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eggymf-archived · 2 years ago

Text

forever and always

ft. sebastian sallow with f!reader (one-shot)

themes: angst, fluff, childhood friends to lovers, porn with plot, slow burn, mutual pining, hurt to comfort, aged-up characters (21+), reader is not mc

warning: nsfw, smut, not spoiler-free, loss of virginity, mild depictions of injury, unedited, not proofread

summary: both you and sebastian are aurors who had just completed a mission. however, sebastian was wounded in the process, and the two of you decided to stay in an inn for the night to treat his wounds and get some rest. unfortunately, there’s only one vacant room left with one bed.

word count: 5.2k

a/n: didn’t expect it to turn out pretty long, but i’ll just casually drop this load of filth right here.

masterlist || AO3 cross-post

“What in Merlin’s name were you thinking?!”

Sebastian winced as you cleaned a nasty gash on his chest with a soft cloth soaked in Wiggenweld Potion. In that moment, he wasn’t exactly sure which was worse: the physical stinging pain on his chest, your scalding tone, or the fact that you being angry somehow made you a bit more attractive than usual (not that you weren’t in the first place). You pointed your wand at his wound, muttering an unfamiliar spell: the wound stitched itself back with a translucent, silver thread coming from the tip of your wand. He gave you an appreciative grin while you glowered at him half-heartedly.

“The next time you pull that sort of stunt ever again, I will NOT help you with your wounds, Sebastian!” you huffed angrily, placing the soiled cloth into a bowl filled with water. You headed towards the bathroom to clean up while Sebastian stared at your retreating figure, a fond smile gracing his lips.

It has always been like this eversince the two of you became friends: kind and gentle (Y/N) always worrying about his wellbeing and being a mother hen whenever he got hurt. You’ve been friends with him and Anne eversince early childhood: the three of you were born in Feldcroft and have been living there for as long as you could remember, while Ominis joined your little group during your first year in Hogwarts. All four of you were sorted into Slytherin and were inseparable as a group. Throughout your years as friends, you were aware of Sebastian's penchant for getting himself into trouble and danger, and with how reckless he gets, you made it one of your many missions to study all sorts of healing spells out of concern for the boy. You always looked out for all of your friends, especially Sebastian. It was an oath you had personally took upon yourself.

However, Sebastian's friendship with you wasn’t always smooth.

The end of 4th year was the start of the worst of his Hogwarts years: with Anne being cursed, Sebastian wasn’t the best person to interact with in general. You tried to help Anne of course, conniving with Sebastian by sneaking into the restricted section together with him and retrieving book after book. You had also asked your mother, who was a healer, to help with Anne's case. Unfortunately, you ended up on the receiving end of Sebastian's misplaced anger when you delivered the grave news he wasn’t ready to hear.

“I'm sorry, Sebastian. My mother tried everything. Anne can't be healed.”

“How could you say that, (Y/N)?! It’s either you’re not trying enough, or you don’t care about Anne enough!”

“That’s not--”

“I'd rather be with someone who’ll be more useful in finding a cure. So, if you’d excuse me, I have a book to read.”

He despised himself for saying such things, but his pride was a difficult pill to swallow. He steered clear from you during 5th year, opting to befriend the new 5th year student instead. It was all for Anne - he thought that the mysterious new student would be the key to finding the cure that Anne needs. At least, that’s what he merely tells himself out of his own miserable denial: during his absence from your life, it was rumored that you had began dating Garreth Weasley, so he decided to date the new student out of spite. It hurt him a lot: seeing you give the same warmth towards Garreth. But of course, being the insufferable prick he was at that time, he’d maintain the façade and pride of being in a relationship with the strongest student in their year.

Then everything just spirals out of control eversince he went into Salazar Slytherin's scriptorium. He had already lost you to someone else, and to further add fuel to the fire, he lost himself to his own madness, ended up murdering his uncle in the heat of the moment, his twin sister refuses to talk to him, his brother-like friendship with Ominis became strained, and his “significant other” breaks up with him after the school year when they no longer needed him.

He deserved it all - he was stubborn, manipulative, and cruel. He couldn’t argue with that fact, yet you still took him in without any hesitation despite everything he had done.

It was during the first summer that he didn’t have Anne nor his uncle around - the time when he was graced with a slight glimmer of hope in making things right. Ominis was with him in their cottage in Feldcroft as usual, casually reading a book with his wand while lounging on one of the vacant beds. Sebastian was about to prepare their dinner when someone knocked on the door. Upon opening it, Sebastian was shocked to see you standing before him, holding a small pot of warm food.

“... Thought the two of you might be hungry, so I made extra.”

Sebastian teared up.

“(Y/N), I-”

You merely shook your head.

“Eat. We can talk all about it tomorrow,” you said, handing over the pot to Sebastian. “Also, I’m sorry about what happened.”

Sebastian watched you as you headed back to your home. He glanced at the pot he was holding, his heart twisting with both guilt and a slight relief. You had extended an olive branch towards him even if he was supposed to be the one who had to do it, and he felt ashamed yet thankful at the same time. Needless to say, Ominis was rather confused with Sebastian’s behavior, who was sniffling while eating their dinner that evening.

The brunette male chuckled to himself at the fond memory, but was soon snapped out of his reverie when he heard footsteps towards him. You grabbed a blanket and one of the pillows, heading over to the furniture-less spot in the room.

“You’re sleeping on the floor?” Sebastian bemusedly asked.

“Why yes, I am. You need the bed more than I do. You’re hurt.”

“I was hurt, (Y/N), but I’m fine now thanks to you. We’ve always shared beds when we had sleepovers, so what’s the fuss now?”

“We were children back then, Sebastian. I'm actually a grown woman now, in case you haven’t noticed?”

“Well then, I'll sleep on the floor instead. Can’t have a grown woman sleeping on the floor now, can I?”

You sighed in exasperation, slightly throwing your hands up in disbelief as Sebastian stood up, striding towards you.

“It’s either I sleep on the floor, or you sleep on the bed with me,” he interrupted before you could even protest against him. You swore you saw his lip twitch slightly into a teasing smirk, causing you to shoot him an irritated glare.

“OW!”

Sebastian rubbed the spot on his arm you just violently pinched, a grin still gracing his face triumphantly regardless of the pain as you sat on the other side of the bed. You were blushing furiously, grumbling about how stupidly inconvenient it was that the current room they were staying in for the night was the only vacant room left in this inn while Sebastian plopped right onto his side of the king-sized bed.

The night was still young, but the both of you were too exhausted with your recently finished mission of retrieving several smuggled dark artifacts from dark wizards. Sebastian was lying face up, staring at the decrepit ceiling of the room while you were laying on your side with your back facing him, quickly falling into a deep slumber due to fatigue. He turned towards you, staring at your back as his mind wandered back to what had occurred earlier.

You almost got hit by a slicing spell - the spell that Sebastian had voluntarily shielded you from at the very last minute. And there you were, chiding him about almost getting killed for saving you.

Sebastian's fist clenched in silent worry as his eyes remained glued to your sleeping form. The thought of you being fatally injured or worse was undoubtedly his worst fear in this line of work - the both of you being Aurors and as a duo in assigned missions certainly had its perks, but a part of him couldn’t bear to stomach that you, his beloved (Y/N), always had death looming over you. You never were the combative type - you were a healer, not a soldier, yet regardless of that, you’d still accompany him to the ends of the earth to at least make sure he’s alive. It brought a twinge of pain within his chest the more he thought about all that you’ve done, and he hopes that he’d be blessed enough to repay you for your never-ending grace towards him.

Thankfully, your friendship with Sebastian had been mended for the most part these past few years. The bond was fixed somehow, yes - but it was never fully intact. Despite the both of you constantly being in each other’s company because of work, it’s as if you’re always separated from him by some sort of distance he couldn’t quite explain. Even within this small room, Sebastian feels a wash of longing despite you just being an arm’s length away from him. Is it because of the guilt of him pushing you away in the past; the fear of hurting you once again; or the fact that the both of you are always mere inches away from death so there’s no guarantee if one of you would be even alive the next day?

Several soft sniffles could be heard from you as you shifted around, turning to face him.

“(Y/N)...?”

No response. Sebastian scooted slightly closer, finding a glistening wet trail at your nose bridge. Hesitancy took a hold on him - you were crying in your sleep. He hated seeing that more than anything, and that hate was further amplified by the fact that he didn’t know how to even help you with it without transgressing the invisible emotional boundaries between you and him. He placed his hand on your arm, causing you to stir from your slumber, your eyelids fluttering open.

“Seb...?”

His breath hitched at the old childhood nickname: you hadn’t called him that eversince he pushed you away. Gone were his reservations of keeping a respectable emotional distance from you - not when you said his name in such a soft, vulnerable tone after so long. Warmth enveloped you, snapping you out of your sleepiness. Sebastian had wrapped an arm over you, his palm resting at the back of your head as he pushed you closer towards him. You were about to protest against his actions and push him away, until he murmured his long-repressed wishes in a broken, pleading manner.

“Please just- Let’s stay like this. Even for a while. Merlin, I missed you so much, (Y/N). Please...”

You couldn’t say no to that. Hell, you could never say no to him.

You succumb to the comfort and safety given by the man you’ve always loved eversince the both of you were children, reciprocating the hug by wrapping an arm around his waist while burying your face into his chest. You recalled the innocent sleepovers that you, Sebastian, Anne, and Ominis usually had back in the Sallow’s cottage - they were truly gems of memories that you held dear in your heart: the times when your circle was still intact, carefree, and blissful. Sebastian would often hug you like this especially when you had nightmares, and his warmth often lulled you into the best, uninterrupted slumbers. You could’ve cried in relief being in his arms once again, but you decided against it.

He didn’t need any more sources of problems: not when he’s still in a turmoil of guilt, trauma, and the incapability of forgiving himself for what he did as a naïve teenage boy. You would’ve felt horrible if you were to sandwich your pent-up romantic feelings for him into the fray. Sometimes you wished you could rid him from all of this pain deep down, but alas, your healing prowess is only applicable to physical wounds, not mental and emotional ones.

This moment, however, albeit it being a moment of vulnerability with the both of you just lying in each other’s arms, it was truly a test of both of your mental and emotional fortitude. Both of your respective scents engulfed each other’s senses: dizzyingly pleasant, familiar, and comforting, driving you both closer and closer to the edge of self-control. The questions that raced within Sebastian's mind earlier were now getting less and less hazy as he looked at your once tear-stricken face, cupping it while his thumb gave featherlike caresses on your cheek.

Yes, he felt guilty for pushing you away in the past. Yes, he feared breaking your heart once again. Yes, he feared your possible untimely death that could happen anytime. But that’s not the primary source of his painful longing this entire time.

It was because he loves you from the start: heads over heels in love to the point he’d unconsciously steer you away from anything that would be cruel enough to steal the light that gave you so much life. He wanted to protect you from everything that would reduce you into ruins - most especially himself. He loves you to the point where it hurts.

But with you staring at his eyes with the same sense of brokenness and unspoken yearnings, the bubbling desire he had feared and suppressed had finally broken through the walls of his self-control.

He captured your lips with his, inhibitions evidently thrown out of the window as you returned the kiss with equal fervor. Sebastian felt his mind blank out as the kiss became more and more frantic, desperately pulling you in closer to feel you against his body. You gasped for air as the both of you pulled away, gazing at each other’s blown-out eyes. Sebastian trailed his thumb on your lips, admiring your messily breathless and dazed form - even in such an unkempt state, you were still so fucking beautiful.

“This is your last chance to stop me, (Y/N),” Sebastian murmured with a hint of seriousness in his tone. “I don’t think I’d be able to stop myself if we continue.”

You leaned towards him, giving him a peck of reassurance on his red, flushed lips.

“Then don’t,” you breathed out.

Sebastian felt his last remaining trace of self-doubt disintegrate as soon as you whispered those saccharine words with so much pent-up desire. He smiled, gently locking his lips upon yours once more, relishing in your addicting taste. Having you in his arms like this felt so right - you were so utterly pliant, obedient, and needy for him. His hand reached the back of your head, yanking your hair to expose your dainty neck, peppering kisses along your jugular. Your felt yourself shudder, closing your eyes as you indulged in Sebastian's ministrations.

You yelped as Sebastian climbed on top of you, not breaking the onslaught of his desperate, wet, open-mouthed kisses on your poor neck. He wedged his knee in between your legs, prying them apart. A mewl tore out of your mouth as he nipped on your neck, suckling on the spot and leaving a blooming, purplish red mark on your once unblemished skin. Sebastian growled as he began unbuttoning your blouse while you sat up to meet his lips in yet another fiery kiss, ridding him of his top as well with shaky, eager hands.

Sebastian yanked the undone clothing off your frame, baring you topless before his hungry gaze. He attached his mouth on your chest right below your clavicle while you straddled him, his arm wrapping around your waist in response to keep you firmly in place. Voluntarily, you maneuvered your hips in a slow, grinding manner on the painfully obvious tent on his pants, earning a pleasured hiss from the brunette as your lips descended upon his, tongues melding with each other in an open-mouthed kiss.

“F-Fuck (Y/N)...!” he panted in between exchanges of depraved kisses, gripping your waist as you pushed yourself down harder on him, controlling the movement of your hips to a faster pace. You let out a shaky groan, feeling the agonizing texture of your growingly wet undergarments sticking on your sensitive core. The aching between your legs grew hot and unbearable, and this was barely even the start of the sheer debauchery the both of you were going to partake in for the night.

Sebastian left a trail of kisses downwards from your lips all the way to your chest while removing your bra in the process. Your chest heaved in pleasure as he took one of your nipples to his mouth, swirling his tongue on the sensitive nub while his other free hand pinched and twisted the other. A cry of pleasure erupted from your bitten-red lips as he gently gave the nub a gentle bite and soothing the pain off by smoothing his tongue and giving it a teasing suck. Sebastian smirked as you let out another loud moan while he gave your other nipple the similar brutal yet pleasurable treatment. At this point, he felt his pants getting soaked from the outside, causing his still concealed member to twitch in anticipation as he felt beads of precum leaking from his tip. Despite the layers of clothing still separating your core from his member, he still felt how deliciously wet you are for him, and he wondered how soaked you truly are beneath all that remaining clothing left. The thought alone made him salivate.

He liked this. He liked having this particular sort of power over you - you had no choice but to just keep taking all the pleasure he’s inflicting upon your sensitively submissive body. A sense of impatience soon took a hold of him, causing him to throw you on the bed, frantically unbuttoning your pants and pulling the garment off your body harshly. Your face flushed in shame at the sudden exposure, instinctively shutting your legs close. A glint of possessiveness was evident in Sebastian's eyes as he pried your legs apart, staring at your translucent, soaked-through undergarments.

Your heart was thrumming frenziedly in your chest both out of embarrassment and want, covering your poor blushing face as Sebastian peeled the last remaining article of clothing away from your body. He firmly kept your legs apart as he brought his face closer to your wet aching core, watching it clench around nothingness. Sebastian's brain was completely fried, taking in both the heady scent and lewd sight of your most delicate spot.

“Fuck, you’re so fucking wet.” he rasped, spreading the lips of your pussy before licking a long, wet stripe along your slit. Your back arched, your mouth hanging ajar in a silent moan as heightened pleasures consumed your being for the very first time.

“So fucking sexy.”

Lick.

“So fucking good for me.”

Sebastian kept murmuring praises in between licks, the sinful sounds of slurping, mewls, and groans filling the room as he licked up your honeypot like a starved man. Your legs trembled as he continued his relentless actions, alternating from licking and prodding at your weeping hole using solely his tongue. You felt a single digit rub against your slit, coating itself with your essence before slipping inside your cavern.

However, you let out a hiss of pain, causing Sebastian to abruptly stop.

“Are you alright?” he asked. The question itself made you blush.

“I don’t really know how to say this but...”

“But...?”

“... It’s my first time, so...” you meekly said, avoiding eye contact from the half-naked male in front of you. Sebastian's eyes widened in realization.

Oh. You’re a virgin.

That fact alone caused a switch to flip within the male as his eyes darkened with carnal desire.

Animalistic, feral thoughts consumed Sebastian as he spat on your hole aggressively, the lewd action causing you to whimper in delight. He slowly reinserted his finger inside your tight hole, his hot breath fanning over your clitoris as he partook an experimental lick on the sensitive bud. You writhed instinctively, a pleasantly fiery and toe-curling sensation coursing through your veins as you sobbed in pleasure. The mild pain was slowly subsiding as your body responded to the intensity of his foreplay. You were absolutely dripping, and the sheets you laid on now had a wet patch of your juices. One of your hands attempted to grip Sebastian's hair to pry him off your delicate spots, but he had caught your wrist before you could do so, pinning it down on the bed harshly as he continued the deliciously brutal abuse of your pussy and clitoris using his fingers and tongue. He inserted another finger, groaning at how tight your walls felt around his digits.

Oh, to have his cock inside you - the thought alone made Sebastian rut his hips while he relentlessly flicked his tongue against your sensitive pearl.

Your throat felt dry as you moaned uncontrollably, tears prickling your eyes as your pleasure-driven sobs and cries egged Sebastian to his hasten his pacing, causing your insides to twitch in profane delight. He curled his fingers upwards and suckle on the ball of nerve, occasionally swirling his tongue around it. Your legs began to shudder violently at the frenzy of pleasure coursing through your stimulated body, your toes curling as you cried pathetically, begging Sebastian to slow down his ministrations - a request which fell into deaf ears.

And just like that, you had your very first orgasm.

Tremors coursed throughout your body as you came down from your high as Sebastian slowly retracted his fingers from your pussy, staring into your eyes as he licked the soaked digits - a sight that made your already abused pussy clench wantonly. He got off the bed, his hands reaching for the waistband of his pants as he unbuttoned it, pulling the article of clothing off along with his underwear. Your eyes remained fixed on his as he climbs back on top of you, resting your eagle-spread thighs on his as he prodded the blunt head of his cock on your virgin hole. You gasped at the sensation as he teasingly rubbed the tip along your slit, juices trickling down from your hole. Curiously, you looked down at his appendage with bleary, pleasure-filled eyes.

Oh Merlin. He's fucking girthy.

You swore you almost drooled at the sight despite the worry at the back of your mind if his cock would even fit in your tight virgin hole. Sebastian leaned in for an oddly gentle kiss despite his prior eagerness and vigor. He languidly licks and suckles on your tongue, grinding his cock on your bare pussy as he groped one of your breasts and trailed his other hand on your thigh. You felt so fucking sensitive under him, your body twitching in delight as you received his raw, carnal adoration.

Sebastian, however, was having second thoughts deep down hence the sudden gentleness. He was sure his cock was going to fucking break you with how insanely tight you are, and he didn’t want both of your first times to just be about his own pleasure alone. With how utterly feral he was in the moment, he doesn’t trust himself enough to not go ballistic the moment his cock is completely sheathed within your warmth. Prying his lips away from yours, he nuzzled the crook of your neck, inhaling your sweet scent.

“Get on top of me,” he whispered, giving a brief peck on the damp, sweaty skin of your neck. Sebastian sat beside you, his back leaning against the headboard of the bed, snaking an arm around your waist as you straddled him. The both of you gazed at each other, eyes filled with both lust and love, leaning in for another breathy exchange of kisses.

“I love you, (Y/N). I love you so fucking much.”

Sebastian’s frantic, whispered confession against your lips made your heart soar as you sighed against his plump lips, cupping his cheek as he stared into your (e/c) eyes.

“I love you too, Seb. I’m all yours. Only yours.”

Sebastian hummed in response as he nuzzled your neck. He reached for his thick, leaking appendage as you raised your hips, placing your hands on his broad shoulders to stabilize yourself. He spat on his hand and coated his member with his saliva before rubbing the glistening red tip along your slit to further lubricate it as much as he could. He looked up at you, while you meekly nodded in approval. He positioned the head towards your hole while you lowered yourself slowly, engulfing him within your delicate, wet flower.

You gasped in both pain and pleasure as his cock split you open, burying itself inside your pussy inch by inch while Sebastian’s breath quickened, his hands gripping your hips almost painfully as his self-control threatened to slip away with how heavenly your walls felt. His eyebrows furrowed in both concentration and intense pleasure - it took all of his remaining willpower to not thrust himself up into your warm, inviting hole as he peppered your exposed skin with kisses, mapping his hands across every inch of your exposed skin as he steadied his breathing. You let out a cry of pleasure the moment you buried his cock all the way to the hilt, his smooth tip kissing your cervix.

You gave an experimental roll with your hips, causing a whimper to erupt from your lips while Sebastian’s breath hitched in response, bringing his hands to grip the curves of your ass. He guided your hips in a slow, grinding motion, allowing you to get accustomed to his size. The initial burning sensation of the intrusion was melting away as your body succumbed into the pleasure, your juices flowing from your hole the more stimulation you received. You reached for your clitoris, gently rubbing it as you threw your head back, gasping at the amplified sensations that made your thighs quiver in delight.

Sebastian bit his lip at the sight of you pleasuring yourself while he guided your hips, the shameless image burned in his memory for good. You started bouncing up and down his cock - a telltale sign that the pain had already dissipated as you began to lose yourself into lustful desire. Instinctively, he bucked his hips up, earning an eager whine followed by a string of pleasure-drunk babbles from your lips as you rubbed your clit harder.

“Oh f-fuck! You feel so good. Please, please- Just like that...!”

Despite your wanton pleas, Sebastian lifted you off his lap, causing you to whine at the absence of his cock inside you. You were suddenly pushed down the mattress rather harshly, a gasp escaping from your lips as Sebastian grabbed one of your ankles, throwing your leg above his shoulder while his other hand had two of your wrists pinned right above your head. He slammed his cock back inside your pussy, the both of you groaning in unison at the delicious friction.

Passionate moans spilled from your lips as Sebastian rammed his hips against yours, setting a viciously mind-melting pace. The squelching sounds of your bodily fluids alongside the repetitive slapping of wet skin caused your head to spin in delight, your mind in a mania of sinful indulgence. You were utterly helpless and at his mercy, and you fucking loved it. Sebastian's eyes drank the sight before him: your naked body covered with a sheen of sweat, skin littered with multiple hickeys, bitten-red lips, a fucked-out expression, and your legs spread out nice and wide just for him. Only him.

Sebastian freed your wrists, leaning back as his fingers grazed against your swollen-red pearl, rubbing it in circles. A high-pitched whine bubbled from your lips as your hands gripped the sheets, your knuckles turning white. As soon as he started the onslaught of his rough thrusts once again, your mind blanked out as his cock head brushed against a certain, spongy spot within your pussy.

“Fuck! R-right there!” you cried out, your chest heaving in desperation as you clawed at his arm. Your thighs began to quiver once again, causing Sebastian to smirk knowingly as your eyes rolled back in sheer unadulterated bliss.

“Please, please- oh fuck, Sebastian!” you babbled, drool trickling down your chin mindlessly as your remaining bits of sanity began to slip away. Sebastian chuckled darkly at your depravity, leaning forward to brutally assault your poor neck with marks once again.

“Go on, pretty girl. Cum for me,” he groaned against your ear, causing a high-pitched moan to suddenly erupt from your throat. Your walls tightened around his member as he growled, rubbing your clit as you rode your high. Globs of your essence spilled from your hole, coating Sebastian’s cock with a translucent, milky substance.

Despite just having your release, Sebastian was still slamming his cock in and out of your hole, chasing his high while continuing with the abuse of your sensitive spots. Your eyes rolled back as one of his hands wrapped around your neck in a gentle grip, broken whimpers escaping your lips. Sebastian groaned as you gasped for air while tears of pleasure ran down your flushed cheeks - the debauched image of you so utterly broken and cock-drunk solely for him caused his member to twitch inside you as he quickened his pace, tipping him closer and closer to the edge.

“F-fuck, I’m close! Where do you want it?” he hissed through gritted teeth. You pulled him closer, resting your forehead against his as you locked your legs around his waist. He groaned, gazing straight into your eyes as he approached his climax, burying his cock all the way inside your pussy.

Sebastian let out a long, guttural moan, his eyes never leaving yours as his shaft spurted his seed deep inside you. Your walls clenched and twitched as Sebastian slowed his pace, milking any remaining globs of his cum from his cock. The both of you were panting, foreheads pressed together and staring each other with fucked-out yet loving expressions.

Sebastian reluctantly pulled his now softening member out of your hole, causing you to mewl in response. He laid down beside you, the both of you staring at the ceiling, panting in exhaustion. You felt his hot cum trickle down from your wrecked hole, causing you to blush in realization at what had transpired between you both.

Shyly, you glanced at Sebastian, who was still panting slightly, a satisfied grin plastered on his face. He got up, giving you a peck on the forehead, before heading towards the bathroom while you remain in your spot. Sebastian returned from the bathroom with a wet towel at hand, voluntarily wiping any filth away from your prior activities with him while looking at each other with adoration. You intended to at least fix the sheets for the both of you. However, a painful sensation coursed through your inner thighs as you tried to move.

“...Uh, Seb? Could you please pass me my wand?” you asked, feeling guilty that you couldn’t be much of service to him in this little aftercare session. Sebastian quirked an eyebrow - your wand was right at the bedside table not far from you. You felt your face burn as he gives you a questioning look, silently demanding for an explanation for your peculiar request.

“... I can’t feel my legs.”

#sebastian sallow #sebastian sallow smut #sebastian sallow x reader smut #sebastian sallow oneshot #sebastian sallow x reader #sebastian sallow x f!reader #hogwarts legacy one shot #hogwarts legacy sebastian #hogwarts legacy

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lovecanbesostrange · 6 months ago

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Please know that since yesterday I am mentally trapped in these two panels. There is actually a lot I will miss Krakoa for, but I also felt a bit of resentment throughout the era and this family is a big reason why. NOW that we are in the last stretch of burning it all down and the new X-launch is in reach, we'll get this wedding special. And we finally have all four together in a panel. NOW?! I bought X-Men Unlimited #4 in either fall of '94 or spring '95, solely because of the cover. 30 years of waiting. Let me live in this moment for a bit.

Look at what they are doing with the art! Oh sure, Mystique and Nightcrawler are the blue ones. Pair up Destiny and Rogue next to that to make them look similar enough as well. Only for my brain to scream "but the personalities are the other way around!!!!!!!!". Irene and Kurt work on faith and believe in possibilities and reaching out to be better. Raven and Anna Marie typing this out makes me feel weird are the ones who will kill a bitch and say they will darken their soul so others don't have to. Plus there is the element that they both have lived more than one life and their sense of self is distorted .

They've come a long way, okay?!

