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winter-soldier-vibes · 3 years ago

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You Aren’t Somebody? (Bucky x Reader)

Bucky x reader

Word count: 2647

Summary: Bucky knows that the reader has struggled with an eating disorder before, but thought they were doing better. Little does he know, they had just gotten better at hiding it. Until one night, he catches her doing something she had promised she had stopped

Warnings: eating disorder, purging, angst, fluff

Tags @abitgryffindorky @buckys2thicc @thatfangirl42 @buckfics @barnesplums @mardema @stucky-on-spiderman @thundering-barnes

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A/N: It’s finals week and I am running on energy drinks, reading fanfiction, and longgggg hot showers. But the semester is almost over, and then I have no obligations aside from my hobbies. I see the requests and I’m working on them I promise! I have a list of all the requests that I get, and I am working through them I PROMISE!!! Thank you all for all of your support.

A/N 2: This deals with heavy and dark themes of mental illness. The specific warnings are above. If you feel that in any way reading this will be harmful to your mental health and your journey, PLEASE skip it. I write from my own experience and I know what I would’ve wanted to hear in these situations, and writing/reading fics helps me feel comforted. This fic is based on one experience more specifically than most of my fics, so I apologize if it’s not exactly the same as your experience. This is what I would’ve wanted to hear. If you need or want someone to talk to, vent to, or get advice from, feel free to message me, really. I’m here! <3

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Bucky was standing in front of you, blocking the door. His piercing blue eyes were locked on you, your own refusing to meet his.

He wanted answers that you were not ready to give.

“Y/n, please. I just want to talk about this”

“There’s nothing to talk about, Bucky.”

He looked you up and down. Your hair was in a messy bun, a few loose strands sticking to your tear stained cheeks. Your eyes were puffy, and your face was red, voice raspy. He took a deep breath. “You told me you would tell me if it was getting bad again.”

“You promised.”

You closed your eyes. He wasn’t wrong, you had promised. But that was because you never thought you’d see the day when you were purging again. You thought you had gotten over it. You really thought that this time you wouldn’t slip up.

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You had been struggling with an eating disorder for a while. The cause, you weren’t quite sure. An innocent diet soon turned into a competition for yourself, but the end goal was never there. At first you had thought it was just about the weight and how you looked, but then you found that some of your behavior patterns were tied to your emotional ones.

Stress was the major trigger, you had come to learn.

Whether it was a mission gone wrong, you getting injured, someone else getting injured, or even just basic social interactions you thought could’ve gone better, you found yourself inclined to comfort yourself with food.

Until you panicked, which would lead you to the bathroom with music blaring and water running to cover up the noises of your retching.

You hated it, and every time you told yourself it was the last time. But the more you did it, the more you felt the urge to do it. At first it was triggered by large stressors, but now smaller things could trigger you to want to throw up. You tried to keep it hidden, unaware of the true reasons for why you did it. You were able to help yourself sometimes, it wasn’t worth bringing anyone else into.

You couldn’t explain it to yourself, so how were you supposed to explain it to anybody?

The best way that you had figured out how to describe it was that whenever you felt a negative emotion, you could soothe it in a physical way with food, especially with all the warm comfort foods that are known. But at the same time, that feeling lasted as long as you could taste, and you would feel guilty as you felt full. When you threw up, it felt like you were also throwing up the negative emotions.

But when you said it out loud, it didn’t make sense. When people are sick and throwing up it’s one of the most uncomfortable feelings ever. Inducing it hurts sometimes, but it’s almost not as bad. Like you know it’s coming, and you’re in control of what’s happening and you could stop at any point. And there had been times where you could soothe yourself in other ways, and you knew your own physical limits. You knew when you had to stop for your own health.

Until you couldn’t stop.

Which is what led to you fainting on a mission after purging too much. Your electrolytes had bottomed out and you almost had a heart attack at an age no one should. Bucky, your boyfriend who was on the mission with you, had put it together when the first words out of your mouth upon gaining consciousness were “Is this a glucose drip?” while tugging at the IV.

He hadn’t been mad, not exactly. He wasn’t mad at you but he was furious with himself for not noticing, and for making you feel as though you couldn’t tell him. You assured him that you did trust him, but he wished you had come to him before you could’ve gotten yourself, and those on the mission, seriously hurt or killed.

Nonetheless, you still didn’t know how to talk about it.

“Can you try to tell me about it?” he asked gently, running a hand through your hair. He held you to his chest, you unable to meet his eyes.

“It won’t make any sense,” you had said, tears glazing your eyes.

“I want to understand. Can you help me understand?”

You paused for a moment. “It’s a long story and I don’t know where to start. There’s so much going wrong.” you had said, tears beginning to streak down your face.

“I have all the time for you. And it doesn’t have to make sense, these things rarely do. I’m not here to judge you, I’m here to listen.”

And true to his word, he had. He had listened and held you while you tried to talk about what you could. He didn’t understand everything, he naturally had a ton of questions, but they weren’t for that moment. He had promised to help you the best that he could, and you had promised to try and tell him whenever you felt the urges get too strong. And if you couldn’t, to tell him after.

It was easier to talk to Bucky than anyone else. Not because he was your boyfriend, but because he seemed to understand you more than anyone else could. He had his own share of mental health struggles. Neither of you knew exactly what the other was going through, but you both understood that it was easy to feel alone and guilty even though you couldn’t control it.

It was rough, but he was never mad. He was sometimes firm, and sometimes you had gotten angry with him. Only to later apologize to him with tears in your eyes. He was never mad with you. He understood that this was something internal. Upon research he had done and conversations he had had with Bruce, he understood that this had nothing to do with him. Some people thought eating disorders were about getting attention when it was one of the furthest things from the truth.

All he could do was love you and be there for you.

And to your surprise, talking about it did help.it took a long time, months, of long and hard conversations, panic attacks, slip ups, and really dark days. But it got to the point where Bucky felt that you were doing better, making an effort to tell you how proud he was and how much he loved you.

And you were doing better, in a way. But you had been slipping up more recently, and you hadn’t told Bucky. You didn’t know how. After going the longest you’d ever had between slip ups, you found yourself retching over the toilet. You would have gone to Bucky but he had been away on a mission that was extended a few days. You couldn’t interrupt him because your feelings were too much to handle. People needed his help more than you did.

You were going to tell him, but he had been so tired when he had come back. He needed his time to relax, and it wasn’t the right time to tell him. And the next day when he was rested, you felt that it was irrelevant. Any negative feeling you had felt the day before had since past, and you didn’t see the point in bringing it up today. It would worry Bucky, he wouldn’t want to go on missions, and you weren’t going to do that to him. Besides, it was just one time.

Right?

You soon found yourself purging when Bucky wasn’t around. If he had gone out with Steve, if he was on a mission, or if he was down in the gym you found yourself taking more opportunities to give into your urges. It wasn’t nearly as bad as it had been, but you were spiraling. But at this point you had been slipping up so many times, you had been so secretive about it.

It would kill Bucky inside to know that you were hiding this from him again. He would feel like you didn’t trust him. You trusted him with your life.

You just didn’t want to let him down. Not again, not when he had explicitly told you to come to him and you had been blatantly ignoring that.

You wanted to tell him, you did. But you couldn’t let him being so proud of you be based on a lie.

One day you were hunched over the toilet, legs sahking and tears streaming down your face from exertion. Bucky was away on a mission, so you didn’t even bother with the music or the water. What you hadn’t anticipated was him coming back hours earlier than he should’ve

The mission had gone much more smoothly than anticipated, which everyone was happy about. Bucky was glad he would get a few more hours with you. He had gone up to your shared room and let himself in, surprised to see you weren’t there. But then he heard you coughing from behind a closed bathroom door.

He felt like someone had punched him in the gut. You had been doing so well, what had happened?

He walked over to the door, knocking on it and calling out your name. He heard you muffle a small fuck before he knocked again.

“Y/n please, let me in.”

He heard the toilet flush and the sink turn on, you on the other side washing your face. You could feel the tears from exertion be replaced by ones of shame and embarrassment, biting your lip slightly. What the fuck were you going to tell him?

When you finally turned off the water, you rubbed your face with a towel, sighing heavily into it. When you took it away, you looked long and hard at the doorknob.

Bucky sighed on the other side of the door. “Y/n please. I’m not mad. We’ve been here before, I just wanna talk to you.”

You closed your eyes for a moment, taking a breath before you made your expression nuetral and opened the door.

Bucky’s eyes immediately saddened when he took you in. your face was still red and there were tears in your eyes. You had tried to put up a front, he could tell that too. Sometimes you got angry with him because you didn’t want to be vulnerable. He was prepared because like he said - he’d helped you before.

Before he could say anything you crossed your arms. “You’re home early,” you said coldly.

“Y/n.”

“How’d the mission go? Well, I assume.” you tried to slip past Bucky but he was blocking the door.

Bucky took a deep breath. “Yeah, yeah, the mission went well.” He wanted to be gentle with you. “But how are you?”

You shrugged, trying to appear oblivious. “I’m fine,” voice wavering slightly as you looked away.

“Y/n please. You’re not fine. Can you tell me what happened?”

“The same thing that always happens” you said bitterly. “Something stupid comes up, I start feeling like shit about myself and I ignore it until I’m puking it up with everything else, alright? It’s the same story, different time, and now I have you looking at me all hurt just like I was worried about which is why I couldn’t tell you!” you exclaimed, eyes filled with anger and tears. Bucky looked at you as if you had just punched him in the face. He would’ve much preferred that you had.

“Y/n.”

You shook your head, trying to get through the door that he was blocking. “Bucky, just let me through the door, forget it.”

“Y/n just talk to me please, I -”

“JUST LET ME THROUGH THE GODDAMN DOOR.” You yelled, surprising Bucky. It had been a while since you had gotten this angry or defensive. But he stood his ground. Bucky was standing in front of you, blocking the door. His piercing blue eyes were locked on you, your own refusing to meet his.

He wanted answers that you were not ready to give.

“Y/n, please. I just want to talk about this”

“There’s nothing to talk about, Bucky,” you said, feeling tears threatening to spill over.

He took a deep breath. “You told me you would tell me if it was getting bad again.”

You closed your eyes and felt a pang in your stomach. “Bucky, I - “

“You promised,” he said, voice cracking.

You shook your head. “Why do I have to talk about this. It’s not like I’m hurting anybody”

“You’re hurting yourself, y/n.” he said calmly.

You shook your head and narrowed your eyes slightly, tears falling. “That’s different Bucky, you know it is.”

“You aren’t somebody?”

You looked at him for a moment before a sob escaped your body, leaning on the counter for support as you brought a hand to your mouth. Bucky quickly came up behind you and pulled you into him, wrapping his arms around you. You started crying harder, embarrassed and ashamed.

“I’m sorry Bucky, I didn’t know what else to do, I didn’t know how to tell you, I -”

“Hey it’s okay, it’s alright y/n, I’m here.” Bucky kept whispering reassurances in your ears, rubbing a hand up and down your back.

After some time passed, you didn’t know how long, you were able to calm down enough to take some shaky breaths, hiding your red face in Bucky’s chest.

“When did this start happening again?” he asked softly

“I don’t know… few weeks at least, not really sure.”

He took a breath, trying to stay calm. A few weeks and he hadn’t suspected anything, and you were alone. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“You were on a mission, I couldn’t interrupt that.”

“Why didn’t you tell me when I got back?” he pressed gently.

“You were so tired Bucky - ”

“Y/n.” he said more firmly.

You paused for a moment, knowing he wouldn’t take those answers. If they were truly the reason then you would’ve told him the next day or the day after, as soon as the opportunity came. There was more to why you waited, and Bucky knew that.

“I didn’t want to disappoint you,” you whispered.

You heard Bucky sigh. He was angry with himself, for not being approachable to you. All he wanted was to make you feel safe enough to come to him, and to hear that you hadn’t because you thought he had expectations for you crushed him. “Y/n, I told you you could tell me about this. When have I ever been disappointed or angry with you?”

“You haven’t. You were just so proud and I - I didn’t want to ruin that for you. I didn’t want to tell you that you were proud of a lie.”

“Hey, hey look at me.” Hesitantly you looked up to meet his eyes. “None of this was you lying. You put in the hard work day after day, and I told you I was here to support you. But I never did the work for you. You did that. I’m proud of you and I always will be because you’re a fighter. It’s okay to have bad days, it’s okay to slip up. It’s okay to need a little help too, and that’s what I’m here for. A slip up doesn’t erase all the hard work you’ve put in before. I’m proud of you for the progress you’ve made, and of the work you put in. This doesn’t change anything sweetheart.”

He pulled you back into his chest.

“I’ll always be proud of you.”

#Bucky Barnes #buckybarnes #bucky fanfic #bucky barnes fanfiction #bucky barnes x reader #bucky #bucky barns fanfiction #bucky barns imagine #bucky barns x you #MCU fanfiction #mcu imagine #mcu fic #MCU #marvel fanfic #marvel fanfiction #marvel #eating disorder comfort #tw eating disorder #tw

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salemrising666 · 4 years ago

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my depression and health battle

DEPRESSION

IS A BATTLE THAT CAN BE WON

as I pull the petals of this beautiful flower I noticed I had reached the last petal as I muttered to myself im lucky and tore it away from its steam I noticed one small underdeveloped petal hanging on for dear life and I muttered im not lucky and with my bad luck streak in life I thought it was some kind of omen was this a sign that my bad luck streak would never end or was I bein stupid overthinking things yet again I guess we can only find out as I battle my demons.

I sat there for a few minutes trying to talk myself out of this sign that everything would be fine it had to be my luck had to turn at some point hadnt it?

When I was 15 I started having eye trouble and my thirst for sugar had increased dramatically my parents had noticed this more than I had and suggested I go see a eye specialist to sort my eye troubles out when we got there my parents mentioned the sugar intake and they tested my blood sugars which were off the charts high I had further blood tests to soon discover that I was a type one diabetic and because of all the sugar in my bloodstream had temporarily changed my eye shape hence the blurred vision,i was sent to a hospital for two weeks to earn the ins and outs of how to take care of myself with this new disease it was scary and so hard I had never had a phobia of needles but to learn that I would here on out have to stick a needle into my stomach with each meal snack and drink was scary and take my sugars before each meal which would mean also stabbing my fingers scared the hell out of me and I thought why me why now anda lot of damage had already been done as I could have been diabetic for wuite a while before they had found it

I was to face some debhilitating challenges almost dying and permenant damage that would change my life forever things I would have to learn to live with and adapt to such as permenant eye damage agonizing diabetic neuropathy the loss of my left small toe then a further amputation of the joint including multiple procedures like laser eye surgery eye injections eye surgery two amputations the removal of all my teeth due to gastro peresis stages where I couldnt stomach any food throwing it all up losing weight to where my organs were failing and me on my death bed and not knowing why I have neer given up in all these struggles even though I knew oh well eating will end up with me bent over the toilet for hours being labelled as having a eating disorder and trying to convince doctors no this is medical and something was wrong having a feeding tube forced down your throat becausee of these labels and watched while I showered and used the toilet was horrible being in hospital for three months fighting for my life as I never realised how important food was for your body till I was striken with gatsro peresis and not being able to consume it and practically starving to deathi thought this was it this would kill me as nobody could find what was wrong and trying to tell me I was doing this to myself on purpose I refused to leave myhouse as I was ashamed of how thin I was I got down to 31 kilos and there was nothing left of me I was stuck in mental health and was forced to talk to psychiatrists about my so called eating disorder as they tried to help me but how can you fix something that doesnt exist they finally realised months later after leaving the hospital that it was medical from all of the tests I was made to do im still battling these issues today truing to gain weight I have also lost a large portion of my eyesight due to diabetic neuropathy when the blood vessels overgrow and cause permenant damage and the obly way to stop th further damage is to have laser ee surgery to try stop the vessels from growing which worked for a while then I was told they were growing again

so the next step was to have multiple injections over months into the eye to try shrink them which I am still having today as they have flared up again I now have to wear glasses but I can never drive as my vision is that impaired.

Another thing I battle wth is diabetic neuropathy which Is where your nerves send misfired pain signals to your brain when nothing is actually wrong you feel shock like pains hot pins and needles aches and some feeling losswhich contributed to me losing my small left toe I had gotten a blister that I didnt know I had which turned into a foot ulcer got infected and ate its way down to my bones I then got na serious bone infection called ostemyelitis which eats away at your bones they tried a long course of iv antibiotics to get rid of it but it falled and the only way to stop me from losing my whole leg was to amputate the small toe I was terrified as I lay in hospital and the doctors came in to wheel me ito surgery next thing I knew I was waking back up in my ward and my foot was being unwrapped I was in shock seeing my little toe missing they put something called a vac seal on it which helped fill the giant hole I now had in my foot and healed it three times faster than without it because of my compromised immune system from the auto immune disease they think I have that hasnt been even named yet I struggled to heal fully allowing infection bac into the amputation site which meant round two but they were to tell me I was going to loose my whole leg and had two weeks until surgery so as I went home and tried to prepare one day post surgery checkin they told me we are just going to amputate the remaning joint I had a sigh of relief but it was still loosing more of my foot I have had a rough life health wise as there has always been something wrong I have had the worst luck possible so many long hospital trips and now being 27 I just want to be as healthy as possible and live the life I know I deserve after all this grief and I have learnt to appreciate even the smallest of things and especially all the people who never left me in all my struggles and mood swings I am forever grateful for them as I know I wouldnt be here without them although they tell me they understand what im going through they couldnt possibly but I hate that ive had to go through all this and more I hate more the people I love have had to watch me gp through this amd I am usually a happy bright bubbly person but I mean I have my bad days where im depressed and wished all these afflictions didnt plague me everyday and it is also hard as I cant just forget I have these things as they impair everything I do I cant just turn around and be like I dont feel like being type 1 diabetic for a day as I would face horrible repurccusions .

In all this hardship I know there is people suffering out there more than I am I just wish I didnt have to fight everyday with all of this and fight to keep my life I want to just live it and be happy and I know I will get there I will never give up no matter how bloody hard this is or will get but I just wnted to tell a small portion of what I have gone through in my life in the hopes it may inspire of help somebody suffering with anny of these issues and yes depression is a hard thing to overcome but there are always things to help I find art and writing in a journal helps and venting all it takes is that one special person to listen and have your back if anybody reading this wants to chat I will always lend a ear to you so dont be afraid I may look odd and be odd but I am friendly and have a massive heart thank you for reading.

#depression #healthissues #nevergiveup #loveyourself #type 1 diabetic

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mamabearcat · 6 years ago

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All Fired Up - Part 4

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Lucy leaned back in her chair, lacing her fingers together and stretching her arms above her head. The faint glow from her laptop was the only light in her bedroom and she was surprised to see how dark it was. Looking at the time in the bottom right corner of her screen she internally groaned - 1.34am. So much for getting an early night. She’d just been so in the zone!

