#can i hear this at a concert? i need to disintegrate

[the-firebird69]

And it is a matter of good taste that people practice properly care and speaking to us mostly they don't ever. So we are going to go after them today and we are going to take care of the problem.

-another issue is trying to tamper with our son's diet Non-Stop he can't tolerate you people hardly at all and you're doing so many things trying to do so many things to him and everything relies on him and he's our prisoner is what you're saying you're going to die you are ignorant people and the max didn't think they can have you do it they will suffer.

-on the foreigners are attacking Max all of them are it's never happened to them it will never be reversed you people here are the ones who did it and you're proud of it and you think it'll do something for you we think you're nuts because we know your nuts

-there's a few things we have to report one of them is that this area is getting invaded by the pseudo empire it's not a massive invasion that they're going to come in and start in feeling the areas where you are not inhabiting and it's a lot there's a lot of places here. He keeps reporting to us tons of homes are empty for sale signs everywhere and finally they started to move in and he says it they don't treat you well at your concerts and they don't treat others that well and they can't and that was good at it and your four people you before and it is how it should be said because it's true so she was not upset and found out that he means it and that these people are actually quite unbearable too at the same time but she really needed to hear it couple more things

-we are in receipt of several letters from the warlock and they say bad things on them and we're looking at the letters you wonder how they got there that's a question and who sent them and he said it was more locked and we are looking at them for code and so forth the threats and when our people and they're asking for things for us to make happen and certain things you might happen and it's raining for behavior here to be a certain thing so I told them we don't know how we're supposed to comply with this stuff nobody on Earth will you're asking us to and you have a list of demands and we follow what they're saying and we are looking at a carefully of course many things we usually respond no and we will of course respond no but they sent us the letter and to our headquarters and it's not Mac proper send it to us and it's not that Daddy it's one of these idiots yeah John remillard and he was saying that his Mac proper yeah so we are presenting this letter that they sent that's exhibit a as to why you should not have him running for president in it he says a few things that are quite illegal and his demanding that we pull back and that we don't do certain things and so on so it's regarding areas that are other than the island nope it's about the island so there's a whole bunch of other things on the letter but they are general items and her son had an idea of how to respond and we're going to respond the way he suggested this little a****** telling me what to do it's very simple we're going to reach out and show you what we mean John remillard about you having a bad attitude and it not fitting with your survival you don't say those things to us and what his response is you don't say those things to us but it said differently on multiple occasions you have said the wrong things to us and we have straightened you out and you never listen and your body end is a disintegrated dissected burned and you get a clone body then you say that you're magic and your own people can't stand you and then you send us a letter what do you on anyways what kind of drugs I understand that some people cannot refuse talking to people who are hitting them but sincerely you don't know where or what we're doing where we can come from or who we have hit you and you just exacerbated and make us more angry on purpose and then we kill you over and over you do it and it's always just someone standing right next to you there's plenty of people who are out of line like you and they don't get shot everyday there's a whole bunch of people with more power that we're pursuing tell your sick person and you're not even American we work on that. Our letters are going to be reaching your facilities today and tomorrow the ones that you sent Monday and Tuesday and you are not to send mail to our location. We were surprised you had the balls to do it and iwe saw you drop it off. We're wondering why you didn't send letters to the max who are actually doing these things they didn't say it's a mental patient stuff. So you want to threaten us and you'll find the return receipt today yeah you didn't send the letters returning receipt you sent them anonymously. We of course have that style and have been doing it in the max are aware of it but I'd like to show them how much and we did the max have 45 control centers in each area and we have the idiot send to all of them all over the world and he does think it's our places and he's supposed to for what the max are doing okay, now I'm just saying he knows it's their centers. There's a big huge list of things not to do put out by your people you didn't go to them first so they want to ask you questions and she couldn't bring him in. Bja tried himself couldn't do it

So he told bja what he thinks and he says no wonder he's a madman and yeah that's the answer so people are after him for it and bja is after him and they want to talk to her son and our son says I know why they did it and how but that's the shapes and no one can figure it out and by the way I need you to keep people completely out of the pyramids all of them on Earth and you need to have a summit with your other people including Trump though they left as a ball and a device that puts the ball into something and I'm afraid that your grandson and family are to activate the device and who the hell knows what it's set up to do and so he says uh-oh it could be Frozen people and a huge pile and geothermics to reactivate Giants of Dave to run huge lasers he says I feel like Michelle in San Francisco at a party. Projectile vomiting so it didn't go around and they're looking at it and they're saying we actually need to stop him and it was Tommy F they're talking about because he appears to be trying to activate it in the future so the letters went out and the idiot is going to get fried and he thinks it's because they're demanding the money and it's what they're doing and it's not our son but our son says have to get money sometime and you messed up cheese man so he's going to shoot you you'll eventually die and I think he leaves Titan because you couldn't figure it out and that's what it is

Thor Freya

I can't stand that guy Trump says it's not really a person he's an idiot and he'll be gone soon so that's good

Hera

Olympus

[pickingwinkles]

Thanks @highponeystoney I can use some comfort right now so this is a good way to remember the comforting things all around

Comfort Tag Game

We can all use a little comfort from time to time so what's the 1st thing that comes to mind when you see the following:

Song: I think Andante festivo by Sibelius but if we’re talking a song with words to lower my blood pressure: Oceans, PJ, never fails

Band: Pearl Jam (whaaat!? who’d have thunk)

Movie: there are 4 movies I can recite in their entirety and don’t need a single active brain cell to watch—The Princess Bride, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead, Best in Show, and Labyrinth

Actress: Catherine O’Hara

Actor: Paul Newman

TV show: there’re quite a few but in the last few years Taskmaster for sure

I’m going to add Mini-series: North and South and Pride and Prejudice (1995)

Concert video: ohhhhhhh—all PJ. toss up between 1999 Bridge School second night, Pinkpop ‘92, and Pinkpop 2000. And maybe 2005 Santiago, I think the second night?

Book: It used to be The BFG, then absolutely any Discworld book, now I’d probably like to re-experience the utter contentment I felt reading The Watchmaker of Filigree Street.

Author: Terry Pratchett

Poem: I don’t know much about poetry but I do get absurdly homesick if I hear any line of My Country by Dorothea Mackellar

Character: Granny Weatherwax, and Death

Piece of clothing: the long woollen skirt I made last year, and my 25yo glow-in-the-dark Superunknown t-shirt that no longer glows in the dark and I have to find some way to preserve the rest of it before it disintegrates further

Meal: potatoes-any way except cold, and/or bibimbap with a runny egg

Snack: biccies for sweet, chippies for salty

Drink: monk’s pear tea

Animal: nice cuddly cats, so not my little buttmunch

Room: the spare room with all my books and craft stuff in

This was lovely to do. Tagging any and all who want to try!

[daintyduck99]

if ur still accepting soft dialogue promts, “No one’s ever… for you before?” “Never.” for juliereggie? julie to reggie if u can?

Julie runs her finger over the battered spine of Little Women. It’s been loved to pieces, as Papi says, but she needs it today. She gingerly leafs through the pages, smiling at her mother’s loopy script in the margins. Her mother’s voice lives in this book, and Julie hears her every time she reads it. Even when this copy disintegrates, she’s embedded in the words, the story itself.

A hesitant knock pulls Julie out of the book and back into her room.

Reggie waves from the doorway, eyes bright with curiosity, and Julie beams as she beckons him inside. He hovers next to the bed until she pats the spot beside her, which makes him grin like she’s offered him front-row tickets to a Stand Atlantic concert. She blushes down at her book as he scoots close, hooking his chin over her shoulder.

“I thought you were playing video games with Carlos,” Julie mumbles, resting her head on top of Reggie’s. She feels him shrug.

“I was, but your aunt showed up, and she’s dragging him off for a haircut. I figured I’d beat it before she decided I need one, too.”

He does, technically. His hair has just gotten long enough to curl slightly at the ends, barely peeking out from the nape of his neck and behind his ears. She’s glad he’s not cutting it, yet.

Thankfully, he keeps talking before she can linger on why. “Whatcha reading?”

“Oh—just Little Women. It’s supposed to be for kids, but it’s super relatable. My mom used to read it to me. Now I read her copy when I really miss her.”

Reggie puts his hand on her knee, avoiding the book and her hands entirely. He’s probably worried about destroying it somehow, but he’s not nearly as clumsy as he thinks.

“Should I leave? I didn’t mean to interrupt anything important.”

You’re important. Julie swallows. She curls her fingers around his wrist.

“Will you stay? I’ll—I could read it to you.”

He makes a wounded sound, taking a shuddering breath. “You—would?”

“Of course I would,” Julie says sincerely, sliding her fingers up to intertwine them with his, “if you wanted me to, or if you’d be willing to indulge me. It’s—soothing.”

“If you say so,” Reggie mumbles. He twists one of her rings around with his thumb.

“Oh,” she breathes, and he looks at her reluctantly as she turns, retreating slightly so that his face isn’t partially buried in her shoulder, anymore. His eyes are glassy with pain, the ache of an absence that she feels between her ribs. “No one’s—no one’s ever read to you before?”

“Nope!” False cheer makes his voice sound off, full of sharp notes. “Never.”

Julie bites her lip. “Could I? For both of us?”

Reggie’s silent for a long moment. He stares at the book in her lap.

“I’m—I’m not quiet. I’ll ask too many questions, and move around too much, and—”

She detangles their hands to flip to a specific passage, looping her arm around him once she finds it so he can’t slip away as she shows it to him.

“Look what my mom wrote—‘This joke always makes Julie squeal.’ Or here, ‘Don’t forget to boo Amy’s teacher.’ It’s normal to react to a story, especially when you’re sharing it with someone else. It’s special and engaging. And I love your questions. If you move—that’ll keep me awake.”

His lips quirk into a smile. Some of the pain has left his eyes as he meets her gaze.

“Well, I’ll be sure to boo Amy’s teacher when the time comes.”

“I was five!” Julie defends, shoving Reggie playfully, “My reactions are way more eloquent now!”

“Mmm. Very eloquent of you to shove me.”

“Oh—” She wraps her arms around his waist, trying and failing to haul him into her lap. “Come here, already.”

“First you push me away,” he sighs, “then you pull me back—what’s a boy to do?”

“I’ll make up a brand new ending,” Julie threatens, pressing her forehead into his back to hide her flush, “and you’ll have no idea because you won’t be able to see the pages from over there.”

“Fine,” he relents with a chuckle, “you’re very persuasive.”

Years later, as they sit with their young daughter and her eyes droop even as she demands that they keep reading, Julie will smile as he tells her the same thing.

[aro-of-artemis]

It's what you do with the things you love!

3 times the boys give Julie kisses and 1 time they have a cuddle pile.

AKA an excessive number of hugs, kisses and I love yous because they're all touch starved and they deserve it.

ao3: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29331480

{1} Alex

 Somewhere in the back of her mind, Julie knows she's dreaming. But that knowledge doesn't make her feel any better. She can feel the staccato thrum in her chest even as she sleeps, her lungs filling and deflating too quickly, making her feel hollowed out like a wind tunnel. Dreams, some nonsensical, others entirely too real, blur and warp in her head. She sees her mother's casket being covered in dirt, hears the pulsing, beeping heartbeat seemingly echoing from the very walls of a hospital. She sees the boys, her boys, laying in a haphazard pile, tear stained and rumpled and slowly disintegrating, turning to bone and then ash and then dust, blown away by a source-less wind. She sees-

 "Julie."

 Her frantic twisting and turning in bed is disturbed by a voice laced with concern. She can still feel her heartbeat in her ears. The rise and fall of her chest does not slow down but she is mercifully rescued from her dreams. She begins to cry. Big, loud sobs that judder and heave like a ship on a stormy sea.

 "Hey, hey, hey," the voice says, gently. She turns her face to see Alex crouched by the side of her bed, resting his hands on the edge like he wants to reach out and touch her but he's not sure if he's allowed. He turns one palm up in silent question. Julie nods desperately, sobs never ceasing.

 Alex moves slowly, sliding in next to Julie, half sitting up. He wraps his arm around her shoulders and she gratefully buries her face in his chest, body still shuddering. His other arm comes around to encircle her completely. He doesn't say much - there's not much he can say that would actually help - so he just holds her to his chest and runs his hands over her hair and down her back in long, soothing strokes.

 He slides down a bit more so that her head is fitted under his chin, her damp breaths against the collar of his hoodie. The tears have quietened a bit, beat out by sheer exhaustion. When she speaks, her voice is raw.

 "Thank you, Alex."

 "Of course, Jules. I love you."

 "Love you, too," she murmurs into his chest.

 He tucks his chin, pressing a soft kiss against the crown of her head, her curls tickling at his nose. She lets out a deep sigh, her tense muscles relaxing in small increments.

 "Will you stay with me?" Her voice is small, uncertain.

 "As long as you need."

Her breathing grows deep and slow, a slight rasp around the edges that approaches a snore. Alex lets his eyes pull shut and slips off into sleep.

 ~~~

 Sometimes Ray wakes in the middle of the night, filled with a sudden dread and the urgent need to check on his kids. Tonight, he has a distinct sense that something is wrong with Julie.

 Quietly, he swings his legs out of bed and makes his way down the hall, feet scuffing against the floor in a hushed whisper. Her door stands slightly ajar and he nudges it further open, eyes searching out his daughter.

 He is momentarily startled to see not one but two bodies in her bed but the sun rises in his chest at the sight before him, dispelling the menacing shadows of night. A pink-clad torso curls protectively around Julie, shielding her from any and all threats within and without. Alex's soft gold hair falls in every which direction and his normally anxious face is eased with sleep. Ray smiles and pulls the door shut.

  {2} Reggie

 Julie's noticed something. Reggie always wears the same clothes. It's always some combination of his black skinny jeans, a tank top, his leather jacket and his flannel. Luke and Alex seem to mix it up more, so it's not a ghost thing. Maybe he's just committed to the aesthetic, Julie thinks, but she's not so sure. It nags at the back of her mind for days.

 She brings it up to Luke. He looks at her with his big, sad puppy dog eyes. "Yeah, I guess he does. His parents weren't - they didn't really…" Care. He trails off but Julie fills in the blanks. She feels something in her chest harden in anger and yet also soften with tender affection. The result of some strange oxymoron of love.

 Luke doesn't offer any more information and Julie doesn't press but plans are already forming in her head.

 She has a hushed conversation with her father which ends with a credit card pressed into her hand and the encouragement to "go nuts - within reason". She tells the boys the next day that she's hanging with Flynn and that they should under no circumstances interrupt her. It's not a lie - Flynn's eye for clothes and talent for thrifting is an invaluable part of this mission.

 They spend the next day rifling through thrift stores and shopping centres, collecting flannels and t-shirts and jeans that match Reggie's style. (And perhaps they purchase socks and undies for all of the boys because honestly. And maybe Flynn stumbles upon a band shirt that would be just perfect for Luke and Julie finds a fanny pack that was made for Alex).

 Tote bags full-to-bursting perched on her shoulders, Julie makes her way down the garden path and pushes her way into the studio. She finds the boys lounging on the couch, Luke and Reggie idly plucking at their guitar strings and Alex hanging upside down off it.

 "Julie!" they chorus as she enters.

 A small laugh enters her voice. "What are you guys doing?" It turns into a full-belly laugh as Alex tries to extricate himself from his precarious position and ends up landing on his head.

 Reggie notices the bags on her shoulders. "Whatcha got, Jules?" His enthusiasm is infections.

 "Well…," she says, drawing it out. She sets the bags down on the piano and starts unloading them, making a small pile off to the side for Alex and Luke. Once she's finished, she steps back with a satisfied nod and a flourish. "It's for you, Reg."

 His smile drops. "For me?"

 She nods, biting her lip nervously. Now that she's here, she isn't sure how he'll react. Would he be mad that she'd overstepped? Embarrassed? She watches his face carefully for a reaction. Her heart drops to her shoes when tears start spilling down his cheeks.

 "Oh! Reggie, I'm so sorry. I shouldn't have assumed, I should have asked before I -" She's abruptly cut off when warm arms pull her into his chest and she lets out a soft oof. But she revels in the embrace, letting Reggie hold her as long as he needs.

 When he pulls back a bit, his eyes are red and puffy but he's smiling once more. "Don't apologise, Julie. I - It's just that no one's ever - no one's done this before. Thank you."

 Julie can feel a stinging sensation at the back of her eyes and a boulder forming in her throat but she manages to croak out, "Of course, Reggie. I love you." She tugs on his necklace affectionately.

 Fresh tears spill down his face. He leans forward, ducking his head down to press a gentle kiss into the softness of her cheek and pulls her back into an embrace.

 "Love you, too, Jules."

 ~~~

 "You bought us underwear?"

 "Yes."

 "I dunno how to feel about that, Jules."

A sigh. "Just say thank you and move on."

"Thank you, " is said in a three-part chorus.

 {3} Luke

 Julie lays on her bed, stomach pressed against the soft duvet and heels kicking in the air behind her. But her eyebrows are furrowing in tense concentration and her fingers are tight around her pen. Spread haphazardly before her are various textbooks and notebooks, her laptop open off to one side. An irritated sigh drives its way out of her throat when disorderly curls fall into her face again.

 As if summoned, Luke poofs into her room. She doesn't look up.

 "Hey! Jules. You nearly finished with your school work?"

"No." She says it flat and terse, eyes fixed on the page before her.

 "Oh." His face momentarily creases but he shrugs and makes himself comfortable at the end of her bed, leaning his side up against it. His chin rests just on the edge. "I'll just wait here until you're done then."

 Julie doesn't respond.

 Time passes. An hour perhaps, but Luke's never had the best sense of time. His brain always seems to warp and shift it. He stays admirably quiet, considering, if he does say so himself. He paces around the room, fiddling with knick knacks and keepsakes, admiring (from a distance) pictures of Julie and her mom. He gives the dream box a wide berth (even if his eyes keep being drawn to it. Especially so).

 Eventually, he sits himself back down in his original position, eyes glancing around the room. Absentmindedly, his hand reaches out to tug at a curl that had fallen forward over Julie's face.

 "Would you STOP that?" she snaps.

 His hand jerks back as if scalded. "Julie - what - I - I'm sorry, I didn't mean to - ". His eyes are wide, eyebrows practically disappearing into his hairline.

 Julie's breath leaves her chest all in a rush, as if trying to beat the traffic at the end of a concert. Her face drops into her hands. Luke looks at her in consternation, unsure where he went wrong until he sees her back begin to shake with awful, desperate sounds.

 "Julie - I - are you okay?"

 She doesn't answer but continues to tremble.

 "Julie. Jules. Talk to me. Or - or do you want me to leave. I can go if you want. I didn't -" He begins to rise, backing up.

 He's stopped in his tracks, half crouched, by a garbled sound that he thinks was no.

 "Okay," he says. He sits back down. Thinking. His eyes never leave Julie. "If, if you don't wanna talk about it, would you like a hug instead? I'm told I give pretty good hugs."

The hiccupy almost-sobs are interrupted by a wet chuckle. Her head nods minutely. Luke's not sure he would have noticed except for how close he's watching her.

