#maybe I��ll draw more of them we’ll see | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

malucy31 · 4 years ago

Text

Even Autumn knows Dawn

Every day Magnus wakes up with Alec in his life, he realizes how differently he deals with his depression and aches. It's a lot better now. This is one of these mornings.

Teen and Up audiences

1922 words

Read on ao3

“I should have let you kidnap me while there was still time,” Alec mumbles, half asleep. “We would still be in Havana, winning all the salsa dancing competitions by now.”

With a light chuckle, Magnus slips under the cover and dives into his embrace. It has been a very long day on top of an excruciating week. Being in the warmth of Alec’s arms is everything he has been looking forward to the entire day. It doesn’t disappoint. The feeling of homeis immediate, making all his sore, tired muscles soften like marshmallows.

“The offer still stands, you know.”

“Mmh… ‘ll ‘member” Alec punctuates his words with a squeeze around his waist and, in a few seconds, Magnus can tell he has fallen back asleep. His heart breaks a little, but it’s 4 a.m. after all.

“Good night, Alexander,” he murmurs with a kiss against his shoulder.

Their schedules haven’t aligned in weeks. Magnus longs for their cozy pillow talks and lazy cuddles, has hoped all day to be home early enough to at least go to bed at the same time as Alec, but it was too good to be true.

Tomorrow won’t be better… Another political meeting to try to prevent a conflict between two warlock communities, a powerful client who keeps asking for impossible things, and the certainty that when he wakes up, Alec will be already getting ready for his own day of misery.

When Magnus opens his eyes, he wishes he had been wrong. His body already feels Alec’s absence and has decided to take over his side of the bed. The Sun is barely rising, but a weight is already settling on his chest. Alec’s scent is faint on the pillow, trapped in the silk fibers like morning dew under clover leaves. It helps soothe the ache a little, the one that has been following him for centuries.

He inhales deeply, letting relief wash over him.

Who knew answers could be so soft, so sweet?

A lifetime ago, he thought the answer was in more.More music, more laughter, more lovers, constant roller coasters of emotions. Whatever it took to quiet the pain.

Always more.

Until numbness.

Until oblivion and nothingness.

Until all that pain inside, that longing, that beasthad no other solution than to lock itself away in a dark, remote corner of his soul.

A never-ending fight against himself.

He remembers going through the last century like the wrinkled last page of a forgotten love letter, blowing in the wind through deserted streets. No will to steer him. Only the certainty that he wouldn’t see the turn of the next century carved deep into his bones.

No one is supposed to live this long.

There’s a reason why warlocks have to eventually find a way to burn their heart to ashes, get rid of their weakness, their humanity. Centuries ago, someone tried to convince Magnus it was the only way.

But his heart has always been his pride, the only good thing about him. He will never feed it to bitterness, this brave, oh so human organ that seeks connection more than air. Despite what people think of him, he never stopped wearing it in the palm of his hand.

Even through his darkest times, he would still take it out of his own chest if someone needed it. He would let it see the beauty of the world, of love, of the comfort and sense of belonging one can only draw from helping others. It made the pain turn wistful instead of nagging.

He thought that was his only answer. Helping others to have reasons to stay.

Forever seeking noise to keep an open heart and take care of his children.

Forever needed.

Forever alone…

Then, he met Alexander. Someone who is the opposite of noise, the opposite of his usual noise anyway.

Magnus will never be able to express precisely what drew him to this quiet shadowhunter. The moment he took Alec’s hand, something in him stirred, sighed like it hadn’t done in forever. Today, he likes to think that his magic recognized him somehow, giving his heart more reasons to keep beating.

If all legends are true, maybe souls wander the world, wander centuries and bodies until they find a home.

Alexander’s love isn’t loud, it’s quiet in all the most perfect ways. Even when he lets it explode, there’s a harmony, a celestial beauty that always leaves Magnus speechless, in complete awe.

Alexander doesn’t bring numbness. He makes Magnus aware of everything, makes him want to be fully alive and not a half version of it.

At first, he thought Alec was the one who needed to let his emotions run free. He forgot that what we see in others is often a reflection of what we know about ourselves.

There was never a beast that needed to be locked away inside of him. Alec shows him that. Every night and every day, his wonderful angel takes that pain in his careful hands and cradles it until it feels loved again, soothed.

It’s barely dawn. The day ahead still looks dull and lonely, but the heaviness is gone.

He pictures Alec in their living room, grimacing as he finishes his coffee because it’s probably too strong, leaning on the back of their couch while reading a few reports that have been sent to him over the night.

Any minute now, he is going to come back to their bedroom. He will take extra precautions to not startle him awake, even though neither stays asleep after the other one gets up. They both know that.

He will whisper, “Magnus, Magnus, I’m leaving,” and Magnus will open one eye, then two, smiling back at him. His grinning nephilim will come closer to kiss him good-bye. His hands, then his forearms will sink into the mattress either side of Magnus’s head. They’ll start laughing because he can rarely stop himself from tickling Alec’s ribs, and he knows there’s no such thing as not hearing that laugh today.

This morning should feel heavy.

And yet, the autumn light filtering through the shutters seems to be a little more golden than usual, the birds nesting on the roof sing something his centuries-old heart has long memorized, and the air he breathes takes up more space in his lungs, making him feel weightless.

When the door opens to Alec’s smiling face, he forgets everything.

It’s a beautiful day.

“Did I wake you?” he asks.

In a few strides, he is kneeling by his side, laying his hands on Magnus’s forearm. They are cold, he must have just washed them. Magnus almost says something about it because isn’t it endearing and miraculous? He isn’t sure he knows why something so simple makes him so happy, so emotional, but it does.

“No, my heart. I was already awake.”

A shudder of pleasure coils up around his spine when their lips wish each other a good morning in a tender kiss, when their breath mingles in laughter that fills Magnus with joy.

“So, I was thinking,” Alec pauses, happiness banishing the constant stress from his features, giving him back the youth the Clave stole from him. “Maybe we could plan a day off soon? Like very soon? I’ve heard of this ephemeral café that opened in Central Park, and I’d like to take you there, pretend to be mundanes… I like it when we do that, it’s fun.”

“An ephemeral café in Central Park, huh? How fancy of you.” Tilting Alec’s chin, Magnus kisses his cheek, feeling a slight tremor in his gesture.

For what must be the thousandth time since this wonderful being entered his life, Magnus marvels at all the ways Alec can affect him. His first reflex is to hide it, maybe tease Alec about how he could have found out about this café. Probably from Simon. It sounds like him and Magnus knows Alec is growing fonder of the vampire. It would be easy to avert Alec’s attention to this, make him roll his eyes in this fake-annoyed way he mastered a long time ago… But he can’t. For some reason, nothing comes out of his mouth. He doesn’t want to take Alec’s attention away from this moment, from him. Magnus wants to be right there with Alec. Genuine and whole, too much to handle, too many emotions, and too much love. Himself.

It doesn’t scare him. The realization brings tears to his eyes, and Alec kisses them away.

“I learned from the best.”

It takes a few seconds for Magnus to realize what Alec is replying to.

“So, what do you say?”

“I’d love to. I like having fun and being fancy with you.”

“Good,” Alec keeps gently cradling his face, wiping more invisible tears.

Magnus can tell he wants to ask about them, wants to ask about all that mess in his head, even though he is sure Alec wouldn’t call it that way. He wants to let him ask those questions, wants to see the day when he will be as open as possible with Alec. So instead of shaking his head, Magnus smiles.

“I can’t wait.”

“Me neither… We’ll talk more about it tonight, okay? I should go.”

“I might be home late.”

“I’ll wait.”

Alec kisses him and Magnus knows he shouldn’t grip his shirt this tight, but he does because it makes Alec giggle against his mouth. There’s no better feeling than that.

A little while later, when Magnus is getting ready, he catches sight of a note on their kitchen counter next to a cup of coffee.

I think I got it right this time… Let me know tonight. Have a good day, I love you.

He doesn’t know what is faster, his large grin or the tranquil waves of endearment and love surging inside of him. With a snap of his fingers, he warms up the cup and takes a sip. It’s perfect.

Closing his eyes, he savors the last minutes of quiet of his day before too much noise, too many problems to solve, too many people to talk to, before the sweet relief of Alec’s arms later tonight. Before what makes every day worth living through.

Magnus wishes he could talk to all the former versions of himself.

The ones desperate for a human connection that would last more than a night, more than a month, more than a few years. More than a lifetime. The ones that didn’t see any light at the end of the tunnel, the ones craving a quick and painless demise, the ones wondering where this would all lead him. The ones who only saw darkness ahead.

He wants to tell them that it gets better, that it’s all worth it, that today, all he sees is the love of his life, his answer to everything.

Even when he looks back, all he sees in his story are all the plot twists and unbearable cliffhangers that will lead him to his Alexander. All the reasons why their stories fit so well together. Every question finding an answer.

Maybe he had to go through all those centuries to get to this life, maybe he had to pay for his ancestors’ sins first. Maybe he didn’t. Maybe everything could have been different, and they would have still ended up here.

It doesn’t matter.

It used to matter, but it doesn’t anymore.

Because a new story started being written when their paths crossed. Their story.

It’s all that matters now.

#malec #magnus bane #alec lightwood #shadowhunters #malec fanfiction #my writing #magnus pov #happy malec :)

30 notes · View notes

sinceileftyoublog · 4 years ago

Text

30 (Technically 34) Albums We Loved That Happened To Come Out in 2020

So much has already been said and written about this cursed past year, but a few good things came out of it, including the music. Album-wise, like many before it and many to come, it was an embarrassment of riches. But even with so much time on our hands to devour new tunes, it was often old favorites, songs of comfort or familiarity that garnered the heaviest rotation. For many artists, too, it was a year ripe for revisiting or reissues of old material, looking at existing songs with fresh and new perspectives. Simply put, with so much to listen to, new and old, the prospect of ranking a finite number of albums felt not only daunting, but frankly a bit stupid. Maybe we were late to the game, but 2020 taught us that music should and can be appreciated in multiple contexts, not limited to but including when it first came out and when it was heard again and again, even if years later. The records below--listed in alphabetical order--happened to be released in some form in 2020, whether never-before-heard or heard before but in a different format. And the only thing I know is that we’ll be listening to them in 2021 and beyond.

Autechre - SIGN & PLUS (Warp)

The legendary British electronic music duo surprise released SIGN a mere month and a half after its announcement and then PLUS 12 days later. The former was a beatific collection of soundscapes that belied the band’s usual harsh noise, while PLUS embraced that noise right back, drawing you in with the clattering chaotic burbles of opener “DekDre Scap B” and lurching forward. -Jordan Mainzer

Against All Logic - 2017-2019 (Other People)

The perennially chill ambient house artist Nicolas Jaar had a busy 2020, as usual, releasing two albums under his name, Cenizas and Telas. But it was 2017-2019, the follow-up to the debut album from his Against All Logic moniker, that came first and throughout the year helped to illustrate Jaar’s penchant for combining inspired samples with club beats and tape hiss. Take the way the lovelorn vocals of “Fantasy” or soulful coos of “If Loving You Is Wrong” war skittering, scratchy percussion and cool arpeggios, respectively: Jaar is coming into his own as a masterful producer almost a decade after he released his first full-length. Oh, and bonus points for including none other than Lydia Lunch on a banger so blunt it would make Death Grips blush. - JM

Bartees Strange - Live Forever (Memory Music)

Like many, my introduction to Bartees Strange was through Say Goodbye to Pretty Boy, his EP of The National covers. Creativity and shifting perspectives shine through each song’s reimaging, like flipping the coarse, almost manic “Mr. November” into something softer, more meditative. It felt like a mere peek into what was to come on Live Forever. Bartees Strange is a world-builder. Each track on his debut unfolds and welcomes you to a wildly engaging tableau, a fully constructed vision. “Jealousy” opens with soft vocals and birdsong. “In a Cab” is the slick soundtrack to racing through a cityscape in the rain, seeing the blurred lights of the high-rises above as you pass by. “Kelly Rowland” warps wistful pop song feelings. “Flagey God” takes you into a dark, pulsing club while only a few songs later, “Fallen For You” wraps you in echoed vocals and romantic, raw acoustic guitar.

It’s an accomplishment to craft an album of individual songs that stand strongly on their own but still feel cohesive. 2020 wasn’t all bad. It gave us Live Forever, a declaration of an artist’s arrival. - Lauren Lederman

Charli XCX - how i’m feeling now (Atlantic)

Back in the spring, many of us wondered who would put out something great in 2020’s quarantine. It was hard to imagine that the intensity of a global pandemic would really allow for artists to embrace creativity. That thought carries the same eye-roll inducing feeling of “We’ll get some great punk music out of a Trump presidency,” but of course, Charli XCX delivered. Through live workshops with fans and longstanding collaborators, she delivered songs to dance alone to in your bubble. Charli embraces the unknown of the moment but clutches onto what’s familiar. Under the glitch-pop veneer of the album, she digs into the anxieties of not just this moment of time but of the bigger questions we all confront: trajectories of relationships with friends, romantic partners, ourselves. Album standouts “forever” and “i finally understand” embrace that feeling of both looking for control and accepting the lack of it. Charli is a master at balancing this. - LL

Christine and the Queens - La Vita Nuova (Because Music)

Named after a Latin text by Dante Alighieri about missing a woman who has died, Chris’ La Vita Nuova is not about mourning a death but instead about loneliness and isolation, post-relationship or otherwise. It doesn’t bang quite like her previous two albums, but it hits harder than ever.

Read our full review here.

Dogleg - Melee (Triple Crown)

Released on March 13th, right as the COVID-19 pandemic hit, Melee was supposed to be supported by three cancelled tours–SXSW, an opening slot for Microwave, and an opening slot for Joyce Manor–and an appearance at this year’s cancelled Pitchfork Music Festival. Listening to the songs on the record, you can only imagine how they translate: the jerky momentum of “Bueno”, build-up of “Prom Hell”, gang vocals of “Fox”, clear-vocal anthem of “Wrist”, and odd groove of “Ender”.

Read “Buckle Up, Motherfucker”, our interview with Dogleg.

Dua Lipa - Future Nostalgia & Dua Lipa/The Blessed Madonna: Club Future Nostalgia (Warner)

Where Dua Lipa’s much-anticipated second album Future Nostalgia succeeded was in its disco anthems and retro, club-ready beats, so who better to bring out the best of the record than The Blessed Madonna? The turntablist masterfully curates a mix of heavy hitters of the charts and the underground that not only offers an essential complement to Future Nostalgia but transcends it. Sending the tracks out to various producers and singers for features and then adding her own samples on top, she invites you to peel back the layers, enter a YouTube rabbit hole of sample searching as much as bopping along.

Read our full review here.

Emma Ruth Rundle & Thou - May Our Chambers Be Full (Sacred Bones)

Roadburn Festival has long been on my bucket list, and since the pandemic showed me how much live music can be taken away in a flash, when it’s safe again to travel and go to a festival, I may just pull the trigger and go--especially considering it’s the springboard for such fruitful and inspired collaborations as the one between Louisville singer-songwriter Emma Ruth Rundle and Baton Rouge sludge dwellers Thou. Rundle embraces the heavier opportunities on the follow-up to her incredible 2018 record On Dark Horses with the ever-flexible Thou backing her up vocally and instrumentally. Slow-burning opener “Killing Floor” offers a familiar introduction to fans of both--sort of what a Rundle/Thou song would sound like--before grunge chugger “Monolith” introduces huge, catchy riffs and “Out of Existence” a True Widow-esque dirge, newfound inspirations for both artists bringing the best out of each other. - JM

Fiona Apple - Fetch the Bolt Cutters (Epic)

What makes Fetch the Bolt Cutters stand out among Apple’s catalog and music in general is the clarity with which Apple seethes at those who have wronged her, whether ex-boyfriends or patriarchal oppressors, and looks to her relationships with other women for peace of mind.

Read our full review here.

HAIM - Women in Music Pt. III (Columbia)

For HAIM, the title Women in Music Pt. III is suggestive that, more than their previous two records, their third centers around the experiences of being an all-female band in a historically white cis male-dominated scene, at least one that wouldn’t call catchy riffs written by a man “simple” or call attention to the faces a man makes while playing. What it doesn’t let on to is how deeply personal the record is, how, by unabashedly embracing genres and styles of music that they love, HAIM have made far and away their best album. Co-produced by the usual suspects, Danielle Haim, Ariel Rechtshaid, and ex-Vampire Weekender Rostam Batmanglij, it’s instrumentally and aesthetically dynamic and diverse, consistently earnest without devolving into cheese.

Read our full review here.

Irreversible Entanglements - Who Sent You? (International Anthem)

I’ve been captivated by Irreversible Entanglements ever since I first saw them at Pitchfork Music Festival 2018. The radical poetry of Camae Ayewa (aka Moor Mother) is the perfect front for a ramshackle mix of Luke Stewart’s spidery bass, Tcheser Holmes’ weighty drums, and a horn section that concocts tones that range from hopeful to desperate. At their best, Who Sent You? is a shining example of celebratory Afrofuturism and metaphysics that makes the urgency of Ayewa’s more concrete and political words all the more necessary. “No Más”, composed by Panamanian-born trumpeter Aquiles Navarro, is a declaration against imperialist oppression, while the stunning title track flips the switch like a Kara Walker painting, as Ayewa’s the one interrogating the police officer terrorizing her community. “Who sent you?” she repeats, never spiraling, grabbing a hold of the power and never letting go. - JM

Jeff Parker - Suite for Max Brown (International Anthem/Nonesuch)

It’s Jeff Parker’s mom’s turn. After 2016′s The New Breed ended up being a tribute to the guitarist’s father, who passed away during the making of it, Parker decided to pay tribute to Maxine while she was still alive. Suite for Max Brown (Brown is his mother’s maiden name; Max is what people call her) is a genre-bending collection of tracks inspired by Parker’s DJing, juxtapositions of sequenced beats with improvisation that certainly sound like the brainchild of one individual. Indeed, Parker plays the majority of the instruments on it and engineered most of it at home or during his 2018 Headlands Center residency in Sausalito, CA; though all of the players and the vocalist (Jeff’s daughter Ruby Parker) on The New Breed show up, plus a couple trumpeters (piccolo player Rob Mazurek and Nate Walcott of Bright Eyes) and cellist Katinka Kleijn, Suite for Max Brown is a distinctly Jeff Parker record.

Read our preview of Jeff Parker & The New Breed’s set at Dorian’s last year.

Jeff Rosenstock - NO DREAM (Polyvinyl)

Jeff Rosenstock throws us right into the spinning, manic energy of NO DREAM, his latest release from a seemingly endless well of music that never lacks urgency. It’s a reminder that though it’s been a strange year, the issues Rosenstock tackles here aren’t new. There’s no interest in making you feel comfortable here. On the album’s title track, Rosenstock sings, lulling you into a false sense of security, “They were separating families carelessly / Under the guise of protecting you and me.” But reality sets in, and the hazy guitars spin out as he spits, “It’s not a dream!” and, “Fuck violence!”

My image of Jeff Rosenstock in the year 2020 is masked up with “Black Lives Matter” scrawled across the fabric of his mask in Sharpie, performing album highlight “Scram!” on Late Night with Seth Meyers as high energy as ever. It felt like watching someone send out a beacon, both a distress signal and a call to arms. - LL

Jessie Ware - What’s Your Pleasure? (PMR/Friends Keep Secrets/Interscope)

I am not someone who goes to clubs. I don’t “go out dancing,” preferring to let loose in the privacy of my own home or a trusted friend’s house party. But Jessie Ware’s What’s Your Pleasure? makes me think I could embrace a night out like that, once the world opens up again, of course. The album is filled with syncopated disco beats that feel fresh and classic all at once. The abundant horns and strings on “Step Into My Life” are decadent, like light bouncing off sequins in a dark room. Ware’s voice is slinky and velvety one moment, windswept like her album cover the next. It’s songs like “Save a Kiss” that embrace both, allowing her to show off her range. - LL

Laura Marling - Song for Our Daughter (Partisan)

With sparse production, mostly from her but with additions from Ethan Johns and Dom Monks, Marling foregoes the comparative maximalism of the Blake Mills-produced Semper Femina, her last proper full-length, and 2018′s LUMP collaboration. The songs aren’t simple, but they’re succinct, and every element, from Marling’s finger-picked guitars, the occasional slide guitar, and that unmistakably calm voice, sometimes alone and sometimes layered, fits. It’s her most universal set of songs yet, centering around the times when we’re apart from one another but reflecting on when we were together and when we might be together again, with no guarantees.

Read the rest of our review here.

Les Amazones d’Afrique - Amazones Power (Real World Records)

The groovy pan-African collective expands upon their debut Republique Amazone and then some with Amazones Power, a tour-de-force statement of female empowerment in the face of oppression against women throughout the African diaspora. Indeed, the album is more than just songs boldly decrying FGM, though those demands ring heavily. Instead, the group goes further, delving into gender power structures in marriage on “Queens” and selectively finding strength in tradition on “Dreams”. And this time, they include men to stand alongside with them. “Together we must stand / Together we must end this,” sings Guinean musician/dancer/artist Niariu on opener “Heavy” in solidarity with features Douranne (Boy) Fall and Magueye Diouk (Jon Grace) of Paris band Nyoko Bokbae. But perhaps it’s her kiss-off on “Smile” that hits hardest: “I shut up for no one.” - JM

Lianne La Havas - Lianne La Havas (Nonesuch)

The British singer-songwriter’s much anticipated follow-up to 2015′s Blood was better than I could have ever imagined. A song cycle about life cycles--of nature, of lives, of a relationship--inspired by an actual breakup, Lianne La Havas is a contemporary neo soul masterpiece. Overview opener “Bittersweet” is an instant earworm, La Havas’ coo-turned-belt filling the space between classic and increasingly emotive slabs of piano and guitar. Funky, lovestruck strut “Read My Mind” is the soundtrack for the unbridled confidence of finding new love. Yes, the doubts begin to sow on the fingerpicked melancholy of “Green Papaya” and “Can’t Fight”, and where the album goes from a simple narrative perspective may be predictable: They break up, they don’t get back together, La Havas enjoys her independence. But the depth of the arrangements and assuredness of La Havas’ singing is a product of an artist starting to really show us what she can do. And how many people can pull off a Radiohead cover like that? - JM

Lomelda - Hannah (Double Double Whammy)

What does it mean to title an album after yourself? Lomelda’s latest album is centered around discovering more about yourself while not always having the answers. Despite the lyrical content, the album is self-assured. Hannah Read’s voice feels as steady as ever as it navigates these twisting questions, like the way the world can shift after a kiss. She finds power in softness and reflection throughout the album, like when she explores the mantra-like words of “Wonder” or through a reminder to do no harm in “Hannah Sun”. In a year that allowed for perhaps more reflection than usual, Hannah makes space for the questions that arise out of figuring yourself out, of making sense of the messiness of it all, wrapped in warm guitar, balanced vocals, and steady drums. - LL

Moses Sumney - Grae (Jagjaguwar)

“Am I vital / If my heart is idle? / Am I doomed?” Moses Sumney famously sang on his stunning 2017 debut Aromanticism, an album that saw him developing his acceptance of being alone. grae, his two-part 2nd full-length, and his first since officially moving from L.A. to the Appalachian Mountains of Asheville, North Carolina, doubles down on themes of heartbreak, but instead of being sure in his seclusion, he embraces the unknown. The album teeters between interludes of platitudes about isolation and ruminations on failed human connection, and maximally arranged clutches of uncertainty. “When my mind’s clouded and filled with doubt / That’s when I feel the most alive,” Sumney coos over horns and piano on slinky soul song “Cut Me”; it’s an effective mantra for the album.

