#it's half of the sixteen i wanted but my supervisor always thought that was a bit ambitious

[tiffanyachings]

ok ok ok five research interviews in the bag, one more scheduled, three more agreed in principle. YOU'RE GOOD YOU'RE GOOD

[silvermoongirl10swfics]

Learning to deal with emotionally crippling pain

For @codywanweek 2021 Day 2: AU (Modern University AU.)

You can also read this fic here on A03.

(The title of the fic will make sense after reading the fic.)

This is set at Manchester Metropolitan University in the UK, where I went to uni. As I wanted to combine the uni I loved going to with one of my favourite ships.

No major warnings, but there is a slight, non-graphic, description of how bodies were buried during the Black Death (this may seem very random, but I don’t want to gross anyone out.)

(I was inspired by @catawampuscorner​ drawing adorable baby clones in animal onesies, the cuteness now lives rent free in my brain and my brain desperately wanted to add baby clones and baby Jedi in animal onesies to this fic due to their wonderful drawings of the baby clones. So, I have referenced codywan and some other clones being youngsters in animal onesies near the end of this fic.)

Also Wolffe and Fox are twins because I thought of the idea about a month ago and loved it so much. 

Cody hefted his kit bag onto his shoulder and nodded in thanks to the bus driver as he stepped off the bus on Oxford Road. He turned hearing a loud thump and rolled his eyes, Fives had, against Cody’s and Rex’s advice, decided to sit on the top deck of the double-decker bus while carrying his heavy rugby kit bag. Unsurprisingly Fives stumbled and hit the wall of the stairs as he tried to walk down the steep steps, his bag over balancing him. Rex threw out an arm to steady their younger brother and then the two of them joined Cody on the pavement.

“We did warn you,” stated Rex with a roll of his eyes.

“Whatever,” griped Fives. Without another word, Fives was walking through All Saints Park, no doubt heading back to the student halls where he shared a flat with his twin Echo and six other first year students.

“I really hope Echo is better soon. I don’t know how much longer I can take Fives in this mood,” sighed Rex shaking his head.

“You and me both,” agreed Cody with a nod of his head at his younger brother.

Cody was the eldest of the four brothers, and was currently in his third and final year of studying his undergraduate history degree at Manchester Metropolitan University. Rex was eleven months younger than him and was in his second year studying law, Echo and Fives were their younger brothers who were twins. The family hadn’t thought that Fives was interested in going to university, which was fine with them as they didn’t want to push him into something he didn’t want. But when Echo announced his intention of going to study mathematics at the same university where Cody and Rex were studying, Fives suddenly announced that he was also going to Man Met to study physiotherapy. The twins were in their first year and two years ago, at eighteen, Cody had thought he would be getting some peace from his three younger brothers, in the end he only got one year of peace before his brothers joined him in quick succession. But thankfully he only had to put up with living with them when they were all home for the holidays. As Cody shared a one-bedroom flat with his long-term boyfriend Obi-Wan who had also chosen to study at Man Met, also in his third year, studying English literature. Obi-Wan and Cody had been best friends since their first day at primary school aged four, later confessing their romantic feelings for each other when they were sixteen, both coming down from the stress of getting their GCSE results. They hadn’t actually told each other where they were applying for university, not wanting to influence each other’s decision. But they still ended up at the same university anyway, not that Cody was complaining.

Like Cody, Obi-Wan had not been able to escape his younger brother. Anakin was friends with Fives and Echo as they were the same age, Anakin was in his first year studying engineering at Man Met. It was funny to Cody, because Echo and Anakin’s subjects were in the same faculty, they often saw each other as their lectures and seminars took place in the John Dalton buildings, whereas Fives went to lectures across the main road on the slightly smaller campus in the Brooks Building. Fives had always been protective of Echo, his reasoning being he was the older twin so had to look out for Echo. But after Echo got hurt in a car accident when they were fifteen driving home with their dad, Fives had grown even more protective, somehow blaming himself because he wasn’t there in the car with Echo. The youngest of the four brothers hadn’t been seriously hurt, but the accident had gained him a constant shadow. So, when the twins applied to the university, they looked at the map of the two campuses and picked Oxford Court for their student halls accommodation because it was pretty much in the middle of where the two of them would have their lectures and seminars.

With another look in the direction Fives had gone, feeling a rare moment of relief at seeing his brother walk away. Cody loved his brothers, but because Echo had gotten injured in their last rugby game, he couldn’t take part in practice and it had left Fives in a mood for the past week. Neither Echo, Cody or Rex could seem to talk Fives out of his mood, leading to Cody thinking he may have to call their parents to talk some sense into Fives. But he didn’t want to worry his mum, which is what would happen if Cody had to tell her Fives still wasn’t okay a week after Echo badly spraining his ankle. So, Cody’s only other option would be to call his twin cousins, Wolffe and Fox who were both in their third and final years of studying at the same university in London. Wolffe was studying sport science, while Fox was studying history like Cody, but with more of a focus on medical history while Cody preferred military history.

Wolffe and Fox were the closest cousins Cody and his brothers had, due to their parents all moving to Britain from New Zealand due to his father and uncle getting jobs with the same tech company before Cody, Wolffe and Fox were born. Leaving the rest of the aunts, uncles and cousins back in New Zealand with their grandparents. Cody then reflected, calling the other twins might not be a bad idea. Wolffe would be gruff but caring in talking to Fives and if that failed, Fox would just beat sense into him either verbally or physically. With there being direct trains from London to Manchester, Cody wouldn’t be surprised if Fox came in person to beat some sense into Fives. Fox had no patience for Fives’ protective older brother routine of Echo and that was down to Wolffe being protective of Fox. Which he hated, but to be fair to Wolffe, he was fully justified going by the amount of coffee and lack of sleep Fox was powering through to work on his assignments and dissertation. Despite the fact it was still January and Fox had three months left until he had to hand in his dissertation.

Thinking of dissertations, Cody waved goodbye to Rex and headed towards the cafeteria in the Business School building to get some tea for his boyfriend. Once he acquired the tea in a take away cup, he went next door to the library where Obi-Wan was working on his dissertation, thankful that their university library allowed food and drink as long as it was silent. Fox was insanely jealous as his university library forbade any food or drink to enter the building, meaning Fox was deprived of his precious coffee. Which was why Wolffe pushed Fox to work in the library as often as he could. Cody didn’t mind plying Obi-Wan with tea, because while he could say Obi-Wan was additive to his tea, he didn’t drink any caffeinated tea two hours before going to bed, unlike Fox who was known to drink a mug of coffee before going to bed if Wolffe hadn’t managed to stop him. It was a wonder Wolffe hadn’t gone grey with the amount of time he spent worrying over his twin brother.

Cody scanned his student card to let him past the barriers and started walking up the two flights of stairs to the floor Obi-Wan liked to work on. The library was massive, with its different wings and five floors, but Cody was glad it was so big because it could be divided into silent study areas and group study areas, where you could talk so long as you were quiet. Obi-Wan, like Cody, hated working in complete silence and in their first year they found a nook between some shelves that had a table where they could bring their own laptops to work on their essays together. But were conveniently close to university computers so they could log on to print their work if needed. It was also a space their brothers had been unable to find them in, although Cody was fairly certain Rex knew where he liked to work, but was kind enough to leave him alone. Anakin, Echo and Fives would not be as considerate.

He walked through the doors into the study area and walked halfway into the big room with its rows of computers and shelves of books, until he found Obi-Wan hunched over his notes and two books he was using for his dissertation. Cody silently reminded himself that he was due to meet with his dissertation supervisor tomorrow to check the progress on his second chapter. He placed the cup of tea on the table beside Obi-Wan’s laptop and pressed a kiss onto the mess of copper hair, noting that his boyfriend hadn’t shaved again, making him wonder if Obi-Wan was committing to growing a beard. If he did, it would be because Obi-Wan was fed up of people thinking he was sixteen or seventeen, rather than being almost twenty-one years old, something that delighted Anakin to no end. Obi-Wan slowly sat up and blinked owlishly at him and rubbed a hand over his face. “Rugby practice is over already?” he asked in confusion as he looked at his watch.

Cody snorted in amusement, “thankfully yes.” Obi-Wan had come to the library just after Cody left their flat for practice, that had been two and half hours ago.

Obi-Wan reached for his tea and sighed in pleasure when he sipped on the hot liquid. “Fives still in a mood then?”

“Yes,” he sighed in exasperation as he sat down beside Obi-Wan and putting his kit bag on the floor with a roll of his shoulder.

Raising a knowing eyebrow over the rim of his cup, Obi-Wan asked. “Are you going to call Wolffe and Fox?” Cody nodded in agreement, smiling to himself, happy at how easily Obi-Wan fit into his family. Obi-Wan, Cody, Wolffe and Fox had all gone through school together. Obi-Wan and Anakin’s dad, Qui-Gon, was a friend of Cody’s parents and often came over for dinner. According to his dad, Cody’s mum and Qui-Gon had been having wine nights when they lamented over their empty nests and how it was unfair how quickly their children were growing up. While Cody’s aunt just laughed at them because Wolffe and Fox had left home for university almost three years before.

They lapsed into silence, and Cody just let himself day dream as he listened to the clack of Obi-Wan’s keyboard. He also ran through a mental list of things he needed to do for his dissertation and thought he could do with another trip down to London to go to the National Archives again for some more primary sources. His phone buzzed and Cody snorted at the text message from Echo.

[Echo] Fives is in SUCH a bad mood! Please help me!

[Cody] Sorry Echo. Rex and I had him for two hours, we need a break.

[Echo] WORST BIG BROTHERS EVER!!!!

[Echo] I hope you marry Obi-Wan so I can adopt him as my favourite older brother.

[Echo] You know what. I’m not waiting until you marry him. He’s my favourite brother now.

Cody chuckled to himself, he couldn’t argue with Echo, Obi-Wan was his favourite person too.

[Cody] What WILL Fives say?

[Echo] Right now I don’t care. He’s driving me INSANE!!!!

[Cody] I was going to call Wolffe and Fox to see if they could help.

[Echo] PLEASE!!! I am BEGGING YOU!!!!

[Echo] You know what?

[Echo] Just skip straight to Fox.

[Echo] And record it. I want to relive that future moment for forever. Fox’s position as my favourite cousin will be secured.

Cody snorted in amusement again, Obi-Wan turned to him in question. So, Cody just showed him the messages and Obi-Wan shook his head in amusement, but he blushed slightly. No doubt due to Echo’s comments on Cody marrying Obi-Wan.

“Echo wishing harm on Fives. I never thought I’d see the day,” commented Obi-Wan, his blue eyes sparkling with laughter. No doubt remembering the times Fox lost his patience with bullies and idiots they went to school with and just went for them. Their aunt had to give Fox the disapproving lecture, but she also slipped Fox money for standing up to bullies for other kids. So, Fox’s handling of bullies and idiots had never been stopped, only been encouraged.

“Oh, Echo can be pushed to it,” chuckled Cody, recalling the few times Fives had made Echo lose his temper. Echo was a nice and quiet person, which also made him one of those people you did not want to make angry, because when his patience snapped. It snapped. He could be worse than Fox, and that said something.

“By the way, your dad text me. He’s invited me to a family reunion dinner in a month’s time. So, is anyone coming over from New Zealand?” Obi-Wan asked as he started to tidy his books away and turn off his laptop.

Cody nodded. “My grandparents are coming over in three weeks and are staying until the summer as they want to be here for mine, Wolffe and Fox’s graduations. Then a few of the cousins are coming over in the summer.” He smiled to himself; it would be nice to see his family members again. They all saw each other every year, one year Cody and his family would fly out to New Zealand and the next year the family would fly over to Britain for a few weeks. With all of the cousins now at university, it made sorting out reunions easier due to the longer holidays they all had.

Obi-Wan’s eyes sparkled with amusement again, “anymore family arguments to look forward to?” he laughed.

“Probably,” Cody sighed as he rolled his eyes. Obi-Wan had come out to New Zealand with him last summer and witnessed some truly spectacular family arguments and rather silly ones as well. The most prominent being about Fox and Echo’s names.

When Fox had been a toddler, he and Wolffe had been put into animal onesies (Cody and his brothers also shared that misfortune with their cousins, but the less said about that the better), Wolffe into a wolf onesie and Fox into a fox onesie. Ever since Fox wanted to be called Fox, as he hated his proper name, the name being Frederick. If anyone ever called him Frederick when he was a small child he bit them, leading to his parents to tell their school when they started that it would be best if they didn’t call Fox Frederick for the safety of their own fingers.

Then when Echo had been four and in school, learning about words that began with the letter E, he heard the word Echo and wanted to call himself that, because he didn’t like being called Eli. Cody’s mum had tried to tell Echo his name was Eli, but Echo said Fox picked his name, so why couldn’t he? Cody’s mum tried her hardest to get Echo to forget about calling himself Echo, seeing as he was named after his mum’s father-in-law Elias and didn’t want to offend him. But Echo just started repeating everything everyone said, until the point their dad begged their mum to just let Echo call himself Echo. Fives didn’t want to be left out, and chose the nickname Fives, but he wasn’t involved in the arguments because he let their grandmother still call him Felix. Echo and Fox on the other hand, both refused to answer to their given names. And Obi-Wan had witnessed their grandmother once again getting annoyed when Echo and Fox didn’t answer her when she called them Eli and Frederick. That was also the visit where Obi-Wan learnt just who Echo and Fox inherited their stubbornness from. Grandpa Elias was not offended and found the whole thing hilarious and continued to congratulate Echo on his name every time he saw Echo. Cody was also convinced, his grandmother only continued the argument for the sake of it, he had seen her handwriting in birthday cards calling Echo and Fox by their chosen names. But she still wrote Eli and Frederick on family Christmas cards, again probably just for the drama.

But some uncles and aunts were not happy with Echo and Fox changing their names, albeit not legally, because other cousins began following their lead. Namely their four cousins who were all siblings (two sets of twins), Hunter, Crosshair, Wrecker and Tech. The four of them changing their names and even happily calling themselves the Bad Batch at family gatherings much to the ire of their mother. Fives was blamed for their collective nickname, as Obi-Wan found out and thought it was hilarious. The Bad Batch had invited Echo to play with them when they were small, and Fives who had not been invited to play had been jealous and called them the Bad Batch, the four of them had loved it and adopted it as their group name.

Obi-Wan started to laugh quietly to himself as he put his laptop away in his bag. At Cody’s questioning look he smiled and said. “I’m just wondering who will be the first to say something to disrupt family dinner. Either you, your brothers or your cousins will say something. You have done ever since the first family dinner I was invited to when I was five.”

Cody smirked to himself and nodded, “honestly I’m expecting it to be Fox again. You know he deals with stress in the weirdest ways.”

“You mean like putting everyone else off their food?” teased Obi-Wan, his eyes glinting at the memory of the last dinner everyone had together.

Over the four-week long Christmas holiday, Cody’s parents had hosted numerous family dinners, wanting to spend as much time together as possible. As it was understood with Cody, Obi-Wan, Wolffe and Fox graduating university later that year, they may not get to come home as often anymore. Also, as Cody’s uncle and aunt lived next door to them and Obi-Wan lived five houses further down the road, it was very easy for Cody’s uncle and aunt, Wolffe, Fox, Obi-Wan, Qui-Gon and Anakin to join their family for dinner. Which also meant, Cody and Obi-Wan had to suffer the embarrassment of watching Qui-Gon and Cody’s mum tearfully looking at photos of them growing up, mourning the loss of their ‘little ones’. While Cody’s aunt sipped on her glass of red wine and cackled at them, saying it was better to have both her kids leave the nest at once, as she didn’t have to go through kids moving out more than once.

Cody had also been horrified to learn there existed a photo of him in an animal onesie after all, and to make it worse, he was four in the photo. He was at school, but because his mum wanted a picture of all her boys in their animal onesies, he had been put into his old lion onesie (mane included on the hood) that was getting too small for him. But it had interested him to see it was a group photo of all of them sat on the living room floor. Obi-Wan was also in the photo, in a onesie that resembled the fictional varactyl creature he had been obsessed with when he was four. His unimpressed look matching Cody’s, in the photo both of them had their arms crossed as they glared at their parents off camera. Wolffe and Fox were also in the photo, but too busy pulling on each other’s hoods, Wolffe almost taking off one of Fox’s onesie’s ears. Rex, at three, was happily beaming at their mum in his elephant onesie that included a small trunk attached to the hood. Leaning against Rex on his left was Anakin, who at two, was too busy trying to eat his own foot as he sat in his dog onesie. On Rex’s right was the little twins, Echo beaming at the camera in his giraffe onesie as he lifted a hand up to squeeze the felt face of the giraffe attached to the hood and Fives, in a moose onesie (seriously where had his parents found these?), was busy trying to grab one of his felt antlers and eat it. Apparently, their parents had kept all of the onesies, what they planned to do with them Cody couldn’t guess.

But while the onesie group photo had been embarrassing, it hadn’t put anyone off their food. No, that came when Cody’s dad asked all of them how university was going. Everyone listened as one by one, all the boys explained what they had been doing. The adults patiently listened as Cody, Obi-Wan, Wolffe and Fox talked about their dissertations and skilfully manoeuvring the conversation so as to avoid third year meltdowns as the families had taken to calling their tearful, stressed rants. While Rex, Anakin, Fives and Echo stared at them in dawning horror as they realised what was in their immediate future. Fox had given Cody advice on where to find primary sources, as Fox was writing his ten-thousand-word dissertation on the Black Death and at this point, was basically an expert on where to find medical documents from varying time periods. Which was immensely helpful for Cody because his dissertation was on the treatment of shell shock in the First World War.

Dinner seemed to then settle, with all the boys commenting on funny or interesting things they had heard at university. When Fox piped up, “I was reading a chapter for my dissertation when the author commented that they buried people who had died of the Black Death by lying down a layer of bodies, then a layer of soil, another layer of bodies, more soil, more bodies and then the final layer of soil. It was interesting that the author used the analogy of the bodies been buried like how you make a lasagne.”

Everyone stopped, many of the people gathered around the table stared at Fox, with forks paused in the air. Fox, oblivious continued to eat his dinner with a smile on his face. Which was lasagne. Wolffe just shook his head and sighed in exasperation as he stopped eating his portion of lasagne and instead reached for a piece of garlic bread. Obi-Wan, taking interest in the analogy, was asking Fox if he had come across any other analogies like it. Rex, Echo and Fives dropped their forks and looked at their food in faint disgust. Qui-Gon and Anakin, who normally didn’t find anything disgusting, looked down at the lasagne on their plates in muted horror. Cody’s parents and uncle just sighed, with his uncle massaging his forehead in exasperation, while Cody’s aunt lifted her wine glass up and saluted Fox with it before taking a sip (Fox was a lot like his mother). Cody raised an eyebrow at his cousin, Fox smirked and then reached for the serving dish in the centre of the table. “Oh, no one else wants anymore? Guess I’ll finish the lasagne up then,” Fox stated with a mock innocent look on his face. Wolffe just sighed again and thumped his head down onto the table. Leaving Cody with the impression that Fox was hungry and saw how quickly the food was disappearing and decided to take matters into his own hands.

As Cody and Obi-Wan walked out of the library holding hands, Cody turned to Obi-Wan and smirked. “It is safe to say, lasagne will not be on the menu.”

Obi-Wan laughed loudly as they made their way into the cold air outside, wrapping his scarf tighter around his neck. Obi-Wan also admitted that neither his father nor Anakin, had been able to eat lasagne since that dinner. Anakin had seen lasagne being served for lunch at the university one day and had practically fled the cafeteria.

Together they walked to the bus stop that was less than a minute walk from the library and sat in contented silence as they travelled from campus on the short bus journey to their flat. Their shoulders knocked gently together as they swayed as the bus pulled in and out of bus stops. Their hands were still clasped together, and Obi-Wan was looking out of the window with a smile on his face as he watched people go about their day. Cody found himself unable to tear his gaze away from Obi-Wan’s face, watching as his eyes crinkled as he smiled at the sight of a giggling child play peekaboo with their younger sibling. The bright winter sun turned Obi-Wan’s copper hair into flames and it was a sight that always memorised Cody without fail. It was the sight that led to four-year-old him talking to Obi-Wan on their first day at school because he had never seen someone with the same-coloured hair as Obi-Wan before. Cody only realised they had reached the bus stop they needed when Obi-Wan pressed the button to alert the driver to stop. He reached down for his kit bag and swung it up onto his shoulder, they walked off the bus, thanked the driver and continued walking while holding hands. Obi-Wan began to talk about a book he had had to read for one of his modules and while Cody never heard of the book before, he enjoyed seeing how excited Obi-Wan was about it.

Once they got inside their flat, Obi-Wan put his bag, that contained his laptop and some books, on the floor by the door and went into the kitchen. Cody watched him for a moment, glad to see Obi-Wan was distracted making them both some lunch. Cody sat at their table and turned his laptop on and logged into the website where he was creating a photobook of photos of himself and Obi-Wan throughout their lives as a birthday present. There were hundreds of photos of them together over the years they had known each other, there were photos of primary, secondary and sixth form last days. Seeing how they had changed in those years was endearing and funny at the same time. Cody caught Obi-Wan looking over at him and Cody playfully tilted his laptop screen away from Obi-Wan’s view, not that his boyfriend could see it from where he was anyway. Obi-Wan smiled and then turned back to the sandwiches he was making. Obi-Wan knew he was getting his birthday present, just as Cody was aware Obi-Wan was also organising his birthday present, as Obi-Wan’s birthday was two days before Cody’s.

Cody checked through the photobook one last time and then seeing that everything was as he wanted it, he clicked order and waited for the confirmation email to arrive. Once it had, he closed his laptop down and smiled as Obi-Wan, at that moment, walked up to him and handed him a plate with his sandwich and an apple.

“I love you,” Cody said with a smile.

Obi-Wan rolled his eyes fondly, “ah yes. You only love me for my sandwich making skills.”

“You caught me!” chuckled Cody as he held his hands up in defence. They shared a smile and then both began eating their sandwiches in earnest. They chatted about friends from home who had gone to other universities or who went into work, the friends they had made in Manchester, the antics of crazy younger brothers and they also talked about if they wanted to do a Masters degree in their subject and if they did, where should they go? As it wasn’t a question about if they would go together, even if Obi-Wan decided to do a Masters and Cody didn’t, he was still going to move to whichever city Obi-Wan chose to go to for his Masters. But Cody was also liking the idea of doing a history Masters himself. “We could go to London. Wolffe and Fox are both going to do a Masters, we could go to uni with them.”

