#long lives. at least one got cancer. but unlike her husband she got better | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

fairygrdn · 5 years ago

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𝙵𝙸𝙻𝙴 : #F41R13 // STATS » magnolia kim, ( two hundred & five ) twenty three, cis female, she/her, matchmaker. ATTRIBUTES » enchanting, impish, persuasive, deceptive. SEEN » seeping teabags for too long, trading secrets in whispers, dotting every i and j with a heart. DO NOT MISTAKE FOR » yooa ( shiah yoo ).

hello qts ! im xan and im late as usual but that’s just the way the cookie crumbles … 😔 im 22 , from the est timezone & i go by she / her pronouns ! i truly … never know what im doing with intros they just turn out super long & messy so aha … are u ready for this ? zimzalabim ! 😋

━ ˙ ˖ ☆ QUICK STATS !

full name : magnolia marie kim

nickname(s) : maggie , lia , mags

zodiac : libra sun , cancer moon ( click ! )

sexuality : bisexual .

occupation : self proclaimed matchmaker .

birthplace : undisclosed magical forest .

current residence : lunehaven , oregon .

pinterest : ( tba ! )

━ ˙ ˖ ☆ BACKSTORY !

born more than 200 years ago to a family often referred to as fae royalty , magnolia was the youngest of four girls . her parents were well respected animal fairies in the fae community , and because they were so efficient at wildlife conservation , magnolia and her family were never in one place for too long , always moving wherever her parent’s services were needed .

although her parents had little interest in the business of humans or other supernatural beings , that wasn’t the case for maggie and her sisters. the four of them were fascinated with everything outside the fae world , often neglecting their responsibilities for a chance to stick their noses into situations they really had no business meddling in .

as the youngest of the family , as well as the only weather fairy of the bunch , maggie often felt like an outsider or like she had to try extra hard to fit in and prove herself . her sisters eventually gave up their childish games in favor of following the family business and starting serious pursuits as animal fairies , which only left magnolia feeling more frustrated.

when her parents retire and settle down in schiltach , germany for a quiet existence , maggie tries to grow up . at a little over a 100 years old , a more experienced weather fairy tries their best to get her to take life more seriously and accept the fact that her abilities won’t ever line up with the rest of her family’s , teaching her the value in what she can do for plant life in her environment . and for a while she’s satisfied , but there’s a part of her that’s still interested in the lives of humans and other supernatural creatures , something she’d been advised against seeing as fairies often had bad luck trying to help anyone that wasn’t also a fairy .

like any stubborn teenager , though , magnolia swore she was different . she’d discovered a passion that had nothing to do with her fairy duties , and that was matchmaking . something about love had always just fascinated her , and she thought it would be a disservice to hide her gift from the world . in a small town like schiltach , maggie knew everyone , which meant she knew everyone’s relationship statuses . at first her meddling was innocent . setting two single people up on a date , mailing anonymous love letters only to whisper to the receiver that someone else sent them . the more she thought she was helping , the more confident she got that all the warnings she’d been given were overreactions .

things take a turn when she tries setting up a married woman with a man that wasn’t her husband . maggie really didn’t see the big deal , she thought her match was much better than the woman’s current partner but what she failed to realize was that there were real consequences to infidelity in long term committed human relationships . it became the scandal of the town , and all fingers pointed to magnolia . her parent’s were furious with her , disappointed that she hadn’t given up her childish pursuits and fascination with all things outside the fae world . not really knowing how to handle the repercussions , she decided it was time to experience life on her own for a few years .

mostly going places were her ability as a weather fairy were needed , magnolia spent the next 100 years of her life balancing her responsibilities as a fairy with her passion for love games . she expanded her services to other supernatural beings as well , which is how she ended up learning about lunehaven , eventually relocating . while her success rate in matchmaking may be shadowed by a trail of sticky situations and all around flops , maggie still wholeheartedly believes she’s helping more than she’s hurting . it doesn’t help that she’s awfully good at convincing people to give her a shot ( even when it might be in their better interest to run the other way ) .

━ ˙ ˖ ☆ PERSONALITY + TIDBITS !

oh boy oh man ... i won’t lie to u she’s kind of a handful 😳🙈 think chaotic youngest sibling vibe . probably the most irresponsible person ( fairy ? creature ? SDSDKWDNKW ) u will ever meet ... has never truly been held accountable for her actions before so she’s never learned how to own up to her mistakes which means if u tell her she did something wrong she will ignore u and maybe make it drizzle if she knows u don’t have an umbrella .

big im baby vibes ! thinks she can 🥺 her way through life bc it’s worked for the past 215 years so clearly that’s all the proof she needs she’s too old to change her ways </3 mischievous and way too nosy curious for her own good u can tell her to mind her business but she literally won’t . much like miss tinkerbell she needs attention to survive if she doesn’t get it or doesn’t feel like she’s getting enough she does act out ... that complex is high key because she misses her parents though /:

on the reverse of all that she’s an extremely sociable and friendly girl ! she’s generally easy to approach and befriend and she’s a big sweet talker . she loves love 😌 but she also doesn’t really understand it that well or at least she finds it hard to be objective when she’s matchmaking for others . oftentimes she’s considering her own preferences when setting people up but her intentions are almost always good SDJWDJWDW

she’s crazy loyal to friends and the people she cares about . would never hesitate to be there when you need her to be , and she’s really big on showing affection whether it’s through gifts or physically or mushy texts you probably did not ask for but better not complain about . can be a little dramatic and sensitive at times , and yes maybe she overreacts to criticism and negative situations , but she also knows how to have fun and get people to let go ! very good at bringing out the eternal child in u <3

despite her sometimes successful attempts at matchmaking , maggie’s own love life ? a big fat mess ! she’s still scared of serious relationships for herself so most of the time she finds a way to mess things up before it gets that deep . she’s also a huge flirt so settling down is a difficult concept to swallow SDJBWJDBWJ also ... still has those lingering childhood feelings of being different and needing to prove herself so perhaps she feels a little unworthy of true love ... that’s fine </3

she has the biggest sweet tooth in the world . she’s probably always hanging around the bakery munching on pastries . will eat dessert before dinner every time u can’t stop her

always always surrounded by freshly picked flowers and she likes to give them away to people , however she’s got a bad habit of telling people the flowers came from their admirer ( whose identity only she knows , of course )

has probably tried to set everyone’s muses up at least once

accidentally makes it rain when she’s extremely upset , although it’s rarer now that she’s had more experience with her abilities

still has a huge soft spot for animals even if she can’t communicate with them the way an animal fairy can

is on tinder ... get her some help pls </3

unironically throws tea parties in her woodland cottage. if she invites u and u don’t show up she’s going to hold that grudge until the day she dies ...

━ ˙ ˖ ☆ WANTED CONNECTIONS ! ( all open to all genders )

my brain is quite literally all rot rn im just gonna list stuff with minimal elaboration please vibe with me …

people she's done matchmaking for <3 pls give me all the plots where maggie keeps setting ur muses up on dates that don’t work out but she refuses to give up and ur muse keeps letting it happen for whatever reason ... OR maybe someone she tried to set up once and it didn’t work out and they never let her play matchmaker again and maybe they reset her for what happened and she feels guilty about it but doesn’t know how to deal with that so she just decides she’s gonna resent them back ... OR mayhaps a success story o:

ex infatuations that ended tragically lets get that angst (:<

a best friend PLEASE ...

she’s pretty upbeat so maybe an unlikely friendship with someone darker / quieter where at first they were annoyed by her but slowly through charm and time she grew on them much like mold might 😋

please give me a ridiculous enemies plot just someone who thinks she’s an absolute brat and she does everything to reaffirm that thought since the loathing is mutual and half the time they don’t even know what they’re fighting about they’re just always fighting

current hookups we love to see it there’s so many directions to go in maybe its purely a casual thing , maybe it’s casual for magnolia but not for them , or maybe she’s the one like worm maybe i would like more than sex , maybe it’s like a we only hookup when we’re partying thing , maybe it’s a we only get along naked thing , there r choices

older sibling relationships ! she also high key misses her sisters and being babied so i would love for her to have friendships that mirror that

someone she can be in cahoots with … go absolutely bonkers with knowing they won’t judge her and she won’t judge them

a we’re just friends ... unless ? plot

maybe someone who tries to get her to b more responsible and she’s just like UGH i will throw up if u dont stop but low key she appreciates the guidance

ppl whose places she’s always crashing at when she wants to be in town and not in the damn woods

i wont lie to u this got longer than i thought it would 😭😭😭 im sosososo sorry for the length … also i feel like my charas always change a lil once i actually start plotting & writing so sorry again if u see me finally writing as magnolia on the dash and ur like literally who is that … JSDBWJBDWBDJ PLEASE come message me on discord to plot ! if u prefer im’s that’s perfectly ok im just warning u now it’s gonna be a much slower process so if u want speedier replies ... u can message me @ glo lovecore ʕ´• ᴥ•̥`ʔ#8172 maybe … give this a like if u wanna … plot hehehe thank u for reading all this ur so brave for that stay sexy x

#╰ ♡ . 𝒏𝒐 𝒕𝒉𝒐𝒕𝒔 𝒉𝒆𝒂𝒅 𝒆𝒎𝒑𝒕𝒚 ── ooc ! ┘#luneintro #did not proof read a single word of this .... lets see if that was a mistake #JWDBWJBDJWDW

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dirkcresswellx · 4 years ago

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( TRANSMALE (CLOSETED) , HE/HIM ) DIRK CRESSWELL is a HUFFLEPUFF whose favorite subject is CHARMS, maybe because they are INDUSTRIOUS but also EVASIVE. They might be so popular because they look like ELLIOT FLETCHER, can you believe they are a SIXTH YEAR? rumors say they support DUMBLEDORE’S ARMY. where do they go from here?

anyway this bio is ... a lot. sorry.

BASICS —

Full Name: Dirk Anthony Cresswell

Age: Seventeen

Birthday: June 29; Cancer

Blood Status: Muggleborn

PERSONALITY —

(+) Positive Traits: Helpful, cooperative, industrious, nurturing

(-) Negative Traits: Evasive, docile, mistrustful, scatterbrained

LIFE AT HOGWARTS —

House: Hufflepuff

Year: Sixth

Wand: Alder wood, 9 inches even, with a unicorn tail hair, very flexible.

Best Class: Charms

Worse class: Potions

Pets: A Ragamuffin cat named Pixel

Boggart: The corpse of his foster father

Patronus: Basset hound

Extracurriculars: Hufflepuff Quidditch team (chaser), Hufflepuff prefect (sixth year), charms club, herbology club, music club

BIOGRAPHY —

trigger warning: child neglect, child abuse, transphobia, death

From a young age, Olivia Cresswell’s life had been in a state of flux. Money had been tight for Cresswells and the shared knowledge of children her parents possessed reached a zero sum. It wasn’t like they didn’t try, they just didn’t have the necessary skills to take care of an infant. She would go hours sitting in a dirty nappy because neither one of them had noticed she needed to be changed and it was only after wailing for a solid ten minutes that they would figure out she was hungry. It became easier when she learned how to talk but at the same time, it didn’t. An infant had to be taken care of all the time but a toddler could tell you what they needed. They could ask for food or water and it should have made things easier on the Cresswells. But a toddler could also run around and knock stuff over and accidentally burn themselves on the iron that her mother had left on when she had to chase after Olivia. Mrs. Cresswell had been stressed all the time, being left alone with a toddler while her husband was at work, trying to make money to take care of the kid they didn’t understand. Children don’t come with an instruction manual, they barely cooperate when you want them to and when you need them to, all hope was lost. A few drinks in, trying to ease her frayed nerves and Mrs. Cresswell began screaming. Worse, she began shouting and getting loud and teaching her four year old all sorts of new words. She loved Olivia dearly but that didn’t stop her hand from flying out and striking her child when she started bawling and asking when daddy would be home. It was a close little neighborhood, with families packed into flats and from next door, the sound was unmistakable. When Mr. Cresswell returned that night, Olivia had already been removed from the home and into a family that would take better care of her.

In the foster home, with a family called the Houstons, Olivia seemed a little off. She recoiled from the slightest touch and refused to ask for anything. They had a child of their own, named Jacob, that she took to, because he was a kid just like her and Olivia emulated him. She played games and roughed around in the grass and accidentally broke a lamp or two after a few years of living there. They were a cute little family, almost picturesque, until Jacob went into secondary school and left Olivia alone. He made new friends that weren’t her and left her alone. Resentful, thinking it was because she wasn’t grown up enough, she found a group of older boys who just saw a kid that they could mess with, use to steal things and then if it failed, blame it on the kid. Simply put, it failed. Olivia had been caught by a corner store owner who had grown tired of the boys stealing from her store and now they were recruiting young kids to go and help them. No charges were pressed and the most Olivia had to deal with was a cop talking to her. He had introduced himself as Derek, though his badge said McAfee and asked why such a sweet young lady would want to hang out with a group of troublemakers. She had protested, shaking her head. She wasn’t a lady, she didn’t want to be a lady, and at least they cared about her! Unlike Jake. Derek had taken that in stride, not questioning the child and simply talking to him. That’s it. Just talking. Until Mr. Houston came to pick him up.

He had been removed from the Houston’s a week later, bouncing around from home to home because they couldn’t find one that was a good fit. In that time, he’d bounced from name to name as well, trying to find something that eased the pressure in his chest and made him feel good and strong and masculine. He’d briefly landed on Jacob but that idea was tossed away as quickly as it came to him and went to Jesse to Kai to Parker. He was going by Jack when the cop, Derek, from a year ago had finally put in a request to foster him. In the McAfee house, Jack thrived. His grades were up, he was making friends with people his own age. The McAfees didn’t have any issues with Jack being a boy, introduced him to the word trans-gender, and it was the first time Jack really smiled in a very, very long time. The kind of smile that you just know meant everything clicked in his head, with the overwhelming relief of “There are others like me. I’m not broken.” The McAfees had broken down seeing that smile on their boy’s face and the family was perfect. Just perfect.

For less than a year. Less than twelve months later, Derek had been taken from his family and they never got justice for the man they lost. When he found out that Derek wasn’t coming home, his magic manifested in a most extreme way. All of the glass in the house had broken, shattered on the floor. It was a physical display of how broken he felt hearing that. Mrs. McAfee fell into a depression too deep to continue caring for Jack and he was moved once again. But this time, it was with a new outlook. Grieving was one thing and he was sure to do that in his own time but he wanted to make Derek proud. Jack was sure he was watching, upset the family had been torn apart but there wasn’t a doubt in his mind that Derek was looking out for him. The first step was to officially, finally, settle on a name. Forever. Only eleven years old and he knew that he wanted something that would keep his favorite parent close to him. He chose Dirk, like his dad’s name, but not quite the same. His teachers’ rosters still said Olivia and some of the foster families called him Olivia but he was Dirk. And despite how mad he got, how crushing it was to have people ignore what you told them and say you’re a girl, he kept his cool. Reminded of how Derek was with him, he tried to be that way with everyone else. He had been shown kindness in the McAfee house and he would in turn, pass it on. Despite how awful it was to lose the first real family he’d had. Despite how bad he felt because he couldn’t have stopped him. His hardships were his and his alone to carry. He refused to put that weight on anyone else.

It was shortly after his eleventh birthday, now living with a family called the Tylers who accepted him for who he was, called him Dirk and everything, when he received a letter. Except that letter was brought to him by a wizard named Dippet. He explained that Dirk had magic in him, that he was a wizard and he would attend the finest wizarding school of all, Hogwarts. Dirk didn’t have money, or anyone that would understand. He wouldn’t be able to go and that terrified him. The first time in his life he truly felt special and he would have to pass up on the opportunity because there wasn’t another option. Or so he thought. The school would take care of his robes and his books and all of his equipment in return for good grades and the promise that he’d keep them up. They’d even allowed him to bring a pet with him. He was moved once more, to a new home, with a squib, which was a word he didn’t understand until it was explained to him. They would understand him and protect him. It wasn’t quite a home and he didn’t always stay there during the nights, especially as he grew older, but it was close enough and the best he was getting.

Before Dippet had left, leaving him with the new family, Dirk had asked how they had known he was magic. The headmaster explained about the enchanted quill that wrote down students’ names when they were born. When he asked what name had been written down for him, Dippet had just replied with, “Dirk,” before apparating away. Relief had washed over him and Dirk felt vindicated, felt good and right, that he had been meant to follow this path. Life may have taken him on a strange, lonely path with a lot of twists and turns, but it was always leading right here. He was meant to be here.

If he had a million years, Dirk wouldn’t be able to repay all that he had been given in his life, because he wasn’t given charity but acceptance and kindness and a second chance when he didn’t even realize he needed one. Instead, he tries to pay it forward, to put good things out into the world and be a good person and hope that maybe, he can be the type of person he needed for someone else one day. He just wants to help, especially now that he can’t seem to shake the feeling that they’re not as safe as the news says they are. A girl a few years above him, Sybill something, said that she felt the same way, but no one ever believed her. She said she was a Seer and maybe Dirk was too. But Dirk isn’t so sure about that. Dirk is only sure about one thing: he wants to help people anyway he can.

#svhqintro #intro.#did i go overboard? yes. do i regret it? no.

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magic-muse · 5 years ago

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[ ALYCIA DEBNAM-CAREY / CIS FEMALE ] ┊ CORNELIA GREENWOOD ― This SIXTY-FOUR ( APPEARS TWENTY-FOUR) YEAR OLD SUPERNATURAL ( WITCH) is WITH the humans. SHE has lived in Marion for SIX YEARS in the ST. AGNES VILLAGE neighborhood, working as an DJane AND HOSTESS AT BADLANDS. There are no winners in this war, and SHE is NOT AT RISK of losing the supernatural war.

ABOUT CORNELIA GREENWOOD.

FULL NAME: Cornelia Greenwood

AGE: 64 (appears to be 24)

NICKNAME: Nelly

SEXUALITY: Bisexual

GENDER IDENTITY: Cis female

HEIGHT: 5′8

WEIGHT: 120 lbs

SPECIES: Witch

OTHER

DISTINGUISHING FEATURES: Mostly wears black. Not unlikely to have some isolated feathers left in her hair or on her clothing somewhere.

OCCUPATION: Djane at BADLANDS

HOMETOWN: Lumberton, Texas

PERSONALITY: Impulsive, ruthless, contradictory, destructive, absent-minded, hedonistic, distressed

VIEWS

WEREWOLVES: Not as hostile as against Vampires, but Cornelia will attack them, if they bother her too much. As long as she deems them useful for her business, she is willing to put up with them.

HUNTERS: Cornelia is on their side. Even though she knows that ultimately, she is as much ‘supernatural’ as werewolves and vampires and the hunters target, they have the same goal for the time being. Nelly is very well aware of the risk of being targeted herself though.

VAMPIRES: Cornelia wants to see them all dead and that’s about it. She uses them as long as they are more useful for her business and are an open gate to reveal more vampires to her. As soon as they are neither or too much of a bother…well.

HUMANS: Cornelia is on their side of the war because of whom she wants dead. She doesn’t like them either.

ABOUT

Cornelia’s father had been famous for finding a cure against feather-dermis. Otherwise he was a total nut-job. No wonder Nelly’s mother had left him when she was only four years old. Being absolutely reclusive and invested in his books and herbs instead of paying any attention to his child, Cornelia spent most of her childhood and adolescence with her grandmother and her great-grandfather.

Especially her grandmother Isabella was drawn to black magic. Until Cornelia’s great-grandfather passed away, Nelly was equally educated in many fields of magic and potion-making. Her father insisted on Nelly’s education in the history of magic and many other theoretical concepts of modern physics, medicine or chemistry. Once Nelly’s great-grandfather had passed, her education based heavily on sacrificial rites, blood rituals and balancing the veil to other dimensions and abstractions.

Cornelia’s strength are bonding techniques and divination. She can easily connect to or even overtake some minds, the lower the sentience the better. Once Nelly has touched another’s mind, she can find traces and act like a tracker. Her powers also work with objects or maps, but less clearly.

Her grandmother Isabella has especially focused on furthering those bonding-abilities and has tried to gain access over the divination-powers of her grandchild. Nelly’s prophecies prove to be unpredictable and uncontrollable. Isabella’s goal in furthering Cornelia’s bonding-abilities lay in the ultimate goal of overtaking her own grandchild in the end, ending up with the power of two witches and a new and once again young witches-body. During the final ritual, Isabella did reveal her plan. Cornelia was heartbroken but was neither strong enough to take action against her grandmother nor was she willing to – she didn’t have to. It was her powers that had set up the bond between the two witches and of course, Nelly hadn’t given up her being voluntarily, so she didn’t. Isabella’s plan backfired and instead of her gaining power from Nelly, it was the other way around.

Shaking her dead grandmother, trying to will her back to life, Nelly felt a very clear spot of pain in her chest that had been left empty by her beloved Saby. Doing the only thing that felt natural to her by that time, Nelly reverted back to herself, to that innermost core of pain and tried to connect herself with nothing but. Her and the dead body of her grandmother were surrounded by thirteen raven that had been part of the ritual. Nelly flung her hands at them, trying to drive them away from the dead body. Her fingers grazed feathers softly and-

Alone in a massive mansion with a mad wizard that could have come straight from one of those stupid human fantasy books, Nelly started to work herself through all those books that had been prohibited before. On the morning of her seventeenth birthday, an unusual scene played out in the Greenwood Mansion. Professor Astrophilus couldn’t find his daughter. He couldn’t even recall the last time he had seen her at all. In the end the wizard found Cornelia in the library buried in books and black feathers. The roles had somehow been reversed and Nelly looked at her father with a different set of eyes. That day, she decided not to spend any more of her time reading and learning new magic but to perform the one she knew by now. Her main goal was to find a vampire and rid him of his immortality.

Since the final ritual with her grandmother, Nelly had held on to that core of pain. Whenever she reached out to her center. The deepest core of herself. There was pain and it was there to connect with. It was as easy as brushing a strand of hair behind her ear and she was up in the air on strong black wings. The raven she had touched in that moment of carelessness had heard her calling and the power her grandmother had released, had set Cornelia free, free to escape and fly wherever she wanted to go to.

