#cries. still ghosting uni friends AFTER being the one to reach out first

[violetnaps]

havent talked to friendsin so long and im,,, overthibkig everything,,,,,

[embrassemoi]

Surrounded by the Moon and Stars • 16

Pairings: Sirius Black, Remus Lupin, [F]Reader Content: Language, possible errors Author’s notes: Thanks for the support! xx (also kinda personal but I just got accpected into uni?! Crazy!) 

Masterlist: Previous Chapter | Next Chapter

Chapter 16: Everything Goes According to Plan

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January 30th, 1976

“Where’s my camera?”

“Be careful — Oi! Don’t step on me!”

“Ouch!”

“Shush!”

The squeaking of floorboards creaked throughout the small room as everyone kept on stumbling into each other, all fidgeting from excitement. That morning, they’d all woken up earlier than usual, decorating the room with streamers, leftover Christmas decor and a large banner that hung above the entrance of the doorway that read, Happy Birthday, Petals! (which was Y/N’s idea — she was very proud of the nickname). Even Mary snuck into their dorm, making everyone wear small pointy party hats as they huddled around Lily’s bed, circling her like vultures and raised their hands high. With a quiet count of three from Marlene, their hands lowered, hovering over Lily’s arms and legs, then shook.

“HAPPY BIRTHDAY!” They bellowed.

Lily woke with a jolt; her eyes flew open as she let out a scream. Her back slammed against the bed frame while Toulouse swiped at them, specifically at Marlene and hissed.

Lily’s heart hammered against her chest and she felt the small prickles of needles subside all over her body. Her hand clutched her nightgown, attempting to even out her breathing. “You could’ve given me a heart attack!”

“Happy birthday, Lils!” Mary repeated before climbing into her bed, hugging her.

She grunted at the impact as a smile replaced her features. Her eyes hopped from person to person before landing on Y/N who gave a sweet smile which had Lily blushing as she averted her eyes back to Mary.

When the group realized that Lily’s birthday fell on a weekend, it left them giddy and beyond excited for the endless opportunities that lay ahead of them. Not only did it leave the entire group to have a small break from their ruthless studying, but they could thoroughly celebrate the day and have enough time to spare for any last-minute plans for the surprise birthday party that night.

“Get your arse up and get ready to start the day!” Marlene declared, already trying to tug her crimson blanket away.

Lily yawned, rubbing her eyes, “Do we have to? I’m tired…”

“Come on! Life is short! It’s time we make memories,” she cried, “You never know when you’re going to die! Would you rather celebrate your birthday as a ghost or six feet under?! I, for one, will not visit your grave.”

Lily rolled her eyes, getting up with a stretch. Dorcas moved to turn on Marlene’s record player, settling a record by Nancy Sinatra as everyone continued with their usual morning routines. Lily got dressed in her favourite long sleeve lilac dress, pulling on tights to prevent herself from freezing. Mary wore her usual gold eyeshadow and wore a red jumpsuit while Marlene dressed coolly in all black. Although, Dorcas decided to stay in bed, still recovering from her nasty flu.

“You look very pretty today,” Y/N told Lily while detangling her hair from the loose braid she had it in. She took a brush and hair styler, primping her hair to Lily’s usual style and placed a headband in her hair.

“I — I, er — thanks!” She replied somewhat flustered.

“No… problem — there! Finished!” She handed Lily a handheld mirror, letting her go over her appearance. Pleased, she turned around to the group.

“So, first order of business, what did you want to do today?” Dorcas asked before going into a fit of coughs. Marlene rushed up to her side and popped off a cork from a nearby potion for her to drink.

Everyone had been slightly worried. It had been four days now and Dorcas still wasn’t recovering from the flu despite the ad of magic and potions. Thankfully today she seemed to perk up, even just a little, but they worried she was pushing herself.

“How about we just stay here, with you? We can all up a Healer and —”

“No,” Dorcas coughed again, she waved her hands in front of her, “I’ll be fine. Don't worry about me. What do you want to do?”

Lily remained quiet for a moment and Y/N assumed she was going to suggest staying in their dorm with Dorcas again, but her eyes gleamed with unusual mischief. Her eyes hopped from person to person before landing on Y/N. “I want to do a prank and I think you’ll love it.”

Everyone’s brows rose. Lily, the goodie-two-shoes prefect, Evans and pranks?! Those two do not belong in the same sentences.

“Okay…” said Mary, nodding her head despite being confused, “We’re listening.”

Lily sat down on her bed, crossing one leg over the other as she motioned everyone to sit. “Do you think it’s possible if we can dye someone’s hair? Obviously, safely,” she used her prefect voice, “But do you think we can?”

A beat went by — that was strangely out of character. What happened to the Lily they knew?

“Yeah,” Marlene begins, “What colour are you thinking?”

“Orange — bright orange with a bit of green.”

Then, Lily turned over to look at her again, a ghost of a smile appearing that told Y/N that whatever she was planning was going to be worth it — especially if Lily out of all people, was going to pull it off.

“Someone's going to be sorry for calling me Carrots.”

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At breakfast, they arrived later than usual after they all planned out their prank. Marlene, who had been a part of too many pranks with Sirius and James, helped the most, while Y/N and Lily created a hair-changing potion using one of Dorcas’ old cauldrons — but unlike James, they stuck to a potions textbook with a reversal potion. Since it was Lily’s idea, she would be the one to slip the potion into Sirius’ drink. So, she tucked the vital into the sleeve of her dress, hidden from prying eyes.

They all huddled around her as they entered the Great Hall; their hands were pushed forward protectively, guarding Lily as if she were a celebrity being swarmed by adoring fans and they were her bodyguards. They paved her way from students while shouting:

“She’s declining photos at the moment!”

“Birthday girl coming through!”

“She’s a very busy lady! Out of the way!”

Lily kept on protesting for them to stop, hiding her face in her hands. As they reached their table, they sat beside the marauders while Lily made sure to take a seat next to Sirius. But, that wasn’t the end of Lily’s humiliation. Mary stood up, clapping to gain everyone’s attention. Once she realized what was about to happen she quickly got up, but Y/N and Sirius clapped a hand on Lily’s shoulder, shoving her back down on the bench.

They opened their mouths, singing,

“Haaaaapppppy birthday to you!” The six of them hollered before the rest of the hall caught on and started singing. “Haaaaapppppy birthday to you! Haaaaapppppy birthday dear Lily —” “CARROTS!” Shouted Sirius at the top of his lungs.

Lily kept shaking her head, blushing incredibly hard — even the tips of her ears started to turn pink. She covered her ears, attempting to muffle out the singing.

Y/N snapped a few photos of her, shoving them into her pockets.

“Haaaaapppppy birthhhhdaaaay tooooo youuuuuuuu!”

The Gryffindors and any Ravenclaws or Hufflepuffs that knew Lily cheered loudly. A few teachers, like Slughorn or McGonagall, made their way over to her, congratulating her along with a few other of her friends from different houses. Well wishes could be heard, along with a few people even handing her cards too.

Even an owl came swooping by when she had her back turned, dropping off a small package addressed from her parents and her sister, Petunia.

Swarmed and distracted, this left the group to huddle together as they leant over the table, forming a small circle of sorts. James was excluded as he sat back and drank a cup of tea flicking through the Daily Prophet.

“Operation: Lily’s birthday party,” said Marlene, “Let’s go over what our positions are for tonight.”

Mary was assigned with Dorcas to decorate the common room while Remus distracted Lily tonight during their rounds. Marlene and Sirius were in charge of drinks and snacks, leaving Peter and Y/N to bake a cake and bring any additional food.

They all quickly pulled apart once the crowd around Lily subsided. She settled back down, nodding and faking a cough. This signalled to the girls as Marlene quickly roped Sirius into a conversation about a New-Maj band he liked; Y/N talked to James about the upcoming Ravenclaw and Slytherin Quidditch match which left Mary to distract both Peter and Remus.

When none of the marauders were looking, Lily popped the corkscrew from the vital and grabbed a bowl of muffins on Sirius’ left. While she lent over, the potion poured directly into Sirius’ cup and she sat back down, smirking to herself. Y/N gave a discreet small high-five to her as they waited.

After a few minutes, parched from his talk with Marlene, Sirius picked up his goblet and tipped back the drink. He took a large gulp, wincing at the taste as he pulled it away from his face, but returned to his conversation like normal.

For several minutes, nothing happened. The girls kept quickly glancing upwards to check out his hair, but nothing: still bleached blond. They sighed, dejected that their plan hadn’t worked and Y/N nudged Lily underneath the table and gave a small smile, trying to cheer her up.

Another ten minutes went by and only then did the root of Sirius’ hair begin to tint into a bright orange colour rather than his dyed hair. This caught the girl's attention, however, the rest of the marauders who were still engaged in their conversations, did not notice as their heads were turned away from him.

His hair rapidly turned into orange as the tips were tinted green. Sirius didn’t seem to notice until James laughed, quickly turning to him to tell him a joke until his eyes widened at his hair.

“Ugh — Padfoot?!”

Sirius looked at him bewildered at his worried tone and expression before catching his reflection in James’ glasses. By now, Peter and Remus looked at him, their eyes widened, leaving the girls to force down their laughter, showing false concern.

“What the fuck?!” Sirius exclaimed, running a hand through it. She’d never seen Sirius this panicked before. More than anything, he looked shocked and even a bit… happy? No — definitely not happy. He continued to chuckle nervously before fretting over his appearance. For once, his laughter did not bother her.

Students began to take notice, pointing over at the Gryffindor table while some even began gossiping with others about the prank. As soon as the bell rang, everyone got up from their seats while the marauders surrounded Sirius, trying to help him out. The girls, on the other hand, got up and ran out of the Great Hall, practically howling.

“Oh my god! I can’t believe I just did that! I did that! We did that!” Lily exclaimed in disbelief before taking a seat down at their usual hangout near the library. “Did you see his reaction?! Jeez! I see why they pull so many pranks now!”

Y/N was about to burst into tears. That was by far the funniest shit she’d ever seen before. Marlene was in a similar boat as she clutched her side. Her stomach hurt from how hard she laughed.

“Lily! You little minx!” Mary cried as flopped beside Lily, her head dropping into her lap.

❉───────•~❉•᯽•❉~•───────❉

Their day was jammed packed. They went skating on the black lake, hit up the library, walked around school grounds which ended up in a huge snowball fight. After a bit, they decided to take a moment to separate themselves to give each other a bit of space while Lily went to find Snape.

This left the rest of the group two hours tops to themselves.

Y/N walked over to Honeydukes, buying a bunch of Jelly Slugs and a couple of other things before dashing back to the castle; she needed to wrap all of her presents and she promised to help Dorcas wrap hers too.

Before she entered Hogwarts again, Y/N took a moment to herself and enjoyed the small moment of peace around her. The soft crunching of snow, the cold breeze and the stillness — how quiet it was — there was hardly a moment since the break that Y/N had felt the comfortable peace Hogwarts had to offer.

Stepping inside the corridors, the atmosphere suddenly changed with the torches ablaze and a constant bubbling ambience that never seemed to settle.

In the distance, to her right, she could hear distant shouting and a rush of footsteps nearing. Out of nowhere, James seemed to come barreling towards her.

“Whiskers!” He yelled, sending her a fast wink as he continued to run down the corridor, making a sharp turn. Then, Marlee popped out, dashing after James.

“Marls?! What’s happening?”

“Running from Filch — get him off my trail!”

“What did you do?!”

“Told me to cover up, so I hexed him — Potter called him a rent boy!”

“Are you going to miss the party?” She yelled as Marlene’s body kept getting smaller and smaller as she ran. Y/N began to panic, without Marlene, surely things would take a lot longer than planned.

“Like hell I am! I won’t be late!”

Marlene disappeared, shortly being replaced by Filch who ran in a strange mixture of running and hopping.

“Where did they go?” He breathed, bending down and clutching his knees. “I heard them over here, where are they?”

And so Y/N decided to have some fun. “Who?”

“You know!”

“Um — you mean the one with blond hair?” “And the boy with black hair!”

“Oh! Yes, I know who… What’re their names again? Severus Snape and —” she paused, trying to think of another blond person, “Ugh — Sirius Black?”

Well, he used to be blond.

“No! The Potter boy and McKinnon! Where are they?!”

“Hmm… Oh! Oh! I think they went,” she pointed outside to the thick, cold snowy path, “That way!”

Filch didn’t even question her and ran off. Laughing, Y/N ran away from Filch; the last thing she wanted to do was face his wrath once he knew she lied.

Opening the door to her dorm, Dorcas was asleep. She walked up to grab a nearby folded blanket and placed it over her body to keep her warm before starting working.

She cleared off a table, unfolding her wrapping paper and wrapped the sides before creasing them, taping everything down with a pretty bow.

❉───────•~❉•᯽•❉~•───────❉

Nobody had seen Marlene or James for the past couple of hours — they’d even skipped dinner which caused everyone to go into a state of panic. Without Marlene, Sirius would be in a lot of trouble completing his task alone.

The common room was filled with fighting in hushed whispers as Lily and Remus were set to leave for their rounds in a couple of minutes.

“I’m going to kill her,” Mary fumed, “The one day they’re not supposed to go mucking around, they pull this!”

“How about we find them —” “And lose the little time we have now?”

Sirius, in particular, was on edge, aggravated, as he turned towards Y/N, “Why didn’t you think of saying anything sooner?”

“Because I didn’t think Marlene and James would be stupid enough to get caught! Not today!”

He closed his mouth, his lips pressed into a tight line. Even he hadn’t expected them to be that stupid either — not today.

“Everyone, shut up. All of you! Why don’t we take a moment to breathe?” Remus said calmly, effectively shutting the entire group up. In moments like these, Y/N understood why he was a prefect. He breathed in and looked to Sirius, “You can do this by yourself, can you?”

“Course not, Moony. Have a little faith in me!” Sirius gave a tenacious laugh, although forced.

Remus’ eyes then flicker to Y/N and Peter, “This shouldn’t affect you, will it?”

They shook their heads.

“Okay then, we’ll continue as planned. I’ll buy you as much time as —” He quickly cut himself off as everyone’s ears perked up. They all heard it, Lily’s footsteps. With that, Y/N, Sirius and Peter weaved their way out of the common room, walking quickly to avoid Lily and Remus from catching up to them. Unfortunately, Sirius took the invisibility cloak before she or Peter had the time to ask for it.

They sneakily made their way down a flight of moving stairs, passing several empty corridors and made their way down to the kitchens.

Once they began working on Lily’s cake, Y/N instantly knew why Peter was assigned to the kitchens.

He instructed her most of the time, telling her which ingredients or utensils to find. Currently, she grabbed a metal ladle and watched as Peter churn the ingredients, watching as they blend into a seamless, smooth mixture. She sat back most of the time, baking and cooking was never something she was great at. 

Y/N rifled through the cabinets, searching for a cake tin. “Ah-hah! Found some!”

They were heart-shaped, rather than the usual circular ones. She placed them onto the counter before turning her attention to grease the pans and focus on making a couple of sandwiches.

“So,” she started, trying to make small talk, “Where’d you learn to bake so well?”

Peter went pink as he wordlessly flicked his wand; the cake tin and floated it into one of the pre-heated ovens and turned to make the frosting. “Erm — it was James’ mum, Euphemia, who taught me. She’s a great baker — honestly she’s good at everything.

“James and I grew up close to each other; we’re childhood friends. He never did fancy baking — liked cooking more and I felt bad he never wanted to help out Euphemia. So one day I offered to help and now whenever I’m at their house, I help around — like a tradition — and I do it in my spare time now. Helps clear my head.”

Just then, two house-elves popped in, each holding a cup of tea for each student. Y/N gave her thanks while Peter turned to talk to them, making them laugh and asking questions that seemingly were a follow-up from a previous conversation. A light dust of flour scattered the side of his cheek while he smiled with them. The more he spoke with the elves, the more Y/N grew fascinated.

Out of all the marauders, even beating out Sirius and James who were amongst the most popular students at Hogwarts, Peter was the most liked out of all of them, especially amongst her friend group.

He wasn’t James who at times was a bit too much and talked an awful lot. He wasn’t Sirius who was dramatic, nor was he Remus who was quiet and intimidating. Peter was just Peter — who was a bit skittish, insanely good at Wizard’s chess, bold enough to sneak into the Slytherin's common room all by himself and loved to bake, clearly was in the kitchens often enough to have full-blown conversations with the elves when most people would so much as spit on before walking away.

It spoke volumes of his character, especially since he was from a Pureblood family; bound to grow up entitled and look down to his inferiors.

She noticed Peter had quite a lot of friends, mostly women, always seeming willing to help someone in dire need whether it be listening, giving advice or comforting another person. It only made her recollect the time Peter had engaged in small conversations with her, seeking to make her feel more included. Like that one time he’d mentioned the Holy Harpies. Small, ostensibly insignificant, but contemplating it now; he'd been trying to make her comfortable — settled — welcoming her with open arms into his group; into the marauders and the girls.

Within moments, there was a newfound appreciation towards the boy.

The sandwiches they made, along with pork pies stolen, were stuffed into a bag, ready to be transported. Y/N boredly spun her wand between the length of her finger while Peter whirled around in his seat until the ring of the timer went off. The elves were already gone, zipped away into thin air as they grew tired with sleep.

Placing a cooling spell onto the cake to avoid the icing from melting off, Peter began layering on a thin layer of icing.

“What’s Lily’s favourite colour? Is it still purple?” He asked. Y/N gave a curt nod.

“Never been a fan of purple. One time I walked into my Grandmum’s room, she only wore purple knickers for my Grandad. Makes me shiver all the time — honestly, the woman traumatized me. S’pose it might be my Boggart.”

Peter also had a sense of humour.

While diligently working, she marvelled at his creation. A two-layer heart-shaped cake, decorated all in light purple icing covered the surface before Peter piped small designs and swirls onto it.

“Wow. I feel like I can barely hold my wand at times yet you —”

“My, my — what do we have here? Students out of bed?” A voice came from behind them. “Tut, tut, tut.”

The two craned their heads backwards where Peeves smiled and let out a squeal of delight.

“Peeves,” Peter began politely. He slowly set down his piping bag and put his hands up in a submissive, yet defensive manner, as if he’d encountered a feral animal. “Please — please, we’re doing something for a dear friend. Don’t get us thrown out.”

“What would happen if I told Filch about you,” the ghost responded in a saintly voice, but his eyes glimmered wickedly. He brought a finger to the side of his face, tapping his index finger to his cheek, thinking.

“What to do, what to do…”

“Psst, Pete, what’s happening?”

Nobody answered her. With Sirius gone with the cloak, it left her and Peter completely out in the open wishlist a ghost threatening them — not to mention the lie she told Filch earlier, there was no way she nor Peter were going to get out of this unscathed.

“Please,” he pleaded.

She looked at him, wide-eyed and started panicking. She repeated louder, “What’s happening? What do we do?”

Peeves then grinned largely and started doing large loops into the air. His cackling rang through the empty corridors, becoming progressively louder.

“Shit. Run.”

“STUDENTS OUT OF BED IN THE HALLWAY! I REPEAT, THERE ARE STUDENTS OUT OF BED IN THE HALLWAY BY THE KITCHENS!”

Peter grabbed the cake while Y/N swiped the bag filled with the rest of the food, piping bags and a small jar of edible decor. They ducked under Peeves, dashing out of the kitchens leaving a huge mess for the unfortunate elves to clean up the next morning.  

Peeves floated behind them slowly as he watched them run. Peter ran slower, trying to make sure he didn’t face plant into the cake while Y/N urged him to run faster.

“He usually helps us,” Peter grits out, “But he’s a two-faced git! Never trust him unless you’re doing a prank! Never!”

Just then, Peter lost his footing and tripped over his feet, letting out a half-shriek, mixing in with Peeves’ evil laughter. They sucked in a sharp breath, watching as the cake flew through the air but Y/N, quick on her feet, grabbed her wand, casting a quick non-verbal charm and watched as the cake and plate froze mid-air before the plate clanked down first, the cake following and settling ontop. She ran up to it, cradling and wrapping a protective arm around it to prevent the cake from dropping again. She called out for Peter to get up before he took the cake again, this time with a shout from Y/N to not drop it, before leading her into a secret passway down the corridor.

Peeves could be heard laughing maniacally down the hall before they both could hear Filch’s footsteps running towards his shouts.

Peter maneuvered through the passage while Filch’s voice became more and more distant as they continued to hurriedly walk. Lily and Remus’ shift was going to end soon and it would be a lost cause if they didn’t make it up to the common room.

They both turned sharply, about to exit before Y/N crashed into a shadowy figure, tripping but being caught swiftly by the figure. They cradled her head to keep her from falling, but the sudden scare caused both students to open their mouths to scream, loudly.

“It’s me! It’s me!” Sirius’ familiar voice runs out, waving a hand to shush Peter while the other was still on her back. Y/N felt herself relax and erratic heartbeat to calm. She’d never been so happy to see Sirius before. Until she realized that they were still touching and they both ripped away.

Her heart spiked, and she felt oddly light headed. Soon enough, her eyes then immediately went to his hair and held back from chuckling — perhaps right now was not the time.

“I came once I heard people shouting and I figured it was you two. You okay?” His eyes darted to her at the last part.

Perhaps her eyes tricked her, that she was too tired or bumping into Sirius too hard, but it felt like he’d been making sure if she was alright. Since when did Sirius care? Although, Peter didn’t seem to notice or he’d ignored the interaction entirely.

“F-fine,” he wheezed out, “Peeves… Peeves caught us while we were decorating the cake. We’re not done yet.”

“What time is it?” She asked.

Sirius placed his wand in his mouth while pulling out a silver pocket watch from his trousers. “Ten to ten.”

“We have time then.” 

Peter placed the cake down gently on a nearby ledge in the passage, causing Sirius to cast Lumos. Sirius kept a watch out, his head moving from side to side every so often as he listened for anyone or anything walking past them.

Pulling out the icing bags and sprinkles, Peter began to finish his work. He continued to create flowers as Y/N wrote on the cake (although with help from her wand), ‘Happy 16th Birthday, Lily!’ and then placed a couple of candles around.

As Peter continued to add his small touches, Y/N’s eyes drifted around, not landing on anything in particular but zoned in on the shining of Sirius’ rings. Her eyes slowly drifted upwards, studying him. The remainder of the full moon that recently passed spilled a muted milky light onto the stone floor and touched Sirius’ face. He wasn’t wearing his normal school robes but dressed in Muggle clothing. Black jeans, a nice sweater, notable messy hair and his body language was relaxed. This Sirius was tolerable, likeable even. She liked this Sirius — but perhaps it was because he finally wasn’t talking. This Sirius gave her an insight into what he was like aside from his annoying, bitchy self. Loose, wild, messy in an elegant way, confident — in his prime — looking for a thrill, sneaking around; mischief.

Suddenly, Sirius’ wand went out as he ducked down, huddling beside her and Peter.

“What —”

They met each other’s eyes, locking, as he brought a finger up to his lips which made her flicker down to look at them, quickly.

Their eye contact was brief, so brief, nonetheless, it contained a flurry of emotions too complicated for Y/N to process.

But being up close for those brief seconds, she was able to examine him — truly, for the first time. Her eyes traced over the singular scar on his face, hidden by his hair that made her wonder where he’d gotten it from. Soon the questions enclosed her mind like an overflowing river.

His small, unexpected gesture had been one of many which had been nicer and oddly thoughtful recently.

Sirius’ brain was written in cryptic code — so advanced and intertwined — too complicated for her to understand. She wanted to understand his actions.

Even if she didn’t like to admit it, Sirius had a depth that greatly attracted her. She had so many unanswered questions.

