#have spent like the whole day smoking weed to deal with pain and watching the bees

[milkweedman]

Discovered that the bees around here really love the buckthorn trees while they're flowering. I dragged a lawn chair under them and have spent a significant portion of the day sitting under them, staring up at the leaves, watching the bees from quite close, and listening to the loud insect hum.

The underside of buckthorn leaves is very beautiful.

[demigodreading]

Saving Mini Benson Pt:1

Request: From @youngjusticeimaginesus​:  Hi, I was wondering If maybe you'd be willing to do a oneshot where Olivia's daughter gets kidnapped by Lewis instead of Olivia?

Summary: That’s right my favorite peoples... This is going to be a two part mini series because there was no way everything that I needed to say could be done in a one-shot! I won’t go into much because I don’t want to give it away but please note THIS PART IS A DOOZY! The next one may be worse but still this arc made me cry in the show and I cried writing this

Characters: Olivia Benson, Fin Tutuola, Amanda Rollins, Nick Amaro, William Lewis, Donald Cragen, Reader

Relationships: Olivia Benson x Daughter! Reader

Warnings: MAJOR Violence, Guns, Cigarette Burns, Episode Spoilers, Alcohol, Smoking Weed, Mentions of Shootings, Death, William Lewis, Mentions of torture... (I Think that covers it but if it doesn’t please let me know)

Word Count: 2320 (Like I said.. there was no way this was gonna be just a oneshot.)

And with that all being said: Let’s jump into it.

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Olivia and her daughter rarely fought but when they did neither one wanted to admit the other one was right. Olivia loved and hated her daughter for being so similar to her. Even now as she watched the miniature version of herself stalk the interview room the exact same way she would send her heart racing. Usually the similarities would result in a smile but not today. Today Olivia’s vision was a deep red as she confronted her daughter.

“Y/N you were caught smoking weed underneath the bleachers during class! So not only did you break one rule you broke two!” Olivia shouted, folding her arms.

“Wow glad that you know how to count,” Y/N mumbled looking out the window.

“What did you just say to me?”

“Look mom I just don’t get what the big deal is? It was one joint. One class!” Y/N retorted, throwing her hands up, “I am a straight A student who has a full ride scholarship to Harvard.”

“Yes, because Barba stuck his neck out on the line for you and put in a glowing recommendation,” Olivia spat, “What you did was careless. You could have ruined everything that was given to you.”

“You know for once in your life could you ever be fucking proud of me! I do everything that I can do to make you proud and yet at the end of the day I am never fucking good enough for you.”

“That’s not…” Olivia went to argue but was interrupted by Cragen opening the door.

“Olivia we got a problem. I need you right now,” He said, then shut the door without waiting for an answer.

“Just go save another poor unfortunate soul mom. Don’t worry about your daughter.  I’ll pick up my own pieces like I always do,” Y/N said, wiping tears from her face as she grabbed her coat.

Y/N stormed from the room before Olivia could stop her. She made her way through the precinct eyes trained to the floor as her mother’s voice rang out, “You better head straight home Y/N!  We are not done having this conversation and you are grounded!”

Choosing not to say anything, Y/N merely raised her hand in the air flipping her mother off before the doors shut with a loud slam behind her. Tears made dark spots on the concrete as Y/N made her way back to their apartment. Even the noises of the constant car honks and people screaming couldn’t drown out the voices in her head today. Failure. Waste of space. Stupid. No one. Unwanted. Unloved. 

It was the repeated song that kept her feet moving forward until she finally placed her key in the lock. She threw her bag by the kitchen island and threw her keys on the counter. She was about to turn on the living room light when a noise caught her attention. 

“Hello? Hello?”

As she turned the corner her vision was filled with the sight of a gun pointed right at her temple. A smirk crossed William Lewis’ face as he looked at Y/N, “Ah welcome home Little Benson. I was hoping that it would be your mother who was walking through the door but I guess you will have to do.”

Y/N went to scream but instead Lewis jammed the gun against her throat, “I wouldn’t do that if I were you. One small slip of my finger and your mom will be left with a new kind of art all over her walls.”

Y/N let a single tear roll down her face before Lewis’ gun made contact with her skull and the whole world went black.

-----------------------------------------------------------

Olivia had already tried to call Y/N twice but it kept going straight to voicemail. The last known location had been their apartment so at least she had the sense to head straight home. The guilt in Olivia’s stomach was insurmountable. Watching her daughter explain that she never felt like she lived up to her standards. Olivia had promised herself when she had Y/N she would never end up like her mother. Yet there she was shaming her child for one mistake. Y/N was more than just a good kid, she was excellent. She was smart, beautiful, humorous, kind, and so much more. She was everything Olivia could have ever hoped for. Knowing that her daughter thought she wasn’t proud was the worst pain she could have.

After the third call Olivia finally decided to leave a voicemail, “Y/N I know you are mad but I need you to know something. I am proud of you and will always be proud of you. You are the best daughter and the most amazing human. I was rough on you early. Please let’s talk through this. I’ll be home soon with your favorite Chinese. Just don’t do anything stupid? I love you.”

When she hung up the phone she placed her head in her hands and let out a large sigh. Fin placed a reassuring hand on her back, “Liv, it is going to be okay. She is just being a teenager.”

“No Fin, you should have seen her. It was like I was physically taking her heart out and ripping it in front of her. I should have never said those things. I didn’t mean any of them… I was just upset.”

“She knows, they always know.”

Olivia merely shook her head and began to gather her things to head home. She walked out of the precinct without a goodbye and headed down the street to Y/N’s favorite Chinese place. They knew what she was going to order as soon as she walked in the door asking where Y/N was. Liv pushed off their question and scrolled through her phone as she waited for the food. Y/N’s phone was still off giving Olivia an eerie feeling as she finished the walk to the apartment. 

Once inside she noticed Y/N’s bag on the floor and her keys on the counter. There was a sudden rush of cold air that made her notice the window that was open to the fire escape. She shut it quickly and then moved to Y/N’s room. The door was still open with everything the way she had left it that morning. Once her calls were unanswered Olivia opened the window again crawling onto the fire escape. Sometimes Y/N would go to the roof to watch the sun slowly crawl behind the buildings.When she reached the top however she was met with an unsettling emptiness. 

Olivia reached for her phone to call the only person who was able to calm her anxiety lately, “Amaro, Y/N isn’t here. I can’t find her. What if something happened to her?”

“She probably just went to a friend’s house to get away,” Amaro replied stirring the contents of his drink, “She will be back in the morning just to relax. Sleep off the anger and come back with a clear head tomorrow.”

Liv pondered this suggestion over and over deciding what she should do. When the silence became too long Amaro interjected again, “Liv, I’m serious. You two had the biggest blow out that I have seen in awhile. Give her time to be mad at you and think. If you smother her she might only push further away from you.” She thanked her partner for the advice and then shoved her phone back in her pocket taking a sweep of the roof once again. Finally she slowly made her way back to the apartment shutting the window with a slam before locking it. Olivia wandered over to the kitchen moving the cereal that covered the top of the fridge to get to her secret cupboard. From the opening she pulled a large bottle of her favorite red wine. She popped the cork and decided to forgo a cup taking a long swig directly from the green glass. A large sigh escaped her lips as she plopped down on the couch going over the events of the day in her head.

As the contents of the bottle slowly drained till there was nothing else Olivia realized her fears were all coming true. She was becoming her mother. A woman she never once wanted to be. Three empty bottles later she finally curled under Y/N’s sheets crying into her pillow until she finally was able to fall asleep.

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The next morning when Y/N did not return and her phone was still shut down all bets were off. Olivia was furious but more importantly she was terrified. Something was horribly wrong. Her morning was spent talking to Y/N’s two best friends and searching their houses for her. When that search was unsuccessful Olivia went to the school hoping Y/N had gone there. However, she had been absent all day and there hadn’t even been a call to excuse her from the day. 

When the morning bled into the afternoon Olivia was running around the city to all of Y/N’s usual hangout spots. The search of the library told her that Y/N hadn’t been there in over a week. The local bakery hadn’t seen her in three days. The coffee shop where Y/N always bought Olivia’s coffee when she came to see her at work had seen her two mornings ago but nothing since then. Even the old lady that had Y/N over twice a week to help her with errands and chores around the house hadn’t seen her. 

It was dark by the time that Olivia fell into her desk chair at the precinct. With her head in her hands she let the tears fall. A whole day was gone and there was still no sign of her daughter. If she had been kidnapped they were running out of time and losing it quickly. The longer she was out there the longer the person had to get away with whatever they wanted.

The squad huddled around in Cragen’s office looking at Olivia curled over her desk. Rollins was the first one to speak, “I bet you Lewis has something to do with this.”

“And what makes you think that?” Amaro asked, “There are plenty of people who could have a vendetta against Liv.”

“It’s just a feeling.”

“Yeah well have you ever considered the idea that maybe Y/N just ran away,” Amaro retorted.

Fin, Cragen, and Amanda all turned towards Amaro, shocked. Cragen was the first one to speak, “I know you haven’t been here long Amaro but this isn’t Y/N. Something is horribly wrong and we are going to figure out what is going on. Fin and Amanda go check out Lewis’ usual hiding spots. I’ll take Liv through her apartment once again to see if we missed anything.”

“And me cap?”

“Amaro�� you stay here and set up a tip line,” Cragen responded curtly and then they all disappeared to find where Y/N had disappeared to.

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Y/N woke with a jolt as she felt cold water splash her face. She was met with Lewis staring only a couple inches away from her face. He grinned and grabbed Y/N’s chin as she tried to look away, “Well well there. Looks like someone is finally awake. Feeling thirsty?”

Y/N nodded her head yes waiting to scream as he curled his fingers around the edge of the duct tape. As he was about to pull it away he jammed a gun against Y/N’s throat, “Make any noise and I will shove this gun straight down your throat.”

Finally when he pulled the tape away Y/N spit right in his face, “Just shoot me already if you are going to threaten me with it.”

“And miss out on all of our fun Mini Benson. I think not. There is plenty that I want to do to you before then.”

Y/N began to panic as Lewis lit another cigarette. She remembered the way the others had burned against her chest and sides. She had lost count after twenty perfect circle burns and after the second pistol whip to the face she had passed out a second time, She couldn’t go through all of that again.

“My mom knows I am missing and she will be out looking for me. Just let me go and she will never have to know that you did it. Please,” YN begged.

“What is she going to think about that bruise on your face? Or the marks on your skin? I can’t let you go… plus I know that you both fought before you came home. I bet you that she thinks you just ran away and are leaving her,” Lewis chuckled.

“How.. how did you know that we fought?

“This lovely voicemail your mother left you,” Lewis said, placing your phone against your ear.

Tears began to run down Y/N’s face as she heard the apology her mother had sent her. Damnit! Why did I have to fight with her? We could have avoided all of this. Is the mantra that ran through her head as Lewis slammed the phone against her head and threw it at the wall.

“She isn’t coming for you,” Lewis snickered.

“Please… just let me go. I will do anything.”

Lewis pulled his gun and placed it against Y/N’s scalp, “You are still bargaining with me? Really. We are way past that baby.”

“I am the daughter of an NYPD detective. A decorated well known detective. My mother, her partner, her squad, the entire department will hunt you down. You think that you’ve put people through hell. It will rain back down on you.”

“You know what… let it rain,” Lewis said and then hit Y/N once again making her world go black for a third time. 

[lizzy-williams]

𝘧𝘭𝘢𝘮𝘢𝘣𝘭𝘦 𝘱𝘢𝘳𝘵 2

🔥Warnings: slight angst, drug references, drug dealing, language.

🦎Theme: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9tC-FOXioDo

In Your Arms by Sunbeam Sound Machine

((He do be vibin tho))

masterlist

𝘠𝘖𝘜 𝘏𝘈𝘋 𝘉𝘌𝘌𝘕 taking care of Newt for weeks now after he was released from the burn unit, his burns getting better slowly, soon enough turning into scars. You took over his drug dealings, partly because Newt didn’t have the strength, but mostly because he didn’t want to scare away customers from the product. 

But there was something that Newt insisted on having. He wanted to have the apartment as hot as hell, heaters in every corner of his place. Without the heaters, he would say he was freezing, and it would bother him enough to where he wouldn’t sleep. 

You were getting used to the intense heat that went through Newt’s apartment. He was excited about it, mainly because it was an excuse for you to wear less clothing.

You were usually the one to tend his wounds, and take care of him. You ended up just living with him.

Finally, after 4 long weeks of restless nights and illegal transactions, he was finally fully healed, the burns and blisters turning into smoothed over scars. But he looked similar to two-face from batman. 

But even after he was healed, he insisted on keeping the heaters on, and you didn’t mind. What happened to him would most likely cause PTSD, so whatever made him comfortable was fine with you. 

You pulled up to the apartment building, people outside enjoying the nice weather. It was an especially warm day in Woodmere, Louisiana that day. You waved to a few people that waved your way as you brought the groceries up the stairs. Of course, it was nothing substantial. 

Cups of noodles, hot chocolate, waffle mix, anything and everything warm or served hot. That’s what he liked. But it was also nice for you to also get out, so you didn’t get heatstroke, but your body was slowly getting more used to it. 

You walked to the door, the black one with a white painting of a newt on it, giving the secret knock. Seconds later the door opened, stopped by the chain lock. As you caught a glimpse of his face, his eyes went soft. The door closed and was reopened. 

“Anyone follow you?” he asked, the heat brushing over your body like a hairdryer as I entered. 

He looked out the doorframe, closing the door once again, locking every lock. You went into the kitchen, setting the bags down, Newt follows, the red silhouettes, and shadows covering the area. 

“Heard from your cousin lately?” you asked, knowing he followed you. 

“Yeah, I gave her some more product. She’s got some good connections.” he leaned up against the kitchen’s doorframe. 

“That’s good,” you smiled, putting the groceries away, “How you feelin’?” you asked, looking back at him.

“Good. But I would be better if you stayed here for the rest of the night,” he sighed. 

“Newt, honey, you know that I gotta go into work today,”

“But it’s not like you need the money,” he objected, walking closer to you, now leaning against the counter. 

“I know...,” you thought about it. You really didn’t need to. He was right, “I guess I could just...,” you turned to him, your body inches from his, “Call in sick...” as he smiled at your words.

“Give me a kiss...,” he muttered, pulling you closer, his arms pulling you by your waist closer to him. 

You were only recently starting to kiss him again, but the burns didn’t bother you. You were happy to be able to touch him... love him, be close to him. Hell, even sleep in the same bed. 

“Mario Kart?”

“Hell yes,” you responded, dragging him to the couch. 

******

After you played Mario Kart, you ended up watching a few movies. You eventually ended up laying together on the couch, his arms wrapped around you from behind you as you heard him dozing off. 

You shifted more towards him. You missed this. Being able to touch him, kiss him. You also loved getting closer with Robin, you two actually spent more time together. 

You did research while he was recovering, and actually found out what was going on, and the technical name for what happened with Newt... what his “superpower” was. Spontaneous combustion. Otherwise known as extreme heat thermoregulation. 

You couldn’t explain it. But you wouldn’t dare go to anyone professional. He would test on him, and then you’d never see him again. And you didn’t think you could bare that. 

“Newt? You still up?” you muttered.

After a few seconds without a response, you sighed, picking up his scarred hand, tracing over the bumps and cracks of the scars. Normally with third-degree burns all over the body, it would take close to a lifetime to heal all the burns. But at least the pull kinda saved him from that. And you were somewhat thankful. 

But you couldn’t help but want to try it for yourself... what was your power? Newt said it himself... everyone was different. But after he got burned, he also told you one of the deadly side effects... which was that one hit would kill you. But on the other hand... superpowers. 

You slowly got up, doing your best not to wake your boyfriend as you did. You were never really one to try the product. You only ever did weed. Heavy drugs were a no-go. Were these pills really drugs though? There were no laws against them yet, and yes they were lethal, but so are knives, and they weren’t illegal because everyone has some in their home. 

You went into the back room, jumping over the large hole in the middle of the floor. You opened the door to the backdoor, making eye contact with the freezer. That’s where we kept the pills that were for you two, just in case something went wrong. 

You took a frozen pizza box, shaking a case of the pill into your hand, putting the box back in the freezer, closing it. You opened the case, taking the pill between your fingers, looking at it. 

“Curiosity killed the cat,” you joked to nobody but yourself. 

You twisted it, flinching back as you did. Your nerves were racing. It was like the first time you were about to smoke weed. You were about to be introduced to a whole new way to look at things.

You took a deep breath in, putting it between your teeth. Here we go.

“STOP!” you heard Newt yell from the end of the hallway, making direct eye contact with you, “Don’t fucking move.”

Now or never.

You suddenly downed it, the feeling of the pill going down your throat making you shiver as Newt raced towards you. 

You began to twitch and convulse just like Newt did when he took Power. You felt your insides burn and clench, the most mind-splitting headache you had ever had take over your brain. 

“FUCK!” You yelled out in pain. 

But soon the pain died down to a dull ache as your head started to fill with words that weren’t your own. 

“Fuck, what did it do to her,” you heard Newt’s voice say and you looked over, shocked to find that his lips weren’t moving.

“What?”

“Fuck, I can’t tell what her power is... at least she didn’t die. Thank fuck, I couldn’t stand losing her” you watched in awe. 

You were telekinetic. 

“Babe... I can hear you...”

“I didn’t say anything...?”

“No, no,” you muttered, walking over to him, putting your hands on his face, “I can hear you...” 

“What the fuck are you talking about, baby?” 

“Think of something. Anything. Doesn’t matter what it is, just something.” you demanded, Newt skeptical but compliant. 

“Weed. Robin. You.” 

“Aw, that’s really sweet,” you commented.

“Holy shit, you read minds!!” he exclaimed, pulling you in, hugging you, “You’re gonna be okay!” 

“Yeah, yeah I am,” you laughed.

“Thank fuck, thank fuck, thank fuck” he repeated in his head over and over and over. 

“This could actually be... really useful,” he said, out loud, making you look up at him in confusion. 

“How so?”

“Well, we’re drug dealers. It would be really useful to see what our customers are thinking. It would also be easier to tell a cop from a druggie. We could really use this...,” 

“Alrighty then. Whatever you say, captain,”

******

You had been using the pills all week. And it was really starting to take a tole on your body. And the extreme heat that filled Newt’s apartment really wasn’t helping. 

You were now planted on the couch, taking as much Advil as you could, taking just at the suggested dose. 

“Hey, baby,” Newt said gently, bringing you a bowl of soup in the kitchen, setting it in your lap, “How you feelin?”

“Tired. Sick. Tired.” you grumbled after mumbling a ‘thank you’ for the soup. 

“We can give you some of my leftover pain-killers? Maybe those would help your head calm down.”

At this point, you were willing to try anything just to get rid of the throbbing of your head. You nodded quietly, gently rubbing your temples. Newt leaned over and gave you a kiss on your bare shoulder (seeing as you only had a bra and underwear on due to the extreme heat) and stood up, most likely to get the drugs. 

He soon returned, a glass full of water with ice and 2 pills, handing them to you. He then sat down on the couch with you, your body scooting over and placing a pillow on his lap before laying down your head, Newt beginning to watch the movie you had on for background noise, playing with your hair, gently gliding his hands over your scalp. His other hand was rubbing up and down your back, making you drowsy, the pain pills already starting to set in. 

“I love you, Newt,” you muttered. 

“I love you too, baby”

And with that, you began to fall asleep, comfortable in your lover’s arms. 

((Ahhaha, I love writing Newt stuff, I’m obsessed with Project Power, go watch it so you can get some of the references I hid in both part 1 and 2. I’ll continue to make more stuff on him, blurbs, and stuff. Some will be connected to this fanfic, some will not.))

[outerbankspreferences]

Goodbye Town - Pope Heyward

Warnings: Underage drinking, drugs

Word Count: 2355

A/N: This is based off my favorite song. I thought about writing with JJ but I think it works better this way.

Right there's the high school where we met

We'd sneak out back for a couple kisses and a cigarette

And that parking lot was our first date

And her momma slammed the door when I dropped her off too late

At one point in time, if you asked Pope Heyward who he loved his answer would be Kiara Carrera. He thought the sun set and rose just for her everyday. That was until he met Y/N Y/L/N. He never expected to like anyone beside Kie. Maybe Kiara was out of his league and had a thing for his other friends, but he didn’t care until that day. It was raining outside, he was in class, geometry to specific. His AP class to give him extra credits towards college. When the teacher introduced her, she said her name wrong, but the girl was to polite to say anything. She sat three seats behind him, her yellow backpack hanging off the back of her chair. He knew from that moment on he was in for it. He saw her around school, and talking to other people and finally he saw her talking to his friend John B. His heart dropped knowing he could never compete with someone like him. He thought he lost all chances until he introduced the two of them.

“Hey guys, this is Y/N, she just started in my art class.” John B introduced the blonde girl to everyone. She smiled, with a small blush.

“Are we still skipping last period to go surfing?” Kiara asked the brunette. They had been talking about it all day in the group chat. Something about the waves being supreme for surfing. Pope wanted to go but knew he would get in trouble for ditching again, plus last period was with Y/N and he wasn’t missing that.

Everyone was having their own conversation, while Pope was trying to finish geometry homework from the night before. He had finished JJ’s English assignment knowing he wouldn’t do it. He was lost in his math problems when she spoke to him. “Is that the homework from last night? Man, that was hard, what did you get for question 12?” Pope had to double take. Is she talking to him? “Yeah it-t is. Uh, I got the angle being 43.” “Oh, really how’d you get that I got the angle being 36.” He didn’t know where he got the confidence from but out of no where he spoke up. “I can show you after school if you want, these losers are going to be surfing for a while, and I’m going to need something to do.” She smiled at him. “Of course, that would be great why not by the bench outside, after class?” The rest was history.  

They met there all the time, and Pope fell harder and harder for the blonde hair girl. She would smoke a joint, and he would help her with the math. Sometimes she would draw. She was an amazing artist. Always talked about leaving and going west to LA. A pipe dreamed she called it. One day when the sun was setting and they were running late, Pope took a chance and kissed her. It was quick just a few seconds, but she smiled, and kissed him back. He walked her home that night. It was the first time he had ever seen were she lived. He mom was at the door waiting. “I’m sorry for what’s about to happened”, and before he could respond her mom was hollering about how she was running late. Slamming the door in Pope’s face when he tried to take the blame for what happened.

She's gone

Chasing that highway wind

She's gone

She ain't coming back again

This ain't nothing

Nothing but a goodbye town

These streets are only bringing me down

Gotta find a way to finally get out

Out of this goodbye town

As Pope was packing up his things for college, he found her sweater. It was just a little over two months ago when she left. He missed her so much. The way she always smelled like lavender and a hint of weed. They way she was so carefree, something he need to be more of. He was proud of himself for getting into UNC, he didn’t think it would actually happen. He applied for a ton of scholarships and with finical aid it wouldn’t be so bad. He got a job at a restaurant on the mainland. A friend of his dads. He put your sweater in the box of things he still had of yours. Scrunchies, a few bracelets, one of your old sketch books. These things that made his heart hurt, like a hurt he’s never felt. He wonder if you made it out west in the beat up car JJ helped fix for you. When he looked through the sketch book you left at his house and found pictures of buildings around town. Nothing but a goodbye town, he thought.

We sat down on those courthouse steps

Fourth of July those fireworks over our heads

And they'd ring the bells of that little church

No there ain't nowhere I can look that doesn't hurt

She's gone

But I still feel her on my skin

She's gone

But she ain't coming back again

This ain't nothing

Nothing but a goodbye town

These streets are only bringing me down

Gotta find a way to finally get out

Out of this goodbye town

 Looking through your sketch book he found one of the courthouse. It was your second fourth of July on the island, the first one you spent not knowing anyone. He smiled thinking back to that day, it was perfect. You guys had spent the night at John B’s place. You lied to your mom saying you were sleeping at Kiara so she wouldn’t get mad. There was a party at the boneyard the night before, and he wanted you to go. When you guys woke up in the morning you were wrapped up in his arms asleep on the couch. He was always the early riser, while you loved to sleep in. He treasured these moments. The way you eyelids flutter from the dream you were having to the small sounds escaping your lips from breathing. Once everyone got around for the day, John B and JJ suggested you go into town and watch the fireworks. It was cold and you forgot you sweater so Pope gave you his.

Watching the fireworks was memorizing to you. You loved all the colours that came from them. Sometimes they would be to loud and you would cover your ears. You split a smoke with JJ before leaving, he claimed it would enhance the experience. It just made them way too loud. Sometimes Pope still feels your breath on his skin. It wasn’t been long since you left but he was regretting everything about this goodbye town.

I can't erase the memories And I can't burn the whole place down No this ain't nothing Nothing but a goodbye town To hell if I'm sticking around Gotta find a way to finally get out Out of this goodbye town Oh yeah Out of this goodbye town I'm out of this town So out of this town Oh oh oh oh oh...

Pope didn’t know if he wanted to remember all the good times you guys had together. He didn’t want to feel the pain anymore. He kept looking back on the day he left you crying in your driveway. The day you guys called it quits. He couldn’t believe he just walked away

~Flashback~

It was the end of the school year, and you guys were getting ready for graduation. Some how you all made it through. JJ finishing with barely enough credits, but with Y/N and Pope’s help they got him through. It was the night after prom, you begged Pope to go with you. Claiming you guys only got one prom and you wanted to spend it with him. He could never say no your pout, it was like magic. So he got all dressed up in tux he borrowed from your brother and you wore a beautiful green dress that Kiara let you borrow. It was magic. You both were going to UNC, of course you were little disappointed, it wasn’t your first choice. You applied for an art school out west but got waitlisted. Of course you were happy to go to them same college as you boyfriend. You guys looked at apartments together, and you even got a job at a local bar. It was a dream come true.  