It was around 8pm when she’d got home from work and sat down at her desk with a cup of coffee; that coffee was now stone cold, the black liquid looking distinctly unappetising. Lucy rubbed her eyes tiredly. Working during the day as an investigative reporter for the Magnolia Times and writing her novel at night was exhausting, but she couldn’t think of any other way around it. She wanted to be a writer full-time, but until she’d sold a couple of manuscripts and made a name for herself, she had to work too. Good thing she had no friends or social life, she joked internally, she really didn’t have time for them.

She sighed, and picked up the coffee cup, padding off towards her tiny kitchen, stopping on the way to see if Plue was asleep. She walked over to the dog basket tucked behind the sofa, bending down to stroke his furry white puppy ears as he dozed. “Sorry boy”, she whispered, “looks like we missed dinner again.”

She reached for the jar of dog biscuits and filled his bowl, refreshing his water too. He’d eat when he woke up, she was sure. Now that she thought about it, she was kinda hungry too. Lunch was a long time ago. She tipped the now cold coffee down the sink, leaving the cup to be washed later, and poked her head into her fridge to see if she had anything that she could heat up and eat quickly before heading off to bed. Yes! Leftover Kung Pao chicken from last night! She shoved it into the microwave and went to get changed into cotton sleep shorts and a singlet, her stomach rumbling in anticipation of the ‘ding’ that would announce that her dinner was ready.

She was just about to take the chicken out of the microwave when she sniffed, noticing a rank smell in her small kitchen. With a small stab of guilt she realised she hadn’t taken out the rubbish for a few days, so with a long-suffering sigh she pulled the plastic bag out of the kitchen bin and knotted it. She’d just take it to the garbage chute at the end of the hall and then she could sit on the sofa guilt free and eat her late dinner before heading off to bed.

Sliding on her flip flops and pocketing her door key, Lucy pulled her door shut behind her and walked to the end of the hallway, opening the metal chute and dropping the plastic bag down. She yawned, wondering if she could call in sick tomorrow, but she knew Jason wouldn’t buy it. Bills had to be paid, and it wasn’t like she disliked her job.

Take those arson cases she was investigating at the moment. She shivered a little. They were kinda disturbing – all the fires had started late at night in apartment blocks while the occupants were asleep. All had been young single women, and all had escaped so far thanks to their fire alarms, except for the last one, who was still in intensive care with extensive burns. It was the sort of thing that could creep a girl out, if you let it.

A prickling feeling on the back of her neck had her shivering. What was it Mama used to say? ‘Someone walked over my grave…’ Not a comforting thought when you were standing in an empty hallway late at night. She shivered again. Definitely time to go back to her apartment and lock the door.

She dug her key out of her pocket to open the door, but it was already ajar. Hadn’t she locked it? She was sure she’d pulled it shut behind her, but maybe she was more tired than she’d thought. She pushed open the door and locked it behind her, walking over to her small table near the kitchen to drop her keys in the bowl filled with coins. As she turned back to retrieve her chicken from the microwave, a movement caught her eye.

Lucy froze. Her brain worked frantically, screaming at her to run. She’d just seen a shadow in her bedroom, a human sized shadow. She started moving towards the doorway slowly, trying not to make a noise, but it was too late. A man appeared, blocking her exit.

She tried to remember details that she could pass on to the police later. He was taller than her, maybe a whole head taller. Spiky blond hair. Tattoos like a leopard print around his yellow eyes. Teeth filed to a point. Not like it would be hard to pick him up out of a line up. But she had to get out first.

“I’ve already called the police”, she said firmly, hoping her bluff would cause him to run and leave her alone.

The man grinned at her, tilting his head to one side as he gazed at her. “You’re pretty”, he rasped, stepping towards her. “It’s a shame you broke the rules. No one gets to see me. It’s a pity I’ll have to kill you now.” He started towards her, and she backed away, trying desperately to think of a way to get past him to the door, but coming up with nothing. Her apartment was on the seventh floor, it was too high to jump off her balcony, and the fire escape was near the bedroom window.

A crackling noise came from her bedroom, hard to place for a moment when she was so frightened, but then the flickering light helped her work it out. Fire. He’d started a fire in her room. She would just have to try to run past him. There was no other way. Picking up the lamp, she yanked the cord out of the socket and flung it at him, hoping to sprint past him as he ducked, but he was too fast. A heavy torch swung into the side of her head. Fireworks popped behind her eyes as pain lanced through her skull. Her vision blurred as she fell to the floor near the bedroom door.

“Sorry girlie. Nothin’ personal”, he grunted. Lucy rolled to her side, struggling to keep from falling unconscious, pushing feebly with her hands to back away from him. He raised the heavy torch again, but before it fell, a white streak shot out from behind the sofa, latching onto the man’s hand. He dropped the torch, blood dripping from the deep bite in his wrist. He snarled, aiming a heavy boot at the small white dog, who dodged, growling and yapping.

Choking black smoke was filling the room, and sirens sounded in the distance. Lucy struggled to focus. Where was he? Was he gone? She could hear Plue barking, but she couldn’t see. The room was dark with smoke, and she coughed, blood trickling as her head pounded in time with her heart. It was so hot. She needed to get out of the apartment, away from the flames. Her legs hurt. She rolled and tried to drag herself on her forearms towards the front door. The carpet was burning. Plue was still barking. She couldn’t breathe. Was she almost at the door? Her arm reached out, stretching, and then everything went dark.

Lucy opened her eyes. Erza’s face was grim, but she nodded her thanks. Natsu’s jaw was clenched.

“Fuck Lucy, I think I need a hug after listening to that”, he growled. Lucy made a weird hiccupping noise, halfway between a laugh and a sob. Natsu poured her a glass of water from the jug on the bedside table and handed it to her. She took it gratefully, drinking it in small sips.

‘Do you have anything to add Natsu?” asked Erza.

“Not really”, said Natsu gruffly, his concerned gaze focused on Lucy. “By the time we arrived on the job, the blaze was well away. Gray and I were on a rescue sweep before the fire crew moved in. I heard a dog barking; the door to the apartment was already ajar. It was too dark to see anything, so I went in low. I found Lucy maybe ten feet away from the entrance, towards the western side of the apartment. She was unconscious when I carried her out. Plue wasn’t. She struggled a little as I moved her down the stairs; I thought she was just disorientated due to smoke inhalation at the time, because she said, ‘You’re not him.’ Makes sense now though.”

Natsu reached out to scratch Plue’s ears, smiling as Plue whined in delight. “Good boy Plue. You did save Lucy twice, a true ninja pup if ever I saw one.” Lucy giggled tiredly, and Natsu reached up to take the glass from her as she leaned back on the pillows. “Lucy regained consciousness as I did a handover to Wendy and Romeo. She mentioned someone hitting her and setting the fire, so I called Gray to pass on a message to Chief Makarov to get in contact with you about possible arson. That’s it.”

“Alright, I think I have everything I need for the moment. I’ll be in contact again Ms Heartfilia.” Erza placed the recorder in her bag and stood. Natsu stood also.

“Erza, can I speak to you for a moment?” said Natsu quietly. They moved towards the doorway as Lucy closed her eyes.

She was suddenly very very tired. Her arms and legs throbbed, her head ached, and her throat felt raspy, like she’d swallowed razor blades. She turned her head as Natsu sat down again. He looked serious. “Lucy, I don’t want to worry you, but I’ve asked Erza to arrange a police guard on your room until they catch this guy. I’m not leavin’ until they get here.”

Lucy swallowed. She should probably be more frightened, but now she just felt exhausted. “Okay.”

The nurse bustled in. “Time for your pain medication Lucy.”

“Oh, good.” She felt a sting in her arm as the nurse injected the medication into the IV line in her elbow and lay quietly as the nurse completed her obs again and wrote them on her chart. By the time the nurse had finished she was feeling decidedly woozy.

“Hey Natshu”, she slurred, beckoning him a little closer. He grinned at her unfocused expression, picking a sleeping Plue up off her lap and placing him on his own.

“What’s up Luce?”

“You know the worsht thing? The absolute worsht? About thish whole fire?” Natsu shook his head, still grinning.

Lucy’s eyebrows lowered. “I was really looking forward to eating that chicken. I love Kung Pao chicken. And it was wasted.” Her bottom lip stuck out as she pouted, her eyes blinking sleepily.

Natsu chuckled, his green eyes twinkling. “Okay Luce, I’ll do you a deal. You hurry up and get better, and as soon as you’re up to it, I’ll take you out for Kung Pao chicken. All you can eat.”

“Yay.” Lucy tried to raise her arms, but they were too heavy. All of her was too heavy. “It’s a date. Kung pao date.” Her eyes drifted closed.

She felt a soft squeeze of her hand and she squeezed back. “G’night Natshu.”

She heard another chuckle. “Sweet dreams Luce.”

Edited to add linky dink to Part 5

#nalu #nalu fanfiction #natsu x lucy #firefighter au #Bearpluscat fanfics

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ghostbustermelanieking · 6 years ago

Text

phantom weights (pt 1 of ?)

season 11, post my struggle iv. part of my series that i write as i rewatch the x files.

Summary: In the wake of their second encounter, Mulder, Scully, and Jackson reconnect (both by accident and on purpose).

note: i am posting this in parts simply because it is way too long so far, and it’s easier to post it in small chunks instead of a couple big ones. this story basically examines the aftermath of msiv, and how jackson and m&s come together. there are some references to events occuring in the lies told and praescitum, particularly the scheme that CSM puts on in lies, as it debunks that msiii garbage. (there are some indirect references to a mountain in colorado; it is, of course, AU, but i see parts of it as canon compliant, which make an appearance here.) additionally, i reused some parts of proelium and pervicacia, mostly because i am too attached to these old fics, and didn’t want to change some things. although i promise this fic is different than these two.

warning up front for some slight discussion of suicidal ideation (as shown in MSIV), some references to death and violence, and discussion (in the name of debunking) of CSM’s paternity claims. it’s bullshit, but i had to address it somehow. now let’s forget it lol.

---

He was supposed to be dead right now.

That was the whole plan. He would die for the man who said he was his father, for all the people he'd hurt, for the future he'd never have. For his parents, who they buried without him months ago, who died because of him. He would die in place of Mulder and give his birth mother the chance to start over. (What the fuck would she do if it had really been Mulder and she was stuck with Jackson, great disaster that he is? What would happen to Sarah, to Bri, to anyone else he tries to connect with? What would happen to him?)

But he didn't die. He took a bullet straight to the forehead and sunk deep into the brackish, salty water, salt and copper at the back of his throat, but he didn't die.

He heard the man who shot him—the man he'd thought was his birth father—get shot himself, multiple times. He fell into the water feet away from where Jackson was drifting, his blood in the water, and Jackson was still waiting for death when he felt something like a release. Like something snapped loose in his head, a taut wire breaking, something set free. A weight gone, and something coming in to replace it. A rush of emotions from a man Jackson had never, ever felt before; the grief of the man standing up on the dock, like a crash overwhelming his brain. It hurt, almost worse than the bullet in his head.

As Jackson drifted, waiting for death, he understood suddenly. It all became clear. Mulder wasn't making it up when he said he was his father; he wasn't ignorant to everything that had happened. He was telling the truth.

It was too much to take, and Jackson didn't want to think, and he didn't die. He drifted far away from the docks, the harbor, before rising out of the water like the newly baptized.

---

Mulder and Scully told their story to the police again and again on that dock in Norfolk. Scully was quiet and numb, teary, her head bent forward as she answered questions in a murmur. Mulder would barely answer their questions, tense and nervous and furious. He asked about Skinner several times before he got an answer, his voice rising towards a yell before they finally told him that Skinner was alive and had been taken to the hospital for surgery. Scully sniffled behind her hand, her eyes squeezed shut, swaying slightly in place.

The police gave up and told them that they could go. There was no sign of Spender's body, of course, and no sign of Jackson's, either. If Mulder knew how this works, he suspected that they'd never find the bodies. (He flinched at thinking of his son as the body, as a lifeless corpse somewhere out there in the deep. It felt like a betrayal. It stung, the casualness of it. He couldn't believe he was gone.)

They got into their car, but Mulder didn't move to start it. He had a headache, his skull pounding, tears building at the back of his throat. He was as shellshocked as Scully, his stomach rolling with nausea, his muscles tense with protest. It wasn't supposed to happen this way. He leaned forward abruptly, burying his face in his hands as his eyes welled with tears. It wasn't fucking supposed to happen this way, goddamnit, it was supposed to go differently, and he wanted to shout with the unfairness of it. He wanted to scream until his throat was raw, he wanted to pull this dock apart board by board. He wanted his son back. He wanted his son back.

He'd been hallucinating a little since all of it; he'd had flashes of currents, of freezing cold and salty wetness and the taste of blood in his mouth. Of his son's face, still in the black-green water, a trickle of blood across his forehead. His eyes shutting, he saw it again: William's pale face in the depths of the murky saltwater.

He shuddered, biting back a scream of protest—he didn't want to upset Scully further, sitting quiet in the passenger seat with a hand pressed over her mouth and her eyes wet with tears. He pressed his face harder against his fingers, his palms intended to muffle the sound, and sobbed.

---

They drove to a hotel. Mulder was quiet the whole time, his eyes red, his face pale and streaked with tears. Scully thought, absently, that he was probably mad at her. Maybe he resented her for the things she said, or the things she didn't. Maybe for sending their son away all those years ago.

She didn't have the headspace to process any of this. She was shaking. She was shivering, wrapped up in her coat in the passenger seat, her chin trembling like she was going to weep again. She had a hand instinctively over her belly, but she was mostly not thinking of the baby; she was mostly thinking of him, of her first baby. Her William. And she was also thinking about nothing at all, her mind blank. She was so cold, her jaw quivering, her cheeks wet and salty. She felt scraped raw, stinging; she couldn't breathe.

They drove in silence. A sharp pain began at the center of her forehead and spread, jarring her as it rattled against her skull. When she shut her eyes, she saw water lapping at murky sand, cars and headlights on the highway. She gritted her teeth and shook her head until the pain subsided. A hot tear escaped from under her eyelid, trickling down her cheek.

It wasn't until they got to the hotel, until they entered the room and slid to opposite sides of the bed and Mulder flipped off the light and did not reach for her that she realized what was happening. She was in shock. That was the only explanation for it. She was in shock. She couldn't explain the things she said, the words spilling out of her mouth on that dock, but she knew she did not mean them. She knew almost as soon as she said them that she didn't mean them. She was in shock and she couldn't get warm; she was shaking, huddled under the thin hotel comforter. She felt so nauseous, the pillowcase cool and uncomforting under her cheek; the room was spinning. She wanted her baby. She wanted her son back.

She suspected that Mulder—Mulder, lying on the other side of the bed with so much space between them and a hand pressed to his temple like he had a headache, his eyes squeezed shut—was in shock, too. After everything, she didn't see how he couldn't be. He had killed his own father just a few moments after seeing his son get shot. His son. His baby, who he had only seen twice since the day he was born. His son, who he could not save, who neither of them could save.

Scully made a sharp, keening sound and buried her face into the pillow, clutching it hard. It wasn't supposed to happen this way. They were supposed to be safe, both of them. She'd been terrified all this time that she would lose Mulder all over again, that he wouldn't come back like last time and she would never get to tell him about the baby or do all the things that she was supposed to do with him, but somehow she never really thought she would lose William. Not again. She thought she'd be able to save them.

She kept seeing her baby with a bullet in his head, hearing Mulder's primal shout. She felt the loss of him in a way she hadn't felt in years, aside from the horrific few hours when she'd thought he might be dead before realizing that he wasn't: she was thinking of the weight of William as an infant in her arms, his soft skin and downy hair. A phantom weight she hadn't quite felt since she'd given him up for adoption, yet one she'd still carried with her for years. She couldn't believe the things she said on that dock. That he wasn't their son, that he was an experiment and she was never his mother. The words didn't feel like they were coming out of her mouth. The shock of the things Skinner told her, and William asking her to let him go, and Mulder telling her that he was dead, had manifested into that, but she didn't mean it. She didn't know what she was saying, a betrayal to everything she felt and everyone she loves. She didn't want to tell Mulder about the baby this way.

Her teeth chattered involuntarily as another wave of cold washed over her. She curled into a tight ball, her hand back over her belly before she realized what she was doing and pulled it away. Was it a betrayal, she wondered, to love this child after everything that has happened to her first two? She wanted her son back. She wanted to tell him she was sorry; she wanted it more than anything in the world. She pulled the edge of the comforter tighter around her and wiped tears away, just as another piercing headache hit her.

Scully gritted her teeth to keep from crying out. She was dizzy, her head spinning, but she didn't realize what was happening until she saw it: the darkened road, the headlights blurring like starlight. The coldness, the wetness, the roar of cars echoing in her ears, the sound of wet shoes squelching on the pavement. And a voice, hard and angry and sad: Just so you know. Okay?

She realized all at once what was happening, and the shock of it nearly made her shoot up in bed. “Jackson,” she whispered, gripping the covers desperately, realizing too late that she'd spoken out loud. Beside her, Mulder made a pained, wordless sound and turned over. She pressed a hand to her mouth and tried, I'm so sorry. But she had no idea if he heard.

She needed to tell Mulder. She closed her eyes and crawled closer to the warm mass of Mulder's body. He was tense and rigid, but when she burrowed under the tent of his arm, he didn't pull away. She pressed her nose to his side and whispered, “Mulder.”

He grunted in response, his eyes squeezed shut.

She pressed a hand to his chest, swallowed back her tears, said, “Mulder, I think William is alive.”

He opened his eyes, dark and wet, and looks down at her. “You can see him?” he whispered tremulously. She nodded.

His eyes slid back shut, and he shook his head hard. “Jesus Christ, I thought I was imagining it,” he murmured, gathering her up in his arms, bundling her against him. She rested her cheek against his chest, sniffling and dizzy.

“I-I thought I was going insane. I… I think I've been seeing him, too,” Mulder whispered to her in broken disbelief, and she blinked with surprise. “But I didn't know… I've never seen him before… how is this happening, Scully? I saw him fall, I…” His voice broke; he squeezed her tighter, choking out another sob against her scalp.

“I don't know. I don't know how,” she said, her voice shaking. She was crying again, tears sliding down her face. “I just… I can feel him. He's safe.” She didn't quite understand how Mulder could see William now, and she could barely believe it herself, but she didn't want to question it. He was alive, and if Mulder saw him, too, that made it real. He was alive, and that was all that mattered. Her baby was still alive.

“Thank God,” Mulder breathed, stroking the back of her head. “I didn't believe it when I… I didn't want to believe it in case it wasn't true. I-I am so glad that you feel it, too.” He pressed his lips to Scully's forehead, shaking in her embrace, tears falling on her hair.

