#how tf is that romantic at all?

[auspicioustidings]

Firewatch Part 14

Summary: You visit a grave as our story comes to an end.

Words: 1.9k

You wondered if Johnny had snuck into bed with you. He had done it the last time Simon was on watch and it had been admittedly sort of nice waking up bundled in him. He was pretty cute when he was sleepy. 

He hadn't, the warmth was from Dosia which was strange because these days she usually was either outside or cuddled up with Price if Simon wasn't around like the little traitor she was.

This was not Simon's bed.

–

“You've been through quite the ordeal! Can't believe you were in the forest all this time. Surprised you never came across our Firewatch, they live out there. Or they did I suppose.”

“I- sorry, what do you mean?”

“Didn't you ever notice that tower from your old place? It was a watchtower for wildfires, the men who ran it had a cabin out there as well. Shame about what happened.”

“The fire…”

“Ah last I heard between air support and the trucks coming in to help from all over it's looking like they have it contained, but these things tend to burn for days or weeks before we can really relax.”

“What about the men in the forest? What happened to them?”

The sheriff blinked at you.

“How exactly did you survive out there all this time?”

–

It wasn't as bad as it could have been was what people kept saying. The tower was gone, but the fire had never ripped through the town thanks to quick detection and action to contain it. 

In the span of six months you had lost your home to fire twice over. You were living out of the little bed and breakfast while paperwork was sorted. There was a lot of red tape involved in bringing someone back from the dead, although it was curious how much easier it was made by the sheriff having not properly filed the death certificate in the first place. You weren't as officially dead as you should have been. 

Everything would be wrapped up soon and then you didn't really know what you would do. You had money from the Insurance claim on your cottage (that had been a wild series of phone calls to increasingly senior people as you tried to explain that you were the owner who had perished in the fire), but you had no clue what to do with it. 

You knew you had been putting it off, but it was time to go visit the grave. Maybe then you'd figure it out.

–

It wasn't anything fancy, just a rustic headstone set in the ashes. Dosia wasn't super interested, instead going to rub up against your visitor. Wonders never ceased.

“Knew she'd come around eventually.”

“They do say absence makes the heart grow fonder.”

“Does it?”

You glanced over at Kyle and your heart thumped. The last time you had seen him had been weeks ago when he was disappearing into smoke and embers.

“Yeah, yeah I think it does.”

You both stood and stared at the gravestone, Dosia's ears pricking before she took off towards the treeline. You weren't worried, you were pretty sure you knew who she was in a rush to see. She completely ignored the man walking towards you and Kyle on her way. 

“Ouch.”

“She still hasn't forgiven you for saying I should've got a dog you know.”

“Still think ye should swap her for one.”

“He cried when we thought she didn't make it out.”

“Away and biel yer heid Gaz.”

You had missed them. You had really, truly missed them. It was overwhelming being on your own after always having them around. You were angry a lot at little things like how difficult you found a busy shop now. They had done that to you. It didn't make your stupid feelings any less complicated. It didn't make you feel any less like kissing the new scar on Johnny's arm or the bruises healing on Gaz.

“So you buried your girl in the end huh?”

“A few weeks before the fire. We were planning on bringing you to see it.”

“This close to town? Bit risky no?”

“Aye, reckoned ye were worth the risk.”

You took a deep breath to calm yourself. It was a strange thing looking at your own grave. Why put it here to bring you to see it? To prove that they weren't holding you to some impossible dream girl standard anymore?

“Was supposed to be a birthday present, but we're a bit late now aren't we little bird?”

Price looked tired as he emerged from the treeline. It must have been an awful few weeks for him. There was still the remnants of the fire to be looked after incase it blazed up again. It had taken out the cabin and the tower, nothing left but smouldering wrecks and a nasty looking burn creeping up his neck. All of those drawings in Simon's room gone. You don't know why that was one of the things that made you the saddest.

“Didn't feel much like celebrating anyway” you answered truthfully. 

Your birthday had been 5 days after the fire and you had spent it for the most part staring into the void and napping. You hadn't felt like celebrating your new found freedom at all. 

“We did actually get you something. Still have it, if you'd like.”

You wondered what it was. As far as you knew nothing survived the fire. But they were just things and things didn't seem all that important anymore. Not when Simon finally joined you, a purring Dosia in his arms. He was slow due to a bad left leg it seemed like. 

“OK.”

Simon let Dosia down even though she was very reluctant to go so he could take something from around his neck. He handed you the corded necklace. It had a key on the end.

“Happy birthday sweetheart.”

“What's it for?”

“Havnae given it a name yet, thought we'd leave that for you tae do.”

