#it was such a visceral memory when i realized what the hell he was singing

[dark-twist-fairytales]

this might be spoilers!!! so just in case read this After episode 4 of uprooted but > the song booker sings in 4 is so sweet he cares about his vagabonds so muuch <3

So, I'm still on episode 4, but I got past the battle, and I genuinely almost started crying.

Underneath, I talk more. Plus, because I wanted to/it meant a lot to me, I also put the lyrics that Booker sings as well.

~~~

The song Andy sings is a cover of "The Crawdad Song", which is a deeply ingrained to my soul type of song. And, ironically, my exposure to that song was "The Andy Griffith Show", but literally, Andy, you could do the cutest thing and recreate the Andy and Opie scene.

(For the scene, this is what I'm talking about)

Booker, you have gained SO much more respect from me from one fucking song- And he used it for multiple spells, as if he was the background song instead of the intense battle song, I- Ughhh. ... No, I'm actually crying- He only calls his group 'honey'- I'm sobbing, I'm- Aughhh

Also, because I can, here are the lyrics written out that Booker sings (by the way, this song had many alliterations, there's no wrong way (that I've heard) to sing this song):

(To Hazel, for healing)

"You get a line and I got a pole, honey You get a line and I got a pole, babe You get a line and I got a pole And we'll go down to the crawdad hole Honey, sugar, baby, mine."

(To Grumley, protecting him with "Silvery Bards")

"Get up, my girl, you slept too late, honey Get up, my girl, you slept too late, babe Get up, my girl, you slept too late The crawdad man done passed your gate Honey, sugar, baby, mine."

(Final blow, using "Dissonant Whispers")

"Whatcha gonna do when the lake runs dry, baby? Whatcha gonna do when the lake runs dry, babe? Whatcha gonna do when the lake runs dry? Sit on the bank and watch the crawdads die Honey, sugar, baby, mine."

[rex101111]

I’m planning on buying Metroid Dread in a few days and I’m trying to go in blind, but I managed to catch a video of Samus’s only three lines of dialog in the whole game, and I just want to talk about how cool they are.

The first two are in her native Chozo. and I say “native” because, since she was raised by the Chozo since she was 3 it is practically her first language. So multilingual queen, hell yeah. And it makes me think that, while Grey Voice and Old Bird try and make sure she didn’t forget English (or the space equivalent in the metroid-verse), she does end up just adopting Chozo as her mother language. Just, imagine Samus mumbling to herself in Chozo while sifting through the available bounties, singing Chozo songs while drunk and the rest of the bar tries to follow along, the first time she had any contact with another bounty hunter and speaking Chozo for a full hour on reflex before looking at the other guy and realizing he has no idea what she’s talking about.

Her decking someone when they mock her for “speaking bird” (Samus hears someone mutter a Chozo slur at her precisely once before she makes sure no one in the galaxy ever makes that mistake again), her writing down Chozo poems from memory so the culture that adopted her doesn’t vanish, translating Chozo books into other languages and the other way around because she knows she’s the only person in the universe that both can and the only one who would care enough to do so.

Just, Samus clinging to the culture that saved her life and gave her strength and making sure that the Chozo survive, even in some small way only she can appreciate. Just, the idea sounds really cool to me, as someone who really likes linguistics and such. Also the fact that Chozo is, no kidding, an actual functioning conlang now, is pretty fucking sweet.

...oh, and the third line of dialog? Her letting out a visceral scream of pure, unfiltered, unrestrained, burning rage. Which is also cool, for self evident reasons.  

[bangtanblurbs]

young forever

song: young forever by BTS

first experience: strangely enough i have a very visceral memory of when forever young dropped. it was during finals week of my final year in undergrad. the song released on a sunday in the wee hours (or perhaps a monday? - days tend to run together during finals week). i didn’t have many assignments due that year since my course load was light and i was really just coasting into grad school the year afterwards (at the same institution i attend for undergrad). i remember logging onto youtube and catching the video as it premiered. i was stunned. HYYH pt. 1 and HYYH pt. 2 were heavenly to me, so of course young forever was greatly anticipated for me - the aesthetics, continuation of the story, and also simply getting new bangtan music. the cotton candy color pallet loaded onto my phone screen, and RM’s beautiful voice can through my earphones... i was immediately in love. 

every member looked completely stunning. the message i got from the video was... incredibly powerful. the maze. the lyrics. all of it resonated with me, a young woman -- 22 years old -- soon to turn another corner in life. i sat in my dorm room preparing for a busy week, as i was the RA in my dormitory and needed to help my students move out that week... as i prepared for my graduation and transition into my next step in life... i was also shipping out to macau, china for the summer in a few weeks so i geared up for that. this video dropping was almost a breath of fresh air from everything going on. i was able to really sit and enjoy it, but also reflect on my past, present, and the future to come. 

feelings: well, i have quite a lot. as someone who has been chronically obsessed with the story of peter pan since age seven, i’d say that youth is something i value - perhaps a bit too much. what’s interesting though is young forever isn’t necessarily about youth in the rawest sense... it’s also about dreams, reaching the point in your life where you’re happy, with yourself, your circumstances, ultimately your place in life. which i suppose most people equate that with youth, the innocence and naivety of it all. for me, thinking about forever young is kind of about that anxiety we carry as we get younger - have a made good use of my youth? did i squander it, getting caught up in the day to day or bogged down by my demons? the worry that our youth is our prime and when it’s gone, where do we go next? retire? it’s kind of funny thinking about this now as I’m 27 instead of 22. do i feel any older? no, not really - i feel the same. the same energy, the same zeal for life. do i look back on the days when i was younger and think that my youth is gone? no. for me - youth - it’s a state of mind. it’s an ethos, a way of proceeding forwards in my life. i didn’t always think this way - perhaps that was wrapped up in my anxiety about getting older. i used to lament my birthday each passing year - god turning 23 felt the absolute worst for some reason. it’s funny now though - how i almost feel younger, lighter, now than i did. youth should be a feeling of unburdened peace right? ideally it would seem so - but the reality in our world today... youth is pain. youth is struggling. youth is stumbling through the dark and trying to figure out who the hell you are, who the hell you want to be. i still feel like i’m stuck in that place, that place of wonder - of reaching out, exploring, experiencing... i feel as naïve as ever despite the pain that courses through some of my life. 

so back to young forever - how does the song make me feel? it makes me feel at home. at peace. forever we can carry our youth, forever we can approach our lives with childish curiosity, with the energy to follow our dreams, with a dedication to our passion, and an and endless realization that change is the only constant in our lives. despite the ups and downs that might come with living with this mindset - i wouldn’t want to live any other way. what’s the point of continuing to grind hard every day in the cruel systems our society has built if we can’t at least say we did it with voracious appetite to experience fully our surroundings, emotions, and imaginations?

personal connection: it’s rather hard for me to nail down all of my personal connections to young forever. as i mentioned, i have a really strong connection to the story of peter pan. i’ll briefly explain why and how that plays in here - but i must warn you... if you’re uncomfortable with strangers oversharing on the internet, perhaps this isn’t the blog for you to read. i’m quite comfortable bearing my soul to people i don’t know. for some reason vulnerability has never been something i’ve struggled with - perhaps it’s the naivety i love about myself. anyways... here we go.

when i was 17 my best friend passed away from cancer. it was relatively quick. just a summer we spent together gossiping in a hospital room, machines beeping while we tried our very best just to giggle about boys and lament our torturous IB courses. i’d known her nearly my whole life. meeting in second grade - and bonding quickly over a love for the whimsy of peter pan’s story. we’d gush on the playground about flying away to neverland - where we could do whatever we wanted. explore, sing, fly. but she was gone then. gone far too soon. frozen in a youthful state in my mind. her passing is still the hardest thing i’ve ever been through in my life, and i’ve been through some scary shit. immediately when i hard young forever i thought about her. i thought about how she lived. she was fearless. the bravest and strongest person i ever knew, and still to this day, have ever known. knowing her - experiencing her soul - it changed me. once she passed away i had to be strong, my classmates looked to me as their rock, my parents forbid me to cry, everyone pushed me into adulthood way too quickly. i was just a seventeen year old girl. i was having a crisis - i wanted nothing more than to speak to my best friend as i navigated choosing my next steps after high school. but she wasn’t there, and i wasn’t allowed to feel. i was terrified. my youth was gone. nothing seemed fun anymore. youth became pain as i looked around at my peers who were back to normal in a matter of weeks. giggling with one another, moving along with life. i became a robot. quickly i threw myself into school work. i was already a high achieving student but i climbed higher. i worked harder. i had decided that for the life she couldn’t live, i would live it for her. i’d go to the best college i could, i’d do all the things i never dreamed i could. i’d do it for her. but i wasn’t living. i had let my youth go. i was fading away. just a shell. 

it’s funny. or perhaps it’s not. young forever is a comfort song. a comfort song with some incredible darkness in it. the anxiety in namjoon’s verse, yoongi’s speaking to hiding feelings - pushing forward despite what he carries, hoseok’s verse about letting himself go and just giving what he has to keep pushing. their words - that’s how i felt. the song dropped around four years after my friend’s passing. i needed it before then. although perhaps it wouldn’t have “saved me” because music doesn’t save, music gives us the strength and comfort we need to save ourselves (i’m not a fan of taking way my own agency in MY story), it might have offered me a light in an increasingly blurry world. 

a year prior to the song’s release i’d spent a summer in china. my life changed there. i lived with seven incredibly bright middle school girls. that experience, i never thought it would start to heal me the way it did. they were under immense pressure (the education system in china is total bullshit)... and they told me “caroline, youth is pain. it’s not beautiful. it’s a period where we struggle the most.” i’d never heard this. the typical western perspective is that youth is “the most beautiful part of life” - it’s where you fall in love, it’s where you get hurt and you pick yourself up, it’s where you find yourself, you feel invincible. but that’s just it - it’s also where you can get incredibly lost (like the maze in the video). not all of us experience youth without pain. this perspective helped me to heal. i wasn’t so alone - i wasn’t squandering my youth, sure - i was treading water - but that was okay. i could cry. i could feel. and so, at this point i began to write my own story again. rather than living for someone else, i decided to throw the book out the window, to pick myself and run like hell towards what i wanted. to accept the freefall of life. that’s youth. that’s the most beautiful part of life. the part where you free yourself from whatever chains society has on you. youth is only associated with being a child because that who should be the most free. when truly youth, youth is that period in your life when you learn to live for yourself, your dreams. dream, hope, keep going. don’t fucking stop.

so this brings us to 2016. i was weeks away from a new journey abroad when young forever dropped. i was doing better. life felt lighter. i still had a long way to go, but some things i’d gotten right. i gained confidence, i navigated my interpersonal relationships with more poise. etc etc. going to china the second time, it changed me more. i did things on my own i’d never dreamed of doing. crossing multiple national borders, making friends with people i couldn’t communicate with. i opened my heart to it all. and i fell in love with myself. for the first time. i fell in love with how completely i embraced my freedom and coupled it with my drive, my passions. that is what young forever is about. it’s about the struggle but the continued commitment to the state of mind that once you’re free - once you embraced that childlike state of being - you can achieve so much happiness. 

which brings us to now - how do i connect to the song now? much in the same way that i did before. carrying these emotions connected to this song so deeply into adulthood has been incredibly touching. i’ve matured with bangtan. from 2015 to now. i’ve only grown in how i embrace my youth. sure, i have to conform at times, play the adult, but the motto “dream, hope, keep going.” that’s what i live by. nothing can change that for me now. i’m still fucking lost, but i’m running like hell. i have my setbacks, my demons, my challenges, but i’ve never been so fucking free. that’s young forever for me. thank you for reading my story. 

song breakdown:

musically: something i truly love about young forever is that it’s really atypical in how it flows musically and the entire structure of the song. it’s creativity run wild - it’s a story and build. and i love that. it starts off slow, soft, with a sweet sadness. the highlight isn’t the backing track, it’s the honey rap voices. it’s absolutely perfect. understated and building. with each new voice that comes in the beat speeds up. it’s like running. which is fitting. because the story in the song is that of bangtan. the lyrics say it, the boys are worried - worried about how well they’ve done, when they’ll stop gaining success, concerned that all of this life will end, wondering who they are in this - the performance the journey. they are quite literally running towards their dreams. we see this in the song lyrically. 

once the chorus comes, we need an increased speed in the beat and the song picks up with the chanting of the mantra. “forever, we are young.” us together, bangtan and ARMY. the song fades into the beautiful clapping beat, the refrains of dream, hope, keep going. musically the song is beautifully understated in a way that can only draw out the listeners’ emotions and highlight the charged encouraging lyrics. the story here is clear and only more illuminated by the musical choices. 

vocally: young forever is such a treat. it’s a rap heavy song, but not in a way that takes away from the beautiful second half of the song which is full of beautiful vocal line refrains and ad libs. it’s a chant song. a comfort song. and perhaps that’s why it’s stuck with me for all these years as one of my ultimate favorite BTS songs. 

when the song begins we are greet by namjoon’s beautiful low rap register. he delivers the rap melodically slow. you can appreciate the way his voice carries emotion and the tempo of the beginning story, of the emotional journey the song embarks upon. following namjoon’s beautiful voice is yoongi. who assumes a slower rap style initially. he has a few parts where he treats us to shout rapping as well - which give us kind of a pleading emotion - we can hear his lament for the pressure placed upon him as he stands in the spotlight. finally, rapline is rounded out by hoseok - i’m gonna say it - this is one of hoseok’s best slow verses. he offers his usual spicy tone, giving the trap style endings to each line. the emotion hits it’s peak with the punch tones and hoseok’s strong committment to his lines expressing his desires, his drive. 

the second half of the song is dominated by the beautiful tones of vocal line. taehyung leads us into the chorus with his beautiful deep register, followed by jungkook’s high tones. the juxtaposition of their voices coupled by jin and backed by jimin’s beautiful melodies is absolutely stunning. rapline takes turns coming in with the refrain “dream, hope, keep going.” all of this mixed together is simply stunning. it’s like hope in vocal form. we have the low and the highs, the singing voices and the speaking refrains. most devastatingly is jimin’s forever ever ever - piercing the background of the song. highlighting the longing - the conviction - to youth - the spirit of it, the beauty of it. the chant portion of the song is also what makes this song so devastating to hear live. everyone comes in, blends together and makes the message resonate completely. 

lyrically: here. we. go. a DEEP DIVE. i think firstly, it’s important to start with the fact that we have a song, young forever, that was released as the epilogue to two devastating HYYH albums. HYYH was the epitome of youth themed albums. it encapsulated everything we associate typically with youth. love songs, songs about pain, songs about healing, songs about not being enough, songs about our dreams, songs about being lonely... it’s all there. both the beauty of youth and the beautiful pain of youth dominate HYYH pt. 1 and HYYH pt. 2. then, those messages, those themes, were sealed with epilogue: young forever. why? well, my feeling is this is bangtan’s way of leaving us with the reality that youth isn’t something that’s fleeting. it’s not an age or state in time. it’s something we carry within. it’s how we approach the things we confront in our lives, how we live and move forward through adversity towards our passions and dreams. 

now - with that out of the way it’s time to dissect some lyrics. there’s quite a lot here in the three rap verses so i truly hope to do them justice. 

namjoon’s verse starts like a story, “the curtain falls” the end of a performance, often used as metaphor for the end of a certain point in one’s life. “the curtain falls and i’m out of breath / i get mixed feelings as i breathe out” clearly the chapter that’s closing for him has been an exhausting one, but he’s not sure about moving forward even though now he has the time to finally reflect and see what he wants next. to me, this speaks directly to where bangtan was at this point in their career. they’d been through the bullshit - the trainee days, the ridicule, the exclusion from the typical korean music system... they’d made it. I NEED U had one awards, RUN did as well, 2016 bangtan had begun to see the fruit of their labor pay off - but with that, what’s next. where do they climb next? what’s to come? there’s that feeling of unease for namjoon. “did I make any mistakes today? / how did the audience seem?” are the next lines, bringing in that sense of reflection. even though now he can breathe - he worries, what’s his impact, how do people feel about what he’s given them, did he have shortcomings? these thoughts flood in and set the mood for the next steps forward. these questions only become more as the pressure continues. the next and final three lines of namjoon’s verse group well together and offer us much more hope that the foreboding in the start of the verse: “i’m happy with who i’ve become / that i can make someone scream with joy / still excited from the performance.” the peace in these final lines, it’s kind of like the rest of the song - starting with the hardship, the unease, what must or has been overcome - mellowing out to realization that things will keep going on. namjoon is at peace with where is at the end of this chapter, he is glad he can stand on this stage bringing smiles to faces, and finally - the buzz of just being able to do music, that remains with him through all of the constant pressure. something about these lines, they’re beautiful.

just like that, yoongi’s verse begins. he provides the same metaphor to the listener. he is standing on an empty stage. the performance is over. the chapter is closing. HYYH is becoming the past for BTS. the struggles, will they be over too as they move forward with their progressing careers? “i stand on the empty stage while holding onto an aftertaste that will not linger for long” he begins - he knows that the high of this moment, the place they’ve reached in this time... it can’t be forever, the emotions of it all are beginning to fade into something else. he then moves on to offer some more insight into how he feels about that unknown of moving on: “while standing on this empty stage, i become afraid of this unpleasant emptiness.” this line seems telling to me - yoongi is someone that gets a lot from recognition, achievement, sharing his works with others. leaving the stage, moving away from this performance moment... it’s hard on him... he feels empty, his moment, his purpose - they’re over... at least for now. the anxiety seeps in. “within my suffocating feelings / on top of my life’s line” he starts to try and explain deeper his emotions, suffocation, a feeling of panic, likely anxiety or pressure induced. what’s next? will it demand more? he’s on top of his life’s line - he feels like he’s reaching his peak, not knowing where to go next, plateau? down? yoongi then lodges into almost a picture perfect description of what society can make us do in moments of pressure where we are feeling anxiety or panic - “without a reason, i forcibly act that i am fine / this isn’t the first time, i better get used to it” he’s going to put on a strong face, suppress how he really feels because at some point there could be another audience, he remains on the stage even if the curtains have closed. he forces himself to do so, and it’s a habitual thing for him. it sounds like truly this is habitual for yoongi - really needing to mask his fear, his panic, his anxiety for the sake of those watching. it tears me up, because it seems like he also knows that this will continue in his future. and the he realizes that keeping the mask on, it’s not something he’s able to do or perhaps interested in doing “i try to hide it, but i can’t.” the final lines of his verse leave us with some unease - they’re unclear - but perhaps they’re speaking to the fact that performing won’t be his forever... “when the heat of the show cools down / i leave the empty seats behind,” so at some point -- the excitement, the hype, it will be gone... those who want to see him, they’ll be gone too, and he’ll move on to what is next. or perhaps this could allude to the fact that the pressure of those watching goes away and he will finally feel comfortable? there’s a lot here. a lot left up and open.

and finally we round out rapline with hoseok’s verse - which leads us into the chorus and refrains. the first three lines of hoseok’s part go hand in hand with one another - they’re a natural progress of coping with one’s emotions and situation: “trying to comfort myself / i tell myself the world can’t be perfect / i start to let myself go.” the chapter is closing and hoseok is trying to tell himself, it’ll be okay. almost like listening to the song young forever - seeking comfort. a home. realizing that things aren’t always going to go his way, he can’t have this moment forever, and sometimes things are going to be ups and downs... the final line is perhaps the most startling, letting oneself go. realizing that there’s some pieces of yourself that are okay to let go, whatever is holding you back, keeping you stuck, sometimes we need to shed that to go forward with the youthful exploration that keeps life invigorating and exciting. or perhaps hoseok is thinking about the day in which he will let “j-hope” go and just be hoseok, without a stage in the traditional sense. “the thundering applause, i can’t own it forever” he moves on saying that this life won’t be his forever, at some point he will need to move on - realize that this moment is down, lose himself to it, and see what is next. yet - even with this knowledge hoseok continues “i tell myself, so shameless / raise your voice higher” it seems that there’s a conflict he’s facing - letting this moment go or screaming as loud as he can to hold onto it, and shamelessly so - letting go of all the constructed norms for how he should behave. perhaps, holding onto his YOUTH even as he grows older in age and should grow away from a youthful mentality. he is raising his voice and hopefully pushing forwards, perhaps just away from this stage and onto an even larger one. it seems this is the case “even if the attention isn’t forever, i’ll keep singing” he states. he will hold onto his passion, keep moving forwards with his music, his voice, his connection to whatever it is that wants to be connected to him - because this is his very soul and being. finally - hoseok closes out his verse “as today’s me, i want eternity / forever, i want to be young.” it seems that hoseok is choosing to be who he is at this moment, his youthful self, as long as he goes on. he will leave this version of himself, this beautiful, loving, hopeful version of himself as his mark on the earth for eternity. 

moving into the chorus we have the iconic title line “forever we are young” which to me, it’s about taking youth forward with you in all that you do. taking your passion, your drive, your love, your hope -- pouring it into all that you do and not letting the outside spoil you and take that from you. keeping your passions and running towards them. that’s the core of the message in young forever. 

jungkook then croons “under the flower petals raining down / i run, so lost in this maze” bringing us to think about how seasons change - flower petals can fall because of their abundance but also because they we are moving into winter. either way, the analogy of flowers is hopeful to me. blossoms on trees - the return in time. not the same blossoms, but just as beautiful as the previous ones. perhaps he’s speaking to the fact that the blossoms are falling now as the chapter is ending - which leads into the feeling of lost, of being in a maze... but the reality is, the flowers will come again. the can come again. so long as they keep running - there’s a chance for this beautiful moment to happen once again. that’s youth. perhaps you have your ups and downs, your moments in the sun (your spring days) and your cold days... but keep running, keep your energy, dream, hope, keep going. and you can return. 

jin then offers the other refrain “even when i fall and hurt myself / i endlessly run toward my dream.” THIS is youth. this is it. that almost stupid attitude of not recognizing when you’re down and out... not recognizing when perhaps you should stop. turning up the energy at your weakest point even when authority is telling you to let it go. this is the essence of youthful hope and energy. even if they’ve failed, even at their lowest point, they’re cementing that they won’t stop until they achieve their dreams. once again. dream. hope. keep going. just keep fucking going. 

finally the other refrain that is repeated throughout the chorus: dream. hope. forward. forward. is the direct translation. but, many would say it’s dream. hope. keep going. this is youth. our dreams, childish and pure. our hope, what we pour into ourselves, what we surround ourselves with - the light that keeps us going. and then constantly moving forward continuing even when our odds look bad. this shit resonates. bangtan did it. they dreamed, 7 boys at a small company. they hoped, holding onto one another, working hard, baby steps forward. they kept going. no matter the ridicule, the setbacks, they pushed forward. these words - they mean the world to me as i’ve pushed through shit in my life. i’m only where i am today because i, by some miracle, internalized this youthful mantra. allowing myself to dream, those moments of hope, pushing forward no matter what. that’s youth. that’s young forever. 

performance: well this is shaping up to be quite a long post. i want to discuss both the MV and how live performances typically proceed. i’ve also attached to this post my personal video of young forever at the HYYH: the epilogue tour in macau. sorry for my screaming in advance. 

MV: the MV is really interesting for the HYYH universe, although the same could be said for save me, which is technically in the universe... BUT the fact that the MV steps away from the storylines and almost takes us into the minds of the characters bangtan is playing is an interesting choice. we start off the video with the boys in a chain-linked fence maze, wandering around, and flashbacks for each of there characters. the overall aesthetic of the video fits with the lyrics and these feelings of uncertainty... the feeling of being lost... wandering from phase to phase in life. early on we see a scene of yoongi burning photos from the HYYH era - truly this song is about death to the past a new beginnings, overcoming the past but moving forward with the pieces of you that are important. the highlighting of the text “꿈 희망 전진 전진” or dream, hope, keep going - making it the mantra of the song. keep moving, keep running. almost it seems like the characters are running away from their demons as well. the members running off into the sunset together? it’s all about endings. new beginnings. but taking them on with determination and an attitude of childlike awe, glee, dreams, and determination. 

performance: we’ve all seen the iconic wembley performance. we’ve probably all cried over it more than once. maybe it’s your comfort video? maybe it’s secretly mine (ha!). i can tell you, experiencing this song live... there’s really nothing like it. it’s understated. there’s no dance. nothing like that. 

in the performances - namjoon appears alone in a starlight stage with the lyrics scrawling on a screen behind him. the lights are all dark, deep blue tones everywhere, it feels dreamy. the entire crowd is brought into a dream like state. it’s fitting, its absolutely fitting and incredibly stunning. yoongi then appears to namjoon’s left and hoseok to his right to be spotlighted for their respective verses. the emotion is everywhere. the song is even more incredible with a live band. you cannot imagine it. the chorus arrives with a change in vibe, a beautiful sunset is projected and the vocal line appears from the floor. all of the members stand shoulder to shoulder and belt the chorus and refrain. and you would not believe how devastatingly beautiful it is to hear ARMY shouting along. forever we are young. kkum, huimang, jeonjin, jeonjin. shouting together. again and again. clapping with one another. waving ARMY bombs. it’s completely emotional. i cried. i cried on the strangers next to me, that didn’t speak my language. there is nothing like it. 

i must also note, the concert i was at we were all distributed lightsticks and banners with 꿈 희망 전진 전진 written on them. this song has been important since it released. it’s the core of bangtan’s rise. it is so important to these boys. and to many of us fans as well.

now - a word about what happened at wembley. bangtan had no idea that ARMY would sing young forever TO them. at WEMBLEY. fans who likely do not speak korean. chanting their mantra to them “kkum, huimang, jeonjin, jeonjin” and singing “foreverrrrr we are younnnnng” and saying they will keep going. they will walk their journey towards their dreams. something about that, it’s incredibly toughing. you and i cannot imagine how that must have felt for bangtan. the moment must have been completely surreal. one of the world’s largest stages, playing one of the most meaningful songs of their careers - a song meant to memorialize their climb to fame, their accomplishments, their youth that they likely felt the LOST during this climb to where they are now. jimin himself said that night “this song. wow. this song helped me a lot when things were really hard.” young forever means so very much to bangtan. it always has. and their fans chose that very song. we chose that song (rather we were there or not). it’s our mantra too. whatever we go through, we are on this journey, and we are not alone. we are not alone. we can muster the strength to carry on with that same youthful zeal for life. watching that video... it’s moving. it’s completely incredible. to be a part of this journey... just wow. 

tl;dr: in conclusion... young forever is one of the BTS songs that has the most touching meanings, and it came at a very delicate time in their career. a time when they were finally getting the recognition they deserved and sought for a long time. a time when they were pivoting from “young” to “young adult.” a time when they likely struggled with a loss of their youth. all of this... it’s powerful because it’s not alien for those of us normal people. we all feel this. i’ve felt it as i’ve gone through tough shit and came out the other side changed, only to have to find my way through the maze and back to myself. youth and being young, it’s a state of mind. i think bangtan sincerely know and believe this. that’s what makes the song and the message it carries so incredibly powerful. so meaningful to us all. thanks for reading yet again. 

[moulinrougefanfanfans]

Moulin Rouge for VOGUE!

(These are the HQ Photo Versions!)

Moulin Rouge!’s Broadway cast, photographed at Kings Theatre in Brooklyn. Sittings Editors: Hamish Bowles, Alexandra Cronan. Produced by 360pm. Set Design: CJ Dockery at Mary Howard Studio; Costume Designer: Catherine Zuber; Choreographer: Sonya Tayeh

Photographed by Baz Luhrmann, Vogue, July 2019

July 2019 Vogue (Online)

BAZ LUHRMANN WAS BORN to reinvent the movie musical for a new generation—which is exactly what he did in 2001 with Moulin Rouge!, his deliriously romantic mash-up, set in 1890s Paris, of La Bohème, La Traviata, and the Orpheus myth, with a soundtrack that exploded with modern-day pop songs, lavish Technicolor sets and costumes (by his wife, Catherine Martin), and a hyperkinetic cinematic style that drew on MGM musicals, MTV videos, and Bollywood spectaculars. The motto of this blatantly artificial world, served with a knowing wink (which nevertheless swept us up in its very real, very breathless emotions), could be borrowed from William Blake’s The Marriage of Heaven and Hell: “Enough! Or too much.”

