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kinfanfiction · 2 years ago

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Charlie Eppes x Fem!Reader - Chapter 1 - Can’t Face Her

A/n: I absolutely had to write this. I am invested in Numb3rs and I am dedicating this to it’s small fandom because there’s truly not enough Charlie x Reader fics out there. I love Charlie and this is my favorite role that I’ve seen David Krumholtz in. Anyways I went with the two comments on my opinions needed post and with the reader staying near Charlie rather than moving away. We’ll be starting off with before season 1 starts. The reader convinces Charlie to visit his mother before she passes. Enjoy the angst!

P.S. I stated this when posting my Bernard fic, but I know it’s not likely a lot of the same people that read that will read this and vise versa; I am 100% willing to edit and repost this for NB and Masc readers!! (Not that I even use pronouns or gendered terms that much because 2nd person is helpful in that way, but for the times I do I’d like to make my fics more gender inclusive by making more copies of them with different sets of pronouns!)

Not long after the Eppes found out that Margaret had been diagnosed with stage four cancer, after they told all family, you and your parents were the first friends to know. You had noticed something was going on with Margaret when you’d gone to visit their house the past few times, and now you finally knew what. While Alan and Don stayed at her side, you went to get them groceries so they didn’t have to step away for even a second. You put away the groceries and peeked into Alan and Margaret’s bedroom where she lay, and your heart shattered at the sight. The state of her had gotten much worse since the last time you visited.

Margaret was like a second mother to you, she’d watched you many times as a child when your parents couldn’t. Seeing her like this wasn’t easy. You knew she’d refused chemotherapy, in spite of Alan’s wishes. She didn’t want to suffer the pain of treatment on top of the pain she was already fighting. Deep down, she knew she wasn’t going to survive this. She seemed strangely at peace with this, though no one else was. You kneeled at her bedside and gave her a soft smile as tears pricked your eyes. She returned the smile. ��Hey, Margaret... how are you feeling?”

“The best anyone can when they’re dying.” She gave a shrug and chuckled dryly. “Darling, I’m with my family, minus one member, I’ll be alright.” She assured, grabbing your hand. Her “Minus one.” Comment made you realize Charlie wasn’t there, and you hadn’t seen him when you walked in. You knew what that meant. You sighed and kissed Margaret’s hand before getting up to find your best friend.

“Charlie!” You shouted as you approached the shed where the young man always hid when he couldn’t handle his grief. He channeled it into an impossible math equation that had never been solved. He knew it would lead to no end, and that was the point. A permanent distraction. Unfortunately, it was never permanent, and made his overall grieving process more painful as a result. You slid the wooden door open and stepped inside to see exactly what you’d expected to. Blackboards were put up at every angle available within the shed, and Charlie was scribbling equations onto them with a concentration fueled by emotions you knew were related to his mom’s illness.

“Charlie...” You spoke his name again, quieter now, and with a hint of despair. “You can’t hide in here forever. I know it’s hard but you have to come out of here.” He just ignored you and kept scribbling. The squeaking of the chalk on the blackboards was beginning to bother you more with each second. You knew words weren’t going to do anything, so you grabbed his arm and made him turn around. He gave you a frustrated look, or at least tried to, but sadness shone in his eyes.

“Not now Y/n, I’m in the middle of an important calculation.” You furrowed your eyebrows and snatched the chalk out from his hand.

“Screw your calculations!” You exclaimed with frustration, but then you quickly calmed your tone. “Charlie... I know this is hard for you.. But I also know you’ll regret not spending this time with your mother.” You tugged on his arm to get him to look away from his work, and when he looked at you, he looked angry.

“I need to focus! And- and you’re distracting me!” He yelled, pulling his arm away from you. You were surprised, because he hardly raised his voice, and especially not at you. “I need you to go, I have work to do.”

“Oh, come on Charlie you know this equation is pointless-”

“I said go!” He yelled louder. He hardly let you get a word in. You knew you weren’t going to get anywhere with this argument, so you huffed and left.

Over the next couple months, you visited frequently, bringing food and comfort into the Eppes home. Your parents came too when they could. Every time you’d visit, you popped in to check on Charlie, who was working on the same equation. You always tried to say something to encourage him too see his mother, but he just brushed you off and kicked you out. It hurt, to say the least, but you knew his dismissive nature had nothing to do with you. He was in pain, and he refused to acknowledge it.

Eventually, it came down to Margaret’s final days. You knew it was now or never, so you went into the shed and took off the headphones he had been wearing, took the chalk out of his hand, and turned Charlie to make him face you. Deep down, he was glad you did. He hated how he’d pushed you and his family away, but he hadn’t been ready to feel the full effects of his grief. “Charlie. I know you hate this as much as the rest of us, but please. I’m begging you. Leave this shed, leave your work behind, and come see your mom. A future version of you will be glad you did.” He looked at you with an unreadable expression, first seeming frustrated, then confused, then his face dropped completely, and you could see tears forming in his eyes that quickly began to fall. You quickly wrapped your arms around him and let him sob into your shoulder until he was ready to speak.

“I can’t... I can’t face her. I’m scared. I don’t want to believe she’s dying. I know she is, I just.. Oh god, Y/n. My mom is dying. I c-” Then he burst into more sobs, and your heart continued to shatter, like every piece in your chest was just determined to continue breaking off into smaller pieces until your heart was just a pile of sand. “She has always been so strong, lifted me up when I was weak, I don’t think I can be the strong one.”

You shook your head and gently ran your fingers through his curly hair to calm him. “You don’t have to be. If anyone needs to be strong, I’ll do it. Your family is like my second family, I will be here with you all, my parents will come visit. We’ll be the strong ones, we’ll help you all through this. Your mom wants you by her side. I know it’s easier to be here, surrounded by something familiar and comfortable, but you’ve got to escape what’s comfortable and be with your family. They need you.”

“No, they don’t need me. They’ll be okay if I stay here.” He spoke, trying to convince himself there was truth in his words.

“They do need you. I promise you they do. This impossible equation is not what's important now. Come see her, just for a little bit. As long as you can handle.” Charlie didn’t respond for a long moment. He was regulating his breath and trying not to cry again, and you continued holding him, not letting go until he did.

He took another deep breath before speaking, “Okay. I’ll try.. I love my mom, I do, I just-”

“I know. You don’t have to explain yourself to me. Let’s go.” You led him out of the shed and the two of you walked back into the house, and on the way there, he grabbed your hand and held it tight.

You stepped into the master bedroom and Margaret’s eyes lit up. “Oh, Y/n. Thank you for bringing him.” She smiled, and Charlie knelt at her side, grabbed her hand, and then he couldn't help it, he just cried. Don noticed and knelt beside him, giving him a side hug as they both looked at their mother. Alan was knelt beside her on the other side of the bed. You stood in the doorway, and with all her boys at her side, she beamed at you and mouthed another ‘Thank you.’ She looked tired, yet content. You nodded, blew her a little kiss and left. They needed this. Just the four of them.

The next morning, your parents shook you awake to inform you that Margaret had passed away peacefully in the night. Your heart dropped, but you knew that Margaret at least got to see her husband and both sons one last time, and once she had that, she was ready to go. You got ready and ran over to see the Eppes, your parents following behind you. Margaret’s body had already been taken away, and all three men still stood around her deathbed. Don was holding onto his brother, with Alan wrapping himself around both of them. Then they let go as you and your parents walked in. Your father gave Alan a hug, your mother gave Don a hug, and you gave Charlie a hug. You all cried. Once all immediate tears had been shed, you sat around in the living room and talked about the wonderful woman you’d all had the pleasure of knowing while she was alive. Alan told the most stories. You held onto Charlie’s hand the whole time, making sure he knew you were supporting him.

After a while of talking, you and your parents cooked lasagna, Margaret’s favorite. You had to make sure the family was still eating. You knew grief made people lose their appetite, it had happened to you before. You sat around and talked some more, but not long after dinner begun Charlie got up from the table and went up to his room. You followed soon after. You opened the door to find him exploding into uncontrollable sobs. You ran over to sit beside him and wrap him up in your arms. “You’re right. I should’ve spent more time with her. I’m such an idiot, and now she’s gone-” You quickly shushed him to shut down his spiraling.

“Shhhh, Charlie, it’s good that you saw her when you did. She was holding on for you, when you showed up, she finally felt ready to pass on because she had all the most important people in her life at her side. Don’t regret the time you spent away from her, be kind to yourself for spending what time you did with her. Charlie she loved you, she understood why you needed to be away. Don’t be so hard on yourself.” You assured him softly, and he couldn’t find the words to respond, but your words consoled him, and he calmed down again. “Let’s go back downstairs and finish eating dinner, alright?” He considered just hiding away in his room for the night, but knowing you would be sitting beside him made him feel more prepared to go back to the table.

The rest of the night felt calm, but the heavy air in the room still weighed on you all. Your parents went home, but you decided to stay, because you wanted to look after the grieving family. Your parents came back later to bring you an overnight bag, and you dressed in your pajamas and got ready for bed before lying down in the guest bed. You laid awake for a while, thinking about Margaret being gone, and the state in which you’d seen the Eppes that you knew would last. As you thought quietly about all the sweet moments you’d had with the woman over the years, you heard a knock on the door. “Come in!” You hollered. Charlie creaked the door open and saw that you were laying in bed, and assumed he’d interrupted you trying to sleep.

“Oh I’m sorry! I didn’t realize I- I’ll let you sleep.” He quickly began to close the door.

“Charlie, I know none of us are sleeping at a normal hour tonight. Come in.” You insisted. He paused for a moment, then nodded and quietly slipped into the room and sat down beside you.

“There’s nothing I really want to talk about right now, I just didn’t want to be alone.” You nodded and scooted over to make more space for him to lay beside you, and he did. You both laid side by side on your backs, staring at the ceiling in silence. It reminded you of all the nights you’d spent at each other’s houses, staying up and talking about anything you could think to discuss. Though this time, no words could convey what you both felt. After a while, you heard him begin to snore, and soon you drifted off as well.

#charlie eppes #numb3rs #fem reader #don eppes #david krumholtz #x reader #y/n #chapter 1 #charlie eppes x reader

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gemmaswriting · 4 years ago

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Anidala Fanfiction Recommendations!!

I’ve been asked for a long time for my fanfiction recommendations, so I’ve finally taken the time to compile them. If there are any you love that I missed out (this includes Vaderdala!) leave them as a reply so we can all have a good time reading together.

Writer: Shelivesfree (fanfiction profile) This wonderful girl has some of the most amazing Anidala stories I have ever had the pleasure of reading. Unfortunately, a lot of them have been hiatus for a while but her Boy Next Door trilogy has two amazing parts completed.

The stories I recommend:

“The Boy Next Door”: “When Padme Naberrie returns to her home after 10 years, the last thing she expects to find is her childhood friend, Anakin Skywalker; the boy next door. But 10 years is a long time, and he has changed more than she is prepared for. How will she react when little Ani is now a grown man, impulsive, handsome and completely infatuated with her? Modern AU.”

“The Girl from Harvard”: “Sequel to ‘The Boy Next Door’ Absence makes the heart grow fonder. It also makes it grow more paranoid. Padme is in her last year of Harvard. Anakin has just started at the University of Chicago. Though they won't admit it, their long-distance relationship is taking it's heavy toll. Will their love prevail or will the distance prove too much for both of them? Sequel to The Boy Next Door. Modern AU.”

“look into my eyes, that's where my demons hide”: ”Each time he comes back to her, a little piece of him is missing... left out there, in the field, with his brothers. She can see it in the way he smiles and it doesn't reach his eyes. In the way he cries to himself when he thinks she's not awake. And all she can do is hold him. Modern AU.”

“I Know Your Type” “Am I dead?" It slips out, accidentally. She turns her head towards me, a confused look on her face and tips her head. "Excuse me?" Flashing her an impish grin, I lean casually against the wall. "I must have died and gone to heaven, because you look like an angel." The look she gives me is far from impressed. "Do you use that with all the girls, or am I just lucky?"

“we both know what we want, so why don't we fall in love?” “Rhythmic Gymnast Padme Naberrie has dreamed of being an Olympian since she was five years old. Now, after years and years of training and preparations, she's finally made it to Rio, and nothing is going to stand in the way between her and a gold medal. Except a certain Canadian beach volleyball player, perhaps.”

“Infinite” “ My bounty is as boundless as the sea, my love as deep; the more I give to thee, the more I have, for both are infinite.”

“for a moment” “And, just for a moment, all the worries and concerns that troubled the young couple cease to exist. Fade away to just this. Husband and wife. Asleep. Dreaming of the sweet little life they will soon bring into the world and into their hearts. Set somewhere in ROTS.”

“Procrastination” “Padmé is busy with a new bill she must bring before the next Senate meeting. Her husband has other ideas, it would seem.”

“There’s a million reasons I should give you up” “Padmé struggles to deal with Anakin's frequent departures for weeks, even months, at a time during the Clone Wars. It's in these moments she contemplates the practicality of their marriage. Grief-stricken with loneliness, she stumbles across something she wrote a long time ago... a list of sorts. The find brings about a whole host of emotions she'd rather not deal with.”

“all I need is you” “It was her fault. His pain, his jealousy, his insecurity. It was all her fault. Padme looked up at the beautiful man in front of her, her husband, her Ani, and decided she needed to make him remember. Remind him of how much she loved him. Because no one, no man in the entire galaxy, could take the place of Anakin Skywalker.”

“Her” “A glimpse into the Cosmic Force after Darth Vader's redemption and return to the Light Side. Anakin Skywalker is consumed by guilt and Obi-wan and Yoda are there to appease him. But it's been twenty-four years and all he wants is to see her.”

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Writer: SphinxScribe (Fanfiction profile/ Tumblr account @sphinxscribe ) This fantastic writer has many, many alternate takes on the plot of Revenge of the Sith - often allowing our favourite couple to have a happy ending. Their writing captures the world of Star Wars perfectly.

The stories I recommend:

“Where Catalysts Stand Down” “Palpatine issues Order 66, and Anakin and Padmé flee Coruscant. ROTS AU. Anakin/Padmé, Anidala.”

“Viability’s Edge” “Anakin tells Obi-Wan the truth. ROTS AU. Anakin/Padmé, Anidala.”

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Writer: Disco Shop Girl (Fanfiction profile) This writer’s take on Anidala is so well written within every story of theirs I have read. They truly capture their dynamic and relationship perfectly.

The stories I recommend:

“Your helmet cracked” “He'd been restrained, forced to watch while her helmet cracked and the Mon Calamari sea water threatened to drown her before his eyes. Now they're free. And alone. Set at the end of the Clone Wars season 4 Water War arc.”

“Order 66-S” “The order was to exterminate all Jedi: Past, Present and Future. Captain Rex has a different plan. Order 66-S: to save General Skywalker.”

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Writer: Rogue Darth Skywalker (Fanfiction profile/ Tumblr - @roguedarthskywalker) This wonderful person has been one of the biggest supporters of my own writing for a long time and I value them immensely! They have many delicious Anidala/Vaderdala stories for you to obsess over for hours and hours. I highly recommend following both profiles linked above.

The stories I recommend:

“Pin up Problems” “He hated the nose art. He hated seeing others degrade her other exceptional qualities by depicting her as some pin up girl. He hated thinking about how many other beings across the stars fantasized about her in such a way. At the same time, he can't deny that the art makes her look… hot. He can't deny that the sight turns him on.”

“Letting Go” “It was their custom. Every year on that fateful day, Anakin would make his way to the cemetery with his children and seek out the mausoleum where she rested."

“Far from Perfect” “Darth Vader is dead. Anakin is redeemed and lives on Naboo with Padme and their children. But not all happy endings are perfect.”

“Far from Easy” “Sequel to Far From Perfect. Redeemed Anakin Skywalker tries to make things right with his wife and kids.

“Perfect” “Happy Family style AU post ROTS. Padme wakes up in the middle of the night and ponders the most recent events in her life.”

“A Dangerous Fantasy” “Pure Smut. Padme helps Anakin fulfil a fantasy he has had since they were married- one that involves the Jedi Council Chambers.”

“Untitled” “Anakin and Padme deal with having to tell their young twins they are having another baby.”

“Strictly Professional” “There are times she hates that she has to resort to this- that rather than being in a long term relationship with someone, she chose to instead pay someone for sex. Modern AU.”

“Out of his Depth” “I fought in a war. I commanded legions of soldiers against battle droids. I think I can handle my own four-year-old twins."

“Love and Jealousy” “Anakin gave the binders an experimental tug, testing his chances of escaping. There was none. A light chuckle left his lips after a few moments, letting his head fall back to rest on the chair. What a compromising position for a Jedi Knight to be in. Handcuffed in a respected senator's bedchambers practically naked… oh, how the holonews would rave should the story get out!”

“Against all Odds” “He shouldn't be here. The election was only a few weeks away and the final debate was due in the next few days. There were so many other things he should be doing. He shouldn't be here, in enemy territory wrapped in the arms of the woman his boss despised. Modern AU. Smut.”

“What we Hope is Never Found” “The impending existence of a recording of them together held dangers that went a little deeper than if they were found naked and tangled together in her office or on his cruiser. The physical proof of their relationship would cause an uproar if it were discovered. But she trusted Anakin. Smut.”

“It was Found” “Sequel to What We Hope is Never Found.”

“Things that go bump in the night” “Luke and Leia think there is a ghost in their home. Their parents know better.”

“Preparations” “She couldn't wait to meet their little ones. It hadn't been too long since they learned she was having twins, and as stressful as that idea was at first, she was quickly growing accustomed to the idea of having two perfect little babies. Her husband, however, seemed to be taking it a little worse than her.”

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Writer: Skywalkersamidala (Archive of our Own profile/ Tumblr @markantonys) I absolutely adore the Anidala stories created by this author whether they’re aus or canon! They nail the couple’s dynamic throughout their many wonderful stories.

The stories I recommend:

“Snow Place like Home” “For genre-typical convoluted reasons involving ill-timed blizzards, Padmé is forced to spend the holidays at Anakin's house. Anakin isn't as upset about his boss staying with him for Christmas as he probably should be.“

“Soulmates R Us” “Anakin works at a toy store, and single-mother-of-twins Padmé is becoming one of the store's best customers.”

“Heirs of Light and Darkness” “After escaping the Jedi purge two years ago made him the most wanted fugitive in the galaxy, Anakin Skywalker has at last been captured by the Empire. He expects to be killed, but Lady Padmé Amidala, the imperial heir, has other ideas.”

“Friendly Competition” “Playing Quidditch is awfully difficult when you’re in love with the rival Seeker. Snapshots of Anakin and Padmé’s 7 years at Hogwarts.“

“Perfect” “The war is over, Luke and Leia are five years old, and Anakin and Padmé finally have the peaceful life and big family they've always dreamed of. But their life is about to get a little less peaceful and their family a little bigger.“

“Nos Cedamus Amori“ “Anakin is a gladiator and a slave. Padmé is the wife of the Roman emperor's heir. Circumstances should never even allow them to meet, let alone fall in love.“

“I Do Take Two” “Thirty years after their clandestine wedding on Naboo, Anakin and Padmé decide to finally do the proper wedding ceremony they never got to have, with all their friends and family present.“

“Flat Tire” “Who knew something as simple as getting a flat tire could change the entire course of your life?“

“Strays” “Anakin had always had a penchant for taking in strays.”

“Five weddings and a funeral” “Padmé's feeling gloomy about her perpetual singleness, but everything changes when she meets an attractive stranger at her sister's wedding.“

“Pipe Dream” “Padmé's new plumber is the most attractive human being she's ever laid eyes on, so naturally, she keeps faking plumbing emergencies so she can keep seeing him.“

“Birthdays and Birth days” “Anakin gets a birthday surprise — two of them, in fact.“

“Spouses with Benefits” “Anakin and Padmé wake up after a wild night in Vegas and discover they accidentally got married—and that Ahsoka posted about it all over social media, so now every single person they know is texting and calling them to offer congratulations. They decide to save face by pretending the marriage was totally 100% intentional and not a drunk mistake at all, keeping up the charade for six months, and then quietly getting divorced. But a lot can change in six months…“

“Two Halves Make a Whole” “Anakin is the single dad of Luke. Padme is the single mom of Leia. Luke and Leia meet in kindergarten and become best friends. The rest is history.“

“Home” “In which "Darth Vader" is no more than Anakin's playtime alter ego (happy Skywalker family AU)“

“Someday” “At age fourteen, Padme receives a marriage proposal from the nine-year-old boy next door and tells him to ask her again when she's thirty. Surely he'll have forgotten all about it by then.“

“Across the Centuries” “They meet each other in every century, but something always goes wrong before they can make it to happily-ever-after.”

“Madam President” “Between late nights and headaches and mountains of paperwork and fierce opposition from her political opponents, President Padmé Amidala already had enough on her plate. And then she just had to go and fall for one of her bodyguards, a relationship which would ruin her reputation and his career if anyone were to find out about it. Also, someone's trying to kill her.“

“Scars” “How do Anakin and Padmé go from "I love you" to "I do"? Missing scene from Attack of the Clones.”

“The Bet” “Anakin's had a crush on Padmé since fourth grade, and after putting up with his pining for seven years, Obi-Wan and Ahsoka are finally stepping in and making a bet that he can't ask her to junior prom in the spring. Meanwhile, Padmé is realizing that Anakin isn't as annoying as she'd always thought. In fact, her feelings towards him are starting to go in quite the opposite direction...”

“Three” “His and Padmé’s first wedding anniversary isn’t going nearly as well as Anakin had hoped it would. Until, suddenly, it’s so much better than he could have ever imagined.“

“The Anakin Disaster” “Padmé is mortified upon waking up beside her strictly platonic childhood best friend Anakin Skywalker the morning after a drunken one-night stand. A couple weeks later, she discovers that's the least of their problems.“

“Will You Fake Marry Me?” “Anakin's boss may or may not have accidentally given her family the impression that she's engaged to him. Anakin may or may not be pleased about the situation”

“Aggressive Negotiations” “Empress Amidala invites Lord Vader to her private rooms to persuade him to form an alliance with the Empire. Her methods are very effective.”

“Troubling Implications” “Perhaps he hated himself for it—Padmé thought he probably did—but he came that night (several times, in fact). And the night after that, and the next one, and the next, until it became a habit that neither of them seemed especially inclined to break. (Sequel to "Aggressive Negotiations")

“Imperial Obligations” “Padmé's advisors suggest that she get rid of Vader and make a politically advantageous marriage. The Empress is less than pleased. (Sequel to "Aggressive Negotiations" and "Troubling Implications")”

“Welcome Home” “Anakin Skywalker closes his eyes on the face of his son. When he opens them again, he is in Naboo, and someone is waiting for him.“

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Writer: Shawn30 (Fanfiction profile) The one, the only, the deservedly famous! I think every Anidala fan is aware of this f a n t a s t i c writer’s work. Deliciously smutty. Unbelievably well written. Unfortunately, many of their works have been left uncompleted for years but the stories are still worth reading!

“Whisper” “Absence makes the heart grow fonder, but can also whither your soul and breed doubt in your heart. AP angsty erotica.”

“The Ties that Bind” “Given a brief period of time off during the Clone Wars, Padmé and Anakin visit her family at the Lake Country estate on Naboo. A family that still doesn't know they are married, although they are about to find out. Complete.”

“The Light and the Dark” “Chapter 1 in the Hearts and Souls series. An unexpected Separatist attack 'accidentally' reunites two star-crossed lovers, giving them a brief moment of peace at a time of war. Complete.”

“Shadows of Winter” “Chapter 2 in the Hearts and Souls series. With six days to spend together celebrating their two year anniversary, Anakin and Padme travel separately to a remote planet in the Hoth system. Romance, passion, and danger await them. Complete.”

“Beloved” “Chapter 3 in the "Hearts and Souls" series. When faced with the most horrific news imaginable, Padme's utter desperation forces her to turn to Obi-Wan and even Chancellor Palpatine for help. Her greatest personal challenge awaits... Complete”

“Paradise” “The sequel to "Beloved." Following Padme's daring rescue of her husband, the Skywalker's return to Naboo for eight days to heal, unwind, spend time with family, and deal with their connection to the Dark Side of the Force.”

“Salvation” “After facing his moment of truth, Anakin and Padmé must finally deal with the consequences. Obi-Wan reveals a startling discovery. Complete”

“Scandalous” “The sequel to Salvation. On the eve of Padmé Skywalker's official ascension to the role of Vice Chair of the Republic, Anakin steals her away for a wild vacation to Cloud City. Complete.”

“Sacred” “Chapter 2. Ahsoka and Jo'Seth grow closer. Padme's trip to the Jedi Temple on Republic business turns a bit more adventurous. Anakin and Obi-Wan have a heart to heart talk about moving forward.”

“Belonging” “A private afternoon lunch to catch up with an old friend during the Clone Wars reveals a great deal to ObiWan Kenobi. AP”

“Before the Seasons Change” “With the Darth Sidious finally defeated and the Clone Wars ended, Anakin and Padme consider what comes next in their lives. Anakin/Padme”

“Amor Vincit Omnia” “AU. After a three and a half year separation Vice Chair Amidala and Jedi Master Skywalker have some unfinished business as the Clone Wars have finally ended and Palpatine is dead.”

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If there’s any stories I missed, let me know!

#Anidala #anidala fanfiction #Vaderdala #vaderdala fanfiction #Anidala fic rec

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mikaze-discord · 3 years ago

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OG Heavens: Love letters

For these Heavens posts, I had reached out to a few people who just never ended up responding. With projects like these, please at least hear them out, you don't have to do it because I know its a huge project but at least tell them you won't be doing it instead of ghosting them. But apart from that little road block, this project was really fun!!

Please enjoy under the cut!!!!