And since her brain ran a mile a minute, her emotions weren’t filled with that annoyance of ranger — no, for once she didn’t feel any kind of resentment towards him.

Maybe it was because they both had one goal in mind: Lily’s party and that working against each other during something as high stakes like this would fail a good friend of theirs. Or maybe it was that instead of her or him starting something — or maybe — maybe it was because the boy was so close to her, closer than they ever had been before. Or maybe it was the adrenaline that set every fibre of her being on fire — making her feel like honey-dipped in tea — or the odd thunderous throbbing of her heat spiking suddenly; Y/N grew warm all over.

It didn’t help that Sirius didn’t look angry either, but rather a sudden cognizance filled his gaze, looking both shocked and calm.

But quickly, she just chalked up her flurry of emotions to adrenaline or wanting to hex him — either worked.

For Sirius, he felt utter disdain as his gaze fixated on her. He was tempted to flicker down to her lips but her eyes, bright and filled with glittery stars, were enchanting. It scorned him — made his heart beat in an iambic pentameter, creating its own sonnet that would make even the most accomplished poets jealous.

He wanted to refuse her presence. Wanted to focus on anything but her.

But Sirius was a weak man. He failed. He always did.

Their eyes ripped away and they heard the familiar sound of footsteps and voices neared them as they spotted the familiar red hair and tall figure.

Their voices were slightly muffled.  

“— times have changed! You aren’t a second year anymore.” Lily chimed while they walked.

Remus shook his head, instead of flicking his wand as a dozen torches lit up in mere seconds. “Whatever you say, Red.”

She swatted at his shoulder while Remus ruffled her hair, his smiling becoming genuine.

“Seriously, I support it.

“Merlin, Evans — it’s not going to happen. Look at me!”

“Not with that attitude and you look more than fine!”

Peter shifted his eight onto his other foot which made an audible scuffle. However, it was so quiet that neither she nor Sirius caught on but Remus, whose head swirled in their direction, did. He took a deep inhale, a look in his eyes, confusion melting into realization — there and gone — as if he knew they were there despite being hidden by the shadows of the night. He turned his head once more and started walking faster while Lily skipped down, trying to catch up to him.

Remus Lupin was an odd one alright.

Nobody moved until they were positive they were gone.

The entire night had been a shitshow.

“Okay,” Sirius exhaled, he felt his entire body tense up, “Let’s get out of here.”

“Do you think the cake is okay?” Y/N asked Peter as Sirius tossed the invisibility cloak over their bodies, hiding them from onlookers.

“Bloody well hope so,” he grunted, “We didn’t get caught almost three times, freeze our arse, almost get a month's detention, and probably destroyed the kitchen for it not to be great.”

Without another word, they made their way back to the common room where everyone made a fuss about how late they were. Quickly, Peter placed any last-minute designs, Mary handed everyone small party horns, Dorcas put up last-minute balloons while Y/N and Sirius helped each other layout all the snacks and drinks — this time, civilly.

“God… How’d you even get this much? Me and Peter were in the kitchens and we couldn’t even get half of what you got.”

At this, Sirius smirked before collapsing into the plush velvet couch behind him, an exhausted sigh as he sank further in. But as soon as the smirk was there, it was gone as everyone heard the clicking of the portrait open.

“Hide — HIDE!”

All the lights were blown out as they all hid behind the couches — they heard quiet footsteps — someone shuffling towards the middle — footsteps getting louder — louder — and —

Sirius lit the entire room as they all sprung up and Y/N quickly held her camera to her face and snapped a photo as everyone shouted,

“SUPRISE! HAPPY BIRTHD —” “Godric fucking Gryffindor!”

“... I’m going to KILL YOU MCKINNON! POTTER!”

Everyone groaned in disappointment at James and Marlene’s arrival before they heard the faint sounds of footsteps outside of the portrait again. Mary yanked Marlene down, shoving her behind the couch along with forcing a party hat on her head and confetti in her hands. Sirius grabbed James by his red sweater and rushed him up the stairs before getting back into place.

“Told you,” Marlene whispered into her ear, “Wasn’t going to be late.”

The real Lily could be heard as she spoke excitedly with Remus. The portrait swung open — everyone waited before she stepped inside — they put most of their weight onto their toes, waiting to jump — Sirius’ wand was about to light up the room — Y/N held her camera — Dorcas and Marlene were going to throw up the confetti —

“Why is it so dark —”

“SUPRISE! HAPPY BIRTHDAY, LILY!”

Light rushed back into the room and Lily’s face lit up brighter than the sun. Mountains of sweets were piled into bowls while a small table was lined with drinks. Sirius outdid himself, seemingly raiding Honeydukes; there was taffy, Bertie Bott’s Every Flavour Beans, Chocolate Frogs, sherbet lemon, caldron cakes — plus the food Y/N and Peter had hauled from the kitchen; sandwiches, fruit, crisp (she made the mistake of saying chips in front of James and Marlene only to then be hassled by them for it) and pork pies.

ABBA played in the background, much to Remus’ demise as her purple cake sat in the middle on a table, all the candles lit. They all ushered Lily to blow out the candles while they all held wrapped gifts, cards and small gift bags.

“You didn’t need to do this!” Lily said, although there was a thankful look in her eyes, “This is too much! Thank you!”

“Anything for you, Evans!”

“You’re lucky we didn’t bring fireworks!” Marlene and Sirius grinned.

“You would have all gotten detention —” “Stop being a goody goody, not today, Lils!” Sirius slung his arm around the redhead.

Gifts went around; Lily had gotten so many cards from other teachers and students, handmade jewellery from Dorcas, Remus knit her a sweater with hearts, Mary and Marlene gave a joint gift, Peter bought her a small yet overly fancy tea set Lily had mentioned offhandedly before, Sirius gave her a first edition books she loved while Y/N gave her the gifts she bought from that old book store. Alice had even dropped by and given her a small package before heading back up for the night.

They all smiled widely at her and were thrilled to see her so happy. Y/N lifted her camera and took an abundance of photos throughout the entire night, before shoving them into the back pocket of her pants.

By the time everyone reluctantly returned to their dormitories, it was three o’clock in the morning and everyone was beyond tired, deciding it was time for bed.

“Night,” Dorcas called out. Marlene yawned loudly before falling into her bed, muttering out another round of happy birthdays to Lily. They were out the fastest — soft snores filling the room.

White specks seemed to blur through her vision as Y/N rubbed her tired eyes. She was about to call over to Lily, say goodnight, roll over and sleep before the creaking of her bed altered her to Lily padding her way to the bed. Y/N looked up at her, confused before scouting over for Lily to slip in, under her blankets.

“Are you okay, Petals?”

“Beyond perfect,” she replied with a wistful voice, “I’m so thankful. Thank you.”

Y/N chuckled, although she was a tad perplexed, “Y’know, it wasn’t just me who helped.”

“I know, but still. This birthday feels different from all the other ones I’ve had and I can’t help but think it’s also because of you.”

Lily Evans never ceased to amaze her. “Well, I hope you mean that in a good way,” she teased.

“Obviously!”

Silence fell around them before Toulouse hopped onto Y/N’s bed and settled himself between the two friends.

Y/N’s eyes wondered to the banner: petals... “What’s your favourite flower? Surely it’s not lilies, are they?”

Lily gave a small huff of amusement and shook her head, “No. Peonies or irises. What about yours?”

“I’m not sure. Maybe I’ll just say lilies for now.” She said absentmindedly before her eyes shot open. “Shit! I forgot —” Y/N reached over Lily and opened her drawer with the pouch of Jelly slugs before placing them into Lily’s hands. “Forgot to give you these.”

There was a soft look in Lily’s eyes and something Y/N couldn’t quite place. Her friend was acting quite strange.

“It feels like I’ve known you forever,” Lily says softly, her face flushed a rosy colour.

She stayed silent for a while, at a complete loss for words. Even a slight look of confusion crossed Lily’s face. 

“Yeah, you too.”

[egyptsblackrose]

Dancing with Strangers

This is by far the longest chapter, hopefully I’ve tied all the loose ends and come to a decent conclusion. Stay tuned fro more fics.

Part 1 - https://egyptsblackrose.tumblr.com/post/648370506842701824/a-rose-by-any-other-name

Part 5 -https://egyptsblackrose.tumblr.com/post/654891313044635648/dancing-with-strangers-there-will-be-one-more-part

Part 6- The end, enjoy!

It had been eight months since your first meeting with Gojo Satoru and Kakashi Hatake. This had been the longest relationship either men had ever had, both as a three or on their own. It was also painfully clear how absolutely in love both men were with you, and you with them. The change in the three of you was as clear as day, never had anyone seen each of you so happy - is what you constantly heard from everyone you knew, and when you ran into a friend or relative of theirs… with a few exceptions.

The truth had come out about a month in that Gojo was the one with all the money. A ‘representative of his household’ had come to the apartment to visit and go over ‘matters concerning the family’. Satoru had been so laid back through the whole thing, smirking mockingly at the clearly uncomfortable (stuck up) old butler. He’d grabbed your waist as you were walking towards the door to leave, pulling you down and into his lap. It became clear that he wanted to mess with the man opposite him, even Kakashi seemed in on it because he kissed you sweetly as he walked passed.

Gojo wasn’t able to hide his bitterness when the man finally left though, burying his head into your neck and hugging you tightly. His father had been a politician and his mother a CEO of a successful company, he still had connections because of them and shares that were doing incredibly well. Not to mention their life insurance had been enough to set anyone for life.

“It’s not like I was close to them to begin with.” He’d muttered in a bored manner when you’d teared up at the mention of a Satoru toddler being left alone, surrounded by people who wanted to use him for money, power and influence. The butler was a man hired by his fathers old political party and the other share holders at his mothers company. They apparently weren’t best pleased with him settling for being a small time policeman, had hoped to mould him into their puppet to keep both their money making schemes going.

To cheer the three of you up, Gojo had taken the three of you on a spontaneous trip to an Onsen that one of his friends owns, up in the middle of no where. The beautiful, traditional building with modern interior was nestled on the side of a frigging mountain that could only be reached through a thick, ancient forest.

You were the only three guests, and the workers were even excused for the evening, so it felt like you were the only three in the world with the next person been miles away. Which you were insanely grateful for. Because Kakashi and Gojo had made it a completion between them on who could make you scream the loudest.

Three months later, Kakashi had appeared out of no where behind you while you were cooking dinner, wrapping his arms round you gently and kissing your neck soothingly. “Would you join me for a day out tomorrow?”

“Of course I will,” You giggled, shivering as his lips ghosted over the marks on your neck and shoulders, drawing invisible lines like he was drawing constellations. “Where are we going?”

Hatake was silent for a moment before he squeezed you tighter. “I’m going to introduce you to my father.”

To say you were nervous was an understatement, you had agonised over the right outfit for hours the night before, asking both Miku and Sakura for their help. You should have known better, they had spent the majority of the time gushing over your boyfriends and how serious it was getting between you. After all, no one had ever heard of the two most wanted bachelors introducing their conquests to their family and friends, or even going on trips with their lovers, let alone keeping their interest this long.

Finally settling on one of your favourite outfits; something simple, comfortable and trendy, you kept your make-up light and as natural as possible and called yourself ready. Meeting at their apartment, you were surprised to see Kakashi in his policeman formal uniform. God the man looked dashing. Wearing white gloves, black dress shoes, a smart navy suit, light blue tie, hat tucked under his arm and a smirk on his handsome face.

“Enjoying the view baby?” He teased.

You nodded dumbly, bitting your lip to try hide your smirk. “Just when I thought you couldn’t get any more handsome, you have to go devastate my heart like that.”

“Maybe me and Sato should wear these tonight then.” The suggestion had your thighs clenching, suddenly it was hard to swallow. Hatake chuckled lazily having seen your reaction. “Later baby girl, for now, we have somewhere to go.”

The cemetery was the LAST place you were expecting this day to take you. Kakashi stopped at his fathers tome stone and saluted. It was at least two decades since his fathers death. Kakashi Sakumo, Hatake’s father, had been a respected police detective, and his whole inspirational drive to become a policeman. When Hatake was young, his father had led a team in a drug bust against some of the biggest names in the Yakuza, but had chosen to save his men’s lives rather than capture the villains when things had gone wrong.

The ‘failure’ was a black mark against his name, and soon his was shunned by the media, his fellow detectives and the whole police force. The abuse became so bad, that he took his own life. From then on, Hatake had lived and grown up with Gojo who he was already inseparable with.

“For the longest time…I blamed him too.” Kakashi admitted quietly, holding onto your hand like a life line. “He had a duty to take those dangerous men off the streets, to make the city a safer place for the public, for kids who were in danger of either being hooked onto drugs or joining gangs. Instead he chose to save the lives of his team.” You were silent, what could you possibly say to ease his pain? “But now…” Hatake raised his head with a proud smile. “My views have changed. He didn’t want to chase glory, he just wanted to do the right thing and save lives. In that moment, they needed him, he saw that and did his best. He was willing to die for his men, he didn’t want to see all those family’s mourning for lives he could have spared. I can only hope that one day, I will be as brave as him.”

You are not ashamed to say you cried, standing there looking at the grave of the man who had made Hatake into the man he was. Into the man you loved. You bowed deeply and gave your thanks, promising out loud to take care of his son for as long as you were allowed. Kakashi’s own eyes watered at this as he pulled you close. You don’t know how long you stood there holding each other for, but it didn’t feel like long enough. Part of you thought it would never be enough when it came to the two amazing men who looked at you like you were their whole world.

After the visit, Kakashi had taken you to the old, more traditional part of town so you could go to his favourite restaurant. The two of you were the first to arrive and the last to leave, laughing so much to the point where you were both in tears. It was so light and care free, and you could see the weight just lift off of Hatake’s shoulders.

And when you both finally made it back to their apartment, Gojo was sat on the sofa waiting. Smirking. Also in uniform. That night, not one of you slept.

With your hands locked together in cuffs and blindfold around your eyes, you shook like a leaf in the wind as Kakashi took you from behind, Gojo at your front. If it had been anyone else trying to blindfold you and tie you up, you would have absolutely said no. As it was, Kakashi loved seeing you so vulnerable. So much so that he had stretched your arse as he’d enthusiastically eaten you out, and was now taking advantage of his VERY thorough prep work. He held a vibrator to your clit as he fucked your arse, Gojo keeping your mouth open and busy as he kissed you hungrily so they could hear your moans, squeezing and playing with your tits as he took your front just as roughly.

Not only did you squirt first time, your pretty sure you blacked out for a second. Not that the boys were deterred, they knew you’d tell them if it became too much. Besides, the sounds you were making; the moans, the wet squelching from how wet you were, it was the best yet. You couldn’t walk the next day though and had to ask Miku to record your lecture.

By the fifth month, Gojo and Kakashi had broached the idea of you moving in with them. It was a casual comment made in light conversation one Sunday morning, when they FIRST brought it up. Then it was Kakashi suggesting you keep more of your things with them, mostly because you would ask them to take you back to your apartment with the girls so you could get ready for the day, meaning you would leave earlier than they would like. Eventually Gojo decided they were being too subtle and would cling to you in the mornings, begging you to not leave and to stay with them.

“You guys remember that I’m living with two roommates already right? I can’t just up and leave them like that, they won’t be able to afford rent!”

“But beautifu~l! We want you here with us!”

“What our idiot means to say baby-”

“Hey!”

“Is that, you already spend so much time here, and we love having you with us. Our apartment is even closer to your Uni building! It makes sense surely, for you to move in with us. Or for us even to find a place together-”

“Wow, ok slow down there!” You butt in quickly, cheeks turning pink. Finally the boys had had enough of dancing around the subject and had sat you down to talk about it properly. Talking about moving into their lush apartment was one thing, but talking about a place together, was something else entirely!

Gojo pouted at you in annoyance. “What, you don’t want to live with us?”

“I’m not saying that!” You defended instantly, frowning at him. “I’m saying it’s a BIG step, and I get that you guys feel ready for it, but I don’t ok? For one, five months isn’t that much time dating someone, second, I don’t even have a job yet! And don’t tell me money isn’t an issue and I don’t have to pay rent cause God help me Satoru, I will get up and leave right now.” You threatened.

“Ok you two, lets take a deep breath and talk about this calmly ok?” Hatake soothed, squeezing both your hands. “Baby, if you don’t feel ready then that’s fine, we will not force you. But please know that when you ARE ready, we WANT you here. Ok?” Nodding in understanding, you started to relax. Gojo huffed and crossed his arms, but nodded in agreement. “And about you looking for a job and paying rent. We are not trying to baby you or the like, we just want to take care of you. We know you can take care of yourself but that wont stop us from WANTING to take care of you because you are YOURS. Understand? We love and cherish you, and if we can help you, we want to. If it was us in a difficult situation and you could help us, you would, wouldn’t you?”

“Of course, in a heartbeat.” You muttered with a slight pout.

Kakashi beamed. “It’s the same in our eyes.” And that had been the end of that…for the time being that is.

Just short of the six month mark, you had agreed to go out again with the girls for a night out. Kakashi and Gojo had encouraged you to go, promising that when they were done with their shift, they would come pick you up. They had even bought you a gift voucher for your birthday to buy a new outfit. You had been sure to send the boys a flattering pic of yourself all dolled up before you had left for the night, receiving such thirsty replies that no one would guess that you had spent the night before with them.

The night had been going perfectly, once again you were the most sober of the group, which you were now used to. You had a nice buzz going, there had already been so many laughs and the girls were excitedly giggling about the stories you shared on your boyfriends. (Of course the intimate, personal things you kept to yourself.) You had been to a few bars and your group agreed to end the night at the club you had met your boys in, ‘The Ninja Shrine’. Texting the two policemen still on shift, you let them know that you and your friends had arrived safely, were going to order your drinks and you would be eagerly waiting for them for a dance.

Gojo replied with multiple winky, smirky, and red with sweat drop faces. Kakashi was the only one to give you a verbal reply, promising to be there as soon as they could, and ‘ordering’ you to behave until they arrived. It made you smile, biting your lip. ‘No promises’ was your reply with a winky face, locking your phone and ignoring the bings that followed, knowing that would rile them up more than a reply.

Despite the clear teasing, you stayed against the bar, talking and laughing with your friends as you sipped at your drink. The girls did try convince you to dance with them at one point, but you were waiting a certain pair to join you. After all, dancing with the girls was fun, but it was even better when you had certain pairs of eyes on your body.

“Oh shit,” Miku cursed, suddenly grabbing your arm and turning you away from the door.

“What the hell-?”

“Don’t turn around!” Miku earned, holding onto your shoulders. “One of your boys’s old flings is here, and trust me you don’t want anything to do with her.” Looking subtly out of the corner of your eyes, you saw a pretty strawberry blonde with soft brown eyes and a confident smirk. You could clearly see her figure through her flashy outfit, her expensive designer shoes and handbag on show like she was on the Paris run way. “She was with them for four months, her names Claire Aoki, and she’s a psycho if you ask me.” Miku continued carefully.

Before you could react, the door opened once more and in came your two boyfriends, looking like sex on legs. Gojo wore a flashy designer get up with black jeans and dress shoes, a blue shirt and a leather jacket that you knew for a fact cost more than your joint rent with the girls. Kakashi was also in black dress shoes, black dress pants, a dark grey shirt and a lighter grey silk vest. Their eyes landed on you immediately and began smiling. You smiled back, beaming when they started heading your way.

They hadn’t made it two steps before they were stopped by Claire, her red manicured-nailed hands resting on their chests as she leaned in towards them, pressing her chest into their arms. Kakashi looked panicked, eyes widening as his eyes darted up towards you, then down to her and back. Gojo’s smile shrunk, it was still there, but it looked much more forced now as his blue eyes narrowed at the other woman.

Curious, and not worried at all, you leaned back against the bar. You turned to make yourself look as relaxed as possible, replicating the same look you had the night they had pulled you away from your friends to charm the pants off of you. Your head tilted and your smile grew as their eyes kept on drifting to you. Whatever Claire was saying clearly wasn’t keeping their attention.

Your smile turned to a smirk as Beast by Mia Martina started playing, slowly pushing off the bar as you headed to the dance floor, your friends following. Closing your eyes, you let the music take you away, body rolls moving slow, deliberate. You caught their eyes by dancing for yourself, but now you knew their weaknesses, the parts of you that they loved to tease and squeeze, you knew their bodies like you knew your own. And you fully intended to use that to your advantage.

“Keep your eyes on me,” You sang, looking both men dead in the eyes, smirking as their gazes struggled to meet yours, roaming your form hungrily like they hadn’t seen you in months. “Come here right now,” You continued, your hands reaching out to them, beckoning them to you. “Cause when the sun goes down the beast comes out,” Dropping to the floor, you straightened your legs so you were bent in half, slowly coming up and curving your back as you flipped your hair back gracefully.

“Take you down, down can you keep it up all night,” Smirking, you spun slowly as you exaggerated your hip swaying, making sure they got an eye full of your behind. “You all over my skin, I’m anxious, paint my body boy’s I’ll be your canvas.” Your head snapped back, showcasing all their bruises that they left from the night before.

Next thing you knew, two sets of hands were gripping you tight, one set on your hips and another on your upper thighs. “Da~nm Beautiful!” Gojo growled lowly into your ear, your grin stretching as you giggled, Kakashi ducking his head to bite your neck. “First you ignore us, then you go and put on a show like that for anyone to see. What are you trying to do, hu? You just want us to bend you over our knees don’t you?”

“Maybe I do,” You teased. “Or maybe I’m trying to prove a point to someone who was getting too handsy with what wasn’t theirs.”

“Oh? Someone was getting jealous? As sexy as you are ‘staking your claim’, doesn’t change the fact that your going to get your punishment when we get home, beautifu~l!” Satoru teased, his hand dragging up your body till his hand was at your neck, then he squeezed.

Kakashi let out a ragged breath at your moan. “I think we should get out of here.” Pressing himself harder into you, you could feel his impatience clearly through his pants.

You dared to look around you, eyes meeting with soft brown eyes glaring daggers at you with so much hatred. You would have been scared six months ago, you would have shrunk and shied away. But how could you now when Gojo and Kakashi were stood with you, hands all over you, demanding your love and attention, making you feel so treasured and powerful.

“Kiss me first.” You demanded. Satoru didn’t even hesitate for a second, pulling you into a searing kiss full of passion and desire. You faintly heard Miku and your friends cat call and wolf whistle somewhere near the bar, causing Gojo to pull away and chuckle. The opening was all Kakashi needed. His kiss was equally breathtaking, his movements slower and more controlled, but clearly as desperate to lay claim.

When Hatake pulled away, Gojo effortlessly picked you up and threw you over his shoulder, smacking your arse when you struggled. So you smacked his right back. Again, you couldn’t walk the next day.

By the end of the eight first months, you had finally landed a job interview and was offered the job on the spot, starting small but promised promotions if your work was up to standard. Around the same time your lease on the shared apartment with your friends was up, and you had finally given into your boyfriends hints and agreed to look for a place you could all afford together. What’s more, your graduation was less than a month away. Things were finally falling into place.

You had yet to broach the subject of your relationship status with your parents, though you were pretty sure they had figured out that you were at least dating someone by this point. Admitting that you hadn’t mentioned anything to your parents, you were nervous how the boys would react. But they had simply shrugged, nodded in understanding and reminding you that if you needed their help they were here for you.

Most importantly, you had a job you were doing well in, you were moving into a beautiful home, your friends were happy and doing well in their own fields, and you had two men who loved you unconditionally. You were sure everything was going to work out just right. And with Gojo and Satoru by your side, you could over come anything.

[oumaheroes]

Earthbound: Matthew’s Story

Context:

Hundreds of years after the fall of Earth, mankind is slowly starting to return. Some people have a stronger urge to return than others, confused by fragments of memories from a life already lived.

