#im convinced it will explode at any given moment

[perilegs]

i swear if i have to take my car battery out for charging one more time... i will cry

[mlem2460]

FROZEN BUT W OVERTHINKING

kristoff fr frozen 1 but he acts like the trolls that raised him instead of more human like w anna.

imagine the troll song. imagine him singing w them, convinced to get married in seconds, seeing no problem w the ceremony. anna protests. kristoff asks y. she says u cant marry someone u just met. he confused, "aint that what u doin w the prince?" she stutters.

she was raised as an only child n before that as the youngest. she cannot be the most responsible person here. she refuses to be the reasonable or responsible older sibling. shes the younger sister dammit n her older sister should be here to be responsible. in fact, elsa can deal w this. shes the older sister n she has to help solve annas problems cause she reserves her right as the youngest to have her problems solved by her older sibling n she will climb that dam mountain n make her sister do her older sibling duty n fix her love life.

cue elsa "theres an eternal winter??!!?" devolving into a panic attack, cut off by anna 'will punch a mofo, or in this case, slap a bee' moment. elsa boutta explode. anna "forget that! im engaged to a prince i met a couple days ago n a human troll-child a couple hours ago n i dont kno what to do! fix!! this!!!" elsa shocked right out of any panic or rage "...what?"

anna dramatically flops her body onto elsa n elsa panic summons an ice couch. theyre sprawled out; elsa confused n longsuffering regretting being born before the fellow fruit of their parents loins, anna sporadically switching between gushing n complaining bout her problems fr her dual engagements to how hard it was to pose midair for that one painting 'it took years of mastery elsa u wouldnt believe-'. kristoff has gotten the ice golem to make them ice dresses to twirl in. olaf is belting out his solo in front of his background dancers. sven is having an office/aoyama moment by looking directly into the camera. elsa already looks exhausted. the snow stops falling.

"oh n u froze my heart, but i just need true loves kiss, but again dual engagements!! what even right?? and ..." kristoff in the background "lets just all get married!" (the trolls were ready to get hitched to a strager in seconds, u cants tell me they dont have polyamory) olaf "ahem! soloing here!!" elsas quite but heartfelt "y"

annas hair goes back to normal n the snow starts melting outside the castle. she has resigned herself to older siblinghood. there is no love more reluctant or resilient. elsa would now kill for anna if she doesnt strangle anna herself. nows annas complaining about the table manners she had to learn.

"just let me eat the food, oh my gosh. who cares how big my cheeks are, if u just let me open my mouth i'll be able to shew it all! and-" "that's disgusting" *gasp* "how dare u" "what kind of gremlin whats to chew with their mouth open?" background kristoff "gremlins get a bad rep but theres not that bad if u get to kno em!" olaf gettin ignit "interrupt my solo again n i will kick u out of my castle" big golem softly "solo too long" *second lil sibling offended gasp* "excuse u, my solo is just the right length to portray..."

elsa wanted solitude. elsa looks like shes given up on her dream n life in general. golem looks like the most exhausted toddler-created-a-few-hours-ago ever. anna n olaf stiff goin off. sven is now glaring at the camera. its summer outside the castle.

[nine-fingered-entity]

as i head into the final case, the resolve of ryunosuke naruhodo: we are going into the fire. all will be revealed. the horrors unveiled. it's time. answers at any cost.

but first: brain vomit

i spent a lot of time theorizing on who the final defendant would be, only for it to just be the same trial. marginally disappointing but it's probably for the best. not sure if my heart could take more people dying

that being said: Herlock as a defendant (my top contender) would have been interesting. deeply.

the case title worries me. to be fair, everything about the setup here worries me. i suspect it will be unpleasant, if cathartic

i've been thinking this from practically the moment we met, but i strongly believe Stronghart will be the final baddie/final witness. it feels so obvious. almost too obvious. which is why i'm now second-guessing myself. i dont have a backup theory though. so.

i'm not sure i buy Gregson as the Reaper. it makes sense, but i have a nagging doubt. what about Gina? he told us that he was taking Gina to France to protect her. and that could be a lie, but. i don't know.

or actually. hang on. having a thought. He was the Reaper-or involved-and never felt doubt about his involvement until Gina. knows that the Reaper can't act outside of Britain (esp with Shinn dead) and so plans to flee with Gina. this gets him killed by the one in charge of the whole Reaper thing?

i honestly don't know. but there's more to it than what Zieks thinks. than what we all think.

Vigil is either lying to us or not all of his memories have returned. i swear he has Genshin's ring, from the Barok flashback. how would he have it?

on a similar note: the governor of the prison is not telling us everything.

i'm fairly convinced Genshin is not the Professor, at this point. Or at least that there's more going on there. He saved Barok. He wrote some weird papers (which are not the ones we were given, no way), he still doesn't really have a motive. The whole giant dog aspect of the case. The Baskervilles. There's more to this.

terrible thought i had: Dr. John H. Wilson. he was even a professor!

or Stronghart. again. i don't know.

i'm still waiting to see if Van Zieks and Stronghart are related. they have the same crest. it. worries me.

speaking of Van Zieks. god. the scene after the trial where he's his usual terrible self and then Ryunosuke is like "is that any way to talk to your lawyer" and then van Zieks apologized? so satisfying. you tell him, Ryunosuke.

i just like it when Ryunosuke gets a bit snippy. see: every time he called van Zieks his "learned friend" like go off. get him.

also i cannot believe Kazuma kept calling Ryunosuke his 'learned friend' during the trial what is Wrong With Him.

i miss my sword. obs it is good that Kazuma is alive and gets his sword back, but i miss the sword. its so fun.

at least Kazuma finally talked to Ryunosuke. like. way later that he could have but at least he did. thank you. i appreciate someone being honest with me. its so rare.

okay. Iris' dad possibilities time:

Mikotoba: unlikely. its possible, but it feels unlikely. gut instinct. i want to not be disappointed in him.

Dr. John H. Wilson: it could still be him, but i doubt it. he apparently didn't seem to have a family?

Herlock: plausible. unfort. will explode him with my mind if so. could not fathom a reason why he'd lie to Iris if so. although im sure one would exist

one of the nobles (Klint) killed by the Professor: spitballing. the og hound of the baskervilles had something to do with killing heirs. i don't know. concerned.

Gregson. highly unlikely but also. i don't know.

Mycroft: my crack theory. we dont even know if there Is a Mycroft.

i have more thoughts (incoherent yelling) but idk

if herlock does not have a good explanation for everything i will flip my lid. kazuma. iris wilson. the professor. the baskervilles. why was he even on the SS Burya? he has much to answer for.

[spacecruiser-z]

Hate my father I hate him I hate him he's such an elitist fucking pig who spouts nothing but nonsense and then proceeds to be the biggest fucking hypocrite. I've had a fucking lump on my face for 6 months that only gotten bigger, redder, and now it's getting soft and more painful and Everytime I get to mention it he's suddenly a medical professional who's got all the knowledge of every doctor who's ever lived thanks to being a druggie who listens to Pink Floyd and reads the Bible I hate him I hate him I hope he shit himself in public and gets impaled by a tree doing one of his epic merging maneuvers to get INTO TRAFFIC FASTER THAN ANYONE ELSE I HATE HIM I HATE HIM I JUST WAS TO BE FREE BUT I CAN NEVER BE FREE CAUSE I WAS NEVER TAUGHT HOW TO ADULT I WAS ONLY EVER TAUGHT HOW TO BE DEPENDANT I CANT GET A JOB I CANT EVEN FIGURE OUT GOVERNMENT AID I COULDNT EVEN GET MY HIGHSCHOOL DIPLOMA MY ADHD IS GOING TO MAKE ME KILL MYSELF AND THATS ONLY IF MY ANXIETY DOESNT DO ME IN FIRST WITH A HEART ATTACK OVER THE WATER BOILER IN MY HOUSE MAKING TOTALLY NORMAL NOISES BUT IM CONVINCED TGAT MY HOUSE IS GOING TO EXPLODE AT ANY GIVEN MOMENT I LIVE IN FEAR AND ANXIETY AND THERES NO WAY IM SPEED DATING FOR A THERAPIST CAUSE THAT SHIT IS EXPENSIVE AND WHATEVER HEALTH INSURANCE I MAY OR MAY NOT HAVE UNDER MY MOTHER IS BASICALLY USELESS

That's my rant for the year I don't even care anymore I just want to go to sleep and never wake up. No one takes any of my concerns or emotional wellbeing seriously but I'm supposed to play my father's mind games and be my boyfriends emotional dumping ground I'm at my limit I want to die I want to die I want to kill myself this is just like middle school all over again I want to die I want to die but if I tell someone I'll draw too much attention if I cry out for help I'll be told it's nothing and that I'm overreacting I want to just end my life but the only things keeping me on this earth are my cats and my boyfriend and my stupid fucking Genshin Account which I've spent over 5000 hours on

Can't have a rant without a rant pt 2 I guess, I'm gonna go to sleep.

[faenights]

am going to rant about the uk mh services because i am angry about it always and forever and am having one of those adhd moments where i feel like i'll explode if i don't put it somewhere! It is under the cut dw <3 TL:DR I cannot begin to express how angry I am that the government tries to claim they care about trans people when the mh services are,, like this.

re: my last reblogged post... i am so genuinly concerned about the state of politics and the fact that the only thing that seems to remotely imply that the government cares about mh services is actually just people using it as an excuse to be transphobic.

There's little point in trying to break down whatever it is that they're saying atm but one of the main points (which we've seen in america a lot as well!!) is the what about the children?? question which makes me more angry than i care to articulate. Because, quite CLEARLY, none of this: making two gendered toilets manditory, making it difficult if not impossible for trans people to access healthcare, that goddamn report they did?? has anything to do with the children.

now i hope i don't come across as a terf for saything this but,, i do think there is a legitmate concern about the implications of prescribing hormone ultering drugs to children when they're still developing. We know that hormones do a lot to fuck with mh and its not something that should be given to anyone lightly. HOWEVER, if that was the genuine concern with any of this, they are coming at it in entirely the wrong way.

this is partially one of the reasons puberty blockers are prescribed for younger trans people. as far as we are aware, it doesn't have anywhere near the mh implications that changing their puberty entirely can and it has the added benefit for not forcing someone to go through a puberty that they have quite clearly expressed will be very distressing. puberty is a shitty thing to go through anyway, mh is especally volatile when hormones are involved. this is shown by,, literally every teenager ever. but you know whats also a great fucking example of this?? birth control!! which is something that many doctors are very happy to prescribe without putting in anywhere near as much thought/education or awareness of the impacts. If they truly gave a shit about the children and ~hormones~, birth control would not be prescribed so easily. but it is, because its not actually about child wellbeing. the same goes for the presciption of mh medications e.g. antidepressants. Below is mostly just me ranting about my shitty doctors. It's not entirely relevent but exlains why im so goddamn angry and convinced that this mh bs people argue is bs.

I, for example, have been taking antidepressants since I was 14. I do not remeber clearly what it was like to not be on them other than the fact that I was Very mentally unwell. I will be the first to say that they have so useful and, I do believe it may have genuinly saved my life at the time. But, I am now 22. I have reached the point where I am at the highest dose of my current antidepressants and I have no idea what I'm supposed to do when they stop working. I didn't care when I was 14 but, I am now old enough to consider the implications of taking antidepressants for so long, especally given that I was so young. No one has ever sat me down and talked to me about the implications of this medication for anything really, let alone the implications it may or may not have had given that my brain was still developing for the majority of the time i've been taking it. infact, the few times i have tried to talk to someone about it the process has been so infuritating i've ended up more distressed than I was to begin with and have just,, given up for the time being. I am not a doctor, and getting in contact with a doctor about it has always been very difficult, but I know antidepressants are not supposed to be a long term solution. they are a band aid that's used with other treatments. when you prescribe antidepressants and do nothing else,, they don't work. and yet,, here I am, a person that has been on this since I was barely a teenager, in a position where I cannot talk to someone about it despite trying to. because, and this is my main point in all this,, THE MH SYSTEM HERE IS FUCKING TERRIBLE.

I am in the wonderful position of living in one of the areas with the worst mh services in the UK so I hope that my expereince is just an especally bad one, but I know that it is likely very common. In fact, I'm lucky that I got prescribed antidepressants at all since most people don't even get that. the only reason I got them in the first place is because I'm lucky enough that my parents could afford for me to see someone privately. I have never managed to get an nhs doctor or wellbeing service to even remotely listen to me in the past 8 years I've been through that system. Unfortunately, in my expereince at least, trying to contact the nhs about my mh issues has lead to,, "come back when you're worse". Even when when I've quite openly said to them that if I get any worse I'm sure if I'll still be alive to come back to them. This has made no difference whatsoever. If i had had to rely on the NHS mental health systems, or the non existant "support" i had from schools (which also knew of my mh issues at the time but did nothing) I truly don't think I would still be alive to write angry tumblr posts about it.

What I mean to say is,, this has been my expereince with pretty "standard" mh issues (anxiety ect). We know that trans peole are a lot more likely to die when not given treatment or any form of support than most other groups of peole. How you can know that and still try and argue that taking away the one thing that might help people and hide behind the excuse that it's because you "care about their wellbeing" is beyond me. and, say Mrs TERF is right, and some kids that say they're trans are actually dealing with other issues that they later realise, the level of harm that is done to them by ignoring them or worse, telling them they don't know about their own feelings or expereinces, is so much worse than the possibility of someone detransitioning. People, especally young people, need to time and space to figure out who they are. denying them that does nothing but hurt them more and lead so many other complications later in life.

If the governement really truly did care about the mh of young people, these implimentaions would be different. They would centre trans people and focus on what trans people say they need. Not random cis women that have decided to speak over them. if they cared about the mh of young people, they'd review whatever the fuck is going on with the mh services in this country and not make trying to ask for help feel like you're fighting a battle with a thousand monsters just to get to the bottom of a mountain. they would change mh services so they actually fucking helped instead of told people to go away or prescribe medications to make someone shut up for a few months. They would give a shit that children keep fucking dying because they are asking for help and no one is helping them.

When the government or the nhs or whatever talks about mh they try and say that there is help out there and you can get better you've just gotta open up! They are 1) ignoring that opening up and speaking to peole about this is an incredibly difficult thing to do in the first place and 2) ignoring that they are seeming to do everything in their power to not help people.

if you read that, I'm very greatful, thank you. and I apologise for all the spelling mistakes.

[offmychest-official]

in a week itll be a year. i should be over it by now i should be over it. when all of this went down i was so ready and willing to accept your judgement when you passed it, so used to being the one in the wrong, the abandoned. but everything you said was in the vaguest terms. i couldnt figure out what i did, and my lack of memories didnt help. you didnt tell me what i did. you made me disappear. i cut myself down as small as possible so i would never cross your mind, never show up in your life again. you did not afford me the same sensibility. i spent the better part of a year terrified of social situations cos i didnt know what i did wrong, didn't know what to stop doing, didn't know what signs to look for or what thinking to change. i spent the better part of a year seeing people do unimaginably worse than what i felt i did + still loved + still cared for + still helped, though i can't be sure, cos i dont remember. maybe i did do something even worse? maybe i am the monster? after all, i'm "sickening". im "fucked in the head and stupid for it". i spent the better part of a year walking into narratives about second chances + forgiveness, completely + utterly convinced i was too monstrous to be given the grace of either. but the more i try to grasp at the memories i do have + the memories of what you said. hypocrite. you all called me a hypocrite. you called me a hypocrite for not communicating. all i can remember is trying my best to communicate. trying my best to clear things up. actually going to people with my misconceptions was a huge fucking step for me, + every time i was wrong i apologized. but you. you never came to me. you never came to me with a single thing, not even once. you never said anything i did hurt you. i kept asking, if i do something wrong you'll tell me right? you'll tell me? you always went of course i would. you never did. i had to find out after the fact that you didn't. that you kept lying and lying and lying and lying. i remember clearly, a diamond of an intact memory, asking you, "you'll be honest with me, right?" you responding "of course i'll be honest." you lied and lied and lied and lied to me. you were, in fact, hurt, by things i did or said, + just never brought it up to me. ever. that you held grudges for two years before exploding on me that day when i couldn't communicate anything cos id been raped and was on benzos barely comprehending it or anything happening to me. that day i didnt kill myself cos i stepped back and thought, wait, i want to keep talking to these people more than i want to die - these people who threw me to the wolves the moment i tried to come back to their doorstep, looking for any kind of comfort from the delusion, from the relentless abuse. now i hear youre saying how you 'survived' me. youre telling everyone how terrible i was. you keep going on and on about how youre such a good friend, a good person, compassionate. i remember how i suffered while you watched uncaring. how never once did you ever message me at all without prompting, never once asked me if i was ok, never once asked about my day or why i was acting a certain way, never once asked for clarification if you misunderstood, just held a grudge. sure, you mightve asked me if i was okay once, when id gotten to the point where i could not function + was experiencing category errors + acting erratic, but the moment i deflected - wounded, finding it hard to trust, convinced you'd already made it clear earlier you didn't care - its out of your hands, can't be helped! you never once lifted a finger to help, while i was always trying to help you + see if you were alright, you hypocritical fuck and you're crying about how youre so loyal and hold onto things so hard when i know for a fact i held onto my rapist harder than you held on to me. you were all too eager to let me go! just like my rapist told me you would be. you're a fair weather friend and you don't even fucking know it

the family i come from is a toxic, caustic cesspool. i know that. i knew that. maybe i didn't realize what seemed level headed to me came off as aggressive + lashing out to other people. but you could have told me. you could have acted like a human. you could have acted like EYE was a human. but no, its so much easier to shoot the bleeding dog when it shows up on your doorstep and call it a wolf to your friends, isn't it? after all, beaten dogs don't get loving homes. they get put down. they're a danger! i want to be over this. but it hurts it hurts it hurts every time it comes back into my head i feelfeverish i feel nauseous and faint head going in circles. i am being skinned to the bone while alive i am being vivisected. i will never know what i did wrong and you will never know what happened with me. we have to live like this. closure is a myth people tell themselves exists to feel better.

.