EIICHI OTORI

From @milkmateartist:

I have always leaned towards megane characters and Eiichi is no exception. However, it's not often you see idols wearing glasses, and that is something I appreciate about Eiichi's design. His color palette also intrigues me since I love deep shades of blue. His royal blue jacket is very attractive, and the way he pops the collar also makes me go "kya!". His voice is also very sexy as well and is pleasing to the ear uwu. I love how egoistic he is too. Being incredibly ambitious he has been able to reach amazing heights that surpass other idols. The one thing that seems to make him unique though is that he really gets zealous and overly passionate when it comes to the power of music, so much that it makes him physically tremble. You could get high off that shit literally. His entire being is centered around being an idol, and all the components of him go above and beyond the requirements. It's not just a job for him or something that simply makes an earning or brings satisfaction. It's pretty much everything to him. For that reason he has made it to the top. There is also the component where he's lonely and isolated emotionally that interests me. Despite being a beloved idol, he clearly didn't get the love he needed growing up. Even though he had Eiji I feel as though his nature was more to protect Eiji and shield him from whatever terrors would arise. I admire his ability to come through all of that and pay attention to the things he really cared about. Eiichi can be himself, his strange, sexy self, but also he acknowledges the lonesome darkness within too. I think that component makes him incredibly powerful.

Extra Details:

While appearing to be a bad guy in the anime (at least), Eiichi seemed to be that typical bad boy idol that would steal away Haruka from the main group. The time when he approached Haruka and took her by the chin is a perfect example. How dare this new guy just think he can have his way with our protagonist! To be honest I liked that aspect about him a bit. While I can't remember my first impression of Eiichi aside from not knowing how to feel about that, he slowly grew on me. He had the appearance of just another selfish idol, demonstrated by swiping the mic away from the announcer at one of his concerts and immediately declaring their foreseen victory. So far that looked rather bland to me, and I was still cheering for STARISH. They really made him out to look like some bad guy who would not play fair and do whatever he could to take the throne (and the girl). It's not surprising his glasses shine adds to his 'freaky antagonist' vibe that the show seemed to try to give off, but however for me I love the glasses beam, thus having the opposite effect.

And then there is the Next Door episode. Now here's where we got to see more of Eiichi aside from when the HEAVENS Dragon demolished the entire stadium. Aside from kya-ing over the EiichiOtoya content (especially where he goes behind otoya and covers his eyes), I got to see more of him here. It surprised me that someone so cocky and confident was actually the same depressed, lonely person that Otoya was. But it was also evident to me as well that he did care about the effect it had on Otoya as well after he sort-of-well mind broke him. I like how he is ambitious but also still caring, as compared to an antagonist that would stop at nothing to achieve their goal regardless of how much pain they cause.

I also enjoy Eiichi because I feel like I can roleplay him well. Usually for me, roleplay has to achieve some kind of goal since I tend to be business oriented. I think to some degree I'm able to practice being a eboy idol through Eiichi, as I do enjoy charming the fans. It also helps that I can naturally play characters with an inflated ego who enjoy charming people.

From @/egoisticCEO on twt:

July 2019. When Eiichi was first introduced to me via his voice, I hated him from the very beginning. His singing, his appearance, his personality – everything about him made me despise him. It’s funny looking back and seeing how quickly my attitude changed towards him, realising I’d been biased against him because of a friend. Finding more about him, hate turned to interest. It seemed like his life hadn’t been the best. Maybe that was why he acted in such a way? Interest turned to liking him more. Maybe I’d misunderstood him. I’d made the mistake of taking him at surface level.

December 2019. Like was slowly turning to love. More and more, I found myself looking at him instead of my current favourites. I found myself wanting him to actually be a part of Egoistic. Once I started devouring HEAVENS Radio and unveiling his true character, it was shocking how quickly I fell. He truly acted like a father to everyone in his band. Giving them what he never received. Everything was for them to thrive.

2020. With how much I was at home, it only made sense I grew more obsessed. I found Life with Thanks’ translation. “We’re irreplaceable to him,” he tells us, and that made me certain that his heart wasn’t as evil as some people liked to believe. He’s a caretaker, someone who wants everyone to feel like they matter. Even at his own expense. Instead of selfish, he’s selfless.

I related to him more than I have to any character – it was comforting. Seeing someone have no choice but to put on a brave face, even when his confidence was at an all time low. 2020 got a lot harder for me, but when I recovered, Eiichi was like a home to go back to. Time and time again, I’d have to break away, but I’d always be invited back in by that stupid smirk and overexaggerated ego and the warmest heart you could ever find. Every scene I watched with him would make me smile. I’d tease him to myself. I still do.

2021. That brings us to now. I can’t see my love for this one of a kind man dying any time soon. I don’t want it to, either. Just looking at him makes me happy! He’s the type of character with so many facets to his personality that you can keep digging and never reach the end. So, in conclusion, I hope I never stop finding new things out about this wonderful idiot. More than anything, he deserves all the love he gives to others, and I’d love to provide it tenfold.

KIRA SUMERAGI

From Anon:

Many have their reasons to love their favorite characters. As for me, why Kira Sumeragi is my favorite character is because there are several things about him that I can relate myself to and there are a few qualities he has that I like about him. If many do not know about Kira that much, they’d look at who he is. He may look intimidating at first and may not talk much, when in actuality, Kira is a considerate, dependable, and mindful guy. Mainly, he is the type of guy that lets his actions do the explaining. He is a hard worker, as an idol, he looks after his bandmates, HEAVENS, like family. It’s like what Eiichi said in HEAVENS Radio about Kira, “he is HEAVENS’ pride!” Although he may not say much, Kira is very observant of his surroundings and never hesitates in his decisions. The members of HEAVENS understand and acknowledge Kira, knowing that he means well.

You can even tell in his solo music! Although there are only two solo songs for Kira, if you read the lyrics carefully, Kira’s thoughts and feelings are shown. Kira always knew that if he cannot explain his feelings through words, then he’ll let his songs and his actions do it for him for you to see. Although the anime doesn’t show much of Kira, the only way to get to know him more is through HEAVENS Radio, also drama CDs like Paradise Lost, and other media like LINE Messenger Japan. There’s still much that I’d want to know about him, but as a start, these things are what makes Kira my favorite character for HEAVENS.

From Anon:

Aside from my huge bias towards OnoD the first thing that drew my attention to Kira was his design. Dark haired anime boys with bright eyes have such a vibe and I loved how mysterious he was set up to be in season 2. But the thing that really hooked me a lot was the found family that Heavens became over the progression of the anime.

Particularly since people in the fandom have a bunch of funky headcanons about Kira being the mom friend in the group, which is incredibly wholesome. Kira’s very quiet and reserved but clearly holds a deep caring for his group members and does what he can when needed which is one of the reasons why he became so loveable for me.

NAGI MIKADO

From @/_PXRFECTIONIST on twt:

If I managed to stan Nagi, so will you.

Greetings. I present to you, once more, a story of how I came to love a character that I wished I threw hands with.

So.

Nagi Mikado.

The possible only utapri character that Shinomiya oshis despise. Thanks to what happened in the anime.

Truth be told, I too was one of them. Until I came to love Both Shinomiya and Nagi. Reason?

Research.

Ya see, it is universally agreed upon that the way Nagi was pushing and pulling at Shinomiya's trauma and DID was… Not okay. So I said "yeah okay what an obnoxious kid i dont think ill ever like him lol" especially since I never come to really warm up to people younger than me.

Boy was I wrong.

My heart really sways easily when I go deep into characters, and why they act the way they are. And also because I chose to roleplay as him, but let's not. Speak of that.

(its actually the main reason i like him in the first place who am i fooling)

Nagi is… Indeed obnoxious, and really has bad manners that are covered up by his cute looks and fame, especially since he's one of the original HEAVENS members, but once you get to really know him.. It makes sense why he's being such a brat. And that is sort of endearing. And knowing how his group is like family to him too, it becomes harder and harder to completely dislike him.

….

He really is a boss man.

He knows what he wants, and how to get it. He knows how to get people to like him without handing over the tiniest sliver of his weaknesses. He acts in his own way that shapes his personality to suit him, yet still manages to be caring and helpful, even if it's hard to see tenderness and good will through his aggression.

Reading his solo lyrics, listening to the drama CDs, even thinking of headcanons due to lack of lore, it all slowly comes together like a lovely parfait to suddenly make you realize..

'Wow…'

'I really do like that rat.

#utapri #utanoprincesama #uta no prince sama #eiichi otori #otori eiichi #Kira Sumeragi #Sumeragi Kira #Nagi Mikado #Mikado Nagi

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oddlybitter · 4 years ago

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nocturne - chapter one excerpt

hello again!! from the cavernous depths of my drafts, i bring you the latest: a quick excerpt from an upcoming chiluc fic, nocturne! today’s AU is..... modern vampire/hunter!!

i plan for nocturne to drop after i finish up the second chapter, which means the whole thing will be posted on ao3 by the end of next week :)

CW: Religious symbolism, non-graphic violence, swearing

Diluc doesn't have weaknesses. He has strengths, and he has patience, and by God, this bloodsucker is really testing both. As the vampire practically frolics out of the grocery store, a bag of inedible food in hand, Diluc rolls his sleeves up. The butcher waves goodbye as he heads over to the self-checkout, trying his best to keep his eyes on the vampire as he crosses through the parking lot. If Diluc cuts him off before he can mingle with the crowd of shoppers frantically salvaging dinner plans and forgotten date nights, then he can quickly dispatch of him before the Guild's representative gets in the way. He slides his card through the machine, punches out his pin, and makes a beeline for the automatic doors.

"Diluc?"

Fuck. Shit. Diluc turns on his heel, plastering a smile on his face as he takes in a sight he would literally beg to never see again.

"Huffman, it's been a while." He says, cursing inwardly.

The other man smiles back. "Yeah, it sure has. How're things going? I haven't seen you since you walked out on the hit in Sumeru."

Ouch. Salt straight in the wound. Not only does Huffman lack tact, but it seems that the Guild has shown up early, for once. Shifting his weight from one foot to the other, Diluc grins blandly.

"Things are fine. Busy." He says emphatically, but ridiculously, Huffman doesn't get the hint. Either that, or he's deliberately stalling. Prick.

"And by busy, you wouldn't mean illegally tailing an A-Class hit without a permit, would you?"

Diluc sighs. Prick, it is. "Huffman, I don't have the time for those anymore. I have a business to take care of, so if you'll excuse me, I'll be off."

Swiveling away and walking out of the door as fast as humanly possible, Diluc scans the parking lot for his lost target, his grip shifting around the plastic bag in his hand. Unsurprisingly, the vampire isn't anywhere to be seen, and the tell-tale scent of iron and ashes long gone from the air. Cursing, Diluc glances down at his watch, absentmindedly patting his back pocket for the keys to his car. The entire plan has been dashed hopelessly to pieces, and that means Diluc's going to have to pour even more resources into chasing down some damned mosquito, and for what? Satisfaction? Revenge? Just because he fucking can?

He huffs, unlocking the door and slumping into the front seat. The bag of groceries droops sadly in his lap, deflating in defeat. Inside is a box of mint leaves and a beer, two things he has absolutely no use for. Alcohol messes with him more than he'd admit, although he likes to say it overloads his hunter's senses and makes him inefficient. It's a half-lie, but a lie nonetheless. With a world-weary sigh, Diluc leans forward, hitting his forehead on the steering wheel in frustration.

"Cheer up, sunshine, you're not completely finished." A voice jovially calls out from his backseat, and Diluc's eyes snap open.

Almost instantly, he sits up, yanking the handle near the bottom of his seat and dropping it backward with as much force as he can muster. A winded "Oof!" comes from behind him, and as he looks over his shoulder, the hunter's face contorts into a dark frown. Currently pinned underneath his car seat is the vampire he's been tailing, wriggling like a bug underneath a taxidermist's needle.

"Alright, alright," He groans. "I'll knock next time."

Diluc drives the seat back even further. "Our father, who art in heaven -"

Pressing his hands to his ears and grimacing in pain, the vampire screws an eye shut, attempting to shy away from the sound. "Ah, ah, stop! I'll behave, I promise."

Getting a good look at him now, Diluc takes in the mess of strawberry blonde hair, cold blue eyes, and an unholy amount of freckles. For a creature of the night, he sure looks like his natural habitat is in the sunlight. Taken aback by his appearance, Diluc can't help but stare for a few seconds, but he quickly snaps out of it, remembering his place and untucking his crucifix from underneath his shirt.

"Why are you in my car? Do you have a deathwish?" He demands, and the vampire glances briefly at the swinging pendant, his eyes sharpening in hunger. Perhaps it was an ill-thought-out plan to loosen his collar.

Shrugging, the vampire gives him a haphazard grin, drumming his fingers against the car seat. "Maybe. I just wanted to take a good look at you. For a Guild hunter, you're rather persistent. By now, they should have sent out at least two of you to track me down."

Diluc scowls. "I'm not associated with the Guild."

"So you're pursuing me of your own volition?" He presses a hand to his chest, making a show out of swooning against the car door. "A man after my own heart!"

God, Diluc is going to fucking kill him. You would think that eternal, damned life would sober up an immortal or two, but it seems to have gone to this one's head. Already, Diluc can scope out the key elements of his personality: irritating, cocky, and a complete show-off. In fact, he bets this vampire hasn't even mastered teleportation yet.

"All bark and no bite," The hunter murmurs aloud.

It's at that moment that the faintly amused look in the creature's eyes changes, suddenly hardening into a stare like a riptide current, deep and dangerous. With an easy push, the vampire drives the seat upward, sending Diluc's back ramming hard against the steering wheel, his elbow hitting the dashboard with a painful thud. Before he can react, the redhead is being pushed forward, a hand on the nape of his neck sending his face into the cushion of the front seat, which hurtles back from the impact. The vampire laughs airily, his knee pressed into the base of Diluc's spine. Well, perhaps he was wrong about the teleportation.

He snickers. "So if you're not with the Guild, sunshine, and you're doing this without all of their fancy paperwork, then who's the seasoned hunter I've been expecting? Please don't tell me all you're good at is following breadcrumbs."

#crackship #literally i saw three (3) fics on ao3 and thought hmm this is totally a ship to get invested in #chiluc #genshin diluc #genshin childe #genshin impact #genshin fanfic #modern au #vampire au #nothing gets the gays going like a vampire au #oddlybitter's fics #strangelysweet's fics #fanfic link #fanfic #crack treated seriously #cw religion #cw swearing #cw mild violence #nocturne

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writersrealmbts · 5 years ago

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Frosted Glass: Part 3

Description: Yoongi is in love with the princess of another land, and he’s given the opportunity to court her, with the help of his brothers. You are the princess of the country south of the frozen kingdom, but you’ve gotten a deadly disease and your only home is to venture and live in the icy north. Will Yoongi be able to win your hand with the help of his brothers?

Warnings: N/A

Posted: 02/06/2020

Tags: Yoongi x reader, Prince!Yoong, Prince!Jaebum, Prince!Yesung, Prince!Yeonjun, Prince!Hwall, Frost Prince, Jack Frost! Yoongi

1,315 words

A/N: Next part tomorrow since I have a long weekend!

Yoongi watched y/n talk brightly with Eira, his soon to be sister-in-law. They appeared to be getting along famously.

“I thought you said she was considered the second-prettiest daughter?” Hyunjoon asked, joining him and Jaebum.

Yoongi shrugged. “That’s what her people say. I always thought she was prettier than her sisters.”

“I’ve seen her oldest sister before, when she passed through with the king she married. You cannot tell me that she is considered the prettiest.” Jaebum arched an eyebrow at Yoongi.

Yoongi shrugged again.

Jaebum shook his head. “Strange.”

Yeonjun came over with Yesung. “So, what’s the plan? How do we get her and Yoongi-hyung together?”

“Well, the obvious start would be to have them spend as much time as we can manage to throw them together for,” Hyungjoon said, folding his arms.

Yesung nodded as well. “Shouldn’t be difficult to get them time together, I’m more concerned about him blowing it.”

Yoongi looked at the floor, using his shoe to break up the frost that was spreading around him.

Hyunjoon laughed softly. “Aw, he’s nervous!”

“Be careful, Hwall. You may be laughing now, but when it’s your turn with a woman, Yoongi-hyung could very well make your life miserable,” Jaebum warned. “He remembers everything.”

Yesung nodded slowly.

Yeonjun tugged on Yoongi’s arm. “So, hyung, how are you going to woo her?”

“Well, I offered to show her the town once she was well enough, and I figure I could regularly offer to show her around. Jaebum-ah, you’re going to have to pretend to be interested at least.”

“That shouldn’t be hard,” Jaebum replied, looking over with a certain amount of admiration that made Yoongi want to punch his brother. “She seems friendly enough. I’ll see if I can find out anything that would help you.”

Alright, he wouldn’t punch him. But he might make sure his bath was freezing if there was any sort of overstepping. The princes preferred cold in everything but bathing and sleeping. They could stand it, but even Yesung—who was probably the most powerful of the frost princes as the oldest—would be grumpy if his bath was cold, or he had to sleep in a bed that was anything but the perfect temperature. Even Eira brightened and curled up near the hearth sometimes, and she pouted that her room was too cold the first night she slept in the castle.

“I hope she has enough warm clothing,” Yeonjun said softly, looking worriedly over at her after she had sneezed. “It’s cold in the castle, especially for a human.”

“We will ensure that she has everything that she needs to be comfortable, or rather, Yoongi will. Right, little brother?” Yesung was smirking.

Yoongi nodded. “One step at a time, though. First, we make her feel welcome—”

“Because she really is? It was getting boring around here,” Yeonjun sighed.

Yoongi sighed at the interruption but nodded. “Yes. Second, I try to spend as much time as possible with her without overwhelming her. Third, we make sure her and Eira don’t fight because damn, they’re already talking like they’re old friends.”

The other boys followed his gaze to where the two women were whispering before bursting into giggles that they obviously tried to suppress and keep quiet.

“And Yesung…” Eira’s voice carried over just enough to bring the eldest’s name before it was lowered into a whisper again, saying something that had Y/n laughing unashamedly, not bothering trying to conceal it any longer.

Yoongi and his younger brothers tried not to laugh at the partially shocked and partially terrified look on Yesung’s face.

“Why are they talking about me?” He asked, probably himself, but since his brothers were there….

“They’re probably talking about how awkward you are,” Hyunjoon offered.

“Or your cravat being crooked,” Jaebum said.

“Or how awkward you were when you went up into the ice mountains to try and find a wife before Eira took pity on your awkward soul and approached you first and subsequently had you wrapped around her little finger despite also deferring to you as her future king,” Yoongi added, keeping a straight face.

His younger brothers started laughing uncontrollably at the offended look the eldest gave Yoongi.

Yoongi shrugged. “Sorry, hyung.”

Yesung huffed and walked away, soon joined by Eira who had a happy sort of white glow to her now and seemed to quickly set him at ease.

Yoongi watched them together, grateful that his brother had been so lucky in finding her. He deserved someone who could take his cares and worries away so easily, especially as the future king.

Yeonjun was already taking a seat in a chair near y/n, picking up the conversation he had started at dinner. Asking about summer festivals instead.

“Well, what sort of festivals do you all have in the warmer seasons?” She asked instead, smiling at Yoongi as he joined as well.

“Well, there’s the Spring celebration…the snow melts for a few weeks and it helps all the animals during birthing season, and flowers pop up.”

Her eyes widened. “A…few weeks? How do you grow food?”

“There’s more magic here than anywhere else on the island, but most of our food grows despite the snow,” Yoongi explained when Yeonjun looked a little lost for words. “We also have an active trade system on the coast, and with your country, for other foods.”

She nodded, but she still looked distracted. Like a curtain had been pulled in front of her. She looked ill.

“Y/n? Are you well?” He asked gently, worried. He didn’t want her to be sick any longer.

“Yes, um, I think I should retire for the evening.”

“I’ll make sure the maids build up your fire, it is supposed to get very cold this eve,” Yoongi told her. “Do you have enough blankets, do you think?”

She nodded, standing and dropping an appropriate curtsy. “Thank you, I believe I do.”

“Then rest well, Princess,” He said, bowing, probably more than he should have.

Yeonjun looked at him in confusion after she had gone. “What happened? She was fine.”

“I think…we reminded her that she would not be experience summers or springs as she knew them anymore. The problem with Yeolbing Fever is that if she’s exposed to a warmer environment for excessive periods of time, she will fall ill again. And it will be worse. She must live in our country to survive, and we reminded her that she left much behind. At least, I think that is what happened.” Yoongi looked away, out the window and into the cloudy night.

“I will check on her tomorrow, when we dine together. I am certain she will enjoy living here, once she is accustomed,” Eira said brightly. “And we must remember she probably is not accustomed to magic as we are.”

“True, she is very much human while we…are something a little different. It may be quite a lot to wrap her mind around,” Yesung said. “I have some work to do. Good night, brothers. Goodnight, Eira.”

“My prince,” She replied softly. “Walk me to my rooms?”

Yesung smiled, shooting a glare at Yeonjun and Hyunjoon who were pretending to gag.

“Remember, no little snow-babies until after the wedding!” Hyungjoon called after them, getting hit upside the head by Yoongi and Jaebum for doing so.

Yoongi excused himself a while later, heading outside and carefully to her window, painting a new scene in the frost, noticing the glow from behind the curtains that suggested she was still awake. He tried to make his design extra pretty since he’d made her uncomfortable. Like an apology.

He hoped she liked it, but he knew he wouldn’t be able to see her reaction to it since he had to ride out early the next morning for a sort of patrol.

–

Previous. Next.

Masterlist. Yoongi Masterpost.

Tagging: @alex–awesome–22 @bryvada @missmoxxiesworld @knjhe @agustdgeniuslab

(Please remember to comment on the Taglist masterpost if you want to be tagged)

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lycorogue · 5 years ago

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ML Secret Santa Story: The Great Debate

Holy smokes, it’s 2am! Uh, I wanted to have this done by Christmas Eve, but I guess an official Merry Christmas to my @mlsecretsanta giftee @mouserzwuzhere is now in order. So... Merry Christmas!

Sorry for the delay, it actually kept me most of this month to lock down what I wanted to write. In the end, I ended up going with something inspired by a Tumblr post. Of course, I can’t find the post now to link it, but it talked about the logistical fallacy of most Christmas movies where Santa is canonically real, but adults still don’t believe in him.

I went with mouserz preferences of fluff, friendship/family bonding, and LadyNoir. I hope this ends up being a pleasant surprise for you under your digital Christmas tree this morning. :D

UPDATE (12/25/19): You can now find the story on AO3, on FFN, and on DA as well as below.

The Great Debate

Summary: When Ladybug agreed to meet up later with Chat Noir, she never imagined they would end up discussing the validity of Santa being real. It’s funny the things you do for your loved ones.

Rating: General Audiences

Words: 4032

Status: Completed one-shot

Disclaimer: I’m ignoring the two-part season 3 finale with regards to Master Fu; pretend this takes place before that....

Ladybug breathed in the chilled, crisp night air. Her breath escaped in a thin fog. Her supersuit kept her warm, but her cheeks still flushed with the bite of wind as she swung through the city. Thankfully, the snow recently ceased, and the air was calm. Once she was at her destination she would be warmer.

Looking down the long roofs of the office buildings, she spotted a figure already perched six buildings down the street. He was there. He was waiting for her. She shifted the weight of the package nestled in the crook of her left arm, and sprinted towards her meet-up.

Chat Noir lazily kicked his legs as he leaned back on the tower roof's ledge, staring up at the sky; looking for stars he couldn't see. He hummed “Silent Night” to himself, and was on the third verse when Ladybug landed behind him.

“You're late, Bugaboo.”

“Don't-” It was on reflex, but there was no akuma around now. She simply sighed, and shook her head. “Sorry. I wanted to get something for you first.” She held out her package: a box of Tom & Sabine Bakery macarons. It was risky to bring them to Chat Noir, but it was also a bit of an impromptu meet-up.

Earlier that day, for the second Christmas Eve in a row, Hawk Moth decided to not take a vacation, and akumatized a poor distraught person. As they were fighting, Chat Noir seemed more distracted than usual, exchanging his usual ill-timed flirting for requests that they hang out again later. The more the battle wore on, the more Ladybug picked up that perhaps this get-together was something Chat Noir truly needed.

Then they defeated the villain. Ladybug purified the akuma, and used her ultimate power to restore Paris. The duo fist-bumped in front of the rush of reporters capturing the latest attack on their beloved city. Ladybug's earrings chimed that she only had two minutes remaining, and soon after Chat Noir's ring beeped for the second time. She couldn't say anything to him in front of the reporters; couldn't let Hawk Moth potentially know where they would be. Instead, she gave him a silent plead to forgive her abruptness, and swung away. Once out of sight, she used the last few precious seconds of her transformation to text Chat Noir where to meet up. She prayed that he would get the message before de-transforming.

It seemed he did.

She didn't have much time to plan a Christmas gift for Chat Noir. She didn't imagine an opportunity to gift him anything. It would be far too inappropriate while they were actively attempting to protect Paris, and she didn't want Chat Noir to get the wrong idea if she asked him for a meet-up for a gift exchange. She didn't have the time to make anything, and she barely had the time to purchase anything; most stores were already closed for the holiday. She lucked out that her parents had anything left in their bakery.

“Huh. Great minds, it seems, M'lady.” Chat Noir smirked as he grabbed a matching pastry box he had hidden beside his right hip. His contained a pair of over-stuffed cream puffs. He brushed the snow off the ledge beside him and patted the now-bare roof.

Ladybug studied Chat Noir. She sprinted through the list of patrons she saw in her parents' bakery that day, trying to remember any young men with blonde hair. None came to mind. Perhaps he had bought the cream puffs while she was in her room. Maybe that was why he was so persistent with wanting a meet-up.

“Great minds indeed.” Ladybug hummed inquisitively, but still accepted the cleared-off seat. Holding out her box to Chat Noir, she traded peppermint macarons for her puff.

“Mmm.” Chat Noir popped the macaron in his mouth in one bite. “I guess it makes sense that we'd both pick pastries from the Tom & Sabine. It is the best bakery in all of Paris, after all.”

Ladybug lightly blushed, and hoped her cheeks were already red enough from the cold for Chat Noir to not notice. “I'm sure they'd appreciate hearing that, especially from a superhero.”

“You should tell them too, then.”

She had never thought of that. “Perhaps I'll take the time to do so.” She bit into her cream puff, and quickly licked up the filling oozing out of the opposite side.

Chat Noir popped another macaron in his mouth. “Thank you for meeting up with me tonight.”

Ladybug stilled, looking deeply at Chat Noir. “You sounded like you needed it. Is everything alright?”

“It is now.” He gave her a sad little smile, and then scraped some cream out of the center of his puff.

“It's Christmas Eve, Kitty. Wouldn't you rather spend it with loved ones?”