In his own way, the brilliant theater director Alex Timbers—whose work includes Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson, Here Lies Love, and, most recently, Beetlejuice—was born to reinvent Moulin Rouge! for the stage, as another generation of New York audiences will discover when his electrifying, eye-popping, and blissfully over-the-top adaptation of Luhrmann’s masterpiece opens on Broadway, after a smash run in Boston, this month.

“I’ve spent my life taking classics and interpreting them in radical ways,” Luhrmann says, “so how could I not applaud someone taking a work of mine and interpreting it in a radical way? You have to interpret things for the time and place you’re in. In the end, it’s still a tragic opera, but Alex applies himself to it in such a dexterous way that there’s irony and fun and music and emotion.”

Luhrmann grew up in Herons Creek, a tiny, remote Australian town with a total of seven houses in it, where, he says, “if you didn’t have a good imagination and an ability to create worlds in your mind, you were lost.” Fortunately his family, which ran a gas station and a pig farm, also ran the local movie theater and had a black-and-white TV set (which showed exactly one channel), and Luhrmann devoured a steady diet of old movies, including musicals, with which he fell in love. His mother was a ballroom-dance instructor who started giving him lessons early, and his father insisted that Luhrmann and his siblings study painting and music. Before long he was staging little shows, performing magic tricks, making films with his father’s 8-millimeter camera, and acting in school plays.

Apparently it was the ideal upbringing to produce an artist of dazzling originality, one with a singular, idiosyncratic vision and an expansive playing field: film, theater, opera, commercials, music videos, pop songs. After the success of his first two films, Strictly Ballroom and Romeo + Juliet—both of which had healthy doses of movie-musical DNA encoded into their cinematic language—Luhrmann wanted to take on the genre itself. He and his co-writer, Craig Pearce, set their film in Belle Epoque Paris, in and around the legendary Moulin Rouge nightclub, telling a tragic love story straight out of verismo opera with the Orpheus legend—a young poet and musician travels to the underworld in search of his dead love, Eurydice, and is reunited with her only to lose her again, emerging forever changed—as its mythical underpinning.

But Luhrmann also had what he calls a “preposterous conceit” that allowed his Orpheus—a Bohemian poet named Christian, played by Ewan McGregor—to metaphorically enchant the very rocks and stones to follow him because of his voice: “When our poet opens his mouth, ‘The hills are alive with the sound of music’ comes out of it,” he says. “Whether you like The Sound of Music or not, it’s a giant hit that’s got artistic cred—so it’s a funny, concise way of saying ‘The guy has magic.’” Preposterous or not, the conceit turned the love story between McGregor’s Christian and Nicole Kidman’s doomed Satine, a nightclub star and courtesan, into a pop fantasia, giving the music its audience had grown up with—from “Your Song” to “Lady Marmalade”—an operatic grandeur.

Luhrmann had long wanted to bring Moulin Rouge! to the stage but felt that he wasn’t the right person for the job—he worried that he was too close to the material and might be overprotective of it. Enter Alex Timbers, 40, a downtown wunderkind who has brought the cheeky, postmodern spirit of his theater company Les Freres Corbusier to Broadway and shares with Luhrmann a restlessly playful and inventive mise-en-scène. “When I saw Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson, I could tell that his aesthetic and the way he told a story—very high-energy, very theatrical, ironic but also moving—had a certain kinship with mine,” Luhrmann says. “And after I met him, I knew that he would have his own interpretation but also understand the language of the film.”

The biggest challenge Timbers and his team faced was how to bring the film’s hypercinematic exuberance alive on a stage. “We had to create a visceral and kinetic excitement using an entirely theatrical vocabulary,” Timbers says. “We don’t have any of those virtuosic techniques like close-ups and Steadicam and music video–style editing, but you want the show to be able to leap over the footlights—emotionally, but also as a spectacle. So we use a lot of techniques to do that.”

Do they ever. From the moment you enter the theater, it’s clear that Timbers has realized his mandate to make the show—which he’s been working on for the past six years—“360.” It’s as if you’ve walked into the Moulin Rouge itself, courtesy of the gorgeously overwhelming set (by Derek McLane) that greets you: There are hearts within hearts, chandeliers, the stage flanked by a windmill on one side and an elephant on the other. Then out come the corset-clad boys and girls of the night (who come in all colors, shapes, and sizes) and the fashionable members of the Parisian demimonde in Catherine Zuber’s fabulous costumes. The next thing you know, “Four Bad Ass Chicks from the Moulin Rouge,” as the script identifies them—propelled onstage by Sonya Tayeh’s wildly exuberant choreography—are belting “Hey sista, go sista, soul sista, flow sista,” and we’re off to the races. “I wanted to build this exotic, intoxicating world that felt beautiful and dangerous and gritty and sexy,” Timbers says. “It felt really important for the sets and the costumes to use period elements, and for us to be ruthless about that, but to put them in a form that feels contemporary and surprising.”

The seven-time Tony-winning costume designer Zuber (The King and I, My Fair Lady) has done that and then some, tipping her hat to Catherine Martin’s designs for the film without imitating them. She’s even managed to design Belle Epoque finery that allows the dancers the freedom of movement to execute Tayeh’s propulsive choreography. Zuber is also a master of using costumes to reveal character and situation, as with the ornate gown she designed for Satine after she becomes the Duke’s courtesan and enters his glittering world. Inspired by designs from John Galliano’s 2006 couture collection, it features a bodice that looks like a cage and three rows of lacing down the back. “It’s almost like she’s a prisoner,” Zuber says.

Playing Satine this time around is Karen Olivo (West Side Story, Hamilton), who brings very different qualities to the role than Kidman, both physical (Olivo is a woman of color) and temperamental (desperate, determined, and down-to-earth, as opposed to ethereal). Aaron Tveit (Next to Normal, Catch Me if You Can), meanwhile, sings like a dream and brings the requisite dewy idealism to the naive Christian, but with a hint of something edgier.

The story is very much the same as the film’s: Satine is the star attraction at the Moulin Rouge, owned by the rapacious Harold Zidler (Danny Burstein), who is in financial hot water and in danger of losing the club. Christian and Satine meet and fall head over heels, but she has been promised by Zidler to the villainous Duke (Tam Mutu), who can give her the bejeweled life she’s always dreamed of, forcing her to choose between that and true love. Meanwhile, Christian and his pals Santiago and Toulouse-Lautrec (Ricky Rojas and Sahr Ngaujah) are writing a show, bankrolled by the Duke, that is meant to save the Moulin Rouge from going under. Then, of course, Satine has this persistent cough and . . . well, you know.

The big difference in terms of the storytelling is that book writer John Logan (Red) has fleshed out and deepened the characters and the relationships between them. “We looked at the major characters, asked what their backstories were, and tried to figure out how grounded they could possibly be in psychological realism and yet still be heightened in that way that musical theater demands,” Logan says. “How did Satine get to be this sparkling diamond—and what’s the price she’s paid along the way?”

But the boldest change—and in many ways the heart of the show—is in the new songs, which give Moulin Rouge! fresh emotional resonance (and whip the crowd into a frenzy). Along with the familiar Bowie, Madonna, and Elton John tunes, expect to hear from the likes of Outkast, Sia, Beyoncé, Fun, Adele, and Lorde, to name but a few (there are more than 70 songs in the show). To curate Moulin Rouge!’s dizzying playlist, Timbers, Logan, and music director/genius Justin Levine holed up in a Times Square hotel room with a digital keyboard, dredged up their musical memories, and took note of what worked. Their taste is impeccable, whether using a song for its sheer exuberance, as with a rousing version of Lady Gaga’s “Bad Romance,” or to reveal a character’s inner desires, as Satine does with Katy Perry’s “Firework.”

Logan has been blown away to see how powerfully audiences have connected with the show—and the songs. “I went to a wedding recently, and when the dancing started, I heard half our score being played, which was wild,” he says. “And when you see audience members respond to the songs—‘They’re using thatsong? Oh, my God! No way!’—you can feel how excited they are. It’s an experience I’ve never had before. It’s magic.”

[skybound2]

David x Michael, on a road trip, arguing over music choices (or whatever permutation of that you would like to use!).

Hey, so 500 years later, I know, but I’ve written a thing! Well, several things, sorta? This is basically a series of short ficlets each focusing on a different song, but all connected, and is basically a direct follow on to the response I wrote MONTHS ago for a different prompt (You Are My Sunshine)! 

THANK YOU SO MUCH for the prompt, it helped get me out of a rut, LIKE A LOT. (Also, I had a TON OF FUN thinking up songs to set each piece too :-D)

Takes place in my Walk Unafraid universe sometime after Michael has gone full vamp, and is maybe just a little bit cracky ;-P

Hope you enjoy!

Billy Idol “Rebel Yell”

Michael frowns as the first few beating notes of the song start pouring out of the speakers. Before the first line is over, he’s a freshman again, shuffling into the streamer and tinsel decorated nightmare that was his first (and last) high school homecoming dance.

He hadn’t wanted to go. Would rather have been playing chicken with his skateboard on the highway. Or at home, babysitting Sam and rewatching that movie with the talking rats for the fiftieth time.

Or working on his math homework.

Really, just about anywhere else doing anything else would have been preferable.

But he’d made junior varsity on the football team (Thanks, he’s sure, to him being a year older than the rest of the freshman class. Flunking third grade. So helpful.) and even though he hadn’t played a second of that day’s game, it had been made clear that he was expected to attend that evening’s festivities. 

To support his team. And school.

Rah rah rah.

He hadn’t given a rat’s ass about any of it, not when the girl he’d been seeing (if you could call one awkward make-out session ‘seeing’) had broken things off with Michael the day before, opting to go to the dance with Michael’s friend Keith instead. 

The situation might have been less of a mess, Michael suspects, if the sight of his friend and former almost-girlfriend dancing together had sparked the expected kind of jealousy for Michael.

Which of course, it hadn’t. Instead, it had dosed Michael with a confusing case of adolescent ‘what the fucks’ when he’d caught Keith and Jenny kissing mid-dance, and he’d realized just who he was jealous over. 

The whole thing had gone topsy-turvy not long after, in a spectacular (sloppy, messy, pathetic) fist fight between Michael and Keith on the dance floor to the tune of that damn overplayed Billy Idol song.

Michael had been suspended for two days following the fight. Which had been fine by him, as it gave him time to first come to terms with what he’d been feeling, and then to find a careful place in his psyche to shove said feelings into, to be dealt with never.

Three years later, Michael had moved away, the bond between him and Keith forever broken.

As the memories play back in Michael’s head, Michael finds that the old agitation, that bitter ache of confusion and loss he’d always felt in the past, is muted. The scene’s a faded sort of matte gray, instead of technicolor. Like it happened to someone else, and he’s just catching the repeat on late night TV. 

Which in a way, he guesses it kind of had. The person he is now so far removed from who he was then as to be unrecognizable.

Different person or not, he still hates the song. (Maybe he hasn’t changed that much.) And so Michael’s lip lifts up in a sneering approximation of the blond singer’s trademark curl as he reaches for the knob and seeks out another station. 

“Hey. I was listening to that.” The complaint from the driver’s seat is annoyed but without any real heat. 

Michael keeps twisting the knob, not looking at his companion, skipping over white noise in search of something - anything - else. “We’ll find something else. Can’t stand Billy Idol.”

Even though Michael knows it’s not actually possible, it feels as if the temperature inside the car drops several degrees. Shock reverberates across the link between Michael and David loud enough that it bounces Michael’s brain around inside his skull, forcing him to turn his head away from the radio towards the blond as he continues to spin the dial. 

David appears downright scandalized as he stares back at Michael, eyebrows making friends with his hairline. “You can’t stand Billy Idol?”

Michael nods, head tilting at David, confused by the obvious annoyance rolling off of him. 

And also a little worried by how long David has kept his eyes from the road, regretting having let the blond take over driving duties at the last gas station. “Uh, yeah. Leaves a bad taste in my mouth. Can you watch the road, David? Don’t feel like getting up close and personal with the guardrail.”

David sneers, but turns his head back to the road, grumbling incoherent words beneath his breath that, try as he might, Michael can’t pick out. 

Not that it matters, as when an audible sentence finally does work its way up and out, Michael’s still as confused as when all he’d heard was gibberish. “I’ve made a mistake.”

Michael frowns. “With what?”

“Making you immortal. I can’t spend eternity with someone who doesn’t appreciate Billy Idol.”

Michael snorts, his hand dropping away from the dial when he locates something less detestable to listen to. The fast pace guitar chords and beats of Mötley Crüe playing through the speakers as a backdrop, he leans back in his seat, head angled towards David, the better to watch the exaggerated play of disgust on his lover’s face. “Too late. No take backs.” 

David’s frown deepens, but there’s a twitch at the corners of his mouth, like he’s fighting the upward tug of a smile. “Never too late for anything, Michael.”

Michael smirks at him, stretching his legs out and dragging his tongue across his bottom lip in a deliberate attention grabbing move that pulls David’s eyes straight to his mouth. “Yeah. Right. After how hard and long you fought for me?” Michael drags the words out with dirty intent. Feeling playful, and eager to wash away the lingering remnants of that earlier time, of that earlier life. He draws upon more recent, much more pleasurable memories, letting them hover at the front of his mind. The spike of lust that floods the air between them all the proof he needs that David’s on the same page. “Yeah. That’s what I thought.” 

“So damn sure of yourself, aren’t you?” The question is spoken with careful neutrality that does nothing to disguise the visceral want pouring off of David.  

A growl thrums across Michael’s vocal chords. “Pull over. Let’s find out.”

David does.

And they both forget all about Billy Idol. 

Abba “Fernando” 

Sated and settled back in the passenger seat on the road south, David knows what song it is from just the first couple of notes. He has no intention of subjecting himself to it, so he reaches for the dial only to have his hand smacked away by Michael. Shocked, he looks up at the man behind the wheel, the driver’s blue eyes alight with mischief as he starts to sing along with the music while David watches on in horror. “No. No absolutely not. Turn it off. Right now.”

But Michael’s hand stays covering the dial as his voice gets stronger. When he hits the title lyric he leans heavily away from the wheel in David’s direction and croons it in his face. David’s frozen in place by the disturbing sight. “Why do you even know the lyrics?”

‘You’ve met my mother and my brother, you honestly think I wouldn’t know the lyrics?’ The thought jumps from Michael’s mind to David’s, but Michael’s singing voice doesn’t falter at all as he sings about crossing the Rio Grande.

Under any other circumstances, David would be damn proud of Michael that his ability for telepathic multi-tasking has come along so far, but as is, he’s too distressed to feel much of anything else.

“Is this a method of torture? Is that why you’re doing this? Testing the waters? Because if so, bravo. Very effective. But it’s time to stop now.” 

Michael cackles. Cackles! As he smacks David’s hand away from the dial again, the sound bleeding into an off-key “Liberty” with a devilish grin upon his face as he turns the volume up.

David sinks as deep into the leather bench seat as is possible, all the way against the door, trying to put distance between himself and the… horror happening on the other side of the car. “Just stake me. It would hurt less.”

The gleam in Michael’s eyes is pure evil as he sways towards David again, all his earlier concern for road safety seeming forgotten in his Abba-induced haze. 

He manages to keep the car between the painted lines and away from any ditches as the song comes to an end - though it weaves a considerable amount. The smile on his face when he looks David’s way on the final note is wide and brilliant and blinding. Pleasant waves of giddy happiness echoing across the bond so strongly, that David’s own treacherous emotions race to sync up with those of his tormentor.

David hates himself a little for being so far gone on the bastard, but the shared laughter that fills the car between them feels good all the same.

Deep Purple “You Keep On Moving”

Another tank, another station, another song.

Michael smiles as the beat of a tune he never hears getting radio airplay hits his ears. He drums his fingers against his knee, mouthing along to the lyrics and bouncing his leg in time. Thinking it might be fun to finally learn how to play something other than his kneecap. The drums, or the guitar even. Or hell, why not both? He’s got nothing but time now, right? Why shouldn’t he spend it learning how to play a dozen instruments if he wants?

David speaks up when the song hits the third verse and Michael’s halfway through an imaginary worldwide tour as the next biggest drummer since Bonham. “Paul had a copy of this album.” He chuckles, once, the sound dark and heavy. “Two copies, actually. One he’d worn down to nothing. Sounded like garbled shit, but it was the only one he’d play. Said he was keeping the other ‘for posterity’ or something.”

Michael returns from his European stage debut and looks to David, trying to judge the meaning behind the story. The other man offering up information on the absent boys so rare, that he figures there must be a reason for it.

There’s not much light to illuminate him, the dash on the old vehicle mostly dark, but Michael’s eyes don’t need much light to see by these days. Not that it matters, as there’s nothing to read on the blond’s face, his expression that disconnected mask that Michael’s grown so familiar with in the past year.

“Think he bought the first one on account of the cover, but turned out he liked the music too.” David’s voice is muted - not so soft as to be wistful, but a next door neighbor to it maybe.

Michael digs through his brain, trying to recall what the cover looked like, but comes up empty. He prods at David for some help, snorting when David reproduces in Michael’s mind the image of the band’s disembodied heads floating in a wine glass of dark red liquid, with the tagline ‘Come Taste the Band’ scrolled over the top. He guffaws at the sight. “Why am I not surprised?”

“Paul was always easily amused.” The comment is said with a quiet intensity that peters out to a heavy silence, despite the song still rocking through the car.

It leaves Michael feeling like he’s intruding on something he shouldn’t be. He inches back and forth in his seat, tapping the leather seating between the two of them instead of his knee. “You, uh, you want me to change it?”

David glances at Michael, the expression on his face a little mournful, but not despondent or angry as it may have been in the past. “Nah. It’s a good song. Let it play.” 

Michael nods once, and the song plays on.

Fleetwood Mac “Landslide”

“…”

“…”

“I - you can change it if you want.”

“Course I can.”

“…”

“…”

“Are you gonna change it or…”

“Nah. Took too long to find this station. Probably just be static everywhere else.”

“Yeah. You’re probably right. So…we leave it then?”

“Might as well. It’ll be over soon.”

“Okay.“ Michael takes a deep breath, uncertain about what he’s about to say, but unable to stop himself. “This was Star’s-”

“I know.”

“And you still don’t mind-”

“No. Should I?” The questions is flat. Unconcerned, but Michael doesn’t miss the way David’s face tightens when he asks it. 

Michael moves his right shoulder in an awkward shrug. “Just got the impression you didn’t care for her much.”

David makes a low humming sound. “Liked her well enough at first. Liked her a whole lot less later on.”

Michael doesn’t have a ready response for that, knowing damn good and well why David’s feelings towards Star changed. 

“You heard from her lately?”

Michael whips his head towards David, surprised by the question.“No. I haven’t.“ 

David hums again, fingers flexing on the steering wheel as he does. “Sure about that?”

“When exactly do you think I would have talked to her, David?”

“No clue. It’s why I asked.”

Michael thinks that’s a lie, but doesn’t call David on it. Instead, he settles back, letting Stevie Nicks serenade them for a few verses before offering what little he does know. “She calls my Mom sometimes. They…talk.” David’s gaze stays firmly on the road, though Michael can feel the way tension thrums through his frame. “Think she’s still with Laddie, wherever they went. I don’t - I haven’t spoken to her since she left.” It’s the truth, but for some reason it feels like a lie.

“She took Laddie back to his father I take it?”

Michael gives a noncommittal bounce of his head. “Think so.”

“Hmm. Maybe we should pay them a visit.”

Michael lets out a low laugh at the comment. “Doubt we’d be welcome.”

A sly smile that Michael knows can’t mean anything good lifts the corner’s of David’s mouth. “Never know if we don’t try. Could pencil it sometime after Phoenix.”

Michael rolls his eyes, knowing he’s being baited and not about to be caught. “Yeah sure. Why the hell not?” Michael smirks at the way David’s forehead scrunches up at the easy agreement. He means it - he’s curious enough about where Star ended up and what she’s been doing that visiting her isn’t the worst idea he’s ever heard - though he’s not so much of an idiot that he doesn’t know that David’s reasons for wanting to see her are far from benign.

No longer in the mood for the song, Michael changes the station.

Billie Holiday “You’re My Thrill”

David hums as he twists the dial through station after station of white noise. He spins it past an old jazz tune, but then twirls it back again, making an appreciative noise as a crooning female voice starts to spill from the speakers.

Satisfied with his find, he slouches back into the leather upholstery, eyes closed and an almost dream-like smile on his face.

From his spot in the driver’s seat, Michael goggles at him. “Seriously?”

“Michael Emerson, if the next words out of your mouth are that you don’t like Billie Holiday either, I’m leaving you at the next truck stop and you can find your own way back to Santa Carla. I don’t care how close to sunrise it is.”

The way his voice doesn’t falter when he says it brings Michael up short, making him think that it may be more than just an idle threat. (Not that Michael would let him leave him behind without a fight, but that’s beside the point).

Michael manages to keep his mouth shut for a cool twenty seconds, during which he watches David out of the corner of his eye. Watches as the bleached-blond, spiky-haired murderous vampire clad all in black - not a small amount of it leather, hell, there are spurs on his boots for Chrissakes - quietly enjoys the old-fashioned song. The disconnect between the image he presents and the one the song evokes makes Michael laugh. “Damn, what decade are you from, Old Man?”

“The seventies, Michael.”

Michael snorts, rolling his eyes. Not that David can see him with his own eyes enjoying the view behind their lids. “Yeah sure. You’re younger than me. Explains the occasional tendency to throw tantrums still.” 

“The eighteen-seventies, Michael.” David says, calm and cool and not at all joking.

Michael’s hands on the wheel jerk sideways in surprise, sending the car swerving over the line before he can yank it back where it belongs. David’s eyes crack open at the disturbance, leveling a glare at Michael, but he doesn’t react otherwise. “Seriously?”

David smirks at him, slipping the cigarette he had stowed behind his ear down and to his mouth. He doesn’t give Michael an answer, just flicks his lighter open and sets flame to the stick, puffing on the end to get it to light, and settles back into his seat, eyes half-closed.

Michael molls the unexpected tidbit of information over in the space between verses. One particular thought standing out in greater relief against the rest. “Shit…you’re older than my Grandpa. By a lot.”

“I am. And if you want to be too one day, shut it and let me enjoy the song!” 

It’s only the lingering shock of the information that keeps Michael quiet. It has nothing to do with the amber gleam in David’s eyes.

Really.

Besides, as far as old-as-sin songs go, it’s not half-bad. 

Starland Vocal Band “Afternoon Delight”

Approximately one point five seconds into the song, David’s hand meets Michael’s as they both reach for the dial. David growls, fangs dropping. “I will break your hand, your arm, and all your fingers if you try and stop me from changing the station, Michael.”

Michael’s hand raises up in the air in a placating gesture that David doesn’t trust. At all. “Hey! I was trying to change it too.”

“Sure you were.” David twists the dial, spinning it through endless seas of static and snowstorms and a whole lot of absolutely nothing else.  

“I was.” Michael’s voice is pleading, but there’s mischievous glint in his eyes that doesn’t match the sound.  

David gives him a sideways glare. “Somehow, I don’t believe you.”

Michael breathes out a heavy-handed sigh. “So little trust. And here I thought we’d really been getting somewhere this past year.”

David rolls his eyes. “You forfeited all rights to musical trust after that horrendous ‘Mamma Mia’ sing-along.

“Hey! First off, it was ‘Fernando’, and second: you enjoyed that. You were smiling. I saw you.”

“That was a defense mechanism, Michael.”

“Liar.”

Which is true, but David’s not about to admit it. So he ignores him, and stops the dial on a patch of white noise; settling back in his seat to enjoy the scratchy sound of absence.

Less than a minute of quiet passes between them before Michael’s hand inches for the radio. David’s voice is curated calm when he says: “Try me, Michael.” 

“Idle threat.”

“When have you ever known me to be idle, hmm?”

Michael scoffs, giving David a tilted smile that tells the elder vampire just how little Michael thinks of David’s threats. “Go ahead, tell me all the ways that you’re gonna torture me if I change the station. What’s it gonna be this time? Something more creative than holy water dipped knives, I hope?”

“You ever heard of ‘torpor,’ Michael?” David asks, dipping into the darker part of his psyche. To the blackened memories of his early life under Max’s so-called-care. Fully intending to shower Michael with the visual of being trapped - buried - deep beneath the earth in a impenetrable box, screaming for his maker to let him out. To let him go. Screaming until his throat runs dry, and the blood in his veins slows to a trickle. Skin gone paper-thin, and ashen. So desperate to be released that he’ll say anything. Do anything.

David doesn’t plan to exact such a punishment on Michael of course, but he’s not above a little mental torment. Especially not after being trapped in a car for two-hundred plus miles with Michael and his previously undocumented love of country music and disco.

But before David can so much as conjure up an image of a box or a handful of dirt, Michael frowns in his direction. “Don’t think so. That a New Wave group or something?”

A surprised bark of laughter bursts out of David, amused eyes latching onto Michael. “What? No, it’s-” He shakes his head, small peels of laughter leaking out of him as he does. David’s laughter grows in time with Michael’s confusion. The uncertain look upon the younger vampire’s face endearing to David in a way that it has no right to be.

David shakes his head, his plans to teach Michael a lesson forgotten. “You know what, never mind.”

A frown stays planted on Michael’s face for a while longer, the confusion fading at a snail’s pace. But he drops the subject, and the two of them drive on in silence. 

A silence that lasts for the length of time it takes Michael to forget why the radio was off in the first place.

But David hasn’t. So really, it’s Michael’s fault that David launches at him, teeth bared, and the car is sent skidding off the road.

At least there aren’t any guardrails to hit. 

And if the only casualty of the accident ends up being the radio, well, they were do for an upgrade anyway.

Preferably one with a cassette deck. 

~End

[thiswomanshouldbewriting]

Holding on and Letting Go

This is my @rumbellebigbang fic, and damn was it hard to write. I never would have made it without my amazing beta @galactic-pirates and my partner @desperatemurph who made this awesome gifset. 

I am posting the whole story on tumblr but you can also find it here on Ao3.

Summary: On a night like any other, Belle French comes home tired from work, and wants nothing more than a good night of rest. Someone, however, shows up at her door: it's Gideon, the son she gave up for adoption thirteen years before. Shocked but also overjoyed, Belle hopes to finally get a place in her estranged son's life. His adoptive father, however, is incredibly protective of him; will she manage to convince Mr Gold that she's not a threat, just a mother that had to make a terrible choice?

Belle kicked her shoes off as she entered her apartment, unceremoniously dropping her purse to the floor next to them. Being tidy was a problem for tomorrow Belle; right now, even the thought of having to change into her pajamas felt like too much work.

She was contemplating whether it would be really awful to sleep in the clothes she’d worn at work when the doorbell rang. She couldn’t think of anyone she knew who could be looking for her at this late hour, and her mind immediately provided her with a number of scenarios involving serial killers. Through the peephole she saw a nervous-looking boy on the other side of the door. He didn’t exactly look threatening, so she resolved to open the door, but she was ready to close it at the first sign of danger.

