#his 'I've obtained loss' that speaks to me. his 'I just wanted to see what its like being a fool'

[hivemindscape]

the buddy-buddy act ends now

[deleteddewewted]

What It’s Like to Love Phillip Graves Part 1

MDNI

W: NSFW, Slow burn, Angst, Fluff, Getting Together, Friends With Benefits to Lovers, Gn! Reader, Unhealthy Relationship, Soldier Reader

P2, P3

He's like poison at times.

Before you both were official he was someone you slept with to relieve stress.

He was there and he was also seeking some relief. It worked for the two of you so there was nothing wrong with it.

That was until he left.

He wanted more in his life.

He wanted money and power. Most importantly, he wanted to do better.

He had a purpose and it drove him away from you.

He fucked you like he meant all the sweet nothing he growled into your ear.

He left hickeys on your skin like a claim but by the time he was done.

By the time he had cleaned himself up and dressed, he was already out the door.

He left you a note, thinking you wouldn't be up for a few hours after the fact.

You threw it in the trash without bothering to read it.

You were nothing important to him if the best he could do was give you a short note with a half-assed excuse for leaving.

You forgot about him.

You found someone to warm your bed just like he once had used you and made it your mission to rise within the military.

In a span of a few years, you became a sergeant, and in the following ones, you saw yourself rise to lieutenant.

You commanded men and you were sought out by many.

You help power that younger you could have never imagined obtaining.

As you were returning from a successful mission, you were approached by your Captain.

He advised you to get a shower and eat before seeing him in his office.

"Someone wishes to speak to you. They come with an offer." Amusement was evident in his eyes but he was clearly tense.

You only nodded in response and did as you were told.

Once finished with your meal, you walked directly towards your Captain's office and were met with the sight of a man in all black.

The man standing by your captain's desk had light brown hair with strands of gray here and there.

His eyes widened as they took you in before he cleared his throat and approached you.

"It's a pleasure to meet you, Lieutenant. I'm Commander Phillip Graves. It's a pleasure to make your acquaintance."

His eyes were just as pale blue as you remembered them to be.

His hand was as warm as you recalled too.

You hated it.

You stared at his outstretched hand and directed your gaze toward his eyes instead.

He sucked his lips before liking them.

The dismissal was not something that Graves was accustomed to.

You reveled in his uncomfortably.

"How may I help you, Commander?" He smiled at you before he turned and sat himself down on one of the chairs in front of your Captain.

He spoke about his PMC like a proud father.

Ignorant bosting was the only way you could describe him at the moment.

He was happy to recount how he airstrikes a set of buildings in the middle east to help the US military push into terrorist cell territory, all while glossing on the fact that it was documented that civilians had been present.

"So, I've been scouting for talent. We've had many successes in the past few years and with success comes loss. I need people who can help me clean up this world from terrorist scum."

He looked at you in anticipation. He craved your eyes on him.

"So?"

"So? I want you to join us at Shadow Company." You redirected yourself to your Captain. The old fool wasn't even paying attention to what had just been offered to you.

"Unless you're pay double what I'm making here, I'm not interested." You shut him down in the most forward way you can.

He’s not happy of course. He starts pouting at you but you ignore him.

In the end, he leaves without you in tow and his face is red from embarrassment.

That didn’t mean he would stop.

For the next year, he would send you emails, mail, and even messages through your superior officers. All of them were some kind of job offer or the chance to meet up.

One of his letters was him asking you out for coffee, "I'll even buy you a slice of that cake you always liked eating"

You don't see him till the end of winter.

He's hurt.

You notice the way his cheek seeped blood and how his ear bled too.

He was a mess and you took pleasure in seeing him miserable.

His men were ambushed and had to be treated at your base since it was the closest to them.

Many of the men wouldn't survive.

He spoke to you when he was in his hospital cot, he'd eat with you in the cafeteria even though he was still hurting from his broken rib.

He made efforts to be around you all while you simply ignored him in the politest way you could.

"I have a feeling you don't like me, sweetheart. Did I do something to you?" He followed you around like a sad dog. His eyes never left you even while your back was turned to him.

"I don't know what you're talking about Commander Graves." You continued with your tasks and left him in the armory with his own thoughts.

That night, he stood outside your room all while dressed down in his nicest short sleeve button-up.

He knocked on your so many times, it was embarrassing. It wasn't until he was ready to call it quits that you decided to open the door to see what he wanted.

"Why are you dressed up like you're heading to church? Is this really your Sunday's best?" You eyed him up and down before deciding to let him in.

His eyes lingered a little too long on your chest and your arms.

"I think I might need to go to confession after this. You look hot as ever, hun." You rolled your eyes at him.

You both ended up nude and under your covers.

His shirt was covered in cum after he used it to clean you both up.

His body was warm and comfortable against your own.

You hated yourself for ending up like this.

You thought you were better than this.

These feelings needed to die out.

But his face was nuzzled into your neck and his hands were touching your skin.

His soft snores were comforting and so was the feeling of his pulse.

You left him to sleep on your bed while you went and worked out in the gym.

Some of his men were sparring with one another. One of them even challenges you to match.

By the time Graves wakes up, you were handing out advice to his men and cleaning up the bloodied mats.

He looked for you during breakfast but you avoided him like the plague.

He wondered if he did something he wasn't supposed to.

The taste of your skin and the way you moaned his name was something he could get used to again.

He wanted more of your body.

He wanted more of you.

He wondered if you had moved past whatever you both had back when you were both young and new to this world of anguish.

He thought about the note he left you before he departed.

Maybe you read it and decided that you hated him.

Maybe you loved him and thought he'd come back for you sooner.

He followed after you still.

Even after you showed him you cared less about him.

He wrote letters, all of them intended for you, that he'd throw out in the morning.

He even extended his workout routine just to catch a glimpse of you.

When his time was over on your base, he had to swallow down the bile that threatened to come up his throat.

You were so close and yet so far from him.

And be it that you refuse to look him in the eyes, he still longed for the day you'd hold his face in between your hands and whisper the words that had haunted him since the day you let him bed you.

"Come back to me, Phillip. Always make sure to come back to me."

He watched your eyes flutter shut as you lost yourself in the pleasure.

He swore under his breath that he'd make sure to make it back to you no matter how long or how far he was from you.

[pithmemos]

ten days before ASL classes

For the last eighteen or so months I have largely been considering my loss of language a gradual process. A wave retreating from me a millimeter at a time, leaving my calves to the cold air, first, then after a lengthly delay, my ankles stinging from exposure. Emerged, still, at the very bottoms of my feet. Obtainable if I really dug into it. If I put my hands to the ground and scraped at the damp sand.

I wonder if it was the winter that brought this out of me. The dark. Dry winds. Layers and layers wrapped around my head, flattening my hair, underneath my over-ear headphones set to the loudest volume. A season of near-constant work, walking alongside traffic, bracing for the rush of a subway train, straining over restaurant din. Whatever it was–this winter or just more time–I no longer see it this way. Now it looms ahead, impossibly far, inconceivable that it was ever with me. A wall that reaches up and up and has pushed itself away, all at once, so cleanly and obviously that I didn’t realize it had happened.

I’ve started getting angry on phone calls. I used to call my friends on my walks through my neighbourhood to work. With all the earlier pre qualifiers (no wind on either end, my over-ears are cranked, they need to be using a non-terrible mic) there's been a new development: they also, seemingly, have to be sitting in complete silence, not wandering around their home fiddling with chores. Only one of my friends (who I've never lived closer than 900 km to) has this down set–for years we’ve both hated the sound of running water and, on their end, the sound of brushing teeth, so we'd call for hours and mute ourselves accordingly. My boyfriend, who often works remotely, is frequently on his lunch break when I call. I’ve since stopped. The clink of cutlery, the sound of the washer running, and his older headphones lead me to screaming into my headphones that I cannot fucking hear him, and he needs to speak louder or figure it out. 

I'm too exhausted to consider if I'm being fair.

At the bookstore where I work customers drop their voices when they ask me a question. My suspicions are that it’s because they feel there’s something sacred here, a subconscious association to the library, but there’s no god when you’re at work. I have to say I’m Hard of Hearing and please speak up if I want the most helpful response, which is a raise in volume level, even though I quickly absconded from the HoH label after that first audiogram. If I say I’m deaf, even with the qualifiers partially or mostly, (when I’m being glib), customers will occasionally raise their volume. Mostly they just look at me, surprised. I can see them see me for the first time, again, and re-evaluate me as someone different from themselves. Then they mouth their words more exaggeratedly (lip-reading is barely a part of my communication process at this point even if this wasn't a hinderance), and eventually ask me if I’ve always been deaf. They also forget after about a minute and speak with their backs turned towards me.