Tracking down vampires and following them until their motives were clear was Nelly’s main activity from then on after. She learned quickly that not all of the immortal creatures saw their endless life as a blessing. Eventually, she did end up with a female vampire who had just lost her partner. She wanted to vanish from earth too, but not in pain. Cornelia would grant her that in exchange for endless life. Shortly after she had turned eighteen, Nelly decided that aging was not her thing at all. Instead, she decided that the finer things in life could now begin.

For about 35 years, Cornelia lived life to its fullest. She travelled through the United States and Mexico, Europe, parts of Asia and Russia – in her human form. Immortality had a very negative side-effect to her magic. Centering herself was a lot harder than it used to be. Connecting herself to her essential core, was no longer possible. Her wings were gone.

Her goal was always to learn new magic wherever she came to, but mostly, she was interested in different abstractions, dimensions of the mind and soul, connections of the body and the immortal parts of life. How did magic in its core develop? What did happen after death and how could she access, connect to whatever it was? Working with spirits, souls, blood and bones, Nelly’s adventures were cut short by an unexpected message.

Cornelia returned to the Greenwood Mansion to bury her father. He had died after one of his experiments had gone awry. It was to usual fate for many magicians. Still, it left Nelly disconnected for a while. She stayed at her childhood home and revisited the books and recipes, tables and drawings. For the first time, she showed real interest in the town she grew up in.

On a rainy Friday night, Cornelia met Cassandra. Cassy was a few years older than Nelly, well appeared to be. Their love was firecrackers on New Year’s Eve, peachy flower petals oh so gentle against the skin of Cassy’s jaw, thousand needle pricks at Cornelia’s neck, when she got that tattoo of her raven-form. Cassandra’s family didn’t approve of Nelly. Of course, they knew the rumors of that old mansion and the Greenwood family. They had known Nelly’s mother, hadn’t they? What had happened to her? When Cassy’s sister Theresa was diagnosed with pulmonary cancer, Nelly decided to take the plunge. They were almost five years into their relationship. Theresa and her husband had four young children. Nelly knew that she would have to leave after this, with or without Cassandra. Telling the love of her live about her supernatural powers was hard but Cassy’s reaction made everything that followed easy. Nelly healed Theresa and the lovers left Lumberton.

Nevertheless, realization hit Cassandra hard. Cornelia would never grow old with her. Cassy was already physically older than her. At least seven or eight years. They fought. Nelly denied that there was a way of changing that believing herself without questioning her presuppositions. Cassy cried when they celebrated her next birthday and their next anniversary and Nelly started researching.

For Nelly’s next birthday, Nelly got a present for both of them. She had found a way to also pass on immortality. The very cheesy present Nelly made Cassy rip open contained two gray wigs to symbolize their future. Cornelia would spend the night with the designated acceptor and wake Cassy with breakfast in bed, so they could start together in their new life.

The ritual went well. Being the donor meant that Nelly had been drained from energy and had set up many protection spells for herself this night, neglecting Cassandra for this occasion, so she would make it back home safely and not be trapped with a much stronger immortal. Cornelia’s alarm woke her early so she could get fresh goods for their shared breakfast on her way home. Arriving excitedly, she already felt that something was off when she arrived at their driveway. The front door wasn’t shut all the way and Nelly didn’t even have to open it all the way to see the devastating results of what had happened last night while she hadn’t been home.

There was not a droplet of blood to be seen nor left in Cassandra’s body. As far as Nelly would guess, the vampire had been able to walk up to their front door as their protective shields were down, instead protecting Cornelia. After ringing the bell, they most likely had persuaded Cassy to invite them in and that was that. Nelly hadn’t even been aware of vampires in town. They were focused on love. Now, Nelly swore vengeance against any of those bloodsucking beasts on the surface of this planet.

Sobbing, Nelly sat down besides Cassandra and tried to connect to any traces of her mind that were left – but there were none. Instead, Nelly felt a familiar pit of pain in her chest. Absentmindedly, she brushed a strand of her hair behind her ear and spread her wings.

#intropost #intro #bio #LONG AF

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javajunkieao3 · 6 years ago

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Peggy Carter x Cap Reunion: Part 6

A few months after he returned, Steve started attending grief counseling. He found the group listed in the newspaper, underneath an advertisement for Lucky Strike cigarettes. The group met every Saturday at a church in Queens. He had no real intention of attending the meetings, but then one Saturday afternoon Peggy went shopping with Angie and he was alone in the apartment. He always had problems with the silence. It gave him too much space to think and with that space he invariably thought of them. Steve felt a familiar weight settle on his chest. It wasn’t unlike when he first came out of the ice, and with that heaviness came the guilt. He was the one who survived, so why couldn’t he get on with it?

Steve remembered how much the grief counseling helped him before and he set out to Queens, figuring that maybe it he talked about it all, just once, he could move on. The church was only a few blocks from the subway stop, an unassuming building with a cross at the top. Steve walked in and asked a man mulling around at the front of the church if he knew where the grief counseling was held. The man pointed to the back and said, “There’s a hallway back there. It’s one of those rooms.”

“Thank you.”

Steve walked through the church, his eyes lingering on a man and woman at one of the pews. Their heads were bowed, mouths barely moving as they prayed quietly. Grasped in the woman’s hand was a rosary, her thumb absentmindedly rubbing against the beads as she prayed. He entered the hallway and easily found the room from the steady buzz of chatter. There were about seven people there, chatting over coffee and sweets. At the center of the room, there was a circle of chairs, and Steve’s shoulders slackened at the familiarity. Put the people in modern clothes, and he could have been back at his grief counseling sessions in 2019.

A man was already seated, talking with a woman, and he looked up at Steve and said, “I see we have a new face.”

Steve walked forward and shook the man’s hand. “I’m Steve.”

“It’s nice to meet you, Steve. I’m Daniel. Take a seat, we were just about to get started.”

Daniel ushered the others to the seats and then they started. Daniel gestured for Steve to start, and he said, “Is it okay if I just listen first?”

“Of course, whatever you want.”

There were all sorts of people at the meeting. One woman lost her husband to lung cancer. Another woman was grieving a young son. A few talked about the war, but their memories were sparse and guarded. Steve suspected they were unwilling to open up too much out of fear that once they did, they would never be able to close that door again.

“What about you, Steve?” Daniel asked once they all spoke. “Is there anything you’d like to share with us?”

Steve took a deep breath and then shook his head.

Daniel nodded, smiling encouragingly, and said, “Well, whenever you’re ready, we’ll be here.”

Steve went home after the meeting with no intention of returning, but then Saturday came around and he found himself in the area for some errands, and figured that he could stop by. The next three Saturdays, he made up errands in Queens, and by the fourth Saturday, he went directly to the church and for the first time, spoke. He told them about the battle with Thanos in broad strokes, knowing that there was a war in recent enough memory that everyone would just think he was talking about that. When he left, he felt lighter.

That evening, he told Peggy over dinner, and she calmly returned, “I know.”

“You knew?”

She smiled softly and said, “I’m a spy, Steve. Of course, I knew.”

“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you sooner,” he said.

“Why didn’t you?” she asked. There was no heat behind her words, but he could tell that she was disappointed that he hadn’t come to her earlier.

“I guess I didn’t want you to think I wasn’t happy or something.”

“Oh Steve, you can be happy and still miss people.”

Steve nodded, looking down at his plate.

“You know that you can always talk to me,” Peggy said softly. “I know what it’s like to lose people, too.”

“I know you do,” Steve said, thinking to himself that he was a large reason for that.

“So, talk to me,” she said, reaching forward and grasping his hand with hers. “Let me help you.”

Steve shook his head and looked away, missing the way his wife’s face fell. He squeezed her hand and said, “I’m okay, Peg. I promise.”

She nodded, trying to smile but not quite succeeding. They continued their meal in silence, but the unsaid words pressed between them, forcing distance long after that evening. Steve thought he was doing the right thing by shielding her from his past. In one tense exchange of words, she accused him of thinking that she couldn’t handle it, but it wasn’t that. Steve knew she could, but why should she have to? These were his demons, not hers.

Six days after the one year anniversary of the battle, Steve sat in the circle of chairs. Throughout his time with the group, he’d seen people come and go. Some got better. Some got worse. Steve forced optimism, but it was wearing thin even to him. He barely slept anymore, and Peggy had stopped asking him why.

“Steve, what’s on your mind?” Daniel asked.

“Six days ago, it was the anniversary of when I lost my friends,” Steve said. “And I can’t help feeling guilty. I’m the one who came home and I got more than I could have ever imagined. But at what cost? And I look at my wife, and I can see she knows something’s wrong, but I can’t tell her, and she’s hurt by that. I hurt the one person I swore I never would.”

“Why can’t you tell her?”

Steve shifted uncomfortably in his seat. “I guess I’m embarrassed. After the war, I spent so much time missing her and what we had, and now I’m finally here and I’m missing them and…” he trailed off before he said anything about the future. “It’s like I can never be happy. I guess I don’t want her to know that.”

Daniel leaned forward and said, “It sounds like she already does. There’s no reason you should have to go this alone, Steve, and you know that. That’s why you’re here. Talk to her. Let her help you.”

That afternoon, Steve returned home and found that Peggy was out. He busied himself around the house, not wanting to slow down because if he did, he thought too much about the past and future, and how he had nearly let it destroy his present. When Peggy came home she found him sitting at the kitchen table.

“Hello Steve,” she said, putting her bag of groceries on the kitchen counter. She began to empty them when Steve said, “Can you come over here?”

“Let me just finish putting these away,” she said, unloading several cans of vegetables. She looked over her shoulder and said, “You know, you can help.”

Steve stood up and walked over to her, lightly taking a hold of her wrist as she reached into the bag again.

“Can you please come sit with me?”

“Okay,” she said hesitantly, following him to the table and watching as he sat back down. She settled across from him, waiting as he worked himself up to speak.

“Steve, are you okay?”

“No,” he admitted. “And you’ve known that for a while.”

Peggy hesitated before she nodded slightly.

“I thought I was doing the right thing shielding you from all of this. But, all I did was hurt you, and I never wanted to do that, so I’m going tell you everything.”

And, he did. He started with Tony, watching her eyes widen when he said his last name. Howard and Maria had just announced they were pregnant last month. Steve knew, without a doubt, that it was with Tony.

“He was brilliant and unafraid to tell people,” Steve said, smiling sadly. “He actually told people a lot. And he sacrificed himself so that we could live.” Steve thought of their first battle in New York and added, “It actually wasn’t the first time he did that.”

“He sounds like a remarkable man,” Peggy said.

Steve nodded, his gaze trained on the kitchen table. “He was. Don’t get me wrong, he could be stubborn and arrogant and, frankly, a real pain in the ass, but he was family. We all were. And without him, I wouldn’t be back here with you.”

Steve took a deep breath and then said, “But before we lost Tony, we lost Nat.”

For some reason, this one was harder for Steve to talk about. At least with Tony he got to say goodbye. He grieved. With Natasha, there was too much left to do. There was an entire war to get through before he had time to grieve. And even then, he was coordinating with Lang and Dr. Pym to return the infinity stones, and the actual returning of the stones. Then, his reunion with Peggy and stubbornly pushing any thoughts of his past life aside. As he spoke, Steve realized that he hadn’t in fact grieved Natasha, at all.

He didn’t realize that he had grown silent until he heard Peggy speak. He followed the sound of her voice and found her crouched beside him, her hands tightly grasping his. Her eyes brimmed with tears, but her voice was strong when she said, “I am so sorry, love.”

He reached for her instinctively, his face buried in the crook of her neck as he gave in to the grief that haunted him since he returned. All the while Peggy ran a soothing hand along his spine, whispering that everything would be okay. He would be okay. When he calmed down, she pulled away and framed his face with her hands. His face was flushed, eyes bloodshot and swollen.

“We are going to get through this,” she said resolutely.

“I’m sorry that I kept all of this from you.”

“You don’t need to apologize for anything,” she said. “You did the best you could.”

Steve leaned in and pressed his forehead against hers. “I love you, Peg. You have no idea how much.”

She let out a shaky breath, her eyes squeezed shut, and returned, “I think I do.”

They stayed that way for a long while, taking comfort in each other’s presence, and then Steve pulled away, taking a steadying breath before he said, “Come on, I’ll help you finish putting away the groceries.”

“Are you sure? They can wait,” she said.

Steve reached forward and tucked a piece of hair behind her ear, “No, I’m ready.”

“Okay.”

They put the groceries away in a comfortable silence, both stealing glances at each other as they maneuvered over to the pantry, cabinets and icebox. They settled on the couch after, Peggy leaning against him with her feet curled up under her. She thought of Howard and Maria’s announcement, and asked, “Do you think it’s Tony?”

Steve nodded. “I do.”

She grew quiet and Steve said, “It may not happen in this timeline.”

“Tell me, did he have a good life?”

Steve smiled softly, thinking of Pepper, Morgan and the man who loved them 3,000. “Yeah, he did.”

#this made me emotional #Peggy Carter x Steve Rogers #Agent Carter #Captain America #endgame spoilers #love you 3000 #steggy #steggy fanfiction

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ahumanintraining · 6 years ago

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i met you when i was 18 Adam had thought that getting over Shiro would be the hardest thing he'd ever done. But that was before death took away any semblance of doubt. — adashi. [ao3 link]

Once, Adam believed time was money — that every second needed to be spent doing something, being productive, getting ahead in life — but now, he knows time is anything but something that can be bought with all the riches of the worlds.

Time couldn’t be earned. Time couldn’t be deserved. Time couldn’t even be begged for, prayed for, traded or exchanged for — all the happiness of life, all the worth of the universe would not equal a second, or even a split moment extra with Shiro.

He learns this through the flickering headline on the television screen. It reads in all caps, the letters scrolling across the bottom of the screen under a neatly dressed broadcaster, who says those same words and some extra details in a solemn and serious face — in exactly the same tone as all the other news items of that morning.

Kerberos. Mission failure. All crew members. Inconclusive. Most likely dead.

Time is inflexible. Time is relentless. Time is unforgiving.

Adam knows this now.

And he knows that just as much as he cannot bargain for more time with Shiro, he can neither plead for less time missing him.

He really doesn’t need it.

Therapy, that is.

But eventually, other colleagues notice that he hasn’t taken a day off from work, that he is still operating like nothing ever happened. His friends are worried about his flat answers and his furrowed eyebrows, the growing shadows under his dry eyes and the extra few drinks he swallows down in the evenings.

Everything’s fine. Really.

He’s managing just fine. He makes it to work on time, and not one of his students has failed their mid-year evaluations.

But eventually, one way or another, they all try to convince him to do something about his grief, probably talking amongst themselves and delegating each other to “accidentally” run into him in the elevator or drop by his apartment unannounced with some extra portions of food or inviting him over on the weekends to hang out — all the while giving their own spiel about how hard it is or how they can’t imagine what he’s going through.

And eventually, Adam gives in.

“Fine. I’ll go to therapy session.”

Iverson gives him a soft smile, reaching his hand out to rest on Adam’s left shoulder. “I think that would be best,” he says. “I’ve lost people before too. I know it’s hard.” A pause. “And for you, especially, since you were… together, to say the least.”

“Right,” Adam replies. He’s not sure what else to say. “I’m sure therapy will help somehow.”

It doesn’t, and Adam knows it the moment he sits down.

He’s sitting in a circle of six or seven people, one of them the supposed therapist. Everyone seems to have been here before, because they all look at him for a little too long when he enters the room.

He looks around too. He doesn’t know a single soul in here, and honestly, thank god that’s the case.

He introduces himself, and the therapist gives him a warm smile.

“Welcome,” she says.

And then they go around the room introducing themselves. There’s someone that lost their husband to cancer, someone that lost both of their kids in a car accident, someone that lost their grandmother to multiple medical comorbidities.

At some point, it’s his turn.

“Who are you thinking about?” she asks.

He furrows his eyebrows. “What do you mean? I’m not thinking about anyone.”

“What are you thinking about then?”

Adam hides a frown. He re-crosses his ankles and leans back into the chair, which creaks against his weight. The chair is one of those ones that were ubiquitous in public schools in the early 2000s — those shitty plastic chairs with metal legs, uncomfortable no matter what position.

He takes a short inhale and then holds the breath in his chest for a second, thinking.

“I’m not thinking about anything,” he finally says. “Just… I don’t know what I’m doing here. I don’t think this is helping me.”

“What makes you think that?”

What the fuck kind of question is that?

He snaps his head up, meeting the therapist’s eyes dead on. He chews on his words before he replies.

“I don’t know.” The words come stiff from his mouth. “I’m not feeling any better.”

“That’s okay. You can leave if you like. You don’t have to stay if you don’t think it’s helping you.”

He shakes his head. “No, this is supposed to help, isn’t it?” He looks for affirmation around the room, but everyone else’s eyes are blank. “This is therapy. It’s supposed to work.”

The therapist nods patiently — but her calming air only pisses Adam off. “It works for many people, but many people also do quite well without it,” she says. She gives him a small smile, folding her hands neatly together on her lap. “You can stay for as long as you like. If you don’t want to participate today, you don’t have to.”

“Well then, what would I be doing here?” he retorts, his hands splaying in frustration.

“Everyone grieves differently,” she tells him. Her zen is infuriating, even if he knows that she’s just trying to do her job. “That’s the advantage of doing this as part of a group. You see that right in front of you.”

He hates this. He hates everything about this.

“This is bullshit. I thought this grief therapy shit was supposed to make it easier. I want to fucking move on already. I want to be fucking done with this.”

“Therapy can make things easier, but therapy doesn’t change the grieving process. Everyone grieves differently, and therapy is supposed to help you develop strategies and techniques to make the grieving process easier.”

Adam shifts in his seat, crossing and uncrossing his arms again. “Whatever,” he says. “I don’t know why I’m here. Everyone told me to come so I did. That’s it. And now I know for sure I don’t want to be here.”

“If you’d like to leave, you can leave,” the therapist repeats. “I’m not going to make you stay if you don’t want to.”

This time, he does.

There’s some Spanish saying that goes something like how only a nail can drive another nail out, and Adam guesses the adage is supposed to apply to relationships.

One day when he’s desperate, he tests that wisdom.

He signs himself onto a dating app, bullshits his way through the stupid profile questions, puts up a generic picture of himself and then swipes through a selection of names and faces. He doesn’t really give too much thought into it. He just needs someone — anyone — to forget. He doesn’t need this person to replace the empty hole in his heart, much less occupy it for the future — he just needs to cut the aching in his chest and the bitter taste on his tongue.

The very next evening he has a date. His date suggests a place he’s never been to before, and honestly thank god, because the last thing Adam wants to do is go to a place haunted by memories he’s been struggling to let go.

His date is nice, friendly, and has a good sense of humor. Adam knows this, but he isn’t in the mood to laugh or play along. His date is empathetic and understanding, and when Adam mentions that he’s going through a rough patch in life, his date immediately forgives him for not being completely present. His date is soft and gentle and even asks for permission to kiss him. Adam allows a tight embrace and leans in to meet lips, and for a moment, he thinks that this will be the moment he gets over Shiro —

But then he looks deep into the dark brown eyes staring back at him, and they don’t look at all like Shiro’s eyes.

Of course they don’t. They’re not Shiro’s eyes.

“Sorry,” he mutters through his lips, backing away.

“What?”

“I… I can’t,” he breathes. “I’m sorry.”

Alone on his way home, he deletes the app from his phone on his way home.

Shiro was supposed to die anyway, Adam reminds himself.

Shiro wasn’t always going to be forever.

Shiro never told him exactly how much time he had left — however much his doctor predicted for him to have — but Adam always knew that it was probably less than five years.

Shiro would have told him otherwise — or at least so Adam thinks.

And Shiro would have also said yes when Adam got down on one knee, instead of looking at him with wide forlorn eyes and an unsaid no on his lips.

It’d make it harder for you, he had said. I don’t want you to be alone. I want you to find someone else. I want you to be happy.

“Fucking idiot,” Adam mutters, to no one in particular. “You can’t make all the decisions.”

He looks up from staring at the floor. What time is it? He doesn’t bother checking his watch. His eyes scan his living room, the amber sunset light casting a forlorn yellow tinge and long shadows over everything. Dirty dishes and carry-out containers stacked on the coffee table, some crumbs of many somethings sprinkled over the carpet, unwashed clothes draping over every other surface, stacks of paper tossed on whatever free space is left.

Completely a mess.

Very unlike him.

Damn Shiro, Adam thinks. He’s changed him. He made him love when he hadn’t even been looking for anyone, and now that he’s gone, he’s made him someone he doesn’t want to be — an emotional mess.

Shiro’s also made him come back to the group therapy — something he didn’t plan on doing or intend to do when he woke up that morning.

“It’s good to see you,” the therapist says as he walks in.

He makes eye contact with her, but otherwise says nothing as he mechanically walks over to the back end of the room to unfold himself a metal chair. As he brings his seat to the circle, people move their chairs over to fit him in, the worn-out rubber bottoms of their chairs squeaking against the gym floor.

“We were just getting started. Why don’t you start off the introductions? Do you mind?”

Adam presses his lips closed.

“It’s Adam, right?”

He unclenches his jaw. “Yes.”

“Who are you thinking about, Adam?”

“I don’t want to talk about him. I just want to get over it.”

The therapist smiles gently at him. Always that gentle and soft smile. Seeing the length of her patience tired him.

“You will,” she assures him. “With time.”

He rolls his eyes, scoffing to himself. “I thought you said this was supposed to help you find techniques to manage grief,” he replies. He pauses because a hard ball suddenly forms tight in his throat. He drops his head down. “…And that’s what I want to do. And I don’t want to talk.”

He doesn’t see it, but he can sense that the therapist is nodding. “If you don’t want to talk today, that’s perfectly fine with me, and that’s perfectly fine with all of us, right?”

Adam doesn’t lift his head but his eyes carefully scan over the group around him.

Everyone nods.

Don’t expect me to be here when you get back.

I’ve got a class to teach.

How could he have let those be the last words he said to him?

He hates that he ever said them. He hates that he ever thought of thinking to say them. He hates that he ever even thought of them in the first place.

He was being selfish, he realizes now. He was being greedy.

Adam can’t help the doubt that creeps into his head.

Maybe if he had said better words, Shiro would have stayed. Maybe if he had thought just a little longer, Shiro would still be with him.

Maybe if he had been more understanding, more patient, more compassionate… Maybe if he had been better, Shiro would be in his arms now. Alive.

