#i am sorry about the lack of updates and this really bad sketch

[dysfunctional-doodle]

“It’s not a choice, it’s a lifestyle!”

A very quick comic about my hc that 2003 Mikey is the most reckless out of all of them and frequently comes back from solo missions looking like he was dragged through Shredder’s stronghold when he was only supposed to be getting milk lol. I mean, have you seen Christmas Aliens? His attention span is lethal.

-> Commissions || My Kofi || Tip Jar :) <-

(I do sketches, character sheets, digital art and comics)

[blueknightdg]

Consideration and Generosity

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Fandom: Miraculous Ladybug and Chat Noire, DCU

Characters: Marinette, Damian

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She sat on a park bench that day; the weather was hot yet, cloudy.

Despite the uncomfortable sweat clinging to her being and the buzzing noise of her surroundings, she smiled happily. She would do anything for inspiration, even endure the blistering feeling of the sun.

Soon enough it has been hours since she began to sketch and draw designs for clothing she wishes to make true.

She feels her head is off, so she takes a break to answer a text from her mother.

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(Mom) Marinette, are you still at the park? It's been five hours.

(Me) Yep! Just taking a break.

(Mom) Just now? It's really hot outside, have you eaten? What about water?

(Me) Don't worry! I'm fine! I stayed in the shade the whole time.

(Mom) Okay, but I want a picture of you eating.

(Me) Okay, I will. I love you!

(Mom) I love you too.

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

Marinette, packs her sketch books and other materials a way in her bag. She stands up, only to tip over onto someone walking past her.

"Hey, you-"

The person stops to keep her from falling all the way down.

"Uh... I'm sorry, I guess I should have taken a break earlier."

She tries to break a way from the strangers grip. They let her go easily. They began to walk a little further a way with a eye in her direction. She sits down again to collect herself. She takes a few breaths and thinks about how to get up without falling and embarrassing herself.

"I wish I packed a water bottle or something, I knew it was hot but I thought I would be fine....", she thought to herself.

She checked her bag in case she just forgot. Lo and behold there was a water bottle in one of the outside pockets.

"Huh....? That's strange, I was sure I......oh well.", she shrugged it off as her forgetting.

Feeling a little better, she carefully stood up. Having not fallen, she smiled and picked up her full bag. She walks in the direction of a small restaurant to eat, since she wouldn't make it home before hunger got to her.

She walked like she wasn't being followed. Casual and slow, she took in the buildings a round her. The same as her memories told her, but still just as beautiful.

Once she got to an empty table, she sat her bag down in front of her. The waitress walks up to her with a smile.

"Hello! Here is the menu, please take your time. Though I do suggest today's special! Mushroom soup with broccoli, carrots, and rice."

"Thank you."

"No problem!"

The waitress leaves her be and she focuses on the menu. It seems that this restaurant is all about healthy living.

She hums to herself as she thinks of her order. However, everything sounded wonderful and she couldn't decide. Then she heard a waitress bring someone's order of a tofu and veggie stuffed bell peppers with a side salad. So she looked over to see the meal and found that it looked delicious. She also saw they ordered tomato juice.

Looking at the menu one more time, she located the meal, drink and picked out a dessert on her own.

As soon as she put her menu down, the waitress came up to her with her pen and notepad out.

"Ready to order?"

"Yes, I would like the Tofu and Veggie stuffed Bell peppers with a side salad, tomato juice, and the vanilla, soy bean ice cream."

"Would you like a topping?"

"Yes, let's see....oh! The coconut sprinkles and strawberry drizzle."

"To repeat: Tofu, veggie stuff bell peppers, side salad, tomato juice, vanilla soy bean ice cream with coconut sprinkles and strawberry drizzle?"

"Yes."

"Okay, we will right on it!"

Marinette took out her phone as she waited. She texted her mom, that she was at a restaurant nearby. Her mom reminded her to send a picture of her eating.

A few minutes later and her food was brought to her.

"Thank you so much!"

"It's no problem, dear, tell me if you need anything!"

The waitress leaves to let her eat. She sends a picture of her food to her mom, who responded with the words 'smile and heart'.

--------

Change perspective

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His day was normal. He woke up and dealt with the hooligans that plagued his life. He was currently in Paris as a part of a stake out group. His family dispersed during day to do individual actives. His father wanted him near by, but he argued that he didn't need to be monitored.

His father conceded by saying he must practice being considerate of other people and to update him on how it is going and if he needs help. He was more than reluctant to agree. Regardless, he did.

He didn't like the loose nature of his apparel for the day, but had no chouce due to the heat.

Though by no means is his clothing loose in comparison to others definition. He prefers to be dignified at all times.

Most of the day, he had nothing report to his father that was particularly considerate until he notice the ragged look of a girl a round his age. She looked dehydrated and ill. He scoffs at her lack of self preservation until he notice she was immersed in some kind of sketching. He also remembered his has to be 'considerate' today so he will say she was lost to passion. After all, this is Paris, the city known for passion.

He watches her as she unconsciously squints and makes a grim expression at times. She sways ever so slightly.

In his observations, she stopped her work to look at her phone. Her condition is not well. He walks a little closer with a water bottle he bought. The moment he walked next to her and she stood, he stabilized her and slipped the water bottle in her bag as she spoke, trying to clear her head. She was drenched in sweat.

"Father better be grateful, I am being more than generous with being 'considerate', disgusting.", he thought with distain.

He hurried a way from her only to stop a short distance a way to watch her more and to sanitize his hands; to rid himself of the horrid feeling of her sweat.

The girl swayed less than before, but after updating his father of what happened, he was ordered to tail her. What if she collapsed? His efforts would have been in vain if that was so.

He was slightly frustrated and her slow pace did nothing to help. He only felt a bit better at her choice of eatery. He saw that she was heading for a Healthy Living Restaurant and went a head of her to sit down. He typed to his father that the girl was trying to decide what to eat. He was instructed to do what he thought best if he were to interfere at all. So he picked the most sensible option for her condition, in return, she followed and added something to her order.

He ate quietly and finished before her. He then left a large tip; the service was quick, the food palatable, atmosphere was pleasant and he doubted the girl had much on her. Enough to pay perhaps, but she would then be left with nothing else.

She seemed to be middle class, and the middle class does not make much little wealth, to him at least. Sure, her clothing was quite good with quality, but her manners weren't all that remarkable and nothing else about her was either.

Polite, is what she was. Quiet, unnoticeable, and polite.

To him, she was a foolish girl that dreamed too much and did little for her own well-being. Truly the epitome of moronic whelps.

After he left the restaurant, he watched from a distance. Through the window, he saw her tempt to pay, only to be denied. He smirked, perhaps he should visit this particular restaurant again and maybe even invest a bit?

He felt his phone buzz, his father typed, wanting to be updating on the status of the girl. It became apparent that some of the hooligans are now aware of his sudden punish- mission. Yes, this is a mission.

Protecting such weak plebeians is the duty of his father and him, also the unsightly hooligans- not well in his opinion- but he shall add them this once.

"Father is surely proud of how 'considerate' and 'generous' I am.", he believes, "Excessively so."

------

The day ends with Marinette safely returning home and the still mysterious young man facing his mismatched family.

The young man remained considerate as he ignored the jeers of the hooligans until he realized, he didn't have to any more and retorted as though his words came from the high heavens.

---------

The next time he checked in on the young lady, he had some knowledge of her background he shouldn't and decided to continue to see to it that she is well taken care.

"It's called being an arrogant, egotistical xsshxle with a God complex. She doesn't need your 'consideration', she is not a charity case!"

One loud problem claimed as he tuned him out.

---------

The young man did visit the restaurant once more and she was there. She would visit often and order the same thing as he had the first time. There were times she ordered something else and he would try things she experimented with, minus the meat.

She ordered meat less and less the more she came to the restaurant, he noticed. He had no clue why, since she obviously had no problem eating it.

He didn't order sweets as often as she did, but he would on occasion, get something with a little bit of sweetness to it; like the dried fruit sandwich with any type of sauce it can come with. The sandwich had fresh, and air dried fruit. There would be other ingredients and such to change the flavor of the sandwich, making it a popular item on the menu.

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Change Perspective

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She felt like she has seen the same guy a lot over the past two months and is slightly worried. After some thought to it and the more she believed she was over thinking it and that it was pure coincidence. She did know, however, he had good taste in food and art. Plus that animals are so cute!! He couldn't be all bad if animals liked him.

She would walk a little closer and sometimes walk a little farther from him and since he never moved, she felt better. It really was a coincidence to her knowledge.

Eventually, she would would stop seeing him. He was a tourist, so of course he would leave at some point. Still, she was a little sad.

Oh well, school is starting soon, maybe she'll make friends to fill the loneliness her pretend friend left her.

She liked to pretend this stranger was her friends and that they hung out, since she saw him in most places that she was. She saw him at the restaurant and sometimes the park and rarely he would be at the museum. Technically he wasn't everywhere and not as frequent as she made it seem like he was, but if was often enough to remember him.

"You should have talked to him, get his number."

"But then he might have thought I was hitting on him! I just wanted a friend..."

"Sweetie, look on bright side! Either you can cherish memories that made you happy or you can forget him and move on. You don't know what life has in-store for you, it could be fun!"

"Thank you, mom. You too dad, I will see what happens."

"On that note, want help me frost some cakes?"

"Yes!!!"

-----

The end.

[tendermiasma]

i’m not even into overwatch anymore but i just wanted to say I ADORE your art style and hope to develop my own into a similar semi-realism leaning...have you made a post about your art journey? I’m assuming I just need to buckle down and do anatomy studies but any tips are very welcome!! Ty for your time <3

Oh man thank you! I’ve never made a comprehensive post about how I got to *gestures* whatever this point in my art this is, and I definitely sat here wondering what “art journey” means for me since I always feel like I’m stumbling around so I’ll answer as completely as I can. But a great way to develop a realism-minded eye is to draw from photos and life. Everyone in the world has said it over and over but it really gets it done, it’s not any more complicated than that. It’s how I started when I was little and it’s not something I planned, but the Legolas posters were right there so how could I not? Your own non-realism “stylistic” touch will bubble up whether you want it to or not and that’s a beautiful thing. It’s not something you need to look for because it happens on its own, whether it’s you seeing something another artist is doing that you like and assimilating it into your work, or it’s your own unique way that you absorb information from the world and use it to solve problems in the drawing in front of you. Some new artists also still have the idea that using references is cheating-- I’m not blaming them, sometimes this weird thing is circulated by more established people as well-- but this is a very small minority. Please use references. I’d be lost without them. The Castlevania team has a giant collection of references for faces of every character from every angle, props, etc. and I always have a second screen up with 10 different sheets of whoever I’m drawing. Feeding yourself info is essential to getting better. Look at how other artists handle something you’re having a problem with too. If they’re doing a similar pose or something, study their drawing and ask yourself what specifically, extremely technically about that drawing is convincing-- what marks are where, and what is the quality or direction of the strokes? Try it out on your own drawing. If you’re stuck, become aware of if you’re holding on too tightly to what you think something should look like. I have to remind myself this as well. Really try to let go of the idea you have in your head about how something works and simply try instead to draw what you see, even if it feels weird. The results are often pleasantly surprising. 

I have a funny relationship with studies. You seem to be looking at them like a chore and I feel the same way. It’s impossible for me to sit down and just draw something over and over, disconnected from emotion or a larger narrative. I think a wonderful way to “study” is to incorporate those studies into a project that you wanted to do anyway. I’ve used my minicomics to get better at background painting or specific figure poses that I needed for the story but wasn’t sure how to do. I’m a very “oops I need it now better learn TODAY” kind of artist, if that suits you better than buckling down and doing anatomy studies for hours. Both are great ways to improve, but you have options for how to get there. 

In terms of how much time I spend drawing.. well lol it’s a lot. I almost typed “but I don’t do it every day” but yes, my jobs have made sure that I do (I tend to separate personal drawing and job drawing). But the truth is, to get better, a lot of very focused drawing time is important; how much of it is up to you and your schedule. You can sit down for 6 hours and doodle or you can sit down for 3 with an extremely critical eye. It’s about the volume of time as well as focus and I don’t have a clear answer for it, but I can point to one specific year in my life where I made artistic progress like I’ve never seen from myself since. I drew a comic with regular updates during that time and, looking back, the art was not good. But the point was, I was drawing for 7 hours a day after work, at least 5 days a week, and actively looking to draw things that I hadn’t done before or knew that I wasn’t good at, and the result was that every single update was almost like it was drawn by a different person-- readers noticed and commented on the progress as well. It was very much an art bootcamp and I wouldn’t have the skills I do at this point if I hadn’t done it. It’s important that you’re loving what you do if you do it for yourself! That’s how you get through big projects and continue to be excited with where you are. Love is one of the most important motivators and discipline-keepers in art, in my experience. Draw what sets your brain on fire and attack it wholeheartedly even if it’s really weird or niche, not what you think you should be drawing, and you’ll improve a million times faster.

Art journey in terms of what I’ve done with my life (if this is what you meant from the beginning I’M SORRY I’m just trying everything you might have meant) uhhh I haven’t been to art school. I have no idea what my relationship with art would be like now if I’d had any formal training and I don’t really dwell on it. I could either be a testament to being able to get by without it or an example of someone who has no idea what she’s doing at all and lacks many basic foundational art skills. I have an architecture degree. I love architecture, I love the language of space we build for ourselves, and I’m truly, deeply glad for that eye-opening and often grueling experience, but I think my current field is a much better fit. Before animation I worked as a graphic designer mainly drawing storyboards for commercials and internal-industry stuff-- lots and lots of quick colored sketches (one of our main clients was a big glass company and my god I never thought I’d draw so much glass in my life). I was able to do that job due to the skills I developed through personal work. Maybe I’d be a hundred times more powerful if I went to art school! Maybe I’d be completely burned out and bitter and not drawing anymore at all! I just don’t know. I have friends who have had both experiences. Whether you choose art school or not it’s best to keep tabs on if the art you’re currently making brings you joy. Joy and struggle aren’t mutually exclusive. Oftentimes I’m drawing something I care deeply about but it’s VERY FUCKING HARD and I’m frustrated but it’s worth it.

I also do everything while being very scared of the thing. I have a lot of deep-seated anxiety that I’m constantly trying to root out and my brain compulsively twists things around into why I can’t do something, why people secretly know I’m below-par and are just too nice to tell me, how I’m “tricking” people into thinking I’m better than I am, etc. It’s so bad that my first thought when I was initially offered the art test for my current job was to say no; not because I didn’t want it so badly it hurt, but because I thought I’d be too much of a disappointment.  After completing the test I spent an hour figuring out the most gracious way to apologize for not being enough. It’s common, but not something to accept and we’re all working on it. I just thought it was important to mention because art is also a mental journey and forces you to do all this navel-gazey shit in order to advance, and feeling like you are Not Enough is rife in the creative community. The work feels entangled with my value as a person because art is a massive part of my life. Something I’m learning is that I don’t have to be confident or sure of myself all the time. This ensures that the process is usually painful and frightening. Often there’s no way to make it less painful or frightening, and I just have to hold my breath and do it. An oddly comforting thing to me the past couple years is to remind myself that the scary thing I’m about to do won’t be the scariest thing I’ll ever do. I implies both that this isn’t the pinnacle of my progress and also that I will inevitably get over it. If you continue with art you’re going to run into things like this and I guess if it was me it would’ve been helpful to know I’m not alone in it.

I hope that maybe answered some of your questions, maybe? If you have some specific questions feel free and I’ll try my best. Hope you have a good day/night!

[bittybattybunny]

I hope your not feeling down on your writing skills because I haven't caught up and commented on your latest releases. It's not you it's that I pick too many fanfics to follow and they all update a lot and I've been so busy and I've fallen behind on so many fics from various authors and sometimes my depression just makes me want to lie in bed all day doing nothing and it doesn't help I have to spend my limited spoons helping family everyday. I know these aren't good excuses, but I do sympathize with the lack of energy feeling at least. But your work really does bring a lot of joy to my life. It's so fun keeping up with your various AUs, and your latest one that features Kaya as Spider King has me really hyped because I want to learn more about Kaya, she's so fun! And Ruclipse is such a good comfort ship that just hits all the things I like seeing in a ship. You're so amazing and creative and it's awful that anyone would try to make you feel otherwise! Like your newest OC, Justin Tyme seems like such a lovable dumbass bastard. I love his wild, curly hair and his dapper outfit. I can't wait to see what dumb shit he gets himself into! I know this is really long and rambly, but I hope you know you have fans who genuinely love your work. I don't know if you're still thinking about that one comment you mentioned that got you really down, but honestly, fuck that guy. I don't know what they said but it must have been pure BS to have you doubting your hard earned art skills. I wish I could do more to prove you're awesome and that your fans really admire you, I just hope you don't stop sharing what you love because some rando was nasty for no good reason. Because we love what you do!

It's not like anyone one person nonny so please don't blame yourself. This has been an ongoing thing for a few months actually...

it's just a general thing over all lately like. I mentioned this in dm's with a friend but overall past few months I've had lower engagement overall with my works and it really does a number on my confidence. More so because like your latter point.

yes, I am still very much thinking about that one negative comment. Because that person also has the need to comment on other things and I even had a thing asking why I took a few weeks to update (when reality I posted to another ongoing fic and my TLC chapters are long chapters) and just the fact they could tear into a character (yes it was a comment on a character specifically and not even a main character it's a side character who has an important role for Snatcher's growth as a person down the line) then go saying "why didn't you update" when I posted a double update that week---

Like it lives in my head rent free and I want to literally cry because like the character is a focal in an upcoming chapter and I can't deal with another "why are they back" type thing. because "everyone finds them annoying"

And I'll be honest. it was Kaya. Like I've been trying to have fun with my BCU stuff with her as Spiderking because it's engaging for me and me and @/doodleimprovement even came up with a b-plot involving Kaya and Hattie trying to hook Nell and Marcus together and it's one of the best things as well as Kaya and Nell having a really good relationship.

but because of that one comment it makes me hesitant to do anything with Kaya despite she's one of my oldest ocs, my most thought out ocs and I adore her beyond anything. Like yes she's over powered and such and in TLC rn she comes off as a know it all, but upcoming chapters will show she's just a spacey kid who's trying to fit into a role others decided for her and isn't really as all mighty as she seems. Snatcher even ends up thinking of her as a little sister more than anything. Like fuck I'm even hesitant to share anything on her actual story despite how much work is in it. Like she's my favorite Oc (that's why shes my discord icon, and I'm pretty sure she's my twitter icon as well)

And like the points in the comment just. IDK they didn't fit to her, if anything the points are more suited to be shot at Eclipse.

Which is another thing I just get iffy on. I love RuClipse and everything with it. I love writing and drawing the dorks. But I'm now so afraid if Kaya could be attacked for only showing in a handful of chapters that don't even touch on who she is, when is someone going to finally tell me off on my wolf? who's going to tear into a character I pour a lot of personal shit into to try and comfort myself?

I use Ruclipse to deal with my own romantic heart, they are what I wish I could have so I love to write them, I hurt them but i like to make them happy in the end. Someone who can deal with your highs and lows. No ones perfect but you can still figure it out and love even the negative parts (I am a heavy romantic OTL)

he is in fact a lovable bastard. i have fun plans and he gives me an excuse for why Cel is so tired and having to be the brain cell and how she even wound up working with the time kids when she's so much older than they are. Currently I'm trying to think of how to use him and honestly I think he's gonna wind up hella comic relief fun guy who's just making a mess and do his own side story while Hat and Bow are busy in subcon----

thank you, I don't mind the rambly it kinda gave me a chance to get this off my chest... like I've typed this kinda response up time and time again and I always delete. I feel like I'm whining because I get upset but it's just, I spend so much time making things, I use all my spoons on either working or creating, I just want to know if it means anything but then negativity lives in my head because what's a functioning meat cube??? I try to stay positive but it's hard. Like another thing is Moon Guardian; the reason I haven't updated? because I have had someone bothering me about it. weekly I get asked about how I'm doing on it but it's not from a place of "want to read it" it's because I told them they couldn't post a certain thing until the chapter is done so it feels pressuring to constantly get asked because I feel the only reason they want to post is to boost their thing and I'm just the machine to boost it with my characters and comic.... like it feels they've taken the comic from me and it sucks because I have so many fun things planned. Like I accidentally went off on Nina about a thing with Alpine skyline and Eclipse as well as a thing with a Time Rift and a Jelly ghost.

Sorry kinda went off, just I've sat on this thought train since like early april. I've done my best to ignore it and just keep going but it's gotten really hard with the fact my health hasn't been really great. I've spent a lot of time lately bed bound because I just hurt so badly. if I'm not resting, I'm at my day job which is incredibly stressful rn as I only really work mornings and I see things that are being missed so then i report it and it still gets missed and i can't get it fixed after a point cuz we're back to full service and need the people so I can't nitpick but just.... I'm bitter okay like if I left this shit when I worked I would have gotten yelled at but now we just let it slide??? and this stresses me out which then causes my body to freak out because I'm stressed which puts me in more pain. and then like at work have people acting shocked I have my cane or soemthing and just skfdslkfksdf

so my energy is so tanked. and then the negative comment in my head, no idea if people like things cuz I have no idea if I hear nothing, just has had me doubting why post. Like I should go back to just not posting my stories and sketches or w/e and slink back to my hole like I was before.

idk Its just. a bad night in the house of bun. I've had these thoughts festering and I guess today was the dam breaking. It's probs cuz I'm nervous posting Chimeras because it's a very dark au.

[kazoo5480]

Ruby eyed Killian as he opened the door, and when Emma came in the door she squealed running toward her.

“Are you insane! I was terrified when you disappeared! You didn’t answer your phone, I was so worried” Ruby admonished while hugging her in a rocking motion. She kissed Emma’s cheek leaving a red imprint, and Emma smiled.

“Thank you, Rubes. I needed exactly what you gave me” she said and hugged her friend.

Ruby nodded and glanced at Killian. He stepped forward and Ruby hugged him, whispering in his ear that she had just been trying to protect them both.

He nodded, and Ruby cupped his cheek. She handed her keys to Emma before they could ask, and said she would have food ready for them on their way out.

Killian walked into Emma’s room and noticed her bed looked very slept in. Like a nest of pillows and blankets.

“Swan, did you have guests?” He asked, and she nodded.

“Ruby and M’s slept with me,” she said and his heart squeezed.

