#literally the most miserable bastard alive how have they not beat him to death with rocks yet

[spineless-lobster]

FUCK thersites me and my homies HATE thersites

[nukyster-blog]

Changing Course Chapter 28)Broken

.-.-.

Utstott grew rapidly. For the first few days, Ivar managed to hide the raven chick inside the pocket of his tunic. But now that the hatchling received proper food and care, the little thing grew in size and had a massive opinion; it no longer allowed Ivar to shove him into his pocket. It pecked and cawed every time Ivar’s fingers brushed over the hem of his tunic, puffing up his humble amount of feathers. 

“Fine, be stomped to death, scrawny excuse for a chicken!”, Ivar badmouthed Utstott, who’d fiercely dug his beak into Ivar’s thumb. The little shit managed to draw blood and received an aggravated wave from Ivar. Utstott tumbled down onto his tiny arse and cawed disapprovingly.

Ivar threw a meaningful glance at Piglet, who failed miserably at  keeping her snigger hidden. 

The Giant had unchained Ivar shortly  before, and Ivar had barely managed to hide the hatchling underneath a pile of hay, coughing  excessively loud to mask the sound of Utstott’s caws of disapproval.  

It had earned Ivar two iron fists smashing in between his shoulder blades, along with a shove towards the door; the Giant didn’t want him slacking. 

“You take care of that pain in the ass”, Ivar half ordered, half asked Piglet. The slave maiden made a deep bow as an answer and used her broom to sweep Utstott to the furthest corner of the shed. 

“Make sure the calves don’t crush him”, Ivar added before crawling out of the doorway. 

His duty still remained the same, scrubbing the staircase. It was the most pointless and exhausting task possible; for every step he mopped, a hundred dirty feet and muddy boots defiled it before the end of the day.

But, like the bloody bear of Kattegat, Ivar would scrape his palms raw and routinely work his way up to the steps of the entrance. 

Then again, he was out in the sun, catching a breath of fresh air,  and he’d managed to collect a small log he could use for carving later. Life could be much worse; yet it bothered him how grateful he’d become for such basic aspects in life. He used to literally eat from a golden bowl and now his day was considered an excellent one if meat was on the menu. After winter, his heart truly beat faster every time the Giant would unshackle him and allowed him to slave his way through degrading and pointless tasks. 

He’d evolved into a proper dog, Ivar dog with muzzle, as Piglet put it. 

How much time had passed since his arrival in de Haar? Since his father promised him greatness and a meaningful death? Of course he’d known he’d never return from England, he’d settled with drowning at sea. At least he’d be right beside a Legend, a King, a father. 

Oh, sweet bliss, if only he’d died during that storm. Then he’d never know how Ragnar Lothbrok’s suicide mission only included him for his unfailing and inescapable affliction; being born a cripple. He’d just been a tool, a simple pawn to deliver a message to his worthy brothers. 

And he even failed at that. At night, that was one of the thoughts that kept gnawing holes into his mind; what if he escaped de Haar? Then what? Crawl his way to the closest dock and head home like a cowardly dog, muzzled, beaten, marked, and damaged? 

With his luck, he had a better chance at swimming home, because how was he going to afford the crossing? 

And what awaited him at home? Shame, mainly and mostly, shame. He’d served Christians, in order to survive. He’d slept between pigs, cattle, shit and Piglet. He’d done nothing memorable aside from enduring a bloody flogging. 

What would his brother’s think of him, if he’d told him how he cleaned the enemies chamber pots? How he allowed the entire population of de Haar to take a piss at him? 

The worst thing was, by now he’d been so conditioned into his new role, he numbly did what was expected of him. Without a fight, a curse; defiance had literally been beaten out of him. A shadow casted over him, expecting the Giant to ruffle him up, Ivar flinched back before glancing up. 

Ivar couldn’t have been further from the truth.

“God zij met u,” were gentle words spoken by the fair-maiden. A breeze whispered past, teasing the blonde strands of her hair. Although her posture regained its grace, her beauty still one to match; the light had been robbed from her eyes. 

Her sudden presence overwhelmed Ivar and it showed; a blush scorching his cheeks, setting his face on fire. Full of shame, he lowered his gaze and waited for her unblemished ankle boots to pass. 

By the Gods, she must have turned into flawless marble, because she was not moving an inch. Now if it was up to Ivar, he’d remain ignoring her presence until the day he died. But she was standing on the spot he needed to clean and if the Giant caught him neglecting or pausing his task, the fair-maiden would witness him being beat. 

Leaning into  his embarrassment was inevitable. Ivar felt awkward and reticent, yet managed to glance up. 

Her expression lacked security too, and there was that brokenness again. The longing, the burning expectation of a sign, of something good. 

Did she honestly still believe that the rumours of his ‘Martyrdom’ were true? Months had passed since the forty lashes, if he’d been anything other than human he’d surely have allowed a miracle to happen. One that set flames to the highest towers of De Haar. A plague to strike anyone that ever dared to harm him; causing puss filled blisters to scar their faces, like the whippings that had scarred his back and shoulder blades. 

But no, no miracle in the form of sickness or fire had occurred. His life still wasted away, while hers had worsened by marriage. He did not have anything to offer her, and he wished he had the words to tell her that.

There was no escape, from neither of their lives. He could not save her from Ludolf’s marital ties. He could not save her from being raped and abused, because Ludolf was her husband, the young ruler of de Haar. 

The Giant must have smelled his cold sweat, like a bloodhound, the brute lumbered across the cobble-stoned centre in a direct line towards Ivar and the fair-maiden. 

Both eyes of the youngsters locked in a shared understanding until Ivar broke it off. Well, was forced to break it off. A vicious yank on his hair forced him to hunch forward, causing him to tap over his bucket. The wooden tool tumbled down the stairs, splashing water all over the place. Ivar didn’t even register, pain scorched his scalp as the Giant picked him up by his hair. 

Instinctively, he clung both his hands around the thick wrist of the Giant, as the brute pulled him up to eye-level. 

Brandishing his fist in front of Ivar, the Giant diminished the space between them. Almost nose to nose, the bastard started roaring in his face; the stench of tooth rot and decay overwhelming. 

Instead of ramming his fist into Ivar’s face, the Giant pushed him down the steps. 

Every muscle in Ivar’s body knotted up as his arse hit the first step, spinning he tumbled down the rest of the steps, hitting the back of his head against the bucket and his teeth grazing mud. 

The Giant took his time to walk down and kicked the bucket across the cobble-stoned centre. He didn’t need to shout his order, Ivar knew he was burdened to repeat his entire task again. 

The cloth landed on the back of his head and the Giant walked off.

  It made Ivar feel so small and insignificant, yet he picked himself up and started crawling towards the bucket. The fair-maiden luckily had disappeared, hopefully she now knew better and would stay far away. 

.-.-.

“What did you do?” Piglet ranted the moment the Giant locked the door. Apparently, his little downfall had been the talk of the town. 

“Nothing��, Ivar snapped back, wishing that would be the last word of it. 

Of course it wasn’t, Piglet pressed both her palms into her waist and glared down at him. 

“She’s trouble! Won’t last long! I’m not going to heal your back again!” She threatened. 

This was fuel to Ivar’s simmering fire: “I bled for you, not for her”, he reminded her firmly as he rose up to his knees to at least have a shot of being at eye-level with her, “don’t tell me what I can do and can’t do, or you might wake up while I ram a nail in your eyeball!”. To give his threat more weight he thrust his fist forwards, aiming at her face. Their distance was too great by far to even touch the tip of her nose, but his gesture made Piglet sway on her feet. 

She must have seen that thing in his eyes; what his mother called rage and she called the Djinn. 

“Thick-head”, she announced, and fled up the attic, allowing Ivar to unload on his own. His knuckles grew white from clenching his fists too hard, his teeth gritted from the effort to remain silent. His face was red from suppressed rage, and he hunched forward. It was as if a wildfire burned his insides, slicing and scorching his consciousness away. He blacked out, saw red and when he came to, Piglet sat right in front of him. 

His breathing was out of control, fists clenching and unclenching, he noticed stug material being stuck between his teeth. The potato bags from around his knees and legs lay torn and shredded across his box. He choked, inwardly he suffocated. The beatings, the ridicule, the overall indifference for his pain, the absolute monstrosities he’d been through all throughout his life sparked up from every corner of his mind. Memories, old and new, of being unworthy of being alive, unworthy of being a person, shattered in a frenzy. 

At a loss for words, unable to express himself, Ivar broke down. He fought it with every fiber of his being, but he wept. Hating his physical reaction he buried his face into his hands and hated, absolutely hated himself for expressing such weakness, in such an unmasculine way, in front of another person. 

If the Gods would have any mercy, they’d allow him to crawl down a dark hole and never come out. Screwing his eyes shut, Ivar furiously banged his fists into the ground, stirring up the last bit of his anger. It was his last resort to regain some dignity, unleashing one more time and destroying everything his hands and teeth could get a grip off. 

Piglet’s touch was so gentle and hesitant, Ivar swore he’d made it up. But when he opened his eyes wide and still on the verge of madness, the slave maiden wrapped an arm around his shoulder and pulled him close. She did not speak, only held him close. Her silence didn’t feel empty, rather, it enveloped him and allowed him to bear his grief and choke through his tears and pain. Despite the heaviness in his stomach, it fluttered at the feeling of her body pressing against his. 

Although he wished to fight it, he sank into the warmth of her simple gesture. He leaned forward and wrapped his arms around her shoulders, in return, Piglet carefully twined hers around his lower back.

Since he’d taken the path of no return, he allowed himself to find safety in the crook of her neck. 

“They broke me, Piglet. I’m broken”, the grunt that escaped the back of his throat was soft and hoarse.  

“No, not broken Ivar,” she whispered into his hair, “damaged. But damage heals”. 

For some reason, her words planted back a seed of hope, at least to get through another night and another day.  

.-.-.

A/N: So, did I have any kind of storyline for this chapter. No, this was a total freefall. Lightly inspired by episode ‘The Outsider’ (see Ivar rant on my tumblr). Halfway I thought ‘kay I’ve physically screwed him up a dozen times, why not break him down mentally. Oh and let's make him cry, yet try to keep him in character’. Tada… this happened. Loved writing it! First the total overload of frustrations and then the breakdown. Eager to read your thoughts/opinions, 

Xoxoxox Nukyster The kickass beta: @sarahh-jane The tagged ones:@youbloodymadgenius​ @xbellaxcarolinax @saldelys​ @shannygoatgruff@pieces-by-me@apenas-mais-uma-pessoa@readsalot73@lauraan182 @conaionaru@sarahh-jane@peachybonelessIf you’d liked to be tagged, please let me know:)

[allyvampirelass29]

Murder at Cripple Creek

A NOS4A2 Review By: Allyssa J. Watkins

A boomtown swimming with ghosts Dead eyes can't hide Their hedonist living Drinking, debauchery and sinning Scarlet ladies having babies But a whorehouse is not a home Trading flesh for coin Tempting patrons, at the sacrifice of your boy Little Charlie grew up in the hellish dark The sins of the mother Scarring the son's heart Murder brewing in this simmering fleshpot Oh Hateful Harlot, Mother Manx Is is to your neglect and bitter thanks Your baby boy, molested, and you can't protect Your little dreamer from the wicked world you wrought for him Blood on a beautiful boy's hands But the only thing murdered here Is his innocence. Sending his rapist and that lustful bitch Back to hell Charlie, Charlie you're not a villain You had to save yourself.......

Is...... anyone alive out there? It's been days, and I'm still sobbing, my heart desolated by the roiling emotional turmoil, my ignited rage murderous. I don't know about you guys, but...... I'm an absolute wreck. WHY are you DOING this to me, NOS4A2!?!? After the brilliant turn of last week, the sleek sophistication, and glamourous entrapment, "Cripple Creek," was a backhand strike, a blatant violation that I never saw coming, and I spent the entire episode, quivering, sobbing, pleading desperately behind my hands plastered over my face, watching between my fingers, helpless to stop the punishing abuse My Charlie suffers in two different timelines, his bruises of an abused childhood mingling with the fresh wounds of now, as he is tortured, beaten and berated by Bing Partridge!!!

I hated this episode. I HATED it. There, I said it. But I think you're supposed to, I think that was the sole purpose of this traumatizing ordeal. However, as far as Bing (GO TO HELL YOU FILTHY BASTARD) is concerned, the writer's motivation seems drastically convoluted. If this was supposed to be Bing's Big Epiphany, his "redemption," (Ughhh seriously?) This episode fails miserably in accomplishing that. And if this episode was meant to do, what I had predicted back in Season One, cement him as the actual villain of NOS4A2, making him the more immoral evil, be his rise in notoriety, his coming of age as it were, into the monster he was always going to be, giving Charlie and Vic someone to unite their hatred against, it fails to do that too. The biggest misstep of the series, after so elegant a triumph, I'm going to drown my sorrows in ice cream, and try to forget that any of it ever happened. Close your eyes, and think of Christmasland........

I audibly groaned when we opened onto Bing at the Lake House. After so much needless repetition in an otherwise FLAWLESS episode, I REALLY did not want to relive Bing's point of view of the siege, unless it was him getting shot by white knight Chris McQueen over, and over, and over........ Thankfully, the rewind didn't last too long, but I was having NONE of his, "Are you there, God, it's me, Bing Partridge," moment!!! On his knees in the graveyard, (Why...... why are we in a graveyard?) Bing appeals to the heavens, proclaiming his own innocence, asking God to show him what he should do next. I snickered coldly, the whole thing melodramatic, and absurd, as he cries, "I've been so good!!!" Secretly, I was fantasizing about Buffy SLAYING his creepster ass in the graveyard, beating him bloody, before staking him in the heart with a witty saying like, "It's been a gas, Bing, but I get the last laugh!!!" Alas, alack, no such luck. His appeal to the heavens was answered not in divine intervention, but with bird droppings splattering in his mouth, which of course, translated in Bing-A-Ling Logic to, "Kill the FIRST person that tries to help you, bury him in the freshly dug grave, and take his keys!!!" It's PRAYING Bing, you dolt, not preying!!!

While the side quest FINALLY explains how Bing was able to catch up to Charlie and Wayne, after previously believed to be on foot, not to mention shot, which would have been IMPOSSIBLE, supernatural car not withstanding, it's altogether unnecessary. It was the less than scenic route to get to last week's blood-curdling cliff hanger, and I really think we could have done without all the maudlin hullaballoo, and picked right up from there. Also, it creeped me out BIG TIME hearing Bing Partridge say, "Hidey holes," because that's what I called them last week, when Charlie was adorably telling Wayne about his hiding places. "Look at you with your hidey holes, Babe!!!" Needless to say, Bing has ruined that phrase for me FOREVER!!!

"Charlie, Charlie, telling lies, soon he will be crying cries......" A chilling foreboding that was like ice in my veins........ I was definitely crying cries...... I literally WEPT with this horrid little rhyme, and even still I was so naïve, unprepared, for the gut-churning horror that waited in the shadows of a broken little boy's murdered childhood, and the degradation of the beautiful soul that survived it. It's one of the most grueling, and disturbing things, I've ever watched, and like my Darling Boy, strapped to the chair, enduring forced interrogation by gassing, brutal beatings by Bing's homicidal, ham-fisted punches, and some....... deeply unsettling sexual innuendo, I felt like I was the one getting tortured.........

I did utterly enjoy Charlie's feigned relief, as he uses that silver tongue, in valiant effort, to slip his way out of this sickening predicament. "Bing, My Dear Fellow, thank the stars! I thought you had been done in by those wretched McQueens!!" Charlie gasps, thankfully, knowing full well he'd left Bing behind to die, and for good reason. Any other time, this would have worked, Charlie would have used his coaxing charm, and Bing's oafish gullibility, twisted them into a breathtaking manipulation, weaving the lie that he had no choice but to leave him behind, and Bing would have eaten it out of the palm of his hand, because he wants that badly for it to be true. But Bing watched it happen, his face falling, as Charlie sped off without him, and he's DONE playing. Charlie's pleas fall on deaf ears, as Bing drugs him for answers, revealing the fatalities of every single one of Charlie's former accomplices, and with the finality of one apocalyptic truth....... Bing descends into a frenzied, foaming madness.

"Cripple Creek," is the double edged sword that none of us were meant to survive. Switching between the stabbing scenes of Charlie's withering assault, his lifeline to The Wraith, cruelly severed, and the slicing violation of his childhood self, his innocence massacred before our very eyes, our bleeding hearts never stood a chance. I always knew that Charlie's childhood was going to be horrid, downright Dickensian, devoid of magic and light, unloved by his drunk, whore mother, but I had no idea the HELL this beautiful boy endured at so tender an age, forever scarred, betrayed by the one person he trusted, respected, desperately in need of a father figure, only to be exploited in the most heinous way. It's a MIRACLE My Precious Love can even function as an adult, much less still manage to find wonder and beauty in the world, clinging, clawing to hold onto his ember, his remnant of pure light that persevered in a life of darkness.

The inexplicable joy at seeing a young Charlie Manx, aged 11 or 12, tapdancing on stage, along with the giddy marvel that this young actor looks just like our leading man in miniature, is short-lived, as a stranger takes an uncomfortable interest in him....... I don't know how, maybe it was the intent way he watched him dance, or the way he touched his shoulder a little too long, but I knew........ I KNEW this man was going to sexually abuse Charles, I felt it gnawing in my stomach, instantly unnerved, and I hoped with all my heart, my first instinct was wrong....... I'm devastated to say........ it was not.

Not only does this manipulative pedophile Son of a BITCH molest my baby, he first uses him to persuade other boys to flock to his house, knowing full well how much the young ones look up to Charlie, as their leader. He wins Charlie's favour and trust by befriending him, and giving our little darling the one thing he wants more than anything else. Escape. Escape from the vulgar, gratuitously sexual environment, that no young boy should have to endure, a chance to make money, have an honest, respectable living. A chance to have a father figure, a man to look up to, learn from, and take him under his wing. The shop owner offers all of that, with a crooked smile, the charade falling dangerously away, as he knocks back a shot glass, eying our boy, and then says in the cruelest, most chilling voice. "You've earned yourself some fun........"

