#i remember using it back in the day when i did geometry work cause i didnt like using windows paint to do math | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

study-coffee-chicago · 3 years ago

Note

Ok ok I’ve read like all your Halstead!Sister fics and I love them!! I’ve got an hc that baby sis is an art history major/art major and paints and stuff when she’s dealing with a lot, so could you maybe write a fic about something big going on a she’s painting non-stop and Jay and Will notice cause she hasn’t done this in hot minute and they’re concerned?

This was originally a Headcanon request, but it turned into an imagine of over 9k words. @afriendlyneighborhoodhufflepuff I hope you (and everyone else) likes it! Remember to reblog and comment! Here it is!

Ars Longa, Vita Brevis (A Halstead Brothers + Halstead Sister Imagine)

Trigger warning: for d*pression, s*icidal thoughts PLEASE DO NOT READ IF THIS WILL TRIGGER YOU! I CANNOT STRESS THIS ENOUGH

It never used to be this bad. Sure, it would happen once in a while, for example, high school geometry class, but it was never a recurring thing. Maybe it's all the homework for subjects you didn't see the point in learning and teaching yourself--after all, it was your freshman year of college--maybe it was that you had to make new friends, hell maybe it was fucking seasonal because it was starting to turn from summer into fall and the days were getting shorter and the nights longer. Sunlight made people feel this way, right? All you knew is that you'd be sitting in class and just staring off into space, hyperfocused on what the professor was saying, but not be able to retain what was being talked about, and then you'd have to go to the bathroom and slow your racing heart.

And then, if that wasn't enough (the hyper-focusing and all the other stuff typically only happened once a week, so you could deal with it), you felt like you wanted to cry all the time and you didn't know why. You'd go home and thank the Lord that Jay was still at work and just slump against your bedroom door and stare off into space, pleading with yourself to cry. But it never came.

The last time you remember feeling like this on a consistent basis was when your dad died four years ago. You had an okay relationship with him (all of Pat Halstead's relationships with his kids were complicated to some extent), but you lived with him up until he died. He was your sole caregiver; your sole parent. Yeah, you didn't agree on some things like moral values and politics, but he was still your dad and you still loved him.

Despite this, you hadn't cried when you found out he died. You had waited three days to cry. You were in the church, standing between Jay and Will in the very first pew when it hit you. You'd never see your dad again. He was actually gone.

You took a sharp intake of breath and grabbed onto Jay's arm. This was the part of the service where everyone was standing up. Jay looked down at you and you crumbled. All the tears you had been holding in came out at that very moment and you buried your head in Jay's chest. He wrapped an arm around you and just rubbed your back. Will noticed ad had grabbed one of your hands and held it. Once you had pulled away from Jay, Will pulled you into his embrace. He kept an arm around for the rest of the service.

But, that was the last time you remembered feeling sad, feeling...whatever the fuck this was. Numb maybe? And that was only for three days. Sure, sometimes around your period, you'd feel like this, but you blamed it on your hormones going crazy because your uterus was shedding since it didn't get a baby to house.

But this had been going on for over six weeks at this point.

This wasn't normal. You knew this. But, you didn't know what it even was that you were feeling. (Was not feeling feelings an actual feeling? Probably not.) So, how would you even go about explaining it to someone?

So, you kept quiet and did what you did whenever you were sad.

Paint and bullet journal. (While listening to sad music and hoping that the tears would come. Spoiler alert: no matter how sad the song was, you still couldn't cry.)

***

4 weeks later

Okay, so you thought this was going to get better, but it had actually gotten worse. Usually, before class, you'd get up half an hour before you actually had to and draw or bullet journal and drink a cup of coffee. Basically, you'd relax before the day started. But, now you just hit snooze. And, eventually, you just pushed your alarm back and slept for half an hour.

Jay knew you did this and would occasionally make you a cup of coffee if he was home and waking up at the same time and making his. But, now he saw that you weren't having your relaxing morning routine. (He was always proud of you for doing this because one, it meant that you typically weren't late to your classes and two, you were taking care of yourself to make sure you had some me-time in the day.) He just chalked you not doing this anymore to the homework load you had due to college and you wanting more sleep.

The shitty thing about it was that you weren't enjoying what you had decided to major in. Analyzing painting and drawings and other art pieces and thinking about the artist's thought process and mood when making it used to give you so much joy. You'd even rant about this stuff to Jay and Will. You even enjoyed hearing what other people thought and what their perspective was on the artist's thoughts and feelings even if they were different from your own.

This was art; everyone interpreted it differently.

But, this, these feeling you had been having for two and a half months now, you hoped that everyone would interpret them the same: shitty.

And your drawing reflected that.

One was of a girl sitting on her floor, and you were going to draw a brain inside and draw he thoughts, but instead, you just drew a circle for the brain and an empty thought bubble because that's how you felt right now: not happy, not sad, not mad just...empty.

And to make matters worse, today was one of your favorite holidays: Halloween.

Jay knew this of course.

You had been digging your nails into your palms all day just to feel something. You had gone to class like everything was normal, but had zoned out yet again. And, that was when you started to dig your nails into your palms. You could focus on something. And periodically, you'd listen to the professor lecturing. It went like this:

No nails in palm + whatever this empty feeling was = nothing to focus on = zoning at = not listening in class.

Nails in palm + whatever this empty feeling was = focusing on something = paying attention in class.

Everything had been fine...well, that was until Jay barged into your room to ask if you wanted to go to Hailey's apartment with him and watch Halloween movies.

"You hiding something from me?" Jay asked while raising an eyebrow and staring down at you like you were a suspect.

"No. Why?" you asked innocently. You really had no idea what he was getting at.

"Your hand's all clenched," he answered.

Shit. You knew you had drawn blood earlier and you hadn't bothered to clean it out and you no doubt had just drawn more blood. You felt the pain, but at least you felt something, so you really didn't care. But, you knew that explanation wouldn't help. If you didn't even know what you were feeling, how were you supposed to explain it to Jay?

"Oh," was all you said.

"Well, are you gonna unclench it?" he asked.

You looked around the room, trying to find anything to distract him or get him out of the room. But, there was nothing.

He gave you a look.

You cast your eyes down into your lap and unclenched your hand, revealing your scratched-up palm to your older brother.

"What did you do?" he asked as he crouched down and grabbed your hand.

"Got bored in class," you answered. It wasn't a total lie.

"You haven't been in class for four hours, Y/N. I know what fresh blood looks like." He paused and continued to study your hand. "I also know what old blood looks like. Y/N, look at me."

You met his gaze.

What Jay saw broke his heart. Your eyes looked sad, but at the same time, they looked empty, like you were looking through him, not at him.

"Why did you do this?"

You shrugged. That was the truth at least. You really didn't know why you were doing this because you didn't know what you were feeling. All you knew was that digging your fingernails into your palm made you feel something, even if it was pain that you were feeling.

"You don't know?" Jay asked.

"I don't know," you confirmed quietly. "I guess I just did it."

Jay knew there was something you weren't telling him, but he let it go.

"Let's go clean this up, okay?"

You nodded and got up and followed him to the bathroom where you sat on the counter and Jay got out the first aid kit from underneath the sink.

"This is gonna sting," he warned.

"I know," you mumbled.

"I know you know, but I just figured I'd give you a fair warning."

Jay poured the alcohol on a cotton ball and gently dabbed it on your hand.

You hissed. "Shit." You grit your teeth and grabbed onto Jay's shoulder and squeezed.

"Sorry," Jay apologized and then started wiping it with the cotton ball. Once he was finished, he had you rinse your hand under warm water and dry it off. Then, he covered your palm with two bandaids and wrapped medical tape around your hand so that the bandaids wouldn't fall off.

You went back into your room and started to close the door when Jay stopped you.

"You sure you don't wanna come with me to go to Hailey's?" he asked.

"I'm sure," you answered. After all of this, all you wanted to do was go to sleep. Or, maybe you'd do some painting with Halloweentown playing in the background.

"Okay. Well, if you decide that you wanna come over later, just text me or Hailey to let us know."

"Okay." Then you shut the door and changed into some pajamas.

Half an hour later, when Jay left, you curled up in the soft blankets of your bed and went to sleep. Finally. Some relief from this hell.

***

"I don't know, Hailey," Jay said to his girlfriend as they stood at the counter of her apartment while Hailey was pouring them each a glass of red wine. "It's like she's tired all the time and she just goes right to her room when she gets home from class. If I'm home when she gets home from class that is. I don't even know what she's doing when I'm not there. Oh, God, I'm rambling aren't I?"

"It's okay," Hailey reassured. "You're just worried about her. How long has this been going on?"

"I mean, I've noticed it for about the past two weeks."

"Okay. It could just be that her period is just kicking her ass, Jay."

"I know. I've thought of that. But if it was, she would've told me because she'll milk her cramps to the end of the earth if she has to. I'll ask her to answer the door and she'll yell back no because of her cramps. I really don't think that's what this could be."

"Maybe it's just stress from school?" Hailey suggested.

"Maybe. But, she would've told me she's stressed. And, if she was, I probably would've witnessed at least one mental breakdown by now."

"I don't know what to tell you, Jay. But, if it goes on any longer, maybe talk to her about it? Have her talk to me or Will about it?"

"Yeah, yeah, I guess."

***

2 weeks later

You kept thinking about it. So you did what you always did: painted it.

You knew the thought wasn't rational. Hell, it wasn't even normal.

Normal people didn't see a bridge and think these things.

Normal people didn't think these things about the bridge near their house every night.

Normal people didn't think about how to sneak out in the middle of the night and how to jump off said bridge near their house.

You painted it twice. During the time when it was drying, you took a nap and then started on the other one.

The first one was during the day. The bridge was bathed in the fall sunlight. It was black with smudges of rust on it. To the left, there was an intersection and the light was green, yet there were no cars passing. Then, to the right, there was more road and an empty parking lot. People would sometimes kayak down the river, but since it was fall, it was starting to get cold, so there was only one car in the parking lot. You didn't draw the kayaker going downriver because you knew you wouldn't attempt this if you knew that someone could see you.

Then, you drew the water. You added some fall-colored leaves which floated on top of the river and added a tree to the left side of the shore. You added the few cottages on the shore as well. You assumed that no one would be there because the weather was becoming colder since it was mid-November, so you didn't paint a single light on in any of the cottages; you painted the windows but colored them in gray because no one would be in them anyway.

Then, you painted yourself with your back to what others would see when they looked at the painting. You painted yourself in a pair of jeans and a black coat, your hair slightly blowing in the wind that would come since it was November. You made sure that you positioned the head of yourself to be looking at the river below and made sure that your hands were gripping the railing.

Then, you stopped and painted the sky. It was a light gray, to make it look like snow would be coming soon.

Then, you let it dry and took a nap.

On the second one, you made it look like it was nighttime. This one to you seemed to be the most accurate because if this happened, you didn't think you'd take the chance of doing it during the day.

You painted the bridge first as you had done in the previous painting. This time, you painted it all black since only you would be able to see the spots of rust. People from far away wouldn't be able to see that since it was nighttime. You drew the intersection again. You still made the light green, but because it was nighttime, you painted a streak of green on the road too, to show that it was illuminating the road a little in the dark of night. The parking lot this time was completely empty, as no kayakers would be able to get themselves downriver in the middle of the night.

You drew the water as mostly black, but there was still some you painted as dark blue mixed with brown because you'd make the streetlight shine down on that spot. When you drew the cottages, you made sure to paint them darker than in the painting of the bridge during the day since you wouldn't be able to see the color of the cottages in the moonlight. You painted the inside of the cottages black instead of gray this time because you knew you wouldn't be able to see into any windows.

You painted yourself the same. But, this time, you painted yourself in all black as if you were a shadow in the night. You still made sure to draw your hair blowing, this time from beneath a winter hat--which was also painted black--and have your hands gripping the railing.

Finally, you drew the streetlight to your left and positioned the moon in the center of the painting.

You painted the sky black and speckled it with stars.

On the first painting, you wrote in black paint in cursive handwriting in the gray of the sky: Ars longa, vita brevis.

Once the second painting dried, you did the same thing. Except it was written in white over the black sky speckled with tiny stars: Ars longa, vita brevis.

You had learned that phrase in one of your art history classes when talking about the ancient Romans and art. It was Latin.

Ars longa, vita brevis.

Art is long, life is short.

***

Three days later

You were sitting on the couch drawing in one of your sketchbooks while Jay sat on the couch across from you and watched the Blackhawks game. Usually, you'd watch it with him, but you didn't feel like it. What was the point of watching if, at this rate, you didn't even know if you'd be here come playoffs in April?

"Fight!" Jay yelled, causing you to turn your attention to the tv.

You watched blankly. Usually, you'd be excited when a fight broke out because they weren't as likely as they used to be in hockey say ten years ago now that the reffing has gotten stricter. Sometimes you'd even bitch with Jay about how that wasn't even a fight and should've been a roughing call instead, which would bring the penalty down from five minutes to two minutes.

When the call was made and both the players got five-minute majors for fighting and the player from the other team got an additional two minutes for an instigator, Jay was excited. But, you just shrugged. "At least we got a power play out of it," you said.

Then, you went back to your drawing.

Jay turned to look at you and paused the game. "Y/N, are you okay? Normally you're excited."

You looked up at him and shrugged. "Just tired, I guess," you lied.

"We can finish the game tomorrow if you want?" Jay suggested. "And you can go to bed now."

"No, it's okay. You can keep watching it. I'll just finish it tomorrow," you said.

Then, you took your pencil and sketchbook and started towards your room.

"Y/N, are you okay?" Jay asked. "It's just, you're tired all the time and you don't wanna do anything."

"School's just kicking my butt," you lied. You weren't having any trouble in your classes--other than the fact that you had started skipping a lot of your 8 am class sessions which were on Tuesdays and Thursdays, but Jay didn't need to know that--and you made sure to study for your quizzes and exams and get your art assignments and other assignments finished on time.

"Okay, well now you're on Thanksgiving break, so you should be able to catch up on sleep and relax for a bit," Jay said.

"Yeah," you agreed. "I'm gonna go draw and go to bed. Goodnight."

"Goodnight."

Jay wanted to continue to push you to tell him what was wrong but he knew he couldn't force it out of you; you'd have to come to him when you were ready. Hell, he wouldn't even care if you talked to Will or Hailey when you were ready. All he cared about was that you told someone what was going on.

Once you were in your room, you turned on your two lamps to make your lights dim and continued drawing. You also resisted the urge to dig the fingernails of your right hand into your left arm. You had done that in school today and quickly rolled down the sleeve of your sweatshirt and went to the bathroom.

You now kept a small first aid kit in your backpack to clean up the small punctures in your skin. They barely drew blood now because you didn't want to bring attention to them when you were home all week for Thanksgiving break. But, you still cleaned them up with an alcohol pad and placed a bandaid over them.

No one would ever know.

Hell, you didn't even know. Well, you knew that you were doing this, but you didn't know why you were doing this.

You went back to your pencil drawing.

This time, it was of you in the river.

You were under the water, floating, your eyes closed, your face relaxed. You made the water ripple around you and your hair go whichever way you drew the waves. You drew your lips parted slightly and your arms out at your sides.

The drawing looked almost...peaceful.

Sometimes--well, more often than not recently, most times--you longed to feel a peacefulness like the one you had drawn.

And you knew that there was only one way to get that.

But, you knew you'd never go through with it...right?

***

Four days later

It was Thanksgiving. There were a few people over at yours and Jay's apartment including Will, Hailey, Stevie, Kelly, and Stella. You all planned on watching football for the afternoon and then going over to Molly's.

Yes, Molly's for Thanksgiving dinner. The bar was closed, but everyone was bringing a dish to pass and all your friends from Firehouse 51, Med, Intelligence, and their immediate families would be there. Since Cindy was in charge of the turkey, Hermann proposed they all had it at Molly's...and that way there'd be enough seating for everyone.

Normally, you'd be sort of excited to see everyone who wasn't on shift and to eat all the delicious food that everyone had prepared to share.

But, not today.

You didn't want to go, but you couldn't just tell Jay and Will that because you knew they'd pry your secret out of you.

You felt like you had no energy left. Every time you had to go out somewhere, even to class, it was painful.

You felt like there was no point anymore. You'd just finish your degree, get a job, and then die years and years down the line. Was that really truly living?

You didn't want a life like that.

But, you didn't know what kind of life you wanted besides that, either.

You were sick and tired of being tired all the time and having no interest in life, but it wouldn't go away.

And, to you, there was only one option.

You knew this would wreck their Thanksgiving for years and years to come, but they'd eventually forget about you. After all, all your friends from high school had, so obviously, it wasn't that hard.

You always thought you'd sneak out in the middle of the night to do this, but if you wanted this to be over before dinner--and have less time to think about the repercussions--you'd need to do it sooner rather than later.

You needed the perfect excuse.

You wanted to make churros for the get-together and you were sure you had all the ingredients, but you knew if you hid the bottle of cinnamon and sugar in your room and then said that you were going to the store just a block from here, nobody would be suspicious. You knew they were open until 3:00 today anyway.

So, you snuck the cinnamon and sugar bottle in your room and hid it in your closet. Then, you started pulling out ingredients to make your churros in the kitchen. You rummaged around in the kitchen for a bit longer than usual to make it seem like you were looking for the missing bottle.

"Jay?" you called.

"Yeah?" he yelled back.

"Have you seen the cinnamon and sugar? I can't find it."

"Should be in the spice cupboard!"

"It's not!"

Jay mumbled something about you needing to open your eyes and actually look for stuff and then got off the couch and came into the kitchen.

He looked in the spot where the cinnamon and sugar usually was. "I swear we had some."

"Me, too." You groaned. "Now what am I gonna do?"

"I'm sure you can find another recipe online," Jay suggested.

"But I wanted to make churros," you whined. You had to make this seem convincing. Then, your face lit up. "What if I run to the store?" you suggested. "The one close by. I think they're open until 3:00." It was only 1:30.

"Okay, but traffic's a pain today, so you might wanna walk," Jay suggested.

Perfect.

"Okay." You went to your room and grabbed your wallet and phone. You knew if you didn't bring it you'd look suspicious, so you just planned to turn it off ten minutes into your walk.

You grabbed your hat, coat, and gloves from where they were by the door.

"I should be back in about forty-five minutes," you lied.

"Okay, be safe," Jay said.

"Pick up some more tortilla chips while you're at it," Will said. "We have too much salsa and not enough chips for this game."

"Well, we'd have enough chips if you didn't just keep eating them!" Jay protested.

You laughed. Maybe you'd actually miss this.

"Okay," you began, "cinnamon and sugar and tortilla chips. Got it. Be back soon."

Then, you left.

Time to get this over with before you could actually think things through.

***

Jay and Will's phones binged at the same.

"It's Y/N," Jay said. His eyes bulged as he read the text. "Will, read your text and tell me what it says."

Will drew in a sharp intake of breath. He couldn't speak, so he just held his phone out to Jay.

"We have to go now."

"Jay, what's going on?" Hailey asked.

"Y/N. She- she sent me and Will the same text. It says I'm sorry. This isn't your fault. I love you, always remember that."

Hailey's face paled.

But, Kelly was the one to suggest a game plan. Will, Jay, Hailey, and Stevie all knew what that text meant. And, from what Jay had mentioned to Stella and Kelly at Molly's, they knew enough to know what was going on.

"Me, Jay, and Hailey will go drive around and look for her. Stella, Will, and Stevie will stay here and try and find out where she is."

"I'll call the 21st on the way there. See if they can ping Y/N's phone so we can get a location," Hailey said.

Luckily, all six of them were first responders so they fought in situations where others would flee or freeze. So, Kelly, Jay, and Hailey ran out to Hailey's car, all three forgetting their coats because this was an emergency. And, Stella, Will, and Stevie went to your room to try and get a clue on where you could've gone in case your phone was off or you had ditched it so that they couldn't get a location on you.

Three minutes later, Hailey announced that your phone had been turned off, but that they had a last-known location from where your phone pinged. So, they followed that. But, it was the route that you'd normally take to go to the store.

They were at a dead-end unless the other three could figure out where you had gone.

Will ripped open the drawers of your dresser while Stevie and Stella frantically flipped through your notebooks.

"I know she keeps paintings in one of these drawers," Will said frustratedly as he dug through them. "I just know it. C'mon, kid, please tell me you left us some clue. God, we can't lose you."

He got to the last drawer which was where he saw a pile of your paintings. He took them from the drawer and set them on your bed. He started flipping through them.

"I got something!" Stella yelled. "It's a drawing." She set it on the bed for all three of them to look at. "Looks like she's underwater."

"Okay, water," Stevie said. "That helps a bit."

"Someone call Jay or someone else in that car and tell them that while I go through these!" Will ordered.

Will started flipping through the paintings while Stella called Kelly and told them that they had something, but it was just a drawing of you underwater.

"Wait!" Will yelled. "I think I got something!" Stella put the phone on speaker.

The three of them looked at the two paintings of you overlooking the bridge you had done recently.

"Ars longa, vita brevis," Stevie read. "What does that mean?"

"I don't know!" Will snapped. "It doesn't seem that important right now!"

"It might be a clue," Stevie said and then pulled out her phone to translate it.

"She painted two paintings of the bridge close by, Jay," Will explained. "The one above the river that people kayak in."

"You think she's...?" Jay trailed off.

"The paintings make it look like she's contemplating jumping," Will answered Jay's question.

"Ars longa, vita brevis means art is long, life is short," Stevie said.

Will met eyes with Stevie. His were filled with the most worry she had ever seen.

"We're on our way to the bridge," Hailey said.

"We're leaving right now," Stella said and then ended the call as the three sprinted to the door and out of the house and to Will's car.

***

You stood on the bridge, your hands grasping the cool black metal with spots of rust. You looked down at the rushing water. You wondered if the water would be so cold that it felt like a thousand knives, like what Jack had told Rose in Titanic. But, you didn't want to die by drowning or hypothermia. You wanted the fall alone to kill you. You wanted your body to hit the water as hard as it could, as if the water was concrete. That way, death would be faster.

You weren't afraid of death. Rather, you were afraid of how you died. You wanted it fast and you didn't want to suffer. So, you hoped this bridge was high enough to kill you from the fall alone.

You took a deep breath and carefully brought a leg over the railing so that you were now straddling it. Then, you did the same thing with the other leg, so that you were now balancing on the small bit of concrete on the other side of the railing.

You looked down.

All you had to do was let go and fall forward.

It was that simple.

You couldn't think about it. You had to do it. If you kept thinking about it, you'd just talk yourself out of it.

You heard sirens.

Shit. Your plan was ruined. You had to do it now.

But, you couldn't will yourself to move your feet from the ledge.

No, you had to do this.

Carefully, you started to lift one leg.

You started to kick it out, hoping that would propel the rest of your body forward and down into the water.

But, then you felt a pair of arms wrap around the back of your arms that were still holding on to the railing.

"No!" you yelled. You needed whoever that was to let go. You needed to go through with this to make the numbness in your brain stop. You just wanted everything to stop. You didn't see the point in living anymore. "Let me go!"

"I'm not letting you go," you heard Jay's steady voice say. "I either help you off the ledge or I haul you over the railing. Your choice."

"No! Let me go!" you yelled again.

Jay had no choice. He nodded to Kelly and he came over and grabbed one of your arms. Only then did Jay let go of that arm and wrap both his hands around your right arm. Then, you felt one hand gripping each of your arms and another one going underneath either of your armpits.

A few seconds later, you were back on the other side of the railing.

"No!" you yelled and tried to turn back, but Jay stepped in front of you and blocked you from doing that. "No! Let me die! Just fucking let me die, goddammit!" you yelled and then started to hit Jay's chest in an effort to make him move out of the way.

More sirens.

You kept trying to get to the other side of the railing but were stopped by either Jay or someone else.

Then, you felt a hand around both of your forearms.

"Y/N," you heard someone say. "We're paramedics. We're here to help you."

"No! I don't want help!" you cried. "I just wanna die! Just let me fucking die! Let me die!"

"We can't do that sweetie," one of the paramedics said and then nodded to their partner, which you didn't see.

"Ow!" you yelled when you felt a pinch in the left side of your neck. Then, you felt yourself start to relax and a few seconds later, your eyes closed.

***

Jay and Will sat in the small room with you in the emergency department. They had their phones but had to leave anything that you could possibly use to harm yourself outside by the nurse technician, such as their phone chargers. The four others who had helped look for you were waiting in the waiting room. Jay and Will had told all of them they could leave and go to the Thanksgiving at Molly's, but they insisted on staying.

"I can't believe I didn't notice any fucking signs," Jay lamented. "I'm around her at home and I didn't notice anything. Well, I did, but I figured it was better if she came to me than me pushing her. I should've just forced it out of her, dammit."

"You couldn't have known this was going to happen," Will comforted. "At least she didn't jump. And, it's not all on you. I could've said something, too."

"But we shouldn't have let it get to the point of her thinking she needed to jump. God, we're terrible people."

"No, we're not. None of this is on us and none of this is on her. People who feel this way get good at hiding it and she did just that."

"So what do we do? How do we fix this?"

Will shrugged. "I'm a doctor, but not that kind of doctor. Dr. Charles said he'd meet with her when she wakes up."

"What if she doesn't talk to him either?"

"Then he'll just talk to her and make her feel like it isn't her fault and explain what could be going on in her brain."

"What do we do once she gets out of here?" Jay asked. After all, you lived with him and he couldn't see the signs because he wasn't home enough. He couldn't leave you home alone now after all this had happened.

"We'll figure it out when she gets a discharge date. For now, she's on at least a 72-hour psych hold, so we have a bit of time to figure it out."

You started to stir and then opened your eyes. You groaned. You had no idea where you were.

"I'll go get the nurse," Jay said and stood up.

Will wheeled the stool he was sitting on closer to your bed.

A few seconds later, Jay and the nurse walked in, since there was one outside your room monitoring you in case something happened.

The nurse crouched down by the right side of your bed. "Hi, Y/N. Do you remember what happened?"

You rubbed your eyes and nodded.

"Okay. We're here to help you. And, if you're hungry, we can bring up a menu so you can get some food in you. How does that sound?"

"Okay," you whispered.

"Do you have any questions for me?"

You shook your head.

"Okay, I'll get you that menu. Be back soon."

She motioned for Jay to follow her out of the small room and he did. About a minute later, Jay came back into the room. He quickly pulled out his phone and texted Will, saying that Dr. Charles would be meeting with you after you had something to eat. He didn't want to say it out loud because he didn't know whether or not it would upset you. Luckily, both of their phones were on silent, so Will would see the text whenever he picked up his phone next so it wouldn't look suspicious.

"Y/N, talk to us, kiddo," Will began. "What's going on?"

You shrugged. "I dunno. I just- I don't wanna be here anymore." There was no point in keeping this a secret anymore. Hell, you were in the hospital; there's no way you'd be able to keep it a secret in here of all places.

"Did anything happen that made you feel this way?" Will asked.

"No. I just started feeling like nothing mattered anymore."

"For how long?" Jay asked.

"Two and a half, three months."

Jay drew in a sharp breath. He knew something was going on since the moment he saw the nail marks in your hand. And, when he saw the nail marks in your forearm later, he blamed himself for not looking hard enough. He thought it was a one-off thing, but obviously, it wasn't. He thought it was just stress from your first year in college, but it wasn't. It was more than that.

The nurse came back in and handed you a menu. You ordered what sounded good, which was mac n' cheese, breadsticks, and a slice of chocolate cake. You didn't know if you'd eat it all, but maybe Jay or Will would want what was leftover.

"Can I go back to sleep now?" you asked after you ordered your food. "I'm tired."

"Sleep as long as you need," Will said.

"We'll be here when you wake up," Jay added. "We promise."

***

You woke up and you ate your food. You finished everything except for the last bit of chocolate cake, which Will and Jay finished for you. Then, Dr. Charles came in half an hour later and Will and Jay left the room.

"Hi, Y/N. I hear you've been having a bit of a rough time. Would you like to tell me about that?"

Your heart rate monitor started to go a little faster, and Dr. Charles noticed.

"It's okay. You just have to tell me what you feel comfortable with."

"Will you tell Jay and Will?" you asked.

"No. Whatever you say here stays between me and you. Unless you have another plan. Then, I do have to tell them. But, anything else is completely confidential."

"Okay."

"So, Y/N, can you tell me how you're feeling? Are you feeling anxious? Sad? Angry? Nothing?"

"Do you mean right now or before?"

"Whichever one you feel comfortable telling me."

"Right now I'm feeling a little anxious because I'm talking to you," you answered.

Dr. Charles nodded. "And that's perfectly normal. What about before you came here? What were you feeling let's say, yesterday morning?"

"Um, nothing I guess."

"And, I'm just wondering, how does nothing feel?"

"I dunno. I just didn't want to do anything. I'm tired all the time."

"Okay. Were you not sleeping enough? Could that be why you were so tired?" You shook your head. "Can you give me an estimate of how much you might've been sleeping on a typical day then?"

"I dunno. Maybe ten hours?"

"And you were still tired?" You nodded. "How's school been? I know you're in college now and I know that that's a big adjustment."

"Yeah," you agreed. "School's fine."

"What's your major again? I'm sure I've heard Will mention it, but you know old people's brains. They can't remember everything."

You cracked a ghost of a smile. "Art history," you answered.

"So, what's your favorite medium?" Dr. Charles asked. "Pencil drawing? Painting? Collage?"

"Painting," you answered.

"And have you been enjoying painting these past few months?"

You shrugged. "Sort of. But my paintings aren't happy like they used to be."

"How so?"

"I dunno. I use darker colors instead of brighter ones I guess."

"Like Picasso's blue period," Dr. Charles said. Then, he changed the subject. "Can you remember when you started painting with those darker colors?"

"Maybe two months ago?" you guessed.

"Did anything happen then that made you paint things with darker colors?"

"I don't think so," you answered.

Then, you kept thinking. You thought back to August. That was when you started college and all your friends from high school left. You never had the easiest time making friends and with living at home, you were only on campus when you went to class, which meant there were limited people you interacted with and a limited amount of time you had to see these people. You also had quit your job at a coffee shop around that time because you, Jay, and Will had thought it would be a good idea for you to not work for this first semester so that you could focus on school and see how to the workload was.

Also during this time, Natalie had left. She had been your female role model since she and Will had become colleagues six years ago. Sure, you had Hailey, but she had only been a big part of Jay's life for a little over two years. Natalie had been there longer; she had been a constant who you could talk to about things you couldn't talk to your brothers about such as periods. She was also the one who would go with you to shop for homecoming and prom dresses and help you get ready for the dance. Once Hailey was in Jay's life, she joined you and Natalie, but Natalie had been there through every high school dance.

And now, she wasn't here. She had left.

Sure, you had Hailey and you loved Hailey. But, it was weird just having Natalie leave after six years of her being there.

"Natalie left," you said.

"And, how did that make you feel?" Dr. Charles asked.

"Sad, I guess. She was always there and it felt nice because I didn't have a mom." You paused. Now that you think about it, Natalie had been like a mother figure to you through your last two years of middle school and through all four years of high school. "She was like a mother figure."

"So, a few weeks after Natalie left, did those feelings of sadness start to go away? Or did they stay?" Dr. Charles already knew the answer, but he wanted to hear how you interpreted your feelings.

"They stayed. I thought it was just stress from school, but it kept happening even when I didn't have homework or school."

"I see. Y/N, I think you're depressed."

You let out a breath you didn't know you were holding. Finally. There was a name to what you were feeling.

"It's a relief, isn't it?" Dr. Charles asked as if he could read your mind. "Putting a name to these feelings?"

"Yeah, it is."

"So, here's what we are going to do about it. I think we'll start you on one hundred milligrams of Zoloft, an antidepressant, while you're here and we'll see how that goes. Coupled with therapy sessions, I think you could make a lot of progress."

"You do?"

"I do. And, if we need to adjust your dosage or change medications, that's perfectly fine. But, just remember: you are not your mental health diagnosis. You aren't depressed. You are a person who has depression."

***

1 week later

After one week in the hospital--three days for the mandatory 72-hour psych hold, and another four for just observation and to make sure that your medication wasn't making your suicidal thoughts stronger and actually lowering them--you were deemed mentally stable enough to be discharged.

You were still depressed; the meds wouldn't work fully for about another week, but you weren't a danger to yourself anymore so you had been discharged. The one caveat was that the doctors had recommended that you shouldn't be alone for extended periods of time unless absolutely necessary.

Jay had taken emergency furlough and Will had continued to work, but would always come and visit after his shifts. Jay, Will, Hailey, or Stevie were always with you in your hospital room. Sometimes, others you knew would come and visit, like when Kim and Adam came and brought you coffee and donuts from your favorite coffee shop. Or when you mentioned feeling gross because the heart rate monitor got in the way of your hair when you tried to brush it so it was all tangled and greasy. Once you took a shower a few hours later, there was Stella who brought her laptop for the two of you to watch Netflix while she did some of the most amazing and complicated braids in your hair. Later that day, you learned that Hailey had texted Stella and asked her to come by.

You smelled the fresh air--well, as fresh as you could get in Chicago--when you walked out of the hospital with Jay on one side and Will on the other.

"So, let me get this straight," Jay started, "I had to be released in a wheelchair, but she doesn't?"

"Jay," Will sighed. "You were shot. Y/N...well, she wasn't. It's up to the physician, or in her case, the psychiatrist."

Jay rolled his eyes. Once you got to his truck, you saw Will start to get in the backseat.

"What are you doing?" you asked.

"You wanna tell her or should I?" Will asked.

"You can do it," Jay said.

You looked between your two brothers with a sense of nervousness. Were they sending you away because they didn't want to deal with your fucked up brain?

"We're going to the cabin for two weeks," Will said.

"What about school?" you asked frantically. You still had two weeks left. And, you'd already missed a week. You couldn't miss any more.

"It's all taken care of. Your grades will stay with what you have in your classes right now and you'll be exempt from the work and exams for the rest of the semester," Will said.

"How?"

"We talked to the dean and explained the uh, the situation," Jay answered.

"Great, so now everyone knows I'm a freak. Thanks."

"No, no, far from it," Will reassured. "It's just the dean who knows all the details. He just basically told your profs that they have to make you exempt from the rest of the semester's assignments."

"Oh."

"Yeah," Jay said. "So, get in the truck. I don't feel like getting up there at midnight. And before you ask, your suitcase is in the truck. Hailey packed it. And, you're sitting in the front seat because you get carsick. And, yes, you can pick the music."

***

"Did you two do this just to keep an eye on me?" you asked as the three of you ate the food from Taco Bell you had picked up when you were almost to the cabin.

"Er..." Will trailed off.

"Y/N, you have to understand where we're coming from with this," Jay began. "You might not be here right now if we didn't find you. And, until those meds kick in fully, despite you being able to be discharged, we're not taking any chances. And, because of that, you're sleeping in the loft area with me."

You groaned. There was one bedroom and a loft area. Whenever you came up here with your parents, they got the bedroom and the three of you got the loft area. Since there were only two twin beds, they'd have to bring up an air mattress for one of you to sleep on. Now whenever you'd come up here with your brothers, since you were the only girl, you'd get the bedroom and Will and Jay would take the loft area.

"It's not too bad," Jay laughed. "We can play Mario Kart or NHL '97 on the old N-64 up there all night if you want."

"I probably forgot how to play those."

"Perfect time to remember how," Will said. "All I ask is that you beat Jay's high score on Mario Kart for me."

***

"Jay?" you asked into the darkness later that night when the three of you had gone to bed after watching one of the movies that were always kept up here.

"Hmm?" he mumbled from across from the room. "You okay?"

"Yeah. I just...I got a question for you."

At this, Jay propped himself up on one elbow and turned to look at you, well, as much as he could see of you in the darkness. "Okay, what is it?"

You took a deep breath. "Am I stupid?" you asked.

"What?" Jay flicked on his bedside lamp. "Why would you think that?"

"I just...I have a great life and here I was trying to end it. Wasn't that like stupid and selfish? I didn't even have a good reason to do it."

"Y/N, listen to me. This is not on you. It's just how your brain is wired."

"Yeah, but shouldn't I have been able to override it?"

"Sometimes, you can't. Just like when I have a nightmare or when I flinch at fireworks because of..."