Yes this is exactly what it looks like. For plot reasons Nightcrawler was too weak to teleport and dangling off a cliff next to Mystique. And of course Rogue could only save one and before she made a decision Mystique said "I make this for you" and let go. I still like to believe she flipped them the bird when she fell. Because she is Mystique. "HaHa! Take this, you think I'm the worst mother ever, but you will have to live with a moment of nobility from me!" (Also Destiny knew this would come, and she fucking knows there is something good inside of Mystique. It just comes out... different. And needs very specific circumstances.)

Apart from X-Men Evolution (and the X-Men Forever alternate history comic with its very special vibes), we have never gotten any bigger acknowledgement of this family. And Irene has been cut out. Either conveniently on account of being dead, or because she's an old lady and clearly just a gal pal, ahem. (It's also very funny to me to go back to their first appearances, where the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants has the biggest Three Stooges energy ever. I needed Mystique, Destiny, Rogue, Pyro, Blob and Avalanche to have a drinking contest on Krakoa. That is what Krakoa was supposed to be about!! You needed to give us 200% domestic nonsense, fun and games. So it would hurt everybody when it was inevitably taken away. EVERYBODY needed to find happiness in that place in unconventional ways.)

Sadly not my original thought (I don't have those), but recently I read some comment where somebody said that with Irene being his bio-mother, Kurt should have inherited a type of precog-sense, a sorta spidey-sense for teleportation. A natural ability that he won't teleport into an obstacle. And I would be so on board with that. (Also funny, because Ms Marvel had that type of sense and I could pull up panels where Nightcrawler tried to trigger that in Rogue.) Would it be weird to add that now? Sure. But also super cute and helpful.

My deepest gratitude goes out to the fanartists who have doodled and sketched and painted cute family moments for them out of time. Now canon can catch up. Imagine their dinner conversations. N: "Logan is my best friend." M: "Oh, that reminds me there is this blue furball running around with his and my powers. I don't even remember if we ever had sex or not, we're so close in age and have these memory gaps." N: "Mutter, nein!" D: "You should ask him out, you two would make a cute couple. Trust me." R: "You're setting up Nightcrawler with Wolverine and keep giving me grief over Gambit?" M: "He speaks too much French! Wolverine might be Canadian, but at least he's not a Franco-Canadian!" N: "So I couldn't date Northstar?"

Do not get me wrong though. Mystique and Destiny are horrible people and they will stab others in the back. They have worked for the government, they have plotted assassinations of government people. They have fought alongside and against the X-Men. I don't want them tamed or be reasonable. I want their mess. I want them as anti-villains. Because they don't do heinous things for nothing. They like to create less horrible murder events than what could be... some writers just liked to go overboard with the scheming and forgot the sympathic undertones, which I want to cling to. And we deserved a time of peace on Krakoa. Truly imagine a Mystique who was happy on Krakoa. And the absolut batshit villainous energy when it's burned down against her will... now THAT would have been something. Instead of baking resentment into the foundation.

#X-Men #Rogue #Nightcrawler #Mystique #Irene Destiny Adler #wednesday spoilers #sorry I'm so sorry but I can't get over this...#ramblings

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darklydeliciousdesires · 2 months ago

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Light on the Darkside - Chapter Nineteen.

Big thanks as always to my little audience! This update might seem final, but it's merely the chapter that bridges the gap between the time jump coming in chapter twenty, where we will focus on Ella and James at a completely different point in their lives. I hope you'll enjoy seeing their future playing out just as much as I did writing it for them :)

Previous chapters - One Two Three Four Five Six Seven Eight Nine Ten Eleven Twelve Thirteen Fourteen Fifteen Sixteen Seventeen Eighteen

Tag list - In the comments. Please DM to be added/removed.

Words - 4,171

Warnings - 18+ throughout. Topics cover depression, suicide and eating disorders. Minors DNI!

It was as he was halfway between euphoria and realising the need to dial back his arousal a tad that a noise coming from the front door worked in perfect counteraction, James groaning as the pounding of fists upon the dark wood filled the flat.

“For fucks sake!” he growled, brows knitting with the depth of his frown. His mum had obviously changed track and gotten somebody else in the building to buzz her in. “She’s fucking mental! And I’m the one in the family they fucking had sectioned!”

Emerging from beneath the duvets, Ella pulled them back, reaching for the stereo remote control and switching it on. The sound of Motorhead began to blare out as she guided his cock to her folds, biting her lip as she grinded against it a few times before sinking down with a soft gasp.

“Ignore it, don’t let her get to you. Just concentrate on giving me one hell of a good shagging,” she purred, leaning to kiss him, wanting to take his mind off the fact that the last person he wanted to see persisted at banging on the front door. “Mmmm, I love you. And your sexy cock.”

He smiled, laughing filthily, clasping his arms around her as their hips rolled together, once again feeling his annoyance begin to fade into insignificance. By the time they’d finished and the music had been switched off, though, it was quick to ramp up once more at hearing Carole was still on the other side of the door. Once in the lounge, the music was turned on again.

“James! You can play that awful music as loud as you like, but I’m not leaving until you talk to me!”

“You’ll be out there a really fucking long time then, innit,” he muttered, making himself a tea, stealing a bite of Ella’s toast and quickly regretting it. “Babe! You and that fucking Marmite!” he spluttered, Ella giggling as he opened the bin and spat it in.

“Shouldn’t steal my toast, then!” she chirped, grinning and placing a couple of slices into the toaster for him, and another for herself. She’d woken up starving. It was definitely a two-slice morning. It still made him smile, to see her eat what had previously been a scary food. Even if it happened to be slathered in something he couldn’t stand.

Once furnished with a strong brew, he at least tried to ignore the noise he could hear over the music, having to sadly turn it down when the guy who lived above them began banging and shouting in protest.

“Shall we go out?” Ella suggested, being met by a look of incredulity.

“How, through the bleedin’ window?” he snorted. “I don’t even wanna hear her shit, let alone face her again.”

Her mouth twisted into a lopsided grimace. “Point taken. I just don’t want to see it getting to you. I’m worried all of this will start impacting your mental health with her harassing you all the fucking time.”

“Honestly, it was fine before all this started. It still is now; I’d just rather she wasn’t at our front door with her total fucking bullshit.”

Lying across his lap, she reached to stroke his hair, her hand trailing to scratch under the thin line of his goatee beard. “It shows one thing loud and clear; you made the right choice cutting her out of your life.”

“I did, little.” He leaned to kiss her, the banging upon the door starting up again. She’d been out there for an hour.

“James! I mean it, I’m not leaving until I see you! Put down that little tramp of yours and come out here, now!”

His lips tightened, jaw clenching, Ella quick to remind him of what the red mist of his temper could all so easily cloud. “She’s provoking you; you know how she is. It’s all about the reaction with her, the control. Right now she like, has neither over any members of her family. Don’t let her get to you.”

While he would have been lying if he said she wasn’t getting to him, Carole’s antics had pissed off somebody else close by much more, it seemed.

Craning their ears, they heard voices, Carole just about audible in telling someone that it was her son’s flat she was trying to gain access to. Ella scrambled up, taking a look through the peephole, jumping back as she flapped her hands.

“Shit! Police!” she hissed, running for the table and snatching up the weed box, hightailing it to the bedroom to yank up the floorboard to the side of Hel’s vivarium where James hid his emergency cash, slotting it in and lowering it again, running back out and joining him as he loitered by the door, listening in on the exchange.

“Have you considered that your son isn’t home?” one of the officers put to her. “We’ve received a noise disturbance report stating you began banging on the door over an hour ago from a neighbour.”

“The music had been blasting all flippin’ morning, it’s probably that which they’ve reported! I just want to see him!”

The other of the two officers reached to wrap his knuckles on the door. “Police! Open the door, please.”

James left it for a count of ten before turning the locks and opening it up, focusing on the officer and not looking at Carole once.

“Apologies for disturbing your morning, but can you confirm this is your mother?”

“I can,” he nodded.

“And is there a reason why you aren’t answering the door to her, sir? We’ve been sent here on a noise disturbance complaint,” the other of the two officers spoke.

“There is. She isn’t welcome here, and she knows that but ain’t listening, innit?”

The officer turned to Carole. “Well, there you have your answer, love. If he doesn’t want to see you then I’m going to have to ask you to leave. Breeching the peace is an arrestable offence,” he warned, steering her away from the door while the other officer waved a finger at James.

“Here, you’re one of Clive Sutton’s lads, aren’t you? I met you last year just before Christmas, those girls who had glassed that fella at Vodka Revolution. Remember?”

James did. He’d never been bled on so heavily in all his life. “Yeah! How are you, mate?”

“Not bad, fella, not bad.” Police and doormen often recognised each other, being that they had a good working relationship and respect for one another in their respective lines of work, doormen often having to call for police assistance in matters such as more serious instances of affray. “Listen, we’ll take her downstairs and explain if she returns, she’s risking getting herself arrested. If she turns up again just call in at Nuneaton station and give ‘em my badge number. I’ll pop over if I’m free, alright?”

“Yeah, sound, nice one,” James confirmed, just about able to hear his mother shouting something about him being in cahoots with the police from the stairwell. “She’s fucking barking, mate.”

“She isn’t the worst we’ve had this morning!” Offering his hand, James shook it, the officer smiling. “See you out there on the streets at some point, pal. Take care.”

Shutting the door, he let out a long breath. “Ahh, quiet. I like quiet. And sound coppers.”

Ella couldn’t help but begin snickering. “Oh, I bet she’s big time pissed off now, seeing that you kind of know one of them!”

“Innit?” he grinned, moving back to the sofa again, grabbing the phone on his way. “I need to give my dad a call, see how he is, let him know about all of this shit, too.” Calling Alan, they sat and chatted for a few minutes, the elder of the Kingston men saying it would probably be best if he popped round to have a face-to-face talk. He arrived at 1pm, Andrea and Steve absent since the latter was driving the former home, Alan looking very tired as he sat down in the armchair.

“Ahh, always looking after me, petal. Thanks,” he spoke, taking the cup of tea Ella handed him, smiling when she leaned to kiss his cheek. He loved his son’s girlfriend to death, thought them to be a very good fit for each other, too.

“Right, so how’d it all go down, then?” James asked, crossing his legs beneath himself on the sofa, taking a large swig of tea and placing the mug on the table.

Alan sighed, rubbing his face. “I finally had it with her, kidda. I just couldn’t sit there any longer and watch her rip me kids to shreds for bloody nothing. Nothing! She’s got a son she should be proud as hell over with everything he’s overcome in the past year, doing well for himself with his music, holding down another job as well, and a daughter all set to go off to university. What flamin’ more does she need?”

“To make us feel like shit for her own failings, apparently,” James spoke, lighting a cigarette and tossing the packet to his dad. “Cos’ that’s the only thing I can think of, why she’s doing it. That or she’s where I got all my shit up here from, know what I mean?” he added, pointing at the side of his head.

“Well,” Alan gulped, “they do say it can be hereditary, all of that. Wouldn’t bloody surprise me either, lad, with the way she’s been. I tried me damned hardest, told her everything she was finding fault with was all in her head. Said to her, I did, that she’d driven her son away by acting the way she does, but she wouldn’t have it. Even suggested she have a bit of counselling to get to the root of the problem, but she threw it all back at me.

“Watching her turn on our Sam the way she did, though, that sealed it for me. Whatever problems she’s got, I don’t want them affecting you two. No. I’ve put me bloody foot down on that, just a few years too late.” He looked pensive for a few moments, taking a long drag on the cigarette, holding the smoke deep in his lungs. “I wish I’d buggered off a few years before, you know. Taken the pair of you away from her. Maybe things mightn't have ended up so bad with you, eh?”

Oh, no. James wasn’t prepared to let him think that for a second. “Nah, dad. That’s a pile of top grade bullshit. Wasn’t your fault, what happened with me. Mum was only ever a part of the problem.” He paused, puffing his cheeks out, the gravitas of the situation hitting him again. It might have been for the best, but still, he didn’t enjoy seeing his father so broken down by it all. “So, where’s this new house, then?”

“Little bungalow just off Wye Road, not far from your uncle Ted and auntie Janine,” he revealed. “It’s not much but it’ll do, gives Sam a home base when she’s back from uni and the rent is decent as well. We’ll sell the house and divide it, unless she wants to get herself a job and carry on with the final ten years we’ve got on the mortgage. I’ve told her I’ll keep paying it until then so she isn’t destitute.”

While his dad earned good money as a factory foreman, James couldn’t help but worry that paying out on two houses would put him under a considerable financial strain. “Maybe have a word with a solicitor about your rights there, dad, you know, when you go file for divorce?”

“You make a good point, lad,” he nodded, “I was trying me best to keep her quiet, but I suppose you’re right there.” To James, it seemed that everyone had been doing this for much too long a time already, pacifying Carole, effectively enabling her behaviour. Now it had all come crashing down around her, it was little wonder she was so angry. That, however, was not his problem.

He had his own life to deal with, the band’s new album soon to be released and a seven-month tour scheduled to begin that coming April. He was looking forward to it, but hated the fact he’d have to leave Ella behind for much of it, only coming home sporadically over those months. It was the life he’d chosen, though.

Choices. They were something he pondered heavily that afternoon, returning to bed for a few hours of sleep before he had to get ready for work. Lying there awake at 4pm, Ella sleeping soundly against his chest as he watched the promised snow begin to flutter down, he thought of little else but the choices he and those closest to him had made, all leading to that moment in time.

His mother had chosen to become the person she had, not one person forcing her hand in her choice to behave so spitefully. For all her wrong, he knew that deep down she did love him. It just manifested itself in a very strange way. As he had previously asserted, though, it was no longer his problem to deal with. For his own mental health going forward, it couldn’t be either. He had made his own choice there.

Eleven months before in the very next room, he had made one hell of a fateful choice, one that would change his destiny and finally drive him towards the recovery he now saw he’d truly been in need of. He was fundamentally still the same person, but looking back at how he’d been the previous year, James barely recognised himself.

Through medication and the strong support of a wonderful therapist, he’d been given the tools he needed to cope with the darkness within himself, a light finally shone upon those depths. At last, he had a grasp on it, a deeper understanding, and the resources to make sure he never sank so low again. He also had something else very important to him, too.

Looking down, he placed a loving kiss to her forehead. Without Ella, he doubted he’d have survived it all, taken the course he had which had led to him finally getting back on an even path to better mental health, even if that had meant being separated from her for a time. She’d been intrinsic to his recovery, understanding him on a level few did, her love and patience offering him all the support and comfort he knew would continue too, the further their relationship grew.

With her, he saw his entire future whenever he looked at her. She was it for him, the one, as often coined. He wanted it all with her, marriage, a house, kids, the whole package. And god, how he’d strive to be a better parent to his own children than his mother had ended up being to him and his sister. That was a pledge he made right there, years before they would ever come into the picture.

“What are you thinking about?”

He almost jumped a foot off the bed. “Shitting hell!” he exclaimed, Ella laughing softly as she stroked his chest. “Thought you were still asleep, innit!”

“I was,” she yawned, kissing his chest. “So, those thoughts?”

“Nothing much,” he spoke, hand moving to stroke her back beneath her hair. “I was just thinking that when we become parents, I’m gonna do a much better job of it than my mum did with me. They ain’t gonna have anything to worry about there. I’ll never make them feel like my problems are theirs.”

Ella smiled, thinking of that future with him. “How many do you want?”

“As many as possible!” he grinned. “Seriously, just say the word and I’ll be knocking you up around the clock.”

Oh, his way with words. Ella raised an eyebrow, shaking her head as he laughed, kissing her. “Not just yet, though. One day. Let’s live a little more first before we bring small people into it, innit?”

Resting back down against him, she enjoyed his warmth, fingernails stroking over the smattering of dark hair in the centre of his chest. “Sounds perfect, BFG.”

Life was rarely that, though, perfect. It usually happened while you were busy making other plans, too. Three years passed by in what seemed like the blink of an eye, Nocturnal Descent rising to prominence within the metal scene, the guys on a permanent rotation of touring, recording albums, working other jobs around it and enjoying the time they had away from it before they’d be back out on the road once more.

Their schedule did give them a good break in 2001, though, James requesting it for an upcoming event that meant he wanted to be at home for a few months, Ella happy to be taking a short break with her first-year psychology BA final assignment handed in before her second year would begin. It was just after he’d returned home from touring South America that they both decided to go and pay someone special a visit.

They’d returned to see her a number of times over the past three years, but it had been a long gap since their last visit to Moor Acres. The old place hadn’t changed much at all, but for one nurse there expecting their visit, she was shocked to her bones at the change she saw walking towards the nurse's station.

“Eee, now!” she cried, clasping her hands over her mouth before pointing at Ella. “Ya’s never told me about that on the phone!” Truly, it was the last thing she expected, to see a pregnant Ella walking towards her, tearing up as she remembered the little waif made of skin and bones who had first walked into the facility four years before, looking scared and haunted. She was the furthest from that now, her smile a blaze of sunshine.

“Wanted it to be a surprise, innit?” James spoke, happy to be pulled into one of Mary’s warm hugs as he kissed her cheek.

“Well, I’m surprised, alright!” Mary sniffed, drying her eyes and moving to greet Ella, stroking her hair lovingly. “Look at ya’s, pet! Oh, you look well. It suits you, being pregnant, this lovely little tummy you’ve got! How far along?”

“Thirty-six weeks, so now long now until she’s here,” she replied, Mary’s eyes almost falling out of her head.

“Eee! I was like a bloody zeppelin with my first! It’s not fair, like, ya’s having such a pretty little bump!”

James snorted, his hand rubbing lovingly over the swell of Ella’s belly. “She shouldn’t be so compact. You should see how much she eats! Shitting hell, she’s costing me a small fortune!”

He had feared that perhaps a rapidly changing body would lead to Ella feeling some of her old traumas with how she saw herself, plus her relationship with food perhaps rear its ugly head once more. He was very glad that she’d put on a stone over her pregnancy without it affecting her once. Quite the opposite, in fact. Ella loving being pregnant.

“Any funny cravings?” Mary asked.

“Fried chicken with plum jam.”

James heaved at the very thought. “You’re wrong. Top grade wrong, babe.”

She fixed him with a look, pointing at her belly. “Well, you put this in here! Don't blame me!”

“Didn’t hear you complaining at the time,” he scoffed, Mary throwing her head back with laughter.

“Have ya’s thought of any names for the bairn yet?” she asked, Ella beginning to beam.

“Lyra,” she began, her smile warmer than sunshine. “Lyra Mary.”

Immediately, the kindly nurse who meant so much to them began to cry, pulling them both into her arms. “Oh, that’s made me entire year! What an honour!” She’d been there for them through the roughest time in both of their lives, James and Ella wanting to show her truly how appreciative they were to her for that.

Ella promised to call her once she was home and settled again after Lyra’s birth so Mary could come and meet her, the latter watching them leave arm in arm happily a short time later. She’d wondered separately over both of them, whether two people who were once in such a vicious stranglehold from their respective illnesses would be able to fully recover and go on to lead happy, healthy lives.

It filled her heart with nothing but sunshine to see that they had, and together, too.

Sunshine. It was what filled the delivery room with a beautiful glow on the morning Ella finally gave birth to their daughter, the pair never knowing a love like it as they held her for the first time. While her exhausted mummy slept, Lyra lay happily in her daddy’s arms against his bare chest as he sat in a chair next to the window. The summer sun warmed him, but not as much as the feeling of holding his first child.

“How the hell did a foul mouthed, loud music making, heavily tattooed, bad-tempered dickhead such as myself make something as lovely as you, tiny girl?” he spoke, his fingertip gently stroking the soft round of Lyra’s cheek as she slept. “Shitting hell, you’re so pretty, ain’t you? Just like your mum.”

“Oi, church burner,” Ella spoke, cracking one eye open. “Stop swearing at the baby.”

“Shut your hole.” To hear one of her favourite phrases turned on her, she laughed, swiftly regretting it. God, childbirth hurt. “I know I’ll have to watch it, though. Eventually, when she starts picking up words. It would be funny though, innit, if the first thing she said was something she shouldn’t.”

Ella shook her head, quickly falling asleep again, James continuing cradling his daughter against his chest. “You know, before you were even born, I promised myself I’d be a better parent to my kids than Carole was to me. Still stands. Anything you need and I’m right here, yeah? Anything. Okay, I might be off on tour for ages at a time, but I’m only ever at the other end of a phone, and if you need me more, I’m there. Promise.”

Looking out of the window, he thought back to that time, the day where he’d pledged to be better to his own kids while watching the snow falling. That day, it had been a poignant one, one he’d never forget, and not only for what he’d promised himself. He hadn’t known it at the time, but it had been the last time he’d ever see his mother, Carole moving away from Warwickshire and starting afresh up in Glasgow after her divorce from his father.

Their relationship had remained broken, her new life bringing no new perspective, at least as far as he’d known before one day, he’d gotten a phone call from a number he didn’t recognise. On January 15th, 2001, Carole Kingston had collapsed at work and been rushed to hospital, where she’d been pronounced dead on arrival from a massive stroke.

It had shaken James way more than he thought it would, if he was honest, the part of him that still cared about his mother stung by the fact she had died and they’d never reconciled. The side of him that always knew that would happen since he didn’t want her back in his life reasoned that while he had every right to mourn her, or rather the mother she had been prior to her behaviour leading to their fracture, he had his own life and future to think of.

She’d been gone for seven months, and in that time, it had given him much focus on healing not only from her death, but the many wounds she’d inflicted upon him prior to his walking away from her. Through his ongoing therapy sessions with Michael, he had reconciled that his mother likely was suffering from an undiagnosed mental illness of her own.

“Her illness and lack of incentive to seek help with it, are not your burden to bear in her death. Walking away from her and subsequently losing her immediate family because of her repeated bad behaviours should have been enough for her to seek help. If a person does not wish to get better, though, they simply shan’t. She passed away still rooted in her own toxicity, sadly, but this is through no fault of your own, James. You made the choices you had to in order to preserve your mental wellbeing.”

Michael’s advice had been as sage as ever as they’d talked through James’s feelings of guilt. Still, it changed nothing regarding his promise to do better by his own children.

“And I bloody will.” he whispered, kissing Lyra’s head, smiling at her with pride. All the love, care and good parenting in the world would be given to his baby, of that he knew for sure.

Whether it would be enough to fight against the family curse, though, was another matter altogether.

#original fiction #original stories #original story #smutty fiction #smutty stories #romance story #romance fiction

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eryiss · 3 months ago

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[Jet x Freed] Cubicle Capers - Epilogue

Summary: Jet was meant to do more. He was meant to do something with his degree. He was meant to have a purpose. He'd taken a job at Grimoire Pharmaceuticals to work his way up into a lab position, but found himself stuck in a cubicle. Every day the same. At least he had a new boss coming. Freed Justine. He’d be like the rest, though. Boring, outdated and.. hot as hell?

Notes: We're nearing the end, and it’s time to give Jet something he really deserves. What that thing is is up to you. Again, this was requested by @jethro-art.

Links: Ao3, Chapter One, Chapter Two, Chapter Three, Chapter Four, Chapter Five, Chapter Six, Chapter Seven

Epilogue - Two Years Later

Jet

Maybe it was soppy to admit it, but Jet had never been prouder than he was as he looked at Freed standing at that plinth. They were in a conference hall in Vegas, and Freed was addressing a crowd of enwrapped audience members, speaking in a language that Jet half knew, and half didn't. In his defence, it was an ancient Scandinavian language and very hard to learn. The crowd seemed to know it, though. And they only knew it because of Freed's book.

Vegas was the last leg of the book tour, and the final celebration of Freed's accomplishments. It was the first book Freed had written on his own, and Jet couldn't put into words how hard Freed had worked on it. He'd co-written a handful of books side by side with Levy who had acted as a sort of mentor to him, but this was his original. His passion project. And, miraculously, a best seller.

It wasn't miraculous that Freed had written something good, Jet would hasten to add. But it was miraculous that a TV show set around Viking history had used Freed's work as their entire basis for their script writing, and Freed's book had rocketed up in popularity.

"I would like to thank all of you for coming today," Freed said, switching back into English. "And of course, I would like to thank Jet, the man who was there for me throughout this entire endeavour, and without whom none of this would have happened. I'd invite him to stand up, but you can probably notice him without that. He insisted on wearing his lab coat. I can only assume because he wants to remind us scholars and layabouts of what a real job is."

Little fucker. Freed had specifically requested Jet wear his longest whitest lab coat. Apparently, it made Freed weak in the knees, and who was Jet to deny him that?

Freed caught sight of Jet's raised middle finger and grinned, before facing the crowd at large again and finishing his speech. Jet had heard it a couple of times, both in rehearsal at on other more local legs of the tour. But, as this was the last of the bunch, Jet hadn't even considered being anywhere but by Freed's side. His lab, of which he was co-lead on a research project now, hadn't given him any pushback when he'd booked off the week's work.

Funny, how much his life had changed over the past two years.

Once the speech was over and the crowd dispersed, Jet jogged up to Freed on his little stage. He had his hands on Freed's waist and gave him a little peck before Freed even clocked him coming. He felt Freed smile under the kiss. He loved that feeling.

"Was the lab coat comment necessary?" Jet asked as he pulled away.

"These people are meant to be likeminded and share my views," Freed shrugged slightly. "I thought it only fair that they're made aware of the stud I've landed. Give them a little hope for their own love lives."

"Stud?" Jet echoed.

"It's an appropriate term for you."

"Not denying it," Jet grinned, an expression that Freed matched. "But hearing it coming out of your mouth; that's weird. It's so… common."

"You've changed me, I suppose," Freed shrugged. "But I can compliment you in a vernacular more appropriate to what you're expecting. You, dear Jet, are a paragon of beauty. A truepenny. A bawcock. Beau Brummell himself would throw himself to the gutter with nary a quip nor verbal dagger to throw, he would be so blinded by your incandescent handsomeness."

Jet gave Freed the stagnant silence that the display deserved, before letting the spluttering laugh split out. "You're such a dork."

"Proudly so," Freed ran a hand down Jet's arm and squeezing his bicep. "And you, my darling, are my personal jock."

"God dammit you've gotten cheesy," Jet grinned, resting his head on Freed's for a moment. "Come on, you were the one that wanted to go to that fancy ass restaurant. Don't wanna be late; apparently, they're pretty strict about that."

"Quite right," Freed nodded, but then pulled Jet into a kiss that suggested he didn't care about dinner at all.

Jet really hoped that Freed didn't care about the restaurant, because twenty minutes later they found themselves tucked into a corner table at a KFC, demolishing a bucket of chicken and fries together. They had been five minutes late to the restaurant, and the host had looked them both up and down – Jet still in his lab coat and Freed in a deluxe tux that Jet had thoroughly dishevelled as he kissed Freed against the plinth – and told them that their reservation had been stricken from the books. So, fast food it was.