Full fic can be found here.

Arthur’s story can be found here.

-----

Matthew is four. His family have got their first dog and it’s a large, fluffy creature, all flank and tail and teeth. Matthew is horrified, at first, at this large thing that has suddenly appeared in his house, and he cries and tries to get away from it when it approaches him in the living room.

‘Just come say hello,’ Daddy says, hoisting him up to sit on his knees and taking his small hand in his larger one. His father’s body curls around him and, enveloped in arms, Matthew feels safe. His daddy reaches out his hand, thus, Matthew’s hand, giant thumb in the middle of his palm so that it is pinned there, and holds it aloft in front of the creature.

A large wet nose immediately descends and Matthew squeals because it is cold and strange and scary and Daddy shushes him, bouncing him on a knee. ‘He won’t bite’, Daddy says, ‘I won’t let him hurt you. He’s just trying to say hello; doggies say hello a little differently, is all.’

He kisses Matthew’s temple and rocks him, gently. ‘Want to try again?’

He is not but he nods and says yes because he wants to be brave and strong and he trusts Daddy, he does, or he really really wants to. At his reply, Daddy holds out their hands again, in front of the thing’s mouth, and whispers soothing nothings in Matthew’s ear- he’s not paying attention, too focused on the mouth with the teeth.

The creature snuffles their hands before giving them a lick, pink rough tongue and slobber; Matthew gasps, surprised, and then laughs. Daddy chuckles, and Matthew feels the vibrations rumble through him. ‘See? I told you; he only wants to be your friend. He’s called Kumajirou.��

The name doesn’t quite stick, too long and cumbersome for Matthew’s tentative tongue and he becomes Kuma, instead. It fits.

Matthew is eleven and wishes people could be more like dogs, open and friendly and honest about all that they are. He finds people too quick, children especially: too sly and fast and always with something hidden behind their smile. He’s figured out that he isn’t really a people person, anyway- it’s not that he doesn’t like people, exactly, but he doesn’t really know how to act around them; doesn’t know what to say or how to read them properly and now the whole process of opening his mouth to speak to someone feels daunting, like standing on the roof of his house and forcing himself to step off.

Matthew likes to sit on his thoughts, chew them about in his mouth a bit and be sure of the shape they will form before he lets them go. This means that he takes too long, is silent more often than not because kids his age don’t have the patience to stop and wait for him to get himself ready, lining up his words like soldiers about to march.

He’s known as the silent one at school, blending into the environment like a piece of furniture. Whether it’s in lessons, in sports, in games, or anything in between, his classmate’s eyes glaze past him and he knows that they’ve forgotten he’s there, forgotten that he’s an option to speak to. They’re not mean to him, they just don’t think about him, anymore. Even adults are not immune, more used to handling the demands of the louder kids, dazzled by the brightness of the smarter ones, fond of the affectionate children. Matthew is only half there, he supposes, sitting in the background with a mouthful of words that won’t come out when he wants them to.

Sometimes he wonders if he’s even really there at all, because that’s what life is all about, isn’t it? Memories of things and people and places and conversations- moments you share with other people that plant you in time, leaving a mark of your life like a footprint in their existence. He feels like a ghost of a person, a shade of parts that resemble someone else and it leaves him more tongue tied than ever.

But if Kuma is there, wherever he is, it’s instantly better because Matthew can be himself, can feel something loosen inside him and let him act like a person because Kuma loves him no matter what. Dogs act the same to everyone as long as you’re good to them- love them even a little. Kuma doesn’t care if Matthew doesn’t want to talk, or doesn’t know how he properly wants to say something. Kuma doesn’t care if Matthew struggles to find his words, tripping and stumbling over them as they clog his mind, clumping awkwardly on his tongue.

Kuma will sit there, patient and still, as Matthew whispers his day into his fur, words clear and strong and unsullied by fear in a way they never are with people. He will lick him on the nose and shove his head onto his lap when Matthew has curled himself into a ball in his room, replaying his day over and over so much that his mistakes blur together like paint, colouring everything with a smear of shame.

Matthew is fourteen and he feels as though he finally understands something. It starts as a small something, creeping and pattering through him and leaving tiny tracks in his mind, but now it’s growing larger and stronger, moving within him and sending his thoughts racing.

Kuma died a few months ago. This is what started it, Matthew knows, seeing Kuma slow and slow, more so each year, before, towards the end, it took all he had left to just lift his head. Matthew had felt terrible, of course- at a loss and helpless sitting there with him, stroking Kuma’s head and whispering final goodbyes. His father had joined him on the floor, both of them cocooned by a companionable silence in a way they couldn’t be at any other time, and Matthew felt truly heard, to the bottom of everything he was, in the depths of his grief. This was a moment that needed no words, was a thing that could not be named- only felt and experienced.

His father is a research scientist at some big lab in the heart of the colony and is more used to theory and hypothetical than practical application, but he had found some e-tab journals on dogs, about how their bodies worked and how to fix them, and used his skills to pour over them with Matthew on the floor, studying the miniscule entries as much as he could to provide some help.  Matthew watched, days lit by the flash of the e-tab as story after journal after analysis was checked and rechecked by his father beside him. There was no medicine that could save Kuma, no special cure for age, but there was some information about helping it, easing it- gentling death until it was as soft as sleep and Matthew’s father tried each and every one that he found. Kuma left them with a shift and a sigh and Matthew was surprised at death’s kindness, how easy it could be.

His father, haggard, tired, and sad, had given something of himself for Kuma, and Matthew felt so proud of him, thankful for the benefit it had given his oldest friend. Kuma is gone, but Matthew thinks of that shared peaceful end, of those journals filled with age old accounts from long dead men. He realises that there must be many of these e-tab entries about so many other animals, the few that are left and the thousands that there were before and he flicks onto one, in passing, just to see.

That’s all it takes. One leads to another, which leads to another and another and another and then Matthew can’t stop himself from drinking up as many as he can sync to, allowing himself to be pulled down through trees of evolution, skipping through the classifications of mammals to haunt reptiles and glide past the wingspan of birds. There used to be so many animals, more than he can ever name, more than he can ever conceive being possible- in the seas and the skies and the land and all at once. In, out, around- a planet teeming with things besides humans, living alongside the hulking toxic growth known as mankind and breathing life into the skies.

When earth fell they were lost, all apart from the few that the survivors managed to cling to, stolen away in their bags and clutched under an arm. Small animals and creatures that could be carried and fed easily with scraps that weren’t needed by another fleeing human life, or domesticated food that was herded and pushed, clueless, into a slaughterhouse of spaceships. It is redundant, of course- a pointless skill for him to nurture but Matthew is hungry for all of it; drawn in and hooked to something beyond his control he syncs file after file, strange creatures taking shape in his mind to migrate the past into his waking day.

Matthew’s colony is one of those ones where they like to push people, like to specialise their children early and drive them to great things. They’re good at what they do, structurally organised to churn out success and Matthew see the benefit of this, finally. He hadn’t really taken part before, hadn’t really shown an interest in pushing himself into a single category, but now, all of a sudden, he wants to do what his dad does.

Well, not exactly what his dad does, numbers and figures and study of physics, but the process of it. The breaking down of information, the mythological categorising of data; the calm soothing expectation of silent contemplation. So, he picks to try to become a research scientist too, selects classes that will give him access to greater libraries and archives and locked journals for deeper study, searching for fur and teeth and claws amongst them.

Matthew is eighteen. He managed to find a uni that taught a few classes in veterinary studies, the medical beginnings for those wanting to specialise as a vet. Matthew doesn’t want to do this, exactly -he’s more interested in how animals work and what they’re like, what colours they come in and how big they are- but if he becomes a vet it will allow him to work with animals all day and this, small as it is, could be enough. He isn’t sure, really; doesn’t really know exactly what he wants other than to learn but he hopes that if he takes enough classes, he’ll eventually figure something out.

The bell rings and he stands, gathering his things and heading out of class -anatomy of canines, his favourite- and turns a corner, slinging his bag over a shoulder and aiming for the canteen where he hopes they’re serving pancakes. He keeps missing them, never making the queue in time, but today he’s hoping that maybe he can manage to push his way through. Suddenly, as he turns a corner someone bumps into him, not seeing him at all, it seems, and everything crashes to the floor, e-tab skidding away out of sight.

There’s a mumbled ‘watch it!’ from someone whom Matthew doesn’t see, just a mouthless shout from a sea of strangers, and then he’s left scrabbling on the floor, parting students like a boulder in a river. Out of the corner of his eye, he catches a glint of metallic grey and a flash of Kuma’s tail across the hallway by a wall. He sighs in relief and scoots his way over, bending to snatch his tab up before it can get trodden on and straightening to come face to face with an e-board, notice shining bright and loud.

Matthew blinks at it, then shakes his head and blinks again when the advert doesn’t change, displaying something he never thought possible. It’s Earth, there and large and green and Matthew can’t read the words properly because, out of nowhere, his eyes are filled with tears and he’s crying- great shuddering breaths that turn heads and rip his voice from out of him.

Earth. Earth, there, open. Looking for people. He’s crying, crying so hard he can’t breathe, just gasp and choke and cry and people stop to stare at him because all of a sudden he’s the centre of attention, the loudest thing there is. He can’t control himself, can’t reign it in because at the top, under a heading for ‘Looking for skills in:’ he sees-

Animal care.

He doesn’t need to think, doesn’t need to read any further, doesn’t even stop to feel shame for his outburst; class forgotten, lunch forgotten, life forgotten he sprints home, avoiding the shuttles and cars he runs as fast as his legs can carry him, pounding on the electric walkways that shoot through town and feeling himself grow lighter and lighter with each step.

His mother and father don’t want him to go, mother clinging to him with arms wrapped tight around his neck. They feel, briefly, like a noose and Matthew chokes to think of listening to them- at the thought of staying here.

He loves them, he loves them- they’re his parents and he loves them so fucking much but this is something he needs to do, has to do and as he pulls away from his mother and meets his father’s eyes he can see that his father knows this too.

‘You may not get to work with animals,’ he says seriously, ‘at least not the ones you want.’ Matthew’s mother steps back to look at his father in horror, betrayal raw on her face as she realises that his father isn’t saying no Matthew can’t go, that he must stay. She reads the acceptance there, understands the truth of it and leaves the room to compose herself, Matthew staring after her sad but determined.

Matthew nods. ‘I know.’

His father steps forwards and puts a large land on his shoulder, rooting him in this moment. ‘If you’re not happy, will you come home?’

Matthew feels his eyes begin to burn, throat tighten, and thinks of the birds he’ll see even if he works in a lab, the insects he will find and small animals he can watch from a window; life spilling over the edges to bleed into buildings. ‘I’ll be happy.’

[bnha-dumpster]

Shattering: Chapter 1

Chapter 1 | NEXT

Shattering: A TodoBakuDeku x Reader fic (more TodoBaku with hints of Deku) Plot: After losing Deku and your two best friends, you didn’t think much more could be taken away from you. You’ve never been more wrong. Word count: 2k

a/n: just finished proofreading the first chapter,,,, enjoy,,,, also i forgot how angsty this fic is??? oof

“It’s not your fault, Katsuki.” It’s rare to see the blond cry, you’ve never seen him truly cry, not like right now. You hold onto his hand tightly. With his free hand, he’s desperately trying to wipe away his tears. They still travel down his face and wet the bedding. Bakugou won’t accept his failures, they’ll eat him from the inside-out before that happens. He hates losing, knowing he’s powerless. You do too, but not with the same intensity that he has. You swear that each loss is like a bullet tearing through him. He may not let people see it, but they get to him. You can tell after knowing him for so long.

Finally, he rips his hand from your grasp and in a broken voice- “Fuck off!”

As much as you want to stay by his side, you nod and leave the room. You shut the door quietly, the click resonating in the silent hospital hallway. You find yourself wandering to the hospital room of another classmate: Todoroki. You don’t bother knocking, you just walk in. Todoroki is sitting, looking out the window of his bare room. Nothing needs to be said between the two of you. He looks at you and you can see the intense sorrow in his eyes. 

“Sho-”

“I know.” There’s no room to argue or try to continue talking, not with the tone of his voice. The way he sits reminds you of the first time you met him. Todoroki was cautious and cold, though often not intentionally. Still, it’s like you’re back to that day where you tried to greet him. You turn away from him and leave his room silently. You’re left to your own thoughts now.

None of you thought something like this would happen. Midoriya had always wanted to be a hero and he was close to reaching that dream. Whatever happened, it broke something inside him. That’s what you think, at least. It’s hard to imagine any sort of scenario that would lead to this. What in the world could drive Midoriya to become a villain? It’s a question that almost certainly doesn’t have an answer.

The dorms look like nothing happened. A month ago, there was a gaping hole in the building and any evidence of it being there is gone now. Everyone that was there knows what the hole looked like. It’s not something that can be so easily forgotten. 

You can remember hanging from one of the higher floors, struggling to keep your grip with your blood-soaked hand. The other was limp at your side, dangling like it was attached by a thread. Your head was pounding and yet you could hear everything going on. Students screaming, sirens, cries of Midoriya’s name. It was all so blurry, as if it was a nightmare. At the time, you couldn’t tell exactly what was happening. The loss of blood probably didn’t help either. What you can clearly remember doesn’t make you feel any better. 

A familiar face with a foreign expression. Midoriya was looking down at you without any care, as if you were nothing more than a bug that was bothering him. At the time, you couldn’t make out the words he was saying, it blended in with everything else. A foot crushed the fingers of your hand and without the strength to endure anymore pain, you let out a pathetic sob, falling. The last thing you remember is watching him look down at you before disappearing.

Compared to some of the other injured students, your injuries weren’t too bad. No broken limbs- a supposed blessing. Your list of injuries included a severely dislocated shoulder accompanied by torn ligaments and damaged muscle, losing a third of your blood mass from multiple gashes caused by debris along with surgeries to remove whatever got stuck in your body, a concussion and lastly, a piece of rebar that went straight through your lower abdomen, narrowly missing your spine. 

It was only recently that you were allowed to get out of bed and start walking around. Naturally, you went to check on everyone. Most of them had at least one broken bone or some serious injury. It’s a miracle that no one died. Midoriya had punched a hole through a load-bearing wall, collapsing one corner of the building. 

“Are you okay to be up?” Aizawa’s voice rumbles behind you. He must have spotted you walking aimlessly in the hall. 

“I was discharged earlier today. Just wanted to visit some people before heading home… I saw him, you know? Midoriya’s eyes weren’t right, not when I looked at him.” You sigh and look down at your hands. “Do we have any idea why he’d do this?” 

The silence of your teacher confirms your fears. He has no idea and you doubt anyone else does. The reason behind Midoriya’s sudden switch hasn’t been found yet. It’s not likely anything will ever be found out. You clench your teeth. Midoriya’s actions have changed how you feel about your future, how everyone feels about their futures. If the world can take a kind person the way it did, what sort of message does that give for the future? You don’t know. It’s obvious when you make eye contact with Aizawa that he’s just as confused as you are. Everyone’s futures have been changed, that’s the silent agreement you make with your teacher.

And, the future really did change because of that day. 

You never did become a hero. The weight of Midoriya’s gaze kept you from truly moving forward with your goal of being a hero. Shortly after everyone was well enough to resume school, physically at least, you dropped out of U.A. suddenly. The only person made aware of your choice was Aizawa, who didn’t talk about it to any of your classmates as you requested. Without any notice, your dorm room was empty and you were nowhere to be seen. There were no goodbyes, you decided to just vanish. Things had never been the same. The two people you consider yourself closest to had grown apart from you. It was as if all the time you spent with them, all the things you did together, didn’t exist at all. Things seemed easier for you to just disappear from everyone’s lives.

You haven’t seen them since. At least, in person. The most you’ve seen of any of your former classmates is on the TV or ads you see when you’re out of the house. You have a habit of buying whatever limited edition products there are if they feature any familiar faces. There’s an untouched package of limited hair dye sitting on your bathroom’s counter- a deep shade of scarlet attempting to match Kirishima’s hair. His smiling face is plastered on the package in a way that’s impossible to ignore. It’s just like the one you used to see when you were training to be a hero beside him. Of course, the product has also been quite silly to you. Anyone that knows Kirishima knows that his vibrant red hair is the result of hair dye. Other silly products are scattered around your apartment, all of them reminding you of the better days. 

“Boss!” You’re snapped out of your thinking from an employee stumbling over himself, a little pale. You sigh and stand up, the boy continues, “A customer asked for you…”

“You look like you’ve seen a ghost. Who in the hell asked you to get me?” You expect a troublesome customer of your store, one that might be mad about the price of an item. There’s always at least one person a day that argues over prices. You walk out of the small office, sighing as you make your way to the store front. A vaguely familiar form nearly makes you vomit. Green eyes catch yours and the phantom pains from those years ago flood you enough to make you hiss from pain.

“Y/N! It’s been a long time! I’m surprised you didn’t go on to be a hero!” His sweet voice is more irritating than you thought. “What happened to that spirit?”

“I lost it when you looked me dead in the eye and skewered me on a huge pole of rebar.” You do your best to keep your voice level. Right now, you want to scream, but you know better. “I don’t know what you’re doing here, but I suggest you leave.”

“I don’t want to. You’re the only classmate I can talk to without worrying about getting beat up! It’s been years since you’ve used your Quirk, right?” 

“Midoriya…” He takes a step towards you and you instinctively take one back. 

“Are you scared of me, Y/N?” Midoriya reaches out for you but before he can touch you, you’re pulled out of sleep. 

Your mother is gently shaking your shoulder, waking you up. You sigh and rub your temples, thinking about how cruel of a dream you had. Glancing at the clock, you smile at your mom affectionately.

“Guess I fell asleep again, didn’t I?” She laughs at you and ruffles your hair. “Sorry, mom. These late nights are getting to me.”

“It’s alright, dear.” She pauses. “You were muttering his name again, Y/N. Are you ever going to talk to anyone about it? I think you should, it might make you feel better.”

“There’s nothing to talk about mom.” The same worried, motherly expression crosses her face for a moment before she sighs and nods. “I’ll be heading to uni, then.” 

You settle into your seat in the back of the lecture room, pulling out your laptop. Being alone is your preference. It’s easier to be by yourself than it is to spend time with people you probably don’t like. But the room has a good echo and you can hear most of the conversations, no matter how hushed they are. Today, the normally hushed voices that you can barely make out are louder, far more energetic. You’re about to put your earbuds in until you hear something that makes you freeze.

“Did you hear? Ground Zero and Shouto have gone missing!”

For the first time in years, your mind goes back to the last words you had with the two. Neither conversations were good. The thought of either of them getting hurt, despite how much pain you went through when they distanced themselves from you, makes you nauseous. Being invisible to everyone is good, you’re able to sneak out of the lecture room without people noticing. 

You don’t know where you’re going, not even as you knock on the door of the Bakugou residence, breathing heavily. You haven’t seen Mitsuki in years, not since you left. And yet, the woman sees you and you find yourself stuck in the doorway. Not once have you ever seen Bakugou’s mother cry. She’s a strong woman. Right now though, you can tell that she’s holding back tears and you want to come in to comfort her. Tears are in the corners of her eyes. You’ve never seen Mitsuki so vulnerable-looking, so upset. She’s been angry before, but never sad, never this distraught. You’re not sure what to do, but you want to do something.

That want to help disappears the second you hear the angry voice of Kirishima. Your motivation to take a step into the house is no longer there. You haven’t seen them in years and you never said goodbye. They could be angry at you, enraged for your sudden disappearance during such a tough time. Bile rises to the back of your throat. The moment you spot Kirishima’s red hair poke out behind Mitsuki, you sputter out:

“He’s going to be okay, I know it.” 

That’s all you can manage to say before you’re bolting away from the house. You hear her call your name and you know if you look behind you, there’s going to be faces you haven’t seen in years staring at you. So you run, not stopping until you’re standing in front of your apartment. Barely stumbling into your apartment, you collapse in the hallway. You kick the door of your apartment closed. 

“Fuck…” For the first time in years, you choke back a sob. “Fuck- What was I thinking?”

[vivilove-jonsa]

The Field Where I Died

Jon watches over Sansa even in death...

@jonsa-week  Day 1 Prompt-Present

A gift for @chocolateghost because he likes pain please don’t hate me

Read below or on ao3

***

The field where they were to meet was off Highway 11. It was a large field but surrounded by trees. He didn’t like the isolated feel of this but his informant had said it was someplace he’d never be spotted. Edd had berated him about going, saying he shouldn’t go alone but this guy was nervous enough without pulling his partner along. This was also the break they needed.

Three months, Jon and Edd had been working this case. Three months of chasing leads and this was the best one yet. Organized crime would feel the ripples of this bust from the local thugs all the way up to the capos and the boss. Jon figured it’d give him a little more cred in the department, from detective to sergeant probably, maybe lieutenant in another five years if he was lucky.

That was good. The school year would end soon and Sansa had already said she wanted to stay home with the baby the first year. Four years they’d been married. They’d been together since they were kids other than one stupid fight first year of college that had busted them up for six miserable months. When he’d won her back, he’d sworn to himself then he’d never let her go again. Even if someday she didn’t want him anymore, his heart would always be hers. So many guys in the department wound up divorced but he could never imagine that for him and Sansa.

On the perimeter of the field, he spied a white shape moving along the tree line. It was dusk out already and it gave him a chill. But soon he realized it was just a dog. He whistled and the animal stopped, its head tilted to the side.

“Hey, boy,” he called. “Thought you were a ghost.”

The dog approached him, wagging its tail in a friendly way. Oh, to enjoy the carefree life of a dog.

Jon checked for a collar. There was none. “You’re a sweet boy. I’d take you home if I could. Sansa would spoil you rotten. Not sure tonight’s the best night though,” he said as he heard a car pulling off the road.

The dog slunk off towards the trees as the car pulled to a stop. His guy on the inside was running a few minutes behind, not abnormal for him. The guy was always so twitchy.

The doors opened, both driver and passenger side and too late Jon realized it was not his guy. His arm already felt heavy when he started returning fire. Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed how dark it was growing when he saw a flash of white moving through the trees again. He needed to get home. Sansa would be waiting.

 *****

Jon was working late. The doorbell was not expected at this time of night. She’d been a cop’s wife for nearly four years now. She’d told herself detective work was less dangerous than being a uni. But dread filled her in a heartbeat with the dying echo of that doorbell.

She glanced down at her left hand. The diamond ring and gold band Jon had given her winked at her under the light of the foyer. She had her hand poised protectively over her rounded belly when she opened the door.

Edd was standing behind Chief Mormont and another one she’d never met. A chaplain, she realized. Her blood seemed to freeze inside her. There were tears in Edd’s eyes. The chief was choking on his words.

The white stray she’d found sitting outside their home this evening when she’d returned from Jeyne’s nuzzled against her leg and whined. She’d brought it inside to feed and wondered how Jon would feel about keeping him if they couldn’t find the owner.

“I’m so sorry, Mrs. Snow,” the chaplain said.

****** 

 He’d come home to her. He’d never made promises about those things because it seemed like a foolhardy promise for a cop to make. But he’d raced across the field and through the woods and back home that night to find her. He couldn’t leave her. He loved her too much to leave her alone.

But she wasn’t the same with him…or he wasn’t the same. Things were different than they’d been somehow. She still loved him, he knew, and he loved her so much. His whole world lit up when she walked in the door and would be cast into darkness when she went away. But she’d come back. She always did and his heart would soar when he saw her.

She would touch him but not like before. She said she shouldn’t let him sleep with her. He didn’t understand. Because of the baby? Was she upset with him? But they were just sleeping, just lying together and that was enough for him. And in the end, she’d always call him to bed when she turned out the lights at night.

