#i think i might go into cardiac arrest myself if something else happens

[teamhawkeye]

Stringer went back to the emergency vet last night for another round of bloat

the good news is because they stitched his stomach in place a few weeks back with the first instance, it didn't twist so they just had to expel the gas accumulated in his stomach and intestines

the bad news is this is going to be a clear threat and issue for the remainder of his life, and figuring out how to prevent further repeats is the biggest concern now

[moltengoldveins]

when I was in my second year of college my professor allowed me to write an eight minute-ish poem (~1100 words) in the rhyme form of a few of Tolkien’s poems (Far Over the Misty Mountains, Durin’s song, etc) recounting the chapter Fire and Water in the hobbit, the one where Smaug is woken and comes to lake town and is defeated by Bard. I recited it for the assignment, people liked it a lot, great, whatever.

THEN, it turns out my dad bragged on me to my boss who is also his boss (and kinda… childhood acquaintance? Friend? Their dads were bros but in vastly differing wealth brackets so it’s a bit odd-) and he’s a MASSIVE Tolkien fan so he asked to hear it, and I read it for his family. Great, whatever, now I have experience reading this poem and I’m comfortable enough reading it in front of people.

THEN. then. recently I went to an open mic poetry night at my church that happens every couple months, and while I was planning just to go and not speak I was approached by one of the people running it and asked to present something, so I thought “well, I’ve practiced reading this poem, might as well!”

I get up to the mic. I ask “show of hands, who in this room has read the Hobbit or the Lord of the Rings?” And in a room of about seventy people, three people raised their hands, a twenty-something and his parents. OOF, I think. I have never considered whether this poem would read well in front of non-fans of Tolkien. Well. Here goes nothing.

I read with all the drama and excitement I can muster, and quite a few of the people actually came up to me later and said that, while they’d never read the story, they followed it and were really excited about it.

But then. The open mic closes. People disperse to begin talking. I glance up from where I’ve been rummaging n my bag to see the aforementioned twenty-something BOOKING IT across the room through the crowd to get to me. Just like, making his WAY downtown.

now. To give you a mental image. He is extremely tall. Thin blond hair. Thick-rimmed square glasses. Thinner than embroidery thread and, by appearance, twice as flimsy, as he is hunched alll the way into his shoulders, which, I must add, are narrower than mine. The demeanor of a nervous echidna. A black windbreaker zipped alllllll the way up to the base of his throat, actually digging into his throat, which may have attributed to the distinct stutter he spoke with. Sleeves in paws over his hands. All of this leads me to believe I am talking with quite possibly the most anxious, frightened, awkward, rizzless man id ever encountered. I wondered for a split instant if he would even manage to say anything to me at all, and began making mental plans, as one does, to make myself as nonthreatening as possible so I wouldn’t accidentally frighten him into cardiac arrest and be accused of murder in the Lord’s house.

However. My worry was immediately disproven as he offered me a handshake, (sweaty, but firm) introduced himself, and within twenty words had said that the poem was one of the most incredible things he’d ever heard, that I seemed to be an amazing person whom he’d really just love to get to know more, and asked “if I wanted to get hot chocolate sometime.” Stuttering all the while of course, but still doggedly determined to get the words out.

Longtime mutuals will know, I am ace. I am not interested in dating men. Even if I were, this is not the type of man I am interested in spending time around. THAT BEING SAID…. I did give him my number. His wet stoat demeanor and balls to the wall shot of confidence baffled and delighted me enough that I was like “what the hell. There’s a small chance you’re not insane and actually a fun person to be around. There’s an even smaller chance you’re might just be ok with being friends. I’m gonna give him a chance. Prove me wrong, frightened little man. Do it, no balls.”

so yeah. That’s how I apparently seduced a man with Tolkien poetry and actually nothing else. He has my number now. I haven’t texted him or anything, but yeah. That happened 👍

ALSO, SIDE NOTE: the plot thickens, because today I got a text from him asking if I’d like to hang out at one of two church events. As I am in the choir for one of the events (caroling) I will already be there! So we shall see how this goes, and I will update you all posthaste.

Have I ever told the story on here of how I once accidentally seduced a man using nothing but Tolkien poetry. I feel like that story would do well on the tumbler dot com. Did I tell it and just forget or did I never mention it-

[alittlextrathatway]

Penelope/Colin: “Give me one reason why I shouldn’t leave.”

YAY SOMETHING BESIDES BRETTSEY. (Not that I don’t love them.) I’ve never written Polin before! I’m excited to play! 🙌🏻 Thank you!

How about a modern AU for this one? Just cause.

******

It all started because of the pandemic.

He’d been perfectly happy traveling. It’s not like he had anything else to occupy his time. He wasn’t particularly talented and he didn’t have any hobbies or interests. Aside from eating but he doubted his mother would approve of him becoming one of those professional hot dog eaters and he didn’t care enough for the piddly portions of fine dining to become a food critic.

The only thing that truly distracts him from his lack of drive or ambition is traveling — learning about the world and it’s many cultures.

He has journal after journal full of his discoveries and experiences. Travel is really his only love.

Which is why he’d stopped and started his studies so many times. He took a year between high school and college to backpack through Europe. Then another year after freshman year to “study abroad”, not that he actually studied. Which is why his mother forced him to come back and finish his third year stateside. After that, he’d set off traveling again. Every year he found another excuse not to come home for any longer than a month or two, allowing him to put off his final year.

It’s not as if he’s getting a degree in anything useful. He’s an English major. And it’s not as if his career isn’t already decided for him. Upon graduation he’ll be given an office at Bridgerton Family Publishing. Doing what? Well, no one knows. Not even him.

So, what’s the rush?

He’d still be gone abroad right now if not for COVID forcing him to return home. God, he hates 2020. What a waste of a year. He came home too late for the spring 2020 term so he’s spent the last several months going absolutely crazy.

He’s a man of the world who is not being allowed to go out and see it. He can’t imagine anything more cruel.

Actually, no, he takes that back. There’s one thing:

Using the time he’s forced to stay in Mayfair to discover he’s completely and stupidly in love with his little sister’s best friend.

The friend who overheard him, last time he was home for any considerable length of time, declaring to his brothers that he would never be interested in her.

Because, of course, Colin Bridgerton is a colossal jackass who doesn’t know a good thing when it’s been staring him in the face his entire life.

There’s laughter coming from the direction of the foyer. Very distinctive laughing. One high and tinkling like a pretty little bell and the other deeper and hoarser. The alto to the other’s soprano. The alto in this case is his younger sister, Eloise, and the soprano is Penelope.

The woman he should have noticed long before now.

He gets up from where he’s lounging on the sofa, mournfully watching the Travel Channel, and takes his plate full of sandwiches with him.

He finds them giggling and applying lipstick in the mirror by the front door. They look dressed to go out. Eloise in her slick tailored pant suit and intricately adorned lace top, in monochromatic lavender. And Penelope in…

Holy shit, what is that?

Apparently, it’s the instrument of his imminent death if the erratic beating of his heart is any indication. He’s going to have some sort of attack and go into cardiac arrest right here in the foyer of his childhood home.

It’s a tight forest green dress that has an off the shoulder neckline. It hugs her curves so perfectly that he thinks someone must have sewn it onto her. It shows the perfect amount of skin along her neck and shoulders, giving just a tiny glimpse of cleavage.

And she’s had a haircut since she was here yesterday. Her ginger locks now rest against her cheeks in a wavy stylish bob. She was beautiful before. He was never blind to that as some other people around Pen have proven to be, but now...

She’s absolutely stunning.

So stunning that other people will surely see what he sees. And he’s grateful for that, truly. She deserves to be seen as she is — brilliant and beautiful — but that means he’s about to have competition while trying to win her over. And he is not grateful for that.

He’s been trying to be more forward with her when they’re alone but that doesn’t happen often and he’s not sure Penelope takes him very seriously. (No one does.) She seems to always be in disbelief when he flirts with her.

“Where are you two off to?” He asks, leaning against the wall opposite the mirror.

“Double date,” Eloise says, fluffing her hair in the mirror. “Pen arranged it. She met someone extremely gorgeous at the library today.”

Penelope blushes and grins demurely. “It’s the magic of a fresh cut,” she says motioning to her new hair. “He was there with his friend and we were all scrambling for resources for our bibliographies together and he asked if I wanted to get dinner and I asked if Eloise could come. No big deal.”

“It doesn’t look as if it’s not a big deal,” Colin observes, his gaze sweeping over Penelope from head to toe.

“His father owns that new super exclusive restaurant Kate’s been begging Anthony to take her too. You know, La Table Gourmande?” Eloise explains.

“The one that told Anthony the next available reservation was in two months? That restaurant?” Colin asks, trying not to scowl.

Really, there was no need for this guy to show off. He seems a bit full of himself.

“That’s the one,” Penelope replies with a nod. “He says he can get us the Chef’s table tonight. I’ve never done anything like that before. It sounds exciting. Might be the closest I ever get to authentic French cuisine. For a while anyway.”

Okay, so now he feels like a heel for wanting to keep her from going out. He knows he’s lucky his family is so well off. It allows him to travel. Penelope’s family, while not destitute, has spent most of their surplus funds putting three daughters, soon to be a fourth, through school. In fact, if not for a distant rich aunt who died they wouldn’t even have been able to afford that.

Any money Penelope used to travel would have to be her own, and he isn’t sure how much of that she has.

“Pen,” Eloise calls, interrupting Colin’s thoughts. “Have you seen my clutch? Did I bring it down?”

“I don’t see it anywhere,” Penelope says with a shake of her head. “Did you leave it on your dresser?”

Eloise groans in irritation, turning toward the main staircase of their massive house. “I guess I did. I’ll be right back.”

Finally, they’re alone. Colin clears his throat and sets the plate of sandwiches he’d been snacking on down on the hall table. He crosses the space until he’s standing mere inches away from her.

“Don’t go out tonight. I can take you somewhere else. Somewhere better,” Colin suggests.

“Better?” Penelope asks skeptically.

He nods. “I have a friend who opened a restaurant here that I met while I was in Nice. It’s smaller than that La Table Gourmand monstrosity and not quite considered fine dining but it’s real. It’s better. It’ll be closer to actually being in France than anything in that obnoxious place.”

“I don’t see why I can’t go with Marcus tonight and then you some other time,” she tells him, lifting one perfect brow and pursing her lips.

“This guy sounds like a prick,” Colin says with a scoff. “Bragging about his father’s connections on the first date? That’s not a good sign, Pen. Trust me, I know these things. I’m a guy.”

“Maybe,” she says with a shrug, a small knowing grin on her lips. “But I think I should decide that for myself. Don’t you?”

That grin…

She knows exactly what he’s trying to do.

She’s being difficult on purpose.

“Give me one reason why I shouldn’t leave,” she challenges him, continuing to grin smugly.

Well, if that’s the game she wants to play then so be it.

“Why waste a night figuring out what I already know when you could just let me take you out instead for what, we both know, would be a better time?” Colin asks, caressing the length of Penelope’s arm with a light tender touch.

She sucks in a breath at the contact, but doesn’t show any weakness in her expression. “Yes, but going out with Marcus would be a date that might actually lead to something. What would be the purpose of ditching a real date for you instead?”

“Oh, you want it to lead to something?” He asks, a smirk growing on his face as he backs her up toward the wall.

“Y—yes,” she stammers, her grin slipping as nerves shine in her eyes.

Her back hits the wall and he brings one hand to her cheek, cupping her face and trailing his thumb along her cheekbone.

He leans down, nearly closing the distance between them but stops just short of kissing her. “Come out with me, Pen, and you can choose where it leads. I’ll give you whatever future I have, even if I have no idea what it is. You set the terms, you call the shots.”

Her eyes widen and her cheeks flush but she instinctively leans into his hand. Call him a cocky bastard, but that’s the moment he knows he’s won. The moment he knows she’ll choose him.

“I set the terms?” She asks, biting her bottom lip while she stares at his.

He nods, waiting for the moment she leans up and kisses him.

“Well, then you know what I think?” She asks, rhetorically while she rests a hand on his chest.

“Tell me,” he pleads.

She smiles wickedly and pushes him away by one step. “I think you could do with some healthy competition.”

She sidesteps him and saunters off to the front door, leaving him gaping at her like a fool.

Like a besotted, astonished, completely smitten fool.

Eloise reappears, patting Colin’s shoulder as she follows after Penelope. “Tell mom we’ll be back late.”

They leave, the door shuts, and all he can think is…

Well played, Penelope Featherington.

But the Bridgertons are famously competitive and this game is only just beginning. He’ll win her over yet.

Wait and see.

[nova-is-a-writer-now]

FOOLS pt.4

[[Zuko x Reader]]

<- previous next ->

Summary: Zuko and Y/N had liked eachother for a while even though neither of them knew it. Y/N tries to get over her crush for him, failing miserably. So just when she decides to let go and embrace her feelings, the new Fire lord finds himself feeling jealous and decides to take matters into his own hands.

A/N: This took way longer to write than I expected it cause I found myself getting stuck a bunch of times. I also had so many wonderful people sending me asks and replying to the previous parts, I really didn’t want to disappoint them so I was super perfectionist with this one. It got a little long and VERY angsty (again, sorry) but I think it’s pretty good, next part might be the last one, and I’ll try to write it ASAP to not leave y’all hanging lol.

Side note: this part is dedicated to the nicest person ever @eternally-infinitely who sent me the cutest ask and actually inspired me a lot to finish this. Thank you so much for reading and for being so kind, lots and lots of love to you <3

Warning: Angst, but it’ll end well i promise, language

-IF YOU HAVE ANY REQUESTS DONT HESITATE TO ASK-

“Leave me here to die, Katara. I’m hopeless” you whined into your pillow. The curtains in your room were still closed, barely any light getting in.

“Y/N, you’re not dying, you’re not hopeless and I’m not letting you spend the entire day stuck in here alone. Zuko doesn’t deserve all this suffering, ok? You’re better than this. Now stand up, get ready and let’s go have our massages.” She said finally opening the curtains and pulling the blankets away from you.

“But-“

“Not a question.” Katara said walking out of your room.

You groaned loud enough for her to hear it from outside. Your eyes felt heavy, puffy and stiff from the tears that you’d let fall and dry the night before. Your head ached and for some reason you couldn’t get enough oxygen into your lungs. You felt the worst you’d felt in a while.

But wanting to avoid mom Katara’s reproaches, you put all that aside and made an outworldly effort to get out of bed and make yourself look as decent as you could.

Around twenty minutes later you were out of your room, heading to Katara and Suki’s. They both flashed a faint smile when they saw you.

“I look that bad, huh?” You said letting out a deep sigh

“Oh, no, no, no Y/N. You just look... tired. Did you get any sleep last night?” Suki asked.

“I’d be lying if I said I did” the worried look in your friend’s faces made you reconsider your words. “I’m fine you guys, I’m just being very dramatic. I’ll feel better after I get my massage, ok?”

Toph didn’t take much longer to arrive, rushing all of you to hurry up alredy. You had been ready for a while by then, but internally wished Katara and Suki would take all day so you wouldn’t have to leave that room.

They didn’t, of course, and moments later you and your friends were walking out the door. The fear of running into Zuko made your heart rush, the feeling of air not getting to your lungs intensified and you could tell your body wasn’t strong enough to deal with all that at the moment.

It was when you walked past the conference room, which had the doors open, when you met his eyes. Aang and Sokka where the only two other people there, they’d said something about having a quick meeting with the council that day, taking advantage of Aang’s presence and Sokka deciding to join in as well. Zuko looked as restless as you, but you were sure he had different reasons for it. You couldn’t hold your stare for longer than two seconds, the memories of the night before where starting to come back and it hurt too much for you to handle.

In a very out of character moment, Toph held your hand and pressed it softly. You figured she’d felt your heart beat, your breathing or whatever else that could’ve given you away. It did made you feel better, knowing that at least you had her there made it all better.

—————————-

You’d never been in a spa before, that time Toph and Katara went to one in Ba Sing Se you hadn’t been able to join them, but hearing Toph say how great it was surprised you, seeing as she wasn’t the type of girl to typically like that stuff.

Feeling someone touching you and massaging you was weird at first, you felt like dough for the first few minutes, but after you started to relax and give into the sensation it gave you, your entire body started to release the tension your muscles had been holding without you noticing. Next step in the spa day were facials, you decided to get one called ‘ocean tranquility’ for the mere reason that it sounded nice, Toph of course went for the mud bath and seemed to enjoy it very much. Finally, you decided to finish your session in the warm jacuzzi.

The experience was very enjoyable to say the least, you and the girls had a lot of fun and best of all the Zuko situation hadn’t even crossed your mind the entire morning. Forgetting about him was gonna be hard, but with the way he had been acting lately, he was the one making the job each time easier for you.

When you got back to the palace it was already time for lunch. A pit in your stomach formed at the though of having to sit across the Fire lord, having to talk to him or merely be in his presence. But you weren’t gonna give him the satisfaction of running away. The four of you arrived to the table first, taking your usual sits, Aang and Sokka came next talking about something that had happened in the meeting and the last one to get there was Zuko. His body was stiff, the restless look in his eyes you had seen that morning hadn’t left his face, and for a split second you wanted to walk over to where he was sitting and hug him. But you couldn’t, and that hurt.

The two of you ate silently, leaving the conversation to everyone else. You didn’t look up once after your plate was set in front of you, terrified of bursting into tears if you did, but Zuko on the other hand glanced your way more than a few times.

“So Zuko, what time should we be ready for the gala tonight?” Katara asked, you could tell she was making an effort to not act weird around him too, which you appreciated. You didn’t want your feelings for him to not only ruin your friendship but everyone else’s as well.