[unlimitedhorsepower]

my thoughts on t&b2 cour2 summarized ngl

huge massive spoilers under the cut:

(following is half copied from me telling this to people who dont know t&b lore)

im genuinely inconsolable over yuri and what happened to him.

its not even that he could or should be saved but he truly deserved something better. killing people... who cares... on-screen his murders have notably included a serial rapist for example which isnt said ig but it was a guy who only kills women he picks up at a club etc...

killing your abusive father and then going on to kill murderers and serial killers isnt a crime he had to pay for with his own life jesus christ. he was a victim in that. and i dont care hes killed people they had it coming and deserved to fucking explode.

and he dies so miserable and alone. and the truth about mr.legend didnt even come out. i guess it might, but it wasnt shown on-screen and i dont care. he never lived to see it. i cant believe it im actually just bawling.

his last scenes gratuitously consisted of his body being controlled by someone else, and before that happened his mother was shot to death. and he hallucinated his shit dad and the hallucination was like i can never be forgiven but youve followed your own sense of justice. goodbye.

yuri begged for the hallucination to not to leave him but even a hallucination of his shit dad couldnt stay to make him feel marginally better because he just didnt want to be alone.

so, alone and miserable, he bawled on the floor on top of the bloodstain where his mother was shot by the criminals who broke into his house.

and he told about his past to kotetsu&barnaby and kotetsu even himself acknowledged he said things yuri probably didnt want to hear. AND YEAH he was kind of a huge fucking dick i dont care what you had to say about mr.legend (he didnt defend him and condemned him but he was like ill definitely never be like him etc)

then in the end yuri stood alone, bleeding to death, after having given the rest of his strength to protect the protags of course, and they half-heartedly tried to convince him to come down from there. but the narrative had no kindness left for yuri whatsoever, only a dramatic moment of him breaking his mask while blood pooled around him.

so he just said hes following his own code of justice, and he earlier acknowledged its not the voice of thanatos he follows but his own voice. and then he pressed his hand on his chest and set himself on fire and jumped down.literally it was worse than if he had just died.

he burnt himself to death and literally enacted my metaphors about him being born from ashes (awful childhood, killing his father with fire) and returning to ashes once he has burned himself up. but it was literal.

and since his mother died... and only kotetsu and barnaby know his story... its so incredibly cruel and callous. he literally disappeared, like his life didnt matter, and he didnt even leave a body behind. mr.legend still has all those mythos around him, and what yuri got was to be a footnote in the line of judicial officials of sternbild and vigilantes killed in action.

im actually devastated. he never got a single piece of happiness.

one of his last interactions as yuri was kotetsu telling him that he will never become like mr.legend because he has a partner like barnaby.

how i understand his last actions is that yuri accepted hes fully alone, and will be alone, forever. he has nobody to support him like kotetsu has, and will never have it, hes too broken, too far gone.

and so, he had to die because there was no saving him. he killed himself for that, because he had no hope left. he thought he could never be forgiven, like his father could never be forgiven, but what yuri ever did was never in any way equal to being evil. to have him equated to anything mr.legend did (within the narrative) is unimaginably horrifying.

im like genuinely just crying i WISH i was joking saying that but im not. im trying to make it into a joke but i cant im just genuinely devastated.

like i know any depth i made up for ryan in my mind is my bad because i think about him way too hard but i was a little disappointed in his actions but thats whatever, my expectations were high since hes my favourite, right?

it wasnt even that bad, im just disappointed he mostly got to interact with karina which i really enjoy as well they have a funny dynamic, but i like him so im like oh! theres sooo much more to him hehe. but again, whatever, hes out there, i can imagine him doing whatever i want. he didnt contradict anything i think of him either.

but yuri... ohhh.... taking this very personally actually. i cant believe the narrative didnt give him any mercy. it was a choice they made, to have him burn up like that.

like have i somehow thought of yuri petrov way too hard?... im just devastated. he was a sympathetic character, i never have ever considered for a single moment he could DIE. and in that sort of way?

did i somehow misinterpret the entire scenario? i dont even know what i couldve misunderstood to make this better in my mind. he didnt die?.. he just uhm... went bungee jumping

like the rest of the cour i liked, there were a lot of fun parts. but i just...this is something i cant get over. it felt so incredibly cruel to him, because to me he has always been the victim.

and i thought... i dont know... that he deserved better. that he deserved to feel happiness, not die feeling thoroughly miserable and alone. i cant even reasonably focus on the parts with ryan even if hes my favourite character. i wish he had died too, for equality, idfc.

i wish LL audun had smashed his head like an egg and this was the last shot i saw of him.

everyone else can “die” and then be fine i guess uh maybe ill just choose to believe yuri somehow is fine despite losing all of his blood and burning up and falling from a great height then thats my choice. they didnt show me anything that contradicts it.

which also just reminds me nobody even remembered him after his death. i thought the last shot would have him with “true heroes” and ill be honest i was crying incredibly hard thinking about yuri but i didnt see any indication he was remembered by anyone in any way.

again, this is a deliberate choice taken by the narrative and just remains so heartless.

does anyone else agree or have some other sort of take on this?! was i simply distracted by the huge amounts of yuri petrov lore i made up in my mind so that i misunderstood half of the season and also didnt see a huge memorial set up for him or something at least.

?????

cant even enjoy anything else in the cour because of how much this bothers me. i would be glad if i just had hit my head and somehow saw a different series in my mind than what everyone else saw

[emetkoto]

good day mimi do you have any underrated emetkoto moments or little obscure facts you'd like to share? :3

okok im gonna use this opportunity to try and explain that little moment i was having trouble putting into a post bc it was just so small it wasnt working but like. in my head. i have this idea right.

yknow when you find emet-selch in the capital building in the tempest before the amaurot dungeon? i was thinking about how when they get there k'oto calls out to him but instead of using his little nickname for him (just emet) that hes always used he uses his full title for once and emet selch does a little double take and snaps back like "oh, not on a first name basis anymore are we?" or smth along those lines...its such a little thing but its just one of those things that makes go hHOOH every time ithink about it...k'oto trying to show respect in a desperate attempt to get him to listen to reason and just talk to him and emet selch weaponizing it trying to poke and prod and provoke him so they can fight and get it over with before he has to think about it anymore......weehee and by weehee i mean (SOBS)

The first time he calls him with no intention of banging him too is great emet selch tries to go through the motions as usual but k'oto is like 'hey can we just hang out actually' and emets like '?????? you want me to just stay here and do nothing????' and god he has complaints about it but he does it anyway even though he absolutely does not have to and can leave any time :) its almost like he wants to spend time with him or smth smh...he just chills in the corner whole k'oto does whatever, eating dinner, writing in his journal, polishing his weapons etc etc...the whole time huffing and puffing and occasionally complaining but also slowly inching closer and closer without even realizing it and helping him with things like cleaning up dinner and folding his clothes and such...by the end of the night theyre chilling on the sofa together reading a book and neither of them have even realized whats happened...k'oto falls asleep leaning on emet selch and thats when hes like 'ah shit. what the hell. im enjoying myself too much.' and tucks the catboy in before ditching 🥺

in kind of the same vein the first time k'oto wakes up and emet selch is still there cuddling him makes me feel feral to think about just.....ough at that time emet selch had started staying to cuddle after hours but he was always gone by the time k'oto woke up (or at the very least not in bed with him, possibly chilling at the table fully dressed waiting for him to wake up or smth) so waking up in his arms for the first time was just. magical :,) it was the first time he'd gotten to see him sleeping too upto that point he wasnt convinced that emet selch ever DID sleep outside of his 100+ year naps and it surprised him so much the dumbass was like ?! and woke him up like 'youre still here?????' and emet just kinda pulled him back down and was like 'be quiet and enjoy the peace before your friends show up' and so,,,,he did!! they both did....and from then on they always woke up together :,)

they wedding is extremely underrated only bc every time i try to talk about it i feel like im going to blow up and explode everywhere and die it makes me so happy so ive had. a very hard time making posts about it bc its just. so good. so very very very good someday i swear to christ ill finish that essay answer i owe it just makes me feel SO MUCH you get it. you understand me. as we've established you all comprehend my thoughts and feelings

these are just a bunch of jumbled separate thoughts so i might as well embrace that and keep going with it and go off about their pet names now bc i love them...obviously k'otos nickname for him is just. emet without the selch and at first it kind of annoys him like thats a big important title that was given to him and it seemed like the catboy was making a mockery of him but he kinda grows to like it as he gets to know k'oto bc like...yeah nobody ever called him that in his whole life not even apollo or hyth and it was strangely nice...probably my least in character emet selch thing i write for them but i stand by it :) i have more cringe things i could say about that but anyway. emet selch starts out just calling k'oto Hero (derogatory) ofc but as it goes on he throws in some other stuff like 'my dear' (also derogatory at the time) 'my dear hero' etc etc until they actually. yknow. start being together and then those 'dear's become more affectionate and he throws in some other stuff like 'my sweet' 'beloved' etc etc :,) never his name though...not until he drags him to the tempest to marry him and after that he erases his memories of it and doesnt do it again till ultima thule so </3 men will literally call each other 'love' and still run away at the slightest implication that theyre maybe madly in love. how embarrassing for them

[inthedayswhenlandswerefew]

72 Hours In Montreal [Part I]

A/N: Many moons ago, the incomparably lovely @im-an-adult-ish​ pitched a Montreal concert fic idea (jokingly, I think), and quite a few of my followers fell in love with it. They were even kind enough to vote on which Queen member should be the love interest, and there was a clear winner: John! 

I couldn’t get the idea out of my head, and at last, here is the first of three chapters of this new mini-fic. I’m going to tag some of my past readers, but I WILL NOT TAG YOU AGAIN unless you ask me to. Thank you for reading, and I hope you enjoy. 💜

Series Summary: John Deacon is a rock star at a crossroads. Y/N is a world-weary employee at a Yankee Candle shop. They’ll only ever have three short days in Montreal together...or will they??

Chapter Warnings: Language, sexual content (not graphic). 

Word Count: 6.8k.

Other Chapters (And All My Writing) Available: HERE

Taglist: @queen-turtle-boiii​ @bramblesforbreakfast​ @culturefiendtrashqueen​ @imnotvibingveryguccimrstark​ @escabell​ @im-an-adult-ish​ @queenlover05​ @someforeigntragedy​ @imtheinvisiblequeen​ @seven-seas-of-ham-on-rhyee​ @deacyblues​ @tensecondvacation​ @brianssixpence​ @some-major-ishues​ @haileymorelikestupid​ @youngpastafanmug​ @simonedk​ @rhapsodyrecs​ ​​​ @joemazzmatazz​​ @seven-seas-of-ham-on-rhyee​​ @namelesslosers​​ @inthegardensofourminds​​ @sleepretreat​​ @hardyshoe​​​ @sevenseasofcats​​ @jennyggggrrr​​ @madeinheavxn​​ @whatgoeson-itslate​​​ @herewegoagainniall​​ @anotheronewritesthedust1​​ @pomjompish​​ @allauraleigh​​  @bluutac​​ @johndeaconshands​​ 

The obnoxious British men are still laughing. The one with the mustache, suspenders, and illogically tight red leather pants is standing on the tiptoes of his equally red Adidas shoes to paw candles off the top shelf so he can sniff them. The blond one has no less than eight jars balanced precariously in his wiry arms. Journey’s Don’t Stop Believing is billowing through the shop speakers.

“Oh my god, he’s gonna break something,” you moan in a whisper, covering your eyes but peeking through your fingers. Your apron is suddenly too tight around your waist; your cheeks are roaring with blood as you envision the inevitable confrontation: Sir, unfortunately you ruined some of our giant tacky overpriced candles and so now you have to pay for them. So sorry. Paper or plastic? We take Mastercard.

“Who?” Kevin asks. He’s holding a broom in one pudgy, pinkish hand and a dustpan in the other. He has surrendered.

“That one. Suspenders and moustache guy. Red shoes guy. Dorothy without Toto.”

Kevin cracks a smile. “That is frighteningly accurate. He is rather whimsical, isn’t he? Maybe he’ll click his heels and disappear back to London or wherever.”

“We aren’t in Kansas anymore,” you mutter in commiseration. Actually, to be perfectly literal, you’ve never been to Kansas in your life.

“Wait, I think I might have met that guy before somewhere.” Kevin squints with great concentration. “He looks oddly familiar…”

“Hm.” You check your eyeliner wings in your reflection in the cash register screen. From what you can tell, they’re every bit as tragically asymmetrical as you remembered. Spectacular.

“Staring won’t make it better,” Kevin notes, very unhelpfully.

“I know,” you reply, miserable, toying with your bangs so you can hide behind them.

“How does that even happen? The right one is practically a 90-degree angle. The left one looks like you drew it on with a Sharpie.”

You groan. “I’ll try to scrub them off during my break.”

“If you’re not too busy helping me sweep glass off the floor, sure,” Kevin says. “I told you, I took an electrical engineering class as an elective once. I could totally take a look at your bathroom.”

“I thought you said you failed that class.”

“No, I said I got a D in that class. Ds aren’t failing.”

“Well now you’ve convinced me.” You scrutinize your reflection again, frowning. You rent a rather dilapidated one-bedroom apartment above a bakery just a few blocks from the Yankee Candle shop. The apartment always smells like powdered sugar and baking bread, which you like. What you don’t like is everything else about it: the peeling paint, the low water pressure, the windows that you can’t wrestle open, the occasional mice, the shoddy electrical wiring. On any given day, there’s an approximately 27% chance that the bathroom light won’t turn on when you flip the switch. This morning you had been on the losing side of those odds, and with the only mirror in the apartment being the one mounted over the sink—and the overcast November skies outside offering painfully little natural light—you had haphazardly guesstimated your way through your makeup routine before dashing off to work. Your guesstimation skills, apparently, are not all that great.

“If he’s The Wizard of Oz...” Kevin points his broom handle from the snickering moustached man to the gangly, poodle-haired one who has been trying to decide between two candles—Christmas Cookie and Cinnamon Stick—for twelve uninterrupted minutes. He’s wearing a parka spotted with patches: a NASA emblem, a soaring rocket, a smiling green extraterrestrial face, Saturn and its rings. “That guy’s gotta be Star Wars.”

“Or Alien,” you suggest, clutching your chest and pretending to die melodramatically.

Kevin laughs. “2001: A Space Odyssey.”

“Close Encounters of The Third Kind.”

“What about that one?” Kevin nods to the guy who has large blue eyes and bleach-blond, fried tufts of hair sticking out in every direction and a grin that is simultaneously childish and foxlike. Under Pressure comes on the shop speakers, and the British men all start cheering and high-fiving each other, leaving their candles momentarily tucked under their arms or quivering precariously on the edges of wooden display tables. You are entirely mystified. “God, he’s gorgeous.”

“Bye Bye Birdie,” you decide. “Beautiful. Charming. Beloved by all. Perhaps a little dangerous. I can picture teenage girls sobbing themselves to sleep as he gallantly marches off to war.”

“You think he’s gay?” Kevin asks hopefully.

“I don’t think he’s dressed well enough for that.” The blond man is wearing a shapeless, polka-dotted sweater that has ‘NIVEA’ spelled across the front, for reasons that are difficult to fathom.

Kevin sighs, crestfallen. He suffered a nasty breakup with his boyfriend Patrick two weeks ago, and is enthusiastically on the hunt for a rebound to distract him. “You’re probably right. Okay, last but not least.” Kevin aims his broom handle at the fourth and final British stranger. “What shall we call him?”

You consider the man who has wandered away from the others. He’s wearing Levi’s, a black bomber jacket, aviator sunglasses, a mop of unwrangled auburn hair, thoughtful lines that break around the corners of his hidden eyes. He is browsing unhurriedly, perhaps even distractedly, through the fruit-scented candles. He picks up a jar of Macintosh Apple, sniffs a few times, then sets it back down precisely where he found it. He even spins the jar so it’s label-side-facing-outwards again. You warm to him immediately.  

“One of the James Bond movies?” Kevin offers. “He seems…enigmatic somehow. Esoteric. Yet still clearly leading man material.”

“Casablanca,” you say, not tearing your gaze from the stranger. “I can imagine him waving off some old flame on a foggy, night-draped airport runway, breaking hearts with sparse words of wisdom. Can’t you?”

“Oh, that’s exactly right!” Kevin sighs again, dreamily, yearningly. And whether he’s yearning for his ex-boyfriend Patrick or Bye Bye Birdie a.k.a. NIVEA-sweater man or passion or sex or love or maybe just the ineffable high that accompanies the beginnings of things, you couldn’t say.

You peer at your reflection in the cash register screen once again, feeling more self-conscious than ever. “Maybe if I—”

“Freddie!” Star Wars cries, and you whirl just in time to see The Wizard of Oz, whizzing around and giggling and preoccupied with teasing NIVEA-sweater man, stumble into the six-foot-tall tower of Christmas Tree-scented candles and send countless jars crashing to the tile floor.

“I knew it!” you unleash in a rush of misery and exasperation, the biting threat of tears in your eyes and the back of your throat. And of course, it isn’t just about the mess on the floor, it isn’t just about having to tell your manager and hoping to God he doesn’t fire you. It’s about your derelict apartment, it’s about your fucked up eyeliner, it’s about everything that’s happened in the past eighteen months; it’s about the never-ending feelings of helplessness and inertia and predestined ruin, it’s about not being able to get fifteen meters down the street before life throws up another red light, another jagged sinkhole gaping like ravenous jaws. And none of that is these ridiculous British men’s fault; yet still, in that moment the fury you feel towards them is overwhelming.

“Jesus christ,” Kevin mumbles, stepping out from behind the counter to survey the damage, his hands still clutching the broom and dustbin.

“You couldn’t just mosey around and ask which candles are on sale and maybe sniff one or two like a normal person?!” you explode. “You had to come in here acting like goddamn animals and destroy like a third of our inventory?!”

“I’m so sorry,” The Wizard of Oz sputters, looking at you and Kevin with wide, profusely apologetic dark eyes. Star Wars and NIVEA-sweater man are helping him to his feet, albeit with very spirited chidings. Kevin is grudgingly asking if he’s alright. Casablanca is already trying to sort through which candles are broken and putting those that survived aside. And when he casts furtive glances from behind his aviator sunglasses, they’re directed not at Kevin or The Wizard of Oz but at you.

“Freddie, bloody hell,” NIVEA-sweater man laments.

“I’ll pay for them all,” The Wizard of Oz tells you. “I’m so, so, so terribly sorry, you’re absolutely right to be cross with me, and I’ll pay for everything. Here, let me get my wallet…” He digs around in the pockets of his preposterously tight red leather pants.

“Uh…sir…” Kevin begins uncertainly, not wanting to break the bad news.

“It’s going to be hundreds of dollars,” you inform The Wizard of Oz. “Maybe over a thousand. You’re really going to pay that? Or are you just going to wait until we start sweeping up and then sprint out the front door the first chance you get?”

“Hey,” Kevin warns you quietly. He wants you to keep this job probably even more than you do. You are, by his own admission, far and away his favorite coworker.

“No, no, darling, please, let her scold me, I deserve it.” The Wizard of Oz at last locates his wallet. He sashays to the counter, brushing nuggets of glittering glass off his clothes, and counts out two thousand Canadian dollars in hundreds. “Will that do? You can keep the change as compensation for the inconvenience. And we’ll help clean up as well, has anyone got an extra broom?”

As you stare down at the money, shocked into speechlessness, three hulking men dressed in black come barreling into the shop.

“Lord in heaven, Freddie, what happened?!” one asks. He has a thick beard and an Irish accent and closely resembles a grizzly bear.