“It's a 20 minute drive out the other side of town, just on the treeline.”

You stared at them. You knew what they were talking about. There was a crumbling cottage out there, you knew because you had considered buying it when you had first moved here but it was more expensive than the one you had went with and you couldn't afford it. You had completely forgotten it was there.

“Hope you don't mind sweetheart, but we took the liberty of getting the electrical work done.”

“And the roof, sorry luv I know you're a good roofer but my heart cannot take watching you do that again.”

“Tae be fully honest the whole thing is already done. Got a wee bit carried away.”

All those trips into town. The way they'd come back looking tired. They had been building you a home. 

“But… no wait, that's not… you were going to let me go?”

“Couldn't keep you in a cage forever little bird.”

“You'd have gotten arrested!”

“Would we aye? For what?”

“For kidnapping me!”

“Funny thing sweetheart, nobody in town is talking about the fire because they're too busy talking about the miracle girl. Apparently survived months in the forest on her own, told the sheriff she was quite the survivalist.”

“Yeah well! You! I!” you huffed, trying to come up with any reason that you had lied that didn't sound like “I love you”. “It was a cooler story.”

They laughed and it made you smile. You couldn't do it in the end. They were not bad men, you couldn't tell the truth knowing it would see them punished and put away. When you didn't know if they were dead or alive it had brought your feelings a stunning clarity. You had fallen stupidly in love with them. 

“So what's next?”

“Don't know honestly. We're camping out and keeping an eye on things. Once the danger has passed we rebuild” Price said, hand massaging at his shoulder.

“I'm pretty handy with a hammer.”

“Yeah?”

“Suppose I could help out” you offered, fighting to keep the stupid grin off of your face as you held up the key  “after all my cottage is pretty nearby right? And this guy is going to be useless with that leg.”

“Watch it sweetheart, my teeth are still intact.”

–

John liked to joke that you would combust if you didn't have a project. Once the cabin was rebuilt (5 bedrooms, incase they had visitors obviously) you helped where you could with the tower, once that was done you wanted to redo the kitchen in the cottage, after that you talked him into taking in an abandoned dog (honestly very easy what with you and Kyle both giving your best puppy dog eyes). Dosia surprisingly seemed to enjoy the new addition, bullying the german shepherd into doing whatever she wanted. The pair of them mostly came and went as they wanted between the cottage and the cabin, thriving running wild in the forest in between. 

Simon tried to get you into football which you sort of did. You had no interest in the big games, but you'd both go and cheer on the local team when they had home games. Inevitably you both looked a mess having gotten into a bit of a paint fight when you had insisted Simon have a little flag on his cheek. You threatened to de-fang him at least once a week. Both Dosia and Riley were absolutely in love with him which both you and Johnny sulked about. You thought maybe, for Riley at least, that Simon felt safe. His leg never quite healed right so he was more cautious and slow moving now, something you thought she might find comforting. 

When Johnny wasn’t grumbling about the animals wanting nothing to do with him, he was whining at you to not get out of bed. You had never met a lazier creature than John MacTavish on a duvet day, he just wanted to cuddle and watch movies. When he was on a hyper day he wanted to redecorate which almost always ended in a fight because you disagreed on what would look good. Everytime a big video game release rolled around the two of you (and sometimes Gaz depending on the game) would just hole up for a weekend and do nothing but play. Luckily Price indulged you and usually kept you fed and watered. 

Kyle had only been half kidding about making a fire fighter out of you. It started as therapy really, a way to try and control the nightmares. He took the lead in teaching you about all the equipment, letting you observe drills and even buying you custom fitted kit. While you never did want to be near a fire again, you learned to be less scared of the idea, you learned to believe that you would know what to do if anything happened. When you hadn't panicked at a little bin fire in your cottage and instead had just dealt with it, you had showed up at the cabin bursting with excitement to tell them. 

The Firewatch went from 4 to 5. You enjoyed it, the peace and quiet and the stars as you sipped hot chocolate and looked out onto the forest. You didn’t really know what the future held for you, but against all odds you had found a family and you were well and truly happy. And if sometimes you found yourself looking through the binoculars just to check on said family, you figured that was just karma.

[peak-dumbass]

*emerges from the fog* have you heard of my boy called sideswipe he suffers from little bitch syndrome and unresolved trauma he refuses to talk about

I also think he’s aroace—*gets shot*

[isopodcowboy]

Spoilers for season 9 episode 5 of TWD

Gabriel and Rosita being together is so fucking out of nowhere?? They have no chemistry?? I've hardly ever seen them talk in the series before. Istg they just put em together cause they wanted Gabriel to be in a relationship after Anne.