Read the rest of our review here.

Norah Jones - Pick Me Up Off The Floor (Blue Note)

At the time we previewed Norah Jones’ 7th studio album, she had only released a few tracks from it. Turns out the rest was just as powerful. From the blues stomp of “Flame Twin” to the rolling piano stylings of “Hurts to Be Alone”, Pick Me Up Off The Floor is an album full of jazzy orchestrations and soul and gospel-indebted arrangements, Jones’ silky, yearning voice tying together the simple, yet lush and deep instrumentation. And that other Tweedy feature, that closes the album? It’s a heartbreaking portrait of loneliness, one of many on a record that still manages to celebrate being alive all the while. - JM

Phoebe Bridgers - Punisher (Dead Oceans)

Phoebe Bridgers is a master of details. Her lyrics shine when they get specific. They range from the mundane to morbid: A superfan’s ghost-like wandering under a drugstore’s fluorescent lights, a skinhead likely buried under a blooming garden, reckoning with the you in “Moon Song”’s lines, “You are sick, and you’re married / And you might be dying.” Bridgers has always been able to set a scene meticulously, and Punisher arrived with 11 songs that expanded that skill, both lyrically and musically, with her dark humor intact and a fuller sound that includes her boygenuis collaborators’ harmonies. - LL

PJ Harvey - To Bring You My Love: The Demos & Dry - The Demos (Island)

Yes, revisiting Dry’s demos as a separate entity is still worthwhile. Harvey’s powerhouse vocal performance carries the acoustic strummed “Oh My Lover”, while the comparatively minimal arrangement of “Victory” highlights bluesy riffing, call-and-response harmonies, and layered guitar and vocals. The singles, the slinky and sharp “Dress” and propulsive anthem “Sheela-Na-Gig”, hold up to their ultimate studio versions, too. But it’s the To Bring You My Love material that provides novelty because it’s never been released and more so because it encompasses the greatest aesthetic contrast from the album. From the warbling hues and guitar lines of the title track to the tremolo haze of “Teclo” to the crisp snares of “Working With The Man”, the demos show a continuity and level of cohesiveness with the diversity of Dry and Rid of Me not shown on the studio version of Harvey’s more accessible commercial breakout. (Predictably, the album’s most well-known song, “Down by the Water”, is the closest to its eventual version.) “Long Snake Moan” is simultaneously more spacious and more noisy, its garage blues a total contrast to the lurking “I Think I’m A Mother” and swaying shanty “Send His Love To Me”. And “The Dancer” fully embraces its flamenco influences, hand claps and all.

Porridge Radio - Every Bad (Secretly Canadian)

Is there a better opening line than “I’m bored to death, let’s argue”? That kind of duality is found across all of Every Bad as it grapples with the frustrations and anxiety of trying to figure it all out, whatever that might mean for you. “Maybe I was born confused, but I’m not,” vocalist Dana Margolin repeats throughout the opening track, roping in listeners with the dizzying feeling of trying to make sense of yourself. The band’s guitar and synth sound coupled with Margolin’s howl makes for a dance party filled with dread, rendering Margolin’s already strong, repetitive lyrics even more spiraling. And yet, by the time we get to “Lilacs”, a glimmer of something else shines through as the music gets more manic and Margolin’s voice begins to soar: “I don’t want to get bitter / I want us to get better / I want us to be kinder / To ourselves and to each other.” - LL

Sault - Untitled (Rise) & Untitled (Black Is) (Forever Living Originals)

Yes, Black Is still pulls plenty of devastating punches. “Eternal Life”, a segue from the gospel boost of “US”, juxtaposes a deliberate drum beat with zooming synths, both ascending like a chorus of angels, as they sing, “I see sadness in your eye / ‘Cause I know you don’t wanna die,” presenting the oppression of Black life at the hands of white supremacy in inarguable terms. Ultimately, though, it’s the anthemic nature of the songs, resistant of platitudes, that shines through. “Nobody cared / This generation cares,” says Laurette Josiah on “This Generation”. Whether she’s talking about young people in general or the latest generation of young Black leaders, the sentiment is reflected on songs like “Black”, wherein over dynamic, sinewy instrumentation, the singers alternate between encouragement, support, and love of the self and others.

Read our full review here.

Shamir - Shamir (self-released)

Shamir’s voice is a bright beacon in a sea of conventional singers. Shamir captures the effervescence of pop music and weaves it together with elements of country, alt rock, and diary confessional lyrics all supported by the emotion and range of his vocals. There’s something for everyone across the album’s 11 shimmering tracks. Lead single and opener “On My Own” feels like a declaration of self and self-sufficiency, an anthem of a breakup song. The almost pop-punk bounce of “Pretty When I’m Sad”, paired perfectly with lines like the angst-ridden, “Let’s fuck around inside each other’s heads,” feels impossible to not bop along to. The twang of “Other Side” would put a country crooner to shame. That’s the power of Shamir. His voice has the ability to smoothly convey joy, resilience, and humor. He uses elements of several genres, not just the dance-pop of his debut, to build a unique album that gives listeners so much to sift through and, of course, dance to. - LL

Songhoy Blues - Optimisme (Fat Possum)

If Songhoy Blues’ second album Resistance lacked “the grit of its predecessor,” it’s clear from the hard rock stomp of the opening track of Malian band’s third album Optimisme that they rediscovered their mojo. More importantly, they couple this maximal brashness with tributes to those who make their world a better place: fighters for freedom, women, the young. It’s perhaps the first Songhoy Blues record to truly combine the celebratory nature of their desert blues with a balanced mixture of idealism and vigor. - JM

Spanish Love Songs - Brave Faces Everyone (Pure Noise)

How can you find hope in hopelessness, or optimism when every news story points to cruelty? Is it naïve to keep searching for light in the dark? I don’t think so, and I don’t think Spanish Love Songs does, either. I’d like to think we both believe that’s not naivety, but power. It’s the embers you need to really ignite a flame. After all, this is the band with a song titled “Optimism (As a Radical Life Choice)”. It’s a band whose crunching guitars and earnestness insist that despite death and depression and addiction, the instinct to survive shines brightly above all. That relentless hope resurfaces across Brave Faces Everyone’s 10 tracks even as it works through the bleakness of everyday life. - LL

Tashi Dorji - Stateless (Drag City)

The magnum opus from the Asheville-based picker is a group of evocatively titled, disorderly songs about the desolate hellscape of America for outsiders and immigrants. Enigmatic in its nature, not exactly narrative, Stateless combines Dorji’s urgent strumming with moody motifs, captured beautifully in a studio setting for maximum emotional wallop. - JM

Touche Amore - Lament (Epitaph)

Is this what an almost uplifting Touche Amore album sounds like? It’s cathartic in a newer way for the band, especially after the beautifully rendered grief of Stage Four. Lament loses none of the band’s aggression or urgency. “Come Heroine” thrusts listeners into that urgency and introduces a moment of warmth, Jeremy Bolm’s vocals still rasping and insistent: “You brought me in / You took to me / And reversed the atrophy.” The bounciness of “Reminders” may seem close to optimism, but a sharper look at the lyrics uncovers more than blindly looking to the things that bring joy. “I’ll Be Your Host” is reflective, a few years removed from Touche Amore’s previous album and the immediacy of loss, self-aware and growing, but still raw. The album closer, “A Forecast”, takes a turn, a lone voice and piano acting as a confessional before giving way to thrashing guitars and the realization that growth and reckoning with trauma doesn’t mean minimizing it. It means learning to keep moving forward and to stop for help when you may need it. - LL

Waxahatchee - Saint Cloud (Merge)

The best album yet from Katie Crutchfield is inspired by positive personal change (getting sober, dealing with codependency issues, her blossoming love with singer-songwriter Kevin Morby) and reflections on family and friends. Named after the suburb of Orlando where her father’s from, Saint Cloud is a genre-hopping collection of stories and feelings that doesn’t necessarily follow any semblance of narrative. On opener “Oxbow” and country-tinged ditty “Can’t Do Much”, Crutchfield’s increasingly aware of the need to pick your side and your battles, whether in the relationship between two people or between the allure of the bottle and the next-day hangover. Some of the best songs on the album see her finding commonalities with others as a means towards self-love. Gentle strummer “The Eye” refers to her natural creative relationships with Morby and her sister Allison. “War” she wrote for herself and best friend, who is also sober, the title a metaphor for one’s fight to remain substance-free. “Witches” is an ode to her best friends, including Allison and Snail Mail’s Lindsey Jordan, all equally frustrated by the toxic nature of the music industry and the world at large, ultimately lifting each other up because they simply have each other.

Read our full review here.

66 notes · View notes

tuskanniki · 3 years ago

Note

Hello! I might be misremembering but did you create Sirius/Bellatrix art for kinktober a few years ago? I think I came across it on Instagram and really loved it! It’s my OTP and gets such little love so I was so happy to find it. Do you plan on making any more art with them? And what are some of your headcanons about them?

oh no, you’re completely correct! I did draw a piece a few years ago for kinktober. :3

thank you so much for appreciating my work! sirius/bellatrix is one of my favourite hp ships of all time because of all the potential and possibilities within fanfiction! and they’re some of my fave characters as well.

I might someday do more fanart since I’ve really missed drawing hp stuff. sirius/bellatrix has always had such a small audience and I’ve had my fair share of antis calling me by vile names, so I haven’t really posted anything about them recently. but we’ll see!

headcanons, headcanons... well I do think they were engaged as we know the house of black is basically cousins marrying cousins. but then sirius turned out to be a “traitor” and bellatrix married rodolphus to keep her status and out of spite. but I like to think their potential forbidden romance and lingering affections were one of the reasons that ultimately made bella k/ll sirius. maybe it was one of the reasons she went completely insane too?

also I like to think they made out at least once. maybe even had hate-sex too.

#ask #sirius x bellatrix #harry potter

2 notes · View notes

thewatermelloncat · 5 years ago

Text

Powers Against the Father (Allison and Klaus)

Luther, Diego, Five, Ben, Vanya

Author’s Note: This one’s a little different. I combined Allison and Klaus into the same edition since this way I could create a more in-depth story. It might be a little hard to follow, though I tried to explain it as best I could in the story, but in quick summary:

The siblings want to stop their father making a deal with a company who wants to hire them to steal artefacts from indigenous cultures for a museum exhibit.

Hope that helps ease confusion.

Warnings: Possibly one mild swear word.

Tag list:

@lunamusamelark

@ll-short-breadstikz-ll

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

“I don’t understand why Five can’t do it!” Klaus whispers harshly to his siblings as they stand in formation outside the door of their father’s office. Watching him greet the owner of a museum who has arrived for an off-the-record meeting.

“And hide where, Klaus?” Five whispers back to him. “You know dad has cameras everywhere, even in the cupboards.”

“I know you don’t want to do this, but you’re our only hope” Allison tells him from his other side.

“Our only hope” Klaus chuckles to himself, “how cliché.”

Before the conversation can continue their father steps forward with their guest and introduces each of them, giving a brief rundown of their powers. Sounding like he’s boasting but disappointed in them all the same. When it gets to each of their turns to be introduced, some of them smile out of politeness but Klaus averts his eyes and stares down at his hands fidgeting in front of him.

After their introductions are finished, their father dismisses them and invites the museum representative into his office to discuss business with him. When the door closes, they all relax their posture and form into a tight group as they make their way through the hallway away from the office.

“The whole mission is wrong; even the guy seems like a pompous arsehole” Vanya keeps her voice low as to not be heard by the adults through the wall.

“And since when are we in the business of stealing?” Allison adds.

“The old man probably just wants to keep some of the artefacts for himself” Diego points out and various hums sound from around the group.

“What’s so bad about it anyway?” Klaus asks. “Isn’t it the point that people can learn about the cultures in the exhibit? Learning is good isn’t it?”

“Oh, so stealing artefacts from them is okay then?” Allison’s voice drips in sarcasm and her hair swishes violently as she turns the corner, Luther leading them into a room near by the office.

“Come on, Klaus” Five begs, “I for one don’t want to go back to the ideals of colonialism.”

“What about you?” Klaus turns to Luther who took the lead in the siblings settling down on a range of furniture in the centre of the room. “You’re normally daddy’s right-hand man and you’re being awfully silent. Why aren’t you arguing about this?”

“Because I agree with it” Luther admits and Klaus’ fear sinks deeper into him.

“Klaus, we’re all against it and we know you are too” Ben says. “We know you don’t want to do it, but we’ll all be right here with you.”

“But using our powers against dad?” Klaus tries in vain.

“Oh, come on! We do it all the time” Diego reminds him. “Allison’s already agreed to her part if it comes down to it, and who are you to pass up an opportunity to mess with dad?”

Klaus draws in a deep breath tangling his hands in his hair. “All right, you’ve sold me. But it’s going to cost me greatly, emotionally.”

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

Chairs creak as their occupants shift in them nervously, watching Klaus intently. His face is white and he would be sitting so still he may as well be a statue, if it weren’t for him shaking in fear. Behind his eyelids they can all see his eyes moving frantically, not wanting to see the ghosts he conjures. That’s the one solace to the plan, he doesn’t have to look at them, only hear them.

Still the sound of their voices, or maybe it is just their presence, makes him shake. Though he’s unaware of it, his siblings gradually place their hands on him as if they can hold him together. Of course, with the exception of Luther who is analysing the situation closely and Five who just doesn’t like physical contact, but they remain close by.

Klaus can’t hear the creaking of the chairs now that he has traded his hearing in the corporal plane for the depths of the realm of the dead. Only hearing the sounds of the ghosts yammering to him, screaming at him, until he can get them to settle down and hear him out. It may be his desperation to get this over with, but he manages to give out his instructions relatively quickly and feels their presence shift off into his father’s office.

Everything Klaus can hear through the ghosts he has stationed around his father’s desk sounds like it is underwater. Sometimes the connection cuts out for a few seconds and he wonders why they can be so loud in his ears when he doesn’t want them there, but so quiet when he needs them the most. He knows his father’s solution would be for him to practice more. Though he can understand enough to know when the earliest opportunity comes for him to tap out, and he takes it.

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

The breath he draws in when he surfaces is so deep that he would have fallen out of his chair if it weren’t for his siblings’ hands on him. Opening his eyes, he sees most of them huddled around him, Five and Luther stepping forward to close the gaps in the group.

None of them speak, waiting for him to make the first move. Initially he can’t find any words to speak and shakes his head while he slowly formulates them together. His siblings are happy to wait for him, watching him with varying looks of concern.

“They’re making a deal that dad can keep some of the artefacts” is all he can manage in the end. He wants to say more but he can’t function well enough with the voices of ghosts still echoing in his head.

Collectively his siblings sigh in a mix of defeat and frustration, Diego not even bothering to point out that he called it. Allison is the first one to pop up from the hanging heads, standing up and brushing off her skirt. “Right. Let’s get to it.”

Her words spark the group into action and they all, aside from Klaus, stand from their chairs and form a huddle.

Though they already know the plan, Luther runs them through it. “Vanya, Diego, go distract mum.”

They both nod and leave the room for the kitchen where they are sure they will find her. “How long do you need?” Vanya asks Allison as she brushes past her.

“Five minutes will probably do” she says.

“Keep her as long as you can” Luther instructs, which is probably unnecessary since Grace isn’t likely to interrupt them anyway, it’s just that they don’t want to risk it. “Ben, you stay with Klaus.”

Ben nods to him and sits back down next to Klaus who is no longer paying attention, before Luther gives out his last instruction. “Five, Allison, you’re with me.”

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

Allison knows she isn’t as nervous as she should be. By far her and her siblings haven’t had the most normal of childhoods, but she knows that manipulating your parents isn’t considered appropriate.

Neither of the boys either side of her say anything as they walk down the hallway. She prefers it that way, giving her time rehearse the correct words to say to her father. Though in theory they should come to her easily now with all the training she’s been put through.

Coming to stop in front of the office door they look to each other and nod before Luther knocks on the polished wood.

Behind the door they can hear their father’s muffled voice complaining before angry footsteps make their way to the door. In preparation the three of them step back before the door swings open.

“What is the meaning of this?” their father hisses lowly at them.

“Mum is malfunctioning, sir” Luther lies far too easily for someone who often follows the rules.

“I have an important guest around. I will deal with it later” he snaps at them, his eyes flicking back to his guest standing alone by the mantelpiece. “In the meantime, shut her down.”

“We have tried already, sir. We didn’t want to disturb you if we didn’t need to” Five continues the lie. “We think it may be a loose wire in the control panel.”

Their father sighs deeply, seeming to buy into their lie as he internally debates which action to take.

“Five and I can show the representative around” Luther persuades. “Surely he’d like to see your collection of souvenirs from your travels in Africa.”

“Most certainly I would” the representative says, now standing in the centre of the room listening into their conversation. “We were just talking about your travels there, weren’t we Reginald?”

“Yes, that we were” Reginald replies, voice sounding distant as he thinks. “Very well then” he settles turning back to their guest. “I must apologise, I have a matter I must attend to. My children Number 1 and Number 5 will show you to the artefacts.”

Allison has to bite back a smirk at the distaste in which her father says ‘children.’ He must really want this deal if he’s putting up the front of a caring and attentive father. It’s gong to make it so much sweeter for her to break.

As their father and Luther trade places on either side of the office door, Luther flicks her a look with a nod of his head which she knows to mean good luck. She nods back to him before he turns around to follow Five already over shaking the representative’s hand, feigning politeness though Allison can see it’s completely conceited.

After her father follows along behind her, her face breaks out in a smile which she hopes he can’t see. This is all in her hands now.

She can feel adrenaline starting to pulse more heavily in her veins as she leads the way in rounding the corner to the main staircase. When they step out into the open space, she stops in front of him halting her father in his tracks.

His noise of startlement and frustration is ignored and before he can speak Allison beats him to it.

“I heard a rumour, that you refuse to take the deal.”

Her father freezes in his movements and his eyes glaze over as the words persuade him. Without a word he abruptly turns on his heels and marches back towards his office. Allison quickly follows after him, barely keeping up with his long strides.

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

Both Allison and Luther have to bite their lips against smiling as the museum representative rages at their father who seems utterly confused as to why he is not taking up the deal. Five stands with them off to the side, neutral faced. Already a master of controlling his expressions, though Allison can see a bright glint in his eyes.

They watch in amusement as the representative angrily shoves his papers back into his briefcase mumbling incomprehensibly about how confused he is as to why his nearly-to-be business partner backed out of the deal so suddenly. With a final clap of the briefcase closing and the latches snapping shut, he huffs and storms out of the room. Their father being the supposed proper gentlemen follows behind him to see him out, ignoring the complaints of the representative that he can find his own way.

The arguing of the two men draws the siblings out from their various places. Five, Luther and Allison follow behind them out of the office, stopping at the top of the stairs where they can see Diego and Vanya standing downstairs in the foyer beneath the door to the kitchen. Both looking at each other and trying not to laugh.

Looking back up across the railing to the other side of the staircase, Allison spots Ben leading Klaus out of the room they had settled in, dragging him by his arm. She’s glad to see that Klaus looks a lot brighter now, and when he looks up from watching their father disappear out of sight, he smiles at her.

She can’t help but beam back at him, throwing in a cheeky wink for good measure.

#tua #The Umbrella Academy #umbrella academy fanfiction #luther hargreeves #diego hargreeves #Allison Hargreeves #the rumour #klaus hargreeves #the seancé #five hargreeves #ben hargreeves #vanya hargreeves #reginald hargreeves

43 notes · View notes

why-i-ask · 4 years ago

Text

I've been wanting to do things with these prompts for ages but I don't have art skills. So, >-< writing. Big long.

-Star Guardian AU -

It’s the sound of the old school clock striking three that draws Ezreal’s attention away from blankly staring at the pages of an old chemistry book. It’s hard to think of school when you have an alter ego living in a galaxy above saving the world every night. He Exhales and closes the book finding it pointless to pretend any longer.

“Something wrong?” Chipped the soft voice of the pink haired mage besides him.

He flinched he’d almost forgotten he invited Lux to study with him.

“No just, can’t focus.”

“I get that, why don’t we get coffee?”

“This place has a coffee shop?” Ezreal mused, he’d never really looked around outside of their shared accommodation. He wanted to explore the stars not the streets.

“Yea, It’s really cute. Also is hiring-” Lux smiled, tapping his shoulder as she strutted past him.

“I think I’ve got enough work to do.” He rolled his eyes, standing up and tucking the books back into his bag.

Ezreal would be lying if he said Lux was wrong. The place was adorable. A small shop on the corner, with little ivory tables and chairs set about it’s front protected by a brown fence decked in vines, the open sign was a soft lavender, shimmering in the window. As they opened the door, the old chimes range overhead. The inside was an array of pastels, the walls in a soft lemon, with the tables and chairs were in a checked mint. The counter was a baby blue, he stared at the array of cakes in their display trays at one side, as they approached the cashier straighten. He was a young male, perhaps the same age as them working some part time for extra cash. He looked tired though, the dark shades under his eyes even visible with his dark chocolate skin.

“Hey, Can I take your order?”

“Yea- Do you guys still do that amazing strawberry cheesecake?” Lux chimed.

“That was last weeks special, this time is raspberry it rotates every week.”

“Hm, shame. Then just two super choco brownies and a strawberry smoothie for me- What do you want Ez?” She turned to look at him, drawing the cashier’s attention to him as well.

Ezreal bit his lip he hadn’t payed enough attention to the menu; he scrunched his face up in thought, the Cashier rolled his eyes messing with a lose strand of his white hair that had escape the taming of a messy bun.

“Take your time, there’s not a queue yet.” He hummed, “before turning round to the kitchen outlet, “Tal, can you start fix up the order on screen..”

Ezreal sighed, glancing back across the small menu on the desk, his eyes glancing across the sweets. “uhm, Can I have a latte and a caramel slice?”

The cashier smiled slightly, “Sure, got a name for that?”

“uh, Ezreal-”

“Great. You tow paying separately or together?”

“I’m paying,” Lux smiled, “It’s my treat afterall, long day.”

Ezreal was about to protest but lux elbowed him and he decided against it. There wasn’t much point in arguing she could be stubborn she got that from Jinx.

“Your total is 28.50. You can sit down if you like. we’ll bring it to your table. ”

Lux grinned fishing around her purse for a few notes handing them over, before turning and grabbing Ezreal arm, pulling him to one of the corner tables.

“What do you think?” She hummed, nudging the table décor to the side.

“It’s nice..”

“No, I know that- I mean him.”

Ezreal blinked, she was really trying to set him up like that? She really wanted him to move on. “No.”

“C’mon, why not? Star guardian too busy for love? You weren’t to busy to run after me-”

“That was different. I don’t have to keep anything secret from you.”

Lux sighed and shook her head, the spacebuns she had decided to sport seemed to lag in their movements. “Not everything has to be about saving the universe.”