Obi-Wan frowned at him in amusement. “I thought you loved living in Manchester.”

“I do,” agreed Cody. “But I also want some peace from my brothers.” He added with a faked whining tone.

His boyfriend chuckled and then said. “You could apply to University of Manchester. So, you can stay in the city, but be in a different university to your brothers.”

Cody rolled his eyes. “As if that would stop them just turning up on Uni of’s campus,” he grumbled under his breath. He didn’t even think moving to the moon would stop his brothers from turning up to inconvenience him.

Obi-Wan just chuckled to himself as he shook his head, having to admit that going to Uni of would not stop Rex, Fives and Echo from turning up to see Cody. Within three weeks of starting the academic year, they had already worked out what rooms Cody had his seminars in and at what time they finished, so they could stand outside and wait for him. Despite Cody never once showing them his timetable.

After lunch, Cody began looking through some books for information he could add to his dissertation, while Obi-Wan turned his laptop on to work on one of his assignments. At the sound of an exasperated sigh, Cody looked up with one raised eyebrow to find Obi-Wan glaring at his laptop screen. “Problem?” he prompted lightly.

His boyfriend rolled his eyes and stated, “I hate this. We have a dissertation and other essays we need to complete that count towards our final degree. But then we are asked to write a two-thousand-word essay on the skills we have learnt doing our English degree and how those skills can help us in the workplace. While also having to give examples of jobs that use and need those skills.” Obi-Wan growled in frustration, “it is so pointless, but we have to do it otherwise we can be penalised if we don’t. But it’s wasting our time, we have other more important things to do.”

Cody grimaced and then reached out to squeezed Obi-Wan’s hand. “I totally get your frustration. We have been asked to do the exact same thing.”

Obi-Wan just groaned and thunked his head on the table, “I hate this. This is stress I do not need.” Cody smiled to himself and with his free hand, he ran his fingers through Obi-Wan’s hair, gently scratching at his scalp with his nails.

When Obi-Wan had relaxed, Cody recalled the lecture when he had been told about the assignment and how the career’s department guest lecturer and one of his usual history lecturers asked for people to give examples of skills, they had learnt doing their degree. He must have laughed to himself, because Obi-Wan was turning his head, leaving his face resting against the table top, and gave him an unimpressed glare. “Are you laughing at my pain?”

“No,” soothed Cody, brushing the hair out of Obi-Wan’s eyes. “Just remembering what Bly said in our lecture about the skills we have learnt doing a history degree.”

“Care to share? It might help me out,” asked Obi-Wan.

Cody smirked, “we have learnt to deal with emotionally crippling pain.”

There was a pause, and then Obi-Wan was laughing, his shoulders shaking as he lifted his head up from the table and instead rested it against Cody’s shoulder. “Oh, that’s a good one. I wonder if I could get away with using it?” he mused.

“I have no idea. But like you, I am tempted to use it,” stated Cody, happy to see a bit of life back in Obi-Wan’s eyes. There was nothing more depressing that having to complete a pointless assignment when you had a hundred other things to do that actually mattered for your degree.

They made the collective decision to stop working for the rest of the day, they were both mentally tired and decided they could do with a break. So, they found a film to watch, which led to another film, which led to another, until it was time for them to eat dinner. After they had shared the cooking, eaten and then shared the washing up, they decided to have an early night. Seeing as they both had nine am lectures on campus and arranged to meet in the library afterwards before Cody’s meeting with his dissertation supervisor.

As they stretched out on their bed, Cody pulling Obi-Wan to half lay on top of him, their legs tangled together. Despite the early time of the evening, the warmth and the presence of each other led them both to become drowsy and their eyes flickered heavily.

“Good night Cody,” yawned Obi-Wan, his jaw cracking at the force of the yawn.

“G’night Obi. Love you,” Cody breathed out on a sigh, his eyes closing as he felt himself begin to drift.

“Love you Code,” mumbled Obi-Wan as he pressed his face into the crook of Cody’s neck. With his nose pressed into Obi-Wan’s hair, Cody pressed a kiss against Obi-Wan’s forehead and felt a kiss pressed against his neck in return. With a smile on his face, Cody drifted off into sleep, where university stress faded away until it captured his attention tomorrow, but for now, he was able to sleep peacefully with his boyfriend in his arms.

End note:

I would draw the photo of all the boys in their onesies, but alas I cannot draw so let the image live on in our imaginations. 

Also I really enjoyed writing this AU, so if anyone wants to see more from it (including Rex, Fives, Echo, Wolffe, Fox and Anakin) let me know!

I went to Manchester Metropolitan University and as I loved it there so much, I chose to make it the setting for my AU for codywanweek. The road, buildings, halls and park are real places at the university and writing this fic has just made me want to go back there. I couldn’t come up with a degree for Cody so I just gave him my degree and dissertation focus (so yes there does exist a 10,000-word dissertation on the treatment of shell shock in WWI). At MMU we did call the University of Manchester Uni of, to differentiate between the two universities.

The Black Death lasagne analogy does actually exist in a historical book somewhere. I didn’t actually read it, but one of my flatmates in first year, who also did history, did. He was revising for one of our exams and he excitedly burst into the shared kitchen, saw me and geeked out over the funny analogy, we laughed about it, about how it was such a random analogy to use. (But after a few years I still remember it, so I guess it’s useful.) But then one of our other flatmates, who wasn’t studying history, turned around and complained at us, because she was in the process of making lasagne for her dinner. So, the reactions to Fox’s gleeful explanation of the analogy are based on truth. Our flatmate didn’t want to eat her dinner because of us. As I was writing this fic, the analogy popped back into my head and I felt it would be such a Fox thing to say.

Cody’s line of “we have learnt to deal with emotionally crippling pain” during a career’s lecture. Is something that I heard said in a career’s lecture I had to sit through in my second year. So again, something else in this fic that is based on truth.

[lonelyreputation]

Screaming Color (Soulmate AU) Part ONE  Shawn Mendes Writing Circle

A/N: Massive massive thank you to @saysweartogod-og for orchestrating this #ShawnMendesWritingCircle!! 🥳 I’m so excited to be part of this and see where this story goes as a different Shawnblr author will be continuing it!

This is my twist on the classic Soulmate AU trope! 💫🎨💗 Make sure to check out all of the other SMWC stories! And as always, let me know your thoughts! I’d love to hear any form of feed back!! 

Thanks a million million for all your support!! It really means the world to me! Love you all lots! 🥰💫��✨🥺

Warnings: none !

WC: 2.8K

“Don’t worry, Y/n it’s…normal.”

You slumped back against the wicker chair and crossed your arms over your chest, “I’m nearly twenty-two, I shouldn’t be this late of a bloomer.”  

You were sitting on a patio of a restaurant eating brunch with your friend, Charlotte, who wanted to try this spot from all the pictures she’d seen of the flowers.  When you first walked in, Charlotte let out a gasp as she clutched your wrist, looking around with awe vividly describing everything her eyes traced over.  

How you walked under an archway of sunflowers and daffodils––They’re bright yellow, but get a bit orange toward the middle––when you first entered the restaurant.  The wisteria, a lavender color––That’s purple––peaked through the holes of the oak cross hatched fence with vines––They’re green––that were intertwined in knots.  And when you two were walking to your table, Charlotte couldn’t get over the hydrangeas hanging in terracotta pots from the ceiling––It’s like a mix of lilac and pale blue, but more on the blue side.

It’s so beautiful, Y/n, I wish you could see color.

Color.

In this wonderful surreal world you lived in, a person could only see in various shades of black, grey, and white until they locked eyes with their soulmate.  It was a bit bizarre when your parents had the talk with you at seven-years-old. They tried explaining how you just saw a monotone of gray colors, but when you looked into the eyes of your soulmate, your world would be filled with color.  

You have to make direct eye contact with them, your mom emphasized, you both have to look into each other’s eyes.

If you catch a glimpse of them, your dad added in, you might be able to see a glimpse of color but it’ll go away if you don’t make eye contact with them.

You thought that was a load of bologna, but when you were ten and someone asked why you were wearing green pants with a purple shirt…You thought that your parents might be onto something.  And when you got older, and more of your friends started to see color, it became obvious that you hadn’t looked into the eyes of your soulmate yet.

Charlotte was twenty-three and had been able to see color since she turned sixteen when her soulmate spilled ice-cream on her in the park.  And ever since then, she had tried to describe different colors to you whenever she saw something intriguing.  It didn’t help very much, considering all you saw was various tones of grays and blacks, but you didn’t want to hurt her feelings and tell her she wasn’t helping.

Once you successfully steered the conversation away from soulmates, brunch was an enjoyable meal.  You laughed, gossiped about the people at your internship, and ate your meal with only the occasional mention of color from Charlotte.  But when your dishes were cleaned off, and the bill was split in half, you hugged her goodbye and told her you would see her in the office on Monday.

You were walking on the sidewalk to get to your parallel parked car when you felt someone slightly bump into you.  It didn’t throw you off your feet, so you didn’t think much of it, but you were still curious as to who brushed passed you.  You twisted your head over your shoulder to see the back of someone’s curly hair.  

You didn’t think much of it so you turned your head forward and continued to walk.  But there was a moment when you looked up at the sky that you were blinded by the brightness of the sun, blinded by a sharp light that didn’t look like the typical gray you saw.

For a second you thought you saw the color yellow.

///

The morning rain was not something you were expecting on the walk to your internship carrying six cups of coffee.  Luckily you were only two blocks away from the radio station when it started, but you were able to scan your access card and pushed open the front glass doors, with your hair wet and matted to your head, before the sky opened up and poured rain.

You smiled at the receptionist, took the elevator up to the third floor, and weaved your way through the office until you got to where your internship supervisor, and the rest of the digital team, were located.

“Did you hear?” A very peppy Charlotte ran up to you as you were checking the names of the coffee cups before placing them down on the appropriate desks, ”Shawn Mendes is gonna be here today.”

She gripped your wrist in excitement which, unfortunately, caused some coffee to spill out from the lid and onto your hand.  

You hissed at the hot liquid and broke her hold from your wrist to shake away the burning sensation, “His songs are cool.”

Charlotte pulled a tissue out from the box on a desk and handed it over to you, “Word on the street is that he can see color now.”

“That’s nice,” you said with little interest as you tried to dry your hands with the thin material.

“You’re not––Aren’t you just dying to know who brought color into his life?”

“I mean, only a little?” You said over your shoulder as you placed the last cup of coffee on your supervisor's desk and threw out the cardboard drink holders, “But I’d assume he’d want to keep that private.”

“He’s been seen around with some instagram travel influencer, but I hear she won’t let him take pictures of her because he sucks with the camera.”

It wasn’t an uncommon practice for people to have relationships before they met their soulmate, but whenever a celebrity was seen with someone, it always picked up the attention of everyone asking the question if they had met their soulmate or not.

You let out a little chuckle, “Well if they’re soulmates then she’s doing it out of love.”

Charlotte barked out a laugh and agreed, “I have to help Mindy finish her questions for the interview, but I’ll see you sometime after the segment!”

As she skipped off to help with prep questions for the interview, you walked into the tiny office where all of the interns sat.  And just like the chatter you heard all along your walk, the interns were only interested in the celebrity guest of the day.

“––Shawn Mendes––”

“––I’m going to try and look into his eyes to see if he’s my soulmate––”

“––Don’t even try, he’s with that Instagrammer––”

“––Doesn’t mean he sees color with her!”

You were sitting in your black rolling chair, trying to block out the gossip with your headphones, but it wasn’t working.  With a sigh, you spun your chair around, “Is it really that big of a deal who he sees color with?”

Everyone quieted down and looked over at you.  Their stares were burning into you and you slumped further down in the chair, “Like I totally get wanting to know––it’s really fun to talk about––but isn’t that a bit personal?”

“I’m assuming you don’t see color?”

“Not yet,” you sharply replied, not liking the tone in Amanda’s, the other intern, voice, “Do you see color?”

Her smile faltered, “No, that’s why I have to look into Shawn Mendes’s eyes.”

You looked at her with raised eyebrows, not quite believing how delusional she sounded, and didn’t think it was worthy of a response as you spun around in your chair to get back to your assignments.

A few hours went by of light chatter and completing some tasks before Amanda ran into the room, scrambling to get the radio together, “He’s here––I didn’t get to look in his eyes––but he’s here and the interview is in like two minutes.”

All five interns paused their work and rolled their chairs over to crowd around the radio.  You missed the intro where Mindy listed a few of Shawn’s recent accomplished chart listings, but it didn’t seem like she was holding back with anything as she dove right in with the pressing topics.

“So, Shawn.”

“Mindy,” Shawn mimicked the way she said his name with a laugh.

“A little birdy told me that someone has brought color into your life.”

There was a pause on the other end as everyone held their breaths awaiting his answer.

“Well––Not exactly,” Amanda let out a cheer and everyone shushed her, “I think I saw blue the other day? On Saturday?”

“So you saw something?” Mindy sounded too giddy as she was the first to get this inside scoop, “And you haven’t seen color before?” It was her way of subtly asking if the instagrammer he had been seen with was his soulmate.

“Never,” he was quick with his answer, “I only saw blue for a split second in the sky, but after that, it went back to gray.”

“How poetic,” Mindy swooned, “Bet you can turn that into a song.”

“I might already have a voice note and a few lyrics down.”

You were more intrigued with Shawn Mendes than you were ever before.  He had seen a color––blue––the same day you saw yellow; just a glimpse of it before it turned back to gray.  He had the same experience.  And while Toronto was a big city, it seemed a little too coincidental that you both saw color for a split second on the same day.

“Okay we’re gonna take a quick break, and when we come back, Shawn will answer some rapid fire questions.”  Mindy signed off and the radio transitioned into commercial.  

There was a second of silence where all the interns looked at each other before everyone spoke over each other.

“So he’s seen blue––”

“––She’s obviously not his soulmate––”

“––But that means that he’s at least seen whoever his soulmate is from a distance or something or else he wouldn’t have been able to see blue––”

“Y/n!” Your internship supervisor peaked her head into the intern room with a smile, “Would you mind picking up a lunch order? Our hands are a bit tied with Shawn still being on air––Feel free to order whatever you want and put it on the company card.”

You pushed back your chair, happy to have an excuse to leave the gossip circle, “Of course,” you said as you picked up your phone and walked out of the room.

“You’re the best intern,” your supervisor handed you over the company card, “Promise this won’t happen again, you’re such a help and more equipped for actual work.”

Thanking her for her kind words, you decided to take your time walking to the sandwich shop down the street.  It took both hands to push the heavy front glass doors open and you looked up to see it was still raining, but only a drizzle.  Maybe you wouldn’t be taking your time walking to the sandwich shop after all.  

You quickly walked down the street and into the shop, ordering yourself a sandwich.  Once your sandwich was made, they added it to the order, and you handed over the company card.  You gripped the handles of the large brown bag and shouted a thanks over your shoulder as you hurried out the door.

The sun was shining, the pavement smelled of fresh rain, and to your surprise, the rain had stopped.  A small smile graced your lips as you were now able to take your time walking back to the office.  When the building where the radio station was headquartered came into view, you were surprised to see a fairly large group of teenage girls waiting outside on the sidewalk.

You politely weaved your way through the crowd, whispering a soft excuse me and a pardon me, I work here and need to get through.  But then, all at once, everyone surged forward and started to scream.  Between fighting your way through the crowd, and the excessive pushing of the girls, you finally managed to break free.

You breathed out a breath of fresh air when you escaped the crowd, but someone walked into your shoulder hard and caused you to stumble back a bit.  A little bit ticked off with how rough they were, you whirled around.

“I’m so sorry––”

But once your eyes connected, his words abruptly stopped and you dropped the bag of sandwiches and salads.  Both of you were paralyzed, staring at each other with wide eyes, and that’s when you knew that he saw it too.

The yellow of the sun was familiar; a warmth of bright light shining down on you.  The sky––as you heard him describe earlier as blue––seemed so soft with a light wispy streak of peach coloring through the thin white clouds.  The buildings were tall, shades of gray you were familiar with, but there was more of a depth to them as you could see the color inside through the windows.

And then you really saw him.

His facial features were sharp, but the rosiness of his cheeks softened up his face.  Even the concentrated creases in his forehead had a color that was darker than his slightly tanned skin tone.  His lips were pink, slightly parted in shock, just like how you probably looked.  You trailed your eyes up to his hair, a lone curl dangling from his hair onto his forehead.  

A lot of people have brown hair, you remember being eight and holding your mom's hand walking down the street as she tried to teach you colors without having the ability to see color, you can have different shades of brown; dark to the point where it almost looks black, or as light as a gray shade.  

His hair was dark brown, but with the way the sun was shining down on him, his hair was highlighted with swirls of a lighter brown like toffee.  There was so much depth with the color of his hair, but then you really looked into his eyes––the two little windows into a person’s soul that granted you the gift of seeing the world in color––you knew exactly what your favorite color was.

His eyes were the same color as his hair, brown, but his eyes held more color than any of the curls of his hair.  They were littered with hazel flecks, a few wispy swooshes of golden honey,  and a few lines of dark chestnut radiating out from the blacks of his pupils.

You had heard Charlotte ramble on about how boring her brown eyes were and that she wished she had a more interesting coloring like either blue or green.  But with staring straight into brown eyes, and finally understanding her talk about eye color, you could not understand why she was so upset with her brown eyes.  

“Can you see––”

“Shawn, c’mon,” someone came over and yanked his shoulder back, “We have to go.”

He stumbled back a few feet as he brushed off a person wearing glasses, “I see––”

“Shawn, we have a really tight schedule.”

He kept his eyes locked on you as if he was scared that the color of his new world would disappear like the last time, “What’s your na––”

“Dude,” a boy with red-ish hair pulled him back by his elbow, “the fans are getting too rowdy we need to leave now.”

“My name is––”

Right as you were about to tell him your name, a tall muscular man dressed in all black stepped in between the two of you, cutting off your contact with Shawn.  You started panicking, the fear of losing your soulmate now that you’d found him caused a crippling fear deep inside you.  

You tried poking your head around the security guard, “Excuse me––”

“Sorry miss, he can’t take any pictures now.”

An aggravated sigh past through your lips, “I know, but he’s my––”

But you weren’t able to get another word out to the security guard explaining how Shawn was your soulmate because he, the boy with red hair, and the guy with glasses were all wrangling Shawn in the car despite him struggling and constantly looking over his shoulder at you.

Just like how instantly color came into your life when you looked into Shawn’s eyes, he was in the van and driving down the street just as fast.

And as you stood on the sidewalk, surrounded by fans screaming––Oh my God, that was really Shawn Mendes––with the bag of lunch still on the pavement, you were transfixed with the world of color that you were now surrounded by.

But you were left without the person who gifted you color.

taglist: @fallinallincurls @alina--jpeg @adelaidestreets @5-seconds-of-mendes @particularnarry @now-that-i-saw-u @turtoix @shawnsmutual @vinylmendes @mendesficsxbombay​ (send a message via inbox or PM if you want to me added!)

[xwing-baby]

Freedom (Mandalorian X Reader

Characters: The Mandalorian (Din Djarin), The Child, Reader, OC Vinca Dara

Warnings: Mentions of sexual abuse, canon level violence

Word Count: 5691 

Synopsis: Y/N is a princess from a planet in the inner rim. Successfully escaping her fate as a Imperial wife, she unfortunately becomes a target for the Mandalorian. 

A/N: WOW I look pretty good for a dead bitch! I’m back after a two year writing hiatus, with a fic nobody asked for. This is my blog I’ll do what I want. I noticed that there’s not much Mandalorian stuff here, and the only stuff is all smutty and romantic. No more. Strictly professional relationships here. Basically it’s what I would write if I got to be a writer on the show. ENJOY 

Tagged: @tortles​ @inked-poet​ @dartheldur

My home planet, in the core of the galaxy, was rich and prosperous. I grew up happily oblivious to any struggle that surrounded me outside the palace walls. I grew up with two older brothers, both jostling for the throne from the age of ten. My mother died in childbirth with me, so my father ruled alone. I had no other family, as I would later learn they had all been murdered by my father and his men to ensure his unopposed ascension to power. 

It wasn’t until I was nearly sixteen years old that I learnt about what my father had done and what was really going on behind the palace walls. The only time I’d ever been allowed out of the palace grounds until that point was for public events, I would stand and wave and smile at the people who came to see us while my father gave a speech about peace and prosperity. However, on my sixteenth birthday I met a boy named Han. Han helped me escape for that one night, showed me around the surrounding city, and my life changed forever. 

A year later, I made my first escape attempt. I didn’t get very far beyond that city perimeter before I was dragged back by the royal guards. I tried again, getting to the next town before again being captured and sent back to my father. 

On my eighteenth birthday, I decided I would try once more. This time I had enlisted Han’s help, now a smuggler, to get me off the planet. I crept out in the depths of night, managed to find the ship and I was gone. That was until the captain of the ship found out who I was, held me hostage and shot me in the arm for trying to escape him and the planet. As it turned out the captain was a great supporter of my father and returned me, with a small fee for the favour of course. 

For the next year, my father kept me under close supervision. But unlike my father, I had sympathy and empathy. I managed to make friends with my supervisor, a old lady named Ellyn. She taught me a lot about what was really going on outside the capitol. The famines and the abuse from the royal guards to the local people. She also told me of the growing concern within the palace of my father’s changing allegiance from the New Republic. These concerns only grew when Storm Troopers were spotted on the outskirts of the city. 

Then I got the news. My father was intending to marry me off to Vinca Dara, the son of an Imperial officer, to aid the new Empire. I was horrified. My uncle had told me stories of the Old Empire when I was little, the pain it brought into the galaxy. The thought of having to be a part of anything like that made me sick. I had to run away, for good this time.

With Ellyn’s help, I managed to barter a ship and escape the planet without anyone realising. I reached the outer rim before anyone knew. By the time anyone had started to look for me I had landed on a new planet. 

