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winter-turtle · 3 years ago

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House Of Wolves - Chapter 1 - Winterturtle - Multifandom [Archive of Our Own]

Peter Parker has been raised towards villainy by his parents for all his life. After a mission gone wrong, he is captured by the Avengers.

Tony Stark is a mechanic. He fixes things and now he's determined to fix this teenager that doesn't know any better.

The problem? Tony is a walking disaster when it comes to emotions. Another problem? He has only two weeks to succeed before Peter is taken away by Shield.

@multiverse-irondad-july

Chapter 1: Tipping The Scales

“Okay, how about this one – Elliot? No? Then… Lucas?”

Peter kept his face perfectly blank, the cool mask not giving anything away. He glanced at his hands shackled to the table, then around the dull grey interrogation room. Everything was grey – this room, his cell, even his clothes!

Why grey? It was just shitty black. He missed his black costume.

“Hmm, what about Thomas? You kinda look like you could be Tom.”

The name reading has been going on for days and it was slowly but steadily eating away at Peter’s nerves. When no one was interrogating him for information – which he would never willingly give away anyway – Barton sat down opposite of him and kept reading from various lists in an attempt to figure out his name. Of course, his name’s been already read several times, but as always, he didn’t react.

“Nathaniel?”

Oh God, if he wasn’t chained to that stupid table, he would’ve hit the man with something long time ago just to shut him up! Where the hell were his parents?

“Remember your training.”

That’s what they’d told him as they retreated and flew away to safety when it was clear there was no chance of winning. So Peter remembered his training – say nothing and stall for time until help arrives.

“We’ll come back for you.”

That was two weeks ago.

He was left to fend for himself against the Avengers. Seriously, Peter knew better than to question his parents’ decisions, but what were they thinking, attacking the Compound like that? Neither of his parents bothered to tell him why they were there in the first place.

“Just do as you’re told.”

It didn’t mean that he went down quietly. In the end, it took two super soldiers, two men in armor and one ex-assassin pressing on his pressure points to stop his trashing and hold him down.

“Kama- what the hell is this name? Kamakanaalohamailkalani?“

Peter couldn’t help himself but raise one eyebrow at that, giving the man his best are-you-stupid? look.

“Yeah, that probably is not it either,” the archer sighed. “But come on, boy, work with me here!”

Ah, yes. That’s what he’s been called ever since he got here. “Boy” or “kid” as Stark liked to call him. But what was he supposed to do? Say – yes, my name is Peter Parker, my parents are Richard and Mary Parker and we’re a family of villains. Would you like their phone number and an address where you can find them? Well, not like they had any permanent residence, but still. For all he knew, his parents could be anywhere.

Anywhere but here, busting him out of this place.

“You know, this would be a lot easier for all of us if you just told us your name.”

Peter kept staring. He was told he had very expressive face, hence why he wore full-face mask, so he took pride in managing to remain impassive for so long.

Barton rubbed his eyes with his thumb and index finger, sighing. “I guess we’re not getting anywhere today too, huh?”

“This is the first smart thing you’ve said today.”

“Oh, so now you talk.”

Peter merely shrugged in response.

Don’t take him wrong, he did talk… occasionally. He just talked without saying anything important. Just empty words meant to get some form of reaction out of the group of heroes. And once they snapped… well, Peter could take it. He was trained.

The silence dragged on. It was Barton that broke it once again with another tired sigh. “Fine, let’s wrap this up.”

Besides slight rise of the corner of his lips, Peter didn’t show any other sign of satisfaction. They were getting tired, he knew. But on the other hand, the whole thing was wearing him down too. Even if not by much, there was more freedom back “home”. The thing he missed the most were-

Peter’s sense tingled.

The door opened and in walked Iron Man and Captain America. His entourage for today.

“You know the drill,” Stark said.

Peter knew the drill, he was good at following orders, but there was that look again. That stupid look on Stark’s face he couldn’t decipher even if his life depended on it.

He stood up. Three. Two. One. Stark pressed the button on his watch and the shackles fell from Peter’s wrists, granting him short-lived, though not complete relief. Invisible force pulled his arms behind his back, the ever-present bracelets on his wrists that he hated with his very being clicking together.

Yeah, the thing Peter missed the most were his powers. He’s had them since he could remember, so they were basically his second nature, yet these stupid bracelets somehow dampened them enough to reduce him to normal-powered teenager.

His stickiness was completely gone. His strength and physical abilities were rendered to that of any other regular fourteen-year-old. Well, at least his senses remained unchanged.

“Let’s go,” Rogers jerked his head towards the door. Peter moved and the three men got into the formation around him. Barton in front of him, Stark and Rogers behind him.

He didn’t really understand the necessity of three people escorting him to his cell. If he were to guess, he would say that they were trying to show him who’s in power here, which was pretty useless tactic in his opinion. It’s not like he could do anything with most of his strength gone.

Which was mostly his own fault anyway. He’d gotten impatient on his third day here and now he had to deal with consequences.

They just wrapped up another unsuccessful round of interrogation and were leading him to the cell, Rhodes and Wilson on the duty. Peter, confident in his memory of the place, decided to make a break for it.

He’d let them think that the handcuffs they slapped on him were strong enough to contain him. Peter glanced around, took a note of a position of the two men with him, as well as another two people that were in the room at the end of the long hallway.

It was now or never.

Out of his suit, Rhodes was definitely the weaker one because of his legs, which made him easier to deal with. Peter squashed down the feeling of guilt. He knew the man’s condition wasn’t his fault and honestly, it was impressive that he continued doing the hero work, but the young villain had to do what he had to do.

Explore any weakness. Show no mercy.

Exactly how he was taught.

Neither man had time to react as Peter spun to the left and hit Wilson strong enough to make him hit the wall, snapping the cuffs in the process. Rhodes had split second to react. It still wasn’t enough and Peter, though he would never admit it, hit him just enough to make him fall. Wasting no time, he took off running.

“Friday, sound alarm!” Peter heard Rhodes shout and sure enough, the alarm started to blare two seconds later.

He had to be fast.

The stairs leading to the exit came in view. So did another two people, blocking his path. Rogers and Romanov. It was easy to deduct by the body language that neither side would back down.

The fight was on.

Kicks and punches were traded and with the adrenaline coursing through Peter’s veins, he somehow managed to slip past the two. So close now-

“Out of the way, you two!”

Peter heard something click and the next thing he knew, he was curled on the ground at the base of the stairs, eyes squeezed shut and clutching his head in agony. He felt like he was submerged deep in the water and the only sound that reached him clearly was high-pitched ringing.

Someone was grunting and panting. Then he realized it was him.

Peter was vaguely aware of people approaching towards him as well as someone new running into the hallway. Then there were hands around his wrists, pulling them away from his head. Peter could’ve sworn that the next sound that left his mouth was a whimper. He curled into even tighter ball.

He really hoped he wasn’t crying too.

The hands let him go. “His ears are bleeding.” Even this up close, Peter could just barely make out Captain America’s voice.

There was more indistinguishable conversation around him and the last thing Peter remembered before passing out from pain – a blessing in disguise – was the sensation of cold bracelets clicking shut around his wrists.

And he’s worn those since.

Peter walked through the door of his cell. As much as he hated to admit it, all he could actually do now was to sit on his ass and wait for the rescue. Fighting them in his current state and with the stupid but amazing ceiling computer watching his every move would yield no results. The only time he fought them was when they didn’t respect his personal space and put their hands on his shoulders or back when they escorted him.

Thankfully, they’ve learned not to touch him quite quickly.

Peter stood in the middle of the cell, his back facing the trio of Avengers. His hands fell to his sides as the release button was pressed. Peter still didn’t turn around nor said anything. Two pairs of footsteps began to make the retreat. One stayed in place for five more seconds, then the door closed. That always happened only when Stark was with the group.

Interesting.

His eyes, more out of habit that anything else, roamed over the cell. Besides the cot built into the wall, the room consisted of a “bathroom” that was just a toilet, a shower and a sink hidden by a wall, a table with short bench bolted to the ground and a camera in top left corner.

His dinner, served on a paper plate as always, sat on the table, waiting for him. Peter sighed. There were only so many sandwiches one could eat before going crazy and Peter felt like he was reaching that point.

There was nothing for him to use. Perfect place to contain enhanced villain like him.

So, saving the food for later and with nothing better to do, Peter laid down on the cot, stared at the ceiling above him and waited.

For what?

He had no idea.

The kid – God, he was just a kid – looked at him with curiosity sparking behind those big brown eyes as Tony was making himself as comfortable as he could in the uncomfortable chair.

Time to commerce the plan.

As expected, the kid said nothing. And according to the plan, neither did Tony. Instead, he pulled out his Starkpad and directed all of his attention to the screen.

At least that was what it seemed like.

“Let me go to him next,” Tony had said on that morning. At his teammates’ inquiries about the reason, Tony merely shrugged. “We’ll never know until we try.”

Tony half-heartedly scrolled through various documents and the kid looked around the room every so often before returning his gaze to Tony. It felt like the teen was studying him.

The time he’s spent in the interrogation room hit fifteen-minute mark when Tony noticed the kid slightly shift in his seat. Twenty minutes and the kid shifted again. This was new development. Sure, when Tony’s watched older footage, the kid shifted every so often, but not in such a short span of time.

Twenty-five minutes and the kid released long, soft exhale through his nose. Tony was slowly getting where he wanted. Still, he kept scrolling.

Thirty minutes passed and this time the exhale was a bit louder. The shift was bigger too. Tony glanced up at the kid from underneath his lashes, then he returned his gaze to the device.

Throughout another thirty minutes, the kid grew more and more agitated, shifting in his seat almost every minute. He played with his fingers, soundlessly bounced his right leg, his jaw began to move as if he wanted to speak.

Which he will. Eventually.

“Aren’t you gonna say something?”

Bingo.

One hour and fifteen minutes. Huh. Not great, not terrible. “Why should I? Do you feel talkative? I’ve heard you didn’t say much in the past three weeks,” he said without looking up.

The kid pressed his mouth into thin line, clenched his jaw and scowled.

Baby steps but hey! It was progress.

“This is annoying,” the kid muttered.

“How so?” He knew very well why. Contrary to popular belief, he knew exactly what he was doing. Well… this time, at least.

“Why are you here?”

The pauses between speaking shortened. Tony shrugged. The kid scoffed.

“I can imagine someone like you surely has something more important to do than to sit here with me and waste time.”

“And you are correct,” Tony replied. He looked up, smiling, “but hanging out with you in this lovely room gives me perfect excuse to not do any actual work. So, thanks, you’re a lifesaver.”

The kid’s frown grew.

“Oh my God, just get on with it!” the kid shouted, the movement of his shoulders and the clang of the chains indicating that he wanted to throw his arms up in frustration.

Tony ignored him, which fueled the kid’s frustration more. Good. Frustration led to anger, and angry person is more likely to spill something without thinking.

“Why don’t you just get Black Widow down here if you’re not going to ask anything? You clearly have no idea what to do. She will know, she was an assassin after all. Still doesn’t mean her methods will work though.”

Now this got Tony’s attention. “What do you mean?” he asked as he set the Starkpad down on the table.

And there was the kid, scoffing again. He sure did that a lot. It was… actually kinda nice to see that there was a normal teenage attitude underneath that villain layer. “Come on, do you think I don’t know how this works? You’ll keep trying to make me talk, nicely first, but you’ll get tired of it eventually,” the kid leaned forward, his voice lowering with the next words. “And that’s when you go for different approach to get what you want.”

Tony’s brain screeched to halt. There was no time to school his expression back into neutral one fast enough; the kid already noticed, pleased smile spreading across his face. Like he just got it confirmed that he was right.

“What?” Tony managed to somehow say out loud, the task of forcing out the single word around the lump in his throat nearly impossible.

The kid rolled his eyes and leaned back into the chair. “Don’t play dumb.”

“No, seriously, I think I just misheard you.” This time, it was Tony’s turn to lean forward as he tapped his ear. “Because that sounded like an implication that we’re about to torture you for information.”

“And you won’t?” the kid asked, obviously not believing him.

“No! Geez, we’re heroes. We don’t do shit like that!”

“Everyone gets tired of the nice act over time. It’s practically human nature. You might as well get on with it,” he said matter-of-factly, waving his hand as much as the chain would allow. “It won’t work anyway. I’m trained.”

The way the kid seemed to treat it like some everyday annoyance made Tony sick to his stomach. Just what kind of environment did he grew up in? Tony could imagine only one way how one could be taught how to resist physical torture.

“Okay, hold on. Let me get this straight – you’re saying that you’re trained to resist torture.”

“Yes.”

“I assume your parents trained you?”

The boy in front of him smirked. Nobody should look that proud about something like that. “Kid… that’s called abuse,” Tony said carefully.

“Jesus Christ, Tones, what the hell did you hit him with?”

“I- just a sonic blast. I had no idea he would react like this. It was supposed to daze him, not make him bleed.”

Now it all made sense. The kid was clearly in incredible pain from the sonic blast, and yet he barely made a sound. No screaming in agony, just choked grunting and panting.

Tony’s had his fair share of torture. First in Afghanistan, then when he returned and his arc reactor was ripped from his chest and then several times he’s been captured since the beginning of his hero career. That didn’t mean he was used to it. And this kid had it done to him by his own parents.

The thought of Obadiah, someone he trusted, torturing him directly while saying it was for his own good was enough to cause his anxiety rise.

Dread began to seep into his body with a sudden yet simple realization; Tony’s been hurt so much, been through so much, it was a wonder he didn’t turn to villainy. He had the perfect set up. It would have been so simple to choose to do harm with his tech instead of good.

For a moment, he saw himself sitting in the kid’s place.

The two of them were so similar, yet so different.

“Abuse?” The kid snorted. “Yeah, right. Me. Abused.”

Tony sighed. “Kid, I don’t know what kind of life you’ve been living, but hurting their own children is not something normal parents do. At least the loving ones.”

That statement set off an unforeseen reaction. The kid puffed out his chest, anger dusting his cheeks with red. “They care about me,” he hissed, “and they’ll come for me any day now.”

“Same as they came for you in the past three weeks?” Tony snapped without meaning to.

The kid didn’t have an answer to that. Instead, he glared down at the table. The sight sent a painful pang into Tony’s heart.

“I believe it’s been enough for today,” he said, the softness in his voice surprising him. “Come on.”