"Because of your PTSD?" you finished for him.

"Yeah, because of that. My point is--" He coughed and then took a sip of his water next to him-- "Sorry. My point is that your brain just does things even if you do your best to stop it."

"Yeah, but you saw so much over there. You have a reason to feel that way. I don't."

"Y/N, depression is just as much of an illness as say, the flu. So is PTSD. You wouldn't not take Tylenol because you didn't think you should have the flu. You'd take it to feel better. Same with depression and PTSD. You have it, so you take medication to feel better."

Your jaw almost dropped. You had never heard Jay say something like that before.

"How did you do that? Know exactly what to say?"

"Oh, that comparison wasn't from me. I heard it at a veterans' support group."

"Well, I liked it."

"Good. Now, are you ready to go to sleep?"

You nodded and Jay turned off the light and you felt lighter than you had five minutes ago after getting that heavy conversation off your chest.

***

3 days later

You had an exhausting day. First, you ate breakfast, and then Jay and Will watched the news (you only got three tv stations up here) while you read one of the books you had downloaded on your phone on the drive here a few days ago since you knew you didn't have wifi up here. Then, the three of you walked about half a mile down the road where there was this abandoned trailer that was said to be haunted. (You'd gone there every time you had been up since you were eight, so you knew it wasn't haunted, but despite all three of you being adults, you always had to go check for the old lady who been rumored to have lived there.) Will even decided to jump out at you and Jay and Jay almost punched him in the face. Then, when you got back, you had lunch and played card games. Then, Will and Jay used the old air pump they found in the garage to blow up tubes you'd typically use to go down the river during the summer. Then, you all took those tubes sledding down the giant hill that the cabin was built on. Next, you ate dinner and made a huge batch of brownies to eat while you watched movies. Will went to bed, and you and Jay went up into the loft and played a few rounds of Mario Kart on the old N-64. Jay won of course--there's no way you'd be able to beat his high score like Will wanted you to--but it was still fun. And then, the two of you went to bed.

Because of all this, you thought you'd sleep through the night easily. But, you woke up and felt something wet.

Shit.

Then you went to the bathroom.

Your period.

You had gotten your period and hadn't brought anything with you.

When you started getting depressed, you missed two cycles. And, basing when you'd have your period on your last cycle before your period, you shouldn't have gotten your period for another two weeks.

But here you were, with two older brothers and no period products in the cabin or in any of the bags you had brought with you. Then, you remembered that Hailey had packed your stuff. Surely she had put something in there.

But, there was nothing.

You didn't want to wake Will or Jay up. All you needed to do was go to the tiny mini-mart ten miles away. You'd only be gone half an hour max.

You grabbed your duffle bag and quickly changed your clothes and threw your hair into a ponytail. Then, you slipped your license in your back pocket and put on your coat, and reached for Jay's keys--

"Y/N?"

Shit. Will.

"Y-Yeah?" you asked and put your hand down back at your side.

"Where are you going? It's the middle of the night, kid," Will said.

"I- I..."

"If you're having suicidal thoughts again, you need to tell me or Jay remember? So that we can figure out a plan and get your dosage increased or change your medication altogether or do a different combination of meds," Will reminded you.

"I know, I know. It's not that. I just need to go to the store is all."

Will crossed his arms across his chest. "Anything specific you need at the store in the middle of the night?"

"I got my period and I have nothing, okay?" you snapped. Will just started laughing. "This isn't funny!"

"I know. But, you could've just led with that. It's nothing to be embarrassed about."

"Yeah, but I should've at least made sure there was some in there, but I've been so irregular, so I didn't think to check."

At this, Will jumped into doctor mode. "How long has it been irregular for?"

"Will!" you groaned.

"I'm just wondering from a purely medical standpoint."

"Uh! Fine. I haven't had it for two and half months."

You saw the wheels turning in Will's head as he quickly did the math.

"What the hell is going on down here?" Jay asked as he walked down the stairs and saw the two of you. Then, he saw how you were dressed and his eyes went wide. "Y/N, no you're not...we're here to help you--"

"Jay, it's fine," Will interjected. "I'm just gonna get changed and run her to the store. She got her period."

"Will!"

"What? I would've had to tell him why we were leaving anyway. And, it means your meds are working."

"My antidepressants are solving my irregular periods?" you asked. Yeah, you knew Will was a doctor, but you still weren't convinced.

"Yeah. Your cortisol--stress hormone--has been so high for a while, so your body knows it's not ready to have kids, so it stopped your hypothalamus from sending signals to your ovaries to start menstruation. It means your meds are working, Y/N."

"I mean, I don't feel as tired as I used to be during the day," you said. "And, I guess I am happier."

"Alright, so everything's good?" Jay asked. "You got it handled?"

"Yeah, I got it handled," Will answered. "You can go back to bed, Jay."

And Will was right. Your meds were working and they worked even better coupled with the therapy sessions you went to once a week (which you started when you go home from the cabin). You went home a few days later and when you returned to class after Christmas break, you no longer freaked out in class and then came home and sat against your door trying to cry. You no longer dug your fingernails into your palms. And, the first thing you did after you realized that you were feeling like the normal you was pull out the paintings of the bridge.

There, you took your paint and crossed out the brevis in ars longa, vita brevis. Above it, you wrote longa.

Now both your paintings read ars longa, vita longa.

Art is long, life is long.

A/N I hope you liked this! And, we hit 70k reads! That's insane! Anyway, please feel free to comment and tell me what you thought, and don't forget to reblog, too! As always, if you want to be added to my taglist, just tell me and I'll add you!

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herstarburststories · 4 years ago

Text

Merry... Birthday?

Pairing: Dean Winchester x reader

Summary: You love christmas, but Dean doesn’t. Yet, he might make an exception for your birthday this year.

A/N: This one goes for @negans-lucille-tblr ‘s secret fic exchange. My secret Santa was @katymacsupernatural. Hey, honey! I hope you enjoy this and happy birthday! You deserve double presents, so here’s mine. All mistakes are mine!

Divider by @talesmaniac89 !

You loved Christmas.

It was probably a nostalgic longing for your long gone urban life. Just in the same way you’d still catch yourself looking through the news for election results or feel your stomach twist if you didn’t eat homemade food at least twice a week. You were dead to the government and certainly spent more on the road than in a home. Besides, you had met up with God enough times to know him. All the encounters and screaming and unapologetic abandonment should make you want to throw any baby Jesus against a wall or even climb on a Christmas tree just to shout about all the hoaxes so perfectly molded in patterns through our brains like braids.

Yet, something about you loved christmas.

The pretty lights always shining, it didn’t matter where you go. For once, all the city-- everything would be entirely made of light. Their incandescent glow always companishing each person, either it was in an once treacherous alley or only to make the kids' grin bigger as they watched them among the busy streets with wide eyed gazes. The confusion in the kitchen that often ended up with huffs bursting into chuckles between the smell of meals that were too much and would make a room for leftovers for the rest of the week. How everything seemed to be made only of happiness, and nothing could ever cut through those water; all the knives were suddenly swords for kids to play and no white gun. In Christmas, a house became a kingdom for every heart. Everything was good and felt through the skin to the bone, like a single glimpse, a hidden day of what would be paradise.

That was how you were raised, at least. The Winchesters didn’t share the same mindset, no. While you grew up with decorating the tree, they were hiding bodies in the dim light. Leftovers were all through their whole year, and Christmas was described as good or not with one single criteria: snow streets. They had to take one? Annoying date. They didn’t and there was eggnog? Bearable Jesus’s birthday.

Yet, you attempted to make the bunker the more festive possible: buying a bunch of christmas lights, cookies’ ingredients and even a small nativity scene. Your attempts to enjoy the date’s niciities ended up with Sam breaking his arm after crashing on the ground because you insisted on him putting the lights in a place higher than his age, not to mention the burned cookies that looked more like tiny monsters than gingerbread men.

Your parents used to make this look so much easier.

Although the youngest Winchester understood a little more about the concept of holidays, a believer in the good until the very end, his brother didn’t share the idea. You couldn’t say you were surprised. Dean just had two barely normal christmas in his life: one when he was dying and one with Lisa and Ben. Both situations made it to his heart only to shatter from the inside.

‘’Baby Jesus?’’ Dean snorted, shaking his head at the sight of you adjusting the weird little dolls in the nativity. He placed another ruined cook in his mouth, speaking with his mouth full next: ‘’We have the son of Lucifer, guess that counts.’’

‘’Don’t say that once Jack gets home.’’ You rolled your eyes, turning to face the oldest Winchester with your hands on your hips. How could he eat that? You couldn’t even make it a bite and Sam only had half of those. ‘’And stop eating those. They are burned.’’

‘’I’ve had worse.’’ He remarked, adding another cookie to his mouth. You grimaced, wondering for a brief moment how your boyfriend could be simultaneously the guy who saved the world and a man with the taste of a five years old.

‘’Yeah. But I’m the one who has to hear you whining about your bellyache later.’’

‘’I don’t whine--’’ You arched your eyebrows at his statement, making Dean huff in agreement. ‘’That was once and because of Sam’s weird ass vegan bacon.’’

‘’You acted like you were dying.’’

‘’My tongue was!’’

‘’So get this.’’ Sam’s voice interrupted your childish argument, catching the attention of both hunters like a shiny object did to a cat. ‘’Apparently we got an earlier christmas gift.’’

‘’What is it?’’ You asked, approaching the table.

‘’Three teenagers disappeared in the forest, all personal objects left behind.’’ Sam explained as Dean scratched out his neck to glance at his brother’s computer screen. Nothing like a case in Colorado. ‘’The authorities think it’s a serial killer. But one of the girls, Kayla Wodson, said she saw a weird, skinny giant take her friends.’’

‘’Ho ho ho and three bodies.’’ Dean clapped his hands together with a wry curve of lips. ‘’Alright. Let’s hit the road-- Wait, wait, wait. Where do you think you are going?’’

You were standing beside Dean while Sam raised to his feet, ready to pack his bags. Dean, nonetheless, was quicker than his brother, soon putting himself in front of Sammy; hands protectively standing in front of the youngest’s chest to keep him from moving any further.

He shook his head with a scoff. ‘’Dude, come on.’’

‘’Not happening, Sammy. You got a broken arm.’’ You mumbled a sorry along Dean’s big brother speech, to which Sam replied with a comprehensive smile. ‘’Y/N and I take care of it.’’

‘’He’s right. Must be the first time in his life, but he is.’’ Dean turned his head, furrowing his eyebrows at you ‘’Don’t worry. It’s just a wendigo anyway. ‘’

‘’Okay. Just…’’

‘’Don’t forget the fireblazer. As if your brother would miss an opportunity to use it.’’ You scrunched up your noise, causing a chortle out of Sam while Dean commented something about grabbing the specific instrument and walked away. ‘’Maybe you could call Eileen. Ask her to help you to back some christmas cookies.’’

Sammy shook his head at your wiggling brows. ‘’That doesn’t sound as sexy for me as it does for you.’’

Dean Winchester was good with numbers.

Not the urban numerical sense of the deal, of course. He almost didn’t make it in sixth grade with useless geometry and all that, and he still used his fingers to count when he had to deal with an equation. No, his good and quick way with numbers was easier, intrinsic to his head.

How many years since mom died? Seventeen. How many people did he have to save? All of them. How many years had he left? Less than he once owned.

Hunter math was simpler, and was all he really needed since he was four years old, running from the fire with his baby brother in his arms-- which brought him to the second section of his particular geometry: birthdays and death anniversaries. Dean never, ever forgot any special date. Those were his own holidays, the only worth celebrating and remembering. His wishes, grief, and cherishment were reserved for the people he loved, not some celestial assholes who saw his life like a book.

Therefore, his mind went on a golden rush for your day as soon as the Wendigo hunt took more than you both expected. You wouldn't be able to make it home before your birthday, which would be ending shortly, a matter of two or three hours. His inner engineers were useful tonight, in his vision, useful enough to make those sappy movies jealous. While you were washing some guts and leaves away, Dean went to the nearest convenience store. His long arms nesting a bunch of stuff he never dared to touch in years. The cashier with drowsy eyes and escarlet Santa hat seemed bored with his shopping, probably because she saw an uncountable amount of people buying the same things over and over. He couldn’t blame her for the suburban exhaustion. If anything, it was a small comfort for his war orbs to see and be a part of a scene so mundane.

He hustled back to the dive motel room, singing in relief to himself once he stepped in and heard you singing Christmas Tree Farm while the water rushed in. He grimaced at himself for recognizing that Taylor Swift song. How couldn’t he? That woman was 80% of all you heard everyday. Man, he was whipped.

Tilting his head back in reality, he started organizing in clumsy manners of putting everything in place for you. His bruised hands touching so carefully the fragile ornaments to make the motel room with grubby walls and weird black stan on the floor that only seemed to grow a little more like you.

You, the woman who put up with him, who laughed at his stupid jokes, and who watched Scooby Doo, all snuggled up to him every friday. You, the woman who switched from AC/DC to Taylor Swift and then Eric Clapton. You, the one who understood his job and helped him to wash off some of the blood on his hand and never got scared of how red the water could get. You, the girl who rolled her eyes at his first attempt of flirting and now stole his french fries and kissed his lips as if he was worth being delicate with. You, his breathing, his true holiday, his only act of faith besides Sammy.

Dean pressed his teeth against his bottom lip, looking up and down his little manual work. Part of him said it was ridiculous, he surely would make a lot of fun of Sam if he did that to a chick. Yet, mostly he was proud. He wanted you to like it. It wasn’t even near to what you deserved, but it was a piece of it. It was what the Winchester could give you, and that would be hopefully, enough.

While Dean was caught in the crossroad of judging and admiring his surprise, you left the shower with a towel wrapped around your head and lips mumbling Cocaine. Your feet glued to the ground once you witnessed what was in front of you: the room was decorated with christmas lights, a tiny plastic tree on the table, right beside a pie with candle on the top and two cup of what smelled like hot cocoa.

‘’Dean…’’ Your tender tone brought him back from his traineck thoughts as he turned around to glance at you. You chortled in astonishment as he raised his eyes and said surprise! ‘’What’s this?’’

‘’Well, it’s your birthday.’’ He shrugged, scooting closer to you with a smirk. Dean smoothly wrapped his arms around your waist, yours instantly resting around his neck. ‘’In my defense, they just had christmas stuff. Blame your parents for having you close to Jesus’ special day.’’

‘’Christmas stuff include pie and not cake?’’ Your brows knitted together, a heartwarming smile on your lips as you watched his expression marked by multicolored little lights. He smelled like something was a blaze, and you knew that was for standing too close to the candle and not for burning a body this time. Small changes.

He scoffed humorously. ‘’You like pie better anyway.’’ He nodded at the carnival-like situation around you two. Dean Winchester wasn’t the kind of man who got insecure, but you could catch a perk of brand nervous hesitation as his green eyes shot you an anxious glance. ‘’Did you like it?’’

‘’I loved it.’’ You pulled cheeks dimpled with joy that was kissed by Dean’s own smiling lips. The kiss was so gentle, it was his own palpable light hearted emotion. You being happy in his arms. It had been so long since he felt he could be enough, he could make someone happy. But you were right there. As you pulled away, another short kiss was given between playful words: ‘’That’s what I call a christmas miracle.’’

‘’Shush.’’ He leaned in and pecked your lips. As Dean pulled back, he couldn’t help but watch around with the pride of Hubris. His glance went back to you, a lopsided grin on his face. God, you loved that smile. You loved that man. ‘’So I added some whiskey to the hot cocoa. We could drink some, eat the pie, and see if those lights make a good improvise rope. What do you tell me?’’

All you could do was kiss him again.

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julemmaes · 4 years ago

Note

Can you write more of the Nessian modern au where they have 5 kids plz?

Prompt ideas:

They go camping

Ezra goes on his first date

One of the kids (probably like Cal or Celia) feels like their parents done love them as much as they love the others / that they don’t get as much attention as they others

Obv u don’t need to use any of these prompts if u don’t want to, these are just some ideas

I loved your fic !!!

I Love You

Set in this universe, Nessian fourth child feels like she’s isn’t given the same amount of love her parents are showing her siblings and after a particularly bad day goes by, she bursts.

A/N: The ages: Ezra (23), Cal (19), Nora (14), Celia (12) and Andra (10). Nate is (18) and Iria (Emerie and Azriel’s firstborn) is (13).

It was hard to write this one, cause if one of my children came to me like this, telling me what Celia is going to say, I would probably kill myself you know. Hate these situations:(

Also, I’m definitely gonna write the other two too, cause they’re interesting and I think you all want to read about Ezra’s first date. So don’t worry, we’ll see them camping and struggling with love some more!

Enjoy!

Word count: 4,370

"Cal, can you help me with my homework?" asked Celia as she entered the boys room.

Her brother didn't even spare her a glance, waving a hand in mid-air, "I can't right now Cece, I'm playing with Nate and I can't pause, sorry." then burst out laughing at something his cousin had said to him through his earbuds. He cast her a quick glance over his shoulder, "Maybe when I finish."

The girl huffed, muttering a don't worry and closed the door behind her. She walked down the hallway, towards her room and Nora's. She didn't bother knocking, but froze in the doorway, staring at her sister with hopeful eyes. She knew she wouldn't find help there either when she heard her say Iria's name into the phone's microphone.

She could feel that she might be about to let out a scream of frustration.

She was about to leave the room when Nora noticed her, "Iria wait a second," she put a hand on the phone, smiling at Celia, "Do you want anything? I can leave the room if you need to study in silence," she offered her.

Celia shook her head, "I can't do this geometry problem." she said furrowing her brow as she looked at the strange figure on the sheet her math teacher had assigned her. She looked up at Nora and she had a bored look on her face. Celia had confirmation of what she had thought as soon as she walked in. Before her sister could find an excuse to escape that task, she smiled and said, "Don't worry, I'll do it myself."

Nora didn't even try to retort and resumed talking to her cousin, yelling at Celia to close the door when she left.

"Yeah, I'll close the door for you," she muttered to herself.

She didn't want to go to her mom and ask for help with her homework because she knew it would end with one of them yelling, but she had no other choice. Huffing for the millionth time, she headed downstairs, mentally ready to face an intense math session with her mom.

When she entered the kitchen, Nesta was leaning on her chair with her knees and half lying on the table, holding a yellow pencil and coloring one of the suns on Andra's exercise book.

Her sister was the first to see her, "Hi." she said in a flat tone.

Celia snickered, thinking "we're in the same boat sis". Doing homework with mom had always been tiring, whether it was math to solve or simple drawings to color, Nesta had the ability to squeeze their little brains to their last nerve.

Cassian had always told them that one day they would thank her, but Celia hadn't reached that moment yet. She was sure Ezra, who was finishing college, hadn't thanked her yet either for making him maintain that level of consistency in his studies.

"Mom," she called hesitantly, "could you help me with this problem?"

Andra glared at her, frowning, "She's helping me."

Celia knew she didn't mean it in a bad way, she knew she was probably just as tired as she was at that moment. After all, it was seven o'clock on a Sunday night for everyone, and if Andra had found herself finishing studying so late too, it was because she too had been given too much homework. She ignored her, waiting for Nesta to speak.

When he didn't answer her, Celia pushed with more annoyance in her voice, "Mom."

Nesta's head snapped toward her, and even this time, Celia knew the answer would be no. The weariness clear in her features. Nesta closed her eyes, scratching a temple with the tip of her pencil, "Can't you ask one of your siblings?"

"Nora and Cal are busy," she let her know, "I don't know where Ezra is."

Andra pointed her to the back door, "He's out with Dad, they're working in the gazebo."

Celia nodded, "Thank you." Nesta gave her a tired smile and then went back to coloring in the sun.

She clutched the book and notebook to her chest as she pushed the door open and the cold outside made her shiver. She could hear the hoarse laughter and low voices of her dad and brother, but she couldn't see them anywhere.

She stepped barefoot into the grass and wiggled her fingers through the blades of grass and then there was silence and Celia was suddenly afraid. If she turned around she could see Nesta and Andra at the table, but in front of her there was only darkness and silence, until a loud bang came from the gazebo and then she heard Cassian cursing, before Ezra burst out laughing.

She grinned, tiptoeing towards the two men.

As soon as she moved the curtain that was the door to the gazebo, a dart flew past her head and she jumped back, eyes wide. She felt her heart in her throat.

"Celia!" had shouted Ezra, sprinting toward her. His eyes, too, were full of fear and he had grabbed her by the arms. Cassian immediately behind him stroked her hair, checking to make sure he hadn't poked her in the face. They both let go a breath of relief when they saw that she was okay.

"Cutie you have to be careful when you come in here, you know that," her dad told her with a carefree smile on his face, "If I caught you, mommy would skin me alive."

All three cackled, Ezra pulling himself up and removing the darts from the board.

"Did you need anything?" asked Cassian.

Celia nodded, remembering the real reason she had gone there, "I can't do this problem-" she started to open the notebook, but Ezra interrupted her.

"Dad and I are just finishing up fixing this actually," he told her with a apologetic grimace, "Could you wait a half hour?"

Celia looked at Cassian hopefully, but her dad was already back handling tools and nails.

She turned to her brother, "But you were playing darts." she said impassively.

Ezra shrugged, "We were just taking a few minutes off, we've been working for hours." then turned to Dad, "Where's the wire?"

Cassian pointed to a spot on the other side of the gazebo and Celia took that gesture as her cue to leave them alone again.

"Nevermind." she whispered, closing the notebook and leaving the gazebo.

She eyed the table at which they ate breakfast every summer morning, thinking that if she started studying there maybe she would die of hypothermia and finally someone would deign to help her. Laughing at how extra she could be at times, she walked back into the house, passing her mom and Andra in silence and heading back to Cal's room. She was going to wait for him to finish the game and then force him to solve the problem for her.

She threw open the door and Cal let out a shriek, startling her.

"God, Cece you scared the shit out of me." he breathed, bringing a hand to his chest, finishing pulling on his pants.

Celia furrowed her brow, "Weren't you playing with Nate?"

Cal nodded absentmindedly, looking around, "See my wallet?"

She pointed it out to him. "Where are you going? You said you'd help me," she said in a whiny tone.

"I said maybe," he smiled slyly at her, "and Raina called me and I'm spending the night at her place." with that he turned and opened the drawer, pulling out two aluminum foil envelopes. As soon as Celia realized what they were, she brought her hands to her eyes.

"Gee," she sighed, then turned around shaking her head, "I didn't need to see that."

Without looking at him, she raised a hand, smiling tightly at the empty space in front of her, "See you tomorrow, have fun."

Cal chuckled as he walked past her and darted down the stairs, "Sure will. See you tomorrow."

Celia shook her head again and then again, trying to erase the image of- she walked back down the hall, opening up the door to her room.

Nora in a completely different position was still talking on the phone and when she saw her she rolled her eyes, telling Iria to wait yet again. She turned on her stomach, raising an eyebrow, "What is it?"

Why is everyone so grumpy today?

Celia was fed up with that attitude and raised her arms to the sky, "Nothing, whatever."

Then they stared at each other for a few seconds and Nora nodded her chin, "Could you please go out? I'm talking to Iria on the phone and-"

"This is my room, too," Celia retorted, pointing out the obvious.

Nora huffed, leaning her head back, "Yes and I'm asking if I can please talk to our cousin in private."

Celia was getting even more nervous. "If you would help me with this problem I could go mind my own business in the living room and I wouldn't have to bother you every five minutes anymore."

Nora stood up, grabbing her by the arm and pushing her out of the room, "I'll help you when I'm done talking on the phone."

Celia didn't even have time to realize that her sister had literally just thrown her out of the room that the door behind her had already been closed. She wanted to go back in and throw herself at Nora and work it out the way they used to work it out when they were kids, when they could still hit each other if they fought - not that their parents ever let them go beyond the first slap or hair pull.

She walked into the bathroom in the middle of their rooms to see where Cassian and Ezra stood, but from the second floor it was impossible to see inside the gazebo.

She went to Andra's room so she wouldn't risk running into condom wrappers and having to breathe the testosterone-smelling air of her brothers' room and sat down on the bed. She opened the notebook on her lap, rereading the problem statement aloud.

"A rectangular parallelepiped has basic dimensions that measure-" then she stopped.

It was pointless. She couldn't figure out what formulas to apply to calculate what was asked of her in the fourth question. Rereading the text wasn't going to help.

She brought her hands to her hair.

Why is this so hard?

She heard Nora laughing down the hall and felt anger sizzle under her skin.

Ever since she'd gotten the phone for her fourteenth birthday, there hadn't been a night that was one in which she hadn't called Iria. And it had only been a few months since she'd started high school, but Celia didn't understand how those two things had managed to change her sister like that.

She knew Nora still cared about her, but it was getting harder and harder to spend time with her, and Cal was always out with Raina and the twins and it was possible that she didn't see him for days at a time. Although that last part had become an occurrence in recent years.

Nesta had explained to her that it was normal, that they were just growing up and there was nothing to worry about, that they'd get closer once she got older too, but it had hurt Celia to lose Cal in many ways and now she was just scared that the same thing would happen with Nora.

She had nothing against spending her free time with Andra, but she was still little and still liked to play with dolls and Celia would rather hang herself than pretend to be a Doctor Peluche one more time.

She chuckled again this time, imagining herself announcing her death to her parents after her little sister asked her to play.

Then she heard Andra scream with happiness and run up the stairs. She was just in time to get out of the bed and out of the room that her sister was at the top of the stairs.

"I finished my homework!" she yelled, balling up her fists in the air.

Celia smiled at her, "Great."

Then Andra sagged, "Now I'm going to go take a victory nap."

"You've earned it." she walked past her as she yawned and headed down the stairs two steps at a time.

"Mom!" she called skipping the last three, "Can you help me now?"

Nesta made a frustrated sound, turning to her with a bag of frozen green beans in her hand.

"I just finished with Andra, is there any way we could think about this after dinner?"

Celia was about to start crying, but nodded anyway. She went into the living room when her mom resumed cooking, turning on the TV and putting on a channel where they showed how food is made.

When her dad and Ezra came back into the house they were so dirty that Nesta sent them straight to get washed up with the threat of not letting them sit down if they didn't smell flowery and clean.

Celia would have gone along with her mom, adding a sassy retort to make it even more dramatic, but at that moment she couldn't speak.

Cassian had passed behind the couch to go to the bathroom and shower, ruffling her hair and leaving a kiss on her head.

Even there, Celia didn't respond or say any "I love you too" back.

She didn't realize until a few minutes later that she wasn't really watching the show, and when she felt she was about to start crying - from too much accumulated stress and frustration throughout the day - she decided she needed to find a place where she could blow off steam.

Her room was apparently off-limits, Andra's was occupied and she couldn't hide in either her parents' or her brothers' room because both Ezra and her dad would go there to get dressed after their showers.

This only added to all the bad things of the day and on top of all the crap, she knew her mom was going to go to sleep right after dinner. When Nesta was this tired there was no way she was going to be able to stay up a minute longer and even if she could convince her it would just be hell.

Doing math with a calm and rested Nesta was already a nightmare on its own, she didn't want to think about what it would be like to do it with a cranky and tired Nesta.

She silently opened the door that led into the tavern, where the brothers normally spent their Saturday nights with their cousins and friends. The girls still weren't allowed to go down there when everyone was there, and Celia was looking forward to high school so she would get a free pass to attend their nights.

That is, if they would accept her.

She closed the door carefully behind her and ran down the stairs, turning on the light first.

She threw herself on the couch and then hugged her legs, sobbing once. And then again and again until a liberating cry was wracking her body.

She didn't know if it was just the math assignment she couldn't do or if it bothered her to see how much everyone didn't need her at that moment. Andra had mom and Ezra had dad and Nora and Cal had their respective friends and Celia… she felt so lonely right then.

She sobbed particularly loudly and clamped her mouth shut with her hand when she heard her father's footsteps pass by the tavern door. She didn't want him to hear her, it would worry him for nothing.

Yes, it was just because she couldn't get a stupid math problem right. She was overreacting.

She didn't need her parents. Or her brothers.

Or her sister for that matter.

She was sure all of her classmates were getting the exercise done.

She loosened her arms from around her legs and lay down on the couch, closing her eyes and clutching one of the pillows to her chest. It had a vague earthy smell to it, but it smelled like Cal too, and it angered the girl even more as she grabbed a corner of the pillow and threw it across the room, yelling not too loudly.

She didn't know how long she'd been down there, but when Nesta called the family to let them know dinner was ready, Celia sprang to her feet. She pulled the sleeves of her shirt over her hands and ran them over her face to remove the residue of the crying in frantic movements.

She took three deep breaths and then walked slowly up the stair

s. She opened the door just as Ezra walked into the living room and their eyes met.

She immediately lowered her head, so he wouldn't see her face, but her brother put a hand on her shoulder, "Lia..." the silent request to look at him clear as day.

"What?" she replied too surly. She cursed in her head when she noticed her brother stiffen. It was as if she could see his surprised expression.

So much for playing dumb.

"Are you okay?" he asked, then squeezed her shoulder, "Why were you downstairs?"

She moved to escape his grasp, then ran a hand over her face, huffing, "I was looking for something." she replied evasively, trying to make her way to the kitchen. Ezra grabbed her wrist, spinning her around, at which point Celia was forced to look at him.

Ezra had a conflicted expression, somewhere between angry and worried, "What happened? Why are you crying?" he asked, in a tone that didn't allow for a non-answer.

Celia remained silent, her brows knitted in a frown as she tried to swallow the knot that was forming in her throat.

Perhaps he had spoken too loudly, because Cassian's figure appeared in the kitchen doorway, "Who's crying?"

Celia looked towards her dad and it only took a second of seeing him for the crying to return, only harder.

Cassian's face turned completely as he moved Ezra from in front of his daughter and hugged her, lifting her off the ground. Celia wrapped her arms around her father's neck, hiding her face between the crook of his neck and his shoulder, and only sobbed louder as Cassian's hand began massaging her back in circular motions.

She didn't care if she would be thirteen in a few weeks. She didn't care that her father was rocking her like he used to when she was little, she just wanted him to hold her close.

She wrapped her legs around her dad's waist and heard Cassian take a shaky breath, "Ezra why don't you go ahead? We'll be right there."

Celia didn't see or hear her brother's response, but she was grateful to her dad when he moved to the couch, settling down and bringing her to him. She pressed herself tighter against him.

"Lia, what happened?" he whispered in her ear. This only made her sob more loudly, "Ssh, cutie," he murmured as the little girl's breathing became more erratic, "It's okay."

"Celia." her mom's voice made her sit up and Nesta was there, who with only a few steps was behind the couch. She'd seen Andra and Nora's heads pop up from the kitchen as well, but Ezra had called them back and they were gone immediately.

Nesta took a seat next to Cassian, her arms outstretched toward her daughter, but her gaze fixed on her husband's. Celia launched herself at her mother, but kept an arm around her father's neck and Cassian took her hand, squeezing it in his.

The child's tears had soaked his pajama shirt and Nesta's chest tightened. She brushed Celia's hair until she had a clear view of her daughter's face, "What's wrong?"

"I have-" she sobbed, "I had to solve a problem and I couldn't and no one-" every breath she tried to take was broken by a sob. She sniffled, "And then Nora kicked me out of the room and Cal- Cal didn't want to help me and he left and you were-" she ran the hand that wasn't clasped in Cassian's over her face, "You were helping Andra." then she turned to her dad and started crying again, "And then you and Ezra sent me away."

Nesta felt tremendous guilt and was about to apologize to her, for ignoring her, but then Celia said something that completely broke her heart.

"You don't love me like you do the others," she sobbed into her mom's chest.

"Oh, Lia." murmured Cassian, in a hurt tone. He slipped a hand between Nesta and his daughter's stomach and pulled her away from her mother, forcing the woman's arms off Celia.

Cassian sat her back down on his lap and looked into her eyes, leaning down just enough to be at the same height as her. His brow was furrowed and she could see how upset those few words had made him.

"That's absolutely not true." he whispered in a firm tone, watching the redness of his little girl's face, the tears that continued to fall undisturbed.

Nesta stroked her hair, "Your father is right." she added.

"You are all on exactly the same level. There's no such thing as loving one child more than the other," he repeated, "It's not possible."

Celia took more shaky breaths, struggling to speak, "Cal and Nora hate me now."

Nesta felt bad for her little girl. She didn't dare imagine how long she had kept those doubts to herself, couldn't imagine how she could think those things. How she had let one of her children feel that way without even noticing.

"Cal could never hate you and you know it. He loves you too much. Exactly like me and Mom and Nora too, even though it might not seem like it." said Cassian. Then he ran a thumb under her eyes, wiping her cheeks. "I'm sorry if we made you feel left out today, that wasn't our intention, okay?"

Celia nodded, but resumed crying.

"We're a family, we all love each other so much, but we're also numerous," Nesta tried to explain, "It may happen sometimes that no one is available to help you at that moment, but that doesn't mean they don't love you or care about you less than the day before."

Cassian squeezed her hips, "Why didn't you tell us this before?" he asked her, later clarifying, "That you were feeling this way."

Celia shrugged, resting her hands on her daddy's chest, just as she did when she was little.

"I don't want it to get to a point where you can't hold back anymore and you have to hide to cry, okay?" said Cassian to her. Nesta looked at him and saw that his eyes were glazed over. She placed a hand on his leg, but the man's attention didn't shift from his daughter's face. "If you feel that Mama and I and anyone in this house are misbehaving with you, you come tell us and we'll talk about it, without the need to yell at each other and fight." he gave her a hesitant smile. Then he wrapped her up and pulled her against him, kissing her temple, "Please don't think I love you any less just because I'm a stupid, clueless big man who can't manage his time optimally, okay?"

Celia nodded against his neck, starting to play with the end of his hair strands.

"And I'm sorry if I made you think that for even a second," he closed his eyes as he whispered those words to her.

"I love you dad." said Celia in a muffled voice.

Cassian held her tighter to his chest, "I love you cutie."

Nesta cleared her throat, laying a hand on her daughter's back, "I'm sorry if I didn't pay enough attention to you today too and if I sent you out of the kitchen," she murmured, urging her to look at her. Celia broke away from Cassian, getting off his lap and launching herself at her mother, who caught her and stifled a laugh at the sudden weight.

God, she was growing up so fast, too.

"I love you, Lia." she whispered to her, "Don't ever doubt that, please."

"I love you mom."

They stayed rocking their baby girl for a few more minutes, then Cassian made a joke about the food that was getting cold in their plates, and all three of them got up from the couch and walked into a particularly quiet kitchen.

Nesta took a seat next to Andra and kissed her forehead as she took a green bean from the serving plate with her small hand.

Cassian glanced at all his children present and blew out a cough, "Maybe we should talk about eavesdropping as well."

Ezra turned to Celia, who was wiping her face with her napkin despite the fact that it was already dry, "Sorry for making you feel that way." he smiled at her, "I love you."

Celia nodded, focusing on her food.

"I want to apologize too," Nora said more softly, playing with the edge of the tablecloth. "I shouldn't have kicked you out of the room like that, and if you want to later I'll help you with the problem."

Her sister looked at her and opened her mouth, then closed it, then opened it again, "I would love to."

"Sorry." said Andra, with a rather cute frown on her face. She probably didn't quite understand what had happened, but Celia appreciated either way. Even as she gave her the widest smile as she said, "I love you."

Celia looked at everyone at the table, swallowing noisily, "I love you."

She would talk to Cal another time.

They ate between jokes and pranks and after dinner they all jumped on their parents' bed, cuddling until they all fell asleep there. Cassian and Nesta were forced to give up their room for the night, taking refuge in the guest room instead, but not before showing their children how much infinite love they felt for each of them.

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mysticmachmir · 4 years ago

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Judaism, Circles, and Circle-Casting

What's the Point of a Circle?

Magical Circle Definition: A temporary space with clearly defined energetic boundaries that provides a known space for ritual, magic, or similar controlled change.

"Casting a circle allows us to create an energetic space that supports our work in the physical space we have available. Since we do our ritual in a variety of spaces, many of which spend most of their time being something else (a living room, a public park, a rented room in a friendly business or community building), we need a way to make the space stop being those things, and start being a space where ritual, magic, and transformation can happen more easily."

