#im sorry this is so late grad school got me | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

ravenvsfox · 5 years ago

Text

Rockband AU Chapter 11

we’re back and badder than ever, join me in the latest instalment of the band au in which there is no actual music unless you count screaming as music :)

The first slit is paper thin, a fissure in the centre of his tongue. Even superficial, his mouth fills instantly with ripe, oily blood. He swallows painfully, and peers up at his father though one eye. There’s sweat at Nathan's temple, just a brush of it, as if daubed on with a dry brush.

Nathaniel puts his hand around Nathan’s wrist, like he used to when he was a very small child, too young to understand why he was being hurt.

“Stop,” he tries to say. Blood wells past his lips and bubbles down to his neck. He’s smudging red so bright it looks orange, ketchupy, all down Nathan’s sleeve. The knife clicks across his teeth and slips down into the gum.

“I won’t have you biting anymore,” Nathan says. He starts to wedge the knife into the bed under his molar until Nathaniel hears a crack. It feels impossible, this shard of his jaw knocked out of place, like a whole continent drifting away.

Someone pounds on the upstairs door. The perspiration on Nathan’s brow accumulates into a single droplet, and Nathaniel waits for it to fall, holding his breath.

All of the pressure is removed from his mouth at once.

Nathan sits back on his heels. “Someone deal with that.”

DiMaccio cracks his neck, agitated.

“Police, open up,” a muffled voice says, raised over the din of the pounding.

“For god’s sake,” Nathan says, rolling his eyes and standing. “Lola,” he says silkily. “Keep him warm for me.” Nathaniel melts back into the concrete. He licks blood from his lips, staring hazily into the overhead light so he doesn’t think about the changing landscape of his mouth.

“With pleasure,” she says. She’s holding her ribs, and Nathaniel knows he’s done some damage. Even her robust good mood has been dented.

She kneels. Nathan sheds his over-shirt and washes his hands at the sink in the corner of the room. DiMaccio climbs the stairs. It’s like they're tinkering around at the office, while he’s smeared out on the floor, pulsing with blood and pain and hatred. He remembers what Lola said before, that Nathaniel’s indiscretion had boosted him to the top of his father’s to-do list. He is a task. He will be crossed out.

“Open wide,” Lola says. Her head is just blotting out the light.

“Open up,” the cop upstairs reiterates.

Nathaniel’s face is so soaked, and so swollen. He doesn’t recognize the feeling of his own features.

Once, the band had been trapped in an endless soundcheck at a sweltering venue. Andrew had been spread out at the lip of the stage, foot dangling over the edge and arm over his eyes, tattooed ‘yes’ turned delicately towards his face. Nicky had maneuvered himself under the piano, and the rest of them wilted to the ground after him, glad to be off their feet. For a while, they had all been breathing the humidity in together, dropping off to sleep or looking up at the lights.

He hears DiMaccio open the door and gruffly say “not a good time”. Lola’s claws hook in his lower lip. He thinks — sleep? Or follow the lights?

Nathan’s at the top of the stairs now too, and he’s playing charming.

“Something I can help you with?”

“Wesninski,” the cop says familiarly. “I know you’re not causing trouble again.”

Nathaniel’s thoughts race and fall all over each other. Is this another dirty cop? Is Nathan paying him off? If Nathaniel screams, and the cop knows to look the other way, Nathan will only be more enraged, only kill him slower.

“No more than usual,” Nathan replies.

“Glad to hear it. We’re just investigating a tip-off. I’m sure you won’t mind if we have a look around?”

“Like my assistant said, you caught us at a bad time,” Nathan says, less smoothly.

“It’s funny how many times I hear that on house visits.”

“No, really, I can’t entertain any more guests.”

Nathaniel can hear him moving to block the door, and there’s a sound like weight scuffing against wood. He’s coming inside? He can’t believe it.

Lola pulls his lower lip even harder away from the gum. Her composure is a little wrinkled, which is how he knows that this wasn’t in the plan. He can hear his father talking intricate circles around the officer, but he can also hear the voices getting closer.

He swallows. Swallows again, and closes his eyes, thinking of the domino line-up of threats stacked back as far as he can remember. Don’t you dare cause a scene. Holler and I cut your tongue in half. Tell them how well I treat you. You can either be useful or dead, your choice Junior.

He twists out of Lola’s grip, rolling gracelessly onto his stomach. She grabs his hair with both fists.

“Help!” he shouts. It comes out thick through his warped lip, wobbly tooth, and all the blood, but as soon as he’s opened his mouth, he can’t stop screaming. He wants to live so badly.

Lola wrestles with him, pressing her forearm to the side of his destroyed face. He thrashes against her, sobbing, “please, they’re killing me, please, please, please.” It’s not even a performance. He can’t stop.

“Shut up,” Lola hisses.

There are fast footsteps coming down the stairs, and Nathaniel’s heart claws for his throat. Lola puts the gun to his mouth and the metal knocks painfully against his front teeth.

He looks up just in time to see Nathan following the cop down the stairs at a clip, teeth bared. He reaches back towards DiMaccio and comes away with his favoured cleaver. As it crests in the air, Nathaniel is hit with the cruellest deja vu imaginable. He knows what has to happen next.

“No,” he whispers.

“It’s okay,” the cop says. His eyes are wide as he takes in Lola, crouched over him like an animal, Nathaniel’s skin split open and spilling.

“Don’t—“

Nathan cuts the officers throat, so quickly that Nathaniel’s not sure if he really saw it happen. He falls awkwardly on the stairs, his knees folding and his head drooping forward like it might slide clean off.

Lola makes a noise that might be a laugh, and stops fighting Nathaniel down. It was barely a fight anyway, he’s so weak now. The hand with the gun in it goes lax.

“That was close,” she trills. Nathaniel wraps his hand around the barrel of the gun. She doesn’t even look down. She’s so delighted by the spectacle of senseless murder that she can’t see him.

“That was unacceptable,” Nathan corrects. He tosses the cleaver to the ground next to the officer, who is crumpled up like a scrap of wet paper towel. “You—“ his eyes float to Nathaniel and settle.

He’s holding the gun.

For a long moment, they stare at each other.

“How cute,” Lola says.

Nathaniel turns and shoots her in the chest. The sound of it is muffled—too quiet, certainly, to come from a pistol. Her mouth is round and wet with surprise. Her chest blooms.

Impossibly, she looks down and spreads her own wound like she intends to perform surgery. She laughs giddily at her own pain, wheezing, then falls backwards. When she hits the floor, it’s the loudest thing he’s ever heard.

No one moves. A pale cloud comes over Nathan; he looks thunderstruck, washed out. Nathaniel’s never seen him look this way before. It’s—his gun-toting hand starts to shake—It might be pride.

He can’t stand it. He fires the gun again, and it clips his father in the neck. He watches him stumble, sees the blood splatter and froth. He’s unable to wrap his head around the reality of it. He shoots him again in the stomach, then the chest. He clips his hand, and a finger flies off.

Der Ausreißer, he thinks wildly. The stray bullet.

DiMaccio lunges teeth-first, like a panther, and Nathaniel shoots him too.

He spasms violently, squeezing the trigger even after the bullets are gone. Eventually, the gun drops like a stone, and he slumps to his hands and knees.

He’s not sure how long he stays like that, head hanging down between his caved-in shoulders, panting. He knows, distantly, that he needs to leave. There’s gore streaking out around him in every direction. Inevitably, there will be more police, somewhere out there in Baltimore, mobilizing.

He feels like two separate people. Everyone in the room has been ripped in half, and he will always be one of them. He was staring a death sentence in the eye for so long, and just as he eased into the electric chair, his jailer dropped dead. His path cleared. His wrung-out body was suddenly his own. He was Nathaniel, and then he looked up and he was Neil again.

He staggers to his feet.

His sneaker skids sideways in Lola’s blood, and he windmills, touching the ground to steady himself. He looks at his handprint in all that red.

I’m an orphan, he thinks. He starts to laugh. His tooth is still trying to escape his gum. The sweet iron smell of blood burns his nostrils, and the silence rings like alarm bells. Somehow, all of his senses are intact. He is the only surviving Wesninski.

He limps to the metal cabinets on the far wall, and riffles through the meticulously organized shelves. It’s been years, but he remembers watching Lola lining up cleaning products, sheets of plastic, sharpeners, and ammo. It’s difficult to see without the use of both eyes, but he quickly finds the vital red of the jerry can. He laughs again, merrily.

He shakes gasoline out over the perimeter of the basement, not lingering on anyone, not really looking. He doesn’t know what it would mean if he did.

He pointedly ignores his failing body. At one point, he feels an unhealthy crunch beneath his heel and realizes he’s squashed his father’s stray finger.

He takes the stairs one at a time, hands on both bannisters, hair hanging down into his panting mouth. It’s a herculean effort, staying on his feet. The gasoline is wedged under his arm upside-down, trailing a path up the stairs. As soon as he reaches the plateau of the still-open side door, he lets the jug droop from his grip. He wrings the doorknob, redoubling his efforts to stay vertical.

The digital clock in the living room blinks at him, and he blinks back. 6:38 AM. He was on stage not even ten hours ago.

He breathes in and out, fast, bracing himself, then limps onward towards the kitchen.

He knows there used to be a blowtorch in the drawer next to the oven, and he heaves out a sigh of relief when he finds it there, untouched.

He tries not to linger on the familiarity of the living room, furnished with self-satisfied plum and mahogany. He blinks, and for a moment he sees his mother at the window, holding her dressing gown closed over a broken collarbone. There was a crescent of Nathaniel’s blood hidden by the heavy coffee table before his father had the good sense to rip up all the carpet. He remembers crouching in the walk-in pantry with his mother, hands over each other’s mouths. He can see them in all the saddest corners of this house.

Burning it down won’t be enough. He could raze and build and raze again, and cruelty would still live here.

He drags himself back to the door, which is blown wide open now. It’s like the whole wide, breezy night knocked it aside to get a look at him.

He stoops, sets the end of his gasoline trail alight, and ducks away from the roar.

Nathaniel walks out of his childhood house for the very last time.

Looking blankly at the police cruiser still parked in the driveway, feeling the brutal, burning heat at his back, he thinks,

I’m going to be Neil for the rest of my life.

_______

He’s wandering the freeway when a minivan slows to a crawl on the shoulder next to him. A petite, greying woman rolls down the passenger side window.

“Hey, are you okay?” she calls.

Neil squints at her, woozy. She recoils when she sees his face, then reaches for her seatbelt. It’s a testament to her strength, really, the way her disgust hardens into resolve.

“Oh my god. Wait right there,” she says. He shouldn’t have stopped; he’s drooping to his knees. “Jesus.” She wrenches open the driver’s side door and leaves it hanging there, cocked into oncoming traffic. “Jesus,” she insists, her moccasins skidding through uneven gravel.

She crouches in front of him and takes hold of his upper arms. Her grip is as gentle as the snuffling wind.

“I’m an orphan,” he tells her. He’s not sure why he says it. He wonders if it will ever not be the most focal thought in his head.

“I’m sorry,” she says softly.

“Oh, no,” Neil laughs. “No, no. I killed him.”