“C'mere, Swan” and patted the bed. She sat and he cupped her jaw. “No more running, I’m not, I need you to not either. Do you need space? We argue, I’ll give you space but we don’t leave our house angry, or scared. Ok?” His eyes bore into hers, and she nodded.

“Ok. But what if we need actual space?” She asked moving to stand.

He shrugged. I’ll get a couch for the office, sleep in the shop. But no, Granny’s isn’t our safe haven when we fight. That’s something I’ve been thinking about too" he said.

Emma looked at him curiously. “What do you mean? She asked.

"A house. For us. More space, I don’t know. It was just a thought” he said as he shoved her laptop bag full and zipped it.

Emma didn’t respond, and when he looked at her she sat in his lap and put her arms around his neck.

“I’m sorry again. My rationale was that I ran somewhere nearby where I could straighten myself out. You had Graham, but my lack of communication sent you to a dark place. I trusted you, I knew you wouldn’t do that to me. But I needed the space to make sure my feelings were under control, that I wouldn’t hurt you just out of retaliation for your horrible ex-girlfriend. I didn’t plan to run out of town, that’s why I came here. A block away, I just needed to make sure that I was able to be rational, tell you why I did this to myself, and apologize to you” she said softly, and he let her continue.

“I hurt you by not trusting myself. I don’t know how to make that up to you. I am sorry you felt alone, I just was so afraid I’d say something to make it worse when really by saying nothing made it worse than words probably ever could have. I’ll just try to be better for you, every day.” she finished.

Killian wiped the stray tears on her cheeks away. “Ground rules Swan. No running. You wanna yell, fine. You want to run, you tell me why, and then you can yell some more when I won’t let you run. You just can’t do that to me, it made me feel insane because I lost the one person I depend on. Who held my happiness inside of her, and while on some level I knew you had to be nearby, I couldn’t say a word" he said, swallowing.

“You didn’t pick up calls, I didn’t know where you were. Had it been me who stumbled in and saw you in that way, I would have probably hit the guy too. The difference is I would have stopped, and asked if you were ok, and taken you home. You ran, like a ghost with no way for me to find you. I get it from your past, the abandonment, I forgive you, but I can’t have you do it ever again. It isn’t fair to me” he finished.

Emma nodded and hugged him. “I promise” she whispered and he hugged her tighter.

Killian kissed her, “now let’s get you home. We can watch all 7 Harry Potters since I probably won’t be letting you out of my sight for a while,” he said with a small chuckle.

Emma nodded, “fair enough”. She set her forehead against his.

“Are you sure that you can forgive me?” She asked and he nodded.

“I did the moment you left the note on your pillow, I just wish you’d have said where you were” he whispered.

“I knew you’d break the door down, and I wasn’t ready,” she said, stroking his hair.

Killian grabbed her bag, and she took one last look and they headed home, grabbing the bag off the counter from Ruby.

Emma unpacked quickly and changed into her pajamas wrapping one of Killian’s flannels around her as she ate her grilled cheese watching Harry Potter. Killian polished off his burger, and Emma laid atop him snuggling into him.

Killian’s phone chirped and he opened it, Emma watching the TV. Marco emailed him. He kissed Emma’s hair and said he would be right back, and headed into the bathroom.

Marco had sketched something incredibly similar to the photo, and he had priced out different stones giving him an idea. Killian typed out the number, one he had crunched every which way to make sure it was a smart choice and emailed him back asking what his options for the stone, the ring, and Marcos work would be totaled together.

He brushed his teeth and plugged his phone in. He smiled. Marco had said it could be ready by June, if not earlier. He shook the thought away and smiled at Emma curled up. He came back, and she sat up making room for him.

"Can we get a bigger couch? Like a sectional? She asked and he laughed beneath her cheek.

"Why? You don’t want to share couch space?” He asked her.

“No it’s not that, but it would be nice to get something more comfortable, maybe with one of those chaise things we can snuggle on together,” she said, her bottom lip jutting out and he laughed.

"As you wish” and kissed her forehead.

Emma headed to bed and snuggled into Killian. “Is it cold in here to you? She asked him.

He shook his head and felt her forehead, and frowned. "You don’t feel warm, do you not feel well?” He asked.

She shook her head, “just cold” she said.

“What do you think about a dog?” He mused as he played with her hair.

Emma looked at him, “I always wanted one,” she said with a small smile, and if he wasn’t mistaken, a little hopefulness.

He smiled,“ let’s get one. Someone for you to run with,” he said.

Emma smiled, “We don’t have a yard, the concrete out back would hurt its paws,” she said sadly.

He thought about it and nodded. “What if we fostered one for the holiday season? Graham always says they need foster homes since the staff wants to be with their families.”

“I think that would be okay,” she said, “just a foster until we have more room.”

“Are you allergic to anything?” He mused. She smiled and nodded, “penicillin.” He was surprised, but it was good to know.

“Are you?” She responded, and he shook his head, “not that I know of, but that’s good to know. Is August?” He asked and she shook her head.

“I should probably update my forms,” she said absentmindedly.

“Forms?” He asked her, cocking an eyebrow.

“Yeah, medical forms, emergency contact information. I can add you, and keep August” she said.

He nodded. “I should probably do that too. Graham is mine,” he said. Emma nodded and kissed his jaw.

“You really aren’t cold?” She asked him again, and he shook his head pulling her closer. He started worrying, what if she got sick.

She curled her legs, tucking her feet between his calves. Killian yelped.

“What the bloody hell is that? You’re that cold?” She smiled and nodded at him.

“I’ll plastic the windows this weekend,” he said and kissed her forehead.

“I love you” she whispered, her head tucked under his chin.

“I love you more than anything. Sleep, I have a busy day tomorrow” and cuddled her tighter.

Killian’s breath evened out, and Emma couldn’t sleep. She laid there thinking, unable to turn her brain off. She began reading work emails, and deciding which cases she would take and those she wouldn’t. She knew she wanted to quit her job, but she also knew she had to give Graham an answer.

She rolled over on her side, looking at Storybrooke real estate. A large Gray victorian was for sale. It looked like it needed a lot of TLC, but it wasn’t crazy expensive. She would run past it tomorrow.

“Emma, sleep” Killian grumbled pulling her back into his chest, curling around her.

She shut her eyes, and finally drifted off to sleep, his body heat warming her.

Killian snuck out of bed and dressed, opening the shop up. He had a full day and was grateful for it. He had a ring to buy after all so he should probably try to keep the garage as full as possible.

He texted August and said he did want some help with stocks after all. Maybe a few investments were not a bad idea. He also thought about Emma’s approaching birthday, and his thought was interrupted as the new neighbor Ingrid pulled into the lot.

He waved and walked out to greet her. He apologized for his behavior, and she smiled knowingly. “

I’ve met Emma, she is lovely,“ she said and he nodded.

She needed help with her new ice cream truck and asked if he could have it towed, it needed quite a bit of work and a paint job. He happily accepted and promised to drop by around lunch. She left her car for an oil change, and he said he would drive it back to her when he came to see the truck.

Billy walked up the lot and Killian waved him in, and he turned on the radio getting to work.

Emma got up and pulled her email up, groaning when she saw a new case waiting in her inbox. She read the file, it was something local in Portland, so she agreed and said she would take it up tomorrow. That would be the last one she decided and would tell him after she turned the skip in, and got paid.

She headed down, Killian was under a car so she lowered the music waving to Billy. “Jones?” she called out.

Killian slid out and sat up, and she knelt before him. Pulling her phone out she showed him her maps, “I made sure you had access, I promise not to ever turn it off, even if I get mad. Ok?” she said and he pulled her to him and kissed her.

“Enjoy your run” and he kissed her again and she stood up, watching him slide back under the car.

Emma put her headphones in, and thought to the gray house, typing the address into her app and following the route. She hit play, and her music came to life. She tried to focus on the scenery, the people who smiled at her as she ran by, waving back. She tried to pick apart the last few days, tomorrow and analyzed why she was even running past this house.

She found herself running along the road, the beach and water to her right, and she noticed the houses were spread out further here. She wondered if she was lost, and then she saw it. She slowed to a walk stopping outside the white picket fence.

The house was massive and looked like it was in quite a state of disrepair. She noticed a flyer box on the for sale sign sitting on the lawn. She grabbed one, and walked around the back of the house, taking it in. The lawn was overgrown but there was a good size garage, three cars maybe, and the yard had a big tree, a lot of sun, and privacy.

She looked at the flyer again, and it was a pretty big house on the inside, whatever that looked like. The photos looked older, but she knew it wouldn’t be right to look at it without Killian.

When she got back she went upstairs and changed, heading to the market. She grabbed everything for the week, and some stuff to take to Portland with her on the off chance she was stuck overnight. She started making stir fry, and Killian walked in as it was almost done.

“No offense love, but you need a shower,” he said and kissed her neck. She laughed at him and told him to scoot. Killian headed down the hall, and she finished up, setting the dinner aside.

She stripped off her clothes and got in the shower. Killian’s back was to her and wrapped her arms around his waist.

“I knew you wouldn’t be able to resist,” he said and turned around smiling down at her.

“Never said I would,” she said and lifted on her toes to kiss him. “But I do need a shower,” she said.

Killian hummed in appreciation, and grabbed the showerhead, holding it over her, and she started washing her hair, and he poured a generous amount of her body wash in her hand, rubbing it over her back, and slipping his soapy hands around, washing her everywhere except where she wanted him.

He was driving her insane on purpose. Emma smiled, let him continue, and began smearing the soap everywhere he wasn’t touching her, giving him a little show. Killian sat on the bench while she rinsed and shaved, and she watched as he took himself in hand, clearly trying to kill her with sexual tension.

Killian watched her close her eyes, sighing as the hot water ran over her body, her full breasts rosy pink, the cloud of vanilla encompassing the shower. He watched as she rubbed the soap off her chest, sliding her hands down and she threw him a saucy smirk, turning around and letting him take in a full view of her ass.

He groaned, his hand gently tugging his shaft, his skin flushed from the steam and before he was too far gone, he sat back, the cool glass against his back. Emma stood before him and kneeled. She tugged his lips to hers, her tongue seeking entrance to his mouth, and his arms banded around her pulling her closer.

Emma ran her hands down his chest, her nails scraping over his thighs, and he smirked at her, she kissed her way down before taking his thick cock in her hand and running her tongue across the weeping tip. She felt Killian’s hand weave into her hair, and she took him inside to her throat.

“Gods love, just like that,” he said and she sucked softly, swirling her tongue around the head before pumping him, and licking him sac to tip. His fingers tightened, scraping her scalp. She went back to doting on him, gently caressing his sac, and taint, paying special attention to the thick vein that ran up the length of him and he moaned her name loud enough for it to echo off the tiles.

“Emma” he cried, and she went faster. He was rutting his hips, holding her hair so tightly that he was fucking her mouth. She let him set the pace, and continued rubbing and cupping him, urging him on. She felt him swell and knew he was getting close. She sucked harder, her tongue rolling over the tip of him, and he growled as he came in her mouth.

Emma slowed her movements, gently letting him ride out the aftershocks and she looked up and him, his head tipped against the glass and eyes shut. She smirked and stood, washing her face and brushing her teeth quickly. She looked over, and his chest was heaving but he was looking at her with a wicked grin.

She shut the water off and reached for a towel which he promptly snatched away. He backed her against the tile and tossed the towel over the glass. “Oh love, I’m not done with you yet” he purred, and his fingers traced lines down Emma’s sides, tickling her.

Killian smirked as she giggled at him, and he glided his hands up to cup the heavy weights of her breasts, running his thumbs across the peaks. He kept his eyes locked on hers, watching the green darken, and she bit down on her lip. He tugged and rolled each nipple, getting her attention.

“I want to hear you,” he said and leaned in to kiss the column of her throat. Nipping and sucking the sensitive points, until she finally sighed, and her hips bucked. He smirked and felt his cock begin to harden again, felt the need for her crackling in his veins. He tugged her away from the wall and guided her to face the bench, lifting her leg to it, opening her.

He knelt behind her, and kissed over the globes of her perfect ass, leaving light bite marks in his wake as he moved her foot over slightly to widen her. Emma gasped above him, her hands planted on the glass in front of her for balance.

Killian licked and kneaded her cheeks until they were pink, and he smirked. He moved his way up, kissing her spine as he rose, and Emma trembled, goosebumps rising on her flesh. He nosed along her shoulder, lightly biting down on her neck, his tongue running over the marks left behind.

“Killian” she whispered, and he ran his palms across her belly, and hips until he finally ran his fingers across her slippery folds earning him a cry that would haunt him. “Please” she begged.

“Mmm, I like when you beg. What do you want, Swan?” He murmured as he continued touching her so delicately, that he could see her hands curling against the glass in frustration as he avoided the pressure he knew would make her body sing for him.  

“I want you” she panted.

“Where?” he asked in a taunting tone.

Emma looked over her shoulder at him, her eyes flashing defiantly, and she lowered her leg off the bench to the ground. She grabbed the towel and left him there, and he cocked his head at her, as he watched her towel off.

“I didn’t say you could leave,” he said to her.

“I didn’t ask you to edge me as punishment,” she said and he could see her getting mad. On some level he wanted her mad, wanted her frustrated, to fuck their way through this, but he had to tread carefully with her right now, he could see the emotions flickering across her face. Anger, fear, anxiety, frustration.

He strode to her, pulling the towel gently from her and letting it pool on the floor. She said nothing, he gripped her hips, sliding his palms over her ass, and pulled her against him. Emma’s eyes were filled with fire when he looked into them.

“I am not punishing you, my love,” he said, nipping at her lip, sinking his teeth into it, his tongue running over it, and he felt her hands go to his chest, her nails scraping his skin.

Emma felt his fingers digging into her ass, hard enough to bruise her. He was pushing her towards something, but she didn’t know what it was yet. Killian had never used sex as a weapon or punishment, she trusted his instincts, to always show her love. But right now, his eyes were blazing with blue fire.

Emma took a deep breath, her body trembling. “I am desperate for you,” she whispered. “I need you to love me” she admitted feeling ashamed at her admission. Killian released her ass and his arms banded around her back lifting her, he walked her to the bed, and laid her down, stretching out on top of her.

“I do love you, more than anything Emma,” he said and kissed her hard. “I need you, I am just as desperate for you, to have you want me, to love me, to choose me,” he said and kissed her deeply. Emma moaned as he rubbed his cock through her folds, his hands tangled in her hair.

“I would do anything to have you be mine, give up everything for you. So long as you were mine, and only mine” he practically growled.

Emma’s mind was reeling too many thoughts, and his words, his hips driving her mad as they rubbed against her, her arousal skyrocketing.

“I am yours” she sighed, as he sucked a nipple into his mouth, taking a deep pull on it, making her back arch. “Just yours,” she said in a breathy cry, and he released her nosing at the opposite one, teasing it to a tight peak.

“Why won’t you make love to me?” She asked, and the tone of her voice sounded broken.

“I am. Focus on me, on us, what we are doing right now, in our bed. What do we always do in our bed? Tell me,” he said harshly, his eyes boring into hers as he hovered above her.

“Love. We always love each other” she said softly and he nodded.

“I am loving you, I am showing you I love you, only you. You are mine, and I am yours, whether I fuck you, make love slowly to you, or hold you, I am only ever showing you love Emma” and he guided himself inside of her, pushing the tip of his cock into her slowly.

Emma cried out, as he inched in, pumping in and out in shallow thrusts, preparing her to take him in. Her walls so tight and hot around him, he groaned at the intense feeling shooting up his spine, his heart hammering in his chest. Emma’s eyes squeezed shut at the intrusion, her breaths coming in short pants, ghosting over his lips. They snapped open the moment he was fully seated within her.

He snapped his hips and plunged into her as deep as he could in one stroke, filling her, stretching her, erasing every inch of space that she was feeling. His hands were everywhere. His skin touched every inch of hers that they could manage, and he never took his eyes off hers.

Every thrust, he never looked away, couldn’t look away. He kept his eyes on hers, forcing her to understand that he was hers, he wasn’t leaving, she owned him as much as he owned her. He pushed her legs wider apart, her hands clenched in the sheets, gripping them tightly.

Her green eyes sparkled with unshed tears, he leaned down to kiss her swollen lips. Their tongues tangled, sucking, and massaging each other’s so that they could hardly breathe. Emma felt like she was drowning, in pleasure, in him, in the feelings he was pouring into her with each thrust.

She locked her legs around his hips dragging him deeper inside, her arms around his neck hanging on as he fucked her hard, their moans and cries, skin slapping echoed through the empty loft.

Killian was reaching his breaking point, his release building quickly, and he wasn’t going over the edge without dragging her with him. He reached down, lightly rubbing the swollen nub, and Emma cried his name, her eyes snapped shut.

Emma was going to come, it was brewing hard inside of her, and it was going to tear through her, every roll of his hips, the tip of his cock rubbing so deeply inside of her, she closed her eyes at the onslaught of sensations, tensing around him. Her thighs trembled, and he wasn’t slowing down.

Emma’s nails were digging into his shoulders, almost painfully. He felt her clench down on him, her whimpers and moaning music to his ears, and the sensation of her squeezing his dick so tightly almost made him let go, but not without her. He changed angles, hitching her legs off his hips he pushed them to her chest and plunged in hard and fast, their headboard shook against the wall, banging against it with each thrust.

As soon as he pushed her legs to her chest, pushing in deeper than ever before, Emma screamed.

“Oh god” she chanted over and over as her orgasm rolled through her, and Killian roared as he spent himself inside of her, unable to hold it back any longer. His hands clasped around her wrists and he held them above her head pinning her still, as he emptied himself, nearly collapsing from the force of it.

Killian stayed hunched over her and pushed her legs down collapsing on her chest, releasing her hands as his heart pounded. Emma’s own heart was thudding beneath his ear while he felt her fingers sift through his hair lazily, both of them too tired to move yet.

He turned his head resting his chin on her chest. “Did I prove my point?” he asked with a light laugh, his chest still heaving and Emma huffed out a giggle and nodded.

He dipped his head down and kissed the skin over her heart. “I love you” she whispered, and he kissed her skin again in response. He pulled out of her slowly, and at this point didn’t care if the sheets got dirty. He pulled her into his chest, and they dozed off wrapped in each other.

Emma woke up, and glanced at the clock, it was nearly eight, she felt sticky, and went into the bathroom shutting the door. She used a washcloth and cleaned herself up, and tugged her robe on. She went to the kitchen where the stir fry had been long forgotten, but started the rice anyway, and heard the water run in the bathroom.

Killian came out in his sweats and grabbed a glass of water. He came to Emma and picked her up, setting her on the island and kissed her.

“Nice nap?” he asked her and she nodded, and hugged him.

“I have to work tomorrow, and I wanted to show you something,” she said and he nodded.

“Just to portland?” he asked and she nodded, sliding off the counter and grabbing the folded flyer out from under her laptop.

“I will do this job, and I am going to put in my notice, which leads me to the other thing I wanted to show you. But it can wait, it’s not important” she said, and he shook his head, plucking the paper from her fingers quickly. He opened it, and his eyes widened.

Emma blushed, watching him look it over.

“You want to buy a house?” he asked, kind of shocked. Emma shrugged.

“I thought we could look at it,” she said quietly. Killian could tell that she was holding something back.

“Talk to me Em, what is this about?” he asked.

Emma went to stir the stirfry that she was heating back up, placing the lid back over it.

“If I quit my job, and we want to buy it, I would have time to do stuff myself. I know it is a lot of work, but I thought you might like it. I ran past it, grabbed the flyer. I didn’t decide to buy a house without you, I just took the flyer, and I thought you might like the water being out your front door is all” she said and turned around, feeling her cheeks turn pink.

Killian looked at the paper, “This is Gold’s old house” he said. He read through it, it was a big house, a really big, old house. He thought about the ring he was about to buy, and a house wasn’t factored into that right now too. He needed to talk to August.

Emma leaned against the counter, “I would buy the house. In cash” she said, and Killian’s eyes went wide.

“What do you mean in cash? Who has that much cash in the bank? Do you even have a bank account?” he teased.

“August handles the money, I have it, I just never used it” she shrugged.

Killian’s head was spinning. “You just have 230 grand sitting in the bank?” he said skeptically. She shook her head.

“August handles it all, he invested everything we had ever earned aside from rent. He wanted us to be sure that we would never be poor or worry about money ever again, learned everything about stocks and that stuff, I have it, and probably the renovation costs too if I cashed some stuff out. I haven’t told him yet, but he sends me the statements” she said.

Killian leaned back, kind of shocked. “Em, you didn’t want to adopt a pet, two days ago you were hiding from me, and now you want to buy a house? I am just a little lost here, and the money thing, I don’t care about that. But a house, a big house is a huge step here, and that makes me nervous” he says honestly.

Emma nodded. “I know, I didn’t expect it. I just ran past it and poked around the yard looking at it. It was odd, I felt something I haven’t ever felt unless I was with you, or August” she said avoiding his eyes.

Killian stepped toward her and tipped her chin up, “and what is that, love?”

“Home. It felt like it could be a home, a real one” she whispered, and looked down almost seeming embarrassed. Killian wrapped his arms around her and buried his face in her neck. He sighed.

“We can look at it, ok?” Make an appointment for the weekend, or when you get back from work, we have to go get your car this weekend too,” he said and she nodded.

“Do you think we will ever do things in a normal time frame?” She smiled at him.

He grinned back, “probably not. We are absolutely mad, but it’s ok. It is us.”

He went to her laptop and pulled the listing up, looking over some of the photos, the place needed a lot, but it had good bones, and he thought of Liam. When he walked into the shop which was a dump, he said it has good bones, and they built the business in it, the good bones holding it up.

He smiled as Emma slid a plate to him and grabbed her own, and they sat looking through the pictures. “It might have good bones, we will see. Just don’t get your hopes up ok?” he said and she nodded.

“So tell me about the skip tomorrow,” he asked her. She told him, it was a quick find she thought, a few hours, and she already tracked his debit card to three ATMs, so she had an idea of where he might be and who to lean on. He was overwhelmed but nodded.

“Are you sure you want to quit?” he asked her as they put fresh sheets on, and climbed into bed.

Emma looked at him, “Do you think I shouldn’t? I don’t have to. I just thought…” and Killian kissed her.

“That wasn’t what I asked Swan, or said. I said, are you sure you want to quit?” he said.

