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acnelli · 4 years ago

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First Time Falling

This is my entry for the @hpqueerfest 2021. Thanks to the mods who hosted this! And a big thank you to my great beta-readers @nagemeikenu and @static-abyss who put up with my phone-writery (writing time is hard to come by these days).

This story was inspired by Prelude and Fugue by shes_gone, and it’s set in a world where Harry didn’t go to Hogwarts, but had been prepared for his destiny.

Pairing: Harry Potter/Ron Weasley Rating: T TW: strong language, mentions of war time, mentions of drug and alcohol consume Prompt: Falling in love for the first time as an adult (late 20’s-early 30’s) Summary: Harry Potter –Head-Auror and Savior of the Wizarding World– spontaneously asked out a cute redhead and it turned to so much more than he could have ever hoped for.

You can also read this on AO3 and FFN.

*** *** *** *** ***

Not bothering to knock, Ron Weasley marched into Hermione Granger’s office. The heavy mahogany door slammed against the wall, making Hermione jump up from her chair.

“Ron,” she shrieked as a bunch of paper fell off her desk. “What happened?”

Instead of providing his best friend with an explanation for his sudden intrusion, Ron paced back and forth. The panicked look in his eyes made Hermione assume the worst.

With one swift motion, Hermione stepped in front of the redhead, forcing him to stop his frantic pacing. “Ron, please talk to me,” she pleaded, taking his hand into hers. “What’s going on? Is someone hurt? Is your family okay?”

Hermione’s worried expression and the panic in her voice finally brought Ron to his senses. “No, don’t worry, Hermione,” he sighed as he closed her office door. “I’m sorry! But...do you have time for a quick cup of tea in the cafeteria?”

“As a matter of fact, I do. This report is giving me a headache and I need a break.”

Hermione grabbed her purse and gestured for Ron to lead the way.

“I swear, Ron, if you almost gave me a heart attack over something Quidditch related, I’ll hex you into next week and make your new Firebolt disappear forever,” Hermione added as they made their way down to the Ministry cafeteria.

Ron glanced over at the bushy-haired witch, suppressing a grin as he told her his distress was indeed about Quidditch. They grabbed their beverages and headed towards a free table. Gracing him with a dark look, Hermione gestured for Ron to finally tell her what’s going on.

“Harry Potter asked me out on a date!”

This statement caused Hermione’s drink to go down the wrong way, resulting in a violent coughing fit and her spitting out the tea.

“What?” she wheezed out between coughs, as Ron cleaned his face and shirt with his wand.

He waited patiently until Hermione recovered, both from the coughing fit and the shock. “See, even you don’t believe me,” Ron sighed, harshly rubbing his hands over his face, “I don’t blame you, though. I can’t believe it myself, after all.”

Finally being able to speak again, Hermione put her elbows on the small table and leaned forward, determined to not miss a single thing about this story. “Spill! How? When? Where? And don’t you dare to leave out even the smallest detail.”

Ron shook his head, still in disbelief about what had happened to him just twenty minutes ago. Not being able to wrap his head around it, he decided to tell Hermione today’s events from beginning to end.

“Today, Robertson sent me a memo to come to his office to discuss the ridiculous complaints about the Tornados/Harpies game last week,” Ron started and couldn’t help rolling his eyes about the things he had to put up with at work sometimes. “So, I went there, gave him my report about the match and a brief overview. Thank Merlin, he only asked his usual useless questions about referee bribery claims. I was ready to launch into a whole speech but he suddenly dismissed me and told me to write up a statement for the press.

“I was just on my way back to my office when I met Seamus. The fucking wanker had the nerve to claim the next Cannons match for himself. I know he did that just to spite me so, naturally, I gave him an ear full about it as we waited for the lift. We only noticed Harry Potter standing right behind us when we got inside the lift. I probably sounded like an idiot but Seamus and I kept the conversation up because I always get second-hand embarrassment when people stop talking if Potter walks by or joins the lift.”

Hermione patiently listened to his ramblings, restraining herself from telling him to get to the point already.

Ron sipped on his tea and shook his head. “You know what? I read too much into this. Just realised that I’m acting exactly as everyone else does. What’s the big deal? Just a bloke who wants to have a pint after work.”

Hermione stared at Ron, expecting him to go on with his story, but he just kept sipping his tea.

“Ron!”

“What?”

“How did he ask you out?” She accidentally raised her voice but Hermione was finally losing her patience with him.

“I told you, he most likely-”

“Just tell me the damn story, already!” Hermione snapped, blushing a little when she noticed the people on the other tables giving her funny looks.

“Alright,” Ron said, raising an eyebrow at her. “Calm down, barmy woman.”

“You're the one marching into my office like a lunatic. Spill it! Now!”

With a heavy sigh, Ron continued with his story, curling his hands around the tea mug to keep from fidgeting.

“Seamus had already gotten off at another level, so it was just me and Potter in there. I tried to avoid the awkward silence, so I asked him if he followed Quidditch and was going to listen to or even watch the Tornados match tonight. He said that he does follow Quidditch and that he intended to listen to the match at home but if I'd be up to it, we could listen to it at this new pub that just opened in Diagon. He totally caught me by surprise, but I must've agreed because he told me he'll meet me at the fireplaces at 5. Then he left the lift. Then I freaked out and came to your office.”

Ron marked the end of his story by taking another sip of his tea before he defiantly crossed his arms in front of him.

“Jesus, Harry Potter actually asked you out! Oh my God!” Hermione almost squealed, grasping one of Ron's arms.

“Nah! I don't think so anymore. I bet he just wanted to have a pint and was only being polite when he asked me to come along,” Ron said. “Who'd ask someone out like that anyway?”

“Someone looking for a partner?”

“Yeah, but think about it, Hermione. Why would he ask me out? The guy is not only fucking famous, he's also devilishly handsome. He could have anyone he wanted.”

“So?”

Ron looked at Hermione as though she'd just declared the desire to live as a chicken.

“So? So, why would someone ask me out while on a random stroll through the Ministry? Who'd think ‘Oh, that freakishly tall ginger with more freckles than skin looks kinda awkwardly cute. Let's try to get a leg over?'"

“I dated you,” Hermione interjected.

“You don't count.”

“Well, thank you!” Her sarcasm was all but ignored by Ron.

“I just know I'll embarrass myself tonight,” Ron insisted, looking quite unhappy. “Let's go back to work. I still have to write that useless report.”

“Devilishly handsome, hm?”

“Shut up!”

**** **** **** ****

Harry didn't know what had possessed him to ask the cute ginger out for a pint.

Maybe it had been the Prophet article speculating for the umpteenth time about when the Savior of the Wizarding World would finally settle down and make some black-haired, green-eyed babies. Rita Skeeter had many ideas about what worthy witch could conquer the heart of Harry Potter. All things considered, the article had probably not been the worst thing written about him so far.

Sometimes he wondered if he should've taken Sirius’ advice to feed the press and public meaningless details of his life. It wouldn't stop the constant speculations and made-up affairs, but it probably would reduce the paparazzi following him around, the crazy fans sending him love letters and maybe, they would find something more newsworthy than where Harry Potter bought his toilet paper.

But he hated the fact that people demanded this from him. He was 29 now, and while the great hype about him was over, he still seemed to be interesting enough to write about, even over a decade after his defeat of Voldemort.

He knew the majority of the Wizarding World was sincerely grateful for what he'd done. There were so many parents thanking him for the simple fact that they're still alive and able to see their children grow up.

It reminded him that it was all worth it. The sacrifices, the nearly friendless childhood, his secret life away from the public, the growing up with the knowledge that he might not live long enough to celebrate his 17th birthday. All of that had resulted in ending Voldemort once and for all.

When he'd destroyed the Dark Lord and his Horcruxes though, Harry’s hope of finally living a normal life got crushed soon after. In the post-war world, it had been next to impossible to lead a life like everyone else. Because of his childhood and his training by Alastor ‘Mad Eye’ Moody himself, he learned not to trust easily. And since occasions to make friends or interact with strangers had been few and far between, he never really learned what to look for in a friend.

He was well aware that he was complaining about a comfortable life. His parents had left him a respectable amount of gold, and Sirius bought him a flat in London after he graduated from Auror Academy. Maybe he'd gotten this job because of his fame and reputation, but he knew he deserved the position as Head Auror. There was hardly anyone with the same amount of training and experience he brought to the table, and he was under the impression the people working for him did genuinely like him as a boss. Two of them he even considered friends after all these years.

Aside from the two friends at work he also had his family. He had Sirius, Remus, Andromeda, Tonks and his godson, Teddy. He wasn't alone by any means, but he'd never met someone he could possibly fall in love with. Hell, aside from one of Tonks’ old friends from school and her father's attempts to set him up with several of his countless nieces—and later nephews when Harry told his family girls didn't do it for him—he'd never even dated. Toby—a fellow student from elementary school and the only friend his age—dragged him to Muggle pubs and clubs, resulting in the occasional snog or even a shag with a stranger. Needless to say, his first time hadn't exactly been romance novel material and it sure wasn't something he liked to think about. Sometimes, Harry feared that he would never fall in love, that he wasn't capable of developing those feelings for another person.

Those unpleasant thoughts combined with the Rita Skeeter article may have been the result of his sudden impulse to just go for it and ask the redhead out. But it also could have been the brilliant blue eyes, the kind, shy smile and the lean shoulders. Harry was sure, though, that the main reason for it had been the fact that this man hadn't treated him like a Messiah. It had just been an easy conversation, even if it had been only two minutes.

Harry hoped it would remain that way when they watched the game later. In fact, he could just brush it off as a friendly meeting with a fellow Ministry worker if Cute Ginger wasn't interested in anything more.

But when he thought about the redhead’s lopsided grin, Harry felt a foreign flutter in his stomach and he couldn't help but hope for more, even if it was just another visit to the pub.

**** **** **** ****

In the 30 years of Ron Weasley’s existence, he'd never been on time for something not work-related. Today, though, he was almost ten minutes early as he waited by the fireplaces for Harry Potter.

Again, he felt rather pathetic. For a hot second, he considered waiting in a nearby bathroom to pass the time, pretending to get to their meeting place just in time. But then he reminded himself that he wasn’t a petty teenager anymore, and even if Potter found it pathetic, Ron didn’t expect a repeat of tonight, anyway.

He decided to just treat this like a meet-up with Dean and Seamus every other Thursday after work. Just two guys, enjoying a couple of pints together, talking about Quidditch. Nothing special. Nothing to freak out over.

The atrium was busy as ever but he spotted Potter right away when the Head-Auror stepped out of the lift and made his way towards the fireplaces. He still wore his magenta work robes and Ron couldn't help but notice how sexy they looked on him.

“Hi!” Potter greeted Ron, smiling somewhat shyly. “Ready for some beer and Quidditch?”

“Sure! But I forgot to introduce myself earlier, so I figured I'd do that now,” Ron said, giving the dark haired man a smile in return, as he offered his hand for a proper introduction. “I'm Ron. Ron Weasley.”

“I'm Harry.”

**** **** **** ****

“No way! How did he get out of there?”

Harry barked out a laugh at Ron's tale of a night out with Seamus and Dean. His outburst was loud enough for the other guests of the pub to look in their direction. Ron found it amusing how a simple change into Muggle clothes, different glasses, and a slightly lighter hair colour resulted in no one recognizing the Boy-Who-Lived.

“Since it was a Muggle police station, Seamus had to spend the night there. Statute of Secrecy, and all. We picked him up the next morning and filled him in on what he'd done the night before, including showing everyone his pale arse.” Ron grinned deviously at the memory. “I invented some things for good measure. Unfortunately, Dean is too good for this world and told him a few hours later that I was taking the mickey.”

Harry shook his head, chuckling. “That reminds me of Remus searching the whole of London for Sirius, only to find him several hours later in a hidden spot on the roof. He was gazing at the stars and totally stoned. Combined with Firewhiskey, he didn't remember a single thing from that night.”

“Sirius?” Ron looked quite interested at the mention of his Godfather’s name. “Sirius, as in Sirius Black?”

“Yes. He was my Dad’s best friend. And he's my Godfather.”

“I'm just asking because I'm related to the Blacks. My grandfather married Cedrella Black.”

“Yes, I recognize the name. Her face got blasted off the family tree,” Harry said, and at Ron's raised eyebrow quickly added, “Sirius’ mother blasted everyone off that tree who didn't uphold the Black family's motto ‘Toujours pur’. So, Cedrella must have gone against the high and mighty Black Pureblood tradition.”

“Well,” Ron said, taking a swig of his beer, “she married a Weasley. I'm sure that alone was reason enough to disown her. The Weasleys have been notorious blood traitors since forever.”

“Sounds like your grandmother had good taste in men if you ask me.”

Harry winked at Ron, and the redhead felt the burning blush creeping up his neck.

Ron was once again amazed at how little time it had taken him to lose his nervousness. But Harry Potter made it very easy for him. Harry was confident, yet humble and polite. His humor didn't have Ron's sarcastic edge, but the redhead found Harry delightfully witty with a good amount of sass.

Ron didn't know what he expected but it was undeniable how easy it was to talk to Harry. He could only hope the raven-haired man enjoyed this just as much as he did. Harry laughed at his jokes and seemed genuinely interested in Ron's more-than-mundane life.

As much as Ron tried to see this as a meeting with a good friend, he couldn't help the warm feeling in his chest every time Harry smiled at him or his leg accidentally bumped against Ron's. And if the alcohol hadn't gone to his head already, making him imagine things, Harry's eyes kept flitting down to Ron's lips.

When the woman behind the bar announced the final round, they decided to call it a night since it was one of Harry's work Saturdays tomorrow.

As they ventured out of the crowded pub and into the cool night air, Ron was disappointed about the evening coming to an end. Time had flown and he was sure they could've talked for several more hours.

“Would you mind if I walk you home?” Harry asked just as Ron wanted to wish him a good night.

Ron nodded, not being able to suppress his smile as Harry obviously remembered him mentioning that he only lived a few blocks away.

They kept their pace slow and walked a little closer to each other than necessary, their hands bumping against one another. Every touch sent a jolt through Ron's body and he wanted nothing more than to take Harry's hand.

Eventually, they reached their destination. During the entire walk home Ron had gathered all of his Gryffindor courage to ask Harry out, this time for an official date.

“I- um,” Ron started, rubbing one hand against the back of his neck to ease his nerves. “I really enjoyed this evening and I was wondering...Maybe I got this all wrong, but you seem interested, and well, I'm interested too. And if you're not, that's totally fine. But...caniseeyouagain?”

And before Ron's face had the time to go completely crimson, he got his answer as Harry took his hand to pull him close, leaned up and kissed him.

Harry pulled back from Ron's lips, his stunning, green eyes slightly darker than usual and holding a hopeful glint.

Ron didn't give himself the chance to overthink as he put his hand on the back of Harry's neck and kissed him again. A deep groan escaped him when Harry licked at Ron's bottom lip and Harry took the opportunity to slip his tongue inside.

Ron was positive that he'd never experienced something more incredible than kissing Harry Potter. The only things he was capable of paying attention to were Harry and the wild thumping of his heart. And while it was exhilarating and new and positively made him weak in the knees, it also felt a lot like coming home.

Having lost all sense of time, Ron couldn't tell if they'd kissed for a minute or several hours when they broke apart. Harry's hands still gripped his shirt and Ron let his own hands glide from Harry's dark hair down over strong, well-defined shoulders to finally rest at his hips.

Both of them tried to catch their breath and Harry, who finally let go of Ron's shirt to put his arms around him, smiled up at Ron almost shyly.

“Yes, you can see me again,” Harry said, grinning.”What are your plans for tomorrow night?”

“Well,” Ron pretended to think about it for a second, “I thought I'd do this.”

And with that, he leaned in to kiss Harry again.

“I think that's a brilliant idea.”

**** **** **** ****

Just as he turned off the radio and grabbed his coat from the rag beside the door, a loud knock sounded through Harry's now quiet flat.

“Ten minutes early. Eager, aren't we?” Harry said as he opened the door for a tall ginger with a picnic basket in one hand and a broom in the other.

“Says the one waiting right beside the door like a good dog.”

Ron shoved his way inside, putting down the basket and broom before pulling Harry into his arms.

“Happy Birthday,” Ron murmured against the other man's lips. “And I thought I was supposed to give you a present, not the other way around?”

Harry pulled back a little, apparently confused. Ron grinned at him and squeezed Harry's arse. “Thanks for wearing my favourite pants today.”

Chuckling, Harry pointed at the broom Ron had brought with him. “No way I'll fly on a broom in these. Good thing I also packed my joggers.”

Ron hadn't told him where they were going for Harry's Birthday. He'd just instructed Harry to be ready at 9 in the morning, so they'd be back in time for dinner at Grimmauld Place with Harry's family.