She looks disturbed for a moment, and her mouth twists reproachfully, like he’s telling a joke in poor taste. “I’m sure you didn’t.”

Neil shrugs.

“You—you really need to go to the hospital.”

“Yes,” Neil agrees.

“Are you strong enough to stand?”

“No,” he says, coughing. It’s too much for his body to withstand, and he doubles over. When he looks back up into her concerned dark eyes, he thinks abruptly of Dan. Then without pausing, he hurtles over that thought, and straight into Andrew.

“Hey,” he pants. “Uh…”

“Mary-Anne,” she supplies.

“Mary-Anne. I need to borrow your phone.”

_______

The drive to Baltimore is endless.

The road is a jammed zipper, and Andrew is forcing it. He doesn’t care what breaks.

“No, he’s—no. Maybe 5’3”. No, that’s not him. Call me back if—okay. Thanks anyway.” Nicky hangs up and throws his phone at the windshield so hard the battery pops out. “We’re never going to fucking find him.”

“Call Saint Agnes,” Andrew says.

Nicky hesitates. “It’s the last hospital in the city,” he says. “If he’s not there—“

“Call.”

“Andrew, I’m worried you’re—“

“Keep your worry,” Andrew hisses, “for the man with a serial killer for a father.”

Nicky flinches. “I’m scared too, you know,” he says, stricken.

Andrew wants to say, I’m not scared. I can’t be. I’m the bar where the four horseman of the apocalypse come to drink themselves stupid. I’m a vessel for tragedy.

“Call,” he says instead.

Nicky sighs and passes the phone back to Aaron. “I can’t hear no again,” he says. “It’s killing me.”

Andrew watches Aaron’s furrowed face in the rearview mirror, his endlessly puckering brow. He’s surprised to see how scared he looks, as he reunites battery pack and cell phone. Kevin is nearly catatonic next to him, face pressed clean to the side window even though every bump in the road rattles his skull against the glass.

Wymack is driving Abby and all of his Foxes in the van, while the Monsters took Wymack’s fast little car. They all fit neatly, without Neil.

“I’m looking for someone named Neil, or maybe Nathaniel,” Aaron says into the phone. “About 5’3”, dyed brown hair, blue eyes. Has anyone come into emergency tonight—Yeah, whatever, I’ll wait.” He holds his hand over the receiver and shakes his head.

It’s impossible, to feel any worse.

Then Andrew’s phone rings in his pocket.

For a suspended second, his eyes flit back to Aaron’s, and he knows the thoughts in their heads are precisely the same. Aaron’s expression is a forgery of Andrew’s, snagged with panic.

“Andrew.” It’s Kevin, looking suddenly alert in the backseat, flushed as if with fever. “It might be bad news.”

“Who cares,” Nicky says, reckless. “It’s news.”

Andrew finds himself nodding, or shaking, he can’t tell. He lets go of the steering wheel and fumbles for the source of the buzzing.

Nicky grabs hastily for the loose wheel as they coast towards the ditch at unfathomable speed. He just barely manages to swing them back into their lane before the gravel crunches into grass, and they topple out into the darkness.

Andrew’s fist closes over the phone, and it splits open like a fortune cookie in his grip.

“Neil?” he asks.

“Um,” A woman says.

His disappointment is quicksand; his foot sinks reflexively down onto the gas pedal. Nicky has to grapple again with the slippery steering.

With crushing effort, he asks, “who the fuck is this?” The words hit with the compact burn of splattered fry oil—he can hear her flinch through the phone.

“Sorry, is this um—Andrew? I’m not sure I caught that right, before he…”

Before he—what? Andrew’s imagination rips itself in half before he can take the thought any further. He is so tightly braided with terror and relief.

“He’s with you?” he chokes, but she’s still half-talking, high and traumatized.

“I’m sorry, I really—I don’t know where to start—“

“Andrew, pull over,” Aaron says.

“Put him on the phone,” Andrew says faintly. He is leaden, and his foot is pressed flat to the gas. They’re screaming along at almost 100 miles per hour, and it still doesn’t feel like his body is moving as quickly as his thoughts.

“I can’t,” she wails. “He passed out. I don’t know what to do, there’s—he’s—I don’t know his name, I don’t even know if this is the right—“

“It’s Neil,” Nicky says, from where he’s already pressed close to copilot the car. “Brown hair, blue eyes, right?”

She shifts around noisily, and there’s a soft, muffled curse. “I—I can’t tell.”

“What do you mean you can’t tell?” Andrew asks sharply. Headlights flash and swerve out of their treacherous path.

“Slow down,” Kevin says.

“There’s… so much blood, I don’t know. I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, he’s not in good shape.”

Nicky meets Andrew’s eye miserably. “That’s Neil, isn’t it?”

He doesn’t reply. His foot sags off of the gas altogether.

Nicky has to wrestle them to the side of the road, half-crying, and by then, Aaron has plucked the phone from Andrew’s loose grip.

“Yeah, no, not the first time. Is he breathing? No. Right. Oh. Do me a favour, don’t call the cops yet, okay…? Mary-Anne? Okay. Yeah. Thank you. Maybe two hours? Okay. Thank you.”

He hangs up. The car is quiet and crackling, like they’ve just survived a wreck. They breathe and blink owlishly at one another, and Andrew knows they’re waiting for his next move.

He can’t feel his hands. He’s so singularly, mind-numbingly enraged.

“She told me he said—” Aaron swallows a couple of times, then continues, “—he said he killed his father.”

“Jesus Mary. Just offering that up to passer’s by, is he?” Nicky says. “I guess Jean wasn’t lying.”

Andrew feels his anger transform to account for new, more vivid colour. He can’t keep up with it. If he felt out-of-control fast before, now he feels slow; he’s being rewound, paused, and randomly scene-selected, an overworked VHS. He needs to fast-forward. He needs to unravel all the way to Baltimore. He needs to reroute his fear into violence or he’s going to be torn up.

“If the butcher’s dead, then everything’s—okay, right?” Nicky continues.

“Sounds like he got in some last minute butchering before he died,” Aaron says darkly.

Andrew turns the engine over, and it whines thinly. “Where is he?” he asks.

“Someone else should drive,” Kevin says.

“Where is he,” Andrew repeats. He keeps picturing what kind of damage would have to be done to make Neil’s striking colouring unrecognizable. How fragile his untrusting body would have to be to droop unconscious in front of a stranger.

He needs to thrash this highway to death. He won’t believe Neil is alive until he’s in front of him. If he never touches him again, he knows, he knows his hands will ache for the rest of his life.

“Passed out on interstate 83, right now,” Aaron says slowly. “She’ll call back when the ambulance comes.”

He pulls brusquely away from the shoulder, threading the car back into the middle lane. “Call her back first.” He feels like it’s all he can say. Call him. Find him. Bring him back. I will not be here while he is there. It is my responsibility to slosh above deck, through the twitching eye of the storm, and toss a line out for him.

“What good is it going to do? You want to listen to your boyfriend bleed out from a hundred miles away?” Aaron says it to be mean, but he looks upset. He twists the ring on his thumb, the one he thinks Andrew doesn’t know Katelyn gave him.

Nicky looks nervously over at Andrew. Usually, he wouldn’t take the bait. He would barely notice it being laid out for him.

“Aaron,” he says, and there’s no room for argument. “Call.”

He doesn’t say please, but Aaron flinches anyway. He shakes it off, as always, and begins to click back through to the disconnected call. Before he can dial, the phone rings again in his hands.

He blinks dumbly at the caller ID, then hits ‘answer’.

“Wymack?” Aaron asks. He looks up at the others while he listens, then recites, “half the block Neil grew up on is on fire.” He waits, brow furrowed, then adds, “at least four casualties.”

Kevin fumes. “God, exactly the kind of visibility we don’t need.”

“Don’t think it was a publicity stunt, Kev,” Nicky says thinly.

“Self-defence,” Andrew murmurs.

“Overkill,” Aaron say. “And now the cops are going to be looking for him, because they just got eighteen panicked long-distance calls about the Butcher’s son.”

“They will not find him,” Andrew says.

“You think he’s gonna bolt?” Nicky asks.

“What other choice does he have?” Kevin asks.

Nicky shrugs. “He’s got us.”

Aaron covers the receiver. “Even if he could physically run, he wouldn’t,” he says, looking at Andrew. “He’s selfish.”

Andrew ignores this and keeps driving. He can’t stop. He feels—underwater, parched and disoriented, and if he doesn’t break the surface soon, he never will. Behind him, Aaron tells Wymack what they know, then hangs up.

“He’s alive, Andrew,” Nicky offers, in the quiet. “He’s okay.”

“Don’t,” he chokes. He looks at his hands on the wheel, the way the inked yes and no are both distorted when his fists are clenched. They haven’t looked clear since Neil was taken.

The closer they get to Baltimore, the more everything else starts warping to match, and his vision narrows to a pinprick in the deep, dark horizon.

_______

Neil half-rouses in the ambulance, enough to understand that his injuries are real, and many of them have reopened in transit. The medicinal tang in the air is crisp and pungent. The sheets beneath him are streaked red; his hands struggle for purchase in the slickness of them. His chest feels watery and full.

“Where’re you taking me,” he demands hoarsely. “I need to go to Columbia.”

“That’s a little outside of our jurisdiction,” a paramedic says. There are two of them looming over him, passing supplies back and forth over his prone body, taping him into a cats cradle of wires and machinery. “Can you tell us your name?”

“You have to let me out,” Neil says, suddenly frantic, sitting up until his injuries cramp and hiss and push him back down.

“Oh-ho, okay, we’ve got a runner. Can we get some soft restraints on him please?”

His chest is a whirlpool, spinning and devouring itself. “No restraints,” Neil begs. “Don’t, please.” His wrists are wreckage already. “Don’t tie me down.”

“Okay, okay,” the other paramedic says gently, her hand to his chest. “Then you’ve gotta calm down, kid. You’re gonna undo all our hard work.”

Neil looks down at her dark hand on his bare, scarred body, the gauze encasing both freshly maimed arms, the productive pinch of the IV. Embarrassment crushes him, chased hotly by fear.

“My hands—“

“You’ll keep ‘em,” she assures him.

“I’ll be able to play piano?”

“Don’t see why not. Most of the cuts are pretty superficial.”

He can’t believe it. They are taut with agony. He tries to hunch over the jungle of wires to get a look at them.

“Woah, easy,” the first paramedic says. He’s very pink and very blurry, and Neil can’t focus on him. He can focus on sitting up. It should be easy, and it’s all he can think to do to take control of his body.

He falters when the pain in his ribs whines and holds him at a distance again, and he puts a hand loosely over his eyes as if it will block out his feelings.

“I need to speak to my band.”

“You need to stop moving around so much.”

“I need to speak to my band,” he repeats. “Let me borrow a phone.”

“Look, from what I hear, your friends are already on their way. Ms. Thomas took care of that for you.”

“Ms. Thomas,” Neil repeats dumbly.

“Yes sir. Sounds like you owe her a hell of a gift basket.”

He vaguely remembers those dark eyes swimming above him, her little red phone drooping out of his hand, his temple colliding with gravel. He feels robbed, furious at himself, and wretchedly grateful.