I need you to know that I don’t know what I’m talking about. It is ten days until my first in-person ASL class and the last Deaf person I interacted with in any real capacity was a student that I took notes for across three years in university. We only had some classes together–one of our majors overlapped–but for years I sat near to her in lecture halls, passing her notes if the professor said something while her interpreters were absent, emailing her pages and pages of names and terms that I can’t imagine ever fingerspelling.

Two summers ago, when I started googling Hard of Hearing and d/Deaf and Hearing impaired I read that if you can speak on the phone, you’re not considered d/Deaf, but HoH.

In the last few weeks I’ve been wondering when I’ll have to tell my bookselling colleagues that I can’t answer the phone anymore. It makes me think of my grandma getting her license taken away. Most times, sure, I can plug my right ear, move away from the desk, and ask for the title to be repeated thrice until I’ve got it correctly for a special order. Other times I have to tell the customer I can’t hear them, it’s an issue with the phone, to call back. I can’t recall having to pass the phone to a colleague in defeat yet but I’m sure it’s already happened.

Does it make me a fraud if I keep trying to call my friends on my way to work?

Two girls I lived with during the earliest years of the pandemic now, of course, live apart from me and each other. One is close and yet a distance lives between us with work and time and my anger, and the other is far and busy. Strings of voice memos are the closest iterations of what living together was like–I wouldn’t want to hear about their most dramatic events in walls of text / it's not real if they're considering their next sentence or editing after the fact. I want tone and hysterical, nervy giggling, the neighbour they're complaining about to be heard in the background, playing his drums above their bedroom ceiling.

Even now, writing this, at least a dozen voice memos live in our group chat from weeks ago that I haven’t opened. Listening to anything with speech that’s not recorded professionally has become ritualistic, like I’m readying for a seance: I have to close my windows (I have to be home), nothing cooking, nothing running, my laptop volume at 100%, and my fingers have to scramble to hit the Keep button that Apple has in case I need to re-visit. I can’t type furious responses while listening, either--the rustle of my clothing and clicking of my keyboard is enough to obscure words.

On one of our last nights living together, we went to a park behind our house that backs onto the Hamilton escarpment. It was April and damp but warm. I sat in the grass and Shanna and Shiv sat in the branches of a tree above me. That beginning of 2021's summer is hard to pin down in a memory I've always prided myself on being precise. Around this time–maybe because I was spending so much time alone on walks, maybe because my hearing had already started changing but I hadn’t noticed–I wore an in-ear headphone nearly all the time, in my left ear (my hearing ear). Sometime during this night, from where it rest in my ear, silent, it fell out into the grass. I didn't notice that night and never found it.

Now, the only reason I have to use my remaining in-ear headphone is while running, and to be able to hear anything at all it has to be set to 100% and still is faint. My phone is one of the only things tactically reminding me of my deafness: if I use this headphone for more than 45 minutes a week, I’m slammed with alerts that I’ve exceeded recommended volume levels.

It’s not incredibly interesting or comforting that two of my core personal identifiers–being a quiet person and someone with an excellent memory–have become so malleable that I’m no longer sure they apply to me. Am I quiet in rooms where all dialogue drops out and I’m left with a dull droning? Am I quiet in group conversations where I can't follow a thought as it changes hands?

I feel robbed and without language to articulate the loss. My friend Jess tells me that at restaurants my voice drops so low she can’t hear me–the alternative is the way I know I shout into my headset walking in my neighbourhood. A newly familiar evil is that I forget who I’ve told, who has forgotten, and the difficulty of surpassing this. I’ll tell someone in my life they’re speaking too softly and they’ll repeat themselves in the same way. I joke that my colleague likes to talk and walk and turn his back towards me, and it takes him ten seconds to remember that my complaint is rooted in a sincere request. I wish my hearing left me categorically in the way that it feels it has. A scythe coming down between me and old understandings of community.

I practice fingerspelling, fruitlessly, since customers only know to repeat B B B AS IN BOY at me. My little sister Payton gets mad at me the fifth time I ask her to repeat what she means over lunch, and the rudimentary signed explanation I could give her means nothing, even to me. What good is a partial language learned? What good is an alphabet without vocabulary, vocabulary without grammar?

I’ve been transposed from networks of communication to a reality where I am untethered in even moderately occupied rooms, dumb in one-on-one conversations if I can’t see the person’s face, alone with clumsy fingers and eyes who don’t understand the shapes they form. 

On my laptop, a window perpetually opened: a tab with Bill Vicars’ playlists, one to CHS classes, another on BRCC Summer Camp dates, two pages of DCT Facebook Group events, the Signing Savvy homepage, and an Eventbrite list of biweekly ASL socials, which recommends participants already have a basic vocabulary available to them.

What is basic? I can tell you I like to read but can’t describe the writing. I don’t know how to tell you about this loss within me. That I'm scared to read The Hearing Test, a novel from Eliza Callahan (already a Staff Pick at my work), whose narrator awakes to sudden deafness, because its author has since regained her hearing and I don't feel allowed to resent her.

In a different life, I wanted to move abroad again. On a trip with Payton this past dark, cold winter to Mexico City, the conversational Spanish I had a fair grasp on fled entirely–soft vowels and quick syllables become slush in the air before they reach me. A future I was nursing in the corners of my mind has dissipated. My abuelitos never knew English fluently, and our few visits in my childhood consisted of only existing within the same space as each other. A chasm between the pair of them and myself: an unrealized relationship to a child who didn’t speak Spanish, one born from a lesbian relationship that they didn’t welcome. Maybe a grace for them, then, as you can't know someone without language. Who have I become since my deafness arrived? Since I was introduced to it? Can I know myself as a faux Hard of Hearing (but hearing) worker, as a little-d deaf person? Can I know myself without the community in sound I had and without the community I could have–with that almighty, idyllic fluency?

[hiriajuu-suffering]

Guru Pathik's 7 Chakra Exercise

ATLA is a series that speaks to our sensibilities on life, as well as one of the best coming-of-age stories to be released this century. To help myself, I thought I'd write-up the same process Aang underwent when he opened his chakras for personal growth and self-evaluation.

What am I afraid of?

Failure brought on by a lack of progress. That this point in life will never pass and I will continue to leave things unfinished. I couldn't stay at my first high school. My foreign language requirements kept lingering. I never finished my high school career. I had to take a gap year and go to a different school. I keep getting course incompletes. I struggle to find the motivation to acquire career certifications. It takes me too long to get over anyone. I've been in a stable relationship for years but still haven't gotten engaged. Always made to feel like I'm incapable, when it has more to do with being unwillingly unable. I want to let things flow, but I forget I once knew how to.

Pathik: you are still human, and humans make mistakes, stumble, and fall. When you trip in life doesn't define you, how you get up does.

I failed to meet my potential. My grades never aligned with my intelligence. I could've done more. I don't deserve love if I can't take pride in myself. All I do is let others down.

Pathik: if you let the image you have of yourself be defined by the people around you and your environment, rather than your own actions and character, you let results become your meaning rather than your intentions. You have had many opportunities to be an average, maybe even horrible, person, but you must remember you always chose the highest ground available to you. A lack of success does not mean a lack of good. You are allowed to be happy even though you aren't perfect. You are not a bad person for failing, you become a bad person when you stop learning from failure and let it fester into hate.

What are my biggest disappointments in myself?

I'm never who I set out to be. I was never a good enough son or brother. I didn't make 1st band. I couldn't go past the tipping point to fully dominate as an individual debater. My talent couldn't offset my look being unmarketable to make it in the recording industry. I could never win enough in card games to garner respect. Seeing anyone as worthy of trust became impossible for me. All I will ever get is rejection, within my control or not.

Pathik: Letting your failures undermine your zeal for life is a fallacy. While you experience failure, you still continue you to try to push to achieve something because you never truly fall out of love with the process. Music, Debate, card games are still crucial parts of your life you fall back on: while you have become shy with your talents, converting them into half-effort karaoke, panels, and dulling your edges, you stop committing to yourself. The same is true with the work you need to finish, you always hold out hope you will succeed but you remain too afraid to try to. The first three chakras balance your id, ego, and superego, the three have become warped in the same lamentations. Whatever you do, do your best to not be paralyzed by the changing current, afraid of getting hurt. You must take the risks to obtain something worthwhile.

