#i can’t listen to the stupid fucking. lost media song without wanting to cry! i quickly became homophobic. hating gay people became part— /

[i-hear-a-sound]

“Like the wind, you came here running Take the consequence of living”

“Like the wind, you're gonna suffer Let a smile be your companion”

[xdandelionxbloomx]

Modern Day AU idea

(CW: cancer - not major character death)

Jaskier and Geralt had been friends for nearly a decade and a half - 

They met in college when they were randomly assigned roommates and they fucking HATED each other at first, couldn’t stand each other’s guts - Geralt thought Julian was a trust fund baby who got an easy ride and he talked so goddamn much without ever SAYING anything and wasn’t that exhausting??? Jaskier hated Geralt because the man was so fucking quiet and prickly and he never listened to music - who the hell never listens to music? And really it was a nightmare for the first half of the year and then one day Geralt came home early from his weekend trip he took out to Kaer Morhen Ranch about two hours out from their school and Julian was in TEARS on the bed, staring down at a financial aid bill and Geralt’s whole world turned on its axis. 

Something changed between them that night and although they still were at each other’s throats, it was softer and slowly actual anger turned into bickering and then into blows that didn’t land at all, uncertain smiles and shared chores. 

(And maybe Julian finally told Geralt that it was Jaskier and Geralt corrected himself immediately)

Geralt could COOK and Jaskier finally found out what music he liked and everyone on their goddamn floor had bets for when they’d get together as Jaskier sang and played his stupid guitar while the hottest dude in the boy’s dorm cooked for him in the tiny, awful kitchen

Their latter years of college were spent sharing an apartment when Jaskier secured a better job and Geralt started training horses at Kaer Morhen and it brought in a solid amount of funds - “Welcome home, Cowboy-” started out as a joke, but the endearment STUCK

And so, yeah, Jaskier was fucking hopelessly in love with Geralt and he just,,, existed in some kind of goddamn limbo. It felt like they danced a line so close and then Geralt would fall into a relationship - Renfi, Yennefer, he WON’T think about that three month tryst with some dude named Regis like who names their kid Regis-- 

Jaskier wrote and wrote and wrote and yeah, he’d gone to school for creative writing but on an open mic night someone from a label spotted him and suddenly he was swept up into this wild life in the media and he was singing and touring and suddenly little busking jobs turned into stadiums with lights so bright he couldn’t see the crowd and he just missed Geralt so much---

And they see each other every few months but it’s not how it used to be and Jaskier feels so lost-- 

And then-- 

And then one day he woke up with a sore throat and then-- 

Then he found his neck oddly swollen and he caved and went to the doctor and--

And the doctor tells him-- 

He tells him it’s cancer-- 

Early stages, they have a good chance of beating it, he just has to follow the treatment plan-- 

And it was in his throat because of course the world would want to keep that out of his reach too--

Jaskier arrived one dry summer afternoon at the Kaer Morhen ranch in a big black SUV that peeled away as soon as it dropped him-- 

And Geralt was there, of course he was there, and it was Roach - this little chestnut mare he’d been working to rehabilitate - she was aggressive to most other people and didn’t play well with the other creatures on the ranch and Geralt was terrible at texting but he sent Roach pictures every three days-- 

And Jaskier kind of wants to cry because they said there was a good chance, but what if-- what if there’s not because it’s cancer and what if it spreads to the rest of him-- 

And he’s terrified-- 

He’s wasted so much time-- 

So much time-- 

Geralt saw him and lit up, and he fucking-- he vaulted over the fence like he wasn’t almost thirty five, light and spry and strong as ever, and Jaskier’s weak in the knees-- 

“Hey, Cowboy.” He said and his voice cracked, sounded rough, and he reaches up to scrub at his face, laughing without humor, unsure of how to hold himself together-- 

Geralt’s on him in moments-- 

And Jaskier babbled about needing a break and medical visits--

And CANCER--

Jaskier didn’t tell him that he loved him that night-- 

He didn’t tell him for a long time-- 

It felt like a long time, anyways-- 

Geralt couldn’t wrap his head around the whole thing because Jaskier has never smoked so how-- 

And it could have been secondhand Jaskier tried to explain, tried to illustrate smokers in their lavish mansions with food that looked beautiful and tasted like shit, and GOD he’d missed Geralt’s cooking-- 

Treatment was hard and he’d been traveling for the first half, but he eventually got to the point he couldn’t handle it anymore and he was going to say goodbye to Geralt and maybe-- 

But Geralt told him to stay, to be there, and Jaskier was always weak to refuse a request from Geralt so he stayed-- 

And Jaskier tried to tell him, he tried to, because there were days where he felt like time and the world was slipping out of his hands, where he felt like a ghost in his own body, wandering the halls of something unrecognizable-- 

And-- 

And--- 

He couldn’t even sing very well anymore at all-- 

And-- 

Jaskier shuffled out on the porch one night when he couldn’t find Geralt - the man’s hunched over a disgusting black coffee which meant he was worried and he was staring at the horse paddock like he could see something through the night-- 

“Cowboy.” Jaskier’s voice was a crackle, a raw noise, and Geralt startled, looking up at him, and then he looked wounded and Jaskier HATED that-- 

“I can go if it’s too much.” Jaskier rasped, wincing at the toll.

“No,” Geralt retorted immediately - “Don’t ever go.”  

And Jaskier started crying right then and there on the porch in autumn with a tiny breeze enough to make him shiver--

“I should have told you,” His voice creaked, “I should have told you.”

And Geralt stood and held him and didn’t ask and Jaskier couldn’t bring himself to say it-- 

And then-- 

And then-- 

They tell him it’s over-- 

That he’s cancer free-- 

And the not enough time fear has become something new he can’t fathom (years stretch ahead of him, seasons rolling) and he doesn’t return to the world Out There he stays on the ranch while he works through recovery--

And he day that he hollers across to the paddock without feeling like he’d swallowed glass, he realizes-- 

And he doesn’t say it, not really-- 

Geralt comes in that night dirty and exhausted and Jaskier-- 

He crowds him up against the wall of the little ranch house, rattling some of the pictures on the wall as his best friend in the whole world’s back hits it-- 

The love of his goddamn life-- 

“They’re all about you.” He says--

“Every single goddamn one is about you and I almost didn’t have enough time-- I didn’t--” And he kisses Geralt because he cannot do anything else-- 

And Geralt kisses him back desperately, winds those stupid strong arms around his neck and pulls him in until they’re pressed against each other from chest to hip--

“Don’t ever go.” Geralt’s voice is a rough rumble from working out with the horses all day and from emotion and Jaskier wraps his arms around his waist, squeezing him tightly, pressing his face to his neck-- 

“Never.” He says--

And when he comes back-- 

When he comes back to social media it’s about how he beat cancer and got his voice back-- 

And his new single-- 

His new single is a tender ballad (his voice is slightly off, but it always will be after the ordeal his body went through to keep it) about a cowboy who went grey early, who liked his coffee with milk and sugar on good mornings, who had warm hands, and-- 

Everyone loses their shit-- 

Because it’s gay country music and so many feel fucking seen-- 

And Jaskier’s upbeat pop songs become a mix with slower country and he doesn’t have the twang but he sings of love and ranches and horses and sunsets with a beat up pickup truck-- 

And Jaskier is HAPPY--

He’s even happier a few years later when he posts a picture of a simple gold band on his finger (without a caption since he doubted it needed one).

[peeterparkr]

limits of desire⤳t.h.||12

chapter 12: something borrowed.

story summary: you met Tom a night he was trying to sleep with you, it didn’t work and you became best of friends. Wedding bells might be ringing for when you both realize what you really feel.

summary: the one with the phonecalls and Lizzie. 

pairing: fuckboy!tom holland x best friend!reader

warnings: swearing, angsty, mentions of cheating, lizzie, miguel. alcohol

word count: 4.8k

previous chapter next chapter series masterlist wanna be tagged?

Hi, sorry this took so long. I took a break from social media because of the holidays, but it’s here! I hope you like it! 

How do you react to the love of your life not wanting to be with you? 

Tom had tried to give it an explanation. Logical, or not. He wasn’t exactly having the greatest time of his life. Quite the opposite, really. He’d spend most time in bed, he was annoyed by himself, he couldn’t stand himself. Sometimes he’d go out, and be reminded of her, on every street, every song, every person, every movie, every goddam radio station belonged to her thought. 

And her voice echoed through the halls, and he’d look at the remaining pieces of her in his place, like the pictures hanging on his walls, or a lipstick she had forgotten, or the cinnamon rolls he had bought for breakfast. He didn’t sleep. He didn’t talk. 

He avoided everything. 

Because Tom knew this was y/n, being scared of him. This was y/n not wanting to give up life because it was him. Had it been anybody else whom she’d fallen in love with, like Haz, or Tuwaine or any of his brothers... she would’ve stayed. Because she believed in them. But not in Tom. 

Not in Tom. 

Because Tom knew it relied on the fact of his past.  The fact that he never committed to something. The fact she’d have to deal with every other girl not wanting to talk to her because they’d slept with Tom. The fact that she had to look away whenever he was making out with her another woman. 

The fact that he willingly had told her that they could kiss without it meaning anything, 6 months before. The fact that months ago, he had basically wanted to kiss her because she’d be leaving the very next day. 

Because Tom knew y/n. 

That didn’t mean he wasn’t angry.

Had he done anything wrong that night? 

But he had felt he hadn’t. He had told her he loved her. Although, he had told her he loved her countless times before. Maybe he should’ve been less pragmatic.

He had called her, but she had only answered once. 

And it hadn’t been her. 

“Hey?” And Tom hadn’t like that voice. 

“Hey—uh, who’s this?” Tom asked. 

“Oh, sorry man, it’s Miguel, y/n is taking a shower,” the guy had cheerfully answered. 

Tom rolled his eyes. “Oh. Er, okay, can you—can you tell her to call me back, please?”

“Sure! I’ll tell her! Hey—uh, she told me you might not make it to the wedding—“

Tom sighed. “She did?”

“Yeah, but it would mean a lot to us, you know? You’re her best friend.” 

“Yeah, It’s cause—something came up, might be filming on those days,” he lied. “And she probably doesn’t want me there.”

“Oh, I assure you she does, every time you come up in conversations she gets a little bummed.”

Tom rubbed his face. “I’ll do everything I can.” 

“Alright.”

“Please tell her to call me back.” 

“Of course, bye!” 

Had she lead him on? Probably....probably. 

Tom was giving it yet another spin. He was sitting down at a pub as he wasn’t really listening to whatever his brothers and friends were saying. The music was muffled. Their voices. The lights.

Tom couldn’t listen to anything, or see anything. He just stared at the fourth—fifth beer he had chugged down. 

He was desperate. He hadn’t slept these days. And he yet couldn’t process it. He had tried calling her, countless times and it wouldn’t even ring. Not Instagram. Not Twitter. She was not answering. 

And Tom, he was angry. Very angry. Because it got him to think. And because the last time he’d talked to her... he hadn’t meant it. 

Because Harrison had called her, and she had answered. He wasn’t sure why. 

And he had stolen the phone from Haz. 

“Y/N.” 

“Who—“

“Why did you do it?” He had yelled. 

“What—me?” 

“Why did you leave? You can’t marry him!” 

And she had stayed quiet. 

“Y/N.” 

“I don’t want to have this conversation.” 

“Oh but you have to, y/n, can you stop fucking running away from this?” He snapped. “Should I contact Miguel and tell him you cheated?” 

“Gosh—No!” 

“Then why are you running?” 

“I am the one running now, Tom? Really?” She laughed. “I can’t believe you.” 

“Why are you doing this?” Tom asked. “Why are you doing this?”

“Because that’s how it works right? That’s just how it fucking works with you! One night and then you’d be gone! I want you out of my life Tom, and I gave us the chance! This was it. I gave you the perfect reason to get away from me,” and Tom knew she was crying.

“But—y/n I... I am... I love you, why—?”

“No, Tom, you don’t love me.” And then she stayed quiet. Tom did too. “You don’t love me, you are just scared that you’ll lose me, but you’ve already lost me anyway.” 

Tom bit his lip. “Tell me you never felt anything.” 

“If I did, it’s long gone,” she whispered. “I can’t keep getting hurt. I can’t let myself be another prize for you to win so you can throw it away.”

“I don’t want—“he sighed. “I want you here.” 

“For what? So you can hang out with me after you got laid?” She cackled. “I can’t stay there.” 

“You were never—“

“I was, we both know it, and why are we even having this conversation?” She sounded tired. 

“Then why did you do it?”

“Do what?”

“Kiss me.” 

“It was just a kiss,” she said with poison. “It doesn’t mean anything.” She sighed. “I dunno, guess it was my free pass to finally get away from you.” 

“Oh, so you don’t want me near you?” 

She didn’t answer. 

“Y/N.” 

“I don’t, alright?” She yelled. “I’m in love with Miguel, and having you close means jeopardizing my relationship.” 

“You’re not in love with him—you should be in love with me.” 

Y/N laughed. “You’ve got to be kidding me, I have to be—not everyone loves you, Tom. That’s the thing with you! You only think about you and you think everything revolves around you! And you never stop to see what the other one feels!” 

“And did you stop to think about how I felt when you left?” Tom pushed. 

“You realized what you did, don’t you?” She questioned him. “You put yourself before any of this, knowing that although, I’m finally happy, you decided that you simply didn’t want me to marry him, because you knew I’d be gone,” she explained. “You don’t love me, Tom. You can’t possibly love anyone.”

Tom closed his eyes. “Is that really what you think of me?” 

“That you’re a selfish, arrogant son of a bitch?” She asked. “Yeah.” 

“Well, I’m glad I am out of your fucking life, then.”

And she had hung up. 

Which led to an angry Tom. Because he hadn’t meant it. But anger had taken over him. And he knew he had fucked up. Because he really had. And now, he’d just hear about it, he knew he’d just hear about it from his friends, about how she married Mr. Perfect. 

And he thought about calling Miguel and telling him about that night. But he knew he wanted her to be happy, and maybe Miguel would make her happy. Tom wouldn’t. 

He knew he was to blame himself because he didn’t take the chance when he could’ve. And he hadn’t meant it. He wasn’t glad that she was out of his life. 

Maybe they were meant for this. To always be apart.

And he had seen her stories on Instagram. She seemed happy with Miguel, while kissing his cheek. And Tom felt his stomach burning up. Because she had uploaded stories with him in the kitchen, laughing as they cooked. And he heard her laugh. 

And it bothered him, because, well, she used to laugh like that with him. That smile had been reserved for him. 

And now it belonged to someone else. 

And it hurt. It hurt to think he’d lost his chance. He wanted to ask her for a favour, to please not use that laugh when’s he was around Miguel. 

It was Christmas Eve. And he really wasn’t up for anything. 

“Tom,” Harry pushed again. Tom didn’t look up. The beer on his hand was half-empty. No drink tasted as good as her lips. 

“Thomas, c’mon,” And this time, Tom did look up because it wasn’t any of his friends. And he was surprised to see her. 

He didn’t say anything. He just looked at her. 

“Can we—can we talk?” She asked him. 

Tom shrugged. “You won, didn’t you?” 

Lizzie sighed as she sat across him. 

“Finally, words,” Tuwaine exclaimed. 

Tom glared at him. 

“You look like shit,” Lizzie stated. 

Sam glared at her. 

“Why did you bring her?” Tom asked Haz. 

Lizzie sighed as she rolled her eyes. “Because I also think y/n is doing something very stupid.” 

Tom shrugged. “Maybe she isn’t.” 

Lizzie scuffed. “Oh god, please.” 

“She is doing the most stupidest fucking thing she’s ever done,” Harry said. 

“I agree,” Lizzie said. 

“No, no,” Tom sighed. “Because she will be happy.”

“Look, maybe I think you’re a big piece of shit, but I know she won’t be happy with Miguel.” 

“And would she be happy with me? She made it clear, she doesn’t want to fucking see me again, I won’t make her happy.”

“Do you love her?” Lizzie asked. 

“I do, I’ve been in love with her since we bloody met, and that’s why I’m letting her go, she hates me—“

“She doesn’t. But she doesn’t believe you love her, and look, I don’t—support you.”

“Clearly.”

“But I don’t support her marriage with Miguel either,” she continued. “And while I know I can’t do anything about it, because whatever her choice is, I will stand by her… But  I know you can.” 

“How?” Tom laughed with cynicism. “Maybe I can but I don’t want to.” 

Sam glared at him. “Why not?” 

Tom sighed. “I’m—she broke my heart, alright? How do you I think I feel?” Tom said. “Have you guys seen me in the last few days?” 

Haz looked away. 

“She broke me, I really don’t want to see her,” Tom explained. “I’ve given up, I can’t be in love with her, I don’t—and I don’t want you to bring in Lizzie to—this. It’s over, alright?”

“You’re giving up on her? Really? After you proved her you know her from head to toe?” 

Tom looked away. 

“C’mon that question? About the scars?” Lizzie asked. “Not even her mum could answer it.” 

Tom shrugged. “Well, It’s a small scar.” 

“She’d never told anyone but you, yes, it’s a stupid scar she had on her knee because of a stupid table, but you’re the only one to know it.” 

“What—What does this have to do with anything? Yes, I know her, I love her but—she really hurt me,” Tom exhaled. “I—I felt like an idiot. After everything I’ve done for her! She only gave me hope for one night and then left, without a warning.” 

Lizzie chuckled, to herself. “Feels awful, doesn’t it?” 

Tom sighed. “It’s—“ 

“Different?” Lizzie crossed her arms. “Really? Why?”

“I’m in love-“

Lizzie sighed. “Look, Tom, I was—at some point in love with you, too. And it felt awful.” 

Tom looked down at his beer.

“But you know what made it awful?” She continued. “That I knew that you would never fall in love with me, because deep down you were in love with my best friend and I knew that deep down, she was in love with you.” 

Tom rolled his eyes. “That’s bullshit.” 

“Look, I don’t know if she’ll be with you “ Lizzie continued. “Honestly, I can’t promise you that, but if you love her—and we both know her, we know that she shouldn’t be marrying him.”

“He is perfect,” Tom pushed. “She is happy, have you seen her stories?” 

“He might be, and she might be happy, I look at her—sure, her smile is just as big but you know what else I noticed? She’s wearing your shirts.” 

Tom looked away. She had been. That marvel t-shirt someone on set had given him, and that she had worn once and would often every time she stayed at his place. He must’ve taken it the day she left. 

“That means nothing,” he said and he looked away. 

Lizzie sighed. “She’s throwing away her life, her dreams.”

Tom shook his head. He knew he was being selfish, but he agreed. However, he knew exactly the reason as to why he agreed was merely his pride. 

“Is she?”

Harry nodded. “She had a job offer that would get her to her dream.”

“Dreams change,” Tom stated. Like his, his dreams had changed. He would give up everything just for another taste of her lips. “And—this is stupid, alright.” 

Lizzie shook her head. “You and I know her best, but I know her better. Y/N does these things, if you are scared of commitment she is worse—“

“I’m not scared-“

“Don’t get me started. Y/N fell in love with you because that’s what she does, she knew that falling in love with you meant no commitment, And with you? Free pass to never have to deal with this. She loved to run away from feelings, I’ve known her all my life. This is y/n not accepting that you love her, too.” 

“That’s not—She knows I love her,” Tom said. “But she doesn’t want me to love her.” 

Liz shrugged. “Maybe. But y/n always runs away from relationships.” 

“Except with Miguel.” 

Liz smirked. “Then why did she kiss you?” 

Tom gulped down. 

Liz chuckled. “You haven’t tried enough.” 

Tom frowned. 

“Tom is making a point,” Haz admitted. 

“You’re on his side?” Lizzie frowned. 

“C’mon, you saw him back at the dancing lesson, he’s tried,” Haz pointed out. 

“But did you tell her—?” Lizzie pushed. 

Harry nodded. “He did tell her not to get married.” 

“Does she know you love her?”

Tom sighed. “She says I don’t love her, claims I am only doing this because I am scared of losing her.” 

“Is that true?” Lizzie asked. 

Harry scoffed, “technically.” 

“It’s not,” Tom sighed. “Partly, it is. I am afraid to lose her, but because I love her —she’s like—poetry.” 

Lizzie watched him. “You know she left because you let her leave right?” 

Tom frowned. “No.” 

Lizzie shrugged. “Please, think about all the guys she’s dated,” Liz explained. “Take that Harry guy, Harry Sanders, let’s start with him.” 

Tom frowned. 

“I’m not—I am too drunk to listen about all the guys she’s dated.” 

“Oh, but she had to deal with all the women parading your life?” Lizzie frowned, crossing her arms. 

Harry clucked his tongue. 

“But what about that poor idiot?” Asked Tuwaine. “He was in love with her.”

“Still is. Bet poor guy is going through a worse time than Tom,” commented Haz. 

“The moment she felt anything, she ran away, and broke up with them,” Liz pointed out. 

Tom bit his lip. “Yeah—“ he had pointed that to y/n once. 

“But, that’s not all,” Lizzie continued. “Let’s go with—Charlie, yes, Charlie.” 