“We have to be there to receive all the guests, so even though it technically starts at around eight, we all should be ready half an hour prior.” Even his voice sounded weird, a tone you hadn’t heard him use ever since the days leading up to the comet.

When all of you were done eating, you went to your chambers to get ready. A couple of maids were called to help you out with the dress and with your hair, which took around an hour and a half. You chose an elegant up-do with very thin and delicate braids on the sides, letting the back and front of the dress showcase fully. You left the makeup to Suki, she decided to make your eyes smokey and your lips a wine tone, very much like your dress.

The version of yourself you saw in the mirror was one you hadn’t seen before, you looked confident and beautiful, and it seemed like the other girls felt the same way.

“I couldn’t have imagined us like this a year ago, back when we had to bathe in rivers and were constantly covered in dirt.” Katara said walking up behind you pulling Toph and Suki with her. “We’ve come so far.”

“Katara, if you make us cry and ruin our makeup I’m never going to forgive you.” Suki joked pulling all of you into a hug.

“I love you all... so much” you said back, you knew after surviving a war that every moment of peace with your friends was invaluable.

——————————————

You and the girls walked to the ballroom where the gala would take place. Aang Sokka and Zuko were already there waiting at the entrance.

Before the four of you even got half way to where they stood Toph grabbed your hand and said “You really look stunning, Y/N”

You chuckled lightly looking over at her. “Thanks Toph, but you can’t see me”

“Oh, I don’t have to. All I need to know is that Sparky over there nearly went into cardiac arrest when he saw you, so you must look incredible.”

You turned your attention to Zuko who was already looking at you. He looked heavenly, his suit was mostly black with some red details, traditional of the Fire nation, and it seemed to match your dress perfectly. His hair was up held by the royal head piece, leaving in full sight his handsome face. Your own heartbeat acelerated, and even though you tried to stop it you knew your cheeks were blushing just like his already were.

And for that split moment you felt everything fade away, what he had done, how you had felt, all of it. You wanted to let it all go, and you were ready to drop everything you had for a single word of his. Almost as if you were in a trance, you walked up to him while your friends all greeted eachother. His amber eyes locked with yours, you could tell he was trying to look for something to say but was having a hard time, so you decided to make it easier for him. “You look great”

He smiled softly before replying “You look perfect.” He said in a low raspy voice.

Before either of you could say anything else a moving figure caught your eye behind Zuko. It was Mai, wearing a tight black dress with embroidered golden details, and as always she was beautiful. The trance broke at the sight, you wanted to keep talking to Zuko, see where things would go, but you couldn’t, not with everything that was going on.

So you took one step back first, and then another until you were able to walk away from him and over to were everyone else was talking. Zuko’s eyes were covered in a confused look, until he looked behind him, where Mai was already close enough to greet him with a hug. He hugged her back but reluctantly, as if he had wanted the same thing you did a couple seconds before.

Not long after that, Iroh asked all of you to stand in a line to receive the guests, the would come in and individually shake each of your hands following Fire nation traditions. Mai stayed behind and you were the first out of your friends to walk up to Iroh, which meant you would be right next to the Fire lord the whole time. The universe seemed to want things to be hard for you that night.

So, as planned, the guests started to arrive. They weren’t only from the Fire nation, but people from all nations, you saw green gowns from the earth nation, and also blue ones from the water tribes. The first people to approach you were high commanders, you knew them from some of the meetings they had with Zuko, then there were a lot of people with political positions and finally came the people who were just normal citizens. They were the ones who greeted you with the most warmth, thanking you over and over again for ending the war, for saving them and their families, for being the heroes of all nations.

There were still a good amount of people waiting to talk to you and your friends but a familiar face stood out to you in the middle of the crowd. “Excuse me for a second, it was wonderful to see you.” You said to the woman who stood in front of you while discretely walking away from the group and into the crowd.

Doko’s back was facing you when you put your hand on his shoulder. He was wearing a blue suit with white details and his hair was slicked back. When he turned around to see you it took him exactly half a second to pick you up from the floor and spin you around, you were glad the ballroom was filled with the sounds of people chattering because otherwise your loud laugh would’ve been heard across the entire palace.

“Woah there, stranger. You’re gonna mess up my dress.” You said trying to get him to put you back down.

“Sorry, sorry, I forgot you’re royalty now, guess you’ve gone soft on me, Y/L/N.” He said bringing you down.

“I told you I’m not royalty and I’ll show you how soft I’ve gone” you said shoving your hands to his sides knowing he had always been very ticklish.

“Don’t you dare.” He said holding your wrists and moving away from you as he accidentally bumped into someone behind him. “I’m sorry, sir”

“Idiot” you whispered laughing.

“Yeah, yeah you’re very funny.” He said back while finally letting go of you. “But jokes aside, you do look stunning.”

“Thank you, so do you. Never thought of you as the suit kind of guy.”

“What one does for old friends. You’re owe me though, I feel like a penguin.” His hands went up to his collar which he still seemed to be getting used to.

“I want you to meet my friends, come on.” You dragged him back to the line where the group stood, noticing Zuko was missing. The thought creeped in the back of your mind but you pushed it away.

“Guys, come here.” You called, glad they were done welcoming people. “I want you to meet someone. This is Doko, we were best friends when we were little back in the Northern water tribe. Doko this are Aang, Katara, Sokka, Toph and Suki”

Your friend held out his hand to each of them individually as he said “It’s nice to meet you all. You’re saints for putting up with this one for this long” you punched him in the arm as a response.

“Oh, believe me, it hasn’t been an easy task.” Toph interviened immediately after, taking the opportunity to tease you.

“You know what, not going to that fight you have next week is starting to sound pretty good”

Doko and your friends seemed to get along pretty well to your relief. It warmed your heart to see the one good friend you’d had back home together with the best friends you met along the way. All of you took a sit in a table that was reserved for you. You talked about your adventures with the gaang, how you’d met them and how all of you found yourselves putting an end to the hundred year war.

“What about you, Doko? How come we didn’t meet you when we visited the Northern water tribe?” Aang asked.

“Well, I used to live there when Y/N and I were little kids. My father was a high rank bender, he was in charge of the protection of the tribe, but in one of the earlier attempts of invasion he died. That’s when my mom decided to take me and my sister to Ba Sing Se, you know, somewhere she knew we would be safe.” He bumped your side with his elbow before saying “I only found out you guys had been there days after you left, thanks for paying us a visit Y/N”

“I didn’t know you were there, none of us knew where you and your family went to after you left.” You explained. “Besides, we were kinda busy trying not to get killed, you know, usual touristy things”

As the night went on, you found yourself drowning in more laughter, the sound of upbeat music, funny anecdotes and an ethereal feeling you wanted to cling to for as long as you could. Zuko still hadn’t approached your table, which caused you to feel both relieved and heavy hearted.

At one point while Suki was laughing at something Sokka had said, she accidentally pushed his glass off the table and onto him, spilling its contents directly to his shirt.

“Oh, Sokka I’m so sorry.” She said trying to dry him up with a cloth napkin.

“Its ok, babe. You can’t even tell”

Katara looked at him disapprovingly before interviening. “Yes, you can Sokka. We still have to go up there in front of everybody for when Zuko gives his speech. You’re gonna have to change.”

“Well... there’s a problem with that.”

“Don’t tell me you didn’t bring another shirt.” Katara let out a big sigh.

“How could I know I was gonna need another one?” Sokka explained.

You were trying to think of ideas to fix the problem when one popped into your head. “Wait... Zuko always has one spare in his office in case he needs it. I think it’s black, if I’m not wrong. I’ll bring it for you, I’m sure it’ll fit perfectly.”

“You’re always saving the day, Y/N. That’s why you’re my favorite.” Sokka joked gaining a punch from Toph.

“Hey! I thought I was your favorite.”

——————————

The closer you got to Zuko’s office, the quieter it got. The palace was only dimly lit by some torches and occupied by a few guards here and there.

Once you opened the door making sure there was no one inside, you looked around the place trying to remember where Zuko had told you he kept his spare shirt. A big piece of furniture made out of a dark wood that matched everything else in the room called your attention, you opened the little doors it had only to find, amongst other things like papers and supplies, a black shirt held by a hanger. You grabbed it carefully, trying not to move anything else. When you had the shirt in hand you were about to leave the office, but a folded piece of paper caught your eye. It was the only thing on top of Zuko’s desk, which you assumed meant it was the speech he had prepared, only he must have forgotten to take it with him. You opened it just to make sure it was actually the speech and you weren’t grabbing a random piece of paper. The first lines that were written there confirmed it was. He thanked everybody for attending the gala, he talked about this new found peace all nations were enjoying now and he reassured everyone of his endless compromise to keep working towards a brighter future.

It was all the usual stuff someone would say in a speech, until your eyes were drawn further down the page. The words you read there confused you, it made no sense, all the things he’d written there made no sense to you. Before you could read any further, the sound of the door closing behind you made you jump.

“What are you doing here?” Zuko asked dryly.

You couldn’t make yourself turn around to face him, you could almost feel the tears pooling in your eyes and clouding your vision. So you stayed right where you were and simply read out loud what you had in front of you.

“I want to thank the one person who has been by my side this entire time, the only one who’s picked me up every time I’ve been close to falling, every time I’ve felt like I wasn’t fit for the job or I wasn’t good enough to lead a nation. The one who has given me unconditional advice when I’ve needed it the most, and who has been my rock throughout this entire year. Mai, I couldn’t have done this without you.”

“Y/N...”

“You know what, Zuko? I realize now I wasn’t mad at you for any of the things that have happened lately, I was mad at myself, I couldn’t even look at you but not because I was angry, it was because I was ashamed. I felt like an idiot for catching feelings for someone I knew could never feel the same way about me, but that’s not your fault, you don’t owe me feelings. But this is going a little too far don’t you think? Saying that the one thing that’s kept you going all this time is a girl I haven’t even seen since last year? Who wasn’t there when you had your outbursts of rage and wanted to burn the whole place down, who you didn’t go to before every meeting to ask for advice on how to deal with people, who wasn’t there for the nights when you couldn’t sleep because of the nightmares, Spirits! Who didn’t take the entire day to take care of you when you were sick. But I guess all that meant nothing to you. Why am I not surprised?”

You finally turned around, your cheeks already damp and your heart already beating as fast as ever. He looked speechless, like a child that had been yelled at for breaking something. You’d never seen a look like that in his eyes and it almost made you want to run into his arms, but your heart was already broken enough.

He took in a deep breath before braking the silence. “You’re being unfair, Y/N.”

“Oh, I’m being unfair? You’re unbelievable”

“Don’t you have a date waiting for you outside?” He spat a little more secure this time. His words weren’t being fully processed by your brain, it was like whatever he said was covered in a layer of fog and you couldn’t make sense of it.

“You’re right, I have friends who are waiting for me out there, and I’m not wasting any more of the little time I’ve got with them for you.” You made an attempt to walk past him but he grabbed you by the wrist and held you back.

“So this is how you deal with shit? You just run away from it?” He said, his voice breaking a little bit and his breathing fast paced and uneven.

You wanted to bark something back at him, to keep fighting and let everything you’d been holding back these past few days out, scream and yell and hit him and just make him hurt as much as you were hurting, but you didn’t have the strength. “This probably wasn’t a good idea, the whole moving into a palace with basically a stranger who I’d known for a few months before hand and thinking things would just work out, and seeing as I apparently haven’t contributed at all, I don’t see the point of staying any longer. So don’t worry, you’ll have the whole place for you and your ‘rock’ as soon as possible.” You escaped his grasp and walked out the door, trying your best to pull yourself back together before re-entering the ball room.

—————————-

No one asked questions once you were back at the table, but you were less talkative the rest of the night. Before you had to walk up to join Zuko while he was giving his speech, Doko grabbed your hand and intertwined his fingers with yours, the two of you used to do it whenever you were scared or nervous about something when you were little, and it gave you the strength to get up there and listen to the words Zuko had prepared.

He said basically the same thing you’d read in the paper back at his office, excluding everything about Mai, which was a relief cause you really weren’t feeling like crying in front of a whole crowd that night.

Finally, when the gala was over and people were starting to leave, you hugged Doko one more time, promising him you’d stay in touch and see eachother way more from now on. He seemed to want to say something before leaving but decided not to.

You didn’t even say good night to the rest of your friends, discreetly walking out of the ballroom and to your room. If your dress hadn’t been so tight and uncomfortable to lay down with you probably would’ve fallen asleep in it, but after a few minutes of struggling, you finally wiggled out of it and dropped it on a chair that stood next to your bed. You picked the first night gown you could find and put it on before burying yourself under the covers. Tears didn’t take long to fall once again. That horrible feeling of not being able to fill your lungs was back and a dark heaviness covered your body.

You wanted to sleep and get rid of everything, but you couldn’t get yourself to drift off. Several hours must’ve gone by because the sound of people waking and talking outside couldn’t be heard anymore. Silence made everything sink in, what you’d read, what you’d said to Zuko, what he said back. All of it. And right when you were about to let your swollen eyes close the door opened, no previous warning. It closed right back a couple seconds later, softly and carefully. You didn’t know who it was, but you certainly had no intention of talking with anyone, so you didn’t make an attempt to move.

“I know you’re awake.” It was Zuko’s voice. You were so shocked by that you started to think it might be your mind playing games with you, but when he spoke again, you realized it wasn’t. “We need to talk, Y/N”

Tag list: @darthsokaaa @royahllty @godoftheabyss @ilovespideyyy @literally-anythin @daddystevee @annie-are-u-ok @whalerus @galacticamidala @mangoberry43 @eridanuswave @katherinethedork @littleninjablake @taeeemin @cloudyloli @itsme5362

[thebibliomancer]

Essential Avengers: Avengers #241: DARK ANGEL!

March, 1984

The Magical Menace of MORGAN LE FEY!

Hey, uh, Morgan. The pink dimension looks like its bad for your skin? You might want to see a dermatologist?

Also, stop squeezing She-Hulk! She’s not a novelty toy and her eyes don’t pop out in any way you’d want.

Oh! The Avengers book has gone from The Avengers to the Mighty Avengers again. Wonder why.

Anyway.

Last time on As the Avengers Turn: The Avengers get a call from San Francisco that Jessica Drew Spider-Woman is in a coma. Also, that Jessica Drew Spider-Woman is a person they know. They’ve forgotten. The whole world has forgotten because Jessica Drew, Spider-Woman had a wizard mind wipe the world of her existence after she went back in time and shoved Morgan Le Fey out of a tower.

Dammit, what is it with spiders and mindwipes??

The ghost of Morgan is keeping Jessica’s mind separate from her body, hoping to get her revenge by killing Jess and then stealing her body to revive herself.

The Avengers call in Dr Strange and World’s Best Biophysicist Hank Pym to help deal with Coma Jess (but not that one) and some of Jess’ friends like Tigra and the Shroud are also hanging around.

This time on Avengers of Our Lives:

Running and shouting in the hospital? Jessica Drew may be at stake but common courtesy is still a thing!

This random assortment of everyone who wasn’t already in the hospital room rushes towards the hospital room but finds that there’s some manner of glowing barrier blocking the entrance.

Doctors and nurses bang on the glow fruitlessly and Wasp joins them in that by blasting it to no effect.

Wasp: “Hmmm, my Wasp’s sting can blow a good-sized hole in any ordinary wall! This is a bother!”

You’ve kinda scaled back from bragging you could blow up a house, Jan.

Tigra goes to scratch the glowing barrier and just falls right through it.

Cue pratfall noise.

After some frightening expressions from She-Hulk, Wasp and She-Hulk figure hey maybe we can just go right through too!

And they doooo!

Shroud feels some resistance from the barrier but when he thinks about how worried he is about Jessica Drew, the barrier lets him through.

Meanwhile, the assorted medical staff still can’t get in hah

Inside, the heroes learn that the barrier was put up by Dr. Strange to keep out medical staff. Those trained professionals will just get in the way.

Scarlet Wanda the Witch also recaps for the people who weren’t in the room what happened last time with Spider-Woman’s ghost trying to reunite with her body but bouncing off and becoming a photo negative. And that if they can’t jam her spirit back into her meat, Jessica will be left a mindless vegetable foreverrr.

Also, Jessica’s vital signs are fading fast and Dr. Strange is needing to put a lot of attention to keeping Jessica’s astral form together.

It will be up to someone else to investigate!

Dr. Strange: “Whatever force is behind this, it must be incredibly powerful!”

Morgan, helpfully showing her entire hand: “Power?! Hah! You cannot begin to comprehend the extent of my  power!”

It will be up to nobody to investigate because Morgan Le Fey is going to just broadcast her involvement, turning Dr. Strange’s barrier into a wide-screen tv.

Morgan Le Fey: “Hear me, mortals -- I am Morgan Le Fey, and I was all but supreme in the arts of sorcery, centuries before you were born! I shall not brook any interference in my quest for revenge upon Jessica Drew... she who called herself Spider-Woman!”

Morgan lays out all her grievances viz being pushed out a window by Jessica and her evil schemes ie stealing Jessica’s body but She-Hulk is She-Hulk and less than impressed.

She-Hulk: “You think we’d let you just waltz in and take over somebody else’s body?!”

Morgan Le Fey: “If you are wise, yes!”

She-Hulk: “No way, sister! And as for striking us down... I’d like to see you try!”

Morgan Le Fey: “Hah-ha-ha-hah-ha! Very well! But first -- let us have a bit of... fun!”

And Morgan summons a bunch of evil beasties and tendrils and pink beads strung together through the portal at the heroes.

Dammit She-Hulk, you antagonized the magic lady!

Dr. Strange blocks some of it but he’s still mostly tied up with keeping Jessica’s soul alive sooooo someone else get on this.

So someone else gets on it. The Avengers and other superheroes leap to fight these random spell effects as they do best. Mostly by punching. And there’s some blasting.