“Who are you?” she asked, looking at the boy more closely and trying to remember if she had seen him before. He did look oddly familiar now that she thought of it. 

“Are you Belle French?” he asked instead of answering. 

“I asked you first, but I’ll let this slide because it’s written on the doorbell anyway. Yes, I am Belle French,” she answered, eyeing him curiously. 

“My name is Gideon Gold. I’m your son,” he said simply, flashing her a little smile.

His words seemed to take forever to register in Belle’s brain, as all the memories that she had tried to suppress for over a decade came back with a vengeance, hitting her with the force of a truck. 

“No. No you can’t be,” she contested weakly, but she very well knew he could.

“Didn’t you give a baby up for adoption on February 12th thirteen years ago?” Gideon asked her, clearly knowing what her answer would be. 

Belle just couldn’t find the strength to say yes. Instead, she took a step back and motioned Gideon to follow her inside. 

“I need a cup of coffee, do you want something?” she said as a starter, busying herself at the kitchen counter so that she could keep her back turned to him; she couldn’t bear to look him in the eyes.

“Could I get something to eat instead? I didn’t finish my dinner and walked a long way to come here,” he asked, and out of the corner of her eye Belle could see that he had already claimed her armchair as his, looking so at home in her house that it hurt. She opened the fridge, looking for something to make a sandwich with. 

“Why are you here at two in the morning? Where are your parents?” she asked, trying to bring her mind back to the present and away from dangerous could-have-beens. She just hoped Gideon didn’t notice the slight tremble in her voice. 

“I found out you lived here months ago. I just never had the courage to come here until now. Bad timing, I know, but I simply felt like it today,” he said, then quickly added: “Did you read all the books in that bookcase? Some of them are my favorites!”

“Look, I don’t know what you think of me, but I’m not an idiot. Either you tell me what’s going on or I call the cops,” Belle said, suddenly finding the courage to turn around and stare him down. 

“If you do, I’ll tell them you kidnapped me,” Gideon replied without missing a beat.

“And they’ll believe you because I’m your birthmother. You’re clever, I’ll give you that,” Belle said, feeling a foolish surge of pride for the kid that she couldn’t and shouldn’t consider her son. “I still need to know what happened though. Unless you plan on escaping abroad, your parents will find you sooner rather than later, and I’ll be in trouble anyway. As you can see, I have very little to lose, so you’d better start talking.”

“Ok, fine,” Gideon groaned eventually. “I argued with my mom’s boyfriend because his idea of ‘bonding time’ is badmouthing my father all the time. My adoptive mother got mad and kicked me out of the house mid-dinner, so I walked over here and waited for you to get back.”

“She kicked you out of the house for that?” Belle asked, trying to control the anger in her voice. She knew she was hardly in a position to judge when she had kicked Gideon out of her entire life, but at least she had known her son would be taken care of. Kicking him out with only the clothes on his back was downright cruel.

“Yes, well, it’s not like she enjoys having me around that much. I’m pretty sure I’m mostly an annoyance to her,” Gideon said bitterly. 

“I’m sure that’s not true. She adopted you, she wanted you, and I’m sure she still does. Maybe she doesn’t always make the right choices, but I’m sure she loves you,” Belle said, laying the plate with sandwiches next to Gideon and taking one of his hands in hers. It had been so long since she’d last held him, and all she wanted to do was to cry, but she had to be strong for him, at least this time around. She owed him that much. 

“You wouldn’t say that if you knew her,” Gideon muttered, not looking Belle in the eyes. “But thanks anyway.” He grabbed one of the sandwiches then, and silence fell over them as he ate. 

“So, you mentioned your father. Why didn’t you call him?” Belle asked after a while.

“I didn’t have my phone,” Gideon answered with a shrug.

“And you couldn’t have borrowed someone else’s? I’m sure many people would have been ready to help a lost boy. Or maybe you could have stayed at a friend’s house. Why come here of all places?” Belle inquired. She didn’t want him to feel under interrogation, but she needed to know what was going on. 

“Look, I didn’t want to go to my father or to a friend’s house. I just wanted to come here, okay?” Gideon bit back, hurt creeping in his voice. 

Belle sighed, taking a long moment to evaluate her next action.

“Gideon, I don’t want you to think that I’m unhappy you’re here. I’m confused and shocked and sorry for what I put you through, but I’m happy I finally get to see you again,” she started off, trying once again to keep her voice level as she treaded such dangerous ground. “But I can’t truly enjoy this moment if I know your parents are worried sick about you. I know this feels a lot easier to you, but spending time with me will only make things more complicated when your parents eventually find you. How do you think they’ll feel when they find out you came to me?”

Gideon looked away from her, the pout on his face making him look even younger. 

“I don’t care. My adoptive mother doesn’t really care about me, why shouldn’t I at least have you?” he grumbled.

Belle sighed. Gideon was hurting, and he had turned to her with all the spite and desperation that only a teen could have. He needed affection, but he also wanted to punish his mother, maybe to make her jealous. Maybe Belle was only the means to that end, and deep down she really didn’t know how that thought made her feel. Being all but used by her son and then forgotten would be hell - which she totally deserved - but a sincere affection might be even worse. Would his parents even allow her back in her son’s life, or would she have to let him go a second time? And if they tried to bond but Gideon found her sorely lacking, would her heart be strong enough to handle that rejection?

“Of course you can have me,” Belle said, her treacherous heart singing at the prospect. “But please, please call your family before I truly get arrested for kidnapping. Maybe you could call one of your grandparents? Mine were always ready to forgive me for anything, and they’d talk my parents into forgiving me as well. Here, you can use my phone,”

Gideon pondered her words for a few seconds, taking her phone in his hands.

“Maybe… maybe I could call my brother. He won’t tell dad where I am if I ask him not to. I can have him tell mom and dad that I’m fine, so they won’t worry. Can I… can I spend the night here if I do this?” Gideon asked, his big hazel eyes shining with hope.

Belle knew that it was nearly impossible that his parents would be happy not knowing where he was spending the night, but how could she refuse Gideon when he so clearly needed to feel that an adult was on his side? 

“Okay, but put the phone on speaker, I want to make sure you are not just pretending to call. I’m truly risking prison here,” Belle warned him. 

Gideon had barely started dialing the number when the doorbell rang. 

“Are you waiting for someone?” he asked, even though he had the feeling he knew exactly who was pounding on the door like crazy. 

“Miss French, I have already called the police,” a man hollered from outside. “Open this door now or I swear I’ll have it brought down. And if you have hurt even a single hair on Gideon’s head I promise you’ll regret having ever been born!”

Belle felt the sudden, irrational instinct to run away, the same visceral fear she’d felt when labor began and she realized there was no escaping the pain. She forced herself to step towards the door on legs that felt like lead, wondering if Gideon’s father would give her time to explain herself or if he’d have her taken to jail straight away. 

Surprisingly, he didn’t do either of those things. The moment she opened the door, he sprinted past her as if she didn’t even exist, running to his son and wrapping him in a bone-crushing hug. Belle looked away from them, and found herself facing two other men, one of whom was a policeman. 

“Don’t worry about Officer Graham. I couldn’t convince my father to come here without the police, but as long as Gideon is fine - and I’m sure he is - we won’t press charges or anything,” the younger man said, offering his hand for her to shake. “I’m Neal, by the way, Gideon’s brother.”

He was smiling at her, albeit a little awkwardly, and that made her feel a bit better. 

“He just showed up at my door, I swear I didn’t contact him first. I was about to make him call you. I’m truly sorry for this mess, you must have been worried sick,” she apologized, focusing on Neal because she still couldn’t find the courage to look at Gideon’s father. Judging from the rage in his voice as he knocked on her door, she had the feeling he was far less chill about this than his son. 

“I have no doubt about it. Gideon had told me he was looking for you, so when he went missing I knew exactly where to look,” Neal explained. 

“Couldn’t you have kept your mouth shut? I was fine, and I would have let you know!” Gideon complained, slipping away from his father’s arms. 

“No, you shut up. You made dad completely freak out. We had to ask Dove to drive us here because dad was so nervous that he couldn’t even keep the steering wheel straight. What were you even thinking?”

There was a flash of guilt in Gideon’s eyes, but whatever he was about to say was cut short when his father stepped between him and Neal.

“We clearly have a lot to discuss, but we’ll have plenty of time for that when we get back home. I’m sure Miss French has better things to do than listen to our family drama, and we’ve already bothered her enough,” Gold said.

He barely deigned her a glance but, when he did, Belle wished he hadn’t. He stared at her as if she were a speck of dirt on his polished shoes, his gaze filled with hostility like she had seldom known, a mixture of hatred and disgust she only remembered seeing in her father’s eyes.

“It’s no matter, really. I just wanted to help Gideon,” she said somewhat awkwardly.

“Well, clearly your help isn’t needed anymore,” Gold said, his voice cutting as steel. “We’ll be on our way now.”

Neal flashed her an apologetic smile as they exited the apartment, and Gideon lingered for a quick surprise hug. Belle could feel Gold’s eyes burning into her as she tentatively wrapped her arms around her son, but she was ready to fight his rage for Gideon. He didn’t say anything though, and soon enough she was shutting the door behind them. After the turmoil of the past half-hour, her home felt eerily quiet now. She started pacing around, tidying up the place to give herself something to do and restrain from thinking about how much it had hurt to watch Gideon walk away. Sleeping would have helped her, but even though she was exhausted her brain was fully awake. When, over an hour later, she got into her bed, she kept tossing and turning as memories and nightmares blurred together in a constant cycle of dozing off and waking up with tears in her eyes. 

Her sleep was too light and restless to keep her from hearing her phone buzzing in the early hours of the morning. The lack of sleep was making her feel light-headed, so it took her a few seconds to focus on the words contained in the message, which was from a number she didn’t recognize. 

‘We just got home. Dad was mad af and spent the entire trip scolding me, but he has calmed down now, and I’m not even grounded! He’s incredibly pissed at mom though, and now they’re fighting on the phone. Thank you for today, I hope you don’t mind I got your number when I took your phone. Love, Gideon.’

If she had been less sleepy, Belle would have taken some time to consider the implications of every possible answer she could send him. Instead, with her heart hammering in her chest, she quickly wrote the words that she felt were the truest. 

‘I’m glad you’re okay, and I don’t mind about the number at all. I’m always here if you need me. Love, Belle.’

She laid back on her bed, clutching her phone to her chest, giddy and heartbroken all at once. It was only when her alarm went off two hours later that she realized that, after Gideon’s message, she had finally managed to sleep. 

Throughout the following days, Gideon kept messaging her with alarming regularity. He told her about how his day had been and asked about hers, he complained about how silly his brother became whenever a certain Emma was involved, and showered her with his thoughts about pretty much every fantasy saga he had been able to put his hands on. Belle liked to think that his love for books came from her, and the thought warmed her from the inside. His messages, however, worried her just as much as they rejoiced her. She truly wanted to be close to Gideon, yet she worried that she was only making things worse for him, teaching him to keep secrets from his parents and undermining their authority in her selfish desire to fix her past failings.

After a few days of furious debating with herself, she eventually resolved to ask for a friend’s help. There were very few people who knew she had given her son up for adoption, and she had cut them all out of her life, for good reason. This meant that if she wanted someone’s advice, she’d need to come clean about her past first. 

Ariel had a daughter of her own, so she was the only one of her friends who could speak from experience, but that also meant that she would truly understand the gravity of what Belle had done. By talking to her, Belle could jeopardize the life she had built for herself; if Ariel recoiled from her, if she called her a monster and told all their friends just what kind of woman she was, Belle really wouldn’t be able to blame her, but she’d also need to move again, just like she’d done as soon as she’d finished high school. Her own guilt was heavy enough to bear; she couldn’t live with other people’s judgment as well.

They met that afternoon, and Belle’s voice trembled as she started telling her story, but her friend proved more than worthy of her trust. Ariel let Belle talk without interrupting, and if there was a flicker of shock or horror in her eyes she did her best to hide it. When the tale was finally over, and Belle felt like she’d just run a marathon, the first thing Ariel did was hug her. 

“I’m so sorry. You deserved better, both you and your son,” she said, holding her so tightly that it almost hurt. It was exactly what Belle had needed, and she had to take a few deep breaths to keep from sobbing in relief. 

“I gave him up for that, to offer him something better, but now I’m not sure of what that is anymore,” she admitted. 

Ariel pulled back, but kept a strong hold of her hands, a reminder that she was not going to leave her. “I will be honest with you, Belle: if I were Gideon’s adoptive mother, I’d want to know that you’re in contact with him. The more you drag this on secretly, the more suspicious your behavior looks.”

“And what if his parents forbid him to talk to me again?”

“It’s a possibility, I can’t deny that, but Gideon cares about you and he has already shown just how determined he is to have a relationship with you again. You can’t expect his parents to be happy that he’s looking for another parent, but as wary or unhappy as they might be, they should let you see him for Gideon’s sake. Your son made the first step, Belle, but now it’s up to you to make sure that you go about this the right way.”

As much as it scared Belle to admit it, Ariel was right. Somehow, she had to work up the courage to speak to Gideon’s parents, starting with his father. She was pretty sure the man hated her, yet he was the one Gideon was closer to. Besides, she was still mad at his mother for kicking him out of the house, and she wasn’t sure she could hold a whole conversation with her without bringing that up. Gideon wasn’t all that happy when she mentioned her intentions to him, because he too was afraid that his father would try to put an end to their newfound relationship. He even went so far as to call her for the first time, but Belle, just like she’d done on the night he’d come looking for her, gradually managed to convince him, and soon enough she had Gold’s phone number registered. All she had to do now was find the courage to actually call him. She stared at her phone screen for what felt like hours, and eventually chickened out by telling herself that it was too late to call him anyway, and that he’d probably be pissed if she called him now. 

She stalled as long as she could the following morning, but way too soon she was ready to start the day and make that phonecall. Holding her breath, she pressed the ‘call’ button and waited. It took Gold a while to pick up, so much that she had been about to hang up when he finally did. 

“Ah, good morning, is this Mr Gold?” she stammered, her throat feeling as dry as sandpaper. 

“Yes. Who am I talking to?”

“I know this might be surprising, but I’m Belle French and I’m…” she started, only to be harshly cut off.

“I know exactly who you are, and this is why I suggest you hang up right now and delete this number, unless you want to find yourself in serious trouble,” he hissed at her. The rage and disgust in his voice made her want to cry, but Belle knew that, with Gideon’s happiness at stake, she couldn’t afford to have a breakdown. 

“Gideon and I have been messaging ever since he came looking for me,” she said quickly, before Gold could decide to hang up himself. “He took my number when I told him to call you. I wanted you to know.”

There was silence on the other end of the line for a while. Right when Belle was starting to think he might have hung up on her after all, Gold’s ice-cold voice reached her ears again. 

“And you’ve called so I can make it stop? You’ve realized teens are still as much work as newborns, but that it’s so much harder to shut the door in their face when they’re old enough to realize it?”

His assumptions were so absurdly wrong that, for a moment, Belle couldn’t find the words to reply. “No, no, how can you think I… you got it all wrong,” she explained hastily, horrified by the image Gold clearly had of her. “I don’t want you to put an end to this, I would never ask you to. I’m actually calling for the opposite reason; I want this to go on, but I don’t want to do this behind your back. I don’t want Gideon to lie to you. I know you have every reason to be wary of me, but I really want nothing more than to make Gideon happy, and I hope I can prove that to you.”

“I believe this is something we should discuss in person. I can drive to Boston and be there early in the afternoon,” he said, and Belle didn’t know if she should be happy that he wasn’t flat-out telling her no, or worried that he hadn’t said yes. 

“I’m afraid I’ll be at work then. Could we do next Monday instead? And I could be the one to drive over, I don’t want to inconvenience you more than necessary.”

“No, I’m driving over to you,” he insisted, his tone admitting no protest. “I’ll be there on Monday in the early afternoon. I’d be glad if you didn’t tell Gideon about this meeting before Monday, I’d rather not have him worrying about what we might or might not tell each other.”

His voice, that had been cold and distant throughout the whole exchange, seemed to warm up a little as he mentioned Gideon, and that gave Belle hope. He truly loved her… well, his son, so why should he keep Gideon from his birthmother if that connection was important to him? 

That thought kept her company throughout the following days, helping ease her nervousness at the upcoming meeting, but by Monday morning she was a nervous wreck nonetheless. She woke up unbelievably early, and started making rounds of her apartment - which she had spent the entire week cleaning and tidying up - to make sure that everything was truly spotless. Still with plenty of time to spare before Gold’s arrival, she took extra care in her outfit and make up; she only had this one shot at impressing him, and everything had to be perfect. She nearly jumped out of her skin when the doorbell finally rang. She took a deep breath, trying and failing to calm herself, then opened the door. 

Gold gave her a cold nod, then strolled in as if he owned the place. Judging from his tailored suit and from what Gideon had told her, he could probably afford to. During their first meeting she had been so nervous that she had somehow failed to notice he used a cane, but even that couldn’t make him look any less intimidating.

“Would you…” she started off awkwardly, then paused to clear her throat. “Would you like something to drink?” she tried again, her voice sounding a little more confident this time.

“Miss French, we both know I’m not here for a drink or for small talk. I’m here to know what you want, and I don’t like wasting my time,” he replied drily.

Under his scrutiny, Belle felt nearly paralyzed, but she pushed that feeling down, focusing solely on the thought of Gideon and drawing strength from that. She straightened her back and stared at Gold with all the determination she was capable of.

“I want a place in Gideon’s life, as long as he wants me to have it. I gave up my parental rights fourteen years ago and I know that there’s no changing that, that I’m not legally his parent anymore, but he came looking for me, and I want to be able to be as close to him as a friend would. I want to be able to call him and message him and just be by his side if he needs me. Please give me this chance.”

She had rehearsed this request a billion times in her mind, and all things considered she was satisfied with the result; her voice had sounded polite but firm, and she had made her intentions pretty clear while also reassuring Gold that she wasn’t trying to replace him or his ex-wife. She was expecting to see some kind of reaction in him, a sign of acceptance or denial, but his expression remained stressfully blank as he pondered her words. He was looking at her strangely, as if he were trying to see through her.

“So I’m guessing there’s no amount of money that could persuade you to disappear again?” he asked eventually.

For a moment, Belle was so shocked that she believed she’d misheard. He couldn’t be trying to do this, not really.

“I’m sorry?” was all she managed to say, part of her nervousness disappearing in the face of her mounting disdain. 

“You see, you wouldn’t be the first to try this trick. Birthparents reappear, they play nice for a while, and when the adoptive parents start feeling threatened by their presence they ask for a nice check in exchange for their absence. Or maybe you just realized that you’d be better off financially if you tagged along with my family, and are willing to put up with Gideon for that. If that’s the case, I’d rather pay you now than let Gideon get attached and then suffer when you reveal yourself for who you truly are. Name a sum, and we’ll have a deal,” he explained, his eyes still fixed on her, careful to catch her reaction. He really shouldn’t have bothered; even a blind man would have noticed the shock and horror in her expression. 

“I’m not that kind of person. I don’t care who you are or how big of a sum you can give me. The life I have I built it myself, with no help, and I certainly don’t need yours now. I want what I couldn’t have thirteen years ago: I want my son.”

Belle was almost surprised by the resolution in her voice, but she barely had time to revel in her newfound determination, because Gold’s scowl suddenly deepened. 

“That’s where you’re wrong. He’s not your son, not anymore, as even you have pointed out,” he hissed, looking so threatening that Belle was tempted to take a step back. “He’s mine, and so far you’ve given precious little reason for me to let you anywhere near him again. You say you have good intentions, but your actions say the contrary. You’re the one who tossed him away and never looked back. You’re the one that’s causing him to lie and run away, all things he had never done before. Maybe you don’t want money, and maybe you think you want to be a mother, but how do I know you won’t just play the part of the cool parent for a while and disappear the moment things get rough? You’ve done it before, after all, and I won’t let Gideon be hurt again.” 

At some point during his rant, something inside of Belle snapped. His accusations, so wrong yet so similar to the voices she heard in her nightmares, brought out feelings she had barely known were simmering inside of her. When thinking of what she’d done, she was used to shame and guilt, but this time all she felt was rage. Rage at life, at how stupid she’d been, and more than anything at all those people who - just like Gold - thought they knew everything, when they understood nothing.

“How dare you?” she asked him, taking one step forward so that they were almost face to face. “How dare you make assumptions about me when you know nothing. You don’t know what it was like. You don’t know how hard it was for me. You have no idea of what it is like to hold your son, that you love more than anything, and then hand him over to a stranger because you can’t take care of him. You don’t know. Years ago I let other people force me to walk out of his life, but this time is different. If you want to keep me away from Gideon you’ll have to step over my dead body, because this time I’m fighting tooth and nail for him.”

She couldn’t remember the last time she’d felt so furious and so alive. Her words, her indignation felt so right, and she was frustrated by how unaffected Gold was by the whole thing. She felt as though she could incinerate him with a single look, and yet here he stood, impassable to the storm raging inside of her. She hated it. 

“So, you’re not going to say anything?” she prompted him, needing an answer, ready to fight. 

“Well, I’m not going to give you visitation rights or schedule for Gideon to come over here,” he started off, gesturing at her to let him continue when she tried to protest. “But at the same time Gideon is old enough to decide whether he wants to hear from you or not. As long as he’s okay with it, you two can keep in touch in whatever way he wishes. If he wants to meet you, however, I want to be informed, and if I decide I’d rather be present for the encounter you won’t object. And God help you if I ever find out you’re causing Gideon to lie or run away again. You only get one chance at this, Miss French, and I’m not a forgiving man. If you blow this, if you cause Gideon any harm, I’ll tear you and your life apart piece by piece.”

Belle was so relieved that she thought she might faint. The weight that had been pressing on her chest since she was sixteen had suddenly been lifted; at long last, she could be with her son. 

“Thank you, thank you so much. I promise you won’t regret this,” she vowed, barely restraining herself from hugging him; she had a feeling he wouldn’t appreciate that. “What about his mother? I’ll need her approval as well, do you think she’ll be okay with this?”

Gold looked surprised for a moment, as if he hadn’t been expecting Milah to be involved, then shook his head. “You don’t have to worry about Milah, I’ll talk to her. If I were you, I’d keep out of her line of sight as much as possible; she doesn’t like competition, and she will see you as a rival for Gideon’s affection. She’ll have to accept this situation for Gideon’s sake, but that does not mean she’ll like it, and she could turn quite nasty on you,” Gold warned her. He seemed to be looking at her differently now, still distant but much less wary, and definitely no longer angry or disgusted. The fact that he was even going out of his way to help her deal with his ex-wife felt nearly surreal. 

“Do you really think she’ll be that upset? The last thing I want is to bring conflict into Gideon’s life.” 

“As you might have noticed, there’s conflict between Gideon and Milah already. Strangely enough, your presence might just be the thing Milah needs to realize she needs to fix things between them,” Gold reassured her. “I still suggest you limit your phonecalls to Gideon when he’s at her place though. He would normally be staying with her here in Boston now that it’s summer, but after everything that happened Milah and I agreed it would be better if he moved back to Storybrooke a bit sooner than anticipated. He’ll be with her every other weekend for the duration of the school year, plus the occasional holiday.”

Belle took mental notes of all of that, thanking him again. She still couldn’t believe all of this was truly happening. 

“Now that we’ve reached an agreement on your situation with Gideon, I have to ask you if there’s any chance of his father showing up as well,” Gold asked after a beat of silence, and the question sounded so absurd to Belle’s ears that she couldn’t help but let out a humorless laugh.

“Believe me, I’d be the most surprised if he did. The only time we ever spoke of my pregnancy he suggested I terminate it. I’m not even sure he knows I gave Gideon up for adoption, and I haven’t seen him in over a decade. The chances of him finding Gideon are abysmal, and the chances of him caring about him are even below that. I wouldn’t worry about the father if I were you.”

The heartbreak Gary had caused her had faded through the years, but the sheer disgust at the person he was had only increased. Now, as a grown woman, she fully understood just how vile he had been, how slyly he had taken advantage of her, and she pitied her younger self for ever falling for him. 

“Looks like there is someone out there who deserved my anger after all. I’m sorry I thought that was you,” Gold said, something dangerous flickering inside his eyes. He was angry, but not at her, and it was a nice change. She remembered the threat he had made, how he’d destroy her and her life if she ever hurt Gideon, and in that moment she knew that’s exactly what he would do to Gary if she ever gave him his name. For a second, she was tempted to do just that, but there was too much at stake to indulge in vengeance. Messing with Gary could lead him to Gideon, and that was the last thing she wanted; for her son’s sake, her past had to stay in the past. 

“I’ll be going then. Everything is settled and I have a long drive ahead of me,” Gold said, moving towards the door. 

“Can I offer you anything? A cup of tea maybe, or I could make you a sandwich for the trip,” she offered again. She owed him more than she’d ever be able to say, but a sandwich was as good a place to start as any. 

“There’s really no need. Goodbye, Miss French.”

The door closed behind him, and Belle stared at it for a few seconds, still struggling to believe the past half-hour hadn’t been a dream. He had said yes. She felt like laughing and crying at the same time, yet she couldn’t bring herself to do either. Suddenly, she realized she had to tell Gideon about this. He had been so worried and ready to fight his dad on this, but there would be no need, and she was so happy she could give him good news. She grabbed her phone and, for the first time, called her son’s number. Today started their second chance. 

________________________________________________________________________________

By the time October rolled around, Belle was the happiest person in the world. After her encounter with Gold, things with Gideon had gone wonderfully, and her treasured collection of photos of him was growing rapidly. One of her favorites, that she had printed and framed, was the one she’d taken the first time she’d gone to Storybrooke, on Gideon’s first day of high school. It had been the first milestone of his life she’d been present for, and it had been hard to hide her tears as he hugged her before entering school. Another photo she kept in her wallet at all times, and just looking at it could brighten even the worst day.

She’d felt ill at ease in Storybrooke at first. In a quiet little town like that, a normal visitor was bound to be noticed, but being Gideon’s birthmother had put her directly at the center of the town’s gossip for a while. Gideon had been key to overcoming that; he’d been so obviously overjoyed at having her there, and so proud to be seen with her, that for the first time she’d forgotten to think of other people’s judgment. It didn’t always work, of course, but she liked to think she was getting better at it. 

One of the first things Gideon had shown her in Storybrooke was the library: it was closed, unfortunately, but the ladder that went to the clocktower on top of it was still usable, and Belle found herself loving the view of the town from up there just as much as Gideon did.

“The mayor shut the library down years ago, but I’ll have it reopened. I’ll be the librarian and have all kind of initiatives: reading groups, writing groups, Harry Potter themed events, everything. I’ll make this part of the library too: this place was made to be a reading nook. Everybody is going to love it.” he had told her, gesturing vaguely around him as if he could already see the finished work.  

“I feel like you’ve been planning this for a while, haven’t you?”

“Ever since I read Matilda as a kid. I even have a notebook on which I write every idea for this place. I don’t usually talk about this to people. I want to keep it a secret from dad, because he knows the mayor and I’m sure he could get the place reopened in a matter of minutes, but I want to do it myself.” he had said, still bubbling with enthusiasm. Then his expression had turned uncertain “Do you think it’s silly?”

“No, not at all. I always wanted to be a librarian as well,” Belle had said, stepping away from the window. “It’s nice to see you want the same.”

“Then why aren’t you one? Is it… is it because you got pregnant with me?” he had asked hesitantly.

Gideon had never asked her why she’d given him up, and she had never been brave enough to bring the matter up. Still, she could feel the need to know simmering inside of him, and every time he asked her something about her past she could feel the biggest, most dreaded question drawing a bit closer.  