“She didn’t like him,” Tom quickly said. 

“Alright, then how about that guy—Andrew.” 

“She never liked him,” Tom said. 

“Alright, what do those three have in common?” Asked Lizzie. 

Tom shrugged. “Poor fools who fell in love with her, I should add myself to that list,” Tom said as he ordered another beer. 

“No,” Liz shook her head. “Who pointed out to her that she didn’t like them the same way?” 

Tuwaine bit his lip. “Tom.” 

Lizzie nodded. “You’re the only one who can talk her out of this.” 

Tom looked away. “I don’t want to.” He rubbed his face. His eyes were red and his movements were fizzed. 

“If you love her, you know that he is not right for her, and you’ll finally do something so selfless only because you love her.” 

Tom stood up and walked out of the pub. Lizzie followed after him. 

Tom leaned against the wall. “I can’t,” he admitted. “She thinks I’m a selfish, arrogant son of a bitch. And maybe she’s right. I know I am stupid, I didn’t fight for it when I thought I could. Until I thought I’d lose her I finally accepted it,” Tom said. “She’s right. But I love her. She’s the love of my life and she wants me as far as I can be,” Tom sighed. “How do you think that makes me feel?” 

“You haven’t fought enough, Tom. If you love her that fucking much then you would keep fighting for her,” Lizzie pushed. “Really? You fought for three days and gave up? She fought for years and gave up 6 months ago, the least you can do for her is to try and stop her wedding.” 

Tom looked up. “That’s selfish.” 

“Then be selfless,” Lizzie insisted. “At least, get some balls and go to the wedding.” 

Tom looked up. “What for?” 

“She told me about the kiss,” Lizzie said. “I guess it’s partly my fault.” 

Tom let out a laugh. “Doesn’t surprise me.” 

“I told her that she should at least do something before the wedding, I stupidly believed that would stop her, without knowing you did feel something for her I guess I thought—that she would be brought back to her senses and realize that marrying a stranger is stupid.” Lizzie sighed. 

“And she didn’t, she just took it as a chance to get rid off me,” Tom said as he tried to balance himself. “But she—she loves him,” Tom continued. “I really do think she loves him. I won’t—I don’t want to stop her from being happy,” Tom said. “At this point—I would even—Go to her wedding if it meant still having contact with her.” 

Lizzie watched him. “You should, then.” 

Tom shook his head. “She doesn’t want me there.” 

Lizzie watched him with pity. No one would’ve ever believed they didn’t like each other.

“Tell her,” said Lizzie before pulling out her phone. “But I need you to be calm, alright? You can borrow my phone.”

She handed over the phone and Tom stared at the contact i.d. It was a picture of y/n and Lizzie making a silly face, not so different from the one Tom had with her. And suddenly, he sobered up. He looked at Lizzie as she just walked back into the pub. 

Tom closed his eyes and took a deep breath, he called her. 

And he was shaking, it was ringing. And it seemed that it was the longest time before she answered. It gave Tom time to think about her, how charming she was. How her low voice always made everyone lean to her, charming and lovely. Or how her face always gave him a hidden promise with those bright eyes of her. How her voice always sounded like she had an exciting adventure to tell him.

“Hello—hello?” Y/N laughed, and her laugh echoed through the phone gracefully. “Give me a second, Liz, I’m—“y/n laughed again, and Tom felt it through his chest, like a dagger straight into his heart. “I’m helping out with Christmas dinner, they celebrate it on Christmas Eve here,” she explained. “Liz?” And there it was, that whisper that promised a lovely conversation.

“Hi,” he said. “It’s...It’s Tom.” 

The line suddenly went dead silent and all Tom could hear were muffled voices and music. 

“I—I need to take this, I’ll be right back,” he heard y/n say to someone else. Her voice had turned stiff. 

Tom gulped as he walked around. He just heard her take a big breath. 

“Y/N?” 

“Yeah, yeah, I’m—I’m here.” 

“I’m sorry,” he started. 

She didn’t say anything right away. “No, I’m sorry too—“

“No, y/n, listen. I’m sorry, alright? I—said things I didn’t mean, alright? I need you to know you’re my best friend and I need us to be bigger than this. You’re right, I’m so afraid to lose you—“

“Tom-“

“I love you, y/n, and I can’t be that arrogant-“

“You’re not-“

“But I am, alright? I am just a selfish, arrogant son of a bitch. I can’t be that anymore, and though it hurts, if this is what makes you happy then I can’t stop you but at least let me be there, I’m—“

“Tom, it’s—“ she sighed. “I also said things I didn’t mean. I didn’t mean that.” 

“I can’t lose you, y/n, not like this.” 

“I’ve missed you,” she admitted. “I’m just—I am scared alright?”

“Let’s forget that happened, okay?” He asked her. “Or...if you wanna talk about it—“

“I—I don’t know. I was being stupid. I tend to sabotage myself and—somehow I think we got lost in the moment-“

“I fucked up. Big time. But please, it’s us against this, not me against you, not you against me. And I don’t want to be someone who you avoid talking about.” Tom couldn’t let her continue. 

“It—it was my fault,” she said. “Let’s just—ignore that night. Okay? We are friends. We don’t feel anything for each other. I’m getting married.” 

And it seemed like she was telling that to herself mostly. 

“I—“

“I miss you,” she said again. They probably had run out of things to say that weren’t decent. 

“I miss you, too,” his voice was shaking. “I—I understand if you don’t want to see me anymore, and—it takes everything in me, but I really do want to see you, one last time. A proper goodbye.” 

She stayed quiet.

“I just need one thing,” she said. “Please… After this, we… We go separate ways.” 

Tom sighed. “Yup, you’ll never hear from me again.” 

“Well...You’re still coming, right? You’re still the maid of honor, aren’t you?” 

—

Boxing Day.— 5 days until the wedding. 

Y/N hadn’t been sleeping. There’s a fine line between a kiss and whatever they had done. Problem was y/n knew that she had cheated. But, she was cheating on someone rather than herself. She was fooling her heart. And all this time with Miguel had helped her to put her back to her senses. 

She had stopped herself. She hadn’t slept with Tom, but, she had done something worse, she had connected with him. In a way that she knew she’d never been able to connect with Miguel. And it was wrong. Very wrong. Because she was marrying Miguel. And although... he was good, in every way, she knew deep down her heart belonged to Tom. 

Yet it was... complicated. He had said the words: “I love you.” And he had kept calling and he had kept on saying he loved her. But this wasn’t Tom. Really. Tom couldn’t love anyone. Y/N was just the worst victim. The most complicated one. She thought about it, how he had finally understood how to get her into bed, saying he loved her. It had taken him four years to try and getr into her pants. 

No, Tom couldn’t love her. Not in that way, anyway. 

Or maybe he did. But y/n didn’t want to think about it. Y/N knew she was like Tom. She didn’t like relationships, she didn’t like having to deal with all of the crap that relationships deal with. She didn’t like big romantic gestures. No, that wasn’t her. 

She didn’t like big movies or dancing proposals. She loved the small details. The ones that people don’t usually notice. 

Like when she saw an old couple in a restaurant, the woman had gone to the restroom and her husband had ordered her drink for her, without her asking him to. Those details. The way they know their thoughts before they can even think them. 

In a way, the way her and Tom knew each other. But y/n knew that loving Tom meant him getting bored of her. That sooner or later he’d miss his life and start having sport like meaningless sex.  Tom loving her was something momentary. 

But she would marry Miguel, someone who was willing to learn. A new book. Someone who could stay. 

She could’ve stayed. Yet, she hadn’t. Because Tom had said those words: “This won’t matter tomorrow.” 

And that’s when she’d been reminded of who Tom was. One night stand only. That’s who he was. No commitment, whatsoever. And maybe it would’ve worked, but she loved him too much, and she knew that sooner or later they’d be done, and then they’d be a couple of strangers who can barely have any small talk. 

Marrying Miguel. She was watching him, talking to his family by the pool. They were staying at a nice hotel, where everyone loved Miguel. Because what could you possibly not love about him?

She couldn’t hurt him. At this point, she was marrying him because she did love him, enough to never want him to be hurt. 

And his family. She couldn’t hurt his family. They had been perfect. 

And she’d learned so much from them on those days. And the days had been bright, the sun was shining. Because whenever she was with Miguel, it seemed like everything was fine. 

She was alright. She wasn’t on the edge, she didn’t need to hide any possible emotion. 

But that didn’t stop her. Her leg was shaking as she looked at her phone. She had received a text from Haz about an hour ago, they had landed. 

They were here, and any moment now they’d be arriving. 

She had had many margaritas. Who was counting, anyway? And Miguel’s cousin(?) maybe it was someone else’s was telling her a story about their childhood. Or something of sorts. 

She was just nodding and smiling, Miguel had taught her to do that. Smile and nod. Smile and nod. Smile and nod. 

Lizzie, Hannah and Jess had arrived on Christmas day. Lizzie had seemed off, and hadn’t questioned y/n on the subject she was dying to be questioned on. She felt so guilty, she even thought about telling Miguel. But what would she tell him? That she had cheated on him? That she didn’t love him as much as she loved Tom? 

She couldn’t. 

“So, Miguel told me, is it true? That Tom Holland is your maid of honour?” Miguel’s cousin asked, whose name y/n had forgotten after being introduced to what seemed the thousand family members he had. Latinos have big families. 

Suddenly that name brought y/n back to the conversation, anyone looking at her would’ve seen the sparkle in her eyes. It was sad and lovely, and the cousin, Mariana, yes, it was Mariana noticed it. 

“Tom?” Y/N’s voice was subtle. 

Mariana grinned. “Yes… Is he…?” 

“Yes, he’s...my best friend,” she explained. “He’s supposed to be arriving soon…” 

“But the maid of honour?” Asked Mariana with confusion. “Is he gay-?”

Miguel then approached her as he sat beside his fiancée, placing a soft kiss on her cheek. “Hola, hola,” he greeted. “How are you guys doing?” 

Y/N smiled, just slightly. 

“I was just asking her about Tom,” Mariana explained. 

Miguel grinned. “Ah, that’s exactly what brought me here,” he chuckled. “The maid of honour.” 

Y/N dropped her glass. 

Miguel pulled her back. “Amor, are you okay?” He asked her, “did you get any broken glass?”

“What?” Y/N blinked. “No, I’m… I’m okay, I’m okay, they’re… they’re here, let’s go say hello! We should go say hello, right? Yes let’s go say hello,” she stood up and Miguel chuckled, taking her hand and leading her over. 

Mariana reached out for them, “Ya se tomó varias margaritas, eh, aguas,” she warned. ((She had some margaritas, watch out)) 

Miguel laughed, as y/n just smiled and nodded. The moment they walked into the hotel reception, there was a lot going on, not only Tom, Haz, Tuwaine and the wtins had arrived, but more family. The reception was chaos and y/n couldn’t find him through the big and buzzing crowd. Miguel would stop and say hello to his family, introducing y/n, who really didn’t want to be there. 

People hugging her, telling her how pretty she was, pinching her cheeks and wishing her a well and happy marriage. 

 And maybe it was the alcohol, the excitement or the shock, but the moment she finally saw Tom, y/n fell to the ground. 

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[blackfemmecharacterdependency]

12. On Your Side

Decided to publish what I had worked on before my hiatus, mainly for Tina and nem, as a Xmas thing. Ion celebrate that shit, happy holidays or whatever. I was hoping to have completed the story by now, but with my break for mental health, I guess it's either pushed back or gonna be abandoned. Will know in a couple of weeks or so what, if anything I intend to do with it. Its an Apex centered chapter. I'm still on hiatus. You can leave a review if you want to, but don't message me about Simon or this story. Thanks.

*The Grace St. Catherine Playlist, featuring songs used in chapter and songs that inspired the chapter*

“Even through the darkest phase

Be it thick or thin

Always someone marches brave

Here beneath my skin…” Grace let the music play in the background as she tried to do all of the things suggested to her by her “spiritual advisor,” Sunny, whenever she moved into the place. She was doing more drawing - mostly sketches of carnage and rage. She was journaling a lot, mostly in the form of a narrative told by a hypothetical fictional character, because admitting to the things that she was doing on paper was a huge no-no, so she simply projected her life through her journaling character, The Saint, whom would never be referred to by name in any of the entries. In this particular one, The Saint was contemplating calling The Shadow. What would the conversation even be like? He would tell her how bad she was for being mad at him. She would tell him that she only hurt bad people, but he hurt a friend… he hurt her. That was different. So different. But she MISSED him.

She had began to sketch him. She was more of a doodler/drew cartoons and comics on her phone and stuff… but she was shut up in this place for hours at a time and hadn’t really used a pencil and a sketch book seriously in a while. Then, it got away from her. After a few days, she had almost filled up a sketch book with drawings of Simon. She winced when she thought of his name. She had been avoiding speaking it and thinking it. “And constant craving has always been…” She stared at the phone, then changed the track. The last thing she needed was to think about craving, of all things…

Now, that the phone was in her hand, she glanced around, feeling that paranoia that she had since she left home. Nobody was watching her here, but she felt obligated to check, anyway, and upon verifying what she already knew - that nobody was fucking watching her - she went to visit his social media. Private? Since when? She checked another. Same thing. A third, same fucking thing! “UGH!!!” She threw her phone onto the couch and went to go chop wood. She didn’t really like to chop wood, but it did make her feel better to swing a tool and see destruction come out of it.

“Old wounds

Old fights

Another day goes by

I'm not playing by the rules

They can't take me for no fool…” Her phone continued singing as she went outside.

.

Jalicia Barrett was not the same type of watch as Grace was. She obviously wasn’t as upscale as Grace, so she wound up having much to do that was necessary, unlike Grace’s schedule of playing a typical woman. Now, to say that Jalicia was typical would be a stretch of the imagination, as Simon knew that none of Grace’s people were that and she had possibly an unreasonable amount of tiger items, but she was closer to an average person than Grace was.

She went to Seattle University, but hadn't selected a major. She was still doing general studies after taking a few years to get her GED (She began trying at 16 and only successfully received it less than a year ago), so.. a freshman in college, which wasn't bad. She was 19. She worked on campus and seemed to have other odd jobs, like being a delivery driver or personal cab, and stuff at that Infinity Foundation place.

She didn’t have rich parents. From what Simon was able to find, she was never reunited with them, whoever they were. If they had lived in Seattle when she was taken, there was nothing on file to indicate that she was reported missing. Of course… he didn’t know what her real name was. The name Jalicia Barrett only became a name for her in the year after Grace left the mental institution. He knew that was likely connected.

Maybe… she wound up in the system after Grace touched base with them? At any rate… whoever the girl who was brought into trafficking had been, she was now Jalicia Barrett, a girl who began existing when she was 13 or 14 and obviously probably didn’t know her DOB either, as it was on record as the day that her name was given, her documents were created all around the same time, so she had to either have been a baby whenever she was taken, or simply never knew her personal information like birth date and full name.

BUT, she did have prints on file, so she probably had birth records that could be matched to them somewhere. He didn’t know if he wanted to get into that… or if she hadn’t done so herself and simply decided that life was easier being the person that she knew herself to be now. He certainly couldn’t imagine separating from his loved ones and then not finding them for a decade or so and then just… trying to pretend that they were family after all or something. She had the family she wanted… Well… she lost one. He felt bad for her. It wasn’t the same, but whenever he lost Grace, he felt like his world collapsed. To even pretend to understand how this woman must feel losing her life partner after years of being together, he wouldn’t insult her like that. Instead, he looked into the details surrounding that. Whatever happened to that investigation?

He’d provided an alibi for them and the police never spoke with him again. He’d done his best playing ignorant and pretending that everything was casual. Whenever they asked him about Heath, he said that he didn’t know Heath. “I’ve only met him once and he didn’t show up to the gathering… Is he alright?” They didn’t answer, just wished him a good day.

Now, he was looking through their paperwork and he was sure that he might find something interesting, if not useful. Simon had no idea what he was looking for with these other people. Something that led him back to Grace’s trail, and he had to figure out how they worked to even presume that…

Here’s the thing… Simon wasn’t going to write himself off as wrong or going too far. For crying out loud, the things that these people did, and they felt justified in their reasonings, so he wasn’t going to allow himself to feel bad. Grace might need him, and Xander was keeping her away from him. He cursed himself over that gun, though. However, IF she would have just let him explain that he only had it to keep Xander from getting it! He didn’t know what to think when he holstered it, but it wasn’t for her! Why would he hurt her? He scanned through paperwork, trying to take his mind off of Grace’s lack of faith in him and then, he was sure that he found what he needed. If not; he’d found something interesting. “Huh.”

.

Grace called Sunny for more tips. She was doing everything that she told her to, and reading all these books and articles, ordering all sorts of holistic woo woo shit, and trying SO HARD just to not lose it out there… Sunny was always a mood lifter for her though. They would talk for however long, laugh, joke, sometimes get entirely too serious and cry… they hadn’t done this in a long time, but Grace had been calling her more frequently lately and, well… it was necessary for her to be available.

“It’s like… I don’t want to use this word lightly, and I especially can’t tell Xan, but I feel like I’m like… addicted… Does that sound stupid?”

“Xander doesn’t own the word addicted, Grace. He’s struggled with a few drugs over the years, but one of the reasons is because he’s sick. Some people can try things and never really become addicted to them because those things didn’t appeal to them in that way. This dude appealed to you in a way that your body wasn’t used to. He got into your mind, and most likely changed the chemical balance. Affected your hormones and shit, only to find that he wasn’t what you thought and now your chemicals gotta try to balance back out without his influence, so no, it doesn’t sound stupid. Perhaps melodramatic, but I don’t know. You could be addicted to the way that he made you feel. Going through dick withdrawals is a struggle that people don’t give enough credence, too.”

Grace snorted. “I’m… not… going through that. We weren’t like that. I don’t even know if he ever was into me that way? It was like… I don’t know… I never got the feeling that he desired me physically.”

“What feeling did you get?”

“For the most part, that he wanted me around. I don’t know why. He never seemed to be asking anything of me but to let him be near me. He was very good about not entering my personal space, and even when I got comfortable, he still never made any move on me or anything like that. He just seemed to like to be… present.”

“Okay, but what would he be doing when he was present?”

“Sometimes nothing, really. Just looking at me, or listening to me. Sometimes, we were doing our own thing - me reading a book. Him playing video games or writing, or… Idk, working on a cosplay outfit.”

“Girl, on what?”

“He’s a fantasy fanboy before he’s a fantasy writer, so he you know… makes cosplay costumes and stuff for conventions. Whenever he’s not scheduled to be on a panel at one… This is something that I’ve observed, not something that he’s said. He… doesn’t talk about himself a lot. Not at all, come to think about it.”

“Xander makes him out to be a literal serial killer.”

“Xander hates him. What about 808? What does she say? Xan seems to think that he “got to her” or played some kind of mind games or something?”

“Well… she didn’t say anything to me about him, except that he was very talkative and apparently worships you. She was pretty thrown off guard at how comfortable he seemed with being caught and held hostage. She said that he is either the most nonchalant person ever or the craziest fucking person that she’s ever drawn a weapon on, because he acted like they were buddies just chitchatting, and we all know that he knows what we do to people.” Grace didn’t reply. Sunny offered, “Well, whenever I think about the shit that I went through with Xander and how we always seem to find each other in the dark, it's usually in terms of No Angel.”

Grace said, “Beyonce’s No Angel?”

“”Is… Is there another one? Because, if there’s anything AND a Beyonce song, just go ahead and assume that I am only speaking of the Beyonce option.” Grace laughed. Sunny recited, “ I love you even more than who I thought you were before.” Grace held her breath, unsure of what to say to this. Sunny continued, “All I mean to say is that sometimes people aren’t who we initially thought. Sometimes they’re worse. Sometimes they are seriously fucked up. Sometimes, they’re absolute trash… But… you might still love their ass.”

“Damn, Sis… Is this how you feel about Xan? Because those are some hard descriptions.”

“No. Xander is definitely a hot mess, but I was absolutely describing your… thing… over there. Jimony?”

“Simon,” Grace said, trying not to laugh.

“Right. I knew it had “mon” in it.”

.

Jalicia didn’t know what it was about that station that made her put it on all of the time, but her streaming service generally stayed on an old r&b from the 60s and 70s station, and sometimes 80s and 90s, whenever she was at work. She had a journal with a tiger on the front that she was writing down poetry in, but she could never think of titles for any of her work, and she didn’t feel like she was that artistically creative, so she’d title everything, “(Song Title) Plays in the Background,” whether or not the song had any bearing on the poem. Today’s? Let’s Groove Plays in the Background.

Work was a little bit overwhelming, these days, but only because of the things that had nothing to do with it. The fact that she wouldn’t just receive flowers sometimes and have her coworkers wonder why her boyfriend was this thoughtful, but they never saw him. Or the days where she would pout about being broke and having to pack a stupid sandwich and he would insist on having something sent to her at lunchtime, if he didn’t just make her a different, more fulfilling lunch instead. The way that she would get a text whenever he went on his own lunch break, and it would just be some hilarious video or a new thing that they just HAD to buy. Work was overwhelming, because what she had leaned on every shift was the fact that he’d interrupt it with something nice and that she would leave there and get to see him every day.