 His muscles bring him to standing and he opens his arms wide. "C'mere," he says. Just quietly. She swings herself over the side of her bed and just about flings herself at his chest. He wraps his arms around her, as tight as they go, matching her grip, and just holds her for a while, rocking back and forth slowly.

 ~~~

 Luke's hugging her so tight. She feels so safe and so warm. His small shushing sounds cease when he presses his warm, dry lips against her forehead. He keeps them there and strokes her hair gently, careful not to snag any curls. Julie feels her shoulders drop, finally, some of the tension unspooling from her spine. She breathes in, 2, 3, 4 and out, 2, 3, 4 and in and out for a while longer.

 Once her heart has calmed from a jackhammer to the mere ticking of a clock, she pulls back to look at him. His eyes are like an ocean at storm, a wild mess of greygreenblue.

 "Luke, I'm sorry, I - "

 "You don't need to apologise." One of his hands comes up to cup her jaw, dragging a thumb under the corner of her eye where tears still linger. She feels her heart grow a couple of sizes.

 "I want to," she insists, looking down bashfully.  "I'm sorry for snapping at you. I've just been really overwhelmed by my school work and it was feeling like too much. But I, um, I think I just needed a really good cry 'cause I haven't in a while and I - " Her words stumble when she looks back up because there's a bittersweet crinkle around the corners of his eyes and his eyebrows are so earnest that she has to just reach up and touch one, grazing her thumb along it.

 He laughs a little. Just softly.

 "And thank you. For the hug," she says. "You really are excellent at hugs. 10 out of 10. Would hug again"

 His eyes crinkle again but this time with mirth. "Of course, Julie. Anytime. Day or night."

 Her thumb is still on the tail of his eyebrow and the rest of her hand is cupping his cheek. He may be a ghost but she can feel the warmth of his skin against her palm, the rushing of blood beneath the surface, the faint freckles that wander across his nose.

 And his eyes. She could write entire songs about his eyes - whole albums - and still not know what colour they were or how to capture how they shift with his mood like a flag in the wind.

 Her gaze drops to his lips without her permission. As they lift into a tentative smile, her thumb drags over the crease of skin where his smile lines form and tugs at the edge where his mouth curls up, making him smile wider.

 Julie looks back up to his eyes after eons to find him staring back just as intently. His lips part slightly, as if in awe, unsure what to say. Finally, they resolve into the soft sounds of her name.

 "Julie. Can I - ?"

 "Please." Her voice is barely a whisper.

 Slowly, as if encased in glass, he lowers his face to meet hers. Their lips brush, mere millimetres away from each other. The air crackles. And then breaks.

 Julie pushes her lips up to meet his. They're warm (still). And soft. Her whole face, her whole body, is alight, lines of warmth spreading from every place skin meets skin. She presses into him harder and he presses back. The hand still on his face hooks around his ear, bringing him closer. One of his arms curls around the small of her back, pulling her in and his thumb rubs small circles on the sharp of her cheekbone, his calluses catching against her skin. She never wants this to end but she has to breathe, even if he - technically - doesn't.

 She pulls back but doesn't go far, resting her forehead against his. She can practically feel the curlicue of his mouth against hers, his breath tickling her face.

 "You're amazing, Julie." His expression is thunderstruck, disbelieving, electrified.

 "So are you." She is filled with awe at the idea that she gets to have this. Him. Luke Patterson, the boy she. She - she loves.

 Oh.

 Oh.

 "I love you," she says in wonderment. "So much."

 He laughs, incredulous. She feels unstoppable. "So do I. I - I - I love you so much I don't know what to do with it all."

 Julie laughs back. Delirious. Just this side of hysterical. "Me neither. I wrote an entire song in my head because I had nowhere else to put it."

 Luke snorts. "Me too."

 "Yeah?"

 "Yeah."

 Their smiles could blind astronauts all the way in space.

 {+1}

 Julie turns over in her bed again. She tries to resettle her sheets but her feet get tangled up in the knotted blanket. She lets out a deep sigh and can feel irritation clawing its way up her arms and legs, tugging at her nerve endings, making her want to scream. She turns her head to read the time off her phone and another heartfelt sigh is pulled from her chest as she watches the numbers tick over to 1:13 am.

 She lays there a moment longer, staring up at the ceiling like she's a character in The Office looking at the camera. Hoping - praying - that some semblance of sleepiness would overtake her. But no, that would be far too easy. It's just that something's wrong. She can't put her finger on it but she feels as though the air around her is ill-at-ease with the objects in its path and something in her chest twinges uncomfortably.

 She rolls over and tumbles out of bed, half stumbling to her feet, and makes her way downstairs, outside along the garden path and into the studio. The sight that greets her when she enters is … unnerving.

 Reggie lays in the middle of the floor, arms and legs spread wide, just staring fixedly at nothing. Over on the couch, Luke sits, picking a melancholy tune out on his acoustic. On the floor next to Luke's legs, Alex sits with his knees pulled up to his chest, his chin pressed harshly into them and arms wrapped around his calves. He too looks off into the middle distance.

 "Uh. Hey, guys."

 At the sound of her voice, Luke's fingers falter and the other two's eyes seem to snap back into this reality but none of them move.

 "What's…going on?" she says uncertainly. She feels the weight of three sets of eyes on her, burdened by some incurable sadness. Luke has stopped playing but he still holds his guitar in his lap, clutching it to his chest.

 "Nothing," he says like a lying liar who lies. "We're fine. What're you doing up?"

 Julie narrows her eyes at him, looks to Alex, then Reggie. "Don't change the subject." Her eyes soften though. A few steps across the garage and she settles herself down by Reggie who has yet to move except to bring his hands together over his stomach and begin tugging at his fingers. Gently, she lifts his head up and settles it in her lap. He lets her without argument and she begins to comb her fingers through his soft hair.

 "Clearly something's going on. So spill." Her words are direct but her tone is mild.

 Alex's chin lifts from his knees. "We - I, I was just thinking about my, um, my parents?"

 Julie nods encouragingly at him even as she continues to play with Reggie's hair.

 He continues. "I don't know what happened to my parent since I died. I - I don't know if I wanna know what happened to them. They weren't - they didn't, after I came out -"

 Julie just nods reassuringly. She feels so lucky that her dad was understanding when she told him about her sexuality, even if he didn't understand all of the terminology entirely.

 "But my sister. I think I want to know what happened to her. How she's doing."

 "You have a sister?" Julie's not sure why she's so shocked to find this out.

 "Yeah, a younger sister." He smiles a little, crookedly.

 Julie furrows her eyebrows a bit, considering. "We could find her? If you wanted. I'm sure Dad would be happy to help track her down."

"You'd do that?" His blue eyes shine with something like hope.

 "Of course, Alex." She watches him as he scrubs a hand across his mouth and sniffles. She elects not to say anything but just opens one of her arms. He crawls over and slumps into her warm embrace, breathing shakily.

 Reggie speaks now. "I don't think I want to find my parents. It would be - " He shakes his head and a tear rolls down the side of his face and drops noiselessly onto the floor.

 "That's okay, Reggie."

 "Thanks, Julie. I just sometimes wonder - it doesn't matter though." His watery eyes brighten a touch. "You guys are my family, now."

 Julie feels a warm tear leak out the corner of her eye and make its way down her face, hanging off her chin.

 She turns her face to Luke who hasn't spoken since the beginning. He chuckles softly, shaking his head. His face is dry but his eyes are brighter than normal. "You know my story, Julie. And I'm so …," he tips his head back as if searching for the right words, "… grateful to you for giving my parents closure but I still miss them, y'know?"

 Julie does know. "Luke Patterson, you'd better get your butt over here."

 He smirks a little at that, placing his guitar off to the side finally. As he does so, Julie wiggles herself down so that she's lying across the rug, carefully positioning Reggie's head on her stomach. Alex presses his face into her shoulder on the opposite side to Reggie, throwing his arm over her upper torso. She curls her arm protectively around his shoulders, her thumb stroking against the place where it rests. Luke plops himself down beside her and wedges a cushion under her head. She smiles at him gratefully. He positions himself at her other shoulder, cushioning his head on her outstretched arm so that he lies parallel to Reggie. He loops his arm over Reggie, pulling him to his chest.

 As if they'd planned it, they all released a breath simultaneously. A damp giggle erupts from their pile on the floor.

 After a few minutes of just existing together, Julie clears her throat.

 "I love you guys," she says quietly. "You're my family and I'll do anything I can for you. You've already done so much for me. So if you want to see your families, or if you don't, I'll be here to help you. Just say the word."

 "Thank you, Julie," Alex answers for all of them.

 Time passes and she can feel Luke's breath begin to deepen against her neck and the rise and fall of Reggie's stomach slow. Alex burrows further into her shoulder. Her own eyes feel as though they're being pulled down like the shutters of a shop at the end of the day. She lets herself fall into a deep, restful sleep.

 When morning comes, she lays a kiss on each of their cheeks before she makes her way inside. Because, after all, that's what you do with the things you love.

[howaminotinthestrokesyet]

Where Have They Gone Now: Axl Rose

Born William Bailey originally in Lafayette, Indiana in 1962. His mother was still in high school when she had him, while his juvenile delinquent father was 20 years old. They would divorce when he was two years old, which led his father William Rose abducting him and reportedly molesting the young boy. His mother remarried to a man named Steven Bailey, who was not much better than his birth father. Axl and his siblings were beaten on a regular basis and once again reportedly molested as well. Led by his stepfather, the Rose household was very strict religiously growing up in the Pentecostal faith. He was required to attend church 7 to 8 times a week, and even taught Sunday school on occasion. This seems to be in stark contrast to the Axl Rose we will see later. Axl would comment on his upbringing. “We'd have televisions one week, then my stepdad would throw them out because they were Satanic. I wasn't allowed to listen to music. Women were evil. Everything was evil." Music became a source of solace from an early age as he began singing in the church choir at the age of five. Rose began as a natural baritone, but decided to change his pitch consistently during practice just to anger the teacher. The future Guns N’ Roses lead singer also began to study piano at Jefferson High School, as well as participating in high school musicals. At the age of 17, Axl was going through some insurance papers when he discovered the existence of his biological father. At that time, he unofficially adopted his real father‘s last name of Rose, but told everyone he would not share a first name with him only referring to himself as W. Rose. After this discovery, the young man began to completely act out leading to at least 20 misdemeanor arrests from public intoxication to assault. Lafayette police were trying to charge him as a habitual criminal when he moved to LA in 1982 at the age of 20.

Almost immediately upon arrival, Rose joined the band Rapidfire with guitarist Kevin Lawrence. He had met him just outside the Troubadour in West Hollywood. They recorded a five song demo, but due to legal actions was not released until 2014. The EP was entitled Ready To Rumble. His next band included childhood friend and guitarist Izzy Stradlin, which they named Hollywood Rose. They recorded a demo featuring songs like “Shadow of Your Love,” “Anything Goes,” and “Reckless Life.” These songs would appear on various releases throughout the years including 2004’s, The Roots of Guns N’ Roses. The band would break up just after the hiring of Slash and Steven Adler. The biggest reason for this was that Rose decided to join LA Guns led by guitarist Tracii Guns. As he struggled for musical success, the young Axl continued to work to make any sort of money including night manager of Tower Records and even smoking cigarettes for a scientific study at UCLA with Izzy Stradlin. By 1985, Rose had restarted Hollywood Rose, so this band and LA Guns could merge their members. Guns N’ Roses was finally born, but almost immediately Tracii Guns and two other members left the band. Essentially, Guns N’ Roses became an expanded version of Hollywood Rose rather than any connection to LA Guns. They simply liked the name, so they kept it. Yet, there is absolutely no Guns in the band.

One thing to understand about Rose and his prima donna behavior that eventually led to the disintegration of the band was that every band in Los Angeles wanted him to be their lead singer in the mid-1980s. Axl had a certain buzz about the energy and intensity he brought every night on stage that could not be replicated. He represented the shining star of the Sunset Strip at that time; he could pick any group that was not signed to a record contract. The band would sign with Geffen Records in 1986, but one thing to note was that right before he changed his name officially to W. Axl Rose. The name originated when he was playing in a band called the Axls, so one of his bandmates suggested that he change his name to Axl. Rose thought it was a cool idea and never changed it. As the band began their sudden rise to the top of the music world, people began to realize that Rose was much different than any other singer before him. He began to single people out in the crowd, who were causing problems after two people died at the Monsters of Rock Festival in 1988. Most times previously singers would tell roadies to take care of it without publicly calling out anyone in the crowd. If you listen to their live compilation album, there are a couple of tracks where you can hear him actually doing this. Axl would say this in a 1992 interview. “Most performers would go to a security person in their organization, and it would just be done very quietly. I'll confront the person, stop the song: 'Guess what: You wasted your money, you get to leave.'" Upon the release of their EP Lies, Rose ran into quite a bit of controversy for his use of racial and homophobic slurs in the song, “One in a Million.” His explanation and defense of the use of the terms at the time was he meant it to be a joke about people that are a pain in your ass in your life. If that had occurred in our present times, he would have been canceled immediately. In 1992, the singer tried to explain the use of the lyrics once again relating some personal experiences he had with blacks and gays that had formed this negative connotation in his mind. For all the controversy, the group was dropped from a 1992 AIDS benefit show. By 1989, most rock writers had begun to see him as one of the top frontmen in rock and roll at the time. Rolling Stone had such respect for him as a singer that they allowed him to use his personal photographer for their story on him, instead of someone on their staff. During the recording of Use Your Illusion, Rose began to impose his will upon the band in a variety of ways. He forced the band to accept his friend Dizzy Reed as a keyboardist. Axl then wanted to fire their longtime manager Alan Nevin, which the band had to go along with because the singer threatened to not perform on the album if he was allowed to stay.

The Use Your Illusion tour began in May 1991 highlighted by concerts that started hours late, rants of his on stage, and even a riot in St. Louis. He tried to jump into the crowd during that show to take away a fan’s video camera, so after he got back on stage Rose quit the concert. Upon seeing an empty stage, the 25,000 people there started a riot. The damage bill came out to be just around $200,000. The friendships between the band members and Rose were gradually imploding throughout the tour. At one point, Axl demanded and received legal ownership of the Guns N’ Roses brand name. He had supposedly issued an ultimatum either give me legal ownership or I will not perform. Axl would later deny these reports saying the contract would not have been legally binding if he had done such a thing. Who knows what the truth is when it comes to this band sometimes? The singer helped to start another riot in Montreal at a concert co-headlined by Metallica. The heavy metal band had their concert cut short because pyrotechnics severely burned lead singer James Hetfield. Once again, Rose was nowhere near the venue to go on early coming on stage very late. The group needed to do an extensive set to make up for the short one by Metallica, but Rose cut his set short claiming voice problems. Once again, the fans rioted leading to some extensive fines directed towards the singer by Canadian authorities.

In 1994, the band released the covers album The Spaghetti Incident, which included a hidden track originally written by Charles Manson. Axl had intended the song to be a message to his ex-girlfriend Stephanie Seymour. The controversy that followed this song meant that the band needed to donate money for the son of one of the victims of those murders. In 1994, Rose also decided to terminate guitarist Gilby Clarke as a member of the band without consulting any of the other members. This decision was made so that Axl could bring in the controversial guitar replacement, Paul Tobias, which eventually led to Slash leaving the band. By 1997, the only original member of Guns N’ Roses was one Axl Rose. He had started to fade from any public view becoming essentially a rock and roll hermit. The media had dubbed him either Rock and Roll’s Greatest Recluse or the Howard Hughes of Rock and Roll. By the late 1990’s, rumors began to spread that Rose was forming a new lineup of Guns N’ Roses for an album entitled Chinese Democracy.

The absolute insanity that was Chinese Democracy took place from 2001 to 2011. The album would be officially released in 2008, but not after several starts and stops over and over again. A tour of the new album had been scheduled from 2001 to 2002, but almost all of the shows were either cut short or canceled because Rose was either a no-show or would quit very quickly. Finally, in 2006 and 2007, he actually toured as Guns N’ Roses promising new music. The concert offered very little in Chinese Democracy, but only concentrated on their hit songs. Around this time, he had changed his hair into cornrows, which got a laugh from music fans everywhere. One should note that Izzy Stradlin actually made a few guest appearances during that tour. Fans had hoped that a reunion collaboration might occur, but there was no such luck. Upon the release of Chinese Democracy, the singer did everything he could to sabotage any possible success the album might have overall. He refused to promote the album, would not return phone calls, or give interviews for three months after the release of the album. By the time he actually did say something about the album, the reclusive Rose complained that Interscope Records did not help them very much in promoting the album. In 2009, Axl and GNR went on a 2 1/2 year long tour, which included a headlining appearance at Rock in Rio 4. Around that time, he was sued by former band manager Irving Azhoff for $1.87 million. Of course, Axl countersued him claiming that he was forced to do a reunion tour because Azhoff had completely mismanaged the release, promotion, and tour of Chinese Democracy. In 2010, he sued Activision for their game Guitar Hero. Axl claimed that he had an oral agreement with the company that if “Welcome to the Jungle” was allowed on the game, then Slash nor any Velvet Revolver would not be included in any release of it. Not only was Slash’s music included in the game, but he ended up on the cover. A judge threw out the lawsuit in 2013 saying that Rose could not prove the oral agreement and the statute of limitations had run out anyway. In 2012, the Guns N’ Roses singer was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, but he declined to appear. In an open letter published on the Internet, Rose stated that due to the tensions between his former bandmates, he did not want to be where he was not wanted or respected. Yet, slowly but surely Guns N’ Roses began to tour with some of the original members culminating with the inclusion of Slash in 2016.

[takemealivelh]

We’re not done here yet, okay?

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 9

2.3k | Mentions of alcohol, sex and cheating | FEEDBACK IS ENCOURAGED AND APPRECIATED

For the first time, I wasn’t able to know what was going through his mind, it both terrified and relieved me. I didn’t move, my jaw slightly trembled when his body got even closer to mine. His hand reached for my chin, and his lips crashed into mine.

Deep down I knew it was wrong, but I’ve always craved what I can’t have. His hands found shelter in the crook of my neck, I kissed him fast and furious. It felt epic, blood-rushing, stars-exploding, synths and strings playing in the back of my head, sinful. I wanted him all.

His lips were sober and my mind was lucid, my forbidden fruit tasted like heaven. For a moment, all these scenes flashed through my closed eyelids; holding hands in the queue of a coffee shop, cuddling on a winter day, playing with new sounds in the studio after rehearsal hours, fucking him deep in a hotel room in Germany. Then, his tongue traced my lower lip and my mind went blank.

“Luke?”

