#if he thinks she WONT commit to the bit and come back during his actual office hours... | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

thanksjro · 4 years ago

Text

More Than Meets the Eye #31 - Ammo and the Anti-Glowup

So, the Lost Light disappeared, stranding all the crew in space in their little escape pods. 200-some robots just lost their homes and worldly possessions. That’s absolutely horrible. What a devastating thing to happen.

Anyway, here’s Drift with a flashback sequence.

No hips, fingers all the exact same length, hockey pucks embedded in his forearms- Rojo, this is a crime you’ve committed. When will the long arm of the law stop your sinful, pancake-shaped hands?

About two years prior to current events, Drift, Riptide, and Pipes- yes, Pipes!- were wandering around trying to find a ship for the space yacht trip. The gang’s here to see who owns the big honkin’ ship outside. Problem is, Drift is unintentionally terrifying because he has a great deal of swords.

Now, you may say to yourself “isn’t it a bit odd that the species that has members who literally turn into guns would be nervous around a guy with swords?” This is a valid critique, until you remember that at least some of the folks who turn into guns were born that way, and Drift was very much NOT born bladed the fuck out. There’s an entire miniseries devoted to explaining this, it’s called Drift. The swords are a choice, one that he makes every day.

Drift is willing to pay an honestly absurd amount of money for the ship, if he can just find the dude with the paperwork- don’t ask where he got the money. Pipes isn’t being terribly helpful in finding them, so Riptide decides that now is the time to start practicing being proactive and pulls a Coyote Ugly.

No, no, he doesn’t.

He does climb up on a table and start yelling for the ship’s owners to reveal themselves, though. Which they do.

Now it’s time for the world-building portion of our comic issue. Let’s learn about chirolinguistics.

Drift, staying true to his Mary Sue nature, uses his near-perfect Hand skills to strike up a deal with the owners of the ship. This would be impressive, if it didn’t just look like the most convoluted hand-holding session in the friggin’ universe.

Still, Drift is rich enough to make Jeff Bezos weep with envy, so the arrangements are made and the lads go on their way, talking some mad shit about the original name of the ship as they do.

So it is revealed to us that the Lost Light is named after a festival for honoring the dead and disappeared, which makes the fact that Rewind and Chromedome were there all the more sad.

Back in the present, Megatron tells Riptide to shut up so they can figure out what the hell they’re going to do about this whole “our home and also ride has ceased to exist” situation. He’s putting an awful lot of distance between himself and the rest of the Autobots as he does it, something that isn’t lost on the more bitter people of the crowd.

But why were we even talking about the Lost Light in the first place? Not to reminisce, believe it or not. See, it’s time for Nautica to get a little panel time, and she’s going to use it to be a massive fucking nerd and explain how the quantum engines work. As she does, Ratchet notes that his hands feel funny. Must be the weight of his hand-stealing sins manifesting itself in his joints.

Nautica explains that the engines run off of improbability- it is highly unlikely, but not impossible, that the ship can reach light speed, and riding the fine line between what can happen and what can’t, results in the creation of power for the engines. If this sounds familiar, it’s because Brainstorm gave us a watered down version of this explanation back in issue #2. If it sounds familiar for a different reason, it’s because this is how the Heart of Gold runs in Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. Again, I’m not sure why it is that the British love this concept so much, but there you are.

Oh, it appears someone has a question. Let’s see what they want to know about, shall we?

…Rojo, what the fuck is this.

Our muppety friend here isn’t too keen on how much of a smarmy asshole Nightbeat is being right now, though I’d assume it actually has something to do with the fact that Nightbeat got smacked around with the pretty-boy stick while Getaway very much did not. While the two bicker- there’s a lot of bickering in Season Two- Nautica presents a theory on what happened to the ship; it went too far in the direction of “can’t” and made itself cease to be.

Megatron gives not a shit about quantum improbability, though. He only cares about how they’re going to get out of this mess. Which, y’know. Valid.

Blaster picks up a radio from Rodimus, who tells the gang that they’re to meet up on a nearby planet to regroup and figure out their next move. The call drops before he can get more than a couple Megatron-directed insults in, however. Megatron, in response, tries to be the bigger person, and almost immediately fails. We do get a headcount though, which is good, logistically speaking. This information is communicated to us by way of a splash page full of character head shots. We’ve got 20 ‘bots on board this ship.

Yep. 20. No more, no less.

As our friends approach the planet, we’re informed that it’s actually a Lectureworld- a planet devoted to the study of a single field. Except it’s actually a Smartplanet now, and it’s been privatized by the Galactic Council, so you’ve got to pay to go there. Cyclonus thinks that that’s bullshit, and I can’t help but agree. Crosscut tries to network with they guy about his play, probably because word got around that Cyclonus is rich as hell, when the lights cut out. When they come back on, Crosscut is nowhere to be found.

It’s time for a Whodunnit.

Tailgate immediately pegs Megatron as the culprit in this disappearance, and breaks out a gun over the matter. Megatron thinks that this is absolutely adorable, which only serves to further infuriate our marshmallow friend. I guess he’s still mad about the whole “I was a Decepticon for five minutes and got brainwashed over it” thing, and wants someone to pin the anger on who’s socially acceptable to hate.

Cyclonus and Ratchet both think that Tailgate’s not going about this the right way, but the guy is simply too het up to listen to them. Tailgate suggests that they lock Megatron in the engine room for the time being and-

OKAY WHO LET HIM HAVE THAT

Riptide breaks out his gun, and soon we’ve got a standoff going between the three of them. Cyclonus tries to deescalate, which makes Gears and Huffer break out their guns. Then Hound breaks out his gun, though he seems to be doing his own thing, by pointing it in Nautica’s direction.

Broski, I think that might be animal cruelty.

Megatron manages to shoot Ravage “unconscious” and catches him by the friggin’ throat, stating that he has zero idea how this guy got here. With the heat off the two of them for a moment, Megatron communicates to Ravage to play ‘possum for the time being. Ravage responds, and I wonder exactly how he’s doing that, considering I don’t think he has enough fingers to effectively utilize Hand as a language. Or fingers at all, really.

While this is going on, Cyclonus snatches the gun out of Tailgate’s hand, admonishing him for being reckless about picking his fights. Generally speaking, you don’t want to try to go toe-to-toe with a guy who’s responsible for the deaths of literal billions. Getaway swoops in to comfort Tailgate, calling him gutsy. I wonder if this will become a trend.

Swerve says a thing, as he is wont to do, and it’s made known that multiple folks have disappeared during this incredibly brief standoff.

Wow, Chromedome just fucked off, huh? He wasn’t even in that sequence, just left.

Everyone’s positively baffled by the current happenings. There doesn’t seem to be any rhyme or reason to who’s being taken. I guess we’ve got a mystery on our hands.

And who better to solve a mystery than a detective?

Nightbeat wrangles all the leftover folks into a corner of the room, so they can figure out what the common denominator is with all the disappearees. He starts with the easy stuff.

And by “easy”, I mean the super-special racism Tyrest subscribed to.

If you’ve read Eugenesis, you know that Nightbeat was also part of the first wave of cold-constructed bodies there. However, the general populace wasn’t nearly as chill about it as they were in IDW. Also, Wheeljack was his dad. No word on if that particular tidbit made it into IDW lore.

It’s at this point that we learn about M.T.O.s- made to order soldiers. They were cold-constructed ‘bots created en masse during the war in order to keep up with the demands for troops. Pretty fucked up, if you think about it, being born to die like that.

Now where have we heard that name before…

Chromedome, can your love life not be part of the plot for five minutes, my guy?

Nautica makes the honestly horrific claim that a lot of folks owe their existence to Megatron being a warmongering fuck, and even Megatron himself seems rather uncomfortable with the idea. Some thoughts we keep to ourselves, Nautica, even if they might be technically true. And even if Ammo wants to tack on his two cents on the matter.

What did they DO to you, Ammo? You’re supposed to be hot! Where are my three-paragraphs of description as Hound stares slack jawed the entire time? I miss Polyhex Wars.

Anyway, it’s Megatron’s turn to get poked with the questioning stick, and he’s not having it. He claims that by revealing his mode of creation, he’s risking a repeat of Functionist ideology. This would be valid, if people weren’t literally disappearing without any sort of explanation as to why. As it is, he’s being a stubborn asshole, but I guess he didn’t get his reputation by being a decent person who knew when to back down, now did he?

It’s at this point that Ratchet remembers he knows all the info Nightbeat’s looking for, and the conversation on Megatron’s birth is shelved for another day. I’m sure it won’t be a major plot point later, not in the slightest.

As it turns out, Nightbeat’s theory doesn’t hold water, and folks are still popping out of existence. We get another splash page, this time with everyone’s mode of creation listed under their names, and we move on to other theories about what the fuck is going on. While Nightbeat has a minor crisis over what the answer could possibly be, the MTOs in the group reminisce on the Ten-Step Program, a series of tests they were put through to make sure they worked well enough to get handed a gun and shoved out the door. Riptide wasn’t a fan.

Riptide has more wood panelling than a 70’s-style ranch house, and I think that’s very brave of him.

It’s at this point that Ratchet remembers it’s been quite a bit since he last shat on religion, and takes the time to do so while informing the reader about Information Creep. This is a concept we’ve seen mentioned previously, during Chromedome’s runaround in Overlord’s brain, but it’s here where we get the juicy implications.

Because memories can become corrupted in the brain due to extreme age, what ought to be objective fact has to be reinterpreted due to missing pieces. This is why nobody knows what the Knights of Cybertron got up to, or if they’re even actually real at all.

The lights go out again, and when they cut back on, Cyclonus is missing, leaving only his sword behind. Tailgate is extremely distraught by this, but Nightbeat gives not a fuck about Tailgate’s impending breakdown. He only cares about the truth!

And then a giant eyeball shows up.

It’s Ultra Magnus, coming to us live from his shuttle, via holomatter avatar! He shrinks down to a far more reasonable size, in a panel reminiscent of the first time IDW readers saw Megatron.

Don’t get me wrong, this is a neat parallel, I’m just… not terribly sure why it’s happening. One could say it reflects a reversal in power dynamics, but that theory gets tossed out the window when you remember that this isn’t actually Verity. I suppose it’s just a cool little thing.

Because the comms aren’t working, Ultra Magnus has been forced to use this avatar to communicate with the folks in the Rod Pod. Megatron asks just what the hell is going on, but unfortunately Magnus isn’t sure either. Then his shuttle disappears, and it’s bye-bye grunge girl Magnus.

It’s at this point that Nightbeat decides it’s time to stop pussyfooting around and get serious. He tells Ratchet to throw HIPPA directly in the garbage and write down everything he knows about the Autobots who crewed the Lost Light. And he does mean everything, as we get the splash page again, this time with lots of neat info on our friends, including spark type.

Spark types will become plot-relevant in the storyline after this, but for now let’s focus on some weird gender essentialism that got slapped into the first print of this issue.

As we know very well by this point, Transformers as a franchise has a tumultuous relationship with the idea of women existing. You would think that the awkward introduction of other genders we got in “Dark Cybertron” would have been the end of things being weird in IDW. However, you would be wrong.

In an effort to explain why genders exist, Roberts had the idea to make it spark-based. Nautica, in the solo print of this issue, has an estriol-positive spark. Estriol is a type of estrogen, which is the hormone that develops and maintains feminine secondary sex characteristics, when present in certain levels, in conjunction with other hormones. Biology

This “spark = gender” idea is, generally speaking, not a great idea to be presenting us with, especially when the writer is a cishet male, because it implies biological essentialism- the idea that a personality trait/quality of a person is innate and predetermined by their biology, as opposed to social, cultural, or individual experiences. Because this story doesn’t exist in a vacuum, it’s irresponsible to reduce the experience of being a woman to a single, physical, unchangable asset, especially when all other assets of the same class have zero effect on one’s gender identity. You don’t exactly see many nonbinary robots running around, now do you? And there are definitely more than two spark types, despite the Transformers as a species being... very binary.

It also makes female Transformers into an “other”, which is a problem that has existed from the very start of the franchise, in some form or fashion, and really doesn’t need to be perpetrated anymore than it already is.

The estriol spark type was removed in the trade edition, and Roberts has expressed regrets over its inclusion, having realized that it was potentially offensive.

Getting back to the story, Swerve, Tailgate, and Ratchet have disappeared, though Ratchet seems to have left his hands behind. His stolen, Pharma-original hands.

That’s still fucked up to me. I don’t think it’ll ever not be fucked up.

Riptide reveals the reason that he wasn’t in Season One of MTMTE was because when he went back to grab a receipt for the ship two years prior, he’d discovered that the original owners were worshipers of Mortilus, Cybertronian god of death, and knew about the nasty little problem that was the sparkeater from the first storyline. When Riptide went to confront them about it, they beat him up so bad he was unconscious for two solid days.

Which is a long-ass time to be unconscious. That might have been a coma, Riptide. Jesus, I hope someone got him to a hospital after this beatdown happened, or at least scraped him off the floor.

With this last piece of the puzzle, we finally have the common denominator in this big ol’ mystery. Everyone who disappeared was on the Lost Light when it took off from Cybertron in issue #1, and everyone left behind- Skids, Getaway, Nightbeat, Nautica, Megatron, and Ravage- didn’t join until afterwords.

Of course, having the answer doesn’t do us much good when everyone is still missing, and Megatron seems to agree with me, because he’s about to throw hands, when Nautica lets them know that they’ve arrived at the rendezvous. Problem is, so has something else.

...

I’m sure it’s fiiiiiiiiiiiiine!

#transformers #jro #MTMTE #issue 31 #maccadam #Hannzreads #text post #long post #incoming analysis #overthinking about robots #comic script writing

134 notes · View notes

thatblondeperson · 3 years ago

Text

Hi so I'm gonna make a quick post just to go over some things in the wake of likely oncoming news.

First and foremost, I will be happy with any outcome we get for Tim unless it turns out to be queerbaiting because fuck that DC. Either go 100% for bi or gay or don't play at people's heartstrings. Commit or be burned. I myself like to headcanon Tim as bi. I think he's always been very clearly attracted to women, but that doesn't mean he can't also be attracted to men. I've shipped TimKon before and still do, just less so than my main, which brings me to the next obvious thing of note.

Yes, obviously I'm very sad that Tim and Steph broke up. More because it was mentioned in passing which I think does a disservice to their entire relationship as a whole. Where is the respect for their tenure together? I do hope we get some explanation since there was nothing going on in current continuity that predicted this and I'd rather not just have it written off as "yeah they're over, move on." I want to dig in a bit, because Tim's attitude seems like something bad happened which would have to be huge considering that they've been fine up until this point. I do not feel confident that my curiosity will be humored.

Regarding Steph, I hope she doesn't get written out. i hope she gets respect, her own stories, her own life. I want her to not just be cast aside as a nothing in Tim's life, or as cheap training wheels for this new chapter. I don't want mlm representation at the expense of misogyny because media does that a lot. Shippers on this site do this a lot. Someone can't be queer unless you effectively bury their prior relationships in a trauma filled heap of garbage. It's frustrating and I don't want her sucked into that. I believe in my heart that she would be supportive, so if Tim is gonna come out, LET ME SEE SOME DAMN SUPPORT FROM STEPH. This could change her stories too though, which I'm happy for as well. they could let her be canonly bi (not mentioning Future's End as that's BARELY Steph...) and give her some new adventures that I will be thrilled to read. But I don't want her turned into the devil of Tim's life journey. Don't make her his oppressor, don't make her the thing that held him back from happiness. She can be something that was happy for him as well, and now he has something else that makes him happy. It can be both.

My theory right now is that Tim is getting a ton of memories flooding back into his head and he's remembering old friends which is bringing up old suppressed feelings that he wasn't aware of. Bernard is in his memories and I think that's a really interesting way for them to take his. It's not making a new character or starting things out of the blue, it's very much saying HEY! We heard you. This is something people have seen in Tim for a while so maybe it was always there but he never knew it himself. Very cool move, I hope they handle it well.

My next concern is...my fic. Regardless of the outcome, gay or bi, I will post it. If he's bi, I'm not gonna have any issues, but if he's gay, I will pin a disclaimer at the top of my blog and on the fic itself. I just want to post it. I'm a slow writer, but I've been working on this piece since 2019, and I've been wanting to write it since I first got into Tim and Steph. Is it perfect? No. It's very self indulgent and angsty, but I'm proud of it, and I want to post it. With either outcome I'm afraid I'll get backlash, and I will just probably have to link them to a disclaimer. If Tim is confirmed gay, I will be heartbroken at not feeling comfortable discussing my fic with anyone. I won't be able to talk about why I've loved TimSteph for years. I won't be able to post headcanons. I won't be able to participate. I will still love them both separately, but I'll be losing the drive for my art. Those two have inspired me for years and I have list of wips and ideas that will unfortunately never be able to be published. It breaks my heart to have to abandon all of that, but it's my own fault for not writing fast enough or not feeling confident in my drawing abilities. I have been a bit selfish today in hoping that Tim is bi, and I do wholeheartedly apologize for that, but my creativity is going to halt immediately and I'll never get to do what I planned to do because I believe it would be disrespectful to continue to put out TimSteph media if Tim were gay.

More than anything, I am worried about losing friends. I won't get to have deepdives into their characters anymore with a couple people, and those deepdives have kept me going many days during quarantine. I wont get to bounce fic ideas or art ideas off of people anymore, and I'm worried that over time without TimSteph being a bit of glue, I'll lose those people. This is kind of my one big ship. I don't ship a lot of things and while it's not necessary to ship things to be happy, I like having at least one solid ship to fall back on. I don't have a backup, most of my ships are from discontinued shows and I have no desire to write or draw for them a lot of the time. I gotta shift this energy somewhere, but where? And I just do not want this lack of energy period that might come in the wake of Tim being confirmed gay, to lose me connections with the people I've gotten to know over the past couple years BECAUSE of TimSteph. I'm mourning a future that might not even come, but I can't help it. I'm afraid that I'll get left behind.

This is all very dramatic and personal, the comic today was wonderful and I thoroughly enjoyed it. I'm being selfish for the sake of my art and my personal relationships which overall doesn't matter in lieu of potential representation!!!!!!! Like actual tangible representation YES. There's ways that I want this to go and ways that I don't, but for the record I want to make sure it's clear: If Tim is canonically confirmed as LGBT+, I will be celebrating with everyone else. I am not here to suppress representation for the sake of a fictional ship that I enjoy. Everyone should get a chance to see themselves in a story, and Tim is a big character to make that leap with. This will hopefully be a diversity win that will make a huge impact in all big name comics going forward, not just DC comics.

#personal #timsteph #tim drake #robin iii #red robin #batfam #batfamily #dc comics #batman #batman urban legends #wednesday spoilers

30 notes · View notes

bellaslilpapercut · 4 years ago

Text

Eclipse reread part 2! This is gonna cover a lot of chapters because I forgot to include stuff from chapters 4, 5, and 6 in part 1 (in my defense your honor, this book is very grating to read). Awayyy we go:

1. so chapters 4-6 really could have been one chapter tbh since the plot is: Bella ditches work at Newton’s Outfitters to hang with Jake and then writes some graduation invites with Angela. She pushes her rusty old behemoth as fast as it can go through driving rain but then hangs outside with Jake the whole time so I don’t really know where the rain went. She also manages to hear Jake gasp through her closed car door! Super sonic! Anyway, Bella insists that Edward is a good guy, Jake makes Bella hold his hand, Jake explains imprinting (yuck we can skip that), and then Edward drives threateningly past Bella while she’s on her way to Angela’s house. Angela reminds Bella that, at his core, Edward is a teen boy who is Totally Jealous of how Ripped and Sexy her 16 year old best friend is. Then Alice kidnaps Bella. Fun times!

2. During the imprinting convo it becomes very apparent that Meyer thinks the worst thing that can happen to a girl is getting broken up with. Somehow Leah got the “worst end” of the Sam/Emily/Leah fiasco despite Sam turning into a “monster” and Emily getting literally mauled in the face. What’s worse is later in the book, during the “Legends” chapter, when Bella wonders if Leah thinks Emily’s scars are a form of “justice.” Yea, Bella, that’s justice.

3. I love this Rosalie quote but hate the entirety of they way meyer writes her story. Others have mentioned it before but Meyer writes Rose's dialogue there as if Rose is an author and not like...a person telling a story. An easy fix would be to format Rosalie's story "flash back" style rather than have her narrate all the way through. Then you can include all the superfluous details of exactly what everyone's voice sounded like and all the excessive dialogue tags you want.

I also Violently Abhor this quote here:

Yea, meyer, the Hot Girl hates your self-insert because her stupid ass brother didn't have the hots for her. It just reads like weird middle school revenge fantasy "I only hated you because you were so Special!!!" Sure, sure. Also "all those females!" People don't talk like that @stephanie

4. I do love the scene when Bella “escapes” from Alice with Jake (I don’t know why i put escape in quotes, Alice could definitely murk Bella) but then that whole adventure ends with Jake telling Bella he’d rather she die than turn into a vampire. And yeah, fair buddy, but also you’ve known Bella for a long time. This should not be a surprise to you at all even a little bit. a) she mentioned it before, b) you knew she would never get over Edward even if your plan in NM had worked, and c) you’ve known that she’s fully obsessed with the Cullen’s since you started hanging out with her again. The last time you guys hung out she went on an impassioned rampage about how lovely and good and fantastic Edward is (footage not found) I really don’t know why you’re surprised that this hard-headed girl is prepared to commit to vampirism for him. She is not normal lmfao.

5. The legends chapter. Oh boy. Stephanie, Meyer, Smeyer. Honestly it might have been less offensive if she had just made up a whole new tribe to give these backstories to, for all that they have in common with real Quileute legends but actually that would still be offensive and terrible anyway. I don’t know how to describe this adequately but if you’ve ever seen G.I. Joe’s portrayal of indigenous people that’s exactly what meyer made Old Quil and Billy’s dialogue sound like. Just absolutely dripping with Mystical Native/ Magical Native trope from the content to the tone. https://mthg.org/ Because it can’t be plugged enough.

6. The legends chapter ends with this Wuthering Heights quote:

I have no qualms with it's inclusion, if you really want to push the Edward is Heathcliff and Bella is Cathy agenda, I don't believe it but fine, whatever. But those last two paragraphs are such a dumb way to end a chapter. Every chapter ending should make the reader want to turn the page: this makes me want to shut the book (actually I did take a long break after this lmfao). Anyway, just end the quote on "drank his blood," bold those three words, and end the chapter there. Don't go back and say "the three words that stood out were... Anyway it could have fallen to any page I believe in coincidence teehee!!" That's just annoying.

7. Okay guys I hate to say it but Edward does get a lil bit of ~character growth after the first few chapters. He comes home after having Bella kidnapped (she decides not to be angry, surprise surprise) and is all "so I've been thinking about it and you're right my Beloved Angel Face or whatever, please hang out with Jacob but also wear a helmet on your motorcycle my Beloved Dumb Idiot or whatever" (paraphrase). And he also says this in chapter 12:

Which is like, man I hate when I agree with Edward but I agree with Edward here. Now I know from MS that he only wants Bella to stay human because he's creating an Unfolding Drama in his head but this bit of dialogue is really sweet. And it's funny that he thought Bella didn't want to marry him because she just wanted to use him for immortality but it's also a Dark Reminder that he's literally only romantic with her because he can't read her mind and can't tell that she's just as obsessed with his looks as the other Teen Girls TM.

8. uuuh Jasper’s Backstory Time. This is so infuriating to read for so many reasons. So we know that smeyer got Jasper’s name from a confederate memorial/ listing (from a New Moon Q&A but the link isn’t secure so I can’t share) so I know that his backstory was always meant to be Confederate Soldier which makes everything else about his characterization just baffling. Again, he was the only Cullen that was genuinely kind to Bella besides Carlisle for the entire first book and he’s still incredibly kind during Eclipse (which is another issue I have though because no one mentions again that Jasper tried to eat Bella and they stand close to each other and hang out and Bella’s never like “this is scary, this dude tried to kill me” but i digress). The point is: smeyer knew he was going to be a confederate from book 1. She never addresses that this was bad, she never has Jasper mention that he regrets his role in the war, he is the only Cullen that’s actually capable of empathizing with humans anymore (Carlisle cares but I would not categorize him as empathetic), it just... None of these pieces fit together. This is a fraught and bloody history that smeyer throws in with no thought to how it might alienate black readers (though tbh she constantly emphasizes “white beauty” throughout the series so I doubt she cares) and the editors don’t question it either. No one, at any point in time, said “Hey, steph, you know confederates fought for slavery, right?” Every black american deserves reparations. White women and men who glorify the civil war should be the first to pay up.

9. I’m gonna jump back to chapters 9 & 10 here (target & scent, respectively) to say: no tension is being effectively built. I get it, someone stole your clothes. You’re annoyed because you have nothing to wear and Victoria is scary. But where is she? Where is the volturi? Move it along, please! This is one of the challenges of 1st person narrative because the author is stuck in the eyes of, usually, the person who knows the least. Meyer is not a talented enough author to make this interesting. Not to bring up THG again but Suzanne Collins really knew how to work 1st person. Everything that Katniss asserts with certainty throughout the series gets either confirmed or denied by the narrative, keeping it interesting. She assumes the worst of the people around her so we’re pleasantly surprised when people violate those assumptions. We’re kept on edge by how little Katniss knows and SC never gifts Katniss with more knowledge than she could be expected to have. Bella is constantly gifted with knowledge and her assumptions are rarely proven wrong. You can dig into the canon a little bit more, read the lexicon and the guide, and find all the examples of Bella being unreliable or making wrong assumptions. But within the narrative she is rarely incorrect. She doesn’t get opportunities to grow out of her false assumptions (while Edward does, at least in Eclipse). So to keep the Victoria debacle interesting, smeyer has to plant seeds like- during these two chapters- Bella thinking of Laurent and Victoria while the cullens discuss who could have been in Bella’s room. That just doesn’t cut it for me.

This is hella long and I’m only halfway through the book. I probably should split the second half into two parts as well but based on how talented smeyer is at stretching out the mundane, especially just before the climax, I probably wont need to.

#eclipse reread #saga reread #the twilight saga #twilight meta #twilight renaissance #long post

14 notes · View notes

zirkkun · 4 years ago

Text

I can't sleep so I'm gonna ramble for a minute here about. uh. 2020 i guess lol everyone else is so might as well jump on the bandwagon.

Be aware this is really really fucking long so it's a commitment to read it lmao sorry i just cannot sleep and i guess i had more on my mind about this year than i thought. I also did not proofread this at all. I just started writing and didn't look back lol

This year was... Weird for me. It started out with me feeling my best in January, comfortable and positive as I did my nth playthrough of DBH with friends and finally having enough alts of my boy Alfonse in FEH to have a team of Just him to fight with. (Priorities, right?) February hit, and things were still going good. I met Ray Chase and had him sign a print I did of Roy and Alfonse in some casual outfits for a scrapped au I wrote years ago. (And I gave him one 😊). Hell, like, covid was just coming around when me and my friends went to the con that weekend and a breakout of it hit the city just south of where the con was like a week before, but I was genuinely so excited for it that like I was like "Yeah, if i die, i die. Whatever happens happens." God, at this point, the Alfonse gc I was in was still alive and I still didn't talk to anyone in the group outside of that gc. Lowkey miss it tbh. But oh well. Things move on.