Thankfully, NOS4A2 was not overly graphic in this lewd portrayal, but the innuendo was enough to make me ugly cry, and seethe, as this sweet child is violated by someone he admires so much, realizing in horror, that he led all of his friends to be mishandled in this same disgusting manner, like lambs to the slaughter. But our brave little Manx was NOT going to let this sin go unpunished, and I clapped, cheering him on, as he uses his sled, now tainted by its means of acquisition, to kill the shopkeeper, dark fire flashing in his eyes, blood splattering on the shot glass, and I've never been so happy, or nervously relieved to see someone die.

His mother comes to him, and instead of crying, and taking her boy in her arms, stroking his dark curls, soothing his fear, and assuaging his guilt, she just scoffs at his accusation, the picture of apathy, and places the blame back on him. "You knew too, Charlie!!!" You WHORE-ABLE Mother!!! Your son was just sexually ASSAULTED, and YOU DARE make it his own fault, like he'd turned a blind eye, and therefore deserved to get raped!?!? Charlie might not have killed her, if she'd actually had a maternal bone in her body, if she'd done SOMETHING, shown any sign of regret or compassion, but she doesn't, and I feel nothing but proud as he finishes her off too. Her death was surprising, given the admonishing way Charlie talks about his mother, creating the impression that she'd been a bane on his existence his entire life, and yes, as a writer, I wanted to see more of a direct conflict between them to make that defining moment that much more satisfying, but as a viewer, I was just grateful she was dead, and Charlie was free. The only murder perpetrated, the only death I mourned at Cripple Creek, was that of Charlie's innocence, his childhood slaughtered.

Meanwhile, Bing continues to torture Charlie in the present day, my chest shuddering with every thrown punch, and I have to bite my lip to keep from screaming. What was the deafening truth spoken that sends Bing Partridge into a flailing rage, you ask?

"Christmasland is for children. We are special...... That's why we can't go......."

Charlie was never going to take Bing to Christmasland. All that this poor dope had lived for, dreamed of, for eight years, amidst his conning his way into dentists' offices, and offing mothers, and it was always a lie. I had suspected it the entire time, especially after the mention of a, "special feast," but what SHOCKED me the most, was the unimaginable heartbreak of Charlie's own deepest secret coming to light, and as Bing draws it forth, it's like drawing blood. In spite of being the architect of his lifelong dream, and greatest solace from a life full of abject misery, Charlie doesn't think he deserves Christmasland, because he sees himself as ruined........

I broke down sobbing, that pain, that anguish, that he's so long carried with him, ripping through me, and I'm tearing up even as I write this, remembering....... Charlie denying himself his own dream, seeing himself as a ruined article that might profane its pure vision, is a tragedy that I can't come back from. It's a sorrowful, aching confession, and yet somehow it explains so much, and in this, his greatest pain, his darkest secret, I felt intimately closer to him. At last........ we see why Charlie never stays long in his Christmas kingdom, why he's so focused on the next child, and the next, sacrificing time with his own daughter, because they deserve Christmasland, and he doesn't. Always the courier, never the partaker. Christmasland is for children, and Charlie Manx never got the chance to be one.

The searing pains of his past still guide so much of who he is today, placing a strict emphasis on propriety in every aspect of his person, in manner, speech, and dress, because he was robbed of his dignity as a child. I also, FINALLY, after two seasons, understand why he turns the children into vampires, a contradiction to his love of them, that has remained frustratingly elusive to my grasp. Charlie's childhood was taken from him, brought to a vulnerable, violent end, and by turning the Lost Children, theirs becomes eternal. They never have to grow up, and lose that purity, that innocence. I also realized, that by giving them their bite back, they are able to defend themselves, meaning no one can ever hurt them again.......

There was so much awful going on, so much inflicted misery, and disorienting chaos, that I was sure I'd heard wrong when Bing decides on an even more dehumanizing method of torture. Did Bing just...... call Charlie a BITCH!? I shook my head, but there it was again, and at this point I'd HAD it. Somebody give me a GUN, I will WASTE this SICK BASTARD myself!!! The skeevy sexual threat against Charlie felt like overkill to me, utterly ridiculous, a cheap shot at adding dramatic effect, especially in the face of his childhood shame. Bing has exhibited absolutely no inclination of...... swinging that way, as it were, before, and yeah they kind of threw in last minute that he'd done this to Mike's father, offscreen, but I don't know WHY he would do that, especially given his particular affinity for Mike. Charlie, himself, pointed out that there was no indication in the Graveyard of What Might Be that Mike needed saving, or that his father deserved punishing. It's awkward, and disturbing, and there seemed to me no method in this madness.

"If I'm a monster....... who deserves to die....... You deserve so much worse." BAM. Hell yeah, Babe!!! Thank GOD, Charlie's quick enough to convince Bing that he too is a monster, and we are spared any further asinine innuendo. Bing, after these series of unfortunate events, beating, berating, and threatening Charlie with rape, suddenly, deus ex machina-esque has a change of heart, and an epiphany that comes a LOT TOO LATE!!! We're both monsters, we BOTH deserve to die....... What we're doing is WRONG. Was I happy when Bing urged Wayne to go, and tell a police officer that his mom is Vic McQueen? Yes. Do I believe he did it out of the goodness of his heart, and has finally seen the light? Freaking HELL NO!!! Bing, after losing Christmasland, has nothing left to live for, and this is his way of giving up. If I can't go to Christmasland, Wayne can't go...... and he decides a bizarre murder/suicide in The Wraith is his final act of redemption.

Before they even showed the car crusher, I was already sobbing profusely, losing my freaking mind, because I had figured out exactly where Bing had taken Charlie.

"There's going to be two less monsters in the world........"

Meaning to crush them both, and kill the Wraith irrevocably, Bing puts on his mask, and presses the button. At first Wayne laughs, and thinks it's a game, his inner vampire child coming out, but when it hits him that Charlie's in actual danger, he realizes he has a choice to make....... Save Charlie Manx, or let him die, and go home safe to his Mom and Lou.

"No, My Boy, this isn't a game, it's time to play, Save Father Christmas!!!"

Charlie calls out frantically, coaxingly to his young charge, and I loved that so much, my heart overwhelmed with emotion. Yes, Wayne, PRETTY PLEASE save Father Christmas!!! A lot of people despised him for what happened next, screaming at Wayne for his choice, even calling him a stupid kid, but I, myself, felt even more love in my heart for that already dearly cherished little lad, as he smiles, and slams down on the button, halting the crusher, and saving Charlie from imminent death.

It's a profound moment, the abductee choosing to save his kidnapper's life, and many cried out strongly against it, but you have to understand....... Charlie Manx has become so much more to Wayne than the scary face in his mother's paintings. Here is a man that has shown genuine interest in his life, his hopes, his dreams, who has treated him gently, fussed over him, concerned, and who has come to love him like a father. Couple that with The Wraith's effects on Wayne, slowly tying the two of them together, it makes perfect sense to me, how this unexpected bond has formed. Yes, had Vic been there, herself, he would have chosen her over Charlie in a second, but when faced with the reality of letting Charlie die, our tender-hearted Bats just couldn't do it.

"Do think of me at Christmastime, won't you?"

CHARLIE. LIKE. A. BOSS!!!! The single greatest moment, and brightest scene in an hour of plunging darkness, is definitely Charlie, snapping back into his delectably dark, unrivaled perfection (although, I must say I still found him incredibly dashing in his distinguished grays) charging Bing Partridge, murder striking in his wild, smouldering eyes, stabbing him, with a reveling whisper, twisting the knife, with this most PERFECT line, that gave me wonderous, reverberating chills!!! I also LOVED how Charlie glowers in his lumpy face and says, "You were never special." DAMN that's HOT!!! My only grievance with an otherwise ENTHRALLING moment, was that inexplicably, yet again, CHARLIE DIDN'T KILL BING!!! Charlie has KILLED for so much less, and while he did offer a vague explanation about prison being so much worse for Bing than hell, it felt like hell frozen over that Charlie would ever let Bing live. I know this is the writers wanting to keep Bing around to creep another day, but MY GOD, hang that Partridge from a pear tree, and HAVE DONE already!!!!!

This was an especially dark episode, but there were flashes of some really beautiful, albeit fleeting moments, first with Wayne and Craig, and then with Millie and Cassie, though the reoccurring theme, the common thread, did seem to be Innocence Lost. I was startled with the The Wraith's sneaky trick of causing a child to forget their parents the longer they are in the car, and BLESS YOU, Craig for helping your son remember his mother, and fight the transformation!!! He tells Wayne that Vic's favourite movie was Jaws, and Wayne tells him that her favourite holiday is the 4th of July. (Which is really cool, because it's my favourite too!!!) This slows the Wraith's effects on Wayne, and becomes a very special moment between father and son, as they fight to keep Vic's memory alive.

"How do you know my mom?"

"She was my best friend."

More overwhelmed sobs, because apparently I haven't cried enough this episode!!! Craig decides not to tell Wayne that he's his father, but our little Bats is ingeniously clever, and I think he's going to figure it out before long!!! Another mini heart attack comes with a second lost tooth. The suspense of Wayne's slow turning, mirroring the tender emotion in this scene was fantastic.

Millie and her mother have a similar moment, and I thought that was BRILLIANT of her to introduce Vampire Millie to her former human self. The two play with dolls, and human Millie talks about how she can't wait to go on a date, and have adventures when she grows up! It's such an endearing scene, and also incredibly sad, as the pale, gaunt shell of Vampire Millie envies her bright, and bubbly human counterpart, seeing the hope and innocence that she's so long been bereft of. "She's me...... Who I'm supposed to be." Cassie explains that her father's sad fantasy is depriving Millie of the gift of growing up, and explains that there's nothing Charlie Manx fears more than a woman with her own mind, and that's the LAST thing he wants his beloved daughter to become. A woman that would eventually leave him. More tears. Poor Millie. Poor Charlie!! Can I just give everybody a hug!?

"Cripple Creek," lingers like BAD Dream, and all I want to do right now, is curl up with Charlie Manx, hold him in my arms, stroke his cheek, soothe him with the tenderest hands, and softest words, tell him he's beautiful, and that he deserves Christmasland, and the world, that he's not ruined, but PURE!!! This was my least favourite episode in the entire series, and just like, "The Gas Mask Man," will be skipped indefinitely in the re-watch, but like I said, it endeared Charlie even more to my heart, and I feel fiercely protective over him, over that goodness that still glows in his dark eyes, despite lifetimes of feeling unloved, and in ever-present pain. All I ever wanted in Season One, was a glimpse into the past that crafted my mysterious and refined vampire chauffeur, and this entire experience, My Darlings, is an exercise in, "Be Careful What You Wish For..........."

[ghostmartyr]

SnK 127 Thoughts

“Let us speak for 46 pages about how we still don’t actually have any real plan, we’re just all very against genocide (except Magath and Yelena) and very upset and feel like we should be doing something.”

The characters are sort of doing my job for me this month.

Maybe this whole post should just be illicit screencaps from Crunchyroll with me providing links and saying, ‘and here’s the panel that makes the point I whined about in this post here.’

That would probably provide more entertainment than whatever I’m about to come up with.

-sees the amount of swearing in the first section-

Hm.

First off, fuck Magath.

Like no, I’m sorry. This is not about what happened 2000 years ago. You know what it’s about? It’s about Marley sending in child soldiers to assault and rob a land that had caused literally no problems for 100 years. It’s about Marley doing this despite being aware of its own history, being that their personal hero collaborated with the First King of Paradis to make Marley’s independence possible.

You want to talk about history, Magath?

Jean isn’t the one who sounds like a child.

Jean is reacting to actual pain that he has experienced in his lifetime thanks to Magath’s very intentional military strategies.

Magath is blaming Jean and everyone else on the island for being born.

That is not equivalent.

That is not remotely equivalent, and while Eren is being a fucking bastard about it, Jean’s right. Eren has the power, means, and will to do all of this because of what Magath and Marley did to Paradis.

Magath doesn’t recognize Eldians as people.

The Eldian Empire was bad.

No one except Floch is disputing that. That is how you know that it is bad.

Marley, as well as the rest of the world, has been free from the Eldian Empire for over a hundred years, and in that time, all they have done is take every horrible thing about the Eldian Empire and exploit it for their own gains.

Magath doesn’t get to be angry that he lives off the backs of abused, brainwashed children that he treats like crap.

Years ago, the Eldian Empire was the worst terror in the world.

A year ago, it was Marley.

Now, it happens to be Eren.

And you know, I’ve been actively against pretty much everything Eren’s done. His plan, if he has one, has mostly managed to make everyone angry and get a lot of people killed who weren’t even involved in the beginning. He gets his head blown off close enough to his brother that he doesn’t die. That’s how the beginning stages of him committing genocide goes. He betrays his friends, makes his besties from childhood feel like crap, and honestly has just been a dick to pretty much everyone.

But at least Eren’s indiscriminate murder has the decency to actually be indiscriminate.

Marley takes children it despises and turns them into their willing slaves for the promise of a better life they have no intent of dispensing. They take these children, and full of hatred for the very ability, demand that they shorten their lifespan and murder people to prove that they’re a “good Eldian” who deserves to live.

Marley is why people can stomach rooting for Eren.

Because Marley is such an abomination that it almost feels worth it to destroy the world if it means Marley’s gone too.

Hell, I’m with Hange. There’s not an avenue where I accept genocide as a way to deal with any of this.

But if someone wanted to burn Magath alive, and we spent a dozen pages gloriously detailing his flesh curling off his bones, it would make me happy.

That’s a more dignified death than he’s given any of the children he’s forced into Marley’s wars.

He does not have the fucking moral high ground.

He's the one Jean should have punched. There is not a single person around that campfire that he has not damaged deeply, and noticing that Gabi is a little girl and he cares when she is in pain does not magically remove that.

Fuck Marley. Fuck Magath.

Grow the fuck up and stop viewing genocide as an acceptable response, you fucking halfwit child. You are the individual who saw four children off on their solitary mission to murder thousands of people. Two of them are dead. Two of them are deeply traumatized, with one of them wishing he had died.

But oh yes, Magath. You’re the victim, here.

Because you baited one angry idiot with the power of a god into destroying part of a city you didn’t give a damn about.

Truly, your justice is a thing to aspire to.

Perhaps Eren taking notes is the real reason we’re here.

Motherfucking fuck I hate Marley. I hate that Eren’s put any of these characters in the position where they have to put up with this shit for the sake of civility. I don’t have a problem with the Warriors. I don’t have a problem with the Survey Corps. I don’t have a problem with the kidlets. Hi Onyankopon, sorry about your life. Yelena has many problems, but she’s also attractive, so I don’t mind as much.

Magath, though.

Pieck, just eat him. Everyone’s too depressed to really throw down over it at this point, and the two small ones are so deeply traumatized that one more body really isn’t going to make much of a dent.

Jean’s clearly the star of this chapter, and a good deal of that comes from the potent hopelessness hovering over him like a rain cloud.

He can point to how bad everyone is at talking things out like it’s the key to the entire mystery, but the long list of problems Jean offers at the beginning of the chapter are still present. Unless they have a way to talk to every person in the world out of their (at this point, rather justified) fear and anger, Paradis and Eldians around the world are very much screwed.

Paradis has forever been running out of time against the hatred the rest of the world has for them.

They do have to fight against what Eren’s doing, and talking instead of blowing each other’s heads off is a good start, but it’s a good start thousands of years after the worst possible one.

And the last time they tried to talk to Eren, Armin punched him, and that was the most productive thing to come out of it.

Jean being the everyman who recognizes the heart of an average person because he is one has been a great tool. It’s still great, here. He wants to close his ears to all of this. He wants, desperately, to run away, because there is no good solution that doesn’t end in death.

When he joins the Survey Corps, they at least have Eren as a brand of hope. They can believe that years of the same tactics and bodies piling up won’t end the same way.

Joining this squad is all about stopping Eren, and despite having figured out their next course of action, no one has yet to provide a real idea.

Genocide is wrong, so you stand up and try to stop it.

That’s the only plan they have.

The Scouts from Paradis don’t even have the promise of saving the people they love if they stop Eren. Annie, Pieck, Gabi, Reiner, Falco... they have a home. The world might forget to hate them. They might get to go home and have a life after this.

The people sitting on the other side of the fire are fucking screwed. They’re fighting entirely for their principles.

...Also Yelena is here.

I do like Yelena.

She’s not the worst, because this manga has too many horrible people in it, but she’s delightfully terrible. I especially like how the fact that she’s actually from Marley hardly gives her any pause.

I do so like Yelena.

It’s a beautiful sentiment.

After all, everyone’s drunk on something.

If you can just save the world, what does the rest matter? What do the crimes that kept you awake at night mean, when you’ve accomplished something so miraculous? All the good deeds cleanse the rottenness, and maybe then the world rights itself and you can breathe again.

...Hey wait, where’s Reiner’s reaction shot to finding out Gabi killed Sasha?

...Did he even know Sasha was dead?

But I guess we’re doing Marco angst.

Wow. Marco angst in 2020.

I think my favorite thing about this chapter (outside of the fact that Mikasa still hates Annie and it makes me giggly because wow Mikasa) is that Annie does absolutely nothing while Jean’s beating the crap out of Reiner.

My less favorite thing is I’ve stopped enjoying Reiner getting the crap beaten out of him. It’s been done, and... really the kid just needs to have not been born into this particular life. Watching Jean beat him bloody is. not cathartic. It’s really just awful.

Annie dodging with her food is glorious, though.

Because while Jean beating up Reiner over Marco is sad and kind of miserable, Annie watching someone beat up Reiner after the years she spent putting up with Reiner and Bertolt brings it back to almost funny.

Until you look at Reiner’s face and go back to feeling bad.

-turns page back to Annie getting out of the way-

Much better.

Truly, I love Annie.