My grandfather. The only reason I know what a sense of family and community is was my grandfather. I met someone who gave me that same sense of naturalism but she passed on as well. Then my aunt, the final person who was always in my corner left this world again and the isolation from the pandemic hit especially hard for that reason.

Pathik: their love isn't gone, it just takes time for people to convey love to you the more damaged and twisted up inside you have become. Loss and betrayal have become your familiar feelings where security, comfort, and belonging should be. You must remember you are never alone. Even though you may not feel the love reaching you is all that deep, there are still people who would mourn you. Your family would miss you, there are still people that both need, want, and pray for your survival. Part of your identity is your ability to unify, you have never shied away from this responsibility. Whether people say it or not, people do appreciate you for carrying their spirits as a part of your own and see you as valuable. You must be willing to accept love in order to commit to giving it back.

In what ways are you not speaking your truths?

My identity puts me into a place where my life is insignificant to those around me. Straight men of color are given the least compassion of any diaspora, being a member of the most slaughtered racial demographic and religious affiliation means my life is societally more dispensable than my white, female, or non-Christianized background counterparts. While it is a contributing factor as to why I get stifled, there's only so many times I can shake it off. I'm weary. Weary of vehemently androphobic women. Weary of the structural inequality in which the individuals a part of it are ignorant of their own white exceptionalism. Weary my labels on paper throw me into the model minority myth but I receive none of the privilege associated with it. Weary that of any random stranger, I would most often have the most contempt and bile directed at me, even if only implicit.

Pathik: you seek to control your identity in an era people want to assert themselves the most aggressively against their born identities. Asian-Americans and Hispanic-Americans continue to voluntarily whitewash because of a sense of self-hatred they were socialized with for being different. Accepting your difference isn't a weakness just as being cisgendered isn't a strength. Being secure in your expressions is something you ground yourself in, some in this world will attempt to taint the purity of that expression of the self. There is nothing wrong with accepting your own nature. You have a devotion to who you are in ways people can't reconcile, feel blessed you can. Coming off as lacking confidence in your identity to appease other minimizes yourself; you don't do so in front of students no matter how carefully your frame your rhetoric, why should you need to worry about appearing meek to adults to not intimidate them? Humility is not holding yourself back to make sure you never have a stronger trait than anyone else, humility is simply knowing you're no better than another person even though they have insecurities you may not.

I never really knew if my life was my own, Everyone always says anyone is capable of anything if they set their mind to it, but I stopped believing that a long time ago. I tried to convince myself it's because I didn't put forth enough effort and therefore didn't try hard enough even though I gave everything possible. Was I always meant to feel this drained? Living in reality constantly feels as if it comes with a tax, and I have too many dreams to make even an infinitesimal amount of them a reality. The choices I'm making are putting my wheels in motion, but it doesn't feel as if I'm actually going anywhere.

Pathik: at times, the pathway to enlightenment is so treacherously scenic, we often forget and lose parts of ourselves along the way. But to think the suppression of parts of oneself is a method to self-actualization is an illusion, folly of a great order. Humans often define themselves by trauma rather than events being defined by their character. Each action a person takes represents the image of themself they put out into the world. The paradox of life is we think we are defined by our actions and accomplishments when history is only made so by us living it. Everything is connected. Differences in the outcome of human action are only distinctions humans make for themselves, whether you succeeded or failed is not determined by a goal, but the process by which you learned. Life is just as much about the journey as it is the destination; without the journey, the destination is unearned. Even if it feels like you aren't making progress, to have faith is to believe the only constant in life is that change will happen, and to be at peace with that. Stoking change in your favor rather than fearing it is the manner in which you win fortune's favor because fortune favors the bold, not the stagnant. As long as you are doing something, you are achieving something, even if capitalism makes it seem otherwise.

What attaches me to this world?

The thought of making the home for myself I have yet to find, the partner that will care for as deeply or even more so than they care about themselves. Children I will love unconditionally and try my best to impart no expectations on even though they are my blood. Guru Laghima fully opened this chakra and was in complete harmony with his bending because he transcended his mortal coil and became one with air. There's a certain melancholy in knowing how to transcend, to feel alone of your own volition, no one truly grasping your sense of self. Yet, all I feel is pity for Laghima and Zaheer, especially upon P'Li's death. The gift of life is wasted on the living, and there's a particular nihilism that pairs with detachment. Connection to humanity is the meaning by which life becomes worth living. I fight for the sake of others, not to spite their objections. Balance only exists in conflict, not in the absence of it: all that does it bottle conflict up until surfaces. If change is the only constant, we will find new things to be attached to. That sense of novelty is why any singular earthly attachment and its absence aren't the answer. Cosmic power wants me to make deep and meaningful connections, not toss them aside. This is not muck in the swirls of energy within my soul, it is a dam I constructed myself that should only be broken upon death's doorstep. Otherwise, I lose sense of the world and become even more lost than before.

Pathik: in many ways, being attached to all is the same as being attached to none. Seeing value in every little thing, the tiniest components that help balance our world, is a means to connect to the universe, but it does force you to release the pool of energy you build up from time-to-time. Not only will you need a constant flow of new individuals and experiences in life, you will need an equally constant flow of individuals and experiences leaving your life, meaning happiness and sorrow will be at balance. Choosing to live in this strife isn't considered a noble choice within chakra manipulation, but is for a Muslim's relationship to creation. Depersonalizing consequentialism is the only real way for the creek to flow smoothly, but the absence of life indicates no change to the creek at all. Life can be tumultuous but finding peace in life is knowing no obstacle is truly bigger than you are if you get over yourself.

[xluna-reclipse]

Day 7 Unnerving

He wakes up beside a beautiful man who claims to be Lan Xichen, who tells that he is Meng Yao, the man's Daoist partner.

(cw dubcon by way of memory loss and lies, mild horror)

He awoke to the sight of what he believed must be the most beautiful man in existence, faithfully attending to his bedside. The man's large hand firmly held his in a tight grip.

"Who are you?" He asked the beautiful man.

The room they were in was spacious and elegant. He could feel the sheets beneath him were of high quality and pleasant to the touch. He thought about sitting up, but any minute movement triggered a sharp pain in his chest, causing him to grimace.

Beside him, the beautiful man’s face was already covered in tears but lit up when he noticed that his patient awoke. Then seemed to go through a harrowing internal journey before finally arriving at something unreadable and blank.

How suspicious.

"My name is Lan Xichen." The beautiful man said in a tragic, beautiful voice.

"Do you know who I am?" He didn’t know if he wanted this beautiful man to know him or not. For some reason he had the suspicion that if this man knew him, he would never be able to leave. But if he didn’t know him… a part of him thought that would be very sad.

Lan Xichen's face went through another subtle series of ups and downs before he asked, "Do you not remember?"

Seeing his patient shake his head, Lan Xichen's eyes were surprised, relieved, then nervous. "Your name is Meng Yao."

Meng Yao tasted the name in his mind and felt as if it was a little incomplete, but definitely his. Then the next question was, "Why am I here?"

Lan Xichen swallowed, "What do you remember?"

Meng Yao shook his head, "Nothing."

Lan Xichen's mouth twisted and twitched, before he briefly bit his lips and replied, "You're my spouse, the Daoist partner of the Lan Sect Leader, zhumu of the Lan family."

Meng Yao blinked in astonishment. He didn't know what any of that meant, but he had a feeling it was a formidable position envied by the masses.

"Oh."

Lan Xichen shifted over to the bed, perching himself on the edge, careful to avoid crushing Meng Yao, but keeping a firm hold of Meng Yao's hand the entire time. Meng Yao observed with muted curiosity as Lan Xichen now cradled Meng Yao's hand in his lap with anxious tenderness.

What do you have to hide, Lan Xichen?

"A-Yao... to prevent you from excessive agitation which might delay your recovery, I will water down your past a little, is that alright?" Lan Xichen gently squeezed Meng Yao's hand. "Suffice to say, you've suffered something traumatic."

Meng Yao kept silent. It was clear what Lan Xichen wanted to say. The truth was disadvantageous to Lan Xichen so he was keeping it secret.

Lan Xichen continued after not receiving a response, "I will be honest. Before your accident, we fought. It was a big fight and we both said things we didn't mean.”

See! His fujun was nervous that Meng Yao would be angry.