Freed looked entirely happy with it, sipping his 7-UP through the straw without even a hint of regret that they were there. His resting expression had changed over the years they'd been together, gotten softer and happier. Jet was glad of that. Freed deserved to be happy.

That thought died when Freed blew a spit ball at him through the straw.

"Seriously?" Jet demanded, wiping the wadded-up paper from his upper lip.

"You were staring," Freed shrugged. "Perfect opportunity, and one that I've no doubt that you'd take if the roles were reserved."

"I'm not above pouring this," he raised his milkshake, "down your pants. Just remember that."

"Go ahead. I'd make you lick off every drop."

Freed had said it so bluntly, and so without shame, that Jet had to crumple up, red faced and squirming. Freed was an ass, and had grown to love to quietly embarrass Jet so much that Jet was pretty sure it was bordering on a kink at this point. It was never anything close to something Jet would deny, though. Frankly, he loved the adrenaline that being around Freed gave him. Not just from the jokes meant to embarrass him, though. There was the ever present possibility that Freed might just kiss him randomly, or flirt with him incessantly, or take his hand as they walked down the street as if it were nothing.

Nobody had ever been so openly adoring of Jet before, and Freed did it as if it were second nature. Jet couldn't imagine living a life without that low lying buzzing of delight. He couldn't imagine a life where he didn't wake up with Freed in his bed. He couldn't imagine a life without Freed, period.

Freed really was perfect.

Well, nearly perfect. There was one flaw that, in that moment, Jet couldn't overlook.

Freed's ring finger looked awfully bare…

———

Freed

While he couldn't pinpoint the exact moment, Freed was pretty sure something had changed in Jet throughout the evening. He had been his perfectly normal self at the book reading, and when he'd snarked at the host of the restaurant for turning them down and seemed normal as they ate. But then he'd sneaked off, told Freed that he needed to do something, and jogged out of the building only to come back five minutes later.

From then on, he'd been a little fidgety. Not in a bad way, not in a way that anyone other than Freed probably would have noticed, but fidgety, nonetheless. Then, he'd insisted that they go to a casino.

"We got to know each other playing arcade games!" He'd exclaimed. "Vegas is like the biggest arcade in the world. We can't just stay in the hotel."

Freed disagreed, partly with the claim that Vegas was like an arcade, and partly with the insinuation that being in their hotel room all the week would be a waste of time. Freed had many plans for their hotel room, all of which included the bed, shower, floor, or perhaps door. Not a single one of those plans included Jet wearing anything but a smile. But still, Jet was insistent, and Freed would do just about anything to make his boyfriend happy at this point, so why pretend he wouldn't?

They played some games, Freed obliterated an arrogant Texan gasbag at poker, and they found themselves idly wandering through the casino, arm in arm. Well, Freed idly wandered. Jet's eyes were anything but idle, and when they latched onto one thing in particular, his grip on Freed's arm tightened and he started to walk with purpose.

"You ever seen Friends? The sitcom I mean?"

"I know what you meant," Freed smiled. "But no, it passed me by I'm afraid."

"Biggest cultural phenomenon in the nineties passed you by, huh? Sounds more like your pretentious ass didn't watch it out of spite. Too busy watching Frasier or something."

"Perhaps," Freed agreed.

"Well, whatever. There's an episode of Friends set in Vegas. They, erm, they put on a bet," Jet grabbed Freed's arm tighter, and they stopped walking beside a vacant, unmanned roulette table.

"An episode of a sitcom set in Vegas, I expect there was a lot of betting."

"Yeah, probably," Jet agreed, voice a little frantic. A little scared. A little like when Freed had first brought out his toy box filled with his more vicious instruments of torture. "But the big bet, y'see, is between this couple. They'd been together for a while and wanted to take the next step so they, erm, well… they agreed that, if they won, they'd, well, y'know… get married."

Any laissez-faire attitude Freed was adopting died within an instant. He watched with wide eyes as Jet reached into his lab coat pocket and pulled out a small black box. He flicked it open – cursed when he saw that the damn price sticker was on the underside of the lid – then placed the small gold ring on the black square of the table. He placed the ball in the middle of the roulette wheel and took the handle in hand, ready to spin it.

"You're pretty much it for me, Freed," Jet said, voice shaky. "I ain't ever felt like this with another guy, and I don't wanna spend a single day that I don't know for sure that you're mine. I love you, man. So, erm, want me to spin this. See what happens?"

As proposals went, it would be sneered at by the snooty, aesthetic obsessed morons on Instagram. Freed couldn't think of a better way to do this.

"Spin it," Freed whispered, voice heavy all of a sudden.

Jet spun the wheel, and as the ball jolted and clinked, Freed could see what it would be like. They'd find one of the chapels, a nice little one that had dignity and respect. They'd walk down the isle side by side, Jet's lab coat a perfect replacement for the white suit he might have worn otherwise. They'd say their vows, promise themselves to one another permanently.

Then they'd go home, and they would live as husband and husband. They would belong to each other eternally, and they would live their lives arm in arm, perfectly content and happy because that's what they'd done for each other.

Freed had given Jet the shot of life he needed to realise office work was killing him, and he was worth more than that. In turn, Jet had given Freed the encouragement and safety to take a real risk for the first time in his life and try his hand at writing the book that had gotten them to Vegas in the first place.

That's what their life would be. Reciprocal beauty, ad infinitum.

The wheel stopped spinning, and the ball fell into a slot.

Red. Jet had placed the ring on black.

"Fuck," Jet whispered. "I erm… fuck, okay. Fuck."

Freed reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out his own red ringbox. A ring he'd known he'd need when he caught Jet wiping away tears during his first stop on the book tour, when Jet had been on the front row and so obviously proud of Freed that it had taken Freed's breath away. Freed had started looking for rings that very night and had been holding onto this on in his pocket every day since he'd found the right one. He had known that the perfect opportunity to propose would present itself, and as he placed the ring on the red square, right beside Jet's, he knew this was it.

"There," he said, voice hoarse. "We can't lose."

"Guess not," Jet agreed.

The wheel span, but it didn't matter. They were kissing immediately, knowing with certainty that they belonged to each other. Completely and eternally.

#Freed x Jet #Jet x Freed #fairy tail jet #freed justine #Fairy Tail #Fanfic #Writing #Multi Chapter #Modern AU #Office AU

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fixfoxnox · 1 year ago

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11 and 12 for SiTO?

Avggahhdhg these are such good ones for SiTO

Man its so hard to choose what I like best about sito because I love so much of it. Like genuinely the fic is my baby and it still makes me so happy to think about and talk about and write about. I mean I've started putting together my playlist for the sequel fic already and just that has made me so giddy because I'm so excited to write within the main story of the fic again.

If I had to choose what I like best about the fic, honestly this is kinda overarching but I really really love Roach's development and story throughout the fic. Just getting to write his slow development from being so attached and held back by his old life and by the memories of what he lost and specifically by the ghost of Simon and that relationship, to where he ends up which is someone who hasn't fully recovered, but someone who is recovering and who has made progress and who has come to accept what he lost, that shit just makes me so giddy and so happy.

Particularly I think that the conversation in the last chapter between Past Simon and Roach is one of my favorite moments in the fic because I feel that its such a good closing moment to wrap everything up. We start in the first chapter with that talk that Roach has with past Simon when he gets knocked out. Simon begs him to stay and Roach is so tempted, but he pulls himself away. I think that was a moment where we see how badly Roach is still hanging on, through not only his temptation, but the fact that what gets him to keep going isn't the thought of living again its of actually finding Simon and a version of past! Simon again.

Then by the time we get to the last chapter, everything is on Roach's terms in a way. He's talking calmly, Simon isn't asking him to stay, he's not tempted to stay. Yes he's sad, yes he doesn't want to say goodbye, but at the same time he's moved on and he knows it and Simon knows it and they both know what that moment is. And I think that the entire journey for Roach of getting to that moment and finding not only acceptance of what he's lost, but joy and happiness in his new life, I think thats what I enjoy and enjoyed writing the most about the fic.

I can't wait to take it away from him in the sequel

As for what I like least about SiTO, that's much easier for me lol. I've talked about it a bit in my discord, but to be honest I am no longer a fan of the first three/four chapters of the fic.

I personally feel that I could have done much better and spent more time on those chapters. I cram Roach's childhood and him meeting Jackson all into one chapter and I just don't think that I did the due diligence that I should have in building those bits up. Similarly we just like immediately blow Jackson up in chapter two and, again, I'm just not a fan of how little time I spent with that.

I would like to give more detail and develop Roach's childhood and his years of friendship with Jackson more. I mean I really rushed past that I feel and I just really think more time with Roach's family would have been good for the story, specifically chapters 20-21 (I think) when you meet the family. And I think developing Roach and Jackson would just help the fic overall considering how much Jackson does appear.

I've said that if I were to redo them, I would like to take the entire first chapter and split it in half. I would make the first chapter entirely Roach's childhood and developing the relationship between him and his family and showing how his memories effected that relationship for not only him but them as well. That would just be the first chapter.

Then the second chapter would see Roach getting his callsign followed by further development of his friendship with Jackson. How they act before they know that the other remembers, the companionship they have even before they know, and really just diving in to more of them, cut off with them joining the demon dogs.

Then the third chapter I would combine with chapter four, its too short to be its own chapter in my opinion. Then I would take what was chapter two, expand it and make that chapter three. I'd include more of Griggs and the demon dogs and their time on the squad, more build up to what we know is coming. Then the end of the chapter would be the mission with Alex and Jackson losing his leg.

Now, yes I have thought extensively about this, however, will I ever actually go back and edit the chapters?? Probably not.

Thinking extensively about this also means that I've thought about what would happen if I did edit the chapters, and here are some reasons I likely never will:

There are probably people who like the first few chapters just as they are. Maybe they're their favorite chapters. I'm not going to take that away just because I don't like them

It may confuse people. I have a lot of people who reread the fic and I don't want to cause any confusion or worry by suddenly changing like four chapters

What I want to change can always be incorporated into the sequel or added in as oneshots in Almost (Sweet Music)

But yeah :D thats what I like the most and what I like the least about the fic! I have been meaning to do a big reread of SiTO for a bit, so I may start that soon and you guys will definitely be getting a lot of thoughts and commentary from me when I do eventually do that

But also I'd be interested to hear what you guys like the most/least about sito, I'm sure its different from me and it would certainly be interesting for me to hear lol

#thoughts with luke #you asked luke #something in the orange #gary roach sanderson #simon ghost riley #call of duty #ghostroach #ghostroachsoap

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adultswim2021 · 1 year ago

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The Venture Bros. #33: “The Buddy System” | June 29, 2008 - 11:30PM | S03E05

The Buddy System! Sorta a normal episode! World-building is ever present in the Venture-verse, though, so we get at least a few firsts. (cool voice) Let’s dive in… shall we?

Dr. Venture launches a chintzy “Daycamp for Boy Adventurers”. Everyone on or near the compound has crappy informational booths, and Doc can sell photo ops and Rusty Venture merch. Lots of stuff happens, but despite that, there’s not a ton of story. It’s more of a collection of fun scenes and looming threats of story. For example: The Monarch is monitoring the festivities using the Moppets. His scenes exist mostly for laughs, and also to introduce Dr. Mrs. the Monarch’s new sexy costume. As noted in the commentary by Doc Hammer, it was nice seeing this costume at conventions. Seriously, when I used to go to conventions, there were so many hot Venture Bros. cosplayers. I sat next to a very beautiful Lady Au pair once, who had little baby dolls that she’d turned into the Moppets. I was too scared to talk to her. Shoulda asked for a photo.

I’m not sure if you can tell this, but I am having a hard time making this write-up come together. I guess what I'm trying to say is It’s a fine episode, and worth watching, but the middle stretch of season three is not my favorite of the series. I’m much more excited about season four. Damn. I wish this was season four right now. I am also high, and not really in the mood for this. I am in a big “organize stuff’ mood right now instead of a writing mood. I am pulling out some boxes of stuff and trying to find new places for them. Trying to make it so only best VHS tapes are out, and the bad ones are in storage. In other words, the shit that makes life worth living.

This episode is also the debut of Dermott Fictel, a bad kid who befriends Hank. He uses sass mouth on Brock and it twists him up because he can’t touch Dermott; he’s just a kid. It’s also sorta implied that maybe he intuited some kind of familial bond with the boy. At the end of the episode, Dermott gets picked up by his mom and they briefly exchange dialogue that indicates that she brought the boy there to meet his real father (unbeknownst to said father). At the end we see a nice photo of them together after the ordeal they go through. The ordeal they go through is this: Brock tries to train Dean to fight Dermott but he doesn’t wanna. But then Dermott embarrasses Dean in front of Triana and also says nasty stuff to her, so Dean basically re-enacts the scene where Ralphie beats the shit out of Scott Farkus in A Christmas Story, which is a great movie, alright?

There is a notable scene which functions as a cliff-hangery act-break: Dr. Venture takes kids into an old training facility that had been abandoned and through some mysterious, possibly super-sciencey reason, the inside of it has become a bio-diverse jungle filled with dangerous wild Gorillas. I mention this scene because I want to discuss how badly edited it is on the blu-ray; they did the thing where they tried to diminish the effects of it being an act break by making it so it doesn’t fade-out or in. This edit jumps out to me, it feels like a fan-edit or something.

This scene has one of the funnier references and one of the darkest jokes of the series. The group of children lead by Dr. Venture and Billy Quizboy are immediately confronted with a terrifying and aggressive gorilla, and Rusty tries to do Ko-Ko talk to it. Ko-Ko was a famous, highly intelligent sign-language-doing Gorilla that had a children’s book published called Ko-Ko’s Kitten. I am of an age to have owned such a book, which was fairly ubiquitous when it was published. Before I saw this episode, I had read a transcript of an AIM chat Ko-Ko did via an interpreter, and Ko-Ko would intermittently use the words “lip” and “nipple” randomly throughout her Denis-Miller style rants. They do a riff on that here, but they soft-peddle the amount of times she typically said “nipple” in a sentence.

The dark joke is that Billy gets locked in the dome, and when he comes out his metal arm is torn asunder and he’s clutching a child’s shoe. He reports that he saw Ko-Ko Bone Tomahawk a child in there. Dr. Venture makes off with the shoe. At the end of the episode, the boy’s parents show up to collect him and Dr. Venture gives them a clone slug, apparently a quickie clone job he performed to make it up to them. When they walk away, slightly puzzled, Venture makes a point to say that the original kid’s DNA was a “walking time bomb for cancer” and that he “cleared that all up”.

It’s sorta enough to have him just be trying to protect his hide, but the cancer bit is a little bit of a softening of the character. In season one he straight up admits to having sacrificed an orphan to power his masturbation holodeck machine, But, I don’t blame the show for just pushing past that joke anyway. I’m sure if there was a letters section at the end of this show they’d address this letter by removing that joke from canon.

The cloned kid scene is a bit of a happy ending to the traditional bit of gallows humor surrounding camp. Like, remember how you’d sing self-deprecating camp songs and there’d always be comical exaggerations that involved the death of a fellow camper in the lyrics? Like the food’s so bad here that it murdered a kid who tried to eat it, haha! Those songs usually fail to thoughtfully address the parents of that child who would spend years mourning him (or her! mustn't be sexist!).

Also a thing I wanted to say about this scene; this episode's ending includes a montage of photos of the event, and there's a brief photo of the triad levitating a wheelchair kid. For a moment I thought it was actually the apparition of the dead boy, and that he died because of his lack of mobility, which is VERY funny, and VERY dark (except for the whole thing of ghosts being real, life after death, etc). I figured out that this is probably not the joke. It's probably just that if you could levitate people, you'd probably go out of your way to levitate wheelchair kids. They would love it so much.

What else? Oh, I didn’t do a sweep of the wiki for this episode, which is usually what i do to make sure that I can steal valor knowing a cultural reference that I didn’t actually get. There is what seems like a very specific Jonny Quest reference in this and the commentary basically confirms that. Oh yeah, there’s more Jonny Quest connectivity in this one. You better believe it.

That reminds me: I was supposed to do a thing where I was going to watch all the episodes of Jonny Quest before watching Venture Bros, but I never did. I thought maybe I’d at least weave a few episodes in here and there, as to not miss vital specific references to specific episodes. Sorry!

Another thing from the commentary that I thought was great was that the opening sequence, which is a commercial for the Daycamp, is a parody of an actual local ad for an actual local day camp. Where? I don’t know. But it’s a talking balloon instead of a talking lightbulb. I bet it’s this There are scrolling photos of children that are actual childhood photos of Jackson and Doc as boys, but they had to edit some of the kids out because they couldn’t find the person to ask for permission.

Hey, I’m not sure people like when I do this, but I’m doing it anyway. I remember I was hanging out with my best friend Andrew when this episode came on, and I was planning to go home and watch it at 11:30PM, even claiming to have a hard out around 11 so I could make it home with plenty of time to spare. It is roughly 8:35PM, and Andrew turns on the TV and it’s playing. He has Direct TV and I didn’t realize that meant he got the east coast feed of Cartoon Network.

I see that the DVR is actually recording it, which means he could hit rewind and we could just watch it from the beginning. He goes “oh, cool. We can just watch it now!” and he just keeps letting it play, all 5 minutes behind. I say “What’s fucking wrong with you, start it from the beginning!” and he groaned and rolled his eyes in a very exaggerated way, like he was being put out, and he literally pushed a single button and it started at the start. A very funny man!! That is my friend!

#adult swim #adultswim2021 #the venture bros.

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setsuntamew · 2 years ago

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highlights from our road trip to NYC and back to help a friend move

telling our waitress at Waffle House about Trigun because I brought a volume of the manga into the restaurant and she was like oh, I usually just watch anime but is that manga any good?

why the fuck are half the rest stops on the NJ turnpike closed right now????

going to Brooklyn for the Uhaul and forgetting to play Brooklyn Rage despite discussing it multiple times over the past week

trying to find parking in Hells Kitchen for said Uhaul

giving up and just illegally parking it because fuck it, we aren't going to be leaving it unattended anyway

sorta planning to caravan because Liz + Pat were in the Uhaul and I was in my car with Chi + her dog, but those plans pretty much immediately fell apart

me bemoaning not having time to go to the Starbucks Reserve Roastery, aka the worst, most pretentious sbux I've ever been to, because my keychain from it broke. not five minutes later we drove past it by accident BUT THERE WAS NOWHERE TO PULL OVER and Chi was like "lol oh well" at my suffering.

part two of sbux: a truck pulled out, leaving the perfect space for me to park in and run inside for a new, terrible keychain.

part three of sbux: THEY DON'T SELL FUCKING KEYCHAINS ANYMORE MY LIFE IS A MOCKERY

getting a huge pizza + garlic knots before leaving NYC because 1) IT'S NYC and 2) there's no good pizza in Baltimore I gotta take what I can get

meeting up at the Alexander Hamilton rest stop - cue Liz singing from Hamilton - to eat said pizza because it was impossible to find anywhere to park and chill in NYC

"What if we kissed at the New Jersey turnpike rest stop..."

"...and we were both Plants?"

me and Liz being cringe, much to everyone else's dismay

seriously tho why the fuck are half the NJ turnpike rest stops closed right now

Chi's dog experiencing grass for the first time (at a NJ turnpike rest stop) and liking it

Chi's dog experiencing being in a car for the first time and NOT liking it

Liz being apparently too damn efficient at driving and somehow overtaking me despite being in a Uhaul

subjecting Chi to many of my Trigun opinions because she was stuck in a car with me for four hours and I have can't shut the fuck up disease

"You bring out the worst in me (affectionate)."

Chi @ me, tho I can't even remember why now XD

calling each other's vehicles multiple times throughout the trip to yell about passing each other on the road and/or whatever other dumb thoughts we all had that couldn't be contained to just one car

SIX FUCKING DOLLARS for vending machine offbrand dippin dots

Chi's dog experiencing yards for the first time and not wanting to leave the yard to go inside our house

Ethyl being the peace bringer and somehow calming down Chi's dog and Lumos and helping them meet

AAAAAND that's it, or at least all I can handle right now because I'm so damn tired I wanna pass out. sorry not sorry for my longass post; it's spring break day one for me ;D

#personal #long post #kawaii laifu with the waifu

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coolcattime · 2 years ago

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The Journal of Katherine Delaney -- Entry One.

This is a character journal I'm writing for my current D&D campaign for my half-elf wild magic sorcerer, Katherine Delaney. It's a custom campaign with the best friend as the DM and set in their custom D&D world: Libris, the great book.

This is kinda just something I'm doing for fun. It's turned out pretty long though, because as it turns out I have a lot of thoughts and also turning multiple d&d sessions into one journal entry makes for a pretty long piece of writing.

This is probably just gonna be something I post every so often as the campaign goes on since I like writing.

It’s been a while since I’ve kept a journal. Being on the move makes it inconvenient, I suppose, but after today I needed some way to process all my thoughts, and writing has always helped with that in the past. Now that it seems I’ll have a more permanent place to stay rather than having to carry a large book around with me, I may finally be able to actually keep a journal again.

I can say with certainty that the situation began around a week ago. While waiting for Leontine to arrive back from telling my family about my safety and the fact I’m not ready to return home right now, the brooch Rupert had gifted me began to make noises as if it was an actual bird. It was an extremely odd experience, especially as it started tugging, pulling me somewhere. I’ll admit, had I acquired that brooch in any other way than a gift from my brother, I probably would’ve gotten rid of it at that point, but instead I followed it. I followed it all the way to a town called Four Hollow, where is calmed down and acted once again as a regular piece of jewellery. At least it did as long as I stayed in the town, my attempts to leave where meant with bird song and being pulled back. So, seeing that I was quite stuck, I wrote to Leontine of my new location (which she thankfully was quite understanding about) and found myself once again just waiting.

It appeared that I’d arrived in Four Hollow at a busy time of year as they were (and still currently are) preparing for a festival. From what I learnt over the few days I’ve been here, the giant crystal that the town is built around provides the town magical power that they’ve used to make many things run automatically in such a way I’ve never seen previously. It’s quite fascinating, seeing all the ways such magic can be used to improve life, and the town’s appreciation for that is why each year they hold a festival to show their thanks. Currently, they’re in the build-up phase, showing off the impressive feats the crystal can do, mostly things akin to firework shows, things that are entertaining and attractive to those from out of town. In three days’ time, however, they will turn off the magic for twenty-four hours, to allow the crystal to rest and to show their appreciation for the improvements it’s given to their life. Obviously, the idea of magic being turned off worried me, but I’ve been assured that it’s just the magic related to the crystal, so I’ve little to worry about.

I’ll admit, I had gotten a little bored of watching the displays of the crystal by today. I’ve been here for quite a few days and while impressive, the displays did little to take up the time in waiting for Leontine to return. I was actually sat watching a squirrel when I was pulled into meeting the group.

For the stake of easing my confusion, I’m going to briefly describe each of my new companions now, rather than when we actually introduced ourselves, so I can use their names throughout the whole story.

Vallana (Val): A firbolg woman who appears to have an unhealthy obsession with killing goblins in a way that’s frankly uncomfortable. She’s at least friendly towards the group, but certainly is more than a little murderous.

Caspien: Val’s traveling companion. A gem dragonborn cleric. He seems frankly exhausted by Val’s talk of goblins. Though he may just be easily frustrated in general.

Maize: A centaur woman with an unsure disposition, but clearly strives to be helpful. Mentioned disliking the ‘fae bourgeoise’ and I’m not sure if I should worry.

Hamish: A shifter man who appears to be part cow. So far, I think he’s the best natured of the group as he seems to just genuinely want to help people. He is a friend of Rupert.

Scorn: A tiefling man with no horns, no tail, and near pitch black skin. We found him ‘brooding’. Is apparently a wizard, though he hasn’t mentioned what school of magic he’s studied. Quiet, but I think he’s a good person.

Dynol: A goliath man with a large ice spike in his chest. Has apparently lived in Four Hollow for a number of years. Grumpy.

Anyways, the beginning of today’s oddities began when Val appeared in front of me asking if I’d seen a goblin, quite an imposing question from an armed stranger that towers over you. I had managed to stutter out an answer when thankfully Caspien appeared, apologising for his travelling companion. The two began bickering, as apparently her questioning strangers has been a recurring issue, but they had only exchanged a few sentences when Maize came by. She had a crate strapped to her back, and I saw a wine glass falling from it. I had meant to catch it; it was just my luck that I practically threw it to the ground. I was incredibly embarrassed, only more so when Hamish ran onto the scene assuming the breaking glass was due to a fight. It was then that the confusing events of the day truly began.

An earring, designed to look like the tags you sometimes see on livestock, that Hamish wore began moving, swinging seeming of its own accord. Such an event had apparently not happened before, and we decided at that moment that we were being lead somewhere. Admittedly that’s an odd idea now that I look at it written down, but sometimes you just have to go with the seemingly alive piece of jewellery leading you somewhere.

It led us to a back-alley pub, completely empty save for the bartender and Scorn. He was sat alone in a dark corner booth, and I think he may have been enjoying himself far more before we invited ourselves to sit with him. At least, that’s the impression that the awkward silence we found ourselves in gave.

The silence was broken by Caspien accidently triggering the loudest noise I’ve ever heard. I swear if I hadn’t been nearly deafened, I would’ve panicked far more. However, by the time that the ringing in my ears stopped it was quite clear that Caspien had made the noise with some magic trinket he had, shaped like an orb made up of rings. It was also clear, thanks to just how empty the bar was, that Dynol had entered. He seemed quite frankly out of it, though perhaps that was just the result of the sudden noise. He didn’t come over to us until after we had started our introductions. This time is also when I learned of Hamish’s friendship with my brother, as he’s apparently stayed at his girlfriend’s tavern a number of times.

Dynol oddly came over to accuse one of us of pulling his bag, something none of us had any motive to do. When we all denied doing so, he opened his bag and produced the broken handle of a sword which was glowing dimly, and he appeared to begin swinging it haphazardly. In retrospect, it was most likely the object pulling him around, but it did seem rather reckless of him at the time.

Either way, he did join the group as we were finishing introductions. No sooner than we were all sat down, did an object that we each had begun to act wildly. I have already mentioned by own brooch, Hamish’s earring, and Dynol’s sword handle, however it seemed that everyone in the small group had some kind of object that appeared to (and likely did) have a mind of its own. Val had a coin, Caspien a spear tip, Maize a smoking pipe, and Scorn a holy symbol. None of us had acquired these objects in the same way, a fact obvious to me as none other than Hamish would’ve had the opportunity to receive a present from my brother (unless they’ve all met him somehow, but I sincerely doubt that). Yet all of them were clearly reacting to being in the presence of one another. Perhaps due to that fact, Caspien touched the broken piece of spear he had to my brooch, which quickly flew off as if it was a real bird.