Those words were his desperation come alive, his denial that things were bound to end. Those words were the very last thing Adam thought he could do — the very last thing he could do for just an extra moment, an extra few seconds with him.

It’s now he realizes he would have done anything for Shiro to stay.

Even break up with him.

He doesn’t really remember where he put the rings.

Or at least that’s what he tells himself.

He knows they’re in his bedroom closet on the top shelf, just above his two black suit jackets, on top of the extra and ever-unused guest bedsheets and towels, inside of a large blue-topped plastic storage container under other empty product boxes and manufacturer papers that he never had the heart to throw away — specifically under the packaging of his headphones and sunrise alarm clock. They’re each in a black velvet-lined mahogany ring box, engraved to match. Sterling silver, with the inscriptions of their names on the inside.

They’re silver. Silver like Shirogane.

Just like they had discussed. Just like they had planned.

Everything was exactly as he had wanted.

The only thing out of foresight was his answer. Shiro didn’t even see the rings before saying no to them.

Adam knew Shiro long enough to know that he could not control any of Shiro’s choices — and maybe Adam should have known then that maybe that was a sign that they were never meant to be forever.

“Who are you thinking about?”

Who is he thinking about? Who else is he thinking about?

“Takashi—” and his voice collapses.

Takashi. The name rolls off his tongue so easily — as if he’s said it in a good morning every day, as if he’s said it between long kisses late at night, as if he’s said it casually between conversations with friends, as if he’s said it over a phone call back to his family — instead of slapping photo frames face down, deleting old texts and emails, putting everything that ever reminds him of anything into the trash or a storage box he locks away from himself, and waking up every morning with tired, dry, and edematous eyes he could barely see out of —

“You’re thinking about Takashi,” the therapist repeats back to him, cutting his thoughts.

His voice croaks. “Yes.”

“Can you tell us about Takashi?”

Adam lifts his gaze off the floor. He meets the therapist’s eyes first. He looks to the person to the right, then the next person, and then the person after. Their eyes are all the same — kind, attentive, caring, supportive, unjudging.

His silence prompts another question from the therapist.

“When did you meet Takashi?”

Adam blinks, opening and closing his mouth once or twice before forcing the words off his chest.

“I met him at the Garrison.”

#adashi #shadam #voltron #took me forever to write this #dfjiodsjfs #—adashi #—voltron

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cntcrtainmcnt-blog · 6 years ago

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Okay so, classes are starting on Monday, meaning I’ll probs be slower(or faster, it’s also a definite possibility). In any case, I will most likely slow down when it comes to bringing new muses in so hopefully this is my last intro post in a while. If you’d like to plot with any of them, please like this or just message me!

EDWARD “EDDIE” HALE is a 23 years old CISMALE who looks just like LUKE BENWARD. He has been described as ALTRUISTIC yet SUPERSTITIOUS.

Eddie is the younger brother of Terrence, and from the moment he was born, he was expected to be just as good as his brother was. While he did try to live up to it at first, it also gave him some issues, mostly relating to confidence, since he was always compared to his brother and felt like he wasn’t good enough.

Being 6 years younger, at least, he was mostly the one Hale kid people knew in his school year. During that time, mostly in elementary school, it was a relief, since he had a break of living up to everyone’s expectations.

Then, the closer he got to high school, the more people started to hear about his brother and everything.

All through high school, he tried to just blend in, and not get linked to his brother. By that time, people knew all the things he did, Terrence was basically like a legend in their high school, and Eddie was definitely not the same type of character.

Every single time his brother brought a girlfriend home, he’d end up surprisingly bonding with her, enough to care and try to help them after his brother broke their heart. But he personally didn’t have a girlfriend until the very high of his senior high school year.

By the time he graduated, Terrence had moved out to Kola, looking for good job opportunities. Eddie still doesn’t know what happened in his mind, but at one point, he received a text from his brother asking if he wanted to move in with him in Kola and open a confectionery with him. Since he decided to not go to college and was just working a shit job, Eddie accepted. Not like his relationship with his parents was that good anyway.

So moved to Kola when he was 19, and he lives there in an apartment with his brother. Since he never studied, Terrence thought he’d be better running the front shop, greeting people, selling stuff, managing the employees, while he was working mostly backstore with finance and all that.

Not a day passes without him regretting his decision to move to Kola.

While definitely help you if you’re in trouble, even if he doesn’t know you or won’t get anything out of it.

STYLES MCKINLEY is a 28 years old CISMALE who looks just like BEAU MIRCHOFF. He has been described as GENEROUS yet SAD.

So Styles. Is. A. Sad. Puppy.

He was the second son, his brother being about 5 years older than him. When he was only 3, his mother passed away. He was told it was a certain disease, but he was never told what.

Anyway, he grew up looking up at his dad and his brother, and never really minded not having a mom. Although after a moment, he started getting upset whenever someone would mention his mom, and then they’d apologize when they learned about her fate. It’s not like he really knew her, and yes, it’s sad, but it’s something he’s gotten over a long time ago.

When he was 12, his father(43) remarried with a woman that was 24. It was... weird to have a step-mom this young, but it was weirder for his brother. Anyway, they already knew the woman, she was their dad’s secretary, and actually babysat both boys when they were a little younger. So she was already well acquainted with the family.

Anyway, a year later, she was caught cheating on her husband with no one else than Styles’ brother. That completely tore the family apart. His dad divorced, his brother was kicked out, and his step mom was fired and he never heard of her again.

And when he started high school, his father(who’d started abusing alcohol) was deemed ot good enough to care for him, so he went to live with his brother(who was now 19 and had a steady job in a restaurant). But that wasn’t the rockiest part of his high school experience.

See, Styles was a rather talented soccer player, and so quite popular. But unlike his friends(who tended to be cruel and manipulative), he was just the most caring person, he just never showed that side often. Or at least, people would mistake him as just another cruel boy.

Anyway. Early in sophomore year, they started picking on this girl, Louise, who was, really, just minding her own business. But they didn’t like that she was never mingling with people, and they really wanted her to like... do it with them. Well, Styles never said anything out loud, but she categorized him as one of them, and he totally gets why, since he never stepped in to stop it. Which he was kind of sad about because if he was honest, she seemed really nice and he thought he could definitely like her.

Well, he did end up stopping them, about a month and a half later. It was a party(which she surprisingly decided to go to), his “friends” had cornered her in a room. He was standing in the back at first, but when he realized what their intention was, he just want ahead and got them, not so pacifially, to leave. That was the beginning of his story with Louise, and honestly the end of his popularity(and soccer career, since he quit, refusing to play with such jerks).

At first, Louise and him were distant, mostly because he was grumpy he went from everything to nothing, but he quickly warmed up. And that was the beginning of a wonderful love story that would’ve lasted for ages, had it not been a horrible diagnosis.

It was during senior year, she was getting sicker and sicker, so she went to the doctors. And when she got her results, she was devastated. So was Styles, when he learned she had cancer, and it wasn’t an early stage, and it was almost terminal.

Well, anyway, they decided it wouldn’t stop them. The next year, while she was transferred to a better hospital and he decided he would go into medicine in a close by hospital, they did the most impulsive thing either have ever done, and they got married. She just wanted to live as much as she could, before it was too late.

She was strong, lasted for a very long time, but the more time passed, the more they realized the day was going to come. Louise passed away 3 years ago, when they were 25. Styles was devastated, but at least, he knew she had a good life. She had the life she wanted.

So he kind of knew he wouldn’t be able to stay in that town much longer after her death, so he decided to head back to Kola. He’s now a resident in oncology, and his biggest dream would be to help cancer patients.

TAMI SULLIVAN is a 20 years old CISFEMALE who looks just like SHANNON PURSER. She has been described as MAGNANIMOUS yet SELF CONSCIOUS.

Tami is the youngest sister of a pageant queen who went out to become a model. She was originally expected to also follow in those steps, but she had no interest in beauty contest, and much prefers imaginary worlds.

While her sister would always be out partying with friends, Tami would just stay home and read books after books. Literally never stopped, it’s all she did. So while she wasn’t so good in classes such as sciences or maths, she was skilled in English or Literature classes.

So she’s not really popular? Never has been? But she’s also got a bunch of friends. You know how it is, unpopular kids tend to bond together, and they nearly always have more genuine friends than popular kids. So she’s really happy being unpopular but with real friends.

She’s currently studying to become an editor, since she loves reading and it would be a perfect job for her. She would totally write her own stories, but she’s just lacking a little in the imagination skill.

While she lives well being unpopular, constantly being compared to her model sister has given her body issues. She knows all shapes are pretty, curves are pretty, people tell her she’s pretty, but it’s sometimes just really hard to believe when you’re sister is tall and skinny and poses on magazine covers.

TERRENCE HALE is a 29 years old CISMALE who looks just like GLEN POWELL. She has been described as AESTHETIC yet COCKY.

Born from two overachiever parents, Terrence was expected to do good. And while he had an immense ego and self-confidence, he was also surprisingly smart. So of course, when his brother was born, he was taken as a model.

To not look like a complete nerd, Terrence acted like a real brat in school, hanging with the popular kids. Hell, he was one of the most popular kid out there. He just made sure to study double the amount at home so his grades would stay up.

Definitely did a lot of shit, dated countless girls(often now more than a few days), did all kind of crazy dares, which ended up getting him suspended quite a few times, but also gave him a name in the school, which would end up lasting for years.

Once he graduated high school, he went on to study accounting in Kola University, keeping up the same game he played all through school, aka he was a frat boy who acted like he gave no shit about classes, but definitely had the best grades in the class.

After graduating, he didn’t really know what he wanted to do. He knew he would never go home, somehow being far from his parents felt good, so he just looked around for jobs, but nothing really interested him.

Until he was binge-watching all of the Harry Potter movies, with a gigantic bowl of candies. He then realized there weren’t that many confectioneries in Kola, and that was definitely something the town needed more. (he might have been high when that happened...)

It was really on an impulse that Terrence looked around for a place to rent, to found one, and called Eddie to know if he wanted to join. Honestly, that confectionery was going to happen whether he said yes or no, but he definitely wanted his brother to be a part of it. He was just always close to him, and he knew he was most likely looking out for a good opportunity career-wish.

The confectionery, called Candy Hale, was opened about 4 years ago, and its popularity keeps only increasing. Terrence mostly works the accounts, but he also doesn’t mind helping up front if needed.

#fckits:intro #cancer tw #death tw #alcoholism tw #abuse tw #just in case #body issues tw

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xtruss · 4 years ago

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Forced to Choose Between Trump’s “Big Lie” and Liz Cheney, the House G.O.P. Chooses the Lie

“Liz is a living reproach to all these cowards,” a friend of Cheney’s said, but the cowards have the votes.

— By Susan B. Glasser | May 6, 2021 | The New Yorker

Liz Cheney standing in front of the U.S. Capitol building.

It has become abundantly clear that House Republicans will soon throw Liz Cheney out of her leadership position for refusing to go along with Trump’s falsehoods.Photograph by Drew Angerer / Getty

On January 11, 2017, Donald Trump held his first Presidential press conference following his upset victory in the November, 2016, election. It was anything but Presidential. In perhaps the day’s most notable exchanges, he attacked BuzzFeed for publishing a former British spy’s unverified dossier on his extensive ties to Russia—the news organization, Trump said, was a “failing pile of garbage.” He also singled out CNN and its White House correspondent, Jim Acosta, for particular scorn. “You’re fake news!” Trump raged at Acosta, refusing to take a question from him. It was his first spoken utterance of a phrase that, arguably more than any other, would come to be associated with his Presidency.

It was also, and more to the point, an act of shameless linguistic larceny. In the two months since Trump’s upset win, the “fake news” conversation had been all about the weaponization of falsehoods by Trump and for his political benefit. On November 3rd, a few days before the 2016 election, Craig Silverman—a BuzzFeed reporter who had first regularly started using the term in 2014, in research papers and articles—broke a story about fake-news troll farms in Macedonia that had been spreading lies on Trump’s behalf to American voters on Facebook. When Trump actually won the election, the idea that fake news promoted by hidden forces had contributed to his unlikely victory went viral. In that January press conference, Trump appropriated the phrase for himself, this time as an attack on his critics, a move of political jiu-jitsu that proved to be stunningly effective. I spoke with Silverman the other day about the moment that “fake news” stopped being his label and became Donald Trump’s. “He decided to take it and turn it into his term, and to take ownership of it and use it as a cudgel to beat the media,” Silverman told me. “And I think it proved to be one of his favorite phrases, and probably one of his most effective phrases, too, over the course of his Presidency.”

All week long, I’ve been thinking about that moment four years ago. This Monday, Trump sent out a short statement, the kind that he would have tweeted out before his falsehoods about the recent election got him banned from Twitter. In it, he said, “The Fraudulent Presidential Election of 2020 will be, from this day forth, known as the big lie!” Soon after that, Liz Cheney, the No. 3 House Republican leader, sent out an actual tweet refusing to accept this Trumpian redefinition of truth. “The 2020 presidential election was not stolen,” she wrote. “Anyone who claims it was is spreading the big lie.” Anyone who has followed the past four years in the Republican Party, however, can tell you what happened next: the Party did not turn on Donald Trump for his outrageous inversion of truth but on Liz Cheney. Within a couple of days, it had become abundantly clear that House Republicans would soon throw Cheney out of her leadership position for refusing to go along with Trump’s big lie about the Big Lie.

Trump has learned the lesson of previous demagogues: the bigger and more flagrant the untruth, the better to prove the fealty of his Party. After all, it actually demands more loyalty to follow your leader into an absurd conspiracy theory than it does to toe the official line when it doesn’t require a mass suspension of disbelief. Back in January, the Big Lie had been rightly affixed to Trump’s preposterous falsehoods about the “rigged election” and his followers’ insurrection, on January 6th, to prevent Congress from certifying the results. His claims were so preposterous that a lawyer who advanced them on Trump’s behalf, Sidney Powell, is now defending herself in court with a filing that states “no reasonable person would conclude that the statements were truly statements of fact.” There was no fraud. Or, as Trump might put it, if he weren’t lying about it, “no fraud!” And yet Trump has successfully proved throughout the past few months that the repetition of these lies over and over again—even without accompanying evidence—is more than enough to get millions of Americans to believe him. He has run this play before. He knows that it works. Fake News indeed.

The striking difference is that, this time, Liz Cheney has chosen to fight him on it. If Trump does manage to reinvent “the Big Lie” in service of his own corrupt ends, Cheney will at least have forced members of her party into admitting, on the record, that they are making a choice between truth and Trump’s untruth—and choosing the latter. There is no hope among her supporters and advisers that she will win the fight, when the House Republican Conference votes, likely next week, to boot her. Instead, there is a recognition that Cheney has finally decided to do what most of the Trump skeptics within the Party were reluctant to for four years: publicly challenge not only Trump’s lies but the enablers within the G.O.P. who give his lies such power. “It’s all got to do with fealty to Trump and the Big Lie and the fact that Liz is a living reproach to all these cowards,” Eric Edelman, a friend of Cheney’s who served as a national-security adviser to her father, former Vice-President Dick Cheney, told me.

Cheney’s rupture with the House Republican Conference has become all but final in recent days, but it has been months in the making. Edelman revealed that Cheney herself secretly orchestrated an unprecedented op-ed in the Washington Post by all ten living former Defense Secretaries, including her father, warning against Trump’s efforts to politicize the military. The congresswoman not only recruited her father but personally asked others, including Trump’s first Defense Secretary, Jim Mattis, to participate. “She was the one who generated it, because she was so worried about what Trump might do,” Edelman said. “It speaks to the degree that she was concerned about the threat to our democracy that Trump represented.” The Post op-ed appeared on January 3rd, just three days before the insurrection at the Capitol.

Little noticed at the time was another Cheney effort to combat Trump’s post-election lies, a twenty-one-page memo written by Cheney and her husband, Phil Perry, an attorney, and circulated on January 3rd to the entire House Republican Conference. In it, Cheney debunked Trump’s false claims about election fraud and warned her colleagues that voting to overturn the election results, as Trump was insisting, would “set an exceptionally dangerous precedent.” But, of course, they did not listen. Even after the storming of the Capitol, a hundred and forty-seven Republican lawmakers voted against accepting the election results. When Trump was later impeached over his role in inciting the insurrection, Cheney was one of just ten House Republicans to vote in favor of it.

Revealingly, it is not Cheney’s impeachment vote that now looks like the move to get her bounced from the Party’s leadership. It is her refusal to shut up about it and embrace the official party line of forgetting about Trump’s attack on democracy and moving on—which is the approach of all but a handful of prominent Republicans. Even former Vice-President Mike Pence, who was forced by a pro-Trump mob to flee for his life on January 6th, after he refused Trump’s demand that he block congressional certification of the election results, is back to public deference. At an appearance last week, Pence called his service to Trump “the greatest honor” of his life.

So, too, is Kevin McCarthy, the House Minority Leader, who made a frantic phone call to Trump on January 6th seeking his help in stopping the mob. McCarthy was angry enough days later that he gave a speech on the House floor saying unequivocally that Trump “bears responsibility” for the Capitol attack. But McCarthy, like Pence, has returned to his safe space of Trump sycophancy. In recent days, McCarthy has made clear that the effort to dump Cheney has his support, as well as Trump’s. Various media accounts have suggested that he was personally angered that Cheney had not been more grateful when he intervened to help save her leadership job following her impeachment vote. The bad feelings are clearly mutual in Cheneyworld. “You have to surround the Big Lie with a bodyguard of lies,” Edelman told me, of McCarthy, paraphrasing Churchill.

Four years ago, back when Trump was turning “fake news” into his own hypocritical rallying cry, Cheney and other members of the conservative Republican establishment were in what appeared to be hold-their-noses-and-deal-with-him mode. Most of them went on to become vocal Trump cheerleaders. A few others, such as former House Speaker Paul Ryan, decided to leave the public stage altogether rather than take Trump on. The loudest anti-Trump voice in the G.O.P. in 2017, the Arizona senator John McCain, died of brain cancer the following year. Mitt Romney, who won election to the Senate from Utah a couple of months after McCain’s death, became essentially a lone Republican voice of public opposition to Trump on Capitol Hill. Cheney, from the rabidly pro-Trump state of Wyoming, stayed largely silent until the outrages of 2020 began to pile up.

It took a long time, but arguably Liz Cheney today is McCain’s heir. She is, at the last, willing to call a lie a lie. She applied “the Big Lie” to Trump’s crimes against American democracy long before Trump sought, this week, to steal the phrase for his own destructive purposes. But there is one matter about which I must disagree. In a scathing opinion article she published on the Post’s Web site Wednesday night, Cheney wrote that she will not back down from this fight because it is a “turning point” for her party, which will show whether Republicans “choose truth and fidelity to the Constitution” or the “dangerous and anti-democratic Trump cult of personality.” She is wrong about this one. The choice has already been made.

— Susan B. Glasser is a staff writer at The New Yorker, where she writes a weekly column on life in Washington. She co-wrote, with Peter Baker, “The Man Who Ran Washington.”

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delcat177 · 7 years ago

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The Lamp Posts: Lies and Cancer

“Have you asked yourself what profit [E] might have in lying?” --My therapist, to my wrestling with doubts

“Munchausen by Internet usually manifests in the late teens or early 20′s. It's often preempted or accompanied by other psychological issues, most commonly personality disorders... ...The lies escalate slowly, which makes them harder to detect. Someone might sound like a walking textbook when talking about their symptoms, or they may be quick to duplicate the symptoms of other people around them. The lies are intricate, detailed, engrossing. Terrible setbacks are followed by miraculous recoveries. And if someone else becomes the center of attention, their condition will dramatically worsen or they will become the victim of a sudden tragic event. Some people even invent tertiary characters—friends, siblings, a concerned mother—to jump into internet threads and corroborate their stories. The lies slowly escalate, pile up, and create an improbable whole. Then one day, you realize you're friends with a 15-year-old chronic migraine sufferer online who also happens to be a fourth-year medical school student who plays drums in a band at night—despite those crippling migraines—to pay his med school tuition because his [D]eaf mother and alcoholic stepfather have no interest in his baby-genius education. Oh, and since he's not yet old enough to drive, he skateboards three miles a day to get to class.

And on that day, you feel like a total schmuck.” --The Lying Disease

--My idiot ass

Continues after cut

Like I said in my last post, there’s a lot to this. A lot a lot. It’s tempting to take the advice of the King of Hearts in Alice in Wonderland and go from the beginning to the end over a series of posts, make it a narrative because narratives are easier and, let’s face it, more glamorous and attractive. But I think that would detract from the point of the thing, which is dealing with my own shit. And in my own shit, keeping it to a narrative would make it way easier to avoid saying the things I’m afraid to say. It’d give me as much time as I wanted to put the scary stuff off, and I would do that--put it off.

It’s better for everyone to get it over with. Once this post is over, I can stop going “I can’t say that, only a monster would say that”, and people can decide whether or not I’m a monster.

So. Monstering away, I guess.

I do want to preface this with a note that dates are going to be hard. At a friend’s suggestion, I deleted the chatlogs I had because I was torturing myself with them, so I have to go by a few handfuls of stuff still remaining and crucial events in my life.

I met E in 2014 through a mutual friend of the time, who I’ll call N, again because it’s a common letter and has nothing to do with them whatsoever. N and I were working on an ongoing project, which E had expressed interest in. I agreed that E had good contributions to make, and the three of us formed a group chat, first on Skype, then on Discord*. Aside from maybe a page or two of direct messages on Discord and some back and forth on Tumblr, all of the communication I had with E was in the group chat.

E was very open about their situation, and it was as bad a situation as it gets. They were a racial minority. They were a survivor of horrendous abuse--emotional, physical, verbal, sexual. A relative had spent years victimizing them and selling the recordings to a kiddie porn ring. Their immediate family was collectively neglectful and violent, and blamed E for making trouble when they testified against their predatory relative. Their only income was their husband’s paycheck--the PTSD and CPTSD alone made it impossible for them to function day to day, and even if it hadn’t, they had severe ADHD and depression, and on top of it all, they had cancer--childhood leukemia.

I want to stop right here and say that this is a situation that happens. And it’s awful, and horrifying, and we should all be more aware of that. I also want to say that there was more to their situation in terms of difficulty, but I’m leaving a few things out that may be just unique enough as to identify them.