Shroud finds that the darkness he controls seems to disorient the creatures Morgan summoned. Handy!

But they’re just holding the line there and if they keep playing defensive, Jessica Drew is going to die since Morgan is blocking her soul from her body. So they need to take the battle to Morgan.

Thankfully Janet “Magic is a little out of the Avengers’ line” van Dyne has a plan.

The mystical window Morgan le Fey was doing magic through suddenly clouds up with Shroud’s darkness. She blows away the darkness with demon winds, as ya do, but when the winds clear away the darkness, bam, Scarlet Witch, She-Hulk, Shroud, and Starfox!

Morgan turned Dr. Strange’s barrier into a window so he turned her window into a door. Fair’s fair.

And Wanda instantly manipulates the probability of Morgan falling on her ass.

Good.

Starfox flies forward to finish Morgan off but this is page 10 not page 20mumble so Morgan blasts the hapless space idiot.

Morgan Le Fey: “I don’t care how powerful you mortals think you are! I am Morgan Le Fey! No one, not even Merlin himself, could contain me forever!”

Getting punched off a tower and disintegrating was a minor inconvenience!

Meanwhile, everyone who didn’t go through the barrier window door is still in the hospital room fighting off Morgan’s spells because yes she can fight several heroes on the astral plane while also maintaining a bunch of spells in another dimension.

Even Dr. Strange has to admit that she’s very powerful.

We do get a nice follow-up on Tigra’s time on the Avengers though as Captain Marvel’s determination in the face of spooky magic inspires Tigra.

Tigra: Incredible! This stuff has her nearly as spooked as it has me, but she’s working real hard not to show it! Somehow, that makes it easier to fight this stuff! But I still don’t like it!

Wasp assists World Famous Biophysicist Hank Pym as he monitors Jessica Drew’s vitals. No time for post-divorce awkwardness, Jessica Drew is at stake! And at risk of dying soon due to the stress of all of this.

Meanwhile, back in New York at Avengers Mansion, Captain America comes home from his solo adventures. Apparently he hasn’t heard about Vision the Great and Powerful hologram head because he’s confused.

Vision explains and then Hawkeye comes in and explains in smaller words and Cap is like Oh I See.

And then a computer in the communications center explodes. As one doesn’t.

Vision: “I really must apologize for that sudden overload in the monitor systems. It’s nothing to get alarmed about, though!  I’ve rerouted that screen’s functions through a back-up system! No need to worry... I have everything taken care of! Everything!”

Dubious Cap: “Yes... I’m sure you have Vision.”

But Hawkeye pulls Cap away from his skeptical stare to take him to meet Mockingbird.

Vision: That power surge was similar to the one I detected previously -- but this one was even more powerful! The monitor overloaded before I could get a fix on it! But I msut find the source of this mysterious energy! I must! Anything capable of generating such power could upset all of my plans! And that must not be!

Hmm, I’m not sure what that power surge thing is. Could be Secret Wars lurking around the horizon... the time period is right. But more to the point, Vision, ‘that could upset all my plans’ isn’t something superheroes tend to say/think! That’s kinda ominous!

Back over at the A plot, Morgan Le Fey turns into a giant made out of random bits of terrain, as one does when one is Morgan Le Fey.

Morgan Le Fey: “ANYTHING IS POSSIBLE IN MY DOMAIN! AS YOU WERE ALL FOOLHARDY ENOUGH TO BODILY ENTER THE ASTRAL DIMENSION, I HAVE CREATED MYSELF A BODY WHICH YOU CAN BATTLE... A BODY FORMED FROM THE VERY STUFF OF THIS REALM!”

I don’t appreciate her evil schemes but I admire her energy. She’s villaining good.

Interesting that the cover still gave her ‘made out of random crap’ texture but used her normal colors instead of yellow, orange, and purple. I feel like at that point, just make her look like a normal giant Morgan Le Fey and have it be more representative of what happens than what actually happens.

Anyway.

Forcing Morgan to gigamax means less of her attention is focused on the hospital room which means all her spells there are getting weaker. Unfortunately including the barrier window door which starts shrinking. And unfortunately not including the barrier around Jessica Drew who is now in danger of going into cardiac arrest due to acute soul deficiency.

Dr. Strange decides that now, and not any moment before now, is the time to act. He uses the Eye of Agamotto to make contact with “the captive psyche of the motionless dark angel...”

So there we go. That’s why the issue is titled DARK ANGEL. This one off description of photo-negative Jessica Drew soul.

Personally, I think “The Magical Menace of Morgan Le Fey!” would have made a better title but Roger Stern and/or Mark Gruenwald probably know what they’re doing.

Dr. Strange makes contact with Jessica and empowers her with the Eye of Agamotto.

Jessica Drew, Spider-Woman: “Y-yes, I do feel stronger somehow! But I’m still so... so lost!”

Dr. Strange: “Never fear, Jessica! The light will show you the way home! Follow the light!”

Huuuuuuuuuh. Usually an iffy thing to tell someone in a coma but. I mean. He is a doctor.

But Jessica finds the.... astral winds? Some kind of winds. Which I think represent the barrier Morgan put up to keep Jessia out of her body. Anyway, there are winds and they are too mighty for Jess to make headway against.

AND THEN, MAGNUS.

He roused from Morgan’s sneak attack a bit earlier and now he’s here to narrate his entire backstory.

Because, of course.

Jessica also notes that he looks so pale but he’s the same shade of white as he’s been so I dunno.

Centuries ago, Magnus was but a student sorcerer. Merlin rejected his apprentice application so he became the student and lover of Morgan Le Fey. Because Morgan’s evil. You think she cares about student-teacher ethics?

Magnus was young and in love and convinced himself that all of Morgan’s rants about how much she hated King Arthur was totally not a problem.

And then she found the Darkhold and even Magnus realized ‘oh this isn’t great, is it?’

So he stole the Darkhold, hid it in a tower that those of evil intent could not enter, and then went on the run.

Morgan eventually found him and killed him while he was astral projecting, Magnus having to devise a spell pretty much on the spot to let him continue on as a not-Force ghost.

With great effort, Magnus could visit Earth for brief periods by possessing people. On some of those visits, he met and assisted and fell in love with Jessica.

Magnus: “Jessica, so much that has befallen you has been because of me! Morgan used you to strike at me, even as she used me to strike at you. Yes, and to my shame, I set you ‘gainst her! Because of me, you have existed these past days in a twilight between death and the life you love so much! I have seen people, good people, risking their lives to save you... I could do no less!”

So Magnus uses the last bit of his magic, and his cohesion as a not-Force ghost, to still the psychic winds and let her rejoin her body.

Not bad, Magnus.

You’re still a bit of a creep but good way to go out.

Dark Angel Spider-Woman melds back into Jessica Drew, her vitals stabilize, and she comes out of her coma.

Hooray, Jessica Drew has been undeaded!

In the astral plane, Morgan senses that the Great Jessica Drew Body Caper has been thwarted and she’s miffed.

Morgan Le Fey: “DEMONS OF CHTHON!! MY HOLD ON SPIDER-WOMAN HAS BEEN BROKEN! I CAN SENSE IT! BUT... THIS CANNOT BE!”

And while she’s distracted yelling at nobody in particular, Team Take the Fight to Morgan strikes her good.

Scarlet Witch makes it very probably that a bunch of pink explosions will explode all over her, She-Hulk and Starfox do her some punches, and the Shroud shrouds her face with shrouding darkness.

She-Hulk: “Oh, that jaw is just too tempting a target! Say ‘good night,’ Morgie! You’re gonna be a hit in the landfill business!”

You’re doing great, Jen.

Morgan Le Fey: “You... insolent... WHELP! You cannot defeat Morgan by mere physical might! I shall yet have my vengeance! If Spider-Woman is denied me I shall take your body!”

Ghost Morgan jumps out of giant rock giant Morgan to try to body-jack She-Hulk but Dr. Strange has something to say to that.

He says ‘nah.’

Or more specifically “Flame of Faltine swirl and sunder and turn ‘round this foul exchange! Let yon sorceress stay rock-bound... by the power of Doctor Strange!”

Which. To be honest. Is much cooler.

Makes sense though. He was tied up keeping Jess’ soul together for most of the issue. Not having to do that anymore meant he could slip in and punk Morgan.

She’s less than pleased.

Morgan Le Fey, from inside a giant disembodied rock version of her own head: “You’ll live to rue this day, Doctor Strange! From this day forward I am your sworn enemy!”

To be fair, you two would have wound up at odds eventually anyway if you insisted on being magical and evil so I don’t know how much remorse he’s feeling about thwarting you now. Probably none.

Anyway. Dr. Strange hurries everyone through the barrier window door portal before he runs out of effort to keep it open.

Back in Jessica  Drew’s hospital room, Hank Pym announces the cost of getting uncancelled like she was.

Hank Pym: “The ordeal you went through caused some radical changes in your body chemistry. I’m afraid that your life as Spider-Woman is over... No more sticking to walls, no more venom blasts! From now on, you’re just a normal woman!”

Okay. So, her book got cancelled and she was killed off and written out of memory. Back in June, 1983. But now in March, 1984, that death and so on is being retconned. Jessica gets to be alive again!

So why does she lose her powers?

Well. She failed the sales test. And she was originally created to squat a trademark. And Marvel only puts so much support behind their trademark squatters. If all that matters is that someone is squatting the trademark rather than the character itself, it made more sense to Marvel to cycle through characters rather than supporting something that is losing them money.

It happened to Mar-Vell (death April, 1982) to give us Monica Rambeau instead (August, 1982). And now its happening to Jessica Drew. Her time as Spider-Woman is up because Marvel is just going to try another take on the concept. Julia Carpenter, coming soon.

Of course, you can’t keep a good Jessica down, either. Kind of like when Reed Richards makes any definite statement, Hank Pym’s assertion that Jessica has been rendered powerless is going to be proven not entirely true.

Either way, Jessica is too thrilled to be alive to fuss about losing her powers. She’s going to continue private detecting even if its harder without superpowers!

Hm. Jessica Jones being a rated M for Mature expy of Jessica Drew becomes more and more obvious.

Anyway.

The Spider-Woman may be gone, but for Jessica Drew a bright new life beckons!

Yay!

Follow @essential-avengers​ for Julia Carpenter? Yes, eventually. And maybe sooner than you’d think. Unless you look up dates. Don’t look up dates. Preserve the mystery. Or don’t. I can’t stop you. You’re too strong. Also, like and follow if you like.

[guigz1-coldwar]

'Bad vision' : New chapter for "Redemption in a Spirit in a Cold War" is out !

"Bad vision"

"Our line of work is hard to live but everyone has something to hold on and it's always an person close to us !

Chapter Summary : Yirina is still troubled by the memory she just relived before she accompanies, with Park, Zasha in their first day at Century House as an official MI6 agent....

To read it on AO3, click here !

Words : +3100

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

It's always strange to find myself reliving some memories of my past, discovering more about who was Yirina Grigoriev before Kadivar left her for dead in an turkish airstrip but now I was able to know about what happened that day fully and what I saw again gave me some answers to the still many unanswered questions : Kadivar shot me because he knew that I was going to defect but also because he knew that I tipped off the CIA about Qasim Javadi....I was the one who did launched the CIA on Perseus....and I know now how Freya found herself back in possession of my mother's ring....she stole it !

She profited that I wasn't able to move to take it back with her, I could still hear myself pleading that she give me back it but it didn't change her mind at all....why did she has done this ? I couldn't answer that question to be honest and when I woke up next morning, that question was still in my brain. For now, I couldn't think of having an answer for it. When I got up with Park, I told her about the memory I just had and she was understanding everything, looking relieved that I was still getting my memories back and troubled to have learned that I relived that day.

Having taking an shower & eating an breakfast, it was time for us to leave the hotel to get Zasha at their apartment and when we arrived, knocking at their door, we could hear them through the front door with Portnova, talking about making their tie quickly. I can say that Portnova has to do it in emergency like she didn't wanted to do. After that and laughing about it, Zasha came with us without forgetting to kiss Portnova before we could get to Century House for their first official day in the MI6.

"Stressed ?" I asked to Zasha as we were inside the elevator that was bringing us up inside Century House to get to the sixth floor where the cryptographer section was working, just one floor up from where Park's office was. We were just arrived right now, directly going to Zasha's new job.

"An bit, it's my first day, you know." They replied as I was seeing their hands trembling an little, causing my question to come in. "I've been dreaming all night about my first day in the KGB." They added, looking at me.

"And how was it ?" Park demanded curious about it.

"Stressful, very stressful." They affirmed and they were right, the first day in an organization like that is quite weird to live. "You lived the same thing, Park ?"

"In here ? Yes." Park told to them, looking at them with an smile. "When you realize that you found yourself working with the secret services of your country, it put an lot of things on your back." She continued, giving to us her thoughts. "First days are hard to live but then, you learn how to live with those new responsabilities."

"Yes, we know that." I whispered, thinking about the responsabilities we all have now in this world and avoiding it to turn to shit.

"Here we are." Park breathed as the elevator stopped at our destination : the sixth floor and the door opened. "Good, follow me, I'm going to get you at your office." She ordered and Zasha's eyes went wide.

"Wait, an office ?" They exclaimed, stunned by that word from her.

"Yes, you didn't heard me last night, saying that you will have an office for you only ?" She questioned them and by that, they shook their head to her. "Now, you know it, follow me." She repeated as she start to walk away and we soon follow her, Zasha still looking amazed that they were going to have their own office.

"I can't believe it." Zasha thought to themselves in an low voice during our walk behind Park until we arrived at the door that was where Zasha will work now. "Zasha Smirnov, Intelligence Officer ?" They were sounding low, repeating the words that was on the door.

"Welcome to the MI6, Zed !" I said proudly as Park opened the door, revealing their office to them. They were looking surprised and so proud to be here.

"Your new place of work." Park stated, pointing at the desk that was empty and behind it, an big view on London....an quite view on the city to be honest "Hope you will like it."

"Oh hell, I'm liking right now !" Zasha sounded very enthusiastic as they were walking to get sit on their new perfect chair. "This is mine to say." They added, getting their hands on the desk

"You will be working with the other Intelligence Officers in the crytography section." Park recalled them about their new job as for me, I was looking Zasha, discovering the place, stress wasn't in them anymore right now. "You will always stay here, I suppose that it wouldn't be an problem."

"Not at all." Zasha expressed, their eyes on her before they looked at me. "I still can't believe it, Yirina, I've got my own office."

"Better than the one we in the KGB, right ?" They nodded to my question, both knowing that our old office in the Lubyanka wasn't so pleasant to work in as Park looked at us, curious. "Me & Zasha used to work in the same office and in here, it's better." I explained to her as I was getting next to Zasha's desk.

"But now, it's MY office !" They scoffed, pointing at the desk and them.

"Yes, YOUR office." I rolled my eyes around to hear them before making an laugh with my mouth, thinking that they were in charge in that room. "I'm happy, very happy for you, Zed." I claimed, my voice full of truth to them. "Thank you, Park again for doing this."

"You know that I had to do this." She affirmed with an smile and good eyes, looking at me & Zasha. "I'm always here for you two and the MI6 is behind you....I'm behind you." She added, joining her hands together as we nodded in approval to her.

"Thank you, Park...thank you." Zasha spoke up, their arms on the desk and looking at the papers on it....empty piece of papers, ready to be filled of reports or anything. "By the way, where's the coffee machine ?" They demanded, making me roll my eyes.

"You & your coffee...." I snorted in an funny voice.

"There's an coffee machine not so far, we passed next to it to get here." Park fully responded to them, pointing outside. "By that, don't empty the coffee machine in one day, I don't want you to have an cardiac arrest !" She stated, her knowing well too about their addiction.

"Hey, I'm not like that !" They told us but I crossed my arms to them. "Uhm...I might have done this once....okay." They resigned themselves to tell the truth, remembering an memory of my past in head.

"Excuse me ?" Someone, an male person knocked at the door that was still wide open and we all look to him.

"Yes ?" Park breathed at his sight.

"Agent Park, Agent Grigoriev, the director is awaiting you at the meeting room of the building for your debriefing on Harry Stone's situation." The man told us, staying outside the room.

"Good, tell him that we're on our way !" Park said to the man who nodded at us before he got away, leaving us in the room. "Zasha, we have to go, you will be good ?" She asked to them, curious.

"Yes, it will be good for me." They answered, sounding an bit troubled to have us go.

"Don't worry, Zed, we will come time to time to see how you are." I reassured them in an serious tone as we were going to leave them alone for their first day in here for an moment. "It will be fine."

"Good, thanks." Zasha scratched the back of their head, looking at us.

"Okay..." Park whispered to herself before she looked at me. "Well, we got an debriefing to make now, let's go !" She ordered before she start to walk away from the room with me behind and leaving Zasha alone for the moment.

Before going directly to the meeting room where the director...Colin Figures if I remember well...were waiting for us, we had to return to Park's office to get everything linked to the missions we did against Stone before finally going to meet with the director in person. This time, it was only him and no one else....not Miss Tchatcher here to stress me out and not the director of the MI5, just him. He was looking nice to see us back here but it was no time to talk about ourselves right now.

We finally started the debriefing, telling him of everything we have done against Stone, the whole & long two weeks we spent to track him down and to eliminate him for good and the save of Portnova from Perseus's hands. He was proud of the success we did and by his face, I know he was saying the truth. Finally, the MI6 managed to find an way to discredit Stone's name in public, stripping of his 'Nimrod Hero' status for good and making Park relieved of that but of course, he affirmed to us that we will have to be refocused on saving Adler, like we feared about it but we will take time to have some rest for the moment....

"Miss Grigoriev ?" He told me as we were finished in our debriefing, having packed up everything to leave the room and get back to Park's offices.