Her forgiveness status is interesting, though. I think besides Marco, she enjoyed more of the kills she’s responsible for than anyone feels a need to dig up.

She’s also been more alone than most of the others in the wagons, and essentially spent four years imprisoned for her crimes.

I’m not surprised she asked, because she’s Annie, but I’m a bit surprised we don’t have an answer yet. Probably too close to the end of the chapter to open up that can of worms.

If it makes everyone feel better, I think we know for a fact that Mikasa will never forgive Annie for anything, even if it only displays itself as petty brandishing of weapons every time they make eye contact.

It’s not even a ship thing.

I just love that Annie is the one person Mikasa can’t stand. They’ve been in one chapter together and Mikasa’s already pulling out swords. These two shouldn’t be allowed anywhere near each other. It’s perfection.

Then we get to plot complications that really don’t register as complications because like. Yeah, you guys need something to do while you figure out what the hell you’re doing.

Because you don’t actually have a real plan, just so we’re clear.

Killing Eren would result in all those Wall Titans operating under their own power.

That is not fundamentally less destructive.

Killing Eren has a nice ring to it, but much like talking to Eren, it does not solve any of the other problems looming ahead.

So you enjoy your little subplot with Floch!

It’s one of the last times your combined competence will have any meaning.

-looks over at Kiyomi-

Honest question, but why are you alive if Floch dislikes you enough to hold you hostage? If Eren’s gonna kill everyone, shouldn’t Floch be following suit and just do his Floch thing of murdering every slight inconvenience?

We’re in the boring stages of the finale right now.

No clear plan for either side to contend with. No real progress in any direction because the tiny squabbles are just a delaying tactic for the massive squabble that no one has an answer to. None of any of this chapter really matters except for clearing the air.

Which is not a useless investment, it’s just not very exciting.

At this point, no excitement is allowed, because there’s that One Huge Thing, and the entire story hinges on it. Maybe someone will die on the way to dealing with it, but that’s all the drama we’re going to get until we find out enough about the plot to have a future worth rooting for.

Right now, there is no good outcome for the people we’ve watched fight for 127 chapters.

Pulling a story along with that weight is hard, and I can feel my brain turning itself off until we’re back to a point where the story is permitted to address the stegosaurus in the room.

One more month.

Again.

Until something happens and we all regret everything.

[ziracona]

So last night I wound up reading Amanda's wiki and It made me kind of sad for her, because it very much sounds like she was suffering from stockholme syndrome of a kind there, to me, atleast. Which makes me wonder, what do you think of the pig/amanda? What's your Amanda like in your stories? Do you think she had any potential for redemption (with A LOT of work)? I guess I just wanna hear your thoughts on her character because ur always rly good at it?? - Sleepy

Yeah, whoever wrote the Saw wiki loves Amanda and hates Hoffman and it’s genuinely hilarious. They make a lot of assumptions (like that her motive for killing Adam after he won his game was mercy killing, which is a throughly unconfirmed opinion), and use the most sympthetic & extreme language possible. I’ve watched all the Saw films, and as a character, Amanda is a very enjoyable villain, but as a person? She’s a truly awful human being. (Side note—this typed last— So, mentioning certain Saw characters sends me flying into a rage like a D&D berserker, so this is gonna get angry as hell, but 0 of it is at you. I love you. This is at the Jigsaw squad. WHO I FUCKING HATE. Ahem. Anyway. Felt like the level of unbridled and sudden fury needed a heads up lol.) It’s not Stockholm syndrome. In Saw one, she’s a victim who is put in a reverse beartrap and forced to either die, or cut the key out of the stomach of a paralyzed by drugs but very alive (which she knew) other kidnap victim, whom she cut open and killed. After enduring that trauma and barely surviving, she immediately accepted John’s offer to join him. She was not forced, she was not tricked. He asked, and because she wanted to feel special and important, she agreed to inflict suffering she knew goddamn well the horrible level of on others first hand, and went willingly. She is self-centered to her core, and became dependent on and infatuated with John, and obsessed with his approval. She kidnapped Adam and Lawrence with him, who were kidnapped for fuckall reason (literally John just thought photography was pathetic) and for almost cheating on his wife (lol this was John’s ‘stated’ reason—his real reason was John is the world’s pettiest bitch, and Lawrence was the doctor who told him he had cancer. I’m not fkn kidding he’s that level of petty self-absorbed, self-righteous bastard) respectively. Then killed Adam after he won his game, which should have given him freedom but John reneged on like he always does like the pissy little bitch he is, Amanda killed him for reasons up to speculation. However, given John usually tests people who win a second time or tries to get them to join or some bullshit, it’s more plausible to assume her motive was seeing him as a threat than that it was mercy killing, and it’s only stated in-film to be an emotion based decision, not her actual movtive. Everyone’s opinion on this action is just that—opinion. With varying degrees of factual basis behind the educated level of educated guess.

In Saw 2, she helps John kidnap a bunch of drug addicts like herself who all got false arrests by the same officer at one time or another, along with a poor fucking 15 year old whose crime is having that cop for a dad. She then spent the next two hours watching people whose only crime was drug use, like herself, die horribly of organ deterioration, knowing at any time she could have stopped it and saved them all because she knew how to get the antidotes. Bitch even holds one girl in her arms and stokes her head and pretends to care about her while she hacks up deteriorated lung and blood and fucking dies, when at any moment she could have chosen to let her live. Literally no one should be more sympathetic to them than her. She knows how addicted to drugs feels, and the help you need. Anyway, she doesn’t, she lets them die and plays with them, and then when it’s to her, the 15 year old—who multiple times saves or helps her when hurt by other participants, and is nothing but kind—and one other man, the man shows up to kill her to get an antidote, and the poor fucking 15 year old child kills him with a saw to save her, traumatizing himself to a breakdown afterwords, and instead of being even thankful, she attacks and knocks him out, ties him up and attaches an oxygen tank so he won’t suffocate, and locks him in a fucking like tiny ass safe to be a game piece for another trial and leaves him there. His dad, who admittedly needs to serve jail time but isn’t a fucking murderer at least & does love his son, shows up distraught looking for his kid he’s afraid is dead, and she sneak attacks and takes him down, then leaves him chained up in a nasty lost bathroom to starve slowly to death, and doesn’t even do him the decency of telling him his kid isn’t dead. When he breaks his foot to get free and comes hobbling wounded after her, she sneak attacks again and he nearly wins, but she fucks up his broken foot and starts to leave, then comes back and beats him (she thinks) to death becuase he said she would never be Jigsaw, and she’s that petty and proud. Kid never gets to know what happened to his dad, and even alive, will definitely die young from the complications one, you know, gets from almost dying of chemical organ deterioration.

In Saw 3, the main victim is a man whose kid was lost in a hit and run. Jigsaw has Amanda kidnap his wife because she’s a surgeon and also was once not as sympathetic as he thought she should be when talking to him about his cancer at the hospital (I’m not even fucking exaggerating—side note, I will beat John Kramer to death myself with my huge fucking meat fists and laugh as I watch his bones crumble to dust). This poor bitch just lost a kid, then separated from her husband because he was a fucking mess consumed with revenge against the poor college kid who accidentally hit his son & totally withdrew from the world, and she wakes up with a collar filled with shotgun shells basically a 360 gun blow off your head collar deal on, and Amanda wheeling her around in the wheelchair she’s tied to. They tell her if she keeps John alive until the person being tested finishes his test, she can go free. The whole movie, Amanda keeps trying to convince John to kill the poor woman even though she complies just because she’s a throughly selfish, petty, conceited, self-pitying bastard with no regard for others, and wants this “Bitch” to die for fun. She feels she’s a threat for John’s attentions, and John isn’t even romantically inclined toward her, but she’s obsessed and doesn’t care. Amanda decides between Saws 2 and 3 that people aren’t fixable—even though she herself was supposedly “helped” by her Jigsaw game and this is hypocritical as fuck—and just starts straight up fucking torture murdering for fun. To the point even John thinks she has to be stopped. Like if John fucking Kramer thinks you’ve gone to far? Jesus help you because no one else can. She still does the torture, but instead of like, chopping off your own hand with a paring knife and getting to live, you chop it off and then still slowly get your head crushed between two beams being screwed closer and closer together. She kills Kerry for fuckall reason except she wants to (Kerry is a detective who did jack shit wrong—she was just on the case. It’s utter bullshit). Kidnaps her, straps a thing with hooks in her ribs that will tear out her rib cage when a timer runs out, and kill her that way, and had her hung up above the ground tied by chains, and tells her if she burns her hand up in a bottle of acid to get the key at the bottom which is hard period in the suit—never mind losing the hand—she can live. And Kerry fucking does, ruins her hand, unlocks the lock, and the suit won’t come off becuase the cunt rigged it. Then Amanda shows up to watch her die for fun just to smile smugly at her and watch her fear. Because she’s a fucking soulless, sadistic, evil, self-centered, self-important asshole.

Obsessed dad let’s a fucking bystander whose only crime was seeing a hit and run and running off freeze to death stripped naked and sprayed with water in a freezer slowly, saves a judge who gave too weak a sentence to the hit and run kid after the man begs, and then lets the poor fucking college kid who did it and already feels awful get his arms twisted till they snap off, legs twisted till the same, and then his head twisted around back so far it twist snap kills him. The rack is fucking beyond inhumane death. Amanda monitors this while threading Lynn (the poor doctor lady) for fun and crying over poow wittwe John who is dying of cancer (thank you god for doing what we couldn’t), and being miserable. Eventually, Hoffman sends her a letter saying if she doesn’t kill Lynn, he’ll tell John that she was one of the people there to steal drugs the night his wife got injured and miscarried (he probably already knew 🙄), and becuase Amanda cares about nothing more than Amanda, she fucking monolgauges at John about how special and sad she is how he needs to fix her and she’s a murderer but she doesn’t care because you know—she’s depressed : ( so she gets a pass for her self she’s UwU sad so her poor little crisis can have a massive torture body count bc she’s that special UwU and why is Lynn not gonna die even though she did her job!??? So unfair! No one changes kill them all but tell me I’m special I’m symapthetic because I’m sad and that makes it fun for me to tear people’s ribs out :’( —and then she fucking shoots Lynn becuase she cares less about an innocent woman’s life than the potential for John to be mad at her :’-( you know—such symapthetic stuff! And then John is like “Ok then fkn die :’(“ and Jeff/unstable dad/Lynn’s husband runs in and shoots her and then kills John.

Anyway! I fucking hate Amanda with a passion, and John. I cannot stand humans who hurt each other for fun, especially when they target those who most need help. But above all I cannot abide a person who is a sadistic, selfish, wholly self-absorbed fuck of a human, and refuses to take any responsibility for their actions or admit how fucking bad they are and has the goddamn nerve to act like a victim. Like if you’re going to be an evil son of a bitch, at least have the decency to admit it. If you’re a self-pitying “im uwu special and sad and better and more important than everyone else” —double points for “& becuase I am attractive I can get away with being a soulless shit without any being held accountable” from fandom or the media itself, tripple if from both—? I will kill you myself. I will rip out your eyes and chew on them. I will kill my self on a bomb to take you too. I will chew off my left arm for the sole purpose of getting to beat you to death with it. The wiki writer bends over back so bad they’re gonna need a brace the rest of their life to make her sound sympthetic, but they’re just a fan. She’s not. At all. She doesn’t have Stockholm, and I see people say “she got manipulated and used : (“ all the time, but without fail so far it’s people who think she’s hot and just want a reason to stan that because somehow a hot white woman with short hair even if canonically infatuated with John Kramer is somehow both a lesbian, and excusable for every horrible torture murder she ever did to feel uwu special in her depressed sad times. She wasn’t manipualated. It happened fast, she wasn’t courted into it, and she didn’t even hesitate to say yes. He offered her an out, made sure she was serious, and she stayed. And then she escalated to the point John took her out to stop her, because it was worse than what he wanted to do. I enjoyed her as a villain but as a person I fucking hate Amanda, and don’t really want to see her get another chance. Bastard doesn’t deserve one. I can’t say there’s no continuum in which she could never improve or be redeemed becuase who the fuck knows, and I like to think there’s a smidgen of hope for anyone, but that said, I do think the more evil you willfully do, the more you lose your humanity, and you can hit a point there’s just no person left. So. Anyway, hah, I don’t think she’s redeemable and frankly don’t want her redeemed. I want to burn her to death myself if I have to die that way too. Also! This was a wildly angry answer but none of it is directed at you. That wiki writer does make her sound symapthetic, I’ve read the wiki too—just I go into a blind rage any time John or Amanda is even mentioned and it takes me a half hour to come back down. I fly into a rage. If I ever go into anaphylactic shock, all a friend has to do is start mentioning the names of Saw villains and my adrenaline will start pumping like jet fuel and I’ll be fine. I just have a whole lot of righteously just rage at horrible awful self-righteous self-absorbed malicious manipulative dehumanizing self-pity bastards who take 0 responsibility for their evil or admit it, and Amanda & John are two at the way top of that rage list. It’s a dark but powerful headspace when I think of them. I become very powerful...but also very enraged. Lol, anyway, here’s the breakdown you didn’t need, but it is throrough!

[trulymadlysydney]

Somewhere In Time: Three

“It's being here now that's important. There's no past and there's no future. Time is a very misleading thing. All there is ever, is the now. We can gain experience from the past, but we can't relive it; and we can hope for the future, but we don't know if there is one.” 

― George Harrison

Previous Chapters HERE Songs mentioned in this chapter: x and x

tw: Death, Loss of Parent

***Please do not repost without permission***

2:17pm, June 16th, 1985

“But do you have to go to work today?”  Eleven year old Roni whines as she watches her mother apply her finishing touches to her look.  It’s always been the same routine, a few dashes of perfume, a bit of lipstick, and one more coat of hairspray for good measure.

Tanya sighs.  “Peanut, you know I do.” 

Roni frowns.  “You know I don’t like it when you call me ‘peanut.’  It’s so…. childish.”

Tanya giggles but says nothing as she applies the lipstick.  Roni’s always envied her mother’s lips.  Plump and full and beautiful.   

Actually, Roni has always envied just about everything about her mother.  She’s never known her father, but she thinks he was an ugly man-- especially considering how he left her mother-- and when she looks at how beautiful her mother is she feels almost inadequate.  She worries she inherited her father’s looks.

“I’m sorry, darling.”  Tanya rubs her lips together, then pulls them apart with a smacking noise a few times before she seems completely satisfied with her look. “And I’m sorry I have to leave.”

“Can’t you call in sick?”  Roni follows her mother as she bustles around the bedroom, getting everything together and grabbing a few items to throw into her handbag.  “You never call in sick.”

“Honey, if I called in sick I wouldn’t make money.  And then what would we do?”

“Hang out and go swimming.”  Roni pouts, and it makes Tanya chuckle.

“Don’t you want to go on the eighth grade field trip next year?”

“Well yes, but--”

“I want you to, too.  And money, unfortunately, doesn’t grow on trees, sweetheart.  I want nothing more than to stay home and swim with you.  But I also want nothing more than for you to go on that trip with your classmates.  So I have to do what I have to do.”

Tanya stops moving and takes Roni’s chin in her hand.  She pulls Roni forward and presses a long lingering kiss to her forehead before pulling away with a smile.  “Regardless,  I’ll be back here quicker than you can say Jack Robinson.”  She picks up her purse from the bed and makes her way into the living room with Roni close on her heels.

“Who’s Jack Robinson?”

“Never mind that,” Tanya says over her shoulder.  “It just means that I’ll be back before you know it.”  Tanya grabs her car keys off the hook by the front door.  “Why don’t you call grandma?  I’m sure she’ll take you swimming.”

“It’s not the same,” Roni grumbles.  “She just complains about how hot it is and wants to leave within the hour.”

“Grandma will be happy just to spend time with you.  You know that.  And who knows, maybe I’ll get off early and meet you guys there, hm?” 

“Early as in like, you go to work and tell them you’re taking the day off and show up at the pool in less than an hour?”

“Ha ha.”  Tanya unlocks the front door.   “I’m serious though.  Call grandma and ask her to take you.  Today will fly by, and I’ll be back before you’ve even gotten used to me being gone.  Alright?”

Roni sighs as Tanya slips through the front door.  “Alright, but I doubt it.”

“Be a good girl.  Don’t forget to feed the cat.  I love you.”  Tanya starts to leave, but pops her head back in through the door quickly.  “Oh, by the way.”

“Yeah?”

“You’ve got a little something there, Peanut.”  Tanya points at Roni’s forehead with a smile before winking and closing the door behind her.

Roni rolls her eyes at the pet name, but she misses her mother’s presence the moment the door closes.  She hates when Tanya has to work, especially during the summer.  During the school year it isn’t so bad, because she has her classes and her friends to distract her.  But during the summer she finds herself home alone more often than she’d prefer.  And it isn’t that Roni doesn’t enjoy her alone time, it’s just that she doesn’t enjoy it when it’s an everyday occurrence. 

Approaching the mirror in the bathroom, Roni lets out a groan when she looks at her own reflection and notices what her mother was referring to.   Her lipstick stain, bright red against the skin of Roni’s forehead. 

Roni rolls her eyes as she grabs the nearest washcloth and runs it under cold water before attempting to rub the lipstick stain off.  She’s going to get her mother back for this when she gets home.

-----

11:11am, January 1st, 1925

Roni hates mornings.

She’s hated mornings since she was a little girl, and waking up is number one on her list of least favorite things to do.  This morning in particular, however, feels more miserable than usual. 

It’s the kind of morning where Roni knows she could sleep for several more hours if she allowed herself to.  Her entire existence just feels exhausted, and after giving her body one long good stretch, she rolls over and cuddles the pillow beside her.  Oliver, who's always been an early riser, always leaves his pillow within her range of motion when he gets up. He's well aware of how Roni is not a morning person, so he'll make sure to push his pillow a bit closer to her so that she can cuddle it close in his absence.

Only this pillow doesn’t smell like Oliver. 