That was until the morning of gradation, your mom stopped to pick the mail up on her way home from your hair appointment. You were causally looking through the bills when you saw it. Your heart stopped, this was the letter you had been waiting for. You ripped it open and started reading, “we would like to congratulate you on your acceptance to the Otis College of Art and Design. You’ve been accepted into this years fall term.” You were freaking out. The first person you wanted to tell was Pope, but that’s when you remembered all the plans you guys made. He couldn’t be mad, could he? He knew this was your dream. When you got to your house he was there waiting for you. His smile made your heart drop. “How can I tell him mom? We made plans, I love him, but this is my dream.” You asked your mom. She looked at you sympathetically. “I know you love him Y/N, but never let a boy stop you from chasing your dreams. Just because you made plans with him, does not mean you have to give up your dreams for his.” She was right, you loved Pope and he will always be your first love but you couldn’t live your life wondering what would have happened if you never left.

Pope opening the door startled you. “Hey I’ve got our gowns and caps. Kie wants us to do pictures at her house, something about it looking nice in her garden. Everyone is meeting there, so go get your dress on.” He looked up at you. He could tell something was off. He knew you like the back of his hand. “What’s wrong Y/N/N?” that’s when he saw the letter. He recognized the LOGO from one of your art books. “Is that a letter from the art school out west? Y/N did you get in?” You could hear the fear in his voice and couldn’t blame him. He knew what was coming. You both did, but nether of you wanted to admit it. “Uh,-yeah-yeah it is. I got accepted. Someone must have dropped out. Crazy right? The school year wasn’t even started yet.” You looked at him and the look in his eyes killed you. “So what, are you going to go? I mean what about us? We made plans Y/N.” “I know that Pope, you don’t think I know that. This is a big deal for me! You know how bad I wanted this. We can make this work, we can do the long distance. No it would be easy, but I don’t want to lose you.” You pleaded with him as he turned away from you. He was so angry with you, changing the plans the two of you made. “No, I don’t want to be in a relationship with someone I don’t get to see. I want you to stay Y/N. It’ selfish of me but I need you here with me.” You couldn’t believe what he was saying to you. “Do you really want me to chose between you and my dream college. Don’t make me do that Pope. Please.” You had tears running down your face at this point. Not caring about your makeup. “Yes, I want you to choose—“Then I choose college.” You said it so fast you didn’t have time to take the words back. He looked at you with anger in his eyes. You’d never seen him mad like this before, of course you guys had disagreements but nothing like this. “Fine then.” And with that the love of your life walked away. Even with you screaming for him to comeback. He didn’t. It broke him, but he knew if he turned around that you would stay with him. And he couldn’t be the one to keep you from chasing your dreams.

~Flashback over~

Pope didn’t like to regret things. He stopped by your house a couple days later, but your mom said that you already moved. Deciding on spend the summer in LA with your aunt to get to know the place better. He knew that was a lie. He knew you left because you could stand to see him. He walked around the town all summer seeing all the places you guys would hang out. The Pouges tried their best to keep his mind off things, as well as his parents. His dad offered to move him to the mainland early, but Pope wasn’t ready yet. JJ agreed to move to the mainland with him, getting a job and going to the community college near the university. It was the small gesture Pope appreciate from his friend. Pope was putting the last of his boxes in the truck, JJ had already moved over a week before starting work. He was finally ready to leave. Leave all the memories the two of you had behind. It was done and, in the past, but he couldn’t help but think about you smoking by the school doing homework. He was ready to leave this goodbye town.

You'll be just a memory in the back of my mind You'll be just a memory yeah Oh, somewhere in the back of my mind In the back of my mind, yeah One day you're gonna look back at what we had You're gonna think of me You're gonna think of me When I'm long gone I'll be long gone

[lisinfleur]

T&T - Chapter 7: The Seventy-Sixth Verse

Author’s Notes | After DAYS without anything, I finally could produce something. I hope you guys like it. Words | 2739 ⁑ Warnings: Mentions of past violence and abuse, misogynistic speech. Some cursing.

The whole trip was had for the three of them: Iliana wasn't recovered yet and the bunch of sensations related to what she suffered was hitting her like a hammer, causing her to be more silent and quieter than normal, worrying Ivar more than his aching legs and the cold of that room.

Atli, on the other hand, had been dealing with the ones inside the crew that wanted to punish Ivar somehow for Brimir's death and to ensure the safety of the couple inside the passengers' room, he had spent the last two nights awake, guarding Ivar's door, warranting no one would try to kill them. It granted the healer and now captain a pair of darkened circles around his eyes that immediately caught the King's attention when they entered the hall of Brynjar: both of them enchained, Ivar being carried the way he hated the most.

"What happened to you, Atli? You look terrible!" the old man came, touching the healer's shoulders, straightening his clothes and trying to give his longtime friend some comfort. "It came to my ears that my son was killed inside your boat... Is this what bothers your mind?"

Atli sighed.

Of course, the news would move faster than his sails and Brynjar would already be waiting for the proper explanations.

"Yes, my king, but not the way you think..." Atli answered as Ivar and Iliana were thrown in the middle of the hall; Ivar grunting his wounds still open.

Brynjar walked around them. His fingers lifting Ivar's face by his chin to look into those fierce blues so full of courage even in the face of a situation where his life was surely at risk. The fattened king giggled. How many times did he ask the gods to give his son this kind of bravery?

"Are these the ones?" he asked and Atli nodded.

"These are Ivar and his wife Iliana..." Atli introduced. "Ivar killed Brimir for no other than avenging what he stole from his wife."

"What do you mean?" Brynjar asked, listening closely to the man speaking in front of him.

"Atli is protecting the two of them!" one of the sailormen growled, angrily, but Brynjar rose his hand and Ivar could see the king was respected inside his hall for the furious man just shut his mouth without a single word of his king who pointed his finger towards Atli giving the word back to the man he wanted to hear.

Atli sighed, starting over, trying to build his sentences with care to give the couple a chance against Brynjar's wrath. He knew his king was ruthless when it was necessary and the last thing he wanted was to touch and awake this side of him.

"My king, we knew Ivar and his wife at the Norwegian docks. They paid for a trip through the continents and Prince Brimir accepted their money for a room, enough food, and supplies for their journey."

Brynjar cleaned his throat, paying attention to the narrative Atli described patiently.

"Moments before our journey to start, Ivar suffered an attack where he gained the wounds my lord can see in his chest and under his clothes. When his wife brought him into the boat, he was barely breathing and surely would have died if it wasn't for our quick reaction."

"We saved this asshole's life," that sailorman grunted between his teeth, receiving once again an annoyed glare from his king.

Atli waited for permission to continue that came from a small nod of Brynjar's head. The king was interested, despite his knowledge of his son's character already had given him a foresight of the whole situation.

"Their trip was paid... Yet Brimir thought it was fair to charge Iliana for the medical supplies we used to save her husband's life. She offered all the gold and silver they had, but Brimir said gold and silver couldn't pay favors," Atli looked at his king, ashamed of his former captain's actions. "Brimir forced her to pay him with her honor... To ensure I would be permitted to care for her husband's wounds. And to keep her locked to this deal, he ordered me to put some sedative herbs in Ivar's medicine to keep him sleeping through the whole trip."

Ivar clenched his teeth as Iliana sobbed silently crying beside him. But the angry sailorman giggled, bothered by that conversation.

"The captain was spending more than they could pay! He charged what she could give and the bitch gave what he wanted! Things would be alright if Atli wasn't a pussy: the crippled would be safe, the woman well-fucked, and our captain alive and satisfied. Period!" he grunted, infuriating Ivar who pulled his hands from the men's support, getting all the swords pointed for him when he touched his belt.

But his hands reached for the bag of coins, throwing it at the king's feet, spreading silver and gold through the floor. Brynjar lowered himself touching the coins and looking at Ivar's frowned face.

"I would have paid for every herb spent on me. I would have doubled the price he asked me for the trip, and even worked to give him more for saving my life and keeping my wife safe. But he chose to violate her and used my life as an excuse to force my wife into that outrageous situation!"

"I disobeyed Brimir's order," Atli said, looking at his king. "I didn't keep Ivar sedated and he woke up to find our captain..." Atli couldn't say what he knew Ivar has found inside that room. "I'm sorry, my king, but..."

Brynjar raised his hand and Atli silenced, begging the gods his king would hear the voice of reason.

"It's easy to speak against a man who's not alive to defend himself!" the sailorman insisted, angrily. "We all heard the woman's moans under our captain! I bet she was liking it and now Atli wants to stain Brimir's name with this bullshit just to save these two murderers' lives!"

Brynjar looked at the man and then at Ivar and Iliana on his floor. Iliana didn't have spoken a word. The only thing that could be slightly heard was her sobs, gasping for air in the middle of her silent cry, something that Brynjar had noticed was enraging and anguishing the man by her side. Despite the pain Ivar would be feeling, his eyes were looking at his wife's tears all the time and Brynjar could read his need to console and embrace her, denied by those chains in his hands.

The king sighed.

"Cattle die, kindred die, we ourselves also die; but the fair fame never dies of him who has earned it," he said, silencing everyone inside that room and catching Ivar's eyes.

He knew those words pretty well and for a moment, it threw himself back in time, remembering Floki's voice teaching him the same verse.

"Havamál... The seventy-sixth verse..." Ivar mumbled.

"So said Lord Odin and so it is," Brynjar said, coming closer to the angry sailorman, touching his shoulders and straightening the leather armor over them. "My son made his fame and his fame speaks for him now that his voice is silenced by the hands of death. And his fame is clear... My son, for my shame, was a bastard... A rapist, greedy, and disrespectful. And despite being my seed, I would never lie about the rotten weed it produced. But fame also speaks about Atli... And it speaks about honor and loyalty, but more than that it speaks about a man who never accepted unfairness in front of his eyes. I chose to believe in fame more than words, my friend. Release the two of them," Brynjar ordered.

Allowing Atli to release his held breath, relieved; and Iliana's sobs to become louder when she finally threw herself into Ivar's arms, allowed to embrace her as tight as he wanted through that whole moment.

"This man did nothing but avenge his wife's honor and my son had nothing but the fair price for his actions. Burn his body with his boat and the stories of that cursed wood. May its smoke tell the gods the secrets it holds and the screams of the many ladies my son violated inside that wooden floating prison reach Forsetti's ears so he can find his proper punishment as he found a proper fate."

There was so much disappointment in that man's words. Ivar couldn't let it pass: Brynjar's voice was charged with deception and sadness.

Brimir was his only son but as sad as it was, the gods had deprived the old man of the shame of seeing his throne and crown given to a man that was his opposite made in flesh.

Ivar's braces and crutch were given back to him and, with some surprise, Brynjar watched as Iliana's trembling hands helped the crippled man to dress that strange apparatus before standing in front of his eyes.

"Was it your creation?" the king asked as Ivar supported himself unstable against the crutch - his wounds were hurting him a lot.

"Yes," he answered. "I was born a cripple. My people used to call me Ivar the Boneless. So, I made myself some bones to wear."

"Iron bones... You're smart, young man," the king recognized.

"Not enough to protect my wife," Ivar mourned, feeling Iliana's body against his, still trembling, still so hurt.

"I did what I did for it was necessary to keep you alive," Iliana mumbled, looking at them, speaking for the first time since it all begun. "It was awful, it hurts me, but I would take the same decision if I had the chance to turn back the time and repeat those moments."

Brynjar smiled. Gentle eyes over that woman. After all, the young man in front of him was lucky indeed and she was a treasure to be kept. One more reason for him to understand what Ivar had done to his son. In that man's place, he would probably have done the same.

"My husband is wounded. I'm hurt and we're hungry. We have gold and silver for a few nights but I can serve and clean well. I ask you, your highness, would you give me some services for a place for us in your castle and some food for us to eat?" Iliana offered.

And Brynjar thought... A man with that creative mind could maybe be useful in his castle and he was indeed in need of a new servant. Atli could keep the care for Ivar's wounds as a way to compensate them for his son's crimes. It sounded perfect in the king's ears.

"Fine. You stay and work for me. I'll give you shelter and food. And the proper payment for your services. Atli, take them to the servant's room I have near my kitchen and install the two of them. Take care of Ivar's wounds and please," he said, looking at Ivar. "Accept Atli's favors as a way to pay for my son's stupidity. We forgive each other's crimes and life moves on. Let the gods decide my son's fate after what he did but I'll live without the burden of his dishonor over my shoulders."

Ivar nodded, accepting the king's benevolent words.

"I have nothing to forgive coming from you, king Brynjar. I see nothing but honor and righteousness in your actions. And your son's crimes were well paid in my sight. Life moves on."

The king shook Ivar's hand and Iliana touched their hands together. Gentle eyes towards the king whose heart was hurt as she could see through his eyes.

"Thank you," she said, receiving a slight nod from the old king's head.

"Go... Get some food and some rest. Don't worry about starting tomorrow. Take two days for you to recover and know my castle before you can start. Settle down and in two days, come to me to know your tasks."

Iliana nodded in acceptance.

"Now, if you don't mind, I'll prepare my son's burial."

The two of them could see the sadness in Brynjar's eyes, but Atli touched their shoulders starting to conduct them away.

"King Brynjar always tried to change his son's behavior," Atli said, while they were walking through the corridor. "I pity him... Our king deserved a better offspring to carry his name forward, but the war took his attention from his son and in the absence of his mother to raise him, Brimir ended up like that."

"The war?" Ivar asked, looking at Atli while the healer was opening the room's door for them.

"Our kingdom is shattered. Earls broke their oaths of loyalty due to internal disputes and now the earldoms are facing each other in a civil war our king is trying to control. Some of them trying to swallow the others and we know that some of these Earls have eyes on our King's crown. Now, without an heir, our king will become even more targeted. I just ask the gods to hold Brynjar's back in this conflict." Atli sighed.

The king was a good man and a good king since Atli could remember. There was no reason but greed to take him out of the throne.

Ivar took that information to his mind, saving it in his thoughts. Maybe he could be useful in this war, help king Brynjar with the conflict like his father once helped king Horik, but of course, with a different ending.

"Here is your room, settle down and let me see your wounds, Ivar," Atli said. "You shouldn't have made those efforts, and probably it will cause you to need more time to recover or have some more scars," he reprehended.

"Scars tell our story, my friend," Ivar said, sitting in bed and removing his shirt to allow Atli to watch for his wounds.

Iliana helped with the bandages and in a few moments, Ivar was well cared, ready to lay down in the bed of furs the room had for them. It was small, but Ivar couldn't complain: for a servant's room, they were very comfortable.

Iliana lit the fireplace and Atli walked towards the door.

"I'll ask some food at the kitchen for you and come back tomorrow to see your evolution, Ivar. Take some rest and no efforts, did you hear me?"

Ivar nodded.

"Thank you, my friend. I won't forget what you did for us."

"There is no debt to be paid. I did what was right, don't worry." Atli said, leaving and closing the door behind him.

Iliana then sat beside Ivar at the bed and Ivar laid his arm around her, pulling her closer.

"How are you feeling?" he asked.

"Relieved," she answered, raising her face to look at him. "You're alive, we're safe. I feel relieved and grateful," she completed, feeling as his fingers caressed her chin, nestling her face to his caresses.

"For now, things aren't right, but when the time comes, I'll make them right," Ivar said, gently caressing her cheek with his thumb. "For now, they call you my wife but I'll make it right with the gods. I'll make you my wife and one day, sweet Iliana, I'll make you my queen. And I'll never forget what you did for me, because I know he forced you, but I also know you put no fight against his attack in order to keep my life and protect me when I needed it. I prayed the gods for a woman who would love me. They answered my prayers and gave me you," he said, gently touching their foreheads together.

"Even if you never make me a queen, even if we end up our lives as servants in this castle, I'll love you the same way I love you now, Ivar. For a crown is a beautiful gift, but you're the only thing I need in my life," she said, nuzzling her nose to his before Ivar leaned forward, catching her lips in a gentle kiss.

In his heart, he knew that feeling was exactly what would make Iliana the perfect queen to reign by his side: she loved him when he was nothing. He would become everything she deserved by her side.

Silently, Ivar swore this oath, over his arm ring: he would give Iliana the best life he could build for the two of them. And never ever again she would suffer the way she did.

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[roman-writing]

A Study in Hospitality (2/?)

Fandom: Fire Emblem Three Houses / Percy Jackson and the Olympians

Pairing: Hilda Valentine Goneril / Marianne von Edmund

Rating: T

Wordcount: 7,886

Summary: There’s a new student at camp half-blood. Hilda, daughter of Aphrodite, has been tasked with showing her around. A Percy Jackson and the Olympians AU

read it below the cut, or you can read it here on AO3

"I heard about your little 'weed killer' accident." Claude made air quotes with his fingers. "Is that really the best you could do? Weed killer?"

Hilda was in the armoury. She was sharpening her favourite axe, which -- she had to admit -- was a brave moment for Claude to approach her. She slapped the power button to stop the wheel that spun the belt grinder, and tested the edge of the curved blade against the hair on her forearm. 

The hair didn't cut. The blade wasn't quite ready yet.

Lifting her personalised pink safety goggles away from her face, Hilda glanced over at Claude. "You know, it's funny you should ask about that, actually."

"Oh?" Claude leaned forward a bit. His eyes held a hungry gleam, the same he always got when he was curious about something that refused to immediately provide all its secrets.

"Yeah. I was just thinking about how it was none of your damn business."

Hilda slammed the goggles back into place, and flipped the switch to start the belt grinder again. Sparks flew as she expertly angled the blade of her axe against the grinder, making Claude jump back a step or risk singing his clothes.

Claude raised his voice slightly to be heard over the sound of grinding metal. “Oh, c’mon, Hilda! Weed killer? You really expect me to buy that?”

“Yup!”

“You have got to tell me. Not knowing is killing me.” 

“And you came to cry on my shoulder? Wow. You must really be desperate.” 

“Well, where is she now?”

Hilda shrugged. She paused to dip the axe’s blade in water before continuing to grind. “No idea. I haven’t seen her for a few days.”

“I thought Seteth had arranged your schedules so that you two shared everything together.”

“Yeah, and she’s just bailed on the back end of this week. And you know what? I respect that.” Hilda stopped the belt grinder again. She tested the blade, and deemed it suitably sharp for hacking off monster limbs. 

Claude was leaning against a nearby wooden pillar. He played with an arrow from one of the legion of quivers that lined the walls. The shaft twirled easily between his fingers. “Won’t you even tell me about what exactly Seteth told you to do.”

With a much put-upon sigh, Hilda perched the safety goggles atop her head. She turned the axe over so that the head was firmly on the ground, and she rested her elbow against the pommel. “Fine. Since you’re being such a pain. I’m supposed to be hospitable, or whatever.” 

“Sure, sure.” He used the arrow to gesture towards the surrounding armoury. “Which is why you’re here. Leaving her all alone. Makes sense.”

Her mouth opened, but every witty retort died on the tip of her tongue. Her eyes narrowed. “Hang on. Did Seteth send you?”

Claude gave her one of his signature lopsided grins, and held up his hands in surrender. The arrow dangled between his fingers. “You caught me.”

“Oh, for fuck’s sake.” 

“He wants you to prep Marianne for next week’s lessons.”

“Did he at least say where she was?”

At that, Claude shrugged. 

Groaning dramatically, Hilda tossed her gloves and protective glasses onto the nearby work bench. She then hefted the axe in one hand. A press of her fingers against key points in the long engraved handle made the axe fold into itself until it had turned into a pair of pink sunglasses, which she then perched atop her nose.  

When she turned to leave, she paused. Claude was still watching her as she glanced over her shoulder. “Hey, Claude. Have you ever known a Demeter kid whose magic kills flowers? By accident, I mean.”

His expression did not change a whit, but something keen flashed in his eyes. He feigned thoughtful contemplation, then answered, “No."

“Yeah,” Hilda began striding away. “That’s what I thought, too.” 

--

Of course, Marianne wasn't in Demeter Cabin. Hilda was beginning to think that Marianne never actually spent any time in her own damn cabin. Almost like she didn't feel at home there. It couldn't have been that the other Demeter kids were mean to her. They couldn't be mean to a fly. The idea that they could bully anyone, when they felt bad about saying something mean to plants -- like, really? plants? -- was laughable. 

But still. Regardless of why Marianne was never in Demeter Cabin, it was a pain in the ass. Hilda groaned, and stomped away. She checked the woods, the only place she had actually seen Marianne go to by choice. Which was weird in and of itself, because nobody liked the woods. They were dark, and damp, and literally crawling with monsters. Thankfully though, Marianne was not to be found there either. At least, not along the edges of it. 

And so it was that Hilda started the arduous task of working her way through every major site in camp half-blood. She interrogated the pegasi for a good ten minutes. Minty was particularly unhelpful, and told her that he had never heard of Marianne, which was clearly false. 

He did remember the carrots, though. Crystal clear memory of that. And did Hilda happen to have brought more perchance?

Fucking pegasi. Typical. 

As she was storming from one of the rear stalls however, a pair of quiet voices gave her pause. Quickly Hilda backpedalled, and hid behind the stall door.

“Did you bring the carrots I asked for?” Minty asked, sticking his head into her space.

“Fuck off,” Hilda hissed. 

“Wow. Rude. And in my own stall, too.”

She pushed his head away, and tried to listen to the voices drifting over from near the coach house, where the pegasi were draped in tack to carry chariots. When she peeked out to see if she could catch a glimpse, Hilda could just make out the slope of Seteth’s profile as he spoke to Marianne. 

“You are still struggling with your new environment, I see.”

“I’m sorry.”

Seteth sighed, “I know your childhood was sheltered. Your father enrolled you here because he wished you to understand what it was like to live among others. He tasked me with ensuring not just your safety and instruction, but also your personal development.” 

Marianne continued to hold her silence.

Seteth waited, then said, “I am talking about making friends.”

“I -” Hilda could hear Marianne swallow past an obstruction in her throat before she could speak. “I don’t know how to do that.”

Oh, come on. Even after Hilda had thrown her a friendship bone and everything? What more did a girl have to do? Write it out in a binding legal contract?

For a moment Seteth made no reply. Then he asked very softly, “Has anyone been -” he seemed to mull over the right word, “- inhospitable towards you?”

At that, Hilda bristled with indignation. He may have not mentioned her by name, but he didn’t have to; she could tell from his tone alone that he was referring to her. 

Inhospitable? As if!!

Marianne shook her head. “No. Everyone has been very kind.”

Hilda nodded along enthusiastically from her hiding spot, even though neither of them could see her.

“Hmm.” Seteth sounded like he did not believe her. “But if they weren’t, you would tell me?”

Silence.

“Marianne?”

“Yes,” Marianne said. 

“Good. That’s all I ask. Now, I shall leave you to your own devices. Remember to come to dinner this time, please. It is not good to skip meals, even for one such as yourself.”

Marianne gave no reply, but she must have given some indication -- Hilda could not see if she nodded from this angle -- for Seteth strode off in the direction of the armoury. He had to walk past her hiding spot, and she plastered herself against the wall. When she was sure he was gone, Hilda hesitantly leaned forward to peer out again.

“Oh! Hey, it’s that weird girl with the carrots!” Minty shoved his head and neck past Hilda to get a good look out the door, and in doing so he squished her against the wall even further. “Do you think she brought more?”

“If you step on my Loubotins, I will turn you into glue,” Hilda growled. Her sunglasses had been knocked askew on her face. 

“Your what?” Minty swung his head around, tilting it to look down. “Nice shoes, by the way. Very shiny.”

“Exactly.” 

She pushed him away, straightening her sunglasses and extracting herself from the stall. It took a great deal of skill to avoid any patches of pegasus dung on the ground. If Hilda had known she would’ve been hanging out in the stables today, she would’ve worn her work boots, which she had bought especially for these situations. 

Having successfully extracted herself from the stall without making a complete mess of everything, Hilda looked up. And Marianne had vanished. Poof. Like smoke. 

“Shit,” Hilda muttered. 

“Yeah. Sorry about that,” Minty said, not sounding sorry at all.

“No, not you!” 

Shooing him away, Hilda marched off towards Marianne’s last known location. The air smelled faintly rotten, but that may have just been pegasus droppings. It was difficult to tell.

She couldn’t have gotten far. Even by magical means. Magica had its limits, after all. Hilda individually tapped the high heels of each shoe against the dusty ground, frowning at a few smudges of stubborn dirt that required a bit more magic. Then, clean and fetching as ever, she set out once more. 

It made a bit more sense if Marianne was new to this whole demigod shtick. Some kids had a real rough time learning of what they were. Hilda wasn't one of those kids. Her older brother was a child of Aphrodite as well. Their father was something of a favourite of the goddess. Hilda had grown up knowing what she was, and how to use it.

For her, being a demigod was pretty damn great. And all those kids who struggled? Well, she was sympathetic, for sure. But she just couldn't relate.

Hilda found Marianne by the lake. She was sitting on a stretch of driftwood that looked like sun-bleached bone. Her elbows were tucked firmly into her sides, her hands clasped in her lap, watching a group of oreads and naiads playing. In her outdated formal attire, she looked like an antique doll that had been wound up with a spring-loaded mechanism.

Approaching on silent feet, Hilda waved a hand in front of Marianne's face and said in a sing-song tone, "Heyooo!"

Marianne started. She leaned away when Hilda plopped down on the log beside her. "Oh. It's you."

"You sound so enthusiastic to see me! I'm touched." Hilda placed a theatrical hand over her heart. She followed Marianne's gaze towards the group of nymphs. "They look like they're having a good time." 

“Yes. They do.” 

Marianne sounded a little wistful. On anyone else, the emotion would have been written clear as day across their face. Normally, Hilda could read people like an open book. But with Marianne, she had to really prise the book open. Like trying to read an old paperback when it was windy outside; the pages just kept trying to fold over one another until the book was shut. 