But that con was like... Stressful. I usually have fair amounts of stress at cons, being around so many people, I fear theft, unwanted contact, y'know, the standard; but my friend group was so filled with tension that it was absolutely painful. We'd been split most of the weekend, and if the two groups came together, it was hell, because it just caused unwanted arguments. I felt really bad cause I didn't want them to be upset, yknow? But i also wanted to hang out with my friends all at once. So i swapped between the groups a bit over the weekend. And blew WAY more money than I should have and lowkey it kind of fucked me over for the rest of the year cause I haven't had a job all year outside of, like, a local church job that pays at a rare max of $100 a month ;w;

I'd been struggling in school the previous semester already, about halfway through having just stopped going to classes altogether, yet still somehow managed to pass everything with B's and A's. The next semester rolled around, and I thought at first the distraction and inability to do anything was because of the con, and as it persisted after, I thought it was just post-con depression. But, as it turned out, no, it's just been my biggest relapse of depression since the end of high school, and frankly, it's only gotten worse since. I can't sleep rn because I'm between not wanting to do anything because I have a lack of emotions and motivation and not feeling deserving of sleep lol. I checked out of school on February 28th, however, I was convinced I was merely demotivated by my surroundings -- at this point, I was studying Japanese, and one of my friends at the time was a (although probably unintentionally) complete braggart about how much he was studying and how he was improving... not to mention he was textbook example of "This is an Actual Weeaboo, don't Fucking Do this." (One of many reasons i said friend at the time lol) it was just... So draining being around him, and I had to see him in class every day of the week. I barely scraped together assignments last-minute and never studied under the idea of "What does it matter if I'm not putting in my 100%?" So I checked out, with plans of transferring for the following semester.

Well, then March hit. Y'all know how March went down lmao.

I pretty much locked myself in my room at all times during March, going between Animal Crossing and BOTW (which actually racked up like 200ish hours i think according to the nintendo year in review i had lmao). I started making a bit closer online friends at this point, notably @levitumbling who decided to take me in as his channel designer for YouTube and I've been ever since! But. Of course. My first task? A Sans meme. My payment? One Switch copy of Undertale because he considered it a disgrace that I'd never played the game before.

Now, let me tell you. I was fuckin scared to play this game. I held onto it for weeks between the fear of "My friend bought me this and i should play this" and "I told myself I'd never touch this game with a 20 mile pole because of how much it's been shoved down my throat over the years." So, one day, I don't remember when, early April, I said, fuck it, I'll play it for a little bit, just enough to say "hey i played it for a bit!" and then never go back.

The only thing that stopped me from beating the whole thing in one sitting was it was the crack of dawn when I passed out, extremely tired and extremely frustrated by the fact I couldn't beat Muffet. Yes, I got that far in one sitting I intended to play for 15 minutes tops.

Now. Let me fuckin tell you. About my first playthrough of Undertale. I haven't gone into a game knowing ABSOLUTELY NOTHING about it like... I think ever. Usually I know what style of game it is, the genre, the main plot premise. I knew nothing other than the existence of Sans (and, as it turned out, I'd heard some of the soundtrack pieces before, notably Bonetrousle I heard this cover of it in a radio livestream a while back and never really looked it up, but was always excited when the radio looped back around to it being on; and I'd heard Dating Start! because that's Alpharad's go-to sponsorship ost lmao.) But anyway. I was completely in the dark. Do yall mind if i just go through some highlights of my favorite memories? This is supposed to be a summary of the year but I mean, I think this made a big enough impact on me to really like. Discuss it a bit.

I watched the whole opening cutscene, started a new game under my old screenname, "Yoru," since in naming the "Fallen Child," I assumed they were dead. Well, I was a little surprised to just be that child, alive, two seconds later, but whatever, I rolled with it.

I genuinely trusted Flowey right away. Like no shit. He told me run into the "friendliness pellets" and I didn't even fucking question it. And when Toriel came in? And she said to follow her? I straight up was like "Why the hell should I trust you?? That guy just tried to kill me what says you wont?" I followed only because the game made me but i was Wary the whole time. It took me a LONG time to warm up to Toriel.

Now. Let me tell you how stupid I am as well. The game says over and over right, "Don't fight. Spare. Have Mercy when names are Yellow." Well, I took this literally. I didn't understand the Act mechanic most of the time, and when something didn't work I just said, fuck it, and fought them. If their name didn't turn yellow, I just fought them. "They don't want Mercy if their name isn't yellow, right?" After a while, I'd started getting bored of fighting and would just run away, but like, I came to a point where I was like "I have a really low level, I'm really going to regret this later on if I don't grind for a while."

I don't know when I stopped but. I think I was only one or two kills away from a genocide run accidentally my first playthrough, based on how I think I was LV 3 and looking at genocide playthroughs, you're LV 3 or 4 when you fight Toriel. Like. Holy fuck. I can't imagine what I would have thought of this game if that happened lmao.

Speaking of Toriel, still didn't trust her, at all. When we got to Home, and after I did Every Single different phrase she says when you go downstairs before you talk to her reading about snails; I did not Hesitate to ask "cool uh when the fuck can I leave?" When we got to the Ruins exit I was like, ah, here it is. The betrayal from her I was expecting, where she tries to kill me. Well, nothing on the Act menu worked, right? So... I fought and killed her. I didn't really care, actually. I just kept going.

Then meeting Sans and Papyrus happened. I lost my fucking shit at this part, mostly when they were talking, because every time Sans made a pun it would zoom in on him and do a rimshot. The puns were not funny and I was definitely on Pap's side of "oh my GOD shut up." But that fucking zoom in and rimshot was just so fourth wall breaking and unexpected. Fuck, it still gets me. Anyway. Game continues. I again lose my shit at (insane spinning in random directions) "OH MY GOD! IS THAT A HUMAN?" "uh, i think that's a rock." "OH. WAIT! WHAT'S THAT IN FRONT OF THE ROCK?? (IS IT A HUMAN??)" "(yes.)" "OH MY GOD!!!" and still think these two moments in the game are Peak comedy. Oh, and let me tell you, I did not like either of these two at this point. Sans I was like, okay, hes kind of a dumbass in a funny way, but Papyrus is a dumbass in a way that just annoys me. Genuinely the archetype that misses social cues and therefore has miscommunication usually just annoys me to no end. (Mostly for the miscommunication. It's my least favorite trope and makes me unreasonably angry.) But yeah. Wasn't really a fan. But out of everyone so far? Definitely found Sans to be the most tolerable. But that's about all I thought of him lmao.

Getting to Snowdin, with the Papyrus battle, remember how I said I didn't like Papyrus? And yes, this was something I genuinely thought at one point, I genuinely hated Papyrus, imagine that. What a wild world that is. But anyway. You know how his Act menu has the "Flirt" option? I, for no reason, gunned it for the Flirt option, even though I did not want to. Then when he was like "WE'LL GO ON A DATE! LATER!!" i was like yea sure okay lmao. Again, couldn't figure out the Act menu to turn his name yellow, so I fought him, and he was one or two attacks from dying (miraculously) when he ended the battle. I spared him here cause, well, he spared me, it was only fair. Then this guy again is like "ILL BE AT MY HOUSE WHEN YOU WANT TO GO ON THAT DATE!" and i was like haha funny but still turned around to go on the date. Like why? I have no idea. I think I was more like "haha hes probably not gonna be there and its just cause i picked that option and lo and behold there was an actual fucking date. Oh my god. I have never in my life been on a video game date where one party was convinced I was infatuated with them and im here on the other side of the screen like "oh my god make this end i can't stand being around you.???" But still. The date was. Really fucking funny. I wish I could experience it for the first time again like holy shit. There are few playthroughs I did after this where I didn't go on the Pap date, even if I just spedrun through it.

So then you get to Waterfall and Sans is there like "hey wanna go to grillbys" and i was like sure why not so we go there and my choices were fries & ketchup (so i did not get the legendary scene where he chugged a bottle of ketchup, but i sure did my second playthrough, and let me tell you, i was disgusted). But like. This whole experience at grillby's like, the whoopee cushion, him using a comb on his bald ass skull, him just fuckin unapologetically scratching his ass for no reason?? Bro i was like "why the fuck is this guy part of the Tumblr Sexymen™ group ??? He's so ????? Gross???????" and like i still have this question tbh lmao. But like. Okay so he asks you "what do you think of my bro?" And my genuine answer was "uncool" and he was like "hey man sarcasm isnt funny" and can i just mention how like inheritly manipulative sans actually is like fuck he does things like this where he throws your answer the other way a few times and Every time it actually swayed me the other way. Because right here I went. "Oh. Maybe Papyrus is better than I thought." Like holy fuck maybe i should be more aware if something like that can sway my opinion so easily LMAO.

Anyway waterfall i genuinely was very bored of the whole time. I spent like a genuine 20 minutes figuring out the puzzle where you have to talk to a wall and I actually didn't realize you could move the telescope around. What helped me solve it is my friend's advice before I played it. "Inspect everything. Even talk to walls. Trust me." And literally thats how I solved it. But pretty much everything in Waterfall otherwise bored me. I did think it was pretty though, and did enjoy reading the lore, but when it started talking about monster biology my one fear had been realized: oh god, oh fuck. My original species for my own series also has physical Souls and die by turning to dust because they're made entirely of magic. God fuck. My luck, it has to be something popular, so now everyone's gonna think I'm a ripoff. But, at the same time, I do think it helped me understand monster biology (and it helped me come up with the ULR biology) better, because I've put in a lot of thought to existence of a species that exists only by magic and a Soul (which, mine only actually have half a Soul, as a full Soul makes a being immortal, which was also similar to the boss monsters in a way). It definitely made a lot more sense for like, the skeletons n stuff for me, because like my characters are wholly shapeshifters but usually take human form, and while they have "organs" in the places humans would have them, they don't operate. They're just placeholders, because they just live with their Soul. So I've always thought the same with UT monsters, since the skelebros can live without organs, that means so do the rest of the monsters, even if they have animal-like appearances.

Off topic lmao. Back to UT. So, the Undyne fight was kind of the turning point for me. She was pissing me off so much during this whole game and like I was like "if theres another fucking part where I have to run away from her im going to scream." Well, once again, her name wasn't yellow, so I wasn't going to spare her... and, actively, I made the decision to kill her, because I didn't want to deal with her still chasing me later on in the game. It took me a long time to beat her, and when I did, I texted my friend (@cheshiregrinnbuttoneyes ) in excitment like "YES I FINALLY KILLED UNDYNE" and she texted back like "YOU DID WHAT?????" and i was like "i.... Killed Undyne????" she replies, "YOU DONT HAVE TO OMFG WHY" and im like "I DIDN'T HAVE TO?? THERE'S OTHER OPTIONS?????" and shes like "YES OMFG THAT'S LITERALLY THE PREMISE OF THE GAME" and im "WHAT."

So then. I get that call from Papyrus like. "HEY! YOU ME AND UNDYNE SHOULD HANG OUT SOMETIME!"

oh my god the guilt i felt.

alphys on undernet being like "omfg i forgot to watch undyne fight the human. ah ill ask her about it later she never loses <3"

bro. i nearly fuckin cried. i was like. Not to mention I'd gotten the crush question right for Mettaton's quiz in answering Undyne (bc i was like "plz be gay plz be gay") so it fucking cut like a knife what I'd done.

I don't remember when I let myself get passed it. But I do know that the whole story arc between Alphys and Mettaton went way over my head. Like, i know im probs the minority on this, but I adore Alphys, I have since I first met her in game, and like, when Mettaton was like "ALPHYS HAS BEEN LYING TO YOU!" i just went "...nah."

Also, I didnt like mettaton at this point, cause I thought he was being really obnoxious, and then the turn around to betray Alphys really kinda pissed me off.

But like.

Oh my god.

Remember how I said I swapped my opinion on Pap earlier bc of Sans's comment? Yeah that was a pretty fast turnaround, but it still took me a few times.

But the second i saw mettaton ex

I was like

"HIM. HE. HE'S THE ONE I LOVE."

Like, full turnaround from Undyne, I actively refused to kill him. All times I thought he was an asshole? Forgotten. Me thinking he's a selfish prick? Gone. Nada. Nothing. Pure adoration. Suddenly every flaw he had was pushed aside purely from how hot I thought he was. Also, fuckin, im really glad i played this when no one in my house was awake, because I still didn't understand the Act mechanic here, and every time you attack mettaton he has this like moan he does and im like oh my god. stop. omfg.

At the end, too, when there was the calls and everything, when he had his big turnaround, I was just so happy for him I genuinely cried. Also, I had to do his battle probably the most out of everyone's in the game (not including genocide), so when it came around to his battle during the (glitchless) speedruns i did, i was more invested in how fast I could rack up points, cause you need 10k rating points to pass, and I actually did get that before he lost his legs, but apparently he needed to lose those too before you passed lol. Unfortunate.

Anyway after Alphys talked to you and everything, i genuinely went to see if Mettaton was still there, but he wasn't :( so i just went to New Home. I was very ill prepared for the fight against Asgore and the only reason I struggled with it so much was because my only healing items were like. Something that healed like 10 or 12 hp and the snowman piece. I was LV 9 when i finished the game, so like, my HP was pretty high, but i didnt have the G to buy items, so i was pretty much fucked. Yes. I had to eat the snowman to win.

Oh speaking of terrifying shit though. Photoshop flowey? My god. I haven't been afraid of a video game boss so much since I was a little kid. It was like 3 am and i was not prepared for him to just delete my save file and then kill me on repeat, glitching and breaking everything as he pleased. Bruh i was genuinely scared. Like, not even just, "oh yikes :(" or something. Like, crying scared. Lmao im an emotional bitch by nature.

I of course had to restart from the beginning again to get the True Pacifist ending. I was very careful to never touch the Fight button literally ever. And, it actually took me a while to reset, because I hate erasing my original save files, yknow? But, well, as it turned out? While technically New Game+ by naming, resetting doesn't erase everything you did. It wasn't a new file. I was a little confused at first to be honest. Toriel saying things were familiar, remembering things I said, Papyrus and Undyne both recognizing me, like. It was unnerving.

When I got to the end, i had to look up how to get Alphys's date (since my friend told me the way to unlock TP was to go on all the dates, but Alphys's was definitely designed in mind of you turning around from New Home and going back to talk to people rather than a new reset. So after unlocking it, getting through Alphys's date (i still remember being like, verbally, "omg alphys you look so nice??" When she came out with the dress on and then had a thought to myself like... since when do i care about what people look like? since when do i compliment people? At that point, while I didn't consider myself to be a rude person, I definitely wasn't exactly all that concerned about others for anything. Sure, I cared about others' lives, but I tended to be a bit more judgemental internally, and just. Didn't really give a fuck about what people did in the most negative sense possible, unless it involved me. Yet, it rolled off my tongue like it was something id say normally to anyone. I really wonder if this is the true turning point for me this year.)

Getting to the end, with everyone cheering me on. Hoo boy. This was the start of many tears to come. Papyrus's "DO WHAT I WOULD DO! BELIEVE IN YOU!!" sticks with me the most. I wasn't surprised by Flowey's actions, but what fucking threw me for a loop was like. When Flowey was revealed as Asriel, I was genuinely jaw-drop shocked. I was like. Holy fuck. I thought he was dead. What the hell. To this day, though, i still think Hopes and Dreams hits me the hardest out of all the boss battle themes. It doesn't super bother me, bc like, difference in opinion is whatever, but like. Whenever I see Megalovania at the top of someone's ost list for Undertale I'm just... Why? Maybe it's because I'd overheard it meme'd to much before I played the game, but like, i dunno, it's not a bad song, but it's not the most emotional provoking piece for me, so it's pretty far down my list. Hopes and Dreams will still remain my #1.

I really did feel determined during this battle. I really felt a lot of emotion. I felt excited. I felt frightened. I felt ambitious. Asriel's battle is probably still the hardest for me, and yes, I'm counting genocide this time. I can't grasp his magic patterns at all, and I more so played it as a "okay, how much damage can i take? Whats his next move?" As i healed every other turn. It took me a very long time to beat him (though no 11 hours like Sans, this was more like, 2 or 3 max) and when I got to the part with the Lost Souls, most of the characters just said their "we hate you" piece and i was like "nope you're controlled" right.

But then there's Sans's "just give up. i did."

I genuinely had to stop. I set down my controller and just sat for a minute. I'd mentioned before how much I've been struggling with depression for years now, and it's at the worst it's been since high school. Maybe you'd think when I saw that, I was like "sure, maybe I should give up." But... It's really the "i did." that hit me like a rock to the stomach. While I do know a couple other people with depression, the most discussion we have with it is "haha i wanna die" kinda jokes yknow? Nothing really serious. And, well, I've always been the type to lean to fictional characters for support more than real people, since I've just been so disconnected from a lot of friends growing up and was too scared to talk about anything with my family.

So seeing someone else say "just give up. i did." hit me so fucking hard that I just started crying. I had already been in a real sappy mood cause the whole scene was so emotional as it was, even if merely the cliche of friendship will save all, y'know what? Its a good ass fuckin trope and makes me emotional lmao.

So, naturally, I was more hyperaware of Sans's implied depression from here onward. The conversations with everyone post-battle left me crying. God, so did the hug with Asriel. I was just fucking bawling.

Oh god. I didn't even mention. "Despite everything, it's still you." Another line that just hit me and I had to pause.

So admist my crying mess, I was telling my friend I'd beat Undertale again. He asks me "so... you gonna play the genocide route?" And I already had from the beginning. I always want to play every available route in a game. I see no point in paying for something and then not playing it all. I'd consider myself a completionist who doesn't ever actually finish anything lmao.

I definitely put my emotions aside for genocide. The absolute hardest kill for me was Papyrus, though. And i was absolutely fucking heartbroken when he said he still believed me as his last words. But I forced it aside. I didn't want to reset. I wanted to beat it to have it under my belt that I had. I was pretty sure the Sans battle would be here, since I hadn't heard Megalovania in the game yet, and I was aware of how hard the battle was, despite never seeing it.

Undyne's battle I'm more emotional about in retrospect than I was at the time. At the time, I didn't care, didn't like the theme much, and the dings gave me a headache. Undyne isn't exactly my favorite character (though definitely not my least favorite, that role is given to Frisk with Toriel not close behind ahdhsb im sorry), so I really wasn't concerned about it. Not to mention, I don't know why, but all of the battles I struggled with EXCEPT Undyne's I ended up liking the character more as a result. Maybe it was the dinging lmao.

Bro you shoulda seen how prepared I was for Mettaton NEO's battle to be hard as fuck. I was like sitting upright, took deep breaths before hitting fight, then when he died in one shot i just kind of "wh...what." Still very disappointed lol but I guess that's kind of the point of the genocide route.

Then came the Sans fight. As I said, I spent 11 hours on this. I genuinely didn't pay attention to what he said after a while, but I do remember the first time I read it, I was fucking terrified. Usually, sarcasm, hatred, and sass is very hard to convey through pure text, especially when it's said in the same tone as his usual talking. But the absolute harshness, the coldness, and the lack of any fucks given Sans had at that point was so plainly transparent through everything he said that it fucking scared me. Toby Fox's writing here was fantastic. I can only dream of being able to write like that. Frankly, I love his writing in general. Actually, fuck it, I love all of the artistic takes of this game. This is gonna sound weird but... The "childishness" of it just is so good. Like, there's no rules. Every socially accepted rule of art, writing, character design, speech patterns, and even basic grammar are thrown aside. He didn't just think outside of the box, there literally was no box. I call it childish only because like, children also create with no rules. They have no rules to restrict their creativity. And seeing that embraced in Undertale in every form possible just blows me away.

Anyway. The battle. It. Was hard. Thats a given. I spent about two weeks playing it on and off, and it's probably the most healthily I've treated myself in recent memory, because when it became too much for me to handle, I set it down and took a break. I would retain what I memorized and use it for the next time I picked it up. Frankly, it came to a point where every time I opened up Undertale to play, it was more just cause I wanted to see him lmao. The guy hated my existence at this point and it's not like i disacknowledged that. But it just felt like every time i opened the game... Idk. I don't know what I felt. I can tell you for sure this isn't the time when Sans started slipping into my favorite character spot over Mettaton, that didn't come until the development of Act to Flirt's first demo, which was a month or so later lmao.

I was very excited when I beat Sans.

But then, after it was over, I felt very empty.

I didn't feel good about beating genocide. I still don't. I want to play the boss battles again, cause they were really fun, despite how hard they were, but I can't bring myself to.

When I got to Chara, and everything went to black, I just wiped my save and started fresh. I think this was the first time I used the name "Willo" for anything. I just picked a random name to use, and Willo was the first thing that came to mind.

I beat neutral again many times, trying to unlock as many secrets as I could. I accidentally spent like, way too long trying to get Sans's room, because I couldn't figure out how to do it... which is when I started speedrunning the game, because I was just so used to going through it all. I timed myself once, and I got somewhere around 1:20:00 ish, which puts me at the very bottom of the NG+ Glitchless runs by like 30 minutes, but hey, it's still not too bad all things considered.

I'd started working on Act to Flirt sometime in between the speedruns. I was playing Papyrus's date again, and I had this thought of. What if Undertale... but all boss fights are instead like Papyrus's date?? I pitched the idea to my friend who was like "thats definitely been done before lol" and immediately I almost shut down the idea. But then I still had that glimmer of hope that, maybe, since I haven't made it yet, people would like my game because it was by me. Besides, quarantine was getting to me. I needed some way to spend my time. So on May 6th to May 7th, I spent the whole 24 hour period making the first proof of concept for the game, which was UI setup and Flowey's tutorial date. I hadn't made any of the art yet, so it was a black background with Flowey's undertale sprite. I originally was going to make everything more visual novel like in the sense that, so like on Papyrus's date, you could make choices like "unwrap the present" "dont unwrap the present" or "you look great" "you look terrible" and getting the ending would involve pretty much just saying the right things at the right times. But this alone was... Yknow, already done before, and part of what makes Undertale so great is that it's, despite its many outside influences, very unique in its gameplay. So I decided to make the dates more like puzzle-solving RPG's, and frankly, since doing that, I dont know if I want to go back to making other visual novels lmao.

After making the first demo and releasing it, I hit a creative funk. I wanted to make the next demo right away, but I forced myself to stop (since i was working 16+ hour days to finish it in exactly a week. I didn't eat much and i slept very little during this time too. Dont do this lmao). I didn't know if the game would be received, and frankly, I'd had many failed projects in the past due to lack of support. I lost a lot of support in the past due to the dropped projects I kept starting and quitting because I had such a small audience, and that made me lose a lot of interest and motivation to work on them. So I posted the first demo and waited. I was very shocked to have a YouTuber with over a million subs play it that weekend. Dantekris I think was her channel name. She speaks Russian, and I never understood a word she said, but I've still watched her let's plays because I enjoy seeing her reactions. I hate that YouTube keeps deleting my responses on her videos, probably because they're long and in English so it's marked as spam on a comments section full of purely Russian comments yknow. But it makes me feel like such an ass ;w;

Mairusu is the next large YouTuber who played it and my god I love seeing when he uploads a new update for my game because I genuinely have no idea what to expect from him. I don't know what it is but he's just so absolutely funny to me. He also seems to be the most common breaker of my game though. Stop making your own bugs!! I try to testplay to find the bugs he gets and it's like.... what did you do.... how did you skip that whole date im so confused thats not supposed to happen..... He accidentally skipped all of Muffet's date because of this too and hers is supposed to be the hardest in the game right now so I'm very upset by it;; i dont know how it happened, it never happens for me.

But like. I was definitely struggling a bit with the direction I wanted to take AtF. I wanted there to be a core message, like with Undertale and many other of my favorite things. When there's a core theme to write about, it makes things a lot easier to compose than if you have a plot with no meaning to it. It ties it all together for a common purpose. But, as I started diving more into the fandom around this time, finding not only it being still alive but still enormous and filled with passion.

Passion. Hm. That's familiar. That's the trait I gave the player character, rather than determination. While it was intended for giggles "haha dating game u have passion wink wonk," it started becoming more than that. It started becoming a manifestation of what I really felt upon finally soaking myself into the deep end of this pool I'd once been too afraid to step into. Passion. Everyone here is so driven by their passion for this game, the characters, its story. Everyone is so inspired and creative. That's it. That's what I wanted Act to Flirt to be.

A game made for those who have already dived deep into Undertale. A game made for those who have the same level if passion I've wittnessed. A game that someone might stumble upon, merely wanting any Undertale content they can find, and a dating sim leaves them grasping at straws, only to find it's a game instead deeply rooted in how much they care about this world and its people. You have a Soul of Passion, because your passion for Undertale brought you to this game. That's what the core message is. Every ending is supposed to depict different kinds of empathy, and True Passion shows you truly cared the most you could for all of these characters. Sans is so blocked from it because, well, how can he really believe it? "if we're really friends, you won't come back," right? But here you are. Again and again.

And Heartbreak. Whose heart is really the one breaking here? Taking the Hopes and Dreams of every single character you've grown to care for and crushing it beneath your feet... who is the one suffering in the end?

I just... I'm very excited. I've written that game with the player as the main character. Not Willo. Not Frisk. Not anybody else. You, the player, are the main character. I've honestly done a lot of looking around in the DDLC code to make this game as 4th wall breaking as I can (without like. Disrupting it as a game experience like ddlc is, with monika deleting things and stuff). Just enough to leave the player unsettled and confused. Like. "Me? Are you talking to me?" Yes. You. Directly to you.

I started sketching out designs and ideas for ULR around July. I genuinely loved Underlust after finding out about it, even though it was posed to me as an insult about the contents of Act to Flirt. I was both like "uh... Act to Flirt is nothing like this. Maybe in reversed roles at best but..." and also "okay but this? This shit is good. Thank you." But finding out it was discontinued and wanting more, well, that's when I decided to make ULR. I presented the idea to my friends, who were like "please stop making aus," and then continued onward. I told myself I wasn't going to work on it though until after I finished Act to Flirt... Then after the next demo came out... Then it turned out I was working on it too much and it resulted in me rushing my release of the 3rd demo of AtF because I'd been so distracted I was going to miss my release deadline of the end of August, before school. I... Still kinda regret that a lot. It's still very buggy. Though I hope I got them all for the next demo...

But speaking of school .... ha... Remember when i said i was going to transfer to another school? Well, I did, and for the first few weeks it was fine! Then I started skipping assignments I didn't want to do. Then I started panicking about my low grades. Then I started getting behind on assignments. Then I stopped going to classes. Then I lost all motivation to work on anything at all. I just locked myself in my room and did next to nothing with the occasional drawing here and there, for weeks. It came to the point where I was like "I just have to get through this semester, then I'll drop out." But if I ever wanted to go back to school, having all F's on my last report card would not bode well for my acceptance. Which lead to more stress. I didn't want to fail, but I also didn't have any motivation to work. I would do one assignment here or there, feel good about myself, then realize I was still months behind on work and suddenly oh god oh fuck finals are next week. And my solution? I just. Fuckin dropped out. Oh my god. It was such a relief to just get that weight off my shoulders that I'd been carrying for months on end, preventing me to do anything I wanted to work on.