It smells like boy, for sure, but it isn’t Oliver’s boy smell, and there’s a touch of a cologne that is unfamiliar to Roni.  She inhales once more, searching for some sign of familiarity, but all she gets is a hint of shoe polish.

Oh god.

Roni opens her eyes and shoots straight up in bed, taking in the room around her and realizing, with absolute dread, that this whole thing hasn’t, in fact, been a dream.  She is in Harry’s bed, in his tiny room, in an unfamiliar New York City.

In 1925.

“No, no, fuck.”  Roni rolls out of bed, the wooden floor cold against her bare feet as she rushes to the window overlooking the city.  It’s much more alive than it was last night, and everyone is dressed the way she’s only seen in black and white photographs in history books and films.   

How can this still be happening?  It can’t still be a dream, because she knows for a fact that she just slept for at least 8 hours-- and that wouldn’t have happened if this were a dream.  But logically, this isn’t even a little bit possible.  She’d done everything right.  She’d made sure she was trying to reach 1985. Not 1925.

Roni rushes for the bedroom door, stopping in her tracks when she realizes how cold her legs are.  She hadn’t bothered with pants last night because she hadn’t anticipated waking up in a strange boy’s house in 1925.  She turns in a flurry, opening each drawer of Harry’s dresser until she finds the one that he’d mentioned contained pants.   She finally finds the drawer of his underwear-- not quite like the men’s underwear she’s used to seeing-- and realizes with resignation that she has no other choice.  She haphazardly pulls them up her legs-- nearly tripping over herself in the process, and ties them tightly around her waist. Since when did boxers have drawstrings?

Swinging the bedroom door open, Roni stumbles through it, realizing she must look a mess when she is met with a startled yet amused grin from a fully dressed Harry.

“Oh,” he says.  “Good morning.”  He goes back to his eggs on the stove.

“I’m still here!”  Roni exclaims, infuriated that Harry doesn’t seem as shocked about this as she does.

“You are.”  Harry nods, the scrambled eggs in the frying pan sizzling under the spatula.  “Did you sleep well?”

“Harry, holy fuck, how is this happening?”  Roni doesn’t dare move, as if moving is going to trap her even further.  She feels like the walls are closing in on her as the full extent of the situation hits her.  She hadn’t allowed herself to fully feel these feelings the night before, because she hadn’t seen this as a permanent issue.  But now here she is, in a year that doesn’t even feel real, with a bastard who doesn’t even seem to care about her concerns.  

Harry smiles to himself.  “I don’t know, pet.  Honestly, I was kind of thinking that maybe you were drunk and just forgot where you were last night.”

“I wasn’t drunk, and I didn’t forget, but thank you for completely invalidating me.”  Roni huffs. Stomping across the living room and plopping down onto the most uncomfortable couch she’s ever felt in her life, she figures this is an appropriate time to just pout-- especially considering that Harry isn’t going to give into her panicking.  “What the fuck am I supposed to do now?”  She props her elbows on her knees and buries her head in her hands.

“Eat some breakfast and relax,” Harry answers.  “We’ll figure this out. Would you like some tea?”

“You have got to be fucking kidding me. Seriously?”  Roni lifts her head to shoot Harry a dirty look.  Why isn’t he concerned?  Why is he so fucking chipper? 

Harry pauses, eyeing her as if considering his next words.  After a beat, he speaks.  “I also have coffee if you’d rather.”

Roni lets out a loud, angry groan.  “Dude, this literally isn’t about the fucking coffee even a little bit.  I am stuck in a year that is fifty years before I was even born, with absolutely no idea how to get back to where I belong-- which is like, seventy-five years into the future.  Do you not understand how fucking massive that is?”

Harry makes a face, eyes rolling upward with an equation hovers above his head while he tries to compute what Roni just said. Finally, he shrugs and turns back to the stove.  “I’m sorry.  Perhaps I’m making too much light of this situation.  I understand you’re frightened.  I’m just trying to help you.”

Roni rolls her eyes, immediately feeling terrible for lashing out at him.  It’s just that everything feels awful right now, nothing makes sense, she’s alone-- but not really, because he’s here-- and she’s scared.  She is actually so beyond terrified because she doesn’t know how or why she got here, and she has no idea how to get back, and this boy is being so fucking nice to her with absolutely no reason to be.  But he’s calm, and it’s both comforting and infuriating.  Nothing connects in Roni’s brain, and she feels small and alone.

She runs a hand through her messy morning hair and sighs as she glances back at Harry, who is now taking a long sip of something in a mug.  “I know,” she says.  “I’m sorry, fuck, I’m being a huge dick aren’t I?”

Harry coughs into the mug, sputtering as he puts it down.  “You’ve got quite the mouth on you, haven’t you?”

It makes Roni want to scoff at his reaction but, to be fair, she knows that in these days, it isn’t common for women to curse as often as she does.  She shakes her head.  “Sorry, I-- this is just weird for me.”

“No, no, you’re quite alright.”  Harry bustles around in the cupboards now, retrieving a plate and putting it down on the counter.  “By all means, please don’t apologize.  It’s just strange for me as well.  I’ll get used to it.”  She sound of metal on metal fills the room as Harry scoops the eggs out of the frying pan.

He turns moments later, holding a plate of scrambled eggs and toast, and walks to the dining table with a soft smile.  He places the plate on the table in front of an empty seat and looks at Roni expectantly. 

Awkward silence smothers them for a moment until Roni realizes that he’s expecting her to come eat at the table.  “Oh.” 

She rises to her feet and makes her way over to where he’s currently pulling her chair out for her.  She sinks into the uncomfortable wooden seat with a soft, “thank you,” and Harry moves to take his own seat beside her.

It’s so strange, Roni thinks.  She hardly ever eats breakfast at home, and if she does, it certainly isn’t at the table.   It feels so formal, and she grows nervous under his gaze as she takes the first bite.

Harry doesn’t even sense her nerves, launching right into casual conversation.  “So. I was thinking about your predicament all night.  I don’t know how, and I’m still not certain I understand, but we are going to get to the bottom of this, love.  I promise.”

Roni smiles thankfully at him around a mouth full of eggs, which seems a good enough answer for him. Harry beams, then nods his head toward the plate of eggs.  “Also, I didn’t get a chance to ask you how you like your eggs, so I hope you like them scrambled.” 

Roni swallows. “Scrambled is great.  You didn’t have to do all this.”

Harry dismissively waves her comment away with his hand, picking up his mug of tea.  “I don’t mind it.  It’s nice to not be alone for once.”

As he sips, Roni catches a good glimpse of his still purpling eye, and she frowns.  It looks even worse than she’d remembered it from the night before.  She speaks with her mouth full.  “God, your eye looks like shit.”

Harry sputters into the mug for the second time that morning, and Roni realizes that she’s going to have to be more conscious of her vocabulary.  Luckily for her though, she sees that he’s laughing as he sets the mug on the table.

“Sorry,” she mutters for what feels like the millionth time today. 

“No no,”  Harry laughs.  “It’s alright.  It does look sort of awful, doesn’t it?”

“Does it hurt?”

“Nah.”  Harry shakes his head, but Roni knows he’s lying.  She only frowns deeper, making Harry giggle harder.  “What?”

“You’re just like, stupidly nice to me.  I punch you in the face, and I blow up on you in your own home, and you’re all, ‘Here sleep in my bed.  Have some eggs.  My eye feels great.’”

“It does feel great.”

“Did you even eat?”

Harry nods.  “I did actually.  A few hours ago.”

“Oh.  What time is it?”

Harry grins sheepishly, fingers absentmindedly tracing the handle of his mug.  “Nearly 11:30.”

“Oh my god.”  She hadn’t meant to sleep that late.  She hadn’t even realized she was that tired, but now she’s here as a guest in someone’s home, and she’s slept the entire morning away.  “Harry, why didn’t you wake me?”

“I was going to if you didn’t wake up by the time the food was finished.  But I think the smell may have taken care of that for me, hm?”  He nods his head towards her plate.  “Is it good?”

“So good,” Roni admits, “but I’m sorry for sleeping so late.”

Harry stands up, beginning to tidy up the kitchen as he talks.  “Don’t worry about it.  You needed it.  You had a big night.”  He turns on the sink and scrubs at a dish.  “Any big plans for today?”

Roni shrugs, chewing her food before answering him.  “Doesn’t matter, I’m gonna be back home by tonight.”

“Are you?”  Harry cocks his head again, the same condescending but amused tone in his voice that Roni had grown so endeared yet annoyed by the night before.   “Have you got a plan?”

“Well,” Roni explains through a yawn,  “I figure since this isn’t a dream, I’ll just have to actually put effort into getting back, you know?  Which shouldn’t be hard.  I’m just gonna do the same thing I did to bring me here.”

“Interesting.  Which was?”

“Lie blindfolded on my bed and listen to a recording of my own voice used to guide me through a sort of lucid dream.  If I can get back to that lucid state, I should be able to find my way back the same way I found myself here.  Which reminds me, do you have a tape recorder?”

“A what?”

Roni frowns.  She knows she’s in 1925, but these constant reminders feel like little slaps to the face.  “God,” she mutters, “this is gonna be so much harder than I thought.”

“I’m sure it won’t be,”  Harry says nonchalantly, scraping at the dishes.  “I think you’re right.  And who’s to say you need one of those… recorder things?  Couldn’t you just…”  Harry trails off, eyes to the ceiling as he thinks.  “I don’t know.  Couldn’t you just talk to yourself for the same effect?” 

“I guess so,” Roni pouts, “but it kinda ruins the momentum.  Relaxation is key, you know?”

“Say, I know! You could write me a script.”  Roni can practically hear the smirk in his voice.  “And I could just sit on the bed and read it to you.  Maybe get some relaxing harp music playing softly in the background.”

“Harry--”

“I’ll even fan you with a palm leaf.”  Harry pauses as if realizing what he’d just said, then shakes his head.  “Actually, scratch that.  Not going to find one of those anywhere near here.  Maybe one of those trees from the park down the street.  I’ll get a leaf from there.”

“Harry, that’s not--”

“Although I am afraid you’ll give me another shiner if I get too close to you while you’re defying the laws of space and time, so maybe I’ll just sit on the other side of the room.”

Roni scowls.  “You aren’t taking any of this seriously, are you?”

Harry doesn’t answer her, he only giggles, and it makes Roni roll her eyes.  “God, you’re just like Oliver!” 

“Who’s Oliver?”  Harry only seems to be halfway paying attention, but his question hits Roni like a ton of bricks.

Oh god.  Oliver.

“He’s my boyfriend,” Roni says, horror flooding her features as she realizes how long she’s been here.  “Shit, I didn’t even think-- god, I was only supposed to be in and out.  He wasn’t even supposed to realize I was gone.”

“Don’t worry,” Harry says, turning off the sink and wiping his hands on the dish towel.  “I’m sure it isn’t as bad as you think.  Maybe a day here is only about a second in the future. A minute at most.”

“But what if it’s not?”

“And what does worrying so much about it now do to help, hm?  One way or another, we’ll get you back to Mr. Ollie.  You can explain the situation and Bob’s your uncle, everything is back to normal.”

Roni frowns.  “Who the hell is Bob?”

“What the hell is a tape recorder?”  Harry counters.

Roni buries her face in her hands, only then realizing that her makeup from the night before is still caked onto her face.  God, she’s a mess right now.

“In the meantime,”  Harry says, completely changing the subject.  “I say we get you some more appropriate clothes.”  He shoots Roni a pointed look.  “Not that there was anything wrong with what you wore last night, but because it’s cold outside and I don’t think that dress is going to cover it.  Plus, I’m not sure if you’re comfortable with being an alien from the future, but I would imagine you’d want to fit in while you’re here.”

“There’s no point.”  Roni finally lifts her head from her hands, little pieces of mascara crumbles stuck to her palm.  “I’m going back today  It would be a waste of money.”

Harry shrugs, smiling as if he knows something Roni doesn’t. “Suit yourself. I’m going into town today anyway, but if you don’t want to join me—“

“Seriously? What, do you have to work?”

“Something like that.”

“Jeez,” Roni says. “On New Year’s Day. They don’t mess around in the 20s, huh?” A sudden thought occurs to her, and she turns in her seat to fully face Harry. “Has the Great Depression happened yet?”

“The what?” Harry snorts.  “That sounds awful.”

Roni freezes mid-bite, immediately wanting to take back the question she’d so inconveniently word-vomited.  Is that even something she can talk to him about?  What year did that even start anyway?  “I… it’s… I... don’t know.”  Her sentence sounds like it should end in a question mark, and she offers Harry a measly shrug. 

A few awkward moments pass, in which Harry stares expectantly at Roni and she stares miserably back.  When Harry realizes she isn’t going to say anything, he laughs.

“Alright.” The word has a finality to it, and Roni is relieved that Harry is dropping the subject because really, what does one do in that situation?

 Harry picks up a cap from where it rests on the corner of a chair at the table. “Anyway. If you aren’t coming with me, I’ll just be on my way then.  I’m going to pick up a few things, do you need anything?”

“Again,” Roni says,  “No point.  I’m going back.”

“Right.”  Harry nods, placing the cap on his head and securing it with a little head nod.  “Well, you’ll still be here when I return, yes?”

“I dunno.”  Roni shrugs.  “I’m gonna try to go back like, as soon as I finish eating.”

“Well, at the very least, don’t try to go back before I have the chance to say goodbye to you.”

Roni doesn’t know why Harry’s words strike her so heavily, but the way he says them mixed with the genuine, dimpled smile on his face tugs at her heart, and for a split second she doesn’t want to leave.   Her whole body physically relaxes into the seat, and she swallows thickly. “But, I have to…. I mean, Oliver--”

“Oh right,” Harry says, seemingly completely unfazed.  “I forgot about that fellow.”  He makes his way towards the door, then stops.  “You know, Veronica, I mean no offense by this, but I don’t think this is going to be as easy as you seem to think it will be.”

And just like that, any soft feelings Roni was harboring evaporate.  “Why not?”

Harry shrugs.  “Just a hunch.”

Roni huffs.  “Well just for that, I think I will try to leave before you get home just to piss you off.”

“I don’t know what that means.”

“Don’t worry about it.”

Harry beams now, turning on his heel and opening his door. “Well in that case, goodbye Veronica.  Safe travels to the future.  I’ll be back around seven.”

Harry is out the door before Roni can get another word in edgewise, and she groans in the silence that she’s met with the moment the door closes behind him.  

Fucker.  

Regardless of his annoying antics, however, she does sit and take her time finishing her breakfast because, if anything, the boy is a damn good cook.  She meanders around the kitchen, helping herself to a glass of orange juice while she chews her food, and when she’s finished she sets to work washing the dishes that remain in the sink.  She’s never had to spend this much time hand-washing dishes, and she sighs in frustration once she’s nearly done, because god, she’d never realized how much she’d taken her dishwasher for granted.

Orange juice in hand, Roni makes her way to the single window in the living room that overlooks the city.  The people below bustle around in outfits that Roni has only seen in the old films she binges on her guilty pleasure days.  It’s surreal to see, yes, but it’s also so incredibly strange how normal it all is.  People living their lives with not even a hint of an idea about the world Roni comes from.  It’s so casual, and it’s just like any other day in New York, except they’re dressed like that, and the cars look like that, and Roni is so ridiculously out of place that she almost feels she’s barging in on something she wasn’t meant to see. 

Logically, she’d known that the world wasn’t actually black and white during these times, of course, but for some reason her brain had never processed it this way; seeing it alive and in front of her is the weirdest experience she’s ever had. 

And then there’s Harry, so beyond kind to her with zero reason to be.  Roni knows that if the shoe were on the other foot-- if she were just living her life and was approached by someone claiming to be from the future-- she’d laugh in their faces and call them crazy.  Maybe even call the cops.  But sweet Harry is so unconditionally compassionate, (albeit a bit of a pest), and if Roni thinks about it too much she might cry, because she doesn’t feel she deserves it.

She glances around the kitchen then, a sudden idea popping into her mind.  She’s a woman of her word, and she does intend on being out of here by the time he returns from work-- or wherever it is he’s off to.  But at the very least, he does deserve a goodbye.  And a ‘thank you.’  So she searches until she finds a piece of paper and what looks like the fanciest pen she’s ever come across in her life, before sitting down at the table to jot down a quick, yet heart-felt goodbye note.

---- 

5:04pm, October 29th, 1987

Thirteen-year old Roni has a lot on her plate-- literally and metaphorically.

She uses her fork to push her food around the plate slowly, watching it with dull eyes.  Her chin rests in the palm of her free hand, essentially scrunching up her face so much that her eye is nearly shut.   She’s got far too much on her mind to even think about dinner right now; and besides, her Grandma Judy’s chicken and broccoli casserole has never quite sat right with her stomach anyway.

“Veronica darling, sit up,” Judy scolds, bringing Roni back to earth.  “What’s the matter with you tonight?”

Roni says nothing, she only sits up and frowns at Judy, offering her a half-hearted shrug.

“Well you’re not getting up from this table until you finish everything on that plate, so I suggest you start eating.”

Roni groans, holding her fork properly and stabbing a piece of broccoli.  She shovels it begrudgingly into her mouth and slouches in her chair.

Judy sighs, her features softening.  “Honey.”  Her voice is sweet and calm, and it makes Roni want to cry because it reminds her of her mother.  “What’s on your mind?”

Roni chews her food slowly, thinking about how to properly go about this conversation.  It’s been on her mind ever since her mother had passed, and with each day she grows increasingly more frustrated trying to find a solution to her problem.  She shrugs again, settling on a simple non-committal answer.  “I don’t know.”

Judy’s lips form a line, and she knows Roni has more to say.  “Well,” she says slowly,  “Is there anything you’d like to talk about?”

“No.”

The only noise that follows is the ticking of the grandfather clock that looms in the corner of the dining room.  Roni hates how thick and almost threatening it feels, and she clears her throat as she stabs another piece of broccoli.