Good thing Hilda had the right kind of magic at her disposal. She didn’t know what Marianne must’ve looked like to everyone else. 

“You know,” Hilda drawled. She leaned back, and stretched her legs out before her. “I did promise to take you for a swim.”

Marianne’s gaze snapped down to her own feet. “I wouldn’t want to interrupt them.”

“Oh, pffft. It’s a big lake. There’s enough room for two more people. At least.”

At that, Marianne’s eyes wandered once more towards the waterline, where the lake lapped up against the pebbly shore. “I don’t really have any appropriate swimwear.” 

A wave of relief swept through Hilda. She grinned. “Is that the problem? You should’ve said so sooner! We can totally get you some new clothes!” 

“Where?” 

Hilda leaned in closer and lowered her voice as if telling a secret. “I have my ways. Alright, so. Wardrobe.” Turning sideways so that she faced Marianne, Hilda held her hands pressed together beneath her chin. “I notice you wear a lot of dresses. Which is totally fine. In fact, you look great in them.”

Marianne seemed more confused by praise than anything else. “Thank you?”

“You’re welcome. Anyway, my point is, this week has just been, like, orientation stuff and chores, but next week is when classes start. Do you happen to have anything -- anything at all -- that’s more, you know -” Hilda tilted her hands so that her fingers were all pointing towards Marianne’s current outfit, “- athletic?”

Marianne mulled over the question for a moment. “I have a chiton.”

A chiton. Like, from honest to god Vogue 330BC.

“Oh, boy.” Pinching the bridge of her nose, Hilda said, “Okay. That’s fine. We can deal with that. We’ll just take you to the armoury. Two birds, one stone. And all that jazz.”

Marianne’s brows furrowed. “Why would the armoury have clothes?”

“It doesn’t. It’s just going to be our first stop. Right after you show me all the skeletons you have rattling around in your closet.”

At that, Marianne’s eyes widened. Her face, if it was at all possible, went even paler. “Wh - What? Why would you think I -? I don’t -!”

With a snort of laughter, Hilda rose to her feet. “It was a joke. Let’s head on over to Demeter Cabin. I want to see what sort of overhaul your wardrobe needs.”

It was a short trek to the cabins square. Marianne let Hilda do the knocking. She tried to hide behind Hilda despite the fact that it was her own damn cabin, while Hilda banged her fist against the ivy-clutched door. 

"Looks like nobody's home," Hilda said, when they received no response. She turned to Marianne, then gestured towards the door. "Would you do the honours?"

"Oh. Sure." 

Marianne reached past her, and grasped the door handle. The woodgrain darkened for an instant -- or maybe that was just the passage of a cloud between the sun and earth -- before the door creaked open. Hilda frowned down at the handle, but now it looked perfectly fine. 

"Huh."

"What's wrong?" Marianne asked. 

"Oh, nothing," Hilda said. She pushed the door open, and it swung inwards. "Though I don't know why I'm the one going first."

"Politeness?" Marianne said after a second of thought. 

"Nice try. But I'll buy it, I guess."

The inside of Demeter cabin was awash with sunlight. The wooden walls were overgrown with plants, and vines trailed from the rafters. The bunk beds grew from the floors. Bundles of herbs were hung to dry from the windowsills. Warmth wrapped up the space like a cosy fireplace in winter. It was like stepping into a cottage in another world after days of long hikes across the mountains. Hilda had the sudden urge to curl up with a cup of floral tea, and maybe sleep for a week. 

In other words, it could not have less resembled Marianne if it tried. 

When Marianne followed, stepping into the cabin after Hilda, the door shut on her heels like a dog snapping at her calves. She started, her shoulders hunching, but she tried to mask the motion by clearing her throat. 

"There was," Marianne said in the most unconvincing manner possible, "a - uh - breeze."

Hilda nodded slowly. "Right."

She had to internally remind herself that she was supposed to be hospitable. Accommodating. And also that she was supposed to be looking over a wardrobe, which was actually far more exciting a prospect. 

Hilda turned back to the cabin. "So, which station is yours? Let me guess." Closing one eye, she pointed a finger and trailed it around the room as if trying to lock onto a target. She stopped when she was pointing at a bed all the way in the back corner, shrouded in the only pool of shadows in the whole place. "It's that one."

"How could you tell?"

"I have a gift for these things," Hilda said dryly. 

She strode across the room until she reached Marianne's station. A chest of drawers leaned lopsidedly against the wall, and there was a bar for Marianne to hang some clothes out in the open. 

Hilda pointed at the chest of drawers before touching it. "Can I -?"

Sitting down on the edge of the bed as though unsure if it even belonged to her, Marianne nodded. 

Hilda opened drawers. She rummaged. She was very good at rummaging. At least, she normally was. In this instance however, there was very little to rummage through. 

A few stockings. Some old-timey pantaloon things. Was that a petticoat? At least that explained how Marianne's skirts always managed to maintain such excellent shape all the time. 

A few more sets of dresses were hung from the bar. Hilda pulled each back to get a better look at them. She had only seen Marianne wear two since her arrival. And always Marianne wore a gold pendant strung from a white ribbon around her neck. No other jewelry or accessories. Two of the other dresses were far more elaborate. Not in their cut -- they all made her look like an old Christian priest -- but in their fabric and embroidery. Heavy velvets with fine hands. Needlework in the richest gold that shimmered along every edge. Like she had expected to attend a ball, or an emperor's court. 

"Is this everything?" Hilda asked. She still held onto the edge of one of the fine gowns, stretching the hem of its skirt, which rippled like black water in the afternoon light. 

"Mostly." Marianne leaned over and pulled from beneath her pillow a set of pajamas which were an eggshell blue so pale they appeared almost white. 

Or, hang on. Not pajamas. A nightgown. With an ankle-length hem, and a lace collar, and sleeves gathered into loose ruffles at the wrist. 

Hilda let the dress drop. Its heavy velvet hems swung from its hanger. "Okay. I lied about the armoury being our second stop. We need to go next door stat."

"Alright?" 

Marianne appeared puzzled, but she rose to her feet, and followed Hilda from Demeter cabin. It was a hop, skip, and a jump over to Aphrodite Cabin, which only had Sylvain lazing about in it, pretending to be sleeping. Hilda swatted at him with a pillow until he -- and the girl hiding under his bed -- left. 

"There," Hilda tossed the pillow back onto Lorenz's bed, and walked over to her own bunk. "Now that we're alone, you can try on some of my stuff."

Marianne remained standing while Hilda pawed through her own dresser, which was literally overflowing with clothes. Shoes were piled up in a mountain beneath the bunk bed, and an additional series of bars had been strung up for the multiplication of raw stuff in Hilda's wardrobe. 

Tossing various pieces of clothing across Lorenz's nearby bed without a care for his personal space -- he wasn't here; he wouldn't care unless he found out -- Hilda said, "You won't fit them perfectly, but it's better you have something for next week until I can get you some stuff in your own size. Try some of those on, and let's see how you go."

For a moment, there was silence behind her. Then, the gentle rustle of fabric. She could hear the slump of cloth to the ground, but did not look around until Marianne gently cleared her throat.  

Hilda turned. She cocked her head to one side and scrunched up her nose. On her, the black track pants and branded t-shirt combo were trendy in a casual kind of way -- she could make anything look good just by virtue of proximity to herself. On Marianne however, the track pants stopped well above her bare ankles. Marianne stooped and tugged at the hem of the t-shirt in an attempt to cover her stomach more. If she straightened to her full height, the barest glimpse of skin at her waist would have been visible. 

At least it would have, if not for the fact that Marianne had opted to wear an additional long-sleeved, high-collared turtleneck beneath the shirt. And she still wore that weird gold pendant over it as well. The entire effect made her appear gangly and out of place, like she had experienced a sudden growth-spurt. All knees and elbows. 

“It’ll just have to do for now,” Hilda sighed. She waved towards the small pile of clothes that she had accumulated on Lorenz’s bed. “Keep them. Wear them. Return them. Or don’t. Whatever.”

“Are you sure?” Marianne asked. She was still fiddling with the end of the shirt, twisting one of her hands in the fabric. 

“Don’t worry about it. We’ll get some more clothes in for you late next week. Luckily, you’re on the blue team.”

“Why is that lucky?”

“Because you look great in blue. Also because that means we’re on the same side. I mean -” Hilda plucked at her own blouse. “I look way better in red, but that would require me to cooperate with the Ares boys. So, you know. Needs must.” 

“Could you please -?” Marianne made a twirling gesture with her fingers. 

“What?” Hilda blinked. Then it hit her. “Oh! Sorry! Yeah.”

She turned back around, and could hear the whisper of fabric against skin. She removed her sunglasses, and toyed with them. She polished the pink lenses on the edge of her blouse. It would only take a flick of her wrist to extend them into an axe once more. Which reminded her.  

“Hey, do you have a weapon?” Hilda asked, perching the sunglasses back upon her nose. She remained facing her own bunk bed and closet explosion across the ground. 

“I have a sword,” said Marianne.

“Oh, good! You can use that during training exercises and classes, then.”

“No.”

Hilda paused. She had to resist the urge to sneak a peek over her shoulder; it was so much easier to read people when she could actually look at them. And Marianne was hard enough to read with magic, let alone without visual cues. “No, as in: no, you are unable to use a sword? Or no, as in: no, you are unable to use that sword?”

More shuffling and soft cloth noises. For a moment, the only reply was the creak of a floorboard as Marianne shifted her weight from foot to foot, until finally she admitted, “The second one. And you can turn around now.”

Hilda did so. Marianne was back in her own dress. Her hair was still a disaster of a messy bun. 

“Okay. Cool. Cool cool cool. We’ll just get you a different sword, then. Or maybe a scythe,” Hilda joked. “Just to make your mother proud.”

"My mother?" Marianne repeated, her brows screwing up in confusion. Then her eyes widened. "Oh! Yes. I mean - um - of course. Demeter. My mother."

Alright, that was just plain suspicious. And obvious. For being such a mystery, this girl sure was a really really bad liar.

Hilda feigned nonchalance. "And your father?"

"Oh, well, he's -" Marianne pointed to the ground beneath their feet, and Hilda's eyes widened in understanding.

"Sorry," Hilda said with a grimace. 

"It's alright."

"Who was that guy, then? The one that dropped you off in the limo?"

"Oh, him." Marianne wrung her hands together. "That was my adopted father. In a sense. It's complicated. He's a - well - a banker? Sort of. We don't really need the money, but he primarily handles loans during his day job. With - um - big stakes."

“Sure.”

So, Claude had been on the mark. She was a rich heiress. Ugh. He was going to be so insufferable when he found out. What a pain.

Wait. It also meant she was an orphan. Half-orphan. That counted, right? Did that mean they both won the betting pool? 

Marianne shuffled her feet nervously. As if on cue, something clinked to the ground. Hilda looked down. A few coins scattered around, fat and gold and gleaming, as though they had spilled from Marianne's pocket. Marianne flushed, her cheeks going pink. Quickly she crouched down, and began scraping together the coins from the ground. 

One of the coins rolled towards Hilda, coming to a halt by her feet. She bent down to pick it up, but hesitated before touching it, though she could not explain why. The coin seemed to resist her fingers, like it weighed far more than it should. Its face was worn smooth, as though from years of being rubbed by an anxious thumb in someone’s pocket. Upon it Hilda could just make out the emblem of a disfigured trident with only two prongs instead of three. When she turned the coin over, the other side bore the symbol of a cornucopia.

Or maybe it was a bearded face. Honestly, it was so time-worn she could barely tell.  

Hilda straightened. "You - uh - you dropped this."

"Thank you," Marianne mumbled. 

She held out her hand, so that Hilda could give it back without touching her. The coin fell into the centre of her palm with a heavy thud. She closed her fingers, and the coin vanished. Like some sort of mortal magic trick. 

Alright. That was enough weirdness for one day. Hilda was going to make this conspiracy-theory bullshit go back to normal if it killed her. 

Hilda squared her shoulders and marched over to Lorenz’s bed. “C’mon. Let’s go gear you up.”

She helped Marianne gather up all the clothes she was lending her, and carry them over to Demeter Cabin. And after that, she dragged Marianne over to the armoury to pick out some basic armour and a new sword. Marianne thanked her about twenty times on the way. Okay, so maybe that was an exaggeration. But she still thanked Hilda way too much. It was enough to make Hilda feel uncomfortable. 

Couldn't a girl just be nice for the sake of being nice? And for the sake of a good grade? 

"It's fine. Don't mention it. No, really," Hilda said, adding a bit of nervous charmspeak into her words. "Don't."

The magic washed over Marianne, but she merely blinked. "Okay. Sorry."

Now, that was just plain weird. Titans like Seteth, and pegasi, and major gods, sure. They were immune to Hilda's charms. But -- and she didn't mean to toot her own horn -- but she really was Very Good at charmspeak. The best, even. Better than her brother anyway, and he could convince a billionaire to part with their last dollar.

Apparently however, Marianne was utterly immune. 

Hilda dropped a heap of leather armour onto Marianne's bed. "Alright. Well. I'll see you later."

--

The last thing Hilda wanted to do on a hot afternoon was sit out in the sun and work. Toil, even. This was officially in the 'toiling' category. Overhead the sky was a blue so pale it hurt to look at with the naked eye. The sun wasn't even that high up yet, but already Hilda could feel a bead of sweat gathering between her shoulderblades. Her bra would need to be peeled off later today. Ugh. 

She leaned back on her hands. She, along with a host of other students all in her age group, were gathered together in the amphitheatre. The stone offered no respite from the sun's merciless heat. Pale marble burned beneath her hands and through the sheer fabric of her very short shorts. Hilda did her best to make sure the naked skin of her thighs did not actually touch stone. 

Professor Manuela was delivering some sort of instructions to the class. Hilda wasn't really listening. She lent half and ear to the usual drivel about health and safety or whatever, and cast the rest of her attention towards complaining bitterly under her breath.

"I mean -- really -- we can't, like, opt out of these things?" she grumbled. "If I throw Dimitri onto his back, that means I should be exempt from every practice until the end of time."

"You haven't thrown Dimitri onto his back, though," Claude pointed out. 

"Hmph. Details. Details." 

Dimitri himself, the head of Ares cabin, sat a few rows in front of them. Their conversation passed right over his head. Which was lucky, really. He had a calm exterior, but Hilda knew better. She'd seen that wrathful streak of his in the forest once. 

To be fair, there had been a few big scary monsters involved, and he had single-handedly staved off half of them without any regard for his own personal safety. So, like, wrath it up, War Boy.

Manuela had stopped her pacing, and was now contemplating her students. She pointed at two of them to be the first sacrifice of the day to the arena, and Hilda almost had a heart attack when Manuela pointed in her direction. 

"Mr. Riegan, if you please," Manuela said, then pointed at Dimitri. "And Mr Blaiddyd. Could you both please come down for our first demonstration?"

Hilda breathed a sigh of relief. "Thank fuck." She slapped Claude on the shoulder as he rose to his feet. "Try not to lose a limb!"

Claude flashed her a broad beaming smile, as well as a middle finger. She returned the smile and waved cheerfully as he sauntered down the steps towards the arena floor, drawing his bow from his shoulders as he went. 

"Um -?" said a soft voice beside her.

Hilda half jumped out of her skin. She had forgotten Marianne had been sitting to her left this whole time. It took all of her vast reserves of skill to make a graceful recovery. She lowered her pink sunglasses down the bridge of her nose so she could meet Marianne's eye. "Sup?"

At least today Marianne somewhat blended into the rest of the group. She was wearing a set of clothes Hilda had given to her, while doing her best to cover as much skin as possible. She clutched her new bronze sword between both hands, the leather scabbard well oiled and tended, even if it was plain. She tilted the sword a little. “When you mentioned we would be using these in classes and things, what you meant to say was -?”

Hilda nodded towards where Claude and Dimitri were squaring off under Manuel’s instruction. “You know. Fighting monsters, and sparring, and stuff.”

Marianne’s grip on the scabbard tightened. “What if someone gets hurt?”

With a shrug, Hilda dismissed the idea. She pushed her sunglasses back into place. “There’s usually someone around with healing magic. The worst I’ve seen is a scratch or two. I wouldn’t worry too much about it.” 

In the arena, Claude managed to hold his own for a surprisingly long time. Too bad an open arena really wasn't suited to his fighting style. Had there been places for him to hide and use the geography to his advantage, he would've won. No question. 

As it was, he peppered Dimitri with blows and arrows from a distance until, with a roar, Dimitri closed the distance between them. Hilda gave a sympathetic wince as Dimitri's spear swept Claude's legs out from under him, and he fell onto the ground with an audible thump. 

"Ooooh that's going to leave a bruise," she said, inhaling a sharp hiss of breath when the butt of Dimitri's spear swung down. "Not the face! Not the face!!"

Claude rolled out of the way, and the blunted spear end smacked against the dusty ground of the arena. Manuela called the sparring session to a halt, awarding tips and pointers as she saw fit. She had to go up to Dimitri and place a hand on his shoulder to stop him from stalking after Claude. 

The wild look in Dimitri's eyes faded, and he lowered his spear. Then he lowered his head to Claude, sweeping his hand to his heart and murmuring something Hilda couldn't hear. An apology probably, based on the way Claude waved him off with a grin. 

As the two of them shook hands, Manuela's eyes sought out two more contenders from the crowd. Hilda ducked down as far as she could in an effort to avoid her gaze. It worked. 

"Miss Ordelia, and Miss -" Manuela cocked her head. "-von Edmund. If you would both be so kind."

In the front row, Lysithea rose to her feet without hesitation. She bore no weapon, nor did she reveal one as she stepped out into the arena, dusting off her skirt. Meanwhile, Marianne shot Hilda a panicked look. 

"Go on!" Hilda urged. "Kick her ass!"

Marianne grimaced. Or perhaps that was her trying to smile. Still, she loomed to her feet, holding onto the sword as though she had already forgotten which end she was supposed to point at the enemy. When she started to pick her way down the stairs, Hilda scooted over to join a few of the Hermes and Hephaestus kids who sat nearby. 

"This should be interesting," said Ignatz. His leaned forward in his seat, his thick spectacles refracting the light. "I hope Lysithea doesn't completely wipe her off the map."

At that, Hilda lifted her hands to her mouth and called out, "Don't go easy on her, Marianne!"

Marianne's shoulders hunched up a little more around her ears, but her stride lengthened; she walked with a bit more purpose. But only a bit. 

"Yeah!! You can do it!" Raphael yelled beside Hilda, as eager for a brawl as any Ares kid despite the fact that his father was Hermes. Then he lowered his voice to a rumble, and asked, "So, who is that? I’ve seen her around, but -?"

"It's the new girl in Demeter Cabin. Though Claude has his doubts about that," Ignatz explained, not looking away from where Marianne and Lysithea were squaring off; Marianne was tugging her new sword free and placing the scabbard carefully on the ground. 

Hilda turned to the both of them. “Do either of you know what she even does in her free time, anyway? Because I’ve pretty much only ever seen her at meals, or during chores.”

Ignatz shrugged. "Prays, mostly."

With a snort, Hilda said, "Who prays when you can just ring up mom, and talk to god?"

"Apparently she does."

"Well -” Hilda was at a loss. “What the hell."

"I saw her talking to animals the other day," Raphael added.

Hilda gave him a flat stare. "You're joking."

"Nah, I swear! She was talking to a bird!"

“Is that even something Demeter kids do? Talk to animals?”

He shrugged.

"What kind of bird?" asked Hilda. 

"I dunno." Raphael scratched at his broad chin. "An owl? It was up on a branch, and it looked like it was listening when she talked."

“What is she? A child of Athena now? Auuugh!!” Hilda let her head drop into her hands. Her voice mumbled against her palms. “Tell Claude I give up.”

“Tell Claude what now?” said a familiar voice beside her; he had returned from his sparring match. 

“You win,” she groaned, dislodging her sunglasses so that she could rub at her eyes with the heels of her hands. “You’re right. Marianne’s an unknown entity. Forever. Mystery solved. You’re welcome.”

Claude patted her on the back. The side of his face was already blooming with a fresh bruise. “I’m sure we can get to the bottom of this. Now, move over, won’t you?”

Hilda made a face, and shuffled over. 

Down in the arena, Marianne lost before either she or Lysithea could break a sweat. But rather than appear disheartened, Marianne seemed relieved at the outcome. She sheathed her sword, while Lysithea frowned down at her own hands then at Marianne, as though puzzled by something. When Manuela instructed them to shake hands, Marianne instead inclined her head in a weird bow, like the one Seteth had offered her upon her arrival at camp. Lysithea, utterly flummoxed, returned the gesture, but continued to shoot Marianne funny looks as they walked back to their seats. 

It certainly wasn't the most invigorating sword-fighting Hilda had ever seen. That was still reserved for Petra when she was filled with battle-lust during a mission to the outside world -- a sight Hilda would never forget; it haunted her dreams. In a good way. 

But while it wasn't a flashy show of strength and skill, there could be no doubt that Marianne had some skill with the blade. Lingering beneath the surface. Like looking at something at the bottom of a fast-flowing stream, it was distorted yet in plain sight. 

Hilda opted to not mention anything, when Marianne returned to sit beside her. Instead offering enthusiastic praise -- which was taken up by Raphael -- and a high-five -- which was also taken up by Raphael, since Marianne still refused to touch people. 

“You went easy on her,” Hilda said, loudly enough for Lysithea to hear. Lysithea glowered, but made no reply. 

But Marianne only said, “She is very magically talented.”

Which wasn’t denying what Hilda had said at all. 

--

Nothing at all remarkable happened over the course of the next week or two. Classes. Chores. More classes. More chores. Boring. Unless you counted cool-headed, snide Hubert screaming like a little girl during pegasus-riding training. 

Hilda would have to make sure to actually give Minty some carrots for that.

Midway through the third week of camp, Hilda and the others gathered in the amphitheatre for some magic sparring lessons under the beady eye of the resident pedantic satyr and overall magic enthusiast, Hanneman. Hilda seated herself midway up the steps, confident that she wouldn’t be called upon for any demonstrations. 

Sure, she had magic. But Hanneman always liked his magic big and loud. The kind where you flung explosions, and branches, and ice, or whatever at each other in the arena. Hilda’s kind of magic involved batting her eyelashes so effectively that the enemy just dropped their guard, leaving an excellent opening for her to kick them into the stratosphere. And for some inexplicable reason that magic wasn’t good enough for public demonstrations.

Not that Hilda was complaining. Far from it. She put her sunglasses on, propped her feet atop the step in front of her, and settled in for an afternoon snooze. 

Of course, Hanneman called upon some of the Athena kids first. Then moved along to a few Hephaestus kids. The usual nonsense. Fire. Sparks. War magic. Scorched craters in the arena ground. Yawn.

But as the latest student to perform a demonstration was sitting back down, Hanneman turned his attention towards someone new. 

"Miss Edmund," Hanneman said with a gesture for Marianne to stand beside him. "I understand you have some talent in earth magic."

Well, that was news to Hilda. The last time Hilda had seen Marianne perform magic, it had resulted in everything in a ten meter radius turning to withered ash. One look at Marianne’s face only confirmed it, however. She was doing that thing where she hunched up like a hermit crab hiding in its shell. 

“I’m not sure if -” Marianne started to say, but Hanneman shook his horned and bespectacled head. 

“None of that now. This isn’t a sparring match, so there’s no danger to you or anyone else.”

"But -" 

"You cannot be exempt from everything, my dear," Hanneman added, scolding lightly. He waved for her to join him again.

Marianne hesitated. She looked over at Hilda, who flashed a feeble thumbs-up. That seemed to be all the persuasion Marianne needed, as though she would only do what Hilda approved of in this situation. Or perhaps as if she were hoping Hilda would save her.

Hilda did not realise it might have been the latter until it was far too late.

Marianne slouched to Hanneman's side. He directed her to face the others, so that she wilted beneath the full attention of the amphitheatre. 

Gesturing towards their feet, he said, "No need to fear. I have known many children of Demeter during my time here. Just focus on the earth, and it will answer."

Her hands were clenched into fists at her side. She did not move. Her gaze darted from side to side, before finally she squeezed her eyes shut, and held out her hand. 

Absolutely nothing happened. For a long time. Hilda could hear someone in the row behind her yawn. The birds were chirping happily away in the distance, until suddenly they weren't. 

Hilda sat up straighter. The back of her neck prickled. An odd silence settled over the amphitheatre. Like sound-cancelling headphones. Like being plunged beneath water. A pressure rising up like the tide until it seized everything in sight. 

And beneath them, a faint rumble. 

"That's it," said Hanneman, encouraging yet calm. "Don't force it. Just ease the plants out, and they should grow."

Hilda had been around the magic of Demeter kids before. Hell, just last week she had convinced Mercedes to save her bacon with those flowers. This was nothing at all like that. 

Marianne's eyes remained squeezed shut, as though she were anticipating the blow of an open hand. Her outstretched fingers trembled, and suddenly the earth erupted beneath her feet. Fissures split the surface with a sound like thunder, cracks extending in every direction. Some of the other students leapt to their feet, and scrambled back as the ground yawned open. It swallowed up columns, great chunks of marble and debris falling into a mephitic chasm that continued to widen. 

Hilda grabbed another student, who almost went careening into the chasm, hauling him back onto solid rock. In the arena Hanneman was yelling. Marianne's face was screwed up in a sustained flinch. When he grabbed her by the shoulder, she jerked. And in a flash of eerie light, Hanneman was flung backwards. His body crashed into the side of a pillar, and the ground went still.

Plumes of dust distorted the air. People coughed and waved, trying to see through the murk. From here, Hilda could just make out Marianne with her hands lifted to her mouth in horror. 

"Sorry!" she said, over and over. "I'm sorry!"