"I hope that when you recover your memories, you will speak to me first and not others..." Lan Xichen trailed off and took a deep, shaky breath before saying, "so that I can properly apologize. It would be unfair to obtain your forgiveness now, when you don't remember what I've done. Just know, that I am sincerely sorry and will do whatever you want me to, to make amends."

Meng Yao just watched quietly at first, but when Lan Xichen began to cry again in earnest, his eyes widened and heart shook. He tried to free his hand, but he was weak, and Lan Xichen refused to let go. Meng Yao had the feeling that even at full strength, he would not be able to throw off Lan Xichen's grip. Even though he awoke to the sight of Lan Xichen’s tearful face, he couldn’t bear to see it in action. With the unrestrained hand, he reached up to caress Lan Xichen's cheek.

The room was filled with the mournful sound of Lan Xichen's sigh as he turned his face to nuzzle Meng Yao's hand.

"...alright." Meng Yao finally answered. That was an easy enough request to follow. If they really fought, Meng Yao doubted he was the type to air dirty laundry. If he was going to speak to anyone about it, it'd only be Lan Xichen.

"And..." Lan Xichen hesitated.

Meng Yao waited patiently. It's not as if he had anywhere else to be, though he was getting sleepy.

Lan Xichen's eyes were red and strangely desperate as he requested, "I want you to promise you won't leave without speaking to me. I want you to swear it... on your mother's soul."

Meng Yao was taken aback. He had a nagging suspicion that he was being taken advantage of, "What?"

Tears dripped freely down Lan Xichen's face again, dropping off his chin.

"I'm just so scared that you'll leave without giving me a chance to explain," Lan Xichen sobbed out.

It must've been a really big fight.

"Surely... you didn't ask me to let you have a concubine, right?" Meng Yao tried to joke.

It worked to some extent. Lan Xichen let out a bark of laughter then answered, "No. Nothing of the sort." He couldn't stop himself from adding, "If anyone were to take a concubine, it'd more likely be A-Yao."

Meng Yao felt as if that was deeply false. He would never treat his legitimate spouse that way. But while he frowned, he let it pass. Lan Xichen was clearly in pain, so maybe in the past, he'd given the impression he would have an affair.

He offered Lan Xichen this, "I promise. But not on my mother's soul. You'll have to be satisfied with that."

Lan Xichen didn't look relieved. The Meng Yao of right now had the thought that perhaps the Meng Yao of the past had lied to Lan Xichen a lot.

Reaching back down, he patted the hands that refused to release his, trying to offer silent reassurance.

--

It'd been months since then.

Meng Yao hung his inner robes up atop the wooden screen, eyes falling once again on the scar across his bicep.

What a clean cut, he mused.

Climbing up the wooden steps beside the tub, he finally sank into the hot water, letting loose an unbidden moan.

Lan Xichen refused to let him enter the hot springs or cold springs without him to accompany Meng Yao, so he could only have the servants draw him a hot bath. It was delectable. Meng Yao felt all of his aches and pains melt away into the water.

As usual, it was a medicinal bath, his husband having prescribed a huge list of herbs for the disciples to acquire and add for Meng Yao’s benefit. The water was somehow still transparent despite that. Looking down, he could clearly see the red marks and purple bruises on his thighs and hips where Lan Xichen had gripped him last night and… bit him. Meng Yao blushed at the sight of the teeth marks. Lan Xichen had painted him into a rainbow. He pressed his fingers lightly against one of the lighter pink spots and hissed.

His husband seemed compelled to leave as many traces on Meng Yao as possible. It wasn’t as if he didn’t give as good as he got, just that Lan Xichen was more dedicated to the task than him. Meng Yao sank deeper into the tub.

Lan Xichen had cleaned him and applied ointment after last night, while Meng Yao was passed out, but that didn't compare to a proper hot bath.

If he asked, Lan Xichen could properly heal him up this evening with his qi.

He sank entirely underwater to wet his hair and just enjoy the feeling of being submerged. There was something soothing about being separated from the world by a layer of water. Blowing bubbles for fun, Meng Yao wanted to see how long he could stand to hold his breath. But as soon as he had that thought, before Meng Yao had even released all of his air—he was only completely immersed for a moment—just a moment—he was rudely ripped from the water and engulfed in the embrace of a larger man.

Catching the scent of apricot blossoms, Meng Yao knew who it was and did not struggle. He obediently laid his head on his husband's shoulder and allowed himself to be carried to bed.

Lan Xichen sat Meng Yao firmly in his lap before speaking.

Looking up at his husband's red and panicked eyes, Meng Yao patiently waited for Lan Xichen to speak and air his grievances before he would explain himself.

"A-Yao, if you—," Lan Xichen broke off.

He watched with fascination as his husband's eyes took on a crazed and despairing light.

Sometimes he felt as if the way his husband looked at him was rather unnerving.

I've been posting Xiyao drabbles from one word prompts given to me on Twitter from moots/oomfs

If you reblog this with a line from one of my fics, you may give me a word and I will gift you a drabble.

Here is the Twitter post:

Here is my ao3 account:

[d3athth3d3ku]

Bnha scenario;

Pro hero Deku destroys his right arm, it's impossible to properly heal the bones; the arm must be amputated.

1st we discuss OFA;

To my understanding of a has a certain # I'm specifications the holder must adhere to to wield it properly. Right now we're speaking body mass, I believe the holder requires a certain amount of muscle to utilize 100%; we can think of UA as a reference point - when he only tried to use it in one part of his body he destroyed it, so the less Mass he has the harder it is to wield properly without causing a strain, so removing a limb would cause a strain on his body, that would accumulate over time.

MY THEORY; the loss of his arm = decrease BMI # = < 100% OFA usage. To make up for that loss, he would need to replace the Lost BMI throughout the REST of his body & use a prosthetic for the missing arm OR regrow the arm & therefore recover the lost BMI & continue to use OFA in that arm.

I KNOW I SOUND LIKE MIDORIYA RIGHT NOW, BUT STAY WITH ME HERE.

2nd, discuss options;

–In a world full of quirks; izuku Midoriya has options!

fabricated prosthetic; can emulate his natural strength and be a support item, he could have jackhammer like punches that could emulate OFA -since he couldn't utilize it in the prosthetic-; DRAWBACK- it cannot use OFA, destructible, require an engineer for routine updates / enhancements, replacement & maintenance.

Specialized quirk doctors 'create' an arm from his EXISTING body (ie skin, muscle etc) that would result in a FULLY FUNCTIONING ARM that IS PART of him, that being said; it being covered in his own biologic material would allow OFA just a work properly in that arm.

Option 2 explained a little more in detail;

QD #1 would form the adamantium skeleton ~arm~ - reference wolverine - to replace what was lost, starting the growth from the existing bone of his ~im thinking humerus, because the damage of his upper arm was pretty bad previously~ where it was amputated, concluding at the phalanges ~fingers~ *Cannot replace EXISTING bone w/ adamantium only add on amputated bone*

QD #2 would use energy from their surroundings (not living creatures) to create -using Izu's DNA- the fundamental properties 'flesh wise' that allow him to function, ie tendons, ligaments, muscle, nerves.. etc. OVER the adamantium skeleton.

Quirk holder #3 what demagnetize the arm so he couldn't be magnetized in a situation with a villain that had the magnet quirk.

The specialized team world recreate his arm from x-rays, leaving out the damage obtained at UA -think of Photoshop, no disfigured bones & no scars ~unless he asked to keep the scars-

The surgery would take about 12 hours due to the quirks involved.

-5/13/22- started with the whole dilemma, my brain went on medoria and by this point -5/14/22- now that I've written it down it makes more sense.

3rd Izu's choice;

He would choose "whatever causes less strain on others" because he is a SELF-SACRIFICING little shit!

A) 12 hours surgery where the result equals him still being able to use OFA with minimal PT.

B)The making of a prosthetic, hiring of an engineer to fix/replace his damaged/broken arm (in my mind I see Ed being yelled at by winery…though izuku being self- sacrificing would require maintenance weekly) and this would cause a mental strain on him and he would also feel indebted to them.

So in conclusion to my MIDORIYA IZUKU rant…the result of him losing an arm would equal the growth of a new one…

Though my next question would be…would he want the scars back or would he just cover the arm and tattoos as a way to distract himself from the former scars?

<Feel free to write a fanfiction, if you do let me know cuz I would love to read it>

[guigz1-coldwar]

'Taken away' :New chapter for "Redemption in a Spirit in a Cold War" is out !