We pulled apart as soon as we heard the knock on the door. My heart started beating fast against the back of my jawline, recognizing Erin’s voice.

“Yeah!” Luke almost choked at the sudden intake of air. “In here!” He smoothed the wrinkles off his shirt where I had grabbed him, pulling his body closer to mine, wanting to melt him into my skin. His face visibly paled, I collected the heat in my own cheeks, burning red.

As soon as Erin stepped into the dressing room, I pulled out my phone and stared at the lock screen, pretending to be busy. Even if she hadn’t witnessed her boyfriend and his sound tech making out, I was sure she could perceive the tension in the space between us. If Luke was a good actor, I was not. Luke could keep his face straight for a long time just to keep a prank going, like that one time he and Ashton started a water balloon fight before the show in Glasgow. I almost ruined their plan because I couldn’t stop laughing or stuttering when someone asked me why the guys were taking so long in the bathroom.

Erin asked us if everything was alright, I saw the shadow of her moving body reach out to Luke and wrap an arm around his waist.

No words were necessary, our tongues had done enough.

I shook my head as if I’d just gotten an upsetting text and headed towards the door in silence, it was only when I heard my name on Luke’s lips that I stopped on my tracks.

“We’re not done here yet, okay?”

His arm was slouched over Erin’s shoulders, his eyes were dark with regret and hope. Her brows were furrowed together with worry.

I didn’t reply.

-

While the band walked the red carpet and gave similar answers to different interviewers, I was backstage with the crew of the venue. Men moved large equipment from one side of the stage to the other, women talked on their phones about strict schedules. Cameras were tested and microphones were checked for the hundredth time that day. I sat on a plastic chair, next to the mixer, going over the post-it notes I’d prepared with Michael and Calum earlier. Luke’s words had been haunting me since the moment they fell from his lips.

We’re not done here yet.

Did he mean that? What was he after? My mind was a whirlwind of thoughts. He had Erin but he wanted me. Was that it? After all this time, he still wanted me. Why? How? He’d told me himself that it was too hard to be with me, which was true. So, why did he want to go through that again?

Maybe he missed me as much as I missed him. It wasn’t fair to his girlfriend.

I pulled out my phone and looked for Erin’s Instagram. Pictures with her friends, pictures of her on the way to a Red Hot Chili Peppers concert. Fuck, I wanted to be her friend, I liked her. She seemed smart enough to know when to leave and yet, she was still with Luke. I was disappointed in his behaviour. I couldn’t believe he was still pulling childish acts out of his ass. Had he not learned anything?

But I still wanted him. Why?

Why did I suddenly have the need to be around him? Why did my skin itch at the thought of his fingers? Why did I want to hear every stupid joke, every silly anecdote, every clever idea that he had in his mind? Why now?

Because he has Erin.

I felt bad about wanting to go after him.

The night went by in a flash and suddenly it was 5SOS’ turn to perform. They gathered around the backstage area before going in, fist-bumping and wishing good luck to everyone, including me. Calum patted my back and Ashton gave me a weak smile before heading out to a cheering crowd. Michael checked the guitar volume in his in-ear and kissed my temple good luck as he’d grown accustomed to doing before any big gig. I slid the faders up to 0 and pressed play on the recording multitrack session.

Luke’s breathing against my earlobe almost made me collapse on top of the console.

“Meet me afterwards. We need to talk.”

His eyes lingered on me for the time it took him to walk onstage. I felt naked.

I liked it.

Talking was the last thing I wanted to do.

-

As soon as their performance was over and they rushed backstage to put the instruments away and to receive the compliments from the rest of the team, I saved the recorded act and made sure to have the mixer ready for the next sound guy. When I was done, 5SOS were back on their seats, surrounded by the other attendees.

I spent the rest of the ceremony in the dressing room, not doing much at all. I could’ve gone home, I could’ve hung out with the rest of the venue crew, I could’ve sat next to the stage and watched the rest of the performances. Instead, I waited for everyone by myself.

I waited for him.

I remembered our encounter back at Ashton’s place. Luke’s shirt gliding off his shoulders, his hands squeezing my thighs, his sloppy kisses on my lips… All my memory could do was complete the gaps between reality and my fantasies. Was this feeling anything more than lust? Maybe it was, but I wasn’t sure how to handle it.

Close to midnight, the show was still going. I decided to play around with the makeup and the little elastic ties I had in my backpack, along with ten spare plug cables and a Shure SM58 just in case. The lightning was enough to sit on the floor and re-do my look in the full-length mirror. I sat down with a bottle of beer I’d brought from the backstage area, and wondered if Luke thought I was sexy.

“It’s always nice to hear you’re sexy from another sexy person”

I scoffed the memory away. He was drunk and I am insecure.

“You’re a nice view, you know that?”

We’d been so close. So physically, flirtatiously close. Now I wanted every inch of space between us to disintegrate.

Yet again, the image of his girlfriend popped up in my head. I dropped my head down, ashamed, and scrolled through my phone one more time. The last picture she’d posted was of the venue we were currently in, before we’d even done the soundcheck. Luke’s laugh was frozen as he carried her piggyback style. A kiss to his cheek.

My heart sunk.

Erin had always seemed happy around him. She liked that Luke was goofy and that he was interested in her job and hobbies. She’d told me about one time he’d taken her out for her favourite food and they ended up drunk playing carnival games. I couldn’t understand how Luke could sweep her off her feet like that if his heart wasn’t fully into that relationship. But maybe I was imagining things, and Luke didn’t want me either, and he was just this fuckboy that I didn’t know he was...

My mind was spiralling out, going to ten different directions, all equally disturbing.

I looked at my reflection in the mirror, the reds and purples in my eyelids. I did want to impress Luke, I wanted him to be aroused by me.

Maybe I can only be with someone as the other woman. I pulled the costume quite well.

When the boys came back into the dressing room to pick up their stuff, Michael was the first one to notice me all dolled-up.

“Whoa,” he half laughed, half whistled. “Hot date after this? Isn't it a little late for a conversation?” Calum laughed behind him and pushed him towards the guitar case on the other end of the room. They were drunk. Michael’s eyes were droopy and Calum couldn’t stop fumbling with the pockets of his jacket.

I rolled my eyes, “who said anything about a conversation?” my tone was playful and teasing, knowing it would amuse them. Deep down, the guilt and confusion kept me glued to the wooden floor, still in front of the mirror.

Ashton was quick to pick on my remark. He seemed like the most put-together, but when he erupted in his signature giggles, I knew he was hammered as well. “Damn, boys! We got our girl here being a wild one tonight,” he smiled at me from behind. “We’re going to an after-party, you coming with us? Or is your lover boy meeting you somewhere else so we cannot intimidate him?”

That’s when I noticed Luke was leaning against the door, blue eyes going through my body like daggers. I could feel the exact point in the small of my waist where he was practically burning his mark on.

“Where’s Erin?”

At the mention of her name, I peeled my eyes away from the scene. Focusing back on the boxer braids I’d made earlier. They’d taken me at least 20 minutes per side and a 10-minute break in between, to rest my arms. As Luke explained that Erin had to be up early tomorrow, I caught him stealing glances at me through the mirror. He didn’t look drunk, which was weird, but also kind of nice. I re-applied the berry colour to my lips and smudged the edges with my fingertips.

“A’ight then,” Ashton shrugged with a sigh, “and hey, wild one,” he tapped my shoulder once I was back on my feet, fixing my backpack on my shoulder. “Great show tonight.”

“We were good,” I smiled at him.

“Yeah, we were.”

They were quick to say their goodbyes and rush out the door to the after-party, except for Luke. He shoved a hand in the pockets of his pants and rubbed his eye with the other. “Nah, Im’ma head back home. I'm tired.”

Calum, Michael and Ashton disappeared, their laughter echoed through the hall. Luke was still leaning against the door when he sighed. “I broke up with her.”

I remained silent.

He looked for the thoughts racing through my head, narrowing his eyes at me. I didn’t know how to react. I was both surprised and relieved. Both scared and excited. Awkwardly, I kept readjusting the straps of my backpack, not wanting to stay but not wanting to leave either.

“I didn’t want them on my case, you know how they are…” Luke turned his head to check the hallway. Empty. He took a few steps closer to me, I looked down at my feet. His boots came into view and I almost gasped when I felt the warmth of his body almost touching mine. “Right after we…” the faint laughter in his tone gave away that he was nervous.

Unknown territory for the both of us.

“She knew something was up, she…” he sighed and searched for my gaze, “please, look at me. This is really fucking hard, okay?” The soundwaves of his chuckle vibrated against my temple. I was twitching in place. “Please.”

Even though I’d only had one beer after their song had ended, I felt my skin buzzing. Chewing on my lower lip, trying to stay sane and adequate through it all, I looked at him. Curly hair tucked behind his ears, gold glitter along his cheekbones, long lashes framing his blue eyes...

“I want you.”

My breath got caught in my throat, almost choking me. “Luke, I-”

I tried to pull away from our closeness but he grabbed my arms and held me in place. He looked for the truth in my eyes as my name rolled off his tongue as if it belonged there.

“You were right. Fuck, all of you were. I know what you all were thinking about, that Erin was a rebound, that I wasn’t being fair to her, that-”

“Luke, you-”

“Let me finish!”

He let go of me and strode back to the door, closing it. I said nothing.

Here we were, alone again.

“I was a dick to Erin, I know that. I led her on when I didn’t mean it… Not because I didn’t enjoy her company, ‘cos I did…” Luke trailed off and shut his eyes hard, cursing himself under his breath. He started stuttering and I couldn’t make out the words coming out of his mouth. “Fuck!” he whispered and nearly threw a punch to the wall. “You’re making me go crazy, you know that? I tried to get over you, but…” Luke took a deep breath and let his back collapse against the door, his body quickly glided down until he was sitting with his head between his knees.  

I watched. Luke had never been this vulnerable, not around me at least.

His muffled laugh travelled to my ears, his gaze found me again. “Listen, I don’t know what to do. I’m so in love with you that it hurts...”

He made me weak. I dropped to my knees and tossed my backpack to the side, crawling towards him almost at the speed of light. His cheeks were hot against the palms of my hands, he looked into my eyes like a deer scared to be hit. I could sense the fear in his breathing, the dreadful idea of handing his heart to me and me destroying it. His eyes pleaded for mercy.

“I don’t… I love you, okay? I’m tired of pretending I don’t.”

My fingertips traced circles against his skin, my thumb grazing his lower lip. Luke closed his eyes and gave into my touch, leaning into it.

I wasn’t sure if I loved him, but I definitely cared for him. My heart was beating fast, my stomach was swirling with butterflies. It was clear that I fancied him, I loved spending time with him, I loved it when we were together being the dorks we were.

And I was as scared as he was.

Leaning against his lips, I took a deep breath against them, closing my eyes. “Don’t break my heart, Hemmings.”

“I wouldn’t dare to”

-

TAGLIST

@brown-eyedshell @thew0rldneedsmcreycghurt @myloverboyash @hopeless-renassianceluke @dukesnumber1 @rip-lukes-balsamic @angelbabylu @cal-pal-cuddles @ashtons-favorite @1dthewantedlove  @problematicprincessa@heartbreak-5sos @bloodmoonashton @lilacsos @irwinkitten @singt0mecalum@sublimehood @sugarcoated-pain @5sosnsfw @cal-puddies @lashtoncurls@cal-pal-cuddles @dweebluke @rosecoloredash @hotmessmichael@calumspeachy@ashtonsunshine @wonderland-irwin @irwinkitten@ashtonandcalslefthand @post-traumatic-mess @damselindistressanu @c-dizzle-swizzlex @mycollectionofnuts @calteahood

[beanfic]

Unplanned Pt. 2

Pairing: Tyler Joseph x reader

Word count: 1276

Warnings: Talk of pregnancy and doctors, and angst

Author’s note: I really had to pull knowledge from human development lecture last year so hopefully it is correct? Anyways, I hope you enjoy part 2! 

“You feeling any better?” your sorority sister Emma asked as she wrapped a soft pink blanket around your shoulders. Your knees were folded underneath your chin, and your eyes were red from the tears that had been flowing.

“I’m so stupid,” you mumbled. You glanced over at the three pregnancy tests that read positive laying on the table. You wanted to throw them away. You wanted to stomp on them until they were disintegrated.

“You aren’t stupid, it happens to everyone. It was an accident,” Emma tried to reassure you. You knew she was right, but your emotions were getting the best of you. Pregnancy emotions were only going to get worse.

“I don’t know what to do Emma. Do I tell Tyler? Do I keep the baby? I don’t know if I can get rid of the baby without telling him,” you started to panic and hyperventilate.

“Whoah, Y/N, calm down. I will not let you get rid of the baby without telling Tyler first. It is your decision, but he has the right to know?”

“I want to tell him, but I don’t know how to tell him. He is on tour,” you whispered. 

“He isn’t performing the entire time, I promise. Tell him to call you when he gets a chance.”

“Do I tell him it’s an emergency?”

“I think that could stress him out, just tell him to call you,” she suggested. You nodded and grabbed your phone off of the charger. The screensaver was a picture of Tyler and Josh at a concert, and your eyes started to well up with tears again. 

You loved Tyler. The reason you guys weren’t in a relationship was that you knew how important his music was to him, and you didn’t want to make things difficult, but now look where you are. 

Hey Ty, could you call me when you get a chance?

You locked the phone and placed it back on the charger. Emma headed back to her desk to work on homework which left you alone on the couch. You decided it was best to try to take a small nap, so you pulled the blanket over your body and closed your eyes. 

“Y/N,” a voice whispered. You opened your eyes to see Emma standing over you holding your phone. “Tyler’s calling you.”

You grabbed the phone and answered immediately, “Hello?”

“Hey, Y/N! What’s up?”

“What are you doing right now?” you asked him. You wanted to make sure he was somewhere where he could handle the news.

“Just on the tour bus with Josh and Mark, why? Is something wrong?” His voice started to sound a little panicked.

“Tyler, I’m pregnant.”

“What? Is it mine?”

“Of course it’s yours, dingus,” you laughed but you had started to cry again. “It’s from that one night before you left for tour.”

“But I was so careful,” he whispered. “No, Josh it’s fine, Josh!” 

“Is everything okay?” you asked. You could hear Josh in the background.

“I don’t even know what to do, Y/N. Do I come home? Do we keep it?”

“First of all, you’re not coming home. Your tour and your fans come first, Ty.”

“But, Y/N-”

“No, Tyler, I’m being serious,” you cut him off. “I’m going to the doctors to see if everything is going to be okay, I just think we need to have a serious conversation about this when you get back. You’re only on tour for a week more and when you get back we can talk about it all, okay?”

“Okay, Y/N. I love you,” his voice cracked.

“I love you too, Ty. I’m sorry this happened.”

“Don’t apologize, things happen for a reason, right? Maybe this is a sign that I should ask you to be my girlfriend.”

“Tyler-” you sighed.

“Y/N, now I’m the one being serious. I know I’m across the world right now but I love you. I know you love me. My music and my family is no reason for us to not be happy. I want to spend the rest of my life with you.”

“Tyler, I want to too but I just don’t know how we could do it.”

“What do you mean? You’re in school only one more year, and then you can come on tour with me. The band is growing bigger every day, and I want you to be a part of it.”

“But Ty-”

“Listen to me, Y/N. The reason we never officially put a label on us was because of my music, but we can make it work. Please, just try to make it work.”

“Okay.”

“You will?” 

You sighed, “Yes, Tyler. I love you and I will make it work.”

“Thank you, I have to go but I will call you later tonight. When is your doctor’s appointment you are going to?”

“I’m going to try to go in tomorrow, have a good show tonight, okay?” 

“I will, I’ll be thinking of you.”

“I’ll be thinking of you too, bye Ty.”

“Bye, Y/N.” The phone clicked off and you pulled it down from your ear. You were still trying to grasp everything that had just happened. You and Tyler were officially dating now. You were carrying his baby. 

“Did everything go okay?” Emma asked as she peeked around the corner. You looked up at her and nodded.

“Will you come to the doctors with me, tomorrow?”

She smiled and plopped herself down on the couch next to you. She grabbed your hand and gave it a small squeeze, “Of course I will.”

***********

“Well, Ms. Y/L/N, you are pregnant but unfortunately because you are only a week into it, there isn’t much we can do! I would suggest coming back in a month to get a check up and see how the development is going along,” the doctor told you. 

You sighed, “Thank you, I guess I just don’t really know how this all works. I thought I could go to the doctor and see if the baby was okay.”

“Darling, it’s not even an embryo yet. It still is a clump of cells called a blastocyte. I am going to give you three books that will explain the stages of fetal development, as well as information that will help you through this.”

“Thank you.” You were scared, and you wish Tyler could be back home already. 

“I know this can be a hard decision, but are you sure you want to keep the baby? There are a lot of options for young mothers like you,” she smiled softly and placed her hand on your shoulder.

You shrugged, “I need to talk to my,” you paused for a second, “boyfriend and see what is the best options for us.”

“Okay, darling. Just know this is your decision and your body. Only you get to decide, okay?”

“Okay,” you smiled back at her. You knew it was your decision, but you wanted to talk to Tyler anyways. You were not capable of making this decision by yourself. 

You left the room and met Emma in the waiting room, and you told her everything the doctor said. 

“I guess it is too early to go to the doctors, huh?” she chirped.

“Yeah,” you mumbled while you anxiously played with a string hanging off your t-shirt hem. You couldn’t stop thinking about everything going on. 

You loved Tyler. Tyler loved you. His sister hated you and he is touring with a famous band. You were pregnant with his baby, and he wasn’t even home to help you. 

Is there even a way to make this work? 

[thedyingmoon]

🖤 I See My Future Before Me 🖤

~ A V X Reader set in an Alternate Universe wherein you and Griffon take the center stage! 👍👍👌

~ Now tagging my Sweet Peas, @heaven-on-a-landslide , @lessy86 , @gxthghoulfriend , @simmy-ships , @ehrzeth , @diabeticsugarush , @ceruleanworld , and @boundbysoul . 🖤

~ This chapter is for you, @krazy06 ! Thanks for giving me endless Griffon ideas ( albeit unintentional 😂😂😂 )! 🖤

~ Alright? LET'S DO THIS !

***

XV

***

A few hours prior.

***

"I' am the villain of your story,... "

"Useless,... "

"Imbecile,... "

"Please, find him and save him before it's too late!"

"VERGIL! WHERE ARE YOU?! VERGIL!"

"I' am so sorry, my dear,... "

"Fulfill my wish, I beg you,... "

"SWEET PEA!"

You jolted wide awake as you felt a weak electric current run through every nerve of your body.

"Oh, I'm glad you're still alive!" You heard the Demonic bird as you opened your eyes, letting your sight adjust to your surroundings.

The last time you were awake, you remembered yourself being a bit tired due to your dancing and a bit sleepy due to the cold weather. You remembered V offering you a shoulder to lean on so you could take a nap, and he even offered to read for you to help you relax. You also remembered Griffon settling himself on your left side, squeezing himself closer to you, feeling warm and cozy, and you also saw how Shadow materialized and laid down next to your feet, purring shamelessly loud like the huge, Demonic cat that she was.

Not only that, you could also remember how V wrapped his arms around you as he pulled you closer. You felt the warmth of his flesh, smelled his lulling scent, heard his soft and gentle voice as he read to you,...

... you also remembered how he kissed your forehead as he told you to rest well,...

And now, you stared around the place, feeling as if something was really off in the atmosphere. The air was heavier, and you felt a shortness of breath.

"What happened?" You asked Griffon, your voice sounding strangely hoarse and emotional.

"I dunno!" The bird answered. "I woke up to ya sayin' some stuff while ya sleep. Then, I saw V,... "

At the mention of his name, you suddenly felt chills run down your spine. You glanced to your right and saw the man, himself. He was still asleep, leaning onto his cane for support.

But, what really startled you was his hair, which had turned snowy - white, and the absence of all his contract markings.

And most of all, there was a strange aura about him, a very dark and evil one. And it seemed to be the force that kept him unconscious.