“I know I don’t want random trips out of town anymore. I know I want to be with you, and here would be easier. I don’t think or know if I want to work with Graham but it’s a job, and whatever, and I am sure August would give me work too, so I could do it from home but I would need an office area. We are just a little tight on space up here, so I could use the office downstairs and get a better door if the drills are going” she said.

He nodded, “Ok, as long as you know that I am not asking you to quit. I am not telling you to. I don’t mind that you aren’t chasing criminals anymore, but that it is your choice. It is always your choice,” he said and smoothed her curls back.

I know, she said, and he nodded, pulling her into his chest and stroking her arm.

“So a house, huh? I assume a dog? Anything else on that list you have in your head?” he mused.

Emma smiled against his chest, “Not yet” she said.

“That means that there is more, but just not yet?” he asked her, feeling a weird sense of hope flutter in his chest.

She nodded, “not yet,” she said and buried her cold feet between his calves making his whole body jerk.

He rolled out of bed. “That’s it, you are sleeping in socks from now until summer,” he said and pulled wool socks over her feet. He climbed back in and she curled in, kissing his jaw.

“Spoilsport” she teased.

“Aye, I am the spoilsport who doesn’t want frostbite,” he said and kissed her head turning out the light.

“Get some rest, I love you,” he said and she snugged in burrowing into his side.

“I love you too,” she said.  

Emma got up and showered, grabbing her overnight bag hopefully for the last time in a long while, and Killian sent her out the door with a breakfast burrito and a kiss. She smiled and got in her car, making one last trek to Portland.

She dialed August, who picked up immediately.

“Hey sunshine, what’s up?” he said.

“How much do I have in the bank and stocks?” she asked, watching the traffic in front of her.

“Are you running somewhere?” He asked.

“No. But seriously, how much?” She heard him typing.

“How much do you need?” he asked.

“Probably 230. Maybe less, maybe more. Do I have that?” she asked.

August whistled. “You are being incredibly cryptic. You’re not asking for ten grand, so tell me why” he said.

She sighed, “a house. I’m considering buying one. Roots and all that,” she said.

He went quiet, and she heard more typing. “You’d have to cash in some stock, but you would still have a healthy portfolio even if we moved some stuff around. Do you want to buy a house? You were just considering leaving” he said pointedly.

“I didn’t run. I needed a breath, and you were right. I took that breath and put on my big girl panties, and now I am interested in a house August” she said irritatedly.

“I want to see it,” he said.

She sent him the link and waited.

“Wow. That’s a whole lot of house. Why is it so cheap, is that on the water?” he asked, and she heard clicking.

“It needs work. A lot of it. But if I can talk the owner down 30k, it could be a good investment once it was done,” she pointed out.

“Em, this place needs like everything from the looks of it. You’re sure?” he asked.

“I just had a feeling,” she said quietly.

“It felt like a home, didn’t it?” he asked.

Of course, he would understand. “Yeah, or the possibility of one. Holidays, and a bunch of things, just a feeling.”

He hummed. “Okay. Well, talk to the owner. See what she says, try to get her to 190. The roof alone will be 30k to replace, not to mention the new driveway, and probably pipes and electrical.”

Emma scoffed, “How do you know that?” she asked.

He laughed, “Emma you called me. I’m pulling permits and records on the house. It’s actually historical,” he said.

“Yeah, I don’t know. It’s just a thought” she said.

“Does Killian know?” he asked.

“Yeah, we talked about it a little. I just wanted to see it, if it was even reasonable, he agreed to look at it, mentioned good bones or something, but not to get my hopes up” she said.

He laughed. “Well, at least he is being smart. Good bones and everything” he said chuckling.

“I don’t know, it was just a question, could I afford it if I wanted it, I wasn’t sure how much liquid I had, I mean I see the statements but that doesn’t equal liquid cash,” she said.

“You lived like a fraternity kid for the last ten years, rarely splurging and I manage all of our money. If you want the house you can get it and not even touch Killian’s money. Did you show him your statement? Please tell me you didn’t” he said.

“No, I didn’t, your stuff is on it too. So no, of course not. Wait, you have access to his accounts?” she asked.

“Just his personal ones, I don’t look at them. But I offered him help a while back if he wanted to do stock options” he said.

Emma was surprised, and then she wasn’t. August made sure they would never be poor again. If the important person in her life was going to be permanent, August would ensure they wanted for nothing.

“I’m considering quitting my job, I am actually on my way to Portland now,” she said.  

August went quiet and coughed. “What? Why? He didn’t ask you, did he?”

“No, no. I just did some thinking before the fight, it doesn’t really make me happy anymore. I hate being gone a lot, and I kind of hate not being here, and if I want to come to see you, or travel I want to just go and live that life you and I always talked about, ya know?”

“Ah. I see. Well, come work for me. Work from home, make your own hours, but don’t be the fucking deputy” he laughed.

“Hey! I didn’t accept the offer. I feel bad because he does need help, it’s a local dependable job” she argued.

“Don’t ever wear a uniform or I will disown you” he laughed. “Brown is not your color duckling.”

“Ugh, alright mom, I have to go. I am nearly there. I’ll call you after. Love you byeeeee” and hung up.

The moment Emma left the lot Killian called Marco.

“Hello, Marco? Killian Jones” he said.

“Ah, good morning my boy. I saw your response, but since you called I can walk you through it. Is it a safe time to speak?” he asked.

“Sure. Now is good” Killian said.

“The design itself is not troublesome, what size stone do you think?” he asked and Killian looked through his notes.

“between one and two carats, I think the round would look nice,” he said.

“That is a fine choice for Emma. Now, do you have a preference for the Diamond?” he asked.

“Marco, I don’t know anything about diamonds. What are my options? Killian asked.

“Well, a 1.5 carat Diamond, with almost perfect clarity can run quite a lot. But I did some digging around, and I would be able to get you an almost flawless diamond for around Sixteen thousand. I would take no fee because it is for Emma, it would be my pleasure and my gift to you both” he said.

“So the diamond, and what about the setting? What would it be?” he asked.

“Do you want platinum, white gold, yellow gold, or rose gold?” Marco asked, and Killian heard typing.

Killian pulled the picture up, “The photo is white gold” he said, and Marco went back to typing.

“I could do the design, with that stone, the sapphires are small, in white gold and it would total to around twenty-four thousand, waiving all of my fees and labor,” he said.

“Marco, that isn’t fair. You are making a ring” he said.

“I am making something special for a child I was lucky enough to have in my life when I had none of my own. I told you, my gift is to do this for Emma” he said.

Killian scratched behind his ear. “That is incredibly generous of you, but I need you to be sure, I want you to be absolutely sure, you run a business,” he said.

Marco hummed. “Fine, you can pay me one dollar for fees,” he said, sounding like he was smiling.

Killian laughed, “you are an amazing man Marco. One dollar, accepted.”

“When can I expect to see you?” Marco asked.

“Um, I can probably swing a trip sometime after the holidays. Can you email me updates or photos in the meantime” Killian asked, suddenly nervous.

“Of course. I will send you all the details and receipts and call my guy now” Marco said. “You will make her very happy Killian, I am glad for you both. Thank you for including me” he said.

Killian blushed, “thank you, Marco,” he said and the man hung up.

He felt a rush of relief, that was all done. They had plenty of time to figure it out until it was ready, and a year was more than enough time to be together before an engagement.

The house crossed his mind, and just what else might be on Emma’s mental list, but he wouldn’t push. They needed to talk more about all these thoughts he was having, but he needed to get his head out of the clouds and work so he could pay for this ring.

Billy and he cranked out 6 oil changes, two tune-ups, and rolled Ingrid’s truck into the shop when everything was in the lot for pickup.

They stood side by side and looked at it. Billy whistled, “this is going to be a lot of work,” he said, and Killian nodded.

He sat back on the stool and lit a smoke, and grabbed his clipboard. He had Billy crawl under and start calling out things, Killian made a list of parts, and figured out how to get this thing running.

He was grateful when his cell rang, and August’s name flashed.

"Hello August,” he said.

“Jones. You got a second?”

“Sure, one minute”, Killian went into the office closing the door. “What’s up?”

“You two are moving things along arent you?” He said cryptically.

Killian sighed. “Did you call to bust my balls because I am actually working.”

“No, just between Emma’s thoughts, and you, you two are like speed racers. What is the rush with you two?” He asked.

“What do you mean? Did she says something?” Killian got anxious.

“Listen, I think it’s time we do some investing on your part. Emma is covered, but let me play around a bit with yours, put you in our options, grow that little nest egg you are sitting on” August said and Killian heard typing.

“Are you looking at my bank account?” He demanded.

“No, no. But Emma mentioned the house, and I am sure you are already considering a ring, it would be a wise choice to start making some moves to build that egg, and lucky for you, I am good at it” August said.

He scratched behind his ear, nervous. “Aug I don’t know, I need cash right now, and this house, if she wants it…”

“Emma has the house covered Jones” August said like it was nothing.

“That isn’t right mate if we buy a house we buy it together” he protested.

“Well, I know you don’t love her for money, you didn’t even know she had any since she lived like a child. So just do me a favor and let her buy the house. You can pay her back by being wise, and investing smartly to protect the offspring you two will inevitably have with the rate you two go at each other” he said sounding like he was laughing

Killian almost dropped the phone, “Wait. Does Emma tell you about our sex life!”

“No, she doesn’t need to thank god. I can tell by looking at you two, easy Jones. Anyways let me make some moves, give me ten to play with. If I lose it, I will put it back. If I triple it, you can thank me and name your child after me” he said laughing.

Killian laughed too, “you want ten grand to play with, like monopoly? And if you lose it, you put it back out of your own money? Fine.”

“Excellent. I mean I could do twenty. You have over seventy in the savings…” August said like he was talking about pennies.

“August, get out of my account. Ten. Start there, if you do it, I will let you take over, but please get out of my account. Seriously” Killian said, growing agitated.

“Fine, fine. Scott! He said yes”, August called out. Killian groaned.

“Love you both, bye”, Killian said ending the call. God her brother was a pain the ass, he looked at the ceiling pinching the bridge of his nose, a pang of longing for his own brother crossing his heart.

He came out and Billy handed him a completed list. They rolled the whiteboard out, and Billy did a crude mock-up of the truck and began writing. He looked at the clock, it was nearing six.

“Hey man, head out, I will see you in the morning,” Killian said and Billy nodded, just as exhausted as he was.

Killian closed up and headed upstairs to shower. He charged his phone and she still had not called after the text of arriving.

He dialed her as he dressed. “Hey babe, call you back,” she said and hung up.

She sounded like she was running. He sat on the bed and rubbed his hands over his face, and pulled up the tracking app. He followed her, she was most definitely running or driving very fast, but he zoomed in, the dot stopped. He waited a few minutes watching it, still not moving.

What the fuck, he thought. His heart relaxed when he saw it move again, slowly, but it moved. She must have got him.

He waited another hour, and the phone rang. “Swan, are you ok?” he asked.

“Yeah, um I am going to be a little late,” she said.

“Oh, ok. But you are heading back?”

“Ouch” she bit out and he heard a male’s voice in the background.

“Swan? What is going on?” he asked standing.

“Um, he had a knife, ouch! And he cut my arm, I’m being stitched. Easy man, it isn’t falling off,“ she barked at the medic.

"I’m coming to get you,” he said pulling a shirt on, trying to find his jeans.

“No, no. Seriously ill send you a photo, it isn’t bad, it was just a weird angle that caught me. I am ok, really. I turned him in, and tomorrow I am sending in my notice, I just wanted to get paid.”

“ You really decided to go out with a bang huh?” He said completely unamused.

Emma sighed, “I have had worse, I am ok. Hey, are you done? Can I go? Alright, babe, I am done. I will be out of here in a few and heading home. See you in like two hours or so.”

“Ok, just please be safe,” he said feeling defeated and anxiety building.

“I will. Killian, I love you” she said quickly.

He smiled, “I love you more than anything, one piece Swan. Not tiny pieces, not cut pieces. One whole piece,” he said.

“Aye Aye Captain,” she said and cut the call off.  

He smiled and climbed into bed. He turned the laptop on and put on a movie, they needed a tv for in here, seriously.

He went on amazon and ordered a small one and a wall mounting kit.

He woke up when he heard the door shut. Emma came in quietly and went into the bathroom, and the shower turned on. He heard her wince, and was at the door knocking a second later.

“Em, open up,” he said through the door.

She opened the door, looking a bit worse for wear. “Sorry,” she apologized. “I need to shower.”

Killian walked in and took a look at her outstretched arm. It was a nasty gash.

“Do you need help?” He asked, and she shook her head.

“I’ll be out in a few, sorry I woke you up.”

Emma held her arm out of the spray and washed the night off of her. She came out and Killian had Tylenol and a glass of water on her nightstand as he sat and waited for her.

She pulled on a flannel of his and crawled into bed, and he propped her arm up on some extra pillows.

“Thanks,” she said. “I am sorry.”

“Well, we got roughly 5 months in with you unscathed, and if this is your last one, then I say you did alright,” and kissed her forehead.

She nodded and was grateful it was her left arm and not her right. She yawned, and Killian tucked her damp curls behind her ear, and snuggled in closer to her, wrapping his hand around her good one as they fell asleep.

Killian got up with the sun, watching Emma sound asleep. He took in her golden curls in the morning light, her dark lashes on the apples of her cheeks. The dusting of freckles coating her nose. He just soaked her in, completely at peace.

“You’re watching me sleep again, Jones. It’s weird,” she mumbled with a small smile and snuggled into his chest.

He smiled and held her as best as he could without moving her arm. She would need Tylenol, he waited a few minutes before he headed to the kitchen and got everything, laying it on her nightstand. He kissed her cheek and headed down to the shop buttoning his coveralls.

He rolled the garage door up, and lit a smoke, grabbing the list they had started and placed an order for the parts they knew so far, getting a head start.

He grabbed the creeper and had just slid under the car when he heard Emma scream.

He bolted up the stairs and ran to the bathroom, “Emma!” He called and opened the door.

“I popped a stitch. Do you have a thread or a kit? She asked, and he nodded, taking in the blood soaking through the cloth she had against it.

"Babe it’s just a stitch, hurry” she pleaded and he ran down the stairs grabbing the red box.

He ran in and opened it on the counter, searching for the sutures. He found the steri strips and pulled them out, tearing one off.

He took her arm and he pulled the cloth away, Emma winced. He held her arm up above her head for a few seconds, and quickly pulled it down, securing her skin and adding a second for good measure.

Emma watched how quickly he worked, with soft touches. She smiled as he finished. “ Thank you,” she said and kissed him.

He nodded, do you need anything else? He asked, gazing at her softly. Emma shook her head.

Killian nodded and washed the blood off his hands. “I’ll be right downstairs if you need help.”

Emma kissed him and he headed down the hall. She finished brushing her teeth and pulled leggings on. She went to her laptop, popped it open, and dialed her boss.

After a long discussion, she gave her resignation. Her boss was a little pissed but she said after last night, her decision was made. She recommended two people she knew in Boston who did side work, and he appreciated it. She thanked him and ended the call.

She saw a missed text from August but it could wait. She shot a photo and sent it saying she would call later.

She called the number on the flyer, and spoke to a woman named Astrid, setting a viewing of the house up for tomorrow at lunchtime, and that was set.

She looked around the loft, if they bought a house what would they do with the space? Maybe Killian would want to rent it, extra income would be nice.

She slid on shoes and made her way downstairs, there was no way she could box, so she took a look at the whiteboard.

Billy slid out on the creeper and waved, Killian on the phone in the office. He came out a minute later with a sheet and taped it on the board.

“Hi, you ok,?” He asked.

Emma nodded and looked at the behemoth sitting on the lift. “Ingrids?” She asked and Killian nodded.

“Do you need help? I can order parts if you give me a list” she offered and he smiled.

“I just finished, go lay down,” he said. Emma sighed and nodded.

“Oh, tomorrow at 11, the house tour,” she said and he smiled at her.

She grabbed a book and went to sit on her chair, and grabbed her phone. She looked at couches, she bookmarked a few to show Killian, and when he came up for lunch, she began showing him the couches while he ate.

They agreed on one, and she ordered it. She looked around and decided with Halloween approaching, some decorations were needed. She ordered some and realized her birthday was now weeks away.

She booked that little place in Vermont for the week she had planned on and smiled. She was restless, so she went downstairs again, deciding on a walk. Killian nodded, and she headed out.

She walked the whole town and came across a little hair salon. She walked in, and made an appointment for herself, and headed home. She decided to establish an OB and a new doctor here, and she needed a dentist too. She completed her paperwork to include Killian as her contact first and August second for the first time ever.

When Killian finally headed up, Emma was asleep on the couch, a book laying on the floor. He smiled and snapped a photo, tucked it away, and called in Chinese before he hopped in the shower.

Emma woke up and the buzzer was going off. She looked around disoriented and headed down signing for the food. She popped some of the painkillers the doctor gave her and cleaned the cut.

Killian came out in his sweats and plated dinner up. She told him what she did, and he smiled.

“I’ve never put anyone else as an emergency contact besides August. It’s a big deal, and don’t tell him” she warned and he laughed.

Killian told her about August’s financial game, and she smiled.

“Babe, you don’t have to do that. I have enough if we want the house” she said.

He nodded, “well how about the car. Still a go?” He asked and she nodded. “Have you thought about what you want to do yet?” He asked.

Emma shook her head, “a break. Oh! I got the Vermont house booked for next month too” she said and he smiled nodding as she told him all the little details.

They curled up on the couches, and he decided to bring up those pesky thoughts. “Swan?”

“Hmm”

“Do you want kids someday?” He asked.

Emma’s mouth went dry. Not sure what he was meaning. “Like kids, plural?” She asked.

“Aye,” he said back amused.

“I’ve considered it, if it were the right time, right person…” she said.

She looked up at him, eyes searching his. “Do you?”

Killian nodded at her “Someday I do, very much,” he said.

“Ok,” she said smiling, and he kissed her hair and pictured a tiny blonde girl with blue-green eyes, a pregnant Emma, a family. He was really happy he called Marco.

Killian heard the door buzz and went down to the door. An amazon truck was there and the guy handed him his TV. He thanked him and headed upstairs, and Emma was already in bed.

“What is that?” She asked, her eyes widening at the sight of the box.

“A TV for in here,” he said tilting the box.

Emma laughed, “as if we need another reason to not leave our bed” she giggled. He winked at her and proceeded to unpack the TV, setting it up on the dresser for now, and sat on the edge of the bed setting the remote up. He finally crawled under the covers and Emma was sound asleep.

He smiled, turned on a movie on low, and set the timer. He fell asleep thinking about blonde-haired babies and Emma in a white dress.

@sailtoafarawayland @omgmarvelous

@holdingoutforapiratehero  @hookedmom @xsajx @kymbersmith-90 @kmomof4 @katie-dub @ohmightydevviepuu @lassluna @pirateherokillian @teamhook @stahlop @elizabeethan @whimsicallyenchantedrose @resident-of-storybrooke @therooksshiningknight @jennjenn615 @lfh1226-linda @ilovemesomekillianjones @killianswannn @stories-enchanted @eleveneitherway @girl-in-a-tiny-box @withheartfulloflove @kday426 @lyssapup27 @swanlovato @kaoslikesstuff @djlbg @kristi555 @laschatzi @xarandomdreamx @lkles08 @wyntereyez @bubblegum1425 @xhookswenchx @yasbio2015 @tiganasummertree @winterbaby89 @wefoundloveunderthelight @hollyethecurious @let-it-raines @jonesfandomfanatic @searchingwardrobes @dreamingdreamsalways @oncechicagolove @andiirivera @vvbooklady1256 @gingerchangeling @everything-person @klynn-stormz @qualitycoffeethings @vampcoffeegyrl23 @enchanted-swans @cassy1511 @ohmakemeahercules @donteattheappleshook @bluewildcatfanatic @the-darkdragonfly @demisexualemmaswan @lavenderbudd @grimmswan @spartanguard @flslp87 @ultraluckycatnd @sarahpaq08 @thisonesatellite @captainswan21 @zaharadessert @mariakov81 @snowbellewells @xouatxcs @kiwistreetswan @batana54 @nadine200179 @probalicious17 @courtorderedcake @julesep3026 @jackieorioncat @whatthehell102082 @xemmaloveskillianx @jarienn972 @sthonour @linda8084 @carpedzem @pirateprincesslena @daxx04 @winterbythesea @artistic-writer @scientificapricot @cocohook38 @wisfan3000 @chrisilybrooke @pcrcabcth @captainswan4life85 @molly958 @kingofmyheart14 @badwolfreturns @itsfridaysomewhere  @fallingforthecaptain @lovethelifeyoulive1106 @onceratheart18 @strangestarlighttree @omgmarvelous @justanother-unluckysoul @anothersworld @purplehawkcaptain @jennjenn615 @sailtoafarawayland @superchocovian @hookedonkillianforlife87 

[spacegaywritings]

Communication of Silence - Chapter 10

Sorry for the late update. The next chap is safe but the one after might have a delay. I will update you. The current situation is causing me a lot of work and issues, so it is struggle time.

Everyone be safe and treat yourself and others with kindness♥

ao3 link! story under the cut.

  The door leaned into its frame and lazily stuck around.

 Dee leaned down to give Virgil’s forehead one last kiss.

 “Be safe. Drive, like, slow or whatever... d-don’t get hurt, okay?”

 She laughed.

She was even more beautiful whenever she laughed.

 “I will be safe and sound. And you will be too. You will go to therapy tomorrow or on Tuesday - otherwise I will cancel.”

 Virgil commented with a scoff and significant eyeroll.

 “Who are you? My sibling?”

 Dee’s deer brown eyes gained another layer of depth and the emo could not help but sigh in defeat. He could feel her

 “Good night, my love. Take care of Patton.”

 Virgil stepped back to support the door in being so close to home and so far from the beauty leaving their proximity.

 “Good night, Dee. Love you. I know.. I will.”

 She smiled at him and disappeared down the staircase, hat covering her head and coat making sure that not too much of her handsome self would be unleashed onto this world all at once.

  He went back inside and told Patton goodnight.

Just thinking about the ginger made Virgil hurt inside.

 This while weekend had been a whole mess of ups and downs.

 Not eating again, passing out on physical exercise and seeing his precious rat and older sibling again.

And having Dee meet the others just felt like the weirdest blur ever.

All in all, it felt.. not that bad.