Judy clears her throat, reaching for her glass of water.  She knows Roni well enough to know that she’ll come around when she feels like it.  Especially in the past two years that Roni has lived here, Judy has had many conversations with Roni that turn out similarly to this one, and she’s always ended up getting to the bottom of things.

“Actually--”

Judy smiles into her glass.  Bingo.

Roni sighs, her ears tinging red as she refuses to look her grandmother in the eye.  “Grandma,” she says slowly,  “Do you believe in time travel?”

“Time travel?!”  Judy scoffs.  “Oh sweetheart, not you too.”

Roni isn’t sure what kind of answer she was expecting but it most certainly wasn’t that.  She scowls. “What does that mean?”

“Your mother had a strange fascination with traveling through time.  I don’t know where she got the notion that it was possible,  but she was obsessed.  She was constantly asking me about it, always riding her bike to bookstores to pick up books about it.  She never gave up, even after you were born. She was always speaking about it.”

“And?”

“I loved your mother, sweetheart.  I still love her.  But that was one thing I’ll never understand about her.”

Roni blows a bit of her hair out of her eye, realizing that she’s leaning across the table excitedly.  Her grandmother’s words are meant to discourage her, yes, but they don’t.  They do the opposite, in fact, only spurring her on further.  She takes this as a sign from the universe that this is absolutely something she must look into.   “Did she ever… try it?”

“I think so, yes.  Although I always discouraged her from doing it.”

“Where did she try to go?”

Judy raises an eyebrow. “You seem awfully interested in something that is entirely impossible, Veronica.  In any case, I’m not sure.   She did love the 1920s, though.”

“The 20s?”  Roni giggles.  “Why?”

Now Judy laughs, softening once more at the memory.  “As someone who was alive during the 20s, I can assure you I have absolutely no idea.  She loved the music, the clothes.  I don’t think she understood how hard things were. She just fell in love with all the positive things she saw.”  Judy’s smile turns sad, and her voice grows quieter.  “That was so like your mother.”

“Yeah,” Roni says, eyes growing misty.   

Roni misses her mother.  She knows Judy does too.  Not a day has gone by in the last two years in which she and her grandmother haven’t spoken of Tanya.  Every day there’s another memory, another story shared that has them laughing, crying, or even sometimes both simultaneously.  Sometimes on school nights, Roni will sit on the floor in front of Judy’s chair, and Judy will tell a story about Tanya as a child while she braids Roni’s hair.  Tanya very much lives in every corner of the house; she is kept alive in the stories and the laughter, and she lingers in the comfortable silences.  Roni feels her every day, but it doesn’t stop the pain of missing her. 

“You remind me so much of her,” Judy says with a smile.  “And it terrifies me.”

“Why?”

“Because you question everything,” Judy laughs.  “And you are so incredibly smart that I can’t even begin to wrap my mind around it.  You know what you want, and you’ve never given up until you’ve gotten it.  You are strong-willed, and stubborn, and brave just like her.  You have her sense of humor.  Her smile.  Her beautiful eyes.”  

Judy trails off, voice wet, and Roni knows that if her grandmother thinks much longer about this she will cry. “I watched your mother work herself up over this topic to the point of getting sick.  I watched her cry over being unsuccessful.  I watched her want it to work so badly, just to be let down so many times.”  She takes a shaky breath, fingers drumming slowly on the table before lowering her voice. 

“I know why you’re asking me this, Veronica.  And don’t think I haven’t thought about it myself.”  Her blue eyes glisten with moisture, and she reaches across the table to take Roni’s hand.  “I want her back just as much as you do.  But I don’t want you to get into something that’s going to break your heart.”

Roni swallows, absorbing the seriousness of her grandmother’s words.  She’s about to speak, when Judy cuts her off once more.

“To answer your first question,” she says,   “I don’t know what I believe.”  She gives Roni’s hand a squeeze before adding pointedly, “But, I know I met someone when I was a little girl.  She was… this beautiful woman with the kindest heart.  And she had a mood ring, similar to the one your mother wore. Those hadn’t been invented yet, which hadn’t occurred to me until I was several years older.  And she seemed…”  Judy trails off again, smiling to herself.  “Otherworldly.  I don’t know how to explain what I saw in her.  I don’t think I ever will.”

“Was it mom?”  Roni’s voice is hardly above a whisper, and Judy shakes her head.

“It definitely wasn’t your mother.  I don’t know who she was.  Just a stranger, I think.  But I could just tell that she knew something I didn’t.  I’ve always wondered what happened to her.  Where she came from.  Where she went.”

Judy sits back in her seat with a quiet exhale then, taking a few more sips of her water while Roni hardly even moves.  Her hand remains frozen in the spot where Judy’s had been holding it, and she doesn’t even want to blink as she tries to register everything going on.

“Do I think time travel is real?”  Judy asks, setting her glass down.  Her voice carries a tone of finality, and Roni knows this is the end of the conversation.  “Possibly.  Do I think it’s safe?  No. So please, Veronica, for my sake, just quit while you’re ahead.”  She picks up her fork and stabs a piece of broccoli to it, raising it and pointing it towards Roni’s plate.  “And finish your dinner.  It’s getting cold.”

----

7:11pm, January 1st, 1925

It’s nearing seven-fifteen when Harry returns to his apartment with arms full of grocery bags. His wallet feels like he’s just burned a hole in it, but his logic had been that he may as well spend the money he has now (albeit very little) to buy enough food to last him through the week.  He’ll secure himself a job, he knows it.  But for now he needs to focus on surviving long enough to see that day. He lets out a long sigh of relief the moment the door closes behind him and he finds himself back within the comfort of his own four walls.  

As it turns out, job hunting is much harder than he’d anticipated-- especially on a holiday. All shops were either closed or insanely busy to the point where he couldn’t even speak to someone without waiting for hours on end.  So here he is, returning home fruitless with a bruised ego, a bruised eye, and a hungry belly. 

Much to his chagrin, Roni is nowhere in sight, and his heart admittedly sinks a little.  To think that she actually did leave before he had a chance to say goodbye. He didn’t think she’d find a way. He frowns as he twists his way through the apartment, careful not to drop the several bags he’s carrying.  As soon as he plops them on the counter though, he realizes his bedroom door is cracked open, and a little bit of hope is restored. 

Harry tiptoes his way over and peaks in through the open door, relief washing over him when he finds Roni lying flat on her back.  She’s on the bed, hands folded across her stomach, eyes closed, as she mutters something to herself through a most displeased frown.   It takes everything in him not to choke out a laugh, and he knows Roni can hear him, but she doesn’t even acknowledge his presence. So Harry decides its best to leave her be, and closes the door for her.

He smiles to himself as he makes his way back to the kitchen to put away the groceries.  Truth be told, he doesn’t know why it makes him so happy that she’s still here, and he shakes his head when he realizes how red his cheeks are.  She makes him laugh, he thinks, and that is why he wants her around so badly.

It’s been nice having company, and Harry really does look forward to spending a little bit more time with her,  however short that time may be.   He finds her so interesting and funny, especially considering the fact that she comes from a year that doesn’t even seem real.   He wants to ask her so many more questions, he wants to hear her curse like nobody’s business, and most of all, he just wants a friend.  She brightens his small world, which is something he hadn’t realized he’d needed until he’d met her.

Christ, he’s only just met her yesterday.  

Harry shakes his head again, the cap placed on top of his curls jostling a bit.  He puts away the rest of the groceries, shifting his focus instead on what to make for dinner.  He doesn’t want to bother Roni now, not when she’s so determined, and he’s sure she’s eaten while he’s been gone.  He, however, had not had the chance, and he decides to make himself a chicken sandwich.   If Roni is hungry later he’ll make her one as well, but his belly groans in protest of the thought of waiting any longer for food.

Harry wanders over to the Victrola Phonograph in the corner of the room, a gift from his father many years ago.  His favorite record sits on the turntable just itching to be played, and he flips the switch on the side of the box, watching it slowly whirl to life.  With delicate fingers he takes the needle and presses it against the grooves, and he smiles to himself when his favorite song fills the silence of the room. 

With one last nod towards his closed bedroom door, Harry sets to work making dinner. 

---

It’s an hour later, and Harry is beginning to think that Roni has either fallen asleep or actually figured out his whole time traveling business.  He's considering checking in on her, when out of the corner of his eye, he sees her approaching from his spot on the couch."

Her figure makes him nearly jump out of his skin, and he has to take a few moments to calm down once he realizes he is, in fact, looking at her and not a ghost who’s found its way into his apartment.  

She looks worn out and frustrated, and she doesn’t so much as blink when Harry flinches.  She just stares back at him, emotionless, while he tries to catch his breath.  The only sound between the two of them is the record he’s playing, and she blinks uninterestedly.

Harry clears his throat.  “I take it you didn’t make it back.” 

This time Roni does show signs of life, shooting Harry a scowl from hell that makes him laugh out loud.  She ignores his remark. “I thought it might be a nighttime thing,” she says.  “Like, I thought maybe it would only work at night and that’s where I was going wrong.”

“That would be strange.”  Harry rises to his feet and takes his cap off to run a hand through his hair.  “Like conditional time travel.  I suppose it makes sense though.  Did you eat today?” 

Roni sighs, folding her arms across her chest and trudging defeatedly over to the dining table.  “No, just breakfast.  I was too busy doing this shit.”

Harry frowns.  “That’s not good.  You need to eat something.”  He makes his way into the kitchen and opens the cabinets.   “I bought some things to make sandwiches.  I know that’s not much, but I’ll make you one.”

“You really don’t have to do that.”

Harry busies himself, ignoring her half-hearted protest.  “You’re going to need all the energy you can get to travel back to the future.”

Roni glowers at him.  “I literally cannot tell if you’re on my side or if you think I’m crazy.”

“Perhaps a bit of both.”  Now Harry does meet her gaze, a soft smile on his face.  “You’ll make it back, but I think you’re trying too hard.”

“Do you have any better ideas?”

“No,” Harry admits, turning back to the food.  “But I suspect that if you gave it some time, we could probably figure it out together.  Like I said, I don’t think the answer is really as simple as you’re hoping.”

“Harry, I don’t have any more time to give this.”

“I’m not sure that you have a choice, love.” 

Roni rolls her eyes, mostly frustrated because she knows he’s right.  “Well, you’re wrong.”

Harry doesn’t respond to her. Instead, he just continues retrieving everything he needs for her sandwich and placing the items on the counter.  Roni watches him for a moment, all tension in her body starting to fizzle out when she realizes there’s no point in trying to convince him.  She sighs.  “How was work?”

Roni doesn’t notice the way Harry tenses up for half a second, or the way his breath hitches in his throat.  He coughs, and Roni thinks nothing of it-- thank God.  “It was good.”

“Yeah?  What did you tell your boss about your black eye?  I can just picture you all, ‘Hey man, I met this crazy chick from the future.  She can really pack a punch.’”

Harry snorts.  “Yeah, something along those lines.  It wasn’t a big deal.”

Roni laughs to herself, tucking her knees up to her chest and wrapping her arms around her legs.  The tips of Harry’s ears go beet red when he sees her sitting this way, and he tries desperately not to gawk at the way his own boxer briefs-- which are already too large for her-- ride up the delicate skin of her thighs.  He’s never seen a girl sit so comfortably exposed like this and, as much of a struggle as it is for him not to stare, he can’t say he doesn’t love it.

They spend the next few minutes in silence, and Harry is about finished with her sandwich when she nods her head towards the phonograph.  “Who is the guy playing?”

Harry stops moving and gapes at her, his jaw nearly reaching the floor in shock, and it annoys Roni. She rolls her eyes.  “What could I have possibly said now?”

“You mean to tell me you’ve never heard of Louis Armstrong?”

“What?”  Harry’s question takes Roni aback.  “No, of course I have. I just didn’t realize…. This is him?”  Roni trails off with a smile.  This is another one of those moments where she finds herself coming face to face with the fact that she truly is in a whole different world.  She grew up on Louis Armstrong; her mother owned nearly every record there was to own.  He’d died three years before Roni was born, but now she’s living in a time where he isn’t someone who used to exist; he exists.  Present tense. And he’s still so early in his career.

“You’re surprised?”  Harry walks over to the dining table and sets the plate in front of Roni, along with a glass of water.  “He’s one of the best.”

“Agreed,” Roni nods.  “And he is for like, ever.”

“Yeah?”  Harry beams, walking over to the phonograph.  “So he’s a big deal where you’re from, too?”

“Oh god, yeah.”

“I can’t wait to hear more from him, then.  What else can you tell me about the future?”

Roni speaks through a mouthful.  “What else do you want to know?”    Harry’s back is turned to her, so she isn’t exactly sure what he’s doing.

“Hmm.”  Harry thinks out loud, bending down to rummage through a cardboard box at the foot of the phonograph.  “Do I ever become a world famous singer?”

Roni raises an eyebrow.  “You want to become a world famous singer?”

Harry shrugs.  “Never thought about it until right now.  Could be fun.”

“Oh,” Roni giggles.  “Well I’m sorry to say I’ve never heard of you.”

“Figures.  Ah, here we are!”   Harry straightens himself up once more, holding a record in his hand.

“What are you doing?” Roni pouts as Harry switches out the records on the strange machine.  “I was into that.”

“I want to see if you know this one in the future as well!  No peeking.”  

Despite his command, Roni still tries to get a look at the title of the record in his hand.  Her eyesight, of course, fails her, and she’s forced to sit and wait impatiently until the scratchy music begins to pay through the horn.

She recognizes the tune almost instantly and beams.  “Oh my god,” she shouts over the music.  “Is this the Charleston?”

“So you do know it!”  Harry’s beaming right back at her, swaying his hips in time to the music and snapping his fingers.  He taps his toes a bit, kicking his legs every now and then and slowly getting into the rhythm.  “Do you know how to do the dance?”

Roni giggles with every sway of his hips, especially the more elaborate he gets.  “I don’t, I never learned.”

“What?!” Harry stands up straight, halting his movements.  “You must be joking.”

Roni shakes her head, her smile only growing wider because she knows exactly what is about to happen.  “Not joking! All I know is there’s like, some sort of…. This action… type thing…”  Roni wiggles her pointer finger and her head simultaneously, and Harry bursts into the loudest, happiest laugh Roni thinks she’s ever heard.

“Oh my god,” He says, the crinkles around his eyes becoming so adorably apparent.  “I mean,” he makes his way over to the phonograph to restart the song,  “You’re close.  It’s a very good attempt.  But we’ve got to teach you.”

Harry launches right into it the moment the music starts again, and Roni covers her face with her hand.  “Noo,” she whines,  “I’m not a good dancer.”

“You don’t have to be!”  Harry says, perfectly executing the dance moves that Roni has only seen in old films.  “It’s quite easy once you get the hang of it.”

Roni snorts at how goofy he’s being, but she’s actually impressed.  His timing is impeccable, and he’s right on beat with every step he takes.  His whole body seems so effortlessly into it, and he shoots her a silly face that makes her belly-laugh.   

“Come on!” he says, waving her over.  “You aren’t going to learn this sitting down.”

“I can’t!” Roni says again, giggles now completely overtaking her.  It’s the first time in the past twenty-four hours that she has felt this genuinely happy, and she doesn’t notice the way Harry beams every time she laughs.  

She needs this.  So does he.

“Come onnn,”  Harry says again, dancing his way over to her.  He takes her hand in his own and yanks her to her feet, not giving her a choice in the matter.  She squeals when he flings her around a bit, and its an awkward shuffle as she tries to mirror his feet.

“You’ve got it!”  He says.  “Step, kick, step, kick, step-- good!  See?”

Roni knows she’s a mess as she fumbles around through every beat.  She keeps stepping with the wrong foot despite keeping her eyes glued to the floor, and she’s out of breath within fifteen seconds from laughing so hard.  While she watches their feet, Harry watches her, and he giggles every time she does.  

“Come on,” he encourages, “now a kick to the side… no, the other side… Veronica, oh my god.”  His eyes grow misty with tears from laughter, and Roni nearly shouts in his face through her own guffaw.  

“I told you I’m not good at this!”

“You are, you just need to practice!”  Harry continues to move, practically swinging her around like a ragdoll now.  He’s half given up on giving her instructions, and he grunts when she accidentally kicks him in the shin.

“Oh god, I’m so sorry!” She says, hardly even intelligible through her cackle.  She stops attempting to move all together,  doubling over and letting her laughter bubble up throughout her entire body.  “I can’t do this!” 

“You can!” Harry insists, bending down to try and look at her face.  “It isn’t that hard!”

“It is when you’re me!  God, did this song get faster?” 

“You’re doing fine!”  Harry takes her hands and straightens her up again.  “Come on, the song is almost over.”

For the next minute and six seconds, more laughing and shouting is done than actual dancing.  Harry and Roni trip over one another constantly, and neither is sure why this is so incredibly funny but here they are, tears in their eyes and cheeks hurting from too much laughter.  

When the song comes roaring to an end, Roni flings herself down onto the couch, clutching at her belly.  Harry collapses onto the ground in a fit of giggles as well, only just now realizing that his hat has come flying off and now sits discarded on the floor beside him.  He picks it up and runs a hand through his sweaty hair before placing the cap lazily back on his head.  

“God that was fun,” Roni says through her residual giggles.  “I don’t even know the last time I laughed that hard.

“Me neither,” Harry admits.  “Sorry to interrupt your eating.” 

“What?”  Roni’s sandwich sits completely abandoned at the table, and she laughs when she sees it.  “Oh!  Forgot about that.”

Roni rises and heads back over the table while Harry remains on the floor,  smiling to himself and wanting nothing more than to keep dancing with her.  Before he even has a chance to bring it up, however,  Roni is off on a tangent about how different dancing is in 1999.

“Don’t get me wrong,” she says,  “it’s a lot of fun.  But dancing here is so like… pure, I guess?  Just like, pure fun?  And there’s something to be said for that, there really is.”