Only two months had passed since their first kiss, but Harry already felt as though he'd known Ron for much longer. Every kiss, every touch, all the teasing and banter, and late night talks felt so completely natural, yet blissfully exciting.

“Come on, grab your broom. We're on a tight schedule.”

Ron winked at him and before Harry knew it, they were standing in the middle of a giant Quidditch pitch.

There wasn't a single soul besides them, but Harry immediately recognized the giant Hogwarts House banners from his family's keepsakes of their school years. Aside from that fateful day when he'd fought Voldemort on those grounds, he'd never visited the school. Not before, not after.

Harry tried to swallow down the lump in his throat. The surprise must be the result of one of their late night talks, when Harry confessed that his deepest desire while growing up had been to go to Hogwarts.

“Are we allowed to be here or do I need to arrest you for breaking into school grounds?”

Arms wrapped around him from behind and Harry could feel Ron smiling against the back of his head. “I wouldn't be opposed to playing the big bad Auror and the naughty Suspect later, but this is actually 100% legal. Having contacts with important Quidditch officials has its perks sometimes. And my annual chess game against McGonagall helped too, I suppose.”

“Okay then,” Harry said, lifting one of Ron's hands to his mouth to brush his lips against his knuckles. “Fill me in on that plan of yours.”

Ron let go of him and reached for their brooms, tossing one of them at Harry. “I thought we'd fly over the grounds first, so I can show you everything from above. The castle looks fucking amazing from up there and the Great Lake is a sight to die for when the water reflects the sun.”

Ron mounted his broom and flew in slow circles around Harry as he continued to talk. “I hope you don't mind that I invited your family for dinner. But I thought we could all show you the castle, introduce you to our favourite spots and secret places. Andromeda can show us the Slytherin common room. I've never been there myself. I'll show you the kitchen first. That's where I'll cook dinner later while the others show you around.”

Jumping down from his broom, Ron looked at Harry with a mixture of excitement and reluctance as he rubbed the back of his neck. It was a telltale sign of the redhead being nervous, Harry had learned in the last weeks.

“So, I thought this to be fitting for a 30th Birthday. I wasn't sure what to get you that you don't already have, and I reckoned this might be fun.”

Harry didn't know what to say and his silence only made Ron doubt his plan more. It always baffled Harry how Ron didn't realize how wonderful he was. He wished Ron could see himself through Harry's eyes.

Right at that moment, as Harry looked into Ron's blue eyes, it hit him. In fact, he knew he'd been harbouring these feelings inside him for weeks now, but only now he could see it with shining clarity.

He was falling in love.

The feeling was new, something he'd never experienced, but still he recognized it for what it was.

Love.

***

#hpqueerfest #mine #my stories #my fanfics #rarry #rarry fanfic #rarry fanfiction #hp #hp fanfic #harron #ronarry #harry potter #ron weasley #harry x ron #ron x harry #ron and harry #harry and ron #ron/harry #harry/ron

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buoyantsaturn · 4 years ago

Text

A World Alone (5/10)

summary: Nico was ready to propose - now he just needed to figure out how. He convinces Will to celebrate Hanukkah for the first time in years. The problem is, Nico doesn't know anything about Hanukkah.

word count: 2,304

read on ao3

They’d both been awake for over an hour, but any time Will so much as thought about getting out of bed, Nico wrapped around him like an octopus to keep him in place. Not that Will minded, of course, but he was starting to get hungry.

Will shifted, and Nico immediately tightened his hold around Will’s waist. “Oh, I’m not even allowed to move now?” Will joked.

Nico propped his chin up on Will’s chest and pouted at him. “I thought you wanted to tag along on my day of rest.”

“Resting doesn’t mean we have to stay in bed all day,” Will said, though he was sure that Nico already knew that. “Besides, I’m going to need to eat something pretty soon, because I’d rather not resort to cannibalism.”

“You could never eat me,” Nico told him. “You love me too much.”

Will hummed, slipping a hand underneath Nico’s shirt. “I don’t know, you’re starting to look pretty tasty.” He pinched Nico’s side, causing him to jump and release his hold on Will.

“That’s cheating!” Nico exclaimed, but Will simply grinned back as he slipped out from under the duvet.

“All’s fair in love and war. And I’d really rather keep this one as love, if you don’t mind. We’ve both seen enough war for a lifetime.”

With a hmph, Nico flopped back against his pillow. “Don’t you dare burn down my kitchen.”

“Then you’d better come stop me!”

Nico resumed his octopus hold after they’d finished breakfast and moved to the couch. Sure, it had only been a week since Will’s last full day off work, but sometimes Nico felt like he and Will never got the chance to just sit like this and enjoy each other’s company.

And there was one other thing it seemed like they never had the time for.

“So,” Nico started as he stretched his legs over Will’s lap, “if we’re sticking with this day of rest thing, then that probably means I shouldn’t do any more cooking, right?”

Will’s gaze was focused on the TV across the room as he said, “If you want to be that strict about it.”

Nico let his head rest against Will’s shoulder. “And no cleaning, either, and neither of us can sneak off to work, so… Well, I guess that means there’s only one thing we can do.” In the blink of an eye, Nico had placed himself on Will’s lap, knees pressed into the cushions on either side of Will’s hips and arms draped around Will’s shoulders.

Will smiled sweetly up at him. “Actually, we can’t do that, either.”

Nico frowned. “But--”

“Besides,” Will cut in, his hands coming to rest on Nico’s waist, “doesn’t your religion prohibit premarital sex?” Nico rolled his eyes, thinking, then it’s a good thing there’s an engagement ring in my nightstand. “And now that I think of it, they’re not too big on the gays, either, are they? Man shall not lie with another man, or whatever.”

Nico jabbed a finger into Will’s chest. “That’s just a misinterpretation, and I’ve told you that a million times. And shouldn’t you already know that? I know you went to...Hebrew school, or whatever it’s called.”

Will swatted Nico’s hand away. “Oh, sure, because they discussed the hot topic of gay sex to a room full of eight year olds. What do you think Hebrew school is?”

“Uh…” Nico paused for a moment to think. “Catechism with half the material?”

Will snorted, then hid his face in Nico’s chest as he started to laugh fully. “Okay, that was a good one. I’ll give you that.”

Nico started to curl a lock of Will’s hair around one finger. “So, I guess we have two options. One, we could exchange gifts for today, or two, we can go commit a mortal sin in the bedroom.”

Will hummed, his head tilting in thought. “Any sin?”

“I mean, I have a specific one in mind.”

“Hopefully not murder, right?” Will asked. “You know, since it’ll be just us in there.”

Nico snorted. “No, I’ve had enough of that for a lifetime.”

Clearly, Will was enjoying teasing Nico, because he continued with, “Is sodomy technically a mortal sin?”

Nico pressed his forehead against Will’s and whispered, “Do you wanna find out?”

“Well, since we can’t light the menorah or open any gifts until sundown, then...I guess that only leaves the one option.”

Nico grinned and shadow traveled them both across the apartment.

Will should’ve known it would be a mistake to get back into bed, because once again, Nico refused to let him go. And this time, he wasn’t falling for any of Will’s tricks, either. If Will complained that he was hungry or thirsty, Nico shadow traveled to the kitchen and back just to keep Will in bed.

Had Will really been neglecting cuddling his boyfriend that much?

“You’re going to tire yourself out,” Will called out as Nico dissolved into another shadow right before his eyes. He returned only a moment later with Will’s reusable water bottle and a bag of chips. Will raised an eyebrow at him. “Don’t you even think about eating chips in my bed.”

Nico shot him a look right back. “Our bed,” Nico corrected as he opened the bag. He sat down beside Will, leaning against the headboard, and started eating.

“If I find chip crumbs on my side, I won’t kiss you for a week,” Will threatened.

“You couldn’t commit to that if you tried.” Still, Nico only ate about a handful of chips before setting the bag aside.

“So, I’ve been thinking about something,” Will said as he draped an arm around Nico’s shoulders.

Nico settled into Will’s side. “Don’t hurt yourself.”

“Ha ha, you’re so funny,” Will said sarcastically, poking Nico in the stomach and causing him to let out a giggle. “I was thinking about how I’ve never seen you go to church.”

“Yeah, so?” Nico took the hand that Will had around his shoulders and laced their fingers together. “I’ve never seen you go to temple.”

“Sure you have! It just wasn’t a Jewish temple.”

Nico shot him a confused look over his shoulder.

Will had a soft smile on his face. “You know, there’s a lot of temples in New Rome, and we’ve visited most of them.”

“Oh, sure,” Nico said with a roll of his eyes, “now you’re the funny guy.”

“Thank you, I know.” Will kissed Nico’s cheek, grinning as he thought of his next words. “So, anyway, won’t you go to Hell since you don’t consume the actual flesh and blood of your savior Jesus Christ at least once a week?”

Nico grinned right back. “It’s a good thing we all go to Hell anyway, then.”

Will pouted. “You didn’t laugh at my joke.”

Nico reached up and patted his cheek. “I’m laughing on the inside.”

Will didn’t believe him. “Well, since we’re on the topic, did you ever talk to your dad about getting me a place with you in the palace?”

Nico shrugged. “Well, I just haven’t decided if I’m keeping you around yet.”

“It’s like you don’t even love me anymore,” Will said, his pout increasing in strength.

Nico gasped. “Slander!” He twisted in Will’s hold so that he could press a kiss to Will’s lips. “Or is that one libel?”

“Is that really what’s important right now?” Will asked.

Nico sighed. “Alright, alright. I suppose, as long as you don’t do anything to piss me off, you can join me in the palace. It’s not like you’d wind up anywhere outside of Elysium, anyway.”

Will’s nose scrunched up, a habit that he’d picked up from Nico when he was confused. “You can’t know that.”

“Of course I do.”

“How?”

Nico shrugged again. “It’s just something I know. I don’t even need to know the person, I can just look at them and...know.”

“With just anyone?” Will asked. “So, you could look at, say, the President of the United States and tell me what circle of Hell he’s going to?”

Nico squeezed Will’s hand and tipped his head back onto Will’s shoulder. “I’ll make it easy for you: nine times out of ten, politicians end up in punishment. The other one goes to Asphodel. If they would stop getting corrupted by greed, then maybe someday Elysium will see its first politician.”

“Wow,” Will whispered.

Nico started drawing lines to connect the freckles on the back of Will’s hand. “You know, anyone who fought on our side in the Titan war went to Elysium.”

Will’s arm tightened around him. “So...my brothers?”

“I haven’t gone to check, but…” Nico nodded. “Last I saw them, that’s where they were headed.”

“And…” Will hesitated, unable to decide if he really wanted to know the answer. “My mom?”

Nico took a deep breath. “Statistically speaking, most mortals go to Asphodel, unless they do something really big.”

“I see,” Will breathed, trying to keep his emotions under control. “But...there’s still time?”

Nico squeezed his hand. “Yeah, there’s still time.”

Will pressed his nose into the top of Nico’s head as he blinked tears out of his eyes. “Okay, I think it’s time for a topic change before I get myself worked up.” He pressed a kiss to Nico’s head. “I think we should put on some pajamas and head back out to the living room.”

“I thought we agreed that you weren’t leaving this spot,” Nico said.

“You agreed, I did not. Besides, how am I supposed to light the menorah and get you your gift from right here? Do you really want me to miss out on such an important part of Hanukkah?” He wound his other arm around Nico’s waist and dropped his chin onto Nico’s shoulder as he started fluttering his eyes. He knew Nico wouldn’t feel it, but they were pressed close enough that Nico could be able to feel Will’s eyelashes tickling his cheeks. “We can watch a movie, too. Maybe even that Grinch movie you love so much.”

Will could practically feel Nico’s excitement. “The Jim Carrey one?”

“With the freaky Whos who give me the creeps, yeah,” Will said.

“Have I told you how much I love you?” Nico asked, pulling out of Will’s hold to turn toward him.

Will hummed in thought. “Not today.”

“Well, I do.” Nico leaned in for a kiss, then pushed himself out of bed, announcing in an imitation of the Grinch’s voice, “But what’ll I wear?”

Will was the first to reach the living room, and he didn’t wait for Nico to arrive before lighting the menorah. He was just putting the shamash back in place when he heard Nico enter the room, immediately dropping onto the couch with a gift box in hand. Will joined him on the couch.

“You first,” Nico insisted, passing over the box. As he always did, Will carefully peeled away the shiny blue and silver wrapping paper, then pried the lid off the box underneath. He found more blue inside - fabric, this time - and unfolded the sweater to see it in all its glory. It was the Hanukkah version of an ugly Christmas sweater, complete with working lights stitched into the menorah’s flames.

“This is hideous,” Will told him, eyes bright with excitement. He beamed at his boyfriend. “You do know that I have to wear this to work tomorrow, right?”

Nico smiled back. “I wouldn’t expect anything else.”

Will darted forward to kiss Nico’s cheek. “Alright, your turn.” He lifted a large gift bag off the ground beside the coffee table, and handed it over.

There was another bag inside - a black backpack of sorts, but smaller than the one Nico usually used - and Nico could feel other things inside. He unzipped the main pocket and found a first aid kit - with the demigod expansion pack, as Nico had come to call it - a tightly packed thermal blanket, and what looked to be a Celestial Bronze pocket knife.

“I know you haven’t had to run off in a hurry recently,” Will explained as Nico searched through every part of his gift, “but the longer you stay put, the more I worry that you’re going to disappear at any second. You know how demigod life can be. I mean, just last week, Percy had to fight off a minor drakon that had tracked him down, and… I just don’t want you to get caught empty handed, or get hurt, or overexert yourself without me there to help you, so… Keep this handy, okay? This is your travel-sized version of me that I want you to take with you to keep you from dying.”

Nico stuffed everything back into the bag and set it aside so that there was nothing between him and Will when he reached out to take Will’s face in his hands. He looked Will in the eyes as he promised him, “I’m not leaving any time soon, okay? And I don’t ever plan on leaving without you, but even if something happens when you’re not around, I’m always gonna come back to you, got it? Besides, you are so much more than that little bag’s worth of stuff. There’s no replacing the real thing.”

“I didn’t say anything about replacing me,” Will told him with a pout that Nico kissed away as soon as it appeared. “I just want you to promise me that you’ll remember to take it with you if something does happen.”

“I will, I promise,” Nico told him, and grinned as he said, “You’re not getting rid of me that easily.”

Will rolled his eyes, then dropped his forehead against Nico’s. “Gods, quit being such a sap. Can you just put on your shitty movie already?”

Nico bumped his nose into Will’s. “Not until you kiss me back.”

thanks for reading!

buy me a coffee | more holiday event stuff

#solangelo #will solace #nico di angelo #mine #my writing #disclaimer: im protestant

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cpblaylock-blog · 6 years ago

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Papa

He was a man of many dispositions, flawed and imperfect but relentlessly devoted to his family. I have so many vivid memories of my father as do my siblings and many of my friends. Some are side splitting funny, usually relating to his uncontrollable temper and quite a few recounted the mischief he would find with his closest friends. Growing up in a small town in the south was a gift. Growing up in a small town where your last name distinguishes you as “one of Jule’s kids” was like wearing a shiny new medal on your uniform because you were constantly reminded of your family history every time you drove by the park or other places in town with PEEK written on them. I remember being so proud of the historical significance of my family lineage because Big Jule was a master story teller and made sure his children knew the role his father and grandfather played in the early days of Cedartown. At the same time, it was like having the white hot beacon of accountability shining on you like the prison watch guard following you around all the time with the big spotlight because you could not get away with ANYTHING. If you were shooting bottle rockets illegally out on Cherokee Road or cruising Main Street a little too fast and got pulled over, the conversation with the officer was usually short and ended something like this - “You Jule Peek’s daughter?..........Yes, sir........Well hell, I’m gonna let you go this time and tell your dad he owes me a drink at The Red Dog.........Yes sir.”

As I grew older, Big Jule “took up” golf to have an excuse to spend time with me as he did with my sister and horses. Again, his temper proved to be entertaining one day when he got so mad he threw his putter into the tree on the last hole. When I asked him if he was going to go get it he said “no. I’ll get it later”. Well, 45 minutes later when we were driving out he stopped the car alongside the road and walked around the trunk and pulled out a shotgun. A few casual steps and one KABOOM later, the putter was retrieved (with a little bird shot damage) and in the trunk. Fast forward 10 years when I was playing professionally on the LPGA Tour and this was one of our go to stories for instant laughs.