I don’t know quite what possessed me to chase it. I think I just didn’t want to lose it (though I funnily enough have now) or maybe had followed it once so I just thought it was worth doing so again. But, either way, I stumbled out of that pub and after the brooch as if my life depended on it. The others followed me, though that hadn’t been a thought in my mind until they did so. I’m sure we must have been a confusing sight, such a large group running out into the fields and woods outside of town. I can’t say how long we ran for, long enough that I probably should have given up on following.

I was extremely thankful for the others’ presences when the brooch passed through some overgrowth too thick for anything larger than it to easily follow. Had I been alone, I likely would’ve had to use a spell. I know none that would’ve been great for the situation, and I can just imagine surging alone and ending up unconscious in the middle of nowhere. Hamish pulled down one of the smaller trees, which seemed to just completely bend to his will, clearing a path for us. Maize had leapt over, an impressive feat that put her a little ahead of the rest of us, but I’m quite sure it also broke whatever glassware was still in that crate she still had strapped to her. Honestly though, that didn’t cross my mind as instead I was totally focused on what was at the bottom of the valley we were walking into.

A crashed airship. That’s what we had been led to (and as we got closer, we found the brooch hitting itself against the door we used to get inside). None of the others had seen an airship before (and I admit that I’ve only seen one myself in pictures), wondering out loud how such a large ship had crashed landlocked when the closest body of water is Chicken Lake, which is far too small to justify a regular ship of this size. I corrected them, that this a ship designed for flight, but I had to admit at further questions that I didn’t know how it achieved such a feat. Caspien proposed a theory that its large balloon is filled with water, much like how ships for the water are propelled by air. I’m not quite sure how that would make a ship fly, but I don’t have any better theories.

Naturally, we decided to explore the thing, though it only became stranger when we were actually inside. Immediately I realised the floor was wrong, feeling like stone but not looking like it (and I imagine that it would be a bad material to use in something that needs to lift into the air). Of course, it was dark, so I wrote off the oddity to that, even after we lit a torch so those who can’t see in the darkness could explore comfortably. It became clear that there was a number of directions we could explore: one staircase up, two staircases down (one to the left, and one to the right), and a corridor that went straight ahead. We decided to firstly go down the left staircase, which led to a door we managed to unlock with Hamish’s earring which in turn opened to a large open area and a corridor with seven doors. Curious, I opened one of the doors and was greeted by a bedroom forming that matched by own tastes to a frankly strange degree. A bed designed for two with purple sheets, a rug covering most of the floor, a bookcase, a dressing area, and a desk that I’m currently writing at. All the furniture is where I would have put it. There was more specific stuff too; a ballet barre, a music stand, some empty plant pots stack up waiting to be used. Yet the real oddity was the books. When I picked one up which happened to be on mycology, it was in a state as if it had been read and well-read at that, but all the pages where blank. I was tempted to close my eyes and run my fingers across the pages but decided against it. I didn’t want to be questioned about what I was doing, and if there had been braille, I would’ve been able to see it. That and I doubt Leontine is reading books in braille.

Now one room I likely would’ve written off as coincidence, however as the others each opened a door, it became clear that everyone was experiencing the same thing I had, a room being formed to their exact tastes. We made a few jokes about whoever previously owned the ship having very broad tastes, but I think joking went out the window when a bedroom perfect for a centaur appeared. After we had all entered a room, the large space that had been empty also transformed, turning into a common room of sorts. Again, I have to assume that it’s suited to our tastes. I noticed a few of puzzle boxes I’ve enjoyed in the past, as well as sets for a few games I’ve played with Leontine.

I, at this point, wondered aloud if we had walked into a trap. One of the others noted maybe, but if it was a trap, it was a nice one. I wonder now, knowing the truth of the situation, if it would be accurate to say I was paranoid, given that everything is fine, but this situation could have just as easily ended with as all being eaten.

…Why did I write that?

Fuck, Jas, I… Get back on track… I, I just need to focus on the present.

After managing to convince Val not to do the, frankly dangerous, task of bring a campfire on wheels she had found in her room down the staircase, we returned to our starting point to continue exploring. We decided to take the staircase up, which led to another locked door. This one we unlocked with Val’s coin, and it led out to what must be the uppermost deck as it’s open to the air. I believe this deck will be easier to enter and exit from once we get the ship out of the crater that they’re a little stuck in currently, though I guess that’s something to speculate on later. There wasn’t much up there, just a clearer view of the balloon, as well as some pipes that lead into it. Honestly, how this ship works is beyond me currently.

With little to see up there, we headed once again back down to our starting point. We decided to explore the final staircase, heading down once again. The deck below was blocked by rubble, with only a further staircase down available to explore. So, we headed further down, reaching again a locked door. This one was unlocked by Scorn’s holy symbol.

Inside this room was what I could only describe as an incomplete engine, the kind of thing an artificer may build, but clearly broken. And once again the trinkets we were carrying began to act oddly.

I don’t remember who the first to throw their trinket into the engine was, though I clearly remember the result of it connecting to the engine, as if it was always a part of it. Lights came on, whatever magic was present on this ship coming back as the engine was repaired. We all followed in turn, and I could hear doors opening and other loud noises that I couldn’t explain. It was when the final item was thrown in that the ship came to life more literally. And by that, I mean, the ship began to speak.

Ship, a simple yet fitting name, is apparently not just an airship, but rather a colony of mimics. Yes, the objects we had all been carrying around (myself for the better part of a year) were mimics, dormant and apparently friendly mimics, but mimics all the same. I question how my brother managed to craft such a thing into a brooch, but I feel like that’s a mystery he won’t have an answer to. At the very least, Ship isn’t planning on killing us as we can “grow the colony”. Apparently, prior to our arrival, they had been sleeping for a quite a while, unable to wake until the seven objects we carried were brought back to the engine, but before us they were merely passed and sold between people. And our reward for awakening them? The airship, something so rare in Libris that most haven’t even heard of such a thing. Well, Ship did say that one of us could kill the rest for sole ownership, but I’m quite against that idea, and I sincerely hope that none of the others are contemplating it either.

I should probably be more scared of being on a ship entire crafted by mimics, but during our introduction Maize compared them to a group of sentient mushrooms that want to help you. That was the moment I realise that such a fear may be quite hypocritical of me given my relationship with Leontine. I’m unsure if Maize has met Leontine, or just managed to allude to her via an otherwise very unusual metaphor, but I imagine if they haven’t met Maize will be quite glad to meet her. I think Leontine will get along with Ship too, so that’s two people to immediately introduce her to once we’re reunited. However, Caspien seemed to quite dislike the idea of the mushrooms, describing the idea put forward by Maize as his “worst nightmare”. Perhaps I should warn him about Leontine, but I don’t think I should get into the habit of warning people about my partner. I’m sure he’ll be fine with the idea once he meets Leontine, after all she is completely wonderful. They’ll all love her, I’m sure. Well, not the same way I do, but who wouldn’t love her. She’s so cute, especially when she’s talking about mushrooms and her eyes light up and she gets so focused, I could just watch her forever when she’s like that. And of course, she can hold her own in a fight! That’s probably important to these people, so many of them have armour and weapons. And she… she’s just the best and… and I miss her so much.

Anyways, Ship then introduced us to the, I guess, caretaker of the place: Laundry. They appeared to be created of different clothes (I believe with a basket underneath) formed into the shape of a wizard. Apparently, they were named by the last crew of Ship, and are here to do our laundry and “create new rooms”, which I assume is something to do with the completely empty deck where the rubble I mentioned earlier has now been cleared. I guess this place really is just to shape to our desires, so long as we continue to keep the mimics happy.

After these two introductions, Ship gave us the information that they’re currently grounded, unable to fly until we get them another mimic. This mimic is currently in the town of Four Hollow and is the form of a key the size of a half-elf’s forearm. To be more specific, it’s the size of my forearm. I’ve never had my forearm used as a measurement before, but at the very least we thought it was likely that someone in the town will have seen a key that large. We asked Dynol who had lived there for a few years, but he seemed quite oblivious to the place.

So, we decided to head back into town, now with an unexpected quest binding us. We started by finally getting the crate Maize was carrying to where it was meant to be. I doubt there was any useable glassware left, but at least we could now fully focus on our task. We attempted to talk with one of the people in charge of assigning the volunteers tasks, but he seemed thoroughly uninterested in helping us. However, after a small amount of pressing, he did say that the only key of such a size in the town is the one currently inside the crystal.

We took one of the tours available in order to confirm this fact, and looking inside from a closer vantage point, I could clearly see it. The key we need is the focus inside the crystal, the thing that allows the town to harness the magic and make sure the crystal doesn’t explode. In three days, it’ll be taken out of the crystal for twenty-four hours. We have that time to get a hold of it, something I’m quite sure the entire town will try to prevent us from doing, or we lose the opportunity for a full year. So, here’s the real problem we’re presented with: how do we acquire the key, and can we do without destroying Four Hollow’s livelihood? Those problems were made worse by Ship’s confirmation that they wanted the key forever. At least I saw those things as problems. Val and Dynol seem to be quite happy to just kill everyone in the town (Val because, well, she seems to quite like murder, and Dynol because they looked at him oddly). Maize seems to not understand the need for towns in the first place. The others, at least, seem more reluctant to destroy the livelihood of an entire town.

By this point, sat in the common room aboard Ship, we didn’t know much about the ritual yet. Really, we just knew that the ritual is performed by various religious types who visit the town for it, and that the key with initially be taken out of the crystal by one Marion Windcutter. Now, I’ve heard of him. A diplomat or envoy of sorts from The Elmmyu’rra States. He’s not technically a noble, though he’s counted as one due to his renowned ability for sorting problems between noble families. I’ve never personally met him, but it’s possible he’s met my parents. Hopefully if he has, he likes them well enough as then dealing with him will likely be a lot easier.

With a lack of good ideas for obtaining the key blooming, we decided to take advantage of the common room and relax a little. I decided to write to Leontine about this situation. I couldn’t tell her nearly as much as I wanted to, after all look how long this entry is, but I told her the basics. Firstly, I needed to make sure she knew I was with a group. After all I had been alone when she left, and this situation could very much look like a kidnapping if you were unaware of it. Secondly, I gave her directions to the ship and a request to not enter Four Hollow. Perhaps I’m just overly paranoid, but I’m sure this situation we’ve found ourselves in will end in trouble. I don’t want Leontine to turn on there on Sunday and get lost in the chaos, or worst get there afterwards ask after me and get into trouble due to our actions.

The others questioned the paper crane a little. I suppose it is a piece of paper that can find by itself, but it is basically just a trinket. I of course told them that I was just sending a letter, and to watch out for Leontine. Perhaps I should’ve given a longer description of her, so they don’t confuse her with someone else, but there’s no one quite like Leontine. I can’t imagine anyone else claiming to be her and someone actually believe them.

After I sent the letter, I decided to watch Hamish and Caspien while they played a game that I recognised but didn’t know all the rules of, I asked some questions, to attempt to pick up the gist of what was going on, but the two seemed to disagree on the rules.

Now, I personally didn’t notice, but it must have been at this time that Scorn was standing awkwardly in a corner with a death grip on his pack. I can’t say I blame him for this, after all it had only been a couple of hours since we’d met, and he seemed to prefer his own company. However, apparently Ship disagreed. No sooner had he said:

“Not, really no,” I assume in response to a telepathically asked question, had Ship locked every door currently available to us, effectively sealing us in the common room. Their motive for this was both quite simple and less nefarious than one might expect given the description I just wrote. Apparently, this odd group we find ourselves in will not work if we are not friends. That’s logical enough, after all we will be living and travelling together so we must at least be able to tolerate each other. Though I’m not quite sure locking us in a room with a bottle of alcohol and a deck of cards is the most effective method possible.

The alcohol, which we started while deciding on a game to play, according to Maize was a type of grain alcohol. It was fair stronger than I would have preferred without anything mixed in. I still drank it, but I couldn’t help but grimace at the taste.

We settled on playing poker, and playing the rules set forward by Scorn as we each had a different set of rules in mind. It was quite nice, relaxing as we weren’t gambling. Caspien ended up winning the first round which he called beginner’s luck.

As we played, we decided to discuss our favourite thing we’d done while adventuring, a topic put forward by Hamish who also told his story first. Apparently, he’s somewhat of a local hero where he’s from, having driven off some monsters away from his home village along with a rallied army of townsfolk. He smiled as he spoke of this. Without question, Hamish is a good person and I understand why Rupert befriended him.

Scorn admitted that he hasn’t done much adventuring yet as he’s been doing various types of training under an archwizard. He apparently doesn’t have a preferred school of magic, though he admitted to not being gifted at transmutation. Yet this was so far the most open he’s been with the group thus far, so I decided not to push on the issue (though I believe from words said later that Caspien doesn’t believe that Scorn is actually a wizard, though I don’t see any reason he would lie about such a feat).

Maize went next, telling of the time they accidentally broke the wrong person out of jail. A bold story to tell to a group of people you’ve barely met, but I have to admit it was entertaining. She had met to break out a dwarf and instead broke out a halfling who she had decided could well be a dwarf that simply shaved. The crime either one committed was apparently not important to the story, though perhaps she didn’t know herself.

I shared a story next, telling of a time myself and Leontine chased an owlbear from a farm. It was the best story I could think of that didn’t involved Jas or Désirée, so I wouldn’t need to answer questions about them. Yet even the safe story prompted some questions, mostly about how one chases an owlbear. I, of course, explained briefly that it was a combination of my own magic (though I didn’t mention that it was mostly due to most of them making a loud noise when cast) and Leontine’s aura of mushrooms that injury any foe that come too close to her. Caspien didn’t react much to this, so either he wasn’t listening to the question he asked, or sentient mushrooms don’t scare him as much as he claimed. I hope it’s the former as if I’m going to be friends with these people as Ship suggests necessary, I need them to like Leontine. I think I may already be on the way to that as Hamish appeared to have heard briefly of her from Rupert and therefore, he must know how important she is.

Val’s story was, predictably, about killing goblins. Oddly enough she began by talking about leaving her home, a place she only really described as being very different from the rest of Libris that she’s explored and that there were also goblins there. However, before I could question that she began describing killing goblins. The shocking reveal was that Val, like Hamish, is considered a folk hero. The goblins just so happened to be a group of marauders who were terrorizing a town that happened to be very thankful for Val’s actions. She promptly learned the wrong lesson from this encounter.

Finally, Dynol told, shortly and simply, the story of his first kill after leaving the village, that of a white bear. He still wears the pelt too, so I suppose at least it wasn’t just a kill for glory. Apparently, this is also when he found the sword hilt that led him here. Caspien almost immediately questioned his first kill being a bear, which admittedly is a fair bit bigger than most hunters start, but I assumed based on his wording that it was just Dynol’s first kill as a solo hunter rather than absolutely.

I realise now, having written down all the stories that Caspien didn’t actually share a story, not even one like Scorn to just say he hasn’t really adventured before. It’s a little odd thinking about it as he seemingly loves to talk, as is abundantly clear from the amount he’s been mentioned thus far. Perhaps he simply forgot as it was after Dynol’s story that Laundry (apparently free to move around the ship unlike us) entered with food.

It was a pot filled with something that was between a soup and stew, too many vegetables to be a soup, but a little thin to be a stew. Laundry was little help in identifying it, merely calling it food. I suppose it didn’t matter as long as it was edible.

We questioned where the ingredients had come from, as Ship had said the alcohol was from the previous crew and none of us felt like eating century all rations (and I’m also not quite sure we’d survive it). Thankfully they were fresh, wild vegetables and roots gathered from the woods the ship has crashed in. Of course, that means that Laundry had left the ship, though they made the excellent point that anyone who sees them will just think they’re a wizard. Honestly, if we get fresh food out of it, I see no problem with them exploring. Though Dynol did have a complaint about the lack of meat, but really did he expect a sentient laundry basket disguised as a wizard to kill something? I’ll try and see if there’s a market or a butcher in Four Hollow if he complains again, though I’m not much of a cook so he’ll have to deal with that part.

While eating, we played a second round of poker. This time Dynol won. I think the second loss may have frustrated Scorn a little as he threw his cards down, lightly but still. Admittedly, I’m not the best at reading people, so maybe it was a completely innocent gesture. It was about here that Maize decided to tell another story. This one was about an incident where she decided to try and flirt with someone. Apparently, a common way of doing so where she if from is to kick an object as hard as you can. This did not translate to wherever she was at the time, and it was instead seen as an act of aggression. She claims to have been completely run out of town. Now as to why she told this story of an incident where she was clearly embarrassed, I’m not sure, perhaps the alcohol had gone to her head, but it did bring the group together. Enough for Ship to ask if we were friends now. Obviously, we all answered yes, even if I’m still not quite sure if completely trust everyone yet. Scorn said that he still didn’t trust any of us with his stuff which I thought was adamantly fair.

Finally free to leave, we decided to return to Four Hollow once again, in order to talk to those taking part in the ritual about Hamish and Caspien joining. The walk was much easier this time as we had begun to form a path through the brush. It was certainly the least peaceful though, even compared to the original frantic run. The entire time Caspien was just ranting about his hatred of badgers. The entire half hour walk. I was thankful to hear the humming lights of the town as hearing them meant there was finally quiet. Honestly, the magic of the town is completely fantastic. It would take a council of magic users to sustain something like this in any other town, but here it’s just one crystal. Can we really just take the focus and not think about what we’re destroying for it?

We proceed to the church, a stone building while most in the town are made of wood. It was lit up and heated, a welcome beacon. All of us but Scorn went inside, he elected to wait by the doors. Inside our eyes were drawn to three places.

Immediately we looked to a group of three dwarves in the middle of the room. Dressed in robes and blindfold, they were loudly chanting prayers in a language that I believe was drawvern, but I didn’t understand to know for sure. Crystals of various colours decorated their robes, jiggling with their movements and providing a messy melody to their song-like prayers. Their display had gathered a small crowd.

However, despite how their show display may have made it look, they were not the only religious devotees in the building that appeared special. One was a firbolg woman at an altar. Her back to us, it was clear she was wearing a backless dress. She was reading a holy text, though not as loudly as the dwarves. The other was an older elven woman sat alone reading a thick leather-bound book. She dressed in in grey vestments with only a blue band as decoration.

Of these three, we decided to firstly talk with the firbolg, as she didn’t seem as busy as the dwarves nor as unapproachable as the elf. As we approached, she turned around and I just had to admire the craftsmanship of her dress. It was far more ornate than anything I’d expect a holy person to wear. Crafted from shimmering purple fabric, different shades creating a handprint pattern, each one having a heart in the middle. Painted on the fabric surrounding the hands were blue flowers. I can’t imagine how much time it must have taken to create it.

She introduced herself as Tulip, a follower of The Evening Glory, and asked us our business. We introduced ourselves and said we (or rather Hamish and Caspien) wanted to take part in the key ritual and therefore we wanted to know a bit about it. Hamish seemed shocked that we wanted him to take part, despite mentioning that he was a cleric when the ritual was first brought to our attention and us talking about the plan multiple times before this point. Anyways, Tulip answered our questions, explaining the ritual to us. The ritual itself doesn’t have any fancy techniques we would need to know being very individual. Marion will take the key from the crystal, taking it to a room where each religious devotee in turn will be given the key to perform a ritual for their god onto it. The key doesn’t leave the room at any point and each person will be search on their way in and out (expect perhaps Marion). Obviously, that’ll make stealing the key during the rituals a harder task than we initially thought. She also told us if we wanted more information on the crystal and the key and the history, there’s a book in the mayor’s procession that will contains this information. Hopefully we’ll be able to look at it tomorrow.

Then Tulip asked what exactly Caspien and Hamish would add for the ritual if they were allowed to join, what their gods would do for the key. So, they presented what gods they followed. Or rather Hamish presented the goddess he follows as a paladin: Chauntea, goddess of life and bounty. Caspien meanwhile doesn’t follow a specific deity. He’s a cleric of the tempest rather than any god that represents such a domain I’ve never heard of a cleric doing this before, but I didn’t want to question him. If I ever return home, I’ll ask my questions to one of the churches there. Most of them have at least a shrine to gods of oceans and storms, to keep our ships safe and our city’s name of Storm’s Rest true.

Even with a lack of a real idea for what they’d do for their rituals, Tulip gave her blessing for them to join. Apparently, there’s far less people here this year than is normally expected (and Tulip claims to have been taking part for forty years so she would know). However, she also noted that it wasn’t just her blessing that we would need. We’d also need that of the mayor as well as the dwarves and the elf who will also be taking part in the ritual. She gave us some warnings about the elf, an apparently prickly woman who’s been participating in the ritual for as long if not longer than Tulip but has never given anyone her name. A follower of Mystryl, the previous deity of magic whose death is what caused the spell plague. I had researched Mystryl before, in some of my attempts to figure out the origins of my own magic, but such research couldn’t give me insight into the pain of following a god killed by someone’s greed.

It was about at this point that Scorn re-joined us, a story of an odd individual he had met outside. While standing alone he had been approached by a man who had questioned if he was banned from the church. Thankfully this question was due to the man apparently fearing the church and believing those in it had cursed him as opposed to stereotyping. Apparently, the gist of the conversation was that the man believes he’s been cursed by the church and also wants to know how to cure lycanthropy and then ran off, though obviously I only know what Scorn relied to us. When Scorn told someone in the church about the encounter, he was told the man was called Mikihel and is known as being quite strange and a hypochondriac. However, this information didn’t stop Scorn from wanting to research lycanthropy once we were done with the church.

Obviously though we still had business to do at the church. Given that they had a break between their sermons, we next went to time with the dwarves. Despite being blindfolded, they turned towards us as we approached, likely as we aren’t exactly a stealthy group. They attempted to talk in unison, but never quite managed to. I suppose it must be a rather difficult trick to do in regular conversation. They introduced themselves as devotees of Thautam, a god of crystals and magic. As they stated themselves, it was obviously to see why they are here.

To get their blessing, they simply asked for mysteries, to bolster their knowledge. And the group did give mysteries, mostly nonsense mysteries that were really mysteries at all. They were good enough to impress two of three the dwarves though. The other ended up storming off in frustration, but we ended up getting the blessing by majority vote.

Finally, there was the elf. As we approached, I prepared myself for careful diplomacy that I was already sure would be needed. It hadn’t occurred to me that my companions might not be so careful. As soon as we approached her, the woman rejected our request, telling us to leave and instead talk to the mayor or Marion when he arrives tomorrow. Of course, we told her what Tulip had told us, both that we required her blessing to participate and that there were significantly less people present this year. However, she didn’t seem particularly bothered by this information. In fact, she said from her perspective she believed she should be the only participating the ritual. Caspien questioned why, getting frustrated, and I answered that obviously she knows the most about the crystal. Whether true or not, it felt like the right thing to say. She’s likely been the one doing the rituals the longest, and also the crystal is believed to be a magic from pre-spell plague, that’s why people think it surges like wild magic does, which would make it a remnant of Mystryl. Of course, it being a remnant of Mystryl is the point she argued, that she is the only one with a real connection to it.

This is about when Caspien did something both infuriating and stupid, insulting the woman for following a dead god. I have absolutely no idea what he thought he was going to accomplish by doing this, other than soothing his own frustrations in a way that completely ruined our entire current plan. I questioned out loud if we just were just giving up on diplomacy, hoping for a hasty apology, not an answer of yes. For obvious reasons, his childish, pointless outburst resulted in the woman slamming her book closed and exiling the entire group other than myself.

She invited me to sit, an invitation I graciously took, and questioned why I was with such a group of people. I, perhaps unwisely, told her the truth. That it was quite a forced arrangement, caused by mere happenstance, and if we didn’t act as friends it will result in being locked together in a room by a ship. She found this funny, I assumed from disbelieve, until she said it was due to the idea of a member of the Delaney family being bossed around by a ship. I was shocked momentarily. I forget sometimes that my coat has my family crest on it, a fact I could tell didn’t impress the woman. I haven’t been this close to home in a while and even now I'm still the length of a continent away, being recognised hasn’t been much of a concern. She said she keeps up with local politics, I wonder if that means she knows that I’m technically missing.

She had more questions, the first being why we had an interest in the ritual. I answered as truthfully as I could, without giving away details that would get us into trouble. That Ship is fractured, that a part of them is in the town, that we suspect that it’s the key from the crystal. And then she asked what if the key is part of Ship. So, I confessed my own dilemma about the situation. I want to fix Ship, obviously I do, and they’re sentient so it would cruel not to, but I don’t want to leave Four Hollow, a whole town, without their main livelihood and at the mercy of wild magic surges, some I know isn’t pleasant. I want to find a way to make a replacement, either for Ship or the crystal, but I have no idea if that will be feasible and if it is if the group will help me create it when we don’t truly need to. She appeared to have some sympathy for the problem I’m faced with, even if I cannot tell her the full extent of the situation. Finally, she asked why she should give her blessing to Caspien and Hamish and I gave her the simplest reasoning I could muster. If they got her blessing, they would very likely leave her alone as opposed to if they didn’t, where I’m quite sure they would return to bother her some more. Not my best argument, but I truly couldn’t think of a reason to argue that Caspien deserves anything from her. Thankfully she accepted my reasoning and said we had her blessing. I thanked her before leaving, re-joining the group outside to tell them I’d savaged the situation.

We needed to talk to the mayor, but given that it was night had already fallen, we decided to wait until tomorrow. So, Scorn asked if we could help to a library. I agreed whole-heartedly as there were a few things I wanted to research myself. So, we all headed to the thankfully still open library. I think at some point, the building must have been a regular shop just based on the layout and the types of displays that were being used, but that made little difference to us. There were free books and places to sit and that’s all we needed. As Scorn went to research the crystal, I went about finding books on airship crashes and mimics.

None of my readings gave me any clue towards the material the key is mimicking as I hoped it might, but I did learn some interesting facts regardless. Ship likely crashed around 100 years ago as that’s the only crash I could find out about in the general area. Secondly, mimic colonies aren’t really limited at all to what they can turn into, being able to create far more complex structures than feral mimics due to their being more than one mimic present. If a colony mimic is separated from the rest, it can go into a time of stasis and hold its form so long as it doesn’t transform again, which is likely why the key has remained a key this whole time.

Scorn’s research also revealed some interesting information, namely that the crystal has a history of defeating itself and the town, or at the very least there’s very dramatic possibility fictional stories of it doing so. Now, I’m hoping that this mostly just applies to the crystal itself and not the key, but we may have a serious problem coming our way on Sunday.