Her kisses were different. His were, too. She’d run her fingers through his hair and murmur things to him but it wasn’t intimate in the same way. It was affectionate but not intimate.

She was sad, very sad. She cried a lot. She told him the Celexa was considered safe during pregnancy but she couldn’t take the risk. She poured the bottle’s contents down the toilet. He didn’t understand. She said the baby was all that mattered now. Didn’t she know that she mattered too?

He’d do whatever he could to comfort her, to express his own grief, to show her he was by her side. And he knew she got it. She told him she didn’t know what she’d do without him. Her salty tears wetted his tongue and after a while she’d give him something to eat.

Edd came to visit often. They didn’t talk to each other like before but Edd would reach out and touch him. He hated seeing his partner and friend so sad.

“He came to you that night?” Edd asked, mystified.

“Yeah.”

“What’s his name?”

“Ghost.”

 ******* 

Even though school wasn’t out just yet, she was already off from work. She didn’t go many places but when she did, she took him with her.

“I need you with me,” she told him. “You make me stronger.”

He wasn’t going anywhere without her. She could have every ounce of his strength if she needed.

When the time drew closer, he heard her talking with her mom. They’d laughed at the idea of a home birth before but now Sansa was insistent. “I don’t want to go to the hospital. I want to be home. I want Ghost near when he comes,” she told her mother who didn’t understand.

Something could go wrong and it worried him but it was ultimately her body that would be giving birth to his son. He would trust her judgment.

Then one night, he sat at the end of the bed, frustrated that he couldn’t see better and couldn’t understand it all. Her strained grunts and stifled cries made him feel sick, made him feel shaky, made him feel like pacing. He paced. Didn’t expectant fathers do lots of pacing?

“Go lie down!” her mother barked at him.

“He’s fine,” Sansa told her mother through clenched teeth.

The cry of their child was heard an hour later, just as he’d finally laid down with fatigue. He could only imagine how tired she must be.

He didn’t get to hold him but he saw him, grey eyes blinking at him with a scruff of dark hair. He smelled funny but he already knew he’d do anything for him, do anything to keep him safe just like Sansa.

“Darling,” his mother-in-law said, “Have you decided for sure about the name?”

“Yes. His name is Jon.”

******* 

At first, it was a never ending drudgery of forty-minute naps and feedings and diaper changes and crying, an endless cycle. He followed them everywhere around the house and, when Sansa would start to cry too, he’d be there to comfort her.

“Ghost watches over us both, Jon,” she’d say.

But soon, time had a way of speeding up on him. Little Jon would smile so big when he saw his mama or his daddy, those genuine social smiles that parents await so eagerly. Then, before long he was sitting up and soon he was crawling, it seemed.

He followed him everywhere. He’d curl up and nap by the crib if Sansa didn’t need him.

He’d watch over his son by day and lay by his wife at night. She’d caress his neck and shoulder until she’d drift off to sleep.

One night, a prowler came around. He could hear him outside. Sansa heard him, too. She grabbed the baby and was afraid, reaching for the phone. But he was there. He didn’t even need a gun, just his voice. He’d always protect them. He scared the prowler away.

****** 

Edd came over regularly to check on his wife and son. He was a good friend and a good partner. They’d always said they’d look after each other’s family no matter what. Edd had an elderly mother. Jon had a wife and son.

He wasn’t jealous that Edd could pick his son up when he couldn’t. He enjoyed watching his friend lift the baby up high in the air, getting belly laughs that would put a smile on that dour old face.

Some nights, Edd would stop by for coffee after Jon had been put to bed and they’d talk. He’d listen to everything they said but not all of it made since.

But one time, Edd took Sansa’s hand in his, speaking earnestly and he didn’t like that.

“Ghost, no!” Sansa said sharply.

He was angry and confused. He backed away at her command all the same. He always did what she told him. He loved her and wanted to please her.

But she turned to Edd the next minute, gently pulling her hand away from his. “I’m sorry. I can’t…I can’t think of such things yet. Maybe not ever.”

 ****** 

Today was important somehow. He wasn’t sure why but Sansa had asked Edd to drive them somewhere. He enjoyed getting out once in a while. He got tired of always being at the house or in the yard.

He climbed into the back next to Little Jon and laid his head over the boy’s lap. He was nearly two now. He would giggle and tug at his ears. He didn’t mind.

“Are you sure, Sansa?”

“I just want to see it. I want to know where it happened.”

The car stopped and he got out. Sansa reached for their boy.

It was sunny out, not dusk like before. But he knew the smell of these woods. They woke something within him, some old hurt or fear, something bad had happened here.

Edd stood back a respectful distance with his hat in his hands and tears in his eyes again. He loved Edd and hated for his friend to be sad like this. But Sansa could never love Edd the way she loved him. They were meant to be together always.

Sansa was carrying their son, saying words the child didn’t understand. She just needed to get this out of her system. She needed to see it for herself.

“I know you don’t understand,” she whispered to the boy. “But this is where your father…”

She stopped speaking, too choked up with emotions, but Ghost understood at last.

 This is the field where I died.

***

{And then Sansa woke up from that awful dream, right?}

[pixelpolaroid]

All curtains drawn- Chapter 6

<Previous  Next>

A look into the demon’s mind

It was an experience Marvin had never felt before. Something that was hard to explain in just one way. He felt his body drifting through something, like he was underwater, but didn’t have a need to breath. He opened his eyes, and saw himself. He was sitting there with his eyes closed, the book in his hand, but he was also here, looking. Like he was another person entirely.

The young bartender looked around the break room. Everything seemed to be tinted with a strange dark cloud. He could see, but something about this felt off, it was as if he was on a different plain of existence. But he was on a mission, so he turned away, shaking his head, and approaching the door out. When he reached for the handle, his hand passed right through it. Strange, but he didn’t stop to consider it for too long, as he phased through the door, back out to the bar.

He surveyed the scene around him, everything seemed frozen, but he soon realized that the world wasn’t stopped, just slowed down. As expected, the man he’d been speaking to was still at the bar, looking down at his empty glass. Marvin stood next to the man, he remembered what he’d read in the book, and reached out his hand, gently placing it on the stranger’s temple.

Marvin didn’t understand what it was about this guy that intrigued him. He hadn’t threatened him, or been rude at all. In fact, he was extremely fun to talk to, even after just one conversation, but what Marvin noticed, was the lack of read he had on him initially. By now, he’d already accepted that whatever he read in that book allowed him to see into people. He’d heard his brother’s thoughts about going to Uni before he even found out, and that woman, when she attacked him, he could feel her anger and frustration with Marvin. Though he didn’t know where pursuing this power would lead him, he wanted more understanding.

He closed his eyes, taking a deep breath as he felt himself plunge into the man’s mind. He could see flashes of red, images being tossed around him, but none of them meant anything to him. A single word continued to ring through his ears. “Phantom.” Again and again. Over and over. “Phantom, phantom, phantom.”

Then, as the scenes and thoughts and memories felt overwhelming, everything stopped at one image. It looked like his dream. The woman from the other night standing in front of a man sitting in the shadows, but now, Marvin could see that the man was the one he met at the bar.

He watched the scene play out, this time, he could hear what they were saying.

“So you let his little friend scare you away,” He stated in a low tone.

The woman looked up at him dejected. “He broke through my hold Pha- Sir. Humans aren’t supposed to be able to do that.”

The man tapped his fingers across the top of his desk, deep in his own mind. “This only proves further that he has the second book, and he’s learning from it. If we don’t find him, then he could unlock it’s power before we get a chance.”

“Or we could lose it again,” She added.

He looked up at her with a strange anger in his eyes. “Did I ask for your two-sense, Cris?”

The woman, who’s name was apparently Cris, opened her mouth to say something, but then just looked down. “No sir,” She muttered.

The man shook his head, looking away. “Since you messed up so badly, I’ll have to go in and do your work. After that, I’m detaining your book for a month.”

Cris looked up with dread and sorrow. ‘Phantom please,” She begged.

Phantom slammed his hand on the table, making her jump. “Be grateful I don’t rip your spirit from this body and wait for a new deal!” He yelled. He leaned back into his seat with a heavy sigh. “This is only your first screw up, don’t let it happen again.”

Cris nodded slowly, keeping her eyes down at the ground as the moment faded away. Marvin felt himself pull out of Phantom’s mind, he was still in this other plain, the people around him had barely moved.

Strangely, Marvin couldn’t help but feel bad for Cris. She was just trying to do what he asked. Marvin didn’t know what he meant by, “pulling her spirit from this body,” But it sounded bad.

The bartender felt a rush to his head, something about that was incredible. He wanted to know more, so he slowly reached down to press against Phantom’s forehead again. However, before he could, something reached out and took a hold of his wrist. It was thick and red, like to spikes that were in Cris’s arm, this one was much longer and the end was like a claw almost. Marvin followed it, seeing it coming out of the other man’s lower back.

Suddenly, Marvin was pushed away, falling down to the ground. He looked up and saw another version of the man walk out of his body. He was red, and somewhat transparent like a ghost. He looked down at Marvin with a smirk. “I thought I felt someone poking through my head. Gotta say, you’ve got skill, but not very sneaky.”

Marvin’s gaze was trained on the thing coming out of Phantom’s back. Was that a kagune? It was like he had a scorpion’s tail. It swayed side to side as Phantom grew closer. “So Marvin, you think you can play with the big kids now? A little look at that stolen artifact and now you think you can go around messing in people’s heads?” He stood smugly over Marvin, looking down at the terrified bartender. “I could name about five oaths of power that you’ve broken in just the past few days,” The tail like appendage rushed to Marvin, holding tightly onto his legs. Phantom lifted him upside down so he was dangling from his feet, but he was brought to eye level with the other man holding him.

Marvin shuddered as he stared back into his cold red eyes, unable to find anything to say. Phantom smirked. “I could kill you right here and now and claim to be doing justice for your crimes, but after your encounter yesterday, it seems like you have… potential.”

There was a look in his eyes, one that dried up any possible words in Marvin’s mouth. Phantom said nothing as he let Marvin fall to the ground again.

He reached down a pressed on hand against Marvin’s chest, he felt a fire burning under his skin as he was pushed back, then suddenly. Marvin’s eyes flashed opened and he was back in the break room, sweat dripping from his forehead. Marvin shook himself, the real world finally becoming clearer. He looked around, wiped his face with the bottom of his shirt and ran over to the door. As he peaked out it slowly, Marvin noticed that that the stranger was gone.

The bartender let out a relieved sigh, walking out and ending his break early. As he began cleaning up the glass Phantom left behind, he noticed a folded piece of paper under the glass. Tentatively, he reached down to read it. Written in dark red ink was a location followed by a time and date; tomorrow just before midnight. At the bottom were the words, “Let’s talk, thief. -P”

[wildlingknight]

So like I wrote this stuff down around September 2017 with the intention to write a fic about it (I might still do that when I have more time) but it’s just sitting and festering in my drive so I’ll put it here for now and build on it when uni is done. It’s a super long post but I did put a cut in.

There’s a whole bunch of mind vomit stuff here:

 I was talking to my discord group about things that could have been added to Botw because I’d gotten to a point in the game when I’d done mostly everything and was just putting off facing Ganon because I didn’t want it to end. So I came up with gods and spirits that you might meet in random places and sometimes they have quests for you or something. Taken directly from the server:

“This isn't really a hc more a random idea but what if there were time specific places on the map in botw? Like I just found  place on the side of death mountain called shadow hamlet ruins, what if you go there and it's just some ruined houses with a meteor wizzrobe in any other time but on the night of a new moon there's like creepy shadows that kinda come out of the wood work and shadows of the ruins and they don't exactly attack you but make you super uneasy and circle you a bit and it's like the people who lived and died there as a result of the calamity, like we know it corrupts the living but what if it doesn't let the dead rest either?

Like there are places all over hyrule that are just places until you visit them on a specific night or day or when certain parameters are met and you have a unique little event happen like a person you wouldn't meet any other time with items you can only get from them or maybe the dragons rest somewhere and you can just stumble across them, or more spirits and godlike beings who you wouldn't come across any other time apart from this one random spit of woodland halfway up the dueling peaks on a night where it's raining you come across an ethereal glowing woman or something who watches over the plants and mushrooms like glow like her, and you can't really interact with them because we are insignificant to them, they are so indifferent to us with our mortal comings and goings that the most we can hope for is a glimpse of them, just to make the world feel even more alive than it already does

I think Link is more aware of them because he is goddess chosen, goddess touched, and he's a gentle and pure soul who they in turn are drawn to, I like that he has a connection to them through having being dead but I personally like to think they're a bit afraid of him, he was brought back through science like magic without the godesses interference or hands, that shouldn't happen he died and by all means should have stayed dead but here he is, wandering hyrule saving people and dragons and riding gods across plains and placating giant mechanical creatures that will only listen to him, in their eyes he's a fucking monster or demon

And they know you don't piss off a demon who denied death so they're cautious but curious in equal measure”

And then neatened up and made less mind vomity:

Ruins

On specific nights- different for each ruin- the ghosts of the people who lived and died there during the calamity come out on the night they were wiped out. Different for each place depending on how close they were to castle and what the actual cause was, e.g. castle town would have been hit first and hardest by the Calamity itself so that would get spooky on the night of Zelda’s birthday every year. If they are fairly far away from the castle e.g. Shadow Hamlet ruins on the far side of Death Mountain, it would be a different night and they would feel different due to the nature of their deaths, such as being wiped out by monsters fuelled and powered by the Calamity. They don’t attack but most travellers accidentally come across them and fear for their lives saying ruins are haunted at night so they try to avoid them, preferring to go to living villages or taking their chances with monsters out on the roads or in the woods. When Link (and later Zelda) enter the ruins on the specific night they act up the spirits hiss and circle him and lament their passing in groans and wails but they do not come close because he is light and they cannot touch him. He died for them and Zelda cried for them, they are Goddess chosen and Goddess touched.

Lesser Gods and Spirits

Found all over Hyrule, again during different specific times when certain parameters are met.

A lesser Goddess who watches over plants and mushrooms that glow with the same ethereal light as her- can only be found where they grow in abundance, like the pillar in Kakariko on a rainy night during a new moon, and also conversing with Cotera the great fairy there.

A giant stag with two faces who watches over the life and death of animals, seen all over Hyrule as long as there’s a moon showing, so not on cloudy nights. Eyes like miniature galaxies and coat the colour of moss, fur appears to be made of grass and hooves of wood and several times the amount of antlers normal deer have that are white like bleached bone and strung with what looks to be pearls.

A woman with long black hair, horns like a Lynels and the face of a wolf who’s snout ends turned up like a Moblin’s, with three eyes that constantly glow like the reflection of a cats at night and who’s mouth doesn’t move when she speaks in a growl and smoke and sparks emits from her open mouth over her lolling black tongue- the Mother of Monsters and she hates Link.She doesn’t attack him when he meets her but she is unkind to him and she growls and snarls at him, threatening to curse him and his children’s children for as many of hers he has killed. Found in Akkala in Rok woods and Tempest Gulch most commonly but also occasionally other places, can take the form of a monstrous wolf when the need to escape arises.

A child made of water that swims with the fish, watches over everything that lives and breathes in water. The Zora refer to them as ‘The Child of Nayru’, and offer to them to keep the fish they eat good and plentiful. Seen by Link on the banks of the Rutala river when he stops for a drink after tackling the Rucco Maag shrine. Ripples like water constantly so it’s difficult to pin down specific features or gender, and voice is almost gurgling sounding

A giant scarab beetle, white and iridescent, often seen in the desert around Dragon’s exile and known to Tera, the great fairy at the Gerudo Great Skeleton, the god of all insects. (There’s a joke going round Hyrule that Beedle is the god of all insects.)

The spirits that are just going about their work are cautious but curious about Link. Usually they are indifferent to mortals, their everyday motions and wants insignificant in the grand scheme of things. The Calamity was a tragedy, but nature still goes on so they can’t afford to abandon their work.

Link and Zelda

The Gods are frightened of them. Link died and should be subject to the laws of all living things but here he stands, blemished but alive, and yet it was not the Goddesses who chose this, it was without their aid, a magic forged by man. Instead he wanders, alive and well, helping who he can, man and spirit alike, Dragons take notice of him, Gods allow his burden upon their backs, abominable machines who listen to only him, at his command. And Zelda isn’t dead either, they should be dead, they had their time, had their chance. They carry too much light within them it hurts the spirit’s and god’s eyes to look upon them.

Once while I was playing with my friend we were talking about the koroks and I came up with a hc on how they’re born I guess:

“Maybe they're branches that fall off the deku tree when they start to rot because hes old as balls so I bet he loses branches like old men lose hair and then because of like forest magical bullshit they become the new children of the forest and they grow up to be like Hestu and it takes thousands of years for them to reach like 'maturity' but when it's time for the deku tree to die one of the korok will take his place but all those who grow to maturity before he dies go out into the lost woods and set up root and become the ogre trees”

And then because I like to hurt them while they’re all sleeping:

“I'll just leave this here for when y'all wake up, what if the reason Wild likes to eat so much is because he is trying to fill the void of loneliness left behind after his friends in the army start treating him differently after he becomes the chosen one and because of Zelda's initial dislike of him then after he wakes up from the shrine of resurrection he doesn't know why he's so hungry all the time until after he starts remembering zelda and then realises he's doing the same thing, trying to fill the void left in him after losing everyone he loved and half his memories and having to wait until he's strong enough to see Zelda again”

Enjoy!

[wokeuptired]

night 4 of natasha’s 8 nights of chanukah | read the other nights here

how the light gets in

Noah used to be the kind of person who had a plan for everything, and now she’s the kind of person who can never remember if the laundry in her basket is clean or dirty. She blames her husband for that—he is the one who went and died on her, after all.

Noah wakes up the morning after with a crick in her neck and a burning in the back of her throat, a remnant of last night's tears. There's a cold pot of tea on the stove, leftover from yesterday morning, when she’d woken up and brewed it out of habit, not knowing it would be the last one she wouldn’t drink alone. She carries it over to the sink in her stocking feet and pours it down the drain slowly, mesmerized by the wash of light brown over the white of the basin. Then she fills the kettle with fresh water and puts it on the burner to boil.

When Noah was a child, her mother boiled a pot of water every morning, even in the deepest, hottest days of August, when the air was so muggy and sticky that traveling on the underground became a means of suffocation. For Noah's mother, tea was a habit, a ritual, something that, without which, the day would feel incomplete.

For Noah, tea is something to do with her hands.

Just a week ago, there was always too much for her hands to do. There was washing to be done and bed linens to be folded and dinner to be made (vegetables to be chopped and stew to be stirred and eggs to be scrambled, sometimes even for dinner) and, most of all, there was Jam's hand to be held.

But now Jem is gone, and there's nothing but tea.

And the cat.

There's always the damn cat.

James “Jem” Robert Carsters

16 February 1993 - 23 January 2017

James “Jem” Robert Carsters passed away last weekend after a near decade-long battle with leukemia. His parents, Marie and Joseph Carsters, were by his side, along with his wife of six months, Noah Monroe. Despite being ill since childhood, Jem was dedicated throughout his life to the pursuit of others’ happiness. He will be remembered as a kind, generous, warm-hearted man who always put others first. He is survived by his parents, his wife, various aunts, uncles, and grandparents, and his cat, Bertie.

"Bertie, come on."

"Bertie, come on. Don't be like this. "

Not for the first time in the last hour, Noah wishes that she and Jem had gone with the dog they'd been eyeing at the shelter instead of this mangy, grey monstrosity of a feline. They both knew at the time that neither of them had the attention or presence of mind to care for a dog, but at least it wouldn't be trapped on top of the highest cupboard in the kitchen right now, meowing furiously.

"Bertie, I really don't know what to do with you anymore," Noah says, also not for the first time in the last hour. She hasn't known what to do with Bertie since Jem died, but that hurts to say out loud, and not because it sucks not being the cat's favorite.

Bertie hisses at her, but it's less menacing and more petulant, like a toddler refusing to eat the beans on the end of his careening fork. The sound affects Noah nonetheless; she throws her hands up and spins around in a huff. Across the kitchen, she puts the kettle on before she sits down at the kitchen table and reaches for her laptop. Vita's new episode went live a few hours ago, and Noah knows she'll get an earful if she doesn't listen to it tonight.

It takes her a minute to pull up the webpage and another few seconds for the audio stream to buffer, and then Vita's voice fills the small kitchen.

"Knock knock? Who's there? It's Vita! Vita who? Vita of Veritas with Vita! This is series 2, episode 3, and I'm your host, Vita Carver," Vita says in her posh accent. "First up tonight is a new track from a good friend of mine who happens to be here with me today, Louisa Taylor. It's called 'Rhododendron,' and it's available for download on her website, the address of which I'll be giving you shortly. But first, let's have a listen."

Louisa's voice is melancholic and coppery, rhythmic like an ocean's waves, and it soothes Noah into a moment of forgetfulness. There's no one sitting across from her, slipping his foot up the ankle of her pajamas, because of course there isn't, because she lives alone and that's the way it should be and this is normal, this is a normal Friday night and there's nothing to cry about—

Eeeeeee!

The kettle whistles on the stove, yanking Noah out of her moment of solitude. She stands abruptly from her chair, sending it squeaking across the linoleum so violently that Bertie lets out a yelp and leaps down from his cupboard perch. He lands beside the sink, ever so graceful on his cat feet, and when Noah reaches for him, his fur stands on end and his back arches. She pulls her hand back and lets him dart away. The song comes to an end as she chooses a tea bag and drops it in the pot.

"That was 'Rhododendron' by Louisa Taylor," Vita says, her sharp voice cutting through Noah's kitchen. "I've been absolutely ensnared by that track since I first heard it, Louisa. It's absolutely an honor to have you here today."

"It's a pleasure to be here," Louisa says. "I love your show, Vita. It's great that you're so dedicated to the truth."

Vita laughs. It's her fake laugh, Noah can tell, and she doesn't seem as enamored with Louisa Taylor as she's pretending to be.Truth, my arse, Noah thinks. She pours herself a mug of tea and dumps exactly three sugar cubes in, plonk plonk plonk, watching them dissolve as she listens to Louisa and Vita talk.

Vita's podcast is only an hour, and Louisa drones on for most of it, talking about her dream of having a legacy like that of Paul McCartney (Impossible, Noah scoffs) and her cat, a Scottish Fold with a penchant for lying about in sinks. The cat, Louisa claims, is her most prized possession.

Noah wonders what her most prized possession is. It's certainly not, no one would be surprised to find out, Bertie. Nor is it the baby blanket her gran knitted for her when she was but a bit of wishful thinking. And it certainly isn't the collection of dusty Christmas cards, all addressed to James and Noah Carsters, that have remained on the mantel since December, growing dusty because Noah can't bear to throw them away.

Prized possessions, Noah decides firmly, are a waste. Everything withers away eventually.

"So that's it for this week, and don't forget to hit up this space again next Thursday for this month's edition of Vita Makes Her Mates Uncomfortable!"

The mate in question is Noah, who’s uncomfortable enough as it is, uncomfortable just in her sheer existence, and agreed to participate only so that Vita would leave her alone. Noah suspects Vita has other motives: she wants to get Noah up off her arse, out of her head, and back into the world. But Noah thinks it's going to take more than an hour’s worth of conversation to accomplish that. She likes her solitude.

When she’s not alone, people look at her funny. They look at her like she’s lost something huge that she’ll never get back, or, worse, they look at her like she’s pathetic for not putting her life back together by now. Sometimes even she thinks she’s pathetic.

She’s living as a ghost in her own life. She realized this several months ago, when she was halfway through her morning routine, scooping brown sugar into her porridge. She spilled a bit of the brown sugar on the floor and, in a moment of uncharacteristic agility, Bertie had hopped onto the floor and began to lick it up.