This is a definition from a religious witch, a priestess of a coven. Obviously, this is not Judaism or a Jewish witch. However, if we want to incorporate some type of this into our practice, we need to understand what is its purpose. Asking why we have a ritual is just as important as how to craft one genuinely. For more information on crafting Jewish ritual and researching into Jewish traditional rituals to serve your purposes, please inquire this series on Tumblr.

Magical and Mystical Circles in Judaism

The Talmud: Honi HaMe'egal

One of the most concrete examples is using a circle to invoke and demand something of G!d. Here is a summary of what he did, but the sources via Sefaria are Taanit 23a:4-Taanit 23a:5-10.

"His surname is derived from an incident in which, according to the Babylonian Talmud, his prayer for rain was miraculously answered. On one occasion, when G!d did not send rain well into the winter (in Israel, it rains mainly in the winter), Honi drew a circle in the dust, stood inside it, and informed G!d that he would not move until it rained. When it began to drizzle, Honi told G!d that he was not satisfied and expected more rain; it then began to pour. He explained that he wanted a calm rain, at which point the rain calmed to a normal rain."

The Bible and Folkloric Uses of Circles

However, there are many times we see circles used in Judaism. In the TaNaKh, magic circles first appear in Jewish tradition in the Bible, when Joshua encircles Jericho seven times in order to collapse its walls. We also have circles during Simchat Torah, weddings, Hoshana Rabbah, and funerals. Circles are used quite a bit in Jewish ritual, whether we realize it or not.

The use of protective circles, so familiar in medieval sorcery, also starts to appear in Jewish practice. Such circles were also used to protect the birthing bed of pregnant women (Sefer ha-Chayyim 2.8). Smaller circles drawn around a wound or area of illness on a Body presumably exorcised the malaise-causing spirit.

The book Zera Kodesh (“Holy Seed”), written in the 16th century, describes making concentric circles on the ground (usually three or seven) with an iron blade, often with an inscription or the names of Angels added. The Baal Shem Tov once defeated a priest-witch by making a protective circle with his staff (Megillat Setarim).

In YIVO's Folklore of Ashkenaz class, by Professor Itzik Gottesman, he discusses the different ways circles were used by Ashkenazi Jews. He discusses that "Circling [was used to] ward the demons off the body. Circling, and circles in general, have found their way into Jewish folklore in a number of ways. Circles are considered perfect shapes and have a magical power to keep away evil. … Round objects also have symbolic value. At the first meal from returning from a burial, the family is given bagels to eat. One interpretation of this is so that we remember the round cycle of life and death, and it reinforces belief in reincarnation, which has been very much part of Jewish belief in the Diaspora. The [Rabbinic] responsa also mentions other circle customs: to circle the graves with thread, which were later used as wicks and candles to be lit for the ill person in the synagogue; in order to stop the spread of swelling on the eyes, it was circled with a ring; and in order to prevent further growth of a hunchback, it was circled with the hand of a dead man."

Noam Sienna, a Jewish scholar, speaks of other minhagim: "Drawing circles is also a common practice in the Mediterranean/Sephardic Jewish world to protect birthing mothers and newborns — it’s often drawn with a special sword or knife, and participants would also themselves walk in a circle around the cradle or around the room while reciting a protective formula like Psalm 91."

In Midrash, it is written: "For the circle has no beginning and end. And regarding this pleasure the scholars of truth hinted in their midrash, "the Holy One Blessed be He will make a circle for the righteous in the World to Come."

Kabbalah

A circle represents infinity because it has no beginning or end. In Kabbalah, the samech (a letter that is an enclosed loop) represents the infinite power of the Ein Sof, G!d’s infinite light.

This video from Chabad is about an hour-long shiur on the concept of the sacred geometry of the circle, but essentially the Rabbi discusses how the circle is the most common and natural shape in Nature that G!d has created. Pebbles, the globe, ripples of water, the cycle of time itself is the most perfect shape and represents the week, 7 days. Seven and the circle are connected, as 7 is a very important number in Judaism connected to time. I do recommend watching if you're interested in numerology, sacred geometry, and math connected to divinity.

Modern Circle-Casting Rituals

Typically, when people think of circle casting, they are called to Wicca's ritual of circle casting, calling on the archangels (which sounds extremely similar to the Jewish krias Shema - and Wicca was invented in the 50s, so you know who took from who there), calling on the watchtowers (Book of Enoch), and etcetera. This is not a process I am necessarily interested in. Here is one take of mixing Wiccan circle-casting with Jewish and Celtic theology/elements (this person is Jewish). Note: If you are a monotheistic Jew, or otherwise don't want to "mix" your practices, I do not suggest using this example of ritual. Also, the Zohar-pentagram connection is… questionable.

There is also the circle-casting suggested from Tehomot: Jewish Witchcraft*, which I'll outline here. I prefer this one because while yes, it is connecting back to the Wiccan tradition, it is not melding much of the religious elements, and only a few ritual pieces. Instead, it incorporates a lot more Jewish ritual and connection to Hashem. If it were me, I would remove the athame aspect of it and it would align more for my needs.

Visualization of the circle as the boundary of Gan Eden:

Athame/tool - shooting out fire like the spinning blade protecting Gan Eden

Gan Eden - orientations to the east, four rivers in the garden

Instead of calling on the watchtowers, call on the names of the rivers as found in Torah

He says that the "casting of the circle brings you from Malkhut - etheric double of the physical world. You are going up the Tree of Life and the Four Worlds in circle work/spirit work - from physical to spiritual (Assiyah to Yetzirah, Malkhut to Yesod)".

The purpose of using a circle is asking for help - from G!d, angels, guardians, to ask help to change Assiyah/Malkhut/physical realm.

How To Cast (According to Tehomot)

1. Be properly prepared. ritual for preparedness - oil/shower/ centering. Once in the circle, anointment w/ oil and/or ring a bell/musical note

2. Draw the circle - saltwater, incense, or candle

3. Corner call - the four rivers and four elements.

4. Summoning entities to hold the corner of the circles - angels, spirits, whomever

5. The evocation of G!d, recite psalms and say for what purpose

6. Calling on ancestors to be present

7. Magical work/ritual

8. Worship element - a prayer to G!d, offerings (kiddush)

9. Closing - release ancestors, release the corners, draw the circle backward and ground the energy

Finally, in the book Magic of the Ordinary, there is another "circle-casting" ritual that he posits is from compiling symbolism from Jewish texts in this new ritual.

Tools: Bird feather and a fallen branch found naturally. This ritual is to be performed outside as it is written in this book. It is asked that you meditation with this stick and infuse your breath into it before using it to draw the circle.

If the ritual for which you are making the circle is to heal something, undo something, process something, make space for newness in some way or another, draw the circle counter-clockwise. Walk around the circle as you are drawing it and chant (I am only writing the English, get the book for the Hebrew): "Here I am Here I am Here I am, G!d Breath, Please support me"

(Take a Breath) "I and the Unnameable, The Infinite One So again-- I and ho, I and ho"

(Take a breath, and then louder): "I and ho I and ho Support me, Please"

Repeat as much as you need until the circle is complete. You need to draw it seven times. Then, step inside the circle and chant into the four directions: "Toward your support do I direct my hope, O G!d I direct my hope, O G!d toward your support O G!d toward your support do I direct my hope"

Take your feather and sweep it across the inside of the circle and chant: "For the sake of the unification of the Holy Blessed One be He and the Shekhinah Through this rite, done in awe and in love to join The name Yah with Wah in a complete union"

Then wave the feather to the sky in circular movements while chanting "Yah" toward the sky and downward again sweeping it across the earth chanting "Wah". Do this three times and leave your tools in the center of the circle before stepping out. The circle is finished, and you can begin any rituals - calling forth spirits, performing ceremonies, or leading gatherings.

(Yah and Wah are two names of G!d, riffing off the Holy Name in an acceptable way as it is not the full name. If you are uncomfortable with this, you can replace it with a name of G!d comfortable for you).

*The person who made this podcast is an apostate and is now a Messianic Baptist. He has a post where he says that Jesus is Torah and to deny Jesus means you are denying G!d. I do not support Messianic Judaism, so I have decided not to link his work. You can still find it online, easily. This podcast is from a time where he identified as a Jewish witch and was becoming a Rabbi.

If you like my work and writings, feel free to tip me here: https://ko-fi.com/ezrasaville!

Sources:

The Jewish Myth, Magic, and Mysticism Encyclopedia by R. Geoffrey Dennis Magic of the Ordinary by R. Gershon Winkler Chabad Gleewood Sefaria Noam Sienna YIVO’s Folklore of Ashkenaz Tehomot: Jewish Witchcraft (Podcast) Liorah HaMasovevet

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slowly-writing · 5 years ago

Text

I Guess it was Fate

Part 2 of Coffee Shop

Peter Parker x Romanoff!Reader

Word count: 1911

Requested by anon: Could you do a part 2 to coffee shop? I really loved it!!!

After that fateful day you start spending a lot of time at Peter’s apartment. The compound doesn’t allow very much privacy. You have your own room, of course, but you’d have to be crazy to think anyone in that building would allow Peter in your room. Even when they weren’t sure of your relationship status. Half of the agents stationed there remember when you were barely big enough to chase your uncles around, and they still think of you as that little girl.

So now you're here, escaping to Peter’s as often as possible. You know your family knows your exact location, Uncle Tony put a GPS tracker on your phone before it was even given to you, but they respect private property, can’t really have the Avengers being arrested for trespassing.

“Hey, y/n can you pass me my history book?” Peter asks, pulling your attention from the geometry homework you’ve been working on.

“Can we take a break? I have to leave soon and all we’ve done is study,” you beg Peter and he smiles, casting his homework aside to scoot closer to you slightly.

“Of course we can,” a faint blush paints his cheeks as you take his hand, “we can watch a movie or something?”

“Sounds good,” you subtly scoot closer to Peter as he turns on the TV. By now you're practically sitting on his lap, but neither of you mind. Some action movie begins playing on the screen but you’re not paying. All you can focus on is how warm Peter’s hand feels in yours. After a few minutes he gently lets go and you let yourself be upset for a moment until he wraps his arm around your shoulder. You're about to rest your head on his shoulder when your phone goes off, causing you both to jump. You mumble a quick apology before reaching forward to check the messages.

“You don’t have to be sorry. Is everything alright?” Peter asks and you roll your eyes, not at him but at the message.

“Yeah. My moms asking when I’m gonna be home. It’s family dinner and I’m not allowed to miss for any reason,” you say with a sigh.

“That’s sweet. I always wanted a big family to have stuff like that with,” he says with a sad smile and you gently take his hand.

“I got really lucky, but believe me it has its downsides. If I had a small family maybe we’d actually be able to go to my house every now and then,” your laugh draws one out of him as well and you smile.

“The grass is always greener I guess. I’ll walk you out,” he pulls you up and pauses at his front door.

“I’ll see you tomorrow,” you say smiling down at your joined hands.

“Yeah, text me when you get home safe,” Peter says and you nod. Before you can step away he leans in, placing a quick kiss to your cheek. You both blush but smile nonetheless.

“Bye Pete.”

“Bye y/n.” After his words you step away, walking towards the stairs. You don’t bother texting anyone, you know your mom is definitely waiting in a car downstairs.

xxxxx

“They keep asking questions,” you say quietly to Peter. The two of you are sitting on the bleachers after school.

“About us?” He asks and you nod. “We can tell them you know? Whenever you’re ready.”

“I’m just scared. You know how crazy they can get. And I’ve never had a boyfriend before. What if they’re mean to you? What if it gets so bad that you don’t wanna be with me anymore,” your eyes are glued to your own hands and Peter gently turns your face towards his.

“Y/n, I promise no matter how they react I’ll be right here. I know you’re scared and I know they’ll probably threaten to put me in some blacksite I’ll never return from, but that doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter because I care about you and I want you to be happy. I know this is tearing you up, and I want you to feel better. If that means telling them, then we tell them.”

“And you’ll do it with me?” You ask and he nods, “okay. I think I’m ready.”

xxxxx

“Hey guys,” you say to your family as you walk into the kitchen after school. They’re all gathered around the table going over plans for their upcoming mission, but all sound stops when they see the boy next to you.

“Hey kid, who’s your friend here?” Tony asks and Peter squeezes your hand gently, giving you the courage you need.

“This is Peter. He’s my...boyfriend,” you say softly, waiting for someone to say something. The silence draws out for what feels like hours but is probably little more than half a minute.

“It’s uh...it’s nice to meet you guys. I’m a big fan of your work…” Peter trails off awkwardly as your mom rises from her chair. Even surrounded by men twice her size she’s easily the most intimidating as she steps towards him.

“You better treat her right,” is all she says and Peter frantically nods.

“Yes ma’am. All I want is for her to be happy,” Peter says quickly and you see Steve crack a smile and Clint try to hide a laugh.

“Make sure she stays that way, and we won’t have any issues,” Tony says and you grin.

“Can Pete stay for dinner?” You ask and your mom nods. You turn to Peter and smile, “you said you wanted a big family dinner, get ready.”

xxxxx

“Peter watch out!” You call as you see a spoon flying towards the back of his head. His hand shoots up to catch it before he turns his head and your jaw drops.

“Uh...did somebody drop this?” He asks awkwardly and Clint gives the two of you a sheepish grin.

“Sorry Peter. I was aiming for Tony,” he says taking the spoon back.

“I guess these dinners are wild,” Peter says to you and all you can do is nod. You’re looking at him skeptically, that was a really lucky catch.

xxxxx

“Wanna go hang out on the field? It’s a really nice day,” you ask Peter and he smiles.

“Yeah, lead the way,” you take his hand and start dragging him through the winding halls of the compound. You step out the door smiling at the warmth of the sun. Before you can take another step Peter’s hand is around your waist, pulling you backwards against his chest.

“What the-“ you’re cut off by a drone flying in front of you where you had just stood.

“Sorry,” Peter lets go of you and you turn to look at him.

“How did you see that?” You ask and he shrugs. You notice the way he’s avoiding eye contact and the nervous twitch of his jaw, you were raised by spies after all.

“I don’t know. I saw it out of the corner of my eye.” You want to question him more but Tony is running over to apologize so you have to let it go.

xxxxx

Over the next few weeks you notice some things about Peter. Some similarities to the friendly neighborhood hero who operates near his apartment and never seems to be out and about during your dates.

“Pete!” You call, tossing your notebook in his direction and waiting for him to catch him effortlessly, despite the fact that he has his back to you.

“What am I doing with this?” He asks with that adorable smile and you falter for a second, you didn’t think of an excuse .

“Uh...can you check my science homework? You’re so much better at it than me,” you say after a moment and he furrows his brow. You’re both acing the class but he just shrugs and begins looking it over for you.

“It looks good,” he says, handing it back to you and you smile at him.

“So...have you heard of that new hero? spider boy or something?” You ask as casually.

“It’s Spider-Man!” He says quickly and you can and you see him tense up. “He’s kinda cool I guess.”

You try not to laugh at Peters failed attempt to look nonchalant, “whatever you say.”

xxxxx

It’s been two weeks since that whole spider boy incident and things are just getting more ridiculous. So far Peter has caught the notebook, the backpack, and the soccer ball you threw in his direction. He won’t come clean and you’ve decided to take things into your own hands after this one last test. You don’t say anything out loud, but you're silently praying you’re not wrong, as you toss his desk chair towards Peter. It took quite a bit out of you to throw it across the room but he spins around and catches it effortlessly.

“Whoa. That was a lucky catch,” he says and you roll your eyes.

“Seriously Pete? You’re still on that train?” You say exasperation clear in your voice

“What train? I’m not on a train. I don’t have anything to hide. Why’d you throw that at home anyway?” Peter starts rambling as you glance around his room. You pick up the baseball bat sitting by his desk and poke at the attic door, prompting a suit to fall which Peter quickly tries to hide.

“What was that about having nothing to hide?” You ask Peter. You’re a bit annoyed but there’s no real anger in your voice.

“I was gonna tell you,” he mumbles and you sigh.

“When Peter? It’s been months,” you take his hand, pulling him to sit next to you on his bed.

“I was! I just had to work all the kinks out. The people you live with? Your family? They’re the big leagues. I didn’t want to say anything to you until I knew I could at least start to measure up to them. I didn’t want you to think it was stupid,” he’s avoiding eye contact at all costs and you gently cup his cheek, bringing his head to face yours.

“Peter I could never think you were stupid. My mom has been training since she was little, and everyone else has ridiculous head starts. You just got into this game, but you’re trying to help people. That’s all that matters. You are using your abilities to change this work for the better, I could never think that was stupid,” you tell him firmly and you can see the tears shining in his eyes.

“You really mean that?” He asks and you nod.

“I do. You’ll get to the big leagues one day. For now just keep on being the friendly neighborhood Spider-Man that I know and love.”

“You love me?” He asks, a wide smile taking over his face. All you can do is nod and try to suppress the blush creeping across your cheeks. “I love you too.”

When you pull away from the kiss you smile, staring into his warm brown eyes. “It is kinda weird.”

“What is?” The nerves are back in his voice but your smile doesn’t falter.

“That the girl raised by superheroes fell in love with one,” you say and he grins.

“I guess it was fate.”

tag list: @rvgrsbrns @rororo06 @freerebel @prizmix-and-friends @m19friend @worlds-in-words @5aftermidnight @riotmaximoff

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asterekmess · 4 years ago

Text

S3A - E7

So, I’m starting this episode right after finishing the last one, and I’m still kinda riled up from that bullshit. Let’s get to pissing me off and breaking my heart then. Blood/gore mention warnings for this episode.

Exercise your eyes! Read More!

Let’s just jump right in:

Starting right off with forcing myself into putting the tag in. Scott literally just listened to his mother say that giving this woman something to lessen the pain of her injuries could complicate things and make it harder to treat her. This is like an important medical thing. While yes, it’s really upsetting that she would need to keep being in pain, she needs to be able to identify and explain what exactly she’s feeling to the doctor who is going to be arrive really soon (though I have no idea why the nurses aren’t able to get these people set up. That’s what they did with me? I didn’t see a doctor for like an hour, but they didn’t make me sit in the fucking waiting room before dealing with the blood.) Her pain level will have a direct effect on how quickly she’s seen. This moment is meant to show Scott being soft-hearted, but with the doctor only ten minutes away, he could literally be making this woman’s life a whole lot worse by taking away her pain right now. There is a reason why after I was given pain killers for my surgery I wasn’t allowed to be near any heavy objects. Her pain is keeping her from irritating her wound. She could fuck herself up if she stops responding to the signals her body is trying to send her. This is not the right way to make Scott look kind. He looks like an idiot who doesn’t even listen to his nurse mom.

WHo the FUCK would keep driving with a bunch of bugs in the car? She’s not even on the interstate! PULL OVER IDIOT.

I’m actually agreeing with Scott on this one. I have no idea how medically accurate what melissa just did was, but it look pretty damn cool.

WHat the hell is this conversation? First off, Ethan, you made VERY clear in the last episode that you want to bite Danny even after he said no. Even if that was the possession talking, it was based on what YOU wanted. Danny’s not safe with you. Second, what is this bullshit about knowing Lydia is the important one? Important to Stiles and ALlison maybe. Scott literally never talks to Lydia. THIRD how exactly did you guys come up with that idea when you went after them on the FIRST DAY? You sniff him on them? cus’ if so your noses are damaged.

what...what is with this ghost car shit? She was in the middle of the city, more than ten minutes away from the hospital and behind the traffic caused by the ten car pileup. How did the car drive itself ALL THE WAY here?

Ethan. you’re an alpha. you have night vision. You shouldn’t need to ask what the fucking MOTH in the middle of the driver’s seat is.

HI NOAH! I’ll be honest. I missed you. You’re a really good actor and you just make me feel all safe. WHich is weird bc I hate father figures and I hate cops. Linden Ashby is just too good, I guess.

It’s so frustrating watching Deucalion walk around with humans pretending to be blind. Because he is. He is Pretending to be blind. He’s already proved like a dozen times that he can see just fine when he turns on the Alpha eyes. Which doesn’t make SENSE because Deaton said his iris’ were permanently damaged. He doesn’t have two different sets of eyes! And it sucks, bc they put in these little things that it would’ve been awesome to see if they included an actual blind person properly. The casual use of the cane, taking someone’s elbow and the trust that implies, and even this. Having (that looks like ethan’s coat) Ethan explain what’s in front of Deucalion, describing the scene to him.

DEREK YOUR SECURITY SYSTEM SUCKS. HOW DID THEY DO THAT WITHOUT YOU WAKING UP? WITHOUT CORA NOTICING?

Also, Cora, you look amazing, can you please be my friend and can I hug you? I love your shirt.

I HATE THIS BITCH. Fuck you Julia.

uhh....why is an English teacher filling in for a chemistry/geometry teacher? That’s not how substitutes work. Making a joke out of it doesn’t make it make any more sense. SHe shouldn’t be doing that, especially if Harris has been missing for a while.

So your office can keep werewolves out, but not darach? Okay, let me go full conspiracy theorist here. we only know Deaton saw the moths because we see it. He just tells Scott that he’s going to be taken. This is a story that Scott is telling, so he couldn’t know that deaton saw the moths unless deaton told him. Julia is currently teaching a class. Are you seriously saying she doesn’t need to be involved at all in order to do these kidnappings? She can just put them on a timer and let the autmoatic spellwork do the job for her? OR Is deaton lying about being taken, and this is just a test he came up with to force Scott’s “True Alpha”ness to the surface? JUlia clearly had other plans for her sacrifice. I don’t think Deaton was a ‘distraction’ to keep Scott from finding the actual sacrifice. I think it was Deaton using the situation to his advantage.

why does deaton have a canine acupressure chart on his wall? I’ve never seen a vet’s office have that. Does he do alternative medicine for dogs??

BOYD. ISAAC. MY BOYS. I can’t tell you how much I love this. It’s so sneaky and annoying and so pack-ish I just love it so much.

BOYD YOU ARE A GENIUS BOY AND I LOVE YOU.

I swear, like ninety percent of what the ‘adults’ in this show say is ‘go back to school.’ ‘shouldn’t you be in school’ yadda yadda. Like, they want so badly to write the teens as though they never have to go to class, so they just make them constantly skip and ignore that these are fucking teenagers who would never be able to get out of school that easily, and they handwave it with someone occasionally going ‘hmm, weird that they aren’t in school’ and then just ignoring it? Truancy is like a THING that you can get in major trouble for. At least Boyd and Isaac called in sick. You know how you could have avoided all this class bullshit? PUT THE FUCKING SEASON DURING THE SUMMERTIME DUMBASSES.

It just hurts seeing Stiles beg for Scott not to make him tell his dad, and then turn right around and admit that it’s not okay for him to let other people suffer just because it scares him that he might lose his only parent. Like, he walks into that sacrifice with eyes wide fucking open and it hurts.

I’m not talking about these dumb sex scenes anymore. I’m so tired of them.

OKay, can we talk about the fire alarm thing though? It sounds like a jokey kind of thing with Aiden teasing Lydia about wanting to leave during the fire alarm but... Remember how Lydia was haunted by Peter’s burnt corpse? How she can hear the cries of the dead, and how she went wandering into the crumbling remains of the Hale house? There’s every chance that Lydia remembers the fire through Peter’s eyes. I wouldn’t be surprised if she was forever freaked by fire alarms.

Man, Cora and Lydia, together? The sass involved? If I didn’t ship Allydia so hard, I’d totally ship Cora and Lydia.

ONce again, I wanna point out that AIDEN IS A MURDERER. Literally all it would take is someone Explaining to Lydia that he is serial killer and she’d never touch him again.

Cora and Stiles together? I’m loving it. I just, wanna point out that when Scott showed up Cora couldn’t have given less of a shit. But here....Cora doesn’t remotely question Stiles’ authority here. She immediately goes along with it and when he tells her to let go of Cora she does. Even though she has no real reason to. When she asks about the spirit board, it’s a legit question and she doesn’t argue or make fun.

PLus there’s the whole ‘Well do you know any spirits” which straight up just confirms for me that ghosts and shit are real in this universe. I trust the Hales as lore sources and Cora’s matter-of-fact tone is good enough for me.

jesus christ i wanna get deucalion and Peter in a room together and watch them just...monologue random facts and trivia at each other endlessly. “Lacrosse was originally played by Native Americans.” “Do you know what a metronome is?” Guys. come on.

Exasperated Stiles is literally my favorite Stiles. “We’re trying to save lives here for the love of god” “YOU”RE SOMETHING, OKay? JUST put out your Hand” It’s so fucking good.

Someone EXPLAIN TO ME how Scott learned to do fucking gymnastics. WHEN DID HE LEARN THIS? I hate this bullshit “I’m a werewolf, so I can do anything” shit. Especially since it’s LITERALLY just Scott they let do it. Everyone else has to actually do the work to learn it.

So...how exactly does Deucalion know where Deaton is? This literally just supports my theory that Deaton set the whole thing up.

ALSO, since I already have the tag I feel no shame in pointing out that Scott didn’t even HESITATE when he learned Derek was going to die. He immediately asked about Deaton. Yeah yeah, Deaton is a father figure to him, but if that’s an acceptable excuse for Scott to use now, then it should count as an acceptable one when it’s STILES” FATHER BEING THREATENED (but I digress, we’re not there yet.)

How did I never notice that Lydia’s Left handed?

andd.....how did Lydia know that? How did Scott know that? What did Deucalion say that even remotely hints at Danny? Scott doesn’t know about Danny’s paper...what?

Fuck yeah, vengeful Boyd. I dig it.

uh....why couldn’t allison just stand next to Scott in the closet. you know, like she did while he was getting in? Also, why was Allison hiding with him anyway? It’s HER HOUSE and HER BEDROOM.

um....okay, i know that we all like the sterek fics where they have to hide in the closet and one of them pops a boner...but I’mma be real, it’s a lot more uncomfortable when I know she broke up with Scott and they’ve been in there for like ten seconds. Plus there’s the whole knowing that she DEFINITELY has enough room to move away and so does he. *shrug*

Side note: Allison where the fuck do you get these clothes? THey’re both awesome and...kinda weird? Did you buy that dress in france?

okay, i’ll admit it, i do actually kinda like the camera angle through the map, with the blacklight lighting up the symbols (though the symbols flash on and off a little too fast). It’s kinda cool.

uh, how would taking the picture help? You don’t have the blacklight over it? None of the markings are visible anymore

why does Chris keep walking in and out? AND WHY DIDN”T ALLISON DO THAT THE FIRST TIME?

Stiles in plaid and Converse? Yes. Yes. please. That’s so my aesthetic I’m so fucking jealous. He looks COMFY.

This whole interaction is just so fucking weird XD

But like, why would Stiles know to go through Danny’s stuff instead of just asking him why he might’ve been targeted??

HOW WOULD THEY KNOW TO CUT THE POWER? THIS DOESN’T MAKE SENSE. Why does the ALpha pack keep showing up with way more information than they should have? It’s so annoying! It’s one thing if Morrell is feeding them information, but she wouldn’t have KNOWN about this! This was a good plan and there’s NO REASON the Alphas should’ve known what Boyd, Isaac, and Derek were doing! What the fuck?

....god i love Derek’s red eyes.

....god i hate that I know where this is going.

....god i wish he’d just let them tear her apart.

I know that it’s meant to be setting up the cora/stiles thing, but I love that she doesn’t hesitate to touch him, and that when she stops him it’s with a very quiet “stop.” She’s really gentle with him, which is just fucking nice. Werewolves taking care to be gentle with Stiles is like...nice.

Since when did Scott know about the plan with Boyd and Isaac? Since when did Stiles know? Is Boyd seriously texting Cora while Derek and Kali are fighting, or did he text her as soon as the power was cut?

is this the first time we see a werewolf bounce off the mountain ash? I mean, I think so, but we also see Peter in S1 try to get past some. There’s no glowing when he comes into contact with the shield. It’s the same with Isaac and Erica in s2. I mean...I guess they’re just trying to upgrade the ash stuff? I gotta say though, I kinda prefered when there were no special effects. It seemed cooler when literally the only thing making it work was belief and having this totally invisible barrier that Peter couldn’t cross. It was cool.

....i think i’m procrastinating seeing the end of this fight. I’m gonna fucking cry.

Why...why does Isaac turn and yell ‘wait’ to Boyd when he was the one running forward to Julia? I am confusion.

Dude, if Alphas could break through mountain ash barriers then Talia Hale WOULDN”T HAVE DIED. THE HALE PACK WOULDn’T HAVE DIED.

I wanna point out here, that this fight between Derek and Kali makes sense for once. Him losing makes sense. We know that the Alphas are much older than they look, or at least Kali, Deucalion and Ennis were. Aiden and Ethan don’t show up in that flashback. ANyway, Kali’s probably in her thirties or forties. SHe’s much older than Derek and she’s been fighting for a lot longer, not to mention fighting to kill.

Seriously, someone get my boy a quarterstaff to knock her feet away.

I really really don’t understand this stuff. Why is it whenever people (I mean Derek, because it’s literally always Derek) get forced to use their werewolf claws/teeth (because again I cannot believe this is happening more than once) he for some reason can’t just...shift back? Retract his claws and fangs? Derek has amazing control, he should totally have been able to do it. With the venom it made sense, he was paralyzed. But now??

What exactly was the fucking point of having Scott break the mountain ash barrier, just to have the sheriff show up and shoot Deaton down? That was literally useless.

also, Noah is an amazing shot. Hot damn.

ALSO. LIterally all this info about true alphas is being whispered to Scott when he’s all alone? How the fuck am i supposed to trust that deaton even ever said that shit to Scott? He could totally be lying about it.

WHAT KIND OF TOTAL BULLSHIT BACKWARDS ASS PLOTLINE IS THIS? After half the season being about Deucalion attacking Derek and trying to get him into the pack, suddenly “Deucalion isn’t after Derek, he’s after you” WHAT? THat’s the STUPIDEST LAZIEST SHIT I’VE EVER SEEN.

and to end my rant BOYD SHOULD NOT HAVE DIED. ARE YOU KIDDING ME? PETER STUCK HIS ENTIRE HAND THROUGH DEREK”S CHEST IN SEASON 1 WHIL IN HIS ALPHA FORM AND THREW HIM INTO A WALL AND DEREK SURVIVED JUST FINE. WHAT IS THIS NONSENSE???

Final Thoughts: No. No, no, no no, no, and no. The ‘plotline’ of this episode is literally like fifteen things that have nothing to do with each other.

Admittedly, there were a few nice moments. Cora, Lydia, and Stiles was an awesome trio. Boyd, Isaac, and Derek was an awesome trio. The sheriff? Amazing. Melissa? A fucking hero. Danny, a genius saint.

All in all, I’m going to tear this episode to shreds in order to rewrite it. Get fucked, Davis.

#personal #anti-scott mccall #TeenWolf-Rewatch

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salthaven · 5 years ago

Text

Make A Change: P8

Part Eight

After her chat with, well, Chat, Marinette had gone to bed with a lot on her mind. She couldn’t help but think of Chat Noir’s words, of how distressed he’d seemed when she’d told him of her transfer.

Marinette spent way too long staring at her phone, contemplating if she should call Adrien. Because it was obvious that he’d been the one to bug Chat Noir, he’d been the one to ask about her to the cat hero. It was touching, she supposed.

She never called. Instead, she turned to Tikki. Tikki just smiled that soft, patient smile, and said that Marinette should get some sleep. So she did.

Now, on a perfectly average Tuesday morning, Marinette is back at her new school. She heads to her first hour, not wanting to be late. Félix is there as well, and he nods to her before returning his attention to his book. Marinette sits beside him and begins to draw, passing the time before class quickly. It’s quiet, and peaceful, and the first time in forever that Marinette could wake up without someone talking her ear off. It’s a nice change in pace, beside her new friend.

When class starts, it’s simple. Mr. Marcel assigns some worksheets and readings, and tells them to work in silence.

“You’re not the only ones who are sleep deprived,” he mutters, laying his head on his desk. “If you…” he yawns. “If you’re quiet enough, you can work with the person next to you.” Then he falls asleep.

Marinette blinks, then looks to Félix. “Is...is Mr. Marcel always like this?”

Félix snorts, how he does it without noise is lost on Marinette. “He falls asleep about half of the time. But when he’s awake, he’s awake.”

Marinette giggles, remembering how yesterday had gone. Mr. Marcel had been a bundle of energy, excitedly telling the room about their revolution. He’d gotten so caught up in his rant on the outfits (Marinette already liked him), that he’d cursed out the bell when it rang. “I look forward to the rest of the year, then.”

Félix smiles. “Me, too. Here, let’s get to work.”

“Right! Do you want to do the first half or the second half?”

“The second half is mainly about uniforms, aren’t you a fashion designer?”

“Yeah?”

Félix nods. “I’ll do the first half.”

Marinette can’t help but beam. “Thanks!” A few people shush her, and she blushes.

Félix spares a glance to the rest of the class, then returns his gaze to her. “You’ll learn quick, but we really don’t want to wake Mr. Marcel on these days. He’s vicious.”

“How bad?”

“As brutal as Syren and Stormy Weather.”

Marinette raises an eyebrow at Félix’s deadpan expression. “Waking him is as bad as two Akumas that could cause natural disasters that almost killed all of Paris, if not the whole world?”

Félix shrugs. “No, it’s just total fucking chaos.” He turns to his paper, beginning to read. After a few seconds, however, he looks back up to see Marinette gaping at him. “What?”

“Sorry I...I didn’t think you were the type to swear.” Marinette blushes. “That was a dumb assumption, sorry.”

He smiles. “I hear that a lot. I suppose I have a tendency to surprise people. A lot of people make assumptions after hearing a few things about me.” He shrugs again. “I let them think what they want, it’s more fun this way.”

Marinette giggles. “Wow, master of deception right here.”

“I try my best.”

They barely get the work done before class ends. When the bell rings, Mr. Marcel doesn’t wake up. Nobody seems surprised, so Marinette heads to Language Arts.

Allegra is already there when Marinette arrives, so Marinette slides into the seat beside her.

“Good morning, Allegra!” Marinette says happily. “How are you?”

Allegra smiles sweetly. “I’m great, sunbeam, how about you?”

Marinette blinks. “I’m doing well! But, uh, sunbeam?”

Allegra nods. “You are such a sweet ray of sunshine, the name seemed fitting.”

“I’ve never heard that one, so thank you?” Marinette thinks back to her old class, and says, “One of my classmates was called sunshine boy, though.”

“Really? How could he surpass you for the title?” Allegra asks with brimming curiosity. “He must have been the definition of joy to get it!”

“Well, he was always happy, but I think it’s because he was blond,” Marinette admits. “Adrien was always looking for peace, even when...even when it was better that he didn’t.” She winces, shoving away the thoughts.

Allegra picks up on the wince, but for the wrong reason. “Adrien? Is he an ex of yours?”

Marinette snorts. “Not an ex, I was ‘just a friend’ in his eyes.”

Allegra winces, too. “Ooh, one sided love. It is always a tragedy.”

“Disappointing, maybe, but not a tragedy. I knew it was time to move on when I realized it would never work out, so...here I am.”

“You changed schools to get away from a boy?!” Allegra shouts, and a few of their classmates turn to face Marinette, who blushes.

“No! I transferred to...to get away from my whole class. It’s complicated!” Marinette says, before Allegra can question her reasoning. “I just wanted to get away from all of that. It wasn’t a good place for me.”

“I see. That makes sense,” Allegra concedes.

“Makes sense?”

“Didn’t you come from the Akuma school?” Allegra waits for a response, but continues when Marinette just tilts her head in confusion. “Weren’t, I forget the exact number, forgive me, about twenty Akumas from your school alone?”

Marinette flinches. “That...that sounds accurate.” Especially when she considers the two biggest reasons she left the school, and that they both had multiple Akuma forms. Yeah...she really did go to the Akuma school.

(Really, shouldn’t that be a sign that there might be something wrong with the school? Like a habit of victim blaming and unchecked bullies? No? Alright.)

Allegra smiles kindly. “Well, at least you’re here now! You should be safer, right?”

Fate isn’t kind to those who tempt her, and a sudden scream alerts them of the fickle mistress of life.