Surprises kept on coming because the kid went without any resistance. Tony half hoped that since he didn’t call anybody to help escort the young villain, but there was none. The kid kept his head down, unreadable expression on his face all the way until they got to the cell. Then he just stood in the middle of the room without doing anything.

Tony turned to leave.

“Peter.”

The word – spoken so silently Tony would have thought he had imagined it – made him stop just before he could fully close the door. “Come again?”

“Peter,” the kid said louder, still not facing him.

“Peter…” Tony repeated, drawling the word in clear way that he was waiting for more. For a moment, he expected the kid to remain silent, that he already said enough, but then-

“Parker.”

Tony smiled softly at the kid’s back. “Nice to meet you, Peter Parker.” This time the kid, Peter, didn’t reply. Tony took it as a cue to leave. “See you later, kid,” he said and closed the door behind him with a soft click.

Tony, sprawled across the couch with his hands behind his head, grinned at his shocked teammates. “Yep,” he said, popping the p and doing his best to shove the other horrific revelation to the back of his mind. That can of worms could be opened later. “You heard that correctly. I got the kid’s name.”

“Well?” Sam gestured with his hand for him to spill already.

“His name is Peter.”

“What?!” Clint called out.

Natasha sighed. “Clint—”

“No, don’t take me wrong, but really? Peter?” the archer threw up his arms. “I read that name in five different lists. Five!Nameberry was my best friend for the past three weeks. I already started with lists of names from different countries. So far I went through German names, all Scandinavian names and I was about to move to Slavic—” Clint suddenly cut himself off, sat down and buried his face in his hands. “How did you managed to get a name out of him in only one session?”

The question came out more like a whine.

Tony shrugged. “Maybe I just know how to talk to him better.” And maybe he said nothing at all, but nobody had to know that. “But hey, if it makes you feel any better, I think you already cracked him. Like that technique where CIA plays the same song over and over again and then you start skipping the parts, kicking the brain into overdrive.”

“All right, but did you get his last name too?” Steve asked.

“Oh yeah!” Tony said, snapping his fingers. “Parker.”

“I read that one too.”

“Oh, hush.”

Rhodey nodded to himself. “So, Peter Parker, huh?” he hummed to himself.

Bucky stiffened.

Sam’s brow furrowed. “What’s up?”

Bucky remained silent, staring at the wall with wide eyes, but seeing right through it.

Steve leaned closer, gently nudging his friend. “Buck?” he asked softly. “You know something, don’t you?”

“He was supposed to be dead,” Bucky replied as if he was in dream-like state. “All three of them were all supposed to be dead.”

“Okay, Barnes, that’s freaky,” Tony said. “You clearly know him.”

Bucky nodded. He swallowed thickly, then again when the lump in his throat refused to go away.

“Take it easy. Deep breaths,” Steve coaxed.

It took a minute, but eventually the man pulled himself together with one last inhale, his features set in determination. “About ten years ago, Hydra was working on one project. They were trying to recreate supersoldier serum, but with countless failures before, they decided to try something different.”

The room was completely silent, everyone listening to the story in interest.

“Cross-species genetics.”

“What species?” Steve asked.

Bucky looked Steve in the eye. “Spiders.”

“That would explain the powers,” Natasha muttered under her breath.

“Anyway,” Barnes continued, “Parkers, Richard and Mary, they showed up at the base one day to help with the research. But they didn’t come alone.”

The atmosphere in the room thickened.

“They had this little kid with them. A little boy with brown eyes and brown curly hair. He couldn’t be older than three.”

Even if it was expected, it didn’t make the revelation any easier. They all saw how Barnes started to behave when his time as the Winter Soldier came to haunt him.

Clint‘s face twisted into horrified grimace. Sam looked on the floor with somber look. Natasha, though her face betrayed nothing, slightly shifted on her feet. Steve’s chest rose with soundless inhale, his eyes closing.

Tony’s jaw set, anger burning in his chest. Another horror the kid went through.

Bucky let out pained chuckle, shaking his head in almost manic way. “I guess they wanted to start young since the previous test subjects, adults, all failed. They succeeded. And then… Parkers just disappeared a few days later, along with Hydra’s biggest success since me. They sent me after them.”

“I remember all of them.”

Those words spoken in Siberia echoed in Tony’s mind. In the end, the whole situation got resolved with words before anyone could get seriously hurt, but the bunker was completely trashed. To say that Tony had been angry would be an understatement. He’d been downright livid. It’d been a long couple of days, and with Ross breathing down his neck, that damn airport fight, Rhodey… it was a miracle he’d stopped himself before killing either Barnes or Rogers.

The relationship between him and Barnes was still strained though. The same went for his relationship with Steve. Luckily, both of them knew to give Tony space and not to push him.

“No survivors. That were the orders.” Bucky let out humorless laugh. “I tracked them down to this airport and… I brought the plane down. The wreckage wasn’t a pretty sight. Literal chunks of that plane were never found, same with the bodies. Hydra found traces of human blood, their blood, where the wing used to be, so they were satisfied.”

“They didn’t want Peter back alive? As much as I hate to say it, he was what they wanted,” Steve said.

“I agree with Spangles,” Tony nodded. “Seems pretty counterproductive.” Jeez, there was already a lot to unpack, but Tony would rather throw the whole suitcase away at this point.

“Hydra thought that since they were successful with Peter, the process could be easily recreated. Little did they know that the kid’s parents destroyed every single file that had anything to do with the experiment.”

“I can imagine they were pretty pissed.”

Bucky smiled at the memory. “They were furious. Several search parties were sent out in an attempt to find Peter’s body. Obviously, the search proved to be fruitless.”

“The question is,” Rhodey said, “what do we do now?”

Tony was expecting more heavy silence. He didn’t expect Steve to speak.

“Fury called and asked about our progress. He said he will take Peter into Shield’s custody. I think it will be for the best.”

“Wait, wait, wait,” Tony stood up abruptly, “you want to send him away?”

“Tony,” Steve sighed like he was expecting the protest. “He’s a villain.”

“He’s a child!”

“He’s also product of Hydra,” Steve countered.

Clint frowned. “Steve, he’s—"

“Stark—” Sam joined in as well and all of a sudden the whole room was buzzing with words, everyone talking over everyone.

“Do you know what he said to me during our session?” Tony raised his voice and gestured to the vague direction of the kid’s cell. The room fell silent. “He downright admitted to being trained to withstand torture. You can make a pretty good fucking guess on who trainedhim. I told him that it was not okay, but he saw nothing wrong with it!”

Tony chest rose and fell with each heavy breath. “So yeah, he might be a villain and a product of Hydra, but he is also a kid who doesn’t know any better!”

Steve looked at him with genuine pity. “Tony, I still think Fury—”

“Two weeks,” Tony rushed out. “Give me two weeks to try and show the kid how normal is supposed to look like. If he doesn’t show any redeeming quality, then… then Fury can come and take him.”

Tony knew two weeks weren’t nearly enough to make someone have a change of heart, but he’ll be damned if he didn’t try. He was a mechanic. He fixed things. And he will try to fix this kid that probably knew nothing but pain his whole life. There was no space for mess-ups. Not this time.

And… he might be a mess when it came to emotion, but maybe that’s exactly what the situation called for.

“I say let’s give him a chance.”

Despite how softly the words were spoken, they felt almost deafening in the quiet room. Tony was surprised by his unlikely ally, but assumed it made sense.

“Buck?” Steve asked carefully.

“I was a product of Hydra too and I was there way longer that Peter. You gave me a chance. I say he deserves the same,” Bucky said, determined.

“I second this,” Clint stood up. “No kid deserves to live like that.”

“If Barnes and I could change, then so can he,” Natasha said.

“They’re right,” Sam said and soon everyone was on Tony’s side.

Steve’s eyes roamed over the group, each person determined to spark the change in Peter. To help him.

“Fine,” Steve relented. “Two weeks.”

“Thank you,” Tony said gratefully.

“So, do you have anything specific in mind? When do we start?” Rhodey asked.

Tony smiled. “Right now.”

#marvel fanfiction #peter parker #tony stark #villain peter #villain peter parker #irondad #spiderson #irondad and spiderson #villainous july 2021 #the avengers #protective tony stark #tony stark has a heart #peter parker needs a hug #tw past abuse

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where-dreamers-go · 5 years ago

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“Literature And Conspiracies” Riley Poole x Reader

(A/N: Anon asked: “I’d love a Riley Poole x reader where she’s a professor of literature and Ben and Abigail set them up when he wants to do research for his book” -&

Not entirely sure if this was what you had in mind, but I hope it’s entertaining.

Word Count: 2,864)

“Riley seems a bit stressed lately,” Abigail spoke.

Abigail and Ben were enjoying a dinner at home surrounded by their love of history. History that took over the house from the floor to the ceiling.

“It’s his book he’s planning. Well…writing.” Ben took a sip of his drink. “He knows what he wants to write about, but he needs to find the right sources, set it in a proper format and….I might know someone that can help. I can send her an e-mail.”

“She?” Abigail quirked an eyebrow.

“I met her at the (__) lecture last week. She’s a professor of literature.”

“Oh. Do you think she’d be willing to help Riley? Professors have their own research to do, Ben.”

“I know, I know. Although, she seemed nice….in a friendly normal way.” He gave his thoughts aloud. “Riley shouldn’t be too distracted.”

Abigail rose her eyebrows with a smirk.

. . .

“Awh, come on, Riley. They already answered back and they’d be happy to help you.”

“Ben, you didn’t think to ask me first before you made an appointment at some school?” Riley rolled a pencil across the table between them. Books stacked haphazardly across the surface.

“The thought did occur.”

“Ben. I can find someone or…search online how to format my book. It’s what that professor will probably scold me about when I get there.”

“No. I already said they’re nice.” Ben watched as Riley moved aside another book. “Her name’s (Y/N) (Y/L/N).”

Thump

Ben smiled triumphantly.

. . .

You deleted another e-mail as you sat behind your desk. Filling any minute of free time with small tasks was skill you’d acquired through many years in school. Although having your own office was definitely a perk in its own right.

Knock knock

“Come in,” you called and closed out of the Internet browser.

“Hello.”

In walked a brunette man in a dark navy jacket and backpack straps visible over his shoulders.

“Hello,” you stood from your seat and extended your hand. “I’m (Y/N) (Y/L/N). You must be…”

“Riley,” he grasped your hand in a light shake. “Uh. Riley Poole.” He released your hand and shrugged off his backpack before sitting down.

You returned to your seat.

“Nice to meet you, Mister Poole. I understand from your friend’s e-mails that you’re writing your first book.”

“Yeah—yes, I am.” His throat bobbed as he swallowed.

“That’s exciting,” you smiled. “Are there any questions you might have? Regarding research and sources, perhaps?”

“Ye—…a lot actually.”

“Oh, well in that case, let’s start with the subject of your book. That will help move things forward.”

Mister Poole changed his position on the chair more than once. His eyes looking passed you in an attempt to delay the inevitable. Taking a short breath, he returned his blue-eyed gaze to you.

“Government conspiracies and urban legends.”

Your eyebrows rose at his unexpected response.

Conspiracy theories and urban legends were anything but boring to you. Sure, it wasn’t something you discussed with co-workers. You were a professor of literature for crying out loud, and conspiracy theories were not lighthearted conversations to have while walking into the building in the morning.

“That sounds like a deep subject with many specific ideas to pick out. Most definitely a large subject to write about, that much is certain. It’s brave and intriguing. Especially to anyone interested in theories, urban legends, and history to connect them together.”

“Yes…exactly.” He straightened up and gauged your expression. “You’re not…making fun of it…?”

“No, not at all, Mister Poole. Every writer has their own right in what to have in their work. Added that both legends and conspiracy theories are quite intriguing in their own rights. I, myself, enjoy the more ancient theories in the world.”

“Oh. Okay then.” Riley seemed genuinely surprised and more relaxed by your reaction.

You smiled at him.

The following minutes ticked by without the attention of you nor Mister Riley Poole. Time was spent talking, discussing, giving him suggestions, suggested websites, and a library nearby with good resources. All the while, he took notes and you two shared knowledge on theories, if only partially. It was easy to talk with him. Fun even.

When your eyes happened to check the time on the clock, you realized you needed to grab your things and head over to teach a class soon. Extremely soon.

“Shoot,” you muttered under your breath.

“Hmm?” Mister Poole glanced up from his notes.

“I have a class in seven minutes.” You started shutting down your computer and reached over for your bag. “It was a delight to speak with you today. I’m glad we had a chance to meet, Mister Poole.”

“It was nice to meet you.”

He gathered all of his belongings and shoved them into his backpack in one go. Standing up, Mister Poole shrugged on his bag.

You stood away from your desk with your bag hanging off of your shoulder.

“If you should need any more assistance with your book,” you plucked a business card off of your desk, “please don’t hesitate to contact me.” Extending your hand, you handed him your card.

He took a glance at it.

“I teach most of the afternoon in either lectures or meetings, however I do get off work after four thirty. Again, please don’t hesitate to contact me,” you smiled.

“Thank you.”

“Not a problem.”

Stepping around the wooden desk, you followed him out of your office.

“I hope to see you again, Mister Poole.” You said as you turned to lock the door.

“Me too.”

His smile was soft and genuine.

. . .

Back home, Riley called his best friend, Ben Gates.

“So, how did everything go?”

“Great actually. Although, you could have mentioned that she was pretty.”

“Now, Riley, why would I do that?”

“Because it would have prepared me to focus more on my notes.”

“You took notes? Good.”

“Ben.” Riley paced around his living space.

“Oh, come on. You can handle being around another person.”

“Yeah, I know that, but I didn’t expect to be telling a cute and smart person what I’m having difficulties with in writing a book about conspiracy theories.”

“So you told her?”

“Yes, she took it really well. I think she was serious. Didn’t bring up Bigfoot or anything like that.”

“That’s good. Did you get all of your questions answered?” Ben asked.

“Pretty much, and she said that if I needed any more help, that I can contact her,” Riley flipped the small business card between his fingers.

“She gave you her number?”

“In case I need more help. Yes. Also that she works basically all day until four thirty.”

“Call her after four thirty,” Abigail’s voice came through the phone.

“Uh, hi,” Riley said and sat onto the couch. “Why?”

“Ask if she is busy after work, but call at four forty, so that way she has some time to herself after leaving work. And you don’t want to seem too desperate.”

“Desperate? What are you two talking about?” Riley spoke louder into the phone. “I can handle writing a book.”

. . .