Well. Then my car tires died. So that's a thing. But good news! Between commissions and gifts, I have enough money to get them replaced! I don't think I've ever like... Been so excited about that before.

And, well. Now I'm here, pretty much. God, I just went through my entire year summary, and it feels like it was both forever long but also not long at all. I don't get it. 2021 still feels like a far off future, despite the fact I'm now 5 hours into it. Yes, I spent 4 hours writing this. Whoops. Oh well. I couldn't sleep anyway, so it's not that big of a deal.

All in all though... Despite being locked inside, away from my friends, unable to talk to anyone about the things i was enjoying, and living in fear of getting sick at all ever with anything, 2020 definitely fuckin changed me for the better. It was a hellhole of a year and I'd never do it again or wish it upon my worst enemy, but I came out a better person... I think. I hope.

It seems cliche to bring back but fuck it. Undertale? My friend insists its core message was that anyone can be a good person if they just try, which I mean, it definitely probably was intended that way. But that never was the message I felt while playing it.

What lesson I took from it was "things aren't always as they seem."

Flowey betrays you immediately, but then you find out he's just the remnants of a boy who died years ago and is still grieving over the loss of his best friend, whomst, despite how much he cares for them, recognizes they weren't good to him and he'd been manipulated and used by them.

Toriel is a kind and caring woman, a still grieving mother over the loss of her children, who seems to have kindness to no end, but is actually filled with such hatred and depression that she regularly gets drunk, swears, and still, without resilience, hates her ex husband.

Sans is a playful character who is full of puns, a gross atmosphere, and decided to break physics just because he can. He's the embodiment of a comic relief character. But at the same time, he's suffering, struggling, in constant pain and worry. He's lazy, but quick on his feet. He's harmless but will kill without hesitation if need be. He's both caring and the least caring of them all.

Papyrus is like... a self-centered asshole in a way, when you first meet him. He prides himself and everything he does. Yet still, he's actually quite open and accepting and loves everyone. He loves talking with and being with other people, even if maybe sometimes he has a different interpretation of social interaction from the "norm."

Undyne comes off as cruel and deadly, such even being emphasized in many points. But, deep down, she's extremely caring for those who are close to her, and her only cruelty is dealt to those who have wronged her in some way.

Alphys is a sweet and nervous wreck who comes off as helpful and lacking a filter due to her tendency to ramble. She seems to be merely anxious due to likely social anxiety... But you eventually find out that she's a liar who merely wants to create a world to be a better place, and by doing so, she pretends all the bads do not exist.

Mettaton comes off as an absolute self-centered asshole. Like. There's no way around that. He seemingly has no regard for other people with only full intentions of helping himself. But, deep down, he actually cares a lot for other people, especially his family and friends, and just tends to get caught up in things while he's in the moment.

Muffet seems to be greedy with how much money she begs people to give her for the spiders, but, as it turns out, she's flat broke and drops no G when you beat or kill her. She merely needs the money to help the spiders.

Asgore, too, is built up to be this ruthless killer throughout the whole game, and when you finally meet him, he's an incredibly sweet guy who's only filled with regret, and because of his past decisions, has decided to put aside his hopes for the sake of his people.

I...

Didn't see any of these characters for who they really were right away. Why would I? Few of these archetypes are explored much in a lot of fiction lately, or at least what I've been consuming; and is more focused around how someone can change their flaws into something positive... Not how to accept someone for who they are, despite the wrongs they may have committed or the lives they lead. Everyone's different. Everyone's grown up differently. Everyone has a reason for what they do.

And it took me playing this game to realize such a simple concept that I probably should have learned years ago.

That's why I really think 2020 changed me for the better. I made a realization that I should have had many years ago, and it's made me a lot more confident in expressing myself, accepting people for what they do, and seeing the brighter side to everything. I say that, sitting here filled with nothing and void of all emotion whatsoever... But it's a conscious thought i have. My emotions are so weird... They're either on full blast or I feel nothing at all. But yet I have... Thoughts of what i should feel? It's weird. Idk. This is why I'm getting therapy LMAO

But yea. 2020? Fuck you. But also thank you. But mostly fuck you and good riddance lmao

#zircon rambles #a lot #lol #its very long im sorry #i spent way too long writing this too #also please don't reblog this

39 notes · View notes

schattenjagd · 5 years ago

Text

Hold on

A/N: This Oneshot/Songfic is my contribution to @xxwritemeastoryxx 1K Celebration Writing Challenge. Congratulations again ! I’m so happy for you :) So this has really turned out differently than I thought at first and maybe the length got a little out of hand, but I hope you like it. So, two weeks of work, two root canal treatments and a jaw abscess later we are finally here and you don't believe how happy I am. Oh, and I just have to say that english isn’t my native language. So sorry for any spelling or grammatical mistakes.

Prompt : “Please...stay.” (I will make it bold)

Word Count : 10.6K - Yeah, like I said : It maybe got a little teeny tiny bit out of hand.

Warnings : Angst, major character death, deadly disease Okay, this Fic is like the saddest I have ever written. If you are offended or triggered by any of these warnings, please read at your own risks.

Pairing : Elijah Mikaelson x Reader

This was inspired Chord Overstreet’s beautiful yet so sad song “Hold on”

youtube

Loving and Fighting

An icy cold went through Elijah when quietly opened the door to the intensive care unit and entered the room. It almost seemed as if a black veil was suddenly covering him.

His hands were shaking. It was a long time ago since they had last done it, but now they didn't want to stop. His whole body trembled at the thought of what awaited him.

Her quiet and weak heartbeat was drowned out by the shrill, constant beeping of the heart rate monitor and Elijah swallowed hard. Her heart had always been so strong, always so loud. Its tone had given him strength. But now that he heard it only so weakly, it seemed to have drained his strength.

She was no longer wearing the colorful dress she wore in the afternoon. In the shock room, it had been taken off and exchanged for a drab hospital gown. He could hear the rustling of her blood and his eyes fell on the pronule that she had on her left arm and with which she was given strong pain relievers.

He hadn't noticed that he had stopped. He looked at her closely and when he saw her like this, he felt like he had really failed for the first time in his life.

Slowly, he took a few steps across the room and quickly blinked the tears in his eyes away. He had to be strong now; strong for her.

He sat carefully on the edge of the bed and looked at her. Her face looked cramped and sunken. Her otherwise red lips were dry and pale, as was her skin. The sight frightened him. She looked so weak so ... lifeless.

He cautiously reached for her hand and stroked gentle circles on the back of it hand with his thumb. He timidly heard her heart beating faster and saw her move a little.

"Hey," he said softly as he watched her eyelids start to flicker. It seemed to be an act of strength for her and yet he felt her gently squeeze his hand.

,,You are here."

Her mouth was dry and it was difficult for her to even say a few words at all, but she smiled when she could feel his presence and forced herself to open her eyes slowly. Slowly she turned her head and finally looked at him from cloudy, y/e/c eyes.

"Yes," he replied, and the corners of his mouth also rose a little. ,,I wont leave you."

I can‘t imagine a world with you gone

The music was loud. Way too loud.

The courtyard was illuminated by cool blue and purple lamps. People strolled through the courtyard in extravagant robes, waving their overpriced champagne in their hand and chatting with other important people.

The short version was that Y/N wished to be anywhere else, just not here. Parties had never been her thing and never would be. The only reason she was here was her old student friend Cami, whom she had met during her semester abroad in New York. And now that Y/N had recently moved to New Orleans, Cami hadn't missed the opportunity to let her know about its nightlife. However, she didn’t expect that with “nightlife” she meant such an extravagant party for the super rich.

,, Ow, don’t make that face. Come on, have a drink. "

"I don't make a face," denied Y/N and let her friend give her a glass of champagne. "I just should have known where you were going to take me when I saw the dress."

Y/N looked demonstratively down at herself and looked briefly at the long, burgundy and tight-fitting dress with the slit on the side that flattered her figure. She brushed a strand of her y/ h/c hair from her face, which had loosened itself from the elaborate up-do, and sipped on the expensive but extremely bitter champagne.

"I hope this Klaus is worth it," she grumbled and Cami gave her a warning look.

"It's not because of him," she said a little too quickly and Y/N grinned to herself.

"Of course not," she murmured instead and was left shortly afterwards when her friend had spotted said acquaintance and disappeared.

"No, of course it's not because of him," Y/N said to herself as she looked after her friend and sighed. Looked like she was the one to fil the gap for the time when Klaus wasn't there to keep Cami busy.

Instead, Y/N went looking for the bar and was happy that free drinks appeared to be a high priority for the rich.

"Whiskey on ice, please," she ordered from the bartender, put her half-full champagne glass on the bar and smoothed her dress.

"The same for me, please."

She squinted at what she was doing when she heard a deep male voice only a few yards away. He looked good, even she had to admit that. He was wearing a suit, had one hand casually in his pocket, and was leaning against the bar with the other.

"The champagne does not seem strong enough for you", he noted,, looking over at her.

Y/N looked back and sipped the drink she had just received. "Unfortunately not nearly."

"You don't seem to enjoy the celebrations as much as many others here," he said and now turned completely to her, leaning his side against the counter.

"No, you're right," she agreed, taking another sip of her drink. "I'm afraid I'm playing in a different league than yours."

Y/N had already noticed because of his suit and how it flattered his well-built body that he must be one of those super rich who attended such a party every week.

"You accommodated yourself very well for that," he replied, and Y/N could see the slight twitch of the corners of his mouth as he eyed her from top to bottom and let his eyes slide over her dress. She blushed.

"Thank you, then I did everything right, I guess," she laughed softly and took another sip.

"I'm sure of that," he smiled, taking a quick look around the crowd. ,, But I am curious: Others would commit murders for an invitation. Why don't you ? "

,, I ? Murdering for something like this ? Certainly not,” waved Y/N off. ,, So, the music. It is much too loud and ... inappropriate ? I don’t know. And the champagne. A bottle probably costs as much as my car, and yet it tastes just like the cheap one from the gas station, which always makes me sick.”

In her heated list she didn’t notice how he listened to her attentively, not taking his eyes off of her and the corners of his mouth rising further with each of her words.

"To be honest, I'd much rather sit in front of my TV in my pajamas and watch some junk. Excuse my directness, but it’s just exactly like that. "

When she finally looked back at him after all, she misinterpreted his grin. ,, Oh my god, I didn't mean to offend you. That was totally rude, that ... "

"It's alright," he calmed her down and took a sip of his whiskey. ,,Everyone has their own opinion. I am not a friend of big celebrations myself, my brother sees it differently. But from time to time those are necessary. "

Y/N nodded, she understood. In today's world, splendid parties weren’t only there for fun, but also to make new contacts or maybe find and convince trading partners.

"I am Elijah."

Her eyes darted back to him and he could see the y/e/c flashing briefly. She gave him a bright smile and took his hand. "Y/N, it’s nice to meet you, Elijah."

"The pleasure is mine."

He also smiled sincerely at her and Y/N actually got a little dizzy. Well, the man in front of her was handsome, charming, nice ... What more could a woman want ?

"Mister Mikaelson ?"

And he was the organizer of this party.

Y/N's smile slipped from her face and she couldn't put it back there when she saw another man in a suit approaching Elijah.

Her eyes widened in shock and she looked at him in panic as he turned back to her. ,, It was a pleasure to meet you, Y/N. And thank you for your honesty, ” he replied charmingly and by no means unkindly. As if in a trance, she watched him blow a kiss on the back of her hand and then disappear into the crowd. Frozen, she looked after him.

"I see, you got to know Klaus’ brother. "

"Yes, after telling him that I think his party is shit."

Cami laughed next to her and sipped her champagne glass. "You couldn't keep your mouth shut. I should’ve known," she laughed.

,, He’s one of them. But he doesn’t look like them. "

"Like an Original vampire ?"

Y/N shook her head and watched Elijah talk seriously to the man who had just interrupted their conversation. "Not in the slightest."

Cami just shrugged and emptied the rest of her glass. ,,What can I say ? You are a witch. Nothing should really surprise you anymore. "

Y/N just swallowed and looked at her friend with a frown, turned back to the bar. "Okay, now I need something really strong."

The joy and the chaos, the demons we‘re made of

That evening was a long time ago. When Y/N woke up that morning, she was awakened by the jazz music that flew through the open window from the streets into the bedroom. She blinked a few times and looked around briefly as she opened her eyes fully.

She was lying in a big bed, wrapped in a soft duvet with an even softer pillow.

When she tried to turn on her back, she became aware of the strong arms that were wrapped around her waist and which pressed her tightly against him.

Y/N smiled and turned carefully in his arms.

Elijah was still sleeping, but he didn't seem to want to let her go even in his sleep. Carefully, she raised a hand to brush a strand of hair from his face and looked at the brunette. They had danced around each other for a long time now, had never come closer; the family had always been a higher priority for Elijah. It was a chaos of feelings. Until Esther captured him. She didn't know what she had let him see, but he had been different when he returned yesterday.

Y/N smiled slightly at the feel of his skin on hers and drawed gentle patterns on his chest with her fingers, closing her eyes.

She opened her eyes when she felt him quickly grabbing her hand and stopping her by planting a kiss on her fingertips.

Slowly, she raised her head and smiled. "How long have you been awake ?"

"Long enough to know how you looked at me."

He also opened his eyes at his words, gently looked down at her, which only made her smile wider. She raised her head and squinted at the old clock between the windows. Y/N groaned in agony.

,,What ?"

"My shift in the hospital starts in two hours," she sighed, dropping her head back onto his chest. "I have to go."

,,I do not think so."

Her eyes fell back to Elijah while he wrapped his arms around her and pulled her towards him. Y/N laughed when he let his fingertips dance across her waist and breathed gentle kisses on her neck. "Elijah, I'm serious, as much as I would like to stay here in this bed, I have to go to work."

"Hmh," he just agreed and put his lips on hers and caught her in a hot and steaming kiss. Y/N involuntarily groaned when she let his tongue in and when she could feel something pressing against her stomach.

Half an hour later, Y/N groped barefoot through the old halls of the Mikaelson estate. She had slipped pn Elijah's white shirt from the night before and was looking for her top that she had lost on the way to his bedroom last night.

"So, you're the woman my brother gave his heart to."

Y/N paused at the unmistakable accent. The door next to her was open and she could see Klaus standing in front of an easel with a painting brush in his hand. She swallowed briefly when she remembered that she was actually only wearing panties and Elijah's shirt, but remained confident in the doorframe.

“Seems so. Any problems with that ?"

"Actually, yes."

Y/N involuntarily took a breath and frowned as the hybrid slowly walked towards her. "And that would be ?" She asked bravely.

He just gave her a mild smile. “Even if you witches are very good at nighttime activities - and you are, judged by the sounds you and my brother made last night and just now - you're a pain in the ass. "

Y/N smiled mildly. She knew about Klaus' Mikaelson's aversion to witches and had already been prepared for something like that. From the moment that Cami introduced her to him and he learned what she was, he had been against her. Klaus Mikaelson hated witches even though he his daughter was one.

"I know you aren't particularly addicted to witches," she replied carefully. "But I have no bad intentions towards your family, believe me."

"Yes, if Celeste DuBois had told me, I would have believed her, too."

Y/N's eyes narrowed. She knew who this witch was, had helped to kill her herself, and yet Klaus didn't trust her in the least. She turned to walk away, but his voice stopped her.

"You don't know about the red door, do you?"

Y/N paused. Slowly, she took a step back and looked again from the door frame to Klaus, who smiled contentedly. "The red door," he continued when he saw her look. ,, All my brother's demons; all the people he killed. The victims, all the suffering he has done. "

Y/N opened her mouth and closed it again. She knew what this was going to be. Klaus wanted to unsettle and intimidate her. But Y /N had known who she was dealing with from the start and the man she had fallen in love with.

"I know about all of this," she lied, proudly raising her chin. ,,I know what you're trying and it won't work, Klaus. I'm not one of those gullible, weak, little witches."

When her tone got a little too sharp, he took another few steps towards her. "Is that supposed to be a threat, love ?"

Y/N swallowed and looked up at him. She concentrated, looked him straight in the eye. Satisfied, she noticed how beads of sweat began to form on his forehead. Klaus gasped, his eyes widening slightly as his blood started to boil.

,,No of course not. For such a pain in the ass like me, it's really foolish to threaten the Original Hybrid, isn't it? "

He struggled for words and the two were only interrupted when Y/N heard the footsteps behind them.

,,That's enough now. Niklaus, Y/N. "

Klaus gasped abruptly as he got cool again and Y/N broke eye contact when she looked behind her at Elijah.

The relationship between her and Klaus Mikaelson had always been ... special.

Elijah held the top she was looking for in her hand and she quickly took it from him and disappeared back towards his bedroom. She didn't hear Elijah's words to his brother: "If she gets hurt, she dies, if she catches a fever, if she gets bitten, she gets hit by lightning, anything - anything happens to her, brother, you will pay for it. "

I‘d be so lost if you left me alone

Many months later, Y/N left the hospital where she worked at exhausted and overtired. Her feet ached and killed her. An emergency heart operation had given her a 36-hour shift and she just wanted to sleep.

Exhausted, she climbed up the stairs to her apartment, kicked the now uncomfortable sneakers off her feet after she closed the apartment door behind her and threw her handbag into the next corner. When Y/N took off her jacket and hung it on the coat hook, she paused. It smelled of ... food.

She raised her eyebrows in confusion and groped across the hall into the living room. On the dining table were two plates of pasta that seemed to be still hot. A slight smile crept onto her lips when she recognized Elijah. He was standing with his back to her leaning over the kitchen counter. But when he turned to her, her heart skipped a beat and the smile disappeared. She swallowed hard.

There was pain in his eyes. She could see it, see how hurt and disappointed he was. He lifted the package insert of the pills on the kitchen counter and pointed to it. "I found these when I was looking for matches."

Y/N glanced for a split second to the candles that were on the table and then back to Elijah. Her heart contracted painfully at the sight of him and she could feel the tears coming up.

"When did you want to tell me ?"

Y/N swallowed and took a few steps towards him. She reached for his hands, but he pulled back. A stab in her heart. She could hear the pain in his voice and hated herself for being the source of it. She took a deep breath and didn't know what to say. She wanted to scream and cry at the same time.

She carefully arranged her words. "I got the diagnosis shortly after I met you at the party."

Elijah swallowed, looked at the half-empty pills pack on the kitchen shelf. He kept his eyes down, but he could see the tears that had formed in her eyes.

She licked her dry lips. ,, My mother has already died because of it. Actually, it skips a generation in our family but ... "

"How much time do you have left ?"

Y/N fell silent. She hadn't been prepared for this question and when she became aware of the answer, she pressed her lips together in a thin line. A telltale tear rolled down her cheeks and more followed. She bit her lower lip to keep herself from sobbing and the only thing she could do was shrug her shoulders. "I - I don't know ...", she brought out with difficulty and more tears followed. "It was recognized too late and the only thing that keeps me on my feet are these," she pointed to the pills. ,, There is no cure and ... I don't know, Elijah. I - I have no idea. I don’t know."

"Hush," he said reassuringly, pulling her close as her body began to shake and tears ran down her cheeks uncontrollably. Her fingers reach for his vest for help and she closed her eyes. He could hear her sobbing and every further one was another stab in his heart.

"I didn't want to tell you anything because ...", she started and was interrupted by another sob. "I - I didn't want you to only see this disease in me then."

Y/N looked up when she felt him brush a strand of hair from her face and behind her ear. "I could never do that."

Y/N smiled sadly, but she could see the pain that had cast a dark shadow on his face.

Elijah closed his eyes when he hugged her tightly. He breathed in her smell, that fine scent of lavender and vanilla and he put a hand comfortingly on the back of her head, placed a loving kiss on her head.

The prospect of not being able to do all this anytime soon frightened him. He would never be able to smell her smell again, never again would he feel her soft skin or lips on his, never again could he hold her. He felt that someone had torn his heart out and for the first time in his life he thought he knew what all the victims he had done this to had felt. The woman in his arms would die. He didn't know when yet, but she would and he thought he was cursed. Tatia, Katerina, Celeste ... All the women he loved died. Loving him was a death sentence. And now, the first woman he saw at his side in eternity was doomed to die. With all the dangers like werewolves, Mikael, Esther, Dhalia, the Strix ... A deadly disease seemed almost ridiculously primitive, and yet it reminded Elijah of the incredible vulnerability of humans.

"I'll find a way," he said as he buried his face in her y/ h/c hair, so Y/N couldn't see the tear that escaped one of his eyes.

She smiled at his confidence. ,, There is no way, Elijah. No vampire blood, no back door, no loophole."

"You won't die," he replied firmly. "And if I can't move heaven ..."

"... I will raise hell."

You locked yourself in the bathroom Lying on the floor when I break through

The mood in the past few weeks had been tense. A new force and new enemies of the Mikaelson had risen from the darkness and were now chasing the family.

Y/N had been living in the Mikaelson estate for a long time now, Elijah had insisted that he could "protect" her better this way. But Y/N was sure that there were other advantages that he derived from the fact that they now lived together. She always successfully repressed the thought that it was because they had already been allowed too much time together and instead put it down to the fact that she could help them with her witch skills.

While Elijah and Klaus were out, she was sitting with Freya in the fireplace room over a stack of old grimoires when the two heard a rumble in the courtyard. Both women looked up in alarm and Y/N's eyebrows raised suspiciously. "I thought you’d cast a boundary spell."

"I did."

Y/N swallowed hard and got up - just like her friend -, following her out of the room into the gallery. She walked quietly after the blonde, careful not to make a sound.

,,Find them ! Now !"

Y/N's blood froze in her veins when she heard a man's deep voice and then the steps of the vampires hurrying up the stairs to the first floor.

"Damn it," Freya swore, immediately turned and pushed Y/N in front of her, towards the nursery, in which little Hope had already started to cry.

Silently, Y/N let the blonde allow, pushed open the door to the nursery and Freya locked it behind them.

Y/M immediately turned to the little girl, carefully lifting her out of bed and rocking her to and fro in her arms. "It’s alright, hush," she said reassuringly and gave Freya a troubled look. "How did they break the spell ?"

"I have no idea, but now we have other problems," Freya replied and looked around the room.

"What do you think, how many are down there ?"

Freya shrugged. ,, Maybe a dozen. I couldn't see much. "

,,And what do we do now ?"

"We won't let ourselves be killed until my brothers arrive."

Y/N frowned. ,,You gotta be kidding me."

"We have to get Hope out of here safely. I distract them, you take her and hide. Protect my niece."

Y/N looked suspiciously at her friend. She didn't like her plan and she had a bad gut ffeling, apart from the dizziness that has haunted her since the vampires surfaced and her body was on alert.

Y/N had no way to say anything against the other witch's plan, because in the same second the first vampire burst through the door, that shattered under its weight.

"Now !" Freya called, dodging the attacking vampire and ramming a wooden pole through his back into his heart.

Y/N looked wide-eyed at her for a moment, then took off running when she realized that she had a small, helpless child in her arms.

She disappeared through the side door into Klaus' adjoining bedroom. The rest of the vampires, spurred on by Freya, rushed into Hope's nursery while Y/N ran through the hallways of the property, trying to calm the little girl on her arm and find a safe hiding place.

And then she heard footsteps in the hallway. She cast a panicked look over her shoulder, couldn't see the vampire who was apparently on her heels, and with luck, she hadn't been spotted. Nevertheless, Y/N quickly opened the next best door and found herself in one of the old guest rooms. Looking around in panic, she saw the door to the adjoining bathroom and disappeared into it.

The bathroom was small and old, but at first it seemed safe. Y/N carefully placed the toddler on the floor. She closed her eyes in submission when she heard the door to the bedroom open again.

She was afraid of what was to come and briefly rubbed Hope's cheeks. The little one had become calm now and was looking at Y/N with big gesture eyes, almost as if she understood what was going on.

Y/N took a deep breath, crouched, and left the bathroom.

"I think you took the wrong room."

Y/N looked around. A pencil lay on the old, dusty desk. Maybe it could help her.

The vampire in front of her grinned broadly and slightly shook his head. ,,I don’t think so."

At the same time, his eyes grew darker and the veins under them became visible. Y/N had just enough time to took a step away when he rushed towards her - but he caught her anyway. She flew in a high arc through the room and landed on the desk that gave in under her weight. A sharp pain went through her spine when she painfully hit the floor and the splinters of wood pierced her back uncomfortably. Desperately, Y/N tried to drive the blackness out of her field of vision and gasped. Hope had started to cry again.

Dazed, Y/N had to watch the vampire straighten up and walk slowly towards the bathroom door.

She clumsily raised one arm and made a sweeping, swift gesture, whereupon the vase on the old wooden chest hit the vampire's head with a muffled sound.

Y/N struggled to her feet. "Don't you dare touch her."

The vampire grunted deeply and angrily while the laceration on the back of his head slowly healed and he turned to face her. "That was your death sentence, witch."

Y/N pressed her lips together, could barely raise one hand when the vampire started to attack her again. He cringed painfully when this throbbing pain in his head became unbearable and one aneurysm after another burst.

Y/N quickly took a few steps back, looking around. She would have to get past him to get to Hope's and into the bathroom and to be able to entrench them there. Her eyes fell to the broken desk and the large pieces of wood. But before she even put foot in that direction, she felt a hand wrapping around her ankle and yanking her off her feet. Again, she hit the ground hard and this time it wasn’t so easy to get the blackness out of her sight.

She screamed angrily, turned to her back, but the vampire was already over her. His fist whipped down on her jaw and Y/N’s sight went black again. She gasped as a throbbing pain spread through her jaw.

"A real waste," said the vampire, pulling her into a sitting position, causing Y/N to groan in pain. She could see how he was looking at her, how the pulsating veins were slowly visible under his eyes and she widened her eyes.

"No," she pleaded weakly, and immediately cried out in pain when she felt his sharp teeth pierce the delicate skin on her neck. Her skin burned like fire and she could feel the pressure in her carotid artery as the vampire slowly sucked the life out of her. No, she definitely won’t get killed by a vampire now, certainly not.

Resolutely, she drove the dancing asterisks out of sight, hit the vampire wildly with one hand, and groped for a piece of the desk with the other. And her heart skipped a joyful beat when she actually felt a long piece of wood in her hand. She gripped it tightly, raised it and shortly thereafter the wood pierced the heart of the vampire, who was only gurgling now. His eyes widened, his skin slowly turning gray.

Y/N gasped, pressed her hand onto the bleeding wound on her neck, and tried to control her pulse. Her heart pumped her blood through her body at three times the speed of panic, and it was a miracle that her already weakened body hadn’t given up yet.

Hope. She abruptly stood up, staggered helplessly for a few moments until she regained her balance, and then staggered toward the bathroom door. With a shaky finger, she opened the door and pushed it shut behind her shortly thereafter.