And that brought me here. A small, dirty back street bar in the centre of the city. The outer rim was not somewhere good for a princess to be, so to avoid the risk of anyone recognising me, I cut my hair, changed my name and hid. 

Of course, a few bounty hunter’s had made their way to me. But I seemingly had luck on my side because they either gave up or I fought them off before they could capture me. The last attempt was several months ago now, I was comfortable and certain that my father had just given up. 

The bar was busy, as always. Full of criminals and outcasts from the inner rim searching the wild space to something to do, or to give them purpose again. I had to learn fast who and who not to joke with. I learnt a lot more about the galaxy in the last three months of being in this cantina than I had in my life so far.

“Hey! No droids!” I called, not even lifting my head from the sink as I spotted a glint of metal in the corner of my mind.

“That’s not a droid, you idiot,” My coworker, Tann, jabbed me in the ribs, “That’s a mandalorian!” He hissed. “Sorry, she’s new!” He apologised. The Mandalorian didn’t respond.

“New to the galaxy,” One of the creatures at the bar slurred into his drink.

“Alright Rex calm down,” I said, a little embarrassed. “I don’t know they were real,” I said quietly as we all watched the man sit down at an empty table on the other side of the bar. Rex laughed and shook his head.

“You really crawled out from under a rock or something?” 

“Just go do your job, please,” Tann sighed.

I nodded and confidently walked over to the bounty hunter. 

“What can I get you?” 

“I’m trying to find Asker,” The Mandalorian said, looking around behind me. Asker was a regular, a troublemaker and a renowned criminal, but he was paid his bill so the owners of the bar never minded too much. I wondered why the Mandalorian was looking for him for a moment before answering. 

“He left a little while ago,” I replied, “But I imagine he won’t have gone far, maybe try the hostel up the street. Can I get you anything else?” 

“No, thank you,” The Mandalorian shook his head and stood up to leave. 

“Mando!” The pot bellied Asker bellowed through the bar, announcing his presence before he waddled inside. For such a small creature he certainly knew how to make himself known. Asker was just over four feet tall, with grey-ish skin. His large eyes took most of his face that wasn’t covered by a whiley red beard. For someone so small, he was incredibly strong and quick on a trigger, the blast marks that covered the walls of the bar were testament to that. 

The Mandalorian and Asker walked together to the darker back of the bar, specifically reserved for Asker's shady business. Like I said, the owners didn’t really care as long as he paid the bills. 

“You know Mando, it’s been for too long! I missed you,” Asker cried. 

“You didn’t,” 

“No, not really,” Asker barked a laugh, “but I did miss your talent. These new hands they’ve got at the Guild? Awful! Can barely even shoot straight! I’ve been trying to get this quarry off my hands for weeks! All of the have been unsuccessful, so I thought it’s high time I call my lovely friend Mando and get some real professional on the job,” 

“I don’t work for you,” 

“Not even for half a million credits?” 

“Excuse me, gentlemen,can I get you anything?” 

“The usual, thanks darling. My metal friend here can’t drink so he’s all good,” 

“Coming right up,” 

I stepped back to the bar, and they talked a lot quieter from then. I poured the drink and walked back over, back in earshot of the conversation.

“Kids a royal runaway,” Asker said quietly. “Her father is a pretty big deal out in the Mirrin Sector. Last I heard, she’s here in hiding,” 

“Any name?” 

“Y/n L/n,” 

I put the drinks down carefully, trying not let either of the men see how much my hands were shaking. My heart was racing against my chest and I scurried away before I could hear anything else. I leant against the bar and took some deep breaths and tried to calm down. It was fine, I’d fought off the last guys I could do it again. It’s not like mandalorian are the best bounty hunters in the known universe, no. Oh stars! 

“I’m going out for a minute,” I said quickly, already walking out the back door before he could even say yes. I pulled the apron off from around my waist, shoving it into a cargo box before stepping into the bright light outside. 

I squinted and let my eyes adjust to the bright light. Looking back inside, the Mandalorian had not noticed me leave. I was safe for now. I walked through the city's crowded streets, back to where I was staying to come up with a plan. 

I smiled to myself, I’d gotten away with it once again! But four times was too many to be nearly captured by bounty hunters. It was no use anymore just moving to the city, I had to get off the planet. 

The port was quiet, as it would be late in the afternoon. Everyone was either eating or sleeping while the sun started to cool down. I tried the first few stations but each door was locked, the next was empty and the one after it was covered in druids working on the rusted shell. Then, bay 8. The door was open, there were no druids around and the ship looked in  pretty good condition. It was old, pre empire but it looked steady. I quickly checked behind me, that no one had seen me, then went inside, pushing the large gate shut behind me. I had found my ticket out of here. 

My uncle had taught me to fly when I was very little. He unfortunately was murdered by my father before I turned 12 but I cherished the memories I had with him and was extremely grateful for the skills he had passed on now. The first time I ran away I ended on a workers ship and learnt very quickly that the price to pay to get onto the ships and out alive was far too high. The blast scar up my right arm was a reminder of that. Being able to steal a ship and fly it on my own was a major boost. Unfortunately I had been caught before I had managed to leave a planet before. Now was my chance. 

I ran around the ship first, checking it out and making sure there was no one hiding on it. Now, to get inside... 

Before I could even step closer to it, the cargo load hissed and pulled open. I pulled out my blaster and aimed it at the door. I stepped onto the metal once it hit the sand, and barely had the other in step when I saw who had opened it. 

The Mandalorian. 

Shit. 

I kept my blaster raised, and we both stared at each other down for a few moments. 

“You’re Y/n L/n?” He asked carefully. 

“Are you going to kill me if I am?” I retorted. “Cus you’re not the first Asker has sent after me and I know my father wants me alive there’s no way you’re gunna kill me if you want the credits,” 

“Lower your weapon,” He commanded. I refused.

I kept it steadfast. I could do a standoff, all day. I was not going back home. The mandalorian sighed and shot once, barely missing my head, as a warning. I didn’t flinch. 

“This isn’t my first rodeo, Tin Man. Asker must have said I don’t come easy,” I jeered, taunting him. He couldn’t kill me! Wouldn’t risk half a million credits on that. The mandalorian stepped forward, and I took two steps back. “I just want to get off this planet, I’ll pay you. More than you’ll 

get for bringing me in,” 

Before I could say anymore, the Mandlorian fired a dart into my chest. I looked down at it for a moment, then back at him then fell to the ground. Black. 

--

I came too sometime later, handcuffed to the side of the Mandalorian’s ship. My hands and feet here tied. It was quiet. Looking around me, I was in the hold. A small ladder disappeared above me to the rest of the ship. I had no idea where we were, had he taken my request? Or was I on my way back to the hell hole that is my home planet. 

I had to find some way out. Someway to get myself free. I tried to move to reach a tool box so cruelly just out of my reach, but it was no use. Then I heard a little squeal from behind a box. I turned to see where it was coming from but there was nothing. Again, another squeal and a giggle? Was it a rat? I wouldn’t be surprised if there were rats aboard, the place hadn’t been cleaned in forever. But rats don’t giggle, no matter where they’re from. 

Suddenly, a tiny green creature popped up from behind the box. It peered at me for a moment, then hid again. It was so cute! 

“Hey little buddy,” I said quietly, “I won’t hurt you,” The creature slowly stepped out and babbled something at me. I didn’t understand what it said, even if it was speaking any proper language. “Where’d you come from buddy? He got you trapped here too?” The baby giggled and waddled over to me. I smiled and curled my legs round underneath me to let it get a bit closer. I didn’t see any danger in a creature so small. “Why does Mandalorian have a little baby? You’re not his kid are you?”

“Hey! Get away from her,” The Mandalorian had appeared in the hold while I was focused on the baby. The baby babbled and toddled back happily to the Mandalorian. 

“What is that?” 

“Nothing,” 

“It’s not nothing, it’s a baby,” Suddenly I remembered I had seen a drawing of a creature like that one before. My uncle told me about it, a Jedi master or something. “Do you know what it is? My uncle showed me a picture of one of those once, it was a jedi! I bet it can do weird stuff, right? Where did you get it?” 

The Mandalorian ignore my questions and picked up the creature, walked across to the other side of the hold and put it away in a large cupboard. Cruel. I became spiteful. 

“Fine, ignore me then. I’ll just report you to the Guild when I get back home. Tell them you have that thing! People would pay good money for information on a Mandalorian gone rogue! And to think Mandalorian and Jedi were enemies for years, didn’t they murder your kind to near extinction? Seems weird you’ve got one in a box as a pet,” 

“It’s not a Jedi, and you won’t tell anyone. If I find you have, I will kill you, on sight,” 

“You’ll be doing me a favour,” I spat. 

I could tell he was angry, the way his hand waved over his blaster for just a second. I should have been scared of him, deep down I was. But the fate that awaited me at home was worse than being killed by this bounty hunter. I knew we can’t be far now. I didn’t have much time left to convince the Mandalorian not to send me back to my father. If it came down to it I really would rather die. 

The Mandalorian disappeared up the ladder once more, satisfied that I wasn’t going to cause anymore fuss right now. Before I could even call after him to try and make amends and get him to actually help me, the hatch slammed shut and it was too late. 

---

A few hours later, I had dozed off but was harshly awoke by the Mandalorian shaking my shoulders. 

“We’re here,” He stated, pulling me up by the shoulder. I shrugged him off, and stood up on my own. My feet had been untied already, I rolled my ankles and sighed as my body clicked. The bounty hunter wasn’t having it, grabbed my arm harshly and dragged me down the ramp to the ground. “Come on,” 

The site of my home planet made me sick. It was happening. For months I had managed to be unknown, successfully getting away from this place. But I was now being dragged back, by a Mandalorian none the less, to be dragged through my city like a criminal. 

The Child reappeared as we stepped off the ship, babbling quickly and waddling as fast as it could. The Mandalorian grumbled unintelligibly and dragged me back up, collected the child and locked it away, pulled me back down to the soil of the planet. I could hear the creature complain from its little box and wondered if it was trying to help me. Whatever it wanted, the Mandalorian ignored it, closed the cargo door and we walked into the city gates to my family's palace. 

The site of the grand building made me sick. When I was younger I didn’t know of anything different, I didn’t know of the suffering of the people beyond the city walls. The people who worked tirelessly everyday on the lush fields only to be paid single credits for the hard labour, and all the food going to my family and court. I never knew of the suffering and poverty that my father ruled over while we lived such lavish lives inside. I had tried to explain it to my brothers after my first escape attempt, they just laughed. Said that that was just the way the world worked. There was a set order. I hated it, actively spoke out against them but all it did was get me slapped and set away to my chambers.

We were met by my father and two brothers in the great hall. Staff stood to attention around the perimeter, glaring at me like I was dirt, as I was dragged in in disgrace by a bounty hunter. 

“My daughter, you’re safe!” My father exclaimed, throwing his arms up in praise. There was no kindness or love in his voice. “Get her inside, we can’t have her escape again,” He gave a cold laugh as I was given to a new set of guards. My brothers jeered and laughed in unison with their idol. “I understand you’ve been paid by Asker to do this?” My father addressed the Mandalorian now. “Fucking idiot couldn’t catch his own breath. Here,” He threw a large bag of credits at the bounty hunter. “A million in full.” The Mandalorian nodded, putting the bag into his belt. “You don’t know how great a service you have provided to the galaxy,” My father continued with a wicked smile stretched across his wrinkling face. “A girl like her will surely be the mother of our new empire,” 

I nearly threw up, the enormity of my situation now crashing on top of me. I tried to look to the Mandalorian for help but again it was no use. I was marched off into my new, secure, chambers to await my fate. 

-- 

The Mandalorian frowned beneath his helmet but said nothing whilst in the presence of the King. He’d finished the job, there was nothing else for him to do here. He’d never got involved in politics before and now was not the time. He knew these were not good people but he was not in a place for judgement either. 

He returned to his ship, pleased with the doubling of the earnings from this trip. That amount of credits meant he could lay low for a long while with the Child and finally work out what to do with it. 

Back in the ship, the Child would not settle down. In the few months the Mandalorian had the creature he had never seen it like this. It cried and grumbled, wouldn’t sit still or fall asleep. He knew what the problem was. 

“I can’t do anything about it!” He explained to the Child. “It’s not my problem. The credits I got from that job will keep you in food for weeks!” The Child grumbled and wailed. “Go to sleep,” 

-- 4 Months Later -- 

It was a simple quarry for a quick bit of cash. The ship needed to be patched up after it had run into an asteroid field. The quarry was from a jealous man on Corellia after his wife’s lover. Easy. 

The planet was rich and bustling with people, making the Mandalorian disappear into the background. He swept through the city in search of his bounty, following the tracker in his hand. He was only slowed down by a large crowd which had gathered at the town’s centre. A small stage was set up across the square, with many people surrounding it on all sides. People even hung out of their windows to listen and watch what was going on. 

A familiar face on the stage caught the Mandalorian’s attention. It was Y/n. Now looking like the shell of her previous self. A black cloth covered her head and moth, leaving only sunken sad eyes on show which were covered in gold makeup. She stood smaller, next to a man talking passionately and animatedly about something. The surrounding chatter from the town’s people drowned out what the man was saying.

The Mandalorian carried on on his mission, shaking off any guilt he had. Bad things like this were always happening throughout the galaxy. There was nothing he could do. 

- --

My new life as Vinca Dara’s wife was awful. Far worse than I had ever dreamt. 

I was dragged from planet to planet, city to city trying to recruit and inspire rebellion. We travelled to the furthest reaches of the galaxy, as far from the New Republic as possible to try and gain sympathy for a new regime. 

I was miserable, abused and exhausted. My husband’s forcible attempts at producing an heir were proving futile and he was getting restless. It was like my body even rejected the idea of giving him a child. I figured it was only long before he killed me. He’d been close before when I lost the last child. 

This was a big event. There were already a large group of rebellion supporters on the planet and Vinca Dara and his team were hopeful. I was to stand next to him, looking pretty while he addressed the city, then be his arm candy to a private event with the planet’s leaders. 

The evening’s event was filled with the planet’s most horrible people. I wore a tight royal blue dress, my hair down and flowing over my bare back. Vinca Dara had left me to my own devices a little while ago, instructing me to convince some of the ladies of ��our’ new ideas for the galaxy. So I stood and mingled with the guests wive. They were not interested in politics and rather talked back local gossip which was rather refreshing after months of nothing but plans of death, destruction of the New Republic. A little alarming that they did not care, but I welcomed the break nonetheless.

As I listened to the women, my eyes wandered around the party. Many different species and races all in one room with staff waiting hand and foot, scurrying between the clusters of people. Then, something caught my eye. A flash of blue baskar, glinted in the light from the corridor just outside the room. That had to be the Mandalorian! I thought I had seen him in the city but I thought I was imagining it. He was here! 

“Excuse me ladies, I just need to freshen up,” I excused myself from the group and went to find him. This was my chance. Summoning all the courage I had in me, I followed him. 

It took a moment to work out which way he went but a sharp shot from inside one of the servants quarters told me exactly where it was. He was lucky the party was so loud, I thought. 

Checking nobody was following me, I carefully pushed the door open As soon as I entered the small dark room the Mandalorian held his gun to my face, finger on the trigger ready. I threw up my hands and pushed myself back against the door. 

“Don’t shoot!” I exclaimed. The Mandalorian did not lower his gun. 

“What are you doing here?” 

“I-I’m hosting the par-,” 

“Here, I mean here right now,” He interrupted, obviously agitated. 

“I need your help,” I said honestly. The Mandalorian didn’t reply, but lowered his gun and returned to the dead body on the floor. “Please. My husband will kill me if he doesn’t get a child soon and… and I can’t do it. Please, I need to get off this planet. Away from him,” 

“I’m working,” 

“I’ll pay you!” I exclaimed desperately. “I’ll give you everything I have. I just need to get out of here, out of this solar system,” The Mandalorian stopped and looked at me for a moment, the helmet completely unforgiving in guarding his expression. “Please,” My bottom lip began to tremble and tears welled in my eyes. 

“No. Go back to your husband,” The Mandalorian turned back to his task. My desperation turned to anger in that moment, I stormed over to him. 

“You know he’s been looking for the Child,” I said spitefully, looming over him as he knelt down with his victim. The Mandalorian looked up at me and stood up slowly. “That green thing you keep as a pet? If you won’t help meI will go to him and tell him you have it, that you’re on this planet,” 

“Are you trying to blackmail me?” 

“Help me and Dara will never know,” I said slowly, staring directly into his visor. 

The Mandalorian was quiet for a moment, I held my breath. This was it. My last chance at freedom and even this was the man that brought me to be in this situation in the first place he was my only hope. 

“Put that on,” He finally said, gesturing to the pile of servants' clothes piled on a table to the side of the room. “And help me move this body” 

I nodded quickly and moved to the clothes. I untied the neck of the dress, the bounty hunter respectfully turned back to his victim as I undressed. The clothes were far too big and made of a very itchy material but I didn’t have much choice. I tied my hair up in a ponytail. The only reminder of who I was, was the gold makeup across my face and sandals on my feet. 

I stood on look out while the Mandalorian pulled his bounty into a bag and dragged it out the building. A transporter waited outside. 

“Take that one, with the bounty. My ship is out on the east fields. You’ll see it,” 

“What about you?” 

“I’ll meet you there,” 

I nodded, unsure of why he was trusting me with his bounty but it was the easiest way to go out of the city unnoticed. I dodged in and out of people on the streets, finally coming to the East gates. Two guards sat asleep at the post and didn’t even wake to see me go. As I rode out into the open land, I began to laugh. The suns were setting beautifully over the horizon casting beautiful colours into the sky. I was free! 

I sped through the fields, towards the familiar ship a little way away. The noise another transporter hummed behind me. I figured it was the Mandalorian so I didn't bother to look back until a red shot flew past my head, narrowly missing me, and exploding in the grass. I screamed and swerved violently, nearly losing all control of the vehicle. 

I turned back quickly, to see who was attacking me. My husband led a band of four guards on smaller bikes. That bastard Mandalorian must have told them I was trying to escape! 

I sped up, racing towards the hills in the distance. I skipped down between ditches and ploughed through crop fields to try and evade capture once again. They remained on my tail. 

Another two shots fired out, missing me again. “Stop! Y/n! Stop right now!” My husband called out. I held my hand up in an offensive gesture, turning back to narrowly miss a large boulder. I was getting into the forest now, it was becoming more difficult to maneuver the heavy vehicle through the trees. 

The trees became denser and I decided I could move better on foot without the extra weight. 

“I’m going to fucking kill you Y/n!” My husband screamed. I could imagine his horrid sweaty red face, that awful vein that pops on his forehead when he’s angry. I shuddered, and kept running. 

I jumped into a small creek, the water soaking the ends of my trousers and nearly bare feet. The hum of the transporters had disappeared, they were on foot. I noticed a cave and decided it would be best to hide there while they were some way behind. I crouched down and sat in the warm water, my body pressed against the back wall, hidden from sight. 

“Y/n!” Vinca Dara screamed again. This time multiple shots followed and a crash as something fell into the water. “You can’t hide forever!” 

They were getting closer. A red shot splashed into the water in front of the mouth of the cave. I jumped and hit my head on the low roof, making me yelp. I clamped my hand over my mouth praying that I wasn’t heard. I pushed myself further into the dark and shut my eyes as more shots rang out. Shouting erupted from above me and heavy footsteps splashed through the water. 

I whimpered and curled up into my knees, screwing my eyes shut, waiting for the end to come.

“I told you to go to the ship,” A metallic voice said from the front of the cave. I opened my eyes and gasped in relief. It was the Mandalorian! I pushed myself up out of the water and walked over to him, my relief turning into rage. 

“You sold me out!” I screamed, pushing him as hard as I could. “You fucking told them!” The bounty hunter remained calm, and was not at all affected by my attack.. “You fucking bastard!” 

“If I did, why would I be here now?” 

“You-,” I stopped and saw the three bodies floating in the water around us, “You killed them?” 

“I thought you still had my bounty,” The Mandalorian said nonchalantly. I smiled. 

“Thank you,” 

Seemingly satisfied that I wasn’t in any more danger, the Mandalorian turned and began to walk back to his ship. I quickly followed behind, not wanting to be left behind again. I stepped over my husband’s dead body, pleased by the multiple shot wounds that had killed him. He deserved a bloody death. I ran to keep up with the Mandalorian, and jumped back on the abandoned transporter, following him back to the safety of his ship, 

“Thank you again. And I promise I will send those credits to you as soon as possible,” I thanked him again once we were inside. I sat on a crate, and pulled the ruined sandals off my feet.

“It’s not necessary,” The Mandalorian said, his back turned to me as he put away his weapons. 

“Yes it is. I am a woman of my word, I owe you my life,” I said sincerely. The Mandalorian shut the cabinet and turned back to me. 

“Where would you like to go?” 

“I don’t care. Just drop me off wherever you are going next. As long as there's opportunity for work and a place to sleep I will be fine. I just need to be as far from all of that as possible,”

“I’m going to Nevarro next,” 

“Sounds perfect,” 

I sat in the back of the cockpit while the Mandalorian flew off the planet. I couldn’t help the smile that grew on my face as the planet soon disappeared into the vast black of space behind us. I had finally made it out, with both my father and husband dead I knew no one would come looking for me. I was truly free. 

“Hello again,” I cooed to the Child as he toddled over. The baby babbled and giggled when it recognised me and raised its arms to be picked up. I happily obliged. “You’ve grown! Yes! Oh aren’t you just the cutest little thing!” I tickled its large ears, making the child laugh. “I don’t know how you get anything done with this thing around. He’s so cute!” I said to the Mandalorian. He didn’t reply. 

I shrugged it off, and went back to playing with the baby. The stress of the day finally settled in, and I yawned, absolutely exhausted. The little creature in my lap, copied and babbled at me. I smiled softly as sleep began to take over me and stroked its little head until I fell asleep. 

A rumble awoke me, we had entered the Nevarro atmosphere. I sat up from my slumped position and sighed as I stretched. The Mandalorian turned around, I smiled and he turned back. The Child was sitting on the desk, playing with a silver ball too busy to notice I was now awake. 

We landed without any trouble. 

“So I guess this is it,” I said. “I will forever be indebted to you Mandalorian,” I bowed my head in reverence, “Are you staying here very long?” 