"Oh, my God, V!" You worriedly muttered as you shook the man, trying to wake him up. "What happened to him?! What's wrong with him?!"

"I - i,... tried to wake him up, believe me!" Griffon shrieked, panic taking over. "I even tried calling Shadow and Nightmare! They're not here! They're gone!"

"What's happening here?" You muttered, your head still unable to process the gravity of the current situation.

"I already told ya that I dunno! What else do ya want, a fight?!"

You stood up, and went towards the window. It really was dark, but you knew full well that it can't be night already. You were only asleep for a while!

And then, right outside the studio, was the answer to your question.

With narrow and cautious eyes, you hustled to where your boots were, hastily wore them, picked up your parka and your violin case on the table, and began to leave. You turned back to Griffon and spoke.

"Stay here with V. I'll go outside and check what's going on."

"Heh! Ya don't need to tell me that! I'm stayin' here, bitch."

"Okay."

"And what do ya need that violin for? A fuckin' concert?!"

"Wha - ?!" You stuttered, looking at the violin case. "Who told you I can play the violin? I'm tone deaf!"

"Oh, alright." Griffon simply replied, then realized that the thing you're holding onto since the early hours of the day was not a freaking instrument in the first place. "WHAT IN THE ACTUAL - ?!"

But, you were already outside the room and didn't get to hear the Demonic bird's curses.

The moment you stepped outside the building, you noticed how the sky was pitch black that not even the stars, the moon, and the clouds could be seen. There was a distinct heaviness in the atmosphere, same as what you felt in V, and it was honestly making you sick.

Not sick physically but, sick in the soul.

It's as if the air itself could make you feel utterly hopeless.

You looked around the deserted road as you walked, trying to search for the root of this phenomenon, when some strange rocks protruding on the ground came into view. And you were very positive that they weren't there before.

What is this? You thought as you looked at the strange circle - like runes that were carved on the rocks.

"Sweet pea!" You heard the Demonic bird from a distance as he called after you. You turned around, almost mistaking him for the enemy.

"Griffon?! I thought I told you to stay with V?!"

"Not gonna leave ya alone!" The bird answered you matter - of - factly. "He'll be fine. Don't worry too much about Shakespeare."

"YOU'RE TELLING ME NOT TO WORRY ABOUT V?! ARE YOU CRAZY?!"

"I TOLD YA! HE'S FINE - !"

All of a sudden, you felt a dark and heavy presence looming in the area. The strange rocks lit up a sickly - looking violet, its very essence crawling its way towards your feet.

"What's that?" The bird, being a few feet above the ground and that strange light, questioned.

You didn't answer. Instead, you opened the case and took out your weapons.

"Sweet pea, that thing's not gonna do anythin' - "

"WATCH OUT!" You practically yelled as you positioned yourself in front of the bird and managed to slice through the very sudden incoming projectile of light using your bow.

However, the attacker seemed to have a lot more in store for you as you noticed a huge, violet light kind of wave that was coming rapidly towards you.

With much resolve to fight, you positioned the metallic violin in front of you like a shield, channeling the entity's power within you. The metallic instrument glowed, a sign that it has received the power it needed from you.

"Stay behind me!"

"Don't need to tell me!" The bird screeched in panic as he did what you told him.

The metallic violin emanated a strange form of light that instantly morphed into a shield, protecting you from the crashing wave of the sinister violet light that disintegrated the ground it touched.

"Ihh! What the fuck is that?!"

"There's no time to find out. Let's go!"

And so, using the special violin you had as a shield, you ran forward, making sure to not let even a small part of your skin touch the wave of light.

"Incoming projectile!" Griffon screamed behind you as he spotted a speeding blade of light going down rapidly towards the two of you.

As soon as you noticed this, you raised the bow, waited for the light to come closer, and succesfully sliced through it just like what you did with the first projectile. Then, you went on, warily watching out for more of those hostile things.

"What are those weapons?"

"Sword and shield." You simply answered, not letting your focus waver for even a second. "Well, rapier, actually. The bow is more like a rapier than a sword."

At the mention of your weapon choice, you could suddenly hear Nico in your head as she made the offer to design a weapon for you for the first time, which was eight years ago.

"Behold my genius! A shield and a rapier in the form of a violin and a bow! You could use this violin to channel the entity's power from within you. It could absorb energy and turn it into whatever form you desire! A shield, projectiles, anything! And this rapier can cut through Demon flesh as clean as possible. You won't have to worry about anything if you have these two."

"That's great!"

"One question, though: why violin? If you simply asked, I could have made somethin' more badass for you."

"That's because,... "

You smiled at the memory. You knew very well the reason behind it, and it was to remind yourself of your life - long mission to search for that white - haired man from your visions who could play the violin.

And now that you've found him, you don't intend on ever letting him get hurt.

"There!" Griffon shrieked as two glowing orbs came into view. "That's Shadow and Nightmare!"

"Let's get them!"

As you were about to reach the orbs, something sharp and spiky rose from the ground, startling the two of you and wounding your right leg. Your eyes widened in pain as you almost collapsed to the ground. The enemy gave you no time to recover as another spike rose and made a huge slash on your other leg, making you howl in unbelievable pain.

"(Y/N)! You - !" Griffon was about to electrocute the spikes when another wave of violet light appeared out of nowhere and engulfed him.

You watched helplessly as the light possessed the Demonic bird. It happened so fast that you were not able to retaliate in time to save him.

"Griffon!"

"Wait, wait, I'm fine!"

"Are you sure?!"

"Sweet pea, another spike! Let me!" The bird offered as it tried to channel his power for an attack. He folded his wings and unfurled them,...

... but nothing happened!

"Wha - ?! My powers are gone!"

You stood up, trying to ignore the pain in your legs and the blood gushing out from your wounds, when another batch of spikes rose from the round, almost killing you had you not dodged in time.

"Stay close behind me!" You ordered, waiting for the bird to do so. "I'll protect you."

With no time left to waste, you made a quick run towards V's imprisoned familiars, dodging spikes and slicing light projectiles along the way.

Twenty feet, seventeen feet, fifteen feet. You were so close to reaching them,...

... until a strange kind of portal appeared before you. And what came out of it was a creature so diabolical, the Demons you faced before could never compare.

"Malphas!" Griffon uttered in fear as the half female half avian Demon blocked your way.

"What a curious little creature!" The Demon called Malphas drawled seductively as she stalked towards you. "These creatures before you failed before my power! And soon," she lifted a skeletal finger and pointed it at you. "... your powers shall be mine!"

"HEY, YOU STINKIN' EXHIBITIONIST!" The powerless Griffon, who was still cowering behind you, yelled. "GIVE MY COMRADES AND MY POWERS BACK!"

"Take them if you can." The enemy exclaimed. "And if you fail, I will feast on your soul!"

"Not good! Not good! Let's run away before - !"

But, the bird did not have time to finish his sentence as he saw you charging forward towards the Demon.

Despite your wounds, you managed to evade the spikes and the light projectiles that the Demon sent your way. However, as your wound worsened, your movements became sluggish, giving Malphas her needed signal to finally move against you. She conjured another portal and used it to escape. And seconds later, she reappeared, almost killing you with one slash of her talon. You thankfully escaped, thanks to Griffon who grabbed your parka and lifted you off the ground, sending you a safe distance away from the Demon.

"We can't do this, sweet pea! W - we d - don't have the strength!"

You smiled despite your predicament. Your head was getting lighter and your sight was getting more and more blurry. You tried to stand up but, your wounds were really awful that you screamed once more in pain and collapsed to the ground.

"Stop that! You, we, can't fight! Let's call the pimple kid and ask for help!

"It would be too late, by then!" You exclaimed, refusing to get knocked out by your wounds and rapid bloodloss.

"And how do you propose we beat that thing, huh? Drive that skinny sword of yours through her heart? YA CAN'T EVEN FUCKIN' STAND! I CAN'T EVEN USE MY POWER! LET'S RUN AWAY AND ASK FOR HELP!"

"NO! I PROMISED TO PROTECT YOU!" You yelled at the bird, your blind convictions surely sending you to your deathbed. "And even if we run, she'll only go after us. What's the difference?"

"We'll live for a bit longer!"

You glanced up at Griffon, giving him a look of bravery despite your pitiful form. "Living for a bit longer? I can't have that. That's,..." you stood up and winced. "... unacceptable."

"And what? Ya really want a fight do ya? YA WANT IT THAT BADLY, HUH?!"

"No." You finally managed to stand up straight, fully decided and unhesitant for your next move. "But, I have no other choice."

You removed your parka and tossed it towards the bird.

"Hey! Just what do ya think you're - ?!"

Once again, the bird did not have enough time to finish as he saw you stripping the rest of your clothes, including the offensively seductive lace underwear that Nico gave you that morning.

"HAVE YOU LOST YOUR FUCKIN' MIND?! YES, MALPHAS IS BUTT NAKED, BUT THAT DOESN'T MEAN YA HAVE TO - !"

"Maybe." You only answered as you took a step forward. "But, we're way out of our safe zones now."

"What do ya mean by that? Start getting clear with me, woman!"

You faced him once more, but this time, with a weird smile on your face. "You're right. I can't beat Malphas. I'm weak, as you just saw. I can't kill her but, she can."

"Ah, who?!"

Nico's voice went back to your head as you recalled her words once more.

"Now, as much as possible, you have to rely on those weapons I gave you. You would only let her take over as a last resort!"

"What if there's no other choice, then?"

"Then, you're gonna have to say byebye to your clothes! Or, at least, strip them before she comes. You can't afford to buy that many set of clothes every after mission! You'll go hungry!"

"Hunger? Clothes? Whatever." You uttered to yourself as you made your way towards Malphas.

"SWEET PEA!" Griffon pleaded as he tried once more to attack, only to fail yet again. "YOU WILL FUCKIN' DIE! STOP!"

But you only looked back at him, winked, and held up a slender finger to your bloody lips.

"Sshh,..."

The Demon noticed you as you reappeared before her, vulnerable, wounded, and exposed.

"Finally accepting your fate, mortal?"

"I don't think so."

"You! What are you - ?"

A warm kind of light suddenly engulfed your whole body, lifting you off the ground and blinding Malphas at the same time. Griffon, who was safely away from the fight, saw how your body morphed into a being of pure light that stood much taller than you were.

"Sweet Shirley! What a secret to hide!" Griffon exclaimed as he saw you come closer towards Malphas. "GO BEAT THAT EXHIBITIONIST, SWEET PEA!"

As the Diabolical Amalgam used her powers in the form of her portals, spikes, and projectiles, you only stayed where you were, receiving all the relentless attacks from her. And when the Demon realized that you have become somewhat invulnerable, she tried her best to escape, only to find herself suddenly slashed in different parts of her body. The rays of light that emanated from your very being extended out and went after Malphas in the form of hot blades, slashing her and wounding her, giving her no time to even move a finger. With a swift movement of your arms, you brought down judgment on the Demon, exuding a very bright light that melted Malphas' grotesque avian form, leaving her true form behind.

"Mercy! Mercy!" Malphas pleaded as she saw you hovering towards her.

"Ooh, this I gotta watch!" Griffon said to himself as he flew down to witness the winning fight.

"Malphas of the Underworld, you stand before the Protector of The Present." Griffon heard you proclaim in a very different voice. "I command you: speak and reveal who sent you to this Universe!"

"I do not know! I do not - AHH!" Malphas screamed as she felt another slash of hot light wound her already bloody and unrecognizable torso.

"By the name of the One Mistress who commands me, speak the truth!"

But, despite the deadly wounds she just received, Malphas only laughed.

"You know who sent me. It is she! The most powerful of all. Blood of her blood! Flesh of her flesh! Spirit of her spirit! Arisen from the Dead in pursuit of power! It is,... "

But, before she could even finish her words, Malphas slowly disintegrated, her flesh turning into ash and her dark aura vanishing.

"We won! We fuckin' won!" Griffon sang as he also felt his powers returning to him. "You did it, sweet pea! You - "

"AT THE FINAL HOURS OF THE EVENING AND THE LAST RADIANCE OF THE WOUNDED MOON, THE PAST WILL WEEP, THE PRESENT WILL KNEEL, AND THE FUTURE WILL DIE!"

"What in the - ?!"

Griffon witnessed in shock how you uttered those cryptic words in a, yet, different tone than the first one you used on Malphas. He also saw how the light slowly vanished from your body, turning you back into your old self. Your body hovered for a moment, and finally went back to the ground, leaving you with no trace, whatsoever, of your battle against the Demons.

No wounds, no blood, no injuries.

It's as if you were whole once more.

"Hey, hey, (Y/N)! Wake up!"

As you opened your eyes, you noticed how the darkness vanished from the sky, revealing its soft, afternoon glow. You also noticed how the orbs slowly disintegrate, already making their way back towards their Master.

Aside from one.

Still feeling a bit weak, you went towards that one orb glowing red and blue at the same time, like the two colors were in conflict with each other.

"Who is this?" You asked Griffon.

"Uhh, that would be the cat." The bird answered.

"Shadow? Why is she - ?" You mumbled, reaching out a hand to the orb.

At the first signs of contact, the orb's colors became even more chaotic as each of them fought for dominance.

Griffon, on the other hand, knew what's really going on.

The Yamato was taking over Shadow, it's very essence beating the familiar's consciousness,...

... just like that one time at Delphi.

But, why now, of all times?!

"Ah, Griffon? What do we do with Shadow?" You frantically asked as the orb became bluer and bluer by the second.

"Ah! Ah! V! We need V!"

At the mention of its master's name, the orb suddenly settled down and hastily disintegrated, its dark particles quickly crawling past you and back to the dance studio.

"Oh, there's no need." The bird breathed a sigh of relief. "I can tell that V is wide awake and is now running to get here."

"Oh, I see." You muttered, then suddenly, the two of you realized,...

"C L O T H E S!" You and Griffon simultaneously shrieked in panic.

A few minutes later, V arrived, looking for you and Griffon.

"Hoo, I'm glad you're wide awake, V!" Griffon shrieked obnoxiously, suddenly blocking his vision.

"As tempted as I' am to ask what occurred during my,... absence,... I would like to know: where is she?"

"I! That! She! Err!" Griffon hysterically stuttered, making the man even more suspicious.

"Hello, V."

Griffon stopped mumbling at once when he heard you speak. "Oh, there is the chick! Hahaha!"

V practically shoved his avian familiar aside as he came to meet you.

Fully clothed and with no trace of combat, you smiled at him and said, "Are you alright?"

V sighed. He knew something happened while he was knocked out. But, he dared not ask that, for you were here with him, safe and sound.

"I' am doing wonderful." The man replied with a smile.

***

"Nothing really matters, anyone can see!"

"Nothing really matters!"

"Nothing really matters,... to me!"

"Anywhere the wind,... blows!"

"BANG!"

Nico and Nero looked up as the two saw you, V, and Griffon making your way back towards the van after your first night patrol.

Nero ended his duet with Nico and his air guitar performance and ran to meet you halfway.

"Welcome back!" The boy cheerfully uttered, bringing his huge hand down on V's shoulder and squeezing it. Lightly.

"How did your first night patrol go?" Nico asked with a knowing smile.

"Fetching." V answered with a knowing smile of his, emphasizing on the word, giving Nico some false, and filthy, thoughts about how your night patrol with him went.

And, of course, you, being totally dense when it comes to those things, only shook your head helplessly.

"Normal. A few Demons here and there. Nothing special." You answered, dedicated to keep your confrontation with Malphas a secret from them.

"Can we have breakfast now? I'm starving!" Nero announced as he took a seat on one of the abandoned chairs, waiting to be served like a guest in a restaurant. "And stop hiding that apple pie, Nico! Give it to me now!"

"What are you talking about, psycho?! I'm not hiding any food from you!"

"Oh, yeah? Then, what's that strong apple pie aroma I'm smelling right now, huh?" Nero questioned, then turned to V. "You can smell it too, right?"

V, who could only smell the fresh flowers in your presence, shook his head.

"Seriously?! What? I'm the only one who can smell it?!"

Griffon was about to join in the apple pie banter when he heard someone calling him. He turned and saw you as you were about to enter the van, drowsily looking at him with one finger held up on your lips.

"Sshh,..."

***

The moment Trish entered her favorite department store, she knew something was really off.

She warily made her way towards the back of the shop, knowing the target would be there. She cautiously crouched towards the next aisle, expecting some Demon to come out, when,...

"Ooff!"

Somehow, Trish bumped into you, making you drop your items on the floor.

"Oh, I'm so sorry!" You apologized as you picked up your items.

"No, I should be the one to apologize,..." Trish uttered, trying to help you pick up your things, when she suddenly stopped as she looked down at you. She knew there was something off about you but, then, she knew you were not evil.

But, what could it be?

"Are you okay?"

"Yes, I' am." You answered, giving her a sweet smile before leaving.

She waited for you to pay for your things and leave, and when you finally did, she approached one of the Sales Associates and interrogated.

"Was this her first visit here?"

"Oh, the girl? Yes, it is. Cute, isn't she?" The girl answered.

It was the first of the many occasions when Trish just had to spy on you, trying to find out that particular something in you that gave her uneasiness and sleepless nights. And in the space of two days, she found out that you worked for Dante as his assistant. You would sometimes go out and do some errands for him, like going to the grocery store, and such. Aside from that, everything about you seemed normal.

It was when she bumped into you again in that same department store did she finally realized what's off about you. It should be considered as normal but, Trish knew it in her bones that she was the only one who could sense that elusive something from you.

Everywhere you went, you leave a distinct sign about you that was very hard to ignore, especially for a Demon like her. And it was only proven further with her latest observations of Dante as she saw him frantically searching for expensive vintages whenever he had the budget and never getting satisfied, not even once.

It was your scent,...

To Trish, you smelled like chocolates.

The kind that gave her an unhealthy addiction.

***

🖤🖤🖤

Note: In case you have been wondering, yes. The song from Nero and Nico's duet is Bohemian Rhapsody from Queen.

P.S.: I have the entire last week of June filed for my vacation leave starting from the 25th to the 30th. So, yes! More chappies of this fic!

🖤🖤🖤

***

[etlunainmorte]

🖤 I See My Future Before Me 🖤

***

XV

***

A few hours prior.

***

“I’ am the villain of your story,… ”

“Useless,… ”

“Imbecile,… ”

“Please, find him and save him before it’s too late!”

“VERGIL! WHERE ARE YOU?! VERGIL!”

“I’ am so sorry, my dear,… ”

“Fulfill my wish, I beg you,… ”

“SWEET PEA!”

You jolted wide awake as you felt a weak electric current run through every nerve of your body.

“Oh, I’m glad you’re still alive!” You heard the Demonic bird as you opened your eyes, letting your sight adjust to your surroundings.

The last time you were awake, you remembered yourself being a bit tired due to your dancing and a bit sleepy due to the cold weather. You remembered V offering you a shoulder to lean on so you could take a nap, and he even offered to read for you to help you relax. You also remembered Griffon settling himself on your left side, squeezing himself closer to you, feeling warm and cozy, and you also saw how Shadow materialized and laid down next to your feet, purring shamelessly loud like the huge, Demonic cat that she was.

Not only that, you could also remember how V wrapped his arms around you as he pulled you closer. You felt the warmth of his flesh, smelled his lulling scent, heard his soft and gentle voice as he read to you,…

… you also remembered how he kissed your forehead as he told you to rest well,…

And now, you stared around the place, feeling as if something was really off in the atmosphere. The air was heavier, and you felt a shortness of breath.

“What happened?” You asked Griffon, your voice sounding strangely hoarse and emotional.

“I dunno!” The bird answered. “I woke up to ya sayin’ some stuff while ya sleep. Then, I saw V,… ”

At the mention of his name, you suddenly felt chills run down your spine. You glanced to your right and saw the man, himself. He was still asleep, leaning onto his cane for support.