Now, she was listening to Earth Wind & Fire, in a gray pantsuit and fooling around on her computer while she waited for something to do. She heard the tone of the doorway and she got up to see if somebody needed help. It was a college bookstore and she was often far overdressed, but all she had aside from her typical attire were the pantsuits she wore when she had to do something other than be casual - like functions and interviews or whatever, so that was what she wore to work.

The O. He looked at her like they were friends or something. A polite smile and warmth in his eyes. She stared him down and reached for her phone. “Hi. Can I just have a moment?” He asked. She texted: The O is here and hit “send” to 747. “It won’t take long, I just wanted to give you something.” The O reached into his bag and Jalicia had already identified four common objects in her immediate surroundings that she would definitely use as a weapon against him if he tried something slick. He handed her an envelope, one of the big yellow ones and she frowned.

“I’m not taking whatever that is. For all I know it’s got anthrax in it.”

He laughed and opened it himself, pulled out the paperwork and handed it to her. “I figured out a better method of tracking people down than Heath had the resources for. I know that Xander is trying his hardest, God help him, but he’s not much on a computer and some of these things are hard to find.” She took the pages and glanced through them. Simon helped her find a certain page, “I’ve guessed that you maybe didn’t know much about this part of the situation that you all walked into. The… X, I suppose you’d call him, was very paranoid that he might be on your list and he hired protection.” He pointed out a few key lines that he had highlighted. “Professional protection, and yet when the time came to protect him, Heath wasn’t shot in the arm, or hell, if they didn’t want him to escape, the leg is an option as well.”

“They killed Heath on purpose,” She said, the wind knocked out of her as she did. She tried to take a seat, but just fell back onto a table and leaned against it, knocking down several books.

“They wanted to send a message and since you all slacked up since then, I’m sure that they think that they did.” She started crying angrily and wiped her face. “Flip to the next page.” Her hands were shaking and she wasn’t sure of what she might see, but she flipped to the next page anyway. “That’s your shooter. Since he was on the job, he confessed to being the one who fired and because Heath was breaking an entering and had no family to intercede for an investigation… the cops seem to be fine with what happened to him, despite the fact that our laws state that a person may not use more force than is necessary given the situation.” She shut her eyes and squeezed out tears, her fists tightly holding onto the phot0 of the man. “Next page are his personal details. Do with it whatever you think is best. I just thought that you would want to know.”

She shivered and cried, “This doesn’t mean that I owe you anything. I didn’t ask you for this and I don’t feel indebted to you for it.”

“Jalicia… I’m on your side. Whatever side Grace is on, that’s where I am. I did this because I want to help.”

“Well… This is the most help you’re getting from me - Xander’s on his way.”

“Then, I’ll be on my way.” He had that polite smile again and she was almost terrified how easily it came to him. He left quite a few minutes before Xander arrived.

She instantly fell apart as soon as she saw him, handing him the papers and explaining to him what he was looking at. She left work and was going to call Grace, but Xander snatched her phone while he was driving. “No, what if he. like, cloned your phone or something?”

“What? This ain’t Person of Interest, Boy. What the fuck are you talking about, Bro? He’s rich but it’s not like he’s Lex Luthor.”

“We can’t chance it. He’d do anything to find out where she is.”

“Give me yours, then.”

“Just hold off. I need to check this dude out. For all we know, Simon is just blowing smoke up our asses to get us to lead him to Grace.”

“The fact that you think it’s more likely that he falsified a bunch of police documents than that he simply sneaked them away is making me wonder about you .”

“I let him get too close to her before, and I’m not doing that again.”

Jalicia snatched her phone back from him and they wrestled for it but, he eventually heard Grace on speaker.

“What is happening on that end?” She asked, laughing a little bit nervously.

“We need to talk about Simon,” Jalicia said.

“I disagree with that sentiment!” Xander said in the background.

There was a pause. Grace was panicking a little bit. Did they know that she was trying to check his pages? That she was trying to see if she could make a temporary account just to try to get to them? How would they know that, Girl?

Jalicia added, “It’s about Heath.” Xander turned red in the face and he shook his head and tried to breathe. “Oh, fuck you, Xan. You left him there to die. The least you could do is chill out while I speak to Grace about this.”

“Whoa… That’s not extremely fair. The Apex protocol is that if somebody is hit, we leave and regroup. We go in with the expectation that if we’re hit, we would slow everyone down and jeopardize everything. So, Xander and I both left him,” Grace said the last statement laced with sadness and guilt.

“He pulled you out and sped away,” Jalicia said.

Xander scoffed and then burst into tears, “I’m glad that you’re telling us how you really feel.” His voice was surprisingly calm, but the ladies knew that hurt him more than anything ever had in this world.

“Tell me what you need to say,” Grace said.

“Simon found Heath’s killer.”

“Simon found a person he alleges is Heath’s killer.”

“He had all of the paperwork to corroborate it. More than Heath has ever collected on any X.”

“He had paperwork on a man who works in security who may have shot Heath dead, but as far as we know is not a bad person. He probably was just on a security job. Somebody broke into the house he was guarding and he shot!”

“WHY DID HE SHOOT HIM IN THE HEAD???” Jalicia squealed. “I’ve been over this myself, before Simon EVER said anything about it, but WHY didn’t they shoot him to survive and answer questions about what is one of the most infamous string of serial murders to ever hit the city? Why would he risk his job to kill someone that way in security, if there wasn’t a reason that Heath needed to be dead?”

“You… you think that the security dude is old Apex?”

“I think that at best, the security dude wanted to kill a person that he didn’t HAVE to kill and he used Heath as a perfect excuse, making him a shitty person, in my opinion, and at worst, he didn’t want us saying anything to anybody, because he knew why we were there!”

“But, we did release what we had on the X. The information is out there now. Nothing was done about it,” Grace added.

“Precisely! Just as nothing was done about this trigger happy buttfuck, even though our laws state that you’re not supposed to kill motherfuckers if you don’t have to!” Jalicia said. She looked at Xander, poked him in the arm and reminded him, “You were the first one to claim you’ll avenge him”

“And you told me to go fuck myself.”

“Emotions were definitely running high, but if you’re looking for the chance to make good on your word, you’ll have to suck it up and just live with the fact that Simon gave us this, like I have to live with the fact that Heath is never fucking coming home!” She got louder than she intended. Xander wiped his tears with the back of his hand, but more just poured out. He nodded, but he was still extremely upset.

“Send me what Simon sent you. I’ll let you know what I decide from there.”

“Thank you, Grace.”

Grace sighed, paused, then said, “Heath would have wanted us to get out, but even if you had driven away and left us all, we wouldn’t have faulted you… That’s the protocol. Heath knew that…”

“Does that make it easier for you?”

“No. But, we shouldn’t make it harder on each other, either…” Jalicia sighed, rolled her eyes and let more tears fall. “I’m sorry, Jalicia. Heath was the first person in the warehouse that I ever cared about. I would trade myself for him, if I could.”

“He’d never let you,” she hung up and reached out for Xander. He accepted her hand. “I was mean to you…”

“You were honest. It just fucking hurts. Heath was the backbone of this family, and everyday he isn’t here, I lose more and more respect and control. He kept me grounded.”

“Doesn’t Sunny do that too?”

“That’s not the same thing.”

“Maybe you don’t let it be. Maybe the reason Heath was your rock was because you thought that you only needed one. That’s what I did, too. I didn’t even realize how much of my life revolved around him until I was just spinning in space, with nothing to pull me back. Why do you think I moved in with your ass?”

“To split rent.”

She gave a resigned shrug, but shook her head, “I thought that it would make things better, if even just to put me in a spot where I could just not think about it and not be alone. I figured I wouldn’t get over it, but that at least I would logically be able to grant myself some peace because you’re there too, and that there would be some type of comfort. Not emotionally. That’s gonna take more time than I even believe that I have left in this world. But… at least I wanted that solid ground to stand on, to be able to say, Heath would want his two favorite people to lean on each other and find some strength in his absence.” Xander sniffled. She finished, “But it didn’t matter, and I don’t even know what to do, because I thought that being around you would guarantee some balance, even if it didn’t truly help… I still have all of my grief, and I’m..” she whimpered, “So tired. And empty. And distant. My closest living friend is sitting right next to me, and I have been so alone…”

Xander pulled the van over, unlatched his seatbelt and hugged her. She wasn’t done. She was so focused on her train of thought that she hadn’t even actually noticed that Xander was hugging her. “Heath was always in my life. Before any other human that I can remember. Like, logically, I know that Grace took care of Todd and Heath took care of me… but… I don’t even remember anybody else until maybe I was 5 or 6. I know he wasn’t the only person around, but in my mind, he was. I have NO frame of reference that doesn’t involve him. He was…” She finally realized both that Xander was already holding her and that she was crying again.

She remembered something. She was 4 or 5, her brain was never good at that part. She wasn’t in school or anything. All of her special days were simply moments and occurrences. This particular occurrence. A boy with light hair, getting hurt really bad by the stewards. Heath covered her eyes and started talking about flowers. He found a new book about them. He’d help her try to read later. The noise of the boy being beaten up was in the background, but at the time, she was too young to pay any attention to it and listen to Heath. So, she listened to Heath and the beating was background noise filtered out. Afterwards, he took her to the side of the building and let her pick flowers for their new friend. The new boy was mean. He was mean to Heath and Grace had to help Heath. Then, he was nice. She looked at Xander’s face and saw that same boy, just as hurt and just as angry as the first day she recalled a memory of him.

“He wasn’t always in mine… but he was the first person who was ever just nice to me for no reason other than to be nice,” Xander said. “There’s nothing that I want more than to punish a person who would take him away from us, but to have Simon, SIMON, give us that…” He was red in the face and shaking his head. “He’s using it to get to Grace, and I just didn’t want to give him that kind of power.”

“Then why didn’t you just say, ‘Hey, lets not tell her where we got the information?’ If you had just sent it to her with X confirmed, instead of fighting me in traffic…”

“You didn’t give me a chance!”

“I just… This ONE thing, then maybe I can move on.” He nodded and buckled back in. “I’ll get to work on the logistics. In case Grace gives us the go ahead, I want to be ready to move as soon as possible.”

.

Simon pulled his hair up into a high ponytail. He was going to try to get it into a bun, but it had been getting longer and thicker, and while he’d normally just pull the top part into a pony and let the rest hang, but it was windy and he was going to be pretty active, so high ponytail, it was. He had been checking out the X that he gave Jalicia, to see if they were going to make a move on him. He wasn’t positive of the typical turnaround time on an X, so he simply went to watch every night. He wasn’t going to do the car. Dude was in security. He’d probably make him.

Instead, he parked around the block and went to a big tree across the street from the X’s home to post up. He had binoculars and an awkwardly applied hunting tree seat. It wasn’t made for him to be up this high, but he situated it only to have a seat that wasn’t tree bark. He spent the time that he wasn’t watching the house on social media, checking out Sunetra’s pages… which… apparently she went by “Sunny…” which… Simon noted to himself that he had seen a little sun tattoo on Xander, and whenever he came across Sunny’s very tasteful artistic nudes, he saw that she had a little tattoo, as well, on her chest, of an “X.”

Her photos were really nice and she seemed to… possibly be a stripper? He checked a few of her posts and captions. She hashtagged #burlesque in some of them, so maybe not a stripper, but something risque. She was in the fine arts program in college, for dance and had many posts from the Infinity Foundation of her doing dance workshops, yoga, and stuff. She had a lot of witchy posts, too. Simon rolled his eyes, but kept scrolling. Several of her posts were really funny. He noticed a yoga and meditation program that she would be doing at a community center and saved the post.

He watched the X for about a week and a half when he saw the van pull up. In the dark, he couldn’t tell who people were, but two had gotten out and through the binoculars, he could tell that Xander was one and the other was Jalicia. He checked the van. That was an unfamiliar one behind the wheel, but he presumed that it was Sunny or 808, and that he simply couldn’t see them... There was a loud noise and screaming in the house. He turned to see that Jalicia had a knife to a woman’s throat while Xander was escorting the X out, with his hands up. He got him to the van, injected something into his neck and tossed him in. Jalicia unhanded the woman, but appeared to take a bag along with her and the woman ran next door.

Jalicia had taken all the phones with her. The woman had to run next door to call the police. Simon realized that she was probably doing that, and he got out of the tree to get back to his car. If he hurried, he might be able to catch the van!

He went the direction that they had, and when he came to what he thought might be them, he put on a mask of his own, but it was a medical mask, just because that was… possibly not as weird as if he wore like a clown mask or something. They had NOT handled that in the way that he expected. Something told him that they either were rushing or desperate. He wondered why.

But, whenever they pulled the van into an old train station, he parked behind the building and got out of his car. This is fucked up. This is fucked up. This is fucked up. This is fucked up. This is fucked up. This is fucked up. This is fucked up. This is fucked up.  

He could hear their voices, and he followed the sound of them, but didn’t come from the shadows of the building. They were dragging the bag into a field that Simon knew that he had passed several times in his life, but never paid much attention to. Nobody really did. Was this where they buried them? He wondered. He only saw Jalicia and Xander, pulling the body bag with one hand and carrying shovels in their free hands. Where was the driver? He went around the other side of the building and the van was pulling off. Where were THEY going? He couldn’t start his car. Jalicia and Xander weren’t far enough away to not hear him. He groaned and went to look back towards the field. He couldn’t see anything beyond the tall grass, but he used his phone to try to record where they were… maybe he could find it in the daytime. Besides, they were now far enough away that he could start his car without alerting him. He felt like he had enough.

Simon drove home, wary of a van behind him for a portion of the way. He took some loops and turnarounds that he wouldn’t usually take before he was comfortable that they weren’t following him and it wasn’t the van… but after he got home, he noticed at the bottom of the hill a van, and it looked like the van that they used. It looked like the van that he was nervous might be following him. But. There was no way that the van had found him after those turns. Was it one of them, just letting him know that they knew he had followed them?

He rushed inside and looked out of the curtains. They were there for a moment. They turned the van off and he took a deep gulp and reached for one of his guns. They got out of the van and stood, staring up at the house. DEFINITELY APEX. This is fucked up.This is fucked up.This is fucked up.This is fucked up.This is fucked up.This is fucked up.This is fucked up.This is fucked up.This is fucked up.This is fucked up.This is fucked up.This is fucked up.This is fucked up.This is fucked up.

They stared, wearing a gold mask, a tam hat, and the all black outfit that he had gotten used to, but then not seen for a while. “Grace!” He said. He put his gun down and rushed out of his door. “Grace?” He called, but she rushed back into the van, tossed something out, and peeled off. “Grace…” He ran down the hill and out to the road. She was gone… He looked down to see what she had thrown down on her way off. It was a Stop sign with a red squiggly line underneath the word “Stop.” He picked it up, roared and began to smash it against the pavement, before flinging it into the middle of the road and going back into his house. He called Jalicia and she looked at her phone, not recognizing the number, so she answered it. “Hello?”

“Was that Grace?” a voice asked.

“What?”

“The person who just followed me home and told me to stop. Was that Grace?”

“No,” was all that she said. He hung up. She put her phone away.

“Who’s that?” Xander wondered.

“Non issue,” she said. It wasn’t a complete lie, and there was no way that she was about to ruin their night with… whatever that had been about. She and Xander were still digging when their third came walking up, her gold mask on her face and a shovel in hand. “Girl, where did you rush off to?”

“I knew he was gonna still be alive,” she said and pulled up the mask onto her head. Sunny. “Had to make a stop,” she said with a shrug. She and Jalicia stared at each other a moment, and Xander kept digging, oblivious to the exchange of them questioning each other with their eyes. It was short lived, because Grace was connecting for the video call. “Hey, Girl, Hey!” Sunny cheered.

“Bitch, I’m so mad that I’m not there right now.”

“Be mad at Jimona,” Sunny said.

“Simon!” Grace said, laughing. Then, more solemnly, said, “Draw a squiggle right across his face, for me.”

“Sure will,” Sunny said, pulling her knife out. “What are you listening to, Woman?”

Grace checked the info on her streaming, “Hurts by Emeli Sande.”

“That’s dope. Send me the link to that.”

.

Simon was at the apartment now, crying and sitting in front of the cameras. He wondered if she would return with them, but looking at the feeds he had placed to check the outside of their homes, he noted that the three entered Xander and Jalicia’s home at 3:47 am… and that… wasn’t Grace. It was the woman that he had initially identified as, “One who looks like Grace.” It was Sunny… He flared his nostrils and set an alert to remind him about the yoga and meditation at the community center.

His phone began to ring while it was in his hands. It was a private number. For a moment, he let his heart accelerate. “Hello?” He answered.

Silence. He sighed and almost hung up, but… he felt something. His tears stopped, he sat up erect and waited. She was silent, still. He was afraid to break it, but more afraid of her losing whatever nerve she had at the moment and hanging up. So, he dared to speak. He kept his voice soft and low. Gentle, like he knew she would remember him being. “Hey…” He said. He heard her sniffle and it tore at his heart. “Hey,” he managed to say even softer. “Are you okay?” She sniffled again. “Tell me what I can do to make you okay?”

“Why did you do that, Simon? Why did you?”

“I wanted to be close to you. I wanted to know you. I wanted you… I didn’t know what to do. I was desperate. I am desperate. Please, tell me where you are…”

“You let Xander catch you.” There was the longest pause since the conversation started. Eventually, she spoke again. “I feel like the kids walked in on me doing something dirty…”

“I feel like it’s none of ‘the kids’ damn business what we do.”

“They can’t see stuff like that. They can’t see me being followed and watched, obsessively. They can’t just move on from that. You have no idea the kind of people who… Why did you have a gun?”

“Because, I had just been attacked by somebody that I know is a murderer and I was on edge…” They were quiet again. “I can keep them out of sight from now on. I can keep them away from you, at all times…”

“If I come back into town, my crew is gonna get… difficult. It won’t be safe for you.”

“I can’t prove myself to them? To you? Did you see what I found for them? For Heath? For Jalicia?... For you?”

“Yeah. Yeah, Jalicia told me right away…”

“You sound like you’re smiling,” he observed, daring to smile, himself.

“I can’t help it… but… we can’t… do this, Simon.”

“Don’t…”

“We’re both in really weird places and us coming together isn’t good… for either of us, I think…”

“Please…”

“We shouldn’t be together, see each other, anything. You should… get on with your life.”

“No!”

“Bye, Simon.”

“NO!!” She hung up. He bit into his lip so hard that he drew blood, trying to keep his composure. He couldn’t even go to the gun range right now! But.. He could… go back to that field. He knew where it was. He knew where the bodies were now… he… was running out of patience, but he reminded himself that it wasn’t her fault. The longer they kept her away from him, the more confused she would be. She just needed to understand that he was on her side. If she couldn’t… she would have to learn that there were consequences for going against him.

13. A Shot in the Dark Pt 1

[forkanna]

[AO3 LINK] [WATTPAD]

Sorry about the long delay in updates. My life's been a bit up and down of late; good things and bad. Hopefully things will settle soon. Either way, I hope you enjoy the new chapter!

CHAPTER NINE

This was definitely a new one on Rise Kujikawa. She felt like the world had turned upside down — again — and she was supposed to navigate her way without a map or a compass. Where to begin?

"What… are you- oh come on, liking girls doesn't make you a boy. Has that really been worrying you all this time?"

Ai blinked across at her for a few seconds. "What? Oh, yes, but… Rise-chan, I'm trying to tell you something pretty major. Aren't you paying attention?"

"Come on, you're not a boy! Regardless of why you think you are, so like, you can cut that out right now. Okay?" She reached over to take up her hand and squeeze it firmly between both of her own, trying to ignore the way Ai whimpered. "We're friends. If you never want to kiss me again, that's okay, but just wanting to kiss me a couple times? Does not mean you're a boy, or messed up, or me and you have to move to Ni-Chome, or anything. It's all good."

Ebihara remained quiet for a second, simply holding her friend's hand. Looking more than a little lost. "Well, Ni-Chome is right around the corner from here… and that's where… people like us go. Right?"

"Hey! There's no 'people like us', we're just people!"

"Ugh, I know," she burst out in irritation at herself, suddenly standing up and pacing back and forth in front of Rise. "I know! It's so stupid that I get in my own head about this, but I can't just enjoy anything. Why am I like this? Do I have no chill?!"

"Guess not." When Ai stopped to glare at her, she rolled her eyes. "Well, you really don't! I'm not saying it's bad or you're bad, but you do need to learn how to relax."

But she kept pacing. Rise had just about given up and assumed that was the end of the discussion, and that she should go back to trying to find another song to sing — when Ai suddenly knelt down in front of her, hands gripping the sofa on either side of the idol's hips.

"Wha- hey, what are you doing?!"

"Getting your attention, girl. I need you to really hear me."

"God, I hear you just fine! We just got done agreeing you don't need to make a big deal out of every-"

"My birth name was Aihiko," she pushed ahead stubbornly, such a fierce determination in her eyes that Rise had to fight down the instinct to cower. Even drunk, she could be a real force of nature. "And I always knew that didn't fit me. It just took me until really late in elementary school before I figured out why.