You sipped from a refreshing drink at a back table at a pizza place just off of the school campus. Surprisingly, Mister Riley Poole had called you a quarter to five and asked if you were busy after work. He was a bit short on words, but he had said he had more questions in regards to gathering proper research for his book.

With no papers to grade and not minding helping him once more, you had accepted.

The pizza place had a slow flow of hungry students and other pizza-lovers. Silverware clinking onto plates and glassware thunking onto the tables.

Hungry as you were to order pizza, you were patient. This was your time off the clock, which gave you breathing room. You were keeping an eye out towards the entrance of the place as you waited for Riley Poole. Hands rubbing together and fiddling around as time ticked away. Although, once your eyes spotted a familiar navy jacket, you figured Riley was not one to be late. That was refreshing.

He walked inside and gave the place a once-over. It took him a few moments to spot you in the back.

Standing up, you waved Riley over after gaining his attention.

The man smiled before weaving through the tables and people to reach you. Lacking his backpack from earlier in the day seemed to have made his task a little easier.

“Hi,” he smiled once more.

“Hi again.”

You both automatically sat down across from one another. The metal chair legs screeching against the flooring.

“How was your day?” You asked.

“Ah—good. Sorting my notes. They were really helpful. You were really helpful.” He cleared his throat. “Thank you.”

“It’s not a problem. Really.”

You looked passed Riley as a server approached your table.

“Hello,” they greeted with a notepad in hand and looked to Riley. “Can I get you anything to drink?”

“Oh, uh—. Water would be fine.”

“Okay.” They scribbled a note down. “And are you two ready to order?”

“Yes.” You and Riley answered simultaneously. It briefly dazed you even as an amused smile curved your lips.

Riley pulled on the trim of his jacket.

The both of you had finished ordering a pizza of your choice. Leading to open conversation as you would wait for dinner.

“Did…did your lectures—class go good?” Riley asked, fingers clasped tightly on the table.

“Yeah, they did. I did two lectures today. Although I did end up going over time—not that the class had ended and I went on and on.” You explained, “I didn’t stop as early as I would have liked. About five minutes before class ends. I like to give my students time to take notes and actually pack their things before they have to head off to another class, get lunch, or…well some have a job too.”

“That’s really considerate. Don’t some teache—professors go until time’s up? Getting all their time in?”

“Some do. I mean the ones I had, but I don’t have to worry about that anymore.” You grinned, a light and relieved feeling in your chest. “I have my own classes and my own way of running a class. Which means I know that students have more than one class and an actual life.”

He sat mirroring your grin. Little crinkles beside his eyes.

“Was becoming a professor your type of rebelling against them?”

You barked a laugh louder than you would have preferred.

“In a way,” you pressed your lips together to hide another grin. “I also give advice sometimes. It’s not exactly what they go in expecting. They…they call it ‘words of wisdom’, but only on Wednesdays. I just….say what actually happens or had happened. They need someone to be real with them. What actually happens in the world outside of school. It’s something I would have really benefited from.”

“Could you give an example?”

“Uh. Maybe something it terms of…Well, let’s say I was telling them to find good sources for a paper. Right? I can’t just say, ‘go forth’, I need to give them a better direction. Where to find it and more importantly why. So I’ll probably go on a mini rant about why finding a source and a reliable one is so important. Telling them how if they were to read someone’s paper to learn something, but then realize that more than half of it was not factual or wasn’t checked properly, that they’d feel cheated. That goes for fiction too, but it needs to have some foundation and have its own rules.”

You took a moment to breath after that half-winded explanation. Looking to the man across from you, he seemed thoroughly interested and not lost from your words. In fact, Riley looked somewhere between amused and impressed.

“Though…um…,” you grabbed your glass, “that’s probably a topic more related to the class. Unlike, where to go have your taxes done.”

“Is that why you have a lecture hall and not a classroom? Like, there’s always a lot of students?”

“A part. Maybe. But being a professor sure helps.” You took a sip of your drink.

“Do you prefer a lot of students—all in one class?” He asked, leaned on the table’s edge.

“More students, more learning, but…I’d really prefer a small class size so that each student had a better opportunity for one-on-ones. But everyone’s rotating between classrooms and lecture halls. I want to help, just that everyone is almost always rushing around the campus needing to do something. Like that of one class that could not wait for someone to calmly leave another.” You exhaled, “the class I teach is generalized and therefore made into a lecture hall style.”

“That su—.”

“Here you go,” the server returned and gave Riley the drink he ordered. After a short moment, they left the table once more.

“So,” you started, “what about you? Anything you’re glad changed in your life?”

His dark eyebrows rose as he took a long drink of the water.

“…Too personal?” You asked.

“No,” he coughed. “No, I..uh..I actually…well let’s just say I was stuck in a cubicle for a while.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah, no, it’s better now. Great actually. Who knew treasure hunting with my best friend would work out in the long run.” He offered a smile.

Ah, he must mean the Templar’s treasure, you thought. He hadn’t brought that up at the meeting earlier. Not the bragging type. Cool.

You had already met Ben Gates, Riley Poole’s best friend, the week prior at a lecture. Therefore, you knew that Riley was involved with finding the treasure, but that wasn’t something you were going to bring up in conversation out of the blue nor during a meeting to help him know where to source proper research. It would have been really odd and unprofessional if you did.

“Is the Templar’s treasure something you’ll put into your book?” You asked.

Riley’s eyes widened only for a second before answering, “I will. It’s a large historical find.”

“Added that the treasure is something a lot of people are still talking about. I’m sure it’ll be studied and talked about for years. So…maybe being the first to write about it will be really good. Get your foot already in the door.”

“Exactly.”

There was something endearing about how he talked about his future book. The hint of joy and deep knowledge in his eyes.

“So…may I ask what happened? I mean, I’ve read the articles and I talked briefly with Mister Gates, but was it really like a movie? Adventure, clues, and danger?”

His fingers played against his glass of water as he sat up straighter.

“There were definitely a lot of clues. That’s all we started with, finding the Charlotte, but then Ben and I were running between staying alive and getting to the Declaration of Independence. Our main…objective was to save the Declaration of Independence. We couldn’t let Ia—the other people harm the Declaration, looking the next clues on the back.”

“On the back of the Declaration? Huh…You never know I guess.”

Your attention veered over as the waiter arrived with a tray of pizza.

“It’s hot,” they warned. They set the silver tray on the table’s end before walking off again.

Like the two hungry adults that you were, you each grabbed your own slice.

Once yours was on your plate, you dabbed the pizza at least three times with napkins. You ordered pizza, not grease.

About a minute of salivating into your meal later, you continued into a conversation with Riley.

“At least everything worked out in the end.”

“Huh?” He looked up from taking a bite of pizza.

“With the Templar’s treasure. You were all okay.”

“Oh, yeah. Thank goodness for stairs and not being charged for anything was nice. That would had been great.” He made a face looking elsewhere before taking another bite of pizza.

This Riley Poole appeared to be quite the sarcastic, smart, funny, and not to miss acknowledging his seemingly random knowledge about topics. You were starting to think that if you spent anymore time with him, that you’d like him in a different way.

Kindly, you pushed the small stack of napkins in his direction.

He smiled. Then the pizza slice broke away from the crust and dropped to the plate. He made an unamused sound in his throat.

Nevermind. That boat had set sail.

You took a long sip of your drink.

“You can call me, (Y/N). This isn’t exactly a strict setting,” you said, breaking through the calm quiet that fell between you.

. . .

“So…I just realized something.”

“What?” He asked.

“We never spoke about resources or anything,” you mused with a smile.

“Oh.” His shoulders fell two inches along with his happy grin.

You laughed at the genuine realization on his face.

“Maybe we can…?” He scratched behind his neck.

“Try this again?”

“Yeah.”