But, what really startled you was his hair, which had turned snowy - white, and the absence of all his contract markings.

And most of all, there was a strange aura about him, a very dark and evil one. And it seemed to be the force that kept him unconscious.

“Oh, my God, V!” You worriedly muttered as you shook the man, trying to wake him up. “What happened to him?! What’s wrong with him?!”

“I - i,… tried to wake him up, believe me!” Griffon shrieked, panic taking over. “I even tried calling Shadow and Nightmare! They’re not here! They’re gone!”

“What’s happening here?” You muttered, your head still unable to process the gravity of the current situation.

“I already told ya that I dunno! What else do ya want, a fight?!”

You stood up, and went towards the window. It really was dark, but you knew full well that it can’t be night already. You were only asleep for a while!

And then, right outside the studio, was the answer to your question.

With narrow and cautious eyes, you hustled to where your boots were, hastily wore them, picked up your parka and your violin case on the table, and began to leave. You turned back to Griffon and spoke.

“Stay here with V. I’ll go outside and check what’s going on.”

“Heh! Ya don’t need to tell me that! I’m stayin’ here, bitch.”

“Okay.”

“And what do ya need that violin for? A fuckin’ concert?!”

“Wha - ?!” You stuttered, looking at the violin case. “Who told you I can play the violin? I’m tone deaf!”

“Oh, alright.” Griffon simply replied, then realized that the thing you’re holding onto since the early hours of the day was not a freaking instrument in the first place. “WHAT IN THE ACTUAL - ?!”

But, you were already outside the room and didn’t get to hear the Demonic bird’s curses.

The moment you stepped outside the building, you noticed how the sky was pitch black that not even the stars, the moon, and the clouds could be seen. There was a distinct heaviness in the atmosphere, same as what you felt in V, and it was honestly making you sick.

Not sick physically but, sick in the soul.

It’s as if the air itself could make you feel utterly hopeless.

You looked around the deserted road as you walked, trying to search for the root of this phenomenon, when some strange rocks protruding on the ground came into view. And you were very positive that they weren’t there before.

What is this? You thought as you looked at the strange circle - like runes that were carved on the rocks.

“Sweet pea!” You heard the Demonic bird from a distance as he called after you. You turned around, almost mistaking him for the enemy.

“Griffon?! I thought I told you to stay with V?!”

“Not gonna leave ya alone!” The bird answered you. “He’ll be fine. Don’t worry too much about Shakespeare.”

“YOU’RE TELLING ME NOT TO WORRY ABOUT V?! ARE YOU CRAZY?!”

“I TOLD YA! HE’S FINE - !”

All of a sudden, you felt a dark and heavy presence looming in the area. The strange rocks lit up a sickly - looking violet, its very essence crawling its way towards your feet.

“What’s that?” The bird, being a few feet above the ground and that strange light, questioned.

You didn’t answer. Instead, you opened the case and took out your weapons.

“Sweet pea, that thing’s not gonna do anythin’ - ”

“WATCH OUT!” You practically yelled as you positioned yourself in front of the bird and managed to slice through the very sudden incoming projectile of light using your bow.

However, the attacker seemed to have a lot more in store for you as you noticed a huge, violet light kind of wave that was coming rapidly towards you.

With much resolve to fight, you positioned the metallic violin in front of you like a shield, channeling the entity’s power within you. The metallic instrument glowed, a sign that it has received the power it needed from you.

“Stay behind me!”

“Don’t need to tell me!” The bird screeched in panic as he did what you told him.

The metallic violin emanated a strange form of light that instantly morphed into a shield, protecting you from the crashing wave of the sinister violet light that disintegrated the ground it touched.

“Ihh! What the fuck is that?!”

“There’s no time to find out. Let’s go!”

And so, using the special violin you had as a shield, you ran forward, making sure to not let even a small part of your skin touch the wave of light.

“Incoming projectile!” Griffon screamed behind you as he spotted a speeding blade of light going down rapidly towards the two of you.

As soon as you noticed this, you raised the bow, waited for the light to come closer, and successfully sliced through it just like what you did with the first projectile. Then, you went on, warily watching out for more of those hostile things.

“What are those weapons?”

“Sword and shield.” You simply answered, not letting your focus waver for even a second. “Well, rapier, actually. The bow is more like a rapier than a sword.”

At the mention of your weapon choice, you could suddenly hear Nico in your head as she made the offer to design a weapon for you for the first time, which was eight years ago.

“Behold my genius! A shield and a rapier in the form of a violin and a bow! You could use this violin to channel the entity’s power from within you. It could absorb energy and turn it into whatever form you desire! A shield, projectiles, anything! And this rapier can cut through Demon flesh as clean as possible. You won’t have to worry about anything if you have these two.”

“That’s great!”

“One question, though: why violin? If you simply asked, I could have made somethin’ more badass for you.”

“That’s because,… ”

You smiled at the memory. You knew very well the reason behind it, and it was to remind yourself of your life - long mission to search for that white - haired man from your visions who could play the violin.

And now that you’ve found him, you don’t intend on ever letting him get hurt.

“There!” Griffon shrieked as two glowing orbs came into view. “That’s Shadow and Nightmare!”

“Let’s get them!”

As you were about to reach the orbs, something sharp and spiky rose from the ground, startling the two of you and wounding your right leg. Your eyes widened in pain as you almost collapsed to the ground. The enemy gave you no time to recover as another spike rose and made a huge slash on your other leg, making you howl in unbelievable pain.

“(Y/N)! You - !” Griffon was about to electrocute the spikes when another wave of violet light appeared out of nowhere and engulfed him.

You watched helplessly as the light possessed the Demonic bird. It happened so fast that you were not able to retaliate in time to save him.

“Griffon!”

“Wait, wait, I’m fine!”

“Are you sure?!”

“Sweet pea, another spike! Let me!” The bird offered as it tried to channel his power for an attack. He folded his wings and unfurled them,…

… but nothing happened!

“Wha - ?! My powers are gone!”

You stood up, trying to ignore the pain in your legs and the blood gushing out from your wounds, when another batch of spikes rose from the round, almost killing you had you not dodged in time.

“Stay close behind me!” You ordered, waiting for the bird to do so. “I’ll protect you.”

With no time left to waste, you made a quick run towards V’s imprisoned familiars, dodging spikes and slicing light projectiles along the way.

Twenty feet, seventeen feet, fifteen feet. You were so close to reaching them,…

… until a strange kind of portal appeared before you. And what came out of it was a creature so diabolical, the Demons you faced before could never compare.

“Malphas!” Griffon uttered in fear as the half female half avian Demon blocked your way.

“What a curious little creature!” The Demon called Malphas drawled seductively as she stalked towards you. “These creatures before you failed before my power! And soon,” she lifted a skeletal finger and pointed it at you. “… your powers shall be mine!”

“HEY, YOU STINKIN’ EXHIBITIONIST!” The powerless Griffon, who was still cowering behind you, yelled. “GIVE MY COMRADES AND MY POWERS BACK!”

“Take them if you can.” The enemy exclaimed. “And if you fail, I will feast on your soul!”

“Not good! Not good! Let’s run away before - !”

But, the bird did not have time to finish his sentence as he saw you charging forward towards the Demon.

Despite your wounds, you managed to evade the spikes and the light projectiles that the Demon sent your way. However, as your wound worsened, your movements became sluggish, giving Malphas her needed signal to finally move against you. She conjured another portal and used it to escape. And seconds later, she reappeared, almost killing you with one slash of her talon. You thankfully escaped, thanks to Griffon who grabbed your parka and lifted you off the ground, sending you a safe distance away from the Demon.

“We can’t do this, sweet pea! W - we d - don’t have the strength!”

You smiled despite your predicament. Your head was getting lighter and your sight was getting more and more blurry. You tried to stand up but, your wounds were really awful that you screamed once more in pain and collapsed to the ground.

“Stop that! You, we, can’t fight! Let’s call the pimple kid and ask for help!

"It would be too late, by then!” You exclaimed, refusing to get knocked out by your wounds and rapid blood loss.

“And how do you propose we beat that thing, huh? Drive that skinny sword of yours through her heart? YA CAN’T EVEN FUCKIN’ STAND! I CAN’T EVEN USE MY POWER! LET’S RUN AWAY AND ASK FOR HELP!”

“NO! I PROMISED TO PROTECT YOU!” You yelled at the bird, your blind convictions surely sending you to your deathbed. “And even if we run, she’ll only go after us. What’s the difference?”

“We’ll live for a bit longer!”

You glanced up at Griffon, giving him a look of bravery despite your pitiful form. “Living for a bit longer? I can’t have that. That’s,…” you stood up and winced. “… unacceptable.”

“And what? Ya really want a fight do ya? YA WANT IT THAT BADLY, HUH?!”

“No.” You finally managed to stand up straight, fully decided and unhesitant for your next move. “But, I have no other choice.”

You removed your parka and tossed it towards the bird.

“Hey! Just what do ya think you’re - ?!”

Once again, the bird did not have enough time to finish as he saw you stripping the rest of your clothes, including the offensively seductive lace underwear that Nico gave you that morning.

“HAVE YOU LOST YOUR FUCKIN’ MIND?! YES, MALPHAS IS BUTT NAKED, BUT THAT DOESN’T MEAN YA HAVE TO - !”

“Maybe.” You only answered as you took a step forward. “But, we’re way out of our safe zones now.”

“What do ya mean by that? Start getting clear with me, woman!”

You faced him once more, but this time, with a weird smile on your face. “You’re right. I can’t beat Malphas. I’m weak, as you just saw. I can’t kill her but, she can.”

“Ah, who?!”

Nico’s voice went back to your head as you recalled her words once more.

“Now, as much as possible, you have to rely on those weapons I gave you. You would only let  her  take over as a last resort!”

“What if there’s no other choice, then?”

“Then, you’re gonna have to say byebye to your clothes! Or, at least, strip them before  she  comes. You can’t afford to buy that many set of clothes every after mission! You’ll go hungry!”

“Hunger? Clothes? Whatever.” You uttered to yourself as you made your way towards Malphas.

“SWEET PEA!” Griffon pleaded as he tried once more to attack, only to fail yet again. “YOU WILL FUCKIN’ DIE! STOP!”

But you only looked back at him, winked, and held up a slender finger to your bloody lips.

“Sshh,…”

The Demon noticed you as you reappeared before her, vulnerable, wounded, and exposed.

“Finally accepting your fate, mortal?”

“I don’t think so.”

“You! What are you - ?”

A warm kind of light suddenly engulfed your whole body, lifting you off the ground and blinding Malphas at the same time. Griffon, who was safely away from the fight, saw how your body morphed into a being of pure light that stood much taller than you were.

“Sweet Shirley! What a secret to hide!” Griffon exclaimed as he saw you come closer towards Malphas. “GO BEAT THAT EXHIBITIONIST, SWEET PEA!”

As the Diabolical Amalgam used her powers in the form of her portals, spikes, and projectiles, you only stayed where you were, receiving all the relentless attacks from her. And when the Demon realized that you have become somewhat invulnerable, she tried her best to escape, only to find herself suddenly slashed in different parts of her body. The rays of light that emanated from your very being extended out and went after Malphas in the form of hot blades, slashing her and wounding her, giving her no time to even move a finger. With a swift movement of your arms, you brought down judgment on the Demon, exuding a very bright light that melted Malphas’ grotesque avian form, leaving her true form behind.

“Mercy! Mercy!” Malphas pleaded as she saw you hovering towards her.

“Ooh, this I gotta watch!” Griffon said to himself as he flew down to witness the winning fight.

“Malphas of the Underworld, you stand before the Protector of The Present.” Griffon heard you proclaim in a very different voice. “I command you: speak and reveal who sent you to this Universe!”

“I do not know! I do not - AHH!” Malphas screamed as she felt another slash of hot light wound her already bloody and unrecognizable torso.

“By the name of the One Mistress who commands me, speak the truth!”

But, despite the deadly wounds she just received, Malphas only laughed.

“You know who sent me. It is she! The most powerful of all. Blood of her blood! Flesh of her flesh! Spirit of her spirit! Arisen from the Dead in pursuit of power! It is,… ”

But, before she could even finish her words, Malphas slowly disintegrated, her flesh turning into ash and her dark aura vanishing.

“We won! We fuckin’ won!” Griffon sang as he also felt his powers returning to him. “You did it, sweet pea! You - ”

“AT THE FINAL HOURS OF THE EVENING AND THE LAST RADIANCE OF THE WOUNDED MOON, THE PAST WILL WEEP, THE PRESENT WILL KNEEL, AND THE FUTURE WILL DIE!”

“What in the - ?!”

Griffon witnessed in shock how you uttered those cryptic words in a, yet, different tone than the first one you used on Malphas. He also saw how the light slowly vanished from your body, turning you back into your old self. Your body hovered for a moment, and finally went back to the ground, leaving you with no trace, whatsoever, of your battle against the Demons.

No wounds, no blood, no injuries.

It’s as if you were whole once more.

“Hey, hey, (Y/N)! Wake up!”

As you opened your eyes, you noticed how the darkness vanished from the sky, revealing its soft, afternoon glow. You also noticed how the orbs slowly disintegrate, already making their way back towards their Master.

Aside from one.

Still feeling a bit weak, you went towards that one orb glowing red and blue at the same time, like the two colors were in conflict with each other.

“Who is this?” You asked Griffon.

“Uhh, that would be the cat.” The bird answered.

“Shadow? Why is she - ?” You mumbled, reaching out a hand to the orb.

At the first signs of contact, the orb’s colors became even more chaotic as each of them fought for dominance.

Griffon, on the other hand, knew what’s really going on.

The Yamato was taking over Shadow, it’s very essence beating the familiar’s consciousness,…

… just like that one time at Delphi.

But, why now, of all times?!

“Ah, Griffon? What do we do with Shadow?” You frantically asked as the orb became bluer and bluer by the second.

“Ah! Ah! V! We need V!”

At the mention of its master’s name, the orb suddenly settled down and hastily disintegrated, its dark particles quickly crawling past you and back to the dance studio.

“Oh, there’s no need.” The bird breathed a sigh of relief. “I can tell that V is wide awake and is now running to get here.”

“Oh, I see.” You muttered, then suddenly, the two of you realized,…

“C L O T H E S!” You and Griffon simultaneously shrieked in panic.

A few minutes later, V arrived, looking for you and Griffon.

“Hoo, I’m glad you’re wide awake, V!” Griffon shrieked obnoxiously, suddenly blocking his vision.

“As tempted as I’ am to ask what occurred during my,… absence,… I would like to know: where is she?”

“I! That! She! Err!” Griffon hysterically stuttered, making the man even more suspicious.

“Hello, V.”

Griffon stopped mumbling at once when he heard you speak. “Oh, there is the chick! Hahaha!”

V practically shoved his avian familiar aside as he came to meet you.

Fully clothed and with no trace of combat, you smiled at him and said, “Are you alright?”

V sighed. He knew something happened while he was knocked out. But, he dared not ask that, for you were here with him, safe and sound.

“I’ am doing wonderful.” The man replied with a smile.

***

“Nothing really matters, anyone can see!”

“Nothing really matters!”

“Nothing really matters,… to me! ”

“Anywhere the wind,… blows!”

“BANG!”

Nico and Nero looked up as the two saw you, V, and Griffon making your way back towards the van after your first night patrol.

Nero ended his duet with Nico and his air guitar performance and ran to meet you halfway.

“Welcome back!” The boy cheerfully uttered, bringing his huge hand down on V’s shoulder and squeezing it. Lightly.

“How did your first night patrol go?” Nico asked with a knowing smile.

“Fetching.” V answered with a knowing smile of his, emphasizing on the word, giving Nico some false, and filthy, thoughts about how your night patrol with him went.

And, of course, you, being totally dense when it comes to those things, only shook your head helplessly.

“Normal. A few Demons here and there. Nothing special.” You answered, dedicated to keep your confrontation with Malphas a secret from them.

“Can we have breakfast now? I’m starving!” Nero announced as he took a seat on one of the abandoned chairs, waiting to be served like a guest in a restaurant. “And stop hiding that apple pie, Nico! Give it to me now!”

“What are you talking about, psycho?! I’m not hiding any food from you!”

“Oh, yeah? Then, what’s that strong apple pie aroma I’m smelling right now, huh?” Nero questioned, then turned to V. “You can smell it too, right?”

V, who could only smell the fresh flowers in your presence, shook his head.

“Seriously?! What? I’m the only one who can smell it?!”

Griffon was about to join in the apple pie banter when he heard someone calling him. He turned and saw you as you were about to enter the van, drowsily looking at him with one finger held up on your lips.

“Sshh,…”

***

The moment Trish entered her favorite department store, she knew something was really off.

She warily made her way towards the back of the shop, knowing the target would be there. She cautiously crouched towards the next aisle, expecting some Demon to come out, when,…

“Ooff!”

Somehow, Trish bumped into you, making you drop your items on the floor.

“Oh, I’m so sorry!” You apologized as you picked up your items.

“No, I should be the one to apologize,…” Trish uttered, trying to help you pick up your things, when she suddenly stopped as she looked down at you. She knew there was something off about you but, then, she knew you were not evil.

But, what could it be?

“Are you okay?”

“Yes, I’ am.” You answered, giving her a sweet smile before leaving.

She waited for you to pay for your things and leave, and when you finally did, she approached one of the Sales Associates and interrogated.

“Was this her first visit here?”

“Oh, the girl? Yes, it is. Cute, isn’t she?” The girl answered.

It was the first of the many occasions when Trish just had to spy on you, trying to find out that particular something in you that gave her uneasiness and sleepless nights. And in the space of two days, she found out that you worked for Dante as his assistant. You would sometimes go out and do some errands for him, like going to the grocery store, and such. Aside from that, everything about you seemed normal.

It was when she bumped into you again in that same department store did she finally realized what’s off about you. It should be considered as normal but, Trish knew it in her bones that she was the only one who could sense that elusive something from you.

Everywhere you went, you leave a distinct sign about you that was very hard to ignore, especially for a Demon like her. And it was only proven further with her latest observations of Dante as she saw him frantically searching for expensive vintages whenever he had the budget and never getting satisfied, not even once.

It was your scent,…

To Trish, you smelled like chocolates.

The kind that gave her an unhealthy addiction.

***

🖤🖤🖤

***

[gorgeously-stupid]

Anniversary 1978-2018 live in Hyde Park

My feelings are numerous and I am completely exhausted but let me try to get hold of some of them...

Truly the most amazing aspect of this is how it came to be. Major arena and stadium bands usually decide to make one or two concert films over the course of a tour, and it’s almost always recorded over several nights at the same venue to make sure they have enough footage to work with and that if a certain song isn’t perfect one night, you can go with the other one. 

So what do the Cure do? They play one show the entire year (well, Robert’s Curaetion at Meltdown was a legit Cure concert as well, that was some 10/10 shameless cheating), so, anyway, this one show. And two weeks before it Robert goes, hey, why doesn’t Tim Pope record this, and he does, and the entire thing is literally just the concert from start to finish, and it’s fucking FLAWLESS.

I was there. It was a beautiful day. It made my hair stay fluffy for 3 days afterwards (no product, just magic.) Sitting in the cinema to relive it for a while should be nbd but I was completely engrossed from the first moment, I’m trash, I live for everything this band is.

I like the fact that every so often the general music-loving public suddenly remembers that the Cure are out there. After their time at Bestival 2011 (+ the live album from it) and Reading & Leeds in 2012 there was a bit of “huh, wait, these guys are still around? and it’s good?!!!” I loved seeing the same reactions come in during and after their Glastonbury performance this year. By all accounts it was stunning, I’ve only seen Burn on youtube and was duly swept off my feet. (It’s exhausting having an epiphany over a different live performance every week but it just keeps happening.) 