She instantly took the little girl in her arms again. ,, Hush, everything is fine. It’s alright, ”calmed Y/N/N Hope and then turned to the door. While she held the girl with one hand, she directed the other towards the door. "Apné sà mene," she casted the room isolation spell, which was supposed to protect her and the child from the rest of the vampires. ,, Apné sà mene. Apné sà mene. "

Y/N swallowed at the returning dizziness. The spell had worked, she knew that. If their enemies have no witch on their side, she and Hope would be safe in here. She anxiously blinked several times to drive the blackness out of her sight. That wasn’t good, definitely not. This excitement, the fight with the vampire, the loss of blood, now the exertion by this spell. It was too much for her weakened body.

"We sit down, okay ?" Y/N spoke lazily to Hope in her arms, held her tightly and then went down to the floor, leaning lazily with her back against the bathtub. Suddenly she was incredibly tired. There was nothing she could do about it when her hand, which she had pressed on the bite wound on her neck, fell down to her side. She was just glad that she was holding Hope tightly and that she was safe.

Already when Klaus and Elijah saw the main door, which was wide open, they sprinted into the courtyard. About a dozen vampires lay motionless on the cold ground. Someone must have broken their necks. The two brothers could hear fighting noises from the second floor.

,,For God's sake."

Elijah looked at the lifeless vampires at his feet with his eyes wide open before he heard the sounds of the fight.

"They’re in Hope’s nursery," the brunette stated, when his brother had already let out a deep growl and was gone. Elijah quickly followed him, repressing the panic fear that threatened to spread inside him. Nothing should have happened to her.

When Elijah arrived in the door frame, Klaus was already holding the heart of a vampire, whose head was rolling over the wooden floor, in his hand.

"It's great that you finished your Sunday stroll," the blood-soaked blonde said when she saw her two brothers.

,,Where’s my daughter ?"

,, Y/N fled with her. I don’t know where they are."

Elijah's heart skipped a beat and he and his brother exchanged a look before Klaus burst out of the devastated children's room.

"Y/N !" He screamed so that it echoed through the old walls of the building and trudged off, Elijah was close on his heels.

Elijah swallowed hard, looked around in search. She couldn't have run down the stairs to the main portal, that would have been too dangerous. He knew Y/N, knew that she wouldn't do anything that would endanger Hope’s welfare. No, she must still be in the property, looking for somewhere safe to hide with his niece. And for the first time in his life, he prayed. He prayed that they were alright.

"Y/N !" Klaus called again and was forced by his brother to stop. He glowed at him.

"What is it, Elijah ? ..."

Just when the hybrid wanted to add something, Elijah held up a hand and Klaus fell silent. Now he was listening carefully, too.

A whimper was carried to them quietly, very quietly. Elijah swallowed. It was his niece who made this sound and he closed his eyes for a moment.

,,Here."

Klaus started to move with vampire speed, Elijah followed his brother through the several corridors to the open door of an old guest room.

Perplexed, the brunette stopped in the door frame. The room was completely devastated. The shards of an old vase were scattered all over the floor, the old desk was now just wood splinters and a dead vampire was lying in the middle with a piece of said wood in his heart. There was an unpleasantly penetrating smell of blood in the air and Elijah's heart contracted painfully. He inflated his nostrils. It was her blood, no doubt. He saw the drops of blood that led to the bathroom like breadcrumbs and clenched his hands into fists.

Klaus wasn’t in the slightest interested, his thoughts were all about his daughter, whose whimper was dampened by the locked door of the bathroom.

"Y/N ?!" He called and wanted to bang on the door, but barely touching it, he flew across the room and landed between the remains of the desk. "Tell your girlfriend to break her barrier spell," Klaus growled angrily.

Elijah hurried to the door too, but didn't touch it. "Y/N ?" He asked carefully, listening intently. ,,It’s alright, it’s me."

"Freya !" Niklaus meanwhile called his sister in the background ,whose hasty steps Elijah could already hear.

"Y/N ?" Asked the brunette once again, but he didn't get an answer. His fingernails pierced painfully in the heel of his hand as he continued to clench his hands into fists. If anything had happened to her, she would have been ... He swallowed hard.

"Y/N, I beg you, open the door," he continued to plead and briefly closed his eyes. Something worried him so that he fell silent. Klaus, who misinterpreted his brother's behavior, narrowed his eyes and came up to him, looking at him questioningly.

Suddenly, Elijah's heart pumped his blood through his veins at three times the speed and his chest rose and fell rapidly. No, it couldn't be. Not her, not ...

"I only hear one heartbeat."

Klaus' pushed the pent up air out of his lungs and looked at his brother with wide eyes. He added up one and one. His daughter was crying and alive on the other side of the door, but Y/N’s blood led the brothers straight to the bathroom. That meant ... He closed his eyes, devotedly.

"Freya !" Elijah for the first time cried. He was desperate. He had no way to get to her as long as the barrier spell was working. He wasn’t be able to help her. "Freya !"

"I'm here, I'm here," the blonde hurried into the room.

"I ... I can't hear her heartbeat. She spoke a barrier spell. I have to get to her. "

Freya gave her brother a brief look with wide eyes, but then nodded, carefully pushing him to the side and raising her hands to the door, closing her eyes.

Elijah nervously watched his sister's lips moving, but he couldn't hear what she was saying. His thoughts only revolved around Y/N and this panicked fear of having lost her now. He couldn't think clearly anymore, he could ...

,,Broken."

As soon as Freya had taken a step back, Elijah shot forward, but the door was still locked. He took a few steps back and then threw his entire body weight against the door, whereupon the lock gave way and he stumbled into the room, followed by Niklaus.

When he saw her, he held his breath. Blood kept flowing from the bite on her neck. One of her hands, covered in blood, lay on the floor beside her. She had slid to the side, lay motionless in the corner, but one of her arms were wrapped tightly around little Hope, as if she still wanted to protect her by all means.

Her jaw was swollen and her lip had split open. Her skin was pale and her eyes closed. She didn't move.

I pull you in to feel your heartbeat Can you hear me screaming „Please don‘t leave me“ ?

,,No no no no."

Elijah dropped to his knees, while Klaus picked up his daughter and soothingly stroked her head. Meanwhile, Elijah pushed up the sleeve of his shirt, bit his wrist without another thought. His blood quickly flowed out of the wound and ran down his wrist, dripping onto the cold tiled floor.

He carefully lifted a hand and placed it on the back of her head, pressing his wrist against her pale, full lips.

"Please," he pleaded softly and briefly closed his eyes. He could feel his blood running down her throat, but she didn't swallow. "Please don't leave me."

Quietly, very quietly, he heard her blood roaring in her veins and ... a single heartbeat. Elijah suddenly looked up, looked at her. He carefully brushed a y/h/c strand of hair from her face and hopefully looked at her. He watched how the wound on her lip slowly closed. The swelling of her jaw faded and the bite became smaller and smaller with every second until it completely disappeared.

Hold on I still want you Come back I still need you

,,Please..."

He kept stroking his thumb over her cheek, waiting, praying, pleading. But nothing happened. She didn't move. He could hear her quiet heartbeat, but the silence in between them was still too long.

"The vampire blood is working, why doesn't she wake up ?" Freya asked, also concerned, and Klaus gave her a quick look. He comfortingly weighed his daughter in his arms, gave her a kiss on top of her head, but he had a dark guess. He would never admit it, but his heart ached when he saw his brother on the floor, in front of him, the woman he loved. Elijah had his head down, his eyes closed.

Klaus swallowed. "It healed all the injuries it was able to heal."

Elijah slowly opened his eyes when his brother's words came to him. Niklaus was right. Vampire blood did not heal all injuries. If he was actually right, then ...

Elijah's head immediately went up. He got up, wrapped an arm around Y/N's waist and lifted her into his arms. "We have to take her to the hospital."

"I'll get the car," Klaus nodded, handed Hope to his sister, and then left the room with vampire speed.

When Elijah stepped out of the courtyard with Y/N in his arms, Klaus braked the big off-road vehicle in front of the entrance portal, got out and opened the car door to the back seat for his brother so that he could get in with Y/N. No sooner he had closed the door than his brother depressed the accelerator pedal.

A long endless highway, you‘re silent beside Drivin‘ a nightmare I can‘t escape from

Elijah held her tightly in her arms. None of this was allowed to happen. It was like an inevitable nightmare from which seemed to be no escape and Elijah wanted to wake up. He wanted it so much.

He didn’t hear Niklaus swearing loudly when a small Fiat 500 twitched down the road ahead of them, taking all time in the world, and he did not hear him honking loudly and then overtaking it - to the disapproval of the oncoming traffic.

None of this was allowed to happen yet. The time was not ripe, they hadn't had enough. She was the woman he wanted spend eternity with and now she was going to die ? That was a bad joke. It had to be. Even their enemies couldn’t have imagined anything more cruel than the terrible reality did.

Helplessly praying, the light isn't fadin' Hiding the shock and the chill in my bones

He gently stroked a strand of hair out of her face and examined her face closely. Everything had to be fine. He couldn't lose her, he couldn't.

The two brothers had been flashed at least twice on the way to the hospital, but they didn't care when Klaus braked hard in front of the emergency room and several paramedics looked up in alarm.

Niklaus got out, opened the door to the back seat and Elijah climbed out of the car with Y/N in his arms.

"We need help !" He shouted as loud as he could and some of the paramedics were already hurrying towards them.

"Everything is going to be fine," he whispered softly as he looked down at Y/N, who was still motionless in his arms. The sight made him terrified. He had never seen her so weak, so lifeless, as if the vampire had sucked all life out of her, despite the vampire blood that had healed the most serious injuries.

They took you away on a table I pace back and forth as you lay still

Meanwhile, Elijah hurried straight to the emergency room. Some nurses met him with a table.

"Put her here."

He did as he was told. He carefully her on it and swallowed hard when he saw her lying there. He was caught up in his personal nightmare from which was no escape. His hands had started to shake and he clenched them into fists to stop them. Y/N was immediately surrounded by several nurses and a doctor.

"What happened ?" the doctor asked. That was the question of all questions.

,, She has a serious disease. Dr. Pace is responsible for her,” Elijah just replied. "I found her like this."

They pull you in to feel your heartbeat Can you hear me screaming, "Please don't leave me"

"Weak pulse," another nurse noted. Elijah's eyes suddenly flew to her and the doctor also turned to the nurse. The brunette didn't notice how his brother pulled the doctor to the side. He only had eyes for the woman he loved.

"Listen," Klaus said meanwhile and his pupils dilated when he made eye contact with the doctor. ,, I want you to do everything possible to keep this woman alive. Everything. No matter how much the drugs cost, you give them to her. "

The doctor swallowed and then nodded quickly. “Of course."

Meanwhile, like in a trance, Elijah watched them push Y/N away. He wanted to go after her, but two nurses stopped him. He didn't have the strength to manipulate them, and frankly, he didn't know if it would be that good. Her life was in the hands of the doctors now.

The large double door closed and the corridor in which they had followed the doctor's staff had become quiet. It was dead silent.

He just stared at the door, tried to hear something, but the doors didn't let a single sound pass.

He weakly dropped into one of the hard chairs at the wall, just staring straight ahead at the gray hospital floor. Only now did he notice the blood on his hands - her blood. His hands trembled uncontrollably and he could only stare at them.

Almost startled, he winced when he felt his brother's hand on his shoulder.

"Elijah ?" It was rare for Klaus' voice to sound so careful and gentle, but his brother didn't respond. His mind was a mess that he was no longer able to organize.

"She is strong," the blonde continued and dropped onto the chair next to his brother. ,, Stronger than most people ... and witches. She won't give up without a fight. "

Elijah just nodded absently and Klaus swallowed hard. He felt a sting in his heart when he saw his brother sitting there; like a heap of ashes and only because the woman he loved was in mortal danger. He was almost surprised, when he heard his voice after some minutes of silence.

"I can't lose her, Niklaus," he said in a rough voice and when he looked at his brother for the first time, his eyes were red. ,, Not her. Just ... not her. "

"You won’t lose her," Klaus assured him, but he also knew that he could not promise anything.

Hold on I still want you Come back I still need you

It took full two hours. Two hours during which the entire corridor in front of the intensive care unit had been occupied by the Mikaelson clan.

After walking uneasily up and down the corridor for an hour, Rebekah had persuaded him and he finally sat down on a chair again, holding his head down and supporting it with his hands. Hayley was sitting opposite him with Freya, Klaus was leaning against the wall next to them with his arms crossed and Rebekah had leaned her head back against the wall beside Elijah and was staring at the white concrete wall.

When the door to the intensive care unit opened again that day, everyone present hopefully looked up. And this time, Elijah's heart beat a little faster when he recognized Y/N's doctor, who was now approaching them.

,,How is she ?"

Elijah immediately got up and expectantly looked at her. He still hoped that anything, any luck, could save her. His siblings had also expectantly sat up and listened intently.

Dr. Pace, however, wiped her dry lips and glanced at Elijah's siblings before turning back to him. She was looking for the right words. "She's not stable, but she's in no pain," she started slowly. ,,Mr Mikaelson, I don't want to lie to you. Her vital signs are miserable and her body is very weak. I am afraid that your fiance will not make it ... "

Elijah inhaled sharply, abruptly looked away from the doctor and swallowed hard. There was nothing he could do about the tears that drove into his eyes by themselves and made his field of vision glaze over. He ran a shaky hand over his face. He felt Rebekah's hand dull on his shoulder and heard the doctor's further words as if through cotton wool, but he no longer listened. His heart was squeezed in the most brutal way he could imagine at that moment and all he wanted was to see her. He wanted to be with her.

Until the very end.

Let me take your hand, I'll make it right I swear to love you all my life

,,How do you feel ?"

Y/N studied Elijah for a moment while he sat on the edge of her bed. She made a face at his words. ,,My head hurts."

,, You lost a lot of blood. My blood couldn't heal everything, ” he wistfully said and Y/N encouragingly and lightly squeezed his hand. Both ignored where the headache really came from.

She turned a little further in his direction. It seemed her whole body was on fire and with every movement she did she felt like every muscle was torning and every bone was breaking.

Elijah forced a smile, but Y/N could see what was really going on with him; of course she could.

She watched him for a while, watching him keep looking at her two hands and not stopping to run his thumb over the back of her hand.

"Hey," she finally said, forcing herself to smile, even if it hurt her heart. "We knew that it has to end at some point. We have already been given more time than it should have been. ”

He swallowed hard at her words. She spoke the truth, but it had never hurt as much as it did at that moment.

She saw it in his eyes, saw it in the way he looked at her and it broke her heart, over and over again, every single second. This broken man had stumbled into her life and had ended with his own centuries before at the same time. Only she had managed to make it back to something worth sacrificing.

,, I have no regrets, Elijah. Just that we didn't make more. "

At that moment it occurred to him. So much had crossed his mind that he hadn't thought about where he was with his brother in the morning before it all started.

With his hand that didn’t hold hers, he reached into his pocket and pulled out the little box from the jeweler. He forced himself to smile as he opened it and looked at the silver wedding rings that were inside. The Mikaelsons emblem engraved on them. His eyes wandered between her and the rings. "There’s no pastor and this is neither a church, but .."

"It's perfect," she interrupted him, and this time the pressure in her hand was a little stronger.

He smiled at her again, and still struggled to hold back the tears that started to form in his eyes every second. But her smile, her happy smile, made him strong. It gave him strength.

One of her hands vaguely moved to the remote control of the bed, blindly groping for it until she finally found the button that would push the head of the bed a little up so she was sitting upright. Meanwhile, Elijah slid a little further onto the edge of the bed and then took her two hands.

Y/N sniffed once and then smiled again as she started to speak. "I hereby take you, Elijah Mikaelson, wholeheartedly to my husband, accepting your weaknesses and your strengths as you accept mine. I promise to trust you and support you in everything, and always make the happiness of our love and our family my number one priority. I will be your partner in wealth and poverty, in sickness and health, in success and failure and in life and death. I always promise to stand by your side, no matter what life has in store for us. I believe in you, in the person you will be and the couple we would have been together. You are my love, my life, my today and the rest of my life."

At her words, a single tear ran down his cheek. A single tear that represented what could have been and what could have become of them; but they were denied it.

He took a deep breath, looked at their hands, whereupon another tear dripped onto the white bed sheet below. He swallowed, then looked up at her, who was also struggling with tears.

"I hereby take you, Y/N Y/L/N, to my wife from this day on. I promise to love and honor you. I promise to give you my infinite love and affection, to always be sincere, to appreciate you and to share my thoughts, hopes and dreams with you. It is an honor for me to be able to spend the rest of my life with you. I hereby promise to love you. Always and forever."

But now it was Y/N, who had to sniff at his last words. Always and forever. That was what it meant to the Mikaelsons. An always and forever was of the utmost importance to her and she knew that Elijah in particular would do anything to keep that promise. She was part of his family now. She had already been a long time ago.

She gave him a sad, yet so happy smile as she reached with a trembling hand for the ring in the box, carefully removed it, and then took his hand to slide it over his finger.

Elijah did the same with her ring, took her dainty hand and pushed the ring down her ring finger.

She happily looked at the piece of jewelry on her finger. This may be the last minutes of her life, but it were also the most beautiful. Nothing could have been nicer for her.

Now, the tears ran down her cheeks and she looked at Elijah, looked deep into his eyes, as he did. In a shaky voice she said: "You may kiss the bride."

Elijah carefully leaned forward, careful not to pull any of the many hoses or cables while she clumsily raised a hand and finally put it on his neck as his lips carefully touched hers.

It almost seemed as if he was afraid that she would break if he touched her and yet, for Y/N, it was the most beautiful kiss out of all. She could feel the love he put in it, the pain, and the salty taste of tears on her tongue. But she didn't care; it had always been what she longed for in life, he had always been the missing piece of the puzzle in her life that she didn't even know she needed. At that moment she had lost everything and had had everything at the same time.

He leaned his forehead against hers, one of his hands on the back of her head supported her a little. She closed his eyes like he did, could feel his hot breath on her face and the tears he was desperately trying to hold back.

,,I love you so much."

A smile formed on her lips and she tried desperately not to scream and break into tears.

,, I love you too, Elijah. Always and forever."

At those words, he kissed her again and her heart contracted painfully. It had long been clear to her that this would be her last moments and with every passing second the pain grew.

,,Do you lie down with me ?"

There was so much hope and despair in her voice that Elijah felt like someone was zealously tearing his heart out of his chest.

The tears on his cheeks were dry, he had made an effort that no more would flee from the corners of his eyes, yet his eyes had a steady, moist shine.

He cleared his throat, swallowed the lump in his throat. He had taken off his jacket some time ago, the tie was right next to it over the back of the chair. He had rolled up the sleeves of the white shirt and opened the first two buttons of it.

Elijah slowly nodded when Y/N gave him a little space and slid aside so that he could lie down with her.

He carefully lifted the tube of the infusion, lay down next to her and immediately felt her seal up to him and put her head and left hand on his chest and listen to his heartbeat.

He closed his eyes for a moment after putting his arms around her and pulling her closer. He gave her a kiss on the forehead and rested his chin on top of her head. He looked at the heart monitor which recorded her steady and now slowing heartbeat, with mixed feelings.

He carefully grabbed one of her ice-cold hands, gripped it tightly with his, and closed his eyes just like she did.

Hold on, I still need you

Y / n woke up to the sound of the rushing waves and the screeching of a few seagulls. She blinked in confusion, turning to her side.

When she opened her eyes, she was blinded for a moment by some sun ray, but found out that she was lying in a very comfortable bed. Slowly, she recognized the outline of the open bedroom and looked through the opened wooden sliding door to the deserted, untouched beach.

She raised her eyebrows in confusion and looked beside her, but the space was empty. She glanced down at herself, found out that she was wearing one of Elijah's dress shirts and swung her legs over the edge of the bed. Now, she could hear the soft piano music, which was very quietly carried to her through the open door.

She barefooted tapped over the wooden floor, gazing at the sea and the waves outside and only following the music.

She smiled when she saw him, stroked the y/h/c hair on one side and tapped to him. She finally wrapped her arms around him from behind and watched his fingers continue to dance elegantly over the black and white piano keys. She kissed his neck and shoulder and briefly closed her eyes until the music stopped. But she knew what this was. And she knew this little, cute hut on the island off Brazil too well.

"You proposed to me here," she stated and slightly smiled at the memory.

"The best weekend of my life."

"And that only happened because we fled from your brother," Y/N laughed quietly, remembering how Klaus had barely given them privacy in the New Orleans estate.

"His ego wasn’t too hurt," Elijah replied, pulling Y/N onto his lap so that she leaned back against the piano and could wrap her feet around his waist. She did the same with her arms and his neck. She closely watched the man in her arms and gently ran her index finger down his temple to his jawline.

"I loved it here," she admitted. ,, No one had ever done that for me before. And that just made me love you more. "

Elijah smiled slightly and yet Y/N noticed the dark shadow in his eyes that he was trying to hide from her. But he had never been able to completely hide everything from her.

I don't wanna let go I know I'm not that strong

For a moment, he just closed his eyes and buried his face in the crook of her neck. "I can't do this without you."

Y/N forced a smile and stroked her fingers soothingly through his hair as she felt him take a deep breath. ,, Yes, you will. I know you, Elijah. When you are about to lose your footing, think about how much I love you, whatever you do. "

"Please ... stay."

Y/N devotedly closed her eyes and pressed her lips together in a thin line. She tilted her head back, but couldn't stop the tears. "I can't," she said and her heart contracted painfully at the thought.

Elijah listened to her voice and the sound of the waves. A seagull was screaming a little away from their little hut.

“I should have found a way. It's my fault."

"Hey," Y/N immediately said in a firm voice and leaned back a little to look him straight in the eyes as she grabbed his face with both hands. ,, It's not your fault, Elijah. If you dare to think that, I'm gonna haunt you as a ghost and kick your ass. It's not your fault. Vampire blood doesn’t cure all diseases. "

But he shook his head slowly, trying to blink the tears away. "There has to be another way."

"It doesn't exist," she denied, forcing an encouraging smile. “Stop doing that. You did everything you could do, okay ? When I got the diagnosis ... it was already over for me - until I met you again. Thanks to you, I have weighed my entire life within a few years. You made it worth living and if it should be over now, then it’s okay. "

She gently stroked an escaped tear from his face and gave him another of her smiles before she finally got up and reached a hand out to him. The piano started to play the melody Elijah played before when she pulled him to his feet.

"Am I gonna get my wedding dance ?" She asked with a happy smile on her lips as she led Elijah a little into the room. He also smiled as he took her hand, pulling her by his waist and pressing her against him. She carefully laid her head on his chest and closed her eyes as they slowly began to move to the delicate piano music. Suddenly, she had become incredibly tired and Elijah had been ignoring the slowing, dull beeping that came from far far away and that only he could hear.

He gave her a gentle kiss on her hairline and led her over the old wooden floor.

I just wanna hear you Saying baby, let's go home Yeah, I just wanna take you home

Slowly, very slowly and lazily, she finally raised her head again and looked at him with tired eyes. Still, she smiled.

,,I love you."

The beeping grew louder. And it slowed down.

Elijah closed her eyes and pressed a gentle kiss on her forehead. He gently stroked a strand of hair behind her ear and examined her face closely. Y/N had always loved it when he did that, but now there was a whole different reason: he was afraid to forget her.

He pressed his forehead against hers, closed his eyes. ,,I love you, too."

Y/N smiled happily. ,,Always and forever."

She pulled him down for a last kiss, felt his soft lips against hers, and smiled into it. She could taste the salt of her tears and pressed Elijah tightly against her. She didn't want to go, but she had no choice.

A shrill, continuous beep tore the moment and Elijah's heart at the same time when he realized what it meant. The scenery in the open hut on the beautiful island was gone, faded like fog in the morning sun.

No, no, no, he desperately thought and his eyes widened, the tears now unstoppable. An incredible anger over his inability came over him, but the grief was greater and he didn’t want to believe it.

His breath was faltering and frantic, he almost didn't dare to do it when he propped himself up on his elbows and looked at her.

The tears ran down his cheeks. Her eyes were closed, a satisfied, little smile was on her lips and one could almost think she was sleeping. And in a way she did; she had fallen asleep peacefully and happily.

"No," he whispered as one of his tears dripped onto her shoulder, making the fabric darker there. He carefully raised a trembling hand and brushed a strand of hair away from her face. She didn't move.

The other Mikaelsons had also gathered in front of the window to the hospital room. They too had noticed what had happened. They all had tears in their eyes. Tears to see therr brother there and tears because a part of her family had left them.

"No ...", he sobbed and put a hand on her cheek, but it was clear that she would no longer feel it; she wouldn't feel anything anymore.

And then he broke. He could feel his heart shattering and leaping in a thousand pieces, his tears falling down his cheeks in the event of falls, and he carefully lifted her up and buried his face in her chest. He didn't want to let her go, he couldn't let her go. She was gone and something in him refused to accept it.

He sobbed and cried desperately, still smelling the light hint of her perfume as he buried his face deeper in her chest.

She was gone and he was alone now. He was completely alone. He had no one left.

Hold on, I still want you Come back, I still need you

#doms1kchallenge #elijah mikaelson #elijah mikaelson x reader #theoriginals #to #angst #fluff #death #klaus mikaelson #freya mikaelson #challengesubmission

158 notes · View notes

maariarogers · 4 years ago

Text

flash review for episode 13

where can i start? i absolutely adore it

i felt like, in all honesty, the k-drama got much better towards the end for some reason? like everything started coming together; each of their personalities seemed to mash well and idk, i love the later episodes (hopefully i wont retract these statements in the future)

suho is so dedicated, so loyal, so loving like,,,, can this man get the boyfriend award of the year or....

i love LOVE the parallel between jugyeong running for suho in past episodes being played again by suho being the one to run after jugyeong. absolutely breathtaking

when suho was running and he remembered jugyeong wanting to commit suicide? please just end me right now

seojun was superb all throughout

i feel like it’s so appropriate, yet so fitting, that suho mainly goes to care for jugyeong and seojun steps back, understands this, and decides to handle things at their school instead

like maybe it’s their bond as friends doing its work and seojun becoming increasingly respectful of his friend’s relationship, but it’s so *chef’s kiss* to see seojun doing the aggressive work

like, i talked abt this in my meta, but seojun’s short-tempered personality worked so well especially in events like this and it shows. he’s a fucking boss throughout and he aint takin no shit

what a damn man 👏👏👏

seojun, gowoon, and juyeong aren’t the trio i expected to like so much but jesus i’ve proven wrong!!!!!!

juyeong 👏punching 👏someone 👏 who talked 👏 shit 👏 about 👏 jugyeong 👏

gowoon 👏 throwing hands 👏 over the 👏 same 👏 fact 👏

WE RESPECT THE #TEAMJUGYEONG SQUAD

i was fucking crying laughing at mr han throughout the whole time like,,, dude,,, pls,,,, this aint about u my guy 😭😭😭

I CRIED WHEN JUGYEONG’S MOM CRIED NO DONT @ ME

ppl can come at me for this but i actually really like jugyeong’s mom. yeah, she has her worser moments and shes not winning any awards for best mom soon but??? i feel like??? thats the point??? thats how most asian moms are??? and i relate to that so much???

like, there’d be moments where they put so much traditional expectations on children that it can become burdening and/or unhealthy, just like jugyeong’s mom consistently displayed (and then she mentioned “do u wanna be like me” like god that fucking hit me), but u can tell they dont fuck with u if u fuck with their family or people they care about and thats just it

like idk how to even properly explain it but i guess we just built different is all lmao

when jugyeong was crying and then her make up faded and all her acnes popped up, like bitch,,,, i felt that SO BAD 😭thats me every day at work

jugyeong’s dad camped a whole ass smol kitchen in front of jugyeong’s room just so she’d eat 😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭

again when will the lim family not win in an episode WHEN

“the one who uploaded the video” “i know” FUCKING ENDED ME!!!!

can we just talk about the absolute grace jugyeong and suho have in the face of knowing sujin did this to them? like they didn’t slander her once. they didn’t start shit. they just take care of their own damage.

ppl are also gonna come at me probs but ............. sujin and seojun look so good next to one another,,, like if park yuna and hwang in yeop is ever in a drama together? pls call me, have my soul

suho having juyeong’s phone number,,, suho and juyeong bonding,,, juyeong comforting suho even tho he couldn’t do much and convincing suho to go to school,,,,, babes i love found-family trope that is all

when suho admits that taehoon is his friend, i just. died. webtoon suho would kill for a friend like taehoon and i know it

nope still not fucking with the mr. lee jaehoon being innocent at least not over the affair, sir get out of my face

also not fucking with suho being interested in MUSIC, my guy he is gonna be a CHEF (webtoon reference)

legit i was fucking yelling at jugyeong to “defend his mans” during that toilet scene because i just felt like suho had done so much for her, especially given recent events, and then she did??????????????