“I made a complete ass out of myself and am now trying to win the affections of this marvelous creature,” The Wizard of Oz replies, flourishing a hand towards you. “Is it working, dear?”

“Kind of,” you admit, still stunned.

“Oh my god.” The broom tumbles out of Kevin’s grasp and clatters on the floor. He points at The Wizard of Oz. “I know where I’ve seen you before. You…you…you’re Freddie Mercury, right?”

In reply, The Wizard of Oz only flashes an enormous, toothy, dazzling grin.

“Oh my god,” Kevin says again, a starry, awed smile rippling across his round face.

“Please don’t make his ego any bigger,” Star Wars pleads.

“And you’re Brian May!” Kevin replies. “And you’re…” He turns to NIVEA-sweater man, snapping his fingers, trying to remember. “Robbie…no, Ronnie…uh…Ricky…?”

“Roger Taylor.” But it comes out like ‘Rogah Taylah.’ NIVEA-sweater man extends a hand for Kevin to shake, not the least bit offended. “It’s a pleasure. Sorry about the candles.”

“No problem, sir!” Kevin squeaks as he takes Roger’s hand, beaming. The men in black—the band’s security, you’ve gathered—have descended upon the crime scene, confiscated Kevin’s broom and dustbin, and are rapidly clearing glass and chunks of candlewax from the floor and discarding the mess in a trash bin that usually collects only chewed gum and unwanted receipts.

“So I guess I probably shouldn’t have yelled at you,” you tell Freddie Mercury guiltily, all the venom in your voice evaporated. You’re no Queen superfan, true, but everyone knows the words to Bohemian Rhapsody and We Will Rock You and We Are The Champions. And Another One Bites The Dust. And Killer Queen. And Crazy Little Thing Called Love. And Somebody To Love. Your thoughts are suddenly a racing, indecipherable blur. Your knees are boneless. You’ve never met a celebrity before. Well, not unless you count professional hockey players, which you definitely don’t.

“No, you absolutely should have,” Freddie retorts. “I was dreadfully discourteous. I’m positively mortified about it. I should be punished severely. Have you got anything behind the counter to whip me with? A riding crop, perhaps?”

You laugh, shaking your head. “Not that I know of. I’m sorry I called you an animal.”

“I’m sorry about the candles. There, now we’re even. Wait, not quite yet.” He calls over to Kevin: “Darling, how would you and your friend like front row seats at our show tonight?”

The squeal that bursts out of Kevin is not human.

“I’ll take that as a yes,” Freddie Mercury says, very pleased.

“This is really too generous of you,” you protest, although your heart isn’t in it; Kevin might legitimately strangle you if you screw this up, and you’re finding that you want to see Queen in concert too. It’s something to interrupt the powerless, unrelenting monotony; it’s like something that might happen in a movie or a dream.

“Nonsense!” Freddie announces cheerfully. Star Wars and NIVEA-sweater man—or, rather, Brian and Roger—are chatting with the security guys and nodding along as the bearlike Irishman reviews the day’s itinerary.

You peer over at Casablanca. Now that the floor is mostly clear, he’s migrating towards you and Freddie. You glance apprehensively down at your reflection. “Goddammit,” you mutter, manipulating your bangs again, wishing you could disappear. “I meet a rock star for the first time ever and I look like this.”

“It’s not that bad,” Kevin says, obviously lying.

“I like it,” Freddie tells you, propping his elbows on the counter and resting his chin on his knuckles. “It’s very goth raccoon chic.”

“My bathroom light wouldn’t turn on this morning and I was late for work and I guesstimated and that was clearly a poor decision.” Poor decisions are my expertise, you think instinctively, and feel a tug of something you don’t quite have the words for. Shame, grief, disappointment, a raw sting like a flame beneath your palm, a dread like a child who’s lost their mother’s hand.  

“I’ve offered to take a look at the wiring!” Kevin exclaims. “I told you, a D is passing!”

“Kev, babe,” you reply. “I really, truly appreciate your enthusiasm, but you’ll probably just make it worse. And then my landlord will hate me and keep my security deposit and write me awful references and I’ll have to live in an endless string of ancient, hideous apartments until I die.”

“It’s an electrical problem?” Casablanca asks, pushing his aviator sunglasses up into his unruly hair. His unveiled eyes are a blueish grey—they remind you of one of the candles, maybe Beach Walk or Bahama Breeze—and very direct. He stares at you and you stare back, and at some point you realize that everyone is waiting for you to answer.

“Oh, uh, yeah, I guess so. Sometimes nothing happens when I flip the switch. That’s the extent of my handyman knowledge, unfortunately.”

Casablanca nods. “I could take a look, if you like.”

Not Beach Walk. Not Bahama Breeze. Warm Luxe Cashmere, maybe. “Now that really is too generous. I couldn’t possibly put a rock star to work on my terrible apartment.”

“John’s got a degree in electrical engineering, that’s right in his wheelhouse,” Brian counters.

“Yes,” Roger says, grinning, teasing in a way that has absolutely no malice in it. “He’s more of an engineer than a rock star anyway, isn’t he?”

“Seriously?” Casablanca—John, you mentally correct yourself—doesn’t seem much like an electrical engineer. But Roger’s right: he doesn’t really seem like a rock star, either. What John seems like is steady and abiding and perceptive, attentive, unflinching. He studies you like some people study paintings, like you once studied paintings; not in a passing-by-in-a-crowded-hallway type way but in a patient way, a methodical way, with the quiet that comes from knowing that vision in the frame is older than you will ever be and will still be hanging on that wall when you’re bones in a box somewhere.

Freddie lights a cigarette and puffs on it decadently. Smoking definitely isn’t allowed inside the Yankee Candle shop, but you aren’t about to snap at Freddie Mercury for the second time today. “Oh, let him tinker around in your flat, darling. It’ll make his day.”

“Is it far?” John asks you.

“No, really, Casa…uh, I mean, John, I appreciate the offer more than I could possibly express but I—”

“It’s just a few blocks north,” Kevin says, and tosses you a wily smile.

“How convenient!” Freddie trills. “When does your shift end, dear?”

“Not until 5:30.”

“She can take a long lunch break.” Another smile from Kevin. “Honestly, there’s not much to do around here now that the Great Candle Massacre of 1981 has been remediated.”

“Splendid!” Freddie says, radiant.

You shake your head, very slowly. “This is the weirdest day of my life.”

“Then you clearly haven’t lived enough,” Freddie quips.

“Fred!” Roger presses. “Are we going to the bookstore down the street or not? That was the whole deal, we suffer through your candles, you suffer through our books.”

“You didn’t seem to be suffering,” Brian says.

“Of course I’m suffering. That cashier over there almost murdered me,” Roger slings back.  

Freddie sighs and rolls his large, dark, expressive eyes. “Yes, darling, of course, don’t give yourself an aneurism. We’ll go to the bookstore, John can rendezvous with us later.” Now he turns to you. “We’ll send a car to your flat at 7 to pick you and Kevin up for the show tonight. Don’t let John leave without knowing your address. Wear something deliciously opulent. Lots of sparkle. Maybe furs.”

“I make eight dollars an hour,” you tell him.  

“Or you could just wear nothing.”

“Sparkle and furs it is.”

Freddie chuckles and turns to the men in black. “Chubby, my dear?”

The towering bearlike Irishman replies: “Yeah, I’ll go with John. Don’t wreck anything else while I’m gone. Don’t get yourselves deported before the show. EMI will have your heads on spikes.”

Freddie pretends to be scandalized. “Causing destruction? We would never.” He saunters towards the shop door, jingling the bells as he swings it open, and waves like royalty. “See you tonight, darlings!”

“Bye!” Kevin shouts after him. And then, after Freddie, Roger, Brian, and the two non-bearlike men in black have departed: “Oh my god I just met Freddie Mercury and he’s amazing and he knows I exist and he spoke to me and tonight he’s sending a car to take me to a concert and I’m going to have front row seats and what if he invites me to have a drink afterwards oh my god.”

John, evidently unaffected, prompts you: “So your place is just a few blocks away?”

“Yeah. Just let me get my coat…”

The man in black—Chubby, as Freddie had introduced him—fetches your coat off the rack by the door and holds it up so you can slip inside it. No one has ever done that for you before.

“…Thanks…?” You button your coat, feeling a little like royalty yourself at the moment.

John pulls open the door, the tiny metal bells jangling, and gestures out into the streets of downtown Montreal. He’s wearing his aviator sunglasses again; the November wind gusts through his hair. You catch threadbare ghosts of cigarette smoke and cologne that the breeze lifts from his skin like pages of a book. And he smiles, just barely. “After you.”

You walk north together along the path of the sidewalk with your hands in your pockets, your breath fog in the cold, weaving through the bustling crowds of tourists and holiday shoppers, Chubby trailing not far behind and displaying his talent for keeping watch while not letting on that he is. To even your own horror, you can’t seem to shut up.

“John, this is so kind of you, this is completely unnecessary, you really shouldn’t feel like you owe me anything because Freddie already paid for the candles twice over and I was totally unprofessional for yelling at customers, even annoying customers, and Kevin and I are already getting a free concert tonight and so—”

“Okay,” John says firmly. “You have to talk about something else now.”

“I can’t talk about anything else. All I can think about is how ridiculous this is.”

“Have you lived in Montreal long?��� he asks, very casually, as if you’re strangers in line next to each other at Starbucks.

“My whole life.” Minus a little over three years, but you don’t need to get into that. “My parents live over in Verdun, right on the St. Lawrence River.

“Sounds scenic.”

“It certainly is.” You’re trying not to look at John, because every time you do it’s hard to stop. You look at the cars rolling by instead. “This is super embarrassing, and I don’t mean to offend you, but what exactly do you do in Queen?”

He’s not offended; he thinks it’s hilarious. “I’m the bassist.”

“Oh, that makes sense.”

“Does it?”

“Yeah, bassists are quiet and reliable or whatever. Bassists don’t terrorize Yankee Candle employees.”

“You’re not a Queen fan?”

“I’m a casual and appreciative listener, but I wouldn’t call myself a fan. I couldn’t pick any of you out of a lineup, clearly. Roger is the drummer, right?”

“Is it that obvious?”

“Drummers are feral, almost universally. Which means Brian must be lead guitar.”

“And what do you think of lead guitarists?”

“Word on the street is that they are brilliant yet micromanaging egomaniacs, but I don’t want to bash your friend or anything.”

John chuckles, like there’s some joke you aren’t in on yet. “No, please, bash away. So you prefer bassists.”

And finally you do look at him, and you regret it immediately; because now you’re caught in the thoughtful crinkles around his eyes and the barely-there stubble of his cheeks and the playful curve of his lips and how the wind ruffles his auburn hair the same way it steals leaves off of slumbering trees. You almost walk right past the bakery. “Oh, wait, we’re here.”

You lead John and Chubby upstairs to your chronically irritating apartment. John removes his sunglasses, inspects your bathroom light switch, then asks if you have a specific kind of screwdriver. You bring him the toolkit that has lived beneath the kitchen sink since before you moved in and he roots around, finds what he’s searching for, and unfastens the light switch plate from the wall.

“Please don’t electrocute yourself,” you fret, as Chubby meanders around in the living room and tries not to intrude. “If you die your groupies will never forgive me.”

“Who says I’ve got groupies?” John replies, amused.

“I just assumed all rock stars do.” Your eyes flick down to his hands as he fidgets with the wiring; and you notice randomly—or, maybe, not all that randomly—that he’s not wearing a ring. You’re still ruminating over that when he returns the light switch plate to the wall, secures each of the four screws with a few deft twists of his wrist, and performs a test flip. The light turns on immediately.

“Mission accomplished,” John says mildly.

“What?! No, no way, no freaking way.” You flip the switch again. The light turns off and on obediently. You try it at least five more times. Perfection. “…How?!”

“Just a few loose wires. No great hardship.” He tucks the screwdriver back into the toolkit.  

You gape at him. “That took you…like…two minutes.”

“Aren’t you glad my band wandered into your candle shop and almost demolished the place today?” He rests his hands on his waist; his sturdy, skillful, ringless hands. “Anything else I can fix for you?”

“Definitely not.”

“You sure?”

“Yeah.”

He stares at you. You stare back.

“Stop looking at my fucked up eyeliner.”

John laughs. It’s a delightfully clear, disarming sound. “That’s not what I was doing.”  

“I should fix my makeup and go back to work now. And you should probably go help your friends burn down the bookstore or blow up a Starbucks or do whatever else is on your agenda for today.”

“Soundcheck and dinner, actually,” John says. He slides the toolkit back beneath your kitchen sink, meets Chubby by the front door, and pauses there to give you one last lingering, laden gaze. “I’ll see you tonight.”

“In my best furs,” you purr in your most convincing Freddie Mercury impression.

“Or nothing at all,” John suggests levelly. And then he’s gone.

~~~~~~~~~~

It turns out better than you thought it would. Your tan, knee-high suede boots are celebratory without being too uncomfortable. Kevin brings you a faux fur jacket that he stole from Patrick during the breakup. You find a glittery black dress in the back of your closet that you once loved, then couldn’t stand to look at, then forgot existed entirely; but tonight it’s like you’re seeing it with brand new eyes. It fits even better than you remember. In the mirror, you look like a stranger and a hauntingly familiar acquaintance and yourself all at once.

Chubby arrives in a black limousine at precisely 7pm, parks along the curb next to the bakery, and honks the horn twice. You and Kevin dash down the narrow steps and climb into the backseat, finding complimentary cigarettes and bottled water and chilled champagne. As the limo rolls though Montreal under changing traffic lights, Kevin prattles on about the band, their history, their albums, their tours…and John in particular. He tries to tempt you. You resist valiantly…for the first fifteen minutes, anyway.

Finally, you sigh in capitulation. “Okay. Fine. I get it. What do you know about him?”

“I know he’s divorced,” Kevin says, wiggling his eyebrows. “I saw it on the cover of a tabloid a while back. Very contentious, spicy stuff. He’s got like eight kids.”

“He does not have eight kids!”

“Okay, maybe not eight. But he has a lot,” Kevin insists.

You rearrange your hair with deliberate flippantness. “What do I care if he’s divorced?”

Kevin grins. “You know why you care.”

“Stop,” you plead.

“Look, all I’m saying is that he definitely likes you. And you like him. And I haven’t seen you like anybody, ever, in the…wait, let me count…the nine whole months that I’ve known you. When was the last time you even had a boyfriend? When was the last time you got laid? Oh my god, it hasn’t been nine months, has it?! That’s way too long to go without sex. No wonder you’re so serious all the time. It all makes sense now. You poor thing. You’re in dick withdrawal.”

“Assuming that’s my problem—which it isn’t, by the way—if I wanted to get laid there are far easier ways to accomplish that.”

“Sure,” Kevin says. “But you don’t want just any dick. You want British bassist dick. John Deacon dick. Casablanca dick.”

“This friendship is terminated.”

Kevin cackles, pouring himself a glass of champagne that bubbles over the top and spills onto the limo floor. “I’m really glad you’re here with me. I’m glad we can do this together.”

You fill a champagne flute with bottled water and clink your glass against his, smiling. The limo is turning into the parking lot of the Montreal Forum. “Me too.”

~~~~~~~~~~

The backstage room that Chubby escorts you and Kevin to after the show is full of chatter and heavy smoke and roadies and fans and musicians and journalists, trays of hors d'oeuvres, wine and Stella Artois and vodka and tequila and rum, the electric promise of things that will go unmentioned in the morning. There are stacks of stereo speakers in the corner rumbling out Another One Bites The Dust. You and Kevin camp out on a green velvet couch—making small talk with each other to avoid making it with anyone else—until the band arrives.

John is still wearing his concert outfit: blue pants, blue shirt, a black leather jacket that gives him an edge like a knife. He passes out a few polite nods; but Freddie and Roger are undeniably the suns in this room, and the guests their planets. Freddie is soon surrounded by a constellation of followers and whisks Kevin away with him. John, meanwhile, comes straight to where you’re sitting on the couch and stands in front of you with his messy hair and his veil of cologne and his mystery-candle-blue eyes.

“Can I get you anything?” he asks in that calm, measured way that you’ve learned he has. “Rum and Coke? Moscow Mule? Hurricane? I’ve been on a mojito kick recently.”

“I don’t drink.” And you wait for the inevitable awkwardness that usually follows that sentence, when he says why? or seriously? or maybe just oh in wilted disappointment.

Instead, what John says is this: “No problem. Rum minus the Coke?”

You smile up at him. You can’t help yourself. “That would be perfect.”

There are innumerable drinks already poured on a table, dark carbonated liquid trembling in red plastic cups as the bass from the stereo speakers quakes through the crowded, droning, smoke-hazed room. John moves from cup to cup, taking tentative sips before shaking his head and putting them back down on the table. After each attempt, he casts you a rueful smirk before continuing on to the next cup. At last, he finds two unadulterated Cokes and brings them to the couch: one for you, and one for him. He sits beside you with one of his legs crossed over the other, a lit cigarette in his right hand, a red plastic cup of Coke in his left, and his eyes on you in a way that isn’t hungry or arrogant or restless but merely, benignly contemplative. You find yourself thinking of paintings in museums again, you even start to feel a little like one; and you wonder what colors he sees in you, what types of brushstrokes, what signatures scribbled in the corners of the canvas, what shadows painstakingly penciled in to mimic the angles of the sun.

You tell John about growing up in Montreal, about autumn strolls along the St. Lawrence River, about snowfalls and Mont-Royal and Chinatown and the Notre-Dame Basilica, about the exhilarating turmoil of the Summer Olympics in 1976. You tell him about how Kevin is in his last year at Concordia University and works part-time at the Yankee Candle shop for money to invest in his hair gel and travel fund. You tell him so many things he doesn’t notice all the parts you leave out. In return, John tells you about himself; not about John Deacon the bassist of Queen, but about the understated man who likes cars and electronics and the Beatles and tea in the evenings beside a roaring fireplace. And when his arm comes to rest on the back of the green velvet couch, and then across your shoulders, and then around your waist, it doesn’t feel strange at all. You lean into him as you exchange stories and clandestine giggles until you’re nearly in his lap, and that doesn’t feel strange either. And you haven’t had a drop of alcohol—you haven’t in almost a full year, in fact—but you feel a little drunk tonight, because your cheeks are hot and the room is blurry and the world is brimming with a pure, rose-gold, uncomplicated happiness.

The other band members periodically stop by to say hello, clutching their drinks and making stilted pleasantries as you and John smile drowsily up at them, looking nothing like the soberest people in the room. Chubby and the rest of the men in black are simultaneously omnipresent and scarce, which you are beginning to think is a requirement inked into their job description. Kevin, having been fully absorbed into Freddie’s entourage, is beaming and flushed and extremely, blissfully tipsy. And they all watch you and John not with scandalized sideways glances but with warm approval swimming in their gleaming eyes.