What everyone’s been pointing out about their Glasto set was that they were the only performers who, well, didn’t do anything. Everyone else had special guests and some kind of one-off stage production, which is the beauty of Glasto, of course. The Cure just played. They always just play. There’s nothing else on In Orange or Show or Trilogy or in Hyde Park. I get the feeling this might be a bit of a barrier to people who haven’t completely lost their minds yet but I have no idea what to do with that because I have.

 In terms of Tim Pope’s filming choices I would have liked more shots of people in the crowd going bonkers and more focus on Simon’s careening around the stage (always need more of that.) Roger’s kissy face at the end of Play For Today though????? poetic cinema

It was interesting to clearly see the crowd reactions I had already felt there - a sort of “ha, sure, alright, let’s do this” to Friday I’m In Love (compare Reading where a giant cheer erupts immediately and people sing the riff), while everyone went APESHIT for the final encore. Fans gonna fan.

It was very stupid really, but as I was bopping there, I really thought they might just finish on WCIBY (it’d been said the show would really only be 2 hours long, after all), then Boys Don’t Cry was like, oh right!, and then Jumping Someone Else’s Train knocked me over, and the immediate one, two, three, four! count-in to Grinding Halt was the point I came completely unhinged.

What’s fucked up is that it hit me the same way yesterday, uhh????

What’s even better is that the one sore spot of the gig for me had been Disintegration. I don’t know if it was the fresh hearing damage I’d sustained throughout the day or what, but somehow there the sound mixing sounded completely off to my ears on that one song to the point where it took me a minute to recognize what they were playing and I couldn’t really get into it because I felt like I barely heard anything. Well, in the film it was perfect and devastating.

Which brings me to my last thought, what the fuck kind of deal has Robert struck with the devil? Please tell me??? I’ve had to come to terms with this a hundred times but it doesn’t let up. How is his voice holding up like this? HOW??? Sometimes I’d think, “hum, sure, he’s not gonna go there.... oh OH he just did” 

By the end I was completely drained emotionally, bye. Who’s coming to Ostrava next week?

[frostinmyshadows]

To the girl with the hazel eyes

To the girl with the hazel eyes with the brilliant flecks of green and blue,

Some mornings I wake up, the light from my window streaming in across my face, and I cover my eyes and roll over and just lay there for a while listening to the sound of your feet pitter-pattering out in the kitchen as you make breakfast, humming a song to yourself. The sound comforts me, makes me feel less alone in the world. I hold onto that feeling for as long as I can. Because as soon as I open my eyes, it all comes flooding back, punching me in the gut a thousand times over

You’re not here. You haven’t been in quite some time. You can’t love me anymore. I was too much and not enough for you. I am alone. 

I experience this sort of phantom limb syndrome quite often. I’ll pick out something at the store to buy for you that I know you’ll appreciate, but then I’ll remember you’re not here anymore and I’ll quickly put it back. I’ll turn to make a witty remark to you, and see that no one is standing beside me. I’ll have a particularly awful day and want nothing more than to snuggle up beside you and watch a trashy movie, but I have nothing to come home to but an empty bed. 

To the girl with the hazel eyes that could see through my hardened exterior and into those parts of my soul that had never been exposed before,

You’ve left an ache in my heart that nothing can soothe. There is a person-sized hole in my life that I fall into wherever I turn. You had touched all those places inside my soul that had so ached to be touched. You had filled a gap in my life that had desperately needed to be. And then as quickly as you filled it, you left the hole even bigger and more gaping than before. 

When will you stop being an unfinished edge; A shard of glass from a broken heart that I’m constantly cutting myself on?

I tricked myself into thinking that this part of me wasn’t in love with you. It wasn’t until you were gone that I felt my heart bleeding. 

The ghost of you haunts me wherever I turn, living in the shadows of our soured memories. It follows me wherever I go, reminding me that you’re not here.

Every time I blink a memory flashes, like a slideshow. 

Your perfectly curly hair, your cleft chin that I adore, but you loathe. Your million-watt smile, your dimples. The way you only loved Snack Packs when you were stoned. How you always saw the bright side of everything. How you kept a list of my odd food choices on the refrigerator for all to see and make fun of. How you owned approximately 50 plants. How you loved walking around the apartment without pants. How you wore a funny hair bonnet after you got out of the shower. The way I loved watching you getting ready to go out, mesmerized by your makeup routine. How you love going to concerts in the city, driving back home just in time to chase the sunrise.

To the girl with the hazel eyes that danced with me under the Christmas lights out on the balcony, I miss the intimacy we shared. The pure, unadulterated fun. The joy and laughter. 

I miss our most sacred moments sitting outside, a joint passing back and forth between us, along with the secrets we’d never told anyone else. Wrapped in blankets, surrounded by twinkling lights, freezing in the cold, but basking in the warmth of each other’s love and light. We understood each other in a way that no one else had. We gave each other something no one else could give. You used to tell me that I was your home. And you gave me that too. You were my home. You were my shelter in the storm. You knew my heart in a way it had always craved to be known, and I think I did the same for yours. You had this way of making me feel so safe. So alive, so fully encompassed by love. Like you were this vital piece that had been missing from my life this whole time, and now that you were here, everything would never be the same. I would never again feel lonely, or scared, or unlovable. You filled that hole deep inside me that had been growing since I was young.

To the girl with the hazel eyes who called me “Love Bug,”

I miss the way that you sat next to me instead of across from me at the restaurant because you wanted to be close to me. I miss the way that you always knew whether or not you would like a song within the first three seconds of hearing it play. I miss the little love notes you’d leave me, telling me how much I meant to you and that everything was going to be alright. I miss the way that you could read my mind and always knew what I was meaning to say when I couldn’t vocalize it. I miss curling up watching movies with you on the couch with your head on my shoulder, tucked underneath my chin, legs intertwined. I miss how when I talked too much during shows, you pretended not to mind. 

Splayed out on the kitchen floor with snacks, gasping for air in between giggles, downing snack packs and Ferrero Rocher. (“Roacher,” you’d pronounce it. Now I can’t think of it any other way.) Dancing through the living room, pulling on our boots, we’d go out, dancing and skipping through the snow, singing along to our favorite tunes.

The ground has always felt like it’s falling from under me, that’s why I’d rather watch from the clouds. The best nights of my life were spent flying through the sky with you. 

We wore onsies while drinking moscato. You were a hippo, I was a sock monkey. You laughed at my honking laugh, and we laughed some more, taking pictures to capture the memories.

To the girl with the hazel eyes that averted themselves when you told me you couldn’t love me anymore when I’m sick,

I want to forget that version of you. I want the image of your face wiped clean from my mind. Your poisonous words erased from my memory. Those words that confirmed my greatest fear; that my illness made me completely and absolutely unlovable. I want this hole in the pit of my stomach filled. Every ache that you’ve cause to be healed. I want you banished from every crevice of my memory. 

When I think of you I can’t breath. It’s like someone has punched me in the stomach, and the throat, and the chest, and it suddenly hurts to remain conscious.

I miss you with a blinding rage. I hate you with every logical piece of my mind. But I love you so very much with everything else in me.

To the girl with the hazel eyes who I nearly loved to death,

Once in a while it will hit me like an avalanche on my chest that I am alone now.

You once were with me, but now you are gone. You once were a part of me, but now you’ve been cut away. And I am alone. And in that moment an ache fills my soul that is so intense it seems fatal. If only I could turn off my love. Turn off the memories. Turn off the pain. On those days my heart aches so bad it feels like it’s being crushed by a boulder. Picking apart every memory. Wondering where we went so wrong. 

When did the boundaries become blurred

When did I stop being careful

When did my sickness become to much

When did I become black tar in the walls

Making the air thick and sticky

Why didn’t I realize you were trying to save me

Why didn’t I realize that you couldn’t

That it was my job to save myself

When did you start controlling me and belittling me in the same breath that you told me I was your everything

When did you stop respecting me, if you ever had in the first place

When did you know you didn’t love me anymore

To the girl who once who told me I was her pocket of happiness,

I could get lost in you. You were my sweet release. You gave the world color. You numbed my pain. You were my first true breath in years, filling my lungs with the sweetest and most addicting air I’d ever ingested. I’ve never felt a love as strong as the love I had for you. I’ve never felt as loved as I was by you. It was intoxicating. You gave me my identity, my self-worth, my sense of purpose. But in one breath you were able to take it all away.

The world dropped beneath my feet, slipped away

And I fell through the chair, away from you, through dark space and matter, and into a hospital bed, where I lay entangled with IVs, where a doctor with a blurry face told me I’m lucky to be alive.

You once said without me you wouldn’t be alive. You called me your guardian angel. But it turned out that sweet, addicting air you gave me was cyanide, and I sought the grave before my time. And the girl with the hazel eyes who I loved with an intensity I’d never known had to become these memories. These bits and pieces. Shards of past I struggle to piece together.

To the girl with the hazel eyes that I miss like any drowning person misses air, 

I so desperately want to forget you, but I’m so desperately afraid of forgetting you at the same time. I hate the fact that the good memories have to be spoiled by the bad ones, that they can’t be looked at without that grey filter. I wish I could keep them on their own, safe in a little box, tucked away forever like pictures I can look through to remind me of what being loved feels like. 

But who was I to think that you’d stay?

To the girl with the hazel eyes who told me I wasn’t alone in the dark,

I’m sorry. I’m sorry that I was too much. I’m so, so sorry you had to watch me get sicker and sicker. I'm sorry I wouldn’t listen to you and go home sooner. I know it took its toll on you. I’m sorry my depression was another dark force in our home. I never wanted it to touch you, but it did. I wish I could go back and undo it all. I’m sorry you felt like you had to take care of me, and that you got so burnt out. You gave so much more than I could ever return in my weakened state, and I tried to tell you that, but I guess you didn’t hear.  Believe me, I felt like the poisonous force you saw me as. I knew I was a burden. I just loved you too much to leave. I would have done anything to hold on to what we had, even as it disintegrated around me I think part of me chose to be blind to it. I was blinded by the fear of losing you, the fear of change, the fear of the knowledge that I gave you so much power over me and that you could take so much away. I was selfish and scared and angry with my body and I just didn’t understand how much I was hurting you. I’m sorry I did that to you. I’m so sorry. 

We became toxic for each other, despite the love we may have felt. That’s the truth of the matter. This truth scalds my throat as I swallow it. 

To the girl with the hazel eyes who got me a bracelet with the roman numerals of the day we met,

Your fingernails left claw marks on my heart. The scars serve as a reminder that I was once loved with an intensity, and that I now better know how to utilize boundaries. My heart is beautiful and strong, and its scars are a map for where it’s been and what it’s withstood. It has weathered a true storm. It survived you. It survived.  

These scars are my track marks for an addiction that I am still fighting. Girl with the hazel eyes, you are the greatest addiction I have ever faced. All I’ve ever wanted is you wanting me, loving me, needing me as much as I needed you.  You are my crack, my heroin, the high I never want to come down from. I feed my addiction like a beast, and it gets stronger each time I allow myself to look back through your letters, to relive these memories.  Because this is my new self harm.  My mother checks my body, so now instead of slitting my wrists I scroll through your instagram page and let that slice me open.

To the girl with the hazel eyes who isn’t alone in the dark,

I’m very glad you had someone to save you. Because I have to save myself over and over again. I have to stop myself from calling you, from writing you, from driving up to your apartment and falling to your feet and begging you to care.

I’m learning to love now without letting it consume me. I’m learning codependence isn’t healthy, and that finding your worth in others is a recipe for disaster. 

But I miss you with an agony that tears my soul apart bit by bit with each flashback, each memory, each mention of your name. 

To the girl with the hazel eyes, the girl who I loved from the deepest parts of my soul,

I hope you are doing well. I love you. I miss you. I’m so sorry our relationship deteriorated, and I hate my part in it. I was so, so sick, and I just couldn’t see what was in front of me.  

I hope you are getting help. I am. Please remember your worth. You love and feel deeply, treat your big and beautiful heart with the care it deserves. Find people in life who will treat you with love, respect and kindness. You matter. Use boundaries in relationships. Don’t give too much, you’ll get burnt out. Balance is key. Voice your needs. Also, remember you are absolutely brilliant, please believe in yourself. You can change the world.

Please be careful with the snow. I miss making snow angels with you in the winter but I don’t want you to become one. 

To the girl with the hazel eyes that become pools of amber when she is sad,

I forgive you for everything. 

To the girl with the hazel eyes who used to bring me yellow flowers to help cure my depression,

I’m planting my own garden now.

7/6/2019

[lucky-peanut]

New Feelings - Part Two - Close

Warnings: Mild Smut

Additional Information: There is a playlist that goes along with this series. It will be linked and you are welcome to listen along as you read, and enjoy the music that helped inspire this mini series. https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLnNA9LiJPMRvwXne9wyfe0Ox4Q0kBZzUn

Part Two - Close

Waking up the next morning, I find myself wrapped around Luke’s warm body. His chest rising and falling as he breathes, and light snores passing his open lips. It was innocent and sweet, but as I thought back to what happened last night, a wave of panic washed over me.

Oh my god, I slept with Luke! How could I do that, I’m not over everything with- oh god if Jason finds out!

I don’t want to think about would happen then, climbing out of Luke’s bed as quickly as I can, I rush to get changed. Quietly closing the door behind me, so I don’t wake him up, I try to tip toe out of the house.

“Y/N? What are you still doing here?” comes Ashton’s sleepy voice. I look and notice that he must have crashed on the couch. Wiping sleep from his eyes, he clearly sees me so there’s no point in making a dash outside.

“Wait. Did you and Luke hook up?” Ashton goes on.

“Shhh, just tell Luke, I’m sorry.” is all I say, before rushing for the door, and safely putting some distance between the house and I. Calling an uber, I meet the driver on the corner, and head back home. Once in the comfort of my own apartment, I head straight for bed, wanting to forget that last night ever happened.

Luke’s POV-

I don’t wake up until round noon, and I’m disappointed that my bed is empty, no Y/N to be seen.

Throwing on a t-shirt, I make my way down stairs to see if she’s still there at all, only to find Ashton in the kitchen eating some lunch.

“Hey Luke!” he cheerfully says through a bite, “How was your night?” he continues, a knowing smile growing on his face.

“Pretty good after all.” I say, sitting in one of the chairs at the dining table, stealing the other half of Ashton’s sandwich. “Did she leave?” I ask through a bite.

“Yeah, this morning. Told me to tell you sorry.”

“Sorry about what?” I ask, confused. Ashton only shrugs in response.

“I figure you’ll want this though. Don’t make me regret giving it to you.” Ashton says finishing his meal. Pulling out a piece of paper from his pocket he hands it over to me. Written on one side is Y/N’s number.

“Thanks dude.” I say, grabbing my phone from my own pocket and plugging in the number. Pressing call, it rings a few times before she answers.

“Hello?” her sweet voice answers, making me nervous slightly.

“Hey, it’s Luke. Hope you don’t mind, Ashton gave me your number.” I say into the phone waiting for her response, but it doesn’t come. “Hey, I know last night kind of moved fast, I was wondering if you’d be interested in going out to a bar with me tonight. We can get to know each other.” I go on, trying to get something out of her.

“Luke...I’m sorry, but….I’m not ready to start something new yet. I don’t know what happened to me last night, after everything with Jason….I’m sorry I shouldn’t have let us go that far.” she says, her voice wavers as she goes on. My hopes disintegrate at the words she speaks, and before I get the chance to say anything else, she’s hung up.

“Fuck!” I sigh, throwing the phone on the table. I knew letting her into my room last night would lead to something, but I didn’t think whatever happened would lead to this. What I told her was true, all those times she and Jason would come over to hang out with Ashton, I’d see her and get so jealous. Y/N is beautiful, and more then that she’s smart and Ashton has only nice things to say about her. It was hard not to start liking her.

Walking back through the living room Ashton stops me.

“How was your talk?” Ashton asks, all smiles until he sees my face.

“I’m going back to bed.”

-A Month Later-

Your POV

It’s been exactly a month since I last saw Jason, and I can honestly say, I’m doing better. I never told my friends about the hook up with Luke, although they were super suspicious as to what happened.

Unfortunately Luke and I’s friendship is over in my eyes. There was no way I could see him after making such a fool of myself that night. Ashton was upset at first, but learned to understand.

Now standing in front of the mirror, I look myself over once more before heading to the living room.

“Is the necklace to much?” I ask my new roommate.

“Your going to a bar before the concert in the park right?” she asks, looking me over. I nod in response, doing a spin just to amuse her. I have finally decided to go out on a date again. I was skeptical at first, but after meeting Brandon through close friends, I figured why not.

He’s new to the city, but he jumped at the chance of asking me out when he heard about the new venue in the park.

“No necklace, go with the gold dangle earrings instead.” my roommate says. Trusting her eye for style I go back to my room and swap out the jewelry. Just as I come back there’s a knock on the apartment door.

“Hey Brandon!” I smile, answering to see him waiting for me.

“Hey, are you all set?” he asks. After a quick goodbye to my roommate, I head out the door.

Walking into the bar I immediately freeze. Across the room playing a game of pool is Luke, his long blonde hair tied back, and leather jacket glistening in the light.

“Everything okay?” Brandon asks me.

Luke looks up just then, his face brightening when he sees me, but falling as Brandon wraps his arm around me.

“Fine. Let’s order a drink.” I say, ignoring Luke, and guiding Brandon to the bar.

Ordering two drinks, I try my best to focus on Brandon. He goes on about his hometown in Boston, and I truly do find it interesting, but I can feel Luke’s eyes burning a hole into me from behind.

Sneaking a look at him, I wish I hadn’t. His leather jacket is draped around some floozy brunette, and Luke is hovered over her trying to teach her how to shot.

I hastily look away, going back to Brandon. I’m more than glad as the night sets in, and the bar gets more crowded, drowning out Luke’s laughter in the background.

“I’m going to run to the bathroom, before we head out. Be right back.” Brandon says, giving my cheek a kiss before heading off to the restrooms.

“Two jack and cokes please!” comes his voice from behind me. Turning I face Luke for the first time all night. “And a cherry bomb for the lady.” Luke tells the bartender, giving me a smile.

“Fancy seeing you here.” I offer as a conversation breaker.

“Oh I saw you.” Luke’s lacy voice comes back to me.

“How’s….” I start, but trail off, gesturing to the pool tables.

“Pretty good. Your welcome to come join.”

“I think you’re pretty occupied.” I say back, seeing as I’m being glared at by the brunette.

“You and I both know who’d I’d rather spend my time with.” Luke’s lips meet my ear.

I turn to face him again, but he’s already pushed away from the bar and heading back to his spot with his drinks.

“You order this?” Brandon scares me. I didn’t know he’d come back from the bathroom, and I pray he didn’t see our exchange.

“Uh, yeah.” I tell him, downing Luke’s shot before grabbing Brandon’s hand and heading out.

It’s a beautiful night, the band is playing amazing covers of all the best songs, so why am I not enjoying myself? I think over in my head. Brandon and I have been sitting at a bench listening to the music for a while now, and with each passing song I grow more and more melancholy.