Ezreal huffed, She was right and he didn’t like that. He wanted to pretend it could entirely be about fighting monsters; saving the world being a hero. mysterious, adored. Yet she was right he had a real life too. They were sat in silence for only a few minutes, watching other guests enter, sit down to chat or walk away with a small coffee. Then the server approached, she must’ve also been a part time hire; though she was much more lively than the cashier. Her short brown hair tied in spacebuns almost twinning lux’s current hairstyle, which caused a grin to spread across her face. Her bright chestnut eyes glittered with excitement as she set the tray down on the table.

“Hey, sorry for the wait. Brownies and a strawberry smoothie.” she hummed, setting down the plate and glass before lux.

“Thank you! it’s not a problem!”

“and a caramel slice and coffee for....Asreal?” Her face scrunched slightly as she glanced at the cup to read before placing it down with the plate before Ezreal.

“Thanks-” He hummed, though his attention was drawn to the bad spelling of his name on the cup. He didn’t think it was that hard to spell.

She picked up the empty tray, “Enjoy! If you want anything else feel free to ask!”

“We will, Thank you...Taliyah? I love the hair by the way.” Lux grinned, leaning over slightly to look at the name tag on the waitress’ pastel red uniform.

Taliyah practically glowed at the compliment,

“Next-” It was the fairly loud shout from the Cashier that drew her attention and caused her to hurry back to behind the counter.

Lux giggled picking up a brownie and biting into it. “What about her?”

“Lux! I’m not that pathetic to have a crush on just anyone who’s nice to me!”

She laughed, “of course not~ I’m teasing.”

Ezreal huffed, sipping from the latte. It was bittersweet and hot- perhaps he should’ve specified the sugar addition and waited- He place it back down trying not to wince at the slight burn.

“but I do mean it, you need to get out more. In the real world.”

He sighed, taking a bit from the caramel square. “I know.”

Lux was quick to pick up on the irritation in his tone and turned the conversation swiftly to the subjects of school; English to be precise. some of play by a dead guy Ezreal had since forgotten the name of. She was quite happy to chatter on allowing him brief moments to interrupt with his own thoughts. They remained in the shop for perhaps thirty minutes, the snacks gone and drinks drunk before lux’s finally finished her rant.

“oh my, is that the time? We should head back and meet up with the other’s.”

Ezreal nodded standing up, he piled the plats and cups up before they took their leave.

~~~

It was Saturday evening, sitting board in the longue watching Soraka and lulu playing chess on the old coffee table. When Lux, swung round again, “Hey guys.. before we have our movie night why do we go out?”

“where? Y’know those restaurants are just so pricey and not worth it-”

“What about the cafe?”

“that lil shop on the corner near school?” Lulu tilted her head. “It always smells so nice.”

“Yeah. It’s got pretty good prices.”

So they made the walk off to the corner shop, the dwindling light of the day fading into the sunset as the approached the familiar ivory décor though it was now glowing in a soft umber from the fading light.

They entered the shop to the familiar jingle of the chimes, This time the cashier was their server; Taliyah. Her hair still tied in it’s space buns, She smiled upon seeing them enter.

“Hello! What can i get you today?”

Lulu giggled, standing on her tippy toes to peer over the counter, “a menu if you wouldn’t mind-”

“Ah-” Taliyah quickly picked up the sheet on the counter and handed it to her.

“I’ll have lemon meringue pie, and a J20?” Lux hummed, “never tried the pie before..”

“That sounds great- oh they have apple pies too- I’d like one of those.” Soraka said, glancing back to Ezreal and lulu.

“Uhm, A latte I suppose with just two sugars- and...a chocolate sundae.”

“ooh! Oh! chocolate sundae with waffles!” Lulu piped up placing the menu down.

“Do you have a name for your latte?” Taliyah smiled, stifling a laugh at lulu’s reaction as she tapped it into the register again.

“Uhm, Ezreal- But it’s spell with an E.”

Taliyah shrugged. “Alright...And you’re paying with?”

“Oh i’’ll paying, You guys can just pay me back later makes everything easier.” Soraka said interupting lux’s offer to just pay the whole thing again.

“Thanks roka!”

“Great, your total is 42.69.” Taliyah hummed, “Feel free to sit down and we’ll bring it out...”

Soraka paid and they returned to one of the booths in the side.

“She’s very nice.”

“Yeah, I wonder if she’s the only one on today, He’s not here today- oh what was his name tag?”

Ezreal shrugged, he hadn’t payed too much mind to the cashier beyond how tired he seemed and the jokes lux had made.

“Well their not too busy now so they probably don’t need that many people on.” Lulu grinned, before turning to Soraka and pulling out some playing cards. “go fish?”

“You know you always lose...”

“This time i’ll win! I’ve been practicing!”

Soraka laughed softly and took the cards to deal out, Ezreal declined the offer to play. It was more fun to watch than participate in with the way the two could get aggressive.

A few minutes passed before the counter door swung open and the male from yesterday stepped over carrying a tray brimmed with their order.

“Evening...” He hummed, a slight grin twisting on his face as he set down each of the treats before each of them.

He looked at least somewhat happier than last time, though he still seemed tired, Ezreal wondered why, it couldn’t be that hard. Just sitting in the quiet shop all day serving food. Not even everyday of the week? Maybe with school work a little tough. But it shouldn’t be difficult. He hardly notice the other say his name as he handed him the latte.

“Careful it’s hot.”

“Thanks..” He hummed, forcing a smile as he flicked his gaze down to see the name tag. “...Ekko.”

“Enjoy guys.” The server; Ekko hummed as he turned away, this time his hair wasn’t perfectly in it’s high bun but instead it was tied in a mix between a bun and a ponytail as if done up in a hurry.

“So? Still no?”

He turned back to face lux and scowled. “Come off it..”

“you’re staring though..”

“He looks tired, don’t know what he has to be tired about he’s not the one saving the world-.” He huffed, brushing off the hint she was giving him. He glanced down to his latte and blinked. Ah.

‘Ezreel’ He guess he did say with an E. Another misspelling. He shrugged it off, and moved on to pick up the spoon and take a scoop of ice cream.

Another pleasant night of laughs as lux and Soraka gushed over their favourite movies. Lulu chiming in with her own takes on each film.

Ezreal didn’t though he listened intently his thoughts were more about how he could get them to spell his name right. That and considering if perhaps Ekko had some secret double life of action that could give him a reason to be so tired; though that was more down to his own bias. Once again they left after forty minutes, placing the empty dishes neatly piled together for ease of collecting.

Returning back home in time to find Ahri and jinx had picked the movie for them.

~~~

He returned to the coffee shop a few times over the course of the next few weeks. Sometimes accompanied by Lux or lulu other times alone, Yet every time. Regardless of who was one till, he ordered a latte; he’d catch Ekko stifle a laugh at his order, or drop a smirk as he handed him his drink and with out fail there would be a misspelling; Ezrel, Izreel, Aseraphel, Esral, Ezrela.

He huffed, stubborn and determined as he strolled through the door listening to the chimes ringing once more. He approached the counter, to see the white haired male restocking the display. He glanced up and smiled,

“What can i get you?”

“Usual a Latte...”

“Got a name for it?”

“Ezreal. That’s E-Z-”

“I know.” He laughed waving his hand to dismiss him. “Anything else?”

“uhm- no-”

“Wait a second then-”

He watched the other twirl away to the coffee machine, standing awkwardly as he waited; perhaps trying to distract himself with the décor yet his interest was piqued he never really watched them make it. It seemed to make the other happy, humming- he still looked tired that never seemed to change. Though he was used to it now, maybe it was endearing he’d like to know why but it’d be rude to ask. He must’ve zoned out as the next thing he knew the other was back in front of him.

“That’s 4.99, thanks.”

He nodded, handing over a fiver as he took the coffee

“Careful it’s-..” Hummed the other, passing the change and receipt.

“hot I know, like same.” Ezreal mused, a grin spreading across his lips at the other’s slightly surprised expression.

He recovered quickly and nodded, looking over to the next customer.

Ezreal stepped aside turning to leave he glanced at his drink.

‘Easy.’ Oh haha.

He rolled his eyes fumbling with the receipt when something else caught his eye. on the back of the receipt. He flattened it out, a sequence of digit- and a smiley face-

Weird almost looks like a- Oh. OH.

He paused and glanced back towards the counter, Briefly catching the other’s gaze watching the smirk tug at his lips as he wrote down the next order.

He folded it, placing the number into his pocket. Maybe he’d use it. Maybe he’d get an answer to his question after all. Maybe lux was right all along- Maybe. Just maybe.

#Coffeeshopau #Writingprompts #Starguardian #Ekko #Ezreal #Lux #ezreal x ekko

25 notes · View notes

forkanna · 4 years ago

Link

[AO3] [WATTPAD]

"Wooooow, this is a really nice place!"

"Hmph," Ebihara grunted as they stepped out of their shoes in the genkan of her fabulous home. "It's a goddamn McMansion. Really nothing special, trust me. But we sure did pay a lot for it…"

For good reason. Rise smiled vaguely as she glanced around at the grand foyer with the statue and water feature in opposite corners. She had seen many similarly opulent homes when cavorting with other contacts from the entertainment industry, of course, so she wasn't quite as blown away as most of their friends would have been. But it was still impressive.

"You don't like it?" she asked.

"I don't like being nouveau-riche. And this big house seemed really cool when we first got it, but now it's… oh, listen to my ungrateful ass complaining about being too rich. It's disgusting."

"Go ahead," she prompted her as they both padded into the sunken living room. "I've been through some of the same things, don't forget."

Ai didn't do as her friend asked until they were both flopped down on the couch, staring around at the pristine surroundings. "Well… it's always been too big. I feel lost. And now with mom gone, it's like a big tomb holding the decaying corpse of our family."

"Yeesh," Rise hissed. "Gross mental picture. But it definitely gets the message across. Have you talked to your dad about it?"

"Oh, I couldn't bother him with that nonsense," she said with a slight smile. "He's dealing with investment bankers and stock options all day. Doesn't have time for me to be anything besides his perfect little princess, so… that's what he gets. Every time."

Frowning hard, Rise turned a little more in her direction, folding her legs beneath her trim frame. "That doesn't sound right. Come on, he's your father. He's going to want to know if something is up with you."

"No," she said firmly. "I have put both of them through enough for one lifetime."

"Yeah, you kind of said something like that before, and it sounded like bullshit then, too. We all get to figure out who we are as we grew up. You don't have to be perfect immediately! So why would they hold it against you just because you were a little bit of a brat?"

Ai's resting bitch face took on a new quality. Pain. Her hand drifted up to play with the neckline of her pretty pink dress as she gazed at the glass coffee table in front of them. Rise couldn't know what she was thinking, but it looked like a lot was weighing on her mind regardless.

"Oh, who cares?" Ai finally burst out with a long sigh, stretching all her limbs out and hooking her arms over the back of the couch. "It's all so pointless. I threw myself into fashion and makeup and all those things, and I was so unhappy, and now here I am being ungrateful that I actually have someone to talk to for real instead of just 'peasants' at school to subjugate. What a moron I am."

Rise giggled a little, covering her mouth before she said, "You're not a moron. You just don't have it all figured out. Look at me, slumming it in Inaba instead of facing my career; I'd say that makes me even worse than you."

"What's so funny?" she demanded when her friend was still giggling.

"Oh, nothing. Just that you really look like Yosuke in that position. With the apathetic attitude and everythi- OH!"

So fast she almost wondered if she had imagined it, Ai was sitting up in a prim and proper position, legs together and fists resting on her knees. Her face also looked almost as if she were panicking… but why? Nothing had happened.

"Ebi-chan…?"

"Sorry. I'll do better." But when she glanced over and saw Rise was still looking confused, she cleared her throat and waved one hand back and forth in the air, as if wafting away an unpleasant aroma. "I-it's nothing, I promise."

The popstar dipped her head and whispered, "Hey, I know we've only been hanging out for like, hours instead of days, but you can talk to me. You know that, right?"

"Yeah. You're annoyingly persistent with that." But before Rise could protest, she poked her in the middle of the forehead with a slight smirk before pushing to stand from the couch. "This sucks. Unless you want to watch the big screen TV, we should get something from the kitchen and head up to my room."

"I guess. What do you have?"

They both wandered in there and nosed around. The kitchen was a gleaming bastion of modern efficiency, lots of chrome and marble, but the fridge didn't seem to have a whole lot inside: a few drinks and some takeout. So they grabbed beverages and a bag of shrimp chips from the cupboard, plus their bags of goodies from shopping, and headed upstairs, figuring it was better than nothing.

"Oh wooooow, this is so, so…"

"Yes," Ai sighed. "So pink."

Indeed it was. Literally everything that was capable of being pink in that bedroom had been given that treatment, from bed sheets to carpets to walls. At least most of it was a very pale shade, so it wasn't so lurid as to be painful on the eyes. Ai seemed to have a wardrobe in addition to an actual closet, and had her own entertainment system with a smaller TV and a couple of old game systems.

Wait…

"Hey, whoa, you have video games?!"

"What? Oh, I- w-wait, nobody was supposed to see those!" Ai hissed, grimacing and taking a step forward as if she could suddenly hide the consoles from her guest. Not that that was possible, given she was already in the room and had seen them.

"I haven't played one of these since they put me in Karaoke Retribution. Wow, you have Famidrive, Super Famidrive, Joystation…" Rise started looking through the games, and her host fell silent. Eventually, she said, "You sure do have a lot of RPGs and sports titles. What's…?"

But when she looked over her shoulder, she saw Ai looked extremely uncomfortable and ashamed, staring down the carpet as her toes scrunched in its fibers. Why did she look so stressed? Eventually, she made her best guess and put the games back, turning from the floor to look up at her more properly.

"Sorry. That's… my bad, I shouldn't have just started pawing through your collection without even asking. Sorry." She even bowed a little.

"Oh… it, um, it's fine. And those are really old, I haven't even played all of them."

"We don't have to talk about that." Privately, Rise thought the collection looked meticulously cared for, and there wasn't a speck of dust on any of the consoles or the games. But she didn't want to push the matter because it really seemed like she had done something wrong by drawing so much attention to it.

"Good. They're old and stupid." She cleared her throat. "Do you… want to try on some of my clothes? Or… ugh, I sound like a complete idiot."

But Rise merely stood up and rested a hand on her shoulder. "You've never had anybody over here, right? Haven't made many friends since you moved. I get it, it's okay."

Very hesitantly, she squinted at her, swallowed hard, and whispered, "Really? You don't think I'm a lame freak for being nervous about it?"

"No. Now, do you have a CD player?"

"I usually just use my Joystation." Then she froze in place, as if she had caught herself saying something wrong.

"Cool! That works." Maybe if she just acted super casual about everything, it would set her new friend at ease. "Want to put in your CD? That old one."

"I thought you wanted to listen to yours while you were here…"

"Oh, we have time," she giggled with a little bounce, shaking Ai's arm. "Come on, let's set this party off!"

Talked into action, Ebihara rolled her eyes hard. "Well, if you're going to beg I guess I might as well give in." However, Rise could see her cheeks bunching with a smile once she had turned away, grabbing up one of her shopping bags and digging around for the album.

"Let me take a look in here," Rise called out as she skipped over to the wardrobe and threw it open. "Dresses, dresses… you really like dresses."

"All the skirts and capris and whatever are in the closet," she called over to her as she messed around with the console, trying to get music playing. "And most of my blouses. Oh — here we go."

As soon as it started, it was so upbeat and cheesy that Rise burst out in a fit of giggles. But she looked over to check if Ai was offended — she was — so she quickly followed up with, "It's cute! I just haven't listened to old-fashioned music like this in a while."

"Yeah, yeah, you hate it." Suddenly, a patent leather pump hit her in the head. "HEY! The hell are you doing, throwing my shoes? AT ME?!"

"Stop that!" Rise admonished her, already rearing back with the matching pump. "I didn't say you were a loser for listening to it, just that it's not usually my thing. But it's good!"

"I can turn it off, it's no big-" When she saw her taking aim with the other shoe, she raised both hands and set the controller down. "Okay, okay, you monster! We'll let it play."

"Good. Now come over here and play with your own personal Dress Up Rise doll. Do you have any idea how many fans would kill to be in your position?"

Shaking her head, she snorted as she stood up and walked over to join her. "Thought I made it crystal clear I am not a fan. But I guess…" A smile began to take over her features. "Can… I try yours on?"

"Huh? This stuff? I mean, it's nothing special… and you're taller, it could look weird. But you're also really trim and cute, so I guess it might work."

"Cool, thanks. And here — I think you could rock this pretty well." She snatched a red mini dress from the rack in the wardrobe and held it out to her. "I can turn around — or leave the room, if you want."

Rise was already giggling as she began to pull off her blouse. "Why? I'm not shy like that. I mean, only because I trust you not to take pictures; that would piss me off."

Unfortunately, the conversation was temporarily put on hold while Ai stared in wonder as she changed right in front of her. Rise really felt sorry for her; did she really never have any friends at all? It seemed so. Sure, Rise herself didn't take them for granted, either, since her own pool of friendships had been rather thin before she achieved national stardom. But Ai had no one at all. That was such a depressing existence…

"What's the matter?" she finally asked once she had stepped out of her white capris, leaving herself in her underwear and reaching for the dress.

"N-nothing, mind your own business." But the light blush in Ai's cheeks said that she wasn't nearly as comfortable with changing in front of anyone as she wished.

"Okay, sheesh." Then she handed over the capris as she started turning the dress to figure it out. She saw Ai struggling to pull them up beneath her dress and she laughed. "Do you think you're at the beach? You don't have to do that, either."

"What? Is this… is it weird?"

"Well… no, I guess it's not that bad. But you don't have to be so modest; it's not like you don't have anything I haven't seen before in the mirror." Rise laughed.

Ai did not. But it may just have been because she was focusing on not looking completely chagrined. Once she had the capris on, she finally did shuck the dress in one aggravated movement, as if trying to force herself to do it caused the motion to be faster.

"Hey, these are nice," Rise giggled as she poked one of her friend's boobs. The taller girl let out a blast of startled air, then slapped both forearms across her chest. "Aww, she's still shy! You're so cute, Ebi-chan!"

"St-stop harassing me, you pop star pervert!" This time, Rise's laughter was contagious, and they were both giggling as the song changed. This one was a floatier, more romantic number. "Oh…"

As she shimmied the red fabric all the way down her body, situating it in place, Rise asked, "What is it?"

"Nothing." At least this time, that pointed stare was enough to prompt her to try again. "It's… I didn't know… I've heard my mom listen to this. 'Purity'; I remember now."

"Oh. Well… we can change it, or… we can enjoy it?" She paused to take up both of her friend's hands and squeeze them tightly. "Whatever you need."

"No…" A deep breath. "No, it's fine. This is good; it's basically all I have left of her, she never calls anymore." After a few blinks of surprise at herself, she cleared her throat and started to sway their arms back and forth.

"I get you. My parents… well, you probably read all about it. Old news."

"Tell me."

"Well… we broke all contact, too," Rise admitted as they began to turn in a slow circle. "They got really demanding about my career, and it felt like they didn't care about me as a daughter anymore. Just as a source of income and attention. I know I should probably try to make up with them sometime, we all just didn't understand each other very well. But it's… hard."

"I can't imagine. Being disappointed, definitely, but not that level of… I don't know, almost manipulation?"

"Yep. Manipulation is pretty dead on, as much as it sucks to say it."

"Yeah. I…" A couple of quiet seconds of swaying as Ai tried to find her words. At some point, Rise had reached up to rest her hand on her friend's shoulder, and a hand had moved to her own waist. "I think they made a mistake. You've been the most amazing friend I've ever had."

"Give it a few more days," she snickered. "And a few more friends. You only think I'm that great 'cause you haven't had any others lately."

"Like I need them! Tch. You're already best friend material, and I only accept the best. So there's no point in window-shopping around for cheap knockoffs."

Somehow… Ai had made that both sound like she was doing her a favor, and paying her the highest compliment imaginable. It was incredibly sweet in a bizarrely demanding way. Perfectly Ebihara.

Realizing that was what made her also realize they had been slow dancing for a couple of minutes now. Without her heeled sandals, she was even shorter than usual, which meant she had to gaze upward into her tall friend's face to see how she was doing. And when she saw she was staring back…

Ai actually looked content. For once in her life, she looked like she was at peace, just dancing to some old city pop slow jam in her bedroom. She wasn't trying to exploit Rise, wasn't as disinterested as she had once pretended. No, her entire focus was on her, and just because she liked her.

Almost like…

"Careful, cutie," she joked with a dimple-graced grin. "If I didn't know any better, I would say you're hitting on me."

"Hm?" Ai breathed distantly, clearly distracted by her own thoughts.

"It's okay, I'm just being dumb. You're fine, Ebi-chan." She leaned up and pressed a gentle kiss into Ai's cheek before pulling back to bite her bottom lip for a moment. Maybe she was just doing it to be kind… but she also suspected she was doing it because of the slow dance. A tender gesture like that just seemed to suit the song, the mood, the whole moment.

That single peck left her friend speechless again. Rise almost began to say something before she saw her moving, and she held her words for a moment. Wanting to let her hug her or whatever. This was going to be a great growing moment for Ai, and for their friendship. Maybe she would even learn to hug other people! Eventually.

Feeling lips press so delicately at the corner of her mouth threw all of those thoughts out the window. Really, that brief contact changed everything about that moment even more: the hokey old ballad suddenly sounded like pure magic, the club-ready minidress felt more like a ball gown. Rise had literally never felt like this in her entire life — up to and including when she had some of the country's most eligible boy bands and actors fawning over her in the past. Including the many unbelievable adventures she had been on with the Investigation Team.

She felt like she was with Narukami again. But instead of having her advances go unrequited, this was what it would be like if he looked at her the way she looked at him.

If only it wasn't Ai Ebihara standing in front of her, looking at her that way. Now she had a problem. How was she supposed to explain that her interest in her wasn't romantic? They were both girls! That kind of thing just wasn't done in Japan. Sure, she had heard it was more common overseas, and rumours within their own entertainment industry, but that wasn't the same as actually pursuing it for real. But then where were all these feelings coming from?

"Ai…"

The unfortunate coincidence was, her suddenly-very-close friend's name just happened to be pronounced the same way as "love". So whispering it the way she had, regardless of whether she meant to… it carried a certain connotation.

One that did not seem to be lost on Ai herself. Not if the next kiss was any indication. Brief as it was, just barely pressing into her lips before it was gone, it still was a first for both of them. First kiss - as whatever lay beyond the boundaries of friendship.

Temptation to just go for it welled up as Rise slid her hands up along Ai's stomach, perching on her shoulders in a vain attempt to find a grip somehow. To anchor herself within this whirlwind moment. She knew honest surprise was written across her face now; she may have been an actor, but this had caught her so unaware that she couldn't even begin to fabricate responses. Pure, unfiltered Rise.

And now the kiss was over… leaving two very confused teenage girls standing with their hands on each other's bodies, staring back at each other with bewilderment.

"I… wow, that…"

"Rise-ch… I… didn't- that w-wasn't-"

"No, no, I know." Damage control. She smiled, trying to put her friend at ease as she whispered, "Sometimes things happen, we didn't plan… I would never say you…"

Ai licked her lips, shivered. "I didn't. I'm so sorry, was… was that your first, too?"