“I don’t think I’ve properly thanked you yet,” you tell John when you are alone again. “For improving my dreadful apartment. So thank you. You really didn’t have to do that. I hate that I marred your time in Montreal with unpaid labor.”

He shrugs it off. “I like fixing things. It’s what I’m best at.”

“Besides being an internationally acclaimed rock star, you mean.”

“I’m honestly not so sure I’m cut out for the rock star life.”

“You are, though. I saw you. I watched you all night.”

John just stares at you, and then he leans in even closer, inhaling deeply. You can feel the heat of his breath on your collarbone, your shoulder, your neck; goosebumps spring up across your skin like stars at twilight. “What the hell is that? Perfume? Lotion? Shampoo?”

“It’s probably sugar and baking bread, because I live on top of a bakery.”

“Does Yankee Candle make anything that smells like you?”

You laugh, shaking your head. “They definitely do not.”

“They should,” John murmurs. And with the rough whirlpools of his fingertips he turns your face to his so he can kiss you.

It should be kind of humiliating, right? Making out with some guy you just met on a green couch in front of thirty strangers, your hands getting tangled in each other’s hair, your lips meeting again and again, taunting darts of the tongue and quick painless bites and stifled moans and grasping tugs at clothes that you’re starting to wish weren’t there at all. It should feel embarrassing, you should feel overexposed, here in this land of unfamiliar expectations and accents and faces. But no one seems to be watching too closely. This must be so tame in the world of rock stars, it occurs to you; almost wholesome. And you can’t remember a time you’ve ever felt more at peace.

“There’s a pool table in the next room,” someone says, startling you, and you break away from John to discover Roger perched on the arm of the couch, grinning coyly as he sips his emerald glass bottle of Stella Artois. “I mean…you know. If you’re into that. John’s got all sorts of moves, we played for days at a time at Ridge Farm. You could challenge him to a round or two. Place bets. But be warned…he’s a total pool shark.”

“Is he?” you ask mischievously, clasping the lapel of John’s leather jacket. Even if you freed him, he shows no indication of retreating. He’s raking his knuckles back and forth along the length of your thigh that your little black dress leaves exposed, never venturing above the hem.  

Roger winks. “Just thought you might want to know.” Then he hops off the couch and disappears into the crowd again.

John is trying to keep his eyes locked on yours, and no lower. He’s trying to not be even vanishingly forceful. He’s trying not to sway you. But you know exactly what he wants. “Do you…?”

“Show me how to play pool,” you whisper. And you lead him through the shuffling bodies and boisterous, increasingly intoxicated laughter and cumulus clouds of cigarette smoke to the door on the other side of the room.

Beyond the threshold you find a pool table and not much else. It’s terribly unceremonious; it’s absolutely perfect. You can hear Blondie’s Call Me playing back in the packed room where the rest of the band is still reveling, the bass crawling through the walls to radiate in your eardrums, your bones. You lock the door and reach out to flick off the harsh florescent lights, but John stops you. You don’t have to ask him why. He wants to be able to see you. He asks if this is okay—again, wordlessly, with the forthright blue of his eyes—and you nod. And then he kisses you as you drag him in, breathing in his cologne and nicotine, tasting the virgin Coke on his lips that he drank just for you.

John tears off his leather jacket. You toss the faux fur that Kevin lent you to the floor. You climb up onto the pool table, and John follows you. You yank off his shirt, link your suede boots around him as he positions himself between your naked, down-soft thighs. And then John stops.

“Look, I have to be honest,” he says. His hands tremble as they cradle the small of your back, just barely. “I’m newly divorced, and I’m really out of practice, I mean really out of practice, and this is not at all my usual way of doing things, and if I’m total rubbish or only last like thirty seconds or something I just want to apologize in advance and swear that I’ll do absolutely everything I can to make this worth it for you. Because I like you. I really, really like you.”

“I’m a little rusty too,” you confess with a small, sheepish smile. But he doesn’t need to know exactly how rusty you are, or in how many ways, all those layers of blood-hued ruin that spin webs from the skin down to the marrow.

John seems relieved. “Then maybe we’re even.”

You’re not even, you’re nowhere close; but it’s comforting that he thinks you could be.