BABY GIRL........ NOT ONLY DID U DEFEND HIM BUT UR SPEECH WAS POWER???? HONEY...........

“from now on come and talk to me in person. i’ll answer your question one by one” I DIDN’T KNOW YOU HAD IT IN YOU????? YOURE SO BEAUTIFUL BABE 😭

suho already worshipped the ground u walk on now he’s probably thinking about kissing u under a willow tree with one knee on the floor and a ring in one hand smh

feel a little bad for the food her mom made tho ngl

overall: i feel like its an 8/10, im probably deducting the marks because of suho’s dad cause i still feel it’s a bit unfair if they want to reverse the fact that his dad did have an affair and lied to him and selena (in the webtoon he did) cause even the first affair like, the one 8 year old suho caught him in? i feel like theyre gonna probs reverse that too BUT IM NOT TALKING ABOUT THEORIES NOW point is i love nearly all aspects of it, can’t wait for more soft suhoxjugyeong content before the writers fuck us all up xoxo

#True Beauty #i have WORK tomorrow #but imma spew all of these #also yes i know im a whole ass 24 hours late #still love them tho

11 notes · View notes

thejosh1980 · 4 years ago

Text

Don't you know that you're toxic?

I was in a toxic relationship...

In fact I have been in a few... But the last one is the one I can still remember in some detail...

The first few, well they were immature drunk and disorderly scenarios. They are not important in this story, other than you should be aware I was pretty repetitive towards my approach to relationships back then.

The story I would like tell is about the 7 year old relationship that ended in March 2019.

This particular relationship had the biggest effect on me, my well being, and my happiness. And even though I married an amazing woman earlier this year, that last relationship is still a reminder of the baggage I have held onto since my first relationship.

It's time I unloaded that baggage and shed my skin.... Even if it's just a little bit... You know, small steps...

So, lets call my ex “Grumpy”...

In fact that's a name an American girlfriend of a drummer of a band we were watching called her once in Germany, literally minutes after meeting her. I should have seen that red flag even back then...

Look, Grumpy isn't a bad person, deep down I think she means well... But she just hasn't been able to get past her past... She wont let go of any stubborn insecurities, learn new coping mechanisms, and she wont forgive herself, or you for that matter... At least that's what I've experienced with her.

It's like whenever things don't go her way, whenever she's frustrated or doesn't know how to cope, she'd revert back to a 14 year old girl, which is when she had troubles with her Mum.

I mean honestly, who didn't have troubled teenage years??

I'm not saying she doesn't have a right to feel pain about some significant event or trauma, but she surely can't hold it over my head and expect me to hang around, forever...

During our relationship, I explained to her, that when I went into therapy (which at the beginning she thankfully helped me do) I had no idea what to expect. But I knew I couldn't continue the way I was and expect a happy outcome.

It took a long time, but I processed many of the issues and events of my past, which in turn helped my current situation and had a positive effect on my future. I learned new ways on how to cope with current problems, insecurities and learn to take responsibility for my actions and choices in life...

I forgave my Dad for not being a good father. I understand, he just didn't know better and chose not to learn how later in life... It's no excuse but I find some comfort in knowing I wasn't the problem. These days, I can be comfortable in his presence, no longer hoping for the Dad I've always needed, but enjoy his company for what it is...

I forgave my sister for her misgivings. She's a tough cookie, and very jealous of me. I think she's very jealous of my relationship with Mum, but my sister hasn't taken responsibility for her actions, and therefore it will be a long road before I can trust her, but I'm totally OK with that. She has her problems, and they are not mine to take responsibility for, anymore.

My grandparents on both sides were hard work over the years. I thought it was my fault too! But really it was their lack of empathy and understanding that created an atmosphere of negativity. They had every opportunity to be a good example to an impressionable young me. Luckily I learned to forgive them, even if I didn't actually say that to them while they were still alive. I forgave them and myself for contributing to the escalation, rather than finding resolution.

Grumpy knew I did this (and more) in therapy, and refused to consider it.

Now in all fairness, I originally refused to entertain the idea of counseling too, as I had a negative experience in my younger days (just like Grumpy), but when I reached my first breakdown around 2014 in a foreign country, I knew I needed help and I asked...

You know, I know she's still hurting over her past...

How can I tell?

Because it's been 18 months since I broke up with her, and she continues to create drama, instead of “adulting” and talking to me about it.

She's had every opportunity to deal with these post break up problems we all have had to go through like an adult (you know, splitting up the household belongings etc), without fail each time she has deflected, ignored, created more drama, lied or done something else that shows me, she has not recognized her part in our story.

Let's face it, it takes 2 to tango...

I've come to realize she treated me the way she did during our relationship, because she took me for granted. She thought I'd never have the courage or strength to actually leave her. I sure proved her wrong, didn't I!!!

We started our relationship drunk, and continued like that for 2 or so years. Grumpy and I could drink a lot, and did... We both were a bit rounder then too! We were never fully honest with each other or ourselves. I would say, we probably should have just been a short term fling, because we both weren't ready for long term, but we dived in anyhow...

That journey got me here, and that's totally fine. I have no regrets...

In case you didn't know, I wasn't a very strong person back then. I had little self esteem, and little self worth. So it was easy for both of us to “beat on” each other verbally and not resolve any issues. That's easy to do when someone just can't listen without demeaning you, without taking your feelings and smashing them against the wall... I was always ALWAYS in trouble. She was too sometimes back then... We both were in trouble...

As time went on with my therapy I processed a lot of things, and became ready for long term... I also knew I wanted to move back home, down under, eventually. That would be a hard decision, with or without Grumpy. I just couldn't imagine piling on more stress on top of stress with that relationship. I came to realize there was no future there unless something changed. We had to listen to each other, we had to trust each other, we had to respect each other.

I know I am not perfect, but surely if I can forgive her for things, she could step my way a little... Couldn't she? Didn't she have the power to learn to forgive? I mean really forgive someone and love them for all their faults? Didn't she have the power to grow? Unfortunately she didn't... I knew she didn't process anything because she was bringing up stuff from 2 or 3 or 6 years ago...

When I sobered up and seriously got into therapy, I had no idea what road it would take me down... But after talking about all my family issues, social anxiety issues and depression, the last thing was Grumpy. It took almost 5 years to get to the point where I acknowledged I was unhappy, I realized I didn't trust her and I couldn't see a future with her...

I just couldn't talk to her anymore. We just didn't trust each other anymore... That's the point...

The day we broke up, I had written her a letter, and I read her this letter. I read out a letter I had spent weeks writing making sure my adult words were being used (because without the letter I knew I'd revert to something less mature and less communicative). I clearly stated after trying many times, trying for years to correct our problems, I had come to realize we couldn't go forward. I decided we would break up to save each other from unnecessary pain. I couldn't see any steps going in the right direction in our relationship anymore...

I loved her, but it just wasn't working out, and didn't show any signs of improving.

Her first words were “I knew it” with tears rolling down her face...

I didn't want to do it, but I made a choice... Based on the past, for the present, to better my future.

Honestly I don't know if she wanted to recognize any of those times I tried to talk to her. She didn't want to see the signs. When she got frustrated and yelled at me, and I sat quietly listened and did my best not to raise my voice back. When I tried to talk sense to her she'd react like I was talking crazy.

Maybe she was scared? After all, change is a scary thing.

I changed a lot in those years since I started therapy and stopped drinking, always hoping Grumpy would come my way a little... For several years I was a huge contributing factor to our fights, but as time went on and I learned and grew, I started to de-escalate those fights. (Which generally made things worse!).

Apparently she didn't get the memo...

And she continues to blame me for that mistrust, because that's the way it goes when you don't take responsibility for your actions... It's always someone else's fault... The world owes me...

Even though she's been in a committed relationship since the beginning of 2020, she still hasn't let go of any anger, hurt, or resentment towards me. Her actions clearly show she hasn't processed our relationship, start, middle, or end, and would prefer to block me or stop all communication with me, before dealing with herself. She'd prefer to tell everyone else how bad I was, what I owed her, what I did to her, than think about her actions and how they affected our relationship.

It's like history repeating itself... And I am finding freedom in the fact I am no longer a character in her story.

I'm quite sure she'll keep the narrative within her circle of friends to make her look good, and me bad. But I like my narrative more (who wouldn't?), I feel we both were a mess... We were having a negative affect on each other. How or why, isn't as important as learning that communication, trust, forgiveness and respect are the things that were missing...

In fact, I think she dislikes anyone who has shown personal growth... It scares her... I think she's comfortable in her denial... She blames her Mum or her grandma... She blames me... Not once had I ever heard in all her years of coming home from work, “Oh it was me...”, “I did something wrong...” or “I messed up, I better say sorry...”

So how could I stay with someone who didn't take any responsibility?? How can I love someone who doesn't say “sorry”?

I was heart broken during the time leading up to reading Grumpy that letter...

I went back and forth in my head, could I see a future??? But in the end I couldn't... The one thing I realize, that is so important in my relationships, is good ol' communication. We lost that, when we lost the trust... It all turned toxic... Manipulative.... Twisted...

I wish her all the happiness the world throws at her.

We all deserve happiness... But Grumpy, sometimes you gotta work at it...

I could spend my time blaming her for so much of it but in the end, it was down to me. I am the one master of my fate... Just as she is... Then and now...

Thanks for reading,

Josh

#toxic relationship #break up #ex girlfriend #moving on

9 notes · View notes

jamieaiken919 · 4 years ago

Note

hi im the NiDe anon- probably primis but I’m not picky 🥺 I’ll literally take anything this ship is nonexistent

HELLO HI I AM SO SORRY THIS TOOK SO GODDAMN LONG TO FIGURE OUT I PROMISE I DIDNT FORGET ABOUT YOU

So for today’s extremely long winded Thought From a Thot- I started out not sure what to do for Tank/Nikolai, but then it grew a mind of its own and HERE HAVE A WHOLE ASS BACKSTORY. There are some headcanons in here, but they’re kind of mixed throughout, lol. I’m so sorry if all this isn’t exactly what you were looking for, but I really hope you like it!!! (Also- I typed this all up in the notes app on my phone, but for shits and giggles I threw this into a document to see how long it actually is- OVER 1300 WORDS)

Also also for some god forsaken reason I can’t figure out how to put this behind a cut on this stupid app SO HERES THE LONG HAUL

So, let’s start by looking at the boys themselves-

Nikolai, very obviously and very understandably, is an incredibly damaged man. We know that he never fully recovered from the loss of his wife, and that his devotion to her never faltered, even after she was gone. I think that after her death, he likely would have tried to shut out any kind of romantic feelings that cropped up. Logical or not, he feels as if it’s somehow disrespectful to her and to her memory.

On the opposite end of the spectrum, we know that Tank is a little bit of a womanizer. He typically would only seek out one night stands, rather than anything meaningful or long lasting. It’s just the life of a Marine, he tells himself- you can’t settle down if you’ve got no place to settle, and it’s easier to just not get attached, especially when it presents the chance that he would have to leave and potentially never see them again.

Once the two meet, Tank takes notice of Nikolai’s sadness immediately. “Why’re you so sad, Nikolai? Even when I hear you yelling in the heat of battle, I can’t help feeling there’s something wrong.” Nikolai initially brushes him off, intent on keeping his past to himself and himself alone. But as the group gets stuck with each other, and as they all get to know each other, he decides that Tank is someone he can trust with telling about the things he’s suffered in his life. And surprisingly enough to him, Tank actually sits and listens. That’s when he gains an immediate respect for him.

Nikolai catches feelings first. It’s on a night where he volunteers to stay up for watch- normally the four of them take turns, but that night was one where he knew he likely wouldn’t be able to sleep in the first place. As he’s sitting at the edge of their encampment, wherever they may be, he hears something approach him. But he knows the gait of his ally, and isn’t surprised in the slightest when Tank sits down next to him. They share a friendly conversation- talking about how Takeo absolutely shredded a hoard with nothing but his katana, about their mutual distrust of the voices in Edward’s head, etc- until Nikolai feels a weight against his side. He looks over to see Tank, passed the hell out and leaning with his head on his shoulder, and immediately Nikolai’s brain starts going “oh god oh fuck what is this why feels happen WHAT”. It’s a feeling he hasn’t experienced in so long that at first he thinks he’s going mad, but then he remembers exactly how it felt when he married his wife. That rush of the heart, the wild emotions, feelings that he thought he had locked away and buried all come rushing back to him.

It’s another few days before Tank actually realizes that something’s changed in their dynamic. No one would ever accuse Tank of being a genius, but once he pays attention he’s actually quite observant. Which is why, when he sees Nikolai being particularly short with the others (more than usual, anyway), when he catches him watching out for him more than the others, when he notices the little glances that Nikolai throws his way when he thinks he can’t see, he finally puts two and two together. He’s seen enough soldiers writing letters home to their girls with that exact same look on their faces to know exactly what it means.

It’s another night when Nikolai takes the night watch that things end up happening between them. Nikolai is out stewing in his thoughts, as is his wont, when he hears that familiar gait behind him again. Tank asks him straight up if there’s anything he wants to tell him, and at first Nikolai refuses. It’s only when Tank sits down directly in front of him- where Nikolai can’t avoid looking at him- that Nikolai finally just spits it out. That somewhere along the line the camaraderie and friendship that formed between them has morphed into him feeling something deeper, something that he never thought he would feel again or allow himself to feel again, that he thinks himself a fool because there’s no room for love in a time and place like the one they’re in-

And Tank shuts him up by grabbing him and kissing him.

Nikolai is so surprised by it that he’s still trying to talk for a few seconds before he realizes exactly what’s happening. He’s so dumbfounded that he just kind of sits there and let’s it happen, before Tank pulls away and makes some kind of witty quip. “Now that I know how to shut ya up, I’ll have to do it more often.” Tank isn’t insensitive though; he knows how much Nikolai has struggled and he knows just how strong his feelings have to be in order for him to even admit to them. So he reassures him that he’s open to whatever happens, and that he’ll never do anything to hurt his heart more than its already been hurt. It’s a step forward for Tank as well- mister non-commitment actually committing to someone, but he’s willing to give it a shot. After all, what more do they have if not each other?

At first they keep things quiet, which is both relatively easy and extremely difficult. Much of their time is taken up by fighting the undead, so they’re able to keep themselves occupied with that and not with each other. It’s moments when things are calm that give them trouble. It’s difficult to find anyplace that offers some semblance of solitude, especially when the group has to stick together for protection purposes. It’s typically when one of them has their turn as watch during the night that they’re able to sneak off and discover their new relationship. Edward and Takeo are none the wiser, until one of them (probably Takeo) happens to get up in the night. He’s up stretching his legs when he happens to spot the couple, and he only has to watch them for a brief moment before he realizes what’s going on between them. Despite that knowledge, he respects their privacy, keeping it to himself until they’re ready to be open about it with himself and Edward. poor Eddie always left in the dark lol

I imagine they’d be forced to be open about it when Tank does something particularly reckless and stupid one day, and Nikolai panics just a bit more than a friend would. Tank insists to him that he’s fine, but Nikolai rushes over and wraps him in the tightest hug he can, mumbling something about how he never wants to see him act so carelessly again. Both Edward and Takeo are stunned at seeing the display of affection so clearly, even though Takeo already knew. There’s definitely a conversation that takes place between the four of them later that night, lol. But now that things are out in the open, they can be a little more free with each other, something that takes a huge weight off both of them.

Tank is usually the one to initiate any kind of physical affection, whether it be holding hands, kisses, or going further. It’s not that Nikolai doesn’t want to- he does- but he’s still unsure of himself, especially being with another man when all he knew was his wife. Tank is very patient with him, because he understands the uncertainty that Nikolai is feeling. He always reassures him that he wants him, and that he’ll give him as much time as he needs to be fully comfortable. And eventually Nikolai does ease, and they’re able to show affection freely back and forth.

Tank always used to comment on how morose Nikolai was, but now that they’re together, he notices smiles coming to the Russian’s face more and more. And it’s something he loves to see.

#anonymous #asks #answers #thought from a thot #tank dempsey #nikolai belinski #call of duty zombies #cod zombies #codz

16 notes · View notes

hey-hamlet · 5 years ago

Text

BNHA AU Ideas: A Poor Bird

Also on AO3! (if you recognise the au it might be because I started a full fic which i abandoned because i realised a full canon retelling is l o n g. i’ll still probably write bits and pieces like the other AUs)

TL;DR: Izuku isn't quirkless. Not that Inko would ever let you know that.

AKA: Good dad Enji, bad mum Inko

TW: Child Abuse

Inko Quirk: Attraction of small objects Issues:

Many

Soooooooo many

Hisashi Quirk: All for one

Izuku Quirk: Push and Pull

Allows him to push objects away from him, or pull objects towards him.

If the object is heavier than him, the force acts on him instead

Injuries

Crush injures on the hand, never healed correctly

Limited range of movement + tremors

Issues

Feels horrifically ill if he uses his quirk, has flashbacks. Cant use it at all until he is trained by allmight

Can't remember his mother hurting him outside of flashbacks and nightmares. Only knows it happened bc katsuki can remind him

PTSD

Dislikes: Being called "cute" or being implied to be helpless but he can suck it up if hes not feeling too shitty.

Enji 47

First-year in All Might's final year.

Met Rei when he first reached the top ten, aged 22 and married her a year later, with fuyumi on the way just a quickly

Knows ab. All Mights other form

Rei 48

Does ballet!

Shouto 15

No scar

Yet, anyway. We can fix that.

Touya 19 Changes

A little less crispy fried, still scarred by his own quirk. Wears gold contacts undercover as Dabi

Natsuo

Studying Medicine

Fuyumi

She's a teacher!

Mushy Stuff feat. The Todoroki’s

enji is still number 2 hero. hes actually really nice? he just has a major case of resting bitch face. hes from a rich family, he got dragged out to a ballet to celebrate his becoming number 2 and he was whining we hes like, 21 and doesnt wanna see a ballet he just wants to go to work, or get drinks with his sidekicks. hes being a bit of a grump and his parents are living for their grumpy son bc he still has Round cheeks and hes adorable

anyway its been like, 20 minutes and the show finally starts and enji is like "god i can go home after this and s l e e p" but like, the lady comes out on stage and hes in love. tall, white hair and incredibly graceful. his mum has to hit him bc hes blushing so hard hes getting uncomfortably warm

after the show he like, breaks into her dressing room. hes got his hands clamped over his eye and he like "oh my god im so sorry if you are changing i promise im not looking i just have somewhere to be after this but please what do i have to do to get you to agree to go to dinner with me"

and rei is r e d bc the grouchy number 2 hero has burst into her dressing room and hes bright red and his hair is smouldering slightly and she just laughs and pulls his hands away from his eyes and tells him she'd love to. enji just walks out, faintly dazed with rei's number on his phone and hes so ridiculously happy he cant stop his hair from smoking

anyway, they date, they get married etc

but rei's ballet company is threatening to drop her if she has kids bc she wont be "perfect" anymore and she's torn up about it bc enji started dating her because of ballet and what if he hates her? but enji is like ",,, i kinda,,, love you? plus you and our hypothetical kids with be gods gift to this earth. i will buy you a whole ballet company if i have to"and shes crying and everything is soft

she has fuyumi and she is the worlds most perfect baby and enji is the most protective dad on this planet

then she has dabi bc she wanted fuyumi to have a sibling and dabi is born w his quirk and sneezes embers and enji is crying because his son is perfect

and then they have another kid bc they are sickeningly in love and their children are all wonderful and they have natsuo who likes to eat not food things and rei loves her chunky toddler. enji is crying because "hes gonna be such a big strong man" and also because natsuo keeps trying to eat his flaming beard

and then they have shouto bc "fuck it more children” hes born and rei is crying bc "look he looks just like you enji!" and enji is crying because "rei he looks just like you,,," and fuyumi is crying bc she has another little brother, dabi is trying not to cry bc hes a big strong 5 yearold and natsuo is like,,, 3 and hes trying to est his baby brothers hair and hes perfect

also!!! dabi is a double agent. he loves his dad v much and is pretending to be a villain to keep him and the rest of his family safe

enjis that dad that’s so fucking embarrassing and he does it on purpose?? during the sports festival he’s in his seat and he’s just “sHOUTOOOO” everyone turns and they’re just ???? todoroki s bright red but he’s yelling back

“wHAT”

endeavour, making a lil heart with his hands: “i love you and i’m very proud of you ♥️”

hi please enji sending photos of his kids to allmight all the time. all might fucking adores these little children and sends them so much random merch bc they are so fucking cute. he holds natsuo who’s trying to eat his weird bunny ear hair and he’s just

i love,,,these kids,,,

natsuo is a Chunky Boy. hes a toddler with the density of lead, hes so fucking heavy and round and allmight adores him. shouto looks at you judgingly even as a baby and allmight feels personally attacked

Pre canon + Training arc

in this au, izuku has a stronger version of his mothers quirk. like, really good telekinesis and he wants to be a hero! she hits him if he uses his quirk, makes him say hes quirkless and weak, says she just wants to protect him. she withholds food to keep him "perfect" because

"your father ruined me, now im all covered in ugly stretch marks and im disgusting, but ill make you perfect"

inko makes izuku wear feminine clothes and keep his hair long bc shes kinda trying to make him into like, the perfect version of her? and she always threatens to scrub izukus "fathers" freckles off his face with steel wool

shes ,,, conflicted about Katsuki

(katsuki knows something is up w inko and izuku so hes not terrible)

because she doesnt want her "perfect" sweet son to become brash like Katsuki but she kinda,,, likes her son being the damsel in distress that has to be saved by his stronger friend? and thinks that if izuku has a guard he won't need to be strong himself if they play in her house, inko is the villain, katsuki is the hero and izuku has to be the hostage that needs to be saved.

izuku tells katsuki about his quirk one day and he mentions it in front of inko. katsuki is almost thrown out of the house and he can hear izuku screaming from inside, and hes trying to get through the door bc his friend his crying and its not his fault. he stays there with this ear pressed against the door for hours. izuku stops crying after 45 minutes, inko starts saying shes sorry after 3 hours

inko crushed her son's hands

inko needs her hands for her quirk to work and assumes izuku does too? So she methodically crushes every finger and his wrists to try to ruin his ability to use his quirk. izukus hands heal but he cant write without it hurting and that makes him really upset bc he loves to draw. its the only thing that his mum lets him do that he enjoys. inko says sorry but she still blames him

"im sorry it hurt honey but mummy had to do it, you understand right?"

from that day forward katsuki starts training to be a hero bc he doesnt want anyone getting hurt like izuku ever again. he helps izuku train too in secret, they work together to lie because izuku wants to he a hero, and if he can survive his mother? he can do anything.

after that time w inko he cant use his quirk. like, physically? he can, but he has panic attacks and freezes up if he tries. basically izuku gets bullied for being quirkless, but not by Katsuki

ep 1 happen kind like normal. izuku asks "can i be a hero without a quirk?" allmight says no but he manages to use his quirk to save katsuki and katsuki hugs him as he cries, izuku pulls katsuki from the sludge villain w his quirk, allmight saves the day

the heroes are like, 2 secs from scolding izuku for using his quirk but the boy is having a horrific panic attack and they would feel bad ab it. also katsuki looks like hes gonna commit real actual murder if someone so much as touches izuku so they awkwardly walk away

allmight confronts izuku ab. the whole "i though you were quirkless" thing and izuku has another panic attack and all might feels terrible izuku is basically apologising for having a quirk??? that that sits really badly w toshi so he asks izuku if he can help him and katsuki train to be heroes and izuku cries and says yes

izuku looks at the time and starts crying again and allmight is like??? did i do something wrong???

izuku is sobbing that he doesnt wanna go home because "she'll be so angry" and toshi is like,,, holy shit im just gonna steal this child i guess but izuku convinces him hes overacting and izuku runs home, after toshi gives him his phone number and stresses that izuku is allowed to call even for "stupid" reasons

mitsuki is confused that katsuki looks so worried hes like,, pacing and he keeps sticking his head outside to look over the balcony to the street and checking his phone bc izuku hasnt told him what happened yet and hes scared that inko finally snapped and hurt him too badly to recover from

inko??? wasnt happy

shes beating izuku with heavy stuff and asking him if he thinks shes a terrible mother or something. izuku is crying because hes sorry and he didnt mean to use his quirk he was just scared. inko starts crying and is patching him up and says that she only hurts him because she loves him and wants him to be happy and perfect . izuku doesnt get food for 2 days after that, he has to sneak out to train w katsuki and all might. all might actually asks katsuki ab. it

"his mother is fucking crazy. my mum doesnt believe me but shes batty. lost it when her husband left and is trying to keep izuku like a fucking doll, its creepy"

izuku tends to wear gloves of long sleeves, or draws over his hands bc they are c o v e r e d in scares. on a particularly bad training day izuku cant hold his water bottle and he cant stop himself tearing up so katsuki holds the bottom for it and izuku is so embarrased and gratful and all might wants to cry because who hurt this kid???

like,, three? months into the training izuku comes up to all might and the kid is shaking and pale but he looks so determined and he says in the softest voice "i want to start training my quirk" and all might smiles like the sun

Entrance Exam

So allmight has already given his quirk to Mirio, he and nighteye made up. Hes out heroing, saves izuku from the sludge villain, Izuku doesn’t cling on but there is something ab the way Izuku looks at him that worries allmight so he stays to answer his question and runs out of time. Izuku asks if he can be a hero w/o a quirk, allmight hesitates. Izuku just quietly says "its ok, thank you for your time" and leaves. All might feels terrible.

