. They had some beautiful moments together, some quite memorable moments. But why did he fall in love with her to the extent that it became an obsession? In his drunken state at her house, he confessed that he noticed her strength, her ability to love unconditionally and sacrifice her own happiness for other people. Yet I failed to see all of this in her. I did not see remarkable strength for a widow (e.g. she was not on her own with her children, but she had a support system in her in-laws); she was not uneducated or jobless (and she had a best friend who was more than willing to help her in any case); she was not exceptionally sharp (often she would be oblivious to her surroundings and Mohan’s emotions); she could never see past her own grief (e.g. every time she rejected Mohan, when they lost Addu, when she fed Nanhi’s resentment toward Mohan for 12 years simply because sheresented him, et cetera). Megha had an untouchable aura about her that could make even confident Mohan insecure. There were times when he did not dare to touch her, or as much as look her in the eye.

I concluded that he must have fallen in love with her because of 1) his bond with Nanhi and 2) Guru’s many stories in which he drew comparisons between Mohan/Megha and his own parents and 3) Megha seemed to represent the warmth/purity of a loving woman, a home, and finally 4) Mohan’s own nature.

1) His bond with Nanhi was his first reconnection with the world. It was a breach of his wall. It was his mind opening up to the possibility of allowing people to enter his heart again. 2) Guru’s stories incited the notion that perhaps his admiration/sympathy for Megha was something more. 3) Mohan always craved a stabile home and female warmth. Someone who needed him in return. 4) Mohan as a person was unable to simply relinquish his love/concern for someone that he came to care for, e.g. it took him six years to move on from Rashmi and only because Megha replaced her.

Furthermore, I wondered about Megha’s love for Mohan and concluded that a part of her – at least on a subconscious level – wanted Mohan to herself. If she had actually wanted to share him with anyone else; if she had wanted him to become a part of her world, then she would have introduced him in her family as an authority figure, as the father of Nanhi and Addu, explaining to Nanhi that she could no longer refer to him as Spiderman because what we name a thing or a person matters to how we perceive/view them. Added to that, how was Addu supposed to accept Mohan as a father figure if his sister addressed him as Spiderman (not father) and his mother allowed it? E.g. Megha would rarely reprimand Addu when he disrespected his father and if she had enough presence of mind to do so, she told him not to “speak that way”. She did not tell him not to speak that way “to his father”, which was an essential point to make.

Another reason that I reached the abovementioned conclusion about Megha was that she would playfully question Mohan about how much he loved Nanhi in comparison to her. In my opinion, it was an odd question. I could not understand why she would want to ask her husband who he loved more – his wife or his child. How do you measure and compare love for your own family? And why did it matter to her if he loved her 8 year old daughter more than he loved her? Should it not have been a positive thing that someone loved your fatherless child as much as her biological father would have? Mohan never questioned her love for him, nor did he compare it to her love for her children. In his case, he could never compete with them. But more than that, the idea of it never even crossed his mind.

The scene in which he showed up drunk at her house and confessed his love was when I realised – for the second time – that Megha did not deserve Mohan or his love. Not only was it absolutely frustrating to watch her treatment of him ever since she had blamed him for the Rashmi incident (which she initiated on her own as well as continued the charade despite the fact that Mohan asked her to stay out of it), but I could not comprehend how (as a woman who claimed to love him deeply) she could stand and watch in silence while he stumbled around in her living room, wept, and dropped to his knees in front of her in-laws. Was this the same woman who had defended her dead husband in a court house, face to face with his killer? Was this the same woman who did not shy away from shutting up Renu when she crossed a line? This woman who could not back up the man that she loved as he swayed on his feet – broken and bruised from her consistent and baseless rejection, battered from fighting for her and from the fear of losing her.

Often I could not rationalise Megha’s actions/reactions, e.g. when she wasted 12 years of her life believing that Mohan physically and emotionally abused her son and caused his disappearance. Later, she suddenly realised that since Addu might have been kidnapped, Mohan could not have been abusive – as if Mohan’s abusiveness and Addu’s kidnapping related to each other; as if both incidents could not have taken place, but that one made the other void. There was never a point when Mohan received a clear admission of guilt from Megha. To blame a father of abuse is a severe accusation. Mohan lived with that accusation for 12 years, and ninety-five percent of the reason behind his return was that he needed to prove his innocence – to prove that he was a good man. It would have been nice to see Megha unable to forgive herself for believing such a thing, and perhaps even revealing some amount of self-hatred, e.g. when the truth about Rimjhim being adopted came out and Mohan told her how he found (that he was alone and broken), it would have been the perfect opportunity for Megha to look guilty and blame herself for Mohan’s suffering.