“She spoke to them for me?” he whispers.

He hums, flicking at a syringe so the bubbles settle. “She did more than that. Might have singlehandedly saved your life, you know?”

Neil disagrees, quietly. Not singlehandedly. He’s been saved in almost as many ways as he’s been hurt, now. He sinks back into the messy sheets. Somewhere, outside of the antiseptic rattle of the ambulance, his family is coming to find him.

“Don’t—let me sleep,” Neil says, disjointed.

The paramedics exchange a meaningful glance. “Uh-huh.”

“I have to—I can’t—I have to see—“ he swallows dryly. His consciousness is slipping out from under him like loose bedding. “Don’t let me sleep.”

“Neil,” one of them says. “You’re safe. Sleep.”

_______

Andrew leaves Wymack’s car strung haphazardly between two spaces, the driver’s side door flung open, keys in the ignition.

Afterwards, he couldn’t tell you what the hospital looked like, who he spoke to, or how long he was running.

The flimsy hospital protocols try to catch at his clothes and hold his hands behind his back, but he keeps sprinting, floor to floor, stairwell to stairwell, and everything else is inconsequential. He feels like he’s been chasing after Neil’s shadow for twenty-four hours. Maybe longer. Maybe he’s always been trying to keep pace with shadows.

He keeps saying Neil’s name to strangers and waiting for the flash of recognition that will mean he can stop. He reels in orderlies for questioning and ducks into private rooms. He can hear the others toppling after him, joining the hunt, straightening out altercations with hospital staff before they can drag Andrew down.

“You’re them,” someone says.

Andrew slows, and the others jog up behind him. There’s a mousy woman just beyond a wall of windows, standing in the world’s saddest waiting room, clutching a red phone.

“Mary-Anne?” Nicky asks.

She nods, swallowing.

Andrew prowls towards her, and Kevin grabs ahold of the back of his shirt.

“He’s okay,” she says quickly. “They’re worried about infection, but he’s—he’s.” Her face crumples.

“What?” Andrew demands.

“Nothing, nothing, I just don’t know who would do something like this.”

Andrew bucks forward in Kevin’s grip. “Like what,” he repeats, red-hot.

She trembles, trying not to say whatever she’s so obviously thinking. “Rip—rip someone apart—like—“

Andrew makes a choked, gummy noise, and Aaron and Nicky instantly crowd him. It’s disorienting, that they are for once trying to protect him and not someone else from him.

“Andrew,” Wymack’s voice calls. When they turn to look, he’s down the hall, Dan is hugging Neil’s duffel bag and looking murderous, and the rest of them are scattered on the floor or in green vinyl seats. With their phone-call detours and near-accidents, the van must have skipped ahead of them. “Stop terrorizing everyone in the damn hospital.”

“This is the last time I will ask to see him,” Andrew says, striding over to meet them all, “before I lose my temper.”

“I’d hate to see that,” Wymack says, somehow sarcastic and regretful at once. “From what I hear, they’re still bandaging him up.”

“What room?”

Down the hall, on cue, there’s a clattering sound like an overturned gurney, and then a calamity of raised voices.

“… fuck, again? Where’s—somebody stop him—”

“Lie back down, Mr—hey, come on, turn off the—no, I’m serious this time, I’m calling security.”

A metal basin skitters out into the hall, and a wooden door pops and splinters.

Someone skids sideways out of an exam room, and catches himself heavily on the opposite wall. He winces, slides down half a foot, then braces himself to keep running.

Andrew’s terror falls to the ground and covers its ears. His anger puts up its fists. The whole sickening mess of his feelings for Neil won’t stop bleeding; he’s not sure they’re going to make it.

Neil looks up, and between one laboured breath and the next, he spots them. His face comes alive.

“Andrew,” he breathes. He takes a pitiful step forward. Andrew hates him so desperately for what he’s done that it loops all the way back around and becomes obsession, the kind that drives the wayward eagle to swoop down for Prometheus, day after day.

Neil is drenched in bandages. The blood has been recently and imperfectly scrubbed away, but he’s obviously been tortured, tumbled and sliced and spit out different. The reality of it sends Andrew lurching forward stomach-first. He can feel the others scrambling behind him. Two strangers in scrubs grab for Neil’s arms, and it corrodes Andrew’s brain to think of someone else touching him; he hisses with smoke.

“Don’t,” he snarls. He is sharpened to a point, sailing over the squeaky tile as if released from a bow.

“Just let them... do this,” Wymack is saying. “Okay?”

The nurse puts his hands up and steps back, and the shrewish medical student follows, at length. “Just don’t let him go any farther. The cops want to talk to him, and I’m not going on another wild goose chase through pathology.”

As soon as they’ve surrendered, Andrew forgets their presence completely. He doesn’t have the capacity to care about them when Neil is in front of him again, wounded and haughty.

He reaches him, finally, and puts his hands to his neck. His thumbs come up naturally to bracket his jaw. Neil sinks almost involuntarily into a stray waiting room chair, and Andrew follows him down, crouched between his knees so that they’re level. Neil blinks at him. One glacier-blue eye, the other swallowed by tape and gauze.

At the sight of it, he crushes his left palm to the back of Neil’s neck, and with his right he traces the bandage, searching for a seam.

“You, too, huh?” Neil says, ghosting a hand over Andrew’s bruised eye. “Percussion is a dangerous sport.”

Andrew doesn’t respond.

He peels the tape back, and finds Neil’s face in pieces. He was braced for it, but it draws and quarters him. His eye is moving sluggishly under the paper-thin lid, but something has nearly pierced through it. The deep gauge in his brow forks like lightning over his lid and sweeps down to his cheekbone. It’s difficult to imagine sustaining an injury like this and staying conscious.

Behind him, Dan gasps, “Oh my god, Neil.”

Andrew steadies his breathing. A panic attack puts a gun to his head, and he fights to disarm it. He puts the bandage down on the chair next to them, bloody side up, then reaches for the smaller tan patch over Neil’s chin. Underneath there are little abrasions mostly, criss-crossing down to his neck. The bulk of the damage is obviously to his eye and wrapped arms, and when Neil licks his bloodless lips, he can see that there are cuts inside his mouth too.

“Open,” Andrew commands.

Neil does, and Andrew holds his chin aloft, index finger nestled in the corner of his mouth. He’s missing a molar, and his piercing. His tongue has some loose pale skin at its heart, where the stud was clearly yanked on and sliced around, but it will heal quickly.

He probes the stitches under Neil’s eye, and Neil’s clean white-bandaged hands come up to hang off of his wrist.

“I’m sorry,” he whispers.

Andrew’s thumb presses down too hard into the bloody seam of Neil’s skin, and he has to snatch his whole hand back before he rips something. He’s shaking with fury. He knows now that he dissolved their deal while Neil’s feet were dangling over the shredder; as soon as he let him go, he was torn to ribbons.

“Don’t.” It’s all he can say. He puts his arm to Neil’s throat threateningly. “Don’t ever—“ His vision is ruddy, red. He could put Neil in the ground for what he let them do.

Neil’s head lolls backwards; his gaze is ice you can jump up and down on without breaking through.

Andrew imagines himself as a wick that curls and blackens and liquifies everything around it, and then he lets his arm relax. When he does, it smooths down Neil’s chest and comes to rest across his lap.

“Careful with him,” the med student complains. “If we have to stitch him up again, you’re paying for it.”

“Oh, go to hell,” Allison says. At the same time, Andrew jerks towards the whole crowd of gawking hospital staff with intent. In pieces, Neil coaxes his attention back where it belongs. Both of his swaddled hands are raised close enough that if Andrew turned, his mouth would press flat to Neil’s wrist.

“If you continue to interrupt us,” Neil says, “You will be paying for it.”

“Don’t threaten—“

“Don’t bother,” Neil counters. “You can keep pretending that you have any authority and see what happens, or you can get out of our sight and keep those delicate physician’s hands of yours intact.”

To her credit, she bares her teeth before she turns tail, shoving the nurse ahead of her and marching them both down the hallway.

“Ten minutes, or we call security,” she calls behind her.

“I don’t think so,” Neil calls back. It’s such a relief to see Neil’s wounded mouth still spitting. He’s righteous as always, larger-than-life without meaning to be, beautifully bitter.

Andrew keeps being struck by the haunting, muffled feeling that finds you when you’re watching footage of the dead. Neil’s here, in motion, but for the last twenty-four hours, he’s been dying in Andrew’s imagination.

“Threats, threats,” Andrew says flatly. “You are your father’s son.”

The jab lands. Neil’s jaw works, and he looks down at the hands still hovering about Andrew’s neck. His fingers are always finding the heads of Andrew’s hydra when they kiss, each digit eclipsing a ravenous mouth.

“Not anymore,” he says. Without ever making contact, he lowers his hands to his lap. Andrew’s fingers twist immediately in the loose bandaging at his wrist. He is angry, but he needs to be close to Neil so the cold, lucid nightmare of today can warm into a pipedream again.

“You have a knack for killing him. Resurrected and struck down again in 24 hours.”

“I was going to tell you,” Neil says lowly. “The countdown—“

“Do not lie to me.” He thinks of Neil tossing feverishly in bed, waking often, holding his face with the root of both palms. Neil catching his own reflection in the hall mirror and flinching back painfully into the doorframe. All along, it was his father. It’s always family. He should’ve known.

Neil looks vicious for a second, and Andrew is relieved, again, at his fire. “I told you more than I ever thought— I gave you all the pieces but one. You don’t get to—“

“I get to,” Andrew hisses. “I get to ask you whatever the fuck I want.” He doesn’t elaborate, and Neil doesn’t look at him.

“The security, at the show, they worked for my father. They were in the audience, backstage, everywhere. I was trying to keep you safe by going quietly.”

“Quietly,” Andrew repeats.

“I didn’t know they were storming the stage,” Neil says. “If I’d known they were going to hurt you anyway…” he touches the very edge of Andrew’s injured eye. “I might have stayed and fought.” Even as he says it, he doesn’t look like he believes it.

“Your self-sacrifice is getting very old.”

Neil smiles. It’s a hole-punch expression, there and gone, but it leaves a perfect hole. Andrew peers through it and into his racing thoughts.

“I know. But I’d do it again.”

“If you try, I will kill you.”

“I’ll risk it,” he says, lifting his jaw. “How did you find me?”

“Jean Moreau,” Andrew replies. Neil obviously wasn’t expecting it, and he squints, waiting for an explanation. “You told me Riko knew things about your past. Turns out it’s common knowledge among Ravens.”

“You talked to Riko?” Neil asks, hushed.

“You disappeared,” Andrew reminds him. Then, because it’s as unbearable to avoid as it is to look at, he asks, “what happened to your eye?”

Neil shakes his head, so slightly that Andrew’s not sure he knows he’s doing it. “Vegetable peeler.”

Nicky gags, somewhere behind them, and Aaron mutters something low and disgusted.

“They didn’t,” Matt wonders aloud. “Neil—“

Neil swallows, then looks properly towards the sound of his voice. Matt reels back a step, covering his mouth. He and Dan are holding onto one another, and she has to squeeze his shoulder to keep him from falling back further. Kevin makes a small, sad noise, and turns around completely.