"M-my first with… a girl… I, um, I did kiss a boy for a drama I was in. But that was just acting." Why was she telling her all this? Was this not acting?

Then what was it?

Suddenly, Ai took a step back, her hands still raised vaguely near her heaving chest as if she were going to pat herself down, or reach for Rise. Though she didn't. "Hey, you have to believe me, I didn't- this was not why I brought you back to my house. I'm not a pervert, I wasn't trying to…"

"Pervert? For a kiss?"

"No, I… for shit that comes after a kiss. In case you thought I was going to try anything funny."

"Oh." Her cheeks flooded with color as she finally realized what her friend was getting at, and she said in a slightly higher timbre of voice, "Whoa! That's- yeah, I definitely wasn't thinking about that! What would we do, anyway? You're so silly, Ebi-chan!"

"Right?! No way!" They both laughed nervously for a second or two, then suddenly cut off at the same time.

"Awkward," Rise muttered with another chuckle.

"You, uh, you can leave if you want to. Since it's awkward. Do whatever you want, I don't care."

Already trying to build up her defense mechanisms again. Rise couldn't stand that; she hated wasting time with important work only for it to be thrown out with the bathwater. So she threw her arms around her new friend in a tight hug, trying to ignore the little tingle in the pit of her stomach that told her this meant more than either of them thought it did.

"Stop."

"No."

"Rise… it's… you don't have to do this just to make me feel better. It's weird. I'm fucking everything up."

"You are not! It was only a kiss!"

"But how did it end up like this?" Something familiar about that… but Ai kept pushing ahead, "It has to have been me, because like you said, you've never kissed a girl before. And you do actually have female friends, unlike a bitch like me who doesn't have any at all. And I get one friend, one, and I immediately try to make out with her! Why am I such a fucking head case?!"

"Hey," Rise snapped, "it wasn't like that at all and we both know it. That was like, a wedding kiss, you know? Small and tender, but it didn't lead anywhere crazy. It was sweet."

"Really?" she asked urgently, finally meeting her eyes again. "You… you don't hate me for it?"

Laughing, Rise leaned up to pick her on the lips again. This time, she made sure the contact was so brief that it couldn't possibly develop into anything more — which was now something they had to be worried about, apparently.

"If I hated you, would I do it again?"

"Mhhh…" The other girl closed her eyes, trying to ignore a wave of some emotion that passed through her. Then, smiling, she whispered, "Thank you."

"Hey, you're welcome. Not everybody can say they got a kiss from Risette!" When she giggled, the smile on her friend's face got a little wider, even if her cheeks were still flushed.

The song changed to something a little more upbeat again. The spell was broken. They embraced warmly, then broke apart and started commenting on each other's clothing. Even if the mood didn't totally go back to normal, at least they no longer felt like they were in danger of destroying a friendship that had barely begun.

But the whole time, Rise found herself glancing back at the girl who — had she been that pretty before? — a lot more often than usual. What if they changed everything forever on accident? Maybe it would be okay regardless. She had to hold onto that hope.

To Be Continued…

#We'll Face Ourselves #forkanna writes #persona 4 fanfiction #p4 fanfic #ai ebihara #rise kujikawa #jess the writer

0 notes

shirtlesssammy · 5 years ago

Text

15x05: Proverbs 17:3

Then:

I’m not crying, you’re crying!

Now:

(weeping in corner ---this is Steve Yockey’s last episode)

Black Forest, Colorado

Three young women on a Pinterest inspired LL Bean photoshoot getaway, toast to friendship and good times. Now that they’re done with college, two of them have found jobs and are on their way to subverting the new world order of underemployment. Ashley, the other friend, will be driving for Uber.

They all hear a noise outside the tent. Julie goes for more rum and gets yanked. The other one tries closing the tent but is also yanked. Cue Ashley’s screams!

At the bunker, Sam checks his messages to Cas. He’s been texting and texting but hasn’t heard anything back. I am emotional. Dean is going to bury that shit and not even tell his brother what happened? ARGH. Sam hides his phone pretty quick so it’s obvious that he knows something isn’t right --and he doesn’t needle his brother about it so he knows something REALLY isn’t right.

Dean’s back from a supply run and is back on his overcompensating with food bullshit. He eats a ghost pepper jerky bite and instantly regrets it. On the plus side, we get this:

Anyway, they’ve got a case.

*Dream Vision Alert*

Lucifer!Sam sits at a table in the bunker. Dean approaches from behind, draws the Colt, asks for forgiveness, and shoots Sam in the back of the head. Lucifer!Sam doesn’t die though. The wound heals and his eyes glow red. Lucifer!Sam scoffs at the idea that the Colt would kill him, adding, “we both knew it had to end this way.” Then fire consumes Dean.

Sam wakes in the Impala. Dean wants to know what’s up but Sam will only admit to a bad dream.

They reach Colorado and instead of their usual routine, Dean pulls out some old school tricks: Fish and Wildlife agents. They were babies! (But this is also just such a nice way to show HOW MUCH Sam and Dean have changed over the years. The story Chuck was telling in season one has changed so much --they are not the same anymore. And while Dean continues to repress his current issues (ala Cas), it’s clear that he’s not the same.)

They go in and talk with the sheriff.

(Also, this is yet another week using an actor that has been in a previous episode of Supernatural. I realize this does happen, but this actress played Tara, the hunter that helped Dean and Crowley find Cain and the First Blade--and the Mark of Cain.)

The sheriff doesn’t think these attacks are animal in nature. There’s one witness they can talk to. They head to the hospital to talk with her. They ask what she remembers. She flashes back to the forest. She’s running and a man/monster is chasing her. She’s reluctant to talk, but Dean assures her that they’ve heard it all. The man that killed her friends had claws and fangs. A werewolf. Dean tells the poor girl that monsters and werewolves are all real.

Dean gets a name. Sam points out that it wasn’t a full moon the night Ashley was attacked (Dean suggests pureblood), and Sam sets off to find an address.

They head to a cabin in the woods where Andy, the werewolf, lives with his brother, Josh. They’re isolated, reluctant to have visitors, don’t have a phone. Just as God intended. Sam and Dean leave.

Josh yells at Andy for not killing Ashley. I’m just loling all over the place. This melodramatic crazy is TOO much. Family of werewolves that hunt people. Their dad’s dead but it’s the family business. Reluctant younger brother...

The brothers check in at the Sleepy Bear Inn. (Have we mentioned HOW MUCH WE LOVE JERRY WANEK? It’s true!)

They’ve got Ashley under their protection. They need to go take care of “the lumberjack twins.” Sam wonders why this whole case seems too easy. Lololol. Ashley asks the brothers to stay with her until she falls asleep. Meanwhile, Andy and Josh are outside the motel ready to kill her.

Dean and Ashley talk about hunting. Dean says he likes his job --helping people. She asks if he ever wanted to be anything else: Jimi Hendrix. He says that so quickly. It breaks me a bit. But then he toes the company line. Ashley wondering how great life would be if it was all planned out. That makes Dean turn a little green. Poor bby.

Sam wakes Sleeping Beauty - I mean, Dean. He zonked out while Sam headed out to get food and while he was sleeping, Ashley disappeared.

Cut to Ashley who is astonishingly NOT DEAD YET. She’s tied up in a bloody slaughter room, though. The two werewolf bros burst in, mid argument. “This isn’t who we are,” Andy protests, his pure white, tucked-in sweater standing out sharply against the ACTUAL BLOOD SPATTERED WALL. (Like, seriously, guys. Get a cleaning service, at least. That can’t be sanitary.)

“This is exactly who we are,” Josh growls. Hoooo-boy.

Dean and Sam race back to the cabin and quickly follow Ashley’s screams to the slaughter room. Their approach causes the werewolves to scamper, but not very far. As they attempt to escape, the Winchesters and Ashley get ambushed in the main room. The two werewolves get the upper hand on Dean and Sam, and the werewolf with a taste for human flesh closes in on Dean, snarling. Andy picks up Dean’s dropped gun and points it at Sam. He stares between Sam and Josh in agony.

Andy shoots and kills his brother. “He turned into a monster,” Andy explains tearfully. “And I’m a monster too.” He turns the gun on himself, killing himself with one quick shot to the heart. (Jeez, always the heart in this season. It’s almost like it’s an important metaphor or something.)

“That was weird,” Dean says which is like a total UNDERSTATEMENT… But that doesn’t even come close to what happens next. Dean tries to comfort Ashley, who pushes away and…

…trips and falls right onto the antlers. BOOM. Ashley’s dead. Sam, Dean, and pretty much every single one of us viewers stares at Ashley’s body in shock and confusion. That’s…not…normal. Also, this episode is only half over. WTF?

“Well, this is a bitch,” Ashley grumbles, opening her eyes and standing up, still impaled. She cheerfully flashes her eyes white at Sam. She’s LILITH, baby!

Lilith has clearly never made friends with the phrase “Loose lips sink ships” because she spills E V E R Y T H I N G. Chuck pulled her out of the Empty (where she was dead as a demon doornail), gave her instructions to seduce Dean post-rescue, told her to show Sam and Dean the werewolf murder/sacrifice mirror, and sent her to retrieve the magic gun: Ye Olde Equalizer.

The Winchesters try to fight Lilith, but she blasts them into the walls, knocking Sam out. Dean promises Lilith the gun as long as Sam’s okay. Same old song and dance, my friends. But now we get the feeling that Dean’s SEEING THE SCRIPT even while he’s still feeling utterly trapped by it.

Sam has another vision while he’s power healing through his latest concussion. This time, Dean’s out to kill a human Sam. Dean, under the influence of the Mark of Cain, murders his brother with the first blade. When Sam wakes, the cabin is empty.

In the Impala, Lilith is sitting about two feet away from the equalizer gun - still hidden in the glove box- and amusedly answers Dean’s questions. She’s massively irked that she’s back on Earth as part of Chuck’s latest story…when the story she THOUGHT her death was integral to was foiled by the Winchesters. It’s adding insult to injury, man. “Wouldn’t it be great if everything was just planned out for you?” she repeats and then laughs right in Dean’s face. Chuck fed her that line directly.

Lilith chirpily comments on Chuck’s storytelling propensity and his hamfisted werewolf brother foreshadowing. “It always ends the same,” she tells Dean. “One brother killing the other.”

Back at the motel, I am still UTTERLY DAMN CHARMED at the Wanek crew’s amazing work on this room.

For Please Come Decorate My House Science:

Dean tells Lilith that she’ll NEVER get the gun and she starts to slice him bit by bit. It’s the death of a thousand cuts!

Sam breaks in and shoots Lilith in the forehead without another word. He traps her in place with a devil’s trap bullet. “I’ve got you now, my pretty!” Sam should have shouted (but didn’t). What he does do is threaten to kill her. Lilith gets pissed at this. Like, EXCUSE HER VERY MUCH, but she’s a total badass who LET Sam kill her back in season four. Don’t mess with her!

The Winchesters flee but don’t even make it past the parking lot. Lilith zaps out to meet them. Where’s the gun??? She reasons it out, and concludes that the gun is clearly in the Impala. (Clears throat… The most important car in the universe!?) Lilith finds the equalizer pretty much right away and laughs at how damn easy it was. Which...yeah.

“We’ll get it back,” Sam snarls and without further ado, Lilith melts the heck out of the gun. Now it’s just a cooling black pool against the asphalt. Oooooookay. Plan...X?

Back at the bunker, the boys fortify themselves with liquor. Sam leaves ANOTHER voicemail for Cas. (Pardon me while I take a short break to weep and rend my clothing.) “We gave him the head’s up on Chuck and Lilith,” Dean says. “What else are we supposed to do?” Oh, I don’t know. Probably apologize? Tell him you love him and value him as a person. That sort of thing.

Dean’s pretty shattered at the revelation that Chuck’s still pulling their strings. Thanks to Lilith, he understands that Chuck wants an ending where one of them kills the other. Sam immediately ties this into the dreams he’s been having. “You’re just telling me this, NOW?” Dean asks. And…I think that reaction is justified. Sam speculates that his equalizer wound is showing him Chuck’s endings and MAYBE a slice of Chuck’s mind.

“This was supposed to be over,” Dean says in response. “Are we just gonna keep running in this friggin’ hamster wheel until we die? Or we get boring and he ends us?” I’m laughing at the direct commentary on how TV shows live and die but also...DEAN BBY.

Sam thinks they can fight. Dean wants to know how the hell they’re supposed to FIGHT GOD.

______________________________

Goldilocks and the Three Quotes:

Poor, faithful Dean. We both knew it had to end this way

I’ll Freud you

Whatever you’re about to say, I want you to know that we’ve heard worse. We’ve heard weirder

I don’t lie to you. I look out for you

That’s not how this story goes

Oh, you would promise a girl the moon, Dean Winchester

Of the three potential vessels, Ashley had the best hair

God? He is not exactly Shakespeare. He’s more of a low rent Dean Koontz

Be a good boy and show me that BIG GUN, huh?

______________________________

Want to read more? Check out our Recap Archive!

#spn recap #spn 15x05 #proverbs 17:3 #dean winchester #sam winchester #supernatural season 15

84 notes · View notes

bookwyrmling · 5 years ago

Text

YL!Jiang Yanli

Because the image got stuck in my head from this post.

CQL!Verse because I think that one’s a bit easier to make work since she’s literally with them in Yiling up until the night before the transfer.

@eirenical since you seemed interested in this kind of AU.

They send a message to the Jin clan. In case her brothers make it there before she meets with them, it will let them know she is safe. It will also let the surviving sects know they are still alive. There is too much for them to fight for now and, in some ways, she is more prepared for some of these fights than either of her brothers. For now: she would find them and protect their position.

It’s safer to change her appearance. The Wen soldiers are thick in the area and Song Zichen returns from the market with men’s robes and word that Wen Chao has been seen nearby. With her hair in a masculine style and with no adornment, her plain face lacking any makeup and wearing only commoner’s men’s robes, she may not look quite like a man but it’s enough that anyone looking for a woman of noble birth wouldn’t pay attention to her. They travel around the main roads so as to avoid Wen Chao’s troops all the same. It takes longer. They have neither a carriage nor a direct shot and Yanli is still not fully recovered from her fever, but Song Zichen does what he can to protect and assist her and makes sure she has a bed to sleep in at an inn each night. They speak of those most important to them and the regrets they both hold. She befriends people traveling in the same direction, gathers what information she can from gossip and, following what seems the most trustworthy and most likely based off her knowledge of the two, finds herself in Yiling as a fight breaks out at a teahouse surrounded by Wen soldiers.

Song Zichen moves to push her away from the place until she hears a familiar voice, screaming in terror and agony and hatred and she can’t run away. She can’t hide. There’s little she can do, but maybe, just maybe, she can save her brother. She had promised long ago to always do so, after all.

Yanli is a weak cultivator with a weak body. She cannot so much as fly on her sword and rarely carries it with her for that reason. It’s why she and Song Zichen had traveled the more common way, as long as it has taken. But she had studied the Yunmeng Jiang style of swordsmanship, even if she didn’t night hunt and did not desire to compete with her peers. She may not be able to wield a sword for long, but she can wield one for long enough. Yanli pulls the blade from Song Zichen’s sheath and, ignoring his grasping hands, works her way through the cowering crowd watching from a distance. She is unremarkable in her clothing and steps; unnoticeable enough to make it all the way indoors before raising the sword and attacking the soldiers holding her brother hostage.

“Run!” she tells him as the rest of the Wen troops draw their own weapons and Wen Chao screams to catch the interloper.

Song Zichen is right behind her, defending with his horsetail whisk.

“Shijie?” her brother asks in shock and disbelief and concern and Yanli knows her brother too well. She sees the betrayal there, as well. She stares him down. He’s a cornered animal now, puffed up and threatening when he knows there’s nothing left he can do, no way to run and no way to fight. Neither of them can fight, but she can give him a way to run.

“No!” he argues. “Wen Chao! Let them go and I”ll go with you!”

“I’ll have all three of you soon enough,” the man spits back.

Yanli grits her teeth as she feels her energy slowly deplete the longer she holds Song Zichen’s sword. She parries a blow hard enough to make her stumble out of range of another before she shoves at her brother’s chest, meeting his eyes with all the determination and understanding and love she can manage in her own. “If you can’t fight, then run,” she tells him then turns around to face the Wens with Song Zichen. “I promised I would always protect you. Don’t let them catch us both.”

She thinks they probably won’t kill her as quickly as they would her brothers. She hopes Song Zichen can get them both out of this mess. It’s clear enough that her brother, sallow and weak and dressed in rags, stands even less of a chance than either of them. She knew their plans were dangerous and this only proved it to her.

Wei Wuxian must realize the same. “I’ll find Jiang Cheng!” he shouts at her as he runs. “We’ll be right back!”

Wen Zhuliu goes to chase after him, but Yanli won’t stand for it. She takes out one soldier blocking her way then runs in front of the Core Melting Hand, her hands shaking around her sword, but daring him to fight her if he wants to move any further, leaving the rest of the soldiers to Song Zichen.

Wen Zhuliu pauses and eyes her and Yanli swallows in fear. If she loses her core, it will mean little. It’s barely formed and was never her focus or drive. But that doesn’t make the thought of what this man can do any less terrifying. It doesn’t quell her fear as she remembers exactly what these people did to her brother.

“Wen Zhuliu! Are you scared of some nobody? Get him! We’ll show these two what we do to any who get in our way.”

A hand slams into her shoulder and she goes down, losing the sword as her hands hit the ground, trying to hold her body up as she spits blood. A boot grinds her fingers into the dirt and she chokes out her shout of pain and the sudden nausea it incites.

“Run!” she yells at Song Zichen. “You’ve helped enough!”

She knows well that he, too, has someone he cares deeply for. He can’t fall here.

Her arms are wrenched behind her back and her face shoved into the ground.

“Get the other one, too!” Wen Chao continues to shout.

“You must find him!” she shouts a reminder strong enough to get Song Zichen to move. “I and my brothers are no longer someone you owe anything to!”

Her face is shoved even deeper into the ground and she chokes on dirt, unable to see anything, but hearing the sound of feet running.

“Don’t let him escape!” Wang Lingjiao shrieks.

“Lift him up,” Wen Chao commands and Yanli is raised by her pinned arms. Her hair is a mess now and she can feel blood and dirt covering her face.

“Barely a boy, isn’t he?” Wang Lingjiao says in surprise and Yanli’s eyes widen as she realize they still don’t know who she is. “Almost pretty, too.”

Wen Chao grabs her chin and draws her attention to him. “A surviving Jiang disciple? You should have stayed hidden as long as possible if you wanted to survive. I had a plan for your dear shixiong, you know. Since you got in the way, why don’t you take it, instead.”

Yanli knows she’s shaking in terror, feels the tears streaming down her face, but she tightens her jaw all the same. She will protect her family. She won’t sit on the side and wait to be protected any more.

________________________________________________________________

3 Months Later

Jiang Cheng watches from the roof as a familiar figure steps into view, resentful energy curling around her like soft silk robes once had.

Wen Chao, or what’s left of him, shudders in fear and curls in on himself as Wen Zhuliu steps between the two of them.

She raises a flute to her lips and asks. “Did you honestly think you could escape?” she asks. “With all of the resentful energy aimed at you, I don’t even need to work to track you down.”

“a-Jie!” Jiang Cheng shouts, unable to hold back any longer as he breaks through the roof and jumps in.

“a-Cheng!”

“a-Jie! You’re safe!” he calls, the tears blurring his vision as he walks to her, steps heavy with his fears and exhaustion he’d carried the last three months.

His sister reaches out and presses a comforting hand to his face that he immediately turns to. “a-Cheng,” she says in the gentle but determined way she always did when she expected her brothers to listen and obey. “Move aside. There are things I need to finish.”

They leave only after the screams of agony and horror have long since died down that night. In the moonlight, she’s almost like a ghost and Jiang Cheng has to reach for her wrist for fear she’ll disappear before his eyes again.

He still wants to kill Wei Wuxian for letting her get abducted, for letting himself get caught and his own core get destroyed so that she had to step in as he ran. But, at least for now, he can hold his sister and cry. He’ll ask about what happened in there and to her tomorrow.

2 notes · View notes

timelock97 · 6 years ago

Text

Time Never Stops

Chapter Eight: A Change in Plans

Word Count: 2491

Prologue Ch 1 Ch 2 Ch 3 Ch 4 Ch 5 Ch 6 Ch 7

Warnings: Fluff, maybe some language

(Y/S) - your state

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I pack the last shirt into my suitcase before looking back at the wrapped gift sitting on my dresser. I smile as I walk over to it and pick up the pink and blue wrapped gift and bite my lip.

"You're pregnant," Izzy whispers, next to me.

I let out a soft giggle. I stare at the two pink lines in the test while placing a hand over my mouth. "I can't believe it. I mean, I can believe it, but I didn't think that it would happen this way." I place a hand over the nonexistent bump of my lower stomach.

"What are you going to do?" Izzy whispers, sitting on the edge of the bathtub.

"You know I've always wanted kids. I see Tom in two weeks, and have a doctors appointment the morning before I fly out so I'll confirm it before hand. Then I guess I 'll just have to tell Tom."

"(Y/N/N), how do you think he will react?"

I let out a laugh, "We plan to spend the rest of our lives together, so I guess we'll just have to find out."

I carefully pack the package into my suitcase where Tom won't just pull it out all willy-nilly. I check my phone, noticing that Tom had texted me late the evening before, I can't wait to see you tomorrow, little lovely wife. Sleep well, I love you. I smile, zipping my suitcase and walking with it to the front door of my apartment. With one final sweep of the apartment, I grab my backpack and suitcase, lock up the door, and head down the stairs to drive to my doctor's appointment.

"Hey, Dr. Price." I smile, reaching out to shake her hand.

"How are you, dear?" She asks, squeezing my hand.

"I'm good, I actually had something to talk to you about since we were originally going to change my birth control."

"And what would that be?" She smiles, sitting down on the stool in front of me.

"Um, so I have been feeling sick for the past few weeks, moody, having to pee constantly and out of curiosity I took a pregnancy test and, well, it came back positive."

Dr. Price quickly grabs her chart, "Sexually active?"

"Yeah, I would say that," I laugh.

She stands moving to grab a few things out of her drawer. "I am going to assume you want us to confirm?" She raises an eyebrow at me, and I nod at her. "I need to draw blood."

"Yeah, I figured that." I squeeze my hands together in anticipation. "I'll be okay to fly today, right?"

"Yeah, ma'am." She states as she moves to my side, "Now, tell me, what is his name?"

I laugh, shutting my eyes as she begins preparing my arm. "Tom, he's my best friend. I've known him my entire life." I let out a small laugh, smiling at my feet.

"I bet this wasn't part of the plan."

"Definitely not."

"Well," she moves from beside me, "we are all done. It'll be about 10 minute, then we could do an ultrasound if its positive?"

"Sounds perfect." I whisper. Once Dr. Price slips out of the room, I let out a soft sigh, sliding off the table to grab my phone from my purse. I smile seeing Tom had texted me.

Thomas💙

How's your app?

My Future💍

Good, should be out of here in thirty

Then I am off to the airport.

Thomas💙

Cannot wait to see you, love

My Future💍

Can't wait to be with you again

I'm in need of cuddles

Thomas💙

I will give you all of them

But Z did want to take you for the afternoon

Dress shopping for the premiere

My Future💍

Sounds like fun

But cuddles first

Thomas💙

Done 😘

I sigh as I sit back on the table, scrolling through social media until the door opens again.