Marianne rushed over to Hanneman, reaching out to touch him, but stopping herself from doing so. His only response was to groan something wordless. Something dark matted his grey hair, and one of his curled horns had snapped, oozing red. 

The dust began to settle, and with it silence. Everyone stared. Marianne seemed to shrink before their very eyes. Before anyone could speak, she turned and fled. The moment she was gone, pandemonium broke loose. A few of the students raced over to Hanneman, Mercedes foremost among them, her hands already aglow with a healing spell. 

Claude looked at Hilda. "Child of Demeter, huh?"

Hilda pursed her lips. "Now's really not the time, Claude."

"On the contrary," he gestured to the gaping wound in the ground, splitting the amphitheatre nearly in twain. "I think now is the perfect time to be asking these questions." 

A pillar crumbled and crashed to the ground. Hilda winced. “Okay. Yeah. Fine. But I’m going to go find her before we start debating.”

“Good luck! Try not to get swallowed up by another freak earthquake.”

Already, Mercedes was helping Hanneman to his feet. Or -- hooves. Same thing. Another student, a red-headed Athena kid by the name of Annette, was repairing his spectacles, and handing them over for him to don. Before anyone could notice her absence, Hilda slipped away in the ensuing chaos.

Outside of the amphitheatre, Marianne was nowhere to be seen. With a sigh, Hilda started off towards the woods. 

When Hilda finally found her, Marianne was perched atop a branch halfway up a tree. She was talking quietly, but when Hilda approached, she fell silent. An extra set of eyes peered from the branches above her, wide and golden. An owl. Early evening shadows gathered around the woods, clustering around Marianne as though she were a magnet for twilight. She hugged her knees to her chest, and sat, completely still. 

The owl took flight when Hilda drew too near. It vanished into the surrounding trees. 

Hilda placed her hands on her hips, and craned her neck back to look up. “How the hell did you even get up there?”

There were no branches between the ground and the branch Marianne sat upon. And that branch was a good twelve feet in the air. Maybe more. 

Marianne peered over her knees down at Hilda. “Why did you follow me?”

“Well, that seems like a weird question.” Hilda gestured at where Marianne sat. “Then again, you are halfway up a tree after having turned some of the amphitheatre into rubble, so. Y’know. If it walks like a duck and acts like a duck.”

Marianne stared. “Then,” she said slowly, “it climbs trees?”

Hilda couldn’t keep a snort of laughter at bay. “Yeah. Something like that.”

“That satyr -?” Marianne asked. “Is he -?”

“Who? Hanneman?” Hilda scoffed. “He’s fine. Satyr’s have notoriously thick skulls. It would take more than that to kill him.” She beckoned. “Now, can you come down? I’m going to get a crick in my neck.” 

That only seemed to make Marianne curl in upon herself more. If anything, the branch looked further up now, though Hilda had no idea how that could have been possible. 

"You shouldn't spend so much time around me. Bad things happen around people who spend too much time with me. And I -" Marianne swallowed. Then she mumbled against her knees, "I think you're nice."

"Well, that's awfully sweet of you. Really. But I think I'll be fine."

"Hilda -"

"Listen. I'm a half-blood. Apart from your demigod step-father, all the people you spent time with must've been mortal, right? I’m tougher than I look. Now, come down, and we can go back to your cabin. I won’t even drag you to the dining pavilion. In fact,” Hilda wheedled, her voice lilting into a sing-song tone. “I’ll go get you a platter and bring it over, so people don’t stare at you. If that’s what this whole fleeing into the woods thing is even all about.”

For a moment there was silence as the offer was considered. Nervously, Marianne tugged at the long sleeves of the shirt Hilda had given her. “Can you - Can you turn around? I don’t want to do it while you’re watching.”

Truth be told, Hilda had been anticipating needing to catch her on the jump down. But with a bemused shrug, Hilda turned around on the spot. Behind her, she could hear the faintest rustle of the wind through trees, or perhaps a draught flickering through torches along a dimly lit corridor. When she turned back around, Marianne was sitting on the ground in the exact same position she had been in while atop the branch. Knees curled up to her chest. Hands firmly chained about her ankles.

Hilda held out her hand as a silent offer to help Marianne to her feet. To her utter shock, Marianne actually took it. Her fingers were soft and very very cold. 

Hilda tightened her grip, and hauled Marianne upright. “Geesh. You’re freezing.”

Immediately Marianne pulled her hand away, clenching it into a fist at her side. “Sorry.” 

“It’s fine.” Hilda tilted her head towards the direction of camp. “C’mon. Let’s go back.”

[xpouii]

Tentacletober Day 19

Yes it’s late! Yes I skipped Day 18! Yes I’m very tired lol. This day is a sequel to Day 12--which is a sequel to Day 9. SO if you want to read the full series from the start, 9 then 12 then 19!

Prompt: Protective Tentacles

Fandom: Sanders Sides

Characters: Logan, Roman, Virgil, Remus

Warnings/Tags: SFW, Swearing, sleep issues, sleep deprivation, mentioned bulimia, mentioned seizures, mentioned hallucinations, mentioned sleepwalking, drug use, prescription medicine abuse, kissing, fainting, brief mentions of therapy, hospital stay and psychiatric evaluation. General apathy and sympathetic Remus

               Logan grabbed the doorknob and heard the maid shout his name; he winced and turned, “Sarah, I really don’t have time to-“

               She held up the dropper with a look of longsuffering. Logan opened his mouth and took the drops of CBD oil under his tongue before rushing out the door. He spat into the bushes, taking a sip of water and rinsing out his mouth as he crossed the large lawn, punching in the code to open the gate as he spat again. He climbed onto the bus and sat down, taking out his phone and checking the school’s portal. Mr. Stevenson still hadn’t graded the Calculus exams, and Logan grit his teeth, shoving his phone into his pocket. Even though his parents would never ask, Logan liked to have his grades updated and ready to show them when they came in on Wednesdays for dinner. He was starting to feel slowed, and he checked the time, firing off a text to Roman as he swallowed his last stashed Adderall, hoping his friend would have more today.

               Logan had a schedule, just enough Adderall to last him until Wednesday, then he’d leave his new batch in his locked cello case until Thursday when his parents would no longer be home all evening and search his room. Then he hauled the cello home for his weekend lessons and used the school loaner on Friday. His mother would bring him on Monday mornings so he could bring the cello back and store it in the band room. Or Tuesday, if his mother was busy with meetings, like this week. Anytime Roman didn’t manage to palm enough Adderall—which was often—Logan would turn to the three other rich kids with prescriptions that were willing to sell—or trade for pot; Logan would take several pills a day, as many as it took to keep withdrawals at bay, unless he actually managed to run out. Logan’s parents were scientists, but his mother had gone on a natural medicine kick when the therapists had given up. So now he had a weed card, and a mother obsessed with monitoring his sleep—very unnecessarily. Logan had done plenty of research on the best ways to skip sleep, and other than days when his parents—or the maid—would watch him to make sure he didn’t spit out his treatments, or when his mother decided to try some new pot baked goods or when his father would smoke with him in some odd attempt to make Logan feel like they were bonding as men.

               As infuriating as that was, it didn’t hold a candle to the way his mother would wail and beg him to sleep on the weekends. Ever since his first seizure she had been insufferable, unbearable in her smothering. Logan tried to be more careful now, keeping track of the Adderall and the CBD and the caffeine and the sleep he’d actually given in to. The seizures had been the first symptom of critical systems failure, but certainly not the worst. The hallucinations were bad, auditory worse than visual because Logan had a harder time dismissing them. Worst of all were the episodes where he’d black out, but his body would keep going. He’d broken through his bedroom window and rolled off the roof, falling down and cracking his left shoulder. Thank god for your mom’s azalea bushes! Sarah had shouted at him, watching him writhe in pain in the grass. The time he’d managed to scare her had been his most frightening time as well.

              Logan had come to in the kitchen with a knife in his hand. Sarah was curled on the floor between the island and the oven, screaming for him to stop with the kitchen phone in her hand. He dropped the knife and started crying. He wanted to go to her for comfort. Sarah had raised him, after all, and Logan was six before he’d finally learned not to call her mommy. He was the monster, though, the bad thing he was scared of—and she was even more scared than he was. So, he turned around and went to his room, crying at his desk until the police and paramedics showed up. He’d spent a week in the hospital under strict psychiatric observation then. Logan had slept for 36 hours straight, and woken up with tears in his eyes. Both of his parents had been there, the whole time, and even now Logan’s heart would tighten at the warmth of the memory, waking up to their hugs and kisses and smiles.

              Logan was pulled out of his nostalgia when his phone pinged. His mother’s contact photo popped up on his phone over the text Have a good day, sweetie! See you tonight! I’m making dessert!

              Logan’s lip curled and he quickly checked his homework schedule, moving things around. His mother would definitely dose him tonight, which meant he’d sleep, and run behind. He would have exactly three hours from arriving home until his parents came in for dinner at 7 pm sharp. He could finish almost all of his homework, but the extra credit for Calculus 3 would have to wait until Thursday evening, pushing back his homework he planned to finish early in order to take a few hours off to watch Nasa’s livestream of the upcoming meteor shower. He swore under his breath. He hated missing the livestreams, especially when his parents would be bothering him about watching it. He wanted to, but he couldn’t fathom it now.

              He jumped when the bus stopped short and he had to throw out his hand to save his face from hitting the seat in front of him. He straightened his glasses and scowled up at the man in the mirror. Behind him a rowdy pair of girls started shouting obscenities, blaming the driver for interrupting their impromptu makeup session. Logan rolled his eyes, reminded of Roman and Virgil. The thought of his friends brought a genuine smile to his face. Although Logan was put on edge by the mere thought of sex, romance or—god forbid—love, he did wonder when his friends would admit their feelings for one another. Even his own mother had noticed their shameless heart eyes for one another during their last concert. Logan had tried to stop her from calling Virgil’s dads, but the woman never listened to him no matter how loudly he shouted. It was one of the biggest reasons Logan didn’t bother getting angry anymore, especially with his parents; it accomplished nothing and it wasted precious energy.

              A jab to the back of his head made him turn around, that well-hidden anger bubbling to the surface, but it dulled when he saw two of his usual suppliers had moved to the seat behind him. He glanced back to the usually inattentive driver and then dug in his backpack, producing the small parcels he usually divided his stash into for economical reasons. He set two between his feet and nudged them backwards, his eyes glued on the driver. A second later, the parcels were replaced with a pill bottle and he grabbed it, taking visual inventory of the total pills inside before shoving it into his backpack and zipping it. The two boys did the same, disappearing back into the proverbial crowd. The school was two stops away, and Logan had already gone back to calculating his homework time, and whether it would be worth skipping lunch or not. He decided against it—Roman probably wouldn’t eat, and Logan usually tried to get extra food for him at lunch, passing it to him during band and hoping Roman could end up trapped long enough to actually absorb some nutrients before purging everything again. It usually didn’t work, but sometimes the director was in a bad mood and he’d make Roman wait. Logan knew manipulating friends was technically wrong, but guilt wasn’t really something he participated in.

                 The hours went by fairly quickly until lunch; Roman had another Adderall for him and he saved it, swallowing it during third period Calculus when he decided to try and cram his extra credit in between taking lecture notes. Unlike the day before, Roman and Virgil attended lunch rather than smoking in the parking lot. Roman got a salad and a water while Virgil and Logan went for the cheeseburgers that were probably not made from actual meat, but they tasted brown, and they had cheese on them, and that was enough. They sat down at their table—avoided by most of the other students due to Logan’s snippiness. He was halfway through his food when Virgil choked on a bite, “Jesus L! Is that your heartbeat?”

               Logan looked down where his heartbeat was causing his shirt to tremble in time, a bit elevated, but not that bad for him. He scowled and moved his drink—a large canned energy drink—in front of him, “What about-what are you doing?!”

               Virgil had stood and pressed two fingers to the pulse point on Logan’s neck, “Hold still and be quiet.” He watched his phone timer until it beeped, “Two hundred bpm!”

               “No it isn’t,” Roman said, standing up to check.

               Logan sat sullenly as they double and then triple-checked their results, “It really is two hundred. Logan that’s too fast!” Virgil said. “When’s the last time you had an Adderall?”

               Logan opened his mouth, but he couldn’t remember, so he scoffed, “Stop overreacting. It’s no big deal anyway.”

               His throat was dry, and he tried to clear it, taking a slow swallow of his energy drink and waving them off. “Logan maybe you shouldn’t be-“

               “Just shut up, Roman!” Logan sniped, then he closed his mouth and pinched his nose shut, trying to force air out of his lungs. After twenty seconds, Logan moved his hand and let out a long, slow breath, smiling, “There, nothing a vagal maneuver can’t fix. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ve lost my appetite.”

               Logan stood up and—without any warning—fainted.

                 Logan winced against the bright overhead lights, trying to blink away the blurriness, but he didn’t have his glasses. He could hear voices, distant and muddled. ”…-es, ma’am. His two friends are beside themselves. If it’s going to be a while would you mind if th… alright. Yes ma’am he’s asleep now, but unfortunately I can’t administer anything you haven’t given me here… CBD oil? No Mrs. Berry we don’t… yes ma’am I’ll tell him.”

              Logan squeezed his eyes closed as the curtain around his cot rustled and the nurse checked on him. “I know you’re awake, Mr. Berry. Your mother said your friends could come and sit with you until she gets here. The band director already gave them a pass. Feel like visitors?”

              Logan nodded, “’s bright.”

              “That’s what happens when you do whatever shit you’re doing and then wake up with a hangover in the nurse’s office,” the nurse said. “But, I’ll turn half the lights off. Just try not to get rowdy some of us still have to work.”

              Logan sighed, but he did smile a bit when the lights went out, only to jump as Virgil and Roman crowded in beside him, “Fuck, Logan you scared the shit out of me!” Virgil scolded.

              “How are you feeling?” Roman asked.

               “Mom’s on the way,” he rasped.

               “I got it,” Roman said. “I already took it all out of your bag.”

               Logan looked to see the nurse, but her desk was empty and she was standing in the hallway. Virgil glanced over, “She didn’t hear y-“

               “Give me one,” Logan said.

               Virgil shook his head, “Logan no fucking way! You just fainted!”

               Logan squeezed his eyes shut, “Please, I’m gonna have to go all week… maybe longer, please! Roman? Please?”

               Roman glanced at the nurse, then pulled the curtain, fumbling in his jacket pocket.

               “No!” Virgil hissed as Roman pulled out the bottle and offered it to Logan.

               “I c-can’t swallow it,” Logan said thickly. “Not whole.”

               Roman met Virgil’s eyes and ignored his expression of horrified disappointment. He popped two of the pills into his mouth and chewed it, wincing at the taste—though it was nothing compared to the things that he tasted on any given day. He gathered as much saliva as he could and then bent over Logan, pressing their lips together. Logan wrapped his arms around Roman’s neck to hold him in place, and he licked the Adderall out of Roman’s mouth like a dying man. The kiss was slow at first, mechanical, but it became something else as they stayed close, and soon Virgil was checking the nurse’s whereabouts again as the other two made out, Roman letting out little pleasant moans against Logan’s lips.

               Virgil cleared his throat loudly when the nurse returned, and Roman straightened, fixing his shirt. Logan closed his eyes again and waited for the meds to kick in a bit more. “How long til she gets here?”

               “Nurse said an hour,” Logan said. “Or that’s what I think she said. Mom’s got clinical trials today so it’s not something she can just leave.”

               “They should have sent you to a hospital, not left you here with your dealer,” Virgil growled, glaring daggers at Roman.

               Roman sighed as he pocketed the pills, “Look, I’ll keep these in my bag until I get to come see you, ok? Then I’ll leave them behind that loose siding under your window. Just don’t be stupid. Maybe this is a good opportunity to quit.”

               Logan wanted to argue, but his lips were still kiss swollen and the taste of Adderall soothed him, so he just nodded. “I’ll think about it.”

               “I love you,” Roman said, lifting Logan’s hand to kiss it, then he ducked out.

               “He’s just as bad as you are,” Virgil said. “For enabling you like that. I can’t stand it, Logan. I can’t stand what you two do to each other.”

               “Are you jealous?” Logan asked; his words were cold, but so was he, and the last thing he needed was a lecture.

               Virgil winced, “Fuck this,” he muttered. He turned and pushed the curtain out of the way, leaving the office—and Logan—in buzzing silence.

                 Logan woke up on Friday, late in the evening. His parents were home, judging from the voices downstairs, and he could remember faded scenes with them over the past two days. He’d missed school, missed band practice, missed the meteor shower and—judging from the raging head and body ache—enough Adderall to start withdrawal. He sighed and slid to the edge of the bed, sneaking over to his window. He’d just reached to open it when something grabbed his ankle in the dark, pulling him. He hit the carpet and was dragged, scrabbling uselessly at the carpet until suddenly he was on his stomach on smooth, cold stone. He squinted in the low light as he stumbled to his feet, until someone—or something—handed him his glasses. He quickly put them on and found himself standing in front of a stranger, “Hello?”

               “He was finally awake!”

               Virgil and Roman stepped out into the light and Logan took half a step back, “I’ve never hallucinated these two before,” he muttered to himself.

               “We aren’t hallucinations, Logan,” Roman said. “We’ve been waiting for you to wake up all week.”

               “I didn’t really get the chance to tell you about Remus because you fainted at school and… well I took off. But he’s my friend.”

               “Our friend,” Roman said. “He’s been keeping us up all night pretty regularly. You should love him.”

               “By the way,” Remus said. “Whatever they have you on, those brownies are delicious. I stole five while waiting for you to wake up.”

               Virgil rolled his eyes but it was an affectionate gesture, “Glad to see you again, L. I’m… sorry I… whatever, I’m sorry.”

               Logan opened his mouth but Virgil stepped forward and hugged him, and as soon as Logan felt him, he knew he wasn’t hallucinating. “Virgil… I’m sorry too. I shouldn’t have-“

               “Yeah what did you say to him?” Roman asked. “He was mad the whole night!”

               “Mind your business,” Logan said when Virgil’s cheeks turned red. “So um… Remus, huh? What is he?”

               “No idea,” Virgil said. “A monster from under my bed, but he said he can get us into the amusement park through the staff emergency sleeping quarters.”

               “Theoretically,” Roman reminded.

               “Close enough!” Remus said, clapping his hands together. “So, Logan, would you like to come on some potentially life threatening rides with us, without any security or safety measures taken?”

               Logan smiled when Virgil nudged him, “I guess so, as long as I don’t break my glasses.”

[queencocoakimmie]

Just Us (Jim Mason)

Jim Mason X Female Reader

Word Count: +6000 

Warnings: Angst, talk of suicide, smut, unprotected sex, drug use.

A/N: So, Surprise! If you know me, you know that I love Cody’s character, Jim Mason. I think I’ve seen The Tribes of Palos Verdes so many times, and it always leaves me feeling so brokenhearted. I’ve always wanted to give him a different ending, maybe even a happier one. This fic runs along the same theme as the movie, except it diverges in the middle. I changed a couple of characters and some big parts. The Real Estate Agent (Ava) that Phil (the twins’ dad) falls in love with, has a son in the movie, but in this fic, she actually has a daughter, our protagonist. It gets really deep for a bit. The girl suffered a big loss in her life and her memories of it are pretty raw. Anyway, I hope that you like it. Here we go.

           Life in Palos Verdes was boring. Every day was literally the same thing over and over. School, the country club, this fucking house. It was all so monotonous. I hated it here and longed to be away, maybe someplace new. New York? Miami? Mexico? The only thing that I loved about this place was the beach. It’s like the ocean would call my name and beg me to go out there and sketch it. It was all around us, and it was mine.

           I would stare out of my window for hours, it would seem and daydream about moving away from everyone. From her. My relationship with my mother was complicated at best. At worst? I hated that bitch and she hated me. She was your typical Palos Verdes sheep. They all played tennis in their tight, little green tennis outfits, trying to bag the next rich guy or fuck the towel boy. They would gossip in the club’s restaurant and be drunk by noon. Every time there was a new member, they’d swarm them like sharks at a feeding frenzy. I hated them.

Ava (my mom) would always try to get me to hang around with them and maybe go on dates with their sons. Seriously? What would I want with them? They all looked the same. Like they all came out of the same lame factory or something.

Then one night, she dragged me to some party at the club. “We have a new family to welcome”, she said. Like I cared. “Honey, they have a son and a daughter, maybe you’ll hit it off with them. I sold them a house, isn’t that funny? The kids’ father seems so…nice.” Dear God, I knew that twinkle in her eye. She thought he was attractive. I feel sorry for his wife, against my piranha of a mother, she’ll stand no chance.

The party was like everything else here, bland and full of middle-aged rich people, trying to be cool. I saw some kids from school and waved to them. But I had zero interest in talking to any of them. It was enough that I saw them at school during the day, but here? Now? Nope. I wanted to get away. Take a midnight swim. Sketch some doodles by the water. Forget about my life for a few hours.

I saw the pack descend on the new family. There were people all over them, I couldn’t even get a good look at them. All I could hear were people saying how good looking a family they were. How nice they seemed. Great, another group of social climbers, as if we didn’t already have enough. I had to leave.

I walked outside onto the lanai and felt the cool breeze from the water roll off my skin. The air was clean and fresh, not like other places. I could taste the salt in the air when I opened my mouth. The DJ put on some 90’s hip-hop and I started to sway to it. It reminded me of my dad. He loved 90’s music. God, I miss him.

“Hey” I heard a small voice from behind me say. I turn to see a pretty blond girl who looks a bit lost. “Hey,” I say back. She stands next to me and we both look out at the ocean. We don’t say a word to each other. It’s like…it’s like we just understand. Is that weird?

After a few minutes of silence, I say, “My name is Kassidy, but people just call me Kass.” She nods her head. But, before she can tell me her name, she sees her mom and takes off without saying a word. I call after her, “Nice to meet you.” She turns back to wave then continues walking over to her mother.

It’s a curious sight watching the two of them. The mom was sitting there smoking all by herself. The girl walks over to her and sits next to her on the steps. They’re actually talking to each other. I wish I had that with my mom. After dad died, our relationship was never the same. She didn’t talk to me for a while, she said that I looked too much like him and it hurt her to see me. As if that was my fault.

I see them both look off into the distance and I follow their gaze. I see Heather has caught another boy in her web. He’s cute and a bit dorky. He’s wearing a sombrero, with a white shirt and tie. Totally not Heather’s type. He has a nice smile, though.

No longer wanting to stick around, I leave the party, without my mother. What’s the worst the could happen? I get grounded? Big deal. I’d rather walk along the beach anyway, alone. I look back and see the mom and daughter still talking. Tears sting my eyes. Ava and I would never be like that. There’s too much baggage there. In two years, I’ll be 18, then I’ll go wherever I want. Do whatever I want. I’ll be away from her and this place.

At school the next day, I see the new girl at the lunch table by herself. I contemplate walking over there to sit with her because she seems lonely. Instead, I join my friends, if that’s what you would call them. They’re in mid-conversation about the new kids. “She’s weird. Her brother is over there with them and she’s sitting by herself?” “What a freak!” I shake my head, “Guys, you don’t even know her, chill.” They laugh and call me sensitive. “It’s gotta be hard coming here from another place. We’ve been in Palos Verdes our whole lives. It’s gotta be a culture shock.” They nod their heads in agreement and then start talking about plans for the weekend. I look back over to her and feel her sadness. She’s staring at her brother. He seemed to fit right in with everybody. Ugh, Heather is sitting on the edge of the table, flirting heavily with him. I roll my eyes. I hate that girl.

In class, I say hi to her as I pass her desk. She looks up at me and smiles, “hey”.  I sit at the desk next to her and get my books and pencils out. “My name’s Medina. I didn’t get to tell you the other night.” I smile at her. She seems like a sad soul. Kind of like me.

After school is over, I wait for my mom on the steps of the school and see her and her brother ride off on their bikes. I wish I could go with them, they look so happy. What I would give to have that. If only my dad were here…

One night, I overheard Ava on the phone with some man, making plans for the night. It makes me sick to my stomach. Here she goes again. Pretty soon, she’ll come up and tell me to get lost, go stay at friend’s house, so she can have some privacy. I leave before she comes to knock on my door. I run out to the beach and strip off my clothes. My tears mixing with the salty water. I sob into the waves. My lonely mother, stalking her prey, like a hungry animal. She can’t have her own happiness, so she’s going to take someone else’s. It’s not fair.

I swim until my arms are sore. I can’t do this anymore. I contemplate drowning myself right here and now, to escape the pain. But, a memory of my dad flashes through my mind. He’s laughing and teaching me how to swim. We were so happy then. It’s been so long since he’s been gone, that I’ve begun to forget his voice. He had such sad eyes. Like Medina, like Jim. I drag myself out of the water and dry myself off. I go home to pack an overnight bag. I’ll have to find a place to sleep tonight.

I text Medina. She says come right over. We all stay up late that night. Laying on the floor, me, her and Jim. Talking about moving to Bali or Fiji, getting away from here. Jim rubs my back and I feel a tingle go down my spine. Medina throws a pillow at me and laughs. We all end up falling asleep on the floor of Medina’s room, wrapped up in each other’s arms. I wish I could freeze this moment and keep it forever.

As time goes by, Medina, Jim and I spend more time together. Most of it is spent watching them surf, while I sketch them in my notebook. We laugh and talk about the future. What we want to do or hope to have. I can tell there is something just underneath the surface. A tension going on behind the scenes. There’s a real sadness that’s taken over the two of them. I want to ask, but I’m afraid.