“A pop quiz? On a Tuesday? Who does that?!” In storms an Akuma, who clutches all sorts of note cards and loose papers. “Not anymore, I say! I am PaperCut, and I will cut this senseless negativity out of my life forever!” Laughing maniacally, the boy sends some of the papers at the classmates like projectiles. The class scatters, racing for any available exit. Allegra darts through the back door of the room, some jump through the open windows. Marinette glances around, seeing how PaperCut approaches her desk...then looks up. She sees that a tile in the ceiling wasn’t put all the way in, and if she jumps-

“Hey! Leave her alone!” Mr. Jean shouts, and it’s all the distraction Marinette needs. She climbs onto her desk and leaps up, grabbing onto the ceiling. Using all of the strength she’s gained during her time as Paris’s heroine, she pulls herself up, until she’s out of sight. Quickly, the bluenette scrambles away, looking for a way out of the ceiling. A few minutes later, she finds a light and pushes out the tile, letting herself fall down.

She lands in the bathroom. The currently filled boys’ bathroom. All of them shriek when they see her, and she races out yelling apologies. She shoves her way into the girls’ bathroom, which is, luckily, completely empty.

“That was a close save!” Tikki says.

“I’m just glad I could make that jump,” Marinette admits. “I wasn’t sure if I would be able to pull myself up. But that’s not important right now! Tikki, spots on!”

A flash of pink covers her, and Ladybug darts back out, already calling for Chat Noir.

No response.

“Come on,” Ladybug mutters as she hears a crashing. It seems she’s found the Akuma.

PaperCut storms into the hall as a teacher runs away, yelling profanities. “Yeah, try to outrun me you foul bast-”

“Now, we all know foul language isn’t allowed in a place like this,” Ladybug chides, cutting him off.

PaperCut glares at her. “You’re trying to stop me, aren’t you? Well I’m not going back! I’m not taking a stupid physics test!” He raises his arm and throws more notes at her.

“I’m sure it will be fine,” Ladybug tries to soothe him, but it’s a bit tricky when she’s more focused on dodging paper projectiles. “You’ll do better than you think!”

“I don’t even know how to measure circles!” PaperCut shouts in frustration, and Ladybug pauses.

“Isn’t that geometry?” She asks, and PaperCut throws his hands in the air.

“How am I supposed to know?” He lunges at her, and she leaps out of the way. She looks for her partner, where is he?

“I think everything will go purr-fectly!” Chat says as he rounds the corner, and Ladybug sighs in relief. “And besides, there’s always next time!”

“Next time doesn’t matter! What matters is right now! And right now, I’m going to take you two down.” He raises a hand to throw more papers-

And falls over.

Ladybug looks up, surprised to find...Félix? He stands there, a textbook in his hands.

“Knowledge is power, Ladybug,” Félix says, then picks up a glowing purple flashcard. “I think this is the Akumatized object.”

“Cataclysm?” Chat reaches out and taps the object, and Ladybug catches the Akuma before it can flutter away. In seconds, any damage is undone, and the victim scurries off, muttering about gravity.

“Thank you…” Ladybug forces herself to hesitate.

“Félix.” He looks around. “Have you seen Marinette?”

“Marinette?” Chat perks up, eyes widening. “She goes here now?”

Félix nods slowly, and Ladybug can see the confusion in his eyes. “Yes. It’s her second day. My friend, Allegra, texted me. PaperCut stormed into their class, and Allegra couldn’t get ahold of her. Have either of you seen her?”

Ladybug smiles, trying to be calm. “Yeah! She was hiding in the ceiling, last I checked!”

“The ceiling?!”

Ladybug shrugs. “She’s a smart girl.”

Chat sighs wistfully. “Yeah she is. That’s my Princess.”

Ladybug isn’t sure how to feel, and Félix seems just as confused. Chat’s ring finally beeps, giving him a cue to leave.

“I’ll see you later, bugaboo!” Chat says cheerfully, then darts to a classroom and leaps out of the window.

Ladybug smiles at Félix. “I have to go, but if I see Marinette I’ll tell her it’s safe to head back.”

“Thank you.”

Ladybug nods, then darts away. Once out of view, she leaps into the ceiling before detransforming, then crawls back to her classroom. She lets herself fall down, scaring Allegra.

At lunch, she’s greeted by two unamused faces.

“Really, the ceiling?” Félix asks, and all Marinette can do is shrug.