[narwhalandchill]

its been like. nearly a year (How.) already but i cannot lie theres Still a part in the back of my brain occupied with and being thoroughly entertained by the way that childes confirmed 4.0 complete self-awareness over waking up the narwhal at 14 recontextualizes some key liyue things leading to some very funny self indulgent scenarios in my head

like yes chili is old news its basic please excuse me for predictable popular ship crimes (do NOT however associate me w the crimes of fanon against their actual range. theyre peak to Me) but i just keep replaying the imagery of zhongli and childe back on their homoerotic Professional Working Relationship bullshit where their flirting passed the jkjk unless treshold of even remotely plausible deniability like 8 exorbitantly priced business dinners ago and theyre just like. doing that whole song and dance now neither committing to a move except zhonglis presently feeling moderately conflicted (but nonetheless fairly unfazed at) by the prospects of actually developing some sort of a thing for the harbinger hes supposed to puppet master into executing the major story climax of his 67-step retirement plan bc he turned out to be quite the strangely charming ginger specimen (to His weird fucking 6000 year old tastes at least. they deserve each other) with some fascinating life ambitions he cant help but be enraptured by.

but because hes still 100% Locked In on his entire plan zhonglis also just . simultaneously dual wielding his coy-ass "i like you and am taking it slow to Savor this developing relationship (Also bc of the Geo Archon Shaped Elephant In The Room) except am old as shit so my languid sense of time inadvertedly Automatically turns my behavior into an equivalent of the dark souls boss of playing hard2get" act (cue "waddup im ajax 24 and im in fucking agony with this hot funeral consultant". Yes they live like this) AND also meticulously theorycrafting like 12 moves in advance for his 6d chess play of leaving the most subtly crafted trail of breadcrumbs behind for the tsaritsas 11th to follow into the intended & completely "Coincidental" idea of unleashing the one particular sealed sea deity that zhongli Specifically wants momentarily released for his sweet 6k retirement party and graduation test for the nation hes helicopter parented for 3.7k years .

like. this is zhongli we r talking about the guy Absolutely has it planned out down to a fucking art like he has an entire branching path dialogue tree planned and memorized like its a visual novel for every possible way he can conveniently namedrop osial in a non-suspect way and also that he just happens to be sealed right over there across the harbor (what a coincidence!) and also to slip in the intel about the latent power of the sigil of permission etc etc. like zhonglis just out there doing all this massive galaxy brain computational work simultaneously while infodumping on an academic level about whichever subject childes latest random comment of amicable small talk happened to remind him of because in his helicopter parent in remission mind its Absolutely Critical that the idea about releasing osial occurs Completely organically in childes mind it Has to he Cannot risk revealing anything . (hes in remission not in recovery guys.) so like here we are. he requested notes from the tsaritsa Personally on the character of her 11th just to ensure every move was painstakingly crafted to draw him Specifically to the intended conclusion without risking revealing his true identity .

except. the thing . neither he. nor the tsaritsa . would have been informed of . is that this simply isnt childes first fucking rodeo waking up an eldritch city sized sea creature . and he is very well aware of this fact . he woke that beautiful wonderful beloved huge fucking narwhal up by himself had his brain chemistry Immediately and Irrevocably rewired as a direct consequence do you fucking think hes somehow stopped thinking about that singular moment for even a second since then???

yeah . thought so.

so what actually ends up happening in reality is theyll be on another definitely-serious-business-not-just-a-date and zhonglis going to get down to like dialogue selection part 10 of the 86 step conversation tree at Most where hes only beginning to like Vaguely allude to the key pieces of information involved but it turns out Because Hes That Guy (TM) And Has Been There Done That Before childes basic pattern recognition and sense of irony simply proceed to kick in Way ahead of time and hes Immediately perking up like Hey wouldnt it be really fucking funny if i wake up an eldritch sea beast Again . like just in case. as a last ditch effort .

and zhonglis just sitting there seeing the gears turn in his head as they enjoy their cringe fucking picnic (bc they just stare at each other intently like that nowadays its a thing. being in a room with them by this point is essentially a human rights violation) and is just completely fucking flabbergasted and lost on how in the hell childes speedran his way to that conclusion at what amounts to barely a 13% completion rate in his whole overkill fucking plan (just 1 of 3 contingencies btw) and its like yes he has his intended outcome but also precisely 0 idea on how the fuck said outcome was reached the way it was this fast . like hes still winning its His plan thats well underway and ahead of schedule but How