“No, absolutely not,” she had answered truthfully. “I started working right after high school, but I went to university afterwards. I’m not a librarian simply because it’s hard to find a librarian position, especially one that is decently paid. It’s a good thing that you’ve already found the perfect place to work at, isn’t it?”

Bringing Gideon’s attention back to his dream had distracted him and lightened the atmosphere, and for that day she hadn’t had to deal with any more hard questions. The idea of telling him about her past scared her more than it should have. Gideon had known she’d given him up for adoption, and yet he came looking for her, so he clearly had made some sort of peace with that. Yet the idea of telling him about his father - or hers, for that matter - felt so wrong. She didn’t want him to know how evil some people could be, and she wanted even less to admit how she’d let people like them defeat her, cornering her to the point where she had to give up the most precious thing in her life. She was ashamed to admit to her son that she’d let other people tear them apart. 

Gradually, the colorful autumn leaves were replaced by the first flurries of snow, and as Christmas drew closer Belle learned with a little disappointment that she wouldn’t see Gideon for Christmas, as she’d secretly hoped. 

“I’m staying with my mom… well, my other mom. Even if I’m supposed to spend half the holidays with her, she generally lets me go back to dad’s place if I want, but this year she insisted we spend some time together. Sorry,” Gideon explained on the phone.

Belle was glad he couldn’t see her face, so she didn’t have to hide her sadness. Rationally, she knew it was only a good thing if Gideon spent more time with Milah and mended the complicated relationship he had with her, but a little part of her couldn’t help but feel jealous. Given that she wouldn’t be spending her Christmas with Gideon, she accepted to switch shifts with Tiana at the restaurant and work on Christmas day. The day was every bit as chaotic as they expected, and Belle was so busy that she almost didn’t notice the group that had just sat at a nearby table.

Neal spotted her the same moment she saw him. His eyes grew wide in surprise, then he  abruptly turned around and stared at the woman in front of him with such rage that Belle was surprised Milah didn’t catch fire on the spot. She either didn’t notice his death glare or didn’t care about it, because she kept chatting with the man beside her as if nothing had happened. Beside Neal, still oblivious to everything, sat Gideon.

Belle scurried away from the table, thankful that it was not her responsibility but Cecelia’s, but still painfully aware that she wouldn’t be able to hide her presence from them for long. Under normal circumstances, she wouldn’t mind Gideon being there; she worked at a fancy restaurant like any other, and she would be glad to just be able to say hi in between serving tables. The problem was Milah. Even if Belle could have given her the benefit of the doubt, Neal’s stare accused her; Milah hadn’t just casually stumbled upon the same restaurant Belle worked at, she had planned this, but to what purpose Belle couldn’t tell. She doubted, however, that Milah’s intentions were entirely innocent. 

Belle tried to carry on as if nothing was happening, but not even five minutes had gone by before she heard Gideon exclaim: “Mom?”

“Yes, dear, what do you want?” Milah answered, sporting a sickeningly sweet smile. 

For a moment, Belle thought Gideon was about to make a scene. For a moment, so did Gideon. He realized, however, that there would be no point in doing so: if Milah was doing this on purpose, as he strongly suspected, calling her out on it would just give her a chance to attack Belle directly. If this was a mere coincidence, or if Milah knew his birthmother worked here but didn’t know her face, making a scene would only point her in the right direction. So he bit back the angry remark that had been on the tip of his tongue, and tried to carry on as if nothing were happening. 

It was hands down the worst Christmas any of them could remember, except for Milah and her boyfriend - Keith, if Belle remembered his name right - who seemed to be having the time of their lives. They tried to call Belle to their table more than once, dissipating once and for all any doubts on the coincidence of the whole thing. Belle thanked all of her lucky stars that Cecelia was always quick to intervene, because Milah seemed to be determined to make things as complicated and uncomfortable as possible: she changed her order several times and found literally every excuse to complain, which was just the cherry on top of the already busy Christmas lunch. By the time the four of them finally left the restaurant, Belle didn’t know whether to feel relieved or angry. Gold had warned her that Milah wasn’t the nicest person around, but purposefully ruining her son’s Christmas just to spite his birthmother was simply too much. 

That day set a distinct change in the family dynamics. After a long discussion with Gold - who once again wanted to deal with Milah on his own - they decided to confront Milah together. The meeting was one of the most unpleasant experiences Belle had ever had. Milah had a particular talent for getting under her skin, alternating between shouting and whispering viciously as she brought up all the things that hurt Belle the most: how she had abandoned Gideon, how she wasn’t his real mother, how she wasn’t worthy of him. It took all of Belle’s willpower to keep herself together, but what really shocked her was how easily Milah could hurt Gold as well. Despite his attempts, he couldn’t quite hide his flinch whenever his former wife spat hateful words at him, and even if his remarks were just as cutting as hers, they lacked that particular, unsettling cruelty. 

Milah eventually had to cave in when Gold threatened to bring this to a judge and let them decide whether or not Milah still deserved to see Gideon after what she’d done. She gave Belle the more insincere apology she could muster, and promised she’d never again do something like that. Belle found it very hard to believe her, and even though this technically counted as a win on hers and Gold’s part, Milah’s words had taken such a toll on them that she just couldn’t shake the feeling of having been defeated.

“Do you have to head back home straight away? I think we could both use a warm drink right now,” Belle suggested, pointing at a coffee shop nearby. 

Gold glanced back at his parked car, clearly weighing the options. 

“Okay,” he said eventually, surprising her. 

The place was crowded, as was to be expected on such a cold day, but luckily they found a free table in one corner and ordered two teas.

“I’ll never understand how you don’t freeze to death dressed like that,” Gold said as she took off her coat, revealing clothes that he would have seen more fit for spring. Late spring. 

“Well, I’ll never understand how you’re not sweating to death when dressed like that. You remind me of a girl I once shared an apartment with; we were constantly arguing over the heating, and eventually she moved out.”

“It’s a good thing we don’t live together then,” he joked, immediately regretting it. What if she took it as an insult? Luckily, Belle giggled. 

“It is. We’d come to hate each other within a week.”

He was surprised by how much the thought of not being friends with Belle anymore hurt him. He’d started out hating her, being scared of her, and yet after talking to her just a handful of times his feelings had completely changed. Belle had a way of making him feel at ease that very few people possessed, and the fact that he was smiling so shortly after meeting Milah was proof of that.

“I’m sorry. For all the things Milah said to you, I mean. She really shouldn’t have done that;” he said, feeling the need to make up for his ex-wife’s behavior. 

“Yes, she was… harsh. Is she always like this, or did I strike a nerve?”

What she’d really wanted to ask was ‘Is she always like this with you?’, because Belle couldn’t truly believe that her presence could make someone turn so viciously against their former husband. That question, however, would have been too direct and would have looked like prying. 

“You didn’t do anything, at least not intentionally. I think you’re dealing with Gideon wonderfully, but she refuses to see past her wounded ego. She was always extremely… fierce, but I think I bring out the worst in her. I’m sorry you had to witness that.”

“There’s nothing to apologize for. You did nothing to deserve such treatment: she is in the wrong.”

He smiled a bit sadly at her, like he appreciated her words but didn’t truly believe them. Their teas arrived in that moment, distracting them for a moment and giving Belle a chance to change the subject. 

“You know, this is incredibly awkward to admit, but I’ve just realized I don’t know your first name. Maybe Gideon told me at first and then I forgot, I’m not sure, but he only calls you ‘dad’ and everyone else calls you ‘Mr. Gold’ and so it… it kind of slipped my mind.”

Under literally any other circumstance she would have died rather than admit this, but it was the only thing that had come to her mind that could distract him from his former wife. 

“No apologies needed. I don’t really like my name, so I try to have it as little known as possible,” he explained. 

“Could I maybe shorten it, or use a nickname? I feel strange calling you by surname.”

Milah had called him ‘Rum’, would he be offended if she used it?

“I’m not going to be weirded out if you keep calling me by surname, but if you prefer to use my name I guess ‘Rumple’ will do. Just don’t use it too much when we’re in Storybrooke and other people can hear us: I have a fearsome reputation to maintain.”

She raised a disbelieving eyebrow at that, and he smirked over the rim of his teacup. 

“What, you don’t believe me?”

“I have a hard time imagining a town that keeps being scared of you after seeing how loving you are with your kids. I saw you trying to hold back your tears when Gideon started high school,” she remarked, taking a sip of her own tea. 

“You’ll be surprised by how much people refuse to see once they’ve formed their opinion on someone. I’m not saying I’m lenient with late payments, but I’m not nearly as ruthless as I once was, yet my reputation stays unchanged. Still, I don’t want to endanger it more than necessary.”

“Fine, I’ll only use it in case of emergency, I promise,” she conceded in mock seriousness. 

Her smile seemed to warm him more than the tea had, and there was a beat of silence as Gold mused over his next words. 

“You know, I was thinking… Gideon’s birthday is coming in less than two months and your birthday is only two days later, so I was wondering if you’d like to come to Storybrooke for those days, and maybe stay a little longer than usual, so that you and Gideon can celebrate together. I know he’d love that, but I haven’t told him anything yet so that he doesn’t get his hopes up in case you can’t come…” he felt incredibly stupid asking her this, and he couldn’t quite tell why. He just wasn’t sure of who she was to him anymore, and how he should act around her. Were they co-parents? Acquaintances? Or were they becoming friends? 

“I’d love to,” she replied, making him momentarily forget about his doubts. “I’ll have to make sure I can take those days off from work, but I don’t think there will be any problems.”

“Good. Do you want me to tell Gideon or do you want it to be a surprise?”

“No, tell him, it’s nice to have something to look forward to.”

She surely would be counting the hours until then.

“Thank you,” she added after a moment. “Really, thank you so much for everything you’ve done and you’re still doing for Gideon and me. You had every reason to be wary of me, but you listened to me and gave me a chance, and I’ll never be able to repay you for that.”

“You being there for Gideon and making him happy is payment enough,” he said immediately. “The only people you have to thank are Gideon and yourself: him because he’s the one who gave you a second chance, and you because you didn’t waste it. I merely supervised at first.”

Belle smiled gratefully at him, and their conversation flowed freely after that. Nearly an hour later, when Gold finally made it back to his car, the thought of Milah and her cruel words couldn’t have been more distant from their minds. 

**********

The sky was thankfully clear when Belle drove into Storybrooke on the 9th of February, but there was snow piled up at the side of the streets, and the promise of more to come in the following days. She’d be staying in Storybrooke for a whole week, and she was beside herself with excitement. If fourteen years prior somebody had told her where she’d be now, she wouldn’t have believed it. She made a quick stop at Granny’s B&B to leave her suitcase and take a shower, then walked to Gold’s house. She had to be extra careful, because there were thin patches of ice on the sidewalk and she risked slipping more than once.

Gideon had been staring anxiously out of the window ever since Belle had texted to say that she was at the B&B. When he saw her, he screamed “SHE’S HERE” at the top of his lungs, and all but flung himself out of the house to go hug her. 

“Don’t run!” Gold warned him as he hastened to follow him. “There’s ice on the ground…”

He had barely finished talking when he felt his good leg slip out from under him. All of his weight went on the bad one, already in pain from the cold, and a moment later he was falling hard on his backside, every bone in his body screaming in pain.

Belle and Gideon rushed to his side, their eyes wide with fear, talking over each other in their haste to ask him if he was okay. 

“I’ve been better,” he replied gruffly. He reached for his cane, grimacing at the sight of his bruised hand, but when he tried to get back on his feet pain shot through his right leg, making him lose his balance again. It was only thanks to Gideon and Belle supporting him that he avoided a second fall. Sitting again on the cold ground was far from pleasant, but it was all he could do for now. He pulled the right leg of his pants up, and took a look at his prosthesis. The stupid thing seemed to be fine, but the point where his knee connected with it hurt like hell. It wasn’t unusual for it to hurt, but not to this level.

“Gid, could you go grab my crutches? I don’t think I can manage it with the cane,” he had to admit. He wanted to get back inside as soon as possible, both to change clothes and to avoid being seen like this by any passers-by, but he’d never liked using the crutches. He was especially bugged by the idea of letting Belle see him like this, hurt and unable to even stand on his feet. She was smiling worriedly at him, clearly trying not to stare at his prosthesis, and he appreciated her effort. The silence between them stretched awkwardly, and he was wondering if he should try to say something when his son reappeared.

“I called Whale. He’s at the hospital now, but his shift is about to end and he said he’ll be here in half an hour,” Gideon said, handing him the crutches. 

Gold nodded, too focused on keeping his balance to speak. His bedroom was on the first floor, but there was no way he could manage the stairs now, so he settled himself in one of the guest bedrooms downstairs. Gideon brought him a change of clothes, while Belle made tea for everyone, and later insisted on disinfecting the cuts on his hands. 

“I told you I can do it on my own,” he protested again as she took one of his hands in hers. 

“I know, but it will be much easier and quicker if I do it,” she said, stubbornly refusing to let go of his hand even as the sting of the disinfectant made him squirm. “I know it hurts, but if you move it’s going to take even longer to finish.”

“Sorry. I’m just… not used to having someone do things for me,” he admitted after a moment, carefully weighing his words.

“Oh, I know the feeling, believe me. Do you want me to leave you alone? I just wanted to help, I didn’t want to make you uncomfortable or anything,” she made to move, but he gestured at her to stay.

“I’ll get used to it,” he said as an explanation. It was technically rude to say it that way, but Belle took it for the ‘thank you’ it actually was and smiled at him. 

“We’ll both have to. As I said, I’m used to being alone too.”

“Thank you,” he said as she finished bandaging his hand. “For this, for your patience, for everything. You just got here and you have to take care of me. I really didn’t want your vacation to start like this.”

“Well, that’s one of the perks of getting used to having other people around: you don’t have to deal with problems alone anymore. I’m here to stay, and not only on the good days,” she concluded with a smile. 

When she said it like this, it sounded almost easy. He was still processing her words when Gideon announced Whale’s arrival, relieving him of the embarrassment to come up with a reply that was at least one tenth as significative as Belle’s words had been. 

All in all, Whale told him he’d been lucky. He hadn’t broken any bones nor suffered any serious damage, but his knee was inflamed and Whale recommended not to wear his prosthesis for the next few days if he didn’t want to make things worse. In Gold’s opinion, that was far from being lucky, but he seemed to be the only one in the house to think so. After Whale left, he found himself in a heated discussion with Belle and Gideon on whether or not he should hire someone to help him through the following days. 

“I’m perfect capable of taking care of myself without help, case closed,” he snapped.

“I know, but what if you fall again? We have lots of things planned for the next few days, and there’s still snow outside. You can’t lock yourself up in the house, and I can’t pick you up if you’re too hurt to do it yourself. I’m just worried, that’s all,” his son replied stubbornly, his expression so similar to Belle’s that Gold nearly felt like laughing, despite how nervous he was. 

“Rumple, I’m sure you know your limits, and I’m not trying to impose anything on you, but Gideon has a point, and I don’t want you to risk anything just because you want to do everything on your own,” Belle said, clearly trying to keep the discussion form escalating. 

“Then trust me when I say I’m perfectly capable of managing my life without a stranger following me around and taking care of me as if I were a kid,” he replied drily.

“Well, if having a stranger around is the problem, we could ask Belle to stay here and help you,” Gideon suggested then. 

“WHAT?” the exclamation of surprise came from both of them at the same time, and if they’d been a little less shocked they would have probably found that fact very funny. 

“I just thought… we’ll be with Belle most of the time anyway, so why not? You two already know each other, so I think you wouldn’t be as snappy with her as you’d be with a stranger, and she would probably be less strict than a real nurse, so you wouldn’t feel like you’re being babysat. I thought it could be a nice compromise,” Gideon explained, staring at his father as if daring him to contradict him. 

“Belle came here to spend time with you, not to be my nurse,” Gold replied patiently. “You can’t expect people to change their plans because it suits you.”

“I mean, it’s not like I would mind, I just… I’m not sure I’d know what to do, or if you’d even be comfortable with having me around all the time,” Belle interjected.

Gold turned to look at her, even more surprised than he’d been by Gideon’s words: he’d been so sure that she wouldn’t accept that he’d completely forgot to ask her what she thought of it. In a way, he’d made the same mistake Gideon had. 

“I… I don’t want to bother you,” he repeated somewhat weakly.

“Well, you also said you don’t even need that much help. I’d be happy to help you if it makes Gideon feel safer, but I won’t insist if you don’t want me around all the time.”

“Fine,” he conceded at last. “I’d much rather have you around than a stranger.”

“She can take the spare bedroom upstairs!” Gideon exclaimed, beside himself with excitement. “This is going to be an awesome week!”

“No one has ever been so happy about me getting hurt,” Gold chuckled after sending Gideon to prepare Belle’s room.  

“Can you imagine his outrage if I had been the one to get hurt and you hadn’t agreed to let me stay here right away? I can almost see it.”

“We should suggest he joins a theatre group or something, he does have a penchant for drama.”

Belle agreed, and they traded silly quips for a little while before Belle went back to collect her bags from Granny’s. As she settled into her room, she couldn’t help but think that Gideon was right: this was going to be one awesome week. 

**********

As expected, more snow fell during the following three days, and that forced Gideon to change plans for his birthday. He had been planning to spend most of the day out with his two best friends and celebrate at dinner with Belle, Gold and Neal (who had arrived from Boston the day after Belle), but the prohibitive weather forced him to spend the day indoors, with his friends just barely managing to get to his house without freezing their noses off. Neal seemed to find it hilarious that one of Gideon’s friends was also named Neal, and spent the entire day making jokes about that. Everyone seemed to find it funny, except maybe Gideon, who seemed strangely tense at times. Robin and Neal ended up staying for dinner as well, so that they were all together when Gideon finally got to open his presents. Everyone’s gift seemed to be just perfect for him, and Belle felt her nervousness rise as she handed him hers. She had gotten to know him so much during the past few months, but she knew she still had so much to learn. What if her present was the only one he didn’t like?

“I wonder what it could possibly be,” Gideon joked as he started unwrapping what was clearly a book. “Her Handsome Hero? I’ve never heard of this one!”

He seemed happy enough about it, and Belle breathed a sigh of relief. 

“It’s a retelling of a fairytale I used to love as a kid. I thought that since you like fantasy you might like it,” she explained. 

“Thanks, I’m sure I’ll love it.”

She’d wondered if she was considering her own tastes rather than Gideon’s in buying the present, but she had wanted her first gift to him to be something meaningful and, all things considered, she was happy with her choice. Gideon and his friends played video games for a little while more before it was time for Robin and Neal to go. Belle drove them to their respective homes, and even if Storybrooke was small it took her a long time to get back home, because it had started snowing again and she had to proceed almost ridiculously slowly. 

The first thing she noticed as she stepped inside, still shivering a bit from the cold, was a stream of muffled curses coming from the kitchen. A clear idea of what was happening immediately formed in her mind, and she strode towards the noise, not knowing if she should be more worried or angry. 

“What exactly do you think you’re doing?” she whispered angrily at Gold, not wanting Gideon to hear them. 

“What does it look like?” he bit back, but there was a hint of guilt in his eyes. He’d put his prosthesis back on, and was in the process of tidying up the kitchen. Everything about his demeanor screamed that he was in pain, yet he stood stubbornly to face her, trying to hide the way he had to lean on the sink. 

“I could have done this! It’s what I’m here for!” she reminded him. 

“No, you’re here to spend time with your son. You don’t have to waste your time being my caretaker.”

“For God’s sake, I thought we’d already talked about this!” Belle burst out, walking towards the crutches he’d abandoned in the corner. “Take that thing off before Gideon hears us and go to bed.”

“No.”

She was on the verge of screaming, but then she noticed something in his expression, something that went beyond simple stubbornness.

“Rumple, what’s wrong?” she asked, closing the distance between them, her voice turning softer. “You seemed to be doing fine, and now you do this. Did something happen? Did I do something?”

He looked around, as if searching for an excuse to avoid the conversation. 

“It’s not easy to explain,” he muttered eventually. 

“Well, I have time and patience, so try as much as you want,” she replied sitting down on a chair, and gesturing at him to do the same. He limped towards the table and let out a sigh of relief as he sat down heavily in front of her. 

“Just for the record, where are Neal and Gideon? I don’t want to make you uncomfortable by having you open up when your kids could walk in at any moment.”

“I told Neal to go upstairs and make sure Gideon doesn’t stay up all night reading. Not that it works, but they generally start talking and end up falling asleep in the same bed at some time past two am. Their faces tomorrow morning are going to be hilarious.”

No matter how upset Gold was, talking about his children always lightened his mood, and once again that sight made Belle smile. 

“Good. So, can you tell me now what’s going on?” Belle tried again, laying one hand over Gold’s in what she hoped was a comforting gesture. 

“I just… I don’t see how it’s fair that you should do all the work when you’re the guest. I should do better,” he said, not quite looking at her.

“But you’re hurt!”

“And that’s my fault! I should have been more careful, and you shouldn’t have to pay for my mistake,” he insisted, and Belle suddenly had the feeling that he wasn’t really talking to her. Of course, he was saying those words to her, but this wasn’t the first time he’d said them, and she wasn’t the one who made him feel like this. 

“Does it have something to do with Milah?” she asked, and it shocked him so much that he actually looked at her for the first time since the discussion started. 

“What?”

“Did she make you feel like your disability was your fault?” she insisted, and from the way he looked at her, she had truly gotten to the heart of the problem. 

“She never called me disabled” he murmured after a while. “Useless cripple was the most common expression. Or something along the lines.”

“That’s horrible.”

She’d heard Milah say something about his leg and his illness during their discussion after Christmas, but without context it had been just one amongst the many insults she’d thrown at him.

“She… she didn’t like it when I got sick. She was pregnant with Neal when I was diagnosed with bone cancer. With a baby on the way she couldn’t deal with my sickness as well, especially when it lead to the amputation I tried my best to help her as much as I could, but there wasn’t much I could do at first, and the sickness caused by the chemo didn’t help. I thought I could fix things once I had healed, but then we found out that the treatment had left me sterile. I think that was the real end of her feelings for me, even though it took me a lot longer to realize it.”

“What happened after that?” Belle asked softly. She didn’t want to pry, but she could feel he needed to talk about this.

“Once I was sure my cancer wasn’t coming back, I talked Milah into adopting. My inability to have any more children had upset both of us, and I was sure that adopting was the solution. We could be happy again, Neal would have a much wanted sibling, and a kid would get a loving home. I thought it was a win-win scenario.”

He’d been so enamored with the idea of having another child that he’d projected that wish onto his wife. Now he realized that Milah had been upset mostly because she saw his sterility as another failing on his part, not because she was desperate to have more kids. 

“And I suppose that’s when Gideon came into your lives,” Belle prompted him, trying and failing not to imagine a younger Gold holding a newborn Gideon. It was an image that hurt her in more ways than she could count. 

“Yes. I loved him from the moment I saw him. After all I had been through, I was finally back to health and with not one, but two little kids to spoil rotten. Being with them was like heaven.”

He paused for a moment, fidgeting as he looked for the right words and the courage to carry on with the story. 

“Milah, however, wasn’t as happy as I’d hoped. She’d never been overly maternal with Neal, but I never had any doubt that she loved him. With Gideon, however, I started to wonder. I mean, I think she loved him, that she still does, but… she just can’t see him as equal to Neal.”

He’d whispered the last words so quietly that, despite being so close, Belle had to lean towards him to understand them.

“I think he knows. I don’t know when he started to realize it, but he’s a clever kid, he was bound to notice it someday.” 

Belle was biting her lower lip, not sure what to say. She was angry at Milah, but was she in any position to judge her? 

“Despite all of this, I couldn’t bring myself to end things with her. We were almost completely avoiding each other by that point, and I’m pretty sure she had more than one affair through the years, but I didn’t want to upset my children with a divorce. I thought I’d just hold on until they were old enough to deal with it, but Milah beat me to it. Four years ago I woke up and she was simply gone. She left a note saying that she was leaving, but she didn’t leave an address, and she wouldn’t answer my calls. After a day or two she texted Neal to tell him she was sorry and that she would soon file for divorce and a custody agreement, and only when her lawyer contacted me I found out she was in Boston with her most recent lover.”

“Listen,” Belle said once his tale was over. “I can only imagine how much all of this must have hurt, how much it still hurts. All I know is that I’m not her. I’m not going to walk away when you’re sick, or if you make a mistake, or you fail to meet some stupid standard. I’m with you, and not just because you’re Gideon’s father, but because we’re friends.” 

For a moment, she’d been on the verge of saying ‘family’, but she didn’t think either of them was ready for that. ‘Friends’ was a much safer option. 

“No matter what happens, I’m not going away,” she reassured him again. 

“No one,” he said, taking a shaky breath, “No one has ever said that to me. Least of all my wife.”

He looked on the verge of tears, and it came so naturally to Belle to wrap her arms around him, offering the comfort he so clearly needed. He all but sank into her hug, breathing heavily against her shoulder, clearly fighting back tears. They stood like that for a while, with one of her hands gently petting his hair, calming him, and despite their closeness and the silence the situation didn’t grow awkward. When he eventually pulled back, he looked more in control of himself. He opened his mouth to talk, but Belle stopped him before he could utter a single word.

“If you’re going to apologize, please don’t.”

He closed his mouth then, looking both annoyed and amused by how well she could read him. 

“Just take the prosthesis off and go to bed. I can bring you your painkillers if you want.”

“Yes, I think I’m going to need them,” he conceded, reaching for the crutches. 

Having to use the crutches didn’t stop him from doing most things, but it significantly slowed him down, so several minutes passed before he was finally ready to get into bed. He was waiting for his painkillers to kick in when he heard Belle leaving the kitchen and heading upstairs.

“Goodnight,” he said as she passed his door.

“I wasn’t expecting you to be still awake. Did I make too much noise?” she asked, still on the other side of the closed door. 

“No, I just can’t sleep right now.” There was no need to tell her he was in fact in pain. 

“May I come in?” she asked, surprising him. 

“Yes, of course. Is everything okay?” he said as she stepped inside. 

“Yes, I just… I wanted to talk to you about something, but if it’s too late we can wait until tomorrow. It’s nothing urgent.”

“As I said, I’m not sleepy. We have time to talk right now,” he said, gesturing at her to come closer. She sat on the edge of the bed, looking just a tad nervous. 

“Did you notice something strange about Gideon today?” 

The question immediately sent his brain into panic mode, but he couldn’t recall anything that had caught his attention.

“No, he seemed like his usual self,” he replied carefully. 

“Maybe he was. I just thought he looked a bit tense, so I kept an eye on him, and… I think he might have a crush,” she concluded. 

“On Robin?” It was something he really hadn’t seen coming, but it was hardly something worth worrying over. 

“On Neal.” 

There was a beat of silence after Belle’s reply, and she worried her lower lip with her teeth as she waited to see Gold’s reaction. She didn’t think he was the kind of man who would be upset by the idea of having a gay son, but one could never be sure. Right as she was about to ask him to speak, for God’s sake, he did something that completely shocked her:  he laughed. 

“What?” she asked once his laughter died down, not sure of what exactly was going on.

“I’m sorry, it’s just that… life apparently has a strange sense of humor.”

“I’m still not following you.”

“You’re right,” he sighed, gathering up his courage, “Apparently tonight is a night of confessions, and please know that I can count on my fingers the number of people who know what I’m about to say to you. I’m bisexual.”

Of all the things Belle had been expecting, this wasn’t one of them. 