The most prominent issue with Megha was her hypocrisy. Most of the time, she would lecture others. She would preach about love and trust, but when it came to her, the same rules did not apply, e.g. she would claim to have blind faith in Mohan (when Mohan exposed Manav’s past) and yet she was the first one to waver if he was prosecuted (when he handed over the proof of Amar’s innocence to save Nanhi, or when Megha found out about Riddhima). She would be the first one to doubt his intentions. She would be the first one to shut him out of her life. She would be the first one to disown him. Her trust in him and her love for him was not cemented even after he proved his loyalty to her, nursing her back to health in season one. He could have abandoned her. He could have divorced her, washed his hands clean of any kind of responsibility toward her and her children. But he stayed. He adopted the role of a husband, father, mother – and a nurse. It broke him to see her in such a horrid condition, to not be able to fix her. He would cry for her, lie for her, fight for her. Yet she easily distrusted in him.

Perhaps if the channel/writers had not attempted to make her appear a saint, then Megha’s selfishness would not have been so disturbing. It might even have made sense. Why should she not be selfish? She was married young. She was not accepted by her in-laws for a long time. She was alone with two children. She could not shed her dutiful/pure daughter-in-law skin because she lived with her in-laws. She always had to prioritise others before herself; her husband, her children, and her in-laws. Then a young man charmed his way into her heart, making her feel ridiculously free-spirited. He would draw out the child in her. He would draw out a bolder side of her that perhaps she kept suppressed in order to be what others wanted her to be. There were no expectations from Mohan. She did not have to be selfless and strong. In fact, falling in love with Mohan was probably the most selfish thing that she ever did. Mohan breathed life into Megha, but she never realised his value. If she had, she would never have let him walk away from her.

In order to show Megha as a saint, the channel/writers neglected the character/relationship development between Mohan and other people in his life. They would often write Megha into scenes where she had no business being, e.g. when Beera brought a drunken Mohan home and Rimjhim called Megha for advice on how to take care of her unconscious father. Firstly, Megha had not been around every time Mohan had hit rock bottom in the wake of Addu’s disappearance. Guru had. Secondly, since Guru had always been there to pick him up in his alcohol-induced state, Guru knew exactly how to take care of Mohan and he would have removed his shoes, and so on. In addition to that, he would not have allowed Rimjhim to be in the room with him. Personally, I loved the scene in which Rimjhim removed his shoes and tucked him in. But somehow it would have made a much stronger and realistic impact if Guru had been the one to guide her hand, not Megha.

There was love between Mohan and Megha. But it did not run deep (on Megha’s side). Their relationship stood on a shaky foundation of trust-distrust (e.g. there was a moment at Nanhi’s wedding when Renu questioned Mohan about why he had tried to stop the wedding, and Megha told her that Mohan did not need to explain himself to anyone — however, as soon as Renu turned away, Megha questioned Mohan herself, asking him for a reason).

I could tell that the channel/writers were attempting to make it seem as if fate had pushed Mohan and Megha into each other’s lives. Perhaps it had. But every single choice that they made in relation to their relationship was not predestined. They made the choices and they faced the consequences. At one point I wondered about the concept of fate on the show. Perhaps they were not even meant to fall in love. Perhaps Mohan was only put in Megha’s path to clear her husband’s name. People believed that they were separated again and again only to have their bond strengthened when they found each other. What if they were separated again and again because they were not good for each other? What if the separations were really opportunities for them to move forward without each other? It is a matter of interpretation, really.

Something that I always found interesting was how Mohan thrived when Megha was not in his life, e.g. in Bhopal, he became a social worker, he became rich, he raised a beautiful daughter, and he was happy. Yes, there was guilt over what happened to Addu and there was longing for Megha, but looking at Mohan as a character, I believe that he could have found love again and moved on under the right circumstances (e.g. if he did not have to deal with the guilt and if he was not legally married to Megha).

In the end, I believe that Megha destroyed him. That he let her destroy him.

Concluding the study on Mohan (and before moving on to the study on Vasu), I would like to add that Mohan as a crime reporter could have been explored on a more intense level. He had a desire to save the world, to aid those in need of justice – this could have put him in all kinds of dangerous situations which naturally would have put a strain on his and Megha’s relationship. Precious time was often wasted on unnecessary drama when some situations could have been depicted in a more believable manner – and one that stretched on for a while, e.g. when Mohan investigated the case on drug dealing. It was an incredibly disappointing episode that was stitched together in an illogical way (again because the focus was Megha worrying, Megha seeing him getting shot, Megha saving him, et cetera). From the very moment that Mohan entered the warehouse to fix a bulb (something that even Megha knew how to do on her own, but apparently drug dealers did not), snooped around unseen by any of them, to the moment that he ran from them.

There was never any real focus on Mohan as a top-notch crime reporter, his work (at times as a whistleblower), or his methods.

#kunal karan kapoor #artist #actor #ana

1 note · View note