"Just me," Dr. Price says, smiling, "Congrats, you are indeed expecting. Let's get you ready for an ultrasound, yeah?"

I nod, grabbing my purse, and following her down the hall to another room. She instructs me to lay down and pull my shirt up before squirting the gel on my stomach. I wince at the cold, letting out a surprised squeal, making her smile. She mores the wand around before we both hear the faintest sound.

A heart beat. My baby's heart beat.

She turns the monitor toward me. "You look to be about eight maybe eight and a half weeks along. So that right there," she points with a pencil, "is your little one!"

"Can I get a picture?" I whisper, seeing her nod beside me before she wipes the gel from off my stomach.

"I'll have everything ready for you up front." She states before leaving me in the room.

I smile and place my hand on my stomach. "Hello in there, little one."

My eyes scan the L.A. airport for any signs of Tom. The latest text stated that he would be coming to get me with Zendaya, since she had a car. I drag my suitcase beside me, smiling at a few fans who waved and called out my name as I made my way to where Tom should have been.

I immediately giggle once I see him. Tom is standing on a bench, skimming the crowd for me with a sign that says, my love, in big swoopy letters. I take out my phone and take a quick picture to post later before picking up my pace to get to him.

Tom finally sees me, or I can assume so when he smiles brightly and hops off the bench. Within a few feet of the pick up area I see Tom moving toward me, and I take the chance to throw myself, as carefully as I can, into his waiting arms.

"Hello, love," he mutters into my neck, smiling as he places a few kisses there.

"Hey, handsome." I pull away, only to be pulled back to him in a kiss. I tangle my fingers into his hair as he deepens the kiss, dipping me playfully. The sound of camera shutters pulls me away from the not-so-private moment as I lock eyes with a few paps on the edge of the airport.

Tom notices my gaze and waves with me to them. "I didn't think they would follow us here-"

"Not like you told them you were coming to get me. Besides, it could be a lot worse." I run my fingers along his jaw, "We could have been doing something a lot worse." I tease, making him roll his eyes at me.

"Well, let's head out, huh, pretty girl?" He asks, taking my hand in one of his then grabbing my suitcase with the other.

"Let's go, Spidey."

Tom drags me out of the airport to a black car that I can tell is Zendaya's. He opens the back door for me before turning and putting my bag into the trunk.

"(Y/N)!" Zendaya squeals from the front before half heartedly leaning back to pull me into a hug.

"It's so nice to see you again, Z." I whisper as I squeeze her one more time before pulling away, being shooed to the side by Tom so he can slide in beside me.

"So, did Thomas tell you that I was taking you shopping?" She asks me before pulling out of where she was parked.

"He did-"

"Did he tell you that we are doing it now so you two can have the rest of the afternoon to do couple things when we get back?"

I look at Tom, who is looking away sheepishly, "He did not, but I will assume it was after I already on the plane." I take Tom's hand into mine and bring it to my lips, pressing a soft kiss into the knuckle.

"Well, let's go kids, I have a special spot to get our dresses, (Y/N/N)."

The evening comes quickly, and I am officially ready to fall asleep. I smile and press a quick kiss to Tom's temple before looking at Zendaya and Darnell. "I am gonna head to bed."

"What!" Zendaya shouts moving away from the fridge with a bottle of wine in hand, "but we were going to drink and catch up!"

"I haven't really been feeling well the past few weeks, and alcohol really isn't the best idea. Besides, I am still on (Y/S) time," I say, feeling Tom's arm slide around my waist and press a kiss into my jaw.

"Want me to join you, love?" Tom mutters, looking up at me with soft eyes.

"Only when you are ready, handsome." I whisper, cupping his cheek. I turn and look at everyone else before departing from his side to hug Zendaya and Darnell before walking up the flight of stairs to where Tom and I were sleeping for the night. "Goodnight, everyone!" I call as I shut the door behind me, stretching my arms over my head before grabbing my suitcase from off the floor and getting ready for bed.

I sit in bed, wrapped tightly in one of Tom's hoodie that I stole from his bag, and scroll through social media. I smile at the images of Tom dipping and kissing me at the airport, one hand cupping my jaw and the other supporting my back while my arms are wrapped around his neck.

"Love?"

I lift my head and see Tom poking his head in the doorway. "You okay?" I ask as he slips in and shuts the door behind him.

"Never been better," he states, pulling his shirt over his head and tossing it at me, causing me to laugh, before walking to the dresser. "Just figured I would come and lay with you." He rummages through one of the top drawers before pulling out a pair of sweats, winking at me.

"You are so strange. Holland." I tease

"What?" he teases back, biting his lip, "I can't enjoy the fact that my girlfriend finds me attractive?"

"Oh you can totally enjoy that," I smile, crawling out of bed and walking toward him as he finishes changing. "But I also enjoy the view so-"

Tom cuts me off with a quick kiss, his hands catching my waist, "Naughty-"

"Honest," I whisper against his lips.

He hums softly before looking at me, cupping my cheek in his hand. "(Y/N)?"

"Yeah?"

"You have been feeling ill?"

I let out a small laugh, "Yeah, but I'm fine, promise."

He nods, nuzzling his nose to mine. "Lets crawl into bed, I do believe I owe you some cuddles."

Once curled up in bed, I trace my fingers along his face, mesmerizing the way he looks in this moment. Looking at me with sleepy eyes that are cozier than the warm fireplace on a cold winter's night. The dips on his features that remind me how much he has grown since the first day we have met. The misalignment of his nose from the multitude of times he broke it. The way his curls fall on his forehead in waves-

"What are you thinking about, love?" Tom whispers, brushing a strand of hair behind my ear.

"Just thinking about how much you have grown and changed since we were little." I say, cupping his cheek.

"We both have." He smiles, his hand resting on the side of my neck.

"Can I ask you a question?"

"Of course, you can ask me anything."

"Have you ever thought about the future, like our future?" I whisper, watching as the corners of his mouth turn up in the corners.

"Think about is almost everyday." He states, kissing my forehead before looking back at me. "I think about you and me going to premieres, me coming home to you in London, hearing little feet patter down the hallway on Christmas morning, I can imagine it all. And you're always there, my love. Always a part of it, ever since I was fifteen."

"Really?"

"I mean," he rolls so he's on his back, pulling me with his so my head rests on his chest. "You've been a part of my whole life, so there was never a doubt that you wouldn't be there."

"And you've even thought about kids?" I look up at him, looking through my eyelashes.

"All the time, I mean, seeing you with babies always makes me want kids. It seems you are always drawn to them, like, you always get so soft and whisper 'can I hold them?' and it's honestly the cutest shit ever. " He blushes, biting his lip, "It's also actually a huge turn on-"

"Tom," I groan, giggling at him. I look back up at him, smiling. I press a quick kiss to his lips before crawling off the bed.

"Where are you going, love?" Tom whines, reaching out for me.

"Imma grabbing something," I say, unzipping my bag. "Be patient."

Tom groans, making me laugh again. I grab the wrapped gift and walk back so I am seated in front of him instead of crawling in beside him. I look at him, holding the gift in hand.

"What's wrong, love?" He whispers, cupping my face.

"Nothing is wrong, I just was going to wait until after your premiere to tell you but," I giggle looking down at the gift before slowly putting it in his hands, "What a better time than the present?"

Tom looks at me before slowly moving to take the gift fully in his hands. Tom carefully picks at the tape and pulling out the small bundle of clothing.

"'My Daddy is my favorite superhero' ?" Tom chuckles, confusion crossing his face. Tom looks up at me before noticing something else inside the package. I play with my lip as he slowly pulls out the pregnancy test. His eyes snap up to mine, his mouth gaping.

"I think we have a change in plans, Tommy." I whisper, a tear sliding down my cheek.

"You're pregnant, love?" He whispers, brushing his thumb under my eye.

"Yeah, I am, Tom." I smile, pulling the photo from out of my hoodie pocket, handing it to him. Tom covers his mouth, tears falling down his face. "Tommy-"

"They're happy tears, love," he pulls me toward him and kisses my forehead. "I am so happy."

"I was honestly worried you wouldn't be-"

"Why wouldn't I be happy," Tom cups my face, smiling at me, "I'm having a baby with my best friend, my little lovely wife, my dream girl." He shakes his head before pressing a kiss to my lips. When he pulls away, he takes the time to kiss my eyelids, each cheek, my nose, my forehead, and finally my lips again. "And I wouldn't change it for the world."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

A/N: Thanks for reading! Let me know what you think! Reblog and comment!

@revenantwriting | @bellagrayson-wayne | @jackiehollanderr | @snowxbarryxendgame

Chapter Nine

#time never stops #tom holland x reader #bestfriend!tom holland #best friends to lovers #bestfriendstoloversau #tomhollandxyoutuber!reader #dad!tom holland #cg writes

51 notes · View notes

carrietrekkie · 6 years ago

Text

An evening in San Francisco.

Hello together!

I wish you all a lovely Sunday evening! We´ll go on where we left Chris and Cathrin, somewhere at the Starfleet High Command in San Francisco!

Enjoy and if you don´t mind, leave me some fb!

@bold-brave-courageous @allthetrek @reeselivesforeverinmyheart

"I didn´t think we would meet again so soon." "Ask us." Tilly grinned over her ears, like all those who were sitting at our table. "Okay, there we have our order." Detmer slipped between Owo and Michael and placed our drinks in the middle of the table. The liquids spilled over a bit, no wonder, this was far from our first round. "And the guy at the bar up front wanted to know who the sweet redhead is."

"Whaaat?" Tilly chuckled, then we all tried to unobtrusively see who was there. "Oh man! Not all at once!" "Yeah, he's cute." I raised my hand and waved to him, he replied somewhat perplexed. "Come on, talk to him!" "No, I will not!" "Yes, you will!" Michael poked her in the arm. "Be spontaneous, otherwise you didn´t fall on your mouth."

"Do it." I took my drink and pulled on the black straw. "Otherwise I'll do it." I raised my eyebrows. Tilly rolled her eyes, rose to her feet, stroking her jacket and making her way to the bar. "Well, then." Owo pushed her glass down to Burnham, then took her own, Detmer followed. "Ladies." We nudged briefly and each took a sip. "Okay, after we talked at length about what it was like after you left Discovery." Detmer grinned at me. "Out with it, how is it on the Enterprise?"

I laughed briefly and looked at them. "How should it be?" "Are you kidding?" The pilot's eyes widened. "The flagship of the fleet and you have nothing to tell?" "It's a huge spaceship! Where the Discovery has a few recreational areas, it has a huge deck, there is a park there, no joke, with a creek! " "Sounds like a dream." "Yeah, I thought so, but the last week looked like this." I sat up and cleared my throat a little. "If I didn´t sleep, I ran after Dr. Boyd in the sick bay or learned. The rest of the time I've spent getting lost and trying to find my way back to my quarters. " Three pairs of incredulous eyes blinked at me. Detmer found her voice first again. "Oh." She gave me a quick jerk at the corners of her mouth. "What did you expect?" I spread my arms. "That was just few days, no more than a long bus ride." "Well, a little bit more spectacular." Owo exchanged a look with Burnham. "It was even more exciting with us." Burnham also looked disappointed and I immediately wished that Tilly's flirtation got in the pants and she would draw the attention again. A look to the side told me, however, that it seemed to be getting wonderful. "How about, you just tell me what you want to hear from me?" I took another sip of my drink. That would be the last one for today. "So who wants to go first?" The three exchanged a few glances, then Michael started to grin and looked at me. "You and Pike." "Um." I grinned a little, I couldn´t help it. "And what exactly?" "What did I miss?" A beaming Tilly swung back on her chair, reached close to her glass and took a sip with soul. "You were right, he is really cute." Then she looked around. "What's going on here?" "We're just trying to pull Cathrin out of her nose, what about her and Pike." Michael cocked her head slightly. "And right now she's trying to pull herself out of the affair." "Ohh no, no, you will not." Tilly raised her finger and moved him back and forth. "Get out of it."

"My dears, that was even more unspectacular." "And we shall believe you that?" Detmer pulled a pout. "I was scared every time you got together on the bridge, the sparks between you, set something on fire." "That's why we don´t really take it from you." I sighed loudly. "You will be disappointed, believe me." "Rubbish." Tilly grinned at me. "Don´t say later, I wouldn´t have warned you." I looked at them all. "We met just once, there he had asked me out on a date and said goodbye with a short kiss." "Ohh." Owo started to interject, but I raised my hand.

"I'll interrupt you." I gave her a crooked look. "He canceled then, in an incredibly sweet way, but still." "Did he say why?" "The spaceship with over two hundred people on board could have been a good reason." I raised an eyebrow. "After that, I saw him only a few times in passing and that the story." "Wow, I was just more successful." Tillys face twisted into a crooked smile. "But just now, you kissed him." "Yeah, but that's it."

"Why are you here?" Michael stirred in her glass. "And not with him?" "Because he has the dazzling pleasure of attending a high command meeting." "Saru mentioned something like that." Tilly looked around for a moment, then waved to her flirtatiousness. "Oh, yes." Detmer rolled his eyes. "Starfleet loses no time." "Are you actually recorded now?" Owo leaned back in her play. "Yes, initially my training is still with Dr. Boyd, then I have to go for about four weeks for a couple of courses, the shuttle license, and the final exam. " "Hey, I have to come here soon, maybe we can do it, that we can share a room!" "That sounds great!" That lifted my mood a lot. "I think that whole should be like this in two months. How are you? " "A research mission, if I still know it." Michael's face revealed that she had to think about it for a moment. "Saru will know more later."

Detmer and Owo exchanged a look. "We'll be fine for today, girls." We stood up for a moment, hugging each other before they said goodbye and we sat down again. "I'll take a break." I pulled on my straw again. "I still don´t know what tomorrow's going to do, but the day after tomorrow I have to get to a ball and I'll have to get dress for that."

"Oh, the Enterprise Ball." Tilly sighed. "Has one of you been to such an event ever?" "Sorry, too young." Tilly grinned a little dazed. "I've been to something like that, Sarek has been invited to diplomatic receptions more often, but I think that's not comparable." "Which brings me to where I was before. When are you going to break up here?" "Tomorrow morning, if it's not changed." Burnham stood up and together with Tilly we left the bar. Outside, the air was fresh, I pushed the ocean, but it was still beautiful. "Well then, it's time to say goodbye again." "But not for long." Tilly hugged me and I repeated it to Burnham. "And we'll see each other soon, too." She smiled at me. "Look at this time." "Who would have thought that?" I returned it, then stepped back as the two started the Discovery and were beamed up a few seconds later. Here I was, on the forecourt of Starfleet HQ, feeling a bit alone despite the crowd. The building was stunning, I wondered if Christopher was still in there. Many windows were still lit, as were the large rooms on the upper floors. I was tired and yet something was holding me here. I wouldn´t be able to wait here until he came out, who knows when that would be. That reminded me of something that had come to my mind once before, but I'd have to make one, two preparations for that. I smiled slightly, then I pulled out my communicator.

"Zimmer to Chief Louvier." It took a moment for me to got an answer. "Oh hello Ms. Zimmer, what can I do for you?" "I hope I don´t disturb you?" "No, no, I'm just getting ready to visit my family." Louvier was a Frenchman, of course, if he left now, he would be in France early in the morning. "How can I help you?" "Is my car still ready to drive?" I avoided a couple who was totally lost in each other. "Of course. It's loaded and ready to go. "He cleared his throat a little. "I was so free to adapt it a little to today's energy standards, but otherwise everything is as usual." "If time permits, we'll make sure you can go for a spin." I grinned widely, Louvier chuckling a little. "But only if you don´t mind." "Thanks Chief, I just wanted to have it okay before I bring it here tomorrow." "Gladly. Do you need a transport? I'm in transporter room 2 right now." "If you have the time, then one to beam." "That's okay." Then the transporter jet enveloped me and carried me to the Enterprise.

******

It was rude and his nature, but he was so longing for his bed that he couldn´t really suppress a yawn, so at least he tried to camouflage it a bit. "I'm afraid she will not finish at all." Number One pushed another cup of coffee towards him. "How long has this been?" "Almost an hour." Pike emphasized every word extra. "She doesn´t even breathe." "I didn´t even see her blinking." Captain Palma introduced himself. "Do you have another in the pot left Commander?" "Here Sir." Number One passed the pot. "Thanks." The Spaniard poured himself, then repeated this to his first officer. "Chris, will we have another drink together later?" "If we still stand upright then, gladly." The captains grinned at each other. "Or how about breakfast? It cannot take that long for the sun to rise. " A loud hawking from Tralaweney's direction silenced them all, then the commander of the Endeavor sat down again. Admiral Thomas straightened up in his chair, he too looked like he would rather be somewhere else. "Alright, thanks Andrea." "Sir."

"Good, now Captain Pike." He turned and Chris sat straight down. "I have less good news for you and a good one." "Let's start with the good, I think we can all use some cheer up." "Your new crew member, Cathrin Zimmer, right?" He looked at the PADD in front of him. "Yes Sir." He felt the tingle start to stir inside him as the admiral mentioned her name. What was she doing right now?

"Her request to join as a federation citizen was granted, it was out of the question anyway, since she is a citizen of the earth, that she is now well over two hundred and fifty years old, is just a curiosity. Thus, she is now officially a member of Starfleet. Admiral Cornwell had already received her informally. " "Thanks Sir." "I'm looking forward to meet her, you don´t meet someone from a different dimension and time every day." "I'm sure you will not regret it." "Let's hope so." The admiral taps the table. "Until tomorrow you should have the official files on the Enterprise, if you would forward her please. "Aye Sir."

"Let's get to the nastier part." The admiral got up and began to walk around. "It has all pretty much hit us that the Enterprise has fallen victim to such a fatal system failure, even though the report of your Chief Engineer expressly states that every mistake has been resolved."

"And I will sign you without any restrictions." Pike followed him with his eyes. "I know." The admiral smiled slightly. "Nevertheless, it has been decided that the upcoming five-year mission will be suspended for now being and replaced by half-yearly, one-month or emergency missions." Pike and Number One exchanged a surprised look, then Pike spoke up. "Sir, please allow me the question why?"

"A pure security measure." Thomas looked at him. "I know you and your crew are still clinging to sit out the war against the Klingons, but you know the reasons now, and I hope you understand it when we first test the Enterprise." "How should I imagine that?" "Don´t worry, you will not bogged down in the dry dock." He gave Pike a reassuring look. "There is plenty to do and explore, even in the areas closer to the Federation space. The orders will be delivered to you, I think you'll find you busy enough and who knows. "He sighed. "Unexpected often comes.” "Yes, Sir." "Good, then that would be clarified." The admiral sat down again. "I'd say we're ending this, it's late, and Enterprise's time here is certainly limited. Enjoy your shore leave and see you the day after tomorrow for your gala. "Then he got up again and everyone followed him this time. "I wish you a nice evening!"

There were replies, then the admirals left the room and the meeting broke up. Pike reached for his cup. "Sir, I say goodbye." Number One nodded to him. "Yes, of course." He smiled at her. "I assume you have a date?" "I let have him been waiting longer than expected, I'm sure my soufflé is now a cake." "I'm sorry." He took a sip. "Not your fault and I'm sure it still tastes wonderful." She looked around for a moment. "What about you?" "What should be with me?" Pike put down the cup and they also left the conference room. "Do you have a date?"

"With whom?" He tried to look as surprised as possible.

"Oh, don´t act like that." Number One gave him one of her unfathomable glances. “You are in love with Cathrin, head over heels! Why else would you have asked her to come with you to the Enterprise? " "I thought I was giving her a chance she didn´t have on Discovery." "That you can tell the Admiral." They left headquarters over the great staircase. "Just the look with which you looked at her today on the bridge was enough to betray you." "Nothing escapes you." Pike stopped as she did. "Chris, honestly, why not? You're in love and I'm very sure she feels the same, you just have to find a way to get together. " "It's not like I have not tried that for several weeks." He smiled at her. "I even asked her for a date and then I had to cancel, there were countless occasions when there was only a blink left and still." Pike spread his hands. "I'll go home alone now and try not to think about what might be."

"And everyone says Boyd is a drama queen." Number One placed a hand on his forearm, only fleetingly, in her case an incredibly warm gesture. "You have the perfect opportunity the day after tomorrow, take advantage of it or you will regret it forever." "Thanks Number One." Then he pointed past her. "You are expected. Good night." "Good night, Captain."

She smiled at him, then went down the last steps to a tall, dark-skinned man, reaching for one hand, then strolling out into the still-busy night of San Francisco. Pike put his head back and looked up at the stars, then sighed. As if enough hadn´t going on in his head. For a moment he thought about spending the night in his house, but finally decided on his bed on the Enterprise. Tomorrow was another day. Barely out of the transporter room he ran into Dr. Boyd arms. The ship's doctor was in a blinding mood despite the late hour. "Captain." He grinned at him, which Chris could only painfully reciprocate. "Are you coming or going?" "I have just come from one, let's call it, exhilarating session and I am on my way to bed. That was the plan anyway. " "Who should stop you?" "You." "Me? No, I'm just passing through. "Boyd raised a finger. "But I wanted to remind you that you should definitely take some rest tomorrow. If possible not on the Enterprise. "He stopped and Pike involuntarily rejoined him. He knew that lecture by heart, but he was sure he would listen to it again. "This old lady will start the day after tomorrow to a new deep space mission." "No, it will not." Chris kept going, he really wanted to go to bed. "What do you mean?" Boyd needed a moment before he processed the information, then went back to the captain.

"The High Command has decided that at first we will only do short missions, if possible in the Federation space. The memo went out earlier, I think everyone read it till tomorrow." "Oh, what interesting news." The doctor smiled. “That means that Ms. Zimmer could easily take her required courses at the academy. Which, of course, means she has to leave the Enterprise for a short time every now and then. " Chris was glad Boyd couldn´t see him rolling his eyes. As if he hadn´t even thought of it. "I'm sure she'll consider that." He glanced sideways and stopped when he realized where he was. 2518, her quarters.

"She's not there." Boyd was standing right next to him when he looked at him, he smiled at him. "She's here somewhere, but not in there." "I was just thinking." "Yes, yes, let it be good Chris." The hand of his chief doctor landed on his shoulder. "I may be old, but I'm not blind." Pike just blamed it on his tiredness that he just didn´t quite come along. "You are in love." "Phil." He looked at him. "Denial useless, believe me." He tapped his hand twice on his shoulder before he rose and pointed at him. "And even though Ms. Zimmer is a truly amazingly talented and capable young woman and it's an incredible honor and pleasure to teach her something, I'm so brave and make the assumption that's not the real reason she's here is." "Did you speak with Number One?" "No, how come? Would she agree with me? "Boyd grinned crookedly. "That would be necessary again."

Pike closed his eyes and tried hard to get them open again. "I'm going to bed." "Alone?" "Get on someone else's wick." He usually enjoyed the company of Phil Boyd, but he was just too tired for that, and he didn´t want to say anything he later regretted. "Good night Captain!" "Good night Doc!" After a few meters, he reached his quarters, entered and barely through the door, he loosened his collar and pulled on the zipper of the jacket.

Four hours!