“I thought I was.”

“Come on, be serious, Chat Noir.”

He put down his treats, and instead scooped up Ladybug's right hand, keeping her gaze. “I am serious. Please tell me that you know by now that I'm always serious with every love confession.”

“Chat Noir-”

He dropped her hand and scooted further away from her. “I know, I know. You're in love with someone else. I understand that, but it doesn't lessen my feelings for you, and how dear you are to me.”

“Kitty.”

Clearing his throat, he tossed another macaron in the air, and caught it in his mouth. “Sorry I'm keeping you from your loved ones, though.”

Ladybug rested a hand on his shoulder. “You're not. You're dear to me too, remember?”

They finished their treats with small, simple, stupid conversation. They talked about nothing in particular, for fear of giving something away that would reveal themselves, and yet they said a lot with the way they each talked about being a superhero, or how they felt about the past year, or even about the weather.

“How could you not love the snow?” Ladybug gathered the empty pastry boxes, and tucked them beside her.

“It's lonely.”

She quirked an eyebrow at him.

“Most people stay inside; isolated in their homes. Paris isn't as bustling as normal. It's quiet.”

“See, that's one of the things I like about the snow.” Ladybug scooped some off the roof, and started packing it into a ball. “It absorbs sound, you know. That's why Paris seems so quiet and serene when it snows. The lights then reflect off the crisp white, and the city just seems clean and new. It seems safe.”

“It is safe, with you as its savior.”

“Yeah, well you're not too bad yourself there, Kitty.” They shared a smile. “Besides, snow isn't lonely. It's inviting. Families huddle together to drink cocoa as they watch the snow. Friends play together making snow angels or snowmen, or race on sleds, or build forts together, or have snowball fights.”

Chat Noir's face fell, so Ladybug threw her freshly formed snowball at his shoulder.

“Hey!” He quickly packed his own snowball, but Ladybug was faster and hit him with another one. “Okay! Okay, I submit!” He dropped his snowball, and held his hands over his head.

“Haven't you ever just played in the snow? How could you not feel the magic of it while you dance under a soft snow fall, or catch flakes on your tongue, or simply lay in the cold silence, just feeling at peace with the world?”

“I'll have to keep all of those in mind the next time it snows.”

“Good.”

Another soft, shared look as they each offered the other a gentle smile.

Church bells softly rang in the distance; breaking the spell as Chat Noir turned to the sound.

“It's getting late. Should we head home? Don't want to chance Santa passing us up since we aren't asleep.”

“Wait, Santa?”

“Yeah. You think he's in the area already? I mean, I really couldn't ask for a better gift than to spend time with you, M'lady, but I wouldn't want to push my luck with the Big Guy in Red.”

“Chat Noir, do you still believe in Santa Claus?” She quirked an eyebrow at him, and playfully smirked.

“I mean, are you telling me you don't?” His face scrunched up as he stared incredulously at her. “We literally saw him! Twice!”

“First of all, those were both during akuma attacks, so who truly knows what is and isn't real during those? Secondly, Santa Claws seemed to just be a friendly old man who dressed up as Santa; not Jolly Old Saint Nick himself, and his 'Santa' powers were because of the akumatization. So he doesn't count. Finally, I'd hate to break it to you, but the Santa we met when Paris was overwhelmed by giant attacking toys wasn't real. It was Chris Master's powers manifesting his interpretation of Santa: the Santa in his snow globe.” Ladybug rested a comforting hand on Chat Noir's arm.

“How do you know that wasn't the real Santa? He said he'd see us next Christmas Eve; tonight!”

“He said that because it was what Chris wanted Santa to say.”

“How do you know that, though?”

Ladybug's breath hitched, and she simply shrugged. “What? You can have Cat Intuition about how the Agreste mansion security works or the fact that Volpina had an illusion instead of the actual Adrien Agreste, but I can't have Ladybug Intuition about whether or not that was the real Santa?”

Chat Noir studied her for a tell, but eventually caved. “Okay, you got me on that second meet-up with Santa; that probably wasn't the real one. Although, you were the top of his Nice list, so maybe you should hope that your Ladybug Intuition was off, and that was really him.” He winked. She groaned. “Either way, he looked a lot like the man who got akumatized into Santa Claws, which means it could be possible that the man last Christmas was in fact the true Santa, but was posing as a regular citizen.”

“Why? Especially on Christmas Eve itself? Wouldn't he be too busy delivering gifts?” Ladybug tried to keep the smug look off her face, but Chat Noir's lips kept puckering more and more with each question. She could tell that he was trying to build up a rebuttal.

Chat Noir opened his mouth to respond, pointing at her in stunned silence. A second later he relented, shrugging in defeat instead. “Alright, so maybe we haven't met the actual Santa, but that doesn't mean he's not real.”

“He might have been, once. There could have been someone who spent Christmas Eve delivering gifts to the children of a very large area – so that it felt like it was the whole world to those people – and the legend of Santa came from that, but I don't know if I trust that he's still real.”

“Well, why not? I knew you could be pragmatic, but even this seems a bit much for you.”

“He'd be well over a millennium old, for starters.”

“Yeah, but what about Master Fu?”

“There's a bit of a difference between two-hundred and two-thousand years, Chat Noir.”

“Still, Master is as old as he is largely because of the magic of the Miraculouses, isn't he?”

“Possibly.”

“So why is it such a stretch that Santa has magic of his own, and part of it is the long life, or even immortality? The Miraculouses can't be the only form of magic within the whole world, can they?”

She gave it thought. “Alright, valid point. What about the gifts, though?”

Chat Noir lounged across the roof and dismissively waved his hand. “I already told you: magic. He probably has a bag with access to a pocket dimension or some-”

“No.”

Chat Noir rocked his head to the side. Ladybug pivoted to face him, folding her legs in front of her as she anchored her hands to her ankles.

“No,” she repeated, “I'm not even talking about the plausibility of him carrying all the gifts with him or getting in and out of people's homes. If I'm going to agree with him nearing two-thousand years old because of magic, I'll concede on those other magical parts.”

“Okay, so what's wrong with the presents then?”

Ladybug scooted closer to Chat Noir and leaned a little towards him, energy buzzing off of her. “If Santa Claus truly delivers presents every Christmas Eve, then why is it that most adults don't believe in him? Wouldn't him delivering gifts to their children convince the parents that he's real? Since a large portion – probably even a majority – of adults are also parents, wouldn't someone somewhere have factual evidence of his existence by now? Or, at least, wouldn't it be a much more widespread belief, even among adults, that he's alive?”

Chat Noir sat up, hugging one leg to his chest. His eyebrows furrowed, and he wouldn't look at Ladybug.

“I mean, think about it,” Ladybug continued, rolling onto her knees as she began to gesture wildly. “You and your wife wake up Christmas morning, and gather around the tree with your kid- You're picturing me as your wife, and imagining what our kid would look like, aren't you?”

Chat Noir sheepishly smiled and shrugged.

“Never mind that. Not the point.” Ladybug waved the thought away. “So your kid is opening up gifts, finds one that is labeled 'from Santa,' and unwraps it. You don't recognize this gift. You haven't purchased it for your kid. You may just think your wife must have gotten it and not told you, so you let it go. But this keeps happening every year, so you finally ask your wife, and she tells you she always thought you were the one who bought those gifts, because she certainly didn't. Isn't that suspicious? A random present from neither of you managed to make its way under your tree? Every year? Wouldn't you want to figure out who put it there? And you hear your friends – who are also parents – saying the same thing happened for each of their kids. Wouldn't that alone be enough evidence for most parents to believe that Santa must be real, because what other explanation is there for the mystery gifts?”

Chat Noir tapped his chin with two fingers, scanning the clouds for answers. “Yeah, I guess that's true.”

“On the flip-side, if Santa doesn't actually leave any presents - so that parents don't question where they came from - then why does it matter if he's real, because he still isn't going to be coming to everyone's houses unless it's to eat the cookies.”

“I got it!” Chat Noir snapped and turned back towards Ladybug, he was also up on his knees, waving excitedly. “Magic again.”

“How so?”

“Santa's magic is memory focused. He doesn't actually use chimneys – which really helps explain all those homes without fire places – instead, he arrives just before the parents lock up for the night, and he uses his magic to make them believe they already did. He then enters, leaves the present, and locks the door behind him as he goes on his merry way. His magic then makes the parents believe they had munched on the cookies to give the illusion of Santa, and that they were the ones who purchased the gift for little Julien. The question of 'who got him that present' never comes up, and Santa still remains a glorious holiday mystery.”

“What if the parents, still disbelieving of Santa, already bought little Mary a gift from 'Santa' and already ate the cookies before going to bed?”

“Then Santa saves on unneeded calories, and he switches up the 'Santa' for 'Mom and Dad'. Then his power works exactly the same way; except this time it also makes them think they didn't label the one gift as from 'Santa' at first.”

“It's still too many homes to leave presents for in one night.” Ladybug sat on her heels and crossed her arms.

“I thought you were going to concede on all of the 'other magic stuff'?”

Ladybug shrugged.

“Okay.” Chat Noir thought for a moment. “What if his powers also allows him to teleport? Or to slow time? Or to pause time? We have Miraculouses that could do some pretty crazy things, after all.” Chat Noir's ears perked and his belt-tail twitched as if it were real. “Wait a minute! What if Santa has a Miracle Box? That feast amuk was encased in stone before leaving Tibet, and we stopped it while it was still in Paris, so what if it didn't have a chance to make it to Santa to eat his Miraculous?”

“Master would have told me if Santa was one of the guardians.”

“What if he didn't know? What if there were Guardians secretly placed throughout the world, and for their safety, the monastery Master Fu trained at didn't have their names?”

“And he only uses the Miraculous once a year to provide extra Christmas gifts?”

Chat Noir started counting out his points on his fingers. “He's not using the Miraculous for his personal gain, so it's not breaking any rules. He's providing joy and wonderment to the world. He's making sure every kid gets at least one gift they'll love, regardless of the parents' financial or emotional standing. We don't know what he does with the rest of the year, so maybe he's protecting the world just like us, but with his memory-altering Miraculous powers, the world just never figures it out.”

Ladybug simply stared at Chat Noir. He held his ground and kept her gaze.

“Alright.” Ladybug pivoted on the roof ledge, and dangled her legs below her. “I relent that there's a possibility that Santa is real.”

“And a Miraculous Guardian?”

“It's a stretch, but I guess I can't argue against it. Not right now, anyway.”

“So does that mean you'll wait up for him?”

“No, that means there's no point. If he is real, and he does have a way of altering memories, then I doubt he'd let either of us remember seeing him. He's been doing this for over seventeen-hundred years, after all.” She gave Chat Noir a side smile.

“I guess that's true.” Chat Noir deflated a little and sat beside her.

“Besides, I thought you wanted to go to bed so you didn't chance missing out on your gift from him,” she teased.

Chat Noir curled into himself and blushed, again unable to look at Ladybug. She instantly knew she went too far. She couldn't say goodbye to him like that.

Ladybug detached her yo-yo, and looked intently at it. Chat Noir followed her out of the corner of his eye.

“Ladybug?”

She gave him the tiniest hint of a devilish grin while pressing a finger to her lips and shushing him. “Don't tell on me, okay?”

“Tell?”

Ladybug threw her yo-yo straight up, calling out “Lucky Charm!”

“What are you doing?” Chat Noir again hopped up onto his knees as he studied her. “What about no personal gain?”

The charm landed in Ladybug's hand, and she closed her fist around it before Chat Noir could make out the small red object with black spots.

“I think this one can be allowed.” Ladybug re-attached her yo-yo to her hip, and stood on the main portion of the roof. With Chat Noir still seated on the ledge, they were about eye-level.

He tried to spy her charm, but she kept her hand hidden behind her back. “So, what convoluted plan do you have for that?” He stood to try to look over her shoulder, but she blocked him with a stiff arm.

“Nothing too bad. Now sit back down.” She pushed gently on his chest, and he plopped his butt back onto the roof ledge. “Perfect.”

She then placed her hand in between them and unfolded her fingers. Resting on her palm was a tiny sprig of mistletoe, although, with the red coloring and black spots, it looked more like holly. With her spare hand, Ladybug held the Lucky Charm mistletoe sprig over their heads, then leaned in to kiss Chat Noir. Giddily, he rose to meet her, his hands reaching out for her waist as he puckered up and eyes fluttered closed.

She giggled, and used a finger to turn his head so she could kiss him on the cheek instead.

Chat Noir pouted and sunk back onto the roof. “You're supposed to kiss on the lips under a mistletoe.”

“Sorry, Kitty, but I do still love someone else.” She flicked his bell, and placed the sprig of mistletoe beside them. “I will give you one more gift though.” She cupped a hand on either side of his face, and pulled it towards her. Angling his head down a bit, she placed a gentle kiss on his forehead, and then rested hers against it. “Merry Christmas, Kitty.”

Chat Noir wrapped his arms around Ladybug and squeezed her close to him; breathing her in. “Thank you, Ladybug. Merry Christmas to you, too.”

She let him hold her for a moment, and she held him back, wrapping her arms around his neck. With their eyes closed, and the normally bustling city quiet with snow, it didn't feel like there was anyone else in all of Paris but the two of them. It only lasted a moment, but it was calming for them both.

He's right here, Ladybug thought, he's not Chat Blanc, and I'll stop him from ever feeling that desperate and alone.

She's here, Chat Noir thought, she loves someone else, but for right now she's here and I can pretend for a few seconds that I'm the one she's in love with.

The thought didn't make Chat Noir purr, as it usually did; instead, a small whimper escaped his throat.

“Chat Noir?” Ladybug leaned away from him, breaking the illusion.

“Sorry. I had a moment, but I'm fine. Thank you again for spending time with me tonight.”

“No problem, Kitty. As long as you don't want us to make a habit out of this.” She ruffled up his hair until he broke his hug in a giggling retreat. “You are a friend of mine, Chat Noir,” Ladybug continued in a serious tone. “I want to be here for you whenever you need me, and I do enjoy spending time with you, as long as you're not flirting.” She cocked an eyebrow and folded her arms across her chest.

Chat Noir meekly smiled back as he rubbed the back of his neck. “Is my flirting really that bad?”

She simply raised the second eyebrow and pursed her lips.

“In love with another guy,” Chat Noir sighed, “Right.”

She took his hand and gave it a light squeeze. “You'll find someone. I promise. She'll see the amazing Chat Noir that I do, but she'll get to know your actual name, and her heart will be only for you.”

Before Chat Noir could respond – and Ladybug knew he wanted to – she let go, and lassoed a nearby light post. “Merry Christmas again, Chat Noir.”

He gave her a genuine smile in return. “Merry Christmas, M'lady.” He said nothing else, and Ladybug was grateful. Her earrings started rapidly beeping. It had only been about three minutes, but Tikki always seemed to wear out faster if Ladybug used her Lucky Charm for personal reasons. She probably didn't have much time left.

“Let me know if you do catch Santa,” Ladybug teased. She then scooped up the empty pastry boxes, and loosened the tension on her yo-yo, sling-shotting her through the Paris skyline.

Chat Noir looked at the discarded Lucky Charm sprig of mistletoe, and brought it up to his lips. The trinket cut their evening together short, but it was worth it for those kisses, and that hug. A couple of seconds later, the sprig burst into pink glitter that vanished in the air; like a miniature firework. Ladybug must have de-transformed, and the Lucky Charm vanished with her other superpowers.

Chat Noir no longer had his keepsake from the night, but he had his memories. Those were enough, and he trusted he'd make many more with Ladybug over the years.

Now he had to figure out how to capture Santa so he could prove to his lady that he was right.

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precuredaily · 5 years ago

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Precure Day 159

Episode: Yes! Precure 5 11 - “Nozomi and Coco’s Hot Air Balloon Ride!” Date watched: 19 November 2019 Original air date: 15 April 2007 Screenshots: https://imgur.com/a/ytsGyVm Project info and master list of posts: http://tinyurl.com/PCDabout

oh yeah, it’s that episode

Every once in a while you come across an episode of Precure that is absolutely iconic. Nozomi and Coco’s balloon ride is one of those, because while we knew Nozomi had a thing for Coco, this episode shows us that there might actually be some chemistry here, and it’s not just a young girl’s naive crush. It also sets Nozomi down the path to finding her dream, aside from helping Coco. So let’s explore how it all happens.

The Plot

Nozomi is doing abysmal in her math class (it appears to be basic algebra), so the other girls propose a regular study group at Natts House. Rin and Urara manage to get a grasp on their work by relating it to their interests, but Nozomi doesn’t get it and stares out the window, noticing a hot air balloon in the town park. When Karen calls her out for not having made any progress, she blows it off and says she’ll get Coco to give her the answers, prompting the others to say they’ll leave her behind and form Precure 4. This bit of tough love is meant to motivate the dreamy girl, but instead she gets upset and runs out of the house. Coco quickly chases after her while Nuts advises the four that their approach probably wasn’t going to help Nozomi, but that Coco is good at reaching out to people and helping them.

After promising not to just take her back to Natts House, Coco leads Nozomi to the balloons, where she is enamored with the whole process and asks the pilots lots of questions about how the balloon works. They offer to give her a ride, and after noticing Natts House from up in the air, she opens up to Coco about her childhood. She has always had a hard time learning, lagging behind her classmates. Coco quizzes her about how the balloon works, and she answers correctly, showing how she can learn when she’s interested. Coco advises her that studying is similar to filling a balloon with hot air, so that when you find a dream, you can fly towards it. Then he thanks her for supporting his dream, and tells her it’s okay to put it in second place if she finds a dream of her own. Some turbulence sends Nozomi tumbling into Coco’s arms in a pseudo-hug, causing her to blush deeply at the closeness and his kindness.

Unfortunately, Nightmare is around to ruin the tender moments. When the balloon lands due to the turbulent weather, Arachnea turns it into a Kowaina and it flies off above the clouds with only Nozomi and Coco on board. Nozomi transforms and starts to fight, but is overpowered. Coco tries to tell her to save herself rather than protecting him, but she refuses to do so, because her dream is to make his dream a reality. On the ground, the other four girls can see the fight going on in the clouds but they can’t reach it. Ultimately Rouge gets a spring boost from Aqua and Mint and manages to land in the clouds just in time to rescue Dream, with Lemonade following suit shortly. Together, the three girls manage to defeat the monster and Arachnea retreats to lose another day. Not to be left out of the action completely, Mint and Aqua use their special moves to safely guide Rouge and Lemonade back to the ground. The four friends call out to Nozomi and Coco that they’re sorry, and hope to see them back at Natts House. Nozomi explains to Coco that she’s not only fighting for his sake, but believes that making his dream come true will help her self-confidence and aid in finding a dream of her own.

Back at school a week later, Nozomi has improved her score on her latest math test from an 18 to a 35.... and reveals she also read a thick book about hot air balloons in the same time period. Karen, willing to take small victories, challenges Nozomi to score at the class average on the next test, while Coco looks on in admiration.

The Analysis

Sorry the summary was pretty verbose, there’s a lot to cover and i still glossed over some points I want to discuss in this section.

First of all, I’m not a doctor, but it looks to me like Nozomi is exhibiting signs of a learning disorder, such as ADHD. She has difficulty focusing on one thing at a time, she struggles with basic concepts, she gets easily distracted, but when she finds something she is interested in, she can understand it easily. The episode doesn’t acknowledge this possibility at all, though this could be because Japan has a much more negative stigma to the idea of mental illness, and Toei presumably didn’t want Nozomi to be known as the Pretty Cure with a disorder (even if it could be a good way to change the conversation). However you slice it, can’t-study Nozomi is kinda super relatable.

It’s a really good look at how to handle learning difficulties, and why education is important, especially when you’re struggling. Nozomi does like learning, but her difficulty comes from not being interested in the subjects being taught to her. I’m sure everybody out there has had this happen at some point in their lives, and I think it’s wonderful that they broached this topic. Trying to relate the subject to something you are interested in is a good tool, or otherwise approaching it from a different angle. Formal education kind of struggles with this, it’s very structured and inflexible in a lot of ways, but if you can find a way to make a topic appealing to you, you might be able to understand what is being taught. And Coco’s speech on why it’s important to learn is not only core to the show’s themes, but all around good life advice. Education gives you the tools you need to succeed at your dream. Knowing math or history or reading classic literature may not be useful in your daily life, but understanding how to absorb and utilize information is a valuable life skill. The metaphor with the hot air balloon is actually very clever, and betrays Coco’s wisdom. As Nuts said, he is naturally good at approaching and helping people with their troubles, and that’s on full display as he gently guides Nozomi towards appreciating herself more.

The other side of this is that Coco is genuinely grateful to Nozomi for trying to help him achieve his dream of reviving Palmier Kingdom, and he wants to help her find her own dream, because after all, his has a more definite endpoint. He tells her that he doesn’t mind taking second place if she finds something she’d rather do, but she lets him know that, by helping him, she’s learning more about herself and what she wants to do, and this in turn is going to help her find her dream. Not to spoil too much, but across these two seasons, Nozomi does find something she strives for, and it’s really cool to see, in this fairly early episode, that she’s aware that helping Coco is more of a stepping stone to helping herself, not an end goal.

The most obvious reason this episode is remembered is because it’s a step towards Nozomi and Coco becoming closer, romantically. Nozomi had a bit of a crush on Coco from the moment she laid eyes on him, but that hasn’t really been fleshed out much since then, because they’ve been busy worldbuilding. Now they’ve got a full team of Precures, Nuts has been revived, a smattering of Pinkies have been caught, and each Nightmare staff member has been defeated a few times; so we can look at romance again. Nozomi still has heart flutters when she’s close to Coco, and she gets really embarrassed when they accidentally hug. Coco, meanwhile, isn’t showing any stereotypical signs of love, but he did chase after Nozomi, he went out of his way to console and help her through a really hard situation for her, and he thanked her for her role in helping him. She was the first person to help him, and she did so without question, and that’s incredibly important to him.

It’s cute in a shipping sense but also honestly Nozomi and Coco are a great couple and it’s nice to see a mutual love story, as opposed to the one-way romances from the previous shows.

On another positive note, this episode gives us some memorable lines, such as Nozomi’s “I don’t understand what I don’t understand” and some quality faces. I’m not going to post them all, so check the gallery. BUT I did get this great gif. Use it however you want.

The only thing I can criticize about this episode is also the art. There are a LOT of shots that are just not very good. Noodle people, distorted faces, you name it, it’s here.

Even in this sentimental moment, Nozomi’s hand is really small:

It’s not awful but it’s just off enough to stand out. However, a little sketchy art isn’t enough to bring this down from being a great episode. It’s a quality series.

Next time, we have another memorable episode, for a different reason: Urara as a stage show MC. Look forward to it!

Pink Precure Catchphrase Count: 2 “Kettei!”, one in flashback, but it counts.

Also, we got one of Nozomi’s less common sayings, “Nantoka naru naru!” or “It’ll work out some way or anothers!”

#Precure #Pretty Cure #Yes! Precure 5 #YPC511 #PCD159

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nocturnal-jeon · 6 years ago

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𝚋𝚝𝚜 𝚛𝚎𝚊𝚌𝚝𝚒𝚘𝚗➛ 𝚜/𝚘 𝚏𝚊𝚒𝚗𝚝𝚜 (𝚑𝚢𝚞𝚗𝚐 𝚕𝚒𝚗𝚎)

damn, angst is my thing i guess lol

and i split this up cause i made these whole ass stories so

Kim Namjoon

It was comeback season (HAVE YALL LISTENED TO THE NEW ALBUM I-) and while he was always the best boyfriend at making sure he spent a good amount of time with you during the week, his main focus needed to be on work due to several deadlines and the lingering pressures in his mind to impress the fans.

It was also exam season for you, and typically, your studying habits wouldn’t ruin your time with Namjoon simply because he would help you study and give you kisses or food if you got an answer right on the little mini quizzes he would make. Namjoon would spend hours working and even sleep in the studio, leaving you in your shared bed at home by yourself surrounded by papers and packets.

Namjoon had staff that would force him to take care of himself. He also had six other members who were all in the same boat and knew the pressures of comeback season, so not only did they understand, but they were struggling with taking care of themselves, too. The staff would leave food in his studio and the members would force him to sleep for a few hours, but you didn’t have that.

You didn’t have multiple people doing things for you to ensure that you were giving enough attention to your health. So, when you miss multiple meals and fall asleep at 3 in the morning only to wake up three hours later for an early study session, not even Namjoon was there to help you take care of yourself. But you were far too tired to even think about anything that had nothing to do with your studies.

As busy as his schedule was, Namjoon made sure to come to your presentation. Rather than a paper, you simply had to give a presentation on a topic to the class and whoever felt inclined to watch. You stood near the computer off to the side as you skimmed the slide shows, looking for any grammatical errors or inconsistencies in text size.

You didn’t even notice that Namjoon had entered the room and sat down, but when his eyes were the first pair that you met when you began, your anxiety spiked. Namjoon had such a busy schedule and you didn’t want him to waste his precious time on a horrible presentation. So, with the clearing of your voice, you began.

And things were fine. Namjoon watched in awe as you spoke clearly and make eye contact with almost everyone in the room. But he grew confused when your words began to slur a bit and you began to stumble in your sentences. As you looked up at the board for reference, the words began to double and the mellow blue tone muddled together and fogged up your sight. And before Namjoon knew it, your body hit the cold floor with a thud as gasps filled the room.

Using his long legs, he bolted towards the front of the classroom and winced when he saw a thin trail of blood from the back of your head where it had hit the floor. With shaky hands, he put two fingers up to your neck, later pulling back with a sigh of content as he felt it as strong as ever. You were always a fighter. As the police were being called, Namjoon picked up your body and sat it on his lap as he rubbed your back, hoping you would come to quickly. And as he held your body, he realized how frail it was and how light you had become. Your thighs seemed slimmer, your stomach no longer had the cute little rolls he loved, and your cheeks were beginning to sink in. And underneath the makeup, he could see the deep and dark bags under your eyes.

Guilt hit Namjoon like a truck as he realized that he didn’t know how stressed and how poorly you were taking care of yourself. He watched with sad eyes filled with tears as you got lifted onto the gurney. Namjoon made a mental note to take better care of you. As you recovered, he would email all of your teachers and get extensions, and once you were able to come home, he would bring his work home and only touch it when you were asleep. When you were awake, however, Namjoon was feeding you, holding you, and watching movies with you. Anything, just so you wouldn’t doubt his love for you but also so that your health was being taken care of.