“Oh, Bertie, no!” Noah had cried, and then she’d realized that there wasn’t really any reason that Bertie shouldn’t have the brown sugar. So she poured a bit into a dish and put it on the floor for him.

Of course, he hadn’t touched it, just sat there on the floor looking up at her as if asking, “Who are you and what are you doing in my house?”

Noah hadn’t had an answer.

But two months later, very little has changed. She wakes up in the morning, feeds Bertie, feeds herself, leaves the house. She goes to work, sits in her cubicle, answers her emails, works on her projects, leaves at precisely 5 PM. Goes home, feeds Bertie, feeds herself, does nothing of consequence until bedtime.

At Noah’s mum’s insistence, she met with a therapist three times. They’d made a deal—three times (“minimum, Noah!” her mum had decried) and her mum would stop calling every night to report on the status of the ficus in the front yard, which Noah’s dad insisted was growing a centimeter every day. The therapist was utterly useless, but the sessions did help Noah realize that she was grieving wrong.

“There’s no wrong way to grieve,” the therapist had said when Noah voiced this concern, but everything she said afterward belied this statement.

“It’s alright if you feel guilty,” the therapist had said, but Noah did not feel guilty. Noah does not feel guilty that Jem is gone and she is here, sitting at an empty kitchen table by herself on a Thursday night, having a staring contest with the cat.

To: noahbirchcarsters@livelytophamdesign.com

From: lbirch@gmail.com

Re: Darling

Noah, remember when you were 7 and the neighbor’s cat, Mr. Whiskers, died? You loved Mr. Whiskers, said you loved him more than anything on earth. You were absolutely shattered. And I told you that your heart had an infinite capacity for love, and even though Mr. Whiskers was gone, you would still love him, and you’d love other cats someday too.

Your heart has an infinite capacity for love, my Noah.  Don’t keep that love from the world.

Love,

Mum

Niall is sure that he made a terrible mistake when he decided to become a vet. As he sticks his fingertips up a dog’s butt (the third this morning), he considers exactly when the mistake was made. Was it when he decided to take an extra science course instead of an art elective in his last year of college? Was it at uni, when he dropped his poetry lecture because he kept falling asleep? Or maybe it was even earlier, year three, perhaps, when he copied Billy Marx’s photosynthesis homework and was declared by the teacher to be “a true science prodigy.”

“Easy does it,” he tells the dog, who’s begun to squirm in the tech’s grasp. “We’re almost done.”

“Shh, shh,” the tech, a vet student at the uni up the road, tells the dog. “Dr. Horan’s getting you all fixed up.”

Doctor Horan. Oh right, that’s when it all got fucked up. It was when Niall was in fifth year and the teacher asked him what he wanted to be when he grew up. She listed some options, the usual -- teacher, doctor, lawyer—and when Niall thought them over, “Doctor Horan” sounded the best to him.

He really has no one to blame for this but himself. And his huge, stupid ego.

“Okay, okay, there we go,” Niall says, releasing his grip on the dog’s backside. He takes off his glove and pets the dog’s head, scratching between its ears. “Penny, would you take him out front? I’ll be up with the prescriptions in a second.”

“Sure,” Penny says, cooing to the dog as she lifts him onto the floor. As they leave the room, Niall heads for the sink.

As he’s washing his hands, he thinks about all of the things that he has to do on the way home from work tonight. First, he has to remember to set the alarm when he locks the door, because the last time he worked until closing and forgot to alarm the building, Dr. Friedman nearly killed him. Then he has to stop by the dry cleaners to pick up the shirt he needs for dinner, and he ought to go to an ATM, too, so he has enough cash on hand in case he has to pay a valet.

Niall hates valets. He also hates fancy restaurants, especially ones where the menu has two pages of wines but only six types of beer. But tonight is the night that his sister is announcing her engagement to their parents, so he really can’t miss it.

A cat and two dogs later and he’s on his way out. He nods to the girls on his front desk as he leaves, lifting a hand in response to their calls of “have a good evening, Dr. Horan!” It’s raining outside, and he curses himself for not grabbing an umbrella from the basket on the counter in the clinic. Now he’s going to have wet hair at dinner, and there’s no way his mum won’t comment on that.

The restaurant is crowded, and Niall has to push through half a dozen overdressed couples in order to get to the hostess stand. The hostess looks up at him, annoyance clear on her face, and Niall looks over her shoulder into the depths of the dimly lit dining room.

“Niall! Over here!”

“That’s my party,” Niall tells the hostess. He doesn’t wait for her reply before he heads for the sound of his sister’s voice.

This restaurant is much too trendy for Niall’s parents, he thinks as he makes his way past a bar overflowing with uni students dressed in head-to-toe black. He tries not to grow annoyed at their raucous laughter, but it’s hard. Ever since his flatmate moved out last year, he’s become a curmudgeon of the worst sort. He’s even grown to dislike himself a bit for it.

“God, Niall, finally!”

Niall comes to a stop at his family’s table, all of them rising to greet him, aside from his dad. There’s Emmy, wearing a dress so white it seems to be glowing, and her fiance, whose name might be Bobby or Brooks or… Shit.  

And then there’s Niall’s mum, who nearly trips over the leg of her chair in her hurry to get to him. She smells like her going out perfume, the one she’s worn since he was a kid, and as her arms come around him, he finds himself relaxing for a bit. His mum has always been overly affectionate,

“Oh, Niall, your hair’s damp,” his mum says, ruffling his hair as he pulls out of the hug. “Don’t you have an umbrella?”

“Forgot it at work.” Niall extends his hand to the fiance for a shake. “How’s it going, Brent?”

A grimace crosses his face for a second before he manages to relax it into a smile. “It’s Blake.”

Shit again. Niall offers Emmy an apologetic smile over Blake’s shoulder. “God, sorry mate. I’ve got the worst memory for names.”

“That’s right, he does!” Niall’s mum says unhelpfully. “When he was in school he used to get all of his teachers mixed up, call them by each other’s names, you know. Drove them absolutely bonkers.”

Great, Mum, thanks, Niall says in his head. In his adult life he’s gotten better about keeping his sarcastic remarks in his mind, no small thanks to the rubber band around his right wrist. His therapist (thanks, Mum)  had suggested it nearly a year ago, that he wear a rubber band on his wrist and snap it against his skin whenever he got the urge to say something snarky. He can control himself just fine without the rubber band now, but he still wears it anyway. It’s a great reminder of why he much prefers the company of animals to humans.

“How’ve you been, Blake?” Niall asks, sitting down in the chair at his mother’s left elbow. Across from him sits Blake, beside him Emmy, with Niall’s father, who, Niall suspects, is trying not to laugh, at the head of the table.

“Oh, good,” Blake says. “Emmy and I have been considering—”

The waitress interrupts him, popping up at the end of the table and reciting the specials in such a bored tone that Niall wonders if she’s a robot. When she disappears, Emmy starts up, detailing the proposal in such vivid detail that Niall practically feels like he’s there, and then almost immediately wants to throw up. Blake had proposed on the top of the London Eye.

“It was so beautiful,” Emmy says, her hands crossed on the table so that her ring is prominently displayed. Niall doesn’t know very much about engagement rings, but from the size of the diamond, he can tell it’s expensive. He can’t for the life of him remember what Blake’s job is, though, so he can’t verify the cost based on his assumed income. “I wish you’d been there, Mum. Well, obviously I don’t wish you’d actually been there, but, you know—”

“Yes, I know, dear,” Niall’s mum says, saving Emmy from finishing that sentence. Niall eyes her half-empty wine glass and wonders if he’d arrived later to dinner than he thought. “It really is a beautiful ring. Gram would be so excited.”

Here we go, Niall thinks. His mum’s already tearing up.

“Oh, Mum,” Emmy says, reaching across the table to grasp her mother’s hand. “I feel her with me sometimes, you know? Remember those white chocolate chip brownies she made? I tested the recipe the other night, but they just weren’t the same.”

Niall shifts in his seat. He knows exactly the white chocolate chip brownies Emmy is talking about. As a kid he rarely ate them, always insisting that white chocolate was only posing as chocolate. And now he’ll never get the chance.

“Emmy,” Niall’s mum manages to say just before she squeezes her eyes shut, tears leaking out at the corners.

Niall looks away, accidentally meeting Blake’s eyes across the table. Blake lifts the edges of his mouth in a women, what can you do? smile that isn’t comforting. Instead it makes him think about how the things that are supposed to bring people closer together often end up driving them apart instead.

“I’m going to the restroom,” Niall says, pushing his chair back so suddenly it screeches against the floor.

“Niall—” his mother starts, but he doesn’t answer her.

In the restroom, he stares at the ceiling until his eyes stop watering. He’s not crying; Niall doesn’t cry. His eyes just water sometimes, like when he thinks about his grandmum’s white chocolate chip brownies and how her skin stretched thin over her cheekbones during her last days.

Fuck, he thinks.

Niall doesn’t cry, but he can admit, at least to himself when he’s alone in a bathroom, that this is harder than he thought it would be. When Gram first got sick, he never imagined that nearly a year later, he still wouldn’t be able to speak about her without feeling like this.

When he gets back to the table, the conversation has been interrupted by the waiter, who’s arrived to take their orders. He looks to be younger than Niall, probably a uni student, and he can’t stop staring at Emmy. Niall watches as Blake’s fist grows tighter on the table and is grateful for the distraction.

After a few minutes, the waiter leaves and Emmy turns on Niall.

“Did you call that girl?” Emmy asks, giving him the eye, a look she mastered around age 5 as soon as her parents brought Niall home from the hospital. “Mary Jane’s sister?”

“No,” Niall says flatly. “I don’t want to be set up.”

“She’s very nice,” Emmy says. “I mean, she did just get out of a long term relationship, and you know that’s never a good deal, being the rebound and all, but—”

“Emmy,” Niall says a bit too sharply. “No thank you.”

Emmy’s fiance shifts uncomfortably in his seat as Emmy rolls her eyes at Niall. “It’s like you want to be alone forever,” she says, unphased by his oafishness.

“Not forever,” Niall says, jabbing a ravioli with his fork a bit more violently than necessary. “But for right now. I’ve got time.”

Now Emmy’s fiance looks even more uncomfortable, and Niall recalls that he’s two years younger than Emmy. Maybe Emmy’s forced him into this somehow, guilted him into it because she’s coming up on 30 and he’s still a few years away.

“Still—” Emmy starts, but Niall’s mum cuts her off.

“We just want you to be happy,” she says, turning a meaningful eye on Niall. “You’ve been so lonely ever since—”

“I’m not lonely,” Niall insists, not caring that he’s probably protesting too much. He doesn’t want to talk about Liam or Sharon or how colossally he’d misjudged them. “Emmy, I’m happy for you, but have you ever considered that maybe I don’t want to get married? Maybe I don’t want to settle down. Maybe that kind of thing isn’t for me.”

“That kind of thing?” Emmy is not to be deterred. “Niall, companionship is not a thing. It’s a necessity. It’s the point of being human. I think if you just call Mary Jane’s sister you’ll see that—”

“Emmy,” Niall says again. His sister pauses at the growl in his voice and sits back a bit in her chair. “Fuck off.”

His mother sighs beside him so deeply that Niall glances over to make sure she hasn’t deflated. Nope, she’s still sitting there, spoon poised above her bowl of soup, looking at Niall with such disappointment that he considers leaving the table here and now.

But that would probably make things worse. If he leaves now, without apologizing to Emmy and the fiance for his rudeness, his mum will probably put coal in his stocking at Christmas.

So he goes back to eating and nodding at everything Emmy says and not remarking on how rude it is that Emmy never lets her betrothed speak, and he learns that the wedding will be in four months and it will be held outdoors (his mum isn’t pleased to hear that—February is basically still winter so there’s no predicting what the weather will be). Niall will serve as a groomsmen and he will wear whatever color boutonniere the wedding planner selects for him, even if it has teeny tiny succulents in it.

Dear God, he thinks when Emmy voices that idea.   

It’s not that Niall doesn’t like weddings, it’s just that he, well, doesn’t like weddings. There’s something so trite about fabricating perfection, about planning a day down to the most minute detail so that everything goes just so in hopes that the rest of your life together will follow suit.

But he congratulates Emmy and Blake anyway when he says goodbye, and as he hugs his sister, he whispers an apology in her ear and fully expects her to send him Mary Jane’s sister’s contact information before the night is up.

Emmy’s not known for taking “no” for an answer. Niall expects Blake is well familiar with that by now.

To: nhoran@nwbromleyvet.com

From: emhoran@ntc.au.uk

Re: Dinner

Attachment: rubyjones.contact

Thanks for not being a complete arse at dinner. Just a small arse. I’m grateful, really. But do please try to remember Blake’s name next time.  As I’m going to marry the bloke, it’s the least you can do.

And you should be grateful, too. Here is Mary Jane’s sister’s number. Her name is Ruby and she lives in Lewisham. Call her. Also, fuck off too.

Noah shifts on the couch, pulling her legs up underneath her. The last time she recorded a podcast with Vita, they sat at the kitchen table and their voices bounced around the room wildly and echoed into the microphone. Jem was alive then; he and Noah had just moved into the house and there were still boxes on the kitchen counters waiting to be unpacked and they didn’t have a couch for the living room yet. Jem leaned against the counter while Noah and Vita talked, and if you listen closely enough to the recording, you can just about hear Jem laughing.

If Noah were dumber she might think that the bad acoustics in the kitchen are why they’re in the living room this time, but she knows better. Vita is not only Noah’s best mate, she’s also her confidant, and she has reason to suspect that this conversation isn’t going to be easy for Noah. It's an illusion, the idea that the couch will somehow make this easier than the hard-backed kitchen chairs, but Noah doesn't plan to argue.

Vita sets a steaming mug of hot cocoa on the coffee table in front of Noah and adjusts the fluffy covering on the microphone. “You ready?”

“Mmhm,” Noah says, though she’s not sure that she is. She’s never spoken about Jem’s death in this way before. She’s never spoken about it with the knowledge that so many people might someday hear what she says. And when they hear what she says, they’re going to judge her.

“Remember, I can always cut things out, okay?” Vita waits for Noah’s nod and then hits some keys on her laptop before flipping a switch that turns the microphone on. “Welcome back to Veritas with Vita!” she chirps. “I’m Vita Carver, and I’m happy you’ll be joining us today. On this edition of Vita Makes Her Mates Uncomfortable, I’ve got here with me my mate Natalie, and we’re going to be talking about grief. Hello, Natalie.”

“Hi Vita,” Noah says. They decided on the pseudonym when Noah agreed to this shenanigan. It wouldn't be too hard for a listener to stalk Vita’s social media and find out that Natalie is really Noah (they are best mates, after all, and Noah’s been on the podcast before, though not recently), but Noah hopes no one will try. Even though she's about to share some of her most intimate thoughts with God knows how many anonymous souls via the internet, she'd still like to keep her anonymity mostly intact. “Thanks for having me on today.”

“Thank you for being here,” Vita says, putting a reassuring hand on Noah’s arm. Before they began, she told Noah that they could stop recording at any time, and if it turned out that Noah couldn’t talk about it, that was okay too. There's nothing riding on this, she'd said. “Can you give us a bit of background, tell us your story?”

Noah fumbles with the piece of paper on the table in front of her. Vita helped her make some notes earlier, though there isn't anything in them that she doesn't already know. She will never be able to forget what it felt like the first time she kissed Jem, or what it felt like the last time she kissed him. What she's more worried about is not being able to manage the words to describe those memories when it comes time to share them.

“Sure,” she says, trying to match the easy confidence in Vita’s voice. “Jem and I, Jem’s my husband, we were sweethearts at uni, got married just after we finished. He studied science, was hoping to be a doctor, and I studied architecture. He'd been sick as a teenager, leukemia, but it’d been in remission. And then just before our wedding—” Noah’s voice catches in her throat as she remembers the day, the white dress her mum hemmed for her and the sprig of lavender on Jem’s lapel, and she feels Vita’s reassuring hand on her arm.

“It's alright,” Vita says. “Take your time.”

Noah swallows and glances down at the paper in front of her. These are just facts, nothing to get emotional about. “I'm fine,” she says. “Jem was having trouble walking long distances, becoming breathless quickly. He was always tired. I think he knew even before we went to the doctor that the cancer was back, but he kept it to himself.”

“That must've been quite a shock, then, finding out he was sick again,” Vita says. “Just before your wedding.”

Vita knows this is the case, because she was there at Noah’s side the whole time, taking her out for coffee or manicures whenever Noah could spare an hour. You deserve some time away, Vita always said. Meanwhile, Noah was fearing the future, the eventuality that she might have nothing but time away, time to herself. Time to herself was the last thing she wanted.

“It was, I suppose,” Noah says, closing her eyes as she remembers. Jem had the sweetest face—that was one of the things she first noticed about him, his babyface. It was so hard to accept his illness when she first found out about it. It was so hard to imagine that someone so young, no visible smile lines beside his mouth, could be so sick.  “We were already engaged, but Jem tried to break up with me. He asked me to leave him, but I couldn't. I loved him too much. He wanted me to have a chance at lifelong love, something he knew he couldn't give me, but—”

“So you knew he was terminal?” Vita interrupts, and it’s good timing, because Noah feels her throat tightening. “ That chemo wasn't going to work?”

Noah swallows. She remembers the conversation they had, in the kitchen just on the other side of the wall, mugs of tea growing cold in front of them. Get your affairs in order, the doctors had said. A few months left. They argued about it for hours, but the night ended with a decision: move the wedding up, so they could do it before Jem became too weak to leave the hospital.

“Yes, we knew,” Noah says. “ That's why he wanted to cancel the wedding, to allow me to live life without him. But I didn't want that.”

“Why not?”

Noah didn't need to practice this answer. “Because I love, loved him. I wanted to spend every day with him that I could.”

Vita hesitates, and Noah knows before she speaks what she's going to press on. “Loved, Natalie, or love?”

“I don't know,” Noah says. For a couple months after Jem passed, Noah went to group therapy and listened to the same conversations over and over again as her peers progressed through the five stages of grief. And as she, too, progressed. It was when she felt like she wasn't moving forward anymore that she stopped attending the meetings. “Both, maybe. I love Jem and I'll love him forever. He was my family.”

Vita nods. “I get that. The ones we love, they become family over time, and that doesn't change easily, even when they’re taken from us.”

“Mmhm.” Noah winds a piece of hair around her finger. Jem always liked her hair short, so—or maybe that's not true. She had her hair cut above her shoulders when she met him, and since he liked it, she never considered growing it out much further. But now that there's no one around to compliment her hair and compel her to get a trim, she's let it grow, the ends now brushing her shoulder blades.

The conversation turns, Vita prompting Noah to speak more about what life was like before Jem passed, about what they were like together, Noah and Jem, Jem and Noah. After a while, they take a break, Vita insisting that they need more tea. Vita stays in the kitchen for a few minutes, giving Noah time to catch her breath. When she comes back in, she sets a newly full mug on the table in front of Noah.

“Thank you for doing this,” Vita says, sitting down beside Noah. “I know it’s tough for you. And I think you’re really brave for doing it.”

Noah tries to smile. “I think it’s helping me, talking about it. To somebody who isn’t my therapist, you know? Sometimes talking to my therapist feels like I’m just circling through all of my own thoughts over and over again, and they’re never becoming clearer.”

Vita nods. Noah can tell she’s trying to understand. As her best mate, Vita has seen Noah climb mountains and trip over molehills. She’s seen Noah’s recovery process, and she’s seen how hard it’s been.

But in all the time that they've been mates, throughout all of the hours Vita spent with Noah while Jem was sick and afterward, Noah has never cried in front of her. Never broken down sobbing, breath turning to hiccups, chest shaking. Noah suspects that Vita has been waiting for that to happen for months now.

Noah takes a sip of her refreshed cocoa and adjusts herself on the cushions. “I’m ready to go again.”

“You sure?”

When Noah nods, Vita turns on the microphone again and leans forward. “So now, Natalie, I was wondering if you could talk a bit about what the grieving process has been like for you, continuing to live your life after Jem’s passing and how that’s been for you.”

“Well,” Noah says. Vita had given her this question a few weeks ago, and Noah had spent some time pondering it, but when she sat down to write out her notes, she didn’t know what she wanted to say. She’s still not sure that she knows. “It's been nine months, but sometimes it's like he's still here, still living alongside of me. We lived here before we got married, before he relapsed, so all the good memories are here, alongside the bad ones.”

“Do you ever think about moving?”

Noah doesn't have an answer to that one. She looks across the room, where a poster from the Royal Shakespeare Company’s production Macbeth hangs above the television. She and Jem saw it back when they were in uni on one of their first dates. “No… maybe. I don't know. Maybe someday I'll want to start over, but I don't think that's real life. You can't start over. You just… move forward.”

You move forward. Sometimes, Noah’s discovered, that’s all you can do. You cut your bereavement leave short and go back to work before everyone else thinks you’re ready. You’re not sure you’re ready, either. You wake up every day and tell yourself that you are okay on your own. You feed the damn cat even though it hates you, and you always chase away the thought of finding it a new mum, because it’s the only bit of him you have left. When somebody asks you how you’re doing, you look up at the sky and think that it hasn’t fallen down on you yet, so you must be doing okay. You’re managing, and sometimes that’s the best anyone could ask for.

“So how are you doing with that?” Vita asks. “Moving forward?”

Initially Noah’s instinct is to lie. She should lie and say she’s doing okay, doing better everyday, because that’s what she tells everyone. That’s what she tells Merrell at the firm and that’s what she tells her mum whenever she calls and that’s what she tells herself.

But the truth of it is, things don’t get better every day. Grief is a roller coaster. Some days you’re going up and you think you’ll never drop. You think you’re finally free of the pain. But then you turn a corner, and you drop so suddenly you think you’re going to die.

“Not so great,” Noah finally says, something that's half laugh and half cry forming in her throat. “It's… it's hard. Some days are harder than others But no matter what, I get up everyday and I go to work, and sometimes I can go a few minutes without thinking about him. It’s not that I don’t want to think about him. He was part of my life for so long, you know? He’s part of who I was and who I am still.”

Vita nods but doesn’t say anything, and Noah knows she wants her to continue. These are thoughts that Noah only ever voices to her therapist and in her journal, and now she’s sharing them with God only knows who. But she shakes that terrifying thought away and reminds her that the only person she’s really talking to right now is Vita.

“I guess…” Noah says, trying to explain further. “I guess I believe that everyone we meet affects us in some way, and Jem affected me in a big way. So letting go of him, that isn’t something that’s easy to do, and I’m not sure it’s something I could do even if I wanted to.”

Vita doesn’t say anything, just looks at Noah with that probing look of hers. When they first met years ago, that look made Noah uncomfortable. She thought Vita was nosy, a gossip, maybe, but it didn’t take her long to discover that neither of those things were true. Vita was, and still is, one of the most astute observers of people that Noah has ever met. And sometimes that can be a good thing.

“Is there anything else you’d like to say?” Vita asks. Noah glances over at the laptop screen, where the recording is now over an hour long. She hadn’t realized she’d been talking for that long. “Before we end?”

“Sure,” Noah says, but she isn’t sure what to say.

So Vita prompts her. “Anything else you’d like someone in a similar situation to hear? To know?”

Now Noah nods, thinking of what she would’ve wanted someone to say to her nine months ago.

“I think I just want anyone who’s going through a loss to know that grief can feel like an island sometimes, but it doesn’t have to be one. Let people help you. I… I have trouble doing that sometimes, as Vita can attest.” Noah meets Vita’s eye and smiles softly. “Keep your friends close anyway, though, because they’ll be there for you when you’re ready.”