Well, that was for hid diary to decide.

 He just had to sit down and list all the happy things he had done today and how much he liked. His pages would soak it up and he could make a recap of the week.

 In a few days, he would be old enough to drink alcohol, legally.

It was wild.

Just last year, his life was in shatters and he had tried putting it back together and now he was in a rather stable home and he had a person who respected him and family and friends and even a place where he could study.

 Life really did get better.. somehow..

That was nice to know.

 He smiled when he got back into his and Logan’s shared room.

 “That was certainly something, today”

 Logan greeted him with a voice, more neutral than Switzerland. Even his face looked absolutely untouched, for a sculptor to be sculpted.

The emo cleared his throat and trotted over to his mattress, losing more and more clothing as he progressed.

He was comfortable with taking his jacket off around Logan - or his hoodie in that case.

 The hoodie landed on the mattress first and Virgil groaned as he simply threw himself onto the mattress, shirt coming off and pants half-way following as he lazily wiggled around.

His legs’ movement slowly died down and he commented on it with yet another groan.

 “If you mean something, as in a fuckton of bullshit and feelings, then yeah - you are right.”

 His words came out like spit. It was sudden, forceful and in front of a certain amount of emotions.

A sigh escaped his lips and Logan turned to him, glancing over his roommate’s laying form.

 There was something about Virgil in only shorts.

Logan could see colourful as much as black ink .

 When Virgil drew his hand through his hair, he blinked.

 “Another tattoo? I did not see this one before.”

 The emo curled up and pulled at the clothed he had just shed, forming a little pile of them.

 “Yeah, uh... I ..um”, he started but broke off.

The words were too stubborn to work for him so he simply swung his body back into a sitting position and let his right arm stretch over the edge of Logan’s bed.

 “There you go. If you wanted to see it. I got it this weekend so you could not have seen it before..”, he trailed off and looked at Logan who was adjusting his chair to face Virgil’s body.

He could look at the other without twisting his back in any awkward way, now.

 He could see an arrow, several symbols and words connected by strings and colours.

It mostly looked monochromatic but the emphasis was made with certain accents of different shades of colour from the rainbow.

Enticing.

Logan did enjoy examining tattoos. He found the patterns to be calming and it was fascinating to see what kind of decoration people paid to embed in their skin.

 The meanings.. oh, they were also a good point - considering someone had a deeper motivation behind getting certain motifs.

 “May I ask what this.. foil is?”

 Indeed, as Logan pointed it out, there was some sort of invisible foil strapped over the new design.

 “Ah, yeah. They give you that as protection for the tattoo. It is so the open wound created can, like, heal up without anything getting into it. Others might just instruct you to put some stuff onto it every time the skin is dry. Like, they give you special tattoo lotion that is sort of anti-bacterial or whatever. But with this weird foil uh.. or whatever you wanna call it, you just leave it on and then moisturise three times a day. You keep it on for.. two weeks, I think. Yeah, I think it was one or two. “

 Virgil blinked.

 “I forgot but I put a reminder in my phone so I will not miss it. I just keep forgetting these kidna things, every now and then.”

 He shrugged.

 Logan nodded.

 The invisible patch reminded him of water-proof band-aids. Considering the looks of it, they probably served as something like this.

He had never known about any of these techniques.

 Virgil smiled at the nerd.

His lips hung a bit low despite being curled like a melon slice.

 “Why did you .. I mean, why do you get all these tattoos? Do they mean anything to you or is it just for the aesthetics?”

 The other snorted and leaned back onto his bed.

 “You are funny Logan. You really are.”

 His voice seemed to purr and his words were dancing into Logan’s ears. Sounds were swinging and the fierce smile of his friend was sensually sprawling over the elder student’s vision.

  He cleared his throat.

 “Anyway, this is some kinda sibling bullshit thing. I have been meaning to do that for a while already and finally got to it.”

 Virgil looked down at his arm and played with his dirty laundry.

Just... pushing at his hoodie.

Hey, that one was actually good to wear again at least one or two more times. Hoodies were so hard on catching smells that he loved them even more.

They were the kind of low maintenance clothing he needed in his life.

 “I only recently finished the sketch for it so my sibling went ahead and got it this weekend. I got it the day after so we could go and be there for one another..”, he licked his lips, “you know, sibling shit and all. I kinda fell asleep when I got mine. The vibrations are sort of relaxing and the sound is soothing.”

 Logan chuckled.

 “I never heard of that.”

 The other got up and put on his hoodie again, no shirt for underneath. His boxers got changed and he put his dirty laundry into the nearby basket.

 “Hey Virgil?”

 A hum could be heard.

 The man was fishing inside of his sleepover bag and eventually got out a book.

 “Do you sleep enough?”

 The words fell onto the ground like a judge’s gavel hitting the desk.

 “uh... where did that come from?”

 He laid down but made sure to glance over at Logan.

All he could see was his back since the other was sitting at his desk, writing away as if he was not just starting up some conversation between them with this particularly hot topic.

 “Where did that evasion come from?”

 Oof.

Gotcha.

 “I swear to the stars, Logan, you are a treat.”

 Virgil chuckled and the IT student put his pen aside.

 “You are awake, no matter when I wake up. You fall asleep in weird places, at odd times. I saw you doze off at work - now even at a tattoo parlor when enduring pain? You stated looking paler and more stressed these days and even your eye rings appear to be much darker than I observed before. Therefore, I concluded you might lack sleep.”

 Virgil scoffed at him but did not dare deny his words.

It was true.. not that it was that hard to make out just how sleep-deprived he was but Logan really hit the nail.

 “However, you seem more refreshed when you visited your friends or your sibling. I assume you sleep together?”

 Virgil started scribbling into his stupid diary update therapy shit book thing.

Nerdy, yeah..

Still, it kinda helped him so he did not complain. He actually kinda dug the book and enjoyed writing into it.

 It was empowering to see the good happening in his life or just writing down some shit he felt bad about so he could find out how and why he was more anxious in certain times.

 He hummed.

 “I uh.. don’t take it personal but.. I just can’t relax here. I .. I am.. It is not because of you.”

 Fuck, he sounded like some cliche guy breaking up with someone.

 “Uh, I mean.. This is my problem. I am just stupidly anxio- I mean.. I am anxious a lot and it is hard to sleep and shit but it is okay.”

 He bit his lips.

...self-deprecation was high again.. He put a 6 on his one to ten scale.

 “It happens or whatever. It is not like I am the only person to ever have sleeping problems or whatever.”

 His shoulders shrugged.

 Meanwhile, Logan noted down Virgil’s response.

 “Fellow lover of Bunny Smashskull, would you fancy sleeping in the bed with me?”

  Virgil’s mind stopped for a moment.

Tha..there was more than a bit of information packed into this short sentence.

He.. uh..

 “I- what?”

 He blinked and Logan opened his mouth again to start speaking but Virgil rose his hand, eyes hardening.

 “What do you mean with that sleep thing?”

 His whole body seemed to resemble a cat arching its back. If he had a tail, it would be all fluffy and big, every hair on his body would probably stand up like crazy.

Logan’s brows furrowed together.

He had expected his friend to reacted with a bit more confusion and less... whatever this was. But his words suggested that if Logan did not take careful steps, he would make his friend leave.

 He already sounded as if he was halfway out of the door.

Virgil had a place he had never mentioned before... now that he thought about it, it felt as if he had stopped talking about himself at all ever since he had moved in. Safe for some moments, they had barely talked at all because he was just staying away a lot.

 Was Virgil avoiding him?

 “Virgil, not sleeping is very unhealthy and while I am not your caretaker, I am your friend. As a friend I am expressing my concern for your health as a lack of can increase the risk of many diseases and illnesses to break out - mental and physical ones alike. I noticed you falling asleep with me on the couch despite the amount of people around us, so I suspected that bodily warmth next to you might be beneficial for your sleeping cycle.”

 The emo looked at the nerd, his shoulders immediately dropping to a regular position. The cat fur was smooth and nice again.

He looked so small and tired.

Not once have the dark circles looked as miserable as during this moment.

 “You are.. worried?”

 The words came out in a rather silent whisper. The short sentence was once step before the other in a house with loud and squeaky wood planks when you were awake at night and needed a snack but did not want to wake up your relatives.

The emphasis on the last word made Logan question whether Virgil doubted him that much or rather his own worth.

 Both sounded bad.

 “Of course I am worried. Again, I am your friend and I want you to be well - as much as you can be. If sleeping together in a bed is out of your comfort zone, I would agree to you letting your friends sleep over if you keep it to a reasonable volume.”

 Virgil’s eyes blinked rapidly.

Logan fucking hated people in his space. When Patton as much as nudged the open door further open, the student of computer sciences would get all cranky.

Well, okay maybe he did not hate people but he did value his personal space and he took it very serious.

 Once Roman wanted to put his part of the laundry into Logan’s room and loudly announced at as he did so and Logan immediately rushed over and gave the other a more than hefty talk on respecting his boundaries, commenting on how he could have just dropped it in front of his room’s door.

He had said much more than that and Roman had eventually backed away and muttered something under his breath.

 Those things made Virgil wonder how and why Logan of all people lived with a person such as Roman but...

His face turned sour again and his chest hurt.

 He let out a whine but quickly formed it into a groan.

 “Ugh, whatever. We can sleep together and test your hypotheses or whatever, nerd. If that lets you leave me alone”

 His lips pulled into the top corner of one side.

Logan knew he did that in instances when Virgil did not feel upset at all. It was more an action of deliberation or rather uplifting feelings.

He needed to observe it further but he had found a connection between Virgil’s feelings and his lips pulling into a downward curve.

 “You would help me with my science project?”

 The words tickled Virgil’s nose and he had to smile away the weird feeling in his stomach.

 “Yeah, because we are friends and shit. Like, I care about you and stuff. But just because I had fucking biscuits and they gave me a really good mood.”

 Logan snickered and turned his attention back to his writing for a bit. It did not last for too long despite Virgil continuing his scribbles and whatnot himself. Eventually, the smaller student put his pen aside and closed his notebook.

 “Wait a moment. You fucking know Bunny Smashskull? I am awake, this is not a dream and you asked me about the band, right?”

 He sat up properly and put his notebook aside.

For now, his thoughts were too wild to focus again. His fight or flight reflexes had taken over too much of his logical reasoning once more.

 Logan was still writing, from as much as Virgil could judge.

Really, he could just see his back so there was not too much telling but his arm seemed to flinch a bit every now and then.

 “Log you fucking nerd, answer the question -”

 A smug smile stole itself onto his lips and he got up from his mattress to sit on the one-time-their bed. His notebook was cradled in his lap, just in case.

 The roommate shrugged.

 “So what if I did?”

 Virgil inhaled audibly.

 “Shut up, you do not - “, he started but paused mid-sentence, words stuck in his mind as he realised what he had said and heard so far. His voice dropped from a grand revelation in announcement volume to a low one in the regular fashion of discussing a secret between thieves.

“Holy shit, you do!”

 Logan back flexed but he did not speak.

Instead, he kept writing slowly, neatly for a bit longer.

 Virgil was tempted to walk over and look at his notes.. or to just put his hands on his shoulders and annoy him a bit but he did not know what Logan was writing.

He did not really want to know, really. Curiosity wanted to know for the sake of finding out whatever he did not know.

 “Log, fucking talk to me and talk to my face, you hear me? This is wild! I never took you for the type to rock it.”

 The nerd slowly turned around.

 “You never took me for the type? Very well, I was aware of my ability to hide away my interests but I did not expect myself to be that good.”

 He was tugging at his shirt as if to adjust a bowtie or a necktie. Something fancy and serious like the stuff people in suit would wear.

Come to think of it, Dee did this every now and then.

 Virgil leaned in.

It was time to bond and shit.

 “Your secret is safe with me, log. I promise.”

 Virgil shifted on the bed and patted a spot next to him.

 His friend took the hint and put his notebooks (multiple notebooks, alright, nerdy nerd) to their respective places.

And Logan damn made sure to took his sweet sweet time with it.

 “What’s your favourite song?”, he whisper-screamed to his friend.

 Their shoulders were touching and Virgil felt fuzzy in his mind.

He giggled.

This felt like a silly sleepover already and it seemed funny to him.

 Logan smiled and pulled his phone out.

 “My favourite songs is “Laws and bones break better than hearts” but I am biased”, he tapped a few icons on his phone and handed it over to Virgil for him to see a younger version of Logan.

 The younger one was still absurdly tall, still smaller than Patton - younger Patton - who was next to him. They were wearing black shirts with the band logo in front of it.

A crowd of people was behind them and Logan’s cheeks were red from heat and sweat but he was smiling and he looked breathless.

 Breathtaking, even.

 “You are biased because you went to a concert, you fucking traitor!”, Virgil exclaimed and nudged Logan’s side, “Can I swipe?”

 Logan agreed and he continued to go through the collection of pictures.

Hair disheveled and shirt too big, he was pressed against Patton and smiling into the camera.

 He barely got to see Logan so off-guard but it was.. refreshing.

It was much nicer than seeing him wear ties at work and keep going through flashcards before lessons so he could make a better impression or whatever.

 He barely knew Logan’s lips could do something as ambitious as smile so brightly.

 “You look really happy, Log..”

 He had reached the end of pictures.

It was Logan just hugging Patton close.

 “I got the tickets back there”, he explained as he took his phone back, “Patton knows nothing about any bands I like nor does he understand how I enjoy this sort of music. He just went ahead and asked random online strangers about which bands to recommend because he wanted to make my 18th birthday really special.”

 Logan’s lips formed the same alluring smile.

It was softer than feathers and lighter than wings.

He really seemed like a divine creature with his face smiling like that.

 “Looks like he got that right. I am in groups a lot and it is not that uncommon for people to ask for advice on new songs and artists but seeing a completely clueless person just join for a friend? That is wild. But it does sound like a thing Patton would do.”

 Virgil leaned back, his arms crossing behind the back of his head. He folded his hands over one another in his neck.

 “You giants are too friendly. Can’t relate.”

 His smirk was teasing.

 Logan got up and got the shirt.

 “I will sleep in this. I want to sleep in it.”

 Virgil chuckled.

 “You’re the boss, Log. I am not gonna fight you over a night shirt.”

 The nerd changed into his band merchandise and Virgil moved over to lay on his side and finish his journaling thing.

 “Diary?”

 He shook his head.

 The bed dipped next to him and the blanket started moving.

Virgil grunted back at the movement but a few more tugs had him move over so the blanket could be on top of them rather than on the bed only.

 “Journal thing for therapy. Sucks but it is also kinda helpful so I am trying to stick to it ‘n all.”

 He shrugged.

 “My favourite song is “poison”, by the way. Fucking underrated.”

 Logan laid down next to him and put his glasses aside.

 “It is a good song indeed”

 Virgil hummed.

 “ m done”

 He dropped pen and book onto his mattress.

 “uh.. let us try this.. this sleep thingy and all. Can’t go wrong, right?”

 His shoulders shrugged and he slid under the blanket with his friend. The smaller figure felt like a plank himself.

Virgil flinched and got up as soon as his whole body was in a sleeping position.

 “Fuck!”, he hissed and toppled after his notebook, “the light. Log, we are fucking stupid in the chilis tonight.”

 Logan huffed.

 “It is too late for memes, Virgil.”

 Virgil walked around to shut the light and slowly stumbled back to bed.

 “You can pull memes from my cold, dead hands, pocket protector. It is always meme time but night time is even more intense meme time.”

 “But to be fair, at least because of me you know that this is a meme”

 The blanket rustled from Logan’s body vibrating in his quiet chuckles.

 “You sending me confusing pictures and sentences during working hours is not educational.”

 Virgil settled in bed and curled up.

 “But I might have learned from it anyway, Virg.”

 It was his turn to chuckle and the emo made sure to get comfortable with his pillow from the mattress quickly being moved up to assist him.

And his blanket.

He still shared the blanket Logan was using but the more blanket, the better. Sleepy time was the perfect time to be warm and comfortable after all.

 They laid still for a bit. It was quiet and sleepy.

Outside, Roman could be heard. He was talking, probably to Patton but it was too far away to make out any words at all.

It was just Roman-ish noises.

 Roman was probably offended about something at work and needed to harass Patton about it even though that man was busy too and had worries too. Oh dear fuck, he really did.

Virgil wanted to just walk out and pull Patton into the happy slumber bed with him and Logan instead of letting him subject himself to Roman’s offended princey noises.

 Ugh...

But it was like nine in the evening and Patton would work on his study stuff before actually going to sleep. And Roman would just fuss around.

...It was already special enough Logan allowed Virgil to sleep in his bed after all they had talked about, after all he had been through.

 For some reason, he felt a bit ashamed to be in the same bed with him, to intrude so much but he quickly banished the thought.

Logan did not force himself to let Virgil into his bed. He had asked him and he was being upright about it and had napped with him before, on the same day even so.

 “Virgil?”

 The emo shifted a bit, his movements intentionally slow and uncoordinated.

He might not have been the best actor in the world but he knew how to pretend being asleep or waking up jut then and there. Years of training had taught him well.

Sometimes, experience was a much better teacher than getting a license and some degree.

 “mhm..?”

 His sounds were haphazard and sounded just silent, muffled and hidden enough to mimic the innocence of a person who was slowly detaching from the promising and sweet dreams of their mighty sleep.

 “Do you hate it here?”

 Virgil shifted more to the edge.

If he had to leap, he would.

 “What do you mean? I thought you wanted to sleep, not start a conversation.”

 He heard someone clear his throat.

Outside of their room, Roman was laughing and Virgil flinched.

A shiver ran down his spine. He pressed his eyes closed and held onto his sleeves.

 “You are not sleeping, let me talk to you.”

 He sat up and put on the lamp on the nearby nightstand.

Only Logan was enough of a person to have a night light with fancy nice light that did not hurt the tired eyes too much.

Coloured light was the only valid thing to ever exist for waking one up in the middle of the night.

 Virgil scoffed but followed his friend’s lead to sit up and whatnot.

Leaning against the wall behind him, he rubbed his eyes.

 “ugh, whatever”, he mumbled and tugged the blanket closer around him. Even then, he did not stop tugging and nudging the ends of it with his fidgety fingers, “what do you want, Log?”

 He sounded as if on trial for murdering a man and his hands were still pushing the murder weapon from one bloodied hand to the other.

 Logan meekly watched him, without glasses and only a bare minimum of light, it was difficult to make out what Virgil was doing or what he looked like.

 “Okay, okay. You go give me the talk, teach. What did I do?”

 The smaller student’s hand was hanging low and his fingers were fidgeting still as they resided in his lap.

Logan swallowed dry before he decided to answer.

 “You did not do anything, Virgil, please do not take my worries or my curiosity as offence. I was just wondering why you were so uncomfortable here.”

 The words easily made their way out of Logan’s mouth but for Virgil, they were less like releasing feathers to the wind and just watching them flow. It was pushing the big and heavy rock up the hill instead of Sisyphus and the chore was bound to never stop.

The shivers gave him goosebumps so bad he pulled his knees to his chest to preserve body warmth.

 “Who said I am?”

 Virgil was the still holding onto the metaphorical knife but it was so much easier to keep telling himself it was not him as he nodded his head as if to shake off the truth.

If he just denied the reality hard enough, maybe he could do it.

 “Virgil, please. It is obvious. Do you want me to point out every moment you made it clear you dislike being here? Only today you gave me so many pieces of evidence.”

 The friend exhaled.

His breath was a bit rocky.

Logan’s words truly had a punching effect on him.

 “If I say it, will you let me promise me to let it go and just move on already?”

 Virgil glared at him, eyes barely focusing on the man before him.

Even with the near-complete darkness they were in, Virgil could see Logan through his heavy bangs shielding his vulnerable face from the knowledgeable judge that was his nerdy friend.

 “If you are saying the truth, I might.”

 He scoffed.

 “I fucking hate you.”

His words sounded less bitter, more desperate and weak. Almost like a plead.

They were asking him not to press further on it.

 “It is him. Now good-fucking-night, Logan.”

 With that, Virgil turned around and plugged in earbuds so he could listen to something that was not Logan.

 The nerd gave up and fulfilled his side of the promise.

 It was not as if he had not expected that answer.

...He just had not expected Virgil to get so upset over it..

 The IT student called it and shut the lamp.

Despite the warmth in the bed and another person in it, he felt horribly lonely.

  It took him ages to fall asleep.

 Figuratively.

[etirabys]

// do not reblog request. If replies, prefer to be emailed (etirabys at gmail) or discorded (etirabys#8458), with same lack of commitment to responding on my part as I exhibit on tumblr.

// high blogging. I tend to Scheme when I’m stoned, and I usually have a ‘no grand scheming on drugs’ rule because it’s a waste of time that comes to nothing (Scheming by outlining the structure of a novel, Scheming to have an unrealistic exercise routine, Scheming to change my personality, etc). Scheming to implement a complex proposed technology is still pretty... low expected value, let’s say... but this was sociologically interesting enough to me that I am releasing it. Expected typo rate high, sorry. Some lucidity thrown out.

Description of a concept sketch of a software tool/digital prosthetic

An app that is for “I am available to hang”, where you set the people you’d like to give ‘I’m free now’ information access to when you want to be hangouty. Like reciprocity dot io, except with lower-key pings (if at all – maybe just a quietly updating list of irl-available people that you manually check)

My use case for it would be to designate a group with all my housemates in it (if they have accounts), who are the people I want to give ‘I am social right now, in these ways’ informations – I might have subgroups like ‘the housemates I drink alcohol or smoke weed with’, or ‘housemates I like to do productivity with’, or ‘housemates I like to have serious personal conversations with’, whom I notify differently. And if they’re marked as free and I’m marked as free, and there is a non-null intersection set of ‘willingness to do [specific social activity type]”, we both have something in the corner of our streams (this could be a dialogue that takes up 1/10 of your phone screen as a horizonal row) that indicates a list of friends & distance & their availability settings.

Upon seeing that my housemate-I-have-occasional-nice-interactions-with is reading and would like silent company (a category of hangout I would have marked myself as interested in) in reading, I would like to ping them to request joining, and if they accept with a location, go to that location (or have them come to me).

If I think I am in the house alone but want company, I may scan the app to see if any housemates have set themselves as ‘in the house, and up for social’, and then ask them where they are, whether I can join them.