"Taken away"

Chapter Summary : Bell is recovering from her gunshot wounds she obtained after her last mission.....

To read it on AO3, click here !

Words : +4800

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

In just one night, I had the impressions to revisit my worst nightmares. Things I'm trying to fight for days.....two weeks actually. I'm still facing the memories and nightmares where 'The Winter Soldier' was created and I'm trying at my best to stop thinking to be a brutal person. I tried but that night make me do a step back due to how I did neutralize those guards at the nightclub's bar. I'm trying to fight Adler's control and perversion above me and in one night....I did a step back and he was the one who did this to me.

The worst of it is that he didn't disturb him at all to control, I think that he liked that and missed that for 3 years.....and then, I realized that I was shot just next to my right kidney. I was thinking that I was going to die after that shot, after those traumatisms that came back to me. I was starting to lose control and my blood further once I was brought into the car by Park before we drove away. Before shutting my eyes, the only thing I saw was Park's face worried, fearing to lose me as much I was fearing to die. I slowly passed out on the way back to the safehouse, hoping I will live another day.....

I don't know where I was but by looking around me, I was surrounded by multiple flaming buildings and wrecks of vehicles and tanks. The place....it was situed somewhere in the desert but I couldn't tell exactly where it was, more looking somewhere maybe in the Middle-East or in a part of the Soviet Union. By watching the scene, I was the only survivor of what just happened and it was so fucking bad.

I wasn't standing up at all....because I was wounded at my legs, having a bullet hole in each one of them but it didn't stop here. The left part of my uniform especially the coat sleeve part was burned and I was also shot at my right shoulder, making me suffering so much pain in my body. I couldn't move at all, just looking at the skies invaded by the black smokes of the burning surroundings and hearing the flames consuming the place.

Suddenly, a much louder noise was starting to be heard at my ears until I start to saw a helicopter ready next to me. I didn't move at all, didn't smiled too but I was just trying to  stay alive as long as I can. The helicopter landed before I could see some people running towards me, leaded by....Freya.

"Fre-......Frey-......Freya !" I tried to speak but my voice were hurting me a lot like if I was punched in the throat so hard by someone.

"Yirina !" She exclaimed, getting next to me before she checked all my body and seeing its state. "Shit." She whispered as others soldiers approached me as well, mostly medical personal. "Quick, get her in the chopper !"

I was then transported by 4 fours mens inside the cargo hold of the helicopter before they put me gently on the cargo hold ground of it. I was scared, breathing a lot as those mens were near me and I was thinking that they were going to hurt me so with some part of my strenght remaining, I tried to struggle to move my arms and with so much pain my legs before Freya arrived to put her hands on me, especially on my shoulders, avoiding the wounded part.

"Don't panick, Yiri !" She said, holding my shoulders as I was still moving

"They want.....want to hurt me." I told her, so scared by these mens even she was there for me, I was so lost in that helicopter. "Let me go.....let me go, please." I started to cry in front of everyone, asking to leaving me

"We're here to save you, not hurting you." She explained to me, giving me a good look before she looked at the man at my left. "Stop being brutal with her, you're hurting her !" Her voice was sounding very angry, releasing her anger to that guy.

"It's not my fault if she is moving around and complicating our job." The man defended himself before Freya grabbed him by his collar, in a fury.

"Listen to me..." She started, enraged, holding that man like that with her right hand"If she dies because of you, you're next in line, understood ?"

"Okay, okay !" He exclaimed, Freya releasing him as the others started to hold me with less force with their hands, not wanting to hurt me and to suffer Freya's fury on them. The man started to unwrap some medicals tools out of his medic box "I need you to hold her at her shoulders and give her something that she can put in her mouth." Freya complied and the others too, them, holding my legs. She gave me a tissue that she put in my mouth to contain me.

"It's gonna hurt ?" Freya asked to him, he nodded

"I will first remove the bullet she had at her right shoulder, it's gonna hurt. Hold her still." He ordered as he started to move with his tools to my gunshot wound at my shoulder. I tried to take a deep breath but that piece of tissue in my mouth was avoiding me to breath "Grigoriev, stay still."

It was hurting me as he was, with his tools, trying to remove the bullet of my wound and each movement he was doing to remove it was making me want to move but with the others around me, holding me, it was impossible. I screamed, the tissue in my mouth when the bullet was finally removed from me, making my head move a little.

"It's okay, Yiri." Freya grinned as I was looking worried before she moved to get that tissue out of my mouth. The doctor was getting started to move at my legs as his mens were getting next to my upper body to start wrapping some bandages around my wound,

"You're safe now, no one will ever hurt you !"

Another troubling memory...still fearing to die and that fear is still present today in me but I think I need to fight that fear even if I'm believing that it was in me for a long time, impossible to remove, but I will have to do this anyways, one day. Hopefully, when I opened my eyes again, I was relieved to live another day, awakening in the medical room of the safehouse and like before I closed my eyes, the first thing I was able to see was Park standing at the end of the bed, looking at me, worried.

She was looking more happy when she saw me opening my eyes and I could see that she wanted to take me in her arms but she wouldn't want to hurt me and the others came in, having heard Park saying that I was awake. They announced to me that the bullet didn't do any bad damage on me, almost having hit my right kidney in the process but having me moving quickly allowed me to survive the shot. Adler was the only one to not come as the others explained that Park heard him saying the key-phrase to me and forbidden him to come see me after I was brought here.

I wanted to get up but they advised me to stay in bed for some days, wanting me to recover at 100% and not wanting me to hurt myself at work again like that. They were right as where I was shot was still giving me pain each time I moved my legs even if it was still healing and wrapped by some bandages. During 4 days, I followed their advices to stay in bed, sometimes giving me visit to see how I was, to give me food and drinks and Park gave me my book, allowing me to write in case I've got memories back.

I didn't have big memories coming back...well, I've had nothing coming back to me during these days, avoiding me to write in the book expect for updating some parts of the book like the description of my friends. Apart from that, nothing big actually happened in four days in work as Perseus was still struggling with the loss of 'Bonnie Blue' but her death by Adler didn't stop the arms trafficking, meaning that someone took the lead from it, the 'Nuit Blanche' was closed until further notice. Park was the one to give me updates on the situations and she was also staying a lot with me, trying to recomfort me.

Finally, after 5 days, I was finally able to move my legs and it was better for me to get up and to join the others after I put a shirt to cover myself as I was already in the same pants I had fours days ago. Once I was ready, I started to walk to get out of the medical room to get inside the main room.

"Guess who's back alive." Woods was the first person that spoke, seeing me walking out of the medical room as he started to walk in my direction.

"Finally, we were awaiting that moment for so long."  Mason followed, behind Woods as the latter was offering his hand for me.

"It's nice to see you from that height." I joked, causing the boys to laugh and smile at me as I shook hands with Woods before I moved to shook hands with Mason.

"You are really a damn warrior." Woods affirmed, looking at me proudly "I thought that you will stay in that bed for more days but look at you : in great shape !"

"I can say that." I exclaimed before I looked behind them to discover Park, grinning at me and slowly walking towards me "Hey, Park." I waved with a low voice and without warning me, she put her arms around my shoulders to hug me and to be with her, I reciprocated by putting my arms around her....we were doing a friendly hug in front of Mason & Woods.

"I'm happy to see you back on feet." She whispered to me

"I know, me too." I told her before we withdrawed from each others with an smile, we would have liked to kiss but with Woods & Mason near us, it's better to stay low for the moment. "Where's Sims and Adler ?" I asked to them

"Gone to meet an CIA agent in the city." Woods replied

"For ?" I continued

"It's for having more intels about the supposed buyer in Irak and to try to have some on the politician in the US." Mason finished before I started to walk slowly near the dashboard, followed by them.

"There's nothing else ?" I said, looking at the dashboard, trying to find if there's anything new to it.

"Apart for that nightclub to be closed down because of what happened, nothing big occured except with the part that the arms trafficking is still under way." Park responded, leaning herself on her desk. "We're suspecting that one of those three buyers took the lead." I looked at the dashboard, precisely where I did put the initals of those buyers Park mentioned, seeing each one of them : R.D, A.R and H.S.....Harry Stone, the only one that we know exactly.

"I think Harry Stone is the one who's leading that business now." I suggested, looking at Park who were biting her lips, joining her hands together...looking worried. "An ex-SAS soldier is an expert in firearms and since he travels a lot, he can train Perseus troops and manage that business." I looked at Mason & Woods, wondering what they were thinking about it

"You're maybe right..." Woods started, putting his hand on his chin, thinking "I can't see an Irakian general in the middle of a war doing this, even less for an politician in the United States."