Niall decides not to call Ruby, but that doesn’t matter much because Ruby calls him anyway.

He’s leaving work on a Friday evening when he gets the call. He’s just spent three hours trying to save a litter of premature puppies, and he was in a decent enough mood until he lost one. Now he feels like utter shit, just like what he stepped in right after lunch today on his way into exam room 3. All he wants to do is go home, take a long, hot shower, and drink a beer on the couch.

But then his mobile rings.

He fishes it out of his coat pocket and doesn’t bother looking at the screen before he raises it to his ear and gives a gruff, “Hello?”

“Hi, is this Niall?” the voice says.

“Yes,” he says, flustered for a second because no one aside from his mother and sister ever call him. “Who’s this?”

“This is Ruby Jones.”

“Oh, hi,” he says like he knows who Ruby Jones is. He’s not sure he’s ever met anyone named Ruby Jones, but if the girl knows his name, then it’s probably not a case of a wrong number. “How are you?”

“I’m quite well,” she says. “And yourself?”

“Just fine,” he says. She doesn’t reply right away, and he wonders what he ought to say next. Just when he’s about to ask her what he can do for her, as if this is a business call, she pipes up.

“I was wondering if you’d like to meet for drinks.”

“What?” Niall says, then tries to backtrack. “Sorry, what was that?”

“I was wondering if you’d like to meet for drinks,” she repeats. “I got your number from Emmy, and she said you like beer.”

“I like beer,” he echoes. He doesn’t like Emmy. He’s also exhausted and smells like dog urine and doesn’t much enjoy the company of other humans even when he’s showered. But, he supposes, there’s no reason to put on any airs. It’s not likely that anyone Emmy sets him up with will turn out to be the love of his life. “When? Now?”

“Now?” That’s clearly not what she was expecting him to say. “I suppose now is good.”

“Well, not now now,” he clarifies. “Maybe half an hour from now?”

“Sure,” she says. Then she names a pub in Lewisham, says she’s wearing a purple jumper, and hangs up.  

Can’t believe I’m doing this, Niall thinks to himself as he looks both ways before crossing the road.  Niall has always wanted to be one of those people who doesn’t look both ways before crossing the road—one of those people who just leaps out into traffic because wherever they’ve got to be is more important than their ability to walk on two legs and remember what they ate for breakfast this morning.

But as it is, Niall’s not that kind of person. He’s the kind of person who separates his whites and his colors when he does the washing even though it takes twice as long and is worse for the environment than just washing on cold.

He’s not spontaneous. He’s not adventurous. And he’s certainly not the type to make plans for a date when he’s already on his way.

But, he hears his sister’s voice in his head, you’re already halfway there, so there really isn’t any reason to turn back now, is there?

When Niall arrives at the pub, he hesitates on the pavement for a second. The pub looks just like every other pub he’s ever been to, a wooden sign above the door announcing its name (The Sheep’s Head, not very original as far as pub names go), and there are a few smokers hanging around looking moody. So it’s not the look of the place that makes Niall pause.

No, it’s what comes to mind when he thinks of pubs. Niall can’t remember the last time he went to a pub without one of his rugby mates. After their Saturday afternoon practices, they usually head to their regular spot for dinner and beers, and Niall usually comes home a bit more unstable on his feet than he’d like. Pubs are for raucous behavior and watching a match on telly, not for dates.

But, Niall reasons with himself, Ruby wouldn’t have suggested this place if she wanted to spend an evening listening to him drone on about the intricacies of feline diabetes over a candlelit table. She’s probably had an equally exhausting week at work and just wants to grab a pint.

As Niall expected, the room is full to bursting. He squints into the darkness, wondering how he’s going to find Ruby in all of this mess. What’d she say she’s wearing? A blue jumper? A red one? Maybe this was a stupid idea. Maybe he should just back out of the pub now, before anyone notices him, and then he’ll text her in an hour or so and tell her he had an emergency—

“Niall?”

Shit. Too late to leave now.

Niall turns around and plasters on what he hopes is a friendly smile. Ruby (or so he assumes) is standing behind him in the doorway, looking like she’s just walked through a hurricane. Her curly hair looks slightly damp and is blown in all different directions. As she takes a step toward him, several pieces fall over her face.

“Are you alright?” she asks, frowning at him slightly. “You look a bit peeved. We can go somewhere else if you want.”

Niall shakes his head. Emmy’s told him before that his forced smile is easily confused for a grimace, but he’s never believed her before. “No, this is great. Let’s go sit down.”

“Sure.” Ruby nods and Niall lets her past him so he can follow her through the pub.

Five minutes later, they’re back outside on the pavement. Niall takes a deep breath, glad to be outside. The pub was so crowded that they couldn’t find a table. They couldn’t even locate a free bit of bar to lean against.

“Well, that was a bust,” Ruby says, crossing her arms over her chest. She has a nice chest, Niall observes, but now that they’re standing under a street lamp, he can tell that her hair isn’t damp, it’s coated in gel.

“Should we head somewhere else?” Niall asks, hoping that Ruby will say no. While he doesn’t see anything wrong with her per say, besides the sticky-looking locks, he has absolutely no desire to spend anymore time in her presence.

That’s what Emmy doesn’t seem to understand. Niall’s favorite companion is himself, and everybody else pales in comparison. He enjoyed spending time with Sharon because it was almost like spending time alone, but slightly more exciting. And nearly impossible to replicate, because no one he’s met since has seemed anywhere near as appealing as the prospect of a night spent in his flat, cooking himself dinner and then eating it while reading or watching something on telly.

Ruby pushes up her left sleeve and looks at her watch, then shakes her head, her curls barely moving. “It’s getting a bit late, and I’ve had a long week. Rain check?”

“Sure,” Niall says, already turning away.

“Sorry this didn’t work out,” Ruby says, pursing her lips as if she’s sad about it. Niall musters up a polite smile, waves a hand, and goes home to shower.  

 The day after Noah records the podcast is Sunday. She sleeps in and then takes a long bath, leaning back in the tub and trying to erase everything from her mind. On his bad days, Jem would meditate, and sometimes even on his good days, too. He said it helped him see the world more clearly. And that it made him feel like less of a victim.

That was something Jem always spoke about, the desire to not be seen as a victim. He didn’t want to be someone who other people would pity, someone who they’d look away from when he entered a room just because his presence, the knit cap on his head and the cane in his hand, made them sad. Made them feel guilty about being healthy, about having a future. Jem’s tenacity, his vivaciousness—those were only two of the things Noah loved about him.

So when Vita asked her to talk about Jem on the podcast, she was reluctant. She knew that speaking about Jem would open up a monsoon of pity upon her. Even Vita was pitying her during the recording, putting her hand on Noah’s arm to comfort her and to make herself feel better. Noah knows that that’s part of what pity is—it’s what somebody does when they’re made uncomfortable by your sadness or your anger or your tragedy. They want you to feel better so they don’t have to deal with your feelings anymore.

But sometimes you don’t want to feel better. Sometimes you want to sit in the dark and cry it out without anyone there to tell you that things will be okay and someday it won’t hurt this much. That’s hard to hear, because every day it hurts less, and every day Noah wonders if she’s forgetting Jem. If her love for him is lessening.

There was a moment, when she was 19 or 20, just after she found out about Jem’s history of cancer, when her mum insisted that she was making a mistake. This is only going to end in heartache, her mum had said.

And it did. It ended in heartache, but there was plenty of good before that.

On Sunday, Noah considers sitting in the dark and crying it out. She considers letting the feelings swarm around her like flies in the stickiest depths of summer, considers taking a step backward, considers forgetting about progress. Progress, she sometimes thinks, is an illusion. Progress depends on having an end in sight, or at least an end in mind. But with a task this monumental, there’s no end.

After her bath, Noah braids her hair over her shoulder and goes for a walk. Four blocks away from her flat, there’s an animal shelter. Like she has a few times over the past month, she stops in and walks the aisles, looking in at the dogs. There are big ones and lots of little ones, ones smaller than Bertie, even. Noah thinks again that these walks she’s started taking would be so much more enjoyable with a dog by her side.

But I’m not stable enough for a dog, she reminds herself. Not yet.

Maybe that’s the end goal. Maybe that’s what she’s working toward: being stable enough, mentally stable and physically stable and independently stable, that she can get a dog and feel confident that she can take care of it like she hopes it will take care of her.

And then, a block later, she passes a vet’s office. She can’t remember the last time Bertie saw a vet. The guilt nearly knocks her over. Bertie hates her, but that doesn’t mean she should neglect him.

The dog will have to wait.

On a Thursday morning, Niall is depositing a file on Rufus the Great Dane at the front desk when he overhears something that nearly makes his heart stop.

It’s a voice, and it’s playing out of Lucy’s computer. Niall leans closer, driven by the tiny part of his brain that insists on describing the voice as having “dulcet tones,” a phrase he’s never said aloud in his life and hopes he never will.

“Turn that up, would you?” Niall asks, planting his arms on the counter. Lucy shrugs and hits the volume key on the computer a few times.

“Love isn’t a choice,” the speaker is saying. “It’s not as if I sat down beside Jem in a lecture hall when we were 18 and looked at him and thought, this is the man I’m going to marry. I choose him, for better or for worse, and it’ll be worse. It was worse than I ever could’ve imagined. But it was where I had to be.”

“What’s she talking about?” Niall asks, prompting Lucy to let out a small sigh and pause the stream.

“It’s a podcast, Veritas with Vita. She’s talking to her friend about grief. Her husband died from leukemia when they were newlyweds.”

“Hmm,” Niall says. Lucy stares at him, waiting for him to say something else, and when he doesn't, she hits play again.

The girl continues speaking, but Niall doesn’t catch any of the words. All he hears is the girl’s voice. She sounds so familiar, but he can’t place her.

“Dr. Horan? You alright?”

Niall snaps to attention, straightening up. Lucy is looking at him, one eyebrow raised.

“You zoned out there for a minute,” she says. “Marcy just took the Weaver’s cat to the back.”

“Right.” Niall nods, blinks a few times to clear his head, and follows the sound of frantic meowing.

The blinking doesn’t do any good, though, because he can hear the girl’s voice in his head for the rest of the day. By the time he gets home that evening, he’s convinced that she’s the voice on the GPS his father bought him for Christmas last year. He pulls the thing out of the hall cupboard and extracts it from its box. It’s not until he goes to put batteries in it that he realizes he’s being ridiculous. He’s never even used the thing, so there’s no way Podcast Girl (as he’s come to think of her) is the “Sexy British Woman Narration,” as the box proclaims.

As he reheats leftover Thai food, he decides that really, there’s no harm in finding the podcast online and listening to it in full, if only so he can imagine the girl’s voice saying all kinds of things to him later, such as “turn left ahead” and “keep right at the fork.”

Niall only has to google “Veritas with Vita” and the podcast pops up. The newest episode, “Of grief and gumption,” is the first link. Niall clicks on it and hits play before leaning back in his chair, his mug in his hands.

“So today we’re going to talk about grief,” Vita says. She has a nice voice, but it’s nothing like the other voice that Niall heard playing in the clinic today. Vita sounds posh, clean, like her voice has been put through a synthesizer to make it sound as pleasing to the human ear as possible.

This other voice is different. Niall only has to listen for a few seconds and then he hears it, saying, “Thanks for having me.”

Just like this afternoon, her voice barrels him over. He’s standing on the shore, wading into the water, and all of a sudden a wave comes and knocks him on his arse. That’s what her voice does to him. Which is bullshit and he knows it, because the only thing that’s barreled him over lately is the memory of his grandmother’s funeral.

Ten minutes later, he’s completely engrossed. These two women, Vita and Natalie, are best mates; he can tell from the way Vita asks questions like she already knows the answers. He imagines them in his head, no faces, of course, but two women, best friends, side by side over the course of months as one of them loses her husband. So close they’re practically sisters.

“I notice you don’t have any pictures of the two of you up,” Vita says.

Niall imagines Natalie’s flat, imagines stark, white walls, a brown sofa like the one in his own flat, a black leather recliner— No, Natalie doesn’t seem the type to go for neutrals. She probably has pops of color, bright green or coral throw pillows, accent vases, the kind that don’t serve any purpose beyond decoration.

“We don’t have many,” Natalie says. “From uni, from the wedding. But we didn’t go on a honeymoon, so—”

“You didn't have a honeymoon?” Vita asks, not sounding as surprised as Niall expects she means to. Vita clearly already knows this fact, but listeners don’t. Emmy would be horrified.

“Jem was too sick at that point,” Natalie explains. “We took a weekend and stayed in, just the two of us, but no exotic tropical trips or anything.”

“Did you—do you regret not being able to do that?”

It takes Natalie a minute to answer, and in that pause, Niall tries to predict what she’s going to say. Does she regret marrying this bloke who up and died before they could really start a life together? She sounds younger than Niall, 22, 23, maybe. To feel so much pain at such a young age—

Niall shakes his head, forcing the thoughts away. He doesn’t know this girl; there’s no reason to spend time empathizing with her. There’s no reason to picture her sitting room or make assumptions about the kind of girl she is. It’s that kind of thinking that gets people into trouble.

And it’s that kind of thinking that brings other comparisons to mind, thoughts about his own grief and how he’s not dealing with it. This girl, this Natalie, has friends that she talks to—heck, she probably even sees a shrink. And here he is, hiding out in his flat

“No. I don't regret anything about my life with Jem. And I don't want pity because of it. We didn't have a regular honeymoon, and most of the time we spent married we were going to doctors or spending nights in the hospital or feeling too tired to go anywhere. But it wasn't—it was a good life. It was sad, but we were happy anyway.”

“Even when things were terrible? You were happy?”

“Of course we were sad sometimes. Of course it felt like all of the terrible things in the world were happening to us simultaneously. But we loved each other. There was never any other choice.”

“Loving him, was that a choice?”

“No,” Natalie says, sounding completely convinced.

“Love isn't a choice,” she continues. “It's not as if I sat down beside Jem in a lecture hall when we were 18 and looked at him and thought, this is the man I'm going to marry. I choose him, for better or for worse, and it'll be worse. It was worse than I ever could've imagined. But it was where I had to be.”

“You mean fate? Destiny? Soul mates?”

Bullshit, Niall thinks. Romantic bullshit. He knows better. He knows that there’s sex and dopamine, and when it stops feeling good, when the dopamine wears off, people leave. Happiness ends. It always ends, and all that it leaves behind is an ache.

He listens to Natalie’s answer. “I don't know anything about fate or soul mates. All I know is that sometimes life happens to us, and all we can do is hold on until the wave recedes.”

“I suppose that’s what grief is like,” Vita says. “A wave. You said before that moving forward is hard, but I know you, and I know that some days are easier than others. Some days are harder.”

“Yeah,” Natalie agrees. “I guess it’s like a wave then. It’s a bit unpredictable. Sometimes all I’m doing is walking down the road and I see something that reminds me of him, and I’m sad all over again.”

“You said sometimes all you can do is hold on until the wave of life recedes. Are you in control of your life now?”

“You sound like my therapist,” Natalie says, making Niall snicker. He knew she had a therapist. “I don't know. I don't think control is the most important thing. I don't need to feel in control. Sometimes too much control means you're not really living.”

Niall looks around is perfectly ordered kitchen, looks at his alphabetized cookbooks on the bookshelf, looks at his shoes lined up neatly by the door, and thinks that she’s absolutely incorrect. Control is absolutely necessary, because the opposite of control is feeling, and when you let the feelings in, they knock you over. Before you know it, you’re showering in the middle of the day just to get a cry in, slamming your fist against the tile wall and wondering if it hurts this bad for anyone else.

From what Natalie says on the podcast, he decides that it does. Grief hurts this badly for other people, too. But the difference between other people and Niall is that other people find their way out. They find the light at the end of the tunnel and fight their way toward it.

Niall, on the other hand, sits in the dark.

When the recording finishes, he hits replay and listens to it all the way through a second time.

To: lonelyinlondon@gmail.com

From: lbirch@gmail.com

re: This is your mother.

Attachements: img_149324,jpg, img_149325,jpg, img_149326.jpg

Noah, I’m emailing you here as maybe there’s a chance of you actually answering me. I’m attaching some pictures from our trip to Fiji a few weeks ago. We went snorkeling and it was beautiful! I had so much fun.

Your father and I really missed having you there. I know you said you couldn’t get off work, but I also know you didn’t ask. Please consider coming on holiday with us this summer, love.

And please give your dear old mum a call soon. She misses you.

[albionscastle]

The Pain of Living

After getting some bad news the other day I got to thinking about how Jack might be with someone he cares about who is in distress. This is the result.

Mentions of death. Its nothing but angst and sugar rotting fluff

FIC MASTERLIST

Tears pricked behind your eyes as you picked up your drink with shaking hands. Your third in half an hour. You were in shock, you knew that on some level but you couldn't process the full idea of it. Your phone sat on the bar in front of you, the screen lighting up every few moments with messages from people just hearing the news. You couldn’t bring yourself to care. The noise of the restaurant had faded to a muffled white noise, as though you were under water. You didn't  notice anything around you, least of all the table in the corner where several young men were sharing looks of concern as they watched you.

You gulped the whiskey, feeling the burn down your throat and into your stomach, pulling you back into semi awareness just as your coworker rushed into the room.

“Y/N, there you are. You aren't picking up your phone.”

You simply looked at her, not speaking a word.

“Bloody hell,” she gasped at the sight of you. “Your mom called, she told me what happened. I'm so sorry hon.”

Your face contorted in various ways as you attempted to hold in your emotions. Another shot of whiskey was placed in front of you and you downed it, relishing the impending numbness it would bring.

“Sweetie, maybe no more ok.” she gestured for the bartender to cut you off. “You’re going to need a clear head.”

You shot her a baleful look and were met with concern in hers.

It was like a dam broke and you felt everything rush through the opening at once. In a moment her arms were around you as you sobbed against her shoulder. It didn't matter that you were in public, or that the handsome blonde man had bolted out of his seat the instant you’d uttered your first sob. All you felt in that moment was pain, so much pain that you couldn’t breathe.

“Wha happened?” he spoke softly over your shoulder.

“Her best friend was killed.”

Your sobs became louder and ragged at her verbal confirmation of what you still couldn't understand.

“We need tae get her out of here.”

“She's not going to be walking anywhere Jack, that's for sure.”

“I got it.”

You felt her gently pull your head off her shoulder, turning your stool to face him where he crouched beside you.

“Hey lass, do ya see me?”

You nodded, choking back sobs as your eyes met his.

“Good girl.” he smiled softly, reaching up to brush hair from your face. “Why don’ ye take ye somewhere quiet?”

Again you nodded, not really comprehending his words, just comforted by by the sound of his voice. He always that affect on you, whether deep in conversation or him simply giving you his lunch order.

The alcohol was really beginning to kick in and you felt warm all over as Jack helped you stand long enough to sling an arm under your knees. Too far gone to care that Jack Lowden was carrying you bridal style out of a public place, you burrowed your head into the warmth of his jumper, closing your eyes and allowing the tears to fall silently.

“She shouldna be alone.”

“I have to be at work at 5am but I can stay with her.”

“Nae, I dinnae have tae be on set tomorrow, I’ll keep her wi me. Ye get some sleep.”

“Thanks, she doesn't have to be in tomorrow, they know what's going on.”

Through the haze you felt Jack shuffle you in his arms as he swiped the key to his room.

“Come on now ye wee lump, let's get ye sorted.”

He put you down gently on the bed where you sat silently as he shuffled about the room. You opened your eyes to see him kneeling on the floor in front of you, a glass of water and several white pills in his hand.

“Aspirin, fer yer hangover.” he pressed the glass into your hand, watching as you swallowed the pills before putting the glass on the bedside table. He had a damp flannel and your eyes fluttered shut as he used it to wipe the tears from your face, one hand gently holding the back of your head so it didn't move. Somewhere in the back of your mind you remembered putting on makeup that morning, hoping he would pay a little extra attention. You had to look a complete fright by now.

“I cannae ken why ye would wan tae slap this shite on a face as pretty as yers.” he mumbled as he finished with the cloth.

He didn't seem to require a response from you as he went to a dresser and pulled out a tshirt.

“I'm no tryin anything funny, ye ken?”

Another nod as he bent down, removing your shoes and socks.

“Arms up.”

Of their own accord your arms fluttered up above your head. Jack leaned over you, fingers grasping the hem of your shirt as he swiftly pulled it  over your head. You sat, arms raised, wearing only your bra and it didn't even occur to you to be self conscious about it. He pulled his shirt down over your head, studiously averting his gaze away from your near naked torso. The soft fabric fell around you smelling so completely of Jack that you knew you never wanted to take it off.

“Up wi ye, come on lass.”

He helped you to your feet, blue eyes roaming over your face as his fingers slipped under his shirt to unbutton your jeans. His eyes never left your face as he pushed them down your legs, fingers gliding over your skin gently before he stood up in front of you again, reaching past you to tug back the thick comforter on his bed.

“Ge in love.” he murmured.

You obeyed, like a robot, on some level knowing that tomorrow was going to bring with it the additional pain of knowing that Jack had undressed you and put you to bed like a child.

“I’ll be ri back.”

You burrowed under the blankets, smelling him on the pillows, the warmth seeping through the numbness. You were so tired, so heavy, but your eyes refused to close. You knew what you would see if you did close them. With them open you could see Jack as he exited the bathroom, pulling a tshirt on over pyjama pants, feet bare and hair all mussed up.

“Scooch love, yer on me side o the bed.” he chuckled softly as he slid under the covers beside you.

Your back was to him and you felt the mattress dip as he moved behind you, one arm sliding under your neck, the other around your waist. His breath ghosted over your neck, his chest rising and falling against your back. His body cradled yours from head to toe with his warmth radiating into you. He felt comforting and safe and your breath hitched.

“Can ye tell me wha’ happened?”

“Car accident, drunk driver.” you whispered, remembering how your mum had made sure you knew she hadn't felt a thing.

Somehow that knowledge didn't make you feel any better.

“I'm so sorry, I really am darlin.” his arms squeezed around you, head resting on your neck.

You felt tears welling again and did nothing to stop them, even as they fell on the bare skin of his arm.

“She was my best friend, the only person on this Earth who knew everything about me.”

God it felt like your heart was being torn apart. The knowledge that she was gone was too painful to even describe. Sobs rose in your throat again, ripped from the wound in your chest. Jack turned you in his arms until your face was buried in his chest, fingers twisting in the fabric of his shirt.

“Oh lass, it hurts mae  heart tae see ye like this.” his voice was rough as he held you tightly.

For the longest time you stayed like that, him holding you as you cried, his hands rubbing back and forth over your shoulders, soothing and calming until you felt as though you could breathe again. The fog began to clear and you could feel the wetness of his shirt beneath your cheek.

“I'm sorry.” you whispered, pulling away from his chest.

“Dinna  worry lass.” he sat up to pull the shirt off before flopping down on his back, tucking you snugly against his side.

Using his knuckles he brushed away stray tears from under your eyes before settling your head under his chin, fingers stroking yours where they splayed across his stomach.

“Do ye wanna talk about it at all?”

“I should, I know, but I don't  know if I can.”

“I could ask ye a question and if ye feel up tae answering ye can. Does tha sound ok?”

“Ok.”

“Righ then, how long was she yer best friend?”

“Since we were 15.”

“How did ye meet?”

“My first day at a new school. I was feeling alone, didn't know a soul. She came around a corner saying she would kill someone for a Mars bar. I had two in my bag. We were inseparable from that moment on?”

He chuckled under his breath. “Trust ye to bond wi someone over chocolate.”

“We went to the same uni, got our first flat together, we did everything as a unit. Her husband always says that he married both of us. She was the one who wanted me to come here and work this summer.”