"Yes ?" I said, stopping myself in my moves as I was having files in my hand and Park did the same as me.

"I would like an simple & quick talk with you if possible." He demanded and since he was my big superior, I couldn't refuse at all.

"Uhm, okay sir." I nodded to him before I look at Park.

"Don't worry, I will get everything back to my office." She affirmed to me, making me give her the numerous files I had in my hands to her before she winked at me with her eye that wasn't at the director sight and then, she left the room, leaving me alone with him.

"You can have an seat, if you want." He proposed to me as we did the whole debriefing standing up but I politely refused by shaking my head. "Okay."

"So, what do you want to talk about, sir ?" I asked him curious as I could see get his arms on the table. I wasn't feeling great in the inside right now.

"Agent Park told me that you were in fact born of an british father, an man named James Doyle, is that correct ?" He started, giving me the reason of that talk....my father.

"Yes, it's true, an SAS soldier and an MI6 agent....My father." I replied fully to him in an low voice, my head looking down.

"Good, you might know that we're actually thinking of granting you the british citizenship and it will be highly sure that you will have it." He said, poking the table with his index finger as me, I start to feel an bit weird...dizzy. "You were really one of us...an british woman and also russian." He scoffed, laughing an little.

"Thank you, sir." I whispered as I could feel my brain going bad and my face going all white....so dizzy. "Sir, I would like to....leave...I need some....water."

"Yes, you can go now." He said, seeing me not well at all and he moved to open the door for me quickly, allowing me to get out of the room.

I needed to go to the toilets room right now to get some water on my face and during my walk, I was feeling like everything around me was in slow motion, my eyes narrowing and me on the verge of passing out in the middle of an hallway with an lot of people around and I wouldn't want that at all.  I finally arrived in the toilets room and by the odds, no one was around to see me in that state. I didn't focus to look at myself on the mirror, directly moving to put some water on my face with the sink.

But when I put my head up to look at myself, I was suddenly seeing an vision of horror in front of me....Russell Adler himself....I was taken aback but the worst was....it's that he wasn't behind me at all, my reflection was....him....I was seeing myself as Adler himself right now. I couldn't remove my eyes from my own reflection as I approached the sink slowly again, getting my hands through the part of the face where Adler got his scars and...somehow, I could feel them, making me thinking that I was really like him...becoming like him....

"What the fuck ?" I thought to myself, looking at my own hands and it was mine and not looking like Adler's....I'm going crazy that for sure...seeing myself as Adler....is my fake memories doing this ? "I'm not like him !" I whispered, getting my hands on the sink.

"Of course, you're not like him !" Someone told me, making me jumpscare from my place, thinking that Park did follow me but not...instead, it was an woman...an brown-haired one with glasses and sounding...with an german accent.

"Who are you ?" I asked to her, confused of her presence here, thinking that I was alone.

"My friends....is calling me Sam....it's the only thing you need to know about me." She replied, making me very curious about that strange woman who came in that room. "I'm assuring that you're not like him."

"Wait, do you know ?" I narrowed my eyes to her, wondering if that woman did know of my story even it was something that I was talking to close friends.

"You're talking about Russell Adler, the CIA agent that did bad things on you." She said to me and it was surprising me as hell. "You don't need to know why & how I managed to get this right about you."

"You're confusing me, miss...Sam." I exclaimed as I could see that there were something strange in that woman, especially the fact that I couldn't see her eyes.

"I know but you need to know something, Grigoriev !" She expressed as I was checking my clothes, not having my MI6 credentials with me, still in Park's office. "I know that you're trying to redeem yourself for what you have done with Perseus." She affirmed to me in an sure voice.

"Yes.." I breathed, biting my lips "Who are you working for ?" I asked her as she wasn't having any credentials like me.

"You don't need to know." She repeated again before she decide to get close to me. "Don't worry, you will get your redemption...you will do this !" She admitted before she decide to move away from me, leaving the room and me in it.

"Wait !" I started, wanting to stop her from getting away but when I stepped out of the room, I couldn't see her from afar like if....she vanished into thin air....was she an vision ?...."What happened ?" I thought to myself as I was getting back to the sink, finding that my reflection was now back as me...and no longer been Adler....

It was very weird, I'm going crazy for sure, my fake memories....they are making something to me....With what happened, I stayed longer in the toilet room for about 10 minutes, checking myself up and putting some water back on my face before I decide to finally leave that room to get back to Park's office, trying to act normal and keep an straight face during the way back. When I arrived in her office, she was putting the files we used in some cardbox to put them in an closet.

"That part is done for good, no more Stone !" Park exclaimed as she saw me arrive in the room, having finished to put one of the boxes inside the closet. "How was that talk with the director ?" She demanded.

"Good...good." I replied in an low voice as I was going to get sit on the seat I was always using when I was here in that office. "He wanted to talk about granting me the british citizenship." I added, sitting up for good.

"Oh, okay." She smiled at me as she was doing to fill up the last box before she looked at me. "Uhm..you're alright, Yirina ?" She said, seeing me in that state even if it was better.

"No, I'm not." I breathed, holding my face with my hands as she was stopping what she was doing to get sit on her own chair. "I felt dizzy during that talk and I had to go to the toilets to get better." I started, getting her attention on me. "I saw myself as Adler in the mirror."

"What ?" She was sounding shocked by hearing me saying that

"Instead of seeing me, I saw myself as him, even feeling his own scars on my face." I told her clearly before taking an deep breath. "I think the fake memories of Vietnam is doing something, it's because of them I'm having that." I continued, giving my thoughts about that, it has to be that.

"Shit." Park cursed, looking away from me as she was looking bad too. "I...I'm sorry, Yirina." She whispered....it wasn't her fault

"I think that these memories is the reason I'm still considered as 'Bell'....it has to be, these memories are linking me to Adler himself." I suggested as it was the only thing I could see right now. "Even if I protest that I'm not Bell, it's always coming back." I sniffed before closing my eyes, trying to not think of Vietnam.

"You're not Bell anymore." Park affirmed to me.

"I know...I know but I can't do an thing about the memories in my brain, I can't...we can't do an thing !" I expressed, sounding in an low voice. "Right now, I'm just trying to live my life for good." At this moment after I finished, Park's phone at her desk start to ring, causing her to take it in hands.

"Yes ?" She started, keeping her eyes on me. "Oh...hi Woods, why are you calling ?" She demanded, I couldn't hear what he was saying but he know that we were back in London. "Wait, you're serious, you got an lead ?" She sounded very stunned to hear what he was saying to her as me, I was trying to understand. "Fine, we will be there in an day." She breathed away from me. "Goodbye Woods." She then hang up the phone.

"What's the deal ?" I questioned her, curious.

"Woods & his team found an lead in their mission to save Adler." She replied, getting her arms on the desk. "Apparently, an warlord named 'Naga' has Adler...in South-East Asia." She told me clearly as in my head, I was trying to remember who was this 'Naga' . "I'm afraid that we will have to shorten by an lot our rest here, we're needed."

"Great." I sighed, thinking that we could have more days to rest and to have some peace to be here but no, we are needed by the CIA. "Where are we going exactly ?" I demanded to her as she took an deep breath, removing her arms from the desk and still having her eyes on me.....

"We're going to Laos !"

[microcroft]

i dont feel up to making a big post about this, i just want to get it out no matter how disjointed it sounds.

on monday, i took xena to the vet, which i made a post about while at the vet. it was for an internal medicine appointment, to make sure her kidneys were doing alright and determine what to do about her megacolon medicine so she wasnt having diarrhea anymore. she spent 2 hrs at the vet getting xrays and having tests done, she was doing fine, just dehydrated and the doctor called and told me what she found and what to do (make sure shes drinking water and just cut back lactulose until she was only on .5 ccs, start taking gabapentin for her arthritis, that was the plan. she was fine). i got there and the vet told me they needed a bit more time because when xena came out from sedation she started getting really stressed out and then started panting. cats dont pant like dogs do. xena had done this twice before, i believe both were during car rides. the first time it happened my parents and i were starting the 3 hr drive back from my apartment to home for summer break. the a/c was being weird and the air coming out wasn’t cold, it was warm. xena started panting and i frantically googled what it meant. i figured out she was stressed out and the heat probably wasnt doing her any good and she should get some water in her. after about half an hour in the other car she was fine. i cant remember the time after that much. i think i might have been driving and i just had to calm her down.

i told the vet that she had some sort of trauma related to dogs before i got her and now she gets extremely stressed around them, even hearing them. they said they would give her a bit more sedatives and monitor her until she stops, and to go back home and they would call me when she’s ready to go home.

i was talking to my mom on the phone, driving ten minutes home. they left a voicemails then i noticed them trying to reach me. my phone for some reason didnt answer the call when i hit answer and it went to voicemail.

i spent a while on hold with the front desk, apparently they were on the phone with my mother, because i had given them her number one time.

the doctor told me xena had gone into cardiac arrest, they had been performing cpr, she wasnt responding, they needed to know if i wanted to continue.

yes, yes i did.

apparently 15 minutes passed and it felt like one, i was just sitting on my couch trying to process what was happening. 

they called back. instantly i knew from her sad, soft voice, that this wouldnt turn out well no matter how much it by all means shouldnt even be happening to begin with because she was fine and maybe they mixed up the cats and this cat they are performing cpr on isn’t xena but i knew they would never do that.

there wasnt anything else they could do except go into her chest to try and restart her heart and the chances of that working were very small. she asked me if i wanted to. i knew it wouldnt work but i also just wanted her to be okay and happy and laying on top of me purring and calming me. i couldnt bring myself to say it. 

xena is my child. she is my little baby girl and this shouldnt be happening. it was a regular vet visit, she was alive and prancing around that morning. 

an underlying heart condition. thats what took her away from me. her heart that showed me so much love, that loved me more than i had ever known before. she was so pure and defied all that i thought i knew from my research on cat behavior. she never failed to come to me to give me comfort and receive comfort. she, like in all things, was not subtle about it. when i took her to the vet to do blood work she was like a child, clinging to their mother at the doctors office to get away from the needle. 

i loved her, i adored her, i did everything i could to provide for her no matter the cost. she was my child, my daughter, my first priority and now she is gone because of something hidden within her that no one noticed. something no one saw coming. gone before i even knew what happened. 

i spent time afterwards with her, remembering all i had learned from Caitlin Doughty, trying to find any way possible to minimize the pain. i thanked her for everything she had given me the past four years. i told her she was one of a kind, because she truly was in every way. how i wished there was something i could have done but i didnt know because of all the issues she had, her heart was never one of them. 

[hellyeahtrickster]

It occurs to me that I have friends here that I don't have contact with in other spheres, so ... life update: my mother passed away unexpectedly last Friday. I'm doing as well as one would expect. Been going through her things as both a walk down memory lane and a goodbye. I keep coming across things she never got around to using, and it hits hard that now, she'll never have the chance. And I can't stop thinking of the stories we watched together that now she won't know the ending to, or shows I wanted to try with her. And then there's all the things we used to do together on the regular -- all the places I can never go with her to again. And all the places we wanted to go to "someday", but now she never will.

We were two weeks out from our second COVID shots, and 4 weeks from being totally vaccinated. We were finally going to get back to EPCOT, to see the Flower and Garden show. Finally going to get back to the Florida Mall. Going out to lunch. That I won't be doing this things with her anymore ... it's unfathomable. I can't wrap my head around it.

Thanks, anti-mask / anti-vaccine Covidiots, for prolonging the presence of this pandemic -- basically stealing the last year of my mother's life. She was anxious to see her elderly mother again, because we don't know how long *she* has left ... and now she never go to see her mother again. I knew losing my mom would happen someday, but my mother was relatively young yet, so I thought it would be a while ....

It doesn't help that she died after the second night on a new bed. See, she slept on her side all the time, what with the couch being narrow, but with a twin mattress, the bed was much wider. She snored a lot -- I highly suspect she had sleep apnea. When I found her the next morning, she was on her BACK. The doctor agreed that her cardiac arrest could have been caused by sleep apnea. In trying to make my mom more comfortable .... Yeah, I know, it's not my fault, but I cannot shake that thought away, that she's not here anymore because we tried to do something nice for her. How cruel the humour of the universe can be.

(I'd put the rest of this behind a cut, but I don't see that option anymore? Sorry!!)

And it REALLY doesn't help that, not only have I lost the person I was closest to, but now I am stuck alone with the person I least want to be with: my dad. I'm pretty liberal, and he's pretty conservative. We fight a LOT. We haven't really since mom died (things got a little tense here and there, but not like we usually are) ... but I know it won't last. It can't -- not when he believes BLM are terrorists, or that gays have an agenda. And now he keeps wanting to do things with me, like watch my shows, and a petulant part of me is like, no, this is mom's territory -- stay out. I don't want to do anything with him. (Especially since I know he'll start ranting once the shows start talking about racism and homophobia.)

My parents always had a volatile relationship. Mom didn't know you could get pregnant the first time, and when she found out she was pregnant, her Catholic family bullied her into marrying him.* And he cheated on her at LEAST once (with a girl who was only a few years older than me at the time -- I was 15, she was 19, he was 33). My mother was far from perfect, so I don't blame all the marital problems on him. But my point is they were married "in name only" for about the last 25 years, so it's ... offensive to me now that he would dare to act bereaved.

I know he can be hella manipulative, make himself seem generous so as to be loved, and then turn on you like a viper, getting irrationally angry. I can't drive, we live in a very rural area with no public trans, there are no friends or fam less than an hour away, I've had next to no job for the last 17 years, I barely feel like a functional human being (am coming to seriously suspect I have ADHD and Dyscalculia; I have diabetes and suspect have PCOS and a thyroid problem; all these things having strong interconnections; and I have no insurance, nor do I qualify for aid, thanks to living in Florida), and I feel utterly trapped. There's a reason Rapunzel is my fave princess. I've had bad experiences with cabs, so using Uber / Lyft kind of terrifies me. Plus, he'd want to know where I'm going, and likely either insist on coming too, or insist I can't go, because his house, his money, his rules. The ONLY time each year I get away is when I go to Dragon Con (and I'm worried he might forbid that in the future -- he has once before).

And then there's the problem of ... he has no one. As much as I can't stand him, he lost his job because of COVID, he's lost his wife, he has no real friends (total homebody), and like it or not, he has supported me financially for so long. Even if someone else were to take me in, or I can get a job and save to leave ... how can I leave him (a person with severe rheumatoid arthritis / in not-great health)? I owe him too damn much, and I feel like it would be entirely callous of me. Yes, I realise that that's the abuse talking, but ... it's also true?

Anyway, I feel like I'm on Sliders, and keep stepping into progressively worse timelines.

* Let me mention that I have long suspected my mother is -- was -- on the autism spectrum, but when I mentioned it to one of her sisters, the sister seemed skeptical, saying that if anything, mom had a penchant for reading out loud, so they thought maybe she had a reading disability, and took her to a specialist, but "that's it". (Mom was in "remedial" classes through high school, so it doesn't sound like they did enough -- and maybe couldn't because the science just wasn't there.) I explained that mom frequently seemed to have trouble grasping concepts, especially humour. Like when a radio ad featured someone reciting a love-letter to a tomato, she was all, "That's stupid -- tomatoes can't read!" Try as I might, I could not get her to understand that the love letter was a playful way to tell US about what makes the tomato so good.)

Anyway, when I talked to my grandmother recently, she said that my mom "always had a special way of looking at things," and that she guessed mom was "what do they call it -- neuro-something? 'Aspie'? High-functioning, but still." And I told my cousin about it, and he said, "Wait, I thought it was common knowledge in our family that your mom was autistic?" (Note: we have other, officially diagnosed family members who are on different areas of the spectrum.) People always commented when I was growing up that it was like my mom's role and mine was reversed -- like I was the parent, and she was the child.

But to think my family had *recognised* that something was up, and left me, a child, to deal with it on my own?? To think they *pressured* someone who was "special" into having a child?

I know my mom loved me, but my whole life, she said she wished I'd never been born, and so she'd never have married my dad -- I know both can be true, that she loved me but wished she'd never had me (she'd have never known what she was missing). She only survived her marriage because I was there; I've always felt she'd have had a better life if she hadn't married him. When she tried to leave him, her mother would not take her in, because divorce was against her mother's Catholic beliefs (never mind that my uncle divorced twice)

I loved my mother, but were fought a lot, and she frequently exasperated me as we struggled to communicate. She frequently left words out, but did not believe that she did; when we met her last PCP the first time, he looked at me and said, "Is she always like this, or is she having a stroke?" And she would always angrily proclaim that I wasn't listening, when most of the time, it's that I couldn't get her to understand that she was working from a misconception or misunderstanding in the first place, because she would focus on ONE THING, to the exclusion of all else.

An example of an exchange (copied from a letter I wrote to a friend): We got into a weird argument yesterday. She had asked me for pain reliever, a glass of tap water (you're supposed to drink a full glass of water with the pills), and a "cold water" from the fridge (it's too cold to drink it all at once, but we both prefer ice water in general). Later, I was picking stuff up from her table-tray, including a bottle of pain reliever, and put a bunch of stuff away. When I passed by again, she asked for more cold water. I happened to look as see that she had the tap water glass still full, even though she had asked tor it half an hour before. I asked if I needed to bring the pain pill bottle back, because she hadn't drunk the tap water yet -- had I taken the pill bottle too soon, or had she forgotten to drink the water? She was all, "no, I said I need COLD water!" I said I knew that, and I would bring it; I was just asking of she had taken her pills already, or if I needed to bring the pill bottle back too. Her (again): "I said I need COLD WATER!" Me: "I know, and I will bring that -- I just want to know why you haven't drunk the tap water yet? Did you take your pills?" Her: "No, I'll take them at bed!" Me: "So I should bring back the pill bottle? Did I put it away too early?" Her: "YOU DON'T LISTEN! I SAID I NEED COLD WATER!" Me: "And I said I will bring that -- I'm just asking if you also need your pain pills?" Her: "You already took the bottle!! Did you forget that already?"