She felt a sudden, desperate need to apologize for everything she said to him on the docks. He was the one who met their son, who hugged him, who saw him twice with a bullet in his head (twice, twice now, goddamnit). He was the one who never got to be with him as a baby, who didn't get to hear that his son wanted to know him better. (He had to be William's father. He had to be. She did a test when William was a baby, and she thought that Mulder might've done one again when they were in Norfolk, but she knew she was going to do another one as soon as she got a chance. First fucking thing. But somehow, the fact that Mulder could suddenly, miraculously hear Jackson was comforting to her, was enough to convince her that he was William's father. It had to mean something, didn't it? She held onto that hope tightly.)

She didn't mean what she said, not one bit of it. She was in shock. She didn't mean it. She felt like she was going to throw up. She had already thrown up once tonight, retching over a trash can by the water while Mulder whispered her name helplessly and rubbed her back, and she didn't think it was because of the baby. She heard the gunshots Mulder fired into the smoker's chest, every single one; she'd felt them deep in her bones.

She wasn't going to tell Mulder what Skinner said—especially now that she was nearly sure that Mulder was Jackson's father—but she needed to apologize. She needed to tell him she didn't mean what she said. She needed to tell him right now.

“Mulder, I didn't mean what I said,” she blurted, and his arms went stiff around her. She sniffled, burying her face in his neck. “I didn't,” she murmured, balling a hand in his shirt. “I was scared. I was in shock. But I didn't mean it, Mulder. He's our son. He'll always, always be our son.” She had to believe that, she had to.

His fingers brushed over his spine. “Are you saying this because you know he's alive now?” he asked quietly, and she knew that everything she'd said had hit him hard.

Wincing, she shook her head, frantic and immensely sorry, digging her fingernails into his shoulders. “No,” she said quickly, nearly stammering. “No, Mulder, no, he's our son. For God's sake, he's our son. He's our son.” She was crying again, near hiccupping, clinging to him like he's a life raft. “He's my son,” she whispered hollowly. “He's my baby, and I just… he asked us to let him go. I didn't know what to do. I… I couldn't lose him again.��

“Shhh,” Mulder was saying, his voice trembling. He was still crying. He was stroking her hair again, her back, her neck. “Shhhh, Scully, it's okay. It's okay.”

“I'm his mother,” she said. She was remembering the cold feeling of fear, of surprise and uncertainty just a few days ago, when she took the pregnancy tests and saw the results, sitting on the grimy tiles of a bathroom floor inside the handicapped stall. Of guilt, even. She didn't know how to do this again and it scared the shit out of her. She thought that she might want to do this again, be somebody's mother, but she had no idea how. She was Jackson's mother, even if he would never think of her that way, and now she was a mother all over again.

Mulder clung to her and she clung to him and they cried. She held onto the image of William—of Jackson—walking in the rain, huddling for warmth under a bridge. I'm here, she thought desperately towards her son as she started to drift off. I'll always be here, if you need me. Always.

---

They had breakfast next morning, at the continental breakfast in the lobby. Scully didn't exactly feel like eating, but she made herself. She was thinking about the baby, about proper diets and protein and three good meals a day, when she got a spoonful of scrambled eggs, three strips of limp bacon, a cup of yogurt with berries. She ate gingerly, thinking of the pregnancy tests that she lined up along the toilet paper holder, the rush of emotions that she'd felt when she saw that they were all positives. Her baby. She was going to have a baby.

She could feel Mulder's eyes on her, watching her as gingerly as she was eating. “Honey…” he said softly. He reached out to touch her shoulder, his fingers hovering, before he lowered them to touch her stomach.

She reached down and covered his hand with hers. “I know,” she said. “It's a lot to take.”

“It's… it's wonderful news,” he began, before something like guilt passed over his face and he shook his head. “I mean, I'm not sure how it's… how—how do you feel about this, Scully?”

She looked down at her plate, at their hands together. She curled her fingers around his. “I… I don't know,” she whispered. “It's… it's not what I would've chosen for myself. Not now. Maybe years ago… but… I don't know, Mulder.” She squeezed his hand. She lifted her head to meet his eyes. “I… I think I might want this. I do. I can't not. Mulder, I can't lose another child. I can't.”

“I know,” he said softly, and she knew that he did. They had both lost so many people. They had lost their son again and again, seen him dead far too many times. Neither of them could endure another loss.

He rubbed a gentle thumb over her abdomen, where it was slightly rounding, and she felt like crying all over again. She sniffled, wiping a tear away. “I suppose…” she said in a tremulous voice, “that I should ask you how you feel about this. If… if this is something you want.” She'd considered every possible response when she was trying to figure out how to tell him, and she had tried to focus on the ones where he was happy, but she kept coming back to the ones where he wasn't.

His eyes widened, his thumb moving over her stomach again. “Scully, of course,” he whispered. “Of course it is.” He lifted her hand in a fluid motion to kiss the back of it, and she sniffled again, her eyes shutting.

“I… it's scary,” he admitted, his voice breaking. “The prospect of another child… I think we're both a little apprehensive. But I want this as long as you want this. I've always wanted this with you.”

Her eyes filled abruptly, and she jerked forward in her seat towards him. He had his arms around her immediately, her chin on his shoulder. She made a shaky sobbing sound, one hand over her mouth and the other pressed hard into his shoulder. He put a hand to the back of her head, whispered soothing things into her ear. She knew that people were staring, but she didn't care. She held him tightly, nearly in his lap.

“I-I think we should go to the doctor,” she whispered in his ear. “Right away. To make sure everything is okay.” They both knew all the things that could go wrong, all the possibilities that they wouldn't be able to see this through. She didn't want to say the possibilities out loud; all she wanted was to know that everything was okay.

“Yeah. Yeah, we'll go right away.” He kissed the side of her head. “Everything's going to be okay, honey,” he whispered. “I promise.”

You don't know that, she wanted to say, but she didn't. She just held onto him harder and nodded. It was all too much, too much to process; all she wanted was for them to be okay, for everyone to be okay.

When they'd finally pulled away, when Scully was wiping her eyes with a napkin and taking another tentative bite of yogurt, Mulder spoke again. Spoke in a hesitant voice, as if he was unsure of what her reaction would be. “Scully,” he said, carefully, “do you… do you think we'll ever see him again?”

Her jaw clenched automatically. She looked back down at her plate. All she really wanted right now, she thought, was to go home. To get into their bed together, slip back into that sweatshirt of his and crawl under the covers and sleep for a week. She wanted her son safe and at home, and she wanted her baby to be okay. She wanted her family to be safe and together.

“I don't know, Mulder,” she whispered. “But I hope so. I really do.”

---

Jackson never really wanted to kill anyone.

He kept trying to tell himself that in the wake of his fucked up rap sheet: that he never really wanted to kill anyone. He put on a tough persona—he had to at that stupid school they sent him to—but half of the stuff he'd done was just a stupid prank that went too far. The car accident, the tantrums that exploded (sometimes literally) into chaos, the stupid fucking prank on Bri and Sarah that gutted him to the core. Fucked up pranks, horrible pranks, but just pranks, pranks he would always regret right after he did them.

But he had killed people now. His parents, if only indirectly, and those fucking lackeys who came after him. He killed them; that was him. It was under his control.

He could tell himself all he wanted that his parents’ deaths were not his fault, but he knew they were. They came looking for him, the bastards who shot his mom and dad; if his parents had adopted another baby, they'd be alive and well and probably happy right now. (With a normal kid who didn't play shitty, horrible pranks and destroy half their house, who didn't pout and act sullen, and who told them how much he loved them.) He knew that people blamed him for his parents’ deaths, that people thought he was a murderer. (He had gone to his grandmother's house in Wyoming after a week on the run, and she had slammed the door on his face. She acted like she didn't know him. She accused him of murdering her son, and he'd cried like a baby on her porch before running away in a panic.)

He used to tell himself that he wasn't a murderer, no matter what people thought of him. He might've been something of a monster, but at least he wasn't a murderer. And then he killed those people before they could kill him.

Now he tried to tell himself it was all in self defense. But it didn't work. He still woke up screaming most nights, images of blood and gore and his parents in body bags on either side of him imprinted on his eyelids.

He didn't know where to go. He thought about calling Sarah, that first night sleeping under a bridge, but he couldn't bring himself to pull her into this. Not again. He was going to put her in more danger if he did that. Aside from that, she was probably pissed as hell he didn't meet her, if she didn't think he was dead all over again.

How many people thought he was dead at this point? He knew his birth mother didn't. Scully, Ginger, whatever her name was. He'd showed her he wasn't dead. He thought that he might've showed that guy Mulder, too, if inadvertently. (He didn't entirely understand what the hell was happening with his birth father, but he thought it went something like this: the creepy smoker fucker had put some kind of telepathic block in his mind to keep him from connecting to the Mulder guy. To make Jackson think that he was his birth father. And when he died, it stopped working. He didn't even want to dig too far into that fucking mess, but he was pretty fucking glad that the smoker wasn't his birth father, as far as he knew now.)

He didn't know where to go, so he headed west again. Stole a car from a Walmart parking lot and just fucking drove. Maybe he should head north, go to Canada, he thought at one point. Maybe get out of the country completely. Maybe settle down and get a damn job before he ran out of money. But truthfully, he had no idea where the fuck he should go.

There was a small, traitorous part of him that offered, You could go stay with them. Mulder and Scully, his weird-ass birth parents who called each other by their last names. Who apparently loved him a lot. Who fucking gave him up and never came looking for him, who had no rights as his parents. They gave that right up, and they were not his parents.

No, he told himself furiously. Absolutely not. Only as a last resort. Never. He could not do that to his parents.

So he drove, moving into the Midwest. The furthest he got last time was Wyoming, back to his childhood home, before he turned around and slunk back to Virginia with his tail between his legs. This time, he told himself, he was going to go further. All the way to the fucking Pacific.

---

A few days after Mulder and Scully got home, they went to the hospital to meet with one of Scully's old friends from the hospital to confirm the pregnancy. Just to make sure. Mulder held her hand while the blood was drawn, staying right at her side, whispered in her ear that it would be okay no matter what. Grateful for his presence, she tried her best to believe that.

While they were waiting for the results, Scully slipped downstairs, found another friend and asked her to run William's DNA against Mulder's. She had to know, she had to know for sure. The fact that Mulder could hear Jackson now coupled with the DNA test he ran against both of them back in Norfolk gave her some comfort, but she was still uncertain enough that she needed to check. She had to know for sure. Just to reassure herself.

She hadn't told Mulder about it, and she wouldn't if she didn't need to. The entire idea made her nauseous, made her want to find the smoker’s corpse and put ten more bullets in his skull. It couldn't be true. It couldn't be true. It wasn't true, not until it was proven. She had refused to believe in so much, and she would refuse to believe in this until it was anything more than a rumor. And she wouldn't burden Mulder with it if she didn't have to.

She made the request, spent the next few minutes in a bathroom, forehead pressed into the metal of the stall, breathing uneasily. She went downstairs to find out if she was going to be a mother again.

The pregnancy was confirmed. She was over three months along, the doctor estimated with a cheery smile. Behind her, Scully heard Mulder's sharp intake of breath, felt his hand clamp hard around hers. Her heart was beating too fast.

She insisted immediately on doing an ultrasound to make sure that everything was okay, and it seemed that everything was. The doctor reassured her as she moved the wand over her abdomen, telling her that everything looked good, everyone looked healthy She could see the image of the baby on the screen (her baby), could hear the pulsing whump-whump of the heartbeat, and she couldn't help the rush of tears. She couldn't believe this was really happening. Looking at the screen, she felt a powerful rush of love pulsing through her. This was all happening so fast she could barely process it, but she knew she loved this baby already, without being able to help it. She loved it more than words.

Mulder wiped away her tears, wrapping his hand around hers; he was crying, too, she could hear him. He asked where the baby was, pointing to the screen, and she showed him. She showed him their baby, and she felt his lips press gently to her hair.

---

When everything was done with, she slipped back downstairs to get the results of the DNA test.

It was what she wanted to hear, to her great relief; William was hers and Mulder's. He had always been hers and Mulder's. It was the best news she could've gotten, and she nearly sobbed with the relief of it all. Crumpled the results in her hand, trembling from head to toe. It wasn’t true. It was a lie, a horrible lie, but Jackson was their son. She cursed the smoker in his watery grave, but she felt a little lighter now, the weight of Skinner's confession off of her shoulders. It wasn’t true. William was theirs, and Mulder would never know there was another possibility.

She found Mulder down in the lobby, lingering by the gift shop with a plastic bag clutched in one hand, looking at something on his phone. He looked up at her with soft, relieved eyes when she approached, said, “Hey,” in a gentle voice, and held up the bag. “I, uh… I bought you something. From the gift shop.” Surprised, she took the bag as he explained. “I was poking around in there, and—yeah, that, check it out.” She pulled a small cardboard box out, and he nodded eagerly. “That's the brand you drank before, right?” he asked. “When you were—with William? The caffeine-free tea?”

Scully nodded, stunned, turning the box over and over in her hands. “You remembered?” she whispered in astonishment, although she should not be astonished. Mulder remembered things like that, held onto the memories like they were something precious. She could remember the first time she'd drank it in front of him—wearing his sweatshirt on her couch, him sitting beside where she was sprawled, his hand on her knee as she'd drank from a Georgia On My Mind mug—but she had no idea he did.

“Yeah.” He smiled again, reaching out to touch her elbow. “I couldn't believe they had it. I grabbed three boxes of that, and, uh, something else I thought was kinda cute…” She rummaged to the bottom of the bag and found a small stuffed cat, tiny enough to be tucked into the corner of a crib. “For the, uh, baby. I dunno if you like it,” he continued, “but, uh…”

She cut him off, moving forward to hug him hard. She seized his face in her hands and kissed him thankfully. She was nearly shaking with the weight of it all, of this baby and of their son, out there somewhere, and of every single thing that he missed out on last time. “I do like it,” she whispered, smiling, her face hidden against his neck. “Thank you. Thank you so, so much.”

---

Jackson used to want to travel all the time. He hated Virginia, he'd whined, and he wanted to go somewhere else, somewhere exciting. And then they'd sent him to that school, and it had been anything but exciting, and he'd felt even more trapped than before. He wanted to go places, he wanted to be free and not have to answer to anyone and do anything he wanted to whenever he wanted it.

Now he had that. He was alone, he had no one telling him what to do or where to go, and his future could be whatever he wanted it to be, barring the fact that people were actively trying to kill him and that a lot of people thought he was a murderer. And he hated it. He wanted his parents back more than anything in the world. He kept expecting them to be there, telling him what to do: No, Jackson, don't do that. Don't be stupid, son. Be careful, be smart, be safe. He wanted to ask their advice on things, wanted them to be with him. The one time in his life he wished he was Haley Joel Osment. (In Sixth Sense, not in that stupid Pay It Forward movie.) He'd give anything to be haunted by his parents at this point. He'd give anything to have them back.

He made it all the way to California without any major hitches. It was uneventful; miles of driving on empty roads, stopping to see sights, eating fast food in the driver's seat of his car and sleeping curled up in the backseat in parking lots until some cop told him to keep moving. In Arizona, he considered going covert, dying his hair and getting a bunch of piercings, doing something besides just projecting so he looked like someone else, but the most he did was give himself a haircut because his hair was getting too long. A horrible, horrible haircut that he could practically see his mom cringing at. It looked like he was attacked by a lawnmower. He bought a baseball cap at the next visitor center and pulled it low over his head.

He made it to California. He went to San Diego for no particular reason, and found himself in a cemetery for no particular reason, and that was about when he realized that there was probably a reason he was here. He mulled around the gravestones for a long moment before arriving at a small, shiny one that read Emily Sim. Died when she was three years old, a week after her parents did.

Jackson winced, leaning forward to put his palm on top of the stone. As he did, a rush of images swept over him, images that made him sick with nausea, dizziness. Emily Sim, a little girl sucking her thumb before a bathroom floor streaked with watery blood; Emily on the floor of a children's home, a much younger Mulder and Scully knelt beside her; Emily Sim in a hospital bed, eyes screwed shut, face coated in sweat. Dying.

Jackson staggered back from the headstone, his heart in his throat, coated in sweat despite the relatively cool temperature. He was breathing hard. He knew immediately what this was. He'd had a sister. He'd had a sister who somehow wasn't Scully's, either, and she'd been an experiment like him, and she had died. No wonder Ginger seemed so protective of him, so panicky at the thought of his death; it wasn't just because she was his birth mother, it was because she'd gone through it before. He'd had a sister, an experiment who suffered her whole life and lost both her parents and died before he was even born. He swayed on his feet, fell to his knees in the graveyard. He was crying, and he didn't know why, but it made him furious, that he'd had a sister who was dead now because of these bastards who had murdered his parents. He'd always wanted a sister as a kid. A little sister he could protect, or a big sister who would stick up for him.

Her name was Emily. Emily Christine Sim. He resolved to remember that as he climbed to his feet, brushed dirt off of his jeans. Half his family gone, her entire family gone. A sister he would never know. Emily Sim. He pressed his palm to the stone and thought, I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry that this happened to you. I'm so sorry I'll never get to know you.

After that, he didn't want to stay in California. He was getting flashes of other things, of a dark-haired girl that looked like that Mulder guy in pain, running, dying. Bad things had happened here. He looked out over the Pacific, at the great westward spread of the ocean, and then he got into his car and drove back east.

#it's gonna be painful but then it's gonna be not painful i promise #xf rewatch #xf fanfic #i wrote this

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hehaschosenthebees · 5 years ago

Text

The Type

Steve Rodgers just isn't the type to ask for help.

He will not be weak for anyone but Bucky.

He will not be gentle nor will he be sparing if anyone brings this to him.

He trusts, but only after solidness, after many years of friendship and hardship together, Tony Stark being a fine example.

Only Bucky may see the cracks in his mask, the broken in his tender and loving heart, fiercly harded by war and pain.

So when Bucky is gone, who is there to help him?

The answer is no one.

That's why on the eleventh day of Bucky's mission (the one that was supposed to be over after a maximum of three days) he's bent to his snapping point. Since Bucky's freedom from HYDRA, they have not parted for more then a week. Nightmares torment the blonde, and each night ends up with the fammilar pinch of tears behind his eyes, but he refuses to let himslef cry.

He's not the type to cry.

So finally at two in the morning of the eleventh day, he sits on the shower floor and cries. It starts slowly at first, hesitant. Then the aching, body draining sobs shudder through him, stealing his breath and weighting his chest.

He spouts all his fears to the tile floor of the expensive shower, each one lined up and scored away.

Just like a perfect soldier should.

Neat, orderly and calm, he lists them out, hiccuping occasionally and remaining silent as the last one slips past his quivering lips.

"I'm afraid Bucky will leave me."

"I'm afraid he will get hurt, and I will have no one."

"I'm scared all my friends will die, and it will be my fault."