He realises the sludge villain is gone, curses and runs towards the explosions. Izuku is wandering around trying to find Katsuki and sees the sludge villain has him. W/o wasting a moment he runs towards him, trying to pull him free. He uses his quirk to pull him out by the shirt and stands infront of katsuki to try to keep him safe. Allmgiht rushes in to help.

The heroes try to tell Izuku off but katsuki just yells at them and they hurry away. They run into Yagi and he tries to talk to Izuku but katsuki just yells at him. Allmight explains his form thing and tells izuku he can totally be a hero but oh hey werent you quirkless?

Katsuki is ab. To rip Allmights head off, izuku just explains he doesn’t much like his quirk. All might asks if he can help train the two of them to be heroes and they agree 100%. Izuku has to run home and leaves Katsuki w allmight. Katsuki tells him he'll need to look after Izuku and walks off in the same direction. Allmight is l o s t

Izuku gets beaten byhis mother for using his quirk, sneaks out to train with yagi and katsuki. Yagi is worried but there isnt much he can do. Mirio and Sir show up sometimes to chat w allmight and help training, All might admits hes going into teaching bc hes going to have to retire soon and Izuku tells him he'll be amazing at it, katsuki just roasts allmight

Day of the entrance exam mirio wishes them both good luck .

Izuku has told his mother hes taking the gen-ed written exam and has permission to go get food with katsuki afterwards. He has applied for gen-ed and the hero course and honestly doesn’t believe he'll get into heroics but he has to try.

Someone pushes him, Occhako catches him, they all say hello and enter the written exam hall. Izuku finds it easy as pie so hes honestly kinda worried that hes missing something (hes not, hes just smart). There is a moral dilema at the end of the test and he answers it in a way that concerns the markers (in a self esteem kinda way)

So they enter the auditorium and and izuku finds out he isnt in katsukis arena which makes im panic, but he tells him to suck it up because hes a grown as teenager and can handle himself which cheers izuku up. Iida calls them out for talking.

At the arena hes having a quiet breakdown, sees ochako and lights up, goes to talk to her but Iida tells him off for being a trouble maker. Someone in the crowd snidly asks "when did they start letting 12-year-old girls take the exam" and izuku feels like dirt. Mic calls start and his fight/flight is so overreactive he throws himself straight into the exam

Pulling rubble and crap w great force through the robots, he gets around 20 points? But after a while he just shuts down. He feels sick and he hates his quirk and his mother and his hnds ache and he just c a n t do it anymore.

Aizawa watches this kid in arena 4 crumple to the ground and he spares a moment to be sad for the kid. He looked promising, but its not the first time someone has cracked under the pressure durring the entrance exam. He sees allmgiht looking saddened out of the corner of his eye, locked on the screen, and thinks maybe this kid is why he asked to be excluded from the judging team.

Izuku sees the zero pointer and cant even bring himself to run away. But then he hears ochako cry out and instantly sprints towards her.

He pulls himself into the air and pulls as many shards of scrap metal and rebar as he can, and pulls them with all his might through the 0 pointer, turning into a giant pincusion. He runs out of energy, and just lets himself fall.

Aizawa feels his heart sink bc the kid is smiling.

Ochako saves him at the last moment, and hes miraculously uninjured but so out of energy he can barely stand. Recovery girl hands him gummies which he gratefully accepts and drags himself out of the exam. He meets katsuki by the entrance. He sees his tiny mess of a friend, pale and shakey but smiles and he picks him up and hugs him even though he will deny it till the day he dies. izuku is sure he failed but for one moment, using his quirk? he just felt so complete and free that he doesnt mind if he fails, just because he got to enjoy that one moment. bakugo tells izuku that hes gonna drag him into the hero course by his hair and izuku giggles

They go get food bc they need some relief.

Izuku doesn’t think he's in the heroics department but is hopeful anyway.

he and bakugo spend the week waiting for their letters "studying" for ua (aka, designing hero costumes, coming up with names, planning the fuck out of everything bc they are both crazy nervous and will never admit it)

inko hands izuku his mail and izuku is so nervous because if she looked? its game over but she just smiles happily and tells him to tell her if he got into gen ed. or not so they can invite the bakugo's over to celebrate

izuku walks calmly until his mum is out of sight, then he tears down the hall, stuffs a towel under the door and opens his letter under his blankets so she cant hear it. its allmgiht on the screen and he cries.

and he got in and he cries some more

and then he has a quick panic attack becuase holy shit this is a lot of lies hes going to have to spin because he came first in the entrance exam. his mum asks him if he got in and hes so grateful that his voice doesnt shake when he cries, as he says back "i got into gen. ed mum!!"

He finds out he got in and he starts to panic bc what is he going to tell his mum? Some point later Inko yells at him for just sitting around so he runs out of the house and to a cat café, and hes just sobbing because his face hurts from where she slapped him and he just wants to get out of the rain.

Shinso sees this kid, curses his heroic instincts and pays for 2 hours for him and the mystery kid. He just wanted to wallow in self pity for failing the exam he knew he was going to fail, but now hes got a crying kid to deal with

So turns out the kid is his age and is called Midoriya. As only izuku can do, hes shinso spilling his guts ab the hero course and his quirk in around 20 minutes. Izuku explains a bit about what his mother did to him, and that he got into the hero course but if his mother finds out hes scared shitless of what she'll do.

Shinsou’s family before Aizawa was shit, he gets it. And he sees this cute green-haired sobbing kid gently kiss a fat tabby on the top of its little head and decides he'd die for him.

They plot that they'll change shirts at the start of the day so inko doesn’t see the hero course shirt, and shinso will quickly tell him what they were doing in gen ed on the train home. Shinso does urge izuku to get help but izuku declines. His mother is sick and she's trying her best. She still loves him. Izuku is scared of who his dad is.

And it's not like anyone ever believed his soft, kind-looking mother could hurt her own son.

First day + Quirk Apprehension Test

Inasa is a recommendation student, along with Momo and Todoroki, was placed in Aizawa class bc his quirk is kinda wack.

Class does not contain Hagekure, Mineta is expelled

like, first day of school shinso is waiting down the road for izuku and bakugo is like,,, ha????? and shinso is like "oK So i have the hero course shirt, change behind a tree like a bunch of weirdos or wait for school" and izuku is like,,, “as much as my anxiety wants to change now so we wont be late i think kacchan might murder us if we change behind a tree" and bakugo is like??? "YeaH and WHO ARE YOU EXACTLY"

anyway! they take the bus and shinso explains that the bonded over a chubby tabby and that hes agreed to be izuku alibi and katsuki looks him up and down like ",,, you pass" and izuku giggles and shinso feels happy bc he didnt know the boy could giggle and its such a soft noise

anyway, izuku and shinso sprint into school to find a bathroom to change in, izuku tries not to cry on his hero shirt. they then proceed to speed walk to the correct class bc the other students have shown up and they dont wanna get yelled at. katsuki told izuku he could walk himself to class because "youre a big boy now" and izuku laughs again

izukus anxiety vs trauma is a continuous war bc anxiety says "hide behind friends" but trauma says "dont be weak and pathetic like inko says you are or shes been right the whole time"

izuku gets into class, bakugo is busy trying to scare iida bc iida is Really Getting On His Nerves. iida says hi to izuku and izuku almost cries before iida says that he was sorry for being a dick and then izuku almost cries again but bc hes happy

ochako bursts in like "OH MY GOD THE CUTE ONE GOT IN" and izuku is Red and like (a lil trauma but he shoves that way deep down) and says hi. aizawa crawls in and scares the actual shit out of everyone but izuku finds him super calming? bc hes just so fucking blunt and he doesnt have to look for double meanings

anyway, izuku gets called up to do the throw bc he came first and hearing aizawa say "use your quirk" made a cold sweat run through him but bakugo gave him a thumbs up so he felt a little better. The boy gets a crazy score. izuku gets a great score on all the stuff he can use his quirk for, but hes got terrible stamina/strength bc hes just so thin. hes placing like, first quarter of the class

so they finish, mineta gets kicked out

allmight is watching from behind a bush bc look at his boys go!!! his yelly boy and his crying boy!!. aizawa holds izuku back at the end of class, bakugo doesnt wanna leave him but tenya pushes him to the locker room

"so kid. thats a great quirk youve got there"

and izuku,,, really doesnt like talking about his quirk. he doesn't like using it. he and bakugo drew vines on his hands this morning to cover up the scars and hes tracing his fingers along them to keep himself from shaking.

aizawa looks him dead in the eye

"mind telling me why you are registered as quirkless?"

and izuku freezes. he cant breathe.

aizawa is waiting and his irritation turns to alarm when he realizes the kid i s n t m o v i n g. all might has seen izuku freak out before so he swoops in and sits izuku down on the ground and tries to get the kid to breath. he does but hes still shaking and all he'll stay is "im sorry" and "not again"

aizawa is very much shaken because izuku seemed pretty normal? then he remembered the kid shinso was talking about. allmight calls bakugo who runs back out onto the field, half in uniform and half in costume and hes trying to calm izuku down and he looks like,,, 2 seconds away from ripping aizawa head off and aizawa honestly thinks hes kinda deserves it lmao

its nearing the end of school and izuku isnt even down from his panic attack yet but bakugo n e e d s shinso to get over here so they can swap shirts or izuku is going to be in even more trouble than he already is. so bakugo is trying to get izuku to respond to anything, allmight has his hand on his not sons shoulder, aizawa feels like a piece of shit, and bakugo is trying to find shinso's contact number in izuku's phone

some of class a goes to look outside and aizawa lays into the and tells them to hurry up to class or he'll expell them all with mineta

anyway shinso comes running out bc his teacher is mic and is willing to let him do dumb stuff and shinso is like??? dad its been 1 day what did you do to the cat kiss boy?? shinso allmight and bakugo get izuku responsive enough that bakugo takes him to swap his shirts in the changing rooms and helps izuku clean up so its not obvious he was crying. shinso gets izukus stuff from his classroom. aizawa just turns to all might

“ok so what the fuck was that"

all might honestly shrugs "i barely know myself. kid has serious quirk trauma and is scared of his mother, thats all i can tell you" and aizawa is both concerned and annoyed bc ofcourse thsi si in his class

izuku and bakugo get home, alls good

Battle Trial

battle trial! its,,a ride

basically! izuku has his lil costume and ochako tells him he looks really cute and hes grateful + trauma. bakugo tells him he looks like hes ready to bust some heads which makes him feel better. todoroki is with iida on the villain team

they are chatting happily about have hero families and being melodramatic about being evil

Izuku is paired with inasa!

so izuku cant directly use his quirk on himself, but he can "push" against the ground, which sends him up. its useful for dodging but not sustainable

anyway, they work out that inasa's wind doesnt effect izukus telekinesis

basically:

izuku makes some dust, they roll in, todoroki is out and looking for them. he torches the dust but gets hit by a pebble to the temple. inasa is like, 100% impressed. they wrap todoroki up and inasa says sorry to his half/half bro. todoroki shrugs. bakugo is like, internally cheering and he has the most murderous smile

anyway, iida is melodramatic, inasa looses it laughing bc hes so funny and takes a big ol kick to the face. hes down, probs concussed but iida cant get in to tie him up because he almost gets squished by the currently moving bomb bc its paper mache its light and easy for izuku to pull on

iida decides he should probably take down izuku before anything happens, but at the last moment izuku pushes off the ground, dodging over iida and lightly tapping the bomb

hero team wins!!!

inasa and todoroki are both concussed which is awkward but its all g. izuku gets MVP but iida was a close second. bakugo like, friendly punches izuku in the arm and hes hiding behind bakugo bc people are looking at him but hes very happy

someone says "wow, your quirk is amazing" and hes like,,, "oh there goes my good mood." allmight and bakugo are about to tell this kid to shut the fuck up but get beaten to it by a concussed todoroki of all people

"its not the quirk its how he uses it you overipe melon"

izuku giggles until he cant breathe and bakugo is cackling. concussed todoroki looks so pleased with himsel

bakugo and kiri are teams up and they kick actual ass as the villains. like, crazy good, they take out the heroes and dont even have to let it run over time

because "if we win? we do it right."

izuku is like doing these little happy bounces and inasa is crying bc his partner is so pure

izuku and shinso meet up, change, go home

U.S.J.

Happens like 3 weeks in, not 3 days in. They need time to bond ok. Before the trip we get some general hyjinks.

the next day, its field trip time baby!!!

inasa makes izuku sit with him and todoroki and its a tight fucking fit bc they are sharing 2 seats. inasa has like,,, claimed this boy because he was so soft and izuku has a friend!! and hes very happy. hes like,, a little scared of todoroki but also kinda loves him for the overripe melon comment so

Kurogiri yeets the villains into the usj. allmight is out of time, aizawa runs in like normal. inasa, izuku and tsuyu get sent to the shipwreck zone. they do some cool shit honestly. inasa holds the 3 of them in the air, tsuyu hold the villains together as izuku yeets them into the hull of the ship and seals the hold and hopes the villains dont really care enough to break a hole in the ship. Inasa gets them all to shore

then they get to witness the nomu and izuku sees the punch thrown? and he moves without thinking, using all of his quirk he can to hold to nomus fist back. after he moves, inasa joins in, pushing the nomu back as much as the can. aizawa punches shigiraki and he gets m a d. shigiraki breaks the capture weapon and sends the nomu after tsuyu. inasa, who was closer, pushes her out of the way and takes the hit. its just like, 1 blow? but hes down to the count. aizawa tells tsuyu to take him and run

izuku wants to throw up

aizawa tries to get him to run but the nomu charges again and izuku has to pull aizawa out of the way. all they can do is play keep-away and aizawa is frustrated because no matter the training he has, he can't stand up to this thing. all he can do is rely on izuku's quirk, because the quirk can move faster than a human can. shigiraki gets sick of this, kurogiri uses momentum to send aizawa to the other side of the usj with kiri and Bakugo. they begin to run back to the plaza. izuku is scared, slips up, takes a hit. hes down, with broken ribs and his quirk is nearing overuse

shigiraki sees this kid's broken hands, laughs and makes the nomu crush them again

bakugo blasts in, grabs izuku. todoroki has the nomu trapped in ice, aizawa wraps izukus hands with what he was left of his capture weapon

all might bursts in. he has more of his quirk left bc he hasnt passed it on yet, takes out the nomu and has enough strength to still be standing. shigiraki goes to attack, and izuku basically uses the last of his strength to pull allmight towards him, then he collapses

the other heroes arrive with endeavour! because he was patrolling nearby and got the alert. is his agency in hosu? Yep! do i care? nope hes here to see his son!

aizawa is like, moossttlylyy ok? shigiraki got to his arm and he's got scrapes and sprains from being yeeted around by izuku's quirk but he's pretty ok. inasa has a punctured lung but is stabilized quickly. izukus bones arent fractured? but hes got a pretty bad crush injury to both hands + cracked ribs and low blood sugar. bakugo rides w him back to ua

shinso is there and hes a little panicky bc his dad and bro were in a villain attack. nezu comes into recovery girls office and is like "oh its ok! ive contacted everyone’s parents and they should be here soon" and bakugo is like "YOU DID WHAT"

nezu sweating ",,, what do you mean this is what im ment to do"

and allmight cringes; aizawa, on painkillers, is like, pretty concerned; bakugo is enraged. izuku isnt breathing. hes frozen, crying silently and hes perfectly still and it breaks recovery girls heart

hes got a big bruise of the side of his face, fyi

bakugo doesnt want to leave but recovery girl orders him out, all might gets made to leave as well. soon the only people left are inasa (unconscious) izuku (catatonic) and aizawa (guilty)

inko walks in. shes smiling. she grabs izuku by the hand, "its ok honey, mummy's here now!"and aizawa?? hes trying not to judge but he gets a terrible feeling in the pit of his stomach. inko pulls izuku from the bed by his crushed hand and izuku is silent. she has a hand wrapped around the back of his neck as she leads him out of the school

bakugo is at home and hes begging his mother to let him see izuku bur his mother wont let him because inko has been through something stressful and doesnt need you yelling! and bakugo is angry because shes never believed him about inko. he throws his plate against the wall and looks mitsuki dead in the eyes

"you'll regret that tomorrow. you'll regret that when you see what shes done to him"

his door slams

the day after the usj zuku isnt in school. shinso is waiting at the end of his street but only bakugo shows up. he looks defeated

"lets just go"

shinso spends the whole day in the hero course shirt

aizawa isnt surprized, loads of kids didnt show up to school the day after the usj, even non-hero kids, but then izuku isnt there the next day. bakugo is pacing, tugging at his hair as he waits for aizawa to show up. inasa looks lost, todoroki looks faintly confused, shinso is in the classroom, didnt leave to go to his own because bakugo doesnt know where midoriya is and hes waiting for aizawa

aizawa walks in with the bell. no izuku. his heart sinks. He looks around, and walks straight back out of class, sends mic to cover for him. he tells nezu. nezu has a terrible feeling and asks him and allmight to perform a wellness check. allmight uses his hero form, even though he doesnt have much time to waste, because this isnt a waste

they arrive at inkos house, they knock and she opens the door. shes smiling and asks if they would like to sit down, if they want some tea. there is blood under her fingernails

aizawa aks to use the bathroom, sneaks into midoriyas room. the kid is locked to the bed in the dark and aizawa wants to throw up bc he can smell blood and infection

inko took steel wool and scrubbed "off" every bruise on midoriya's skin to make him "clean" again

every mark

every cut

his hands are, oddly, untouched with their horrible crush marks healed by recovery girl as priority, but the side of his face, his ribs cage, the cuts on his arms and legs and back are raw. no skin, sticky blood dripping onto the sheets. aizawa goes over to izuku and he honestly smells like rotting meat because his room is hot and he has massive open injuries that are super infected. he tries to shake izuku awake and realizes the kid is burning. izuku fliches and is trying to pull away from aizawa, opening cuts and pulling at his wounds. hes so quiet aizawa wants to cry. he gently pats izukus hair and tells him he'll be safe now

hes walks out of the room and throws inko from the couch onto the floor, cuffing her. allmight is shocked, inko is screaming. aizawa cuffs inko to a couch and drags all might into izukus room and all might wants to cry

because, something aizawa hadn't noticed, every single piece of hero merch izuku owned has been ripped from its hiding place and crushed and torn on the floor. all might oh so gently breaks the cuffs holding into down and gently, gently picks him up. he cant stop the tears

izuku lets out the softest "im so sorry sensei" and aizawa has to leave the room. he sucker punches inko, calls nezu and an ambulance. inko is, thank god, unconscious now and the house is so quiet

so quiet aizawa can hear all might crying

mitsuki runs in bc she thinks her tiny friend is getting hurt and she sees her sons teacher sitting with his head between his legs on the floor like hes trying not to cry. he just points and she sees the number 1 hero holding this red and broken boy and she screams. she has to run back out to throw up into the kitchen sink

she calls Katsuki. hes sitting in class, most of the class is pacing or doodling, or chatting. mic doesn't have the heart to try and teach them but he also isn't cleared to tell them whats going on because he doesnt know

bakugos phone rings and the kid tears open his bag. all mistuki says it "im so sorry" and bakugo throws his phone into the wall so hard it shatters

mic like, yells bc a kid just shattered his phone and bakugo leaps over his desk to get to the door. mic grabs him by the collar

"hey listener? what do you think you're doing?"

bakugo is white and clammy

"let go." "listener?" "let. go."

mic drops him and bakugo tears down the hall, he kicks open shinsou's door and hauls him out of the room. midnight tries to stop him but bakugo is basically already off school grounds. shinso doesn't even need to ask, he can guess

they are running as fast as the can, faster than either of them have ever run. they don't even bother with the stairs, bakugo uses his quirk to haul them both up the side. bakugo and shinsou try to run in but aizawa just grabs them and pulls them close, he won't let them pass. aizawa isn't even angry but he won't let go of them, like hes scared someone will hurt another of his students, mitsuki drags Bakugo to her side and just holds him like she used to when he got hurt them he was little. the house is silent other than random crying, sirens in the distance

the ambulance comes and they come to take izuku but all might doesn't want to let go of this kid he's failed so badly, so he gently carries him all the way down and lays him on the stretcher. there is blood caked on his suit jacket

ok so as an fyi? izukus injuries arent terrible but hes missing a lot of skin. still has cracked ribs, has a serious infection and is critically dehydrated from fluid loss due to lost skin, plus the fact he hasn't been given food or water for 2 days

it's not the injuries that are the problem, its the dehydration/fever

1A is shaken. mic is shaken and 20 minutes after bakugo runs out? nezu announces that classes have been cancelled for the day and that students may remain on campus if they have no other way home and mic??? the guy is shaken. his husband is missing, all might left, nemuri says bakugo took shinso too

mic has to tell the class school is cancelled, 1 hour into the day but he can't tell them why because he doesn't know. momo, uraraka and kouda just kinda, start to cry bc they can feel something terrible has happened

todoroki invites everyone over to his house until school would have normally ended. they get over to shoutos house and hes like "so,,, you all wanna know whats happened right?" and he gets a bunch of silent nods. he just kinda, says a preemptive sorry to the pic of his dad on the wall and breaks open his hero office door. 1A is crowded around the computer as shouto, momo and tenya are scanning for anything in alerts and shouto stops and points

"minimal security transport and medical assistance to mustutafu, rapid response requested."

they click on it

Heroes Responding: Eraserhead (underground), All Might Civilian Involvement: 2 Adults (stable, no medical response) 3 Children (2 stable, 1 unknown. medical response requested) Villain: N/A Alert Type: Domestic Violence

tenya has to walk away. so does inasa and todoroki

Endeavour storms in bc "shouto, why did you break into my personal office-" and he sees these kids and they looks broken and his son just clings to him. he feels his heart drop, because he doesnt know whats happened, but its not fucking good

w recovery girl + iv fluids and antibiotics, izuku heals up pretty quick but hes got some big scars. shallow but red and angry looking

school doesnt start again until next Wednesday, 7 days after the usj and the dorms have been built

bakugo and shinso wouldn't leave izuku. like, aizawa threatened to expel Bakugo and he still wouldn't go. when izuku wakes up, his two brothers are holding his hands and he cries because hes alive and they are there

so, dorms

everyone swarms izuku bc that's the soft man who they love who saved them in the usj and also they thought he was dead for a hot minute and izuku is crying and there are hugs. aizawa is very fond of his dumb children and they train for the sports festival

U.A. Sports Festival

Events

Event 1 : Battle Royal

so like, battle royal w a shrinking perimeter. 3 hits and you’re out. A hit is contact with another person, thrown object or quirk.

they all wear like these rly uncomfortable body suits that register touches anywhere bc nezu is a nightmare. they all fucking hate these things and nezu is cackling be he had them made but no one would let him use them

during the event, bakugo yells "MAKE IT THROUGH AND SHOW THOSE CHUCKLE FUCKS WHAT 1A IS MADE OF” a resounding yell of “FUCK YEAH” echos through the examinees

no matter what nezu does, not a single member of 1A lands a hit on another. like, bakugo trips and izuku uses his quirk to get him out of the range f kirishima

all of 1A makes it through. all of them. every single one, followed by half of 1B, plus 10ish mixed gen ed and support kids

gen ed, absolutely disgusted: “it’s clear ua favours 1a”

inasa, outraged and very loud: “sAY THAT TO MY FACe”

please, during the fight izuku goes to throw a punch at the person in front of him, they turn around and all he can see its purple hair and eyes and he cant. he uses his quirk to push himself away from shinso

izuku like,,, takes out most of the people bc he yeets people at eachother. he and inasa protect everyon from 1A! todoroki and bakugou team up, double the fire power. ochako is sad bc she cant help bc she cant touch her class mates so she yeets rocks at people. sato / kiri / bakugo make a sit tone of rubble for her, inasa makes a wind vortex above 1A, then she drops it. thats how they take out almost everyone

Event 2: Blind Tag

after the event their costumes light up. half red, half white. the anouncment is just "red is it. if you are still it in 10 minutes you dont move on. good luck" the area turns pitch b l a c k. all natural light is gone so all you can see is the glowing suits (the audience can see bc they have heat cams) and cementoss adds some varying terrain.

- not gonna lie? it wasnt going to be blind tag but nezu didnt want the last fight to be just 1A

izuku is it he tags someone then avoids being tagged again

inasa is not it. he floats in a corner for like, the whole game but gets hit by ibara near the end

bakugo and todoroki are both not it and team up to make a firey circle of hell, they make it through

shinso does too and hes a really cool fight that no one but him and the audience get to see. he ends up choking this guy out, tags him and sprints away

Event 3: Tournament

momo/monoma, shinso/shoji, tsuyu/kendo, jiro/kuroiro, todoroki/hatsume, iida/awase, bakugo/kirishima, izuku/ochako

momo/iida, todoroki/shinso, izuku/tsuyu, bakugo/jiro

iida/izuku, shinso/bakugo

bakugo/izuku > Izuku wins

Vs. Hero Killer

Interns with Nighteye and Mirio as they do special training w gran. Working with Endeavours agency to find herokiller. Nomu attack, Nighteye tells Mirio to get Izuku to safety, Izuku tells Mirio ab. Iida. Another Nomu corners them, after internal deliberation Mirio tells izuku to go after Iida. Finds Iida, sends location.

Two Heroes

For one, Mirio and Nighteye are there, along with Izuku.

Forest Training Camp

They take Izuku too, because he was holding Bakugo's hand

Nighteye asks to see Allmight's future and allmight declines. Hes going to do it no matter what the future says, and he refuses to set it in stone by seeing it

Mirio is part of the rescue squad, 50% bc he's the one who will take the fall for the whole thing with his license. Besides, he knows about All for One, and it's his duty as a wielder of One for All to at least try to help his mentor.

"I mean, I could have just taken the boy's arm. But those nasty scars tell me hes very much seen the worst humanity has to offer. Perhaps he'd like to join as well."

198 notes · View notes

unpack-my-heart · 5 years ago

Text

Acute-y

A Reddie High School Math Teachers AU

Written as a gift for the insanely lovely @constantreaderfool <3

@xandertheundead @tinyarmedtrex @eds-trashmouth @mrs-vh @violetreddie

Read on AO3 HERE

“I dunno, Sir. I’m supposed to be putting in my college applications in a few days, and I still can’t decide what to pick as my major”

“What are you choosing between?”

“Math and biology. I’m better at math, and I don’t enjoy biology that much, but I can’t think of a decent reason to put down as to why I want to study math. What did you put when you applied to college?”

Eddie sat back in his chair, face scrunched in thought.

“You know when you’re in the middle of a really hard proof, and you don’t know where you’re going, you have no idea where to start and the whole thing just feels like a waste of time?”

“Uh, yeah?”

“That’s like being in a kayak in the middle of the ocean. You’re there, you’ve got all the tools you need to get you to shore, you’ve got your oars and everything, but you don’t have a map. You don’t know which way to go. But, when you figure out which way you are supposed to go, that feeling when you haul yourself onto shore with aching arms, that feeling when you know you’ve done it, that’s why math is amazing”

“Aching arms?”