And then I finally spotted the white pain pills on the napkin under the tap-water glass, so I knew that no, I didn't need to bring it. But it's a frequent struggle to figure out how to phrase questions so I get the answer I need -- nearly every time, I get her screaming at me that I don't listen.

She loved me, but she was never mothering. She hated to be touched, so never hugged me; I was pretty touch-starved. I learned to read because she was a very slow reader when reading me stories; I got impatient and learned to do it for myself. She couldn't help me with my homework. She resented having to take me to school recitals and science fairs. She wasn't someone I could get advice from. I admit I was often envious of characters who had physically-loving, compassionate, wise mother-figures (who weren't so binary about morality -- and so weren't always screaming that this or that character should die, no matter how small the transgression).

But I wish she were still here to frustrate me -- that's so much better than not having her at all. And I wish I had been better at keeping my temper.

She was an atheist, and firm in that belief. Maybe she's right, or maybe her firm belief is affecting me, because I would dream frequently about others I have loved and lost, and swear I feel them, but with her ... nothing. Just a gaping hole in the fabric of my waking life, threatening to suck all the light and hope into it.

[jeongyunhoed]

You’re traveling to another dimension It is a dimension as vast as space and as timeless as infinity It is the middle ground between light and shadow, Between science and superstition It ties between the pit of man’s fears and the summit of his knowledge This is the dimension of imagination

An ATEEZ Twilight Zone!AU (masterlist here)

A/N: The third bonus chapter. If Jongho’s previous chapter in this series was dark, this seems even more dark that I had to pause for a bit haha. Posting this waaaaay in advance because I might forget. Happy Birthday Jongho!

XII. The Light (Jongho)

Choi Jongho didn’t know how, didn’t know when, where, nor why of all people, it had to be him. Not only did he have a hard time trying to come to terms with the fact that he was granted this strange ability, but he also had a hard time trying to accept that his ability was perhaps the most unpleasant ability of them all. Choi Jongho had the ability to see if a person was going to die. 

After putting off his plans to do his mandatory military service for so long, Jongho finally put his career as a singer on hold to enlist, being stationed at the elite unit after the medical examiners declared him as more than fit and able to take on the work of an active-duty soldier. He didn’t feel too badly about enlisting this time. His members Seonghwa, Hongjoong, Yunho, Yeosang, San, Mingi, and Wooyoung, had all finished theirs and were now just waiting for him. Ateez needed to continue even without him for 18 months.

It made Jongho wonder for a moment as to who would end up belting out those high notes he always hit in their songs. He figured San and Seonghwa would be able to handle it, Wooyoung if it was given to him, or maybe even his Yunho hyung, who always seemed ready to take on anything. Thoughts of who might take over his parts in their previous songs amused him, and made him miss them less while he focused on being a soldier in the meantime. 

It was here that he fully realized that he was able to correctly predict who was going to die. Jongho could tell just by seeing a glow on a person’s face. If the strange light shone on them, then he knew their fate was sealed. The first time happened when he accidentally sprained his ankle. A much older guy who was in the infirmary with him was talking animatedly about what happened to him prior to his predicament. It was when Jongho saw the strange light on their face. The man went into cardiac arrest, dying of a heart attack shortly afterward. 

The second time happened a month later after their basic training. Jongho received commendations for his marks in every training exercise. Among his colleagues who were standing still, in a salute as they watched him receive his certificate, he found the light again, shining on the face of the military official who handed him the piece of paper commemorating his skills. He later died in his sleep the next day. 

The few more times after that were of animals who passed by the bases, chickens who were about to be slaughtered for their upcoming meal to other animals that were accidentally shot down like birds that he saw in the trees. Jongho realized that his ability even extended to animals in that respect, and his ability made it difficult to look at people in the eye without the fear of whether there was a glow on their face or not. 

But Jongho’s ability would later be put to the ultimate test: the North had broken its armistice with the South, declaring war once again, all the while he was serving his mandatory service. 

~ 

With the exception of Seonghwa and Mingi, who were placed on the reserve units because of their injuries over the years, the rest of them were in the front lines. Jongho was lucky Hongjoong got to be in the same unit as he was. The others were scattered in other units. The first few days of the restarted war had him seeing so many glowing faces that he knew meant the end for them. He couldn’t be afraid of his own life, but he was more afraid of the fates that awaited several of a large group of his colleagues. Even as they were taking shelter under a tent in a hidden part of a forest, Jongho couldn’t find it to fully rest after a while of dodging bullets, grenades, mines, and snipers. 

“Sergeant?” Jongho approached Hongjoong, who was sitting back on a small bench, eyes closed as if trying to shut out the noises of all the explosions and gunshots. He had to tell someone, and Hongjoong was easily the only one he could open up to. 

“Yeah?” Hongjoong opened his eyes to look at the younger. “What’s up?” 

“There’s been something on my mind lately, it’s been on my mind for months even before this whole thing started,” Jongho said quietly. He wasn’t so much one to really open up, but in this case, he felt someone had to know. 

“Yeah? What’s on your mind?” Hongjoong sensed how bad he felt. 

“This is going to sound silly, or crazy even, even I can’t believe I have it,” Jongho’s head was hung low. “For months, ever since I started my military service, I suddenly had this ability to know when a person is going to die soon…” He admitted, going on to explain the first several times he had seen the ominous glow on the faces of people serving with him. 

Hongjoong stared at him, unsure of how to react, and Jongho knew it. “Maybe you’re suffering from hallucination,” The older boy muttered. 

“Maybe, but that doesn’t explain why it comes true. I just see a light on their faces,” Jongho explained. “Maybe I should have myself checked out,” He said. 

“Maybe, I don’t know whether to believe you or not, but there’s a reason why you feel what you feel, we can go to the hospital unit,” Hongjoong suggested, getting up. “Come, we can have you checked out,” He added, and Jongho followed him out of the tent. 

~ 

Jongho went through several tests in the hospital while Hongjoong waited for him in post-op. The doctors didn’t find anything wrong with him but rather suggested it might have been something induced by the fear of being in war. A psychosomatic occurrence. To him, it was another way of saying that it was all in his head. As he wandered in post-op, he saw a familiar face sitting up and being checked out by the doctors nearby. It was Yeosang, but Jongho stopped in his tracks when he saw the light shining on his face. 

“What are you in here for?” He approached the older when the doctors left. 

Yeosang pointed to the bandages on his legs. “Shrapnel in the legs and I nearly got mined,” He said. “What are you in for?” The light was still shining on his face. 

Jongho just smiled. He felt his heart sink and break, but he couldn’t say anything, instead looked down at the bandages. “I just got myself checked out. Where do you think the others are?” 

“Last I heard, Yunho’s still at the front lines, but knowing him, he probably survived or retreated. That guy’s so lucky, I wish I had some of that luck but here we are,” He said. “Wooyoung and San are probably the same.” 

“Jongho, we have to go back,” Hongjoong suddenly peeked in the room, making Jongho look up, but he suddenly wished he hadn’t. He saw the light on his hyung’s face as well. 

Jongho felt like he could cry, but he held it back. There would be time for crying later, maybe in the midst of both sides stopping to recover the dead. He was going to lose two of his groupmates in this war and it broke his heart. He didn’t say anything and instead gave Yeosang a big hug, a tight hug that quietly meant goodbye before getting back up to leave. Hongjoong waving at Yeosang as well when he peeked in. “I saw the light on Yeosang’s face,” He muttered as they got on the jeep. Hongjoong didn’t seem to hear him but as Jongho got on the jeep, he saw a crowd of doctors and nurses surround Yeosang’s bed, a slight ruckus occurring in the room. Jongho swore he could hear once of the nurses say, “He’s gone.”  

~ 

Jongho couldn’t find it in himself to look Hongjoong directly anymore as they listened to the plans being made by their superior officer. He could still tell that the light was shining on the older boy’s face. It was a little hard to ignore. “What did the doctors say?” Hongjoong suddenly asked. 

“They said there’s nothing wrong with me, that it was a psychosomatic coping mechanism or something like that,” Jongho looked down once the captain was done discussing their plans. “Before we left, I saw the light on Yeosang’s face,” He admitted. “And yours.” 

“Those were probably because of the lights from post-op, reflecting on our heads because we’re all so sweaty,” Hongjoong brushed it off. “Try not to tell anyone else about this. They’ll start thinking you’re crazy or that you’re trying to get yourself discharged by acting like it,” He advised, nudging the younger. 

“I want to believe that explanation,” Jongho nodded, getting up when their captain told them they were to return. 

“Let’s go,” Hongjoong slung his firearms on his back. He rushed over to his bench where he would sleep in, and Jongho noticed he put down bits and pieces of what was in his pockets; their group picture and his family pictures. Some of the jewelry the younger knew he wore a lot, Hongjoong also placed on top of the pictures. He returned to them. “This will hopefully be over soon, and you’ll probably feel a lot better” He smiled, patting Jongho on the back before they left the tent. 

~ 

They returned hours later, Jongho fighting back the sadness he was feeling. His other hyung had been killed off by a sniper in the midst of the battle. It wasn’t the time or place for it, but the thoughts of that light telling him who was going to die and who wasn’t made him unable to describe what he was feeling. 

Ass they all sat down on their makeshift beds, the bed next to Jongho’s being the only unoccupied one, he took the bits of photos and jewelry that were placed there. The captain suddenly approached him. “Sergeant Choi Jongho?” He said. 

“Yes?” 

“Doctors say your psychosomatic coping mechanism might get you breaking down, they’re advising me to bring you back to headquarters for some rest. Get your things, the driver’s already here” They said to him. 

“Yes sir,” Jongho nodded, saluting as he got up, pocketing the photos and jewelry that belonged to Hongjoong. As he packed his things, he saw his reflection on the mirror. Even with the dirt and grime and sweat on his face, there was the light shining over it. 

“Are you ready, sergeant?” He saw the driver approach him. Jongho saw the light on his face as well. 

Jongho stared at him for a moment. “Yes,” He said quietly, slinging his bag over his shoulder. 

“I should advise you to be careful out there on the road,” The captain told them. “There might be hidden mines over there, just watch out.” 

“Yes sir,” Jongho and the driver nodded, saluting to their superior officer before leaving the camp. There was nothing else on his mind now. Choi Jongho realized that not even he was exempt from the light as he got on the jeep, the driver immediately bringing them away from the camp and onto the road. 

In the distance from the camp, several loud explosions were heard on the road. 

[cdyssey]

Miscalculations

Summary: The toll of being in the multiverse for too long finally exacts its price on Olivia Octavius. A/N: I've been babysitting for family friends these past two days, and the little one made us watch *Into the Spider-Verse* five times over, so I wanted to write something.

AO3 Link At the end of Olivia Octavius’s world, there is blood, so much of it, too much—staining her shirt dark around her midsection where old incisions are prying themselves loose, and dribbling warningly down her mouth in a thin line.

Cellular decay.

Accelerated decomposition.

As her erythrocytes continue to implode upon themselves, her organs will shut down one by one until the lack of oxygen finally squeezes upon her tired heart like a vice.

She was out of her own dimension for too long.

If you stay in this dimension too long, your body’s going to disintegrate. Do you know how painful that would be, Peter Parker?

She thought she could have control of the multiverse if only she could stabilize her body with exposure to gamma radiation, theorizing that the treatment would do as it had done for the infamous Bruce Banner and reinforce her cellular structure—but she miscalculated.

And Olivia never miscalculates.

No, that isn’t true, an awful voice in her head says, right here and right now, on her fucking death bed. Her conscience has always gloated rather than informed. You miscalculate all the time.

“No, goddammit,” May Parker growls. “You do not get to leave like this.” 

Surprise jolts through her unpleasantly considering everything that is happening to her body; with an effort that isn’t minimal, the physicist opens her eyes to see a familiar shape kneeling by her side, pressing gnarled hands to her stomach wounds, desperately trying to staunch the bleeding.

But there is so much of it, too much.

Out of the periphery of her eye that isn’t blackened, she can see the shadows of the various Spider-Fools simply standing a few feet away, watching. For they understand, better than maybe most, that there is nothing to be done, no more fight to be had.

May Parker’s hands are vivid with her blood, drowning in it.

“What?” Olivia attempts a bloodied smile that doesn’t quite cut through the pain in her eyes. “You want me to walk away in cuffs? Cheeky, cheeky, May Parker. I thought you were oh-so-straight-laced.”

“Shut up,” May snarls, and the scientist is startled to see that there are tears in her cornflower blue eyes, threatening to spill over, to leak, to pour.

And then she knows.

She knows, she knows, she knows.

That May Parker still loves her, too.

That maybe she never stopped.

And the realization of it takes her breath away, what little of it is that is left.

“May,” she says, her voice surprisingly soft, even though her shivering hands are firm as she slowly brings them up to rest upon the other woman’s. “Cellular decay. Multisystem organ failure. Within a few minutes, I'll likely go into cardiac arrest. It will be quick, maybe even painless.”

“No,” May mutters. “No, no, no. We could get you to a hospital, offset the worst of your symptoms until we can regenerate cellular life in you. An ambulance is coming. ETA five minutes.”

“You’re thinking with that big, ‘ole heart of yours again.” The thing Olivia loves and hates most about the old bat—how much she cares. It’s sickening. It’s stupid. It’s wonderful. “I’ve lost too much blood, and my exoskeleton implants are compromised, which—“

But May cuts across her with an explosive swear.

“—likely means that your spine is also compromised,” she finishes, eyes closing in horror. 

Liv smiles weakly, a gesture which ends in her coughing up phlegm and blood.

“Correct.”

Doc Ock’s comeuppance has finally arrived, both decades late and years too soon. It is quieter than she imagined it would be, less of a kaleidoscope of many colors than it is a coagulated darkness. She can see black beginning to edge upon her vision, eradicating the excess, eliminating anything that isn’t May Parker.

How fitting.

“I went to twenty-seven different dimensions, May,” she whispers, “and they were all so beautiful—vivid, unique, and extraordinary, each a fully realized universe unto its own...”

When she closes her eyes, she can conjure them even now, the shapes of them, their textures, their scientific impossibility... and it is with awful reluctance that she pries them open again. The darkness is so soft and inviting. Oblivion isn’t as scary as she had imagined it to be.

Maybe she can explore its expansive confines, understand it in the same way she does quasi connectivity in dimensional warping.

Or maybe Olivia Octavius can simply rest.

That might be a nice change in pace.

“Liv...” May whispers, though, and it’s more than enough of a reminder for the sole reason she’d ever stay if she had a choice.

(She doesn’t have a choice.)

“And in every world, I did what a scientist just a tiny bit full of herself would naturally do. I searched myself out. In every dimension... and I asked myself, damn, do I really look like that? In eighty-nine percent of the worlds, I had a bowl cut, May! A godawful bowl cut!”

“Is this really what you want to talk about?”

“Yes—I mean no. No.” Olivia’s dark brow furrows as she herself tries to remember the point of bringing up the twenty-seven universes and the self-exploration and the bowl cuts. Her brain’s a little wonky at the moment, dull and heavy, like a rock sunk in a lake.

But then it hits her.

Realization and remembrance.

Dimension 24. Earth C-432.

The cats. The apartment in Brooklyn. The cozy sweaters. The peace.

“In the 24th iteration of Earth I visited, I looked a lot like I do now—geeky, foxy, big hair, and less than enviable eyesight... I was intrigued naturally, and so, when I found out where I lived, I paid myself a little visit.”

She knocked politely on the door before not so politely letting herself in, tentacular extensions swarming.

She always did like a dramatic entrance.

Fuck, Olivia J. Octavius moaned. I invented inter-dimensional travel again.

May E. Parker looked up from her mug of coffee and simply raised an unimpressed brow.

Well, at least you didn’t smash the door this time.

“I'd... she’d never gotten the implants, so she was paralyzed from the waist down... do y’know what that means?”

Of course May does.

Beneath Liv’s hand, her knuckles tense, the ridges warm against her cold palm.

“We never separated then,” she rasps, her voice strained, a hundred emotions thick. “I must have taken you home from the hospital, like I told you I would.”

“Yeah.”

A single tear leaks out of the corner of Olivia’s blackened eye, dripping down her cheek and falling away. If she'd been able to, she would have tried to wipe it away before May Parker could see.

“Were we happy, Liv?” She whispers, and she looks guilty about it. She has never cared much for hypotheticals, while Olivia built her entire career upon them—a delicate balancing act, always doomed to collapse one day.

She just never wanted to admit it.

Indeed, she just wanted to see how high she could go.

She didn't want to touch the stars.

She wanted to rip open the fabric of the fucking universe.

“We have two cats, one called Marie and the other Curie... and we live together in an apartment in Brooklyn. Nice place. There’s a Dunkin’ Donuts just around the corner. Parker visits at least three times a week unless he’s busy saving the city or the world or whatever the hell else he has it in his mind to save. He has a kid—a boy named Ben, but everyone calls him Fox because of the hair.”

We like to beat each other at Scrabble, even though we’re both sore losers. Four times a week, we head up to Columbia to do guest lectures on particulate matter and cellular structure and quantum physics. You’ve organized all of our medicines in alphabetical order, and I tease you about it because of course I do. Once a month, we replace the flowers on Ben Parker’s grave and have a picnic in the cemetery. We’re thinking about moving to a tiny house on Long Island that’s more wheelchair accessible, and we can hear the ocean every time we wake up in the morning side by side. There are wedding bands on our fingers, simple, understated, even though I'm pretty fucking sure they're made of anti-metal. In a different world, in an entirely separate universe, we are together forever, as long as we both shall live.