These pieces of information came out a few at a time over the first couple of months that I knew E. I did what I could, talking with them, trying to cheer them up when they were down, giving advice, trying to help with the cost of living when I could, reblogging posts suggesting people donate to or commission them.

I felt immense sympathy for this struggling, long-suffering warrior, and I talked to friends, family, and my therapist about them frequently, asking if they had advice for someone who was in a seriously bad way. This was nothing new--I’ve had friends in rough spots more or less since I’ve had friends, and my mom was a social worker--specifically, a Hospice worker for end-of-life care. I used to walk into the computer room at home and see Mom triumphantly getting one of her clients the prescription they needed through a discount website, or sit in the living room and hear her tirelessly talking to an insurance company for the 427th time that week getting the heat turned back on for someone in the dead of winter. It wasn’t just that I admired her work, it was that I knew she knew things, and that knowing things could change a person’s life for the better--she had helped me help friends with bills and prescriptions before.

At this time, cancer was especially important to me. Mom had been diagnosed with skin cancer several years earlier, and one or two rogue fucking cells had made it to her liver despite all efforts. She died in February of 2015, and the enormity of my grief is one of the reasons I failed to see a lot of warning signs in my relationship with E (the biggest reason, as my sister puts it in relation to dramas we watch together, is “[I] never think of deceit”). It also made me all the more determined to help E get the help they needed.

E’s cancer was, at least, mild. Their doctor believed that chemotherapy would cause more problems than it solved, so they were spared that ordeal. However, they were actively being denied a marrow transplant because of their depression and suicidal ideation. I knew the state and general area they lived in, so I asked two of my best friends/extended family who were in nursing school together what could be done. I also brought them the name of a particular drug E was taking because E often talked about not taking it because of the bad taste, something that terrified me after Mom’s passing but not something I could talk them out of--there had to be something more palatable.

My friends responded...cautiously. It was, they said, illegal to deny someone a marrow transplant on grounds of mental illness--unlike organ transplantation, marrow can be grown and harvested from a living person, so the standards for receiving a donation aren’t as rigorous. One of them is particularly familiar with the process because their child had had childhood leukemia themself and owed their life to a marrow donor.

I was confused. Had E gotten it wrong? Or was E actively being discriminated against because of their class and race? Or maybe I had gotten it wrong myself? I certainly wasn’t the brightest apple in the barrel. I must have misunderstood something.

I said as much, and asked about the medication. Like I said, one of them had had a child with the same cancer as E’s, and they had been must younger at the time, so they must have been familiar with how to alleviate bad-tasting medicine enough for someone to stomach it.

I quickly learned I must have gotten something wrong again. The medication I stated the name of was IV-only. There was no possible way for it to taste bad.

While I was checking the chatlogs and confirming that I had gotten the name of it right (I had, maybe E had gotten two meds mixed up? Surely that was it...), the other friend asked me if E had a pick or a shunt line for their IV. I responded that I didn’t know, and proceeded to forward E what I had learned, and asked them about the IV as well.

We had been out shopping at the time, and it was late when I got home, so I didn’t check for a result until the next day. E hadn’t responded to the question, and instead, E had chatted with N about something unrelated. When I questioned them again, they asked me not to go to friends about their health anymore.

Guilt rushed over me. I had gotten so wrapped up in trying to help that I hadn’t considered E’s feelings. They had given me permission to ask about things, yes, but they were so frequently tired--what was I doing dragging them through this with strangers? I apologized, and promised not to bring it up again. I chalked the odd disparities up to E’s (by now notoriously cruel and uncaring) doctors causing trouble.

E cut ties with me in July of 2016.

It was then that my friends approached me and gently told me that they knew I wouldn’t be able to accept it while I was friends with them, but E had lied.

E wasn’t being turned down for a transplant.

E didn’t have bad tasting medicine.

E couldn’t even say where their IV line was, because they didn’t have one.

E didn’t have cancer, and never had.

This was the truth. I had been taken in by it because I couldn’t fathom anyone lying about anything as serious as cancer, especially to someone who was actively mourning a family member and best friend who was taken by it.

In the time that I soaked this in, half-arguing with my family still in shock, I had four primary thoughts:

1) If E had lied about this, I couldn’t trust anything they had ever said. How could I? If they had lied about having cancer for attention and money, what else would they lie about? Their stories of abuse, childhood pornography, visits to the hospital, their family killing pets, testifying about their relative--suddenly, I found myself simultaneously doubting every word they’d ever said and hating myself for ever doubting an impoverished CSA victim with cancer that they didn’t have wait.

2) I had no evidence. I knew what was happening now, that I had been caught up in an immense and terrible lie, and probably more immense and terrible lies on top of that, but there was no way I could prove any of it. If I even said I suspected them, especially so soon after they had told me off and left, I would look like a monster trying to frame them of the Worst Things in the Worst Way.

3) My mutual friend was closer to them than I was, still caught up in the lies, and because of 2), I had no way of warning them or explaining myself.

4) Cue the music.

It turned out that not only was Friend A in nursing school and not only had her kid had cancer, she had become part of a cancer hoax watchdog group years ago because of a similar incident in her support group. A parent had claimed one of their children had cancer to gain sympathy and funds from the group, then become suspect after another child had fallen ill, then pushed it too far when both (fictitious) children and the (fictitious) father died in a (fictitious) car accident. It happens all the time, but no one wants to talk about it. Everyone in my family had known, but they had been right--I wouldn’t have accepted it while I was still in the relationship.

It’s still not easy to talk about. I still have doubts about my doubts, and the only thing I’m sure wasn’t true was the cancer. Everything else is...mixed up. It’s not something I want to believe about someone I thought of as a friend, even if I never was a friend (this is a very small portion of how Bad things were, and they would only get worse). I don’t want to ever doubt someone’s experience, and the worse someone’s experience is, the less inclined I am to question it. Terrible shit happens. I know that far too well.

That having been said, there is a logical part to me, and while it doesn’t have the warmth I like to afford people, it does things like remind me that I have an almost addictive nature when it comes to studying about psychology, and that when my mind isn’t clouded by sentiment, it knows the signs, motivations, and methods of pathological lying. In that, this was only one place E sent up massive red flags.

I’m frankly expecting my follower count to drop for this, and I’m not blaming anyone who walks. I don’t know if I’d believe me if I wasn’t me. But please read the article I linked at the top of the page (here again for your convenience), and know that I’m only speaking to the best of my knowledge. Maybe I’m wrong. I’d like to be wrong. And I am fairly certain that on some level, E truly believed everything they said.

I don’t have a good wrapup for this. It’s 4:31 AM and I’m tired and trying really hard not to just delete this entire thing.

Back to you Achewood.

*ETA: Telegram. It was actually Telegram and not Discord. I spaced there because I was talking to someone on Discord right before writing this. Not technically important, but I want this as clear as it can be.

#lamp tag #long post #longpost #scrolling #csa mention /////#abuse mention /////#cancer mention /////#lamp posts

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talislibrary · 4 years ago

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Neil Perry/James Wilson

TWS! // s*ucide attempt, brief mention of drugs/alcohol abuse, brief mention of a medical procedure, gay slurs

Neil was enraged with his father and after the old man stormed out of the room, he remained in the living room to talk with his mom about how he couldn't leave acting and the boy he loved behind, but his mother, too afraid of her own husband, just ushered Neil to bed. Instead of sleeping, he went up to his room, enjoyed the last few hours of the day in which he got a role in his first play, the main role, that was. He then scrambled to the bathroom, rummaging through whatever pills he could find, the water from the sink aiding them to go down his throat. Knowing fully well what he had done, he rushed to his father's office, uncovering the gun hidden in the drawer of his desk. He sat on the floor for hours on end, the gun aimed at his head, when the pills finally kicked in and he collapsed on the rough carpet, his hand falling right next to him, pistol aimed in his direction. He did it to get a new life, to forget about his first love and the adrenaline he got from being an actor; it was a new role he had to play, the role of a medicine student at Harvard. Ten years of sleepless nights, numerous studies engraved in his mind, needles, blood, gloves that would tug at his skin, screams, tears. But most importantly, it meant the years he had left until his last breath, without the Todd Anderson he so dearly cherished, without the creaking of linoleum under his boots, without the fading claps of the audience and flashing lights distancing themselves from him by crimson, velvet curtains.

He woke up with bright, white lights shining in his face, an uncomfortable gown, too tight at the waist, embracing his shivering form. The crook of both his arms hurt, his pointer finger being held stiff by some sort of white clamp. A faint, rhythmic beeping in the background, covered by the voice of his mother and a stranger's.

His eyes fluttered as he groaned and frowned, pain shooting down his spine and throughout his whole body, his words coming out rasped as he struggled to breathe properly. "Wh-where am I?" The 17-year old spoke, his lids finally fully opening, allowing him to observe his surroundings. He was in a hospital, his mom chatting up a young male nurse, his dad nowhere to be found. Upon hearing his broken voice, Mrs. Perry jumped and rushed towards the bed in which Neil was resting, worry painting over her features.

After letting him know what went down and why he was there, his mother went to fetch Mr. Perry, to let him know his son was now awake and feeling better. Neil couldn't help but smirk, as subtly as he could without his face muscles hurting; had his father been framed for his temporary death? Was he feeling too guilty to look his son in the eyes?

His questions were quickly and negatively answered, as his old man stomped in the salon, his brows furrowed and the veins on his forehead visible, just as they usually are when he gets angry. And as he expected, he heard the following:

"No son of mine is ever going to be a fag and taint the family name in such a way, you hear me?! You're going to Harvard whether you want it or not, and if I hear or see you mingling around with any boy for too long, you're out and off to military school! I will not stand around and watch you throw dirt on my name as if I didn't raise you to be the man you are today!"

Ah, yes, of course. Mrs. Perry succumbed to fear and sang like a birdie for her husband. To Neil's surprise, the words that spilled out of his father's mouth didn't leave the same pang in his heart as they used to. Sure, maybe it was because his whole body felt numb, and yet it was excruciatingly painful to move, or maybe he did become a grown man after faking his own death.

There he was. A medicine student at Harvard. Nothing but another soul to be drained, another brain to be so proudly filled with heaps of information, more or less necessary.

He was 22, half of those 10 years of agony had passed, when he started practice. He was nothing but an observer, another one of the kids who sat in the corners of checkup or surgery rooms, jotting down whatever intricate words the doctors would blabber whenever they bothered to look at the students. He was but a young boy when he met the woman who would turn out to be his first wife. She was one of the first patients he got to perform a physical on, his fingers shaking and browbone sweating as he hesitantly palped around her torso, his first case of cancer sitting right in front of him. Poor boy felt so bad after he was pushed by the supervising doctor to deliver her the devastating news, that he had invited her out, to help her feel like she had at least one person in her life who didn't treat her like a ticking clock, but rather the human she was. A 30-year-old blonde, a preschool teacher who had few years left of her life, dating a barely-legal man, aspiring doctor, who wanted nothing but to comfort her and give her a safe space for the last few years of her life. See, he didn't mean it to escalate, he just wanted to treat her to a coffee, but after a few outings, they easily fell for each other and at 24, Neil Perry was now a widowed man, sulking through the hallways of Harvard dorms. His eyes would scan some of the men who he had seen in his classes every now and then, but he would quickly shake his head, cursing himself in his mind and moving on with his life as he did until then.

Fresh out of Harvard and a helping hand for one doctor which was, back then, the best one in Oncology, Neil Perry had his wallet bursting at its seams, money flowing in bank accounts so much that he felt overwhelmed; he had nothing to spend his salaries and bonuses on. A house in a secluded area - more like a villa -, a new car, more shirts and dress pants than he could count, a new watch, a new phone - a new life. He was swimming in money and he needed someone to take care of it for him, someone to spend it on.

Before he knew it, he was having lunch dates with one of the nurses at the hospital they both worked at. Faster than he could comprehend, she was now living with him, having quit her job because "he was the man of the house, he had to support both of them financially". His father was exhilarated, his son was finally marrying someone who was fit to carry the family name further. His mom, on the other hand, was too deep into alcohol, and the antidepressants Neil previously sneaked home for her to find some relief in, and she couldn't feel anything but constant sorrow over the life she gave up for a man who was now self-absorbed.

Despite being treated like nothing but an ATM with a high-sex drive, he still found himself at the altar, fingers trembling as he held her hands and exchanged vows, promising his whole being to her will.

Except she didn't seem to take that seriously. One night, when the clock struck 12 am to be exact, young doctor Neil arrived home from his 24-hour shift to park in an empty driveway, his wife's car nowhere to be found. With his brain working on nothing but desire to save lives and watery coffee, the 27-year-old hid his car in the garage, closing it so his wife and whatever companion his mind made up wouldn't see he was already in the house. In the kitchen, he grabbed a cold bottle of beer, popped the cap open, and took a drag of one of the cigarettes he had hidden in his coat, sitting at the island where he and his partner would usually share hurried kisses as they headed to bed after his long work shifts. He should've seen it. She stopped staying awake for him, stopped calling or texting him to check if he was okay or missed her, his money now went out of his account without any permission requested beforehand. She didn't even call him pet names anymore, he was only "Neil" or "Dr. Perry". In his own house, he was being treated as he had a job there.

Another puff of smoke engulfing his lungs and the empty sound of glass on the marble counter were the only ones that greeted him as he jolted from his seat, the front door unlocking. 1 AM, read his watch. One in the morning and there he was. Tie thrown on the floor, shirt wrinkled and hastily half-unbuttoned, his sleeves above his elbows. Tipsy, intoxicated by the cigarette smoke and enraged. It summed up his current state. He was nobody's, or at least he was about to be.

As soon as his wife and one of their banker neighbors stepped in the house, the older man obscenely sucking at her lips, Neil stood up and walked towards the pair. The cigarette fell from between his slender fingers as he tugged his wedding ring off of his left hand, throwing the golden jewelry next to the cigar, both stopping at his now ex-wife's feet.

'I can't do this anymore.' he thought as he hopped in his car and drove off to a hotel close-by, not wanting to see anybody familiar for the night. The woman that he loved, or at least thought he loved, cheating on him. It clicked into place faster than it should've. With her drifting away, he now knew the reason behind it. Of course, she was too tired to wait for him from all the fooling around she did with their next-door neighbor, who only worked 9-5 and still had more money than he did. He had more free time, more free will; he was able to leave when he wanted to, nobody depended on him. Unlike Neil's situation, where he was playing the game of life and death. He had millions of lives in his hands, figuratively and literally. He was one with the numerous folders in the archive of the hospital he worked in.

The next few days were nothing but chaos, work papers over divorce papers over legal and court papers. Not only did he still have to report and procedure that he or his co-workers performed on patients for the head of the department to take note of, but he also wanted to turn his life around. Gone were the days of foolish little Neil Perry, who was being strummed like a harp by egotistical people, including his father. He now embraced the feeling of belonging to nobody but himself.

After a few painkillers for his circumcision and a quick dip in a ritual bath, he was part of the Jewish community, known under the name of James Evan Wilson.

A thirty-year-old doctor, head of the Oncology department at Princeton-Plainsboro Teaching Hospital. A middle-aged man, dating one of his best friend's ex-students.

Cutthroat bitch, or Amber, which was her actual name, was now all over Dr. Wilson, who had come to teach the group she was in. One glance at him was all she needed, and a couple of wine glasses later, she was what Wilson needed too.

It didn't take too long for both House and his friend to realize that the younger was, indeed, sleeping with the female version of the Head of Diagnostics. The only differences were a few body parts, hair color, one limping leg in minus, and a lot less misery.

There he was. Wilson, in all his sleep-deprived glory, after three wives (one of which left him because her yoga instructor was more "exotic", and of course House had to comfort him after the divorce, he just had to show he cares while still coming off as an asshole). James, who was now lying wide awake in bed, tossing and turning in his small apartment. Evan, who lost all his purpose, who felt like something out there didn't want him to be fulfilled. Neil, who had to give up his paradise just to escape hell, who still felt like a little boy, wandering around the world with foggy vision and a scarred heart.

#housemd

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thesearebobsthoughts · 5 years ago

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March 29, 2020

I don’t know how much longer paramedics can keep this up. Via The New York Times:

One New York City paramedic described responding to a suicide attempt of a woman who had drank a liter of vodka after her cancer treatments had been delayed, in part because hospitals were clearing their beds for coronavirus patients.

Another paramedic said she responded to so many cardiac arrests in one shift that the battery on her defibrillator died.

“It does not matter where you are. It doesn’t matter how much money you have. This virus is treating everyone equally,” the Brooklyn paramedic said

***

Three weeks ago, the paramedics said, most coronavirus calls were for respiratory distress or fever. Now the same types of patients, after having been sent home from the hospital, are experiencing organ failure and cardiac arrest.

“We’re getting them at the point where they’re starting to decompensate,” said the Brooklyn paramedic, who is employed by the Fire Department. “The way that it wreaks havoc in the body is almost flying in the face of everything that we know.”

In the same way that the city’s hospitals are clawing for manpower and resources, the virus has flipped traditional Emergency Medical Services procedures at a dizzying speed. Paramedics who once transported people with even the most mild medical maladies to hospitals are now encouraging anyone who is not critically ill to stay home. When older adults call with a medical issue, paramedics fear taking them to the emergency room, where they could be exposed to the virus.

***

The husband frantically explained that he had tried to stay home and tend to his ill wife, but his employer had asked him to work because their facility was overrun with coronavirus patients.

Grudgingly, the man told the medics, he went to work. When he returned home after his shift that day, he found her unconscious in their bed. For 35 minutes, Mr. Almojera’s team tried to revive the woman, but she could not be saved.

Usually, Mr. Almojera said, he tries to console family members who have lost a loved one by putting his arm around them or giving them a hug.

But because the husband was also thought to be infected with the coronavirus, Mr. Almojera delivered the bad news from six feet away. He watched the man pound on his car with his fist and then crumble to the ground.

“I’m sitting there, beside myself, and I can’t do anything except be at this distance with him,” Mr. Almojera said. “So, we left him.”

Speaking of poor, non-white people getting the toxic end of this lollipop:

The numbers in the above map represent positive tests. The next one, showing the differences in deaths from COVID is going to be truly grim and absolutely divided along race and class lines, because America. Specifically, because poorer, browner New Yorkers have less access to well, everything: heath care, information, jobs that can’t be performed from home. All those people working in supermarkets and making deliveries, the “essential workers” are disproportionately poor. Social distancing? Sure, try that when you’re living on the streets or still trapped in Riker’s or even a huge public housing project with one or two goddamn working elevators.

Even those who do have insurance are about to be royally screwed. “No insurer, no state, planned and put money away for something of this significance,” Peter V. Lee, the executive director of Covered California, an state exchange that’s part of the ACA, said. Well then, maybe the insurance providers shouldn’t have eaten so much avocado toast at brunch. Ha ha. Just kidding. The current admin has decimated the ACA, which was a laughable excuse for a healthcare system to begin with, and has only grown worse since. 2010

Here’s a fun/funny story. I was running low on Juul pods and with the next shipment not scheduled to arrive till Monday I had to do something. So, scribbed my hands raw, I put on clothes that I’d feel comfortable incinerating if need be, strapped on a pair of brown leather gloves, and tied a scarf around the entirety of my face as if I were a Black Bloc anarchist. And then I stepped outside the front door for the first time in... ten days? I’m going to say ten days. It was stressful and enraging with some light terror tossed in for variety’s sake.

I scoped out the block for people like I was on a goddamn recon mission, and let me tell you, wealthy-ass Brooklyn Heights residents were not maintaining social distancing. Dads breezily lazily walking their dogs, unconcerned (somehow) if someone trotted right by them. Gaggles of people, laughing, chatting, shooting the shit as if nothing had changed. On more than one occasion, I had to sprint across the street to maintain proper spacing. At my local bodega—the only bodega anywhere within walking distance of my apartment which sells pods—a hand-drawn sign had been taped to the shelves containing cigs and e-cigs. “Please make your selection and leave as quickly as possible,” the sign read.

I did so, bolting back out, ticking off the seconds till I was back at 108 Pierrepont. My neighbor was idling at the front gate, trying to coax her large labrador retreiver up the steps. I waited till she’d gotten to the front door and asked how she was feeling.

My neighbor said “better.” Which, sure. The dry cough of hers seemed to echo through our shared (thin) wall less frequently now. Oh and her sense of taste and smell was slowly returning.

You have got to be fucking kidding me. I tried to gently explain that she fucking has it without flipping my shit at her for not immediately telling everyone in the building. I sent out a mass email the instant I started feeling under the weather and unlike her, I’ve never had two of the most common fucking symptoms. Standing outside the building, paralyzed, unsure how long I needed to wait to sprint into the building and up the spiral staircase. She wasn’t even wearing a scarf, let alone a mask. Every exhale was flooding the lobby with infection but somehow using a Clorox wipe to open and close the door was enough of a preventative measure in her mind.

So grabbed all the packages that were waiting for me and galloped up the staircase. (Stalling for two days before going downstairs to pick up my deliveries accomplished nothing, what with the co-op’s own personal Typhoid Mary going outside twice a day to walk the dog. I’m still livid, two days after the fact. It’s insanely irresponsible of her. ) l kicked off my shoes outside the door, then stripped naked and deposited every item in a plastic garbage bag, tying it as tightly as possible. After scrubbing down my hands like Hawkeye Pierce, I then scoured the packages themselves with a wipe, followed hard upon by every surface they’d touched. I washed my hands a second time, belting out two consecutive particularly antic versions of the Happy Birthday song. Then I opened the packages, wiped down the contents, and washed my hands for a third time before jumping in the shower.

70 percent of the tests run by Northwell Health are coming back positive, and thousands of people will likely die. "I don't see how you look at those numbers and conclude anything less than thousands of people will pass away," the Governor said on Sunday. Vulnerable parts of the population will be hit particularly hard. "I hope its wrong, but..."

This is the Jacob K. Javits Center now. Soon, the beds will all be full:

In the hopefully not-too-distant future, someone’s going to write a book detailing the ongoing failures at every level of the Federal government. (Who am I kidding? Everyone is going to write that book.) At least one will probably toss in a bit of color about the Javits Center: It’s where Hillary Clinton was on the night of November 8, 2016, getting ready to deliver her victory speech. The one that never came. Once the election was called, she sent John goddamned Podesta out instead. Ha ha.

