#i just. i am so tired of feeling like a canary in a coal mine. i am constantly like 'hey we'll have xyz problem soon but if we do abc | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

is-it-art-tho · 3 years

Text

Excerpt: When Jason turned back, he found two steady streams of tears running down Damian’s face, dripping from his chin. He had never seen the kid cry before.

As Jason slipped in through the window, a shadow moving through the night, a chill swept in behind him, and the form in the bed groaned and shifted in response.

He cringed, closing the window and navigating his way to a chair. And he'd all but sat down when a low voice from just behind him said, “Taken.”

Jason choked back a full-throated scream, wrangling it into a string of curses as he staggered backwards and squinted into the low light.

Bruce leaned forward in the chair so that his face was illuminated beside the window, his eyes as tired as ever, hair mussed and flattened on one side in a way that made Jason suspect he’d been sleeping he might’ve just been sleeping.

“Didn’t know you were here,” the younger man, hating how he felt himself shrinking, making himself smaller in Bruce’s presence. He made a conscious effort to lift his chin, square his shoulders. “I’ll just go.”

“Wait. Don’t.” Bruce rose, so stiff Jason could practically hear his joints creaking. “I’ve been here for”—he checked his watch—“I don’t even know how long.”

“Better things to do?”

Though Bruce’s face was once again in shadow, Jason could still feel his resignation and frustration rippling in the silence and heightened by sheer exhaustion.

“If you can’t or won’t stay,” Bruce said flatly, “it’s fine. I can figure something else out.”

“I’m sure you could. But don’t even worry about it.” Jason marched to the chair, forcing Bruce to sidestep out of his way as he practically threw himself into the seat. “Unlike you, I tend to find a way to squeeze family into my schedule.”

In the darkness, only the whites of Bruce’s eyes were visible, peering down at Jason and looking strikingly like the lenses of the cowl. To anyone else, this might have felt eerie, almost menacing.

To Jason, it felt like a Tuesday.

“Go. Run along to wherever it is you go at times like these," Jason said, wagging his fingers in a shoo motion. "We’ll be here when you decide to start caring again.”

Bruce left without another word, closing the door behind him just a tad softer than necessary. It was an overcorrection, a conscious effort not to slam it. And that’s how Jason knew he had gotten to him.

He always got to him.

Several minutes after Jason had begun scrolling through his phone, halfway between sleep and consciousness, the trill of a heart monitor caught his attention.

He looked up. Damian was still asleep, but the machine he was attached to was going crazy, spiking as if he were in a dead sprint. Jason rose to get a closer look and found Damian drenched in sweat and panting, his face contorted in terror.

“Hey,” Jason whispered, placing a hand on his narrow chest and shaking him. “Hey, whoa. Damian. Damian, calm down.”

The kid gasped, his eyes flying open and darting around the room as if still seeing the ghost of whatever nightmare he had been trapped in.

Jason waited for his gaze to finally find him before asking, “They gone?”

Damian looked around the room again, a quick check of all the shadows and dark corners, before offering a quick nod.

“Good.”

Damian sucked in a shaky breath as he adjusted himself on the pillows so that he was sitting mostly upright, and Jason couldn’t help but notice how small he looked with his massive t-shirt hanging like drapes from his shoulders. It must have been one of Bruce’s.

“If you need more sedatives—" Jason began, reaching for the pill bottle, but Damian stopped him with a curt,

“Don’t.” His voice was somewhat frail despite how hard Jason knew he was likely working to sound indifferent. ”Where is Father?”

“Had some stuff to take care of,” Jason answered, finding a closer chair to pull up to the side of the bed.

“Hm.” Damian wasn’t looking at him, instead restlessly adjusting the sheets on the bed. The heart monitor’s incessant trilling was the ultimate betrayal of his forced calm—a canary in the coal mine.

“I’m sure he’ll be back soon,” the older boy added a little lamely.

“Only if he’s as idiotic as all the others.” At Jason’s confused frown, Damian continued, “I’m not some child who needs to be looked after at all hours. And it’s an insult for them to act as if I am. Not to mention a waste of time and resources.”

Jason leaned back in the plush seat, already exhausted by the direction of the conversation. “Time and resources?”

“If they’re babysitting me here that means they’re not out there doing something useful. The world doesn’t stop needing Batman and all the others simply because I’m temporarily incapacitated.”

“Right,” Jason sighed. “But here’s the thing: I get the whole ‘I don’t need help from anyone’ thing. I practically invented it. But I’ve also been on the receiving end of fear toxin, and that stuff is no joke. Especially if you have to deal with it solo. There’s no shame in needing a little backup.”

“Perhaps it is difficult for you, but I’m fine. I’ve trained for this.”

“You’ve trained to be trapped alone with your worst nightmares? What the hell kind of training—”

Damian leveled an outright bone-chilling stare on him, and the following silence was as much an explanation as it was a warning.

Jason cleared his throat. “Well, then let me put it this way: just because you can do something, doesn’t mean you have to. Gotham won’t fall just because a couple bats take a few days off to look after one of their own.”

“You—” And whatever Damian was about to say—and Jason was sure it was going to be insulting—shriveled in a quick gasp as the boy’s eyes flicked just over Jason’s shoulder. The heart monitor picked back up again, and Jason watched as Damian struggled to control his breathing, trembling hands clutching at the sheets.

“Where?” Jason asked quietly.

“By the door…”

The older boy turned to scan the dark walls, the corner, the dresser. He saw nothing.

“Make it go away,” Damian begged. “Please…”

When Jason turned back, he found two steady streams of tears running down Damian’s face, dripping from his chin. He had never seen the kid cry before.

“Damian,” he began, but the younger boy was screaming now, railing against whatever specter was lurking in shadows.

“You’re lying!” he wailed, starting to get up. Jason leapt out of his chair and pinned Damian’s small shoulders to the bed as the kid continued to scream at something—or someone—over Jason’s shoulder. “You’re lying! You’re lying! I’ll kill you!”

“It’s not real!” Jason shouted back, knowing that this wouldn’t work. It never did. “There’s nothing there! Just look at me! Look at me!”

But even as Jason forced himself directly into Damian’s eye-line, he could see that the kid was looking through him, seeing and unseeing at the same time. The boy was inconsolable now, weeping and screaming at the top of his lungs in a language Jason didn’t even recognize.

He continued to thrash against the older boy’s grip, much stronger than the average kid his age but still no match for Jason’s mass, until slowly he started to come back down. Whether the episode was passing, or he had simply exhausted himself, Jason couldn’t be sure, but after a few minutes the heart monitor started to settle back into a less agitated rhythm, and Damian managed to find and focus on Jason’s eyes again.

“They gone?” Jason asked, his hands still gripping Damian’s shoulders.

“Please,” he whispered, his eyes never straying from the older boy’s, “don’t make me look.”

“I won’t. You don’t have to look anywhere but this handsome mug, alright? I’m right here. All night if you want.”

Damian nodded, and Jason could see how hard he was trying not to look anywhere else in the room. He could see how petrified this kid was and how tired he was and God since when was this little brat so young?

“Move over,” Jason ordered softly, and to his surprise Damian obeyed and watched without protest as the older boy shed his boots and jacket and climbed into the massive bed with him.

Jason lifted his arm and pulled Damian into his side, gently guiding his face so that it was buried in his shirt to physically block out the rest of the world. He felt Damian shove his face even deeper into Jason’s ribs, and a moment later he felt Damian’s shoulders quivering again, little hiccupping breaths against his side.

“I can still see it,” he whispered.

“I know.” Jason squeezed him harder, glaring around the room and wishing for something to beat the crap out of. He would suck up a couple lungfuls of fear toxin himself right now if it meant he’d be able to stand between Damian and whatever it was that was tormenting him. “But I’ve got you.”

“Thank you, Father,” Damian mumbled, sounding already mostly asleep.

Jason tensed, but forced himself to breathe through it. And when the door finally cracked open nearly an hour later, spilling light into the room, they were in much the same position, Jason having been too scared to move a muscle even after his shoulder had begun to cramp up.

Bruce poked his head in and hesitated.

“It’s alright,” Jason assured him. “You won’t wake him up.”

The older man entered, a silhouette gliding noiselessly across the floor. “I’m sorry for being away for so long. There were some…complications. But we’ve got a promising lead on a new anti-toxin formula. It should help.”

Jason nodded. “I figured Scarecrow must have cooked up something new. I’ve never seen it linger like this before.”

“Hn.” He leaned across Jason to glide his fingers along Damian’s brow and gently cup his cheek. Jason wondered if Bruce could see the dried tear tracks there. “How was he?”

“About how you’d expect. He’s strong, though. Maybe too strong for his own good.”

Bruce chuckled, a quick exhale through his nose, before pulling away. “I can take over from here if you want to go.”

Jason looked at Damian still curled into his side then back at Bruce. Suddenly, he was grateful not to be the one hooked up to the heart monitor. “Actually, think I might hang around for a little while longer. If you’re okay with that.”

Bruce blinked. “Of course. Absolutely.” And taking the seat Jason had moved near the bed, he added, “I always have time for you, by the way. All of you. There’s never anything more important.”

“I know.” And though there were many memories Jason could use to poke holes in this notion, for now at least, he decided not to. Because deep down, he knew how desperately they both wanted it to be true.

And maybe tonight that could be enough.

#batman fanfic #damian wayne #damian wayne whump #jason todd #bruce wayne #batman fanfiction #batfam fanfiction #batfam fanfic #at least for tonight #whump #mild hurt/comfort

54 notes · View notes

cultivatedmemes · 3 years

Text

Dragon Age II Starters part 2, part 1 here. feel free to change gender specific words, pronouns, whatever you like to make it fit your muse better!

❝ How about I shove a canary up your coal mine? Let's go. ❞

❝ You don't want me as sour and dour as you. You need a counterpoint. ❞

❝ I also think of others before myself. You seem tired of that, and that's dangerous. ❞

❝ Bit of a tit, your brother. ❞

❝ You can see what I am. Lie to yourself if you must. ❞

❝ All right, I'm just going to say it. [Name], you need to present yourself better. ❞

❝ I shall endeavor to exist with less offense. ❞

❝ You're squandering something you don't understand. ❞

❝ I disavow any knowledge of gambling occurring in my house. ❞

❝ We break the law. I'm pretty sure. There are laws for almost everything. ❞

❝ That can't be true. They must like some things... Sunshine? Butterflies? Rainbows? ❞

❝ You're so cute when you're with him! Not like normal-you at all! ❞

❝ Does that do anything? ❞/❝ Mostly it stands in my house, looking a bit spooky. It could fall on someone, but you'd have to push it really hard. It's quite heavy. ❞

❝ Anything could happen. You'll protect them, though. It's what you do. ❞

❝ I love [Name]. I say it a lot. It makes things clearer, takes away doubt when everything is crazy and people are dying. ❞

❝ Everything affects everything. We were born, a bunch of things happened, and now we're in a mess with our friends. ❞

❝ What have I done now? You look like you wish to scold me. ❞

❝ It's too late. The images are already in my mind and they will never, ever go away. ❞

❝ I remember my mother singing to me, when I was a little girl and I'd get sick. I think that's what I miss the most. ❞

❝ Do we know anyone who isn't brooding every hour of the day? ❞

❝ I miss a lot of dirty things and sometimes I wouldn't mind hearing them. ❞

❝ How did you learn swording? Those things you do with the sword. It looks tricky. ❞

❝ You are looking for forgiveness, but I'm not the one who can give it to you. ❞

❝ They say death is only a journey. Does that help? ❞

❝ The chains are broken, but are you truly free? ❞

❝ The smug sense of superiority does give you away. ❞

❝ The past is important, to you and to all of us. We must know it to move forward. ❞

❝ You had a life. You had a family. And you abandoned them to chase after ghosts. ❞

❝ You pity him because he's you. ❞

❝ It's all right, you know. Even you can be happy once in a while. It won't kill you. But your face might crack if you smile, so be careful. ❞

❝ Can I get you something to eat or drink? I have... water. ❞

❝ You know, a lot of the creatures down here aren't very nice. Don't they teach manners underground? ❞

#dragon age sentence starters #da2 rp memes #da2 starters #ask meme #rp starters #rp meme #rp prompts #rp memes #Ask memes #inbox memes #sentence starters

121 notes · View notes

puckrph · 3 years

Text

' THE FOOL IN HER WEDDING GOWN ' SENTENCE STARTERS

taken from the crane wives' 2012 album. feel free to change pronouns, etc.

ICARUS

' climb higher, and higher, til you're far away and breathing cleaner air. ' ' who have you become in the wake of all that's happened here? ' ' they're burning down the orchard. ' ' i'm spreading out the ashes of a love that only gave and gave. ' ' there's no room for all the hearts who will not stay. ' ' our hands are pulling everything apart. ' ' there's no more need to lie; we don't have time for that. ' ' it's okay. ' ' my love will fall with grace. ' ' leave our footprints to be lost along the ground. ' ' there is nothing left to bring me back down. '

STEADY, STEADY

' you know when you're ready. ' ' it's a long road, walking into the sun. the heat can make you lose your head, your sense of direction. ' ' i am ready to be the one. ' ' how long is forever? ' ' i'm swimming in this dress like a child in her mother's clothes. ' ' this ring around my finger's like a chain around my throat. ' ' are you so sure you tamed me? ' ' i am ready to run. ' ' ain't it a shame that with time our dreams turned into jokes? ' ' i won't let that be us. ' ' don't just watch me go, you fool. run with me, keep up. ' ' it's not you i'm leaving, are you listening? ' ' i won't say i do til you promise me that though we're gray, we can stay young, and wild, and free. '

EASIER

' if you woke and i was gone from the house that we made our home, would it bend you, break you, overtake your heart? ' ' if i were someplace else, would this be easier? ' ' the only peace i have ever known is the peace i made with you. ' ' i can't stay here. ' ' i learned to lie. i learned to grow. i learned to hold it for a while and let it go. ' ' please tell me someday i'll at least be able to sleep. ' ' i'll just close my eyes and try to pretend that it gets easier. '

SHALLOW RIVER

' i know that the promise you wear... well it ain't for me. ' ' oh dear heart, be still. ' ' may the whole sky fall. may it all come down. ' ' keep your distance. ' ' stay the course when you falter and don't you think of me. ' ' make her leave my mind. ' ' bring it down on my head if these sins are mine. ' ' don't you think of me. '

STRANGLER FIG

' you built your kingdom around me. now i'm trapped within your walls. ' ' all i want is to be free. ' ' all you're doing now is losing me. ' ' desire till there's nothing left of me. ' ' you're the culprit, so don't blame me. ' ' i gave you everything i had, and now i want it back. '

THE GLACIER HOUSE

' i need to know. ' ' i saw your eyes, so sweet, go cold. ' ' you cursed the earth you settled under. ' ' understand: i had to go. ' ' bundle up, darling. ' ' you're on your own now. ' ' you sought to hold yourself in, wait out the weather, close the gate on love forever. ' ' i am not one to live with regret. '

TONGUES AND TEETH

' i've grown a mouth so sharp and cruel, it's all that i can give to you, my dear. ' ' when you come in quick to steal a kiss, my teeth will only cut your lips. ' ' i know that you mean so well, but i am not a vessel for your good intent. ' ' i will only wring you dry of everything. but if you're fine with that, you can be mine like that. ' ' abandon all your stupid dreams about the girl i could have been. ' ' in the night, i know you burn with feelings i cannot return. ' ' you gotta know that this won't last. ' ' i will ruin you. ' ' it's a habit--i can't help it. ' ' i will poison all your happy thoughts. ' ' i love you like the ashes in my cigarette box. ' ' you can be mine. '