With what research we could do for our main mission done, Scorn headed downstairs to look up some books on lycanthropy. Almost as soon as he had disappeared from view, there was a loud crash from his direction. We all rushed to follow him and there was Mikihel (quickly confirmed by Scorn as he was the only one that had met him prior), ranting and raving about Scorn betraying him, about being terribly cursed. It must have taken five minutes of arguing, including both Maize and Hamish pretending that they were lycanthropes as well (Hamish successful, Maize not so much), to get the man to confess to believe that he’s a were-slug that transforms on a waxing gibbous. He added on that he could only transform outside when I pointed out that that was the current phase of the moon.

After this confession, he ran off, us following him all the way to behind the church. He stood, still not transformed, yelling at us to stand back from his coming beastly form. And then, to the shock of all of us, he did transform into a slug. Not a giant monstrous half-slug half-man, just a regular slug. Then I heard laughing from the bushes.

As it turns out the person that had cursed Mikihel was not the church, it was in fact an eleven-year-old. The son in fact of the church worker Scorn talked to about the man, who had happened to break into her spell scrolls and had been tormenting Mikihel with them. Now, how a child could use a spell scroll well enough to actually affect someone I don’t know, but I suppose Mikihel may not be the wisest of individuals and that may have improved the child’s odds. We returned the child to his mother, making sure he would get an appropriate punishment, as well as making sure that Mikihel was returned to his normal form. He was given some compensation from the woman (apparently a betting pool of some sort, I’m not exactly sure), and left declare the child his archnemesis so I’m not precisely sure if we made the situation better or worse. I suppose it doesn’t really matter as this isn’t seem at all related to what Ship wants us to do, but at the same time at least we don’t need to worry about an evil cursing cult within the local church. I do wonder if there was more to the story, children typically don’t just go around polymorphing people, but no one seemed especially concerned with figuring out the why of the situation.

Well, either way, it seemed we had done everything possible for tonight. Marion won’t arrive until tomorrow and it seemed too late to be bothering the mayor. So, we headed to the tavern, the one we had originally met Scorn in, to have a drink or two. Val made her intentions of getting blackout drunk before we were even in the building. I had intended to have a few drinks myself until Maize ordered the place’s ‘finest ale’ and that apparently was shrimp ale.

I don’t quite understand how fish and seafood-based alcohol became popular away from the coast. I’m from a coastal city and let me make myself clear, they don’t taste good. There is absolutely no reason these kinds of drinks should have started to be served inland, but here one is. ‘Exotic’ according to the bartender. What does that matter if it tastes horrible?

Well, upon realising what was being served, I decided not to drink. I wasn’t the only one not to partake, Hamish refused as well, stating that he’s a vegetarian. Everyone else did partake, though I believe Scorn may have regretted it. He only had one drink, quite a lot of which was left still at the end of the night. True to her word, Val did get absolutely drunk. After about four pints, she turned an odd shade of pink, leaving the question of just how much shrimp was in the drink. The colour change confused her but did not deter how from drinking more. She ended up having to be dragged back to Ship by Maize who thankfully had the strength to move the tallest member of the group who was wearing full armour. I imagine if she hadn’t, we would’ve had to leave Val at the tavern and hoped she’d make her own way back.

We’re back on Ship now. Night has well and truly fallen. I pulled one of the blank books from the bookshelf in my room to write in, I didn’t see the harm seeing that they are empty, and books are meant to be filled. It has helped with my thoughts at least. The nonsensical events of the day feel a lot more certain in my mind. I still am not quite sure about the people I am stuck with, however, there’s a saying that all the best adventures start with an odd situation involving strangers getting stuck together. Or at least that’s what the most famous book on the most famous apparent adventure in Libris says. So, I should think of this as an opportunity, as a do over. A Delaney is meant to be an adventurer, and even if they assured me that it was fine, that there was nothing anyone in my position could’ve done differently, I know I royally fucked up. So maybe I can do it right this time, do more with this opportunity than I ever could have done just wandering aimlessly. I’ll become a real adventurer, and I’ll make them all proud.

#d&d #dungeons and dragons #character journal #mimic campaign #katherine's journal #katherine delaney #original writing #this is like nearly 9000 words cause it's like two and a half sessions

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crmsnmth · 7 months ago

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September Sky Chapter Four, Part 7

"Caught off guard?"

"Yeah. It's all good." I knew if she kept asking I'd tell her. I didn't think I could ever hide anything from her. "What do you mean off guard?"

"Fuck. Alright, look, you are super fucking attractive and even that doesn't fit. I got caught off guard when I actually got to see you. So I wanted to take it in," I said. Once again this whole sentence was turned into one giant word. I looked out the window, so I wouldn't have to see her face. I know I sounded like a creepy weirdo.

She said nothing. She just squeezed my hand softly and let it be. Besides, we had just pulled into a parking space and I could see the restaurant right in front of us.

"This is it," she said, still not giving any words on my own.

"Yeah, I can't say I've ever been around here," I said. My attention switched to another building. "Hey look, Pizza Shuttle!" I shouted a little to excitedly. Pizza Shuttle was more than just pizzas. It was literally a slice of everything, and they delivered until about three in the morning. Where else can you get BBQ ribs, fried catfish, and a quart of mint chocolate chip? No where, except for the late night loner mecca of Pizza Shuttle.

Addison laughed at my child like glee. My first instinct was to stop, until it clicked in my head that there was no malice in this laugh.

"Come on, stoner." She said as we got out of the truck. We met up at the front of the truck, and she took my hand this time. I lit a cigarette that we shared up to the front door.

The building was just giant windows towards the road and it's parking lot. A small glass door sat in the middle of the windows. Above the door, words in yellow and black letters said 'Atomic Cafe.' The O was stylized to look like an old-fashioned hydrogen bomb.

I didn't really see Sunday services. Red Arm was usually closed, unless we had some kind of event going on, and even that wasn't really service. That was more private party type stuff. That kind of stuff a budding chef could easily use to buff up their resume. I guess I always assumed that Sunday's would be slower, being the end of the weekend. But this parking lot proved me wrong as I took a glance around. Almost every spot was full. And the bike rack had it's fair share of bicycles chained up.

We went inside, and the place was extremely busy. An organized chaos ran through the room. There was a 'U' shaped bar right in the center of the floor. Small tables were placed in what seemed random placement throughout the floor. Booths lined the two non-glass walls.

A hostess suddenly appeared in front of us. As if she just materialized. Her eyes were extremely tired. "I'm sorry but it's going to be at least fifteen minutes before a table will be open. "

"That's fine. We can wait. Can we wait at the bar?" I asked, a polite smile on my face. I worked this industry. I know that for some reason, people think they can shit on Front of House staff. They go through hell, and they do it with a smile. Show some fucking respect to your hosts and servers.

"That's fine. We'll come find you when a table opens." Her voice seemed more pleasant now. A small act of being polite can help. Just don't be an asshole.

"Thanks," I smiled at her again. Addison and I headed to a couple of bar stools that were open. The bar was only about half full. Within a few seconds are sitting down, one of two bartenders was with us.

"What'll it be?" Hello in bartender. She asked with a hurried voice.

"A High Life for me," I turned to Addison, unsure what to do here. Did I order for her? That'd be dumb, I don't really know what she'd want. I didn't remember how any of this dating thing works. What rules had changed.

"Pabst please," she said. The bartender looked at us both and nodded, heading off to a cooler to grab the beer. She was back before we knew it, setting the bottles down in front of us. I gave her a ten and left the change on the bar.

"So, I'm curious again," Addison said, taking a sip from her bottle.

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moondeathhorror · 1 year ago

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is Poughkeepsie Tapes the WORST MOVIE EVER?!?!?!

Probably not. Statistically, there have got to be worse ones.

The Poughkeepsie Tapes is a 2007 found-footage horror film that purports to be a documentary about the Poughkeepsie Tapes, films of torture and murder, and the serial killer behind them. The film alternates between interviews with various officials about the killer's methods and excerpts from the tapes themselves showing his crimes.

And, of course, it's really bad. I'd like my time back for watching it and everyone who told me it was the mOsT diStUrBiNg fiLm eVeR drawn and quartered. It feels as though the rise of TikTok was the best thing that could ever have happened to it; the three or four most iconic "tape" scenes could be removed from the context that makes it impossible to take them seriously, stripped of the audio that exposes the rubbish acting, and shown to millions of gullible fourteen-year-olds who would then be scarred for life.*

man, that acting

I actually remember exactly when I was pulled out of the movie for good: it was the "YOUR NAME IS SLAVE!" scene. Until then, I had been willing to forgive the film its conspicuous cheapness (we can't all be '70s John Carpenter) and rather stilted acting, but this broke any investment I had had. So the killer was young Ted Cruz? How can I possibly take the man seriously?

Not that the killer is the only one bringing it down; most of the other performances are forgettable. The issue is that some lacking acting around the margins would be forgivable, but most of this film is pretty poorly acted, and the killer especially—man. Probably at least partially an issue of direction, but I can't get over his high-schooler hamminess. Actually, this makes a lot of the FBI segments unintentionally read like satire. The writing and performances are awful in such a way that it feels like an entertaining send-up of true crime documentaries, even though they were absolutely trying to play it straight. In isolation, you should absolutely watch them; they're really funny.

About the only exception to this rule is Stacy Chbosky, who plays Cheryl Dempsey, a girl kidnapped and brainwashed by the killer into subservience and loyalty. She gives a great scream-queen performance when being captured, which morphs over the course of the film into something much darker and more depressing. She gives it her all throughout, making the transformation as credible as possible through the poor writing, and as a result is and the end responsible for perhaps the only disturbing (good) scene in this film.

serial killer Mary Sue

Whenever someone asks what a Mary Sue is now, I will direct them to this movie. Well, I won't, because if I did I would look even more like a freak than I do currently, but if I had no self-awareness I would, because this film's killer is the perfect example. He is never caught by police or seriously challenged in any way; he flawlessly executes his crimes and disappears from the house in which the Tapes are found without a trace; he baffles every level of law enforcement and is three steps ahead of them at all times. He is simply unbeatable. The world is not constructed in such a way as to check his power over it.

Actually, when you start looking, you find that almost half the scenes in the film, rather than provide any substantive plot information, serve solely to inflate the killer's mystique. The tapes are set up to be so disturbing that an FBI agent's wife who accidentally watches a few minutes won't touch him for a year. The killer's methods are breathlessly explained by multiple agents to be brilliantly designed to evade capture. Hell, there's even a scene where Ted Bundy is interviewed Silence-of-the-Lambs-style about the killer. This makes the film feel oddly frictionless; it's not a believable, credible story, but a wish-fulfillment sadistic fantasy piece.

the only good scene + some potential

In fairness to Tapes, there is one good scene in it, which I reference in the acting section. It is an interview with Cheryl Dempsey, the abducted and brainwashed girl from the beginning, who was recovered in the raid on the house that also uncovered the tapes. It's a short scene, because she says little, doing a thousand-yard stare into the lens, and the interview quickly goes nowhere. Through whispered tears, she proclaims her love of the killer and her undying loyalty to him. At one point, she brings her arm into frame to scratch her head, which is when we realize that she has only a stump for a left hand. It's cold, desolate, and Chbosky is magnetic in the role.

This scene may contain a twist as well? The voice of the interviewer in the Dempsey segment bears a suspicious resemblance to the voice of the killer. Throughout the film, profilers have explained that the killer is egotistical and will want to remain close to his crimes in some way; thematically, the killer being the documentarian would fit with him being "behind the camera" for his actual crimes. Honestly, my only reservation in declaring this canonical is that if that was what the film wanted to do, I don't have faith in its ability to execute the twist that subtly.

In a way, this scene also frustrated me. It's not just a good scene relative to the rest of Tapes; it is a well-paced, well-acted, strong horror scene in general. It serves as a kind of proof of concept for what the movie could have been if it had been more thoughtfully written and better-acted. What if more of the scenes, instead of sucking the killer's dick with a fifth discussion of how smart he is, had focused on the experience of the victims of his crimes, both firsthand victims and the families? What if more of the actual tapes, had been pre-crime or concerned an actual challenge to the killer, even one he eventually overcomes? Hell, what if the whole thing had been about the horror of Dempsey's abduction and brainwashing? It would have been more focused, made more use of easily the best actor they had, and would feel significantly more grounded than the current serial killer OC fic on show.

some final thoughts + better recs

Poughkeepsie Tapes is not completely without potential, but then, no film is. It's poorly written, poorly acted serial-killer wish fulfillment that mostly fails to touch on any of the elements that make the man's crimes truly disturbing, like the human toll that they take on the victims and their families or the mental disturbances that could lead a person to do these things. The most artistic value it has is as a so-bad-it's-good campy send-up of true crime documentaries, but that effect is unintentional and therefore inconsistent. No, just watch something else.

For "glimpse into my twisted mind" sorts of movies, The House that Jack Built (2018) by Lars von Trier is pretty hard to beat. It is a retrospective by a serial killer on his life, as told to the poet Virgil while he is led through Hell. Very pretentious, and quite a commitment at two and a half hours, but it's elegaic, disturbing, provocative, and delivers on "eloquent, obsessive murderer" very well.

For "mockumentary/found-footage scares", Hell House LLC (2015) is kind of a return to form for American found-footage horror, which after the success of The Blair Witch Project (1999) and Paranormal Activity (2007) has felt a bit out in the wilderness (no pun intended). It's about five friends who rent an abandoned hotel and turn it into a haunted house, but get more than they bargained for when paranormal evil starts to manifest.

* Please understand that here at Moondeath, our official position is generally supportive of scarring children. Having the bed scene from The Exorcist (1973) seared into your retinas when you're nine years old or some equivalent precocious visitation of the sick is a formative experience in any horror fan's life. No, the concern is with the atrocious quality of this film's traumatic ammunition, which could lead impressionable young dilettantes to develop an incurable taste for Disney-themed r/nosleep stories and other crippling maladies besides.

#horror #horror movies #found footage #crime #movie review #didn't even mention 9/11 as a plot point in this movie #or the plague doctor mask #they wanna be a creepypasta so bad

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creatur3creati0ns · 1 year ago

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The Past 20 Years

I thought this would be the best way to start this blog. I think that’s still what this is called. Clearly I have no idea what I’m doing.

I’ve told my life story before to a lot of people, yet every time I try to sit down to write some of it out, I just don’t know where to start.

Trigger warning for mentions of religious trauma, childhood trauma and abuse, mental illness struggles, mention of self harm and suicidal ideation, alcoholism, eating disorders, fatphobia, homophobia and transphobia.

I was born in Michigan, and when I was around five my parents moved me and my twin (fraternal) sister to Arizona. Around then, my grandfather passed away from lung cancer. Sometime before that, I think, my parents got divorced. I have a very bad memory, a lot of that is attributed to childhood trauma and abuse and lifelong dissociation. I really only remember what my mother has told other people while I’m in the same room.

My father always lived nearby, and eventually he moved back into the house. Separate room than my mother, but because she would leave town for work often, it was easier for him to care for us while she was gone. My dad is retired from General Motors and is an Army veteran. My mother was a commercial bus driver. My sister and I got to go on trips a lot because of it. Everyone from out of the country loved the two twins who were dressed up as cowgirls.

Sometime in third grade, my parents moved us to a rural part of Arizona. Very small and conservative town. We lived on about four acres of land, with neighbors pretty far away. We were about 15 mins from town, from civilization. The church me and my sister were dragged to every Sunday was about forty-five minutes away. It was then that my mother went back to college. After a few years, with homeschooling thrown in there, my sister and I got moved to a bigger town about two hours away.

This is probably when I start remembering my life the most. Now is a good time to mention my stomach problems, because it’s a huge part of my life and after reading this whole thing a few times, I have nowhere else to stick this paragraph in. My mother says I was practically born with these stomach issues, I don’t remember them as a young kid, only when I hit maybe 11 or 12. Without getting into too much detail, something is wrong with my stomach. I would love to be more descriptive, but after literal years of allergy tests and diets and even an endoscopy, no one has any idea what is wrong with it. Every food and drink (even water) upsets it and I have stomach pain nearly constantly. It’s gotten better in the past two years, mainly due to not being in school or around my family, but it’s still pretty awful. On average I spend at least two hours in the bathroom each day because of this, and I have to be careful with consuming anything in public if I don’t have a bathroom near me. Okay, that’s personal enough. It’s a big problem. I’ve had chronic health problems all my life, so just keep that in mind as you read later about the other crazy shit that my body pulls.

A few months into fifth grade we went back to public school, and my mother finished her college degree for social work about a year or two later. We were living in our van for a while, then an RV, then an apartment, and then finally the house where I would spend the rest of my childhood. My dad lived in his own room across the hall.

My dad is diagnosed with bipolar disorder, and has been on medication for it most of my life. He’s also an alcoholic. Three beers before noon, more throughout the day. He never was really drunk unless my mother had friends over. I didn’t like when he was drunk. He got louder. My father had anger issues my whole life. He yelled over anything someone did that upset him, except if it was my mother who did it. She was always the one in charge. Even though they were divorced he was deeply in love with her. He acted more like an adult older brother who still lived at home. He never acted like a father. I have a lot of trauma from his yelling. Dropping a glass or a drink or running into something. Folding a towel the wrong day, not cooking the way he liked. Any time I was in the kitchen he would come in and stand behind me, watching and not saying anything. I’m still working through all that. But I used to watch westerns with him on the couch, his arm around me. We would watch baseball and football, but baseball was my favorite. Or at least, it was his favorite. I got a lot of my music taste from him. Rock and roll on the radio whenever he was driving us somewhere. We bonded over that as I got older. I dyed my hair orange when I turned 18, and he loved it. Orange is his favorite color. When I started getting piercings he loved those too. Asked when I was going to get a tattoo. He had a few old ones from when he was younger, and he loved talking about them almost as much as I loved asking about them. As an outsider, my dad was a pretty cool guy. But he was an awful father.

I was always closer with my mother. I’m having a hard time right now thinking about what to write about her. She has some good qualities, but I’m not at the point in my life where I could name them sincerely. She is suspected to have borderline personality disorder that is untreated and ignored. She had horrific childhood trauma that she would casually talk about over Christmas dinner. It was her dad that passed from lung cancer. She tried her best, that’s what she always told me. But I honestly don’t care. She was a horrible mother, a horrible person.

At thirteen, I was in a car accident. Rear-ended at a stoplight while my dad was driving. My sister and I were in the back seat, and the car was totaled. The guy hit us at about 30 miles per hour. Hit the gas instead of the brake. We went home to eat dinner, and then my dad took us to the ER. Mild whiplash, no scans, no nothing. Told to go home. The next day I had my first ever panic attack.

About a year of panic attacks, self harm, grades dropping, and suicidal ideation, I finally told my mother about it. Primary care physician appointments nearly every week led to a Phoenix Children’s Hospital referral. Psychology, neurology, anyone who might help. After about another year I left with a diagnosis of a traumatic brain injury, social anxiety, and major depressive disorder. I was put onto medication. I switched medications about eight more times. Eventually my mother didn’t let me try anymore. Soon after I started getting chronic migraines and nausea. The nausea went away sometimes, but for over a year I had a migraine constantly. At its lowest it was a 5 on the pain scale. It never went away. When I woke up and when I went to bed it was always there. Even a shot of Toradol in my ass didn’t make a dent.

This is where I’ll talk more about my mother. Most of the issues started after the car accident. Along with my struggles came her ignorance. I would break down in front of her over school, she would stare at me coldly, saying that grades and graduating is important and that she’s trying everything that she can. I would say I was suicidal and self harming, she would cry and say she was an awful mother. I would leave the conversation with me having consoled her, telling her she’s great and I’m going to be okay. Of course, her doing everything in her power consisted of taking me to church programs that were meant to heal me, asking her prayer group to pray for me, telling me to pray and meditate when my chronic migraines were getting so bad I could barely stand, and threatening to take me to the hospital if I kept saying I was suicidal. The one time she took me to the ER, she wouldn’t let them put me into an inpatient program. She took me home to be on suicide watch. She said if I hurt myself during it that she would be arrested. She took me off my antidepressants and told me not to tell my doctors, to lie and say I was still on them. She did everything she could think of, but apparently she never thought of actually listening to what I was asking for.

I had started therapy maybe a month before my car accident, because I had come to accept that I was bisexual and I knew that, according to my mother and my father and my grandmother and my church and the Bible, it was a sin. That therapist stopped answering our calls after my mother told him that a few sessions in.

My mother continued switching me from therapist to therapist, most of them Christian, none of them I had a say in. When I finally found one that I connected with and who was helping me make progress, my mother stopped making me see her. I was realizing that my mother was abusing me, and I was trying to help myself and set boundaries, and according to her, “I’m your mother, you can’t have any boundaries with me.” So that therapist was out. With all the therapists I had seen, one of the worst was my second one, who was the step-daughter of the first therapist who ghosted me. She liked to quote scripture at me, and say that she wished God would let her love gay people, but unfortunately he didn’t.

The worst therapist I had ever seen, by far, was a woman who specialized in equine therapy. I was never into horses. My mother, though, loved horses dearly, which was of course the only thing that mattered. When talking to her, it was fine. I don’t remember it much. The way she practiced therapy, though, was, in my opinion, unacceptable. Because she recognized that I struggled with placing boundaries (because I was told by my mother that I couldn’t), she decided to try to help me by placing me across the room and speed walking toward me, not stopping until I place my hand out in front of me and say “stop” loud and clear. As you can imagine, this caused issues, because this was her very first solution to this problem, rather than actually talking about it. And refusing to stop until I say “stop” in a way that she likes seems pretty messed up. Each time she did it I was forced closer and closer to a panic attack. She told me her eventual plan was to have herself replaced by a horse, who was walking (maybe even trotting) towards me. This probably would have killed me, because I was honestly afraid of horses at the time. Yes, my mother knew this, no, it did not matter. Any time we interacted with the horses, I was filled with anxiety and fear and every week I dreaded the appointment, and left with more trauma than I came in with. I asked to stop the appointments quickly, but my mother made me go for at least a month. After I left, I was done with therapists for a while.

I struggled through school since the car accident. My sister and I changed schools after starting 9th grade. I almost dropped out a few times, and I don’t think anyone actually expected me to graduate. I sure didn’t. I had to get a 504, which was basically a set of rules my teachers had to legally follow because of my disabilities. My brain injury, and at the time, chronic migraines and nausea. This meant extra time on assignments, no presenting in front of the class, no being called on in class, and being able to leave class at any moment to go to the office if I started having a panic attack. I had to do this often. Some weeks it was every day, and I would be there for hours, missing classes. This caused me to fall behind more. I was admitted to a psychiatric hospital twice during high school, once in December of 2019, and again in April of 2021. I graduated in May of 2021, and walked across the stage high out of my mind on the half pill of gabapentin my mother gave me before the ceremony.

The last therapist I saw as a minor was through my high school. I was very close with the principal and guidance counselor due to my issues. We had to interact daily due to my 504 and me being constantly in the office. The last semester of senior year I took every class via Microsoft Teams while working in the guidance counselor’s office. My anxiety and depression had reached a point where I could not be in a classroom setting and around other people. She mentioned starting a group therapy for students, and when the therapist came to the school I was the only one who had signed up. I saw my chance, and I told him everything. The car accident, the panic attacks, the abuse, the self harm, the suicidal ideation, the fact that I was so sure I wasn’t going to graduate high school but my whole life depended on it and it was all my mother cared about. I had less than an hour and I talked the whole time because I knew this was my only chance. I hadn’t seen a therapist in a while and I was self harming daily, and was very close to a very real suicide attempt. And so he went out to the parking lot where my mother was (that’s a whole other crazy story. For a short time she was parked in front of the office all day to “make sure” I was doing my work and to “be there” if I ended up having a panic attack. My principal was not pleased.) and tried to talk her into letting me become his client. She told him that I had an eating disorder, which at the time, I had no idea she knew about because she never asked or did anything about it. There’s another point off for the Mother of the Decade award there. Long story short, she signed the forms, and he came to the school every week to see me. I joined the group therapy anyway, but the students just ended up unintentionally triggering me and the worksheets given out weren’t helpful if you had been in therapy for around four years already. He helped me get through the last few months of my high school career. He helped me go back to inpatient psychiatric care when things just got worse. When I turned 18 he still kept me as his client, despite being a therapist for adolescents. I stopped seeing him about a month after I moved out, because the company he worked for realized they weren’t getting paid by insurance so we had to end sessions immediately. He wasn’t the best therapist I’ve ever had (my current ones are a lot to live up to), but he quite literally saved my life and got me through the last few months as a minor, and for that I owe him. He was a sick dude and I hope he’s still good.

I turned eighteen five days before I graduated, and the first thing I did as a legal adult was go to the DMV and get my ID. My partner and I had been planning for a few months to move to Phoenix. Them for college, me to get the hell away from my family. I needed an ID for that, along with getting piercings and tattoos, which I knew I wanted to do immediately. My mother hated tattoos, piercings, and dyed hair but always told me that once I turned 18, I could do what I wanted with my appearance, even if I was still living with her. This proved to be a lie, because when I dyed my hair at 18 she got mad I didn’t ask her, and when my sister and I wanted piercings, we had to let her know in advance and promise it wasn’t a septum piercing because we were “still under her roof”. Don’t worry, after I moved I continued to mess up my appearance without letting her know and gave her multiple mini heart attacks over it. And I of course got a septum piercing. It felt good.

August of 2021, the lawsuit against the driver who hit me in 2016 finally came to an end, and I was awarded, quite frankly, a fuck-ton of money. I was eighteen. Safe to say the money lasted a little over a year. Between crazy medical bills and the fact that I was a teenager who just got out of an abusive household and started living with my partner, the money went by quickly. Especially when I wasn’t earning any money. For a year I stayed inside our apartment, had therapy appointments every week, doctor appointments almost every week, many tests and procedures and hospital trips. I started to have chronic hives a month into moving into my apartment, with no apparent cause. Every allergy test came back negative, and no one had any idea what was going on, but I was still spending a lot of money trying to figure it out. It landed me in Urgent Care about three times, due to my face blowing up about three times normal size. I left with a Prednisone prescription and an epipen. After 3 months of hives that never went away and would get worse randomly, my therapist suggested my body was trying to tell me that now was the time to start medically transitioning after waiting for five-ish years. Weirder things have happened, and there was a lot of evidence as to why this might be the case. This is probably something I want to talk about at some point, my relationship to my body and how it communicates with me. And it was communicating pretty clearly. “Testosterone now or I’m going to kill you” was heard loud and clear. I was in a safe place, physically, and, at the time, had money. So one gender therapist appointment and a single phone call later, I started testosterone February 17, 2022. I haven’t had hives since.