I know Papa loved watching me play no matter what sport it involved. If it was baseball, basketball, tennis, track or golf - he was there. I remember him driving me to tournaments in Florida, Tennessee, Georgia and South Carolina and regardless of where we went, he knew the best places to eat and usually struck up a conversation with someone in less than 5 minutes. He would usually offer his “tips” on traveling such as “always look for local tags in the parking lots of restaurants. The locals know what’s good.” His greatest gift though was that of conversation. The man could talk to ANYBODY. It didn’t matter if they were a day laborer or federal judge; he would befriend them, start talking and by the end of the conversation they sounded like old schoolmates. To watch him at work was like watching your own episode of reality t.v.

In college, he would “stop by” Furman quite frequently saying it was on his way to the next paper mill. I didn’t care, I was always happy to see him, share a good meal and laugh at all the funny family stories we could recall. He would leave me with a big hug and a little money in my pocket to get something to eat and always reminded me to work hard and be respectful.

These are just a few of the memories I have with my dad. I choose to remember his laugh, his crooked leg for which he created multiple stories of how it was injured, his uncanny wit, and his adoration of all 5 children. His best attributes can be seen in each of my siblings which is a daily reminder of his true legacy. His wit, humor and laughter is in Asa, his competitive nature and work ethic in me and Gardner, his ability to make conversation and friends with anyone in Julie and his empathy and wisdom in Jule Jr.

Today, as I watched him draw his last breath, I looked at his hands and then at my own. The long boney fingers threaded with tendons and painted with freckles, looked just like mine. They were once strong and vibrant but were now weary and weak - finished with the work done on earth. I was overwhelmed with a sense of gratitude for what he provided as a father and thankful that in the end he was forgiven and had accepted Jesus as his savior. He fell short of all God’s glory as we all do but I rest in knowing I will see him again someday.

Thank you Papa for being my biggest fan, letting me play with the boys, teaching me to never accept being average but most of all for the hardest life lessons and the opportunity to extend you grace, practice forgiveness and to love unconditionally.

I love you big, Dynomite ❤️❤️❤️

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poeticsandaliens · 7 years ago

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Fire and Sandstone

Pairing: Debbie Ocean/Lou

Rating: Explicit. For resolved sexual tension.

Summary: It takes two thousand miles and a blazing desert horizon for Debbie Ocean to admit she’s in love with her partner.

It was only a matter of time before I wrote for these two. I’m down the rabbit hole, and it’s too late for me to crawl back out.

Find it here on AO3.

“Jesus, Lou, you’ve been back for two days, and you’re already nursing battle scars.” Debbie dragged a cottonball down the gash on her partner’s palm.

If the she felt the burn of hydrogen peroxide, Lou didn’t show it on her face. “Two days longer than last time,” she smirked half-heartedly. She leaned lazily against the back of a chair, straddling the seat in blue boots to make David Bowie proud.

“You know for a criminal, you have an impressive savior complex,” Debbie said, looking up to Lou’s expectant eyes. Strands of untended hair fell out of her ponytail and into her frame of vision.

“Shithead wouldn’t keep his hands off her,” Lou sighed, too quietly to be a huff of faux-exasperation.

“Ah.” That explained it. There had always been something weathered and just in Lou, the closest the world had seen to a proper outlaw, alone on a horse, in the 1960s film set of Monument Valley. Swashbuckling, swindling, riding on red rock and stealing hearts in spite of it. Her Cheshire grins hid her quiet exhaustion with the world.

“No one was looking; club music pounds out people’s senses. The two of them were blind drunk, flirting outside the club. And he just—” Lou swept her uninjured hand across Debbie’s vision— “shoved her into a corner and prodded her like grocery store chicken. She tried to tell him off, and he wouldn’t listen. And then he was ripping her buttons, and I just saw red.”

“Let me guess: you pulled him off her; he drunkenly squared up for a fight, and you didn’t realize he had a knife until it was already in your fucking hand.” Debbie arched an eyebrow, but she didn’t have the heart to scold her recklessness. Not after five years in prison and a hundred and fifty million dollar theft, and not given the situation.

Lou shook her head. “Not a knife. Expensive bottle opener.”

Debbie pursed her lips. “I would tell you not to pick fights with wasted trust fund babies, but I wouldn’t mean it.”

“I won,” Lou mumbled in a voice like sandpaper.

Debbie screwed the bottle of antiseptic shut and set it on their overcrowded table. “There,” she declared, Lou’s open palm resting in her lap.

“I’m a fortune teller’s worst nightmare,” Lou snorted, examining the wound.

“You always were.” Debbie ran her thumb along Lou’s broken lifeline, roughened from where she had wiped away dried blood. She froze in Lou’s steel-blue eyes, the sharp cast of her frame in the lamplight. Five years had hardened them, but Lou wore time like she wore leather—molding to it, letting it carve her figure like sandstone into something androgynous and intense. Intense. It was the only word that seemed to capture Lou effectively, except perhaps sultry, when she stretched out and didn’t protest when Debbie stared. Privately, Debbie feared that if she stopped staring, Lou would flicker and vanish the way she always did when this spell was broken.

“Don’t get into trouble where I can’t save you, okay?” she scolded softly, letting the corner of her mouth curve into a wan smile.

Lou smiled back, cocksure and brilliant. “Speak for yourself, Jailbird.”

“I mean it. I know you’re leaving again, in a few days. Take care of yourself on the road.”

“I came back in one piece, didn’t I? I survived California.”

“Yeah, you did” Debbie admitted quietly. Lou had turned up at the door the final day of her parole, tanned, dusty, bursting with wildness. Debbie nearly swooned at the sight of her, though she’d never confess it. She reached for the bandage lying tangled on the worn table. “Here,” she whispered, holding Lou’s outstretched hand in her own and wrapping it too slowly, too carefully. She could hear an intake of breath and knew a question was coming.

“Want to come with me?”

Whatever she’d expected Lou to ask, it wasn’t that. Lou was a solitary creature, and had always gone unsaid that her adventures were hers alone. “Where to?” She pinned the bandage in place, trying to sound nonchalant.

Lou smirked again and stood up. She held herself loosely, all limbs on a wire frame. “Wherever you want, honey.” She offered her hand. “Deborah Ocean, come away with me.” And Debbie knew she meant it because Lou said her name.

* * * * * * * *

The desert bathed Lou in gold and history. Her cheeks turned the color of Arizona sandstone; she spoke with a laughing fervor she’d lacked in her youth. Debbie was content to watch her, like she’d always watched, from the glittering sidecar, as Lou chased a red horizon into the night.

“Nice room,” Debbie commented, dropping her duffel on the stained carpet. Sure, they had a cool seventy million dollars between them, but classy hotels were a dreamy mirage here in the middle of nowhere. They crashed where they could find a place.

“It’s not the Ritz,” admitted Lou with a lopsided frown. “But it’ll do.” She threw open a set of paisley curtains and slipped through a screen door to the balcony. (Balcony was a strong word: the outdoor space was maybe two feet deep and four feet wide, contained by a rusting iron rail.)

She stepped outside as Lou leaned against the railing, lighting a cigarette.

“That’ll kill you one day,” she muttered half-heartedly.

“This?” Lou held up the flimsy thing, then pointedly took a drag. “If I want to live long enough to be killed by a cigarette, I’d need to smoke them a lot more often.”

“You used to.”

“This is celebratory. I kicked the habit—only for you, though.”

Debbie snorted and stared into the valley—sagebrush and orange hoodoos, dotted with cattle. One exit off the freeway in a hundred miles of desert. “I’m flattered that you quit poisoning yourself daily for my sake.”

Lou quashed the cigarette, unfinished, on the railing and let the wind carry its ashes. Her hand was still wrapped in a dusty Ace bandage. Battle scars, she’d said, accrued over years of cons and bar fights. “Well, I thought I’d make you proud while you were in prison.”

Debbie met Lou’s eyes and found something unexpectedly soft. Lou had shed her leathers to reveal a pinstriped, beetle-green vest and a sun-freckled sternum. She spread her arms over the rail and crossed her legs haphazardly—no one took over a space like Lou. She never just stood or reclined; she sprawled. She flung herself into surfaces, just like she did everything else. It was fascinating, tantalizing if she were being honest. (Honesty was something Debbie allowed herself in theory, but never out loud.)

“You’re doing it again,” Lou drawled nonchalantly, peering at her beneath windswept fringe.

Debbie sighed. “Doing what?”

“This,” she said, gesturing to Debbie’s innocent eyes, waving a hand up and down in front of her. “Looking at me like you want to devour me alive.”

Huh. So they were talking about it, all of a sudden.

“Come with a side of fries and beer and I might,” Debbie shot back, her tone playful but her expression dead serious.

“Oh honey, I’m the whole plate.”

“That was a terrible, terrible joke and you should be ashamed,” Debbie breathed and stepped pointedly into Lou’s personal space, their lips inches apart. For a moment, they let that unbearable silence sit between them like an anvil. She opened her mouth, but apparently her wits had flown away with the buzzards on Route 42. Lou drew out the silence, daring her to do something. Anything. It was her move, and she could seize the moment or leave it behind. She could play off their conversation as flirtatious banter, or she could kiss her ravishing partner in crime with all the abandon that comes from five years, eight months, and twelve days in prison and God knows how many years of being gone on her.

She took Lou’s cheek in her hand, as she’d always done, but this time she stood on her tiptoes and captured Lou’s lips in a searing kiss. True Ocean style—fresh, impulsive, no time for hesitation, she moaned against Lou’s lips and felt her partner’s searching tongue on her teeth. Lou tasted like fire, like fresh-blown glass looked, melting smooth and hot into Debbie’s embrace. She tasted like cigarettes and the afternoon’s Red Bull, and she kissed with fervor. Debbie wrapped her fingers around strands of Lou’s hair, letting them knot beneath her touch.

She felt Lou’s hands slip beneath her t-shirt and guided them to the clasp of her bra. “Get it,” she gasped, “off.”

Lou obliged, and as they backed into their hotel room, finagling the curtains shut behind them, Debbie’s bra and shirt dropped into a heap on the floor. Callused thumbs grazed her nipples, followed closely by Lou’s kiss-swollen lips, as she felt herself pushed back onto their shitty, creaking mattress.

“Our poor neighbors,” Lou mused with a sly grin, before rolling Debbie’s nipple in her teeth and then sliding back up to nip at the hollow of her neck. God, Lou was something else, some wild storybook thing, her half-dozen necklaces jangling as she moved, wiry arms holding Debbie’s hips in place as heat built inside her.

She tugged Lou’s vest over her lead, leaving her in some thin lacy thing, a striped tie, and a shit ton of jewelry. “Like what you see?” Lou teased, dragging fingers across the inside of her thigh.

Debbie groaned at her touch. “Fuck me.”

“What was that? I think I’ve got dust in my ear.”

“God, Lou, shut up and fuck me.” She pulled Lou’s body into hers, straddling her waist and kissing her again, just to commit the taste of her to memory. She felt Lou’s hands press against her aching clit and curl into her, thrusting and circling because really, after so many years of satisfying their sexual frustration through theft alone, it wasn’t worth dragging the first time out.

She held a half-clothed, half-leather criminal against her lips, cried out when she came and let the desert envelop it. Lou touched her feather-light, the tips of her fingers learning, then re-learning her body. The dying day cast Lou in a hungry light, betraying her wanting, betraying her flushed cheeks and the gentle flames in her eyes. She burned and burned.

#ocean's 8 #debbie ocean #lou miller #debbie x lou #heist wives #Fight me #debbie ocean x lou #ocean's 8 fanfic

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bigasswritingmagnet · 6 years ago

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Split Infinitive (part 2)

Fandom: Mass Effect

Pairing: M!Shep/Kaidan

Commander Shepard was the only member of his family to survive the attack on Mindoir. Though he still mourned his twin sister, he knew she was never coming back.

Until she did.

Keris watched her brother as he hunched over the tiny coffee machine on his desk. Her brother. Her twin. Alive and thriving. The last time she’d seen him they’d been sixteen. He’d just hit the growth spurt that had him catching up to her. He’d insisted that wearing his hair long enough to flop into his eyes was sexy.

Now Keiran grown into his jaw and his feet. He was handsome. She disapproved of the goatee, but had to admit that it looked a lot better than the three scraggly hairs that he’d been so proud of almost two decades ago.

“I can’t believe you’re the Commander Shepard,” she said. He straightened and shot her a smile.

“I can’t believe you never figured out it was me. How many Shepards can there be out there?”

Keris raised an eyebrow at him.

“I thought you were dead. And then you were the batarian boogy-man. When I got to the Terminus System and heard about all the things you did...Kieran, the last time I saw you, you were tripping over your own feet on a regular basis.”

“Hey!” he protested.

“It never even occurred to me that my dorky twin brother could wipe out an ancient race of super-powered genocidal machines.” And she’d never seen a picture. If she had, she’d have known instantly. But she’d spent as little time around other people as possible.

“Well thanks for the vote of confidence,” he said dryly.

He pressed a steaming mug into her hands and sat beside her on the couch. She curled her fingers around the hot ceramic and inhaled deeply.

“Damn, that smells good.”

“I saved the galaxy,” he said with a quick grin. “I get quality coffee.”

She took a sip to cover her expression. It tasted as good as it smelled.

“Mom and Dad?” she asked softly, not looking at him, staring into the black depths of her cup. “Niall? Tara?”

From the corner of her eye she saw Kierin shake his head and her heart ached in a way it hadn’t for a decade. She’d left that grief behind, but with Kierin still alive…

Hope was a dangerous thing.

“Just me. We couldn’t even find Tara’s body in the-” He cut himself off, scrubbed a hand over his face. She leaned against him, resting her head on his shoulder.

“I managed to crawl out of the rubble after they took out the house,” she said softly, answering the question before he asked it. She told the story the way she always told it: in a distant, far away voice, trying to think of it like it had happened to someone else. “That’s when they grabbed me. I was sold to a slaver on Erszbat. They were going to use me as… I don’t think there’s a word in English for it. Arena bait. Gladiator fights are big on Erszbat, or they were.”

“Shit,” Kieran whispered.

“They tossed me into the arena with a full-growth Nathak and sat back to watch the show.”

Kieran shut his eyes, already pale under the freckles.

“I lived, by the way,” she said dryly, just to see him smile. He nudged her with an elbow, but it worked. “And I killed it. The arena had all these spikes on the columns along the wall. I pulled one loose with my biotics. Got it right between the eyes. The crowd loved it. My...owner,” Keris and Kieran’s mouths twisted the same way at the word, “decided I’d make him more money as a fighter.”

She sat up suddenly and took another sip of coffee, her eyes not seeing the lavish cabin, but old fights. Her palms began to tingle. It used to be that they would sweat when she was nervous, but sweat made weapons hard to hold, and her body had learned its lesson long ago.

Would he understand? Her brother was the Commander Shepard, paragon of good, destroyer of evil, savior of the galaxy. Could he stand to have a sister who was a bloodthirsty gladiator, the undefeatable terror of Erszbat?

If Keiran hated her for this, it would kill her.

“I was the best. I made Kat’serash rich. I had fans, people who would come from all over to see me fight. I liked it,” she blurted, eyes fixed on his face. “It felt good. Made me feel powerful. I had a lot more freedom than most slaves, I had nice things, Kat’serash even let me keep some of the money he made betting on me.”

He didn’t look disgusted. There was no pity on his face, either, just a slow and aching sadness. A tight knot unwound in her chest so fast and so hard Keris had to turn away again and take another sip of coffee. The burn of it in her throat made her feel a little less like she was about to shake herself to pieces.

“I understand,” Keiran said. “I don’t blame you. You did what you had to do.”

“You sure about that?” she asked. It was supposed to be a joke, but her voice was bitter, sharper than she wanted it to be. “I mean, Jesus, look at you, you’re the galaxy’s golden boy, you’re everyone’s hero-”

“Keris.”

She stopped. Bit her tongue. Swallowed down the bile.

“I’m not…” He sighed. “I’m no golden boy. I did whatever it took to stop the Reapers, and sometimes that meant doing some terrible things. Everybody glosses over those parts because nobody wants to admit that their precious hero is anything other than pure and perfect.”

“That’s why you blew up Aratoht?” The news report was the first time she heard the name “Commander Shepard”, and she had made a point to ignore it as much as possible. Even at the best of times, she preferred to pretend the world outside of batarian space didn’t exist. To pretend that there had never been a Keris Shepard, that she had always been Kar’esh. Hearing the name, over and over, brought back memories that were only bad because they had been good, once.

“I didn’t want to,” he said, his voice so tight with frustration it startled her. Keiran had been the most easy-going person she’d ever met. But they had both changed. “I tried to get a warning out, but I had to blow up the relay. I didn’t have a choice.” He was quiet for a moment, tapping his fingers on his mug. Quietly, he added “That wasn’t the only time I had to make a choice like that. Just the biggest.”