“You look like you need a dance.” Brandon turns to me, standing and offering a hand.

“Aw, thank you.” I say, taking it. We go down by the stage where a few other couples are dancing as a new, slower song starts to play.

Wrapping my arms around Brandon’s neck, he holds onto my waist. Swaying us to the beat of the song, we dance around the area, but I still can’t get out of my head.

Well this is nice I guess. I wish he would hold me tighter. That couple over there is practically grinding and we’re over here like middle schoolers at their first dance. He’s definitely not Luke. Luke…

Thinking back to the party, I remember how good it felt to be in Luke’s arms, his hands roaming my curves, keeping my close against him. It felt amazing, nothing like how I feel here with Brandon.

At the end of the night, I tell Brandon goodnight at the door and head inside.

“Well? How was it?” I hear my roommate call from her room.

“He was lovely. I’m not going to see him again.” I shout back before closing my bedroom door. Flopping on my bed, I pull out my phone and finally press send to a message I should have sent a long time ago.

-A Week Later-

Tying the ends of my blue, button up shirt, I tuck the back into my black skinny jeans before sitting on the bed to put on some boots to complete the outfit.

It was a long week of waiting, and everyday I was worried that Luke would text me saying ‘nevermind,’ to our date tonight. But now it’s finally here and I couldn’t be more excited. Grabbing some jewelry, I finish my look and head into the living room.

The apartment is all mine tonight, making waiting for Luke torture, wishing I had someone to talk to about what was to come.

Finally a knock on my door means it’s time to go.

“Luke.” I smile up at him.

“Well don’t you look amazing.” He says back, leaning down to press his lips against mine. The kiss is over quick, but the tingles it leaves me with keep me wanting more.

Walking out of my apartment building we walk a few blocks down before Luke opens the door to the venue of the night. A new game lounge that had opened a few months ago.

“I figured we could see what other games your good at playing.” Luke smirks as he orders two beers for us, and heads over to the ping pong table.

“Prepare to get your ass kicked Luke, I play to win.” I tease back, taking a sip of my drink and grabbing a paddle.

“What’s the prize?” Luke’s eye light up.

“Oh I can think of a couple things I want.” I start, before serving the ball to him.

This sets the tone of the night, playful banter, drinks and games. From a round of ping pong, to a game of darts, we were both tied. Luke officially beating me at air hockey however makes him the winner of our little game.

“And with that, I think your ass is officially kicked.” Luke chuckles, throwing his hands in the air with victory.

“Alright, alright. What’s your prize?” I laugh along with him, finishing off another beer.

“I think something like this.” Luke walks over to me, taking my glass and setting it aside before lifting my chin up to bring my lips to his.

This was what I was waiting for all night. Our lips connect slowly, moving apart to meet each others again. My fingers slip into his hair, as his tongue makes its way into my mouth. He tastes like beer, and I imagine I do as well, but I don’t mind. I just want more.

Pulling away, hungry eyes flash over me, as Luke licks his lips.

“Yeah, that was a good prize.” he whispers to me.

“Want to head back to my place?” I suggest, Luke nods, before heading to the bar and paying for our tab. Walking back to my apartment the energy is different, heavier.

Unlocking the door, we both step inside. Closing the door, I turn to find Luke still standing behind me. Coming closer, he presses his hands against the door, keeping me trapped between him.

“Y/N, I…” Luke begins, but I stop him there. Wrapping my arms around his neck I shut the gap between us, and crash my lips to his. Luke responds back immediately, his arms finding my waist, pushing me against the door, pressing even closer against me.

We stay here for a while, fevered kisses left on each others lips.

“I want you Luke, I need you Luke.” I whimper into his ear, as he starts to kiss and bite at my neck. Lifting me up, Luke wraps my legs around him, carrying me further into the apartment.

“Which is your room?” his hot breath meets my ear.

“On the right.”

Opening the door, Luke walks us over to my bed, laying me back on my bed he comes to hover above me. Unbuttoning my shirt, he exposes the skin underneath, his hands stroking my bare sides as he comes back down to meet my lips.

“Damn your so beautiful.” he whispers to me, trailing his mouth down my neck and body.

Reaching behind me, his fingers fumble to unhook my bra. Taking both items off, Luke moves down, bringing one of my breasts past his lips, the other cupped in his hand.

“Oh, Luke.” I whisper, the sensation of his touch sending shivers down my back.

He takes his time with my chest, making sure that each breast gets equal attention from him. I take in a breath as his crotch harshly brushes against mine, the feel of his clothed dick, making me wet.

Stripping himself of his shirt, Luke moves further down the bed.

“Tell me how bad you want me.” Luke says, undoing my jeans and ridding me of the clothing.

“Luke, I want you so bad! I’m so wet, and it’s just for you.” I moan to him, the feel of his thumb tracing my thigh is heaven.

“Let me make you feel good baby.” Luke says before disappearing between my legs.

His hot breath hits my core, and I tremble at the idea of his tongue pleasuring me again. Teasing me with his fingers, he slides on inside of me, his tongue darting out and stimulating my clit.

“Fuck, Luke.” I sigh into him, loving all the attention. Adding another finger he continues his slow pace, swirling his tongue around my clit as he does the same with his fingers. It feels amazing, leaving me quivering beneath him.

“Sorry to cut this short, but I really need you.” Luke suddenly snaps up, his eyes darker from lust, staring into me.

Getting off the bed, he undoes his belt, and takes off the clothes on his bottom half. He pulls out a condom from his pants pocket before dropping them to the floor. Giving himself a few quick pumps, he slides the rubber on before returning to me on the bed.

His forehead pressed to mine, Luke lines himself up with my entrance before pushing in.

“Goddamnit Luke, you’re so big. I love how you feel inside of me.” I say into his lips between hot kisses.

He goes fast from the very start, thrusting in and out of me, pounding into me hard.

“Oh shit, you feel so good Y/N.” Luke whimpers in my ear, adjusting the position so my leg is over his shoulder.

Luke pushes deeper inside of me, hitting all the right spots. The feeling in my stomach builds tighter and tighter, and I can tell I’m getting close.

“Cum for me baby.” Luke says down to me, picking up the pace impossibly faster.

“Oh god, Luke!” I scream, my orgasm coming immediately after, pleasure coursing through my body.

“Oh shit!” Luke let’s out, my orgasm sending him over the edge as well.

Luke rides us through both of our highs, slowing down, growing sloppier with each next thrust.

“I don’t think I’ll ever get enough of that.” Luke pants, pulling out and laying next to me. Both of us breathing heavy.

“Well, stay the night, and maybe there will be a round two.” I smirk at him, leaning over to give him a kiss.

[swiftwritings]

This brings me back to one of the darkest, strongest days. I remember the first year of I believe seventh grade. I had been apart of “popular clique” and had many other friends outside of it. I had finally made the choice to sit with friends who actually let me talk at lunch, who wanted me to be a part of their day. I changed the style of my clothing to what I actually liked wearing. “ when she crashed, her clothes disintegrated and blew away with the winds that took all of her fair-weathered friends” I said goodbye to the fakest, mean friends I had. I said goodbye to the clothes that they wore. “When she looked around, her skin was spattered with ink forming the words of a thousand voices, echoes she heard even in her sleep.” I tell you what, this is so true still to this day. I hear the words of “why are you excited about that, that’s not cool.” “Why are you excited to see them in concert, they aren’t even popular.” “Why would you join dance, nobody does that. It’s so uncool.” Every choice that made me me, those fake friends didn’t want to support that. Their words I will never forget. “When she lay there on the ground, she dreamed of time machines and revenge” I always wished I could go back and tell myself what I know now. Tell myself those friends aren’t going to last and don’t care about your well being. That guy that asked you out but you were too afraid to say yes, he could’ve been everything you wanted. Someday they will get what is coming for them, don’t let the, drag you along. “When she rose, she rose slowly. Avoiding old haunts........wary of phone calls and promises” I still remember this so clearly. As I out edging out of friendships that I couldn’t do, I did it slowly. And to this day I still slowly make new friends because I don’t want to go back to backstabbing friends, ones who break their promises or just telling you want you want to hear. “Bathed in her brokenness” if you’ve never had to do that, I am so happy for you. But to lay in bed every night thinking of everything you’ve done wrong whether you can help it or not, wondering how you even got in this position, thinking of every mistake you’ve made. Those thoughts were endless for me. So many nights crying myself to sleep. “Said a prayer of gratitude for each chink in the armor she never knew she needed” little did I know, without all the events that’s gone on in my life, every brokenness that’s happened, I wouldn’t be who I am today without it. I thank god all the time for that. “Without your past you could never have arrived so wondrously and brutally, by design or some violent exquisite happenstance... here.” As painful it is to go through every hard step in life, it all happens for a reason and it builds you stronger and stronger. I am finally so proud of the person I have become and wouldn’t change that in a second. So thank you Taylor, for again being brave and sharing your poems to the world. They mean so much to people than you know. Just knowing someone so successful has gone through so many hard times but still manages to get through it and in the end, you’re winning for being who you truly are. I couldn’t ask for a better role model. @taylorswift @taylornation

[moonbelt]

»ardently

@prettychritty requested: Can I please get a fluffy soulmate au with got7 Jackson, like where their soulmate’s first word is written on their wrist? And he’s an idol and you’re a fan and you guys meet at a fanmeet? Sorry if it seems confusing 😅 Thank you 💕

pairing: jackson wang | reader

genre: fluff + soulmate au

word count: 2.42k

authors note: I have no idea how this is gonna be, but i hope you like it lmao… i really hope i made it so fluffy that you feel like cringing but still enjoy it o’ dearest one, please enjoy it.

It had been three years since the words appeared on your skin. The more you looked and got accustomed to it, the more you felt an overwhelming flush of emotion. You weren’t on the hunt for your soulmate, if anything, you were pretty passive to the whole idea but it made you feel some kind of way knowing someone was out there for you. 

It would have been better if the words weren’t so clueless though. ‘Holy Shit,’ wasn’t something you wanted to base the love of your life on but by gods, that’s what was imprinted in staggering black ink across your wrist.  

When your mother had sat you down and explained the whole soulmate ordeal to you at a tender age of ten, it seemed beyond magical; to know that you wouldn’t end up alone, that there was someone you could connect seamlessly with. It was too picturesque for you to imagine, even though you had read and heard countless stories of people feeling an earth-shattering sense of euphoria when the finally met their soulmate. Yes, you had felt glimpses of that throughout your life but at this point, you called low-key bullshit.  

Mindlessly you trace the words as your best friend, Soo, ecstatically jumps beside you.

“Can you believe we’re actually here? We’re gonna see Got7 in person?” Soo was on the clouds and she was happily dragging you along with her.

The both of you are standing on the longest line known to man, your legs have begun to ache since a few minutes ago but you put on a brave face. Got7 is the band that you love with your entire being, there’s no way you’re going to allow a few pains make you complain. 

“How long before the meet starts?” You ask as you readjust your shirt and pat down your hair. Your heart is thumping so fast that you are assertive that Soo could hear it, scrap that, you were sure your soulmate could hear it.  

You laugh at that. You’re pretty sure you wouldn’t find your soulmate anytime soon and at a fanmeet no less. You just hoped he or she was at least a decent human being.  

Checking her phone Soo tells you that there’s still at least thirty minutes before the fan meet was scheduled to begin. You nod your head, trying your hardest to disregard the slow burn etching up your arm. It wouldn’t be the first time it had happened and every time it did you wondered what the hell holy shit was thinking or better yet if holy shit was near you.

In the few short years that you found out you had a soulmate there had been times when you could feel them close to you, little bursts of energy that made you turn around and search adamantly for a sign—any sign—but to no avail. Soo had told you that it was pointless searching where it came from because if it wasn’t the right time, then you wouldn’t meet the person. But Soo had also found her soulmate at age 14 so her opinions didn’t really sway you. 

It wasn’t until you had felt the second zing course through your body that you finally excuse yourself to the bathroom.  

Soo wiggles her eyebrows at you as she flips her hair. “Are you getting nervous just thinking about being in the same room as them?”

You scoff. “That’s not it, trust me.”

“Ooh, let me guess,” she taps her chin with her forefinger. “You wanna gather enough courage to ask Jackson to sign your breasts? Tsk tsk, I always knew you were a wild one.“

You couldn’t help but laugh as you smacked Soo hard across her arm. “You are unbelievable. That is definitely not why I need to go use the bathroom. Get your head out of your ass, and keep my spot.”

“I got you covered. Go get your confidence,” Soo said chuckling when you flipped her the bird on your way out.  

As you work your way through the clusters of fans and security guards loitering around, you hear someone exclaim “Holy Shit!” Even though you know in your heart that it’s pointless to turn and check who it is, you do it anyways. A girl about 5'2 [157cm] is screaming and jumping as she hugs her group of friends. You stare at her for a moment. Maybe if she looks up and locks eyes with you, you’ll find out if she’s the one. Maybe sparks will fly and you’ll finally be relieved of the burden of hearing Holy Shit twenty times a day.  

It takes less than a minute for you to be let down. The girl doesn’t look up to you, no connections are made, but you watch as her hand slips effortlessly into the taller girl beside her’s palm. To add gasoline to a flame, you watch as the taller girl bends just a little bit and crushes her lips against hers. You don’t need a psychic to tell you that she’s definitely not the one.  

Ha, you laugh to yourself. If you ever do find your soulmate you’ll bash their head in for saying Holy Shit.  

The burning feeling on your arm has almost completely disintegrated and you’re pretty sure it was just some glitch. as always. no matter how many times you tell yourself to not get your hopes up, you—sadly—never listen.

Taking your time, you find the restroom and make fast work in doing your business. In fact, you don’t even notice the building of energy in the pit of your stomach ‘till you’re splashing water on your face.

It hits you like a freight train. 

The same sensation you’ve felt less than a handful of times before. Once on the train after school when you were deliriously tired; you put that down as a hallucination. The second time was at a KCON concert when you were blissfully awake; you filed that under adrenaline.

You don’t give yourself the option to dry your face off before your diving head-first out of the empty bathroom and into the hallway. You don’t even register your surroundings as you come barreling straight into a man’s chest that sends you bouncing to the floor.  

It suddenly feels incredibly hot. Hotter than you’ve ever known and it takes a few moments for your brain (and heart) to calm the heck down. Internally, you curse yourself out. For someone who claims to be passive about having a soulmate, you sure act like the sky is falling down when you feel any little sensation.  

“I’m so sorry,” you say, reaching behind you to push yourself off the ground and hopefully offer a pathetic but apologetic smile. You reach your arm out and in a blur of color, you’re taken aback by who’s standing in front of you with his brown eyes locked onto yours. It feels different, way different than you could ever imagine.  

“Holy Shit.”

What?  

That’s all it takes to break your trance. Holyshitholyshitholyshit. Holy Shit? Your heart is thudding faster in your chest than it ever has. Christ, how can those stupid words turn you into a blustering mess? You want to say something. Anything other than ‘I’m so sorry,’ especially because that’s beyond lame. But the words are caught in your throat, suddenly you’ve forgotten how to speak in coherent sentences.  

And then you’re hit by the second freight train in less than ten minutes.  

“Jackson Wang?” You air the question out. Discretely you pinch your arm as hard as you can. This must be a dream, you tell yourself. Har-dee-har-har, such a fucking realistic dream that you can see The Jackson Wang from Got7 staring at you like maybe something has finally connected.  

You don’t want to acknowledge the sparks that have begun scorching up your arm from your wrist. This is all a cruel joke conjured up by your mind. Jackson Wang? Ha, Soo was right. Maybe you were just nervous. Nervous to the point that you’re having hallucinations. Why would Jackson be out in the hallway anyway? Why would Jackson even be your soulmate? So many things don’t add up in your head but it does absolutely nothing to dull the intense happiness flooding through your chest.  

“Are you… do you feel this? Or is it just me?”

You’re tempted to ask him if this is real. Why does he look like he’s gone to heaven and back? Why does it feel like you can see the stars in his eyes? Why does everything feel so fucking bright?  

“You’re my soulmate?” You ask in complete disbelief but even before he can say anything you already know the answer.  

His face lights up. The way you’ve seen countless times in Live and pre-recorded videos. It feels like a megawatt beam is positioned directly on your face. He looks so breathtaking and you can’t figure out what part of you thinks that. Is it the fan of GOT7 you or is it the soulmate part? But to be brutally honest, you don’t really care. You like this feeling. Suddenly, it makes sense as to why the whole world is caught up in this soulmate business. It feels overwhelmingly good. It’s the kind of good that makes you want to scream ‘holy shit’ ‘till your lungs pass out.  

Jackson takes a few tentative steps towards you, he thinks that if he runs too fast he’ll scare you away. God, he can’t believe that this is happening. Sure, he believed in soulmates but he didn’t expect to find it here. At a fanmeet? Definitely not what he was expecting. And all the lines he had rehearsed in his mind for this one moment?

Gone.

He can’t remember them. Fuck, he’d always thought it was stupid to have tattoos of your first soulmates words on your wrist. Especially because his read ‘I’m so sorry.’ It had been frustrating. Do you know how many people apologize in a day? A whole lot. So much so that Jackson can’t help the overwhelming urge to—

Before he has time to calculate his actions, he’s wrapping you crushingly tight within his arms.  

You don’t know what to do, you can’t breathe. You swear on Soo’s life that you can feel angels sing as you breathe in his scent. Christ, this feels good. You’ve been missing out on so much. You hope this is not a dream. You hope you’re not falling into something that’s not even there to begin with. 

“You have no idea how long I’ve been waiting for this,” he says and you can almost hear the smile on his face.  

“I have a feeling.”  

He lets you go and the sudden loss of contact leaves you in a mess. You can’t stop the smile threatening to split your cheeks open. You try to reel in the blush creeping across your cheeks but you find out that you lost all control.

“I’m Jackson, by the way, and I’ve been thinking about you all day,” he says with a wink that sends you on a one-way trip somewhere among the clouds.

You chuckle a little, searching for your voice. “That rhymes, did you practice that?”  

Caught in his act, his eyes widen comically. “I did no such thing.”

“I’m [y/n].” You can’t stop smiling. If you had known this was how it would be, heck you would have begun searching for him years ago.  

You don’t even realize that someone important has made his way over, with a walkie-talkie attached to his waist and is impatiently waiting for Jackson to pay him attention. When he finally realizes that Jackson is on cloud 9, he breaks the bubble. “I’ve told you a thousand times to stop running away like that! This is the fourth time you’ve claimed to feel your soulmate in a week! Please, let’s go backstage.”

The smirk on Jackson’s face doesn’t dim as he catches your hand in his—it feels comfortably warm, easy—and sends a wink to his manager. “Surprise, surprise. Guess the fifth times the charm,” he raises your intertwined fingers. “Isn’t that right, [y/n]?”

You shake your head, grinning like a fool as you tighten your grip on him. You’re sure if someone googled lovestruck your face would appear as the ad. But you don’t give a flying shit. 

“Bet.”

A/N: I hope everyone likes it! please tell me if you did, thank you so much for reading!! 