"Im afraid Tony will hurt Bucky becuase he doesn't trust him."

"Im scared Bucky will forget me."

"I'm afraid Bucky will hurt himself becuase he feels like a burden."

"I'm afraid to be left alone."

He shudders, the hot water doing nothing to soothe the coldness, the vast emptiness blowing through his bones. So he sits there for hours, eyes closed, forehead rested against tile and drifts. Naked and tired and hurting, he softly cries for hours becuase he will never admit it.

Steven Grant Rodgers will never admit he still needs to be taken care of. He refuses to let himself feel sad or scared becuase he is Captian America. He is the perfect soilder. And soldiers do not cry.

Though it's early morning and he has exasuted his tears, he barely manages to stumble from the shower and dry off. Wondering to his room, he selects a set of clothes he knows to be Bucky's.

It's one of the few comforts he has.

He lays on Bucky's side of their bed, eyes shut but not anywhere near sleeping. Mabye if he wishes hard enough, lets enough tears seep into the plush pillows, he can never feel them again. Never feel the hot streaks down his face, never taste the salt of his sadness on his lips.

Becuase Steve Rodgers isn't the type to cry.

So he lays there, tears slow but sure as they leave grey marks in the duvey covers and droplets in the pillowcases. He cries until his body shakes, dry sobs and low, whimpering whines.

He cries himself to sleep without Bucky.

Becuase when he wakes, he'll be good ol' Cap, right?

Wrong.

He opens his eyes to late evening sun.

"Oh well,"

He thinks. Not like he had any reason to be up anyway. He rolls over to grab Bucky's arm and shake him awake too, only to feel emptiness strike him deep in his core.

His wail of pain is audible.

Friday awakes at the sound, clacking and beeping softly in the open windowspace, converting the sunset into a computer screen. "Captian Rodgers," her pleasant voice chimes. "Do you require assitance?" It's the first words he's heard in days. He hasn't left his floor in over a week, too scared to break down during movie nights.

Who's he supposed to cuddle with, give soft tending kissess to if Bucky isn't there to enjoy the movie too?

"No," he croaks, surprised by the dryness of his throat.

"My vitals show you are severly dehydrated and low on essential nutrients. I am ordering treatment." Steve rolls his eyes, but isn't surprised when Bruce slides into his apartmet moments later. "Steve," he caps the blond on the shoulder, eyes roaming over the taller man.

He's barely standing, dark circles ringing his swollen and red eyes. His hair's a mess, tangled and swept to the side. He's in a Tee-shirt Bruce knows to be Bucky's, and a loose pair of sweatpants. His feet are bare, and the look in his eyes haunts Bruce.

Gaunt, deep depression shades his baby blues with grey. His hands shake as he cuffs Bruce back, managing a half smile that doesn't dent the gaunt look in Rodger's eyes. "You doin' alright?"

Steve deflects the question. "Under the weather," he quipps. Bruce nods, stepping back a bit. He understands the way Steve's feeling. He seats the blonde man on the couch, inserting an IV into the crook of his arm with practiced ease. "This is very important, Steve. Your serum makes you much more suseptible to passing out from malnutrution or dehydration. Please keep on it, yeah?"

Steve nods. "Yeah. Thanks pal." Bruce smiles that heartwarming, sweet smile. The one that hides something deeply concerned. "Any time, Rodgers. Call if you feel woozy, alright?" Steve nods, just a bit of happy poking through his misery.

Both he and Bruce know he would never call.

Becuase Steve just isn't that type.

So he sits. He eats and changes his IV bags like Bruce showed him, turning on the TV, though never really watching it. He scrolls past the shows that he and Buck watch together, the ones that latch onto memories that lift the corner of his mouth in a sad smile. He does the dishes and sweeps the house and sleeps his solid eight hours, always awaking to see the sunrise.

He remebers the way the sunlight gleamed off Bucky's metal arm, framing his face. Beautiful even in sleep.

It brings tears to his eyes every time, so he shares his tears with the sun every morning. The emptiness of the house fills every fold of their sheets, the one Steve refuses to wash becuase they smell of Bucky.

So ticking off the days of the calander with the marker Bucky keeps on his nightstand becomes robotic. Until one night, the twenty third evening of his emptiness, the sound of the elevator doors startles Steve out of bed. It's only 8:30, but he likes to go to sleep early, too afraid to see the stars his lover lays awake on the balcony to name on clear nights.

He scrambles, in only an old button down of Bucky's and breifs, to the living room, noting in his head where they keep three handguns in the house. (One under the bed in the gunsafe, one locked in a crane-stine drawer in the hall closet, and the one beneith the paneling of the wardrobe in the guest room.)

Creeping out around the island peeking from the kitchen, he does his best not to let blood drip from his arm where he yanked out his IV needle with haste. A sight that makes Steve fall to his knees awaits him.

James Bucanan Barnes stands in the living room, stripping off the leather holsters strapped to his body. The mission must have been dangerous, as he's got a full body harness, one for guns on either side of his chest, plenty of slips for the knives he's so keen with handling.

Steve chokes on a sob as the harness hits the couch, rattling. Empty of all but the knives. Bucky's head flicks up, eyes flashing in surprise. "Steve." His voice is warm in the dim, unseeing just the shape his lover is in. "Didn't mean to wake ya, Punk."

Steve lunges, leaning his full weight on Bucky. "God, you were gone for so long..." He whispers, hot tears pouring rivers down his pale face. Bucky hugs back, squeezing tightly. "Bruce said you weren't doing too well, love. Are you fee-" He stops short. Steve's in the light now, in all his sickly glory. Bucky swears he can see the old, skinny Steve glimmer through the still-muscled body in his arms. "Good god!" He yelps, litterally picking Steve up and carrying him to their shared bedroom. "What the hell happened?"

Steve is quiet.

"I thought you weren't comming home."

Red stains Steve's hand, and Bucky panicks. He yanks the blond's hand away, seeing the thick redness pooling in the crook of his arm and drooling down his palm. "Sweet Sara Rodgers, what the fuck?" He barks, digging through his drawer for a med kit while shoving the IV pole aside.

Steve takes his time (the best he can, at least) to talk Bucky through it. The pain and the lonliness he felt by himself, the reason he didn't want to eat or drink. Bruce's kindness, and even crying on the shower floor.

Bucky shares why the mission took so long, and spends the rest of the night with a crying angelic Steven Grant Rodgers becuase yes, it's okay to cry. They sleep in eachother's arms for the first time, sharing soft and gentle kisses until Steve's tears become something more.

Tears of joy.

Beacuse that's Steve's type.

And he won't ever have to feel those tears drying on his face ever again, becuase Bucky will always be there to wipe them away.

Becuase that's who Steve fell in love with.

A man who loves him and cares for him more then anything else in the world.

I guess you can say Steve Rodgers has a type.

--------------------------------------------------

A message for all those who feel like they are weak for crying. You are human. If you need to just let go, please do.

@the-mad-starker @peachystarker

@starkerchemistryy @starkerforlife6969

@sunflowerstarker @im-a-goner-foryou

•••above are the tags of the people who inspire me to write.•••

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flawlesspeasant · 6 years ago

Text

no instructions.

Like I said, I only write fanfiction when I’m feeling inspired and I’ve been feeling inspired with Jo’s recent depression in the show. I really wanted to see something from Alex’s point of view and I got carried away with loving, concerned husband Alex and ended up writing about Alex dragging Jo to therapy. ❤️ Enjoy!

There’s a lot of things they don’t tell you how to prepare for, and this is one of them.

I mean don’t get me wrong, it’s not like marriage comes with an instruction manual. To be honest, I spend most of my days going with the flow and learning as I go along.

Like when she leaves her hair on the bathroom floor and it feels like a white-hot branding iron was just put on my back. And I stomp to the bedroom to yell at her about taking five freaking seconds to pick up the goddamn broom and sweep up the mess before I have to go into work with a clump of her brown hair caked to my scrubs because that crap gets everywhere. Then, just as I’m ready to really give her the third degree, she’s lying on my side of the bed with her arm up under my pillow and her eyes are still closed and I think to myself, “what in the hell did I do to deserve her?” And all the anger melts away… something like putting an ice cube in the middle of a hot cup of coffee.

And also like when she drinks the last beer in the fridge but leaves the empty case there and it’s turned to the side in a way awkward enough to make me think that there’s still one left. It boils me up inside when I think that I’m going to come home after a long day of doing absolutely nothing at the hospital and crack open an ice cold brew, only to find that she dusted the last one off and gave me all kinds of false hope by leaving the empty six pack carton in the fridge. And just when I’m about to bust in the bathroom, rip the shower curtain back and yell at her for the umpteenth time about just throwing the damn case away, I stop in my tracks and can’t help but smile because through the sound of the water running, all I hear is her singing “it’s getting hot in here! So take off all your clothes!” and all I can think about is how I still can’t believe that I somehow tricked this goofball into marrying me. And I’m not so angry about the beer anymore.

See, it’s nothing like the first time I walked down the aisle and made somebody my wife. The time I married Iz, I mean.

When I married Iz, everything was a breeze. There weren’t any tough decisions and in truth, I had it easy. At the time, I sure thought that it was as hard as it would get and marriage was a horrible thing that I just so happened to get roped into. Back then, you couldn’t convince me that marriage was beautiful. Nobody on this earth could make me believe that it was great.

But that was when it was easy. With Izzie, it was easy. But with Jo, everything about this whole marriage thing is hard. And I can’t help but wonder if maybe — just maybe — it’s because for the first time in my life, I genuinely give a crap about her more than I give a crap about myself.

I mean, when you look at it, that makes sense… doesn’t it?

I didn’t need instructions when I married Izzie because marrying Izzie was easy and marrying Izzie was easy because I didn’t care about her enough.

At least not the way I care about Jo.

I spent the entire day wondering about that. Wondering why my marriage to Izzie wasn’t as hard on me as my marriage to Jo.

I asked Mer today at lunch why she thought that was and she didn't know what I meant. She thought I was trying to say that I regretted marrying Jo and I had to walk away when she implied that because that was the first time I’d been so pissed off in a while.

But I guess that was my fault because I couldn’t really explain to her what I meant by that.

What I meant was, why is my mind at home with Jo when before, it wouldn’t be?

All day today, I tried my hardest to be present with my patients. I listened to heartbeats and lungs, threw a diagnosis or two out there and administered and IV or two.

Yet all I could think about was how I knew my wife was at home in bed. She told me she was sick, but because I know Jo better than Jo knows herself sometimes, I knew that she was lying. If the tear streaks on her cheeks didn’t give that away, then the way her clothes don’t quite fit right anymore did.

And while I should have been paying attention to the actual sick people under my care, my mind wasn’t even in my head because all I wanted to know was if my wife was eating. Or if she had gotten out of bed yet. If she had showered. I could’ve given someone the wrong meds today and I genuinely wouldn’t have cared, as long as it meant that she had at least taken a bite of a piece of toast today.

Anyone who knows me knows how hard it is for me to give up control. But I did that yesterday because that’s just how badly I need her to be okay. Sure, I wish I was the person who could miraculously make her okay. I wish I could pull her out of whatever hell hole she’s been in the past few days, but I can’t. And if I can’t, then I have to hope that there’s somebody who can.

So, needless to even say how much I hoped that when I slid open the door to the loft, I would see her the way she used to be. I wanted to see her and Link sitting on the couch laughing, because he was my last resort. I wanted her beautiful hair to be brushed again and for my socks to be full of the clumps she left on the floor. And I wanted to open the fridge to find no more beer because she drank it all again.

And when I opened the door and heard the sound of her laughter echoing off the walls, I swear I still don’t know what stopped me from bum-rushing Link and hugging him because he did it. He really did it. He brought my beautiful, lively girl back.

Only he didn’t.

And that’s why we’re here.

I still don’t know if this was the “right” thing to do. And to be honest, I don’t know if she’s going to hate me after this or not. But I’m desperate now. Maybe even past desperate.

She sits across the room with her arms folded across her chest and her head down, still refusing to sit next to me. One half of her hair is still in knots, because she wouldn’t let me brush the other half after I told her that I was taking her to see a doctor. And nobody’s said anything but I can feel the eyes on her fuzzy purple pajama pants. It wasn’t pretty, but I told her I was bringing her “as is.” She resisted me a bit when I scooped her up and put her in the car.

“Karev?” the short little blonde calls from the door in the corner and, mostly out of habit, I stand up too.

Jo stands up so slowly that I wonder if she forgot that she could stand. It’s so quiet in this room that I can actually hear her bones shift and crack. I start to wonder how long it’s actually been since she’s walked on her own.

She takes one step without me and it’s like someone put a blanket around me and I didn’t realize I was cold and shivering until they did. I’m calmer now, just knowing that she’s even slightly agreeing to go. So I start to sit back down in my chair.

Only, she doesn’t let me.

She hasn’t spoken a word to me since we left the house nearly 45 minutes ago, but she doesn’t have to talk to let me know what she wants.

She puts her hand against mine before I can sit down all the way, and suddenly I’m not as soft as I was a second ago. A second ago, I felt like butter on toast. And in that same instant of my wife putting her hand against mine — of my wife telling me that she needs me — I’m solid again.

Because she needs me to be her rock.

She still doesn’t say anything the whole way back. We walk past a few doors; some open and some shut. Down a long hallway full of pictures of cheap plants and crap like that. And when we finally make it to the room we’re going to be in, Jo takes the seat closest to the door, like she always does. Closest to the exit. Always. And it sounds crazy, I know. But that little gesture — that little moment of her doing something so predictably her — is enough to let me know that my girl is still in there somewhere.

“So,” the therapist says as she shuts the door behind her. “If at any time you want your husband…?”

“Alex,” I mumble with a nod.

“Right,” she grins and nods back. “If at any time you want Alex to step out, just say so.” She sits at the desk across from both me and Jo and nudges a pair of glasses on. “This is our first session together, so I’m just going to really try to get to know you, Josephine. Or… Jo? Do you have a preference?”

Jo shrugs, so I — “Jo. She likes to be called Jo.”

“I see,” she nods again. “So… Jo. Just basics. What do you do for a living? I see you’re a… surgical fellow. Do you have a specialty?”

Jo just stares through the wall, blank. I reach over to hold her hand and she pulls it away.

“She um… she has a fellowship in future medicine. Which means she —“

“I would like to hear from Jo,” she says. We both turn toward her and we both know that she’s not going to say anything. So the therapist moves on to a different question. “We can always come back to your professional life when you’re ready. We can start with your personal life. What’s your marriage like? Are you happy?”

Jo nods, which is something and it’s something the therapist seems to run with.

“Any children?”

Jo and I both shake our heads at the same time.

“Ever been pregnant? Any history of miscarriages or abortions? Anything?”

I shake my head to answer that because I really don’t think Jo will and of course I know the answer to that.

Except, I guess I don’t.

Because Jo nods her head.

And for a split second, all I feel is anger. Coursing through my body. Like it replaced my blood.

Only for a split second, though.

In the next instant, all I feel is —

“Alex?” The therapist calls my name, which slaps me back to reality too quickly for me to really process… anything.

“What!?” I accidentally snap.

“Could you… step out?”

“She didn’t —“

“Alex,” the therapist says again. And this time, I trace her eyes to Jo’s eyes.

Jo’s eyes are low. Blank. Lifeless. But she is looking at me. Which is more than I can say for the past few days.

“Please.” The therapist says. And I’m waiting for Jo to put her hand on mine again, waiting for her to let me know that she wants me to stay again.

But she doesn’t. And before I can process anything, my legs are up out of my chair. And I’m out in the hallway. And my mind is off in a thousand different directions.

I swear, all marriage is to me is being scared every second of the day. It’s like having a piece of my heart walking around outside my body and I spend my every waking moment worried and hoping that the little piece of my heart — the piece that I know is depressed — is okay.

If I ever had any doubt of how much Jo has changed every inch of who I used to be, it’s this. Right here.

Because as much as I feel the old me — the me that’s still there just buried underneath everything that has grown — ready to rage because apparently my wife has been pregnant and I don’t know about it….

I just walk back to the waiting room and wait. For the next hour that Jo’s in therapy, I know my head is going to be a mess. I’m going to be wondering when she was pregnant and why I didn’t know. Trying to piece together a timeline that makes sense for me to have missed the signs. Trying to wonder if she was saying yes to having had a miscarriage or if she said yes to having had an abortion.

Yeah, I’m angry. Angry that my wife didn’t tell me something like this.

But more than that….

I just want my Jo to be okay.

#jolex #fanfiction #alex karev #jo wilson

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swhurtcomfort · 6 years ago

Note

You may not need to actually write something new for this, prob you or someone has already written it, but I’d really like a story where we see Anakin (and others but mainly Anakin) react to Obi-Wan’s death and other people, particularly other Jedi feel really bad seeing him like this. Preferably both immediate reaction and long term reaction but anything with Padme+Jedi comforting Anakin over losing Obi-Wan is good. No Hardeen, butI don’t care if Obi-Wan is actually dead, ghost, or act. alive

I. Seconds

Anakin sits onthe edge of his chair, icing his sprained wrist and waiting for a droid tobecome available. The medbay is abuzz with shouting and running. His party hadsustained only a few bangs and bruises, but there have been rumors thatObi-Wan’s group ran into trouble on their way to the rendezvous.

Anakin closeshis eyes and tries to block it out, wishing someone would just bring him someboneknitters for his wrist so he could leave. He hears someone approaching, andto his surprise it is not a med droid. It’s Helix, flanked by Kix and Rex.

Helix openshis mouth to speak, then falters. Anakin sits up straight. Kix and Rex exchangematching looks of deep concern.

With one lastglance at Helix, who seems unable to explain, Kix steps forward.

“GeneralSkywalker, we’re so sorry,”

And Anakin’sworld comes crashing down.

…

II. Days

Anakin is grantedleave to return to the Temple.

Three membersof the Council meet him in the hangar. Anger burns in the back of his throatbecause it feels like a test, like they are waiting for him to screw up and dosomething emotional and un-Jedi-like. Master Windu is reaching out a hand,about to say something sympathetic but Anakin doesn’t want to hear and the lumpin his throat is threatening to betray him in that moment.

So he brushesrudely past and marches himself back to his quarters. Only he gets there helooks up, and the door in front of him is not his.

His feet havetaken him to Obi-Wan’s apartment, although he hasn’t lived there since hispadawan braid was cut. Obi-Wan, gone.Never coming back.

That’s thepart that doesn’t feel real yet, the permanence of it. Because he punches inhis old key code and it still works, and the inside doesn’t look like a deadperson’s apartment. Obi-Wan left in a hurry, never doubting that he would comehome. If he were really gone, why are his favorite teacups stacked neatly inthe sink, waiting for their owner to return and wash them? How can this bereal?