He got nervous when you began to start working on your schoolwork again, but you constantly reassured him that you were going to be fine. He would make study schedules for you and have Jin stock the refrigerator with food and he would grow worried if a container of food hadn’t been eaten, and if you hadn’t, he would sit there in front of you as you ate and watch with eyes filled with fear.

Once the comeback was over and you had passed your exams with flying colors, Namjoon took you on a vacation so you could both de-stress and reclaim your love for each other.

Kim Seokjin

You were the type to constantly get sick, so when you came down with what seemed like another cold, Jin was waiting at your bedside with hot soup, tea, tissues, and snacks. It was food, after all, that brought you and Jin together, so there was always a smile on your face when you saw your doting boyfriend with food in his arms.

Your symptoms were never consistent, but Jin, doubling as your mother, claimed he could see a cold a mile away, so he always gave you the same medicines, healthy snacks, and soup when you would begin to feel ill.

Jin was always there to nurse you back to health, and even if he was busy, he would leave the food labeled on his side of the bed so you didn’t have to get up. You often felt sick and nauseous, but you didn’t always want to be babied and treated like a patient in a hospital, so a lot of the time you kept it to yourself.

One day, in particular, you were feeling ill and Jin could sense it, but he had to work that day, so he made you a day’s worth of food, left you multiple post-it note reminders to drink water and rest, and kissed every inch of your face before he left early in the morning for practice.

You felt so nauseous, though, that you couldn’t even eat a tiny bit of the beautifully prepared food. You felt bad, but you knew Jin wouldn’t enjoy cleaning up vomit on the bed, so you settled with watching various movies and tv shows, drinking water every five minutes like Jin instructed. But, after a little while, you ran out of water, so very weakly, you got out of bed and slowly walked down the stairs, glass in hand, to get more. But without getting the slightest warning, your body fell down the remaining three stairs, the glass shattering besides your fallen figure.

Jin arrived home an hour and a half later, carrying your favorite takeout in his arms with a smile on his face. He figured you deserved a treat since you’ve been such a fighter. But the food dropped on the ground when his eyes came across your unconscious body. Rushing towards you shouting your name, he laid you down flat on the ground and examined your body for injuries as he blindly searched through his pockets for his phone. There was a massive bump and bruise on your head, but you were still breathing.

Screaming and crying into the phone, he urged an ambulance come at once. He placed the phone on the floor as he stroked your face, chanting your name and hoping you would hear him and wake up.

As you laid resting in the hospital bed, Jin sat by your side, your weak and limp hand in his as he tried to go through the events of the past few days in his head and see what was different this time about you feeling sick. But he couldn’t figure it out.

The doctor entered the room, a clipboard in hand. Jin’s head shot up. “Well, it’s good you got there when you did. We ran multiple tests and we discovered that she’s hypoglycemic. It means she has low blood sugar,” the doctor explained, causing Jin to only grow more confused. But, with the doctor explaining more, Jin began to understand. He also, however, began to blame himself for excusing your symptoms as that of a cold. He took extra care of you, even taking a few days off to make sure you knew how to better care for yourself but also so he could learn how to better care for you. Using his cooking skills, Jin always made you food that would help rise your blood sugar and he always lightly scolded you when you didn’t eat the foods that aided it.

Min Yoongi

Like Namjoon, Yoongi often spent hours on end in the studio perfecting his craft and making deadlines, but he wasn’t as good at Namjoon when it came to making time for you. Yoongi would often lose track of the days of the week when he was so deep in a zone. You always respected that because when you two first started dating, he wanted to make it very clear that he would be busy a lot, but you loved him enough and you always made sure you were here for him.

Though he never advised you to wait up for him, you couldn’t help it. Yoongi’s secure arms around your sleepy body were the equivalent of lullabies, and you needed Yoongi in order to sleep. He knew this, and he would try to get home once he was done, but he would often fall asleep in his chair. Other nights though, rarely, he would slide into bed and pull your back against him, his face settling in the crook of your neck as he placed a quick kiss before falling asleep.

You lost count of how many sleepless nights you spent on the couch waiting for Yoongi to come home. But, as you began to realize, he never really did. You worked a normal 9-5, so you weren’t at home for most of the day and that way, you could fill your empty mind with thoughts about work.

The boys were having a listening party at Bighit with all the staff to see how they all react to the new album before it’s released. Yoongi felt this would be a great chance for you to spend some time together along with the boys. He said he would meet you there. And so, yawning as you did, you put on some jeans and a nice shirt, not really knowing what to wear. You brushed your hair for a minute, not having any energy whatsoever to curl it as you usually did.

You made your way to BigHit and entered the large banquet room and searched with tired eyes for Yoongi. He sat in the corner with Jimin and you slowly and sluggishly walked over to them. Yoongi’s eyes lit up as soon as he saw you approach. “Hey, baby,” he said with a smile as he stood up and pulled you into a hug. You hadn’t seen each other for a few days as he was so busy, but being in his arms was like heaven, so you secretly hoped the hug would last forever, but he pulled away. Yoongi wasn’t a big fan of PDA when he was at work and around staff.

“Hey, y/n, how are you?” Jimin asked with a smile. You mustered up the last of your energy to smile and say, “I’m doing great, how are you, Jimin?” “I can see the glare Yoongi is giving me, so I’ll leave you to alone,” Jimin said with a laugh before turning around and walking away. Yoongi’s arm lazily slinked around your waist. “I missed you,” he hummed into your ear, sending shockwaves throughout your aching body. “I guess I missed you, too,” you joked, causing a breathy laugh to emit from his lips you so badly wanted to kiss. But you were in public and you didn’t want Yoongi to get angry.

“Everyone, we’re going to start, so if you could all settle down and get quiet!” Some important looking person shouted as the crowd of people quickly got quiet. The first song began to play and you saw as Taehyung and Jungkook began jumping around like idiots when the rap line went in. You smiled and looked at Yoongi. He stared back at you, wanting to gauge your reaction. Bringing your lips close to his ear, you whispered, “it’s amazing, baby. Absolutely amazing.” He smiled and placed the quickest kiss on your cheek. The songs played and played, but you began to get a bit parched.

“I’m gonna go get a drink of water. I’ll be back.”

But you never made it to the table in the back with refreshments. After taking a few steps, your body lost all of its power and you collapsed on the carpeted floor. At first, people didn’t really notice as all of the focus was on BTS, but when Yoongi heard “Hyung!”, his head snapped towards the back of the room. There Hoseok was next to your unconscious body as he lightly slapped your cheeks. Yoongi wasn’t the athletic type, but he ran faster than the speed of light to you, worry evident all over his face.

“What happened?” he demanded, looking around at his fellow members, a tiny bit angry for no real reason. “I saw her and she just fell,” Hoseok explained. “Y/n, babe, wake up,” Yoongi said as he shook your body. Slowly, your eyes fluttered open and your cheeks burned red when you saw several pairs of eyes on you. Groggy, you mumbled incoherent sounds. While Yoongi was relieved you were awake, he could see what had been going on. You haven’t been sleeping.

“You need to sleep, Y/n! Damnit, do you realize how detrimental this could be to your health?” he scolded. You felt embarrassed more than anything as your boyfriend scolded you as if you were a child in a room filled with people. “Yoongi, back off a little. Just take her home,” Namjoon said as he placed a hand on his shoulder. Nodding, Yoongi helped you up and held you securely in his arms as he carried you out of the building and drove you home.

He didn’t say anything on the way home, too angry to say anything, too caring to not yell at you like he wanted to. He carried you to your shared bed and tucked you in, but he left the room and left you confused. But you were far too tired to piece it together. “At least a few days. I need to be here.” You overheard a bit of his conversation outside of the bedroom as your eyes fluttered shut. And so, Yoongi crawled into bed and wrapped his arms around you, bringing your back against his chest and he placed multiple kisses along your shoulder.

“We’ll talk in the morning. But get sleep, y/n. I love you,” he whispered.

Jung Hoseok

You and Hoseok had a relationship that seemed more like that of a best friendship. You both had loud, expressive laughs, shared the same sense of clothing style and shared some of the same skills. Though both of your busy idol schedules led to not a lot of time being spent together, whenever you did, you made the most of it and always did something fun.

With you being a singer and Hoseok being a rapper, you produced some of the best songs Korea has ever heard together and Hoseok couldn’t have dreamed of a better person to collaborate with. While Friday nights were filled with pizza and movies for some couples, you and Hoseok would spend those nights in the dance studio being complete idiots together.

Most of the practices you both shared together were fun, but your comeback was coming soon, so Hoseok played the dance teacher and helped you perfect moves if they were executed incorrectly, but because you were as talented as Hoseok when it came to dance, there weren’t very many corrections to be made. On this particular Friday, you just couldn’t get this one part right. You watched as Hoseok did it perfectly, and for no reason at all, you felt yourself getting angry because he could do it but you couldn’t. It was hard being in a relationship with someone who you viewed as the best dancer in the world.

“Y/n, just take it slow and do it step by step,” he instructed as he watched from the corner as you stood in the center of the room in sweatpants and a sports bra. Your body glistened from the sweat and your muscles ached from overuse, but you had to get this right. “I am!” you snapped, pushing the stray hairs back in frustration. You looked up to see the hurt expression on Hoseok’s face in the reflection of the mirror. “I’m sorry, baby. I just..I need to get this right and my window of time for mistakes is closing,” you explained in a more mellow voice as you walked over to him.

“You’re just overthinking this. You’ve done this part a million times by now, so I know you know it,” he said as he reached over and rubbed your tense shoulders, resulting in a long, drawn-out sight to escape your lips. “I wanna do it again,” you said. He eyed you. “You’re going to overwork yourself. I think you’ve done enough for tonight, babe,” he said. You shook your head and went back to the center of the room, getting into your starting position. “Just play the music, Hoseok,” you said in all seriousness. Reluctantly, he replayed the music and watched as you danced with such aggression and passion.

During a part in which you had no choreography, you stood and waited for your cue, but Hoseok watched confused as your body began to sway. As soon as your body aimed straight for the floor, he sprinted and caught you before you fell. “Y/n, wake up. Come on, wake up, baby,” he said as he held your head gently. Though you were only out for two minutes or so, you had definitely spooked Hoseok and he was over the moon concerned. “You’re done for tonight, okay? We’re going home,” he said as he gently helped you up. You opened your mouth to object, but he shook his head. “I shouldn’t have even let you do it another time. That’s my fault. But we’re going home, y/n. You need a break,” he instructed, and all you could do is nod as you slumped against his body.

He supported your body as you both went home. He ran a bath and washed your body and your hair, not missing the chance to make a beard out of the bubbles in the soap and lightening the mood. He then helped you get dressed, spoon fed you some ice cream and cuddled you in bed until you fell asleep. Never again would he let you push yourself to the edge like that.

#bts army #bts angst #bts reactions #bts jhope #bts hobi #bts hosoek #bts rm #rapmonster #bts rap line #bts hyung line #kim namjoon #kim seokjin #jung hoseok #bts jin

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bellamygateoldblog · 5 years ago

Note

the 100 ofc!

— this gets a little rant-y and may or may not be coherent- currently pulling an all-nighter and it’s literally 5am- that’s it. That’s my excuse.

all time favourite character

IDK man IDK…I wanna say Jasper, maybe Raven

a character I didn’t used to like but do now

I’ll stick Octavia in this one. I actually did like her at first, then i didn’t then i did then i didn’t then i

a character i used to like but now don’t

[ insert every single character here ] Clarke and Bellamy. Clarke lost me very early season 3 and Bellamy is dead to me as of season 6. I’m throwing Miller in here- when he was that delinquent that wears the beanie I could go for that, but now i’m just straight up annoyed by his presence and want him to go away forever. My reluctant liking of Abby turned sour pretty fast, too. Arming a group of children and sending them out into a warzone to find your daughter, then abandoning them once she’s back is really SOMETHING. And hitting Raven while she’s acting Chancellor…i should beat your ass, Abby

a character i’m indifferent about

Wells: poor treatment of MoC and very valid anger aside, truely I don’t see the facination and borderline obsession fandom has with the character himself- he barely existed. Are you all in love with the idea of him, rather? Or the guy from the book? He was literally in this thing for three episodes, we never actually knew him, nor was he even given the chance to develop or have any sort of story. I see so so much hate about Echo and her lack of development and yet in the same breath y’all are talking about missing Wells and oh what a wonderful character he was. Spare me. He was a character full to the brim with potential and unfortunately that’s all he’ll ever be.

Anya and Lexa, too. I don’t really have opinions formed on either of them, nor do I really care to

a character who deserved better

I mean with that minor Wells rant aside and half a step into my hypocrisy boots…Wells did. Lol. I think he absolutely deserved better than to be killed off in order to push a white woman’s story forwards. I think he deserved better than to have been all about Clarke, his entire character about serving her character, even in death. This show has a history of criminally underusing/sideling/killing their most compelling characters, i think Wells would’ve been such a fun addition to the main band, i wonder how his personality would’ve expanded, what could his arcs have looked like? i think about how his dynamics would form and fair, what might he think of Clarke now?

Jasper deserved better than to have become a nihilist’s wet dream. I have mixed feelings about the whole thing, i really do. The creators, some of the fans even, chat about how it’s a gritty reality, sometimes it’s just Like That, and in some ways that’s absolutely right, but in a show of such loss to have this bleak ending for a character like this is just…a bit of an overkill? What’s wrong with hopeful endings? I mean we literally already had a similar scenario occur with Luna a mere episode(s) before. A woman who strives for nothing more than peace loses her faith in humanity and so fights for death. Why they felt the need to kick a dead horse by doing the same thing with Jasper is beyond me.

Listen many character have demonstrated suicidal tendancies at some point or another: Clarke, Murphy, Bellamy, Octavia, Harper and so on, but Jasper is the only one that gets the actual suicide? The character who’s canon mental illness has been more on the explicit and expressed side, the first victim of the ground, the very character who we’ve watched struggle his way through four seasons with an inconsistent or otherwise absent support system, his story ended with suicide. It’s devastating and, frankly, disrespectful. As if he was too far gone to find his way back into the light.

We saw clearly Monty’s reactions to Jasper’s death, but we didn’t see him grieve- he was busy rushing to survive the end of the world. This show loves sidestepping the consiquences of big events they write- there’s always a new threat to face which means everyone gets to move on abnormally quickly. Nobody asked about Jasper in Becca’s lab, we never actually saw anyone except for Clarke find out about this, nobody in the bunker either, not Octavia, and no mentions of Jasper in season five besides Monty begging him to be wrong about humanity. This show isn’t great with handling their deceased either. They want to focus on a fresh plot and not be stuck dragging around that dead weight. Finn isn’t mentioned in relation to Raven despite his importance to her story and of the fact this specific death shook the whole show. Wells’ has been removed from memory despite Clarke being the protagonist who we should know most intimately. I feel most detached from her, honestly. We’ve had a fair amount of Lincoln, though, and a consistantly aggressive reaffirmal of Lexa’s existence. But Jasper just isn’t here. He isn’t talked about. Jasper suffered, and Monty was right there in front of him trying to hand him that peaceful life he always dreamed of, ready to lift him (literally) out of that pain, and he died. Harper got to change her mind last minute, so did Raven, but not Jasper, no, his body went up in flames with the rest of it. The way they filmed the scene was gut-wrenching because of the hopelessness and coldness of it all. And i think he deserved to be spacekru, to heal somewhat up there, and oh what fun would he have been in season five. What would he be like now? What would he think of what became of everyone else? Of Clarke and of Octavia? Again, such wasted potential.

Jasper was one of The 100 on a show named after them, his death brought that to 4, and i can’t emphasise to you enough how big a mistake it was to craft a show around a certain group of people and then abandon that idea entirely. Your show is named something that it isn’t even about!!

Lexa deserved a more respectful death.

Bellamy deserved better than to be murdered brutally by the writers during season 6.

a ship i’ve never been able to get into

Bellarke. Braven. Murven. Clexa. Wicken/Ravick(?). Octabriel. Kabby

a ship i’ve never been able to get over

Becho. Memori. Jasper and Octavia were very sweet

a cute, low-key ship

Linctavia. It was always more of a background ‘ship’ for me. And Marper!

an unpopular ship but i still enjoyed it

Becho and Murphamy

a ship that was totally wrong and never should’ve happened

Flarke

my favourite storyline/moment

favourite storyline(s): delinquents finding a way to live on the ground and mount weather!

Favourite moment: i don’t think i have one TBH

my first thoughts on the show

It was exactly what i was looking for; a post-apoc teen drama, a little corny, a little gritty. I enjoyed season 1, and then 2, but with the constantly rising stakes to absolutely obscene levels eventually, my interest dwindled. By season 4 there was an almost desolate feeling and all the potential this had was dead and buried. They could’ve gone so many ways, done so much more, but for reasons unknown they chose possibly the weirdest and least interesting route available. I really thought they’d exhausted all their story by the end of 4 and i was, of course, absolutely correct since s5 was…more of the same…a literal recycled storyline that had been done not once but twice before it. In season 1 and then again in season 2. Since joining tumblr and fandom and seeing things from a various new angles, reading of social implications and meta on how sections of the writing are flawed, i’ve crafted a more informed and complex opinion than i had as a casual viewer and now see most aspects of the show in a completely different light.

my thoughts now

I’m over it. I think it could be safe to say i hate what it became. Most of my opinions of it now are negative, or at the very least have a critical component to them. I haven’t genuienly enjoyed it since season four and it hasn’t been actually decent since season two. It has a lot of deeper issues engrained into it’s writing, and there was a before when you could criticise those choices and obvious flaws and still be able to enjoy the show as it’s own entity because it existed as one at that time. But now it feels like an empty shell void of all life. With how broken and goofy the writing has become i just can’t take it seriously anymore. Characterisation and consistency have been thrown out in favour of serving the plot many many times before, but season 6 brought this to a whole new low. Dialogue was clumsy and there was a LOT of information dumping, it focused much too heavily on new characters nobody cared about, things were swinging from one extreme to another in terms of character arcs (see: Octavia’s full redemption and transformation basically overnight, and Bellamy switching from set to commit genocide in Clarke’s honour and ‘[we let these people die because] it’s not my fault their delusional’ to ‘let’s do better for Monty i am suddenly King of morality’) and in relationships (see: Bellamy instantly forgiving Clarke and then abandoning everyone and everything to save her, meanwhile he’s demonising Octavia like he’s getting paid for it). The characters just aren’t people anymore, they’re wheels that move the plot forward (in any way that’s required regardless of whether or not it’s actually in line with canon), and let’s not even talk about the science that pushes the envelope too far and Clarke’s insane plot armour. I’ve beaten this rant to death at this point so I won’t get any more into it. But just know: what was once a genuine fondness of this show has turned poisonous since.

#the 100 #rosie tag: share with the group #tw suicide #anti tag: clarke griffin #the 100: we ask we answer #the100meta

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yoongiment · 6 years ago

Text

miracle (jeongguk)

summary: "you were my miracle."

contents: ANGST, set in the future, illness, that’s all i’ll say heueuehue

word count: appx. 10k

a/n: wow it's been a minute since i posted a fic!!! this is comprised of many middle-of-the-night writing sprees and it is uhhh real sad. i have class in the morning and it's like midnight so i'll stop talking but yes thank u pls enjoy and leave feedback in my inbox if you'd like

It was a battle of finding tranquility within the depths of dread that plagued the seasons you found yourself drifting through. It was an eternal autumn, a constant shadow of death contaminating a forest with no exit; the winds of change only bringing forth the remnants of the departed life, swirling around you and clouding your vision with a majestic sight of fallen creation.

The brick pathway was coated in the stuff, leaving you wading through a sea of dead leaves, once golden turned brown under the deathly hands of Mother Nature. You gazed up at the sky, misty behind the spindly branches of the naked trees. It was going to rain soon.

The receptionist was no longer the old woman who had smelled his sweat and vomit far too many times and who had sent you bouquets of colors so strong they could almost breathe life back him. The man behind the desk now looked far too brawny to be sitting there, too handsome and young to be surrounded by so much illness, so much death. He sent you a smile, which you did not return, and then sent you on your way down the familiar white halls, fluorescent lights never bright enough to shine on the darkness of the other side of existence.

You thought of nothing, listening to the clack of your heels against the linoleum floors that had seas of blood, piss, shit, vomit, mopped away with the stinging scent of disinfectant and the tears of the mourning. You did not think of the way he used to smell, the creak of wheelchairs against that same floor. You thought of nothing at all, but also everything of him.

You paused for a moment, standing before the room he had been assigned. The sunlight, red like blood, poured in through the windows that were stained with rain droplets that were once there. You looked at the way it changed the color of your shoes before exhaling and turning into the room.

He, too, was gazing out towards the bloody sun, watching the leaves fall onto that brick pathway and the children of the ill dash through the piles. He turned to see who was at the door, slowly, as if the joints and muscle in his neck were made of bolted robotic parts. His eyes widened to saucers at the sight of you in the doorway; he sat up quickly, eyes reflexively squeezing shut at the sensation. He forced them open and blinked hard, in disbelief of what had made its way in front of him. He always felt like vomiting, especially now from the speed at which he sat up, but now even more so from the unbelievable sight, now at the foot of his bed.

There was a moment of silence, nothing in the room to be heard but his short breaths and heart that was working much too hard yet not efficiently enough. You wondered if this was a beam of tranquility to rest under in the midst of the dread that surrounded you.

“What the fuck are you doing here?”

His tone was venomous as his shaking fingers reached for the plastic-covered remote to call the nurse, the doctor, fucking anyone. He rested on the emergency button and narrowed his eyes at you, daring you to speak.

“Shouldn’t I be the one asking you why the fuck you’re here?”

You matched his lethal tone, speaking in hushed words and wringing your hands with the thin white metal of his bed frame. The length of the bed separated the two of you, yet you stood acres apart, disconnected and partitioned by the ashes of a dead forest.

A dead forest, once filled with lush trees that kissed the sky, brimming with life and the essence of fate, now burned into mountains of ash and charred trunks, infertile soil bearing no sort of continuation of anything.

You towered over his hunched figure and pushed away any thought of him, any memory or pitiful image to stir your withered heart. You stood over a sick man, but the sick man was him and you were you. This was not an unfamiliar sight in your eyes.

“Isn’t it obvious? Why did you come here? How did you even know?” His eyes, glazed over from years of frustration and heartache, held roots of sorrow and fatigue. He was angry, fists clenched tight and shaking like leaves, but the sight of you also brought forth memories of pain worse than dying, fate shaken and crumbling at touch.

“Your mother.” You cross your arms and match his expression of flamed resentment and hidden woe. He huffs, leaning back and discreetly catching his breath.

“...What did she tell you?” His fiery front melts into the sad mug of a child, eyes searching for small details of your figure, anywhere but your eyes, his thumbs twiddling. You take a moment to inspect his face and take in the severity of what had caused him so much pain for so many years of his life, his childhood. He was ill, yet again, another flare up of something or other - Jeonggukie was sick, and it showed. You couldn’t tell if he had aged much in the time you’d been apart, the sickness cloaking any bit of youth he may have had left. Your harsh eyes inspected the circles shading his, the hollow of his cheeks and the ghastly image of such a skinny neck holding his head. This was the boy you loved so many years ago, plagued with illness before and damned again with it now. This was the boy you loved, chained to a hospital bed and dizzy enough to vomit even when he laid still. This was the boy you loved, or rather, what was left of him.

“You’re dying.”

He looks into your eyes, so broken, so weary of living as a bag of bones and so damaged in the wake of the storm that you brought over him all that time ago. You imagined that he would look at you with the same misery had he not fallen ill again. In the corner of your eye, a leaf stirs and floats down from its home in the branches, and you grimace at the parallel image of feelings stirring inside of your own heart. You hold your cold gaze to him, your past lover, past life, unwavering and filled with words unsaid.

“And what’s it to you?” His words are cold, full of disdain, and they shoot right against the crystalline surface of your own self. You are a bit taken aback at his ruthlessness and an icy silence settles between you. “What do you think this is? Your chance to get rid of your guilt before you can’t anymore?” Your jaw clenches and you look away from him for a second. “I’m dying,” he says your name and the sound from his tongue is alien after so long and with so much distaste behind it. “And I would rather do a lot more with what little time I have left than hear you get shit off your chest when you couldn’t care less about me. If you wanted to make amends, then you would’ve done it when I wasn’t in this fucking hospital. Okay?”

His eyes are filled with unshed tears, and yours stare at him with annoyance. He looks away, instead focusing on the flowers on the desk beside him. The leaves stirred again when you realized that those were your favorite.

“Are you done?” Your voice doesn’t waver. You speak with the level-headedness of the adult you’ve become, void of emotion and patience running thin. He stays silent, now picking at the skin of his thumbs. “Who do you think I am?” Your voice is hushed, not even louder than the beeps of the machines Jeongguk is hooked up to. “Do you...do you think I haven’t been hurting too? That I haven’t...been alone? Lost? You’re not my fucking charity case because I’m not guilty. I’m fucking sad!” Your eyes begin to burn and he looks at you with his sad eyes and his thin face and beanie that’s too big for his head. “I’m sad that we fucked it all up and wasted everything and spent years apart when you were doing okay when we could’ve...done something! Anything! We could’ve been anything but we were so, so fucking stupid.”

“If I wasn’t sick, then you wouldn’t have wanted anything to do with me. That’s what already happened because we’re not meant to be like that. You’re acting like we didn’t break up for a fucking reason.” The heels of his palms massage his temples. You refuse to cry first.

“What was the reason, then? You broke up with me, you fucking idiot. Tell me the reason again. Tell me the reason again and I’ll fucking dare you to tell me that I don’t deserve to be fucked up over this.”

He says nothing for a long moment, still just staring into you. “I was twenty-three. I shouldn’t have even made it that long,” he mumbled darkly. “You knew I didn’t have much time left. You knew how fucking depressed I was, and you still left.” He grimaces, and you recognize the familiar sight of him preparing to vomit.

“I left because you told me to.” You are next to him now, sitting in the chair by his bed and looking up at him. He is going to cry and you know this. He is going to throw up now, and you know this too. You could’ve had your eyes closed in another room and you would have known this.