John kisses you again. His hands find the zipper on the back of your dress, and then the tiny metal clasp of your bra, and then the black lace of your panties…and then everything else as well.

~~~~~~~~~~

Afterwards, you return together to the green velvet couch in the next room, not with bashful swiftness but with your hands entwined, your eyes satiated and calm, your clothes unapologetically rumpled. The partying is winding down. The song pouring through the stereo speakers is In The Air Tonight by Phil Collins. And now you and John don’t talk very much at all; you just sit there with fresh cups of Coke, your head resting against his chest, his left arm draped around you, watching the rest of the universe spin on like a carousel as your feet stay rooted to the earth.

“So you’re the smart one,” you say eventually. “You must be, with an electrical engineering degree.”

“You’d be surprised. We’re rather erudite, as far as rock stars go.” He smiles drowsily down at you. “Freddie’s got a degree in graphic art and design. Roger has one in biology. Brian has the better part of a PhD in astrophysics. He might even go back to finish it one day. He probably will, just to be able to lord it over us.”

“Wow,” you reply, distantly, suddenly feeling very small.

“What did you study?” he asks you.

In truth, you never finished college; but you aren’t going to tell John that. “Something useless.”

John is intrigued, and perhaps a little concerned as well. His brow furrows with grooves like lines of fortune in an open palm.

“I wanted to be a painter,” you explain, smirking at the absurdity. “But the world doesn’t need painters anymore. They have pictures and videos that are just as clear as real life. They don’t need my fantasies or interpretations. They have reality.”

“I think we still need painters,” John disagrees, his calloused fingertips tracing lazy circles around your bare shoulder.

“Really?”

“Yeah. For when reality requires improving.”

You let a few moments of silence tick by. And then you put on your faux fur jacket, finish the last of your Coke, stand and find your balance on the low heels of your boots with exhausted, shaky calves.

John jolts upright, somewhat alarmed. “Hey, you don’t have to—”

“This was great, John. This was the best night I’ve had in a long time. So thank you for that. But I have to go home now.”

“Okay.” He studies you, processing. “Okay, okay. I’ll have Chubby drive you.”

“That’s really not necessary, I can get a cab…”

But John has already waved Chubby over, and the massive man appears serendipitously with an impossible degree of stealth. Kevin finds you, staggering, babbling breathlessly about all of his adventures, showing you where Freddie and Roger and Brian signed his chest with a black Sharpie, repeating the same stories on an identical loop every few minutes. As you leave, you offer John a brief parting wave; and he returns it, like a reflection in a mirror, but he’s wearing a pensive frown and eyes dark with thought. Then again, maybe you are too.

Chubby leads you and Kevin outside to the waiting limousine. You slip into the backseat, ply Kevin with bottled water, open the sunroof so moonlight and cold, reviving November air can flood in like a river.

Kevin is coming down now from the high of the champagne and the concert and the carousing with Freddie Mercury. He blinks, soaking you in, really seeing you for the first time in hours. “Wow, you had a good night with Casablanca. You had a really good night.”

“Yeah,” you reply softly, resting your head against the window and watching the stars and streetlights pass by above like seasons. “And it will never happen again.”

[wesimpforxiao]

Inception: Chapter 4

"Tch!"  Your forearm blocked a particularly heavy strike from Childe.  It was sure to be bruised tomorrow, but the pain was so freeing.  Maybe you should be attacking the Fatui more often if fighting made you feel THIS good.

"Don't tell me you're tired already," Childe smirked.  "I haven't even gotten to see you use your vision yet!"

The lanterns lighting the city below vaguely illuminated the mountainside in which the two of you were fighting.  It was the perfect view of both city and sea.  Childe was interested in seeing the fantastic firework show, but the way things were going right now, he was more interested in testing your limits.

"Enough about that already," you growled and thrust your elbow into his side.  The small 'oomph' that he exhaled made you a little too happy.  He's wanted a fight with you ever since he came back that day, and even more so since you reunited.  Who were you to refuse him now?  Sure, you've refused in the past, but the anger and bitterness that came flooding back while you were at the festival needed  relief.  Ajax needed to know how much he hurt you all those years ago, whether you directly told him or not.  

Childe, oblivious to the reason behind your sudden willingness to fight, was more than delighted to fight you.  You must've been pretty desperate to change the subject of your phobia if you chose fighting as the alternative!  That didn't stop him from feeling a little bad for pushing the subject, but the thrill of battle soon overcame the guilt and a new fascination overwhelmed his senses.

He was right.  You are like him, even if it's just when you're angry.  He can hone that: train you into becoming a warrior to be reckoned with.  Childe held no intentions to convince you to join the Fatui, but instead prevent your potential from being wasted.  He'd give you the opportunity to grow from amateur to expert.  If you managed to surprise him in this moment, only archons would know exactly what he thought of you.

The harbinger steadied himself and threw his forearm out in time to block your swing, then countered with one of his own to your gut.  It wasn't often that he trained in hand-to-hand combat, but that didn't make him any less deadly.  He had to pull his punches to prevent from hurting you--though if we're being honest, he completely forgot to do that after the first couple minutes.  It's not like you minded anyway. Childe was also slightly impressed at your strength; your looks were definitely deceiving and it worked to your advantage.  He had underestimated you.

No wonder his men were complaining about the vigilante so much.

He caught your roundhouse kick aimed for his head and threw you off balance.  The grass didn't soften your landing.  The sole of his boot sat square in the middle of your chest as he towered over you.  "Not bad," he praised with a raising of his lips.  "I can see why you chose antagonizing the Fatui as a hobby."  Something flashed in your eyes, but Childe wasn't sure what it was.

Your fist slammed into the side of his knee, knocking him off of you.  As he fell you grabbed his arm so he'd land on his back.  You were the one on top of him now with your knees pinning his shoulders into the grass.  "Do you even remember?"  

Childe blinked, and the bloodlust and thrill that was in his eyes was gone.  Remember?  What are--  You were struggling with something dark; your hands pulled the grass out from besides his head, eyes wavering with the slightest bit of hope swirling in the depths of pain.  Seeing your expression, Childe parted his lips to speak.  "Reed--?"

"Heh, forget it," you sniffed, swiping the bottom of your nose with your thumb and sitting up straighter as you vacantly analyzed the blood that now painted your finger.

BOOM! C-r-a-c-k-l-e....!

The Mingxiao lantern exploded somewhere behind you.  The lights from the explosives cast a prolonged glow that illuminated Childe beneath you, but you were still staring at your hand.  It was hard not to think about that night with your father.  What could you have done to change the outcome?  What could have helped you reach Ajax when he returned a different child?  Based on your fight just now, he's never stopped looking for something to take his anger out on; a cruel contrast to the friendly toy seller demeanor.  Meanwhile, Childe: What would've happened if you had fallen into the Abyss with him?  

The lights were beautiful from Childe's point of view, but not for the common reason; they were blocked out save for the ones peeking out from behind your shoulders and head.  You were backlit with bright colors--reds, blues, greens, yellows and oranges.  Each cast a soft glow to your silhouette.  The thoughtful look on your face while you refused to look his way was enticing, what with the sweat that slowly rolled down your temple and the forming bruises splattering across your arms.  And the bloody nose he gave you--the blood that slowly trickled its way down to your upper lip--sent a pleasurable chill down his spine.  You were a breathtaking mess of art.

He briefly wondered if you thought the same of him, but you never glanced down even after the lights of the lantern had faded.

...................

A few miles westward, at the base of Mount Tianheng. Ten minutes before the release of the Mingxiao lantern.

"Alright boys," a dark figure emerged from the shadows of the mountain and scanned the crowd of twenty-plus men all dressed in black robes.  The gruff voice that erupted from the man was enough to silence the hushed whispers between comrades in arms.  "Our scouts confirm the whereabouts of the target in the Northland Bank.  Security is minimal as expected.  Our primary objective is to retrieve those documents.  Understood?"

Silent nods all around.  Not one uttered a word, their obedience absolute.  This was the man that compensated them fairly compared to Her Majesty the Tsaritsa.  Injustices laid out against them by their superiors in the Liyue division of the Fatui will be paid in due time. Now that there were enough committed to the cause, the master's plan will be put into action.

"The Fatui will fall," he bellowed.

"The Fatui will fall! The Fatui will fall! The Fatui will fall!"  The servicemen dispersed as quickly as they heeded his words, shouts of determination fading into murmurs then silence.

"Charlie," the leader gestured towards his right-hand man.  "A word."

"Yes, sir?"  The brunette's wolf-like ears perked up at the voice of his master.  It wasn't unusual that he was given a separate mission during times like this, so he prepared himself with a jaw clenched in anticipation.

"Though I doubt any of them would be caught in this operation by either party, I am not risking you for...obvious reasons.  I have a separate matter to discuss with you."  Eyes like a snake's watched Charlie with both thoughtfulness and pride.  Charlie was by far the most trustworthy, being one of the few recruits that were in this group the longest.  He's succeeded all expectations, to say the least.  "You've mentioned before about a rogue citizen attacking the Liyue Fatui?"

"Yes, sir."

"Any new information on them?"

"Well," Charlie shifted his weight to his other foot and pulled at the collar of his jacket.  "According to one of the agents, it's a she.  The lack of evidence she leaves during expeditions indicate she's had some time to plot her attacks and escape routes...she's more of a threat to them than those who are joining our ranks--at least on the agent-level.  Master Childe seems rather unconcerned with her."

"I see.  Well, if you're up for a greater challenge, find her.  And when you do, recruit her.  With her skillset, the destruction of the Liyue Division will happen a lot faster."

"Yes, sir."  This challenge wouldn't be easy.  It was unusual for there to be someone like him in the ranks of the Fatui, but perhaps this could be an advantage for finding this vigilante that's been the talk of the Fatui for so long.

....................

Childe had parted ways with you a few minutes ago and decided to check in with the bank before bed.  The city streets were still bustling with partiers and night owls, so he took the shortcut through neighboring alleyways to avoid the foot traffic.  

He still couldn't figure out why you went quiet after sparring.  Wasn't sure if he missed something--a cue, a word, a phrase...what was it?  And why was it bugging him so much?  His chest was tight and palms sweaty, his heart was even racing a bit.  It was unusual for him to be so on-edge.  His worries were rudely interrupted when he reached the stairs that led up to the bank.  

Millelith.

"Why aren't you helping us?! We told you everything we know! We need those documents back!"  Nadia was practically screaming at one of the authorities.  "I told you, those documents are im--" Spotting Childe, she let out a sigh of relief.  "Oh thank Her Majesty--We've been robbed, Master Childe."

"Robbed?"

"Mm, yes.  The safe was broken into, but not a single mora was taken.  The reception desk is in disarray, as is Andrei's office...papers are strewn about this way and that, and the documents Andrei was holding for you are missing."

"...I see."

"And these...these imbeciles aren't helping!  They're saying there's nothing to do but make a report!"

"I understand the situation.  I'll be taking it from here.  Please return to your post, Nadia."

She turned on her heel.  "Yes sir!"

Childe faced the Millelith again now that it was just him and them remaining.  "Any leads?"

"N-No, sir." The taller one, who was seemingly the one in charge of the investigation, held a stern expression as he stared eye-to-eye with the harbinger.  "No witnesses.  Whoever pulled this off did so with help.  The theory is at least five people were involved."

"Five?"  Childe couldn't help but scoff at such a ridiculous idea.  "And there were no witnesses at all? That's not possible."

"Sir--"

"No! You don't understand.  That's impossible.  Our security is too tight for even one person to slip through.  There had to be someone.  Are you sure you crosschecked those who are on duty?"

The guard just shrugged.  He wasn't even interested in hearing what Childe had to say!  Even the other guards that were accompanying him appeared bored and even annoyed that they had to deal with the Fatui.

Seeing this, the harbinger pulled at his hair.  Steady now, he reminded himself, Don't lose your temper here.  "If I may, I'd like to speak with your leading supervisor."

"You're lookin' at him," the lead guard answered with an arrogant smirk that pissed Childe off even more.

"Tch--Whoever's in charge of you."

"Sorry, but he's off-duty at the moment.  You can speak with him at the civil affairs tomorrow evening."

"Right."  Childe grit his teeth and took an extra deep breath to calm himself.  Of course, it didn't work.  Damn them!  If I could have it my way, they'd be lying in a pool of their own blood right here and now for their audacity to ignore a crime against us--We fund them, for crying out loud! Perhaps I should send for the Tsaritsa's wisdom-- If it weren't for Lady Signora keeping him in the dark in regards to Morax's gnosis, he wouldn't feel like a dog on a tight leash right now.  The great weapon of war forced to heel for the sake of the cryo archon's image.  Childe made his way for Andrei's office with clenched fists.

Sure enough, it was trashed.  Every document, every book, every folder lay strewn about or trampled on.  Nadia and another agent were busy sorting through and placing each in their respective places; Andrei was out near the docks so it would be awhile before anyone managed to get ahold of him...

Childe knelt at the safe under the desk that sat before the set of double-paned windows.  It was empty.  Every single letter from the Tsaritsa was inside; each detailing next and future steps for the Fatui and Northland Bank; classified documents that updated him of the politics occurring in the Motherland; evidence of...certain matters that would no doubt give the Qixing enough power to ban the presence of Fatui in Liyue.  All of it was gone.

Who'd go to such sophisticated lengths to get their hands on these?  The Qixing abide by the law, so they wouldn't do something so unorthodox.  The Millelith were definitely biased and held grudges against him, so they're not entirely ruled out...What was the suspects' goal?  A smear campaign?  If it is, they got it.  

If he hadn't been away from the office, surely they wouldn't have been so bold as to pull off a bank heist.  But one good thing came out of this:  You definitely weren't involved since you were with him.  Wait...whoever did this must've been watching him.  You could be involved if you had help, but you've never mentioned anyone helping you.  So you and this situation were completely unrelated.  That had to be the case.

Regardless, his every move is being watched.  The only question that remains is, by who?

[commic-jester]

For your prompt spoiler for 129

Okay Cad's Revivy didn't work. Caleb has to use his Transmuter Stone.

why must you hurt me in this way anon /lh

disclaimer!! i don’t know a lot about the transmuter’s stone in terms of critical role so im going strictly off dnd stats!! idk how important it is to the current story!! im sorry if this is a bit ooc!! also kinda channeled my inner matt mercer for this one dksfdjk-

‼️SPOILERS FOR EP 129 HUGE FUCKIN SPOILERS‼️

TW: temporary child death!! please be safe y’all!!!

Last Resort

—

It didn’t work.

It didn’t fucking work.

Caleb watched as Caduceus’s spell faded into nothing, the charred, lifeless body of Luc, a mere child, lying still in Marion’s arms. The red tiefling woman’s face crumpled once more as she covered her mouth with her hand, choking out a sob.

“Caduceus...?” Veth’s voice was small, broken. The adrenaline of the battle had worn off, the mother’s rage at the now dead creature that had killed her son simmering down into small embers instead of a raging flame.

Caduceus himself was horrified. It shook Caleb to his core, to see Caduceus so open with his emotions. The cleric was known to be gentle, supporting, but closed off with his own emotions. Now, though, the firbolg was staring at the lifeless body, his hands beginning to glow with another _Revivify, _until the small hand of Veth reached out to stop him. The cleric was clearly exhausted already.

Caleb looked around frantically. Yeza was broken, sobbing forcefully into his son’s chest. Veth had laid her head on her husband’s shoulders, her shoulders shaking violently but with no noise. Marion was crying as well, gently carding her fingers through the toddler’s hair. Jester was next to Caduceus, who was sat back on his heels, staring blankly at the toddler, tears silently streaming down his face. Jester was whispering small reassurances to the firbolg, who clearly wasn’t having any of it by the way he would gently shake his head.

Caleb shook himself out of it. He had to do something. 

He rummaged through his bag, desperately digging for something, anything—

The transmuter’s stone.

He knew it would shatter after this use, given that it even worked at all. It was a gamble, but as far as he knew it was the only chance they had at the moment. Losing the stone was better than losing Luc.

He shoved his way past Caduceus, who looked up, slightly confused.

Placing the stone on Luc’s chest, Caleb muttered a few arcane words and watched as the stone pulsed with a faint glow.

A beat of silence. Two. Panic began bubbling inside Caleb’s chest. He didn’t necessarily worship any gods, that was more Jester and Caduceus’s areas, but he could have sworn he began subconsciously muttering a quiet prayer.

One more beat of silence, and the stone suddenly exploded in a blinding flash of orange and gold, a shattering sound ringing through the chamber as fragments of the small ringed stone went flying across the molten cavern. 

Everyone in the cavern released a collective breath as Luc drew in a gasping one, coughing violently. Veth and Yeza both dashed forward, wrapping their son in a near crushing hug. 

Caleb fell back onto his heels, not unlike Caduceus. Caleb buried his head in his hands, reminding himself that he had no right to cry. If he had just been stronger, more cautious. If he hadn’t gone fucking unconscious. If he had just dealt with the elementals sooner--

A large hand came to rest on his shoulder, and Caleb looked up to see an exhausted, but gently smiling Caduceus.

“You did good.”

“I did what I had to.”

Caduceus frowned. “Caleb, don’t tell me you’re blaming yourself for this.”

Caleb sighed. “I was weak. If I just killed that fucking elemental sooner. If I hadn’t dragged every one of you into this mess in the first fucking place, he’s a child!”

Caduceus placed both hands on Caleb’s shoulder this time. “Hey, hey. None of this is anyone’s fault, ok?” he said, then chuckled slightly. “Caleb, you, quite literally, can’t fight fire with fire. As for ‘dragging’ all of us into this, I think you should know by now that we would all follow each other to the ninth circle of Hell if it meant one of us was safe. After all the shit we’ve been through? I don’t think anything you could have said would have convinced us otherwise.”

Caleb sighed. “I could have done more.”

Caduceus shrugged. “Maybe. Maybe not. We’ll never know, though, will we? What’s important is that the elementals are dead, Luc is safe, and no one is terribly hurt.” 

Caleb didn’t respond, instead standing up and focusing on setting up the magical dome that would keep them safe, at least for a bit. When they were all rested up, they would get the hell out of here as soon as they could with Jester’s magic.

When Caleb finally got the dome up, he sat inside, looking over as Jester massaged Caduceus’s likely tense shoulders. He smiled gently as the large firbolg practically fell asleep.

He jumped slightly as a tiny hand came to rest on his knee, and he looked down to see little Luc looking up at him with large, innocent eyes that nearly broke Caleb’s heart. 

“You have really cool magic, Uncle Caleb,” The small child said quietly as to not wake any of the people sleeping. Caleb gave sad, small chuckle. He didn’t deserve that nickname. 

“It is pretty cool, isn’t it?” Caleb replied quietly, deciding to indulge him. He snapped once, Frumpkin appearing on Luc’s shoulder. The child laughed and pet the cat as it curled around his shoulders, purring. Caleb looked up to see Yeza and Veth clutching onto each other, smiling sadly at their son playing with the cat. Caleb saw Yeza look up at him, tear stains visible on the halfling man’s face. The man looked at him with a gratitude so strong Caleb almost had to look away. After a few beats Caleb saw Yeza mouth the words “thank you”.

Caleb looked away, not responding. He held back a sniffle of his own, and instead lied down in his own cot away from the rest of the group.

Caleb knew he’d carry that guilt with him for a long time, but for now, Caleb decided he would rest in the small comfort that Luc was safe, none of his friends were hurt (that he knew of -- he had no idea about Fjord, Beau, and Yasha), and the families would be hopefully safe at the Evening Nip in the coming days. With that, he rested, not peacefully, but rested nonetheless. The Mighty Nein had survived possibly their worst challenge yet, and it wasn’t in the form of a dragon or beholder. 

Gods provide they survived the next.

--

reblogs > likes!!

[words-for-holland]

Quarantine Series: Birthday Date Night

Summary: It’s Y/N’s birthday, but Tom faces a slight problem. How does a boyfriend top off an accidental proposal while his girlfriend is working on her birthday...again!

Check the Rest: Burnt Out | A New Look | Secret Cuts & Kisses | Breaking Friendships |The Birthday Week | Movie Night | Silence is Golden?

Masterlist

A/N: Sad to say that Quarantine Series may end real soon with 3 more parts to go 🥺. Also this was inspired by my birthday which just happened fairly recently! Thanks for all the support!!

“Tom, mate. You’re pacing back and forth is making me dizzy.” Harry warned Tom, as he lied down on his bed, laptop in hand.

“Sorry, but I don’t know what to do! Y/N’s birthday is in a few days and I have absolutely no plan.” Tom reasoned as he plops on the couch across from Harry. “I mean I already blew the proposal which was supposed to be her birthday gift, but thats gone to shit.” He mumbled, biting his thumbnail.

“Just be happy she said yes.” Harry chuckled as he recalled the day. “I mean has she given any hints? You know Y/N, if there’s something she really wants, she’ll tell the whole world.”

“I know, but she hasn’t said a word and everytime I do ask her, she says ‘I dont know.’”, Tom groans as he rubs his temples. “I just want to do something really nice for her.”

Harry rolls his eyes as he continues shopping for his gift for Y/N. He and Y/N always loved to share memes and compete in board games, so it was only fair he’d get her an exclusive edition of Exploding Kittens. The one with a hard cover box, that plays mariachi music when you open it up. To be fair, he also really wanted it too, so imagine all the rounds they could play in a single day. “You always say this every year, but ever year you always deliver. I don’t know what you’re so worried about.”

Tom sits still to ponder on his brother thoughts. “Yeah..Yeah I guess. Maybe I could take her out for a picnic lunch date. I know she’ll love to get out of the house. I’ll ask her to take off on Friday and it’ll be perfect!” He plans excitedly. He stands up, proud of his well thought out plan, already thinking of the perfect place to settle, the blankets to bring, and the smooth moves he’ll plan to swoon her away. It was completely foolproof.

Just two days before, Y/N displays a noticeable frown on her face. Sludging through the house, only made Tom drop his smile twice as fast when he noticed. “Hey, darling is everything all right?” He asked with worry written all over his face. Deep down, Tom prayed, hoping it was just something she liked was sold out or that she found out the ending of Hamiliton or something..anything but...

“My boss needs me to work Friday. Apparently they think it’s a great idea to put me as the President in charge of IT while he’s out.” Y/N says in a disappointing tone. “Im sorry, I know you wanted me to take off and I definitely wanted to for my birthday, but I guess it’s not happening.” Y/N’s heart feels heavy as she sees Tom’s equally disappointed face. “I did ask for Monday off, so whatever it is you planned we can do it then!” She mentioned, trying to cheer him up.

Tom let out a sadden sigh. He knew it wasn’t her fault, but of all days? Right when he was about to leave for Berlin in less than 4 days? Right when he and Y/N could spend another birthday together? At this point Tom felt like a hopeless man, as he stood in front of his girlfriend, who showed remorse and sorrow. Her long hair draped over her shoulders, and lips forming into that adorable pout that he could not resist. It almost made him smile, but only a little. “I know, but its not the same! You’re turning 24 and you have to work? Can’t you make some excuse?” He asks coming closer to her, smiling mischieviously.