“A few days possibly,” He said as we walked towards the small settlement. “I’ve got some business here,” We walked in silence for the rest of the way until we reached the gates. “There’s a cantina not too far from here, tell them I sent you and they’ll give you work. There’s plenty of rooms to stay in here,” 

“Thank you,” I smiled, “I will sort those credits out as soon as possible,”

“It-,” 

“I swear bounty hunters don’t usually refuse money,” I laughed. “Take it, and I’ll see you around, hopefully not too soon,” 

“See you around,” 

We shook hands and parted ways. My life had finally begun. 

[katsukari]

Falling Chapter 1/Prologue- No Time To Die

~akari aizawa, niece of japanese pro Eraserhead, is a sixteen year old pro in the US via an accelerated program. things have not gone to plan, and she finds herself in a toxic work environment. when her contract comes up, so does a better offer. now all she has to do is make it through her last week of work at the office, right?

pairing: bakugou x akari aizawa (oc)

word count: 3.1k

genre: for this chapter, angst

warnings: swearing (i’m pretty sure??), fighting, so violence, and i think that’s it for ch.1.

Alright, so this is the first chapter of my fic Falling. I posted about any interest earlier, but if you guys don’t know my writing style or anything about the story, how can you be interested? So, I figured I’d post this to give people a feel for the situation. I will say, there are no BNHA characters in this chapter, so I will probably post ch.2 tonight as well so you guys get a feel for them too! This chapter was just to give some background into Akari’s character and situation!

Akari Aizawa

Hero Name: Nocturne 

Age: 16

Quirk: Heightened Senses- In the dark, her senses of smell, hearing, and touch are amplified, allowing her greater speed and strength.

Affiliation: US Pro through an accelerated program.

Birthday: 11/18

Height: 165.1 cm

Likes: Sweets

The mission had not gone to plan, and as it always seemed to be, Akari was the one paying for it. Her face remained respectfully blank as her supervisor yelled at her, while her partner stood by, failing to mention that it was his mistake that had caused the corner of the building to collapse, harming more civilians. It had been this way for months. Any and all mistakes were hers, and the person who once meant so much to her was cold and distant. At first she would fight back, if you could consider telling the truth fighting, but her words fell on deaf ears. It became clear, her higher-ups had an agenda, and she was not a part of it. Thats why, last month, when her contract came up for negotiations, she decided to go elsewhere.

She had to get out, and that is where her mind dwelled as she half listened to her lecture. Her parents told her she wasn’t the same, she was quiet, far off, she struggled to get up and go to work every day. It was difficult to motivate oneself to go where they were certain they weren’t wanted, by anyone, even people once considered friends. When she wasn’t distant, she was irritable, or one wrong interaction away from a breakdown, it wasn’t healthy. 

A hand suddenly grabbed her by the hair, “I asked are you listening Nocturne? When I ask a question I expect an answer!” the hero barked, jostling her. This sudden action startled her companion, Shadow. He opened his mouth to say something, but Akari saw him close it and look away. 

Knowing she only had a week left at the agency gave her courage, that or she was just pissed off. Grabbing the wrist of her captor she dug a nail between its veins and tendons, and dug hard, forcing the hand gripping her hair to come free. “I was not listening.” Her voice was chilly in contrast to the fire that blazed in her stomach. “Nor will I listen to anything else you have to say to me, so if you wish to keep talking to two people who aren’t listening to you, be my guest.”

The hero glared at her, “Fine, you are dismi-” But Akari hadn’t waited for his dismissal. She was halfway to the locker-room when someone caught her by the elbow. “What was that back there?!” Shadow demanded. “You could have gotten written up, striking a superior, insubordination, that’s not like you.”

Suddenly the fire within her spiked, “I’m glad you care all of the sudden! Where have you been the past hour and a half? Or the past six months, as a matter of fact!”  

“I- I don’t have any excuses. But your contract came up last month, they could choose not to keep you here,” he said softly.

“It’s not a matter of whether or not they want to keep me. I had a better offer come up. I’m not staying here one second longer than I have to.”

“But your lawyers will be caught up in releasing you for months- Wait you’re leaving?”

“That’s what I said.” Akari gently pulled her elbow from Shadow’s grasp and resumed her walk towards the locker-room. He hopped sidelong to catch up with her and grabbed her by the shoulder. “You know, I’m getting really tired of people touching me right now. Can’t you tell I just want to go home?”

“I’m sure- but where are you going? Where offered to take you that made them decide to let you go, because we both know they have iron grips on us accelerated kids. Who is it? It can’t be good.” For the first time in months, genuine concern was etched into his dark features. It was enough to make her heart wrench. Couldn’t she stay? Just for him? She could survive here, if only he looked at her with that much care all the time. 

No. No she couldn’t, she couldn’t trust him, he hadn’t been there for her in months. Shadow, her partner, once her closest friend in the world, hadn’t spoken this much to her in ages. “Oh, it's nowhere where I’ll gather fame and notoriety, they made sure of that, I won’t draw much attention, but it's somewhere good. But I can’t tell you. I can’t tell anyone yet.”

“I know you have no reason to, but, you can trust me,” Shadow said, his voice low and comforting.

She was about to say something, but she never got to finish. There was a loud crash, and the building shook, driving heros, sidekicks and secretaries from their offices into the hallway. Over the PA system a voice called out “Shadow and Nocturne, you’re up…” 

At least she could count on Shadow in the field.

Crouched behind a police car, Akari pulled her goggles over her eyes and gave Shadow the sign for good to go. They slipped into the second burning building they had been in that day, and began to gather people and shepherd them to safety. They worked quickly and quietly, helping civilians out of their apartments and to the safety of the street, they were fortunate that the building only had four floors, but they had found no trace of who or what caused the explosion inside. That was until Akari heard a struggle inside one of the apartments on the fourth floor.

  She listened hard to make sure there was no one else left in the building, and she knew she and Shadow should make their exit soon, the building wasn’t safe, but she had to check this first. Waiting quietly by the door she signed to Shadow, “There’s a person in this apartment, sounds like they’re struggling to do something. I need you to back me up once everyone else is out.”  He nodded, helping the last person down onto the fireman's ladder. Slipping through the shadows, he stood behind her, ready to go. 

As quietly as she could, she eased the door open onto a man in a fireman’s mask, knelt over a safe stuffing a duffle bag full of cash. The explosion had been a diversion to cover up the robbery. 

Glancing over her shoulder she jerked her head forward, and began to slip into the room, Shadow following close behind. Once she was past the door it slammed shut, alerting the crouched man to their presence. Akari almost turned her back on the man in the mask to see what shut the door, but thought better of it, Shadow had her back, he could handle whatever was there. 

“This can end here. Leave the duffle bag and come with us and there won’t be any need to fight,” she bargained.

“Us? I’m afraid you’re mistaken, your friend left as soon as mine showed up.” the man in the mask rasped.

Before she could turn to check, something hard and sharp slammed into the tight muscles between her neck and shoulders, driving her to her knees. Bracing both hands on the floor in front of her, her head began to spin, her stomach cramped, and she broke out in a cold sweat.

 Forcing herself to her feet she shoved her goggles around her neck to see what, or rather who, had forced her to the ground. A tower of a man stood next to the mask, he had to be over six and a half feet tall, well muscled, and dressed for a fight with thick soled combat boots, leather gloves and a belt laden with a number of things that Akari couldn’t recognize. In one large hand he carried a small pouch that he tossed in the air, before fastening it to his belt. Pulling her goggles back up, Akari braced herself, ready for anything.

When the police asked her how the fight started, she couldn’t remember, just that she found herself staggering around the burning apartment, blocking and trading blows with the tower man. The man in the mask tried to slip through the door, and stumbling, slipping between full and normal strength, she landed a kick to the jaw, sending him crumbling to the ground. The tower man then sent her head first into the wall. Using it as a support Akari sent herself barreling at the man, raining punches at different strengths. When one of his blows knocked her off balance she twisted her leg to ground herself, then brought a leg up and out, hitting his stomach, pulling it out of the way before he emptied his dinner onto the ground. 

This made him angry, Akari told the police, only later realizing how dense she sounded. The tower man lunged at her, lowering his center of gravity, allowing Akari to bring an elbow down hard on the back of his neck, sending him down into his mess. Sprawled in vomit, the man growled and stood, wiping his hands on the clean parts of his shirt. 

The lull in activity had not been good for Akari. Her head was spinning faster now, making it difficult to focus and keep her senses from being overwhelmed. The sounds and smells from outside began to creep into her mind, mingling with the crackle of fire and crumbling walls and the acidic smell of bile that affronted her nose. The tower man slammed into her, she hadn’t heard him move, and she went through the door. Standing over her he waited for her to get back up, but she didn’t. He left her, unconscious, among the burning rubble. 

She woke up, she didn’t know how long after, and it felt like her skin was crawling. Lifting her goggles so she could see was the only way she could get out, but her eyes never focused. She clutched one burned arm with a bruised hand and stumbled over to the windows, there was an open one, she knew it, but the windows wouldn’t stay put. The last thing she remembered was the sound of shattering glass and the sound of someone screaming “There she is! Quick, someone catch her!”

XXXX

Akari knew where she was based on smell alone, cleaners, disinfectants, and rubber. But there is also the smell of lavender and vanilla, her mother's perfume and citrus and sandalwood, her father's cologne. She was in the hospital. 

Opening her eyes was harder than she thought it would be, they were dry and heavy, and sleep seemed to seal them shut, but after squeezing them once or twice she was able to force the lids apart. Looking first at her arms she found they were covered in bandages, down to her wrists, and there was an IV in her hand. Shakily she reached for her glasses sitting on the nightstand so she could see the rest of the room.

“Oh! Takashi, look, she’s awake,” her mother said, elbowing her sleeping father. “How are you feeling dear?” 

“Terrible. My head aches, and everything hurts.” Akari sat up, feeling her muscles protest every move she made. 

“I’ll go get the nurse.” Amara placed a warm hand over her daughters and stood, making her way out into the hallway. She returned a few moments later with a young man named Nathan who changed out her IV fluids, which unfortunately did not have something for her pain, and talked with her for a short while, then told her the doctor would be by soon. In the meantime he encouraged her to try and eat something, and take fluids on her own. 

That was no problem, drinking at least, her mouth was stone dry. She was in the middle of the broth her parents ordered for her when the doctor entered and spoke to her about her injuries. A few cracked ribs, a sprained wrist, second degree burns on both arms and one leg, and she had stitches where the tower man first struck her. He had cut her with some sort of blade and left behind an implant that drugged her; the doctors had discovered it on her x-rays. They could have someone with a healing quirk do more for her once they were sure the drugs were out of her system the next day, “The cocktail he gave you was pretty nasty,” the doctor said. “We just want to make sure everything is all clear before we move forward with treatment.”

Akari just nodded, so long as she didn’t stay like this all week, she would be alright. The police were in next to get her story, apparently they caught the two men three blocks from the fire after she fell from the window. Shadow had identified them. She had to admit, that stung. He abandoned her, but stuck around to help make the arrest? Couldn’t he have run all the way away like a true coward would have? Or, at least like a coward without an agenda she thought bitterly. Though, bitter was hardly the word to describe the way Akari really felt about it. Betrayed, was more like it. In the office she knew he wouldn’t be there for her, but he had never, never left her like that before. What was worse was that they had faced worse foes than the tower man together before, but it had always been together. The last piece of Akari’s heart that held onto Shadow was broken.  

She refused to see him, or anyone else from the agency while she was in the hospital. It hurt, every time he called asking to come up, but it would hurt more to see him. That was another two days. Then she had a day off, which she spent ignoring calls and texts from him, and sleeping. Akari from six months earlier would have rejoiced at seeing his name come up on the caller ID, but the Akari of now just watched as the screen faded to black. She couldn’t ignore him the next day though, she had to go back to work, at least for the next three days. After that she would be gone. 

He was waiting for her outside the doors to the agency, scanning the crowds of people, searching for her face. Akari walked past him straight through the sliding doors. She didn’t have the energy to deal with him this early, it took her an hour of convincing just to get out of bed, using up most of the energy she did have. Flashing her badge to the desk she went through the second set of doors and into the office.

Turning left, towards the locker room, Shadow appeared in front of her. Looking at the floor she saw the shadows of the water jug and fake plants and sighed, dropping her shoulders. Shadow’s quirk allows him to travel through shadows, and become part of it, so he becomes invisible. It's very useful, but also very annoying.

“What do you want, Shadow?” 

“I want to know how you’re doing, you didn’t let anyone see you while you were in the hospital.” There it was again. Concern. It made Akari uncomfortable, or, maybe upset, or both? Why was he concerned about her? He was the one who left her all by herself, if he hadn’t left maybe things wouldn’t have been so bad. Maybe she wouldn’t have had to go to the hospital. Akari shook her head, maybe’s would get her nowhere. 

“I’m fine, now, can I go change? We have to go patrol in fifteen minutes.” She brushed past him into the locker room.

It was a quiet day on the streets, so there was nothing exciting to keep them busy, just small talk with passers-by and silence. Not that Shadow didn’t try to fill it, but Akari had no desire to speak to him, and refused to fill the uncomfortable void between them. 

When their patrol was over Akari was, for once, thankful for the paper-shuffling part of her job. It gave her an excuse to shut herself away in her small office and write up her uneventful morning report in peace. Once finished she began to catch up on the small mountain of paperwork that stared her down from the corner of her desk, all things she needed to finish before she left on Saturday. She had barely made a dent when a knock at her door drew her gaze upwards. It was Shadow. Of course it was, she thought tiredly, who else in this God-forsaken place would it be?

“What? I’m busy Shadow,” she sighed, looking back at the paper she had been reading.

“Too busy to take lunch with a friend?”

Akari desperately wanted to say “Maybe I will take lunch with a friend, when one shows up.” but she knew better, and hurting him wasn’t what she wanted to do. It just went to show how tired she was. She decided on a simple “Yes.” and left it at that.

Shadow took the hint.

Her last two days of work went similarly. Painfully boring and awkward patrol, paperwork, and then, to her surprise, on Friday, a going away party. Something the higher ups made sure to impress upon her that she would not be getting. It made her feel sick to her stomach. What was the point of this if none of them liked her anyway? Nina, a secretary, told her they only found out on Wednesday that she was leaving, and they didn’t even know where she was going. Something she still wasn’t able to tell them. She got cards, and to her surprise, her superiors gave her an upgraded costume. All too kind of a gesture from the people who drove her away, but she accepted it with a smile. Shadow gave her a music box with pictures of them around the sides; it played her favorite piano music. That was a sucker punch. 

It filled her with guilt knowing that she fully intended on going to her new location with every fiber of her being geared towards forgetting everything about this place. But why should she feel guilty about wanting to forget people who have made her life such a misery? At least that’s what she told herself, but it never quite set right. The truth of it was that, despite the terrible time she was having now, the first year and a half at the agency was mostly good. She held many fond memories of her time there, and it made her feel even worse about leaving on such a sour note. But come the next morning that's exactly what she did.

[7deadlycinderellas]

The Starks at War, 1941 part 2

AO3 link

(who knew all I needed was something called the “Abandoned WIP challenge to finish another chapter of this?)

Arya doesn’t stop shaking the whole way home, through to the next day. Asha accompanies her, sympathetic, but distant. The bus ride is hell.

When Arya walks through the front door, Jojen and Bran are playing cards, but stop immediately to look at her.

“Arya-” Bran starts, stuttering, “Mother?”

Arya feels a sob choke out, then get stuck halfway.

“How did you know?” Asha asks.

“Radio,” Bran says, pointing at the wireless set by the front window, “It said that the Germans hit a military hospital- the one we knew you were going to.” His voice suddenly becomes thick, and Arya realizes he sounds double his newly fifteen years.

“We were scared, we thought it might be both of you.”

Arya slumps down in her chair.

“It was stupid, really,” Jojen comments, “painting crosses on the roofs of all the hospitals. Just gave them something to aim at.”

“If half the stories out of France are true, it is our error to expect any kind of fair play from Nazis.”

Arya feels like she can barely move.

After a time, Asha stands to leave.

“I’ll spend the night at the inn and leave in the morning.”

She leans down to clap Arya on the shoulder.”

“You know where to reach me.”

Once Asha leaves, Arya slumps and clutches her face in her hands.

“I didn’t mean it, I didn’t mean it,” is all she can whisper to herself.

Autumn begins to turn over the coming weeks. Arya sleepwalks into it. Gilly ends up being the one who goes to the church to report. There are no remains to bury.

Sansa calls multiple times a week.

She keeps asking if they need her to come home. They all push her off. Winterfell isn’t home as it was, and they won’t bring her back if she is needed elsewhere.

She’s begun to settle in in London. The flat she shares with Margaery is tiny, just a bedroom and kitchen. The two beds they’ve managed to drag in barely have enough room between them to walk.The walls are papered, but it’s fading and peeling. The heating doesn’t always work, what with the coal shortages. Often at night, the two of them simply pull on all of their clothes before crawling into bed.

The tenement building’s shelter is outside. When the air raid sirens bellow, they have to shove on their slippers, grab their masks and barrel down the stairs among the other flat-dwellers. Praying that all they will hear is the sirens and not the whine of an incendiary or the gait shattering boom of an explosion before they manage to cram themselves inside.

Sansa’s begun adjusting to the work as well. She spends all day in the tiny gray office, editing and retyping papers, sometimes helping Margaery do translations. Sometimes, even work is interrupted by air raids.

She can’t stop thinking of what Catelyn would have said to see her now. With her short cut hair and simple office clothes, she looks nothing like the debutante she dreamed of being. This was not a world her or her mother would have even thought to be part of.

She’s good with idioms, her supervisor notes, so at least she can take pride in that. She was always good at French in school, longing one day to go there, to see the sights and the glamor for herself.

One night when they’re at home, eating some cobbled together vegetable medley, cooked in a pan, Margaery comments,

“I think I’m going to cut my hair. I’m sick of having to set the whole mess at night.”

Sansa nods. She had been surprised when watching Margaery do her hair the first time, to see how hard she worked to make it perfect. Without the curlers at night, one side would curl up perfectly, and the other would hang straight pin straight, stretched out by its length.

“They do say long hair is terribly old-fashioned.”

Margaery sighs when it’s finished, touching the ends as though she can’t believe it’s gone. But now the sides curl properly, and she won’t have to do anything but wash it and wrap it all up before bed.

“My mother used to put it up for me when I was little, the way she did when she went out,” she comments idly.

“You never told me what happened to your mother,” Sansa tells her, suddenly keenly feeling her own loss that she’s spent so much time shoving down deep inside.

“She died of the flu- not the big one, just the usual one- when I was ten. My father was never the same after that. I’m not sure any of us were.”

Sansa is quiet. She understands really. She’s almost appreciative that she hadn’t been at home most of this entire past year. She can’t imagine how her mother must have taken her father’s death. While the pair had never been the most demonstrative of their affections, their children were very secure in the fact that the two had loved each other, and that not all married couples were as lucky.

Margaery glances down at herself.

“She always wanted the best for me. Nothing specific, just that I would be happy and the best person I could be. She was the only one I think. Everyone else has their own ideas about who I am and exactly what I should aim for.”

“What do you want to do? What would make you happy?”

Margaery’s expression is pensieve.

“I wish I’d applied to go to university. I’d like to study political science. I’d like a proper little flat, near a park, one that’s not been bombed. Maybe I’ll marry, but only if I meet someone I want to. Maybe I will when the war is over.“

It has been strange, Sansa thinks, leaving school behind and seeing Margaery for who she really was. She had always thought they were friends, but here she’s stripped bare. She’s not a prefect, or head of the French club, or the beautiful polished girl Sansa had idolized. Here she chips her nails and ladders her stockings and forgets her hat just like everyone else.

That doesn’t mean Sansa doesn’t still look up to her though. She fits right in at the office, even with most of the others being London born girls who left school at fourteen and knew they would end up working if they didn’t marry. Many of them were pleased to work in an office, rather than in a factory, or worse, in service. Sansa sometimes feels tongue tied around them, and not just because the Starks have always had a few people employed in service.

Before October, both of them get letters inviting them for an interview with the same Baelish that Margaery had said recognized Sansa’s name. The instructions have them both come to a tiny, bare bones hotel room during lunch hour. Sansa’s stomach grumbles while she’s outside waiting  for Margaery to finish her turn. Her stomach is not eased by her own interview.

Petyr Baelish isn’t a tall man. Sansa’s used to looking most grown men in the eye, and finds that when he stands, she’s actually looking more at his hairline. He has dark hair, going somewhat gray, a neat mustache and an overall aura of having everything under his control.  

He asks her dozens of questions, some of which she doesn’t even understand. But by the time it’s done, she has a job offer.

And a new, horrifying, realization, about the nature of the office where she’s been working.

Her and Margaery both, are, on paper, enlisted in the FANY, the First Aid Nursing Yeomanry. In practice, they were brought aboard the organization that became known as SOE for secret operations, and being sent to Scotland for their training.

Sansa cringes at the slightest thought of what her mother would say. But her mother is dead now, and this gives her the slightest hope for vengeance. Vengeance. That was one of those words so beloved in those awful twopenny comics Arya and Bran devoured.

It doesn’t take long before she wonders what on earth she was thinking by accepting.

Even reaching the training school is rough. The terrain in Scotland is difficult. By the time they reach the facility, they are all exhausted, hungry, soaked through with rain and covered in scratches. And when they reach it, the real fun begins.

Sansa never once in her life thought she would someday learn to shoot a gun, or disarm a man, or be required to carry a suicide pill. These skills are not second nature to her, so she has to work at it. When her eyes threaten to prick full of tears and her throat threatens to close up, she thinks of her mother’s face, dead now for no reason, and no one coming to save her, or Sansa or anyone. No one is coming to save them.

She learns to parrot back the goal they are told. To resist the enemy by any means necessary. There aren’t a great many women in training with them, but there are far more than Sansa would have expected. Too many in England have lost loved ones in this war. Too many have seen their homes destroyed.

Learning telegraphy and morse code are much easier, even if they are still totally foreign skills for her. She goes back through Arya’s letters, remembering her speaking of learning these things for Girl Guides. These at least, don’t make the bile rise in the back of Sansa’s throat at even the thought of using them.

One night, she sits on the end of her bed and puts her head in her hands. Margaery has the bunk above her. There are bunks here, it’s like being back at school again.