On Wednesday, I spent a frantic afternoon getting epidemiologists on the blower to talk about ballplayers going under the knife and feeeling generally flu-ish and tired while doing so. [Editor’s note: stop trying to sound like you’re not incredibly fucking privileged and have less shit to deal with than the vast bulk of people in this city alone. You blogged whilst sick. Hero-type stuff, truly.]

It’s not in the article, but yeah. All these high-paid orthopedic specialists should be barreling toward the front lines and turning their top-shelf sports medicine facilities into something fucking useful.

Per Mom, on Facebook:

It doesn't just "look like" special privileges for the rich and powerful, it is just that. Doctors, nurses, technicians, and other healthcare resources are currently being diverted to parts of hospitals and other locations where they are needed. They are being called back from retirement to help fill the need. These resources could be used with urgency elsewhere and are not when such elective procedures are being done instead. Excellent article, Bob.

Thanks, Mom.

Mike Francesa has been radicalized. Back afta this.

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duckydoesthings · 7 years ago

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MONSTER

Summary: Riku is forced into a new reality, when his father Sephiroth pulls him out of the Midgar University and puts him in the ShinRa Military Academy. Nothing could have prepared him for what he was about to go through. CHARACTERS: Riku Jenova: Born to Sephiroth and Aqua, he is the youngest son out of the quadruplets. Unlike his brothers, Riku is passive and even dreams about being an artist. When his mother died of cancer, he changed his dream to being a paramedic.

Sephiroth Jenova: Father to his sons and husband to late Aqua. Retired military and now currently works as a tester for ShinRa's weapons project. While he deeply cares and loves his sons, he is very strict and has OCD.

Aqua Jenova: Mother to the boys. She worked as a materia and magic specialist at ShinRa before she was diagnosed with lung cancer and was laid to rest two years ago. Unlike her husband, Aqua always pushed her sons to dream big and to follow their heart.

Yazoo, Kadaj and Loz Jenova: Riku's older twins. Yazoo is more chilled out and spends a lot of his time outside, doing work around the house. Kadaj gets his anger issues from his father and does various different martial arts to help control his rage. Loz is a major sports geek and bit of an airhead, but also wears his heart on his sleeve. Loz best gets along with Riku.

Tseng of the Turks: Little is known about Tseng, with the exception of being the leader of President Rufus ShinRa's personal protection service. He dresses in a black suit, and always puts his shoulder length hair in a ponytail. It is also known that he has a tattoo on the back of his neck of a white lily with the stem being loosely wrapped with a pink ribbon.

Kairi Evelon: One of Riku's online friends. She lives on a luscious set of islands where the Jenova family go in the summers. They had been friends for several years and she also helped him through the grief of loosing his mother.

The sound of the Skype call tone interrupted the calm silence of his bedroom. Riku tapped the answer button and set the tablet up to face him.

"Hey Kai. How was the drive over here?" "It was good! I really like Midgar so far!" Riku smiled at her enthusiasm for his home city. It was endearing and really cute. "Its so different then Destiny Islands." "Are you sure? I've been to the islands during the summer." Kairi laughed, leaning back into the hotel chair. The hotel she was staying in was cheap and run down. He offered to help pay for the hotel, but she refused, saying something about how the trip was about him. "You have a point, but there is a considerable difference between the islands and Midgar, Riku." "You're trying to sell a sweater that I've owned my entire life." Riku pointed out, smiling again. He definitely was happy that she was here in the city and he was looking forward to seeing her again. It had been a few years since they had visited their summer home, it was really nice to have that type of relaxed feeling again. "Oh! Sassy Sue over here. Come on Riku, don't look so dazed. I'm here in Midgar for you." "I have a feeling that you're not telling me the full story." "What do you mean?" Clearly she was playing innocent. He knew her well enough to see that. "Why would you come all the way from Destiny Islands to Midgar just to see me?" Kairi shrugged, and leaned forward to grab an envelope. She sat back and started to open it. The white envelope was ripped open and it looked used for a notebook as well. This only made him worry for a second. "Miss Evelon," She started to read the letter, trying to hide her mouth with the paper. It was easy to see she was beginning to smile. "We have reviewed your application and essay, and after careful considerations, we at Midgar University have accepted your application." Riku listened carefully and was absolute shocked. She had gotten accepted into MU too? He couldn't stop the ear to ear grin that appeared on his face. "Kairi! That's so cool! Congratulations!" The redhead put the letter and envelope back onto the desk, matching his grin with her own. "I didn't want to tell you until I was here, so we could tour the campus together!" To him, the way she said it sounded like a date. His cheeks turned a light pink at the thought. "Of course! I just can't believe you kept this from me!" He exclaimed, keeping the smile on his face. From the second floor, he heard the door open and close. Clearly it was his father, coming home from work. "I'm not sorry. Seeing your face made it all worthwhile." She chuckled, pushing her bangs out of her face. She noticed that he had turned away from the screen and towards his door. "Riku?" An older man's voice called faintly through the door. The boy turned back to the tablet and frowned. "I'll talk to you later, okay?" "Yeah of course. Text me later.." After waving to his friend, he ended the call and shut off the screen. Honestly, he hated to end the call there, but his dad called for him and it was just best to go. Leaving his tablet on the desk, he pushed out of his chair and headed towards the door. 'What could he possibly want now?' Riku thought to himself as he exited his bedroom and headed down the hallway towards the stairs. As he made it to the stairs, Kadaj poked his head out of his room and saw his youngest brother, giving him a knowingly smirk. "What do you want Kadaj? I don't have the time." The boy started for the stairs only to have his big brother block the stairway. "I just thought you would like to hear what I heard the other day." Kadaj crossed his arms over his chest. Out of all his brothers, Kadaj was the one he liked the least. He was always acting like he was better than everyone else and it drove Riku crazy. "I could hardly care less, 'Dajie." The older brother flinched at the childish nickname. "Let me pass, dad called for me." Kadaj moved out of the way, but as Riku started to move for the steps, he said something to get him to stop. "Dad was talking to the head administer of MU a few days ago." Riku turned swiftly and looked at his brother. His mind raced but the only question he wanted answered was 'Why?'. "And?" "And, you should be careful. Dad probably has something up his sleeve." Kadaj shrugged and turned back towards his room, leaving Riku to find the answers himself. He took one last look at his brother before proceeding down the stairs. What did he mean by be careful? Kadaj almost never tried to protect him, especially when it came to their father. There were many times he would throw Riku under the bus even if it was his fault. Riku's stomach twisted into knots as he reached the bottom of the stairs. Slowly he walked past the foyer and into the sitting room to the right of the stairs. Each step he took made his heart race faster and faster. His heart seemed to stop the moment he passed under the white arch and saw his father standing with his back to him, facing the large bay window. Rain decorated the glass with little splatters. If he wasn't so anxious at the moment, he would have thought the scene was so calming. "You called for me, dad?" Riku asked, taking a few steps forward towards his father, heart practically in his throat. Kadaj's warning kept echoing in his head, causing his already high anxiety to skyrocket. Sephiroth kept looking out the window as he spoke in a low monotone voice. "Take a seat, Riku." Obeying his father, he took a seat on the white leather couch, sitting as far away as he could. Was he scared of his father? No doubt about that. Whenever his father got angry, he would reserve himself into a cold and calculating manner and would attack with the determination to break the inner core of the person he was angry at. It was great for when he had served in the Wutai War, but being a father to someone with some mental issues was Riku's one way ticket to a nervous breakdown. Sephiroth turned towards his son with a blank expression on his face and took a seat on the other side of the couch, blatantly passing the armchair that he could have sat in. The house was an eerie calm as Riku waited for his father to speak. "I've pulled you out of Midgar University." Riku sat in shock the moment he heard those words. Did he even hear him right? Everything that he had worked for, vanished the moment his father opened his mouth. He sacrificed a lot of his free time to enter the university right after high school ended, mainly by making sure his GPA was a 4.0 and had several scholarships lined up. He even had a summer job lined up to pay for things that the scholarships didn't, like books or extra items. "Why would you do that?!" Anger flared inside of Riku, causing him to stand up and raise his voice. Never in his life had he even so much as gave his father a dirty look without immense fear he would retaliate in some way, but this was the last straw. His hands started to shake so bad he curled them into a ball and held them to his side. Sephiroth's eyebrows scrunched together and his aquamarine eyes hardened. The boy knew he screwed up bad, but his anger only clouded his judgement. "Sit down, Riku. I will not ask you again." "Not until you tell me why you ruined my life!" Riku turned around and took several steps away from his dad, running his hands through his long hair. He hardly got mad but when he did, he would absolutely loose it. His anger was one of the horrible traits he had gotten from his father. He knew better than to lash out at Sephiroth but there was clearly something else going down that only made Riku's nerve spike to fight mode. "Ruined your life?" Standing up, Sephiroth growled at his son. He crossed the room in three strides and grabbed his wrist, spinning the boy around. Shock crossed Riku's face as he stared at his dad, the anger subsiding rapidly. "You're the one that ruined my life. If it wasn't for your mother, I would have gotten rid of you a lot sooner." Time froze for Riku in that moment. The words echoed in his head, combining with the pain of his wrist being squeezed started to break him down, though he refused to let tears fall as he started to snap out of his paused state. "W-What?" The word came out as a croak. His mind was still processing what his father said. The grip on his hand was released, as Sephiroth stepped away from him. Clearly his goal was to hurt Riku beyond compare, and it worked. He stumbled back and hit his back against the pillar for the door. "I don't need to explain my actions to you. For your mother's sake, I'm sending you to a private college." Again, what? For his mother's sake? If Sephiroth hated him so much, why was he going out of his way to send him to a private college? Nothing was making sense, and it only made his head hurt with swarming thoughts. It was as if his father shook a nest of wasps and let it loose in his brain. "Private college?" Riku took a moment to let his heart calm down before speaking. His hand started to shake a bit. Combined with his racing heart, he could only assume he was on the verge of a anxiety attack. He had to leave the room soon or he wouldn't be able to hide his broken side, only which would be ridiculed by his father. There was a moment of silence between them as Sephiroth watched his son with cat-like eyes. Riku adverted his gaze down, his bangs covering his eyes to hide the tears that started to well up. He had to curl his hands tighter to keep them from shaking further. "Yes, private college. You leave in the morning." Morning? That wasn't much time to pack his things or say goodbye to his brothers. "M-May I be excused to pack?" The words were choked and wobbly, a side affect of his throat tightening. His eyes looked up through his screen of silver hair to see his father wave him away as if it didn't matter to him whether or not he was going to pack. Riku gave his father a curt bow before running back to his room upstairs, where he shut the door and fell against it. He slid down to the floor and covered his mouth to hide his uncontrollable sobbing as much as possible. How could his father do this to him? Unlike his brothers, he was as much as an exemplary son as he possibly could be. He would never miss curfew, always landed on the honor roll, and was always offered to help the family in every way he could. Riku couldn't possibly think of why his father hated him with such a passion that he would even say something like that. Even going as far as sending him away, only re-sparked the fire in his self-hatred pyre. All of this only made him cry harder, tears staining his shirt. As his started to calm down, and the anxiety pressure lowered, there was a chocobo wark that interrupted his thoughts. It was Kairi's personal text tone, one she set for him. It always reminded him of the time when he first met her. She had nearly bowled him over on a runaway chocobo, only to later teach him how to ride them. Riku crawled over to his desk and grabbed the phone, then resumed to sit on the floor with his back against the desk. Whenever he had his panic attacks being down on the floor helped ground him faster. He really didn't know why it helped but he wouldn't complain when he would come out of a panic attack faster. [Kairi: r u ok??? pls txt me] His fingers stumbled as he proceeded to type his response to her, causing him to rely on auto correct to fix his mistakes. [Riku: Are you at the hotel? I need to see you ASAP.] Barely half a minute later, her response came in.

[Kairi: yes im here. do i need 2 get u???] [Riku: No, I can get there by myself. I'll be there soon.] [Kairi: kk. c u soon] The phone was set back on the desk as he got up. He needed to get out of the house so bad that he didn't care about escaping through his window. What did it matter anyways? If his dad hated him so bad, then sneaking out wasn't going to be a huge problem. Grabbing his converse from the shoe rack in his closet, he slipped them on and sloppily tied the laces. As long as his laces wouldn't get caught in the bike chain, he didn't care about how they were tied. Before he left, he made sure to grab his hoodie and phone. The sun had almost finished setting as Riku pushed open the window and peered out. It was early June, yet it was still warm even as the sun had almost completely hidden itself among the horizon. He had only escaped from his room a few times, each time making his anxiety spike from the overall act of defying his father. This time was different. His heart started to harden from his anxiety attack and listening to his father's abusive poison. Riku slipped out of the window and hung onto the frame, digging his fingers into the eggshell white painted wood. This side of the house was flat, and the only way he could get down safely was risking a jump to the tree that sat at least five feet away from his outstretched hand. It was quite the jump and the previous times he risked it, he made it and always thanked the Six for not falling. He could only hope that this time would be the same. As he jumped, there was a moment of serenity as the wind pushed back his hair and he felt as if time stopped in one moment to allow him the brief second of peace. That moment ended when his face came in contact with the bark of the tree. The boy fell several feet, hitting branch after branch until he managed to catch himself, his body dangling in the air. "F-Fuuck!" Riku cursed as his shaky muscles strained to hold onto the branch. There was a good ten feet to go before his feet would touch the ground. His muscles were screaming at him, combining with the now several scraped and bleeding cuts on his hands and face, he lost his grip again and fell. There was no way he was going to be thanking the Six now. His ass felt like it was broken, or at least really badly bruised. Luck or no, he was just glad he landed next to the roots and not on top of them. Slowly, he rose, dusting off the dirt and bark that clung to his clothes. The only real damage was done to his head, where a an open cut to his eyebrow allowed blood to cascade down his face. He touched the wound and realized that he'll need to put something on it or it'll get worse. Making his way towards the garage, Riku checked over his shoulder out of paranoia. Maybe he wasn't as uncaring as he previously thought he was. Still he ventured forth, opening the back door of the garage and slipped in. The garage was dark, even with the last rays of the sun coloring the windows in a dark pink and red glow. It made the room have an eerily feeling, with all the dark shadows lurking where the the little bit of light wouldn't reach. Even as he slowly made his way to the front corner, the hairs on his arms and neck stood on edge. There was still a bit of a fear of the dark that rushed his actions towards the med-kit, where he hastily slapped a band aid on his eyebrow; proceeding to grab his bike and leave the house behind, wind stinging his scrapes as he pedaled his way towards the hotel where Kairi was waiting for him. Her heart jumped to her throat. She was so wrapped up in the game she was playing, that when someone had knocked on the door, it scared her just a bit. Kairi quickly rolled off the bed and opened the door to a sight she wasn't ready to see. He had looked like he was just in a life or death fight with a lion. "Oh my God, Riku! Are you okay? What happened? Was it your brothers? I'll kill them." Her words started to run together as she rushed to her bag and dug through the contents to find a med kit she always carried. He stepped into the hotel and closed the door behind him, taking a set on the edge of her bed. "Kai, I'm fine." The redhead found the small white box and pulled it out, a pair of purple lace panties falling out along with it. Riku noticed it, but couldn't say anything as she turned his face to her as she sat on the bed next to him. "Tell me what happened." He noticed that her voice changed from frantic worried for her friend to calm and authoritative. It made him follow her command, his skin tingling where she touched his jaw. "I fell right into a tree, trying to jump out of th-OW!" His story was cut off as she ripped off the makeshift band aid. She got up, and left him alone in the room for a brief moment. Riku could hear the water running as he assumed she was going to wash his face for him. His cheeks burned at the thought of her holding his jaw with her soft hands. "You were saying?" Kairi interrupted his thoughts, sitting back on the bed, once again holding his jaw with one of her hands while the other dabbed at the now dried blood on his face. "I pissed off a earth nomad, and they exacted their revenge on my face." He joked, pulling his lips into a smile. They were so dry, they cracked easily and started to bleed. Out of habit, he licked the blood away, awarding himself with a bap to the cheek from Kairi. "Riku, please don't do that. It's gross and I have a towel." Wiping away the blood on his lip, she returned her attention to the cut on his eyebrow. "Good news, your cut doesn't look too bad. It'll hurt for a while, but you'll heal nicely. Maybe even have a scar." "A scar? On this perfect complexion?! I can not have it!" He retorted sarcastically, watching her expression turn from pure concentration to the smile he always knew she would wear. It made his heart skip a beat, knowing that she was here for him. Not only for his mental needs, but that she was sitting with her leg pressed against his. Kairi chuckled as she stopped dabbing at his eyebrow and turned away to grab a bandage and a butterfly band aid. In that moment, Riku took a shaky breath that he realized he had been holding in. His heart was pounding like crazy, beating loud enough he thought that she had heard it too. 'Was this even the right thing to do? We're going to be in different schools... I don't want to chance it...' He looked down at his lap, where his hands laid in curled balls to stop the shaking. Maybe I'm just not ready for this.. "Riku?" As he turned to look at her, his body seemed to make up his mind for him. Her lavender eyes sparkled as their sight connected and in that instant, the world and pain seemed to melt away. In that moment absolute peace calmed his manic energy, as he found himself leaning forward and pressing his lips against hers. Time seemed to stop in that moment of pure bliss. All his fantasies of kissing Kairi had finally came to the climax as they kissed. For a moment in time everything was right. Kairi pulled away and looked at him, nibbling on her bottom lip. His mind started to race with anxiety and instantly shaming himself for making a bold and stupid move. "I.... I didn't know you felt that way, Riku." Her voice was in a cracked whisper, the kiss absolutely shaking her to her core. Yet she didn't make a move to leave Riku's side. He turned his head away, cheeks burning hotly. He messed up and it was probably best for him to go. The constant thoughts of his actions assulted his mind in how badly he just screwed up their friendship due to his feelings for her. Kairi must not have thought so. She reached over and touched his chin, turning his head back towards her. Their eyes met again, as her hands moved to caress both of his cheeks. The only sound that could be heard in the room was the street below as the merchants were saying goodbye to the last of the customers before locking up and heading home. None of that mattered. The world didn't matter. Not while Kairi was holding his cheek. "Kairi, I...." A thumb was placed over his lip to silence him. "Shh. Don't apologize. You did nothing wrong." She smiled a sweet smiled, pulling his face towards hers again, moving her thumb right as their lips connected again. The world melted away again, leaving them in their own little void of bliss. She seemed to know exactly what made him weak in the knees, as she slipped her fingers into his hair, and dropped a hand to his thigh, using her thumb to make little circles. Riku closed his eyes, feeling more comfortable with himself as he twisted his body to face her more. His hands grabbed onto her hips, pulling her onto his lap. It broke the kiss for a mere moment, but in their passion, they both continued even as her pushed his back against the bed. The bandages fell to the floor, being long forgotten by the two teens as they kissed. Kairi had given Riku full control, letting him set the pace, even if it turned from a simple lip to lip to full on tongue play. The boy pulled away after a little bit, resting his head back and sighing happily, eyes still closed. He felt everything in that moment like his entire body was a giant heart, beating together as one strong unit. "If I didn't know any better, I would have guessed you've made out with other people before." Kairi giggled, getting off of him and grabbed the band aids off the floor. She didn't forget the original mission, and patiently waited for him to sit up so she could take care of his wound. "Thank the Six for your dream of being a paramedic." Riku stated, resting against his elbows as she ripped open the paper wrapping then setting the band aid on his face. He watched her, as a smile came onto his face. Even sitting in her pjs of a tank top and Tinkerbell fuzzy sleep pants, she looked so beautiful to him. Maybe they could make it work after all. "We'll be 'medics together, Riku." She smiled, applying the bandage around his head a few times. In that moment everything came crashing down again. That was the real reason why he was here. Was to tell her what happened, not make out sessions. Although he would have preferred the latter. As she sat back on the bed, he sat up, turning his head to the other side, refusing to look at her. She could tell his mood shifted quickly, and she knew that something major had gone down. Kairi put a comforting hand on his shoulder as she returned to sit next to him on the edge of the bed. "My dad pulled me out of MU." The redhead sat in shock for a moment, trying to wrap her head around the sudden actions. Truthfully she was still thinking about their kiss, and now that the words escaped his mouth, all hope that they would be a couple flew out the window. "Tell me everything, Riku." He turned to look at her with sad eyes and told her everything that happened, from when he left the skype call all the way up to him arriving at her hotel room. Never did he stop looking at her, desperate to savor every second he would have with her. As he finished his story, her hand found his leg, gently rubbing it to keep him calm. "He can't do that." Riku looked at her with a questionable expression. "Kai, I'm not 18 yet. He can do whatever he wants as long as it fits along the guidelines of CPS." At that moment he lost her. She pushed away from him and started pacing the room, curling and uncurling her hands. Kairi was clearly more upset than him in that moment, although he had reserved himself to a state of numbness. "That abusive fuck! He has no respect for you, or your mother. How could he even say he was sending you away for you mother's sake?! That's like beating your child but telling them that it's for the good of their future. God, I'm about ready to go over there and give him a piece of my mind." The silver haired boy sat quietly allowing her to go on her rant. She wasn't really going to go, but it was just better to let her complain. He hated that he had to tell her, but the alternative of not telling her and she finding out another way was worse. "Kai, I don't like it either. I had my heart set on going to Midgar University and studying to be a paramedic, but now??? I don't even know where I'm going, let alone being able to be a paramedic." His throat tightened, as tears started to well up in his eyes. The realization was starting to set in that all this was happening and he couldn't handle another round of tears. His body was so worn out from his panic attack earlier, combined with his scrapes and the long distance he had to ride to get here, he was hanging on by a thread of strength. She returned to his side and pulled him to rest against her chest. He heard her heartbeat, a constant steady rhythm beating life through her, it started to lull him towards dreamland. Combined with the calming strokes she did against his back, Riku almost slipped away. "I should probably take you home." With Kairi's help, Riku managed to get his back tied to the top of her light blue Volkswagon Bug. It didn't exactly matter to him, but if he intentionally allowed someone to steal his bike, his mother would be ashamed from the lifestream. The time that he spent with Kairi on the drive back to his father's house was spend in a soothing silence. She kept her hand on his thigh, as if trying to send him good vibes. It was the least she could do since he was basically going through this all alone. Before she left, she kissed him one last time. A sweet and lingering kiss, with promises for the future. He watched as she drove off, the powder blue bug soon turning to a speck of dust along the streets of Midgar's Sector 2. The boy didn't remember how he had gotten to bed. The gap in his memory completely okay with him as he crawled into bed, kicking off the converse and surrendered himself to a blanket cacoon that swallowed him whole. That night he slept a dreamless sleep, slipping into a void of nothingness while he resigned himself to his inevitable fate.