It’s, in other words, a rather normal day for Marinette Dupain-Cheng.

~~~

After a long wait, I finally was able to make another part!!!

Tags: @domena151 @fatimaabbasrizvi @blackcanary13 @7-sage-7 @chez-pezeater @captainmac6 @riarkle-felinettelove @crazylittlemunchkin @vixen-uchiha @goggle-mcgee @legendaryneckjudgestudent @demigodgirl20031 @interobanginyourmom @crayrandomrebel @tinybrie @positive-growth @northernbluetongue @sweetkyoka @hypnosharkrebeldreamer @schrodinger25 @celestialtitania @athenalovesredsblog @magnitude101999 @kristycocopop @melicmusicmagic @poshplumcot @ur-average-reader @dani-ari @ginamarie1512 @kuroko26 @ayuchan07 @hnbutt @minightrose @mochinek0

#MakeAChangeAU #it's about time #really mari #the ceiling?!?#fe can't handle this #agreste boys be like: mari no #ope chat noticed a thing or two

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captainjimothycarter · 4 years ago

Note

just did some really annoying hw and came up w/ this prompt: steggy dealing with their kids’ difficult hw.

OP, bless you because I know how difficult HW is, especially math. Flashbacks to me crying over math homework and not getting it. This might not be what you wanted butttt..

The last Steve expected when he came home at ten at night was to still find their high schooler son and Peggy still up despite the late hour. He couldn’t help the frown on his lips as he sat his bag by the door and hung his coat up. From his position, he could see straight into the kitchen how the mother and son mirrored one another in their frustrated looks.

Peggy’s brow furrowed and Chester’s lips were pursed. Their brows were pinched in both concern and frustration and he could see the growing number of crumpled up balls of paper around them. Chester’s laptop was opened to some math calculator and formula page. Peggy was muttering about ‘not rocket science’ and how ‘that was easy’ and this wasn’t.

“Doesn’t Chester have band practice in the morning?” Steve asked, letting his presence be known as he walked noisily towards them. Even still, his question caused them both to jump from where they were too buried in their work. “Son, don’t you gotta be up at 5?”

“Not anymore,” Chester sighed, pushing his glasses up the bridge of his nose and rubbing at his face. “Mr. Phillips’ wife had their baby last night. He texted all of us to let us know and said the practice is canceled. The football game is put on hold till next week cause of it. The bandmates and I are getting together after school tomorrow to go see ‘em.”

Steve’s lips twitched into a small smile, a reminder of how selfless his son was. While Chester took after him in heights and looks with his small frame and need of glasses, it was nothing towards his stubborn attitude like his mother and how he will get stuff done. He might’ve been bullied once in school for his frame and how he was a ‘nerd’ being into comics and band but he shut that down and the bully mysteriously had to have his head pulled out of a tuba.

Peggy still gives him shit for laughing at the photo.

“Oh, she’s precious,” he breathed, looking at the photo Chester was showing him of the infant baby girl. “You two need some help?”

“Unless you can figure out geometry….” Chester’s shoulders shrugged and he yawned. “We’ve been at it since before dinner. Mum had to order take out.”

“Thai in the fridge,” Peggy muttered, not even looking up as Steve heated the food up. “I don’t get it. We’re following the formula. How is it saying we’re wrong?”

“I think you two need a break. You’ve been at it for hours, it’s ten-thirty. Chest needs sleep, Pegs. We’ll email your teacher in the morning, tell her how not even your parents can understand it.” He kissed Chester’s head and took his vacant spot when the kid stumbled off to finally get some sleep.

As he shoved curry into his mouth, Steve picked up the piece of paper they were working on. All he saw were numbers, shapes, and formulas written in the chicken scratch Chester called handwriting. Christ, he was an architect you’d think he’d get this.

Hell, you’d think his NASA-worker wife would get this too!

“What the hell are they teaching kids these days?” Peggy huffed, giving up. She stalked over to the alcohol cabinet and poured her and Steve a stiff whiskey, passing him the drink. “That’s not like how we grew up learning. Remember us teaching Chest division?”

“Fuck, don’t remind me,” Steve groaned. “It was right. The answers were right, but that woman marked them all wrong because we were ‘teaching him the wrong way and plaguing his mind.’ I’m still pissed about that and that was years ago. Remember reading? And cursive?”

It was Peggy’s turn to roll her eyes as she threw back the rest of her drink, sitting beside Steve. “I remember. That bastard called us to tell us we were making the other kids feel bad because Chester could read at an advanced level. Or how that counselor tried to guilt us into making Chester skip a grade or two.”

“His grades were outstanding and he loved his friends, I wasn’t about to make him skip several grades to make them or us look better. He wasn’t that bored in class and when he was, he knew just to read a book and his teachers let him.” Steve’s head shook, pushing the empty container out of the way as he picked up the paper again to review it.

“I think I’m ready to call it,” Steve continued, setting the paper down and closing his kids’ laptop. “We’re old.”

“You’re old,” Peggy grumbled, draping her arms around Steve’s neck to kiss him before starting to clean the kitchen. “We better catch up fast, Steve because sooner or later we’re going to have baby number two and Chest will be in college.”

#Steggy #StevePeggy #Steggy Prompt #Nonny Prompt #Domestic Steggy #Fluff #Pre-Serum Steve Rogers

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ghostsray · 4 years ago

Text

kin assigned fenton pt. 2

(i hope those of you who read my fenton-phantom au fic wanted more because it’s gonna be a multichapter fic now :) this is supposed to be based on @darks-ink‘s phic phight prompt, but while i was writing it i forgot what the original prompt was, so i forgot that they werent supposed to gain each other’s memories...oops. i hope that’s fine)

(ao3)

summary: phantom makes some friends :)

After day 10 of being stuck inside someone else's body, Phantom finally got used to waking up in the human world.

He opened his eyes to be greeted by the now-familiar star-shaped stickers stuck on the roof. He was starting to hate those plastic stars. While he at first appreciated how neatly Danny had placed them in the shapes of constellations, now they only served to remind him that he was still living Danny's life while the real guy's ghost was in who-knows-where.

Phantom sat up in bed and squinted as the rays of sunlight hit his eyes through the window. He had learned in science class that the sun was a star, and Phantom hated it as much as he hated the fake stars on the ceiling. He missed the blissful darkness of the Ghost Zone. Everything was so dang bright in the human world.

Phantom threw back his (really Danny's) covers and got up. After a week and a half of living as a human, he had settled into a morning routine. Get out of bed, ignoring the terrible pull of gravity on your stolen human body. Go to the bathroom, pointedly refusing to look at the mirror to see Danny's face. Do your business without feeling too weird about your nut not being yours, wash your hands and brush your teeth, go back to Danny's room and change clothes. Stop and gaze at the photograph sitting on Danny's desk which you never moved since you found it, showing Danny and his friends, and wonder where Danny's ghost was.

It's been a week and a half since Danny disappeared after their fight with the toilet ghost. The toilet ghost had unsurprisingly reformed in his haunt in the Casper High restroom, which Phantom knew after one startling bathroom break, but he seemed content just to chill without causing trouble. Danny never reappeared. Phantom honestly felt annoyed at Danny for leaving him to handle his life on his own, which felt very awkward when he knew next to nothing about it.

Or maybe not. Phantom hissed and pressed a hand against his temples as an image assaulted his brain. The smell of the wilderness, a dog's fur under his hands, firewood burning while he and the other Fentons sat with their Aunt Alicia around the firelight, the stars shining above them. Phantom pinched his arm and twisted it, and the image disappeared.

He knew a thing or two about human anatomy, and he knew that he currently had Danny's brain--including his memories. The longer he spent in this body, the more memories he gained access to. How much longer until he remembered all of Danny's life? And if he gained Danny's earthly memories, will he lose his own memories of the Ghost Zone? Will he even be able to tell himself apart from Danny?

Phantom tried not to think about it too much.

He went downstairs to the kitchen. Danny's parents (Maddie and Jack, he had learned were their names) were, as usual, tinkering with some anti-ghost weaponry at the table. Phantom focused on anything but those weapons and tried not to feel too threatened by them. They didn't even work on him, not while he was in their son's body.

There had been a few small ghosts that came through the portal since it had opened, but they never lasted long before either Fenton captured them. Phantom didn't know what they did to the ghosts, and he was too scared to peek into the lab to find out. All he knew was that he sometimes imagined hearing echoing screams rise from the basement. He was just glad none of the ghosts had been someone he knew so far.

Jazz didn't seem bothered by the weapons. She was eating her breakfast while simultaneously reading a book about psychology. At first, Phantom had assumed she studied psychology because she still thought he was crazy for believing himself to be an ex-ghost, but he quickly realized that she simply liked learning about the subject.

He sat down, ignoring the tremors that came from being too close to the ghost hunters, and didn't speak as he ate his breakfast--eggs and bacon, which wasn't as sweet as cereal, but not bad. Apparently, Maddie and/or Jack often accidentally got some ectoplasm from their research onto the food they cooked, which gave it the tangy aftertaste of ecto-plasm. That only made Phantom feel more nostalgic for his old afterlife.

Jazz looked up from her book to check the clock in the kitchen, scraped off the remainder of her meal, and stood up. "Ready for school, Danny?" she said.

Phantom tensed his jaw. "Yeah," he said and stood up with Danny's backpack. He tried not to show any discomfort at being called Danny. After all, he had given up trying to convince the Fentons of his true identity after that first day.

Just like the previous ten days, Jazz drove him to school. He watched the scenery that passed by through the window. He used to find it captivating, how different the landscape was from the Zone and how many humans and animals were alive in this world. Now, he just wished once more that he could return home already.

The now-familiar building of Casper High appeared in front of them, and they exited the car after Jazz parked. Phantom let his stolen body go on autopilot as it moved toward class. Honestly, he used to think the Ghost Zone was boring, but the human world was even more mundane. He just went to the same classrooms every day to learn something about the same old subjects.

As he passed by a hallway, he caught a glimpse of a black-clad girl with a black ponytail. He felt his body tense up as he met Sam's violently violet eyes for a brief second. Then they turned away from each other and moved on.

It was awkward, being anywhere near Danny's old friends. Sam and Tucker were the only other humans who really knew about Phantom, and it didn't make things any easier between them. Imagine your best friend was dead and some stranger took his place, which nobody knew about but you...

They didn't talk much.

"Okay, that's it," some girl said next to him. "What is going on between you and your friends?"

Phantom blinked and turned around to look at her. She had blonde hair with a flower pin holding it away from her face, and she was crossing her arms and looking directly at him. It took him a few slow moments before he asked, "Are you talking to me?"

The blonde rolled her eyes and said, "Yes, I'm talking to you, Fenton. You, Manson, and Foley used to be inseparable. Now, it almost seems like you guys are avoiding each other. So what's up?"

Phantom winced and fidgeted with the hem of his shirt. How could he possibly describe that the reason they weren't friends anymore was because he was someone else? After failing to come up with a decent explanation, he decided to use the good ol' method popular among ghosts and growled, "None of your business."

The girl blinked, then smirked. "Wow, Danny. You're a lot tougher than I remember."

Phantom clenched his jaw and turned away. Even with him gaining Danny's memories, it was getting harder each day to pretend to be him. He really wished Danny would come back already, if only to give him some pointers on how to live his life.

He barely made it past a row of lockers before a fist suddenly slammed against a locker right in front of him. Phantom jumped back and looked up into the angry blue eyes of one Dash Baxter. He slumped. "Oh. You again."

Dash gritted his teeth and growled, "I've been holding it together for a week, but I really need to take out my anger on someone."

"What is it this time?" Phantom said noncommittally. "A failed test?"

"It's the fucking locker," Dash said, his breath burning in Phantom's face.

"A...locker?"

Dash grabbed Phantom by his shirt and raised him, his blue eyes glaring holes into him. "The fucking locker! Ever since a row of 'em was mysteriously dented, I had to get a new one near the band room. Which, sure, no biggie, right? But god, every Wednesday there's band practice, and those geeks have to come near me with their stupid spittle and annoying loud instruments. And guess what day it is today?"

"Wednesday?" Phantom guessed.

"Fucking Wednesday!" Dash slammed Phantom against the wall of lockers, which made his head vibrate with pain. At least Phantom knew why Sidney hated bullies so much. They really, really sucked.

Dash was about to give Phantom another painful attack, but just then the bell rang, and everyone filed to class. Dash gave Phantom one more shove before letting go and sneering. "Saved by the bell, but not for long. Get ready for a beating later."

Phantom had a sarcastic comment in mind, but he knew from experience that angering someone stronger than you was never a good idea. So he just glared at Dash's back while Dash stalked away. As he did, Phantom thought he saw what looked like a wisp of smoke following after the jock...but when he blinked, it disappeared.

Phantom scratched his head as he glared at the math worksheet on the desk in front of him. Of all the subjects, geometry was the worst. He never thought that it was important for him to know (maybe because shapes continually shifted in the Ghost Zone), so he never bothered learning it. Apparently, Danny's memories didn't do him much good, either.

Tucker sat next to him. When Danny was still around, that seating arrangement was probably awesome--two best friends sitting right next to each other. Now, it was just awkward. He and Tucker did their best to pretend that the other didn't exist...which was why he was surprised when Tucker leaned in and whispered, "Want some help?"

Phantom looked up at him in surprise. He was watching him from behind those thick glasses of his. The human fidgeted and added, "Don't get me wrong, I still think your whole...situation is weird. But no one deserves to be tortured by school material."

Phantom pursed his lips and looked back to his paper. Of the two of Danny's friends, Tucker had always been the more open. Sam, on the other hand...maybe she already wore black daily before Phantom entered the picture, but he couldn't look at her and not think that it looked like funeral attire, worn for the death of her real friend.

"Sam hates me," Phantom whispered.

"She doesn't hate you," Tucker responded. "She just misses Danny. So do I."

Phantom gazed at the printed numbers sadly. "I don't know where he is. The last I saw or heard from him was on the same day you guys last did."

He didn't need to look at Tucker to know that his words disappointed him. There was a tense silence between them for a moment, then Tucker broke it by saying, "You need to find the cosine."

"Huh?"

Tucker tapped his paper and said, "The first question. You need to find the cosine of the triangle to know the missing angle."

"Oh," Phantom said, feeling stupid.

Tucker spent the rest of the period whispering methods to help him solve their geometry problems when the teacher wasn't listening. Phantom kept sneaking glances at the boy. Tucker's eyes were glued to the schoolwork, refusing to look at Phantom, probably to make it easier to pretend that he wasn't inside his best friend's body. Phantom didn't mind. It was more than enough for him that Tucker even considered talking to him.

Class ended, and Phantom and Tucker gathered their things and stood. Phantom waited for Tucker to leave, but he stayed around while everyone else filed out the classroom. Phantom fidgeted.

"Thank you," he said, figuring that was what the human was waiting for him to say. "For, you know. Helping me out."

Tucker pushed his glasses up and scratched his neck. "I figured it wasn't fair for me to judge you for...being you." As in, not being Danny. "From what I gathered, you didn't ask to be in your situation, either."

"Ancients, no," Phantom confirmed. "I hate being alive."

Tucker raised an eyebrow. "I thought ghosts generally want to be alive again."

"Why'd you think that?"

Tucker shrugged. "It's what's always shown in horror movies."

Phantom didn't know what sorts of ghost myths were broadcasted in human-made movies. He almost opened his mouth to argue, but he hesitated.

Did he hate being alive? He hated being thrust here from the Ghost Zone against his will, and he hated having to live someone else's life. But not everything in the human world sucked. It was definitely more peaceful than the Zone.

"I think I just hate being alive as someone I'm not," Phantom said.

Tucker softened. Phantom wished he didn't. Ghosts rarely showed sympathy to each other, and the way Tucker looked at him was closer to pity. Phantom averted his eyes and busied himself with Danny's school supplies.

"Well," Tucker said, "I can't imagine what you're going through, but it sounds like a lot. I know you're not Danny...but that doesn't mean we can't be friends."

Phantom looked up in surprise and found Tucker smiling at him timidly. He hadn't thought about how lonely he had gotten since getting stuck inside Danny's body. He missed his friends from the Ghost Zone, and Tucker missed Danny. Maybe befriending each other could fill a hole in both their hearts.

Then he saw the doorway behind Tucker and faltered. There stood a girl with a black ponytail wearing black clothes, like funeral attire, and staring between the two with a look bordering on betrayal.

Tucker followed his gaze and froze at the sight of her. "Sam!" he called out, but Sam had turned away and was walking rapidly down the hallway. He glanced back at Phantom, but Phantom had shifted his focus back to Danny's schoolthings. Tucker hesitated for one second before dashing out the classroom after Sam.

Phantom tried not to feel hurt. He knew Sam felt guilty for inadvertently causing the whole switch between him and Danny. He just wished she didn't act like it was his fault. He looked around the classroom and found himself alone...aside from one other student.

As soon as Phantom caught him staring, the redheaded boy quickly looked away and pretended to pack away his things. All he succeeded in doing was drop his pencil, and he cursed and dropped on his knees to pick it up from where it had rolled away on the floor.

Phantom recognized the boy. He was the only other human besides Tucker and Sam who knew about him because he was there during Danny's ghost fight. Wesley, he'd heard the teacher call him. This was not the first time Phantom found Wesley watching him, yet the human never approached him or said anything. It was unnerving.

Phantom walked toward Wesley just in time for the boy to stand up and come face to face with Phantom. Wesley squeaked and jumped back, dropping his pencil again.

"I'm not going to hurt anyone," Phantom said.

Wesley leaned awkwardly against the desk behind him, trying and failing to look casual. "Why? Were you planning to?" he replied.

"No, so you don't have to be scared of me."

"I'm not scared," Wesley said, his voice a little too high. Phantom was unimpressed.

"I'm a ghost."

"You mean Danny is a ghost."

Phantom bit his lip. Right, he wasn't a ghost anymore. One would think he would get used to that idea after spending a week as a human.

He looked at the floor, where the dropped pencil sat. He bent down, picked it up, and offered it to Wesley. Wesley stiffened before warily accepting it from him. Yeah, he was definitely still scared of him.

Phantom held back a sigh and left the classroom, not looking back at Wesley. He wished he had one of his ghost friends to talk to. He turned his head to the side and inwardly groaned when he saw a familiar stocky figure approach...Dash.

Luckily for him, he was not the closest nerd in Dash's path. An unfortunate, scrawny boy with glasses backed away as Dash came near. Dash grabbed him by the arm before he could run, and Phantom winced in expectation of the beating Dash was about to deliver to the poor human.

The beating never came.

"Mikey!" Dash greeted in a--was that a friendly tone? "What are you so scared for? I just wanted to thank you for your help on our chemistry homework."

Phantom could tell from Mikey's befuddled expression that he wasn't the only one who found Dash's behavior odd. "Um...you're welcome?"

Dash grinned and patted Mikey's head. "Anyone ever tell you you're a great guy?"

Mikey was growing outright terrified of Dash's out-of-character action. "Did you hit your head? Aren't you going to stuff me inside a locker? Look, here's an empty locker right here!"

There was a violent twitch in the jock's face at the mention of locker-stuffing, but it quickly reverted to a grin as he said, "Of course not! I've realized my mistake. No more bullying from me."

Mikey still seemed wary, but he started to relax. "Really?"

Dash laughed heartily and slapped Mikey's back, causing the small nerd to stumble. "Oh, just go already. Wouldn't want to miss your next class, would you?"

Mikey sent one last confused look at Dash before fast-walking down the hallway. Everyone who was standing around and heard Dash's conversation was also staring in confusion, but Dash gave them all a bright smile before continuing on his way with an oddly cheery step. As he passed by Phantom, Phantom managed to catch a glimpse of his eyes.

His irises were gray.

Phantom thought that there was something familiar about the way he spoke, and the eyes only confirmed it.

He wondered if desiree had been reading his thoughts...because it looked like his wish just got granted.

Down a hallway, a student was taking out his anger on a vending machine. "Come on," he grumbled, kicking it. "I just want one soda!"

A shadow descended upon him, and he turned around frightfully to be faced with the infamous star quarterback. "D-Dash!" he greeted with wide eyes. Like everyone else in school, he knew Dash's short temper and his tendency to take it out with violence.

But Dash didn't seem angry in that moment. In fact, he was smiling, the expression strange on his usually sour face. "Hey, there, pal. Let me get that for you," he said and walked forward to the vending machine.

To anyone else watching, Dash used some subtle trick to get the machine to spew out a can. But to Phantom, who stood a distance away watching him inconspicuously, it was apparent that "Dash"'s trick was of a ghostly nature.

'Dash' held up the soda can and offered it to the student generously. "Here ya go! One free egg cream."

The teen raised an eyebrow at him. "Uh, you okay, Dash? You're acting...weird."

"I'm acting nice," 'Dash' said, still wearing his warm smile. "No longer do you have to fear me as a bully, because I've put that life way behind."

"Wow, really?" he replied and accepted the soft drink tentatively.

"Of course!" 'Dash' spread out his arms eagerly and said to all the students milling around, "In fact, why bother with one drink? Free egg creams for everyone!"

He stuck his hand into the vending machine again and caused several cans to flow out. The move was so obviously ghost-powered, it amazed Phantom how inattentive humans were. All of them were too busy grabbing a soda cheerfully.

"I have no idea what an egg cream is, but thanks, Dash!" one jock said.

"No problem-o," 'Dash' replied with a grin and a wink, then lifted a can to his mouth for a sip.

Phantom decided that enough was enough. He had watched this ghost parade around in Dash's body for several periods, never approaching him because he had no idea what to say--Should he tell him about his situation? Would he even believe him? It didn't matter. If he didn't make a move now, the school day would be over, and the ghost might still stay inside the bully's body.

He made his way through the crowd gathered around the vending machine and walked up to the person wearing Dash's face. Once he got close enough, he whispered, "They don't have drinks like these in the Ghost Zone, do they?"

'Dash' choked on his soda. He hacked and thumped on his chest to expel the soft drink from his lungs. "Stupid human body," Phantom heard him mutter. Then he looked down at Phantom with a scowl that almost made him look like the regular Dash again. "Who are you?"

Phantom eyed the humans around them. They weren't paying any attention to them, but still... "Maybe we should talk somewhere more private," he said in a low voice.

The ghost in Dash's body grabbed him by the arm, then pulled both of them through a wall. Phantom stumbled as he let go. "Really? Using ghost powers in plain sight?"

The ghost waved Dash's hand carelessly. "Please. Even if anyone did see us, most humans don't even believe in ghosts."

"So it is you," Phantom said, "Sidney."

Sidney, because that indeed was him, narrowed Dash's eyes at him. "How do you know me? You can't be a ghost because I don't sense anyone overshadowing you."

"I am a ghost...or, I used to be." Phantom ran a hand through his hair. "Ugh, this is weird to explain, and I don't even know if you'll believe me, but...it's me. Phantom."

"Phantom? What makes you think I believe you?" He was watching him intently, no doubt wondering how a human could know not only his name but also his missing friend's name.

"Remember when you found out I was going to vandalize someone's lair and went after my ass for that because apparently that's bullying, but when you found out it was Aragon, you changed your mind and joined in with me? You specifically wrote "Aragon is a Mickey Mouse" in grafitti before we had to run away when his guards found us."

The gray eyes widened, and Sidney breathed, "Holy Ancients--Phantom?"

The next thing Phantom knew, he was being crushed in Dash's burly arms. Sidney had never been a physically strong ghost, but he sure as hell was possessing a physically strong human body.

"I can't believe it! Where have you been these past few days? No one's heard from you--I thought for sure you were toast!"

Phantom struggled in his bone-crushing embrace. "Human body," he wheezed. "Have to breathe."

Sidney sheepishly let go, and Phantom was able to take in gulps of air.

"But I don't get it," Sidney said, frowning. "How come I didn't sense you in there?"

Phantom bit his lip. "That's the part that's hard to explain. Somehow, I don't have any of my ectoplasm anymore, but I'm, well...stuck? I'm stuck inside this human body because, I guess...his soul sort of...left the same time my soul went in?"

Sidney tilted Dash's head and frowned. "What are you saying?"

Phantom sighed. "I'm saying I'm alive because I accidentally stole a human's body."

"That's..." Sidney threw Dash's arms out with wide eyes and exclaimed, "That's amazing!"

Phantom frowned. "No, it's not! I can't leave!"

"But, Phantom, you're alive! Do you have any idea what I would do to get a chance at being alive again?"

"But I'm living someone else's life!" He bunched the fabric of his shirt in a sweaty fist and said, "It's wrong. And confusing."

Sidney's enthusiasm died down a bit, and he said, "Right. The human world must be strange for someone who doesn't remember his human life."

Phantom raised an eyebrow. "I'm a Zone-born ghost. I didn't have a human life."

"Right," Sidney said again, his eyes darting to the side. Phantom frowned. He was pretty sure that he formed in the Ghost Zone, but the way Sidney acted was almost as if he was hiding something.

Before he could ask anything, Sidney said, "I don't get it, though. How did this happen?"

Phantom decided to file away Sidney's odd behavior to think about at a later time. For now, he answered, "I think it had to do with the portal opening in the exact spot I was in."

"Wait, portal? What portal?"

He could tell from Sidney's (or rather Dash's) surprised expression that this was his first time hearing about the portal, and that confused Phantom. "How did you get here?" Phantom asked.

"Haunted relic," Sidney responded, puffing out Dash's chest. "I left behind a mirror in my lifetime that is apparently still around in this school. I just needed someone to touch it so I can overshadow them." His eyes sparkled, and he added eagerly, "But you're saying someone created a portal? Does that mean I can visit this world in person?"

"No!" Phantom exclaimed. Sidney stared at him. He quickly gulped and said, "I mean...it's being guarded by ghost hunters."

"Ghost hunters?" Sidney laughed. "Come on, those are always fake."

"These ones aren't," Phantom murmured. He absentmindedly rubbed his chest, where the Fenton couple had tried shooting him--only for all of them to discover that their weaponry didn't work on him while he was in Danny's body.

"Then I'll just pass through at night," Sidney replied. "Even ghost hunter humans have to sleep, right?"

That made sense, but Phantom still felt uneasy. Admittedly, it was a little hard to feel calm when the organ inside his chest (his heart) was beating more aggressively than usual. "I don't know. I still think it's a bad idea."

Sidney's gray eyes narrowed at him. "Why don't you want me to come?" He jabbed an accusing finger at Phantom and said, "You decided to make this place your haunt, didn't you?"

"What?" Phantom's eyes widened. "No! You know I don't care about owning a territory. And this school's already haunted, anyway."

"Then why don't you want me coming through?"

"I don't know!" Phantom cried, his heart threatening to burst through. Didn't he know? His head ached as he felt another one of Danny's memories flash before him, which really didn't feel like the right time for this. But he saw what humans thought of ghosts. Danny wasn't the only human afraid of specters. If one suddenly appeared...the humans would freak out. And this was such a calm world.

Sidney's eyes scrutinized him while he clutched his head and winced. Finally, Dash's body relaxed. "Okay," Sidney said. "I won't cross through, but only because you're my friend."

Phantom gave him a grateful smile, which wasn't as pleasant as it could have been without the emotional turmoil. "Thank you."

Sidney seemed disgruntled about his decision, but he straightened Dash's letterman jacket and smirked. "For now, I might as well enjoy my time in the human world while I'm in this Clyde's body."

Phantom had been looking at Sidney, but he shifted his attention to Dash--the body he was overshadowing. His skin had grown pale since that morning. The breaths coming through his nose were slower, or maybe Sidney forgot how to breathe again.

"You can't stay inside him for long," Phantom reminded. "Prolonged overshadowing isn't healthy."

"So?"

That question caught Phantom off guard. "So...if you stay in him for too long, he might die."

Dash's face was pulled into an expression of scorn. "He's a bully. Everyone in school is scared of him. Maybe he deserves to die."

Ba-dump, ba-dump, continued Phantom's heart. He gave a nervous chuckle and ignored the sweat forming on his neck. "You don't mean that, do you?"

But as he studied Sidney/Dash, he realized Sidney did mean it. Why should a ghost care about death? Sidney was already dead, so killing someone wasn't a big deal. And it did put a permanent end to Dash's bullying in this school.

But Phantom had seen grief in humans. He knew how big a deal death really was, at least to their kind.

Phantom gulped. "Get out of his body. You can't let him die."

"Since when do you care what happens to human bullies?"

"Since--" Phantom figured there was only one way to get Sidney to stop. He hated pulling this card with him, but...he pointed at Sidney accusingly and said, "Since hurting him makes you a bully!"

Sidney recoiled. For a second, Phantom thought he would leave then and there, but he recovered with a scowl and said, "This is a special circumstance. It's just like vandalizing Aragon's lair. Some bullies deserve to taste their own medicine."

Phantom threw his arms up. "Then give him a wedgie! No need for anyone to die!"

Sidney was unnervingly quiet for a moment. Then he tilted Dash's head and said, "Being alive has changed you, hasn't it?"

Phantom had no response. He didn't know what to say to that. He didn't have to, because just then someone said, "Dash! There you are!"

He turned his head and saw a group of students in matching letterman jackets approach. One of them patted Sidney/Dash and said, "What are you doing with loser Fenturd?"

"Now, now," Sidney said and wagged Dash's finger. "Fenturd is no loser."

"It's Fenton," Phantom corrected.

Sidney's gray eyes were unreadable as they gazed at Phantom. Then they turned to the group of popular kids, and he grinned widely before saying, "Never mind that! What did you want to tell me? We should go have some fun!"

Sidney did not stop overshadowing Dash. He followed the gang as they went to do whatever Dash's friends normally did for fun besides bully.

As soon as they left, Phantom released a breath he didn't realize he was holding. He slid against the wall behind him until he was crouching on the floor. Ba-dump. Ba-dump. He looked at his stolen hands and saw that they were shaking.

He felt scared...of Sidney. Since when did he feel scared of his friends?

The same time he started caring about what happened to human bullies.

Since he became a human.

Phantom guessed there had been a lot of renovating in Casper High since Sidney was alive, but one place stayed the same: Sidney's locker. He followed the path he recognized from Sidney's lair in the Ghost Zone and found the metal cabinet sitting in the same spot as it did in the school's ghostly counterpart.

Since Danny's body was infuriatingly short, Phantom had to stand on tip toes to peek into the top locker through the slits on its door. It was hard to make out anything inside when it was shrouded in darkness, but he managed to see the glint of something reflective. Sidney's mirror. His ghostly relic.

Phantom had considered seeking the toilet ghost's help in stopping Sidney; if the ghost considered the school his haunt, then surely he would consider Sidney an intruder, right? But when he went to the haunted bathroom, he found Sidney--still in Dash's body--chatting him up. Apparently, being both ghosts who died from bullying meant they had a lot of stories to share.

With that solution out of the picture, there was only one option left: getting Sidney's mirror. As his doorway to the human world, he would do anything to keep it intact. Phantom might be able to convince him to leave Dash peacefully if he had it in his hands...if only he could figure out how to do that.

Oh, how much easier this job could have been if he kept his ghost powers in this stupid body. He would just phase his hand through the door and be done. But Phantom did not have his intangibility, and he did not have the key to Dash's locker, which meant he could only gaze at the mirror sadly and plan Dash's obituary in his head. 'Here lies Dash Baxter: died because he failed to follow the school's anti-bullying PSA.'

"What are you doing?" a voice spoke, causing Phantom to jump. He whipped around and saw a familiar redhead. "You again," Phantom said.

Wesley looked at the locker. He was doing a good job of pretending not to be uneased by Phantom. "That's Dash's new locker, right?" the human said.

"Yeah," Phantom confirmed. "Uh, I definitely wasn't doing anything weird, though."

"Did the not-weird thing have anything to do with getting Dash un-possessed?" At seeing Phantom staring, Wesley rolled his eyes and said, "Come on, everyone could tell that Dash has been acting super weird."

"Well...yes. He's overshadowed." Phantom nodded at the locker and explained, "There's an object in there that's connecting the ghost to the human plane. If I could get it, I could stop him from overshadowing Dash, but..." He shrugged. "I don't know how to get it."

Wesley studied the locker. "Could you move out of the way?" he said. Phantom complied. He watched as Wesley pulled out something small from his pocket...a hairclip? A pin?

Phantom couldn't quite see what Wesley was doing over his back, but he was pretty sure he jabbed the pin into the lock and jiggled it around carefully. After a while, the lock fell away, and Wesley stepped back to allow the door to swing forward.

Phantom raised an eyebrow at Wesley. Wesley smiled sheepishly and said, "I get locked out of my house a lot. Single dad isn't always home, and I forget my keys..."

Phantom didn't question him. He looked inside the locker. Behind the messy stacks of books was Sidney's mirror, smooth and shiny in spite of how many decades it had sat in there.

Phantom reached forward and pulled it off the locker wall. Just like in every other mirror, he saw Danny's face stare back at him. Not even a ghostly mirror changed that. Reflection Danny's shoulders slumped.

"So, we break the mirror?" Wesley said.

"What?" Phantom looked up at him. "No! At least, not unless it's as a last resort. I just need to scare Sid--the ghost until he leaves."

"But...it would be easier if you broke it now, right?"

"Well, yes," Phantom admitted. As Sidney's link to the human world, it seemed likely that he would disappear as soon as the link was severed. But he had a feeling breaking something so important would also sever the friendship between him and Sidney--or at least, more harshly than how it would be from him forcing Sidney to quit a human. "But this ghost is my friend. I'm sure I can talk to him."

"So...you're friends with a ghost who possesses people," Wesley said. There it was, the tension in the human's body that signified his wariness of Phantom.

"That--that doesn't mean I'm a fan of possession or anything," Phantom quickly said. "I'm not possessing Danny because I want to."

"I know," Wesley said with a sigh.

Phantom observed Wesley curiously, but the boy's expression was guarded. "Are you Danny's friend?" he asked.

Wesley...blushed? and looked away. "No. We just share a few classes. He probably doesn't even know me."

"Then why are you helping me?"

He shrugged. "My classmate is possessed, of course I would help."

"But everyone hates Dash."

"Then why are you helping him if the ghost is your friend?" Wesley countered.

Phantom turned his eyes away. They landed on the mirror in his hands, and he moved them farther to avoid looking at Danny's face. "None of your business," he uttered.

An awkward silence descended on them, finally broken by Wesley as he said, "If you wanna catch Dash, he's in the basketball team with me. We're practicing in the gym after school."

After school...would Dash still be alive by then? He supposed so. After all, Danny had overshadowed Phantom for almost an entire school day, and he was still (sadly) alive.

"One more question," Wesley said. "What's your name? Your real name, not Danny."

"I go by Phantom--or, uh, I went by Phantom."

Wesley snorted. "Seriously? You're a ghost and your name is Phantom?"

Phantom glared at him and crossed his arms. "I admit, I'm not the most creative with names."

"No shit," Wesley retorted. He was smiling. He...wasn't scared of Phantom?

Wesley cleared his throat and said, "Well, I go by Wes."

"Keen-o," Phantom said, then immediately wanted to ecto-blast himself because Wes was looking at him weird. Fuck Sidney and his infectious 50s slang.

"Yeah, real keen-o," Wes said, and Phantom could tell he was holding back laughter. The bell rang. "Well...I better go. I'll see you in basketball practice, I guess."

Phantom nodded. Wes closed the locker and re-locked it. He hesitated before asking, "Won't the ghost know the mirror's gone?"

Ah. He didn't think about that. "I'll figure something out," Phantom said. Wes nodded and left.

Phantom looked down at the mirror. Again, he saw Danny's face.

Would wes have been as kind to him if he was a ghost? he wondered. Or was he only nice to him because he was Danny? Wes knew he wasn't Danny, but still...

Phantom shook his head. Worry about Danny's relationships later. For now, he had to deal with Sidney's mirror. After a thought, he placed it inside Danny's backpack and carried it with him to class.

If he remembered correctly, his next class was with Tucker. He entered the classroom and found the dark-skinned boy sitting at his desk. Just like in geometry class, he and Tucker sat next to each other--a seating arrangement that was blessed for Danny, cursed for Phantom...but maybe not this time.

Tucker perked up when he saw him approach. "Phantom!" he whispered. "Look, I'm really sorry about ditching you this morning. I meant what I said about becoming friends."

Phantom tried to remain neutral as he sat down, but he couldn't help the twinge of bitterness in his chest. "I thought Sam didn't want you to hang with me."

Tucker winced. "I'm sorry about Sam, but I swear, she doesn't hate you. It's just...it hurts, seeing you in Danny's body and knowing you aren't him."

"Thanks," Phantom muttered.

"No, I mean--there's nothing bad about you, it's just--you know, it's kinda hard wrapping my head around all this, even if it's already been almost two weeks--"

"Tucker, shut up," Phantom said. Tucker shut up. Phantom turned to him and asked, "Do you have a ghost weapon with you?"

"Huh?"

"Danny's parents are ghost hunters, and you're his friends, so do you have a ghost weapon with you?"

Tucker looked guilty. "We don't have anything against ghosts. Heck, Sam normally loves ghosts--before, you know..."

"Just answer the question."

"...I have a lipstick laser. So does Sam."

Tucker was watching him like he expected Phantom to snap. Phantom didn't care. Heck, the weapons won't even work on him so long as he was in Danny's body. Instead of feeling angry, he felt relieved; he pulled out the mirror from his backpack and thrust it to Tucker.

Tucker looked down at the object. "What--"

"That mirror's haunted."

Tucker pushed the mirror away from him as if Phantom just said it was on fire. Phantom barely managed to catch it before it could shatter on the floor. He glared at Tucker and hissed, "What was that for?"

"Why are you giving me a haunted mirror?!"

Phantom shoved it toward Tucker again and said, "I need you to guard it for me until school finishes. If I keep it with me, the ghost will know."

Tucker stared at him in befuddlement. Admittedly, his request was pretty sudden from Tucker's point of view. But there was no time to explain--Sidney/Dash just entered the room.

Phantom quickly hid the mirror under Tucker's textbook. A part of him hoped it wouldn't crack under the textbook's weight (school textbooks were ridiculously heavy) but he doubted a ghost-powered object would be so easy to shatter. As soon as the mirror was out of sight, he sat at his desk, looking casual.

Tucker followed his gaze to Sidney, and understanding clicked. "I knew Dash was possessed," he whispered.

"Overshadowed," Phantom corrected. "But yes."

As Sidney made his way to Dash's desk, his eyes lingered on Phantom. He didn't give any attention to Tucker. That was good.

Phantom's foot tapped below his desk as the teacher droned on about some history subject. He glanced at the clock. There were only a few periods left until school ended and the basketball team's practice session began. All he had to do was wait.

Phantom decided that smell was his least favorite of the human senses. Sure, there were nice smells, like flowers, and freshly-cooked meals. But there is also the horrible reek of sweaty gym locker rooms.

Phantom had to hold his nose to stop himself from gagging. Why did humans need to have such strong olfactory senses?

"Remind me why we're here again?" Tucker said next to him. He must have been used to the smell because he was breathing fine. In one of his hands was Sidney's mirror, and in the other was a Fenton™-brand lipstick.

"Dash has after school practice," Phantom answered. His voice sounded funny with him holding his nose, but he wasn't enthusiastic to let go. He turned to Tucker and added, "You didn't have to come. I can handle the ghost myself."

"Dude, like it or not, you're still in my best friend's body. I don't want to be the one to explain to Danny that you wrecked his body by challenging a ghost on your own."

Phantom ignored the wave of sadness he felt at the mention of Danny. Tucker would only need to explain things if Danny ever returned. Also if Phantom allowed his body to get wrecked. He sighed but did not argue with Tucker.

"There you are," Wes said, approaching Phantom. He was wearing Casper High's red-and-white basketball uniform. Tucker raised an eyebrow at him.

"Tucker, Wes," Phantom introduced. "He knows about me and Danny."

"Aren't you that guy from our gym class?" Tucker said.

"And math class," Wes mumbled.

One of the basketball players in the locker room heard them and came over. "Hey Fenton, Foley, what are you two doing here?" He smirked and added, "You didn't come here for a gay make-out, did you?"

Tucker gagged and said, "God, no, Danny's my best friend. I wouldn't do that to his body."

The basketball player laughed. Wes's expression was...unreadable.

Phantom decided to step forward toward the basketball player. He recognized him as one of the jocks that always hung out with Dash, which must have made him Dash's friend. "Do you--" he began, then remembered this guy was a bully and seemed like he was about to make fun of his funny voice, so he let go of his nose (ignoring the assault on his senses) and said, "Do you know where Dash is?"

"Right here," Dash's voice came from behind, and Phantom turned around to see Sidney/Dash.

Sidney's eyes rove to the mirror in Tucker's hand. His expression darkened.

There was a clap that alerted everyone to the adult human that just entered the room. She was a woman, and Phantom was pretty sure this locker room was for boys, but no one seemed to care. She must have been the coach.

"All right, pansies, enough time getting ready," the coach barked. "Time for practice."

"Yes, Coach Tetslaff," a few boys replied. Most of them followed her command and left the room, but Sidney-as-Dash stayed behind. He went up to her and said, "Actually, coach? I feel kind of sick. Do you think I could sit this one out?" To accentuate his point, he faked a cough.

Tetslaff looked like she was about to argue, but she saw him and paused. The prolonged overshadowing was starting to show its effect on Dash's body. He was pale, sweaty, and had rugged breathing. After a moment's hesitation, Tetslaff grumbled, "Fine. But just this once." She caught Wes standing by the doorway and barked, "What are you waiting for, Weston? You don't look sick to me."

Wes gave Phantom one more glance before he and Tetslaff left the room. That left only Phantom, Tucker, and Sidney-as-Dash inside.

He could tell Sidney was angry at him for taking his relic, but the ghost kept himself calm and raised Dash's hand carefully. "Give me the mirror," he said.

"First, let go of Dash," Phantom ordered. He tried his best to display confidence. Never mind that he didn't have a ghost weapon like Tucker, nor did he know any fight moves that did not include ghost powers he didn't have.

Sidney must have known how powerless he was, but he didn't make a move. He narrowed his eyes and asked, "Why are you sticking up for someone who bullied you?"

"Actually, he has a point," Tucker said. "Why are we helping Dash?"

Phantom glared at Tucker. Sidney chose that moment to lunge forward, but before he could even go two steps, Tucker uncapped his lipstick and pointed it menacingly at him. "Don't try it, demon," he said.

"He's a ghost," Phantom whispered.

"Shush. I know."

Sidney froze at the sight of Tucker's ecto-weapon. It didn't look very intimidating, but it must have given off some ghostly energy to convince Sidney to stay in place. He glowered at Phantom. "What are you going to do?"

Phantom pressed his lips. "Tucker, give me the mirror," he said. Tucker complied. Phantom held the mirror above his head and warned, "I'll smash it."

"You wouldnt," Sidney growled.

"Wanna find out?" He swung the mirror toward the ground, but before he could let go, Sidney quickly cried, "Stop!"

Phantom held the mirror in place, but it was shaking--actually, his entire arms were shaking. "I don't want to do this," he said in a quavering voice. "I don't know why I'm doing this."

He could feel both other pairs of eyes in the room pierce into him. Sidney's gray eyes scrutinized him. After what felt like an eternity, the ghost calmly said, "Okay."

"Okay?" Tucker repeated, surprised.

Sidney stepped back and held up Dash's arms in surrender. "Okay, I'll leave."

"That's it? I kind of expected a ghost fight," Tucker said almost disappointedly, turning to Phantom. "I didn't even get to use my laser."

Sidney scoffed. "A fight would involve violence, which is bullying. I don't do that."

"Wow," Tucker said. "You seem like a pretty nice ghost, actually."

Phantom and Sidney held each other's gaze, and Phantom could tell they both felt a bit of betrayal at the other's action. "He is," Phantom said. "He just needs to let the human go."

Tucker's jolted and tightened his grip around his lipstick when a cloud of smoke escaped from Dash. The smoke was sucked into the mirror in Phantom's hands. As soon as it left, Dash's now-blue eyes rolled into his skull, and his body crumpled against a row of lockers.

Phantom looked down at the mirror and saw its surface glow green before it settled back into a regular mirror, reflecting Danny's face back at him.

A loud snore pulled his attention to Dash, who was lying on the floor in what looked like an uncomfortable position, mouth open and drooling. He snored again.

Tucker snickered. "At least he's alive."

Phantom turned away from Dash and moved toward the locker room's exit. Tucker followed him. "So that's it?" Tucker asked.

Phantom paid little attention to the basketball team practicing in the gym before he emerged into the hallways again. "That's it," he confirmed. "Dash is alive, and Sidney's back where he belongs."

"I still don't get why you helped Dash," Tucker said. "I would've thought ghosts don't care about life and death."

Phantom slowed in his tracks until he stopped. He hung his head. That's the thing isn't it? he thought. I'm not a ghost anymore.

"Just go home, Tucker," he murmured.

Tucker lingered by his side for a second longer, but he must have been able to sense that Phantom needed some time alone, because he evetually left. His footsteps echoed across the empty hallways as he made his way to the school's exit.

That left Phantom alone with Sidney's mirror. He let his lungs expand--a feeling he was starting to get used to and was strangely calming. Then he walked toward Danny's locker.