"What I told you and the others before was true. I was always bullied, always called 'Piggy-hara' because I was fat. Because I didn't fit in, anywhere. No matter how many times I looked at the sports clubs, at the manly men I was supposed to look up to, my parents told me I would become someday… I didn't want to. I wanted to be Taeko Ohnuki, or Utada — I wanted to be Sailor Moon. All the other boys would fight over being Red Hawk when we played Featherman; I was too happy to be Pink Argus, when nobody else would want to touch that character unless we were playing with another girl. My whole life, I knew… I just didn't have a word for it. Not until… Ikko."

When she didn't continue for a moment, Rise cleared her throat to prompt quietly, "Ikko?"

"The talk show host. Trans and fabulous. I could see right there on my television screen, in front of my crying eyes thanks to another day of bullying and shame, a woman who was born like me — living her truth, live and in colour in front of the whole country. And sure, those talk shows are a little corny, but to me, as a little boy who thought he was just going to be broken for the rest of his life? They looked like hope."

"Oh… Ikko, yeah. Think I've seen her on Shin Domoto Kyoudai, and um, Onee MANS. Yeah." Rise was struggling to keep up mentally. She felt like any second now, the whole thing was going to come crashing down around her ears…

"Believe me, I know this is a lot to take in," she said with a sigh, brow creasing in concern for her friend. Which Rise thought was encouraging. "But once I realized who and what I was, and we were now suddenly filthy fucking rich, I asked my parents to help me be who I always was. Ironic that my mother was against it and my father was only too happy to help, but I mean, life is weird. And I have never really looked back… until now. With you."

"With me? Wait, wait… I feel like I'm losing my mind a little bit here. Do I have this right? You were born as a boy — which there's no way I can believe, just look at you! But because of some talk show host, and a bunch of mean kids who were jerks to you, you decided you didn't want to be a boy anymore?"

Ai grimaced. "That is… an oversimplification, but essentially, yes."

"And now you think you made the wrong choice because…" A hard swallow. "Me. Because you like me." Ai gave a small nod. "Whoa."

"You don't believe me." Her head fell forward until it was resting on Rise's shoulder. Now that they were so close, she could feel how badly her friend was trembling. "I should have known. Stupid. Why do I always think I know better, and things will go differently? Do I have brain damage? Maybe that's it, maybe it's brain damage and I need to be admitted to some kind of facility with padded walls and electroshock."

"Shut up already, wow…" Her hand came up to gently caress over Ai's hair. "Listen... It's not that I want to be skeptical. I can tell you aren't just screwing around, but come on, how do you expect me to believe any of this? You are gorgeous! And Ikko, she's also really pretty but I can tell she was born a boy. You? No way. It's just too crazy to be possible — and if you only knew some of the things I've seen, you would know I don't say that for no reason!"

Ai nodded glumly. Defeated. That was really the only word for it, and Rise felt awful, but she also couldn't flick a switch and suddenly not have that healthy dose of skepticism. Who would believe a story like this right out of the gate with absolutely zero proof right in front of their eyes?

"Sorry," Rise finally whispered in a small voice.

"Why? Nothing to be sorry about. In fact, I know you won't get it, but you really helped me today."

"Huh? How did I do that? By not believing you?!"

"Exactly." Standing up again, she brushed off the front of her long skirt studiously. "If it's so inconceivable to you that I could have been a boy in a past life, then I guess that means I'm not crazy for pursuing my dream — living life as who I am inside. So I guess… thank you."

That sinking feeling swirling around in Rise's stomach was getting stronger. Maybe Ai wasn't kidding. But that was insane! Sure, Naoto had been able to hide her gender for a little while, but it wasn't as easy going in the other direction. If Ai were a boy in disguise, she would be doing things to hide certain aspects of her anatomy. Such as…

Such as a frilly lace collar around her neck. At all times.

"Is… what's… under here…?"

Her fingers barely came in contact with the collar when Ebihara took a step backwards — and literally tripped over the coffee table, sprawling on her back on the carpet with a ghastly yelp. Rise hurried around to crouch over her.

"I'm sorry! God, I'm really sorry, are you all right?!"

"Y-yeah," she groaned, even though she was holding her head, which indicated that no, she probably wasn't.

"I just wanted to ask about that collar," Rise said while helping her sit up. "But I didn't mean to scare you, I probably should have asked before I reached for it."

"Yeah, you should have. But it's no big deal." The phone buzzed again. "Ugh. It's getting late, we probably shouldn't ask for more time. This way we can maybe slip back in before final period and avoid catching hell."

"Hah! No way can we make it back in time, I really don't think so. But keep dreaming."

"Always," Ai offered with a slight smirk.

                                      ~ o ~

But as her friend answered the phone and she started gathering up their things, Rise's brain was swirling with far too many thoughts. They followed her out of the karaoke establishment and all the way back to the train platform, into the car itself. At least it wasn't as crowded as it would be if they caught a later train, even though they still had a good hour and a half left in their trip. Her poor young mind was plagued by a thousand questions, anxieties, and just random thoughts that were so unwelcome but wouldn't seem to go away for anything.

Could all that craziness actually be true? No. It was so impossible and ludicrous. Yet Ai had said every word with conviction, and no trace of uncertainty. Either this was one of the most convincing scams of all time, or…

Could she really be a boy?

Just glancing over at the flawlessly beautiful profile of Ai Ebihara was seemingly enough to put that possibility to death. Impossible. Even though Rise knew that there were women out there who had been born different, and she very vaguely understood the concept, she didn't know any of them personally. Any she had seen in popular media were various degrees of feminine and pretty, but still obviously not born the way she was; there were readily apparent differences. None of which she observed when looking at her new best friend. How was she supposed to believe such a wild story?

But she couldn't completely let go of how earnestly Ai had looked at her when confessing about her alleged condition. If she really were full of shit, she probably would have never tried to sell it so hard; what did she have to gain by it? Anything? Not as far as she could tell, no matter how she tried to look at it. There was no impetus for her to make up such a wild tale.

So then… crazy as it was, if she had nothing to gain by lying…

'No way, though!' she screamed internally, clamping her eyes shut for a moment as the train bumped along toward Yasoinaba. 'She's so perfect, she's prettier than me. Why is she doing this to me? Why lie? I don't know what to think anymore!'

Her thoughts were interrupted by a hand slipping into her own. Rise peeled open her eyes to see her friend, this beautiful woman who she was suspecting of horrible lies, smiling gently over at her with a concerned expression. Her heart melted. It didn't clear up any confusion at all, but she couldn't pretend this girl was being cruel to her for no reason. Not when she looked at her like that.

"You okay?"

"Y-yeah! Great! Why wouldn't I be?"

"Because I'm a horrible bitch for dropping a bombshell on you," Ai supplied quietly. "You should be pissed."

"Nope. I mean… okay, I do have a question." When there was no reply, Rise continued, "Why didn't you just show me?"

"Show you what?

"You know…"

Ai blinked at her friend's reddening features for a couple of seconds until she got it, and her lip curled. "Oh, what the fuck? You want me to just flash you?!"

"NO!" A few people turned to look at the two of them, and she double-checked that her hat was hiding her trademark hair again. "Not here! And I didn't say I wanted you to, I'm just, y'know… wouldn't that have been the easiest way? To prove what you were telling me?"

"Yeah, I guess so, but that seems really gross. Besides…"

When she didn't finish her thought, Rise nudged her with her elbow. "Hey, c'mon, don't chicken out now. We literally just made out so I don't think there's any reason to be shy anymore."

"I mean, okay, but it's not about feeling shy. I was going to say I had hoped you would believe me."

Damn. That really cut her to the core. But she couldn't even get upset about it, because as Ai said, she hadn't been holding back because she was shy. Obviously, she wasn't sure it was kind of her to issue a pseudo accusation like that. Her own fault for digging.

"Y-yeah. I can see why you would think that, but I mean, I've just never thought about anything like this before. It doesn't have anything to do with you! Yukiko or Chie could tell me the same exact thing and I would be just as skeptical. Does… I mean, do you hate me?"

"No," Ai whispered with quiet urgency, gripping her hand tighter. And Rise gripped back; she needed the comfort, and wanted her bestie to know that none of this meant she was going anywhere.

"You're sure?"

"Really, really sure. I'm sad you didn't believe me but I can't deny you have a point; as great as it is to know I look good enough to pass even when I'm telling you about it point-blank — seriously it's a huge relief, you will never know — I guess this is the one downside."

Rise tipped to the side until her head was resting on Ai's shoulder. She still felt dizzy. This was a nightmare and a dream, and she just wanted to go back to yesterday. Before she had been told impossible things that had to be true, because it was actually stranger that they be lies. It was like some kind of…

Magic.

"I'm being stupid," she finally breathed aloud as the revelation hit her like a bolt out of the blue. How could she have been looking at this so backwards?!

"What?"

"Nothing," she whispered. "Just… I've seen some pretty crazy stuff in my life. You wouldn't believe me if I told you." Ai definitely wouldn't believe her. "And I'm sitting here, thinking it's too weird that you might have been born a boy? That's so dumb!"

Clearly taking that in a slightly different manner, her friend chuckled and said, "There you go. I mean, you were in the entertainment industry."

"It's not like it is in the west, Ebi-chan. Like… a little, but when I toured the U.S.? Lots of people like that, all the makeup artists, and… you know, that Lady Gaga?" Ai shook her head. "She's really big over there, I have one of her albums somewhere."

"Bring it over, then. I mean, if she's queer, I want to hear her."

"Well, I don't know she is, but she has this whole… you know, dressing like a drag queen, big feathers and meat dresses! Crazy stuff!" They both laughed together, relaxing into the closeness. Like it should be.

"Either way, bring it," Ai said, interrupting her weird stomach-upside-down moment of realising what she had just been thinking. "I mean, don't expect me to choose her over Mariya, but…"

Rise giggled and whispered, "Or me. Because you're not a fan of my trash music."

"HEY! Shut the fuck up, I never said- UGH, you are a pain in the ASS." An airy sigh as she kissed the top of Rise's head. "You're lucky you're so cute."

Full blush. Rise was glad for her sunglasses and hat or she would have died of embarrassment. Biting her lip, she reached up to pull Ai closer, almost snuggling into her as best she could on the uncomfortable train seats. All she wanted was for the world to fall away, leaving them to revel in the escape from their reality. Their escape into each other.

"I'm scared."

"Me too."

"Really?" Rise whispered. "I'm… I don't even know… what to think. Are we lesbians? Or, because you were a boy, is it just…"

"Honestly? I don't know, either. That's why I was freaking out earlier. But now, I…" She cleared her throat and said, almost fearfully, "I think 'lesbian' could be the right word. Though I did really like Yu… ugh, I'm a lost cause."

"No," she snapped at her, looking up into her eyes. "Hey. You're the number one hottie of Yasogami High. Everybody says so."

"They say I'm a bitch, too."

"So? You've earned being a little bit of a bitch for a while. But I do think it's time to put the bitchy-pants away and start being Ai Ebihara again. Or, um…" Then she laughed in embarrassment.

"What?" she asked, brow furrowed in preemptive fear.

"I forgot already. Your real name; you told me, I just… you're Ebi-chan, I can't remember it."

"Oh. Well, it doesn't matter, because that's not really me anymore. Like you with 'Risette'; you cringe every time anyone says it. Even just now."

"Huh?! No, I didn't!"

"You so did, Rise-cheese."

The pop star puffed out her cheeks angrily as she glared up at her best friend. Then she pouted extra hard. "You can't make fun of me. It's mean."

"Thought you said I earned the right to be a bitch," Ai teased with a half-smirk.

"Not to ME! And I also said you can stop now! Hmph." Then she turned away from her, folding her arms over her chest as she glared away into the compartment.

"Oh wow, dramatic." But when Rise didn't turn back after a minute, she grabbed her upper arm and shook it slightly. "Come on… you can't really be this mad." More silence. A little desperation began to enter Ai's voice. "Rise… wait, wait, you're pissed off because I called you 'cheese'?!"

"I'm not cheese." But she did peek over her shoulder, and saw Ai looking legitimately conflicted. So she laughed awkwardly and turned back around, raising a hand to smooth over her hair. "Sorry… hey, I'm sorry. I was just messing around."

Ai dipped her head, expression just as conflicted as before. "This… is hard. Wow. I knew it was dumb, and you were being dumb, and I wanted to give you more shit, but my heart just started hurting, and…"

That was quite a wealth of feelings. Rise felt a little worried; would Ai really be able to handle what they were getting themselves into? Would either of them? Unable to hold back anymore, she threw her arms around her and pulled her in for the tightest hug she could manage.

"Ebi-chan… we'll be fine. Don't be so down, don't… don't lose track of what's good between us. How we fit together."

"Yeah?" she asked shakily. "You mean, how we have nothing in common, and didn't know each other before the past few weeks, a-and… and why would you even like me?"

"We have a lot in common. We like singing, and daifuku, and Korean dramas. And we both know what it's like for people not to be able to see you for who you really are; to make a lot of assumptions about you based on your appearance." Her brow furrowed, even while she was speaking. "Oh… and I guess that was even worse for you when you were a kid, huh? If you were a boy… and you felt like a girl inside… is… I mean, did I say that right? Do I know what I'm talking about?"

The softest chuckle floated out of Ai's lips as she pushed her face against Rise's neck. The nose and lips felt warm, and soft, and a little moist where she was speaking against her skin… creating goosebumps in the wake of the breath. "You're saying everything right. You always do. Probably an idol superpower."

"Maybe," she admitted with a light laugh, some of her anxiety beginning to melt away. "But I promise I'll only use it for good. I'll do my best!"

"God, you can't even turn it off. So gross!"

"You don't have to call me 'gross'! That's not nice!"

"Hey, I'm totally nice. What would you do without me being so 'nice' you want to punch a baby?"

When Rise pulled back, the most horrified expression on her face at that last bit of imagery, Ai burst out laughing so hard that she had to double over, arms wrapped around her middle. The mirth was catching; Rise giggled until she snorted like a pig, then was covering her face with both hands in shame while her supposed best friend guffawed openly at her. And she wouldn't have had it any other way, mortifying as it was. At least it meant the worst was over.

Wasn't it?

                                       To Be Continued…

[charles195]

April 28th, 2017

Approximate date of when I lost my virginity. I was a senior in high school. I felt so consumed, like the Edible Woman. My mom yelled at me and said she wouldn’t pay for my college. Why the fuck did she say that? She didn’t even mean it and it was the start of the multiple panic attacks I had every day.

I asked for help. My therapist told me it was good I didn’t actually want to commit. I had a loose plan. I went to the doctor for antidepressants. Mistake. I said I had thoughts. Why would I ever think it was okay to tell someone my thoughts? I was locked away. It was “voluntary” until I wanted to leave and they put a 72 hour hold on me.

We had to do group therapy sessions and recreational activities for “points”. Of course I thought it was stupid. One of them was the thing where you put little colored hexagonal beads together to make a picture. “It’s a metaphor for taking small steps and creating something big and meaningful!” You wanna talk about metaphors? Let’s talk about this stupid mandatory activity is a metaphor for the system assigning arbitrary value to stupid shit to measure our compliance. Fuck it. I just made a dick. I love the ugly little distinct shape of a dick. I loved how inherently offensive it was.

I just wanted to draw or some shit. I had a headache. They wouldn’t give me painkillers. I was stuck in a mental hospital and they couldn’t give me painkillers, but they were okay with putting me on Zoloft and me asking for sleeping pills. They seemed to put everyone on Zoloft.

They actually did listen that time and gave us all pencils and paper to draw. How hard was that? Of course the other patients loved drawing. We couldn’t draw for shit of course.

I actually loved the Zoloft. The first time I took it, I was sitting on the floor outside of a door while we were waiting for some other activity and totally euphoric. Everything felt so good. Why did I have to be locked up just for some pills? My other friend mentioned afterwards that she was able to get medication for her bipolar disorder without getting locked up. It was definitely just because I had thoughts. Don’t trust dumbasses with your thoughts.

Masturbation got me through those three days. My first roommate asked me if I was okay when she noticed I was in the bathroom for a while. We were the same age, 17, and the oldest ones. She seemed so innocent. Her eyeliner was bad but I appreciated the effort she put in. We were all dressed in pajamas with the drawstrings taken out and uglyass blue socks with rubber anti-slip spots on the soles. I hate socks. I just want my feet to be free, man.

I fingered myself as much as I could when we had time to ourselves in our rooms. On the third day I couldn’t orgasm anymore. That’s when I hated Zoloft.

My first roommate was a stressed out top 10 student just like me. She was taking a shitton of IB classes. She applied for Cal Poly Pomona because she messed up on the UC application. She got in there. This year she announced she was transferring to UCLA. I loved her, she was so nice and kind hearted and she was the only one who I felt actually understood me. She was on Zoloft, too, and something else. She told me that Johnny Depp stayed in the same ward as us, too, back when it was a drug rehab center. Later I found a note int notebook from her written in secret code. We weren’t allowed to tell our names and addresses to each other in case one of us was too whack and was a murderer and liability issues. She left me her social media accounts in code. I still have her on Snapchat.

I was sad when she left but kinda excited to have the room to myself. Except we never exactly had privacy. A nurse would walk up and down the hallway periodically at night for checks. It was annoying as hell with their flashlight. I didn’t have the room to myself. My second roommate came during my huge mental breakdown.

She was a lot younger than me, but mature for her age. In a bad way. She was like 14 and said she had sex with her boyfriend. Like damn. Okay. She said she could see dead people but I wasn’t sure if she meant it or if she was just referencing The Sixth Sense. She told me she was taken forcefully and arrested by a police officer. She was a tiny 14 year old blonde girl and she was taken with force. What the hell.

She told me I wouldn’t get out if I was crying like that. She’s been in the mental hospital multiple times. She told me I had to fake progress. I told her she’s right. My first roommate mentioned the same thing.

One morning we sat together on the little seat thing at the window, and just stared out at the sky together. We weren’t allowed to go outside. Their excuse was that it was a temporary facility. That was why everything was so shitty.

When we were allowed to the actual hospital cafeteria “as a treat” instead of eating powdered eggs and other shit in the day room, she swore one of the boys from the other table was flirting with her. I couldn’t tell my eyesight wasn’t good enough. And didn’t she already have a boyfriend? What the hell?

We had “school”. We were watching a hockey movie while some lady paused occasionally and explained the significance of some scenes. Boring as hell. I don’t give a shit about sports. I had real school to return to, which I wouldn’t be able to return to for an entire month. I had AP exams to study for but I missed the AP government exam during those three days. I didn’t make it up. Studying was impossible with just textbooks. I needed my teachers to tell me what the hell the class was actually about. The month before the AP exam was the most important month in the entire school year. My learning was fucked but because I was a senior with panic attacks every single day, I was able given a passing grade. Reparation for the anxiety and depression that high school gave me. I had already been accepted into UCI.

On the third day I asked for the sleeping pills and knocked the fuck out. That was the start of my sleeping pill addiction. You can’t have panic attacks if you’re knocked the fuck out.

I was in the middle of fingering myself when I was told I could finally leave.

Some time later I finally stopped taking sleeping pills. Zzzquil was my shit. I had built up too much immunity. I was taking four at a time when two was supposed to be the max dosage.

As soon I turned 18, I had sex every day. Thanks Tinder. I couldn’t actually orgasm because of the Zoloft. But it just felt good to be penetrated really deep.

Timeline is bad, sorry. After I got out of the LLBMC, I fucked Andrew Mane. Actually that wasn’t his real name and I didn’t even realize that until much later when I looked in the yearbook. Oh my god I loved his big dick. I couldn’t cum so I faked it. It felt good. I thought I loved him. Silly me, I just loved dick. We only got to fuck a couple more time before he moved. What a guy. He was pretty whacky.

On the second day of LLBMC, I asked for my friend to visit. I chose him specifically because we marched together. We hummed the corps song together. It gave me hope. We were the last ones in the visitation room before hours ended and he had to go. He said he didn’t judge me. I believed him. I wasn’t a good friend to him. I regret that.

And then later I got into some sugar daddy stuff.

[maddgarbagemonkey]

DEAR EVAN HANSEN 2018 TOUR THINGS THAT MADE ME CRY

Yep. Back at it again with this nonsense. I saw this show back in November and needed to frantically rant about how much of a MASTERPIECE it is and how in love I am with every single tour cast member. Buckle-up dorks and get ready to read a novel. Its gonna get pretty out of order so yeah, and obviously, SPOILERS for Dear Evan Hansen ahead. :)

So it opens and a bunch of live feed from multiple social media accounts appear on the monitors and screens surrounding Evan's bed and they make little beeping noises whenever there's something new and it was super cool and immersive.

I took like 2000 pictures of Evan's red bed and all of them turned out blurry but I will cherish every single one of them.

The classic Evan rant about sweaty hands and ordering food will forever be my eternal monologue. Ben also said that line so fast I was amazed that he didn't lose his breath and suffocate!