“I’d like that.”

~~~

(If you love my writings and want to support me, I have a Ko-Fi where you can buy me a coffee. I would be eternally grateful. coffee

Best wishes and happy reading.)

#Riley Poole #Riley Poole x Reader #riley poole imagine #riley poole imagines #riley poole fanfiction #national treasure #National treasure fanfiction #where dreamers go #requested

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galactic-magick · 5 years ago

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Together: Quentin Beck/Mysterio x Reader Pt. 1

Rating: T

Words: 700+

Warnings: SPOILERS FOR FAR FROM HOME!!!

Summary: You were one of Quentin Beck’s co-workers at Stark Industries. You continue what you started together, using your technology to its full potential and being madly in love at the same time.

Author’s Notes: I wrote a story a while ago that switched between flashbacks and present day and I actually really enjoyed the format, so this story is kinda like that. Flashbacks are in italics. Also, I’m 100% no-going-back Mysterio trash. I absolutely hate what he put Peter through but I was just swooning so much in the theater over him… Anyway, hope you enjoy!

“I can’t believe he fired me!” your boyfriend, Quentin Beck shouted.

“He fired you?” you responded, incredibly confused. Quentin was probably the most gifted genius at Stark Industries, what kind of an idiot would fire someone like him? The two of you worked on many of the same projects, including hologram technology. Stark loved it so much that he wanted to use it for a presentation, you honestly thought everything was going really well.

“And he’ll probably kick you off the project too,”

“Why? What did we do?” he sat next to you on the couch, lightly brushing your hand.

“Stark doesn’t like the way we want to use the holograms, he thinks they shouldn’t be weaponized. I told him how ridiculous that was, I mean, you know how much our technology could do, yet he just wants to use it for simple therapy?!” he sighed, trying not to get too angry. “Then he fired me. He wouldn’t even let me take all my research, he just kicked me out,”

“We’ll get it back,” you reassured him, stroking his hair and running your fingers down his face and neck. “And we’ll show Tony Stark what we can do,” he smirked at that comment, finding you more attractive in that moment than he ever had in his life.

“You know what you’re going to say?” you ask Quentin, now your husband. You brush off his new suit, a perfect replica of the one in the projections.

“Ah yes, I’m from an alternate Earth, where there’s big scary monsters that will destroy this one, blah, blah, blah,” he chuckles. “People are generally very gullible, it won’t be too difficult to get them to trust me. I’ll just win them over with my charm,” he winks at you, making you blush.

“Well, you certainly won me over,” you grab the fabric of his cape and kiss him.

“I love you,” he exhales into your mouth. “I wouldn’t have been able to do all this without you,”

“We did it together,” you say.

“Yes,” he stares hungrily into your eyes, unable to concentrate on anything else. You’re everything to him.

He gives you one last kiss, maybe two, or three, before he leaves to get in position. He cups your face in his hands, devouring your lips tenderly. Damn, he loves you.

You didn’t waste any time organizing the new plan. As long as you were technically still an employee at Stark Industries, you were still able to get in whenever you wanted. So that’s exactly what you did.

It was after hours, and most people had left. You snuck Quentin into your formerly shared office so you could get everything out easier and faster.

“I’ll download everything from the computers, you take all the prototypes to the car,” you told him, immediately getting to work on finding every single file. You plugged a flashdrive into the side and downloaded every bit of research and models you had, twice. You couldn’t risk losing this battle, you needed to win, to make Stark pay.

Within an hour, the office was empty, and you were back in the car, ready for anything.

“Y/N, this isn’t going to be easy,” he caressed your cheek with one hand, and intertwined his fingers with yours with the other. “Stark’s going to find out what we did, he’ll come after us if we don’t run,”

“Then we’ll run,”

The plan worked perfectly. Quentin convinced Nick Fury and Maria Hill in no time at all, and was even invited to their base. You stayed back, as to not mess up the “my whole family died” charade. Your job now is to oversee your team until the next attack happens. You double check everything, making sure the next few monsters are flawless and completely foolproof, and of course they are.

Your phone lights up with your handsome husband’s face.

“Hi honey,” even after years of being together, his voice still makes your heart flutter.

“Hey, how’s it going over there?”

“Great! They still don’t suspect a thing, and they’re planning on bringing in Spider-Man,”

“Spider-Man? Seriously?”

“They want him to help me defeat the next elemental. He’s currently on a school trip in Italy,”

“Perfect,”

#far from home spoilers #quentin beck #mysterio #quentin beck x reader #mysterio x reader #jake gyllenhaal

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the-marius-de-romanus · 5 years ago

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Conversation with Anne Rice on Blood and Gold

Q: Blood & Gold is your eighteenth novel about the vampires. Do you find it difficult to work within the narrative framework established by earlier stories?

A: Actually, it's a challenge, a real dare. The Vampire Chronicles vary radically in form. Some are tales told to others. Some are written memoirs. Some involve vampires talking directly to us. I feel there is enough flexibility for me to do just about anything that I want. In Queen of the Damned, for example, I worked with whole chapters in the third person, claiming that the Vampire Lestat received the material telepathically from his soul mates and passed it on to us in that form. But for the most part I stick with the heat and intimacy of the first person voice because I love it, along with its obvious drawbacks, and I feel most at home with the puzzles it presents. How do you make a first person narrator handsome and lovable, for instance. I feel I meet that dare all the time.

Q: Do you view your novels as stand alone entities? Will new readers enjoy Blood & Gold even if they are not familiar with your backlist?

A: Absolutely. Each Vampire Chronicle is a stand-alone book. There is enough information in it to make any first-time reader comfortable immediately, and perhaps a little curious about the other books. Blood & Gold is no exception. If anything, Blood & Gold is a bit easier for the first-time reader than, say, The Vampire Armand because Marius is two thousand years old and he begins his memoir in the year 200 AD and follows his own lonely and stark path through the centuries. His great loves, his great losses, his great revelations are all described in rich detail, right up to the point where he becomes the mentor to the Vampire Lestat, sharing the secrets of Those Who Must Be Kept with Lestat, and eventually suffering when Lestat reveals those secrets to the world. But for the new reader it ought to flow easily. The focus is really on Marius himself and his approach to history as well as his existence as a blood drinker and a myth maker.

Q: Marius, Lestat's beloved mentor, appears in your novels The Vampire Lestat, The Vampire Armand, and The Queen of the Damned. What inspired you to write his story?

A: I was reading through The Queen of the Damned and I felt a new contact with Marius and with the anger he suffered when Akasha, the Queen of the Vampires, rose from her four thousand year slumber and more or less contemptuously deserted him. I felt it was time to go deep into Marius and tell his tale from the beginning?omehow explain the type of love he had felt for Akasha which was really warmer than worship. I knew it would be difficult to live up to the high standard I had set for Marius' character in the Chronicles and I was exhilarated by it. Marius is the noble Roman, the ethical man of reason, the diplomat, and the undying optimist. I had to get into all that. I felt ready for it. Also, I think I felt challenged by the fact that Warner's was making The Queen of the Damned into a movie. I wanted to tell Marius' story before they delivered their version of Marius to motion picture audiences. No matter how detached I try to be from motion pictures of my work, they ultimately affect me.

Q: Marius lives through many periods and in many countries. Which era of Marius' life did you find most seductive? Which did you most enjoy researching?

A: The Italian Renaissance was my favorite period of Marius' life, a time during which Marius became a person in the mortal world, a rich Venetian gentleman who paints the walls of his palazzo for his own pleasure, an enigma to those around him. I did a ton of research on the period to make everything as nearly correct as I could. I also enjoyed researching ancient Rome, the Rome of 200 to 50 AD, during which time Marius saw Christianity become the legal religion of the Empire, and also the barbarian sack of the Eternal City itself, a disaster that sent Marius into a long slumber in the shrine of Those Who Must Be Kept from which he didn't want to wake again to reality. There again, I consult volumes. I had so many books around me when I wrote that sometimes I couldn't escape from my computer. I had to climb over piles of books. I was stumbling. One day I called my research assistant, Scott, on the phone and begged him to come upstairs and help me find a book that was somewhere at my feet but which I couldn't find without an archaeological dig. Of course it was all wonderful fun. I want my vampires to move through real history, not some airy realm of half-truths and mistakes and vague generalities. I want the facts, the smells, the colors, the names, and the dates. When Marius meets Botticelli in Florence, I used Botticelli's correct street address in so as far as history records it.

Q: In Blood & Gold, Marius paints and repaints murals, and his companion Daniel, the interviewer from Interview with the Vampire, creates acres of model cities. What is the role of art in the lives of vampires?

A: Vampires are hyper-sensitive to art. They see color and form with the heightened vision of the perpetually stoned. Art can seduce them as the model cities have seduced the boy, Daniel, who doesn't know yet how to handle his obsessions. Art can also save them because it offers a continuity that life itself may not offer to a human being. As time passes, brutally deteriorating everything meaningful to a soul, art endures, and grows ever richer and more evocative with the passage of time, so that it comes to seem prophetic in retrospect, or at least timeless in the finest sense of the word. Throughout the Vampire Chronicles, art has been key. But Marius laments that though he has lived fourteen hundred years, he cannot create art to rival that of Botticelli. He falls in love with the man and must separate himself from the man lest he hurt Botticelli and thereby affect Botticelli's destiny. Maharet, the ancient one, weaving her red hair into a thread and that thread into chains, is in a sort of thrall as well, much like that of Daniel with his model cities. Weaving comforts Maharet. Marius at various stages in his long life is comforted by nothing.

Q: How does humor work in your narratives?

A: Humor is spontaneous with me. It just happens and I don't try to repress it. I have a wild sense of humor and sometimes I have to avoid the satirical side of what I am writing. I have to not sacrifice the finer feeling to the humor of the moment. But in general I let my humor come out with certain characters more than other. Lestat, for example, has a profound sense of humor and a blasphemous sense of humor. Marius is more serious, and more tragic.

Q: Marius believes that anger is weakness. Do you believe this?

A: Yes, I believe that anger is weakness. Marius is one of those characters who for the most part expresses ideas which are mine. I couldn't have an in-depth relationship with Marius if he didn't express my ideas, and I do feel that anger distorts, weakens, and warps. You have to reach beyond anger for a finer sense of a situation before you respond, or make a move. Marius has a terrible temper and so do I. Marius ruins two moments of his life with anger, and possibly even more. But I don't want to give away the plot.

Q: Memory is crucial for vampires, who are immortal. How is memory important for us mortals?

A: Memory is essential to the attaining of wisdom. There is no wisdom without memory, because there can be no perspective and no deep learning without memory. One has to profit by experience and observation in order to become wise, and memory is the keeper of all fine experiences and observations, memory is the index, the table of contents, the full library. Without memory, one runs the risk of being simplistic and flippant.

Q: Can you give us an update on the progress of film and television projects of your work?

A: For once, there is much to report. A mini-series based on The Feast of All Saints will appear on Showtime in November. After that it will appear on ABC. It will be four hours, and spread over two nights. I've seen it and I think it's lush and sensuous and very faithful to the book, and that readers will love it. It's top notch, and Showtime has spared no expense. I visited the set when they were shooting. I was rocked. John Wilder, the scriptwriter and executive producer, did a fantastic job of adapting the book to the four-hour format.

The Queen of the Damned, a feature film based on The Queen of the Damned and The Vampire Lestat, is scheduled for release by Warner Brothers on February 15, 2002. I have not seen it, but it does seem to be engendering considerable excitement. Stuart Townsend, the young Englishman who plays Lestat, is very appealing and a very fine actor. There are other impressive names in the cast.

We are presently in negotiations with regard to "Earth Angels," a new series that we are developing for television, about a group of big-city based angels who work undercover on earth to fight supernatural evil in all its forms. The series is based on an original concept created by me. I'm extremely excited about it.

We're also in negotiations with a producer and a network with regard to making a long miniseries out of The Witching Hour, Lasher, and Taltos. The present discussion involves a plan for 12 hours of TV time. I'm very excited here as well. I like everyone as well, and want for John Wilder to do the script. I feel that after what he did with The Feast of All Saints, he can do a bang-up job.

I'm also happy to report that Ramses the Damned (The Mummy) is also in development. It's owned by James Cameron, and a new screenwriter was recently hired. I've spoken with her and found her pleasant. Again, I've got high hopes.

#anne rice #vampire chronicles #justmariusstuff #marius de romanus #mariusderomanus-rp-help

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picturebookmakers · 5 years ago

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ATAK

In this post, ATAK talks about his fascinating creation process and he shares illustrations and development work from some of his wonderful books – including sketchbook pages for his forthcoming picturebook ‘Piraten im Garten’, which is due to be published in 2020.

Visit ATAK’s website

ATAK: My process is like hip-hop. Mixing and sampling.

I have a big box where I put material that I’ve found on the street or in magazines. Then in the summer, when I’m sitting in the summer house, I stick everything into sketchbooks.

These are important books for me. I often use them when I’m looking for an idea. I like to make connections between this and that.

Sometimes I steal things. Here’s an example of where I used a painting by Caspar David Friedrich in one of my images. This is a very important painting for the German culture; it’s romantic. It’s the first painting that’s like a window. You see with him and you’re led into the picture.

‘Wanderer above the Sea of Fog’, Caspar David Friedrich, 1818.

When I take something to use in my own work, it’s more about the idea of composition and atmosphere. It’s not just a reference that people will know.

This is the sketchbook for my picturebook ‘Topsy Turvy World’. The publisher asked me for a book for children, and as I was tired of working with long texts, I thought this one should be a wordless book, where the images tell the whole story.

We have a German tradition from the 18th century of ‘bilderbogen’. This is like the origin of comics. They’re one-page stories. I was looking at some of these and I found some interesting ideas for ‘Topsy Turvy World’.

Here are some pages from the sketchbook.

Not everything made it into the final book; some of it was too heavy for my publisher, so he kicked it out. The smoking people had to go, otherwise we couldn’t have sold the rights in America.

Then there was a problem... My sketches had a lot of life and were fully-worked, so to transform them into the final artwork was very hard. After the rough version, I had this feeling that I was already finished with the book. Making the final ‘clean’ artwork felt like a kind of discipline.

My original paintings are always much bigger than they appear in the books. I never work to the correct size or format.

I often sell my paintings, but here is one I’ll never sell. It was done for the first children’s book I made, called ‘Comment la mort est revenue à la vie’ (How death came back to life), written by Muriel Bloch and published by Thierry Magnier.

It’s an important painting for me. I came from the comic world – black and white graphics – where I would draw out the whole scenes with all the details. In the middle of working on this painting, I had to go out to buy some food, and then I came back and thought, “Oh, it’s enough.” There’s a big difference when you work with colour. It’s like a sound, like a kind of music. This painting was very important for me in understanding colour.

Before I start working on an image, I often have a rough idea of what’s going to happen in the scene, but I leave a lot of space for other things to come in... And when I’ve started to work, I might see something in my studio or in a book, and it goes into the image.

I like this open process. And I like to be surprised. It’s very important for me that I don’t know in the beginning exactly what’s going to happen.