His eyes were distant, haunted. It was a look she knew too well. Keris took hold of his hand and squeezed, and he squeezed back. They smiled at each other, and Keris knew he was just as grateful as she was for the understanding. This, at least, had not changed.

For a long moment they sat in silence, leaning against each other and watching the stars through the skylight.

“How did you escape?” Keiran asked at last. “From the batarians, I mean.”

“We were in transit when the Reapers came, on our way to Camala for a tournament. We got the message over the radio to run like hell, and we did.” Now Keris’ smile was broad, sharp,and dangerous. “The second we hit the terminus system, I shot him. Killed the whole crew and spaced the corpses. Pumped myself full of painkillers and cut the control chip out.”

“You what?” he yelped. She set down her coffee mug and turned her back to him, lifting up her hair. She’d done her best, but even with a set of mirrors, it had been tricky work. The painkiller had made her numb and unsteady, and even with the fear of slipping and stabbing something vital in her spine keeping her alert, her cutting had been sloppy enough to leave a knotted tangle of scar tissue at the base of her skull.

“I didn’t have any hair at the time,” she explained. “That made it easier.”

His fingers brushed her skin and she had to force herself not to flinch.

“You should get that checked out by our medic.”

Keris dropped her hair and laughed.

“Keiran, if I’d damaged something important I’d know by now.

“Still,” he insisted and he looked so worried she didn’t have the heart to argue.

“Alright, alright, Mister Bossypants. Sheesh, you let all this power go straight to your head. Good thing I’m here to stick a pin in that fat head of yours.”

She poked him playfully in the ribs, right where he used to be ticklish. To her delight, he squirmed away, arms clamping down over his sides just like he used to do when he was kids. He glared at her.

“Don’t you dare.”

She stuck her tongue out at him.

“Anyway, after that I kept my head low. Tried to stay out of everyone’s way. I tried to stay away from people. I was worried someone might recognize me, but if I crossed into council space there’d be a chance someone would see a batarian ship and shoot first. Plus, you know, Reapers all over the place.”

And she hadn’t been free in fourteen years. Would she have been able to be anything but a slave or a gladiator? She had been too afraid of the answer to try.

“By the time the Reapers were destroyed, it was habit. I decided I’d use all those skills I picked up in the arena for good; take out pirates and mercenary bands preying on all the refugees.”

“Well, it explains the armor,” Keiran said in a flippant tone. She narrowed her eyes at him.

“What’s wrong with my armor?”

“You mean besides the fact that it’s tacky? People could see you coming from a mile away!”

Keris scowled. “You don’t need camouflage in an arena,” she said.

“You’re not in the arena anymore,” he said.

“I like my armor. It’s top of the line!”

“You look like a souped-up race car.”

She gasped in indignation and punched his arm. He punched her back. She dove for his ribs, digging her fingers in. He yelped and tried to drag her hands away, and she was laughing like she hadn’t laughed in years.

Like she’d never left.

#mass effect #mass effect 3 #twin au #keris shepard #keiran shepard

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erica-rayann-fagan · 3 years ago

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Anyhoot no matter the different scenarios.. May it even being a baby on the way or however many no matter my love life and school work drama .. We are a family and you are all I have and the only thing I ever did right .. My children.. My life my everything till im old and gray and 73 im here still not dead not to be gotten rid of or ignored betrayed belittled and all these negative things be gone from us and may our family see healing and feel the difference your love Lord makes and shall we always look to you Lord not with our own understanding but thru the understandment of what you want for us and our family me and my children .. As long as we live this life than love your brothers and sisters and be strong .. Yall are grown enough to visit me whenever you want .. I do have stuff for yall always .. All u have to do is push aside the rumors or badmouthing you have heard your whole life and dig deep remember I am your mother and the only mother that knows more than what u do and I welcome the challenge to take a step and change for our sakes.. Call or come by .. O love u bunches.. Lets catch up.. Before we lose each other all together and how sad that would be .. Think of the Lord Jesus Christ our Savior born on this very day.. You were once a baby on my arms and knew every smell and every hair on your head and every freckle and we named them and every birth mark.. We are imperfect and that's perfect for us to be and yes im so very proud we all are of u and everyday is christmas if u ask me so celebrate your life ok all of us .. That goes for you reading this .. Celebrate you.. God Bless merry christmas .. Yall sending hugs and kisses and the spirit of christ with your all .. In Jesus Christ Name we Pray Amen.. Thank u https://www.instagram.com/p/CX7qDk3rk9-/?utm_medium=tumblr

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dfroza · 4 years ago

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has life in this world ever felt like a storm?

have you ever been mistreated by others? have you ever had unanswered questions?

we all have.

and we still need to be able to find hope by trusting in the good. that there is good. that there is God.

from an email this morning as an excerpt from a book:

I AM in the Storm with You

an exclusive excerpt from You Are Never Alone - now a USA TODAY bestseller

by Max Lucado

The stormiest season of my life occurred when I was twelve years of age. I was old enough for baseball, football, and bike riding. I was old enough to have a crush on a girl, own a bottle of English Leather cologne, and know the difference between a verb and an adverb. But I was not old enough to process what came my way that year: sexual molestation at the hands of an adult man.

He entered my world under the guise of a mentor. He befriended several families in our small town. I remember him as witty, charming, and generous. What I did not know — what no one knew — is that he had an eye for young boys.

He would have us over to his house for burgers. He would take us on drives in his truck. He took us hunting and hiking and offered to answer all the questions of life and love and girls. He owned magazines, the kind my father did not allow. And he would do, and make us do, things I will not repeat and cannot forget.

One weekend campout was especially perverse. He loaded five of us in a pickup camper and drove to a campground. Among his pack of tents and sleeping bags were a few bottles of whiskey. He drank his way through the weekend and worked his way through the tent of each boy. He told us not to tell our parents, implying that we were to blame for his behavior. By swearing us to secrecy, he said he was keeping us from getting into trouble.

What a scoundrel.

I came home on Sunday afternoon feeling filthy and shame-ridden. I had missed a Communion service at church that morning. If ever I needed Communion, it was that day. So I staged my own Eucharist. I waited until Mom and Dad had gone to bed, and I went to the kitchen. I could not find any crackers, but I found some potatoes from the Sunday lunch.

I could not locate any juice, so I used milk. I placed the potatoes on a saucer and poured the milk into a glass and celebrated the crucifixion of Christ and the redemption of my soul.

Can you let your imagination conjure up the image of the pajama-clad, redheaded, just-bathed, freckle-faced boy as he stands near the kitchen sink? He breaks the potato and sips the milk and receives the mercy of the Savior.

What the sacrament lacked in liturgy was made up in tenderness. Jesus met me in that moment. I sensed Him: His love, His presence. Don’t ask me how I knew He was near. I just did.

Though the storm was severe, my Lord was near. And I learned a lesson I’ve never forgotten:

Jesus comes in the midst of the torrent.

All of us will face our share of storms. No one gets through life scot-free. At one point or another the sky will darken, the winds will rage, and we will find ourselves in a modern-day version of the Galilean gusher.

When evening came, His disciples went down to the lake, where they got into a boat and set off across the lake for Capernaum. By now it was dark, and Jesus had not yet joined them. A strong wind was blowing and the waters grew rough. (John 6:16–18 NIV)

The hearts of the followers began to sink as their boat was certain to do. Their skin was soaked, throats hoarse, eyes wide. They searched the sky for a break in the clouds. They gripped the boat for fear of the waves. They screamed their prayers for help. But they heard nothing.

If only Jesus were with them in the boat. If only Jesus had told them to stay on the shore. But He was not in the boat, and He had told them to cross the water (Matthew 14:22). Consequently this moment had all the elements of a crisis.

The disciples were exhausted. They had to be! “They had rowed about three or four miles” (John 6:19 NIV). With a good current a boat can cover a mile every thirty minutes.

But against the waves and the wind? They set out at sunset and were still rowing at three in the morning (Mark 6:48)! This was no carefree float trip on a lazy river. This was a backbreaking, boat-bouncing, terror-stirring push and pull of the oars. Don’t you know that more than once they cried out to each other:

“I’m not going to last much longer!”

“We’re not going to survive this!”

Look how Matthew described the condition of the storm.

They were “in the middle of the sea, tossed by the waves, for the wind was contrary” (Matthew 14:24). They were too far from the shore, too long in the struggle, and too small against the waves.

And Jesus was nowhere to be seen.

Have you ever encountered a dangerous, ominous, seemingly godforsaken storm?

Too far from the shore. Too far from a solution.

Too long in the struggle. Too long in the court system. Too long in the hospital. Too long without a good friend.

Too small against the waves. Too small and too alone.

The storm controlled the disciples.

Storms can dominate our lives as well. Just as we have no authority over the squalls of nature, we have no authority over the squalls of life. You may desire to save a marriage, but you have just one of two required votes. You may attempt to restore a rebellious child, but you can’t be sure you’ll succeed. You might pursue good health, but still face a pandemic. Storms overtake us. And it sometimes seems they will never end.

But then the unimaginable happens.

They saw Jesus approaching the boat, walking on the water; and they were frightened. — John 6:19 NIV

The Bible narrative can move too quickly for our tastes. We want more description, more depiction, more explanation. This is one of those occasions. Hold on, John. Before you hurry into the next sentence, describe this moment. People don’t walk on water. They walk on rocks, dirt, and sand. But water? Was Jesus’ hair blown back? Was he ankle-deep? Was his robe wet? John gives no details, just this economical statement: “They saw Jesus… walking on the water.”

That is all we need to know.

Before Jesus stills the storms, He comes to us in the midst of our storms.

He says to us what He said to the disciples:

It is I; don’t be afraid. — John 6:20 NIV

The literal translation of what Jesus said is “I AM; don’t be afraid.” I AM is God’s name. If God had a calling card, it would contain this imprint: I AM. Ever since Moses saw the burning bush that refused to burn up, God has called Himself “I AM” (Exodus 3:14). This is the title of steadiness and power.

When we wonder if God is coming, He answers with His name: “I AM!” When we wonder if He is able, He declares, “I AM.” When we see nothing but darkness, feel nothing but doubt, and wonder if God is near or aware, the welcome answer from Jesus is this: “I AM!”

Pause for a moment and let Him tell you His name. Your greatest need is His presence. Yes, you want this storm to pass. Yes, you want the winds to still. But yes, yes, yes, you want to know, need to know, and must know that the great I AM is near.

The promise of Isaiah 43 is yours to cherish:

Don’t be afraid, I’ve redeemed you. I’ve called your name. You’re Mine.

When you’re in over your head, I’ll be there with you.

When you’re in rough waters, you will not go down…

…I am God, your personal God,

The Holy of Israel, your Savior…

So don’t be afraid: I’m with you.

— Isaiah 43:1-3, Isaiah 43:5 The Message

We’d rather be spared the storm. Or if the storm comes, let it be mild and our deliverance quick. Let the application rejection lead to acceptance at a better college. Let the job dismissal come with a severance package and an offer of a better position. Let the marital strife turn quickly into romance.

Sometimes it does.

But when it doesn’t, when we are thorax-deep in turbulence, Jesus wants us to know His name and hear Him say, “I AM coming.” Such was the experience of the disciples. The moment they invited Christ into their boat was the moment they reached their destination.

So they gladly took Him aboard, and at once the boat reached the shore they were making for.

— John 6:21 Phillips

Follow the example of the disciples. Welcome Jesus into the midst of this turbulent time.

Don’t let the storm turn you inward. Let it turn you upward.

Don’t try to weather this storm alone. Row the boat and bail the water, but above all bid Christ to enter your sinking craft. Believe that you are never alone, that our miracle-working God sees you, cares about you, and will come to your aid.

For all you know He may perform an immediate deliverance. You may reach your destination before you have a chance to wipe the rain off your face.

He is still the great I AM.

When we find ourselves in the midst of Galilean waters with no shore in sight, He will come to us.

The next time you pray, Is anyone coming to help me? listen for the response of Jesus: I AM with you in the storm.

In case you’re curious, the perpetrator’s secret caught up with him, and he was punished for his actions.

Excerpted with permission from You Are Never Alone by Max Lucado, copyright Max Lucado.

Your Turn

Storms are rough. Scary. And sometimes they last far longer than we wish. But, the worst part of storms is wondering if God knows, sees, cares, and will do anything. He is the great I AM. Even when we do not see His work behind the scenes, when it feels like He is doing nothing, He is actually working out our rescue. Wait for it! He’s with you! Come share your thoughts with us on our blog. We want to hear from you!

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exos-planets-blog · 7 years ago

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kpop tag

amazing ,,,, i was tagged in something ??? god is real.

all jokes aside, I was tagged by the wonderful @jinjins-freckles thanks, sweetheart!

let’s get to it!

firsts

first group you listened to: so, technically, i noticed nct first but actually listened to bts first if that makes sense ?? it’s because i’d seen them win their first award for cherry bomb back in june and thought ,,,, wow these guys are pretty cute. but I fully listened to a bts song first.  

first solo artist you listened to: our lord and savior , lay  

first group where you actually know their names: exo

 first song to make you emotional: crying out

by d.o. I don’t know why, but I started tearing up because ??? have you heard this song ??? jesus

top 3

top 3 fave male groups: (a farcry from when I first got into kpop) sf9, pentagon and nct

 top 3 fave female groups: ehh I don’t listen to girl groups that much but if I had to pick, it would be blackpink, mamamoo and I.o.I

 top 3 fave solo artists: lay, hyuna and luhan

 top 3 fav songs of all time: best of me by bts, can you feel it by pentagon, fanfare by sf9

 top 3 biases: rowoon from sf9, taeyong from nct and yanan from pentagon

 top 3 fandoms: starlights, universes and nctzens

 top 3 choreographies: fanfare by sf9, growl (studio version) by exo and hellevator by stray kids

ultimate

ultimate bias group: sf9

 ultimate male bias: difficult, but yanan takes

the win because i love my chinese prince

 ultimate female bias: hyuna!!

I tag @milkyanan @dearlydaehwi @caliboyjaeffrey and @yeo1 because this is fun ,,,,, good luck choosing your ults!!

#this was more difficult than it should be #still #I love my biases #seriously #the top choreography killed me #and the ultimate bias #tag #kpop #pentagon #sf9 #nct #exo #bts

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daughter-of-war · 8 years ago

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Fruk Day One: Angels and Demons AU

----Wrap your hands around my neck and let me breathe again----

For @frukheaven‘s #FrukSpringFestival2k17

Pairing: FrUk (Aph France/Aph England)

Pairing Type: M/M

Words: 4,807

Rating: Teen (Contains Mild Gore/Blood, mentions of death and torture)

Being a somewhat of a saint, Francis felt he had nothing to truly worry about. He worried because he liked to, whisking children away from oncoming wagons, helping them get home when lost, and being quite the guardian angel in both title and actions. Of course, he’d sometimes get distracted by an adult that caught his eye, a flutter of a lady’s dress or the dazzling smile of a gentleman. Of course, he’d return right to his duties, for one can’t be cast out of heaven for simply having a peek. He loved his divine job, and found joy in helping all the children he could. He tended to stay around the north of France, where he was born, raised, and died. The water of the English Channel gave off its beautiful seaside scent, and he enjoyed the quietly beautiful days, when grey clouds rolled over the world softy, gentle breezes playing with his long hair and pristine wings. He’d smile across the waterway, always wondering what spirits lay across the barrier. He never ventured over the channel, content to stay where he was. There wasn’t really any reason to leave. No, nothing at all, except maybe curiosity. As the frigid water caressed his bare feet, he began to wonder if a hundred years of curiosity warranted a visit. Perhaps they did.

Arthur wasn’t a saint. Not just in comparison to Francis, but in comparison to near anyone on God’s Earth. He’d spent a hundred years in the fourth circle of Hell, boiling alive in the finest oils the heavens could offer. It was his punishment for his greed in life, for benefiting off so many innocent people, many of them poor and hopeless. He had been a wealthy landlord, living rich in a manor as the people below him worked. He was cruel and apathetic, his possessions gold and silver, but his heart stone. That’s why he had ended up with the punishment he did, boiling alive in fine oils, tormenting him with the items he sought after in life so badly. But so cold was his heart, after a century the oils lost their ability to torture, leaving scars but the feeling of a hotspring. And that’s why the Devil himself had allowed him the life he now had, prowling the streets of the villages of England, snuffing out lives like candles. This was his wealth now, the satisfaction of gaining an imperfect life for his collection akin to the one of holding a foreign jewl. His face was beginning to gain the most peculiar freckles, a single spot appearing on his milky white face whenever he took the breath from a human. He’d often spend hours gazing into a mirror, admiring his collection of astray souls. He could understand so well the lust of kings, the wish for more and more no matter how much he already had. Perhaps this is what it felt like to discover a far away land, overflowing with wealth, and take it for one’s own. Oh, how he wished to be a king. But for now, he had to settle with the subjects he had. Smiling, he touched his newest loyal citizen, a yellow-white little speck on his nose that glittered in the dying fire reflected in the mirror of her former home. Carried out upon the demon’s face, the lonely woman joined him as he strolled across the wheat fields.