Anakin ignoresthe increasingly worried messages from Master Windu on his commlink. Mace wantsto talk about the funeral arrangements. The only arrangement that Anakin wantsto deal with is sending a secure message to Ahsoka, and praying that it willfind its way to wherever she is.

The day comestoo soon. The body on the pyre barely looks like Obi-Wan, and it makes Anakinsick. He and Yoda stand in the front, as members of a fallen Jedi’s lineageshould. They are the only ones left who are both alive and in the Order (Ahsokastands in the back, and Anakin wants to talk to her – maybe thank her for coming or ask how she’sbeen – but she’s gone before the funeral is over).

Master Winduapproaches as the attendees are filing out. “Skywalker,”

Anakin looksat the floor to hide the tears streaking his face, wondering if he canplausibly blame them on the smoke. Master Windu’s gaze fills him with hot shameand horror at the reality of what has happened, what has been broken and cannever be fixed. He feels certain that the elder Jedi is weighing his reactioneven now, collecting information to use against him later.

But when Macecontinues, his tone holds nothing but sadness. “Obi-Wan touched many hearts inthis Order. You are not alone.”

It’s hard notto feel that way, though.

…

III. Weeks

He thoughtthat there could be no worse feeling than the fresh, gaping wound, but at leastthen he could lock the doors and wrap himself in a blanket and let his emotionscarry him away. Grief grows duller, but more chronic. Often he wishes he couldgather it all up and just have a good cry instead of this shallow, constantache.

Obi-Wan iseverywhere that he goes.

Anakin saved afew of Obi-Wan’s things before the cleaning droids got into the apartment. Hehides them in his own rooms, but paranoia grows in him. He’s afraid someonewill find them, and realize what a sentimental waste of a Jedi he’s become (orso the voice in his head tells him). He’s also afraid that if that happens,people will want him to get rid of the items.

He packs upall the teacups and flower pots and Mandalorian seashells in a box, and carriesit to the senatorial building. Padmé’s stomach is getting rounder, and thesight of her sends a spike of happiness shooting through the miserable fog inhis brain. There’s worry in her eyes when she greets him.

“Ani, youlook…frazzled,” she observes. He tries to explain.

There’s adrawer in the bottom of Padmé’s bureau that has been slowly filling up withAnakin’s clothes, and the thought of it makes him feel safe – like there’s apart of him that the Jedi Order cannot touch.

“You reallythink the Jedi are going to be angry with you for having…seashells?” she asksas Anakin as she watches him swathe another teacup in a spare cloak and slideit to the back of the drawer.

“It’s notabout the shells. It’s about what they mean.They want me to forget him, Padmé.”

“I’m sure theydon’t.” Padmé’s knowledge on the subject comes primarily from Bail, who likelygot it from Obi-Wan, but she still suspects Anakin is imagining the Council ascrueler than they are.

Anakin is toowound up to listen. “If I want to be a good Jedi, I have to let him go. Butdoes that make me a bad friend if I do?”

“You won’tforget him,” Padmé soothes, taking him by the elbow and pulling him in to faceher. “And the Order hasn’t forgotten him either. You have to know that.”

Anakin shakeshis head.

“I return toduty next week. Obviously they think I should be better by now,” he says with alittle sniff.

“Ani, there’sno time limit of when you’re allowed to miss him. You loved Obi-Wan. You stilllove him. Give yourself permission to grieve.”

Anakin sighs.“You don’t understand.”

“Then tellme,” she says matter-of-factly, sitting down on the ottoman and waitingexpectantly.

…

IV. Months

“No,” Anakin practically spits, and thelittle Twi’lek boy flinches.

“I’m sorry,”Anakin amends, suddenly reminded of how it felt to be a child and unsure of hisplace within the Order. “It isn’t your fault that that meddling green trollcan’t leave me alone. I’m sure you’ll be chosen by a much better Master than me.”

“But MasterSkywalker, Master Yoda told me…”

“Yeah, I know.But I’m not taking another apprentice.”

Snips willremain his first and only padawan. It will mean the end of their lineage, buthe knows somehow that Obi-Wan would understand.

What hedoesn’t know, though, is how Obi-Wan would have reacted to what he was about todo.

He walksslowly to the Room of a Thousand Fountains, and feels change flowing throughthe Force like a breeze. He sits down beneath Obi-Wan’s favorite tree andcloses his eyes. It feels like saying goodbye.

His meditationis interrupted by a gentle tap on his knee from Yoda’s gimer stick.

“Mostdisappointed, Initiate Fingol is,” Yoda says, shaking his head.

“I am not theone who gave him false hopes, Master,”Anakin snaps.

“The Councilseeks to help you, Knight Skywalker. And a good teacher, you are.”

“We both knowmy teaching skills are not the reason the Council is so hell-bent on this,”says Anakin, speaking more freely than he ever has to the grandmaster. “You’venever stopped looking at me like a bomb that might go off if it were jostled. Youwant this because you want me to feel like I can’t go anywhere or do anythingyou don’t approve of because I’m responsible for some kid. To trap me here.”

“To trap you,no,” Yoda corrects him sternly. “To ground you, young Skywalker. A greatchallenge, the past year has been, greater than any you have faced.”

Anakin blinksaway the tears in his eyes.

“But always,the Force returns like saplings in the ashes of a forest. Much, our lineage haslost. But new limbs, it may grow. New connections, and new purpose.”

“I think I’vealready found that,” says Anakin softly, thinking of Padmé and her baby.

“Where?”

Anakin shakeshis head. “I was never meant to do this. Maybe the Council was right from dayone, in some twisted way. I’ve never been a proper Jedi. I can’t let him go, andI don’t want to.”

“An uncertainfuture, the Council foresaw, not a lack of potential. And a fine Jedi you havebecome,” says Yoda.

“No.”

Anakin doesn’tcare if he is projecting, or whether Yoda has caught snippets of his thoughtsintentionally as they sat together beneath the tree, Anakin’s Force presencestill raw from his painful meditation. Yoda sees the clones directing Anakininto a back room of the medbay where he glanced beneath the sheet over the motionlessform on the table and collapsed to the floor in sobs. Yoda knows how manynights in the following month Anakin stayed up crying, and he knows about theteacups shoved in the back of Padmé’s dresser drawer.

“Misunderstandyou do, Skywalker. Condemn these emotions, the Jedi do not. Natural, the painof loss is. To the Force, you must entrust these feelings, and trust that youwill heal and grow from them.”

“I have toleave.”

Anakin dropsthe statement like something heavy, he can almost feel the beat in the Force.

“The firsttime you have considered it, this is not,” Yoda states.

“I’m seriousthis time.”

“Upset, youare right now. But the Jedi are not what you think we are. What you have alwaysfeared us to be.”

Anakin pondersthis.

“I think it’stoo late. It doesn’t matter who’s misunderstood. I can’t stay.”

It’s Yoda’sturn to look surprised, and emotion that Anakin finds thoroughly unsettlingcoming from him.

Finally thegrandmaster sighs. “Right, you may be.”

It’s not theanswer Anakin had expected, and it throws him for a moment.

“Sorry, I am,”says Yoda.

Anakinhesitates for a moment. “I’m sorry too.”

He turns away,silently saying one final goodbye to the tree, one of the only things he willmiss here. It had been Obi-Wan’s favorite meditation spot, and Anakin had comehere often in the past few months, trying to feel closer to him.

He turns away—turnstowards Padmé, and his family. His family.He’d always imagined having one as a child, but on Naboo that dream is evensweeter than on Tatooine. His child will grow up free on a planet of deeprivers and green fields. They’ll be happier than he has been. He’ll make sureof it.

He turns awayfrom the life that Obi-Wan had so desperately wanted for him, and hopes thatsomewhere in the Force, his old master will forgive him.

As he leavesthe Room of a Thousand Fountains, he thinks he sees a hand on his shoulder, hethinks he feels a supportive little squeeze. He turns around and sees onlyYoda, meditating beneath the tree.

#@finnskywxlkxr #anakin #obi-wan #padme #yoda #tw major character death #Emotional Hurt/Comfort #post tcw season 6 but pre rots #anakin leaves the order au

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jungxk · 6 years ago

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slkgjfslkdfb i'm so excited that you're writing the next chapter! but also take care of yourself and take your time! i enjoy your presence on this hell site regardless if you're writing! also curious of what made jungkook your bias if you don't mind me asking?

😭😭why are you so sweet i love u!!💝💝💝💝💝ive written about half of it now so i’m hoping to get it up within the next few days so fingers crossed!!!

and ofc i don’t mind you asking bb i hope You don’t mind that i’m about to go on a jungkook rant😖so i got into bts in my first year of uni in 2016 just as bst came out. i still maintain that that was their best ever comeback. but anyway within the first few seconds jimin was the one that made me😦bc he just looks so! otherworldly handsome in that video they all do but jimin particularly! i think that’s why he’s so special to me out of the boys he’s always gonna be That guy for me uno. also we have the same birthday so can i say Soulmate!!!!!

but anyway my jimin bias lasted for exactly 0.2 seconds bc then jungkook moved to centre in the choreo and oh. my god. my body had a physical reaction fshsghs like chills and everything! his stage presence, visuals, voice, bst rlly brought out the best in him. there was also this particular frame i have screenshotted which is the EXACT moment i knew i wouldn’t be able to get over this guy for the rest of my life rip

like how beautiful is his makeup and styling and stage presence here it’s working perfectly together like a well oiled machine FUCK. this is what i mean about bst being the pinnacle of their career don’t @ me. but ANYWAY this was the move that made me go okay. dunno who this guy is but he owns my ass now so there’s that lol. to this day bst jungkook is still my ultimate weakness, i blush just thinking about him PLS !

but the way jungkook climbed to love of my life status wasn’t rlly from his looks, vocals etc tbh. i wasn’t new to kpop at this point and what rlly struck me about him was how goofy and Himself he was in every show, he’s a silly boy and he acts like one and doesn’t give a shit and i LOVE that, i’m enamoured by that vulnerability and sincerity. i mean if i was a celeb i don’t think i’d be able to show my real self on camera as much as he does tbh, but even if he is putting up a persona which is totally understandable, jungkook’s ability to come across as genuine and Real in a sea of male idols that are constantly trying to be “cool” and “manly” is unmatched imo. he never hesitates to look like an idiot in front of cameras just to make others laugh and i adore that. that boyish quality about him just so endearing, i think because he remains polite and humble throughout it which also another massive seller for me. it’s probably bc he’s the youngest to have been around cameras so he literally grew up in front of the camera if that makes sense? but yeah those things also enhance his already good looks for me so my heart still often flatlines when i see a particular low quality, no makeup, acne scarred, chubby and tanned pic of him😖that’s my favourite jungkook fyi! don’t get me wrong i love made up suited up stage jungkook - but no makeup jungkook? with a few pimples and 10kg heavier with a tummy and tanned ASIAN skin that isn’t made to look 5 shades too white? big nose big teeth eye crinkles smiling jungkook? he is My Love. nothing more i can say.

i think another big factor in him becoming my bias is that in a weird way, me and jungkook have a lot of similarities that i wouldn’t expect to share with a boy like him? we’re both perfectionists, both really introverted and enjoy time to ourselves, both love to sing, to draw, to create in general. we’re both pretty shy and we also have a habit of starting stuff and never finishing it bc we’re passionate about so many things at once. he’s also the baby of the group and i’m the baby of every group too lol. we’re also rlly laid back in some instances like maybe even Too laid back at times (ie spacing out a lot and Not Speaking) but then when it comes to something we care about we give it 110% until it kills us. i rlly empathise with that quality in him and i understand that constant need to better oneself even with a trophy sitting in my hand. don’t get me wrong we’re also polar opposites in other ways like i HATE sports and i’m not patient enough for photography, can’t dance for shit etc etc lol but i think our fundamental ethos lines up nicely. plus, he’s a 97 baby and i’m a 96 baby, and i always think “wow if we went to the same school we’d be in the same year!” bc my school was split up like that lol. he’d be one those boys that i’d probably bully from ages 12-15 but then he got hot in our final year and suddenly i avoid him like the plague☠️

so yeah i guess jungkook being my bias isn’t so much to do with his idol abilities but more who he is as a person. i empathise with him a lot and at the same time get a lot of comfort knowing that someone like him - who i share these traits with - succeeded. i enjoy seeing him do well but ngl i have a competitive streak so watch out babe!

HOWEVER i should mention that although jungkook will always be My Guy and #1 in my lovesick heart, i technically am triple biased for jungkook, yoongi and jimin. if those 3 ever had a kid it’d be me but i guess that will take another ask to explain! thank you for this question tho b it put me in a rlly good mood💖xoxo

#answered #im sorry this is so long i just love talking abt jungkook fshsgsj #can u tell i have a crush on him. like am i being obvious

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loversandantiheroes · 7 years ago

Text

Like Blood Running Warm - Part 1

Author’s Note: Happy Spooktober. A couple weeks ago I mentioned how this song made me want to write a Vamp!Clara AU. This is the result of that. Part 1 of probably 2 or 3 if they remain this sort of length. Big thanks to @longjackets, @nikkidee, @kingandcrook, and @infiniteregress17 for the beta help.

Summary: A snowstorm strands a group of bus passengers at a near-derelict station overnight near the Colorado border. One of them just can't seem to get warm.

Rating: T (currently, AO3 link is pre-tagged for the later stuff)

Warnings: Angst by the bucket, Terminal Illness, Simm!Master being...Simm!Master and thus a walking dumpster fire, Implied Past Drug Use, Implied Harassment.

Word Count: 5799

AO3 Link: here

Did you call for the night porter? You smell the blood running warm I stay close to this frozen border, so close I can hit it with a stone Now something crawls right up my spine That I always got to follow Turn out the lights Don't see me drawn and hollow Just blood running warm

- Mark Lanegan, "When Your Number Isn't Up"

- 11:07pm

John Smith, the night porter, sat in the break room of the bus terminal. He should, by all rights, be keeping post behind the counter in the booth, even at this late of an hour, and he knew that. Pointless, though, wasn’t it? An old portable telly spouted crackling spurts of weather reports at him. Worst snow in a decade, record lows, blah blah. He could’ve guessed that himself looking at the drifts forming outside the sliding doors, which he would have to keep shovelled out unless he wanted to end up buried in here. Buried alive with shitty instant coffee, a vending machine that half-worked, and a telly he couldn’t even get a decent signal on. His employers, stingy bastards that they were, were too cheap to provide anything new or at least decent on the premises. In the lounge, where most stations would have the new plasma or LED or god-knows-what-the-fuck-ever craning down from the ceiling or mounted on the walls, there were instead tiny coin-op televisions. Bloody ancient things with built-in radio dials bolted to the arms of the benches and chairs, popping and crackling to life at the generous price of 30 minutes for a quarter.

John had no bloody idea why the hell the relics were still installed. Honestly, he didn’t know such things even existed until he took this post, but the real shocker was that somehow they still worked. By all rights, they shouldn’t be able to pick up a signal anymore, save for the radio dial, not after the big push from analog to digital broadcasting. Converter box wired up to some kind of main switch maybe, that was the best he could figure. Mystery of the fucking universe, or might as well be; tech was not his area. But it made him feel something. Kinship maybe, he thought, cradling the battered porcelain mug of coffee and trying to work some warmth into the joints of his fingers. Old and busted, but still working. Last legs, maybe, but some life still crackling inside.

He’d moved to the States for the sake of his health, that was the joke of it. Christ on a bike, that was the fucking joke. The belching exhaust of a passing lorry in Glasgow last spring had left him doubled over and hacking against a lamp post. Not that a cough was that unusual, he’d been a smoker from the age of fourteen. He was used to the hack-and-rattle first thing in the morning, or when the seasons changed from Damp and Warm to Damp and Cold (Scotland only had the two seasons, really). But this time had been different. Not quite worse, but deeper, like the first signal of the flu.

He’d gone home to his flat that day, made tea, and emptied his tobacco tin into the garbage. Good fucking riddance. Something welled up in him then. A change of scenery would be good. He was nearly fifty-six years old, and he’d never even left the country. Wanderlust, he’d called it at the time. Not entirely untrue, but a little too grand. All he’d wanted in that second was to run away. It wasn’t as if he had any real ties to Glasgow anymore. No friends to speak of, all those were gone. Family either dead or distant. He spun his wedding ring unconsciously. No children. That was almost a relief, considering.

Once he decided to go, he’d sold everything but his clothes and his guitar. Sentiment was only the half of that. He’d never admit it, but he’d simply found the idea of travelling halfway across the world with nothing but the guitar too foolishly romantic to give up. Then on the emptied floor of his flat he’d laid out a massive map of the continental US, closed his eyes, and flipped a coin at it.

He’d spent six good months in Colorado, taking odd jobs and occasionally even sitting in on open mic nights at a local bar, plucking out something of The Velvet Underground or Bowie, and chalking up the slow but steady weight loss as stress and an aversion to American food. Then the cough had come back.

Small cell lung cancer. The fast moving shit. The sort that dug its nails in and decided it lived in you now. Gentrification of the lungs. Radiation or chemo might have bought him some time, but that was the best it could offer. But the pricetag on a few more months was entirely too steep. One look in the clinic window at the thinning husks hooked up to IV drips with pallid eyes and piebald pates, and he’d been out like a shot. On his way to work that night he’d bought a pack of cigarettes. If he was gonna die, he’d at least do it with a full head of hair.

John leaned over the break room table, rubbing at his temples. Too busy feeling sorry for himself to think fucking properly, he inhaled just a bit too sharply. The heating in the bus station was rubbish, the glass windows and sliding doors too thin to keep the cold out, and the electric heater he’d dragged in himself, in a feeble attempt to keep his toes from freezing during the long winter, barely managed to take the chill out of the break room.

Cold air needled into his lungs, and he choked, sputtering and coughing so hard it made his bones ache. Hot coffee sloshed over his hands, and he swore, or at least tried. He needed air to curse, and his lungs weren’t having any of that nonsense. He pounded on the table, sloshing more coffee and overturning a plastic tumbler full of spoons. As the fit subsided, John fumbled in his pockets for his handkerchief and spat, folding it away and trying to pretend he hadn’t seen it come away from this lips bloody.

John sat with his head between his knees until he could breathe evenly again, the sound of the telly all but drowned out by the rush of blood in his ears. At last, he stood, sopped up the mess of coffee, and stumbled out to check the departures and arrivals. Departures from Shotton had been cancelled even before John had limped to work in his jeep. The last two drivers had waved him off as he pulled in, climbing into their own cars to get the hell out of Dodge and back home before the snow settled in with any real intent. Now the roads were closing, and that meant he might be stuck here alone, hacking his lungs up over bad coffee and worse telly until the snow plows went out.

“Fuck,” he muttered. The arrivals list, which had been a string of delays when he’d come in, was now almost completely cancelled. All but one. 11:20 from Cheyenne. Delayed, but still inbound. Wonderful. Snowed in overnight with a busload of pissy tourists on their way to Denver. Wouldn’t that just be a time. “Of-fucking-course. You couldn’t even give me one miserable night off, could you?” he growled at the ceiling.