"Ohhh... Good." B A B Y

Heidi (Jessica Phillips) is my M O M. I love her and Cynthia's harmonies were superb.

Ok fam. Real talk. Ben Levi Ross. Best human 2019. Superior to every other person on this planet and I am unafraid of saying so.

I think a lot of people, including me, went into the touring show thinking "That Ben Levi Ross is cute, but I don't see how he could possibly compare to Ben Platt" STOP! STOP THAT NOW! THAT'S NOT OKAY! Because I can swear to you that his performance was one of the greatest things I've ever witnessed in my entire life and I cried so so very hard whenever he opened his mouth.

Not only should actors NEVER be compared to one another (as they are all their own people with their own incredible talent) but Ben's singing and performing was BEYOND WORDS! You could tell immediately how much of himself he put into Evan and did not doubt for a second that he should be up there instead of anyone else. His singing was so powerful and moving that I physically began shaking and did not stop until I left the theater, which Ben himself even acknowledged but more on that later. He was so incredibly talented it was unreal and I just wanted to take a second and say that he deserved every single moment of applause and cheering times a million. I need a recording of him singing Waving right now. BEN LEVI ROSS, GUYS!!!1!!!

oof, anyways his "Waving Through a Window" killed me. I'm dead. Gorgeous boy. Beautiful.

The way everyone's harmonies mix together and hit you in that song are phenomenal.

Jared, played by Jared Goldsmith, had such a squeaky highschooler voice and the biggest, doofy-est smile which made his stupid comments so much better. I loved him a lot. 10/10. Classic Jared.

Also, I would die for Marrick Smith.

Marrick, A.K.A. Connor was so good at being a broken teenager it hurt! I loved him a lot.

It also opened my eyes because... how do I say this without sounding weird... BOI HE THICK!

Marrick was so tall and swol and gorgeous and sweet and I love him and that's my TedTalk. It also created such a strong physical contrast between Connor, who was tall and strong and scary who processed his emotions through anger outbursts, with Evan, who was skinny and small and shrunk into himself and processed his emotions through hiding or running away, in a way that Ben Platt and Mike Faist couldn't really do. It was different in a good way and I really liked it! :)

Y'all can take Stronk Connor and Skinny Twink Evan out of my cold, dead hands.

In the cast signing scene, Connor was overly friendly and smiley which made the point where it all slowly fades into anger at "You wrote this because you knew that I would find it" so much worse.

The little tug on Ev's arm followed by a subtle "Ow" before signing. <3

"I LoVE JaZZ!"

I love the way Evan sits in chairs by taking up as little space as possible! Its such a cool detail to demonstrate Evan's social anxiety and his need and want to not take up too much space.

I just need to take a second to squeal about Phoebe Koyabe, who played Alana, because she had gorgeous pink hair and I was just all around in love with her voice and her quirky little Alana characteristics.

Here's where things are a bit out of order and blurred because I wrote down my favorite things and then instantly lost the paper so... this is all from what I rewrote later on.

During that line where Alana retaliates to Evan accusing her of using the Connor project for her college application, she became completely hysterical and began crying. That "because I know how it feels to be forgotten" will always be my weak point.

"Connor was OBSESSED with trees!"

"We were partners for our Literature class while reading Huck Finn. He was so funny! He came up with this funny joke where he'd say, well, instead of Huck Finn.... nobody else in our class thought of that!"

OH MY GOD ZOE!

Zoe, played by Maggie Mckenna, was so incredible and loveable it was insane.

Her voice was so deep and melodic that just listening to her speak made you want to curl up with a blanket and just be comfortable. She was also so expressive and good at delivering her lines that you felt and understood exactly what she was going through whenever she spoke. I loved her so much and can relate with Evan's sentiments in "If I could tell her!"

"That's just what you do when you're rich and don't have a job, you get crazy!"

That entire scene before "If I could tell her" was so good! She was so snarky and sarcastic with every line and I fell way more in love with Zoe. I love when she's not played as the angel love interest and more of a real character with flaws and feelings and emotions and Maggie's portrayal really solidified that for me! I love this little Jazz band brat!

I also need a recording of Maggie's requiem, it was beautiful!

There was this heartbreaking moment in that song where Zoe looked at and read through Connor's emails and held them close, but at "That you were not the monster," she crumbled it up into a ball and let it fall to the ground, covering up all her sadness with anger and it hurt me.

That song just hurt a lot all around. Cynthia, Larry, Zoe. Just all of it, all of their God-tier harmonies. All.

You'd also be glad to know that Zoe's star-covered jeans were in full view the whole time along with the ones on her sneakers.

There was this adorable moment in the scene before "Only Us" where Evan freaks out because he thinks Zoe's gonna break up with him and he screams and promises he won't start breaking things and Zoe just has to stop him like "no, you tree-loving twink, I'm not breaking up with you!" And Evan just stands there for a second and then does this sweet thing where he awkwardly bends down and grabs her hands and shakes them with a little "thank you." Then Zo copies his little hand thing as responds "Don't mention it!" They're so cute together and lovable it hurts! Hopefully nothing bad happens between them...

During Disappear, Connor started jumping on Evan's bed during "And even if you've always been-" and it was glorious and Evan just regarded it as a normal occurrence.

They also did this thing where they ran on opposite sides of the stage and then rejoined in the middle where Connor helps Evan put on his backpack and then just puts his hands on his shoulders in a moment of bro trust and admiration and then yeets out of existence at "when you're falling in a forest."

BEN'S YOU WILL BE FOUND WILL LIVE ON IN INFAMY!

During the panic attack before the song began, starting when Evan dropped his notecards, you can feel it radiating off of him so vividly that everyone in the theater was holding their breath.

First when he fell to pick the cards up you could see the tears swell up and hear his breath quicken and feel the panic swell like "no no no, this can't happen. Not now. Don't do this!" And the second you think he might be able to pull it together and stand up, he slips and hits his elbow so hard on the floor, we all jump. He lets out the most heartbreaking yelp and clutches his arm, abandoning his cards and the speech and all hope of recovering. The tears finally start to fall down his face and they don't stop.

Still holding his arm, Evan pushes his body out of the spotlight and holds himself in the fetal position, refusing to look up and just all around shutting hinself away from everyone watching. AND YOU CAN FEEL IT! You can feel Evan's shame and horror and fear and anger and it's awful. You almost have to look away because the emotions being displayed are so real and raw. More real than any recording or bootleg out there. And that's why Ben Levi Ross was so incredibly perfect in my eyes, because he could so accurately depict and portray Evan and what he's going through to the point where you have to look away to avoid the risk of being pulled under with him and losing yourself to your own habits and its heartbreakingly brilliant! Again, Ben. Fucking. Levi. Ross.

During "You Will be Found" they also display all these younger and baby pictures of Marrick along with present day ones to show little Connor, which was adorable. But then Larry, played by Aaron Lazar, looks up and sees little baby Connor on the screen and instantly breaks down sobbing, the first time ever since Connor died as we hear Zoe say earlier that "he didn't even cry at Connor's funeral." Cynthia has to come over and hold him to prevent him from instantly falling apart.

Evan and Jared also have this awkward high five at that part and its very uncomfortable and great.

There's another just horrible moment in the middle of words fail where one by one the Murphys all run off stage horrified at the news that Evan was lying. First, it's Zoe with Cynthia following after, frantically trying to grasp what happened with tears falling everywhere. Then Larry, who looks disapprovingly at Evan before solemnly following the others. Then, lastly, in what could just be described as the worst thing ever, one of the screens become transparent to reveal CONNOR, looking in dismay at what has happened, tears in his eyes, before also walking away from Evan back into the nothingness. Awful. Beautifully, beautifully awful.

Evan snuggles into Heidi and stays there for what seems like forever during "So Big, So Small" then, he finally lets go and Heidi rides away on the couch, reaching for him.

Okay, fam. That was all the specific things I wanted to scream about during the actual show, but then I had the pleasure of meeting them at the stage door which led to some great hijinks!

I said something really stupid to Jessica Phillips/Heidi when she signed my playbill probably along the lines of like "You were so amazing I might faint. Please catch me" and she SQUEALED! It was the best sound on the planet.

When Marrick Smith/ Connor came out, I was frozen in shock because, not only was he shorter than I thought and his cool hair was tied in a man bun and he was wearing a cool beanie and some hair feel into his eyes like a Myspace profile picture, I was so amazed that he was real and was standing so close to me. I was so amazed that I stood there like an idiot just staring at him and shaking while he smiled at me, an awkward little baby, until my Mom had to physically nudge me towards him to which he responded by giggling and saying "Aw! Don't be scared! I don't bite!" I... I. How? How do I live after that. He signed by his picture and, get this, also doodled a little mustache on Aaron Lazar/ Larry's picture. I am also proud to say that I saw his slightly chipped black nail polish up close in true Connor fashion. Then he thanked me for coming and waved at me. He was SO incredibly sweet and I couldn't stop smiling after that.

When Phoebe Koyabe/Alana came out with her gorgeous pink hair I squealed and told her she was gorgeous to which she kindly smiled and complemented my dress and signed my Playbill. She was a goddess and I love her so much.

Right before Aaron Lazar came out, My Mom without thinking just called out "Daddy" to which my sister and I were horrified.

Lastly, Ben Levi Ross, wearing the best sweater ever, came out and signed my Playbill. At this point my legs were absolute jelly and I was shaking so bad I almost dropped everything, but he was so SO NICE and, as a response to seeing me dying upon seeing him, said "Oh no! Don't shake! You're okay! Everything's fine!" He was so unbelievably chill and sweet and upon my family showering him with all of the complements he deserved was so down to earth and appreciative. It was so incredible to get to meet him and tell him how amazing he was!

In conclusion, I knew Dear Evan Hansen was incredible and loved it before, but actually seeing it made me feel so many feelings that I didn't know existed. Its such a genius musical and I 1000% recommend! There was not a weak link in the cast! They were all so sweet and talented and just absolutely PHENOMENAL! I would die for all of them! :)

[winterysomnium]

What’s left (is you) [2/3]; ; Todoroki Shouto/Midoriya Izuku;BNHA; word count: 4,900+ words; rated: PG-15; warnings: slight gore, violence,full tags on AO3; 

notes:  hii decided to update since I edited the parts I wanted for this chapter and the more I read it over the more I doubt myself so it might be better to just post it. Thank you for all the support on AO3! ♥

summary: After the pro hero Deku loses his memory as a result of an assassination attempt, Shouto is struggling to cope with everything his boyfriend’s recovery entails: from the threat of another attack to the possibility of Izuku’s memories never coming back.

 (Oh, and did Shouto forget to mention that he’s 90% sure Izuku was trying to break up with him before the attack, on top of everything?) 

read the story on AO3

The first week Izuku’s back home is the easiest by far.

Shouto has a lot of paperwork to sort out and Izuku’s mostly spending time with his Mom; he can’t really watch too much TV or be active on his social media at all, so they chat to each other all day and Shouto gives them privacy, as much as he can. Their apartment came with an extra room they didn’t have any particular use for so Shouto put in tatami and essentially turned it into a copy of his dorm room: he keeps a spare futon rolled out in there most of the time anyway.

(As nice as beds with mattresses and thick covers were, some nights Shouto preferred the simplicity and comfort of the soft futon and the feel of tatami under his feet and Izuku respected that, indiscriminately.)

Whenever Izuku was on a long mission out of town, Shouto tended to sleep there rather than alone in their bed, the space too vast without the other, somehow. It was also where Izuku would surprise him sometimes by arriving early, pressing Shouto into the sleepy futon and they’d fuck, sweetly, heatedly; they missed each other enough to just stay there all day, soak in the soft, tender affection.

It’s been a while since Izuku has lost to his want and desire completely, loving Shouto to the core like that.

It all adds to the situation: Izuku’s in their bed thinking it’s solely his own, he has been keeping something from Shouto that neither of them know now and they hadn’t had proper time to be with each other for about two weeks before the attack.

It strengthens Shouto’s resolve not to say anything, to keep lying about their relationship, by omission.

(He doesn’t want to have to explain all that to Izuku, anytime soon.)

Shouto can hear Izuku’s Mom talking with him softly through the door and Shouto feels like he’s eavesdropping, listening in on something sacred and raw.

The first night they’re all home, he lets his frustration and fear slide down his nose and drip into the pillow: it needed airing and the covers a wash, anyway, so he does nothing to stop the tears. All the pictures of him and Izuku were hidden away and it almost felt like Shouto was a spirit: he’s stumbled into a future he fears, an intruder of an incomplete home, of a frightening possibility. It’s almost like they’ve really broken up, like his thoughts have created a universe of their own, throwing him in.

And yet it doesn’t compare to the feeling of accompanying Inko to her train and driving the two of them home, alone for the first time in weeks and as Izuku hums along to a new pop song he’s had the opportunity to memorize already, Shouto’s glad he doesn’t have to talk.

In twenty minutes, they’re alone in the apartment and Shouto’s reheating yesterday’s leftovers, the atmosphere between them thin but sluggish, awkward in a strange, unfamiliar way.

It reminds him of the first time they’ve had a fight, when Shouto was 18 and the notion of being loved hasn’t sunken in yet properly, a weekend away at his family home was enough for him to return moody, shaken and torn between setting himself or everything around him on fire; closing himself off from anyone he could hurt the only option left. The thought scared -- no, terrified -- him and he got overwhelmed, he’d pushed Izuku away and he yelled something dumb and hurtful and he made Izuku cry, Izuku didn’t let it show but Shouto saw him rub his sleeve across his cheeks forcefully.

They were shipped off to a field day together the next morning in class and Izuku was upset and angry and didn’t even want to look Shouto’s way and Shouto was sure he had destroyed everything, everything that truly mattered in his life (his heart).

(Perhaps there was a curse, after all, to become his father, to become his hated half, to become the person who hurt Izuku the most.)

Shouto apologized after their class had ended; resting his forehead against Izuku’s tense back, his shoulders so guarded he felt unreachable, like a pretty sea shell at the bottom of the waves.

Shouto apologized, said he’d understand if Izuku wanted to break up but that he didn’t want to, really, really didn’t want to and the spot where he rested his face against Izuku’s costume was damp and heavy with salt, with his unspoken apology. It was then that Izuku’s defenses seemed to thaw, just enough for him to open up his arms, his warm self to Shouto’s lost hopes.

Izuku probably realized just how scattered Shouto was that day.

(Shouto wasn’t a cracked pane of glass or a cup with a chip on the rim; he was a fully crushed human being, a plate shattered against the far wall.)

He has just started to meld some of his pieces together.

If Izuku held him in his palms, he’d get cut.

The atmosphere now feels tentative in the same way but he tries not to mind it: he puts their plates onto their usual spots while Izuku pours them hot tea.

They exchange a soft, quiet itadakimasu and start eating; Izuku keeps looking up at him across the table and Shouto tries not to see.

“Todoroki-kun?” Izuku asks as Shouto puts down his chopsticks to place his cup to his lips, he’s trying to swallow down the dry, irritating lump in his throat. Izuku still holds his chopsticks and fumbles around with a piece of chicken between them on his plate.

“Hmm?” Shouto hums rather than answers and he drinks his tea too fast; the liquid still a touch scalding on the roof of his mouth. “What is it?”

“What’s your favourite food? It feels kind of stupid to ask now but I’ve been trying to remember what it was all evening but -- couldn’t. So, will you tell me again?” The question is innocent and so is Izuku’s expression: he’s genuinely curious and yet it confuses Shouto’s heart.

(He’s happy about his favourite food being something important, he’s saddened about it being something Izuku doesn’t know.)

He smiles softly, hoping his flush can be blamed on the tea.

“Zarusoba. Iida tended to scold me for never eating anything else in high school.”

Izuku snorts, likes he’s relieved, finally putting the chicken bite into his mouth. “He seems like the type. Do we usually eat dinner together, the two of us?” He gestures and Shouto picks up his chopsticks again, too.

“When we can. Our schedules don’t always match up, though.”

“Who’s the better cook?”

“Your Mom.”

Izuku snorts once more, his grin matching Shouto’s own amused look.

This is nice, Shouto concludes, in its simplicity, its given rules.

Shouto feels … nice.

“And here I thought you’d be a chef supreme, given your quirk,” Izuku notes, amused and Shouto shakes his head, regretfully.

“The only thing I’ve ever successfully made was rice porridge.”

“Am I good at cooking?”

“Not particularly. Bakugou’s been teaching you though. He gave up on me, if that’s any consolation.”

“Huh, Kacchan didn’t say.”

“He’s probably mortified by the thought of you calling him out on doing something nice and helpful for once and someone overhearing.”

“Ah, yeah, probably. He kept insisting he only visited me because Ochako kept pestering him and it was annoying. He’s … kind of a bad liar, isn’t he?”

“And he’s even worse at being honest. Just watching him sometimes is exhausting,” Shouto agrees and it’s as if that word -- exhausting -- has unlocked all of the fatigue trapped within his bones, all at once.

An early night sounds like the best kind of plan for tonight.

They finish dinner and leave the dirty plates in the sink; they wish each other goodnight at the thresholds of their neighboring rooms.

If he tries hard enough, Shouto could pretend that Izuku’s just going to his night shift and he’ll find Shouto in the morning, cuddling up sleepily into his back.

If he tries hard enough, he’ll remember the feeling of Izuku’s kisses on his temple.

If he tries hard enough, maybe his chest will stop aching, so tirelessly.

---

Shouto’s Wednesday isn’t really going well as is, the attack investigation not progressing beyond what they already know: the incident was a coordinated effort to take down and favorably assassinate -- that word still makes Shouto’s heart stop, every damn time -- the hero Deku, attacking all of the bigger agencies in the area in order to isolate him and complicate any backup attempts, with the ultimate goal of rendering him unable to continue his hero duties any further.

But they still don’t know who instigated it or if there are more factions than the cluster of villains they’ve caught and as much as Shouto’s glad that he’s gotten leave to unofficially guard Deku 24/7, not being able to take part in the interrogations is frustrating in itself and it leaves him restless, hyper aware of how inactive he is.  

What he needs is a good, long, proper sparring session.

What he gets is a call from his Father.

Despite them being -- reconciled, of sorts, a decade of stored anger and resentment isn’t something you can simply wish away and Shouto’s been working on it, he has and his therapist would probably tell him not to answer the phone if he’s already in the middle of a constant low grade anxiety attack but here he is, answering the phone like an idiot, snapping at every question and riling up both of their tempers, needlessly.

The call is short, shorter than his Father intended and Shouto knows Endeavor just wanted to comfort him, in his own way, that he just wanted to be the soothing parent to his son that he’d never truly been when Shouto was a child but … it feels misplaced.

(Why couldn’t he have tried sooner?)

On top of that, Shouto’s Mother is away on her planned spa treatment and her cell phone access is limited, which has probably fuelled Endeavor’s check up call further, and that’s partly on Shouto as well. Shouto told her to absolutely not come back when everything happened, that they’re fine, Mom please, please but right now Shouto just wants to curl up and beg his Mother to hold him until he forgets he’s no longer five.

That or break his Father’s nose.

Calm down, he tells himself, his quirks buzzing louder than his heartbeat through his head; he can feel how drastically different his opposing fingers feel to touch.

Man, today really sucked.

Shouto didn’t notice Izuku was sitting on the couch until he stands up, putting the book he’s been reading away.

“Todoroki-kun? Are you alright?” Izuku asks carefully, the concern so obvious on his face it’s almost painfully endearing.

Almost.

Shouto sighs. Rather than a spar, maybe he just needs a nap.

“I’m fine, Midoriya,” he says, trying to convince himself alongside Izuku and if that name -- Midoriya -- isn’t just another layer of messed up twisting his skin tighter and tighter, he doesn’t know what is.

Breathe. Don’t think about your Father. Think about something you have to do.

(You have to stop getting so angry about stupid things, first of all.)

Izuku draws him out of his thoughts, effortlessly.

“I know this might not be the best time to say this but -- I’m sorry, Todoroki-kun. For what I said.” Izuku fidgets and Shouto blinks, trying to remember when Izuku said anything that he’d need to apologize for -- his mind is unhelpfully blank.

“Sorry for what?”

“For what I said about getting to meet your Father, the first time we talked about him. How I said how excited I must have been to meet him and all that. I’ve noticed your reaction was sort of -- off at the time but I couldn’t tell why and I still don’t know what happened between you but I think -- I think he hurt you somehow, has been hurting you and I didn’t even consider thinking about your family situation and that not everyone even has a family and -- I. I just. I’m sorry, for not noticing sooner. For not apologizing sooner.” Izuku’s eyebrows center his expression into a frown and he’s wringing his hands, like he’s trying to iron out all the scars and crooked fractures, like they’re physical marks of his mistakes --

Shouto’s been thoroughly disarmed.

“You don’t have to apologize for that. It’s not your fault,” he insists, sort of bewildered that it’s an issue at all.

That Izuku’s been weighted down by something like this.

Izuku wring his hands harder. “It kind of is.”

“Midoriya --” Shouto tries but he knows there’s no arguing that look Izuku gives him, that look of not backing down, of doing whatever he’s set his mind on doing --

It’s your power!