Medina texted me one afternoon and told me to meet them at our usual spot. I rush out of the house and arrive to see a big group of people hanging out. I’m confused because the Bay Boys are there. I expected just the three of us, like always. The guys are passing beer and weed around, and pills too. I see Heather and she’s cornered, Jim. I watch helplessly as she reaches up on her tiptoes to kiss him. It hurts and I feel my heartbreak. I turn to see that Medina has seen it too. She looks at me in horror. She knew how I felt about him.

When it would be just me and her, she would tease me about how I looked at him, how I acted around him. “Medina, you’re insane. You guys are like my family. I don’t see him like that, he is like my brother.” She would roll her eyes and nod, “Yeah, ok Kass. I see things y’know.”

The sun goes down and they’re all high and drunk. Even Jim. His eyes glazed over and blissed out. He’s not acting like himself. I watch as he runs and jumps on the hood of someone’s car and hangs on as it drives around in circles. It’s not like him. I look over to Medina and she shakes her head. She doesn’t know what to do either. We get away from the group and find ourselves sitting together on the rocks watching the waves crash against the shore.  

“You should tell him, you know.” She breaks the silence. I don’t look at her, but I know what she’s talking about. “You should tell him that you’re in love with him. If you don’t, I will.” I sigh, “But Medina, he’s with Heather. I don’t want to break them up. I’d be just like Ava.” It hurts to say that out loud. I’ve never said that to anyone. I’ve never actually acknowledged what she had done to our family. “You can’t tell your heart what not to feel, Kass. You should just tell him.”

Medina calls me frantic one day. Her father told her that he’s fallen in love with someone else. That he has a new chance in life to have love. “How could he do this to us?” She screams over and over into the phone. When I get there, her and Jim are standing outside, hugging each other. I can still hear their mother screaming at their dad. It’s hard to hear because it reminds me of my parents. I grab them both and we all stand there, locked into this triangle embrace. I feel their loss. I’ve been through this before.

When my Dad found out that my mom was cheating on him. He flipped out and lost it. It really broke his heart. They argued and argued, and things never got better. After the divorce, I would still try to see him every day after school, but it got really tough. He was so sad all of the time. Until one day, I came to visit him and there were an ambulance and police cars outside. I tried to run to the condo, but they kept pushing me back. One of the neighbors came over to me and hugged me. She kept apologizing to me. I saw them roll the stretcher out of his condo. Realization and nausea hit me like a wave. It was him. It was my Dad.

I’m there long enough to hear my mom’s name come up in their parents’ argument and I crane my neck to hear what they’re saying. He said that he loves her and has a chance to be happy. She screams when she realizes that Ava is the Real Estate agent, they had dinner with a year ago, the one that sold them this house. Jim and Medina look at me and Medina says, “Isn’t that your mom?” I nod my head and we all just stand there in silence. We don’t know what to say to each other.

My phone buzzes as I see Phil’s car pull away from the house. It’s her, it’s Ava. I don’t answer. I know what she wants to tell me. I throw my phone into the sand. I hate her even more now.

Time passes and Phil has now moved into our house. It’s so disturbing to see him at the kitchen table in the morning. Sitting in the same spot my dad used to. He tries to talk to me, to reach out but I have nothing to say to him. I don’t want a “relationship” with him. Even if they are engaged. She scolds me for not speaking to my soon-to-be stepfather. Disgusting.

Medina and I have grown closer as we’ve grown apart from our parents. All we have is each other these days. Jim is growing more and more distant. When I see him now, he’s always so wasted. I’m worried about him. Medina tells me that she’s watching him spiral and she can’t do anything to stop it. Their mother, Sandy, is so deep into her depression, that she doesn’t even notice Jim’s change. She’s even begun to treat him like a husband instead of a son. She reminds me of my Dad when he started to lose himself.

A text in the middle of the night from Medina, makes me jump in my seat by the window. I have insomnia so at night when I can’t sleep, I draw. I was lost in concentration. Sketching the planes of Jim’s face from memory, when her frantic texts ping on my phone. She tells me to meet her at the hospital. When I get there, I find her sitting next to a sleeping Jim. He’s wearing a hospital gown, with tubes in his arms. She looks up at me with red-rimmed eyes. “He overdosed tonight. He almost died.” She cries. I feel myself get faint. My poor sweet Jim, laying there like an Angel. He looks so…

I walk over to him and touch his cheek and it’s cold. My heart is heavy because I know that he is struggling with so much inner turmoil. Trying to be strong for Medina. Trying to be supportive to Sandy. But who is there for him? Who can he turn to? He can’t lay all of his problems at his sister’s feet. My poor Jim is lost. But, not anymore, he has me. I lean forward and kiss his forehead and whisper in his ear, “I love you, James.”

Medina and I walk outside, arms around each other. Her mother looks at us both with so much spite. I’m almost certain that she hates not only me but Medina as well. We sit together in the waiting room all night. We make a promise to each other, from here on out, it’s just us. No more Sandy, Ava. No more Phil no more Heather. Just us.

It’s been months since that night. Jim hasn’t touched the drugs. We’ve stuck to our pact, even after Ava married their Dad. The night of my 17th birthday, they all planned a party at the country club. I didn’t want to go, but Medina convinced me. I knew that they were going to be there, so it made me feel better. I had shut myself off from the other people I used to hang out with. They were toxic and immature. Lately, my life seemed to revolve around the twins. At times, I thought that maybe we suffocated each other, but in all actuality, we needed each other. No one else understood loneliness like ours. My love for Jim grew by the minute. I was in love with every detail of him. His floppy hair that always fell into his eyes. The beauty marks that dotted his face and chest. His smile and the way he would laugh at my stupid jokes. Medina would beg me to tell him, he wasn’t with Heather anymore, so there’d be no excuse not to.

           She helped me pick out the dress I got for my party. We had gone into town that previous weekend to buy it. Jim didn’t want to go with us, he couldn’t stand shopping at girly stores. Instead, he went surfing. We worried so about him but he assured us that he would be safe. She picked out a pretty, pale pink sheath dress that fell like silk against my tanned skin. I secretly hoped that it would catch his eye and make him look at me differently.

           The party goes off without a hitch. The country club ballroom was cordoned off just for me. Ava and Phil stood over there in the middle of it all like it was their party. They were it new “it couple”, holding court for the masses. They see me and wave me over to them, to bask in adoration. These people are fake and clamoring for their attention. Half of them don’t even know me.

           After, all the glad-handing, I searched the crowd for the twins. I had started to get nervous until I saw Medina. Her head thrown back in laughter, she was talking to a boy. I remember her talking about him, a few weeks back. His name was Adrian. He was cute, with dark hair and long eyelashes. I watched as she touched his arm and he touched her hand. It made me smile to see her so happy. She deserved that. I kept looking through the crowd for Jim. But when I couldn’t find him and that little bit of pain grew in my heart, I left the ballroom to get away. I couldn’t let anyone see me cry. Today of all days.

When I reach the end of the hallway, I look around to make sure no one is there. I feel the tears well up and the sob begins to rip from my chest. Tonight, was the night I was going to tell him. I was going to tell him that I love him. I’ve loved him since the first time I saw him, with that silly sombrero on his head. I was going to tell him that I needed him more than a friend.

A hand touches my shoulder and I jump. “Hey, what are you crying for?” His voice, so sweet and smooth. I don’t want to face him, I’m too embarrassed. He walks around and steps in front of me. He places one hand on my waist and one under my chin. “Hey”, his voice softer now, “Kass, what’s wrong?” I look up at him, eyes blurry and I say, “I thought you weren’t here. I thought you hadn’t come.” It sounds stupid when I say it out loud. “Why wouldn’t I come, you’re my best friend.”

He pulls me closer to him and stares into my eyes. His face full of understanding, and I think for the first time, he really sees me. He understands my tears. He holds me and we look at each other for what seems like forever. I’m sure he knows how I feel. But I’m too scared to say it.

I hear my name being called, and I know that this moment is gone. He takes my hand and we walk back to the party, not wanting this to end. We walk in and everyone starts singing ‘Happy Birthday’ to me. I smile, cheeks blushing. They bring out the big cake and it has seventeen beautiful candles on it. I look over at Ava and she smiles at me, a real smile. She tells me to make a wish. I look over at Medina and Jim, as they flank either side of me. They smile big smiles at me too, they’re happiness filling me with joy. Jim squeezes my hand, I close my eyes, make my wish and I blow out my candles.

A few weeks later, I hear Phil tell Ava that Sandy is going away for a while to get some help and that he wants Jim and Medina to live with us. But he worries about Jim and I being around each other too much. He suspects that we are more than just friends. “It wouldn’t be right, Ava. They’re step-siblings”. After a minute of silence, she says, “If they are in love, it’s not our job to stand in their way. They have been close since before you and I were even together. How horrible would it be to tear that apart?” She’s never stood up for me before. Not for school, not with anything, so I stand there eavesdropping at their door in shock. “Besides, who gives a shit what anyone has to say about us or them?” She continues, “It’s none of their goddamn business. If the kids want to, let them move in for however long they want.”

After they move in, everything is like a dream. We hang out every day on the beach after school, them surfing, me drawing. We have study sessions and throw chips at each other when the topic is getting too boring or we’ve had enough. We have big breakfasts with each other and laugh at our inside jokes. Medina’s boyfriend, Adrian comes around a lot, so now our group of three has expanded to a group of four. Jim and I are getting closer and closer. We have tiny moments when I think something will happen. A brush of his fingertips across my hand when we pass each other. His hand on my hip, when he reaches up to get the cereal over our heads. When he lingers in my bedroom after we all say goodnight. It’s there, that sexual tension. It hangs over us, like a cord ready to snap.

Movie Fridays we all usually go out together, but this time Medina is sick, and Adrian is upstairs taking care of her. Ava and Phil have gone to Paris for some work conference thing of his. It’s just me and Jim and it’s my turn to pick the movie. He makes a huge bowl of popcorn and grabs candy from the pantry. “Ok, Kass, what are we watching tonight?” I picked out ‘A Quiet Place’, I remember Jim saying that he had seen it and thought it was so good. “I thought scary movies freaked you out?” I nod and say, “But you’re here with me. I won’t be too scared.”

As the movie goes on and my anxiety level ratchets up, I feel my nerves bundling. I moved so close to him, I’m almost on top of his thigh. A jump scare happens on screen and I gasp and bury my face into his chest. He wraps his arm around me and when I look up at him, I become hyper-aware of his body and that we are alone. Our eyes lock onto one another and everything else falls away.

Our eyes saying things to each other that words could never convey. I move closer to him, doe-eyed, lips wet. He brings his other hand down to touch my face. “You are so beautiful, Kassidy.” Slowly, our lips meet, and the kiss is passionate and tender. I was expecting it to be hungry and ravenous. But it’s gentle and loving. He runs his hand through my hair and grips it at the base of my head. I feel him moan against my lips when I touch his inner thigh. He pulls me onto his lap and lifts my shirt up over my head. I’ve been around him plenty of times in my bathing suit, but this is so intimate, I suddenly become nervous. I cover up my stomach with my arm, not wanting him to see my soft belly. He pulls my arm away and places my hand on his face. I kiss him again and help him take off his shirt. We share an unspoken understanding. We belong to each other. He asks for my permission to keep going and I nod. He then unfastens my bra and frees my breasts, from their constriction. I sigh audibly at the welcome relief. He holds them in his hands and bites his bottom lip. I’ve never been this close to a boy before. I’ve made out with boys before, but never like this.

He bends his head down and licks languidly at my nipple. I breathe in a sharp intake of air at the sensation. He takes my nipple into his mouth and sucks on it slowly, lazily. I grip his hair, absentmindedly, and pull his head back. “Do you want me to stop?” He asks, huskily. “Please don’t.” I moan. I can feel the wetness pool in my panties, I’m almost certain he can too.

He keeps sucking at my nipple and caressing and pinching the other. I feel my body rocking back and forth on his lap, rubbing myself against his thighs. I don’t know if I can take much more. His bulge growing and becoming harder against his grey sweatpants. He suddenly picks me up and wraps my legs around his waist. “Not here, not like this.”, he says against my neck. He takes me upstairs, kissing me, hands gripping my ass. Our breaths are ragged from excitement. I hear Medina’s door creak open and then shut. I hear her and Adrian laugh. I look down at him and smile, “I think they can hear us.” His blue eyes shine at me, under the moonlight. “I don’t care. I only care about you.” He opens the door and lays me onto the bed.

I look around his room, and his walls are littered with pictures of the three of us. Always the three of us. Laughing, smiling, happy. I look at him standing there and warmth flushes through my body. “I love you, James Mason. I love you with all of my heart.” I scoot to the end of the bed and start to untie his sweatpants, but he stops me. He gets down on his knees and kisses me before he says, “I love you too. I’ve loved you since the beginning. I heard you that night when I was in the hospital. You gave me the will to live. I’m here because you saved me.” I wrap my arms around his neck and tears begin to fall down my face and splash onto his shoulder.

He pulls back from me to wipe my tears and kisses me again. He lays me back down and helps me shimmy out of my pajama pants. Then he hooks his thumbs into the waistband of my panties and slowly pulls them off. The air hits my naked skin, and goosebumps pimple my flesh. I feel so exposed, I put my hand over my vagina. He looks up me, a lust has darkened his face. His eyes look like he is ready to devour me. He pulls my hand away and licks his lips. I raise myself up onto my elbows in anticipation. I’ve always heard how good this feels, but I’ve never experienced this before. I’m not sure what to expect.

He scoots in closer and pushes my legs apart. He starts with tiny little kisses on my inner thighs, and my hips are already bucking against him, “Not yet, kitten, you’re going to have to wait.” I feel the heat low in my abdomen and my mind is starting to spin. His tiny kisses turn into tiny licks and when he gets to my entrance, he licks a flat wide, stripe against my folds. I gasp so loudly, I have to cover my mouth with my hand. He licks slow and gentle against my clit, as I buck against his mouth. My hand buries itself in his hair and pulls on it. He groans and sucks on my clit vigorously. The sensations I’m feeling wrack my body. I’m writhing on the bed and push his face into my dripping cunt. His licks and sucks are becoming wetter and the noises are obscene. The tensions building and building until he gently pushes his index finger into me. He starts off slowly and then in between licks he pushes in a little further. I begin to unravel as I breathlessly call out his name. “Please…don't…stop James.” He inserts another finger and stretches me wide. My body can’t take anymore, and I explode. I scream out his name against the inside of my hand and cum all over his tongue. My body still rolling with pleasure, he licks my cunt clean.

I scoot my body up the bed and he crawls on top of me. His chin glistening with my juices. The moonlight streaming through the windows, playing shadows across his face. I’m so turned on by his smile, I pull him towards me roughly. Kissing him, I can taste the tanginess of myself on his lips. He kisses down the side of my face and onto my neck, I turn my head and see the ripples of muscles in his arms as he holds himself above me. He moves down to suck on my nipples again, but I stop him, “I want you, James. I want all of you.”

“Are you sure? I want you to be sure this is what you want” I nod at him and tell him that I am. He hops off the bed and unties his pants, they drop to the floor and there he is, in all his glory. His dick was hardened and the tip was slick with precum. My mouth waters wanting to taste him in my mouth, but before I can, he crawls back on top of me. Kissing me hungrily, rubbing himself against me. I reach down and grab his dick and he tilts his head back in pleasure. I begin to rub up and down the shaft, circling my thumb on the tip. He growls through gritted teeth, “I need you now, are you ready?” I squeeze his dick in response and open my legs wide. He lines himself up with my entrance and slowly starts to guide himself in. A rush of pain pools in my vagina as he thrusts. He’s so gentle, but my body craves this release. I grab his hips and pull him forward. His eyes go big and he takes this a sign to keep going. His rhythm, in tune with my body, rocks back and forth, going deeper and deeper. We’re both breathing so heavily, moans mixed in unison with each other. I feel so much pleasure that I don’t feel the sting of the loss of my virginity. I dig my fingers into his hips, begging him to fill me up. Harder and faster until we both are slick with sweat; his thumb finds its way to my clit and rubs it in circles. With him pumping in and out of me and playing with my clit, I feel the pressure of another orgasm building. “Do you like that, Kass? Does it feel good inside of you?” He says in my ear. The sensation of his breath of the outer shell of my ear, send shocks down my body. I can’t hold on anymore. My body bucks against him and the sounds of our sweaty bodies slapping against each other is explicit and loud. I cum so hard that my body shakes under his. Still clenched onto him, I feel his movements getting sloppier until his body gives out. He cums, calling out my name and collapses on top of me.

Neither of us moves, even after he’s gone soft inside of me. He lays there, kissing my shoulder and my face. “Are you ok, baby?” I smile at him and tell him that I am. He finally pulls out of me and we both get under the covers. He wraps his arm around me and asks, “I never did ask you, what did you wish for on your birthday?” I roll over and look up at him, “I’ll never tell, but this is pretty damn close.”

2 Years Later

The summer we all turned 18, we decided to leave Palos Verdes, like we had always planned. Sandy, the twins’ mom, was doing so much better now. She had moved back to Michigan and started teaching again. She seemed really happy. They would go visit her at Thanksgiving or Christmas and she’d always ask them to stay. But their lives were here in P.V they weren’t ready to leave just yet. Ava and Phil had a nasty divorce. He cheated on her with one of the nurses, apparently, this wasn’t news to Jim and Medina, as it had happened many times before when he was married to their mom. They were surprised though that he had been faithful this long. Ava kicked him out, but let the twins stay with us, much to his chagrin. He moved into a condo on the beach and we’d see him when we’d go surf and hang out. Adrian had been accepted to college but convinced his parents to let him take a gap year. Phil must have felt so bad about disrupting the twins’ lives in the first place, that he barely needed any convincing on letting them travel the world.

When I sat down and told Ava about our plans, she was hesitant at first. She said we were too young to travel without supervision. But I explained to her that we’re all of age now, and could just leave if wanted to, without permission. She seemed to think it over before saying, “Ok, but you have to call every day and check in. I need to know where you are at all times. Do you understand?” I hugged and kissed her cheek, something I hadn’t done since before Dad died. “Thank you, Mom. I love you.” She was so shocked that tears sprang from her eyes and she hugged me so tight I thought I would suffocate.

The day we left Palos Verdes, we all stood on the rocks, arms around each other and said goodbye to this place. Let the spray from the ocean sprinkle our faces. This was the last time, I’d feel this here. This was the last time this sun would set on my face. We were taking the good memories, like the ones I had of my dad and the laughs the four of us shared together, with us. We were leaving behind the bad memories, like the twins’ parents breaking up and Jim’s drug overdose. That stuff didn’t matter anymore. We had each other, and we were going to look out for one another.

We packed up the van and said our goodbyes to our parents. I sat in the passenger seat as Jim drove. Medina and Adrian played Uno in the back, singing along to the radio. This was as close to perfect as life could get. I was staring out of the window, lost in thought when I felt Jim’s hand enclose around mine. I look over at him and smile. He was so beautiful, and he was mine. All mine. I turn back to the window and I’m reminded of the wish I made for my 17th birthday. It had come true after all. I wanted to leave Palos Verdes and its perfectly manicured lawns and glistening white sands. I wanted to leave this place and be with the people who loved me the most. I wanted to be with him. Just us.

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[j2badwolfclevergirl]

Dear you,

I know today isn't actually my birthday, but it's still close enough that it doesn't feel wrong to write this.

I remember the last time I wrote a letter to myself was when I was eighteen. Wow. That was four years ago now. Hey. It's me. You.

You were such a different person back then.

Still raw and broken, trying to find something, anything to hang onto. Your life was falling apart.

Friends were growing up and leaving. You were growing up and it fucking terrified you. You were so scared and insecure that you closed in on yourself, all long sleeves and sweaters. You couldn't bare your arms because all your pain was written on them.

You were losing your religion, your faith.

You had no fucking clue who you were or what you wanted. Well, you thought you knew what you wanted but now you're not as sure.

Do you remember those walks on the beach with Evan, how happy and yet how miserable you were?

You remember thinking "these are the memories I'll treasure."

And you were right. But you were also wrong.

Because those memories couldn't compare to some of the ones that came later.

You, at eighteen, would never have even imagined who you would become.

At nineteen, things finally started to heal. You cut off all your hair and you fucking loved it. You left religion in your rearview with all the trauma it had caused you. Ok, maybe not all of it. Some of it you still carry deep in your chest and you're still trying to pry all the sharp-edged, heavy pieces out.

You went to England, for a whole month all by yourself. You literally got on an international plane and flew for seven hours and were awake for almost twenty four hours straight and then

you were there. In England.

That "someday" dream actually became a reality. You got to see Shakespeare's birthplace and visit Jane Austen's house.

You went out to a pub for the first time and drank for the first time. You even got kinda drunk. You tried a hand-rolled cigarette. You felt free and a little terrified by it.

You went for walks by that river, beautiful and a little haunting.

You were pretty lonely for most of that month, but you don't really regret a second of it.

It showed you that you were capable of so much more than you thought and that maybe some of your dreams could acutally come true.

Then you started college. For real this time. Moving away from home, leaving behind your remaining two friends and your dear, crazy family.

You remember how scared you were that drive down? How you had your headphones on and were trying to drown out the frantic voices in your head, the twisting vines in your chest and stomach? How your fingers kept knotting in your lap as you tried to wring the anxiety out of them?

Remember that first night in the dorm room? Scared but also kind of excited. College was a place to start fresh, to try and figure out who you were now.

That first semester was a bit of a mixed bag. You made some friends but being around them made you anxious, insecure. Casper died and you cried more than you thought you would.

And then there was that night with your friends, playing drinking games and drinking wine out of a red solo cup with a twisty straw. They went out to smoke and you thought, "Why not?" And then you came inside and everything shattered. You were on the floor, in someone's lap, crying and trying to breathe. You couldn't stop saying sorry. Four and a half hours you just kept gasping "sorry" over and over and over, begging for forgiveness for being weak, being a burden, for ruining everyone's night. And that was the night everything started to crack again.

The long sleeves came back. It got hard to breathe more often. You couldn't spend time with your friends because your brain wouldn't shut up about how they didn't really like you, how you were a burden, how they judged you for being weak, how they wouldn't miss you and how they would even be better off without you. And so you hid. You stopped going to dinner. You unfollowed and avoided. You cut them off and shut them out because you couldn't make the voices stop. You started to break again.

But then summer came and it was almost a relief. Home was the same, except it wasn't. The twins had started to get boobs, James was in high school and everyone was fucking growing still. It felt good to be home but it was also hard to see that everything had continued while you were gone, that your little siblings were growing up when you weren't there to see.

The second year was a little better, a little easier. I honestly don't remember much of it off the top of my head. You started to tentatively make some new friends. Just aquaintence level really but it was a start. You kept learning, kept struggling a bit but you didn't break again.

You had your first kiss at 20 years old with the first girl you ever liked. Oh yeah, that's right. Somewhere before college you figured out you liked girls. In fact, you really like girls. It was scary and, like the nerd you are, you turned to google. You spent hours researching, taking quizes like

"am i gay?"

"is it a crush or a girl crush?"

"do i really like her?"

You watched dozens and dozens of videos just trying to get used to two girls kissing. You imagined what it would be like to kiss a girl. And you didn't hate the idea.

It took months before you decided you were bi. You didn't tell anyone for a long time. But when you did, no one made it a big deal. But you couldn't tell Gammy. You still haven't told Gammy. You're too scared. You don't think your relationship with her will survive.

You also went on your first date at 20. It went ok but she told you she wasn't interested after the second date. That seems to be your lot. You still haven't made it past the second date.

21 was when things really started to get better. You made some real new friends. They aren't perfect and sometimes you still struggle with insecurity but you're learning that it's ok and that often they are just as nervous and insecure as you.

You could finally legally drink! The first time you go to the liquor store they don't even card you and you think it's pretty funny.

You started trying to love yourself. It wasn't easy. It still isn't. You also started to let loose, take more risks, try to go with the flow a little more. You went on more dates but nothing ever panned out. You also started smoking weed. You really fucking love weed now.

You spent more time with Emma and found out you actually have a lot in common. She became your fun-friend, the friend who would drink with you on a weekday, smoke with you when-fucking-ever and who encouraged you to let loose. You were each other's cheerleader and each other's encouragement to live like the young 20 year olds you were. Remember that night you went out drinking on a Wednesday afternoon before class? You had drinks and then two shots. I don't think anyone noticed though. Two weeks later, you were back at the bar before class again and you both split a pitcher of mimosas in celebration of the ending semester. Those were two of the best nights you ever had. But they weren't nearly as fun as the days you would go over to Emma's apartment to "study." Those afternoons and evenings spent drinking, smoking and talking. Sometimes playing a game, sometimes watching a TV show, but always having so much fun.

Now, here you are. 22 years old. Four years ago, you were on suicide watch and feeling like life would never get any better. Now, you're thinking about teaching abroad after you graduate.

You still aren't in a relationship but for the first time in your life, you are genuinely okay with that.

You don't have a lot of friends but the ones you have you wouldn't trade for anyone else.

You're still trying to find the balance between responsibility and living life to the fullest but you're getting better at it everyday.

You also started practicing witchcraft, which is kinda cool.

You feel more confident in yourself and you are having fun experimenting with your style.

You shaved your head and it makes you look kinda badass. (It is also so much easier to deal with and let's be honest that is really why you love it.)

You smile so much more than you used to. You laugh more and cry a little easier. You're finally starting to let yourself really feel again. You're trying not to be so afraid of feeling, trying to stop numbing yourself when you feel overwhelmed. You're trying to sit with your emotions more and let them pass rather than ignoring them because you're scared you'll fall back into the dark place. You're growing.

You have changed so much.

You still think being an adult sucks, but you're starting to notice and take advantage of more of the perks

You have transformed from a scared, broken, bleeding teen into a confident, curious, and free-spirited adult.

The future isn't as scary now. I mean, there are definitely still days where it terrifies you and your chest aches for everything you've lost with time. There are still days where you relive a memory and long to go back to when things were simpler.