“What’s wrong?”

Sansa’s shoulders slump as she responds.

“All I can think is how much my younger sister would prefer learning all of this than me. She always loved science fiction and pulp magazines and those awful two-penny adventure comics. And when I called home last, she sounded so angry...she needs to feel like she’s contributing as much as us, but she can’t. She’s sixteen, she’s tiny and she’s stuck at home still.”

Margaery frowns, deep in thought.

“Your sister Arya...you said she’s only sixteen?”

Sansa nods.

“She’ll be seventeen at the beginning of next year.”

“Then let her be a child if she can still, we don’t know how long this war will last. Besides, from your stories, she always sounded like such an impulsive and ill-refined girl.”

Sansa sniffs. Her stories had always been terribly unfair to Arya. She might still prefer running about outside, but she hadn’t thrown a tantrum in ages, and the shouting and even the insults were a thing of the long past. They might never have been as close as sisters in Jane Austen novels, but they hadn’t fought each other in so long.

Except when they did.

“She is.”

Margaery smiles, and plays with one of her gloves.

“Know why Baelish had been head-hunting us?”

Sansa shakes her head.

“Because aristocratic women are good at a great deal more than picking out dresses and fixing their hair. We know manners, and pick up rules of etiquette with ease. We are good at talking to people and getting them to tell us things. And we are excellent at keeping up appearances under pressure.”

Sansa nods, and tries to put on her face.

And it is very easy to see why Margaery was selected. Her French is perfect and she has a great deal of knowledge of French geography, culture and fashion. Information that it turns out, Sansa has picked up quite easily having hung on Margaery’s words when she was just the glamorous school prefect.

And it’s so much easier to keep her face on in the dorms than out in the training field with a weapon in her hands.

One of the instructor’s compliments Sansa on her accent.

“A bit breathy, true, but the disguise of an excited young girl can be very handy. Very few would doubt the intentions of one.”

When the both of them get near to finishing training, Baelish’s assessment claims they would both make excellent radio operators. Even Sansa’s not naive enough to believe that’s a safe occupation, like Baelish insists. Mum had seemed fond enough of him, but Sansa doesn’t trust something in his gaze.

This is what sticks in Sansa’s mind as Margaery and her are sent off to parachute school. The first day of training, she stares out the window and wishes she were more like Arya.

That same day, Arya gets the telegram.

The months since Mother had died were hell. Arya has kept up with the girl guides when she could. She helps out with the WVS, who seems nearly as lost without Catelyn as she does. She helps Bran stumble through the paperwork needed to keep the family affairs in order. She tries to help Gilly with little Sam and Weasel.

She writes Gendry whenever she can. His letters are always so sweet, so understanding, but he can’t write often. And she doesn’t know if her own letters actually capture even half of what she feels.

He writes that he wishes he could come see her, but the Navy is stingy with leave, and when he gets a day, he’s stationed too far away to make the train ride south in the time given. Sometimes, selfishly, Arya wishes she could ask him to come anyway, but she can’t. She won’t get him in trouble because of her.

The day the telegram comes, she’s about to burst as it is. It’s only a few days after America has entered the war, wrapping her mind around that was hard enough.

She’s in the kitchen, staring at the paper when the others trickle in for lunch.

Bran notices first, Arya’s stony white face.

“What now?” he asks.

Arya’s hands are holding the card still, but her fingers are shaking.

“It’s Robb,” her voice says, low, dead. “His plane was shot down over France. They have no idea what’s become of him.”

Without meeting his eye, she hands the telegram to Bran, puts her hands on the table. Then she lays her face down on top of them and cries.

None of them could have known what was going down in France at the moment.

Robb was a competent pilot. He wasn’t a natural like Jon was, but he was good enough. This was very little comfort when his plane was currently on fire and quickly losing altitude.

He tried to radio out assistance, but the controls are dead. Robb’s head is throbbing from where it slammed against the inside of the cockpit and he can hardly think. It’s only through sheer luck that he manages to get his parachute on and leap from the rapidly descending plane and pray as he bails out for the ground.

The air rushes around him for only a split second it seems before he collides with the ground so hard that it feels like he’s being manhandled. He thinks he hears something crack, but he can’t stop to think. All he sees is blurs, all he hears is ringing and all he smells is blood and smoke. He tries to stand and run, but his body isn’t listening.

Eventually, one of those blurs comes closer, and grabs him, by the arm, pulling roughly. His legs screech in protest, his lungs wail, but it keeps pulling, and eventually the world begins to return to him.

The figure pulling him, he eventually sees is a woman. Young, perhaps in her twenties, with dark hair. She wears a heavy, dark green coat and her footsteps are heavy.

Eventually, the image of a barn comes into sight. The woman pulling him stops, moves something, and the next that Robbs knows, he’s being shoved into what seems like a hole in the ground.

“Stay quiet. Don’t make a sound until I come back for you. Not a single word, or you’re dead.”

Robb tries to stop himself from blacking out, but he doesn’t succeed.

When he comes to, he takes inventory of his surroundings. Dirt, a lot of dirt. A couple of what look like potatoes in one corner. A root cellar, most likely. The inhales and all he can smell is dirt too. His leg is on fire, and much of his skin is too. He fears when he wakes up fully, the pain will be so bad it makes him pass out again.

He can hear people outside, somewhere, faintly. He follows the woman’s advice and pretends he’s dead. He hears planes overhead, and gunfire too. He hopes his squadmates are alright.

Robb’s not sure how long it is before the cellar door cracks open and he jumps, squawking in pain, but the woman from before pulls him out again and leads him to the farmhouse.

“I told them where I saw your plane go down. I told them I saw it on fire and was worried about the trees in the wood. I didn’t say anything about your chute, I burned it in the hearth.”

After she leads him in and lays him upon a wooden chair, she retrieves a glass and tells him to drink the liquid inside. It’s bitter, and he sputters, but she pushes it to his lips again, and after that, he fades in and out.

When he finally wakes, there’s the sound of a kettle whistling.

“Not real tea, I’m afraid, but dried mint is good enough to pretend.”

She sits across from him. Even still in pain, Robb can’t help but notice that she’s lovely. He sips the mint tea and tries not to choke.

When he finally gathers the mindfulness to speak, he picks his first question carefully.

“What’s your name?”

The woman sighs, before taking her own cup and sitting in the other chair.

“Talisa.”

“Talisa,” he says, feeling the name on his tongue, “I’m Robb.”

“I suppose we should use each other’s Christian names, given we’re going to be stuck here together for at least six weeks” she admits. Then she gestures at Robb’s leg, which she has immobilized with splints and thick rolls of bandage cloth. “Don’t try and move. I couldn’t set a proper cast, but I did my best. Don’t ruin all my hard work.” Dimly, Robb realizes he is covered in cuts that are also bandaged.

Robb is flush with gratitude.

“Thank you,” he says. He examines her bandaging. “Are you a nurse?”

Talisa nods.

“I was going to be, before-” she waves her arm out, “All of this.”

Robb glances around the farmhouse, and realizes the place is empty, but has the signs of other people having lived here before. Four chairs around the table, more cups than one person would need.

“Do you live here by yourself?”

Talisa nods, sadly.

“My father died when I was young, of a fever. I was born in Guernica. When Franco bombed it, me, my mother and my brother escaped and fled here. My father was French, so getting asylum was easier.”

“Guernica,” Robb muses, rolling the word around in his mouth, wondering where he’s heard it. “That’s in Spain right?”

Talisa purses her lips before answering.

“I guess it was too much to expect England to have reported too much on our own little war. But yes, Guernica is in Spain. The three of us came here and worked this farm. Then the Germans came. It had barely been three years. Seems like such a little time of peace.”

She turns away, and Robb chooses not to press her.

“Once your leg heals enough, I’ll pass you off to the resistance, and they can see about getting you home.”

“The German’s won’t get suspicious of you?” Robb asks. He doesn’t want to bring any trouble to her.

“That’s no matter,” she insists, “It’s not like you can go anywhere on your own, and anything I can do to be a thorn in the side of the Third Reich, the better.”

Talisa drains her cup at this point, pushing it back down against the table, and briefly shuts her eyes.

“It’s probably not good to admit, but I am happy that at least I’ll have someone here to talk to this Christmas.”

Christmas, Robb thinks. He hadn’t even realized.

Christmas 1941 is hellish for his own family.

Jon can barely eat any of the Christmas dinner the servicemen are given. It feels like ashes in his gut.

Sansa is given a break over Christmas, but the next day is when they’re supposed to be given their first parachute lessons. She cries herself to sleep, in fear. Fear for herself, fear for her brother. In her more fanciful moments, she imagines parachuting into France and one day bumping into him on the street. Perhaps he’d lost his memory, she wonders, her mind a Hollywood fantasy.

Arya and Bran are still at Winterfell.

Bran is overwhelmed. The work that has been left in his lap threatens to consume him, even as he had wished so hard to be useful.

Arya feels nearly dead inside.

The past two Christmases without Robb and Jon had been bad enough, but at least there were his letters. Now she can’t read them without wondering if they’re the last she will ever receive.

On Christmas Eve, no tree, no lights, no Christmas dinner, Arya stares out her bedroom window. Father, Mother, Robb gone. Jon, Sansa and Gendry far too far away. Bran overwhelmed, even Gilly, Sam and Weasel ash-faced.

They see Rickon so little it’s as though he’s slipped away.

It hardly feels like Christmas at all.

Maybe it would be better if she weren’t here too. One less mouth to poorly feed.

She leaves her bicycle, and her books. She takes Gendry’s letters, and she wonders if she’ll be able to receive any more of them.

The day Arya turns seventeen, she calls Asha Greyjoy, asking if her offer still stands.

[ravenwritesstuff]

Shelter (1/?)

Fandom: Frozen (modern AU, no magic) Pairings: Kristanna (Kristoff/Anna),previous Hanna (Hans/Anna) Rating: T for now, M for sure later. A/N: Just going to drop this chapter here. I have the second one written and the whole damn thing plotted but probably will never finish it (kind of my MO), so if you at least want the second chapter lemme know. I’ll post it, too.

...

Her hands shake as she sets her phone back on the counter. The pen in the other hand trembles above the pad of paper next to it as she looks at the date and time she had scribbled during the call.

We got in.

The thought loops in her brain and as the initial shock of it fades a smile rips across her face.

“Who was that, mom?” A sticky-faced first grader asks from the folding table across the kitchen, feet dangling as she does her homework.

Anna presses a hand against the butterflies in her stomach - feeling the words that will change their lives bubble up.

“It was the house people.” Now she has two identical pairs of eyes on her and she sees the mirror spark of excitement ignite in them at her words. “We got in, babies! We’re going to get a house!”

She lets her daughter knock her to the floor into a pile of giggles and tries to not let the fact that her son does not join dampen her joy.

….

“We’ve got all your papers in order now.” Gerda, her coordinator slips the last signed page into Anna’s folder with smile. “So now we have to discuss how you’re going to cover your sweat equity hours.”

“Oh. I am ready to get started right away.”

Gerda, a woman old enough to have heard this same sentiment a few thousand times, smiles.

“Now this is hard work.” Her tone is gentle. “And you have two young ones.”

“They’re in school during the day - and there are after-school programs I can enroll them in if I need to.”

She hears her own voice - so eager it hurts.

“We require four hundred hours.”

“I know and I am ready to do whatever it takes -”

“I know you are, dear. That’s why you were selected.” Gerda clasps her plump hands on top of the desk across from Anna. A well worn crease forms between her brows. “I’ve seen a lot of people come through here wanting to conquer the world in a week, but this is the long haul. We’re talking at least a six-month commitment, probably closer to a year, and on top of working towards your certification and raising children on your own -”

“I can do it.” She has been rebuilding her life from the ground up for the last four years - building a house cannot be that much different. “I can do it.”

Gerda’s lips purse. “It is just very important that you understand the length and seriousness of this commitment before we begin. If you back out at any point there will be no recuperation for any of the hours you put in.”

“I won’t back out.”

“Ms. Arendal - “

“I won’t.”

Two breaths then: “Fine enough. Then if you feel you understand what is required of you all I need is a signature here.”

Gerda pushes one last page to Anna’s side of the table. Anna signs.

“All right then.” Gerda takes the page before the ink even dries and passes a thick packet to Anna. “Here is your work assignment as well as rules and regulations. I am available for questions during normal office hours - but your best bet will be to direct your questions towards your site supervisor.”

Anna flips open the first page and finds a name.

Kristoff Bjorgman

“Got it.” She closes the packet and smiles. “I can’t wait to start.”

….

“And remember today you are going home with Miss Ariel and Melody.”

It’s a brisk Tuesday morning, spring not quite ready to stick, as Anna waits for the crosswalk signal to change. Her palms are clasped tightly around small mismatched-mittens as the red hand flashes to a white stick figure.

“We know, mom.” It’s her son, Aiden, and she doesn’t even have to look down to know he is rolling his eyes. Six-years-old going on sixteen - she winces but lets his sass slide this time. They’re running late as it is.

“Miss Ariel will help you with homework and feed you dinner and I’ll be over to pick you up as soon as I can.”

“It’s going to be so fun!” Brantley says from the other side of her, red braid swinging. “Can we have dessert?”

“It’s a school night. Miss Ariel has the same rules we do about desserts on school nights.” Anna squeezes her daughter’s hand, palm warm through the worn wool.

“It’d probably be something dumb like fruit anyway.” Aiden pulls his hand away as they step onto the opposite sidewalk.

“Nuhuh! Mom tell him to stop being such a grouch.”

Anna’s head swims. It is not even half past seven in the morning and she is already exhausted. Gerda’s warning about taking on too much pops into her mind, but she shoves it aside. She has to do this - not just for her children but for herself, too. She needs to prove to herself that she can do this.

“Aiden - honey - this is just how it’s going to be for a little while ” She has already explained ad nauseum to the twins that she cannot take them to the job site. As expected - one took it better than the other.

“Yeah? Well it sucks.”

Anna bites her lip. Aiden knows better than to use that word and she knows he is just trying to get a reaction out of her, so she tries to not let it show that it does. Instead she looks at him - his auburn hair poking out at all angles. How he has both the best and worst qualities of his father will always amaze her.

“It will get better. Things will just be a little harder for awhile.”

Aiden mumbles something under his breath, but she does not catch it. She does not even try. When they get to school - only Brantley kisses her goodbye.

….

She parks two blocks down the street from the site and runs.

“Are you Anna?” She hears a voice ask when she finally stumbles onto the site.

She turns towards the sound and is nearly blinded by the low afternoon sun. She squints and shields her eyes (from the sun and something else) but she still cannot make out more than a large shadow. The air is brisk but she is sweating, nerves working against her. It takes all of her courage to not step back.

“Yes. I am. I’m Anna.” She swallows panic.

“You’re late.”

She deduces that this must be the site manager - Christopher? She cannot quite remember from the papers, learned panic erasing her train of thought, and she can’t quite get everything in focus when her head and heart are spinning.

“I know. I’m sorry. My last client likes to talk and - “ She makes excuses all while digging her heels in against retreat.

He isn’t that kind of guy.

At least she doesn’t think so.

At least she won’t let him be. She takes a deep breath.

“You can pick up trash today.” He cuts her off before she even has a chance and it catches her off guard. Her tongue ties. “The dumpster is over there.” He points. “Ask someone to make sure before you throw any scrap in there. It may be useable, and don’t forget to check in to get your hours.”

Just as quickly as he appeared, he is gone and she is left slightly dumbfounded. She was uncertain just what she had expected as a welcome but that certainly was not it. She squares her shoulders anyway and looks around. The site is not exactly messy but she can tell there is clean-up to be done. She checks the time on her watch, makes note, and sets to work.

….

She’s lugging a discarded pallet towards the dumpster, muscles straining, hands burning.

“Hey!”

She hears the call but does not respond. No one here knows her well enough to hale her.

“Hey you!”

It is closer now, close enough that she looks up from her task to find someone striding towards her. The setting sun lights sets the fringe of blonde hair poking out from under his hard hat on fire. Frost edges his breath, pours from his mouth and she had forgotten how cold it is getting with the sun’s retirement. She’s only been on site an hour but she knows that this is the man who greeted her (site supervisor and from what she can tell total jerk) and the look on his face is none-too-happy.

“What are you doing with that?” He asks as he approaches her, adjusting the worn tool belt at his hip

“Taking it to the dumpster?” it comes out far more as a question than she wanted.

“Don’t. It doesn’t go there.”

“Where does it go?”

He is close enough now that he grabs the pallet from her hands as if it was a butterfly’s wing and she meets hard brown eyes. She tries not to flinch but her inside are quaking.

“I can take it if you’d just tell me -”

“If you wanna know you can follow me.”

He turns on a heel and she is left shaking in her thrift store work boots for one moment at his abruptness before she finds the strength to follow.

------

The next few hours go without incident. Everyone else on site seems to at least be pleasant and she hopes that whatever Christopher’s problem is that it will be resolved by the next time she sees him, but she isn’t holding her breath. She has experience with men and the depth of their moods, catered to them for longer than she should have, but she is done with that now.

By the time she goes to pick up the twins from Ariel’s she has all but put the gruff site manager out of her mind.

------

The next morning she is introduced to a new level of soreness. Even her fingers ache which is not good considering she had to give two facials and three Swedish massages today. She pops four Aspirin with her coffee and stretches at the kitchen counter.

“What’s the matter, momma?” Brantley swings her feet as she spills more cereal than she eats.

Anna smiles through a wince. “Nothing, baby. Just sore from yesterday.”

“From building our new house?”

“No. Not our house,” Anna looks at the clock. They are running late. “I have to help build another house before I can build ours.”

Aiden snorts. Anna pretends not to notice.

“When do you get to build our house?” Brantley asks and Anna wishes she had an exact date, but she doesn’t.

“I’m not sure baby, but I am working really hard to make it as soon as possible.”

“That’s so dumb.” Aiden swings his leg too hard and kicks Brantley under the table (whether on purpose or on accident Anna will never know) and Brantley yelps.

“Mom! Aiden kicked me!” Brantley’s eyes already well with tears and Anna wishes she could climb back into bed and start over.

“He didn’t mean to. Did you Aiden?”

Aiden shrugs and stares into his cereal. Brantley’s bottom lip trembles. Anna wants to set herself on fire, but instead she goes and ruffles her daughter’s hair.

“It’s okay, sweetheart. The table is small and he didn’t mean it. Did you, Aiden?” Anna pulls out her mom voice and it brings just enough attention from her firstborn for him to shake his head the negative.

Brantley sniffles. Her cereal bowl is almost empty.

“How about two more bites and then brush teeth, okay? We have to leave soon.”

Brantley shovels two spoonfuls of mostly sugary milk into her mouth and skips down the hallway of their apartment to the bathroom. Aiden stirs his spoon.

“You too, kiddo.” She takes the one step to the table (small kitchens had their benefits) and reaches to ruffle auburn hair, but he dodges her touch. He shoves back from the table.  

He starts down the hall, but not before she hears him mutter: “If you’d just made it work with dad you wouldn’t have to build a dumb house.”

A secret part of her heart crumbles.

If only she had….

She shakes her head. No. That wasn’t an option then and it isn’t an option now. She grabs their cereal bowls and takes them to the sink to scrub them. She may not have much control over her world, but she can control if her sink is clean or not.

She focuses on that.

------

She has never wished to die. She never will, but today - oh - today - she pops six Aspirin.

Aiden will not get dressed. Brantley forgot to finish a page of her homework and is certain now she will mess up her marks and is sobbing. Anna wants to cry, too, but there are things to do and clocks to punch and she has to try to pretend she care when all she wants to do is quit. She wants to curl up and sleep for decades, but she won’t.

She can’t.

She doesn’t.

It is a miracle they all get out the door with pants on.

------

It’s her fifth consecutive day on site and she has managed to avoid Christopher until now. She’s kept a careful distance since her first day, deferring instead to the assistant supervisors, not wanting to incur his wrath or be perpetually stuck on trash duty. He approaches her as she sands a windowsill.

“You should wear gloves.” He nods at the bandages on her hands where blisters had popped up from the rough work. “It helps.”

She is dumbstruck at first, surprised, then: “I don’t have any.”

He is doesn’t ask why. That level of sensitivity she can only attribute to him being used to that on this job.

“There are extra pairs in the bed of my truck. It’s the blue chevy right there.” He gestures with his head. “Help yourself, just make sure you return them.” He points at the tool in her hand.“While you’re at it go switch out your sanding block. You’re using the wrong grain. You should be using medium.”

And with that he is off and she is left with her head spinning. She watches him go join some other workers as they put finishing touches on the framework and sits there with mind whirring. She only allows herself a moment though before she shakes herself out of it and moves. She won’t over think it, this random kindness, even though she wants to. No. She will do what she is told. She will get a house for her children.

But when she finds his truck and the leather gloves just as he said there would be (women’s sizes included) she can’t help but wonder if she had judged him a little too quickly.

------

She forgets what time off means. She thought she had known busy as a single parent before she started with Habitat. Gerda’s warning resonates now, one week in.

I’ve seen a lot of people come through here wanting to conquer the world in a week, but this is the long haul.

It is a Saturday morning. Every inch of her body throbs. Her friends Belle and Adam had agreed to take Aiden and Brantley so she could be on site today and log some real hours.

She rolls to her side and plants her feet on the ground with head swimming.

Tears well in her eyes unbidden. She pushes them back.

This is just the first chapter of this new part of her life.

She has had many new chapters, new parts.

Each has brought their own pain.

This is no different.

She stumbles to the bathroom, sun still sleeping, and flips on the light. She grabs the Aspirin and dry swallows four tablets.

Today is going to be a very long day.

_____

It is lunch on site (her first yet) and she forgot to pack one. Between trying to get the twins ready for the day and her exhaustion she had forgotten to pack food (not that the selection in her cupboard was great but it was better than nothing). She is four hours into an eight hour shift and all she has to eat are the fruit snacks she had stashed at the bottom of her purse for the twins.

She eats them quietly on the outskirts during break, trying to not draw attention, trying to not worry about her aching stomach. Then:

“Hey. Why are you eating all by yourself?” It is the lovely young woman she had noticed from one of her first days on site but had not yet met.