“The day I told my father this, he dropped me at my aunts’ house and never came back. I mean, it’s not like he was fond of me before: Rumplestiltskin is not a name you give to a kid you love, after all, but after that even keeping a roof over my head became too much. It wasn’t easy for me to accept my sexuality after that.” He looked up at her then, his eyes full of both pain and love. “I’m just glad I can give my son the support I never had.”

For the second time that night, Belle could do nothing but hug him. He’d been through so much, and despite what he wanted people to believe, he had stayed a kind man through it all. She held onto him tight, never wanting to let go. 

“You’re the best father I could have hoped for, for Gideon,” she said as she reluctantly pulled back. She wanted to say so much more, that he meant so much more to her, but she couldn’t bring herself to. Instead she got up from the bed, wished him goodnight, and scurried back to her room.

She closed the door, leaning heavily against it, and cursed herself and her furiously beating heart. She had caught feelings for her son’s father. Under normal circumstances, that would have been the normal thing, but this… this was a mess. She felt like crying and laughing at the same time. She wanted to cry because this was never going to work, and she wanted to laugh because it had been so long since she’d felt like this, since she’d trusted and respected and cared for someone so much. She got into bed, but couldn’t sleep for a long time. She kept thinking about Gold’s eyes, This week was either going to be the best of her life, or it was going to be the death of her.

**********

Two days later it was Belle’s turn to celebrate. She usually didn’t do much on her birthday, and getting to spend the day with her son and his family was already more than she’d ever expected, but Gideon went out of his way to celebrate for her. Someone (she suspected Gold, under Gideon’s direction) had hung streamers in the living room during the night, and during breakfast she learned that they’d made a reservation in Storybrooke’s nicest restaurant for lunch. The thing Gideon was clearly waiting for the most, however, was the moment when they got back home, when he deemed it was finally time to give her her present. 

“I won’t ask if you like it because I know you will!” He exclaimed proudly as he handed her a box. She opened it, and she was surprised to find a stack of papers. She was confused at first, but as she focused on what was written on those papers her confusion turned to shock. 

“It says here that I’m… the new Storybrooke librarian? What?” she asked, thinking it must be some kind of prank. 

“I told you my dad could have it reopened whenever he wanted! Now you can have the job of your dreams and move to Storybrooke, and we can be together whenever we want!” Gideon exclaimed, still oblivious to her growing discomfort. 

“Gid, listen,” she started off, not really knowing how to put it nicely. “This is incredible and thoughtful and it was kind of you to do this… but you should have asked me first.”

“You didn’t ask her?” Gold exclaimed, turning to stare at his son. “You told me you knew she was okay with this!”

“Well, she said she wanted to be a librarian! And I couldn’t directly ask her without ruining the surprise!” Gideon replied angrily, not understanding why he was being scolded for his great present.

“Then you shouldn’t have done this!” his father insisted. “You could have given her any other present, and then you could have talked about the library first. You shouldn’t have assumed she’d be okay with this.”

“Why are you two angry? I just wanted all of us to be together! Don’t you want to spend more time with me?” he asked Belle, looking at her with angry tears in his eyes. It was the first time she saw him angry at her, and it made her stomach churn. Still, she needed him to understand why she was just as upset as him. 

“Of course I do, Gid, but you can’t make decisions for me. Or for anyone else, for that matter. What you’re asking me to do is a really big change, and that’s not something I want to do without thinking about it first,” Belle tried to explain, but she could see that Gideon wasn’t truly listening to her reasons.

“You’re a liar! You just don’t want to see me!” he screamed, then ran upstairs.

“I’ll talk to him,” Neal said as he ran after his bother, leaving Belle and Gold alone with the weight of what had just happened. It was the first time Belle had argued with her son, and while she knew it was bound to happen sooner or later she still felt sick. 

“I’d like to say that it’s something you get used to, but it’s not true. It always hurts when they’re angry at you,” Gold told her honestly, sitting beside her on the couch. “I’m really sorry. I wouldn’t have let him go through with it had I known.”

“I’m sorry too. I know I probably overreacted. I mean, there’s nothing truly keeping me in Boston. Yes, I have friends there, but Gideon is more important right now, and I did always want to be a librarian. I just… I don’t react well when I feel people are trying to make decisions for me.” She’d had enough of that for a lifetime. 

“We all have our weak spots. Yours is being forced into things, Gideon’s is not feeling that he’s important to the people he cares about. Neal is really good at calming him down, though, I’m sure you two will be on good terms again before dinner,” he reassured her, and he was right. By the time she’d made and drank some tea, Neal had come downstairs to tell her she could go talk to Gideon if she wanted. 

It was easy to apologize to her son, but it was much harder to explain why she had reacted the way she had. At long last, she had to tell him something about his biological father and her own, and how they had both forced or tried to force her into a life she didn’t want. It was a painful tale for both of them, but they hugged at the end, and Gideon apologized as well. He called her ‘mom’ then, and it was at that moment she truly started crying. Despite the tears and the fight, that was the best birthday she’d ever had. 

Now that she didn’t feel like she was being pressured into things, she had to admit that the possibility of becoming Storybrooke’s librarian was amazing. She still wanted to think it over once she was back in Boston and not so emotional, but she doubted she’d find many reasons not to accept the offer. Surprisingly, her birthday had yet more emotions in store for her: the morning after, in fact, Gold gave her another gift, one that from the shape she initially mistook as a book. 

“I wanted to give it to you yesterday, but then I thought you already had enough to deal with in one day,” he said as she started unwrapping the paper. He had been right in his consideration, because the moment she realized what it was a sob tore itself from her throat. 

It was a photo album, and it was filled with pictures of Gideon, at all ages. From when he was just a newborn, so small that he was barely visible under his baby blanket, to his happy toothless smile when he was seven, to the last birthday he’d celebrated without her. It was all the life she hadn’t been there for, and that Gold was now sharing with her. 

“I picked the nicest, but there are more if you want. I just couldn’t fit them all in one album,” he explained as she turned the pages in awe. 

“I have one more,” she said, her voice hoarse with unshed tears. “From before this summer, I mean. When I was in the hospital I… I asked a nurse to take a picture of me with him before handing him over to social services. He was just minutes old. I… I can give you a copy if you want.”

She looked so fragile yet so strong, with her eyes full of tears as she offered to share with him a photo taken in such a painful moment, and he wanted to kiss her so badly that for a moment he had the impression that her gaze was lingering on his lips, as if she wanted to kiss him too. It was nonsense, of course, but it was such a tempting thought that he was relieved when she hugged him, because it hid her beautiful face from his view, giving him a moment to collect himself. If she really moved to Storybrooke, she was going to be the death of him. 

**********

Belle officially moved to the apartment above Storybrooke’s library at the end of March, and spent the entire month of April preparing for the library’s reopening, with Gideon helping her as often as he could, until one day she had to remind him that he was supposed to spend at least some of his afternoons studying if he ever wanted to become a librarian himself. He officially started dating Neal in May, and soon enough their lives settled into a new, pleasant rhythm that Belle could hardly believe was real. When one day Neal announced that he was coming over to dinner with Emma - Storybrooke’s deputy sheriff - it was like yet another piece of their family had finally found its place. 

“They’ve been in love since high school,” Gideon told Belle as they set the table, waiting for his brother and the woman Belle supposed would finally be presented as his girlfriend. “They broke up when school ended and he moved to Boston, but they were never truly over each other. At least Neal wasn’t. I’m so glad they’re finally together again because he’s insufferable when he’s lovesick. The first time they argued he wrote her a song and he kept practicing it for days and it was terrible.”

With Storybrooke being so small, Belle had met Emma several times already, and it didn’t take her long after her arrival to notice that both she and Neal were behaving strangely. She didn’t want to ruin dinner by asking, but her curiosity was soon satisfied when, before taking even the first bite, Neal said he had an announcement to make.

“Don’t tell me you’re getting married already!” Gideon joked, but Neal hardly smiled, which was incredibly unlike him. 

“Well, we are kinda speeding things up,” Emma admitted.

“Oh my God,” Gold whispered, putting two and two together and realizing what Neal was about to say. 

“What I’m trying to say is… dad, I’m pregnant,” Neal said, and it took him a moment to realize what he’d said in his agitation. “I mean, she is pregnant, of course. And no, this was not planned, and we’re not even actually dating, and I still have art school to finish, but we’re keeping it.”

Gold recovered surprisingly well from the shock, but spent the rest of the evening torn between feeling giddy at the idea of becoming a grandpa and wanting to strangle his son for being so incautious. It was a very awkward family dinner overall, and Belle really wasn’t sad when it was over. Despite her best attempts, the talk about babies and unexpected pregnancies had reawakened all sorts of bad memories for her, and had made her feel under the spotlight, a glaring bad example that everyone was too kind to point out. When Gold insisted on driving her back home, she felt a moment of pure panic and briefly wondered if he was going to blame her for being a bad influence on Neal. It was an absurd thought, of course, but she couldn’t help herself.

“How are you feeling?” he asked her instead as soon as they were in the car. 

“I’m fine,” she lied. “Why?”

“Because I saw you fidgeting at dinner, and I know what it means. No one is making comparisons between you and Emma, believe me.”

“But they’re keeping the baby while I…” she started off, but Gold immediately interrupted her. 

“You were seventeen, they’re twenty one. I doubt you were out of high school, while Emma has a full-time job and Neal a part-time one. It’s not the same,” he insisted. 

“I wanted to keep him. I wanted to be his mother and be there for his first steps, his first words, his first everything. I let him go and he found you and I’m glad, but I still let him go not knowing what would become of him,” she sobbed. No matter how much time passed, or however many days she spent with her son or how much she thought she’d healed, having abandoned him was a wound that would never stop bleeding. 

“Hey, hey, It’s alright, I’m here,” he whispered against her ear as he wrapped his arms around her. Only in that moment she realized that the car was no longer moving. “It wasn’t your fault. You told me so yourself. You wanted him, but were forced to let him go. It wasn’t your fault.”

“You don’t know… you weren’t there… I should have been stronger,” she hiccuped. Her sin was too big to be simply excused away. 

“Then why don’t you tell me? Tell me what happened and I’ll honestly tell you if it was your fault,” he suggested.

“I… I need some tea first. Are we at my place yet? I can make some and then I can tell you,” she said, sniffling. 

“Yes, lead the way,” he said as he got out of the car.

In the end, he was the one to make the tea because her hands were trembling and he didn’t deem it safe to let her handle boiling water. Once they were both sitting on the couch with a warm cup in their hands, she started talking.

“My mother got sick when I was 13. Breast cancer. She was still so young that she didn’t think she needed regular check ups, and when she found out it was too late. We tried everything we could, but she died just two years later.”

The worst part hadn’t just been her dying. It had been watching her fade day after day, her condition always worsening despite all the treatment she was getting. She wasn’t sure when exactly Belle had realized her mother wasn’t going to make it, but waking up every day with that knowledge had completely crushed both her and her dad. 

“My father didn’t know how to deal with it. The worse my mother got, the worse he started to behave. Not in front of her, never in front of her, but when she was at the hospital and we were home alone he ignored me, or was straight out mean sometimes. He started drinking, and when I lost her, I lost him too. It was like he didn’t care about anything anymore, not even me. I think he hated everything that reminded him of her, including me. One day I got back home and found him putting all of our stuff in boxes. He told me we were moving to the States. I barely had the time to say goodbye to my friends before he dragged me an ocean away.”

Gold listened, dumbfounded. He could barely imagine the kind of trauma and pain she’d gone though at that time. 

“When we got to Augusta I stuck out like a sore thumb. I moved into a new high school halfway through the school year, so I was the only one struggling to adapt to a new place, and I was too lost in my grief to go out of my way and make friends. I was alone most of the time. There was one boy, though, who never stopped trying to get a date out of me. I turned him down at first, because I felt too sad to date anyone, but eventually I told myself I had to move on, and gave him a chance. Soon enough he was the only one I talked to, the only person in my life beside my dad. When he started pressuring me into having unprotected sex, I was too afraid he’d dump me to tell him no. I didn’t want to be alone again. I knew it was risky, but I didn’t fully realize it until my period skipped. I panicked and told him, and he dumped me, saying he wasn’t even sure it was his kid after all. I don’t think he believed that, I think he just wanted to hurt me. A couple of days later, the whole school knew I was pregnant. He had told everyone about it, while adding a bunch of lies to the mix, all to humiliate me.”

People had stared and pointed at her, at the weird outsider who got herself knocked up, calling her stupid and a slut. Every time she didn’t think things could get any worse, they immediately did.

“I think my father was the only one who didn’t know. I tried to keep it hidden from him for as long as I could, because I was afraid he’d make me have an abortion, and I didn’t want to. I thought that if I could just hold on until the baby had grown enough, he wouldn’t be able to force me to get rid of it.”

“What happened when he found out?” he asked, fearing her answer. 

“He lost his mind. He screamed and shouted and for the first time I was even worried he’d hit me. He told me I was a disgrace, that he was ashamed to have me as a daughter, and that since it was too late to get rid of it I’d have to give my child up for adoption if I wanted to keep living under his roof,” Belle said, her lower lip trembling with the effort of holding back the tears. 

“I didn’t know where to go. I had no friends, no other family members in town that could help me, and I wasn’t even out of high school yet. If he’d kicked me out of the house… I would have been homeless, without a job and with a newborn. What hope did I have? How long would it take before social services took Gideon from me? I knew that the younger the kid, the higher the chances of it being adopted, so I decided… I decided that giving him up straight away would be better. It would give him a better chance of finding a home, and it would spare me the pain of having him taken away when he was older. I never… I never would have wanted to…” she couldn’t continue anymore, her voice broken by sobs, and suddenly Gold’s arms were once again around her. 

“You were barely more than a child. You were alone and you were so brave. It wasn’t your fault,” he said as he held her, repeating it over and over again. She pulled back to look up at him, her eyes red and swollen from crying, and the tenderness she saw in his eyes made her heart ache. Gold had given her something she’d long forgotten. He’d  given her a family, something to care for and that cared for her in return. He’d given her a home and a sense of belonging, and maybe it was because she was already too emotional from crying so much, but she couldn’t hold back any longer: she leaned forward and pressed her lips against his. He froze, and Belle felt her panic rise. She’d screwed everything up.

“Belle… what are you doing?” he asked, taking her face in his hands as he pulled back ever so slightly.

“I love you. I know it’s crazy and I know it only complicates things, but I do. I have for months. I know you probably don’t feel the same way, but I had to tell you.”

Gold was silent for what felt like an eternity, staring at her as if he couldn’t believe his ears.

“Then,” he said eventually. “Kiss me again.”

Without waiting for her shocked brain to process his words, he closed the distance between them, pressing his mouth against hers in a kiss that was nothing like their first. It was loving and passionate and made her toes curl. When they finally broke apart, he rested his forehead against hers. 

“I love you too.”

[ergomaria]

Miles to Go Before I Sleep - Ch. 09

The cantina they entered was crowded but not overly loud, filled with various sentients meeting in quiet booths and shadowed corners to exchange secrets. Vann's dark eyes scanned the dimly lit space, his expression going lax for a moment before he whispered, "We've been here before, haven't we?"

"We've used this location a few times before and during the war. That's also how my contact knows it."

Vann accepted this, his gaze following Meetra's as she nodded towards a back table where a cowled figure sat stoically. Despite showing no visible features it was obvious that the individual was large, at least for a humanoid, yet possessed a certain meekness to his posture as though he was trying to hide from the outside world. It was a strange contrast but not one that was unexpected. A warm smile tugged at Meetra's lips as she approached with a quickness that bordered on excitement. Unsurprisingly, the former mercenary didn't share his companion's enthusiasm and suspicion immediately creased his brow as he studied the figure, his hands subtly drifting towards the lightsaber hilts that were hidden beneath the hem of his jacket. His eyes narrowed as his awareness extended to probe for further clues, a snarl tugging at his lips. When they were less than a meter away he stopped dead in his tracks, roughly grabbing Meetra by the shoulder to halt her as well.

"I don't think that's your contact."

Drawing a slow breath, Meetra steeled herself for the inevitable argument. "Yes, it is."

"No, that's…"

The cloaked figure lifted his head, pale eyes gazing at them from beneath the shadow of his hood. They were blue and not sickly gray, thank the Force. Shrugging off the former mercenary's hand, Meetra insisted, "I know who it is, Vann. I'm the one who called him here."

The mechanical sound tainting Alek's voice was startling as he hissed, "For once in your life can you not make a scene? We can explain, but I don't have much time."

If there was one individual in the galaxy who could talk Revan down when his temper struck, it was his best friend. Unfortunately, the pair hadn't been friends in six years. Quicker than most species could blink Vann drew his concealed lightsabers, igniting them with a flick of his thumbs and extending his arms so that one blade was pointed at each of the other Force users. His irises flashed an eerie yellow, the color making his skin appear sallow.

"Kriffing Sith hells, do you not understand Basic?!" Alek was still speaking in a hushed whisper but his exasperation was audible.

By now the entire cantina was staring at them. Despite the burning tip of the lightsaber aimed at her throat Meetra managed a smile. "Nothing to see here," she called, summoning the Force to add persuasion to her voice. "Just a little disagreement. No need to concern yourselves." Most of the patrons immediately turned back to their business, though it was unclear if this was due to her command or the fact that they were quite used to looking the other way during violent arguments.

Vann's expression was murderous. "You both have sixty seconds to explain. And you know that I'll be counting."

The situation was precarious but out of all the individuals in the galaxy, the two currently held at 'saber-point were the best equipped to diffuse it. Slowly and calmly, Meetra began to speak. "Alek and I have been in contact for just under two years. He's the reason that I was trying to return to Republic space." It was the first time she'd admitted that even to herself. "He felt something extremely dangerous, and I'm now certain that he was sensing the same Sith threat we're currently fighting."

"Forty-five, forty-four…"

"Before you ask, I got messages out through a few Republic officers who were still loyal to me… though not necessarily to the Sith. I contacted Meetra, and only Meetra, because she was the one individual I trusted to stop what I felt coming."

"Thirty-two, thirty-one…"

"I was having nightmares. I don't know if you remember Dromund Kaas, but…"

"I spent some time there recently. Lots of lightning and torture, can't say I'd recommend it."

Realization struck Meetra. "You were taken captive about two years ago, right? That's around the same time that Alek's dreams started."

Vann's lightsabers pressed just a fraction closer, the heat of the blade burning the delicate skin of the former general's neck. "Malak! His name is Malak and he's a kriffing Sith!"

"Was. Was a Sith." Alek heaved a mechanical sigh, sadness filling his gaze. "I fully admit that I was under the sway of the dark side the last time we met. I was trying to do the right thing, but my mind was too clouded by fear and rage for me to think clearly. But I did tell you the truth back on the Leviathan, all I wanted was to recreate your vision for the Republic."

The chill of anger surrounding Vann turned to a frigid torrent. "You wouldn't have had to 'recreate' anything if you didn't try to gut me and then shoot me out of the sky!"

A wave of determination washed over Alek and he pushed his face against the blade, the plasma singeing his prosthetic. "For Force sake, Deran! Put your damn 'sabers down and let's talk this out like adults. The entire Republic is once again at stake and if you're going to let our past interfere with saving it, you're no better than the Jedi Council who stood by while the Mandalorians…"

"What did you call me?"

Blinking in mild embarrassment, Alek stuttered, "Err… Revan. I called you…"

"He called you Deran, which is your real name." Meetra stared defiantly at Vann, watching as confusion danced across his features.

It was quickly replaced by frustration. "That's something I would have known if this kriffing son of a kath hound hadn't deleted all of my records…"

"That wasn't me! I know my word means nothing to you, but I swear that I didn't do it." Alek had never been as good at concealing his Force presence and the truth of his words was so blatant that even Vann couldn't deny it. The lightsabers gradually lower as the former mercenary considered this new information, finally deciding that despite everything that happened he needed to hear his former friend out.

As Vann's 'sabers snapped closed Meetra exhaled, gesturing to the empty pair of chairs placed around the table. "We should sit down. I think we have a lot to talk about."

The tension that filled the Force was new and uncomfortable. The last time Meetra had been around Revan and Malak they'd still been best friends and while they had occasional disagreements, those confrontations never contained the visceral aggression that she was currently sensing. But then, the pair had tried to kill each other twice in the intervening years.

"So, talk." Vann was still gripping both of his hilts, each pointed at one of his current companions.

Alek glanced at Meetra, who gave him a slight nod of encouragement. He drew a slow, tinny breath before speaking. "Obviously, I've had a lot of time to consider my actions and determine why I carried them out. That led me to meditate on all of the pieces that brought us to this point including the war, the Sith Emperor, and our journey to Dromund Kaas…"

"Which is still a horrible place, by the way."

Ignoring the quip, Alek continued, "I've come to believe that the main catalyst for all of the… mistakes that transpired occurred on that planet."

"Are you sure? I've also had a lot of time to think and I realized that I started to change towards the beginning of the war when I let go of my empathy to become a more effective commander. Even before Malachor, I realized that I could never truly return to the Order." Meetra looked down at the table. "I know I'm not the only one who barely recognized myself by the armistice."

"We may have stopped being Jedi during the war, but that's a lot different from what Malak did. I'm pretty sure that the jump from 'not Jedi' to 'fascist dictator' is a unique one." Scathing sarcasm colored Vann's voice. "I mean, raise your hand if you've ever tried to take over the Republic."

Alek leveled his gaze at his oldest friend, his mechanical tone deadly serious. "Revan, I thank the Force every day that you were the one who lost your memory and I was the one to return to Republic space. If it had been the other way around… No power in the galaxy can stop you once you set your mind to something. You might not remember, but you were planning big changes for the military once we returned home. If you had been given free rein to enact all of your ideas, I don't think any of us would be sitting here today."

"It's Vann, not Revan. Thanks to the aforementioned memory loss I barely remember being Revan."

"I didn't intend for that to happen but… I had to stop you. During that duel in the Emperor's palace, you were out of control and I was afraid for the future. I knew that if you were allowed to return to the Republic, tragedy would follow."

"Oh, I would cause tragedy? You're kriffing joking, right?" Vann's knuckles were white from the pressure he was putting on his lightsaber hilts. "I may not have all of my memories but I remember that fight and I know it wasn't fear that was driving you, it was hatred. I don't know why you hated me so much at that moment, but don't pretend that you tried to kill me for some greater good."

"I didn't hate you! If anything, I hated myself for what I knew I had to do!"

"Oh poor you! How terrible to 'have' to kill the one person standing between you and dominating the Republic. And don't try to tell me that I lost control. I know for a fact that I was the only one of us who was in my right mind at that moment! You went for the kill. I went for…"

It was Alek's turned to be incensed. "For what? The torture? The pain? The humiliation? Please, tell me more about your mercy."

As the Force grew bitterly cold from the strength of her friends' anger Meetra was overwhelmed by the regret that she had been harboring for years. It was all built upon the theory that if she had only been on Dromund Kaas she could have stopped the duel that tore the pair apart, both mentally and physically. Her irritation mounted and she shouted, "Both of you, stop! Arguing isn't helping anyone! I can't stand what this Sith has done to you. He took two of the closest sentients I've ever known and filled your minds with suspicion and doubt until you decided that you can never trust each other again. That the only way for this to end is with one of you dead by the other's hand."

"He's the one who tried to kill me! Twice!" Vann made a gesture towards his abdomen. "I can show you the scar if you want."

"And you cut off his kriffing jaw! I think you can call things even at this point." Drawing a steadying breath, Meetra stared hard at both men. "A Sith poisoned you against each other because that's what they do. But you're stronger than that. So, are you going to give in and let the Emperor win? Or are you going to resist his manipulations, put your pettiness aside, and work together to defeat him?"

Alek blinked back his frustration. "I'm not the one being petty."

"No, you're just being pedantic which might be worse." The former Consular sighed. "I'm not asking you to forget what happened. Hells, if anyone knows how hard it is to move out of the shadows of the past, it's me. But I also know that, once you do, there's something better waiting on the other side. Hatred left its mark on both of you, but that doesn't mean that you can't move forward and keep fighting for something so much larger than yourselves. This Emperor needs to be stopped and you're the best hope of doing it."

Leaning his head back, Vann groaned. "Ugh, has she always been this annoyingly good at being right?"

"Yes."

Read the whole chapter on FanFiction or AO3!

[convertidophoto]

A First foray in Space...

I’ve been thinking a lot about space lately.  No, not stars, blood moons, or black holes and the like but space as in venues, as in the common areas open to all.  The space where you, I, and others meet to interact. Yeah, that kind of space.  It seems to me that in some instances we are using it all wrong.  Perhaps you agree, perhaps you think I think too much, or perhaps you think I am thinking about something that requires no thought at all.  Well…as it happens at the gig Friday night someone brought up this very topic.  They asked me if I went to see (insert metallic HC band name here) at “the Post” the other night.  He said that it was one of the most violent shows he ever saw; dudes (yes nearly all men) were laying waste to each other while the band played. Oh, how the stars align.

 I am not sure where the kung fu dancing style at HC shows first appeared.  The acquisition of this fact is of little importance to me and I think I’ll live without that curiosity being satisfied.  What does concern me is what it portends for what I thought was a foundational principle of punk/hc/whatever-you-wanna-call-it (this thing we all do).  That principle being that a punk/hc show was our show and our space; it belonged to no one person or group; instead belonged to everyone who attended the show. The swinging arms, flying kicks, reckless thrown elbows, destroy utterly this idea by creating malicious enclaves [barriers] between the band and the audience.  I know, I know, I don’t get it, I’m old, I’m weak, or maybe it is that my kung fu just isn’t up to snuff, or maybe…just maybe, bear with me…cuz it might pain you to imagine such things…I’m right.  

Here’s the scene, you’re at the show really excited to see the bands.  Maybe you’ve heard the band, seen them before, or your ‘bro’ hipped you to them and you’re there to check ‘em out.  The band takes the stage, turns on their rigs, gives you cannibal come vegan snarl before launching into the sickest riff you’ve heard since that Slayer riff that sounds oh-so-close to what you’re digging now was released…then it happens.

Out of the darkness, you see what looks like a self-defense demonstration.  Fists and elbows fly without hesitation, that dude in the short-shorts is swinging his leg around with such speed that you are sure he’s part windmill.  Other participants tuck up and throw hands and mule kicks at imaginary attackers besetting them from all sides. Before you know it, the entire crowd has fled from the stage.  Cramming themselves into every inch of the periphery with arms held high to protect their faces from the mayhem.  The crowd forgets about Constipated Cookie Monster and the Beatdown Five providing the jams and who are pounding the stage like silverback gorillas in need of anger management.   When you finally feel comfortable enough to focus on the band you realize that the majority of the space for the crowd is monopolized by a dozen or so “dancers” and the remainder of the crowd is forced far from the band.  Mood killed and the show that you wanted to see so badly is now a bad memory which you wish never to repeat.

To many this sounds like an awesome time and mores the pity a typical show.  To others, myself included, this sounds absolute shit.  Whether or not the band is good or bad, is worth seeing again, or any other information gleamed from watching a band has been supplanted by the inevitable question, is staying in this room to see this band worth losing my teeth or getting knocked the fudge-out?  Those questions are nothing new and have been asked since the first guy staged dove (stage-dived? Oh, where are my punk rock grammarians at?) into the crowd.  What makes a substantive difference to me is the way in which space is used.

Punk/hc is visceral form of expression that in many cases lacks, utterly, any sense of subtlety.  As the form evolved from the late 1970s UK punk and The Ramones style retro-rock into 80s USHC the reaction to the music changed as well.  This is not unexpected as the inherit urgency of HC drives people to move without regard for themselves or others.  This trend continued with the expansion and popularization of HC.  The advent of crossover only worked to increase the ways in which the music elicited reactions in its expanding audience.  Pogoing was replaced by slam dancing and stage diving which became (?) moshing [whatever the hell that is anyway?!?!] by the late 80s.  Some bands eschewed the physical aspects of punk/hc and issued a challenge to their audiences (Fugazi) while others tired of violence that occasioned their shows and moved towards other audiences (7Seconds).  These changes coupled with the inevitable ending HC of other bands, the sound people wanted/loved/expected/demanded was hard to find.