BACK TO THE GROUND

' i'm a book on a shelf, collecting dust all by myself. ' ' use me up. ' ' the flowers in our window box don't grow. ' ' i still don't know shit about letting go. ' ' i know you're not the one. ' ' our hearts lay still and cold under frozen soil. ' ' i can't stay here anymore. '

SHOW YOUR FANGS

' weight will only make me week. ' ' i beg the stars to marry me, for they are my guide. ' ' i'm not your highness, a damsel left helpless by fright. i am a lioness, fierce as i walk through the night. ' ' an angry sun before could melt me, but now i will survive. ' ' beasts will show their fangs. they're in for a surprise. '

ONCE AND FOR ALL

' i tried it your way, you tried it mine. ' ' this ain't the good fight. ' ' i'm putting my foot down, weak knees and all. ' ' i only fought for love at your request. ' ' i didn't think you'd be the one to leave me clutching at my chest. ' ' you'd leave me here to die. ' ' my blood's forever on your hands. ' ' i'm just fucking tired. '

CANARY IN A COAL MINE

' you and i are friends of empty graves. ' ' am i the only thing that keeps you safe when the light is gone? ' ' i still hold out hope that maybe someday i'll be worth more than all the silence left in my way. ' ' feed me promises. ' ' i'll sing you songs until the darkness does recede. ' ' if in the end i lose my voice, will you forget about your love for me? ' ' know that all my love will be your breath. '

HOW TO REST

' build yourself a citadel amid the foothills of regret. ' ' you'll miss the sun, the warmth of another's embrace. ' ' all you've ever wanted is an escape. ' ' those of us who vow never to love again are making liars out of honest men. ' ' love doesn't know how to rest. ' ' don't make it harder than it has to be. ' ' here's the truest thing i've ever known: the heart is just a muscle with a rhythm all its own; it doesn't stop when you decide not to move on. ' ' the heart knows nothing of your love or of your loss. ' ' life just keeps on ticking by, compelled by instinct to survive. ' ' love's the only thing worth being alive for. '

#memes #askbox memes #rp memes #the crane wives starters #rp sentence starters

44 notes · View notes

allthecolorsofourlove · 3 years

Text

[here’s the canary, here’s the coal mine:

i asked a friend (our friend) something gross and dripping, “would

it be fucked up to tell my mom i’m visiting him,

and just go visit her?”

received a laugh. an immediate yes.

brushed off the idea. still considering it anyways.

messy and uncouth and vindictive, like an angry

dog. full of emotions that i don’t know what to do with but i

know what to do with you:

fingertips and jeans and stolen smiles and paper hearts in my chest and letters i want made

real

the hypotheticals are for naught: i can’t have him even if i tried (i’ve tried.)

beyond that: i’m tired and jaded and i

don’t care anymore and i just feel shame and

bitterness and frustration: i want my best friend back but

i also want you.

(you are real. you are now. this is the present. i want this to be real.)

look. look at me. i told you i’d give you anything.

you don’t get to cry wolf while flashing teeth and not expect an answer —

i told you i’d give you everything, i told you i’d give you

whatever you asked:

this isn’t a poem. this is the podium.

i want you.

i’m telling the world, i’m screaming it out, i’m sprinting into dawn i’m

holding this for you.

look. look: here’s the

confession that hurts:

(i do not like to admit this to myself — for a moment picture us

back in the confessional. i do not want to say it. i do not want to

think it. hide me in your

wings just for a moment, please)

the wound is not the fact that i miss him —

it’s the fact that i don’t.

it’s the absence. something empty. there’s a hole where a

cat-rat-raccoon shaped boy once lived and i just want that filled.

but you aren’t filling it.

(only he can fill it. he promised me he’d fill it. he hasn’t. he’s dancing around it:

this is the bitterness. this is the absence.)

you’re filling me up. you’re swallowing me whole. you’re the

knowing and the unknowing and the

language i’m learning to speak.

give me a masterclass. i’ll give you

the sun.

i’ve gone quiet in correspondence because i am

consumed with this need — (“i have this need…..to be more”)

i said a loss for words and meant it —

you suck the air out of my lungs:

cradling a phone and squeezing my eyes shut and feeling my

face split at the thought of you —

you don’t dance around anything but me and it’s

only ever while you’re holding my

hands, it’s always our hands,

you’re something so good — this is so good.

i’m terrified of being too much:

i’m doing stupid things like

crying over how much you see me or how much you know me or

the way that you care. (how much you care.) i don’t know what to do with

it in the best of ways. i get chills every night and i

tear up at every turn of phrase. i’m fighting to match you without seeming needy. look. look. look:

i am overrun with you, like

ivy or albedo or fever —

i am not lying when the only time i can say these things is behind

bars or glass or iron: i am messy and patchworked and

terrible with compliments as a giver and receiver and i just

promise you to god above

(told you i’d be honest every step of the way)

this isn’t the confessional, it’s the altar:

and i want you i want you i want you i want you i want you i want you i want you i want you i want

you]

[a train starts one place and ends up at the other. the destinations are two distinct locations, wildly different, even if they are connected by the journey of the train. but that connection doesn’t affect how different the destinations are. do you understand what i mean?]

[picture me at the station. as always, as every moment goes, right down to the quick of my being: i am waiting for spring.]

#the herb garden #writing #poetry #creative writing #poem #poet #poems #you’re so silly. you know you can ask me anything <:)#it’s different this time around. promise. we don’t have to do it like this. you can just ask.#yes it’s 3am yes I wake up in 3 hours for my classes don’t ask #TBIS is YOUR fault stop being a good poet and also so. sooooooooooo. head in hands you know what I mean you’re just too. I’m so. I’m a weak #I’m a WEAK MAN OKAY!#!!!!.!.#ok it’s 6am here’s the update: YOU are the first little girl and ur hands r threaded between my ribs #u have this . Hold on me. I’m entranced and I can’t get away

4 notes · View notes

gravelgirty · 3 years

Note

Hi could you talk more about caves what you said on that post is really interesting

Sure thing!

First of all, it was an amazing cave I worked in. You never forget that. I'll pick one of my favorite topics,

the FALLOUT SHELTER AGGRAVATION TAX.

Clears throat.

Limestone caves are literally stone libraries in the geologic record of the world. Twice a year the airflow would change and then you'd smell smoke from decrepit old torches dating as far back as 1812. People made saltpeter in these caves, they were natural mines for things that went boom, and one of those 'requirements' meant airflow so you wouldn't suddenly and embarrassingly, drop dead of too much Underground. This is why the coal miners were eternally bemused and asking us questions like airflow. Sometimes you gotta canary. Sometimes you are the canary. This often led to predictable questions that was these old gents trying to be polite, but what they really wanted to know was,

'why the hell are you being paid $10 a trip plus tips to walk us 1.1 miles underground up to 3 times a day and no one has a mortgage gun aimed at your head?'

To which I would say, 'it wasn't quite that bad. If no one shows up at all we get paid $10.' ...Dear Saint Barbara, Chango, and the Gods of Deep Mystery, the things we tell ourselves. $10 a day. Crap. Thank goodness I had Granny's House, dad was paying the property tax, the water was on a well, and garbage was less that $20 a month. A shame we can't afford a TV, but hey, we can stay busy digging up that quarter-acre garden that will keep us fed plus the road kill Deer in the fall.

But the conditions that created saltpeter (I'll go into depth on that later if people are interested) also convinced some weird-ass people in Washington DC that caves were the perfect place to do a DR STRANGELOVE and people could go hide out in the caves, free of...well, nothing, really, because radiation = straight lines +caves, air, irradiated air and water, and everything goes down into the caves...

Look. It made people feel safe, ok? And it wasn't the worst decision the Pentagon ever made, considering they were telling the scientists working with HOT RADIOACTIVE MATTER to stay safe by sticking the stuff on a long pole so they wouldn't have to touch it.

Everybody knows about the bomb shelter President Kennedy was prepared to run to with his family in case of Cold War. It was in the Greenbrier Resort in White Sulphur Springs (I prefer to think of it as the HIDDEN FIGURES birthplace). FYI everybody who lived here knew where it was. There are only so many power stations one measly little resort that cries that it can't afford to pay for its own water bill can keep.

[insert sniffle boohoo sobbing of the pro-confederates who run that place and while I can't be there for you, try to imagine the joy I am stockpiling for the day when we have another traitorous uprising and this time, the resort doesn't get a GO PASS GO by dangerous romantics and is finally burned to the ground.]

Anyway, the important people like the President, his family, his Secret Service, his staff, cook, maid-in-waiting, bootblack and et al got to go bunker down in the luxurious bomb shelter at the resort, which probably wouldn't be very resort-y after a certain point of Castro going, 'fuck you, you whippersnapper Irish Dog' or Khrushchev throwing a little more than his shoe around. I'm not convinced it was that great of a place to hide, really. I mean...they have lightning rods on the trees over there, and believe it or not, cavers in that country have been hit by lightning while underground. Because. Lightning. If it can bake entire acres of potatoes in the field, two subterranean surveyors with metal measuring tape haven't got a prayer.

I want you to know that I can't at this point go into detail (space restrictions) on the importance of all these caves to Union Sympathizers, slaves on the Underground Railroad, and the Far-Righter MAGAS called Confederates. Trust me when I say, if you didn't know where these caves were, you had absolutely no right to know.

In Appalachia, limestone caves were listed on properties and handed down because of their value. Thomas Jefferson made a point of making sure there were lots of caves to provide nitre for the Gunpowder Committee. I don't know if landowners had to pay taxes for having saltpeter caves (probably), but when the Cold War came around, they definitely and cheerfully sold the access rights to the government because...it was the government. I am not in the least bit joking when I tell you there are people over there who are still pissed off over George Washington's Whiskey Rebellion.

If you really want to get into the psyche of Appalachians, go read up every scene Terry Pratchett ever wrote about Lancre in his Discworld books. Just give them more libraries and a LOT of coffee stations.

Oh, dear. I forgot all about the owling and the Prohibition.

Owling = the practice of moving your herds of cattle from one ridge to the next to avoid a higher payment when the taxman came a-calling.

Prohibition = The Second Oldest Profession.

These days, many of the Fallout Shelter caves are being used for...modern needs. Meth labs, if you're a sensationalist, but if you aren't, bear in mind that hiding out stolen cattle and horses still requires big places out in the middle of nowhere. But when Mr. Gov't Man came around and offered cash for the access rights to grand-daddy's old saltpetre cave? Goodness gracious, we know we aren't supposed to take people's money from them because that's a sin, but...taxes...you know how it is... (most of the mountain folk had no real quarrel with Kennedy despite his heathen dog Catholicism because it wasn't his fault he was brought up Catholic, but when it came to the government...well, it was the principle of the thing).

In short order papers were drawn, and shelters were built and good god, they were ugly. Clapboard shantytowns, I swear. They were stockpiles whacked together with off-brand plank and tenpenny nails for where the selected few could bunker up in the cozy, damp, dripping, chilly, dusty, sneezy, probably-warm-from-stray-radiation environs. I have no idea who the Pentagon hated enough that they would send them to these caves. They had a bottleneck opening for easy defense, yes, but there was no defense against puking yourself to death or accidentally taking off your own skin with your uniform at the end of your shift.

YOU THINK I"M KIDDING?? YOU THINK IT IS A COINCIDENCE THAT CLASSIC DR WHO SHOWS DALEK HISTORY IN AN OLD STONE QUARRY? WELCOME ABOARD!

A fallout shelter's stockpile generally consisted of

*High-quality medical equipment, even though some of that stuff had a shelf life of three minutes.

*Radio Equipment. Which was probably a real belly laugh to the folks running the NARO satellite dishes up in Green Bank, because families in the most rural portion of WV (Pocahontas County) spent their evenings parsing Latin and teaching the young lads and lasses the wonders of shortwave and how to rig up your own crystals in case you needed to jackleg your own.

*Food. God. Awful. Food. It was designed to keep you alive, but you can't say anything more charitable about it. Honestly, I'm surprised nobody tried to corner a government contract on dehydrated water.

*Water. Potable water for drinking, but, I should say, I couldn't find any means with which you could make a potable distillery. Or, how much of this potable water was going to be used to rehydrate the ghastly awfulness of the dehydrated food, or the canned goods that included stuff the military couldn't wait to forget. Go ask your grandparents how much canned horse Circa WWII they ate while they served, m'kay?

*Candy. High energy, easily digestible candy. Flavor optional, at the discretion of the same government that made the WWII Chocolate Bar.

*The containers themselves. Yep, they counted. They were heavy metal barrels and tough buckets or small drums, plus the amazingly dense metal and plastic containers for medical kits, candy, and misc. I'm not sure if they had a requirement other than impervious, waterproof, and on sale. In fact, the smaller drums/buckets were supposed to be lined with the plastic used to wrap the other goods, and convert into a toilet.

Cold War comes and goes. I'm sure what happened next is shocking:

1) medical supplies goes missing in the dead of night.

2) Electronics follows. That probably makes the electricians feel good, because...what good would they have done in the wet, dust-filled atmosphere of the caves?

3) Candy. Candy, did you say? I don't remember seeing any candy..?

4) The gradual disappearance of the food rations is mysteriously in proportion to camping trips multitasking with double-dog-dares. Who needs a frat pledge if Freckles here has never been introduced to the joys of Dehydrated Ketchup?

5) If you think the backyard blacksmiths are making forges with tire rims, do you think metal containers stand a chance?

This leaves the barrels of water, but who would want to drink that stuff? It's been sitting around for how long? Ew. And the boards for those shelters...cripes.

This inadvertently makes up a tiny little side bonus for the hard-working tour guide. Because these shelters are usually ridiculously close to the entrance of the tour caves. You have to take your tour group in stages, see, and once they finish gasping and wheezing their way through the first 300 steps, you have to take their minds off how miserable they are and pause at the shelter with your flashlight, and describe this little chapter of history. By this time the bats are hanging off the boards (your chance to remind them of the exorbitant federal fines for hurting these little mosquito-hunters), the occasional lost salamander, and the beginnings of the Dreaded Cave Cricket (ten minutes with these little monsters and you'll never think pink is an effete color ever again).

And the mold. There are patches of mold the guides have been watching for YEARS. Some of them have even bothered to look them up, because...tourists. They love to stump the guides and use it as an excuse for not tipping you because you haven't taken a Master's in The Encompassing Topic of Karst Everything and are clearly a dumbass, hah-hah I'll spend my money in the overpriced gift shop, peasant.

But no, folks. If you ask them one more damn time if they're sure all the candy and drugs are gone...we're too tired to take your bleeping bleep bleep tip anyway.

4 notes · View notes

always-and-forever-a-killjoy · 4 years

Text

Good afternoon uhhhh I have no idea what to say about this except that I wrote it and it exists and that probably does say something about me as a person. Also you may want to read my last fic (knight in a beat-up green jacket) because it gets referenced a couple of times but it’s definitely not necessary.

Title: can you catch me when I'm falling down

Wordcount: 2450

Summary: Party Poison is trying to have a calm day for once. Unfortunately, Cherri Cola needs help.

For once, Poison is actually helpful.

Warnings: blood, self harm, mentions of suicide, mentions of death/child death. Please be very careful.