Anna just shrugs. She’d kept to herself since arriving, not mixing with the others, not sure if she was allowed to or if she was okay with allowing herself to.

“Get your behind over here!” The other woman waves and Anna hates to deny but also hates to let them know her failure, to let them know she has no lunch to eat.

Still she goes, uncertain how to deny, and sits as far aways as she can without being rude.

She has seen all of these workers at different times during the week, but they are all here now. She does not know if they are staff laborers or placement seekers like herself. Still, she smiles and tries to act like she belongs.

“Hi,” she waves low from her lap and everyone smiles.

“I’m Tiana,” the invitation giver offers introduction, dark curls falling into hazel eyes.

“I’m Anna.”

“You getting yourself a house?”

Anna blinks, the abruptness of her new acquaintance startling, but she nods her head.

“Good. I am too. Fact is all of us are. You are either going to see me or Naveen - that’s my husband - on this site till one of us drops dead or catches on fire.”

She looks at the ragtag group for the first time in earnest. She’d been so focused on the work that she had failed to notice how many of them  have the same second hand clothes and dime store boots she does For the first time she breathes a little easier. She’d known that others would be working on the site but she had somehow missed the connection that they might be just like her.

“I’ve only just started but it feels like I’ve been at it for years.” Anna laughs a bit, but it falls flat.

Tiana’s face is serious.

“Days like that come often, but you have to remember why you started. Write it down. Stick it to your bathroom mirror and don’t let anything stop you.”

This woman’s determination sends shocks through her and she sees the mark of struggle on her face the same as she feels inside. Anna thinks of her children. She thinks of the life they had before she’d left their father. She remembers that final night when -

She clenches her fists and forces a smile. “Don’t worry. I won’t forget.”

Tiana smiles knowingly and shares her hard boiled eggs with her.

------

The spa smells like lavender and money. She knows she is lucky to have landed this job out of school but still she cannot help but feel the weight of it. The clientele, the volume, the pressure to bring in more clients.... It alls adds up.

Ariel comes in between appointments, a lunch break she wishes she could just push through and work but has to take.

“How are you?” Her lilting accent is unnoticed by Anna, by everyone else at the spa who used to work with her. They are used to it.

“Fine.” She takes the salad Ariel offers her. It isn’t quite warm outside yet, but where they sit on the bench a few doors down from the spa the sun makes up for the difference.  

“Yes?” The way she phrases it as a question makes Anna feels defensive,

“I’m. Fine.” She stuffs salad into her mouth as if to prove a point.

“Okay.”

They eat in silence for several strained bites, then:

“Aiden isn’t doing well.”

Anna has to hold back the REALLY?! that is brewing beneath her skin because she knows. She knows more than Ariel wants to imagine, and even the silent admission from someone else make it more real somehow. Ten million doubts and questions assaulted her at once. She is not enough, she cannot be enough, she is failing her children, if she had just made it work with -

She shuts that train of thought down.

Ariel shut that down with her preternatural understanding: “I know.”

They eat more salad before she continues with:

“He asks about Ha - uh - his father.” Ariel stumbles a bit, her native tongue different than Anna’s and there are moments of translation - transition - where her polite nature wars with her curiosity.

Even with her friend’s tacit strategy - it is salt in the wound.

All she has done in the last three years is try to get past that - try to get past him - but she has made her choices and he is one of them. She has come to accept that. She chews and swallows a hefty bite of romaine.

“He’s mad at me. He doesn’t remember anything. He doesn’t understand.”

Ariel is silent then. They haven’t covered much of her marriage, but enough that Ariel understands what she means. She reached out and grips Anna’s forearm, stills her eating, and looks her dead in the eye.

“You did the right thing.”

Anna wants to melt into the reassurance, to snuggle down tight and swallow it so that all she feels inside and out is safe and warm and right, but all she feels is cold. All she feels is worn. All she feels is sore.

She looks back at the salad Ariel brought her, suddenly uninterested.

“I know.”

“Have you ever - you know - thought about talking to him about it now that he is older? Telling him why his father isn’t around and where he is now?”

Anna shakes her head. Those who know her best, who know the truth, occasionally ask her this, but she is not ready. It is just easier to take the blame than it is to tell her children the truth, to let tell them their mother is a coward and their father a criminal.

“He wouldn’t understand.”

Ariel is quiet for a moment, taking a few bites, then: “He is your kid so you have to do what you think is right, but I think if you ever tried to explain you would be surprised.”

Anna stabs at her salad, suddenly very not hungry.

“Yeah?” She mumbles. “Too bad I hate surprises.”

-----

She is massaging one of her (very few) regulars when there is a gentle rap at the door. The spa typically never interrupts a session unless something is urgent. She murmurs a quick reassurance to her octogenarian client (whom she is fairly certain is asleep) before slipping into the dim corridor where the salon coordinator relays the news.

Aiden is in the principal’s office.

Again.

She takes the call and arranges a meeting - head pounding.

She returns to the small, dark room she works on and to the massage she had been giving but she can hardly focus. Her mind is a dizzy whirl of schedules and conflicts and she is just not sure how she can make this all work.

But she can.

She will.

She has to.

[purplesurveys]

507

Name everyone you know who... is Jewish: I don’t think I know anyone who is. Do people I don’t know personally count? ‘Cause the first Jewish person I thought about was Colt Cabana lmfao. is Christian: 92% of this entire country. is Atheist: Me. JM is also atheist I think. is of another religion: I had a classmate in high school who I heard quietly converted to Buddhism, but I was never close with her so I don’t know if that is true, and if she still is. I haven’t seen her since we graduated. has brown eyes: My sister probably has the brownest eyes out of all of us, but it’s still quite a dark shade.

has blue eyes: I doubt there’s anyone in my circle with this eye color. has green eyes: CM Punk? LMAO has another colored eyes: Almost everyone I know has black eyes. is between the ages of zero and five: My youngest cousin is turning 6 in December, but until then, he is 5. is between the ages of six and ten: My cousin Sam is definitely in that age range, I’m just not so sure what the exact age is. is between the ages of eleven and fifteen: Gabie’s sister is 14, turning 15 this November. is between the ages of sixteen and twenty: My sister (18, turning 19), Gabie’s other sister (16), my old busmates Yanna (18) and Lex (17). is between the ages of twenty-one and thirty: Me and almost all of my friends. A bunch of us were born in 1998, making us 21 years old; a handful are 1-3 years older, like JM (22), Jum and Aya (23). is older than thirty: Other than my parents, my internship supervisor. Not sure how old she is but she’s definitely between 30-40. is a morning person: My mom. It drives me crazy when she wants to get soooo much stuff done within the day since I’m more of a night owl and like it’s just not my schedule lol. is a night person: Me, and just about everyone in UP. is employed: One of the more senior members in my org, Toby, has a job. is unemployed: Everyone else I go to college with. works at the same place as you: I don’t work yet. is single: Laurice. Although we’re counting on her to get a boyfriend before she graduates, so she still has around two years to go. :)) is in a relationship: Jo, who is seeing Aya. is engaged: I have a high school classmate who posted a status about her boyfriend proposing to her many months ago. She hasn’t said anything about it since then so I dunno if they broke it off or nah.

is married: Uh...my parents. is widowed/divorced: The mom of one of my childhood friends is widowed. Her husband died from cancer a few years ago when their daughter and I were in high school, if I remember right. is pregnant: My class adviser from senior year in high school. I know she’s in her 40s, so it was a really pleasant surprise when she announced her pregnancy. has kids: My dog, hahaha. has no kids: My friends in college. has brown hair: Agatha dyed her hair brown a while back.  has blonde hair: Gabie had blonde tips until just recently. She had them cut off last week, so now she’s back to having black hair. has natural red hair: No one I know. has black hair: Aya. has their hair dyed an unnatural color: Everyone I know who has unnaturally-colored hair had it dyed, because Filipinos only have black hair unless they’re half-something. is good at singing: Hannah is a born superstar tbh. I know Ed and Laurice sing too. is good at dancing: Dianne. She’s a high school batchmate who was always the best dancer from our class. She’s a member of the Streetdance Club in my uni now. is good at drawing: Aya! She’s our go-to editorial cartoonist in the org. Angela too, and my sister. is good at painting: Gabie and her youngest sister. My sister’s really good too. She also has a classmate I follow on Twitter, and she’ll post her paintings from time to time, all of which are amazing. is good at acting: Gabie. She was president of the theatre club in high school. is good at writing: Me? Hahahaha gotta flex my own talent too :(( is good at guitar: Gabie’s younger sister. I swear those siblings have the most amazing set of talents. is good at piano: My cousin Luke has been playing the piano for as long as I can remember. His grandma (my great-aunt) also knows how to play and they have a grand piano in their house, so he must have picked it up from her. is good at drums: Denise, a classmate from high school. She was the drummer for my batch’s band. is good in another instrument: JM plays the violin. He’s still a rusty here and there, but can play a tune nonetheless. is athletic/sporty: Hans, Angela’s boyfriend. He plays basketball with his friends all the time. is into fitness and going to the gym: Gabie has a gym membership, but she’s not super obsessed with fitness. smokes cigarettes: Mik, an orgmate of mine. He has always extremely smelled like cigarettes the few times I’ve seen him and I honestly have to step away from him every time :/ smokes weed: I know Danika has had weed brownies. does shrooms: Not anyone I know in real life...I think. does other drugs: Can’t name anyone I know, buddy. drinks often: JM will have moods where he will buy a whole bottle of gin or whatever alcohol he’s feeling at the moment for himself and drink it all in his room, but he’s not an alcoholic hahahaha. doesn't drink: My eldest cousin from my mom’s side. His dad is a horrible alcoholic, so it’s understandable why he avoids it at all costs. doesn't do drugs [not even weed]: Me. is emo/goth/scene/alternative: I uhh...don’t know anyone who identifies as this since probably 2011 at the latest... is preppy/popular: KATE without a shadow of a damn doubt. doesn't fall in either of those stereotypes: Aya. has cats: My tita has multiple cats. It’s her business, but she also loves those cats to death and pampers them. has dogs: Gabie’s family has four dogs, but I only get to see Harley since the other three aren’t behaved all that well. JM has two dogs, Mika and Alley. has other animals: Michelle has a bird named Moonmoon, but I don’t know what kind of bird it is. A girl I used to be friends with in high school (she was from a different school) had a pet snake. has no pets: Jo. is vegan: @badsurveyshit​! is vegetarian: Not sure if I know someone. Filipinos are obsessed with their meat. is on some other diet: The same tita with a bunch of cats is on a keto diet. has no diet/dietary restrictions: ME is lactose intolerant: Also me. But I still have milk and other dairy stuff because yum haha. has/had cancer: My great-aunt died from cancer. My old Filipino teacher had thyroid cancer, but she beat it. is bipolar: Edi, a friend of mine. is depressed: Me, I guess. plays videogames: My sister, my dad, my kuya, Gabie. loves to read: LAURICE. It’d be such a shame if I went with someone other than Laurice. got a GED: We don’t use that here. never graduated highschool: One of my friends’ mom. graduated college/got a degree: Both my parents, and all of my friends who graduated before me, e.g. Kate, Aya, Luisa, Jane. is or has been enrolled in beauty school: I don’t know anyone. makes YouTube videos: Ricel, my sister’s classmate from high school. She seems like such a sweet and nice person so when she started her channel a few weeks ago, I was more than happy to support her. is white: My uncle from New Zealand (unrelated; he married my mom’s cousin / my aunt). is black: I have a mutual friend from high school who’s half-black, half-brown. His dad, if I remember correctly, is from Nigeria. is Asian: Literally everyone I know!!!!!!!!!! is Hispanic: I don’t know anyone in real life but one of my favorite wrestlers, AJ, is Puerto Rican. is of another race: Everyone I follow on this Tumblr :)) is into photography: Reiven. likes rock: Rick, I think? The few times his earphones were blaring his music too loud it was always hard rock. likes metal: I dunno if I still know any metal fans nowadays. likes pop: Hannah. likes hiphop/rap/R&B: Hans. And all the other kids in uni who think they’re white. likes KPop: JM and Jum. likes country music: No one I know. likes jazz: Gabie and me. likes classical music: Sofie. When I was driving us to Batangas a few weeks ago for a beach getaway, she was in control of the car music and she briefly played stuff from her classical music playlist :(((( I was shookt at first but I liked the music anyway, so I didn’t tell her to change it. is a male: My dad. is a female: Me. is non-binary: Gabie’s editor from this website she’s a part of. is trans: Mac, from high school. He was formerly Maica, but he started going by Mac once he graduated. is straight: Laurice. is gay: Gabie. is bi: Patrice. lives on the eastern half of the USA: My Tito Rocky, who lives in New York. My Tito Raffy is also from New York.  lives on the western half of the USA: Aubrey, Rielle, Norielle, Margeauxe. All originally from elementary/high school, but eventually migrated. lives in a different country: My Tita Pia and her husband, who is the one I listed under the “is white” portion of this survey. They live in Vietnam, but they used to live in New Zealand. is blind/visually impaired: I had a classmate from my History of Southeast Asia class who is legally blind. He has this device he puts on his eye to be able to read our professor’s slides. is deaf/hearing impaired: I don’t know anyone IRL. is in a wheelchair or disabled: One of my orgmates’ mom is in a wheelchair. is austitic/retarded/has learning disbilities: My Tita Bianca. is very thin: Aya. is overweight: Gabie is a few pounds overweight.

[andhumanslovedstories]

an exorcist ficlet where Marcus learns from Mother Bernadette a new style of exorcism, but instead of it being compassion through the word of G-d, it's passion through the lyrics of musicals. Mother Bernadette with a theater troupe is all i'm saying

When Rose asked Harper if she wanted to do some theater thisspring, Harper said no. Then Harper went away, had dinner, fell asleep, had anightmare, woke up, cried for a while, went back to sleep, and called Rose inthe morning. What kind of theater, Harper asked quietly. Quietly was the onlyway she ever asked things.

With other kids, Rose replied.

Did Harper have to, Harper asked.

No, no, no, of course not, Rose assured her.

Harper chewed her lips. She chewed her lips a lot, and herlips looked like it.

“Okay,” Harper said, but quietly, very quietly, so thatmaybe Rose wouldn’t hear her, and then Harper wouldn’t really have to do it.

Rose heard her. She said this was great. She said she’d callthe school right away. She told Harper she was proud of her.

Harper hung up, and tried to figure out the differencebetween excitement and dread.  

The school put on two shows a year, a play in the winter anda musical in spring. Harper missed the play. She’d still been in the hospitalwhile St. Benedict’s had muddled through AMidsummer Night’s Dream. Sister Simone had declared it the theaterdepartment’s greatest production since ByeBye Birdie, the year before. Mother Bernadette, of course, had been officiallysilent on her opinion, but everyone spoke almost in a daze about how she had smiledand given a solemn thumb’s up.

Rose was the one who signed Harper up for theater, but itwas Andy’s idea. “She’s shy and she loves musicals,” he told her after one ofHarper’s check-ins. “It’s a perfect way to get her to hang out with some kidsher own age who aren’t her new siblings.” Harper still wasn’t back in school. Shehadn’t been in school for months, well before CPS took her from her mother’s house,and she refused to go now. Andy taught her and Grace at home; Rose checked inonce a week. It wasn’t a perfect set up but it was going well. Harper had spokento Caleb unprompted just last week. She’d let Verity drag her outside. They’d skippedrocks at the lake. Shelby had given her a piggyback ride home.

(“I have a demon in me,” she’d whispered into Shelby’s back,and his grip had tightened. “Mom tried to get rid of it. That’s why they took meaway.”

Shelby believed in God and The Bible and the literalexistence of demons, but he also had seen the state Harper had been in whenAndy had brought her home from the hospital, and he had prayed with her throughthe nightmares since. He had no doubt there’d been a demon in Harper’s home,but he doubted it had been in Harper.)

Andy walked Harper to the school a few times before theywent it. Andy said Harper didn’t have to go in until she wanted to. Harper wantedto, but she couldn’t. Andy told her that was alright. He texted Father Marcusbefore they set out, then texted him when they got back. Not today, padre, hesent.

That’s fine, FatherMarcus texted back. (Andy did not know how much time those words took, Marcushunched over his flip phone and scowling through his reading glasses whileMother Bernadette silently laughed at him.) Tellher she is always welcome.

(“You’re good with them,” Mother Bernadette told FatherMarcus during what he had dubbed her profane hour, which they spent sharing acup of tea and moaning about their lives.

“Course I am,” he replied as he stole a bit of muffin offher plate. “I’m very charming.”

“Hmm.” She conveyed quite a lot of doubt in one quick hum. Whenhis hand reached back towards her plate, she slapped it away again. “We haven’tgot a theater teacher for the rest of the year, you know.” Father Martin, whoMarcus had been temporarily covering for, had decided in the wake of hispossession and exorcism that life was too short not to take that vacation inBarbados that he’s been dreaming of for three decades.

“Yeah, he sprinted for the airport, didn’t he?” Marcus shookhis head. God knew after two months of cobbling together twelve to eighteenyear olds through Shakespeare, he could understand wanting to take a kip, butfleeing the country seemed excessive. They were good kids. Loud, rambunctious, dramatic,sure, but good.

You could stay on,” she said.

Marcus laughed. Mother Bernadette didn’t. That was whenMarcus realized she was serious.

“I can’t,” he said.

“You have so far,” she replied.

“That was for a job.”

“This is a job.”

“Not my job.”

Mother Bernadette sighed. Marcus was a nice man, when he wishedto be, and more tender than he ought to be by a half, but he did have a horrid martyrdomcomplex. It came with the territory, she supposed. “The world is full ofexorcists, Marcus. Our parish is sorely lacking in theater teachers.” She checkedher watch and used her last moments of speech for the day to say, “God won’tbegrudge you a sabbatical.”

“The Devil might,” Marcus replied, but Mother Bernadetteonly gazed tranquically and silently upon him. The conversation for the day wasover. Silence was, strangely enough, a great way to get the last word.

One week later, Father Marcus announced to his small classthat he was staying on until the end of the year.

The cheers caught him off guard. He never quite knew what todo with approval.)

One day, Andy and Harper walked past the school, and Harpertugged on his sleeve. “What’d you say we go this way today?” Andy said,pretending to be casual and not at all excited and proud. He wasn’t a very goodactor, Harper thought. He wouldn’t do good in theater.

The school was quiet when they walked in, and then louderand louder as they walked back. By the time they were outside the doors to the auditorium,the noise was almost deafening. Even Andy looked concerned by this point. Harperstood on her tiptoes to look through the windows. Sixteen kids sat in a circleon the stage, pounding the floor and screaming while a kid in the centerattempted to breakdance. He wasn’t doing very well until a couple girls grabbedhis legs while he was lying down and helped him spin. “Huh,” said Andy.

“They promise me it’s a real teambuilding activity,” saidFather Marcus behind him. Andy and Harper both jumped. Father Marcus smiledapologetically down at her. He was English and he had a cup of coffee and a bignose. “I take their word for it. Never had anything like this when I was inschool.”

“You’re the theater director?” Andy asked. It didn’t soundlike he’d meant it as a question.

“Interim,” Father Marcus said. “Until the end of the year. Casey’sreally the one running it, her and her sister, they just need a faculty memberto sign off that the kids haven’t started eating each other. You’ll like them,”he said to Harper. “Casey’s looking forward to meeting you. She’s been dyingfor a script supervisor, and I told her you’d be perfect.”

“What’s a script supervisor?” Harper asked.

Father Marcus shrugged. “Beats me. But you’ll be perfect.”

Harper smiled, just a little, and Father Marcus smiled backa lot. The kids in the auditorium all screamed. Harper flinched. Andy rested hishand on her shoulder. Father Marcus sat down on his heels and said, “We’re doingInto The Woods. Have you heard it?”

Harper shook her head.

“Neither had I, till Casey made me listen. It’s good. Schoolonly wants us doing Act One, but Mother Bernadette wants the whole thing, andshe can out argue anyone, even Bennett. She took a vow of silence. Very hard toargue with that.” Father Marcus eyed her. “It’s a good trick, isn’t it? Silence.Holy, if you do it right.”

Harper didn’t say anything.

“Course, yelling’s good too.” He nodded his head towards thedoor. “Which one do you feel like today?”

Yelling, it turned out. It turned out that Harper had beenwaiting a long, long time for a proper scream.

[odogaronfang]

Your shitposting is great my guy, that’s fun. Tell us some random non plot related bs about the BoTW au?

sorry for not getting to this sooner!! when i get asks like this i like to take a couple of days to gather my thoughts so i can give you a better answer!!

- out of the six of them, i think zelda is the most overall mature. i mean, sure, she’s still a kid like the rest of them, and she has her fun, but when it really comes down to it she’s the most responsible and the best at getting done what needs to get done. it comes as a bit of a surprise to people that don’t know them so well, because most of the time they look at serious boring old vio and think that he’s probably the tired and jaded supervisor but. not so.

- adding onto that last thing- people tend to assume that vio is the very dignified one. emotionally detached, won’t let silly little things like feelings and morality get in the way of a job that needs to be done, reserved and calm and all that superficial stereotype stuff. they half expect the trope of the sort of english-gentry type personality. and they could not be further from the truth. that’s how he is superficially, but, like, get close to him and spend some more time with him and you’ll see. he kind of swings between following his stereotype and being just as irritable and generally frustrated as blue and shadow get, and honestly it’s a roll of the dice as to what he is. also? he does curse a lot. he doesn’t always go around shouting fuck at everyone he sees, but if something’s really getting on his nerves for whatever reason, he can out-curse shadow. and usually it’s more under his breath, but that doesn’t mean he really makes much of an effort to hide it.

- vio and blue have a sort of legolas/gimli fighting dynamic going on when they get into the thick of it. “bet i can kill more of these bokoblins than you” “bet i can take down a moblin in less hits than you” “bet i’ll be the one to kill this talus” type stuff. honestly, if they had an encampment to clear and no one was feeling particularly up to the job, they’d just off-handedly mention the results of the last competition and that would almost guarantee another face-off between the two, and everyone else could just sit back and watch the two of them go at it. in these kinds of situations they both know they’re basically being used but neither of them care much. one of vio’s favorite things to do when this happens is to let blue think she’s racking up the points, and then the moment she’s about to strike the killing blow on something, he’ll take it out with an arrow. and he does it repeatedly.