"Same thinking with my buddy here." Mason said, nudging a little Woods for fun, making me smile before I looked at Park, still looking worried and in her thoughts.

"Park, what do you think ?" I questioned and surprisely, she almost jumped from her desk because of me. "You're okay ?" I told her, curious of her

"Yeah, I'm okay." She responded, trying to concentrate back on herself "To answer you, I'm think you're right." Her answer make me look back at the dashboard, thinking that I accidently scared her as she was in her thoughts.

"So now, we have to wait until Sims & Adler come back, right ?" I asked....maybe to everyone.

"Yeap." Woods was the one to asnwer my question first before I started to hear him and Mason walking away, maybe going back to their workplaces or maybe going to take a beer in the fridge. I finally get my eyes off the dashboard.....before I could see Park next to me, holding a jacket in hand and handing it to me.

"What are you doing ?" I asked, confused

"You don't remember what you said yesterday ?" She said in a lovely voice, grinning to me "You promised me that when you will be up that we will get some ice creams." She raised an eyebrow, mentioning a private discussion I had with her yesterday in the night before she left me to go to sleep.

"Oh yeah, I remember !" I exclaimed....semi-enthusiastic "I thought you said that I was joking about it !" I added, never thinking that she really wanted to do that.

"I never said that." She affirmed, still holding the jacket in hand before I finally decide to take the jacket and put it on me. "Now, let's go get our ice creams, I know a perfect place for that."

In less than a minute, we prepared ourselves to go out of the safehouse to get our ice creams, I did take my M1911 in case. We are maybe fighters and spies but if we can just profit of trying to live a normal life for just an moment in our days, could make us happy womens. I think it was cool from Park to organize that for me, maybe thinking that I needed to destress from work a moment since I've been working non-stop for days even if during my days in bed, I didn't work at all, letting the others doing it.

Of course, since she was the one who gave me a chance to have at least a peaceful moment since I woke up, she was the one to drive and of course, she didn't tell me absolutely where we were going, quoting that 'it was a surprise for me'. Each time I was trying to know, she was either saying that or instead, a little lovely 'Ssshhhhh'. During the drive, we didn't put any radios on as she preferred to have her thoughts cleared and not invaded by music for the moment, explaining that she wanted to have a single moment alone with me.

After 5 minutes, we finally arrived at the place she brought me : a typical american diner just next to the border with the GDR called 'Sunny Diner'. The place was looking beautiful to see :very shiny, very....american. By looking at it, I had a weird impression that I did come here before but I couldn't remember when exactly....maybe it was just a dream like that I did about the place or something I can't really explain at all.

We entered the diner, Park first, and we installed ourselves in a empty table. There weren't a lot of people at this time : it was after noon and there were just some people at the bar and few at the tables. A waitress quickly came and we ordered our ice creams and by the odds, me & Park chose the same flavor : strawberry. We both laughed about it as we both said it at the same time and once our order were done, we waited at least 2 minutes before our ice creams cup were there.

We started to eat and during our discussion, I could feel her right leg stroking mine all time and it was arousing me by an lot. Of course, I stayed focused in our discussion where we talked about herself as I wanted to know more about her : she told me when she joined the MI6, some of her various missions she has done in her firsts years but also, she opened herself to talk about her family : she has two brothers, one younger as the other....well, he died in a IRA attack in 1973 and that was her reason to join the MI6.

I was touched while listening to her story and I was quite happy to learn more about her. We were nearly finished when something in my mind came in,

"Park, can I ask you something ?" I started, having finished my ice cream cup before as she was still finishing it.

"Sure." She said, almost surprised as she was looking outside, her spoon in her right hand.

"Uhm..." I took a breath, getting my arms on the table, trying to not screwing my question over by my other thoughts. "Well, each time Stone's name is mentioned, I see you getting either troubled or lost....is there something wrong about him that I don't know ?" At hearing my question, she stopped every movements she was doing, looking like I said, troubled.

"I don't know if I can talk about this." She exclaimed, putting her hands on the table and trying to not look me in the eyes, like she hide something. I reacted by gently putting my hand over the top of hers.

"You talked about yourself." I affirmed to her, giving her an smile "I'm ready to know more." I didn't remove my hand from hers, still smiling before she nod to me and took a deep breath

"Okay." She whispered to herself as she redressed herself on her seat "Stone....was an old friend of mine." When I heard that, I understand why she was not okay each time Stone was said. "During an long time between 1975 and 1980 with him, we formed a friendly group composed of me, two others MI6 agent, an BND agent and him, an SAS soldier."

"Something bad happened, I guess ?" I asked, curious to hear that story, she nodded.

"In 1980, one of our missions goes to shit : we needed to destroy an soviet complex used for holding an nerve gas but during the mission, Stone and one of my friends in the MI6 'died'." She responded, breathing at the end of it, her voice cracking at the last word

"Faking their deaths...." I whispered to myself and somehow, she heard me

"During all these times, these two were Perseus agents and I learned it the hard way a year ago when we started to work on a mysterious project called 'Goldeneye'." So, that was the operation Belikov mentioned 2 weeks ago when I go to his place. "Stone was the one in charge and the other.....well, she was her lieutenant for it."

"How did you learn of it ?"  I questioned her

"A anonymous person asked me to encounter 'the one in charge' as he was apparently knowing me and it was at this moment I saw him."  She scratched the back of her head, not giving for me enough details but I preferred to not get too deep in it

"Must be hard to tell yourself that one of the friends you've been mourning for years is in fact a enemy." I admitted to her, moving my hand to get under hers.

"In the old days, Stone was like an hero to us but now, we all know his true state." She looked at me with narrowed eyes, taking my hand in hers "I just want sometimes to feel that he was never like that."

"I said that to myself sometimes too." I told her as it was also something I was dreaming : What if I was never just an Perseus agent ?

"Listen." She leaned from her seat, getting her head close to me "Maybe you did bad things but yourself, you know that you're not like that, you showed it to me and the others."

"I did." I said in a low voice

"Us....me, I will make sure that you will have what you want." She stated, making me things of what I wanted for me for the future

"Seeing my friends again, my path to redeem myself and......to be with you ?" I affirmed, looking at her with lovely eyes and saying the whole

"Everything at once." She said before she finally approached me to kiss me on the lips, putting her both hands on my face, giving a kiss I was waiting for days now since we weren't really able to do it even when we were alone. We broke the kiss after a long minute. "I think we should go back to the safehouse."

"I would have liked more moments like this." I whispered to her before she got up from her

"Me too." She then take a breath as she was putting her jacket back on her "We will have more time, don't worry !" She added, giving me an smile as I got up too.

Once we have finished to put our jacket on, we started to go out of the diner, not forgetting to pay for our ice creams....she payed for me and her....and then, we got back to her car, and once we were fully seated in the car, Park drove off the place as she preferred to drive herself even if I proposed myself to do it. It's not 3 years in a coma that were going to stop me to drive....it was her who did. At least, I know that she will give me one day, the chance to finally drive myself a car or something that I can drive.

In our way back, she finally decided to put the radio on maybe to remove from her thoughts what she said to me about Stone and I can understand that by the tone she has taken when she talked about him to me. We didn't talk too much in the first minutes, either giving each other some smile before getting focused back on the road again. At one moment, we were stopped at a redlight awaiting it to go to green, allowing us to pass and in a second, my thoughts were troubled by something until the light goes to green, allowing us to go through the crowded intersection.....

But at the middle of the intersection, suddenly, a car coming from the left intentionally hit the back of ours at full speed, causing our car to deviate from its path and sending us off the road, the car hitting violently a pole and making us blackout from the accident. When I opened back my eyes, I could see the smoke of our car's engine going out, the window broken down and Park....still alive but unconsious from the shock, I tried to wake her up but nothing was helping me. I could feel a little bit of blood on my face, some parts of the window making some cut in it.

I don't know how I was able to survive that accident as it was pretty brutal and my body was feeling it a lot. The seatbelt protected me but my left arm was in a big pain as it has gone against the door when the car hit the pole. I was breathing a lot, feeling the blood going down some parts of my face, especially on the cheeks and next to my lips.