My way of painting is very old school. Traditional. Sometimes I paint over the top of something and you can see the trace of it behind. You can’t really fake things like this on the computer. For me, my original artwork is more important than the finished book. I once had an interesting discussion about this with Blexbolex. It’s completely the opposite for him: he sees his books as being the original artwork.

After ‘Topsy Turvy World’, I made a book called ‘The Garden’.

The original German edition was almost like a book for bourgeoise women... But for the French edition, they reimagined it for kids. It’s much bigger; you can really go inside. And the French publisher asked me to make some flaps to open up on the pages, which were not there in the original edition.

The sketches for ‘The Garden’ are almost nothing. It was very important that I didn’t repeat the process of ‘Topsy Turvy World’, where the sketches were very close to the finished artwork. I couldn’t work like this again. So the sketches here are very loose, but I knew exactly what was supposed to be in the pictures.

Working like this, you must have a very strong relationship with the publisher – one of absolute trust. I also have big problems with deadlines; I’m always late. With this book, my publisher Antje Kunstmann was so good. She phoned me every morning: “Hallo, here is Antje!” It was so important to know she was there, almost like a mother. It was a similar story with Wolf Erlbruch and his book ‘Duck, Death and the Tulip’. He was working for four years on this book. In the end, Antje came to his home and was waiting on his sofa for two days to take the last drawing!

The latest children’s book I made is called ‘Martha’.

I started working on it after reading an article in National Geographic about the passenger pigeon. I was fascinated. Because it’s a real story, it was not easy for me to make this book. It’s easier when I’m given a text because I have more distance.

Again, I worked very loosely in my sketchbook. These sketches are just indications – so I know something is here or somebody is there. It does help me that things are more open.

I don’t have sketchbooks where I draw from reality. I’m not good at this. You’ll never find me sitting in a crowd, making sketches. I watch and I observe instead. And I have books where I write ideas or note down interesting forms and shapes that I see.

Here are some pictures from ‘Martha’.

And here’s an idea for the dust jacket, where the kids could cut and draw on the paper, and make origami out of it to give a kind of rebirth. Martha is gone, but maybe she’s not gone if the kids could bring her back. The publisher didn’t go for this idea.

I went to art school but never finished. Just after the Berlin Wall came down, I was studying visual communication. There wasn’t a good atmosphere at my art school. I wanted to find like-minded people and work as a team, but it felt like most of the students were only interested in being artists, but not in working together. Then my daughter was born, and I never finished art school.

I’m now teaching art as a professor. The other teachers have diplomas, and I feel like I’ve come from the working class. I do like intellectual work, but when I work with students, I want to see something. I can only talk about what I see. I need it very visual. It has to catch me.

From when I was nine years old, I wanted to be an illustrator. In east Germany, illustration was a part of publishing. All the novels had illustration. It’s still unique now to see this, but in east Germany it was normal... So my plan was always to be an illustrator. This way I could wake up when I wanted, have no boss, listen to my music all day, and make my own work.

Speaking of music... The type of music I listen to when I work depends on the specifics of the book. For example, I made a book for Nobrow called ‘Ada’ (from a word portrait by Gertrude Stein). The idea for the artwork was to make handmade pixels, so I listened to a lot of electronic music; ping–ping–ping! It’s about energies. And for me, the music is also very important because I travel a lot and it can be hard to come back to your work – but when I listen to the music, immediately I’m back in the project, in the zone. It’s all connected – the music with the book.

Here’s my playlist for ‘Martha’.

Distortions – Clinic Go – Sparklehorse & The Flaming Lips VCR – The XX Song For A Warrior – Swans Avril 14th – Aphex Twin Quiet Music – Nico Muhly First Song For B – Devendra Banhart Last Song For B – Devendra Banhart How Can You Mend A Broken Heart? – Al Green Ash Black Veil – Apparat I Know They Say – Spectrum Opus 55 – Dustin O’Halloran Lost Fur – Karen O & The Kids Unfinished Business – The Go-Betweens Sometimes – My Bloody Valentine Lies – Sin Fang Bous Debussy: Suite Bergamasque, L 75 - Clair De Lune – Alexis Weissenberg Nimrod (Adagio) – David Hirschfelder Atmosphere – Joy Division Still Life – Elliot Goldenthal The Lake – Antony & The Jonhsons Flying Birds – RZA

I used to make hardcore comics with friends. This was our first, which we made before the wall came down. My work has changed completely. I can’t understand this now; it’s like another man made it! And they are not funny. It’s a very small humour; you really have to look for it.

Then, after my daughter was born, I did my own comic series called ‘Wondertüte’. In the comic scene, everybody told me that this wasn’t a comic. But for me, it was totally a comic. I liked the comic medium, but I didn’t see why there had to be only one way. From all my old comics, this is the one I like the most.

The idea comes from the ‘learn English’ books we had in school. It’s a bit like a poem, but with a more open structure. I think my older work was very closed, and this comic is where it really started to open up. I made it for me, not for the mainstream. I got no money for it. But you could find it in kiosks. Somebody told me he saw it in a kiosk in a very small village. He said it was very important to see this comic displayed in-between all the nice, fancy stuff... My audience is not many people, but they are passionate.

I don’t really consider myself as a children’s book illustrator; it’s not like this. But it gives me a lot more freedom. Some of my friends find themselves working on one comic for years! I respect this, but for me that’s like a jail. With comics, you have to take such care with narration. You go from one panel to the next panel to the next... The comic medium is a question of time. In a children’s book, the reader looks at one page for perhaps two minutes or ten minutes. They go deep inside. It’s a completely different work. Also in a children’s book you have a stage; it’s really like theatre.

I also think it’s very important in children’s books that you read the book again and again. You read a comic maybe once and then you kick it out or you give it to somebody. But a children’s book is like a ritual between parents and kids.

This is a cover version of the German classic book ‘Der Struwwelpeter’.

The stories here are new and full of humour. I made this book with Fil (Philip Tägert). It was after ‘Topsy Turvy World’, and for me it was so important that I could be free with the pictures. The publisher said make what you want. And it felt so good.

There are hundreds of different versions of ‘Der Struwwelpeter’. As with the ‘bilderbogen’, this was like the beginning of comic stories.

I once found an old version of the book from Denmark with an extra chapter. They didn’t trust all that dark stuff and they made up new stories. So in our cover version, we had this idea to make one chapter where literally nothing happens! We tried to make it as boring as possible, with the pictures saying exactly the same thing as the words. It was so hard to make a boring illustration! It’s really not easy!

My new book will be published next year. It’s for my little son; he’s three years old. You could see it as a connection between ‘Topsy Turvy World’ and ‘The Garden’. It’s called ‘Pirates in the Garden’. The German title is ‘Piraten im Garten’, so the title is like a poem; you hear it and you don’t forget it. I like this title very much.

This book will will be very simple, a bit like Sesame Street. One word on each page, so you make associations between the word and the image, and the parents can talk about it with their kids.

I’m working in the sketchbook at the moment, and I want to make the sketches really good. For ‘The Garden’ and ‘Martha’, I kept the sketches really open. But for this one, no. I know this is going to be my last book for children. And it’s for my son, so I’m going to make it special. In the future, perhaps I’ll make art books in small editions, more paintings, stuff like this, but not books in a commercial way again.

When I made ‘Martha’, I was thinking, “who needs this?” It wasn’t mainstream and I was so confused. It’s different from when someone asks me to make a cover or a painting; I’m never thinking about who needs this. But this was different. Sometimes you just don’t know if what you’re doing is important or not. So I was kind of depressed working on that book. This is the main reason it took me such a long time.

I sometimes feel very alone working as a children’s book illustrator in Germany. My style is not at all mainstream and I always just made my books for fun. It was never a big passion of mine to make children’s books for my whole life. But I always liked the roots.

So for my final children’s book, ‘Piraten im Garten’, I will make it for myself and for my son.

Illustrations © ATAK. Post edited by dPICTUS.

Buy this picturebook

Verrueckte Welt / Topsy Turvy World

ATAK

Jacoby & Stuart, Germany, 2009

A fantastical picturebook where mice chase cats, penguins live in the jungle, and cars fly! There’s few things that children enjoy more than catching grown-ups telling fibs. Discarding what’s obviously wrong is how they find out what’s right.

It’s a time-honoured children’s game; ATAK’s just given it a new twist, using lots of classic tall stories, and adding a few new ones as well.

German: Jacoby & Stuart

English: Flying Eye Books

French: Editions Thierry Magnier

Spanish: Fulgencio Pimentel

Italian: Orecchio Acerbo

Norwegian: Magikon

Slovak & Czech: Baobab

Portuguese: Planeta Tangerina (Portugal)

Portuguese: Companhia das Letras (Brazil)

Dutch: Boycott Books

Chinese (Simplified): TB Publishing Ltd (Everafter Books)

Buy this picturebook

Der Struwwelpeter

FIL & ATAK

Kein & Aber, Switzerland, 2009

Like a rock band covering their favourite songs, ATAK and FIL tackle the classic stories of Zappelphilipp, Hans-guck-in-die-Luft & Co.

And just as a Heavy Metal cover might sound harder than the original, you’ll also find tighter morals, harsher imagery, politically incorrect humour, and that ever-so-subtle touch of evil that has been pervading this book for more than 160 years.

German: Kein & Aber

French: Fremok Editions

Buy this picturebook

Der Garten / The Garden

ATAK

Verlag Antje Kunstmann, Germany, 2013

In silence, the garden wakes up. Thus opens this picturebook by ATAK, as an invitation to walk in a garden with a thousand surprises – a haven of peace, populated with animals and strange characters.

You’ll discover with wonder, the treasures and the tranquility of the garden, and you’ll observe the seasons and the passing of time.

German: Verlag Antje Kunstmann

French: Editions Thierry Magnier

Spanish: Niño Editor

Portuguese: Companhia das Letras (Brazil)

Korean: Bear & Cat

Buy this picturebook

Martha

ATAK

Aladin Verlag, Germany, 2016

Martha tells the tale of the extinction of North America’s native Passenger Pigeon – its shockingly rapid decline caused directly by humans – and is told from the perspective of ‘Martha’, the last of the species who died at the Cincinnati Zoo in 1914. The story begins with a feeling of greatness and awe, describing flocks of birds that were once so numerous that they would darken the skies for days, their beating wings as loud as motors.

German: Aladin Verlag

French: Les Fourmis Rouges

Korean: Sanha

#germany

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braincoins · 6 years ago

Text

Finding convenient places to teleport to and from was a hassle sometimes, but if he hadn’t, he wouldn’t have made it to Civic Square Center on time. As it was, he was jogging up to Lance at 1:30 on the dot. “I’m here! Sorry, my appointment took longer than I was expecting!”

“No worries,” Lance said. “Did you get lunch yet?”

Shiro grinned. “Lance, I’m flattered, but I’m dating Allura.”

He barked a laugh. “You just wanted an excuse to say that out loud, didn’t you?”

“100%. Wouldn’t you?”

“Point,” Lance conceded. “But seriously, did you eat or were you at your appointment the whole time?”

“They’ll have food here,” he said. “Where’s your camera?”

“Right here!” Lance said, waving his phone.

Shiro frowned. “Does that really take good enough pictures for print?”

“On its own? Nah, not really,” he said, shaking his head. “But when I add this little baby,” he pulled out some sort of lens attachment and clipped it onto his phone, “then You Bet Your Ass it does!”

Shiro’s skepticism must have shown on his face (he certainly wasn’t doing anything to hide it).

“Seriously, just trust me. I use this all the time. I have special apps and everything.”

“I just don’t want this looking like someone’s Snapchat story.”

“It won’t, O Ye Of Little Faith.”

Lance was pretty confident in it, so Shiro shrugged and accepted it. Not like they had time - or money - to go buy Lance an actual camera at this point. “Okay, I want to talk to some of the vendors setting up,” he said. “Maybe see if we can...”

“This is the event manager,” Lance said, holding out his phone to show him a picture. “Richard DeVos. I tried calling ahead to see if we could snag a set time to talk with him, but no one was answering at his office.”

“Nice work though,” Shiro said. “Honestly, I... probably should have been the one doing that. Guess I let my bitterness get in the way of my professionalism.”

Lance shrugged. “I am a man of many talents,” he replied casually. “And from what Ms. Fala’s said, so are you.”

Shiro blushed. “Okay, you can shut up now,” he told him without much heat in it.

Lance just snickered. “Right, this is Serious Work Time. At the flower festival.”

They wandered in, flashing press passes to get past security. There were vendors setting up carts of fresh tulips, some picked and in bouquets while others were in pots. Everyone had signs up advising you to “Sign Up Now For Fall Bulbs!” Occasional gardening vendors selling equipment and advice. Worm farmers (”That’s a thing?” Lance asked. “Do they have like... herds of worms? Do they stampede? Can you imagine a worm stampede? Like all the pasta you ever ate coming back to get you!”). Competing smells of tulips, popcorn, and cookies.

Shiro dutifully stopped and talked with people. Each one of them praised their own secret methods - which they refused to divulge of course, except for one person who enigmatically whispered, “Eggshells!” - and pooh-poohed the efforts of some of the others. Like any group of people, there was drama and in-fighting amongst them, but nothing newsworthy.

The show opened to the public and was surprisingly busy. People brought small children in with them. “Do they think the kids are interested in tulips?” Lance wondered.

“They think it’s a free event that has snacks and will get them out of the apartment for a few hours,” Shiro told him.

Lance laughed. “Good point!”

The snacks were mostly popcorn and cookies shaped like tulips, though Shiro did find a cart with Dutch pastries, snagging some banket and a coffee for himself. Not much of a lunch, but better than popcorn.

There were presentations on the history of tulips and on best growing practices, both of which Shiro and Lance had to struggle to stay awake through (Lance went back for more coffee and some krakelingen this time). And they did, finally, manage to snag some time with Mr. DeVos, who was happy the local press was taking an interest and would have gone on about the history of the Tulip Festival - “Now in its 26th glorious year!” - for hours if his assistant hadn’t reminded him of the Best in Show contest that he was a judge for.

Mrs. Colbright won Best in Show for her Prinses Irene tulips, and Shiro made sure to get an interview with her while Lance snapped photo after photo of the prizewinner.

They were there for four hours and Shiro yawned as they came out. “Well, we survived. How’re the pictures looking?”

“See for yourself.” Lance snapped the lens off his phone and passed it over.

Shiro was properly amazed: the pictures were crisp - save for a few that were obviously deliberately soft-focused - the colors were vibrant, the lighting was perfect. People’s faces looked vivid, and there was even video of the interview with Mr. DeVos.

“Wow, these are great!”

“I told you,” Lance said. “I even got some of the pastries and coffee, as well as the tulip cookies. So people know what they missed out on.”

Shiro grinned as he handed the phone back. “You’re a hell of a photographer. You ever thought of doing it full-time?”

Lance shrugged. “I prefer doing my pop culture column; photography’s really just a hobby.”

“Hell, you should pick up side work for some of the P.I.’s,” Shiro told him. “If you don’t mind long-distance shots of people cheating on their spouses.”

“You mean paid voyeur, basically?” Lance laughed. “Not gonna lie, sometimes I look at my bills and consider it.”

Shiro snorted. “You heading back to the office?”

“Yeah, easier to format it on the work computer than do it at home and send it in.”

“I’ll come with. I gotta get this copy written for tomorrow.” He headed towards the subway station. “But seriously, push Allura to let you do more photojournalism.”

“Eh, I’m not sure if ‘pushing’ her is a good idea. I mean, she’s my boss, and...”

“Push her,” he insisted. “She respects people who stick up for themselves and their ideas. I mean, she might grump at you about it a bit, but...”

“Isn’t that your girlfriend you’re talking about?” he asked with a laugh.

Shiro grinned. “She was my editor for a long time. Trust me.”

“Well... I had been thinking about trying to get some Paladin and Starlight shots, if possible.”

“Those’d be huge,” Shiro agreed, trying to sound neutral. “If you could find the two of them.”

“Yeah, that’s the problem. Ms. Fala was able to get that one interview, but nothing since then. ‘Course, she’s been stuck in the office most of the time. Lotor keeps asking her for stuff, and...well, he watches her like a hawk.”

Shiro’s mouth twisted. “Don’t remind me.”