“Jesus. What the fuck. Can you see?” Matt asks.

Neil taps his right eye. “Some.”

“Gnarly.”

Andrew is quickly growing impatient. From the periphery of his vision, he can see that the med student has returned, and she and Abby are speaking in hushed tones. They keep glancing sideways at where Neil and Andrew are tangled together. His fingers loop tighter on Neil’s wrists.

“Neil,” Abby calls softly.

“No,” Andrew says.

“Please,” Abby says. Andrew puts a hand on the unblemished side of Neil’s face, gathering his focus again. He looks into that unchanged eye and breathes. “He has bruised ribs. He should be in bed.”

She moves delicately closer, and his anger spikes, hits a ceiling, and sloshes back down over him.

“Get away from us,” he says clearly.

“They’re not done with him,” she says, nervous but insistent. “We have to let him get treated or we have to leave the hospital. Those are the rules.”

“I don’t care,” he says, “about the rules. Come closer and you will be glad you’re in a hospital.”

“Andrew,” she tries. “Neil needs—“

“Abby,” Neil says. “I need this, first. I’m not going to be any less hurt when this conversation is over. I’m not going anywhere.”

“But—“

“It’s okay,” he says firmly. Then, softer, “we’re okay.”

Andrew hears Abby melt back into the rest of the Palmetto crowd, and there are some more restless murmurs exchanged between her and the hospital staff. His thumb swipes through the grey space under Neil’s good eye.

“You know what happened?” Neil guesses quietly.

“You tempted a butcher to violence.”

Neil turns his face just a little into Andrew’s hand. “Whatever I did or didn’t tell you before,” he says, “I’m an orphan now.”

“Self-fulfilling prophecy.”

“I didn’t think—I never thought he could be killed like that. They kept me on the line my whole life and all I needed was—a second—just—one second with the upper hand, and they’re gone.”

“All of them?” He thinks of the woman in the pencil skirt, the shadowy security.

Neil hums. “A police officer, too. Wrong place, wrong time, I guess.” He shrugs, like he’s not talking about a macabre parade of casualties.

Andrew shakes his head. “Right place, right time.”

Neil searches his face, then sags with understanding. “You called them,” he says. It’s obvious that this thought hadn’t occurred to him before—that his friends could have risen up to save him, could’ve guessed right, could’ve been in that house with him all along.

Andrew doesn’t answer.

“Thank you,” Neil whispers.

“They’ll be after you, now.”

“Someone always is,” he says wryly. He looks smudgy and sad for a moment. “I’m glad I got to see you again.” It’s such a pathetically earnest goodbye.

“We won’t let them take you,” Andrew says.

Neil’s face droops, and Andrew can tell he’s fighting through all of his pain and exhaustion for composure. They’re both doing it, poorly.

When he speaks again, it’s in coarse German: “I don’t understand. My father was a big enough player to orchestrate the riot that give you that black eye. It’ll be Riko, next. He assured me he would come for us, and you know he doesn’t care who he puts in danger. I’ve been a liability since day one. I stayed in the band even when I knew what damage my visibility could do.”

“You’re on our contract for a reason,” Andrew says.

A laugh bubbles from somewhere helpless and acidic in Neil’s body, and it seems to hurt his mouth on the way out. “What possible reason could you have?” he asks. “You’ve always, always known I was a runaway.”

“Exactly,” Andrew says. “We knew, and we wanted you anyway.”

They both wait, but nothing breaks, once this heavy truth has been splattered out between them.

Neil says, in jittery English, “I want—I know it’s ridiculous, I know what I’ve done, and what it cost, but I want to stay with you. I want to keep this for as long as I can.”

“You’re not going anywhere,” Andrew agrees. He thinks of him ebbing out from where Andrew has him pinned, floating out of this hospital, snipped and slippery as a stray balloon. It’s impossible. Losing him doesn’t make any sense. The thought tries to keep its balance but it just slips and falls and slips and falls.

“What are they gonna do, arrest you?” Dan asks. “It’s pretty obvious to me who threw the first punch.”

Neil shrugs one shoulder. “I don’t know. I covered my tracks back at the house. There’s not much evidence.”

“Then we’ll find witnesses,” Matt says. “Fuck, I’ll testify.”

The corners of Neil’s mouth twitch. “We’ll see,” he says quietly. Andrew knows he’s thinking of Riko, the whole other lobe of this problem that no one else can see well enough to dissect. He looks warily towards Wymack, who scoffs.

“Don’t look at me if you want off the hook. I signed you knowing full well how much of a mess you’d be. Palmetto is richer in problems than it is in talent, look around you,” he says.

“Misfits,” Nicky says winningly. His arms are crossed in such a way that Andrew can tell he’s trying not to reach out to them. “You’re Ausreißer’s frontman, remember? You’re our family.”

“And you still have a tour to finish,” Wymack says. “If that’s what you want.”

“It is,” Neil says quietly.

“Then that’s it,” he says. Neil slumps, fatigued with gratitude, and Andrew fists his hospital gown.

“Get patched up, okay?” Dan says. “Tell the police what a bastard your father was. Come home with us. We’ll figure things out.”

“Thank you,” Neil says. He taps Andrew’s shoulder, and Andrew shifts his hands to Neil’s waist to maneuver them both to standing. “I’ll—you deserve the truth, all of you.”

“We’ll channel all that hurt and betrayal into lyrics,” Allison says, waving a hand. “Seriously.”

“Worry about explanations later,” Wymack says, rolling his eyes. “I don’t want to be getting into the nitty-gritty when security comes.”

Neil nods once. He’s remarkably steady as he walks through the tunnel of living, thrumming worry his friends have made of the hallway. Dan passes him his duffel bag and swipes an affectionate thumb over his bandaged wrist. Nicky reaches for his shoulder, can’t decide where to touch, and gives him a thumbs up instead. Matt tugs on a lock of his hair as they pass.

Andrew walks alongside him; he will not leave until he’s been asked. He’s been searching for Neil with such single-minded intent that keeping pace is all he can do.

“Going with him, are you?” Allison asks Andrew snidely. There is a brown bruised shadow on her cheek where Andrew slapped her.

Renee jostles her good-naturedly. “Take care,” she says, to both of them. To Neil, she reprimands, “you scared us.” She’s tugging her cross back and forth so it cuts into her neck a little, an uncharacteristically nervous gesture.

“Sorry,” Neil says dumbly. All of their affection is unfamiliar to his palette, but especially Renee’s. He usually swirls it in his mouth like wine and spits it out, but this time he considers its vintage, finishes the glass, then buys the whole bottle.

They reach the end of the hall together, stepping over the discarded basin and scattered instruments. Andrew watches Neil compensate for his pain, favouring one side so his posture can’t crush his ribs, reaching out to the doorframe so his depth perception doesn’t fail him.

There’s almost nothing about Neil in tatters that is easier than Neil, missing.

Together, they look out on his kicked over bed, toppled IV stand, and overturned plastic bag of unwearable clothes. There’s a pill bottle and stout tub of ointment on the bedside table.

“Did you find my key to the house?” Neil asks.

Andrew swallows. He imagines he can feel the shape of it against his thigh through the denim. He often grazed it, in passing, over the course of their rabid, nighttime chase, thinking of how many times Neil had done the same. “It’s how I knew,” he says simply.

Neil breathes out, easing himself onto the side of the other bed in the room. “I thought so. You know I wouldn’t—“

“I know.”

Neil unzips his bag and produces a soft, blue shirt. He looks at it for a long moment, and then he starts to cry. “Oh,” he says. “Don’t let me,” he reaches for his ruined eye, and clenches his teeth, choking, “I can’t—cry.“

Andrew crosses briskly to the bed and slides a hand over the back of his neck. “Breathe,” he commands. He plucks the shirt from Neil’s loose hands and holds it to his eye like a compress. “Breathe.”

The uncovered side of his face is flushed and twisted. “I never thought they’d let me come back.”

“Then you haven’t been paying attention,” Andrew snaps.

He frowns, looking somehow fierce and leonine in his grief. “No,” he admits. “I was afraid of getting attached to—to Neil, to everything he represents.”

“Well I’m not interested in Nathaniel,” Andrew says, watching Neil’s face travel over complicated hills and valleys with words like interest and Nathaniel. “He is long dead. It’s always been Neil who nobody could touch.”

“Not nobody,” Neil whispers. Andrew closes his eyes. They sit together, in the windowless white room, hip to hip.

“Neil Abram Josten,” Neil says, wondering, perfect, like he stole the name from a fantasy.

Andrew opens his eyes, and it’s like waking up from a bad dream.

#kubrick wishes he were me #the foxhole court #aftg #andreil #rockband au #tfc fanfic #mine #violence tw #for real for real for real #gore tw #im sorry this is so late grad school got me #anyway she loves an em dash

220 notes · View notes

the-elegant-hedgehog · 6 years ago

Text

#personal #im stressed about the amount of stuff i have due including this lab that keeps throwing stupid errors and is full of typos/misinformation #and none of the TAs are answering questions #not that they give helpful answers to begin with #and i think im going to have to just take my late days on this bc idk if i can get it done by Wednesday #and i have 2 final presentations this week #and im still sick and tired and i was literally trembling so hard waiting for the bus after school today im surprised i didnt fall down #and my emotions are still all over the place so my heart hurts #and i just want to lie down ans sleep and maybe watch moulin rouge #and instead since its cyber monday and thinkgeek is on sale #i bought stuff i dont need but ive been eyeing for months/years #so i feel guilty even though i shouldnt bc i got it half off the sale price so like i got both things for less than the cost of one #but i feel bad buying myself coffee so spending money on fairly useless things like earrings and a dufflebag is out of the norm #so i feel like extra crap #and tomorrow wont be better and im stuck on campus until like 9 #and idk if ill have time to go home and get my car so i might be stuck walking over a mile in the dark #dependjng on if the bus is still runnif when we finish #and itll be fine and i know ill be fine but that doesnt stop me from feeling freaked out #and low key wanting to call it quits on this whole grad school and engineering thing #sorry for emotionally vomiting here

1 note · View note

pervysenpaix · 3 years ago

Note

sorry is this is a weird thirst to share i just need to share it tho

i just constantly imagine kiri seeing how tired and stressed i am from work and grad school and insisting i need a daddy dom to lay me out and fuck the stress out of me. im constantly rejecting his offers until he just loses it and holds me down to force me into subspace. holds me captive in a full nelson while his thick fingers play with my fat brown cunt..wont stop overstimming me until i finally call him daddy/sir AHHH sorry just the idea of kiri forcing his way into my life and insisting i need him sexually to be a functional adult just hits different

-(^_^)

18+ MDNI -dubcon

I'm screaming , crying and throwing up right now because I've been thinking about this alot lately!

Big old Dilf!Kirishima who's 45 but doesn't look a day over 30. The only indication of his age being the white skunk stripe that frames his face surrounded by unruly red locs-- often pulled up into a pony to better broadcast that charming smile.