Out of this vacuum came the explosion of late 80s HC bands, mostly SxE, who wanted to revert back to the pre-crossover style of HC and all that came with it.  At the same time, those people moved by the crossover thing kept progressing trying to make heavier and more ‘heavy and powerful’ records.  Then one day it happened, someone somewhere created the riff that played with just the right drumbeat moved people to stomp around then someone started swing their arms or legs and voila you have whatever-fudge kind of dancing they call it.  It may never have been equated before but punk/hc shows are a lot like real estate, location matters.  

The closer to the stage one can get at a show the better says I. Being able to see, to hear, and to feel (yes, we talking about feelings) the music is the purest way to enjoy any performance.  Plus up the front by the stage packed side by side with all the others wanting the experience, can create a collective sense of shared experience that remains bigger than any single show.  The shared sense of release, of elation, and of expression between the band and the crowd is strongest nearest the band.  The farther you move from the stage the less effect the band has on the room.

Not everyone wants to be up front smashed together being sweated upon, spat upon, spilled upon, jumped on, knocked around, and generally battered about while interacting with others also trying to enjoy the performance in its purest form.  Some people are not terribly interested in the bands performance; they are just there to dance, to slam, to mosh, or whatever the hell you call it.  The band is nothing but a soundtrack to release. Don’t get me wrong, to each their own…it’s not my thing (anymore) but I can see the necessity of just exorcising all the pent up emotions, piques, frustrations, and energies that punctuate life. Have at it y’all and ‘¡fuck it up __(insert name of city/state/scene here)___ style!’  All the young punks love a bit of that as the saying goes…

Behind the sing-a-long crowd and the dancing fools is the people who want to see the band, experience the music but would really prefer to be knocked around by kids who do not share the same fears about health insurance deductibles or the fragility of “old bones”.  In the back, there a bit more talking, visiting, seeing that person they’ve not seen since the last time (insert band here) played, also beverages flow freely and are consumed more responsibly (suggesting fewer spills not less liver damage).  Frankly, if one wants to be honest it is probably these people that bought tickets in advance and upon whose beer sales the venues counts to make a profit from the show. [drink up y’all!!]

I know, I know this a very general example and crowds are rarely described this easily.  The point I am trying to make remains apparent though.  The collective space of the show, the venue, is divided up amongst the crowd and inside the finite area the space is shared.  Everyone has their space to react and to interact with the band and everyone else in attendance.  If you want to be right on the stage as close as possible to be splashed with beer, sweat, and be spat upon by the guitarist from Night Birds or accidentally smacked upside the head by the singer of Scream or bass player of Econochrist (true stories y’all…for reals) then have it.  If, however, that is not your thing and you just want to go nuts dancing then back it up a few feet and go off.  Of course, if none of this appeals to you and all you really want to do is see that band that does it for you then you’ll likely be nearer the back.  Sharing is caring y’all, it isn’t always pretty or fair but it making use of a public space for mutual benefit.  In stark contrast to the above sits any live video of a beatdown/metalcore type band.  

YouTube is replete with videos where huge swaths of space are devoted to a dozen or so people engaged in what appears to be a synchronized martial arts demonstration or an attack by a swarm of invisible bees.  What is readily apparent at these shows is how the few “dancers” have pushed the rest of the crowd to the periphery of the venue.  There are few to no people at the stage experiencing the show.  All those people not “dancing” are trying to balance between watching the band and watching the dancers; undoubtedly they are doing so out of self-defense and for the inevitable train wreck that is foot to head or hand to head contact.  

In this exercise I see only one group telling another ‘this is how you will use this space, disagree at your own peril’.  Admittedly, I highly doubt any such an utterance emerged from the mouth or mind of any participant.  It never had to, the effect is the same.  What was once ours is now theirs and that isn’t cool.    

Slow your roll young blood…I’m not saying I know what punk is (can anyone really?) and I’m not saying anything negative about any individual, group, band, scene, etc. though clearly I am having a bit of a laugh at your silly asses.  What I’m saying is that what is happening with the use of space at some shows is self-defeating, selfish, and in the long-run a dead end for expression.  

Let’s really drive this point home shall we…no ambiguity, no mincing words, nothing left to chance or lost in translation…Lest you think I am picking on other forms of expression (personal or musical), or annoyingly kvetching about a style of music I don’t like (I’m not), let me be clear…I am only noting that the way in which the public space is used at one type of show occasioned by this style of dancing is not about shared use.  The way in which one small group dominates that space open to all appears to me to be antithetical to all that I believed punk was to be which was a liberating movement and a leveling force opening up avenues of expression to those previously shut out of venues for creative expression.  

QED vatos!

[winterironshieldbang]

MASTERLIST 2017/2018

TITLE: Why Tony Stark is injurious to the heart health of ninety year olds

AUTHOR: makeyamad

ARTIST: chaosdraws

PAIRINGS: James “Bucky” Barnes/Steve Rogers/Tony Stark

RATING: Teen and Up

WARNINGS: None

SUMMARY:

What if Bucky broke through his programming on December 16, 1991? What if Tony got to grow up with one of his childhood heroes who challenges him on a visceral level, constantly pushing him to change his own destiny and makes his heart beat like a hummingbird? What if Steve woke up to a world too bright and a best friend whose past cast red tinged shadows that threatened to swallow him whole, yet managed to smile for Steve? What would Steve make of Tony, his best friend’s guiding light , who looked at Steve with equal parts admiration and resentment? And who the hell invited Thanos to the party anyway?

LINK TO STORY: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13623207/chapters/31280367 LINK TO ART: Click Here

~o~o~o~

TITLE: The path beneath your feet

AUTHOR: Striving-artist 

ARTIST: Eriot (latelierderiot)

PAIRINGS: James “Bucky” Barnes/Steve Rogers/Tony Stark

RATING: Teen And Up Audiences

WARNINGS: None

SUMMARY: 

A Star fell, and in its wake, Soulmarks appeared. Smaller than a person’s palm, centered over their sternum, and a greater risk than when the Stars gave mankind Guilt, the Marks were to be Humanity’s eternal guides. The gift gave the Stars a way to direct their children. The Stars would watch, and wait to see what a person needed in their life. They waited to see what would bring them the greatest joy, then they could give them a token to find that path and keep them true. *** All three share a Mark.

But Steve and Bucky have each other.

And Tony has Iron Man.

LINK TO STORY: HERE

LINK TO ART: HERE

~o~o~o~

Title: If Only Author: Wix Artist: RsCreighton Pairings: Steve/Tony/Bucky, WinterIronShield Rating: T Warnings: References to past torture and mind control. Summary:

The Avengers have tracked down the Winter Soldier and brought him into the fold, but Bucky isn’t really back yet and Steve’s hurting from the distance between him and his first love - and then there’s the whole thing with Tony. It’s okay though, they’ll figure it all out…probably. A/N: Not AOU Compliant, Not fully CA:WS compliant. LINK TO STORY: http://archiveofourown.org/works/13596528 LINK TO ART: http://archiveofourown.org/works/13603791

~o~o~o~

TITLE: The Revenge AUTHOR: Riverlander974 ARTIST: Hazein PAIRINGS: James “Bucky” Barnes/Steve Rogers/Tony Stark RATING: Teen WARNINGS: N/A SUMMARY:

“Hello. My name is Anthony Stark. You killed my family. Prepare to die.” Heroes, Giants, Pirates, Villains, Revenge and True Love. You know this story. Mostly. A ‘Princess Bride’ AU. A/N: New chapters will be posted every other day!! LINK TO STORY: http://archiveofourown.org/works/13543128/chapters/31072041 LINK TO ART:

http://hazeinart.tumblr.com/post/170791391805/art-piece-for-winterironshieldbang-do-you-love

http://hazeinart.tumblr.com/post/170975656077/the-revenge-chapter-3-riverlander974-marvel 

~o~o~o~

TITLE: Scientific Heresy AUTHOR: antigrav_vector ARTIST: Riverlander974 PAIRINGS: one-sided unrequited Margaret “Peggy” Carter/Steve Rogers, James “Bucky” Barnes/Steve Rogers, Tony Stark/Steve Rogers, Tony Stark/James “Bucky” Barnes, Tony Stark/James “Bucky” Barnes/Steve Rogers RATING: M (violence) WARNINGS: Alternate Universe, Canon-Typical Violence, Time Travel, Mission Fic, ignores all MCU canon after IM2, inaccurate history SUMMARY: 

In the process of running the particle accelerator in his basement and save the day, Tony finds himself flung into the past where he has to take on a fight not his own if he wants to get home to stop Vanko. At least he had a chance to replace the old rector that had been killing him with the new one before everything went sideways… But now he has no choice but to face off with family, friends, and old heroes, and none of that sounds remotely appealing. Well, okay, getting to meet them all during their glory days kinda does. But as it turns out, they’re not exactly what he imagined, and his path home is a lot longer than he’d hoped it would be. And a lot more complicated. A/N: Art will be posting piece by piece as the chapters go up, because otherwise there would be some spoilers. It will be embedded in the fic, too, so don’t worry, you won’t miss any. But don’t forget to go reblog and heap some love on the (ridiculously many!) lovely things River drew! LINK TO STORY: http://archiveofourown.org/works/13664655 LINK TO ART: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13602213

~o~o~o~

TITLE: Trying AUTHOR: Somiko_Raven (crystallized-iron) ARTIST: Lasenby_Heathcote (lasenbyphoenix) PAIRINGS: Steve Rogers/Tony Stark, Steve Rogers/James “Bucky” Barnes, James “Bucky” Barnes/Tony Stark, James “Bucky” Barnes/Steve Rogers/Tony Stark RATING: Teen WARNINGS: N/A

SUMMARY:

It had been years since Steve last saw Bucky, and when his old friend suddenly appears back in town, he’s ready to do what he can to help him, even if that means saying yes to a date.

There’s a problem, though.

Steve’s already in a relationship.

LINK TO STORY: http://archiveofourown.org/works/13668645 LINK TO ART: http://archiveofourown.org/works/13668963

~o~o~o~

TITLE: sing (like there’s nobody listening)

AUTHOR: Daecyan_Shikoba

ARTIST: massivespacewren 

PAIRINGS: Steve/Tony/Bucky, established Steve/Bucky

RATING: Teen

WARNINGS: N/A

SUMMARY: 

Steve sends Bucky a link to a song that changes more than either of them could ever expect. Tony, head of a brand new prosthetic research team, meanwhile, has a decision to make: reveal his identity as Iron Man and risk alienating Bucky and Steve, or remain a mystery to Bucky, Steve, and the internet at large. The feelings Tony has for both men doesn’t make the choice any easier. All Steve and Bucky want is to take Tony on a date, if he’ll have them.

LINK TO STORY: http://archiveofourown.org/works/13666332

LINK TO ART: http://massivespacewren.tumblr.com/post/170867864733/here-is-the-art-for-my-stuckony-big-bang-i-got-to

~o~o~o~

TITLE: Imagine You and You (and You) and Me

AUTHOR: RomancebyFaye

ARTISTS: novarain01 and empty-crayon-box

PAIRINGS: James “Bucky” Barnes/Steve Rogers/Tony Stark

RATING: Teen (for now)

WARNINGS: N/A

SUMMARY: 

Steve and Bucky both have two soulmates. When Bucky falls, Steve goes into the ice not long after. He wakes up decades in the future and has a rough introduction to his other soulmate, Tony Stark.

Neither man seem too enthused about the revelation, and Steve is slightly surprised when Tony makes no demands of him or even uncovers his soulwords. Turns out, Stark doesn’t think too highly of soulbonds. Still, they manage to work together and Steve comes to realize he might have misjudged Tony.

He’s working up the nerve to try and make this more than a friendship when Bucky turns out to be alive. And not quite alone.

Or, Steve is jealous of cuddles and bed sharing, Tony has no expectations of his soulmates because his soulwords are extra crappy, Bucky is sharing his psyche with the Asset, and all of them are on a converging path to falling in love.

A/N: Possible Smut to be added later. This would change rating to Explicit.

LINK TO STORY: A03 link

LINK TO ART: 

empty-crayon-box piece one and two!

novarain01

~o~o~o~

TITLE: The Best of You

AUTHOR: Menatiera

ARTIST: araydre

PAIRINGS: James “Bucky” Barnes/Tony Stark, Steve Rogers/Tony Stark, James “Bucky” Barnes/Steve Rogers, James “Bucky” Barnes/Steve Rogers/Tony Stark

RATING: Teen And Up Audiences

WARNINGS: Graphic Depictions Of Violence

SUMMARY:

Tony (genius, billionaire, superhero) and James (former WWII hero, former Winter Soldier, former Bucky Barnes) are figuring out their relationship. No, really, they’re doing great, after all the landmines are behind them. If they survived kidnappings, SHIELD at their backyard, revelations of past and all that jazz, what could possibly stand between them?

Enter Steve Rogers, AKA Captain America. And things, of course, go sideways immediately.

Tony is not entirely ready to face Daddy’s Dearest, his childhood crush. James is not at all ready to have his blond boy from the memories back. They don’t have a choice.

And on top of this, Steve, freshly defrosted and doing his best to adjust to the new century with both loves of his life gone, has his own problems. Including but not limited to an intelligence organization full of overexcited people, an alien army coming from the sky through some magic-bullshit-science portal and a genius chaperoning him around - whom he might be falling for.

A/N: This is a sequel of Still Alive, but rest assured, it can be read as a standalone. Chapters will be posted every day.

LINK TO STORY: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13703103/chapters/31475598

LINK TO ART: http://araydre.tumblr.com/post/170948599062/

~o~o~o~

TITLE: The Heist

AUTHOR: @jacarandabanyan

ARTIST: @acastleintheair

PAIRINGS: Bucky/Tony, Bucky/Steve, implied future Bucky/Steve/Tony

RATING: G

WARNINGS: Some swearing

SUMMARY: 

“So you know that one artist who’s a total recluse and never does interviews or anything? Rogers? Well, someone found some of his old artwork that he didn’t want people to see, and it’s going to be showcased in this fancy gala. So for… reasons I have to go and steal the art before the gala.”

“I’ll help.” Tony said immediately.

Bucky twisted around in his lap to get a good look at his face. “What? Really?”

Tony nodded furiously. “I’m with you all the way, what time is this heist going down, I’ll clear my calendar. Though I would like to know how you know Rogers when the man’s so reclusive no one even knows what he looks like.”

Bucky squinted at him. “That was seriously the worst explanation I’ve ever given you, but you’re going to agree just like that?”

“Yep.”

LINK TO STORY: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13714221

LINK TO ART: art

~o~o~o~

TITLE: Fight Club

AUTHOR: Reioka

ARTIST: puddingpong and latelierderiot

PAIRINGS: James “Bucky” Barnes/Steve Rogers/Tony Stark

RATING: Explicit

WARNINGS: None

SUMMARY: 

Tony had always expected that his awful kink would never be brought up to his alphas. It had ended more relationships than it had helped. But when Steve and Bucky find out about it, they’re… supportive? Tony has no idea what he did to deserve these two alphas that are willing to indulge his kink but he’s glad. Of course, they have a few kinks of their own that they’re willing to divulge now too.

A/N: None

LINK TO STORY: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13779012

LINK TO ART:

http://latelierderiot.tumblr.com/post/171216496012/the-second-collab-for-the puddingpong–

http://puddingpong.tumblr.com/post/171216991982/winterironshield-bang-art-full-art-below-of-the

~o~o~o~

TITLE: Fallen Gods and Shooting Stars

AUTHOR: @lunaticalwriter

ARTIST: @chaosdraws

PAIRINGS: Steve/Bucky/Tony endgame

RATING: M (some smut)

WARNINGS: N/A

SUMMARY:

“Thousands of years ago, the First Gods tried to defeat Fate, and were banished from the Olympus.

Ten years ago, Howard Stark, head of the most powerful mob in America, was killed with his wife in a terrible accident, leaving their son Anthony to lead their family.

Three years ago, Obadiah Stane kidnapped Tony Stark and imprisoned him on an island in the middle of the ocean.

Somehow, this all leads to Steve and Bucky’s bedroom.

LINK TO STORY: http://archiveofourown.org/works/13799196/chapters/31724910

LINK TO ART: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13802646/chapters/31734486

[ohmytheon]

Karma in Retrograde (6)

title: Karma in Retrograde

summary: When Dabi is struck by a de-aging quirk that regresses him to the most important part of his life, he finds himself turned back to a sixteen year-old U.A. General Studies student with a lot of self-esteem issues, parent problems, a destructive quirk that he can’t manage, and no memory of the five years that he’s lost - not the mention the fact that his little brother is now the same age as him and one of the top students in the U.A. hero course. In U.A.’s attempt to make up for what they missed and help the Dabi of the past, present, and future, he is placed with the only students that know him and have yet to find out what truly makes the difference between a hero and a villain. There, they must face the question of whether he can change or if his destiny is already set in stone.

– Chapter 6: Ryouta confronts Endeavor, his father. It gets ugly.

Lanni notes: I can say with full confidence that all of your comments have us LIVING and keep us inspired to write more, so thank you for everything. This chapter is an emotional tour de france and I enjoyed the hell out of writing it. One thing that should be said: As much as I don't like Endeavor, he's not strictly evil or bad, no matter how Ryouta views him. It's all about context, yo, and how you remember things. The song used for this chapter is "Wolf in Sheep's Clothing" by Set It Off.

Tell me how you're sleeping easy How you're only thinking of yourself Show me how you justify

Four years had passed for his father since they’d seen each other, while it had only been a few weeks for Ryouta. The distance between them didn’t hide the few obvious signs that Endeavor had grown older, but the flames he used for his pro hero costume hid them well. It was a different costume, too. He must have updated it after becoming the number one hero. His changed ranking still confused Ryouta. No one had told him what had happened to All Might.

Ryouta started shrinking into himself before he could stop it. He loathed the way his father’s mere presence could make him feel like he was mud under someone’s boot, too small to do anything. Fuyumi and Natsuo had inherited their mother’s quirk. Before Shouto’s quirk had manifested, Ryouta had been the only one with their father’s quirk and he had pushed him past his limit often. When it turned out that he was even more of a failed concept than anticipated, Endeavor had discarded him like trash.

After Shouto’s quirk had manifested, things had only gone downhill. Ryouta had been left scrambling for any scraps that resembled approval or lashing out in defiance. They weren’t his brightest moments.

The others finally noticed that Ryouta and Shouto had come to a halt and stopped walking as well, looking at them curiously. Iida even asked, “Are you okay?” when Endeavor’s eyes fell on Ryouta and he stopped as if he’d crashed into a wall.

If a glare could kill a man, Ryouta was certain that he would’ve been roasted alive on the spot. He had seen a lot of awful things in his father’s eyes before - disgust, disappointment, indifference, anger - but none of them could compare to the pure hellfire of rage and loathing that burned in Endeavor’s bright blue eyes now. They were the same eyes that Ryouta had. It was like nothing he’d ever seen before. He hadn’t thought it capable of a person to look so furious before, but the flames on Endeavor’s pro hero costume rose higher and he clenched his hands into large fists as he snarled, “You.”

Oh, Ryouta knew what that stance meant.

There were a lot of things that he should’ve said - a lot of things he should have done - but a rock dropped into the pit of his stomach, the acids boiling so hotly that he felt sick, and his heart leapt into his throat. He’d done plenty of things to piss his father off, some of them on purpose and some of them out of his control (It’s not my fault, I was born with this quirk, I didn’t ask for this, please, wait, come back, I can do better, I’ll be stronger-), but becoming a villain had to be the worst slap to the face that he could’ve given to Endeavor and he couldn’t even fucking remember it.

All he could remember was a phone call that had taken place five years ago (I don’t want your weakness rubbing off on Shouto) and the mixed bag of emotions that had smothered him like a tsunami. The fury that he had felt towards the man for controlling his little brother’s life, the hurt that came from being not only abandoned, but smeared in mud, the disgusting need to be accepted by a man who didn’t deserve his respect; yet Ryouta would have given it anyways if he was just proud of him once.

Instead, he’d become a villain, the very thing his father loathed more than anything. He wasn’t one now and yet he was and Endeavor knew that. He could see it in the pro hero’s eyes. Ryouta wasn’t the sixteen-year-old boy that had run off to U.A. to do his own thing, a failure of a child with a destructive quirk that didn’t even fit his body.

So Ryouta countered the only way he knew, knowing exactly what Endeavor thought of him now. The rules for villains had been drilled into his head and could not be clearer. If he was going to be a villain to his father, then so fucking be it. He wasn’t going to be afraid anymore. That was for damn sure.

With a cold glare burning in his eyes, Ryouta tried to force an expression of disinterest, shoved his hands in his pockets, and drawled in his dryest tone, “Oh, hey, Dad.”

It was the wrong thing to say.

Endeavor snapped, storming towards him like a furious tornado of fire, rage radiating off of him so strongly that the others around him took a step back, making him feel alone. It didn’t matter. He didn’t need them to have his back. He’d dealt with this all his life. His mother had fluttered between trying to shield him and turning away and pretending nothing was happening. Fuyumi and Natsuo hadn’t understood, their lack of a fire-related quirk cutting them off from Endeavor’s focus.

Only Shouto stood his ground, as if he too had grown defiant of Endeavor’s ways, but he hadn’t been like that the last time Ryouta remembered him. He had still been young. Ryouta reacted to Endeavor bearing down on him with fiery intent in such a visceral way that he didn’t even realize what he was doing. He pulled his hands out of his pockets, his left forming a fist while he threw the other out to his right, his palm connecting with Shouto’s chest, and shoved his little brother out of the way of Endeavor’s coming attack.

It was what Ryouta used to do back when they were kids and he still lived at home. When Endeavor’s training got too harsh for Shouto and their mother couldn’t do anything, he would physically throw himself in the way. It was done more out of instinct now than anything else. That desperate need to protect, even more so now because he knew that he’d failed to do so.

Caught off guard, Shouto stumbled away, his eyes wide with surprise. He reached out with his right hand as if he meant to grab hold of Ryouta’s wrist to stop him from using his quirk, but he snatched his hand away and did no such thing. Even though his heart was pounding in his chest and he felt terror flickering like a light in his mind, he forced his quirk to stay down.

As soon as Endeavor was on him, he snatched Ryouta by the front of his shirt and pulled him up roughly so that only the tips of his shoes were scraping the ground. Ryouta reached to grab Endeavor’s massive metal wrist braces to steady himself, his palms warming immediately. Endeavor was tall and muscular whereas Ryouta was still growing, making the action seem almost effortless. While he might’ve looked like his father, he was thin and lanky like his mother. Judging by that photo he’d seen of Dabi, he’d never grown out of that body. It was just another thing that would’ve disappointed Endeavor no doubt.

“You disgusting piece of villain trash,” Endeavor spat. His flames were hot and Ryouta had to fight the urge to flinch away from them. It would only further prove to Endeavor that Ryouta was weak, but he was beginning to sweat and felt like he was standing too close to a bonfire. “You have no right to be here. You should be rotting in jail for your crimes.”

“Funny,” Ryouta shot back viciously, “so should you.” A smirk twitched onto his face, despite the fact that it felt out of place and he knew it was a terrible idea. “Oh, I heard you’re the number one hero now. Congratulations.”

The words were spilling out of him faster than he could think them through. It was always like this for him when Endeavor was furious with him. He would say the first things that popped into his head that he knew would make his father even angrier. It had helped when he had started Shouto’s quirk training. If nothing else, Ryouta was talented at pissing his father off and redirecting his temper from a scared boy who was just learning his quirk to a temperamental preteen who couldn’t control his own.

“Quit acting like you don’t know,” Endeavor snapped. “You can trick them, but you won’t fool me again. I should have known you were rotten to your core.”

“Like father, like son, right?” Ryouta retorted.

Endeavor’s flames burned brighter. “You are not my son.”

“I fucking wish,” Ryouta ground out. He tried to pull his father’s hands off of him, but his arms got too close to the fire of Endeavor’s hero costume. His arm stung with pain when the fire singed the sleeve of his school uniform and he jerked back as a hiss slipped through his teeth.

“I won’t have you tainting Shouto,” Endeavor swore, jerking him away from Shouto and the other U.A. students. “He’s going to become the number one hero after me while you suffer the consequences for your crimes.”

“I know that!” Ryouta burst like an explosion, unable to hold it in any longer. “I know he’s better than me -- that he’s better than you! I’m glad he is! I’m relieved!”

He shoved harder and kicked at Endeavor’s shins. It didn’t hurt Endeavor nearly enough to make him let go, but he seemed to be done with hi, and practically tossed him to the ground. It never took Endeavor long to tire of him. He was too unimportant to be dealt with for long. Ryouta landed on his feet too awkwardly to stay standing and tripped backwards onto his ass. It was humiliating and he hated it more than anything, but he didn’t scramble to his feet. He stayed on the ground, huffing irately as Endeavor looked down on him with disgust.

Off to the side, Shouto stood with his arms slightly raised and his feet in a stance like he might fight. It was partly why Ryouta stayed on the ground. For once, as much as he hated the feeling, it was better to be vulnerable. To be honest, if he tried to fight back, he was unsure whether Shouto would attack Endeavor or him and he wasn’t eager to find out. After all, for however much of a bastard he was, Endeavor was the hero and Ryouta was a villain -  or at least would be one again when the de-aging quirk wore off.

“I don’t know why I did the things that I did,” Ryouta said, forcing the words out of his mouth. He hated it. This weakness, this admittance of how pathetic he was, of how far he’d fallen, especially in front of Endeavor. After all the pain he’d suffered through, after all his attempts to prove the man wrong and make something of himself, he had, just not in the way any of them had expected. “I’ve only got myself to blame in the end, but I didn’t have anyone to taint me either.” He dragged himself to his feet, keeping his arms limp at his sides as he stood up straight so that everyone would know he wasn’t going to fight. “I only had you.”

Endeavor’s eyes widened in what he thought was shock before he narrowed them. No, it couldn’t have been shock. Then again, this wasn’t an average day for them. It wasn’t like any other fight or argument that they’d had before. Endeavor hadn’t seen him for four years and Ryouta was positive that whatever their last encounter had been like, it hadn’t been pleasant. If he’d had encounters with Dabi, it made things even worse.

“Don’t you dare put this on me,” Endeavor told him in a low growl. “It’s a choice to become a villain, one that you have to pay the price for. You became one of your own accord.”

“I don’t want to become a villain!” Ryouta shouted, digging his blunt fingernails into his calloused palms so hard that they nearly broke the skin. His quirk was threatening to come out. He could feel it in his chest, the need to explode making his heart thump wildly, and his palms heating up, like his quirk was desperate to let loose. Instead, he closed his eyes, willing it to go away. Calm down. He had to breathe. “I don’t know--” He had to fucking breathe . “I don’t know why I did it and I can tell myself that I wouldn’t make the same mistakes now that I know what happens, but I can’t. I’m going to go back to being a villain. I did those things. I can’t take them back.”

And it scares me.

No, he wasn’t going to admit that, but the words hung there, out in the open anyways. He almost growled over it, furious with himself for letting his anxiety get the best of him. Endeavor had that effect on him though - always had ever since his quirk had manifested early when he was three.