I started to unbuckle my seatbelt and when I was done, I could see 2 people coming towards us....masked people.....Perseus...By seeing them, I realized that they have been following us since we left the diner to go back at the safehouse but why striking us now instead of having everyone in the safehouse ? When I saw them, I decided to act like if I was still knocked down, taking out my M1911 and hiding it from their sight with my right hand. I closed my eyes, acting....

"Shit, they're alive ?" One of them said, worried

"Of course, they have to be, ducon !" The other exclaimed, annoyed by his friend. He was sounding french and his last word showed me that it was indeed french....a bad word.

"So, we have to take the two of them ?"  The first one asked to the french guy as he was opening the door.

"Are you gonna stop asking questions ?" The french was getting angry as I could hear him finally opening the door widely "No, we only need the british cunt, orders from the top, the other.....she's nothing for us !" Nothing.....really ? They could take me but instead, they take Park away and by that, I couldn't let this happen...Why her ? "Come on, help me out to transport her to the van."  He added as he was getting Park out, helped by his friend and it was at this moment I decided to stop acting.

Once they got Park out of the car, not wanting to hit her in case, I opened my eyes and then I aimed towards the first guy I saw before shooting him in the back of the head, making him fall in front of him. I tried to shoot the other guy but instead, I start to hear some gunshot coming towards me....a van positioned in the middle of the intersection with an guy armed with an XM4 shooting at the car. I reacted quickly, opening the door at my side to get out of the car and to protect myself from the bullets.

I checked my gun mag in case....only 6 bullets and by my no-luck, it was the only mag I have bring with me, meaning that I can't miss my shot at all. During all of that, the guy aiming with his XM4 don't stop firying at me until I waited for the right time as he was reloading to go out of cover and perfectly, from an distance, to have him. At this moment, I could see Park dragged inside the van by 2 others masked persons that I tried to stop but before I could shot any bullet, I was suddenly tackled to the ground by an another person.

"Get the cunt out of here, I'll find you at the meeting point !" He shouted to his friends as he was holding me in the ground, it was the same french guy who was talking bad about Park. I watched in horror as the van left the scene, going away and in a instant, I could feel all the rage inside me growing in.

"You son of a bitch !" I yelled before I give a knee kick right in the nuts and then, I make him go away from me by pushing him backwards with my feets.

"Espèce de salope !" He said, angry in his french voice as he was trying to get up again but I was more faster as I grabbed my M1911 I had in hand by the cannon and I hit him in the face with the stock of my gun, knocking him out.

I wanted to kill him but....he was the only one that could tell me where did they sent Park away and why they took only her and not me too. That was questions I wanted to ask but not right here as they were going to have a lot of witnesses and maybe the police to arrive soon. I had to bring this guy with me back to the safehouse and interrogate him by myself. I looked around to see if there were an empty car that I could take since ours were completely destroyed and smoking.

I found one pretty quickly just at a few meters from me and I decided to steal it. I grabbed the unconscious french guy, dragging him on the ground and when I arrived near the car, I broke the window of the driver seat and open the door from the inside. Then, I dragged the guy on the backseats, making sure that he wasn't acting like me. I managed to start the car engine like if I remembered to steal some cars....that's weird, Yiri !....and then, I looked at him, with an deadly glare before I drove off the scene,

"You and I.....we will have a talk !"

[jinxthequeergirl]

149 days & The Grieving Stage

Steve harrington x hopper!reader

Summary: things hurt but luckily you have people to help.