And he comes into the little cafe that you're working part-time towards the end of your shift every night just so he can have an excuse to follow you home. And he's sucha pervy old man. Pulling you close against his side under the guise of protection. Or leading you with his large hand on the small of your bag, fingers "absentmindedly" grazing your ass. Making faux-innocent comments about your pretty face and cute young body. Commenting that you're so polite , "a perfect little girl" and trust me he definitely notices the way your thighs clench together. The sight has him chubbing in his hero suit.

He brings it up after walking you home a couple of weeks -- the whole sugarbaby/daddy thing. "I don't know, kid. You're working yourself so hard" He pauses, glancing down at your smaller frame. So fucking tiny compared to him, he could just break you. "I'm sure there's an easier way for a pretty girl like yourself to get money". And god bless your little soul because you have absolutely no idea what he's suggesting. Other 25 yo women would've already been on there knees but you're a sweet innocent grad student that spends most of your time with your head in books. No time for romance, or god forbid sex . Kirishima could see it too-- the innocence in those big doe eyes and they way they widened into saucers when he clarified .

God his dick was painfully hard when you started sputtering and waving your hands frantically, blabbering on and on about how you wouldn't be good enough because you lacked experience. No doubt he almost ruined his underwear at the thought of breaking in your virgin cunt. It would be so easy to follow you upstairs and invite himself in. Insisting that he was thirsty or needed to use the restroom. " It's the least you could do for breaking my heart" he'd tease, pinching the supple flesh of your cheeks. It would be so hard not to laugh at your panicked expression, so eager to please that you're practically pulling him up the steps to your place. "Be right back!" you chirp as you dash into the kitchen and he just smiles in response because now he has you right where he wants you.

"Got lonely by myself" His breath would fan against your skin, chuckling deeply at your yelp of suprise. Teeth grazing the shell of your ear, eliciting shockwaves to places you've never thought about touching. And god- he's a big brute of a man , your literally trapped between him and the counter not able to move if you wanted to. Cause you don't want to move right ? You're asking for this. You want him to drag a hardened fingered down the seams of your leggings, black fabric pooling at your ankles. Even if you're squirming against him and saying no it's really because you're trying to rub against his cock. Rock hard and throbbing against your ass. You could feel the heat pulsating through the thin fabric of your underwear. He can't wait to ruin you, to to sink his thick fingers into your tight brown cunny. Would you cry for him? Bite your lip as he stretched you open ? Scissoring your whole and rubbing your clit with the pads of his thumb. He'd get you nice and dumb for him too. So his face and name is the only thing you remembered and by the time he sunk his cock into your pretty little pussy , you'd already be hooked. Daddy's perfect little girl , ready to do whatever just to get a crumb of dick and attention. Might even drop out of school and be his pretty little incubator. Just wait around his condo until he makes it home and pumps you so full of spunk that it's oozing down your legs.

It would be so easy for him to break you, right here and right now. But that wouldn't be manly. Kirishima may be a sleazy old perv that jerks off while sniffing the hand that rested on your waist-- the faint smell of your perfume still lingering. Eyes blown wide thinking about how much better it'd feel if he was fucking into you. Yeah... he might be a perv but he at least wants you to think you have a choice. So he just waits. Waits until the day that you're ready to become daddy's girl.

i- this was supposed to be a thirst, but it seems like I got a bit carried away ....

@yo-nn , @7inaa , @blkchxrryblyss , @xogabbiexo , @plussizeficchick , @erenyeagerswhore, @nasty-quillz , @m00nchildthings , @tenyaiidasslut, @bookwormsenpai , @erenyeagerswhore , @hhawkz , @namjoonswifeyy

#kirishima thirst #eijiro kirishima #kirishima x you #kirishima x reader #kirishima x black reader #kirishima smut #kirshima eijirou #kirishima x chubby reader #bnha kirishima #anon ❤️

809 notes · View notes

cindersnightmare · 4 years ago

Text

slow dancing in the dark (kaider au)

part ten

summary: cinder is the palace mechanic and kai is the prince of the eastern commonwealth. even though they could never be together, they start a secret relationship.

(sorry this took 20 million years to write sdjmgfnsjdfk)

***

the following week after the emperor’s death, the palace was chaos. a funeral had passed, preparations for the upcoming coronation and ball were being worked on at every moment, and the search for a cure was in more demand than ever. no one wanted to see another beloved leader die to the horrible disease.

the city was a mix of grief, worry, and excitement. as much as the commonwealth loved kai, they worried he wouldn’t be a good leader at such a young age, and they didn’t want to see him crack under the pressure. they were hoping the ball would be a break from the darkness. they wanted a night of fun to forget all of the tragedy that their country had been through.

kai was a nervous wreck, of course, and was terrified of the upcoming events. all he wanted to do was lay in bed for days and block out any responsibilities. unfortunately, that was a luxury he couldn’t have. he was going to be emperor in the next few days, whether he was ready or not, and nothing could change that.

while everyone was planning the coronation and ball, kai was coming up with a secret plan. he had to make sure cinder would be able to come to the palace without getting caught by her retched family, and that would require some help. so he ended up telling torin he wanted to bring his “friend” to the ball for his healing and comfort. although his advisor was weary of letting an employee be the special guest, he allowed it once he saw kai’s puppy eyes.

he had his stylist get cinder’s outfit and store it in his bedroom. he hoped she would like it, but he knew she would pick cargo pants over a dress any day. cinder was going to have to tell adri that she was needed at the palace late so she could stay and get ready. everything was coming together, and kai really hoped it would work. it was the one thing he was looking forward to. if everything went well, then they had a chance to really being together, and he wanted that more than anything.

***

after another day of dreadful meetings, kai was drained. all he could think about was how he was somehow on the same level as these older, powerful leaders, and he would be discussing serious topics and problems with them continuously now. it was weird thinking about how just years go, he was a curious kid, trying to listen and sit it on his dad’s meetings with the same people.

it was getting late, and he didn’t want to feel sad anymore, so he threw on a hoodie and snuck out of the palace. even though he got a stern yelling from torin last time he did this, he didn’t really care, he needed to see cinder.

as excited as he was, he was still filled with dread at seeing the phoenix tower apartments. he hated cinder living there. the image of her sad bedroom and the stories of adri’s abuse haunted him, and his patience was the only thing keeping him from taking her away from all of it.

kai sent a comm to cinder before walking into the lobby, not wanting to freak her out this time. he also didn’t want to risk waking the step monster.

hey, i’m outside your building. can you sneak down here?

a few moments went by before his portscreen chimed with a response.

you’re clinically insane...i’m coming down.

her message made him laugh as he waited by the front doors. he saw cinder in the lobby, wearing his hoodie and a pair of sweatpants. kai smiled at the sight. she opened the door and waved him inside, ushering for him to move quickly. he walked towards her and glanced around, seeing the office man sleeping at the front desk again.

“are you crazy?” cinder whispered. grabbing his hand and leading him to the back staircase.

“according to your comm, yes.” he laughed, not even questioning where she was taking him as they stepped down into a dark room. she flicked on a small light and the metal of tools and work tables dimly gleamed back at them. “is this your secret hideout?”

cinder shrugged, “you could say that.” after she spoke, they faced each other, their smiles softening. it had been a while since they saw each other in person. the past week had been a mess, and they had both been missing each other like crazy, hoping for an opportunity to communicate without using their portscreens. “what brings you here at two in the morning?”

kai thought of where he was an hour ago, alone in his bed, feeling something missing. his heart ached and he wanted to bring it home. “i just needed you, that’s all.” he spoke with a gentle smile.

she stepped forward and wrapped her arms around his neck, pulling him into an embrace. a sigh of content left his lips, and while he felt lighter already, nothing could stop the weight of grief and uncertainty sitting on his chest. “you’ve got me, kai. always.” cinder whispered.

his fingers wove themselves into her hair, holding her close. he started to think of the ball, of dancing with her in front of everyone, all eyes on them. an idea popped in his head and he began to grin. “cinder?”

“hm?”

“do you know how to dance?”

cinder’s face fell, looking scared and embarrassed in an instant. “oh my stars, i don’t know how to dance.” her eyes were wide with panic as she spoke.

kai laughed and put one hand on her waist, the other grabbing hers and holding it. “it’s okay, i’ll teach you.” he almost laughed at her expression, but he refrained, instead focusing on getting her in the correct position. “you don’t have to be nervous.” he teased.

“i’m worried i’ll crush your foot with my metal one.” she frowned, looking at the floor.

kai let out a little laugh. “you won’t. now come on, dance with me.”

he started to guide her, stepping back and forth, taking it slow. it was proving difficult to dance in a crowded, dim basement but they were making it work. she stumbled a little and he helped her get back into it. she still seemed nervous, like she was sure she wasn’t good enough. but as they kept going, she eased into it, starting to memorize the steps and follow kai smoothly.

“see? it’s not so bad.” kai whispered as he brought her body closer to his.

“because you’re doing most of the work.” she giggled, resting her head on his chest, listening to the soothing sound of his heartbeat. she wondered how many times kai had to dress up, pick a dancing partner, and waltz across the palace floor all night. probably hundreds, and he would do it a thousand times more in his reign. she hoped everything would work out and he wouldn’t have to pick another partner ever again.

he rested his head on hers, trying to get as close as possible without messing up their progress. he knew they wouldn’t be able to dance like this at the ball, it would be far too inappropriate, so he took advantage of the moment. as he held her, his heart rushed with warmth, replacing the dark emotions that burdened him all week. “cinder?”

“yeah?” she picked her head up and looked at him. her beautiful brown eyes met his, that small yet alluring smile appearing, and he swore he saw heaven.

his breath caught in his throat, the words resting on the tip of his tongue. every time he looked at her, he knew, but he didn’t say it. before everything started changing, he was afraid that he would lose her, that saying what he felt would make it all too difficult. but now they had this great scheme to stay together forever, to eventually walk down the aisle, to rule a country together. he allowed himself to be truthful and certain now.

“i love you.”

the words filled the silent air as cinder’s eyes widened. he wondered if she ever heard that sentence before. the dancing stopped and she froze, looking shocked. kai hoped he didn’t scare her, knowing he had done enough of that with his marriage and ball proposals.

slowly, she seemed to come back to earth, and that smile reappeared. “i love you, too.”

her voice captured him and he brought her back to him, kissing her passionately. it was like their bond had intensified, like a string that couldn’t break, something that would be with them for the rest of their lives.

once they separated and let air slip between them, cinder laughed. “what?” kai asked.

she shook her head, “we’re crazy. absolutely insane.”

he nodded, “yeah, you’re right, but we’re gonna make it work.”

***

get it...? they slow danced in the dark!!! :))))

next part is going to be the ball!

taglist: @strawberry-seraph @duskietapp @winterrhayle @stylampa @wwwwyamd @whyiask @i-swear-im-google @phobidawg @plain-jane-mclain @princesspri222 @marialovesdean @maradovan @moon-swoon @nodrianbcyes @janisarkisian @cyborg-martyr-wolf-monarch @cinderswrench @cindersassasin @cerenoya @idkchatie @half-heaven @dawniebb @scxundress @queen-of-self-love @quietintrovertt @invisiblebobs @lavenderbloo @healing-winston-pratt @hearing-in-color @horton-hears-a-who @cosmicnovaflare @a-salting-the-world @angstycatthatlikestea @poptart-boy @grad-school-fool @gatorademachinegun @girlfriendisthemoon @honey-harper-official @coralsclato @bookishfangirl14 @bakergirl13 @addies-invisible-life @f-r-o-p @disco-funk-and-soul09 @lani-sleeps @daydreaming-optimist @the-sunflowerstar @mistydacat @salt-warrior @love-and-anarchy-au

(let me know if u want to be added or taken off <3

115 notes · View notes

lubdubsworld · 3 years ago

Note

Yea my mom and i talked she kind of gave me a tough love talk (which i needed) and she was nust telling me how im an adult and i have to grow up which is true but fuck i just hate everything rivhr now

hi anon...I'm sorry, I kind of got really caught up yesterday and missed this!!