But there are also days where you remember that the future promises more of those good times and memories.

You're doing what makes you happy more. You're letting yourself be happy without guilt.

You're finding the pleasure and joy where you can and learning to enjoy it as it washes over you, instead of trying to grab it and hold on.

You're letting yourself make mistakes and trying not to feel as embarrassed or ashamed of them as you used to.

I am so proud of you. I am so proud of who you're still becoming, of who you won't ever stop becoming.

Keep growing, keep learning, keep taking risks and making mistakes.

Be brave.

Be curious.

Be tender.

Because you're alive and that's all that matters.

Love,

You at 22

[this-is-freeridge]

The Air Between Us

Chapter Five: Geny tells Mari some hard truths and Mari finds solace at a Santos party.

Warning: this fic deals with dark themes, including but not limited to teen pregnancy, rape, drug abuse, murder, abortion, underage drinking and underage sex.

Find all chapters here

Mari had just about finished cooking. Ruben was still at work, but he would be home soon so Mariana had been cooking all day to ensure everything was ready by the time he got home. Tonight, she wanted everything to finally run smoothly.

Life with the Martinez family had been hectic, but she was slowly adjusting. After that first day with Ruby and Jamal, the younger boy didn’t seem to have a problem letting her in (maybe that was just because he has a tendency to overshare, but Mari was trying to remain positive).

She hadn’t spent too much time with Mario. A few passing hellos and the occasional “how’s your day been” here and there. He was mostly out with his girlfriend, Angelica. When he was home, he was in his room or doing something that he claimed he didn’t want to be disturbed for. She had tried to ask him about the book he was reading once, but he didn’t seem interested in a conversation.

She had even spent some time watching re-runs of soaps with Abuelita. The person she had yet to spend quality time with was Ruben. It was funny, she couldn’t help but feel that she spoke to him more frequently when they were just exchanging emails. He worked a lot, taking on more overtime now that there was another mouth to feed. When he got home, he had to spend time with his wife and the twins, not too long after that he was in bed for the night, ready to do it all again the next day. That’s why this dinner was so important to her. That, and her relationship with Geny.

Things were still on thin ice with Geny. Mari helped her with cleaning after meals in the evening and she even helped get the twins ready every morning; they didn’t really know what was going on, but they seemed to like her enough and that earned her some brownie points with Geny. They were by no means best friends, they were still barely on speaking terms, but it was progress enough that Geny was letting Mari into her personal space as it is. Despite that progress though, Geny was behaving extra cold today.

Mari was just taking the roast vegetables out of the oven when Geny walked through the kitchen, washing basket balanced expertly on her hip. Geny didn’t say anything as she passed, didn’t even spare a glance. Mari switched off the stovetop as the last of the food finished up and then covered it so it didn’t go cold. Hesitantly, she stepped into the living room where Geny was silently folding clothes.

“Can I help?” Mari asked as she approached. Geny still didn’t meet her eyes, but she nodded nonetheless.

Mariana took a seat on an armchair near the sofa Geny was on. It was a bit of a stretch to reach the laundry from where she was, but the older lady was a ticking time bomb and Mari didn’t want to set her off.

They folded silently for a while. No one made any move to speak or clear the air. Mariana just wanted to know what happened. They were making progress; they were almost having conversations and occasionally traded tight smiles. So why was it like all of a sudden? What did she do?

Shoving all impulse control out the window, Mari asked.

“Geny,” she started, continuing to fold, “if I’ve done something...please tell me,”

Geny’s face contorted into a look of “what could you have done?” but she didn’t say anything, so the teen continued.

“I understand that you don’t want me here. I know that my entire existence is a hinderance to your life here, so please tell me what I can do to make it any easier. Okay? You hate me, I get it, but I don’t hate you and I want to be a part of your life, if you’ll let me,”

There was a pregnant pause, and then Geny inhaled slowly, setting aside the unfolded button-up and placing her hands calmly in her lap. She may have looked placid, but Mari expected this was just the calm before the storm and braced herself for the hurricane.

For the first time today, Geny looked at Mari. If looks could kill, Mari thought, she would be dead ten times over.

“Your existence,” Geny spat, and then took a deep breath as though to calm herself, “is a living reminder of one of the darkest times in my life. Ruben and I split up because parenthood was hard and I was suffering from untreated postnatal depression. So while I was taking care of our son and getting help for myself, Ruben was off with your mother. But I don’t hate you.

“You’re a part of our family now. Yes, it’s hard for me to forget that time when you’re around, but you that’s now why I’ve been...behaving like this. It’s because there’s more to the story than you know about. And Ruben is a great, loving man, but he’s soft. There’s something he hasn’t told you, we both haven’t told you, because he doesn’t want to hurt you. I’ve wanted to tell you, but I didn’t want to betray Ruben. That’s why I’ve been so distant to you. We’ve known about you, mija. A lot longer than you think,”

Mari’s breath caught in her throat. For months she was so happy she finally found him, so proud of herself and so thankful he accepted her.

A million thoughts raced through her mind; the whole time, he knew? How long? Why didn’t he look for her? Did he know what her mother was doing? Did he care?

“We found out about you not long after you were born,” Geny continued. “when your mother ordered a restraining order against Ruben and started demanding child support. He paid it, he only stopped when you contacted him and he realised those payments were supporting your mother’s drug habit. He felt so guilty for not finding you sooner, but you have to understand she wouldn’t let him near you, he had no way of knowing where you were,

“He truly thought you were having a good life and he didn’t want to get in the middle of that. If he had known what was happening in that house any sooner, we would have got you out of there a lot sooner,”

Mari bit her cheek to stop the tears she could feel welling in her eyes. She wasn’t angry at Geny, or even at Ruben, but she couldn’t help but feel a sense of betrayal. He had known. He had sat idly by while she defended him and told his children that he didn’t lie to them, that he didn’t know better. He had sat by, with his beautiful wife and beautiful children in their beautiful house, while she didn’t know when the power would be cut off or when she would get her next meal or when her mother would wake up from her drug-induced haze or when her mother’s dealer-turned-boyfriend would come onto her when no one was around. Geny said he didn’t know how to find her and maybe that was the truth. But, she couldn’t help but think, he had almost eighteen years and Mari only needed four months to find him, so maybe the truth was that he didn’t really want to try.

“Why are you telling me this?” The words came out in a whisper, as though her body itself didn’t believe what she was hearing.

“Because you deserve to know,” Geny was whispering too because she didn’t want to make Mari run, as though she were a scared rabbit.

It was too late though. Geny reached out a hand to gently touch Mari’s shoulder, hoping that some of the maternal intimacy she missed out on all her life would be enough to help process the situation. Mari was standing before Geny got the chance.

“I need to get some air,” she said, “food’s done, by the way,”

She was out the front door before Geny could stop her.

Mari didn’t realise she was crying until she was halfway down the street. The hot air made her tears feel sticky and she hastily wiped at them with her hands. She didn’t know where she was going, not consciously, but her feet led her to the only other place she knew. They led her to Spooky.

The front door was closed, but there were a few cholos hanging around the front yard. Feeling fearless, she approached one of them (one of the smaller, less intimidating ones).

“Is Spooky here?” She asked.

The guy stepped to her. “He might be out back. Why you wanna know, hyna?”

“He invited me yesterday. I said I couldn’t make it but plans change so here I am,”

The guy looked her up and down, but not in the sort of wanting way that she had become accustomed to since moving here, more so as though he was sizing her up, figuring her out. After a few only slightly awkward moments he nodded and gestured to the house. Taking that as her invitation, she entered.

She could hear the loud bass blasting through the walls from the back yard. All the doors she could see were closed, most had smoke leaking out the bottom. The hall she walked through was thick with smoke and smelled strongly of weed, but she followed the sound of the speakers and soon enough was outside.

She scanned the crowd but she didn’t see him. That disappointed feeling inside her grew; first, she found out about Ruben and now Oscar wasn’t at a party that he invited her to? Sure, she said she couldn’t go but she was hurting so, really, who could expect her to be rational at a time like this?

Right now, Mari just wanted something to numb the pain and the bottles of tequila she could see across the yard seemed like a good place to start. Though Spooky was her in, he wasn’t here to show her the ropes so she helped herself to a red solo cup full of the clear liquid, carelessly dropping a lime wedge in there for good measure.

Standing and drinking alone, unsurprisingly, wasn’t as fun as it seemed though the alcohol was getting to her head and she began caring less and less. A group of girls sat on a sofa in the yard a few metres away. Feeling a bit giddy and full of liquid courage, Mari made her way over. Just as she got there, a couple of Santos approached them. Three of the girls left with them, leaving Mari alone with one blonde who looked only half-conscious.

“Hey!” The blonde girl slurred as her body swayed just slightly. She looked pale, and maybe it was just a mix of moonlight and smoke, but she was starting to look a little green. The blonde girl opened her mouth to speak again but immediately bought a hand to cover it.

The blonde girl hunched over, head between her legs and hair in her face. Mari jumped over with a cry of “oh, girl!” and pulled the girl’s hair in a ponytail held together by her fist as she chucked all over the floor and promptly passed out.

Mari the blonde’s hair with a groan and slumped on the seat.

“So much for making friends my own age,” she muttered to herself and downed the rest of her drink. Her throat burned, but that last mouthful seemed to do the trick. Her thoughts no longer made sense, the party seemed to kick up a notch and the guy standing at the makeshift bar giving her those bedroom eyes was starting to look pretty damn fine.

Hopping up from the sofa she made her way over, keeping his gaze the whole time. He was taller than her, but not as tall as Spooky. He wore cut off denim shorts, long black socks and a black wife-beater, a look she had recently discovered she was into, but she couldn’t help but notice how the style didn’t quite suit him the way it looked so naturally good on Oscar. She wondered again briefly where he was, but it was out of sight out of mind when the man spoke.

“Hey mami,” he greeted. It didn’t give her the same sort of tingle she got when Oscar called her that (even by text) but she didn’t mind the attention, “can I get you a drink?”

Mari glanced at her recently emptied cup, and then at the swarm of bodies that were swaying and grinding to the almost too loud music.

“I wanna dance!” She said, shouting a little over the volume.

“Ay, we can do that,” he nodded, placing a hand on her lower back. The touch jolted her a little. She wasn’t used to that kind of physicality - did she really want to go and grind on a guy she didn’t know in front of a bunch of strangers? Yes. She did. “One sec!”

Turning to the ‘bar’, she took four of the disposable shot glasses and lined them up. She poured the tequila over them all until they were full and took two for herself. She downed them, one after the other, and the guy chuckled.

“Damn, bitch,” he said, grabbing the other two glasses, “I like the way you think,”

“Uh-uh!” Mari exclaimed and took one of the shots back, “only one of those was for you, compa!”

She flashed him a smile and took her shot before grabbing his hand and dragging him into the crowd. His hands easily found her hips and she swayed, gently at first, keeping a bit of a distance between them.

“What’s your name,” he asked, leaning into her so that she could hear him.

She gripped his shoulders to keep herself steady as she stood on her toes to reach his ear as she replied, “Mari!”

As she slipped back down, she lost her balance and fell into him. He caught her with a smile and kept his arms comfortably around her waist. She snaked her arms around his neck and smiled up at him as he said.

“I’m Sad Eyes,” She wanted to roll her eyes at the nickname, but she thought that might be disrespectful so she said nothing. “You, uh, you got something on your top,”

He pointed to her shoulder, right above her left boob. She looked down and honestly, couldn’t tell whether it was the sauce she had been cooking earlier or blonde girl’s vomit. She didn’t care either way as she shrugged, lifted her shirt above her head and threw it into the slew of people.

Sad Eyes’s smile widened and he bought her in closer, his body pressed firmly against her chest clad in only a lilac bra.

She didn’t know how long they danced for, only that time was passing and she wasn’t thinking. His hands weren’t warm against her skin like she’d hoped they would be, but the warmth she got from the tequila helped her forget about that. They danced until her feet hurt, and as she glanced around beginning to tire, she spotted what she wanted to do next.

The table that acted as the bar had been cleared and on it lay a woman with her shirt pushed up to her bra, a line of salt on her abdomen and a lime wedge in her mouth.

“Look fun, mami?” Sad Eyes asked.

Mari nodded and pulled him over, getting ready to go next. The crowd cheered as the cholo finished the shot, Mari joined in. She didn’t know exactly why she was cheering, but the atmosphere was electric and she seemed welcome here, she felt comfortable and included for the first time in a long time.

When it was her turn, Sad Eyes helped her onto the table. He handed her a shot of tequila and a lime wedge, which she promptly placed between her lips, and then licked a stripe down from the bottom of her ribcage to the spot just above the rose gold jewellery piercing her bellybutton. He poured the salt along her abdomen where his tongue had been and flashed her a cheeky smile. He pressed a hand to her knee and she could feel it where her black jeans were ripped, but despite how much he had touched her tonight, it wasn’t familiar like she knew some simple touches could be.

As he leaned back down to lick the salt off her tan skin, time seemed to move in slow motion. There was a heat pooling inside her and for just a moment she let the feeling take over and she closed her eyes. The face she saw behind her eyelids didn’t belong to Sad Eyes, it belonged to Oscar and the thought jolted her so much so that she immediately opened her eyes again.

Just before his tongue could touch her skin for the second time, he was yanked away and suddenly Oscar was looming over her.

His eyebrows were knitted together and his nostrils were flared; she had never seen him so furious.

“Get up,” he ordered.

Mari took the lime out of her mouth and held the shot out to him.

“Oh, come on Mr. Spoilsport,” she slurred, “you can at least take the shot!”

He glared but soon enough the Santos and all their hynas were chanting for Spooky to take the shot. He did so, hastily grabbing the glass from her hand and downing the drink before he angrily swiped at the salt on her stomach. His hand caught the metal bar and accidentally tugging at the piercing.

Mari let out a small yelp of pain and Spooky’s eyes softened to a point she didn’t expect. He almost looked guilty.

“Shit, Mari,” he muttered so low only she could hear, “I’m sorry. Just, please get up,”

Hearing him plead like that broke her resolve. She didn’t know what his problem was but how could she care when he was looking at her with those eyes?

She got off the table and he immediately wrapped an arm around her bare torso. There was the warmth she had been missing all night, the casual intimacy and the tingles it caused. He led her back into the house, arm gently tucked around her waist the whole time, through the foggy halls and into a room at the far end of the hall.

Walking into Spooky’s room was like entering a whole new world. It felt so personal, like he was opening up and really letting her in. It was organised chaos, just like him. The bed was made but there were piles of clothes on it. The furniture was neat but mismatched. There were CD’s on his dresser but haphazardly piled up in a sort of leaning tower, and there was one single framed photo of him and Cesar. They looked younger in the photo, and happy. Mari hoped that she could make Oscar smile like that one day.

He closed the door behind them and set her down on the bed. He didn’t say anything as he headed to the dresser and took out a white t-shirt and handed it to Mari. He ran a hand exasperatedly over his face as she slid on the shirt. It was at least two sizes too big and hung off her small frame like a tent.

“Did I hurt you?” He asked. His arms were crossed over his chest like a shield but Mari could see his vulnerability; he was worried.

“No, it only hurt for a second,” she assured and then gestured to the photo on the dresser. “Cesar your brother?”

Oscar nodded and then Mari remembered something Ruby had said about Cesar’s brother getting out of jail.

“You were in prison?” She asked.

“Yeah,” he replied, “that scare you?”

“No,” she answered honestly. Anything he had done, she was sure it couldn’t be as bad as the things she had experienced living with her mom.

He heaved a sigh and the bed sank when he sat beside her.

“Well it should,” There was a sincerity in his eyes that made her want to be afraid, for him, but she wasn’t, “what are you doing here?”

Mari shrugged. “You invited me,”

“You said you couldn’t make it,”

“And then I could. What’s the problem,”

“The problem is you should be with your family, not hanging around here with a bunch of cholos!” ‘Without me’ is what he didn’t say.

He was getting riled up again, that much was easy to tell, but that didn’t stop Mari. As far as she was concerned, he had no right to police where she was or what she did.

“You invited me!” She repeated, raising her voice as much as he had. “What does it matter if I’m here with or without you?”

“Because I’ll protect you!” He sucked in a deep breath. He didn’t mean to say that, but he also needed to calm down - now wasn’t the time to bite her head off. “You know, Mari. You know that no matter what, Prophet$, Santos, anything, I’ll keep you safe. I can’t say that for the rest of them. They don’t know you. Fuck, you’re new here; they don’t care. I care, so don’t you fuck around like that when I’m not around,”

Mari stared into his eyes, unsure of what to say. She didn’t realise he cared - she didn’t know she mattered that much. His admission overwhelmed her in the best way. It made her think that, maybe, she wasn’t alone in this whatever she was feeling for him. She replied the only way she felt she could truly express how she felt about him.

In one fell swoop, she hooked swung her leg across his lap, turning her body into him so that she was straddling his lap. Both hands found the back of his neck and with all the strength and tequila-induced-bravery she could muster, she pressed her body against his and kissed him.

She closed her eyes, melting into him as she swore he kissed her back. It only lasted a second though, because then his hands were on her shoulders and he was pulling away. He lifted her from his lap and set her down on the bed. She cursed herself for the way she liked being manhandled by him.

“I don’t think that’s a good idea, Mariana,” he said.

Any other time she would’ve loved the way he said her name, but hearing it at the butt end of a rejection just...hurt.

She didn’t have a chance to reply because there was a knock at the door. He shot her a glance before heading over to open it. Standing there, on the opposite side of the threshold, was Ruben.

.

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[artistlove17]

Losing my Nana

3 March 2019.

This was the day I lost one of, if not THE most important person in my life.

A little backstory: 👇

I had been living with my fiance in a rental trailer. Our landlord had admitted that he had been going into our house when we weren't home, which freaked us out because that is an insane invasion of privacy, not to mention it really creeped me out because there have been several "incidents" at that house and due to work shifts there were days that I was home alone... So we really wanted to move. Before this my fiance had lost his job and then after that I ended up losing mine. So we knew we WANTED to leave... and then we HAD to leave anyway because we couldn't pay rent anymore.

My Nana has always been my biggest supporter and has always made sure I knew that she loved me (she would tell me 200 times a day) and would always let me know she was there for me and that she understood. We had a really deep conversation about life and things before she died. She took care of me when I had the chicken pox at 19 years old. She was the first person I ever smoked weed with. She actually gave up doing any kinds of pills so she could be around me.

She asked us to live with her. She had been asking for a while, and now my fiance and I had nowhere else to go so she was super excited about us moving in with her finally.

I was kind of happy about it too because she didnt live in the best neighborhood and I liked that I would be there to make sure she was ok and I could do things for her (like cook for her and take her to her appointments and things like that).

At this point we had just started moving into the room that previously belonged to my meth head cousin. Yea... it's as bad as it sounds. He had been in and out of prison for many MANY drug, weapon, and theft charges. He would break into houses (including my dads house when I lived there) and steal all kinds of collectables and valuables and then go pawn them for meth money.

My Nana hated him. She was constantly kicking him out. But... she had a really big heart and if you apologized enough then she'd forgive you. So my other cousin Candy (the meth heads mom and my Nana's Niece) was constantly abusing this fact. She knew my Nana was a pushover. But there were times Nana told her no as well and then Candy resorted to threatening.

She'd tell Nana that she would "cut her off" which meant Nana would have no one to take her to her doctors appointments or to the store or things like that. Nana didnt drive or have a car, so she relied on Candy for these things. Nana had actually been asking my Uncle to buy her a car so she wouldn't have to deal with Candy anymore... but Candy was always pretending to be Nana's best friend and spent time with Nana when it was convenient for her. (One of Nanas sons had a lot of medical issues, the other lived 13 hours away, and my dad was just an asshole. So my nana relied on rides from Candy almost every day.)

The last time that Nana kicked out my meth head cousin he had hit her (which I didn't know about until after he landed in prison once again... otherwise he'd be dead and I'd be in prison). But Candy brought him back over there while Nana was gone and made him take a shower and get comfortable and everything... and then when Nana raised hell about him being there and told Candy that he had hit her... Candy literally threatened my Nana and told her "Well you better not ever hit him back! I'll be done with you if you do! Touch him and see if I ever help you again..." She literally didn't give a shit that her meth head son had hit my Nana... the woman that she "claimed" was her best friend and she cared sooo much about.

She didn't give a fuck about my Nana... she was just using her and I realize that now.

Candy also got my Nana started on drinking. Candy has been a drunk for as long as I can remember and a lot of my family have told me she used to be on meth and cocaine and has probably tried just about every drug. In the end she just turned to alcohol because it was legal and she thinks no one can say anything about her drinking since it's legal.

She was constantly trying to get my Nana to drink, despite knowing Nana had an addiction problem in the past and Nana telling her she didn't want to drink because she knew she shouldn't. For a year I watched her slowly water Nana down to it... for a year Nana kept saying no and then on a bad day Candy made her a mix drink and she finally accepted it.

This started Candy constantly buying Nana bottled and jugs of Jim Beam whiskey and me watching Candy come over already buzzed in the mornings and making mixed drinks for herself and Nana.

Should also mention that Candy has a really rich husband. He owns a huge shipping corporation in my town and would give Candy anything she asked for. He bought her 2 cars (a brand new Mercedes convertible and a Jeep Wrangler), a nice house that he let her remodel, and a huge swimming pool and hot tub. He takes her on trips wherever she wants to go... but they CONSTANTLY argue and fight because Candy won't let her sons deal with their own shit. Both of them are thieving meth heads who are in prison and she bends over backwards trying to get them out and works just so she can send them money in prison. She has bailed the younger one out more times than I could tell you... he has a whole list of charges and arrests. But she keeps acting like he's done nothing wrong and gives him whatever he asks for. This is something I had a problem with long before any of what I'm about to tell you happened.

(There are also accusations that Candy stole from her husband and gave the money to her sons after she bailed them out once. And she has made jokes herself about how he wouldn't even notice anything was missing and made jokes about how much money she could get if she divorced him. Which her stupid self doesn't realize wouldn't be that much, maybe her 2 cars, because everything else was his inheritance from his dad who originally built the company and she legally isn't allowed to touch his inheritance.)

-

My fiance and I had moved our bed and some of our stuff to my Nana's and spent one night there. It was peaceful and comforting. That night Nana came in our room and joked about how we needed to put our big TV in the living room for her to watch. (We had plans to buy her one at Christmas).

The next day we got up and went and got donuts from my favorite place down the road. After we ate my fiance and I fell asleep watching a movie. At this point we didnt even know my Nana was in the house... we hadn't seen or heard from her since we had been up and assumed she had gone somewhere with Candy like usual. (Turns out Nana had already started to cut Candy off and had called and told her not to come that day, telling her she was just going to rest.)

My Great Aunt Pat had been staying in the living room for a couple of nights because she had been staying with Nana. Nana hated being alone in her apartment, which is why Pat was staying there with her until we got moved in.

My fiance and I got woken up just as it was getting dark out by my Aunt knocking on the door. She came in and said she was worried about Nana because Nana told her she was just going to rest today and had went to her room to lay down. Pat was worried though because that had been 3-4 hours ago and she hadn't seen Nana since.

This is when I knew. And you might find that crazy because how could you know?

Nana never slept that long. She slept that long at MOST on a really GOOD night. Otherwise she would sleep an hour, maybe 2 and then at least get up to go to the bathroom or turn on a movie if she couldn't go back to sleep. 9 times out of 10 she would be awake through any hour of the night that I got up to go to the bathroom. We both had terrible sleeping habits and would often be in the kitchen at 3 am making breakfast...

So when Aunt Pat said she hadn't seen or heard from her in that long... I knew something wasn't right...

I sat on the bed for a second and just leaned back against the headboard while my Aunt walked back to the living room... I think she knew what I did but she didn't want to be the one to... find her.

I didn't want to get off that bed... but my fiance (who didn't realize what my Aunt and I did) said "You should go check on her. I would but she's probably in a nightgown and that might be kind of weird."

So I took a deep breath and went to her door.

- (Warning: GRAPHIC)

I opened the door slowly and the bed was empty... and I felt my heart stop.

In the floor I could see her hair fanned out around the foot board of the bed.

I walked over... not knowing what to expect, but just hoping like hell that maybe she just passed out...

Her lips were blue... but I didn't let that stop me from shaking her and calling to her and begging her to wake up. Her skin was cold and her body was stiff and ungiving, nothing like the warmth and love that I always felt from her.

-

I fell back on my ass and leaned against the dresser... so in shock that the tears hadn't even come yet. I couldn't breath. My chest felt like it was tight and my lungs wouldn't work anymore.

But I finally made myself get up and I called for my Great Aunt and fiance to call 911. My fiance called them and I heard him in her room telling the operator that he was trained in CPR but there was no point. She was gone. She had been gone for too long.

The first tear didnt roll down my cheek until I heard my Aunt screaming at Nana's body and crying for her to wake up. That's when I realized she was actually gone... it wasn't just a bad dream.

I got up to ask my fiance to call my mom and family and broke down in the hall while he stepped outside to do that. They wouldn't have been able to hear him over my Aunts painful sobbing. I sat in the hallway floor, staring at the 30+ pictures she had hung up all through the hallway...most of them were me. Her one and only grandchild. I remember crying silently and thinking "this can't be happening."

My fiance came back in after calling my mom and he took me to the living room and made me sit in my Nana's recliner. She had broken it a while back when my uncle came to visit and he sat in her lap and it flipped over with them in it. Nana had told me the story so many times, she didn't care about the chair being broken, she just thought it was a funny memory.

Minutes later... I don't really know how long because it was like my brain stopped perceiving time... the paramedics and the coroner came in. They asked us some questions after they examined her and the coroner pronounced her dead. I can't even remember what he asked other than about her medication and him telling us that she had been gone a while and there was nothing any of us could have done.