Taglist: @wishiwasthemoon-tonight @sleevesareforlosers @stressed-depressed-emo-mess @tasteofamnesia @dagger-queen (message me, send an ask, or reblog/reply to one of my posts if you want to be added or removed)

AO3 Link

(Actual fic under the cut)

Party Poison was alone when the radio crackled to life. It was an ordinary afternoon in the Zones, Kobra Kid was out on his motorbike somewhere, Jet Star was playing with the Girl, getting ready for her nap, and Fun Ghoul was….exploding things, they assumed. Given the loud bangs from out back, it seemed likely. Poison themself was just trying to read a magazine in peace, feet propped up on one of the diner tables, but that was not to be.

They sighed and reached for the radio. “Hello?”

“Hey,” Cherri Cola’s voice crackled through. He sounded tense, which put them on edge.

“What’s up, Pepsi?”

“Uh, well, you know how that one time, Ghoul said I was like a knight in shining armor? Right, well, I could kind of use a knight in shining armor right now.”

Poison could see that it definitely wasn’t going to be a peaceful afternoon for them. “What the fuck did you get yourself into?”

“Nothing- nothing in particular. I would just really not prefer to be alone at the radio station today, and everyone else is off doing varying things.” His voice had grown even more strained, sounding close to breaking.

“Fuck’s sake, Pepsi.”

“I know, I’m sorry. Trust me, if I could have asked anyone else for help, I wouldn’t have put this on a teenager’s shoulders.”

“Fuck off, I’m perfectly competent.” They sighed. “I’ll be there in twenty.”

“Thank you, Poison.”

Poison swung their feet off the table, pulling their boots and jacket on at the door. “Jet, I’m heading down to the radio station!”

“Okay!” Jet Star called back from the back of the diner. “What for?”

“Cola needs something!”

“Okay! Be safe!”

“I will!” They kicked open the door, shutting it behind them as another explosion sounded from behind the building and Jet shouted something about ‘you woke the Girl up, I just got her to sleep!’. They really had to talk to Ghoul about setting off bombs during naptime. Making a note to do that when they got back, Party climbed into the Trans Am and turned the keys.

“Alright, let’s go see what the fuck he needs, huh, old girl?” The car obediently revved to life, and Poison took them down the roads at frankly irresponsible speed. Not that they had ever given a fuck about being responsible in the first place, not unless it came to their crew’s safety.

Party Poison arrived at the radio shack and kicked the door open with exactly as much grace as they had when kicking the diner door open. “Alright, Pepsi, I’m here!”

“Hey, Poison.” The reply was quiet, and they had to look around further before they located Cherri Cola, sitting on the floor against the sofa. A knife was clutched in his right hand, and they thought they could see blood on his arms, dripping down onto the already stained floor.

“What the fuck? Destroya, Cola!”

Cherri’s eyes were shut tight. “I’m sorry. Please take the knife before I end up doing something stupid.”

“Stupider than this?”

“Stupider as in cutting my fucking throat, Poison.”

“Fuck.” They hurried across the room to wrestle the knife out of his hand, wishing they had made Jet come with them. Jet was actually good at this kind of thing. Thank the Witch, Cherri let go of the knife fairly easily- Poison was pretty sure he would have been able to keep a hold of it if he really tried. They folded the blade away and quickly tucked it into their jacket pocket, wondering if they should bother to check him for other weapons. “Do you have any more knives?”

Cola shook his head, and Poison settled next to him.

“Okay, so why do you want to slit your fucking throat?”

He shrugged.

“I don’t know what that means.”

Cherri mumbled something they strained to catch.

“What?”

“Just happens sometimes,” he repeated, a little louder.

“Just wake up and want to die?” The feeling was strangely (and sadly) familiar.

“Yeah. I’ve seen a lot of shit, Pois. Killed a lot of people. I know I act like I’m well-adjusted, but I’ve never been well-adjusted.”

They bristled a little at the nickname, but now wasn’t exactly the time to say anything about it. “We’ve all killed a lot of people, Cola.”

He shrugged a second time. “I guess it gets to me more than you guys.”

Silence settled over the two killjoys for a few moments before Cherri broke it again.

“I knew an exterminator, you know.”

“What?”

“Before the war. She was good at origami, and she liked soda, but only if it was cherry flavored, and chewed bubblegum whenever possible. She had a ring she never took off, our grandma gave it to her. Her eyes were clear blue like the sky.”

“So you knew an exterminator.”

“And I killed her.” Cherri’s voice was very straightforward. “I killed her, not because I wanted to, but because we were on opposite sides and I had no choice.”

“Fuck,” They swore. “That’s rough.”

“Yeah. It’s a truth I learned pretty young: people die in war. Not for any reason, not because they’re bad people or because they deserved to die. Simply because they were there. Because they were forced into fighting, because they were in the wrong place at the wrong time, because they were trying to make the world a better place. People die because they’re trying to save their friends or their love. Because they want to make the world better for their children. And those children die too, because they’re children in the wrong place at the wrong time. Because they can’t defend themselves.” His voice was shaking, nails digging into his arms.

Poison swore under their breath and pulled his hands away to reveal another set of crescent marks, adding to the many already there. “Fuck’s sake. Maybe we shouldn’t talk about this.”

“I’m open to other suggestions,” Cherri muttered.

They almost snorted. “Well, Cola, pleased to announce you’re going to be just fine, seeing as you’re being a snarky bastard again.”

That got a tiny laugh out of him. “Am I ever not a snarky bastard, in your opinion?”

“When-“ Poison hesitated briefly. “When shit really hits the fan, you’re not. So when you’re being snarky, I know shit’s going to be fine.”

“I wouldn’t use me as an indicator.”

“Eh, you’re a decent one. Canary in a coal mine and all that. I think canaries are a brighter yellow than you, though. Probably better fashion sense, too.” They hardly knew what they were saying, only that they had to find something to talk about.

Cherri gave them a glare for their trouble, if not a very harsh one. “Now you’re the one being a snarky bastard.”

“Uh-huh, but where’s the fun in not being one? Plus, my brilliant plan worked.” Party shot him a small smile. “I’ve distracted you.”

Cherri looked exhausted as he leaned back a bit further, running his hands along his bloody arms, but he was giving them a tired smile. “Sure did.”

“See, I’m a genius.” They climbed to their feet and offered him a hand up, trying to think of what Jet would say. “Let’s get you cleaned up, hey?”

“’kay.”

His hands were bloody and rough, the blood sticking to Poison’s own hands as they pulled him to his feet, but they didn’t say anything about it. Instead, they led him over to the sink of the radio station so they could pour some precious water over his arms, sluicing them clean. They cleaned out the deeper scratches with some sort of foul-smelling disinfectant from the radio shack’s first aid kit and bandaged them up, chattering the entire time.

It was meaningless stuff, rambles about Ghoul blowing shit up during naptime and Kobra’s latest antics on the racetrack, but it was a way to fill the silence, which seemed almost crushing. So Poison unleashed all of it, every update about the Girl and her lessons (“-and Jet has her painting beads!”), every random story they hadn’t told him (“-so that was how we almost ended up with no car and a bucket filled with slime-“) and a few they had (“-then Kobra, dumbass that he is, says ‘it will be fine if I touch these wires!’”).

All their efforts were rewarded by another small, fragile smile from Cola, just barely reaching his sea-blue eyes. It was tiny, but it was real, and Poison had never been so grateful for the endless amount of stupid shit their friends got up to.

They stuck on a final band-aid and closed the kit, glancing over at him as they tucked it away. “So I’m assuming it wouldn’t be cool of me to just abandon you.”

“Not really, no.”

Poison tried to pretend the shakiness of his voice didn’t affect them at all. “So do you want me to stay here until the rest get back? Or should I bring you on over to the diner so the chaos crew can dogpile you into a good afternoon?”

“You’re part of the chaos crew, I hope you know that.” Cherri fiddled with some of the bandages and Poison pulled his hand away. “D’s at his safehouse in Zone 2, he was worried about Better Living tracing the signal back here. Pony went with him, Newsie’s out somewhere and I don’t know if she’s coming back tonight or tomorrow.”

“Alright, lets go back to the diner, then. You can stay a night, you’re not that insufferable.” They tried to sound like they really didn’t care. “Kobes will be happy about it, at least.”

“Thank you, Party.”

“Of course, Pepsi.”

It felt weird to be in a car with Cola and be the one driving- most often when they were stuck together, Cola was giving them a ride or they were on a run together using Cola’s truck. But now, Poison was sitting in their usual spot in the Trans Am, and Cherri had climbed into shotgun. Mad Gear was what was blaring from their speakers as they blazed across the desert, knowing Cherri could handle whatever speed they drove. Indeed, he seemed unbothered, staring quietly out the window. Poison mostly ignored him, glancing over occasionally to see if he was okay.

When they pulled up to the diner, it appeared that Ghoul was still testing out explosives (or possibly fireworks), given the bangs from behind. Cherri flinched at each one, and Poison stuck their head around the back.

“Ghoul! Asshole! Stop it!”

“Why?”

“The Girl’s trying to sleep!”

“Ah fuck, sorry, Pois.” Xe pushed xyr hair out of his face as xe came around the side of the diner. “Oh hey, Cola!”

“Hey, Ghoul.”

Poison shot Ghoul a warning glare as he opened his mouth again, and xe quickly shut it. “Cola’s going to be staying with us this afternoon, maybe tonight too.”

“Alright. Any particular reason?”

They almost groaned. Ghoul somehow always had awful timing. “Uh. You know. He gets lonely when everyone abandons him at the radio station.” It was a terrible lie, but Cherri shot them a grateful smile that almost made Ghoul’s skeptical look worth it.

Thank the Witch, xe was smart enough not to question further. “Okay. Guess we’re heading in, then, if I can’t explode shit?”

Poison nodded to them and led the others inside, looking around. It appeared Kobra had arrived back while they were gone, given that he was lounging in Poison’s usual seat, reading the magazine they had set down. Poison spared a moment to flip him off before peeking into the back to find Jet. They were sitting in his and Poison’s bedroom, humming gently under their breath as the Girl snoozed next to them.

“Hey, Jet.”

Jet looked up, putting a finger to their lips in a shh as they spoke very quietly. “Hey, Pois. Back from the radio station?”

“Yeah.”

“What did Cola need?”

“Long story.” They glanced back at the door to make sure that the rest of the Four (plus Cherri) were still in the main room of the diner before deciding how much to reveal to Jet. “He needed me to make sure he didn’t do anything dumb.”

That was all they needed to say for the other to understand. “Is he okay?”

“He’s fine, but he has to stay with us today.”

“For the same reason?”

“Wasn’t a smart idea to leave him back at the station alone.”

Jet nodded. “Did you leave him with Kobra and Ghoul?”

“Fuck, I did. I’m…sure he kept them from getting in trouble.”

Jet and Poison wandered back out to find Kobra laying across the table, calling commentary across the room as Ghoul attempted to get some of the power pup off one of the highest shelves and Cherri watched with great concern.

“This is why we can’t leave you alone,” Jet sighed. “Hi, Cherri.”

“Hey, Jet. Uh, Ghoul decided xe should make dinner, I guess.”

“It’s almost dinnertime anyways! I’m making fancy shit!”

Jet rolled their eyes, but they were smiling as Poison turned to Kobra. “And what are you doing, fuckface?”

“Talking to Cola, bastard.”

“We’re siblings, you idiot, if I’m a bastard then so are you.”

Kobra flipped them off most eloquently, and Poison just laughed as they turned to Cola. “These idiots driving you crazy?”

“No, I love them.”

“Bad taste.” They laughed at Ghoul’s face. “I’m kidding, you’re the best crew. Now everyone shut up, I have to show Cola my rendition of Toxic.”

“The Girl is napping!”

Cherri laughed quietly. “Thank you, kids.”

“Sure thing!”

“We’re not kids!”

“Of course, we love you.”

“Yeah, love you, Pepsi!”

Cherri Cola stayed with them once again, this time in the graffiti-covered diner. He ate dinner with them, and the Girl sat in his lap quite happily. Ghoul and Party cracked stupid jokes back and forth until his smile wasn’t quite so fragile, trading stories about dumb shit they’d done even though half of those stories involved each other. Jet gave him a big hug, and Kobra sat down to talk with him after dinner, until finally everyone was settling down for the night. Ghoul half-jokingly suggested he sleep in one of the booths, and Cherri laughed and said he was a little old for that but ended up curled in the old chair they had salvaged a few months back anyways. Poison made sure he was safely asleep before they went to bed themself, and they were there from the moment he radioed to the moment they dropped him back off at the radio shack to a yawning Newsie who had driven through the night to get back home.

#cherri cola #party poison #ttlofk #auri writes #danger days #self harm tw #ask to tag #be careful y'all #the fabulous four

13 notes · View notes

claudiafm · 4 years

Photo

𝓿𝓸𝓰𝓾𝓮 𝓲𝓷𝓽𝓮𝓻𝓿𝓲𝓮𝔀𝓼 ~> 𝔠𝔩𝔞𝔲𝔡𝔦𝔞 𝔬𝔯𝔱𝔢𝔤𝔞

in this issue of vogue we have the honor of interviewing fashionista and bassist Claudia Ortega, in a 4 part series, where she delves into her musical and fashion inspirations, personal life and past

PART 2.

we ask claudia about her love life, crushes, past lovers, and she shares with us another playlist

Feelings - lauv And I know, and I know that it hurts sometimes that it hurts sometimes when I'm with you. And I know, and I know that it hurts sometimes that it hurts sometimes, but I miss you. And I know, and I know that it's on your mind that it's on your mind when I kiss you, but I wanna do whatever you wanna do

“Have you ever been so in love with someone, that you’ll do anything to be with them? Even if it hurts cause you know they don’t love you back? You just wanna do anything with them, holding on to any little thing.”

Stupid - Brendan Maclean And if you weren't so ugly, I could've loved you. It's something I tell myself when down to get high, Lord. If you made me a coffee, I could've loved you, and I'd make you hot chocolate, and anything you wanted Tell me who is invited? So fuckin' delighted to see all the boys you see, tell me why don't I fight it? What does it say about me? And let's not be friends or else this'll never end

“Who ever wants to blame them self? You just come up with any reason they don’t love you, they’re stupid, they’re busy, whatever, but then you see them with others, and it hurts. What is it about me that you don’t love?”

Brand new key - Melanie I asked your mother if you were at home, she said yes, but you weren't alone. Sometimes I think that you're avoiding me. I'm okay alone but you've got something I need. Well I've got a brand new pair of roller skates. You've got a brand new key, I think that we should get together and try them on to see, La la la la la la la la La la la la la la. Oh I've got a brand new pair of roller skates, you've got a brand new key.

“sometimes you think you have someone, but then you start to see them fall in love with someone else, and they spend less and less time with you, but they still have your heart, no matter how you grow. I wanna share my life with you, but you’ve started to shut me out, and share it with someone else.”

Skinny love - Birdy (cover) And I told you to be patient, and I told you to be fine, and I told you to be balanced, and I told you to be kind, and now all your love is wasted, and then who the hell was I? And I'm breaking at the britches, and at the end of all your lines. Who will love you? Who will fight? Who will fall far behind?

“maybe i’m too controlling in my relationships, i expect a lot, i ask a lot, and read too much into things. i’ll always fall behind, always a little forgotten.”

Normal Girl - SZA Wish I was the type of girl that you take over to mama. The type of girl, I know my daddy, he'd be proud of yeah, uh be proud of, yeah uh be proud of, uh be proud, you know, you know. Wanna be the type of girl you take home to your mama, the type of girl, I know your fellas they'd be proud of uh be proud of, uh be proud of, uh be proud of, boy you know. Normal girl, oh I wish I was a normal girl, oh my, how do I be, how do I be your baby? Normal girl, oh, oh, oh I wish I was a normal girl I'll never be, no, never be uh, oh

“maybe if i was ‘normal’ people would like me more, if i was more agreeable, less fashion obsessed, would people love me? maybe, but i don’t wanna let go of those parts of me, i just wish i was in the first place.”