You grab the metal bowl on his bedside table and hand it to him. He grips it with white knuckles and tears hit the surface with a soft ping. “You left because I told you to.” More tears fell into the bowl before a cough from Jeongguk sent a wave of sick and a bit of blood after it. He sniffles and you hesitate to reach out, ultimately placing your hand beside his on the bed. “I didn’t want you to see me die. I didn’t want you to see me so sick. I knew it was gonna happen, but I didn’t think it’d happen years later.” His tone is full of remorse, like a child who had broken something. He stares into the bowl of his own sick, releasing more tears and dry-heaving a bit.

The room is quiet again, Jeongguk crying silently and you watching him. In a rush of boldness, you reach your hand to rest on his forearm, so thin and unreasonably warm.

“You think I would’ve just laid there and traumatized you? I had a dead man’s wishes. I didn’t want to hurt you.” You intertwine your fingers with his now and he doesn’t stop you. “We loved each other so much. You would have died too, if you saw me like that. I gave you a head start on life without me.” You sniffle now, and his head creaks over to where you are sitting below him. Your own big tears are swiped away by your hand and patter onto the blankets covering him. His brow is furrowed at the sight, heart clenching because he knows that you are the stronger between the two of you. “Because I loved you.”

He sets aside the bowl and lays down again, keeping you in his line of vision. You whimpered, placing a hand over your forehead in despair.

“But what do I have to be sorry about?” You cried and he runs a hand through your hair, an action that hadn’t occurred since you were a young girl. You were a woman now, an adult, while Jeongguk was laying in his deathbed, a familiar resting ground, decades too early. You couldn’t decipher whether he resembled a small child or an elderly man - what a strange sight it was to see such a young person plagued with death. He rests his hand back onto the bed, worn from the simple action of touching you.

“You...you were respecting my wishes. You have nothing to be sorry about. I’m sorry.” You reach out and cup his cheek, wiping away the thin tears and taking in the feeling of his skin and bones. “You have nothing to be sorry for, but I’m still mad. I’m so mad,” he sobs.

You grab his hand and kiss the back of it, shushing him and moving to rub his back so he can catch his breath. “Calm down, calm down. Stop crying.” You chuckle through your tears and his look of anguish doesn’t let up.

“I’m mad. I’m mad at you for leaving when I told you to. When it got bad, the worst, my mother and father and Junghyun never left my side. They were always there with me, but it was so lonely. It felt so lonely because you weren’t there.” He is bawling and you are standing over him, running a hand up and down his spine and trying to ignore the feeling of how greatly his bones protrude from his skin. “I told you to leave, but you shouldn’t have. But you did what I told you to do and it was all my fault and I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.” He cries so much that his pillow looks like a storm came through the windows. You grab the bowl again and place it next to his resting head. He coughs into it, spitting and mewling and you grab a tissue from the bedside table and wipe his face.

Your breathing is heavy and uneven in your attempts to keep it together. If Jeongguk saw you cry the way your heart was telling you, he would surely need more than a doctor to help him.

“Don’t be. Don’t be sorry, baby. I’m here now.” Tears fell from your eyes softly; if Jeongguk’s crying was a thunderstorm, yours was a light haze of fog. You adjusted his beanie and smiled sadly at him, always the most sensitive boy. His crying calmed, now just a steady stream of tears and hiccups as opposed to the sobbing that had him gasping for air and you reaching for his emergency button. He was tired when you came in, and now he was completely exhausted. His eyes closed and you continued to wipe his face, your other hand rubbing his back and attempting to alleviate his ragged breaths. “We can only make good of what we have now. There’s no going back. So don’t worry about it.” He grabbed your wrist weakly and brought your hand to his running nose, blowing harshly into the wet tissue. You protested in disgust, wondering aloud how such a sick person could blow their nose to such a calibre. His eyes stayed closed and for the first time in so many years, you were witness to his smile.

Silence fills the room again and the gray skies begin to grow darker. “Is it raining?” He asks, voice heavy with weariness.

“No, not yet. Tonight it will.” You run your hand over his head, picking pieces of lint from his knit hat. He hums and grabs onto your hand again, placing it under his cheek against his pillow, damp with tears. The beeps of his machines keep on through your visit and you don’t have the heart to look over and attempt to decipher what they were there for. There was so much more going on from the first time he had faced death; so many more machines, so much more weakness. There was so much going awry with his body and you immediately pushed the thought away and the echoing of his mother’s words when she had called you in tears only a week ago. Jeongguk was dying again. He had cheated death and it caught up to him now. He was dying, and you hadn’t seen him in years. The proof was shown before you now and the weight of it was pushing onto you. Your other hand still moved back and forth across his back, over his shoulders and arms. Goosebumps deepened at your touch, the feeling that had left so long ago.

“Jeongguk-ah. What do you think would have happened if I didn’t leave four years ago?” You can’t help yourself from muttering the question to him, tone hushed and private from the rest of the world.

“I would’ve married you. Had kids.” He pauses, opening his eyes into slits and staring out at the dead leaves. “But we didn’t.”

You said nothing, instead leaning your head against your arm over his bed frame. His hand grabbed yours and you sat, looking into each other’s eyes and picturing the life that was swept away with the drip of his IV and the mopping of disinfectant. You were so young then, even so now. You dared conjure the thought of what may have been happening today had you not left his side before. Perhaps you’d have life in your womb, blossoming like the flowers rooted in your hypothetical garden in a house that existed only in your dreams; perhaps living a life of love on his borrowed time would have yielded so much more; perhaps he would not have gotten sick again; perhaps he would not have to die.

“You know better than anyone that miracles can happen.” You spoke with trepidation, not wanting to instill any false hope, but doing so anyways because it tainted your heart, slipped its way into your lungs and bloodstream and you felt it - you felt that there was still a chance. A small bit of hope that you had clung onto for so many years. He sighs.

“I already had my miracle.”

A knock on the metal doorway sounds and Jeongguk’s grip on your hand tightens when you perk up. A nurse smiles at you and you nod your head in understanding. Jeongguk kisses your palm that rests under his cheek and you run a hand along his shoulder once more before gathering your purse.

“Will you be back?” He looks to you with his wide eyes and you stare back.

“Yes.”

The storm begins later that night and the streets fill quickly with dirtied rainwater from the fallen leaves. The lights of the city sparkle in the water and dance with the pounding of the unending rainfall. A harsh tone of lightning fills your room with white light and you lay in bed wondering if Jeongguk was awake. You wondered if he was kept up with illness or if he had his music at full volume to drown the thunder outside his window. You wondered if he felt lonely and if he wanted to see you again. You pushed the thoughts away, sighing at the resounding ache in your chest.

“Bundle up. What if you catch pneumonia?” You wrapped a second scarf around his chin and he whined in protest. You pulled the knit beanie adorning his head a hair further down, covering his eyebrows which were furrowed in annoyance. He pulls down the two scarves and face mask and you gasp.

“Don’t worry so much, baby. I’m wearing four layers of shirts!” You glare at him, pulling the mask and scarves back over his mouth.

“Do you want a fifth one?”

He groans and kisses your head through the thick protection covering his face. He grabs your hand with his mittened one and all but drags you out of his house - holding your breath and tip-toeing as to not make even an inkling of a sound. He opens the door for you at a snail’s pace, every movement in slow motion. His eyes squeeze shut as he meticulously closes and locks the door, silently praying that his mother doesn’t wake up. When he finishes, you are already across the front yard, hand extended to him.

He waddles over to you, unable to walk properly with the amount of clothing you forced him to wear. It’s a night in February, stars gleaming for the two of you. You had just graduated high school the week before and Jeongguk begged you to take him to celebrate someplace other than the confines of his own bedroom. Your heart pounded quickly, constantly anxious of him and his shoddy immune system and constantly nervous of the striking presence of such a striking person.

You were eighteen years old, preparing to begin attending university and tasting the fruits of life; so young, still budding and lacking compared to many your age. You were so unsure of so many things, so hesitant; especially when it came to Jeongguk and his health. He filled the spaces of life with a body that didn’t function half as well as it should. He was beautiful, underweight and sickly-looking and even haggard at times - he reminded you of every season, each part of him making up a lifetime of changing winds and magnificent nature. Even at the age of eighteen, he was so sick, often bedridden and unable to partake in so much a boy his age must do. The fear and weight of it all struck you often, but your best friend had always grabbed your hand and held it, even from the confines of a hospital bed. You were afraid of him, not only from the scary encounters he often had with death, but also from how much you loved him.

“If you get worse from doing this, I’ll kill you myself.” You continued down the streets of bleak suburbia and his eyes twinkled. He swung your hands back and forth at an alarmingly rapid rate.

“Ah, dear. I’d let you kill me anytime.” You couldn’t see through the layers over his mouth, but he was smiling like an idiot and the contagious grin spread to your own face. He kissed your forehead, once, twice, again through the cloth. “How much farther?”

“Not long. And once we see it, we need to head straight back, okay?” You sighed anxiously, squeezing his hand at the thought of his mother’s outrage if she were to notice he’d left the house. He groaned at the night sky and the stars that fell over the two of you.

“Yes, yes, we’ll make it back. No one will ever know.”

“Except for us.” At that, he kisses you again.

It was not a far walk to your destination, but traveling through the woods at twilight had you and Jeongguk clinging to each other a bit tighter. He took a break twelve minutes from leaving his house, perching himself on a rock and positioning you between his legs. You attempted to pull his hat farther past his eyebrows as he cocked his head like an owl and observed the forest with wide eyes.

“It’s pretty,” he giggled. You smiled and ran a thumb across his cheekbone before grabbing his hands to pull him up and keep moving.

“We need to go fast. We’re gonna miss it.”

You reached your destination soon after to the tune of his slightly labored breathing and the snapping of twigs and leaves beneath his shaking legs. He let out a soft gasp at the sight before him and halted his breathing for a short moment. You kept your eyes locked on him instead and allowed him to grip your hand with even more of an iron fervor. The world had fallen silent; the sounds of the highway and busy city streets were far away from the refuge of the woods, and it seemed that even the birds in the trees had silenced themselves in the presence of you and Jeongguk. It was almost as if the world was bowing to you two, a gesture of respect to the boy who had already spoken to death before he was eighteen and to you, the girl who loved him.

You had taken him to the edge of the forest, a cleared spot looking over what was Jeongguk’s entire small world. From here, he could see the glass buildings of downtown and the glass windows of quiet suburbia, as well as the new world of the trees he had entered only that day. You stood together with intertwined hands over the tall cliff, the sun rising before you as if it moved for just your eyes, the eyes of lovers, to see.

His eyes were filled with childlike amazement, dazzled at the sight of his first sunrise. The orange hue engulfed him, casting warmth and light onto his frail body. In this moment, Jeongguk was more than the sickness that plagued his body through his entire life; he was unsure what he was at this time of being eye-level with the glow of the sunlight, but he knew that he had become so much more. His eyes began to fill with tears at this realization, bottom lip quivering at the thought of mere existence, the gratitude of owning something greater than hospital stays and toxic blood. The first tear falls with a soft “I love you,” Jeongguk’s weak heart swelling for you, you who had been the unwavering presence of the sun. It had been you, always, who lifted him and made him believe that he was simply so much more.

He sniffs and turns his face away from you, the fabric of his mittened free hand absorbing the fallen tears. He laughs bashfully when you try to walk around him and hold his face.

“You big baby,” you murmur endearingly, wiping his eyes with your own scarf. He lets out a choked chuckle and stares at you, taking in what was likely the only time he’d see you in this position, radiant in the heat of the rising sun. You did the same, fixing your eyes on every pore, every eyelash, all the minutia and the beauty he held.

“You look beautiful.” The whispered breath carries in the nip of the February winds and caresses your senses. You sigh softly and run a hand over the top of his covered head.

“You too.”

He pulls his face mask and scarves down past his chin and leans in to kiss you, for real this time. Your mind stutters at the contact, nervous at both the potential of unintentionally attacking his vulnerable immune system and at the raging butterflies that beat against your torso, fluttering about and flushing your cheeks. Your conscious warns you to stop, be careful to not get him even more sick and to get him back to the cage of blankets in his bedroom where he spent so many of his days. You gasp with his lips attached to yours as your body reacted to the overwhelming sensation of Jeongguk and he immediately presses his lips to yours again without a beat of hesitation. His hand grips yours even tighter and you let him kiss you, slow and sweet and in the illumination of his first sunrise.

You hadn’t watered the memory in years, instead letting it wither in the backwoods of your mind along with many other dreams of him that now seemed as though they were from a different life. The memory crossed your mind during the storm that night and again the next week when you walked along the brick pathway to him. The rain hadn’t let up in the days that passed and it filled the world with a constant gray tone and the scent of wet asphalt. Your umbrella drips onto the linoleum of his hospital floor and your heeled shoes leave a strange print of water behind you. His eyes trail over to you sluggishly and he stares at you, saying nothing.

“Hello.” You voice echoes in the silence of the room, save for the beeps of the machines and the light rain falling against the glass window. His lips purse a bit and he turns his head again, looking back through the glass towards the brick pathway to the hospital entrance and the naked trees that border it. You sigh softly through your nose and make your way back to the chair beside his bed, blocking his vision of the window. “How are you?”

He purses his lips again and he looks alarmingly like a rabbit. He scowls, keeping his eyes focused on the world beyond the glass.

“Why are you here again?” His brows are furrowed and he still does not spare you another glance. You glare at him, clearly irritated with his unadulterated hostility.

“To see you. We went over this last time.” You match his icy tone and he continues to pout, not looking around the bleak hospital room. He says nothing and you huff. “So? How are you?” He even goes so far to cross his arms and your heart thumps, reminded of your teenage days spent alleviating his anger of falling ill.

He sighs. “Sick.” His voice is raspy and his face is covered with a layer of grease that can easily be traced back to an unhealthy sweat he must have broken into earlier. Your hands rest on the metal frame of his bed.

“Sorry.” He hums in response and continues to avoid your eyes. Silence fills the room for a pregnant moment before you hesitatingly speak again. “Maybe, should we...talk or something?” Despite being in your late twenties, the weight of seeing Jeongguk again after such a long period of time turned you into the stuttering teenager you had left behind with your life with him. He rotates his head against his pillow to face your direction, still not looking directly at you. Perhaps you also made Jeongguk feel like he was fifteen again in the presence of a pretty girl.

“About what?”

“I don’t know.”

He doesn’t respond once again and all that is heard is the constant chatter of the machines. You sigh and sit up straighter.

“About us,” you mutter softly. Jeongguk looks up at the ceiling now with a blank look of neutrality.

“Well, what is it you want to say?” His eyes finally flick over to you and he looks curious and almost defensive. You stare back at him, mouth slightly agape. You are drawing a blank and hurt begins to blossom in your chest for seemingly no reason.

“I-I don’t really know. I don’t know.” Your tone is worlds different from the cold voice you had used not one minute ago and so much the previous week. “What do you need to say?”

His lip twitches again. “I told you before.” Your form breaks slightly and you drop your eyes in sadness, having refrained from showing the emotion for so long.

“Then tell me again.” His brows furrow in annoyance with a sigh.

“You know what happened. Just because I’m sick doesn’t mean we were meant to be together. Doesn’t mean that we’re good together, or that we’re soulmates or tragic lovers or whatever.” He pauses, breaking eye contact with you again and focusing on the woven threads of the cheap hospital blanket. “Just…whatever.”

You shift in your seat to face him even more. You stare at him harshly and stop yourself from grabbing his face so he would just fucking look at you.

Your voice becomes quieter, laced with more sadness. “You loved me.”

He does not look at you. He begins to speak again, but you cut him off. “You did. And I loved you too. I loved you with everything I was and you fucking know it. So let me be with you for these last few times, okay? Can I at least have that?”

He looks at you now, his own buried sadness lining his eyes. He used to look at you with so much love. “You’re here now, aren’t you?” Neither of your faces moved from the frowns that adorned them, but your hands still moved towards each other’s. He intertwines your fingers and you rest your other hand atop his. You remain silent for a moment, momentarily ignoring the looming feeling of his limited time and instead sitting in the tranquil presence of a distant dream brought into existence.

“So what now?” You whisper, looking at him with concern as you’ve always done. His lip twitches and your own lips morph into a sad, small smile.

“Do you remember when you would come home from school?” His voice is small and sad but he smiles when he speaks.

“When you would be waiting at the door?” You laugh and Jeongguk’s heart quickens. “I got used to opening the door slowly so I wouldn’t hit your wheels.” You smile at him and he looks back to you with endearment.

“Do you remember my drawings?” His ears flush red as he tries not to look too hopeful. Your chest caves a bit at the memory of sitting beside him next to the window of your loft and watching in awe as he sketched every detail of you without looking up from the paper. Years later, you had found yourself sitting beside him by a window once again, now overlooking the red bricks covered in dead leaves and holding his hands that ached too much to pick up a charcoal pencil.

“Of course I do,” you whisper. He opens his mouth and you interrupt him again. “They’re under my bed.” He looks to you and smiles sadly once again, fingers curling slightly around yours.

“I haven’t drawn since.” The silence becomes thick and awkward and you run your thumb along his bony knuckles. “I don’t know, I just...was thinking about it, I guess. I miss it.”

“That’s okay.” He turns his head away from you and picks at his blankets with his free hand.

“Maybe I…I don’t know, maybe I could try. Drawing, try again.” He speaks slowly and with hesitation, like a teenage boy. There are many questions you have from this, many words unspoken and dissolving on your tongue. Was it rude to ask why he was thinking of those days? The times you shared in your studio apartment years ago and the sketches that were now collecting dust? Wordlessly, you slowly reached into your bag and pushed aside irrelevant documents and trinkets to pull out the palm-sized notebook you used for groceries and a pen that you hoped still had ink in it. You placed them in his hands and he looked at you with his sad eyes. He chuckles breathily and clicks the pen a few times before holding it still against the paper as he pursed his lips in thought. As graceful as the dancer he was never able to become, he lifted the pad to his face and began to create once again, just as if he had never stopped.

Sadness tinges your heart as you watch him complete the mundane activity that morphed into a treasured tradition with the years that passed. You wondered how the scene would play had you not left before; if he would still be in this hospital bed, beads of sweat running down his pale face as he concentrated on his work, sick as a dog but pulling through during your visits. A picture of a child on your hip visiting him with you flashed across your mind and you had to look away from him for a brief second, the pain of the thought too uncomfortable.

His hand stops moving across the paper and he stares at it with a sort of reverence. You can’t yet see what he had drawn, but the sad grin on his face had a small ember of hope drifting through your chest. He looks to you and sighs softly before turning the notepad and presenting his creation to you.

The ember in your heart sparks and catches fire. Your eyes widen and you stiffen, unsure of what to do and how to react.

Just as he had always done, without lifting his eyes from the paper, Jeongguk had created a detailed carbon copy of you using only a ballpoint pen on dollar store lined paper. It was like looking into a mirror, literally, but also into a different world - a world that you had left behind when you were a young woman, a world that burned with flames so bright they almost turned the whole place to ash. It was looking into Jeongguk’s world, the one that he told you years ago he didn’t want you in.

A light blush paints the tip of his ears and he rests back against his pillow, flipping the notebook closed.

“Sorry,” he mumbles. You move quickly to place your hands on his and the notebook.

“I love it. Thank you, Jeongguk.” His eyes, still doe-like well into adulthood, widen and he nods shortly. He hums a bit.

“You were always the best thing I could draw,” he mumbled shyly, using both hands to place the notepad into yours. You huff softly in a bit of disbelief that he was still so similar to the boy you loved when you were a young girl.

The two of you held hands for a bit and like before, a nurse strolling by gave a knock on the door as a wordless reminder that you needed to leave soon. You said a quick goodbye, curt and polite and Jeongguk hummed back to you with his eyes closed.

“I’ll be back - sometime, or, I - yeah,” you fumbled over your words and the last thing you saw before fumbling out of the room was a small smile from Jeongguk.

You cried in your car while the heavy storm filled the hospital parking lot. The rain beat furiously against your windshield as you sobbed with no sign of stopping. You clutched the small notepad with an iron grip and rested your forehead against the steering wheel, yelling and screaming and grieving. The weight of Jeongguk’s presence after his absence and the impending absence of his death weighed down upon you and you found yourself in hysterics over a picture he drew. You beat your hands against the wheel and cried, inconsolable and humiliated at the fact.

After a few long moments of bashing your hands against the steering wheel and dashboard, your cries hushed and you drew your arms around yourself, pulling yourself together and making yourself even smaller in this big, cruel world. You continued to blubber a bit, shutting your eyes at the pain of the memories of Jeongguk.

You thought of those days you discussed with him only minutes earlier - the days of lounging in your small loft together, hidden away from the world and filled with quiet embraces and charcoal sketches. You thought of being in love quietly, grasping fleeting moments of romance and cherishing what you had in light of Jeongguk’s poor health. You thought of the arguments, the awkward silences, the break-up and the regret of it all, clouding your mind and polluting the air.

He broke up with you on a day much like this day of thundering showers that rained sideways and with an angry force. The sound of it filled the apartment along with the soft hum of the television, some B-list anime that you’d both seen before streaming out into the atmosphere. You had come home from school or work or whatever it was to find him with his head against the couch cushions, resting himself without any other pillows or support. You scolded him softly as soon as you walked through the front door, lifting his head gently and placing a tacky throw pillow under it. His gaze remained blank and in the general direction of the TV, but you both knew that he paid no mind to it, or anything for that matter.

He had been like this more often than not lately - keeping silent and still, not looking at his sketchbook or you or anything. You even found yourself crying hushedly in your shared bathroom after a recent episode of especially cold distance. He was eating even less than before and barely bothering to do much else besides lounge in bed or on the couch. There was something deeply, irrevocably wrong with Jeongguk and you both knew exactly what had shifted within him.

Jeongguk was dying. He had spent his entire life dying, but felt the dreadful looming in his twenty-third year then more than ever before. His body shut down more, the progression of decay showing in his loss of mobility, control of various systems in his body, deterioration of his spirit and livelihood, et cetera, et cetera - with the shutting down of his body came the shutting down of himself, the feelings he once felt so strongly and the admiration he felt for anything at all that lived in the world that treated him so cruelly. His body was dying, and so was his soul.

You sat beside him on the couch and didn’t dare bring those thoughts forward. As his partner, it was dire that you kept up good spirit around him, never losing hope for another miracle, a sudden turn-around of his health, just something good to happen.

You didn’t dare think of how dead Jeongguk already was, though he sat before you and your fingers were intertwined with his thin, dry strands of hair. You didn’t dare confront those thoughts, not only to remain a positive force in his life but also to save yourself from the agony that would come from thinking of it.

“Have you eaten yet? Don’t tell me you’ve been laying here all day,” you smiled endearingly at him and mindlessly pet his head. His gaze remained unfocused in front of him, eyes glassy and void of life.

“What else is there for me to do?” His answer is cold and lifeless and you continue to run your fingers through his hair. You hold back a sigh and let out a hum instead.

“Well, what do you want to do now?” You began a new sentence that quickly puttered into silence, not knowing what to suggest. He closes his eyes and for a moment, you think he’s fallen asleep under your touch. The TV keeps going, the foreign language chugging along the dramaticized plotline of some sort of Superman, happy-go-lucky fictional character.

His eyes remain closed when he finally says it.

“I want you to go.”

You’re a bit taken aback at his unadulterated forwardness, but continue as if nothing happened nonetheless.

“Oh, o-okay. I can ju-”

“I want you to go. I want you out.” His eyes are open, but not as the wide, glittering saucers you stared into for so much of your life. You retracted your hand as if touching him burned you; your hand hovered above him, hesitant and hurt.

“Yeah, fine, I’ll -”

“I want this to end. I want to go to my mother and I want you to stay out of it.”

The room is silent as death, quiet and filled with an paradoxical heavy absence.

“What?”

He begins to push himself up, and he swats away your shaking, helpful hands. Your own eyes begin to glimmer with shining hurt.

“I don’t want this anymore. I just - I want to die in peace. I can’t have you hovering over me every fucking second you’re around me, I won’t die being coddled, I...I want you out.” He rests his forearms on his knobby knees and leans forward, looking exhausted from letting that off his chest. You stare at him with your jaw open, shocked and hurt and offended and - fucking pissed.

There’s another pause while your brain turns and melts to process his words.

“What?”

He doesn’t respond, instead continuing to stare ahead of him at nothing with a cold mug.

“Jeongguk. What the fuck did you just say?”

You are not sad. You are devastated, yes, deep down, but above all you are furious. Your hands and jaw clench and your breathing deepens and falls unevenly. He is stupid, he is so fucking stupid and you are in disbelief at how unbelievably idiotic he’d just proven himself to be.

“I don’t want to see you anymore.”

You refrain from grabbing his face and forcing his eyes on you. You stutter on nothing for a moment before the rage adjusts enough for you to start letting him have it.

“What the fuck are you talking about? You don’t want me here anymore? Are you fucking insane?” You speak with so much venom that he begins to wring his cracked hands together.

“You stupid bastard. I’m good to you. I always have been. I’m your fucking best friend and I’m not going to let y-...us go out because I know you and I know you don’t mean it. You’re angry and upset but so am fucking I.” Angry tears are falling from your eyes like the drip of an IV. Your throat feels like it’s shutting. “I love you and you’re my fucking soulmate and you...you’re everything. You’re not fucking doing this.”

His eyes are closed and his head dips down in a humbled position (or is it just his sickness? You couldn’t tell). He says your name and it sounds wrong. There is no light in it, no admiration or endearment. He says your name as if he’s speaking to a child throwing a tantrum. Perhaps that’s exactly what he was doing.

“You’ve been overbearing since we were kids. You can’t just respect my last wishes?” He looks to you with dead eyes, face frowning and begging to just be done. You are still red-faced, breathing heavily and radiating anger. You shake your head slowly in disbelief.

“That’s not your last wish.”

“Yes, it is.” He says your name again and you both want to vomit. “It is.”

“No. No, it’s not.” Your posture begins to crumble and the devastation inside of you begins to reveal itself. “You’re my best friend, I know you. This isn’t what you want. What do you mean when you say that you don’t want me with you?” You reach out to him but he blocks your touch again.