Here's another anon who wanted to share her own story :)

1)To the anon who joined college ,i love my Mom too,i understand where you're coming from,I'm in late 20s now and done with college,post grad everything and when i started college i thought i need to move away cause I'll never learn anything on my own since my family babies me a lot too ,but as it happens i got a college close home so to save money i didn't move out,

it scared me thinking I'm missing out on life experiences and probably becoming less of an adult in since i was emotionally attached to my mom too but over the course of 8 years (med school and residency ) that didn't happen ,sure maybe i didn't learn how to fight for shampoo in hostels and have that many night outs ,but as far as being an adult goes ,life happens and you become one,

responsibilities fall on your shoulders and your parents look towards you as an equal and not a baby ,start doing things yourself too ,it'll happen and you'll do well ,life will give life will give equal opportunities to be reckless and responsible and each time you'll make a decision and learn ,

as far as loosing parents is concerned ,it is the most unforgettable grief that we will all go through in life ,i still think sometimes that when the time comes I'll not make it through, other times i think if i do ,my parents will have succeeded in their upbringing, cause they managed to make me a functioning adult,

but its all in my head now and practically i still try to spend as much time as i can with them now ,they're old ,i treat them like babies on days on friends on others as counsellers too ,i haven't found many relationships of that calibre ,but 30 years is a long time to understand someone ,less your own child so it would not be fair to expect the world to provide similar relationships,

if you feel overwhelmed, its alright to seek help, but i just wanted you to know, you're not alone in feeling this and you'll grow and learn with time

#take strength anon #and definitely look up online therapy

7 notes · View notes

yikesharringrove · 4 years ago

Note

maybe? 👉👈 steve taking a really long time with college (like on one year and off one yours year, on, off, on, off) and he still doesn't really know what he wants to do and he gets really frustrated bc billy just did college all in one go and steve is taking forever and he feels down on himself? idk im feeling the whump rn???

Steve had left high school having no idea what he wanted from the rest of his life.

That’s not true, he had some idea.

He knew he wanted to leave Hawkins, follow Billy wherever he was going. He knew he wanted to be with Billy for the rest of his life, he knew he wanted to leave the past behind and make new friends, people who were kind, and fun, and didn’t bat an eye when Billy pulled him into his lap.

But that’s about it.

So when Billy graduates high school, and gets a full ride to UC Berkeley, and they move into a cheap apartment in downtown Oakland, Steve is so happy that he got out.

He gets a job waiting tables at a restaurant down the street, pays half the rent and buys the groceries while Billy’s in class.

But then two years pass, and Billy’s soaring through college, working to his degrees, plural, because he just couldn’t decide between studying English Literature or Biology with a focus in research.

So he’s majoring in both and getting a minor in Italian because then I’ll know what you’re sayin’ when you start horny babblin’.

And Steve was at the same restaurant.

True, he was assistant manager now, and it came with a pretty okay raise, and he even gets dental insurance, but he feels so stuck.

So he enrolls in community college.

He starts with some general classes, still completely unsure of what he wants to study.

Billy said it was okay to just rule out things you don’t want to study, to nearly fail a math course and know that accounting is not for you.

So when Steve finishes his first year, he at least knows what he doesn’t want to pursue.

Meanwhile Billy has an internship at a lab through Kaiser Permanente. And he can read and write Italian than Steve can.

Steve is walking home from his job at the restaurant when it happens. He’s crossing the street, and gets hit by a car.

He’s taken to the hospital, where he’s informed of a fractured spine and another concussion.

He’s told his injury could’ve been much more severe, that he will not experience paralysis, but he needs physical therapy and walking will be difficult for a while.

Their finances take a big hit.

Billy’s internship doesn’t pay super well, and with Steve being unable to work for the foreseeable future, he’s fired.

Billy has insurance through the school, but because on paper, he and Steve have no real relation, Steve’s medical bills come out of pocket.

So Steve is bedridden for months. He can’t work or get groceries, or do fucking anything but lay there.

They can’t afford physical therapy.

But Billy has a friend studying to be a PT, and she comes over every Saturday, and practices her technique on him in exchange for ten bucks and a few beers.

And so the money Steve tucked away for school is rapidly diminishing.

By the time Billy graduates, Steve is a year into recovery. He still gets dizzy at odd intervals, and his back gets stiff when it rains, but Billy gets a job right away, doing research on flu vaccines.

And Steve goes back to work.

He gets a desk job, something he won’t have to be on his feet all day for. He works reception for a message therapist, which comes with free massages, which work wonders on his back.

So in the fall, he decides to give his education another shot.

He learns that history is not for him, and that his nutrition course was fine until they began looking into how the body processes nutrients, and he was fucking lost. He takes a few business classes, thinking, hoping genetics would take over and this is something he could do.

But his dad was right to take away the job opportunity at his own firm. Steve was not cut out for this.

After a year of research, Billy is promoted three times. He ends up working on some extremely important study that Steve does not understand for the fucking life of him.

But he sits and listens every time Billy explains what he did that day, even though Steve gets so sad when Billy mentions having to kill the lab mice to study their bodies.

So Steve is two years into community college, five years into living in Oakland with Billy, and he still is lost.

He takes a semester off, working more hours, trying to save up some money.

Because Billy is beginning to think about grad school, and that shit’s not cheap.

But Billy decides to postpone that, work for a few more years, and besides, he’s caught between studying something to put him in a research field, or just straight up going to medical school to study infectious disease.

Because Billy could. He’s smart enough for medical school, smart enough to research and be a doctor.

And Steve has a smushy spine and half a degree in nothing.

A semester off turns into a year.

A year and a semester.

Two years.

They’ve been in California for seven years, and Billy gets into grad school in San Diego. They move south and Billy spends late nights pursuing a Masters in Immunology.

And Steve works the front desk at a pediatrician’s office.

He’s flipping through a course catalog from the San Diego Community College when Billy comes home from his new job, the position he got after applying to only three labs.

He kissed the top of Steve’s head, moving to grab himself a beer from the fridge.

“You thinkin’ of going back?”

“I don’t know.” Steve slid the catalog closed. “Is it even worth it?”

“That’s something you have to decide.” Billy sat down, sliding the catalog towards him. Steve had crossed off the classes he had already taken, the ones he new he wouldn’t like. “And you know, going to school isn’t the only option. You could get an apprenticeship, master a trade.”

“I can’t do anything where I need to bend over for really any length of time. So that rules out plumber, and car mechanic, and anything physical like construction, or landscaping or even general contracting is right out.”

Steve could feel the old shame, the doubt and the self hatred crawling up his spine.

“I have nothing to offer. I have no discerning skills, and in seven years I’ve only made it through two years of goddamn community college, and here you are, ripping through grad school like a fourth degree is easy.”

“Stevie, you’ve got a lot to offer. We just gotta find something that suits you.” He took Steve’s pen, turning to the back page of the catalog. “Okay, we’re gonna write down all of you strengths, and think of career paths that could fit those. I’ll go first, you’re extremely caring. You’d be good at any career where you care for people.”

“But I can’t study nursing or something, I barely understood my biology 101 course. Plus, nurses are strong. I can’t lift more than like, thirty pounds.”

“There’re way more caring fields than nursing, Pretty Boy. Although I would love if you were my nurse.” Billy smirked at him, leaning in to plant a sloppy kiss to Steve’s cheek as he rolled his eyes. “Another strength: your emotional intelligence is through the fucking roof.” He wrote it down. “Okay, I’ve said tow, so you say one.”

“Um, I think that I’m good at making people laugh?”

“Yes! You are. Perfect.” Billy scribbled it down. “You’re a good leader.”

“I’m pretty good at reading people.” Billy wrote Intuitive, can smell a douchebag from a mile away.

“You’re good under pressure.”

“Sometimes.”

“Every time I’ve seen. You’re good at keeping calm and keeping others calm.”

“I guess.”

“Nah, Stevie. Positives only. Say a strength.”

“I’m, uh, I’m good at, bilingual?” Billy stared at him. “Like, I’m bilingual.”

“Are you sure? I don’t think that was English, even.” Steve slapped his chest, Billy laughed. “I’m joking. You are bilingual. You’re also really good at making others feel safe.”

“I was always pretty alright at public speaking.”

“You’ve got a great eye for detail.”

“I’m good at teamwork, and delegating.”

“You’re really compassionate, too.” Billy drew a line under the strengths side. “Okay, so now we’ve got some of your strengths, think about what you’d want in a job, and we can match everything up and think about some careers that could fit.” Steve nodded, racking his brain.

“Um, I would want to work with kind people, I would kind of like to do something, you know, worthwhile. I’d like to be in charge of something. Like it’s fine if I have a boss to answer to, but I’d like to be fairly independent.”

“I already have so many ideas.”

“Lay ‘em on me.” Steve sat back, closing his eyes to try and picture everything Billy threw out.

“I’ve actually always thought you’d be a really good teacher. Especially if you did like, kindergarten. Just got to be around little kids all day.” Steve could actually see it. “I also think you’d be a could social worker, like to work with Child Protective Services, or something. Um, you’d be good at even planning. Or I think you’d be really good working at a nonprofit of some kind. Maybe you could be the event planner for a nonprofit.”

And Steve was sitting there, and suddenly, he had four career paths, just sitting right in front of him. Four super attainable career paths.

“Wait, wait those make sense.” Billy beamed at him.

“Yeah, that’s because I know you, Pretty Boy.” Billy opened the catalog. “So, I think if you choose to enroll, you should pick a few classes, like, Intro to Social Work, Early Childhood Education 100, and maybe like, Sociology, and see from there.”

Steve stared at the course descriptions for what Billy circled.

“Thank you for helping me. I’m sorry this has taken me so long.”

“It’s okay. Everyone is on a different timeline. And it’s not like you got to explore options in high school. You were told business until your dad decided that nevermind. So it’s understandable that this took you a minute. Plus, you went through hell with your back.”

Steve sat up straight, stretching out his back.

“But, I mean, the back thing kinda happened to you too, and you still made it through all your schooling.”

“Sure, I watched you go through it, but I was not in the pain you were. And like, emotionally, it fucking sucked to watch the love of my goddamn life go through something, and I couldn’t even afford therapy. Like, I felt so helpless, but that’s nothing to what you went through literally experiencing it.” Steve took Billy’s hand, linking their fingers together, pressing a kiss to his knuckles.

“You did the best you could. Everything was shit for like, that whole year.”