Four hours and the end of the song was that they had been put on ice. Of course he understood the motives and he advocated them, but he knew that the crew would still be disappointed. But, as the admiral had said, postponing is not suspended and the prospect of one or the other regular service was not the worst.

He slipped out of his jacket, followed by the shoes, then dropped to the couch and leaned his head back, allowing himself for a few minutes to enjoy the silence that surrounded him. When he raised his head again, his gaze fell on the music file Cathrin had given him. Smiling, he reached for the piece of technology and turned it between his fingers. He had only managed to listen to a fraction of the songs on it. For some she had written short notes, not nearly all. Pike swung his legs off the couch, put the carrier on a console, and the computer called up the files.

"Computer music."

Chris made his way to his bathroom, undressed and stepped under the shower, then got dressed and dropped to his bed halfway relaxed. Had he guessed that Cathrin was not ten yards away, also lying on her bed and listening to exactly this piece, he wouldn´t have fallen asleep so fast.

Masterlist

#star trek discovery #star trek discovery fan fiction #star trek discovery oc #chris pike #chris pike x reader #christopher pike x reader #captain pike x reader #captain pike x oc #pike x oc #chris pike x oc #captain christopher pike #captain chris pike #writeblr #cathrin zimmer #captain pike fan fiction

22 notes · View notes

hangonimevolving · 5 years ago

Text

Inside Out and Upside Downs

Hi all. Thought I’d update on various and sundry agenda items going on in my life. Never a dull moment ‘round here.

HEALTH

Firstly, let’s talk about my innards. There’s been a whole lot of activity going on with regard to my innards of late. Thanks to the excitement of my Disney flu adventure and my New Years ICU party, I am now the subject of a great deal of medical speculation and attention, from a variety of parties. I have a standing weekly blood draw and appointment on Thursdays with my hematologist (fancy word for blood doctor) to monitor my platelet levels, and other misc blood-related information that concerns immunoglobulins and weird, mysterious things like that. I have had two appointments, as well as a momma-jomma lab workup, with a rheumatologist (fancy word for doctor who specializes in autoimmune issues). I’ve had an appointment to set up care with a brand-new-to-me primary care physician. And in the middle of all of this, I decided that since I’m going to be in/around the hospital so frequently, I might as well do a short course of physical therapy for my ankle - I never got around to doing it, so now is the time. So that’s a recurring weekly appointment on Tuesdays. I’ve also got random other crap, like a random head MRI happening tomorrow, and I’m sure there will be random tests, scans, and studies that random doctors will order at random times, and I’ll have to fit it into the schedule. I am being thoroughly examined, inside out. And with all of these medical opinions, appointments, tests and what not - in the last 24 days, there has been NO concrete diagnosis or evidence about why this whole thing actually happened. There are several theories, the two most likely of which are a) I have an autoimmune disorder. Well, we already know I have one autoimmune disorder (a not-so-bad one, called Graves Disease/hyperthyroidism, which I was first diagnosed with in 2006, and which involves your own body perceiving your own thyroid gland as a foreign object, and attacking it with antibodies). But now there is some evidence that I may have a second one, possibly a more problematic one, that is causing my immune system to overreact to normal viruses and things, and go on self-destructive rampages against my own platelets. Dumbass immune system. Now, what IS this second autoimmune disorder? THAT we don’t know. Because, the rheumatologist ran that momma-jomma test I was telling you about, and all that showed up is this one value called a positive ANA test which indicated “daaamn, there’s something f%^ed going on in this lady’s immune system!” It was a very high positive result. But, the specific tests to identify antibodies for known issues like lupus, rheumatoid arthritis, etc. were all negative at this time. So. To be continued with that whole theory.....

Then there is theory #2, which is b) maybe this whole thing really WAS just the flu. Maybe the strain of virus I got was really bad, and it resulted in such a pronounced war that it just took a toll. Dunno.

Anyway. We’ll obviously be following this medical mystery with my innards closely the next few weeks. Oh, and one more thing: so my platelet levels are sorta trending down. At hospital discharge, I was at like 313K, then the next week it was like 250K, then 180K, and yesterday, 146K. They’re going to keep monitoring, and the hope is that the downtrend will plateau at some point (preferably above 30K), and then it will start to climb up when my own bone marrow gets its shit together and starts producing new platelets. If that doesn’t happen - I’m looking at more IVIG infusion treatments. So let’s see how it all goes down.

WORK

A second area of activity has been my job! The spring semester at Uuuu! started on January 13, and I am teaching two courses this time around, for the first time since 2016. I am teaching my studio dance course, per usual, but I also agreed to a late plea for help from my former department to teach a lecture/discussion course that I’ve taught jillions of times before, but haven’t done in about four years. It feels good to be back in classroom teaching mode. The course meets three times a week, on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. So I’m quite busy, leaving the house around 8 am to drop the kids off at school, then getting back behind the wheel and making the hour-long drive to campus, arriving by about 9:30 am and teaching my two courses back to back. I have a big huge hike between my classes too, because they’re on opposite sides of campus, so by the time I’m done teaching, it’s about 12:20 and then I have this big long hike back to my car, then the drive back home, and I arrive around 1:30 pm. I grab a bite to eat, then at 2:45 its time to get the kids. Then three days a week, they have their extracurricular activities after school, so I’m shuttling them to those things. Then Tuesdays and Thursdays, all my medical appointments, which have been taking the majority of my mornings and early afternoons. Phew! This is all a far cry from about a year ago, when I had several mornings a week to go for a long run, either in my neighborhood or at the local state park, and I was training intensely twice a week with my Spartan SGX coach. I’ve had to seriously curtail my working out - I took a spill on my first run following the hospitalization, and the entire family freaked out about my putting myself at a bleed risk if I were to fall, bump myself, or otherwise get an injury, even a minor one, while exercising. This has been a huge crimp in my style, not working out - and if I weren't so busy with teaching, I think it would seriously depress me. But I keep telling myself its only temporary, and soon we’ll have some answers to my situation, and I”ll be able to get back into it. Till then, I’m trying to get back into meal prep and eating clean, and doing some mild exercise like light jogs and walks, light weight training, etc.

ADULTING

My mention of weight training is perhaps a segue to this next update, which I’ll keep brief and annoyingly vague. I am going through some painful adulting right now, that makes some moments feel like I’m being swallowed up by a tsunami. I’m gonna survive... but, yeah. I’m wading in the flood right now.

Okay, now for some miscellaneous updates. Mainly so I can post some pictures. This has been very text-heavy for my tastes.

MISC

On the topic of clean eating..... did you know that both papaya and pomegranate are natural platelet boosters? Supposedly. I’ve been doing a lot of research on foods and other natural ways to help boost my platelet production, and these were the top two foods that were consistently mentioned on platelet disorders blogs and forums. I confess I’m not a big fan of these fruits - but I’ve tried to put my tastebuds aside, and incorporate them into every day. Happily, papayas are widely available in the Miami area year-round.

I’ve handled the pomegranate thing by buying 100% pomegranate juice, and making cocktails of pomegranate + papaya juice (which is papaya pulp mixed in pear juice).

On the topic of foods and eating well - here is my guilty indulgence of late. I ADOOOOORE ramen bowls. ADORE. And I know they are the opposite of low-carb and healthy.... but I have been making a ton of them at home lately. I try to make them as healthy as I can, by 1) only using half of the ramen spice packet that comes with the noodles - this cuts the sodium to a tolerable amount (plus I drink lots of water), 2) I sautée minced garlic + approximately one full cup of shiitake mushrooms + approximately 1.5 full cups of baby spinach leaves in a dash of olive oil, and add to every bowl I make (mushrooms are full of B-vitamins and, alongside garlic, are huge immunity boosters, and spinach is full of iron and calcium, and is a good thing for me to be eating to make my blood sort itself out) , and 3) I often either crack an egg over the entire boiling mixture right at the end, or I add in sliced hard-boiled egg for extra folate and protein. And I sometimes add in a handful of raw shredded carrots right at the end, for a little crunch, color, fiber, and beta carotene. I *think* that I’m doing my best to make this indulgence food a little healthier, and tailored to my specific medical situation.

Soup has been a huge craving of late, because we had a surprising cold spell in Miami. It got down to 39F day before yesterday! That’s probably the coldest its ever been since we moved to Florida.

Afternoon snuggle time was especially snuggly - Dey and I were huddled for warmth!

My ability to run and work out at a high intensity may be somewhat muted at the moment, and this has been sort of a hard mental adjustment for me. But I am trying to get outside and do things, because it makes me feel better, and also I imagine the vitamin D is good for me. The other day, I was feeling pretty dumpy and blah - so I did something that for some reason I’d been putting off, “saving” for a special occasion, whatever. I cut the tags off of a brand-new Spartan licensed active top that I’d purchased on Cyber Monday, put it on, and went for a light 2-mile jog in the neighborhood. I felt silly in a way of making a big thing of it in my head - but the truth is, it lifted my spirits.

What else... Oh, this was exciting! GUESS WHAT, dudes. On Monday, I saw a real live MANATEE in the lake behind our house! I could hardly believe my eyes. A neighbor had reported on our community WhatsApp group just the day before seeing a manatee from her backyard. She posted a picture of it, which I am shamelessly going to post here. The manatee I saw, about 24 hours later, was different - it was considerably smaller than this one, I think probably a juvenile (not quite a baby, but definitely not humongous like this one). But it was swimming slowly near the sea wall that abuts our backyard, munching on some sea grass just like this big manatee. I did my best to run into the house and call the kids to come out as quietly as they could to see it - I think they caught a tiny glimpse, but our footsteps must have spooked it, because it definitely swam away quickly. I hope we’ll see it again!

Photographic evidence that we are LEGIT Floridians who hang out with manatees :)

Last but not least - on the topic of water creatures, gotta give a shout-out to my Vev, who “leveled up” at his swimming lessons this week to Junior Swim Team! The swim school has about 10 levels through which kids have to work to get to this point, and in the last ~18 months, Vev has completed them all. I was somewhat nostalgic and verklempt when he got his ribbon this time - I feel like it was only yesterday that we took him to swimming school for the first time, where he screamed bloody murder and cried the entire duration of his 25 minute assessment, clinging desperately to his teacher and feeling panicky about letting go in the water. How far he’s come!

(by the way, Dey is also doing wonderfully at swimming, and is only like 1.5 levels away from his own Junior Swim Team ribbon).

So some of my life is inside out and upside down right now, it is true. But some of it is Upside-Up. I work hard EVERY day to focus on the Upside-Up, and what a treat it is to see. These kids, the sunshine I get to enjoy here, the afternoon snuggle times, delicious food that also is good for me.... net balance is that life is good, I’m still alive and kicking, and everything is gonna work out fine.

Toodles!

#fitness #platelets #Sickness #Vev #Dey #food #animals

1 note · View note

queen-scribbles · 6 years ago

Text

Really Good Timing

@pillarspromptsweekly prompt: Late

Tavi had never been one for plans. She preferred to charge in heedless of consequences and fuck shit up in hopes that she’d win. That strategy had worked so far--there were some close calls in there, but she was still alive.

However, the ruined fortress that loomed over them now was clearly the sort of place where that would be a death wish. And not her usual ‘low odds, but slim chance of success’ death wish. An actual, honest-to-Berath ‘prepare to meet the Usher’ death wish.

Since she had no desire to bring that end on her friends(and the man she loved), Tavi stayed where she was. Crouched behind a boulder, glaring at the slaver heraldry crudely painted on the fortress’ gates. “Anybody got a bright idea for takin’ care of these copperfuckers?”

“Too bad it’s far enough inland we can’t pull the ship around an’ let ‘em have it,” Konstanten muttered. “Place looks like it’d come down with a couple good volleys.”

“That would be ideal,” Tavi snorted. She flicked a pebble off the top of the boulder. “But we can’t. Prob’ly the only reason Crookspur took over this place; y’can’t hit it from the water. So how do we handle this without it bein’ a death wish?”

“We’ll probably need to split up,” Aloth pointed out, twisting one of his rings as he examined the fortress’ construction and the holes that littered it. “Some cause a distraction, draw attention, while the others sneak in somewhere else and hit them from behind.”

“Huntin’ the Leaden Key’s made you sneaky, city slicker,” Tavi said with a laugh. “I like it. So, should me an’ Xoti go cause a ruckus while you boys sneak in somewhere else?”

He glanced at Edér and Konstanten. “If you’re drawing more attention from the brutal, bloodthirsty slavers, shouldn’t you have the bigger group? Both for efficiency at achieving that goal and for safety?”

She rolled her eyes, but he did have a point. “Fine, fine, if you’re that worried about me.” She winked. “I”ll take Xoti and Konstanten since we’re the best at bein’ loud”--she shot Edér a dirty look when he bit the side of his hand to keep from laughing--”Not a fuckin’ word, Teylecg. You two can sneak in somewhere less watched once we got ‘em riled and kick ass.”

“How did I know you would want the more...combative part of this endeavor?” Aloth asked with a smile.

“It’s me,” Tavi shrugged, shooting him a cocky grin. “And you know me.” She leaned over and gave him an impish kiss on the cheek. “Just don’t take too long, Corfiser. We’re pretty badass, but I dunno how long we’ll go against every fucker in the place.”

He chuckled. “Noted. We’ll do our best to move swiftly without attracting undue attention.” A meaningful look at Edér. “You’re better at that now, yes?”

Edér snorted. “Some, yeah.”

“Good to hear.” Aloth turned back to Tavi, caught her grinning at him. “What?”

“Confidence looks good on you,” she said, winking to ensure he caught her meaning. “I like it.”

He went red and his ears dipped, but he pressed on with the business at hand after only one mildly embarrassed cough. “Tavi. Should we look around before we begin to ensure there are viable routes inside?”

She waved off the suggestion. “Nah, look at the place; it’s fallin’ apart. I’m sure both of us’ll find a way in without too much trouble.”

Aloth shot her a look. “You’re just impatient to beat people up.”

“Yes.” Tavi half-growled, bouncing on her toes until Edér yanked her back down. “‘Cept I’d argue slavers have lost the right t’ be called people. I wanna go kill some scum-suckin’, copperfuckin’ bazzos.”

“I’m with the Watcher,” Xoti piped up, rolling her sickle from hand to hand. “Maybe a tad less enthusiastic, but if we stand here jawin’ much longer, they’ll die of old age ‘fore we can mete some justice on ‘em.”

“What she said,” Tavi said, pushing to her feet. “Let’s blazin’ go.” She shot Aloth a grin. “See ya on the other side city slicker”--and tugged Xoti and Konstanten into motion down the rocky slope.

<>~~<>~~<>

They weren’t exactly stealthy on their approach, but Tavi did figure the closer they they got unnoticed, the better their odds coming out of this alive. Alive was good. Alive would mean kissing Aloth in triumph once all these bastards were dead, laughing at Xoti’s jokes, trading jibes with Edér and Konstanten on the way back to the Defiant. To that end, she and her companions didn’t speak as they made their way down the hill.

And they were surprisingly successful; they’d made it all the way inside through a large crack in the wall before a lookout spotted them. Konstanten’s axe made short work of him.

“Alright, now we just head for the center of this place killin’ all the slavers we can along the way,” Tavi instructed, unsheathing her sabres. “We’re only stoppin’ if we have to, got it? We’re s’pposed to meet Aloth and Edér in the middle, an’ I don’t wanna leave them hangin’.”

“Got it,” Konstanten nodded.

“I wasn’t plannin’ to stop,” Xoti agreed, eyes glinting with determination.

“That’s what I like to hear,” Tavi grinned, and went charging down the nearest available hallway.

There wasn’t much resistance at first, but that quickly changed as they moved inward. The more protected--and thus habitable--portions were crawling with slavers. Tavi, Xoti, and Konstanten cut a swath through them on their way towards the center. If this place was anything like the other slaver bastions they’d taken down, it would have a large open area, to serve as both slave market and training ground. That tended to be the sort of place they took over.

The same held true of this one. And, as luck would have it, several of the slaver captains were mid-heated argument smack in the middle when Tavi and her friends came charging into the space.

Tavi took full advantage of those few stunned seconds before the captains reacted, barreling across the distance to punch one in the jaw and jam one sabre into another’s gut. Konstanten wasn’t far behind her, and Xoti only hung back slightly further to provide support.

Slaver captains didn’t survive long in their career without having fucking quick reflexes, so Tavi and Konstanten only got in a few good hits before they retaliated. Tavi ducked a swipe at her head and nearly took a boot to the chest in the process. Konstanten bulled into the one who tried to kick her, knocking the man off his feet.

“This might be good time to dig in and do our part,” he muttered, the words underscored by burying his axe in the slaver’s ribs.

Tavi grunted reluctant agreement. After all, the whole point of this plan was they couldn’t take all the slavers in a straight up fight. The three of them had caused their ruckus, gotten attention, now it was time to hold it until Edér and Aloth showed up. Better not take too long, city slicker.

She and Konstanten started backing towards Xoti, parrying blows and landing their own. The trio deliberately backed themselves into a corner, to make it more difficult for any archers that might skulk the ramparts.

“They better hurry up, Watcher,” Xoti murmured as reinforcements answered the hue and cry. “Or the whole plan’s gonna be up the creek without a paddle.”

“I know. They’ll be here.” Tavi kicked a slaver in the knee and slashed open his throat as he stumbled.

“That’s not the worrisome part,” Konstanten retorted. “We know they’ll show up. The trick is doin’ it in time, or we won’t be here to help mop up.”

She did have to concede that point. Maybe she should’ve let Aloth look for a definite way in before setting everything in motion. Too late now. Tavi flinched as a crossbow bolt hit the wall and stone chips stung her cheek. “Well, then, the longer we hold out the better.”

That was easier said than done. Especially once Konstanten took a crossbow bolt to the shoulder and the slavers produced a wizard who met Xoti spell for spell.

Shit, shit, shit. Tavi spat blood at the staff-wielding elf who’d just cracked her across the face, her ribs aching from another similar blow. There was plenty more where that came from, that was abundantly clear. Hylea’s tits, Aloth, where the fuck are you?!

As if in answer, the body of a ramparts guard thudded to the ground nearby, in conjunction with a massive fireball that engulfed at least half the encroaching slavers. Some had time for a final shriek of agony, but most were ash and cinder before they knew what (literally) hit them.

“Nice entrance, city slicker!” Tavi hollered, even though she couldn’t see him yet. Knew they’d show up. A few minutes earlier would have been nice, but they’d showed up and that was the important part. She’d almost swear she heard him laugh as he stepped out through one of the nearby doorways. But she was too busy taking advantage of the surviving slavers’ distraction to be sure.

The fireball had been aimed perfectly and done enough damage that even with Konstanten hurt--and her not in the best shape herself--the five of them were able to handle the ensuing fight. It wasn’t easy, but it was doable. That was all she needed.

“Took you long enough,” she joked breathlessly when Aloth finally reached her, the two of them instinctively assuming a back-to-back stance.

“Apologies,” Aloth paused to slam him grimoire into a scarred and gnarly dwarf who was getting too close. “There were complications.”

“And I’ll want details, but after we’re done kickin’ ass,” Tavi said wryly, skewering another slaver.

“Naturally.” He sounded.... nonchalant. Like he was trying to decided what book to read, not fighting the remnants of a brutal slaver coalition.

It made her roll her eyes as she punched the closest slaver in the nose and slashed open her face. Oh, c’mon, Tavi it’s part of why you love him. She rolled her eyes again--this time at herself--as she glanced toward Xoti and Konstanten to make sure they were still (relatively) alright.

To her relief, Edér had climbed down and positioned himself between chanter and priest. His years of protective instincts were clearly at war with the more subtle (less armored) fighting style he’d shifted to recently. She chuckled as Xoti murmured a quiet prayer and Edér’s leathers pulsed briefly with a soft golden glow. She’d benefited from that one herself; an armor “enhancement” Xoti had called it, her faith manifesting to protect her friends. It let Tavi hit things with less worry about retaliation, so she didn’t really care about the ins and outs of how it worked.

Neither did Edér, apparently. He shot Xoti a quick, grateful smile and stepped between Konstanten and an approaching tough, his weapons raised in a defensive stance. It didn’t stay defensive for long.

“Tavi!”

She whipped back around at the urgency in Aloth’s voice, feeling slightly guilty for how long she’d let her attention linger elsewhere. “Sorry!” She made up for it by slugging a nearby thug in the jaw and tripping him when he reeled back. His armor wasn’t heavy enough to offer much resistance when she drove a sabre into his chest. “Gotta make sure everyone’s doin’ alright, y’know.”

He let out a short laugh as he finished casting a cluster of magic missiles toward a menacing pair of slavers. “Glad I insisted you take the larger group?”

Tavi sighed and rolled her eyes even as she laughed. “Yeah, yeah, Corfiser, you’re a fuckin’ prophet.” She cut down another slaver. “Can’t wait to see what you’ll do next.”

It was his turn to roll his eyes, but he was mid-casting and couldn’t retort. When he finished, a black sphere of energy materialized a few yards away. It swirled and pulsed with enough force to drag all the imminently threatening slavers to itself. He cocked an eyebrow at her as he followed up with the pinkish-purple blast of one of Minoletta’s more powerful spells.

It didn’t quite finish the slavers off, but between that and the breathing room, it was enough for them to gather their strength. And once they’d done that it was easy enough to swing through and kill the surviving slavers themselves. They were even all still standing--some in worse shape than others--when they were done.

Tavi took a moment to catch her breath, ribs aching on each inhale. This had been rougher than she liked when her friends’ lives were on the line. “Al...alright. Edér, Xoti, help Konstanten get that bolt outta his shoulder, try to patch it up some. Then the three of you can make sure these fuckers”--a dismissive gesture at the courtyard full of fallen slavers--”are all dead.”

“An’ what’ll you two be doin’?” Xoti asked, brows raised in an unspoken commentary on how Tavi was splitting them this time.

“Looking for stragglers, maybe see if there’s a dungeon or some shit with people who need to be released.” Tavi rolled her shoulders to alleviate the stiffness settling in to her spine. “Since we dunno if this was more fortification or they were actually doin’ business here.”

“So long as we’re not gettin’ handed cleanup duty so you two can go make out,” Edér teased with a wink as he helped Konstanten, find somewhere relatively clear to sit.

“Oh, we’ll prob’ly do that, too,” Tavi shot back cheerfully. “Relief at still bein’ alive an’ all.” She grabbed Aloth’s hand as he bit back a smile and tugged him toward the nearest doorway. “C’mon, city slicker.”

“Are you certain you don’t need healing yourself?” Aloth asked quietly as they walked down the hall. “I saw you take some fairly nasty hits.”

“Yeah, mostly from that elf with the fuckin’ quarterstaff,” she countered. “Didn’t break anything, I think, so all I’ve got is a shit-ton of bruises. Can’t really do anything for that outside a hot bath.” A mischievous look in his direction. “Though I have heard stories about kisses havin’ healin’ properties, if you wanna give it a shot...”

Aloth laughed and shook his head. “Tavi. Behave.”

“When the blazes have have I done that, and why the fuck would I start now?”

“True.” He slid his hand up her arm until it curled around the inside of her bicep and pulled her close to kiss her cheek. “There?”

“Little lower,” she smirked, ghosting her thumb along the bottom edge of her jaw, and he obliged. “Yep, that’s good. Kissin’ the rest’ll hafta wait ‘til we’re back on the ship, though, thanks to where most of ‘em are...” she let the words trail off suggestively.