Harry is only half-heartedly listening to her.  Instead he’s watching her, fascinated by how casually she sits cross-legged on his uncomfortable dining chair, as if it’s no big deal that her bare legs are so exposed to him. How her hair falls into her face so frequently that she doesn’t even realize how often she brushes it back.  How much more chatty and bubbly she is when she’s completely comfortable.   And the way her eyes sparkle when she smiles.  Had they sparkled like that last night?

Roni chats away, and Harry occasionally adds in his two cents when it’s needed.  But in his mind he’s trying to pinpoint that exact moment where he started noticing these things about her.  Where did the shift occur, and why is it occurring?  

Harry tries to be quicker than Roni when she finally stands with her now empty plate.  He jumps to his feet and rushes to her side.  “I can take that,” he says, but she twists away from him, taking the plate with her. 

“Nope,” she says.  “Dude, relax.  You’ve done like, way too much for me already.  The least I can do is wash my own plate.”  She smiles at him from her new spot at the sink, letting the water run over the plate.  “Gotta earn my keep around here somehow, yeah?”

Harry smiles, frozen in place.  He senses that she’s going to suggest going to bed soon, and his brain scrambles to come up with any excuse to keep her awake with him.  He swears it isn’t anything more than a fascination with her.  He just considers her an interesting person and that is all.  There is nothing more to it. 

She yawns as she finishes up her scrubbing and turns the faucet off.  “Anyway, we should head to bed.  I know you must be exhausted after working all day.”

Harry doesn’t allow himself to dwell on that comment, instead just blurting out, “Wait!”

Roni seems almost startled by his outburst, but she covers it quickly with her signature smile.  “What’s up?”

There’s a moment where he isn’t sure what he wants to say, and he realizes he’s holding his breath.  He laughs awkwardly.  “I’m not exhausted.  Not yet.”

“Oh. But I thought--”

“I want to teach you one more dance.”  It isn’t a lie.  

“Oh god, Harry I don’t know if I can handle--”

“You can,” Harry insists, immediately feeling bad for cutting her off.  “This one is much easier.  Promise.”

When Harry is met only with a skeptical look from Roni, he points to his face.  “You can give me another good sock to the face if I’m lying.”

This coaxes a laugh out of Roni, and she shakes her head.  “You’re so stupid. Fine.”

Harry grins in triumph, already heading back to the phonograph.  “Wonderful.  I bet you’ll love it.  And if you do, I’ll take you out dancing tomorrow.  I know tons of great places.”  Harry pauses, shooting Roni a pointed look over his shoulder.  “That is, if you’re still here tomorrow.” 

Roni rolls her eyes.  “You know I’m still gonna be here tomorrow.  We have established that I will be here until we figure something else out.”

“Then it’s a date.”  Harry smirks, turning back to the task at hand.  When he finds the record he wants, he replaces the current one, taking care not to scratch either of them.  He can feel Roni’s eyes on him, and he takes his time in the process of starting the new song.  When the jazz music starts, he turns slowly on his heel and holds his hand out to her.   “May I have this dance?”

Roni laughs, but she makes her way to him anyway.  One arm slings loosely against his shoulder, and she slides her free hand into his.  She looks up at him expectantly, waiting for him to lead the way.  He wants to linger like this, but he realizes that if he stares too long his slight fascination with her will blossom into something he isn’t quite sure he’s ready to admit to.

So he takes the first step.

Harry marvels at how easily Roni falls into stride with him, this dance clearly coming more naturally to her.

“You’ve waltzed before?” he asks.

“Kind of,” Roni admits.  “Like, I know enough about waltzing to know how to do it, I think.  Why, do I suck at it?”

Harry snorts.  “No, not at all.  You’re actually quite good.  You’re redeeming yourself from earlier.”

“Yeah well,” Roni shrugs, “I’m a woman of many talents, what can I say?  Plus this song makes it easy.  What is it called?” 

Harry continues his movements around the living room with Roni in his arms, happy that she seems to be enjoying this just as much as he is.  “It’s called What’ll I Do. It’s a bit of a sad song.”

“Is it?”  Roni asks.  “I was gonna say, it doesn’t have a necessarily sad vibe to it.  Just more melancholy than anything really.  Does it have any lyrics?”

“It does.  I mean, obviously not this version, but yes.”

“Oh, yeah?  I want to hear them.”

Harry smirks down at her.  “Are you trying to get me to sing?”

“I want to see if you have a future as a world famous singer.”

“Oh, I already know that I do.  Just because you’ve never heard of me--”

“You’re stalling.”

She’s got him there, and Harry chuckles to himself.  “Alright,” he says after a beat.  “I got you to dance with me again, so I suppose it’s the least I can do.”

It takes him only a split second to realize where exactly the song is at, and he subtly pulls Roni closer so that he can sing softly by her ear. 

The moment hits them both at once, and Harry realizes that this is the closest he’s ever physically been to her.  He clears his throat, eyes cast straight ahead but lips caressing the stubborn wisps of hair around her ears. Through a shaky voice, he half sings, half speaks, and he isn’t sure if she’s moving her own body closer or if he’s selfishly pulling her in. 

 Admittedly, this singing isn’t his best. But for some reason this moment seems too soft, too fragile, to be shattered by full on singing.  

With her this close to him, he can smell a hint of the perfume that lingers on her skin from whatever she was doing the night before, and it smells so wonderful that he almost pauses a tick too long.  He chuckles when he realizes he’s skipped an entire line of the song, then falls right back into the melody, crooning gently into her ear.  

It isn’t long before they’re swaying more than waltzing, and Harry feels Roni physically melt into him the closer he gets.  Her stiff arms become loose against his own, and the hand that rested on his shoulder nervously slides its way further along his back and around his neck.  She allows him to really guide her, as if she’s completely unsure of her movements. He gives her hand a squeeze, a silent reassurance, and continues to sing.

He doesn’t know when this moment turned into something so intimate, but he is sure as hell significantly more self-conscious than he had been before. Now, he is suddenly so acutely aware of the warmth radiating from small of her back beneath the palm of his hand.  She feels delicate, like one squeeze too hard could break her-- and yet all he wants to do is hold her as close as possible. 

Roni is so close to him now that he feels her eyelashes flutter closed against his chest. He hadn’t realized how much taller he was than her, and it makes his breath catch in his throat.   She’s so lovely he could cry, and his cheeks grow hot.

“I’m not a very good singer,” he mumbles.

“You are.”  Roni doesn’t even lift her head, and her voice sounds far away and slow.  “Keep going.”

What the hell is happening to him? He hardly even knows her for fucks sake,  and suddenly he’s in this dream-like trance, holding her and swaying around his living room to a sad song about a relationship that’s ended.  He can’t get enough of her smell or her warmth, and he wishes more than anything he could see her face right now.

“With just a photograph… to tell my troubles to…  when I’m alone… with only dreams of you…”

Harry and Roni seem to realize at the same time that they are no longer waltzing, and hardly even swaying, and Harry swallows thickly around a newly dried throat.  

“That won't come true… what’ll I do?”

Roni stops completely now, and Harry stops singing.  The song continues to play softly, and neither makes an effort to be the first to move.  Harry wasn’t expecting to feel this way when he’d woken up this morning or hell, even when he’d met Roni last night, but dammit, here he is, body on fire and heart pounding in his ears.

It’s Roni that breaks the tension first, but she takes her time doing it.  Without removing her hand from his or her arm from neck, she clears her throat and looks up at him, completely doe-eyed. “That... that is a sad song.”

“It is.”  Harry’s voice sounds thick and distant and strained in his own ears.

Still neither of them move, letting the song play away in the background and looking at one another’s faces-- something fizzing in the air that hadn’t been there before.

Roni doesn’t look scared, but she looks almost surprised. Harry refuses to exhale, watching her eyes scanning his own face as if she’s looking for something. He can’t tell if she wants to say something, and he isn’t sure of what he’s even thinking right now.  His hand feels sweaty around hers, and he licks at his lips.  It’s the most intense tension he’s ever felt, but in a refreshingly good way.  He feels like he never wants it to end.

The song, however, has other plans, and the last few chords echo through the room before stopping completely.  This seemingly breaks Roni from her trance, and she finally pulls away, averting her gaze to the floor.   “Um,” is all she manages to say. 

Harry isn’t even sure what to do in this situation; he just stands there blinking stupidly at her until she smiles again.

“I do think you have a future.  In singing I mean.  That was great.”  She’s smiling like nothing has changed, and Harry isn’t sure if it delights him or crushes him.

He returns her smile with one of his own, and he gives a half-hearted laugh.  “You think so?”

“Definitely.  You’ll be the next big thing for sure.”  She reaches up to run a hand through her own hair, and it makes Harry laugh because he hadn’t noticed her doing that until he’d realized how often he did it himself.

“Anywho!”  Roni’s voice is completely back to normal now, and she turns on her heel to head to the bedroom.  She speaks over her shoulder.  “That was super fun.  I’d love to take you up on that whole ‘going out dancing’ thing tomorrow night.”

Harry’s ears perk at this.  “Really?”

“Yeah! I can show off my new moves.”  She turns in the doorway, putting her hands on either side of the frame. “And besides like, maybe you’re right.  Maybe I need to get out and like, see 1920s New York or something.  I’m clearly not going to find out how to get back by just sitting in your room all day every day.  Let’s go out and like, have fun and stuff.  Not every day I get this opportunity, you know?”

Harry nods, already planning out everywhere he’s going to take her tomorrow.  “Exactly.”

“Awesome.”  Roni forms her fingers into the shape of a gun and uses her thumb to pull an imaginary trigger.  “Soo, yeah.  Cool.  See ya there, dude.  Goodnight!”

Roni doesn’t even wait for him to respond before she’s closing the bedroom door behind her.  The moment she’s safe in the confines of her-- his-- room, she lets her jaw fall practically to the floor. 

What was that?!

One moment it was two friends having fun and the next she was feeling things.  Things that she’s not sure she’s ever even felt with Oliver.  How?  Where had that initial switch happened, and how does she put a stop to it?  Why is she suddenly feeling glad that all of her attempts to go back so far have failed?

Fuck, she’d only just met him last night.

She rubs at her face, realizing how disgusting her skin feels. She’s definitely going to need to shower tomorrow, which presents an entirely new set of challenges like asking for more clothes to borrow and being naked in this boy’s home and… god, figuring out how the hell that weird looking shower works. 

Roni decides that, to the best of her ability, she’s just going to ignore her anxiety (and the dull tingling between her legs that had started the moment she’d gotten close enough to smell Harry’s cologne) and just hop into bed.  If she pushes the feelings down far enough, they’ll probably evaporate. She’s done it with so many other things, so she knows that it’s going to work with her situation, or whatever this is, with Harry. 

When she glances at the bed, however, she sees the goodbye note she was leaving for him to find, completely untouched, and she feels ridiculously silly.  Why would she have any reason to leave without saying goodbye to him in person?  After everything he’s done for her?  She takes the note and tosses it onto the floor before turning off the light and sliding in between the sheets.

It doesn’t take her long to get situated, and she gives her eyes a moment to get used to the thick darkness of the room before letting out a deep and heavy sigh.  She uses all of her efforts to not think about her current situation and to ignore the delicious smell of the sheets she’s wrapped up in, opting instead to hum softly to herself.   

She hums every 1990s hit pop song that her brain can remember until she finally forgets that the light under the bedroom door is still on, and that probably the most handsome and lovely person she’s ever known sits right outside her door.  And to the tune of some Backstreet Boys song, she finally drifts.

[darkzorua100]

Well...that was underwhelming. I get that episode 71 was basically just set up for the start of the war between humanity and the Ignises, and there was no way they were going to be able to top episode 70 with everything that happened in that, but this episode just went by so fast that they didn’t even give us time to be whelmed by the reveals that they did give us. I mean, it didn’t help that the beginning of the episode was a four minute recap and everything else felt like stuff that we as the viewers were already able to put together, it was just the show confirming it for us. But hey, on the bright side, we got our new ED this week. The bad side? OP 2 is still the same. No changes whatsoever. I shouldn’t get annoyed at this, after all there was no evidences to begin with that we were going to get an updated OP, but at the very least couldn’t they have updated Revolver? That is just going to be awkward now seeing him in his old avatar when he’s in his new one in the ED.

Anyway, we pick up right where we left off in episode 70 with the whole Jin reveal and I do like how this episode finally establishes a term for how the Ignises view their humans. Lightning calls Jin his Origin which makes sense. Still want to know how the actual hell Jin created Light Yagami from his messed up state but I digress. As we expected, just based on his expression, Jin is basically just a lifeless drone for Lightning to use, imprisoned within his own mind. How does that exactly work though? I mean, Jin’s real body is in a coma right now with his consciousness being used as Lightning’s throne with his deeper consciousness being completely closed off. This is some Inception sh*t right here is all I can say to that. Back to the whole Origin thing, Lightning says something about it that I find interesting. He says, and I quote, “Ignis and Origins can’t help but to affect each other.” with Ai talking about how this is shown through Playmaker’s Link Sense. It is because of their connection, with Ai being the Ignis based off Yusaku, that Yusaku has that ability to begin with. Interesting. What does this say about the Lost Children and the Ignises as a whole then if they keep finding ways to affect each other whether they know it or not? Take for example Windy’s condition at the moment. He out right tried to kill his kid, if he’s alive or not who knows at the time being, and then that pain and suffering he unleashed on his kid circles back around to almost destroy him. I’m very intrigued to know more about this connection then ever now.

Playmaker puts together that Lightning was the one to destroy the Cyberse World and Ai, especially Flame, are pissed about that one. Basically Lightning did it as a giant reset button. Because they weren’t getting anywhere on their decision whether to co-exist with humans or to destroy them, because Flame, and, as revealed in this episode, Aqua wanted to side with humans. I think this basically confirms that Aqua went to her human so that’s going to be interesting to see when we finally see them in person. I also just loved the little moment between Flame and Soulburner when Flame told Lightning the reasons why he sided with Takeru in the first place. 

Okay, that’s adorable. Unlike Yusaku and Ai, who grew to believe and understand each other as partners, Flame just naturally believed in Takeru from the start when he couldn’t even do that for himself. It really is just tough love between these two on why Flame is such a jerk to Takeru at times, other then just not being able to understand humans of course on Flame’s end, but it works and it is just nice. It is also just really interesting for Flame to say this as well because again, when you look at it from Yusaku and Ai’s prospective, if Ai had actually stayed in the Cyberse World after the first attack, he probably would have been on Lightning’s side. As seen in the first episode, he watched Playmaker from a gargoyle statue when he was on the run sure but if he never left in the first place, he more then likely would have never done that. As Ai stated, he and the other Ignises wanted nothing to do with humanity at first and considering how self preservation he was in the beginning of season 1, if Lightning told him that hey, the humans are going to be planning a full out war between us then yeah, he definitely would be on Lightning’s side if it meant he would be able to win and continue to live. Some nice indirect acknowledgement for Ai’s character development right there. 

Of course, Lightning doesn’t share the same views as Ai and Flame do and just thinks it is a giant error in their programming. To put it in a nutshell, since he wasn’t able to talk them into joining his side peacefully, he’s going to try and reset them just like he did with their world when he gets the chance. Right now, Lightning has to save Windy’s life since he’s still kinda dying at the moment so he leaves with his star club. Playmaker and Soulburner make chase, and the Knights of Hanoi stay back to watch the show and make some phone calls to invite SOL Technologies to the party. Revolver feels like being lazy piece of sh*t this season, allowing his enemies to destroy each other. Considering the controversy at the moment with him and Datastormshipping in general, maybe that’s a good thing? Personally I enjoy watching Revolver murder fools with his gun dragons, but I guess we have to pass that up for another Playmaker vs Bohman duel because Playmaker needs to reveal his Synchro.

We get another reveal in this episode that it was actually Lightning that saved Playmaker and Ai from falling to their death after their duel with Spectre, not Revolver. Since Lightning couldn’t deal with the Knights when he was busy destroying the Cyberse World, he saved Playmaker to do it for him. For someone who thinks humans are inferior, you sure do trust them to save your existence from being bombed, Lightning. Well I guess Ai was with him so I guess he trusted Ai to make sure that Playmaker wouldn’t betray them or something? I don’t know, there are actually some flaws in your plan there, Lightning. Like what if he actually did lose against Revolver during that duel, you basically just got yourself killed because you didn’t feel like it was necessary to protect your kin personally and instead felt like trying to destroy them yourself for apparently your own salvation. Lightning’s plan is just weird.

After that reveal, Blood Shepherd and Go’s goons finally show up. Lightning sends out his army of Bit and Boot clones to take care of them (and fail miserably in the process) while Bohman suggests to take care of Playmaker while Lightning takes care of Soulburner. After we get some more nightmare fuel in the form of Jin pinching Windy’s eye out of its socket to create a data storm to separate the two, (on that note geez Vrains. I know it is October and all, with us getting a new Vrains episode on Halloween even (and on that note who is going to appear on that date? We had our lord and savior Zarc appear on Christmas, now better known as Zarcmas, so what are we going to be changing this date to now for the Yu-Gi-Oh fandom?) but you all have no chill when it comes to the body horror with the Ignises) Bohman appears in front of Playmaker to duel him and Lightning, with Jin, appearing to be going to duel Soulburner, with a pissed off Flame, sometime after that or maybe they are going to cut back and froth between these two duels? Regardless, I just like to say this now, Takeru and Flame are so screwed. There is no way in hell they are beating Lightning, especially with how pissed off Flame is at the current moment which could lead into so many misplays, and with the new ED revealing that it looks like Earth is siding with the humans, more on that later, unless they want to turn this into a 2 against 4, Flame is going to get reset when they lose and Takeru is going to get turned into a mindless drone in the process. If we are lucky, Lightning can really mess up his memories and turn Soulburner into a sadistic bastard instead. Now I’m not saying I want that to happen but please turn Soulburner into a sadistic bastard, please turn Soulburner into a sadistic bastard, Lightning. I need more psycho characters. 