It didn’t matter though. None of his words did. Once a villain, always a villain. There was no such thing as redemption, only retribution. As far as Endeavor was concerned, the only bed Ryouta should’ve been sleeping on was in a jail cell, not a high school dorm. Maybe he was right. Maybe this whole thing was a mistake. Aizawa had said that he would pull him out if he didn’t feel comfortable with the situation.

With a gaze that spoke of no pity and certainly no love, Endeavor took a step forward, as if meaning to grab him again and drag him away, and Ryouta instinctively slid his foot back into a defensive stance. Endeavor stopped, his eyes flickering down to Ryouta’s feet and back up to his face, which had a determined expression on it now. “Are you really planning on fighting me?” He sounded incredulous and angry at the same time, like he couldn’t believe that he would even try. After all, how many times had Endeavor kicked his ass in training over the years? “You aren’t worth the trouble.”

Ryouta loosened his body. He could feel his quirk dying down, the fire inside of him disappearing as if his father’s words had blown it out. “I never was.” He stood up straight. “Too many flaws, right? No sense in working with a failed product when you finally managed to create the perfect one.”

It wasn’t a jab at Shouto. Hopefully, he knew that. Fuyumi and Natsuo had been pushed to the side and ignored like Ryouta had been, but neither of them had experienced being discarded like he had. Up until Shouto’s quirk had finally manifested, their father had trained him. It had been a brutal experience, especially since his quirk didn’t fit his body. That hadn’t mattered. He’d been forced to push through it anyway. In a way though, he had craved that attention, thinking he could be strong like his father wanted him to be, and when it was suddenly taken away and he was tossed to the side like his other siblings…

“I should’ve seen the villain in you,” Endeavor said.

“But you didn’t.” And neither had Ryouta. He didn’t understand it. “Bet that stings, doesn’t it?”

Endeavor’s flames grew over his wrists and Ryouta prepared for the worst, but then someone shouted, “Endeavor!” and he caught sight of Aizawa meandering towards them. There was a bored expression on his face, his hands were in his pockets, and he wasn’t walking fast by any means, but his eyes were sharper than ever. Despite calling for the pro hero, he was staring at Ryouta, that unreadable gaze of his unsettling. “You left before we could finish explaining the situation.”

“There’s no need,” Endeavor declared, half-turning to face Aizawa but still keeping an eye on Ryouta. “None of that matters. I’m taking him in.”

Aizawa stopped in front of the number one hero and replied with a single, “No.”

This time, the shocked look on Endeavor’s face was unmistakable. Even Ryouta flinched and Shouto froze completely. No ? Was Aizawa aware who he was speaking with? People didn’t just tell Endeavor “no” and get away with it. Ryouta had spent more than half his life trying to do that. Their mother had. Shouto had. It had never worked and always ended painfully. In the end, Endeavor got what he demanded.

“He’s a villain that kidnapped a student, attacked my son, and was involved in a pro hero’s murder,” Endeavor declared. “Who knows what other crimes he committed? I’m taking him in.”

The flat look on Aizawa’s face didn’t change whatsoever. “No, you’re not. If you had stayed to finish the discussion, you would be aware of the circumstances.”

Endeavor’s flames flared up for a second. He looked like he was about to have a conniption. “What circumstances? He’s Dabi, a known member of the League of Villains. He should be in prison.”

“He isn’t Dabi now,” Aizawa pointed out. There was a hard edge to his tone, one that made Ryouta nervous. No one talked to Endeavor like this. The fact that he hadn’t gone off on him yet was astounding, but then, they couldn’t just get into a fight in public, especially on campus. “The quirk turned him completely back to his time when he was a sixteen-year-old boy.”

“Oh, so you’re just going to let him walk?” Endeavor accused.

“He’s not going anywhere, least of all out of our sight,” Aizawa said. He wasn’t scared in the slightest. Many pro heroes weren’t, of course, but a lot of them were intimidated at least. If anything, the closest emotion Ryouta could figure that Aizawa was feeling right now was anger. “U.A., along with the authorities, has decided to house him here while he’s under the effects of the quirk.”

“So you can attempt to rehabilitate him?” A snarl worked its way onto Endeavor’s face. “If you’re going to be idiotic and treat him as a minor for now, then that’s not your decision to make. It’s mine.”

“I thought I wasn’t your son,” Ryouta interjected.

Endeavor turned back on him quickly, his eyes no less fiery, but this time, Ryouta didn’t take a step back. “You’re my responsibility. A hero has to accept that.”

“I’m your consequence,” Ryouta shot back. “Fucking accept that.”

Aizawa folded his arms across his chest, thoroughly unbothered by the whole thing. “I’m done talking about the matter of a U.A. student in public. If you wish to discuss this in detail, we can do it inside with Nezu.” He left absolutely no room to move, his intent to turn on his heels and walk away any second now apparent. Hell, Aizawa must have had nerves of steel to be able to handle this without reacting at all. Either that or he was genuinely undisturbed by Endeavor’s presence and behavior and didn’t care.

Even the others had begun to react. Shouto had stepped closer so that he was almost at Ryouta’s side again. On their left, Ryouta could see out of the corner of his eyes that Midoriya had separated himself from the group, fists clenched at his side, like he could do anything. Uraraka and Iida still hung back, probably at least a little confused about what was going on since they lacked any context to what growing up as a Todoroki had been like.

“I’m washing my hands of this,” Endeavor declared. He turned his back to Ryouta, facing Aizawa again. “Don’t come to me when this bites you in the ass. He decided to become a villain; he’ll do it again, regardless of when he turns back to his actual age. I’ll keep my eyes out for when it happens so I can do your job for you.” Once a villain, always a villain. There was nothing more to it. “If you think you can save him, you’re wrong. He was corrupted from the start. I should’ve done away with him then.”

Like he was trash. It only stung Ryouta a little. The fact that it did angered him more than the words themselves. He had known how Endeavor would react to the truth, however strange it was in his own head. Endeavor not physically dragging him to prison was the shocker at this point.

“Perhaps if you had been more aware as a father, we wouldn’t be here attempting to clean up your mess,” Aizawa said, an obvious sharp edge in his voice this time.

Ryouta felt as if the air had been sucked right out of his lungs. Aizawa had been mostly polite or at least dismissive throughout the entire conversation, but if Endeavor was done with this moment, then Aizawa was past it even further. Endeavor’s nostrils flared, but he didn’t react at least. He must have actually started to work on his temper. The Endeavor that Ryouta knew would have either raged against Aizawa or chewed him out. Shouto’s eyes were wide and he was gaping. Maybe he’d grown rebellious in the past few years, but another pro hero talking to their father like this was unheard of.

Endeavor didn’t respond. Sensing that he was finished, he turned to Shouto. “Stay away from that disgrace.”

Shouto quickly replaced his stunned expression with a closed off one and responded, “That’s not your decision to make,” throwing their father’s words back at him.

There was a flash of indignation across Endeavor’s face, but then it was gone, hidden by his mask of flames. After shooting Ryouta one last glare, which he returned with just as much fire, he turned his back on them and began to stomp away. Every muscle in his body was tense, but he was clearly trying not to overreact.

Aizawa watched him go, mulling over something as he chewed the inside of his cheek, and then added, just loud enough for Endeavor to hear him, “And if you ever touch one of my students again, I’ll be forced to have you removed from campus.”

He didn’t have to say it - Ryouta didn’t expect him to call Endeavor out on his behavior, considering his status - and yet Aizawa did and it… Well, to be honest, he wasn’t sure what to think of it. He’d never had anyone stand up for him against his father. It had pretty much always been just him, even when he had been a kid. Fuyumi might have said something once or twice, but she was much more soft-spoken than him and hadn’t been much older either. Natsuo had been too young. It had been up to Ryouta to stick up for himself and he hadn’t started doing it until later on, after he had more or less been abandoned.

On the off days that his mother tried, they were half-hearted attempts. She was much more proactive in protecting Shouto, who was smaller and bore the brunt of most of Endeavor’s demands. There were even times when she had tried to comfort Ryouta, pulling him into her arms, smoothing his hair down, but there was that disconnect when he would look up at her and they’d connect eyes. He could see the way her eyes roved over his face, like she wasn’t seeing him, and then she’d begin to pull away from him. Before she could do so, he would pull away from her completely and leave the room.

It hurt less if he left first, or so he told himself.

As soon as Endeavor was gone from their sight, Ryouta’s shoulders dropped and his entire body fell into a slump. He was worn thin from hunger and tensing his muscles for so long. All he wanted to do was slink away and get out of everyone’s sight, but there was no way he could do that now. He could tell that everyone was watching him out of the corner of their eyes, trying to appear like they weren’t looking at him and failing spectacularly. These kids weren’t known for their subtlety, were they?

Surprisingly, Midoriya was the first one to react, maybe because Shouto was an intensely private person and this was not something he wanted to talk about in public. Still, Midoriya stepping forward and hesitantly saying, “Ryouta--” as he reached out like he meant to put a hand on Ryouta’s shoulder startled him into jerking away out of habit. Physical comfort was not something taught in the Todoroki household, at least not for him.

He cringed, opened his mouth to apologize, and then closed it, leaving them in an awkward and painful silence. There wasn’t really anything he could say and, if he was being honest, he didn’t want to say anything at all. This was beyond humiliating. Despite his stomach twisting in hunger pains, he thought he might be too nauseous and tired to eat anything.

“Ryouta, with me,” Aizawa ordered, though it came out more as an afterthought than a command.

Relief bloomed in Ryouta’s chest. He wasn’t sure if Aizawa really needed him or was giving him an out, but either way, he’d take getting scolded by a teacher over dealing with the others at this point. When his eyes roved over them, he had to look away quickly. Iida looked shocked while Uraraka wore an obviously worried expression. He wasn’t sure what to make of Midoriya, who looked torn between concern and determination. He waved at them offhandedly and then turned, connecting eyes with Shouto before turning his gaze to the ground and shuffling after Aizawa, who had already started to walk away.

Of course, any sense of relief faded away quickly. It didn’t take long before his mind strayed back to Endeavor and he found himself falling into that a familiar dark place that turned him ice cold and made him want to burn at the same time. He let out a quiet breath as they walked into the office building that Aizawa and Endeavor had come from. Maybe this whole thing was a mistake. Maybe he should go to jail after all.

Once they were inside Aizawa’s office, he said, “Sit,” and Ryouta robotically did what he was told without thinking. It came from years of conditioning with Endeavor. Every now and then, he would catch himself acting like that and get frustrated. He had to shake himself out of the habit. There wasn’t an underlying threat in Aizawa’s voice (there rarely was with the U.A. teachers), but it was like his brain heard it anyway and reacted.

Stuck in the middle of his typical teenage crisis, he was caught off guard by the carton dropped in his lap and just barely managed to catch it before it toppled onto the ground. When he opened up the top, he found it filled with food. So taken aback, he began to pick at it with his fingers and eat it right there. Only when he spotted Aizawa watching him from his seat behind the desk did Ryouta become self-conscious and close it back up.

“I didn’t eat lunch,” Ryouta said, not quite sure why he felt the need to explain himself.

“I know,” Aizawa replied. “You told Iida that you weren’t hungry. I heard.”

“Oh.” Ryouta set the carton down on the desk. “I thought you were asleep.”

Leaning back in his seat, Aizawa considered him with those droopy eyes that made him look like he was ready to pass out any second. It made Ryouta leery. “How was your first day?”

“Honestly?” Ryouta sighed and sunk in the seat. “It was...weird.” That was all he could think of. It felt as if he had tripped into an alternate reality. When Aizawa didn’t respond, he knew that he was meant to continue, but he didn’t know what he wanted. Half of him was worried that he’d say the wrong thing and Aizawa would take him out of U.A.; the other half thought that might not be such a bad idea. “I haven’t really had a chance to process it fully, I guess.”

“That makes sense,” Aizawa said. “You’ve been avoiding it.”

Ryouta couldn’t deny that and made no attempts to, seeing as how he knew that Aizawa would see right through it. He had a feeling that Aizawa could see through nearly everything. “I want to talk to Shouto, but…” He tilted his head back and looked up at the ceiling. “There isn’t really anything I can say. I can’t apologize for things I don’t remember or understand doing, but I know I did them.”

It didn’t make any sense. He could understand turning away from heroes and even U.A. on some level, but not from his family. He wasn’t as close to Fuyumi and Natsuo as he was Shouto and he and his mother couldn’t always connect, but he wouldn’t leave them to Endeavor. Would he? What had happened in the next year of his life that had convinced him to abandon all of his promises? Even more frightening, would it happen again? Despite U.A.’s intervention, would he follow the same path?

“All you can do is move forward,” Aizawa told him. “You can’t let the past - either of them - hold you back or you’ll only find yourself in the same position as before.”

Ryouta snorted. “That’s easier said than done. I don’t think anyone is going to let me forget.” Which was freaking ironic since he couldn’t remember. He highly doubted that Bakugou was going to sit back and let him live out the rest of this de-aging quirk peacefully. “And maybe…” He leaned forward and hung his head. “Maybe I don’t deserve to, you know? Maybe Endeavor is right.”

“Endeavor is a lot of things and he is the number one hero right now,” Aizawa said, “but right isn’t one of them.” All Ryouta could manage was a sullen gaze. He was exhausted, moody, and didn’t want to be around people, so all in all, it was damn near impossible to feel any other way. “I’m not going to pry into your childhood - it’s clear that you have no intention of talking about it - but if there is anything that might impede your time at U.A. that I should be aware of, you need to tell me.”

There was a lot of emotional baggage that, if opened, would take days to sort through, if not weeks. Aizawa was correct in assuming that he didn’t want to talk about what his home life or what his childhood growing up with Endeavor had been like. With just one interaction, Aizawa had probably seen and learned more about that than anyone else. Endeavor never acted like that with them in public, but seeing Ryouta and hearing the truth about Dabi’s identity must have shaken him on some level.

Of course, there were other things that Ryouta could tell Aizawa. He could talk about how his quirk sometimes felt like it was some sort of beast trying to claw its way out of him, how he could feel that fire rising up inside of him even before he activated it, how there were times when it was all he could do to squash the urge or shove it out of him when he called it up. He could talk about why his fire turned against him, why no one was safe (least of all himself), how he felt torn between putting a lid on it and just letting it take over. He could talk about his shame, his guilt, his rage, his despondency.

Instead, Ryouta tucked it all away in the back of his mind and said, “I’ll let you know.”

He knew that Aizawa would recognize it as bullshit and yet he met his stare and kept it. He’d spent years learning how to lie to Endeavor with a straight face and stick to his guns when he was called out; he could do the same now. Aizawa’s eyes narrowed briefly. Maybe.

“In the meantime, some funds have been allocated to an account to help you while you’re here,” Aizawa continued, moving past Ryouta’s bold-faced lie. It wasn’t that he was trying to be difficult, even though he knew that lying right off the bat would cause issues. It was just that some things had been buried for so long that he didn’t see the point in bringing them up. “We’ll figure out something more permanent later on.”

“I figured you’d just have me scrub Lunch Rush’s dishes in order to pay for my meals,” Ryouta quipped. Endeavor hated it whenever someone deflected with humor - he found it annoying and weak - so of course, Ryouta had made a habit of it starting when he was around ten.

“Don’t tempt me,” Aizawa responded without missing a beat. “I’ve heard manual labor builds character.”

Oh, damn. Ryouta raised his eyebrows. Aizawa was not here to play. He clearly wasn’t the new teacher anymore. It wasn’t going to be easy getting anything past him, not like his teachers before. They’d been good and excellent heroes in their own right, but they hadn’t been terribly observant when it came to students outside of the hero course. It wasn’t their fault. U.A. was built around being the top hero school in the world, not top gen ed school. It hadn’t been difficult to stay under the radar despite his quirk accidents.

He couldn’t do that now, seeing as how he was not only in the hero course, but would turn back into a killer. He wasn’t just on the radar now; he was the target. His best bet would be to get out of here so that he wouldn’t be under Aizawa’s scrutinization any longer than necessary.

Grabbing the carton of food off the desk, Ryouta asked, “Is there anything else you needed from me or…?”

“You’re free to leave,” Aizawa said, his attention already turning to the essays stacked on the left side of his desk.

“Right, cool then.” Ryouta nodded his head and stood up, holding the carton close to his chest. Free to leave. That was funny. He hadn’t been free since, well…  Since he’d been a villain. Strange to think that was the only time he had probably been free was when he had been a criminal.

“I’m serious when I say that you need to speak up if there’s something wrong,” Aizawa told him. Ryouta froze in the middle of turning to the door and glanced back at Aizawa. He hadn’t even bothered to look up from the papers that he was flipping through. “I can’t help you if you keep things from me.”

Ryouta forced an even expression onto his face. “I know.”

“I don’t care if it’s humiliating, shameful, or just plain annoying,” Aizawa continued, finally lifting his gaze. “U.A. is going out on a limb doing this for you.” Of course he knew that. He couldn’t forget it if he tried. “If you truly don’t want to repeat your future, you’ll work with us.”

“Understood, sir,” Ryouta said with as much deference he could muster. Hopefully, it was enough to appease Aizawa, but from what he’d heard about the hero course, the man probably had precognition about when his students were about to do something stupid.

After lifting the box for a moment to give his thanks, Ryouta all but booked it out of the office. All he wanted right now was some peace and quiet. He didn’t think for a second that he would be left completely alone, but there was a tree on the campus grounds that he liked to eat lunch sometimes when the grand mess hall felt too crowded. They would hopefully give him some space there before he made his way back to the dorms. He didn’t want to face the others just yet. He knew that they’d greet him with a mixture of wariness and concern. Mostly though, he wanted to figure out what to say to Shouto. It had to be done sooner or later.

Shouto had been waiting four years for an explanation for why Ryouta had left and he still couldn’t give it to him, if only because he didn’t know himself. Still, his little brother deserved something and it was a big brother’s responsibility to give him that.

@mistystarshine notes: I hope you like drama, because you just got bludgeoned by it! No apologies. Theoretically, the chapter could have been split up, but it flowed smoothly enough that we couldn’t find a nice stopping point and didn’t want to leave at one that felt unnatural or give you two cliffhangers in a row. (Plus I want to stick to my promise that the intentionally-planned cliffhangers will only get worse.) So a long chapter it is! It is the first and will not be the last. Personally, I’m excited to see what you think of it!

Endeavor. Is. An. Ass. However, while he has done horrible things, his actions are inexcusable, and I, personally, loathe him, we will be striving to remain in character, so you shouldn’t have to worry about excessive bashing. It is also worth noting that Ryouta is NOT a reliable narrator. (Ohmytheon: This directly affects the characters and how he perceives them, so if they seem a little off at times...) Do I mention this because it impacts Endeavor to some small degree? Other things? Who knows - I sure ain’t telling.

We also have a bit of trivia for you! Ohmytheon thought this one up and I fully support it. That thing Aizawa said about the school providing funding for Ryouta? A lie. He’s paying for him out of pocket. As a pro hero who lives the vagrant lifestyle, he can afford it. (Ohmytheon: Dadzawa back at it again.)

By the way, did you notice the chapter titles? We have a long playlist for this fic and have decided to slowly share it with you by using song lyrics as titles. Not only will they will generally tie into the chapter in question in some way, but some songs may be used as reoccurring themes (the benefit of using lyrics instead of the song titles themselves) or contain bits of foreshadowing, so it’s worth looking up the songs themselves.

Finally! The way the fic works is that Ohmytheon does the bulk of the writing (she writes chronologically), plots with me, entertains my rambles, and betas and fact checks with my writing - I plot with her, ramble about my ideas, beta, sometimes research and fact-check, and slowly write, chaotic, non-chronological fashion. Thus far, I’ve contributed a few pieces of dialogue, but the next chapter is actually going to be the first to contain prose written by me. It’s not a whole lot, but ya’ll are going to have to put up with it anyway. I had emotions that needed to be expressed.

[whovianfeminism]

Whovian Feminism Reviews “World Enough and Time”

“World Enough and Time” is an episode of Doctor Who that is very self-aware – of its own history, of its own tropes and cliches, and of the community that follows this show so passionately. This results in some truly delightful fan-service that lightens what might otherwise be an unbearably grim and horrifying episode. But that self-awareness falters when it comes to the treatment of Bill Potts and her fans, who were handed a brutal episode that came right to the edge of fridging the first lesbian companion and second black woman companion. With one episode left in the season, there’s still time to pull out a happy ending for Bill. But I’m not sure it will make up for everything Bill and her fans will have been through to get her there.

Even though the end of this episode left me feeling conflicted, I sure as hell enjoyed the ride. Steven Moffat has always been good at creating stories that creatively play with time travel, and parking a massive spaceship right next to a black hole is such a fun way to mess with time. Director Rachel Talalay perfectly paces the transition between the two time zones, creating a story that flows from one timeline to the next instead of giving us narrative whiplash. But what she’ll probably be most remembered for in this episode is making the Mondassian Cybermen truly, bone-chillingly scary. There was always something eerie about their sing-song voices and cold logic. But Talalay brings the body horror to the forefront of their genesis, emphasizing their unceasing pain and letting the audience’s unease build steadily until it’s almost unbearable by the time Bill is converted.

But while the Mondassian Cybermen loom over this episode, this story is firmly about the Doctor and the Master’s friendship and enmity. The Doctor’s test isn’t just an opportunity for Missy to escape her prison in the Vault. It’s the culmination of nearly fifty years of conflict between these two characters. At one point or another, each has believed that the other can be convinced to see the universe as they do. Now the Doctor gets to see if he’s right and if Missy can really be reformed. 

Missy is going along with the Doctor … sort of. She’s not actively trying to burn everything down, but she’s definitely going to do things her own way. And if she’s going to endure this exercise, she’s going to poke fun at the mythos the Doctor has created for himself. She calls the companions the “disposables” and names them “Exposition” and “Comic Relief,” which can be read both as a commentary on the Doctor and a meta commentary on the show itself. There’s even a long bit about whether he’s called “The Doctor” or “Doctor Who,” a reference to the insufferably long-running argument in fan circles about how to refer to the character. (The answer is that both are fine; Missy cheekily tells us to “check our screens,” reminding us that in the Classic series, the character was named “Dr. Who” in the credits!) 

In contrast, John Simm stands out as the quintessential Master. His portrayal here is a more toned-down version of the Master from the Russell T. Davies years, and he’s leaned hard into the Classic Master tropes. He’s got the beard and the high-collared black jacket. He spends most of this episode disguised in a rubber mask. He even calls Bill “my dear.” Get some hypnosis and the TCE in the next episode and he’ll have checked off all the boxes. I should’ve figured out who he was much earlier in the episode, but John Simm’s acting and prosthetics were so good that I have to admit I didn’t figure out that Razor was the Master until the moment that he snuck in on Missy (and there was definitely a lot of impressed swearing once I finally realized what had happened).

As wonderful as he is, Simm isn’t just there to provide fan-service. He’s also there to encourage Missy’s worst impulses. He’s the devil on her shoulder, their mutual Id – almost like their Valeyard, if you’ll accept the analogy. He reminds her of all the distrust and anger and betrayal they’ve built up against the Doctor. And if the trailer for the next episode is any hint, it looks like he’ll be encouraging her more violent impulses. The Doctor wanted to test Missy to see if she was genuinely reforming herself, but now that test will happen while her previous regeneration is deliberately driving a wedge between her and the Doctor.

And Bill is just another body caught in the crossfire.

Before I dig into Bill’s conversion, I want to start off with one caveat. This is only the first part of a two-part story. I don’t know what ultimately will happen to Bill, and whether or not the next episode will cast this one in a different light. However, I think it is still valid to examine and critique this episode based on the information we have so far. This episode wanted to leave us with feelings of shock and horror for a week, so it’s valid to examine those feelings and the communities they impact the hardest. And regardless of Bill’s ultimate fate in the next episode, it is valid to examine whether the events that took place in this episode were problematic.

I would argue that they were. Although Bill isn’t dead, this episode goes right to the edge of fridging her. She has practically no agency in this episode, and everything that happens to her is in service to someone else’s story. She is shot and converted into a Cyberman to further the conflict between the Doctor and the Master. Everything that happens to her is done so we can explore the Doctor’s feelings – his guilt and pain over pressuring Bill into this situation, his conflict over giving the Master yet another chance, his struggle to forgive Missy after what her previous regeneration has done. This isn’t about Bill, her choices, or her story. Hell, she didn’t even want to be on that ship. Arguing about whether or not we can count what happens to her as fridging because she isn’t actually dead feels a bit like a technicality. She is still violent, graphically harmed for her male protagonist’s story.

It doesn’t help that “World Enough And Time” has some uncomfortable parallels with the Series 8 finale “Death in Heaven,” where another black companion, Danny Pink, is also converted into a Cyberman. Danny was another casualty in the conflict between the Doctor and the Master. And his death and conversion weren’t really about him or his story either. It was about the Doctor’s discomfort with soldiers, and it was about Clara’s guilt over having treated him poorly. Danny does reclaim some of his agency in the end, so perhaps there is still some hope for Bill. But this is now the second time that a black companion has been converted into a Cybeman to further the conflict between the Doctor and the Master. 

It’s also worth noting the level of graphic violence involved with Bill’s near-death and conversion. Plenty of companions have died or had horrible things done to them. Moffat is particularly fond of making monsters out of his companions; Rory became an Auton, a Clara echo is converted into a Dalek. But seeing a horrible burnt hole through Bill’s chest and her slow, piecemeal conversion into a Cyberman is truly on another level. I had to think back to some of the things that the Sixth Doctor’s companion Peri suffered through to find any examples that gave me the same visceral reaction – and those are moments you really don’t want to be compared with.

This is a drama and science fiction show, and there’s always been a certain level of risk when companions travel with the Doctor. We were meant to be horrified by what happened to Bill. But the people who were always going to feel this moment the hardest were the most marginalized and underrepresented in this fandom – queer women and women of color. Women of color have had so few non-white companions on Doctor Who to identify with, so obviously this moment would be felt particularly hard. And this would also be especially hard for queer women, who have faced a recent surge in violent deaths of queer characters, largely to further the stories of white, cis, straight protagonists.

The great irony, of course, is that this episode spends a great deal of time cheerfully showing off how self-aware of fandom it is. There’s fan-service galore in this story … just not for the fans who were invested in Bill’s character. And our standards were already set so low. I would’ve been happy if she came out at the end of this season alive and whole. I would’ve given bonus points if she was happy and with a girlfriend.

I don’t think Bill was shot or converted because of any particular animus or prejudice against her character. There was a story that they wanted to tell between the Doctor and the Master, and what happened to Bill was necessary to further that story. I think it just shows the carelessness with which her character was handled. It’s all well and good to represent a black lesbian woman on TV, but that comes with a certain amount of responsibility. And even if this is all magically undone by the end of the next episode, nothing will erase how Bill’s pain and suffering was used to further the conflict between the Doctor and the Master. And nothing will erase the sight of Bill with a hole through her chest or crying in pain beneath the Cyberman mask from the memories of women of color and queer fans.

[notconsolation]

alright here we go, the moment i've been waiting for all my life: holding onto you, addict with a pen, isle of flightless birds, taxi cab, kitchen sink, lane boy aaaandddd doubt

The buildup has been a long time coming but I think this is the true pinnacle of both of our existences. So. Heads up I think this turned into a mini rant about my feelings on each song. It turns out I don’t half ass things when it comes to music. Be warned. This is really freaking long.