“I don’t want you to see it happen. Truly, I truly do not want you there when it happens. When I’m at my worst. Please, please, just...go.” You are crying and he is not. You are still in disbelief and expect him to turn around and say that he’s kidding, or that he’ll ask you instead to turn around and come back as soon as you’ve got one foot out the door. You want to turn around and see him by the window, wearing his Daffy Duck pajamas and drawing you. He hadn’t drawn you in so long now.

You can only think of one word. “No.”

He sighs and heaves himself up to get into his chair. You don’t reach out to help him.

“No, how could…why would I ever do that? How could you ever think that?” Your whole body seems to cave in on itself with sadness. He sits in his chair with his hands on the wheels, but does not move away.

“It’s what I want you to do. It’s about the last thing I want you to do for me.”

“So you want me to fuck off?”

He doesn’t say anything for a moment and you’re hanging off the edge of the couch staring at him. His hands retreat to his lap and he looks down; you wonder if he is sad too. “Yeah,” he says.

You scoff, though not intending to be rude. Wordlessly, you get up from the couch and walk right past him, abandoning yourself to your shared bedroom and locking the door, falling into the Jeongguk-scented sheets and pinching yourself to see if you were awake.

You stayed in bed for long period of time and you thought it had to be close to morning when you rose from the sheets once again. You never knew for sure.

You assumed that Jeongguk was still in the apartment somewhere, unless he (god forbid) wheeled himself down the many levels of the building and ventured into the icy night wearing only a thin cardigan and homely thermals. The click of the bedroom door’s lock echoed through the complex with an ominous thundering and your shuffling footsteps sounded of a dead woman’s. You searched for him with a clogged nose and swollen, red eyes, and almost wanted to laugh at how distraught you probably looked. Surely by now you had both calmed down and were ready to rationally discuss Jeongguk’s feelings, and surely he didn’t mean it when he said what he did. Perhaps some medication caught up to his body too harshly and he was speaking some sort of fever nonsense. Perhaps the anime he was watching coated him in a thin layer of desire for your decades-long love story to end with an explosion and a somber farewell. Perhaps being struck with the grief of losing his own life caused him to act hastily and carelessly. You didn’t quite know.

He had wheeled himself over to the window and your heart stirred achingly at the sight. There he was, as you’d seen him so many times, yet so unfamiliar. There was a time in Jeongguk’s life when he saw the upcoming end as an opportunity to fill his time with the richest beauties in his small world; most of his time was filled by you. Now, as he approached what looked to be his true ending, he welcomed it and spent his days anticipating his final breath. He had become so tired, so ill of so many years of being ill, being poked and prodded and tortured. He was preparing for the farewell of his body on earth by also preparing the farewell of his soul, and with that came his farewell to you.

You stood behind him and made no sounds but he knew you were there. He says your name again. “I’m serious.”

Your face crumples and you harshly rub at your falling tears. A broken sob makes its way out before you turn around and kneel before him.

“I don’t get it,” your cries are desperate. Your hands rest on his knees and he looks down at you apathetically. “I don’t understand why.”

For the first time that evening, he begins to choke on his words. “My last…my last wish of you is to leave me be. I want to be with my family. You’ve done…” a pause as he collects himself, “so much for me. This is what I need from you now. I’m sorry, but I need you to respect what I want.”

He looks at you for a tender moment. Gone is the look in his eyes from that night you took him to see the sunrise; that Jeongguk is gone, and who is before you now is simply remnants of his old self, the old self that has been packed away and already moved beyond this world.

“I want you to go.”

You ask him why once again with such hurt in your voice that he looks away for a moment; how long has he known that he didn’t want you in his final days? How long has he been keeping you around until the time came to shoo you out of his life?

He tells you simply - he has known since he was a boy, even before your graduation and the sun you saw that morning. It seems that he’s known forever.

Your goodbye to him was simple as well. You retreated back to your room that night and did not come out until dusk the next morning. You didn’t dare look out the window at the rising sun. He slept in the guest room that night and you stood behind the closed door for a long moment with your hand on the doorknob. With furrowed brows, you let go and moved past the room, exiting the apartment and holding yourself to not look behind you.

It had been years and years since then, both of you now adults living drastically different lives. His mother had kept minimal contact with you for that first month apart, most likely to Jeongguk’s request. The last you had heard of him was that he had moved back in with his parents and the waiting game had begun. While Jeongguk waited for death, you waited for anything - a part of you, the teenage girl in the sunrise, desperately wished for him to arrive on your doorstep, standing and healthy and all, asking you to forget everything that happened and offering you his hand, or least just a fucking kiss or something. You wanted your happy ending with him, but as time drew on and days turned to years before you, you knew that piece of fate had been drowned away with the storm he carried in his death-riddled hands.

You still laid your head against your steering wheel, taking shallow, fast breaths and continuing to cry at the thought of it all. Jeongguk was your soulmate and you had known since you were children.

He was your soulmate, made of the same matter and pieces of sunlight, and he had pulled away from you for so many years in preparation for his impending grand exit where he would arise back into the stars from which he came. For what should have been the most golden years of your life, he had instead prepared you for the gaping hole in the earth he would leave, and still, it was far too big for you to handle.

“Why are you calling? You were just here.” His voice sounds weak over the tinny cell reception and you pause to take it in before responding.

“I didn’t even know you had my number still saved.”

He pauses now, and the sound of the downpour fills your ears.

“What is it? Are you okay?”

Again, you take a long moment to respond, relishing in what was sure to be one of the last times you heard his voice.

He feels a chill on the back of his neck in worry for you. “Did something happen?”

“No. I just - I’m just...calling. I’m just calling.”

You can’t see it, but you feel the smile that blooms on his face.

“Jeongguk,” you say for no particular reason at all.

“Jeongguk.” You are still crying and his chest clenches at the sound.

“Yeah,” he responds. He says your name back to you, whispered in awe as if it would blow away if he spoke too harshly.

“I’m just calling.” Your mind is swimming, not even attempting to process what you’re saying before it leaves your mouth. It’s so painfully obvious that you are crying.

“Yeah? You missed me?” He speaks so softly and when you close your eyes, you are taken back to when he would whisper to you in bed all those years ago, sweet nothings and filthy pillow talk and love and soul and passion.

You whimper and he clenches his bed sheets with pale fists.

“I’m going to,” you whisper.

Both of your eyes widen and he is stunned, unable to think of a response.

“I’m gonna miss you. I’m gonna miss you so much.” You are sobbing grossly now. “I’ll miss you, Jeongguk! I love you so much and I’m so sorry and I’m going to miss you!” You are bawling again, overwhelmed with the intensity of your confession.

“Y-yeah, baby, I know, just, just stop crying!” He laughs uneasily. “I know, baby…” his voice begins to shake. “Stop talking like that, stop talking as if I’m already gone. I’m right here. I’m talking to you now, don’t worry. I’m right here.”

Your breathing evens out eventually, and the adult in you urges you to apologize for acting like a child, but you can’t bring yourself to it. You can’t bring yourself to apologize for unleashing what has been inside of you for years now.

“Jeongguk, do you love me?”

He lets out a breath in awe. It had been so long.

“Always. I love you, always.”

Jeongguk moved back in with his parents for the final time after weeks of your visits. He remained stagnant for a while, but it meant nothing when he was remaining in such poor condition. You followed him blindly, taking an extended leave of absence from your job and leaving the idea of quitting completely in a close pocket of your mind. You didn’t know what to expect, but there would be an aftermath, a life after Jeongguk’s death, the giant, gaping hole he would leave behind in his departure. There was going to be a you after him and you were unsure who you would be. Surely she would be far, far from where you were now.

Jeongguk’s condition worsened rapidly with his discharge from the hospital. He spent his days in the bedroom of his childhood with you in the same chair pulled up by the frame. Though neither of you wanted to say it, he was going to leave the way he started - next to you.

He had become lucid in the past week or so, falling in and out of consciousness at the strangest times and becoming unable to decipher what was real and what was not. Nonetheless, you stayed at his side, wiping his forehead of clamminess and watching him slip away once more, for the final time.

His family members rotated between you sitting with him, each getting alone time with him and making their best efforts to hold a conversation with a man that could barely do even that. He spoke nonsense as if he was having a fever dream and he would soon be back on his feet with some bedrest and Tylenol.

His mother had warned you that his condition had worsened to a point she had never witnessed before. She told you of what her counselor had advised her to do in the painfully recognizable last days and you listened half heartedly with a polite smile.

She was telling you to say goodbye. You had begun to do just that.

You often found yourself stroking his face absentmindedly, thumbs running over the texture and the protrusion of his cheekbones. It was as though you were blind, reading his facial features and attempting to decode who he was to you and what it felt to feel for the last time. You whispered his name.

His eyes remained closed, but the weak bunny twitch of his lip let you know he was listening. You felt a slight lean into your touch and closed your eyes for a moment, trying to imagine when he would do that with fervor.

You whisper his name again, just because.

“Jeongguk,” once more, once more. “I...I love you.” You are unable to think of anything else to say. He leans further into your touch and you kiss his clammy forehead.

“I love you. I’ve loved you since we were kids.” You smile and run your thumb over his lips, which twiched with what you knew was a smile. “I’ve never loved anything else, not like I love you. You know that right?” With a soft smack, he kisses your palm and you lean forward to kiss his lips.

“I never stopped. Not for a second, I swear. I’ll never stop. Okay?”

You know he won’t open his eyes, but you wish that he would.

“I love you. I love you.”

His breathing is shallow and thin and your gut tells you that you will have to yell for his mother in just a moment.

But for this second, you allow yourself one moment of selfishness, one moment, one more kiss, one more goodbye, once more, once more. You kiss him again, and his lips twitch.

With the rasp of the last time he’d speak, he whispered to you as he always had.

“You were my miracle. I love you.”

Your hands intertwine and you wipe a tear from his eye before yelling out for his family.

“I love you. I love you.”

And once more, he whispers too.

“I love you.”

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canaryatlaw · 6 years ago

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okay, well today was alright. alarm went off bright and early at 7:45 am and getting up was quite the struggle but I made it happen. Got up and got dressed in time for the 8:21 bus, because there can never be the 8:30 bus that would actually work with my timeline *sigh*. made it to church with about ten minutes to spare (since I had to take the bus ten minutes before what would’ve made me on time) and hung out in the kids team volunteer lounge for a few before the huddle. It was set to be just me and one other girl in the babies for this service, which shouldn’t be bad. Since it’s the middle service which is the most popular they have the babies and walkers in different rooms, whereas for the other services they generally combine them. When it comes to the babies room I always say it’s either everything’s calm and perfect or everyone’s screaming and something’s on fire. Well, today was one of the latter days unfortunately. I was holding this little boy who was crying for so long, and I’d get him to stop only for him to start again totally unprompted two minutes later. It got to the point where we would normally call his parents, but due to some weird technical glitch we didn’t have his parent’s phone number (they’re generally printed on their name tags so we can easily contact them) so we had to just wait it out. And contagious crying was in full swing, so it was pretty much always at least 2 babies crying at any given time. so that was a lot, but we survived. Once we were all finished I was told there was cake in the volunteer lounge (lol) leftover from the couple who runs the kids ministry’s daughter’s 3rd birthday party the day before and it was all fancy like made from a bakery and everything and damn it was good cake lol, so I was basically shoving that in my mouth and then running to the service. My lack of sleep definitely hit me hard while sitting listening to the message, and I was struggling to keep my eyes open for quite a bit of it. I thought I had a pack of caffeinated gum in my purse (and I later found out I did) but I couldn’t find it for my life so I just had to survive. It was the time of year though when someone from team World Vision comes to talk about getting people to do the Chicago Marathon with them and raise money for their efforts to bring clean water and so much more to communities living in poverty in Africa and beyond. I have a soft spot for their organization after what I like to call “The World Vision Incident” that happened in March 2014 and is the reason I very intentionally dropped the world “evangelical” in referring to myself (I won’t get into the details now because I’ll get infuriated and never shut up, but suffice to say it left me absolutely horrified as to the behavior of the “Christians” involved) and has led to me sponsoring a child through them (her name is Retseplie, she lives in Lesotho, Africa, she is 13 years old and shares my birthday of March 26th). Sadly running a marathon is very strictly off the table for me being that my lungs can’t work properly when I run, but I always appreciate their challenge and love that many of my fellow churchgoers do take on the challenge. The sermon itself was fairly well related, starting a new series called “Loveworks” which is also the title of our like outreach team that organizes events giving back to the community here and everywhere, so we were talking about how if you’re not helping the poor you are very much not doing what the bible has instructed you to do and stuff like that, I probably would’ve recalled more if I wasn’t fighting to stay awake but not much I can do about it now (I may relisten to it when it pops up as a podcast episode in a day or two). Once church was over I headed out, taking the train to the bus home. I quickly changed out of my nice church clothes, then ate my leftovers from the cheesecake factory last night, the food portion anyway, I left the cheesecake for later on. For most of the afternoon I worked on little things I needed to get done including doing the dishes which had become a massive pile that was beginning to smell, and that’s really rank so we needed to put a stop to that for sure. It was quite the pile so it ended up taking a solid hour or two, but I felt very accomplished when I finally finished it. I put them all away after that and had to soak a few in hot water and soap because they still smelled really musty and gross, but thankfully that worked rather well. I eventually sat down on the couch with my cheesecake and some bubble tea I made and watched last week’s Supergirl episode since I hadn’t gotten around to that yet and wanted to be able to watch tonight’s episode, which I did shortly after finishing last week’s, in between which I watched a bit of “Ellen’s Game of Games” which is fucking hilarious. Overall reaction through the two episodes- ugh, I wish they’d just drop the children of liberty storyline already, it’s so fucking cringeworthy and it really was so unnecessary, we could’ve had such a good full season villain in Lex and red sun Kara. Of course it doesn’t help that I already have a strong dislike for Sam Witwer (RIP Jimmy) and any character he plays. I did like the few moments they had with his son when he runs into his friend at the raid of the alien bar and he starts questioning things, and ultimately ends up reaching out to his friend to try to help him. Of course now I’m sure it won’t help that his mom apparently just got killed by an alien, but I mean, if you’re going around acting like a giant asshole and actively endangering the lives of thousands of aliens living peacefully like....sorry buddy, but you brought that on yourself. I liked that we got to see some more of Kara Danvers and not just Supergirl, especially when she actually gets to do some reporting. The interview with Dreamer at the end was so damn good, I was actually on the verge of tears watching it, it was really excellent. I loved Kara and Lena teaming up to search for clues about Lex and what all they end up finding. I thought the brief flashback with the two Luthor siblings was very interesting, up to this point I don’t think I’ve seen anything suggesting that Lex was ever protective over Lena in any way really, so that was surprising but also kind of nice to see. I felt bad for Lena at the end when she was confessing to Kara that she had been helping Lex because she believed he was terminally ill, and I’m just like Lena, sweetie, this was not your fault, and I’m glad Kara was there to say it. So yeah, overall not bad episodes but this season still isn’t doing much for me. Once that was over I switched over to netflix and watched a few more episodes of the family baking showdown show I just started which was quite entertaining, and I pretty much watched those until I showered and started getting ready for bed, and now I am here, and did I mention I’m tired? so yeah. Tomorrow plan is to make it to the post office to mail the international autograph and to Target to pick up my prescription from Friday at the allergist, the two are on the same road so I should be able to figure something out. Until then, I will be getting some sleep. Goodnight loves. Hope your Monday doesn’t suck.

#daily journal #April 2019 #Rachel watches Supergirl

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snowbellewells · 6 years ago

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Run to Me (in the Dead of Night)

Hello Everyone! I’m presenting the first installment of my second CSSNS offering: my werewolf MC. The idea for this fic has been in my head a long time, but I really needed this event to finally make me put pen to paper and give it a try. Though I love reading werewolves in stories, I haven’t really tried to write them myself before – so I hope I have done it justice. Also, don’t think I’ve forgotten that this is a CS event, just because Killian doesn’t physically appear in this prologue. You get a hint that he’s nearby, and I promise you’ll see him soon.

** Other things to note: Graham (and a few other characters from earlier in the show’s run) play larger parts in this divergence from early season two than they did in canon. If it seems like there’s a lot of set up in this first bit, that’s why. I’m trying to explain how some of them are still around and how it fits together differently from canon. Basically – in most respects – we’re at very early season two, the curse has just lifted and everyone knows who they are again, except Graham is still alive (how gets answered as we go along) and Emma and MM don’t go through the portal to the Enchanted Forest. Rumple never turns the wraith loose on Regina because Belle hasn’t been found; therefore the portal isn’t open for Emma to be pulled into.

I don’t hate Regina. However, it did bother me that she never even had to apologize or show real remorse for what she did to Graham – nor did it makes sense to me that no one ever seemed to figure it out, even once the curse broke and they knew magic existed. Since Graham is still around in this and has his memories, what happened comes out, and Regina does stay more of that conflicted, but still vindictive and dangerous, character we saw in season one and throughout season two.

I think that’s it for now… I hope you will enjoy and come back next week. I aim to post every Friday for the duration of the story, which as of now I am estimating will be around 10 to 12 chapters.

Don’t forget to send @wingedlioness some major praise and flailing for her AWESOME art to go along with this. The two she did for this first part make me feel like my fic has a movie poster!! (I only pray it lives up to the hype!!) She did others for me that I will post with the parts of the story they accompany.

Tagging: @cssns @kmomof4 @laschatzi @teamhook @revanmeetra87 @linda8084 @bmbbcs4evr @ps1473-4 (Let me know if you’d like to be tagged for this fic as well.)

By: @snowbellewells (TutorGirlml on ff.net)

~~ prologue: leaves on the wind

The crisp fall air of late September blew Emma Swan’s long, golden curls back over her shoulders and off her neck, tangling them together and causing a shiver to skitter through her as the chilly breeze of early evening glanced along her bared skin. Even as she clattered down the front steps of the diner, eager to get out of the rather close and over-warm space and the heavy, grease-scented air, she still felt it: the sense that had been following her around lately, more than any simple gossip or slander would account for, resting heavy on her shoulder, of being watched. Glancing around the outdoor seating area of Granny’s and down the quiet main street, deserted but for a few leaves blown here and there and Marco tinkering with the sign that hung over the door of his repair shop and pausing on his ladder to offer her a friendly wave and doff of his cap.

Emma tried to shrug off the troubling impression; eerie though it was, she wasn’t sure that it wasn’t just some manifestation of her own jumbled thoughts and fears, a tingling in her bones that had been discomforting her ever since the curse broke, almost a week ago now. Willing her hard-earned nerve and bravado to reassert themselves, Emma rolled her eyes at herself and how she had just mentally referred to the curse that had changed everything she’d come to know on its head as casually as if it were laundry day or a trip to the movies – just a regular little life-altering occurrence – and gathered the still warm carryout bags Ruby had pressed into her arms just a moment before closer to her chest as she picked up her brisk pace down the sidewalk. Something in her psyche wanted to kick her for running as she left Storybrooke’s most popular eatery behind her, but Emma honestly wasn’t in the mood.

The tiny hairs along the back of her neck prickled as she crossed the opening of the alley between Gold’s pawn shop and the library. She threw a glance down the dim space, but told herself to relax and blew out a frustrated breath before squaring her shoulders and moving on. Whatever sort of creepy premonition vibe she was picking up on lately, it simply had to be in her head. For one thing, this was the smallest, sleepiest, stuck-in-the-eighties town ever; beyond fights at the local watering hold between whom she now knew were three of her mom’s dwarves and guys she had learned were Jack Sprat, Tom Thumb and a definitely not-so-little Jack Horner, and the occasional clichéd kitten up a tree, nothing ever happened here – or at least, nothing of the normal criminal variety. Besides, she already knew who the supposed villains were – and she was well-acquainted with the fact that skulking around subtly wasn’t any of their styles.

No, the sense she felt was probably that same one she had experienced some time back, when Mayor Mills had run her smear campaign trying to overturn Emma’s appointment as deputy. Then, it had been judgmental eyes on her back and whispers that ceased when she walked into a room; now it was awkwardly hushed awe and averted eyes or slight bows when she tried to approach a group casually, and still the constant scrutiny – ill meant or not – and whispers, probably about how unprincess-like she, as their long lost princess, had turned out to be. In any case, the way it made Emma’s skin crawl uncomfortably really didn’t change that much from one case to the other.

Curling she and Graham’s dinner more protectively into her elbow, Emma sighed resignedly as she walked on, kicking at a stick on the pavement at her feet. Thinking back to those unpleasant weeks when she had almost given in, packed up, and moved on, the upheaval of the last several days didn’t seem quite so intense. Back then, it had seemed as though she was clinging to her tenuous bond with Henry by such a fragile, thin thread. Graham offering her the deputy sheriff position – and thus a legitimate reason to remain in town – had been a genuine boon, and when it had seemed as though that might slip through her fingers too – as good things always seemed to do in her life – Emma had almost hit the road once more. She’d been so close to taking off back to Boston, or anywhere really, it didn’t matter… she was always going to be alone.

No matter where she went, people never truly changed that much. Emma had learned that long ago, though Henry’s boundless optimism and the quaint little town’s charm had almost let her forget. It never got easier to ignore the labels that had followed her for most of her life – brought back to glaring focus by the newspaper expose Henry’s adoptive mother had ordered in her bid to see Emma ousted from her new town role. ‘Runaway’, ‘Thief’, ‘Orphan’, ‘Hussy’, ‘Teen Mom’, ‘Jail Bird’…those nasty words dogged her steps for the few days after the paper’s publication in the suspicious narrowing of eyes and disapproving pursing of lips as much as in any audible speech. For all too many moments, it had looked as though the little berg she had begun to hope could be a real home was going to turn its back on her. No matter how far or fast she ran, the barbed tips of both truth and rumor about her never failed to pierce Emma’s hard-won armor. She might be good at pretending the wounds didn’t sting, but she knew now more than ever that she would do well not to forget just how quickly the tide of public opinion could turn.

Even now, with the curse broken, and her tentatively coming to believe that she had not been an unwanted infant abandoned carelessly on the side of some deserted road, the lost little girl inside her still flinched at cruel jabs both real and imagined; there would never be enough time passed to make that completely go away. The childhood and adolescence she had weathered was an inner wound that would always draw blood – even as getting to know Henry, his forgiveness for her giving him up, his boundless blind faith in her, and meeting her parents after all the years lost, and learning how desperately they had indeed loved and wanted her, how they’d had no other choice but to give her what seemed her best chance and believe they would be reunited someday; even all those truths being brought home to her couldn’t undo everything else she had known before.

Upon reaching the sheriff’s station at last, Emma raised her chin from where she had buried it in her collar against the chilly wind and her hair being whipped across her face and into her eyes. She turned the knob and pushed into the station’s dingy and antiquated entryway, also finally shedding the odd sensation of eyes following her as she entered the squat cinderblock building. She could feel her mood lift slightly almost at once. In truth, this was the first job she had genuinely enjoyed doing in years – not only because she was good at it and got paid well, but for the fulfillment and sense of purpose it brought. Clearly, Graham had needed the second pair of hands; they’d be putting the filing back in order until next December, and the man couldn’t make a decent pot of coffee without somehow getting grounds in it to save himself. Still, he respected her and they worked well together. Emma was determined not to let down her guard and grow too comfortable again, but this sleepy little hamlet could almost feel something like a place to belong – not a description she would ascribe to any of the other places she had landed before.

A wry smile curled her lips just before she called out to let Graham know she was back with their food. She certainly wouldn’t take back Henry’s appearance on her doorstep and his bringing her here – whatever happened next. And watching the first real friend – outside of her 10-year-old and her own mother – she had made in years muttering to himself in his office, rifling through the haphazard piles of paperwork stacked all over his desk and running an occasional frustrated hand to swipe his errant curls off his forehead, she grinned even more warmly. They had exchanged one kiss – some months back now – but had decided to simply remain friends rather than risk the comfortable working relationship they shared and Henry’s hurt, as he cared so much for both of them, if it failed. They had somehow managed to simply go on as if it were a one-time gesture of affection and remain the partners and friends they were – for which she was constantly grateful. Graham was warm, open, supportive, and just lighthearted enough to crack truly awful jokes simply to see her roll her eyes, snort, and smile, but he was also capable and as driven as she was, determined to do their jobs well and protect those in their charge.

Stepping into the doorway of the lamp lit office, Emma had raised her hand to knock on the frame, but Graham looked up alertly before she could even complete the motion; hazel-deep eyes finding hers unerringly as if he had sensed or scented her presence before it could be humanly possible. She used to marvel at the uncanny ability her boss possessed; be it hearing, smell, or some other awareness, it was impossible to sneak up on him or catch him by surprise. Of course, now that the curse was broken, Emma knew, though she was still trying to wrap her head around it, that it was his werewolf nature allowing him that ability – his lupine senses were heightened and made him effectively alert and aware of everything. Smirking slightly she had to admit to herself that wasn’t at all a bad skill set for a sheriff to possess.

Shuffling forward almost bashfully, Emma held out the to-go bag in explanation, even as Graham waved her in without question, a welcoming smile on his scruffy face and stood to pull the visitor’s chair facing his desk over to the end of it where they could eat together more comfortably. Graham took the still steaming brown bag that Ruby had handed her with an understanding and apologetic smile not five minutes before and began to spread their meal out on his desk. They’d shared their evening meal right there nearly every night they both worked since he had hired Emma, and it was a settling bit of routine normalcy that soothed her jangled nerves as she sunk into the seat before her.

Graham looked up at her with a grateful crooked smile and the bright eyes that Emma would challenge anyone not to be charmed by (there was a reason she had kissed him that one time after all). “Thank you, Deputy,” he quipped, a playful emphasis on her title. “It was definitely time for a break.” He gestured at the stacks of files and paperwork all over his desk at those words.

Once they had both settled into their seats, Graham didn’t hesitate to take a huge bite out of the Philly Steak hoagie he’d ordered, munching happily and even closing his eyes in bliss with a low hum of satisfaction deep in his chest. For a moment, Emma could only watch, trying to remember if her friend – for all that he looked so trim and wiry – had always had such a voracious appetite and she merely didn’t notice before, or if it was a trait of his recently reacquired wolf within. She was still sometimes too stunned to believe that both he and his adopted sister Ruby, her two closest friends in Storybrooke beyond her parents (that was taking some adjustment too) could both shift into large wolves by the light of the moon. They had been born with the ability in the Enchanted Forest, and that side had merely been buried along with their true identities while under the curse. It was why Graham’s birth parents had abandoned him in the woods – or so he had told her, as he could only assume when he didn’t even remember them – to be found by a preteen Ruby on one of her nightly runs and brought back to live with she and Granny, folded into their little family as simply as if he had already belonged there. Emma had yet to see either of them transform, but she also knew in her bones that neither of them would lie to her. She had simply attempted to reconcile this one more bit of her new normal in her mind and move on without treating her friends any differently; even if, in moments like that, she did gawp at them in wonder. “That good, huh?” she finally managed with a chuckle, amused enough by his good natured enthusiasm and almost child-like joy to put aside her own cross mood and paranoia of being followed.