Y/N’s brows knit together as she cautiously observes Tom’s behavior. She knew that look, that smile, that little bite lip he was pulling. “Oh no. No. No. No.” she says repeatedly, resisting the charm. “Im not gonna make some excuse.”

Tom comes even closer, his face bending down a little to meet her eye level, smiling as he runs the very tips of fingers on her sides. “C’mon darling, break the rules a little. I promise I’ll make it worth your while.” He whispers kissing down her neck. “Please?”

Y/N looks up and away from those deep brown eyes, still resisting. “Tom, you know I can’t, no matter how bad I want to say yes.”

Tom draws a line up to her jawline with the tip of his nose. His breath warm against her soft skin. He hums and smiles, “Is your boss a fan of spiderman? What about his kids? I for sure remember you telling me Zach was a huge fan.”

Y/N laughs as she rolls her eyes, but she found it so endearing. The fact that he even remembered your boss’ kids’ name even though he’s probably caught a glimpse of them once or twice during her zoom meetings. “No. You are most definitely not using your celeb status to get me off from work.”

Tom shrugs his shoulders, as if it weren’t a big deal. He wasn’t one for flaunting his fame, but if it meant he could spend another day with Y/N, he would gladly use it. “Please...” he pleads one more time. “Just wanna spend time with my girl on her special day.”

Y/N thinks about it. She really did want to take off, and Tom’s efforts were quite convincing to say the least. It was only a matter of time before Tom would have to leave for Berlin, and Y/N wanted nothing more than to spend every minute with him. But Y/N also knew that if she didn’t do as she was asked by her company, the higher ups would probably have a bad impression of her or worse...fire her on the spot. Yet she knew her boss was also an understandable and chill guy. It wasn’t like she couldnt take off, just not when he’d be out at the same time, especially when she was asked to be in charge of the entire department.

Then, it hit her. She quickly excused herself out of the room to talk to her boss, and quickly came back to Tom with a smile on her face. Tom loved the way she smiled, and how her one little dimple formed on the right side of her mouth. He knew she was really happy, and he had just an idea of what it was. “You got the day off.” He answered excitedly.

“No.” Y/N responded, “But I did ask for half a day, so I’ll be free after 12.” Y/N continues as she comes closer to Tom, wrapping her hangs around his neck. “Hows that for a compromise? And I’ll do anything you wanna do for the rest of the day.”

“Good because you’re gonna love what I have in store for you.” Tom says, almost ready to brag about his well thought out romantic plan. He was ready to treat her like the queen she was on her birthday. How could anything go wrong?

On that faithful Friday, Tom woke up Y/N to many many birthday kisses. Reciting how beautiful she was, and how he couldn’t wait to celebrate with her. Reluctantly he had to let go, as she padded her way to the bathroom to get ready and head into her makeshift office for the next 5 hours.

Tom was all smiles, excited to take Y/N out. While everything felt like it was going according to plan, his mates had other news. “Ninety percent of thunderstorms?!” Tom exclaimed to his best mates in the kitchen.

“Yeah, it’s gonna be a major storm out there. Probably the worse that London’s had in a while.” Tuwaine informs as he reads the news on his phone.

Tom became a stuttering mess not sure how to justify or ask how that could be possible when it was beautiful this entire week. “But...But...It’s so nice out now!” He says discouraged. “No, this ruins my entire plan.”

“Hey mate, dont be like that. You can still find a way to celebrate it. Maybe you can do something romantic inside?” Harrison offers. Thats when it clicked. Harrison smiles, knowning the answer to Tom’s problem. “Yeah..make a date night here. We can set up the living room to be all fancy like.”

“Yeah! Tuwaine Harrison and I can be your waiters and make your dinner. Then just leave you two alone to do whatever you want you want.” Harry suggests.

“Just please...don’t mess up the couch.” Tuwaine groans, thinking about the potential possibity. “Im getting grossed out just thinking about it.”

Tom looks at his mates, giving thought into the new back up plan. He smiles at the group saying , “Lads, I think we got a new plan.”

Its exactly three in the afternoon when Y/N logs off from her laptop. She looks up at the window to notice how dark and dreary it was outside. Thunder was booming, and rain droplets came down hard, splashing off the window. It was her favorite kind of stay-in weather, but she hoped it didnt interfere with Tom’s plans if they had anything to do with being outside. As she opened the door, Harry and Tuwaine greeted Y/N with their own gifts and hugs. They made sure, she got dressed up, and led her downstairs. “M’Lady, your fiance will be right out.” Harry says in the most posh accent he could muck up.

Y/N rolls her eyes, and the moment she sees Tom walk into the living room, her heart skipped a beat. He dressed up with a bouquet of flowers and balloons in his hand. “Happy birthday, sweetheart.” He says. “You look so beautiful.”

Y/N takes the gifts from his hands, placing them on the table. She runs to Tom, kissing him passionately, savoring the sparks that came and left with every push and pull of their soft lips. “You had plans to go outside for my birthday didn’t you?” She teases.

Tom laughs, as he throws his head back. “Yeah...I was planning a picnic and everything, but thats why I made sure Plan B would just be as romantic.” He takes her hand as they sit down at the candlelit table, eating, drinking , and talking away about anything and everything. When it was sometime Harrison, Harry, and Tuwaine brought out a cake that Y/N had only been fantasizing and drooling about since May.

“No way! How did you guys order it?! I thought they didn’t do international shipping for Milk Bar!” Y/N exclaimed.

“Actually..they didn’t. But the recipe was online and we made it ourselves, with Sam’s help of course.” Harry answered, as he placed the candles in the center.

Her jaw dropped for a good ten minutes as she looked at the rainbow sprinkled cake, and the fluffy white frosting that sit perfectly in-between the layers. The crumbs on top were surprisingly uniformed and formed a perfect circle border, she was very impressed with them. Harrison lit the candles as all the boys sang along...off key of course with hints of laughter coming off every other note. Tom moved to her side, placing his arm around the back of her chair and leaned in to place a soft kiss on the top of her head. “Make a wish darling.”

Y/N looked up to see her favorite people in the entire world, smiling. “I dont need to. Everything I could possibly want is right here.” Y/N quickly blew the candles out and everyone left with their fair share of the cake. It was just Tom and Y/N left. They quickly changed out of their fancy clothes and back into their sleep wear, ending the night with watching Stardust and cuddles in the dark. Y/N tries to look behind her to see Tom’s face, who in turn looked down at her. She smiled at him whispering, “I love you.”

Tom quickly leaned in to capture her lips before answering, “I love you too. Happy Birthday Y/N.”

Taglist:

@hollanddolanfangirl @parkerspillow @joyleenl @kihyunwifes @holland-bowen @in-a-lot-of-fandoms-tbh @marvelobsessedteenager @viwihere

[florenceandthemachine]

in which i still do not know how to answer an ask without publishing it too soon

@maysgrant  asked:

since im in astronaut au mode, what about a soft fic about eddie going stargazing ?

please enjoy this short mess feat soft dad eddie with minimal stargazing bc i can’t stick to a prompt to save my life.

(fun fact—a few years back I applied for a job with nasa and made it past the screening and the exam all the way to the interview round but the interviewer scheduled me in the wrong time zone so I missed the interview completely and cried for two days! anyway I love space very much and love your astronaut au and also love you ok onward)

“What’s that one?”

“Mmmm, that one is… Cassiopeia, the Queen.”

As much as Eddie loved Los Angeles, as much as he loved the city, as much as Eddie loved his life with Chris, and Buck, and the 118, sometimes he longed for El Paso.

Sometimes he longed for clean, dry air, for cool desert rains, but more than anything, he missed looking up and seeing stars when the sun set. He had grown up with the ability to see the Milky Way right outside his bedroom window (or at least, that was how it felt as a kid). Abuela used to tell him about every star, every constellation, every story behind them all, and Eddie had kept that information with him for years.

As great as LA was, it was shitty for stargazing—the city never slept, literally, and when Eddie looked up at the sky he could hardly see more than the Hollywood sign when he wanted to forget everything manmade.

It mocked him.

“What about that one?”

“Ooh, good eye. That’s not a star, that’s a whole planet. You’re looking straight at Jupiter, kid.”

“Wow.”

Yeah, wow.

As usual, Carla was the answer. She had no more than mentioned the word ‘stargazing’ while recounting the road trip her husband had taken for his birthday, and Eddie was all over her, begging politely asking her for more information. Turns out, less than two hours outside of the city, there was one of the best state parks in the country to look up into the sky at night.

Who would have thought?

The fact that it was just as easy to convince Buck to take a night off with him as it was for Eddie to pull Chris out of school the next day said a lot; and while Eddie wasn’t usually one to be super introspective about his relationship, he could tell that it meant just as much for Buck to be included with he and Christopher as it did for Eddie to be able to open himself up to someone outside of their little bubble. 

He had to admit—as excited as he was to share what was such an important part of his childhood (and such a good memory), he was a little worried that Chris wouldn’t feel the same way Eddie did about it. Chris, of course, immediately put that fear to rest—he had immediately dug out one of the beaten old Astronomy books Eddie had given to him, and spent the entire two hour drive 

God, sometimes Eddie forgot just how hungry his kid was to learn. 

“Okay, okay, you see that one buddy? The one that’s moving really fast?”

“Is that a shooting star?”

“No, even cooler—that’s the international space station. There’s astronauts from all over the world up there.”

“Really?!”

Chris’ little hands were flying over the book that Eddie had given him so long ago, easily filling in some of the information the book left out (yes, stars really could explode, no, they didn’t actually twinkle). It might have been a little shallow, but Eddie still loved feeling like he was useful for Chris—the kid who was outlearning him at an alarming pace. He lived for the moments that he got to share; even if he all but promised Chris a telescope for his next birthday, it was more than worth it to see the awed look on his face as he looked up to his dad.

He had all but cocooned himself between Eddie and Buck, claiming the fluffiest pillow for himself, the overstuffed duvet Eddie had spread over them covered in an assortment of snacks. Eddie might have gone a little overboard in the blanket department, but he couldn’t find a reason to think of that as a bad thing—who said their miniature camping excursion had to be uncomfortable? 

(Buck, to his credit, had made it exactly one half hour into stargazing before dozing off in the mountain of blankets Eddie had piled up in the bed of the truck—his head resting on Eddie’s shoulder, Chris resting between the two of them, all but using Buck as a glorified booster seat.

Eddie didn’t mind—the fact that Buck felt safe and comfortable enough to sleep around him made his heart warm in a way he wasn’t sure he was allowed to think about.)

“Do you think I can get my own constellation?”

“You already do, buddy... see, that one, right there. That’s Cepheus—the king of the world!”

Any protests that Chris tried to squeak out were immediately negated by the force of his giggles.

At some point in time during the evening, in between telling Chris all about Andromeda and Leo, about Orion and the Scorpion, Eddie had to admit, he stopped watching the sky and started to watch Chris. For so much of his life, he had felt guilty, like he had to make up for all the time that he had missed when Chris was a baby, but looking back now, he wouldn’t change a thing—even if it did hurt him to admit it. After the tsunami, Eddie had brought Chris and Buck back together the next day, his reasoning simple—it was Chris’ turn to save Buck, just like Buck had done for Chris, but now was one of those moments where he realized that Chris didn’t just save Buck—he had saved Eddie, too. 

‘I miss you all the time.’

Hearing that had done a number on Eddie, but looking back, it was easy to identify that as the lynchpin, the catalyst of change that pushed them across the country, into the 118, that had brought Sharon back into their lives for the end of hers, that had thrown Buck at him before Eddie even knew what was going on. More importantly, it was the moment where Eddie realized that Chris wasn’t just his kid, he was his own person—he existed outside of anything that Eddie could control or maintain, and it was all he could do to hold on as Chris took charge in his own life.

He could barely remember what it felt like, to be so young, and open, and willing to take whatever information the world could give you. It wasn’t always easy to see himself in his kid, but he prayed that Chris never lost that sense of curiosity, of wonder, that he had when he was a kid himself (that all but abandoned him now, taunting him, hovering just out of his reach). 

He couldn’t resist leaning over as Chris looked down at his book, kissing the crown of his son’s head, letting himself breathe for only a moment through the mess of curls as he closed his eyes.

“Where’s the Big Dipper?”

Eddie grinned and hunched down next to Chris’ eye level, mindful of the human body he was using as a seat, his index finger tracing over the familiar cluster of stars.

"See, here’s the head, and body, and legs, and tail... and right between the Big Dipper and Cepheus… that one is the Little Dipper. Big Bear and Little Bear.”

“Just like you and me, huh dad?”

Eddie had to swallow before responding.

“Yeah buddy, just like you and me.”

(”Buck can be Virgo.” Chris decided after a long moment of quiet, nodding sagely as Eddie had to choke down a laugh as to not wake the Virgin himself.)

[loveamongthesailors]

Well, Pathologic 2, you’re One years old! It’s as good a moment as any to reflect upon and shatter the time-lines you’ve drawn out for us. OR; Reading His-Story Against the Grain

i saw this post about pathologics incongruous timeline stuff the other day and i ended up Getting Into It.. this piece draws on stuff from patho classic but its focused on patho 2, especially on a comparison ov the Diurnal and Nocturnal “endings,” and contains spoilers for both games, probably, i guess, on varying levels ov abstraction and explicitness. i/m going to attempt to stand on a street corner and point towards Pathologic’s overall construction/presentation ov “time” as the Now-time, Exploded time, Messianic Time.

from dear daniil dankovsky, on Angels; “An angel is a nightmare. Their purpose is to instill primal, oppressive horror. I think if angels existed, they’d resemble a divine pillar of light---from the heavens to the earth. Devoid of anything remotely human.” We commend this Puppet for his drama but would like to take a slightly different approach. Even awful dreams are good dreams, if you’re doing it right.

 IX

         “A Klee painting named ‘Angelus Novus’ shows an angel looking as though he is about to move away from something he is fixedly contemplating. His eyes are staring, his mouth is open, his wings are spread. This is how one pictures the angel of history. His face is turned toward the past. Where we perceive a chain of events, he sees one single catastrophe which keeps piling wreckage and hurls it in front of his feet. The angel would like to stay, awaken the dead, and make whole what has been smashed. But a storm is blowing in from Paradise; it has got caught in his wings with such a violence that the angel can no longer close them. The storm irresistibly propels him into the future to which his back is turned, while the pile of debris before him grows skyward. This storm is what we call progress.“            

         on the content ov patho and in a real Life context, im also going to be discussing genocide ov Indigenous people, colonial Violence, police brutality, and anti-Black violence in this piece. i’ll also be contextualizing some views on History through the writing ov Walter Benjamin, a German born Jew living in the early 20th century, and friend ov Bertolt Brecht, who you may be familiar with if yr into patho. In 1940, shortly after writing On the Concept of History (referenced here),while fleeing persecution for neutral grounds, he was trapped in catalonia by a franco government cancellation ov travel vistas and,under threat ov repatriation to nazis by the spanish police, commited suicide on the night ov september 26. His theses were passed on by surviving members ov his group who were granted “safe” passage after his suicide, being later taken under the care ov Hannah Arendt and Theodor W. Adorno. His Grave reads -in German and in Catalan, reproduced here in english-

"There is no document of culture which is not at the same time a document of barbarism"

(from section 7 ov On the Concept of History)

    i will also be using sections from baedan, which has been dear to me over the years, on Benjamin’s Concepts. some songs will be dispersed throughout (featuring Laurie Anderson, Owen Pallett, and some good ol tmg), with relevant links beneath. you’ve heard that old Brecht aphorism about dark times, singing, whatever? i’m nearly sick to death ov it. these stories, in addition, will be based on a few things i know Myself. follow the threads as you see fit <3

Because History is Stories...That we half-remember... And most of them never even get written down. And so when they say things like "We're gonna do this by the book," You have to ask "What book?," Because it would make a big difference if it was Dostoyevsky or just, You know... Ivanhoe.

xxx

“Read what was never written,” runs a line in Hofmannsthal. The reader one should think of here is the true historian. ~ Walter Benjamin, omitted notes to the theses on history  

//// //// //// ////

Isidor Burakh: All I wanted was for you to understand, not to follow any particular fate.

...

Isidor Burakh: The Town needs to move forward, but it doesn’t insist. Facing the Future is the the way of Love. Facing the Past is the way of Love. But the two are incompatible, and it broke my heart. //// //// //// ////

      so,,, depending on who you ask within Pathologics narrative, the history ov the Town-on-Gorkhon stretches back to Time Immemorial, constitutes a few hundred years ov settlement, or only goes back about as far as You have been playing the game. You’ll hear conflicting narratives around just about everything in this Town. Simon Kain, hundred something years old, mystic, spiritual founder ov a several hundred year old settlement. an executed general’s vengeful daughter, Artemy and Rubins foggy backstories ov military service, what military?, what war? Who sent in the Military and Inquisition, how can We get at the Powers that Be? looking outside ov the narrative and towards history for these sorts ov questions will give us All and None ov the answers. 

       The Termitary (internment/interment/intermediate/immediate/intermittent)  looms over the Home ov Isidor Burakh, Menkhu and sole Medical Practitioner ov the town(excepting disciples. consider the spread ov knowledge, what different Knowledges are at hand and how they perpetuate...we can see how Isidor himself looms from his grave Quite well!), colleague ov radical intellectuals from the Capital and serving with Simon in tandem with the Mistresses to hold the Town together by force. Everything is Happening at Once.

        Look at What/Who is Moving this Story Forward. Different ruling families will give you again, different Numbers, different Stories. One can’t trust the Numbers, we say! and One can hardly trust the Stories either, mind you. This engenders an approach based on following Patterns, exploring Roots, pulling back the curtain to ascertain the shape ov things, reading the lines so to speak. one Bull or Several bulls? silly question. again, we’re trying to looking beyond the Numbers. consider Time as a Multiplicity. consider Rhythmic and Linear time, Time Stratified, Unending Time, Plague Time and Empty Time, Lived Time and Time un-Lived, if one pleases!

XVII                                                    

           “Historicism rightly culminates in universal history. Materialistic historiography differs from it as to method more clearly than from any other kind. Universal history has no theoretical armature. Its method is additive; it musters a mass of data to fill the homogoneous, empty time. Materialistic historiography, on the other hand, is based on a constructive principle. Thinking involves not only the flow of thoughts, but their arrest as well. Where thinking suddenly stops in a configuration pregnant with tensions, it gives that configuration a shock, by which it crystallizes into a monad. A historical materialist approaches a historical subject only where he encounters it as a monad. In this structure he recognizes the sign of a Messianic cessation of happening, or, put differently, a revolutionary chance in the fight for the oppressed past. He takes cognizance of it in order to blast a specific era out of the homogenous course of history—blasting a specific life out of the era or a specific work out of the lifework. As a result of this method the lifework is preserved in this work and at the same time canceled*; in the lifework, the era; and in the era, the entire course of history. The nourishing fruit of the historically understood contains time as a precious but tasteless seed.”                                                   

*The Hegelian term aufheben in its threefold meaning: to preserve, to elevate, to cancel.

          Everything is happening at once, already, and, for the purposes ov Our story, A plague is on. (why is there a plague on?  in this Specific Case, read: Specimen, there is a plague on because infection serves as a very useful allegorical device. haha. see also dominant theories ov infectivity in russian imperial medicine, policy, and social science) Crisis as Inflammation. Violence and Control intensified along multiple vectors. Mobs, Witch Burnings, The Quarantine, districts carved up and kept under surveillance, the Town Police, Arsonists, government or Otherwise, the Military, the Inquisition, Hangings in the square, tallies ov the Dead in the Termitary... Was any ov this new? did it Crystallize from thin air? here’s an aphorism: There’s Nothing New Under the Sun. what can we find beyond the Sun’s reaches? what has the Sun given us, and what has Earth? shall we keep them apart? whose bodies are restricted in their movement over the earth, and how severely are they restricted? who is targeted? who enforces the control? is this what Crisis looks like? when did the Crisis start?

VI                       

           “To articulate the past historically does not mean to recognize it ‘the way it really was’ (Ranke). It means to seize hold of a memory as it flashes up at a moment of danger. Historical materialism wishes to retain that image of the past which unexpectedly appears to man singled out by history at a moment of danger. The danger effects both the content of the tradition and its receivers. The same threat hangs over both: that of becoming a tool of the ruling classes. In every era the attempt must be made anew to wrest tradition away from a conformism that is about to overpower it. The Messiah comes not only as the redeemer, he comes as the subduer of Antichrist. Only that historian will have the gift of fanning the spark of hope in the past who is firmly convinced that even the dead will not be safe from the enemy if he wins. And this enemy has not ceased to be victorious.”

//// //// //// //// 

But do not be scared Surely some disaster will descend and equalize us A crisis Will unify the godless and the fearless and the righteous

...

In a certain slant of light the feeling will hit me Like a man against the waves and a violent wind Waking up in a bloody morning With the warmth of his forgiveness around me The shared dream left me shaking The memory is threatening to capsize every ship upon the sea

xxx //// //// //// ////

      Pathologic, having mapped out these lines, and being a concatenation ov narrative fiction that could not have existed without the precondition ov colonial expansion and the Extermination and Assimilation ov Indigenous populations and Life ways, can be can be unwound through a conventional historical approach by investigating various moments, epidemics, and movements in The Steppe (and all Land and Living Beings subsumed by Russia’s internal colonization) and looking for similarities, sources, influences, reflections, distortions... You’ll never find quite an exact parallel to the events ov pathologic, and you will find that the Trick that the devisers have given you in fact resides in laying out what can be gleaned from the Tangled view.

“…they make the work a process of learning or experimentation, but also something total every time, where the whole of chance is affirmed in each case, renewable every time,”

         — Gilles Deleuze, Difference&Repetition

//// //// //// ////

“For Benjamin, the conclusion of the movement of history through time is not some inevitable utopia—capitalist, communist, or otherwise. Rather than viewing the progression of civilization as an accumulation of gains and reforms toward freedom and justice, history can be seen as the continuous defeat of the exploited by their oppressors; the intensifying alienation of beings and their re-construction into capital. History not only serves to justify today’s rulers, but also to encode our memory with a narrative that reads historical events as a necessary chain of events along the path toward some future revolution or techno-utopia. He describes this as “a view of history that puts its faith in the infinite extent of time and thus concerns itself only with the speed, or lack of it, with which people and epochs advance along the path of progress.”