Wanna be missed - Hayley Kiyoko I wanna be missed like every night, I wanna be kissed like it's the last time, say you can't eat, can't sleep, can't breathe without me. I wanna be held, fragile like glass, 'cause I've never felt nothing like that, say you can't walk, can't talk, go on without me. Want you tired every day 'cause I run through your brain, hold me down, keep me safe. This is as good as it gets don't you dare second guess, only want you saying yes

“oh i haven’t been someones first choice in a while, but it’s all i want, i want to be missed, more than a ‘oh i haven’t seen you in so long!’ but in late night calls cause they miss my voice, planning trips together years in advance, I just want to be wanted”

Common Sense - Fallen Pine You know the way you make me smile, but can you do it to yourself? Break me down and make me fodder, just care the way you treat yourself. Don't ever ask yourself If what you're doing is the right thing to do, don't ever think about it, just let it die and sit alone in this room. (I really want to) Forget your common sense, just think about everything else. Forget your common sense don't think about it (Hey) I would do anything for you, I would do anything for you, I would do anything for you, I would do anything for you

“it’s beautiful to be a relationship where you just forget everything, and just be, make one another smile, and encourage one another to be happy. To not even think, to do anything for the other, i miss it.”

Les Funérailles (Prologue) - Left at London My apologies, no way to behave, being bitter will not make you be saved. 'Cause I am abhorrent', cause you remain dormant, 'cause I probably messed up again. We could've been worth it, I could've been listening to your plight and we could've been perfect, but your brand of perfect isn't quite as kind to all of my regrets

“we all have our secrets, our regrets, I’ve messed up plenty, and sometimes you can’t be forgiven, you can’t make it better, no matter how you act.”

Arrow - Andrew Applepie I'm so in love, so in love, so in love, so in love, oh, how it hurts, how it hurts, yes it hurts when it burns. What have we done, what have we become lately, now I'm so dumb, I'm barefoot on the ground, oh, talk to me. I'm feeling, not breathing, a terrifying fear haunts me, twisting my soul around. Fuel me, revive me a shadow plays a burning. And I'm an arrow in the sky, I'm a tantrum, I'm an arrow in the sky, 'Cause I'm a tan-trum

”it hurts sometimes to be in love, it can be scary too, you don’t know whats gonna slip up and ruin the relationship. Talk to me, but I don’t even want to breathe, my lungs full of love and it hurts, but god i’m not letting go”

I’ve Got All This Ringing in My Ears and None On My Fingers - Fall Out Boy You're a canary, I'm a coal mine, 'cause sorrow is just all the rage. Take one for the team, you all know what I mean. And I'm so sorry but not really, tell the boys where to find my body. New York eyes, Chicago thighs, pushed up the window to kiss you off. The truth hurts worse, than anything I could bring myself to do to you. The truth hurts worse, than anything I could bring myself to do to you. Do you remember the way I held your hand under the lamp post and ran home this way, so many times I could close my eyes?

”If i told the truth, I would ruin myself, I would ruin the relationship, my canary would be dead, evacuate the relationship. I’ve grown to accept my position, but I’m so aware of my words, and how one slip could be it for me. The years have only strengthened how I feel, the air in the coal mine is getting worse, but as long as i can breathe, as long as I keep my distance, keep the bird alive, I’ll be ok, right?”

listen here

exit- claudia

#~claudia~ musing #hhhh hope y'all like my cover i worked wayyy to hard on it #if you look up the madonna vogue cover you can see my inspo #i swear my next one won't be a playlist #thinking of doing a 73 questions??#open to suggestions here lads #also all the music here is great. you can see more of my indie tastes #pls listen to left at london if no one else #shes the girl from the what about nascar vine

5 notes · View notes

biillyhargroves · 5 years

Note

shit is it too needy to request a part three to the billy nightmare demogorgon thing? bc I love it and this is so so good but if you don't want to write more of it, that's totally fine! idk I love it sooooo much and I could read like endless amounts of this...?

oh gosh I’m sorry I’m getting to this so late!! things have been super busy here. but I hope you enjoy this!! I’ve really been enjoying working on this little ‘verse!!

too tired to be fightingpart i: do you have room for one more troubled soul?part ii: you’re a canary, i’m a coal mine(fic requests open)

Silence reigns once more; this time, though, it is tense and it is angry and it is paired with pacing so furious Steve thinks the carpet might burn. They are in Jonathan’s bedroom, where Joyce had ushered them on Jonathan’s offer after Billy began his pacing in the living room.

“The monsters,” El had told him, “in your dreams. They’re real.”

“You-” Billy said, and then, “You were-”, and then, “You saw-”, and then, feeling the heat of so many eyes on him, so many people watching him, so many observe his stumbling and stammering, he shot to his feet with his shoulders rolled back and his hands squeezed to fists at his sides.

“Billy,” Max said, jumping up too, and at the same time Steve said, “Take it easy.”

“What the fuck is going on?” Billy shouted. His tone startled El; she jumped, and she curled against Hopper, who tugged her closer as he said, “Hey!” in a loud voice. He seemed ready to say more, ready to launch into some kind of tirade, but Joyce’s hand on his shoulder stopped him. She bunched a wad of his shirt in her fist and shook him- not hard, but enough to shut him up.

“Enough,” she said. She squeezed El with her free arm, then released them both to stand. Billy’s shoulders rose as she approached. He moved like prey; jerky, untrusting, unsure. He backed away when Joyce stepped closer and flinched when she reached to him. She saw this, and she stopped. “Hey,” she said softly. She glanced around the room, releasing Billy, for a moment, from one scrutinizing pair of eyes. She looked to Jonathan. “I think some space would be good,” she told him, and Jonathan nodded. He rose, too, and again Billy shrunk back. He was like a cornered animal, alert and defensive, but relaxed when instead of moving toward him, Jonathan directed his attention to Steve.

“First door on the right,” he told him, pointing down the hall. Steve placed a hand on Billy’s shoulder and tried not to react when Billy nearly jumped away. Joyce stepped to the side, making a path for them out of the living room. Billy looked at everyone in turn. He wanted to fight- Steve could feel that -but he was too exhausted to argue, too exhausted to push.

Now, he is pacing the length of Jonathan’s small bedroom over and over again. He hasn’t said a word since Steve shut the door. Steve sits on the edge of the bed, watching Billy move back and forth and back and forth. He is simmering with something like rage. Twice he stopped to looked at Steve, twice he opened his mouth to- ask a question? say anything? -, and twice he shook his head with a low huff and resumed his pacing.

“Can you at least sit?” Steve asks. “You’re making me dizzy.”

Billy grunts; it is the clearest response Steve has gotten from him in what feels like hours but, in reality, has only been about twenty minutes. Steve can hear a low murmur of voices outside the door, muffled with distance, and he knows that Billy hears it, too.

“I know that is…” Steve stops himself, suddenly aware that he doesn’t a word. This is what? Confusing, sure. Frustrating, obviously. Scary? Terrifying, even? Something out of a Stephen King novel? He sighs. “I know this is a lot.”

Billy pauses. He looks at Steve, and he looks angry, but the anger doesn’t reach his eyes. His eyes tell a different story. They look like a child’s eyes. Steve opens his mouth to say more, but Billy turns his back again.

“Do you want to be alone?” Steve asks him. Billy pauses again, this time with his back to Steve, and Steve prepares to be kicked out. He is halfway to his feet when Billy speaks.

“No,” he says. Steve hesitates, not quite sure he’s heard him right.

“No?” he asks. Billy turns to look at him.

“No,” he says again, and he sits down beside Steve with a heavy sigh. He leans his elbows on his knees and rests his head in hands and, after another moment of hesitation, Steve touches a hand to Billy’s back.

“Do you want to talk?” Steve asks.

“I want to sleep,” Billy murmurs. He sounds miserable.

“You think you can?” Steve asks.

“No,” Billy says.

“Because of-”

“Yeah.”

“Right.” Steve rubs circles between Billy’s shoulders, but the tension there stays coiled.

“What did she mean?” Billy asks.

“El?”

“She said they’re real.”

“Yeah,” Steve says.

“How does she-”

“She can see stuff,” Steve says. “Uh, she has, like…uh…superpowers, sort of.”

“But how does she know they’re real?”

“She kind of, um- opened the gate for them to get here?”

“That’s not what I asked.”

“Billy-”

“Don’t,” Billy says. He lifts his head to glare at Steve, but the effect is lost when Steve sees a sheen of unfallen tears. “Don’t fucking patronize me, Harrington, I swear to God.”

“I’m not,” Steve says. “I swear. I’m not even sure I know what patronize means.”

“Fuck off,” Billy huffs, though his tone his lighter. He leans against Steve and Steve slips his around around Billy’s shoulders, holding Billy against him. “I don’t know how she knows,” he admits. “We’ve fought them before. She’s fought them before. But we still don’t really know how they, like…work. This is new territory for all of us. No just you.”

“Great,” Billy says.

“Bright side,” Steve says, “is that you’re not in it alone.”

“No one else is seeing them in their dreams?”

“Well, uh,” Steve stammers, then sighs. “No. Not that I know of.”

“So how am I not alone?” Billy asks. “I’m just supposed to let my sister’s weird friend stand guard in my fucking head?”

“El can help,” Steve says. “We all just want to help.”

Billy is quiet for a moment, and then he says, “I’m tired.”

“I know,” Steve says. “You should sleep.”

“If they’re real-”

“-you’ve got backup,” Steve finishes. “Seriously. Okay? You’re covered, man.”

Billy is quiet again, and leans heavier against Steve. Steve lets him. He holds Billy close, rubs Billy’s arm, tucks Billy’s head beneath his chin. They sit there together, entwined, and Steve hums something out-of-tune to drown out the sounds of talking outside.

“What if they know?” Billy asks suddenly, almost startling Steve.

“What if who knows what?”

“Those things,” Billy says. “What if they know we’ve caught on?”

“You think they have?”

“They looked at her,” Billy says. “At…El.”

“Then we’ll send her back in,” Steve says. “She’ll kick their asses.”

“So, what? I have a fourteen year-old bodyguard?”

“Would you rather go in alone?”

“You’re not leaving, are you?”

“What?” Steve asks. He pulls away, one hand holding Billy so that he can look at his face. Billy blinks at him, groggy and weary. “I’m not going anywhere,” he says firmly. “Okay?”

Billy looks Steve up and down. He bites his lip, looks away, looks at the floor, then back at Steve. He nods, and when Steve pulls him into an embrace, Billy lets his head fall back on Steve’s shoulder.

“You’re really fucking out of it, Hargrove,” Steve says, “if you think I’d leave you.”

“Shut up,” Billy grumbles.

And Steve tells him, “Go to sleep.”

An hour passes, and in it Billy does sleep. He falls asleep on Steve’s shoulder, and Steve winces as he lowers Billy onto the bed. He keeps his promise; he stays with him, keeps watch over him, until a knock at the door pulls him away. Billy grunts in his sleep, but doesn’t wake up, and Steve gently brushes Billy’s hair from his face, his thumb lingering at Billy’s temple for a moment, before going to answer the door.

“What’s going on?” Max asks, and Steve holds a finger to his lips to quiet her.

“He’s sleeping,” he whispers.

“Is he-” El starts.

“He’s been okay so far,” Steve says. He leaves the door open a crack behind him as he steps into the hall, and he looks into the dimly lit room to be sure Billy is still asleep before turning his attention to the girls.

“He’s scared,” El says matter-of-factly.

“Yeah,” Steve says. “Yeah, he is.”

“You’re scared,” Max says, brows furrowed as she looks him up and down.

“Yeah, well, he’s scared,” Steve says by way of explanation.

“We think El should stay with him,” Max says. “I mean, if he’s sleeping, they can come back, right? She should be there if they do.” Steve looks to El, who nods.

“I promised I wouldn’t leave him,” Steve says.

“You don’t have to,” Max says. “Just…let us stay, too. To protect him.”

“Right,” Steve says. “Right, okay. Yeah.”

He leans against the door so that it opens, and he tries to slow it down so that the hinges don’t squeak too much. Every little noise makes him nervous. He doesn’t want to wake Billy- not after everything, not when he’s so desperately exhausted. Max steps inside, and she makes her way to her brother’s side, careful as she lowers herself beside him on the bed. Before El follows her, she takes Steve’s hand.

“He will be okay,” she says, and she squeezes his hand and offers the smallest of smiles.

“I hope so,” Steve tells her, eyes on Billy, so far still sleeping soundly, so far still undisturbed. “I really hope so.”

99 notes · View notes

gobigorgohome2016 · 5 years

Text

All the Cliches

When I started writing this post in my head, I was going to title it something like Out of Hibernation, yet make it known that I wasn’t planning to bore you with a 1,300 word soliloquy comparing myself to a Bleeding Heart (which is apparently a Spring perennial and, you know, we’re all about cliches here) blooming through the last remnants of Winter frost.

Then I thought, no, do I really need an intro to tell everyone I’m back on my bullshit after a few steps forward and another step back?

Then I realized...isn’t running really just the epitome of a giant cliche?

TL;DR I had a big accomplishment in the fall and thought the momentum would carry over super easily into the Spring. I ignored some symptoms, realized I was anemic, felt really sad, and now I’m starting to feel like myself again. aka, the simple, common, cliched journey of every.single.runner.

Even though this experience is the embodiment of what it means to be an endurance athlete, why do we act surprised every single time? Leading up to Philadelphia, after my year of mystery illness [which, it turns out, had another plot twist. Remember how I was having a massive immune system reaction and pretty terrible quality of life? Well, after we found mold in the house the problem went 90% away. The remaining 10% was still driving me crazy. Long story short, the installation of a whole-home water filter has returned me to a fully functioning human being. Hello, my name is Anna and I’m just your local canary in the coal mine] I vowed I would do a better job about just letting life go with the flow and not try to fight the current every step of the way. I guess I got too big for my britches because - lo and behold - I found myself avoiding what I pretty much knew all along.

After Philadelphia, I took 2 weeks off and really enjoyed my down time. The highlight was a day trip to French Lick, where Dave and I hit the casino (I won $25), ate all the sweets, shopped, split an amazing kobe beef burger, got day drunk, and took the scenic drive home. The next day I started running again and, much to my surprise, felt way better than I normally do after two weeks of zero exercise. This felt like a big win.

December turned out to be extra crazy, then at the end of January I co-hosted a women’s running retreat, BAnna Camp. Any fatigue I was feeling during December and January I just chalked up to stress and the typical things you do when you’re in that awkward in-between period from one race to another: less sleep, less healthy food, less fitness.

^have to make sure this post never dies

The first day I was in Austin, Becki and I did a workout together. It was my first “real” workout back (other than some fartleks and strides), and it wasn’t even supposed to be hard: 3 x 7 min @ 6:00 pace. I STRUGGLED. I couldn’t breathe, my quads were heavy, and the paces felt much more difficult than they seemed like they should. But, there were plenty of excuses: it’s windy, we were running a net uphill, I was dehydrated from travel, I was stressed about the upcoming camp, etc. etc. Midway through that workout I had a very distinct thought of oh shit, this feels very anemic right now. That night I texted my friend who would be joining us later in the week and asked her to bring some iron pills, since I had forgotten my supplement.

The following week my workout didn’t feel great, but again, it was easy to make excuses. I was on a treadmill. I was still catching up on sleep from camp. Maybe I’m more out of shape than I thought.