Then, she bit into her own first taste of Granny Lucas’ unparalleled onion rings and let out her own ecstatic moan at the hot, crisp, greasy goodness on her tongue. Graham laughed out loud in response, the whooping, uncalculated ring of it doing much to completely repair Emma’s clouded outlook. “I don’t know,” the sheriff countered her previous jest saucily, “you tell me.”

Emma nodded enthusiastically, her own eyes alight as well, and her mouth full of her first buttery toasted bite of Granny’s grilled cheese. When she could speak again, she conceded gladly, “Yep, you’re right. Granny’s is the best – and Ruby slipped bacon on here for me again. It’s like Heaven between two slices of bread!”

Graham snickered at her creative praise, and the two of them settled into a comfortable silence, busily munching on the food spread out before them and humming in pleased enthusiasm. Once they were finished, Emma began gathering up wrappers and napkins as Graham sat back contentedly in his chair, wiping crumbs from his front with his hand and grinning at his deputy in full-stomached satisfaction. “Well, that hit the spot,” he stated cheerily, eyes sparkling when she nodded in agreement with his words. He paused a moment, as if uncertain whether he should voice what he was about to say or not, then added, “I’m glad. You look a lot happier than you did when you first came back in here.”

Though she truly attempted not to – had long since decided in the months she and Graham had worked together side-by-side that the good hearted sheriff was trustworthy – Emma felt herself stiffen and begin to close off. She didn’t need any more concern over her emotional state and how she was dealing; her mother was doing enough of that to serve for a dozen people. The barrier she threw up was almost involuntary, no matter how well-intentioned she knew her boss was. Old habits were hard to break, and even more so when she felt half the time as if the town’s very borders were closing in on her, that she would never find “normal” again, and as if her every move was being scrutinized and probably coming up well short of what must have been expected in a long lost royal.

To his credit, the soft-spoken lawman didn’t push and delve into further questions. He backed up slightly, hands raised in appeal, before lifting a file from the stack before him and turning to put it in the corner cabinet, offering her a bit more space as if he had read her mind. ‘No, more likely he sensed the fear or frustration on me,’ her mind supplied unhelpfully, remembering his heightened shifter senses once more. Though he had his foster sister, and Granny, and Henry blatantly adored him, trailing after the sheriff or begging him to ride along on patrols, Graham seemed like a somewhat reluctant loner himself. Emma sensed he understood self-protective walls and keeping others at arm’s length all too well, even if she didn’t know everything he had been through. He might be willing to listen, but he clearly wouldn’t force her to talk.

She could ask him how he seemed to know, seemed to be on the outside looking in, but it really wasn’t fair when she was unwilling to share in return. Ruby had explained to her once – on an ill-fated girl’s night that only she and Ruby had made it to the end of – Mary Margaret and Ashley ducking out embarrassingly early – that shifters like them could only be contained for so long, and that though he had loved she and her gran and been happy with them, he had mostly returned to the forest when he came of age, living off the land as a skilled huntsman with a wolf he considered his brother at his side. It was only after a month when he hadn’t stopped in for even a supper or a quick visit, that they learned he had been commissioned for a job by the Evil Queen – and when he had failed to return, she had feared him dead. It wasn’t until befriending Snow White and hearing she and Charming’s whole story put together that Ruby had learned the fate of her adopted sibling was much worse: he had been made into one of Regina’s heartless black knights, his very mind and will subject to her whims and control.

Henry had told Emma all this as well, long before her waitress friend confided in her with newly-restored memories post-Curse, but Emma hadn’t truly believed him at the time, merely nodded along to humor her highly imaginative son as he’d flipped through his storybook not long after she and Graham had shared their single, ill-fated kiss. Graham’s collapse just afterwards, her panicked 911 call and what the confused Dr. Whale had vaguely labeled some sort of isolated cardiac event, had given cooler heads time to prevail where taking the romantic feelings behind that kiss much further had been concerned. At the time, Emma hadn’t questioned his awed “I remember” epiphany, chalking it up to disorientation from his impending health episode. Now she knew that somehow his memories had been returned to him before the curse breaking did the same for everyone else in town. Henry had been thrilled, and she knew that Graham had listened to her son seriously after that, truly joined his “Operation Cobra”, because he knew Henry was right, and wanted to help bring everyone back to themselves as well. He just hadn’t attempted to share it with her, knowing she would think him crazy and that it would push her even further from the truth. Instead, he had bided his time, and helped where he could, waiting and hoping and believing until the Savior could no longer deny who she truly was.

It made Emma chuckle lowly, and shake her head in amused disbelief; their whole world had changed, and yet here stood her friend, patiently waiting as he always had. He turned to look over his shoulder at her sound from where he stood at the open filing cabinet, head tilted to the side as he studied her curiously, until Emma finally admitted, “Yeah, I wasn’t in the best mood. It felt like everyone in the diner was wondering how I could possibly be their Princess. My parents keep fussing over me and trying to make up for 28 years in a week, and we still don’t know where Regina’s hiding or what she might be plotting next. It’s just…it’s a lot….that’s all.”

She blew out a breath, still not sure what compelled her to open up exactly. To her intense relief, Graham didn’t try to offer empty platitudes about it all being fine and not to worry. He merely nodded in understand, adding, “I’d imagine so. Our world back in the Enchanted Forest – your own family even – wasn’t real to you at all, and now it’s all been dumped in your lap.”

Emma bit her lip to hide its almost quivering a little at the emotion he summed up so succinctly. She wasn’t used to feeling so shaky and out of her depth – and she certainly didn’t like it. That didn’t even begin to factor in the weird sensation of being watched that she had experienced repeatedly, nor of being followed, though she kept feeling it crawling up the back of her neck the last couple of days. That had to be just a reaction to the other upheavals around her –if she could only convince herself of that fact.

Suddenly, Emma had to get out. The pressures of wondering what the Evil Queen might throw at them next, how to keep her son safe – while at long last getting to actually learn to be his mother, trying to reconnect with her own parents, and trying not to disappoint everyone else looking on, was overwhelming her once more. The walls of the station seemed to be drawing in, along with the suffocating weight of all that responsibility mentally added up as well. It really was more than any one person – a sane one anyway – should be expected to handle at one time.

Luckily, it had taken her long enough to fetch their dinner, that a quick glance at the clock back out into the main room over the coffeemaker and microwave showed that it was nearly quitting time anyway. She needed to get back to her room at the loft – if only for five minutes completely to herself to put her head back on straight – before she hyperventilated.

Before she could voice some excuse about the supper not sitting right or needing to help Henry with his homework, Graham looked up at her again, warm gaze concerned and voice soft in understanding, “Emma, you don’t look like you’re feeling well…”

She started to protest, even as she had been about to claim just that, but she didn’t want to seem like she was slacking, nor for her distress to be so obvious. She used to have a much better poker face. Graham waved off whatever comeback she was about to voice anyway. “Seriously, this place is so quiet they shouldn’t pay both of us to be here anyway. I’m closing up myself as we speak. I’ll put the phone on rollover to our cells at 9:00, and then I’m heading out too. You’re only gaining about twenty minutes.”

Shaking her head at his once more almost unbelievable kindness, Emma didn’t even try to protest further. Instead, she slung her jacket back over her shoulders and nodded her acquiescence as she stood. “If you’re sure,” she finally caved, “but make me return the favor sometime, okay?”

“Done,” Graham assured her, his expression genuine and further comforting her that he didn’t resent the early exit or her needing some time to regroup.

Another minute, and she was out the door, hesitating but a moment on the curb outside to button up her red jacket and pull her knit beanie down over her ears against the chill in the late September breeze. She stepped out briskly, crossing the street and picking up speed as the night had already lengthened into dark and the air had gone chill. It was only as she passed by the storefront with Dr. Hopper’s offices above on the second floor that a scuffling noise caught her ears enough that she turned sharply, peering once more down a narrow alley between buildings. She could have sworn the shadows shifted as something – or someone – drew further back out of sight. Emma tried to focus on the area where she had seen movement, practically holding her breath as she stared into the hovering blackness. Whatever had alerted her was clearly long gone though. She wasn’t running around in the night alone chasing what was probably a stray cat, nor was she going to let her jangly nerves imagine even more monsters than the ones she had already learned were real.

Turning back to face the street, Emma made herself move on toward the home she shared with Mary Margaret – and now David and Henry too. She couldn’t help the foreboding that skittered up her spine; no matter how many times she told herself she wasn’t being followed, that nothing was there, she was no longer sure that reassurance was true.

As if to seal her unease, just as she closed her fist over the door handle to enter their building’s stairwell up to the loft, the hairs on the back of her neck stood on end in the night stillness. And it was then that a stark, shivering note rose on the chill air – coming from the nearby forest at the edge of town, but carrying in a haunting, wild cry, clear as a bell. It was the howl of a wolf, letting them all know it was there.

#cssns #cs au mc ff #run to me (in the dead of night)#prologue

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antihero-writings · 6 years ago

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In Plain Sight –Pandora Hearts Fic for Phmonth18 Golden Trio Week – Day/Prompt 3: Friendship (Full fic)

Fic Title: In Plain Sight

Fic Synopsis: When Break hides Gilbert’s favorite Christmas ornament somewhere in the Rainsworth manor, the Golden Trio must spend the afternoon looking for it

Notes: I originally wrote this for the prompt “Ornaments” in an alphabetical Christmas prompt list my friends and I did last year. However, nobody got to read it last year, and since I didn’t get the chance to write anything for the first week of phmonth18, I wanted to at least post something, and decided this worked well for the Golden Trio! Especially since Christmas is fast approaching. I think it works best for the day 3 prompt: Friendship. I hope you like it! I had a lot of fun writing this, and am rather proud of how it turned out! I would really appreciate it if you left a comment to let me know if you enjoyed it!

I posted the entire thing here, but you can also read this on Ao3. It’s under the same title, by I_prefer_the_term_antihero

P.S. This is a repost of an old fic!

Fic:

“You’re the tallest, Gil, you should put the star on top!”

“Ooh! It looks yummy! Like a big cookie!”

“It’s not a cookie, Stupid Rabbit!”

It was a few days before Christmas, and the trio was at the Rainsworth manor. Finally, everything was ready for the holiday; a fire was dancing in its place, the stockings were all lined up on the mantle, and they had just put the finishing touches on the tree. The only one who hadn’t been informed about the festive season, was the sky outside; it had been raining for the past few weeks. There was a chill in the air, it was frosty, but snow hadn’t quite come yet. Still, they made the most of their time indoors.

“Perfect!” Oz exclaimed.

Oz Vessalius was the fifteen-year-old heir to the Vessalius dukedom, but after his escape from the Abyss that year, when he wasn’t off on adventures, and missions, he spent most of his time at the Rainsworth’s.

“It’s so pretty, Onii-chan!”

On account of the ten-year gap, Oz’s sister, Ada, was older than Oz now, but, no matter what, she would never stop seeing him as her older brother. She was on Christmas break from Lutwidge Academy, and more than happy to spend it at the Rainsworths, with her brother. She had, of course, brought her two cats—Snowdrop and Kitty—with her, (which Gilbert maintained a healthy distance from, due to his phobia of cats).

“The Rainsworths will have the best-decorated tree in town!”

Oscar, their uncle, was spending the afternoon with his niece and nephew too. He was a bearded, bespectacled man, with the same blonde hair and green eyes as the rest of his family. At the moment, he was sitting on one of the couches, with a cup what he called ‘tea’, but which the rest of them guessed probably had something stronger in it.

“I can’t take all the credit, Gil and Alice helped a little,” Oz joked.

“‘A little!’”

Gilbert was Oz’s servant; a dark-haired man, who often appeared cold and reserved, but who was rather sensitive, and a worrywart. He still sometimes acted as though they were only a year apart in age too, despite the fact that he was now ten years older than his master.

“Yeah, manservant!” Alice challenged, “More like we did all the work!”

“I was just teasing!”

“Well,” Sharon had a way of returning things to order with her calm and proper words, “you all did a wonderful job.”

Sharon was the heiress to the Rainsworth dukedom, and looked like a thirteen-year-old girl, though was really in her twenties or thirties—(they knew better than to ask her exact age). Her chestnut hair was usually tied back into a kind of half-ponytail, and, as always, she outmatched them all on style points; today it was with a dress of a wintery blue that looked as if she was trying to encourage the snow to fall. As per usual, she held a cup of tea in one hand—peppermint, she had informed them, for the Christmas season—and a pastry in the other. She was sitting at a small round table on the other side of the room, with Reim—duke Barma’s bespectacled, hard working, servant, who spent more time at the Rainsworth’s than anywhere else, with his two best friends—Sharon and Break.

“Well, I’m beat,” Alice stretched and yawned, “Seaweed-head, when are you going to make me some meat?”

Most Chains (creatures from the Abyss) didn’t look like Alice did; like a fourteen-year-old girl, with floor length brown hair, and an almost cat-like physique—(though it was a giant rabbit she often turned into). Also unlike other illegally contracted Chains, she did not have a thirst for human blood, although she did have a particular love for meat, as well as almost anything edible.

“I suppose I can make you something, now that we’ve finished,” Gil sighed.

“Oh? Have you now?” they turned to see Sharon’s servant, Xerxes Break, grinning as he poured himself another cup of tea. “Are you sure nothing’s…” he leaned back against the table, “missing?”

Break was a red-eyed, white-haired man, also much older than he looked. Even those close to him would say he was a bit of an acquired taste; his love for teasing, the creepy doll on his shoulder, and his general lack of regard for other people and their feelings, made it difficult for those subject to his mischiefs—such as Gilbert—to acquire any kind of affection for him.

Gilbert froze, turning his head slowly to the tree. His eyes immediately found the empty space where a certain ornament had been.

“Break!” he shouted, spinning back to him, “Must you do this every year?!”

“Let an old man have his fun.” Break grinned.

“I believe he must, Gilbert-sama,” Sharon answered Gilbert’s question, nonchalantly taking a sip of tea before continuing, “It has become something of a tradition.”

“I should have spent Christmas with he Nightrays this year,” Gilbert grumbled, reluctance in his motions as he began to pick up books, and other objects around the room, as if searching.

“You’re so mean,” Break chided playfully, then spoke a little more seriously, knowing Gilbert had no intentions of spending much time with his adoptive family, and real brother, “You’d rather spend Christmas with the sewer rat, than us?”

Gil gave him a death glare.

“Sorry…but what’s a tradition?” Oz asked, turning to Sharon and Break.

He wouldn’t admit it, but sometimes, especially with things like this, the ten-year gap could make Oz feel like an outsider.

“Every year Break takes Gilbert-sama’s favorite ornament,” Sharon explained, “And hides it somewhere in the manor.”

“Ooh! That sounds like fun!”

“It’s not fun, Oz!” Gilbert hollered at his master, “It’s a waste of a perfectly good afternoon! Not to mention annoying, and rude!”

Break laughed. Gil had yet to learn his outrageous reactions were what made this sort of thing so fun for the prankster.

“Don’t worry, Gil!” Ada bounded up to him, “I’ll help you look!”

Gilbert flushed, “T-Thank you.”

“What does it look like, Gil?” Ada asked.

He looked at Oz, then turned back to Ada, and explained it quietly enough that only she could hear.

She nodded, beaming, and began to look in a different part of the room.

“What’s the matter, Gil?”—Gil gasped as his master appeared suddenly at his other side—“You don’t want me to know what it is?” Oz’s laugh faded into a more puzzled expression when Gil averted his eyes, turning redder.

“It’s a secret, Onii-chan!” Ada answered for him, “You’ll see when we find it!”

He didn’t get the chance to ask anything more, because Alice broke in, having been observing all their interactions,

“Does…Does this mean I won’t get my meat?”

“Uh huh,” Gilbert sighed, “That’s exactly what it means.”

“No! I will not allow it!” Alice shook her head, and whirled around on Break, pointing at him in an accusatory manner, “Clown! Return Seaweed-head’s stupid ornament his instant!”

“It’s not stupid, Stupid Rabbit!”

“Aren’t you a spoilsport?” The Mad Hatter teased, then the doll on his shoulder, Emily, finished,

“Why should I listen to some dumb bunny?”

Alice growled, her hands clenching into fists. She spun to Gilbert, declaring as she ran up to him,

“Then I won’t rest until I find that ornament! With the great Alice-sama on your side, you cannot fail!”

“Sure you won’t just get in the way?”

She kicked him in the shin, then crossed her arms, “You’d be lost without me, Seaweed-head.”

“Don’t kick me, Stupid rabbit!” he rubbed his leg, “Now go look for it over there!” he stamped his injured foot back down and pointed to the opposite corner of the room, (to which she quickly ran, proceeding to tear her designated space apart in a matter of seconds.)

“Is this ornament really all that important, Gil? I mean, we have lots of—”

“Yes!” he answered before his master could finish, “it is!”

Oz sighed, knowing how attached his servant could get to things, “Alright. So…is us helping against the rules?” he asked, watching Alice destroy the room in search of it, Ada calmly remove things, and put them back where they were meant to go, and Gil as a mix of the two.

“Don’t you think we would have stopped them if it was, Oz-kun?”

Sharon shook her head, “It doesn’t matter who finds it, watching him search is the fun part.” Her mischievous side was showing; most of the time she was this prim and proper lady, but being close to Break had its effects.

“That’s right; the more people searching, the funnier it is when they can’t find it,” Break sang. “Though, tell me, Ojousama,” he turned to his mistress “are you merely saying that because you wagered he’d find it early—before 18:00?” he asked knowingly, sitting up on the table—(Reim gave him a look that could only be interpreted as: can-you act-any-less-like-a-servant?)

They turned to the clock—it was 15:00.

“Why do you want to know, Break?” his mistress asked with a tone of false interest, “Are you afraid your skills as a prankster have gone down with age?” she patted her mouth innocently with a napkin.

“What do you take me for, Ojousama?” he smirked, crossing his legs, narrowing his eyes at Gilbert, “He’ll need all the help he can get.”

Gilbert returned to him an even more murderous look.

“You… betted on this?”

“All part of the tradition, Oz-kun,” Break mentioned, stealing a mini pastry from Reim’s plate—(the incense was more than evident on Reim’s face, and probably why Break did it).

“It’s not money we wagered, though; If I win, Break has to swear off sweets over Christmas—as well as make me a lavish dessert full of those sweet things he can’t have. And if Break wins, I have to buy him an equally lavish amount of extra Christmas candy and sweets.”

“Nice! Break, I didn’t know you could bake!”

“He really can’t,” Sharon chuckled, “But it’s fun to see what he comes up with.”

Break glared at her.

“So… is this how you bet every year?”

“Sometimes it’s different. But it’s usually something to the effect of giving Break a taste of his own medicine…Though I seem to recall one year, I wanted Break to do this dance I had heard of in a book, if he lost. I believe it was called ‘Futterwacken.’”

“That’s a weird name for a dance!” Oz laughed, “So? How did that go?

“I suppose it is,” she smiled, “That was one of the tamer punishments, but, when he did lose, he refused—rather blatantly.”

“Really?!” he turned to Break.

“How many times must I tell you? I have no talent for dancing.”

“Truly, as a servant of the Rainsworth Dukedom, it would be better fitting that you learned,” she shook her head, then turned back to Oz, “Anyway, after that, we thought the chance to take away his candy was rather enjoyable.”

“Aw, I want to join the bet!”

Gilbert looked affronted, but before he could speak, Oz continued, boyish excitement simmering in his tone,

“Say, what if, if Break loses, I get to eat his candy instead?!”

Sharon and Break glanced at each other.

“Let me ask you something, Oz-kun;” Break set down his tea, “Are you willing to risk the consequences of such a wager?”

“Ehh…consequences?”

“Why of course. I couldn’t give little Oz-kun the chance of stealing my candy without the proper torment in store if he lost.”

“Eh…” Oz knew just how mean Break could get, and that this could very well turn into a prank war that ended in actual blood, “I think I’ll pass.”

“I always said you were smarter than you looked,” the Mad Hatter picked up his tea again.

“Maybe you could join in by helping me look, instead of encouraging them, Oz!” Gilbert whirled on him.

“Aww, do I have to?” the fifteen-year-old groaned.

“Oz!”

Oz turned to the masterminds, as if silently asking for them to give him an excuse not to.

“Hey, Oz-kun is sharp,” Break began, then Emily added,

“Probably smarter than these three put together!”

—two of the aforementioned three gave him what can only be described as ‘fight-me’ faces, and Ada looked disheartened—Break took no notice, and finished,

“So that depends; whose side are you on?”

“Well,” Oz thought for a moment, then mused, grinning, “it would be fun to see Break trying to swear of candy!”

“Is that so?” Break’s eye narrowed.

“In any case, why isn’t Reim-san helping?” he shifted the focus. “You’re not the kind of person to sit back while others are in trouble”

Reim sighed, pushing his glasses up on his nose. “While that may be true, these two are often harsher with me, than others. If I help you, I have a feeling I shall pay for it in some way later,” he shot them an icy look, “dearly.”

“Whatever do you mean, Reim-san?” Sharon asked innocently. “We thought you enjoyed our company.”

“Yeah, it’s only because you’re our favorite, Reim-san,” Break gave a fake sappy voice.

“Then pick a new favorite!”

“That’s not how it works! You have a lifetime guarantee!”

“Sharon,” it was Ada who spoke. She had been focused on searching on the mantelpiece, and inside the stockings, “Why are there nine stockings?”

“What do you mean, Ada?” Oz asked, stepping over to her.

“Well, I was just thinking; there’s me, Onii-chan, Uncle, and Alice,”—Alice looked annoyed at Ada mentioning her name—“since we’re staying here for Christmas,” she pointed at each of the stockings in turn, “and these belong to Sharon-sama, Break, Duchess Rainsworth-sama, and Reim-san, right? But who does this last one belong to?” she held the bottom of the last one, careful not to pull it off the mantle.

They turned to Break and Sharon, who glanced at each other, their mischievous grins fading into more somber, reminiscent expressions.

“It was Break’s idea,” Sharon answered.

“Well, I can’t take all the credit—“

“It’s for my mother…That has become something of a tradition as well. We just thought it would be nice, to have something to remember her by during the Christmas season.”

The tone in the room quieted; the rest of them knew that Shelly was Sharon’s mother, who had died sometime after Oz’s coming of age ceremony.

“That’s…actually really sweet,” Oz noted, “Break, I’m surprised you thought of it!”

“You think you’re cute, don’t you? And you say that like I’m cruel.”

“Well…” Oz rubbed the back of his neck, smiling nervously, trying to formulate a non- insulting answer in his mind.

“I think what Oz is trying to say,” Reim started out gently, then finished harshly, “Is that it’s high time you realized you can be a jerk, Xerxes!”

“Well, I wouldn’t say jerk’…” Oz began.

“I would,” Gil mumbled.

“My…I cant believe that you all….” Break began softly, then Emily jeered,

“Just figured that out now!”

The anger was evident on all of their faces.

“Really, why are you all ganging up on me,” Break grinned, without a hint of hurt in his voice, “when you should be focusing on the task at hand?”

“Because it’s your fault we’re in this mess!” Gilbert shouted, then ran his hand frustratedly through his hair, observing the mess they had made of the room, before demanding, “Is it in this room?!”

“Given up already, have you?” Emily teased.

Gilbert clenched his hands into fists, biting back a retort.

“Did anyone see him leave the room?!”

Everyone looked at Gilbert blankly, or up at the ceiling, trying to think if they had, realizing they had no idea, and knew full well Sharon could have used Eques to transport him when their backs were turned anyways. Gilbert put his hands on his hips, sighing at their silence “Alright. We have a whole manor to look through, it’s best we move on from this room,” he paused, turning again to Break, with malice in his eyes, “Right?”

“Sure, kiddo!” Emily replied, and he gave the fakest grin yet.

Gilbert gritted his teeth, then shook his head, directing them,

“Let’s split up; Ada, you go down the left hall, Stupid Rabbit, you take the right. I’ll go downstairs.”

“I won’t let you down, Seaweed-Head!” Alice sped down the hall, not even searching, as if she had forgotten the task she’d been given.

Ada nodded, “Come on, Snowdrop, Kitty!” she called to her cats.

Oz sighed, “Alright, fine. I’ll help too.”

Gilbert smiled, about to thank him, when Oz added,

“But I expect to be rewarded for my troubles!”

His servant rolled his eyes.

“I kinda need to know what it looks like, though, don’t I, Gil? You seemed to want to keep it a secret earlier.”

“You’ll…um….You’ll know it when you see it,” Gilbert looked anywhere but at his master.

Oz sighed, putting his hands on his hips, “Really? That kinda makes things harder, you know.”

“Oh, not up to the challenge, are you Oz-kun?” Break goaded.

“No, no, I can do it! I just feel like we’re not addressing a key part of the puzzle here!”

With that Gilbert pulled him out of the room and into the search.

Gilbert was right; it did seem like a bit of a waste of an afternoon; exhausting wasn’t the only word that came to mind after rifling through each room one by one, with no clue as to where it might be. Especially because the feeling began growing in them that Gilbert was way too attached to things, as well as that Break was, indeed, a jerk. They didn’t know how much time had passed before they met up again in the hall, everyone hanging their heads in shame and disappointment.

“What should we do?” Ada asked quietly.

“We can’t let the clowny bastard win!” Alice slammed a fist into her other palm to emphasize her point.

“That’s right!” Gilbert agreed, “For years I had to put up with his constant teasing, it’s high time we got him back!”

“I don’t think losing the bet is really going to make him stop. I mean, he’s lost before, right?”

“You don’t have to be so blunt about it!” Gilbert complained.

“Sorry,” Oz shrugged.

In the moment of silence that followed, Ada’s cat started rubbing against Oz’s leg, as if trying to comfort him.