Zoom out. This can work on a neighborhood scale, with enough buy-in from a local social cluster. If you just had an upsetting interaction but aren’t sure of who’s irl available to talk through it with, you can see who’s up for ‘intense conversation’, scan for anyone you trust and think would help you process the interaction and be less hurt. Your options would be better than just picking a random housemate, passerby, or person who happens to be online in the same group chat you pick without much consideration to blarb thoughts into.

If used widely, designed optimally (to really connect people)

Since it’s an interaction starter (with physical interaction as the thing it’s trying to facilitate) and not a platform/tracker (users should own their chat logs, keeping its in local storage, that they can back up however they choose), it seems like it would do the ‘connect people and strengthen relationships’ thing on a real level without having other bad features of social media apps. Maybe?

Zoom out. With phone and videochat and AR and VR, you can do hangouts internationally. It’s not as good an experience as real life, but it’s pretty good. Suddenly, you can – just as you can with your irl local friends – set your ‘open to hang’ settings to be visible to everyone in the world who’s set one of their top five interests to fungi. Or someone who recorded that they’ve ‘gone to this {concert / book reading / tech talk} that you’ve also attended, and you can try to invite them to a quick chat (if in the same language, or an easily machine-translated one) to just chatter about the recent shared experience. What do you think about the economic feasibility of the product in this space demo? Wasn’t that joke by Frans de Waal amazing? Do you want to go to the next _ concert together in person? More friendship pings flying around the globe.

Zoom out, not spatially, but in ambition. Can people be matched in ways that increase total social goodness?

“Do you agree activate this optional feature, which will get access your communications and pass it to be machine-processed to generate a list of potential contacts who will be in your ‘people whose availability I’ve followed’ view, i.e. the main view? You do not need to talk to them, but they will not be marked as an advertisement either. They will just be in the list, they will look like reasonable selections that you actually want to check out, there is no cost or reward delta between interacting with them and the non-machine-recommended matches and friends.”

If X says yes, start matching them with people that are only chosen for their ‘likely will improve the life of X without decrease in own life happiness (by  more than a minor amount)’-ness. Have a data gathering period on X. Get a profile of how they react to various people of various qualities. Those people themselves have a profile, from the same process recursed.

Some good things we could do.

- Discourage violent tendencies.

- Try to decrease tendency of common, unhappy conditions like anxiety and depression by introducing people to each other who can improve each others’ lives.

- Match abuse victims with people the system is highly confident are low on the abusiveness scale.

- Match lonely bright awkward kids with high-likelihood-benevolent adults who used to be lonely bright awkward kids

- Introduce high-likelihood-open-minded people of different cultures and increase racial/cultural harmony – not in a creepy volition-manipulating way, but in a ‘bring people together who will like each other, that happens to increase the national amount of mutual seeing-each-other-as-human’ way. Yes! I want social tech to help us make more interracial and intercultural friends!

Bad things we could do:

- Obvious bad state stuff. But unless the bad state is forcing everyone to depend highly on the Human Finder digital social tech (which would really run against the grain/inclination of human boding patterns, which for most people are fundamentally irl-based), people can just stop using an app that’s clearly trying to manipulate their behavior to become more aggressive or sheeplike or submissive or depressed. Which is an asymmetric outcome from the good use case: if the app actually improves people’s lives, they’ll freely use it and continue to be affected by it.

[acm320jewelracasablog]

Week 5: Good Morning, I Haven’t Slept Yet and It’s 8:44am on a Friday :D

Hi Brittany (and whoever else reads my blogs)! This was very tiring and I am very much lacking a lot a sleep since this week was the week where everything decided to be due. I will sleep after I finish this blog post lol (I’m sorry if there’s a lot of typos or bad grammar in this post, I am very tired)

Casting Call & Auditions

This past weekend I held auditions for my two main characters, Apolaki & Mayari. Everyone was really nice and very talented. I haven’t had time to review the recordings just yet but I think I know who we will be casted already. Some of the auditioners also gave me feedback on some of my dialogue which is AMAZING especially since English is my first language and I’m still very new to learning Tagalog (well not new, new since I took 2 years of Filipino language in college lol). Hopefully I can review the recordings soon but yeah, I think auditions went well and I experienced new things which is always great (except if its a bad lol). 

Production Schedule

I will keep this short. I literally just finished redoing my entire animatic so I have not touched the production schedule at all. (Sorry Brittany! I’ll work on it when I can!) 

Script

After receiving some more feedback on my script after the auditions, I went back and revised it. A lot of the edits were either to take out as much as I can in order to shorten my script or it was dialogue changes to hopefully match more modern Tagalog, since my 2nd pass of my script had more old school or deeper Tagalog. My dad helped with the 2nd pass. My mom helped me translate for my 3rd pass of the script. I do miss my original opening scene but that’d just mean a lot more work so goodbye opening scene, you will be missed dearly. Uh.......I’m tired and I forgot if I had anything else to say about my script so here’s the 3rd pass of it

Araw at Gabi: English Script / Tagalog Script

Visual Development

Last week I showed the rough sketches of the turnarounds for Mayari & Apolaki. This week I was able to finish them, which is nice. I really do think I like this updated design a lot better. Sadly, I didn’t get around to working on environments but oh well, sacrifices must be made lol I mainly tried to simplify the shape design as much as I could. As for color, I tried my best to keep to keep the texture and painterly style since I really liked that about the original designs. Anyways, here’s the finished character turnarounds. 

Animatic

My script isn’t the only thing that went through many changes. I almost entirely redid my animatic form the bottom up. If you compare my 1st pass to my new 2nd pass of the animatic, it’s completely different, yet the same story. I made sure to look through all the notes I took from when I was getting feedback from as many people as I could. I think this pass is definitely a lot better especially the fight scene (thanks for the help Jared!). I think my film is now a lot more visually interesting and I think we get a lot more of the character’s personalities and relationship with each other. With this new pass, I decided to really focus more on the relationship between these two siblings, and not just focus on the overall mythology they derived from. This pass could still use a lot of tweaking especially since I did this all last night (sorry, again) so it’s not quite perfect, just yet.

I know this week we were supposed to deliver an animatic with sound, but I had to do sound at 7am this morning. People are sleeping and recording at 7am is not fun. (Not judging anyone who does find that fun) Anyways, I just recorded the google translate lady saying the lines. Yes, I understand that both characters having the same voice is confusing. Luckily, my subtitles mention who is talking, and you can tell visually anyways lol. The audio is in Tagalog and the subtitles are in English. I was too tired to look for sound effects (sorry again for the 4th time).

Araw at Gabi: Animatic 2nd Pass

It is now 9:26am as I’m typing this. After this is posted I will shut down my laptop and sleep until it’s class time. Goodbye! :]

[claitynroberts]

Chapter 1: How We First Met

About: This series is a retelling of the Persephone & Hades myth set in the present day southern United States. In an attempt to make her last days more bearable, 23 year old Magnolia makes a deal with the lord of the Underworld himself. Both the young mortal and the ruler of the dead learn new things about themselves.

Author’s Note: I have used several different versions of the Persephone myth to come up with this particular story. It will be broken down into several parts/chapters. if you like it please let me know! This is my first piece of writing I have ever posted on here so please bear with me, and send my any constructive criticisms. :)

Warnings: Nothing just yet, will update as I go!

Word Count: 2,666

Liam

This isn’t something I normally do, but something about this particular offer caught my attention. To be honest, I haven’t even made a deal in over one hundred fifty years. Usually I let one of my many underlings take care of that department while I oversee the day-to-day business that keeps our world running. But this day, this day was far from usual.

“Hey, Boss. We’ve got someone on the line wanting to make a transaction.”

“Morgan,” I said exasperatedly without looking up from the paperwork on my desk, “have you suddenly forgotten how to do the very simple task that is your job?”

“No, sir… It’s just that this young woman is asking for you…personally.”

“You know I don’t make deals, that is why you are in charge of your department. You have legions of crossroads demons under your authority, surely someone is capable of handling this girl.”

“But, sir, with all due res-.”

“NO,” I bellowed, looking up from the paperwork. “I have not made a deal since the War of Northern Aggression. That is why poor Honest Abe is currently in Tartarus being barbecued like a rack of ribs after church on Sunday. Handle this. If I have to go up there I will put you on the rack myself and barbecue your hide until it falls off what is left of your scrawny a-,”

“Why? Why did I do this? Magnolia Jane, your parents are going to be so disappointed…”

I looked up to the screen hanging on the far side of my office. On the TV stood a tall, curvy girl of twenty-something. She was dressed in what looked to be her pajamas, as scant as they were, and shivering beneath her thin robe. Her raven hair was shining in the full moonlight and it hung loose down to the middle of her back. She was pacing around in her house slippers talking to herself and waving her hands animatedly. When she turned around, I nearly forgot how to breathe she was so beautiful. Her eyes were balanced precariously on the edge of being the deep blue-grey of storm clouds before it rains and the dull silver of a favorite ring; and were set perfectly symmetrically to her slender nose and full lips.

“Sir,” Morgan tried gently, “do you think you may reconsider?”

I shot Morgan a scowl. “Fine. I’ll go.”

“Excellent,” he said with a glint in his eye, “She’s waiting.”

Magnolia

I don’t normally do things like this. I mean, I was raised in a God-fearing household in good ole Dixie. Summoning demons is not in my wheelhouse of skills. It is twelve-o-one a.m. and I am standing in the intersection of two county roads about a mile and a half from my family’s farmhouse.

I know you’re probably wondering how a barely twenty-three-year-old woman from south Alabama could possibly know how to summon a demon. Well living in the south comes with its own superstitions, however when you’re this close to the swamp you can get a little dose of black magic if you know where to look. Long story short, I know a guy who knows a guy.

I have been standing in the middle of this crossroads for an hour now and have gone from disappointed, to angry with myself, to double checking the ritual and drawings, all the way back full circle to disappointed. After deciding I did everything right, I was beginning to accept the fact that my last hope failed me; I turned around dejected and prepared myself for the hike back to my house. Hopefully, sneaking back in wouldn’t wake my parents up.

“Going somewhere dear?” The hair on the back of my neck stood on end and goose bumps covered my body. I slowly turned around to see a tall, gaunt man standing in the middle of my dust drawing. “You know it really is quite rude to invite a guest over and leave before they arrive.”

“I-I-I’m sorry sir, but…wh-who are you,” I stammered, my mouth opening and closing repeatedly, which I’m sure made me look like a fish.

“Well my dear, you may call me Morgan,” he replied coolly and sketched a stiff bow, “pardon my tardiness but my previous business arrangement ran a little longer than expected.” His eyes glinted hardly in the full-moonlight and his greasy combed back hair looked like an oil slick.

“Oh…well… I would like to make a deal.” I attempted to straighten up to my full height and inject a smidge of confidence into my voice.

The stranger smirked and raised his bushy gray eyebrow. “Yes, I assumed so. What will it be, eh? You want to be rich?” He began pacing his circle, eyeing me the whole time and reading my face with his near repulsive stare. “No, no, that’s not it. Too unoriginal. You want true love?” He looked me over again. “No, that’s not it either. Hmmm…” he pondered, his long bony finger tapping against his pointed chin. “What could a young, beautiful woman like you want? Please don’t say immortality because that one is out of the question. I could possibly do youth but it runs at a pretty high price. Anyway, whatever it is please make it an original request. You don’t know how many of these I have to handle; the monotony can really get to you.”

“A friend.” I blurted out. I’m not sure what made me answer so quickly, but I know I wanted to get this done and over with A-S-A-P.

Taken aback he looked at me for a moment. “A friend? That’s it?”

“Yes,” I said trying not to look as terrified as I felt.

“Why on earth would you want to make a deal for a friend?” He seemed to snarl the last word with disdain and mockery. “I figured a beautiful woman like you would have more friends than one can count.” There was definitely a mocking tone in his voice that time.

“No…I don’t.”

“What would you give me in return? Magic isn’t free you know.”

“What is the normal going rate,” I asked curious, my voice only barley wavering this time.

“Well it usually works like this. People summon me, or one of my associates, then we ask them what they want. Riches, love, cures for illnesses, etcetera,” rambling he paced the circumference of the devil’s trap. “Then they get a time limit to enjoy whatever it is they asked for. When time is up, good ole Cerberus collects you and brings you downstairs.”

“Alright. Well…how about this. You get me a friend and when I die you can have my soul.”

“No can-do doll face.” He pantomimed a frown before continuing on. “You see I can only give you a maximum of fifteen years. Twenty if you’re lucky and the boss signs off on it.”

“I won’t need that long.” I looked down at the ground, pushing back the feelings of dread.

“Oh? And why is that?” He asked with the most enthusiasm I had heard him speak with all night.

“Listen, that’s personal business that you do not need to know.” I hardened my voice and schooled my emotions. “You came here because I summoned you to carry out a transaction. If it’s not doable you can either leave or put me in touch with whoever is in charge of you.”

He eyed me with those steel hard eyes again, his lip curling into a mixture of a sneer and a half-grin. “Well. The little mortal has a temper...and a backbone. You’ll understand this is very unusual; I am going to need to clear this with the boss before we seal the contract, of course.”

“Fine. Bring him back with you, and I will offer the same deal to him as well.”

“As you wish,” he bowed and disappeared into a cloud of blue-black smoke.

I began to pace the width of the road I was standing on. All of a sudden, I began to think this wasn’t the best idea. Talk about belated guilt. Why on earth would I summon a demon? There is a whole genre of books, movies, and TV shows based on why that is such a bad idea. “Why? Why did I do this? Magnolia Jane, your parents are going to be so disappointed. When they find out what you did, you’re going to be in more trouble than you’ve been in your entire life,” I began to lecture myself.

“So, what seems to be the issue here,” a gruff voice interrupted my self-deprecation.

I turned around startled. Next to the greasy underling Morgan, stood a tall, dark haired boy. He didn’t look much older than me, but when I looked into his eyes, dark and mysterious and lit by a curious fire within, he looked tired, like he had seen several lifetimes pass him by while he remained a beautiful, ageless shell. Dark stubble covered his chiseled jaw, and a well-cut mop of black iridescent hair flopped over his forehead. He had a mischievous, half-smile plastered on his face, and I tried to ignore the way it made me feel. “You may want to answer my question or shut your mouth before your slack jaw lets in a June bug,” he said with a hint of amusement and a small smile.

Clearing my throat, I finally spoke up. “Morgan here said he needed to clear the deal with you before we could finalize things.”

“Is that so? Morgan, please fill me in on the details.”

Morgan cleared his throat as if he were going to announce the guests at a regal ball. “This young woman summoned me here to request, of all things, a friend,” he said without trying to hide the obvious objection and mockery that came from the perpetual sneer on his face.

“And you needed me because,” the stranger asked Morgan, obviously annoyed to be pulled from his duties for this.

“Because I need a friend but don’t need a time limit,” I spoke up, before Morgan could mock me again, making sure to inject every ounce of bravery I could muster into my matter-of-fact tone.

“And why should we give you a time exception? What makes you so…special, for lack of a better word.” He wasn’t cruel with the question per se, but he wasn’t nice about it either.

“Look, Mister….” I stopped, waiting for him to introduce himself so I could be annoyed with an actual person later.

He chuckled and looked me straight in the eyes, “Liam. You may call me Liam.”

“Okay, Liam. Here’s the deal. I need a friend. I don’t have time though, so a maximum twenty-year limit will be wasted on me. I proposed to Morgan here that we make the deal and y’all are guaranteed my soul when I die, no need for Cerberus to hunt me down.”

“And you’re okay with all this? You say you don’t have time. Do you realize that as soon as you die, you’ll forfeit your right to an afterlife somewhere better? You’ll be trapped in Tartarus for eternity.”

“Well…I’m already in hell,” I managed to squeeze out without my voice cracking. I blinked my tears away, and glanced at my feet.

He looked at me curiously, but didn’t push the subject. “Okay, I’ll accept your contract. Do you have anyone in mind to be your friend?”

“Do you think if I had someone in my life I wanted to be my friend I would be standing here making a deal with you,” I shot at him with venom.

“Fine. Here are the terms of the contract. One, I will be your “friend” all the way up until the moment you pass on.” He mimicked air quotes with his fingers when he got to the word friend. “Two, when you die, myself, or one of my employees will collect your soul and transport it to Tartarus. Three, Cerberus will not be involved, and you will effectively forfeit any chance you had at a better afterlife. And lastly, at any time I have the power and authority to change the terms of you contract should the need arise.” All of a sudden, out of thin air, a contract appeared in his hand. “If you agree to these terms, I will need you to prick your finger and sign on the dotted line.”

“Change the contract?! You can’t do that!” I replied indignantly.

“I believe you’ll find I actually can.” He smiled.

“Why on Earth would you need to change the contract? Don’t you even think about double crossing me.” I spat the words vehemently, shaking my finger in his face.

“I have no intention of double crossing you, sweetheart,” he drawled. “It is only for emergency precautions.”

“I don’t believe you.” I growled, crossing my arms and tapping my foot.

“I swear, on my mother’s soul and my own position, that I will not tamper with the contract if it’s not in your best interest.”

I breathed out the breath I was holding in frustration. “Fine. Do you have a pin,” I forced out, attempting to hide all other emotion from my voice.

“Morgan. Knife.”

He drew a gold blade with a jewel-encrusted hilt from his coat sleeve. I took it from him and sliced the pad of my index finger. As the blood began to pool up, I almost talked myself out of the deal. This was crazy…wasn’t it? Did I really need to sell my soul to make a friend? Was I really this stupid? I glanced into the distance toward the faint outline of my house, then, as if under a spell, signed the contract.

“Well, that’s that then. I will see you tomorrow…” He stopped his sentence in order to read my signature. “Magnolia Jane Devereaux. Wow…that name is a mouthful.”

I rolled my eyes at him and choked out through gritted teeth, “I’ll see you around.” I turned and began to walk back to my house.

“Magnolia, sweetheart! You forgot something.” He called toward my back in a sing-song voice.

I turned around and stared Liam down.

“You have to kiss me.” He grinned a full-on, up-to-no-good smile that showed his perfect white teeth and made his eyes crinkle and come alight with mischief.

“What,” I hollered, skeptical and outraged as I marched back to the edge of the devil’s trap. Reaching the edge, my breath puffing from my heightened emotions, I glared into his deep golden irises.

“Well, along with a blood signature we also require a kiss to seal the contract. Isn’t that right, Morgan?” He glanced at his henchman, the smug grin never leaving his deadly beautiful face.

“Yes, sir,” the greasy rat said with a sly smile.

“I cannot believe you! Shouldn’t that be in the contract?!”

“It actually is. Article 3, section 5, line 4.”

He showed me the contract again, but, before I could discern the line he was referring to from the rest of the legal jargon, it snapped shut and disappeared. “FINE.” I hissed.

I’d planted a quick, chaste kiss on his lips from where I stood just outside the dust markings on the ground which held him in place; but before I could get away from him, he had wrapped his arms around my waist and pulled me closer, deepening the kiss. Part of me wanted to disappear into that kiss; to crawl inside the moment and revel in the feeling it sent through me. To memorize how he felt beneath my touch, hard and muscled and strong. Wanting him to touch me everywhere all at once. But after a few seconds the other half of my brain shut all those feelings up, forcing me out of my contented grogginess. I pushed him away while landing a solid slap across his face; then turned around and stomped my way back toward my house ignoring how my swollen lips felt after the most passionate kiss of my life.

[dimensionalskully]

Life Update

I meant to write this a little sooner, but I keep getting beaten by life.

So first thing is first, lack of art. I was planning on doing some coloring of some sketches I had done, I had scanned some pictures from my sketchpad and was getting to know my drawing program a little better. I was doing streams to practice and everything. Well, my drawing tablet was taken away from me. You probably think I’m too old for that to happen, but I’ll try to tell you all a quick story:

So a few years ago before I found out I had all these health problems, I helped my aunt out illustrating a couple of her “childrens” books. (one of her “get rich quick” schemes). She had purchased a drawing tablet for me since my previous one had stopped working and I earned the tablet by doing the first two books. As I was working on the first couple illustrations I started getting really sick. I was losing a lot of blood, I spent months in the hospital and started having chronic pain and severe crohns disease was literally killing me. My aunt in the middle of all this was pressuring me to keep working on the illustrations and she would say things like “I don’t have to much time to live” and things similar to that to try to get me to do them faster, even though I didn’t have the energy to move on a day to day basis. I kept telling her I couldn’t do it, I’m too sick to be able to sit down and put in the time and energy to doing these. (She was rushing me to do the illustrations in the first place so she could make as much money as soon as she could and that resulted in me not loving anything I produced, but she didn’t care.) Eventually she let it go and tried to find someone else to finish, each time saying “I got someone else to work on the books, they are very talented, you should be friends” to try to get me to feel guilty or jealous and say I would do them. I know my limits and I couldn’t do it. I still have trouble putting energy into something more than 15-20 minutes at a time. So when she finds a new person she always wanted me to send the drawing tablet I earned doing the first two books, back to her. If she hadn’t told me I could keep the tablet for doing the other books, I would have been happy to send it back. Recently she found someone new to do the illustrations, but she doesn’t have a lot of money and needs me to send back my drawing tablet. So I had to send it back so this girl could have a drawing tablet to work with (I’m happy to send it to the girl if she needed something to draw with, I know what it’s like to want the tools to progress your art)

So I sent back the drawing tablet and right now, I don’t have anything to be able to work on my sketches with or even stream anymore. I was really upset about that, but my family is furious about my aunt taking something back she promised I had earned to keep. They are going to collectively help me with the money to get a new one. Second thing, my health.

So I have been pretty sick these last couple months. I had some kind of cold about 2 months ago, Last month I had a very bad bacterial infection and it took 3 weeks to recover from. Now I have something else going on. They think I have some kind of scratch in my throat, but another ER doctor said I have signs of a viral infection in my throat. It’s been like this because I have to get Remicade infusions and brings my immune system down, along with another immunosupressant. Trying to keep my Crohn’s in check, all these infections and illnesses and keeping my type 1 diabetes in line is wearing me down. Also trying to get my fibromyalgia pain managed among the chaos as well. It’s a lot and it’s just hard for me to do a lot of the drawing I really want to do.