We get to finally learn the deal with Bohman and Haru for the most part. They are both AIs created by Lightning to surpass the Ignises. Apparently all the other times we saw Bohman, he was in the Alpha and Beta stages of his programming and now, more or less, in Opened Beta. Bohman calls himself the 3rd generation of Ignis, modeled after both Playmaker and Ai (guess that explains the whole thinking he is Playmaker thing), with Haru being the 2nd and Lightning, with the rest of the original Ignises, being the 1st. Bit and Boot were the original prototypes for the 2nd that lead into Haru if I’m getting all of this correct. He created these new Ais, Ignis 2.0 and 3.0, because Lightning feared that the Ignis as they are now will turn against each other like humans have done in the past (well he isn’t wrong, but just like Kogami, how fitting, you both fulfilled your own prophecies), and made Bohman as the vessel to untie and Ignis together. Figuratively or literally I’m not sure but hello Divine Ignis. It looks like we are going to be getting one in the future, if Bohman didn’t just claim to be it. Again, nothing that he says we should take at face value, because memory problems and all that, but it actually looks like he is legitimate this time around just based on how Lightning spoke to him and his actions leading up to this reveal. They actually make some sense, mad sense anyway.

And that about does it for the episode. Like I said, kinda underwhelming in my eyes anyway since all of these reveals we kinda figured out in some shape or form but hey, it was a setup episode so I can’t complain to much. We then get our new ED. Song wise, still don’t know how to feel about it. Visuals, it is mostly our characters changing from their RL appearance into their LV appearance.  We get a shot of Ai, Flame, and Aqua together so yeah, definitely looks like Aqua is on our side and I’m hoping this is foreshadowing her appearing soon. Nothing with her human so if it isn’t Aoi, she might get added in once she is revealed I hope. We have a shot of Link Vrains with what it looks like a side by side of it next to what I’m assuming is its future self once Lightning is done with it. Speaking of which, we get a screenshot of Lightning and his group, Revolver in his new get up (once again, this is going to be weird if he is never going to be updated in the OP) with Spectre, and a shot of all our main cast of characters in a park together. Kusanagi, Emma, Akira, Yusaku, Flame, Aoi, Ai, Takeru, Aqua, Earth (yeah it looks like he is going to be on our side. Have fun with that one, Spectre), Naoki, Ryoken, and Spectre. The ED ends with us getting some of the Disaster Trio’s Ace Monsters: Playmaker’s Cyberse Clock Dragon and Cyberse Quantum Dragon (yeah he is getting a Synchro if anyone didn’t believe that before) Revolver’s Borreload Savage Dragon, and Soulburner’s Salamangreat Heatleo and Playmaker flying towards us and shattering the screen (thanks Yusaku! Now we have to repair that after each episode now!)

For the preview, it looks like whatever Bohman is saying to Playmaker and Ai is seriously pissing Ai off to the point where he is shaking from it but it looks like Playmaker is going to be the one to get Ai through this and he even gives him a smile in the preview (he smiled again ladies and gentlemen!). I hasn’t seen the cast list yet for 72 so I don’t know what else to say about it until I can find it but once I see it, I’ll be sure to give you guys my thoughts as always if there are any notable names and what could happen because of those characters.

[necrolux]

cocaine, vices & then there's you

warnings; cursing, drugs, bad life role models; depression.

It was always you. You, who were better at living than I ever could've been. You, with less anxieties and more fears, less problems and more worries, less feelings and less cares. And then there was me, who could've never lived it down. Never had the chance of taking my fucking hands off the steering wheel, so I let you light my cigarette. Smoked it hands-free. That was how we rolled in that old Chevy, and that was how you rolled all over me. I felt like shit. I felt like dying. I found out, with time, that all of what made you feel alive was actually killing me.

The thing about Jeongguk's hands is that they make Taehyung feel like something holy. Something devoid of malice, pain-breaking, slowly sliding away from all of that beauteous hurt he's always ever felt. 

And that's irreplaceable. Something Taehyung can't simply afford to lose.

It's not that he feels terribly miserable 100% of the time, no, something about 35 or bargaining for 30% even, but the other 70-65% are emptiness. Painkiller prescriptions. Antidepressants. Anxiolytics. Oozing booze booze booze everywhere he went, with anyone, anytime.

It was the spark of a touch in a spark of a moment in time, a lapsio, a small fragment of a figment but he was feeling it all ten times more powerviolence. He had to turn his other cheek because his heart started thrumming harsh to the beat of some shit-death-thrash-metal double pedal, something like Cannibal Corpse, and he thought his cheeks might flush red. That's not a sight for just anyone.

"Let the dude sit down."

"Fuck of, Keith."

"Come on, man, he's new."

"Fuck me if I care."

And then it happened.

"Hey! My name's Jeongguk."

It was just a friend's-friend-of-a-cousin brought into the den by Keith and Jihoon. A random newbie. That was it, that was the single catch, Taehyung had to push his RedBull aside and excuse himself off the table where he was lining up coke and ditching health over emotion to breathe in the cramped bathroom which, ironically, had no air whatsoever.

That was the first time he encountered Jeon Jeongguk in his life.

The second time was at a gig. That same friend's friend had a band, a crappy one which Taehyung happened to love, something stuck in the crossing between The Pretty Reckless and the shit his dog left in the garage last week. There are teens cramped into the small space of a pub that's probably unsafe in all ways possible, Taehyung thinks of how lucky the owner is that sanitary vigilance didn't find it yet. There's booze in each single dormant hand, and there's also no air there. Life coincidences. 

Jeongguk was sour and sweet in every way when he bumped into Taehyung. Smart bitch recognized him first glance, smiled like a bunny trying to light up the entire galaxy, left Taehyung's veins feeling clogged. Overwhelmed like a hypertense bitch fed on McDonald's every morning. 

"I like this band." Jeongguk wore the smile, Taehyung wore a grin.

"Yeah? I fucking hate it, let's get out of here."

It happened in the backseat of that stupid Chevrolet which was lucky just to be able to ride anywhere without falling apart. The fog and the moans, the hands everywhere, steam, sex scent, all most unbelievable sounds Taehyung never hoped to hear made life so far feel like rehearsal. Made him feel like everything he'd ever fucked was only preparing him. Getting him there, getting him ready for Jeon Jeongguk's body on his, Jeon Jeongguk's moans against his ear, Jeon Jeongguk's tightness, heat, all soft and delicate muscle flexing, abs tightening and broken whines when he came all over Taehyung's fist as he throbbed inside of him.

The tenth time was high. Candy, LSD. So fucking high up Taehyung thought he was never coming back down to Earth, the real world, all living things and he thought hey, that is okay with me. I mean, it's not like he fucking wanted to go back. It was too much to go back to; hopelessness, war, sentiments. The lack thereof. He didn't think he'd have enough money for his pills anymore, so what was the game for him? What was in it for him anyway? 

Nah. He wanted to stay high up. Drifting through those technicolor things he was touching, those little people he could see from the rooftop, that high over that high building. It was fun.

What if he dived? The ocean was right in front of him, beer can in his hand, what if he just dived?

A rabbit man sat right beside him when he was about to, teetering over the edge, body swaying back and forth, could've slipped, could've fallen. Twelve stories high. 

"Take a step back if you like Sharknado." Bastard knew his weaknesses. Taehyung took a step back from the edge. "Alright, now take a step back if beer drunk is the worst type of hangover one can get." Another step back. Jeongguk had his arms ready for him. "Now come into my arms if cold pizza is much better than when the pizza guy delivers it."

And there it was, Taehyung swooning right into his arms. The drugs weren't even kickboxing his brain that hard anymore. Sure, Jeongguk was colorful; sure, he could hear each of his breaths, every single tiny movement was a wave and sure, his voice felt like freedom, but that wasn't LSD. Taehyung knew more than well that this was just Jeon Jeongguk, and not any drug, not any alcohol, not anything else that could've never ever have gotten him that addicted. 

Only that guy could.

That was how Jeongguk saved Taehyung's life, but it felt like it wasn't the first time. It was just the literal time. 

The others were smaller. Everywhere, everyday, in each touch and longer stare; it burned him beneath the skin when Taehyung looked at him and thought Jeongguk wasn't looking. Drank him in and absorbed him, let him seep through his pores. A daily lifesavior that happened to count his lashes while he slept.

Taehyung, on his hand, was an addict and a piece of shit. Didn't have anything together in his life, no graduation, no drive, no need. No willpower. He was a force of nature in all of his glory, "blessed with beauty and rage" as he self-entitled, but nothing like Jeongguk. Jeongguk wasn't a buzzing city which sent people's senses into overdrive, but he was a calm fireplace energy that felt like home, felt like connection.

It felt like safety.

When they decided to quit, it was late night. The clock struck three something in the a.m., but the rain didn't let them be heard from outside while they screamed obscenities at each other. It was mostly screaming. It was some crying, some dead-set confusion in their eyes from so much hostility at each other that they didn't even seem to have loved at all. Ever. Because the love happened too fast; it happened too insanely, impulsively, ridiculously. They drove to the edge of a cliff with all they had, spent all gas, sunken feet into the pedal and overstimulation under the neon lights, so urban, breaking so many speed signals and getting so many tickets on the way.

Maybe it broke them. Maybe it didn't. "Maybe it just wasn't meant to be." It's what Taehyung thinks as he kicks the car door open, ignoring protests for him to stay, ignoring the pounding of his heart, the throbbing of his weakness and the pain that came with the end of it. Whatever it had been. "Maybe I wasn't meant to have this." It's what he also thinks as he runs, doesn't see where, doesn't care enough to try and open his eyes just a little wider. Just enough not to stumble against someone and not have time to apologize, just walk away like nobody's business. He doesn't have time to try and think about how shitty his post is turning out, or his aesthetics, or his bullshit writing because all he can think of is how this all started so well, so good so fast, so intensely that it couldn't suffice. It wouldn't be enough to last, because it happened like a car crash. "Too good to be true" definition, and now there he is; standing under that same rain, waiting for a stupid train home because once he said he liked storms and now he regrets every single one of his words in this sentence. 

________________________________________ © petrichoria Do not copy, steal nor repost anywhere.

[miraimisu]

Can I request 83, 52, 38 or 18 (I'm in angsty mood for some reason). If you don't feel like writing angst today then maybe something from: 3, 4, 85 or 60. Since i'm writing this I might as well say that I loooooove your writing and I hope you have an amazing day!

What the fuck, why would I ever reject an angsty prompt? I am the angst duchess and fuck my life if I cant live to write sad, heartbreaking thingies. Or at least I try? And thanks for the kudos, I don’t know how do I deserve all of this when you guys deserve all the credit. I love this fandom so much.This prompt was a bit hard tho, and it turned out kinda short?… I just hope it lives up to your expectations ♥ Gonna make #18 for forbidden love shit.

Uraraka was no commoner. Uraraka Ochako was all but your regular friend that helps you with your bags and books– even if she possibly would help out with these matters, she was all but your normal stand-by friend.

Everyone knew that. If one took the opportunity to know her, they would see her true colors behind those common eyes that shone with unhidden curiosity and enthusiasm. It was hard for one to squeeze air out of her, and sometimes, even get a true emotion out of her.

Bakugou knew this, out of all people. Of course the pyro genius would see her for her true colors and not the ones she wore in front of everyone. He would notice when her hands trembled a little when laughing, a sign of feigning stupid glittery glee– he hated it. He hated her, sometimes. The way she sparkled while her heart trembled with the weight of a little lie that would later tie her down to her bed in a night of endless cries.

She could see right through him, too– and he was, somehow, perfectly fine with that. If someone could see the good in him, that would only be her and that stupid redhead he had for best friend. Kirishima was one of the very few people who could stand his random fits of anger, but Uraraka… that bitch. She was too good for her own good. Always hugging people, always smiling and–

He grasped his desk in agitation. She was always by that bastard’s side and it drove him up the wall.

Uraraka didn’t know this, of course. Whenever she was cheering her friend up, Bakugou would let out a good old colorful piece of goodness, but she deemed it to be in his nature. He was aggresive, a bit of a jerk, but it was him after all.

And somehow, there was a moment in time and space– like, two days ago in the middle of an encounter with him, when something shifted in her heart.

This spar had been anything but planned beforehand. Uraraka had seen him going for a walk in his training clothes and the idea sparked in her. She had ran to him inmediately with the objective of touching his shoulder, surprising him, and making him go weightless– of course, we are talking about Uraraka and she couldn’t do sneaky.

She had coughed just before reaching his skin, what prompted a big curse out of him and made him blow her away out of instinct. She landed a few meters behind him and when he realized it was her who had tried to, in his eyes, probably annoy the shit out of him– he at first scoffed at her futile attempt of a sneaky stance and helped her to her feet.

“What the fuck, Uraraka.” and he swung her arm around his shoulder, no petition needed. “Your leg is still peachy and you are planning surprise attacks on me? You must be a sucker for pain.”

“What… are you doing?” asked she, letting herself be dragged to wherever he wanted to drop her. It was true that planning such risky thing was reckless from her considering what a bad beating Iida had given her the previous day.

Oh, his face when he had seen her so beaten up. He had been apologizing while punching death into her.

Bakugou grunted beside her. “I’m taking you to a damn infirmary. I have burnt your left arm and honestly, every one will give me the stinky eye if they get to know I almost blew your ass up.”

Because everyone loved Uraraka, even his best friend. And he knew damn well that Kirishima would give him a good piece of mind if he came to find out that he had been the one to injure her. He would never mention, but he also felt a bit bad for harming her without a reason but stupid instinct.

Why did she… matter so much? She was just a damn pebble. How was he going to focus on his career when Bakugou had this woman by his side constantly hogging him to make nice with Deku so that bastard would be happy?

Bakugou had many reasons to make that boy’s life miserable: 1) he was a bragger, 2) he was a loser, and most recently 3) he had Uraraka’s undivided attention– he had his best battle buddy’s attention and again, it was driving him insane. So he walked to the infirmary with the intention of dropping her there and pretending nothing happened, because he was starting to be fed up with her and those butterflies she carried around her.

Why did she have to always come by and mess with his life?

He hated that feeling. He hated feeling like he needed to protect her when all he should be doing is focus on himself and– god, she was too in love with Deku, what good would it do to him to develop a silly crush on her and– at this point, when he came to terms with his feelings, he was a blushing mess and wanted to blow up the whole school.

Worst of it all, those silly summersaults his stomach did when she was near had been there for way too long before this realization and he felt it dawning on him, crushing him alive. There was no turning back now.

Uraraka didn’t let it pass, though. When Bakugou eventually and literally dropped her in a hospital bed, something stirred inside of her, making her heart warm in a pleasant manner. When he left her wordlessly to Recovery Girl’s aid, she smiled at him knowingly. Kirishima truly had had a gooD effect on him– and the thought carried her through the day, but as soon as Deku came into view, he had all her attention again.

Her heart still fluttered after the newfound kindness Bakugou had in him. And something changed that day. She would realize this change too late.

When Bakugou saw her laughing along with Deku, he started biting his knuckles. The feeling that bubbled in his chest squirmed uncomfortably, the very same feeling that had him wide awake all night after dropping roundface at the infirmary. A part of him told him that he had been rude as fuck for letting her on her own after almost setting her on fire, and another part told him that he had been stupid for almost setting her ablaze to start with.

No matter what he tried to come up with, he had made a mistake. He had made a mistake for allowing himself near her, for having left her at the infirmary bed when what he should have done is just leave her in the dust to tend her own injuries.

So he sucked it up and, as soon as class was finished, Bakugou waited for her to come out of class. Whatever he was feeling for her, for that strong and small stupid pebble he couldn’t step upon– all that was ending as soon as he set things clear with her.

He knew she would never pull away from green bastard, and he was aware of the fact that he couldn’t force her to stay away from him. He could hope for her to grow up from his fucking shadow, but he wasn’t scum and would never force her out of it. Whatever made her happy was fine for him. People he respected deserved their space and, albeit reluctantly, he would give it all to her.

She stepped out of class alone, always the slowest one to pack her stuff– her jump when he came into view was fucking hilarious. “What are you doing there, Baku–”

“Your injuries,” spat he, stepping near to her. Her proximity felt wrong and sinful to him when she was too far from reach, but he stil invaded her injuries til she was against a wall. “let me see them.”

Uraraka blinked at him once, twice, but didn’t flinch at his agressivity, unfazed as she always was by his forward demeanor. Her eyes wide as saucers for his intoxicating permating sweaty and riany spark, he let himself fall into the galaxies of her pools, and almost forgot what all this mess was about until he saw her remove her jacket and show him her reddened arm.

“It’s patched up and in good condition. You at least had the decency to take to Recovery Girl.”

He looked to his side, and his voice sounded remorseful for a second, connecting with all the thoughts that had rattled inside his head during the previous night. “It was my fault in the first place.”

“Are you… apologizing?”

“Hell no, you damn woman.” growled he, his scarlet glare boring into her purity once again. “You shouldn’t have tried to sneak up on me when you know I can damn well tear you to pieces.”

Uraraka, far from offended, giggled at his brash retort. Her breath got stuck in her chest as beams of sunset streaked through his golden locks, and she had this silly urge to thread her fingers through them. She ended up deciding against it because she appreciated her life.

“Is there anything else you need?”

He looked at her even more intensely. There was a moment in which she noticed how she had changed in his eyes, but knew she remained the same for everyone. The colors she wore had turned scarlet, adorning her cheeks and inking her in desire and passion for that woman he would worship in the darkness as long as he lived, because he knew that sunlight wouldn’t let him speak out his secret devotion– not when she loved somebody else.

She loved Deku. She loved a quirkless bastard and not him, the great Bakugou Katsuki. And he was dying to know why.

So his hands trailed up her arm to end up gripping her jaw, her head crashing against the concrete. “Why him?”

Her cheeks muffled by his rough hands and chords malfunctioning due to the embers of his eyes, passion and anger– it all reduced her to ashes and suddenly, she couldn’t muster a decent answer. Mostly because a part of her didn’t know what he wastalking about while the other pretty much could see in his eyes what this was about. The notion just left her speechless and a mess of goo in the ground.