⇢ masterlist

©️ 2017 kai, moonbelt [aka high-on-food] 

[healthchoicerhodeisland]

Why Measles Is a Quintessential Political Issue of Our Time

There are TONS of false statements in this article. It does however state the bigger picture. There is reason not to trust the healthcare industry or government.

Why Measles Is a Quintessential Political Issue of Our Time

By Masha Gessen

March 2, 2019

Why would people who care about their children’s health choose to ignore the evidence-based recommendations of the government and health-care system?

On Wednesday, the House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations held a timely and important hearing that had no hope of getting media attention on the same day that President Trump’s former personal lawyer Michael Cohen testified before another committee. The overlooked hearing focussed on ongoing measles outbreaks in the United States. Between January 1st and February 21st, a hundred and fifty-nine cases of measles were diagnosed in ten states—more cases than there were in all of 2017. Measles is highly contagious and potentially deadly. It’s also entirely preventable through vaccination.

Testifying at the hearing were Anthony S. Fauci, the head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, and Nancy Messonnier, the director of the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. One after another, subcommittee members asked Messonnier and Fauci if measles was dangerous and vaccines were safe. The doctors, neither of whom is a stranger to public speaking, exchanged befuddled glances. How does one handle a question to which the answer is obvious? Time after time, Fauci and Messonnier handled the questions with grace and patience. Grace, though, is a double-edged sword: a polite, respectful response to an ignorant question inevitably affirms the impression that the question itself is valid.

Representative Jan Schakowsky, a Democrat from Illinois, asked Messonnier to answer “yes” or “no” to a question about the primary culprit behind the outbreaks: Is it “vaccine hesitancy and misinformation”? Messonnier responded with a diplomatic “Yes and no.” She explained that children who are not covered by health insurance are less likely to be vaccinated, which suggests that parents’ opposition to vaccination is not the only reason that fewer children are being vaccinated. In response to a later question from Representative Frank Pallone, a Democrat from New Jersey, Fauci was more decisive: he called disinformation “an important problem.” But he immediately cautioned against blaming parents who have bad information; the goal, he said, should be to provide them with better, evidence-based messaging.

Vaccination is a basic political issue, because it is the subject of community agreement. When a high-enough percentage of community members are immunized, a disease can be effectively vanquished. In epidemiological terms, this is known as “herd immunity,” which cannot be maintained below a certain threshold. When enough people reject the community agreement, they endanger the rest. Willfully unvaccinated adults and children can spread diseases to those who cannot be vaccinated or haven’t been vaccinated, such as infants and people with a compromised immune system; these vulnerable populations would probably be safe in conditions of herd immunity. Vaccination and the refusal to vaccinate are political acts: individual decisions that affect others and the very ability of people to inhabit common spaces.

Sitting behind Fauci was a woman who kept silently raising a book titled “How to End the Autism Epidemic.” The phrase refers to a bogus, long-ago debunked theory that preservatives that were once used in the vaccine for measles, mumps, and rubella (M.M.R.) caused autism. The British gastroenterologist who once hypothesized this link lost his medical license years ago, but books, brochures, and articles promoting his theory continue to circulate and inspire people to reject vaccination and even to protest during congressional hearings.

Both Fauci and Messonnier repeatedly mentioned insular communities as hubs of measles outbreaks: Hasidic Jews in New York State (where an outbreak in 2018 and 2019 was apparently triggered by an infected visitor from Israel) and Somali-Americans in Minnesota, where, in 2017, an infected visitor from Somalia started an outbreak; both of these communities had many unvaccinated people. But a majority of vaccine resisters in this country are non-Jewish, white, educated Americans. While all states have laws that require vaccination, most allow for religious exemptions, and seventeen states allow people to refuse to vaccinate their children for reasons of personal philosophy. In other words, the suggestion that foreigners, immigrants, or tiny, strange religious minorities are overwhelmingly to blame for the measles outbreaks is misleading, as is the suggestion that lack of access to accurate information creates the conditions for poor vaccination coverage. From all available evidence, a majority of anti-vaxxers—educated white people, such as those who send their children to Waldorf schools—have access to public-health information and to vaccination; they choose not to believe and not to participate.

Measles is a quintessential political issue of the late two-thousand-teens, one that turns on the conflict between facts and lies. There has even been some reporting that Russian trolls have been spreading anti-vax propaganda. If they are, they are tapping into existing tensions and preconceptions, just like they do when they spread electoral propaganda. On Facebook, a tiny cluster of anti-vax pages seems to have disproportionate reach. And, just as with other kinds of propaganda, the key question is what makes the soil fertile for it.

Why would people who care about their children’s health choose to ignore the solid, evidence-based recommendations of the government and the health-care system? The simple answer is because they don’t trust the government or the health-care system. Theirs is not an unreasonable position. The American health-care system is opaque and profit-driven. Working in concert with the pharmaceutical industry, it gave us the deadly opioid epidemic. It gives us the highest infant-mortality and the lowest life-expectancy rates among the world’s developed countries—as well as the highest bills.

Not only do people not trust the health-care system but the health-care system itself doesn’t trust patients. It infantilizes them and keeps them in the dark. It ignores them when they ask for help, especially if they are female or black. It doesn’t take their word for anything. Americans who receive medical care abroad may find it striking to be treated as reasonable sources of information on their own bodies. I once flew to Australia for a three-week fellowship, only to discover upon arrival that I had left prescription medicine at home. The following day, a doctor at a Melbourne clinic heard me out and, clearly satisfied that I knew what I was talking about, wrote a prescription; the visit to the doctor cost sixty dollars, and the cost of my prescription medication was ten per cent of its price in the U.S. When I wrote a Facebook post about the experience, I was bombarded with stories that were similar to mine, by Americans who were shocked to have received fast and affordable medical care in countries that aren’t the U.S.—but, above all, they were shocked to have had an interaction based on trust.

About a year later, I sought treatment for a broken jaw, from a bicycling accident, at a New York City hospital. I needed a cat scan, and a young male intern insisted that I first take a pregnancy test. I told him that I’d had a radical hysterectomy several years earlier. I pointed out that I was fifty-one years old. I mentioned that I didn’t have sex with men. He wouldn’t budge. I don’t know what kind of concerns drove this protocol, but the protocol itself was clear: never take the patient’s word for anything.

The solution to under-vaccination lies not in getting the right kind of information and messaging to the “vaccine-hesitant” but in changing the politics of health care. Political agreement is unlikely among partners who do not trust each other, and near impossible when one side is explicitly profiting from the other. The American health-care system is ill-suited to protect public health, because a profit-driven industry cannot serve as the guardian of public good.

In the congressional hearing that everyone watched on Wednesday, Cohen implored Republican legislators to stop lying for the President as he said he had for years. They ignored him. Whether driven by perceived profit—financial or electoral—or willful belief, they would hold the line that they had adopted, facts and the public good be damned. In both hearings, one could observe the utter disintegration of politics.

Masha Gessen, a staff writer at The New Yorker, is the author of ten books, including, most recently, “The Future Is History: How Totalitarianism Reclaimed Russia,” which won the National Book Award in 2017, and “The Man Without a Face: The Unlikely Rise of Vladimir Putin.” 

Original article link

[dawnfelagund]

Hi! I thought it was interesting that you mentioned becoming self-sufficient was very important to you. If you feel like sharing, I'd love to hear more about it!

Absolutely! I love talking about this topic but, since I’m aTolkien blogger, I assume my followers aren’t interested. But I’ll gladlyjabber on about sustainability and self-sufficiency for hours. (However, I’lltry not to actually write a post thattakes hours to read! ^_^)

Mr. Felagund and I are both millennials. We were both bornin 1981, which makes us oldmillennials, but the definition in recent years seems to have settled into arange that includes us. As such, we were beginning our lives as independentyoung adults right when George W. Bush was destroying the U.S. economy. Iremember when it was officially announced that the U.S. was in recession andbeing surprised that no one had realized that yet. We’d been suffering foryears: the usual borderline poverty that most young people endure when theyfirst move out on their own, compounded by the fact that unemployment was high,which employers took as license to underpay, overwork, and otherwise abusetheir employees.

We were both among those employees. For more than a year, Iwas led on by my employer to believe that my contractual position would be madepermanent if I helped him with the restructuring of the agency within I worked.He wasn’t very academically smart; I was, so when something needed to bewritten or created, I did it, although it was not in my job description and Iwas not being paid for it, in an attempt to secure a tiny bit more economicsecurity for my family. Probably needless to say, when the time came forpositions to be made permanent, my boss’s was and mine was not. My hours werealso cut 20% and my workload simultaneously increased due to the restructuringof our agency. At the same time, my husband was commuting two hours one-way toa good-paying job; he had to leave at 3AM to avoid Washington, DC, traffic, sohe had the choice of giving up his life to go to bed at the same time as aseven-year-old or to live on four or fewer hours of sleep. He chose the latterand became sick and depressed as a result. Like me, he was also a governmentemployee and, under Bush administration appointees, was more regularly beingexpected to support positions that intellectually and ethically he found to bewrong. We were both constantly fighting against our employers both in overt andin passive-aggressive ways. (I may have used work time to write an awful lot offan fiction and run the SWG, for example. >.>)

In the midst of this, it occurred to us that we had verylittle control over our lives. We were both being asked to do things regularlythat we found wrong or that made us physically or mentally unwell. We were bothbeing required to do work for which we were not being compensated. We werebeing forced into actions like crushingly long commutes that robbed us of ourlives outside of work. We could fight these indignities only at the risk oflosing our jobs during a recession, starting a domino effect of possibly losingour car and home, which would further jeopardize our ability to get a new job,and so the vicious cycle goes.

We decided this was not a life we wanted to live.

We’d followed the trajectory of correct adulthood: went tocollege and graduated tops of our respective classes, found professional jobs,moved into our own apartment, married each other, eventually bought a house. Werealized that the need to pay our bills forced us into a position where wecould be used however an employer wanted with little recourse because of fearof losing our home. So it seemed the first thing to do was to get rid of thebills.

The biggest was, of course, our mortgage. We lived inMaryland, currently the wealthiest state in the U.S. We lived in the hinterlands,not in the pricey Baltimore-DC corridor (which is why we had the longcommutes), but cost of living was still high. We decided our number-one goalneeded to be getting rid of our mortgage. You gain a lot of power when you havea home that cannot be taken away from you. Of course, no one tells you that youdon’t have to have a mortgage! The normal, correct adult life is depicted asthirty years working and thirty years paying back a bank for the roof over yourhead. Success is measured in the things you possess over those thirty years:nice cars, a house bigger than you need, regular upgrades to your wardrobe,fancy vacations, all the nicest and the latest things. It’s the “Youdeserve it!” culture that leads people to spend the better part of theirrent or mortgage on a watch or a handbag or tickets to a sporting event.Because if you put your earnings primarily toward securing a home for yourself,why would you work? And if you chose to keep working even if you didn’t need to,what power would an employer have to force you to do their bidding? I’mconvinced that these things are all connected.

So, to make a long story short, Mr. Felagund and I dedicatedourselves towards increasing our self-sufficiency so that we could walk awayfrom a job at any time without worrying about the consequences. We’ve sincemoved to Vermont, to a rural region where the cost of housing means that allthat we poured into our more costly home in Maryland means that we will nothave a mortgage. (Currently, we rent our house in Maryland to friends whoneeded a place to live on short notice right when we were moving last year, butwe will be putting it on the market in the next couple of weeks, and once itsells, our mortgage is gone.)

We’ve also dedicated ourselves to learning and practicing self-sufficiencyin other areas of our life to the extent that we can. Since we both workfull-time, we can never do all that we want to, but we’ve accumulated a lot ofskills over the last ten years so that we could live much moreself-sufficiently if we had to.

First, we learned how to produce our own food. We flew bythe seat of our pants in our first garden, but we made mistakes and learnedfrom them. When I left the job I mentioned above to freelance write for a yearwhile finishing my teaching certification, I wrote about sustainability and, inthe process,  studied plant and soilscience. We began a concerted effort to improve our soil in Maryland. (We livedin the foothills of the Appalachians, so our soil was clay and rocky.) We bothtook classes at our local agricultural extension office and went to conferencesabout sustainable agriculture. We had less than an acre in Maryland, but webegan to use what little space we had for growing food. We put in fruit trees, asparagus,strawberries, perennial herbs, and brambles. By the time we moved, we were ableto grow much of our own food.

Mr. Felagund converted an old, disintegrating shed on ourproperty into a chicken coop, and we always kept around ten hens for eggs. (Wedidn’t raise meat birds in Maryland because we lived in a residentialneighborhood, and slaughtering chickens in our backyard would perhaps drawunwanted negative attention from our neighbors; we always did try to be goodneighbors with respect to our various little projects.) We also took amonth-long course in beekeeping and kept one or two colonies of honeybees.

Both of us learned to cook from scratch. We were both raisedwhere “cooking” was dumping in ramen and a flavor packet into boilingwater, or emptying a can of condensed soup and pouring in an equal amount ofmilk. We sometimes laugh over how, when we first got married, we wouldcelebrate special occasions by buying a frozen pizza and jazzing it up with allkinds of special toppings. But I think it’s important to recognize theimportance of small steps and not to feel the need to go overnight frommicrowave dinners to baking your own bread from scratch and pressure canningyour excess meat and beans. It took us years to go from the special pizza stageto being able to feed ourselves from stuff we grew or raised and a few staples.Mr. Felagund is the better cook, so he has learned how to make things like breadand preserve any extras we grow.

Now that we live in Vermont, we are hoping to expand our small-agoperations yet again. We have our first clutch of chicks growing up right now.They will provide us with eggs, and we are now able to raise meat birds withoutworrying about neighbors. We have three turkeys on the way in June. We hope toadd dairy goats or even a cow within the next couple of years so that we’llhave a source of milk and cheese. And Mr. Felagund has started fishing(although he hasn’t caught anything edible yet!) and wants to learn to hunt.We’re both hoping to study more deeply of wild foraging.

Next is independence in terms of energy and other resources.We already have well water and a septic system. We are hoping to soon invest insolar panels on our roof; we have a south-facing house that would be ideal. (Wecurrently use all renewable energy, but again, one of the goals is to reduceour bills as much as possible, even though the electricity bill in a house thissmall is negligible.) We heat our home primarily with wood pellets, which isgood in some ways compared to a regular woodstove (it’s far easier to use and much less messy!) but less than ideal asfar as self-sufficiency goes since this isn’t something we can produceourselves.

Also important to us is strengthening the self-sufficiencyof our community. It always amazes me that people don’t worry when most oftheir food is imported from places nowhere near where they live. What do theythink they will do if a natural or other disaster interrupted the constantdelivery of food from far-flung places?

In Maryland, we had relationships with a number of farmerswho raised and grew what we could not. We are building those relationships nowin Vermont. For example, we don’t tap our maple trees for syrup (yet!),but Mr.Felagund knows quite a few people who do, so he barters for maple syrup, whichwe can use as an all-purpose sweetener to limit the amount of (imported) sugarwe must buy. We’ve found sources for the animal products we can’t or areunwilling to raise. (Mr. Felagund is forbidden from owning a pig, for example,because he has a soft heart and would become attached.)

We want people inour community to be doing things that are useful to our community, and we want our money to go toward supportingour neighbors rather than a corporate office a thousand miles away. This is anargument Mr. Felagund and I have constantly with our Walmart-obsessed families:savings at the cash register often mask more costly losses to a community wherepeople cannot find good work that pays good wages. We are very fortunate inVermont; almost everything we need as far as food is produced by someone inVermont (often the Northeast Kingdom, where we live) or nearby (like Maine orsouthern Quebec), and even our supermarkets sell local products. Big box storeshaven’t taken over here, so we can buy other necessities from local businessesrather than relying on Target and Home Depot (and having our money flowconstantly out of our community as a result).

In general, we try to avoid buying things, especially disposable things. We’re not obsessive about it,but we use things like cloth napkins to avoid cluttering the landfill withpointless trash. We compost food scraps and much of our paper waste. We have developed a flavored seltzer habitsince moving to Vermont (and my husband can’t resist Vermont beer!) so we dohave a lot of recycling, but everyone’s allowed one sin, right? ^_^ We’ve alsoworked to unlearn the cultural mindset that success, happiness, andaffection/love are represented by material things. This is deeply ingrained andhard to unlearn. When we moved from our house in Maryland, we were both shockedby the amount of stuff we had accumulated over the years and had to give away.(We live in a single-wide trailer in Vermont which is roughly half the size asour house in Maryland, which had a basement, i.e., a clutter pit.) It wasembarrassing: stuff we’d bought and used maybe once or even never, that we’dwasted money on for no reason.

For us, self-sufficiency is more a process than adestination. It’s possible to go entirely off the grid, but really that’s notthe objective for us. Instead, we never again want our lives to be governed byan employer’s (or anyone else’s!) convenience or to feel we have to choosebetween doing the right thing and having a roof over our heads. We both teachhere and both adore our jobs–I love my school so much that I even love the wayit smells when I walk in every morning!–and I hope to have a long teachingcareer here. But were things to change–and under the current presidentialadministration, one has to worry about that in a public school–I like havingthe power to walk away rather than being forced to do something I completelydisagree with (e.g., teaching to standardized tests versus critical thinkingskills and global citizenship, or denying services to students withdisabilities, as our Secretary of Education would like to see done). So we’vededicated ourselves to doing as much as we can on our own, to always improvingand doing better in terms of our obligations to protect and care for the Earth, and most importantly, to learning skills that maybe we’re notalways using at a particular moment in time but could use if the need arose. Over the course of years, it’s justbecome life: weird or fascinating to some people but just our life as we’vegotten used to living it.