“It’s a metaphor, Jasper. Just – look. I’m not naturally good at math. I always had to work a bit harder than my peers, who just seemed to … get it instantly. I definitely cried over integration more often than I’d admit to anyone else but you. But I think that’s why I love it so much. My childhood wasn’t … let’s say, my childhood wasn’t very rational. I craved structure, order, precision, any other synonyms that mean the same thing. I craved rationality and math gave that to me. To be able to break everything down, to get absorbed into the minutia of the universe, it’s addictive. It’s breath-taking, and it eases my soul”

Jasper is staring at Eddie with wide eyes, mouth hanging open slightly, and Eddie internally facepalms, cursing himself for spooking the teenager sat opposite him, but then Jasper smiles.

“Thanks, Sir. That – that’s really helpful. Thank you”

“Anytime,” Eddie says, sending Jasper off with a wave and a smile.

Standing up, Eddie stretches his arms towards the ceiling, prompting his back to crunch loudly in three places. His classroom is a mess. Pieces of paper lie strewn all over the floor, rogue pencils and forgotten textbooks littering the desks. Eddie’s school is small, and tragically underfunded, and despite only being a permanent member of staff for a year, Eddie already feels fiercely protective over it. The school is a downtown public school, and his kids mostly come from the impoverished neighbourhoods on the outskirts of the city. Almost all of them have long, boring commutes into school, and almost always slouch into his morning classes tired and starving from never having eaten breakfast, so Eddie has become the teacher that arrives to his classes with pep in his step and a box of granola bars lodged firmly under his arm.

Eddie got the job at Southview High School six days after he’d graduated from his teaching qualification. He’d applied to thirty schools, mostly disadvantaged public schools, and three private schools at the insistence of his mother. He’d been offered interviews for all of them, but he’d only attended one. As soon as he’d walked into the interview room, and shook hands with the head of department, a fiery woman called Dr. Marsh, he knew he was home. Dr. Marsh was firm, and the interview had lasted nearly two hours, and by the time she’d put him through his paces, Eddie felt like his brain was on fire.

He was sure that he’d failed the interview, but after thirty seconds of silence, Dr. Marsh stood up, stuck out her hand, and said, “Can you be here tomorrow at half seven? You’ll be taking the AP students, I’m taking their classes at the moment but I can’t commit as much time to them as they need. God knows they need someone like you”

Eddie had jumped up and down on the spot, before composing himself and accepting the position.

“Oh, and Eddie?”

“Yes?”

“Call me Bev”

The first few weeks had been pretty rough. The kids, predictably, had put Eddie through the ringer, testing boundaries and acting out as teenagers are wont to do. It took a while, but eventually Eddie, to use Bev’s phrase, ‘grew some bollocks’, and started commanding more respect in the classroom. He achieved this, not through sending kids out of the classroom or handing out detentions like candy, but by just through the simple act of listening. The kids, Eddie was quick to realise, just wanted someone to validate, not dismiss, their teenage angst, and Eddie was more than happy to be their crutch.

Fast forward a year, and Eddie’s classroom has become more of a home to him than his actual home. It’s pretty large, and Eddie begged Bev to let him implement flexible seating, so his kids are sat on large tables that look more like picnic benches than desks, in order to encourage collaborative work. One thing that Eddie has come to realise, however, is that his class is full of genuinely talented mathematicians. When he hands back test results, it’s always the same ten students getting in the high nineties, which, gives him an idea.

He attaches a note to the most recent test paper of these ten students,

Can you stay behind after class? I need to ask you something!

[you’re not in trouble please don’t panic]

Needless to say, the kids panic.

“Sir? Am I in trouble? I swear I’ve handed in all the homework this term!”

“Mr Kaspbrak I’m really sorry, I didn’t realise I’d accidentally stolen the protector until I got home, I brought it back, though, honest!”

“Sir, what’s this about?”

“Guys! No, you’re not in trouble, but thanks for bringing the protractor back, Kim. No, I have a proposition for you. Have you ever heard of mathletics?”

The kids all shake their heads.

“Well, lemme explain …”

– X –

It takes several weeks for Eddie to recruit all of the students he cherrypicked as his dream mathletes team, but he manages it, with the promise of extra credit and no homework on heat weeks. Whilst he was a mathlete himself during his college years, Eddie hasn’t ever actually coached a team before, so he spends hours every evening reading every internet article and borrowing every book from the library he can possibly find on how to coach a mathletics team. Eventually, when he thinks his students are ready, and he manages to get them all to agree, Eddie registers them for a practice heat against a local school in their city.

Eddie and his motley crew of baby mathletes meet every Thursday and Friday after school to practice, and before they knew it, the morning of the heat was upon them. The heat was being held in the auditorium of the opposing school, so Eddie had to borrow the rusty old school bus to schlep his kids across the city. Bev, who had given Eddie an ecstatic “YES!” when he had asked for her permission to take the kids to a mathletics heat in school time, had announced the night before that she wanted to go with him. He had said yes, sort of hoping that she’d offer to drive the death-trap bus, but she’d climbed into the front passenger seat. Eddie prayed to the driving gods that they’d keep the roads clear and keep the wheels attached to the bus before he climbed in, and they set off to Faraday Technical School.

Thankfully, the journey goes smoothly. The kids chatter quietly in the back, and Bev manages to distract Eddie’s nervous stomach by discussing budget plans, and whether he thought that Iron Man would be better than her at differentiation. Eddie answered honestly that he didn’t think he would be. Soon enough, they pull into the gates of Faraday Technical School, and Bev hops out of the bus to speak to the guard on the gate. Eddie gulps. Their school doesn’t have a guard. Their school doesn’t even have gates. They just have an old caretaker called Jim who loves the kids and polishes the floor with his radio on full blast. The guard nods at Bev, and then nods over at Eddie, and then the gates swing open as if by magic, and Eddie drives through. The school looms ahead of them, and Eddie’s students all go silent. By the time Eddie has parked up, Bev has walked over to them, and she hauls the door of the bus open.

The kids don’t move.

“Dr. Marsh, I don’t think I can do this”

“Yeah I’ve … I’ve got a headache”

“Sir, we’re going to lose”

Bev claps her hands, “Hey! You can do anything these kids can do. Yeah, they go to a fancy school, but you’ve got Mr K and me on your side. You’ve worked so hard for this, don’t let the fact that this school has a pool spook you”

“They have a POOL?!”

“Why don’t we have a pool!”

“Because I want to be able to afford the latest textbooks for you, that’s why” Bev says, grinning.

After several minutes of animated encouragement from both Bev and Eddie, the kids finally filter out of the bus. They stand around looking ever the lost lambs, and Eddie’s heart bleeds for them. He knows exactly what it feels like. Imposter syndrome, feeling like you’re a fraud, like you don’t belong. Like you don’t deserve success.

Eddie and Bev herd the kids into the school, and they find the auditorium. The opponents are already on the stage, closely huddled together, with an older looking teacher with a shock of white hair and a pinched face standing in the centre of the huddle. The teacher was waving his hands wildly and speaking so loudly that Eddie could hear him at the other end of the hall.

“WHO ARE WE?”

“FARADAY TECHNICAL SCHOOL!”

“WHAT DO WE DO?”

“WIN!”

“WHEN DO WE WIN?”

“ALWAYS!”

“That’s a rubbish chant” Bev stage whispers, and their kids laugh nervously.

Eddie takes a deep breath in, squared his shoulder, sets his jaw, and strides purposefully over. He taps the teacher on the shoulder and clears his throat.

“Um, excuse me?”

“Ah, you must be Mr Kaspbrak, we spoke on the phone”

Eddie takes and shakes the extended hand.

“Yes! That’s me. You must be Mr Tozier?”

“Oh, no, no. I’m Mr Powell, the principal of Faraday Technical. Mr Tozier is sorting out the IT, you should liaise with him”

“Oh, okay. Where can I find him?”

A hand lands on Eddie’s shoulder and squeezes, and Eddie turns around. Stood behind him, and smiling at Eddie with a wolfish grin, is a man who can’t be any older than Eddie, perhaps a year at most. He’s wearing a very loud pink Hawaiian shirt, grey dickies and scuffed suede Chelsea boots, with round red glasses balanced on his nose. By all rights, he should look ridiculous. But he doesn’t. Not even close.

“Howzzit, fellow teach?” Mr Tozier says, voice crackly like autumn leaves.

“Uh…” Eddie replies, dumbly.

“I stalked your Linkedin, you know. MIT grad? Top of your class?” Mr Tozier whistles, impressed. “How’d you end up teaching sprogs if you’re some kind of hypergenius?”

“My Linkedin?”

“Yup! Wanted to check you out before you got here, see what I’d be up against. Gotta be honest, Eddie Spaghetti, you got me shaking in my boots”

Ridiculously, he starts shaking his legs, a pretence at fear that makes Eddie snort, despite his attempts not to encourage Mr Tozier’s ridiculousness.

“Eddie Spaghetti? Seriously?”

“Too informal? Would you prefer Mr Spaghetti?”

“I’d prefer Mr Kaspbrak, thank you,” Eddie says, somewhat prissily, but Mr Tozier doesn’t seem to mind, a lopsided grin still plastered on his face.

“So, Mr Tozier, how does this work?”

“Mathletics virgin, are we?” Mr Tozier says, and Eddie rolls his eyes.

“Not entirely. I was a mathlete myself when I was at MIT but I’ve never coached a team through a competition before”

“Aw, no shit? I was a mathlete at CalTech. What year were you on the circuit?”

“2006, you?”

“…2006. I fuckin’ KNEW you looked familiar!” Mr Tozier practically shouts, pointing a finger in Eddie’s face accusatorily.

“Do you think we competed against each other?”

Mr Tozier shrugs his shoulders, “’Prolly, your face … well, it looked familiar as soon as I stalked your LinkedIn. I’m like an elephant, I never forget cute faces”

Eddie splutters a bit, before raising an eyebrow challengingly, “well, if we did compete against each other, I wiped the floor with you. I never lost a heat. Eddie the dominator, they called me”

“Dominator, eh? We’ll see about that,” Mr Tozier says with a wink, before striding off towards his team.

“Wait!”

Richie turns around, “what’s up, Mr Spaghetti?”

“Enough with the spaghetti! I don’t think it’s fair that you know my first name and I don’t know yours”

“Richie, Richard if you’re angry with me”

“Got it, see you later, Richard”

Richie laughs, high, bright and scratchy.

“May the best team win, Mr Spaghetti”

Eddie rolls his eyes dramatically, but he can no longer suppress the smile that’s been tugging at his lips.

– X –

Eddie’s team wins the heat. As soon as the winners are announced, he bursts into tears. Happy tears, of course. His kids laugh at him mercilessly, calling him soppy and ridiculous, but they all have megawatt beams plastered on their faces. They only win by three points, 103 to 106, but the other team were smart, and there were various points in the heat that Eddie was trying to work out how to console his team when they inevitably lost. Bev picks Eddie up by the waist, and squeezes him so hard he makes this involuntary squeaky ‘oof’ noise, causing the kids to laugh at him even more.

When they’re piling the students back into the bus, with the promise of candy at the next mathletics meeting, one of the kids from Faraday Technical School runs up to Eddie clutching a folded piece of paper.

“Mr Tozier asked me to give this to you,” the kid says, out of breath and puffing.

Eddie tilts his head, “Uh, thank-you?”

The kid thrusts the piece of paper into Eddie’s hand, before running off again. Eddie opens the paper,

I’ve decided I don’t really like math. The only number I care about now is yours

Eddie looks up from the paper, face burning, and immediately locks eyes with Richie, who was standing in the window of the auditorium. Eddie waves at him, a weird jerky little motion. Richie grins, and winks at him. Eddie laughs, before shaking his head and climbing back into the bus.

Later, when Eddie’s at home grading problem sheets, he absent-mindedly checks his email, and sees that he has a notification from Linkedin.

Richard Tozier would like to add you as a connection!

Eddie accepts without much thought, and goes back to grading. Several minutes later, though, his computer pings again, this time with a message

Richard Tozier has sent you a message!

Richard: Fancy seeing you here

Edward: This … is an online message? You can’t see me?

Richard: You pedant

Edward: :-)

Richard: oh my god even your emojis are cute

Edward: :-(

Richard: Why are you sad!

Edward: did you want something or are you just trying to distract me from marking?

Richard: Both?

Edward: Not acceptable. I have to mark 34 more problem sheets and then plan a lesson tomorrow on trig identities

Richard: :-(

Edward: Now you’re just mocking me

Richard: I meant what I said, you know

Edward: … About?

Richard: Not liking math anymore

Edward: Get some better pick-up lines

Richard: You were charmed by it, don’t lie to me. I saw your face when you read that note.

Edward: No comment

Richard: :-)

It took more strength than Eddie would ever admit under oath to pull himself away from his computer, but he managed. Shutting his laptop lid with a click, he managed to lose himself in the problem sheets for several hours, before his eyes start getting heavy and he calls it a night. Before he goes to sleep, he impulsively checks his LinkedIn messages,

Richard: Are you the square root of 2? Because I feel irrational when I’m around you

Edward: You’re a nerd

Richard: ;-)

– X –

After their triumphant win at the practice mathletics heat, Eddie starts entering his kids for more and more practice heats, and even organises a few himself that they hold at their school. The confidence of his students blooms like blossom trees, and Eddie couldn’t be more proud if one of them had won the Fields medal. He’s still messaging Richie on LinkedIn. Like clockwork, Richie sends him a pick-up line at night, and Eddie always responds by calling him a nerd. It’s their thing now, and Eddie is punched in the stomach by the realisation that, if Richie stopped messaging him, he’d be devastated.

The thing that was frustrating Eddie the most, however, was the fact that their conversations had not moved off of LinkedIn. They hadn’t even added each other on Facebook, or followed each other on twitter, even though Eddie had managed to find Richie’s accounts on both sites. His mouse had hovered over the ‘add as friend’ and ‘follow’ buttons more times than he’d care to admit, but he could never quite bring himself to click. Eventually, the frustration builds up to a crescendo, and so, with his heart hammering in his chest, Eddie sends Richie a message.

Edward: Hey Rich, was wondering if you’d want a mathletics re-match? I wanna show off how good my kids have got

Edward: No pressure, of course

Richard: Name a time and a place, Mr Spaghetti

Eddie decides to throw the heat at his school, and he spends several days co-ordinating with Bev about where they should hold the heat, and then sweet talking the music teacher into agreeing to do the PA. Try as he might, Eddie can’t ignore the nerves gnawing at his stomach. he doesn’t really understand why he’s nervous because it’s not like Richie returns this pathetic school-yard crush Eddie has been harbouring since the first practice heat. Eddie rationalises it by assuming that Richie is just a naturally flirtatious person. It doesn’t work, though, and the nerves transform into butterflies.

The morning of the heat arrives. Eddie’s classroom overlooks the small parking lot, and he catches himself periodically staring out of the room, waiting for Richie’s bus to arrive. When the Faraday Technical School bus does arrive, Eddie is in the middle of explaining a particularly tricky vector problem. Eddie stares at Richie who is holding the bus door open, saluting each kid that hops out. By chance, Richie looks up, and sees Eddie staring at him from his classroom, and Richie winks at him again, causing Eddie to splutter. The student who is currently working out a problem on the board sends him an odd look.

“… so once you’ve found the dot product, you can find the angle between the two vectors,” Eddie continues, trying to regain composure.

“Uhhh Sir, the angle is acute”

“Yes, I know. You just worked that out on the board for us”

“Your answer is 116 degrees”

“…Shit”

“Sir! You swore!”

“Oh, Faraday are here, is that why you’re nervous?”

“… Yes. That is exactly why. The competition. Yes. Of course!”

The bell rings soon after, and Eddie scrambles down the hall to the cafeteria, that they’ve repurposed as a makeshift auditorium. His kids are already there, bickering between themselves about who will go first for the mental arithmetic round.

“Siiiiiiir! Jenny lost my calculator! I don’t have another one for the calculator round!”

“for fucks sake – Okay Kim! That’s fine. I’ll go and fetch you one,” Eddie says, and he sprints to the math supply cupboard at the other end of the school to get a spare one.

He darts into the cupboard, grabs a calculator, opens the door again and promptly screams because directly outside the door, leaning on the opposite wall, is Richie. Richie laughs at him, a proper belly-laugh, and clutches his stomach as he doubles over. Eddie huffs at him, and starts walking back towards the school hall, comically slow, allowing Richie to catch up with him

“Hey, Mr Spaghetti,” Richie says, breezily, walking sideways like a crab so he’s facing Eddie.

“Hello, you pest”

“You ready to get your ass handed to you?”

“I wouldn’t be so cocky, dude. My kids have been working super hard since the last meet, plus … we thrashed you last time so … it’s you that’s gotta be scared,” Eddie counters, poking his tongue out at Richie, childishly.

“You won by three points”

“We still won”

Richie leaps in front of Eddie, blocking his way, before standing up on his tip-toes and clasping his hands together, “care to make this interesting?”

“What d’ya mean?”

“Are you a betting man, Mr Spaghetti?”

“Is it ethical to bet on our students?”

“Ethical Schmethical. We won’t be exchanging money if that’s what you’re worried about,” Richie says, waggling his eyebrows suggestively.

He’s wearing different glasses frames this time. They’re blue, and they match his eyes.

Eddie shakes his head, distracted.

“… Go on”

“If my kids win, you gotta let me take you out”

“Hmm…,” Eddie muses, in mock consideration, “what if my kids win?”

“You gotta take ME out!” Richie says, eyes sparkling.

“But… that works out the same”

“Oh, so it does! What a clever little spaghetti you are”

“You gotta quit it with the spaghetti stuff!” Eddie scolds, but Richie just laughs at him.

“You gonna put me in detention?”

Eddie rolls his eyes, “obviously not”

“What a shame. So, Eds, do you agree to our little wager?”

They’re nearly back at the hall now, and Eddie can hear Bev’s voice filtering through the PA system, instructing everyone to take their seats.

Eddie holds his hand out for Richie to shake, “deal”.

Richie takes his hand, but instead of shaking it, he presses a sloppy kiss to the back of Eddie’s hand.

“You must be an asymptote, because I just find myself getting closer and closer to you,” Richie whispers into Eddie’s ear, and before Eddie can call him a nerd, he’s gone.

– X –

Eddie’s kids lose the heat. They lose quite badly, actually, as Richie’s kids function like a well-oiled machine, and Eddie’s kids freeze when a particularly tricky integration stumps them. Eddie feels awful, especially because this was the first time they’d lost by a significant margin. His kids surprise him though, and they all shake the winners hands, looking upset but not angry. Eddie’s heart threatens to leap out of his chest, each beat a cacophony of proud, proud, proud.

Eddie also shakes the hands of all the kids, congratulating them on their speedy mental arithmetic and their teamwork. Bev yells something to him about the PA system not turning off properly, and Eddie turns his head to tell her that he’ll be there in a minute, but then another hand is in his. It’s larger and rougher than the others, and Eddie turns his head and, of course, it’s Richie.

“Well done, Mr Kaspbrak. You guys put up a good fight,” Richie says, no longer shaking Eddie’s hand, just holding it.

“Thanks, Mr Tozier. Your kids are quite impressive”

“Heh. They’re good eggs, all right. I’m proud of ‘em”

One of Richie’s kids screeched loudly for Mr To-zi-eeeeerrrhhh!!, and Richie’s head snapped backwards, before he turned back to look at Eddie, rolling his eyes, “they may be smart, but my God they’re demanding little sprogs”

Richie gives Eddie’s hand one last squeeze, before striding off towards the back of the hall, collecting his kids, and disappearing through the door.

Eddie looks down at his hand, and sees a tiny piece of paper folded up nestled in the center of his palm. It had a phone number scrawled on it in teeny tiny chicken-scratch scrawl, along with the words your new favourite number.

Eddie saves the number in his phone under ‘you nerd’, with a rolling-eyes emoji next to it.

– X –

To: You Nerd:

Very sneaky.

From: You Nerd:

Whatever do you mean?

To: You Nerd:

You know exactly what I mean.

Richie doesn’t respond immediately, and Eddie’s hands begin to itch.

To: You Nerd:

So where are you taking me?

From: You Nerd:

Ah-hah! A certain Mr Spaghetti hasn’t forgotten our wager

To: You Nerd:

Of course I haven’t

From: You Nerd:

Well, I’ve got a very exciting evening planned, but it’s a surprise so I can’t tell you. Are you free on Friday? Say, 6pm?

To: You Nerd:

Yeah, I can do Friday. Can you at least tell me what the dress code is, though?

From: You Nerd:

It doesn’t matter what you wear, you won’t be wearing it for long

To: You Nerd:

I’m not gonna put out you know

From: You Nerd:

I never insinuated such a thing

To: You Nerd:

… but you said I wouldn’t be wearing my clothes for long?

From: You Nerd:

just wait and see, Eds, just wait and see

Eddie doesn’t text back after that, getting lost in marking test papers. When he’s lying on his couch later that evening, knocking back a large glass of red wine, a thought suddenly pops into his booze-hazy brain … that fact that he just might have a picture of college-age Richie Tozier lurking in his scrapbook from his mathlete’s days. Eddie balances a chair in front of his wardrobe, and manages to pull the scrapbook off of the top using the pad of his index finger, sending it clattering to the floor. He flips through his college scrapbook, looking for the pictures of the mathletics heats he’d competed in, and he finds the one he’s looking for almost instantly. He’s standing there, holding the trophy, a stupidly big grin on his face (and those damn braces!) but in the corner, Eddie spots him. Richie. Richie’s standing in the corner of the shot, staring at Eddie with what look like, if Eddie didn’t know better, a sort of lovestruck expression on his face. Eddie grabs his phone and takes a picture of the photo, and sends it to Richie with the caption, you’re such a nerd.

Richie texts back almost instantly.

From: You Nerd:

I can’t wait to take you out Eds

Eddie’s sort of stunned by Richie’s reply. He’d expected Richie to make a joke about his braces, or the ridiculous sweater he was wearing, or even some corny pick up line. Not … this. After twenty minutes of fighting with himself, Eddie eventually sends, I’m excited, too.

– X –

The rest of the week flies by in a blur of standardised testing, broken protractors and departmental meetings. By the time Friday rolled around, Eddie was exhausted. He’d woken up and spilt his coffee all over his crisp, white suit trousers, and then his car wouldn’t start so he’d popped the hood, and oil had spurted all over his sweater. One quick change later, and he’d finally made it to school. Only then, much to his chagrin, and after bumping into several tiny Dracula’s in the hallway, he remembered. It was Halloween. The worst teaching day of the year. By the end of the school day, the oppressive smell of fake blood had turned Eddie’s stomach, and if he never had to look at someone wearing Frankenstein’s monster bolts in their neck again, it’d be too soon.

Richie had text him earlier in the day with a house address, and when Eddie had sent back pensive looking emojis Richie had reassured him that, whilst that was his home address, he did actually have plans to take Eddie out, and it certainly wasn’t a Netflix and chill kind of situation.

Eddie drives to Richie’s house, parks up outside. Eddie is surprised to find that Richie lives in a very nice suburban neighbourhood, like something from a storybook. White picket fences, jack-o-lanterns, ghosts hanging from trees, the whole deal. Just when Eddie had worked up the courage to get out of the car and knock on Richie’s door, it swung open and Richie marched out. He was dressed as a ghost, draped in a huge sheet, which had two comically small, wonky eyeholes cut out of it.

“We’re going trick or treating!” Richie yells, and whilst his face is obscured by the sheet, and the eye holes are far too small for Eddie to see his face, he can just tell that Richie is looking very pleased with himself.

“Aren’t we a bit old for trick or treating?” Eddie asks, sceptical. He walks up to Richie, who bounds back inside his house. Eddie follows him.

“This isn’t all my house, it’s two apartments. I live on the first floor,” Richie explains as he walks up the stairs, beckoning Eddie to follow him.

“I thought you said we were going out?”

“We are! I just need to check on the child”

“… The child? You have a kid?”

“Me? Naw. She’s not mine. I borrowed her”

“… You borrowed a child?”

“Yup”

“… is that legal?”

“I mean, I’m pretty sure an uncle can take his niece trick or treating without informing the authorities, you silly spaghetti,” Richie laughs, pushing the door open.

Richie’s apartment is small, but cosy. It’s fairly messy, books scattered on every available surface, posters littering the walls, five mugs of half-forgotten coffee on the coffee table. Eddie is surprised by how similar Richie’s apartment looked to his own house.

Whilst Eddie is browsing Richie’s expansive book collection, a small child bursts through into the living space. She can’t be more than six or seven years old, but Eddie still screams.

“Jesus Christ!”

“Uncle Rich! That man said a bad word!”

“Oh hush, you demon. Your father says worse when he sings you lullabies at night. But… Jessica you look … really quite horrifying”

“Thanks!” Jessica beams. She’s dressed in a grubby clown costume, complete with Jacobean ruff and breeches. Her face is painted white, with red lines that look like deep welts running from her eyes down to her mouth, and her hair is obscured with a violently orange wig. In short, she looked uncannily like the sort of clown that appears to Eddie in his sleep paralysis nightmares.

“Did – did you choose her costume?” Eddie asks, looking at Richie with wide, terrified eyes.

“No… she chose it herself, I would have dressed her up as a bee or something not,” Richie gestures helplessly to his niece, who is making scary faces at herself in the reflection of the coffee table, “this”

The oven dings, and Richie pulls out a plate of roasted vegetables and sausages that look suspiciously like the morning star ones Eddie eats on a Saturday morning.

“Is she veggie?”

“Naw, but I am. I refuse to cook her dead carcasses as much as the little carnivore might beg me,” Richie says, ruffling Jessica’s hair, who is sat on the kitchen counter, shovelling food into her face at lightning speeds. “I told her she couldn’t have any candy unless she ate some real food first. Plus, while she’s distracted, I can show you your costume!”

“My … my costume?” Eddie asks faintly.

Richie nods vigorously, and skips into his bedroom, before emerging clutching a small package wrapped in paper decorated with pumpkins and cats wearing witches hats.

“It’s not my birthday, Rich”

“Yeah, but I don’t know when your birthday is, so I wanted to have all bases covered in case it happened to be today”

“… you’re cute,” Eddie says, before ripping the paper off the package, and revealing a Jack Skellington costume.

“Are you serious?!”

“As a heart attack,” Richie says, solemnly.

“Why aren’t you dressed as Sally then?!”

“I don’t have the legs for it”

Eddie scoffs, “uh, yeah you fuckin’ do,” before he can catch himself. He slaps a hand across his mouth when he realises what he just implied.

“Been checkin’ out my pins have we, Mr Kaspbrak?” Richie lisps, stretching out his leg in a hilarious display of faux-coquettishness.

Eddie throws the wrapping paper at his head.

Eddie disappears into the bathroom, and tries the costume on. Staring at himself in the mirror, adjusting his bowtie, he has to admit to himself, he makes for a good pumpkin king. He sweeps his hair off his face, and secures it under the bald cap, and emerges from the bathroom with a flourish.