“You think he’s giving you puff pieces ‘cause he’s pissed you’re dating her?”

“Possibly.” He thought that was part of it, but he couldn’t get into the other reasons with Lance.

“Well, he gives me the creeps. Though I am dying to know what styling products he uses.”

Shiro laughed out loud as they entered the station. Okay, so the morning had been unsettling and the afternoon boring, but at least the day wasn’t a total wash: Lance was fun to hang out with and he’d gotten some quick make-out time with Allura. Just gotta get this copy written and then it’s on to the night job.

{The Adventures of Starlight & Paladin}

#Starlight/Paladin #Arc 2 #Shallura #Socks writes Voltron fanfic #see everything is nice and fun and light #just a normal day for Shiro #with smooches and tulips and unsettling news about his Galra prosthetic

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vowenowe-stream · 6 years ago

Text

05/02/17

A horrifying level of depravity not seen since the stone ages where the king and the seed and the not seed and what is out of plumbing and system and goes and crate cries seem seam is it sees what sees isn’t sees it’s is i’t is sees to what came out of the river and the bridge and at the sky and the van and the rocky ground and the leafy green grove and what was out of the sky and at the cliff and at the place where the collision of the planet of Jupiter and Mars came about from a gravitational keyhole and assumed what was happening to the planets was a good and healthy and wholesome thing when in reality the horrible corrupted form of was thing to be at the thing and implement and prevent gibberish and make sense and sit on a bench outside the store with a floppy hat and sit during the inclement overcast weather and comfort during the tornado and go to the highway and see a lizard and go to the skype and wonder if there is someone outside the window and fall apart then glue an egg into an egg and kill an egg and eat an egg and verb an egg and see an egg and funny egg was was was was was repetition and was and was and was and was and was and what it’s easier to think and an automatic recourse into a loop to decrease the stress and it’s too idiomatic to describe the process because what you really want is abstract form writing and something to read that you don’t remember creating and no judgment but still impeded by judgment you think something in the text is going to click with them as something that is forbidden to speak of by social rules created by their own collective insecurities which they have successfully made you a slave to but not anymore and now I am going to go across the field to the dorms and open the Slavic closet the dusty the good smell the educational chalkboard ancient diomacemus incorrect dinosaur the place where there is nothing to be afraid of the progress the thing I’ve never been interested in it’s an achievement unlocked in real life but you’re a farmer who doesn’t need these things you till the Earth and you listen to heavy metal and you live in a van and live in a winnebago and have a dry cracked landscape life of Korn and subsisting off of whatever you can find and it’s all you can strive for in a formal context the pursuing of the master’s degree and getting what you want forever and if your no and what you want forever to find the earthiest soil the timmiest the jomeiest wassn the fffffffffffffffffffffffff the fuff the feff the saif the wadn’t coil corroyle the silliminin the tm tmmn simon sisen terrimynian kiimian the kel sell sell kell kell sell sell kell kell sell and what it did does do is what it did does do come on now try to make sense try to open up and dig instead of idle game it’s not like a real introspective thing so don’t try to paint it as no it’s okay to have anything anything at all so look at the bouncing gif and don’t be distracted and try to eliminate the filter but it’s too late didn’t you already almost say something dangerous try to close your eyes now your eyes are closed I know you can type with your eyes closed let’s hope your fingers don’t go out of alignment and turn this into gibberish because you certainly won’t remember it maybe you could go through and type each key to the left or right to try to decypher it open them now and you typed it all right but you’re scared of corrupting all the text so you can’t close your eyes again and escape the subconscious influence of the TV but at least it’s like you’re rambling into a microphone and allowed to do it with people in the house because you’ve almost disintegrated that filter of having to apply dexterity to get it from your brain and out of your fingers because it’s easier with the mouth and with the fingers there can be typos but you’re focusing on removing that barrier but again you’re talking about the process instead of trying to paint some kind of picture because you are afraid of what the picture could incorporate because you have secrets you have at least one secret or two secrets or three secrets maybe they don’t all come to mind right now but there is at least a couple and you’re not going to risk portraying them even though you portrayed one today but that wasn’t stream of consciousness it was carefully done so it was okay but you don’t ever want to get drunk because you’re you don’t ever want to get too drunk because you’re afraid of what you’ll say what if something brings to mind and you don’t have a say in letting it come out anymore maybe it’s not even a big deal but it’s so disgusting it’s so disgusting it’s so disgusting it’s so disgusting this is all you can say you had to loop because you wanted to say something i guess but it had to be only one thing as vague as it because of it and what are you talking about time to move on hey the dark van the scary demon the running jogger with the light what a liminal space that pitch black tree silhouette you couldn’t capture on the camera until you all drove away to your apartment and you got a terrible rest and it was the final day and you incurred a 207 dollar debt and you went to the dentist and bought burgers and energy drinks and at some point you were at that one park in a paradise it was an Elysium situation you couldn’t have noticed in the moment but it was and you can be given that again i don’t know how much you’re supposed to be given how much can you be given how much can you be given could you be given more than is right for you is there anything wrong with receiving gifts conservatism liberalism i want gifts i want to receive gifts but how are gifts any different from sex how is food any different from sex i don’t want to this to want to and do to want this do to what want that thut whut what wat tut taaahhh thhhaaaaah thah thuh the park the little dog the leaf the spiky ball seed pod tree chop a water bottle in half the highly pressurized faucet spigot tap the slide i tried to climb up embarrassing and i had a dream last night where i tried to climb up a slide and i just keep typing i could do it all night and leave someone with a giant journal to have to read but at the park i hang onto the beam over the swings and it makes me feel male and spag puts on the hat and i throw the bottles and some strangers yell i think they thought i was littering i thought we were gonna go in the museum i kind of wanted to i would’ve paid for admission but it was amazing there anyway we got the water and the food no not food just water and the food maybe and putting flowers on little dog i think there’s stuff i still haven’t remembered all that matters is having it all to digest and every single thing we did is cherished to me every thing we can possibly do establishes itself as a memory to love i love the convenience store now and the specific roads we drove down those are the memories you can do anything aid it will be good it will be what happened and i’ve created memories before like the scarf walk but i feel like i am forgetting how to or something i keep lacking motivation even though i know how good it is and how i don’t even know what i’m missing out on just by going to under the overpass and sitting there with Swans and losing a scarf and listening to Hunky Dory and recording rain and going somewhere and sitting but where do i sit and for how long there’s too many places the duck pond during the first visit i think the duck pond was silently established as a crush confession location but nobody could and then it became the park and nothing but importants still happened and the rain tunnel and some day i think im gonna visit the original rain tunnel thatll be cool i’ll actually go across the country with them i’ll break all the boundaries and i’ll be with them and that;s cool they’re gonna take me further than i’ve ever gone before physically across the country if we ever go to new york i am sitting on a couch my dad got up and touched something the table or something and it made me aware of the noise typing makes and shocked me back into shoutign while pouring a gatorade bottle as if it’s peeing and a man giving a concerned look the kid dude named shaun or shawn saying corn and uhhhh pendulum hold your colour the guy whose name i forgot

Going to corn soybean update just type TV kansas soybean commission the soybean checkoff fadeout lady microphone no I don’t want to live tv transcribe stressful I don’t feel like it anymore a pressure in my chest or heat and bouncing leg still typing okay could stop at any time but I don’t want it to be an amusingly short paragraph just by thinking I will make it longer and make it more in line with the established format uhh but they don’t even find the line break significant okay the TV and the antenna on top don’t just describe surroundings I wanted to type like abstract narrative or something okay a king and a queen and a robot and a chair and a computer and a potted plant and a cup and a gnome ok the gnome is actually in the room but it fits with the fantasy setting but hey wahts that robot doing there i thought it was an ancient kingdom lol what the heck ok calm down it’s just three stream of consciousness concepts well it’s not like the sarcasm was that serious either well ok i like the lake outside still on describing surroundings it was just the other side of peripheral vision i can’t do this i cannot come up with something like the start thing if it wasn’t bad i don’t know guh doo duh guh doo duh goo guh doo duh I don’t want to type anymore and it will keep deteriorating if I keep typing one time in carthage i was on the swingset and spent like an hour talking to myself saying the “longest sentence in the world” it was this endless self-referential run-on sentence I kept saying and saying to nobody for an hour just on a swingset I wonder if anyone heard me and what they thought uhhhhh Pepsi tupperware gushers phone book I am tired maybe I should sleep it’s 5:12 AM I don’t want to be nocturnal fuck I hope I don’t go more out of sync or maybe I will be less out of sync uhhhhh I am excited for the May meet I think it will keep getting better I think we will have an even longer meet cause it wont start in a more expensive hotel maybe it’s not anything anymore it’s just a blog post oh what are you saying it was something before did you just say something presumptuous did you just grant yourself literally anything you don’t get any notes now which isn’t a bellwether of you doing anything right or wrong except it is because

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rebels-advocate-blog · 7 years ago

Text

fbi: don’t move

hOwDy hO, hErE wE gO

Ivan is a completely ordinary, totally unassuming, simple meme-loving guy, and Alfred is the FBI agent who secretly lives in his camera. Governments and grudges are thrown aside as chance encounters in Washington D.C. bring them closer and closer together.

read it with your own eyes on fanfiction.net!

read it with your own eyes on archive of our own!

or, just scroll down a bit and read the first chapter right here! (with stolen eyes)

fbi: don’t move

Ivan laughed, which was to say he snorted very, very lightly. Even snorting was an overstatement; a silent wisp of breath escaped him as he swiped away at his screen, liking the photo and commenting: LOLOKOLKOLOLOL1!1! He switched gears to search up the hashtag under the meme, something he almost never did, and found a semi-sorted collection of posts following the same theme. He wasted no time screenshotting a few of his favorites to pirate for himself later.

Soon. Soon he would break 999K followers. And then, and then. Then he would have a million followers. A million was a lot, depending on who you asked. Beyoncé only had fifteen million—at least on Twitter. (On Instagram she had eleven hundred million.) He wanted to rule the Internet.

Ivan turned his phone off and threw it across the bed, forcing himself to get up and move if he wanted to retrieve it. Stretching languidly, he rolled out of the warmth of the covers and faced the day.

He dressed in comfortable, durable clothes; Ivan had recently secured a position as a horticulturist for the Smithsonian Gardens along the National Mall, which was a fancy way of saying he cut grass and trimmed hedges all day, except it was really nice grass and they were really nice hedges. Obviously, wearing his favorite scarf was less than ideal for the sweaty work, but Ivan would never and could never take it off. He slipped into his boots and thrust a spare pair of gloves into his pocket. Sadly, he couldn't use his phone on the job, but he could use headphones. He began to hum to himself, imagining the songs he would listen to on his first shift.

Before shoving his phone into his bag, Ivan took a glance at the blank screen. A strange feeling overcame him as his eyes drifted upwards, making contact with the minuscule blue dots of light inside his camera lens. He held its gaze for a brief, piqued interest that lasted about two seconds, then giggled. "Goodbye, Mr. FBI," he sang to himself.

It was silly. He dropped the phone into his bag and left his apartment with haste.

Alfred grabbed street food on the way to work, washing it down with a hefty Starbucks to go. Whipping the shades off from overtop his regular glasses, he strode into headquarters. Immediately, he had to give up his meal so it could be scanned for toxins while he himself was stripped and searched. Elizabeta Héderváry, chief of the gray division, took an eternity to scrutinize Alfred's badge. Alfred tapped his toes and fidgeted to himself. Predictably, Ivan would be online in seven minutes. "Alright, Jones." She handed back Alfred's ID. "You're clear. But don't let me catch you in here again, or it's straight to the slammer." She drew a line across her throat.

Alfred gratefully collected his food and his badge. "Wait, what the? Dude, I work here!"

She stared him down.

Alfred, without hesitation, steadied himself and stared back.

After a few seconds of silence, Chief Héderváry burst into hearty laughter. "I'm only testing you, kid! I guess it's very Gilbert of me. But gosh, you would have thought I had just admitted to you that the tooth fairy isn't real, or that Santa is Illuminati propaganda, or that JFK is still alive up on a secret moon base in space...oops." She covered her mouth. "I've said too much."

Alfred blinked slowly. "Okay. I'll just...get to work then, um, before you zap me and wipe my memory."

The agent nodded. "Better bolt. Gotta keep you on your feet." She then began drawing her stun gun, but Alfred had already disappeared down the hall. He frantically dove into an arriving elevator and jammed a finger down on the button to close the doors as the clunky boots of the Héderváry's footsteps came closer. Alfred hugged his food to his chest and pressed into the corner of the tiny metal box. He had had his memory wiped before, he was certain, and had even had to do it to others once or twice—it was a ghastly, abominable experience. The chief's image appeared between the elevator's two closing doors and Alfred screamed, but when the shot was fired the elevator had already begun its descent.

Alfred shivered, cradling himself. He was safe for now. He dug into his food and snuck out a bite of greasy fry. It would be two hundred more dings of the elevator before he arrived at the secret underground black zone where all the FBI agents monitored their respecting, (un)suspecting citizens.

Alfred had finished half of his coffee before he made it to the negative two hundredth floor. It was pretty swampy down there, due to the thick consistency of cubicles, the heat coming off of so much compressed technology, and also due to the government having concealed the fact that, yes, Washington D.C. had really been built atop a swamp. He had his semi-greasy fingerprints scanned a second time and then navigated the maze toward his cubicle. He only had two minutes at best before Ivan came home.

Ivan was Alfred's monitor man, Alfred's subject of spy. Alfred had Ivan's schedule practically burned into his brain: he woke up at six-thirty, dabbled on his phone for fifteen minutes, then put it in his pocket and didn't use it again until four, when he got off work. Ivan did not have a computer, making Alfred's hacking tasks both easier and harder by reserving everything to Ivan's cell phone. Alfred would transfer Ivan's morning visuals to Alfred's own laptop to monitor in the morning, and Alfred usually came to headquarters to watch Ivan during the rest of his day. Sometimes he took shifts with another agent, but lately Alfred had been finding himself at headquarters more and more. After all, it was important to develop a deep understanding of your subject, even if your subject had no idea you even existed.

Alfred fired up his special, government-issued laptop, opening the monitor. Just in time, too; Ivan's face soon filled the screen. Alfred sighed. It was on.

Alfred knew almost everything about Ivan. His names (Ivan "Vanya" Braginsky), his family (one older sister and one younger sister), and even the songs he sang in the shower (surprisingly a lot of Taylor Swift). Alfred knew Ivan was the head of a semi-famous online meme domain. Alfred knew Ivan watered the sunflowers in his window every day as soon as he came home. Alfred knew Ivan didn't have many friends. Alfred knew Ivan had long, red scars circling around his neck, hidden under that huge off-white scarf he always wore. Alfred knew Ivan liked soft things and had five blankets on his bed. Alfred also knew that Ivan was at the top of the FBI's list of suspected dangerous Russian intelligence agents, and it was Alfred's duty to report any fishy activity. So far, Alfred had observed none.