There was no way he was placing the mirror back in Dash's locker, of course. It wasn't that he didn't trust Sidney to keep his word, but who knew what Dash might do to the relic in a moment of anger (of which he had plenty). So instead, he opened Danny's locker and hung the mirror inside.

Rather than close the door and leave, he kept it open and gazed at the mirror's surface. With his shadow blocking the locker's interior, and humans' poor ability to see in the dark, he could almost imagine himself staring back instead of Danny.

"I'm sorry, Sidney," he said to the mirror. "I don't know what came over me. I just couldn't let you hurt someone."

The mirror stayed quiet. Phantom sighed and leaned against the locker door he was holding. "Being a human is so confusing. I want to be back at the Ghost Zone, with you and the others. I never asked to be here."

There was another moment of silence, and then the mirror glowed. He watched as a fog appeared on its surface and swirled before solidifying into Sidney's face--small and geeky, way different from the one he overshadowed.

"You really can't leave?" Sidney asked.

Phantom didn't admit how much joy he felt at seeing a familiar face. "If I can leave, I would have done so ten days ago."

Sidney looked remorseful. "Right. I didn't think about how tough it would be for someone to return to the human world without any memories of it."

There he went again. His wording implied that Phantom had been alive before. Phantom frowned. "Why do you keep talking like I'm a death-formed ghost?"

Sidney hesitated. He seemed to pick his next words carefully. "You say you're a Zone-born ghost, but do you even have parents?"

"They moved on."

"Who has a core child unless they plan on sticking around?"

Phantom was starting to get irritated. "I don't know, maybe they finished their business sooner than expected."

"But no one knows your parents, if they really are ghosts. And you know how fast news spread in the Ghost Zone. Any ghost deciding to have a core child would definitely have counted as news."

"So, what? You think I died and forgot about it?"

"It's not unheard of. Ghosts who had especially violent deaths often forget their lives at first." Sidney shrugged and admitted, "Maybe I'm wrong and you really are Zone-born. But I find it a little convenient that you managed to learn human processes quickly enough to keep yourself alive for ten days."

Phantom didn't know how to respond to that. True, sometimes he did things in the human world that felt familiar in a way, but he always assumed it was due to him gaining Danny's memories. "If all that you said is true, why wait to tell me now?"

"You know why," Sidney said, his expression troubled. "Ghosts with violent deaths..."

"...are always violent themselves," Phantom completed. Sidney bit his lip and nodded. Phantom glared at the chemistry book in the locker and said, "But you don't think I could turn out like that, do you?"

"Of course not. That's why I'm telling you now. Because--"

"Because I'm a human now," Phantom murmured.

"...I was going to say it's because I got to know you better."

Phantom's eyes didn't meet the mirror. After a moment, Sidney sighed. "Sorry, I didn't mean to burden you with more identity crises than you already have. If you ever want to talk, at least I'm here to listen."

Phantom glanced up. "You mean we're still friends?"

Sidney looked almost offended as he said, "Of course we're still friends! What do you take me for?"

Phantom smiled, but his expression turned into uncertainty as he pointed out, "But I touched your relic and drove you out of a human."

Sidney grumbled, "To be frank, I still don't forgive you for that. But at least I understand why you did it."

"Why's that?"

"Because you're a human now."

Before Phantom could know how to react to that, he heard footsteps echo his way. He turned away from the locker to see Wes jogging toward him. When he looked back at the mirror, Sidney's face was gone, dissolved back into mist before it disappeared.

"You did it!" Wes was saying as he approached grinning. "Dash woke up after practice. He doesn't remember anything from the time he was possessed. Everyone is assuming he had a really rough fever that made him delusional." He caught Phantom's somber expression, and his smile fell. "Is everything okay?"

Phantom closed the locker door quietly. "I'm fine," he said, though he didn't feel it. "The ghost is back in the Ghost Zone."

"The Ghost Zone?" Wes echoed. Phantom turned his head to look at him, and any amusement Wes felt at the silly name vanished. He shifted his foot. "Sorry. I guess it must have been tough, facing off your friend."

Phantom's hand was still on the locker door. The metal was cool against his fleshy skin. "It's okay. We talked it out," he said.

Wes fidgeted with his hands. "Well," he began shyly, "if you want any human friends, I'm always free."

The tips of Wes's ears had gone pink. Phantom narrowed his eyes. He was beginning to recognize this human's strange behavior around Phantom. It was the same way Ember sometimes got around Skulker, not that he ever understood her infatuation.

He tilted his head and asked, "You have a crush on Danny, don't you?"

Wes choked. His face turned as red as the accents of his basketball uniform as he stammered, "W-what? A crush? No! That--that's ridiculous!"

Phantom didn't bother focusing on how flustered Wes was. Instead, he said sadly, "You know I'm not him, right?"

Wes calmed down, and he looked down at his feet sorrowfully. "I know."

Phantom turned his face away. Not for the first time, he wished he knew where Danny was. The silence between him and Wes grew heavy.

Phantom cleared his throat. "Well, if you do find Danny attractive, at least I know the body I'm in is hot."

Wes snorted, then dissolved into laughter. Phantom smiled. The mood lifted just a little bit.

Once his laughter died down, Wes rubbed his neck and said, "Want to walk home together? Or...I guess to Danny's home, in your case."

Phantom's smile fell. "You don't have to be close to me just because you like Danny."

"Dude, I've had more conversations with you in one day than I had with Danny in my life," Wes said, then immediately blushed and added, "Not that that means I'm crushing on you or anything...but we're friends, aren't we?"

Phantom felt a flutter of warmth at that, but it was small compared to his overall negative feelings left over from his confrontation with Sidney. "We are," he told Wes, "and thank you...but if you don't mind, I'd like to be alone for now."

Wes lingered in the edge of his vision before he finally said, "All right. I'll see you tomorrow, then." He turned and reluctantly walked away.

Phantom was left alone in an empty school. He leaned against a row of lockers and closed his eyes. Today should have been a good day. He met friends, both new and old. So why did he feel less than happy?

"Danny! Where have you been?" Jazz said as soon as he stepped foot indoors. She was crossing her arms and glaring at him.

Phantom ignored her in favor of looking around the otherwise unoccupied living room. "Where are Mom and Dad?" he asked.

"Out for groceries," Jazz answered impatiently. "What about you? If you wanted to stay after school, you could have called me!"

"Oh," Phantom said, feeling guilty for having forgotten about Danny's sister. She was the nicest Fenton to him, even if she didn't believe the truth about his identity. He reached a hand into his pocket and found it empty. "Actually, I think I forgot my phone at home."

Jazz pinched the bridge of her nose and muttered something incomprehensible. "Just--don't make me worry next time, okay? I had to learn from Sam that you were busy with something."

"Sam?" Phantom said, surprised. The two of them still hadn't spoken since the day Danny left. Maybe Tucker told her to tell Jazz.

Jazz shrugged and moved toward her room upstairs. "There's leftovers in the kitchen. You can heat them yourselves."

"Sure," Phantom said, fairly certain he had learned how to use a microwave correctly. Once Jazz left, he made his way to the kitchen. But he didn't have an appetite at the moment.

Sure, he was hungry. But his mind dwelled too much on Sidney and what he had told him, so he doubted he had the energy in him to make himself a meal. Instead, he went to the door in the back that led downstairs--to the Fentons' underground laboratory.

Phantom opened the door and stood at the edge of the stairs. It seemed to lead into nothing but darkness, but he could smell the whiff of sterilized ectoplasm and metal.

He hadn't been down in the lab since he first woke up there in Danny's body. Most of the time, the Fenton couple was there, and they intimidated him too much. But now they were outside.

Phantom gulped and descended the stairs.

The portal was right where he remembered it. He didn't have a chance to get a good look at it last time, having been too busy freaking out over his situation, but he vaguely recalled a glowing green hole in the wall. The hole was now covered by yellow-and-black blast doors, but he was certain it was the same portal.

There were several tables across the lab with various half-assembled and fully-assembled weapons on them. Phantom tried not to freeze up when he passed by them. At least he didn't find any dissected ghost remains.

He walked up to the portal and stopped. On the other side of those doors was his home...his old friends, Sidney included...and maybe even the real Danny. He could step through and be back home, but he knew he wouldn't be able to survive. Ghosts could be a vicious bunch if they needed to be, and he didn't have any ghost powers to defend himself.

He could only hope Danny was faring okay.

Phantom turned to head upstairs, but he paused in his tracks and winced as yet another memory assaulted him. But...something felt different about this one.

He felt someone's hand holding his. It was large, covering his completely--or maybe his hands were small. There was the sharp smell of antiseptic and the steady beating of a heart monitor.

The person lying in the bed in front of him was horrible to look at. His skin was covered with green blisters that almost seemed to glow. He gripped the hand holding his own and hid behind the standing person's body, trying to form a barrier between himself and the hospital bed.

The human holding his hand--a woman, he remembered--said something muddled through his memory and urged him forward to the person in the bed. He didn't want to get close. The bed towered above his small form, but the woman carried him and set him down on the bed next to the prone, blistered body.

The prostrate person--he was hesitant to call him a human--was breathing ruggedly. The green bumps on his skin seemed to glow with every breath he took. His eyes were closed, but as he watched with terror, they opened to reveal completely red, glowing eyes.

The last thing he remembered was crying and attempting to flee--then the memory ended, and Phantom was thrust back into the Fentons' lab.

Phantom gasped and fell onto the ground. Sweat poured out his body, and he shivered. Those red eyes were still lingering in his vision when he heard hurried footsteps descend the stairs.

"Danny? What are you doing down there?" Jazz's voice came.

Her red hair and concerned teal eyes appeared in his sight as she tried to help him up. Phantom weakly slapped her hands away and said, "I'm fine."

"You don't look fine," Jazz argued.

True, he wasn't fine. But he didn't want to talk about it, least of all with Jazz, and he knew she would prod. He grumbled again, "I'm fine. I don't need your help."

He tried to stand up and immediately fell back down. Jazz raised her eyebrows at him. He sighed and accepted her help.

He leaned against her, shaking all the way, as she carried them up the stairs and back into the kitchen. She kept her mouth shut. Phantom was grateful for that.

She set him down on the nearest chair. He leaned his fists against his lap and breathed.

"Do you--"

"I don't want to talk," Phantom answered before she could finish.

Jazz reluctantly left him alone. He had to admit, Danny's sister wasn't a bad human.

Phantom finally got his breathing down, though his heart still thumped against his chest. What was that? None of Danny's memories he experienced had ever left him so shaken.

He thought back to what Sidney told him. He had been alive before, but he had forgotten all about his life. Now...

Phantom closed his eyes and gulped.

He had experienced a memory, but it wasn't Danny's.

#phic phight #danny phantom #au #fic #fanfiction #danny fenton #wes weston #tucker foley #sam manson #sidney poindexter #writing #fanfic #mine #separate fenton and phantom au #long fic

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mewlcakes · 4 years ago

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Sweet Heart {Catradora} Chapter 1

Catra knew something was wrong when Adora wouldn't eat her lunch.

It was her favorite; Catra should know. She packed it herself. Chicken nuggets, macaroni, a cosmic brownie and some watermelon slices. It was one of Adora's safe meals.

The group home Adora lived in would only pack her food she wouldn't eat, so she'd go hungry. Until she met Catra.

Catra made sure that Adora was always well-fed, happy, and that no one would mess with Adora. Her Adora.

Usually, Adora would eat happily, one food item at a time in the exact same order just how she liked it.

But today, she was picking at her chicken nuggets and staring down at the table. She wasn't usually good at making eye contact, but today, she was making an effort not to, which made Catra worried.

"What's wrong, Dora?" She asked, using her pet name.

Adora still kept her eyes glued to the lunch table.

"Adora, look at me. Did someone say something to you? You know I'll kick their ass if they did."

"I'm fine..." the blonde girl muttered.

"Are you sure?"

"I'm not a baby, Catra. We talked about this." The blue-eyed girl said, finally looking up at her. "I can worry about myself."

Catra winced a bit. She and Adora had this conversation multiple times before. Adora was independent and didn't want Catra hovering over her and protecting her like some tiny animal that couldn't protect itself.

Catra knew Adora was fully capable of taking care of herself. But autistic or not, Adora was Catra's friend. And she'd always fight for her friends. Neurodivergency or not.

When Catra first moved here, Adora was the first person who was nice to her. Before learning about her autism and getting to know her, Catra thought she was...well, weird.

She thought it was weird how she carried around a stuffed unicorn or why she wore sweaters in 90° heat. She couldn't understand why Adora had such a hard time reading facial cues or comprehending figures of speech.

But it only took time. Catra did her own research and got to really know Adora. They'd been friends for years and Catra'd be lying if she said she didn't have...other feelings for Adora.

But she couldn't ruin their friendship like that...

She gently grabbed Adora's hands over the table. The blonde girl's eyes widened a bit, but she soon melted into her touch.

"You know you can tell me anything..." Catra said softly. "I promise, I won't judge you or treat you like a baby. Just tell me, Bunny."

Adora's lips curled up at the nickname. Bunny. An inside joke between her and Catra only.

"Okay..." she retracted her hands, twiddling her thumbs a bit, her eyes back on the table. She mumbled something incoherently.

"What is it?" Catra leaned forward, pointing her fingers to her ear.

"Octavia took Swift Wind..." Adora whispered into her ear. "And said my forehead was big."

Catra's mismatched eyes widened, steam practically coming out of her ears. For a few seconds, all she could see was red, hot anger.

"I'll get him back." Catra promised.

"Catra, I don't need you to-"

"Adora, you're my best friend. And I owe you one anyway. Remember last week when you helped me study for my geometry test? I aced it! I owe you one."

Adora thought about it, then nodded. "Okay...just don't get in trouble again. I don't like when you have detention. I have no one to talk to when you do."

Catra just smiled and playfully shook her head. "No promises, Dora. But I will get Swift Wind back. And your forehead is big, so what? You make it work. And your hair poof is adorable." She smiled.

Adora couldn't help but smile back. "Okay..."

Then, the blonde girl stood up. Everyday, 2 minutes before the bell rang, she'd hurry to get to class early so she could get her favorite seat by the window. It was like clockwork.

Catra sighed as the girl left. She'd barely even touched her food. Usually, Adora would throw her trash away in the trash can, but today, she was too distracted to remember.

Catra grabbed the Cosmic brownie and wrapped it up in a napkin, just in case Adora got hungry later.

She had to leave lunch early, too.

She had business with Octavia to take care of.

Catra scouted the hallways, eyes darting left and right as she scanned the surface, looking for a certain green-haired girl.

School had just ended, the bell ringing to signify the ending of the day. Students and teachers both piled out of the halls, eager to get back to their homes away from the hellhole known as a learning facility.

Octavia was pretty big, hence the name. She was a wrestler and a damn good one at that. But she didn't intimidate Catra.

Making sure there were no teachers around, Catra grabbed Octavia and shoved her against the locker, using all of her force.

She could see the shock and fear in Octavia's eyes before she realized what was happening.

"What did you do to Adora, you bitch?"

Octavia just smirked and narrowed her eyes, sizing Catra up and down. "I just gave her what she needs; you know, the real world isn't gonna be all sunshine and rainbows, Catra. It's time that your little girlfriend learned that.

"She goes through enough of that at home, Octavia. Why do you have to go out of your way to make her life miserable?"

"Miserable?" She asked. "I'm helping her! The weirdo is too old to be carrying around a damned stuffed animal! She's in high school for fuck's sake!"

This pissed Catra off. Octavia didn't know the story behind the unicorn. She didn't know that it was the only thing her parents had left her behind. She didn't know that it was the only thing that helped Adora sleep at night. It was her comfort animal and helped her happy stim.

But of course Octavia wouldn't know that.

And quite frankly, Catra didn't seem to care about her ignorance.

"And what are you? You're just a big bitch with an ugly dye job and a broken nose!"

"I don't have a broke-"

SLAM!

Catra's fist made direct contact with Octavia's nose before either one of them could even process what had happened.

There was blood all over Catra's shirt. She stared at Octavia's bloody nose and sneered.

"Adora is the one good thing left in my life. And I'll be damned if I let you ruin that." She hissed, grabbing the unicorn plushie and making her way back to her locker.

She grabbed her jacket and put it on to hide the blood. Not only would it upset Adora, but it would make others suspicious as to why Catra's shirt looked like a crime scene.

Catra hurried to get to the bus; she rode with Adora everyday. The girl was sensitive to all the loud noises and bumps in the road and all of the heartless teenagers that would throw things and tease her.

The bus didn't even go down Catra's neighborhood. In fact, Catra would get off the bus with Adora and walk back to her own house, which was a lot of walking. But she'd do it for Adora. She'd do anything for Adora.

Hurrying onto the bus, she found Adora in their usual seat 9.

She saw the worried expression on Adora's face.

"I thought you were gonna miss the bus." She said softly.

"Me? Nah, wouldn't miss it for the world." Catra laughed, leaning back in the seat and propping her feet up in the seat ahead of her.

Kyle, the kid in front of her groaned a bit, but Catra just smirked. "Deal with it, Kyle."

Then, Catra remembered and reached into her backpack and pulled out the famous Swift Winds plushie, causing Adora's eyes to light up.

"You got him back!" She grinned, hugging Catra tightly.

Catra's eyes widened. It was very, very rare that Adora hugged anyone, even Catra. But on the scarce occasion of it happening, Catra cherished them and hugged her back affectionately.

"Octavia just gave him back?" Adora asked, pulling away.

"Yup." The brunette lied. "I just asked her for him and she said yeah. And she's sorry that she called your forehead big. She was just jealous.

Adora knew that most likely wasn't true, but she smiled and hugged her comfort stuffed animal anyway. "Thank you, Cat."

"No problem, dude." She grinned.

Soon, the bus pulled into the group home Adora lived at, a tiny house in a pretty broken-down neighborhood.

"Here, take this." Catra said, handing Adora the brownie from lunch. "I don't want you going hungry tonight. And get a good night's sleep, okay, Bunny?"

Adora rolled her eyes playfully and smiled. "Okay, Cat. I'll see you tomorrow."

And just like that, Catra watched her Adora walk back into her house.

Sighing softly, Catra prepared to make the long journey on foot to her own home.

A/n: hi!!!! so i saw a post about a headcanon/theory of Adora having autism and as a person who also has autism, I wanted to write a fanfic about it. I know she's a bit out of character, but I really wanted to make a story I can relate to that's a little different. Also, find me on wattpad, my @ is sweet-peachy and I have a oneshot book and this book is there too!!!!

#catradora #shera #spop #fanfic #autistic characters #adora #catra #lesbian #loveislove #autistic adora

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vee-angel · 5 years ago

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Potty-Mouth Piper (part 3, repost)

(Part of the Pervert Pentet Series)

Content Warning: The following story contains depictions of feces, flatulance, vomit, and mucus; with most being eaten. Also, just some absolutely depraved examples of hand-holding, kissing, cuddling, and heartfelt declarations of lesbian teenage love.

Also, this finishes out Chapter One of Piper’s story. Her next appearance will be when her story intersects with another member of the Pervert Pentet (Sharking Sherry, who’s one of the last two members to be introduced).

Part 3

Piper spent the next few weeks in the psych ward; Mackenzie visited as often as she was able. She couldn’t get enough of seeing Piper’s face light up every time she saw her. She had even scouted some nearby stores to see if she could find the same puzzle that Piper had been working on when she first visited her in the hospital. When she finally found it and presented the gift, Piper seemed so touched that she actually held back tears. The green-haired filth-fetishist was smiling ear to ear as they were finally able to complete the puzzle together.

“Together” may be an overstatement. In truth, Piper did well over ninety percent of it, mostly while explaining the geometry of irregular tessellations in jigsaw puzzles and something about how the pieces could be categorized by pattern… or something. Mackenzie honestly couldn’t follow when she started going on about things like that, but she loved seeing how happy it made her to have someone who actually listened to her ramblings. She learned a lot about Piper in those few weeks; one of the most surprising things is that the mohawked, foul-mouth punk was really, REALLY smart.

It took a few awkward conversations for Mackenzie to get her parents to believe that she kept visiting because she just sincerely liked Piper. They weren’t the type to pry much, but at first it seemed like they believed that she felt sorry for the green-haired girl, or that it was part of her learning to forgive Piper for what had happened during the school assembly. She had to be clear that she really just thought Piper was interesting and sweet, and that despite her “behavioral problems” she might want to start dating her once she was released from the mental hospital.

When that day finally came, Mackenzie wanted to spend every moment with her and finally get a chance to do more than talk with her in the visiting room of a hospital. Unfortunately, Piper explained that she wanted some time to smooth things over with her mom, first. A few agonizingly long days later, Mackenzie finally got a text saying that Piper’s mom was okay with them having a sleepover! She still felt like this was all some kind of fantasy! As if all the disgusting porn she’d watched online over the last few years congealed into this perfectly vulgar woman who was too good, too dirty, too pretty to be real. There were even times where she considered that maybe she was spending so much time in a mental hospital because Piper was a delusion, a fantasy she made up to help the shy girl act out all of her obscene secret desires.

But as she approached the brick ranch-style house where Piper lived, she knew it was all real. She walked up the steps and rang the doorbell, her heart racing with anticipation. Her tension grew a bit when she saw that it was Piper’s mother who answered the door. She had heard mostly good things about Miss Lindeholm, but she couldn’t help but be a little bit intimidated now that she knew she was a professional dominatrix.

Mackenzie was invited inside where she barely had time to set down her overnight bag before she saw a grinning Piper barreling toward her. Their chests collided as she threw her arms around her and squeezed. Mackenzie couldn’t help but giggle at the unrestrained eagerness. She returned the hug and couldn’t keep her heart from fluttering as her hands touched Piper’s bare skin. She wore a threadbare black tank top that had been cut off at the bottom of her ribs and a plaid mini-skirt. At the hospital, they hadn’t been permitted to touch very much, and the pajama-like outfit almost made her forget how delicately slender Piper’s body was. If she were a couple inches taller, she could have been a runway model.

Piper’s mom watched with a slight smirk for several seconds as the two girls embraced. “All right, you’ll have plenty of time for that later. I’d like to talk to Mackenzie now. Please give us the room, Piper.” Her tone seemed pleasant, but firm. Though that didn’t do much to assuage Mackenzie’s nervousness.

As they reluctantly pulled away from each other, Mackenzie caught Piper’s eyes. The worried expression on her face prompted Piper to explain, “No, it’s cool. My mom’s rad as fuck. She just wants to make sure I’m not, like, blackmailing you with pictures of you sucking a dog’s dick or something.”

“What?? Oh! Oh gosh, no.” She turned to the older woman, “No, it’s nothing like that, Ma’am. I really, really like Piper.”

“All the same, I’d like Piper to excuse us so that we can talk.” Miss Lindeholm led Mackenzie to a sleek looking leather and metal couch in the living room that faced a glass coffee table. A slightly dejected Piper made her way to what looked like the kitchen.

Mackenzie sat next to the professionally dressed blonde woman. “I sense you’re nervous, Mackenzie,” she began in a kind voice as she took her hand, “but I promise you that you’re safe. If my daughter has said or done anything to compel you to come here or to have a relationship with her, you can tell me and I’ll protect you.” There was something about her that almost immediately instilled trust, there was an effortless confidence that was also nurturing. Mackenzie supposed that was part of what made her a good dominatrix.

She took a deep breath to try to still her nerves before responding. “I really, really, REALLY like your daughter, Ma’am. I… Well I guess I’ve only ever told her this, but umm, I fantasized about things like this a lot for a long time before I met Piper. And I would look at… umm… ya know… scat porn.” Mackenzie’s face scrunched up and turned beet red for a moment as she realized that she’d just told her friend’s mom that she’d been looking at scat porn on the internet for years. She tried to power through it, “So, Piper is just sort of like all my… fetishes, and everything else I ever fantasized about. All put together.”

There was a momentary pause before Piper’s mom spoke, “Okay. I’m very happy to hear that, Mackenzie. To be honest, I was skeptical that the things Piper was telling me about you were true. She almost never lies, but she also can’t tell when other people are lying to her. So a part of me was worried that you were playing a trick on her. But I’m very relieved by what you’ve told me. Piper has mentioned to you that I’m a sex-worker, correct?”

“Yes, Ma’am. She said you’re a professional mistress?”

“That’s right. I get the sense that you feel hesitant in talking about your fetishes, but I want you to know that you won’t be judged in this household for any of those feelings. It’s okay to be sexually aroused by touching or eating shit, or watching others touch or eat shit. It’s actually a lot more common than most people would believe. Has anyone ever told you that before?”

Mackenzie thought for a moment about what she’d just heard. Obviously no one had ever said that to her before, as she was only the second person to even know about her fetish, but she’d also never had anyone tell her that it was okay. She never thought of herself as someone who held a lot of shame for her kink, yet somehow, it was as if she felt the release of a huge burden that she didn’t even know she was carrying. After briefly getting lost in thought, she realized that Miss Lindeholm was still sitting there waiting for a response. “No, Ma’am.” she took a deep breath to steady her resolve and then released it, “Miss Lindeholm, it really turns me on watching girls eat poop. And I want to eat poop, too… because I think it’s a really sexy thing to do.” She let out a tiny giggle after she finished her admission. “I can’t believe I really said that to you! It actually feels really…relieving, I guess!”

“I’m glad. Being able to communicate about what turns you on is important. And so is consent. If you’re going to have a relationship with my daughter, I want to talk to you about some things. Given the things Piper likes to do, there’s a bit of a unique ‘sex talk’ that’s specific for her.

“But first, the basics: Remember that you don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do. Anything you do with a partner should be because you both want to be doing it. Now relationships are complex, and consent is complex. But a good rule of thumb is that ‘no’ means no, ‘maybe’ means no, and only ‘fuck yes’ means yes. What that means is that you should both be enthusiastic about the sex acts you engage in. If you perform certain activities solely because the other person wants you to, it eventually causes problems in your relationship. Do you understand?”

“Yes, Ma’am.”

“Good. Now getting into specifics: First, Eating feces runs a high risk of making you sick at first. It is possible for your digestive system to adapt, god knows Piper is evidence of that, but if you choose to engage in that fetish, you should go slowly at first. I’ve left a bottle of medicine in Piper’s room to help minimize the chance of you becoming ill, you should take one every twelve hours for a couple of days, even if you don’t feel like anything is wrong. Second, urine is mostly safe to drink, but keep in mind that your body will be filtering it a second time when you swallow it. So as sexy as you might find it to only drink each others piss, over time it can put an unhealthy strain on your kidneys.

“So to sum up, you can drink piss every day, but you still need to drink real water to stay healthy. And you can work up to eating shit every day, but you need to be careful, and you’ll still need real food. Do you have any questions, Mackenzie?”

She sat for a moment taking it all in. While the brief lecture from a women she barely knew was, without a doubt, unfathomably awkward, Mackenzie also found it really helpful. Not only because of the information, but because of the assurance that while she was in this house, she could feel like she was normal. This woman had explained the risks of trying to drink nothing but Piper’s piss with more comfort and ease than her own mother did when she explained why she shouldn’t flush tampons. “No, Ma’am. No questions. Umm, thank you for all that, though. Can I see Piper now?”

She released Mackenzie’s hand that she’d been gently cradling through the conversation and gave a small nod. As she stood up, she saw Piper eagerly stride into the room; apparently she’d been eavesdropping the whole time. “Okay, cool. So I made dinner for you and me. My mom doesn’t like when I make food for her because I always put the food in my ass first, but you said that’s something you wanted to try?”

“Yes!” Mackenzie replied enthusiastically. Piper took her gently by the wrist and led her into the kitchen. She was increasingly noticing that Piper’s home had a very sterile, modern look to it. Best she could tell, her mom ordered all their home furnishings from a Sharper Image catalogue.

The two of them finally came to be in front of a large bowl of green goo that had been set on the marble countertop. Next to it was a enormous tube with a plunger that Mackenzie recognized from her videos as an enema syringe. “So I made us split pea soup. It looks gross as shit, but it tastes really good. Also, it makes you fart a lot. I thought about squirting it up my asshole before you came over, but I figured you’d probably want to watch that part. Oh! And it’s vegetarian.”

Mackenzie had revealed that her family didn’t eat meat during their conversations at the hospital over the last few weeks, so she appreciated the consideration. In fact, she was impressed with the amount of thought Piper had put into everything. She gave an joyful nod of approval and then watched Piper suck up a large quantity of the bright green sludge into the enema syringe.

“Here.” Piper said with a confident smile as she handed the large tube to Mackenzie. For a moment, Mackenzie almost looked confused. Piper smirked and gave a confident shrug, “Figured you’d want to do the honors and fill up my fart-hole.”

Mackenzie gasped gently in awe, and then nodded her head excitedly. Piper leaned over onto the counter and flipped up the back of her skirt. She used one hand to pull her ass apart, but in truth it was unnecessary; while Piper’s ass had a pleasant roundness to it, the long, lean girl’s butt was rather small, and her cheeks readily parted to reveal her little pink anus and shaved vulva as soon as she bent past forty-five degrees.

“You don’t have to do anything special, just stick the end in and push that part on top down slowly.” Mackenzie nodded in response to Piper’s instructions. She took a deep breath and lined up the tip of the big acrylic tube. She pushed and felt Piper’s asshole give minimal resistance; the actual tip was about two inches long, and once it was all the way in, she noticed the girl’s sphincter clench around it to create a tight seal. As Mackenzie began to push down the plunger, she considered how practiced Piper must be at this. After all, she was so dedicated to ass to mouth that she had it tattooed on the side of her head. Though the tattoos had recently become slightly obscured by the yellow stubble that had grown during her stay in the psych ward.

“Do you really do this with everything you eat?” Mackenzie asked as she gingerly pumped the tasty green slurry into her friend’s bowels.

“Well with soup and stew and that kinda shit, yeah,” she began casually, as if she weren’t actively receiving a warm pea-soup enema from a conservatively dressed teen redhead, “Other stuff I just need to make sure it’s dick-shaped like baguettes or wraps or carrots. And there are things you can kinda stuff up there like french fries or scrambled eggs, and big things like pizza I just tear into pieces and shove up my ass a piece at a time.”

“Wow.” She had talked to Piper about her compulsion to only ever eat things that had been inside someone’s asshole (normally her own, purely out of convenience), but that had been so abstract before now. “Why…” she began the question hesitantly, “I mean, why do you do it?”

“Uhh, because I’m fuckin’ awesome?” Mackenzie giggled girlishly at Piper’s response.

“I think it’s empty now.” she noted as she finished emptying their soon to be dinner up the girl’s shitter.

“Okay, pull it out slowly.” Piper’s asshole immediately clenched shut to trap the liquid inside her as Mackenzie withdrew the enema syringe. She stood up and began massaging her slightly distended abdomen. “Seriously, though, I had the idea a long time ago, and I think I’m probably the only person in the world who does this. I mean, if you read fantasies about people being full toilet slaves, there’s a bunch of people who fantasize about eating nothing but shit for their whole lives. But it’s not medically possible; there are things your body needs and doesn’t excrete, so if you only eat shit you eventually end up with serious nutritional deficiencies. But if I do it this way, then even if I’m not always eating shit, I’m always eating something that someone shit out of their ass.”

“So… you’re kinda like the number one scat-girl in the whole world?” Mackenzie asked, excitement slightly overtaking her timid manner.

“Fuckin’ awesome, right??”

“Totally awesome.” She replied as Piper placed a green bowl on the floor and squatted over it. Mackenzie was transfixed as she watched her friend skillfully dispense the thick green soup from her asshole. She’d watched plenty of videos of girls getting food enemas (milk or whipped cream seemed most common), normally it would come out in squirts and sputters, but Piper may as well have been a mechanical food dispenser as smoothly as she plopped the ass-slime into the bowl. It just reinforced the idea that Piper was a queen of filth; the girls in videos only did those kinds of things for porn. But Piper did them every day.

The first bowl was full and she clenched her hole briefly as she switched to the second bowl. She repeated the process of dispensing split pea soup with a wet plopping sound. It only took about thirty seconds for her to fill both. She kept her legs wide as she stood almost all the way up into a half-squat. She grabbed a paper towel and began to move it toward her backside to clean the last residue of the green goo.

“Wait!” Mackenzie shouted, probably too loudly, while grabbing Piper’s wrist. “Can I…? I mean…can we use my tongue to be toilet paper… for you?” She was embarrassed by the awkward phrasing, but she was proud of herself for being bold enough to ask.

Piper nodded with surprise and approval, before bending forward to grab her ankles. Mackenzie hesitantly squatted down behind her, staring at the few specks of green still sticking to her anal ring. She finally stuck out her tongue and launched her face at Piper’s butt. She almost knocked the skinny girl off balance with her eagerness, but grabbed onto the front of her hips to steady her. She gave one long, hard lick from the back of Piper’s pussy all the way to the top of her ass-crack. She swallowed hard with a tight-lipped grin as the other girl turned around to face her.

“You make really good toilet paper.” For a moment, Piper’s big grin seemed almost coy. Anyone looking at the two young women at that moment would know that they were lovestruck, in that special and charmingly awkward way that only teenagers can be.

Piper picked up the two bowls before spending a few moments getting lost in Mackenzie’s cerulean-blue eyes. She took a quick breath and let it out sharply to focus herself before handing a bowl to Mackenzie. “Okay, we should go to the dining room. My mom’s probably getting tired of waiting.”

She handed one of the bowls to Mackenzie and the two of them headed into the next room where Piper’s mother sat patiently at the head of a rectangular table in front of what appeared to be a chef’s salad that had been prepared by a high-end food delivery service.

“Sorry we took so long, Mom.” Piper said as the she and Mackenzie sat next to each other at one side of the table.

“It’s perfectly all right. Mackenzie is experiencing a lot of new things, and there’s no need to rush her.” She picked up her fork and stabbed the salad a few times, collecting the different elements into a single bite. Piper dipped her spoon into the butthole-flavored soup that had been freshly prepared.

There was a brief moment of awkwardness as Mackenzie bowed her head and clasped her hands, briefly whispering a quick prayer of gratitude before eating. When she opened her eyes, she could tell by the slightly uncomfortable smiles that her dining companions were unaccustomed to the ritual. She couldn’t honestly blame them; a sex-worker and a lesbian scatgirl no doubt had experiences where they’d run afoul of some of the less progressive followers of Christ.

“So how did you become a professional mistress, Miss Lindeholm?” Mackenzie asked to break the tension. She reverently brought the first spoon-full of pea-soup to her mouth as the older woman began to answer.

“Well, hmm, where to begin.” she mused to herself briefly. “My family moved here from Sweden just before I started high-school. Being a tall, pretty blonde with a foreign accent meant that I became something of an obsession for the boys at school. Even at that age, I could tell that I was more of a fetish for them, so rather than ending up with a boyfriend, my interactions were more… transactional.”

“Transactional?” Mackenzie thought she knew what the word meant, but she wanted to be sure.

“It means that we were each trading things we wanted from the other, dear. I would get gifts and favors, and the boys would get what they wanted. As an example, the going rate was five dollars to flash my breasts for five seconds.” she said with a self-satisfied smirk.

“That’s… like a dollar a second!”

Piper’s mom flashed an amused grin at the shy redheads excitement. “Eventually they started doing bigger and bigger things for me and expecting more in return, which is how I ended up pregnant with Piper my Junior year. My parents were furious but they couldn’t disown me while I was a minor, so they kicked me and Piper out of the house when I turned eighteen. Piper was almost two at the time. We were briefly homeless, and the only way I knew how to make money was to let boys pay to do what they wanted with my body. It was… difficult for a few years but I kept working until I could charge more and more.. Eventually I trained to be a pro-domme, and now I run my own dungeon where I make a lot of money, and I get to tell everyone else what to do.” She finished her story with a proud smile.

“Wow!” was all Mackenzie said. She had been so obsessed with Piper, she had hardly taken the time to appreciate what an impressive woman her mother was. And beautiful, too. The golden-haired scandinavian beauty should be around thirty-five by Mackenzie’s math, but she had a timeless quality that could easily have allowed her to pass for ten years younger.

She turned her focus to the bowl of food that she’d been absentmindedly slurping as she listened to Miss Lindeholm’s brief recap of her life, taking the time to really enjoy the flavor. It was good! Comfortingly warm with all the right spices in subtle combinations, and a slightly earthy flavor that she suspected (hoped) came from its brief time inside Piper’s ass.

“What about your parents, Mackenzie. What do they do?”

She briefly glanced over to see Piper smiling widely as she ate, she seemed happy to see her two favorite women bonding with one another. She turned back, “Well, my father writes early chapter books for elementary and middle-school kids. He does a lot of ‘choose-your-own-adventure’ stories, ‘cus he says that if people learn how to make decisions when they’re young, they’ll be better at it when they grow up.”

“And that’s how your parents raised you?” she asked as she popped another mouthful of the crisp salad into her mouth.

“Mhm! My parents always tried to let me make my own decisions. I guess that’s why I never really went through a rebellious phase. Oh, and my mom does arts and crafts. She sews and knits and crochets, she even draws and paints sometimes, too. She illustrated a couple of my dad’s books, and she makes most of my clothes. She’s kind of a workaholic.”

Around that time she heard Piper reaching the bottom of her soup. She hadn’t said much, but she seemed content, if slightly eager to move the evening toward the fun part.

Mackenzie, sensing Piper’s eagerness, rushed to finish her own soup. Piper finally spoke up, “Okay, mom. We’re done, can we be excused now?”

“Oh, but I’m having such a nice time talking with your new friend.” her mom teased. “We have ice-cream for dessert, you know.”

“I’m lactose intolerant.” Mackenzie interjected.

Piper’s eyes widened, “Wait, really??”

“Yeah?”

“Well, like, does it hurt you, or are you just like… PPFFFTTT!!” Piper ended her sentence by making a vulgar, simulated fart noise with her mouth.

Mackenzie blushed for a moment, finally grasping the reason for Piper’s excitement. She looked up to catch Piper’s expectant gaze. “We should have ice cream.” she giggled.

“Can we have dessert in my room, Mom? Please?” Piper pleaded.

Miss Lindeholm sighed with a smile, knowing there was no point in trying to keep the scat-addicted lesbian love-birds apart. “Okay, sweetheart. Just keep everything contained to your room.”

Piper leapt up from her chair and ran to the kitchen. She returned a moment later holding a pint of ice-cream and a spoon before she grabbed Mackenzie by the wrist and pulled her excitedly down the hall.

The happy duo reached the threshold of the bedroom, but Mackenzie felt her foot catch on something in the doorway. They tripped and she tumbled to the floor on top of Piper. “Oh my gosh, I’m sorry! Are you okay?”

The two of them stood up, realizing that maybe they should tone down their excitement just a tad. “It was my fault,” Piper began with a contrite smile, “I forgot to warn you about the edge. I always used to think that if I ever had someone over that I should remember to tell them that it’s a tripping hazard, and now I finally have someone here and I forgot.”

Mackenzie looked down to see what she’d tripped over, and realized that there was a lip coming up about two inches separating the floor of Piper’s room from the rest of the house. Furthermore, while most of the house was floored with an elegant grey carpet, Piper’s room seemed to be lined with a sturdy, off-white linoleum. The furniture, she realized, was all either on legs, or raised a few inches off the ground with risers. “Do you…” she began piecing together the reason for the odd decor, “pee and poop on the floor?”

“Not just on the floor!” Piper responded excitedly as she motioned over to the bed, placing the ice-cream on a nightstand. “Feel it.” she said, offering a piece of what appeared to be oddly thick black sheets. Upon examining the material, she realized that it felt somewhat like a wet-suit. The mattress covering and pillowcases seemed to all be made of the same soft, yet waterproof material.

Every time Mackenzie thought she had a grasp on the intensity of Piper’s filth fetish, she showed her a new dimension. This, she thought, truly takes the cake. Piper’s entire bedroom was designed to be used as a toilet!

She almost couldn’t conceive of someone whose life was that dedicated to a filth fetish. She couldn’t believe that Piper’s mom had been so accepting! This actually required pretty major renovations of the house!

“Oh, and check this out.” Piper continued as she opened a door that Mackenzie had previously assumed was a closet, “Ta-da! Private bathroom.” She looked inside to see a sink and bathtub, but where she expected the toilet to go was a stacked washer/dryer combo. There also seemed to be an industrial wet-vac against one wall. “My mom doesn’t like me making a mess in the rest of the house, so she made it so that I can do whatever I want in here as long as I keep the door closed, and I clean up after myself.”

“This…is incredible.” Mackenzie was awed. Before she met Piper, she’d always fantasized about dating the type of vulgar, filthy women that made scat porn, but Piper was definitely not that kind of woman. She was so far beyond them.

“Oh! Before I forget…” Piper hopped over to the dresser beside the door from which they entered and opened the bottom drawer. It was empty. “I cleared this out, so you could have a place to put your stuff when you come over. I made it the bottom drawer so I could look at your butthole when you bend over to get stuff out of it. I mean, if you’re naked in here. Which I usually am. But you don’t have to be if you don’t want to. Redheads usually have really pretty buttholes, so I hope I get to see yours.”

Mackenzie had learned that Piper had a tendency to announce her inappropriate thoughts aloud, and also that she never acted like they were inappropriate. Somehow it always made her feel like she could be liberated from her shyness. At one point, she actually spent a few hours one evening trying to think of something she could realistically say or do in front of Piper that might incur her disapproval. Despite her best efforts, nothing came to mind.

“Okay, well… I think I left my overnight bag in the other room. I’m gonna go get that. And, I mean, if you want to get naked while I do that, it would… make my pussy really wet?” Mackenzie attempted to mirror Piper’s obscenely inappropriate manner, but it didn’t quite suit her just yet.

She headed back toward the front door where she’d dropped her bag, and returned a few seconds later to find the skinny girl proudly displaying all ninety-six pounds of her shaved five-foot-seven frame.

There was a brief pause as Mackenzie felt overwhelmed by the sight before her. She didn’t know if it was love, or lust, or simple adoration; she just knew that she was so thankful that Piper was hers for that moment. She tossed her bag in the drawer as she strode forward with a burning passion. Her arms coiled around the naked girl and their lips met in unbridled intensity. A moment later they were on the bed, Piper beneath her with legs wrapped around the redhead’s hips. Mackenzie’s tongue forcefully pushed its way into Piper’s mouth, an invasion that she welcomed happily, judging by the little moan that escaped her throat. A few seconds later Piper’s tongue pushed back. Meanwhile, Mackenzie’s hands were running over the soft pink flesh beneath her, kneading and groping her tiny breasts, feeling the ribs just beneath her skin, down to the serpentine, writhing muscles of her waist, then sliding around to dig her fingers into a firm handful of Piper’s soft, little ass.

Eventually, the two of them needed to come up for air. They breathed heavily and stared at each other from inches away, both still happily imprisoned in a cage of one another’s limbs. “Wow,” Piper said, “You’re a really good kisser.”

“Thanks.”

“Did I do okay?”

“You’re amazing.” Mackenzie replied.

“Oh good. ‘Cuz I’ve kinda never done that before.”

Mackenzie’s jaw dropped open. “What?! Piper, was that your first kiss???”

She blushed a little bit while smiling. Then nodded.

“But… You’ve had sex!”

Piper looked away with a shy grin, “I mean, only with dudes and like a couple of dogs. And I’m super gay, so I only do that kinda shit because it’s gross and I like saving the cock-snot in my ass for later. But, I’ve never been with a girl before, and… nobody ever wanted to kiss me before.”

“So, you’re kinda like a virgin? With girls at least.”

“I guess.” Piper replied, “What about you?”

Mackenzie shook her head while wearing an uncharacteristically cocky smile. “Nope! Church camp when I was sixteen, and I dated a girl for a couple months last year before we moved here.”

“Wow, I didn’t know you were such a slut.” Piper teased, her words dripping with sarcasm, “In that case, we better keep this on the downlow, I can’t be seen running around with women of low morals, I’ve got my reputation as a good-girl to maintain!” She punctuated the end of her sentence by cocking her hips and releasing a deep, rumbling fart that turned to a wet squeak just at the end.