//// //// //// ////

     In your Twelve Days in the town as a Healer, what did you see? piles ov wreckage, debris, bodies stacked under streetlamps flickering in the night? a town spreading across a steppe? a Utopia growing through the Earth? do you think you saved any lives, and was any-body's life yours to save in the first place? a Plague moving through living organisms? a Plague moving through non-living organisms? did you observe any Organisms, living or otherwise, over the course ov the play? do you have Mirrors in your house? have you seen a still, clear, body ov water recently? what are the waterways where you live called, and have they been called anything else in the Past or Present? did you become the Haruspex, and following what paths does becoming-haruspex entail? are you winning, son?

When the hunger turns in on itself, it begins to devour its host Who do you turn to for help? Who do you love the most? When the word comes down the wire that they're looking To make an example of you Skin and bones around a campfire beneath the stars No good end in view I dance with the ones that brought me I dance with the ones that brought me here

xxx

         did you observe a Fever? can you feel a Fever? can you Imagine a great crack ov lightning striking across the Steppe, illuminating in raw detail the beauty and horror ov all that you have experienced? how would it smell afterwards? can you smell the Twyre on the air? is Twyre even a real thing? what may influence your imaginary ov its scent? Feel small, dirty hands reaching out for beetles, marbles, raisins, souls within nuts and names without people. Living on pemmican, Living on military rations. razors, fish-hooks, scalpels and syringes passing through the hands ov children as well. noticing the flows present in everything, spots where they are arrested, and the intensities they assume. we could run through the Game and Count up the Number ov Clocks present, and we could also look at how many hours we have Clocked in our Playtime, and the date ov this Play’s Production. did the Kains succeed in their mission to Produce Time? was this the Kain’s mission Alone? how is your mental Clock? We got the Body Count at the end of the day, and commentary too. cant beat that courtesy, *hem hem* but again, looking beyond the Numbers. how many Bulls did you see? when is a question also a trap? 

XVIII                                                  

       “‘In relation to the history of organic life on earth,’ writes a modern biologist, ‘the paltry fifty millennia of homo sapiens constitute something like two seconds at the close of a twenty-four-hour day. On this scale, the history of civilized mankind would fill one-fifth of the last second of the last hour.’ The present, which, as a model of Messianic time, comprises the entire history of mankind in an enormous abridgment, coincides exactly with the stature which the history of mankind has in the universe.”

what are the Consequences ov inserting Living Beings into a Linear Framework? where did Architecture come from? how was this Story constructed? What do you remember about the Town? 

We can take the Diurnal “ending” as a fairly straightforward allegorical Byway for the Forces ov Progress. Boundaries are set, You are not the Town, the Town is your Soul-and-a-half.( wikihow to not be a cartesian dualist, consider also Spinoza if laying bare the path ov immanence was ov interest to you) What lays beneath the Sunlight? what still lays beneath the Earth? What time is it? things are weirdly cozy, in some ways. mimesis, echoes, ghosts. Are their voices still heard? grace tallies up the bodies. are You ready to Leave Artemy here? is this a comfortable future for you to imagine? how are you with uncertainty? Does the costume itch? do you ache at the seams, or are your joints sore from all the strings pulling at them? got arthritis? i’ve used stinging nettle. can a Story devour a human being? why would something with that power stop at One?  

What Do You Think Will Happen Now?

One can also make the Choice to step into the Darkness. One with many names has returned to the Earth,(”One” ov many False Deaths and Smart Tricks too. love ya girl <3)... taya as mistress-ov-bulls, grace as mistress-ov-dead, changeling as mistress-ov-absolutley-whatever. Mistresses, Mist, Tresses, Bulls, Brides, Worms, Plague...the Theme/s to note here is/are Multiplicity. Is there a difference between imagining the future and the past? Where are you? Where did You come from? the Nocturnal ending already asks enough questions to make me quite happy. sitting next to the Girls now, looking out at the New Sky. same as the old sky, Full ov Magic. if we take Death ov the Author into account, we could say that the Polyhedron belongs to the Dead in more ways than one. We can see your house from here! i wouldn’t say we’ve even gotten to the Prophet yet. When did our Hero leave us? did We have any use for Heroism? the Steppe is in the Stone Yard now. The World is returning to Life. what does it mean for me?

how many angels can dance on the head ov a pin?

how many worm brides can dance in the cathedral?

   ....“The way in which the dead are present is as the “caress” of a “breath of… air,” as an “echo,” or as a sister who one no longer recognizes. In other words, the past is present and everywhere, touching us every moment and “in the voices we hear,” but only suggestively, in and in spite of our own inability to recognize it. But the possibility for redemption, the weak messianic power, lies in the chance that we might.

In the intimate, ever-present opportunity he describes there is a tremendous deal at stake. For, he writes in the fourth thesis, the “refined and spiritual things” that live in the class struggle “as confidence, courage, humor, cunning, and fortitude, and have effects that reach far back into the past… constantly call into question every victory, past and present, of the rulers.”

Later, turning to the historians he criticizes as tools of the ruling classes, Benjamin makes it clear in his seventh thesis that their resurrection of the past is an entirely different kind. The nature of the sadness—rooted in an indolence of heart—that Flaubert described feeling in his historical study of Carthage is clearer, Benjamin says, when we remember that the historian’s empathy is always with the victor, and thus with the present rulers. It is the kind of sadness, then, that gathers to the loyal servant or minion in knowing that it is being used for its ruler’s purposes”

         “Figured another way, the task of interruption requires us to locate the clocktower that we could fire upon to stop the day. Homogenous time no longer flows through the monolithic machines in the city centers. Now, a range of technological advancements have diffused and integrated the machinery of time into our very thoughts and rhythms. Everywhere we go, we are surrounded by and permeated with devices which serve to manage the regime of time. Where once a singular apparatus mediated our relationship to time, its dictatorship is now imposed by an innumerable array. A desire for interruption must now reckon with the countless apparatuses that segment our memory and integrate our very being into capitalist time. But rather than waste time lashing out against all these clocks one after another, let us cut through to what underlies them.

           History’s servants promise us a shining future. Whether by means of technological innovation, hard work and sacrifice, or the Revolution, we are assured of a heaven-on-earth of light and crystal. But all of these glimmering apparatuses can only serve to adorn the monumental pile of wreckage in which we live. All around us, the carnage and corpses of our ancestors form the architecture of our daily existence. Not only the walls and freeways and shopping centers, but the smart phones, pornography, surveillance and entertainment systems—all monuments to the same enemy that has never ceased to be victorious. Capital, Leviathan, civilization, society: so many names for the process which turns life into an assemblage of death, which would integrate us as machines into a grander machinery. Futurity is the logic that drives this regime of subjection and assimilation, but is also the science which desecrates our memory of those who also struggled; the treachery which turns their struggles into so many more ideological cadavers. Where living beings once struggled to be free from futurity’s domination of their lives, we are told that they dutifully sacrificed themselves for society’s future. We too are called upon to procreate and raise up children who might one day live better lives than we. But just as we were born into the halls of the dead, so too would our children be the stillborn janitors of these halls, breathing circuits embedded in a massive cybernetic cadaver. Ghosts call out to us: they ask that we tear apart the sutures of this Frankenstein’s monster which they’ve come to constitute. They call on us to cremate their remains and bury the ashes, to end the reign of the dead over the living.”

//// //// //// ////

"I am not afraid," ze said "Of the non-believer within me Nor delight at the pain of my enemies Nor tears for any friends I have lost" ...

I’ll never have any children I’d bear them and eat them, my children

I’m gonna change my body In the light and the shadow of suspicion I am no longer afraid The truth doesn’t terrify us, terrify us My salvation is found in discipline, in discipline

xxxx

//// //// //// ////

“It is apparent from the foregoing that all accumulation is cruel; all renunciation of the present for the sake of the future is cruel.”

— Georges Bataille, The Accursed Share, Volume III

//// //// //// ////

“The Haruspex is blood and organs... ...The Haruspex’s overarching idea is the interconnectedness of everything and restoring the connections... ...The Haruspex hears (rhythms)... ...The Haruspex: water + forward vector. „ — [from the game’s design documents]

“ The Haruspex, a butcher, a killer, one could even say a murderous psychopath, gets the warmest character arc. It’s about love. „ — [from the game’s design documents] 

//// //// //// ////

Infinity Mirrored Room—All the Eternal Love I Have for the Pumpkins -

Yayoi Kusama, 2016

//// //// //// ////

       A long “personal” anecdote: there’s music on the air and i hear a familiar buzzing. it isn’t twyre growing, nor it is the hum ov flies. we Keep bees here, to get honey.  I should try to remember to bring some to my wife tomorrow, though making the journey on its own is a bit daunting these days. 1 hive, 2 hives, the bees build and swarm and our Keeper rearranges the frames, adds in new boxes, tries to give them enough space that they'll stay within our domain. I think about the complex roles being fulfilled within the hive, and how any egg can grow into a so called “Queen” if need be. These Hives haven’t always held the same populations, sometimes a swarm will depart and won’t be Recovered. Look around the neighborhood, find the buzzing tree, you may be able to get them back yet but... have you tried getting a swarm ov bees into a box before? good luck finding the queen! (hoping i don’t have to do this but a bit excited by the prospect at the same time.)

        Our honey bees didn't originate from this region, i see them in the “yard” alongside native bees (one tries to plant for Everybody) but obviously, Our Hives are here so i’ll always see more ov the honeybees as long as they’re occupying them. Native bees to our Bioregion are leading very different lifestyles. Different threats, dynamics, and places in the ecosystem as well. Bumblebees are the most Beloved. Native Bees here- vital pollinators, ground and stem burrowers, more solitary souls than most, but are any ov us really alone? what are their favorite flowers?

          I think about Bees a lot now. I’m standing here thinking about Bees, and where I’m standing is in between the entrance ov the Hive and their favorite Ceanothus (see also soap brush, red root, buckbrush, see medicinal uses...). Very precious grounds to these Bees, not somewhere where I’m welcome. I Haven’t always known as much about bees. I get stung right inbetween my pinky and index fingers, on the palm ov my hand. yeowch! Bad luck, but i could still use a shovel the next day. This was an anecdote about Paying Attention to Your Surroundings.

       The Ceanothus isn’t flowering anymore, and hasn't been for a few “weeks” (i think?) The Bees have other concerns now. In fact, it was heavily damaged in a snow storm a couple years back, and half ov its branches collapsed under the weight ov the ice. Its a bit ov a twisted thing now, what remains still flowers but what remains is not so much. At some point in the future upon yr reading ov this, it will have been cut down and possibly dug out ov the earth. I wouldn't be surprised if a few more, smaller, iterations made their way to this space in remembrance/ tribute. The branches lost in it’s first wounding are still stacked up nearby, all sorts ov creatures love that stuff. Dead trees in the back that Birds still frequent stay for the birds. We never get that many plums because we’re not smart or quick enough, or as willing to take one great bite ov a fruit and let the rest fall to the soil. I didn’t really get stung by a Bee in a situation exactly like what i described up there, it’s drawing on a few different times that sort ov thing happened. I hope you’ll forgive me for my obscurantist tendencies.

       Looking past the Hives and onto the Streets, I am a White Settler(family fled the reach ov the Soviet Union to integrate into America, family fled family to a different part ov land under the Reaches ov said “America”,cave fled family but stuck with the Land, recurring patterns, what would my views be if i had grown up in Czechoslovakia? geography, chronology, trick questions) living in a segment ov Town that, until 1968, was a legally a Sundown Town, see Racial Restrictive Covenants. I still don’t see than many Black ppl around my neighborhood. I do see grocery store parking lots swarming with cop cars, more cops than i can Count, at least two k9 units, all to pursue One Black Body through the rainy night, My own Body lets me move through the world without these Forces being brought upon me in this intensity, lets me Watch.

          Certain alignments ov directions ov Struggle have brought me into the position ov the Other at the end ov the cudgel, a body in a crowd under the looming eye and long barrel ov the sniper, the surveillance camera. Visibility is a Trap. Any ability i have to Get Off The Hook is based not on Luck or Fate, but due to the way the color ov my skin is reflected in the eyes ov Those in Power. what can i do from inside This Skin, and what can i do with the veil ov a mask obliterating my “selfhood”? How are we to heal? If you didnt read this into my Musical choices already- im a bit ov a flaming/smoldering queer. sitting in the planned parenthood lobby, one among many, gripped by recollections ov the devastating history ov HIV/AIDS and a cluster ov other Crises, memories ov beloved souls lost to policies and hegemony ov extermination and neglect. blood in vials, piss in jars. how does the time spent waiting for results feel?(how long? weeks months?)

           I have more free condoms on hand than i’ll ever get through. A veritable theoretical eternity ov Safer Sex. There are Reasons why Queer Institutions give access to free condoms. But i’ve gotten them from some delightful Quakers as well. on another squeamish, libidinal subject, administering self injections isnt so daunting when you’ve seen it done a Million times before. It’s like watching somebody sneeze, or pinching yourself. HRT as potions, mechanical intrusion to will a slow transformation. getting into the fat is easy, some other avenues less so. “This requires the Gentle Hand of a Surgeon, step aside!” i know a lot about what Doctors Don’t Know. (veins and arteries as streets- easy. nerves as streets - you hear this a bit less. streets as eyes, the opening ov your mouth with a railroad track running down it, eyes as streets, whose streets? fuck streets! tear up the concrete)

          The aforementioned streets are closed to Traffic due to the Quarantine, and i hear folks and families from the neighborhood walking/hoverboarding/skateboarding/biking down the street,(mostly the new work from home yuppie class and their spawn respectively, but there's some real ones around here too. all ages. have yet to live anywhere that people don't ask me for cigarettes) chattering away, masks or no masks. If i take a long walk down past the cemetery, I’ll find myself passing by a Native American Youth Home, created to provide support for a population that is currently disproportionately represented in this Town’s already Massive Homeless population. (their covid19 resources and donation info) Even with the Plague on, New Condos are built and Old Condos stay empty. Who do the bones in the soil beneath my feet belong to? When did all ov this Start, and how Long will it go on? why does the Map look the way it does? I would rather listen carefully than dig. This Story is not the only Story, nor should any be.

      do i remember how the damp asphalt smells Here after Lightning Strikes? do i remember the feeling ov my body thrown to the concrete and the chaos and disorientation ov Crowds mobbing over me, slick with rain and sweat? who saw, and how many hands reached out to lift me up, who saved who? is that my blood trickling down the sidewalk? Flashbangs and Flashes ov Lightning, take yr pick. you can get similar experiential learning in the moshpit. this is an anecdote about Paying Attention to Your Surroundings.

i’ll try to bring us nearer to the point with baedan’s conclusion, a reflection on the First thesis from On the Concept of History. I will leave it up to You to investigate the original text if you are so Inclined.

//// //// //// ////

           “For every pretty theory that presents itself, study it only in the way that a cat studies its prey: for the enjoyment of the hunt, to be sure, but also so as to seize upon whatever unique revolutionary chance may appear as in a flash of lightning. So that when that narrow gate opens, you pounce without a moment’s hesitation. In the meantime, by all means, enjoy the diversion of the theory’s lines and moves, but if you are to avoid becoming its tool you must ever have in mind to shatter the system of mirrors and confront the dwarf that has been pulling the strings all along. Faced with this ugly little creature behind all the lines of play you’ve enjoyed and suffered, able at last to read the lines of its face and the dark of its eyes, as time stands still and the entirety of the past falls to you, you will have to make a deeply ethical decision that nothing in all the games before could prepare you for. The only decision that truly matters.”

//// //// //// ////

Artemy Burakh: Any Choice is Right as long as it’s Willed.

//// //// /// ////

Hansel and Gretel are alive and well And they're living in Berlin She is a cocktail waitress He had a part in a Fassbinder film And they sit around at night now Drinking schnapps and gin And she says: Hansel, you're really bringing me down And he says: Gretel, you can really be a bitch He says: I've wasted my life on our stupid legend When my one and only love Was the wicked witch

She said: what is history? And he said: history is an angel being blown backwards into the future He said: history is a pile of debris And the angel wants to go back and fix things To repair the things that have been broken But there is a storm blowing from paradise And the storm keeps blowing the angel backwards into the future And this storm, this storm is called progress

xxx

TLDR; pathologics shitty timeline is cool because it fosters a metagame where the imperative is to make history explode in real life.

specific thanx to: every1 included above, my local subversive lit dealers, Whoever gave the talk last ABF about Queer Wanderings in the anti-nazi Underworld, have not stopped carrying those stories with me since. thanks to the Dear Listener, thanks 2 my wife for pragmatic and personal encouragements <3

a personal acknowledgement to the lives and legacies ov the dxʷdəwʔabš (Duwamish) people, past and present, First People ov the Land i currently Occupy, alongside the entire City ov so-called “Seattle.”

[docholligay]

DEFINITELY AU TO MY UNIVERSE

This is based on the idea @rhiorhino came up with in her ask of having Pharah and Tracer live together after something happens to Emily and Mercy. I worked on this A LOT A LOT, so I hope you enjoy! its not at all perfect but I think it’s good! 3,300 words. 

Tracer and Pharah had been opposites from the first day they had met, and while they had grown warm to each other, they certainly had not grown any more like each other. Tracer was impulsive and quick, going in with her whole self, a tiny firework of a human being, exploding and lighting the entire sky in one moment. Pharah was thoughtful and measured, tracing out the steps in her mind, a clear line from one to the other, carefully lighting each corner like a candle. 

So it made a certain amount of sense that when Emily MacNair, who would have been Oxton, was murdered, Tracer immediately and quickly lost her mind. Emily had not even been laid to rest when Tracer skipped the country in pursuit of her murderer, and anyone who got in the way discovered that Tracer was sunshine, and the sun is more than capable of killing without mercy. They said she beat Widowmaker to death with the butt of her rifle. Tracer would only say that probably did happen, but truthfully she didn’t remember a thing. It was hard to argue against that point, when she returned to London and descended into what a physician had called “brief reactive psychosis.” It was difficult to charge her for the death of someone wanted dead or alive by several countries, in any case. Born under a lucky star. 

It was four months after that, with Tracer finally more or less in touch with reality and functional, that Overwatch continued its disastrous year. 

Perhaps it had been that there was no one to blame, no villain to pursue, that it was just one terrible moment. An accident. There had been the terrible accident, and Pharah had held Mercy, and Mercy had died, and that was all there was to it. Who could she hate? And so, perhaps it was these things, but perhaps it was that different quality to Pharah herself, that she did not explode into loud and keening grief. 

She buried her wife, exactly according to her religious wishes, and calmly laid a hand on her coffin before it was laid into the grave. She went back home, and cleaned and folded and scrubbed the floor, lined up the shoes at the front door in a neat line, and went to bed. She went to work, and redid the filing cabinet, and wrote a detailed schedule on the board, and shined her shoes. She carefully settled Mercy’s affairs, and mostly remembered not to bring up a cup of coffee in the morning. And, repeat.  Fareeha Amari was doing very well, by most standards. 

Even Tracer, in that first month, as people told her how unwavering Pharah had been in all this, had grumbled “Right, because Fareeha’s bloody fucking perfect and don’t I know it.” 

 People had mostly stopped asking questions with concerned faces, three months later. Anyone looking at her would have seen how stable and steady she was.

“Bit worried about Fareeha.” Tracer had said, leaning against Winston as they watched TV in his living room. 

Tracer had given up on living alone, sold her house to her cousin, and decided, simply, that she was going to live with Winston for the rest of her life. It was more than big enough for three, if it came to it, hope never leaving her even as she grieved, and it made the most sense to have herself there. She loved Winston, and he loved her, and Tracer was a bit frightened of her own recently-discovered fragility. He’d welcomed her happily. 

“Did she say something?” He snuggled her in a little closer. 

“No, and that’s part of it,” She sat up, gazing over the top of the TV back into her own mind, “she hasn’t snapped at me, or teased at me, in months. I spent all morning doing things I know drive her absolutely mad. It’s like she’s not even there, Win.” 

Winston shifted uncomfortably. “She knows you’re--well--she’s trying to--” 

Tracer sighed aggressively. “Win, it’s been months now. Not even on medication now, Doc’s really quite happy with me, and no one sniping at me did it in the first place. Don’t treat me like--”

“I’m sorry,” he touched her back softly, “I’m just,” he gave a sheepish laugh, “Myself, all the time.” 

Tracer shook her head. “She comes in, same time every day, she puts away her papers, she cleans something, always, she tidies up my desk, as well, without a word, ‘ardly. She does her work, ‘as a three pound meal deal for lunch, same time every day,, works out, and I ‘appen to know she goes to the Tesco every night, same time every day, gets a ready meal, goes ‘ome, cleans and organizes something, again, eats it, and goes to bed.” 

“Lena, how do you know that?” 

She tossed her hands in the air. “I followed ‘er, obviously! Multiple times!”

“We have to get you a constructive hobby.” 

“And she didn’t even notice I was bloody fucking following her. Fareeha.” Tracer gave a little frown and flopped back against Winston. ‘She’s ‘orribly depressed, Win. I know it.” she closed her eyes, 

“I don’t want ‘er to live this way. Or not live, right? Or worse, I don’t want to wake up one morning and find,” her eyes popped back open, gesturing wildly, “Commander Fareeha Amari, precise and disciplined in every way, ‘as done a very precise and disciplined job of offing ‘erself.” 

“You don’t think--” 

“I do think!” She jumped back up again, a creature in constant emotion. “She’s so bloody logical, to the point of being stupid, and she’ll, “ Tracer drew her hand widely across the air, slipping into a terrible Egyptian accent, “find it most reasonable that I will never find happiness again, and my lack of passion makes me a liability, and so, I will make sure not to leave a mess.” She snapped her fingers and jumped toward Winston, eyes locked. “That COULD happen, Win, I can bloody well see it in me mind’s eye!” 

“Lena--” 

“Know what she bought at Tesco, Win? Bangers and mash, a ready meal from Tesco for one. Of bangers and mash.” 