“I cannot telly you how many times I would go into an individual study room in the library and just like, sob for a while.And then I’d get so mad at myself, thinking of you at home, hurting and not even able to get yourself out of bed, and I’d race home feeling like shit.”

Steve scrubbed his fingers through Billy’s hair. He had cut it a while ago, kept it short these days.

“You were doing everything you could for me. I would just sit in bed all day, and think about how amazing you are. Like I would just think about all the good times we’ve had together, and how much I love you.”

“That explains why we didn’t fight for like, that whole year.” Steve laughed. Billy leaned to kiss him softly.

“And you know, even now we’ve done this, there’s still no rush on you. You don’t have to go back to school this year, of this decade, or anytime until you’re ready. Until you want to.”

“Well now, I feel like there’s a fucking light at the end of the tunnel. I’m almost, excited. Is this how you feel? Excited to go to school?”

“Welcome to the nerd life, Sweet Thing.” Billy drained the last of his beer. “You wanna go out tonight? Celebrate?”

“Like, go out to dinner, or go out?”

“Oh, just like dinner. Be home by eight thirty, in bed by nine, missionary with the lights off, and asleep by nine fifteen.”

“Sign me the fuck up.”

#billy is based a lot on my sister in this #and steve is based on her best friend #any life path is valid #there's kind of a lot of set up but yeah #also i live for them settling down and becoming a totally boring mundane couple but they're just SO HAPPY toghether that's my shit #yikes writes #steve harrington #billy hargrove #steve harrington x billy hargrove #billy hargrove x steve harrington #harringrove #harringrive #harringrove fic #harringrove ficlet #harringrove drabble

83 notes · View notes

promise-of-a-lifetime · 4 years ago

Text

4am anxious rambling

i’m really anxious and having a bit of an existential crisis right now so i’m just gonna vent here a little bit wlejnfwlejw hello to everyone who decides to read this ! i’m egg !! i’m trying to figure out what to do but i’m really struggling TwT i don’t have any direction and i’m lost after graduating high school, i did like 2 semesters of first year college before stopping to take a year break to figure out what i want to do. fast forward to now, i’m 24, 6 years post grad, and i’ve been working part-time at fast food for 5 years. i’m trying to look into getting back to school (programs, degrees, etc) but the further i read into this stuff, the more i wanna d word honestly i can’t find anything i want to do, anything that interests me, or anything that i’d be able to succeed in (i truly think there’s nothing i’m good at) i keep thinking to myself, if i just pursued some type of bachelor’s degree when i got right out of high school, i would be searching for a professional job at this point x v x it’s all in the past now, it can’t be changed and i can only mourn for those lost years of opportunity---but i still can’t help but think that if i started early, i would have made something of myself by now what have i been doing? i’ve wasted so much time, i feel like a disappointment to my parents, and i’m having so many regrets and having a crisis about it wlejfnwlejfw

i do understand that it’s never too late to start ! i also know that i shouldn’t pursue a degree just to achieve, that i should do it if i want to, if it will be meaningful to me in the long run since degrees don’t guarantee anything either

what do i like and what makes me happy? i like art but my drawings aren’t worth...anything really. never been commissioned before in my life. i want to try making stickers and enamel pins but i don’t think my art is good enough. so many younger ppl are so much more skilled and i feel like i can’t catch up to them. i regret not making myself learn the fundamentals like anatomy/colour/shade back in hs and now i have to backtrack so much i like to write, as in roleplaying. it’s fun to write out characters and kinda---live vicariously through them? ; v ; i like animals but a vet job is not for me. maybe there’s something i can do in digital media? idk about that either---i thought about animation too, but i don’t think i can do that bc i’m not good at art wlejfnwlj since working at my fast food job, ppl have told me i have a nice voice so i wonder if i’d be able to do something with it? like narrating? could i ever be a voice actor? lol i think my hands look nice...i wondered about being a hand model. i also thought about doing something with video games? but i don’t think i’m smart enough i thought about writing a book about the heartbreak i went through in my teenage years (that is still ongoing now tbh). but would anyone read it? anime makes me happy T v T so i like haikyuu a lot right? and my mind just went on a tangent, ‘what if you started playing volleyball when you were younger?’ and like---not that i ever wanted to be a pro sports player or anything but my mind was like ‘what if you did that and pursued it, you could’ve become a professional athlete but now it’s too late’ i guess it freaks me out thinking about stuff like that---of an opportunity squashed and out of reach forever bc i didn’t start early enough. but i’m also here squashing my self-worth and my capabilities. i fear failure so much. i keep thinking i’ll fail when i haven’t even tried yet. so yeah i’m going through a crisis aha wlejfnlwejfw i just...want to be happy TwwT want to make my parents proud. want to be successful and doing something i enjoy. i want to make myself proud but i’ve always felt like i’m worthless wahhh i’m so, so sorry for wasting your time if you read this far ;ww; but if you did, thank you so much for listening to me for a little while. if anyone has any advice to offer, pls IM me !! i could use all the help i can get qwq

#i'm sorry don't mind me ;W;#life is hard TwT #so i'm just rambling about all my worries #Egg talks

9 notes · View notes

agemstale · 3 years ago

Text

May 25th 1995

This was the first day that Pearl and Amethyst felt comfortable enough to let Opal play with the other kids out in the yard. Still such a tiny fragile child but has gotten stronger and feisty over the years watching the others play from her bedroom window. Her parents opened the back door for her and she took her first step onto the back porch. Opal tightened the grip on her favorite toy dow that she took with her everywhere, the sunlight blinded her for a moment. She took in the moment to listen to the others wrestling and playing on the swing set. Then when Opal opened her eyes again, her best friend Garnet stood before her.

"OPAL!" Garnet yelled, holding Opal's hands.

Garnet was a messy afro hair tot with tights and a ragged skirt from wrestling with Opals elder brother Sugilite and their friend Malachite. Her shirt was already covered in dirt though just arriving so her parents Ruby and Sapphire could head to work.

"Garnet!" Opal yelled back, then hugged her tightly.

Pearl kneeled down to garnet and said, "Now don't get Opal into any of your rough housing, she still a tiny lil thing and i don't want her getting hurt."

"Yes sir." Garnet replied before pulling Opal away out into the yard.

"GARNET! HELP GET THIS DUMB BOULDER OFF OF ME!" Sugilite yelled as he was being tackled down by Malachite.

Malachite holds Sugilite's face into the ground with his foot then pins him down, "Don't be such a wimp. If you didn't want to get your butt kicked, you shouldn't have started it!"

Garnet then steps into the fight and broke them apart, "Both of you are stupid boulders, cant you see we have a new friend today?!"

The two boys turned their attention to Opal as she nervously waved.

"Who are you?" Malachite snared.

"That's my sister, Opal you ignoramus!" Sugilite snared back.

"YOU DON'T EVEN KNOW WHAT WORD MEANS!" Malachite refocused his anger back on sugilite.

"OH YA! WELL, NEITHER DO YOU!" sugilite snapped trying to charge at Malachite.

"BREAK IT UP YOU TWO!" garnet finally pushed them apart.

The two boys fall onto their butts knowing who the clear winner of the fight is.

"Maly! You go chill with Opal. Sugy your with me." Garnet ordered.

"Fine! You win gar." Malachite stood up and brushed himself off.

"Next time ill defeat you both in a fight." Sugilite declared as he stood up and was pushed away by garnet.

"Ya, ya. You say that every time" Garnet replies.

Malachite then turns to Opal with his hands behind his head, "So why havn't I see you around if you live here."

"My dad told me I'm too small and fragile to play with you guys." She replies then thinks to her self, "I can see why."

"Well if you can't fight. What can you do?" Malachite questioned.

"I can't still play tag!" Opal excitedly proclaimed.

"Fine, you can be chaser then. GET ME IF YOU CAN!" Malachite shouted as he raced off.

Opal chases after him as fast as she could, testing her skills as he dodges and weaves her passes. She runs at him again but then she sees a butterfly beneath her feet. she slips and falls onto her left arm.

SNAP!

the sharp sound pierces everyone's ears.

Garnet pauses in shock then runs to Opals side.

Lapis and pearl see this and rush out into the yard and separate the kids. Lapis tightly holds on to her own child "IM SO SORRY!"

"I new it was too soon to let her play with the others." Soon pearl realizes the issue and rushes Opal to the hospital.

Lapis and Amethyst set Malachite and Sugilite down and explain to them what has happened and why they need to be more careful around opal.

Lapis takes Malachite home.

May 26th, 1995

"It's time for school!" Lapis yells to malachite to get up.

Malachite stumbles out of his bedroom and into his mother's bedroom then asks, "hey mom? Can I stay home today?"

As Lapis was just finishing getting dressed, she then turns to her son, "what! Why? Are you sick?"

"Because I wanna see if opal is okay." He replies.

Lapis sighs, "You can see her when you get home AFTER school."

Malachite yell "BUT MOM?!"

Lapis snaps back, "I SAID NO! NOW COME ON AND GET DRESSED, we already slept in too late. "

Malachite huffs and heads back into his bedroom.

When they start to leave, he grabs his backpack as he heads out the door with his mother. He tosses his backpack in then gets in himself, as Lapis gets in and lays her own school bag into the passenger sit, se looks back to her son through the rearview mirror.

Malachite disappointedly looks out his window, thinking of how he could make things right with Opal.

Lapis drives Malachite down to the bus stop, "now please be good. And have a good day... I love you."

Malachite says as he is leaving the car, "I love you to."

Lapis rushes off to try and make it in time for her own classes. As soon as her car is out of sight, Malachite runs back towards home.

He runs up to their apartment and tosses his back pack on to the floor. Then goes to his room and smashes open his piggy bank then scrapes up his savings and leaves again.

He walks through town to a flower shop, buys a dozen tiger lilies and then heads to Opal's house.

As soon as he reaches their door he beats it trying to get someone to answer.

Amethyst opens the door with a yawn. "Oh hey kid, aren't you suppose to be in school?"

"Yes ma'am" he replies, "but I wanted to bring opal a gift to say I'm sorry for what happened." Showing the flowers.

Amethyst takes them and says, "Thanks, but she is fine. It's only a broken arm." She smiles rubbing the back of her head. "But now you should be getting to school. Do you want me to drive you?"

Malachite replies, "No, I was hoping to see her as well. MA'AM!"

"What's with the formality?" Amethyst asks.

"My mom said it helps to be nice and use formal words to get the things you want." Malachite says nervously.

Amethyst laughs, "Well I guess it wouldn't hurt if you stayed. She is up in her room first door to the right."

Malachite quickly hugs Amethyst then soon rushes up the stairs into Opal's bedroom.

He finds Opal is still asleep, so he pulls up a chair next to her. Amethyst later walks in with a vase with the tiger lilies and clear water in it. He sets it by opals window. Then leaves.

Time goes by as Malachite awaits for her to wake up contemplating what he will even say to her.

Soon its noon, Amethyst walks in with 2 plates of food and sets them next to Malachite on the desk behind him.

Malachite, "Is it lunch time already?"

Amethyst replies "yep" as she gently nudges opal. "Honey, it's time to wake up."

Malachite freaks out and silently yells "NO IM NOT READY, I DONT EVEN KNOW WHAT I’M GOING TO SAY TO HER!"