Shouto slumps in his shoulders.

He’s so, so tired and yet Izuku just existing gives him something akin to hope.

“You were the first person I’ve ever told about it,” Shouto confesses, quietly and he hears Izuku’s weight shifting on the couch, he’s watching him over its back, resting his knees on the cushions.

He’s still supposed to be on bed rest, technically.

“So we were close?” Izuku asks and Shouto lets out a breathy laugh at the memory.

Are you All Might’s secret love child or something?

“No, not really. We’ve barely talked when I approached you. I guess I just thought you could relate, somehow.”

There’s a pause, like the world’s stopped to take in a lungful of air, giving Izuku a moment to recreate the unknown memory.

“Not many people know, do they?”

“No.”

“Why… why haven’t I told anyone? Everyone?”

“Because you knew that’s not what I wanted.”

Izuku looks down onto his own clasped hands, a little less high strung. He looks oddly regretful, like he’s realizing he’s made a mistake on a test he’s just handed over, like he’s forgotten something important at home. “I guess I can understand that. He was already the number two hero when I was in middle school and something like that would surely cause uproar, whatever it is. And more than anything, I probably wanted to protect you…” he trails off and there’s warmth spreading throughout Shouto’s limbs, despite how bone weary the rest of him feels.

“You’re the same as always, aren’t you, Midoriya? You still want to help everyone, memories or not.”

“Ah, do I?” Now Izuku’s the one who looks a little bewildered, a little sheepish, eyes and mouth shy.

Shouto smiles; he’s surprised how easy the expression comes. “I admire that about you,” he says.

And oh, Shouto must be imagining the slight flush on Izuku’s face, the way he ducks his head, away from Shouto’s face.

It must be just another illusion of the sun.

---

[ 2:57pm; from: Yaoyorozu]

How are you two holding up? Please greet Izuku-san for me.

[3:01pm; to: Yaoyorozu]

we’re fine. will do.

[3:03pm; from: Yaoyorozu]

Has he remembered anything yet?

[3:07 pm; to: Yaoyorozu]

not yet.

I’ve got some files on Point Blank and the others involved in the attack from the Endeavor agency

I’ll send them over.

[3:10pm; from: Yaoyorozu]

That would be most helpful! It would be good to finally find more clues in there. Hopefully Izuku-san will recover soon as well.

[3:11pm; to: Yaoyorozu]

thank you.

 [3:47pm; from: Yaoyorozu]

Just for the record, you can count on me, Shouto. Call me if there’s anything I can do. Okay?

Shouto doesn’t answer, but he knows.

He knows.

---

There were times when Shouto regretted giving Fuyumi a key to their apartment.

Right now is definitely, hundred percent one of those times.

“Shouto! You weren’t answering my calls this morning so I came in to check if everything was okay!” Fuyumi enters the apartment with the confidence of a winter storm on the first day of holidays and she slips out of her boots and into her designated slippers with surprising agility; Shouto swears he barely blinks before she pulls him into a heartfelt hug, leaping through the living room.

“Hey, little bro. Long time no see,” Natsuo greets him as well, thoroughly ruffling Shouto’s hair a minute later and messing it up with a delighted smile.

He’s always been oddly entertained by leaving Shouto’s hair a convoluted mess.

“Fuyumi, Natsuo,” Shouto addresses them, too frazzled to say anything more.

Fuyumi gives him one more good squeeze and spots Izuku walking out of the kitchen, lured out by all the noise and aims her fond, welcoming energy towards him, too, just a touch softer, a touch more reserved.

“Izuku-kun,” she calls out and Shouto’s face gets red simultaneously with Izuku’s; Fuyumi holds Izuku’s shoulders gently before she wraps him in a loose hug, careful of his lingering aches.

“I’m happy to see you look so well!” she lets out a relieved sigh against his shoulder and Shouto definitely prefers Natsuo’s subtler methods: he just waves at Izuku from where he’s leaning on Shouto’s shoulder; he’s never been one for hugs.

“Ah, um, thank you --” Izuku’s eyes slide over to Shouto, taking in the appearance of the siblings, the resemblance is unmistakable. “--um, Todoroki-san?” he tests out and Fuyumi steps away, there’s a somber undercurrent to her smile.

She hasn’t really been a person Izuku could recognize from his middle school days and it sinks in that it’s still the case; Izuku’s memories still lost at sea.

“Just Fuyumi works just fine, Izuku-kun! I’m Shouto’s older sister. That’s Natsuo, Shouto’s older brother. We helped the two of you move in way back so I still have the spare key Shouto gave me!”

“That was for emergencies only, Fuyumi,” Shouto complains, rubbing at his cheek, suddenly itchy and a little too warm, not entirely from Natsuo’s added weight at his side.

“Well you weren’t answering your phone. I was worried.”

“I forgot it in my room. I’m fine.”

“I’ve also missed you, you know. Natsuo did too,” Fuyumi points out and Natsuo glances away with a look that says he wants to protest but knows it would be an embarrassingly see-through lie: they’ve gotten fairly close over the past several years.

“I was thinking we could all go out for lunch together! Our treat,” Fuyumi continues, her disarming smile fully equipped to defeat any and all half assed excuses Shouto could come up with, Izuku’s feeble attempts to decline just as ineffective against her charm.

Shouto won’t even try to fight her on it, not with the way she steers the group to the door.

“You don’t have to do that, Todoroki-san,” Izuku tries, nonetheless and Shouto gives him points for doing so but Fuyumi just waves her hand dismissively.

“Please? I don’t get many opportunities to spoil my little brother and he’s definitely not going to go without you. Also, I can share all the good Shouto stories. What do you say? You won’t deprive me of the rare opportunity to mildly embarrass my brother in front of his friends, will you?” she pleads and Shouto’s not sure he likes the curious, conspiratorial grin Fuyumi and Izuku exchange between them but on the other hand, he’s willing to sacrifice a bit of dignity to see Izuku smile like this.

Relaxed, eager, interested in stories about Shouto like Shouto matters, like he’s important in Izuku’s life.

Natsuo snorts at Shouto’s face knowingly and messes his hair up some more.

(Shouto doesn’t bat his hand away.)

He doesn’t regret giving Fuyumi the key, anymore either.

(He fully regrets it again two hours later after his sister’s told yet another story about him that startles a laugh out of Izuku and it would be so much better if it wasn’t about five year old Shouto’s misconception of where babies come from.

Oh, well.

Izuku’s laugh still might be worth it, in the end.)

---

[group chat]

Midoriya: guys!! why didn’t you tell me we have movie nights on Thursdays!!

Uraraka: aah, you found out about that huh >>;;;. did Todoroki tell you?

Bakugou: wtf Deku it’s not even Thursday for like three more days. shut up some of us have work to do

Midoriya:  well SOME of us have been betrayed by their own classmates??

Midoriya: and roommate??  

Midoriya: it was my turn to choose the movie too! and I had to find out because of an alert on the TV

Midoriya: of all things!

Iida: Izuku-kun, I take it you’re doing alright? Also, we always cancel our weekly cinema viewing when someone’s badly injured, so I was going to send out an official cancelation message tomorrow as well.

Jirou: fr once im with Bakugou … as much as I am happy yurr ok Midoriya, Ive gotten home from my shift like two hours ago.I havent slept in like two days. imma be gone now, bye

Ashido: oh hey guys! and I’m sorryyyy Midoriya-chaaaan, but that’s the law of 1-A! Also honestly I’ve forgotten that you’ve forgotten@@

Uraraka: yeah yeah! and if you want we can have one this week!

Uraraka: also you didn’t kill Todoroki right he hasn’t said anything yet

Todoroki: I was in the shower.

Tokoyami: is it wise to have one when Midoriya still hasn’t recovered

Tokoyami: it might be a lot to take in

Midoriya: I think it’ll be fine! I’ve been talking here more often over the past few days so movie banter should be fine as well, right?

Uraraka: do you even know that many movies, with your memories?

Midoriya: hmmm I think so?

Midoriya: I can get help from Todoroki, too

Todoroki: sure thing, Midoriya. but tell me if you get a headache.

Ashido: aren’t you both at home?

Ashido: why are you texting each other on here ;;; weirdos

Kaminari: speaking of movies!! have you guys heard about the new All Might movie documentary???!!!

Midoriya: oh my god

Midoriya: OH MY GOD THERE MUST BE SO MANY NEW HERO DOCUS

Uraraka: Izuku-kun?

Uraraka: …

Uraraka: I think we lost him orz

Todoroki: is it a good time to show him his hero DVD collection

Midoriya: MY WHAT

Midoriya: TODOROKI

Uraraka: oh he was still here!!

Ashido: also did Kaminari just come in here to say that

Uraraka: looks like it

Ashido: guess we’ll talk about the movie night later then? have a good day everyone! It’s really sunny out here in Sapporo!

Uraraka: yeah, for sure! to you too, Mina-chan!!

Uraraka: it was nice to catch up! ^^

Bakugou: I’m muting you all

Bakugou: jsyk

---

Cold, clammy dread sets in Shouto’s chest two seconds after he tells Izuku where to find his extensive hero documentary collection -- there’s a panicked, unwelcome thought stirring at the back of his mind.

Shouto … Shouto thinks he put something in there he didn’t want Izuku to see.

It might not be anything revealing, he tells himself, trying to bring his heart back to its proper place, back to the tight press of his chest. It’s probably a latest hero magazine issue or the various little memories of some trips they’ve taken together or maybe it’s one of the many pictures Izuku has with All Might that Shouto has hidden to avoid some too close questions … it’s probably just the magazine. It’s probably something hero related.

(It’s nothing about them, right?)

Izuku brings the answer with him ten minutes later, carries it in his arms and inside of his shoulders, just when the nervous churning inside of Shouto has subsided, swept away by the quiet lull of sounds.

He should’ve gone with him, shouldn’t he?

“When were you going to tell me?” Izuku asks from the doorway, tone level and low; there’s an odd, wiry stiffness to his shape.

He’s not wringing his hands or moving his feet when Shouto looks up at him, but his voice, his fingers, are trembling against each other.

Izuku’s clutching one of their photo albums in his hands, so tightly the points of contact dip like there’s gravity collapsing around his fingertips and he looks, he looks -- shell shocked. Disappointed. Livid. Hurt.

The dread explodes inside of Shouto’s gut.

Izuku’s anger looks pained, painful.

(Shouto can’t even find words anywhere close to his mouth, lost between his skull and his throat.)

“Were you going to tell me?” Izuku asks once more; he’s subdued, he’s monotone, he’s looking at Shouto like he’s never seen him before, like he’s been replaced.

Shouto’s heart burns in his chest.

“Midoriya --”

“It’s Izuku, isn’t it? It’s probably been Izuku for a while,” Izuku cuts in, something derisive, self-conscious in the tone, like he’s been the punch line of a joke and he’s just found out publicly; like he’s waiting for someone to laugh.

Like he’s looking for someone to blame.

Izuku looks at Shouto.

Shouto feels oddly blank.

“I wasn’t,” he answers, the words slow, sticking to his lips. He’s looking down at his lap and his words feel loud, too loud, too sharp.

(He doesn’t want to look at Izuku, not when he’s saying things like this.

He doesn’t want to see.)

“I wasn’t going to tell you, no.”

Izuku slams the photo book against the table, hard.

(Shouto flinches.)

“Why?” Izuku demands, like he’s the echo of his own voice, like he’s pulling back to throw a punch, stronger, louder, the longer he screams. “There must be a reason, right? I mean -- we still haven’t figured out -- we don’t even know if I’ll ever get my memories back! I might never get them back, Shouto!” he shouts and Shouto’s name feels like a slap, a flicker of burning.

“So tell me! There must be a reason! Were you hoping I wouldn’t remember? Were you trying to end things like this? Like a damn coward? Was it something else? Shouto! Why weren’t you going to tell me? Look at me and tell me!”  and Izuku’s -- Izuku’s started to cry.

Shouto’s earlier conviction of his motives, his infallible logic and unshakable decision all feel minuscule: they feel pitiful and selfish when faced with the sense of grief on Izuku’s face, faced with the thick lilt of Izuku’s voice, the starry, wet constellations spilling across the map of his cheeks.

(Shouto feels ashamed.

So, so deeply ashamed.)

He had managed to hurt him, again.

They resonate, Izuku’s feelings, they catch on the hidden depths of Shouto’s fears and wishes and ground-down emotions and they amplify, they amplify, they amplify; Shouto looks at Izuku and he’s trying not to cry, too.

His voice is shaking when he speaks.

(His feelings burst.)

“I didn’t know what I was supposed to say! Was I supposed to say that I love you but don’t know if you still love me the same way? That there was something wrong before you were attacked and that you were lying to me and that I’ve realized you were trying to break up with me? Was I supposed to lie to you back and pretend nothing was wrong? Was I supposed to explain all of this to you two days after you’d woken up from a state so bad we thought you would die?” There’s a tear on Shouto’s lip, a tear that slips down the slope of his chin, a falling star.

It’s okay to cry, he’d been told.

It still feels like he’s stealing Izuku’s sadness, Izuku’s place of hurt, for himself.

Shouto drags his knuckles across his cheek, angrily.

There’s more he wants to say.

“I didn’t want you to think I’ve used your memory loss to -- to make you love me again. How was I -- I didn’t know what to do with all of this. I still don’t know what to do with all of this! I’m no good and you’re too good, Izuku. You’re too kind and you’d feel guilty, you’d feel obligated to return my feelings, you’d be the selfless you that you are and pretend to love me and Izuku, you’d just -- you’d hurt us both, that way. I -- I didn’t want that.”

Shouto touches his lip, tries to swallow the dry feel of his throat and he wonders if this is how bombs feel after they detonate: scattered, light, earth bound, gone.

Destructive.

Bad.

“Shouto,” Izuku breathes, sown into the spot by the thread of Shouto’s pain, his honesty; he feels woven into time.

He kneels in front of Shouto after a beat, his drum of a heart leading his feet; he kneels in front of the man he barely knows yet knows the most of all, the man he wants to comfort and his palms take hold of Shouto’s face, hesitant.

Izuku’s never been faced with a love like this: with someone’s heartbreak unfolding in his palms.

His smile is a seismic curve.

“Damnit, I can’t believe Kacchan was right. We are as bad as each other.” Izuku’s fingers tighten, press, he’s holding onto Shouto as much as Shouto’s holding him, the affection shoved into his gut known and unknown at the same time: he wonders if this is how he feels every day, every time he sees Shouto’s face.

(He thinks he does.)

“Shouto… I -- I’m sorry. I should’ve known you had a reason, but. But I still wish you’d told me.”

“I didn’t know how.” Shouto’s reply barely registers and Izuku bites his mouth, more frustrated than ever by his lack of progress, by the things he’s missing so effortlessly, like they’ve never been part of him in the first place, like they’ve never even been there.

He’s frustrated, he’s tired, he’s scared.

He’s scared this is all it’s ever going to be.

(He can’t let it be just this.)

“I still don’t remember us,” he admits, quietly, something brave and firm rising in his chest, something that pushes every doubt into a place he won’t wander into, anymore.

He’ll remember.

And if he doesn’t, if he doesn’t --  he’ll just relearn Shouto all over again.

“But I will. I’ll remember. And if not then -- then you’ll have to be patient with me. And I might make you wait for me, for a little bit, because I’ll have a lot of things to catch up on and a lot of things to rediscover but -- but, Shouto. From the moment I woke up, you were there for me. And I thought -- I thought you were most beautiful person I’ve ever seen. And you were so kind. I felt -- protected. I felt important.” Izuku laughs, a sound almost kissed upon Shouto’s mouth itself. “I was so disappointed when you said we were just roommates. I was so bummed out because I knew you were someone I could see myself falling in love with. Maybe I already am, all over again. So just … bear with me, for a little while longer?” Izuku lifts his lashes, he’s hopeful and determined and brave, so so brave, even with his pulse sprinting ahead, a gated flood.

(Shouto drowns.)

“Okay.”

He presses his face into Izuku’s shoulder and stays.

“I will.”

[scottielambchop]

Tite Five Vol. 1

Here's the deal: Unemployment really sucks.

But it's important to keep "flexing my writing muscle." So, I decided to take the blog format I had with my old company and take it here. Which is rad because I can now write all the f-swears I want. But even better, I can rename this stupid fucking thing. So without further ado, I present to you my Tite Five.

Arby’s Subscription Box

Well, the more things change, the more they stay the same. I may not be writing blogs for an ad agency anymore, but that doesn't fuckin' mean I won't talk about fast food.

For those who don’t know me (and now that I’m writing on my own blog, I don’t know why the fuck you wouldn’t), I have sort of backed myself into a corner with Arby's. It all started innocently enough. I wrote a Facebook post asking if anyone wanted to go on a romantic date to Arby’s. Seemed like a funny-enough thing to say. But then I doubled down and asked the same question again a few weeks later. Then again. And again. Soon enough, I became the “Arby’s guy.” Which, to be honest, isn’t the worst thing to be known for. Especially since Arby’s is pretty good and their Pizza Slider is one of the most underrated QSR food items on the market.

Alright, now that I got that little nugget of useless bullshit out of the way, let’s get to this subscription box. For the past couple of years, Arby’s has been fucking killing it in the advertising game. Their hilarious Ving Rhames-voiced copy spots and subsequent transition to more visual stuff with H. Jon Benjamin, their delightfully nerdy paper-craft social posts, and now, their subscription box. That’s right, you fuckin’ heard (or read) me correctly, Arby’s now has a subscription box.

In early January, Arby’s tweeted out they would be sending a subscription box called Arby's of the Month. All you had to do was sign up for $25, and you would get six mystery boxes of seasonal gear from everyone’s favorite roast beef provider. Now, I’m sure you’re wondering, “Who the hell would want that?” Well, let me tell you, a lot of people the hell would want that. It sold out in less than an hour.

Minneapolis' Fallon (my dream agency) has done amazing work with Arby's. They've taken your grandparents’ favorite fast food joint and turned it into something for everyone. By simply getting weird with everything they do, the younger generations have latched on. Honestly, who the fuck would think about sending a subscription box full of roast beef swag, and how the fuck did it work so well? The answer is Fallon.

P.S. If anyone from Fallon is reading this, my portfolio is scottielantgen.com. Hire me, please.

Re-Watching South Park

One of the most beautiful things about unemployment in the digital age is the ability to hunt for jobs across the country while sitting on your couch and streaming a seemingly endless supply of shows. And that’s exactly what the fuck I’ve been doing with South Park.

Now before I begin, I just need to say that, yes, the show’s liberal use of the “f-word,” “r-word,” and countless racial stereotypes DO NOT hold up well to today’s standards. And honestly, I’m not going to defend it. It’s not my place.

Problematic dialogue aside, what I love about rewatching South Park from almost the very beginning (just skip the first three seasons. You're not missing much) is how it’s a perfect current event/pop culture time capsule. I seriously forgot about Elián González, Terri Schiavo, how the popularity of Paris Hilton made everyone fucking terrible for a while, and just the Passion of the Christ in general. But thanks to South Park, those headlines came rushing back in vivid detail.

South Park still holds up as some of the best satire ever created. It’s quick, funny, and often offensive. And I’m pretty sure that’s what Trey Parker and Matt Stone wanted it to be.

Also, Butters and Randy Marsh are two of my favorite fictional characters.

Skittles Commercial: The Broadway Musical

The “Big Game” (who has the money, amirite?) is tomorrow, and it’s like a goddamn advertising cotillion. It’s the day where the entire country gathers around a TV to eat a variety of sauced meats, drink one of three different beers, and watch the newest batch of commercials from some of the biggest brands in the country. I am told there’s also a football game.

This is the day companies spend millions of dollars for 30 seconds of air time. It’s absurd. But it’s the most viewed event of the entire year, so companies feel the need to get their air time. Except for Skittles. They've been doing something a little different.

Last year, Skittles was fed up with the high price of “Big Game” ad placement, and decided to ditch that mess and do their own thing. So, they did what any other rational company who wanted to advertise to millions of viewers would do. They made an ad for just one person (Check it out. It rules). This little stunt got them billions of media impressions, which, in a lot of ways, is just as good as paid placement.

Where does Skittles go after the major success of last year’s stunt? Broadway of course. During halftime, Skittles will present a one-time performance of Skittles Commercial: The Broadway Musical. Lead by Six Feet Under’s own Michael C. Hall (fuck Dexter), this 30-minute musical is slated to be very meta. Their website states, “Through song and dance, the show takes an absurdly self-reflective look at consumerism and the ever-increasing pervasiveness of brand advertising in our lives.”

It’s fucking brilliant, and I can’t wait to hear how it turns out.

Companies Taking a Stand

Other than writing as many “fucks” and “shits” as I want, one of the coolest things about writing this blog untied from any agency has to be freely expressing whatever dumb-fucking-shit opinion I have. Don’t get me wrong, my old company gave me a lot of freedom, but I always felt it best to stray away from any “controversial” or “political” opinions. Now I’m off the leash and ready to spread my leftist propaganda like a mother fucking virus!