#kingdom hearts #riku #kairi #sephiroth #cloud strife #squall leonhart #zack fair #aerith gainsborough #ffvii #crossover #duckywrites #vanitas

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col22promo · 6 years ago

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Bode Levy Bram Lindqvist | Twenty Eight; Elite

House: Torren Status: Infected - Telepathy and Praeteria Elite Specification: Infection Trainer and International Trade Consultant Alignment: New Age Rebels

Astrid Lindqvist married her husband for the wrong reasons and her inability to leave him ruined her life. She was Wilhelm Lindqvist’s trophy wife, who married her mostly because he was bored. She in turn married him for his money—and they both did it because they had something to prove.

She was a good woman under her thick facade of minglers and gala events, but for all her lofty pretension and egotism, behind closed doors she was depressed and desperate. At best, her husband was extremely neglectful, and at worst he was cruel and emotionally abusive. But to divorce him would mean to leaving herself with nothing. Everything was in his name, as she’d married into his estate, and with a less than positive relationship with her own mother, she had nowhere to go and she just couldn’t fathom starting over from nothing.

And so she kept pretending. She shrivelled and contorted into a woman she barely recognized anymore, her once shiny potential spiralling down the drain like washed out hair dye. She threw herself and her hopes into having children—which would have been a better venture had she been able to keep off the bottle. Unfortunately, she was an alcoholic and the fact that her first born actually survived, was something of a miracle, as he was four weeks premature. She was told she was very lucky he did not have fetal alcohol syndrome.

Bode Levy Bram, however (named after her father, her grandfather, and the older brother she’d lost to cancer while in her twenties) did suffer a birth defect, not uncommon for infants of his condition. He had what was called sensorineural hearing loss, which was a defect with his inner ear, caused by his premature birth.

Fortunately for them both, technology was such that he was diagnosed at an early age and fitted with a surgical implant that would serve as a necessary aid for the rest of his life. This implant would need to be tended to for maintenance every three to five years, but could be manually adjusted with dials behind the shell of his right ear. It was possible to turn them off as well, and though he was not completely deaf without them, when he was, the world developed a muffled, muddled quality, like he was submerged underwater, and doctors said it would be severely detrimental to his emotional and psychological development as a child, were they left off.

But because Bode was essentially Astrid’s “miracle child” and one of the few things that brought her joy in her lonely life, she became suffocatingly overprotective, even as Bode got older. She was well-meaning, but naive, too immature and unreliable to be a good role model. Bode’s father was a linguist and interpreter for a political branch of government and so he was absent the majority of Bode’s young life, frequently away on business, with little interest in keeping in touch with his son while he was away. Basically, he ignored his family unless it was convenient for him not to, and had multiple affairs over the years, many of which Bode was exposed to at a young age.

Bode’s brother, Espen, was born six years after him and though Astrid was sober at the time, he was still diagnosed with Haemophilia shortly after he was born. Despite the neglectful environment of the Lindqvist family home, Astrid was desperate to have another child before she was too old—with her marriage and life in shambles, she was trying to patch her wounds with children. However, about a year after Espen’s birth, she relapsed and was forced to go back into rehab when she almost died combining alcohol with sleeping pills. As a result, Astrid’s youngest son spent much of his younger years raised mostly by a nanny, and by his brother.

This is perhaps part of why the boys grew up to be so different. Bode’s parents enrolled him into a pretentious Catholic school that he hated, and in seeing so much of his parent’s abusive marriage when he was young, he grew up cynical, resentful and not believing in marriage as a constitution. Espen, on the other hand, grew up more of a dreamer—a softer boy, far more naive, and envious of Bode for how much more time he’d gotten with their mother growing up. But when he asked questions about her, his brother would be dismissive, saying that she was irresponsible and selfish, and that Espen was better off not knowing her as well as Bode did.

As a teenager, Bode was something of a deviant, feeling reckless and trapped in the toxic environment at home, not to mention overwhelmed by the responsibility of essentially being a guardian to his younger brother when he had hardly finished being a kid himself. Rarely wanting to go home, he spent a lot of nights out or crashing on friend’s places.

After high school, he studied business, which he hated, but when he flipped over to finances and accounting, he hated that even more. So he quit college entirely after his second year, and took up a job as an executive assistant at his long-time friend’s business. He didn’t love the work, by any means, but he saw it as temporary and he got to boss people around, which he appreciated.

Meanwhile, he put the rest of his energy into making sure his brother didn’t wind up like him—angry, resentful and directionless. He got an apartment in a different neighbourhood where he and his brother could live, and made sure he was enrolled in a good public school. Removing a fourteen year old Espen from his parent’s house wasn’t an easy task—his mother fought Bode on it, but as she was still back and forth between home, rehab and the hospital, and Wil Lindqvist was still a cheating, abusive son of a bitch, Bode was able to convince her it was for the best. Consequently, for the second time in Espen’s life, Bode was more of a parent to him than either of their parents ever were.

Bode Today

After D-Day, Bode spent about a year in a clan in Sweden with his brother. They were never able to get in touch with either of their parents, a fact about which Espen was more bothered by than Bode. In the early stages of the first wave of Infections, Espen developed telepathy and Bode became a complete anomaly—a Telepath and a Praeteric.

When they were both picked up by Crusaders in 2158, still before the rise of the NWRF, they spent a couple years in Colony 8, where Bode became an Infection Trainer almost right away, and eventually, an International Trade Representative. Before D-Day, he’d already spoken English, Danish and Swedish at home, and due to his father’s heavy handed suggestion, he’d taken a lot of language studies in high school and his undergrad, so he spoke a bit of Portuguese, Italian, Norwegian and French. With his ability to translate and his background in business and finance, he was a perfect candidate for what the Colony Trade market needed.

His job was to aid in coordinating and facilitating the fair trading of resources between colonies around the world, and so he worked closely with Trade and Marine Merchants, as well as other Colony officials. Just a few months ago, he was asked by Officials to transfer to another location in need of an I.T.R, as Colony 8 was more central and had more nearby Reps. He agreed, on the condition that he could take his brother, and that he would be transferring to a Colony at least equally as safe.

Bode and his brother have been at Colony 22 less than three months. He is still cynical, opinionated and a bit abrasive, but his relationship with his brother is everything to him. He hates the NWRF, but is concerned that any radical involvement on his behalf would be too risky for his brother, so he aligns himself instead with the NAR and has hopes to lead a political party of some kind.

Bode can be hot headed and defensive at times, and definitely arrogant. His many years of pretentious schooling and business experience can make him either frustratingly charming or infuriatingly conceited, depending perhaps on your sense of humour and your level of patience with such things. He does, however, know how to talk his way out of an argument in a way that leaves the other person knowing they’ve been manipulated, but not being able to do a thing about it. Espen, on the other hand, brings out quite a different side of Bode—with him, he is warmer, and more playful, while also stern and protective.

The implants in his ears lately have been causing him grief—they are greatly overdue for an upgrade, and consequently are intermittent at times. Sometimes they wake him in the middle of the night with a painful ringing sound in his head. They also now have a constant, subtle ringing drone on a regular basis (much like symptoms of Tinnitus), which isn’t loud or painful, but is definitely annoying. And even though he can sometimes tune it out, it does cause hearing problems in conversation and for smaller, quieter sounds. This affects his ability to perform in the Games, and in some training activities, especially with the headaches it often causes him.

As such, he has an unlikely interest in the weekly testing he has to undergo, as he can’t help but hope that there might be a way to take the Increased Senses infection and turn it into a bottled cure for himself. And as for short-term solutions, he has to see if he can find a surgical doctor either here or at another Colony, who has the experience and resources to tend to his implants within the next year or so, before they stop working entirely.

RELATED BIOS: ESPEN FILIP LINDQVIST

HOME | PLOT | SURVIVORS | INFECTIONS | 2157 was the end of the world.

#superpower rp #bio roleplay #lsrp #bill skarsgard #bill skarsgard fc

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mavengers · 8 years ago

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Bulletproof

Bucky Barnes x reader (lil steve x reader too but platonic!!)

Warnings: swearing, fluff, angst, angst, some more angst with a side of angst

Words: 7.3k (yikes)

All credit goes to Marvel

A/N: im sorry

“Do we have the subjects?” Dr. Erskine asked. Peggy Carter stood straight by his side.

“Yes, we have Steven Grant Rogers and Y/N Y/L/N, Sergeant James Barnes’s wife.” The two of you approached the pods where the experimentations would take place. You and Steve shared a wary look, but you knew that this is what Steve wanted to do, and you promised to take care of him while Bucky was away at war, meaning that if Steve was in on this, so were you. Besides, Dr. Erskine requested a female patient, and your friend was more than happy to recommend you to go through this with him.

There was nothing wrong with you, unlike Steve. You didn’t have any medical issues, but after your mom dying of cancer, this would be taken as a shot at ridding your body of any cancer-carrying genes.

Bucky didn’t know you were doing this. He didn’t even know Steve was doing this. Letters to Bucky would be sent, but seldom was he able to return them. Your husband was busy with the war and all, something like that.

Truth was, he’d have a cow if he found out. You didn’t want to go behind his back, but you trusted Dr. Erskine and Steve. You knew you’d be fine, but Steve’s fate dwindled in your eyes. If the flu hit him, he was practically on his death bed. If this worked, you wouldn’t have to worry about him anymore, as much, at least. “Ready?” Peggy asked you. You nodded, letting her lead you into the pod as Howard Stark led Steve into his.

You both received shots of penicillin, and as much as you wanted to make a joke when Steve flinched at his, you knew now was maybe not the best time for your sarcastic banter with him. Sharing once last look with Steve, taking a deep breath, the walls around you closed, encasing you in the pod.

You heard Howard calling out percentages. As the numbers got higher, a fire felt like it was being spread across your skin. You could hear Steve screaming, and you desperately called out to him from inside your confines. As Dr. Erskine was about to halt Steve’s progress, he called out. He told them to keep going.

You winced as the fire continued to burn across you, making each muscle ache with what felt like fatigue, yet you were feeling like you were able to run a marathon the second these damn doors opened.

Howard had reached 90% when the surge of energy became too much for you to contain. Your shins easily broke through the metal cuffs with just the slightest kick, and you swung your legs up and out, the doors of your pod flying off and hitting the wall with a loud boom. You were on the ground, one foot planted to the concrete floor and the other tucked under your body. Your hands were on the ground in front of you, and you watched as with each slight movement of your fingers, the floor crumbled underneath them.

Shortly after, the crowd that had gathered around you dispersed to surround Steve as he nearly fell on his face while stepping out of his. You craned your neck to look at him, and nearly completely crushed the ground underneath you. Steve Rogers, the barely five-foot-tall, barely one hundred pound punk that you had known half your life, now stood at least six-feet-tall and had to weigh at least two hundred pounds. His new muscles heaved with each breath he took and you watched with a smirk as Peggy tried her best not to stare. He was nearly dripping in sweat. You two finally made eye contact, you still on the ground and him being held upright by various doctors, and you nodded once at each other.

As celebratory cheers began to ring out, so did a gunshot. Your eyes snapped over to Steve, in complete panic that he had been the target, but no. He was holding Dr. Erskine, two bullet holes beginning to soak his white lab coat in his own blood as he bled out. He lifted a weak finger to Steve’s chest before his eyes closed.

Steve looked at you. “Go!” You barked out at him. “I’ll take care of this, but for god’s sake, be careful.” He nodded at you before breaking out in a sprint, chasing after the man who had shot the doctor. You rushed over to Dr. Erskine where he laid on the ground as the other doctors administered CPR to him. You knew it was futile, but you grabbed a pair of medical tweezers and dug into his wounds. You could see the bullets, they hadn’t punctured any vital organs, and he was breathing. But with the amount of blood he was losing, he wouldn’t last very long if you didn’t get these bullets out. You grabbed onto one of them, yanking it out. “Stitch this up,” you said to the doctors, who were stunned at what you were doing. “Now! He’s going to die of blood loss if you don’t hurry.” With that, the doctors snapped into action as you got to work on the second bullet. This one was deeper. Deeper meant dangerous; organs could have been damaged with this one. You dove in with the tweezers once more, and carefully felt around with them until you heard them *clink* against the bullet. You put your hand on Dr. Erskine’s stomach to steady yourself as you carefully pulled this one out. You could feel everybody’s eyes on you as you held the last bullet in the air, dropping it to the ground as you exhaled a breath you didn’t even know you were holding.

The doctors got to work on stitching up the second wound as Peggy pulled you up by your arm and held you up. Resting against her shoulder, you passed out.

When you woke up, you were in a bed, staring at the ceiling. You recognized it as the bunker Steve had been living in. Turning to your left, Steve sat in a chair, reading a book. You reached your arm out, lightly touching his hand, and he smiled at you. “You’re awake.”

“You’re alive.” He laughed, closing the book and putting it on the nightstand between you. His laughter quieted down, but you lightly smiled at him.

“You saved Dr. Erskine, you know.”

“I know how much he means to you. I promised to protect you, and that means protecting anything or anyone else that holds meaning to you,” he took your hand in his as his gaze dropped to the floor. “Although it doesn’t look like you need my protection anymore. Seems like the other way around now, but don’t tell Bucky,” He shifted uncomfortably in his seat, and you straightened up in bed, your heart rate beginning to pick up. “Steve?”

“I have some bad news,” your lips parted as he continued. “Bucky’s whole unit. They’re being held by a man named Armin Zola. I don’t know if he’s alive or not, but I promise I’m going to find him. I’m leaving tomorrow.” By the end of his explanation, you had tears streaming down your cheeks. You didn’t even realize you were crying until Steve gently pulled you into his lap, and you began sobbing into his shoulder.

The next day, with Steve having just left to find his best friend and your husband, you sat in Bucky’s bunker on his bed. Under his bed, he had a black box with two enveloped letters taped to the top. One letter was labeled with your name, and the other was labeled with Steve’s. Knowing most likely what those letters said, you skipped over them, not accepting what they’d imply. James Buchanan Barnes wasn’t dead.

After you lifted the lid of the box, you began pulling out the contents, laying them in front of you. He had pictures of you, pictures of Steve. Pictures of all three of you. Pictures of you and him. Pictures of him and Steve. Pictures of you and Steve, even. He always appreciated how well you got along with Steve, hence why he had made you promise to take good care of him. If he couldn’t make sure the punk didn’t do anything stupid, who else would?

Clearly not you if you had just let him run off to who knows where. What if he didn’t come back either?

Steve had successfully infiltrated the Hydra base. He had found and unleashed the war prisoners, but none of them knew where Bucky was being held.

Currently, he was running down one of the long hallways when a short man with a briefcase popped out of one room. Steve’s brows furrowed as the man took off, and as Steve was ready to give chase to the man, he heard a voice coming from the room. “Sergeant, three, two, five five, seven.” The voice repeated the same phrase over and over again, but Steve couldn’t believe his ears. Those were the beginning numbers to Bucky’s number.

Rushing into the room, relief couldn’t be strong enough to describe what he was feeling when he saw his best friend laying on a table. “Buck… Buck…. It’s me.” Bucky finally looked at Steve.

“Steve,” he smiled. “Steve.”

Back at the camp, you remained sat at Bucky’s bed, flipping through the same photos you had been staring at for nearly a week now. You had refused to leave his bed and Peggy had given up trying to draw you out. Instead, she just began bringing your meals to you and staying with you until you had eaten as much as your stomach could hold. You had become literally sick with worry for not only Bucky, but now Steve.

Even the sudden commotion outside wasn’t enough to draw you out of your trance as you sat in the dark of Bucky’s room, laying on your back and staring up towards the ceiling while flipping through the photos. You could’ve sworn you heard Bucky’s voice, but you were too far gone and you brushed it off as your mind playing games with you. Going insane seemed more likely at this point that Bucky and Steve coming home.

The lights suddenly flicked on and you groaned. “Turn them off.” You said, the bright lights practically blinding you after sitting in darkness for so long. Except the lights didn’t turn off. “Turn them off,” you said, a little more demanding, but the lights remained on and your frustration got the better of you. You shot up out of bed, tossing the pictures aside in a flurry. “I said turn them,” your breath caught in your lungs. You felt your heart racing in your chest as you stared at the brown-haired man standing at the doorway, smirking at you. “Bucky.” You breathed, your voice no more than a whisper.

“What? Didn’t wanna come out and say hi? Gonna make me come to you?” He taunted. He hardly could get another word out before you jumped out of bed, flinging your body at him, hooking your legs around his waist and burying your head in his shoulder. You tried not to squeeze him too hard, you still weren’t sure the extent of your new found strength, but you were sure you might have bruised him, based on the grunt he let out. You pulled back, wincing.

“Sorry.” You shrugged apologetically. Bucky shook his head, using one of his arms to pull your head to his, kissing you with everything he had in him. Your hands came from behind his neck to up the sides of his neck, holding his head in place as you kissed him with equal urgency. He used his foot to kick the door closed behind you two as he walked the two of you back to his bed, laying you down gently before climbing on top of you.

His hands went to your hips and goosebumps broke out over your heated skin. Your hands went to his shoulders, feeling his muscles moving with every movement he made. A cough at the door pulled you two apart, and Steve stood, shifting uncomfortable as his cheeks turned bright red. You and Bucky couldn’t help but laugh. Bucky kissed the tip of your nose, a silent promise for this to be continued later.

You continued to live on base with Bucky, and nobody dared to try and stop you. Every morning, he’d get up at 5 a.m. for more training and drills, and you’d sleep peacefully until he came to get you at 7:30 a.m. You’d spend your days with Peggy, working on a project called S.H.I.E.L.D. The Strategic Homeland Intervention Enforcement and Logistics Division. She wanted SHIELD to remain a secret, so whenever Bucky or Steve asked what you did during the day, you were both forced to lie to them. Each day had to be a different lie, but keeping SHIELD a secret was crucial. At least until it was secured.

Peggy trained you in fighting, with a gun and hand to hand. For a while, you got away with keeping that a secret too, until Bucky saw the bruises that covered your torso. He nearly interrogated you about it until you broke and told him before he killed whoever did it. “I just don’t wanna worry about somebody attacking me when you’re not around to protect me.” You had explained to him. He nodded once, and had Steve tell Peggy to take it easy on you, which she definitely did not do when she found out you almost risked SHIELD by telling him.

Except this morning, it was 4 a.m. and you and Bucky were awake, holding each other tight to keep warm from the harsh January weather that seeped through the bunkers. Today, Bucky, Steve, and the Howling Commandos were heading off in search of Armin Zola. Bucky had yet to be out on another assignment, and you were having anxiety about him not coming home again. He knew any attempts at talking you down were futile, so he did all he could. He pulled you into his lap, whispering how much he loved you in your ear until your breathing steadied. Your fingers tangled into his left hand. His right hand was wrapped around your waist, keeping you flush against him. Your head was rested on his right shoulder and you nuzzled against his neck, trying to get as close to him as possible.

Two hours later, a solemn knock at your door set the reality in for both of you. Bucky’s warm hands cupped your freezing cheeks and he kissed you exactly how he had when he first came home. You kissed him back, committing to memory how his lips felt against yours; how his hands fit against your cheeks so perfectly; his steely blue eyes when he pulled back; the way his voice sounded when he told you he had to go. “I’ll see you again before either of us even know it. I promise. I love you.”

“I love you, too. Come home to me.” You pressed your cheek harder against his left hand and he rubbed his thumb against your temple.

“Wouldn’t dream of doing otherwise.”

Within three days, Steve and the Howling Commandos came back.

Within three days, Steve had sat you down and told you that Bucky wasn’t coming home.

Within three days, your heart had been broken.

Within three days, you were training to fight at least 17 hours a day.

Within three days, you stopped sleeping all together.

Within three days, your resolve to keep Steve safe grew even stronger.

Now you were heading on a month without Bucky. You were in the gym, training with one of the new SHIELD recruits when Dr. Erskine rushed in, grabbing your attention. Your trainee took your distraction as an opportunity and swung their first towards your cheeks, only for you to catch it in your fist. You squeezed their hand and dropped it as you heard all their knuckles crack. They weren’t broken, just bruised. “Mrs. Barnes, we must leave. Captain Rogers is on his way to hijack Red Skull’s plane.” You unwrapped your hands and stepped out of the ring.

“Without me? What a punk.”

Dr. Erskine led you outside where Howard Stark was waiting for you with a car and the keys. He brought you in for a tight hug. “Stay safe, kid,” He handed you a small device with what looked like a map on it, a red dot moved across the screen. “It’s a locator I put on the car that Steve’s in. As long as Steve’s in that car, you’ll know where he is.” You nodded, hugging him again before climbing into the car and peeling off the concrete.

You followed the red dot on the screen, your speed accelerating in your desperation to catch up to them. I promised Bucky I would keep Steve safe. I promised myself I’d keep Steve safe.

You saw them. Peggy’s hair remaining unnaturally perfect even with the wind blowing, Steve in his suit, and the General, beginning to gain on Red Skull’s jet as the road came to a screeching halt. You pushed your foot harder against the gas until you were side by side with their car. You glanced over at Steve. “Did you really think I’d let you do this without me?”

“It’s too dangerous for you, Y/N. I can’t risk you getting hurt. Or worse.” You were close to the jet now, and Steve stood up, kissing Peggy passionately. You slammed on your breaks, going to stand on the hood of the car, waiting for Steve.

“I promised your best friend I’d protect you no matter what. I don’t care if you’re 5’4 and 95 pounds, or 6’2 and 240 pounds, I vowed to protect you. We’re ending this once and for all, together,” he looked unconvinced as you grabbed hold of one of the metal bars on the end of the jet, lifting yourself up. “For Bucky.” He pursed his lips, and jumped after you. He pulled himself up into the jet and grabbed hold of your arms to yank you up with him.