Longer efforts didn’t feel great, but I was getting them done. My paces felt quick, but, winter training never feels amazing. Plus, it seemed like every workout I did was into a strong wind, so how can you really judge pace and effort?

In early February, I had my first race of the season which was a 5 miler in downtown Indy. I had told Dave I was going to hold 5:30 pace for as long as I could and see what happened. My first mile was 5:54, and Dave said he could hear me breathing before he could see me. I was 3rd that day in just under 30:00. Again, there were plenty of excuses. It was windy. We had celebrated Valentine’s Day the night before, so maybe steak, lobster, buttered mashed potatoes, and wine wasn’t the best pre-race meal?

During my sulking about the race I had an aha moment. In December, prior to realizing we had an issue with our water, I was trying to figure out what was still causing skin rashes and GI issues. The only thing I was taking every day was ferrous sulfate, which is an iron supplement that is gentle on your stomach but has some suspect ingredients (food colorings, sorbate, etc.). I decided to switch my supplement (one that had worked for me for YEARS) to something that seemed “cleaner”: ionic iron. While I was wracking my brain trying to figure out what could be wrong, it occurred to me to check my iron dosage.

I was taking ~10% of my normal ferrous sulfate dosage, and honestly don’t even know how absorbable ionic iron even is. That day I made the switch back to ferrous sulfate, but knew that if my iron/ferritin was low, it would take about 6 weeks before I felt a difference.

If at this point you’re reading along and thinking to yourself, it’s not expensive to just go and get a blood test to find out whether your iron is low - you are absolutely correct. I should have just scheduled an appointment to take a blood test and find out. But, I’m stubborn.

Two weeks after my 5 mile race I flew to Atlanta for the Road to Gold, an 8 mile race on the 2020 Olympic Trials course. This is a whole other post in and of itself, but I will say that the hype is real. That course is going to be hard.

While the experience was great, my time was not. My goal had been to run 5:45 pace through the first 4 miles and then pick up the pace. While I did go through the first 4 miles in 22:50, just under my goal, I went through the next 4 miles in 24:20ish, and again felt as though I couldn’t breathe. I finally conceded it was time for a blood test.

The results were pretty much exactly what I thought they would be: low ferritin, high CO2 in my blood, and borderline-low Vitamin D. After weeks of agonizing over whether I was out of shape I finally had an answer (albeit one I should have just figured out sooner). So, I upped my iron supplement and looked ahead.

Nowhere to go but up, right?

In the following weeks I paid better attention to meal timing (i.e., if I was having a steak for dinner I wasn’t pairing it with red wine or other iron-inhibiting foods). I cut out my second cup of coffee in the afternoon so that my body could have a better chance at iron absorption. I focused more on sleep. I got back on nutrient tracking to make sure I was getting everything I needed from my diet.

and it paid off

6 weeks after my miserable 5 mile race where I could barely run faster than 5:58 pace for 5 miles, I ran 1:16:37 in the Carmel half marathon on a less-than-ideal day with rain and wind.

During race week I cut out all caffeine and red wine to hopefully give my body the extra boost it needed to absorb iron. I meal prepped early in the week so that I had nutrient-rich options readily available. I said no to a couple work-related opportunities that popped up in favor of less stress, and I gave myself my best chance to succeed.

In truth, sometimes setting yourself up for success is scary. What if you do everything possible and you don’t succeed? I have seen so many talented athletes give up because they went all in and it didn’t immediately pay off. But, that’s probably another post for another day, too.

Come race day we had 15 mph winds, pouring rain, and puddles on the course. It will sound sarcastic when I say this, but that truly is my favorite racing weather. Going into the race my A goal (not accounting for weather) was 75 min, B goal 76 min, and C goal 77 min. My plan was to run the first 10 at 5:45 effort, then see how fast I could go the last 5k.

Starting off, I was very pleased to find myself in a pack of men and through the first mile around 5:40. I NEVER trust my GPS, so all splits I give will be those from the course. I went through 4 miles in 22:50 - the exact same time I went through 4 miles in Atlanta, only this time I felt so much better. I went through 6.55 (again, as marked on the course, not my GPS) in 37:26 and felt like I really had a chance at sub 75 still. Through 10 miles I was right at 58 min. I felt strong for the first time in a long time.

Around mile 11 I started to get tired, and just focused on getting through 0.5 miles at a time. T last couple miles were definitely the toughest, as they were mostly uphill/into the wind. 76:38 is my fourth fastest half [74:03, Houston, PERFECT weather; 75:20, ‘17 US championships, goal race full taper, 75:59, Columbus half, 4 weeks out from Philly], and this gives me a lot of encouragement considering some sub-par months of training.

Now that I am feeling the effects of higher ferritin, I’m beginning to wonder if I wasn’t a little bit low during my Philly build up. I have had some of my best long runs and workouts the past couple weeks - ones that would have blown away what I did leading up to Philly. It also makes sense, given how I felt the last half of my Philly race, that my ferritin may have been low. Moving forward, I’m going to schedule blood work much more regularly so that I don’t have preventable problems like this occur. Definitely kicking myself, but, as with all failures in life it was a great opportunity to learn and grow.

My next race is in 6 weeks and I’ll be at the 25k championships in Grand Rapids. I’m looking forward to seeing what another 6 weeks of quality training and (hopefully) warmer weather can do for my fitness!

14 notes · View notes

nautilusopus · 7 years

Text

The Number I

Chapter 2: Cloud Has A Conversation With Some Friends and Coworkers

This was technically done a while ago but I sat on it for ages because I sort of hated it. This one's a bit slow too, I guess. Which is normal for post-series low-stakes fluff pieces.

Is it cheap to go back like three days later and just delete whole chunks of your story if nobody notices? Maybe we'll find out.

Again, thanks to @cateringisalie, @fury-brand, and everyone else I pestered at 3 am to bounce ideas off of.

Four years after meteor-fall and Cloud Strife still isn’t himself. The thing that haunts him comes always at the same time… and when it does, on a distant far-off world, a needle moves. Twisty AU. Warnings for future chapters.

Cloud went through the dinner service in a kind of stupor. When they closed the kitchen at 11, he was too disoriented by the events of the day to properly feel tired. He hadn't realised he'd been sweeping around the same table for the last fifteen minutes until Tifa tapped him on the shoulder and told him he could go to bed if he liked. He spent most of his time looking over his shoulder, catching things flitting from surfaces out of the corner of his eye. He had a nasty feeling there probably wasn't anything there, at least not now. He expected to see them everywhere and now they were everywhere. They wanted in. They wanted in, and they were patient and he would slip up eventually.

At 6:09 am, he was roused from his sleep by a noise. He rolled over and turned his back to the window, keeping his eyes firmly shut until he drifted back to sleep.

Contrary to what Barret thought, Tifa did not spend every moment of her day worrying about Cloud. That wasn't to say she didn't spend every moment of her day worrying. Most of it she could handle --there was a bar to run, bills to pay, and former Turks to throw off her property. Most of it was something she was used to by now, and was even easier than it had been before now that she was no longer checking for wiretaps and EM sweeps every four hours to hide the terrorist organisation cloistered away in her basement. Just a nice, legitimate business that she didn't have to launder money for or smuggle explosives into for a change. Other things, she couldn't fix -- Nibelheim, or worse things besides. There was plenty of worry to go around.

One of her more recent worries was the rebuilding effort -- she was being called in to help with aid -- a quick supply run to what used to be the cities up north. The bar was important, but so was this. As of two years ago, she'd started specifically requesting any and all volunteer jobs that had room for another person on them be given to her. It was the least she could do, considering.

She didn't start worrying about Cloud until he retreated back into his room after filling his last appointment, closed business for any more, and did not emerge the next day. Tifa waited for a few hours or so, in case he had decided to sleep in (unlikely, but one could always hope), then went out back to check for his sword. As she had feared, he had removed it from his bike and likely had it on him constantly again.

She endured another half hour of prep work for when the bar opened at lunch, then knocked on his door. "It's me. Can I come in?"

"Close the door behind you," came the muffled response. Tifa quietly let herself in to avoid startling him, then shut the door and turned around.

She was no stranger to panic attacks -- not her own, and certainly not Cloud's. But this time seemed different: normally, Cloud would switch off the artificial lights in the room but open a window and sit in front of it on a blanket, staring out of it. She'd sit next to him for a while if they were both up to it, and wait it out. There were probably better methods, but that's what he seemed to prefer the most.

Cloud was indeed sitting in front of the window staring intently at it, but there were papers taped over it, muting the early morning sun and leaving the room poorly lit. His sword lay on his lap, his fingers clenched tightly around the hilt. Tifa sat down next to him, on the side that didn't have the blade pointing towards her.

"...Bad day," he said after a moment of glancing between her and the window, by way of explanation. She nodded uneasily.

"...Do you want me to call --"

"No," he interrupted. "I think she's on her way anyway, right?" Tifa didn't answer. "You can go if you like. I'll be fine, I promise."

"Show me you've got your phone on you," Tifa said, crossing her arms. Cloud reached into his pocket and held it up for her to see without taking his eyes off the window.

"And you're going to use it?" she pressed. Cloud just looked at her wearily.

"Are you going to use it?" she repeated, this time sounding a bit irritated. When it came to Cloud, pride and shame seemed to be one and the same for him as far as she was concerned. "I'm going to call you at ten. Will you answer it?"

"Yes. Phone call at ten." He tore his eyes away from the window, properly this time, and focused them on her. She could see bags forming underneath them. "You had stuff to do, and we planned for it, right?"

They had. Cloud did not handle being alone well anymore, among other things, so they had worked out a system. But still...

"If you need to, call me," she relented. "Okay? Even if it's to ask me how to set the clock on the oven."

"I thought I wasn't allowed --"

"If you really need to set the clock on the oven, then call me."

"Alright."

She gave his hand a quick squeeze, and he squeezed back so hard she thought he might've broken a finger, but at least it was something.

"You know..." she began carefully, "if there's something bothering you --"

"There's not," Cloud said quickly. Tifa glanced between him and his sword looking unamused. They were both silent for a moment.

"...I've been seeing things," he finally admitted. Tifa kept her expression neutral, even though Cloud could probably smell the quick thrill of fear that went through her.

"What kinds of things?" she asked evenly. If they had learned anything from the last few times, it was that if Cloud was seeing something it was only because, at the risk of it being tautological, the rest of them simply couldn't. The fact that a lot of it was in his head didn't make it any less real. Yet, anyway. He was rather like an anxious, well-armed canary in a coal mine.

"Just... I dunno. Things."

"'Things'?"

Cloud squirmed a bit, clearly uncomfortable. "They don't look like anything. It could probably just be floaters." He curled and uncurled his fingers from the hilt of his swords, the way she would do sometimes with her hands, a habit he had picked up (mimicked?) from her. Wanting to fight an enemy that wasn't there, in the vain hope that one could pound whatever the issue was into submission.

"...Sometimes, I'll look at a window or a mirror really quick, and I'll think I see something reflected in it," he said hesitantly. "But then there's nothing there. I've -- I've thought about moving the furniture, so it looks less like people. If that's okay."

"As long as you don't block the doorways," she replied. He still had not let go of her hand.

"Is She --"

"I haven't felt a pull or anything," he quickly amended. "And if I do, I'll let you know."

Would you? she thought to herself, looking at the papers on the windows. Then again, would she tell Cloud if it had been her? She couldn't be sure that she would.

"Alright." She stood up. "I trust you. Just don't hurt yourself okay?"

"I'll be fine," he said, quickly turning his gaze back to the window. "Call at ten o'clock. See you in ten days."

"See you in ten days," she said, and left, closing the door behind her again.

Cloud stared at the door for a moment after she left, then turned his attention back to the window. There hadn't been anything unusual since that morning. No noises, no shadows, no heaviness in his limbs. Perhaps if he just kept watch, they wouldn't show up again. Perhaps if he didn't look at them they wouldn't be there. He didn't know which set of rules to follow, which only made him more anxious.

Perhaps he was just going stir crazy from being confined to one place for two days.

He let himself into Tifa's room again and closed the door to that. For good measure, he drew the curtains across the window anyway. Just in case.

He had realised a while ago it was always better to do this in Tifa's room. It made reaching the right state of mind more difficult, but her familiar scent made things easier to stop in case it didn't work out properly. He could probably go in deeper in his own room, with his own scent, but that made coming back a lot harder too.

Maybe I can just zone out through everything for the next ten days, he thought. He made a good effort for about ten minutes, but the fact that there was nothing going on downstairs actually distracted him from being able to focus on anything, let alone functions in his brain he still had a very poor handle on. He got back up and went downstairs.

It was quiet. The bar hadn't opened yet, and the rest of the staff wasn't there either. He sat down on the couch and began to listen for anyone coming. The lights hummed in the ceiling. A few ice cubes settled as the ones under them melted. Next door, someone's dog paced across a hardwood floor in anticipation.

He felt the panic start to set in about two minutes later, when the dog and its presumed owner left for a walk. The bar was absolutely empty, and would remain so for a while. There was nobody here. No one knows you're here. No one --

He felt himself reaching for his phone, then scolded himself for it. It would probably only be an hour. Toddlers could wait by themselves longer than that.

After another fifteen minutes, Cloud found himself resentfully conceding that said toddlers had better resolve than he did, and walked back upstairs to his room. Sleep. If he just slept through as much of this as possible, he wouldn't even know he was alone.

And besides the point, he was exhausted. Sleeping had been a privilege, as he'd been made aware of a long time ago. Cloud thought he'd be sick of sleeping by now, but the fact that it wasn't on anyone's schedule but his own anymore made it significantly more appealing.

He stole a pillow from Tifa's room anyway before going back to his own and buried his face in it. It was gonna be a long ten days.

Tifa leaned back into the window of the airship she was on as the icy wind stung her face. Rebuilding here had been one of the bigger challenges they'd faced. The remote location, coupled with the harsh weather, made it hard to get both people and supplies up this far, and people were one of the few commodities that were even lower than supplies. Most human life in the northernmost continent had been wiped out, and what few survivors there were had fled the area until the carnage had died down. They had considered leaving it uninhabited (after all, it wasn't as though there was suddenly a space issue), but she supposed Barret had been right: people wouldn't want to leave their homes, no matter how bad they got.

Its isolation had given it one advantage: there had only been two cases of geostigma in the entire area, and only a handful more of more mundane diseases. If anything like it ever popped up again, it would be good to have a haven to fall back to.

Tifa hoped it wouldn't. She knew she wouldn't be able to go through all that a second time, and she wasn't sure if she'd have let anyone else do it either.

Someone cleared their throat behind her. "Miss Lockhart?" It was one of the other volunteers, looking at her expectantly.

She closed the window and adjusted the collar of her coat. "We're landing soon?" she asked, and the man nodded.

"Good. It's a six hour hike to the settlement. The sooner we get going, the better." She hefted her bag over her shoulder and a first aid kit over the other.

Now that they were on the ground, the air didn't have the bite of windchill to it. It wasn't as bitterly cold as it could have been, considering it was summer, which made it the ideal time to set up as much as they could before the area was too closed off by the elements. It would also be more difficult to get birds willing to cooperate the colder it got.

They unloaded the chocobos from the airship as well, though most of the volunteers and staff would be walking. The supplies were the first priority, and they could carry a lot more if unencumbered by a rider. It didn't take long to get everything packed up, and then they headed out into the wilderness, with Tifa at the front.