Maybe it was just the bias he had. When his feet touched the ground, likely, it was just his old life’s habits that made him instantly feel evil pulsating against the soil from below. He’d been raised proper, with a healthy dose of compassion and xenophobia. But he wasn’t truly at fault, for the hatred was mirrored back from the island across the way, too. He no longer felt like that, for the most part, as his existence as an angel was one of kindness. Yet he couldn’t help but feel uneasy. There was something, no rather someone, a presence, if you may, that triggered something within him. He wasn’t sure what it was, but it was certainly there. Somewhere. Hidden. He retracted his wings, so that they lay flat upon his back like a cape. The ever present wind flittered through his hair, the ashy blond locks dancing around his face.

Softly glowing, his wings cast an aura around him, and soft halo formed around his figure. Looking straight on, one might have thought it were the moon, but with a single glance up, it would he obvious it wasn’t, for there was no moon in the sky. Dry wheat stalks cracked and scratched one another as he walked through them, looking for a warm place to spend the night, tired from his flight. It had been longer than he had thought, and his back was aching from the gravity constantly pulling his body down while his wings pulled him up. Even the Lord himself couldn’t make a perfect set of wings for every angel, it seemed. As Francis came to the edge of the field, he saw an old house by the edge of a slowly crawling stream. The waterwheel was spinning slowly with the peaceful current. But as he stepped out of the drying plants, the whole scene became much less like a homely place to spend the night and much more sinister. There was smoke coming from the chimney, but no light cast by a fire. There were sheets left out to dry but not taken in, even though they seemed to be devoid of all dampness and the night seemed well in. He walked forward, all too happy to have God on his side, for he was beginning to feel quite frightened, when he saw something move.

He froze.

A shadow slinked out of the home, the black silhouette hardly visible against the inky sky. The figure seemed odd, however, as it looked to have had holes poked into it by a pin held in a shaky hand, little speckles of light on what seemed to be its face. Francis couldn’t help but head toward it, curiosity once again driving him. His bare feet snapped the fallen and dried crops on the ground, making the figure’s head snap up. Two glowing green eyes peered out from the darkness like a cat’s in candlelight. They even had black slits for pupils that widened the longer the angel held his gaze. So focused on staying still, Francis didn’t notice the sillouhete creep closer until the eyes were only about ten feet in the distance, much closer than the near hundred they had been only moments ago.

His eyes rattled in his skull, frozen as a black vignette began to creep into his vision. He never liked to think of himself as a coward, but as blurry green eyes dominated his vision, he thought that being a coward and running as fast as he could would be better than whatever this thing had in mind.

“Lost?”

Francis heard the voice in his head, and felt no breath on his face. Maybe he was just imagining it out of terror.

“I asked if you were lost,” the voice repeated, sweetness coating something that lurked below. “For you seem so frightened, you poor thing.”

“Yes,” Francis responded in English. If whatever this thing was spoke English, it seemed wise to respond in the northern tongue, and avoid offending it

“French!” Laughed the voice, as the eyes crinkled up in supposed delight. “I haven’t heard a French voice in quite some time! You certainly are lost,” the voice seemed horribly amused by everything. “Are you Jesus? Did you just stumble across the water without noticing?” Now, if Francis were an idiot, he would’ve told the creature off right then and there for his mocking tone when speaking the Savior’s name like that. Luckily, he prided himself on not being completely daft.

“Well, I was visiting and I seem to have-” Francis was spared the horrible feeling of telling half-truths when the being interrupted.

“Oh no, you’re shaking! Come inside, love, you seem to be frozen!” The creature took his hands, and began to walk backward to the dark farmhouse. He was ever so patronizing, acting as is Francis would get lost walking in a straight line. The sliver of a moon lit the beast’s face from behind, and a faux halo of messy blond hair outlined the gently smiling face. The flecks of light on the creature’s face made it seem as of there actually were holes in its soft visage, the moonlight seeming to seep through. “Now, now,” the voice cooed, “you stay right there while I go light the fire, alright, love?” Soft fingers gently let go of Francis’ hands, the creaking of the floorboards only making the angel more nervous. The flames seemed to light by themselves, a little orange flame beginning to curl over recently dead ashes. The figure began to be exposed by the light, and as Francis was studying it, a glimmer of light on the wall caught his attention. His eyes flitting to the left, his heart began to pound as he saw blood drip down the wall, pooling in a puddle around a woman. She had tears on her face that were beginning to dry. Francis didn’t know what to do. Did he confront this creature or did he try to run? Maybe he could talk to it, ask why. He went with the last idea.

“What happened to her?” He asked, voice quietly accusatory.

“I helped her,” the voice was almost sympathetic, and Francis began to see it fully in the firelight. The creature seemed to be a he, with messy blonde hair and skin pale as could be, resembling a corpse much too closely. He was dressing in what looked like an old robe, blacked brown fabric covering him from right below his chin to his feet, with little naked toes poking out.

“Helped her?” Francis couldn’t understand how putting a hole in a woman’s chest was helping in the slightest.

“She was lonely and poor,” the voice said, the beast’s lips still not moving. “So I helped her. She’s no longer lonely nor poor.”

“She’s dead,” Francis whispered. He never was good death, despite having already died himself. Perhaps it was because he knew how lonely it could be, being the only one to ‘live’ on while watching others fade away.

“She’s happy now,” the creature whispered, his mouth curving up. “Look.” He pointed to a glittering freckle on his cheek. “She sparkles so brightly among the rest, for she has company now.”

The fact that every pinprick of light on his face was a life made Francis shudder.

“And why do you think she’s happy?”

“She’s no longer alone, as she’s with many other poor or lonely or sick or mad or sinful or hopeless humans like herself. To be surrounded by those like oneself is quite a happy thing, no?” He didn’t seem like the type to be reasoned with. He was a demon, and Francis had become certain of it. No human possessed the magic ability of collecting souls like that, and no human being should ever seem to happy to snuff out human lives like candles.

“I, I should be going,” Francis smiled nervously. “It was so nice of you to light me a fire but I really should be going. I remember the way home now, so-”

“Why the rush? Is it the smell of a corpse that makes you wish to leave? I can burn her if you wish.”

“Please don’t, it’s just that I have many things to do-”

“Like what?” The demon was taunting him now, a soft smile slowly inching forward on dirty feet. “A marriage? You’re quite handsome, are you the groom? Perhaps the bride? Such lovely hair you have! And a robe to match nonetheless!” He seemed very amused with himself.

“Alright,” Francis took a breath to steady his heart. “I’ll say what I think, and that’s that I wish to be out of here because you’re quite crazy. I wish not to join your little army apon your face, nor would I like a hole in my torso.”

“Really?” He asked, almost genuine. “Do you not wish to die? Death is quite liberating, even if all you can have are some poor souls!” He seemed upset at the fact that human lives weren’t silver nor gold. “No matter how many I have, nothing can buy me me my freedom!” The demon was showing his true colours now, and Francis took the opportunity to shuffle backward toward the door. “I went to church, I paid taxes and tithes, I let such filthy people stay on my land and work for me!” His mouth never opened, but the whining was easily heard in Francis’ head. “I’ve even spent my whole afterlife trying to hel- where are you going?” His luminous green eyes were open again.

“I do believe I told you I was leaving,” Francis responded. “Perhaps we will meet again someday!” His foot was outside the door, and with a nervous smile, he extended his wings and flew like his non-existent life depended on it.

“Angel!” The demon in his head screamed, but as Francis retreated, it faded into the distance. He wondered how such a voice worked. He hoped he’d never find out.

Residing near one of the southern tips of the island, Arthur looked out toward the French coastline and wondered what that angel was up to. He had to have been French, the accent gave it away. For being so annoying upset over Arthur’s good work, there was something interesting about him. Maybe it was that he didn’t seem to be disgusted by Arthur’s appearance, like most people. Many of them would scream in terror, or cry, or often both. Maybe it was that Arthur was wearing his robe, which covered his human body and black wings. He looked down at his hands, which were as pale as a dead Scandanavian’s, and soft as an infant’s, but littered with pink scars from blisters and tipped with long, claw-like nails. Most of his body was soft like his hands, except for his face. The rest of him was also covered in pink blisters like his hands, all the years of boiling oils leaving them marred with the pink marks. He had been submerged up to his neck, and the heat that had rippled off of the surface had burnt his neck, leaving a red-ish pink collar-like ring around it and ruining his voice for all eternity. Maybe if he could sway the angel he’d help him out of the holy goodness of his heart. He started to put a blistered toe in the water of the channel, wondering if he should go look for him. Hissing at the cold water, he drew his foot back onto the pebbles along the shore.

About a year passed, society strolling along like always, when Arthur decided to look for the angel again. Oddities always caught his eye, and perusing something like the heavenly figure was starting to sound more and more appealing. He’d never seen another deity like the Frenchman, as most of the time, demons and angels stayed away from the other, as a Holy War was only truly appealing to one group. The thought of freedom from his existence as a scarred and starving creature of the night became more appealing as the days wore on. And for the first time in however long he’d existed in his true demonic, he was aware of the passage of time. Of people growing up around him. He had lived a long life previously, but when he was sent for punishment, they had tortured him further by returning him physically to his twenty year old form, when he was happiest and healthiest, and turned it into the image he hated most of all.

He made up his mind, and when the night was inky black and the water pulled gently upon the pebbles on the shore, he unfurled his black wings and headed toward the shore of France.

His situation was delicate. Don’t be too forceful. Don’t be too soft. Be just perfect. Draw out enough empathy but don’t sacrifice your dignity. Get him to heal you without killing you first. Simple.

Not simple.

First off, there was the problem of finding the angel. France was large, and there was the possibility of him not even being in France, maybe he was on some sort of missionary thing, saving some miserable life or another all in the flimsy name of good will. This was turning out to be harder than expected.

He’d stop every once and a while to smell the air, trying to pick up the scent of the holy man. So far he’d only run into churches, places the angel must have visited. He’d accidentally touched one a while back. He was still trying to get rid of the rash that broke out on his left hand. Red bumps covered the already scarred hands, and likely would have seared a lesser demon’s hand clean off. The scent was getting stronger the longer he looked, however, and as the sun set, he could pick up on the angel’s sweetness. The crisp air of night provided no distractions.

He found the angel in an almost eerily similar setting to their first meeting. The softly glowing man was walking in a lavender field, away from a warmly lit country home, and Arthur could hear the heartbeats of children inside. The house had a faint smell of sickness around it, although it was quickly disappearing. Hopefully this meant the angel was in a charitable mood tonight.

“Hello there,” said the demon, voice making its way into the angel’s head. He whipped around, long blond hair flowing like water in the hair.

“What do you want? Are you here to harm me?” The angel seemed to have a bit more courage tonight. Maybe because he was in his home country.

“Well, not really, but I do want something from you,” Arthur said with closed, softly smiling lips. “I need a favor. Simple as that. I’m not going to hurt you if I don’t need to.”

“And what is that?” He asked. His wings were folded against his back, and he had the appearance of a bird ready to take off. “Why would a demon ask an angel for a favor? What do I have that you don’t?”

“Well,” Arthur started. “I need an angel to help me out. And I have a name, you know, it’s Arthur. And I’ll have you know I’m not that evil,” he started, trying to play up his misery. “I did what was necessary in life, and for all my hard work I ended up with such a punishment so cruel as,” he pulled down the collar of his robe, exposing the red and scarred flesh of his neck. “This.”

The angel looked appalled. He recoiled at the sight of the marred skin. It peeled slightly as Arthur’s soft hands brushed it. Little blisters bled slowly as they were exposed to the air.

“I need an angel’s touch,” Arthur explained. “And I hoped someone as charitable as you could help me, as you are an angel.”

“I can’t help a demon! It goes against all logic and moral!”

“Listen, angel-”

“It’s Francis,” he interuppted. “My name is Francis. Not just ‘angel’.”

“Alright, alright. Francis. Listen, I need help. Do you wish for me to repent? Should I cry out to your lord for the forgiveness he hasn’t given me?” Arthur was getting annoyed now, frustrated that the angel wasn’t cooperating.

“Do not speak like that,” Francis warned. “I don’t appreciate your tone when speaking about the Lord.”

“What? Will you kill me for speaking like this? Send me to hell? I only wish for help, Francis,” Arthur replied. “Are you so selfish as to not help me? Would you not help a poor, lonely person remove a curse around their neck?”

“You’re a demon. Not a person. No human being would take lives like you do. Not for your selfish reasoning.”

“I was promised that the more I helped those poor people, the closer I’d get to getting this awful curse lifted, you know,” Arthur shrugged. “But if you wish for me to take more lives like I do, don’t help me. It’ll just take me longer.”

Francis hesitated. “And how do I know you’re telling me the truth?”

“You don’t. But would you rather ignore my request and never know, or have the chance to stop me from taking more of the lives you love to save?” Arthur could tell his words are having an effect. Francis’ wings twitched, his toes curling and hands tensing up as he thought.

“But you’re most certainly lyi-”

“But I’d owe you, wouldn’t I? A demon owing an angel, not very common, but it isn’t impossible.”

“And what would I get in return?”

“What do you want?” Arthur hoped it’d be something simple, like his body, an angel could justify shallow lust with the excuse of saving lives. Please be lust, he begged the world, be simple, be rational! Be-

“Them.” Arthur looked to the finger pointed toward him. The line it created went straight through his face, through the little pinpricks of light he held so dearly.

“Why?” Arthur wasn’t very willing to let his collection go. “They’re dead! They’re out of their misery! Why would you want to take that from them?”

“I wish to bring them to salvation.” Francis was calmer than expected. “They’ve done nothing wrong, and I wish to let them-”

“Nearly all of them were heading to hell!” That stopped Francis in his tracks. He decided to listen. “That woman you saw the night we met- she was a witch! Lonely, persecuted, all by your god!” Arthur wasn’t lying. He enjoyed the feeling of taking a life like his, enjoyed spitting in the face of the fates of the people doing what they wished in life. He was no saint, yes, but he was a person who’d experienced hell firsthand. And getting to deny the god that made his existence misery of punishing those like him gave him a sense of satisfaction unparalled to anything else in the miserable existence he now lived.

“You- you’re-” Francis seemed to have a hard time understanding that pure evil didn’t exist. All his life, and all his afterlife, the idea of black and white were pushed down his throat. So much so, that it was all he believed anymore.

“The world’s more of a grey, dear Francis,” Arthur laughed. “So why don’t you help a grey being like myself out, lift the curse so unfairly placed upon me?”

“But you deserved it! You were horrible in life, selfish, and without a care for those you hurt!”

“Then why don’t you allow me to speak? To confess to sins? All I want is to breathe the night air again, these awful burns taking the most basic of human rights away. The right to breathe the air!”

“You can’t be telling the truth! I can’t believe a word that you speak!” Francis was agitated. No demon should talk like that. No demon should be allowed to call itself a grey being. You were either good or bad.

“Listen, Francis,” Arthur smiled at the angel. Lips sealed in their curse, he approached the man in front of him. “Just take my hands, and help.”

Francis couldn’t help the instinct that pulled his hands forward. Compassion, perhaps. Maybe a feeling of guilt his mind hadn’t heard of yet. The demon’s hands… were soft. Soft. Unexpectedly so. The pink scars weren’t rough. Just bumps of skin as soft as the pale hands they lay upon.

“Soft, huh?” The demon laughed. He shrugged, a bit shyly. “Suppose my time in hell gave me one good thing!” The slits of his eyes were rounder now, his lips quirked up in a smile. “Now,” he said, making the motion of taking a deep breath, even if no air was actually inhaled. “If you be so kind, use that magic I know you have, and help me, Francis.” There was a quiet desperation in his voice. It occurred then that Francis had no idea how long he’d been like this. Not breathing the air Francis loved, the scent of the lavender field they stood in not reaching the man opposite him. The freckles on his face were numerous, so it must have been quite some time. The souls twinkled, and Francis noticed how alive they were. These people were dead in flesh only. They shined with the vitality of hundreds of stars, and it made Francis hesitate. If Arthur was telling the truth, it meant he was sending these people to hell. He didn’t know what was waiting for them there, as he’s never seen the place for himself, but he could only assume it was absolutely dreadful. The collar around Arthur’s neck certainly meant it wasn’t pleasant in the slightest. Maybe he could put them in purgatory for the time being. Ask God what to do with them later. Yeah, good plan.