“Leave the fighting to me. You grab hold of the jet’s controls and try to land us,” you nodded, stalking off to find some place to hide until Steve distracted Red Skull enough, but he grabbed your arm, yanking you back to him. “Y/N, we might not make it out of here.” You nodded again, looking him in the eye.

“I know.” You crouched down to the floor, tucking yourself into a hidden corner and taking a deep breath. You watched as Steve carefully padded around the jet, setting his eyes on Red Skull. Your heart pounded in your ears, pretty much blocking out anything the two men were saying to each other. Steve was right; you weren’t going to make it out of this. And you knew that, but you promised to keep Steve safe, and if you couldn’t keep him safe, you would at least go down with him. Besides, you didn’t wanna live in a world without Bucky.

You closed your eyes, letting your mind play memories of you and Bucky over in your head. You remembered meeting him at one of Stark’s Conventions, and him ditching the girls he was with purely to follow you around for the night. You remembered the night he asked you out, him shifting nervously on his feet as he tried to find a coherent sentence that would convey how much he liked you. You remembered him proposing on Christmas, hiding your ring in his stocking to confuse you when you knew that you couldn’t have put it in there when he pulled it out Christmas morning. You remembered your wedding, your oh-so-perfect wedding.

A tear rolled down your cheek, and you wiped it away quickly before getting on your hands and knees and quickly crawling your way to the cock-pit of the jet. You began panicking, but not because one of the men behind you was screaming in agony, you knew it was Red Skull being killed, but because you couldn’t get control of the plane. Steve rushed besides you. “I can’t get control of the plane, we’re going too fast. We’re going to crash into New York.” You switched seats with him so he was piloting the plane, and he pulled a watch out of his pocket, putting it on the dashboard, showing a picture of Peggy.

You heard him radio in to the base. You heard Peggy’s voice. You heard them putting off goodbye, promising they’ll see each other again. But all you could do was stare ahead at your impending death, because the only way you and Steve can save New York was by plunging the two of you into the Arctic. You wished they would say goodbye…

Because you and Bucky never got to say goodbye.

“Peggy?” You spoke up, your voice raspy.

“What?” You were closer and closer to the ocean now, you only had a couple seconds. You grabbed Steve’s hand and he gripped it tight.

“Good luck with SHIELD, you’ll make an amaz-.”

2012

Steve was on his fourth punching bag of the night, a common thing nowadays after coming out of the ice. There wasn’t a day where you and Bucky weren’t on his mind. They had only pulled him out of the ice, and he couldn’t even tell them to wait, to tell them that there was someone else in that jet- someone who meant the world to him; someone who meant the world to another person who had meant the world to him. “Trouble sleeping?” Nick Fury’s voice boomed through the gym, despite it not even being loud. The way he talked just carried such an air of confidence and assurance. He wasn’t surprised to know Fury was the man in charge.

“I’ve been sleeping for 70 years, sir. I think I’ve had my fill.” He took some more swings at bag #4.

“Then you should be out, celebrating, seeing the world.”

“I went under, the world was at war. I wake up, they say we won. They didn’t say what we lost.”

“And what did you lose, Captain?” Nick asked, as Steve sat down on a bench and began unwrapping his hands. He went to his gym bag and pulled out a photo, handing it to Nick for him to see.

“A whole lot. But you lost her. She was in that plane with me. She was given the super soldier serum with me. Y/N Barnes. Sergeant James Barnes’s wife. Or as I know her, Y/N Y/L/N. If you pulled me out and I’m alive, there’s an even greater chance she’s alive too,” he stepped closer to Fury until they were face to face. “So if you want me for the Avengers Initiative, you have to find her first.”

2014

Sometimes, you hated Steve for having you pulled out of the ice. This world sucked. Still fighting HYRDA nearly 70 years later? You’ve gotta be fucking kidding. Steve was now a part of the “Avengers”, a group made up of two highly trained assassins, a literal god, the fucking hulk, a billionaire in a metal suit, and now a 98 year old super-soldier who hardly knows how to work a cellphone.

You weren’t a part of the Avengers. Unlike Steve, you were tired of fighting. You had made it clear that if Steve was going on a mission with no back-up, you were going with him. That was the only time you would willingly fight. Despite him always complaining that he didn’t need you to protect him anymore, your time in the ice had only made you more stubborn about it.

There were times, however, when he specifically reached out for your help, which is why you were now sitting in a car with him, one of the highly trained assassins, one of Steve’s new friends- Sam Wilson-, and Agent Jasper Sitwell, a HYDRA operative.

Sam was driving, Steve was in the passenger seat, and you were squished in the middle between Natasha and Sitwell. Sitwell was going off about something, who knows, you weren’t really listening.

Until a metal arm shot through your window and threw Sitwell from the car. Sam hit the brakes, sending whoever the fuck that was off the car. The man landed gracefully on a knee about thirty feet in front of your car, but another car slammed into the back of your car, pushing you forward towards him. He jumped onto the car’s hood before punching the metal arm through the windshield and ripping out the steering wheel.

Natasha picked up a gun from the floor and fired shots through the hood of the car, but the man was quick and he jumped onto the car behind you. Natasha climbed to the front, sitting across Steve and Sam. Sam was losing control of the car and Steve looked at you, almost apologetically before hitting his shield against your door, knocking it and you out of the car and onto the awfully unforgiving pavement. Steve knocked out his door next, crashing to the ground with Natasha and Sam tucked to his sides. He rushed to you, pulling you up and dusting you off. You rolled your eyes, shoving his hands off you, insisting you were fine. “Who, or should I say what, is that?”

“He’s called the Winter Soldier, HYDRA’s greatest asset. I’ll explain later. Get a gun, hide, and protect yourself.”

“Captain’s orders?” You asked sarcastically. He looked at you, raising an eyebrow at you with an impatient look. You rolled your eyes again at him before giving him a smile. He gave you a quick kiss on your forehead, which has become his way of saying “thanks for getting your ass kicked with me, you’re a great friend”. He walked off, shield held high in front of his body. He pulled Natasha to his side, but quickly pushed her away when the Winter Soldier shot a grenade at his shield. It exploded, and Steve flew off the highway and straight through the windows of a bus, which then t-boned another truck. You wanted to call out for Steve, to make sure he was still alive, but the way the soldier was still firing off shots at the bus, he couldn’t have been.

An agent was coming up beside you, and you probably wouldn’t have heard it if it weren’t for that damn super soldier serum that made everything so loud. You spun around, grabbing the barrel of the gun and shoving it back. The butt of it hit him square between the eyes, disorienting him enough for you to grab the gun from him and shoot him. Two to the heart, one to the head. Just like Peggy taught you.

You had hoped the sound of your gunshot wasn’t enough to divert the Soldier’s attention towards you, but as he spun you around and grabbed you by your throat- with the metal arm- and pinned you to the side of the jeep that had hit you earlier, you were proved otherwise. Your hands instinctively shot up to grip his metal hand and you swung your legs up and out to push against his chest. He stumbled backwards, but his grip on your throat tightened to keep you from escaping his hold. You gasped for air, beginning to lose more oxygen.

As if it happened in slow motion, you watched a bullet hit the arm that was restricting your airways. You both slowly turned your head towards where the hit came from, and Sam had his gun trained on the Soldier. His eyes seemed to train on Sam, and his metal hand flung you back, throwing you off the highway and onto the pavement below as his anger went towards Sam.

You groaned as you nearly pealed yourself off the ground. You had barely started running to fight off the other agents fighting Steve when the Soldier jumped from the highway, landing gracefully on the car next to you. He was faster than you, easily grabbing you again and pulling a knife from his vest. As his hand shot out to slice at your torso, you grabbed his wrist, pinning it behind him between his shoulder blades.

He fell to his knees, letting out a strangled growl. You called out for Steve, needing backup. Just as Steve dropped an agent to the ground, diverting his attention to you, the Soldier pulled a gun on you. He bent forward, flipping you over his back. You landed on your back and he stood up, his heavy boot pressing against your knee cap as he fired off…

One shot…

Two shots…

Three shots…

Steve tackled him to the ground before he could fire the fourth shot and Sam, who had just joined the rest of you down on the street, hurriedly pulled your body into his. Your head rested in his lap, his knees bent as he checked you for injuries. Your hand reached up to where you had been shot, but all your fingers touched was the smooth, unbroken skin on your shoulder. There was no blood. “Sam.”

“You’re not bleeding. The bullet didn’t even enter your body.” You looked to the side of you, three bullets laid on the ground next to you, the front ends bashed in.

“Huh.” You stood up, running back to where the Soldier had Steve pinned to a van, a knife sliding next to his head as the Soldier dug it deep into the side of the car. You threw yourself at the Soldier, wrapping your legs around his throat and squeezing tight with your thighs.

“Y/N! Stand down! You’ll lose too much blood!” Steve barked at you, still throwing punches at the soldier.

“You don’t see me bleeding, do you?” Steve froze momentarily, checking your body to see where he could’ve sworn you were shot multiple times, but all he saw were deep purple marks forming on your shoulder. “I have a hunch, and if I’m right about it, I should be able to do this.” You reached over the Soldier’s shoulders as he continued thrusting his knife at Steve. You grabbed onto the blade, and although it stung, it didn’t break your skin. With your legs restricting the Soldier’s airways, he released the knife enough for you to toss it away.

As he dropped to the ground, you fell with him, and he laid unconscious between your legs. You rolled over and onto your hands and knees as you ripped his mask and goggles off.

Big.

Mistake.

Steve saw it with you. Your heart dropped in your stomach. You, too, felt yourself about to collapse besides him. A million memories hit you at once. The Expo. The proposal. The wedding. The army. The Howling Commandos. The train that Steve watched him fall to his death from. The month you spent grieving over him, only to lead to what was supposed to be your tragic ending as well. Your hand reached out slowly, gently cupping his cheek, tracing your thumb over his lips as you sucked in a harsh breath. Two fingers slid down to his pulse point, and a tear slipped down your cheek as you felt him alive. He had a heartbeat. Your arm continued to slide down, picking up his left arm that was now a metal shell. “Oh, Bucky, what have they done to you?” You whispered, bringing it up to press your cheek against it, letting out a sob when it still fit against you perfectly.

Your mind never left Bucky. Even after being arrested by “SHIELD”. Even after Maria Hill knocking out the other two agents and delivering you to Nick Fury, who was also still alive after being thought to be dead, of course. You faintly listened in as Nick, Sam, Steve, and Nat talked about what had happened to you.

You absentmindedly drifted your fingers up to your shoulders, where there was no other wound than a couple ugly bruises. No, the only thing that hurt was the guilt that you had almost killed your own husband, and the sadness that he had blatantly tried to kill you. Did he even remember you? How was he even alive, let alone still looking young? Would he ever remember you? Would he ever remember Steve? Your hand slid up to cup your cheek, remembering the feeling of your heart breaking at the contact that you hadn’t ever anticipated, but missed every day. “We need to try. She might be able to help us stop him.” Your ears perked up at what Sam said.

“Try what?” Steve dropped his head, looking down at his feet and pressing his lips firm together before looking at you again.

“Sam thinks it’s a good idea to see what your body can and can’t handle. We need to know what could hurt you and what can’t.” You gave them an appalled glare.

“Why? So you know how to kill me? Are you fucking insane?” You stood up from your chair, throwing it across the room as you stormed out. Steve quickly followed after and grabbed you by your elbow. You instinctively swung your arm back, aiming to hit him in the jaw, but he caught it.

“Y/N, doll, you need to hear me out. You know I would never intentionally hurt you.”

“You were literally just talking about shooting me for shits and giggles.”

“Not for that. Zola’s algorithm is in place and it’s about to kill a lot of good people unless we can replace some of the chips in the system. If you’re really bulletproof, we’re going to need you to distract Bucky.”

“Steve, as much as I wish it was, that’s not Bucky. Bucky wouldn’t shoot at either of us and I think it’s safe to say he had no remorse about the three bullets he attempted to land in me,” you sighed darkly, groaning. “How is a person being virtually bullet-proof even possible?”

“The serum enhanced me to my full potential and peak health. You were already at your peak health. Maybe it just made you and your skin stronger.”

“Strong isn’t strong enough here. Sam saw Bucky pin me up against a wall using one arm, lifting me off the ground and I could hardly make him stumble. I’m no match against him.”

“You’re enough of a match to keep him busy for me.”

Three hours later, you had your arms and legs pinned to a wall. You were attached to all sorts of different wires and four bags of your blood type were at the ready, in the event that a bullet did pierce you. A team of doctors and surgeons were on standby. Sam, Steve, Natasha, Maria, and Nick watched from behind a two way mirror. A marksman geared up in front of you, an assault rifle at the ready, when you ordered the experiment to stop. Steve and Natasha shared a look, and he entered the room.

He was at your side in seconds. “What’s wrong? Why’d you stop them?” You looked at him, giving him a serious look that told him you weren’t fucking around.

“Either you shoot me, or I’m out.”

You were Steve’s best friend. You had been since the night Steve told you Bucky’s team got taken. Nothing could ever break the amount of trust you two held…

Which is why he apologized profusely at every shot he took at you. You’d wince at the contact, Steve would rattle out an apology, and you’d roll your eyes, ordering him to take another shot. Your head and your heart were off limits, just in case. They were also off limits because you and Steve knew that Bucky wasn’t aiming to kill. He’d shoot you somewhere that wouldn’t kill you, then he’d finish you off by hand.

After shot 58, the doctor announced the end of the experiment, and Steve and Maria rushed to your side to drop you from your shackles as you groaned from the tension in your muscles. “How do you feel?” Natasha asked, coming to your side and helping you stand upright.

“Like I should be shooting Steve for a change and see how he like it.” You smirked at Steve and he gasped, putting his hands on his hips.

“You were the one that insisted that I shoot you. Besides, you’re not bleeding. You’re just bruised.” You reached your hand out, grabbing him by the back of his neck to pull him closer to you so you could whisper in his ear.

“You know, if Buck ever does remember us, I’m telling him you shot me.”

That night, you sat on your bed in your apartment, pulling out that same black box that Bucky kept under his bed back at the bunker. You flipped through the pictures again, trying your best not to remember the last time you did this, when Bucky turned on your lights until you became so frustrated that you shot out of bed, only to see him standing there wearing your favorite green henley and the smirk that made you fall for him in the first place. You exhaled harshly, putting the photo on your nightstand, leaning it against your lamp. Sleep was pointless, but you had a big day tomorrow.

“Bucky’s alive,” you murmured, playing with the orange ‘visitors’ band on your wrist. You glanced up at Peggy, her eyes urging you to go on. “He’s alive, but it’s not… him. He nearly killed me on a bridge the other day,” you pulled the collar of your shirt down, exposing your shoulder. “He shot at me three times, nearly choked me to death. He didn’t even remember me.”

“Are you sure it was him? Barnes is older than me, he’s gotta be worse off than I am.” She coughed and you handed her a cup of water, putting the straw to her lips.

“It couldn’t not be him. HYDRA must have gotten to him after he fell off that train. Probably put him in an ice box or something like what happened to me and Steve. They call him the “Winter Soldier”. His left arm’s been replaced with metal,” you paused as you set her cup back onto the table. “Did you know about me being bulletproofed?”

“Doctor Erskine warned me there might be a possibility. He didn’t want me to tell you, in fear you’d go out and test its capabilities,” You nodded, deciding to pass on the fact that the love of her life had shot you 58 times just for that exact reason. “There’s something else bothering you.” You sighed, standing up and placing a kiss on her forehead, grabbing her hands in yours.

“Yeah, I might have to kill my husband today.”

“Are you ready for this?” Steve asked. You stood behind him, gun and knives at the ready.

“As ready as I’ll ever be to fight my un-naturally strong husband with a metal arm who just happens to have no idea who I am anymore.”

“That’s the spirit,” Your breath caught in your throat as Steve’s entire posture stiffened. You didn’t even have to look to know that the Winter Soldier stood in front of him. “People are going to die, Buck,” he paused, taking a breath. “I can’t let that happen.” Bucky remained silent, unmoving. “Y/N, you’re up.” He flung his shield at Bucky, making him fall off balance long enough for you to lunge at him.

Your legs went around his throat again, and you crossed your thighs behind his head. His hands went to your hips, trying to throw you off of him, but you weren’t letting go. He realized this, and he sent the both of you flying down from the bridge and onto the glass below you. He landed on top of you, and his metal fist wrapped around your throat. “Bucky, look at me. Please,” His eyes narrowed and his grip on you got tighter. “Please.”

You gripped his wrist around you and pulled it off of you before turning over so you were on top of him. You put your knees on his arms, keeping him from grabbing you again. “Your name is James Buchanan Barnes,” He winced, trying to pry you off of him. “You were born March 10, 1917,” your sentences began to run together as you realized that he wasn’t going to stay pinned down for long. You put your hands on each side of his face, holding him steady and forcing him to look at you. “We met the summer of 1935. We got married two years later, before you went off to war. You know me, you know my name.” He shouted out, using his legs to pull himself up, flinging you across the room in the process.

You landed on a knee, and charged at him as he was beginning to steady himself. He pulled a gun from his holster and shot at you, but quickly threw it aside when he realized that you were getting closer, and you weren’t slowing down. He caught your fist as you swung it at his jaw and he pulled you into him, wrapping his arm around your throat. “You… know…me…” You gasped, reaching behind you to grab a knife from the holster around your waist.

“You’re my mission.” He said, tightening his grip on you.

“I’m your wife!” You plunged the knife into his thigh. He yelled out in pain as you took the knife out of his thigh. You straddled him once more, getting ready to do it again when you heard Steve’s voice ring through the comm unit in your ear.

“Y/N, it’s done. We’re about to go down. Nick and Natasha have a helicopter coming around. Where are you?” Bucky looked at you with an indescribable look. Flashes of fear and pain and panic flicked through them all at once.

“Steve, you need to get on that helicopter without me. I got Bucky. I’ll keep him safe.” You took the comm out of your ear, tossing it aside. Bucky’s chest heaved with every breath he took, but he took the opportunity to flip you over so his body covered yours, right before a large piece of debris fell from the roof of the helicarrier.

“Who are you?” He growled. You reached up, shoving the piece of debris aside and off his back.

“I’m your wife. You already know my name. I know you do,” you carefully reached your hand to his cheek, hardly touching him. When he didn’t give any reaction, you placed it on his skin. “Think, Bucky. Quickly, before we both die.”

“You don’t care if I die.” Bucky said. Debris began falling all over, and an especially large piece fell behind your head, shattering the glass behind you. If anything landed on the panel that your bodies were sprawled out on, you were dead.

“Didn’t you just hear me tell someone I’d keep you safe? I almost lost you twice before this. One of those times being the one that made you forget me; forget Steve; forget the life we had almost built for ourselves.” You didn’t even realize you were crying until Bucky’s eyes seemed to follow a tear that trailed down your cheek and onto your neck. “Please, Bucky.” You sobbed quietly. His eyes went wide, staring at you down in what could have been mistaken as horror.

Memories flashed in his head far too quickly for his liking, but each memory held the same face until they all fused together to one girl, laughing as her hair blew behind her in the wind. Another man leaned down, pressing his lips to hers as her hand slid to take place on his cheek. A diamond ring was on her ring finger- a solitaire diamond, with a tiny heart engraved into the band next to it.

Bucky gently pulled your hand from his cheek, holding it before him as he stared at the ring on your left hand- a solitaire diamond with a little heart engraved next to it.

“Y/N.”

43 notes · View notes

sam-or-whatever · 7 years ago

Text

Morals/Matricide | Self-Para

Shrieks filled the air. Tragedy had struck, and there was no way around that. While the areas of Lanford that had once seen lush, lively and livid with bustling people and the sheer vibrancy of life in pseudo-metropolis weren’t entirely vacated, silence hung over them as a court of viewers spectating a public execution. The air was dead. It beckoned for the hawking of a crow, the drop of a pin, anything to break the lack of noise that seemed so brittle in the suburban streets that it could crack should anyone open a window; and yet, it didn’t.

But the world around Sam was not silent. White noise screamed around her, hisses and hazes screeching in her ears, unintelligible mumbles and yells from strangers not in her line of sight. There were bodies-- people, perhaps. At least, vague outlines of them. Faces and limbs blurred, smeared across her peripherals and melting into each other, a bizarre Dali or Ernst painting. None of them mattered. No one mattered.

Heels clacked along the sidewalk outside of the hospital, ankles wearing down. She’d ran from the park, from the tent, from the fire that grew exponentially like a cancer on the tarp, stands and apparent souls that it consumed. The park wasn’t too far from the hospital, nor from her own apartment; she could’ve very well run home instead, sat there like a coward in her shelter until whatever horrendous apocalypse outside had passed over and was nothing more than a news headline in the morning that would soon be forgotten about as more global politics consumed every outlet.

But she had to go. Had to. There was no other option but to.

She’d seen the firemen and paramedics arrive, seen what few straggler cops come by as if there was any other prime objective in the entire city to tend to (Perhaps a drug bust in North End seemed more important). And soon, a swarm of them had arrived, too late in time for her own comfort. She saw stretchers, people carried out, limping, crawling, emerging from smoke like a macabre rebirth. Perhaps that’s when they were taken, when they’d managed to get out. Someone was doing their job.

She’d made her way home, sat on the front stoop to the apartment for far too long, lost in the thought, perhaps in shock, of what would happen to all those back at the masquerade. She knew someone had died. Well, perhaps not knew-- but the likelihood of no one losing their life in the disaster seemed unlikely.

It was almost dawn when the phone call reached her. Details scarce, she was drawn to the hospital in concern of her “family”.

Automatic doors slid open, practically at her command even if it was merely a mundane electronic routine for them, and heels clicked on linoleum rather than cement.

The emergency room wasn’t anything unexpected.

Every seat occupied, standing room only. Some wept. Some were silent. Unintelligible noisiness from behind the scenes, the medical wards themselves, leaked out into the space, more white noise to cut through the bleak. Not all of them were there because of the fire; it hadn’t injured the entire town. Of course the world still turned and people still did stupid things or were shot or got into car crashes when fires broke out. These people still would come here. But yet again, they didn’t matter.

“Did Andrew Blackwood check in here today?” Manicured hands slammed down on the desk before her. The woman on the other side, some short, Lisa Loeb-looking type with uber-chapped lips stared up in near awe.