Every now and then they found the strewn remains of a house. Bones, sometimes animal, sometimes human, picked clean by scavengers long ago. As they pressed further into the mountains, they found more intact remains, preserved by the cold and a lack of bacteria to take care of them over time, not unlike Midgar. The most they could do was incinerate the bodies using magic. It seemed disrespectful, but they couldn't afford to waste fuel that was meant for the settlement, and couldn't carry every body they found back with them with their limited personnel and time. It would have to do. It was better than leaving them in the ice.

Tifa clutched the little green materia tightly (fire had not been one of the spells she had chosen to master), restoring the warmth to her hands, then passed it to the woman behind her leading one of their birds. Nobody spoke much. Most of the people here either had once lived here, or knew someone that had. Tifa herself had seen much of the carnage firsthand -- Sephiroth had been a force to contend with. It seemed as though they had been running from him as much as they had been pursuing him at times.

Sephiroth... when Cloud had first recounted some of "his" escapades in Soldier, he had mentioned his strength and skill and ability with almost as much reverence as he had contempt. She hadn't quite understood it until she saw it for herself, though. She had supposed he was simply a very powerful mage (which he had been), or unnaturally strong (which he had been). But it became quite clear that there was a lot more to Soldier than just performance enhancements.

She "knew" that, of course -- she knew about Jenova, had heard the stories about the dodging of bullets and the surviving broken necks: it had been another thing entirely to see it; to know for certain that what they were fighting was utterly inhuman. To see things done that must have been magic, but couldn't possibly have been, because there was no magic to do the sort of things he did.

It was impossible. All of it was, by definition. Magic had rules. Things it could and couldn't do. It was one of the first things anyone learned about it in school -- magic was the rules that let you use other rules to your advantage.

It shouldn't bother her as much as it did, with all the things they'd seen. She tried to think about something else, and looked around her environment. Snow. Rocks. Icicle. Snow. A burning chunk of someone's arm. Moss. More snow.

She quietly asked for the materia again when it had made it all the way down the line to anyone that didn't know enough magic to cast it themselves. It was going to be a long hike.

By the time they got to what could generously be called a "town", Tifa was in a lot better condition than the rest of her group -- growing up in Nibelheim and climbing mountains for most of her life (and for some years, for a living) had acclimatised her to the conditions they had faced, and she was one of three people in any state to unpack anything as soon as they arrived without a rest first. A few representatives from the WRO spent several minutes panting before beginning to assemble the large receiver tower they had brought in pieces with them. The sooner they established connections, the easier it would be to coordinate future endeavours. This area was the last to be added to the grid, due to the remote location and the need to hike out on foot for the time being.

Tifa, meanwhile, began doling out the other supplies they had brought with them -- mostly batteries and dried fruit. There were enough animals nearby for things like fur and meat, but power and fresh produce was harder to come by.

One of the men lingered nearby her table and seemed to be waiting until everyone else had left. She glanced at him occasionally, doing her best not to stare back. After another ten minutes when the crowd had thinned out, he spoke.

"Don't I know you from somewhere?" he said. Tifa actually looked at him properly then. He seemed too old to be coming onto her (though one never did know), and the question was phrased with a certain amount of sincerity.

"...I don't think so. Do you own the cabin on the outskirts?" she guessed. They'd spent three days in that cabin waiting for a storm to pass, but that had been years ago.

The man shook his head. "No, I live here. But I know I've seen you somewhere."

Tifa shrugged, keeping her tone as professional as possible. "Just one of those faces, maybe. It's a bartender thing, I guess."

That seemed to spark something in the man. "Yes, that's it! You were on the news two years ago. Something about a --"

The colour drained from Tifa's face. "I'm not sure what you mean."

"That girl in Edge, that's you isn't it? They said you were a hero. Gave some big speech over you and that nasty pandemic business, didn't they?" he continued cordially, oblivious to her discomfort.

"Oh. Yes, that. No, just a look-alike. Excuse me," she said, and retreated into the crowd to find something else to look busy doing, leaving the man standing there looking bemused.

Of course. Of course there had been fucking cameras there, and of course anyone with a working screen had seen it. She'd hoped no one would remember, but obviously someone did. Now she could hope he didn't say anything to anyone else.

Her thoughts inevitably drifted back to the stigma after that. It was still poorly-understood what it was -- something auto-immune, she'd heard. She wasn't sure how true it was. The contagion seemed to spread regardless of how well they had quarantined it, and there were theories it had been spread directly through the Lifestream, which had become tainted as well -- apparently its cells weren't the only part of it that had been infectious. That would be the sort of thing Sephiroth would do, because by all rights it made no sense and was just another perversion of the rules of how everything should work.

Either they didn't teach that sort of thing in whatever school Sephiroth had gone to, or he knew and simply didn't care. She had watched him move through the air with nothing but force of will; pass through walls as though they weren't there at all; rend buildings to pieces without so much as lifting a hand; create spaces inside spaces that might not have been there at all. It was as though he simply ignored the world around him and what it should be and its rules, because no one had told him he couldn't.

It was completely alien. Which was fitting, all things considered, and for a while that was the easiest way to think about it. Weird alien stuff from a weird alien guy.

Then Cloud had done it too -- understood the rules that weren't rules, and...

He wasn't human, they knew. Not biologically, anyway. It was easy enough to pretend he was most days, but sometimes he would move in a way he shouldn't, or something else would, or...

Or whatever had happened during Meteorfall. Tifa didn't understand it, and if Cloud himself did he wasn't telling.

"Miss Lockhart." Thank god, a distraction. Tifa turned around. Shera waved at her.

"Got a job for you," she continued. "Scouting."

Tifa approached her and lowered her voice. "Scouting? I thought we had this area mapped."

"We do. The important parts, anyway," she explained. "It's not where we're concerned with, it's what. There's a lot of small caves a bit further up north. Now that there's more raw Lifestream in the atmosphere than there was, we think some of the local wildlife might have started moving closer."

Well, that was another reason she'd been assigned to this job specifically, she supposed. Mountaineering was already a pretty valuable skill, but there weren't a lot of mountaineeers that could also handle "local wildlife". The great glaciers has small pockets of dragon populations sprinkled throughout the area, among other things.

"Don't be gone too long." Shera handed her a small bag. Tracking tags, in case she found a nesting female, the gods forbid. "If you're more than twelve hours we're sending a rescue party after you."

The minute Tifa was out of sight of the settlement she felt her shoulders unknot. This was something she could handle -- a big cave with a bunch of monsters in it. It was almost like old times. Those few brief weeks had probably been the happiest in her life in a long time, even amid the near-death experiences and the recent sting of loss. The sense of accomplishment one got from puling themselves up a sheer cliff-face, the thrill of a fight alongside that growing family they had built with each other, the little discoveries of bits of ruins left over from the Ancients.

There seemed to be a lot of them in this area, she mused as she began to make her way across a particularly narrow crevasse by bracing her weight against the wall above it. Never anything too intact -- bits of old armour, sometimes the remains of weapons, presumably from the ensuing fight against Jenova. She wondered how long they had lasted -- if they'd been wiped out in a matter of days, or had slowly been worn away over a few decades or even centuries.

Tifa carefully slid down the side of the cliff she found at the end of it, kicking off the wall at the end to land lightly on her feet. Cloud or Yuffie would have probably just jumped straight off, but she was no slouch either (and also had a better sense of self-preservation than the both of them combined, in all honesty).

There was a huge structure in the distance -- a natural ridge that seemed sunk into the ice as much as it jutted over the horizon. No one had gone there -- there was little point given the arctic temperatures and the long hike over. It was just far enough out of her way to where she probably wouldn't be able to take a look, either. Perhaps someday, though...

There were rumours the lost capital of the Ancients was this far up north. Who knew, maybe she'd finally discover it and be famous for something that wasn't awful and upsetting.

Further around the edge of the cliff she'd come down from, she found an entrance to the cave system. A few gremlins were lurking around the entrace, she'd have to deal with those first, and that probably meant the cave was already teeming with them.

Never mind dragons, this would be what she'd have to deal with for the next few hours.

Tifa sighed, worked out the last few kinks in her neck, and adjusted her gloves. It was gonna be a long ten days.

Cloud had one of his bad days then.

It was something that would never quite go away, he had realised. He wasn't really sure why, and didn't care for the idea of seeing a doctor to find out. It could have been Jenova, or the tests, or leftover brain damage, or just something psychological, or a whole host of other things. Whatever caused it, it was another thing he just had to deal with, and another reason they had their system.

By the time he woke up, there wasn't a Cloud. All the pieces that made him up had fallen apart or crumbled away in a wash of deafening voices, not all of which were his, and not all of which were Jenova. Bits of noise that had been him once drifted away, each one of them not large enough or loud enough in their own right to properly be a person.

There was a noise. A real one, that existed. Something heard it, and realised it had perceived something else different from itself, and realised that it was itself. It clung to that idea, which was all it could really do: I.

There were more bits, then, after it realised that it wanted to be, and would continue being. I am. It was all he could do to latch onto the concept, because that was all he was -- I am.

More voices buffeted him and continued tearing at I am, making him waver, the I am faltering before strengthening itself again. Something touched him (real?) and pulled him, and his thoughts weren't yet strong enough to focus on it. They continued focusing on themselves, and suddenly I am was a self-evident, obvious thing.

Then he realised, as much as he could "realise" at that moment, that something was horribly, terribly wrong. That he was hurting very badly, or was about to. The fear sharpened his thoughts, and he became acutely aware of the something touching him. It was a hand, holding his and giving it a gentle squeeze.

That didn't make sense, he thought, and the thoughts came easier that time, which they had obviously been doing the whole time, and he was Cloud, and something was wrong... but that didn't make sense, because he was here. Maybe nothing was wrong after all.

Since he existed, then he must be able to move, which he did then. The hand was still there touching his, which was nice, and there was a noise too -- the same one he had heard and recognised. Talking. It was someone, and they were talking, at him... to him? His thoughts briefly fogged over again, and he looked at the source in confusion.

It snapped into place then, more or less. He was Cloud, and nothing was wrong. There was warm air filtering in through the window, and someone was holding his hand and sitting next to him, and talking about...

"...up and left me there! What a dick! If you hadn't come and picked me up I'd probably have been there for hours or --" The voice stopped, as though it had noticed something.

Cloud steadied himself against the other voices and turned to look at where it was coming from. "Jessie?"

Jessie smiled. "Hey, there you are! 'Bout time."

Cloud nodded mutely. At some point she appeared to have led him downstairs and onto the couch in the living area in the back. He stared at the floor and continued lying against Jessie, waiting for the fog to clear. She was saying words, but his brain wouldn't quite parse them properly, and his thoughts wouldn't line up the way they were supposed to in order to make many of his own. It was nice to just be for a while, though.

She continued to talk. About him, maybe? And someone else. Three someones. And a fourth? No, that was her too. Only lost, because of another someone, that said something wrong. His head felt heavy and talking seemed too complicated. So were the directions, which Jessie wasn't supposed to get because he should have been here? No, someone else.

It must have been another hour or so before the fog cleared from his head enough to make requests from his mouth. "How long was I out?"

She paused, checking the clock. "'Bout three hours, give or take. I had to spend a while poking you to until you twitched to make sure you didn't fall down the stairs if I went to the trouble of getting you out of bed, and even after that you didn't really respond to anything," she explained.

He grimaced. Four hours was a marked improvement over the two days it had taken him three months ago. He wished he felt happier about it.

"But, hey," she continued, directing his attention to an end table she had pulled up in front of them, "I made us lunch." Chopped up fruit in a bowl and some cheese. Like himself, Jessie couldn't cook much either, but at least she wasn't barred from the kitchen.

She then scooted away from him and hauled a large box up onto the couch between them. "Found this just lying on the side of the road in the middle of nowhere," she said, and opened the box, displaying the remains of an old sweeper bot. Before Shinra had collapsed, taking most of the government down with it, they'd been used to prevent unauthorised travel in and out of the city, but now that Shinra's servers were no longer active they sat around waiting for orders that never came until they broke down on their own.

Cloud immediately cheered up. "Wait wait wait, lemme --" he blurted, before disappearing out the back door. A moment later he came back with an old broken down desktop computer he'd smuggled out of an old military base the week prior and set it on the floor. The screen was miraculously still intact. Jessie squealed in delight.

They didn't really have the sort of plugs either one would use, so Cloud was forced to jab his thumb into where the cord would have been and continuously run a lightning spell through it while Jessie carefully unloaded the magazine from the sweeper. The power surged and cut out intermittently, but it was better than nothing. Within a few minutes, they had switched off, Cloud dismantling the remains of the robot to look at what was left of the engine, and Jessie excitedly working her way through the state-of-the-art command prompt with one hand and keeping the power supply going with the other (lightning was really the only spell she had bothered mastering).

Jessie would handle the software. Cloud would deal with the hardware. They had a good arrangement.

So, it had been Jessie's turn this week. And Yuffie a week before that, and then Tifa, and then Barret. So next week it would be Barret again. Probably.

Their system was something Tifa had come up with after he slipped into his third vegetative state after Meteorfall and they realised this wasn't going to stop. Cloud needed more or less constant watching, for a variety of reasons. There was always the risk of him mentally shutting down and starving to death in his own bed, of course. But his anxiety had returned with a vengeance after his memory had been sorted out, and the blanks in it were filled in, to the point where it was unmanageable at times. The thought of isolation, for any reason at all, was unbearable. It was more than dislike -- it was a full-blown phobia, and as much as he knew it was completely idiotic and juvenile and so, so stupid and pathetic to wind up sobbing, backed up into a corner to fight off a threat that wasn't there, it didn't take more than an hour or two before the first nagging sensations of terror began to set it. There were other problems, too -- his brain not storing memories properly at times, things that triggered panic attacks that Cloud couldn't understand why, and the very real threat of the entity still sitting at the edge of his consciousness that he had to focus on browbeating into submission once every few hours.

Barret kept insisting he see a doctor, but the thought of seeing another doctor was one of the only things that scared him more than being alone. Or maybe that was the reason why in the first place. Never again, he'd sworn, and he'd meant it, even if it killed him.

He loved the company, of course. It was everything he'd never even hoped to have in a million years. But he hated the reasons behind it. There was another fear, behind all the rest of them, that if they had the choice to they'd never come back.

That was probably the only reason Tifa even let him live with her for free. Because he was a danger to himself and everyone around him. It couldn't possibly be enjoyable, putting up with him the way she did. No small wonder no one else could before.

So, his family worked in shifts, making sure he got out of bed, or at least was awake and simply choosing not to. Making sure he remembered that he was supposed to be somewhere, and when he was supposed to be there. Making sure he didn't go outside without his sunglasses on. Making sure he wasn't alone.

Weeks with Jessie were actually a bit easier, in that regard. She was almost as much of a mess as he was. It was a bit ironic that they had someone as jumpy as her building their bombs at one point.

Yeah, but Jessie has her own place, he thought bitterly. You live off Tifa's charity. Jessie doesn't have nightmares about --

"You okay?" asked Jessie. "You've been kinda quiet. We don't have to do this now."

"...No, I'm fine," he said. "Do you think we could move this, though? Don't wanna get grease all over the rug."

It took them a few minutes to get everything, lunch included, packed up and moved upstairs, before they went back to taking their finds apart, metaphorically in Jessie's case, literally in Cloud's.

"Anything interesting on there?" he asked, wiping his hands off on his pants before reaching for a piece of cheese.

"Nothing we didn't already know," she replied, looking up from the lines of green text on the black screen and scooting the plate closer to him. "But this was last updated right before Sephiroth cacked the president, so it's before they patched that bug where it doesn't check for signatures of incoming communication requests while you're scanning for unauthorised communication requests. I've always wanted to poke around with that one a bit, just for its own sake." Cloud pushed the plate back towards her, and she took another slice of cheese for herself. "The keyboard's a little water damaged, too, and I keep getting bad sector errors. Did you leave this thing in the rain yesterday?"