I developed an eating disorder in middle school, not long after my car accident. I don’t think those are related, but my mother was plus size all my life and there was not a day that went by that she didn’t speak badly of herself, and that definitely is related. Same for my grandmother. They were on diets constantly. I was put on diets due to my stomach issues, but never for my weight. I was average weight as a kid, and at around 14 I started gaining weight. It wasn’t much, but it was enough for my mother to comment on it. Into the “thinspo” and “ana” pipeline we go. I remained thin for years, and when I moved out I was probably at my lowest weight. Then my hives started. I was put on steroids for months straight. A side effect of that is weight gain. I don’t know how much I weigh, because I chose not to weigh myself, but I think saying I gained 70/80 pounds wouldn’t be too far off. It was a big change, something I could not control. All I could do was watch. It was a lot to get used to so suddenly, especially when dealing with so many other things in my life. My body was changing even before I started testosterone. As most people with an eating disorder know, gaining weight is your greatest fear. Pretty quickly my eating disorder got worse, and an old eating disorder I hadn’t had in years got kicked into high gear. I am fat now, and I am more than okay with that. It took around two years to come to terms with that, and it’s only been the last few months where I finally felt comfortable calling myself fat. My body will never be the way it was before. There’s stretch marks and fat where there wasn’t before. I’m no longer the thin 18 year old. But that’s what life is. I’m 20, and I’m on testosterone, and I have tattoos and piercings and stretched ears and dyed hair. I’m never going to look like I did before and that’s okay. I like that. I’m a lot happier with my body now. Unlearning internalized fatphobia was the hardest thing I’ve ever done. But I’ve made a lot of progress and I’m really proud of it. It’s still something I struggle with, but now I can say I’m “recovering” from my eating disorders, and that itself gives me hope.

I realized I was transgender when I was 14. There were signs before then, but as I said at the beginning of this, my memory is pretty bad. Since my mother didn’t know about this, I can only guess the timeline based off of my Snapchat memories and pictures I took at the time. I don’t remember exactly what was the final nudge, but one thing that sticks out is when my mother told me to be careful with how I styled my short hair, because I could “look like a boy”. I admitted to myself that that’s what I wanted. I did want to look like a boy. There were a lot of other complicated feelings that I honestly don’t remember. I told my best friend at the time, and she was accepting. I told my sister a few days later, and as always, she loved me and accepted me. I first identified as genderfluid, but that lasted maybe a day. I realized nonbinary fit better. I wasn’t a girl, I was neutral. I wanted to look androgynous and slightly masculine. I used they/them pronouns with close friends for a few years, and I went by Noah. At 17, not long before I turned 18, I told my best friend I am trans guy and my pronouns are he/they. I had known I wanted top surgery and hormone replacement therapy for years, and I knew I could still do that using they/them pronouns and being nonbinary, but one day I just looked in the mirror and it all clicked together. I’m a trans guy. I still don’t connect with “trans man”, and if we were to get into it fully, I am still nonbinary. But “trans guy” is the best descriptor for me right now. In late August of 2021 I told my best friend that I really liked the name Ezra, and had been thinking about it for months. I finally told my partner (over text, because I was terrified), and then came out to everyone on my Instagram and Snapchat, which had my friends and old classmates, as Ezra and using he/they pronouns. I try not to focus on the fact that I can’t completely remember how I learned I was transgender, and choose to focus on the fact that transitioning brings me a lot of euphoria and has turned my life upside down in the best way possible. I am so much more comfortable in my body, my life, my appearance, my relationships, and just how I move throughout the world. I am, for the first time, happy and content in myself. Still need top surgery, but you know, money.

I came out to my mother via text in late February of 2022. My grandmother said it was the same as if my mother texted me telling me that she has cancer. So you can imagine this was well received. I endured a week of phone calls and texts where my mother was crying, saying she wanted to kill herself. She told me she called a suicide hotline the night I came out to her. She was texting my sister constantly asking where she went wrong. She told me several times she “knew in her heart” that I wasn’t trans, that this was just the current trend. She was angry that I had never told her this before. There was a Zoom call with her and my sister where she spent most of the time crying and denying the homophobia and transphobia I was brought up on. My partner was out of frame holding my hand. The call ended with me breaking down in tears, telling her that I’m fighting to be heard here and that I’m sure about this and have been dealing with it for years and this is something that I never brought up because I knew this is how she would react. Eventually the call ended, and the next morning I had a therapy appointment. We talked about everything, and I decided I needed space from my mother. I told her that, and I have not talked to her since in 551 days. There has been one message from her since then, where she did not apologize, and said she loved me amongst a bunch of religious bullshit. My grandmother berated me over text and when I told her I was not going to have a conversation about it, she berated me more. I haven’t talked to her since then too, despite her texting me twice since then saying where Thanksgiving and Christmas dinner would be held if I was “still interested in family” and asking if I had “divorced myself completely from my family” which is truly a hilarious sentence. I, of course, never answered. My dad shared his opinion, which was based on misleading comments my mother told him. When I told him the truth, he never responded. Haven’t talked to him since, either. I am still very close with my sister, but it makes things hard when family gets brought up. I do my best with placing boundaries and being honest, and she is endlessly supportive and loving, just like she has been all my life. I’m doing a lot better. Going no contact was the best thing I could have done. In the week after I came out, both my mother and grandmother said horrible things about me to my sister and to her roommate. Things I don’t want to repeat here. Things like how I’m not her child anymore. I never got an apology from anyone. I think they expect me to come back and pretend everything is normal. I have a lot of family nightmares, and I’m working through all of this extensively in therapy. I’ll probably talk about all this more another time. But it’s still hard to think about. I was 18 when I stopped talking to most of my family.

Not long after my hives disappeared in 2022, and pretty soon after cutting contact with my parents and grandmother, I got kidney stones. That was a bad night. My partner had to drive me to the ER at 2am. I don’t have my license, mainly due to the issues I was facing in high school. All my energy went to staying in school and staying alive. Plus a car accident that gives you a traumatic brain injury and an insane amount of mental health problems is pretty traumatizing and doesn't really make you want to jump behind the wheel. By the time I realized my stomach pain was not my normal stomach pain, was consistently getting worse through the hours, and was in fact an emergency, the kidney stones were almost done passing. Still had to endure medical care professionals who had apparently never met a trans person before and a fun little CT scan. So I lived through that, without support from my parents, and that was tough but it showed me that I was able to live without them. I was 19 at the time.

The therapist I’m seeing now is, funnily enough, the same therapist my mother stopped me from seeing when I realized I was in an abusive household. After moving I found her on LinkedIn and contacted her. I’ve been seeing her for almost two years. She’s a great therapist and the progress we have made is immeasurable.

Another health issue that came up, around seven or eight months ago at this point, was photophobia. Photophobia is a sensitivity to light. It’s a symptom of a bigger condition. You guessed it, I have no idea what the condition is. This isn’t really the fault of doctors, though, my primary care physician said there was nothing physically wrong with my eyes and referred me to an opthamologist, but that’s about when the money ran out so I still haven’t been able to figure it out. All I know is that it is very painful. My left eye is worse than the right for some reason. Photophobia burns, it feels like someone squirt hand sanitizer in my eyes. My eyes get red and watery, tears start flowing and I physically can’t open my eyes without immense pain. The only way I have been able to help it is to turn off all the lights and close the blinds, lay down for a bit with my eyes closed, after maybe 30 minutes open them, and then slowly introduce lights back into the room. It’s a whole ordeal.

I think those are all of my health conditions, and they are very hard to deal with. This in addition to my mental health conditions make living very difficult, let alone living well. I don’t leave the house much, mainly due to my anxiety and my eyes. I’ve had the same friends since high school and I love them dearly but I’ve really only made one in my adult life, and I’m 20 now. Because I can’t drive I rely on others to get me where I need to go, unless there’s an easy bus route. I wasn’t able to take the bus for the first year and a half when I moved out due to my anxiety. Even the thought of it sent me into panic attacks. I can’t be out in the heat for too long, which sucks because I live in the Phoenix, Arizona area. I have bad heat intolerance, so bad that any time I leave the house I have to bring an ice pack. I used to not be able to walk long distances for a while without insane leg cramps (something that testosterone effects, apparently) but thankfully that’s gone away. I’m very much not physically or mentally healthy, despite how often I try to treat these issues.

I did have a job, though. Only the one, after the money ran out. March 11, 2023 to May 11, 2023. Doing exactly two months was an accident. I worked as a retail recovery associate for J.C. Penney. It was hell. I was having panic attacks almost daily, dissociating during the whole shift. My stomach issues were a hundred times worse, and the photophobia was acting up daily. I had to leave work because of it twice. I couldn’t see and it looked like I was sobbing while hanging up clothes. I liked the job, the work, some of my coworkers, and the customers. Repetitive and easy. I liked talking to new people daily. Misgendering was a huge problem, despite me wearing a pronoun pin. It doesn’t help that I was placed in the women’s clothing section because that’s where I was needed. Coworkers would misgender me constantly, one even found out my deadname somehow and wrote it down on a paper we were using for the dressing rooms. The main issues were with the managers. Every time I tried to call out because of my medical issues or just straight up fear and anxiety, no one would answer the phone, no matter how many times I called. I would leave a message on the manager’s phone, because that’s all I could do. Apparently they weren’t getting these messages, and thought I was always a no call no show. They didn’t tell me this until the day before I quit. They were deducting points from me without my knowledge and I reached a point where so many points were taken that I would be fired. I had to leave that day because of my eyes, but the second I left the store I had a panic attack. I called and quit the next day. No one answered the phone, so I had to leave a message. I still don’t know if they actually got that message.

Since then I’ve been unemployed. I’ve been to a lot of interviews, but no luck. My partner of almost three years has been completely financially supporting me. Thankfully my insurance covers my psychotherapy and EMDR appointments I have weekly, but my partner pays for my testosterone (about $50 a month) and my prescription medications (about $20 a month). They pay all of our rent and have been for months. They pay for our food and for the food for our pet bunny, Bunjamin Buttons. As you can imagine, that causes a lot of pressure on them and some issues for us. We’re working through it a lot right now, but that’s a story for another time.

I think you’re pretty much caught up! This is the first time I’ve ever written (most) everything down, and clearly it’s not in chronological order. Hopefully it was understandable. But that’s what I’m working with! At 20 years old I’ve lived the life of 10 men, it feels like. And I have the brain injury, OCD, PTSD, major depressive disorder, social anxiety, eating disorders, and depersonalization/derealization diagnoses to show for it. Fuck.

#life story #queer #transgender #trans guy #personal writing #writing #nonfiction writing #nonfiction #personal essay

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carni-val · 2 years ago

Text

Tale As Old As Time [Steven Grant]

pairing: Steven Grant x F!Reader

summary: Steven believed he was fully prepared for his first day as a tour guide, that is until she showed up.

warnings: Some angst on Steven’s end, shy people pining for each other, Donna

author’s note: So this is my first Steven Grant imagine, I hope I did him justice. It was only a matter of time until I began writing for Oscar, so 🤷🏻‍♀️ Just your typical meet-cute.

I’ve dabbled in reading a couple Steven Grant fics and I wanted to write one where he finally became the tour guide he always should’ve been. Events take place after everything in season 1. Hope you all enjoy!

Steven Grant Masterlist

The museum often brought Steven a sense of ease that he didn’t have in any other aspect of his life — especially when Donna wasn’t lurking around. It was where he felt the most confident in himself; his knowledge and abilities, and he felt like he was actually doing something right when he was here. The curious minds that roamed throughout these four walls gave him an adrenaline rush; all of them were so ready to absorb the fascinating stories of ancient Egypt.

However, the crowd of people inhabiting the museum today only made Steven wring his hands nervously. Donna wasn’t anywhere in sight but he knew she was watching him somewhere; maybe on the second floor, perched like an eagle ready to descend on its unsuspecting prey any minute, and it made him want to crawl out of his skin.

He could hardly stand still as he checked his watch for the millionth time that hour. His shift didn’t begin for another five minutes but he’d shown up early in anticipation for his shift today. Months ago, that would’ve seemed like an impossible task, but now that Steven was working with Marc instead of against him, a full night’s rest didn’t seem like such a dream. Getting out of bed wasn’t a struggle anymore, especially not today.

“Stevie!” he heard Donna’s voice crackle in the air.

He heard Marc’s disgruntled comment as Steven turned to his boss who was quickly approaching. “Hiya,” he propped up an awkward hand before letting it fall into his other one again.

“Stop fidgeting,” Donna scolded, grabbing his hands and tearing them apart from each other.

“Yeah, sorry,” he nodded, letting his hands press against the sides of his thighs, his body taking on a different rigidity that cased his entire spine.

“Stevie, you promised if I gave you a chance at this, you’d at least pretend to be confident,” her lips pursed.

“I did?” Steven muttered, more to Marc.

“Yes, you did,” Donna insisted before looking him over, “At least the wardrobe’s a step in the right direction."

Marc insisted that Steven leave behind the patterned button-up at home this morning and settle for a navy blue shirt instead. Steven relented but didn’t budge on his grey jacket. Marc let him have it.

“The first group should be here in five minutes,” she told him. “I’m giving you one chance and that’s it. Don’t embarrass me or I’ll have you doing inventory for the next week.”

Donna turned on her heel and left. Steven tried to swallow away the dryness in his throat as he watched her walk away. “Yeah, cheers Donna,” his voice was weak as anxiety began to paralyze him.

Hey. It was Marc. Steven turned towards the mildly reflective glass encasing one of the fossils a couple of feet to his left. Forget about her. You can do this, you know all this stuff. His pep talk was choppy; the sweetness coming out of his mouth was foreign to both of them and took some time to digest.

Steven still remembered how chuffed he was after his surprise meeting with Donna last week.

“I’m not late,” he insisted, flashing his watch to her, “I’ve got three minutes before my shift starts.”

“Yeah, alright,” Donna’s tone held annoyance as it always did when she spoke to him.

She pulled his wrist down and Steven let it drop to his side.

“Look,” she sighed heavily, “I thought about what you said and…” she trailed off, getting a pained look on her face, “…I’m willing to give you a chance.” She had to force it out. “Just one chance at this, alright?” she added quickly but sternly.

Steven’s face scrunched up, stunted by confusion. “S-sorry?”

“Since Dean is leaving, we’ll be short a tour guide and with the summer coming up, we’re gonna need all the help we can get.”

Steven’s heart stuttered as his eyes went wide.

No way, this has to be some sort of dream or some mind game.

Donna’s eyes went wide too at the sight of Steven’s expression, but hers held a warning behind them.

“Don’t you go thinking nothing of it,” she pointed a finger and Steven’s joy halted. “I’ve got better things to do with my time than ask the same bleedin’ questions to every single useless bellend that crawls through those doors.” She straightened out her blazer, “You’ll take a few groups around the museum on Monday and we’ll see how you do.”

Donna gave Steven a once over as he nodded once, barely holding onto the joy that was oozing out of him at this point. She turned and walked away, giving him a moment alone to celebrate. He found Marc’s reflection in the mirror that was next to him.

“Did you-” Steven whispered, his eyes lighting up with gratitude.

Yeah, yeah-

“Oh Marc,” he clasped his hands together, “I don’t know how I’ll ever repay you for this!”

Don’t start writing me love letters just yet. A hint of a smirk tugged at Marc’s stoic expression. Just don’t screw it up.

Standing off to the side, Steven did his best to stand still and look approachable. Since he’d been catching up on sleep, the rings around his eyes had softened significantly, so he supposed that’d help him look more inviting. He clasped his hands in front of him respectfully, but he couldn’t help but shift his weight from one foot to the other. When he tipped a little too far, he nudged the stanchion post that held a sign that read Tour Begins Here causing it to rock slightly before sharply slamming back down onto its left side, the noise reverberating throughout the vicinity.

Heads turned in Steven’s direction as he placed his hands on the metal post, stopping the vibrations from echoing out even further. After releasing it, he stood up straight again, sending quick smiles to the people who were still looking on, waving a hand to assure them everything was okay. When his eyes found Donna’s from across the room, his smile fell. Her arms were crossed tightly over her chest and her eyes were narrowed in on him. A predator watching their prey.

Steven quickly averted his eyes, clamping his hands in front of him again and forcing himself to stand still and tall. He looked around the museum as he waited patiently. He glanced behind him into the gift shop briefly, finding relief in the thought that today would be the day where selling useless little jellies and nicknacks to visitors would become as ancient to him as the exhibits in the museum.

It was only a minute later when a small group of children came bustling through the doors with a man in front of them leading the way and a woman behind the group to keep track of them all. Steven watched as J.B. spoke to them for a moment before directing them towards him, and anxiety sent his spine shooting up straight like an arrow as he pushed out a quick little smile towards the group. Young minds were absorbing everything they could as they looked around at the artifacts, posters, and statues surrounding them.

This was good; children were easy to teach because everything in here had a story and children liked stories.

The group of seven children approached under the direction of their two chaperones and when some of the kids were close enough, some of them said hi to him. Steven smiled down at them, saying hello right back.

The chaperones instructed the children to quiet down before turning to Steven. The man explained that they were coming from a daycare nearby and taking the children on a field trip.

“Right, great,” Steven nodded, feeling at ease already. “Um,” he pointed to his name tag, “My name’s Steven,” he introduced himself.

“I’m Jonathon,” one of the boys at the forefront of the group said.

“Nice to meet you,” Steven barely got it out before another child erupted with their name.

It was a chain reaction as each child introduced themselves and Steven’s mind spun for a moment as he tried to remember everyone’s names. The adults supervising them were calmer as they introduced themselves as Mary and Daniel. Steven found himself buzzing with the same contagious energy oozing out of the children and just as he was about to go into his opening speech, he paused, remembering he had one thing to do before beginning the tour.

Steven counted out the group and came up to nine people, but he recalled that this group was supposed to be made up of ten. Everybody who bought tickets in advance showed up in a spreadsheet which Donna had given him; he’d memorized everything about his groups today, knowing there was no room for error.

Steven glanced to his watch just as time ticked forward another minute to 9:30. He was supposed to start his introduction now, one he’d rehearsed and revised with Marc all weekend. His brows pulled together in concern. He didn’t want to have to spend time reciting his introduction a second time for the sake of that one person, but he also didn’t want them to miss out on the full experience. Steven looked up at the entryway of the museum but didn’t see anybody heading over to the group.

He looked back at the children before him who were waiting expectantly. “It looks like we’re just waiting on one more person,” he informed them, feeling uneasy about doing so. “But don’t you worry, the mummies aren’t going anywhere,” he chuckled briefly.

“We’re gonna see mummies?” one child in the front of the group chirped excitedly.

“And sarcophaguses,” Steven added with a smile.

The kids began buzzing amongst one another, an anticipatory energy building up between them. Steven would’ve joined in on it if he didn’t keep glancing at his watch and to the door. He’d hate to leave anybody behind — sure, it’d spare him trouble with Donna later, but he simply didn’t want someone to miss out on the tour just because they were a little late.

The clock struck 9:31 and Steven began to shift uncomfortably once again. Looking across the museum floor, he caught Donna watching him like a hawk with her arms folded over her chest. He was quite sure she hadn’t moved an inch all this time.

He looked at his watch again and sighed, feeling a heaviness weigh in on him. If he stayed, he’d be late and have to rush through the tour, but if he left someone behind and they were upset about missing the tour just because they were late by just a minute, it’d still cause a problem with Donna.

How did he not prepare for something like this?

However, under Donna’s glare in this moment, he turned back to his group, stretching a smile across his face.

“Right, we can get started — lots to cover!” he told them before turning and beginning to lead the group through the exhibit. “First stop on the tour-“

They were about to walk into the next room when he heard a voice call out, “Sorry!”

Steven stopped in his tracks and turned around to see a beautiful woman in a sundress approaching. He felt something blossoming in the pit of his stomach as he watched her brisk jog slow down into a quick walk. She got closer and her eyes were glimmering under the morning light that made its way in through the windows. The breeze her fast pace created ruffled the end of her dress which billowed around her legs. Steven’s eyes fell to the smooth expanse of each of them before he could help himself.

You’re staring.

Steven’s eyes flew up to hers, feeling himself grow hot as he realized what he’d been doing.

“Sorry, I’m a part of this group,” she panted slightly, her chest heaving. She wasn’t from around here; her accent gave it away.

She lingered on Steven for a moment, her hastiness slowing — did he look unapproachable? He straightened up and let a smile form on his face just as she began rifling through her bag.

“I would’ve been here sooner but the bus was delayed.” She held out a printed copy of her ticket to Steven.

His eyes lingered on her, unable to look away as he became engulfed in the sweet scent that radiated from her.

“Yeah,” his voice was meek now, “That bus is a bit dodgy,” he agreed, a small laugh tumbling out of him.

She nodded, letting a breathy laugh escape past her lips too.

His mind fled back to his introductory speech, “I’m Steven,” he pointed to the name tag clipped to the pocket of his jacket.

When she said her name, it was all he could focus on. He played it over and over in his head like a song that hypnotized him.

Alright pal, let’s keep it moving.

Marc’s reminder forced Steven to tear his eyes away from hers and return to the task at hand.

He led the group further into the museum, stopping at certain sarcophaguses and fossils and explaining them to the children. He had them wrapped around his finger with all of the stories he told them. Some of them would let out sounds of awe and others would chime in with their own comments.

Their chaperones took some of their own liberties, looking around at other things in the room that caught their eye. They’d look back at Steven and the children occasionally but would sometimes step to the side to look at something nearby.

There were moments, however, when he’d catch them reverting to their phones for a brief source of entertainment. Some of the children began to lose focus the further they continued. All it took was for one child to point out something from across the room and all of them were more interested in that than in Steven’s story.

It stunted his confidence slightly to know that he didn’t have everyone’s attention at all times, but every time he looked back at the group, he saw her watching him, wrapped up in every word he was saying. It softened the blow of the breaks in attention everyone else seemed to be having. He felt his confidence blossom again when he saw the glimmer in her eyes and the small smile that tugged at the corner of her lips when he became particularly animated.

“…And with the metal hook, they go right up the nozzle, and…” he trailed his hooked finger near the nose of the encased sarcophagus and pulled it down while making a slurping noise with his mouth. “…scoop everything out.”

The kids’s faces were scrunched up as they let out howls of disgust. He couldn’t stop himself from chuckling and when he looked over at her, she was laughing too as she looked at the kids. Her laugh wasn’t the loudest but it was the one he latched onto. When she looked over at him, he felt his smile mute slightly out of shyness. He was enraptured by her again; more than he’d ever been with any exhibit in this museum.

“Even the heart?” one of the little girls in the group asked.

Steven looked down at her, heart thudding harshly as he felt like he’d been caught. “No,” he shook his head, bending down slightly to be closer to her level, “See, the heart was used to judge if someone was worthy enough to pass through the Field of Reeds and live forever.”

Images of Taweret and the ship flashed through his mind. He hadn’t made it to the Field of Reeds but Marc had; Steven felt a weed of envy sprout in him at the thought.

The girl’s eyes lit up in wonder and it made his heart swell. This is exactly why he longed to be a tour guide.

It brought a smile to his lips as he straightened up, relishing in the amazement in the little girl’s gaze. Steven’s gaze landed on her again and noticed that she was holding a similar look on her face but there was something more delicate about it; more intimate.

“I have to go to the bathroom,” he heard one of the boys speak out.

Steven’s eyes fell to one of the little faces before him.

“Me too,” the boy to his left said.

Daniel grabbed hold of the children’s hands before asking, “Does anyone else need to go?”

A little over half of the children muttered out a yes, causing Daniel to look up at Steven. Steven stuttered for a moment; not knowing how to deal with this sudden interruption. He had planned for everything except this. There was still ten minutes left on the tour and if they stopped now, they’d surely fall behind. Steven knew Donna was waiting for him and his group to return, keeping a close eye on the clock.

“Do we have time for a bathroom break?” Mary asked.

“W-well…” Steven began to gesture behind him at the rest of the museum they had yet to pass through but trailed off, noticing the desperate faces on the children. “…a-alright,” he nodded and Daniel and Mary were off with the children. “But we do still have a lot to get through!” he reminded them as they headed toward the bathrooms.

His heart sunk a little as he glanced down to his watch. Maybe if they passed by the pyramids, they could make it back in time. Or maybe they should skip over the myth of Osiris and Isis — kids weren’t all that into love, were they?

A breath puffed out passed his lips as he looked up again, but it hitched when he realized that she was still there, standing just a couple feet away from him. She looked around the room, gaze lingering on certain artifacts as well as the floor. His heart began to thud and he wiped his palms on his jeans.

“I’m guessing you don’t need a bathroom break?” he tried to quip, getting her attention.

She looked up at him, “I think I can hold it,” she quipped back causing a laugh to tumble out of Steven’s mouth. “I’d hate to miss anything.”

He felt a heaviness in his chest again. “Yeah, sorry about that. As soon as they get back we’ll get right back to it.” He was wringing his hands again until he heard Donna’s sharp reminder in the back of his head to stop fidgeting!

“It might be a while with all of those kids,” she breathed out a laugh.

“Y-yeah, I’m sorry-“

“There’s nothing to apologize for,” she shook her head softly. “I’m happy to learn all that I can.”

Steven’s mind flickered with an idea as he looked between her and the bathrooms. “Well, we could keep going until they come back,” he suggested, noticing her brows quirk up at the suggestion, a dagger puncturing that plan. “O-or maybe we should just wait for them,” he shook his head, his eyes falling to his watch once again. He’d been too eager.

Much to his chagrin, only one minute had passed. “We could always move past Osiris and Isis — kids don’t care much for all that love and betrayal stuff, do they?”

“Oh,” her tone deflated slightly, “I was kind of looking forward to that, actually,” she admitted. “But if we need to save time, that’s okay, I completely understand,” she nodded with a smile.

She was so understanding and Steven truly believed she would be okay if they skipped over Osiris and Isis, but having her leave unsatisfied would bother him for the rest of the day. He looked back to the bathrooms and saw no children approaching. He thought for a moment — should he really do this? It wouldn’t take long. Steven looked back at her, watching her for a moment as she looked around the room.

“Let’s go,” he said, nodding his head in the direction of the exhibit.

She was confused when she looked at him, “What about the kids?”

“We won’t be far,” he assured her before leading the way to the exhibit.

She looked over her shoulder to the bathroom before following him. She walked alongside Steven and he couldn’t stop himself from admiring her out of the corner of his eye. Her eyes flew around the room in wonder; when he thought she had settled on one thing, she latched onto another, admiring the exhibits, fossils, and sarcophaguses in all their beauty.

By the time they stopped at the statues of Osiris, Isis and Horus, Steven was completely wrapped up in her.

“Do you mind if I take a few notes while you speak?” she asked sheepishly while reaching into her bag.

The thought made Steven’s mouth go dry but he shook his head anyways. He waited as she gathered her notepad and pen in her hand. When she smiled at him, he smiled back, lingering before he realized that was her silent way of telling him she was ready.