Arthur laughed. “You sure are taking your time, aren’t you?” Francis looked up. He’d been gazing at Arthur’s hands. Thinking.

“Is what you say true?” He whispered.

“Huh?”

“About greys?” He looked up into Arthur’s eyes. His pupils were dilated, and he looked at Francis. He nodded.

“Nobody exists as a black or white. Your god, he’s killed so many in anger, and the Devil, he punishes those who have committed wrongs. Your god has committed wrongs, and the Devil I serve has punished wrongs in the name of rightness. I’m sure you’ve committed wrongs, too, Francis.”

Francis didn’t respond. He didn’t know what wrongs he had done. Arthur didn’t elaborate.

“I will put your souls in purgatory. Perhaps I can ask for them to be pardoned, forgiven, even?” Arthur smiled a closed little smile at that.

“That would be appreciated,” he nodded. “It may be too late for me, but they might get a chance. Many of them were good people under bad circumstances. I was an evil person, I know that. I enjoyed what I did, even if it was at the expense of others. Do you not think I’ve thought about my life?”

“Oh, just let me heal you, no more of this talk about greys!” Francis laughed. He was tense, apprehensive over what he was about to do. Heal a demon. It was unheard of. Unprecedented. Foolish. But above all else, it was what he felt was right. Could a demon be trusted? No. Could he be lying? Yes. But there was always the chance he was sincere. And that whatever Francis was about to do would help heal him. And, thinking in the way of the heavens, maybe this could help to switch more demons to the Lord’s side.

Francis’ hands lay on top of Arthur’s smaller ones. He decided to let go, instead, gently placing his hands on Arthur’s scarred neck. He let his mind focus on healing, his brow creasing in concentration. He could feel the slowly flowing blood from where his hands made contact, the gentle touch damaging the fragile skin beneath his fingers. With thumbs and index fingers resting on Arthur’s chin, pinkies laying on the bony collarbone, and his middle three gently touching Arthur’s neck, little droplets of light began to pool at his fingertips. The skin began to heal, with the bleeding slowing, and then running backward, as if it had a mind of its own, running back to Arthur’s body in fear of the cold midnight air. The crescent moon gave only the slightest bit of light, and the soft green glow of eyes wide open cast a glow upon Francis’ face, forcibly relaxed in concentration. He could feel the skin of Arthur’s neck relaxing and smoothing over. Opening his eyes, he saw the green eyes looking into his own baby blue. The bottom of Arthur’s eyes pushed upward in a smile, and he opened his lips. The voice that came out was scratchy, and painful from lack of use, but it was genuine.

“Thank you,” he choked out, planting a soft kiss on the cheek of the angel. His freckles no longer shone like stars. Little tan speckles replaced the tiny moondrops, making him look almost human. His teeth were sharp and crooked, exposed as he took a deep breath of the night air of the lavender field. And as he turned around to leave, he noticed the colour of the demon wings were a dark grey. He swore they were black last time.

#frukspringfestival2k17 #APH England #APH France #fruk #fanfiction

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godforsakenthing-blog · 8 years ago

Text

@duocorpora @incognitomessenger

“Do you have something you need to say to me, Dean?” There’s a lilt of laughter in Gabe’s voice that gets underneath Dean’s skin, makes him feel rubbed raw.

He turns his head against it, jaw clenching. Sam’s just visible in his peripheral where he’s sprawled out in Dean’s armchair. Fully clothed. Just like Gabe. Dean’s the one naked, on his hands and knees.

He hates this. Except for the fact that he doesn’t.

“You want to learn about our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ?” It’s lashing out the only way he’ll allow himself, the way that annoys Gabe but does no real damage. Dean’s smirk is razor sharp, but it shatters beneath the flat of Gabe’s palm against his ass cheek, sharp, stinging pain rippling through him.

(For a second, all the bullshit in his chest fades away.)

“Try again, sweetheart.” Dean’s gaze slips to his brother as Gabe speaks, and there’s a minute headshake there. I’m not going to get you out of this. And just like that, the pressure in Dean’s chest doubles.

(When he drops his head between his shoulders, he doesn’t see the look passing between his brother and the angel, the mouthed careful and trust me.)

“Please.” He hates himself viciously in that moment for saying it. For asking for all of this. For being pathetic and stupid and worthless and-

Another smack, this one landing on the other cheek. Dean cries out in surprise, but Gabe’s hand is already smoothing down over the heated skin. “You’re going to stay out of your head for me.”

It’s not a request. It’s an order. Dean nods as best he can without lifting his head, and is rewarded with two fingers pressing into where he’s slick and open. He’s been waiting for this all day and those hairline fractures in his chest are growing by the minute.

“How about...” Gabe’s tone is casual, like they’re talking about the weather. “You ask me again, and you do it right this time.” It’s the first edge of steel in his voice, and Dean’s shudder is only partly because of the fingers stretching him open.

“Please.” It’s gritted out, against all his better judgment, against everything he’s ever been taught about being a man, anger and shame flushing his skin, making his freckles stand out. “Please fuck me, Gabe.”

Fingers are replaced with the head of the angel’s cock, and Dean is pushing back, greedy. But those deceptively soft hands hold him still. Dean doesn’t realize what’s happening until he hears the whisper of leather against cotton.

“Fuck.” Eyes clench shut as Gabe’s belt is looped around his wrists, keeping them pinned behind his back. There’s a shudder building at the base of Dean’s spine that he can’t control, those spiderweb fractures in his chest spreading fast.

He wants out. Wants this to be over. Wants to shower in freezing water and scrub his skin until he’s not such a needy fuck up. This isn’t right, this isn’t okay, he shouldn’t be doing this. (But Dean doesn’t say anything. He doesn’t say the one word that would make this all stop on a dime.) There’s no warning, just a pop of motion, and then he’s split wide open, full and slick and Dean makes a wild sound, thrashing. But Gabe’s got a hold on him, bottoming out with fingers fluttering against Dean’s hips. “I think there’s something you’re supposed to tell me.”

Dean’s too busy trying to grind back against the heat and fullness, hips grinding dirty. He gets two more smacks for his trouble this time, heat radiating through him.

“You know the rules, Dean.” A warning. His only one. Dean settles, as much as he can when he can’t pull in a whole breath, and finds the words waiting on his tongue.

“Thank you.”

The floodgates open with the words, and Dean is being plowed, pushed up to kneeling with the archangel’s fingers pressing in against his windpipe and his spine bowed. Thank you thank you thank you spills like breath from his lips.

“Tell me what you want, Dean.”

Dean shakes his head, vehement hard. But those fingers against his throat press tight against his jaw and Dean has an eyeful of Sam, adjusting himself through his jeans and watching like Dean is the only thing in the world.

It yanks a sob from his lips, and Dean, God he wants to look away. “I can’t.” An apology, a plea, a need for escape. “I can’t. I can’t.” I can’t replaces thank you, until Gabe’s fingers ring his aching cock and give a single squeeze.

Dean is drowning, he’s being crushed beneath the pressure, he feels like those cars in Bobby’s junk yard, pressed in and groaning beneath the weight closing in. And just like those cars, all the glass in him shatters when Gabe whispers tell me against the shell of Dean’s ear.

“Use me.” It’s a strangled sob, eyes rolling wild from his brother, to the ceiling, to the reflection of Gabe pressed against his back and fucking him raw, in the mirror. “God fuck jesus christ, use me. Use me up, throw me away.”

The fingers at his jaw release and Dean’s head bows, but it does nothing to stop the onslaught as Gabe bends him in half, holds him with only his angelic strength, because Dean is boneless.

“No.” It’s sweet, it’s wrecked with emotion, and Dean can feel the shudder of Gabe’s thighs against his own. “I’m not gonna use you. Because you’re too important. You’re not going to get used up. You know why?”

It’s Sam that answers, hoarse and quiet from where he’s stood from his chair. He walks slow, with conviction. (Sam is the reward, always the reward for tearing himself open for Gabe, for spilling all his guts.)

“Because you’re ours.”

Sam’s fingers trail and squeeze at the base of Gabe’s neck, and that explosion of breath must be from the angel, because Dean can feel it feathered across his back.

“I’m gonna come inside of you. And you’re gonna feel it for hours. And every time you do, Dean, I want you to remember this. Remember that you’re important. That we love you.”

Dean’s long past any sort of answer, just breathy sounds punctuated with each thrust. He feels empty in the best way, like all the bullshit inside of him has been scraped clean.

The I love you may not have been meant for his ears, but Dean hears it when Gabe stutters through his release, grip going painful tight for a second before he remembers himself.

A blur of motion, of leather being released from his wrists and Dean finds himself on his back, head pillowed on Gabe’s quaking thigh as Sam pushes into him, still fucked open.

His brother’s shirt is peeled away, so that when they slide together, it’s skin on skin and Dean is floating, orgasm on the fringes of his thoughts, but it doesn’t register as it spurts against his belly, body undulating slow and easy against Sam, fingers pressing to his lips, his cheeks, his throat.

Over his heart.

Sam’s carefully calculated “easy” thrusts lose their rhythm, and their control, and he’s got Dean folded in half, knees pressed into his chest as he pounds into him.

We’re all that matters is the mantra on Sam’s lips when he comes.

#duocorpora #incognitomessenger #v: somebody to love #no one look under there #there's sin under there #avert thine eyes

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avramisms-blog · 8 years ago

Text

self-para;

two kinds of death.

“How do you measure the life of one person against the greater good? Can it ever be the right thing to sacrifice an innocent person? And how do you know what the greater good really is?”

― Amy Engel, The Book of Ivy

“… Male, approximately early forties. Maybe late thirties. Green eyes, brown hair, relatively in shape,” Ethan examined out loud, one of the Minutemen volunteers noting down his observations. Gently, he tilted the man’s head to the side to get a better look at his gaunt face. His beard was sticky with pink spittle. He could feel the distinct absence of heat through his latex gloves. Bile didn’t stir in his stomach like it had when he first entered this wretched building, but chills ran up his spine. “He’s not… I would know if he was one of the Community’s. Shot once, execution style in the back of the head. Exited just under his jaw. I don’t think that’s the cause of death, though. More like a precautionary measure. There are– like the others, he’s been injected with something. Probably another variation of the disease, if the notes are anything to go by. Add him to the list of Doe’s, we’ll have to… I don’t know what we’re going to do.” Their ever-growing list of Doe’s. Descriptions were all they could have, the bodies… they were going to have to be buried. Where, Ethan didn’t know yet. Someone had suggested burning then, but that wasn’t– these people had been through enough. They could be given the respect of a ceremony. Some final dignity.

They didn’t have any sheets or blankets, so Ethan positioned the man’s arms so they lay over his chest. A semblance of rest. “Sorry. You seem like one tough son of a bitch.”

Sighing, Ethan stood and looked around them. He’d only been able to identify a few other Community members here– which he figured was because they were recently deceased. There had to be another dumpsite. A dumpsite, Jesus fuck, what was this? This whole… This was all out of a nightmare. Something crafted for fiction, not reality. Not any reality that Ethan knew. The walls, their overbearing blankness, crushed the room into a box. A container. The atmosphere itself felt like how white noise sounded, which in itself was unnerving. The general layout of this makeshift lab was like a movie set, though he knew how painfully real everything he touched was. The tables weren’t breakaway. The people mulling around weren’t paid extras. The corpses weren’t going to get up and ask for some water.

The worst part of it was the notebooks. The binders, the folders, the meticulous CAREFUL detail. The excruciating detail that went into every observation of the ‘subjects’. Like they weren’t people. And maybe they weren’t people anymore, in the eyes of whoever did this. Because no man who saw the humanity in his fellow humans would do what this man did. They would not bound them like animals. Put them through test after test after test, be so willing to coolly write down their every reaction. The color of their skin, the sweat on their brows, the blood in their mouths– it was all noted but never once was there any mention of mercy. Of kindness or compassion or concern. One set of writing had been identified by Sinclair– a member of the Minutemen who’d gone missing. The other? Well, it was the general consensus that the other belonged to the person who arranged all of this in the first place. No guilt in those dark marks.

None. And for that, the recollection, Ethan’s stomach did turn. He didn’t have anything to vomit, though, so he just swallowed down the rising acid. These people weren’t even patients. They were subjects.

He remembers following after Sinclair’s crew, bag prepared for anything which was more than he could say for himself. The first room they entered, they were greeted with the smell of vomit and a man shaking so hard Ethan thought he was seizing. The effort to get the duct tape from his mouth was rewarded only with yelling and cursing. They weren’t rescuers in that man’s eyes, only another threat and that just broke Ethan’s heart. He preferred his reaction, though, from the ones who didn’t do anything. Who just accepted their presence, giving no sign of recognizing the reason for it. Who went pliant in their hands, let them pull them from their restraints and went limp when their legs hit the ground.

When he was little, when he wanted to be a doctor not an ME, he would have thought himself a hero. Back when doctors, policemen, and firefighters were little boy’s dream jobs– when every little kid thought themselves capable of boundless greatness. He thought he could handle the responsibility, the pressure of saving lives. Soon, though, he learned he couldn’t. Having someone’s life in your hands... having them look at you like you were the only chance they’d ever have. He couldn’t. He knew, eventually, he would fail. He would be the reason they’d never get the chances they deserved.

Ethan Avram was not a hero. He was not a leader or a savior. But, the people they found needed one. So, he could pretend. He’d been pretending for long enough anyway.

Regardless of his brave face, though, what they saw was horrible. Indescribable beyond nightmarish. And that was witnessing the conditions of the people he DIDN’T know.

Seeing Rebecca....

God, Rebecca.

He pressed a palm hard against one of his burning eyes and forced himself to exhale. She was gone. And, yeah, that was his fault. But, he couldn’t focus on that now. Couldn’t focus on how there wasn’t a doubt that she’d suffered– suffered an immeasurable amount, and known that there was no escape from it. Or, maybe she’d held onto hope that someone was coming for her. While a realist, Ethan did know his sister believed in things. Whether or not he was one of them, he wouldn’t find out.

“You alright?” he heard from his shoulder, and he turned to give the other man a tight lipped, grim smile. Let his gloved hand fall from his face. No one was going to be alright after this.

“No. But, I can deal with it later. We’ve got two more bodies to record.”

“Then back to the hospital?” Where the patients went. Their spare ward, the one they’d made up quickly the day before the raid. He’d hastily trained a handful of volunteers of how to care for the injuries they’d found to be most common on the patients– but largely, there was no need for excess medical care. Aside from exhaustion, malnutrition, and lacerations… Most of the damage was psychological. Ethan wasn’t trained to help them in that area. Wasn’t trained to heal wounds that ran deeper than any physical trauma.

“Then back to the hospital,” Ethan affirmed, and stepped over to the next body. The hallway was by no means where he wanted to do this, but he couldn’t move these poor souls back into their rooms. “Next, female,” he crouched again, next to their second-to-last corpse to examine. With a frown, he brushed some of her wiry hair behind her ear. Despite all she’d probably been through, her face was relaxed. Death was some sort of peace for her, and he could at least take comfort in that. “She was pretty. Young, too. Mid-twenties, if I had to take a guess.” He carefully tilted her head to the side. “Lot of freckles. She matches up with patient seven. Foam around the mouth, I think... I’m not going to check her windpipe, but I’m guessing asphyxiation--”

Every word felt heavy.

☼ ☀ ☼ ☀ ☼ ☀ ☼

Ethan leaned against the window of the truck, head peaking in to speak to its driver. In the back, they’d loaded on the three . “This is the last of them. Drop them off at the cemetery?”

“Got it. Be back in thirty. You and Paul good here?”

With a look back to the other man, he got a single nod. “Yeah. We can hang out for a bit. Drive safe, stay on the cleared streets... You know the drill. We’ll be here when you get back.”

The younger man gave a look like he wanted to scoff at getting such simple instructions, but after looking to the woman in the passenger seat, his lips pressed into a thin line and Ethan was grateful. “Sure. At least this is it, right? We’re done.”

But, it didn’t feel very much like they were done. Far from it. Something was... Nothing was right. And maybe that was how he was supposed to feel-- but, at the same time... No, he was just tired. Tired and it hadn’t even been two days since he found out about his sister. And his Community members.

“Yeah. See you in a bit,” he said, pulling back and offering a little wave as the truck started up and rolled off the curb. Paul stepped up beside him, waving as well.

“It’ll feel so fucking good to bury this.”

Ethan sighed, watching as they turned down the street. He stuffed his hands deep into his pockets, but couldn’t find what he was looking for. Forgot that he gave it back. “Won’t it?”

☼ ☀ ☼ ☀ ☼ ☀ ☼

It wasn’t ten minutes before something happened.