Holding on to youGoddamn this song is so genius, especially in its relative simplicity (relative to their other songs - it has fewer layers, fewer different synths, the repetitive keyboard track that forms the basis keeps a beat in such a way that the drums are free to be more of a tool for emphasis and emotion than timekeeping agh oh god I could go on for a long time) and the entire second verse is Tyler at the peak of his talent for taking these painful pictures and notions of suicide and pain and internal darkness and focusing them in a way that makes me want to belt it out full of emotion, and also the “it ain’t the speakers that bump hearts, it’s our hearts that make the beat” !!!!!!!! The motto by which my heart keeps pounding against my ribcage. But I think it’s got to be: “and now that I write and think about it and the story unfolds, you should take my life, you should take my soul” because to me it’s about how expressing things through writing and creating just allows you to rethink everything and whenever I create anything I want to give it my entire lifeblood and pour my soul into it, so the “you should take my life, you should take my soul” is both about these intense feelings of depression and the willingness to give oneself over to ones art entirely

Addict with a penThis one takes my lungs and wrings them out like a wet rag. “I know I haven’t been the best of sons”. I think it has to be that. But the water imagery. I know I’ve talked somewhere on here about my penchant for water imagery and the semantic field of religious imagery and saving and drowning and good lord does this one play into that. I remember falling asleep once while singing this to myself and just crying and it was beautiful and cathartic.

Isle of flightless birdsSo this song I love mainly for the catchy and fast drum beat that introduces the song along with the keyboard with a synth distortion that for whatever reason makes me think of renaissance fairs. Also because Tyler doesn’t use B major very often so it feels kind of special because (you guys I don’t know how many of you I’m losing to this music jargon but it gets me so excited) it’s got this warm and vaguely nasal sound to it that I just,,, okay I realize I’m way off track. Not terribly profound but I really like: “and time will fly by and the sky will cry as light is fading” because it’s a goddamn beautiful image. And the idea that the sky doesn’t want to let go of light is beautiful too.

Taxi cabI cannot think of this song without also thinking of this old tweet I think Tyler once posted with a picture of him rolling his eyes with the caption: when they won’t play the old stuff. Because they never play this one.for me this is their version of a ballad in the sense that it really is a story. It always sort of felt like a part two of a car, a torch, a death to me and I don’t quite know why. But. The syncopated rhythm and repeated basic chords which I can’t actually quite remember but I think is mostly a variation on an A chord? Anyway. What I love so very very very very much about this song is that it’s a story (and such a beautiful one at that goddamn I want to read short stories written by angsty teen ty) but it feels like a cop out to use that as a reason to say my favourite lyrics are the whole song. So: “we’re driving towards the morning sun where all your blood is washed away and all you did will be undone”. I have goosebumps even just thinking it to myself. I just. I’m actually shivering. It makes me think of blood oranges and salt and suits without ties and I just. Hmspje.

Kitchen sinkHooo boy so on the one hand I think this song is slightly overhyped. The hipster in me rebels. At the same time I fucking get the hype because the haunting way Tyler sings the chorus, zack’s rap, the idea and thought behind the concept of a kitchen sink being something to stay alive for because only you know its meaning….. !!!¡¡! But honestly I think I’m gonna go with the super simple and profoundly visceral “leave me alone” when it’s immediately juxtaposed by “don’t leave me alone”. The way he fucking howls it, the simple expression of how messy the feeling is, both in sounds and words, the way that the chords in the main instrumental melody line up in emphasis with the drums….! I have feelings. Many of them.

Lane boyI love how bubbly this one sounds? Somehow? And it’s got a sort of reggae vibe? Which DUDE I am so into. Not the song I relate to most obviously because it’s about success and pressure to keep it up so um duh not thaaat relatable but still Such. A. Tune. Favourite lyrics: “if it was our way we’d have a tempo change every other time change” cause yeeesss same you guys.

Aaaaaand DoubtChrist okay so. I’ll be honest this was the last song on bf that I got into. I was at a nondescript crossing in the middle of nowhere in Denmark thinking about why hell is cold for some and hot for others and also thinking of ancestral memories. Anyway. I was super tired and pulled out my iPod and put it on and it hit me properly for the first time. And it did fuckingg hit me. The sort of high strung punchy synths and heavy heavy basslines and the almost autotuned sound of Tyler’s voice somehow rounds it out because it’s about Doubt and the word Doubt itself is broken apart in the chorus but it all sounds so smooth and round, especially in combination with the synths!!! You can see I think about this possibly too much. Anyway, favourite lyrics. For one thing, the anaphers at the beginning of the lines and the way they hold it all together and give it a phonetic coherence that belies the way he’s talking about uncertainty by being punchy and certain. But specifically: “temperature is dropping, temperature is dropping, I’m not sure if I can see this ever stopping, shaking hands with the dark parts of my thoughts, no, you are all that I’ve got,no” because Tyler, you continue to be #relatable

Jesus im sorry what a fucking novel

[rex101111]

I posted 2,409 times in 2021

692 posts created (29%)

1717 posts reblogged (71%)

For every post I created, I reblogged 2.5 posts.

I added 1,218 tags in 2021

#guilty gear - 359 posts

#ggst spoilers - 246 posts

#fate grand order - 159 posts

#answers - 121 posts

#my hero academia - 114 posts

#random crap - 58 posts

#arknights - 43 posts

#baiken - 42 posts

#eri - 40 posts

#anonymous - 36 posts

Longest Tag: 140 characters

#i need to know that she knows she prevented the deaths of thousands of people and i also need a scene of ochako and her standing over deku's

My Top Posts in 2021

#5

I’m planning on buying Metroid Dread in a few days and I’m trying to go in blind, but I managed to catch a video of Samus’s only three lines of dialog in the whole game, and I just want to talk about how cool they are.

The first two are in her native Chozo. and I say “native” because, since she was raised by the Chozo since she was 3 it is practically her first language. So multilingual queen, hell yeah. And it makes me think that, while Grey Voice and Old Bird try and make sure she didn’t forget English (or the space equivalent in the metroid-verse), she does end up just adopting Chozo as her mother language. Just, imagine Samus mumbling to herself in Chozo while sifting through the available bounties, singing Chozo songs while drunk and the rest of the bar tries to follow along, the first time she had any contact with another bounty hunter and speaking Chozo for a full hour on reflex before looking at the other guy and realizing he has no idea what she’s talking about.

Her decking someone when they mock her for “speaking bird” (Samus hears someone mutter a Chozo slur at her precisely once before she makes sure no one in the galaxy ever makes that mistake again), her writing down Chozo poems from memory so the culture that adopted her doesn’t vanish, translating Chozo books into other languages and the other way around because she knows she’s the only person in the universe that both can and the only one who would care enough to do so.

Just, Samus clinging to the culture that saved her life and gave her strength and making sure that the Chozo survive, even in some small way only she can appreciate. Just, the idea sounds really cool to me, as someone who really likes linguistics and such. Also the fact that Chozo is, no kidding, an actual functioning conlang now, is pretty fucking sweet.

...oh, and the third line of dialog? Her letting out a visceral scream of pure, unfiltered, unrestrained, burning rage. Which is also cool, for self evident reasons.  

364 notes • Posted 2021-10-13 09:13:49 GMT

#4

as someone who’s never played/read Fate/Extra CCC, seeing everyone in the FGO community react with both unrestrained horror and pure loathing for this weird little fairy is endlessly amusing.  

420 notes • Posted 2021-06-17 11:17:16 GMT

#3

here have a badly made meme

478 notes • Posted 2021-02-12 15:33:16 GMT

#2

in celebration of getting best farming caster

847 notes • Posted 2021-06-26 11:48:14 GMT

#1

whatever cocaine-addled out of touch business man who came up with the Tramp Stamps should be charged with criminal negligence. He sent a bunch of clueless shmucks into a radioactive wasteland where the inhabitants subsist on pure naked spite with the mission of Appealing To The Present Audience To Build A Market while knowing exactly Zero Things about how the people here talk or how savvy they would be to a potential corporate move. 

Might as well send a sheep to make peace with a rabid wolf while slathered with BBQ sauce under the impression that it would make it more Relatable. 

1322 notes • Posted 2021-04-19 17:00:00 GMT

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[likeshipsonthesea]

Emergency Dance Party

         Nursey walks into the Haus to a familiar, but still strange, occurrence. Loud music is being blasted from somewhere within the Haus, and typically, during kegsters or when Bitty is baking, this would make sense. But it’s six in the afternoon on a Tuesday and Bitty is visiting Jack in an impromptu I-need-cuddles-from-my-boyfriend trip. So there is, logically, no reason for incredibly loud music to be playing right now.

         Nursey follows the sound of Adam Levine’s voice singing about sugar up the first flight of stairs to the attic. He knocks several times, but the music is too loud, so he assumes that nothing obscene is happening behind the door. He really doesn’t think that Ransom would allow Holster to put on Maroon 5 when they fuck, so he hopes it’s safe (of course, that’s also assuming that they’re fucking, but like half of Nursey’s life is based on assumptions so).

         When he pushes open the door he finds a sight he never could have dreamed of. All the dirty laundry, discarded papers, and stray objects in the attic have been pushed to the outskirts of the room to create, what seems to be, a dance floor. And utilizing that floor is none other than Ransom and… Dex.

         A dance party has broken out in the Haus attic, including Ransom, the typical stressed out ecosystem who definitely has a test tomorrow, and Dex, resident poindexter. Like, literally. And not only that, but the playlist seems to consists of mostly fast-beat pop songs and angry teen music. He’s pretty sure he heard some Black Parade on when he first walked into the Haus. Now he’s drifting into thoughts of Dex wearing eyeliner and ripped black jeans and… what was happening?

         Oh yeah, freak event dance party.

         “What the hell?” he yells over the music. Only Ransom seems to hear him, or notice him, as Dex is currently yelling along with Train about driving by at the attic windows, which don’t face the door.

         Ransom doesn’t stop dancing, just considers Nursey for a moment before yelling, “Join in or get out!” over the music. Nursey weighs his options and then steps into the room, closing the door behind him.

         The effect is immediate. With the door closed, the vibrations have nowhere to go but in, making the attic rattle with the sound. Ransom seems to have borrowed Holster’s beautifully large speakers for the party, and they make it so loud that Nursey almost feels like he can see the music. Like that episode of Magic School Bus when Ms. Frizz gave all the kids those glasses that let them see sound.

         Nursey is a good dancer, okay, he grew up in New York and his parents were sure to sign him up for every dance lesson they could to further integrate him into the socialite scene, so he knows everything from bachata to ballroom. He is, without a doubt, a good dancer, but every bit of his experience, his upbringing and training, seems to disappear the moment that Harry Styles croons out the first words to Midnight Memories. He starts bopping and jumping, like some teen version of Jersey Shore, and he moves his hips the way one of those figure hula dancers that truckers have on their dash boards do.

         They go through so many songs that he recognizes, but never liked enough to download. Carly Rae Jepson laments her silent cell phone, baby is said so many times that it loses meaning by the time Justin’s done, Don’t Ed warns them over and over again, Hot Chelle Rae comes back for three minutes and eight seconds to tell them that they like it like that. Talk Dirty to Me gets significant attention, as they all do the Egyptian dance and wiggle their hips like a snake being hypnotized by a flute moves its body.

         Dex doesn’t seem to notice Nursey’s presence. It’s weird, and improbable, as the attic is fairly small and none of them seem too preoccupied with where their limbs are going, but his eyes are closed and he mostly just stays in his part of the room, shaking his head and dancing like an uncaring, drunk Sim.

It’s not until Mr. Brightside pokes his head out that Dex opens his eyes. When he does, his sees Nursey, pauses for a moment, and then turns to Ransom without any acknowledgement. He and Ransom begin jumping in earnest, in time with the beat, and start screaming SWIMMING THROUGH SICK LULLABIES, CHOKING ON YOUR ALIBIS with all the force of Cameron Diaz in The Holiday, drunk and emotional, and they don’t seem to be either. They’re jumping in sync, two large defensive hockey players, and Nursey half-expects the floor to crumble out from under them. It’s intoxicating, magnetic, and Nursey moves closer so they form a pseudo-triangle-circle-thing and they jump together, screaming.

         Nothing matters for that time. It might be on repeat, for all Nursey knows. He feels like he yells Mr. Brightside so many times that the words have carved canyons into his throat with how they scratched their way out. Nursey might be sweating, even though it’s December and the Haus heating is absolute shit, especially in the attic. He can’t feel his feet or his mouth or his hands. All he feels is the music against his skin, he can taste it, touch it. It’s no longer coming from the speakers; it’s coming from inside him. He swallowed a speaker and now he will forever be consumed with it was only a kiss, it was only a kiss.

         The song ends, abruptly, painfully, viscerally. It seems to be the end of the playlist. The three of them stand there, breathing heavily as their own mortality returns as well as the need for oxygen. Nursey’s whole body aches, like after suicides. He could sleep for a year, sleep through the essay deadline that’s been haunting him for a week. Similar emotions cross over Ransom’s and Dex’s faces. It might be why they did this, Nursey thinks.

         Finally, Dex breaks the atmosphere of breathing, only breathing. He walks over to the desk that Ransom and Holster share- how they do, Nursey will never know, as they have very different organization styles- and picks up his backpack. He salutes Ransom, says “Thanks,”, and walks out of the attic, leaving the door open. Nursey wishes he wouldn’t; all the music is escaping and he can feel the buzz leaving his skin.

         “What was that?” Nursey asks after a minute, his voice shredded like curtains a cat has used as a toy. He’s never had a cat. Not that it’s relevant. Maybe the Haus should get a cat.

         “Emergency Dance Party,” Ransom says, sitting down on the bottom bunk. Nursey has always wondered about that bunk. It seems entirely impractical for two large hockey bros to cuddle on one twin bed when they could easily fit a queen up here. Again, that’s assuming that they cuddle up here on a regular basis.

         “Does that happen a lot?” Nursey asks, also wanting to sit down, but not willing to make it seem like he’s going to stay. He has stuff to do, he came here to write his essay and dig into the gingerbread cookies Bitty left in the kitchen. He can’t stay here any longer than he has. He suddenly realizes that he has no idea what time it is.

         “Somewhat regularly,” Ransom says, leaning back against the wall. “We both get stressed a lot. It helps.”

         It answers maybe 1% of Nursey’s questions, this simplistic answer. Who started it? Where did whoever started it learn about this? Did Holster have a hand in this? Does Holster know that his precious coral reef seems to actually have a de-stressing process and it doesn’t involve him? Is Holster okay with this? Is Nursey okay with this? Why wouldn’t Nursey be okay with this? Is it because Nursey’s interest in Dex has evolved passed the begrudging friendship? Is this whole thing making him confront feelings he thought he could avoid?

         But he doesn’t ask any of these questions, sort of because he doesn’t think Ransom would have the answers to most of them, but mostly because he’s still buzzing. It’s like Pop Rocks, but on his skin. He likes this feeling too much to let it go right now, so he nods and heads downstairs. He finds Dex sitting in the kitchen, working on something on his laptop. He’s got a plate of gingerbread cookies half-unwrapped next to him. He doesn’t look up when Nursey plops down next to him.

         When Nursey’s set up his laptop, the outline for the essay and a blank document prepped and ready, Dex slides the plate closer to Nursey without looking. Nursey glances at him, surprised, and grins, biting into the arm of a poor, innocent gingerbread person.

         The buzz is still on his skin, Bitty’s baking’s on his tongue, and the words of his introduction are coming to his mind like water through a river. It’s the closest he’s ever been to chill, he thinks.

[cloudbattrolls]

You Run In My Veins

Thrixe Varzim || Derevnya || One Sweep Ago

The wind blows your hair forward, trying to untangle your braid as you run from her.

She’s slower than before, as you hear her distant cursing and wheezing. An injury? Sickness? 

A bullet clips your fin, burning and sizzling your flesh with a flare of pain high even for you.

Not as weak as she wants you to think, then.

You run ahead a bit, then peek back. You can’t lose her, it’d defeat the whole -

“Hullo, corpse meat.”

Her bronze eyes narrow with hatred and glee as she grins, shoving her gun at your throat, right under your chin. How did she...?

However she tricked you, you see why she sounds that way; she’s aged in a matter of perigees. Gray runs through her hair, and her face is lined like someone twenty sweeps older. Still, her voice sounds the same, only laden with resentment instead of the dry drawl from perigees back.

The gun pulses beneath your chin. For the first time in sweeps, a shiver of fear runs through you. 

“Do you know this place?”

She blinks before her eyes harden into suspicion.

“What’s it matter? You’re gonna die here, and I’m gonna go sell your carcass to the highest damn bidder.”

You gesture to the mural you let her capture you in front of. Though worn by the elements and time, its vibrant colors depict a circle of researchers, a troll shifting into a beast...and spiraling symbols very similar to the ones on the gun, glowing and, if one watches, slowly shifting across its metal with a life of their own.

“I borrowed your gun to bargain for information about myself - ”

“You bleedin’ stole it, ya rascal!”

“ - and it got back to you the next night!”

She frowns, biting her lip, and you try and regroup.

“Those symbols are horrorterror marks. Wards and banes against the likes of me.”

She hisses, leaning in, pinning you against the wall with her gun despite her height, despite the winces she tries to hide when she moves too quickly.

“So I’m gonna ask you again, mister fish: give me one good reason why I shouldn’t blow your goddamn brains out.”

“Because I’m going to help you.” You reply softly. “A horrorterror did this to you, right?”

She sniffs, apparently unimpressed by your deduction.

“That’s my bleedin’ point. You’re a menace and a plague and all y’all should be six feet under, especially ‘cause one of you bastards ate my fucking life. I don’t s’pect you can undo that little party trick, mister fish; you’d have done it already, or else you think lyin’ will get you out of this.”

Respect mixed with frustration bounces around in you, the gun to your chin is starting to ache.

“Would you like a free shot on me, miss Izzanu? Before I show you something important.”

The splattering of your insides as you stumble backwards onto the mural itself is enough of an answer.

“Damn, that feels good.” she mutters, grinning, blowing smoke off the barrel. 

Such a different pain than you’re used to. It pierces the core of you, seeks to root out the festering corruption in your troll flesh. It weakens your body, and Gl’bgolyb’s mark, enough to let you sink into the song that wants to lure you in...

You wrest control of the Siren’s melody as your violet blood drips down the mural, your fingers pressing into the wet stone.

Poor lesser child, seeking to fuel your own weak notes, thinking yourself isolated thanks to the mark of the Mother? You try to ally with this Gunsmith whelp? Best to forget her. She’ll give you a most inglorious end.

Your wretched ancestor’s voice oozes into yours, creeping, searching for weakness with her cold probes. 

“Show me happened all those sweeps ago.”

A troll like Sochet, hammering away with their tools. A Varzim, dead on the ground, savaged and bleeding. A yellowblood woman with a fierce look of concentration. Blurred images of trolls writing the other memories down, remembering, preparing for a night when she woke up.

She may be a horror, but she can’t help her own rage, her own memories showing you the truth.

You sing it into Sochet’s mind.

The gun clatters to the stones as she holds her head. 

“Fuckin’- stop! Stop it! I don’t wanna see!”

She screams and you cut your song short, fins pinned back in a strange feeling, what is it? You hobble over to the girl who shot you, now curled up on the dirty stones of the alley, eyes shut as she gasps for breath.

You hesitate. You can’t touch her - flesh is...wrong. It’s wrong to touch.

She’d hardly want you to anyway. 

So you call for help.

--

Natasi looks at you with their usual mild curiosity as Sochet snores on a couch in your new, cheaply rented hotel room. You’re on the floor in front of the recuperacoon, while Natasi reclines in the only chair. The receptionist gave the three of you a look that clearly said ‘whatever you do with that bronze, don’t get blood on the furniture’.

The hunter might be happier if you actually were going to cull her.

“Was that the first time you tried it?”

Natasi’s tone is as even as ever, but you feel a coil of unease. Of...guilt. You thought you’d long grown past that. It’s a useless feeling.

“Yes.” You say, determined to keep any unnecessary turmoil out of your words. “It was the most direct method I had to prove I was telling the truth.”

You had no idea it would cause such a reaction. You’re still not sure why. In the flickering images you saw, some were less pleasant than others, but none were what most trolls would call viscerally disturbing.

“Very chaotic.” They say with approval, as your lips flatten in an unamused line. 

Sochet gives one very loud snore and rolls over on her back, chubby figure and long messy gray and black hair splayed, practically half falling off the couch. You wonder how she hasn’t woken up, even with the sopor patch you put on her.

“Wake her for me, please.”

Natasi hums some notes that make your neck prickle and Sochet jerks awake, expression confused, stunned, and then flat out disgusted.

“Oi! You grubnappin’ me? I’m not gonna be a part of your cult or blood ritual or nothin.’”

She scrabbles for her gun, but it’s in the room’s safe.

“No, miss Izzanu. I -”

A shoe hits you in the face.

“I’m not gonna go easy! Not after that fuckin’ drinker and that thrice-bedamned creepy fucker what ate my soul!”

“Please calm down.” You say, wiping off the dirt it smeared on your face with a hand. “I’m not going to hurt you. Nor is Natasi. 

She makes a snort so loud it must hurt her throat, but at least she crosses her arms and leans back against the couch. 

“S’pose there’s nothing I can do if you’re gonna, so shoot, try to explain this cockamamie pile of hoofbeast shit to me if that’s what you’re really on about.”

You suppose you can’t fault her for calling it that.

You go through what you know of the Siren, where you’ve traveled to learn how to defeat her, what you’ve seen. You’ve never told anyone all of it, even Natasi, not that you need to; they often just seem to know. You don’t tell most people things about you. It’s none of their business, and benefits no one.

Sochet has a keen look through it all that you don’t usually see from lowbloods; their eyes tend to be aware and cautious, usually far more so than anyone cold, but most of their gazes never want to linger on your face. Sochet looks like she wants to peel you back with her own claws, words and flesh alike, to see if you’re lying or not.

“So that’s why I saw some older type of me dyin’ in those headaches you gave me.” She finally says, and you frown in confusion. You saw nothing like that.

“Can you describe that for me?”

She snorts, popping a granola bar out of her bag and beginning to chew on it noisily. 

“Why the hell should I? Make myself miserable just for you, Mr. Fish? Plus, if you dunno what you shoved in my thinkpan, I sure as hell ain’t tellin’ you. That��s my business.”

You grit your teeth behind closed lips, trying not to let your frustration show.  Any scrap of information could be vital.

Natasi speaks, and your head swivels toward them as they sit in the chair with hands folded on their lap.

“The Siren’s song normally tries to attract Thrixe with promises and soothing words. When he angered her by trying to use it for his own means, she lashed out, and so miss Izzanu heard not what would appeal to her, but what would harm her. This clearly included events such as witnessing the death of her ancestor, the Gunsmith.”

You feel strangely at a loss. Many trolls die violently; you’ve culled plenty and seen enough culled from pupahood. You’d easily cull another Varzim if you had to, horrorterror or not. Sharing blood never had meaning for you before, and certainly not now. 

“I see.” You settle on saying, cuing the bronze to roll her eyes.

You look into those eyes, judgmental as her ears stay slightly pinned back and her mouth is continually tugged downward, disgust and fear - however she tries to hide it - intermingling.

“I’m sorry, miss Izzanu.” You say. “I didn’t realize you would experience that. It won’t happen again.”

“Yeah, right. You’ll break that soon as it’s convenient for ya.”

You open your mouth, but Sochet points at you, jabbing the air as she speaks between loud bites of the bar, crumbs scattering on the floor.

“You’re just like your kinfolk down there, luring me down when I was just a sprog. None of us ain’t people to the likes of you and her. You think you’re different cos you know more or you can do freaky shit or whatever the hell. I’m here cos you need me and my bloody gun, not cos you’re sorry. So don’t fuckin’ bother puttin’ on airs when we both know what the score is. Let’s just get this shit done an’ over with so I never got to see your sorry face again.”

You blink rapidly. 

“You know the Siren?”

“Didn’t call her such, but I heard her in my pupa nights with my psi. She nearly got me, an’ if it weren’t for that yellow lady, she prob’ly would’ve.”

For a moment her defensiveness wavers, and she shudders, gaze vacant and mournful as she seems to remember...things.

You were raised to discard guilt. There’s no time for it during fights, or after; it slows a troll down, makes them less effective. If there is guilt, it is because of a lack of training, or a lack of certainty, and both will surely a kill a troll in your profession sooner or later.

“There is chaos in him now.” Natasi says, peering at you with those otherworldly eyes, blue slits on iridescent black. “The sharp notes of conflict where there was a steady tone. Very good.”

“Okay, what the fuck are you, because he didn’t explain that in the goddamn slightest, and I can feel somethin’ off’a you but blowed if I know what it is. I know what terror feels like now, and you ain’t quite that.”

“I am a srandis, an otherworldly being made of sound - “

“Never fuckin’ mind.” She says with a groan, slouching down on the couch. “Noise monster, got it. So you want me to cull her? ‘Cos my gun is the only thing that can put her down? I do that and you fix me?”

“We’d like your assistance to kill the Siren, but we won’t force you. Regardless, if I can restore you to your previous state, I will. I believe it is possible once she is defeated, I can harness her power again before she dies.”

Any chance to undo the touch of a horrorterror must be taken, even if you know the actual chance of achieving it is slight. They are a disease unto not only trollkind, but the world.

“How? You ain’t even got the monster what did this to me, to squeeze it til it puts my sweeps back in me. How’m I supposed to believe you can kill your kin? She’s a proper terror, not some squirt like you.”

“She is only an extension of Growth.” Natasi murmurs. “Her bane would be Stasis. If we destroyed her fully, she couldn’t regenerate. Or if her host body was taken from her. She needs a vessel.”

Sochet looks disgusted, her ears pinned. “You mean she’s got some troll down there she sunk her tentacles into? And wait a god damn minute, how can I be sure she wouldn’t try to snag me again? I need protection.”

Sochet has an excellent point. You pause for a moment that stretches into a much longer one as she rolls her eyes.

“Not hearin’ anything useful.”

Natasi raises a hand, a strangely troll-like gesture were it not for the stiffness of it, the too-smooth movement.

“You mentioned a yellow lady. Who is that? Can she help?”

Sochet immediately looks sheepish, such a different expression that it surprises you for a moment, fins fluttering.

“I dunno.” She mumbles. “That were sweeps ago, and they might not even know my face no more.”

She twists some of her graying hair, her wrinkled face downcast, and you feel...oddly soft, strangely vulnerable, in a way you find difficult to fathom.

“We have to try.” You say, unsure why you drop your voice, lean in slightly to meet her deep brown eyes. What good does it do?

She gives you a look, but grimaces and takes a deep breath in and out.

“I’ll go ask ‘round. Not sure where they are these nights. You freaks stay put.”

You want to insist you come, to guard her, but she walks away. You feel...strangely irritated, and lost. She could obviously use protection and yet she didn’t let you get a word in.

Natasi hums a few notes.

A longer reprise of them plays in your head.

Why struggle so, my descendant? Why worry for her? You could be a part of our progenitor with me. You could shed all the cares of flesh. We all return to Growth in the end.

She shows you visions you doubt are lies before her song slips away again; Varzims succumbing to their monstrous natures, either because of her song, or on their own. She shows you the handful who escaped...and how few they are.

What kind of existence waits for you, knowing you’re always a risk to trollkind, something the Empire will have to put down? Knowing that Sochet is probably right? 

No. Whatever the future holds, you won’t succumb to horrorterror urges. You’re better than your ancestor. If you die it doesn’t even matter, as long as you take her with you. 

But living and fixing what happened to Sochet, repairing the damage she did, would be better. That’ll be a good life. You were always meant to guard others.

As long as you do that, you’ll never have to worry.