He kept swearing as he pulled his winter gear on. He’d read once that swearing helped with pain relief; maybe the blue streak would keep him warm. He struggled this balaclava over his head, wondering if it wasn’t time for a haircut. He was a little too proud to still have a full head of hair, grey or no, and had let it go a little wild after the move. Insulation, he told himself. Too fucking cold to trim the hair back, be liable to freeze to death before the cancer gets a chance to finish the fucking job.

Laughing, John wound his scarf around his head.

- 11:34pm

John had most of the entry cleared and shook down with rock salt and sand, when he saw headlights. The bus lurched up through the drive, crunching and shuddering its way up through the snow to the sheltered entrance.

John leaned on his shovel and flapped a thickly-gloved hand as the bus ground to a stop in front of him. The door hissed open, blowing a gorgeously welcome gust of heated air at him. The driver was a new guy, a round-faced man with close cropped hair and a frankly terrible goatee. “Fuck me ragged,” the driver called down, grinning, “I’m gonna get held up by the Michelin Man.”

John made a gun out of his right hand and popped his thumb. Ka-chow. “You’ll want to get inside,” he shouted through too many layers of damp wool.

The driver frowned, motioning at his ear. “Can’t hear you, pal.”

He waved again, palm in, fingers curling. Come the fuck in.

- 11:40pm

There weren’t many passengers, thank God. John counted heads as they shambled in, jamming his gloves into his pockets and fiddling with his scarf which had gone stiff with frost. Seventeen or eighteen, including the driver, who’d pulled off to try and park the bus proper while he still stood a chance to get it moving. An old couple cooed and laughed over the coin-op televisions. A young black woman in a pea-colored coat almost as heavily padded as his own gave him a nervous smile as he struggled out of his balaclava. She asked hopefully about coffee with a London accent that made him do a double take.

“Or tea or hot chocolate?” she went on in the sort of bright tone only the incredibly anxious and incredibly exhausted can achieve. “Anything hot, honestly, I’m not fussy.”

John grunted, both in effort and assent. He’d worked up a fair sweat out there, and the wool was stuck fastidiously to his head. He bent, trying to pull it up from the back, and heard a second voice with an unmistakable Blackpool twinge.

“Easy, mate, you’ll pull your whole head off by mistake.”

Cold fingers brushed at the nape of his neck, curling into the wool, helping him pull. And then he was free, spitting lint and rifling a hand through the haphazard sprawl of his hair.

London giggled behind her hand. Beside her now was a second, significantly smaller woman who was holding his snow-crusted balaclava out to him. For a second, all he saw were her eyes, wide and brown and faintly crinkled at the corners as she smiled up at him. She was lovely, far too lovely, and he was far too old, and oh Jesus Christ he was staring.

“Thanks,” he mumbled, trying to flatten the beast his hair had become. “Uhm, the coffee machine’s on the fritz,” he said, gesturing at the line of vending machines and utterly missing the excited upshoot both women’s eyebrows did when they heard his accent. With a touch of annoyance, he noticed the out of order sign had dropped once again and was slowly soaking into a puddle of slush. “I’ve got a kettle in the break room, but the coffee’s instant. But there’s quite a lot of it, at least, so.” He shrugged, grinning awkwardly and trying not to look at the short one with the big eyes.

“That’d be amazing, I’m frozen,” London said, bouncing on her toes.

“Right, well, have a seat, I’ll go and get that on.”

“I’ll give you a hand,” Blackpool said.

London scoffed, rolling her eyes. “No accounting for taste,” she muttered.

Blackpool stuck out her tongue.

John glanced at her sidelong as he opened the door to the break room. She noted his hesitation and gave him a quizzical look. “You on your own tonight?”

John frowned. “Yeah, why?”

“Then I will definitely give you a hand. You look fit to keel over.”

The frown deepened into a scowl.

She laughed. “Oh, go on, your eyebrows look like they could shoot laser beams when you scrunch up like that.”

He pushed through the door after her, shrugging his parka off and pretending that he wasn’t trying to hide a smile, unsure why he should be hiding it other than that recurring little prickle that said she’s too pretty and you’re too old and have you forgotten you’re dying?

“I like the accent. Where in Scotland?” she asked, already filling the kettle as he stripped off his overalls.

“Glasgow.” He spared her a glance over his shoulder, cocking an eyebrow. “You’re from Blackpool?”

“Ooh, jackpot, well done.”

“Not the sort of accent I expected to hear coming in with the snow in the arse-end of America. I had friends there. The other girl, London, is she with you?”

“No, not really. Met her at the station, actually, we’ve just been headed the same way. Fell in together a bit. It was just nice, y’know. Familiar sort of accent. America’s so bloody big, makes you feel a little less alone.” Her gaze shifted outward and for a moment she was gone, the over the hills and far away sort of gone, hands still trying to seat the kettle without the help of her eyes. On the third try, she finally managed to set the it down on the base properly and click it on.

“Oh. I know that look,” he muttered, sitting down to try and struggle his overalls past his boots. “Someone’s homesick.”

“Something like that.”

He opened his mouth, but the well-meaning platitude he’d meant to give was lost in a deep, lung-rattling cough. He bent double, hugging his knees, eyes squeezed shut, and told himself over and over again it will pass, it will pass, it will pass. Spots burst and swam behind his eyelids as his body protested the idea. The muscles in his body froze up, lungs refusing any command except get out get out get out. All at once the darkness seemed to deepen, wrapping around him, swallowing him up. There was a bizarre sensation of detachment. Like he was falling into himself, as if his body was some hollow thing he was floating around inside like a sensory deprivation tank.

An arm curled around his shoulders, holding his body up, a cold hand rubbing circles on his back. Blackpool’s voice came floating through the black from miles off like sweet woodsmoke.

“Hey, c’mon breathe, breathe, you’re alright.”

At last, his muscles unlocked, and he sucked in a great whooping gulp of air and coughed again, half-retching as Blackpool shoved a crumpled wad of tissues into his hands. John sat shaking as his breathing leveled, swimming back up into the peaked fluorescent light. The coughing was old, but the blackout, that was new. New and decidedly not good. Blackpool’s hand still rubbed at his back. She was still there. He swiped at his mouth with the back of his hand, and as he blinked the tears out of his eyes he saw a smear of red across his knuckles. Fuck.

Blackpool looked down at the blood on his hand, eyes wide with concern and something else he couldn’t quite place. Something that made the hairs on the back of his neck stand up. Her pupils were dangerously wide, irises a thin sliver of copper that seemed to pulse and flash. A fresh shudder rippled up his spine. Lack of oxygen, he told himself. Surely.

“You need a doctor,” she whispered, searching her coat pockets and finally producing a phone in a chipped blue case.

He grasped her hand, shaking his head. “I don’t.”

“The hell you don’t,” she hissed. “You’re ill.”

“I know,” he said, and that stopped her. He sighed. “Just, please, trust me. An ambulance couldn’t make it through this mess anyway. No point. I’ll be fine in a minute, I just need to catch my breath.”

She stared him down, mouth set and grim. For a long, horrible moment he felt close to talking. To actually saying it. He hadn’t actually told anyone about the diagnosis. There was nobody to tell, and somehow that was the worst of it. He was going to die here alone in a shithole of a town thousands of miles from home, and nobody would know. Loneliness hit him in a crushing wave. He saw himself reflected in the dark of her eyes, drawn and pale and hopelessly lost.

And then she sighed, and his shoulders dropped, and the moment passed.

“What’s your name, Glasgow?” she asked finally.

“John. But mostly people call me the Doctor.” She gave him a funny look and he shrugged. “Old nickname. Long story.”

“No doctor for the Doctor, though?”

He shook his head, resolute.

“Well, then fuck that,” she said flatly. “Glasgow it is.”

He rasped a laugh that set him dangerously close to coughing again. “Suppose I’m supposed to just call you Blackpool, then?”

“It’s only fair.” She smiled tentatively. “But it’s Clara, for the record.”

- 12:03am

Blackpool - Clara - handed out hot water in little styrofoam cups. John followed behind with sachets of coffee and tea bags and tiny packets of sugar. London, who Blackpool said was named Bill, squealed happily when he produced a pyramid-shaped teabag out of his pocket.

“Oh that is gorgeous, you’re a lifesaver, mate.”

Blackpool had moved onto the driver, whose name tag was emblazoned with “MASTERS” in off-kilter lettering. His cheshire grin slipped sideways into a leer as she handed him the cup, his fingers lingering on hers a little too long.

“Cheers, love,” he said with an overblown wink and an equally overblown mockery of an English accent.

Blackpool’s face went stony, and she jerked back, moving on quickly to the elderly couple. The grin on Masters’ face spread even broader.

Bill fidgeted, her own smile fading fast. Her eyes flitted around like nervous hummingbirds, lighting on Blackpool, him, the ceiling, the floor. Anywhere but the driver. John clenched his jaw, hands making a decision for him before his brain stood a chance to intervene, accidentally fumbling the handful of coffee and sugar and knocking the cup of still-steaming water out of Masters’ hands and into his lap. The room was entirely too cold (and his kettle frankly a bit too crap) for the piddly amount of liquid to be hot enough to actually hurt him, but the man yowled like it was boiling.

“Ach, so sorry mate,” John crowed, playing up the Glasgow in his voice to the most ridiculous degree he could that still stopped short of Rab C. Nesbitt territory. “The cauld goes fae my joints, sorry, like, I’ll get ye some towels an’ a fresh cuppa, dinnae worry about it.”

He trotted back to the office, more than a little delighted at the sour look on the driver’s face. How’d that saying go? Like a rottweiler licking piss off a dandelion. That was the one. Beautiful.

- 12:15am

John ran out an extension cable and a power strip for the ones needing a charge for their phones, which unsurprisingly was all of them. Reception was shit, and the storm was only half of it. No wifi, either. He made apologies, gesturing at the desperately out of date equipment. “Give them another ten years, and they might actually catch onto the indoor plumbing fad.”

Blackpool gave him a wink and a thumbs up over the top of her phone. London rolled her eyes and lamented the absence of Netflix, rather loudly at that. Blackpool shook her head and set to poking half-heartedly at Candy Crush.

London wandered over, leaning back against the desk where John sat. She had apparently memorized the names of the other passengers and ticked them off to John as she sipped at her tea. She pointed out the elderly couple. “Melvin and Tilly. Their granddaughter just had her first baby, they’re going down to visit. Spiky hair over there is named Dan or Dave or maybe Doug, he talks a bit too fast for me to really catch it. The cougar with the long blonde hair is Susan; loves badminton, very straight though, shame. Oh, that over there, that’s Dee. Or D, like the letter, not sure which.”

“And of course, you’ve met Clara,” she gestured at Blackpool, who was still flicking through her phone. “Late twenties, maybe early thirties at a push. Used to be an English teacher back home, I think she said. Didn’t like talking about home though. Breakup or something, I dunno. There’s a sore spot there, I didn’t want to poke. I did learn, however, that she likes Jane Austen, souffles, and apparently, older men.” London tilted her head at him pointedly, amused by the way John’s gaunt cheeks colored as he stared fastidiously at his shoelaces. She tutted. “Oh you poor bugger. Five minutes in and you’ve already got it bad. Don’t worry, mate, same here.”

“I really d-”

“Oh like hell. You absolutely have, of course you have. I’m not stupid. And I mean it’s not like I can blame you. Look at ‘er.” She lifted her hands again at the other woman as if her existence was the only proof needed. In fairness, it probably was.

John nodded solemnly. “Alright. So what next, fisticuffs? Rifles at dawn? You can get in an early dig at my honor if you want, I’ll let you go first.”

She laughed. “Naw mate, she is way out of my league. Out of your league too, now that I think about it.” London put a playful elbow in his ribs. “She still likes you though. I can tell. Haven’t seen her smile at a single bloke until she saw you.”

He cleared his throat. “And uh, what about the driver? Masters. What’s the deal there?”

London’s smile evaporated. “He’s a prick,” she said flatly.

- 12:40am

“Alright, the suspense is killing me,” Blackpool said at last. She’d taken to pacing around the lounge with her phone in her hands and had veered out of her path to the front desk suddenly.

“I’m sorry?” he said, blinking.

“You said people called you the Doctor. Why?”

John waved a dismissive hand. “It’s really not that interesting, honestly.”

“C’mon.”

“Why do you want to know?”

She rolled her eyes, laughing. “Because I am dying of boredom. And because, quite frankly, I like listening to you talk.” John fumbled his pen. Blackpool didn’t seem to notice. She tilted her head. “How’s your cough, by the way? I suppose I shouldn’t bother you. Talking might actually be a bad idea….oh god, I am rambling aren’t I?”

“I hadn’t noticed,” he said dryly.

“Right. Well. I’ll just, uhm.” She motioned away.

“I had something of a reputation when I was younger,” he said suddenly, not really wanting to tell but wanting her to leave even less. “Drugs. College,” he shrugged. “Nothing terribly shocking, but also not very legal. Used to get folk turning up at all hours on my doorstep, worn out or strung out or heartbroken. I’d find the right remedy in my bag of tricks to calm them down, get them talking.”

“A stoner psychologist?”

“Basically.” He leaned back and spread his hands. “The Doctor is in.”

- 1:17am

Boredom took over rather quickly. D-or-Dee, a youth with a partially shaved head and a pocket full of quarters went around feeding coins into the slots of the tiny mounted TVs, looking for one that still worked. For awhile, several of them crowded around to catch the weather reports - snow, lots of; we now return you to your regularly scheduled programming - but it quickly became apparent that the only thing on this late was going to be infomercials and horrible sitcom reruns. The tiny knot of people dispersed, and the youth settled for twiddling the radio dials, trying to find a signal in the squelch and static.

“How do you manage alone here at night?” Blackpool said, leaning over the front desk and swirling the last dregs of her instant coffee as he scratched at a newspaper with a pen. “This place is practically prehistoric. I keep waiting for a dinosaur to jump out of the ladies’ and come charging out to eat us.”

“Alas, it’s never been quite that interesting. But I manage, mostly.” John wiggled his pen at the desktop, heavily populated with familiar nightshift detritus: thin paperbacks (Vonnegut and Iain M. Banks stuff mostly), crosswords, at least three newspapers, and an mp3 player half-hidden under a pack of L&M cigarettes. A stack of monitors to his right showed crackly footage from security cameras in the station; two from the lounge, one in the hall by the lavs, and two outside at the front and back entrances. He gave them a cursory glance and saw nothing amiss. Then looked again, brows knitting together. That wasn’t entirely true. Something wasn’t quite right, but he couldn’t put his finger on it. He checked the doors again and did a head count, lost count, tried again, distracted by the way Masters was leaning over three chairs to talk to London, who was resolutely ignoring him. John felt the first twinge of a headache at his temples. What the hell was he missing?

And then Blackpool’s arm darted in front of him and grabbed the mp3 player and the cigarettes in one quick swoop that left him blinking.

“Oi, Quick Draw McGraw, give over!”

Blackpool shook the cigarette pack and gave him a disapproving glare. “Seriously?”

He scowled. She seemed to bring that out in him. “I’m old enough, miss, honest. I’ve got ID, I can prove it, even.”

“These can’t be doing your lungs any favors.”

“When did you turn into my mother?”

“Well, if you’re going to be like that I guess I’ll just have to take your toys away,” she said coolly, slipping them into her pocket.

John scoffed. “You really want to be stuck in here with a crotchety old bugger going off nicotine? Trust me, it won’t be pretty.”

“You ought to take better care of yourself, y’know.” The playfulness hadn’t gone, not entirely, but there was a genuine edge of concern.

John felt heat creep up his face and grumbled, fiddling with his hair. That inexplicable urge to tell her hit him again. Christ, he was pathetic. Was this all it took? A pretty face and a kind word, and he was ready to fall on his knees and confess. It was a sin anyway, wasn’t it? Suicide by inaction. Jesus. Get ahold of yourself for fuck’s sake.

Blackpool held up the mp3 player. “Got anything good in here?”

“Depends on your definition of good.”

Music warbled faintly from the earbuds as she shuffled through his playlist. “Bowie. Lots of Bowie. Miles Davis. Screaming Trees. And...Peter Andre?” She gave him a look that was just a hair’s breadth away from mocking.

“It got stuck in my head, ok? It was either download it or put a plastic spork in my ear.”

She laughed, properly laughed, round face all crinkled up, rocking on her elbows. Any indignance he might’ve felt fled immediately. He watched her laugh and felt a little of the malaise drain from his limbs.

Blackpool shook her head at him, eyes sparkling. “Well, that’s good to see.”

“What?”

“You. Smilin’.”

The corner of his mouth twitched. He hadn’t even realized.

She patted his hand. A fleeting touch, but enough to make his heart catch almost painfully. “It looks good on you,” she said.

“Oh, flattering an old man,” he said. “If you’re here for my many many riches, as clearly evidenced by my glamorous, high-paying position, I’m afraid I have bad news.”

“Shut up,” she smacked his shoulder lightly.

“I just thought you should be aware!” he carried on, blustering his way through the blush that wanted to creep up his cheeks again.

A sudden burst of static made the both of them jump. D-or-Dee cheered happily, having finally found a radio signal that wasn’t just weather reports or bad country music. Violin strings cut through the crackle and pop in a lilting swell. A guitar crawled in in response, sweet and slow as molasses. John recognized it, an old Fleetwood Mac tune from the Peter Green days.

Melvin, the old guy, was on his feet suddenly, tugging at his wife’s arm. Tilly cackled, called him a sentimental old goat. And then she went to him, smiling sweetly, hands clasped together, one arm on his shoulder. They revolved slowly, beaming at one another.

A few others joined them, Dave/Dan/Doug, the youngish fellow with spiky hair, offered his hand to Susan, a woman about John’s age who laughed musically and joked about breaking her hip, but went anyway. D-or-Dee snatched up London even as Masters was moving closer and twirled her away while the driver was left sneering. A cold little prickle crawled up the back of John’s neck as he locked eyes with the driver. He was going to be trouble. Before sun up, John was certain, he would be trouble.

Blackpool’s hand was on his again, her eyes locked mistily on the elderly couple. “Dance with me?” she asked suddenly.

He sputtered, half-laughing, an immediate refusal on his lips, but then she turned her head and he saw the tears in her eyes. He knew that look. It wasn’t wistfulness but hurt, like an old wound had suddenly reopened. John felt his heart perched on the edge of something he didn’t want to name, teetering, ready to fall. He could let it, knowing at once he’d give anything to take away whatever pain had filled her, and chastised himself for the foolishness.