The two girls burst out laughing and untangled from one another’s arms. “We should close the door if we’re going to be doing that kinda thing, right?” Mackenzie asked, remembering that Piper’s mom went to great lengths to keep the various messes and smells contained in Piper’s bedroom. Piper nodded.

Mackenzie hopped up and shut the door. She turned back to Piper. For a brief moment, she tried to think of some clever or flirty way to say she wanted take her clothes off, but “I’m going to get naked now, okay?” Was all she came up with.

“Okay!” Piper replied, hopping up to a cross-legged position so she could watch. Mackenzie always felt awkward about talking to people, but oddly she never experienced bashfulness when it came to her body. So when Piper treated her undressing as though it was a performance, she was flattered, rather than embarrassed.

She stood in the middle of the room between the bed and the dresser. She grasped the bottom of her yellow knit sweater and peeled that off before placing it in the empty drawer next to her bag. She undid the buttons of her undershirt and dropped it in the drawer as well. She elected not to wear a bra to the sleepover. Despite being a full C-cup nearing a D, her teenaged breasts were still extremely perky. In fact, she considered them possibly her best physical feature. She paused a few moments to give Piper the opportunity to stare at her now naked tits.

She took off her sneakers and socks next. She tried to figure out a sexy way to do that, but after almost falling on her ass twice in the attempt, she decided to just bend over and take them off normally.

“Hey, do you not shave?” Piper asked suddenly. Mackenzie had just finished taking off her shoes and socks, and realized that Piper must have gotten a glimpse of her underarms in the process. Mackenzie always dressed rather conservatively, and what little body-hair she had was extremely fine and light. So she rarely made the effort to remove it. In fact, even though she often wore shorts or knee-length skirts, she’d never had anyone comment on the imperceptible amount of peach-fuzz that adorned her legs. But her armpits did have a small patch of fine, strawberry blonde hair that was noticeable to anyone looking closely. And Piper was looking closely.

“I don’t usually bother. But I can if you want me to. I actually brought a razor just in case. I wasn’t sure what you liked, since I know that you shave everything.”

“It’s cute, don’t shave it!” Piper replied.

She smiled and continued to strip, undoing her flowy ankle-length skirt and letting it fall to the floor. She had worn her cutest pair of white cotton panties with a little pink bow at the top. But she hooked her thumbs in the waist and dropped those to the floor as well.

Mackenzie took a step forward, naked as the day she was born. Her long red hair hung flatly down her back. That and the patch of dark auburn pubic hair were the only splashes of color upon the marble-white canvas of her skin. Her first girlfriend had once commented that her body looked just like the Venus de Milo. At the time, the resemblance was almost uncanny, but her tits had grown a bit since then.

She laughed slightly as she watched Piper’s wide-eyed, slack-jawed expression. She turned around to give her a good look at her backside before bending over to pick up her skirt and underwear so that she could put them in the drawer. Her stance was wide as she bent forward, neatly folding and organizing the pile of clothing she’d dumped. She remembered Piper’s comment about wanting to look at her butthole, and wanted to make sure she had an opportunity to get a good, long look.

Finally she turned around to see the green-haired girl looking a bit awestruck. Piper swallowed before speaking “You’re the most beautiful woman in the world. Did you know? I feel like someone should have told you. That you’re the most beautiful woman in the world, I mean.”

Mackenzie smiled and blushed, but there was no hint of joking or sarcasm from Piper. Her words were dead-serious, that made Mackenzie blush even more. She took a few steps forward and crawled onto the bed next to her. “So what do you want to do now?”

“Whatever you want to do is cool with me. We can do anything. I’ll… do anything for you.” Piper’s reply sounded almost like she was intimidated. Mackenzie wasn’t quite sure what to make of it. Did she really think she was that beautiful? She knew she had a nice body, but she’d always considered herself rather plain looking. One thing was for certain though. Piper was every bit as in love with Mackenzie as Mackenzie was with Piper.

“Seriously,” Mackenzie began, taking the lead, “You said you’ve never had a girl in your room. What’s something you always fantasized about doing in here?”

“Well,” she swallowed nervously, “I guess I always had this fantasy of being with a girl where we just… I don’t know how to describe it, but sort of like…ignored grossness, I guess? Like if we were watching a movie and cuddling, and one of us needed to take a piss, we’d just do it like it’s no big deal. Or if I’m eating your pussy and you need to fart or take a dump, you just do it like it’s nothing, you don’t even ask or say anything. Or if we’re both eating ice cream together and- Oh shit! We still have ice cream, I almost forgot!” She quickly grabbed the thawing pint of ice-cream and the spoon and placed it between them on the bed. “If we’re eating ice cream and you need to blow your nose, you can just, like, blow snot into the ice cream and we both just keep eating it like we don’t care. Is that… something you’d be into?”

Mackenzie’s realized that the two of them were negotiating consent, and her mind flashed back to the little lecture Piper’s mother had given her earlier about that topic. She wanted to be absolutely clear in her enthusiasm. “Fuck yes I’m into that, Piper. Let’s do that!”

“You know, you hide it well, but you’re a seriously bad-ass bitch, aren’t you?” Piper opened the lid of the vanilla bean ice cream and scooped a dollop from the thawed bit around the edges onto the spoon and offered it to Mackenzie. She opened her mouth to allow Piper to feed her and pursed her lips as she withdrew the utensil. Piper then took a second scoop and ate it herself.

“It’s really good.” Mackenzie commented before an observation dawned on her, “Hey! Wait a second! How come you’re eating that? It hasn’t been in your butt.”

“Yeah it has. See? Green sticker.” Piper turned the container to show her. “That’s how we label stuff that’s mine. Sorry if there are ice crystals in it, it’s dangerous to get an enema with stuff that’s really cold, so I had to thaw it all the way and refreeze it.”

“That’s okay. So green is your favorite color, huh?” Mackenzie asked as the pair of them casually shared a pint of ice-cream that had been squirted out of Piper’s shitter at some indeterminate point in the past.

“Yeah, it’s versatile. I mean, it’s the color of boogers and slime and puke, but green is also, like, the color of nature and money and all this good stuff, too. Brown’s the same way; people think of it like a gross color because their shit’s brown, but so is chocolate and coffee, and soil, and wood, and a lot of really hot girls. So I guess I like green and brown because they’re really pretty colors, but they’re underrated or something, I dunno.”

“And they’re the colors of your eyes.” Mackenzie observed. Back when their relationship was across the table in the psych ward, Mackenzie noticed that Piper’s eyes were different colors. Once they had both worked up the courage to make eye contact with one another, that is. Heterochromia. She’d memorized the word. Piper had one green eye and one brown; though the obscene girl joked that she had a second ‘brown eye,’ before displaying her anus and farting loudly. The hospital workers didn’t approve of the display at the time, but it made Mackenzie giggle, and that was all that mattered to Piper.

Mackenzie felt the dairy-based confection stimulating her mucus production, so she gently took the container from Piper, used a finger to block off one of her nostrils, and with a firm exhalation, shot a large wad of clearish-yellow slime from her nose onto the top of the ice-cream. She took the spoon, and scooped a large measure of the desert, topped with her snot, and popped it casually into Piper’s mouth.

She swallowed with a tight-lipped grin. “That was perfect!” Piper whispered intensely. “I know the whole point is to kinda ignore it, but seriously, that was exactly the way it is in my fantasies. I’m fucking it up now. I’m gonna go back to pretending it’s not a big deal. Do you want to watch something on tv?”

Mackenzie giggled, “Sure!”

She took the remote from the nightstand and turned on the television that sat on top of the dresser. She placed the remote back and picked up a small laptop. It was the only piece of computer equipment in the room outside the large shrine of high-end electronics that had been portioned off by a set of plastic shower-curtains in the corner to the right of the bed. She’d gotten to know Piper well enough to know that when she wasn’t talking about sex and filth, she was talking about computers. That or Alan Turing, whom she idolized and about whom she seemed to know an extraordinary amount.

“Do you want to watch scat porn or anything, or should we just put on something normal?”

“Let’s go with something funny we can just have on in the background while we hang out.” Mackenzie replied.

Piper used the laptop interface to put on a late 2000’s comedy show that they half-watched as they finished the vanilla bean and punk-girl-asshole flavored desert. About ten minutes later, the two naked girls were watching tv and spooning when they heard a grumbling bit of commotion coming from Mackenzie’s gut. Piper, who was being the big spoon at the time, moved her hand down to her tummy and rubbed lovingly.

The red haired girl emitted a whining moan of discomfort. The ice-cream really was making her bowels cramp up. This would be about the time she’d normally go and spend the next half-hour sitting on the toilet, but she felt a certain sense of freedom knowing that her digestive troubles wouldn’t have to interrupt the sleepover. Nor would she have to worry about her legs falling asleep from sitting on the toilet for too long. She managed to let out a small, barely audible bit of gas that did nothing to relieve the pressure, but she could feel her guts churning. There was definitely more coming any minute. Piper could tell, too, as she pulled closer. She pressed the front of her naked hips into Mackenzie’s ass. Her legs were fidgeting a bit, as though she was turned on, which she most likely was. About a minute later she felt a pressure inside her colon. It felt a bit like the fart, but she could tell it was more substantial this time. She let loose with wanton abandon and there was a bit of wet sputtering that was slightly muffled by the barrier of flesh formed by the two women pressed together. She could tell that a few wet chunks of shit had exploded out of her ass and hit Piper in the pussy. A moment later, the bulk of her diarrhea began to erupt. The satiny-wet sound of soft shit correlated with the hot muddy feeling that coated her buttocks and Piper’s crotch. The whole ordeal ended with a few last bits of popping flatulence. Piper responded by moaning gently and kissing her on the neck. Then they went back to watching tv and cuddling, ignoring the hot puddle of feces that was spreading across the bed beneath them.

The bowel movement relieved the discomfort, but she knew from experience that the process would repeat at least a couple more times before her digestive system would be a hundred percent again. She decided she wanted to take advantage of the opportunity. “Hey, Piper. Do you want to lick my pussy?”

“Fuck yeah I do.”

“Okay, you stay there, I’m gonna spin around.” she said. Piper’s eyes lit up. She realized what Mackenzie intended. She was going to maneuver onto the top of a sixty-nine position so that she could shit directly onto Piper’s face as she ate her out. She considered that this might be the first time Piper actually got to experience that. Mackenzie herself got to have the experience of a pretty girl shitting on her face at school a few weeks before, and while she lamented the time Piper had spent institutionalized because of it, she had to admit that it was an exhilaratingly decadent experience.

Mackenzie found herself thinking how unexpected it was that she seemed to be falling a bit into the dominant role with Piper; even more unexpected was the fact that the virginal seeming Christian girl was actually more experienced when it came to lesbian sex.

She felt Piper’s tongue immediately attack her pussy the moment she was in position. There were still some brown streaks caking her ass, but her auburn-haired crotch was still mostly clean. Piper’s cunt, Mackenzie noted as she looked down on it, was a different story. It was still dripping with her excrement. The liquid butt-mud having collected so heavily between her legs that her hairless little slit wasn’t even visible. She wasn’t quite ready to wade through her own filth in order to please Piper orally, and she was becoming distracted by another round of slightly painful clenching in her bowels. She tried to watch tv as Piper’s tongue invaded her cunt, nose pressed firmly against her shitty and soon to be explosive asshole.

Piper was eager, but not yet skillful with regards to cunnilingus. Mackenzie enjoyed the sensation, but the stench of her own filth a few inches beneath was starting to get to be a bit much. She knew she wanted to eventually be like Piper, to be able to chomp down turds like they were hot-dogs at a competitive eating contest, but she’d have a ways to go.

She felt another wet bowel movement pushing to escape her butt, and she did nothing to hold it back. The sensation like hot, chunky water squirting out of her ass preceded the feeling of a more normal brown log escaping from her body. She could tell the first round of chunky liquid shot straight up Piper’s eager nose, but based on the continued eagerness of her tongue, she didn’t seem to mind.

She thought she was finished when a sudden round of nausea hit her. Maybe it was the smell, maybe it was the sight of cooling poop caking Piper’s crotch, or maybe it was the realization that the girl going down on her has a nose-full of her turd-juice, but she found herself gagging.

The contents of her stomach shot up and poured out of her mouth. In an instant the cold shit in Piper’s lap had been replaced with hot puke. The heaving of her stomach stimulated her guts enough that she unleashed another round of partially digested liquid brown with particular force against Piper’s face. She was projectile squirting simultaneously from both ends. Somewhere in all the bodily commotion she half-noticed that she was pissing as well. There were multiple rounds in which her core clenched and filth rocketed out of three orifices at once. In the end, she was spitting out the last bits of phlegm and gastric juice while pathetic little farts signaled the last of her digestive issues. She closed one nostril with her fingers and blew bits of snot-mixed-with-vomit out the other, then repeated the process on the opposite side.

Piper sounded to be doing the exact opposite. She heard the girl behind her sniffing, as though she was trying to snort the scat that filled her nose down the back of her throat to swallow it. She felt the slender girls hands come up reassuringly to her ribs. It seemed like her hands were shaking a bit. “You’re okay, right?” Piper asked, her voice quivering.

“Yeah, I’m fine.” She replied a bit unsteadily. The ordeal had been a bit trying for her physically, and she was mentally a bit overwhelmed.

Based on Piper’s voice, she was overwhelmed too. “Okay!” Piper’s voice was high pitched, her excitement easily could have been mistaken for panic. “That was amazing. Kenzie, that was fucking amazing! You’re a… you’re a motherfucking, incredible-ass, rug-munching, ginger-snatch cunt! You know that? I mean holy cock-sucking, pants-shitting fucking shit!!! Jesus fuck-tits! You’re a goddamn fucking goddess!”

Mackenzie burst out in hysterical laughter and fell over into the slurry of bodily goo that pooled across the bed and was now dripping onto the floor. She hoped Piper wouldn’t be offended, but the frantic string of obscene language just struck her as incredibly funny. When Piper was excited, she was somehow, incredibly, even more of a potty-mouth!

Piper laughed with her for a moment before having a coughing fit. Mackenzie looked back to see the green-haired girl’s face dripping with brown. It seemed that her laughter had caused her to inadvertently inhale a bit of poo, an idea that elicited another round of screaming laughter from Mackenzie.

The clenching feeling in the bottom of her throat still hadn’t totally subsided. Her stomach and head still ached a bit from projectile retching the contents of her stomach all over Piper’s crotch and bed. And as sexy as her mind found the whole situation, her body’s instinctive aversion would take some time to convince. She’d fantasized about doing things like this for years, and while internet porn had prepared her for the sights and sounds, the magnitude of the smell was a bit much for her to take in. The stench of both fresh and stale diarrhea combined with the acidic odor of vomit imposed upon her nose and eyes. She could even taste it in the air.

“Hey, Piper? This is all really sexy, and I’m for sure going to think about this when I masturbate like… forever. But… I mean, I hate to ask, but could we… clean up maybe… ninety percent of this? I mean, I want to get to the point where I can handle-”

“Hey, it’s no big deal!” Piper interjected while wiping some bits of brown goo from around her eyes, “I guess I kinda threw you in the deep end, huh? I’m sorry, I didn’t know you’d get that sick. I mean, it was fucking amazing as a motherfucker, but I don’t want you to feel bad.” She took a moment to formulate a plan for how to proceed. “So tell me what you think of this sequence: You go start taking a shower in my bathroom while I scoop the bulk of the shit and piss and puke into containers, ‘cus I mean, I really wanna save it for later. Then I’ll hop in the shower with you for a minute to clean myself off. Then I’ll grab the wet-vac and clean the rest while you take a bath. I actually have scented oils that’ll make you smell like flowers afterward. Then when you’re done, there’ll just be some residue on the sheets that’s still gonna smell a bit, and parts of the bed are still gonna be kinda sticky, but it won’t be nearly this strong. It’ll just smell kinda like bad farts.”

Mackenzie’s eyes widened in surprise. “Wow, that sounds… really efficient. You have scented bath oil???”

“Well yeah, I mean, it’s cool to smell like shit sometimes, but most people like girls to be clean and smell nice. And there are some dudes I hang out with and play video-games with. I mean, I know they mostly hang out with me ‘cus I let them buttfuck me, but I dunno, maybe part of me wants to be a pretty girl; like you. Or maybe I just like smelling like coconuts and lilac in the morning, and cheese-farts and asparagus-piss at night.” Piper’s eyebrows knitted together in sudden contemplation. “Huh, you know what? I think I just realized that I like all smells. Fuck, I never thought about that before.” She contemplated a moment longer before realizing that Mackenzie was still slowly edging her way to the bathroom on the left side of the room from the bed. “Oh yeah, you go take a shower, and I’ll be there in a minute.”

Mackenzie followed Piper’s suggestion. She noted that the bathroom had a rather normal assortment of shampoos, conditioners, lotions, oils and the like. If anything, Piper’s collection of hygiene products would be enviable to the average girl. It was actually a comfort that Mackenzie hadn’t realized she needed. She had always been fastidious about cleanliness; both of her body and her environment. She didn’t need a psychologist to tell her that the origins of her fascination with filth lie in her almost obsessive-compulsive tidiness.

Deep down, there had been a spark of worry that despite their common fetish, actually building a life with Piper may have been implausible. But those worries had been laid to rest. Piper’s home was crisp and clean. Her bedroom had a bit of clutter around the computer station, but was otherwise neatly organized and tidy. As she peaked out of the shower to see the shit-caked girl using a small squeegee she apparently had stashed somewhere to scrape the slurry of filth neatly into a tupperware container, she realized that they could have a future. At that moment she knew; this was the girl she was going to marry.

***

Almost forty-five minutes later, Mackenzie came out of the bathroom smelling like roses. The naked and still slightly moist Piper stood eagerly. “I left some residue on the sheets, but if you decide you want everything to be a hundred percent clean, I can change those and put them in the washing machine.”

“It’s okay.” Mackenzie replied with a lovey smile. “It smells sexy in here.” She took deep breath and let out a contented sigh. “I feel better now. Throwing up makes you feel bad. Even though it’s hot.”

“Yeah, I’m sorry. I should have planned for this better.” Piper gave a contrite smile. “Sorry if I was being kinda selfish by making you eat ice cream so you could fart and shit on me.”

“Piper. Stop apologizing.” Mackenzie was almost surprised to hear such a commanding tone come out of her own mouth.

“Oh, I’m sorry, I- Shit! Sorry. Fuck!” Her contrite smile disappeared and was replaced by genuine anxiety.

Mackenzie felt a little sorry for her. She had always hidden her own kink. So as shy as she was, she still made the occasional friend or acquaintance. But Piper’s in-your-face filth obsession must have made her feel alienated from the rest of the world. As best she could tell, her only friends were men who mostly used her for sex. It was no wonder she seemed a bit desperate to please.

“Okay, take a breath.” Mackenzie stepped forward and held Piper’s pixie-like face in her hands, peering into her green and brown eyes. “From now on, whenever you want to say you’re sorry, just tell me you love me instead. Say ‘I love that you accept me for who I am. I love that you forgive me for my mistakes. I love that you want to be with me no matter what.’ Because I do. And I will. You’re… amazing, Piper. And I’m absolutely, positively in love with you.”

Piper stood blank-faced for a moment. “I… I love you too, Kenzie.”

“Come on. Let’s go to bed. It’s getting late, and I think that’s a nice thought to fall asleep to.”

The two of them crawled beneath the feces and vomit smeared sheets, kissed one another gently, and drifted off to sleep in each other’s arms….

Mackenzie woke up first the next morning. She laid in bed staring at Piper through the mess of green hair that tangled over her face. She watched as her eyes lazily drifted open and turned to meet hers. She yawned and smiled before speaking groggily, “I’ve got to take a monster dump right now.”

Mackenzie giggled and kissed her. “Good morning to you, too!”

Piper slipped out from under the rubbery covers and stood naked, wreathed in the small bit of morning light that peaked through the curtains above the bed. “I’m thirsty, are you thirsty?”

“Mhm. I actually feel a little dehydrated. I probably should have drank something after I threw up last night.”

“Oh fuck, I should have offered you something, I’m sor- I mean… uhh… I love that you put up with the fact that I don’t know how to have guests.” She grinned a bit, proud of herself for remembering Mackenzie’s insistence that she express love rather than regret.

Piper opened the clear shower-curtain to enter the tech corner of the room, the mess of cables and wires running between custom made computers and monitors and various other pieces of plastic and circuitry that Mackenzie couldn’t begin to decipher. She opened a small mini-fridge positioned in the underside of the desk and pulled out one clear bottle and one red one. “I’ve got water and Mountain Dew Code Red.”

“Oh, just the water is fine.”

Piper returned to the bed and handed Mackenzie the clear bottle. She opened the red one herself and took a swig. The scent of artificial cherry flavor briefly overwhelmed the aroma of ass that lingered on the bed and on Piper’s skin. Mackenzie cracked the water and drank a third of it in a few large swallows.

She contemplated for a moment, “Hey, have these been in your ass?”

“Nah, I just do that with stuff I eat. I leave drinks alone. I thought about making it so that everything I eat is something I shat out and everything I drink is something I pissed, but I’m not about to give myself a catheter every day to squirt coffee and soda and juice into my bladder. I tried it once and it kinda hurts, like… kinda a lot. I still drink piss, though. Wanna see?”

Mackenzie groaned adorably and hit Piper gently with a pillow, “How are you this chipper this early in the morning? And also, yes, of course I wanna watch you drink piss.”

Piper laughed as she went to the dresser to retrieve a large green cup from one of the upper drawers. Mackenzie was slowly figuring out that a dish or food being labeled green seemed to indicate it was for Piper only. She watched, as the skinny, naked girl turned her knees out and squatted slightly. A pale yellow liquid poured from between her labia and filled the cup about two thirds of the way. She returned to bed next to Mackenzie and sipped the cup of urine while making casual eye contact with her bed-mate. “Wanna try some?”

Mackenzie nodded. Piper handed her the cup, “Just take a little sip.” she cautioned, “I don’t wanna go overboard again. We have time to help you get used to all this kinda shit.”

She took the cup and smelled it. A relatively normal scent of salty urea. She took a small sip and found it tasted similarly. The acrid taste made her face scrunch a bit. She followed up the sip of Piper’s pee by taking a few delicate swallows from the bottle of clean water. “Thanks for going slow with me, Piper.”

“No problem, babe. Hey, hand me that empty ice-cream container, I’m gonna take a huge dump in it while you watch, okay?”

She handed Piper the container and turned on the bedside lamp to get a better look as Piper turned around and knelt down with her chest pressed onto the top of the bed. She held the container in one hand between her legs; obscenely spread ass proudly displaying her cute, puckered anus. She watched as the muscles in the girl’s lithe abdomen writhed and her shitter opened up. A large, solid log of brown excrement pushed its way out of Piper’s asshole and broke off to plop into the empty container. A slightly softer brown cylinder emerged and kept emerging; it curved down, beginning to coil as it hit the bottom of the container. She realized that Piper’s practiced skill was being utilized to fill the container the same way an ice-cream man would fill a cone with soft-serve. Despite her small size, she managed to fill the container almost all the way to the top with a perfectly tipped swirl.

“Impressive!” Mackenzie remarked.

“I watched some YouTube videos of the techniques people use for soft-serve. It took some practice to get it right at this angle, but I can usually make a pretty nice-looking shit-cup.” She explained as she wiped her ass with her fingers and licked them clean.

Piper grabbed the spoon and sat in bed next to Mackenzie. She began casually eating her own shit from the used ice-cream container as if it actually was soft-serve, occasionally washing it down with a swig from the bottle of red soda.

“Can I try?” Mackenzie asked, stopping Piper in her tracks.

“Are you sure? Just so you know, this thing doesn’t need to be a two way street. If you want to just dump out turds in my mouth every day, and never put your mouth anywhere near me, I’d be a hundred-percent cool with that.”

“I wouldn’t be. I like kissing you. And I don’t feel like you’re pressuring me. I’ve fantasized about eating your shit since the first day we met. I guess I kinda did at the assembly, but mostly I just threw up. I didn’t really get a chance to take my time.”

“Yeah, I… love you for being the kinda girl that enjoyed that crazy-ass prank. Okay, I don’t want you to get sick again, so just have a little.” Piper collected a small spoonful of her own crap and held it out toward Mackenzie.

“I love you, too.” she said before she suddenly took the small scoop of feces into her mouth. She pulled back and felt the slightly warm brown sludge on her tongue. The taste was bitter and earthy; like fermented soil and coffee grounds. With a substantial stretch of the imagination, she could almost convince herself that the turd tasted like unsweetened dark chocolate. She mushed it against the roof of her mouth with her tongue and swallowed. She gagged briefly, but quickly washed most of the taste out of her mouth by downing the rest of her water bottle.

Piper watched with anticipation. Mackenzie took a few deep breaths to make sure that she wasn’t going to throw up, then smiled at Piper. Piper looked excited and hugged her. “I’m so proud of you! Just so you know, that shit was mostly made out of your shit from last night, so you’re kinda gettin’ double shit flavor there. But now that I know for sure you want to do that, I’ll try to do stuff to make it taste better when you come over. Oh! And you should take the antibiotics my mom got for you so that you don’t get sick from that.” She produced the small prescription bottle from a drawer in the nightstand before going back to her mini-fridge to bring another water bottle.

“Thanks,” she said as she downed the first dose of medication. “Hey, Piper? Can I… make a request? It’s okay if you say no, but it’d mean a lot to-”

“I’ll do anything for you, Mackenzie.” The adoration was clear in her voice.

“If I’m going to be… ya know, eating your poop, is there any chance you could… stop eating meat?”

Piper’s cheeks widened into a big, toothy grin. “I already stopped. I knew there was a chance you’d want to do that, and I know you don’t eat meat. I’m not going to have you eat second-hand meat out of my butt.”

The two of them spent most of the rest of the day in bed watching tv. It seemed that the little laptop on the nightstand could set anything she could imagine to play on the screen. Mackenzie wasn’t sure if the Lindeholm household just happened to have a subscription to almost every streaming service, of if Piper was pirating them. She decided that she didn’t particularly care about the answer. She did care about the fact that they seemed to have more in common than she would have thought. They both liked Star Trek, and spent a good portion of the day revisiting favorite episodes. Their taste in comedy shows was similar; and Mackenzie found herself genuinely enjoying being a cheerleader for Piper as she played video games. Mackenzie was more into horror movies than Piper, who got scared easily, but claimed she could tolerate them as long as she could bury her face between Mackenzie’s boobs during the scary parts.

Toward the end of the day, the two of them worked together to clean the last of the filth from the room as Mackenzie prepared to depart that evening. She wished that she could stay forever, but a part of her also wanted to get home to Saturday-evening dinner with her family, where she could tell them a heavily censored version of her adventures with her new girlfriend. Plus, she enjoyed the weekly family ritual of Sunday morning breakfast, followed by church.

She was saying her last goodbyes and thank-yous to Piper and her mother, when Piper blurted out a question randomly.

“Hey, should I shave my head again by Monday? Like, do you want to see my tattoos at school?”

Piper’s hairstyle had been a bit neglected during the few weeks in the mental hospital. The formerly bare sides of her head that read “Potty Mouth” and “Ass 2 Mouth 4 Life” were now mostly obscured by a dense stubble of golden-blonde hair.

Miss Lindeholm stood behind Piper, making intensely wide eye-contact with Mackenzie and pleadingly shaking her head in tense little gestures.

“Well… I think your hair is really pretty, and, I dunno, maybe the tattoos can be just something that you and me know about.”

Piper’s mother made a silent sigh of relief and mouthed ‘thank you’ at Mackenzie.

“Okay,” she began, rubbing the side of her head, “I guess I can grow it out for now. Least I can do is try to look pretty for you.”

Mackenzie didn’t fully understand the comment until they passed each other in the hall Monday at school. Piper kept her eyes downcast, only raising them briefly to flash a subtle knowing smile at Mackenzie before proceeding on her way as if they were strangers.

Mackenzie wheeled around to catch up and glomped Piper with a big hug from behind. “Hey, pretty girl! You aren’t even going to say hi to me?”

Piper looked panicked, she spoke in a rapid whisper, “Kenzie! You can’t hang around me at school! People are gonna… see you! With me!”

A flash of anger stirred in Mackenzie’s heart. Not directed at Piper, but at the society that made her feel that she needed to protect Mackenzie from mockery by pretending to be strangers.

Her face turned stern. “Piper! I don’t care what anyone thinks.” She began to speak a bit more loudly in the crowded hall to make her point, “You’re my girlfriend and we’re in love. I feel sorry for anyone who thinks they need to make fun of someone because of who they choose to spend their life with.”

Piper continued to fret for a while, but eventually acquiesced; she still seemed a little nervous. They spent a lot of time together in school, but Piper always preferred to spend it away from other students who may be compelled to comment on Mackenzie’s choice of partner. In fact, most of the time, the two of them spent their lunch period in the out-of-the-way bathroom where they’d first met. They occasionally did unspeakably filthy things when they could be sure they would have privacy in a stall, but mostly, they just held hands and talked about their lives.

Mackenzie’s parents eventually had Piper and her mother over to their home for dinner; something that both girls stressed about on account of Piper’s inadvertent compulsion to be vulgar. Piper’s mother seemed uncharacteristically cavalier about the whole thing, as though she had a secret plan to ensure the evening went well. Which, as it turns out, she did! Almost as soon as the two of them walked in the door, Miss Lindeholm dominated the conversation by praising them for the way they reconciled their Christian faith with their daughter’s homosexuality, which she segued into offhandedly mentioning a project that Piper had done a few years before about her personal hero and gay icon, Alan Turing. That had apparently set things in motion, as Piper spent the rest of the evening excitedly lecturing everyone present about the life and legacy of the father of modern computer science, along with far too many details about computer science itself. Mackenzie’s family was too polite to stop her multi-hour soliloquy, but left the evening believing that their daughter’s new sweetheart was an exceptionally bright and spirited young lady whose odd behavior at the school assembly had been an isolated incident.

A few weeks later, Piper had grown more comfortable spending time with Mackenzie in the more public areas of the school. At one point a large boy from the football team had approached them, mockingly inviting Piper and Mackenzie to a party they were throwing… as the toilets. Piper initially accepted the invitation happily, not realizing the boy was making fun of them. When Mackenzie explained, she seemed disappointed. She didn’t become angry until the boy continued piling on, and when he called Mackenzie a ‘retard’ she attacked him. The ninety-six pound girl was about as effective as one would expect against the two-hundred-forty pound linebacker; the fight ended about two seconds after it began with Piper lying in the dirt with a split lip. Despite being the one bleeding, she still seemed much more worried about Mackenzie.

The boy was suspended for a week, a penalty that Piper’s mother thought was insultingly low. Though it seemed karma was on their side, as the boy was arrested soon after when hundreds of gigabytes of brutal pornography featuring a ten-year-old girl named Darla was found on his personal computer. Mackenzie had a sneaking suspicion that Piper was responsible, but being as she wasn’t sure she wanted to know just how far Piper would go to defend her, she never asked.

A few weeks before graduation, Mackenzie proposed in the bathroom where they’d first met. It was the first time she’d ever seen Piper cry.

That summer, the two of them found an apartment and moved in together near the university that Piper would be attending in the Fall. Mackenzie decided that she wanted to take some time off and figure out what she wanted to do with her life. The two of them often joked that Mackenzie was preparing for a life as Piper’s trophy wife.

Life was good; and the strange and depraved story of Piper and Mackenzie’s ‘Happily Ever After’ was just beginning…

#pervertpentet pottymouthpiper

33 notes · View notes

mirkwoodshewolf · 5 years ago

Text

You’re still the smartest girl I know; John Deacon x daughter teen reader

*Author’s note*

Hey guys wow my final crunch time at college has kept me REALLY busy with all these final projects that I need to do, so my thanksgiving break is gonna be INSANE with doing all this work that I need to do BUT the good news is is that I had this request done in my downtime that I had, so to the anon who requested this awhile back, I’m SOOO SORRY for getting it to you so late but I hope you love it either way.

I also have updates on a few of my series so I may end up making a post about my writing updates and what all I plan to work on to try and get more organized with all that I have to do. So I’ve got two updates for you guys so I hope you all like this fic.

Warnings: school, mild angst, failing school, FLUFF, Dad!Deacy (cause let’s face it its a warning because he’s FREAKIN ADORABLE!!!) and my unknown knowledge of how Catholic schools work, so if I’m wrong about something, PLEASE send me a comment or an inbox to correct it.

Taglist:

@plethora-of-things

@psychosupernatural

@ixchel-9275

@waddles03

@queendeakyy

@platawnic

@kairosfreddie

___________________________________________________________

I just don’t get it. My dad graduated with 8 GCE O level and 3 A level in electronics, he’s designed his own amp, and helps with not only the family finances but the band finances too. He’s the smartest guy I know and I share half of his genius, or at least I should.

I needed to sustain at least a 3.50 average to stay in my current Catholic secondary school but with my failing classes I’m barely at a 2.50. It’s not that I don’t try to do the work I do the homework and attend the lectures, it’s just that some of my classes like Geometry and Ancient religions, the teachers make the assignments so confusing.

Even when I would write the papers, they always found something to pick at and I end up with either C’s or even D’s on my papers, even when I would stay up all night skimming through book after book to get the required aspects they ask for. Also their quizzes and exams are so unfair, they would tell us this or that would be on the test, but by the time the test came around, absolutely NONE of the stuff they said would be on it, is on it. Hell they’ve put things down that we haven’t even learned yet.

It was currently Fall break and I spending some time with my family for the holiday trying to get my mind off of school. I was watching over my brothers rough house in the backyard. God they were so lucky they don’t have to deal with the harsh school life just yet.

“So (y/n) how’s school going love?” I heard my mum say. I quickly looked up at her and said quickly.

“School’s fine.” She looked at me skeptically.

“Are you sure?” she asked.

“Yeah mum, everything’s fine.” Then fortunately saved by the bell, the doorbell rang and I immediately shot up and said. “I’ll get it!” I quickly raced to the front door and cracked it open. And there at the door was the mail carrier. He took out of his bag our mail for the day and he said.

“Here’s your mail ma’am.”

“Thanks Gardner, have a good day.” I said. He nodded and walked off the curb and continued down the road with his route. I closed the door and skimmed through the mail. Most of it was bills, some Queen stuff for dad to sign and look over, but then there was a letter from the school sent to me. At this point my heart was racing.

“Who was that?” Oh shit dad. I turned around to see him coming down the stairs holding my baby sister who had probably just woken up from her nap.

“Oh just the mail. Mostly bills this time, but then again what else is new. And there’s some Queen stuff for you to look over dad.” I handed him most of the mail but kept the letter from London University for me.

“Well what’s that?”

“What? Oh this oh it’s just junk mail. Something about 20% interest rate on life insurance from a different company. Damn things are just scams anyway. I’ll shred it dad.” I walked up and kissed his cheek then my baby sister before racing upstairs.

As soon as I reached my room, I closed the door and locked it and leaned against it in a panic. Nervously I opened up the envelope and it read the worst thing I could imagine.

To Miss (Y/n) (M/n) Deacon,

It has come to our attention of your low grades. It is required that your parents come in for a meeting with the Headmaster in regards to your low grades.

At that point my mind went blank as I ignored all that the letter said. Tears formed in my eyes. Goddamnit why did they send this letter? Cause first comes the letter, then the phone calls will follow. I’ve tried so hard to keep my struggles in school away from my parents because I didn’t want them to get involved, that all I needed to do was try better since that’s all teachers seem to push onto me, if not then I’ll make it up in summer school.

I just wanted to prove that I was as smart as my dad is.

So I hide the letter in the folds of my diary knowing that my parents don’t go snooping around it and putting it in the secret place where I know my snoopy brothers can’t get to it (thank god I change places every week) and tried to forget about it. It was then a knock was heard at my door.

“(Y/n)? Poppet is everything okay in there?”

“Uhh—yeah dad everything’s fine.”

“Then why is your door locked?”

“I’m changing clothes dad, I’m meeting Stacy and Courtney for a movie later tonight.” There was a brief moment of silence before he said.

“Alright but at least unlock it. We’ve talked about this before, plus your brothers think girls are gross so I doubt they’d pop in on their sister changing.”

“Okay dad sorry.” Thank god he bought it. I then went over to my phone and tried to make my lie seem real as I called both Stacy and Courtney to meet me at the theater in 15min.

Thankfully since it was the weekend, my parents let me go out later than usual so long as I was back before ten. My dad gave me some money for the tickets and food and we kissed each other goodbye and I drove off to the theater.

I soon met my two best friends and we decided to just walk around the mall instead going to see a movie. It was there I told the girls everything. As they were trying on new stuff from a new store called The Gap, I said to them.

“What am I gonna do girls?”

“Well you know me girl, if I were you I’d just come clean.” Said Courtney.

“Are you crazy?! No way can she tell them about this. Okay chick this is what you do. You answer any calls the school makes and come up with any and every excuse you’ve got.” Stacy said as she peeked over her changing room into Courtney’s.

“Stace, no offense but your parents may buy into that but I’ve met her mum and dad and they aren’t stupid like yours are.”

“Yeah you got a point. Hell I could go to prison for murder and my parents wouldn’t care.”

“Guys hello! Back to me.” I begged.

“Sorry. Well looks like your screwed chickadee.”

“Oh gee thanks Stace.”

“Look (y/n). All I can tell you is that you won’t be able to hide this forever. Just—show them the note and tell them the truth. I’m sure they’ll understand if you explain it to them. And I can back you up about Mr. Crowley. Guy’s a right up arsehole if you ask me. Gave me -20 points because I used the wrong citation for the Bibliography page. And it was only one source that was labeled wrong” Said Courtney.

“Yeah and our Geometry teacher Miss. Ringo, I can barely understand what she’s saying with that thick Dutch accent of hers. Gave me a 30% on our last exam.”

“That’s because all you did was doodle and call her an old bat.” I said bluntly.

“Oh yeah. But oh man you should’ve seen the look on her face on the last homework assignment we had.”

“I don’t even wanna know.” Said Courtney.

“Trust me you don’t.” I vouched.

“Hey come on, let’s forget about school, get you to try on some clothes. We’ll go to the food court and get your mind off of things. Sound good?” Stacy said as she came out wearing a new jean jacket with suspenders underneath. I nodded and said with a smile.

“Thanks guys, you’re the best friends I could ask for.”

“Hey divas in diapers remember? The three musketeers. The triple threat angelz.”

“With a Z because…..”

“We’re bad bitches!” we all exclaimed as we held our right hands out in a fist touching each other’s in a triangle shape. And so that’s how it was, the girls helped me get my mind off of the letter and the stress of school with a good Girl’s day out.

A couple days later I was back in school in my Ancient Religions class. Mr. Crowley of course barely allowed any time for me to fully write down what he had on the board because he immediately went to the next thing. He never once asked if anyone had any questions and if someone stopped him, he’d slam the ruler down on the student’s desk and either ask them to meet him after class, or just give them detention.

“Alright students; I’m going to give you your final assignment for the semester for you to do just before winter break.” Everyone groaned. He had just give us a 10 page paper on how Christianity as a whole effected the Global conquest, and now he’s giving us another essay to do. “Hey, hey, hey, hey! No complaints you miscreants!”

But just before he could continue, the intercom beeped above us.

“Mr. Crowley?”

“Yes?” he said annoyedly.

“Will you please send Miss. Deacon into the office.”

“She’s on her way.”

“Thank you.”

“(Y/n) Deacon.” At that point everyone but Courtney all made the ‘oooo busted’ vocals. I flipped them off as Mr. Crowley made me my hall pass so that I wouldn’t get caught by a teacher patrolling the halls. I grabbed my bag and left the classroom.

I walked down the second floor staircase, down to the main level and turned towards the entrance where the main office was. I walked in and I said.

“I’m (Y/n) Deacon. I was told to come here from Mr. Crowley’s class.” The receptionist said.

“Ahh yes Miss. Deacon. The Headmaster would like to speak with you.” Oh shit. This is probably about that letter. I swallowed nervously and hung my bag further up my shoulder and walked down the corridor towards the Headmaster’s office. It felt like the walkway was getting longer as I walked towards that dreaded office room, that was until finally I arrived at it.

Slowly I reached up and knocked on it. There was a brief period of silence before a low voice said.

“Come in.” I opened the door and there standing at the grand desk was Headmaster Byron. He was a fairly older man (if I had to make a guess I’d say currently around Miami’s age). He was a bit—you now stout shape wise. He was going bald and he wore glasses over his hazel eyes. “Ahh Miss. Deacon please sit down.” I walked in and nervously sat down at the chair in front of me.

“You—wanted to see me sir?”

“Yes. I’ve called you down here regarding a letter I had sent over the fall break. I expected to hear a call from your parents but I hadn’t heard anything back from them. Is there a problem?” Oh god what do I say to him?

“Well I—I guess the mail service was just a little slow. Because we haven’t received the letter just yet.”

“Hmm well that’s unusual. Usually the mail service is properly on time. I mean at least we’re more organized than the American system at least to my knowledge.”

“Yeah guess they must’ve lost it.” I said nervously fiddling with my fingers, anxiously picking at my nails.

“In that case; I can send you with another copy of the letter. But if I don’t hear anything within 24hours expect the first phone call.” I nodded as he handed me the same letter that I had gotten in the mail over the break. I thanked him and quickly headed out of the office. On my way back to class I ripped the letter up into as many pieces as I could before discarding it into the nearest bin and returned to class like nothing happened.

After school I was in my room trying to make sense of the math homework I had to deal with and that’s when a knock was heard at my open door. I looked up and there stood my mum.

“Hey love. So you’re dad’s working late tonight with the band so I’m ordering a pizza for dinner. What would you like on yours?”

“Get me a full cheese and my toppings are sausage and pepperoni.”

“You got it. Doing homework?” I nodded solemnly. “Which class is it for?”

“Geometry.”

“Oh yeah, I remember taking that class. Hardest thing I ever knew. In fact all math was difficult for me. Thank god for your dad though, he was always better at finances than I was. That’s how we met as a matter of fact, I was struggling with my Algebra homework and he offered to help me since we were in the same class together.” Lucky her that she at least had dad to help her, meanwhile I on the other hand had absolutely no one to help me.

Everyone was in it for themselves, not even the teacher was willing to give us tutoring sessions if we didn’t get any of the stuff taught in class. He just expected us to memorize and do everything correctly.

“Say, speaking of geometry did you get the midterm results back yet?” Oh god that’s right. Dad actually skipped out on Queen rehearsals to help tutor me for the upcoming fall midterm exam.

Unfortunately for all that hard work, nothing we had practiced was on the midterm, half the stuff was gibberish to me so I just wrote random answers that I could and I ended up with an F.

“He uhh—he got super busy grading our other stuff that he didn’t have time to look over the midterms. But he said hopefully in the next week or two he’ll get to it.”

“Are you sure?” I nodded and she looked at me skeptically.

“Okay, if you say so. I’ll call you when dinner arrives okay?”

“Sounds good mum. Love you.”

“Love you too.” She kissed the top of my head and left my room. I turned away and tossed my books and homework off my bed and buried my face into my bedsheets and softly began to cry.

Why? Why does this have to happen to me?! Why can’t I just get the damn work? Why do I have to be such a fucking idiot!?!?

Days passed and I still didn’t have the heart to tell my parents that I was failing school. And when the phone started ringing I tried to make an effort to try and answer it before they did, fearing that it was the school.

Some calls it was to which I would make excuses for the school and then tell my mum and dad that it was just boring telemarketers trying to sell us stuff. Other times it’d be Uncle Freddie or uncle Roger calling for Deacy about some Queen business stuff (and of course I chatted with them, I’ve known them ever since I was a baby, plus Freddie was my godfather—or I should say fairy godmother).

But it wasn’t until one day when I came home from an afterschool football game Stacy and Courtney invited me to, that I would pay dearly for the lie that I had been trying to keep.