Opal sits up and yawns, "good morning mama" she rubs her eyes then looks to Malachite, "Oh?! Hey! You were that boy from yesterday." She smiles

Malachite blushes and turns away blushing, "I got you flowers."

This makes Malachite blush even more as opals eyes light up. "They are beautiful!"

Amethyst snickers, "Yes, he felt so bad, he even skipped school for you." then leaves.

Opal: "THANK YOU MAMA! "

They grad their respective plates and eat in silence.

After Malachite finishes he says, "Well I guess you are okay, I'll just head home now."

"You don't want to stay?" Opal sadly replies.

"You want me to?" He says facing away from her.

"Well it dose get really lonely here sitting in my room all the time." Opal pleads. "Just promise you'll come see me again tomorrow okay?"

Malachite turns to her face fully flushed "Why would you want me to stay? I'm the reason you got hurt!"

"I.. I don't think you meant to break my arm. I am willing to give you another chance if you want. I don't really have many friends anyway so.. I'd like it if we could be friends."

1 note · View note

noahhernandez · 4 years ago

Text

2/9/2015 v. 8/11/2020

1:Talk about the first time you watched your favorite movie. My favorite movie is Scream, and it started when I saw the midnight premier of Scream 4 with my dad back when I was in 8th grade, then Scream 1 came on AMC late on night and I just really like it

I still think Scream is one of my favorites, but Halloween has jumped up there just because I am obsessed with all things horror really lol. I started to love Halloween because of the new trilogy.

2:Talk about your first kiss. It’s really not that interesting but really like embarrassing. It was with my first boyfriend and I had just turned 15 and we were at the school just walking around and we went into the band hall and I was like ok im leaving and he was like wait and we kissed and i was like o

the same !

3:Talk about the person you’ve had the most intense romantic feelings for. I never really have had intense feelings for anyone. I d k

One my exes- I mean we were dating for awhile so that’s pretty intense to me.

4:Talk about the thing you regret most so far. I regret… Nothing really I mean, I have done really bad things in my life, but i don’t regret them

I regret failing like 2 semesters of college lmao and almost dropping out. If i didn’t then I would 1- would have been done earlier and 2- would have already completed a year of grad school but IDK also another is wasting lots of money in 2017-2018

5:Talk about the best birthday you’ve had. The best birthday I’ve had was.. Idk This year was was nice I saw Iggy Azalea in concert, then I celebrated my friends’ birthday then mine and it was just everyone got to get together so ya this year my 18th

For my 21st birthday I went to Portland, Oregon and spent the weekend there and it was pretty and my first time there so it was nice despite what I think about PDX now. I don’t even know what I was doing for my 19 and 20th birthday lol.

6:Talk about the worst birthday you’ve had. My 17th birthday because I was stuck 2 hours away from home with a bunch of nerds doing a band competition

That is still probably my worst birthday. I forget to mention that I was gone literally from like 7am to midnight. They werent a bunch of loser nerds, they were my friends, but I still wish I was just at home lol.

7:Talk about your biggest insecurity. I am skinny, but not fit. If I eat anything I get this like stomach and it makes me so sad. and ever since I got a job I work odd hours and I eat a lot of fast food and I’ve gained 10 pounds in 2 years and I guess i’m insecure about my weight

I am still insecure about my weight, and I probably weight like 5 pounds more than I did when I made this post 5 1/2 years ago.

8:Talk about the thing you are most proud of. We have band banquets for band, and I only went my sophomore and junior year, and seniors give out awards to underclassmen that are just jokes really, and both years 4 different seniors gave me an award for being the biggest gossip in the entire band and I was proud of that lol

Well since then I have graduated both high school and college. I am proud that I finished college !! A BS in Psych. Proud of myself that I got promoted (in 2017) at my job; i’m proud of myself that I have my own apartment, and blah blah basically just doing regular adult shit.

9:Talk about little things on your body that you like the most. I like my nose because of how perfectly fixed it is. I also really like my freckles/moles/dark marks idk what they are exactly, but they’re on my face and they look great

I still feel the same way about this, maybe add my eyebrows- they’re not like clean and nice they’re just expression markers on my face that i love.

10:Talk about the biggest fight you’ve ever had. I got into a fight with my old friend Angelica and that was almost 4 months ago and we used to be best friends and now we never talk.

When Janett didn’t talk to me all summer of 2019 because I told our other friend Angel something

11:Talk about the best dream you’ve ever had. I cant remember one 12:Talk about the worst dream you’ve ever had. I can’t remember one

13:Talk about the first time you had sex/how you imagine your first time. The closest thing i’ve had to like sex was being locked in a back of an SUV with a stranger drunk as fuck and naked and its embarrassing

Just awkward and nothing to which I expected.

14:Talk about a vacation. When I was 16, the high school band took a trip to Hawaii, and all my friends were in band so it was great. We did a lot of things, we toured Pearl Harbor and even played a few patriotic songs on the USS Miss. and our hotel was on Wakiki beach. I went snorkeling in some beautiful water and shit and idk just walked all around Hawaii having a great time omg we got on stage at the Hard Rock Cafe and sang with German people i miss it

Hm that was fun. But I.. went to NY with my ex and that was pretty cool because I literally love New York, and I went to NOLA two years ago (today actually) and got miserably drunk so that was fun too

15:Talk about the time you were most content in life. Probably just in the middle of junior year when everything and everyone was going with the flow

I feel like 2016 was a very content year because I remember nothing about it.

16:Talk about the best party you’ve ever been to. Idk which one to talk about the one where I had a lot of fun and risked my life or the one where there was a lot of drama stirred up and drank myself to sadness.

I haven’t really been to a party? I have gone out and had good times. Really anytime my friends and I go out I am having a good time

17:Talk about someone you want to be friends with. I am already friends with people I want to be friends with

18:Talk about something that happened in elementary school. I kissed a boy on the back of the head and i told I just fell onto his head

Let me think of another one. Back in like fourth grade my friend was in a wheel chair and his backpack was falling from the back and I was trying to grab it and i was only 3 feet tall i couldnt see over or wasnt paying attention and i crashed him right into the bookshelves at the library.

19:Talk about something that happened in middle school. A girl was mad at me because idk why lol and she pushed me in the hall way and I fucking flew across that hall on the floor and hit the wall she’s pregnant now

When I was in 5th grade (which is considered middle school in my district) I was standing on the play ground and someone threw a stick at my head and it knocked me the fuck out and I was bleeding from my temple.

20:Talk about something that happened in high school. In Jr. Year I was pulling into the parking lot but I was texting and I accidentally put half my car on grass area near the side walk luckily it was 7am and only one person saw me do it lol

One summer going into our senior year we had a party at Michelle’s house. First of all we were very drunk and Coby’s parents were like we are coming over and we cleaned TF UP so fast and sat on the couch and turned on I Know What You Did Last Summer and his parents were like interesting and and left and then we continued to drink anyways- we started playing truth or dare and my friend Angelica was like I dare u to kiss Anthony (someone I had liked prior) and he wouldnt and we started attacking him and calling him homophobic and hitting him with pillows lmao- him and I are still friend-ish

21:Talk about a time you had to turn someone down. I can’t think of something right now.

Literally anyone on grindr.

22:Talk about your worst fear. I’m afraid of having no career and being stuck doing something I hate and living paycheck to paycheck

Yeah, I’m scared of that still but I.. think just like being broke and jobless. RN with the pandemic we aren’t really working and still getting gov’t assistance, so. IDK being a real real adult scares me a lot.

23:Talk about a time someone turned you down. I can’t think of a time :)

One time in like 2016 maybe idk - this dude told me to come over and he lived far like not that far maybe 25 minutes lol far for me anyways I got to his apartment and there was a gate code and i asked him what it was and he didnt answer and it was like 2-3am and nobody was coming in or out and so i was like damn this sucks lmao

24:Talk about something someone told you that meant a lot. Nothing really has meant a lot to me. Everyone tells me the same thing over and over again and its so surface level

I still can’t think of anything but I’m sure the friends I have met since this and my friends Faith, Michelle, Peter, and Alisa have said something supportive that meant a lot to me.

25:Talk about an ex-best friend. Angelica Ramirez. She was my best friend for only 3 years, but together we went through A LOT of shit. We started out senior year just fine, but she lied about a few things and made a lot of us feel like crap in October. I won’t lie, I do miss her. We have too many memories to just forget, too many funny stories and great adventures. She helped me with too much, and sometimes I think about how I cut her out of my life and I mad a bad choice. But only time can heal things and I have moved on and truly found people that won’t make me mad every 30 seconds.

Brianna Pajak, I don’t remember anything about her except she was poor and we stopped being friends because she always wanted to fight and be annoying.

26:Talk about things you do when you’re sick. Lay on bed on my computer and watch TV

I normally just suffer and cry about wishing I was healthy again.

27:Talk about your favorite part of someone else’s body. Their…!!>>>???

I must have nice hands and ur nose must be nice too! so nose and hands. lol

28:Talk about your fetishes. none

yeah I don’t have any lol not that I can think of.

29:Talk about what turns you on. Idk i really like kissing and touching and this is awkward.

30:Talk about what turns you off. bad breath by

that and ugly/rough hands, acne sorry i know it is natural but, shorter than me lol, white people, long hair on guys, and thats about it i think hm i am single yes

31:Talk about what you think death is like. I think its like idk its scary tho

um idk i dont like thinking about death because i literally want to cry when i think about it.

32:Talk about a place you remember from your childhood. I remember being in trees a lot

My step grandma’s a lot because my parents were working and she would watch us. She passed away about a month ago :(

33:Talk about what you do when you are sad. I usually only tell one person and that person is Alisa and I cry sometimes to her and expect her to make things better and she does thank u

I be doing the same thing, I text someone and that person could really be anyone but it happened the other day and I texted Bri and she was very helpful.

34:Talk about the worst physical pain you’ve endured. I have no idea, I’ve never broken pulled strained twisted fractures or anything i have no life

I still haven’t done any of that stuff to my body. I also have burn scars but I did not feel those when it was happening. I would just say i guess my wisdom teeth coming in because I did not get them removed. I have 3 out lol.

35:Talk about things you wish you could stop doing. Pushing potential love interests away

I have had some ‘love interests’ since this post, but it’s been about a year now since and I kind of push away the opportunity of getting close to someone. I also need to stop being a bitch sometimes.

36:Talk about your guilty pleasures. eating

I would say idk eating was a stupid answer.

37:Talk about someone you thought you were in love with. never

I was in love and i didn’t ‘think’ I was in love. I don’t know what you mean by talk about them, they were my partner but we broke up hehe.

38:Talk about songs that remind you of certain people. Fireflies by Owl City reminds me of my 7th grade crush Fancy by Iggy Azalea reminds me of my two friends Michelle and Alisa idk anything else

um Idk. i rly cant think 39:Talk about things you wish you’d known earlier. I wish I would have known that

That it’s okay to tell people you’re struggling lol . That is okay to fail sometimes (school). 40:Talk about the end of something in your life. everything is just about to start

When I ended how to get away with murder I wish I never did I love that show with all my heart.

#personal

30 notes · View notes