“Right! Osiris and Isis,” he began, turning towards the statues behind him. “Osiris was the God of the Underworld and once Isis married him, she also had a hand in the rites of passage for a newly deceased person.”

He watched her scribble the information down, absorbing it all hungrily like a sponge. The speed at which she wrote spurred Steven on and he was eager to continue, more so when her bright eyes found his again.

“What was Isis’s role in the Underworld?” she asked.

Steven let out a huff of breath at the weight of that question, “She did everything for the living, the dead and everything in between. She was the Goddess of healing, death, rebirth, and magic so she was able to bring the dead back to life — she brought Osiris back to life after his brother Set — well their brother Set — murdered him,” his face scrunched up at the incestuous nature that seemed prevalent in all of mythology. Her facial expression mirrored his, her nose scrunching up tightly as she shook her head.

"Her knowledge of funerary rites and different spells, and her love for Osiris is how he became the God of the Underworld.

“She was also the Goddess of fertility and motherhood so she protected newly deceased souls throughout their journey and treated them like they were her own children.”

She was scribbling in her notebook again and Steven was tempted to lean over and read what she was writing, but he didn’t want to intrude.

“Now, their son Horus — who is half-man, half-bird — was born after Osiris’s death. He spent his life trying to avenge his father and he was eventually successful, and he became the new king of Egypt,” Steven gestured over to a statue of Horus.

She looked up from her notes and took a step closer to it, examining it with wonder. “And his eye was damaged during a fight with Set, wasn’t it?” she glanced to Steven and he nodded. “They say that’s why we have the moon phases,” she stood up straight and looked back at him.

Steven smiled, “Is that so?”

She straightened up, “At least that’s what I’ve read,” she shrugged, caving in on herself slightly as she clutched her notebook to her chest.

He noticed her cowering in on herself — he was very familiar with the feeling. He searched his mind, quick to reassure her when he remembered reading that somewhere, “No, that’s correct,” he nodded with a smile.

A meek smile stretched across her face as her eyes fell to her notebook again.

“Are you, um, are you writing a book?”

She glanced down at her notebook, “Oh no,” she breathed out a laugh. “I just really enjoy mythology. I like learning about the myths and Gods and Goddesses from different cultures. A lot of them are quite similar to each other; even to some religions,” she explained. “Some say the story of Mary and Jesus was influenced by Horus and Isis; and the story of how Osiris came to be God of the Underworld is much different than how Hades came to be it in Greek mythology.”

“I don’t think I’m familiar with that myth,” Steven admitted.

“Well, Cronus was one of 12 titans that were descendants of Gaia — Earth — and Uranus — the sky. While Gaia wanted all of her children to be free to roam the earth, Uranus was against it, so Gaia got Cronus and his brothers together to try and get them to castrate their father.”

Steven winced, “I’m guessing family therapy wasn’t an option, then?”

She breathed out a laugh, showing off her beautiful smile again. If it was possible, Steven would’ve melted into a puddle one hundred times over by now.

“I don’t think it ever crossed Gaia’s mind,” she replied, “Only Cronus agreed to go through with it because he was jealous of his father’s power. He was successful and took his father’s place, but he soon learned his own sons would overthrow him later in life, so he ate every single child he bore until Rhea, Goddess of fertility and motherhood, had a son in secret.”

Steven’s brows raised slightly, instantly enraptured with the story she was telling. She was lost in the story as she told it, almost as if she was recounting all of it like she was there; her voice dipping and raising as she spoke. She was enthralled with stories just as much as he was.

“That child was Zeus,” she continued, “And once Zeus was all grown up, he brought the children Cronus had eaten back to life and they overthrew their father. Afterwards, they were left with the entire kingdom of Olympus.”

“Well, no pressure with that,” he let out a nervous chuckle.

She laughed along with him, “It was a luck of the draw, really — literally. Zeus, Poseidon and Hades all drew a jewel from Zeus’s helmet; Zeus pulled a sapphire which represented the sky and Earth; Poseidon got an emerald for the sea; and Hades ended up with the ruby, deeming him the God of the Underworld.”

Steven’s head recoiled slightly at how they decided on such an important matter with something as simple as that. “They may as well have flipped a coin.”

“Maybe,” she shrugged, “But then Zeus and Poseidon wouldn’t have been able to cheat.”

“Hold on a minute,” Steven piped up, “They cheated?”

She nodded, “It’s Zeus, what do you expect? He and Poseidon both looked into the helmet before they reached in. Hades never looked though; he was always the most responsible God in Greek mythology.”

“Those slimy gits.”

She laughed once again, “Believe me, that’s the most tame thing Zeus and Poseidon have done.”

Just as Steven opened his mouth to ask more, he noticed the group of children and Daniel and Mary bustling over to them again. Some of the kids strayed from their chaperones and rushed back over to Steven, eager to continue with the tour, but he also caught the way some of them dragged their feet as they made their way over.

He felt his spirits fall slightly, not just because some of the kids were evidently tired, but because his conversation with her had been cut short. He could listen to her talk about mythology for hours. He indulged in the way she excitedly gripped her notebook and the way her eyes went big as she passionately explained the story about Hades. She did it with such eloquence whereas Steven felt he was quite sporadic and could get carried away at times.

Steven’s hands were getting clammy again and his heart was thudding as they all got to him once again. Speaking to her was easy because she seemed to like listening to him talk — it was a first for him — but the kids were unable to politely feign interest like their chaperones could. While Daniel and Mary tried their best to hide whenever they looked at their watches, the children had no problem distracting one another when they lost focus.

He was boring them, he was sure of it.

“What’s that?” one of the kids asked, pointing over to something a few feet away from them.

Steven followed his gaze and landed on the illustration of Ammit on a pillar nearby. The shiver that ran down his spine at the sight of it was as present as it was the day he returned to the museum after everything had transpired. Thoughts of Harrow slashed through his mind like lightning; sometimes the pain of that journey outweighed the growth that came from it.

“That,” he continued nevertheless, “Is Ammit.” He led the group over so they could get a closer look.

He watched as she stepped closer to get a better look. The corner of her mouth turned up slightly while Steven’s mouth fell into a frown. Her being this close to just the illustration of Ammit made his stomach clench uncomfortably. He didn’t want her anywhere near something as twisted as Ammit.

“She lived in the Underworld, near the scales of justice,” he explained, “Remember how everything except the heart got scooped out of someone’s body when they died?” he looked to the children and they nodded, “Well, Anubis would weigh their heart on a scale against the feather of Ma’at to see if they could live on in the afterlife; but if the heart was not pure, Ammit would eat it and the soul would not be able to pass onto the Field of Reeds.”

“So would she be considered some sort of Goddess in the Underworld?” she asked.

“No,” Steven’s answer was immediate and tinged with disdain. “Sorry,” he spoke softer now. “She was more of a cautionary being — something to be feared by Egyptians to help them steer clear of wrongdoing. A proper boogeyman.”

Her eyes were back at her notepad and she scribbled.

“Why’s her head like that?” one of the kids asked, pulling his attention away from her.

He looked back to Ammit, noticing her crocodile head that was turned the opposite way from her body.

“Well, she was made up of different parts of an animal, see?” he pointed to her legs, “She had the front legs of a lion, the back legs of a hippopotamus, and the head of a-“

“Alligator!” one of the kids chimed in, beaming.

“N-no, it’s actually a crocodile,” he corrected softly.

His eyes flickered to her again, watching her head tilt curiously at Ammit, “Is there a specific reason for that?” she asked.

Steven had to bite back a smile; he hadn’t come across anybody who wanted him to expand on his knowledge of ancient Egypt. He was used to people changing the subject or Donna cutting him off abruptly without so much as batting an eye. He felt seen, he felt heard, he felt appreciated. “It was symbolic; a way for others to understand the personality and character of these figures.”

She didn’t write down any notes this time, she only kept her eyes on him and let a small smile breech her face. It was contagious and Steven found his gaze falling to the floor as he thought of her taking on the form of a swan or a deer.

“Right then, let’s keep it moving,” he suggested, turning and walking ahead.

“See you later, alligator,” one of the children said, presumably to Ammit, but it made Steven’s steps stutter momentarily. He swallowed the lump in his throat when he heard another child say, “In a while, crocodile!” before they all started giggling to each other. Before he knew it, he felt a smile break out along his face too.

Right on time, Steven had led the group back to their starting point near the exit of the museum. The kids were buzzing amongst themselves, speaking about all of the things they saw today. Daniel and Mary were getting them organized and ready to head back to the daycare centre.

Steven felt some of the energy permeating his now calm demeanour. He listened to the kids as they told him their favourite parts of the tour; some kids spoke more than others but he couldn’t stop himself from beaming at the kind words as he felt his confidence taking root in his being, securing him even under the weight of Donna’s stare from across the room.

“Alright kids, let’s go now,” Mary instructed them. “Thank you,” she said to Steven as the other kids began to say goodbye to him.

“Bye,” Steven chimed, “Bye now,” he held out a hand to some of them that were waiting for a high five.

“See you later, alligator,” one of the children chimed.

Steven’s breath hitched but he composed himself quickly before letting the words laters, gators tumble from his lips. He repeated it every so often, receiving an array of “in a while, crocodile”s in response. His throat closed up at the notion that he thought had been tainted. The sentiment found a new life, one that bought him the comfort he though he’d lost forever.

Once the kids had cleared out of the museum alongside their chaperones, Steven found her still standing there, sending him a small smile. He froze for a moment, still stunned by her smile. He sent her one back as he let out a nervous laugh, “I-I hope that was okay.”

“It was great,” she sounded so sure as she spoke, "I really enjoyed it.”

“Really?” his vulnerability shone through the cracks in his demeanour. "I mean I’ve never done this before — this being my first day as a tour guide and all.”

“I never would’ve known,” she replied.

Steven felt the rigidity in his body liquify and escape him. “Oh, well,” he smiled at the ground sheepishly. “I mean you could definitely become one,” he added, “You might give me a run for my money.”

She scrunched up her face and shook her head, “No, I don’t think so,” she shook her head, “You did all of this off the top of your head, I would need some notes in front of me.”

Just as Steven was about to respond, his watch beeped out an obnoxious pitch, startling them both.

“Bugger,” he muttered, grasping onto the face of the watch and pressing on a button, cutting off the tone. He looked at her again, hesitating before speaking, “I-I’m afraid I have to meet my next group,” he told her apologetically, pointing behind him to where the next group was already gathering.

“Oh, of course,” she let out a breathy laugh. “I’ve got another dodgy bus to catch,” she added.

Steven chuckled at that but their time together coming to an end made his laugh peter out quickly. “Right.”

“Right,” she echoed, holding onto the strap of her bag with both hands.

It was quiet for a moment as they stood there. Steven desperately didn’t want to say goodbye, but he did have only a few minutes to meet his next group. He wanted to know more about her, where she was from, what she did for a living — he wanted to hear more about Greek mythology.

“Well, thank you,” she said, breaking the silence.

Steven snapped out of his trance, “Y-yeah, anytime.”

She lingered for a moment before giving a sharp nod of her head before heading towards the exit.

Steven’s eyes couldn’t pull away from her form as he watched her head closer and closer to the doors, the skirt of her dress waving in the breeze that followed behind each visitor. She exuded beauty and it wouldn’t have been a surprise to him if she was already in a relationship. She was beautiful, sweet, and intelligent.

Go after her.

Steven shook his head at Marc’s request, eyes still latched onto her form, drinking her in. He didn’t want to come on too strong and he certainly didn’t want to be caught asking someone out right in front of Donna.

Give me the body then.

Steven shook his head again as he watched her open the door and walk through it. She would go on with her life — one that was beautiful, no doubt — and he’d be here, going on with his own life; one that — even with all the progress done on it — was still complicated.

It was only when the door closed behind her that Steven looked away, letting his eyes fall to the floor for a moment.

What are you doing? She was into you!

Steven was about to respond but he saw a couple approaching the meeting point for the tours right outside the gift shop. He settled his focus there, plastered on a smile, and walked over, greeting the new group.

By the end of the week, Steven had taken several groups out on tours over multiple days and he loved every single second of it. Donna hadn’t said it outright, but she was impressed with him, seeing how efficiently he worked and how animated his groups seemed to be after they came back from a tour with him. There were no comments, no warnings, no type of hostility coming from his boss. Sure, she looked on from afar, but as long as she didn’t approach, Steven could handle it.

Steven eagerly made his way into the museum, hastily dropping off his bag in the staff room before getting to the floor and awaiting his first group for the day. He was sure after today, he’d officially become a tour guide at the museum. What started off as one chance on Monday turned into two on Wednesday and a third on Friday.

The night before each tour, Donna slapped the spreadsheet to his chest, “Alright Stevie, you’re leading the tours tomorrow,” she’d say and he’d accept without missing a beat.

He was eager to get out onto the floor and see what kind of people he’d be teaching today. Kids proved to be the easiest; if you were interesting to them, they’d be interested in you. Steven was naturally flamboyant as he spoke about this topic and the kids all loved it. He was still learning how to block out the parents’ disinterest.

He glanced over from across the gift shop and noticed Dean speaking to some of the participants on his last tour at the museum. Steven was sad to see him go, Dean was one of the nicer people here, but the feeling didn’t linger, especially when he remembered he got his dream job upon Dean’s resignation. He scanned through the group, about to turn away from them when his eyes latched onto her.

She was nestled into the group, clutching that same bag she wore the last time she was here. She was wearing a new dress and Steven couldn’t tell if he liked this one better or the other one she wore when he first saw her. They both fit her perfectly; form fitting in all the right ways but breezy enough to ensure she was comfortable on this warm day.

It made the sight of her all the more painful.

She had been a thought that passed through his mind every day while he was at work; a persistent one when he was laying in bed at night. He had hoped to see her again; thinking about a scenario where she came back to the museum and Steven seized the opportunity. Marc had stopped scolding him for not taking the chance to ask her out, probably realizing how much Steven was already beating himself up about it.

He felt he was caving in on himself again, crushed by the weight of his insecurities in yet another aspect of his life, only this time, it was an aspect he believed he excelled in. Her returning presence was a gift; a sight for sore eyes, but it hurt like a knife to see her in another group.

It would be the exact same tour — there haven’t been any new exhibits since the last time she’d been here — which led Steven to the conclusion that she was just being polite and he had not done a good job on that tour.

Her eyes jumped around between all the people and all four corners of the room. She was looking around, probably because she didn’t get to last time since she showed up late. They were bright, but held a certain weight to them. One of uncertainty — she was searching for something.

When her eyes met his and stopped hastily, like a fast car braking suddenly, the weight lifted and it seemed that she’d found what she was looking for. Her gaze darted to his chest then back to his eyes. He looked down, remembering that he’d gone against Marc’s advice and wore a heavily patterned button down today instead of the solid coloured sweater Marc convinced him to wear on Monday.

Steven watched her as she turned to Dean and opened her mouth, but Dean’s bellowing voice got his group’s attention as he welcomed them and began to guide them along the tour.

She looked back at him, rooted in place as the group began to follow Dean. He saw the corner of her mouth quirk up, almost apologetically before she turned and followed the group.

Steven’s smile felt heavy, lifting up even the edge of his mouth was a hard task. Again, his eyes followed her as she walked away, her gaze straight ahead before she disappeared into the next room.

Steven was alone again. He waited, listening for a comment from Marc, but even he stayed silent.

“And of course he shows up at the last minute,” she huffs out a breath before taking a bite of her burrito. “If I just waited a second longer, I could’ve…” she trailed off, remembering she bought her ticket in advance. “…I could’ve done something,” she shook her head. “I should’ve said something, right?” she turned to her counterpart on the bench.

He sat as still as he ever had since she saw him upon entering the park. He was painted in gold and she didn’t even think she’d seen him breathe once. She would’ve thought he was an actual statue if his hat wasn’t laid out on the ground before him, collecting tips.

“I could’ve just gone to the manager and asked for exchange my ticket for the next tour,” she spitballed. “That is if he was even gonna be leading the next tour…” she trailed off before shaking her head, "Sure they probably would’ve looked at me funny, but the customer’s always right, aren’t they?”

She mulled it over in her head once again as she took another bite and chewed it, wondering if she would’ve even had the courage to say anything to him, should she have been in his group again.

“Maybe it wouldn’t have made a difference,” she shrugged, her eyes falling to her lap. “Maybe it wouldn’t have been appropriate to ask him out while he’s working; I mean he’d probably think I was some weird stalker type.”

She looked back at the living statue, his body rooted in place, never once breaking position. She let out another heavy sigh as she watched him; his silence just being a wall to bounce things off of.

“Maybe I’m just lonely,” she muttered, taking a bite of her burrito.

“Sorry I’m dumping all this on you,” she told him, “I know you can’t exactly tell me to leave you alone but I appreciate you listening and not just going to some other park,” she breathed out a laugh that was tinged with melancholy. “Believe it or not, you’re my only friend around here.”

Moving to London was proving to be extremely lonely. She had been here for the past month and had failed to make many friends. After working in the States for the last seven years, she felt she needed a change. When the opportunity to move and work at a new university presented itself, she jumped at the chance.

However, she found herself regretting it quickly.

Making friends had proven to be difficult, especially because everyone at work already knew each other. They were a tight knit group and it was hard to sit amongst them and not feel like an outsider when they spoke about people only they knew and places only they’d been. It was hard to relate to them.

Everywhere she looked, everyone knew each other, they were familiar with their surroundings; everyone had someone, except for her.

Steven was the first interaction that went beyond surface level; one that didn’t start with explaining where she was from and what it was like in America; she didn’t have to listen to another person explain how much better England was and how much happier she’d be living here rather than over there. She got to listen to someone speak about things she was interested in, and he listened and asked questions. Nobody had ever been as interested in listening to her when she spoke about mythology; sure some of her students were interested but they were far and few in between. Most of her students took her course on mythology because they believed it’d be an easy class. She wanted to see Steven and speak with him again; she wanted to hear more of his stories.

“Sorry,” she heard from behind her.

She turned her head, preparing herself to take another phone out of the hands of another stranger that was about to ask her to take a picture of them with the living statue, however when she looked up, she recognized that it was Steven standing there with a wrap in his hand.

His eyes were heavy until he recognized her and they lit up. She stood up from her seat, clutching the remains of her burrito in her right hand.

“Sorry.” It flew out of her before she could even process it.

Oh God, the second time in a day they’ve run into each other and there have only been a few hours in between. She felt her face heat up as her eyes fell to the ground. “I was just leaving,” she sent him a quick smile, hoping the ground would swallow her whole.

“Y-you don’t have to,” he offered. “I can go eat somewhere else.”

“No, no, please,” she insisted, picking up her bag from the ground and slinging it onto her shoulder. “I’m sure work’s been busy and you’d like some time alone,” she wrung the strap of her bag with her hand. “But he’s also a great listener,” she pointed at the living statue behind her who still hadn’t moved.

“Oh yeah, he’s the best,” Steven agreed. “Not much of a talker though.”

She nodded, feeling the conversation come down to a halt far too quickly. She couldn’t meet his eye but she could feel his gaze on her. She let out the breath she’d been holding, clipping out a quick bye before she stepped around him to leave.

“This bench is big enough for the both of us,” he said from behind her, making her turn around. He smiled softly, pointing towards it, “Well, three of us,” he nodded towards the statue.

She looked between Steven and the bench, a smile forcing its way onto her face as she watched him fidget with the wrap in his hand. He smiled shyly when she nodded. She sat back down in her seat and Steven made his way over to the empty spot next to the statue, tripping over the statue’s hat that was on the ground

She was quick as she grabbed onto Steven’s arm to catch him so he didn’t fall. Steven landed on the other side of the living statue on the bench with a slight thud, the distance being too much for her to maintain her grip on him.

“Are you okay?” she asked as he settled into his seat.

“Yeah, terrifically fine,” he assured her with a rapid nodding of his head.

She bit back a laugh as she watched him try and play it off.

Once they had settled into their seats, they began to quietly eat together, watching everyone else walk by them in the busy park. She latched onto people, trying to distract herself from the silence between her and Steven. She tried to focus on the group of girls a few feet away laughing animatedly, the couple on the next bench over engaging in a conversation, and the sound of feet thudding against the ground as little kids ran around the area playing tag with each other.

Her eyes would occasionally run into Steven’s over the outstretched arm of the living statue between them. They would smile politely at each other before looking away. She could feel her chest tightening and her leg began to shake as she tried to think of something to say to him. She just kept her mouth busy by taking small, calculated bites.

“Nice day today,” Steven said eventually.

“Oh yeah,” she nodded, “I thought England was supposed to be rainy,” she added, cringing shortly afterwards.

“N-no it definitely is,” he assured her with a nod, craning his neck to see over the statue’s arm.

She nodded back, letting an oh slip past her lips. They returned to their respective meals.

“Busy day at the museum?” she asked.

“Not too bad,” he replied. “Nice day like this, everyone’s looking to get out and do something.”

“Of course.”

Another moment of silence passed before Steven spoke up again, “D’you know,” his words were slightly muffled by the bit of food still in his mouth. He swallowed before continuing, letting out a laugh, “I-I think I saw you at the museum this morning.”

Her heart began beating rapidly as she prepared for this conversation to go completely sideways. “Oh yeah, I saw you too,” she nodded, keeping her eyes on her burrito. “It was nice to see you,” she added, wincing shortly after at the awkward sentiment.

“Yeah, you too,” he replied.

She looked over at him, noticing his eyes glued to the wrap in his hand that was halfway done.

“They get any new exhibits in on the tour?” he asked.

Her brows pulled together at the question, “No, not that I saw,” she replied, dipping her head down to look at Steven who looked over at her.

On the bench to her left, the couple that was previously sitting there got up and left, leaving an empty spot next to her.

“Maybe it’d be easier if you-“ she gestured to the now empty space.

“Yeah,” Steven agreed, picking up his bag and moving over to the seat, cautious of the hat on the ground.

He sat down and sent her a small smile as she greeted him with a quick and playful hello.

“I-I just thought there might be,” he said, picking up the conversation from where they left off. “Since you already went on the tour with me, I figured there might be something new,” his eyes were downcast before he picked them up again. “I mean I was scrambling around, trying to make sure I wasn’t out of the loop on anything,” he let out a small laugh that didn’t quite reach his eyes.

“No, it was pretty much the same; minus the bathroom break, which I think — for a thirty minute tour — is rather unacceptable.”

Steven’s eyes softened and his smile seemed more genuine this time around. “Yeah, Dean’s got his redeeming qualities as a tour guide though — been doing it for years.”

“Yeah, I could tell,” she nodded and she saw him deflate slightly, “He’s got no passion for the job,” she shook her head. “I mean, you seem to enjoy giving these tours very much; I don’t think I’ve met a tour guide as knowledgeable as you.”

Steven paused for a moment before turning his body to her, “Right…” he trailed off, “I hope you don’t mind me asking but if you enjoyed the tour the first time, why did you come again?”

She felt her heart hammering in her chest as she became unable to meet his eye. Her mouth opened and closed as she fidgeted with the foil wrapped around the last remnants of her burrito. “I, um…” she forced herself to look at him, “…I just really enjoyed the material.”

That’s not what she planned to say at all but his stare was unwavering and she cowered under it. She instantly regretted doing it, especially when his eyes left hers.

“Right, for that, um, book you say you’re not writing,” he tried to joke but it was heavy-hearted.

She looked at his side profile, running over the dips and curves of his face with her eyes as her confidence came out of where it was hiding from his stare. “No,” she said, “Because I really enjoyed your company.”

Steven’s head quickly turned towards her. He watched her for a moment; studied her with eyes that roamed over the expanse of her face before the rigidity in his body dissolved. “I really enjoyed your company too.”

A smile pushed across her lips as her eyes fell to her lap momentarily.

“Would you like to go to dinner with me?” he asked. As soon as the words left his mouth, he felt as though he was a bit forward, so he added, “I’d love to hear more about Zeus.”

She laughed at that, “He’s definitely a great topic of conversation,” she said, “But I’d also love to hear more about you.”

Steven’s heart stuttered and he nodded, “I-I mean I don’t have as much to offer as Zeus does, so maybe we can spend some time talking about you too.”

She beamed at him and it was a beautiful sight. “I’d like that.”

Steven grinned brightly but the moment was short-lived when his watch blared out again.

“Another tour?” she asked as he turned off the alarm.

“Yeah,” he looked up at her, an apologetic look that that softened upon meeting her eye. “But I think I can spare a few minutes.”

#steven grant #steven grant imagine #oscar isaac #oscar isaac imagine #moon knight #moon knight imagine

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darklydeliciousdesires · 1 year ago

Text

The Dream - Chapter Twenty Nine + Epilogue.

The end is here, besties. A huge thank you as always for those who have stuck it out until the end and offered such kind words in the way of feedback. Huge love to you all. It was a challenge to write this as it’s very different from my usual offerings. I can only hope the bittersweet ending meets your expectations :)

Previous chapters - Prologue One Two Three Four Five Six Seven Eight Nine Ten Eleven Twelve Thirteen Fourteen Fifteen Sixteen Seventeen Eighteen Nineteen Twenty Twenty One Twenty Two Twenty Three Twenty Four Twenty Five Twenty Six Twenty Seven Twenty Eight

Tag list - In the comments, please DM to be added/removed

Words - 4,186

Warnings - 18+ content throughout, minors DNI!

His hand kept reaching into the space beside him on the pull out, vast in its emptiness, no small body curling against his, no warmth from her skin. He would never awake to find her using him as a pillow again, just like she had on his first morning there all those months ago. No little sleep snuffles, no morning kisses. No more shared dreams.

She really was gone.

His brain couldn’t quite absorb it, yet the shock kept on hitting him over and over, like the perpetual jab of a knife into his heart. It had all happened so fast. One minute she was there and the next... gone.

How precious and fragile life truly was.

Angel knew better than most that’s how death worked sometimes, too. There were no guarantees of notice given. Death did not call and tell you to mark a date in your calendar. It snatched people without warning.

It had done this to him twice now. First his mom, and now his love.

His eyes stung from crying, his heart completely shattered. He couldn’t believe it was real. He still expected her to walk back in from the kitchen and tell him to scoot over, or ask if he’d farted, slapping him if he revealed he had.

Why? Why her? She’d barely even begun to live her life before it had been snatched from her. Angel felt his throat tightening again as he thought of all the things she’d shared with him, everything she wanted to accomplish, all that he was looking forward to being proud of her for. What hit him the hardest, though, was that she’d died before he’d truly made it up to her, ironed out the crazy behaviour that had been driven by his insecurities.