Riche clutches at his heart, “Oh sugar, ain’t you the sexiest skeleton I ever did see”

“I don’t really look like a skeleton yet. Did you get facepaints?”

“sure did, c’mere, lemme …” Richie sweeps Eddie under his arm, and guides him to the couch.

Richie crouches between Eddie’s open legs, and starts covering his face in white paint. Eddie holds his breath. Their faces are close enough that Eddie can feel the rhythmic puffs of breath coming out of Richie’s mouth, and he can see the flecks of green in Richie’s aquamarine eyes. Richie smells like smoky sandalwood and a little bit like mint. Toothpaste. Eddie tries to breathe it in without Richie noticing.

All too soon, Richie sits back on his heels, eyes scanning Eddie’s face, admiring his handiwork, “There!”

Eddie stands up, and walks over to the mirror hanging over the mantlepiece of the filled-in fireplace. He looks .. incredible. His entire face is sheet-white, with black rings around his eyes and lips.

“Holy shit, Rich…”

“He said another bad word!” Jessica yelled from her place on the counter, where she was now pushing a lonely piece of broccoli around on her otherwise empty plate.

Richie looks at the plate, and shrugs his shoulders, “good enough!”

After several minutes of highly concentrated pestering from Jessica, all three of them are out of the door into the quickly darkening night. They hop from house to house, Jessica scaring more than her fair share of other kids and even other adults. Eddie surprises himself by how much he enjoys wandering around the streets, admiring all of the costumes and sharing swigs of a bottle of hard cider Richie has hidden under his sheet.

Richie soon realises that the holes he cut in his sheet were far too small to walk normally, so he latches onto Eddie’s hand, threading his fingers through Eddie’s.

“You gotta be my eyes, spooky spaghetti. I can’t see a fuckin’ thing. Keep an eye on the clown, would ya”

Eddie squeezes Richie’s hand in reply, not trusting himself to speak.

Half way through the night, though, Richie takes off his sheet.

“The damn thing is too hot and I probably shouldn’t leave you in sole charge of the clown,” he reasons, shoving the crumpled up sheet into his bag.

“Put the damn thing back on!”

“Nope! You’re in costume enough for us both,” Richie laughs but he takes Eddie’s hand again.

After a few steps, Richie starts singing.

“And does he notice, my feelings for him? And will he see? How much he means to me”

“That’s a sad song, Rich,” Eddie whispers in response, watching Jessica roar at, and terrify, yet another small child. The kids mother glares at them, and Richie just shrugs at her, whatcha gonna do?

“Maybe. The movie does have a happy ending though,” Richie says, and Eddie just nods.

They drop Jessica back at Richie’s brothers house just before nine, and she’s so hyped up on candy and sugar that Eddie is sure that she’ll never sleep again. Richie’s brother looks almost exactly like him, and Eddie is about to ask if they’re twins, but Richie interrupts him.

“The night is young, spooky spaghetti! Follow me for the next step of the surprise”

Eddie is sceptical, mainly because the last surprise resulted in him being dressed as Jack Skellington and paraded around the neighbourhood by a plain-clothed Richie, but he figures it can’t get any worse, so he follows.

– X –

“I’ll have the mushroom bourguignon please, waiter!” Richie announces, shit-eating grin plastered on his face.

Eddie, mortified and wishing he could fall straight through the floor and be devoured by the jaws of Satan himself just mumbles, “I’ll have the same.”

As soon as Richie had stopped outside the door of the fancy French restaurant, Eddie had wanted to cry. Richie hadn’t let him go home to change, assuring him that his costume would be perfectly fine attire for wherever they were going.

Richie was a liar.

Eddie had gone into the bathroom of the restaurant and fiercely scrubbed the make-up off his face, but it hadn’t quite worked, and his face now just looked sort of grey, where all the white and black face paint had blended into each other. He comes out of the bathroom, and stalks over to the table where Richie is sat, looking entirely normal in skinny black jeans and a deep purple button-up.

“I look like a dollar store Beetlejuice,” Eddie groans as he sits back down, trying to hide as much of the costume under the table as he can.

“You look ravishing, my darling,” Richie says, fluttering his eyelashes. Eddie is sure that it was supposed to be a joke, but the way Richie said it, all deep and sincere and … it certainly didn’t sound like a joke.

“Why the fuck did you buy me this costume?

“Well, I wanted you to be a pi pie, y’know, write the all of the digits of pi around the crust, but I thought you’d take it off”

“How many digits of pi do you even know?”

“Like 300”

Eddie raises his eyebrow, and Richie rolls his eyes.

“Fine, I know … 4”

“… You went to CalTech, and you’re a high school math teacher, and you only know four digits of pi!”

“There’s a pi button on the calculator, I don’t need to know it!”

“You’re a fucking nightmare,” Eddie says through his laughter, and Richie grins at him.

The food arrives promptly and it’s good, the best food Eddie had eaten in a long time, and he wolfs it down embarrassingly quickly. As is expected when two teachers spend more than four minutes together, the conversation turns to why they decided to become math teachers.

“I went to MIT on a scholarship, and I graduated top of my class as you know, and when I graduated I was pressured into taking a doctoral programme in fluid mechanics, but I lasted only two months before I dropped out because I hated the bureaucracy of it all, y’know, and I wanted to make a difference in kid’s lives, as cheesy as that sounds,” Eddie says between slurps of his soup.

Richie nods, “Yeah, my reason is pretty similar. I had ADHD, or, I guess I still do, but I take meds now so it’s easier to cope with, but yeah, all my teachers fucking hated me and didn’t have any patience with me. They didn’t bother spending more than two seconds trying to work out the best way to teach me, so I was sort of on my own all through my education, and I couldn’t bear the thought of that happening to anyone else, so I put myself through the torturous teaching degree and here I am!”

Eddie looks at Richie, really looks at him for the first time. Richie’s sat opposite him, shovelling mushrooms into his mouth and there’s sauce on his chin and he’s got red paint on his arm and he looks beautiful.

– x –

They both get far drunker than they meant to. They’re not catatonic, and they can still walk in a straight line, but Eddie knows there’s no way in hell that he’ll be able to drive home safely. He tries to get a cab from the restaurant, but Richie insists that Eddie stays with him. Eddie uhms and ahhs about it, stranger danger stranger danger! echoing in his drunk brain, but he throws caution to the wind and agrees to stay. He does, however, insist that he’s sleeping on the couch before Richie can even mention alternative sleeping arrangements.

Richie tries anyway, “we can top and tail, or you can have my bed, honest, I’ll sleep on the floor I don’t mind,” but Eddie’s having none of it. They hail a cab, and both clamber into the back seat. They sit in comfortable silence for the duration of the journey, but at one point Richie’s hand finds its way to Eddie’s knee, sending Eddie’s heart into overdrive.

When they get back to Richie’s, Richie rushes into his bedroom to grab Eddie some stuff to sleep in, sweatpants and a t-shirt with Da Vinci’s Vitruvian man on it. After calling Richie a nerd, and then asking if he could have a shower, and then having to ask Richie to show him how the shower works, Eddie stands under the boiling torrent of water and sighs, but before too long he can hear this odd scraping noise, accompanied by the occasional BANG. He puts it down to him being drunk, and finishes up in the shower. He towel dries his hair, running his fingers through it a few times to get rid of any knots, and puts on the clothes Richie leant to him which are, predictably, far too big. When he emerges from the bathroom, he’s greeted with the sight of a vaguely sweaty looking Richie leaning on the couch, which is now on its side, lodged in the doorway of Richie’s bedroom.

“It’s stuck”

“I can see that”

“Gimme a hand, Eds?”

Eddie leans on the sofa and gives it an almighty shove, and after a fair bit of effort from both of them, the sofa slides through the door and into Richie’s bedroom.

“Care to tell me why the couch is now in your bedroom and no longer in the living room?”

“Halloween magic!”

“… I literally helped you shove it in here two seconds ago”

“Like I said, Halloween magic!” Richie says, already flitting around his room, picking up rogue shoes and pairs of jeans and throwing them into the already overflowing laundry basket.

Richie ends up shoving his bed right over into the corner of the room so he can position the couch next to it, so when Eddie lies on it he’ll be facing Richie. Eddie finds all of this unbearably cute, but he’s exhausted so he falls onto the couch and makes grabby hands for the blanket Richie’s holding. Richie drapes it over Eddie with this dopy expression on his face that Eddie would have ribbed him for if he hadn’t been so sleepy.

“Thanks for taking me out, Rich. I had a really great day”

“It was my pleasure, Mr Spaghetti”

“Rich?”

“Hmm?”

“You were a cute ghost”

“Aw shucks, sugar, you’re making me blush”

Eddie smacks his lips sleepily, before stretching out his legs, “ghosts can’t blush, they don’t have any blood”

Richie laughs, and says “so fuckin’ cute” under his breath, and Eddie guesses he didn’t mean for him to hear, but he does hear, and it makes his heart skip in his chest.

Several minutes pass, and Eddie guesses Richie has fallen asleep, and he’s on the very brink of sleep himself when Richie breaks the silence.

“Eds? You asleep?”

“Yes”

“Sorry, sorry, go back to sleep”

“You gotta tell me what you wanted now, that’s the rule”

“The rule?”

“The rule that goes, ‘when you wake someone up to tell them something, you can’t then not tell them’. It’s a sacred, ancient rule,” Eddie replies, knowing he’s not making much sense, but finding it hard to care.

“Ah okay,” Richie says, solemnly, “I won’t break your ancient rule. I just wanted to ask if you were free next weekend?”

“Nope,” Eddie responds, immediately.

Silence.

“…Oh”

“Are you free next weekend?”

“What?”

“It’s my turn to ask you out. So, are you free next weekend?”

“… What just happened?”

“Just go with it! Are you free?”

“…Yes?”

“Good! I’m taking you out”

“You’re a strange little spaghetti, aren’t you”

“I’m tired leave me alone,” Eddie yawns.

Richie leans out of his bed, and presses a chaste kiss to Eddie’s forehead.

“Sleep well, Eds”

– X –

Eddie wakes up the next morning with a pounding head and a dry mouth. He panics initially, not recognising the room but he soon remembers that he’s lying on a couch in Richie Tozier’s bedroom and then he’s … still panicking a bit. Richie isn’t in his bed, and Eddie can hear singing coming from the kitchen, so he pads out into the kitchen, Richie’s too-long sweatpant legs covering his feet.

“Well aren’t you a sight for sore eyes in the morning, Mr Spaghetti,” Richie sing-songs, scraping something burnt and bad-smelling into the bin.

“Hullo, Rich. What’s cooking?”

“It was an omelette but now … sad, burnt eggs,” Richie says, staring sadly at the black mess coating the bottom of the pan.

“Cereal?” Eddie suggests, and Richie beams at him.

“Cereal!”

Richie pours them bowls of cereal, and they sit in comfortable silence.

“Thanks for letting me stay last night,” Eddie says, droplets of milk spilling out of his mouth.

“Oh, no problem. You might have to help me move the couch back out here though”

Eddie snorts into his bowl, “you’re such an idiot, Rich”

“It’s endearing though, right?” Richie asks, sending a pantomime wink over to Eddie

“Eh, you say endearing, I say ridiculous”

“Tomayto, tomahto”

They finish up their cereal and Eddie helps Richie haul the couch back into the living room. Eventually, Eddie remembers that he has to go home to grade papers and make arrangements for the next practice mathletics heat, so he gets changed back into his own clothes, and leaves the clothes he borrowed from Richie in a neat pile on the bathroom counter.

They both stand awkwardly at the front door, Eddie’s hand on the door-knob, neither moving, neither saying anything. Eddie breaks the awkwardness with a hug, and they stand there for a while, Eddie’s hands wrapped around Richie’s neck, before Eddie reaches up on his tippytoes and presses a kiss to Richie’s cheek. It makes him feel like an idiot schoolgirl, but the way Richie’s face flushes scarlet makes him feel a bit better.

– X –

Eddie takes a big risk, and enters his kids into the qualifying heat of the Mathletics Olympiad, a state-wide mathletics competition. They win their first qualifying heat by a significant margin, and Eddie cries again. Richie phones him in the evening;

“I hear that Southview won their qualifier!”

“We did!”

“Did you cry again?”

“…”

“… No”

“You did, didn’t you?”

“… maybe”

“You’re so cute”

“Shut up”

“Never. I’m proud of you, y’know”

“Eh? I didn’t do anything, it was all their hard work”

“Yeah, well, I don’t think a lot of teachers woulda’ taken a chance on kids from a school like yours”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“You know what I meant, Eds, I just meant that I can’t imagine many math teachers from struggling schools would have bothered running a math club, let alone pushing their kids to mathletes”

“Well … they’re bright kids”

“I know they are, and they’ve got you cheering them on from the side lines. I hope they know how lucky they are”

“I didn’t realise you were such a sap”

“I’m getting mushy in my old age”

They talk on the phone for hours, and Eddie ends up falling asleep with the call still connected. When he wakes up, he sees that he has a text from Richie;

From: You Nerd <3:

Are you a 45 degree angle? Because you're acute-y.

To: You Nerd <3:

I was wondering when you’d break out the acute jokes

To: You Nerd <3:

Running out of material?

From: You Nerd:

NEVER!

Eddie’s school keeps winning the mathletics heats, and soon enough, they win the semi-finals by a ten point lead and Eddie cries down the phone to Richie, who immediately demands that they go out to celebrate. Eddie gets the subway in because he knows he’ll probably get drunk again, and they go to a cocktail bar that has a lively atmosphere, with Lo-Fi beats wafting through the air like smoke.

Eddie sits down at a booth at Richie’s insistence, who then disappears off to the bar to order their first drinks. Richie comes back carrying two glasses, having bought himself an old fashioned, and he orders Eddie a Tequila Sunrise. Richie manages to get half way through it, but as he drinks more, he starts looking visibly sickened by it, making involuntary faces of disgust.

“Are you okay?” Eddie asks, knowing exactly what’s wrong.

“This is disgusting”

Eddie laughs, an ugly honking sound that makes Richie double-take, “why did you order it?”

“… I thought it’d be cool and I wanted you to think I was sophisticated”

Eddie, who had been toying with his sickly sweet drink, wordlessly swapped the glasses in front of them, and sipped at the old fashioned with a quirked eyebrow.

“How emasculating,” Richie said, voice cracking in the middle, a wry smile appearing on his face.

“So, I heard on the grapevine that we’ll be going toe to toe in the mathletics final?” Eddie asks, downing the last of the bitter cocktail.

“Talking shop on a date? Very disappointing, Spaghetti”

“Is that what this is?” Eddie challenges, locking eyes with Richie, who shuffles closer on the sofa.

“… Was it not obvious?”

“It was, I just wanted to make you squirm”

Richie gasps, scandalised. “You’re a scoundrel, Mr Spaghetti”

“Do you wanna make another wager?” Eddie asks, Dutch courage flowing through his veins.

“Mayhaps, what do you have in mind?”

Eddie gathers up their empty glasses, and stands up to head to the bar. As he walks past Richie’s chair, he leans in to whisper in his ear, “If you win, I’ll let you go on top”

He walks off to the bar, cackling to himself, and orders two more of the same drinks. When he returns to the table, Richie looks whiplashed, and stares at him with wide, owlish eyes

“Were you serious?” Richie asks, voice low and gravelly, like Eddie had punched him in the throat.

“… No, maybe, no, I don’t think I was, I’m very drunk”

“You’ve had one drink”

“I am very drunk”

– X –

Eddie goes back to Richie’s again that evening. He justifies it to himself with the fact that it’s too cold to walk all the way back to his apartment. It’s a shitty excuse, because really he isn’t ready to say goodnight to Richie yet. When they get into his apartment, Richie nudges the couch with his foot coyly.

“I guess we have to move the couch again?”

“Naw, c’mon, we’ll top and tail it,” Eddie responds, nodding at the door to Richie’s bedroom.

Eddie borrows the same clothes as before, which Richie admits that he washed and stored in hope that Eddie would come and stay again.

Suddenly, they’re hugging. Eddie isn’t sure who initiated it, but they’re standing in the middle of Richie’s bedroom, the lights are off, and Eddie’s face is nestled in the crook of Richie’s neck. Richie is humming, a soft sort of melody that Eddie vaguely recognises, and he’s swaying them back and forth slightly. When Eddie feels like he’s falling asleep standing up, Richie guides him over to the bed, and guides him down so his head is on the pillow.

Richie pulls the duvet up around Eddie’s chin, and when he moves away, Eddie murmurs “fuck it” and surges up and kisses Richie. Richie doesn’t kiss back at first, and Eddie feels the oh fuck deep in his gut, but just as he’s about to pull away, Richie’s hands come up to cradle Eddie’s face, and he starts kissing back.

There was no pretence to the kiss, no pretending to take it slow or act reserved, as Richie pushed Eddie backwards against the pillow until he was supine with Richie bracketing his head with his arms. Eventually the kisses organically grow less heated, and they roll over onto their sides, and Eddie falls asleep with Richie pressing small clandestine kisses to his nose, cheeks, forehead.

– x –

When Eddie wakes up, Richie is still in bed with him, perhaps because Eddie has trapped Richie underneath his body sometime in the night. After Eddie stares at his face for a while, watching his nostrils flare with each inhale and exhale of breath, Richie wakes up.

“G’morning, sleepy,” Richie mumbles, grabbing Eddie’s hand and pressing a dry kiss to it with chapped lips.

“Pretty sure you’re the sleepy one, I’ve been awake for ages”

“And who is the one who fell asleep in the middle of the smooch session last night?”

“What?” Eddie questions, playing at confused.

“… um... y’know, when we were kissing last night and you fell asleep in the middle of it?”

“We kissed?”

“Do you – do you not remember?”

“No!”

“Uh… I don’t know what to tell you, Eddie” Richie says, panicked, and Eddie starts feeling cruel.

“I’m fucking with you, of course I remember”

Richie growls and flips Eddie over, and cages Eddie’s head with his arms, “you’re such a little shit”

Before Eddie can answer, Richie kisses him. Eddie buries his fingers in Richie’s hair and gives an experimental tug, smiling around the moan that Richie sends rocketing into this throat.

“You’re so fuckin’ hot, Eds, Jesus,” Richie moans, before clamping his teeth down on the junction between Eddie’s neck and shoulders.

Eddie’s cock jerks in his sweatpants, and his hands fly to Richie’s shoulders, knuckles white.

“Ahhh – fuck Rich – don’t – make sure it’ll – ahhhh – be covered by my shirt”

“When I saw you on that first day, in your loafers and your dress pants and that fucking sweater looking all prim and proper I just wanted to mess you up”

Richie bites at Eddie again, but he pulls off, and stares down at Eddie. Eddie knows he looks wrecked, his hair is probably a mess, and his eyes keep rolling back when Richie shifts against him, but the way Richie is looking at him, an oxymoronic predatory yet soft look, suggests that Richie doesn’t mind too much.

They kiss like touch-starved teenagers for a while longer, until Eddie’s school alarm blares from the bedside table.

“Cock-block” Richie growls, batting at the phone with the hand that wasn’t wrapped loosely around Eddie’s neck.

Eventually, they manage to haul themselves out of bed. Eddie asks to use the shower again and wildly thinks about asking Richie to join him, the promise of Richie’s body, warm, wet and soapy against his overwhelmingly tempting, but he chickens out at the last minute. Eddie puts on the clothes he wore last night, and prays that Bev won’t mention it, even though he knows that she will.

“I can pick you up later, if you like … since you don’t have your car and all,” Richie offers, hopping on one foot as he tried to lace up his boot.

“I can ask Bev to drop me back, it’s all good”

“Naw, I – I wanna do it. I don’t think I wanna wait that long to see you again,” Richie says, putting his booted foot down and crowding Eddie against the wall.

“You big sap”

Richie wraps Eddie in his arms, and presses a kiss to the top of his head, “I told ya, mushy.”

Richie drives Eddie to his school, and Eddie hops out of the car. He walks around to Richie’s side and taps on the window, Richie rolls it down, Eddie shoves his head in through the window and presses a hard kiss to Richie’s mouth, but skips off before Richie can respond.

Richie hollers after him, “HAVE A GOOD DAY AT SCHOOL, MY LOVE!” and Eddie flips him off over his shoulder.

School passes quickly, it’s the week before the finals of the Mathletics Olympiad so basically all of Eddie’s time is taken up with that.

Richie picks him up from school as promised, but Eddie is disappointed to hear that he can’t come into Eddie’s apartment.

“I actually have to go back to school, I snuck out of a meeting to drive you home but I have to go back to my mathletics group”

“Rich! You should have let me ask Bev!” Eddie scolds, but his heart sings like a sparrow in his chest.

“But then I couldn’t have done this,” Richie says, and he surges over the gearbox and presses his mouth to Eddie’s.

They kiss until Richie starts shifting uncomfortably, gear stick poking into his ribs.

– X –

The next week is unadulterated chaos. Both Eddie and Richie are really busy, and can’t see each other before the competition. Eddie can’t help but feel really weird about the fact his school will be going up against Richie’s for such an important competition, and he wants to talk to Richie about it but Richie has been so hard to reach the past few days bc he’s been so busy so Eddie leaves it. He occupies himself with booking transport to the venue, reassuring his kids that they do deserve to be there, and trying not to neglect the rest of his AP classes.

The day of the final comes not a moment too soon, as Eddie is sure that his heart would give out if he put it under any more stress. The final is being held in the auditorium of a local university, so Eddie drives the shitty little school bus over there with his kids who are terrified. Bev works hard to keep their spirits up, as she’s taken over the role of chief motivator as Eddie is stupidly nervous, and he can barely concentrate on driving, let alone motivating 10 terrified kids.

They get to the university, and Eddie immediately notices that Richie’s school bus is already in the parking lot. They go in, they register, they go backstage and sit in the room designated to their school to prepare in. Eddie works hard to calm down his very panicked kids, whilst Bev simultaneously tries to calm down a very panicked Eddie.

Suddenly, Richie’s head appears around the door.

“Mr Kaspbrak, can I talk to you for a second?”

Eddie follows Richie out, “Rich, it really is so lovely to see you, but I’m also terrified to see you, so I think it’s best if you–”

Richie cuts Eddie off with a kiss, and Eddie can’t help but melt into it, tension draining out of his bones like water. Sadly, as soon as the kiss begins, Richie is pulling off again.

“Sorry, babe. See you ringside, coach!”

Richie darts off, and Eddie just has to lean against the wall and breathe.

– X –

Eddie’s kids win.

Eddie immediately bursts into tears.

Jasper, the team gives a rousing acceptance speech when he accepts the trophy, “we’re really proud of ourselves, the other team were amazing and we feel so honoured to be here today, it’s a privilege.”

To Eddie’s horror, they bring the mic over to the coach, announcing that “we will now a word hear a word from the coach of the championship team.”

Eddie has to stumble on stage, puffy and red faced, and he’s tries his best to speak through his tears, but all he manages to do is sob something incomprehensible, loud and sort of proud sounding into the microphone. The audience looks bemused and vaguely concerned, but Richie, who was standing on the other side of the stage with his team, is crying with laughter.

Soon after the presenting ceremony, there is the refreshment reception for the winning team. The kids all mill about, hyper on candy, sugary drinks and triumphant victory. Eddie manages to drag Richie into a secluded corner, where they can talk without risk of being overheard. Richie grasps Eddie’s hand and squeezes it.

“I’m so proud of you, short-stack”

“Short-stack?!” Eddie replies, incredulously, “I’m five-foot-nine thank you very much!”, but then he sees Bev waving to him frantically, so he sends a quick “see you later” to Richie over his shoulder as he runs off towards her.

– X –

Eddie sleeps like the dead that night, and he finds himself recruited into a celebration pep rally for the mathletics team the next day so doesn’t have time to think, breathe or eat or even text Richie.

Finally, when he gets home, he’s half way through texting Richie --

To: Short Stack:

Hey Rich, sorry I had to run last night,

-- but he doesn’t manage to get any further than that before he can hear shouting coming from outside of his window.

“I fear that I will always be a lonely number like root 3, a three is all that’s good an right, why must my 3 stay out of sight, beneath this vicious square root sign”

Richie is standing on the grass beneath Eddie’s window, swaying slightly, with a megaphone clasped between both hands, and he’s screaming into it.

“I wish instead I were a nine, for nine could thwart this evil trick, with just some quick arithmetic,”

“Are you really doing this? The Harold and Kumar thing?” Eddie yells out of his window, in disbelief.

“I know I’ll never see the sun as 1.7321, such is my reality, a sad irrationality, when hark, what is this I see?”

“So you are doing the Harold and Kumar thing”

Richie, undeterred, carries on yelling, “another square of a three, has quietly come waltzing by, together now we multiply, to form a number we prefer, rejoicing as an integer”

“I never thought I’d be serenaded with a maths poem, oh, you’re shouting over me, okay, please do continue”

“We break free from our mortal bonds, and with a wave of magic wands, our square root signs become unglued, and love, for me, has been renewed”

“Are you done? You’re done. Richie, are you okay?” Eddie asks, openly laughing now.

“I’m sorry if I said something bad!” Richie yells, still talking into the megaphone. Eddie can see the lights of his neighbours houses begin to flick on.

“For fucks sake, you lunatic! I have neighbours! Neighbours who probably hate me now!”

Eddie runs downstairs and opens the door, and Richie practically launches himself at Eddie.

“I’m sorry I upset you,” Richie whines, and Eddie is shocked to realise that he’s practically on the verge of tears.

“You do know I was crying about my kids, right? Not anything you said?” Eddie responds, voice serious.

“But I called you short!” Richie wails, looking so devastated that Eddie finds it so hard not to bark out a laugh.

“… I know I’m short?”

“But you ran awaaaaaay”

“One of the kids had eaten too much and had thrown up, Bev needed me to clean up the vom!”

Richie’s face shifts from sorrow to confusion to realisation to embarrassment at the speed of sound.

“so you don’t hate me?” Richie asks, tentatively.

Eddie pulls himself out of Richie’s arms and strokes his chin thoughtfully, “I mean … I don’t hate you but my neighbours might”

“Neighbours schmaybors, so you really aren’t offended that I called you short?”

Eddie lets himself laugh at that, “how drunk are you?”

Richie shrugs. “I had some wines. I was drowning my sorrows! I honestly thought I’d offended you and I was ready to scream apologies into this thing for hours,” he says, waving the megaphone for emphasis

“You’re such a nerd,” Eddie teases, prodding at Richie’s chest with an extended finger, and Richie sweeps him up in his arms.

“Yeah, but I’m your nerd”

“I guess you are”

Richie ducks his head, and Eddie closes his eyes in anticipation but their lips never connect.

“Hey! I have a great line for this situation”

“Oh Jesus Christ”

“I wish I was your derivative so I could lie tangent to your curves”

“You NERD”

#reddie #eddie kaspbrak #richie tozier #Richie Tozier x Eddie Kaspbrak #acute-y #math teacher au #school au #teacher au #thefutureisbright #ao

233 notes · View notes