“Let’s use this one as a test case,” Aloth dodged with a smile that said he was onto her. “To see if there’s any truth to these stories. We have a task to complete, do we not?”

“Right, right. Let’s go see if there’s anyone locked up in this shithole.” Tavi shook her head to regain some clarity--it was hard to think with him lingering so close--and resumed course down the hall. After a minute of them walking in silence, she piped up again. “Oh, yeah. I’ll have those details now, Corfiser. For why you were fuckin’ late backin’ us up.”

“Right.” He paused as they reached a door and gingerly pushed it open. The room was empty of slavers, and bore the appearance of an office. “I am truly sorry for the delay.”

“Did it take long to find a way in, or somethin’?” Tavi probed. They stepped into the office to search it. If there was a dungeon, after all, the keys were probably here.

“Not particularly.” Aloth shook his head. “It was relatively easy to find a way in, a half-collapsed doorway, in our case. Unfortunately, we both somehow missed that it was guarded. A wizard and a cipher,” he added as she opened to mouth to ask.

“Is that where this came from?” she asked instead, reaching over to smear soot off his cheek.

He wrinkled his nose and nodded. “The cipher was easy enough to dispatch, once Edér got in close, but...”

“Oh, I know all about how dangerous wizards can be,” Tavi said, winking at him as she rifled through the armoire someone had jammed in the corner. “Clearly you handled it, ‘cause you showed up just in time to make one blazin’ Hel of an entrance.”

“That wasn’t the intention,” Aloth protested, face lighting briefly with triumph when he found a ring of keys in one of the desk drawers. “It simply seemed the best way to remove as much of the threat as possible.” He crossed to hand Tavi the keys. “There you are.”

“Thanks,” she said, the word covering a multitude of things. She ran her thumb over the keys’ teeth. “It was still really good timin’, Aloth. If it’d taken much longer...”

His ears dipped as he nodded. “I truly am so-”

Tavi pressed her fingers to his lips. “Stop apologizin’ for things that aren’t you’re fuckin’ fault, city slicker.”

Aloth tugged on her elbow to get her to drop her hand. “Even though it almost-”

“Yes.” She meant it. Close a call as that clusterfuck had been, the last thing she needed or wanted was him blaming himself for things outside his control.

The two of them stared at each other for a long moment before Aloth pulled her into a kiss with enough momentum they stumbled back into the wall behind him. Tavi got one hand up in time to brace against the stone, the other instinctively curving along his jaw and digging into his hair. They savored it for a long minute before parting.

“Not that I really need a reason, city slicker,” Tavi murmured, lightly resting her forehead against his, “but what was that for?”

Aloth leaned into their contact. “Just grateful we weren’t a few seconds later...”

She chuckled softly. “So’m I.” She tilted her shin to catch another quick kiss before stepping back. “It worked out, though. Now let’s go see if these unlock what I think they do” --she rattled the keys--”before I get distracted and Edér ribs us endlessly for provin’ him right.”

He laughed and pushed away from the wall to follow. “We wouldn’t want that.”

Tavi smiled as she took his hand again, sensing his lingering self-recrimination. “Yeah, he teases enough as it is. And look, Aloth, you know I’m just teasin’, right? I do that. I know better than most that things rarely go according to plan, especially for us.” She squeezed his hand as they continued down the hallway. “That’s why I rarely bother; what’s the point of a plan if it’s gonna get thrown out the fuckin’ window in the first five seconds?”

One side of Aloth’s mouth curved as he tipped his head in concession. “We do have to do that a lot, don’t we?”

“All the fuckin’ time!” she said emphatically. “Ah, this looks promising...”

They’d reached a door, sturdier than the last, secured by both key and bolt locks. IT only took a few tries to find the right key, and the bolt slid back easily enough. The door revealed curving steps down when it opened, extremely weak torchlight struggling to flicker up.

“Aloth?” Tavi said before they started down.

“Hm?”

“Thanks for showing up.”

This time, rather than attempt to sidestep her gratitude, he simply smiled. “Always,” he promised.

The two of them descended the stairs, killed the slavers standing guard, and set about freeing the slaves they found. It took awhile, even though there were only a handful; there was no rhyme or reason to which key went in which lock. When that was finally done, Tavi led the way back up and out to join her friends. Given the Defiant had more than enough supplies to reach land, she welcomed the freed slaves aboard. She didn’t have a plan for where they would go (on the ship or once they reached land), but the lack of a plan had never stopped her before.

#queens fic #pillars prompts weekly #tavi illani #aloth corfiser #eder teylecg #xoti #konstanten #otp: third time's the charm #taviloth

10 notes · View notes

ariestaurus21 · 6 years ago

Note

Ohhhhh fine, two can play *that* game: Steve fumbles for the phone, takes the call even though it's an unfamiliar number. "McGarrett." There's a pause on the other end, long enough that he almost ends the call, his thumb hovering over the red button. Then a shaky breath, a muffled sob, and Mary's voice. "Steve?"

Steve fumbles for the phone, takes the call even though it’s an unfamiliar number. “McGarrett.”

There’s a pause on the other end, long enough that he almost ends the call, his thumb hovering over the red button. Then a shaky breath, a muffled sob, and Mary’s voice. “Steve?”

He’s suddenly completely, totally wide awake. “Mare? What’s wrong?”

“I…”

“Mary, where are you? Where are you calling me from?” he asks, tossing the covers back and sitting up on the side of his bed. He glances at the clock on his bedside table. It’s 4:12 A.M.: the middle of the night in L.A., pretty damn close to it in Hawaii too. If she’s calling in the middle of the night, in tears, there’s a problem.

“Mary? Mary you there?” he calls out, when the only thing on the line is uneven breathing.

“It’s gone,” she whispers.

“Gone? What’s gone, Mary, what’s happening?” he asks again, heart hammering in his chest. Every instinct in his body is telling him to go to her, to protect her, that something’s gone horribly wrong but she’s thousands of miles and half an ocean away. There’s nothing he can do but speak on the phone but she’s not answering him… “Please, Mary, tell me what’s wrong!”

“Th.. There was…. a, a… A fire, Steve, there was a fire! The house… Aunt Deb’s house, the house she left us it’s gone! It’s all gone!” she wails and she’s coughing and there’s a clatter on the line and the sounds grow distant, like she dropped the phone.

“Mary! MARY! Hello? HELLO? MARY-ANNE!” He’s on his his feet, shouting into the phone, panic making his throat tight, sending his already wildly beating heart into overdrive.

“Hello?”

The sudden, unknown voice in his ear almost makes him drop the phone. “Hello? Who’s this? Where’s my sister?”

“This is Captain Rob Malone, LAFD. Your sister’s fine. She’s with our paramedics, receiving oxygen at the moment. She inhaled a bit of smoke, but she’s doing all right.”

“What about her daughter? My niece? Joan? Listen Captain, she wasn’t alone in the house, she has a three-year-old daughter! My niece!”

“Relax, sir, we know, we know. Your niece is okay, sir. Joan is fine. Your sister got her out, managed to protect her from the smoke too. She’s all right.”

Steve closes his eyes, lets his head drop back and exhales in weak-kneed relief. “Oh thank god.” Tears sting at his eyes and he presses a hand over them. He abruptly sits back onto the bed, drawing in a shaky breath. His family’s okay.

“Good, okay, thank you, Captain. I… Can I speak to my sister again?”

“Yeah, sure, let me put her back on the phone.”

“Steve…”

“Mary… I’m so gald you and Joanie are okay.”

“Everything’s gone, Steve…” Mary says, sniffling.

“I know, but you two are okay. That’s what counts.”

“I don’t even know where we’re gonna sleep, tonight! I don’t even have my purse, my phone… I don’t even have clothes for Joan!”

Steve grabs his tablet from the nightstand and opens the browser, looking up the flights out of Honolulu to LA. “Look, I’ll be on the next flight out. I’ll be in LA in about… seven hours. I’ll book a room for the three of us at the… what was that hotel near the house?”

“The Holiday Inn. On, on Orion?”

“Yeah. I’ll pay with my credit card, call the front desk, explain about the fire, they’ll let you in the room. You can wait for me there.

“Steve, I don’t have cash for a cab…Oh, ok, the guys from the emergency crew tell me they’ll have someone from the Red Cross with the essentials for Joan, and they’ll drop me at the hotel.”

“Once I’m there, we’ll figure the rest out, the insurance and all that, get you on your feet, okay?”

“Okay.”

“You’ll be ok, Mare,” he says gently, while he finishes booking his plane ticket.

“Thanks for coming to the rescue, big brother.”

“Any time. Now, I gotta pack. My fight leaves in 95 minutes and I gotta get Eddie taken care of and call Danny. Leave a message on my cell with the room number so I can call you when I land, okay?”

“Yeah. Yeah, okay.”

“Mary, I’ll see you in a little bit, okay?”

“Okay, yeah.”

“Can you put Captain Malone back on the phone for a minute please?”

“Yeah. Bye. And… Thanks.”

“Yeah.”

“Sir? This is Captain Malone.”

“Captain. I’m Lieutenant Commander Steve McGarrett. I’m with the Five-0 Task Force in Hawaii. I’’ll be on the next flight out to LA. In the meantime I’m making a reservation for my sister and her daughter at the Holiday inn on Orion. Is there any way you can make sure she gets there?”

“Yeah. Is there anyone in the area I can contact for her in the mean time?”

“Yeah, not in the immediate area, but if you could contact Chin Ho Kelly, from the State task force in San Fransisco, I’ll tell him what happened, so if you could coordinate with him to make sure Mary’s taken care of… He can be there before I can.”

“Sure thing. Text the number to this phone. I’ll reach out.”

“Thank you, sir. And thank you for making sure my sister and her daughter were safe and able to reach me.”

“Part of the job, Commander.”

He calls Danny next and once Danny’s done grumbling about the hour and Steve has a chance to explain why he’s calling, Danny’s all business. He’ll take care of Eddie, inform the Governor, whatever. It takes a weight off Steve’s mind.

The next twenty minutes pass in a blur of packing and online hotel reservations, phone calls to Chin, the hotel, to his buddy in stationed in Miramar who owns some rental property somewhere in Cali (he can’t recall if it’s in San Diego or LA) and he’s ready to go.

He’s just about to punch in his alarm code when a car pulls into his driveway. He frowns, wondering who the hell is showing up at his house at ten to five AM. He’s quick to recognize the Camaro’s throaty rumble and Danny’s steps on the front porch.

“Ready, babe?” Danny calls out as he walks in the door

“Danny, what… what are you doing here?” Steve asks, a bit lost.

“What do you mean what? Who the hell did you expect to take you to the airport? I said I was coming. Here I am.”

“You said…” Steve trails off, clearly having missed something somewhere.

“Yeah, I said. I guess it didn’t register. You thought I’d let you leave your truck in long term parking or pay for a cab? Clearly you think I’m a shmuck. I am not a shmuck. You? You’re a putz. Besides, I got a bag of stuff for Joanie in the trunk. Toys and plushies and clothes Charlie’s outgrown. Don’t worry it’s all gender neutral for the clothes and girls can play with trucks too.”

“I… Thank you, Danny. I don’t know what to say.”

“You already said it, babe. We help family when they’re in need and you’re family. You know that so stop acting like a dope. Now come on, you gonna miss your flight. Your sister’s waiting.”

*-+*-+*-+*

He’s halfway unsurprised to see Chin waiting for him at the gate, his gold California State Task Force shining on his belt. Steve’s unbelievably glad to see him, knew that he’d take care of Mary while he flew in from Hawaii, with San Francisco being only about an hour’s flight from LA.

“Chin, my man,” he says, grabbing his friend in a crushing hug.

“McGarrett. It’s been way too long,” Chin says against his shoulder, his wide grin evident from his tone alone.

“Thanks for coming.”

“Ohana, Steve, you know that,” Chin says, when they pull apart. “I got one word for you brah: Mexico. So this? Don’t even mention it. Abby’s with Mary and Joan.”

Okay, so maybe Chin’s got a point there, but when he called, it wasn’t about asking a favour in return for what he and the rest of the team did when Sarah was kidnapped. Not that he’s not grateful that Chin not only answered the phone in the middle of the night but managed to commandeer a plane or a helicopter or whatever and get to Mary in under two hours. And speaking of Sarah… “Abby came? What about Sarah?” Steve asks.

Chin’s smile doesn’t fade. “With Abby’s mother. She charmed her grandmother as fast as she did me.”

Steve laughs and he can’t help but smile widely. “She’s a charmer.”

“That she is. Abby’s with Mary and Joan at the hotel. We’ll join them for breakfast as soon as we get out of here.

“Then let’s get going.”

The rest of the day flies by but the memory of Mary crashing into him, crumbling into his arms, warm and safe, Joanie, small and secure between them will stay etched in his memory forever. His sister and niece, his family, safe and close, is something he decides he wants, needs even. He doesn’t want to let them go.

Not anymore.

There are calls to the insurance company, shopping trips for clothes and other necessities and when the day ends, they’re sitting side by side on a hotel bed, watching Joanie sleep the peaceful, deep sleep of the innocent.

“She’s so… It’s like nothing’s happened. I mean, people say kids are resilient but…” Mary says, her head against his shoulder.

“They are. I mean, look at us. We turned out okay, in the end,” Steve says, watching his niece sleep, the old, stuffed monkey he found in the bag of toys Danny sent clutched in her arms, snuggled close to her face. He suspects it once belonged to Grace.

Mary lifts her head and gives him an incredulous look, her eyebrows reaching her bangs. “Seriously? You’re being serious right now?”

“Okay, maybe it took a while, but look at us now. We’re good, no?”

“Oh, you mean me, single neurotic mom and you, single cop nutjob? We’re good?”

“You’ve been spending too much time talking with Danny Williams, is what.”

“Yeah, maybe but he’s got you pegged, he really does.”

“Does he, now.”

“Yeah. You really are a big mushy marshmallow inside. You’re mellowing in your old age.”

“Yeah, maybe I am getting… old,” Steve says quietly. These days, he feels pretty old. It’s not for nothing he’s been letting the kids out more with Danny, letting him take the lead, staying behind to run things from HQ while they chase the bad guys around the islands.

“Hey, I didn’t mean it like that, bro. C’mon. Don’t get all gloomy. You’re not that old.”

He draws in a deep breath and heaves out a sigh. Now’s as good a time as any to bring up what’s been on his mind since he’s laid eyes on his sister and his niece this morning.

“Well, I’m not getting any younger, that’s for sure. So, once the insurance investigator’s done with the investigation, it’s gonna be, what, two to three months before you have a place to live?”

“Yeah, about. You were there when we spoke to him. In the meantime, they’ll pay for a hotel for the next couple weeks and then an apartment I can rent till the house gets rebuilt so long as the fire wasn’t caused by negligence, which it wasn’t. You know all this, like I said, you were there. Why are you bringing this up if you already know?”

He draws in a deep breath and sets his elbows on his knees, turning his head to look at her. “Mary, I want you to come live in Hawaii, with me. Share the house. Use the insurance money to, I dunno, start a trust fund for Joan, instead of rebuilding the house here. Dad’s house is half yours, so why don’t you come and life there?”

Mary just blinks at him for a few seconds.

“This a joke?” she asks, with a faint chuckle. “You’re joking, right?”

“I’m serious, Mare. Move back home. With me.”

“Steve. I have a job here. I need that job to feed my daughter. I can’t move back to Hawaii.”

“Yes you can. I… Look… have a job for you, with Five-0. We’re growing. We have an admin position available, almost like the job you have here. I’d like you to take it. It’s… It’s not a hand out, Mare. It isn’t. I need someone I can trust and I’d love to have you close and… Joanie could go to the same school as Charlie… ” he says, heart hammering in his chest, suddenly nervous, afraid he won’t be able to convince her.

“That’s a private school Steve, I can’t afford that!”

“With the insurance payout, you could, instead of using it to rebuild the house. And I can… I want to help pay for it. I… I want to help you raise her, Mary,” he says in a rush. He’s afraid she’ll say no, because deep down, now that he’s let himself want this, he knows it’ll break his heart not to have his family with him. He’s let himself imagine this, just for one single day and it’s insane how much he wants it. He wants to be Uncle Steve full-time. He wants to be more than a video chat uncle. He wants to teach Joanie to swim. He wants to babysit on weekends when his sister has a date. He wants to have Charlie over for playdates with Joan, watch them play with Eddie on the beach behind the house.

He wants the house full of noise when he wakes up in the morning.

“Look… Mare, you two are the only family I have. I have the money and it’s not like I can’t afford it, and since I won’t ever have any children of my own…” There. He’s said it. He’d let the cat out of the bag.

“What? What are you talking about? Wait a minute! Are you sick? Is this, is this the radiation poisoning? You’re sick, aren’t you! That’s why you want me to come to Oahu with you!”

“Shhh! You’ll wake Joan!” he snaps, putting a finger to his lips. “And no, no! No, I’m not sick!” Not yet, he doesn’t say. Steve blows out a long breath, shaking his head. “Look… I’m not sick I promise you, all right? The only thing the radiation poisoning has to do with this is… I’m, God, this is embarrassing. I’m sterile, okay? I’m shooting blanks,” he growls, feeling his cheeks flame. “I won’t ever be able to have kids of my own. That’s all.”

“Oh. Oh my God, that’s why you broke up with Lynn!” Mary hisses, her eyes going wide.

Steve exhales and nods, dropping his gaze to the floor. “She wants kids and… I can’t give her any. So… It became a point of contention. We couldn’t figure out our way past it. We broke up.”

“Hello! Steve! Adoption! I did it!” Mary says, pointing a finger back and forth between herself and her daughter.

“Wasn’t that simple an answer for us, Mary. Adopting when you’re over 40 and when you have a dangerous job like mine and with the prospect of declining health, plus it takes a while to get a child in Hawaii. Not so easy. It takes less time if you’re willing to adopt an older child but… Lynn is a child psychologist. She knows a lot about the trauma adopted kids can come with, if they’re a little older and… she didn’t want that. Didn’t want to… y’know… take the job home. But I want kids too… So we started fighting about it and… We broke it off.”

Mary shakes her head and sighs, draping an arm over his shoulders. “Why didn’t you say something? Huh? Why did it take my house burning down for you to ask me to come live with you? Or just maybe just move back to Hawaii? Wo Fat’s been dead, what, three, four years? It’s been safe for me to come back for a while now.”

“You really gotta ask that?”

Mary growls out a frustrated sigh. “You didn’t want to ask. Because you’re a stupid McGarrett man who keeps everything inside. Like dad did.” She heaves a dramatic sigh. “God. Men.”

“Yeah, there’s that. But… You think it’s easy to talk about this? You think I wanna talk about never having kids? About… maybe getting sick and… dying before Joanie graduates? I just… I want you close, Mary. Okay? Please?” he says, and yeah, maybe he’s getting a little choked up. “Besides, I didn’t want to ask you to sell Aunt Deb’s house. Now…”

“It’s just a house, Steve. You said so, remember? You said the only thing that matters is that we’re okay, me and Joan. Oh’ana.”

Steve nods. He get out from under her arm and gathers her close, hugging her tightly to his chest. She huddles against his side, like they did, that Thanksgiving a few years ago, when they found out Deb was sick, but this time, he’s the one with tears running down his face. Giving voice to his fears is… a whole new kind of terrifying.

Admitting he wants Mary and Joan close because he needs to see them live their lives, watch Joanie grow up while he can is… He doesn’t even have a word for the emotion it triggers inside him. But he wants them there. Close.

“What happens when I get a boyfriend?” Mary says after a few minutes of silence.

“You put a sock on the doorknob and I go hang out at Danny’s for the night,” Steve says, his tone perfectly deadpan, despite the edge of emotion still discernable in it.

Mary bursts out laughing, slapping his chest with the back of her hand “Geez you’re such a moron! I’m serious!”

Steve inhales and thinks. “I could… We could put an addition on the house. Turn the garage into a guesthouse, for me. You and Joanie can have the big house. And I could build a new garage where the shed is, and put a small shed–”

“Under those big trees where the hedge ends, by Mrs. Kekoa’s house!”

“Yeah.”

“Okay.”

“Okay?”

“I’ll move back home with you. God. I’m thirty-eight and I’m moving back home to live with my bachelor brother. This is gonna ruin my social life, you know that?”

“Nah. What’s gonna ruin your social life is the number of guns your bachelor brother owns,” Steve says seriously.

“Oh my God, you actually would wait up for me with a shotgun wouldn’t you!”

“I don’t keep the shotgun at home. I have a sweet grenade launcher though,” he replies, only half joking.

Mary bursts out laughing, clapping a hand over her mouth for fear of waking her daughter. “Seriously though, Joan can’t get to all that stuff, right?” she asks.

“No. It’s in a safe in the cubby under the stairs. It’s a fingerprint lock. I’ll add another lock to the cubby itself, just to be sure.”

“Okay.”

They stay huddled together hanging on to each other in silence. Steve doesn’t want to let go, and despite knowing Mary’s the one going through a tragedy, he’s the one with the lump in his throat and tears burning in his eyes. He hasn’t felt this close to crying in… decades.

Oh, he’s shed tears over the years. He let a couple sobs escape when he killed Wo Fat, but he was drugged out of his mind that day, so confused he had trouble remembering what year it was. Now, though, he knows. He knows exactly what year it is, how old he is, how long it’s been since the liver transplant, how long it might be till he needs a kidney transplant because most liver transplant recipients do, eventually, need a kidney because the anti-rejection meds protect the graft but destroy their kidneys, how long he has till the complications from the radiation poisoning become a reality and he gets thyroid cancer or leukemia or lymphoma.

He’ll be sick before he’s fifty.

He’ll likely be dead before he’s sixty.

He closes his eyes and swallows around the lump in his throat, tightening his arms around his sister. She leans against him, resting her head against his chest so he let his own head drop forward till his forehead is pressed into her hair. The position is uncomfortable, his neck stretched too far forward, the muscles pulling. He doesn’t care.

He feels the first big, fat tears overflow from his eyes and drip into Mary’s hair at the same time his frame is shaken by a hiccupping, choked sob.

Mary wriggles out of his arm and looks up at him, lifting his chin up with a soft, gentle hand. At least, that’s what he imagines, because he keeps his own eyes tightly shut, as unstoppable tears keep flowing down his face.

“Oh, Stevie,” she says quietly before engulfing him in a tight, tight hug. “Don’t… Don’t cry. You’re gonna make me cry.”

She must have moved, knelt on the bed by his side because his head is on her shoulder and it’s impossible if she’s sitting by his side and it’s ridiculous that’s he’s thinking about this when he’s crying.

“Shhh, it’s okay, Stevie. We’ll be all right. It’s gonna be okay.”

“I’m scared, Mary,” he whispers against her neck. “I’m… I’m really scared. I d… I don’t… I don’t want to be dead in ten years. I want… to grow old. I want kids… of my own, I want… I want a life, Mare… I don’t…”

“I know. I know. Shh… It’s okay. It’s okay to be scared.”