As if he could. The plows would go out in the morning and she would be on another bus and that would be it. And anyway, he was old enough to be her father and not likely to see the last snows of the season melt. Nothing lasted, not ever. The kid turned the music up, and John felt it working in his chest. A little miracle, a little spark crackling away inside. Old and battered and still playing something sweet and strong enough to make him feel. Maybe that wasn’t all the music. Maybe.

Nothing lasted, but maybe it didn’t have to last to be worth it.

John squeezed her hand once and made for the door. The security monitors dragged his attention for a split second, but he kept moving. Whatever it was, it could wait another five minutes. Blackpool held her arms out as he rounded the desk. He hesitated, swallowing hard. People were watching. London looked at once hopelessly amused and somehow proud. She grinned at him and popped a double thumbs-up, giggling. The driver looked significantly less pleased. The man’s face had gone rat-like and sour, staring at them both with such utter contempt John could almost feel it on his skin, slippery and unpleasant like motor oil.

But Blackpool’s eyes were turned up to him, wide and dark and too full. You wave and you wave with your wide lovely eyes ran through his head with a kind of sick-sweet flush. He went to her. London pumped her fist discretely in triumph.

“You’re cold,” he said as she curled around his shoulder.

“I’m alright.” She took his left hand with her right. Should’ve felt odd. Probably. It didn’t. She led and he followed, trying to pretend he was more than a gangly wreck of limbs and mad silver hair.

She settled against him, fingers worrying over the ring on his hand. “I hope I’m not,” she paused, pressed her face to his jacket, tried to start again. “I dunno, overstepping or something. I don’t want you to think I’m trying to put the mack on a married man.”

His eyebrows flew up. “You’re putting the mack on me now, are you?”

“Shut up,” she said, but there was a chuckle in it.

“I’m not married anymore. It’s sentiment, I suppose. Maybe just habit by now. Just never taken it off.”

She looked up at him, searching his face as if looking for the answer to something she didn’t quite want to ask. She seemed to find it. He could guess; a ghost of that same hurt he’d seen in her face. “I’m sorry,” she said.

John’s mouth went painfully dry. “You too, eh?” he asked.

She nodded. “We weren’t married,” she said, so quiet he could just barely hear her over the music. “But he was going to propose.”

“I’m so sorry.”

Her breath hitched, and she swayed a little in his arms, head down low on his shoulder. John turned them slowly, putting his back to the room, giving her what little privacy he could. He stared out the window. The snow was coming down harder, big fat snowballs of the stuff forming new drifts in the track he had cleared. The sky outside was a dull, muddied pink, the snow drifts colored orange in the streetlights. Blackpool wept discreetly, not making a sound, but he felt tears soak through his hoodie to his t-shirt, and wondered that even those felt cold. He pressed his hand into the small of her back, thumb rubbing absently against her spine, and he tucked the top of her head under his chin. She smelled faintly of lilac soap and deep, bitter chocolate.

“Thank you,” she said as the song ended.

“What for?”

“For being kind.” She looked up at him again, and he watched the last of her tears spill down her cheeks. “That’s rarer than it ought to be.”

A commercial for Thompson’s Water Seal replaced Peter Green, and the other pairs drifted apart. John barely noticed. Her eyes skimmed down over his face, pausing long enough at his lips to make his heart beat faster. She couldn’t possibly...

A cracking from outside made his head snap up, and John watched as a heavy branch bowed over the power lines, cracking and popping. He swore, dropping his hand to his belt where his maglite hung, just as the branch gave way and fell.

In the split second before the darkness descended, John finally registered what had been wrong with the cctv feed. As light as it was outside, even at this hour, the inside of the station was brighter, and he saw himself reflected in the plate glass of the sliding doors. Six feet of wiry thin Scot. Face a little too long, a little too drawn now, but eyes as bright and cold as the night outside. His hands hovered in midair, clasping nothingness.

Of the woman in his arms, there was no sign. Blackpool had no reflection.

#whouffaldi #twelve x clara #doctor who fanfiction #twelfth doctor #clara oswald #vamp!clara #bc I haven't actually gotten to do a romance/horror au ever #let me live

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patchworktail · 7 years ago

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ITS 4:30 AM AND I DONT FEEL LIKE SLEEPING so I’m gonna do this meme that i got tagged for twiCE and totally forgot to do til now!!!! (i had 2 dig through your blogs to find them omg)

ANYWAY i was tagged by both @mooitstimdrake and @cynessie (I MISS U BOTH BTW ❤)

RULES: Share 11 facts about yourself, answer 11 questions provided by the tagger, tag 11 awesome people and leave 11 questions for them to answer!

(I’m gonna skip tagging people/asking 11 questions - 1) because I’m lazy 2) because a lot of people who I would tag either have already been tagged or woN’T DO IT and 3) I have to answer two sets of 11 questions anyway so I’ll let one of those sets take the place of my 11 questions!!)

11 Facts

I was supposed to leave to move into my college 3 days ago but since my college is in Savannah they pushed off move-in/orientation for a weEK BECAUSE OF HURRICANE IRMA AND I’M STILL UPSET/DISAPPOINTED

That being said I’m about to start as a college freshman at art school, planning on majoring in animation! :D

I binged all of Buzzfeed Unsolved in like 2 days and I fuckin LOVE IT

Also BNHA is like my current main obsession???? I fell in love w that anime and uhhhh I’d Die For My Kids

I almost never use skype anymore - I’m always on Discord now (mutuals may add me just message me if you want my tag :3c)

I loooove creating OCs and my main OC is a forest elf named Rally and he’s precious and I LOVE HIM AND COULD TALK ABOUT HIM FOR HOURS (also my best friend @/harpxer and I have a huge ongoing rp with him and her mountain elf oc, Kahl!! they’re really gay)

Hmmm fun fact I guess I’ve been involved with internet communities since I was 10 years old and I made my very first internet friend when I was 10 and we’re still great friends and talk p much every day to this day (hi @/fiishr)

I want a tattoo super bad but idk what I’d geT

I worked at a jewelry engraving stand at an amusement park this summer and one night I accidentally gave myself a 1st degree burn on my finger from the hot glue gun and it hurt So Bad

I had my graduation party this July and it was really fun but the best part was when 14 of us played this giant game of spoons and it got really intense, made worse by people randomly screaming during it, and then we collectively decided to blast hardcore rap music from the speakers and Let Me Tell You i have not been involved in a more stressful card game in my LIFE

I’ll always always always fall for the hero/happy character/protagonist basically....idk what it is about me but I’m so Predictable...I love cute optimistic brave characters who just wanna do Right.....I don’t cARE IF PEOPLE THINK THEY’RE BORING I THINK THEY’RE PERFECT AND AMAZIGN AND I LOVE THEM

AS FOR AN EXTRA 12TH FACT ABOUT ME AS U CAN SEE I WRITE WAY TOO MUCH AND ALSO I’M THE BIGGEST OVERSHARER E V E R IT’S SO BAD SOMEONE STOP ME

ANYWAY ONTO THE QUESTIONS :3c

@mooitstimdrake‘s Questions:

If you were to make a new blog dedicated to one single thing (fandom, hobby/activity, etc) what would it be? Honestly, right at the moment probably BNHA!!!! it’s legit my most recent big obsession and I love it?? so much???

If you could have any kind of animal as a pet, what would you have? A RACCOON!!!!!!!!!!!!! I LOVE THEM SOSOSOSOSOS MUCH and some people actually do have them as pets! They can be difficult though but WORTH IT

Who was your favorite teacher and why were they your favorite? OH BOY......I’m gonna say it’s a tie between my AP studio art teacher and my AP US government teacher from this past year, my senior year! My AP art teacher because our class was super tiny, 12 kids, and it really felt like a family?? She was a-okay with letting us all goof around and say weird shit, she was really chill and funny and like. part teacher, part friend, which was always nice. As for my AP gov teacher, he was SO. FUCKING. FUNNY. OH MAN. NOT EVEN ON PURPOSE he just like? put up with SO MUCH? we had some real character kids in that class and my teacher’s reactions were HILARIOUS. he had a sarcastic streak too so his responses were equally as funny when someone did something weird. He would say the funniest stuff just ask @/harpxer I would tell her so many stories from that class sohboshrb. Aside from the humor that class was really interesting, and he’s a really good, invested teacher - he wanted us to learn, he’s super passionate about government and history, and he always started off each class with 2 current events which was really nice and helped me learn more about things happening in the world too!!! overall that was like my fav non-art class I’ve ever taken!!!!

What’s your guilty pleasure (and I’m challenging you not to say some kind of food)? HMMMMM. Honestly I’m gonna go ahead and say really cheesy or lame movies/shows (like, Disney channel movies, dumb shows - like the one summer I watched all of Glee LOL, stuff like that). Like yeah I know 90% of it is terRIBLE but it’s still amusing/lighthearted stuff that makes me happy KLSDJVLSDHB

Favorite pizza topping? EXTRA CHEESE IF THAT COUNTS, if not then pepperoni!!

What’s the last thing you bought (that wasn’t food)? I’ve actually been buying a lot the past few weeks in prep for college/spending a little money for ONCE since I worked all summer. I got a bunch of boring stuff but the things I’m most excited about are: two posters I got for my dorm (The Office is one and one is Lord Huron), a giant wall tapestry (it’s Up themed!!!), tWO BNHA/POKEMON CHARMS THAT CAME TODAY AND EVERY TIME I LOOK AT THEM I START CRYING BC THEYRE SO CUTE, and oh my GOD I BOUGHT THIS GIANT PILLOW FROM TARGET AND IT IS THE SINGLE SOFTEST THING I’VE EVER FELT AND IT’S HUGE AND IT IMMEDIATELY BECAME MY #1 COMFORT OBJECT AND TOP FIVE FAV THINGS IVE EVER BOUGHT!!!!!! I guess MOST recently though I just bought Clip Studio Paint online today (art program) since it’s on sale for 50% off and I’ve heard great things about it!

What upcoming movies/tv shows are you looking forward to? UHHHHH as for movies... justice league part 1, the incredibles 2, kingsman 2, the neW POKEMON MOVIE I CHOOSE YOU, probably a lot more I can’t remember rn. AS FOR SHOWS HMMM I’m...excited for the next season of the good place and izombie, and oh I’m excited for the punisher netflix show!! and the next season of voltron of COURSE!!! and next season of stranger things!! probably more I’m forgetting too tbh

Any recommendations (this could be anything just throw your best pitch at me)? JFISDJKLBJ I DON’T KNOW OMG tbh rachel you watch a lot of the same things I do already LMAOOO

What’s your favorite thing to wear that you own? OH FUCK I DUNNO HMMM I really like wearing my various leggings and scarves, but as like a Single Item....I like wearing....uhhhh I have this giANT sweater like it’s WAY too big for me but it’s so COMFY and I love it. I also love wearing my Star Labs sweatshirt bc it’s soft and comfortable

What was your first pet? my cat!!! we took her in as a stray kitten living in our backyard when I was like. 2 or 3 and so we’ve basically had her my whole life!!

If you could learn any language, what would it be? UHHHHHH honestly probably spanish - I took it 4 straight years and was okay at it in class but one year went by with me not taking it and I forgot everything LOOOL I’m...bad....at languages....

@cynessie‘s Questions:

Where is the coolest place you’ve ever been? I haven’t been many cool places :( I guess the coolest isssss I dunno it depends? Lake George is where I go on vacation every year, I LOVE NYC, I love Savannah too and it’s where I’m gonna be for college so?? ?? ? ? I’VE NEVER BEEN OUT OF THE COUNTRY AND I’M SAD BUT I’M POOR AND CAN’T AFFORD IT

What was the first thing you remember wanting to be when you grew up? veterinarian!!

Look to your right. What do you see? a dirty plate on my desk, my bed just past that, and my CHARMS THAT CAME TODAY THAT ARE SO CUTE I CRY EVERY TIME I SEE THEM

What are you procrastinating on? ajkldjboidj lik e 4 art commissions,,,, and 7 MAP parts,,,, and my pre-work for 2 of my classes,,,,,,,and cleaning my room,,,, and sending thank-you notes to relatives,,, SOMEONE KICK MY ASS AND MAKE ME DO SHIT

Which family member are you closest too and what is their name? UHHHH.... I guess my younger brother Luke? or maybe my mom? I’m not on bad terms with anyone though, I love both my older brothers too and we all have a good sibling relationship I just talk more with my younger bro I think - second closest would be with my second older brother Connor!

What’s the last song you listened to? I’m listening to Ultralife by Oh Wonder right now :3c I’ve been on a huUUGE Oh Wonder kick lately!!

What do you generally carry in your bag/pockets when you go out? my wallet (w my license and money and debit card and all), travel size lotion, phone, and chap stick!!

What is one thing you are excited for? FINALLY GETTING TO COLLEGE NEXT WEEK AND STARTING CLASSES FJIODFHINBDFHBNSBO

Do you believe in ghosts? I’m gonna hesitantly say YES but I’m not 100% convinced I don’t think

What is a skill you want to learn? MAYBE THIS IS WEIRD but I think learning how to act would be kinda neat. On a more realistic note I wish I could learn to exercise without dying

Tell me a joke. I’M BAD AT JOKES DON’T DO THIS TO ME NESSIE!!!!!!!!!!!!!

SO YEAH THAT’S ALL FOLKS it’s 5am now...Nice..... :’) I love my ability to stay up obscenely late while also getting Nothing Done JLSDNVDHAGHVDLAK

#about me #my life #hell ya i havent done one of these in a while but it was FUN #sorry for not tagging anyone......im lazy.............

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augcst · 8 years ago

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unusual asks: do them all i believe in you

WHO DID THIS but lowkey thanks bc this is what i wanted read below if you wanna know things about me or *cough* datemeimeanwhta *cough*

Spotify, SoundCloud, or Pandora? Spotify all the wayyy

Is your room messy or clean?Actually clean bc I just cleaned it out and everything is organized

What color are your eyes?Brown af

Do you like your name? why?I do and its bc its aestetically pleasing to look at for me? Like Autumn is just really nice to look at u kno

What is your relationship status?single and mentally unstable; thotumn

Describe your personality in 3 words or lesstired, sometimes creative

What color hair do you have?dark brown with lighter brown streaks

What kind of car do you drive? color?Nissan Versa Note, sky blue

Where do you shop?For clothes: H&M and target, my sister’s closet

How would you describe your style?attempted gay athletic

Favorite social media accountInstagram or this one

What size bed do you have?Double or queen... its bigger than a twin but not a king lol

Any siblings?Biological: 9, Step: 2, Adopted: 2 (all sisters)

If you can live anywhere in the world where would it be? why?New Zealand because it’s so gorgeous, or the gay island with my favorite people ive ever met @enbykaradanvers and @thegrimllama

Favorite snapchat filter?The one that makes your nose smaller and your face thinner

Favorite makeup brand(s)I use drug store mostly, Milani is INCREDIBLE, but expensive: highligher - nars, primer - too faced, stila, makeup forever

How many times a week do you shower?Usually every other day unless im going through a particularly bad depression spout.

Favorite tv show?All-time: New Girl, The Office, Parks and Rec, Grey’sCurrent: Supergirl

Shoe size?.....size 11

How tall are you?5′4″ish

Sandals or sneakers?SNEAKERS ALWAYS

Do you go to the gym?not really

Describe your dream datestargazing in a remote, low-lit area so the stars are super bright with philosophical discussions

How much money do you have in your wallet at the moment?$178 not including like gift cards and stuff

What color socks are you wearing?none right now

How many pillows do you sleep with?I have to have one for my head, one to hug, and one on the other side so i feel secure lmao but I have 7 full pillows on my bed rn

Do you have a job? what do you do?Not currently as I’m about to go through a really tough semester, but I was a nanny

How many friends do you have?I have 3/4 best friends but a really good amount of friend friends

Whats the worst thing you have ever done?watched the Bee movie

Whats your favorite candle scent?peach or evergreen

3 favorite boy namesI have 3 gender neutral names: Journey, River and Eowyn

3 favorite girl namessame as above plus annie

Favorite actor?um... *looks at smudged writing on hand* Benadryl *squints* Cucumber

Favorite actress?Melissa Benoist or Katie McGrath atm

Who is your celebrity crush?Same as above

Favorite movie?Hidden Figures is SO GOOD YALL YOU GOTTA SEE IT

Do you read a lot? whats your favorite book?I don’t because I have issues with concentrating unless i’m interested and it’s dead quiet. But my favorite book is Milk&Honey by Rupi Kaur CALL ME BASIC I KNOW I AM but i have a lot of poetry books i enjoy

Money or brains?Brains

Do you have a nickname? what is it?Yes, Audi or Thotumn or Small Chip as coined by @thegrimllama and Lil Sis/sib as coined by @enbykaradanvers

How many times have you been to the hospital?For myself, 4 times for serious things. 1) Kidney infection as an infant, 2) Two nose bleeds that wouldn’t stop 3) Severe stomach pain 4) Broken ankle

Top 10 favorite songsin no particular order:-This Girl (Kungs Vs. Cookin’ On 3 Burners)-Wow by Beck-Guillotine by Jon Bellion-False Alarm by Matoma-Death of a Bachelor by Panic! at the Disco-Starving by Hailee Steinfeld-Take On Me by Aha-Send My Love (To Your New Lover) by Adele-That’s My Girl by 5H-6 Inch by Beyonce

Do you take any medications daily?Too many

What is your skin type? (oily, dry, etc)Definitely combination

What is your biggest fear?Shallow: Heights; Deep: Being Gaslighted

How many kids do you want?I want a few although im not sure how many, but never an only child.

Whats your go to hair style?Messy pony or bun

What type of house do you live in? (big, small, etc)Average for a family, like 4 bedroom, 3 stories, 3 baths.

who is your role model?@enbykaradanvers and @thegrimllama and my mom

What was the last compliment you received?(regarding a nude I thought was awful) @thegrimllama : “HOLY SHIT IT WORKS THOUGH, IM FOR REAL THOUGH SEND IT TO EVERYONE”

What was the last text you sent?“IM ONLY HALFWAY THROUGH”

Wow old were you when you found out santa wasn’t real?I still believe in santa dont ARGUE WITH ME

What is your dream car?One with bluetooth music, leather seats, seatwarmers and a sun roof and adequate room in the baCK AKA MY CAR I DESTROYED LAST YEAR I CRY

Opinion on smoking?not for me, please dont smoke cigs around me either

Do you go to college?Yep, getting my associates this semester then transferring

What is your dream job?a job that works with psychology and children. maybe autistic children

Would you rather live in rural areas or the suburbs?Suburbs. I like the idea of a city, but I hate the crowdedness, but i like living close enough to like a target and H&M and stuff

Do you take shampoo and conditioner bottles from hotels?nah, if anything I use them while im there

Do you have freckles?not really, just like random spots all over my body but not like the cute freckles lmao

Do you smile for pictures?now I do, i went through a period where I didnt though

How many pictures do you have on your phone?17k

Have you ever peed in the woods?yes, when I was little and my family was actually active and hiked lmao

Do you still watch cartoons?sometimes, my little sister watches them and sometimes they’re on. But I do watch Steven Universe and Spongebob when they’re on lmao

Do you prefer chicken nuggets from Wendy’s or McDonalds?HOW ABOUT CHICK FIL A

Favorite dipping sauce?Ranch probably

What do you wear to bed?usually a tee and underwear

Have you ever won a spelling bee?I think I vaguely remember winning when I was in elementary but I honestly cant say for sure

What are your hobbies?Art and music and studyblring and im trying to get into like editing digital stuff and i also like writing when I have the spoons

Can you draw?yeah, I have an art tag somewhere. You can find it on my page in my about me i think

Do you play an instrument?the guitar, I used to play viola and piano though

What was the last concert you saw?Twenty One Pilots at Red Rocks i think?