“Ma’am, what’s your name?”

“Samantha Blackwood, now answer the goddamn question.”

“Do you bear any relation to An--”

“Just answer the fucking question, you useless cunt.”

“Please don’t use that tone with me, miss, I’m trying to help you.” She rapidly tapped away on the computer, perhaps searching databases for something that should’ve been a simple yes or no question.

“A state senator checks into an emergency room in the wake of a town-wide disaster, and you’re telling me you can’t fucking remember if you saw him or not? Is he here, yes or fucking no?”

In the corner of her eye, she saw the door to the back swing open as an orderly called someone else to come in.

“There is indeed a Blackwood checked into the ICU right now, bu--”

“Thanks.”

She bolted through the open door, nearly knocking the orderly in her bizarrely Lisa Frank scrubs over. Squeaks on the tiles, the taffeta and tulle of her dress flying behind her in lieu of smoke or dust from wheels.

“MISS--!”

Whatever the receptionist had to say was gone behind her, lost to the sound of crying patients, beeping hospital equipment and the ringing in Sam’s head that grew, tinnitus off of its tracks, perhaps an oncoming migraine.

Andrew. Where was Andrew?

Fuck Eliza.

It really didn’t matter to her where her mother was. She knew they both were in the tent when the fire broke out. Far from the entrance, at that. Perhaps they had been trapped in for a while. Perhaps they both managed to escape. Both Eliza and Andrew were too paranoid and high-strung for their own good to brush off any remote injuries; Eliza had checked herself into the emergency room for being pricked with a thorn from a rose her husband had given her. But if she had gone up in flames like the saganaki she enjoyed once a month, it would all be for the better. As long as Andrew was alive. He mattered. At least a little bit.

White. Everywhere around her was white. White floors, white walls, white curtains, oppressive white fluorescent lighting. Perhaps she stood out in grey, but the dress itself may have been what stood out moreso than the color.

Eyes darted around, wildly, for any signs of him-- Eliza’s dress would stand out if she were to see it anywhere. A hideous, voluminous ensemble of deep yellow-orange would perhaps now be singed to black. But Andrew’s matching suit would stand out just as well.

Through cracks at the edges of curtains, nothing was to be seen.

“The ICU” the Loeb had said, and an elevator trip and another quarrel with a receptionist, Sam found herself outside the room wherever one of her parents rested.

“Please tell me it’s Andrew,” she grumbled to the accompanying nurse, who held her elbow gingerly; perhaps it was for comfort, perhaps it was for control. Sam knew she could burst into a tirade and a tantrum at any moment. Security could be called if she got out of control. But as she stood, fingers prying at each other as if begging to dig under her acrylics, she was still.

“Miss, we--”

“Save it.”

“But you--”

“Just stop fucking talking. Please.”

There was a beat. A pause.

She looked upwards, up at the lengthy lights that ran across the ceiling like highway lane stripes, bearing down on the hallway below like a judgmental god. Then down at her shoes again, tips scuffed from her journey, rhinestones still perfectly in place.

She should go in. She knew she should. And so, so she glanced-- a simple lean forward and glance to the left to peer into the room. The yellow was striking; yet, she couldn’t make out what it was, the suit or the dress, from behind the curtain. It was clear that the fabric wasn’t really on its wearer, so much as draped on some coat rack or chair right behind the curtain that obstructed her view of the sole resident of the room. The sound of a breathing machine and the beeping of a heartbeat were the only sounds inside.

She pulled back, turning to the nurse.

“Where’s the other one? Whoever it is?”

The nurse bit her lip, her own hands fidgeting near her waist in a way not unlike what Sam’s own were doing.

“Miss, that’s what I was trying to tell you.”

Sam’s eyebrow raised briefly, too shaky to be as intimidating as she would’ve preferred.

“Only one of them has made it this far.”

“‘This far’?” Her voice nearly cracked.

“They both were rushed in together, and... Perhaps we should sit down.”

“No.”

“Do you understand what I’m trying to tell you, miss?”

“Stop saying ‘Miss’ as if I’m some irrelevant. You know our goddamn name. Now call me Sam or Miss Blackwood or something.”

“Alright, well, Samantha, do you u--”

“I said Sam, you absolute twit. You’re so fucking incompetent.”

“Sam, do you understand what I’m trying to get across to you?”

“One of them is dead.”

“I...”

“Is that not what you’re saying?” She stared into the girl’s eyes, her own red and sore, yet tears did not well up quite yet. She was not about to cry in front of a stranger. Enough people cried in hospitals. It was too cliché. She would not allow it.

“It... is... Indeed.”

“Then thank you. I don’t think your useless services will be required much further here.”

“You’d like me to leave?” The girl bit her lip.

“Yes, you stupid bitch, go back to your post or changing bedpans or whatever it is you do.”

“Alright... I’ll... send the doctor in soon.”

“Don’t fucking bother. I don’t need to know about any prognosis or whatever. If a doctor was that important to the situation, he’d be the one here talking to me about a dead parent, not you and your fresh-out-of-med-school, doe-eyed ineptitude.”

She stood there for another moment, almost in awe, unable to move. Maybe out of fear, or uncertainty of what to do, but as Sam’s eyes widened, her lips pressed into a firm line, the girl finally turned on her slippered heels and bolted back to her station.

Fists gripping at handfuls of fabric at her thighs, it was a miracle it didn’t shred under the sharpness of her nails. Knuckles turned white, begging to shred the rice paper skin over top.

She had to go inside.

She had to know who it was.

Why wouldn’t you just fucking ask?

It was stupid. Stupid to need to see for herself, to have the knowledge be tangible rather than verbal, to see for herself which parent was remaining.

Perhaps then she would know whether to mourn or not.

Please be Andrew.

She would never say it out loud.

Her own relationship with him was well beyond “estranged”; as long as he still fed into her material desires and kept her connected to his bank account, she could say they were still on good terms. He was a man of morals. The black sheep in his family for the mere fact that he was democratic-- and made his way into the Senate as such-- when it was a miracle his family could stand upright considering how far they all leaned to the right. But she never was close to him. They never shared intimate moments. She had safely told that therapist whose name escaped her almost a year ago that both he and Eliza failed as parents in that regard. She would have no reason to feel upset at his passing.

And yet, the fact that he wasn’t an insufferable force of nature of condescension, patronizing, self-indulging, high-strung shrieking that Eliza was. Andrew not being a Passive Aggressive Queen of the Universe himself made him instantly worthy of a tear or two.

A sigh and a grunt later, she turned into the room, the view of its resident still hidden.

“What could be behind curtain number one...” she mumbled.

The air hung heavy with silence. The tap of her heel-- always at the back of her mind throughout the day-- nearly matched the rhythmic pulse of the heart monitor, and slower still, the breathing machine gasped in and out every couple seconds.

The heap of fabric visible under the curtain made itself more visible-- yellow faded into black and grey at parts that had been singed, burnt into nothingness. Which garment it was still wasn’t clear; only bits were seen sweeping the floor.

With one more step, she rounded the curtain, eyes still fixated on the clothes before the person in the bed, and her answer became obvious.

The dress was in shambles, rags, tattered and torn, almost all of it but what touched the ground wrinkled and burned into blackness. It’s volume depleted, shape nonexistent. Thousands of dollars wasted.

Her breath held.

The breathing machine continued, almost in lieu of her own inhalation.

Eliza laid in the bed, nearly unrecognizable. A thin film of what might as well have been saran wrap isolated all but her face from the rest of the world. She was covered in black; green-tinged darkness that crinkled and peeled at random places. But by far the most shocking bit were the cuts-- nearly gridlike slices in her flesh that left her seared flesh in pieces, giant planes with deep rivers of pink in between them. From Sam’s own view, it seemed as if nothing of her hadn’t been consumed by the flames. It seemed almost impossible that she wasn’t already dead. Wires and IVs branched off from each arm, from random places on her body, tracking her vitals.

And then her face. Obstructed by the tube shoved down her throat, it, too, had a majority of it covered in the swamp-green blackness of the burn that everything else was. It swelled, gigantic, her natural features, one Sam could identify as pretty and inherited by herself had they not been ruined by association with Eliza’s personality, were gone amidst the destruction. Only two locks of her bleached hair remained, the rest, shriveled to nothing or gone altogether.

Gone was Eliza’s outer armor of beauty. Her vanity had been one thing that she made clear in previous days as important to her, always pulling out her compact to recheck herself in the middle of conversations or rantings at Sam. The woman that laid on the bed, breathed in peace, was hideous. An ogre. The monstrosity of who she was was finally visible on the outside for the world to see, but for Sam, it was only a culmination that she’d been waiting every day of her life to see.

“Of course it’s you.”

Her hands relaxed, rested limp at her side.

She stood at the end of the bed, staring at the creature before her, its chest rising and lowering in sync with the machine to its left.

A knock at the door broke what could’ve been serenity.

“You’re not allowed to be in here.” The man at the door’s white coat and clipboard announced what he was before he even breathed it out the next words. “I’m Dr. Guthrie... And you would be?”

“This woman’s daughter.” Her body remained still, only her head turning to look at him with her watery eyes. Tears were forming, indeed, but not because of Eliza. Or, perhaps it was because of them-- because it was her who laid in the bed with a chance of survival and not her husband. “You should know. Aren��t you the clown that called me?”

“You still shouldn’t be in here, Ms. Blackwood.”

“Are you going to not allow me to see her? Am I in the way of someone’s work?”

“Well--”

“Because as far as I can see, you’ve left her here. ICU, my ass. Are there more critical patients that everyone’s run off to take care of? Is she just supposed to stay here like a victim of the Salem witch trials while you lot run around filming scenes for Grey’s Anatomy?”

“Ms. Blackwood, I--”

“I really don’t fucking care.”

“I just want you to know that we’ve done all we can at the moment.”

“I said I don’t fucking care, but where does that leave her?”

He paused, biting his lip. His eyes bounced, from daughter to mother and back again.

“She hasn’t been breathing on her own. She's scheduled to go into surgery again soon for debridement of the outer layers of skin in the morning.”

“It is the morning.”

“Around ten.”

“And you think she’ll survive?”

He paused again. And before he opened his mouth to speak, she spoke over him--

“You don’t have to worry about sparing my feelings. Bedside manner is bullshit. I just want to know what to expect.”

“Full recovery does not seem likely.”

“So, she’d be like this for the rest of her life?”

“Internally, she’s mostly in shape-- her breathing is the main concern; she hasn’t been conscious since she was brought in, and we’re not sure if that could change.”

“Were you also the one that treated my father?”

“I meant to extend my condolences on that part.”

“You could’ve called earlier, you know.”

“We--”

“Frankly, I don’t care. Was he dead on arrival?”

He silenced himself again.

“Listen, Dr. Quack, are you, like, Nell, or something? You have the communication skills of a recluse. What’s the matter with you?”

“Ms. Blackw--”

“Just leave me with her for a moment. Please.”

He nodded, before scurrying off, not unlike the nurse. He paused at the door:

“You should really be wearing a mask and a gown.”

He shut the door behind himself.

She turned her head again, facing the beast on the bed.

And after a moment, she walked, moving to the side to seat herself in the only other chair in the space not occupied by a destroyed piece of couture.

She leaned in, staring at the devastation on Eliza’s body even closer-- cracks, fissures, hints of muscle visible in the valleys between skin continents, surprisingly such little blood visible. Perhaps it wasn’t safe to be around her-- exposing her to external contamination and whatnot. But then again, the sheet that covered her seemed to have that part taken care of.

“You’re really fucking ugly, you know that, mom?”

She squinted her eyes, staring at the Halloween mask of a face that rested on the pillow. Her eyelashes were missing, yet her lids seemed like the only part of her face that remained intact.

“You used to tell me that. I know.”

Eliza’s lips seemed stretched, plastic surgery gone wrong.

“I was never good-looking enough for you. But we looked kinda the same before this, no? I have your cheekbones. Your nose. Your smile. Your lips. Dad’s eyes, I suppose, but your face was mine. Do you think that was part of it? That you thought you, yourself, were never as beautiful as dad said you were, or how you told yourself in every mirror that you were the most gorgeous woman in the world? Did you think that was a lie? And rather than tell it to your own face, you told it to mine, to try and watch me tumble into insecurity, huh?”

She smiled. The thought that Eliza’s current face could no longer do that was almost comforting.

“You failed. Like much of your parenting, you failed that. I never thought I was ugly. And until the day I’m as hideous of a person as you were-- or, are, if you could look yourself in the mirror right now-- I will never think that.”

She leaned forward again, scooting the chair even closer, practically breathing in the unconscious woman’s ear.

“But your personality was always the ugliest part. Shrill. Screaming. Demeaning. You set the standard for horrible mothers in the world. For bitches in every TV show. Set an example of whatever paths should not be followed. You know, you mocked Jodi for not vaccinating her kids-- and yet she still tries to love them. You couldn’t love me. Or at least, you refused to, and I suppose I’ll never get to understand that. At least not now, will I? You can’t wake up and answer me-- and even if you were awake, you wouldn’t tell me. Is that because there’s no reason? There’s no reason for you not to love and support me? No reason for you to treat me as if I was the bane of your existence and the source of every anxiety and struggle you faced?

“You didn’t face any struggles, you bitch. The rich do not face more issues than the poor just because you have too much cash to count. You can waste it all on valium and vodka, but that doesn’t mean you’ll ever have to need any of it. You grew up wealthy, you married wealthy, you’re straight and white, and your parents didn’t beat you like you always said I should be lucky you didn’t do to me. You slapped. You struck. You didn’t beat me unconscious or bruise me, but you laid one too many hands on me whenever you lost your temper because you don’t know how to handle a little bit of sass.

“You don’t know how to handle anything, actually, when I think about it. You couldn’t handle being single, so you found the richest, handsomest available guy in New York to call your own. You couldn’t handle responsibility about birth control, apparently, or else I wouldn’t be here. And you couldn’t handle the idea of an abortion because you still went through with a child it’s clear you never wanted. You couldn’t handle a baby, you couldn’t handle a toddler, you couldn’t handle a pre-teen, you couldn’t handle a teen, you couldn’t handle an adult. You could never manage self-sufficiency, either; living off of your own parents’ money like you’ve given me so much fucking flack for my entire life, then soon found yourself clinging to your husband and claiming his networth for your own. The only thing I know you can handle is your drinks and drugs. At least that’s one thing we kinda have in common.

“You were the source of every issue I’ve had in my life. I was not good enough. I wasn’t worthy of your affection. I couldn’t have my birthdays about me, they had to be about you and your clique of cunt friends who just love to compare their husband’s dick sizes and whatever Ralph Lauren purchases you’ve made. Straight A’s still meant I wasn’t smart enough for you, even my taste in clothes wasn’t good enough for you-- newsflash, bitch, Balmain and Balenciaga will always trounce a Chanel suit when it’s all you wear, and your Gucci staples are the biggest fashion faux pas I’ve seen since the 2012 Met Gala.”

She laughed. Perhaps she was delving too much into joke territory. If only Eliza could hear this. A glance around-- there weren’t any cameras. No one could hear this. Or see this. It was almost unfortunate there wasn’t an audience. And almost unfortunate Eliza wasn’t awake to turn the scene into a full-on production.

“I know, I know-- I didn’t make it easy for you. I didn’t take orders. I didn’t take rudeness easily. Flippancy, facetiousness, bitching back and forth for hours, it all something I could’ve avoided. But what do you want from me? What did you want from me? To apologize for having a personality? To just let you steamroll me and for me to just lay there like a ragdoll on autopilot to make you satisfied when you were never going to really care if I did well?

“I did do well-- I’m doing well. I’ve done more than you ever have in your entire, insufferable life. No, I didn’t marry rich, but I could if I tried. No, I don’t have lunch with the Romneys and attend the 2017 inauguration-- neither of which I’d be proud of, anyway-- but I have things you don’t. I have a place I chose for myself without making someone else miserable in the process. I have a job that I’m happy with. Yes, your sister-in-law got it for me, but I still have it. I have a friend. You’ve met him, you know. His name is Jude. No, he’s not a cop. No, he’s not some other fashion maven. He’s a rocker. I think he’s broke. But no, he’s not leeching off of me like you would assume, either. But he’s one of the most amazing people I’ve ever met, and our times together are not spent comparing our superficial struggles and trying to outdo each other in the same field, because that’s not what it’s about. But I don’t expect you to understand that. I don’t know what you value. Money, maybe, but it flies out of your hand far more often than it does mine, so maybe you don’t value anything.

“And that’s totally fine, you know. It’s totally okay to not have standards, rules for yourself, things to have sacred. It’s fine. I just try not to make the world around me worse for it. No, I’m not a nice person a lot of the time, but I’m not actively trying to ruin people’s life. I don’t have someone that I brought into this world and have responsibility over and fuck them over at every chance I get because I like to see little children cry-- well, that’s a lie, I do, hence me stealing candy from a baby on the boardwalk last summer, so I guess that makes me a hypocrite, but you are a black hole, Eliza. You are the quintessence of virility, of the reason people think the upper class is out of control, you are the source of all evil in the household that I grew up in, and you have not suffered one day in your life because of a family of cunts bearing down on you.

“Well, you know what, that might be unfair of me to say. Maybe you did. Maybe you went through the same things I did. Maybe your mother really was an uber cunt-- you never let me see it. But if I was you, I wouldn’t bring that full circle. I would not choose to make my child miserable because the same was done to me. Like I said, I know I’m not a nice person a lot of the time. Maybe I’m net-evil at that because I say evil things all the time and get a kick out of being a casual villain, but I try to do good things at times. I try to be nice. I have friends for that-- especially Jude. You don’t. You may have experienced whatever hells the Rheiders put you through, but you just became one of their numbers in the process. The Blackwoods are not much better.

“And in fact, that’s why I wish dad was where you are right now. At least having some chance of survival. Not being wiped out of this world without a fighting shot. He was like me. He was a victim of at least some goodness in a family full of nothing but horror. His brothers are pigs. His parents are garbage. They’re your crowd. Maybe you thought he was like them; maybe that’s why you married him. But he was a good fucking man, you know? That’s why he kept taking care of me. That’s why he didn’t cut me off despite all your horrendous attempts at ruining my life even when I wasn’t in it anymore. You didn’t fucking care about the money I was spending. You wouldn’t have even known. Yeah, I know I spend as much money in a month as the average American household does in a year, but is that not what you do weekly? Context is the key here, and you wouldn’t have felt the impact I left on that bank account if you weren’t obsessively checking it to find reasons to do me in.”

She laughed again, finally leaning back in the chair.

“Funny, isn’t it? How you always called me a leech? A dependent. Yeah. I’m a dependent. I depended on you and-- fuck it, just Andrew’s money. And here you are, your life hanging on by a thread, dependent on machinery and the works of other people to keep you from slipping away.”

She glanced at the machine-- an series of thick tubes that somehow funneled to one that slipped into her mouth, keeping her lungs inflated. She stood up, moving over to it, eyes scanning whatever nonsense floated by on a screen about how many breaths she took in a minute. It didn’t mean anything to her. It just meant Eliza was alive.

All that stood between Sam and salvation was this machine.

She turned back to her mother.

“I think it’s also even funnier that you burned. You’ll burn again, you know. You were so concerned with God. A casual Christian, so perhaps not that concerned, but you did tell me I was going to hell once or twice. But I guarantee you, if I’m there, you’ll be several circles deeper than I am. Or did you not read Dante’s Inferno? Maybe you weren’t that interested. Or maybe you just weren’t that intellectual. I never saw you read anything.”

She bent down by the machine, tracing the wires, the tubes-- finding where it plugged itself into the wall. The source.

She glanced back up at Eliza-- restful, peaceful, far too content since she wasn’t being tormented by fire. It was all so undeserving.

She stayed down fingers resting on the plug at the socket.

Could she do this?

It felt too right. There wasn’t a shakiness in her hands. There wasn’t the nervousness that one would assume would come. The cable called to her, like the knife from months ago that she dragged across her wrist, told her this was the thing to do.

“I wished death upon you many nights, you know. Wished so many times you were just out of my life. And even when I was finally living alone-- four years ago, can you believe it?-- that wasn’t good enough, because I still had to see you from time to time. I wished you would get into a crash. Perhaps someone would try to assassinate dad, and hit you instead. Or that we lived in 18th century France and you were guillotined. That’d be entertaining. And it seems... I may have finally gotten my wish.”

She yanked the cord.

The hissing of the breathing machine stopped.

All that filled the room was the beep of Eliza’s heartbeat.

Slower.

And slower.

She rose, hand still clutching the cord, eyes wide.

It was happening.

Her chest didn’t move.

The monitor was practically sloping downward.

And finally...

A flatline.

The beep stayed ringing, consistent, long.

Any moment, she expected the door to burst open, medics running to attend. She needed to wait as long as possible. Let it be real.

She bent back down, rushed, shoved the plug back into the socket to let the breathing resume.

Standing up again, Eliza’s chest moved under the carnage of flesh and the clear sheet.

But the monitor did not fluctuate.

“I’ll be happy to see you in hell, mom.”

The door flew open.

Practically a mob of medics flooding in, rushing to the bedside with whatever horrendous array of revival tools they had to help revive her.

She stood back, at their command, their words gone not registering in her ears. Her eyes stayed on Eliza’s disfigured face, seeing her unmoving eyes, her chest still bouncing as if that movement meant life inside still occurred.

Their actions were not visible, a blur in her peripherals, chaos in the room trying to bring back something that had left and all that mattered to Sam was that it was gone.

Her mother was gone.

Her parents were dead.

With a twitch of an eyelid, she smiled, staring off at Eliza’s face, through her face, into nothingness as the medics realized the fruitfulness of their attempts.

And so she turned, moving for the door, the dress trailing after her once again as her heels tapped on the tile, leaving behind a corpse that no longer had its perfectly-manicured ironfist grip on her life.

She was free.

#Self-Para #Self Para #event #event: masquerade #Eliza Blackwood #TW: death #TW: murder #tw: burn victim #tw: burns #tw: burn #i realize a lot of this is kinda unrealistic #and not factually accurate #BUT HEY! It's writing #And I am not a law/medical expert #so we'll see what happens as a result of this #But Sam is now an orphan #A filthy fucking rich orphan at that #any questions or random bitching are always welcome to me

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