“I think so. I think we were happy,” she finishes quietly, “but I didn’t stay long enough to know for sure.”

“Too bad,” May Parker finally says, her tears falling freely now.

With the last of her strength, Olivia squeezes her hand.

“I... I heard myself say one thing, though, right as I was leaving.” 

By leaving, she left a gaping hole next to their door just for the hell and spite of it. 

“I chose correctly, it seems.”

In that warm apartment, May E. Parker laughed bluntly before she returned, quite dryly, You never miscalculate, do you?

“Never.”

Always.

Olivia Octavius miscalculates all the time.

[w-ngs]

all the light we cannot see ; anthony doerr

genre: historical fiction

it’s been a while since i’ve done one of these. but what can i say? i just have high standards.

lol jk i just haven’t been reading for shit. but here we go.

if i were to start anywhere, i’d have to begin with how i absolutely adored werner and marie-laure. they’re babies!!!! children!!!! adorable little ones who had their entire childhoods ripped out from under them because of nazi germany!!!! i saw this one quote, i don’t remember if it was from the book or not, but it went something like: the first country hitler invaded was germany itself. and honestly, facts. hitler really said: sexism, racism, ageism, classism, heterosexism, xenophobia—need i say more. it’s the way america is doing the exact same shit right now for me

the characters. i’m saying it now, and i’ll say it again. werner and marie-laure and marie-laure’s dad and jutta and frederick and volkheimer deserved better. especially, especially werner, with his curious and brilliant and constantly growing mind, who was always trying his hardest to be a better person, struggling against the the literally law-enforced status quo, who was kind enough to befriend a boy whose only friends were the birds, whose love and thirst for knowledge and music saved someone who might possibly have been the love of his life. and yet… i guess a happy ending for everyone isn’t possible. but you know what tore my heart apart more than werner’s grossly abrupt death? when volkheimer told jutta that while they were in saint malo on what would be their final mission, he thought werner had fallen in love. that. that. it stomped on me, ripped me apart, called me a worthless piece of shit—just absolutely destroyed me. because of all people i expected to hear that from, it wasn’t volkheimer. and of all things he could have said about werner’s feelings for marie-laure, that wasn’t one of them. but as soon as my eyes read those words, i knew in my heart he spoke the truth. although so painfully brief, what marie-laure and werner had was almost magical. they were connected by nothing more than a voice, but somehow, within the midst of death and destruction, they managed to find and save each other—in more ways than one.

a character i wished we got more of was daniel leblanc. he was such a sweet, dedicated father whose love for marie-laure exceeded anything and everything, more than death itself. even when he wasn’t there, i could feel the extent of his devotion towards his daughter. when he got arrested, i literally jumped out of my seat in protest. reading daniel’s letters hurt my heart. because as someone who’s grown past childhood and now knowledgable about how much parents sacrifice for their children, i knew exactly what he was trying to hide. as more and more time passed, it became obvious that he wasn’t coming back anytime soon. but if there was anyone else i wanted a happy ending for other than my baby werner, it would have been daniel leblanc. what an amazing man and father.

the characters, in my opinion, were what made the stories truly come to life. how we got to see inside multiple perspectives, even the ones that we were supposed to dislike. speaking of dislike, i definitely did not like major von rumpel. and i know why i didn’t like him—he was a greedy nazi who didn’t give a shit about the people he was stealing from. and i was pissed when he got cancer, when he described his daughters, because i knew it was all on purpose to make us sympathetic towards him. and i didn’t like myself for feeling bad for him, because he simultaneously did and didn’t deserve it. so when werner killed him i thought, at least one more terrible person has been put to rest.

let’s talk about the writing. holy shit. this writing: the prose, the vocabulary, the description—this entire book sums up the reason why i read. it is so goddamn beautiful. this is the type of writing i hope to be able to emulate one day, but really doubt if i ever will. i marveled at all the impossible details doerr included about werner’s life as a hitler youth; i wondered just how much research must have gone into studying radios and their inner workings and all the different marine life marie-laure was so enchanted with. every detail, no matter how small, fed my hunger for escapism, and who doesn’t love that. this book made me want to go to saint malo and explore all it has to offer. i looked it up—it’s a beautiful little town. seeing it now, no one would assume such a quaint little place would have such an immensely tragic past.

one writing technique i simultaneously loved and hated was the flip-flopping timeline. i hated it because i had to wait an excruciating number of chapters to see what would happen in the next moment, but i loved it because it literally kept me on the edge of my seat, consequently reading into the wee hours of the night (that’s how you know it’s a banger). i know many probably find issues with it, maybe because it’s a bit jarring, but in this case, i think it was very well-executed. if switching timelines hadn’t added anything to the book, i would have had an issue with it as well. but it increased the suspense multiple times over to the point where i really thought i was going to go into cardiac arrest over how anxious i was about the lives of our protagonists. i had to physically tear the book out of my own hands and force myself to actually do what i had to do for the day. and if a book makes me feel that way, i know that it has more than exceeded my expectations.

i loved reading all the light we cannot see. i think i want to read it again, maybe when i’m on break from school. i felt like i missed so much, even when i know i really took my time reading and absorbing it. and i don’t buy books often, but for a few moments after finishing it, i considered buying it because of how much i refused to let go of our little protagonists. it was also a good reminder that there’s always light at the end of the tunnel, no matter how dark or long the night may be. 

[har-rison-s]

Obstacles

request: hi! sorry for my english, can i request young Bill denbrough X reader, where they are at Neibolt and her fear is clowns, circus and that type of things, so Pennywise messes with her mind and stuff, and Bill helps her? thank you 💛

A/N: Finally, I've moved onto Bill. This is for @gabiatthedisco :)))), I wanna make her smile with this. I hope I do her, Bill and myself justice with writing this. This might be short, but I don't know yet. Happy reading!

IT masterlist

main masterlist

warnings: IT, clowns, neibolt house

gif credit goes to owner, which isn't me!

“I'll put a happy smile on your face, Y/N!” A clown with bright green hair and crimson lips and eyes grins at the girl who's simply paralysed in the corner of the room. It's filled with toys and creatures that are supposed to resemble the iconic faces that represent the circus, and they very well do. They affect Y/N horribly, since the girl's worst fear is clowns.

Strange, you'd think, that she'd be afraid of something that is supposed to bring children joy, cheer them up at fairs, at birthday parties and on McDonald's special occasions. Hand them balloons and promise cotton candy on a stick or popcorn in a bright red box. 

Y/N isn't sure when or how she started fearing clowns. All she knows is that seeing one makes her freeze. She can't move, she can't make a sound, she can't escape. And when there's a room crawling with her worst fear, she almost goes into cardiac arrest. That would be the worst thing that could happen, and she's nearing its happening.

Bill and Richie are trying to break through the door of the clown room. She wonders where they are, she wonders why they've not entered the room yet. But she can't voice it. She can't scream, she can't even cry or whimper. Her throat is dry as the desert, begging for any sign of water.

Bill stomps on the door with his foot, and Richie does, too. The door only squeaks and bends in a little, the boys groan, and go against it again. They're using the most force they can muster up. Bill might be bad at talking, but he's a strong boy. He'll do anything to save Y/N, he'll gain as much courage and strength as he'd need to. 

“Why the long face?” A clown snickers. Gloved hands reach out to Y/N hungrily, and she's about to run out of space to crawl into. How did she even get into this room? How did she get separated from her friends? From Bill? Why did she ever agree to go into Neibolt house? Why are they all here?

Horrible fear fogs her mind. It only has one instinct - get out of this room. Forget anything about standing up to and beating the creature that's been tormenting her friends. Y/N needs to get out of here, she needs to be home, she needs to be safe. She can't care about anything else.

Finally, the door busts open and the boys stare into a room that is filled with old fallen-over manekens. They look for Y/N, and she's to their left. Crouched down on the floor, her knees pulled to her chest. Her hands are by her sides, cramping up, and her face... The complete look of shock terrifies both Richie and Bill. 

Bill's the first to run over to her. His knees scrape the wooden floor when he gets down on them, there'll be bruises on the knees later. Bill takes Y/N's hands in his, gently untwisting her fingers from the crampy position they were in, and he holds her hands between his own. 

“Y-Y/N.” Bill calls to her, and her wide eyes look at him. “It's okay, you're--you're okay.” He tries to soothe her desperately. 

“Bill, man, we have to get out of here. Now.” Richie insists, even stomps his foot down on the wooden floor. Y/N doesn't even move, she's in shock. Bill looks at Richie, then at Y/N. 

“Then hel-help me get her uh-up.” Bill urges and Richie takes the few steps over to Bill to help him. The two boys grip their friend's arms and sides to get her standing on her feet and, with all their might and strength, carry her out of the maneken room.

When they've taken a single step past the doorframe, it's as if a damb broke loose. A damb of tears, a damb of fear. Of everything Y/N felt. 

She collapses downwards, but Bill is there to prevent that from happening. Her sobs are as loud as screams. Bill holds the poor girl in his arms, supporting her crying form with his arms. Richie's let go of her, wanting to quicker get out of Neibolt, for which Bill can't blame him, but still sends a nasty glare. 

“I'll lead the way.” Richie tells him and walks ahead of the two.

“Y/N. Br-breathe with me.” Bill tries to get through her sobbing and crying. “One... Two... C-Count with muh-me... One...”

“One...” Comes a soft whisper from Y/N.

“Two.” Bill continues. They walk behind Richie, but slower, and he already feels that Y/N's breathing is calming down. 

“Two...” She repeats. 

“Three.”

“Three...” Y/N says, takes a breath and sighs deeply. It's shaky at first, but the sigh is what she needed. She has cried everything out, now she breathes it all out. “I wanna go home.” She tells Bill, and sniffs. 

“We-we're leaving, Y/N.” Bill responds. “We're leaving right—right now.” He confirms. “We need—need to walk fuh-faster.” He informs her and Y/N nods. 

“I thought I was gonna die in there.” She admits to him as they pick up their pace. And Y/N can walk on her own now, she's regained most of her strength. 

“You—you saw c-clowns, right?” Bill cautiously asks. Y/N can only nod. 

“Mm-hm.” She hums. “So fucking many of them... I can't ever... I don't want to...” She doesn't know what to finish her sentence with. Bill takes her hand in his tightly. Y/N looks at him, fear still present in her eyes. 

“I won't ever leave you again.” He promises her, and Y/N has to raise her eyebrows. The boy didn't stutter. “You—You won't have to buh-be scared. If I'm—if I'm there, with you.” Bill promises her once more.

A tear rolls down Y/N's cheek, but it's a good tear. A tear that says thank you. She nods, and they look away, choosing to look ahead of them instead, to where they're actually going.

“Eddie!” Comes the strangled cry from Richie. Next obstacle, Bill and Y/N conclude, and they run to their friend together. 

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[satorisa]

in which Risa gets blindsided, twice, and decides to go with the flow for as long as it will have her.

inspired by this fic by @carebearos

...

Risa stands in front of the Starbucks by the station, checking her phone as the appointed time draws near. She had arrived thirty minutes early,  punctuality driven by the sheer insanity of the situation, dressed in an outfit she would almost wear to see Dark.

She must be out of her mind.

Satoshi invited her out for coffee before the long-awaited weekend, and she said yes without any hesitation. Had he asked before she attempted to treat him for the strawberry milk, she most certainly would’ve declined. But she was intrigued by the Satoshi who joked around, smiling and sarcastic, in those empty hallways after school in front of the vending machine.

Her curiosity might be the end of her, she internally grumbles, as she checks her phone again to see the time. Not even a minute has passed, and she groans before tucking her hands behind her back while she bounces in place. She can’t control the anxiety flowing through her body even though she knows that anyone who would make a big deal about this was busy and as far away from the scene of the crime as possible.

Ding!

She swings her phone back to her face to see a text message from Ritsuko with a selfie of her and some of their classmates. Someone had invited the class out on a whim before the last bell rang, literally right after she made plans with Satoshi, and so those who accepted are taking a day trip away from their small town. Takeshi’s right in the center with Ritsuko, hogging all the attention as usual, and Riku and Daisuke are in the corner of the picture, awkwardly smiling as if Ritsuko had caught them at a bad time.

Bless her best friend for giving her the DaiRiku content that fuels her life.

Risa’s about to reply to Ritsuko’s follow up message about missing her, but her phone rings again. When she sees a message from Satoshi saying he’ll be running a little late, she nearly drops her phone.

Somehow, in the span of an evening, she had completely forgotten that they had exchanged numbers after they confirmed their plans. And this friendly reminder nearly sent her into cardiac arrest.

She might actually die today.

And so, she goes back to jittering in place, garnering attention from passersby as she tries to mentally escape the situation that she’s in.

“Harada.”

The calm, monotonous voice snaps her back into reality. Satoshi now stands in front of her, his hair still damp, wearing a surprisingly snappy ensemble that somehow matches her own outfit.

She’s ready to eat her own foot.

“Sorry I’m late. Something had come up and—”

“There’s no need to apologize; stuff happens.” She smiles, mentally wondering what she’s channeling to be outwardly calm when she’s inwardly screaming. “Come on! Let’s go!”

The smell of coffee hits her when she walks in, and they fall into the short line in front of the cash register.

“What do you want?”

“Um…”

She looks up at the menu, mentally reeling at all the coffee choices. Matcha’s not too appetizing to her either, even if it is blended with enough sugar and cream to last her a lifetime, and she’s feeling lukewarm about everything else on the menu. Risa only ever goes to coffee shops when she’s out with her parents; she’d rather have bubble tea more than anything if she’s going out.

“I can order something for you if you’re having trouble deciding.”

“With your taste buds? No thank you.”

“I’m not going to order you coffee or anything like that. Starbucks just came out with their spring menu, so they have a cherry blossom cream frappucino—”

“That. I want that.”

Satoshi stifles a laugh behind his hand, but she can still see the upturned ends of his lips. She pouts. He’s not allowed to be amused at her predictability.

She digs into her purse to fetch her wallet. “Lemme know how much it is so that—”

“No need, Harada.”

The line moves, and they’re at the register. Satoshi orders and pays for their drinks before she can pay for herself.

“Today is my treat.”

She’s a little confused as to why he invited her out for no reason and decided to pay for—oh my god. Risa glances at Satoshi’s outfit, noting that it’s nicer than the time she’s seen him in casual wear, before looking down at her own outfit.

Oh. My. God.

…is this a date?!

How could she unknowingly go on a date with Satoshi? How could he even ask her on one when he knows that her heart belongs to Dark? Does she—

“Harada, this isn’t a date.”

She stops her mental deliberations before shooting Satoshi a concerned look.

Is he reading her mind or something?

“I just thought you’d like the frappucino is all. Please don’t overthink this.”

“Then why are you treating me?”

He shrugs. “I figured going to Starbucks with me was the last thing you’d want to do on the weekend, so it’s just a small gesture for your time.”

Risa smiles. “I really don’t want to keep being indebted to you, Hiwatari-kun.”

Satoshi smirks. “Just accept it and let it go, Harada.”

They sit in a table along the glass-lined wall of the store. Satoshi doesn’t say anything, quickly busying himself with his phone, so Risa looks outside, watching the bustling street until she sees him put his phone away in her peripheries.

“I have a question for you, Hiwatari-kun.”

“Shoot.”

“Do you actually like black coffee?”

He chuckles. “I do. You can only really discern the taste of the bean when it’s black.”

“So…you’d rather sacrifice sleep for coffee?”

Satoshi tilts his head down and attempts to cover the growing grin with his mouth. He fails, simply because he’s finding this amusing for some unknown reason, and eventually composes himself decently enough to still reply.

That stupid smile is still on his face, though.

“As much as I stay up, I, too, enjoy sleep like everyone else.”

“But isn’t black coffee just…black coffee?”

“The beans and how it’s brewed are important. If I’m craving some good coffee, I’ll grind the beans I have at home and make myself a cup of pour over. If I need to stay up, I’ll just have whatever I can get. After all, the only way to get through a shitty day is with a shitty, bitter cup of coffee.”

Risa blinks, trying to process what he had just said. Did he just—

The barista calls their order before she can even respond to what just occurred. Satoshi gets out of his seat and returns to their table, placing her drink in front of her while he sits down, already sipping on his americano.

“…who are you and what have you done with the Hiwatari-kun I know?”

The unrestrained joy that she’s seen thus far dissipates when she sees the far-off look in his eyes. Just like before, he’s receding away, just like a dream on the cusp of awakening.

For whatever reason, he invited her out today. And perhaps today, only today, is he allowing himself to let down those walls that she’s so familiar with. Risa doesn’t know what to think of the Satoshi in front of her, casually chatting about himself and joking around like they’re good friends, but she at least knows that she likes it.

As strange as everything is, she’ll play along with it just this once.

“This is where you’re supposed to laugh, you know, and not stare off into space as if you’re having an existential crisis.”

“But who doesn’t have a daily existential crisis?”

Risa laughs before sipping her drink, enjoying the sugar and milk that’s sure to lull her into an afternoon nap when she gets home. It’s the perfect thing to chime in the spring season, and she makes a mental note to drop by a corner store on the way back to see whatever seasonal items she can ration until next spring.

“How is it?” Satoshi asks.

“Good! Do you want to try?”

“I’m fine, thank you.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes. One sip of that will give me a headache.” He sighs. “I don’t understand how you can drink that.”

“Because I’m here to enjoy life. That—” She points to the iced americano in his hand. “—is no fun.”

“It’s fun enough for me.”

“You’re boring.”

He smiles, a small smile, but it’s genuine. “Maybe I am, but I’m content all the same.”