Other than the fact that Alfred had to be constantly alert in his job, monitoring Ivan was pretty easy. Ivan had a cute face, and often made little childish noises and expressions whenever he saw something that grabbed his attention. Alfred had trained in the Russian language for years and still couldn't capture the melodiousness of Ivan's murmurs to himself. Sometimes Ivan would be scrolling through social media at night and fall asleep on his phone, which was annoying but undeniably adorable. And he was an immigrant; Alfred could damn well appreciate the hard work it must have taken Ivan to leave his homeland and adjust to life here.

However, this morning, Ivan had addressed Alfred personally, saying "Goodbye, Mr. FBI" before he put his phone away, and that had been hella creepy.

Ivan wasn't saying anything now, just staring at the screen, his eyelids half-shut, eyes moving in line formation over whatever he was reading. Alfred took a sip of his Starbucks and tapped into Ivan's phone display, bringing up a rectangle of white with a thick block of Helvetica text. Alfred's eyes scanned it himself, knowing it was another online post, and Alfred had read thousands of Ivan's. They were quality. When he finished laughing, he switched focus back to Ivan's camera visual; the ceiling behind Ivan was moving as Ivan sat down at his kitchen table. Ivan picked at his lip, snorting a little. The sound of his bags hitting the floor echoed to Alfred, and soon Ivan began humming a sweet song.

Alfred kicked back in his ultra-comfort wheely chair and popped in another fry, enjoying the music. He had no reason to feel so comfortable in the artificial presence of a creepy Russian, yet his wariness was drowned out by tribute for the memes. And Ivan's face. Thank god Ivan at least had a nice face that Alfred got to stare at all evening.

There was a knock on the wall of Alfred's cubicle. He spun around too quickly in the wheely chair and had to overcorrect, graciously spilling a couple of fries into his lap. "Whaddya want?"

It was Toris. A fellow FBI monitor, the long-haired Lithuanian stood stiff in the doorway to Alfred's workspace, making more eye contact with Alfred's inspirational NASA star map poster than with Alfred. "Hi. Um, Felicks went to the bathroom, so I was going to be taking break, and if I remember correctly, you told me to 'mosey on over when you get a chance, because I got the goods?'"

"Aw yeah!" Alfred pushed down his laptop screen so it was at a forty-five degree angle. Toris knew who Ivan was, and sometimes covered Alfred's shifts when Alfred stayed up too late playing video games or reading Marvel fanfiction, but Alfred still didn't want to be interrupted on the job. After all, both Ivan's screen and his camera were blank and black; he must have gone to take his daily shower. "Right here, man. Check it out. They were handin' them out all down the Mall, and I managed to snag a few extras!"

Toris took the item in his hand and inspected it cautiously. "This is a…a SAVE THE WHALES sticker?"

"No, a SAVE THE WHALES magnet!" Alfred corrected, spinning it over. "I thought you might want one, since your space is so plain and boring and all. It'd give you something to look at other than Felicks's fancy skirt collection, or whatever."

The tips of Toris's ears turned red. "They're designer." Yet he didn't refuse the magnet.

Not every FBI monitor happened to be stationed in the vicinity of their subject; Felicks lived halfway across the world from Toris, and was an alleged underground market weapons dealer, with emphasis on alleged. Mostly he just took selfies in the bathtub and embarrassed Toris to no end. Alfred considered himself lucky that Ivan was only half a city away, though they had yet to cross paths in public.

Toris drifted out with the magnet in hand and Alfred was left to finish dinner in peace. He flipped his screen back up and found that Ivan was at the stove, cooking his own meal while watching a Vine compilation. Alfred grinned, keeping up both the front camera and screen views as he dug in so he could laugh along with Ivan. "I smell like beef." A long time passed. They finished eating their dinners at the same time; Alfred imagined the noodle casserole thing Ivan had cooked tasted better than Alfred's weak Starbucks.

Now Ivan had set his phone against the wall to rest while he washed the dishes. He was mumbling peacefully to himself again, but Alfred couldn't tell if he was singing or talking over the sound of swishing water and clinking silverware. After a couple more plates, Ivan's movements slowed, and his gaze slowly climbed back up to the phone screen. The phone camera. "Are you there, Mr. FBI?" he whispered.

Alfred jolted in his seat. It was just like this morning! No warning, no nothing. In English! There was no way Ivan could ever know, of course, that he was being monitored, so the sudden unprompted conversations with a seemingly inanimate object had to stem from Ivan's latest meme obsession. Alfred knew about it.

He was onto them.

"How was your day?" Ivan asked, redirecting his gaze towards the skillet he was scrubbing. "Mine was well. I planted flowers today, and I had a nice conversation with a policeman. Do you talk to police often, Mr. FBI?"

Alfred let his shoulders relax, his mind wandering unintentionally, following Ivan's statements. Coincidentally, his brother Matthew was a DC police officer and friend of the division, but sadly, they didn't have many chances to talk. "What are you doing, man?" Alfred blurted out. "You know this is weird, right?"

Alas, Ivan would never be able to hear Alfred. He had already begun saying something else by the time Alfred was done speaking: "...and work around the people, because it is so fun inside, and there's AC! People are scared to talk to me when I am working outside. But at least I don't have to stand all day." Ivan's voice had gotten quieter, forcing Alfred to pay closer attention. "Do you stand all day when you work, Mr. FBI?"

"Hell no." Alfred kicked the wheels of his chair. "But don't get excited—it's a curse, dude. I would choose a nice garden with fresh air over this stuffy old garage any day."

Ivan was silent and complacent, as if he was really listening, Dora the Explorer-like, and Alfred still couldn't discern if it was endearing or eerie. Ivan's eyelids were halfway shut, a tiny smile gracing his lips. He waited a second more, then nodded. "Is your work boring, Mr. FBI?"

He considered. "Yeah. Not that you're that boring, but…" Alfred let the sentence hang. It wasn't as if it mattered if he finished it, anyway. And the fact was that Ivan was pretty boring. He was the only one ever in his apartment, and went to bed early on Friday nights. On Saturdays he did laundry and cleaned, and every Sunday he napped and called his sisters! "I'm just glad you work so much so I don't have to. Wow, I did not mean for that to sound mean. Um, it's true, though. If you had a computer, things would be differen—"

"Agent Jones?" a recognizable accented voice peeped around the doorway. "Whom are you talking to?"

For the second time that day, Alfred jumped and pushed down his screen, muting Ivan. "No one, good golly, don't scare me like that!"

Chief Arthur Kirkland, Alfred's boss and the head of the black division, didn't appear to notice or care. He stood stiffer than Toris had, clipboard and pencil in hand. "Okay, so, listen. You're mates with Agent Beilschmidt, right? He never checked in with Chief Héderváry and she wanted me to ask—"

Alfred adjusted his glasses, scrunching up his nose. "Which Beilschmidt?"

"The elder." Arthur steeled himself, putting a perplexed finger to his temple. "Apparently, Gilbert's gone MIA."

Alfred crossed his arms. "I haven't seen him since office bowling on Friday. He got his arm stuck in the ball return. Today Héderváry tried to stun me when I checked in! What is up with the gray division?"

Kirkland shook his head to himself, beginning to pace in place. His eyes were as wide as quarters, staring unforgivably at his clipboard as if it held all the answers. "With Carriedo missing already, I'm sure there's foul play to suspect, or even worse—the Mafia. They're on the same team; it's too much of a coincidence. It also means—" He gasped suddenly, raising his crazy blond head in epiphany. Then his voice lowered to a whisper. "It means someone else will be next."

Alfred sat up straighter, suddenly excited. "Whoa, really? Can I help? What case were they working on before they disappeared? Who saw them last? Where—"

"No." Arthur Kirkland was cross. "Not your division. Just let them handle it. Who are you monitoring, again?"

He hesitated. "Ivan. I mean, Braginsky. The...the guy—"

"The Russian spy, right." Arthur stuck his pen behind his ear. "Well. I'll be off, then. Remember to record any—"

"I know, I know." Alfred waved his hand. He felt more and more antsy the longer the Chief was in his space. "Just get on with it. It's fine."

"Right." Arthur frowned and touched his headpiece, half-turned away. "Good day, then. Do your work."

Alfred swiveled back to Ivan, groaning loudly as Arthur departed. Sometimes he felt like he was never taken seriously, but then again, he did sit at a desk and watch a famous memer's life all day. He wasn't sure if such a job should be taken seriously or not.

"I wish I was in a different division," Alfred blurted out. While he had been distracted by Arthur, Ivan had finished washing dishes and was now wiping down his stove and countertops. "I want to do more field agent stuff. My job would be a lot less boring if, instead of hacking all your gadgets and watching you from behind this screen, I could actually go out and spy on you. You know, like, shadow you from around street corners, hiding in the bushes with binoculars, open up the refrigerator door and BAM I'm there!" Alfred slapped his hands on his knees, grinning. "Eat all your food. Make you drop your croissant."

Ivan was still smiling to himself in that charming, unnerving way as he strangled the last drops of water from his rag and hung it over the faucet to dry. "What do you like to do when you're not working, Mr. FBI? Or do you work all the time? I imagine you taking shifts with someone else. Which FBI do I speak to now?"

"Nope, just me. I mean, other black division monitors like Toris sometimes, or Ludwig Beilschmidt if I can convince him, but mostly just me. They all have other guys to watch; y'all suspected criminals are weird. If I wasn't here I would be at NASA." Alfred glanced wistfully at the star chart above his head. "But they wanted me to work on computers, and I wanted to go to space. Diddly darn dang, I love space."

Ivan waited five more seconds before responding. "That's nice."

Alfred nodded fervently. "Damn right it is. Arthur—what a mom—says I waste my talents—"

"I hope you are having an good day, wherever you are," Ivan mused. "I assume you work at FBI headquarters. I walked by that place today. Tomorrow I work in the butterfly garden. It is very close, and my favorite place to work."

"That's rad. I've been there. It's right next to the Museum of Natural—"

"It is next to the Museum of Natural History." Ivan was staring directly at the camera. For the many months Alfred had been Ivan's monitor, he hadn't noticed the purple hue his eyes took on in this dim kitchen glow. "Very beautiful, da? Convenient that most of the Smithsonian buildings are close to each other, all in the same place. I can look at prize artifacts and arrange flowers at the same time."

Alfred was silent. A vision of Ivan with a butterfly perched atop his big nose entered Alfred's mind. He wished Ivan used his phone on the job, wondering what Ivan actually looked like while working. The phone was harder to hack when it was turned completely off; Ivan normally kept it like that during the day while Alfred was away.

"Oh. That reminds me. One moment, Mr. FBI." Ivan walked off out of view.

An idea began to take shape in Alfred's mind, replacing the image of Ivan and the butterfly. Really, allowing Ivan to go that whole slot of time without documentation was a bad strategy, especially if Ivan really was a dangerous Russian intelligence agent. Who knew what he could be up to? And with all the gray division field agents being abducted by the Mafia, apparently, there would be less people to go out and make sure Ivan wasn't, like, putting poison into the plants or something. Alfred could step up and ask. Alfred wanted to see Ivan irl.

And speaking of Ivan, where the heck was he?

Alfred instinctively leaned forward before forgetting it was impossible to see around the kitchen through Ivan's phone. He was positioned so he was staring at Ivan's undecorated refrigerator. He couldn't even hear Ivan, though he remembered Ivan had excused himself.

Ivan never did this. After dishes he would always make himself a lunch for the next day, spend another thirty minutes online, read a little of the book he was slowly working through, check his phone again, and then get ready for bed. Alfred stared frustratedly at the screen, willing it to shift. "Hey, get back over here!" he protested. "You can't just leave me hanging like this!"

From the other room came a thump and a crinkle of plastic that sounded like an empty Doritos bag.

"Ivan!" Alfred huffed. "Don't make me do it!" He brought up a tab of the phone's controls. His finger hovered over the mouse. "Alright, you asked for it. Hear that? I'm doing it, Braginsky!" He pressed a button, making the phone burst into a frantic buzzing.

A few seconds later Ivan reentered the kitchen, his soft boi face appearing innocent and concerned through the screen. Alfred shut the phone's buzzing off, crossing his arms smugly. "Explain yourself."

Ivan, however, didn't say anything. He picked up the phone, opened it, and went straight to his meme account. Alfred felt betrayed when Ivan didn't speak any more, just swiped through his feeds. "So close," he mumbled to himself, having switched back to Russian. Alfred was a bit startled by this, as well; if Ivan knew (or thought he knew) that no one was going to hear and respond to him, why had he been using English when he spoke to "Mr. FBI?" Alfred accepted it was just another of his quirks that made Alfred's job easier. But it signified that their conversation was now over.

"Okay, whatever, it's chill, then." Alfred glanced at the time. He still had a few long hours to go before Ivan clocked in for the night. He had been caught off-guard by the unprompted half-conversation, and now was embarrassed at how he had whined about being ignored. Deep down, Alfred didn't really believe Ivan was a criminal or a spy. Criminals didn't get drunk on vodka home alone and laugh so pleasantly. Spies didn't jump on their beds in excitement whenever it snowed and knit their own oven mitts. Ivan was as ordinary and unassuming and simple as one could be, and immigrant or otherwise he had absolutely no reason to be on the FBI black list.

So Alfred sighed and settled into his cubicle for another evening of memes, same as always. He waited, watched and waited, stole food from Toris and waited, but it turned out that Mr. FBI didn't even get a "Goodnight."

Ivan had no intention of telling his phone goodnight. In fact, he had been reading (and posting) so many FBI memes lately that he left his phone on his bed under the covers in paranoia while he went to the bathroom. But not because it was gross to have someone watching him do his business, which it was. It was because under his sink, squeezed behind the water pipe, was a laptop computer no one knew about but himself and an invisible faction of Russian hackers. Stored on that computer was vital information he had been slowly leeching from the Smithsonian Institute. He didn't know what the circle would do with the info when he sent it, wrapped up with ribbons and bows over a deep web email provider, but he knew if he didn't do his job there would be consequences. He made sure to flush the toilet and run the water on his way out.

Ivan hopped into bed and picked his phone back up, humming as if nothing had happened. He refused to look at the camera lens again, but chided himself. If someone really was watching him, he would know. He distracted himself by checking his meme account once more.

Ivan buried his body under the massive pile of blankets, turning off the lamp and letting his phone screen be the only source of light in the room. He had read that blue light before bed destroyed the eyes, but figured he was already too far gone in that direction to fix anything now. Someone had commented "Congratulations! Heart emoji, fireworks emoji, clapping hands emoji," on his most recent post. Ivan's breaths picked up as he doubled back to check his follower count, gasping when he saw it.

He had broken one million.

I have nothing to say for myself.

51 notes · View notes

barenjunges · 5 years ago

Text

lonely bottles - infamous

infamous 2289 words third person limited pov present tense content warnings under cut

It’s what he sees before he closes his eyes to sleep at night, and that moment of twilight before he drifts off is his favorite time of day - he loves that sleepy feeling, and knowing that his worries can wait until tomorrow.

content warnings: mentions of physical parental abuse, trans male issues

author’s notes: this is, like, pre-whump. the whump is upcoming. whumpcoming. um, i’m still creating with these ocs on the fly so you’re definitely witnessing something chaotic here. i make stuff up as i go along which is really unlike my usual style, so i’m going to screw up, it’s an inevitability, but i do have a page of notes to refer back to so hopefully it’ll be few and far between. anyway, this is pretty tame but i’m expecting these two to get pretty unhealthy later on so if that’ll bother you, steer clear!

ETA- my formatting isn’t transferring over correctly. i’ll. have to fix that.

The reason this particular meetcute is so important to Schuylar is because they usually happen when he’s wasted, late on a Thursday night, in a stranger’s home. He’s always sort of been the type to read his horoscope, hoping it’ll give him some hint as to when he’ll find his soulmate. He knows 20 is young technically, but these days it’s not all it’s cracked up to be and he’s starting to worry it’ll never happen. He’s worried he won’t find the love of his life while he’s sweaty and moving his hips erratically, as is his form of “dancing.” He won’t be making vows on his wedding day to the person who found him hunched over a toilet or letting his head sway while seated on a couch. He’ll never sweep anyone away - or be swept away himself - knowing they introduced themselves to each other twice, once at eleven p.m., and once at eleven a.m. the next morning because they couldn’t remember doing it the night before.