It had been quiet. Maybe too quiet, but the rooms had all been cleared. The Minutemen had viciously fought off the dead that would have wandered the streets outside. It was only him and one other person, who had nodded off into a likely much-needed sleep. Ethan didn’t know how he did it-- sleeping in a place like this. But, he didn’t say anything and reserved his judgement for other things.

After ten minutes, though, the quiet broke with creak. From the back.

There were two doors into this place. The front, which was plain to see from the street. And the back door, which you had to sneak around the back to find, and which was particularly difficult to shove open. Everyone who’d come and gone from this place since Ethan had arrived came through the front. Getting up from the plastic chair he’d been in, Ethan crossed the smooth tile ground till he was by Paul’s shoulder. From there, he could hear the faint pats of feet on hard floor.

He shook the other man gently, and was greeted with a squinted stare. “They back?”

“Nah. You know if anyone is around here? Anyone patrolling or... something?” The squint turned into just closed eyes as Paul tipped his head back and rubbed harshly at his face.

“No one. Why? Someone outside?”

“Inside.”

That got his attention, and Ethan had to press a hand down on his shoulder to keep him seated. “The hell? No one’s fucking here, Avram, you’re kidding me-- You better not be fucking around, ‘cause that’s just SICK. Okay, and it’s not freakin’ funny either.”

“Paul, I’m not--” The faint click of a door. “Let me see your gun.”

“What?” And again, he had to press down to make sure he didn’t get up from his seat. “Oh, shit. No, I’m going to check this out-- you’d probably shoot your own damn self.” But Ethan wasn’t weak, so even when he tried again, he managed to keep the other man seated. “-- For the love of-- What?”

“You have kids. I know you have kids. It’s probably a scavenger.” There was an objection, so he tried to sound more authoritative. “Give me five minutes, then radio it in that something’s weird, then you can come give me a hand. If I need it. I probably won’t, cause scavengers aren’t really fighters.” But, old habits die hard and his voice dropped. “Please?”

He was met with silence. Then, a huff as Paul freed his gun from his belt. Ethan could identify it as a Glock, but nothing more. All he learned from Sam was how to shoot, never really paying attention to the specific makes and models when all he could see in a gun was an easy way to kill someone. it made him uneasy to even look at the things, let alone carry them. “You’re gonna get yourself killed.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it,” he assured, before relenting and giving the other man a squeeze on the shoulder. “Five minutes.” With the gun at his side, Ethan started toward the sound.

☼ ☀ ☼ ☀ ☼ ☀ ☼

Walking down the hall, Ethan led with the gun and counted his breaths. Inside his chest, there was the clawing of nerves. Of fear. He wasn’t all that brave. Selfless? Sure, he could do that. Self-sacrifice for something seemed noble enough, and it wasn’t as though he had any qualms about dying for something that mattered. But, that was if he was risking his neck for something GOOD. Right now, he was just carefully stepping into a frankly terrifying situation. Completely alone. And while he regretted telling Paul to hang back, he didn’t turn around because dammit he was a man. He was going to fucking do this. He would find whoever was in here, AGAIN probably just a lone wolf poking around for supplies, and he’d be able to put the gun down and talk to them. Then, the others would come back with the truck and everyone could leave for home... Well, the Community. It was a home, sure, but it wasn’t... Ethan was waiting for his home, which he really was longing for as he crept down the near-silent hallway.

The first few rooms yielded nothing as he brushed past their doors, revisiting the old horrors of the plain walls and suffocating mute colors. Alone. He needed to stop thinking about that. He wasn’t alone, he was just... He wasn’t alone. No matter how much this place tried to drown him in it’s vacancy, he had to remember that. There were people who were waiting for him. Who would CARE if something happened. Sam. Billie. Atty. Jon. Ethan.... Yeah. He wasn’t alone. He had people. He had good people, which he had to remind himself again as he slipped from the room into the hall onc more.

He wasn’t alone. He was fine. He was okay. This didn’t feel okay, there was a gaping hole inside of him threatening to swallow him up from the inside but that was grief. Grief was human. Grief was natural and loss wouldn’t go away, but he was okay. It would be okay.

The next room, the one that had held the majority of the binders and notebooks, Ethan expected to be like the others. And it was, for the first few seconds.

Then, he was blindsided by something solid slamming into the side of his face. When he recoiled, using the door as a shield to whatever had hit him, he could make out another person in the room. Someone who he’d never seen before, and had just punched him in the fucking face-- at least he was seventy-five percent sure that was what had happened. “Hey--” And with a yank on the door knob, Ethan was suddenly being pulled forward. It was only instinct that had him shoving whoever the hell was in there BACK. In doing so, he’d managed to drop his only goddamn weapon, though. Normally, he’d think he wouldn’t need it. People could be reasoned with, after all. But, considering he’d just been sucker punched before even getting a syllable out, no. This was not a good situation and he was just on the ‘fight’ side of shocked.

Another fist connected with his face, and Ethan got a flash of starbursts behind his eyes as he head snapped to the side with the force of it. He stumbled back into the cabinet, regaining his senses just in time to see another swing. Ducking, the fist caught him on the top of the head and on instinct a hand jutted out to grab at the other man. Once he got a fistful of shirt, he pushed forward and threw all of his weight into ramming his opponent into the wall. The resulting pained gasp was enough of an indicator that he’d done a semi-successful job.

Hi heart beat was in his head, throat, and hands when they were flipped and he suddenly had a forearm pressed against his neck. “Where are they?” was hissed harshly into his face, and he twisted his hands in the fabric of the other man’s shirt. He was pulled back then slammed into the wall, and a strangled exhaled escaped his mouth as the pressure on his throat increased.

“Ca–” he gasped, taking a hand and making an attempt to pry the taller man’s arm off of his neck. God, he might fucking die today. His entire family taken out in a few goddamn months and he was alone. “– A— ah– air–”

“Where did you take everything?” There was another firm push against his windpipe and shit. Shit, he knew how delicate human necks were. How easy it was to crush them. “Where is it?” He could only respond with a choking gasp and bring another hand up to tear at the arm pressed to his throat.

Maybe it was the adrenaline or the desperation, but Ethan managed to earn himself enough space where he could pull in a needy gasp of air. With the oxygen burning down his throat, he shoved forward hard, sending them both into the cabinets. The other’s head hit the metal drawers with a clack. He stepped back, but not before yanking the older man forward and shoving him harshly to the ground. He took no satisfaction in the other hitting the tile, the WHACK of skull hitting hard floor, and instead just leaned against the cool steel of the cabinet. Open mouthed, Ethan took in greedy gasps of air, before he spat warm metallic blood onto the ground. With a wipe to his lips, he found out his nose was gushing hot crimson. It was a much needed reminder of his attacker.

Ethan took a few unsteady steps back in preparation for another attack, but the other only lay on the ground. The man’s hands were clutching his head, his chest rising and falling at a speedy pace. Ethan glanced to the ground, eyes darting around for what could give him an upper hand in this. His eyes caught the shine of it, half under the table where it had been knocked during the sucker punch. Quickly stepping over, he picked up the gun from the floor and pointed it in his attacker’s direction.

By the time he’d done it, he’d gotten the other’s attention. He was now being eyed with a careful, angry eye as the man sat up. Ethan caught a glimpse of blood on his fingers when he retracted a hand from the back of his head, and a pang of guilt shook him. “Easy. Easy. Don’t– nothing fast, okay?”

“Where’d you take it all?”

And it clicked.

Who hadn’t they found at the forceful takeover a few days ago? Who had organized all of this but been somehow absent when they picked through the wreckage of a hope gone wrong? Who would attack him so violently for taking something from this place?

The ‘mad scientist’.

Although he felt like throwing up again, Ethan could only hold a hand to his nose to stem the flow of blood from it. He probably returned when the truck left, thinking his lab was empty. Or, he’d gotten tired of waiting, and from his demands it was very obvious what he was after. No matter what the circumstances were, he was in a situation where he was faced with the cause of so much loss. So much anger and grief and sorrow and WORRY. Someone who had torn through his Community without even stepping foot in the hospital.

“You...” was all he could get out, and it left him like a breath. Like the ones he’d been deprived of not minutes ago.

Sitting up, McMillan’s rage didn’t dissipate. He gave no reaction, no inclination of shame for being recognized. Not one that he showed. He just GLARED. Angry, unguarded fury. Frustration. Such a wild mix of emotions, all communicated with a look and Ethan understood why some patients had been near catatonic. Had he looked at them like this when they didn’t cooperate? Or had he, too, been blank and reaction-less?

“What did you do with it?”

He needed to answer. Acid biting at the back of his throat, blood coursing frantic through his veins, he needed to answer. “It’s gone,” which wasn’t accurate. No, the research, as sickening as it was, was.... it was safe. They were going to have to keep it-- no matter how it was obtained, it was all they had when it came to thoughts of a cure. McMillan had made progress that none of them could have even imagined-- still, he was months from perfecting anything. Far, far from the cure he wrote so passionately about in his own private notes. “We took... we took everything.”

“Don’t you care?” the question hit him like a baseball to the stomach. Quick and something he would never expect. Something that made him ANGRY. And Ethan wasn’t used to being so suddenly ANGRY.

His fingers curled around the grip of the gun. Tight. “You cared? Did you care about the people you killed? Did you care about their families or their friends or their kids or– or what?? What did you CARE about? Because it wasn’t anything here.” He wasn’t breathing. Like he still had a arm up against his throat, each breath felt like not enough. The room was smaller than he thought going into it.

Fuck. He couldn’t do this.

“I was helping. I was going to save us all. I could have saved us all.” And all it would cost is decency. Compassion. Empathy. Humanity. The man before him, with his angry, violent gaze, didn’t realize that. He didn’t SEE what he’d done. What he’d really, truly done to the people he’d taken. How many lives he’d ruined in his mission.

Or worse. He didn’t care.

He might not care about what he did at all.

Aiming that gun at him, Ethan realized something. He realized how easy it would be to shoot him right then and there. He didn’t want to-- no matter what this man did, Ethan would never WANT to kill him. Even if he’d killed his sister, which he did, he couldn’t... That was just an excuse. A damn fucking good one, but blood for blood was still blood. And blood never ran clear. It was red, angry, and dark. His family would never want BLOOD. They would want peace-- maybe not for the man in front of him but definitely for himself. Ethan’s dreams were plagued enough as it was with loss and guilt. Shame needn’t be added to the laundry list of things that held sleep captive.

It would be easy, but he couldn’t kill this man for Rebecca.

He heard footsteps echoing down the hall, slapping at a quick pace against the tile. His five minutes were either up or Paul was investigating the undoubtedly loud scuffle. While he wouldn’t know why until later, Ethan took his eyes off of McMillan to yank the door shut behind him with a sharp slam. Behind his back, he twisted the lock and shut them both in. There was the meaty sound of a fist slamming into the wood of the door. Through the wood, he could hear Paul’s cursing. It was out of fear and anger, because for all that he knew Ethan had been shut in a cage with a wild animal.

... Which was... God, wouldn’t he still think that if he discovered the truth?

McMillian was talking again, but Ethan didn’t pay much mind to whatever he was saying. Didn’t process the heated words as they were thrown into the space between them. Just saw the other man rise up and felt his grip on the gun loosen before tightening even more. McMillan was... He was just a man. But, he would never seem like one. Not after all of this. Not even to Ethan, who was desperately trying to see him as one right now instead of the ‘THREAT’ that his brain was screaming about.

How many options did Ethan have right now? What out was there for him to take?

People would want blood. He could try to take him back, but there was only one way it would end; They would kill him. No, no. No. They wouldn’t just kill him– they would DESTROY this man the way he’d destroyed them. They’d do it for their loved ones, for everyone he’d hurt, for revenge. An eye for an eye. The thing was....

Ethan knew Death. He knew Death and he knew revenge. He knew how natural one was and how wicked and poisonous the other could be if you let it fester. If you let it consume you, take your hands and make them weapons. If you let revenge turn you into a dealer of ‘justice’.

McMillan took a step forward. Ethan took a step back. Paul continued to beat mercilessly at the door.

Blood for blood only made the stain worse. And Humanity had been stained enough as it was.

No, Ethan couldn’t let them kill this man. It wouldn’t give them closure, it wouldn’t HEAL them. They would still wake up the next day with their loved ones gone, and they’d still ache and hurt. The whole in their hearts would get wider and wider and wider because if a life for a life didn’t ease that pain, then what would? If he let them kill him, let them destroy this mad scientist, the only difference it would make is there would be blood on their hands. Something else to haunt the future.

It could destroy them.

By forgetting mercy, by blurring the lines of morality to satisfy justice... It could ruin them even more. Ethan wasn’t stupid. He was an optimist, but he knew society had fallen in these dark days. Chaos and tragedy brought out the worst in people. And if they could act on their every impulse, they’d all be driven down into something no one could return from. A place driven by self. By revenge. By rage.

.... No.

No, he couldn’t let them. But, he couldn’t let him go either. Even if there was a way to, he... He wasn’t sorry. Didn’t look SORRY. He wasn’t going to stop. He didn’t care about who he hurt, only who he saved... He was chasing a greater good, stepping on whoever he had to in order to reach it.

He was going to die. No matter what, this man was going to die.

It pulled him quickly back into the interaction. Like being dunked under freezing water. In his chest, fear pooled itself. As did such a deep regret.

“You’re killing everyone, I hope you know that. You’ve ruined everything, and damned us all in the process for-- for WHAT?? A few people?” Another step forward, and a sweeping gesture to the room. Ethan took a mirror step back. He didn’t feel like the one who had the gun.

“We’re not animals!” Ethan argued, raising his armed hand a little higher. A warning for McMillan to step back. “Those people had families-- they had lives and-- and-- you just... You stole that from them..”

“It’s sacrifice!” SACRIFICE?

“Murder! It’s called murder! I read your notes, you got LUCKY. You were fucking around with something you didn’t learn about first. You rushed into something, trying to fix a problem you hadn’t even really LOOKED AT yet!” It was fear. Fear, curled around his shaking voice, infused in the words that pulled themselves from his mouth like bloody teeth. Because, Ethan knew. He KNEW McMillan could be right. They could have stomped out whatever little flicker of hope their was for a cure, but that... Did that justify all the pain? Did it justify the loss?

....And did it matter, if it did? Justified or not, rivers of blood ran down Scottsdale’s streets. If people kept killing, there would be no end to the stream. It would wear groves in the soul of this town, into the earth and hearts of the people who bore witness to it.

He knew what he had to do. He would hate himself for it, but he knew.

“You think I’m a monster, don’t you?” McMillan asked, his hands clenched in tight fists. His voice, though.... His voice was different. Like he recognized a change. Ethan swallowed and kept his aim steady, right at the ‘T’ of Logan McMillan’s face. Instant. It would just be a bang, a flash. No suffering, no pain. Something that this building wasn’t used to.

Mercy that these walls had never witnessed.

“No.” His voice was tight. Strained. He couldn’t do this. “I wish I did.” His heart beat was in his ears, pulsing in his palms. It was everywhere– like his body was trying to make sure he knew how ALIVE he was. No, this man was not a monster. He was desperate and irrational, but not a monster. No man could be a monster. Not even the dead that stumbled through the streets were monsters because monsters didn’t exist. ‘Monsters’ were an excuse to do bad. To be cruel and enact revenge because... because monsters deserved to die. Monsters weren’t humans and didn’t have the rights of humans. They couldn’t fear, feel, or doubt. They were only made to do evil, and at the end of the day no man could be wholly evil. No person was a monster. But, Ethan really did wish he was. Monsters... monsters were hopeless. They couldn’t be redeemed. Saved. Helped.

No, they were just monsters.

McMillan only did monstrous things, but at the end of the day he was just a man.

Humans do monstrous things.

Good men can do even worse things if they think they have a reason to.

Which was why Ethan pulled the trigger.

9 notes · View notes

dailyokes4u · 5 years ago

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People Are Posting Their Most Embarrassing Childhood Photos, And It’s Impossible Not To Laugh

All of us have one or two embarrassing childhood photos that we would go to great lengths to hide away from the world. But these people decided to brave the cruel waters of the Internet and share some of the most cringe-worthy shots from their childhoods and youth days.

Bored Panda has compiled a list of best throwback photographs for the ultimate cringe effect. From odd hairstyles and accessories to questionable fashion choices, the list contains each person’s bump (or perhaps even a trainwreck) on the road of searching for identity. So check them out and don’t forget to vote and comment on your favorites!