- shadow is extremely lazy and will use his magic for the most mundane of things, once he gets comfortable using it around them. he won’t feel like getting off the couch to get the plate red’s offering him so he just magics it over. he doesn’t want to pack his things so he just uses magic to shove things in his bag. he doesn’t feel like climbing an eight foot hill so he floats himself up. and all the while everyone, and especially blue, is indignant. “if this magic is so important to your survival why are you wasting it lacing up your boots” “because what if i trip??? i could get HURT and i can’t risk it coming undone” (and then he probably gets swatted on the head with something)

- green is intimately familiar with gerudo religion and customs. in theory he’s a follower of hylia according to the hylians’ belief system, because it was mostly his dad who raised him and that was what his dad practiced, but he’s far more interested and in tune with the gerudo religion, despite spending a lot less time with his mom throughout his life. the breakdown of all that is here, but his favorite heroines are nailuk and imura, and even though technically he hasn’t been formally confirmed into their religion, he still follows it all as though he has. and it isn’t a closed religion, so technically he could go and request passage through the rites like any other devotee, but he’s an anxious child and always shies away from completing the devotional trials. of course, every time the subject comes up with his mother, she affectionately makes fun of him for it, and especially so once she learns of their quest- “oh, so you’re fine running around the continent trying to save the world, but one little molduga and you’re tucking tail?” (he does, eventually, gather up his courage and finally go through with it. he chooses nailuk as his patron heroine and gets a very nice devotional tattoo of a pink lotus on his arm. his mother is very proud of him, and they do make a special one-day exception to the No Men rule to celebrate his official integration into their religion.)

- unless my brain decides to take an unplanned detour through some weird plot point, you will never get to meet vio’s mother, even though she’s alive. this is because, to put it lightly, they are not fond of one another. it was already kind of rough on vio in his early years, because his dad, as a sheikah, lived in kakariko, and she, as a hylian, was forbidden from living there and so lived in tabantha. it led to a very odd and uncoordinated shared-custody situation, where he’d be living with his mother for a year and then out of the blue his dad would drop by and be like come on son we’re going on an adventure. and then he’d go live in kakariko for months with his dad. and it resulted in a confusing flip-flopping of cultures, and it also resulted in a lot of resentment on her part, towards his father. but because his father didn’t live with her (for a complicated number of reasons, one of which involving a pretty serious falling-out concerning the matter of vio’s mixed heritage) she was unable to express it towards who she actually really hated, and so ended up taking it out on vio most of the time, and it came to be that vio really just couldn’t wait for his dad to come back so he could go be in kakariko, which he liked infinitely better than tabantha. at some point she got REALLY nasty and bordered on actually dangerous, so vio finally put his tiny eight-year-old foot down and decided that he would take matters into his own hands, and hopped on his faithful and much beloved horse and just left. and one day he arrived in kakariko and went to his dad’s house and he just kinda walked in like hey old man how’s it been. after some mild concern and fear for his safety, they sat down and vio explained the situation and ended up living in kakariko from then on. after his dad died, he stayed for about another year and a half, because quite frankly he needed people to keep an eye on him, and after that he took to traveling, took up the trade of a merchant as a kind of excuse, and when he was about sixteen or so, used the money he’d saved to get himself a place in hateno, far far away from his mother but still close to the village he considered family. this one got kinda ramble-y but that’s the rundown on the situation, and anyone with any kind of sense won’t bring up the subject with him, because he’ll either get very withdrawn and avoidant or he will get very angry. you don’t want either of those things.

- it takes some time to get past the initial awkwardness of things, for a few reasons, and there will always be some bumps in the road, but out of everyone, shadow trusts vio the most with personal matters. some of it is because they share at least some heritage, and shadow knows that vio will understand his sheikah-bred tendencies a lot more than any of the others. but he also knows that vio will in no way be taking his shit- but he will constructively not take any of his shit. he thinks that red and green will be generally too lenient with whatever is going on with him, and blue will be far too harsh, and zelda lacks a few certain points of experience with his background that would otherwise make her fine to deal with. so if he actually decides to confide in someone or go to someone looking for advice or help, he will usually go to vio, because vio is certainly not going to excuse anything that he’s done wrong, and he will be very up-front about what he’s screwed up, but he’s also better at providing solutions or advice rather than just flat criticism and nothing else. and as much as shadow would like to be coddled and told that he is Perfect The Way He Is, he knows in his heart that that couldn’t be further from the truth, and he knows all too well that vio has no reservations when it comes to calling him out.

-this is a secret that shadow will take to the grave, but there were a few little parts of the yiga that shadow enjoyed and, at times, kind of misses a little bit. even though there were quite a few people in there that he held no love for, there were still others that were welcoming to him, and kind of took him under their wing, especially when he was just coming in as a young kid. he sometimes wishes he could see them again, just to see how things are, but he knows that if he ever does meet them again, it’ll probably be on opposite sides of the battle. and, even more secretly, he did kind of revel in the power that being in the yiga gave him. even as one of the lower-ranked members, he still had more power at his disposal than some of the highest of the high among the non-yiga. he liked knowing that the upper hand was always his and the situations were always his to control, and while some of that stemmed from being so thoroughly trapped under the thumb of his overseers, it was also, in some little dark part of his brain, just part of him as a person.

-blue’s favorite people in all of hyrule (aside from her village, of course) are the gorons. she just loves the atmosphere there. she describes it as an entire town full of bros, and even the most distant of them still share this sort of familial bond that she has yet to see matched among anyone else. the rough-and-tumble attitudes and general relaxed air and casually determined personalities just kinda resonate with her, and by the end of it she kind of ends up as an honorary goron. she also really likes their spice. so does zelda. their food becomes a little dangerous after trips to goron city.

-green’s dad actually used to be in the princess’s personal detail of guards. it was only for about two years, while they were in the process of searching for suitable champions, but it happened, and even through the calamity, he managed to preserve the uniform and the sword he was given. when green was little, he used to steal the clothes all the time and dress up in them and walk around acting like a guard. he’d stand in front of the door to the kitchen with his little wooden sparring sword in his hands and demand to know his dad’s name and business before he’d allow him to enter. and even though the hat was far too big for him, even when they went out to practice with their swords or tend their garden or go hunting, green would insist upon wearing it, and even though it fell in front of his eyes every ten seconds he refused to ever leave it at home. even still it’s an inside joke between them to ask name and business before letting the other go anywhere.

[ajoraverse]

Another thing that, well, I’ll probably have to either retool or ditch. Beta AU side-story draft, taking place pretty much immediately after the last published one.

The Rose Quartz Project

The threat of red supergiant expansion and the ensuing shockwaves had chased gems off the first colony nearly eight hundred thousand years ago, for not even the sturdiest gem or their technology could survive it. The threat triggered the search for what would eventually become Homeworld, and only Homeworld's rejects returned to the first colony when it was safe to do so. They returned to a broken, burnt-out world and did their best to rebuild. Save for a few determined souls, no gem of means or worth to Homeworld would bother with it.

The temple in which representatives from the unsung pillars of gem civilization gathered was one of the few rebuilt and still well-maintained on the first colony, though much of its masonry retained scorch marks and low levels of background radiation from the sun's red giant phase. Nullification shields protected the interior from radiation flare-ups from the white dwarf remnant of the sun, making it more or less safe for occupancy.

On the way to the temple, each ancient visitor stopped at the mausoleum that housed the remains of the Great Maker and the entombed shards of the first few gems to pay their respects. The foundation stones, footings, and all wall stones cracked or shattered by the tidal forces generated by the sun's expansion had been replaced with similar masonry long ago by some unknown bismuth, and the only evidence that anything had happened was an inscription on a nearby plaque. Supposedly the interior was entirely reconstructed with materials from the new colonies, but Peridot felt too undeserving to enter the mausoleum and see for herself.

It had been tens of thousands of years since Kindergarteners last gathered like this. Peridot Facet-1F2 Cut-2AA had only been to a meeting once before, and that had been when she was newly minted as a Kindergartener and her mentor introduced her as her successor. Supervisors pretended not to notice when they traveled en masse to the first colony, and no one questioned what happened at the gatherings. Half of that was out of respect for arcane professions, half of it was out of a habit with origins long forgotten by most gems.

Peridot had gone alone and politely declined or redirected any questions regarding her new pearl's whereabouts. After all, the pearl would have been a novelty and distracted from the research issues at hand. They were here for business, not gossip.

Four peridots gathered around the small table set in the center of one of the four rooms of the temple. Four groups of gems for the four pillars of Homeworld society: peridots produced gems and maintained mechanical systems, bismuths built structures, anorthites provided physical labor for jobs no other gems would take willingly, idocrases wrote the programming that kept their technology functioning. Sixteen gems in all. There had always been sixteen, for the number was tradition. It represented the double magic number of oxygen-16. Eight neutrons and eight protons in the nucleus. Exceptionally stable. Oxygen-16 was a primary product of stellar evolution, formed by stars exclusively from hydrogen. Peridot thought the reasoning was a bit esoteric, maybe a bit pretentious, but she was hardly going to make an issue of it. She was the youngest and least respected of the sixteen gems, well aware that she had her position only because her mentor liked her and saw some potential in her that she never understood, and she certainly had no business questioning anything.

The eldest peridot--not the first, for the first had been shattered by White Diamond eons ago for too many instances of challenging her--spoke in the slow, sonorous tones of epochs as she discussed the new injector models, their improvements and problems compared to older models, recommended practices, and so on. As if she was reading strata and had hit a unconformity, she switched topics abruptly to orders from the Diamonds: larimars would be discontinued until further notice. They were finally deemed obsolete and production on them halted until a better use could be found for them.

Peridot said nothing, though she did do her best to ignore the regret starting to swell within her. She had enjoyed the process of making larimars. They were tricky, requiring cooled lava beds or igneous intrusions into limestone injected into just so and at a slower rate than typical, but lovely all the same. She had taken pride in the fact that all the larimars she made were perfect.

Still, it was not her place to speak up.

The eldest peridot opened the floor for discussion over some little detail of pressure requirements for beryls. Peridot remained silent, because ultimately the scales over which they were arguing were inconsequential in light of the fact that they could not control the native matrix to the extent their thought experiment required. There was only so much a Kindergartener could do with the geology of a given site.

Finally, after what seemed like entirely too long spent dithering over the tiniest of details, the discussion turned to the fact that Pink Diamond was expressing interest in starting a colony. Again. Peridot almost disregarded this, but Yellow Diamond's peridot seemed more certain that something was going to happen this time around. Yellow Diamond was hardly one for futile gestures, and certainly not one to order an exoplanet survey in another galaxy entirely without first having a plan for the results. The younger of the two White Diamond peridots mentioned that Pink Diamond would probably want a properly themed court, and euhedral pink quartzes were such a pain to produce well while still maintaining a degree of quartz sturdiness. Their colors were too prone to fading in sunlight, they did not handle extreme heat well, and an amethyst was more useful. And wasn't it a shame that the fibrous rose quartzes had been discontinued hundreds of thousands of years ago?

That brought Peridot up short. The issue with fibrous rose quartzes was that the dumortierite-like borosilicate fibers that gave rose quartzes their color also had the unintended side-effect of instilling a degree of independent thought and capriciousness that was unwelcome in quartzes. It was for similar reasons that blue quartzes had also been discontinued before Peridot's time: their coloration was caused by the same ilmenite inclusions that made Peridot off-color, but at concentrations so high that they could barely function in their assigned roles. But if they could tame those fibers...

"Why can't we file a proposal to reinstate rose quartz production for Pink Diamond?" Peridot asked at last, once she managed to find an opening.

"My Diamond discontinued rose quartzes because they started getting ideas," the younger White Diamond peridot, Peridot Facet-3C Cut-416, said in that superior air of hers. Peridot 416 certainly didn't like her and took every opportunity to needle her. "Those inclusions only ruin what might be a perfectly fine gem."

Peridot recognized the jab, for her own inclusions were no secret to them, and spoke before she could fully process it. "All the studies suggest that the problem with the inclusions was that the Mark was never programmed to take them into account. If we can establish pre-defined parameters for the Mark to build along those inclusions, we give them a purpose beyond simply getting in the way of Mark pathways developed in the crystal lattices. We can use those inclusions to program additional skillsets, or--"

"It doesn't matter." Peridot 416 sneered, making her wish she'd never spoken up. "They'll still be off-color."

The eldest peridot lifted a hand to stifle the argument. Peridot 416, who looked as if she wanted to continue, bit back whatever was on the tip of her tongue and settled back onto her stool. Peridot 2AA tried not to wring her hands under the table. Speaking up had been a mistake.

"There is no mineral that is completely free of impurities. It is the same with gems." The eldest peridot turned her attention to Peridot 2AA, who felt as if she was being examined. "We used to be more accepting of off-colors than we are now. For this reason, I agreed to allow Peridot 4DF's apprentice to take her place among us. Now then. You were talking about skillsets?"

Peridot started with a stammer that was so bad that she bit the side of her tongue. She took a breath and tried again. "I--I tested a hypothesis with the help of Idocrase Facet-9Z Cut-3GN: that the Maker's Mark can be reprogrammed to repair minor fractures in gems with the assistance of a mineral-rich liquid medium. The documentation is on the research network under the Gem Development Studies heading. The first few attempts on dud gems worked well, so I repaired my pearl with it. My pearl reports no lingering pain from the fractures, so I am confident in concluding that the experiment was a success. I thought, perhaps we can program the Mark to build repair nanobot factories within those inclusions. It's a simple adjustment in the programming--"

"Why go through all that effort when it's just easier to inject a new gem?" Peridot 416 asked, her expression almost bored and dismissive. "We already have suitable injection formulas and materials, we don't need to play around with the software just because we can."

Yellow Diamond's peridot leaned over the table towards Peridot 2AA. "Fascinating. Does the alteration of the gem's chemical makeup with new mineral latticework change the pearl's behavior any?"

"I... I really wouldn't know. The fractures were small enough not to be immediately noticeable." Peridot hadn't really thought on what side-effects might occur from replacing missing minerals. "I doubt it would be much different than having a few small inclusions."

[annnd this was supposed to go on to the elder WD peridot taking the idea to WD because Peridot 2AA has little real standing, having the project eventually passed to PD and approved despite WD's disagreement, and eventually result in the entire cut of rose quartzes having some ability to heal.

Buuuut, lol, PD = RQ so oh well]

[mhsn033]

Lack of clarity over who would be in charge delays Newcastle takeover

Newcastle accomplished 13th this season

Newcastle United’s proposed takeover by a Saudi Arabian-backed consortium has been delayed as a result of a lack of clarity over who might well be accountable at the membership, BBC Sport has realized.

Sixteen weeks after documents referring to to a £300m takeover had been registered with the Premier League, the deal is soundless being scrutinised below its householders’ and directors’ test.

But it indubitably is identified compliance requires bigger scurry in the park as to who would occupy final accountability at St James’ Park.

The utter has been led by British financier Amanda Staveley, but Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth Public Funding Fund (PIF) is determined to insist an 80% stake.

PIF’s chairman is Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, and it appears to be like the Premier League’s lawyers are struggling to place the categorical links between the consortium and the Saudi authorities.

Here is most basic given the tv rights piracy disorders that occupy dogged the saga, with Saudi Arabia denying claims it facilitated the unlawful streaming of sports actions occasions in the Center East.

The Premier League, PIF and Magpies owner Mike Ashley occupy all declined to comment, but with easiest seven weeks until the new season begins, endurance is initiating to wear thin on either aspect.

On Saturday, supervisor Steve Bruce spoke for Newcastle fans when he acknowledged: “We desire a resolution and we need one quick.”

What’s basically the most neatly-liked pickle?

The attainable takeover has been complex by television piracy disorders and alleged human unbiased abuses.

Households of prisoners held in Saudi Arabia occupy educated BBC Sport that they are going to “not conclude silent” despite the indisputable truth that the deal goes through.

There might be additionally eager passion in Newcastle from American businessman Henry Mauriss, who’s tantalizing to offer £350m for the membership, who accomplished 13th in the Premier League standings.

BBC Sport has been educated by a source that an exclusivity clause held between Ashley and the Saudi-backed consortium has come to an conclude.

That might even offer a risk for Mauriss’ camp to capitalise also can soundless the utter fall through.

So, for the time being, it is all eyes lend a hand on Premier League chief executive Richard Masters and its board. This can produce the resolution on whether the attainable householders occupy broken any criminal pointers and meet the most basic standards to shield the league’s repute and image.

Sources occupy acknowledged that despite the indisputable truth that Bin Salman is the chair of PIF, he isn’t very enthusiastic with its day-to-day operating, so questions about Saudi Arabia’s human rights epic are not connected to the utter.

What are the outstanding disorders?

Greater than 97% of Newcastle United Supporters’ Have confidence participants are in favour of the takeover, and loads fans occupy brushed apart the vogue by which the media has raised disorders which also can derail the Saudi utter.

Given their significance and complexity, however, these disorders occupy been exhausting to omit.

TV piracy in Saudi Arabia is an mighty pickle for the Premier League to contend with, especially as it has previously complained about it.

The World Exchange Group acknowledged there had been an infringement of intellectual property rights by the usage of the unlawful beoutQ carrier, but in an apparent response to that ruling, Saudi Arabia then barred beIN Sports from working.

Its carrier is mainly the most easy unbiased manner of looking at Premier League soccer in the nation. Saudi Arabia has constantly denied aiding the beoutQ operation and has insisted there just isn’t one of these thing as a hyperlink between its authorities and the alleged piracy.

There occupy additionally been appeals to the Premier League and fans about how Saudi Arabia disregards human rights, which Masters acknowledged might well be “solely regarded as”.

Why are Saudi families enthusiastic by takeover?

Households of prisoners held in the kingdom occupy educated BBC Sport that allowing a Saudi takeover would “legitimise” the regime that “commits horrendous crimes”.

The takeover goes to the core of the sports actions-washing thought that many human rights organisations occupy raised. They are saying that if the Arab teach is expounded to the globally determined image of the Premier League, it might perhaps well gloss over the abuses that occur in the nation.

Lina al-Hathloul says her sister Loujain, a human rights activist, is one such instance. Loujain campaigned for females’s rights to pressure; in accordance alongside with her sister, she has been in jail for two-and-a-half of years and has been tortured, sexually burdened and held in solitary confinement for eight months.

The Saudi authorities says she and relatively a couple of activists had been detained for conspiring with “hostile entities”, whereas Bin Salman educated CBS’s 60 Minutes in 2019 that releasing her was not his resolution to provide. He added: “If this [torture] is suitable, it is very tainted. The Saudi criminal pointers forbid torture.”

But in an attraction to Newcastle fans, Lina acknowledged: “I need to picture them that their day after day existence is amazingly relatively a couple of from ours. My sister is in jail appropriate because one of her demands was for females to pressure.

“Saudi Arabia can be embarrassed if at each game they occupy protests. No topic the resolution is at the tip, fans occupy leverage, they might be able to count on for the detainees to be released.”

Areej al-Sadhan, whose brother Abdulrahman is a humanitarian employee for Crimson Crescent and has been in jail for bigger than two years, acknowledged a full bunch of families be pleased theirs had been affected.

She added: “We is not very going to conclude silent about it. We’re if truth be told risking our dangle lives by talking out about the pickle.

“There are issues cash cannot rob and fans significantly need to survey deeper at the Saudi practices in the kingdom.”

The put does proposed takeover scoot away Bruce?

Bruce has previously acknowledged he would “be pleased to be section” of the takeover, but his extra on the spot issues can be connected to the forthcoming season, which begins on 12 September.

He is determined for a gathering on Wednesday with Ashley, where he can discuss if any funds are readily obtainable for transfer targets. Bruce has acknowledged he hopes to safe a couple of provides accomplished, and also can additionally hope that midfielder Matty Longstaff indicators a brand new contract.

But most of all, he, be pleased many fans, desires to know if the takeover will occur or not.

“It is a frustration,” he acknowledged after losing to Liverpool on Sunday. “The membership wants that clarity, all of us, so let’s hope we can safe that in the next couple of days or week or no topic it goes to also presumably be.

“If that’s not going to occur, now we need to know quick so it should always also be alternate as traditional.”

As has been the case for nearly four months, the resolution lies with the Premier League.

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[discoveringthebible]

My Back Surgery

One month today I had emergency back surgery. 

When I started 2020, back surgery was the last thing on my mind, or anyone’s mind. While I have had known back issues most of my life, it didn’t seem like it was a necessity. Until I went into the emergency room on January 25th. I had taken some time off work to help my mom who just had neck surgery. My dad needed the extra help to make sure that my mom had everything she needed to be taken care of while she recovered. 

Unfortunately I ended up in extreme pain in my low back. I thought maybe I had aggravated one of the three disks in my low back. My dad talked me into going to the emergency room. I didn’t want to, because, as it had always been, they would give me good pain relievers, muscle relaxers and send me home. Plus, I needed to help with mom. I didn’t want to leave mom when she needed me. 

After finally seeing a doctor five hours after I arrived, he had x-rays ordered and an MRI. He wanted to check things out to see what might be going on, while he didn’t think anything was seriously wrong, he wanted to make sure. He did not like the look of the x-ray and had me do the MRI too. He called in a surgeon because something was wrong. 

The on-call surgeon came into the ER at 7:30am the next morning on January 26th, 13 hours after I arrived at the hospital and 8 hours after I had been on an extremely uncomfortable gurney. All the hospital beds were being used, and they were frantically searching for something more comfortable for me to lay on. I had been admitted to the hospital, but, because it was full, I was in that emergency room for almost 16 hours, before being transferred.

The surgeon explained to me the x-rays and the MRIs. It turned out from my medical stuff last year, I had a full body MRI scan done, because they were looking for cancerous lymph nodes and other problems, which I did not have. The MRIs were 11 months and 2 weeks apart. In that span of time, the disk in my spine at T-12/L-1, which had been protruding for over 13 years, had begun to harden and calcify up against my spinal chord, greatly increasing my risk of becoming paralyzed. If the spinal chord gets damaged, or cut, then there is no reversing that, even with all of today’s technology. The surgeon also explained that a bone spur also began to grow just above it, up against the spinal chord, so the threat of becoming paralyzed was not just in one spot, but two. The previous MRI showed no signs of this. The only thing that I had done in the previous year was become a barista (again) and there is a lot of bending, twisting, lifting and straining that is not good for my back. But I LOVE the job. While we cannot say for certain what caused it, all that unnatural movement over the last year didn’t help. 