"A little, yeah. Is that bad?"

"You can't leave computers outside, Cloud! They're meant for indoor use in labs and fancy military guy stuff. I waterproofed mine for Avalanche but that's not industry standard."

He shrugged. "Nothing's industry standard anymore, technically." He stuffed a handful of berries into his mouth and turned back to his dismantled robot. "The mako drive on this thing overheated and melted most of the moving parts together," he said, picking up the ungainly chunk of metal that used to be the engine and giving it a firm shake to demonstrate. "Not that it'd matter anymore. The lock on the maintenance panel was still working, actually. Must've been a backup battery in there. I don't have the code for it or anything so I just had to rub a magnet against it for a while." He gestured to the chunk of neodymium he kept in an old sock he'd been using.

Jessie sniffed. "Can you keep that away from the computer, then? And stop picking out all the blueberries like an infant-baby?"

Cloud opened his mouth to firmly refuse and tell Jessie exactly what hole she could put her pineapple chunks in before a noise in the kitchen took the words from his mouth. It seemed like movement.

"...Did you hear that?"

Jessie stared at him for a moment. "Uh... no. Sorry."

Normally he would have left it at that -- there were plenty of noises he noticed that most people that weren't Nanaki didn't. Lately, however...

"Be right back." He got to his feet and quietly walked to the kitchen, pacing himself to make it sound as though he hadn't heard anything, the electricity he'd been using earlier now humming at his fingertips in deadlier amounts.

He stepped around the corner, looking around. The kitchen appeared empty.

No, not empty. Something else moved. Maybe a floater across his eye. Maybe not. Cloud took another couple steps forward, and the noise started up again.

He tensed up. They had followed him from the tower. They must have. They couldn't get inside, could they? He hadn't let them inside. He couldn't quite see them, but they were inside now.

"Jessie?" he called out in warning. That was all he got out. If she replied, he wouldn't have heard, as his thoughts were abruptly snuffed out again.

It was different this time -- more inconsistent. A few moments later, he was suddenly treated to the shock of having a functioning mind and realising that he couldn't move all at once before it drowned him out again. Brief periods of awareness seemed to come in waves that he had no control over, no matter how much he struggled. He tried to leave, but his legs didn't seem to work, and half the time he couldn't seem to feel them at all. Every muscle was locked up, and in the brief flashes he was able to feel anything, he felt a sharp, stabbing pain in his chest. The shapes whirled around them, and he was struck with how much he hated looking at them. Everything felt far away, as though he was being pulled somewhere. Before it could, something else pulled him away, with sharper claws, and it seemed as though he were falling. Help was the last coherent thought he managed to have, as the claws loosened and he slipped under.

"Jessie?" Cloud's voice echoed down the hall, a note of alarm in his voice. Jessie looked up from her computer.

"Yeah?"

No response.

"Do they need me on tables already? Isn't it a little early for that?"

Silence.

"Cloud, Tifa called! She's pregnant and Red's the father!"

Nothing. Jessie snatched up an electric drill from Cloud's tool kit and ran into the kitchen.

Cloud was standing there, quite alone, staring at a spot under the sink. She lowered the drill in confusion. "What, what is it?" She looked under the sink. It was empty, and she turned back to Cloud. "What are you... looking..."

His jaw was set, but his eyes were unfocused. His face was ashen and his lips had acquired a blue tint. He had stopped breathing.

"Cloud?!" She slapped him then, uncertain of what else to do. It always worked in the movies, didn't it?

Cloud didn't start breathing again, but that was enough to unbalance him and cause him to topple to the floor with a dull thud. She rolled him over, her panic growing, and fumbled for her cell phone as his eyes rolled back and he passed out.

Before she could finish dialing, he started breathing again.

Cloud stood on the edge of the crater's lip, staring over it, hefting the Buster Sword in his hand. His foot shifted, and a pebble dislodged and skipped down the walls of the cliff. The wind howled, drowning out the staccato tapping after a few moments, and the cold bit right into him through his jacket. Barret came up behind him.

"You ain't done it yet?" he said, clearly wanting to be on his way.

Cloud shook his head. "It's dumb. I know it's dumb. It's just --"

"'Course it's dumb. Of all the stupid-ass things you've done, you standin' here for ten minutes and not moving is the dumbest." Cloud said nothing. "What are you gonna do with that thing, anyway? That's what he wanted. Jackass is dead. You gonna keep doing what he wants? Who'd it be for?"

Cloud didn't turn around. "...I dreamt about it for years. It was everything I wanted. It feels like... if I did, it'd all be for nothing. Wouldn't it?"

Barret snorted. "You could do ten times as good as anything they wanted you for. Wasn't that the whole point? This was your own damn idea."

"I guess so." He shifted on the balls of his feet.

"You guess?"

"...No. I'm right. That's why this was a good idea. I thought of it." Barret rolled his eyes, but Cloud thought he saw him smile a bit.

Cloud took about ten steps back, judged the weight, then took a running start and hurled the Buster Sword off Gaea's Cliff with a yell.

They watched it clatter off the rocks, making a racket all the way down, before it bounced out of even Cloud's sight. For a split second, Cloud had the urge to jump down after it and retrieve it. He'd have to fix that. Maybe make his own sword. One that was even better than that one.

"Let's get back to the ship. Marlene's probably getting bored," he said, turning back to Barret, but Barret wasn't there.

There was nothing here with him. He could hear wind, louder than ever, but the air was still around him. Things were lurking behind the wind. They reached for him, gesturing for him to come closer, and he reached back, but the living room floor was in the way.

Cloud snapped awake to see Jessie peering over him, looking shaken, rocking herself nervously. A couple of the new wait staff watched from the doorway.

"...Are you okay?" she asked hesitantly.

"Yeah. Fine," he grunted. The room spun around him, and he shut his eyes to avoid being sick all over her leg. "Must've tripped."

"You... you weren't breathing." Well, so much for that lie.

"I choked when I tripped," he supplied.

"That's not funny, Cloud."

"It's what happened."

"...Well, I'm covering your shift. We already decided," she said slowly. "Go lie down somewhere."

Cloud sat straight up. "You can't do that."

Jessie looked away and took a deep breath. "It was Jensen's idea. I had to have her help me carry you."

Jensen scowled and retreated back out to the dining room. Jessie did not look at Cloud's face. "You stopped breathing. If it were anyone else I'd say you should probably see a..." she stopped short at his glare. "I said if it were anyone else!"

"I'm not gonna lie down, because I feel fine," said Cloud, feeling even worse as he stood up. "I'm gonna be sitting in the dining room, and if you guys need me then I'll be right there ready to say I told you so." He began to head back through the doorway.

"Glasses," Jessie interjected sharply, offering them to him.

"...Right," he said, quietly sliding them on. The last thing they needed was to cause a panic. He paused on his way out again.

"...Please don't tell Tifa," he added quietly.

Jessie crossed her arms and glared at him.

"Fine," she huffed, and got up herself to grab an apron. "Moron," she added under her breath, obviously not caring that Cloud could hear her anyway.

Cloud sat in the corner of the dining room, picking angrily at the placemat. He'd lost another two hours this time, judging by the clock. If he'd been unconscious for that long just from lack of air he probably would be in the hospital, even for someone enhanced. Whatever it was had taken longer than just a few minutes to actually let him wake up.

There had to be a pattern. It was usually at 6:09, but today it hadn't been. It had started at the tower, but they watched him at home, and were clearly already inside. This time he had suffocated. Last time he had walked up a few flights of stairs and stood still for over five hours. This time he hadn't been able to move at all, but he'd still been aware, if barely.

Was it Jenova? This morning he'd had to put himself together again. No, it couldn't be that. Yesterday he had been fine, and had only started having problems afterward. It was Jenova's sort of thing to use him, but not to get its host killed. If that had been an attempt on his life, anyway. It would have been much easier to have him throw himself out a window at the tower.

He had been alone at the tower. But Jessie had been in the other room. Did they know that? Would they have cared about her if they did?

There's no pattern, he thought glumly. There's no pattern and there's no "they" and you're going crazy and all that stuff Hojo put in your brain finally melted a hole in it. He didn't even have solid evidence any of it was real. It could just as easily be a relapse, entirely on his part, or worse.

Cloud suddenly couldn't stand another second indoors under the fluorescents. He made a quick stop to his room, retrieving his sword and the portable radio, then slipped out the back door. Maybe he would lie down somewhere. Because he wanted to.

There was a spot he liked in the ruins. He'd discovered it on accident four years ago, after he put a hole in the roof. He'd thought about fixing it, but that would have worked against the whole reason he liked being there in the first place. Years later, Tifa had coincidentally rediscovered it on her own.

Cloud parked Fenrir just outside the old abandoned church and stepped inside. Between the holes in the roof (besides the one he'd made when he crashed through it) and the stained glass windows, broken or otherwise, the building was filled with sunlight. Some of the broken pews still had cushions on the seat. While the isolation wasn't ideal, sometimes it was just nice to take a nap somewhere and wake up with the sky in full view and the sun in his face.

Cloud switched on the radio again and retuned it to one of the three stations available at this point, which was playing a song he vaguely remembered liking during his time in the military. He couldn't recall any lyrics. He lay down on one of the pews and wondered if he used to know them.

In all likelihood, it was probably just a regular old-fashioned crack-up. The kind he'd never been able to handle before, but especially couldn't now. He'd told himself, and had believed for a while, that it had ended when he had gotten out of the lab; the crying, the pleading, and eventually the resigned submission when he realised no one in the world would help, the shame at the things he'd done and said for the sake of his own self-preservation, and then later for reasons he didn't even understand himself. There was no one left that could hurt him, not really. It should have been over then.

It wasn't over. It would probably never be over. Every last one of them were dead, and there still wasn't a single part of his life that they hadn't dug their fingers into and taken for themselves. He could do whatever he wanted, and pretend to be a mechanic, and have a family that was willing to pretend along with them, but no matter what he was still, in some way, exactly what they had made him.

"It's not fair," he said to the radio, which indifferently continued hitting on an undisclosed third party by comparing her eyes to blue jewels. Cloud felt as though he were being mocked, and tuned the radio back to jazz before tossing it over to the patch of dirt that had broken his landing four years ago, next to the pool of deceptively harmless-looking water. It landed speaker-down but continued playing. It didn't take him long after that to doze off in the warm sun filtering in through the windows.

He slept for longer than he had wanted to, and was woken up by the sound of his phone ringing. Tifa. He'd forgotten entirely.

He missed the first call while fumbling through his pockets for the right one, but when he called back she picked up on the first ring.

"Hi. Sorry. Dropped my phone," he said. He wasn't entirely sure why he lied about misplacing what pocket he put it in. Maybe it sounded less stupid that way? The first lie of probably several in this call.

"Well, you called back on your own," came Tifa's voice from the receiver. "How is everything?"

"I spaced out earlier today," he said hesitantly. "I'm fine now, but Jessie's covering for me at the bar."

"How long were you this time?"

"About four hours."

"That's good!" She sounded genuinely happy about it. Cloud felt his chest clench painfully, and kept his gaze on the floor, as though she were there in front of him. "And you were worried it was getting worse."

"Yeah... guess so," he replied, trying to match her tone.

"They've got reception set up here, finally. Don't feel bad about calling, we've got the juice to support it now. They think they'll have a generator here in the next six months, as long as nothing goes horribly wrong all at once." A pause on the line. "Is Jessie there with you? Your end is pretty quiet."

"I stepped out for a bit. It's really nice out tonight." It was. The sun had just set, and the first few stars were beginning to appear. It was a bit colder, but not unpleasantly so.

"Send me some warm weather if you get the chance, alright?" she joked. "I'll see you soon."

"Mm. See you soon." He flipped his phone closed.

It wasn't fair.

#the number i #forfdorfsorf #spitegarbage #amazing literature #formatting sucks and i hate it #writing is fake actually

2 notes · View notes

nerdypolyguy · 8 years

Text

Don't You Get Insecure In Polyamourous Relationships?

Found this on another site and wanted to share it here. It’s an awesome read and I throughly agree with it. My thoughts at the bottom. Link to original blog post www.theferrett.com/ferrettworks/2017/02/dont-you-get-insecure-in-polyamorous-relationships/

“Sure. I have nights where my girlfriend’s out on a date with a new guy, and he’s fantastic in bed (as all new guys must be, in my mind), and she’s going to leave me because the only thing I have to offer is the ability to provide orgasms and he’s clearly better at that (as all new guys must be)….

And those are sucky nights. I text my friends, plan movie marathons, brace myself for a breakup.

But you know what?

I got insecure in monogamous relationships, too.

She’d smile at a guy who she was “just good friends” with and I’d go, are they really only good friends? Can I trust this dude? They seem close. What’s going on here?

She’d hit it off with a girl at a party and I’d go, Are those romantic sparks? That girl just touched her arm, should I be jumping in to head this off? Or will I look like a possessive jerk?

She’d go out for a night with her friends and I’d wonder, She’s probably just seeing a movie, but… what happens if she meets someone new? Or what if she’s cheating on me?

And here’s the thing: that wasn’t just me. I had insecure girlfriends as well who hated the way I flirted (even though I was, and am, never sure what things I do that make me flirty), and they’d interrogate all my female friends, and they’d get anxious after I went out for a night on the town.

And in a lot of those cases, the fix was simple:

Shrink.

Tired of fighting? Well, don’t hang out with people you find attractive, and I’ll feel better.

Maybe we should do everything together. You know, drop the boy’s/girl’s nights out. Just make sure I can always tag along, not quite a bodyguard, but… see? Isn’t this fun?

Oh, you liked that person at the office get-together? I dunno. I got a bad vibe off of them. Yeah, I’m not saying you shouldn’t hang out with them, I’m just going to reiterate my concerns every time you discuss them until you get the hint.

A lot of those monogamous relationships died on the vine because, well, we quietly pruned off any insecurity-making activities until all we had left was each other. And strangely, a lot of what we liked about each other was the stuff that came out when we were out with other people.

Monogamous people talk about monogamy as though it’s the cure-all to insecurity (just as polyamorous people talk about polyamory as though it’s the cure-all to cheating, with equally incorrect results). They tell you they couldn’t take the insecurity of dealing with multiple partners, when the truth is I’ve seen too many monogamous people (including me!) who couldn’t take the insecurity of dealing with a single partner.

I’ve seen monogamous people get insecure because their partner is paying too much attention to their child, and frankly, the fact that you can love your children enough to have more than one is one of those diehard, unspoken assumptions in the communities that shit on polyamory.

Monogamy does not get rid of your insecurity. It just makes it easier to quietly cut away all the things that bother you.

I’m not saying that monogamy is inferior to polyamory, mind you. Polyamory has its own myriad and well-defined dysfunctions. Yet this quiet repetition that “I couldn’t handle the insecurity!” often fails to note that the insecurity is not something caused by polyamory, it’s something you bring with you into a relationship.

Any relationship can trigger insecurity. It’s how you deal with that insecurity that defines your relationship, polyamorous or monogamous.

And in the end, you have a stark choice: you can work to get your partner to stop doing all those things that make you insecure in the hopes that you’ll survive the culling of all the things they love that you don’t. Or you can work to discover whether your partner is genuinely trustworthy (because some aren’t), and figure out which portions of your insecurity are dark reflections of your own self-worth, and which portions are the canary fluttering weakly in the coal mine.