(pov: ur selling the concept of waking up destructive sea creatures to the guy who woke up a celestial body eating cosmic whale at 14)

anyway its truly beautiful i absolutely detest these two and have prime liyue AQ hijinks nostalgia now thank you for the lore drop that allowed this to become canon in my head hoyo

[yumeurl]

the more i check the half blood prince book the more i think its so insane cuz it was lit the bible for the three mothers (tom, snape and draco). it gave so much for these three and w the case of snape and draco, harrys obsession w them and then tom being humanized in harrys eyes.

and yet most of what we get in the movies is........the teenage drama subplot. like what the fuck

the reason why im checking the book again is cuz i was watching hp clips again with waif and we wondered if ginny with harry in the room of hidden things was a book thing as well. and its actually so funny that she wasnt. like what do u mean the kiss scene happened when harry was obviously trying to not think abt the entire events that just happened. hello????

[heatmiiiiser]

Ggrrr I wish disenchantment was better. I binged it all because I'm sick somebody talk to me about this.

[joshhutchersonseggsalad]

heres me manifesting (by posting on fucking tumblr LMAO) that I WILL have a partner b4 this year ends✅️but not just any partner. Someone that will love me for me and all of me. I won't have to hide who I am. They won't judge me for my background lore or things I'm still working on. They'll be gentle and understanding and help me grow..we can both help each other grow. They won't think I'm too chubby but instead admire my body and find beauty both outside and inside..especially inside. Someone that will always be interested in learning about me and my personality..figuring out why I may be afraid of things or love another. Not letting my masculinity make them feel any less of who they are. Making me feel safe..so safe that my nervous system is calm and I can finally heal. Someone that matches my energy and doesn't make me feel like being a goofy romantic music loving loser is not attractive. They arent afraid to love me publicly and dont think being cheesy is stupid. They dont judge me for my inexperience in life, but instead, lift me up and help me learn the things they know. I ofcourse will return all this energy and even more<3

[kkeke99]

Enough time has passed now, so I can finally say with certainty that the only good MLs of the Jewelpet Series are Akira Nanase and Retsu Akagi 👍🏻

[wise-innocence]

Hmmm... Yanfei doesn't really tell people that she likes them just kind of stares longingly and hope the message gets across. Smartest girl around but has the emotional intelligence of a slice of bread.

[kmilipede]

equivalent of sending a risky text for me is telling someone i enjoyed spending time with them

[pandoratheprocrasticreator]

i read all 205 chapters of demon slayer last night in one 11 hour sitting. it was pretty good! surprise! the anime people have been raving about for the past several years is actually good quality. who would have thunk it. anyway i wanted to search up some reviews of the anime to see what other ppl thought of it but then i remembered the youtube anime community, with a few notable exceptions, is allergic to media literacy

[musical-chick-13]

Like, I DO think people get too wound up over fictional constructs--that, very pointedly, are not real and whose actions are made up and do not actually affect any real people--doing horrible things in-story, but I also think it's fair for someone to say, "This action sits poorly with me even in a fictional setting, in such an intense way that I cannot move past that or find sympathy for it," and "People are saying this bad behavior isn't actually bad, in a way that is meant to be taken seriously and at face-value, and that makes me severely uncomfortable."

Granted, this all gets muddled very easily because that's not what people mean most of the time, they just want to over-moralize fiction and say, "If you like this pRoBLeMaTiC thing for any reason, you are a menace to society" for Superiority Points. (They also like to invent problems that don't actually exist to "prove" that they have the moral high ground in not liking something remember when people tried to say catra/adora was incest because they grew up together because I sure do.) But I feel like there is a split between people who use "[character] apologism" in the sense of "I will be okay with this character doing whatever fucked-up thing they want in the story because I like them" vs "If you find this character compelling or want them to succeed, you would one-to-one condone their actions irl" vs "I have seen people genuinely say, with no joking or irony, that this character never actually caused any type of harm to the other characters within the story, and I don't like that."

[enamouredless]

controversial byler opinion moment... I don't think mike was lying during his monologue

[echthr0s]

the bottom line is that "aroace" is technically applicable but only in its simplest form -- the bit about not/rarely experiencing attraction. because "to other humans" is the implied part of that phrase. but that means it's also technically inapplicable! because my actual position is "as a nonhuman of no particular species affiliation I am attracted to a wide variety of other nonhuman species but very rarely humans and usually if I'm attracted to a human it's because there's something distinctly nonhuman about them that I'm attracted to"

but you just can't be sayin all that to the average, well, human

[painted-blue-spirit-lady]

watching the final episode of the owl house now and ya its just as bad as you all said

[hagravenholm]

I personally cannot wait to fulfill my destiny of being an old cat lady spinster hagraven (coping lol)