After this my mom came in and I called my Uncle and tried to tell him what had happened but couldn't get the words out so I handed the phone to my fiance who stepped outside and came back in later to tell me my Uncle had booked a flight and would be here in the morning.

After that more of my family showed up, my other Uncle and Great Aunt and then I called my Dad... who I didn't think was going to come for a second...

And finally everyone was there and everyone was crying and confused and asking what happened. And then Candy came in.

She ran straight to me and started screaming and bawling "Is Aunty dead!? She can't be dead! This isn't real!" And fell back in Nana's recliner and started kicking and screaming and crying like a 5 year old throwing a fit.

Now I know everyone reacts to things differently and grieves differently... but you could smell the alcohol on her and could tell she was out of her mind. And here she was throwing a fit and showing her ass while the rest of the family cried and talked amongst each other. I didn't really think about it or say anything at the time because I was so out of it, but my fiance brought it up later how just batshit crazy she seemed and how stupid she made herself look.

-

It was at this point that the coroner had us all in the kitchen and told us she had been gone for a while and that he believed she fell after she got up and the way she hit her head on the brick wall instantly killed her. He said she was gone before she hit the floor.

So she had gotten up, probably to go to the bathroom or something like usual... and just lost her balance, cracked her head on the wall... and was gone before she hit the ground.

-

After giving birth at 15 to my dad, and then having my younger uncle by surprise in her 30s. After fighting ulcers and stomach cancer and 2 knee replacements. After defeating her drug abuse problems... that's how she goes. Something so fucking simple!? Something that could happen so... easily...

Candy proceeded to tell the coroner that Nana had been put back on Neurontin at her last doctor visit. Candy and Mom both said the last time she was on that shit she had loss of speech and balance. Mom said she had been on it before and knew that it could mess with people really bad sometimes and that Nana had told her before about how bad it was last time they put her on it.

It's crazy how quickly drama ensued after that...

Our crazy landlord called my fiance and told him we needed to get our cats and the rest of our stuff out of "his house." Even though it had only been 2 days since we notified him that we were leaving. He threatened to throw our cats out to the neighbors dogs if we didn't have them out by morning because "his house wasn't a kennel." And that statement is what pissed me off the most because we hadn't even moved half of our stuff out of that house yet and here he was threatening us to pretty much move out over night, even though he legally had to give us 60 days.

So we had to go out there with my mom and dad and pack all of our stuff into their vehicles and move everything THAT NIGHT. We literally left to do that as the funeral home pulled up to get my Nana's body out of the house...

And my psychotic ass cousin decided for some reason that SHE should be the one to take Nana's purse. Candy literally grabbed Nana's purse and went and put it in her car before anyone even noticed and then told everyone that she had a key to the apartment and not to worry about it. (At this point I should mention that Candys meth head sons stuff was still in Nana's apartment, we had just started moving it the night before. Even though he had been in prison for several weeks at this point.)

The next day I got called to the funeral home with my dad and Uncles. They made the funeral arrangements with my input and said that everything should be left to me because I was the only grandkid and was so close to Nana.

The funeral was set to the next day, March 5, because one of my Uncles had to have surgery on the 7th and wanted to have it before then.

I held it together at the funeral pretty well, I only started crying when they played the song she used to sing to me all the time. I had smoked a blunt before going in Nana's honor and to make it a bit easier for me... Nana loved weed. She said it helped with her mental state as well as her arthritis and other physical pains. She always loved it more than any pills she ever took. Her and my Papaw used to smoke all the time before I was born. They gave it up to make sure they were good parents to my youngest uncle and great grandparents to me. And they were... despite the fact that I think they'd have been even cooler if they had kept smoking weed.

But the next day hell began all over again. My favorite Great Aunt called me and asked me to come to my Nana's apartment because Candy and her crackhead friend were over there packing up whatever they wanted. My youngest Uncle who had flown in said it looked like a couple of rats running in and out of the apartment...

My Aunt kept making little comments to Candy about how greedy she was acting and Candy kept getting bitchy with her and claimed all she was getting was her sons stuff. She tried to say she hadn't touched anything that was Nana's because she knew that was mine.

What bullshit. She had already packed up and taken all of Nana's collectable stuff that was on top of the cabinets in her kitchen, including an eagle set that Nana told me herself were hers and that she was pissed at my cousin because he kept stealing them off her cabinets and putting them in his room.

The next day my Aunt and I showed up to get some clothes for my other Aunt (Nana had like 5 sisters, so I have 5 great Aunts)... I had to climb through the window that Candy stupidly left open even though she deadbolted the door to keep me out...

While we were there Candy came flying up in her jeep (the neighbors had called her and told her we were there). And she barged into the apartment and immediately walks up to me in the hallway accusing me of stealing her sons TV and telling me I better bring it back... literally catching an attitude with me and accusing me of stealing something that WAS my Nanas. And I know the TV was my Nanas because my Uncle told us he and his wife bought it for her at Christmas!! But here this bitch is claiming she's not a thief or a liar... while lying and accusing me of stealing something that was NOT her sons. She was trying to get a free TV out of me because she thought I was too sweet and naive to tell her no and disagree with her... and she learned real quick that that wasn't happening.

She turned to my Aunt and started cussing her and telling her she had no business being in MY NANAS apartment that was left TO ME by my dad and uncles... telling my Aunt to leave her own sisters apartment.

I went off on the bitch, I had had enough. I told her my aunt wasn't going anywhere and that it was MY apartment and that SHE was the one who needed to get the fuck out. She finally left when my Aunt dialled the police.

So we went back to getting what we were there to get (some clothes that I had already been through the day before and was now taking my other Aunt.) When my Uncle pulled up. I had put Nanas plant in the trunk of my great aunts car and had walked out with a box in my hands. Candy jumped out and made a b-line for the trunk and tried to grab the plant so I rammed the box in to her and said "What the hell do you think you're doing!?" And she went off on me about how that was "her" plant and nana would have wanted her to have it and then... then she told me... that my Nana would be disappointed in me...

She's lucky I had a box in my hand or I really and truly would have beat the shit out of her in that moment... I rammed the box into her harder and shoved her back towards my Uncles car (who had just got out and was trying to get between us) and I started yelling "Take your drunk ass home you stupid fucking bitch!!"

And honestly... I know a lot of people will say that's childish and I shouldn't have done that... but she needed to hear it from me. She needed to hear it from someone she thought truly loved her and would never say something like that to her. She needed that truth shoved down her throat to get it through her head. She is a drunk no matter how much she denies it. She shook her head at me and got back in the car and my Uncles Wife took her home.

She posted all over Facebook after that about "karma" going to get someone. And then called me a couple times and left a voicemail crying about how she wanted to talk to me and wanted me to come see her. But never once said sorry... never once admitted that what she did was fucked up.

And the best part... I wanted to save this for the end.

Candy blamed me.

The day after Nana's funeral... she came in Nana's room while I was packing some things and crying into Nana's pillows and told me "Well if I had been here Aunty wouldn't be dead! I even talked to (methehead son) and he said if he had been here she wouldn't have been dead!'

The coroner said she was gone before she hit the floor and that there was nothing we could've done. Candy had been the one buying Nana alcohol and making her mixed drinks even when she knew Nana was put back on that medication, that the doctor specifically told her not to drink alcohol with.

But Candy blamed me.

And as far as her son goes... if he had found Nana dead he would have packed everything valuable in that house and ran. He was already being searched for and had several warrants in several states... no fucking way would he have helped her or called the police.

Fuck Candy and her son. Nana was done with both of them anyway... but Candy was so delusional she didn't even realize it. She didnt realize Nana wanted me there so she wouldn't HAVE to have rides from Candy and Candy couldn't use her anymore.

Candy has since then tried to tell the whole family that my Aunt and I were bullying her and being mean to her and accusing her of shit. And at this point... I don't give a fuck if they believe her. I'll cut them off just like I did her.

(Sorry for not giving a lot of names, I'm not really comfortable doing that on here.

Hope you enjoyed a story from my crazy, fucked up life.)

Ps: Crazy Candy also took flowers off her own mother's gravestone because it was my Aunt that shes pissed at that put them out there. So, my Aunt put flowers on her sisters headstone and Candy took them off because she's pissed at her right now... took flowers from her own mother like that did anything but make her look like the piece of shit she is.

[illness-of-the-mind]

Story time:

This is the story how I developed borderline personality disorder. Now, there’s no way to tell for sure what caused it, but, the key points in my life that I feel that could have helped it developed.

For those who don’t know, borderline personality disorder is a mental illness that effect a persons emotions severely. It can cause impulsive behaviors, severe mood swings and many other symptoms.

Now, growing up, I lived with a abusive, narcissistic alcoholic I called my step dad. Now, this man, (names will not be given) he was the kind of guy who if you knew him outside of our family, you’d never know who he truly was. To some, he was someone who was always happy, always had a smile on his face and could bring one to others. He was an outgoing guy who could make anyone’s day. But, in our home, he was never like this, ever. He always had a bottle of caramel apple Crown in his hand, taking shot after shot until he was shit faced. He was never afraid to say what he was thinking. He was never shy about saying something about my weight, always blamed any food getting eaten in the house was me, I was never allowed to eat as much as every one else, it got to the point where I began to starve myself, this is where my Bulimia ties into the story.

When I was younger, my step dad use to spank us, whether it was with paddles or belts. He always had to make knee paddles, because they were always broken on my sister and I. He’d break doors, put holes in walls, broke things, pretty much the whole absuive alcoholic cliche.

My mom, who was married to this asshole, spent most of her time drinking. Just like my step dad, she was always drunk as well, instead of go psycho when she was drunk, she just decided to sleep, and not deal with her abusive husband. My mom was never the one to talk about feelings, she never liked the thought, anytime anything like that was brought up, she’d end the conversation and not let it be brought up. This caused a lot of emotional build up that was never dealt with.

Through that whole ordeal, I had developed the inability to even bring up my emotions or anything to do with them. It brought up issues with any counselors I had.

Eventually, my step dad had cheated and it brought more stress on the house. He eventually came back but through his entire time of being back, he had another life with another woman. I had developed relationship issues.

Growing up as a child in a abusive home and having absolutely no way to let anything off, it tends to take a toll on things.

As life with on, I still lived with the inability to talk about emotions, due to this, I grew to being unable to even explain emotion, I couldn’t explain what I was feel, even if I wanted to. I began to get moody over little things, I was extremely angry and hostile to the littlest inconvience, or I’d get extremely depressed and start cutting to someone not being able to hang out with me. My mind would tell me they hated me or they didn’t like being around me so I’d force me in my depressive state. I felt like a land mine, the smallest thing could trigger me and cause me to explode. Granted, when I was happy, I was HAPPY. I would have so much energy and excitement that to some it’d be hard to handle. I drove away quite a few friends, and I never understood why. After I had a negative emotion occurs, which was always extreme, It would always take an hour or two for me to feel normal again, id have the lingering feeling of that emotion until it eventually went away on its own. Because of this, I always told myself it felt like someone else was controlling the inside of me, and I was just a shell.

Throughout high school, I realized I no longer could feel sympathy for others, I always thought they were stretching the truth or even lying about situations they were in. Now, I was never afraid to help a friend in need, I was always the friend to go to when you needed to have a talk, but any other time, I never believed a word anyone said. It was like a switch.

Eventually I got with my boyfriend and things were great. Sure, I still had my same old symptoms but he helped me control them, he was like a crutch, he was always able to support me. I found myself buying him pretty much anything he wanted, food, cigarettes, weed, I loved to spoil him, in my mind, it was how you kept someone with you. This was never the case for him, as he saw simple gifts from his loving girlfriend, never once did he see it as an opportunity to get what he wanted, and no matter how much he showed me he wasn’t going any where, it was still hard to believe it. I grew up with abandonment, so you can see where I learned to not have any trust for things like this

I began cutting a little after high school started, it started with simple scratches that to me were harmless. To me, it was the only thing that could make me stop being mad or upset or depressed completely, it’s like when the blood flows from the cut, the emotions go with it. It was like a drug, and though I smoked a good amount of weed, it still didn’t compare to what I felt when cutting. Though it was just scratches, it developed to something more, over time I learned to go deeper, I taught myself to deal with the pain, even though it hurt, it wasn’t a hurt that fazed me, I always looked over it. After I would make a cut, the pain would last until the razor was finished and I’d begin a new cut, the pain of it just never bothered me. I’ll never forget that when cutting, the slicing of flesh feels like if you were take your blade and run it across a spool of thread. I eventually was able to go deeper to wear I actually scared myself due to how much blood came out.

I developed PTSD after starting at a new job as a pizza delivery girl, I was excited and thought I’d make good tips, which I did. I stuck around because business was always good and I’d go home every night with $60 and I’d have $200 on my checks. It was good. It was fun and games until one night, I got robbed. Two men about my age, pulled guns on me and held them to my head and demanded my money, and the order I had in my vehicle at the time. After it had happened, I had developed PTSD, which is not good when you can’t talk about how you feel. So things got worse

I was a land mine again, but worse, I would constantly shake and twitch which didn’t exactly look good at my job. I was strictly put on day shift due to my request. I eventually was forced to work one more night shift. I delivered to a man, who repeatedly asked me to drive him to the store. I had to tell him no repeatedly before I went to my car to call my manager. After my manager and I explained that I wasn’t allowed to drive him anywhere, he tried to force himself into my vehicle, so I drove off. Thinking it was over with, I returned to the store and not a minute later, he showed back up, waiting outside in the parking lot, until my shift was over. I wasn’t allowed to deliver anymore that night, I couldn’t go in the lobby, I couldn’t go outside, I was stuck in the back. After my shift ended, he was still there, waiting, so I had to call my boyfriend to follow me home, so the man couldn’t. After that, I was fed up and left the job.

My symptoms were at an all time high, I didn’t sleep, I constantly had to make sure my boyfriend still loved me, I always accused him of cheating, I was an absolute mess. Being the sweetheart he was, he never questioned and gave me the answers I wanted.

My boyfriend and I had broken up and it sent me over the edge. That night, I had decided on what I must do and I wrote a suicide not. I left it on the table next to my bed, grabbed my blade, and went and ran a bath. I got in, and slit my wrist. It was the deepest I had ever cut, I hadn’t seen blood come out of my arm that quick. The tub filled quickly, and I eventually sat in my own blood, watching it get darker. My boyfriend was blowing up my phone, and I watched the messages light up my phone. My vision was speckled and I couldn’t get up anymore, I was stuck in my tub, with no way to return on my own. Eventually, I gave in and was able to get my mom downstairs to help me out. I was bandaged, and sent to bed with my door open, and my mom on the couch.

Eventually, my alcoholic stepdad left, and I was finally able to focus on what I needed. He never let me get the treatment I needed. He’d flush my meds, or forbid me to go to my appointments. After he left, we were on high alert due to him sending us violent threats. Being an alcoholic, we never knew what he would do, he threatened that we couldn’t keep him out because he’d kick in the door or smash a window. We had to live with the curtains closed, the doors always locked including the windows. It put a massive amount of stress on all of us.

Though he was still a threat, he was gone, and I was able to start my recovery. It wasn’t until I went to the doctor, that I was diagnosed with Borderline Personality Disorder, and after years and years of telling myself the symptoms were just who I was, I learned that they weren’t me, but a mental illness that took over me. I wanted answers, but never did I think It would result to this.

[i-r3levant]

So here we are, day 14.

I want to pre-face this wall of text with this. I blame her for nothing. She was my rock, my safe space, and my favourite person

Unfortunately, she still is.

It's been 14 days since I had to make the most awful decision I think I've ever had to make. I've had next to no sleep, I've gone from weighing 13 stone 2 on boxing day to being under 12 stone today. Every time I roll over I'm struck with a pain that I wouldn't wish on my enemies.

But I'm not here to try and evoke sympathy. This is my self evauation.

To begin with, I will start by saying that the first 2 and a half years were the most magical moments of my short life so far. I had no idea what it was like to feel so fiercely loved, so completely accepted. You looked at me in a way that made me feel like I could have conquered the world. I still find myself looking at the photographs and wondering what I could have possibly done to deserve that level of affection.

We would go on adventures, I would take every opportunity I could to take pictures, just so that I could capture that look of wonderment in your eyes as we wandered aimlessly through fields, forests, anywhere really.

I feel like I was good. I made you your favourite meals, I made you a cheesy photo album that I intended to fill cover to cover with memories we created.

But slowly, what we thought was a destined compatibility faded. I became more complacent, I felt safe.

Our lack of arguments revealed itself to be nothing more than a lack of effective communication. I struggled to try and accept her child, not because she wasn't mine, but because to love her and to love her child equally would have left me even more vulnerable than I currently am. I know that it was a selfish mechanism of damage limitation, and in the end the damage was being done without my conscious knowledge. If time machines existed I would go back and punch 2016 Sam square in the jaw, children aren't evil, they aren't terrible, they're just little people. All they want is to feel accepted and appreciated. I will say that watching her understand something after explaining it to her was one of the most rewarding interactions I've had with another person.

When you decided that children were something you wanted again, I was terrified. I had spent my entire life swearing that I would never entertain the idea. That I couldn't possibly imagine giving up my freedom, my dreams, my carefree lifestyle for an 18+ year committment.

When we broke up for the first time, it was because you thought we wanted different things, and I guess in some respects we did. However, being part of that little family unit gave me a sense of belonging I had never felt before. - I love my family to pieces, I genuinely wouldn't be here without them - But the feeling of being part of your unit only furthered my sense of safety, security and happiness.

Yes I struggled to get involved, I can't imagine many things that a 23-26 year old man would have in common with a 5-8 year old girl, but that is no excuse. I could have done more and I should have. At no point did I ever want her to feel like I didn't count her as part of my family. But I was also not going to try and replace the great father she already had. I wanted to be someone she could ask questions and get answers from, I wanted to be helpful. I liked knowing I could cook her favourite meals, that if she wanted something explaining I was only too happy to help.

When I moved into your home I felt complete.

But soon we would start to snap at each other, and I began smoking far too much weed. It started as being something to clear my head at the end of a hard day, or a recreational lubricant that allowed me to be amazed by everything. It soon ended up being a regular part of my life.

When I'd come home and you would be staring at your phone, and she would be in charge of the TV I felt as if I was being shut out. As if I was a supporting role. This is my fault. I should have communicated more effectively that I was struggling to feel loved. I didn't want roses and sonnets, I wanted my conversational partner back. I wanted you to value our interactions ever so slightly more than the mundane scrolling you were engrossed in.

Unfortunately, I began to resent this. I began feeling ignored, unwanted. I should have insisted that we talk about it. I should have had the moral courage to stand by my feelings and explain to you how much of a difference I was feeling from when we were a year in to how it ended up. But I didn't. I didn't want to argue any more, I just wanted to make you happy again.

I persuaded you that we should wait until we owned a house to have our own child. I wanted the guarantee of some time for just us, before we began the next leg of our journey. I gave the excuse that I wanted to be able to decorate and remodel the room for the child without fear of a landlord, and I wanted the financial security that it would have brought for us.

I do believe that our tendancy to spend our time together sat inside instead of rekindling our love of adventure definitely played a part in it's demise, but I was lazy. You could drive and I convinced myself I didn't need to learn because why would I want to go anywhere unless it was with you.

I would tell you that I was going to learn to drive, that I'd get more involved with her, that I understood that you would prefer to be left in silence with your phone than to interact with me. But all that happened was I'd try for a short while and would still find myself feeling neglected (- this is more to do with my insistent need for affection, you told me in the beginning you weren't particularly affectionate and I didn't want to believe you because of how wonderfully affectionate you'd been to begin with -) cuddling on the sofa turned to sitting on opposite sides, me waiting for her to go to bed so that I could go outside and smoke a joint to numb myself whilst you continued to communicate to everyone but me.

Towards the end I was trying anything I could to stop the itch in my mind that I was failing, that I wasn't good enough, that I was holding you back.

What I learned was this:

- To love with your whole heart is a beautiful thing, and to be loved in return in the same manner is the luckiest you could possibly feel.

- That it is okay to want different things.

- That children aren't the enemy, but that I am currently too immature to consider it an option to have my own.

- Feelings should never go unexpressed, if you love someone and want to preserve it, do everything in your power to explain how you feel to that special someone. Even the hard stuff

- That I could do with developing some self esteem and stop basing my self worth on whether or not I'm able to maintain a relationship.

- Drugs are never the way to process troubling feelings. Forgetting is not dealing with. They will come back, and they will bite you twice as hard as you thought it would hurt the first time round.

- To follow through on my words, otherwise that's all they are.

- and Finally, that even though it deteriorated to a point where you were unemotional during our finale, that you will always hold a place in my heart for having showed me so many things I would never have seen by myself.

It is with great sadness that I am having to let go. I'm really struggling with all of this.

[orangepunkwitch-blog]

Tsk, so...  A friend of mine and I plan to do a temporary banishing spell on someone.  I have a “keep reading” link posted in case you don’t wanna scroll through the story just to get past it on your dash.

Ever since September, my husband and I started hanging out with two of our friends we’ve known since high school.  We missed them dearly, and because of a lack of activity on FB, we didn’t even know we all still lived in this shithole of an area, and started hanging out.  It’s helped me get back into socializing, so I don’t feel anxiety anymore speaking to anyone outside of the immediate household here thanks to a few years of damn near social isolation (largely because I haven’t been feeling well physically or mentally and whatnot).  One of these friends grows and sells weed, and it was actually in September that I tried smoking it for the very first time.  Ever since then, I’ve been using weed for my period cramps---I don’t require very much.  Just enough to make it so my husband doesn’t have to stay home and help me go to the bathroom because I’m in too much pain to walk.  Seriously, having a buddy who sells weed has amazing benefits.  He gives me what he can for free because he’s just a damn good friend and wants to help me.  So we usually just went over and smoked weed, got me used to what it’s like (though it’ll be a while before I can finally build some tolerance for it because I’m a light-weight with like... everything), and we’d hang out and whatnot.

So now I have something to look forward to every week.  Several months later and we’ve become a little D&D group who has a blast with some other games like Cards Against Humanity, Liar’s Dice, and we watch some movies and anime if we got nowhere else to go.  My parents are fully aware of this and, despite their political views and whatnot, they don’t see marijuana as this evil thing (largely because back in the 70s, my dad grew it, smoked it, sold it, etc. but that was of course a long-ass time ago).  They knew the facts about it and told me to just be careful.  My mental health has improved greatly as has my husband’s, and we regret not finding out about them still living in the area sooner.

Welp, this doesn’t come without its downs.  You see, the good friend of ours who sells the weed?  He lives with his mom.  He did live on his own, got screwed out of some money, lived with the other friend mentioned in this story for a bit, and then his mom apparently made some sort of personal info legality threat against him (the dealer-buddy’s mom, not the other friend’s mom) and he ended up having to move in with her until he can figure something out.

This woman.... Holy shit...

She commands our friend around (from this point on, for privacy reasons, I’m going to refer to him as Buu and the other friend as Whis), making messes and commanding he clean it up.  It’s summer already, and this past Thursday, she turns off the air conditioner and opens the windows when it’s 80 degrees outside.  She claims it’s too hot, open the windows for some air circulation, etc.  Buu usually turns on the air with windows closed when she’s not in the house, but she’ll throw a fit because she wants to save on the electricity bill (she’s made it to where she only pays $90 a month or some shit like that because she’s cheap as fuck, meanwhile the company for my parents’ electricity overcharges us and we can’t do shit about it).

Now, while the area knows Buu grows and sells weed and doesn’t care or mind (and this, surprisingly, includes his mom), he would still like some form of privacy.  No, his mom wants the air conditioning off, all windows and doors open, etc.  She’ll barge in without knocking, too.  She’ll get nosy about what we’re doing or playing, and we’ll start throwing terms that confuse her just to get her to go away.  She will walk around the house bitching to herself about something, and she’ll talk on the phone with whoever while on speakerphone and talk loudly.  This woman will even walk in on you in the bathroom if the door isn’t closed and locked.  She did that to me once just so she could do laundry (the washer and dryer are installed in the bathroom---the house has a nice set-up but my only complaint is there’s one bathroom and I always lived in a house with at least two).  She’s walked in on her own son before, too, so it’s not just a personal thing against one of us or anything.

And if we confront her about anything, we have to walk on eggshells because Whis’ home (he also lives with his mother due to financial reasons but he’s saving up to move) is ridiculously small with missing or busted doors, and while we have a considerable amount of room here at my parents’, my parents go to bed at a certain time and we don’t want to wake them (ground-floor, not a two-story place).  At least, we can’t hang out here until the garages are cleaned out, and I’m working on that, but I need my mom’s help going through some stuff and she works 6 days a week, so...

Last month or the month before, Buu’s mom went to Mexico for a week for a vacation.  Buu had the whole house to himself for that week, and when we met up for that one day (my husband and Whis only had one day of the same day off that week), we played D&D in the dining room instead of his semi-cramped bedroom.  All of our health problems were pretty much gone because we weren’t under some sort of stress, and actually had the most fun we’d had in years.  Since then, we hadn’t had a day like that within Buu’s home.  Closest we’d have is when we’re out and about, but we’re not guaranteed to run into any assholes, and we have.

For some reason, since she’d returned from Mexico, she’d been yelling or screaming at Buu through walls and such to make him do things far more often than before she went to Mexico.  She doesn’t care he has guests over.  And she’s yelled at my husband and Whis before, too.  She’ll flip at the drop of a hat.  However, she won’t yell at me because I’m a woman, which is odd.  She actually calmed down when I first started hanging out, but that has since dissolved away.  Now she’s in full-on bitch-mode, and won’t flip out directly at me.