Polyamory, by its structure, makes it more difficult to get your partner to stop doing things that make you insecure. But people still manage to do that. And what I’ve discovered is that even though facing down my insecurity is fucking terrifying at times, what I’ve gotten by surmounting it is stronger, healthier relationships where my partner can walk away, have fun, and come back without being punished for having that fun.

My wife and I learned that back when we were monogamous.

It’s especially true now that we’re polyamorous.“

I find that polyamourous relationships can actually have the opposite effect when it comes to insecurity. I find myself to be a very insecure person but so long as my partner is being honest and open it don’t feel like I will lose them to someone else because I know that they are in the relationship with me for a reason and pursuing the other person for other reasons.

We are each individual in her eyes and that’s fine by me. And if she does find someone else to pursue I get to tease her about her crush a little and then we can talk about it. It’s cute.

#polyamory #ethical nonmonogamy #polyam #insecutiry #really good read #love

1 note · View note

norvicensiandoran · 8 years

Text

I am tired to the bone.

It’s not the first time in my life. But … The last time, I felt alone because people were far. Now I just feel alone. Screaming in the dark, inaudible. And why shouldn’t I be? I’m one person, and everyone in this country has gone to hell, and if I’m one of the canaries in the coal mine choking what does it matter? We expected it.

I wash my hair, my body, and my dishes with the same bar of soap right now. When it runs out, I only have so many replacements.

I may lose cell service next month, which is bad, because at this point I’m looking at doing a two hour a day commute to the nearest large city to be a ride share driver as my way out. If they take me. I’m worried they won’t because I need an oil change, and my registration needs renewing… I think next month. I should check.

I haven’t cut my hair in two years. Can’t afford it. Should wikihow that shit.

Thank the gods I own one of those rock crystal deodorants. I can still pretend to have some sense of hygiene to not scare off clients. (They last two years.)

Most of my clothes have been sewn at some point. Most of my clothes are the same clothes I wore in 2001. My underwear is the same that I had in 2013. I am running out of bras, and probably only have one that actually fits right.

I also have needed the same root canal for a good year. My sinuses suffer regular infections. Every time you see me, I have a sinus headache.

My parents read my journal (not tumblr- a paper notebook I use for Morning Pages), and have tried doing identity theft things. They also don’t speak to me anymore. But if I sell those violins, maybe, just maybe, they won’t take away my ability to get a refund on the taxes I paid last year by trying to claim me as a dependent because their attic is “non-monetary support” that would be a high street value just because their house is fancy. If I help sell the violins, they won’t do it. (One is garden of Eden themed and focuses on the serpent, so if any tumblr witch wants to play the part of Daniel Webster and has a good amount of money, do let me know.) If I don’t get that refund, my cell and car insurance die next month in March.

This is my life. This is why I asked for help.

Especially after they tried to starve the cat for a day. I’m starting to suspect he has either asthma, a mild case of celiacs, or both. Mom wants to put him on dry food. Cheap dry food. When he hurt his paw and I didn’t know if it was a sprain or break, I put it in a splint cast, kept it cool, and that’s all I could do. They wouldn’t.

Meanwhile my step dad got a new computer.

It takes effort to laugh at anything. It takes effort to care about little things. Or anything outside of the day to day. I’d let Donald Trump punch me in the face repeatedly for 6 months of minimum wage and health care at this point. I’d put on hold huge chunks of my spirituality, personality, everything. I don’t care. I wouldn’t sell my soul, but I might be tempted to rent it out for a few months. Feels like it’s already got a foot out the door anyway. I’m gonna have a heart attack if this shit keeps up.

Please understand, I’m currently surviving on the end of $1000 I got as a volunteer stipend in September, back when I hoped I could find another normal job. Maybe. With that, I do not have food stamps. I do not have welfare. I do not have Medicare or Medicaid. The local and state governments both say it’s been too long and I’ve been too poor. The last non-volunteer job I had was before college and I had been fired my first semester because of my midterms being at unpredictable times. Made up for it by taking out more loans.

I have only earned $3,000 in my life. And it isn’t for lack of trying. I’ve applied to hundreds of places over the years and interviewed for dozens. I’m well read, I’m wanting to work on grad school, and I’m trying to eventually get research I’ve done peer reviewed. But I also started college extremely socially awkward. With a lot of work, I’ve improved, but only to the point where people read me as “off,” but without a pattern that fits any known condition to say “Ah. That’s what’s different.”

So, that doesn’t help.

So I make plans as I can. Ride share. Podcasting on YouTube and maybe eventually ITunes - if I can ever clean up that stutter I now have. Didn’t used to, growing up.

Bracing myself to get hate for this post even… But you know what? I don’t care. I am out of fucks to give.

#personal #abuse #depression

2 notes · View notes

wine-k · 7 years

Text

The Absolutely Huge and Incredible Injustice in the World

By Ron Padgett

What makes us so mean?

We are meaner than gorillas,

the ones we like to blame our genetic aggression on.

It is in our nature to hide behind what Darwin said about survival,

as if survival were the most important thing on earth.

It isn't.

You know—surely it has occurred to you—

that there is no way that humankind will survive

another million years. We'll be lucky to be around

another five hundred. Why?

Because we are so mean

that we would rather kill everyone and everything on earth

than let anybody get the better of us:

"Give me liberty or give me death!"

Why didn't he just say "Grrr, let's kill each other!"?

A nosegay of pansies leans toward us in a glass of water

on a white tablecloth bright in the sunlight

at the ocean where children are frolicking,

then looking around and wondering—

about what we cannot say, for we are imagining

how we would kill the disgusting man and woman

at the next table. Tonight we could throw an electrical storm

into their bed. No more would they spit on the veranda!

Actually they aren't that bad, it's just

that I am talking mean in order to be more

like my fellow humans—it's lonely feeling like a saint,

which I do one second every five weeks,

but that one second is so intense I can't stand up

and then I figure out that it's ersatz, I can't be a saint,

I am not even a religious person, I am hardly a person at all

except when I look at you and think

that this life with you must go on forever

because it is so perfect, with all its imperfections,

like your waistline that exists a little too much,

like my hairline that doesn't exist at all!

Which means that my bald head feels good

on your soft round belly that feels good too.

If only everyone were us!

But sometimes we are everyone, we get mad

at the world and mean as all get-out,

which means we want to tell the world to get out

of this, our world. Who are all these awful people?

Why, it's your own grandma, who was so nice to you—

you mistook her for someone else. She actually was

someone else, but you had no way of knowing that,

just as you had no way of knowing that the taxi driver

saves his pennies all year

to go to Paris for Racine at the Comédie Francaise.

Now he is reciting a long speech in French from Andromache

and you arrive at the corner of This and That

and though Andromache's noble husband Hector has been killed

and his corpse has been dragged around the walls of Troy by an

unusually mean Achilles,

although she is forced into slavery and a marriage

to save the life of her son, and then people around her

get killed, commit suicide, and go crazy, the driver is in paradise,

he has taken you back to his very mean teacher

in the unhappy school in Port-au-Prince and then

to Paris and back to the French language of the seventeenth century

and then to ancient Greece and then to the corner of This and That.

Only a mean world would have this man driving around in a city

where for no reason someone is going to fire a bullet into the back of

his head!

It was an act of kindness

on the part of the person who placed both numbers and letters

on the dial of the phone so we could call WAverly,

ATwater, CAnareggio, BLenheim, and MAdison,

DUnbar and OCean, little worlds in themselves

we drift into as we dial, and an act of cruelty

to change everything into numbers only, not just phone numbers

that get longer and longer, but statistical analysis,

cost averaging, collateral damage, death by peanut,

inflation rates, personal identification numbers, access codes,

and the whole raving Raft of the Medusa

that drives out any thought of pleasantness

until you dial I-8OO-MATTRES and in no time get a mattress

that is complete and comfy and almost under you,

even though you didn't need one! The men

come in and say Here's the mattress where's

the bedroom? And the bedroom realizes it can't run away.

You can't say that the people who invented the bedroom were mean,

only a bedroom could say that, if it could say anything.

It's a good thing that bedrooms can't talk!

They might keep you up all night telling you things

you don't want to know. "Many years ago,

in this very room. . . ." Eeek, shut up! I mean,

please don't tell me anything, I'm sorry I shouted at you.

And the walls subside into their somewhat foreverness.

The wrecking ball will mash its grimace into the plaster and oof,

down they will come, lathe and layers of personal history,

but the ball is not mean, nor is the man who pulls the handle

that directs the ball on its pendulous course, but another man

—and now a woman strides into his office and slaps his face hard

the man whose bottom line is changing its color

wants to change it back. So good-bye, building

where we made love, laughed, wept, ate, and watched TV

all at the same time! Where our dog waited by the door,

eyes fixed on the knob, where a runaway stream came whooshing

down the hallway, where I once expanded to fill the whole room

and then deflated, just to see what it would feel like,

where on Saturday mornings my infant son stood by the bedside

and sang, quietly, "Wa-a-a-ke up" to his snoozing parents.

I can never leave all the kindness I have felt in this apartment,

but if a big black iron wrecking ball comes flying toward me,

zoop, out I go! For there must be

kindness somewhere else in the world,

maybe even out of it, though I'm not crazy

about the emptiness of outer space. I have to live

here, with finite life and inner space and with

the horrible desire to love everything and be disappointed

the way my mother was until that moment

when she rolled her eyes toward me as best she could

and squeezed my hand when I asked, "Do you know who I am?"

then let go of life.

The other question was, Did I know who I was?

It is hard not to be appalled by existence.

The pointlessness of matter turns us into cornered animals

that otherwise are placid or indifferent,

we hiss and bare our fangs and attack.

But how many people have felt the terror of existence?

Was Genghis Khan horrified that he and everything else existed?

Was Hitler or Pol Pot?

Or any of the other charming figures of history?

Je m'en doute.

It was something else made them mean.

Something else made Napoleon think it glorious

to cover the frozen earth with a hundred thousand bloody corpses.

Something else made . . . oh, name your monster

and his penchant for destruction,

name your own period in history when a darkness swept over us

and made not existing seem like the better choice,

as if the solution to hunger were to hurl oneself

into a vat of boiling radioactive carrots!

Life is so awful!

I hope that lion tears me to pieces!

It is good that those men wearing black hoods

are going to strip off my skin and force me

to gape at my own intestines spilling down onto the floor!

Please drive spikes through not only my hands and feet

but through my eyes as well!

For this world is to be fled as soon as possible

via the purification of martyrdom.

This from the God of Christian Love.

Cupid hovers overhead, perplexed.

Long ago Zeus said he was tired

and went to bed: if you're not going to exist

it's best to be asleep.

The Christian God is like a cranky two-thousand-year-old baby

whose fatigue delivers him into an endless tantrum.

He will never grow up

because you can't grow up unless people listen to you,

and they can't listen because they are too busy being mean

or fearing the meanness of others.

How can I blame them?

I too am afraid. I can be jolted by an extremely violent movie,

but what is really scary is that someone wanted to make the film!

He is only a step away from the father

who took his eight-year-old daughter and her friend to the park

and beat and stabbed them to death. Uh-oh.

"He seemed like a normal guy," said his neighbor, Thelma,

who refused to divulge her last name to reporters.

She seemed like a normal gal, just as the reporters seemed like

normal vampires.

In some cultures it is normal to eat bugs or people

or to smear placenta on your face at night, to buy

a car whose price would feed a village for thirty years,

to waste your life and, while you're at it, waste everyone

else's too!

Hello, America. It is dawn,

wake up and smell yourselves.

You smell normal.

My father was not normal,

he was a criminal, a scuffler, a tough guy,

and though he did bad things

he was never mean.

He didn't like mean people, either.

Sometimes he would beat them up

or chop up their shoes!

I have never beaten anyone up,

but it might be fun to chop up some shoes.

Would you please hand me that cleaver, Thelma?

But Thelma is insulted by my request,

even though I said please, because she has the face of a cleaver

that flies through the air toward me and lodges

in my forehead. "Get it yourself,

lughead!" she spits, then twenty years later

she changes lughead to fuckhead.

I change my name to Jughead

and go into the poetry protection program

so my poems can go out and live under assumed names

in Utah and Muskogee.

Anna Chukhno looks up and sees me

through her violet Ukrainian eyes

and says Good morning most pleasantly inflected. Oh

to ride in a horse-drawn carriage with her at midnight

down the wide avenues of Kiev and erase

the ditch at Babi Yar from human history!

She looks up and asks How would you like that?

I say In twenties and she counts them out

as if the air around her were not shattered by her beauty

and my body thus divided into zones:

hands the place of metaphysics, shins the area of moo,

bones the cost of living, and so on.

Is it cruel that I cannot cover her with kisses?

No, it is beautiful that I cannot cover her with kisses,

it is better that I walk out into the sunlight

with the blessing of having spoken with an actual goddess

who gave me four hundred dollars!

And I am reassembled

as my car goes forward

into the oncoming rays of aggression

that bounce off my glasses and then

start penetrating, and soon my eyes

turn into abandoned coal mines

whose canaries explode into an evil song

that echoes exactly nowhere.

At least I am not in Rwanda in 1994 or the Sudan in '05

or Guantanamo or Rikers, or in a ditch outside Rio,

clubbed to death and mutilated. No Cossack

bears down on me with sword raised and gleaming

at my Jewish neck and no time for me

to cry out "It is only my neck that is Jewish!

The rest is Russian Orthodox!" No smiling man tips back

his hat and says to his buddies, "Let's teach

this nigguh a lesson." I don't need a lesson, sir,

I am Ethiopian, this is my first time in your country!

But you gentlemen are joking. . . .

Prepare my cave and then kindly forget where it was.

A crust of bread will suffice and a stream nearby,

the chill of evening filtering in with the blind god

who is the chill of evening and who touches us

though we can't raise our hands to stroke his misty beard

in which

two hundred million stars have wink and glimmer needles.

I had better go back to the bank, we have

only three hundred and eighty-five dollars left.

Those fifteen units of beauty went fast.

As does everything.

But meanness comes back right away

while kindness takes its own sweet time

and compassion is busy shimmering always a little above us and

behind,

swooping down and transfusing us only when we don't expect it

and then only for a moment.

How can I trap it?

Allow it in and then

turn my body into steel? No.

The exit holes will still be there and besides

compassion doesn't need an exit it is an exit—

from the prison that each moment is,

and just as each moment replaces the one before it

each jolt of meanness replaces the one before it

and pretty soon you get to like those jolts,

you and millions of other dolts who like to be electrocuted

by their own feelings. The hippopotamus

sits on you with no sense of pleasure, he doesn't

even know you are there, any more than he takes notice

of the little white bird atop his head, and when

he sees you flattened against the ground

he doesn't even think Uh-oh he just trots away

with the bird still up there looking around.

Saint Augustine stole the pears from his neighbor's tree

and didn't apologize for thirty years, by which time

his neighbor was probably dead and in no mood

for apologies. Augustine's mother became a saint

and then a city in California—Santa Monica,

where everything exists so it can be driven past,

except the hippopotamus that stands on the freeway

in the early dawn and yawns into your high beams.

"Hello," he seems to grunt, "I can't be your friend

and I can't be your enemy, I am like compassion,

I go on just beyond you, no matter how many times

you crash into me and die because you never learned

to crash and live." Then he ambles away.

Could Saint Augustine have put on that much weight?

I thought compassion makes you light

or at least have light, the way it has light around it

in paintings, like the one of the screwdriver

that appeared just when the screw was coming loose

from the wing of the airplane in which Santa Monica was riding into

heaven,

smiling as if she had just imagined how to smile

the first smile of any saint, a promise toward the perfection

of everything that is and isn't.

0 notes