Risa doesn’t quite remember what follows that. Perhaps she was so hung up over how calm and comfortable he was in that moment that it lingered, like a footprint on the sand, on her mind. Either that or all their smiling and laughing had blurred together and overwrote the moments in between.

By the time their conversation had ended, the sun had already set. She remembers almost inviting him out to dinner to prolong this precious moment, but she stopped when she glanced at the messages on her phone. Ritsuko and Riku were already on their way back; it was far too risky for them to be together any longer.

And when they walked out of the Starbucks into the cool, evening air, they unceremoniously said their goodbyes before heading their separate ways.

…

When she arrives at school Monday morning, it’s just like any other morning. She walks into the classroom and settles down into her seat, taking out her things for the first class of the day before hanging her bag on the side of the desk.

Ritsuko’s not there yet, and Riku’s still at lacrosse practice, so she takes out her phone, ready to check her social media when the door opens.

She looks up to see Satoshi walking into the classroom, hair slightly tussled, clothes slightly wrinkled, with that unaffected expression on his face. Their eyes meet, just for a second, but he doesn’t acknowledge her. He stares past her before heading to his seat, acting as if nothing happened.

As if they have no relationship. As if they’re back to what they were before.

With that, her dream ends, and she wakes up in the cold truth of reality.

[bangtan-sonyeonddaeng]

Hoping for more good days (foreign female reader x park jimin soulmate AU)

So I decided to make this multiple parts because when I sat down and was writing this I realized it was getting quite long for one tumblr post so this will be my first multi chapter fic. I hope ya'll enjoy the first little intro part 💜

“Y/n come on let’s go we’re going to be late!” Today was finally the day you were waiting for. You and your friend had been saving up for a year to finally have enough money to go to South Korea. And the best part? You were finally going to meet the boys that you had been following since their debut, BTS. Admittedly your friend didn’t really understand why you loved them so much but here she was, getting ready to fly across the world with you just so you didn’t have to go alone. She might not understand it, but seeing how happy they have made you has been making her so excited to fly with you to meet your idols. She truly is the best friend you could ever hope for.

Sometimes even you didn’t feel understand what made you so hooked on BTS from the start. You just were instantly drawn to the group. Their choreography and attitude appealing greatly to your younger self in your rebellious years. Seeing the hardships they went through and how much stronger they came out because of it inspired you. They were some of the most humble and hardworking people you had ever seen. You watched them grow up through their music as you grew along with them. People came and went from your life over the past 6 years but BTS was always a constant presence at your side. Words sung beautifully with promises that everything will be okay, just count 2, 3 and forget and hope for better days. Their lyrics providing you comfort during your darkest moments, their bright and funny personalities making you laugh when no one else could. One member in particular you always felt connected to and you never fully understood why.

Park Jimin. The moment you saw him step off that bus in No More Dream you knew you were in trouble. His innocent face, adorable smile and sweet voice instantly had you smitten. His duality gave your brain whiplash. Even to this day you still don’t understand how such an adorable angel can turn into a sensual demon in two seconds flat. Over the course of following his career you’ve seen how caring he is. He has so much love in his heart for others and it just made you like him even more. His soft voice always calmed you down when you were anxious and just made you feel at peace.

Watching him go through is struggles with his body image absolutely broke your heart. You wished you could reach out to him, tell him not to be so harsh on himself and that there are millions of people around the world who loved him but you couldn’t. You literally felt like your soul was aching for him. The struggle of being an international fan frustrated you to no end. All you wanted to do was just thank him and all of the members for helping you through hard times and providing so much comfort through their music. You never thought you’d have the opportunity to do so, already resigning yourself to a life of supporting and cheering them on from afar.

When your best friend announced she had bought you tickets to a fan sign to go to during your trip to South Korea you thought she was joking. “Yeah not a funny joke y/f/n,” you don’t know why she insisted on messing with you but it didn’t amuse you in the slightest. Until she held up the ticket. You screamed and literally tackled her onto the ground sobbing into her shirt. "Hey! Y/n take it easy!" She gently pried your arms off of her as she sat up. You clambered off of her and sat to the side still quietly sniffing and wiping your eyes. "Sorry. I got a little carried away. But seriously this is the nicest thing anyone has ever done for me thank you so much y/f/n. I feel like nothing I ever do is going to be able to repay you for this." She smiles at you fondly and shoves you away playfully. "Seeing your reaction was payment enough. And you’re my best friend there isn’t anything I wouldn’t do for you, ya know?"

That was a few days ago and you had been gushing about how excited you were since then. Now that it was actually time to get on the plane to fly to Seoul your anxiety and excitement was through the roof. Your friend drove you to the airport, feeling too jittery to drive. You both made it through security fairly quickly and were now sat on the plane waiting for it to take off. Your friend pulled you towards her and snapped a photo of the two of you and posted it to Twitter tagging BTS official account with the hashtag for the fan meeting. She even wrote a little caption that read “Going to SK so y/n can meet her boyfriend!” When you saw what she posted you shrieked. “Delete that right now!” “No way. Besides you look cute it's a good photo”.

You were watching some of their music videos on the phone and your friend just had to point out that every time Jimin came on screen you blushed as red as a tomato. Once your plane was in the air you laid your head on her shoulder ready to sleep for a few hours. "Just think. In one more day you'll finally be meeting your idols. Are you excited?" "Way too excited. Gosh I hope I don't make a fool out of myself. If Jimin even looks at me I'm going to cry". You can feel her laughing. "Wouldn't that be something if he turns out to be your soulmate?" Your eyes snapped open at that. "Don't even joke like that. Even the thought of talking to him makes me want to puke. I'd go into cardiac arrest if Park Jimin turns out to be my soulmate", your friend starts laughing louder. "Maybe that's why you feel so drawn to him. Your soul is literally calling out to him!" She swoon as you shove her away from you and laugh. The last thought you have before you drift off to sleep is yeah wouldn't that be something? Too bad there's zero chance of that happening.

On the other side of the world Jimin was laying on the couch, scrolling through Twitter looking at posts army had made talking about the fan meeting. When he came across your friends post he read her comment with your responses underneath.

Delete this before I delete you.

No way y/n I'm never deleting this.. And like I said you look cute! I'm sure if Jimin sees this he'll think the same! I'm just playing the role of match maker now say thank you!

I'm serious y/f/n don't think just because we're on a plane right now I won't whoop your ass.

Love you too 💜😂

He couldn't help but laugh at your responses. Cute. He thought to himself. He found himself anticipating the fan meeting even more now, not fully understanding why he felt connected to you already. This should be interesting.

[avid-author-activist]

The Princess Andromeda (3): I Sign My Own Death Warrant

chapter 1 chapter 2 read it here on ao3!

I plunged down the left hallway towards the engine room, putting on a big show of being furtive in case there were security cameras watching me or something. Everything seemed brighter and more vivid in the face of my approaching death. The tang of smoke in the air from my first grenade (gods, I hoped no one would notice that), my boots thudding against the ground as I ran, my heart pounding in my chest. I subconsciously counted every beat, knowing that they were numbered. The rest of my life would be measured in minutes, not years. 

The corridors were strangely empty, and I made my way back to the galley unimpeded. If no one saw or captured me, I would have to turn back around and pretend to sneak in all over again. 

Then I turned the last corner and came face to face with a tall demigod wearing an eyepatch. Ethan Nakamura, the Titan lord’s lieutenant. My hand fell to my weapon as I stepped back, pretending to be surprised. Two giants lumbered down the hallway to stand behind the enemy demigod, helping him to his feet. 

“Ambush,” I gasped, drawing my sword. I considered surrendering, to save myself from a pitched fight, but Ethan might find that suspicious. 

Nakamura smiled, but it didn’t reach his eyes. “Yes, we’ve known for a long time that you’d be coming.” Even though I had smelled a traitor earlier, his words still cut me deep.  Which camper would do this?  I had known all of them for years, and the thought of any turning traitor made me ache inside. 

“Seize him,” Ethan ordered, drawing his own sword as the giants surged forward, crowding me back. I dodged their fists and desperately parried two of Ethan’s attacks, but I was totally outmatched. Even in a fair fight, swordplay had never been my strong suite. 

Ethan lazily disarmed me with a flick of his wrist. I ducked between the giants and lunged for him, but he knocked me away with the pommel of his sword. I stumbled, the harsh fluorescent lights of the galley blurring in my vision. In a blur of movement, Ethan drew his dagger, holding it to my throat. Even though I had planned for this, a sudden frisson of fear ran down my spine. 

“Let’s not do this the hard way,” he said softly. “Come quietly, and maybe I won’t kill you. You are a son of Hephaestus, yes? My lord Kronos could certainly use you.” 

I drove my fist forward and punched him in the jaw, sending him reeling back before he could react. The hit bruised my knuckles in a satisfying way, but his face had it worse. Before I had a chance to flee, one of his giants was instantly on me, pinning my arms to my sides. 

I seized the oppurtunity to make my lie more convincing. “Watch it,” I said, hardening my tone. “This bag is full of jars of Greek fire. They happen to be  very breakable. If you crush one, we’ll all die here.” The giant hesitated.  

Ethan spat blood from his mouth. “He does not lie. The explosives were meant for the engine room. But now,” he leered, “they’ll never be set.”  

I breathed an internal sigh of relief. He bought the lie hook, line, and sinker  . 

Nakamura climbed to his feet, stepping closer until his face was inches from mine. “By the way,” he said conversationally, “this ship is loaded with the best mortal mercenaries. Thousands of monsters. If you try to escape, you’ll die before you’re five steps away.” I saw his hand coming and tried to dodge, but I was completely immobilized, pinned between the two giants. The blow stung the left side of my face, making my eyes water with pain and humiliation. 

Ethan smiled again, baring teeth still stained with his own blood. “Now, let’s get going. I’m sure Lord Kronos will want to see you.” 

The giants stripped me of my armor and utility belt. I winced—part of me had hoped they would forget. The armor was a present my brother Jake had forged for me last summer, and the utility belt was packed with handy tools like the grenades. Ethan slid my sword into an extra scabbard on his belt and shouldered my bag himself. I noted with satisfaction that he handled it carefully, flinching when the jars of peaches inside clinked together. The ruse was working out, so far. 

They hadn’t taken my watch yet, but I couldn’t detonate the charges. The two giants flanked me, each holding one of my arms in a crushing grip. They would leave spectacular bruises later, if I survived that long.  Which, I remembered with a pang, I won’t. 

Besides, I couldn’t set off the explosives without warning Percy first, wherever he was. There was no way I could save myself, but he still had a chance.

The route we were taking looked vaguely familiar. I frowned, wondering why we were heading for the helipad. Then, it hit me. Whoever the spy was, they must have revealed the location of our emergency rendezvous point. 

Kronos wasn’t an idiot. He must have stationed his forces there, planning to ambush us. And if Percy had gone straight there like we had planned, he had almost certainly been captured like me. 

A crowd of monsters had gathered by the time we emerged on deck. They hissed and jeered at me as we passed through, but their main attention seemed to be focused on something else. I followed their gaze, and my mouth went dry. 

Percy Jackson was engaging the Titan lord Kronos in personal combat, like a total idiot. I wished I could live long enough to tell Annabeth and see her outraged expression. 

“A poor performance, Percy Jackson. Luke tells me you were never his match at swordplay,” Kronos was saying. Had Percy been wounded? It sounded like Kronos was toying with him. My hands tightened at my sides. The giants gripped me harder, rendering me totally helpless. I hated the feeling. 

“Luke had a big head,” Percy said. His voice was tight with pain. “But at least it was  his head.” 

I sighed before I could stop myself, torn between groaning and cheering at the same time. What did Annabeth see in this guy? What sort of idiot purposefully goaded the Lord of Time himself? 

“You’ll never get this boat to Manhattan,” Percy spat. No, he won’t, I silently agreed. 

“And why would that be?” Kronos’s voice turned silky and sinister. “Perhaps you are counting on your friend with the explosives?” 

The anguish on Percy’s face was obvious even from below. I wished I could spare him the pain of the situation, but at least now I had a chance to warn him. 

Kronos looked down at the pool. His eyes blazed gold in Luke’s face—Luke, who’d greeted me like a friend when I arrived at camp five years ago—and I suppressed a shudder. “Nakamura!” he called. 

“Success, my lord,” Ethan responded. “We found him just as we were told.” He clapped his hands, and the giants pushed me forward. I tried not to trip over my own feet, clinging to the shreds of my dignity. My heart was pounding so hard in my chest, I was surprised I wasn’t dead of cardiac arrest. 

Distantly, though, a part of me wondered if they’d rehearsed this entire tableau.  No, no, no, Nakamura, I pictured Kronos saying. I will call to you after I defeat Percy Jackson. You will come forward and clap your hands after you announce your success, not before. Otherwise, the reveal happens too soon. Where is the drama in that? Despite the circumstances, I had to fight back a smile. 

“NO!” Percy yelled, and the sound jerked me back to the present, which was sadly much less amusing. 

I met his gaze, knowing almost for certain that he would be the last friendly demigod to see me alive. I glanced down at my right wrist, where my watch was, hoping desperately that he would understand. He just stared at me blankly, his face bloody from a dozen scratches. Oh, Zeus. 

“Can we eat him now?” one of the giants was saying. I raised my eyebrows—I hadn’t known that giants could talk. Or that they were cannibals. Were humans and giants the same species?

“Soon,” Kronos told him. “Are you sure he didn’t set the explosives?” 

I fought to keep my expression neutral, willing Percy to do the same. One guilty look, and the game was up. 

“He was going toward the engine room, my lord,” said Ethan.  Thank Hephaestus for gullible evil subordinates. “And he told us. His bag is still full of explosives.” 

Kronos hesitated. Buy the story, I prayed. 

“Open his bag,” Kronos ordered. One of the giants released his hold on me, causing the other to shift his grip, holding me by the neck instead of the arm. The giant peered into the bag, grunted, and upended it. The monsters surged backwards as one, thinking that they were about to be blown into a million pieces. 

A peach jar shattered when it hit the ground, spraying glass shards everywhere and splattering preserves on the deck. The other eleven rolled in all directions, clinking harmlessly against each other. 

It would have been funny if I wasn’t facing imminent death. 

“Did you, perhaps, send someone to ACTUALLY CHECK THE ENGINE ROOM?” Kronos roared, and Ethan staggered back and ran. I had maybe five minutes in which to detonate before he dismantled my system. 

But it didn’t matter if the ruse was discovered now. It was too late for Kronos and his cruise ship. All I had to do was hit the detonator button, and everything would go KA-BOOM. 

And my left hand was free, since the second giant was still going through my bag. I could detonate at any time, as long as Percy got the message. I blinked the number zero at him in Morse Code: dash, dash, dash, dash, dash.  

He frowned, a silent question in his eyes. I sighed and cupped my fingers and thumb together, making a zero. Zero as in if I press this button, you have exactly zero seconds to live and you should immediately jump off the cruise ship. Hopefully he would understand what I meant. 

“We’ve known you were coming for weeks,” Kronos was saying, and he dangled something in the air in front of Percy. Something that glinted silver in the moonlight.

Almost magnetically, my eyes were drawn to it. I froze in place. My knees turned to jelly. If the giant hadn’t been holding me by the neck, I would have staggered. 

In Kronos’s hand was a silver charm bracelet. A silver charm bracelet with exactly one charm—a little moon. Exactly like the one Lena had been wearing today. Except it wasn’t a moon, I realized. It was a scythe—Kronos’s symbol. 

The world collapsed around me, my vision tunneling until all I could see was the little bracelet glinting in Kronos’s grasp. How long had Lena had that bracelet? How long had I been blind, telling her about my upcoming missions like an idiot?

Percy had to know. 

There was no time and no way to let him know.

If I mouthed Silena at him, he might not even believe me. Kronos would see, and Lena could be in danger. I realized that, even now, I couldn’t do that to her. I had to hear the entire story, from her lips. She deserved that much.

The best I could do was to wait for her in Elysium. Wait for her to join me there. Silena would die a hero—I simply had to trust in that.

Slowly, I worked up the courage to hit the button. It was harder than I thought would be, to sign my own death warrant when I very much wanted to live. But I had chosen my path, and there was no turning back now. 

I met Percy’s gaze for the last time. I mouthed one word: Go. He shook his head. Loyal to the last, I thought fondly.   

My left hand moved towards my right wrist, and I swallowed, hard. Hitting the button would be the last thing I ever did. 

“What issss he doing? What issss that on his wrissst?” one of the dracaenae hissed suddenly. 

I shut my eyes. My breath was coming in shallow gasps. How long would I have left to live after the detonation? Thirty heartbeats? Twenty?

In one violent movement, I brought my hand the rest of the way and hit the button. The watch made a pleasant  beep and flashed the word DETONATING at me.  

There was a rumbling noise from deep within the ship, the floor vibrating slightly. Percy threw his sword at Kronos’s chest and shoved his way to the railing. “Goodbye and good luck,” I whispered to his back. Percy jumped, plummeting like a stone towards the sea. Hopefully the currents would take him far, far away.

The floor began to shake. Monsters were shouting, enemy demigods were screaming. They stampeded the decks, trying to get off the doomed cruise ship. It wouldn’t matter. Nothing in the blast zone, on or off the boat, would survive. How many heartbeats did I have now? Ten?

 I raised my eyes to the heavens, to the bright stars twinkling overhead, my lips forming a rapid prayer to my father. Two beats left, now? 

One?

The world went up in a starburst of green fire. 

[serpentlopez]

What I’ve Done

Who: Eliana, Ryan @firefightingryan (w. mention of @serpenthart)

What: Ryan visit Eli after his shift, recounts the Friday night’s events

When: Nov 9, Evening

Where: Riverdale General.