There is a great divide in our country. I know it’s always been there, but it seems way worse ever since the 2016 campaign trail. Regardless, with this growing separation between liberals and conservatives/left and right/cool dudes and white people, companies are also taking sides. And I think it’s a really fucking smart idea.

As you’ve probably seen (and possibly burnt your own shoes about), Nike was one of the first major companies to take a stand for what they believed in. Hiring “controversial” athlete, Colin Kaepernick, to be the face of their newest campaign was a really bold move, but it paid off big time.

Yes, they faced a backlash. Fox News was all up their ass about “DiSrEsPeCtInG tHe FlAg,” and Twitter users shared a litany of videos of people destroying the products they already bought and paid for. But overall, the campaign was killer and showed that the company was willing to put themselves at risk for equality and doing what is right—though I’m sure they’re heartbroken your shitty uncle won’t buy their socks ever again.

Gillette was the next big company to pick a side. They took a stance on the truly controversial topic of “not being a shitty dude.” I really don’t know where the backlash for this came from, but apparently, men don’t like being told that it’s wrong to catcall and sexually assault women. For a bunch of “manly-men,” they’re really crying like little babies over a minute-long video. The ad is still pretty new, but it already seems to be resonating well with younger male audiences, but not so much with boomers. Weird, right?

And lastly, Patagonia just announced that they will donate all 10 million dollars they saved on tax cuts to environmental groups. I don’t know how people will find a way to be upset by this, but I don’t doubt for a single second that someone will. The world is a nightmare.

Listen, I know there are always going to counter-arguments.

“Oh, they’re just exploiting a current issue to make money.”

“Oh, you may think they’re doing the right thing, but their internal business model is totally fucked.”

“Oh, not all men.”

“Oh, that money could have gone to hard workers and not a stupid tree or whatever.”

It really doesn’t matter. This is advertising. They are spreading a message. You may not need a razor at this moment, but that spot can also serve as a reminder to be a better man. You may prefer a different brand of athletic wear, but that doesn’t mean you won’t be able to see how much a person has sacrificed to support a cause. You may not be a white Instagrammer, but now you know that some companies are doing honorable things. These companies aren't just selling products, they’re also selling ideals.

Gratitude

As I’ve alluded to throughout this post, I recently lost my job. I wanted to make light of it a little, but I also just wanted to get some things off my chest. The truth of the matter is this: I am forever grateful for the opportunity I was given and the people I befriended along the way. I was able to work with and learn from some of the most talented people I have ever met. I took a huge risk moving to a smaller, one-agency town to take this job—and I wouldn’t trade it for anything. I am forever thankful for this time in my life.

One of my biggest New Year’s resolutions was to express more gratitude. As I said before, the country is divided. I can’t seem to hop on any social media channel without seeing some kind of bullshit-fueled fight going on. Everyone seems to be focusing on the negative and no one really cares about the positive (I fully understand the irony of this sentence). But this could change by expressing more gratitude for the people in your life and amazing opportunities.

Listen, I could be really pissed about the current state of the world. And honestly, I am. But I’m trying to express more positivity. Everyone else can complain about our turd of a president 24 hours a day. Why not tell the important people in your life why you’re thankful to have them? It’s a really fucking simple thing to do—and it could possibly start a chain reaction.

Listen, I’m not going to tell you to not focus on the bad parts of your job or whatever because that shit is so much more easily said than done. And it also goes on a job-by-job basis (I couldn’t really think of a positive in working in corporate finance or some soul-sucking shit like that). But I will say this, I’m thankful I was able to work a job where I could see a bright side. I learned a lot and I’m looking forward to the next steps in my career.

I know it seems tough to remain positive in such dark times. But, fuck, this is your life. You’ve only got one of em. Don’t spend it worrying or complaining all the time. Find the positive and try and improve upon that… or don’t. It’s your fuckin’ life. Do whatever you want.

Well, guys, that’s it for my very first Tite Five (but also not, ya know?). I hope this was as enthralling as Chris made it out to be. I love you all. I’ll probably see you next week with another post of sorts. Take care and don’t drink and drive after the “Big Game.”

[artificialqueens]

On my knees and in your arms (Biadore) - nellie

A/N: Okay so here’s what happened. This idea is what inspired me to start writing in this fandom in the first place, but then the thought of writing something non-AU was too daunting so I started writing about lesbians instead. But this wouldn’t leave me alone and so here we are and instead of chapter two of Older I wrote this.

I don’t know where Bianca was when Adore left All Stars, but her being at home isn’t exactly the most unrealistic part of this whole premise so let’s just go with it.

Warnings: There’s a lot of swearing. It’s not super explicit, but there is some mature content so if gay sex isn’t your thing… well, actually, why are you even here?

When Danny walks out of All Stars 2, there’s only one place he wants to go.

It’s also the last place he wants to go, but his need for someone to tell him it’ll be okay and he hasn’t just fucked up everything he’s worked so hard for outweighs the shame he feels at being the fucking damsel in distress. Again. He hates himself, but he knows Roy will take care of him. And anyway, Roy’s used to acting like his fucking mother, right?

Danny knocks on the door. Waits. Bites his lip. Knocks again. Waits some more.

Silence.

Fuck. Fuck, he’s not even fucking home. He’s out somewhere, probably off on the other side of the fucking world and Danny’s standing in front of his door like a complete fucking loser with tears in his eyes and two suitcases full of drag that he just wants to fucking burn.

Nothing in his life is going to plan.

He has a key; Roy gave it to him a year ago in case of emergency “and it had better be a motherfucking emergency, okay?” Danny was pretty sure he’d been kidding about the emergency part, but he still hasn’t used it. Until now. But now he’s lost and alone and he doesn’t know what else to do so he unlocks the door and drags his shit inside and sinks down onto the floor.

Fuck. He tapped out of fucking All Stars. He can’t even wrap his mind around it. Who does that? Nobody does that. Literally nobody has done that, ever. That’s almost like being a winner, right? If you can’t win, at least you can be the best at something. Danny can hear the bitterness in his own thoughts, but he can’t stop. He’s exhausted and miserable and shit’s about to get a whole lot worse before it gets better and he can’t fucking do it. He’s going to have to delete his social media and go on the run. Maybe Katya can teach him how to do a convincing Russian accent and he can live out his life as Viktor, the weird Russian barista who refuses to speak about his dark past. Or better yet, Svetlana. He’ll get a new wig, change his makeup, nobody will ever recognize him.

He needs to lie down. Maybe if he closes his eyes he can convince himself it was all just some kind of insane dream. It seems unlikely, but so does him walking out of All Stars and he’s just fucking done that, so who’s to say what’s unlikely anymore? There’s a guest room; he ignores it and heads for Bianca’s – Roy’s – bedroom instead. Bianca and Roy are two very different facets of the same person, and yet Danny still defaults to using Bianca most of the time. Maybe he finds Bianca easier to deal with, all biting wit and sharp edges that she doesn’t really mean (except for when she does). Or maybe he’s just too fucking stupid to remember Roy’s actual name. Maybe it’s both or maybe it’s neither, and he doesn’t care, he just wants his brain to stop for five minutes.

He curls up in Roy’s bed with a pillow over his head to block out the light and finally lets himself cry and cry.

***

Danny wakes with a start. His head is pounding and he doesn’t even remember falling asleep. He groans, rubbing his hands over his face. Sleep hasn’t helped. He’s still a mess, but now he’s a mess with a killer headache which isn’t exactly an improvement.

“Welcome back to the land of the living, Sleeping Beauty.”

“Fuck!” Danny’s voice is embarrassingly high pitched, Roy’s words almost giving him a heart attack. He whips his head around to see the other man sitting on a chair in the corner of the bedroom, watching him. “What the fuck, B? Are you actually trying to kill me?” The shock makes Danny sound more annoyed than surprised and it would almost be funny if it wasn’t so surreal.

Roy merely raises an eyebrow. “Bitch, you broke into my house and fell asleep in my fucking bed. I think I’ll ask the questions.” A pause, and his eyes soften as he looks at Danny. “You okay, honey? What happened?”

He can’t. Danny absolutely cannot talk about it or he’ll start crying again and the last thing he needs is for Roy to realize what a complete and utter fuckup he is. He shakes his head and it’s like Roy knows, because suddenly he’s there and holding his arms out and Danny clings to him like he’s a lifeline. His eyes are wet with tears and he hears himself make a whimpering noise, but Roy just pulls him closer, holding him tightly for what feels like an eternity.

Eventually, Danny pulls back, wiping his eyes with the back of his hand. “I made your shirt wet.”

“I bet you say that to all the boys.” Roy’s smiling, but his tone is careful as though he thinks Danny’s seconds away from falling apart.

Danny fucking hates it. He wants to scream, to shout that he can take care of himself and he’s not that pathetic, but he doesn’t have much of an argument. So he sighs instead, his breath a little shaky. He can’t look at Roy. It’s hard enough to talk about without having to see judgment in the eyes of the person he loves most in the world.

“I didn’t get eliminated. I tapped out.” He hears Roy huff a breath in surprise, but he doesn’t acknowledge it. “The first challenge was this fucking talent show.” Some queens would care about the NDA they signed and refuse to mention anything about filming, even to friends and family. Danny is not one of those queens. “So I sang. One of my own songs, and I wore that dress we bought together.” His voice is quiet and emotionless, as though he’s reciting state capitals or a recipe for spaghetti. “Some of the others were good. Some weren’t. Detox spilled paint everywhere and called it singing. Ginger sang, she wasn’t any better than me. Alyssa did some variety act, but she’s Alyssa so she can do anything she wants. A couple of the others were amazing. But I wound up in the bottom three.” There’s a long pause. He doesn’t know what else to say and Roy’s obviously waiting for him to finish. “So the twist. The top two queens lip synch against each other and the winner sends someone home. It wasn’t me. But I just… Fuck. The judges, you know? They hated me. My look, my clothes. Everything. I worked so hard to create something I was proud of and they tore it down in seconds like it was nothing. So… I left.”

There’s a long silence. He’s biting his lip, waiting for Roy to speak when he feels the bed shift. Roy wraps comforting arms around him.

“I’m proud of you.”

“You… what?” Danny stares over his shoulder at Roy as though he’s grown an extra head. “I lost my fucking shit on national television and threw away an opportunity other queens would have killed for. What’s there to be proud of?”

“Adore -”

“Don’t call me that!” Danny jerks away from Roy, almost falling out of the bed in an effort to put some distance between them. He used to love being Adore. He loved her confidence, and the way she didn’t give a fuck what anyone thought of her. She used to feel like freedom, but now she’s even more pathetic than he is. She couldn’t even handle a few mean words. Adore is Danny, and Danny hates himself right now.

“Adore,” Roy says again, because apparently he hasn’t gotten the goddamn memo. “Drag Race isn’t for everyone, you know. There are hundreds of talented queens who’ll never make it on there, or who don’t want to. You realized you didn’t fit the Drag Race mould anymore and you left instead of compromising everything you’ve worked for. You did the right thing. So I’m proud of you.”

Danny doesn’t feel proud of himself. He can’t stop thinking about what the fans and other queens are going to say when the episode airs. They’ll be brutal. It’s nothing he doesn’t deserve, but he still doesn’t want to deal with it. “Yeah.”

Roy grabs Danny’s arm hard, fingers digging into tender flesh. “Shut the fuck up.”

“I’m not…” Danny doesn’t even bother trying to pull his arm away. Roy looks determined and anyway, the pain feels good. He figures he’s more masochistic than he realized.

“Your head.” Roy squeezes Danny’s arm for emphasis, making him wince. “Stop thinking. I can see you doing it. You’re trying to tell yourself all the reasons I don’t know what I’m talking about. Kind of insulting to me, don’t you think?”

Roy’s fingers release Danny’s arm and he runs his fingers over his skin, making a face. “That’s gonna bruise, you cunt.” There’s silence. It’s Roy’s new trick every time he catches Danny trying to change the subject. It’s infuriating, mostly because it works. Danny sighs. “Fine. I’m just… you always have to take care of me. You’ve got all your shit together and I’m here falling apart because some bitch doesn’t like my dress and I just. I don’t want you to think I’m some kid you have to babysit.”

“Of course I’ve got my shit together, I’m a fucking dinosaur.” Even cracks about Roy’s age can’t make Danny smile and he can practically see the gears shifting in Roy’s mind as he tries to figure out what to try next. “Listen.” His voice is gentle and he moves back a little, as though Danny is some kind of frightened baby deer that might run away at any second. “I don’t think you’re a kid.”

Danny isn’t convinced and his head is still aching. He sighs heavily, letting his body sink back into the bed, closing his eyes.

“Danny. I think you’re… I think you’re fucking amazing. You’re fierce and you’re passionate, and you throw yourself into life like every second might be your last. Don’t let this be the thing that dims your light.”

Danny wants to cry again. He hates Roy. Roy, with his perfect words and his incredible ability to read anyone. The only thing he hasn’t picked up on is the fact that Danny’s been half in love with him since Drag Race, but that’s never been a problem before. Not until now. Now Roy’s saying things and it fucking hurts to hear them, because it’s so close and still not enough. Why aren’t I good enough for you, then? Danny wants to scream. If you think I’m so great, why don’t you want me? But he knows why. Because Danny’s too young. Too dumb. Too ‘difficult’. Fun to be around, but not boyfriend material. Entertaining, but not someone to be taken seriously.

He’s not sure whether it’s anger or just an overwhelming desire to watch everything in his life burn to the ground that drives him, but he moves suddenly, surging up and forwards to kiss Roy.

Time stretches and slows. The kiss only lasts for a second or two, but to Danny it feels like a lifetime. It’s not a good kiss. Danny is angry and Roy is unresponsive and it’s messy and objectively awful, but Danny can still feel his heart beating too quickly when he pulls back. Roy is staring at him. Shit. Danny doesn’t want to hear the polite rejection, the sorry, you’re great but I don’t think of you that way, but he figures he owes it to Roy, who’s still staring and blinking like he’s not entirely sure what just happened. It’s not like it’s the first time they’ve kissed, but Danny’s willing to admit the circumstances are a little different than usual this time around. He wants to run, or hide, or maybe throw up. He considers bursting into tears again to distract Roy from what just happened. But Roy is basically his best friend in the world, and Danny doesn’t want to be a dick so he sits quietly and waits. Roy clears his throat. “That. Um.” Danny can practically see Roy thinking and it’s almost funny. Roy is never lost for words. “Listen. I know you’re upset right now.” So that’s it. He’s upset and Roy doesn’t want to hurt him, but he’ll always just be a stupid kid with a crush. It takes all of Danny’s willpower to stay where he is, silent. He wants to interrupt and say it first as though maybe it’ll hurt less that way. But he doesn’t. Instead, he forces himself to keep making eye contact even as he balls his hands up into fists so tightly he can feel his nails digging into his palms. “I just.” Roy’s voice is soft, his expression unreadable. “I need you to… not kiss me. Not when it doesn’t mean anything.” His words don’t make sense. Danny knows he’s missing something big, but he’s too stupid to read between the lines. What does Roy mean when it doesn’t mean anything? Doesn’t everything they do together mean something? Danny blinks in confusion and looks at Roy – really looks at him. He looks at his eyes, and the way he’s pressing his lips together. He looks at the tightness of his jaw and shoulders and suddenly, instantly he gets it. Danny knows that look. He knows exactly how Roy feels, because it’s the same way he feels every time Roy publicly declares his love on social media, or grins at him like he’s the only person who matters, or… well. Okay. It’s a feeling Danny is intimately acquainted with; hope and love and pain and heartache all mixed up into one overwhelming sensation. He’s used to it by now, but it never occurred to him that Roy might feel that way about him too. Danny’s not that fearless. Everyone thinks he is, but it’s not really true. He gets scared all the fucking time, it’s just that he pushes the fear aside and throws himself headfirst into whatever it is that frightens him. So he ignores the way his heart is hammering in his chest and says, “of course it means something. You’re the love of my goddamn life, asshole.” Roy’s face slowly shifts from confusion to – something – as he meets Danny’s gaze properly. “Wow. You’re so romantic, asshole.” Everything about his response, from the tone of his voice to the expression on his face is pure Bianca and Danny laughs. It’s so inappropriate that it’s perfect and fuck, he is so far gone. He opens his mouth to fire back a retort, but Roy is too quick for him, moving like lightning and pressing Danny back into the mattress as their lips meet.

This time around, the kiss is slow and intense and a world away from their last attempt. Danny loses himself in Roy, not paying attention to anything else until he finds his arms pinned above his head. Roy pulls back a little to smirk at him, fingers wrapped around his wrists hard enough to bruise. Danny isn’t really into feeling helpless, but somehow with Roy the whole thing just seems hot as fuck. He likes the reassuring weight on top of him and the knowledge that he can’t go anywhere.

Danny wriggles his hips experimentally and Roy squeezes his wrists in response. “I’m gonna suck your dick now.”

Jesus. Fuck. Danny is not prepared to hear those words come out of Roy’s mouth. All the blood rushes to his dick. “Yeah…” he says faintly.

He hears Roy chuckling as he quickly and efficiently unzips Danny’s jeans, pulling them down and off along with his underwear. In the times he’d let himself imagine this moment, Danny always figured Roy would be a tease, making him beg for it just because he could. But no, it turns out that what Roy really wants to do is suck Danny’s dick as though he’s been waiting years for the chance. Fuck. Roy’s mouth engulfs him and Danny hears himself whimper, already embarrassingly hard. He arches his hips up, needing more and is rewarded with a hard slap to his inner thigh, which only makes him groan. It’s fucking torture keeping his hips still as Roy takes his time, coaxing sounds from his mouth that Danny wasn’t aware he was capable of making up until this moment. He bites his lip hard enough that he can taste blood and fuck, he’s so fucking close. “Fuck, please.” His voice is rough and he can feel Roy chuckle around his dick. And then Roy’s tongue does something clever while his nails scrape along Danny’s thighs and Danny’s coming with a wordless shout.

Well. That was unexpected.

Danny tries to catch his breath as Roy shifts to lie beside him. He fully intends to return the favor just as soon as he remembers how to breathe again. At this rate, it might take awhile.

“Jesus, look at you.”

Danny turns his head to look at Roy and the way Roy’s looking back at him does absolutely nothing to help his heart rate  slow down. He knows he’s hot. Even now, when he’s out of shape - fat, his mind whispers helpfully – he’s got no shortage of guys who want to fuck him. But he’s not used to being looked at like this, as though he’s something precious. He rolls over to lie half on top of Roy and presses their lips together in a messy, desperate kiss. He wants this. He wants this more than he thinks he’s ever wanted anything in his life, and he doesn’t have the words but maybe he can show Roy in his actions instead.

Neither of them are naked enough, he decides, sitting up and pulling his shirt off before looking down at Roy. “Off.” He wonders if Roy will argue, but apparently he’s perfectly happy to let Danny be in control for awhile, and only grins as he strips his own clothes off before settling back down on the bed again.

Roy’s hard, and Danny feels something twist in his stomach as he thinks I did that. Roy’s hard because of him.

“Take a picture, it’ll last longer.” Roy’s voice isn’t quite as biting as usual and there’s a certain desperate, breathy quality to it that Danny could definitely get used to hearing.

But he’s a nice person and he takes the hint, settling between Roy’s thighs and pausing for a second before licking up his dick, tasting the precome gathered at the tip. He wants to go slowly, but then he remembers he’s sucking Bianca del Rio’s dick and his brain switches off entirely. Danny’s proud of his blowjob skills. He’s fucking worked at this and he can get a guy off faster than anyone when he wants to. He hums around Roy’s dick, encouraged by the stream of groans and muttered curses he can hear. Roy’s more vocal than he expected, which only makes him even more desperate to hear what he’s like when he completely falls apart. He doesn’t have to wait long. Roy’s almost silent when he comes, a gasped “fuck” the only warning Danny gets before his mouth is full of come and he swallows without thinking about it.

He doesn’t usually swallow, but then he doesn’t usually blow his best friend after declaring his love for him, so. Whatever.

Danny crawls back up to lie half on top of Roy again, brushing their lips together. He’s probably too close, invading Roy’s personal space completely, but he doesn’t care. He shifts to rest his head on Roy’s chest as Roy’s arms snake around him, holding him in place.

“You really fucked up, you know,” Danny says. He’s sweaty and gross and warm and comfortable all at once. “I mean, you know what I’m like. I’m fucking high maintenance. I’m clingy and demanding, and I act like a brat when I don’t get my way. And I have breakdowns on national television ‘cause someone doesn’t like my dress.”

“That’s true,” Roy agrees, his tone conversational. He begins to play with Danny’s hair. “But those aren’t even half of your good qualities.”

Danny’s torn between laughing and crying. He knows Roy’s being sincere. Roy, who has seen him at his absolute worst (and multiple times, too) genuinely thinks that all his shitty character flaws are okay. For once, he doesn’t have to make excuses or act like he doesn’t care. He doesn’t have to be aggressively Adore to hide the fact that he’s secretly scared they’re all right and he’s not good enough as he is. He’s not used to being loved unconditionally, but he’s pretty sure this is what it feels like. It’s amazing, but he’s also realizing that Roy is even more crazy than he thought, because who in their right mind would ever feel that way about him? “Man. You are so in love with me.”