He still owed her, and he could never repay it now, never show her he was worthy of her love, never prove himself. Stretching his arms above his head, his chest quivered on a sob, sniffing hard as his tears began to fall again. God, the loneliness. She’d only been gone for ten hours and twenty-three minutes, and yet he felt like he was being buried alive in the grief of losing her, how vacant he felt without her there.

He knew then he should have appreciated her more while he could and not acted like such an overgrown child at her being away, because at least she’d still been alive then. He’d now suffered the ultimate abandonment, and it wasn’t her fault or his, but fuck, how he wished he could turn back time. Just a little more time with her, just a day, an hour, a moment to hold her again.

“I love you so fuckin’ much,” he whispered into the dark of the living room. “Dunno how the fuck I’m meant to carry on without you.” The pain crashed through him, hitting him over and over as it swallowed him whole, Keri was dead... Keri was dead. He’d managed to stop his tears by the time the bedroom door opened, Frankie exiting quietly, coming over to sit on the edge of the pullout.

“Can’t sleep.”

“Me neither,” he confirmed.

She gestured to the space beside him. “Mind if I cuddle up? I get it, if you’d rather be alone.”

He snorted softly. “Course, I don’t. Get over here.” She climbed under the comforter, resting her head to his chest, his arm wrapping around her. He wasn’t the only one completely heartbroken. Hell, they’d had to sedate Meryl, she was so hysterical.

“This feels weird,” she muttered, tapping his chest gently with her splayed hand. “No boobies.”

He smiled, laughing softly through his nose, Frankie continuing. “It doesn’t feel real. Like, you’re here, so my brain by default thinks that she should be, too. I keep thinking the door is gonna open and there she’ll be, my little beets.”

“Yeah, yeah you ain’t the only one,” he began, hand stroking her arm idly. “Just feels like she’s in the next room.”

“Oh, you know about the poem?”

He frowned. “What?”

“Yeah, the poem about death, about it being like they’re in the next room,” she explained, sitting up a little. He still looked confused. “Pass me your phone, I’ll find it.” He reached for it, unlocking the screen and handing it to her, Frankie searching for the piece she’d always found so comforting during times of loss.

“Death is nothing at all. I have only slipped away to the next room. I am I and you are you. Whatever we were to each other, That, we still are. Call me by my old familiar name. Speak to me in the easy way which you always used. Put no difference into your tone. Wear no forced air of solemnity or sorrow. Laugh as we always laughed at the little jokes we enjoyed together. Play, smile, think of me. Pray for me. Let my name be ever the household word that it always was. Let it be spoken without effect. Without the trace of a shadow on it. Life means all that it ever meant. It is the same that it ever was. There is absolute unbroken continuity. Why should I be out of mind because I am out of sight? I am but waiting for you. For an interval. Somewhere. Very near. Just around the corner. All is well.”

“All ain’t well,” Angel grumbled, sighing. “I get what the dude who wrote it meant, though. But like, I ain’t in that place yet. Hurts too much.”

“Yeah,” Frankie sighed, closing the webpage and locking his phone, handing it back. “Yeah, it’s too raw right now, but the words are beautiful. I’ll come back to them again. Right now, I just want to go someplace quiet and scream about how fucking unfair it is, that I lost my bestest buddy in the entire world.

“Isn’t just me, though. You lost your girlfriend, Meryl and David lost their daughter, and so many other friends, too. Rachel couldn’t breathe when I called her earlier. It isn’t fair, Angel. She should be here with us and she isn’t! She’s all alone in a fucking morgue!”

He winced at those words, not wanting to imagine it. It had been painful enough when after the nurses had pulled all of her tubes out, he’d gone back into the room, kissing her head and stroking her hair as she’d lain there, statue still, her warmth beginning to fade. She’d looked like she was sleeping, like she was about to wake up and ask him why he was crying on her.

Having to say goodbye to her like that had killed him. At least, though, he’d gotten to hold her once last time in their final shared dream. That provided a tiny slither of comfort blanketing the sharp edge of pain, if only for a short time. Tightening his arm around Frankie as she began to sob, he lay there in quiet contemplation about those dreams he’d shared with her, so much more about them now making complete sense to him, now the story that was him and her had sadly come to an end.

“I saw her in a dream, just before she died.” He paused, swallowing hard. “I fell asleep for a few minutes, and we dreamed together. She told me she didn’t wanna go, but she had to. Knew it was her time and shit. I begged her not to, then I woke up and she was gone.”

A little exclamation fluttered over her lips, Frankie looking up, reaching to stroke his cheek. “Of course, she’d come and say goodbye to you. She loved you so much, you were so special to her.” She swallowed back the little stab of envy, that he’d gotten to say goodbye to her when she hadn’t, Frankie realising that it was probably hell for him, to realise he was going to lose her, for him to wake and find she’d died.

“Didn’t get to prove myself worthy of that love.”

“Hey, none of that,” she began, pointing a soft finger at him, tapping his chest. “You were the love of her life, alright? Remember that. Don’t let regrets eat you up inside.”

“Hmm.” She didn’t push him further on it, guessing he likely wouldn’t stop feeling guilty just because she’d told him not to. Humans were rarely so simple. “I dunno, like... fuck. I dunno.” They lay there in silence, eventually falling asleep, although it was fitful, waking up regularly, both deciding to get up and go for a cigarette on the firs escape, Frankie sitting between his legs, Angel resting her chin atop his head.

“I hate that I won’t see you anymore, now that she’s gone,” she spoke, Angel making a noise in his throat.

“Don’t talk shit, Frances. If you want, I’ll still come see y’all when I can. You guys are my friends too now. I don’t forget shit like that.” He took a long drag on his cigarette, watching at the sun began to fill the sky. “She’d like it, too. If we kept in touch.”

“Yeah, she would,” she confirmed, smiling softly. “We’re the links to her, you know? What Keri left with each of us lives on within us all, so staying connected means we have little connections to her, too.”

“That shit’s beautiful, bro.” He knew he wasn’t capable of articulating something like that, but it made sense to him all the same. He went for a shower soon after, getting dressed and heading over to Meryl and David’s place, the latter answering the door to him.

“Hey man.” He pulled him into a hug, slapping his back softly. “How you doing?”

“Bad,” Angel confirmed, closing the front door behind him. “How about you guys?”

David waited until there were in the kitchen before replying, switching the coffee machine on and pulling two cups from the cupboard. “It still don’t feel real. Meryl is just... shit. Beyond devastated. She’s still in bed, but she didn’t sleep. Just crying endlessly.”

“Yeah, I think I drifted off for like, a half hour. Frankie too. You’re right, it don’t feel real at all. Keep expecting her to just walk in like nothing is wrong.”

David smiled, a soft laugh bursting from his nose. “And tell us about one of her calamities, spilling something or the like.”

“Showing off on her snowboard and hurting herself,” Angel smiled, remembering carrying her after she’d done that very thing and sprained her ankle.

David’s voice broke on a sigh, pinching the bridge of his nose. “I never had my own kids, and I didn’t feel like I needed to once I’d met Meryl. Here they were, this ready-made family. I always thought of her as mine. Ain’t fair at all. I can’t get my head around it. Feels like I’m in someone else’s nightmare.”

“Same,” Angel spoke, taking the coffee David handed to him with thanks. He turned back to the coffee machine, a sudden burst of sunlight from behind the clouds making something glint upon the windowsill. Picking it up, he held the thick, silver band Keri wore on her thumb, squeezing it in his palm before handing it over to Angel.

“Here.” He placed it into his hand, smiling with a nod. “I think she’d want you to have this.”

Angel took it, pulling off the rings he wore on the fourth finger of his left hand, placing on the band and returning them atop it, his smile sad.

“Fitting place,” David nodded, leaning back against the counter, watching him look down at his hand.

“I would have, you know. Would’ve asked her to marry me at some point.” Just then, David glanced with surprise over his shoulder, Angel feeling a soft hand upon his arm. Turning, he saw devastation personified.

He swallowed a lump in his throat, his eyes softening. “I’m so sorry, Meryl.”

She let herself be pulled into a hug, wrapping her arms around him, steeling herself not to break down again and cry all over her daughter’s boyfriend. “Thank you. I am too, for you. I know how much you loved her.” Pausing, she leaned to kiss his cheek, straightening up, wiping her eyes with her thumb. “Thank you for making her last month's so happy.”

“It was an honour, getting to love your daughter. She was everything to me.”

Meryl nodded, her lip quivering. “I know, love. I know.”

Angel didn’t stay for long, David vowing to keep in touch with him over the funeral arrangements before he left, booking himself a flight and heading directly to the airport. All around, there were memories of her, remembering walking through with her either on his arrival or departure, the Starbucks where he’d made her laugh so much about her frappuccino, the places they’d stood holding one another tight, the spot where they’d first met.

It stung his heart so hard that it almost took his breath away. He felt like he was moving through clay as he checked in and then sat and waited, buying a coffee while he waited the near two hours before his flight would depart, scrolling through his phone at the hundreds of pictures of her, of them.

“I dunno what I’m meant to do without you, tiny.”

And the truth was, he really didn’t. It was a pain he knew he would never truly recover from.

Epilogue

The entire charter of the Santo Padre Mayans MC roaring into the cul-de-sac was quite a thing to behold, all dressed in black, parking up behind the black limousines that would usher the family over to the funeral home. One by one, each man greeted the assembled family, offering his condolences, the few who knew her a little better speaking of his fondness for Keri, Meryl and David so very touched by their words.

The sun shone brightly on that October morning, a warmth still lingering through the crisp, fall air, Angel watching as golden leaves shook themselves from the trees, a perfect one landing right in front of him upon the handlebars of his bike.

“Yeah, baby. I know that’s you.” Placing it carefully in his pocket, he took a deep breath, feeling a hand press to his shoulder.

“The family is ready, mijo,” Bishop told him, placing his helmet on. “You lead, though. She was your girl. It’s only right.”

Clasping him in a tight hug, he felt the love from his brother swell through the cold nothingness that had become of his broken heart, the sound of bike engines roaring back into life filling the air, the procession slowly moving forward behind him. It still hurt, the grief cutting at him like a razor, nine days passed since his beloved Keri had taken her last machine assisted breath, since the last time he’d felt the warmth of her skin next to his.

He felt glacial without the sunshine of her love, a freeze that likely wouldn’t ever thaw.

He was glad Meryl had chosen a closed casket, because he couldn’t bear to see her shuttered in death again. Kissing her goodbye at the hospital had all but killed his heart, Angel instead wanting his last memory of her to be of when he’d held her in his arms at the airport, her face so bright and excited as they’d spoken of their vacation. What he would have given to be preparing for it, the trip he’d cancelled four days ago when he’d finally been able to actually get out of bed and do something other than lie there, weighted down by the lonely blanket of grief.

Once at the funeral home, they were met by a couple more of Keri’s friends, Angel touched at the sight of Rachel rushing into Gilly’s open arms, Bishop wrapping Frankie into a huge hug, Jaime too, telling her he wished he was meeting the girl he’d heard so much about under happier circumstances. “You’re right, she does look like a mermaid.” he spoke softly, Angel smiling when he remembered the moment he’d heard Frankie liken her to one, on that first morning in Provo, meeting Keri in the flesh for the first time the night before.

What he’d give to go back, be on that pull-out bed with her, enjoying their first kisses all over again. The pain of never having that again burned through him, as he knew it always would. There would be no cease to his sorrow at losing her, his one true love.

Turning to him, Frankie and Jaime held out their hands, both flanking him either side as they walked into the funeral home, ready to say their last goodbye to the girl who meant so very much to each of them. He still couldn’t believe she was gone. The appearance of the white casket sealed it, though, Angel swallowing the lump in his throat, letting go of Frankie’s hand and wrapping a strong arm around her when she couldn’t keep the sob in, holding her tightly.

“Good morning, friends. We gather today to remember fondly the life of our darling Keri Jane Watkins, taken much too soon from everyone she loved so very much on the second of October, twenty eighteen. As I look around at a room so full, I certainly see how her kindness, brilliant spirit, and unrelenting zest for life touched so many, from her mother Meryl and stepfather David, who we give all of our love and light to at this time, to her beloved boyfriend Angel, whom she adored beyond measure. Her Aunt Bee and Uncle Sunni, her precious cousins, and not least, her treasured friends, Frankie, Jaime, Rachel, Ash and Aaron, the core group of her heart.”

The words used by the minister were a lovingly touching tribute, yet Angel couldn’t have remembered any of them if you’d paid him all the money in the world as he sat there, replaying every memory he had of his darling over and over in his head, thinking how tiny her casket looked, for someone who was so full of energy and life. He still couldn’t quite reconcile that she was really lying in there.

“She isn’t, man,” Aaron told him afterwards, Angel voicing that thought to him as they congregated outside. “That’s just her body. The Keri we know and love, she’s dancing around through the skies, seeing every last part of the world she said she was gonna see. She’s up in the stars, man, laughing, soaring. Free. Her body will join her when her ashes have been scattered, too.”

Meryl, David and Angel had all agreed that Keri would have hated to be put into the ground, all deciding to cremate her and scatter her ashes up in the mountains, so she would blow free into the wind, and travel wherever it took her.

Angel smiled, giving him a big hug, thanking him for such words. “She loved the hell outta you, you know.”

“I know,” he croaked, taking off his glasses to wipe his eyes. “I was so damned lucky to call that little calamity my friend.”

Lucky. That’s exactly what Angel had been, he realised, moving away to stand by himself, lighting up a cigarette. He was still lost in the fog of grief, so painfully lonely, he barely slept at night without her there, but he knew in his heart that he’d been the luckiest to call her his for the too short a time he’d had her. If he could hold onto anything, it was that.

In the months, and eventually years that followed, he was never quite the same, his loved ones all noted, those in Santo Padre and Utah, whom he had stayed in touch with. He’d welcomed other women into his life, but only at arm's length, never with any permanence, more a means to an end whenever his libido dictated to him that he should.

It never felt the same, though, and with each one that passed through his life, it only made him long for the one he could never be with again all the more. In the end, there were no more women, not wanting for them. Not for anyone but her. He’d spray her perfume onto his pillow, try and fool himself that she hadn’t really gone, abandoned in waking and dreams by his soulmate, hoping that wherever her spirit soared, she was happier than him.

He was simply lost without her, stumbling through what he thought was a living hell. That was, until hell came calling for him, for all of them, from the brothers who grew tired of the Santo Padre charter, literally battering down their gates to wage war upon them. He and his brothers put up a valiant fight from the safety of the clubhouse, he and EZ manning guns at the windows, his brother yelling every so often for Sharise to take cover, who wanted so badly to try and assist.

She hid behind the end of the bar, watching her husband and Angel firing all they could, until their rounds of ammo ran out, the brother’s exchanging looks, both then ducking the hail of gunfire that hit the front of the clubhouse. Angel, however, didn’t get out of the way in time.

Sharise watched his body drop to the floor, screaming in horror as she crawled out from her hiding place, scrambling to reach him, her knees and hands scuffed upon the floorboards. None of that mattered as she removed her top, pressing it to the wound in his chest.

“Angel, I got you. Stay with me,” she spoke, pressing down, turning to look at him with wide, urgent eyes. When she watched him cough out a mouthful of blood, just as EZ skidded to a halt and dropped to his knees at his side, she knew, looking down again to see a second hole, right above his heart. If it hadn’t been broken entirely two years before, the bullet that had entered his chest certainly finished the job off.

“Angel, you’re gonna be fine,” EZ spoke, knowing he was saying the words so he’d believe them more than anything, his beloved elder brother lying there dying, spluttering again. More blood.

“It’s... okay,” he croaked, a cold swirl chilling his bones, feeling it begin to pull at him. “Love you.” His eyes flitted to Sharise, the pain in his chest feeling like a weight of fire. “You too. Gonna go find...”

Sharise sobbed, nodding, grasping his hand as she bent to kiss his head, stroking his hair lovingly with her blood-soaked hand. “I love you, too. You go find her. It’s okay, you’ll be with her soon.” She looked over at EZ, sobbing chokingly as they both clung onto him, their tear-filled eyes the last things Angel saw before the pain burned to absolutely nothing, the vacuum of death yanking him away, the endless black void pulling him under, until there was nothing at all.

The nothingness swirled around him, Angel feeling as if he was falling, endless darkness swathing him, his consciousness muddled, messy, a sharp thought occurring to him; what if he didn’t deserve to follow where she had gone? His entire body suddenly jolted, a yank that took him downwards, descending, the nothing giving way suddenly.

He could hear the ocean.

Opening his eyes, he squinted slightly, everything so bright. Brilliant white surrounded him, the smell of saltwater and fresh linen filling his nose.

The white room. He’d made it.

Turning onto his side, he reached beneath the covers, her warmth right there next to him, where he’d craved it to be in the two long, lonely years without her. He pulled at the comforter, his heart mending itself in an instant to see those pretty hazel eyes looking back at him, her beautiful smile making her entire face glow.

She looked exactly as she had the first time he’d ever seen her.

Finally, he’d found her again.

Reaching for his face, Keri moved into the warmth of his arms, kissing him softly. “What was the last thing I told you?”

He beamed at her, the love he felt no longer a painful echo of loss. “That you loved me,” he stated, fingers entwining in her hair.

“And to look after yourself, and what do you go and do? Get shot and join me a mere two years later.” She rolled her eyes, shaking her head. “Unbelievable.”

He laughed softly through his nose, kissing her again. “I wasn’t alive in those two years, mi amor. Only existing without you.”

She stroked his face, nuzzling him. “So, you missed me then?”

He held up a tiny gap between his thumb and forefinger, her laugh sparkling in his ears. “Just this much.”

Replicating, she mouthed the words back to him before he pulled her against him, turning onto his back, holding her tightly as they kissed. Death no longer mattered, and neither did leaving everything else behind. They’d found one another again, as they were always destined to. Their souls could rest now, there in the white room.

Forever.

The End.

#angel reyes #angel reyes fanfiction #angel reyes imagine #angel reyes x ofc #angel reyes fanfic #angel reyes fic #mayans mc #mayans mc fanfiction #mayans mc fanfic #mayans mc imagine #mayans mc smut #mayans mc fic

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reids-rendering-reality · 4 years ago

Text

Guys My Age

Summary: Y/N is the newest addition to the BAU team and Spencer appears to have taken a special liking towards her. The only problem is, he thinks he’s too old for her. However, that’s all about to change when they share a hotel room.

(A/N: I’m such a sucker for the hotel room trope so I combined it with two of my other favourite ideas: Spencer being older than the reader and catching her doing yoga)

Type: fluff + a sexual innuendo or two

Warnings: dirty thoughts, insecurity about age, age gap, anxiety, yoga?

Word Count: 2.1K

Spencer Reid’s POV

I pulled the handle of my satchel over my shoulder as I sighed. It was a very long day in a small rural town somewhere deep in Alabama. Everyone else had gone back to their hotel room, besides Hotch and I. There was just something about this case I couldn’t get out of my mind. The feeling of being so close to the final piece of the puzzle, as if it were on the tip of my tongue but I couldn’t grip it. Yet I had to let it go for the night and get some rest. The much needed REM sleep could give me an entirely new perspective on this problem to me tomorrow. At least that’s what I hoped.

On the walk to the hotel room I was getting increasingly nervous, the more rooms I passed in the hallway. This small hotel did not have enough rooms to accommodate the whole team separately. They only had four rooms for the seven of us. JJ and Emily had immediately paired up, just like Rossi and Morgan. And Hotch being the team leader took the single room. Leaving me with our newest and youngest member, Y/N.

It’s not like I didn’t like her. That’s not what it was at all. Just, she made me a little bit nervous. She was so beautiful that sometimes I couldn’t get out any words around her. And that says a lot because I always have something to say. But as cheesy as it sounds, in some moments there is not a single fact that I can recall.

But the elephant in the room demands to be heard. She is younger than I am. And that by a lot. By exactly ten years and three months. That appears to be a lot. I don’t really know why, but that bothers me. We are both adults, but because of social conventions at our age, I feel as though it is inappropriate. Yet if I were 60 and she were 50 or I was 80 and she was 70, no one would even blink at the gap. Yet because we are young it matters. I feel sad when I think about it because I like her a lot. And when we talk I don’t notice the age gap. In fact, I’d even go so far as to say that it wasn’t even there at all.

What surprised me as I was having these thoughts and neared the room was the fact that I actually considered asking her out. Since Maeve I have not been on a single date. And who said she would even be interested in anything beyond a casual friendship or even colleagueship with me? That’s not even considering the amount of courage it would require for me to tell her. But it’s not like that would be a fruitful endeavour.

And that was the last thought I had before I reached the door to room 179. A prime number. Prime numbers would be my lucky numbers if there were such a thing.

As I rummaged around my pockets and satchel for the key card I noticed the sound of music coming through the door.

“Gotta thank him he’s the reason

That I’ll find what I’m looking for.”

I heard a woman sing over the sound of an electric guitar. I still hadn’t found my key card.

“Guys my age don't know how to treat me

Don't know how to treat me.”

My movements stopped when my brain registered the lyrics. Guys my age…?

“Guys my age don't know how to touch me

Don't know how to love me good.”

My breath hitched and I gulped, key card in hand. Did she mean that? Could it be possible that she would be interested in someone ten years older than her? The feeling of hope was beginning to form in my brain, scenarios of what could be clouding my vision. But they were quickly pushed aside by a dark storm of self-doubt. Because most people don’t listen to lyrics as closely. The lyrics to a song don’t mean anything to them. Did they mean anything to her?

I realised I had been standing in front of the door for way too long and gathered all my confidence to go inside. But nothing could have prepared me for what I was about to see. After closing the door behind me and tucking away the key card into my bag I turned around for the first time.

There she was. In the middle of the room in front of the two twin beds on a yoga mat. Her front leg was bent as she stretched her back. She was only dressed in skin tight pants and a matching bra that complimented the way her body was contorted. The soft light from the night lamp next to one of the beds made her skin glisten just noticeably as if it were glowing. I could feel my eyes widen as I my brain finally added up the pieces of what I was seeing.

“Oh, hi Spence!” she said gleefully turning her head towards mine, “I was feeling a little tense after sitting in that conference room all day. I hope you don’t mind.”

I didn’t even bother to attempt to talk, I could feel how dry my throat was and how my lips would not listen to any command I would’ve given it. So I just shook my head and pulled my eyes away from her as she moved her upper body towards the floor, holding herself up by her ellbows. I walked towards the beds in her general direction trying not to notice how gorgeous her ass looked now that her body was turned away from me. That I even had that thought surprised me and caused a blush to rise to my cheeks. I was thankful that she couldn’t see my face in that moment as I loosened up my tie. Taking a deep breath to calm my nerves, my attention drifted back to the song.

“Don't know how to love me good

So I'm never going back”

There was nothing in that moment that could keep me sane. My wildest dreams could have not come up with this scenario. It felt utterly unreal.

As the song ended I saw her change positions again from my peripheral vision.

“You’re awfully quiet today,” she said while turning the music down.

I noticed panic begin to fill my brain. She wanted to have a conversation.

“I um- it’s been kind of a long day,” I said and cleared my throat, while deciding whether or not it would be a good idea to turn around towards her.

“Have you been at the station the whole time? You must be exhausted,” she responded and continued when I didn’t answer, “I thought you could show me that show you’ve been gushing about.”

How was this real life? My brain began to lose control of my executive functions as my body turned around to face her. She was now sitting on the floor, legs stretched out in front of her, her hands wrapped around her feet as she looked up at me. The low-cut top she was wearing gave me a perfect sight into the curves of her-

I dared not continue that line of thought, already flustered enough as it is.

“Really? You’d be interested in watching that?” I said and blinked.

Her lips spread into a smile, twinkling her eyes, “Yeah, of course. The way you described it makes me really curious.”

“We could watch an episode or two before going to sleep, if you want.”

I just had to take this chance. Even if I could only begin to have a friendship with her, I wanted to be close to her because for some odd reason, I couldn’t bear to admire her from afar.

So not long after, I was setting up the odd hotel room tv to watch the show. It took me the entirety of her taking a shower so that I was only standing back up when she was walking out of the small bathroom in a white bathrobe and a towel wrapped around her head. She smiled up at me as she walked past me, her hand brushing my arm so casually that I questioned whether it actually happened.

I hesitated again before sitting down on the bed. Was she going to get dressed in front of me? Because no matter how much my amygdala wanted me to see that, my frontal cortex wasn’t going to allow it. I forced myself to look through my satchel in an attempt to find a distraction as I waited for her next move. But luckily, she didn’t tempt my brain too much into overdrive.

I felt as if there was a higher power not willing to spare me for the night when she came out of the bathroom a second time, now something someone might call dressed. She was in a loose light coloured satin pyjama set that showed off her legs perfectly. And as if that were not enough to torture me for the night, she joined me on my twin bed with her bag of chips.

“I hope that’s okay with you, then we can share snacks,” she said so innocently that I almost believed it. But I could still hear the song ringing in my ears and I noticed her eyes take a short glance down at my lips as she said it. I was almost convinced that I wasn’t imagining things.

What really sealed the deal was that I noticed her scoot a tiny bit closer to me every once in a while. At first I could only feel the warmth she radiated, but after about 30 minutes I felt the bare skin of her arm against mine. My breath quickened, which I was sure she had noticed.

I knew the episode off by heart. Which was to my advantage because then my brain could run in a speed that I could barely follow. I tried my hardest to calm down a little bit, which was hard when I could feel the movement of her body as a whole-hearted laugh filled her throat.

“Y/N,” I whispered with all my courage. It was so low that I almost thought she wouldn’t hear it, but she turned her head towards me her eyes following a few seconds after.

Her eyes met mine and it was like I could feel my neurons firing electrical signals throughout my entire body. And just like that, in one swift movement she had grabbed my face by the back of my head and pulled me into her lips.

That was the first time that night that my muscles began to relax as I eased into the sensation of her soft lips moving against mine. It was as though I was beginning to lose myself in the kiss, all insecurities about her feelings towards me or my inexperience gone.

When she ultimately pulled away and rested her forehead against mine, we were both panting gently. My whole body felt warm with the feeling of her breath on my skin and her hands still in my hair. I didn’t dare open my eyes, still afraid that I would wake up from this idyllical dream.

We both didn’t know what to say as we pulled away further and looked at each other. I wanted to say something, to let her know how I felt, but once again, my brain did not follow my commands.

“Did you know when you kiss someone for the first time it causes your dopamine levels to increase for a short period of time? It also makes your heart rate and the oxygen supply to your brain to raise,” I heard my voice say in something between a whisper and my normal talking voice.

“For the first time, huh?” she grinned a little at me.

I reached for her hand and gently took it in mine. I moved her palm over my shirt to the centre of my chest. I could feel my heart race through her hands and I know she could feel it too. She looked up into my eyes again with a look on her face that told me all I needed to know.

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