Notes: TW: mentions of overdose, rehab, child abuse

ASL = anything in bold italics 

RYAN

Ryan's shift came to an end almost as soon as it had started. Luckily, after the call to Sunnyside, once he'd gotten back from the hospital he'd actually been given a chance to eat. It wasn't as good as it would have been hot, nor was it as good as it would have been if Puck had been on shift, but he'd rather have someone looking after Sophia than better food any day of the week. 

Once he was able to leave and head home, he shot Puck a text saying he was going to take a little longer, he had an errand to run. It wasn't exactly a lie, Ryan wasn't too big on lies, he just couldn't exactly give details, not really, not under HIPAA. He swung by the hospital, just before visiting hours were over and got Eliana's room number from a nurse. Still donned in the uniform, not too many people asked questions. 

He found her room with ease and quietly knocked on the door as he opened it, leaning on the door frame. Welcome back, Hotshot, he quickly signed at her, smiling, hoping she was with it enough to catch what he was saying. He stayed where he was, not wanting to invade too much. For all he knew she couldn't even remember he was there, so might not know why he was even here at all.

ELIANA

Eliana had spent most of the day in and out. She hadn't wanted to face what happened after talking to Ale that morning. When she'd woken up that evening, she laid in bed long enough to look out the window and watch the sunset and something about watching it grow darker by the second made her feel a wave of cold fill her. The darkness reminded her too much of the night before. Though she couldn't remember much about it, having blacked out pretty early on, it was that nothingness that it reminded her of. It would be morning when she left for the rehab facility to help her through her detox so she'd asked Ale if he didn't mind getting her some clothes to wear. 

Apparently she'd been admitted in just her bra and pair of pants and that wasn't going to work for her. She wouldn't be gone too long, she kept telling herself, but there was something terrifying about it. She wasn't sure how long she sat in silence when she heard the knock at the door and found herself facing Ryan. Her lips turned up in a smile as she greeted him as she always would, back of her right hand sliding along her left cheek and then right one. Hey handsome. It was only then that she remembered what she'd been told about the previous night. Her face fell slightly. "You were there, weren't you?"

RYAN

Ryan nodded slowly. "I was," he confirmed, walking in and taking a seat next to her bed. "I was on Aid Car last night so, yeah, I was there. And you ... weren't. Not really." He shook his head. In all his years of being a firefighter, he never really ended up on a call that ended up being someone as close to him as Eliana was. Leaning back in the chair he sighed. "I'm going to be frank with you, Ellie, it was touch and go for a hot second there. Alejandro had to perform CPR while I got ready to shock you. You could have died."

ELIANA

She wished she could remember but maybe it was a blessing that she didn't. The counselor who had been in to see her had told her that some people got their memories back, and some never did. Maybe it would be better if she never got them back. Pressing her lips together when he admitted he'd been the one there, Eli lowered her eyes. She wasn't sure she could look at him. It wasn't until he mentioned that Ale had performed CPR on her. "He did what?" 

Now her stomach turned. It wasn't bad enough that she'd overdosed at his home, was taken to the hospital in the Aid Car, but he'd had to help her like that? The sound of those words - you could have died - sent a chill through her body. Eli wasn't sure she could actually ask the question so with shame shimmering in her eyes, she made quick motions to sign her question at him. Could have died, or did die?

RYAN

Ryan took another breath and signed back, both. Before she could get too confused he figured it'd be easier to speak the next part, she was probably still tired and even he wasn't perfect with his sign. "Technically, there's no coming back from proper death, brain death. But ... you went into cardiac arrest, El, and without the proper intervention, you'd be a goner. You're lucky you weren't alone when you took whatever you took to throw you over the edge ... other wise, we wouldn't be having this conversation right now. And hey," he said, pausing, putting a finger under her chin so she'd meet his eyes. I'm glad you're still here.

ELIANA

Eliana swallowed the knot in her throat but it sat heavy in the pit of her stomach, almost wishing that he would have said that it was actually no big deal. That maybe Ale had overreacted. But even if she wished that, she knew that she wouldn't be here if that's all it was. She pressed her lips together, knowing that Ryan would tell her exactly what she needed to hear, all the ugly truths from the medical side. 

Looking up at him when he took her attention, Eli fought the feelings that were bubbling in her chest. She was certainly not used to feeling so much and right now she felt everything like a raw nerve being poked constantly. Lucky? she signed, Not lucky. Stupid. It sunk in -- really sunk in. Her heart stopped beating. Ale kept blood pumping while Ryan had to shock her. That was why her skin felt so raw. Very stupid she signed and then without provoking it, or fighting it, her head sunk and tears started to fall down her face.

RYAN

Stupid was an easy way to put it. But no one overdosed for fun, Ryan knew enough to know that. The smartest person in the world could do incredibly stupid things under the right, or realistically wrong, circumstances. "It might have been stupid, El, just don't go thinking that makes you stupid," he told her, grabbing her hand and giving it a squeeze. "We got you back, but now's the tough part. You have to stay back. You have to stop doing whatever you were doing, figure out why you were doing that, and get some help." The road ahead of her wasn't going to be easy, he wasn't kidding about his part being the easy part.

ELIANA

Her emotions had been so all over the place that she couldn't even control it, despite how much Eli hated crying in front of anyone on a normal day. But this was far from a normal day. Wiping her face with the back of her hand, Eli tried to focus her attention across the room. How she could feel so embarrassed around someone who literally had to bring her back to life was a surprise. "I told Ale this morning that I'd go to a rehab place so I can detox. This counselor was in and I had to sign papers for it." Sniffling, Eli shook her head, "I was just trying to have fun. It took away all my bad feelings." It took away more than that, a small voice in her head told her. Thank you, she signed, "for saving my life." I just hope it's worth it, she thought but didn't say.

RYAN

Always. Ryan signed back at her with a comforting smile. Even if it wasn't his actual job to make sure she'd made it to the hospital, he would have done it. Eliana was one of few people who picked up sign language after meeting him, despite that he could communicate mostly verbally, given he had his hearing aids in, without complications. But no, the stubborn woman in front of him, the Hotshot, decided she'd learn and she'd gotten pretty good. He didn't like hearing that she'd had to turn to cocaine to deal with "bad feelings". That ... rubbed him the wrong way. Not being able to help the slight frown on his face, he watched her face closely as he spoke. "What's going on, El? What kind of bad feelings had you running towards coc-..drugs?"

ELIANA

There weren't many people who knew about her past, those dirty little secrets that she had spent the better part of the past ten years trying to push down and hide. Ale had found out after she woke up from a nightmare, screaming and sweating. He'd held her and she broke down, telling him everything. But aside from him, Eli hadn't told anyone until recently. She'd told Charlie in the heat of an argument, and only told Puck to keep from telling him anything else. She stared at Ryan and her stomach clenched. If she told him, would he look at her the way she expected people to look at her - like she was dirty, and damaged. Especially now. She'd been too weak to fight her father and his friends, too weak to take Aidan out, too weak to fight off Derek when his hands were choking her out. And now.. she'd crossed a line with Pastor Wilde. Kitty was right. She was a whore.

Lowering her gaze to the blanket, Eli picked at a thread. "I um.." Could she tell him? Could she stand seeing the look of disgust on his face? Ryan was one of those legitimately good people and for some reason, he didn't see her as South Side Serpent trash, no matter how many times over the years she'd flirted with him shamelessly as she was one to do with most people. But her head was telling her that maybe saying it to Ryan would be easier than saying it to a stranger, to some counselor after her detox. "I wasn't trying to kill myself," she said, struggling against the words. "That counselor asked me like, five times, and I don't want you to think that--" She took a breath, "Do you remember how I told you that I used to live in New York with my family? And I ran away about ten years ago, came to Riverdale, and started over?"

RYAN

Ryan could see the wheels turning in Eliana's head and he let her do her thing. As much as he wanted her to come talk about whatever was really going on, he wasn't about to push it. They were friends, yeah, but he wasn't Alejandro and he wasn't Puckerman and he wasn't one of her Serpent buddies. He was just ... him. But, he hoped she knew that that meant that he could take whatever she might have to say without bias of this side or that side, this gang or that one. When she told him she hadn't been trying to kill herself, he paused. He hadn't even thought about it being a suicide attempt, and maybe that was bad on him. He didn't think he could ever see Ellie killing herself, even after this mess. 

He hushed her, kindly, hopefully just letting her know that he couldn't think that if he wanted to. Ryan nodded, he remembered that vaguely. They didn't typically talk about her past, or all that much about his that wasn't strictly work related, rescue or crazy fire stories. He wasn't exactly sure they were that kind of friends, which was fine. But, if she was bringing it now, that obviously meant something. "Yeah," he replied. "You might have to bring me up to speed again, I think it's been a while, but that rings a bell. Something in your past coming to haunt you lately?"

ELIANA

Every word that she started to speak made her heart race and she wasn't sure she could do this. But thankfully he worded things in a way that made it easy for her to just nod her head. Maybe details were a little too much right now. And even as she opened her mouth to talk, she had a small voice in her head tell her that he might even know her father. He was the CEO and Chief of Surgery at this hospital, after all. She swallowed, her throat suddenly dry. 

My father, she started, signing because it was easier than speaking it out loud. He was a bad guy. He let his friends-- But then she stopped, not sure how to sign the rest. A brief confusion crossed her face to try and remember but she wasn't sure she ever learned it. "--have me," she finished in a quick breath, deciding to rip it off like a bandaid. "I've.. always felt.. helpless," Eli said as she looked down. "A bunch of things have happened lately that kind of.. made me feel that way again." She swat angrily at a dumb tear that slipped out of her eye. "I didn't feel that way anymore when I got high. It went away, made me feel.. I don't know.. fearless, I guess."

RYAN

Ryan watched attentively as she signed, and even when she paused, he had an idea of what she was going to say. As calm and steady as he'd told himself he was going to be, he couldn't help shaking his head at the mention of such a disgusting act. Who could do that to their child? He looked at the woman in front of him and his heart sank. The shame was so evident, shame that didn't belong with her. Carefully, not wanting to cause alarm or panic, he placed his hand on the side of her head. "You are anything but helpless, Hotshot. You came back to us, with a little help, sure, but you came back." He caught another tear with his thumb and placed his hand back down with hers, not wanting to make her uncomfortable in any way. "A healthy amount of fear keeps us safe, El. I'd hate to see that taken away from you."

ELIANA

If she hadn't been so embarrassed about what she'd told him, Eliana might have been a little more focused on the fact that's she'd actually told him. Of course she left some things out. Left out how young she'd been, what they did, or how her father would usually stand by the door to make sure his friends were happy with her. And she completely left out the fact that when she tried to stop it from happening, he'd hit her, made her bleed, and that her mother ignored the bruises. But everything was built up behind her strong facade and she knew that she was a liar. She wasn't a bad ass like she pretended. She wasn't strong. She was broken and useless. She hadn't been able to protect herself back then, she couldn't protect Charlie or Dare, or the kids. She couldn't protect any of them from Derek. What good was she aside from getting high and having sex? 

A small smile crossed her lips, forced as it was, when he said she'd come back because it didn't feel like it. It felt like they just hadn't let her go. "Well," she said at the mention of fear, "I feel plenty of it now. The counselor kept telling me the next couple days are going to be really hard. What if.." Eli stopped herself but she needed to know, "What if I can't do it?"

RYAN

Ryan shrugged, making an over exaggerated thinking face, one he's probably used on Sophia too many times to count. "You don't really have much choice, do you?" He asked her. "You either get through this, as tough as it's going to be, knowing you're not alone. Or, there's the other option and you don't get through it and you're scared and in pain and being reckless and hurting people for the rest of your life. And I only see one option here." The more he spoke, the more he needed her to believe it. It was clear she had to work through a lot, had to find a reason to do that, because it was going to be hard. You are strong, he signed to her slowly, even though he knew she'd get it. "Plus, I'd hate to see all my hard work go to waste, helping you come back and all."

ELIANA

When he said the part about hurting other people, it struck a chord within her. Ale had been there for her since she got to Riverdale. They'd been there for each other, working on cars, laughing, leaning on each other. Her life had always made so much sense when they were together. And then to hear that he'd done CPR on her -- that she'd forced him into that position. Yet he was still here. Still sitting with her, still holding her hand, it meant more to her than anything. And maybe that's what she needed to remember if this week really was going to be as hard as she was told it would. 

Eli wasn't so much sure she believed that she was strong but the fact he told her made a difference, to know someone as good as Ryan thought something like that about her. "I'd never want to waste your hard work," she said in a slightly playful tone even though she didn't feel it all. Her heart already ached for what she was going to ask him. "Ry.. can you tell me everything? I--I think I need to hear it, and hear what I put him through." She hadn't said Ale's name but she knew he knew. She needed the ugly details to hold onto and remind herself why she was going through detox when it got hard.

RYAN

Normally, Ryan would have probably declined her request. People shouldn't know exactly what they went through, especially if their body, or their friends, had decided to leave them a little fuzzy on the details. But he also knew Eliana and that despite how she was probably feeling right now, she was tough as nails and she probably did need to know for herself, he certainly had once he'd awoken from his lifesaving surgery. "Well, for one, your call interrupted my third attempt at the dinner Miller had made, so thanks for that," Ryan teased, knowing starting light was the best way to go in the moment. "But the call came in a little before midnight, we knew it was an overdose but obviously, going in, I didn't know it was you. Alejandro was a mess, but everyone's focus was on you and I swear, not three seconds into me trying to evaluate you, you seized, which wasn't helping him," Ryan knew that Eliana would know exactly what him he was referring to, "stay calm at all. But he stayed. He stayed and he held your hand and we kept you from hurting yourself or choking. Then, you kinda came to, but I have a feeling you don't remember that, which is normal. Got you loaded in the rig to bring you here and you coded. Because Alejandro knew how to do chest compressions, I didn't have to get Wilson to pull over and help me out when I got everything ready to give you the shock you needed." Ryan took a breath. It wasn't too often he recounted calls with anyone other than his crew so he figured stopping there was good enough. She didn't need numbers or jargon, but she needed to know how her actions had affected someone she'd loved. She needed a wake up call, and she seemed to know that, so he was going to do his best to give that to her. "If he'd been any less okay, you might not be here, Hotshot. Remember that."

ELIANA

Eliana appreciated him trying to make this a little easier, and all that did was tell her just how little she was going to like what he had to say. "Well, we both know I'm awful with timing." For instance, it had taken her way too long to realize she even had feelings let alone had them for Ale. She was pretty sure her friends knew before she did. She listened, feeling an unknowable ache settle inside of her as she played the moments out in her head. She hadn't even remembered midnight, her last memory of hours before, of a club with bright lights and free drinks. The pretty girls always got free drinks. And the drugs. Her cocaine, someone else's pills, the mixture taking her higher than she'd felt before it all went black. 

Her gaze averted from his face when he said she'd seized and how Ale reacted. He'd held onto her the whole time. That's why she hadn't gone, she thought. He hadn't let her go. Her eyes closed when he said she'd come to - none of that in her memories at all. But she could picture it. Especially after all that. Especially before her heart stopped. It was such a strange thing to say. Her heart stopped. He'd had to help keep her alive, God, what kind of monster was she? To put someone who had always taken such good care of her through all of this.

Nodding at his final words, Eli looked back up at him and everything weighed on her heavily. She reached up, wiped her eyes, and then pressed her head back against the pillow. "Thank you," she said, and somehow deep down she knew that she'd make it through this week, no matter how hard it was, if only to show Ale everything he'd done was worth it, that keeping her alive hadn't been a mistake. Eli didn't know how to make it up to him but she'd find a way. Somehow.

RYAN

The conversation was a heavy one and Ryan could see how it was affecting Eliana. Seeing her cry was a little bit of a trip, but that being said, he’d probably be more concerned if she wasn’t crying right about now. He leaned forward and pressed a kiss on her forehead, giving her shoulder a quick squeeze. “Don’t worry about it, El,” he replied as he sat back down and shot her a small smile. “All that matters now is that you get better. I did the leg work to keep you alive, now this is your marathon.”

ELIANA

"You sure you don't want to do it for me?" She asked, the nervous building inside of her. She was afraid of what this week was going to hold but thinking back to the conversation she had with Ale that morning kept replaying in her mind. At the end of it, she saw his face, the one that looked like he'd seen a ghost, and she knew she needed to do this. For herself, sure, but also for him. "I'm leaving in the morning," she said. "But the counselor told me it should only be a couple days. Hopefully I'll be home soon." Looking at the door when she heard footsteps, she waited to see if it was Ale but the steps went past the door. "He should be back any minute. I don't know why when he could just cut off the excess baggage but.. it means a lot that he stayed with me. After what I did to him."

RYAN

Ryan smirked at her comment. Truth be told, if he could do it for her, he would. Recovering from a life altering instance was hard enough, that he knew, but this would be more. “You will,” he nodded. “You’re tough as nails, whether you believe that or not right now.” He noticed her glance towards the hallway, clearly waiting for Alejandro to return, and he didn’t know if that was his cue to take off or not. “He’ll be back because that’s what you do for the people you love, El.”

ELIANA

Eli was going to argue because love wasn't one of those words you just drop, especially in this situation, and even moreso after everything she'd put Ale through. That wasn't something anyone could feel for a person as monumentally fucked up as she was. But the energy to fight wasn't there. Instead she just nodded and lay her head back on the pillow because even though all the confusion and second guessing, all the wanting and hoping, it all came down to one simple thing that she'd never admitted to anyone much less herself. 

She was capable of love, and she did love. She loved very much and she'd just hurt the person she had those feelings for. If he'd come back for her, she'd come back for him too. That's just what you do. Thank you, she signed, almost too exhausted from everything to want to talk out loud anymore. For saving her. For being her friend. For believing she would get through this -- for everything. Then Eli smiled softly and tried to let her body relax. She had a feeling the upcoming week was going to be anything but relaxing.