“Mmm,” is Roy’s response.

“No, but really.” Danny lets his eyes close, even as he keeps talking. “You’re totally gone. Head over heels. It’s some kind of epic Romeo and Juliet shit, although hopefully without the tragic ending.”

Roy chuckles, still playing with Danny’s hair. “Bitch, have you ever heard of basking in the afterglow? Shut up and enjoy the moment.”

“Fine.” It’s not difficult to do. The real world is still there to deal with, but Danny’s content to keep it at bay for just a little longer. He feels as though everything is going to be just fine. And if it’s not, well, he has Roy to help make it better.

He’s smiling to himself as he drifts off to sleep. And they all lived happily ever after, he thinks.

[whyshanti]

twenty nineteen. periodt.

i genuinely felt the need to write this because i was bored i have not written anything in a really long time. but mostly because there’s only a few who might read this and not care afterwards. it sucks to not be able to do something that i used to enjoy for quite a while. but here i am!

a lot of thoughts to unburden and a lot of unspoken feelings to unpack. let’s get to it, bih.

1. this year felt like it was dragging on. i wanted it to end asap.

so this year, i actually had A LOT of time. where did it go? 

to: movies, series, anime, music, watching youtube videos, breakdowns, feeling stuck & paralyzed,  academics, reading articles about pop culture & mainstream shit, going out with friends, chatting random ppl at night bc i thought i could trust them (and some of them, i can), and etc.

but on a more serious note, i really was more into the world of media, of both mainstream and indie worlds. i still can’t believe i got through this semester when i have been doing these things unrelated to uni. some ppl are also baffled by this activity log that i have. 

point is: i felt like a walking zombie. probably looked like one as well. there is this routine that i have to do and i got really sick of myself. i didn’t have the motivation to strive more. i was always either sleeping (at least for the first half of the year) or watching. it all feels lifeless. the latter part of the year, my body clock was wrecked. i did not like the weather during daytime. at all. i slept during the day when i did not have classes then i was awake at night. but i try to get as much sleep as i can because my health is declining. i think.

also this year felt like it had 3 sequels. unnecessary, boring, full-of-jump-scares type of sequels. fuck.

2. feeling anxious and chill at the same time.

the only thing that made me feel chill at the latter part of the year is the fact that this shit... like all these shitty things we’ve been doing... will pass anyway. 

i don’t know if it’s because of the new system that was implemented but it definitely feels like the stress levels were high only during exam weeks. for real. i am grateful to have THAT kind of “stress privilege (??)” but i also wish i was stressing over something that gives me LIFE. i know i’m studying for something that will actually help me provide something for myself and for my family but my soul (oh crap here’s where things get cheesy) screams i should do something else. 

my friend always tells me to chill but i couldn’t because there’s always that nagging thought that i have to do something productive everyday. i think it stems from past disappointments, failed expectations from ppl close to me, and just basically feeling like a failure. i’m a frantic mess who somehow has the time to do unnecessary things. wish the energy was put into finishing acads on time or earlier, but here we are. think they meant that i should be chill with mysef. to be kind to myself. to not panic and breathe.

another thing is that there’s a load of information shoved in my head that really paralyzes me to act on something.

3. leaving behind the things i’ve outgrown.

it’s so funny how i’ve met few new people this year who i already treasure only to have quite a number of people to walk out of my life.

it’s not really surprising to me. i think we all wanted it to happen anyway. i’m just happy that things kind of subtly fell apart for things to make more sense. the feeling is kind of like how a misplaced puzzle piece is put into its rightful place. finally, i don’t have to force myself and i think the feelings are mutual. anyway, this year was a revelation in itself despite how dragging the pacing felt. love how the gunk went out and i see now what i’ve been blind to. chuck the deuce! definitely a thank u, next moment.

4. meeting new people, unexpected unions.

i definitely did not expect to form connections and be reunited with some of my old friends this year. also witnessed deepened friendships. 

there’s always this thing where i put my energy on a high level when i’m meeting new people just to seem decent and happy then slowly revealing how tired, sad, and boring i can be. then there’s that fear of losing people’s interest in me or people not becoming excited to talk to me about... anything really. never thought i’d have this fear of losing certain people in my life. i want to detach myself from that and from people themselves too (in a healthy way ofc). 

i’ve never ever felt like i could lose people in an instant. there’s that thing where i worry if i’m too much or i’m lacking for people. so i appreciate people who let me know if i’m crossing the line or if i’m doing something that completely annoys them because i really want to be part of people’s lives, meaningfully and genuinely. a good one. i don’t want to half-ass my relationships with other people and i seek loving relationships that thrive and inspire where it doesn’t only get good at the start but is continually progressing even when we don’t see each other often. it’s fascinating how as we get older, we see how relationships are not as simple as we think they are but really are simple at the same time. we have different goals, we are at different stages in our lives, we are facing shit that nobody else seems to understand and things that don’t seem to end, and we can only hope that our mere presence and emotionally available hearts will listen to whatever the other person has to unburden. 

to somehow let them know that they don’t need permission to rest and to do things that they are afraid of pursuing. 

4a. discovering new artists.

AURORA: the most underrated artist for sure. watched every interview/video/set because she is that bitch. her SONGS, man. i swear. she is that ethereal fairy from the forest. her fucking voice just draws me in. she deserved a better role in frozen 2 tho. she needs to be a lead in a musical animated movie. idc idc i said what i said.

beabadoobee: fucking rockstar, reviving the 90s grunge music and looks.

Billie Eilish: a badass. hate how she still stans bieber tho. 

5. daydreaming of a new life.

you don’t know how many times i’ve been dreaming to have a big house. 

it’s time. we really need a new house. i’m not, as what the kids say, vibing with this old house anymore. this is what i wish to leave behind as soon as possible. how do i even get the MONEY to afford it? i’m just hoping for a miracle to happen, you know. i really wish my family gets to be in a better home soon.

i think if u know me, u might have caught me spacing out a few times. 

idk why this always happens. it’s so rude to the person speaking to me but my mind literally drifts off to another planet. it’s not that they’re boring. i just can’t help it. i feel like shit thinking about how many times it has happened to me. 

sometimes, i dream of being this whole new different person. 

someone who is better than who i am. someone who is good at something and is passionate about the things she does. there are a lot of things i am interested in doing but i don’t have the courage to actually do it. idk why i always turn into a statue when i think of things that i wanna do.

6. God.

it’s been a long time. i have lost contact with You but You are always there to patch things up for me. every effin’ time. i cry everytime.

it must be because i was raised in a christian setting. that’s why i always think it’s You who’s working behind the scenes. but still i am grateful.

saved me from certain people.

saved me this semester.

saved me from pulling worthless all-nighters.

provided me financially esp when i thought i had nothing.

prevented a severe acid reflux situation.

gave me new friends.

did literally so many things that saved me from bad situations and people in general like WHO DOES THAT??

7. a life without a plan.

this is literally what i wanted to happen. not carelessly but like where i don’t have to worry about what to do next. just let things be and go with the flow. the first half of this year, i really did not think things through as i normally would and i let plans fall just to enjoy what was in front of me. be at ease and be present during that time. and i did. it was a peaceful, cheery time tbh.

8. every day i wanted to start over just to get over a lot of things.

9. i missed a lot of ppl.

10. i wanted to be held. not by a certain someone. not romantically. but by anyone close to me. *plays i’m with you by avril lavigne*

sometimes we all just need a long hug. that’s all. and it’d be nice to hear more stories from people. :)

11. not everybody will reciprocate the same energy that i send out to them and it’s okay.

this bummed me out. felt like an effin’ loser but i’ve learned that people have businesses to do. life doesn’t always happen the way we want it to.

12. this the final year of college. just finish it already, dumbass. 

13. why can’t i just be kathryn bernardo or AURORA for like a month or a year? i promise i will not ruin their careers lmao.

14. i want to make major changes in my stupid life but money is an issue.

15. the stars are below the sky now.

the state of the environment is the same as of our minds. polluted and overloaded with gibberish to the point that we get scared of doing one thing at a time and where we also don’t throw away the unnecessary baggage/s. 

we’re so intent on doing things all at the same time. finishing everything in one sitting. being productive became an addiction and it scared me how i was becoming affected by this. there’s this constant thought that we collectively share which is to do something by every day and it only adds up to people’s anxiety and depression. social media definitely made us aware of mental illnesses/disorders but then it became a trend. people self-diagnose themselves and end up with the wrong treatment. some people use it as a tool to get followers and... ugh it’s all a mess. i hope people get the right treatment/s AND/or professional help because if they don’t, they’ll lose themselves. i mean... just look at the sky. there’s literally no sign of a star now if u live in the city. we’ve lost sight of what should guide us. we are unconsciously following a false light thru our devices. 

i’m not good at analogies or at explaining things as u can tell. but moving on...

this hyper self-awareness that i have gained from social media has its advantages but is also distracting me from living my best life. i didn’t realize that i was making my own christmas lights inside my seemingly dark mind when really... it’s just clouded by all this information that’s coming in fast and has affected who i am and certain areas of my life. i’ve almost forgotten this and i’ve come to believe again that there’s always an ever-present light and it will take time to get used to its brightness once my mind gets clearer by the day. hopefully, it will.

anyway, CLIMATE CHANGE IS REAL AND WE NEED TO SAVE EARTH. 

16. men are trash. 

17. the people who i should avoid always looks odd or unpleasant and has bad energy. i know shit when i sense one. 

18. i’m not happy with my life and with who i am but i’ll work with what i’ve got.

life gives u a mirror and shits on your face. sheesh.

for some reason, i can’t forget what my adviser told me during my 4th year of high school. she told me “it seems like you’re a person full of regrets” and every time i have a cryfest, i think of that. idk why. (never underestimate the power of a few words, folks). you know how like in flow charts, u encounter decision points? the diamond shapes? i think i always decide no and end up with the worst consequence and then there’s no more starting over. 

i don’t think i understand flow charts well. ugh. 

i can’t come up with a cool transition to me having insecurities so let’s say i did!

some people’s beauty, inspiring. but others just make you feel like shit.

i really want to explore my feminine side more because i was more masculine when i was younger. i’m not gentle, i’m a bit aggressive. and it just doesn’t fit with who i want to be. idk why. and also, it’s fun (!!!). you get a taste of what it’s like and it’s so EMPOWERING at least for the short experience that i had. but can make me feel very conscious of my entire being and i just end up wearing cartoony disguises. ironic but BABY STEPS. when i think about it, there’s really no black or white answer whether this or that is feminine or masculine.  

self-love is not a 5-step process. 

it is continuous improvement of oneself to the point where you don’t give a fuck about what they say. i really envy the ones who are comfortable in their own skin, who are totally embracing their flaws. they just bloom. some people just look like them. like it’s SO THEM. unmistakably them. and i think if everyone had that, we would not have standards anymore.

oh, to live in a time where individuality is encouraged but is also discouraged when not lived up to its standards. hurray.

19. this year was the year of mindless decisions. periodt.

20. hoping that the new year, 2020, will be the year of CLARITY where i know who i really am, embracing it, and where i will not be taking anymore of anyone’s bullshit. where i know where i stand in my relationships with other people and vice versa. there will be intentional but meaningful endings that will pave the way for blossoming beginnings. 

let’s hope it unfolds the way it should be. for the better.

bonus: nobody knows what the fuck they’re doing. everyone’s just going with the flow. be yourself.

note: this is a compilation of thoughts, informally. thank u.

[ohhimatt]

Reasons Why #201-250

201. You tried to teach Dan about how prostitute is a slur, and seeing you care about something I care about was actually so amazing. I honestly almost cried a little bit, but I couldn’t because drugs. If I had been sober or just drunk though, I would have cried

202. Alex always says that you change personalities completely and smile more when I’m around, and if that’s not the most adorable thing, then I don’t know what is

203. Okay yeah I’m mega overwhelmed right now about everything surrounding Coachella, but the only thing keeping me from having a full on panic attack over this is the fact that I know that no matter what happens I’m going to have a good time because I’m going to be there with you

204. You offer to put my things in your pockets at concerts and festivals, which is beyond helpful, especially since I apparently don’t know how the pockets in a camelbak work

205. You always keep snacks around your house for me or let me grab snacks at the grocery store that I can actually eat (and also Cheese Nips), which is fab because I can’t eat normal people things

206. I feel like most of the time when I’m filling out the gratitude section in my planner I end up writing in something about you

207. You drove us home from Coachella when I made the dumb decision to only sleep for an hour the night before, and then you didn’t get mad at me for sleeping for half of the time

208. You always offered to walk me back to my campsite, which I definitely wasn’t going to allow you to do because it was so far, but it was a really sweet gesture

209. I really did kinda try to start a minor fight over the group message thing, and you just apologized. You just didn’t even let me start the fight. Wow. But also wow thanks

210. You added me to the group message after I complained about it, which didn’t matter at all because nobody said anything in it after that, but it was nice

211. You reminded me to bring my Coachella ticket. Oh my god I was really going to leave without my ticket. What is wrong with me?

212. For the most part, we wanted to see the same people play at Coachella, and I really don’t mind compromising on things like this, but the fact that I didn’t have to was also amazing

213. You stuck around with Lauren and me when she was dealing with her coke sadness and having her credit card information stolen and her identity compromised, and you really could have just gone off and done your own thing, but you stayed, and that was really nice

214. You weren’t having a great time on acid, but you still dealt with me saying things like “I kinda want to die” and “I just feel really sorry for everyone who isn’t me right now.”

215. When I really wanted to go home, the home that I was thinking of was your home, and I’m going to be lame really quick and quote one of my favorite songs from like middle school(?) anyway.. It says “If home is where the heart is, then my home is where you are.” I used to sing along to that all the time, and I would hope that someday I would feel that way about someone, and I finally do. I finally understand the feeling behind that song lyric, and I’ve been dreaming of that feeling since middle school

216. I never have to worry about being honest with you about things. If I want to leave or if I feel weird or uncomfortable, I can just tell you

217. You don’t get weird when I let guys hit on me so that I can get free stuff

218. You don’t get weird about guys hitting on me in general. This has always been a problem I’ve had in past relationships, and considering it’s something that’s out of my control, it’s really nice that I don’t have to worry about getting in trouble over it

219. You make me feel better when I’m literally crying because I’m afraid of one of my teachers

220. I now associate Philz coffee with seeing you because I only really go when I’m in Berkeley, so now no matter where or when I get Philz it just tastes better because it makes me think of you. I know that probably sounds lame, but idc

221. I’ve stolen some of my favorite songs from your playlists, which means that on top of the fact that these songs are great, they make me think of you when I hear them, and that makes them even better

222. I’m not sure if this really counts, but it should count. I feel like the universe had some sort of master plan by putting our six month anniversary on Cal Day because that’s cute af and also v coincidental

223. You were really able to pump me up enough to take shots while power walking through the desert to the entrance to Coachella. That sounds like the worst thing ever. Plastic vodka mixed with heat mixed with exercise, but it was cool because it was with you

224. You will literally just toss compliments around in our conversations for no reason. For. No. Reason. It’s sweet though

225. The only thing I ever really have to be annoyed with you about is how often you compliment me. There really isn’t anything bad about you. Wow

226. I always feel like whenever you take acid you’re going to have some sort of realization that you don’t like me anymore, but you don’t. And I don’t know whether or not it’s on purpose, but you always seem to be much more reassuring about your feelings towards me the next day, and that’s really nice

227. You keep offering to help me pay for things, including formal, and that’s super super not necessary, but it is nice knowing that you’re willing to help

228. You don’t get weird about me hanging out with your friends without you, and it’s super weird to me that that is even possible. I spend so much time at your house, so obviously I’m gong to develop friendships with other people who live there or hang out there all the time, and you’re okay with this, and you don’t think I’m trying to steal your friends

229. We can do our own things, and that’s okay. I didn’t feel like you were going to get mad at me for doing something else while you were still at Chi Psi playing beer die, which is great because I suck at beer die

230. You have given me the gift of littles. My littles are my pride and joy, and I wouldn’t have Sachin or Ken without you. Wow

231. You ate my egg off of my avocado toast for me. This is a good relationship. I can eat the pickles off of your sandwiches at Chick-fil-a, and you can eat the eggs off of my toast. I couldn’t think of a better trade

232. You don’t make fun of me or get weirded out when I cry about little things that I shouldn’t cry about like a joke about us breaking up. I still don’t know why that really made me cry. I’m weak

233. You helped me get my EDC ticket for cheaper than I was planning on getting it for by asking Max to sell his to me. You’re a gem because I’m broke right now

234. You got me started on these stupid facebook games, and I don’t know if this is good or bad because I’m wasting my day, but also it’s kinda entertaining

235. You listen to the songs that I send you. It would be super easy for you to just pretend that you like them and lie to me, but you don’t do that, and it probably helps that we like the same music, but it’s still nice

236. This is going to sound corny af, but I used to listen to love songs and think that the people writing or singing them or whatever were just singing about this made up fantasy love that couldn’t be real at all, and I just thought they were sad and dumb and whatever, but now I like them. So thanks for making these songs make sense. I feel like there’s a whole new world of music I can participate in now

237. You’re fucking adorable at concerts/shows/festivals. Adorable. More than normal, which I didn’t think as possible

238. Okay maybe I’m overstepping some boundary here (but we never set a boundary for this, so I feel like I’m totally allowed to be doing this) but some of my favorite people in my life are in it because of you. I really do love your friends, and obviously I can’t imagine a version of my life without you in it, but I also can’t imagine a version of my life without them in it. So I know I’ve made a few points on this list about your friends already, but they (and you) are just all really cool people, and I’m glad they (and you) are in my life

239. You’re the same way as I am about sharing things, and I just really appreciate the people in my life who share things because I just feel like it’s a good character trait

240. I’m not sure if this belongs on the list or not, but I’m putting it here and also probably making a separate post about it. I lowkey understand where Irlanda is coming from as a crazy ex now because like.. I’m not saying I would attack any future girlfriend you might have (okay but I also hope you never have any future girlfriends besides me sorry) on social media, but I totally get why she’s so upset. I would def be super sad if I ever lost you. It makes sense

241. When I was talking to Stephen in his room on Cal Day I was genuinely able to say that you were the best thing that could have happened to me in the past year, and I’m so happy that you came into my life via Stephen

242. When I wake up craving fries, we get fries. Amazing. Wow. Little things

243. I absolutely love the video of you that I keep adding to. Like I smile just thinking about it, so it’s obviously very important to me that I keep adding to it, but I forget to take videos of all of the stuff we do or I’ll only take one or two because I’m having so much fun with you that I forget about the fact that I want to keep adding to my video, but like I’m not complaining. This is def a good thing

244. We keep doing things that are fun enough to be worth adding to the video. Obviously I’m going to have fun no matter what we’re doing because I’m spending time with you, but I really do feel like every week there’s a new adventure or a new thing to do

245. You don’t hate on my weird gluten free snacks, and you actually eat them with me. This is rad. I feel like less of a problem when you can also enjoy my food

246. Adding on to the last one, I feel like you’re always trying to make sure that there will be something that I can eat whenever we go out somewhere, which normally I don’t care about because I’m going out to eat something that tastes good not something that makes me feel good, but it’s still a really nice gesture, and I appreciate it

247. You’ve started to text me good morning fairly often, which is really sweet. It’s also nice because most of the time I want to text you when I wake up, but that’s usually at least a couple hours before I expect you to be up, so I try not to unless I have something that I feel like I really need to say to you right then

248. You always apologize to me during coke talks because I tend to listen much more than I talk, and this is super not necessary because even though I don’t always look like it, I’m definitely having a good time just listening to what everybody is saying. But it’s still sweet that you notice that I’m not participating and try to make sure I’m still solid

249. I never feel like I’ve run out of things to talk about with you, and we’re always talking. I just feel like I could have a conversation about literally anything, and it would be fine because I’m talking to you

250. I know I made a post about this already on one of my other tumblrs, but I don’t know how often you check any of my tumblrs, and it really is worth its own number on the list anyway, but it’s really soft, so I’m gonna need you to not make fun of me for this one or be like omg Michaela what’s wrong with you because I don’t know honestly, okay? But anyway.. I really felt like loving anyone after Tony was impossible or at least ultimately going to ruin my idea of love even more because comparing any potential new love to what I believed was an ideal love (only because there was no time for it to ruined by one of us) just wouldn’t be fair. But this just feels different, and maybe it’s because I grew up thinking that all love was abusive, and you’re just supposed to choose the one that hurts the least, but idk. I just don’t even feel like I can compare how I feel now to how I’ve ever felt with someone before, and like yeah I know it’s only been six months, but it’s been a long six months for me, and okay this honestly was a lot to put all into just one number on the list, and I feel like it may or may not make sense, and there’s definitely some rambling going on here, and there are a lot of feelings here, and you don’t have to feel the same way or anything, but yeah okay that’s all for 250.

On that note, I’m going to start a new post when I continue the list so that I don’t have to be reminded of #250 and all of my feelings the next time I want to add to the list okay ty goodbye