“Yeah I know and when Bobby finally scored the winning goal I swear it was a one and a million shot he got that!” Stacy exclaimed as we got out of her car and walked up my driveway before stopping at the gate.

“I tell you you’ve got one lucky man right there Stace. Your boy’s gonna go far in football.” Said Courtney.

“All I know is that for the first time in decades our school is finally in the playoffs and that we might have a shot of winning the district championship since 1971.” I said.

“Well we definitely have the best team to get us there. Not to mention the cutest.” Courtney said before snickering towards the end.

“I’ll drink to that.” I said taking a shot of my water.

“(Y/n). Can you come in here please?” I looked up to see my dad standing there by the door. His arms crossed over his chest and I could tell something was wrong.

“Yeah dad I’ll be right there. See you girls Monday then?”

“We’ll save you a seat at the cafeteria before homeroom.” The girls then walked back to the car and they drove off. I opened the gate and trotted up the stairs before standing in front of him.

“Is something wrong dad?”

“Come in the house and let’s talk.” He placed a hand on my shoulder and guided me inside. As we walked through the house towards the kitchen, I could feel the tension in the air. It was so thick, you could cut it with a knife. My mum sat there at the kitchen table looking distraught almost. “Have a seat.” Okay now I was getting a little freaked out.

I sat down and that’s when dad stood behind mum placing his hands on her shoulders.

“(Y/n), has something been going on at school that you’re not telling us?” asked my mum concerned.

“No—why do you ask?”

“Well we caught Robert and Michael reading your diary and—”

“They what!? MICHAEL! ROBERT GET YOUR ARSES DOWN HERE RIGHT NOW YOU LITTLE BUGGERS!!!”

“Hey! Hey! Hey! Language and lower that tone in your voice!” dad snapped at me. “We handled the boys, but it was then we found this.” He took something out of his pocket before unfolding it and placing it down right in front of me on the table. My heart sunk and my throat grew dry.

It was the first letter sent in by my school.

“So we called the school and they said they’ve been trying to get in touch with us. And that you said we didn’t receive any letter the first time around so the Headmaster gave you a second letter.” Mum stated more in an interrogating tone than the concerned tone she had earlier.

“Have you really been failing your classes? And this time don’t. Lie. To us.”

“No!” I exclaimed.

“They said you’re barely holding a 2.50 GPA.”

“Well I—I just….I don’t mean to I-I-I-I….the teachers they’re…..” I kept rambling as I felt tears in my eyes and my throat clenched. “I don’t get why I’m being target.”

“The better question is why did you lie to us!? You’ve known about your grades for what weeks? And you lied to us every time a grade was mentioned! Do you have any idea the level of betrayal you’ve given to me and your mother!?” my dad’s voice slowly raised up in anger.

I tucked away in fear at his intimidating voice. He rarely and I say this with a big emphasis that my dad rarely gets mad, but when he does—oh god help us all. I didn’t answer. Couldn’t answer him.

“(Y/n) (m/n) Deacon answer me when I’m talking to you!” he snapped. I looked up fearfully and ashamed and I did the only thing that was running through my mind.

Run.

I got up and as quick as I could I raced out of the house and down the street. I fucked up. I know, but at this point it was too late. Just seeing my dad get angry with me, I knew he hated me now.

I ran all the way down the street and turned left and ran towards old widow Johannsson’s back garden. I opened the gate that stood around her AC vent and locked the door so that no one could open it. I leaned against the corner of the gate and just sobbed as hard as I could.

All of my fears and sorrow came out as I wept hysterically and choked on my sobs, that’s when I heard my dad’s voice calling out my name. I held my hand over my mouth to try and keep quiet as his voice got louder and louder. I soon saw him through the cracks in the fence as he looked around. Unfortunately a sniffle just had to come out and soon dad turned towards the fence.

“(Y/n)?”

“Please just go away and let me cry in peace.” I choked out.

“That’s not going to happen, now c’mon open the gate.”

“No you—you already hate me.” He scoffed out a sigh.

“Wha—what makes you think I hate you?” he asked in disbelief.

“You only yell when you hate someone. And now you hate me. You hate me that I lied to you. You hate me for keeping secrets. And you hate me because I’m stupid.”

“Hello? What—what is going on out here?” widow Johansson came out on top of her deck and looked down towards us.

“I’m sorry Valarie but—could you give us a few minutes?” she must’ve looked down and saw me because that’s when she slowly backed off and allowed my dad to talk to me again. “(Y/n), love I—I don’t hate you. Yeah I’m upset because you lied to your mum and I but I could never, ever hate you.”

“But you do dad don’t deny it. I kept this from you and you’ll never forgive me. You’ll never love me again because I’m a stupid bitch who can’t understand anything!”

“First of all you are not a stupid bitch. You are a brilliant, smart, beautiful young girl. And I will always love you no matter what.”

“Stop saying that. Please just go away please…..” I trailed off before pleading out one last time. “Please.” With that I didn’t hear another response from him as I continued to softly weep. I could hear footsteps walking up widow Johansson’s back deck and then the back door closed. I looked up and saw my dad as well as widow Johansson gone. I wiped my tears and just curled myself into a ball.

I don’t know how much time passed but I knew it wasn’t long, maybe 5-7 minutes because the next thing I hear are footsteps walking back down the deck and my dad sitting himself down against the gate. It was then I heard a guitar being strummed before a familiar tune was being played.

It was strange to hear it on guitar instead of an electric piano like it was on the record but the tune was easily recognizable, especially when my dad softly began singing the lyrics. And sure he didn’t have as good a voice as my uncles did but—he still made the song count.

Oh, you're the best friend that I ever had I've been with you such a long time You're my sunshine and I want you to know That my feelings are true I really love you Oh, you're my best friend

While it is true that my dad wrote this song for my mum back when a Night at the Opera came out, he also written it for me as well. Because when he first played it for us, he said he wanted a song dedicated to his favorite girls.

So taking the electric piano he practiced and practiced till he knew how to play the tune and since then the song’s been like a comforting lullaby to me. And he’s played and sung it to me ever since.

Ooh, you make me live Whenever this world is cruel to me I got you to help me forgive Ooh, you make me live now honey Ooh, you make me live

You're the first one When things turn out bad You know I'll never be lonely You're my only one And I love the things I really love the things that you do Oh, you're my best friend

Ooh, you make me live

I'm happy at home You're my best friend

He stopped playing and slightly turned towards me. I wiped away my tears and just like it always did, it made me stop crying.

“Guess I still got it huh?”

“Shut up.” I muttered which made him softly chuckle.

“Can you please open the gate love? Let me see my best friend.” He asked. I slowly scooted towards the gate and slowly reached for the handle. I held onto it for a while and I pulled one side down which caused the other side to lift up. The gate slowly opened and there sitting a few feet away from me was my dad. “There she is.”

I sniffled and wiped away the tearstains but I was still afraid to look him in the eye for more than a second. I felt his hand cup the side of my face wiping away the tears.

“Do you think you can talk to me now?” I nodded. “Okay. Now (y/n) please explain to me why you lied to us about your grades?”

“Because I—I wanted to prove myself.”

“Prove yourself about what?”

“That I could be as smart as you. You’re the smartest man I know and you never seem to get stumped about anything. You graduates college with the highest in your major, you’ve built your own amps from old junk, and you handle both our finances as well as the bands. But—the schoolwork I’m given is so beyond hard. I tried my best dad it’s not that I don’t do the homework because I do. I really do, it’s just that…..”

“Hey, hey poppet. Shh, it’s okay. It’s okay.” I sniffled and harshly wiped my tears away but my dad stopped me and replaced my thick sleeve with his gentle but calloused fingers. “I know you do the homework. I’ve seen you do it and so has your mum.”

“But the teachers make it so unfair to learn. They say this or that will be on the test but then something we haven’t even learned yet is what ends up as majority of the questions. Or they’re not consistent with what they want on the papers before giving us a bigger paper the next day after the previous one. Dad I—I’m a failure. And I didn’t want you to be ashamed of having a stupid daughter like me.”

“Oh (y/n),” he scooted closer to me and cupped both sides of my face forcing me to look up at him with teary eyes. “I am in no way, nor will I ever be ashamed to have you as my daughter. You’re my first baby girl and I love you soo much. You don’t have to be a genius like me to be my daughter, because you are smart in your own clever way.”

“But I—I’m failing my classes, how can I be smart when I’m failing?”

“You’re still trying, are you not?” I shrugged.

“I guess.”

“Then that proves your smart. Oh my sweet girl I wish you had come to me about this sooner instead of feeling like you had to hide this from me.”

“I’m sorry daddy.” I softly choked out.

“It’s okay love. Now come here, you deserve cuddles and kisses right now.” I immediately fell into his arms and buried myself into his shoulder. He rubbed my back in soothing circles and stroked through my hair. “We’ll get this sorted out okay? But promise me that you’ll never lie to us about school again, okay?”

“I promise…..never again.”

“I love you.”

“I love you too.”

And they did just that. I showed my parents everything regarding exams, homework and showed just how unfair the work was for me. I showed them my notes and told them what my teachers were really like.

The next day they scheduled a meeting with the headmaster and they talked about how the teachers are treating me and my fellow classmates unfairly with too much work and not unfair teachings of not asking for help.

Now one would think after telling you this I got off scot-free right? Wrong. I was grounded for the same amount of time that I had lied to my parents about school, so that meant over a week and a half of no TV, no after school activities and no phone privileges.

But after getting the teachers fired and currently dealing with substitutes for the rest of the year, whenever dad wasn’t busy with Queen; he made a promise to sit down with me and if there was anything I was stuck on, he’d help me with it. No matter how long it took.

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purplesurveys · 4 years ago

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941

ACH

Do you listen to anything by Bach? I’ve probably encountered some of his material since I like looking for classical musical playlists to listen to on Spotify, but I’m nowhere near being a devoted fan or anything like that.

ASH

Do you like ash trees? I’m not attached to any kind of tree, really – but I know I have nothing against this kind, haha.

Do you have the ashes of a family member or a pet? No. The only ashes I’ve gotten to encounter are my grandpa’s, but we’ve since placed them in our local ossuary so that he can rest in peace.

How often do you feel like you want to bash your head against a wall? Before September, quite seldom. But with this month being so turbulent, chaotic, and nothing like I expected it to be, seldom has turned into every day.

Has anyone ever thrown you a big birthday bash? Sure. I had a big party when I was 7 and I also had a nice slew of celebrations when I turned 18. But if you mean a surprise birthday bash then no, no one has thrown one for me.

Do you know anyone who is brash? I do, but fortunately I haven’t had to work with her for a while now. I certainly often felt annoyed when I used to have to.

Do you typically carry cash or a credit/debit card? OMG Y’ALL I finally opened my own bank account last Friday I’ve never felt so grown-up until now haha. My dad helped me set up my first card, which is a debit card. :)

Have you ever crashed someone else’s party before? No, that sounds so annoying omg. I’d never want to be known as a gatecrasher. I know I’d be pissed if someone showed up to any of my parties uninvited.

Have you ever been involved in a car crash? Yes but fortunately they’ve all been super mild ones. One of my biggest fears is getting involved in a car crash where things would be out of my control and becoming seriously injured, like if a drunk driver crashed into me or if a 12-wheeler loses its brakes and slams into my car or something. I think I’d live in resentment for the rest of my life if that sort of thing happened to me and still ended up alive.

Do you use Door Dash? I didn’t know what this is so I had to look it up, and even though we don’t have Door Dash we do have several apps that do exactly the same services.

How often do you use a dash in your writing? I like using them in more casual contexts like survey entries, personal essays, feature articles, etc. I avoid dashes in academic writing since dashes are not really the most formal of punctuation marks.

Last place you made a mad dash to? The car repair shop that my dad asked me to meet him at because his situation was a little urgent at the time.

Do you make it a habit to flash people? Oh wow, no I don’t. That’s one of the last things anyone can expect from me. I like wearing revealing or skin-tight articles of clothing, but that doesn’t mean I like giving absolutely everything away lol

Do you prefer flash or no flash on a camera? No flash, always. I hate the effect that flash does and I never go for it, unless I’m in an area where lighting is poor.

Is the Flash one of your favorite superheroes? No. I’m not very big on superheroes to begin with.

Do you use the phrase “I’ll be back in a flash”? Not really. I find myself using “I’ll be super quick” more, or using ‘jiffy’ instead of flash.

Have you ever had a gash in your head before? Anywhere else on your body? I sported a gash near my eyebrow once because of some cousin who tried to blind me by hurling a glass jar towards my left eye and just narrowly missing my actual eyeball. Now there’s a scar in its place. Currently, I have multiple gashes on my arms and legs because Cooper.

Do you like hash browns? They’re okay, but I can’t have them all the time because I find them way too greasy for my enjoyment.

Do you do hash? No.

How often do you use hash tags? Almost never, unless I’m fighting for a political cause like BLM or calling for free mass testing. Hashtags got real lame real quick when they started getting popular around 7-8 years ago.

Do you have long eyelashes? Yes, it’s my favorite feature of mine and I get compliments on them fairly often.

How often do you lash out at others? For what reasons? Not often, but when I do it’s almost always because I’m already buckling under immense pressure and probably have nowhere to release my stress onto. I don’t turn it into an automatic mechanism though, because I don’t want to make others feel like shit for things they didn’t do.

Do you like mashed potatoes? I enjoy them but they’re not really my favorite dish. I can do 4-5 spoonfuls of them before getting over them haha, like I can never seem to finish a serving of it.

Do you typically gnash your teeth together? No I HATEEEE the sensation and the sound that it makes. My sister grinds her teeth in her sleep and it drives me nuts whenever we’re on a family trip and we share a room.

Do you know someone who speaks balderdash? Sure.

What color is the backsplash of your kitchen? White.

Have you ever had any rashes before? What kinds? Yes. Back in high school I used to occasionally get a random itchy area on my leg and whenever I’d scratch it, it would turn into an ugly patch of rashes. I never figured what the condition was but I’m just glad it’s never happened again.

Do you typically make rash decisions? Sometimes. I really tend to impulsive. The last one I made was swapping a full-time job opportunity for an internship with much lesser pay. Even I was surprised by how quick I jumped into the latter, but I like the nature of the work of the internship SO MUCH MORE, and I dunno if I’ll be happy with what I would be doing in the full-time gig. Plus, internships here are never even paid ones, so the fact that they even offered to give me an allowance per day just goes to show how good the company I’m interning for is.

Have you ever worn a sash before? I probably have but I don’t remember what for anymore.

Do you often find that your personality clashes with others’ around you? Yes, but I’m also good at adjusting to all kinds of personalities so I’m not too bothered by the clashes.

Whose tires would you like to slash? Any racist’s tires, really.

Who would you like to smash with? No one at the moment.

What was the last thing you smashed out of anger? I don’t really tend to be violent when I’m angry. The last angry thing I did was to throw my head against a pillow, but that’s it.

Do you have a secret stash of something hidden anywhere? Nopes.

How often do you take out the trash? My parents prefer to do it so they don’t really ask us to.

Has anyone ever told you that you look like trash? Other than myself, no.

Do you like to splash in the pool, the bathtub, or in puddles? I wouldn’t call it my favorite thing to do; I hate the mess that it makes, ha.

Have you ever thrashed violently before? What was the cause? Yeah. I probably embarrassed my grandma for life when I did so, but it was when I had to be confined to the hospital and they needed to insert the IV thing on me. It sent me into the worst panic attack I’ve ever gotten and I ended up thrashing a lot and several people had to hold me down so that the nurse could stick the thing into my wrist.

Do you own and use an eyelash curler? No. Those make me cringe so bad...I hate how they get so close to the eyeball. Kate brought her makeup kit to school everyday and she always made me try to learn how to curl my own lashes, but it just made me feel so nauseated lol

Have you ever experienced backlash from others? A few times before.

Have you ever had whiplash before? Never.

ATH

Do you prefer a shower or a bath? Shower. Much more efficient. Baths are relaxing, but I don’t like how I end up bathing in what’s pretty much dirty water.

Have you ever given another person or an animal a bath before? I’ve only given Kimi a bath. I let my dad bathe Cooper since he’s too much of a handful for now, plus I think it’s fair if we bathe one dog each haha.

How good are you at math? I can answer advanced algebra, statistics, and geometry questions if you give me enough time to review and get reacquainted with the formulas, but I’m perfectly alright with no longer revisiting trigonometry and calculus for the rest of my life.

Do you feel like your life is on the right path? Career-wise it definitely is; I’m happy with the direction it’s going right now. Everything else seems so turbulent at the moment and I can’t say I’m happy.

Are there any bike paths or footpaths in your area? We have sidewalks, if they count.

Have you ever gone on the warpath before? Not really. I do get very angry with certain people if I think they’ve been behaving badly, but I rarely get confrontational.

Is there a birdbath in your yard? No, those aren’t common here at all. I’ve only seen those in cartoons, I think.

Have you ever had a footbath before? Nopes.

What’s the last thing you’ve had to deal with the aftermath of? I can think of one thing but it’s still pretty triggering so I don’t feel like bringing it up at the moment.

Have you ever witnessed a bloodbath? Thankfully I haven’t. I get so queasy when I see blood though; it’s so much better off this way because I wouldn’t be able to deal with one at all.

Are you a sociopath or a psychopath? Do you know anyone who might be? No lol. I don’t think I know of anyone who could possibly be either. I wouldn’t want to associate myself with one in the first place.

Who’s the last person that you faced the wrath of? Myself.

AMP

Do you have an instrument that you plug into an amp? Nope, I own 0 instruments.

When’s the last time you felt amped up? What was the reason? Thursday morning when I parked in front of the office I was gonna have my job interview in. I needed to hype myself up to feel confident so I spent a couple of minutes in the car pumping my chest and screaming and shit, lol

Have you ever gone to day camp or overnight sleepaway camp? No. My mom wouldn’t have allowed me as a kid.

When’s the last time you felt like a champ? It’s been a while. I haven’t exactly felt like I’ve been winning in anything.

Last time it was damp where you lived? This afternoon. It was really humid for a good few hours and then it ended up raining.

Weirdest place you’ve ever had a cramp? My index finger whenever I’d try to use chopsticks; and my toes when I hiked in Sagada. The toe cramps were so bizarre I was actually laughing-crying the whole time the tour guide was treating me; my dad was taking photos of me too loooooool

Do you refer to your grandfather as “Gramps”? No. I call both of them Lolo, which is our local version of Grandpa.

Have you ever worn a headlamp before? No, I’ve never really had to.

Do you have a ramp anywhere in your house? I don’t think so, no.

Has anyone ever called you “scamp” before? No.

How many lamps are in the room you’re in? How many are actually turned on? There is one lamp, and it is currently turned on.

Do you stamp your feet when you are angry? It doesn’t tend to be a behavior of mine, no.

Last time you used a postage stamp? Not sure...grade school, probably? I never used those a lot.

Are there streetlamps on your street? What time do they turn on? Yep. I don’t keep track of their schedule but a safe guess would be either 6 or 6:30 PM.

Last place/area that you wanted to revamp? My room.

Do you know anyone who is a tramp? No.

Have you seen Lady and the Tramp before? Not the full movie but I’ve seen a lot of excerpts from watching Magic English as a kid.

Do you know anyone with a “tramp stamp”? I don’t think so.

AWK/AULK/ALK

Is the squawk of certain birds annoying? Which ones? I’ve never found any of them annoying, but maybe that’s also because there aren’t a lot of different birds flying around where I live.

Do you prefer hawks or falcons? And…why? I don’t have a preference; I’ve never encountered either.

Has anyone ever watched you like a hawk before? That sounds a little creepy and I wouldn’t want to know if anyone has.

What was the last thing you used caulk on? I’m almost positive I’ve never handled that, haha.

[a-zebra-is-a-striped-horse]

#survey #surveys

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gargaj · 5 years ago

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A breakdown of the Revision 2020 Threeway Battle shader

Those of you who have been following this year's edition of Revision probably remember the unexpected twist in Sunday's timeline, where I was pitted in a coding "battle" against two of the best shader-coders in the world to fend for myself. Admittedly the buzz it caused caught me by surprise, but not as much as the feedback on the final shader I produced, so I hope to shed some light on how the shader works, in a way that's hopefully understandable to beginners and at least entertaining to experts, as well as providing some glimpses into my thought process along the way.

youtube

Recorded video of the event

But before we dive into the math and code, however, I think it's important to get some context by recounting the story of how we got here.

A brief history of demoscene live-coding

Visual coding has been massively opened up when graphics APIs began to introduce programmable fragment rendering, perhaps best known to most people as "pixel shaders"; this allowed programmers to run entire programmable functions on each pixel of a triangle, and none was more adamant to do that than a fellow named Iñigo Quilez (IQ), an understated genius who early on recognized the opportunity in covering the entire screen with a single polygon, and just doing the heavy lifting of creating geometry in the shader itself. His vision eventually spiraled into not only the modern 4k scene, but also the website ShaderToy, which almost every graphics programmer uses to test prototypes or just play around with algorithms. IQ, an old friend of mine since the mid-00s, eventually moved to the US, worked at Pixar and Oculus, and became something of a world-revered guru of computer graphics, but that (and life) has unfortunately caused him to shift away from the scene.

His vision of single-shader-single-quad-single-pass shader coding, in the meantime, created a very spectacular kind of live coding competition in the scene where two coders get only 25 minutes and the attention of an entire party hall, and they have to improvise their way out of the duel - this has been wildly successful at parties for the sheer showmanship and spectacle akin to rap battles, and none emerged from this little sport more remarkably than Flopine, a bubbly French girl who routinely shuffled up on stage wearing round spectacles and cat ears (actually they might be pony ears on second thought), and mopped the floor up with the competition. Her and a handful of other live-coders regularly stream on Twitch as practice, and have honed their live-coding craft for a few years at this point, garnering a considerable following.

youtube

Just a sample of insanity these people can do.

My contribution to this little sub-scene was coming up with a fancy name for it ("Shader Showdown"), as well as providing a little tool I called Bonzomatic (named after Bonzaj / Plastic, a mutual friend of IQ and myself, and the first person to create a live coding environment for demoparties) that I still maintain, but even though I feel a degree of involvement through the architectural side, I myself haven't been interested in participating: I know I can do okay under time pressure, but I don't really enjoy it, and while there's a certain overlap in what they do and what I do, I was always more interested in things like visual detail and representative geometry aided by editing and direction rather than looping abstract, fractal-like things. It just wasn't my thing.

Mistakes were made

But if I'm not attracted to this type of competition, how did I end up in the crossfire anyway? What I can't say is that it wasn't, to a considerable degree, my fault: as Revision 2020 was entirely online, most of the scene took it to themselves to sit in the demoscene Discord to get an experience closest to on-site socializing, given the somber circumstances of physical distancing. This also allowed a number of people who hasn't been around for a while to pop in to chat - like IQ, who, given his past, was mostly interested in the showdowns (during which Flopine crushed the competition) and the 4k compo.

As I haven't seen him around for a while, and as my mind is always looking for an angle, I somehow put two and two together, and asked him if he would consider taking part in a showdown at some point; he replied that he was up for it - this was around Saturday 10PM. I quickly pinged the rest of the showdown participants and organizers, as I spotted that Bullet was doing a DJ set the next day (which would've been in a relatively convenient timezone for IQ in California as well), and assumed that he didn't really have visuals for it - as there was already a "coding jam" over Ronny's set the day before, I figured there's a chance for squeezing an "extra round" of coding. Flopine was, of course, beyond excited by just the prospect of going against IQ, and by midnight we essentially got everything planned out (Bullet's consent notwithstanding, as he was completely out of the loop on this), and I was excited to watch...

...that is, until Havoc, the head honcho for the showdowns, off-handedly asked me about an at that point entirely hypothetical scenario: what would happen if IQ would, for some reason, challenge me instead of Flopine? Now, as said, I wasn't really into this, but being one to not let a good plan go to waste (especially if it was mine), I told Havoc I'd take one for the team and do it, although it probably wouldn't be very fun to watch. I then proceeded to quickly brief IQ in private and run him through the technicalities of the setup, the tool, the traditions and so on, and all is swell...

...that is, until IQ (this is at around 2AM) offhandedly mentions that "Havoc suggested we do a three-way with me, Flopine... and you." I quickly try to backpedal, but IQ seems to be into the idea, and worst of all, I've already essentially agreed to it, and to me, the only thing worse than being whipped in front of a few thousand people would be going back on your word. The only way out was through.

Weeks of coding can spare you hours of thinking

So now that I've got myself into this jar of pickles, I needed some ideas, and quick. (I didn't sleep much that night.) First off, I didn't want to do anything obviously 3D - both IQ and Flopine are masters of this, and I find it exhausting and frustrating, and it would've failed on every level possible. Fractals I'm awful at and while they do provide a decent amount of visual detail, they need a lot of practice and routine to get right. I also didn't want something very basic 2D, like a byte-beat, because those have a very limited degree of variation available, and the end result always looks a bit crude.

Luckily a few months ago an article I saw do rounds was a write-up by Sasha Martinsen on how to do "FUI"-s, or Fictional User Interfaces; overly complicated and abstract user interfaces that are prominent in sci-fi, with Gmunk being the Michael Jordan of the genre.

Image courtesy of Sasha Martinsen.

Sasha's idea is simple: make a few basic decent looking elements, and then just pile them on top of each other until it looks nice, maybe choose some careful colors, move them around a bit, place them around tastefully in 3D, et voilà, you're hacking the Gibson. It's something I attempted before, if somewhat unsuccessfully, in "Reboot", but I came back to it a few more times in my little private motion graphics experiments with much better results, and my prediction was that it would be doable in the given timeframe - or at least I hoped that my hazy 3AM brain was on the right track.

A bit of math

How to make this whole thing work? First, let's think about our rendering: We have a single rectangle and a single-pass shader that runs on it: this means no meshes, no geometry, no custom textures, no postprocessing, no particle systems and no fonts, which isn't a good place to start from. However, looking at some of Sasha's 3D GIFs, some of them look like they're variations of the same render put on planes one after the other - and as long as we can do one, we can do multiple of that.

Rough sketch of what we want to do; the planes would obviously be infinite in size but this representation is good enough for now.

Can we render multiple planes via a single shader? Sure, but we want them to look nice, and that requires a bit of thinking: The most common technique to render a "2D" shader and get a "3D" look is raymarching, specifically with signed distance fields - starting on a ray, and continually testing distances until a hit is found. This is a good method for "solid-ish" looking objects and scenes, but the idea for us is to have many infinite planes that also have some sort of alpha channel, so we'd have a big problem with 1) inaccuracy, as we'd never find a hit, just something "reasonably close", and even that would take us a few dozen steps, which is costly even for a single plane and 2) the handling of an alpha map can be really annoying, since we'd only find out our alpha value after our initial march, after which if our alpha is transparent we'd need to march again.

But wait - it's just infinite planes and a ray, right? So why don't we just assume that our ray is always hitting the plane (which it is, since we're looking at it), and just calculate an intersection the analytical way?

Note: I would normally refer to this method as "raytracing", but after some consultation with people smarter than I am, we concluded that the terms are used somewhat ambiguously, so let's just stick to "analytical ray solving" or something equally pedantic.

We know the mathematical equation for a ray is position = origin + direction * t (where t is a scalar that represents the distance/progress from the ray origin), and we know that the formula for a plane is A * x + B * y + C * z + D = 0, where (A, B, C) is the normal vector of the plane, and D is the distance from the origin. First, since the intersection will be the point in space that satisfies both equations, we substitute the ray (the above o + d * t for each axis) into the plane:

A * (ox + dx * t) + B * (oy + dy * t) + C * (oz + dz * t) + D = 0

To find out where this point is in space, we need to solve this for t, but it's currently mighty complicated. Luckily, since we assume that our planes are parallel to the X-Y plane, we know our (A, B, C) normal is (0, 0, 1), so we can simplify it down to:

oz + dz * t + D = 0

Which we can easily solve to t:

t = (D - oz) / dz

That's right: analytically finding a ray hit of a plane is literally a single subtraction and a division! Our frame rate (on this part) should be safe, and we're always guaranteed a hit as long as we're not looking completely perpendicular to the planes; we should have everything to start setting up our code.

Full disclosure: Given my (and in a way IQ's) lack of "live coding" experience, we agreed that there would be no voting for the round, and it'd be for glory only, but also that I'd be allowed to use a small cheat sheet of math like the equations for 2D rotation or e.g. the above final equation since I don't do this often enough to remember these things by heart, and I only had a few hours notice before the whole thing.

Setting up the rendering

Time to start coding then. First, let's calculate our texture coordinates in the 0..1 domain using the screen coordinates and the known backbuffer resolution (which is provided to us in Bonzomatic):

vec2 uv = vec2(gl_FragCoord.x / v2Resolution.x, gl_FragCoord.y / v2Resolution.y);

Then, let's create a ray from that:

vec3 rayDir = vec3( uv * 2 - 1, -1.0 ); rayDir.x *= v2Resolution.x / v2Resolution.y; // adjust for aspect ratio vec3 rayOrigin = vec3( 0, 0, 0 );

This creates a 3D vector for our direction that is -1,-1,-1 in the top left corner and 1,1,-1 in the bottom right (i.e. we're looking so that Z is decreasing into the screen), then we adjust the X coordinate since our screen isn't square, but our coordinates currently are - no need to even bother with normalizing, it'll be fine. Our origin is currently just sitting in the center.

Then, let's define (loosely) our plane, which is parallel to the XY plane:

float planeDist = 1.0f; // distance between each plane float planeZ = -5.0f; // Z position of the first plane

And solve our equation to t, as math'd out above:

float t = (planeZ - rayOrigin.z) / rayDir.z;

Then, calculate WHERE the hit is by taking that t by inserting it back to the original ray equation using our current direction and origin:

vec3 hitPos = rayOrigin + t * rayDir;

And now we have our intersection; since we already know the Z value, we can texture our plane by using the X and Y components to get a color value:

vec4 color = fui( hitPos.xy ); // XY plane our_color = color;

Of course we're gonna need the actual FUI function, which will be our procedural animated FUI texture, but let's just put something dummy there now, like a simple circle:

vec4 fui ( vec2 uv ) { return length(uv - 0.5) < 0.5 ? vec4(1) : vec(0); }

And here we go:

Very good, we have a single circle and if we animate the camera we can indeed tell that it is on a plane.

So first, let's tile it by using a modulo function; the modulo (or modulus) function simply wraps a number around another number (kinda like the remainder after a division, but for floating point numbers) and thus becomes extremely useful for tiling or repeating things:

We'll be using the modulo function rather extensively in this little exercise, so strap in. (Illustration via the Desmos calculator.)

vec4 layer = fui( mod( hitPos.xy, 1.0 ) );

This will wrap the texture coordinates of -inf..inf between 0..1:

We also need multiple planes, but how do we combine them? We could just blend them additively, but with the amount of content we have, we'd just burn them in to white and it'd look like a mess (and not the good kind of mess). We could instead just use normal "crossfade" / "lerp" blending based on the alpha value; the only trick here is to make sure we're rendering them from back to front since the front renders will blend over the back renders:

int steps = 10; float planeDist = 1.0f; for (int i=steps; i>=0; i--) { float planeZ = -1.0f * i * planeDist; float t = (planeZ - rayOrigin.z) / rayDir.z; if (t > 0.0f) // check if "t" is in front of us { vec3 hitPos = rayOrigin + t * rayDir; vec4 layer = fui( hitPos.xy, 2.0 ); // blend layers based on alpha output colour = mix( colour, layer, layer.a ); } }

And here we go:

We decreased the circles a bit in size to see the effect more.

Not bad! First thing we can do is just fade off the back layers, as if they were in a fog:

layer *= (steps - i) / float(steps);

We have a problem though: we should probably increase the sci-fi effect by moving the camera continually forward, but if we do, we're gonna run into a problem: Currently, since our planeZ is fixed to the 0.0 origin, they won't move with the camera. We could just add our camera Z to them, but then they would be fixed with the camera and wouldn't appear moving. What we instead want is to just render them AS IF they would be the closest 10 planes in front of the camera; the way we could do that is that if e.g. our planes' distance from each other is 5, then round the camera Z down to the nearest multiple of 5 (e.g. if the Z is at 13, we round down to 10), and start drawing from there; rounding up would be more accurate, but rounding down is easier, since we can just subtract the division remainder from Z like so:

float planeZ = (rayOrigin.z - mod(rayOrigin.z, planeDist)) - i * planeDist;

And now we have movement! Our basic rendering path is done.

Our little fictional UI

So now that we have the basic pipeline in place, let's see which elements can we adapt from Sasha's design pieces.

The first one I decided to go with wasn't strictly speaking in the set, but it was something that I saw used as design elements over the last two decades, and that's a thick hatch pattern element; I think it's often used because it has a nice industrial feel with it. Doing it in 2D is easy: We just add X and Y together, which will result in a diagonal gradient, and then we just turn that into an alternating pattern using, again, the modulo. All we need to do is limit it between two strips, and we have a perfectly functional "Police Line Do Not Cross" simulation.

return mod( uv.x + uv.y, 1 ) < 0.5 ? vec4(1) : vec4(0);

So let's stop here for a few moments; this isn't bad, but we're gonna need a few things. First, the repetition doesn't give us the nice symmetric look that Sasha recommends us to do, and secondly, we want them to look alive, to animate a bit.

Solving symmetry can be done just by modifying our repetition code a bit: instead of a straight up modulo with 1.0 that gives us a 0..1 range, let's use 2.0 to get a 0..2 range, then subtract 1.0 to get a -1..1 range, and then take the absolute value.

vec4 layer = fui( abs( mod( hitPos.xy, 2.0 ) - 1 ) );

This will give us a triangle-wave-like function, that goes from 0 to 1, then back to 0, then back to 1; in terms of texture coordinates, it will go back and forth between mirroring the texture in both directions, which, let's face it, looks Totally Sweet.

For animation, first I needed some sort of random value, but one that stayed deterministic based on a seed - in other words, I needed a function that took in a value, and returned a mangled version of it, but in a way that if I sent that value in twice, it would return the same mangled value twice. The most common way of doing it is taking the incoming "seed" value, and then driving it into some sort of function with a very large value that causes the function to alias, and then just returning the fraction portion of the number:

float rand(float x) { return fract(sin(x) * 430147.8193); }

Does it make any sense? No. Is it secure? No. Will it serve our purpose perfectly? Oh yes.

So how do we animate our layers? The obvious choice is animating both the hatch "gradient" value to make it crawl, and the start and end of our hatch pattern which causes the hatched strip to move up and down: simply take a random - seeded by our time value - of somewhere sensible (like between 0.2 and 0.8 so that it doesn't touch the edges) and add another random to it, seasoned to taste - we can even take a binary random to pick between horizontal and vertical strips:

The problems here are, of course, that currently they're moving 1) way too fast and 2) in unison. The fast motion obviously happens because the time value changes every frame, so it seeds our random differently every frame - this is easy to solve by just rounding our time value down to the nearest integer: this will result in some lovely jittery "digital" motion. The unison is also easy to solve: simply take the number of the layer, and add it to our time, thus shifting the time value for each layer; I also chose to multiply the layer ID with a random-ish number so that the layers actually animate independently, and the stutter doesn't happen in unison either:

vec4 fui( vec2 uv, float t ) { t = int(t); float start = rand(t) * 0.8 + 0.1; float end = start + 0.1; [...] } vec4 layer = fui( abs(mod(hitPos.xy, 2.0)-1), fGlobalTime + i * 4.7 );

Lovely!

Note: In hindsight using the Z coordinate of the plane would've given a more consistent result, but the way it animates, it doesn't really matter.

So let's think of more elements: the best looking one that seems to get the best mileage out in Sasha's blog is what I can best describe as the "slant" or "hockey stick" - a simple line, with a 45-degree turn in it. What I love about it is that the symmetry allows it to create little tunnels, gates, corridors, which will work great for our motion.

Creating it is easy: We just take a thin horizontal rectangle, and attach another rectangle to the end, but shift the coordinate of the second rectangle vertically, so that it gives us the 45-degree angle:

float p1 = 0.2; float p2 = 0.5; float p3 = 0.7; float y = 0.5; float thicc = 0.0025; if (p1 < uv.x && uv.x < p2 && y - thicc < uv.y && uv.y < y + thicc ) { return vec4(1); } if (p2 < uv.x && uv.x < p3 && y - thicc < uv.y - (uv.x - p2) && uv.y - (uv.x - p2) < y + thicc ) { return vec4(1); }

Note: In the final code, I had a rect() call which I originally intended to use as baking glow around my rectangle using a little routine I prototyped out earlier that morning, but I was ultimately too stressed to properly pull that off. Also, it's amazing how juvenile your variable names turn when people are watching.

Looks nice, but since this is such a thin sparse element, let's just... add more of it!

So what more can we add? Well, no sci-fi FUI is complete without random text and numbers, but we don't really have a font at hand. Or do we? For years, Bonzomatic has been "shipping" with this really gross checkerboard texture ostensibly for UV map testing:

What if we just desaturate and invert it?

We can then "slice" it up and render little sprites all over our texture: we already know how to draw a rectangle, so all we need is just 1) calculate which sprite we want to show 2) calculate the texture coordinate WITHIN that sprite and 3) sample the texture:

float sx = 0.3; float sy = 0.3; float size = 0.1; if (sx < uv.x && uv.x < sx + size && sy < uv.y &&uv.y < sy + size) { float spx = 2.0 / 8.0; // we have 8 tiles in the texture float spy = 3.0 / 8.0; vec2 spriteUV = (uv - vec2(sx,sy)) / size; vec4 sam = texture( texChecker, vec2(spx,spy) + spriteUV / 8.0 ); return dot( sam.rgb, vec3(0.33) ); }

Note: In the final code, I was only using the red component instead of desaturation because I forgot the texture doesn't always have red content - I stared at it for waaaay too long during the round trying to figure out why some sprites weren't working.

And again, let's just have more of it:

Getting there!

At this point the last thing I added was just circles and dots, because I was running out of ideas; but I also felt my visual content amount was getting to where I wanted them to be; it was also time to make it look a bit prettier.

Post-production / compositing

So we have our layers, they move, they might even have colors, but I'm still not happy with the visual result, since they are too single-colored, there's not enough tone in the picture.

The first thing I try nowadays when I'm on a black background is to just add either a single color, or a gradient:

vec4 colour = renderPlanes(uv); vec4 gradient = mix( vec4(0,0,0.2,1), vec4(0,0,0,1), uv.y); vec4 finalRender = mix( gradient, vec4(colour.xyz,1), colour.a);

This added a good chunk of depth considerably to the image, but I was still not happy with the too much separation between colors.

A very common method used in compositing in digital graphics is to just add bloom / glow; when used right, this helps us add us more luminance content to areas that would otherwise be solid color, and it helps the colors to blend a bit by providing some middle ground; unfortunately if we only have a single pass, the only way to get blur (and by extension, bloom) is repeatedly rendering the picture, and that'd tank our frame rate quickly.

Instead, I went back to one of the classics: the Variform "pixelize" overlay:

This is almost the same as a bloom effect, except instead of blurring the image, all you do is turn it into a lower resolution nearest point sampled version of itself, and blend that over the original image - since this doesn't need more than one sample per pixel (as we can reproduce pixelation by just messing with the texture coordinates), we can get away by rendering the scene only twice:

vec4 colour = renderPlanes(uv); colour += renderPlanes(uv - mod( uv, 0.1 ) ) * 0.4;

Much better tonal content!

So what else can we do? Well, most of the colors I chose are in the blue/orange/red range, and we don't get a lot of the green content; one of the things that I learned that it can look quite pretty if one takes a two-tone picture, and uses color-grading to push the midrange of a third tone - that way, the dominant colors will stay in the highlights, and the third tone will cover the mid-tones. (Naturally you have to be careful with this.)

"Boosting" a color in the mids is easy: lucky for us, if we consider the 0..1 range, exponential functions suit our purpose perfectly, because they start at 0, end at 1, but we can change how they get here:

So let's just push the green channel a tiny bit:

finalRender.g = pow(finalRender.g, 0.7);

Now all we need is to roll our camera for maximum cyberspace effect and we're done!

Best laid plans of OBS

As you can see from the code I posted the above, I wrote the final shader in GLSL; those who know me know that I'm a lot more comfortable with DirectX / HLSL, and may wonder why I switched, but of course there's another story here:

Given the remote nature of the event, all of the shader coding competition was performed online as well: since transmitting video from the coder's computer to a mixer, and then to another mixer, and then to a streaming provider, and then to the end user would've probably turned the image to mush, Alkama and Nusan came up with the idea of skipping a step and rigging up a version of Bonzo that ran on the coder's computer, but instead of streaming video, it sent the shader down to another instance of Bonzo, running on Diffty's computer, who then captured that instance and streamed it to the main Revision streaming hub. This, of course, meant that in a three-way, Diffty had to run three separate instances of Bonzo - but it worked fine with GLSL earlier, so why worry?

What we didn't necessarily realize at the time, is that the DirectX 11 shader compiler takes no hostages, and as soon as the shader reached un-unrollable level of complexity, it thoroughly locked down Diffty's machine, to the point that even the video of the DJ set he was playing started to drop out. I, on the other hand, didn't notice any of this, since my single local instance was doing fine, so I spent the first 15 minutes casually nuking Diffty's PC to shreds remotely, until I noticed Diffty and Havoc pleading on Discord to switch to GLSL because I'm setting things on fire unknowingly.

This is fine.

I was reluctant to do so, simply because of the muscle memory, but I was also aware that I should keep the show going if I can because if I bow out without a result, that would be a colossal embarrassment to everyone involved, and I only can take one of those once every week, and I was already above my quota - so, I quickly closed the DX11 version of Bonzo, loaded the shader up in a text editor, replaced "floatX" with "vecX" (fun drinking game: take a shot every time I messed it up during the live event), commented the whole thing out, loaded it into a GLSL bonzo, and quickly fixed all the other syntax differences (of which there were luckily not many, stuff like "mix" instead of "lerp", constructors, etc.), and within a few minutes I was back up and running.

This, weirdly, helped my morale a bit, because it was the kind of clutch move that for some reason appealed to me, and made me quite happy - although at that point I locked in so bad that not only did I pay absolutely not attention to the stream to see what the other two are doing, but that the drinks and snacks I prepared for the hour of battling went completely untouched.

In the end, when the hour clocked off, the shader itself turned out more or less how I wanted it, it worked really well with Bullet's techno-/psy-/hardtrance mix (not necessarily my jam, as everyone knows I'm more a broken beat guy, but pounding monotony can go well with coding focus), and I came away satisfied, although the perhaps saddest point of the adventure was yet to come: the lack of cathartic real-life ending that was taken from us due to the physical distance, when after all the excitement, all the cheers and hugs were merely lines of text on a screen - but you gotta deal with what you gotta deal with.

A small sampling of the Twitch reaction.

Conclusion

In the end, what was my takeaway from the experience?

First off, scoping is everything: Always aim to get an idea where you can maximize the outcome of the time invested with the highest amount of confidence of pulling it off. In this case, even though I was on short notice and in an environment I was unfamiliar with, I relied on something I knew, something I've done before, but no one else really has.

Secondly, broaden your influence: You never know when you can take something that seems initially unrelated, and bend it into something that you're doing with good results.

Thirdly, and perhaps most importantly, step out of your comfort zone every so often; you'll never know what you'll find.

(And don't agree to everything willy-nilly, you absolute moron.)

#demoscene #live coding #livecoding #shaders #glsl #programming #gamedev #game development

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