I am going to do the best I can on posting more here, even if it’s just going to be sketches for now and if I can get the energy, to go back to being active in some of my discord groups I’m a part of. I had a few more things I wanted to talk about, but I can’t really remember what I was going to say, just another great symptom of fibro. I’m so sorry if people think I’ve been ignoring them, I promise I’m not doing it intentionally, I’m just trying to get my medical problems sorted and my energy back to tolerable again,

[black-wolf066]

Well, You Do Have My Chin

Update: OMG!!! MY TIRED 36 HOUR LACK OF SLEEP BRAIN ACCIDENTLY DELETED THE STORY I POSTED THIS MORNING!!! I meant to hit edit, and apparently I hit delete and when it gave me the prompt to hit yes or no, my tired brain that it said “would you like to edit: yes or no”.... so here goes round two... so sorry guys. I wanted to add that i have this on Fanfiction.net now too (under my account Wolf-shadow666) but I just curfunkled everything... ANYWAY underneath is pretty much the post that got deleted... thankfully i save everything on document...

First off, let me just say. I’M ALIVE!!! It is now 8am in the morning, I’ve been working on the better part of this little shit that wouldn’t leave me alone i mean piece since 9pm last night…. i have TO GO TO WORK IN AN HOUR!!! HELP ME!!!!! *flails all over the place* I swear i can adult right sometimes… just not today apparently…. keep this in mind as you’re reading cause even though I’ve proof read this thrice, I’m sure some (or many) things have escaped my brain’s notice.

anyway….

Here is the comment that inspired me to write this one-shot:

@timetravelingpotatoast said:

All I really want from this season is for Killian and Henry to become good friends and talk about Lucy’s “conspiracy” only for Killian to ask who she thinks he is. However, somewhere in the translation it’s lost that Killian is his step-dad, so Henry just says his dad, leading to a “well you do have my chin,” commentary from Killian.

When the curse breaks they just squint at each other for a really long time.

Now, for the sake of the prompt, this is gonna be very heavily AU from season 7. This is by no means a “fix-it fic” because I really am enjoying season 7; I’m only writing this because I really wanted to see something like this be a thing after reading the comment. I absolutely love father/son bonding fics between Killian and Henry and I need more of it in my life… (Seriously there aren’t enough Captain Cobra centered fics to satisfy my craving for it). And I know that I said “I wish I was creative enough to contribute to the fandom of Once Upon a Time”, but after posting my last little snippet; I figured “what the hell I’m gonna do it anyway” because that’s what fandom is (I still feel like I suck terribly but *shrug* if you’re having fun doing it than screw being good at it, right?). (((Also something that should have been maybe 2000 words or less, ended up running away from me toward 4000 (my brain projecting my need for more Captain Cobra moments I guess)… I realize a lot of it is probably considered filler and I could have done away with it, but I kinda wanted to build that relationship between cursed Killian and Henry much like the relationship between Snow White and Emma in season 1)))).

Anyway, here’s a bit of backstory that I came up with for the AU universe of this fic…. If you don’t care and simply just want to read the story, than you can simply scroll down to the Continue reading link:

So in this AU, I’ve pretty much figured that Rumple, Killian, Regina and Emma came to save the day for Henry (Henry may have asked for Killian, Regina and Emma, but the three probably went to Rumple for help or something and Belle urged him to go). I’m thinking the timeline in the realm Henry is in moves faster than the timeline that is Storybrooke, so Henry might be 25 and not 18, but to the rest of his family only 1 year has passed since Henry left in search of his own story((((wondering if this is actually canon considering how shocked they were at seeing him so grown and I don’t believe for a single second that it took Emma and Killian that long to have a baby)))). Emma wasn’t pregnant at the time but eventually as they all stay and help the resistance against Tremaine and Drizella (after finding a way to send word back home that everything and everyone is alright and that they’re staying to help… maybe Rumple being pushed by Belle to stay and help them too), she and Killian end up having twins, and barely a year later Henry has his own kid with Ella. When the curse comes and separates them all, the curse spans the whole state of Washington (Tremaine or Drizella wanting to separate as many of them as they could and not keep them all in the same place… especially the true love couples. But they didn’t bank on Lucy remembering or Rumple finding a loop hole so he didn’t get cursed along with everyone else), so HH is the main hive so to speak but the fairy-tale characters are scattered across other cities and towns. Emma is off in one city (maybe Walla Walla), their twin daughters are in a group home in another city, Henry lived somewhere in Olympia (which is close enough to Seattle and HH), Robin (because I need Regina to be happy damn it! And I figure maybe they found that his soul wasn’t destroyed but simply stuck in the crystal, even across all alternate versions of said crystal in any realm, so he ends up getting freed) is also scattered somewhere, and Rumple, Killian, Regina, Ella and Lucy remained in HH where Tremaine and/or Drizella could keep an eye on them and make their lives a living hell. When Lucy finds Henry, and Jacinda steals his car (much like in the show and what not), he decides to stay at a motel for a week, finding the place interesting (and spurring a bit of creativity that he hadn’t felt since his failed first book) and eventually that week turns into him finding an actual place to stay once he gets to know the people in the neighborhood (made hard by the outrageous prices being asked). When Detective Rogers hears about his search, he offers to turn his den/office into a spare room (the only reason Regina/Roni didn’t offer is because she lives in a small studio apartment above the bar with the only closed room being a bathroom)…. Eventually Rumple as Weaver manages to get everyone back into the neighborhood (((he was the one to give Lucy the book. He was the one to find and bring back the cursed versions of Robin—Kevin Adams, who is a struggling lawyer that ends up helping Jacinda, by Rumple/Weaver’s prompting, get custody of Lucy back—and Emma—Danielle “Dani” Stevens, who was a sketch artist for Walla Walla police department. He was also the one to find which group home the twins were staying in and try to adopt them, since he wasn’t sure how long it would take to break the curse, and he didn’t want them staying there… Rumple and Killian might be civil borderline grey area friends, but he likes the twins and it’ll get them back to their family that much quicker once the curse is broken if he does it like this…)))) and the curse gets broken the same as in season 1 with Henry and Lucy (cause I’m unoriginal and my brain can’t think of anything else right now) ((((That should be enough of a background right? I don’t know… I’m terrible at this… don’t question the plot holes too much okay? You might get sucked into its black hole…))))

(((I looked at apartment averages in Seattle as a guideline (got rid of link since it wasn’t working)… and even though almost 3000 is very high for a one-bedroom apartment that Henry was looking for; I figured that Tremaine and Drizella were trying to weed out the people in the neighborhood slowly so they could bulldoze and improve and bring forth a ‘richer’ environment and a “richer” culture of people to surround themselves with, therefore causing more suffering and separation for those cursed and gaining something else for themselves….))))

((also when it comes to ages, I’m probably way off from canon, but these are my head canon ages for them here so… Emma was 28 at the start of season 1; Killian was 29, Regina 32. Adding 9 years considering Henry left at 18 and only a year passed in Storybrooke whereas 7 years passed where Henry was, that would make them 37, 38, and 41. With another 11ish to 12ish years they are now 48, 49, and 52 with Henry being 37ish.

tagging @superchocovian since she kindly asked me to (hope you enjoy it!!!)

Anyway, without farther ado, i give you this Captain Cobra one-shot in all it’s (step)father/son bonding glory!

Well, You do have my chin

Word count: 4203

Rating: pg-13 for my potty mouth

The din of Roni’s bar was oddly relaxing to Henry as he searched on his laptop for available apartments to move into, but after another site herald the same results, he sighed, closed the screen, and dropped his head into the crook of his arm. Was it too much to ask for a place within his price range? Hell, he was sure he could find something cheaper in the heart of Seattle than he could here.

But no, he stubbornly wanted to stay in this part of the neighborhood. There was something about Hyperion Heights, something that spoke to him, and not just Lucy’s crazy theory that his book was real and they were all fairytale characters scattered across the state (never mind the even crazier theory that he was her father—there was no way he could ever forget meeting a beautiful girl like Jacinda or be stupid enough not to fight for more than a one night stand with said woman).

The scraping of a chair across from him brought Henry’s attention up to that of the arrival of Detective Logan Rogers. The cop’s eyebrow was raised at him in silent question and concern as he sat down and nabbed the untouched bear claw from his plate.

“Bad day?” he asked finally with a tilt of his head as Roni approached with his usual beer.

When Henry still didn’t move to answer, simply groaning and hiding his face back in the crook of his arm, Roni supplied. “He’s looking for places to stay… and failing by the looks of it.”

“The asking prices are outrageous! How do you guys survive here?” he griped into his arm.

Roni snorted and Henry peeked up at her with a perturbed eyebrow raised. “You’ve seen the state of the neighborhood and the state of my bar before I decided to fight back. Isn’t that answer enough for you?”

“What’s your budget?” Logan cut in with his query before Henry could snark back and start an argument with the ornery bartender.

“Well,” Henry’s eyes shifted to him just as the older man took a bite out of the pilfered pastry. “With Seattle, I kind of figured I’d be lucky to find something for twenty-two hundred, but there is no way I’m paying almost three thousand for a place that’s barely in the city’s limits.”

“Welcome to the land of Belfrey greed.” chimed Roni as she walked back to tend the bar and the new arrival of customers.

Henry scowled un-amusedly at her back as she went.

“I have space,”

Startled, Henry gazed, wide eyed, back at the Detective. “What?”

“Well, it’s not really a ‘room’, but the den can easily be turned into one.” Logan continued, his good hand going up to scratch nervously behind his ear.

“Wha—Why?” Tilting his head and narrowing his eyes, Henry pressed on. “I know the three of us are ‘kinda’ working together, but we barely know each other. Hell, for all you know I could be a serial killer.” at Logan’s snort and raised brow, Henry rolled his eyes and said defensively. “Shut up, you know what I mean.”

“I trust you.” Logan relented simply with a shrug of his shoulders. “Besides, I have a gun I’m not afraid to use, and you look to be out of options, mate.”

Still eyeing the older man with suspicion, not used to blatantly kind gestures from others, he asked. “Can I swing by to look at your place before I decide?”

“Of course.” taking a swig of his beer, Logan gestured with his head to the closed laptop. “Now, what was it you wanted to show me?”

(***)

Walking into the apartment after Logan, Henry took in the sparsely decorated living space with a familiar pang beating against his chest. It was neat and orderly, everything he considered the detective to be, even after a week of working covertly with him and Roni. But seeing it so bare, devoid of… well, devoid of life and personality; it all just resonated with him. There wasn’t even a single picture or photo on the walls or table tops (Henry knows there are photos of Logan out there. He’s seen the pictures Roni hangs proudly on the walls of her establishment, knows that the picture of Logan and Roni—two best friends, he’s come to learn, that grew up together in the neighborhood—has a special place right behind the bar where she works). There was nothing, other than the books neatly tucked into a shelf, to give Henry a glimpse into what made this man Logan Rogers.

Walking through the 900 square foot space, he knew it wasn’t just the home of a bachelor; it was the home of someone who was just as lost as Henry himself felt. A space made entirely out of necessity rather than be made to feel like an actual home. It reminded him of his years after the foster system, before he had met his late wife, where he had had nothing of that old life worth keeping. Anything he had gained afterwards had been destroyed by the fire that took his wife and daughter three years ago, and after that he had just never bothered to start over (it wouldn’t bring them back and honestly they were all Henry wanted, not materialistic things).

As Logan led him through the kitchen toward the open den, Henry wondered what kind of past the man must have had, wondered if he too was an orphan looking for a place to belong.

“Here it is.” Logan stated with a flourish of his hand and ultimately cutting Henry out of his thoughts.

His eyes roved over the small space, at the neat and tidy desk underneath the window and the wall lined with more bookshelves and books and a single three-drawer filing cabinet.

“Sorry, I know it’s not much… doesn’t even have a door.”

Henry’s eyes cut to the older man just as he saw his good hand go to scratch behind his ear (a nervous tick he’d come to realize early on in the week). “No, it’s perfect,” He reassured as he walked around the opened room; envisioning where his stuff would fit. “I don’t really need that much space anyway.” he moved back to the opened archway and gave the man a small smile. “And privacy can be fixed with a curtain,”

“Does that mean you accept my offer?”

“If you don’t mind me for a roommate, than yeah, I’ll take it.”

(***)

A little over one month since his move into the neighborhood, and not once did Henry regret his decision (well, maybe a little; after all, Victoria Belfrey and her daughter are a force to be reckoned with… and good god did those two give him a headache sometimes). He genuinely liked it here; he liked most of the quirky people and he could clearly see why the neighborhood was worth trying to save. He also found rooming with Logan to be better than he originally expected. Sure they had their moments (like the kitchen incident that nearly gave the detective an aneurysm, or how scarily grumpy Logan could get when he’s had a bad day at the station), but their camaraderie was easy going between them, and for once after three years, Henry felt like he had a true friend again.

It was because of this easy camaraderie that Henry and Logan, one Saturday morning, found themselves planning a Star Wars marathon and arguing over the order in which to watch it (“They’re my movies, Rogers!” “And it’s my TV, Mills.”).

Somehow Henry won the argument, which found Logan sitting on the couch with the large popcorn bowl settled on the middle cushion and a beer in his hand, while Henry squatted down in front of their combined movie collection to find the first disk.

As he skimmed the neatly ordered DVDs for the one he wanted, his finger froze on a particular title and could barely contain the Cheshire cat grin as he pulled it out and pivoted to face the detective.

“The Princess Bride: Special Edition.”

Logan scowled and pointed his finger at him as he defended. “Shove off, mate, it’s a good book and a good movie; leave it alone.”

The grin on Henry’s face turned impish as he pivoted back and added as he went, “As you wish.”

The couch pillow thrown at his back did nothing to curb his mirth.

(***)

It was almost three months after his move to Hyperion Heights, that Henry managed to work the nerve enough (more like getting the quadrant that was Roni, Logan, Sabine and Lucy to shut up, and to stop hounding him to try and move on and be happy) to ask Jacinda on a date.

Glancing at himself in the hallway mirror, and trying to ignore the grinning idiot leaning against the wall a few paces behind him; he felt the bubbling of nerves roiling in his stomach as he finally turned to face his roommate.

“You’ll be fine,” Logan soothed with the utmost confidence. “You didn’t have any problems when you were flirting with her, one date isn’t going to kill you, mate. Just be yourself.”

“Yeah, be myself.” Henry snorted and rubbed his sweating palms against his jean clad thighs. “Cause any girl would swoon at a failed writer, a widowed husband, and a nerd for all things 80’s, Star Wars, Harry Potter, or Tolkien related.”

“Henry,” Logan stepped forward than, placing his hand and prosthetic firmly on his shoulders as he earnestly stated. “You’ve told Jacinda all of this already and yet she still accepted to go to this concert with you. So cut yourself a little slack, give her a little more credit than that, and go out tonight and have fun.”

(***)

It was almost six months after his move, and during one of their covert meet ups at the bar, when Henry felt a little friendly revenge against Roni and Logan was in order (because dear god, if they didn’t stop and take their own damn advice, he was going to go crazy… or take Roni’s bat and beat himself or them with it… really, he wasn’t picky).

It hadn’t been long after his and Jacinda’s first—or even their second— date that Jacinda decided enough was enough and it was time to try and win custody of her daughter back from her step mother. Detective Weaver had recommended a Lawyer from Spokane, and ever since Kevin Adams stepped foot into Roni’s bar, the two had done nothing but snark at each other.

Within the same month, a missing person’s case had popped up that apparently Weaver thought required the work of a sketch artist from Walla Walla… or so Logan kept griping to him to no freaking end. Honestly, Henry thought Danielle (or Dani as she asked to be called) a rather nice woman, maybe a little too bubbly and Chatty Cathy at times, but if Logan was to be believed than she was the worst woman he had ever had the displeasure to work with.

Yeah… right…

Denial, she is a river, and both of them are currently drowning at the bottom of it.

“So,” He began innocently around a mouthful of pizza. “When are you both going to stop pussy-footing around and ask Dani and Kevin out?”

The soda Logan was drinking and the pizza Roni was currently chewing, both ended up spat out on the table and floor, and the word vomit that followed as they tried to deny it had Henry rolling his eyes so hard he was surprised that they didn’t just roll right out of his head.

“Uh-huh,” putting his slice back down on his plate, he folded his arms across his chest and stared them both down, feeling for all the world like the no nonsense father he should have been to the daughter that would have been thirteen now. “Guys, I’m not stupid… and the last I checked my vision was perfect, so not blind either.” He cut them off before they could rush to deny it any farther. “If I have to sit here and watch you two continue with this charade a moment longer, I will either be checking myself in somewhere or Detective Weaver will have not one but three missing person’s cases to contend with.”

They didn’t try to feed him any more bullshit after that, which he was grateful for, because seriously there was only so much a person can take.

And if he caught his roommate dressed (rather nicely) in a blue button up shirt, black iron pressed slacks, and trying to rush past him and out the door before Henry could say a word with a bouquet of pink and yellow roses in hand.

Well… he could only thank whatever deity listening for small miracles.

(***)

It’s at elven months since his move, that Henry felt for all the world a content man. Jacinda had won her battle against her step-mother, and Lucy had become a constant presence in the apartment, especially since he had offered to watch her after school while Jacinda worked. He loved Lucy and her precocious nature, found her imagination beyond incredible for an elven year old and even began to look forward to hearing her crazy theories about them being cursed.

Sometimes they would be alone, with him helping her with her homework and other times Logan would be there, smiling and humoring her and her theories like they all had agreed to do.

It was during one of these nights, after Jacinda and Lucy had eaten dinner with them and left, that Logan’s curiosity had gotten the better of him. They were in the kitchen, Henry washing the dishes while his roommate dried them, that Logan broke the comfortable silence.

“Who does she think I am?”

“Huh?” Henry glanced over with a brow raised.

“Lucy,” he elaborated. “With her theories, who does she think I am? She never tells me when I ask.”

Henry snorted out a chuckle as he handed over the plate and proceeded washing the next one while answering. “Captain Hook.”

“You’re kidding.” The dry look Henry gave him caused him to roll his eyes. “It’s the hand isn’t it?”

“Probably,” Henry shrugged. “Or it could be the fact that she thinks you’re my dad.”

“What?” Logan froze mid swipe with the towel and Henry could practically feel the man’s eyes burning his profile.

“Yeah, crazy, I know.”

“Mate, if she is to be believed and you are my son; I would have had you when I was 11…”

They both chuckled at that.

“Again, crazy, I know.”

They went back to the comfortable silence as they worked, but the occasional contemplative side eye he would catch Logan giving him in his peripheral as they cleaned up the rest of the kitchen, eventually had Henry turning to stare blatantly at the man’s profile with an eyebrow raised in question.

“Do I have barbeque sauce on my face or something?”

Startled, Logan shifted his attention away from the stove top he was wiping down, and met his eyes with that contemplative expression still in place.

“No, you’re fine.” He distractedly answered.

“Than what’s on your mind? And don’t tell me nothing; you’ve been staring at me off and on for the past five minutes?”

“I was just thinking.”

The other brow rose to meet its twin as he deadpanned. “Clearly,”

Logan rolled his eyes and elaborated. “I was thinking about what you said, about who Lucy thinks I am.”

“Logan, none of that is real.”

“No, I know that… but—now that it’s been said, I can’t help but see it. Hell, Henry you can’t tell me that you can’t see it, not even a little bit.”

Henry tilted his head and narrowed his eyes at him; his eyebrows practically at his hairline now.

“We do look a little alike, mate; long lost cousins or brothers or something. I mean you do kinda have my chin, our noses are almost similar and the brow structure too…” he trailed off.

With a snort, Henry joked. “You’ve been hanging out with Dani too much, you’re even starting to sound like a sketch artist.”

“Shut up,”

He dodged and caught the wet rag thrown at him, before tossing it back; both chuckling at the ridiculousness of it all as they finished up and moved to the couch to see what was on TV.

Expect, as the days and weeks progressed (and Weaver shockingly adopted two pre-teen girls from Aberdeen that looked eerily like Dani and Logan), Henry found that he couldn’t stop thinking about it too (no matter how hard he tried to shake the insane notion from his head each and every time it sprung back into the forefront of his thoughts).

He’d often catch himself staring at Logan when the older man was distracted and—illogically enough as it was—could practically see what the other man was talking about.

It was crazy.

It wasn’t conceivable.

But damn it all if Logan wasn’t right.

They did share the same freaking chin, and though his nose was a bit larger than Logan’s, it was the same freaking shape.

Maybe he needed to check himself in somewhere after all…

(***)

Sixteen months after moving to Hyperion Heights, the curse was broken.

It had been an emotionally exhausting week beforehand, with Lucy suddenly falling into a coma that the doctors couldn’t medically explain. Jacinda had rightfully been beside herself with worry, and all Henry could feel was the crushing feeling of losing another loved one… another child. It had been the very reason why he didn’t like opening up, didn’t like taking these leaps of faith when it came to his heart and feelings. Yet he had stupidly allowed himself to get close to all these people, and stupidly thought he could have a second chance at a family, but those dreams had gone up in flames the first time and now plummeted back down from the stars a second time with the flat lining of the heart monitor as Jacinda brokenly wailed her heartache.

He didn’t feel the hand of his roommate trying to console him as he numbly watched Jacinda break down in the waiting room they had been forcibly moved too when the doctors came swarming into the room. Didn’t hear the words being spoken as Jacinda fought and then bonelessly collapsed in Sabine and Roni’s arms; her wails gut wrenching and shredding his already scarred heart to pieces. The flood of his emotions and his own tears didn’t come until after the doctor told them that their precious, precocious little Lucy was truly and utterly gone, that the defibrillator failed to restart her heart.  

It was Logan who caught him when his legs refused to hold his weight any longer, when the world suddenly came crushing down around him and nothing felt right anymore. And it was Logan who helped him into the chair; the warm presence of his roommates hand at the back of his neck guiding his head to lean on his broad shoulder. And he took the comfort and sobbed for all he was worth. Sobbed for the loss of the wife and daughter he had had to bare losing and moving on from all on his own, sobbed for Jacinda and how much she didn’t deserve to know the gut wrenching pain that losing a child brought, sobbed for Lucy who had been robbed of her own dreams, who had been robbed the chance to live and grow.

His heart hurt as he followed Jacinda into the room to say goodbye, the tears blurring his vision at seeing the white sheet lying over Lucy’s little body; so final in its position that it made him want to collapse all over again. But he couldn’t, he had to be strong for Jacinda as he was the one to hold her upright as they moved toward the bed.

Her sobs as she pulled back the sheet to view her daughters pale face tore at him even more, her words a broken, jumbled mess as she climbed onto the bed and wept onto her daughters unmoving chest.