Winston put his hand on her back, and drew her into his shoulder. He said nothing. What was there to say? Tracer was right, of course, and he felt terrible not having noticed. But Pharah was so good at being stoic, at keeping herself straight, at convincing the world that she had always simply been this way, and he had forgotten how her speech had lost some of its formality, how she had laughed easier, how she had teased. How she had been happy. 

It was easy to ignore Pharah’s coping, because it was not drinking too much, or getting into fights, or hallucinating, but her absolute sense of control and order that guided her through difficulty. 

“Also, she isn’t eating enough,” Tracer shook her head, “She’s lost ‘alf stone, at least. Maybe more like a stone, really.” 

“What should we do?” He said softly. 

“Well,” she rocked back to sit on her heels, running a hand through her hair, “We ‘ave to ‘ave her come live ‘ere, with us. Break her out of it all, right?” She grinned. “Bunch of the sadsack bachelor types, that’s us. We can ‘elp ‘er, Win, I know we can.” 

Winston had no idea how Tracer was going to get Pharah to agree to this. He wasn’t sure if she knew how she was going to. But Tracer believed she would, and she could, and that it itself made him believe. 

____

It wasn’t nearly so hard as Tracer had thought it was going to be. It took only two weeks of wheedling and begging and claiming that she and Win couldn’t possibly afford the place without her, being everything that had happened. It would be a proper favor to them, if Pharah would come and live with them. Besides, wasn’t Pharah so good at all the things she wasn’t? She’d be so much more help to running the house than Tracer was, after all. 

Pharah was scrubbing the office floor, as she did every single Thursday, when she finally broke. A person could only avoid Tracer’s attempts at something she truly wanted for so long. 

“If you and Winston need money, I will give you money.” She did not look up at Tracer. Back and forth across the boards. Check carefully for a scratch the needs filling. RInse the brush. Repeat. “I have little need for extra income.” 

Tracer sighed heavily. She kept trying to give Pharah a graceful way to accept, and Pharah kept throwing it back in her face. It was aggravating to keep inventing new disasters for her and Winston to be having, particularly given that they were doing quite well, all told. 

She thought of the solution, and hated it just as quickly. Tracer had worked hard. The odds of any sort of relapse were exceedingly rare. She had just now gotten to the point where it seemed like people weren’t whispering about it behind her back at the greengrocers, that her reputation was beginning to shine up near to normal again. Life was full of bloody fucking sacrifice, wasn’t it? 

She knelt in front of Pharah. “Fareeha.” 

“What?” Rinse out the brush. 

“Win’s taken care of me, so much, over and over and--” It stuck in her throat, and she hated every inch of it, “I worry I might be too much for ‘im, if it ‘appens again, and ‘e’ll try to do it ‘imself, all over again. You know how Win is, about these things, and I thought, if you were there, you could reason with ‘im. Day by day. Might be best to send me off, but ‘e won’t, but, you know ‘e trusts your judgment.” 

Pharah looked up at Tracer. “I doubt I could convince Winston of this.” 

Tracer’s fists balled at her side. Pharah had always said Tracer had a way of working a person’s last nerve, but she wasn’t giving herself enough credit. 

“But,” Pharah continued, putting the brush in the bucket, “he is also unlikely to see an early sign. I would notice.” 

Tracer smiled and nodded. 

Sure you would, Fareeha, as my general early signs are jot off to Paris and kill someone, which I think Win might also pick up on, but all right. 

She sighed. “I will rent the apartment, until you feel secure. I will also pay rent at Winston’s, to assist.” 

On some other day, Tracer might have tried to tell Pharah that she could always buy another apartment, and it might be better for her to do that. But it was enough to know that Pharah would move out her things, even if every single box of Mercy’s scattered notes was going to the wide expanse of leftover warehouse they used as a storage unit in the back of Winston’s place. She had Emily’s things there as well, and was only beginning to realize she needed to begin to sort through them, so what could she possibly say? 

“Thank you.” was what she chose. 

_____

A new living arrangement is always difficult, even without the added difficulty of a person not realizing the are going through a certain amount of emotional trauma. Pharah had been living with she and Winston for six weeks now, and while they had managed to put her weight back on, and she had even managed a smile or two, Pharah still lived her life within the lines of her planner with rigidity and focus. She never looked up. 

She never spoke Angela’s name. 

Tracer began to spend the night in Pharah’s room, chatting to her about her day, asking questions that would almost certainly go unanswered. She had liked it, when she was struggling, and people had talked to her. Parvati had once recounted an entire night at the pub as a one woman play, and Tracer had managed to laugh, and so she knew there was some medicine in it. Whatever Pharah might think. 

So Tracer threw herself against Pharah’s brick wall, and she fell down, and she got up again. 

Until a Friday night on the sixth week. It was Shabbat, and Pharah had remembered it was Shabbat, because someone had greeted someone else in the grocery store as she got her three pound lunch. Tracer had noticed her quiet sternness, even more pronounced than usual, as they went through the store together, as they stopped for flowers, as someone had asked Tracer if she was planning to pop by the pub this week. 

Pharah said nothing, but Tracer was undeterred. 

“I do not entirely understand why you are in my room.” Pharah turned onto her side and shut her eyes. “Again.”

“I slept with me dad for something like two years after Mum died,” she scoffed and shook her head, “I know that sounds all sort of funny, least, the looks people ‘ave given me make me think so. 

But it wasn’t--just ‘aving each other, right there, as we were scared to lose each other, and--and well, it felt a bit lonely, and a bit cold. ‘Ard to explain, but there was something very comforting in it.” 

She laughed a little, chewing at the end of her nail. “Truth is, I only needed for so long, but somehow I knew ‘e needed it longer. To ‘ave me at ‘and, right? To know I’s safe? So I stayed there, a while longer.” 

Tracer looked over to Pharah, whose back remained turned to her, silent and still in the dim glow of moonlight, outlining her shoulder like a headstone. 

“We did mend, Dad and me.” Tracer shifted under her blanket. “Took time, but we did mend.” 

Pharah lay staring at the wall, jaw set in a hard line, arm tucked firmly under the single pillow she used. She said nothing. There was nothing to say, just more of Tracer’s rambling in the darkness. 

“There’s nothing in you that’s broken, Fareeha,” she said it with such confidence that for a moment, Pharah nearly believed it to be true, “rather, not forever. I know because there’s nothing that can be mended in me. There’ll be scars, of course, but,” she giggle and shrugged at the ceiling, “Isn’t as if you and don’t ‘ave plenty as it stands.” 

“You do not understand.” Pharah’s voice came like a command in the night. 

Tracer swallowed hard as the anger built up in her. Pharah was hurting and Pharah had a hard time with things, and Pharah did not mean to make it sound like the way she’d loved Emily wasn’t as strong, and she was going to pop Fareeha Amari in the face right FUCKING now. 

And she sat up to do it. 

But before she could, Pharah pushed herself up to her side. “You, maybe, will mend. You do not understand,” she turned to face Tracer, taking a deep breath and slowly letting it out, steam rising from a kettle, “because you are the sort of person people love. They remember you, they--they cherish seeing you, you make them laugh. You are the sort of person who has romances, a woman talks about you at brunch with her friends, and everyone says,” she began a very poor imitation of the East End, “well isn’t that Lena so very cheerful and what, right?” 

There is--” They were nearly nose to nose to now, but Pharah had the floor, and Tracer sat quietly even as her brown eyes glowed with fire. “There is nothing of that, for me. That is for people like you!” She slapped the bed in frustration. “And you will never, ever understand me, because you are some...Turkish rug, or a carved chair, and people notice you in a room, and they love you! Plenty want you in their homes.” 

Tracer moved to say something, but found the anger had left her, and she was filled instead with a deep and unyielding sorrow for all they had both lost, and all Pharah had learned she could lose. Tears slipped down her face, only to find Pharah’s had matched them. 

Pharah tapped her chest.”I am--a broom. A filing cabinet. I am useful, and needed, and diligent. I am necessary, and valued. But I am not loved. Except by her.” 

They sat in the terrible London quiet, the one that shouldn’t be real but had made itself known in the long, cold, sharp blades of that night. Both them looked down at the small expanse of cotton between them. 

“I love you. Course I do.” Lena’s voice was soft, but it did not waver. Then, quick firework that she was, her head popped up and she grinned, “Fuck’s sake Fareeha, why do you think I lay in here next to you every night and tell you stories,  me own ‘ealth?” 

It was her sunshine, always her sunshine, that broke the darkness, and even Pharah had to offer a weak huff of what had to pass for laughter now. 

“I’m scared, as well. I miss Em every single day. I wonder what might become of me, sounds a bit dramatic, but that’s how I think of it.” She rested a hand on Pharah’s knee, “You ain’t the only one with plenty to take on. We’re soldiers, right? It’s ‘ard. And me ‘aving me,” she touched the place where her CA rested, “and Ang, well, she did know me best, ‘ard to say if this friend of ‘ers will ‘ave a mind for it. Just--a bit of an ask, innit? For me, as well.”

Pharah put her hand on Tracer’s. “You will find love again. It is very hard to know you, and not love you a little.” 

“Fareeha,” she waggled her eyebrows, “is this you proposing? Flattered I am, but--” 

In one smooth movement, Pharah swept up the pillow and batted Tracer in the face with it. She fell to the mattress in a flurry of bubbling laughter, and Pharah was forced into a smile. 

“Well,” Tracer’s voice was peppy as she folded her hands and grinned up at Pharah, “I think, that when you’re ready, there’ll be someone wonderful, you know Fareeha there are women who go just mad for closet organizational systems and all that, proper filing, I don’t think you’re ‘ard to match at all, and besides all that, Ang was never any of that, but she saw, well she saw what I see, in you.” 

Pharah shook her head a moment, and waved it off almost out of habit. 

Tracer caught her eye, made sure she saw the genuine truth and belief in it. “You ‘ave a good heart, and a more tender spirit than you let on. Ang always said so, even when I didn’t believe it, that everything you do is a kind of love. That you’re terribly loving. She saw that, in you. She--” 

Pharah turned away and pinched the bridge of her nose, tripping over her words.  “Let’s please not speak of her more. Tonight.” 

“Course,” Tracer nodded, “Sometimes I can’t talk about Em, neither.” Tracer reached gently, carefully, and rubbed at Pharah’s shoulder. “You always ‘ave an ‘ome with me, and Win, ‘ere, if you want it. We love you, Fareeha. We love you ever so much.” 

Knowing it was true, and knowing that it could not possibly repair the deep chasm in her heart, the one that cried her name when the wind blew, Fareeha Amari forgot herself, unmade, in an instant, every lesson she had taught herself about how to be in this world. She began to cry. No, to sob, choked breaths flashing the memory of Mercy’s broken body, her smile under their wedding chuppah, a thousand small touches and loving words falling on her like rain. 

Tracer held her. Tracer held her, and whispered that it was all right, and that she wasn’t a filing cabinet, until they both fell asleep.

[markley]

amortentia — wjh

summary — where complicated feelings are so easily revealed with a simple potion

genre — hogwarts au, fantasy, fluff, comedy

warnings — n/a

word count — 2.5k

a/n — my first harry potter au! if u arent a slytherin im sorry :(

“hello class,” your potions proffesor says, looking out to the rest of the tired morning class. “for the next few days we are learning about amortentia. can anyone tell me what it is?”

many hands raise, not including your own. you knew, but didnt really care enough to answer the question, opting to read the section on the strong love potion in the textbook in front of you. suddenly, something hits the back of your head, and you turn to face wen junhui, or jun, balling up another piece of small parchment in his hands.

if there is one word to describe jun, it’s infuriating. normally, students from the same house tend to get along, but that definitely did not occur between you and jun, both headstrong slytherins with a need to be right— not traits for a good friendship.

it started when junhui questioned whether you were talented or not, as you were always so quiet and never showed any particular skill in wizadry. he challenged you to a duel, and lost. ever since then he has made it his duty to bother and annoy you until school ends, while you make sure to never give him the last laugh.

honestly, the bickering has just become a game of cat and mouse, and although its tiring, you wont lose. besides, what’s the fun in that?

“uh,” you start awkwardly, fully aware of jun’s silent laugh behind you. “a strong love potion that causes obsession rather than actual love? i believe it also varies in smell.”

“uh,” you start awkwardly, fully aware of jun’s silent laugh behind you. “a strong love potion that causes obsession rather than actual love? i believe it also varies in smell.”

“uh,” you start awkwardly, fully aware of jun’s silent laugh behind you. “a strong love potion that causes obsession rather than actual love? i believe it also varies in smell.”

mr. min looks satisfied, shaking through his dark hair with a hand. “correct, but don’t think i won’t notice you not paying attention ms. kwon.” he continues on explaining the properties of the tonic. you turn around slightly to glare at a smirking junhui, clearly proud. you shake your head, already thinking of ways to get him back.

the rest of the class period consisted of you taking notes on both the actual subject and mental notes on ways to make jun’s life absolutely miserable. the bell finally rings, signaling the end of class, and you jump up before jun is able to talk to you like he always insists.

you hear his annoying—albeit nice—voice from behind you, a teasing pout. with a roll of your eyes, you walk away to find your brother, soonyoung, knowing he’s somewhere in the hallways near you. although he is a hufflepuff, and an annoying as hell brother, you found him much easier to get along with than those of your own house— example? jun. obviously. 

soonyoung giggles as you approach him, a teasing smile playing along his lips. “aw, look at that. mr. slytherin is sad you’re avoiding him.” he says. you punch the redhead’s arm, not even needing to look back to know he’s right. jun always pouts. soonyoung insists he really likes you, but you know better—if the constant teasing and pranking is anything to go by. besides, you hated the boy anyway, even though soonyoung disagrees with that as well.

mr. min yells out a small “remember to be prepared tomorrow” throughout the dungeon hall. you turn to the professor, allowing junhui to finally catch up to you, putting an arm around your shoulder, with soonyoung long gone. “hey babe,” jun says, grinning, “good job on that thing today. fucking hilarious.” rolling your eyes, you shrug his arm off.

“fuck--”

“me?”

“off!” you correct, groaning internally at his constant teasing. he just smiles that same crooked grin before walking away with a mumble you didn't quite catch but sounded something like ‘you would.’ oh, how you hate him. or at least that’s what you tell yourself. 

whether you hated the guy or not, he was undeniably gorgeous and sometimes— only sometimes— kind of funny. but you still hated him. never have you been so easily annoyed with a human being before. 

with a small shake of your head, you walk back to your dorm to think of a way to embarrass junhui after potions today. you get there quickly as its right by potions class, but even by this time you had an idea, and not a pretty one. 

if there was one thing junhui prided himself on, it was his skillset. whether that was charms or potions, he was cocky about succeeding in it all. using this, you think of a great way to embarrass him the way you were embarrassed earlier— making a fool out of himself under mr min’s eye. oh how very fun this will be. 

on the other side of school, jun was bribing soonyoung for information on you, already knowing you were attempting to get back at him. you were known for needing the last word, after all. soonyoung being the kind hufflepuff brother he is, at least tried to avoid jun, but eventually gave up at jun’s offer of endless sweets. can you blame him? well yes, and you do the next day before potions when he lets it slip that he told junhui the name of your old crush— not that junhui knows its old. 

how you and soonyoung are siblings? you will never know.

the only thing giving you solace from punching soonyoung in the face is knowing the prank you are about to pull on junhui. the prank in question is completely fucking up his potion, a prank soonyoung called “absolute evil.”

in class, you were to make your own batch of amortentia, a difficult feat on its own, although quite easy for you and jun. the best part is to soon come, when you throw in something most definitely not in the potion. specifically something to make it explode.

maybe soonyoung was right. mr. min was not an easy teacher to impress but was definitely an easy teacher to disappoint—and jun hates disappointing professors.

you were evil. guess thats why you fit perfectly in slytherin—or atleast according to the rest of the school.

when class starts, mr. min is already talking about failure. “don’t worry,” he says, “i already know most of you will fail.” with that last piece of what was probably meant to be encouragement, everyone begins to work on the difficult potion.

soon after everyone barely makes it to the middle of the workload, you have already finished, and jun is right behind you. he moved away from his cauldron to fetch the last ingredient, and you take it as your time to throw in a little bit of porcupine quills quickly, an easy way to make his potion turn into something not made for love.

with a small smile at no one noticing, you return to your own finished product, mr. min looking at it in satisfaction. suddenly, a small pop is heard from behind you where jun is standing in front of a bright green potion— well, more like covered in it.

you burst into silent giggles at his predicament, mr. min having an opposite reaction, instead glaring at the failure. junhui himself glares too, but instead at you, with eyes full of hatred. you can’t help the feeling of pride spreading across your chest, which then drops at mr. mins snarl.

“who did it?” he asks, looking around and then stopping at you. you throw your hands up in the air with an exclamation of ‘it wasn’t me!’. the professor doesn’t seem convinced, raising an eyebrow. he then plucks a porcupine quill off your robes, and you give up. “that’s what i thought.”

you look over to jun, standing still in the green mess, but with an obvious smirk on his face. you mentally face palm at yourself for failing at making jun an embarrassment. fuck the little shithead...

“the both of you,” mr. min speaks, pointing to a downtrodden and no longer smiling junhui, “are to clean this mess up, as well as the entire class. oh, and the storage while you are at it. don’t break anything.” and with a small groan of protest from jun, the class is dismissed. mr. min struts out of the dungeon classroom, but not before flicking his wand towards jun’s robes, now spotless.

with a slam of the dungeon door, you and junhui are left alone. “this is your fault,” junhui snarls, pointing a perfectly manicured finger in your direction. “why do i always get looped in with you?!”

“because you started it. and you always retaliate.” you say with ever growing frustration. jun groans in irritation, looking as if ready to stab you at any given moment.

“how the hell are you and soonyoung siblings?” he asks, shaking his head while walking to the corner to begin cleaning.

“i ask myself that question everyday.”

after that small conversation, the two of you start cleaning up the green mess and then the rest of the dungeon classroom. it took a good hour or two, and you still hadnt even organized the messy storage yet. the entire time while cleaning you and junhui hadnt talked to each other, only sparing a few hate-filled glances and eye rolls.

the storage closet was a mess of premade potions and ingredients. it was so chaotic you feel the need to ask mr. min the last time he even thought about organizing it. shelves upon shelves held bottles of colors: red to black to clear. almost every potion in existence was held in this small closet.

you can’t help but find your fingertips brushing across the bottles of pretty tonics. jun follows you into the small space to clean after seeing you ogling instead of doing your job. “get to cleaning.” he says, already starting his organization process of what seems to be putting the potions in rainbow order.

rolling your eyes, you begin to help, grabbing the bottles of liquid. a small bright pink vial grabs your attention as you brush through the bottled ingredients. you pick it up, swishing the thick potion within the glass. with a cock of your head, you open it to be met with a strong fume of what seems to smell like... junhui? the boy in question is still diligently cleaning the small closet behind you, unknowingly to you, staring at you from his peripheral vison.

you take another sniff, hoping to be wrong—but no. that smell is distinctly jun; musky yet sweet. a hand grabs the bottle from you, peering at the label. “what does it smell like?” jun asks, raising an eyebrow at your extremely confused expression. “it’s amortentia, dumbass.”

at this, you grab the potion back, not believing him. there is no way in hell amortentia would smell like jun. however, the infuriating guy was right. the bottle was in fact labeled amortentia. your breathing hitches, and you can’t seem to come up with any words— or even look up at the boy in front of you.

jun seems to get more confused every second you dont answer him. “um, y/n? you alive there?” you finally look up, coughing awkwardly and handing him the vial back.

“yeah, im fine dork.”

“ouch. dork? im a nerd at best.”

“shut up, you nerd.” he smiles at your unconscious correction, turning back to the amortentia bottle unaware to the racing thoughts and heart you are currently dealing with internally. why, why would amortentia smell like the one person you hate the most behind soonyoung?!

“i bet it smells like minghao.” at this blunt statement you snap your head to a smirking jun. “i mean, you do like him right?” you remember soonyoung saying how jun bribed him with chocolate for this information and you write a mental note to kill your brother later.

“liked,” you mumble, walking as far away from the grinning asshole in front of you. the last thing you need is junhui teasing you about a crush while the strongest love potion ever smells like him. “as in no longer. over. done with. blah blah blah.”

“anyway, are you almost done with the rest of the potions?” you quickly change the subject of your old crush and the potion that reeks of your number one enemy. the questions in your head still wont end and you want to leave as soon as possible.

“wait wait wait,” jun says, very insistent. “if you dont like minghao anymore, who does it smell like?”

“why the fuck do you care, junhui?”

“i dont,” he says, twidling his thumbs awkwardly, but still staring you down with his dark eyes. “im just... curious.” that isnt entirely true and you can hear it in his hesitant voice.

you groan and glare at the brunet boy. you take the bottle, and pretend to smell it again, but already know your answer. it smells like the forest you found him in one night after curfew, that you just happened to be sneaking out to as well—that was the first time you two ever got along, agreeing to not turn each other in. the potion also smells of the fruity shampoo jun uses, and the mint gum he always chews. you hate to admit it, but the potion smells exactly like how you envision jun. and whatever that may mean, its true.

“the forbidden forest at midnight, mint gum and lemon-y shampoo.” you finally answer after a lot of internal debate of whether to be honest or not. pushing the bottle back to him, you begin to leave the small closet like space. jun reaches out an arm quickly, grabbing on to your wrist.

“that,” he starts, recognizing the scents as his own. “smells like-“

“i know,” you whisper, pulling your arm away. not ready to take his reaction, you start to run away and jun’s next words are the only thing that stop you.

“do you want to know what it smells like to me?” junhui says hopefully, but entirely expecting you to walk away. “hair dye and strawberries.” stopping, you turn back to jun. he had moved closer, now nose to nose with you. your breath hitches, and you almost think you arent breathing. “just like the purple hair dye you put in my shampoo and the strawberries i always see you eat every. single. meal.”

you look up to meet his piercing eyes that bore into yours with such intensity it takes your breath away. you look away for him to softly grab your chin. “look at me, please.” his voice is the softest you’ve ever heard it, just a whisper.

“what does that mean, jun?”

“it means look at me.” you glare up at him, him chuckling in return. he places his forehead against yours, and the exact mint gum scent that you smelled in the love tonic hits your nose. “it means i like you, dork.” jun’s lips move closer to yours every word he speaks until they are just barely touching

“im a nerd at best.” you mumble before pushing your mouth against what you believed to be your enemy’s. mental note: kill soonyoung later, for being right

maybe there really is a thin line between love and hate.