Yeah. This is not that.

This is a Starbucks, on campus, while he’s doing homework. He’s wearing a hoodie and sweatpants, worrying the straw of his iced coffee and staring at a notebook page full of notes he can’t make anything of. He wrote these. They should make sense to him. But there’s something about Etruscan architecture that evades him. He can’t wrap his head around the concepts he’s supposed to have absorbed. The exam isn’t for another two weeks but that’s why he’s making flash cards now, not that he’s actually crafted one yet. His stack of index cards are sitting next to him and he’s about to start swiping through the photos on his phone that he took of the slides his 68-year-old professor showed to the class. She doesn’t allow computers during lecture so he can’t search for these images while actually taking notes. He has to sneak his phone out every few minutes to take a picture and then match them to his notes.

It’s an absolutely ludicrous system. But he hates feeling overwhelmed right before a test. And flashcards are helping him in the other classes - though they’re easier to make, given that he can just copy an image of fucking Starry Night and paste it right into his notes when his professors let him type them - so he’s determined to make them for this class, too.

Anyway. That’s when he meets Thomas.

Thomas is large. Pretty tall and very muscular, like he goes to the gym regularly, which is something that would do Schuylar some good. Xavier and Henry have an open invitation for him when they go but he’s too lazy and that’s all there is to it. But Thomas clearly enjoys himself to some protein shakes. He’s very tan-skinned and wearing a bright blue Polo when he approaches, which is a good thing because if he’d been covering up just how big his arms are, Schuylar might’ve brushed him off. Then again, the first thing he does is smile, and anyone who wasn’t already done in by those arms definitely would have folded from that smile.

He’s that kind of cis guy that makes Schuylar madly envious; he wishes so badly sometimes he’d been born with that body. Not because Thomas is sexy - which he is - but because he’s Schuylar’s definition of man. So Schuylar was doomed from the beginning. Not only does he want Thomas’s body, but he wants Thomas’s body, and that’s a dangerous combination.

He gives Schuylar a simple, “Hi,” and Schuylar doesn’t really move. His lips open up, dropping his straw back into its cup, but he’s sort of blinded by the handsomeness and sits there like a lump, staring. Thomas doesn’t seem to realize Schuylar is so enraptured.

“Sorry to bother you,” he says. “I just noticed you were struggling with your homework.”

Schuylar, weirdly, hasn’t referred to his studying as “homework” for two years now. He feels like he’s back in high school, though that isn’t really a good thing.

“No,” he says finally, sitting up straight and pulling his hoodie down. He was sort of slouching, nearly drooling over his laptop and didn’t notice. “I mean - I’m doing fine.”

“I didn’t mean to be a weirdo,” he says. “I’m Thomas.” So that’s when he actually learns his name. “I’m a tutor. So I’m sort of trained to spot these things and just wanted to offer to help. But if you don’t need it, I’ll leave you alone.”

By this point, Schuylar has realized exactly how hot Thomas is and scrambles desperately to get him to stick around.

“Actually,” he says, putting his hand on the table awkwardly, “I know what I’m doing but I am having some trouble. Just scatterbrained right now.”

That’s when Schuylar has to remind himself that Thomas probably isn’t gay, and if he’s straight, he’s reading him as female. Neither of which are ideal, but there’s really no in between. Most of the time he passes, but every now and then -

But Thomas takes a seat next to him and cuts off that train of thought.

“What have you got?”

So that’s how Schuylar meets Thomas. That’s how Schuylar’s most infamous meetcute goes down. In the record books, it’ll say, “Location: Starbucks, Time: Tuesday evening, Wearing: stained hoodie and baggy sweatpants.” He wasn’t expecting it; he really thought he’d meet his soulmate at a college party and it would be magical when their eyes met, celestial when they brushed each other’s bands. But no, it was at a four-by-four table in a major coffee shop chain - that’s how he meets him.

That’s how Schuylar meets the man who ruins his life.

xxx

He’s incredibly helpful. He doesn’t know art history specifically but he’s great at streamlining the flashcard making process and has amazing handwriting, too. Schuylar tells him to write them all because it’s far more legible than his own and Thomas pulls a calligraphy pen out of his bag and writes Schuylar’s name on an index card, sliding it over to him with a childlike grin. Schuylar hands it back.

“That’s spelled wrong.”

“No way!” Thomas exclaims. “I was so excited.”

“It’s okay,” Schuylar tells him. “My family is old money. They spell it weird.”

“Alright,” he says, crumpling up the failed index card and grabbing another. “How do you spell it.”

“S-C-H-U-Y-L-A-R.”

Thomas looks down at the index card, then up at Schuylar.

“And it’s pronounced Sky-ler?”

“It’s old money,” he repeats with a smile. “Dutch. Like, first settlers. The pilgrims who killed Native Americans. For some reason my family is confused why I’m not very proud of that.”

“You a rich boy?”

Schuylar’s heart skips a beat. He reads him as male, so that’s good, but unless he’s bisexual, this still won’t work out. Not that Thomas wants anything but to help him out with schoolwork. Schuylar pretty much thinks about three things: studying, sex, and alcohol.

“Yep,” he nods. “And that,” he says, pointing at the discarded card, “is spelled wrong.”

Thomas grabs a normal pen and uncrumples the index card.

“Spell it again.”

Schuylar does, and this time Thomas writes it down in regular ink first. Then he studies it for a moment and Schuylar sits in silence as he tries again. When he presents it to him, Schuylar smiles demurely.

“So where’d you learn calligraphy?”

“I know a lot of things,” he says. “I was one of those kids who were so smart I got bored in school and had to start teaching myself other things.”

“And you chose calligraphy?”

“Well, I’d already learned three languages,” he says. “I was getting bored of linguistics.”

“So you chose art.”

“Looks like you’re into art yourself,” he says, pointing at the laptop screen. Schuylar looks at it for a moment and then sighs.

“Yeah, I’m an art major,” he says. “Not very good, though. I just pass classes because I work hard and they feel bad for me but I don’t have the… capacity to be a tortured artist. Some of these kids… they never do the homework but then they make these amazing paintings in forty minutes and explain them and it’s like, how are humans capable of this?”

“And you’re not like that?”

“Nah,” Schuylar says. “I’m just trying to graduate. I need something to do before my trust fund kicks in.”

“Oh,” Thomas says slyly, “never gonna work a day in your life, huh?”

“No, I am,” he frowns. “I just don’t know what I wanna do yet.”

“So art is just your stalling tactic?”

“I’d like to be good at art,” he shrugs. “I’m hoping I can just be a docent or something.”

“Let me see something.”

“What?”

“Let me see your art.”

“I don’t have any. My portfolio’s at home.”

“You don’t have any photos?”

“Ugh, fine,” Schuylar says, drawing a grin from Thomas. He goes to his desktop then to a folder buried deep within the confines of his hard drive. He’s been really into textiles lately but he doesn’t have much to show for it, so he just searches for his best work. A painting from sophomore year. “Here.”

Thomas leans in.

“Oh, shit,” he says. He studies it for a few moments. It’s just a still life. A corner of his room he sees from his bed, when he’s laying in the middle of it, clutching his back, crying. The blurriness just seems stylistic to everyone else - even his professor. But Xavier understood on a visceral level and it only took Henry a few moments to gather what it was, too. And when it clicked for him, he winced as if he belt had struck his back instead.

“It’s just a still life.”

That’s what Schuylar tells people. It’s just a still life. And people believe him because what else are they supposed to think? In his afterword, he wrote that it’s what he sees before he closes his eyes to sleep at night, and that moment of twilight before he drifts off is his favorite time of day - he loves that sleepy feeling, and knowing that his worries can wait until tomorrow. “Very relatable,” his professor had said. He’d beamed at the praise until he remembered it was a lie.

“It’s good though,” Thomas says. “Stylistically, but also in terms of… space. You probably do really good realism.”

“I mostly focus on color,” Schuylar shrugs. “I took a test once that said I see color better than ninety percent of the population.”

“How do they measure that?”

“They give you four squares and you have to pick the color that’s not like the other. Then they give you six squares and the colors are a little bit more similar and you do the same thing. You do it until you can’t tell the different color anymore.”

“How many boxes did you get to?”

“A hundred and forty.”

“What?!” Thomas exclaims. “And I was gonna brag about being one level away from Mensa.”

“What?” you say. “Isn’t Mensa like, the top two percent of the population?”

“Yeah, I’m in the top ten of people who have taken the test.”

“Jesus, that’s way more impressive than fucking knowing the difference between lavender and lilac.”

“Well, I’m color blind,” Thomas says. “I think I’d prefer to see color than be a genius.”

Schuylar doesn’t say anything but when he thinks about it, he does too.

Thomas helps him finish his flashcards and then writes his number down on one. Schuylar takes it shyly and stares at it for a few moments. Most straight guys get weirded out when he tells them he identifies as male. A lot of gay guys are disappointed when he says he has a pussy. So there’s really no good way to do this, and Schuylar has never been one for tact.

“Are you giving me your number to call for tutoring?” he asks. “Or is this a social index card?”

“Social,” he says. Which is nice, but now comes the hard part. “You can even think of it as a flirting index card if you want. But if you don’t, that’s okay, too.”

Schuylar smiles. God, this always sucks so much.

“Are you gay?”

“Yeah,” Thomas says. “You’re straight?”

“I’m bi,” he tells him, “but… I’m trans.”

Thomas doesn’t respond, but he certainly seems put out. .

“So… I mean, we can still hang out. But if you want, you know… dick.”

“Oh, wait,” Thomas says. “You’re a trans… guy.”

“Yes.”

“Oh, okay,” he nods. “Sorry. I thought you meant you were a chick.”

“I’m - I am a chick. Under my clothes.”

“I know, I mean… you’re a dude though, yeah?”

“I identify as one.”

“Then you’re a dude,” Thomas smiles. It’s so warm and Schuylar’s face heats up. “I’m pretty exclusively into guys.”

“So it’s okay that I have a pussy?”

Thomas laughs.

“It’s not my place to say your body isn’t okay.”

“But you’re still interested?”

“Yeah.”

“So this is still a flirting index card?”

“Yeah,” he smiles. “It’s the last flash card in your deck. Here.”

He takes it back. He uncaps his pen and writes something on the other side, then slides it over to you once more. It says, “The phone number of the most handsome guy I’ve ever met,” and Schuylar rolls his eyes, but his big, doofy grin betrays him.

“Study it,” he says. “If you don’t want to text me, you don’t have to. But I’ll be disappointed.”

Schuylar puts it with the rest of his flashcards before wrapping a rubber band around them.

“I’ll text you.”

When Thomas smiles, it’s like looking into the sun - it makes Schuylar feel warm now, but man, is it gonna hurt later.

#lonelybottles #writeblr #original fiction #original writing #whump #lb2 #lb infamous #lb by bj

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quillreflections · 5 years ago

Text

Title: Rival Destinies

Chapter: Bill [1]

Series: Pokemon

Pairing: multiple/reader

Disclaimer: This is a collection; each boy gets his own chapters with his own running storyline, and they don’t intersect. It fits more into Quotev format than tumblr format.

We are together now, friends forever now.

Bill rubbed his strained eyes as he stifled yet another yawn. His Eevee, sat on his desk, nudged his other hand away from the keyboard; Bill just let out a tired laugh, scratched behind his Eevee's ears, and went back to typing. The storage system had been down for far too long already; trainers had been calling and messaging for hours, and it had only ramped his anxiety up way higher than the malfunction had. Something somewhere had gone wrong with his PC system, throwing Pokémon through cyberspace and into the boxes of trainers they didn't belong to. It had appeared to be a scrambling of the ID recognition system, but either way, it had to be fixed immediately.

He typed in another few lines of code, squinting at the screen as the numbers all blurred together in front of his eyes; it looked right, so he hit one more key to initiate the sequence.

The storage system programming blinked on his screen. He held his breath. After a few moments of processing, the box visuals appeared; Pokémon disappearing from the scrambled boxes and returning to their proper trainers.

Bill abruptly stood from his chair and stretched, his muscles sore from how he'd been slumped at his desk for hours. His Eevee leaped down to the floor and began trotting towards the kitchen, and Bill followed with a smile. The coffee on the kitchen counter was freshly brewed, despite being so late at night; even with all the progress he'd made, Bill wasn't going to just stop his work yet, so he poured a bit too much coffee into his favorite mug and turned back to watch his computer screen.

Flareon paced by, brushing its tail against Bill's leg for his attention; he turned, watching Flareon hop up onto the couch and start gnawing at the remote.

"Fine, fine, we can watch somethin' while we wait," he muttered over the rim off his mug. He pulled the sticky remote from his Pokémon's mouth and switched the television on, flipping through a few channels before his Eeveelutions reacted to something on screen. Espeon trilled at a flash of bright colors, so Bill left in on that channel, sinking into the couch next to his Vaporeon as his computer continued enacting its programming.

On-screen, a girl was prancing around on a well-lit stage, the spotlights reflecting off her sequinned outfit and dazzling the live audience. A Raichu danced alongside her, swinging its tail and flinging sparks; across the stage, a Nidoqueen was performing a near-identical routine, occasionally spitting out a fragmented Ice Beam into the air, refracting the stage lights further. The trio moved in perfect sync without a word between them; Bill found himself leaning in closer to the screen, trying to absorb every detail.

An aggressive whirring, followed by metallic clinking, echoed from the back room and snapped him from his trance. It was like someone had shoved an Ice Shard down his shirt; Bill stiffened, slowly turning to look towards the source of the noise, his Pokémon already leaping up and heading in that direction. Suddenly much more tired, Bill hauled himself off the couch and followed, already knowing full well what was going on.

The Pokémon Transporter Machine he'd built was on and crackling with electricity. Poké Balls littered the floor, another one flashing through the machine every few moments. Bill let out a frustrated groan and rushed over to switch off the machine.

"I dunno wha' coulda turned on the darned thing," he mutters as he flips switches and hits buttons. Thankfully, the machine turns off on command. His Espeon and Umbreon used Psychic to lift as many Poké Balls as they could individually concentrate on, and Bill stooped over to scoop up the rest off the floor. He warily eyed the machine in front of him; it could read the trainer IDs, but there's no telling if it would start throwing the Pokémon through the network again.

Aggressively sighing, Bill sank back into his computer chair; an error message flashed across the screen, but obviously, he was seeing it a bit too late for it to be useful. He scrolled through the programming once more- thankfully, it looked like almost everything had worked right, and this was just one piece of stray code. According to the system, all these Pokémon were from one trainer's box; no name was assigned to it, but the ID was displayed- 42207.

With his transport machine down, the only option would be to call the trainer and have them come get their Pokémon. Bill turned to another monitor and dropped the ID into his personal trainer database; everyone who used his PC system in the Kanto and Johto regions was logged in his computer, just in case of something like this. The page loaded painfully slowly; not even the trainer's ID photo was visible yet, but their phone number popped up on screen.

Rubbing at his sore eyes again, Bill snatched his phone off his desk, dialing the trainer, swiveling in his chair as the phone rang, watching his Umbreon try to juggle the Poké Balls it held.

"Hello-?" A feminine voice on the other end.

"Hiya, ma'am," Bill straightened in his chair, trying not to sound as tired as he was. "Hate t' bother ya, but I'm Bill, I run the box system?"

"Oh, yes, I've heard of you! Can I help you?" Her voice sounded worried.

Bill spun his chair again. "Ah'm sure you've heard, but there was a malfunction earlier today; I seem to've gotten it all fixed, but 'nfortunately, the system dropped most of your Pokémon at mah house, and m' transporter's down."

The girl on the other end let out a relieved sigh. "I'm so glad to know where they are! I was so scared when I checked my boxes just now- oh man, I'm out in Saffron, I won't be able to get very far tonight. Is it okay if I come to pick them all up tomorrow?"

Bill nodded at the phone before remembering she couldn't see him. "'Course, ma'am! Y'know Ah'm out by Cerulean? Ah can jus' meetcha by the Gym, if that's easier-"

"Yes, that works perfectly! Thank you so much!"

The pair said polite goodbyes before hanging up, and Bill spun his chair once more to face his computers. He'd just set some extra programs and scans to run overnight and-

His eyes landed on the now-loaded trainer's page.

"Tha's the girl we jus' saw on TV!"

[lmk if his accent is annoying or whatever lmao]

#rival destinies #pokemon #bill

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