Running on autopilot, Henry’s feet moved of their own accord; one hand going to Jacinda’s shaking back and the other to card the bangs off of Lucy’s forehead.

“I’m sorry Lucy, I’m so, so sorry.” He whispered as he leaned down and pressed his lips to her crown.

The whoosh of wind startled him and before he could right himself to wonder where it came from, the overwhelming flood of memories came next; slamming everything back into place and causing the air to deflate right out of his lungs. The watery, startled gasp from Ella (his wife, his true love) told him she remembered too, but it was the choked rush of life from his daughter, his daughter (his beautiful and very much alive little girl, his other true love), that was bloody music to his ears and heart.

“Papa? Mama?” she wheezed out as her eyes foggily and confusedly took them and her surroundings in.

“Baby!”

Everything was alright.

Everything in the world was right again.

(***)

The moment Lucy was cleared to leave; the overdue reunion of their family came afterwards. The battle was far from over; not with Tremaine and Drizella currently in hiding and no one knowing where they had run off too, but they were together again, and at the moment that was enough for them all as they celebrated at the bar that had been his adoptive mother’s home for the last eighteen months.

Henry had his wife and daughter back, his half-sisters, both his mothers, both his step-fathers and his grandfather. To say he was over the moon would have been an understatement as the din of fairytale characters and his family filled the industrial styled establishment.

It was all so overwhelming still that he had to take a seat at one of the tables; simply content to watch as he sipped at his beer. Killian soon joined him with his own glass, rum he was sure now that the man remembered who he was, and the thought of step-fathers in general had his mind venturing to their conversation once again.

It must have been on Killian’s mind as well because before either knew what they were truly doing, they were starting at one another, eyes narrowed and the rim of their drinks to their lips as they tried to see what apparently their cursed selves had been able to see.

“Man, I hope this is the last curse we ever have to face. I’ve lost count at how many cursed memories we’ve had forced into our heads at this point.” Emma groaned, yet her arrival didn’t completely break their staring contest as she dropped into the chair next to Killian; her eyes not yet looking at either of them but at her daughters who were laughing along with Lucy near the corner of the bar. She blindly but efficiently snatched her husband’s glass out of his hand and downed the last shot of the dark amber that was left as she continued. “Seriously though, can you imagine the identity crisis we’ll have in our old age if we get Alzheimer’s?” Finally glancing over at them, and realizing she had neither her son nor her husband’s attention, she raised an eyebrow and asked with trepidation. “What’s up with you two? Is everything alright?”

“Yeah love,” Killian briefly met Emma’s eyes, before he was squinting back at Henry as he continued. “Apparently while cursed, and thanks to our lovely granddaughter, the two of us got it into our heads that we were blood related; something about seeing similarities in our features and what have you.”

Blinking once than twice, Emma’s eyes bounced from one to the other, before she was tilting her head and squinting at them as well. Satisfied with what she saw, she nodded to herself, shrugged, and stated. “I can see it, especially when you wear your hair like this and stop shaving.” She grinned and chuckled and leaned forward to ruffle her son’s gel slicked hair, which Henry swatted away with a scowl as he tried to fix it back into place.

However her statement only proceeded to have them squint even harder at each other, and Emma could do nothing more than laugh at her first two goofy true loves.

As the celebrations began to die down and people started heading home, Henry and Killian simply shrugged and let it go as they hugged each other goodbye for the night (each having every intention of spending this night with their loved ones).

“Well,” Killian began softly. “Blood related or not, you’re still my son Henry; always have been, my boy.”

The smile that stretched Henry’s face, nearly threatened to split his skin from ear to ear as he replied just as softly but no less sincerely. “Thanks, dad.”

And if they hugged each other just a little tighter and their eyes shone just a little brighter with emotion, no one that witnessed the moment commented on it.

[maximumsuckage]

Dreamscape, part 2

Link to Part 1: https://maximumsuckage.tumblr.com/post/167175722147/dreamscape 

Description: Sam, Dean, and Jack discuss the Norse death goddess Hela.  Across the country, a werewolf child turns up dead.

Word Count: 3125

A/n: I am so so so sorry if I ruin this by adding more, but tis the season of NaNoWriMo and this is the closest thing I've had to a plot in ages, so I don't care if it's fanfic and not original.  lemme know if anyone is interested enough to be tagged in updates, no worries if nah

  “So lemme get this straight.”  Dean wrapped his fingers around the coffee mug as he looked down at the book Sam had dropped in front of him.  “You have a dream about our old dead buddy the Trickster, only he’s a giant crazy monster, and he tells you some crap and sends you on a quest to find his freaky death goddess daughter to be the Jedi Master to your freaky angel padawan?”

Sam let out a slow breath.  “No, Dean.  I mean, yeah, but you’re ignoring the point here.  Jack isn’t the first archangel offspring.  It makes sense… we knew Gabe was Loki.  I just never realized he was Loki.  Like, the actual god.  He had a whole life outside of Heaven…”  He trailed off, looking down at the book, not for the first time wondering at how little they actually knew.  “And he wasn’t a giant crazy monster.  He was an archangel.  Without the vessel.”

Dean waved a dismissive hand and sipped his coffee.  “Whatever.  So monster Gabe wants you to find his freaky death goddess daughter.  And what, exactly?  We don’t exactly have a great record with pagan gods.”

“Yeah, but Dean, this could be an opportunity.”  This was pointless.  They were going in circles, still, like they had been for forty minutes already.  “I know that it’s a risk, but-”

“But nothing.”  Dean gestured with the mug of coffee.  “We’ve already dealt with Death himself.  We’re not getting the attention of one of his death god lackeys too.  Mr. Miyagi the kid yourself, fine.  But if we get her attention and she gets pissed…”

“Then we take her out too.”  Sam stood.  “We’ve taken out stronger things than-”

“Than an archangel Nephilim?  An archangel Nephilim who’s had thousands of years to hone her powers?”  Dean raised an eyebrow and sipped his coffee.  “Look, I get it.  The kid’s not all bad.  Might grow up to be a superhero.  Who knows?  But we do know that a goddess named Hell is not someone we want to tussle with.”

“Hel with one L, not two.”  Sam pointed.  “Or Hela, in this translation.”

“Hela then.”  Dean paused. “Wait, wasn’t that the bad guy in that new Thor movie?”

“Well-”

“That settles it.  No.  If she scares Thor, then I don’t want to deal with it.  Wherever she’s holed up, she can stay there.”  He downed the rest of his coffee, made a face at the dregs, and got up.  “Come on.  We’ve got a werewolf to catch.”  Without letting Sam have time for another word, he left the kitchen, heading back towards his own room. 

“I have a cousin?”

Sam jumped at the voice.  Jack definitely shared that little trait with Castiel.  He glanced at the direction Dean had vanished in, and sighed.  He had no idea how long Jack had been listening, and lying would only upset him.  “We’re not sure,” he decided on, sitting down and pushing the book towards him.  “I had a dream about Gabriel- your uncle- and he told me to look for this goddess, who, according to the lore, is his oldest daughter.”

Jack pulled the book closer and studied it, his eyebrows creased together.  “Gabriel,” he said slowly.  “He was in the Bible.  He told Elizabeth and Mary that they were pregnant.  He is good.”  He glanced up at Sam, worried.  “Right?”

“Yeah.  Yeah, he was good.”  Sam decided that they didn’t need to get into the semantics of good when it involved the Trickster.  He’d come over to their side in the end; right now, that was what mattered. 

“Was?”  Jack caught the past tense, head tilting in that painfully familiar way. 

“Lucifer killed him.”  He decided not to sugar-coat it, just ripping off the metaphorical Band-Aid.  “Gabriel was stalling so we could save people.  He knew he was going to be killed.”  He paused, figuring somebody didn’t go through the work of filming a pornographic suicide note if they didn’t know they were going to die.  “He loved your father to the end, I think.  He attacked Lucifer, but now that I think about it, I don’t think he could have killed him, even if he had the ability to.”

Jack looked back down at the book, considering the information, filing it away in what he knew of the world.  “But, he had children.  This goddess is my cousin.”  He touched the picture, running his finger down the sketch.  One side of her was a young lady, lovely if stern, while the other side was a garish image of rot and desiccation.  That didn’t seem to bother Jack, whose impression of the world was still fresh and new.   

It had, however, bothered Dean, who, when Sam had first set the book down, made a comment along the lines of, “this zombie freak your new girlfriend?”

“We don’t know that for sure yet,” Sam was quick to point out.  “Gabriel didn’t give me anymore information…”  Because he was too busy trying to bite my lips off, but Dean and Jack don’t need to know that and why the hell was he doing that anyways I’m not into him I’m straight straighter than Dean anyways like maybe we were friends at the end but only barely and… “and we don’t even know if she’s alive, or good or evil, or if she’s even his daughter.  Sometimes the lore gets mixed up over time, and things aren’t usually that accurate.”

Jack tilted his head.  “But it says here that she was.”

“Yeah, but that was written by humans.”  Sam settled in for a lecture on mythology, which could either go very smoothly or would throw Jack into a mental tailspin.  “A lot of the lore we have is based on old stories.  A long time ago, they were just told word of mouth.  Like… like I’m telling you right now.  And to keep people’s interests, storytellers would exaggerate.”

“Exaggerate.  A small lie.  To make it bigger than it really is.” 

Sam made a small agreeing gesture in his direction, not sure if Jack had read the dictionary or if Dean had covered that particular lesson.  Probably Dean, exaggerating away all the carbs he was drinking to hide the still-raw grief.  “So if every storyteller exaggerates the story a little bit, and then the inflated version gets written down…”

“It might be completely different from the truth?”  Jack looked up at Sam, hopeful, and Sam found himself smiling. 

“Yeah.  Exactly.”

Jack nodded and looked down at the picture again, considering it through this new lens.  “But Gabriel is my uncle.  That’s not exaggerated.  And he does know her, because he told you to find her in a dream.”  He looked up at Sam, hopeful.  “How hard would it be to find her?”

“Well, I don’t know, and Dean’s scared of her.  He doesn’t want us to find her and then it turn out that she’s the bad guy.”

“Why would my uncle be friends with a bad guy?”

Sam really did not want to get into the gray morals that seemed to permeate Gabriel’s pagan lifestyle, and thankfully, he was saved by Dean’s walking in.  “Case,” he said pointedly.  “Wolf clan.  New York.”  He looked over at the book, then pointed at the image.  “Bad guy,” he said to Jack, like that settled it.  “You guys ready to go?”

Jack nodded, hopping up, eager to please Dean.  “Yes.  I had my bag packed last night.  And I didn’t forget extra underwear and socks this time.”

Dean frowned.  “Extra?  You had extra last time.” 

Jack grinned, pleased.  “Yes, for myself.  But I packed for you both as well.  When you wear the same pair of socks every day, it gets-”

“We get it.”  Dean rolled his eyes and headed for the car. 

Sam, for lack of a better response, patted Jack on the shoulder.  “Thanks, bud.  What would we do without you?”

“Probably stink,” he said, dead serious, and followed Dean, a spring in his step at being useful to his guardians, like a puppy.  A wolf puppy, Sam reminded himself, one that was loyal, but could bite. 

A week previous

Fairpoint, New York, was a pleasant little tourist trap in the Adirondacks, somewhere beyond Old Forge.  A main road led visitors to a plethora of family owned motels and campgrounds, winding through little shops owned by kindly retired folk or kids in their twenties irritated at being forced to take over the family business.  A lake nearby allowed for swimming or sailing, though it was quiet now that the season was beginning to turn.  This time of year, the draw was the beautiful shades of red and yellow and gold that graced the ancient trees, and hiking trails winding through the surrounding mountains allowed tourists the opportunity ample opportunities to soak in the autumn aesthetic. 

The only issue was the werewolves.  Those townsfolk who had lived there for more than a generation knew about them- the clan out in the woods, who feasted on deer and moose and bear and avoided civilization like the plague.  That was the original purpose of the village, after all.  Keep the werewolves in the wilderness, away from the more human haunts.  For a long while, the wolves had been quiet, and only the occasional foray into town for medicine or booze by one of their runners told the old folk that they were still active. 

But that had all changed when a child turned up dead. 

He was not one of Fairpoint’s- he was branded by the mark of the wolves, a symbol like four claw marks slashing the shoulder, and he was thin and gaunt, buried in a shallow grave that was unearthed by the excessive rains.  It would have been ignored by the local cops, who, as a rule, kept only to Fairpoint business, except for the fact that it was a clear murder: his heart had been ripped from his chest cavity.  The organ was missing. 

It had to be a wolf, because no fox or coyote or bear would simply take the heart and run, and besides, attacks by wild predators were excessively rare, saved generally for foolhardy hunters (real hunters, with deer and stuff- they had no idea about Winchester-type hunters) who got between Mom-bear and cub.  The thinness was a problem as well- though many wild populations were thinning, white-tailed deer refused to stop breeding, and their population boom allowed not only food for ticks, but for the wolves as well.  Any children glimpsed traipsing through the woods were well-fed, bordering on chubby if not for all the running and playing they did, so a dead child whose ribs were clearly visible?

That was foul play, for sure. 

So, it was with a great deal of nerves that Sheriff Harry Baldwin found himself hiking through the woods, sweating despite the autumnal chill, cop car left behind at the deepest hunting cabin he could drive to.  His twelve-gauge was slung over his shoulder, heavy now that he had to hike with it, and shot shells clinked in the pockets of his jacket.  The gun was only for protection from bears though.  He didn’t fear the wolves.  His family had been there for ages, and he had the feeling there had been a bit of interbreeding- every time the full moon rolled around, he felt peckish for bloody burgers.  It was a craving he didn’t share with anybody, but a very real craving nonetheless, and he liked to imagine the wolf blood in him (even if it was imaginary) made him a better cop. 

There was a stitch in his side by the time he heard a howl that clearly came from a human throat and not a coyote, and he leaned against a tree, panting.  “Hey,” he called out to the trees, knowing one of the wolves was there, even if he couldn’t see them.  “It’s me. Sheriff Baldwin. I need to talk to Alpha Melissa."

A wolf warrior stepped out.  She was a pretty girl, curvy with big eyes and an easy smile, wearing a deerskin jacket over a Doctor Who t-shirt and skinny jeans.  “Officer Baldwin!  Hi!  If we knew you were coming, we would have sent a truck out for you.  What’s up?”  Before he had time to respond, she darted off, and then returned with a bottle of water that she offered out.

He took it gratefully, draining it in a few moments, and then wiped his mouth.  “I’m here on business, Charlotte.  I need to talk to Melissa.”

Charlotte nodded.  “Yeah, of course.  I’ll call a ride to town.  Seriously, next time you need to come out here, just call one of us.”

A few minutes later, Harry was on the back of an ATV, clinging desperately to the waist of Travis, another wolf warrior who was a few ranks higher than Charlotte.  Harry wasn’t exactly sure how the ranking worked here, as the wolves were an independent nation it seemed, yet still had access to ATVs and Poland Spring and, apparently, Doctor Who.  Harry never asked.  He figured, that was their business and his business was Fairpoint. 

The town itself blended into the surrounding forest, log cabins trailing wood smoke into the sky.  A group of barefoot kids were playing soccer in a clearing that served as the town square, laughing and occasionally snarling at each other with teeth too long and sharp for a normal child’s mouth.  Occasionally, there would be a splash of blood on the hard-packed earthen ground, but that only drew more laughter.  Several deer were hanging from a pole, blood dripping into buckets on the ground.  Their glassy eyes seemed to watch Harry as he dismounted the ATV, waiting for the warrior to lead him to the pack leader. 

“Wait here,” Travis said sharply, and disappeared into the largest of the cabins. 

Harry obeyed, but it was with a frown.  He had spoken to Melissa many times.  She was older, a calm leader, giving off the vibe of a Victorian era queen rather than a werewolf pack leader roughing it in the woods.  Never had she kept him waiting. When he became sheriff, she had arrived in Fairpoint for the ceremony herself, congratulating him personally, and after that they had struck up a professional relationship that seemed to border on more than friendly (or at least, so Harry hoped.  He may have had a teensy crush on the pack leader). 

But never before had he been commanded to wait for an audience.

One of the children was on the ground, crying. Somebody had yanked one of her pigtails too hard, and now a few of the boys were jeering at her.  Harry took a step closer to break it up, but then the smallest of the girls snarled as she intervened first, her face twisting, hackles raising, hands twisting and breaking into claws with an audible snapping of bones.  The boys raised a laugh at her as well, but then the beast-child leapt forward, throwing the biggest boy to the ground with a thump.  He tried to change as well, but she slashed him across the face, and he stayed down. 

Harry stood, frozen, watching as the smallest hopped off the largest and walked over to the bullied girl to pull her to her feet.  The boy on the ground sat up, the scratches on his face already healing, and snarled at her, but it was weak and small and ignored.  The girl was alpha, and both knew it.

“I’m goalie!” she declared, human again, sprinting towards the two sticks that comprised the goal.  With that, the fight was forgotten, and the game was back on.     

“Sheriff Baldwin?” 

Harry turned away from the kids to the familiar voice of Melissa, the pack leader.  Middle aged, with a few scars across her face suggesting old triumphs, she exuded the aura of a warrior, despite her torn jeans and sky-blue sweater.  Harry always felt a little subpar next to her, aware that maybe he should put in some time at the gym and maybe avoid the pastries Sally Parr, the town administrator, brought in every morning.  “Yeah.  What’s going on?”

She gave him a thin-lipped smile and gestured for him to come inside.  He followed, grateful to get off his aching feet. 

“Whiskey?” she asked once he had been seated in front of her desk, which was little more than a homemade table.

He waved it off.  “I’m on the clock.  I’m here to talk about a murder.  A child, about ten, was found a few miles outside of town by a hunter.  Poor kid was starving before he died.  Heart ripped out of the body.  Coroner hasn’t told us whether it was taken out before or after he passed.”

Melissa’s brow creased as she turned back to the desk, a small glass of whiskey in her own hands.  That was new.  Harry had never seen her touch a drop of alcohol in all the time that he knew her.  Although, granted, it was more phone conversations than anything else. 

“Shit,” she said, and all hope that she didn’t know about the murder flew from Harry’s mind.  He hoped they weren’t going dark.  He had no idea what they were supposed to do if the wolves went dark.  That was on him, but half of Fairpoint didn’t even know about the wolves, so how would they fight-

Melissa drained the whiskey like it was water.  “I was hoping it wouldn’t come to this,” she murmured, gazing at the golden drops clinging to the side of the empty glass.  “I prayed that it wouldn’t come to this.”

“Come to what?”  Harry leaned forward.  “Melissa, if any of your guys did this, you know I can’t protect you.  This whole settlement is already illegal.  If there’s murder too…”

She stood, slamming fingers that broke and twisted into claws into the wood of the table.  Splinters of wood flew to the floor.  “They are not my guys.  Not anymore.”

“Mel?”  He tested out the nickname cautiously.  “Something’s going on.  Tell me what’s going on so we can prevent anyone else from turning up dead.”

Now her teeth were elongating, and her voice dropped to a growl that resonated within Harry’s chest.  “A strange wolf came.  He corrupted some of our youth- now they wish to summon him.” 

“Him who?”  Harry sat back a little, trying to remain calm in the face of the half changed alpha in front of him.  “Mel, calm down, okay?  We’re friends here.  I want to help.”

She glared at him, normal cocoa-brown eyes now feral yellow, and then took a breath.  “Him,” she repeated, forcing her voice back to its normal register.  “The original Wolf.  Fenrir himself.”

[asksketchysentient]

Lil Life Update!

So sorry about not posting (as if I did it before LMAO).... I've started community college and am now finishing up the second week! It's been stressful, and I'm tired nearly all the time, but I think I'm enjoying it! I assume it's been happening to a lot of people lately, since school began, but I still feel bad about not uploading new content.

I might be more active in asking other blogs questions, responding to answers, and stuff like that, but I'm going to focus more on my school work.

What I do have in abundance isn't sketches of horses, but other little doodles of my own characters and other peoples'! I hope that's okay!

Again, I deeply apologize for not posting content you might have come for, and I'm really sorry for disappointing any of my friends and peers with my lack of effort. Please bear with me during the school year! orz;;;;;;;;

[coffeeandcalligraphy]

Where Have I Been? | Doing the Write Thing #24

***TRIGGER WARNING: there’s mention of suicide/being suicidal in this post. If you’re sensitive to that, I’d advise you to skip this post!***

Well hellooooo, it’s been a while.

And by a while I mean 6 days, and for a series that’s supposed to be updated daily, that means something...

Where the actual heck have I been?

First, I gotta preface...

I LOVE writing these updates. I can’t express to you guys how important these updates are to my writing process and to keeping me motivated. The support I’ve gotten for this series means so much to me, so when I’m away from Tumblr for a while, trust me, I am still thinking about you guys and about these updates.

To be honest I don’t know why I’ve been gone this long... I have nothing to excuse this absence/mini hiatus. I’m sorry I fell off the face of the earth, especially since I’ve been posting frequently for the past month. Even though I haven’t been updating you, doesn’t mean I haven’t been writing. Sorry I’ve been away, but I’m back to writing these updates as much as I can.

Thank you guys for understanding... Seriously, it means the world to me.

Yesterday was such a day.

I kid you not, I spent my entire day watching 13 Reasons Why on Netflix.

I’ve expressed that I don’t actually support the book before on this blog. Not hating, or anything, but in my personal experience with being suicidal a suicidal human, I wasn’t a fan of how suicide was portrayed in the actual book. Suicide’s a huge part of my life (and I know that may come as a shock, but honestly, I don’t want to hold the truth back from you). (But also, I appreciate that the book still exists and helps raise awareness for others. I still really appreciate the effort.)

I’ve been suicidal since I was a child... It’s a weird thing to express. If you’re suicidal, you’d get what I mean. And also: just because I’m suicidal, doesn’t mean I’ve got a plan, or am going to actually do it. It’s just a part of my personality, and is a part of how I was programmed. This isn’t a new thing for me, and frankly, doesn’t interfere with my life. There’s no need to be concerned (just in case anyone else finds this alarming) about this, just to clear that up. (And I’m getting help, no worries, just sharing my story over here!)

I wrote a journal entry two days ago that might help people who aren’t suicidal understand what it’s like. Obviously, I need to put it out there: this is my personal experience. Not every person experiences this in the way I do and it’s very important to understand that.