“What do you think, Snowdrop?” Oz asked jokingly, picking up his sister’s cat, (Gilbert eyed it, a whine developing in his throat, scooching away), “Do you have any idea where it is?”

Oz gasped.

“What is it, Onii-chan?”

Tied into the cat’s collar was a ribbon, attached to a little ornament. He pulled it free and placed the cat on the floor (it meowed and padded away).

The other three gasped in turn, leaning in to get a better look at it.

“That bastard!” Gilbert slammed his fist into the wall behind him. “He knew I wouldn’t go near your cats!”

“Yeah,” Oz laughed, “leave it to Break to take the cheap shot.”

“What are we waiting for?!” Alice demanded, “Didn’t I just say we can’t let the clowny bastard win!”

“You’re right!” the others said together, and bolted down the hall.

“We found it!” Oz held the ornament high, like a trophy, as they burst through the door.

At the same moment that he held up the evidence, the hour chimed.

They each glanced at each other, then at the clock, which read exactly 18:00.

“My, my, isn’t this an interesting turn of events?” Break remarked, stretching, “It looks like it’s a tie, Ojousama.”

“It would appear,” Sharon smiled “In that case, would you please excuse me for a moment?” she gathered her dress and hurried out of the room.

“So, which one of you found it?” Break asked, walking over to them.

“I did.”

The prankster smirked, “What did I tell you?” he ruffled Oz’s hair, “Oz-kun’s sharp.”

“So… what does that mean about your wagers?” Oz tried to put his hair right. “Since you tied?”

“Just a moment Oz-kun,” he put his hand on Oz’s head, his sleeve falling over his eyes, and looked over their heads

Sharon quickly did return, a little out of breath, holding a small package wrapped in a ribbon.

“Here you are, Break!” she held it out for him.

He took it from her and unwrapped it, opening the little red box to reveal that it was filled with the the candy she had promised.

“Just the thing I needed” he patted her head, unwrapping a piece and tossing it into his mouth. “Better luck next time, Ojousama,”

Oz and Alice stared at him, open-mouthed, dumbstruck that he had beat them.

“Now I suppose I should get started on that dessert of yours,” he waited until the proper moment to add.

“Please do.”

“Huh?” Oz and Alice asked simultaneously.

“Since we tied,” Sharon spoke, as they both turned to them, “we both win.”

“So…does that mean the clown still has to swear off candy?” Alice asked hopefully.

“No—Unfortunately,” Sharon added, glancing at her servant, who rolled his eyes, eating another piece, “We both get the rewards of the wager, but no one gets the punishment.”

“More in the Christmas spirit, wouldn’t you agree, Ojousama?” he said between candy crunches.

“Since when do you care about ‘Christmas spirit’?!” Gilbert demanded.

“Better luck next year, I guess,” Oz tried to put a positive spin on it.

“Next year?!” Alice fumed, “I want to settle this now!” (Gilbert held Alice by the neck of her jacket.)

“Believe me,” Reim grunted, eyeing Break, “it’ll only end worse for you,”

“Who knows?” Break shrugged, “There may not be a next year, Oz-kun.”

Alice continued to seethe while the others glanced at each other, unsure of how to respond to such a statement.

“There you go again,” Reim scolded. “You can’t just mention something like that!”

Break dismissed him with a wave of his hand, chuckling to himself, and muttering something about his uptightness, as he made his way down the hall to the kitchens.

After Break left, Oz looked down at his hand, opening his fingers to reveal the little clay, painted oddity he was still holding. Alice came behind him and looked over his shoulder at it.

“What…is it?”

“You didn’t know what you were looking for?!” Gilbert questioned.

“Because you never told me, Seaweed-head!”

Gilbert looked away, clearly wanting to bite back, but without argument with which to do so.

Oz shook his head, staring at it. It was rather crudely made, ineptly painted. But he couldn’t mistake it for anything else—and Gil had been right, he did know it when he saw it.

Because he was the one who made it.

“I can’t believe you kept this, Gil.”

Gilbert looked away, nodding and turning red.

Now he understood why Gilbert was so intent on getting it back. This ornament had probably become a symbol to Gilbert—much like Shelly’s stocking on the mantelpiece was for Break and Sharon—for Oz himself. This ornament, through the years, had probably become tied to his faithful valet’s unending hope that his master would come back. Each year Break took it, as if teasing that perhaps he wouldn’t (and, maybe this was his roundabout way of him trying to prepare him for that), but Gilbert always got it back, as if displaying that he would never lose that hope.

“Oy! What is it?!” Alice demanded again, upset her ‘manservant’ wasn’t focusing all his attention on her.

“It’s a bird, Alice,” Oz answered simply.

“Really, how do you figure?”

“Yeah, it doesn’t look very good does it?” Oz laughed.

“Seaweed-head, why would a crappy ornament like this be your favorite?”

“Oy! You don’t see me criticizing your bad taste!”

“Bad taste?! I have impeccable taste! I eat meat every day!”

“That’s not what—”

“Its because I made it for him,” Oz answered her question quietly.

“You?” Alice laughed, slapping him on the back, “You have pretty poor skills, Oz.”

“Give me a break! I was a kid!”

Oscar laughed, walking up to them, “You’re still a kid, Oz. Yes…I can’t remember how old he was, but he made me, Ada, and Gilbert ornaments,” he laughed a little, putting his arm around Gilbert, “I remember how offended Gil was at his master making him a gift.”

“Yeah,” Oz laughed, they all looked up at Gil, who got steadily redder the more they spoke, “We had to force him to accept it.”

“Why are you surprised he kept his, Onii-chan?” Ada asked, “Uncle and I kept ours. They’re back at the Vessalius manor. But! we could bring them over here if you want!”

“That’s okay, I believe you! Still… Like Alice said, they don’t look very good.”

“But, like you said, you were the one who made them for us,” Oscar ruffled his nephew’s hair.

“What were the ornaments you made for them, Oz?” Alice asked.

“Well, I made Ada a little cat, and uncle Oscar a camera. I didn’t really know what Gil liked, so I just made him a bird. Funny, how your chain is Raven now.”

“How come you haven’t made me one, Manservant?!” Alice hit Oz on the head.

“Hey! I’ve been busy!” he rubbed the spot where she hit him.

“In any case,” Alice turned to Gilbert, jumping quickly to the next subject, “now you can make my meat, Seaweed-head!”

“Break’s using the kitchen, Stupid Rabbit!”

“Then let’s go to the market! I’m starving!”

Gilbert sighed into his hand, “Fine. Let me get my hat and coat.”

“Can I come with you guys?” Ada asked—Alice looked peeved, but Gil and Oz had already welcomed her.

“I’ll go check if Break needs anything!” Oz ran off towards the kitchen.

As Oz arrived, he saw that Break had changed out of his white coat and purple shirt into more casual closing—likely so he wouldn’t ruin his normal outfit. He had rolled up the sleeves, and was wearing a pink apron Gil sometimes wore when he cooked for them here, but which probably belonged to Sharon’s grandmother, or mother. He had already begun to make a mess of things; flour was all over the counter, chocolate was on the walls, somehow there were even ingredients in in his hair.

“You need some help?” Oz asked, half-jokingly.

Break looked up.

“Oz-kun,” he noted, then grinned, “You? Help me? Gotten bored of Gilbert-kun, and Alice-kun already?”

“Nah. I just wanted to know if you needed anything. We’re going to the store.”

Oz knew that Break could have asked for help from the staff, or Gilbert, but Sharon called him ‘Mr. One-Man-Show’ for a reason; sure, it might not taste or look all that good, but at least he would have made it himself.

“You really think I wouldn’t have come prepared?”

“But, if you won, you wouldn’t have to make—”

Oz gasped. Realizing something:

They both had bought the supplies ahead of time. Oz thought one of them would have to go to the store, depending on who won the bet, (perhaps dragging the other begrudgingly along), but they both had already bought the necessary ingredients. Which meant, either the food one of them bought would go to waste, or be used in some other way, or, regardless of who won or lost, they still intended to give each other the gifts.

“You already had the ingredients,” Oz thought out loud. “and Sharon-chan already had your candy…”

“So?”

“I would have thought one of you would have to go to the store, depending on who won.”

“What’s your point, Oz-kun?” Break pushed his hair back.

Oz shook his head, grinning like he now had some secret information. “Break, you really are a nice guy, aren’t you?”

Break put his hand on the table, turning to him, “Wipe that cheeky grin off your face before I do it for you.”

Oz put his hands behind his back, sauntering closer.

“Oh, nothing,” he whistled, “Just that, well, you do this every year, don’t you? Sharon likes to give you a taste of your own medicine if you lose, but you both use this an excuse to give each other extra gifts, don’t you? I bet it was your idea in the first place.”

“How do you know we weren’t planning to use the supplies in some other way?”

“Because you’re not considerate enough to let others use your stuff,” he grinned, “Didn’t you just say there would be punishment in store if I got your candy?”

“Well,” he smirked at Oz’s discovery, twirling the spoon in his hand, “‘nice’ would be stretching it. But maybe occasionally I’m not a complete ‘jerk.’”

Oz grinned. That was all the confirmation he needed.

As if he were brandishing a sword, Break flicked chocolate on Oz’s face with the spoon, “Now get out of here.”

Oz rolled his eyes.

“Good luck, Break!”

With that he exited the room, and ran to the front door to catch up with Gil, Ada, and Alice, who were gathered there, waiting for him.

“Break doesn’t need anything!” he called to them, “Let’s go!”

At first it may have seemed like a waste of time, but, in the end, Oz realized; an afternoon playing a game, learning that after ten years Gil had still cherished the small gift he had once been reluctant to accept, seeing how Sharon and Break found ways to bring each other joy, spending time with his friends, spending time with his real family, would never be a waste of an afternoon for him.

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bioneuralgelpack · 6 years ago

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So I’m a bit of a Star Trek nerd. Actually, I’m a lot of a Star Trek nerd. Want to know which episode it was where Captain Picard went on holiday? I can help you with that. Want to know the name of the Bajoran lollipops sold on Deep Space Nine? I can help you with that too. Sadly, this fountain of knowledge is largely useless to me in everyday life. In fact, it’s something I actively try to conceal to maintain some semblance of street cred. Sometimes I have whole conversations with people along the lines of ‘Oh Star Trek, is that the one where all the aliens have bumpy foreheads?’ and then I hate myself a little bit because I feel like I’ve betrayed my firstborn child.

(those space lollipops...)

Anyway, you might have got from the above ramble that I like Star Trek a lot. It’s undoubtedly my favourite film / TV franchise and it’s a universe that’s very dear to me – my life’s goal is secretly to hang out on the Enterprise with Picard and co. I don’t even want to save the universe with Picard and co. I literally just want to hang out with them and do nothing because they are great people and I think we’d have a fun time.

(Ah, friends...)

On a more serious note, one of the things I love about Star Trek is that it really does explore new frontiers and break down boundaries; first interracial kiss on US TV – check, one of the first lesbian kisses on US TV – check, black woman in a position of authority in 1966 – check. This is TV at its progressive best, being a mechanism for social change and bringing uncomfortable truths about contemporary society into the public eye. That’s the strength of science fiction in general; as an allegory for things which are difficult to talk about in other ways. Star Trek has provided biting, intelligent, uncomfortable critiques of pretty much everything from racism (who can forget ‘Let That Be Your Last battlefield’ where Kirk encounters a society locked in pointless eternal combat because the faces of two groups looks slightly different?) to healthcare in the US (‘Critical Care’, I’m looking at you, with your alien hospital where the rich access better treatment than the poor). Star Trek is able to provide these critiques so effectively because its characters are evolved humans who are consistently appalled at the foibles of these alien societies and who also draw links to the mistakes made by their own ancestors. They provide the perspective of the other on our own society whilst retaining enough links to it to still be relatable.– to return to the example of Critical Care, Voyager’s doctor is kidnapped and forced to work in the afore mentioned alien hospital. He’s put to work on the higher floors, treating the rich who can afford miracle cures for their minor ailments. When he discovers the existence of the lower floors, where the seriously-ill poor are left to suffer with only untrained staff to improvise treatments, the Doctor immediately starts to prioritise patients based on need, rather than social status. To anyone living under a healthcare system where this isn’t already the case, I imagine it would make for uncomfortable viewing.

(and, for today’s very special episode...)

Star Trek then, treats most issues with liberal thinking which is ahead of its time. However, during a recent re-watch of a few episodes – the first re-watch I’ve done since training as a psychologist – I started to notice a disturbing oversight. It quickly became apparent to me that the great enlightened Federation simply does not do mental health care. Yes, Picard may have a counsellor on the Bridge, but how much time does she actually spend doing therapy? In seven seasons, I think she does about four sessions. I do that in a morning. Most of Deanna’s time is spent assisting the rest of the Bridge crew with everything from piloting the ship to commanding it. You have to admire the woman’s multitasking skills. And while Deanna’s doing whatever takes her fancy this week on the Enterprise, the severely mentally ill, such as the genetically enhanced individuals seen in DS9’s Statistical Probabilities and Chrysalis, are deemed ‘untreatable’ and condemned to live out their lives in institutions. This fact is particularly damning when considered in the context of the Federation’s liberal and rehabilitation-based penal system (portrayed as a rather lovely stretch of New Zealand farmland in Caretaker).

(Deanna Troi living her best life)

Over my next few posts, I’m hoping to look at a few aspects of Federation mental health care in more detail. I’ll also be looking at a few characters in-depth – Deanna Troi, the woman solely responsible for the mental health of 1000 people, the problem of Captain Janeway’s bipolar disorder and of, course, the tragic tale of Miles O’Brien, the most resilient man in the known multiverse…

Just a quick note, I won’t be discussing ‘Enterprise’. I’m afraid I’m a true child of the 90’s and firmly embedded in the classics – ‘The Original Series’, ‘The Next Generation’, ‘Deep Space Nine’ and ‘Voyager’ – although ‘Discovery’ may get a mention somewhere.

#star trek #star trek tng #star trek deep space nine #star trek voyager #mental health #retro #long reads

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chocobunnydrops · 7 years ago

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Tortoiseshell Charms

I just realized I never posted my KHR Secret Santa from last year lmao so here it is !!!

Title: Tortoiseshell Charms

Fandom: Katekyo Hitman Reborn

Rating: G

Words: 2k

Summary: Spanner acquires a cat. A disappointing amount of domesticity ensues.

2k words of cats being cats plotless fluff ft. slightly scatterbrained roommate Shoichi in the college au we all need.

Read on: ao3 • ff.net • below

Groceries in hand, Spanner unlocked the door of his apartment. It was snowing heavily outside, as it did in Japan, but he rather liked the change in climate from Italy. In the two and a half years he’d been here for university, Japan having four seasons was one of the things he’d come to appreciate.

Spanner shook off the snow and dropped his keys on the counter. Shoichi, his roommate, didn't seem to be home at the moment, which meant he was probably slaving away in a lab somewhere, as Spanner had just returned from doing. Ah, the life of an engineering major.

As he was preparing to unpack the groceries, a loud mrrrrow gave him pause. If he didn’t know any better, he’d think that was…

A cat, perched regally on the kitchen table, licked her paw and smoothed it over her head.

Spanner pondered the new feline while stocking the cupboards with instant ramen. Courtesy of his term project, it had definitely been a few days since he’d last visited the apartment, but he couldn’t recall there being a cat here. Maybe Shoichi had picked one off the streets, or from the local animal shelter. He had read somewhere that pets helped with anxiety, so maybe that was it…

Ramune in hand, he looked at the animal once again. She was a tortoiseshell, like the one his grandfather had in Italy, with pale green eyes that met his in a cool, level gaze. For a second, he wasn’t sure if he was sizing the cat up, or the other way around.

She was probably female, as tortoiseshells nearly always were. His grandfather called them cheeky little things, but with an affection in his eyes that left no doubt that he loved them. Personally, Spanner was lukewarm to them, but as long as Shoichi’s new pet/therapy animal didn’t bother him, he didn’t mind the new roommate.

The matter settled, Spanner popped open a bottle of ramune, set the kettle on for instant ramen, and sat down to study.

Several hours later, the scrape of the door against the floor signaled Shoichi’s arrival home. The redhead stamped his boots on the welcome mat and dusted himself off, shedding layer upon layer of jackets (Shoichi tended to get cold easily) before joining Spanner in the kitchen.

“Oi,” Spanner said, nodding towards the cat, “Where did that come from?”

Shoichi stared at him. “It was here when I got back from class yesterday. I assumed it was yours.”

Spanner blinked.

Shoichi rubbed his head.

The cat yawned.

“So…want to keep it?”

“You know,” Spanner said a few days later, during another one of his rare visits home, “We haven’t given you a name yet.”

The tortoiseshell, cozy in the new bed Shoichi had purchased from the pet store, didn’t respond.

"Sen," Spanner decided. "What do you think?"

The cat meowed disapprovingly.

"Doraiba?”

She flicked her tail and turned away from him.

“Fine, we'll wait until Shoichi comes home and see what he thinks.”

Spanner busied himself making a pot of tea (he was British, after all, and already running low on ramune) before starting on his homework. He’d much rather work on Mini Mosca (he was in the process of adding a vacuuming program) but alas his pesky degree required certain grades to graduate, and certain grades required finishing homework.

He was halfway done designing the motor for a wind turbine when Shoichi shuffled in, nose bright red from the cold, and declared that Professor Kominato was many words he could not say in front of children for holding lecture in this weather.

Spanner privately agreed and informed him of the name conundrum.

Analytical as always, Shoichi studied the tortoiseshell carefully. “She looks like a Phoebe.”

The cat made a sound of disgust.

Shoichi laughed. “Okay, that’s a no.”

Not-Phoebe hrrrumped in the way only a cat can and rolled on her back, demanding belly rubs as compensation for the ill-fitting name. Suddenly, Spanner was struck by inspiration.

“Maru.”

The cat meowed indignantly.

Shoichi laughed again and stroked her admittedly round belly. “Sorry Maru, but Spanner’s got a point. For a stray, you’re remarkably well-fed.”

Maru huffed.

Spanner pushed up his goggles and rubbed his eyes. He’d lost track of how many hours he’d spent in the lab, but judging by the piles of lollipop wrappers on his desk, it was a considerable amount of time. Two days and eleven hours, by his estimates.

Which meant that it was about time he went home and fed Maru. Honestly, he should probably just program Mini Mosca to do it at set intervals (a much easier code than most of its functions), but Spanner enjoyed the break. It was strange, because he had never enjoyed stopping in the middle of a project before, often working days on end without sleep, spending more time in the lab than his apartment.

Shoichi constantly scolded him for not taking care of himself. Spanner retorted that Shoichi wasn’t any better, spending literal days glued to his computer in a similar manner, hair disheveled, face unshaved, perfecting his latest project. He had come home far too many times to Shoichi slumped over his keyboard, snoring, while intricate programs ran in the background. At least Spanner always dragged himself to bed (if the little cot in his lab could be called that) before collapsing.

Spanner’s keys clanked when he dropped them on the counter. The sound always sent Maru purring around his legs, as if the sudden affection would make him dole out an extra serving of cat food. No such luck. Spanner had long grown immune to tortoiseshell charms.

Mini Mosca put the kettle on and Spanner quietly thanked him. Shoichi was sleeping over at that Byakuran kid’s again (they had been spending a lot of time together lately), so the apartment felt oddly quiet without the click-clacking of his keyboard or the electronic bzzzzt of a program running.

Maru pawed at his pant leg, reminding Spanner of the all-important dinner. Spanner poured her food into her bowl, and reprimanded her when she stared pleadingly at him when she quickly “finished”.

“Maru, there’s still food in your bowl.”

Maru gazed at him with devastatingly big green eyes.

“Maru, you haven’t even eaten everything yet.”

Maru mrrowed pitifully.

Spanner sighed and pushed away his instant ramen (Mini Mosca’s cooking functions were advancing, but not quickly enough). He reached for the bag of cat food and pretended to pour more in before placing it back in the only locked cabinet in their apartment. Maru, as they found out early on, could somehow get into every nook and cranny of the apartment they hid the food in. Shoichi had come home one day to find her wedged contently in the heating duct, an empty bag of cat food sitting between her paws, and that had been the last straw. He and Spanner spent the next day reinforcing one of the kitchen cabinets with iron deadbolts and a fingerprint recognition system.

Spanner picked up the bowl and moved it slightly to the right, making sure to swirl the container so the food would be in different places. Lo and behold, Maru trotted right up and started eating again. Spanner stroked her fondly.

“You know, this is why we called you Maru.”

Maru, oblivious to the jibe, licked up the last of her meal with satisfaction.

Now that he had a cat, Spanner preferred to work at home when he could. Maru curled up in his lap while he typed away on his computer, and he absentmindedly scratched her behind the ears. Every now and again she’d hop off and sit in front of the fridge, meowing loudly to remind him that they both needed to eat. If that didn’t break his concentration, she’d plant herself firmly on his keyboard and swat his nose with her paw until he stood up.

But sometimes, she would clamber onto Spanner’s keyboard for no apparent reason. Even after he scratched her under the chin, gave her a toy, and tried to coax her away with cat treats, she still refused to budge. Evidently, it had been far too long since she had sat on Spanner’s keyboard, and she was intent on enjoying it.

At first, Spanner tried to reason with her. “Maru, I have a spare keyboard on my dresser. You can sit on that one.” To which Maru blinked once before settling down more.

Next came bribery. “Maru, I’ll buy you a new mouse toy if you get off my keyboard.” He received a bored yawn in reply.

Physical action was his last resort. He gently wrapped his hands around Maru’s ample midsection and hoisted the chubby cat off the keyboard. Maru immediately sank her claws into his sweater and positioned herself on his shoulder. It wasn’t enough to hurt, but it was definitely an indication that she wouldn’t be letting go anytime soon.

Which was somewhat of a problem, given that he had class in fifteen minutes (and hence needed his keyboard to finish up a homework assignment he had put off to work more on Mini Mosca…the cycle of procrastination never ends).

Seeing as negotiating had failed spectacularly in getting Maru off his keyboard, Spanner decided that no college student gave enough of a shit to protest his bringing a cat to class. It certainly wouldn’t be the weirdest thing he’d seen in his electrical engineering lecture.

He bundled up Maru in her little penguin-patterned scarf and hat before sliding into his own jacket; Maru graciously lifted one limb at a time to allow him to put it on. Then, with a quick glance at his watch to check the time, they were off.

3 pm was Spanner and Maru’s favorite time of day, because that was when the mail truck rolled to a stop on the curb of their apartment building and started unloading a conglomerate of packages in every shape and size.

Spanner, predictably, was excited because he finally had whatever part he was missing for his project.

Maru, predictably, was excited because of the box said part came in.

It was a symbiotic relationship, and one in which the mailman was very, very well-greeted.

Maru’s Top Five Spots to Nap, as compiled by Spanner

5. Under the kitchen sink

4. On top of Spanner’s keyboard

3. On top of whatever textbook Spanner is reading

2. In Spanner’s underwear drawer

1. Unknown. Maru disappears for a certain length of time and returns looking refreshed. Further investigation needed.

Like winter, midterms had come and gone, leaving Shoichi and Spanner with free time for the first time in weeks. Icicles dripped from the eaves of their roof, and grass was just beginning to peek through melted patches of snow. They embarked on an impromptu but highly necessary trip to the supermarket, where the two roommates enjoyed each other’s company while buying the store’s entire supply of instant ramen and coffee (the latter was for Shoichi; Spanner preferred ramune, even if it didn’t give him a caffeine rush).

Despite being laden with groceries, the walk home was quick and pleasant, and Spanner scarcely had time to unlock the door before both he and Shoichi were calling for Maru.

Truth be told, they had grown a soft spot for the tortoiseshell and couldn’t resist picking up a new toy or two every time they went to that specific supermarket. Shoichi blamed it on the marketing. “Placing cat toys in the check-out aisle…right as we’re about to leave…and always on sale too…it’s cruel.”

His bank account agreed.

“Maru?” Shoichi called again. Their tortoiseshell, usually so diligent about greeting them whenever they came home for the toys, had mysteriously vanished.

A light mrrrow in response led them to the kitchen.

Maru was perched regally on the table, but upon their entry moved aside to reveal another cat. This one was white and fluffy, but in a way that bore an unfortunate resemblance to the tousled chaos atop Byakuran’s head. Maru mrrrowed again and flicked her tail proudly.

Shoichi looked at Spanner.

Spanner looked at Shoichi.

“So…want to keep it?”

A/N: Do Spanner and Shoichi ever figure out how two cats managed to sneak inside their locked apartment? …nah probs not.

Sen – Wire

Doraiba – Screwdriver

Yes Spanner is a confirmed nerd who would definitely name his cat after tools…

Maru – round or circle, bc pudgy cats are the cutest and the name just sounds super cute so.

This was my first time writing Spanner and Shoichi, so I apologize if they acted ooc! If you have any comments or constructive criticism, I’d love to hear it :3

Thank you for reading and (belated) Merry Christmas/Happy Holidays!

~Tressa

Random Headcanons for this au

Spanner came to Japan for university because of its advanced robotics/engineering programs and coincidentally ended up at the same school as Shoichi. Neither really had any friends going in so they were like hey why not let’s be roomies.

They’re perfect roommates because (before Maru) neither was ever really home—they basically lived in their respective robotics labs and came home only to shower and pick up mail.

They’re both majoring in Engineering, with a specialization in robotics (hopefully that’s a thing). They both find university A Struggle.

Basically Spanner is the definition of a Ravenclaw who is hella smart and could easily get straight As if he actually did his homework on time but would rather work on Mini Mosca/other personal projects.

Spanner and Shoichi both live off instant ramen because neither has the time to make anything better. Since coming to Japan, Spanner has since gotten addicted to ramune because it’s so sweet and fizzy??? Like his lollipops but in liquid form???

Mini Mosca is a side project he’s been working on for the past couple of years. Is basically the same as he is in canon—a mini home assistant—except that he’s not finished yet.

Honestly getting a cat is such a good thing for Spanner bc it makes him actually take care of himself and eat and come home more and she probably actually does help Shoichi with his stomach aches and anxiety too so !!! this has been a psa pls imagine Spanner and Shoichi with cats.

#katekyo hitman reborn #khr #khr spanner #irie shouichi #khr secret santa 2016

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