#1 My Parents Weren’t Surprised When I Came Out

Image credits: BoxBopChallenge

#2 My Legs And Feet Hit Puberty Before The Rest Of Me

Image credits: iamthedevilfrank

#3 Just A Girl On A Spring Communist Demonstration In Lviv, Ukraine, 1968

Image credits: xerurg

#4 For My 2nd Grade Photo I Vouched For The Satan’s-Child-Lawyer Look

Image credits: 17UglyBoobies

#5 Glamour Shot Blunder (7 Years Old)

Image credits: denovosibi

#6 That Time In The Early 90s When I Was 12 Going On 54

Image credits: sparkleplentylikegma

#7 In 5th Grade I Was Worried I Would Blink And Mess Up My Year Book Photo

Image credits: wholebunchofbees

#8 I Swear It’s Not Square Anymore…

Image credits: drshavako

#9 When You Look Over 40 But You’re Actually 12

Image credits: ThatSquareChick

#10 My Mum Advised Me Not To Leave The House Like This, Didn’t Listen. That Hair!

Image credits: chunky_rolls

#11 Give Me The Sassy Grandma Look

Image credits: dumbolddoor

#12 My 10th Grade Year Book Picture

Image credits: makemypenisworkagain

#13 This Surpasses Even The Fivehead

Image credits: proffllama

#14 2006 Senior Picture

Image credits: Super_Rosie

#15 A Friend Of Mine Gave Me Permission To Post This Gem. Circa Early-90s

Image credits: Sgt_Pepsi

#16 1996, Olan Mills Calls My Roommate Offering A Free Family Sitting. His Family Lived Two States Away, So We Went In To Mess With Them. I’m The Guy On The Right

Image credits: b34n0fd00m

#17 Me And All My Hair In 1988

Image credits: sheNANAgens

#18 Playing Starcraft On 56k, Strategizing With My Buddy Pre-Bluetooth/Skype

Image credits: RedBombX

#19 My (Conservative Christian) College Yearbook Photoshopped My Punk Rock Spikes Into A White Afro

Image credits: collarpoppppppin

#20 I See Your Uncle From The 80s And Raise You My Father’s Hair From The 80s

Image credits: GimmeThePizza

#21 The Blunder Brothers, Circa 1994. I’m In Purple

Image credits: dame_condor

#22 Look At Me! I’m A Real Fancy Boy!

Image credits: respectthet

#23 Why Yes!! My Vest Was Homemade! Pm Me For Orders!!!

Image credits: Hockeylove

#24 It Was 1996. I Was Obsessed With Vampires And Phantom Of The Opera…behold My Embarrassing Senior Picture

Image credits: TomPalmer1979

#25 Homecoming 2012. Yes That’s My Real Hair. Yes I Spent An Hour On It Every Day

Image credits: shortnblu

#26 1996 HS Yearbook Picture

Image credits: Moose336

#27 Recently, My Mother Found This Senior Photo Of Me From 1994. I Looked Like Nathan From South Park

Image credits: iheartbaconsalt

#28 I Was A 40 Year Old Woman At 13

Image credits: lacylove314

#29 My Uncle In The Early 80s

Image credits: lNoahl

#30 My Attire For Homecoming (Male)

Image credits: supercasey

#31 Everyone Knew Me

Image credits: Treklow

#32 Try To Contain Yourselves Ladies!!!

Image credits: boognish1776

#33 Two Questions: Have You Accepted Jesus Christ As Your Lord And Savior, And Are You Interested In The Deal Of A Lifetime On A 1987 Plymouth Mercury?

Image credits: OctopusSanta

#34 First Day Of High School, I Was Apparently Going For The 70 Year Old Man Look

Image credits: shrewlad_

#35 The Coolest Senior Picture Ever?

Image credits: woodler

#36 They Wouldn’t Take The Photo Unless I Smiled

Image credits: Patsatron

#37 The Triangle Hair And Fake Mole Completes My Senior High School Photo

Image credits: creepypeaches

#38 I Still Don’t Understand Why Girls Just Wanted To Be Friends In High School (2002)

Image credits: PatrickKelly2012

#39 I Had A Warhol-Esque, Pop-Art Phase In High School. Yes, I’m A Guy

Image credits: vaporsynthretrochill

#40 ‘Ginger Hair? Freckles? Pale Skin? This Kids Going To Be Too Popular At School. Can You Level The Playing Field A Bit?’ – Parents To Hairdresser

Image credits: LancingLad

#41 On My Way To Steal Ya Man

Image credits: getriebenheit

#42 A Little Known Fact That Prior To Keaton, I Was The Batman

Image credits: gingerbenji

#43 My Kindergarten Picture Is Definitely The Most Epic Of All My School Pictures

Image credits: manda326

#44 My 18th Birthday. I’m The Goth. Still Great Friends With The Beautiful Girl Next To Me

Image credits: GTBlues

#45 When My High School Marching Band Was Performing At The Liberty Bowl And I Ran Into Two Guys Who Looked Vaguely Like Me (I’m In The Middle)

Image credits: johnny3gud

#46 12 Year Old Me Thought This Was A Great Everyday Look

Image credits: sitonmytits

#47 When Your “Hardcore Tough Guy Gangster” Picture With Your Homie Turns Out To Look Like The Start Of A Gay Porn Film, But You Post It To Facebook Anyway… Millennial Blunder Years

Image credits: Souper_Troll

#48 I Wore This Everyday In Winter In 2013 The Worse Part Is Was 27

Image credits: Pigeonca

#49 I Was Surfing The Web Back In 2001

Image credits: Polensky

#50 I Grew Up In A Small Midwest Town, My Mom Convinced Me To Take “Urban Hip-Hop” Dance Classes

Image credits: poornose

#51 6th Grade Going On 60

Image credits: RICHB0YWINST0N

#52 Guitar Guy At Party: Check. Tortured Angst: Check. Wolf T-Shirt: Check. Ignored By Girls: Check. Hole In My Crotch That I Only Noticed Now: Check. Real Life, 1995

Image credits: mattjh

#53 Was Told You Guys Might Appreciate My Boy Greg’s 1992 Year Book Photos

Image credits: MaxwellSinclair

#54 I Went To School Like This More Than Once

Image credits: Redragon143

#55 Thought It Would Be Cool To Make Knex Body Armor

Image credits: mistermajik2000

#56 My All-Time Favorite Christmas Blunder (I’m Top Left)

Image credits: Chrismercy

#57 Just Found My Glamour Shot From 1995. I Was A Sassy 45 Year Old In 7th Grade, Apparently

Image credits: Boots525

#58 Nothing Says Cool Like Matching Sweat Suits And A Stuffed Whale On Your Knee

Image credits: Nemesis2772

#59 In 4th Good Grade, I Was Too Badass For Just One Wristwatch

Image credits: dcgrove

#60 My Very First Job. Spiderman For Kids Parties

Image credits: agentsblue

#61 Senior Prom 2006, Went Stag

Image credits: grassdick

#62 “Promo Shot” For My First Band’s Myspace Page. I Was 16 And Wore Women’s Clothing

Image credits: howliehowls

#63 Parents Thought I Was Gay. Can’t Say I Blame Them…

Image credits: mrjomanbing

#64 I Logged Into Myspace After 10 Years…

Image credits: SheTastesLikeTexas

#65 50% Khaki, 25% Weird Crinkly Tube Top, 25% Platform Sneakers: 100% Confidence

Image credits: tallnerfthis

#66 Visiting My Family After Several Years And Going Through Albums. Me At About 12. I’m A Girl

Image credits: Kaldea

#67 Titanic, Western, Newscaster Glamour Shots: 1998 In A Nutshell

Image credits: MunchZbae

#68 My Chemical Panic At The Disco

Image credits: aalexAtlanta

#69 I Was 11 Years Old. Too Old To Be Doing Stuff Like This? The School Project Was To Make A Mask, We Weren’t Required To Wear It, Or Make The… Rest…

Image credits: Lillianhom

#70 15-Year-Old Me Was Terrified Of Touching These Car Show Models. I Cringe Every Time I See This

Image credits: Rps99sho

#71 The Shirt Says, “Team Edward: Because Jacob Doesn’t Sparkle”

Image credits: halfarab

#72 Curly Mullet, Thrift Store Boy’s Anime Shirt, Inability To Look Normal For A Picture: 2003 Was A Cruel Year For This 11yo Girl

Image credits: mollieemerald

#73 They Called Me Professor Snape

Image credits: YYZeded

#74 This Is What Happens When Dorks With Cartoon Obsessions Are Allowed To Bring Props To Their Senior Photo Session. Loved Marvin So Much I Used To Joke He Was My Real Dad, The Cringe Factor Is Astronomical

Image credits: kellirose1313

#75 1990 And 11 Years Old. I Just Showed This To My 10 Year Old Daughter And Thought She’d Laugh. Nope. Only Fear

Image credits: swear_words_and_smut

#76 They’re Almost Texas Beauty Queen Bangs

Image credits: 3edgy5me

#77 I Thought Listening To Metal Made Me Cool In Middle School

Image credits: ryker002

#78 I Was About 18 Years Old, And Heading Out For A Night On The Town. Please Note The Nose Ring- It Was Stuck On With Superglue

Image credits: Frankie_Said

#79 I Thought The Other Kindergarteners Were Calling Me “Becky.” It Was “Bucky.” Thank God For Braces

Image credits: SunglowSky

#80 My Senior Pic Makes Me Cringe So Good

Image credits: kingmidusthetightest

#81 I Had To Bribe The School Photographer To Let Me Do This My Senior Year

Image credits: jaybeaster

#82 The Look Of Disappointment On My Mom’s Face As I “Egyptian Dance” With My New Haircut (Because Of Lice)

Image credits: vas-deferens

#83 Just One Of My Yearbook Photos

Image credits: 5in1K

#84 My Senior Yearbook Photo.. It Was 2002, Frosted Tips And N*sync Were Actually Cool…

Image credits: CatMaster3000

#85 America Was Always Great

Image credits: StumpyWombat13

#86 Nothing Smoother Than Singing The Quadratic Formula

Image credits: PutmickJ

#87 Why Why Why? Am I Boy Or Girl? Why The Balloons? I Made That Shirt. Holy Hell ??

Image credits: teatsfortots

#88 Since We’re Digging Through Myspace

Image credits: NIsaid

#89 I Was 12, Misunderstood, And Forced To Go To A Nascar Race With My Family. I Wore This In The Sweltering Heat

Image credits: enohes

#90 Caught Somewhere Between The “Emo” Phase And The Boy Band Phase- Here’s Me On My Way To A Jonas Brothers Concert (2008)

Image credits: theblushingwanderer

#91 Zing! (Made It Myself And Put It As My Fb Profile Pic)

Image credits: RandySNewman

#92 This Gem Is Hanging In My Mom’s Hallway, Reminding Me Every Time I Visit Just How Cringeworthy I Was In 2005

Image credits: HellBitch77

#93 Reel Me In, Boyz

Image credits: als_pals

#94 My Huge Pants Helped Me Sail Into Y2k, I Was 16 And I Should Have Known Better

Image credits: kittyshapes

#95 Painful To Share But I Thought I Was A Badass In Middle School

Image credits: aryafenrir

#96 My First Driver’s License Photo

Image credits: __rosebud__

#97 Senior Photo With Model Cars That Was Supposed To Be ‘Just For Mom’ – Ended Up In Widespread Circulation

Image credits: mozilathelaptopkilla

#98 My Nickname In School Was Spock ?

Image credits: Eraser-Head

#99 I Was 16 Years Old In 1987

Image credits: spinxter

#100 The Time In Sixth Grade When I Thought It Was Cool To Wear My Naruto Headband Everywhere – Even To School

Image credits: coreyk_21

#101 She’s A Maneater

Image credits: 0ldBloody0range

#102 Get In Line, Fellas

Image credits: sassuhhfras

#103 In Highschool, I Liked To Climb And Wear XXL Shirts Even Though I Weighed 120lbs

Image credits: thedailycheeze

#104 So, I Graduated In And On 92

Image credits: StriKamau

#105 Bowl Cut✔️ Gameboy✔️ Inflatable Furniture ✔️ 90’s Were Awesome

Image credits: ghornthewind

#106 This Is What Happened When Ten Years Old Me Started Watching America’s Next Top Model

Image credits: tuckermapocker

#107 This Picture Of My Mom And I. This Was 2000

Image credits: ginga_gingaa

#108 Summer 02 Was Hot Hot Hot!

Image credits: SnaxwellP

#109 Right Before A Brutal Transfer From Homeschool To Public School Circa 2007

Image credits: theflyingskunk

#110 That Time I Wore Moon Shoes Into Meijer

Image credits: fartybuttdart

#111 Last Time I Ever Went To Supercuts

Image credits: Tusklord

#112 For My 30th Birthday, Figured I’d Share My Senior Photo. Class Of 05 Represent!

Image credits: inablimp

#113 I Used To Wonder Why I Was Bullied So Much

Image credits: iTriggz

#114 Being A Rad Dude Is Serious Business

Image credits: dirk558

#115 Its A Pillow, Its A Pet, Its 8 Years Later & Im Full Of Regret

Image credits: UncomplimentaryBias

#116 My Friend When He Was Younger. Unfortunately He’s Lost His Sense Of Style Since Then

Image credits: Twoshae

#117 In Fourth Grade All I Wanted Was To Marry Jtt

Image credits: snarkyshan

#118 Had My Grandma Take This Pic Of Me In 99/00 For My “GF” I Met In An AOL Chat Room

Image credits: BushwickSpill

#119 Me (In Red) And My Much More Photogenic Older Brother. Probably Around 3rd Grade

Image credits: nathanfromtexas

#120 Age 13 And My Life Goal Was To Lead A Myspace Follow Train

Image credits: SoupPlox

#121 My Christmas Gift To This Group, My Pleather Jacket At Homecoming In 2002

Image credits: rfallon1

#122 My Mom Wasn’t Thrilled That She Had To Pay Lifetouch For This Documentation Of Her 8th Grader’s Pokémon Love

Image credits: chickenstripa

#123 I Thought I Was At The Peak Of Style. Tipping Fedora, ✔️. Orange Hair, ✔️. Plaid Trench Coat With Suit Jacket And T Shirt Underneath,✔️ . I Was A Female Neckbeard In 2007

Image credits: lizlemonkush

#124 Back In 2011 When I Thought Wearing The 3d Glasses Without The Lenses Was The Cool Thing To Do

Image credits: Raasiboi

#125 7th Grade With My Mom Glasses

Image credits: Poopsmash78

#126 Not Only Did I Take A Mop To Prom, I Wore Icp Face Paint On School Picture Day In 2002

Image credits: thelemonx

#127 I Took A “Photo Shoot” With All Photos Like This And Thought I Was So Cool, This Was Also My Profile Picture For Far Too Long

Image credits: maybrad

#128 Sup Ladies… Circa 1997

Image credits: gethuge

#129 1986 In Texas, Complete With Pinch- Rolled Jeans And Hi-Top Reeboks

Image credits: mcknazzy

#130 I Was Bernard The Elf In 9th Grade…

Image credits: schants

#131 As An Eighth Grader, I Was 2edgy4u

Image credits: assbuttsarecool

#132 My Fiancé Got This Leather Jacket When He Was 14. So Naturally He Got His Mom To Do A Photoshoot In His Room

Image credits: justinemelissa

#133 Double Trouble

Image credits: docellisdee

#134 Gloomy Goth In 2007

Image credits: ControlTheStorm

#135 12 In 1

Image credits: AdamLavigueur

#136 My Hillbilly Years

Image credits: criminy_crimini

#137 Myspace Was One Hell Of A Drug. 2007. Age 14

Image credits: kittenlomein

#138 I Captioned This “My Fricken Sweet Blue Hair” On Facebook. I Was 14

Image credits: thegeekman

#139 Me 16 Years Ago

Image credits: silence_the_reaper

#140 I Was Pretty Much The Typical Neckbeard In Middle School. Fedora, Bad Fashion Sense, Unironic Use Of “M’lady”, The “Inquisitive Mind” Pose, And Glasses With Flaming Skulls On The Frames. Yeesh

Image credits: TwinMonkeys

#141 2011. I Have So Many Of These… All On My Facebook

Image credits: EICzerofour

#142 My Wife Loved Aaron Carter [2002]

Image credits: empw

#143 Thought It Would Look Good To Have Cornrows But It Got Too Painful About Halfway Through

Image credits: jesser722

#144 Live Long And Prosper. I Was 14

Image credits: Seuix

#145 I Had To Dress Up To Do A Speech

Image credits: ZnKayy

#146 The Time I Went To Egypt With A Cleopatra Style Haircut

Image credits: hkfortyrevan

from https://dailyjokes4u.com/people-are-posting-their-most-embarrassing-childhood-photos-and-its-impossible-not-to-laugh/

#700-page #awkward pictures #childhood #childhood photos #childhood pictures #embarrassing photos #Fu

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