He wants to stop, because this isn’t him, but he just… Can’t. The only thing he can do, for a little while, is let himself cry. Maybe it’s relief, he thinks. Mary said yes. He won’t have to face that big, quiet house anymore, ever again. He won’t be alone. He’ll have Mary-Anne and Joanie with him. He feels a bit guilty though, about losing it. How did he, the tough-ass Navy SEAL, end up bawling in his sister’s arms, when she’s the one who just lost everything?

“M’ sorry. You… I’m the one who should be… Comforting you, not… Not the other way around.”

“Heh, since when do we ever do things the right way, huh? It’s a family tradition, right?”

It startles a watery laugh out of him. “Right… M’ sorry.”

“Oh, stop apologizing or I’ll kick your ass.”

It startles a chuckle out of him. “You could try.”

“Steve. I’m here, okay? I’m coming home. We’re coming home with you. We’ll be okay. All of us. Okay?”

Steve nods, separating himself physically from his sister and wiping a few stray tears from his face. “Yeah. We’ll be okay.”

“So, you wanna call Danny, tell him the good news?”

Steve smiles, hugely. “Yeah.” He extricates his phone from his pocket, unlocks the screen and tosses it to his sister. “Call him. Tell him the good news.”

“You don’t want to tell your BFF I’m moving back home?”

He gives Mary a tired smile, watery. “I think I need a minute. I’m getting emotional in my old age.”

Marry gives him a serious look. “This means a lot to you, huh?”

Steve swallows back a rush of emotion past the still-present lump in his throat. “Yeah. I, uh… I’ve… never really lived alone and, despite being single for most of my adult life, I don’t like being alone. And family is really important to me. We spent so many years apart, Mare… I don’t want to waste any more time. If you find someone, then great. We’ll do the addition. If I do, then we’ll do a bigger one, or expand the second floor, or…”

“Okay, okay. I get it. Ohana, like the kama’aina do it, the whole extended family thing.”

“Yeah.”

“I’m not so sure about you being my boss though.”

“I’m a good boss, ask anyone on the team!”

“Yeah, benevolent dictator much?”

“That was a joke!”

“Not from the way Danny tells it.”

“Danny Williams is not a reliable source where my leadership skills are concerned.”

“Well, remember I have baby pictures of you, so.”

“You wouldn’t dare.”

“Don’t be dictator and you won’t have to find out.”

“Seriously, Mary, you can’t do that.”

“I won’t, unless I have to.”

“Mary. Seriously.”

“I’m serious.”

“You… But.. Mary! I’m your boss!”

“Technically, you’re my brother first. And there’s no rules about sisters embarrassing their brothers, so, I’m sending that picture of you with Santa to Danny.”

He knows exactly what picture she’s talking about. It’s the one with mom and dad where he’s nine months old, wearing nothing but a diaper and a Santa hat. The one she sent him a week ago, that he still has on his phone. The phone he gave to Mary a couple minutes ago.

“Mary, don’t”

“But you look so cute in that picture!”

“MARY!”

FIN

#h50 #fic #ask

34 notes · View notes

anngersmy · 6 years ago

Text

The Queen of Ireland

Sipping pints of the dark stuff they contemplated the news that was invading their peace. It was blaring out from the television that sat precariously balanced on a rickety shelf over the bar. There wasn't many in the pub, there never was anymore in this small town bypassed by the motorway to Dublin.

“Teresa May, UK prime minister, has lost the vote in Parliament. The troubled exit of Britain from the EU is likely to result in the return to a hard border for this island”

Images of car bombs, crying children,men in balaclavas and soldiers flashed across the screen.

Eochy looked over at his companion, her blond hair glittering in the dim light of the bar, her bright blue eyes glued to the screen while she pursed her ruby red lips in anger.

He coughed to get her attention.

“Do you remember that film, ya know the one with the students from Scotland stealing back that rock thing from the English? Do you remember?”

“You mean The Stone of Scone?” she replied absentmindedly.

“Scone? Scone? You mean like the bun you eat with butter and jam or like the English eat with cream, that Scone?” he half said to himself while she continued watching the news.

“Well it's spelled the same. Why?”

“I was thinking about that stone. They thought it was the Stone of Destiny, An Lia Fáil, you know what? It wasn't. They were mad wrong, it never left the Hill of Tara.”

He looked at her waiting for her questions.

“How do you know that? Oh, who cares?

“ Well, I do know and you should care because with that stone and you we can sort out the whole English Brexit shite once and for all. I dreamt about it last night and I know exactly where it is. In my dream a cloaked person led me right to it. I googled it and there are loads of rumours that's where it's at. My dream is true, I'm being led to it.”

“You've lost me completely now. I haven't a notion what you're talking about.”

He was exasperating at times.

Eochy didn't give up.

“The feckin’ English are going to bring the troubles back if we don't do something about it and our gobshites of politicians are just bending over backwards for their EU lords and doing nothing about it so, SO, we have to. We have to go to Tara, dig up the real Lia Fáil 'cos the penis stone they have there now isn't it, it's just like a headstone or whatever. The real one is buried somewhere beside the mound of hostages. We need to get the real one and you need to stand on it and Bob's yer uncle, United Ireland, sorted.”

He sat back, delighted with himself and downed his pint in one.

“Right, losing me again”

Etain had to admit she was more interested now.

“You're always telling me you're 100% Irish and your line goes right back to the Kings of Ireland so there is a pretty good chance if you stand on the Stone it will screech with Joy because you're the rightful heir to the throne and we won't need to worry anymore about a hard or soft border as there will be no border!”

“You, my friend are most likely mad, polluted drunk definitely and while I'm loving the idea, there is a problem, I won't be the King of Ireland, I'm a woman. Ireland is a woman and the King is married to her, that's how it works”

Etain sat back and looked at him.

Eochy looked puzzled.

“Don't get you, why? We can have a queen, sure it's 2019 for feck sake and didn't we vote in same sex marriage. Queen of Ireland, let's get the stone!”

He stood up unsteadily and made his way to the bar.

All that night, Etain couldn't get the conversation out of her head. She had a romantic head on her shoulders. She really was a direct descendant of Niall of the Nine hostages and therefore of the last great king of Ireland, Conn of The Hundred Battles. Legend said he was the last king to make the Stone of Destiny sing out in joy as a true King who could unite the country. The next morning she was still seriously contemplating it, though she couldn't believe it herself. She rang Eochy who was only waiting for her call and they agreed to meet back in the pub and trash the crazy plan out over lunch.

She greeted him with

“It's an archaeological site of international importance, I don't want any damage done. Is there any non-invasive way we can locate it first before we start digging, like maybe echo sounding or a drone or something? And, we could get in trouble, big trouble. Could end up in jail”

Eochy smiled, delighted this was happening

“Aye, Maybe we'll be fined or something, which is a crying shame and us only trying to save the country for feck sake. Trouble will happen only if It doesn't work”

“Yeah, only if it doesn’t work. We will need more help with this but who can we trust?”

Eochy couldn't stop smiling

"I was thinking Aengus, well he has a drone and a good understanding of how to excavate without damaging the site.”

“Oh yeah, he should do, he IS an Archaeological student. Oh he won't agree.”

“I think he will.” answered Aengus himself as he wandered into the bar.

“Eochy already sold the whole idea to me. We should do it as soon as possible. I've the drone outside and there was very little growth so we should get a good look at the land. If there is anything there we will see it.”

They discussed it more as they ate their lunch and then drove to the sacred site to have a look for themselves and plan the raid. Etain was worried Aengus doing a drone flight might be traced back but he assured her there were plenty of drones up there all the time and in fact he had, in anticipation, already put a rumour out about a naked pagan ceremony either today or tomorrow so there will be lots of activity. They'll be lost in the midst of all the air traffic and no one will be suspicious of them being there too.

“There are always prayer circles up there, The other drones will have plenty to look at while we work. It will be like we have a cloak of invisibility over us.” he laughed.

“Misdirection.” agreed Eochy.

When they got to the Hill there already was a bit of a crowd gathered in wait for the mysterious naked pagan ceremony just as Aengus had said. No one noticed them preparing their drone nor did they see that their drone was focused on one small area a little away from all the activity. They were taking detailed coverage over the mound of hostages while the prayer groups, who hadn't got naked yet, nor would they, were over at the phallic pillar.

Etain decided to take a closer look while the two men were playing with the drone. She wandered up to the entrance of the mound and stared into the darkness. A cloaked man approached her and asked was she joining the group. She said she was only having a look, having never been there before. His accent was Northern Irish, Antrim, like Eochy, she thought. He wandered off up the Hill.

The entrance was gated and locked. She had noticed that despite being an important historical site, there wasn't much other security about the place. The hill was accessible at all times, they would just need to be careful they weren't conspicuous, weren't followed up the Hill. They would need to bring something to cut the lock and dig. How do you carry a spade without drawing suspicion she wondered as she watched the eccentric group on the hill chanting.

When Etain came back down the two men had put away the drone.

“We took as much footage as we could and thermal imaging as well so if the stone is there we will see it.” Aengus said. “How did you get on?”

“I think I know how we get our shovels up there without looking suspicious, in the funniest way really, as anyone dressed like this would be suspicious anywhere else. We dress in cloaks and we carry our shovels in plain sight in our hands. Keeping the shovel part hidden under our cloaks and a candle on the handle we will walk to the mound in a procession as if we are performing a ritual. No one seems to pass any heed on that sort of carry on here.”

Aengus laughed.

“Great idea. We’'ll go back and examine this in detail, I'll enlarge it up and we can decide when we are coming back then.”

“The sooner the better I think” said Eochy, just to say something as he was feeling a bit superfluous.

“Imbolc” Etain said.

”Imbolc, First of February, day of the goddess Brigid, there will be activity here day and night just like there is at all the sites, no one will notice us.”

Aengus nodded

“That's less than a week, we better get back and examine these now so. You two ok to come over to mine?”

Eochy nodded.

“Yeah grand, will we stop by the pub and pick up our cars now or will you drop us in later?”

“I'll drop you there now and you can go home and pack a bag and come over to mine, we could be at this all night, you might as well stay over.”

When they all gathered again, excited with a little trepidation at what they were planning, each of them was afraid to say to the others that this might just be a risk not worth taking. No one in Ireland would appreciate them damaging the site. The authorities would most certainly frown at it. They may be arrested and all for a story, a magical legend that couldn't possibly be true but they just couldn't help themselves. It had turned into a quest, a mission, they felt obligated to follow now they had thought of it. Crime or no crime, they had to do it.

“Aengus, this is is very impressive” said Eochy as he looked around at the tech gadgets everywhere. One big screen was in front of the keypad with two smaller ones each side. Aengus was pointing at a spot he had circled on all three screens.

“See here, this darker patch in the photo, there's something solid there and here over in the thermal image you can see it more clearly. I've enlarged it in this one. It's rectangular, it's not as big or as phallic looking as the one they have up on the hill but if you look closely you can see a big crack down the middle where, according to legend, it split when Cú Chulainn hit it in anger. It could be it, maybe.”

Etain looked closely at the image.

“It's flat, you could stand or sit on it. I think it's worth a try. By the looks of it we have to break in through the entrance, follow the tunnel until we come to the back wall and dig into the left. It looks like there may have been a passage there before. I think we can do this without much interference with the site.”

“We don't know that for sure but we'll be years looking for permission and if the legends true well better now than never.” Aengus said against his better judgement.

Over pizza and a bottle, or two, of wine they discussed it more and had a plan of action for the next Thursday night, 31st of January, the eve of Imbolc. Eochy went over to close the curtains as it got dark and noticed a hooded figure standing under the lamppost across the street. While it was odd, he didn't mention it.

Dressed in cloaks the three gathered their tools from the boot of Aengus’s car, set the battery powered candles on the top of them and made their way up the Hill. They passed a few other cloaked and unusual individuals muttering chants as they wandered up and down the Hill. No one passed much heed on them. They got to the mound of hostages and Etain snapped the lock. Looking around to ensure no one noticed them they slipped inside and pulled the gate behind them. Down the dark passage they went to the end and started to dig at the wall on the left of them. They worked quickly and quietly, each taking turns to keep watch at the gate while the spiritual people outside wandered about their business. Aengus kept a close eye on what they were doing and anything of interest they found he noted it's position, documented it and photographed it. It slowed the process down but he insisted.

The night went on. Eochy was on watch and Etain and Aengus were working away when Etain hit a large hard rock. They both cleared all around it and pulled at it until they had it out and were preparing it to drag out of the mound. They were so excited they never noticed that Eochy had returned and he wasn't alone. Etain recognised the man from the day she had been here before and she looked at Eochy.

“I'm sorry, I had no choice. I owe them money. They were going to hurt you, kill you and me. I didn't have a dream. I made it up. I had to get you here, they wanted to make sure they got the stone so it can never happen, never come to pass and only a true queen could find it.”

“But it was your idea!”

“No it was mine.” The unwanted visitor stepped out and smiled at Etain.

“We can't take any chances now can we? There won't be a United Ireland in my lifetime or ever, not when we've disposed of you and the stone.”

“You said you wouldn't hurt her!”

“I did, I lied.”

He pointed his gun at Etain ready to shoot.

While they were talking, Aengus, unnoticed had been cleaning the stone and reading the Ogham lettering on its side in a low whisper. He pulled Etain onto it and finished reading. A guttural roar of deep joy vibrated through the chamber. Eochy and the intruder fell to the ground. Gusts of whirling wind surrounded them whispering

“We are released, our time has come.”

Aengus and Etain looked at each other wondering what they had done, They knew there would be a United Ireland but they didn't know under whose, or what, rule.

#shortstory #myths #legends #history #mystery #UnitedIreland #Brexit #Everycloudhasasilverlining

5 notes · View notes

morana-bel-blog · 7 years ago

Text

You are not going to regret

John Seed/Nick Rye. Maybe it`s R.

Note: Well, how you can see, it`s a fanfic :D I`m so sorry for that shit just because I`m sure there are a lot of mistakes after translation from russian to english. However, I tried really hard to make it so I just can`t not share it. Sorry bros :D And of yes, it's kind of a songfic. So, Starset - It has begun.

- Nothing could ever stop us from stealing our own place in the sun, - another's voice was sneeringly shaking beside Nick`s ear, and anger boiled harder, ready to splash out worse than any volcano. Rage covered his eyes with a red shroud disturbing him from vision and thinking. That thrilling part of his heart which people usually called the Demon on the left shoulder annoyingly whispered in his ear about the importance of exactly this fucking sectarian blood. He was stopped from irrational but so challenging wish to beat showboat`s muzzle by ropes which tightly tightened his wrists

Nick didn't even make an afford to take cultists seriously when they came up to their county. Their strange Father with a funny hairdo, his insane and just scaring family in which they all crazy as hatters. Psychopaths’ kin. Mostly – John Seed in his pricy outfit and with a sly spark in his blue eyes. Ray couldn`t understands how that person could belong to a cult – he can`t stands any rules and slightly looks like a rebel. By the way, interest in cult disappeared quickly just because Nick had some things to do and problems without them. Fanatics are everywhere. However, not everywhere fanatics have guns…

Everything changed in some weeks. Maybe months. Rye couldn`t say exactly in what moment countdown started. He just understood on someday that it`s time to see off and get away with Kim from all this shit and shoot up more this bastards for last. However, Kim didn`t support his decision and insisted on being in their native soil. All variants in one moment lead to one – war. So, Rye had to learn war art really fast, moreover fact that he has someone to protect from cultists pushed him and gave more and more force. Fear that he can lose his meaning of life in one moment makes him clench his weapon stronger. Nonetheless, how good he could be as a pilot, the army remained an army even if it was unorganized and not really big. Sectarians wasn`t just relentless and ruthless, but absolutely fearless like if they thought that death can`t come for their souls. Although, Nick was sure that it`s not true – he checked it out without any request as soon as possible. He personally stabbed a bullet or two in their empty noggins with abnormal pleasure sending them to their non-existent God. Maybe he will teach his stupid child not to mess with Nick-fucking-Rye. So if immortality of «God`s servants» pilot denied a million times he wasn`t so sure about Seed family. They looked down on everyone next to them like they are Gods trembled from the Heaven. Unfortunately, Nick is atheist. And that couldn`t save him from meeting the God who stayed right in front of him with his poisoned grin and weirdly shaped knife. Wish to check his lifespan becomes stronger by every second.

Be caught in his own house was really humiliating and silly. All he made it was tossing Kim in deputy`s hands and closed the door after their leaving trying not to draw the attention of his wife`s fierce shouting and gloomy military glance. Almost that's more important than his life. Almost they wouldn`t kill him. No, they`ll try to enlist him. And knows John - it`ll be better just to kill him immediately.

- But now everyone knows that fairytales aren`t found, - the younger Seed keeps ranting watching useless but desperate attempts to escape with sadistic enjoyment, - It`s written on the walls. It`s downs out in the air. Collapse is just around the corner.

John squat down nearby him, squashing his knife and looking into his wild and beastly eyes.

- Go and fuck yourself, - Rye hissing, baring one`s teeth. Inquisitor smiles wider and topples him on the floor by pushing him lightly on his chest.

- Someday we will face the odds against us together, - he spreads his hands and set on his knees to touch Nick`s cheek, snuggle his hand to his face. Rye growls and John mentally compares him with a cougar which is cornered in a small cage and wore a collar. This comparison makes him grin again, - And we will run away from the Collapse. Together, like a big family, - he leans closer and Nick huddles on the floor with the hope that his native house will save him from every danger, - And then, after the world ends, we'll see how the seed of new world grows up from the ash. I want you to be with us at this moment. You and your wife... - Nick lost his temper and spit in his face with understanding what will this cocky liberty cost him. However, he was ready to do it for hundreds of times just to see this human astonishment in his nonhuman face and make him shut his mouth. Sometimes it's necessary to remember that he and his family are just humans, like Nick. Just little bit crazy fucking and deserves a gallows. The public gallows.

Other`s thin fingers clenched around Nick`s neck immediately, and Rye feels cold coming from them. Rage flows him with the head and spits out with a dry suffocating cough. Everything floats in his eyes besides these fucking blue eyes.

- You are a fucking psychopath, - he hisses it with all anger he has, and his voice wheezing because of lack of oxygen which was decisively dislodged after John`s knee pushed right between his legs. At this moment Nick really wants to suffocate but damned Seed keeps him closely in the middle of life and death. Ray truly can`t understand, where is he. Feelings like he`s close to the hell.

- Well, well… - John`s voice whispered it close to his ear and Nick, trying to find the rest of his power somewhere inside, twitched again, wounded his wrists. Something has fallen atop on the second floor, then Nick hears sectarian`s dissatisfied voice but John doesn`t distract from Rye`s eyes like if he heard nothing. Nick really wants to kick his ass. Nick really wants to run away, - The longer you resist, the sicker it`ll be for you. All you need is just say "Yes".

Nick suffocates but resists.

- You`re a fucking asshole.

He has powers only for swearing and evil sight right in Seed`s soul. However, his experience tells him that John Seed hasn`t got a soul. And fear. And an ability to take his freaking grin away at least for one minute, fuck.

The knife balked near his shoulder and cut off the skin, getting into and carving meat from the flesh. Rye starts screaming mentally or out loud. At some moment it becomes not just hard but impossible to understand. Blade touches his skin again, now near the collarbone, and Nick bites his teeth not to shout up something he`ll regret about.

- You`re prideful, - John chuckles and confidently seats right between Nick`s legs. Rye tries to fetch away what caused new wound from collarbone to armpit, - And wrathful. And most of all - greedy, - Seed looks on curve cut with dissatisfaction like he`s an aesthete who can`t find a meaning in some expensive exhibit. Nick doesn`t think that he would be an icing on the cake in this exhibition but he deserved the youngest Seed`s attention. Even if he didn`t want it as much as he can, - And then, when the Collapse begins, only peeled will survive. I just wanna to help you, - he leans forward and weakly, occasionally touches his nose to his and Nick roars again, making Inquisitor laughs more.

- And what`s your sin, bastard? – He tilts his head and boldness helps him see clearly for a moment. Seed stops only for second raised his eyebrow with astonishment after what he stretches his neck and unhooks upper button on his showoff blue shirt.

Scratched "Sloth" upper his collarbone catches the eye not right away. Firstly Nick noticed some tattoos, scars, and scratches and only then inscription which were half-closed by the cloth. John, as if he read his thoughts, unbutton next toggle and Nick grins with mistrust. Inquisitor and Sloth? Rye can`t believe this. The Wrath would suit him better.

- Can you see, Nick? - he talks calmly and without his grin, looks at him seriously, so Rye feels shook, - I could accept my sin and get rid of it. Get rid of despondency and depression after losing my brothers and after abuse from my family. I could give thanks to them. Because without them I wouldn`t have a chance to atone my sins and went to this new world.

Rye calms down for a moment just thinking about it, trying to understand and repeat his words in the head. It doesn`t help.

- You`re sick.

Inquisitor grins again after Nick`s phrase. Knife edge abuts to his chest, not cutting too deep and slowly moving down. Nick hopes that he doesn`t whine aloud.

- I know you want me to stop.

In blue eyes over against - condescension and rage, mockery and hatred, pride and fatigue. Nick can hear his phrases only partly, Seed`s fingers release his neck only occasionally. Oxygen becomes not a necessity but luxury.

- I`ll save you, Nick Rye. Without asking a permission.

Nick coughs because of shook and lack of air. Fucking Seed push on the knife right above his belt.

- And then you`ll be grateful. You`ll thank me. And not only for one time.

The blade doesn`t stop and tear the cloth of his jeans, and Rye feels himself on a hell`s chill and on an infernal heat when his blood blunder Inquisitor`s hands and floor, and, still hot, warm his bones and flesh. It cures his mind and poisonous it again. Nick gets lost in his own feelings; tries to pull his hand, to ask for help, but ropes compel him to fall back call to memory about who is now in front of him.

- Just say…

His voice breaks off or Nick ceases to hear. Wounds itch, hurt, whine and just prevent living in exactly this moment. Nick sure that they`ll leave behind some white stitched strips on his tanned skin. Back of mind, he catches himself on thinking about how scars adorn men. Every man. Sight abuts in scratched "Sloth" in Inquisitor`s collarbone.

John bends over newly, and Nick can feel his breath on his cheek. In contrast, he feels cold steel on his hip. That sucks. Short and heavy exhalation, then - a cough. It seems to Nick that Death himself is sitting right in front of him. And if John Seed isn`t immortal, Nick Rye won`t believe this.

- Yes.

His voice is so worn out that he becomes afraid. Then, when the heaviness of another`s body pressures on the lungs and cols thin fingers unclenched, it scares him stronger. Algidity of the blade finally receding so Nick can concentrate on his pain which isn`t so terrible but suffocating not worse than John`s fingers.

- Yes, - he repeats it again and can`t understand why he made it, trying to prove it to himself. Or to John. Or to the whole world which decides to stop in this fucking moment when thoughts about Kim, about the deputy, about his daughter faded into the background. Only indistinct spot left. Solid and foggy, this spot leaves behind the only scorched field, empty and dead. Only these fucking blue eyes of the youngest of the Seed left. With dilated pupils, flashed with childlike joy. Only his strange knife left, all in Nick's blood. And his voice. Left in Rye's head, sowing on the subcortex of the brain. Nick was sure that this voice is with him till` the end of the line. This fucking goddamned voice.

- You are not going to regret. I promise.

#far cry 5 #fc5 #nick rye #jonh seed #john seed x nick rye #slash

15 notes · View notes