“Friends like tha are hard tae find.”

You sighed, closing your eyes against his shoulder. His fingers were stroking your hair back from your face. Your whole body felt unbelievably heavy, your soul weary.

“The thing is, she was the only person who really knew me, good and bad. She didn't care either way.”

“She loved ye unconditionally.”

“Yeah.”

You were drifting away now, cocooned in the arms of a man who made your heart skip every day. A man who your friend had begged you to make eyes at.

Barely conscious, your body relaxed against Jack’s in that final moment before sleep claimed you.

“Whoever is ever going to love me like that now?” you murmured, falling into blessed oblivion.

Pressing his lips to your hair Jack whispered when he was sure you were out.

“I will, love. I will.”

[lsgingasblog]

Of Happy Coincidences and Fated Connections Chapter 1

Wew it’s been ages since I’ve written fanfiction.  This will probably suck but here I go.

I’m late because uni kills me sort of in any case I wanted to do something different so here’s day 1-7 prompts scattered throughout acts or chapters of this connected work.

This work will be separated in 7 acts and I decided to add in Diana’s mother and other moments as well, personally I’m not that great in depicting romantic moments, but I do like character introspections and studies so this work will have a bit of that as well as adding elements that while not cannon, they don’t break the cannon either because I believe the lack of specification of stuff in lwa world still allows for a lot more.

In any case I’m supposed to be done posting all the acts by Sunday at latest, because weekend will give me more time to finish up the remaining acts.

Act 2-5 is finished, but still need act 6 & 7 and to think I finished most of that last weekend but school kills me

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

Act 1

“There, There Diana, no more crying my little angel” Bernadette soothes Diana while caressing her hair.

Diana buries herself more into her mother’s neck as her body gently shakes from the barely contained crying session.

This continues a bit longer until little Diana’s sobs finally calms down, the soothing finally having worked.

Diana lifts her head from her mother’s neck and hair and looks at her mother with tear stained eyes and her voice comes out uneven “I’m s-sorry m-mother…….I’m sorry….” And she was just about to start crying again when her mother kisses her on her forehead and gives her a big hug while speaking words of comfort

“Diana…..darling….you are amazing and I am very proud of you”

Diana start shaking her head in disagreement, but stays quiet clinging on to her mom.

“Don’t worry about it my little angel, you will get your magic back and even if you don’t I will never love you any less, please know that” Bernadette announced while kissing atop Diana’s head.

Diana once again looks at her mom and is much more composed although her poofy red eyes tell the tale of how long she has cried.

“Mother, b-but I’m a Cavendish, I need to get my magic back….or else…”Diana pauses and closes her tiny fists a little tighter on her mother’s shirt.  

“or else nothing darling remember more than anything our family motto is affection and that’s regardless if someone has magic or not. On top of that we even have ancestors who were not magically inclined that went off to be amazing individuals, look at Andrew’s father”

Diana shifts away from her mom and gets a scowl on her face “Andrew is insufferable!”

“Diana……be nicer darling…” Bernadette chastises but Diana is determined to continue her point

“B-but I don’t want to be like them I love magic and I want to believe in being able to get my magic, because I don’t like how Andrew and his family views magic, I want the world to feel how lovely magic is! Like the kind that Chariot show made me feel…”

“My little angel has big dreams, doesn’t she?” and the mother reaches over to give her stubborn daughter a big hug and she remembers something when Diana mentioned Chariot’s show and proceeds to let go of Diana for a bit and to grab a book in her night drawer.

“Mother, what’s that?” Diana asks having an inquisitive look on her face.

So Bernadette tells Diana of the book she bought some days back at a store, she wanted to give Diana it, but she was worried about Diana’s deflated nature after not being able to perform magic, but hearing Diana’s concession of Chariot’s show being part of her inspiration for continuing to try to get her magic back, Bernadette thought it was fitting to introduce the story book that Chariot has a hand in writing and considering nothing is heard of chariot anymore, she wanted to cheer Diana up.

The picture book is actually as can be expected tales told through the zodiac signs and the constellations about life, ambition, striving for your dream, motivation, fate, romance and bunch of other stuff told in a lighthearted tone with cute art that can appeal to kids.

Diana had a twinkle in her eyes and so they began reading it together.

The introduction is very vibrant and colorful with an image of the 12 zodiac sign all separated in groups, 4 groups in specific. Air, Water, Earth & Fire.

In the top half of the left page of the book we had the Air Group that had the Gemini, Libra & Aquarius and you can see them animatedly talking with each other and cracking jokes with what appears to be social gathering.

On the bottom half of the left page we had the Fire Group that had the Aries, Leo & Sagittarius. They were in a heated race through rocky terrain and neither of them were backing down.

On the top half of the right page we had the Earth Group that had Taurus, Virgo & Capricorn. They were all in a study group occasionally commenting and helping each other.

Lastly on the bottom half of the right page we had the Water group that had Scorpio, Cancer & Pisces who were all staring at the starry sky lying next to each other on top of blankets and pointing at the night sky.

As we turn the page we get blue/black background with various flecks of stars in the sky and we get the first story.

Swimming against the Gigantic Stream of Life to find Your Place

There was once a tiny red fish that wanted to bring joy and happiness to all the sea creatures and possibly even land creatures out there so it learned how to do magnificent jumps and tricks and even learned the art of bubble making alongside becoming very resourceful with his fins, however the fish community thought it was unnatural. Fish are after all supposed to be in groups and be about community, individuality is not something strongly supported. Apart from that a red fish at best will only be considered as food and wouldn’t be taken seriously by the other sea creatures.

However Charon, our little fish was ready to prove the world wrong because despite being called a hopeless dreamer he deeply wants that everyone feels free and happy.

While his previous attempts have not gone the way he wanted them to he believes there has been a huge improvement and he recently caught the attention of Cetus, a renowned talent agent Whale.

And so his shows have gotten more traction and he will be at the biggest platform yet............

…….Through ups and downs and setbacks Charon has found the drive needed to search for his own place in this world and while his journey might’ve been long and arduous he has reached it because he worked for it and when he got sad or was close to giving up he would find something in his path that helps him along, for example the comforting words of Detty the crab or Delphy the wise Dolphin or even the Columba the Dove, each with them brought their own advice and support that helped pull out the inner fortitude that Charon possessed.

Life is made of pebbles or rocks even that hinder to flow of your river, but how you decide to overcome and surpass such an obstacle is where you really find yourself and the greatest strength hidden inside you……

“Mother……can we read the next one?” Diana asks with immense joy, while her face still held signs of having had a sad spell it isn’t quite as obvious as before and Diana’s gentle yet unabashed smile makes Bernadette very much happy.

“Of course dear” she passes her hand through Diana’s hair and shifts her to sit on her lap with Diana leaning against her chest and Diana re-positions the book and starts on the 2nd story.

“The Scales of dreams and reality” Diana spoke the title of the 2nd story.

Chris the libra isn’t very happy with the current situation. His kind have long been used as a means to find solace and comfort or to try to strive for their own balance. They take advantage of gnawing insecurity of the community and here we have the likes of Charon traveling in his mobile water tank stage eager to spread the way of love and peace to this world to counteract the bad.

Chris was supposed to be the most important high libra commissioner and work on the perfect way to enhance happiness and contentment for all and to think a side show accomplished it is an utter joke, Chris swears that everyone is delusional or something, but he can’t deny his curiosity has been peaked so he decides to finally properly see Charon’s show and perhaps maybe get an idea what the commotion and is all about……….

………Chris had tears coming from each side scale of his. How he could have been so foolish? He had a vision of what he wanted as if that is his dream that is entitled to him and no one else and he didn’t consider the work that had to be put in for that to actually achieve it, but having met Charon and gradually become friends with him and after he had gotten a bit more glimpse into the world and having traveled with Chummy the chameleon & Circi the compass Chris sees what he must do, right now he can’t think about what he doesn’t have or what he should have, but rather of his hard work, what he has right now and the work and people’s help he will need to work on getting closer to making his dream a reality and who knows perhaps in this journey he might even realize something else he wanted more, perhaps a path he never saw possible until now.

“Ok Diana dear, it’s getting late….” Bernadette announced as she gently took the book from Diana, closed and put on the drawer.

“But…..one more mother….please….” Diana tried to execute one of her best puppy dog eyes, but Bernadette would not relent.

“Diana…..” Bernadette said in a slightly amused but admonishing tone.

“Very well mother, but may I ask a question?” Diana asked hesitantly while still laying it on thick with the puppy dog eyes so it was inevitable what the reply would be.

“Of course dear, but only one. It’s getting late” Bernadette answered back with a ghost of a smile on her face. Her daughter’s curiosity has always been insatiable after all.

“Mom why do people use zodiac signs to tell stories, are what they tell about each sign really accurate?” Diana leans in close to her mom, eagerly awaiting her mom’s reply.

Bernadette closes her eyes a bit to think about the best way to answer this question and she remembers a particular moment some years back and the brief discussion with a certain spunky red haired moonlight witch.

“It’s already getting late, but how about one last story? I believe it will have a better answer for that question. Besides I do believe you would be interested in hearing it, it’s about the time I met Chariot, long before she became Shiny Chariot, interested?” Bernadette announces but she didn’t even have to wait that long for a response because Diana exuberantly blurted out

“Yes mother! Please do, I would love to and how did you meet her? How was she? And-”

Bernadette waved her hand as a means to silence Diana and to command attention “Ok little one, this happened a few years back, quite a bit before Shiny Chariot even graced the stage……”

It was a hectic day. Bernadette Cavendish has been called in to be one of the Judges for the Samhain festival. Mostly due to previous judge having cancelled last minute so Holbrooke called in a favor. While Bernadette was 1 year shy from having graduated from Luna Nova the misfortunate and bizarre capsizing of the ship that Daryl and Bernadette’s parents were in left the Cavendish without a leader and luckily or unluckily whichever way you prefer to view it,  a few months after their death was the Venusian Eclipse.

Strangely enough father was always the prepared man and left in the will that I would be the head of Cavendish house, despite Daryl’s seniority over me, which did even less wonders in closing the chasm of differences and tension between my sister and I.

In any case perhaps it’s being back in Luna Nova that gives me such nostalgia.

I saw a wonderful and surprising performance from the surprise witch that came out of practically nowhere in the crowd’s general opinion and stole the show, literally by the display of transformation and showmanship magic, it filled my heart with so much joy and wonder and made me call back to the uncomplicated love and fascination I used to exude when I was younger, sadly things in later life often become a habit or obligation and the true magic fades away a bit, but this reignited it a bit.

I had stayed and took a bit to drink, not too much given my weak constitution but even that was too much it would seem as I felt woozy and weak, Holbrooke immediately assigned me to the nurse and a room to stay the night, seeing the time it would be much too late to travel back in my condition anyway.

I conceded and went to rest. However I only slept a bit and when I woke up, it was still much too early as I saw the clock read a bit past 5 am. I was restless though and decided to take a walk. On the plus side muscle memory is truly a wonderful thing you realize all over again in these instances, while it has been a few turbulent and trying years adjusting to being head of the Cavendish at 17, meeting my husband, delivering a beautiful baby girl, becoming a widow all too quickly and having most likely a limited amount of time still left to see my baby grow up, my body and mind instinctively remember all the twists, turns, nook and crannies. It’s actually nearing a more open space though that I halt because I see two figures in the courtyard. They are sitting on the bench talking although their proximity to each other seems to suggest they are fairly close.

One of them stands up and twirls around and I notice it immediately, the long white robe and the white hat with the horns on the side, that’s the engaging and energetic red haired moon light witch from earlier today, well yesterday now technically.

She seems to be fairly happy as she lets out another performance in front of a- from what I can tell- purple haired girl.  

Of course this draws the attention of a shadow nearby on the opposite side of the courtyard and they run to hide, as do I.

How silly though, I always helped patrol back then and I’m an adult now, I have no reason to hide, but I have to admit it’s probably being back in this school, takes me back.

After the coast was clear and the patrol went the other direction the two girls came out and I moved closer so I can hear them talking, I can’t help but feel wrong about this, but something about the moonlight witch this year and the feeling her performance awoke in me after a long time made me curious to know more about her.

I was still too much out of ear shot to hear anything clearly, but seeing by the red haired ones flustered state I would say she was just teased and the purple haired one proceeds to give the moonlight witch a hug which in turn she greedily accepts and the hug lasts for quite a bit longer than platonic hug time constitutes, but perhaps I’m out of the loop with teenagers nowadays as to what constitutes the normal length for those.

The red haired girl is sulking now and I feel compelled to go to her, but she abruptly jumps up from her seated position on the stone bench and conjures up a constellation chart, this is highly impressive and clearly she has an affinity for astrology to conjure up something to this extent.

She seems to be pulling up two signs in particular a libra and a pisces.

Curious.

As I move to go a bit closer but still trying to not arouse suspicion I step on branch and she notices me and immediately jumps.  

“I’m sorry, please don’t give me detention, I just got out of a one month scrubbing the toilets a month ago, I would prefer to not have to repeat that again.” she eyed me pleadingly while having her hands clasped together in front of her face hoping I don’t reprimand.

I start laughing. This completely catches her off-guard.

“Rest assured little moon light witch I truly am not here to punish you, I’ll have you know I’m sneaking about as well” Bernadette answered good naturedly while extending her hand to greet the girl “ Bernadette Cavendish, pleasure to meet you acquaintance that was a lovely performance you put on I was quite enchanted with it”

Chariot’s eyes visibly widen and then she enthusiastically starts shaking Bernadette’s hands “Ahh my name is Chariot du Nord, nice to meet you. A pleasure to meet the head of the Cavendish family, you were one of the judges right? Thank you for liking the show I’m glad to hear that and ….”

Bernadette notices the girl is quite chipper and just keeps rambling on excitedly, (what an energetic and charismatic girl).

“Miss Cavendish…..” chariot waves her hands in front of her face and Bernadette jumps back a bit “Ahh… I’m sorry I didn’t mean to surprise you, I was just wondering what you were still doing at Luna Nova since I’m aware most judges or spectators tend to leave after, but you were staring off so I wasn’t sure if you heard me, sorry for rambling, I’m still a bit giddy about winning as moon light witch and all…..” she trails off while sheepishly putting her fingers together while fidgeting.

Bernadette smiled “Ooh don’t worry it’s quite alright and very much understandable I remember being moonlight witch my first year in Luna Nova it’s a wonderful feeling so completely understandable. Also to answer your question, I was feeling a bit under the weather after due to my weak constitution, but I’m feeling a lot better now. I would like to ask you the same thing though you were practicing some magnificent astrology magic there is there any specific reason now? Since it’s already becoming lighter outside after all, it would be more useful at a darker time.”

Chariot’s face blushes beat red “a-ah….well you see I…..” she doesn’t quite know what to answer so I decide to tease a bit suspecting a more than platonic inkling from the purple haired girl and chariot. It’s an all-girls school after all so those kind of relationships are hardly a surprise, even though romantically speaking I’m more inclined to males myself, I did have quite a few friends that dabbled in that and that’s fine by me, you never know who ends up taking your fancy.

“Could it have anything to do with the libra and piscis signs?”

Chariot’s mouth as agape and she appears to open her mouth to speak however I decided to go for the overkill.

“or was it perhaps connected to the purple haired girl that left earlier?”

And there it was the deer caught in the head lights look. Ah, perhaps I did go too far.

“I’m sorry if I’m prying too much….”

“No, no, it’s just ….uhm….ok….so….I was wondering about the zodiac signs and what they meant and what they actually mean for each person like do they accurately predict someone’s fate or personality or are compatibility between signs a certain thing or what can you do to guarantee a lasting bond…..I’m just a bit conflicted right now and sorry again for rambling……” Chariot was fidgeting and she didn’t even once look up from the ground.

“I don’t believe on certain are absolutely accurate, I’m unsure of why you pulled up specifically a libra and a pisces but I’m assuming it might have to do with your purple haired friend, but seeing as it makes you uncomfortable I will not comment further although keep in mind that nothing changes, develops or maintains unless of your consistent and hard effort to work on it. Whether it’s a lasting bond with this girl or it’s your dreams, because after all one imagines their dreams, but reality is what becomes of your hard earned effort to achieve your goals and perhaps it’s not the same as your dream initially was, but the growth that has overcome you in that time and the end point that you have reached might be exactly what you needed as oppose to what you initially wanted. Life is filled with inconsistencies and forking roads so as long as you’re doing your best and constantly striving for the best version of yourself, I believe it will work out.” Bernadette approaches the girl and put a hand on Chariot and smiles.

“Concerning the zodiac signs I don’t believe they are wrong as guides, because people have faith in various things that keeps them going or that inspires and astrology is an old craft that has been used for many years, you should neither revere it as perfect guide or tool nor dismiss it as too irregular. Rather take with it what you will and let it inspire you then do something with that inspiration to make your desires a reality. I’m sorry I’m afraid I’m the one that talked too long this time” Bernadette smiled apologetically while taking her arms off of Chariot’s shoulder.

Chariot proceeds to hug Bernadette. Bernadette is caught off guard.

“-thank you” was the muffled reply of Chariot and she pulled away quickly after “I’m sorry for the sudden hug”

“No, no it’s fine, surprising but pleasant nonetheless. Tell me chariot what makes you fascinated in astrology?”

“The possibilities and also I want to understand all the various zodiac signs and harmony between them because I want to understand how to make as many people as possible happy. I want to perform with zodiac sign animals and various other transformation magic because I believe the wonder and joy of seeing these creatures can be stronger than disagreements or dispute between human beings, it’s something more universal at least in my eyes. At least that’s just a sentiment of mine, but I’m aware how silly my dream may seem to some…..even so! I have to try” Chariot while slightly hesitant she had a certain spark inher eyes I couldn’t help but admire. She was rocking on the ball of her foot awaiting my reply.

“It is an awfully ambitious dream, your determination reminds me of my little daughter, Diana. So driven and hard-working for a 4 year old” Bernadette smiles fondly thinking of her little girl “That said I believe your intentions aren’t wrong, but remember strive for your own happiness before you worry for others or the world.”

Chariot smiles. “Ok I will work on it”

“Headmistress Holbrooke I believe I saw someone in the courtyard.” Can be heard faraway in booming voice. One of the fearie patrols no doubt from earlier.

Chariot looks anxious at me I tell her to go back to her dorm I will intercept them. She mouths thank you and storms back to her dorm.

“Hello headmistress Holbrooke. Good morning, and sorry for walking around and giving the patrol trouble”

“Ooh my, Bernadette I wasn’t expecting you up so early! Good Morning and no don’t worry”

The fearie patrol started saying he swear he saw someone, but Bernadette says she might’ve caught a glimpse of something but it was too dark to identify and so the matter was laid to rest. 

“Ok Diana to bed young lady” Bernadette motioned for Diana to get off the bed.

Diana doesn’t budge. “Mother about the meanings and bonds do you believe they might be true if you want them to be?”

“Is this about the story book? Or something else?” it would seem there is something Bernadette is missing from this story.

“Something else, mother remember when we got separated after the chariot show?”

Of course I did. I had a particular bad fainting spell after the show while we were walking away from the crowd and I got separated from Diana I was terrified before I blacked out, the trip in particular had been exhausting. Luckily I did have Anne and another butler with me Anne stayed with me while Joseph, the butler went to search for Diana. Did something bad happen that Diana didn’t tell her about, Diana saw her mother’s distressed face and put her tiny hand on top of her mother

“Don’t worry mom nothing bad happened, I promise.”

Bernadette visibly relaxed.

“You see when I got lost and swept along the crowd I met another little girl, she had brown hair and was also separated from her parents because of the crowd. I thought we should continue waiting and she wanted to keep on moving to find them we kept arguing but when we noticed some people kept on staring we went into the crowd in search of either one of our parents but then an old lady from one of the stands called out to us, she was a bit creepy-”

“Diana I thought you told me nothing-”

“Let me finish, please mother” Diana pouted.

“Very well, I will not comment until the end” Bernadette relented.

“So she ended up being a magical astronomer or the ones that tell fortune. I thought would be best to move away from her but the little girl decided it would be cool so we went closer. I told her we had no money on us, but she said this one was free of charge and conjured up our zodiac cards along with a card about our bond or something saying we will have a lifelong bond or something. It was then we decided to keep searching and the little girl had a few dollars in her pockets and we both got one cotton candy to share and we decided to go closer to where the stand was for the show now that there were less people. It was in the process of walking there that the brown haired girl said to exchange the card about our zodiac sign and if the life long bond fortune is right we’ll meet again and exchange it back I was going to say I don’t live there so the chance of meeting again is not very likely but she handed me her card and I felt inclined to give her mine it was then that Joseph made it through the people still around there and the same time the girl’s mother showed up and pulled her away. Wait let me go get the card mother.” And the young Cavendish girl dashes to her room and comes back after a bit and eagerly shows me the cancer zodiac sign from the girl diana exchanged and I was shocked to notice the card that Diana got.

That’s curious.

Years Ago at a random festival.

“Bernadette let’s get out of here, this place is bogus!” Daryl came out huffing. The old lady comes outside and announces my sister forgot to pay, so I paid her part. The old lady grabs my arm and says she want to do a reading for me for free. I told her I’m not particularly interested in these things she asks please and I decide to humor her. She pulls a few different cards, but one particular that she tells me is the one that looks like the one that Diana got and she even has her insignia because she told me about it at the end.

“Diana dear, did you catch the little girl’s name?”

“Uhm no” Diana has a very embarrassed expression “I forgot to introduce mine as well, her English was a bit hard to understand as well and I was being dragged most of the time we barely had any time to catch our breaths……”Diana seemed a bit put-off by being reminded of that.

How unusual to have Diana so out of her element, that’s so unlike her so I started chuckling.

“Mother….why are you laughing” Diana was baffled and a bit annoyed.

“There, there darling I’m sure you will meet this person again, she clearly made an impression on you and sounds like this person might’ve been the same person your mommy met some time back”

Diana was surprised. “Did her predictions for you come true then mother?”

“Some of them did or actually I should say the ones that truly matter did and that’s all that counts in my eyes. Like having my beautiful daughter filled with ambition and endless curiosity that is still awake past her curfew. Now let me take you to your room darling no more time for stories I’m afraid, straight to bed.”

“But-”

“No buts Diana. Rest assured though I will be beside you till you fall asleep.”

Diana got out of bed and gently tugged my hand and I went back to her room and tucked her in. Bernadette kept petting her hair and before she drifted off to sleep she mumbled ‘I love you mother’. Bernadette said ‘I love you too my little angel’.

One last thought entered Bernadette’s head. That card that was given to Diana was the same one that she was given moments before she met Richard, her now deceased ex-husband. The card did not strictly refer to lovers although it was the more common connotation. She decided she didn’t mind either one to be fair. She’s aware she won’t be able to see Diana grow up into an adult and this small comfort that Diana might have someone that cares for her as much as Richard cared for her calms her somewhat and despite how many more years she wished she had with Richard she appreciates the time they did have.

Stars don’t dictate all or sometimes even not much at all, but completely underestimating the lucky coincidences and the unusual way fate tends to work seems foolhardy.

Bernadette gives her daughter a kiss on the top of her head and closes the door, only leaving a small night light to leave the room with a bit of brightness while her little angel slumbers.

She grabs the cancer card and other card given to Diana. Very curious indeed.

She wishes she could meet this little girl that already has the power to drag around her strong-willed daughter, but she supposes just like she told chariot as long as she works hard she could do it, after all her becoming a tree like all the other Cavendish head of house is a given, she would like a nice open field if she’s honest, but right now she wants to live for as much as she can, she will worry about being able to catch a glimpse of this energetic girl later in whichever form she might be, after all working hard and affection are two things that come best to her. She’s a proud Cavendish after all.