His flames kissed the chocolate of her irises– and boy, didn’t chocolate melt good and pretty against heat.

His mouth came devastating hers in a helfire kiss,as his hands tried their best not to roam around her body– one that didn’t belong to him, staying put on the wall so she wouldn’t escape– because of course she was shaking, probably fearful, needing to pull away. The way his mouth was twisting hers in such burning embrace, embers of passion consuming her thoughts and rationalities– but she didn’t want this.It was all sorts of alluring and deliciously wrong. His teeth trapping her lower lip, trying to recover all dominance on the kiss, eliciting a throaty moan from her– he opened his eyes for a second, frustrated, and yearning to hear more of that. She attempted to pull way, her hands fighting against his chest to stop his sudden rampage, earning her a head crash against the wall as Bakugou only pushed her in.His hands travelled all the way to her neck and waist, nails digging in her skin– oh, her gasp, that may have hurt a little. He took the opportunity to come crashing to her mouth, his tongue entangling with hers while she wiggled in his hold, trying to either get away or hold herself in. And none of those things were gonna happen.

There was a moment when he felt her give in a little. Her pushing became less frantic, the haltered, and her eyes shut completely close–

But he couldn’t– couldn’t let a good kiss get the best of him and build illusions on an impossible relationship. He couldn’t keep this up when she was in love with another man. He gave her waist a little push and disconnected the sickingly euphoric lock, a trail of saliva connecting them. 

He caressed her lower lip with his thumb as softly as he could, frown adorning his chaotic features, irises trembling as she stared at him, unbelieving.

He wasn’t the man for her. He breathed deep, then stepped back, their bodies missing each other– but this was wrong.

“I shouldn’t love you.” murmured he, making her features constrict into a painful grimace of realization. “But I fucking do and I’m scared shitless.”

He would die to hold her as she shook and almost fell, would love to possess her against the very same wall and make her forget about Deku. However, he wasn’t scum, and he couldn’t let her make him drop so low.

She didn’t deserve the pain he carried with him, or his falling hopes. So he marched away, shoulders tense in realization.

Bakugou saw the true colors in her, and she would always see his and cherish them as a precious treasure. But his colors weren’t the ones she was searching for, or the ones she dreamed and sighed for.

And no matter how blaring and blinding her colors were, he couldn’t let them paralyze him. No matter the heartbreak, he did what he deemed to be right– not knowing he had left a dounting girl at his wake, who realized now why his kindness had struck her so much.

He walked away. And this was the first time Bakugou realized he was human and couldn’t be more than that, no matter how much he loved her.

[strawbebehmod]

The Golden Demon chapter 1

For the Royai week prompt of Light/Darkness

I decided to post the first chapter of my new blue exorcist/fma crossover AU where Edward takes Rin’s place in the series and Roy is a teacher and Exorcist at True Cross Academy due to the lrage amount of Royai in this first chapter. It’s a bit weird but i hope you guys like it. 

When Roy Mustang had heard about the death of the paladin Van Hohenheim, he had been shocked. He had studied under the man, and he had almost seemed untouchable. No demon could lay a finger on him. He was a master of all trades when it came to misers, although mainly stuck to his talents as an aria. However, he was still human, and no man or woman could stand up to the powers of satan. They had kept what exactly had happened classified to most, he himself only being debriefed on it as he was sent by his boss, mephisto pheles, to investigate the incident. The man’s church had burned down in literal hellfire last night with him inside. Only a few survivors remained, including two boys who were living with him as adoptive children, and a fellow exorcist that had been working under the man. Mephisto apparently was passing the orders down to him from higher up. Roy sighed as he sat in the back of the car. He didn’t know what they expected him to find. It was clear that the devil caused this, all the evidence was destroyed in the fire, and there were only a handful of  surviving witnesses of the event. Still, orders were orders, and as that scheming palm-tree bastard’s underling by employment contract, he was obligated to comply. He slumped in his seat and his eyes drifted to his companion sitting next to him. Unlike him, the blonde woman’s back was straight as she stared out the window, watching the streets roll by. The light of sunset reflected off her skin and hair slightly, causing her face to softly glow orange and her hair to shimmer like gold. He smiled as he stared up at her. She truly was beautiful like this. It almost made him forget their situation sometimes. “Quiet a lovely city, isn’t it?“he asked. She turned to him, raising an eyebrow. "Hardly,” she said, facing forward again. He gave her a curious look. “Then why were you staring out the window? Surely something must have caught your attention,” he asked. “I was noting all the garbage on the streets,” she said, “On the way here I saw at least twelve empty cans, four broken bottles, and six loose plastic bags.” Her attention returned to the window. “Humans wish to protect their world from demons, when they can’t even protect it from themselves,” she mused. There was sadness and disappointment in her tone. Roy frowned and sighed. “Yeah,” he muttered, “We’re quite the mess, aren’t we?” His smile then returned as he got an idea. “How about after this I take some time off and we take a little trip to Kyoto?” he asked, “Picture it: a picnic in one of the beautifully kept, clean gardens, visiting all the temples, spending the evening sampling some of the local drinks…” he smirked as he noticed her smile at that. “I’m sure Mephisto wouldn’t mind me taking a few extra days off from, and I’m sure the students would love an extra day or two away from me,” he said, “Heck, I might even be able to make an excuse that I got called out for something and get paid for the leave. So what do you say?” She shook her head, although she still smiled. “I say that’s a bad idea for a number of reasons,” she said, “After all, you know exactly what would happen if your true intentions behind such an expedition were exposed,” she said, causing him to wince, “And if Mephisto saw through your ruse, though he’d probably be willing to keep quiet, you’d be more than just a little indebted to him.” Roy shuddered at that before frowning and sitting up. “Alright,” he grumbled, “I see your point.” In his heart he knew from the beginning he would get shot down, but that didn’t stop him from trying. If only things could be less complicated… The car came to a halt and the two got out, heading into an alley. The site of the fire was a few blocks away from here, but they had decided to walk the rest of the way. Mostly it was because they didn’t want any civilians near the blockade that had been set up around the area incase there was any left over demonic forces at play, but roy had another reason too. Roy glanced over his shoulder as they were now half way down the alley. The cab driver had sped off and there was no one still around. “Alright, Riza, you’re clear,” he said. She nodded before her body was suddenly engulfed in red flames. Roy stared on casually as they encased her like a vortex before being swept away by the beating of wings from the creature inside. Once they had, there was no longer a woman standing before Roy, but a bird made of orange flames hovering in the air. She then flew over to him and perched on his shoulder. “More comfortable?” he asked. “Much,” the phoenix responded to her human companion. Roy was one of the few exorcists alive to have a phoenix for a familiar. Many hated humans for hunting them in the pursuit of the secret of eternal life. Roy had originally discovered her trapped inside a sealed urn in the attic of his old teacher’s home after the man’s death when he had just become an exorcist. Knowing how powerful phoenixes were, how strong they were against spirits, kin of rot, as well as many other kinds of demons, and how their flames could be used to purify infections and heal injuries, he immediately tried to forge a contract with her to be his familiar. When she had denied him and disappeared into the nearby forest, he had sought her out and brought offerings to her to earn her favor. He spent weeks trying to appease her. Eventually she agreed, but in forging his contract with her, he had to agree that he could only use her powers for what she deemed appropriate. He could not use it to kill or destroy as he saw fit and would have to ask for her consent before putting hers in harm’s way. If he broke these promises, he would perish by her fire on the spot. He agreed completely to these conditions, and the two had been together ever since, working side by side not as master and familiar but as partners. He saw her as his equal, if not his better. After all, without her he would not be nearly as powerful of an exorcist as he was today without her. Demons feared the name of Roy mustang, not for his skills as an Aria or a dragoon, but for his ability to merely snap his fingers and set them alight. That deadly force was because of her, not him, and the only reason why she lent him her power so easily was because of their mutual trust from the bond they had shared for years. Very few knew of the true nature of their relationship. Even though many exorcist still have demon blood running through their veins from ancestry spanning back as recently as a hundred years ago, today, even considering such a relationship with a demon could result in burning at the stake. Even one considering a demon their friend is enough to cause suspicion of an exorcist in certain circles. Currently, only a handful of close friends of Roy knew of how close the two were, those including third class doctor Kain Fury, Second class aria Vato Falman, First class aria and dragoon Heymans Breda, First class dragoon Jean Havoc, and first class knight, and his closest friend, Maes Hughes. Mephisto might have found out, but if he did he wasn’t showing that. He was probably saving such knowledge for the right moment to blackmail him. Roy frowned. As if he didn’t have enough ways to toy with him… He shook his head. He didn’t want to think about that now. He had a job to do. He just had to write up his report and check for any more activity in the area. Then he could go home and relax before the next semester started in a few days. He sighed as he thought about that. The school year hadn’t even started and he was already needing a drink. He then smiled as a thought crossed his mind. “Hey Riza,” he said, “I know heading to Kyoto together may be suspicious, but sharing a "wine offering” with you tonight would be more than reasonable, don’t you think?“ The phoenix smiled. "I believe that would be perfectly acceptable,” she responded. …. The two had arrived at the scene and spent an hour Investigating. There was barely anything left of the structure. It had been burnt to the ground in the unholy blaze. There was also very little evidence From the exorcists that had come earlier to put the literal hellfires. From them they learned that the exorcist Izumi curtis was a survivor of the fire, rescuing two young boys and a handful of clergymen. They were currently all healing at the New Hope Hospital not too far from the scene of the demon attack.   “Well it appears that there isn’t any left over activity in the area…” Roy said, “So it’s clear whatever he was here for is over now.” “Could it be he was after something that Van Hohenheim owned?” Riza asked. “Maybe he had found something powerful enough to destroy him…or the key to manifesting in this world…” “Could be…” Roy said, “At least if he was trying to destroy something, anyways. Burning the whole place down would have certainly done the trick. If not, he royally screwed up and probably destroyed the thing he was looking for.” He kicked a piece of rubble and it disintegrated into ash before looking over at the flat pools of solid steel mixed with lumps of ash that had once been the support beams of the building. “Or he used the fire to cover his tracks,” Riza said, “Mephisto wouldn’t have sent us here for nothing. Even if it is Satan that attacked, if everything was said and done and the demon had acted on his own, he wouldn’t be interested.” Roy smirked. “You read my mind,” he said before frowning, “Finding out what he wanted isn’t going to be easy though…We can’t exactly bring him in for interrogation after all…and there isn’t much evidence left to draw conclusions from.” He sighed, “Our only hope is if the witnesses are in good enough condition to tell us anything about what happened…Has anyone else interviewed them yet?” The phoenix shrugged. “I don’t believe so. If you recall, one of the other exorcists said that almost all of the surviving victims were unconscious and/or seriously injured when help arrived,” she said, “they might not be awake yet.” Roy closed his note book. “Well there’s no harm in going to check,” he said, “Come on. Let’s see if we can get in during visiting hours.” As they began to walk back towards the edge of the investigation sight and lift up the police tape to exit, they noticed a young, blonde girl arguing with one of the officers blocking the site. “Please sir, you’ve got to tell me what happened!” she said, “That fire burned down my best friends’ home! They’re in the hospital right now thanks to whoever did this! I want to know everything I can about this! I want to know what kind of monster caused Father Hohenheim’s death!” There were furious and pained tears in her eyes as she spoke. Roy felt slight pity for the girl as the officer tried to persuade her to leave. He could only imagine all those who had been affected by this tragedy. There were a few other victims besides father Hohenheim, a few of his clergymen that had presumably died in the fire. They had friends and family that were surely rife with grief at this moment. And that wasn’t even considering all those who attended this church. Those that may not have been particularly close to the priest but sought guidance from him. Countless people falling into despair from this attack, as well as countless that Satan has caused suffering too.  It boiled his blood to think about especially how helpless they all were against him. There must be some way to stop that monster…or at least weaken him… He was suddenly pulled out of this train of thought by the girl running up to him. “Hey, are you a private investigator?” she asked,  grabbing him by his arm as he walked away from the scene and catching him off guard. He looked down at her  in surprise. Her eyes were focused on his face, not even glancing once at the phoenix resting on his shoulder. The pair exchanged brief looks. The girl most likely did not have a temptaint. She would have known he was an exorcist if she could see his familiar, or would have at least been slightly distracted by her wings that had fire coming off of them. “What gave you that impression?” he asked. “Well you aren’t dressed like any officer or fireman,” she said, “And they certainly aren’t letting any civilians through.” Roy shrugged. “Fair point,” he said, “you could say I’m an investigator of sorts, although I’m not working independently.” “I work for a sect of the Vatican that Father Hohenhiem had ties to,” he explained, “They sent me in here to investigate the cause of his death, what started the fire, and so on.” She blinked at him in surprise before giving him a confused look. “What are you talking about?” she questioned, “This was clearly some kind of arson case. There was no freak storm last night and I’ve over heard the cops and they say it wasn’t a gas leak.” Roy shrugged. “You may very well be right, but all accounts say that the church burned down in blue flames, which isn’t a common occurrence. Unless the building was made of sulfur, it shouldn’t have burned blue.” “I see…” the girl said, “Anyways, if you find out anything, can you let me know? My name is Winry Rockbell. I’m really close friends with the boys that lived in that church with that priest."She pulled out a slip of paper and wrote a number on it before handing it to him. "I see,” he said, getting an idea, “Alright, I will, but can you tell me one thing? Have you visited them yet? Do you know if they are awake yet? I have to interview them to see what they know.” The girl nodded and furrowed her brow. “Ed and Al aren’t awake yet,” she said, “But Ms. Curtis is.” Roy nodded. “Very well,” he said, “Thank you.” With that he turned to leave. After they had walked a small distance, roy turned into an alley and called a cab, while riza turned into her human form. “You don’t really intend on giving her any information do you? She won’t believe that Satan had anything to do with it,” she said. “Oh I do intend on giving her some,” he said calling a taxi, “But only what the other exorcists decide to release to the police.” He turned to her. “Honestly if I told her the truth, she’d think I would be making fun of her or something,” he defended, “And I couldn’t exactly walk away. She seems like the stubborn kind of person who won’t take no for an answer.” He smirked before turning to her. “Kinda like someone else I know…” he teased. “Yes… you always have been quite annoyingly persistent, Sir,” she said smirking back at him. Roy pouted at her retort before grumbling and continuing on his way to hail their cab while Riza followed behind him.

… Blue flames. They had surrounded her  as she burst through the door to the burning church.  She had left to pour holy water into the sewers as van Hohenheim had requested she do to prevent any demons sneaking in that way, and when she had come back, the whole building had been engulfed by the satanic flames. She coughed as air baked her lungs as the heat and smoke wafted through the air, looking around wildly to try to understand what had happened. How had Satan gotten in here? She thought it had been Astaroth they were fighting! However, her confusion and distress had quickly turned to horror as she saw three bodies lying on the ground. Her heart stopped and the flaming room suddenly grew cold as she recognized them: alphonse, who looked to be covered in several burns; Edward, who’s hand was gripping something and was covered in the flames himself; and not to far away from either of the was the body of Hohenheim, face covered in blood and body slowly being consumed in the blaze. Izumi Curtis gasped as she opened her eyes again, panting and clutching her chest as she did so. The other hand gripped the hospital sheets beneath it, tearing a few stitches in them as she tried to calm herself down. She glanced around at her surroundings, eyes gliding around the room at white hospital walls to remind herself of where she was. She sat up in her bed and held her head in her hands. This was the third time she had tried to sleep since coming here, but it was still unsuccessful. What had happened that night  haunted her and most likely would for as long as she lived. Although when she had first come to work under Father Hohenheim and aid him in his  work as an exorcist she had not expected him to protect the son of satan, ever since that day she had known this was coming. That Satan would come to collect. Still she had somehow been unprepared for this. She had called him crazy, and desperately tried to get him to change his mind, but he had been unwavering. She couldn’t believe him at the time. What was he thinking? Was he going to turn the boy into a weapon or something? Despite this, she had still stood by him and promised to help protect Edward. And over time, she had grown attached to the half demon and his brother, enough to where she dragged their bodies out of the burning building, despite it being clear Edward’s demon half was now unleashed. She shuddered as she remembered the moment of hesitation she had when she first saw him passed out on the ground in his new form. His ears were elongated, his fingernails too. He had long canines sticking out of his mouth and a long golden tail sprouting from his back. His human brother Alphonse a good distance away had been burned severally, there had been a wound on his neck like a large hand print gripping it as well as a large one on his chest and a few on his arm. Had edward done that? To be honest, she still didn’t know. Still, it didn’t stop the female exorcist from carrying them out. She then saved as many of the clergy as she could before collapsing on the ground. She woke up the next morning in the hospital, soon learning the church had  burned down and that Edward and Alphonse had not yet awoken. No one had gotten interviewed just yet, mostly because no one had been awake when other exorcists first came by, and for that she was relieved. She couldn’t let anyone see Edward as he was now. Speaking of, she should check on how he was doing. She swung her legs over the edge of the bed as she got up, wincing slightly as she put pressure on a burn wound on her hand. She then walked down the hall towards Room 351 where the two were. However, she froze as she came to the entrance to the room. The door was a jar and as she peered inside the room, she noticed two people standing at the foot of the boys’ beds: a black haired man and a blonde woman in exorcist uniforms.  They stared down at the boys in shock and horror, particularly Edward as they could see long ears peeking out from his hair, and a golden tail draping onto the floor from underneath the bedroom sheets. Izumi could feel her heart fill with panic. She hoped she would have more time until someone came to check up on them to come up with a plan.  At least enough to explain to the boys what had happened, anyways. But of course the universe couldn’t let that happen. She grimaced as a determined  look came to her eye. She quietly grabbed broom before lunging towards the man’s head with it. However, the woman caught her movement in the corner of her eye before swiftly stopping the pole before it could strike him. He turned to her in surprise before glowering at her. “Are you Izumi Curtis?” He demanded in a cold tone. The woman paused before glaring at him and nodding. “Good, because you have a lot of explaining to do,” he growled as he glanced back at the teenage demon lying in the bed.