Alright this is the journal entry:

It’s hard when I’m so willing to die and yet so motivated to live. That’s the thing about being suicidal. It’s the worst trap a person can fall victim to because for me, I feel great a lot of the times. I love small, irrelevant things in life like how it feels to watch the steam clear from the mirror after a long hot shower, or how at 6PM in the summer, this warm glow touches every corner of every object in every room. Or the way it feels to run my fingers through my hair and feel physical curls. Or the split second in which you finally take down a large ice cold glass of water after being parched for hours. Small things like that I appreciate. And I appreciate life so much. It’s not like I’m ungrateful for what I have, or I’m not happy with what I have because that’s not true at all. Being suicidal is loving everything but still having this deep pull inside of you yearn for death. And sometimes in not death, it’s silence that just cannot be recreated on this earth.

(btw, the hair bit is because I bleach my hair frequently, hence my natural curly hair has been destroyed because the lack of moisture, so seeing it curly [which is often now] is just a little small thing that makes me happy!)

(And if anyone wants to talk to me about this because they’re feeling similarly or would like some personal experience to help with research, feel free to message me! :))

Does that make sense? I know when I tell people this they become super concerned which I understand. This is a scary thing for me to admit on here, but honesty is very important to me. A lot of people don’t get what it’s like to be suicidal which I think is actually a very good thing. I don’t think anyone WANTS to feel like this.

So back to what I was saying about the show... I think the show depicted an AMAZING job at showing what being suicidal/coping with suicide is really like. Because it’s not pretty but also, goes unnoticed a lot of the time. I LOVED that they didn’t hide behind the ‘suicide is not the answer’ mantra and actually became ACTIVE in showing how harmful not paying attention is. I loved that Clay was angry about the school’s putting up of posters after the suicide of his friends because posters don’t help AFTER there’s been a tragedy as the one in the show and book. I love that it’s spreading awareness, especially to high schools. (The poster thing is personally a huge problem I have at my school. Crapton of posters, and zero actual active helping. Gah)

So while I don’t like how the book depicted a struggle I face, the show is so beautiful and honest and amazing. I highly recommend watching the show. It’s a work of art, and honestly, is something I’m so proud of. To get an accurate depiction of what being suicidal is like/suicide in the media is just... amazing. I’m so happy about this show. It’s wonderful.

(BUT of course, not everyone who is suicidal/has attempted suicide/is coping with suicide won’t feel this way. This is just my experience.)

So that’s what I did all of yesterday. And honestly, I can’t regret that. I feel so heard because of this show, and it means a lot.

And for those who are wondering: Dylan did an amazing job. I’m so happy he was cast for Clay. (Dylan’s from my favourite band, lol, check out The Narwhals small bands 4 lyfe, he was amazing.)

If you’ve got a solid 13 hours to kill, I’d highly recommend spending them on watching this important show.

My day didn’t really start until around midnight... Which means it didn’t really start at all... (Zero regrets though.)

BUT I DID A THING while I was watching the show!

I did my first digital painting! Yay!

My sister got a drawing tablet for Christmas, so I decided to pick it up yesterday and finished my first real piece of digital art.

I can’t really draw. I’m such a noob at drawing, and am really only trying to develop my skills since drawing isn’t my strongest point. (I’m more of a graphic design gal.) BUT you know what I can do? Use Photoshop.

I wish I had the original sketch to show you, but guys, I got the proportions all wrong. The eyes were huge and a completely different shape, the nose was way too big, the head was huge, the mouth was way too wide...

But I fixed it with Photoshop. ;’)

I drew my MC from FOSTERED’s spinoff duology, ALANNIS.

SO STOKED STOKED STOKED STOKED.

GUYS YOU SHOULD HAVE SEEN THE BEFORE SKETCH. I’m kicking myself for not saving it, but it was so funny, LOL. I literally had to readjust the size of everything.

So in terms of software, I sketched everything on my drawing tablet in Photoshop, and painted it in there as well. I’m not an artist, but I’m pretty proud of this, considering it was my first time using the tablet! It’s not perfect but I love it a lot... Really proud of that nose. lol.

And more news!

@sarahkelsiwrites drew Colton from SIXTEEN CENTS for me, and AHHHH I’M SO EXCITED!

She’s also going to draw Andy and Jayesh which oh my I’m super stoked for. I love these three a lot.

Colton has the best hair. Like, my hair is blue, and he still wins at hair.

This just made me want to write the entire book right now. lol.

Okay onto the actual writing update...

Daily word count goal: 250

Words written: 1367

Total word count: 42 830

Total page count: 82

Songs played: No music

Things to know: I was pretty tired. But also, was SO excited. Fun times. I listened to the scenes before this and loved ‘em so much so I was just so stoked to write the next one.

How I felt: Stoked af. It was a little hard to get into at first, but holy stoked.

Bad haiku to describe writing session: 2 AM is a / Perfect time to write my book / I got a lot done

Rating of writing session out of 10 and why: Solid 8.75 because I was a little tired, but also very excited

On a scale from 1-10 my level of stoked-ness is: SO BLOODY STOKED 10/10

Lyrics to describe writing session: And strange as it seems / She’s endless to me / She’s just like paperwork / But harder to read

- Ed Sheeran, She (Song I Wrote With Amy EP)

BUT OHHHH SHE, KNOWS ME SOOOO WELLLLLL.

GIF to describe writing session:

WE WERE YOUUUUUUNG DARLIN WE DON’T HAVE NO CONTROL, WE’RE OUT OF CONTROLLLLL

(Also, does anyone else here like The Strokes? I’d be interested to know...)

Excerpt:

(I forgot the excerpt in the last writing update like a dunce)

“My mother always told me to get rid of the toxic people in my life. To only surround myself with positive relationships, and positive people. But maybe I’m just a toxic person, and there’s no getting rid of myself.”

(This might sound really bad, but I actually wrote this down in a journal entry as kind of a personal thought and immediately thought to add it into the book because TEENAGE ANGST COME ALL AGES.)

(You know, dude that said this isn't even a teenager. I’ve been writing these books for so long that if I go on for another year, the book would most likely move into adult.)

(Lonan’s my angsty ball of angst.)

(Join the club.)

(Currently, this club of angst is being populated by Cliff, Lone and I. Looking for new members.)

Okay, so that’s it. This post was different and really honest... I hope that you guys enjoyed it, honestly. Thank you for reading as always, and I’ll see you in the next one. :) 

--Rachel

[insertvisualinput]

Artist Asks Meme (Long Post Alert)

I took the questions from this post, and decided to just answer all of them without waiting for prompts, because... why not?

Also, apologies for the long post. I could have put all this under a cut, but I want it to show in its entirety on my blog page. I will tag from now on all posts like this under “long post”, if that is something you would like to blacklist from your dashboard.

1. When did you get into art? As soon as I could hold a pencil. Sure, I may have held it like Beast initially held his spoon in Disney’s The Beauty and the Beast feature film, lacking the finer motor skills due to me being barely out of diapers. That didn’t stop me from drawing thousand legged potatoes and trying to pass them as horses. However, I suppose art became to hold a deeper meaning to me during my last years of elementary school, and all the way through junior high. I had finally become deeply depressed due to bullying and being ostracized by my fellow children. My family was having a difficult time as a whole, and I decided to bottle everything in, thinking I’d only cause more worry otherwise. I would eventually come to harbor suicidal intentions. During that time drawing became an outlet for me to both express and process my emotions, so it naturally became an important necessity in my daily life. It may very well be that was something that ultimately gave me just about enough strength to keep moving forward. Unfortunately, l would later lose my passion to do art. I didn’t really see eye to eye with my high school art teacher, and that really ate at my love for doing art, seeing as it had always been something very closely linked to myself and my enjoyment rather than that of other people. I got tired going about my art as I was expected to. It would take years for that passion to rear its head again. So here I am now, learning everything all over again! 2. What art-related sites have you ever signed up for? I started out on Elfwood in my teens, then also signed up for deviantART. I eventually deleted both of these galleries, once I stopped making more art and checking the activity on these sites started to feel like a chore rather than something fun. Now I have a gallery on deviantART once again, which I update pretty much whenever I have the intention to put something up on Tumblr as well. But I definitely consider my dA account more of a means to keep in touch with a couple of cool people and their artistic endeavors. This Tumblr gallery I consider more my “real gallery”... for no particular reason really. 3. Show us your oldest piece of art you have on hand. FEAST THINE EYES.

This is not the oldest one I have on hand, though. That one has already been posted separately on my blog. 4. What defines your artistic style? That is ridiculously hard to answer to be honest. I experiment so much it becomes difficult even for myself to pinpoint what exactly it is that defines my style. There are certainly some recurring elements, like how my humans tend to have elongated, exaggerated bodies (which is something you can already see in that older drawing above). I suppose that’s one thing that defines my style - a type of exaggeration of proportions and lines. I don’t really give a shit about the dos and don’ts regarding how to make art. Legs for example bend in ways they shouldn’t, and it’s a purely artistic choice from my part. I think it adds a layer of expression to my work, without which the piece would be a lot more boring to look at. I suppose the fuckton of experimentation I do is also something of a defining feature in my art, but it’s more of a personal element than something others can recognize my art by. 5. Do you practice other styles/have you tried other styles in the past? Welp, I think I pretty much brushed on this already above there on question four. Yes, I do, and yes, I have. 6. What levels of artistic education have you had? I have no formal education whatsoever. Though, I did take one course at my local adult education centre. It assembled only about once a month for half a year. It was an alright course, but the teacher’s tips felt very blatantly influenced by her own personal tastes in art. I felt like I was being pushed to express myself in ways that didn’t really feel like me at all, so in the end I never showed up for the last gathering. 7. Show us at least one picture you drew or sketched recently that you did not put on a public site. This practice picture drawn with ink didn’t make the cut mostly because I used the exact same perspective and general composition as for my Cheap Art Supply Challenge piece. But also because I am not that fond of it.

8. What is your favourite piece that you have done? A lot of times I just like the newest piece I’ve made the most, but there are certain works that hold additional value to me even when time passes. It’s been four years since I made it, but I’m still fond of this painting. It was the first time in years that I took up watercolours again, so the piece holds certain personal value to me. For that reason, I could even go as far as calling it my favourite. 9. What is your least favourite piece that you have done? I’m not sure I can decide. Not because I’d have so many not-faves, mind you! I can look back to the pieces I’ve made and think the ideas weren’t as cool as I thought back then, or that the techniques are horrible in comparison to what I’m capable of now. But I still do not really dislike them, because they remind me of how far I’ve come, where my foundations are, and which elements I decided to stick with. They remind me of the steps I’ve taken, and so I can’t really dislike them. 10. What do you like most about your art? Hmm, I think my favourite element in my art is just how unpolished a lot of it is. Like I have no qualms about leaving details vague. For example, a lot of times I draw less details on hands if the body shape is my primary interest in a piece I’m working on. Detailed works are very cool to look at, but there is also nothing wrong with leaving things to the viewer’s imagination, or leaving certain parts simple in order to encourage the viewer’s gaze to move where you want it to. 11. What do you like least about your art? I can’t really say. Despite all my artistic shortcomings, I am rather fond of it overall... Maybe just my lack of readiness to draw more diverse body types? Which is more of an occasional “Should I be doing that?” type of thought, rather than something I perspire over every time I draw and see I have once again created something of the lean and mean variety. 12. Have you ever considered taking commissions? Yes, and I have done some commission work in the past. Currently I have no particular drive to take new ones, however, as I’m more interested in experimenting different things as I see fit. 13. Are you looking to pursue a career in art? Not really. There was a time when I entertained that thought, but realistically speaking, I don’t think I’d work too well under the constant pressure of having to be as productive as possible at all times. I would quickly lose what art means to me, and with that, the joy it gives me. It’d just become another thing I must do to make ends meet. That, I do not want. 14. What do you like drawing the most? Human faces and animals are the most relaxing thing for me to draw, and looking at my sketchbooks, drawing them seems to be bordering on obsession. Other things I enjoy drawing, though less often, are unnecessarily long legs, skeletal figures, and armour.

15. What do you like drawing the least? Backgrounds. I have yet to figure out how to get them to look like they are actually part of the picture and not just their separate thing that is there. Environments overall are rather tricky for me, though I have made some brave attempts. Buildings are hard. Drawing lush vegetation is hard. Having very little patience a lot of times doesn’t encourage learning either. 16. Do you draw more fanart or original art? If fanart, what fandom do you draw the most of? Original art, which you might not guess looking at my blog here, since I started it just when I was about to go on a fanart loop for quite a few months. Wanting to draw fanart comes to me in certain intervals. Overall, however, I find it way more fun to draw whatever comes out of my head and hand, rather than following an already existing example. 17. What would you absolutely refuse to draw? Smut. It’s just not something I feel compelled to create. 18. What is your purpose for drawing? It makes me happier. I was going to go on a tangent about how it calms me and how meditative drawing is, how it gives me that feeling of having accomplished something, etc. - but what all that really boils down to is that simple statement. Drawing makes me happier. 19. What medium/program do you use the most in your art? Ink and watercolour are what I use the most by far. There’s something lovely about watching them spread and mix uncontrollably on a wet surface. Every now and then I get into the mood of trying other types of traditional media, though, like acrylic paint and oil pastels. Right now I’d really like to try my hand at encaustic painting... but getting the necessary equipment is an investment of over a hundred euros. That’s far too much for me in my current situation.

20. How would you rank your art? (poor, mediocre, good, etc.) I am sorry, but I will flat out refuse to answer this one. Ranking one’s art encourages comparison to people you admire. I am really hard pressed to see how this could be anything but toxic. 21. Do you believe there is such thing as “bad art?” Maybe. Art that never evolves anywhere, in any way, but remains absolutely stagnant? Be it on a personal level, or on a more encompassing level that challenges already existing traditions of art. On a personal level it doesn’t need to be very visible evolving either. In my mind, it’s enough if it’s something as small as “I have come to use this one colour I never before felt I could use with success.” If the question comes down to something as mundane as “Do you enjoy the art you see or do you not” being the defining element that discerns good art from the bad... Then my answer would be no, there is no such thing as bad art. I could never claim there is with good conscience, based only on my subjective likes and dislikes. 22. List at least one of your “artspirations.” Oh, I have so so many! And not all of them related to visual arts, even. But there is no point in making such a long list, so here are but a few of them: Gustave Doré and his many illustrations. I am particularly fond of the ones he made for Don Quixote and Orlando Furioso. Yoshitaka Amano. I find myself rather drawn to the elegance displayed in many of his paintings and drawings. Albrecht Dürer and his highly detailed woodcuts. Ayami Kojima and her masterful use of traditional means. She is self-taught too, which in and of itself is inspiring. Lian Quan Zhen and the beautifully lush colours in all his watercolour works. Paul Koudounaris and his absolutely gorgeous photographs of the lovingly decorated catacomb saints. (Picture below from his publication Heavenly Bodies, Thames Hudson Ltd, 2013.)

23. What do you think you could stand to improve on? Everything. I’m not really the type to stop and think I shouldn’t strive to improve more on a certain area just because I happen to like whatever I’m already doing. There are always elements I can refine, new methods of expression to test, and just plain something I could do better or at least differently enough to keep things interesting for myself. 24. Do you have a shameful art past? (recolour sprite comics, tracing art, etc.? Oh no, why end on such an embarrassing note! Cruel, cruel person, that came up with these questions. The short answer is yes. The long answer is, well, I would copy other people’s artwork, making only about just enough changes to replace the characters they drew with my own ones. Just thinking about it now makes me cringe! In case you were left wondering: None of those pictures were ever published anywhere, and have long since been burned with fire. And that’s an accurate description of what happened to them. All of them.

--- Turns out some versions of this meme also include: 25. Draw a picture! So here’s a quick pooch. Thanks for reading!

[aegisroleplay]

My guest today is Aiden Fowler, a recent transfer from facility 36 in Charlotte, North Carolina. Mr. Fowler, welcome. I understand you have, in addition to the ability to psionically manipulate ink, some degree of skill in the more common manipulation of ink: through pens. How long have you been an artist?

Uhh… I don’t know, I guess for as long as I can remember? My mom said I never stopped scribling, that I used to write on the walls and all kinds of furniture. I was a little of a troublemaker, honestly. It was one of these things that no matter how discouraged I got about, I always tried again and again and again… Sometimes with a break, but something was always compelling me to draw once more. And to be honest, I loved it. I was terrible at the start, but it never stopped being fun! …Oh, did I, did I escape from the question? I uhhh, I t-think I got… carried away. Sorry about that.

Not at all, it is very interesting how your hobby and your powers are related. In my experience that is quite unusual. Do you ever use your powers to directly make art, or only to erase lines you want to make a second try at?

Oh Is it? I had no idea, I alaways thought that people chose hobbies closer to their powers… But maybe that’s more a matter of adaptation? Use my power to directly make art? No, actually… That just seems wrong. As in, my attention would have to go all into the action and less into the oject I’m drawing, or the idea I’m inspired by, you know? To me, art is more about feeling than technique, so doing something like that would be the opposite of what I want. I wouldn’t be satisfied with the result. So yeah, I just use it to erase things. Quite handy when you choose pens to draw with! Maybe even a bit of an unfair advantage… (laughs)

(chuckles) I can certainly say, as a journalist, there have been times when I wished ink could be unspilled! I am curious what you mean by ‘wrong’ in this context? Is it just that you are used to laying down ink in the traditional way and haven’t practiced with your powers? Is the mental manipulation less exact or harder to control? Have you ever tried more of a ‘Jackson Pollock’ approach, just scattering ink for a sort of abstract expression?(

Definitely harder to control. Theres a huge difference between picking my pen and writting with it, and floating the ink in the air and carefully placing it down in the pattern I want. I mean, uhhh drawing on the air! It’s like drawing with my finger on the air, except that makes the ink travel through … the paper! In this case. I don’t know, it’s going to take an insane amount of concentration. If I get startled for example, it’s going to throw ink everywhere. Which is…not pleasant. I just prefer the pen. It’s having a sudden extra line VS ink splattered on god knows where… Yeeeaaaahh, I’ll have the extra line please! I, actually haven’t! Would probably need to cover everything with paper as to not make a huge mess… Again. But! That actually sounds fun! …I wonder how much paper I’d need to protect my entire room…? Maybe I could use some spare plastic instead?

You know, I think I would talk to Mr. McNabb about that. I have the impression he is used to dealing with accidental spills of various kinds, and I bet you could convince him to get the whole class to do abstract art as a study in emotional expression. And with minimal arm twisting, you could probably get some extra credit in the class for clean up afterward!

T-the whole class?! Oh no! I-I bet the teacher has more important things to do, and already has a class plan figured out… I would just get in the way of that… And, I don’t know… Painting by myself is fine but, I’ll …probably find a way to screw that up in front of the class… I’d rather just keep things the way they are, you know? Higher chance of success, I guess… Or at least, less chance of failure.

I think you may overestimate how thoroughly planned teachers lessons are at 108 At any rate, I certainly wouldn’t encourage you to push too hard against the boundaries of your comfort zone. Have you thought at all about how your talents could be used in the service of a blue card? It occurs to me that police use sketch artists all the time when interviewing witnesses…

T-thanks… I-I just prefer to stay in the back and do my thing… Don’t need much attention or anything of the sort. Uhhhh… A blue card? Me?! Are you sure? I’m not exactly …useful you know? I can barely keep myself from freaking out about things, and then there’s the asthma… I mean, If I just stay in the office all the time…. Maybe? Buut… I don’t know, I can’t see myself doing anything important, really. I’m just someone who likes to draw and read, there’s not much.

I think you sell yourself short Aiden. Never underestimate the value of a rich inner life. It can give you insights more brash straightforward people tend to lack. Artists too, tend to notice things others overlook. Hero work is more than flashy fight scenes with terrorists: most of the real work is of a more mental nature such as canvassing for witnesses and crime scene investigation.

…But art is one thing, and, all of these are a tad different… I can’t see myself being an investigator or anything or the sort, I’m not even that smart. I may use smart words once in a while, but I just them somewhere and thought they were nice. Nothing that enlightening. I, don’t know what you’re expecting from me, but… I’ll probably let you down.

Its not me you should be looking to impress. I can’t be let down; I am a reporter. My job is to uncover the truth and spread it. Having expectations to be let down is one of the first things to be excised. The truth is what it is, and expecting it to be different is a fools errand. That said, there is such a thing as a self fulfilling prophecy. How you see yourself is largely how you will become, if you repeat it often enough and believe it hard enough. Let’s just say I see potential in you, as do your teachers. Nobody is pressuring you to develop this way or that. Be yourself! But be open to the possibility that you may surprise yourself someday… Sorry. I think I have been hanging around with Anneliese too much. You should talk to her instead of me. What do you see yourself doing in ten years time?

Oh, I have her card. I really should got there but, I start wondering if I could be showing up on a bad time and interrupt something and it gives me butterflies on my stomach just to think about that… So, I didn’t go yet. I need more time to find the courage to. It’s complicated. What I see myself doing in ten years? Uhhh, art college? Maybe? I haven’t given it much thought to speak the truth. There’s things I find fascinating like languages and history, though the second one is more, I love reading history books, sometimes. Not sure if that’s enough. And then there’s what I already do such as art and I guess organizing things, if it counts? Does it count? I-I don’t really know…

Anything you are passionate about counts. Trust that and it will take you to interesting new places. In the meantime, welcome to facility 108. I hope you will enjoy your time here! Thank you. And I am! Someone set up this Dungeons & Dragons table… What was the name? Nix? And whoa! I was surprised people still played that! I thought that was just something my friend Mark had taken out of the treasure chest. This old table RPG game few knew about… That one was all digital though. I think I prefer having the actual books and admiring the printing live. Anyway, that was a blast! Scary at first, but soon I got used to people and it got enjoyable. I’d love to play again, actually. Anneliese was there actually. But I still didn’t talk to her, oops… I really let that opportunity pass. No worries. There will be plenty of time for that. Thank you for the conversation, Mr. Fowler.

You’re welcome uhhh, what was it Kate? Sorry, I’m terrible with names. Also, sorry that the interview was so messy and such. I’m just very very bad at this kind of thing. I’m glad that you could bear with me through all that! (laughs)

  To participate in future publications of the Barrett All, contact Bag o Fruit or Gus!

New updates every Wednesday.

Barrett All #17: Aiden Fowler My guest today is Aiden Fowler, a recent transfer from facility 36 in Charlotte, North Carolina. Mr.