Song choice: Ease my mind by Ben platt

Warning: swearing/ angst

I also kinda wanted to make this a part of "unseen things" but I'm obviously probably not gonna work on that cause it sucked but enjoy this anyways

~~~~~

You and El both tumbled out of the car as quickly as you could and raced to your friends.

You where especially excited to see Steve again. He wrapped you in a hug and supn you around. "Hey dingus, don't hog her!" you grinned pulling away to met robin. "You've been keeping an eye on him?" you mumbled into her hair, you could feel her chuckle as he pulled you away holding you out at arms reach.

"There isn't really much to keep an eye on...you know he's crazy about you, plus he's awful at the flirting thing." You both laughed and could feel Steve come up beside you taking you from her grasp.

"Be careful steve, she's miss steal your girl." you joked leaning into him. He simply rolled his eyes and wrapped his arms around you.

"Watch where you put your hands on my daughter, Harrington!" you both turned and spotted hopper pull up in his car.

"Holy shit..." you breathed you freed yourself from Steve's hold and watched el run towards him. Tears welled in your eyes as you watched them hug.

And from the back of your head you instantly remembered everything you where trying so hard to forget About that night. The overall fear and pain from that night, waiting in the ambulance with El and steve, waiting and hoping that by any sort of mirical it would be over and hopper and Joyce would make there way back to so everything would be normal.

But instead you got Joyce who gave you and your sister both a look from over wills shoulder that took all that hope and crushed it.

And now here he was. That stupid patterned shirt he insisted on calling "cutting edge", a huge smile, one you had to admit you hadn't seen in a while. And all you could do was stand there and stare at him. El pulled away looking back at you with the same excited grin and moved away a little making room for you.

And within an instatant you went racing towards him collapsing in his arms, so much so he stumbled a bit upon catching you in his arms before falling to your knees. You instantly felt your self sob into his shoulder murrmering things that you didn't even understand. You chocked out more tears as his hold on you tightened a little, finding hard to keep any sort of breath do your wheezing.

"Kid, kid, it's ok, everything is fine, deep breaths." You pulled your head from his shoulder and looked at him. He cupped your face in his hand rubing away tears with his thumb. "I...I...though...thought...thought You where...where..." you couldn't even mutter out the last sours before you coughed out another cry. He only nodded in response giving you a sympathetic look.

"I know...it's ok...it's all over now..." you wrapped your arms around him again. "Its all over...you can live life again." You nodded into his shoulder blinking away tears until you finally shut your eyes and relaxing in his hold.

You blinked your eyes again suddenly feeling the loss of warmth around you, you opened your eyes full taking in everthing around you and sighing lightly.

The moonlight filled your new room do to not owning any curtains yet. Or maybe Joyce had some and they hadn't been unpacked yet. Your bed was pushed up against one of the wall's with a small night stand that held a few things, a dresser was pushed against the opposite wall, really it wasn't much yet. You stared at the ceiling taking note of the glow in the dark stars the previous owner of the room had left.

Do to the moon light they wheren't doing much, but they still kept your mind off of what had just happened. Until finally they didn't and you broke.

You let a real sob wrack through your body and tears spill as you did your hardest to bite your lip and keep quiet making sure not to wake the other four members in the house.

You brought your fists to your eyes and held them there until explostions of color where the only thing you saw behind your eye lids, you could feel the mattress beneath you along with your cheeks and chin become soked as tears scilently continued to fall.

After what had felt like hours of tossing and turning in bed, crying off and on again. You finally sat up on the edge taking one of the two blankets on your bed and wrapping yourself up in it before crossing the room to the dresser.

Your eyes hurt and your feet where now cold from the wooden floor under you. You grabbed the phone from onto of it ignoring the picture frame you had purposefully facing down and sat in the little book in your window, you cracked it open inorder to obtain fresh air and started dialing the number.

You sat there for a few moments letting it ring, and ring, and ring, you stared out the window into the moonlit backyard.

Joyce told you when you moved in that maybe the three of you girls could go to the local garden center and pick out a few plants and stuff to start a garden back there.

You where suddenly yanked from the thought as a clearly exhausted voice filled your ear. "Hello?"

You took a shaky breath and turned from the window to look down at the phone cord. "Hey Harrington..." you finally breathed.

"Y/n? Are you ok? What happened?" you could hear the sleep in his voice vanish with every question along with the shuffle of bedsheets. "I..." you stopped to clear your throat. "I'm just holding you to that promise you made before we left...it's not to late is it?"

Before you moved steve made the promise that no matter the time, the issue, the want he would answer the phone and be there for you.

That was the same day you missed your chance to tell him you loved him. And that you had since God knows when. Instead you cried barrelly able to get a "I'll miss you." out.

You reached over to your night stand and grabbed the alarm clock to check the time in the light. 1:40.

You mentally cursed yourself as you set it back down and leaned back. "No not at all what's up?"

"Just...just a nightmare..." You combed a finger through your hair and sighed. "I'm sorry...was it about-"

"No it..it was different this time..."

He humme. "Care to talk about it?"

"I..it's late I just wanted a little comfo-"

"No, no, hey I'm up now so you have to tell me." you chuckled and took a breath.

"Y/n?" you licked your lips before answering. "I saw...him..."

"Who?"

"My...my dad." you croaked looking back out the window.

"Shit...y/n I'm so sorry...I..." he trailed off attempting to find the words to comfort you. You only laughed when you realised it. "What's so funny?"

"Nothing...nothing. Just you always where just the worst at these kinda things."

He gasped a little and you could only imagine him placing a hand over his heart dramatically. "Wow no matter how far away you still manage to hurt me y/n." You laughed again.

"It's times like these I wonder-"

"Why the hell I'm your friend?" you asked do ishing his scentence.

"Yea." he replied. Steve sat at the edge of his bed, phone tucked between his shoulder and ear all the while he held a photo he stole from your photo album.

His heart swelled a little just looking at it. You where happy, happier than you have been lately. And he looked at you in that picture with the same goofy grin he was wearing now.

"Steve?" he jumped at the voice instantly putting the photo down. "Did you fall asleep over there?"

He lied back down. "No...not at all...I wouldn't dream of it."

You smiled softly. "How are the kids?...and robin?.." you asked.

"The little shit's are fine...they miss the three of you a hell of a lot, speaking of which you should be gettinging something in the mail soon."

"Oh?"

"Yea...you've been gone a month and we decided to wip something up for you guys."

"What is it? You asked curiously."

"Can't say...don't wanna spoil the surprise."

"Right I forgot Mr. Steve "the surprise king" Harrington."

He rolled his eyes but mustered a smile. "Whatever."

There was a beat of scilents Before you spoke again. "I miss you Steve..."

"Hey, I miss you too....but you'll be here for Christmas soon enough."

"Steve that's so long..."

"No...149 days to be exact...it'll fly by and before you know it you'll be back in Hawkins."

"You've been counting?"

"Of course I have." you hummed and again went quiet for a moment.

"Listen there's something...something I've been meaning to tell you.."

"Oh yea?" you opened your mouth but the words refused to come out.

How difficult was it to just say it? Why no matter what the words never fully formed on your tounge. You sighed. "You know what never mind...it can wait.."

"How long?" he asked clearly anxious. "149 days to be exact...it's better if i tell you then."

"Oh c'mon at least give me a hint?" You shook your head with a smile. "No...I wouldn't wanna spoil the surprise." you joked. He laughed making your heart jump." just swear to not find someone to replace me within that time frame."

"I swear. No one would even come close to you." You smiled softly. "Uh listen thanks for taking my mind off of things....you should probably get some sleep....I promise to call in the morning if anything happens."

"Just call no matter what."

"Ok...goodnight shit head."

"Night loser."

You hung up the phone and sat there for a while. Letting things pan over in your head.

Your mind was finally off of your dad for a little bit. And you though about how you said you would tell him at Christmas and wondered of you even meant that, you wondered if he really meant the last thing he said about not finding anyone else.

"Knock knock..." you looked over to your door and found Joyce peeking in.

"Hey...what are you doing up?" you asked turning so your feet touched the cold floor.

"I could ask you the same...another nightmare?"

"Yea...something like that.." she let her self in shutting the door and leaned against the dresser. "How do you not...not have nightmares?...I mean you where right there..."

"Well I never said I didn't..." She said picking up the picture frame and looking at it.

"How do you keep it together then?"

She glanced at you but kept her eyes on the picture for a moment. "Someone's gotta be strong for You kids..." she took the picture and made her way over to you sitting down.

"You don't have to be all the time."

She nodded. "I know...but life had been so rough on you guys already...it helps." You leaned your head on her shoulder and looked at the picture frame in her hands.

"I don't remember these." she said looking at it with you. In the frame was a photo of you do and your dad, tucked outside of it was a picture of you Steve and robin.

You smiled pointing to the one of you and hopper. "The night me and el went to the snow ball...I told him it was an important night for all of us and we had to remember it. He fought me on it but eventually gave in."

She smiled.

"What about this?"

"That was the day we moved...johnathan wanted to make sure I had something good to remember them both by...I miss them all so..so much..." you mumbled.

"I know..."

"Will it ever...not hurt?" you asked sniffiling.

"No...not Right away...just give it a little time..." she placed the picture frame on the bed stand.

"I think you should get some sleep...sleep in extra long if you need."

She kissed your forhead before you got up and walked over to your bed. "Y/n..." you and Joyce both looked up and saw El come in with puffy red eyes that matched your own. You opened your blankets and she quickly made her way over and fell into bed next to you.

"Hey it's ok...it was just a dream..." you kissed her head and Joyce quietly left the room letting you two get some sleep.

[gh0stwrit3r]

I've more than honoured your request for silence.. And you've washed your hands clean of this; {Alistair && Isla}

Isla stepped into her house after yet another stressful day leading up to the end of the school year. It was one of the last days of exams before graduation and she was drained. She’d been studying so hard to ace all her exams that was physically exhausted. She’d been giving up so much sleep in order to study that it was becoming detrimental to her wellbeing. But if she wanted to get out of this shitty little town and into a good university she’d have to obtain the best grades possible. Or it all would’ve been for nothing. She’d never get to travel abroad and teach English to foreigners oversees. Isla stepped onto the porch, finding the screen door unlocked and open. She cautiously unlocked her main door and stepped inside, finding her father, in the kitchen area with his bags at his side. His eyes lit up at the sight of her. He seemed older, his eyes more sunken and desolate, with a bags under them. His hair longer and graying more rapidly than she once remembered, a long and frankly filthy looking beard covering his face. He seemed thinner and more frail too. He clearly hadn’t been looking after himself well during his travels. 

"I-Isla... It’s really you? Baby girl you’ve grown... You look just like your mother!” Alistair said horsely, his voice restricted and shaking, like he’d hardly worked up the courage to actually speak to her. It seemed like he’d been crying recently but she couldn’t be sure. She hardly knew the man in front of her, her childhood memories did not precede him at all. 

“I-I can’t talk to you right now..” Isla tried to stride straight past him and head upstairs but he clutched her arm, holding her steady. 

“Are you okay? I know that this is a lot and that I’ve been gone for you awhile and that this must be a shock but--” Alistair started in a small rant, he hadn’t meant to talk so much but he’d honestly feared the wrath of his daughter tremendously. He knew that he’d been got a longer than he’d initially expected. Eight, almost nine years to be exact. 

“Oh... So now you care enough to try and act like a father?! AWHILE? AWHILE?! Where were you when mum died? Where were you when I had to bury her? You were gone for eight years. I don’t have a father. He died years ago with my mother.” Isla spat venomously, unable to take it anymore. The anger and resentment she felt for him crashing down with explosive force. For years now, she’d had this speech on her mind about what she’d say to her father when he finally showed his face again. She’d almost lost hope, thinking that when she turned eighteen and his moral obligations were gone that he’d never see her again. Not that he’d ever been much in the way of a father anyway. 

“Isles, you have to understand. I couldn’t accept the loss of your mother.”

“Really? Then why did you get her killed, huh? You think I don’t know that it was werewolves! Who mauled and ripped my mother apart for your transgressions!?” Isla stated, watching her fathers face fall in an expression of guilt and regret. “You couldn’t stand the thought of looking after an innocent defenceless child on your own without her so you fled! Did you come here to get me killed too?! Bring any werewolves with you this time? Maybe once I’m gone all your problems will be gone too! And you won’t have to continue with this piss poor apology!” Isla finally broke at the next words, tears that had built up in the corners of her eyes leaving tear tracks with a vengeance on her pale cheeks. He’d lied to her, told her that he would be back soon and it’d been eight goddamn years. All she’d ever received from him was greeting cards and money. Never apologies or promises of coming home and being the father she deserved. Maybe he wasn’t capable. 

“I know that I’ve been gone for a hell of a long time, Isles.. But I was avenging your mother and trying to cope with her loss.. I couldn’t live with the guilt for the longest time.. But.. I’m back now..” Alistair tried to reassure the teenager, he tried to place a comforting hand on her shoulder but she just shrugged it away like it burnt her skin from his touch. He supposed he couldn’t blame her, but he hadn’t expected her to be quite this furious. 

“You think that you can come back here after eight years without a word? Did you seriously think that it would be that easy? You abandoned me when mum died! I should have changed the locks when you left but I thought you had a good reason for leaving! Don’t worry... I raised myself well. Goodbye, father.. I wish you hadn’t bothered coming back!” Isla demanded in a shaken voice, tears steadily falling onto her cheeks now as she turned away and headed upstairs.