It’s to a point where we can’t exactly say we’ve hung out much because she keeps making Buu do things even though he has guests and even though most or half the things she makes him do is all because of her fucking shit up or making the mess or whatever in the first place.  But there was a straw that broke the camel’s back Thursday night that made me and Whis talk about in the car along with my husband on our way home.

Buu’s mom had a handgun on the island counter in the kitchen with the clip laying next to it.  We don’t know if she legally opens the gun or not (I can’t remember if Buu clarified this with us yesterday or not, my flare-up was distracting me heavily yesterday), but my husband asked her right before we left what the gun was for.  And she says that the neighbor’s dog likes to chase her on the ride-mower when she mows the lawn and she just fires into the air randomly to get the dog to go away.  And she laughed about it.  My husband, who is a gun-nerd knowledge-wise, said that you don’t just randomly fire a bullet into the air because that eventually comes down at high velocity (because bullets, believe it or not, tend to be heavy), and they could hurt or even kill someone or something.  She didn’t believe him and told him to leave.  He didn’t think to bring up the fact that people can trace the bullet’s serial-number to the purchaser and dust for her fingerprints until after we talked about it in the car on the way back.  The three of us on the way home all agreed that we may not be as safe around this woman as we thought we were, that she could one day snap.  But we need to buy some sort of time until I can get these damn garages cleaned out.

So Whis and I have decided we are going to have a ritual where we can have a temporary banishing spell.  Temporary because she brings in more money than Buu, and he wouldn’t be able to pay all the bills and whatnot by himself.  This will give us some time to have at least one day a week where we’re not going to be so damned stressed while the rest of my free week can be spent cleaning out the garages where I can by myself (there’s some heavy-lifted in the outer garage needed but the inner garage needs cleaned out, first).  Perhaps her visiting with a distant relative or something for a month or so would help.  Regardless, we have no other choice.

I’ve even done some divination and all signs point to the fact that Whis and I need to perform a banishing spell.  Buu’s been catching those shield stinkbugs (they’re annoying and he just catches them in a D&D dice container that he has so he doesn’t have to deal with their stench) and we’re gonna use them as part of the ritual.  This will have to take place after our trip to Pittsburgh, because there’s a metaphysical shop called Hocus Pocus that sells lots of ritualistic supplies, especially herbs, and Whis and I are gonna need as much stuff as we can get for this to work.  It’ll probably be a bit of a lengthy ritual, too.

Whis has more experience in witchcraft than I do, but I’ve been pretty damn successful in my craft so far, especially when it comes to protection as well as banishing my nasty maternal grandmother’s spirit from my parents’ home and sending her to my aunt.  So I’d imagine we should be good doing our own part in this.  I share this because I’m letting you know this will be my first ritual performed with another witch, and I will let you know how things went after the ritual and a while after that if it worked in case you are curious as to whether or not shield stinkbugs make for a good use in a banishing ritual.

Wish us luck that this might work, because we don’t know what else to do until we get these two garages cleaned out.

[hanzier]

In Beverly Marsh's eyes the summer kicked off with a minor inconvenience. Much like the boys, Bev didn't have any idea what she was getting herself into when she became a part of the losers club. You see, Beverly Marsh had just had one hell of a year. It started off pretty terribly, but she had worked her way up. After painful hours of sewing and measuring and packaging and selling she had managed to save up enough money to move out of one toxic home into another home (though the later was only toxic smelling as her pluming was awful). By the beginning of the summer she had never been in a better place. However, her "minor inconvenience" would soon spiral into something much much more. It would carry on for the rest of the summer, and influence several of her important decisions after the summer ended.

Bev was hoping that her life would carry on rebuilding itself, as it had been for the past year. That was not the case. In fact, by the end of the summer, her life would nearly be in the same disaster mode it had been a year ago. She didn't know what this summer had in store for her. So, she carried on blissfully unaware of the repercussions that her actions would soon have. Beverly Marsh was no fool, it wasn't her fault that she was ignorant to the future. No one could have seen it coming.

Watching the sunset at Paradise Beach was somewhat of a magical thing. At least, thats what Beverly Marsh claimed.

She was sprawled out at the end of Eddie's towel, her heart shaped sunglasses lowered to the very tip of her nose, "God, don't you just love the sky?" she asked breathily.

The three boys around her nodded, not that she would have known, for she didn't so much as glance away from the fading sun.

"I just wish we were on the rooftop." She said finally, as she turned to face Eddie, Stan and Bill.

Stan laughed, taking off his own sunglasses, "You're still on that whole rooftop thing, huh?"

Bill and Eddie both looked mildly confused, but she responded, "Everything is just prettier higher up."

"Are you high, Bev?" Bill asked, sincerely and she laughed in her own bubbly way.

"Not yet. Do you smoke, Eddie? I know Stan hates it, but Bill used to cyph with me... Are you into it?" She was genuinely curious, but Eddie felt mildly embarrassed.

He had only smoked twice and while he had enjoyed the light feeling, he was nowhere near experienced with weed, "I have before. I like it better than drinking to be honest."

This was news to the other boys, "Really?" Stan asked while Bill knitted his brows together, "If I knew that I would score you some weed so that you don't have to sit there sober while the rest of us drink."

Eddie shrugged, it wasn't as if his friends were drunk every day, maybe once or twice a month they would hang out at Bill's house and have a few beers, "I mean... we don't exactly party often, Bill." He didn't know how quickly that would change.

"Well, I plan to full on corrupt you. With your consent, of course." Bev grinned while hooking her sunglasses onto the string of her yellow bikini.

It had taken Eddie about two hours on the beach to realize that Bev wasn't a lifeguard like Mike and Richie. The two boys had walked back and forth from the stand to the towels every hour, alternating breaks, while Bev stayed there, lounging and completely destroying her pale freckled skin through exposure to the harsh sun.

"You boys should swing by the apartment before the bonfire. Plenty of weed for you there, Eddie."

Stan laughed again, and Eddie realized all at once, how much more at ease he seemed to be there, "I'm sure there is."

"You have your own apartment?" Eddie asked and Bev shook her head.

"Not entirely mine. Richie and I moved in earlier this year, Stan helped us set it up, back in October actually." Eddie briefly remembered Stan driving down to his summer house that fall.

Bev gave a solemn sort of smile, "It's pretty crappy, but better than where I used to live. Plus, I can't expect much more from a lifeguards salary and Etsy sales." Bev had explained earlier that she sewed her own clothes and sold them on Etsy and other websites to a pretty decent following of fashion lovers. But for some reason, Bill and Stan shared a look at the last part of her statement.

"I think it's cool that you guys have your own place," Eddie started, but he was cruelly interrupted by Richie Tozier, for what felt like the hundredth time that day, on instinct, he tired to suppress a groan.

It wasn't that Eddie didn't like him. He was just...a lot. Eddie understood fully what Stan and Bill had been talking about when they said most of their friends were easy to get along with. It seemed as if Richie had made it his life mission to make Eddie as uncomfortable as possible in their brief moments together thus far.

"Howdy, y'all." His Hawaiian shirt had been shed off and Eddie was left looking at the light definition of muscle on his torso, "How're you pretty ladies doin'?"

He gave Bev an unceremoniously dramatic kiss on the forehead and made his move to do the same to Stan, who immediately covered his face. Richie shrugged and moved on to Bill instead, who accepted the kiss graciously. He then locked eyes with Eddie, and luged forward, making him his final victim.

The wetness on his forehead made Eddie cringe as he shoved Richie off, hoping his red face could be mistaken for too much sun.

Bev smacked Richie's leg, as Mike joined them once again, "You're going to scare him off, Rich. Some of us want to actually make more friends."

Mike nodded as well, beaming down at all of them, "Yea, Rich, pretty sure Eddie doesn't want your germs."

Richie responded by smacking another wet kiss to Mike's cheek, "You want my germs, right Mikey?"

Mike fake shuddered but ruffled Richie's hair nonetheless, "Of course."

The beach had cleared out, lifeguards were off duty once the sun set. So the group made their move to leave.

Bill unfolded the umbrella while Stan and Eddie folded up towels.

"So boys, you're coming over before the bonfire right?" Bev asked as the six of them walked up the sand towards the boardwalk.

Bill and Eddie nodded, "Great, Stan can show you guys how to get there."

"Inviting people into my home without my permission, Beverly?" Richie earned himself another smack.

Mike, Bev and Richie began teetering off the the left of the boardwalk, while Eddie, Stan and Bill went right.

"Be there at seven, okay? It'll be fun I swear!"

Eddie believed her.

Beverly Marsh hoped this summer would be better than her last.

She was not very good at dealing with serious issues and the previous year had been filled with serious issues.

Things seemed better. She wasn't stuck living with her father. She wasn't stuck lifeguarding. And she wasn't stuck wondering if Bill was okay.

She didn't mind that Bill seemed uninterested in her romantically, she hardly had time for that anyway. She was just glad that he was back at the beach with them, where he belonged.

Bev liked having the extra bodies around, it made everything feel a hell of a lot less lonely. She felt as if there was no such thing as too many friends, another reason why she was glad Eddie had joined them this year.

He was snarky and quick witted. In the hours that they had spent talking, he had challenged her conversations, but not nearly as vehemently as he had challenged Richie's. He was not at all what she had expected when she first laid eyes on his small frame. But, she should have known better than to judge a book by its cover.

Richie seemed to be eager for another friend as well, "I like him. He's feisty, we could definitely use a little more fire around here. Denbrough seemed down to you, right?"

The two of them were lounging on the worn out peach couch that Mike had found on the side of the road. Bev's head was in his lap while they passed a cigarette back and forth.

"I think thats to be expected. When's the last time you saw him?" She spoke solemnly while he ran hand through her hair.

Richie blinked for a long time, "I guess I've only seen him twice after the funeral... I visited him in the fall and he was still pretty off. Then over the winter when he drove down here- that weekend you were looking at schools with Mike. He was a little more himself then."

Bev blew smoke straight into the air, "It fucking sucks."

"He's better than he was then, but still. He's not the old Bill." Richie took the cig with greedy fingers, he always had a hard time controlling himself after not smoking during his shift.

She stood a little too quickly, "He's not gonna be the old Bill. His brother died, Rich."

"I'm well fucking aware of that, Bev." He snapped back, almost shoving the cigarette back intoner hands before he stood.

"I'm gonna hop in the shower before they get here.", in true Richie fashion, he stormed off to the bathroom with a dramatic door slam.

Bev sank back into the couch finishing off the cig before snuffing it on the already ruined couch arm. A fight with Richie wasn't uncommon. It was pretty typical actually, spending so much time with someone lead to lots of bickering, especially with unresolved tension in the air. Bev followed him to the bathroom, hoping they could blow off some steam together.

Mike showed up while Richie and Bev were still in the bathroom, so he let himself in with the spare key they had given him. The apartment was a studio, so he was glad they finally learned to fool around somewhere other than the couch or the mattress that was half hidden behind a black bamboo wall divider. Over the past two years he had grown used to it, but that didn't mean the thought of Richie and Bev together didn't gross him out.

They were both like his siblings and he just couldn't shake the feeling that they only hooked up out of convenience. It happened very infrequently ever since they moved in together, but it still happened. From what Mike had gathered, it was only after they argued over something important.

He sighed and started to clean up a little, he had a feeling Stan would not be happy with the state of their apartment. Halfway through making the bed, Bev exited the bathroom still dressed in her yellow bikini and looking only slightly disheveled, with a new hickey on her collar bone. She jumped when she saw him, "Oh my god!"

"No, it's just me." Mike deadpanned as he finished folding the comforter.

Bev grinned sheepishly, "Not much of a difference there, then." she looked around, "What are you cleaning for?"

Mike shrugged, moving on the the kitchen section, or what he liked to call the real disaster zone. "Stan isn't gonna like this mess."

She made to help him throw out some takeout boxes, "Still crushing on him?" she asked slyly.

Mike scrunched his nose, "Still crushing on Bill?" Bev turned around.

"Hardly." She said bitterly.

"Is that why you're hooking up with Rich again?"

She blushed, "No Mike. I'm not hooking up with Richie because I still like Bill. Thats twisted logic."

Mike ran the sink and started to scrub down the dishes, there weren't too many, Bev and Richie opted for paper plates most days, "You and Richie exclusively use twisted logic."

"You're mad." She stated the obvious, and bumped his hip so that she could do the dishes instead.

He sighed, "Im not mad, just... fed up. I thought it was over with. It's really not helping either of you."

Bev shrugged, feeling much more embarrassed than she had been moments before, "Its just comfortable, ya know? I thought it was over with too, but Richie and I are too needy. Us living together is dangerous. Because neither of us wants to be alone." Mike knew she meant alone on a larger scale. Richie and Bev had both been thrown into the world by themselves in a way, it was only natural that they wanted someone to be with.

It was just easier for them to pretended they should be together.

"So no feelings for Bill?", Mike asked as he tried to wipe ashes off of the couch.

Bev shook her head, honestly.

"And no feelings for Rich?"

She shook her head answering honestly, once again.

Mike sighed, "So then, what are you doing, Bev?" she shrugged, moving over to her closet, which acted a bit more like her hamper.

"Right now I'm getting changed. In five minutes I'll probably be lighting a blunt." she dug through her clothes, pulling out an oversized grey band shirt and some tights.

Mike laughed, the tension in the air was gone. He was just concerned for his friends, Bev knew that. As she pulled on her fishnets she asked, "You never answered about Stan. Still having unresolved feelings?"

Mike shook his head, "Nah, we ended things better than you and Bill did. Tied up all our lose ends. Sure, I care about him, but not like that anymore. Especially seeing him and Bill today...I don't think I'd ever want to get in the way of that."

Bev laughed, "You noticed that too? I thought I was losing my mind."

The bathroom door opened once again. Richie stepped out wearing an all black outfit, save for his short sleeved purple button up covered in a loud 80's pattern.

He rubbed a towel against his wet hair, "Hey Mike."

Mike and Bev shared a look as he threw the towel back into the bathroom and opened up the fridge, pulling out a slice cold pizza and scarfing it down.

"Who's rolling tonight?"

Bev opened the door grinning widely, and Eddie was hit with the overwhelming smell of weed.

He noticed Stan wince to his right, but he entered anyway.

The apartment was almost exactly what Eddie had pictured, small, dark and too loud. A song by The Cure was blasting in the background.

The second the door closed, he felt a slim arm around his shoulder, Richie was beaming down at him. Eddie noticed that there was a purple mark on his neck, which hadn't been there a few hours ago.

Bill noticed it too, "Who's the lucky lady?"

Richie laughed, "Don't assume now, Billy. Mike could have given this to me."

Mike snorted from the other side of the room, "I would have done a better job then that!"

Eddie felt the weight lift from his shoulder and was suddenly colder than he should have been.

"Lets see your masterpiece then, sir. Have at it." Richie had all but flown across the room into Mikes space.

The two play wrested while Bev rolled her eyes, "Okay, who wants what? We have a pretty good selection of drinks and an even better selection of weed."

She lead them to the kitchen, which was only three steps to the left, and Eddie eyed the fridge as she opened it. It was covered in polaroids and drawings that looked vaguely familiar. There was a picture that was sketched to look like a side profile of Bev's face, Eddie saw the messy signature in the bottom corner, it was Bill's. He grinned and she shut the fridge, holding some beers and a bottle of tequila.

"Still your favorite, Stan?" Stan let out a laugh, "As long as you have lime and salt."

Bev winked, "You just so happened to name two out of the three foods Richie and I own."

She reached up to get some shot glasses from the top shelf and the collar of her oversized tee fell off of her shoulder. Eddie noticed she had a mark that matched Richie's.

"Eddie, you want a shot, or should I just roll for you?" Eddie looked at her collar bone and back to Richie, who Mike had thrown over his shoulder. He then looked back at Stan and Bill, who were absolutely standing purposely close enough to touch.

He had a feeling he was going to need a little help to get through this week without Ben, "You can pour me one too. I think I'll see what it feels like to get cross faded."

He heard a cheer from across the room, as Bill clapped him on the bak and Stan looked confused.

Richie and Mike gathered around the counter as well and the six of them licked the salt off of their hands before downing the shot and biting into their own wedges of lime.

Collectively they all let out some sort of a cheer, although Richies sounded more like a laugh. Eddie took it all in, feeling slightly uncomfortable and contented, all the same.

And so, the longest night of Eddie's life kicked off with a bang.

@fuckuris @dewdropseddie @richietoaster @sad-synth

[velerodra-valesinger]

Long Division

Vel’s body was still weak, and recovering slowly.   It was the type of recovery that took time.  Even more time due to the energy she’d been expending to maintain her bond with Mira.   The druidess was physically well, but her psyche was shattered.   Mira had become dependent on Vel’s presence.   An unforeseen complication.  

Vel didn’t know much about Mira, she had tried to peer into the woman’s memories - but refused to delve if she sensed resistance, not wanting to inflict more damage to an already broken mind.   At times, she had to, find a safe place for Mira to lurk, preferably outdoors and away from any commotion.   Then she could focus her energies on her own body.   Unless the feral cat found some cause for terror (which did not take much), at which point Vel's focus would shift towards her again.   She longed to find a nice field for her to roam peacefully in.   Perhaps that would keep her calmer while the monk was unable to play an active role in Mira’s existence.  

Despite the amount of energy spent towards maintaining Mira, she had managed to improve her own condition as well.   She had altered her dietary habits, ensuring proper nutrition.   She needed to gain some weight back.   As it stood, she was underweight.   Her muscles had also wasted away, along with her range of motion.   She was out of shape.   In every way.   But she was beginning to rehabilitate.   And for the most part she was resisting the urge to push herself.  

Pandaria was a nice backdrop for this.   It reminded her of when she first became a monk.   And living in a house inherited from her Master, made it feel as if the late Pandaren was still with her.   Still teaching her.

Some days were slower than others.   She tended to the house, which was modest in size, but had been in desperate need of dusting and organizing.   And then reorganizing.  

More daunting were the grounds outside of the house, which were sprawling.   Her Master kept livestock, his tigers, a cloud serpent, cranes, turtles and a pond for koi.    There was enough land for his creatures to roam.   But it had become an overgrown mess.    Little gardens had become riddled with weeds.   Some trees had grown far too large.   She had hired a few Pandaren farmers to assist her with the land.   She tended to the smaller gardens herself.   It was light work.   And she enjoyed the fresh air.  

A month had passed since her return, and she’d managed to arrange her home back to what it once was.   She still leaned heavily on a staff to walk, but her muscles ached less.   And she was able to start stretching her limbs lightly.  

Running was out of the question.   Even push ups and sit ups were still out of question.  

Her emotional outbursts had declined in frequency.  She felt a general sense of peace.   She did not get to visit the city often, but she enjoyed the few times she had managed to take her walks there.  

Nightmares still interrupted her sleep, but she was learning to deal with them.   For once, Vel let all of her influences fade away, and she focused on herself.   She focused on her recovery.   She ignored what she had been through.   She ignored the parts of her that felt defeated, and lost.   The parts of her that wanted nothing more than to lash out at the world recklessly.   The parts of her that viewed herself as a remnant left on Azeroth by the Legion.  

She’d ignored all the bitterness.  

She was more and more finding herself at peace.   She was more and more the Vel her Master had forged - controlled, disciplined, calm, and (mostly) patient.   Less and less did she feel as if she was the Vel her mother had reforged - insecure, unpredictable, manipulative, possessive, clever and always teetering on the precipice of madness.      

She should have known better. To ignore part of herself.

The chill of Northrend pricked at the monkette’s pale skin.   She stared into familiar azure eyes atop a spire in En’kilah.   The part of herself she had ignored, grew tired of being ignored.  None of the feeling she ignored were resolved, they were just left to fester.   And when the parts of herself she’d pretended did not exist could no longer could remain part of the whole, they turned to the creature she thought might be able to comfort her.   To relate to her.  

A trip to Northrend in her condition was foolish.   Near suicidal.   Yet, she’d made the trip.   Slowing the recovery of the other parts of herself that had been doing so well.   She leeched energy away from the monk that had refused to acknowledge the darkness inside herself.   And her darkness took its own shape.   She was divided.   Literally and figuratively.  

She knelt before the one she had come for and she was greeted with warmth atop the frigid spire.

Aria was an observant creature. She watched, in stone like patience. Her mind was a far busier place. Not a movement or sound from her as the Monk knelt, only watching with a keen awareness. The wind howled, and whipped around them, blasting worn stone and causing ice and snow to gather in corners. After a few moments ticked by, dark lips parted. Her echoed voice was, as always, delicately soft. Somehow still rising above, or simply becoming part of the under current of consistent wind. "It is a great tragedy." She began gently. "To see the haunted so lost. You are welcome in this place, my Wraith. I have learned much in my time, the chief among them, not everyone with a beating heart, is alive."

Vel almost let out a chuckle as she forced herself to her feet. She grasped for the clunky wooden staff at her back and shifted her weight onto it.    Well, what weight there was to lean, she was a fraction of herself.    "At least I am a great something, yea? Even if it's a tragedy."    she shook her head, "I'm not being literal..." she noted, anticipating her humor to be lost in the howling winds.    

From the top of the spire Vel was taken out of the cold and into the necropolis of Naxxarar.   Words were exchanged.   Vel could entrust Aria with her story, and she did.  Within those walls, Death had been kind to her.  Helpful.   Understanding.   Instructive.   Supportive.   All in such a short span of time.    

Then, Aria drew her close and tempted her.   She offered to remake her.  

And in those moments, Vel was neither her mother’s creation nor her Master’s student.   She was the remainder of yet another internal division.   Something that was uncertain, but something that found comfort so close to Death.  Parts of her that had long been quiet were starting to push aside the less certain.    

It all came down to a simple question.    

"Do you wish to be more?"

Vel nodded,  "I must be."   she paused, careful to add, "Not...  right now...   but - I think...   soon."

Aria blinked, looking down at Vel. "Why... would you wish to postpone, being more? What logic is there in this pain you feel? In recounting how others betrayed or harmed you?"   Her head shook a bit, as if refusing any answer that may come preemptively.

Though Vel had answers to those questions, thoughts - many of them, clarifications and justifications - none escaped her lips.    

Aria's hand rose, starting at Vel's hip, to slide up leather carefully. Rounding to the Monk's stomach and to drag her cool touch up and over her chest and soon, seeking a light grip of the other's neck. "I could remake you." Her soft voice, a gentle and low whisper, dark lips brushing gently against the lobe of Vel's ear as her voice seemed to layer a couple more time, growing both more sinister and at the same time, remaining calm. "You would be you, but reborn, unscarred, untarnish, strong, capable, belonging to not only to but with me. With all of Death, with every Monster and every forgotten creature."   She wasn't trying to hold Vel around the throat but kept her palm over her chest, and fingers curled to follow the slender neck. Her own armored form moving slightly to press to Vel's side. "There is nothing to be afraid of and everything to gain... I wish for your consent but it is not required."

It was at that point, Vel began to accept that she would not leave Naxxanar unchanged.    Uncertainty plagued her.   Aria likely could hear the reservation in her voice.   How much that mattered to the Knight, was hard to say.

"I intend for you to remake me...   I will not resist. I will stay here - with you. Just let me get used to the notion of being - reborn. I was reborn once. I was told I was part of something. That route - didn't go so well. This, may be different... but let me wrap my mind around it. I am not going anywhere."    

Aria shook her head slightly  "You were lied to and molded by corruptors, by beasts... you believed what you were told as many have and all have found their gods to be false. That was no a rebirth it was an execution." The frost fire in her eyes flicking to life in orbs as she stared back at Vel intensely. "You will stay."   The words very firm and laced with meaning. 

Both hands found the Monk's hips, seeking to grip at the slight curve tightly. She neared, ever closer, until petite nose tips brushed and lips were a whisper from doing the same.  However, instead of a cool press, a deep amethyst smoke abruptly bubbled up and poured out from between the Necromancer's lips and it's direction was very specifically, aimed within Vel's mouth.  

It was only a blink of time, over as it began but visceral and physically jarring. Aria knew it was going to happen so she had that benefit and the wherewithal to speak, a slight rasp to echoed words. "... a gift."

While one side of her struggled to pluck weeds from her gardens, another side of her awoke in an oversized piece of furniture, and felt a dizzying swell of power surging through her body.  

Though, she was pleased to be able to be comfortable, she could not help but wonder why she was still alive.  

The threads that wove together to form the tapestry known as ‘Vel’ shifted, weaving and unweaving from one another, bouncing between two distinct locations.   The demonic influences on her soul, did not warn the rest of the monk, about what the other parts of her were doing.   Where she was, and Vel was too weak, in this form, to realize that she was divided at all.   Especially given the focus she’d been allocating to Mira.  

In Northrend, the blonde simply waited.   She had said she would not leave.   She did not intend to leave until she was more.

Of course, she was now guilty of the same sin as her distant counterpart had been.

She should have known better. To ignore part of herself.

Her mother’s daughter, the demonic essences that had twisted her soul had left part of Vel to embrace her end.   It would be useful, they reasoned.  Kill off part of her, and it would be easier to regain control of the other.    Whatever Aria managed to create, would be - in some manner - connected to the living monk.   Though, it was hard to predict how it would all play out.    The demonic influences still craved the Ascension she’d been assured she would attain by the woman she once called her mother.   The whispering of the serpentine threads, were ignored by the recovering monk.

It was cyclical, she suppressed contradictions in her personality, to a point where they reached such extremes, the only resolution was some sort of division.  

However this was different.  Normally the threads all returned to one being, perhaps arranged differently, but always - one body.   Should Death claim her in Northrend, it would surely have an affect on her in Pandaria.   And possibly even on Mira by extension.  

And Vel, had no idea it was coming.  

If only she listened to the parts of herself she preferred to pretend didn’t exist.   She’d have heard them plotting.   They wanted this.  

Unlike previous divisions, this one - would be permanent.  

@thefrozenheart, @anorasmira (this is myself  - i dunno why I’m tagging)