[patheticphallacy]

Throughout every year, I don’t just read. As is made obvious by my Film Friday and Music Monday series, I love to talk about pretty much everything I come into contact with- films, TV, video games, music- you name it, I enjoy it!

In this post, I won’t be talking my favourite books of 2018, but I will be talking about pretty much everything else I enjoyed this year, starting wiiiiith….

  F I L M S 

Bohemian Rhapsody: a very divisive one. I went with my sister to see it and it was such a lovely experience;  I know some people hate the way bisexuality was portrayed, but I loved it.

Set It Up: I love Zooey Deutch. Also, if you ever want to see people acting drunk and doing it accurately, watch the pizza flirting scene, cause it’s amaaazing!

Venom: this film was trash and I love it! The cryptid love story we’ve all been waiting for Marvel to commit to since the original Spider Man noughties films.

Thor Ragnarok: ya girl can’t remember if this was a re-watch in 2018, but I’m including it. So beautiful and colourful. Infinity War could never have characterisation quite like this film  :]

Baywatch: I realise I’m just exposing my terrible taste in movies, oh dear. I put off watching Baywatch because of all the criticism, but I actually loved watching this with my dad. It’s funny as heck, has looooads of eye candy to satisfy my bisexual heart, and I actually love all the romances! [also Logan Paul gets dragged in this film]

Howl’s Moving Castle: My first Studio Ghibli [don’t yell at me] and I loved it! More than the book, actually, which was a surprise. I love Sophie, and Howl lives for the drama, which I can respect.

Kubo and the Two Strings: This is amazing. So soft and wholesome, amazing stop motion animation, an incredible look into feudal Japan and Japanese culture, and just left me feeling so warm inside!

Clue: I am so ashamed that I only watched this film for the first time in 2018. It’s so funny, to the point where I literally cried watching it, and I’m glad I watched it with my sister, who makes everything we watch together even better with her commentary.

The Duff: I am so glad this adaptation was good, even if it did get rid of all the sex positivity talk from the book. It’s super cheesy, but the romance is developed well, and I loved Mae Whitman as Bianca!

The Shining: My sister forced me to watch this after years of being a chicken who only saw the clips from Twister [the best disaster movie, holla] and was bored by the book [don’t come after me, my opinions on things are pretty all over the place and I stand by my dislike]. I have a great picture of my sister drinking a glass of milk and melting down all her easter eggs to dip strawberries into as we watched the film.

  T V  A N D  A N I M E

My Hero Academia: I watched the dub and I love it. Clifford Chapin as Bakugou? Amazing. Clifford Chapin giving a whole rundown of Bakugou’s character that made me love my angry misunderstood boy even more? SHOWSTOPPING, SPECTACULAR, OWE HIM MY LIFE.

Runaways: Seeing Gregg Sulkin and Ariela Barer portray my favourite couple in comic book history destroyed me. Ariela Barer killed it with every single outfit, and she’s only a year older than me, so I’m hoping we’ll bump into each other one day and we will fall in love. A girl can dream, okay?

Over the Garden Wall: My third re-watch of this animated show! I go hard for the Southern Gothic!

The Alienist: This show is so so dark, and I still haven’t quite finished season 1, but it’s incredible as both a period piece and a crime drama. Also has disability rep, Jewish characters, a man questioning his sexuality, and a woman in a main role who kills it, which is pretty new to me for a period show!

Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood: Uh, no offence, but this is the superior FMA anime. I’m still not quite finished, as I’m still reading the last few volumes of the manga, but boy I love the dub. I tend to watch this while I do other things on my phone or blogging, so I always lean towards the dub.

The Haunting of Hill House: Would I die for the Crain siblings and also the fact that the fifth episode at the funeral was filmed in 5 shots? YES. Did I actually die during that scene in the car in episode 8? 100%. I cried from fear at that scene. I had to go to sleep because it scared me so much. A beautiful ghost story, one that has cheap Hollywood jump scares quaking.

Criminal Minds: I included that specific poster because it has my three favourites on it. I’ve managed to watch over 4 seasons of Criminal Minds since December 1st, while I was completing uni reading and research for essay, and I honestly must congratulate myself for my dedication. It’s cheesy and not entirely accurate, but I love it anyway, and would willingly give my life for Dr Spencer Reid without thinking twice.

M U S I C

Reputation by Taylor Swift: A 2017 release I only truly appreciated this year. I had a rough time with a lot of stuff, and listening to Taylor Swift validate being angry kind of made me feel better? In a way that I don’t want people to look too deep into, thank you very much, I still uphold my Hufflepuff standing, but I am allowed to be angry and frustrated with the way people use me [thank you to all the Slytherins in my life for teaching me that!] [favourite song is End Game]

A Brief Inquiry Into Online Relationships by the 1975: Anxiety! Online culture! Matty singing more about addiction! I love this album, and cannot wait to see them at the O2 in January. I’ve been listening to them since midway through November nonstop. [favourite song is Sincerity is Scary, but my favourite 1975 songs are probably [So Far] It’s Alright and Medicine]

MANIA by Fall Out Boy: Fall Out Boy are really still killing it! This album has religious undertones throughout, which I loved, and it’s so loud and angry! Hell yes! [favourite songs are Stay Frosty Royal Milk Tea and Heaven’s Gate]

The Now Now by Gorillaz: Really, all of Gorillaz albums got me through this year. I spent at least a month only listening to them and watching all their music videos in chronological order. [favourite song is Fireflies, but my favourite Gorillaz songs are Melancholy Hill and Every Planet We Reach Is Dead!]

V I D E O  G A M E S

So…. the only video game I got into, again, was Night In the Woods? Woopsie?

Night in the Woods is about an anthropomorphic cat called Mae, who moves back to her home town of Possum Springs after dropping out of college. While it focuses mainly on Mae’s friendships with Bea [a snarky smoking alligator]; Gregg [a fox, and her childhood best friend]; and Angus [a bear, and Gregg’s boyfriend], there’s also major themes covered that I love in these small-town set stories, as well as stories in general: mental illness, family struggles and found families, and ‘the slow death of small town America’. It’s SOOOO GOOD, and I highly recommend it, especially for the story.

There was another bit of video game news I thought I’d talk about, as well as put down here certain games I have yet to watch people play, but am planning on doing.

THE LAST OF US 2 YAAAAAAY! I am such a big The Last of Us fan, so much so that I literally cried when I first saw the trailer/footage from the second game. The return of everyone’s favourite lesbian, Miss Ellie Williams, and everyone’s favourite gruff dad, Mr Joel Miller, so I’m buzzing. So so excited.

Now, two video games I swear I’m going to get to:

South Park: The Fractured but Whole: The Mysterion episodes of South Park have always been my favourite, so having a whole video game centred around them as superheroes? A DREAM. I also can’t wait to see Craig and Tweek, and Butters [who is my favourite South Park character besides Kenny!]

Finding Paradise: this is the sequel to To The Moon, one of my favourite video games of all time, so I am highly anticipating getting to this finally! I just need to know what’s in that pill bottle, okay?

  And that is all of my favourites! What films, TV shows, music and/or video games did you enjoy in 2018? Anything you’re excited for in 2019?

Thank you for reading, and happy new year!

  Favourites of 2018: Films, TV Shows and More! Throughout every year, I don't just read. As is made obvious by my Film Friday and Music Monday series, I love to talk about pretty much everything I come into contact with- films, TV, video games, music- you name it, I enjoy it!

[28-11s]

i’m going to start off this post with an apology for disappearing again, especially before valentine’s day. i was trying to hold back from doing it so i could spend the 14th with you and finally ask you out on a date but my need to ghost prevailed and well. yeah. it’s been rough like it hasn’t been in months, (and i think you understood it since i haven't posted here in days) but i guess it is because i’ve been dealing with constant uneasiness? i’m actually not sure what’s wrong, though. do you ever feel anxious even when things are going well? like, you cannot sleep or focus on your work or do anything really because you’re too busy feeling overwhelmed? it’s horrible, especially when you cannot pinpoint the reason and so you end up just locking yourself away. we're going to blame mercury retrograde and not my mental health, tho. especially since sun and mercury are in pisces. 🤕 🤢 i’m sorry for being so distant both physically and emotionally and just... not being there for you. the worst thing about me ghosting is in fact not knowing what to say once i feel better. i can write here rather easily but the moment i have to dm you i feel awkward and guilty and i never know how to act... i’m not good at saying sorry but appearing randomly after days without saying anything makes me feel even worse, so i never know how to be. but anyway, that’s not what I want to talk about in this message. i needed to feel better the other day so i checked the padlet and found the message that you wrote a month ago… it hit me a lot and kinda really resonated with me. it sucks how late I saw it and I feel really bad since you opened up to me so well and idk, it’s like i looked down at your effort by not replying immediately, even though it was involuntarily. but i cannot just ignore it so here’s my (late) reply to all of that. first of all, let me tell you how much i appreciate the straightforwardness of that message. it gave me an input on how you have been feeling and it also made me feel closer to you, especially considering the fact that i can strongly relate. not gonna lie, I hadn’t cried (like, actually cried with sobs and all that shit) in months but i couldn’t even reach the middle of the message because i literally couldn’t see SHIT. knowing you have been struggling with these emotions is… devastating? to try and explain: it’s like the whole world came crashing down. this whole ghosting thing isn’t something i can actually get mad at you for, because i know how exhausting life can get and how comforting being alone can be. as you can see, i do that a lot, too…  which is why i make “excuses” for you. of course, when it gets to three weeks it stings and i do get annoyed at times . but it’s not something i will crucify you over? especially because it would be super hypocritical of me. so, please, don’t ever think that you’re “taking advantage of me” or whatever, because you’ve been nothing but amazing to me for the past years and i literally /know/ that i couldn’t do better than this even if i tried to. you’re one of the few good things in my life rn and if i haven’t gone completely insane yet is thanks to you too. and while i'm happy you do know that i sincerely treasure you a whole lot, i can't help but get worried because of you being insecure. you're human and like everyone else, you experience lack of confidence, and honestly i'm glad you told me about it. more than insecure, i’d say i’m way too paranoid for my own good. i often get ugly thoughts that try to make others look like they’re out to get me and i always have to stop, take a deep breath and remind myself that not everyone is trying to hurt me, but i also get those moments of "what if". what if i say this and sound weird or what if i talk too much about myself and make royal uncomfortable by coming off as vain. and there are times where i hesitate or straight up don’t post on the blog because i don’t want to burden you with /my/ emotions, so i understand that too well. but we've talked about this so many times: we both have to fix these problems, but you know it won't happen overnight and every single little step counts, even if it requires lots of courage and trust. i don't think you realize how happy it makes me when you reach out randomly or open up to me directly. it makes me feel trusted, worthy and useful, so please don't villainize yourself for being human and wanting to share your feelings with others. you're far from being toxic and you need to finally understand that you're not putting any kind of pressure on me and being able to help you, even if just by listening, helps me as well. we deal with situations and feelings that are similar and i've found a solution to my problems the times we've opened up to each other. but lol. that part right there about you being self serving pissed me off so fucking bad, you have no idea. when i say i cannot find a single flaw in you, i mean it. i know it might sound fake or exaggerated but it's true. you’re one of the kindest and most selfless people i know and it's hard to even imagine you as selfish or “self serving”. i want you to think for a minute. do you think you’ve ever done anything to me to get you the title of self serving? i have a really good memory when it comes to you and i can assure you are far from being that. you have NEVER asked for anything, you have NEVER made me feel wrong or treated me badly. obviously i don't know what happened in your previous relationship and even after * dmed me to befriend me and then ask me to deliver you that message, i’ve been meaning to ask you about your dating history since i don’t think i have ever seen you as upset as you were those times, but it felt like i was being nosy and out of place so i just sucked it up and moved on. ngl though, i have been curious about it. both because i want to learn something new about you and because i want to be prepared. i told you about keo and how he mostly affected my self-esteem, so i kinda feel bad for not knowing about what has affected /you/ in the past. folds hands. let me also add something. me being scared of confrontation isn’t an excuse for us to avoid talking directly about certain things. if we keep on avoiding any kind of serious talking 1) i’ll never learn how to deal with it 2) i think we’ll be missing out on a huge part of relationships and on the long run it will show. and i’m not exactly scared of confrontation. i’m scared of hurting you by saying something wrong. i get so defensive /and/ passive aggressive for no reason when i feel the mood shift and it makes me say really mean things just to get a reaction out of people. but i’ll never be able to fix it if i don’t start talking with my own partner. but still. you’ll have to be the one to bring it up if you want to because i’m still a scaredy-cat after all and i’ll never start anything. <3 you have also talked about me deserving better and it reminded me of all the times i’ve said you do deserve someone better and you said that you don’t care because i’m the one you want. it goes both ways, really. there is someone out there for me, even more than one person, but just like there is someone else out there for you too. but it literally does not matter to me if someone is waiting, because i don’t want them. i want You. you're the love of my life and my best friend and i seriously cannot imagine my life without you. i can promise you that i will be here by your side. we can be scared of being vulnerable together. LMFAOOOOO WHY IS THIS SO LONG I'M SO SORRY FUCK AND I AM NOT EVEN DONE SINCE YOU POSTED ANOTHER MESSAGE ON THE PADLET AND I WANNA REPLY TO THAT TOO. yes it takes me days to reply to one (1) singular message yes i live like this. anyway the latest message put me in such a good mood. your care package isn't here yet but i can already tell that it is going to work perfectly. but?! your hobby is literally naming pets after food or things and honestly? i respect that life. i still remember when you talked about wanting to get a cat to name it pancake. 🥺 i hope you took pictures of your friend's dog, though. 😡 and on god i knew something was gonna happen to you. kisses your wrist and puts a bandaid on it. the fact that you're still running around sleep-deprived and with a sprained wrist is so You. fucking sagittarius sun gemini rising headass. but OMFG I USED TO LISTEN TO THAT SONG WHEN I WAS A KID. you brought back so many memories. </3 while my baby was being a busy bee, i was busy being Lazy. my week has been kinda ok? i've been spending my days watching stuff on netflix but now i'm sad because i saw a possible spoiler of the drama that i am currently watching aND . I DIDN'T SPEND THE LAST FOUR DAYS CRYING FOR THEM TO PULL THIS SHIT. also since there is straight up a coronavirus outbreak in my region, all the schools are closed and the shops have to close down at 6pm so i don't have to work at the office this week! a win! kinda! if we ignore the reason why i can stay home! will that stop me from going out though? absolutely not. x today i went to the gym despite the warnings lolz and i even passed out so fr who's doing it like me! then i went grocery shopping and i napped for like 6 hours. i had an appointment with my old school's head master scheduled for tomorrow since we have to talk about uni and stuff but they cancelled it :/// so i'll spend my day maybe doing some work and Sleeping. anyway. this message is a big mess but  i mith you so bad and i feel so shitty for disappearing and i'm over being a ghost so! we're sleeping together tonight. :)

[sending-the-message]

It's my first time in an American forest, and to hell with this shit, seriously. by EmilyBlue-242

So I'm one of those 'long time lurker, first time poster' people (howdy!). Anyway, a few years ago I (Welsh, born and raised) ended up sharing university accommodation with Cassie, an American who had for some reason decided to attend Aberystwyth University. I'll spare you our long and colourful history along the path to becoming best friends. Suffice it to say, Cassie and I are pretty tight.

Even now, years after leaving uni, and despite being on different sides of the Atlantic, we're still practically sisters. So when she invited me and my fiancé Jim to spend a week indulging in drunken shenanigans in a cabin in the middle of nowhere? Who am I to say no!

Cassie met us at the airport, she even had a board with our names on it. "Blue & Jones", we almost sounded professional. From there she whisked us out to meet a group of her friends - her brother Kit, her girlfriend Rice, Alex, Jay, Craig, Curtis, and a pair of twins who looked like cheerleader stereotypes brought to life. One was Ruby and one was Topaz, but I lost track of which was which before we even got in the cars. One started out with a camera, but since they were passing it back and forth that didn't help.

Rice drove a minivan, Curtis had what he called a 'truck' - cab up front, flatbed, that sort of thing. It was a pretty uneventful drive up, mostly just catching up on things with Cassie. The boys, apart from Jim and Kit, were in the truck. I'm assuming a minivan wasn't quite manly enough for them. We were getting pretty far out from civilisation, eventually turning onto this narrow, gravelly trail through some real dense forest. Like I said, I'm Welsh, so a one-track road in the middle of nowhere didn't upset me.

What did upset me was when Curtis suddenly slammed the brakes on up ahead. I didn't see what happened - I was in the middle of an hilarious anecdote when Rice suddenly stood on the brakes. We slid a little on the gravel before stopping, and by the time I looked out through the front windscreen the boys were already piling out of the truck, running around to the front.

Naturally we followed suit. "We hit a deer!" Jay called back, "Motherfucker came out of nowhere!"

The twins let out matching cries of horror, and I did the same. My first glimpse of American wildlife, and it was splashed all over the bonnet of Curtis' truck. Still, I went up to take a look with the others and it... It wasn't what I was expecting.

I don't know how to describe what was wrong with the deer. There was just something about it which didn't quite look right, you know? Like something about the angle of the legs, or the shape of it's antlers, or even just the way its eyes sat in its head.

I mentioned this, and though a second before I swear everyone had been looking just as unsettled as I felt, they all started laughing. What did I know about white-tailed deer, after all? Especially one which had been hit by a car. Of course it wouldn't look right. Besides, maybe it had a birth defect, or old injuries that hadn't set right, maybe it had been slightly mutated by pollutants.

Everyone had a reason for why I was wrong. Craig and Jay both know how to butcher a carcass, apparently ("Remind me again why we're going into the woods with these people?" Jim whispered to me), and since we were on Cassie and Kit's private property there was no reason to let Bambi lay by the side of the road and rot. Curtis' truck was, miraculously, still drivable, so off we headed.

The place was your typical quaint little log cabin, set dead-centre in a circle of green lawn. Around the edge of the lawn was this circle of stones, only about a foot high, set two or three feet apart from each other. They looked almost like a boundary marker, and Kit said that's what they'd used them as when visiting the cabin as kids. Their grandfather let them play outside unsupervised all they liked, so long as they stayed on the house side of the stones. I can see why, too. Even discounting the deer-stop, it had taken us about two hours to drive out here, dense forest stretching away on every side. Thinking about a child wandering off into all that made me shiver.

We took the rest of the day to settle in, and that evening the boys presented us with a firepit. We were having a cookout, involving not just the BBQ stuff we brought with us, but also fresh venison steaks. I couldn't stomach eating the deer. I don't even know if it's because of the 'wrongness' with it, or if it was just the memory of it being wrapped around Curtis' truck. I did have a few drinks, though, and we were all getting nicely into the groove when we heard it - another party, somewhere off in the distance.

Like I said, this is private land. Acres and acres of it. Anyone out here who isn't us is trespassing. Cassie was pissed off, but Kit was already pretty drunk and he kicked right off. Suddenly he's got a rifle and we're all marching out into the woods towards this group of other people, with me just stumbling along in the back, clutching Jim's hand and praying my first visit to America doesn't end with me burying a dozen bodies in the fucking woods.

Luckily (sort of) we never found the people making the noise. It seemed to fade in and out, not like it was being blown on the wind, more like someone turning the volume knob on a radio or something. Eventually Jay pointed out that all we were doing was getting ourselves lost in the woods, especially since by this point it was fully dark. We all agreed, and as we did the sounds stopped, just like that, as if someone had finally switched the radio off altogether.

We were all in a rough circle at this point, and I'd ended up alone, slightly away from the others. I was sighing in relief at not having to cover for a multiple homicide when I heard branches crackling in the trees behind me. It sounded huge, but before I could turn around it was right there, right behind me, so close I could feel its breath on my neck, so close if I reached out backwards I could touch it. I tried to call the others, but the smell of musty fur and carrion was so strong it came out as more of a retch instead.

That still got their attention. They turned to me, and despite the terror on their faces nobody screamed. It's funny, how it's possible to be so scared you just turn into a useless statue. My head was screaming for me to run, but my body had apparently decided to play that shit like I was facing a t-rex.

"What is it?" I managed to gasp eventually. No one answered at first. I don't think they could. Finally, though, Cassie managed to grit out three words.

"Emily... don't look."

Seriously.

Whatever it was, it reacted to my speaking. I felt movement behind me, and suddenly that hot, stinking breath was right by my ear. At the same time I felt a gentle pressure on my shoulder, as if it was resting a paw, or chin, there. I expected it to bite me at any second. What I didn't expect was for it to start whispering to me.

I don't remember anything it said. I think my brain just stopped functioning at that point, like it couldn't handle anything else and had just given up and gone to sleep. I felt drugged, useless. I just stood there and let the whispering wash over me, like I'd already given up.

I don't know what would have happened next without Kit. The sludgy daze I'd been in was blown apart by the loudest sound I'd ever heard, which I later realised was Kit shooting into the air. The whispering stopped, the hot breath receded, and suddenly everyone was screaming for me to run - run, and whatever else you do, don't look back.

I didn't look back. I did, however, look up. That got me moving. It had antlers. Fucking antlers. I couldn't make out any features through the thick hair all over it, except its eyes. They were glowing, milky-white, like twin moons hanging over me. And teeth. I definitely saw teeth.

They all followed me. Kit and some of the other guys eventually caught up to me, then passed me. Behind me I heard the sound of something huge and heavy crashing through the trees, and then the shrieking of one of the twins. She'd tripped on a branch and twisted her ankle, because apparently she decided now was the time to take a leaf out of the horror-movie handbook. Her sister was screaming after us, saying we had to stay and help. Then, distantly, they both started howling, howling like people being torn apart.

The rest of us made it safely into the house, locking the door behind us. Do I feel bad about leaving the twins? I'd love to tell you yes, but no, I didn't, not even a bit. It's not like I twisted her leg, is it? It's not like they'd have come back for me or Jim. So why should I feel bad about it? Shut up.

It all turned out to be a moot point, anyway. We kept people on guard for the rest of the night, watching the edge of the woods. Obviously they do get reception out here, but it's seriously not reliable. Plus I dropped my phone out there somewhere. Still, at 3am, Craig wakes us all up. The twins are outside, he says.

No one believed him at first, not after the screaming, but no, there they were, waiting at the door. They were smiling, and looked exactly as they did earlier in the evening.

Now, they said the thing we saw was a costume, worn by some Mikey guy who apparently couldn't make it up this week. He could, however, make it up for one night to scare the shit out of us, apparently, before heading back to civilisation without speaking to anyone else.

Everyone accepted this without question and headed to bed, but it was light before I could get to sleep. Am I nuts, or what? The idea of one guy bringing himself up here, luring us into the woods, pulling that shit and then vanishing back to society in time for work just doesn't sit right with me. Then again, what's the alternative? Seriously, what? Evil ghost deer? Hulked-out Bambi's dad? Elementary, my deer Watson?

I wanted to go home this morning, once I'd actually grabbed a few hours of sleep, but Cassie and Jim managed to talk me out of it. It doesn't help that the twins are supremely pissed off that we left then to 'die' last night. Oh, they say they're not, but that doesn't stop them staring at people when they're not looking. I've caught them looking at me more than once today, turned around to see those totally blank expressions, suddenly twisting into beaming, fake smiles before they turn and walk away. If they're pissed off, I'd rather them just say so.

Worse, I'm pretty sure they've got something similar cooked up for tonight. Jim keeps saying he can't hear anything, but while I've been writing this out (typing away on the laptop he told me not to bring, hoping to catch the barest smidgen of reception) I swear I've started hearing people calling my name out in the trees, just beyond the boundary ring.

So I suppose my question for you, my fellow Reddittors, is this - should I stay or should I go?