Tea or coffee?hot chocolate

Starbucks or Dunkin Donuts?starbucks

Do you want to get married?yes

What is your crush’s first and last initial?JH, but it’s like an inactive crush? But like other than that I dont have any

Are you going to change your last name when you get married?Probably

What color looks best on you?Orange or navy blue probably

Do you miss anyone right now?@enbykaradanvers bc they WENT TO SLEEP EARLY LIKE A HEALTHY PERSON although im really proud of them bc i care and love them and i want them to be well rested for work so they have a highkey good day

Do you sleep with your door open or closed?CLOSED AF

Do you believe in ghosts?Umm yes but not in the conventional way. lmk if anyone wants to know more lmao

What is your biggest pet peeve?I have so many but top ones are chewing with your mouth open and velvety textures

Last person you called?@enbykaradanvers and @thegrimllama

Favorite ice cream flavor?Mint choclate chip

Regular oreos or golden oreos?I like the cookie part of regular ones but the whole of golden ones so u choose

Chocolate or rainbow sprinkles?i dont like sprikles but make it gay so rainbow

What shirt are you wearing?my fave long sleeve tee, it was my dad’s at one point

What is your phone background?kara danvers with a pink background and a pixelly thought bubble that says “why are you on my phone”

Are you outgoing or shy?a mix. depends on my spoons tbh

Do you like it when people play with your hair?if they do it gently bc i highkey have a really sensitive scalp

Do you like your neighbors?yeah, one of my best friends lives on the left and a nice family lives on the right

Do you wash your face? at night? in the morning?morning and night... but like lazily. Literally water in the morning and a makeup wipe or water at night

Have you ever been high?from prescription drugs but like that were meant for me lol

Have you ever been drunk?never

Last thing you ate?sauteed mushrooms

Favorite lyrics right now"theres not enough wind in oklahoma to blow this old house to the ground” or something like that

Summer or winter?summer, but i dont hate winter

Day or night?night

Dark, milk, or white chocolate?milk

Favorite month?May

What is your zodiac signLeo

Who was the last person you cried in front of?@thegrimllama bc i was having a bad night and she skyped me until I fell asleep

#Thanks i think #this took me literally an hour #lmk if u wanna date me ok #Anonymous

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palussomninovel · 5 years ago

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Canto IV

In the Misty Hills Lies a Forgotten Tale by Dwalin

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[A letter from William Montagu, an accountant and cambist, to his husband Jonathan Vesey, dated 10th October 1724. A note is attached: Harriet, look at this. I think this letter was never sent? The seal was intact (Never fear, I opened it with utmost care), and it was tucked into a daybook from the old collection. Nothing interesting other than this, just accounts and payments. -Hazel x]

My Dearest Jonathan,

Lord Mallory is such a scrawny and odious man who boasts the most tremendous Hapsburg jaw, one might think they were in the presence of the Emperor himself. At first glance I thought him squat, but upon standing he unfolds himself like a spider and I realised it was his posture, the twisted grimace of a burdened man, that made him seem to metamorphosize before my eyes. His macilent frame towers over me, and as you know I am not a small man. Overall my first impression was one I would not like to repeat again, and so I have taken to eating meals in my salon. Presumably, this also suits my Lord, for he has not once complained about the arrangement.

His son, Oscar, is a scraggy boy of twelve and by all accounts a much more likable fellow than his father, but I worry that the expectations of his family weigh heavily upon him. He is dour for his age. Where other boys might be spirited and playful, he is sullen and withdrawn. His father has him reading all day about tombs. Tombs! Really, what kind of man could even suck all the youthful joy out of a book about crypts and treasures, and yet the boy reads it as though it were the strictest punishment, presenting what he has learned every night to his father in a voice as cool as slate. I worry for his future and hope for his sake that he takes more after his mother.

The mansion itself is a grand and foreboding place, I cannot stress enough just how much of it there is. Every time I think I have reached the end of a corridor, two more branch off from it like some sort of daemonic junction. Even the corners have corners! I tried once to count the windows from the outside, and could not. Even counting the windows of a single floor got me all confused, as my bedroom is on a corner, and yet I could not see the lamp I left in the window from any outside angle! The word mansion barely does justice to this vast and looming palace, it is more like a castle than a mere country house, what with these turreted towers and thick, basalt walls.

The Mallory's are the best in their line of work. The cryptography of Mallory the elder, Gods rest his soul, was renowned. Not a single noble of note was buried without a Mallory contraption in his final place of rest. I must admit, I was surprised to hear that the current Lord Mallory was not of the same level of accomplishment, but having now met him I can understand why. Something has taken root in this man's mind, his worldview has narrowed and he has time only for his marsh, his mines and his growing religious fervour. He is training his son, however, and the boy does at least show a shining potential. I think it would help him to get away from the manor, and study in some other part of the world, where he can enjoy the fame his name grants him and forget about the building and maintaining of catacombs for a while.

My work here is fairly straightforward, though by the gods there is enough of it. I feel like these accounts have never been looked at, there is work here that will last me for months. But luckily, Mallory is willing to pay. What he could be needing with all this equipment however, I haven't the faintest idea. The mansion is sprawling enough, and I cannot see any sign of new construction nor indeed any workers who might carry it out. Apart from myself, the Lord, the young master and a few servants the place is empty. And yet, day after day carts of metal and mortar are delivered and deposited somewhere, I do not know where. I just tally the books, and count my money.

The Romans called this place Palus Sulis, the swamp-land of Sulis, goddess of the water, as many of the streams and rivers which nourished the local villages came down from the peaks of this rocky haven. There was even a small temple, the ruins of which you can see in the north garden. In modern times, this has been corrupted into Palus Somni, for reasons unknown but when I mentioned it to Lord Mallory he just gave me a rasping laugh and said "Even goddesses need to sleep, Montagu."

The water here is thermal, naturally heated from deep beneath the stone which has led to many a pleasant hot bath, despite being accompanied by the pungent smell of brimstone. I was told by one of the servants that the spring waters, when meeting the porous earth of the marshland, creates a rather beneficial epsom salt, pinkish in colour from the iron deposits and very good for sore muscles and as a medicinal base. I have enclosed some for your satisfaction, as I know how much your knees pain you.

Everything here smells of rust and sulphur and peat, and I miss you and your good company. I miss your smiles, and your strong arms around my shoulders. I know you would have something insightful to say about all this, and I await your response with excessive eagerness, as one might who is cursed to stay in the middle of nowhere with no decent conversation in sight in the long months ahead.

Ever yours, my love,

William

----

[Harriet – I found another letter! It was in the same book. I know, I know – I’m not the most observant cat in the closet but at least I found it before it got filed away forever. Poor William though, it looks like none of them ever got sent. I’ll have another look through the daybooks and send any more correspondence your way for cataloguing. H x]

19th October 1724.

The strangest thing, my love. The most curious incident happened this morning, and I need to get my thoughts down on paper because if I leave them buzzing around my head I fear I shall go mad.

Forgive me for writing again so soon but I couldn’t wait another moment, I had to share with you my thoughts. Hopefully you will receive this alongside the other letter, as the postal service here is scarce. Lord Mallory’s assistant took my letter for posting but said that it may be a week or two before the postwoman comes (she is a shepherdess, you know – she takes letters between the villages as she moves her flock for grazing, how peculiar!)

I had skipped dinner last night, and sorely regretted it later. I thought I knew my way to the kitchens by now, but I must have taken a wrong turn in this damnable maze. Surely, all stairs should lead to the ground floor, I thought, but it was impossible to tell without windows where the earth began and the sky ended. The air grew increasingly stuffier as I made the trek down staircase after staircase, each step narrower than the last before realising that this was a fool’s errand. I should have been content with the fruit plate up in my room. I turned to go back up the way I came and – oh! – when I put my fingers upon the wall it was damp, and there was a strong smell of rust. Where I had touched the wall - now, please suspend your disbelief for a moment my dearest - it had started bleeding! Fresh clots of bright red blood oozed out from the mortar and painted my hand a brilliant crimson. I raised my torch to see only red. The hall behind me, and in front, was a sickly mess of bloody sinew where there should have been mortar. I am ashamed now to admit that I ran like the devil and went to bed, for what remained of the night, hungry and sleepless. I don’t know how my feet found their way up, some instinct to avoid the visceral and seek the safety of the familiar was at work in my brain.

Jonathan, I think this building is haunted.

By what, I cannot say. Perhaps it is merely channelling the restless spirit of Mallory and his mad obsession. He has found some kind of new material, he claims. A new species of metal that he calls ‘pearl iron’. It doesn’t act like any normal metal that you might be familiar with, more like quicksilver when warmed and mother of pearl when cool. Its metallic radiance is corroded with speckles of opalescent shimmer, and overall it is a bright and vivid crimson.

“Listen closely, Montagu.” Mallory said to me over dinner today, as he slid a chunk of the substance over the table towards me. “Listen tight and listen fast, for you understand nothing – Nothing! – you hear, Montagu? Nothing!”

I could only nod my head at this, for it was true – I knew nothing of his ramblings. I was tired from the previous night abroad and wanted only to finish my meal in peace.

“Touch it.”

“Touch it, my lord?”

“Touch the damn stone, Montagu, or I shall throw it.”

(Such charm you would never find in the city!)

I put my hand upon the chunk of ore, expecting it to be cool and smooth beneath my palm. But to my surprise, it was warm! Warm and vibrating, like the heart of some quivering, noble creature. When I took my hand away, it left streaks of red upon it, just like in the basement.

I saw his laugh before I heard it, his face splitting in half with a wolfish grin. Too many teeth and too little empathy.

“See now? This house is as alive as this rock, and no more.”

I felt my face burning with realisation as I watched a rusty droplet trickle down and stain my cuff. The workers were hollowing out this very same ore from beneath the mansion itself. It was pearl iron I had seen between the cracks in the walls. I have no idea how Mallory found out about my night-time jaunt but I suppose in a place like this, even the walls have eyes.

I stand by what I said however. This place, if not haunted, is cursed.

Ever yours,

William

---

[A note is tacked on to the back of the letter, in a clear and spidery hand:

Pearl iron - golem coagulate. Can find it in the undercroft?]

---

[The next note is written on modern paper in the same handwriting.]

I checked the catacombs, it took me a while to find any but it was there. None in the undercroft, William Montagu’s night-time wanderings must have taken him deeper than he realised. It’s stubborn stuff, I had to bathe twice before my skin returned to normal, and even then the smell still lingers. I shall have to take some to the engineer and see what she makes of it, what properties it could have. To think that I of all people could stumble into such a mess! I’ll have to be more careful. From now on, I’m going to start keeping a more detailed log of this discovery. I already have a good place I can hide it. Rookery.

I want to stop and put these letters down. Forget I ever saw anything. But here I stand, feet planted firmly on the mossy earth, and wonder; might the secrets we have been pining for be so very near us, so close beneath us that I could touch them, if only I reached out?

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#palus somni #chapter #webnovel #webseries #canto

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prinnyj1985-blog · 7 years ago

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My so called life .... here's to blog therapy!!!!

So people have said for a long time that writing down your thought and feelings is a good way to deal and overcome you're deepest darkest demons. I am generally a happy and content person, but one thing has always haunted me in my life. It has always niggled away at me, so in my quiet moments, when I'm by myself, it rears its ugly head and gets my mind ticking over... like an over obsessed moron. Basically I have no life!

But first....the basics about me.....

I'm 32, female, single and socially secluded.

I work full time in a school, training to be a teacher. I throw myself into my work to avoid the seriously lame truth of my life.... no man, few friends, no kids, I still live at home with my parents and I have a series of failed and laughable dating experiences and short term relationships that go no where but under!! So yeah I'm totally living the dream 🤔😏.

I have few hobbies, but I am a mega fan of the gym!!!! So, when I'm not in work I'll be there, ploughing away to destress. I'm working on getting a semi decent body. Then I can stare at in the mirror, think to myself “meh it will do!” Just to cover it over and devour loads of sweet treats to award myself for all the hard work 😓

So I'm basically a workaholic, chubby, spinster who lives with her parents and has the smallest circle of friends. I also have a major sweet tooth and no real self restraint!

It never used to be like this though. Back in the day, I worked because I had to, just to get by. I partied hard, drank too much and jumped from relationship to relationship, like they were hot potatoes!

Surrounded by loads of friends i would be out all the time, in the hype of social activity. My life was one big free for all. But that all came crashing down once I hit an age where hangovers lasted over three days and i reached a weight that only whales would be jealous of.

I was determined to start a new healthy lifestyle which meant giving up the booze and the silly lifestyle. It was time for me to grow up, get a career, a hot body and settled down, I decided. Well, with the party lifestyle went the party friends, with the booze went the confidence (but also the weight) without the friends and the social escapades there were no dating experiences or array of male suitors.

So here I am, 32 with a career and four and a half stone lighter... in need of rebuilding my life again. Whoever thought that at this age you would need to start over. As a kid I always thought by now I'd b married, have kids, be really successful, in my own home and life would be bliss, but how wrong I was.

It's time to take a step back and find out who I really am as a person. I've lost my identity somewhere and I need to renengage with myself. Find out what my hobbies are, what makes me happy, where I want to be and who I want to be with. I need to build new friendships and discover new ways of meeting and dating men. It seems like a long and scary journey, but I guess that's what being an adult is about.

My first major task is to conquer my fear and confidence issues around my teaching abilities. Iv held myself back for so many years because I never believed in myself. But times are changing and I muscled up the courage to apply for univeristy to complete my PGCE. I still can't believe that I'm going back as a mature student to have another shot at the student life. Now don't get me wrong I won't be living it up at freshers week or streaking round the halls of residence, but I will be breaking my reclusive nature and preforming some form of socialisation and I'm finally following my career dream.

Iv kind of mapped out a ten year plan, nothing like the one when I was a kid, this one is definitely more doable. So I want my qualification finished and to be working as a fully fledged teacher, have an okish body that I don't mind putting into a bikini every year on a nice sunny beach, some kind of male in my life that is committed (on some kind of level)...I would preferably like to be in love or married, but like I said I need to keep it realistic ha.

The possibility of children would be nice as I will be 42 in ten years...cringe!! I really want to travelling too I love animals, especially elephant so maybe some kind of safari...oh and Paris has always been so intriguing to me, so yeah I need to experience more of the world, for sure. My own home, somewhere to come home to, flip my shoes off, put my feet up and relax. My own space. My haven.

I think I need to find my hobbies too, try out at least three new things every couple of years, I enjoy writing so this might become a regular thing....you never know.

So that's my darkest demon, that plays tricks with my head and has me wondering what the future is going to hold. But I'm not going to leave the decision to chance or hope or even fate. I'm going to grab the bull by both horns and get my life back on track, so I feel like I have meaning and purpose and love for life again.

I will make regular updates on the ups and downs of my journey, so keep checking back (if you have any interest.)

I'm sure there will be laughter and tears on the way, but here's to the start of the rest of my life....wish me luck xxxxx

#my life #blog #singlegirl #my future #blog therapy #my first blog #am i the only one?#am i alone #wish me luck

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gravetells · 8 years ago

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The Negotiator by Avery Flynn #BookReview #excerpt

*** This review is SPOILER-FREE! Read on with confidence! ***

“You’re certifiable.” He had to be. A fake engagement to one of the most eligible bachelors in Harbor City so he could avoid his mom’s matchmaking attempts? Now that was an adventure to write home about. Not that she could because of…all the reasons in the world. It was hard to come up with a specific one when he was standing so close, smelling so good, and looking so much better than even the sexiest paparazzi photo

The Negotiator is a riotous adventure of steamy sex, witty comebacks, and sharp characters, with unexpected hilarity and heart. So, basically, an Avery Flynn romance. This lady never disappoints. From private detectives to special ops teams to billionaire businessmen, her heroes all have one thing in common: I want to lick them right through my reader. I won’t, mind you. *shifty eyes* That streak on my screen is the dog’s doing… Anyway, if snarky repartee and classy fixtures is your bag, The Negotiator has it aplenty.

By the time he’d gotten the zipper all the way down, his entire body was hard and demanding attention. A skinny river of her creamy flesh lay exposed to his hungry gaze where the zipper lay open. He caught a flash of her bra’s bright blue color and a dusting of pale peach freckles along her spine that led his attention lower to the initial rise of her completely bare and succulent ass. “Why, Clover Lee.” He glided a finger across the swell of one cheek. “I’m shocked at your brazenness.” “Liar,”she said, turning her head to look back at him as she wiggled her ass at him like a red flag at a bull. “If anything, you’re totally turned on by it. The next time we go out you’ll wonder the entire time if I’m wearing any panties.” She was right and, no doubt, she knew it. Fuck, he was already going through every moment he’d seen her before and wondering if she’d been wearing underwear then. It was blissful torment, but nothing compared to having the woman ready, wanting, and half dressed in the middle of his bed. “Guess that just means I’ll always have to check before we go out.”

Holy smoking hotness. These two are combustible.

His fingers clamped around her wrist and he spun her around before half propelling, half carrying her to the floor-to-ceiling window overlooking the city and pressed her palms flat against it. “Exhibitionist much?” she asked, her heartbeat racing as she leaned forward and let her hard nipples brush against the cool glass. “I don’t care about who can see us, but I want to see it all while I’m inside you.” He stood behind her, the almost overwhelming heat from his body seeping into hers. “I want you to have the whole vast world in your sights when you come again, squeezing my dick and calling my name.”

The Negotiator is a delightfully sexy romp that has all the right elements to charm and seduce and sweep you right into the romance. Sawyer and Clover are an unlikely pairing that click and contrast in the best possible ways. The settings and supporting characters infuse couture and tension and warmth and a touchstone of home without feeling overbearing or boring. I devoured this book in less than a day, and it wasn’t even on my review list!

The Negotiator is a delightfully sexy romp and a #RecommendedRead! @averyflynn @entangledpub Click To Tweet

Treat yourself to an easy read that will have you laughing and sympathizing and wanting to reach through your reader to give the characters a big ole hug. The Negotiator is a GraveTells Recommended Read!