After all this explanation from the surgeon, he said that I had a choice. He said I could go home with pain medicine, but my condition would continue to get worse. He said I wouldn’t have been able to care for my mom and to take it easy. :( He said he recommended surgery, but at the end of the day, I had to choose to have it done. He said that if I did go home, that I could risk making a wrong move, or if I had a car accident, etc., that it would cause paralysis. And while I joked that I could rock a cobalt blue wheel chair, I knew that my living situation at home was not ready if I did need to use a wheelchair. 

[Four years ago, mid February 2016, I blew a disk out in my back, and spent three days in the hospital re-learning how to walk and I had to have extensive physical therapy. I blew out L4/L5. While it was bad, and while it was jagged up against my spinal chord, that hospital determined surgery wasn’t necessary, yet. And who knew 4 years later, that disk posed no immediate threat to my ability to walk. Praise God.]

I have to admit I was scared, although, not as scared as my first emergency surgery in December of 2015. (That was for my infected gallbladder. While I was scheduled for an out patient procedure on December 28th 2015, I ended up having surgery on December 25th at 1am because the infection spread and it was threatening my life.)

Surgery was not on my mind and that was the last thing I wanted to do. I asked the surgeon if I could think about it. He chuckled and said, “Of course! And I will check back in with you.” I appreciated that. 

The first thing I did was panic, and the nurse who was looking after me asked what the surgeon had said. Her response was, “Would you like to speak with a chaplain?” I hadn’t thought of that. And I took her up on it and asked for a Christian one. (Knowing a couple of chaplains, I do know that there are different religious chaplains in hospitals, prisons and in the military.) The chaplain was very kind and compassionate, listening to what I was going through, as well as my aspirations of becoming a Nazarene Pastor. And, while he had never met me before, he also recommended something that several others have over the last 8 years: he told me that I would make a good chaplain because of my ability to listen to people and that I am a compassionate person. 

After an hour and a half, he prayed with me, reminded me of some great scriptures, which have now escaped my memory, as my nurse had come in with some great pain relievers and I was exhausted. And he left. I called my parents and asked what I should do. At this point I was leaning toward surgery, but I knew that would put a really big bind on them, especially my dad who would be the only one taking care of both my mom and I. They said go for it. I was there at the hospital already and they could perform it in the next day or two. 

Then I had to call my work. After being on FMLA leave to care for my mom, I had to call and explain what was currently happening. One of the assistant store managers, I work at Safeway, answered. She was the one who I was working with about my leave with my mom. While she was incredibly surprised that now I was in a medical bind, she encouraged me to go with the surgery and that when I was healed I could get back to work and to not worry about work. She also explained that she would talk to my immediate supervisor and to just prepare for the surgery and that whenever my dad could, he could get the paperwork for me to have fill out. I have never had such a great experience with medical issues anywhere I have ever worked. (And I have worked since I was sixteen, except the year and a half when I couldn’t work and take college courses.)   

I asked my nurse to let the surgeon know I decided I was going to have surgery. She forwarded it, but it seemed he knew that I was going to have it, as he had me down for surgery on that Monday. (When he talked, he wanted it done Sunday, but because I hadn’t had a firm yes, he moved it to Monday.) 

Monday came around (by this time I was already extremely bored, as I was waiting to have this done.) Some of my family came, as well as some people from my church who stopped by. But as it got later and later, no one seemed to know when I was going up for surgery. Then at almost 5pm a nurse came in and said matter-of-factly, “You’re not ready? They are on their way for you. You need to get wiped down.” While I could have said a lot of things, and I know my family wanted to say more, they helped me get all prepped for surgery. I kissed everyone goodbye, we said our I love you’s. And off I went. One of my cousins and my dad followed behind me as I went upstairs for surgery. My mom waited in my hospital room. I met all the people who were going to be in the O.R. with me, except one nurse they were waiting on. She was going to be responsible for monitoring my spinal chord and nerves to make sure that I didn’t have any problems. Unfortunately, she didn’t make it to the hospital. She was assisting in another O.R., in a different hospital about thirty minutes away. Instead of waiting for her, the surgeon decided to postpone it until the following day. (Initially, I was frustrated. As my family was.)

There was no communication between the surgical team and my nurses, who at first thought I had the surgery completed. And I said, they had to postpone it. It was nuts. While the surgical team was very attentive to my needs, as far as the surgery went, I cannot say the same for almost all of the nurses that I had during my stay. At first it wasn’t so bad, that is, before my surgery. After my surgery, I had to fight to get my medicine on time. I had to fight to make sure I had what I needed. I had never experienced that before. Usually, especially after major surgery, they are on top of making sure I am as comfortable as I can be. The night staff certainly did their best. And the CNA’s of the day shift. 

I ended up suffering from extreme pain more than I needed to during my stay at the hospital. And that was partially because of the lack of care that I received. Looking back on it, even though I could have been extremely angry and upset, I wasn’t. God had given me a sense of peace and a sense that He had never left my side once. It was one of the closest experiences I have ever had to God, even though I generally feel pretty close to Him. I did have to have a conversation with one nurse who was completely out of line. I will not go into details, but it seemed that while, yes, she was busy, she neglected my basic needs as a patient and left me with someone else, who had no idea what they were doing or how they could help me. After that conversation, she did better.

It was good that the surgery was a success and that I could get up and walk. Because I knew that if I could get up on my own, go to the bathroom on my own, they would let me go home. I knew I would do better at home than at the hospital.

The very first thing I noticed after the surgery was just how well I could feel my toes and feet. Over the last year, it was a gradual decline in my ability to feel them and I didn’t realize just how bad it had gotten, because I could walk on my own just fine. 

The few days after the surgery (Wednesday, Thursday and Friday) I do not remember much, except how much pain I was in and how uncomfortable I was. I cannot even remember all who came to visit me in the hospital those days. :( 

Having Fibromyalgia on top of having this major surgery, they did have some difficulty finding a proper pain management for me. But even when they did, they didn’t always implement it on time, setting me back in progress. For two days I had very low blood pressure, 80/55 was one I remembered, (normal is 120/80) because of the amount of medicine they gave me, to counter act giving me medicine late. I couldn’t get up, I was dizzy and nauseous, I could barely stay awake and they had to put me back on oxygen. They regretted pulling out the catheter because that meant I had to get up to go to the bathroom and I became a fall risk. And with my PCOS (yes, I know, I have a lot of medical issues), I went almost 1 week without my medication, which lead to aunt Flo showing up just 2 hours before surgery, extreme hot flashes, and moodiness.

Initially, they told me I could go home on Friday. But because of the oxygen and low blood pressure on Thursday, they wanted to keep me an extra day and to make sure that I could survive on only oral pain medication. When Saturday rolled around, I got up to walk. I ended up walking around the hospital wing twice because I wanted to prove that I could go home. (It was mostly because after 8 days, I just wanted to get the heck out of there.) And they finally let me go home. And I have been flourishing ever since. 

But, it has only been 1 month. And I still have 2 more to go before I can really do the things I was doing before all this happened in the first place. I will be able to start physical therapy mid-March (FINALLY!) and hopefully I will be able to go back to work at the end of April. 

One thing that God is teaching me through all of this is patience. This has been one of the hardest lessons that God has been teaching me over the years and He keeps coming back to it, so I know patience is extremely important. Plus, it is a spiritual fruit. I have more patience now than when I was a teenager, but I know that I still have a ways to go. 

James, Jesus’ brother, wrote:

“Dear brothers and sisters, when troubles of any kind come your way, consider it an opportunity for great joy. For you know that when your faith is tested, your endurance has a chance to grow. So let it grow, for when your endurance is fully developed, you will be perfect and complete, needing nothing.” (James 1:2-4, NLT). 

  Paul wrote to the Romans:

“Rejoice in our confident hope. Be patient in trouble, and keep on praying.” (Romans 12:12, NLT)

Paul wrote to the Galatians:

“But the Holy Spirit produces this kind of fruit in our lives: love, joy, peace, patience (or long-suffering), kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. There is no law against these things!” (Galatians 5:22-23.)

Paul wrote to the Colossians:

“We also pray that you will be strengthened with all his glorious power so you will have all the endurance and patience you need. May you be filled with joy, always thanking the Father.” (Colossians 1:11-12a, NLT). 

And this is my prayer for you today that no matter what it is that you are currently going through, or that you will go through that God will give you the strength to be able to get through it. I know God is capable of doing this, as He did this for me during my hospital stay, as well as He has been with me during this time at home recooperating. 

Peace and Blessings to all,

Cody

[aspiestvmusings]

The other side of the Hollywood TV/Film industry...that stays BTS from viewers:

The Unglamorous, Punishing Hours of Working on a Hollywood Set

Written by: Gavin Polone 

THIS IS A MUST-READ. FOR PEOPLE ON THE INDUSTRY. FOR TV/FILM FANS. FOR...EVERYONE. 

READ THE FULL TEXT UNDER CUT OR CLICK THE SOURCE LINK 

A week and a half ago we had an unusually long shooting day on the show I’m currently producing, Jane by Design. The crew call time was at 7 a.m. and we wrapped at 10:46 p.m. — fourteen hours and 45 minutes after subtracting our one-hour lunch break. And some had an even longer day: Our actors, including guest star Teri Hatcher, showed up for hair and makeup at 5 am, which meant that hairstylists and makeup artists, as well as someone from the transportation department and the set production assistant, also showed up to meet them and were there until wrap, giving them a total of sixteen hours and 45 minutes. Many of you who are less familiar with the culture of filmmaking may find these hours to be pretty crazy, but those of us who regularly work on sets know there was nothing out of the ordinary about this day — and it wasn't even that extreme compared to other movies and TV series, which often go beyond the standard schedule of a twelve-hour day.  

These hours can be a bit grinding for me, but as a producer I have the latitude to show up later or leave earlier. Actors can have brutal days, but they also usually get days off, as most shows are ensembles and they’re rarely in every scene. And let’s face it, producers and actors are highly compensated for their work. However, the average below-the-line worker (the budgetary classification for those who aren’t producers, directors, actors, or writers) has to be there every day and make a middle-class wage. And, from my perspective, they are also the people who whine the least about this extreme schedule. It has always been difficult for me to understand how so many in this business put up with such a punishing routine. So, as our work week wore on, I decided to interview some of the people around me about their feelings on the hours they work and how this regimen affects their lives.

Kirsten Robinson is our script supervisor, which means she helps the director keep track of continuity and makes notes for the editor on how he should put together the pieces of the scenes. Kirsten considered our show as a relief compared to a recent show she worked on where she “worked sixteen to eighteen hours every day and the worst day was twenty hours." And at the end of all that, she had to spend another hour putting together the data she collected and distributing it to others on the production. "At the lunch break, it’s like you have another regular person’s day ahead of you. What was the worst for me was the short turnarounds [the term used to mean the amount of time you have before having to be back at work].  We would work sixteen hours and then only get ten hours off and then be back for another long day. That was the real killer. Physically, you’re just exhausted. For me, it is very difficult because my job is mental. I never felt the money was worth it. I want to put my best effort forward: Fighting through and drinking as much coffee as possible doesn’t yield the best work.”

Steve D’Amato is our first assistant director, who is in charge of running the set. He recalls, "The worst day I ever worked on a show was 27 hours. It was the very last day of the very last episode of the series. We shot for 24 hours and I was there two hours before and an hour after." I asked him how this kind of schedule affects his marriage to a woman who isn’t in the business, a dermatologist: “At first, she said it might not work out, but now she uses the time when she’s alone. She’s gotten used to it. I used to be happy when a production would go over and I would make more money. But now that I’m older, it is more important to me to be able to get home and do stuff with my wife. What bothers me most is you don’t have time to do anything else. It’s hard. It seems like it’s unnecessary: You could just add one or two more days [to the schedule] and spread it out over more time. We’re the only industry that is fighting for a twelve-hour day: That is what I find amazing.”

Our transportation captain Ali Yeganhe — who dispatches drivers, manages the fleet of vehicles, including those used on-camera, and drives as well — was the most sanguine about the nature of his job, even though his department has the worst hours. When a show is on location, the drivers are the ones responsible for ferrying all the equipment back to the studio at the end of the day and making sure it's all set to go for the next one. “We’re talking about a fourteen-hour day if we’re local and as much as eighteen hours if we’re farther out. We have an eight-hour turnaround that is mandated by the department of transportation. It does take a toll on you as far as aging you. There is a high divorce rate in this business. Truthfully, I haven’t slept a whole night in three years. My wife and I were together before we got in this business. She was in wardrobe, so she knew.”

I asked him why his union, the Teamsters, was resistant to the idea of productions hiring more drivers so you could have two shifts, each working eight hours. This would save the production high overtime rates and allow a more humane schedule for the drivers, while giving more people jobs. Ali explained that “there are two ways to look at it; there are some in it for the money, and some who work four months of the year and leave once they reach their hours for their medical. A lot of guys are accustomed to making what they make. If it changed, it would bring in a whole new element of drivers who might not get the job done. Eight-hour guys don’t care about what they do. They take no pride in it.” I asked Ali if he thought the hours he worked were strange in comparison to those outside of the film and television business; he disagreed, telling me that he thought many people work long hours to support their families: “When I had a rental car company I was in the office fourteen hours a day. My cousin owns two restaurants and he works sixteen hours a day.”

Farah Bunch is the head of our makeup department and was probably the most critical of all about the system: “I’ve been doing this for eighteen years. The hours have always been the same. I started out in soap operas, which have great hours; then I went into multi-cams, which have even better hours; but once I entered the world of single-camera [meaning one-hour shows and feature films], I was in shock. I thought only in third-world countries people worked hours like this — a fourteen-hour day is the norm for the makeup department. You’re making more money, but it is blood money, 'cause you’re trading your life. It affects me in the sense that I give up all of my personal life. When I’m in season, I don’t see my friends or family. The weekends I spend recovering. I think it has contributed to me not being able to meet people because I’m not out there in the world mingling. I dated someone in the military and he was in shock that we were working all of these hours and he was out there saving lives and he’d be home by 4 p.m.: He was in Afghanistan and his hours were better than mine. You feel trapped with the hours, because you know that if you don’t do them, someone else will. And another thing, you’re given a ten-hour turnaround, which is just enough time to drive home, sleep seven hours like a normal human being, and go back to work. But production can force your call [meaning give you less than a ten-hour turnaround] for a $20 penalty. You can reject it, but you’ll be looked upon as uncooperative. My most defining moment was when I was working on In Time, the Justin Timberlake movie, and I had a 4 a.m. call in downtown L.A. underneath the freeway in the pouring rain and I thought, Is this it? … Is this going to be my life? Right now the [Association of Motion Picture and Television Producers, which is the organization that negotiates on behalf of the studios] are fighting with our union, local 706 IATSE, to change our double time [the point in the day where their rate changes from time and a half to double the starting rate] from twelve hours to fourteen hours, so that they can hold us longer without paying a penalty, which will only encourage them to keep shooting. It makes me feel like they’re inhumane.”

Nobody in production wants to go over twelve hours, if for no other reason than it is costly because of all the overtime. But it regularly happens when overly optimistic scheduling falls prey to bad luck, like cameras breaking, incompetence, and director egomania (though that is usually reserved for big-budget feature films). You may think, "Well, as producer, can't you just shorten the days?" but the studio sets the budget and the schedule, and you can only meet that with these long hours. I have no power to pull the plug on a day unless the studio tells me to do so, and that has happened maybe three times that I can remember in my career. Really, the only way to keep hours in check would be a firm work rule, unlike anything currently in place. In 2004, esteemed cinematographer and documentarian Haskell Wexler started an organization with the purpose of advocating for a "twelve and twelve rule": an inviolable twelve-hour maximum day with a mandated twelve-hour turnaround period for all industry workers. Wexler’s advocacy on this issue was catalyzed by the death in 1997 of cameraman Brent Hershman, who died when he fell asleep while driving home after a nineteen-hour day on the film ”Pleasantville”.

I’m as libertarian as they come and usually believe in the individual’s right to make their own decisions on what they want to do — except when those decisions may endanger others, like driving drunk. After a long day on a film set, people drive home, often long distances, and drivers who take the wheel after a seventeen- to nineteen-hour day function worse than those with blood alcohol levels of .05 percent, according to a study by the British Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine

I think the unions haven’t been fighting this issue hard enough, probably because many of their members want the extra money that comes with super-long days. If some people want to kill themselves with overwork, that’s fine, but they shouldn’t be allowed to take out another person either on the set or the road as they do it. And the AMPTP should get behind the twelve-and-twelve rule as well, since little money is saved by overworking people and not giving them sufficient downtime to recover: Productivity lessens later in the day and the costs are significantly more after twelve hours. At hour sixteen, you’re paying people double, and sometimes more, and probably getting 75 percent effectiveness. There are many complex issues involved with managing the process of filmmaking, and there are usually two reasonable sides to those arguments. But when it comes to excessive hours on film sets, I don’t really see the side that advocates for unrestricted work time. It is time to change this: Twelve hours of work and a twelve-hour turnaround should be mandated and instituted immediately on all film and television productions, period.

Source: LINK (Vulture)  

[nerdprincess73]

flying monkey bullshit at work today, spying for my dad. 

If this is going to be upsetting or triggering to you, please don’t read. I’m just trying to vent so I can sleep. Also I need to go take my sleep medicine. 

We’re going back in time a couple of months to an interaction that was a bit weird. 

A woman came in, and I recognized her face. I knew she was a former coworker or something of my dad’s. From a long time ago. Like, fifteen, sixteen, seventeen years ago. Like, pre-move, years ago. I was ten when we moved, and I’m 24, going on 25 now. So. A long time ago. 

And she was with her mother, who I also recognized, because despite being like, 1000 years old back then, I think she’s aged since. 

But again, this was vague recognition. I don’t remember her name. I have a guess, but I’m still not sure. 

Now, this first encounter was prior to Christmas, and it was busy. So I didn’t really have time to reminisce. 

And she goes “Are you Dave’s daughter?” 

Now, it’s been 15 years. No one in my life has looked at me and known I was my father’s daughter. I look like my mom’s mom. 

But I said yes, because I suspected nothing, and I recognized her too. So. Nbd. right? Well, then she started asking about my dad, who I haven’t had contact with in a year and a half, and my younger sister, who I haven’t spoken to for the same time. I broke contact at the same time. 

And I’m at work. Dealing with a Christmas rush. And she’s grilling me about two people I would rather not have a relationship with. 

I try to brush her off as quickly as I can ‘Oh, I haven’t seen them in a while’, ‘have a nice day’. Because I’M AT WORK. 

It was uncomfortable. Because I was a child the last time I saw this woman, so it’s not like she should expect us to have a relationship to fall back on and chat. And I don’t want to get into the particulars of not speaking with certain family members at work. With a near stranger. 

So, I told my mom, my sister, my best friend ‘hey, isn’t this weird?’. Because it was. But it didn’t really set off any alarm bells. 

Well, fast forward to this last couple weeks. She comes in, leaves.another time, she comes in, with her mother, they put a cart in the middle of an aisle, and leave. We went in on the way to dinner, and she’s there. She says my name, and does these weird eyes, and it’s unnerving. 

And today. 

I’m in the back of the store, labelling this week’s deals. Two other people are working tonight. 

And I hear ‘There you are’. It’s her. Again. And I’m alone. And I’m trying to deflect her attention, ignore her without ignoring her, because I remember her but I don’t know her, and I’m not comfortable with her knowing things about me. She asks if I like my job. I tell her I like it well enough, but I’m probably moving on soon. (I’m moving about 2500 miles, but I didn’t say that). I joke about needing 10 years of experience at 24 years old. 

I get loose, and make my way up front, to find my co-workers. I tell Julie, my neighbor and supervisor, I want to wait until they leave, but I’ll fill her in. 

Eventually, they go. She says, the woman wanted to know where I was. She was confused and put off by her, but answered with something vague, as she didn’t know, and didn’t want to help her out. 

I don’t know what it was specifically this time. The way she was staring at me. The questions. But there is no reason for a person I haven’t seen in 15 years to start grilling me. But my dad? Oh, he’d do that. And he has always been after gossip and information to use against us.** (more on this later)

And so, now I’m pretty sure I’ve got a flying monkey on my hands. Which is a problem. 

I asked my other co-worker Josh, who was the first person who interacted with her today what she’d asked specifically. She asked him if I was working. And where I was. He answered the first yes, and the second that he didn’t know. And went to help Julie in candyland (the candy aisle) And the woman follows her. Leading to the interaction with Julie. 

I was... upset. You start to doubt your own perception. Maybe you’re imagining things. Maybe it’s just innocuous. But my co-workers confirmed that the experience was weird. 

My mom came in to get a couple of things she’d forgotten. I ran my thoughts by her, and she confirmed that this type of spying seemed like something he’d do. 

This helped me calm down from my panic. 

And start thinking. 

Now, my dad was a shitty parent. He was self-serving, and narcissistic, and generally ranged from neglectful to emotionally and psychologically abusive. And flying monkeys have been his MO from the very start. 

**When I was young, I remember any number of times when I’d complained to a classmate that my dad was unfair, and wanted x, y and z of me, which was sometimes regular kid stuff, but was sometimes, expecting hours of physical labor for nothing. (He was adding on a room to the house, and we were expected to work for it, since we ‘took’ the old living room as our bedroom. Despite being small children who slept where our beds had been set up. 

These complaints would trickle back to him, often by the pattern of the classmate telling their parent, and then the parent sharing with my dad, usually as some kind of adult camaraderie “kids, they think doing a couple dishes is unfair” 

And I’d have to deal with whatever punishment he came up with for ‘badmouthing’ him at school. 

Another more serious example has to do with my sister. While in her final year of high school, my sister began seeing a counsellor as she had anxiety and a ton of anger, and other issues to work through. My dad started seeing the counsellor on the side, to talk about ‘his issues’, and to get information on her. 

So. 

I’m very upset. Because I cut off communication for my own wellbeing. And rather than contacting me, as he has my phone number, or showing up himself, which is at least honest, he’s spying. And that’s so fucked.