#metro gaite

[toutplacid]

Entrée du métro Gaité, avenue du Maine, à l’angle de la rue de la Gaité, Paris 14e – encre de Chine (plume), carnet n° 140, 29 janvier 2024

[aromantic-enjolras]

Ten first lines game

Rules: Share the first line of ten of your most recent fanfics and then tag ten people. Don't have ten? Not to worry, just share what you have.

Thank you for the tag, @pumpkinspice-prouvaire! This is going to be so funny, too, I'm pretty sure a few of these are actually collabs with you...

I'm going to do only my Les Mis fanfics, because let's be honest, that's what you all care about. ;)

It is a warm day in early September, and all the Amis are having a picnic at the Batignolles garden to celebrate the arrival of Grantaire’s sister to town.

'Shall we Dance?', platonic Grantaire&Musichetta, Gen, 1.6K

2. Combeferre walks down the streets of Paris, his gait long as he hurries towards the metro that will take him to his apartment, to his comfy couch and his books and his cat.

'Still Crazy After All These Years', (past) Courferre, T, 8.5K

3. Combeferre dragged his suitcase through Charles de Gaulle airport, his tired gaze looking for the exit signs.

'Leave me where I am (I'm only sleeping)', platonic Triumvirate, Gen, 817 words

4. Enjolras closes the laptop, cutting the Congressmen from France Insoumise singing the Marsellaise and the voice of the reporter with a definite click.

'Sous les Pavés, la Rage', political Amis, Gen, 531 words.

5. Courfeyrac is just starting to get undressed to go to sleep when there's the sound of the outside of the tent unzipping, and then some muffled swears as Enjolras all but throws himself inside.

'Mess Me Up (Noone Does it Better), FWB Courfjolras, E, 5.1K

6. Enjolras has never been scared of Grantaire.

'Stronger than lovers' love (is lover's hate)', ExR, T, 1.5K

7. Enjolras hums as he tidies up the Musain.

'Dîtes si c'est vrai', platonic ExR + Amis, T, 9K

8. It had started out fine, or so Enjolras had thought.

'I wanna ruin our friendship', FWB ExR, T, 5.8K

9. The first time Enjolras saw him, they were at a demonstration.

'In the crowd', platonic Feuilly&Enjolras, Gen, 8.9K

10. It’s a Friday night, and the Amis are gathered at the Corinthe, a queer bar in the Marais.

'Gimme, Gimme, Gimme (A Man After Midnight)' FWB Courfjolras+ platonic Triumvirate, T, 11.2K

... Putting these all side-to-side is making it really really obvious that I really do not write romance, huh. I am living up to my "-but make it platonic" reputation... The only thing that goes up from Teen is our collab, and the only present-day-relationship is a spinoff from a fic of yours. You're a bad influence!!

Tagging @shamedumpster, @p-trichor, @peoplearescary, @storyweaverofgondor, @cx-shhhh, @quillsand, @uppastthejelliclemoon

[jellyfishright]

Still My Beautiful Man -Pt 3

                                           2 days later

*****Kiyoi****

Kiyoi toyed with his phone as he waited in the lobby, his leg shaking restlessly.

This was his final  audition for the day. When it was over he would meet Hira at his university and they would head home.

He’d been there for the better part of an hour and there were still quite a few people waiting with him.

“Kiyoi So.” A young lady finally came out to call him inside the room.

He got up, portfolio in hand and walked into the room.

Besides the person who’d called him in, there were 3 other people in the room sitting at a table with mounds of pictures and papers set before them.

They onced him over appreciatively as he stepped forward and handed his portfolio to them.

With his hands casually shoved in his pocket, he waited while they scanned the contents .

Their eyes become glossy as they scanned the pictures.

“Kiyoi.” The oldest looking man in the middle addressed him “Your portfolio is very impressive. These are wonderful pictures of you.”

“Thank you.” he replied.

“These pictures…” he continued to look even while he spoke. “I’ve never seen such beautiful pictures. Who took these?”

Kiyoi thought for a moment.

“A friend of mine– Hira.” he replied.

“Hira.” the name sounded buttery on the man's tongue.

Over the last 6 months Hira had taken so many photos of him, every picture in his portfolio was taken by him.

“What studio does Hira work with?” the man pressed.

“None.” Kiyoi replied. “He’s a university student.”

They got wide-eyed, commenting among themselves.

“We would very much like to meet him.” the man said “My company needs a photographer and with pictures like these, Hira might just be the person we’re looking for.”

Kiyoi nodded once and gave them a little smile, unsure of what to say next.

“Forgive me.” The man apologized. “I got a little too excited. Let’s get back to the audition.”

Kiyoi nodded again and waited for the instructions.

10 minutes later he’d performed as requested.

“We’ll be in touch.” the man said as Kiyoi went to retrieve his portfolio.

He nodded and left.

When he was back in the lobby he dialled Hira.

“Hello.” Hira’s voice came through the receiver.

“Are your classes over?”

“Mmm.”

“I’m heading to you now.” Kiyoi told him.

“Mm.” Hira replied before they hung up.

Without a backward glance Kiyoi left the building.

The ride to Hira’s university was 15 minutes on the metro line so in two shakes of a hair Kiyoi was walking up the pathway to the spot where they usually met.

As expected, he spotted Hira at the designated spot.The smile that usually formed when he saw Hira faltered at the sight of something unexpected.

His head was focused on his camera as two girls flanked him,with excited expressions.

Kiyoi’s heart twitched as the girls rested their hands on Hira’s hand and shoulder respectively.

“What’s with them?” he questioned as he walked towards the group.

He wanted to race across the quad towards that ugly scene but he tempered his gait, steadily making his way past all the eyes that he attracted towards Hira.

His eyes never left Hira and soon enough Hira’s eyes pulled upwards to meet his.His heartbeat both quickened and slowed when their eyes met, Hira could do that to him with a single glance, he was that intense.

“K-k-Kiyoi.” He diverted his attention from the girls.

“Mmm.” Kiyoi replied as he came to a halt before the group, hands casually stuck in his pockets. He onced over each of the girls, with a frosty expression frosty, cocking a curious brow before looking at Hira.

“S-sorry.” Hira apologized “They wanted to see the pictures I was taking.”

“We saw his pictures displayed in the common area.” one of the girls spoke up. “They were so beautiful.”

The other girl nodded in agreement as she held on to Hira’s elbow.

Kiyoi’s eyes darted to the point of contact.

“Let’s go.”Kiyoi said

Hira nodded and stepped away from the girls.

“He’s so handsome.” Kiyoi overheard one of the girls comment as they walked away.

His fist tightened in his pocket as he stalked off with Hira in tow.

“S-sorry” Hira apologized  as he beheld the dark expression on Kiyoi’s face. 

“Why are you apologizing?” Kiyoi questioned.

“I made you wait.”

“Disgusting.” Kiyoi thought to himself. Hira was always like that with him.He never wanted a speck of dust on his star but did he realize his power?

Kiyoi looked across at the oblivious young man with his bangs caressing his brows.He really was arrogant in his own way.Was he impervious to the efforts of those girls just now?

Hira was the same but he’d also changed.

He was confident but also still shy.

This duality wasn’t there before. Perhaps it was being out in the big wide world and not the fishbowl of high school.

Regardless of the process, the result was the same, this weird boy who always wanted to be invisible was now being seen and not only by him.

His first brush with that reality had come through that guy with a bad taste in everything, Koyama.Hira was no longer someone others viewed as a nuisance. He was no longer someone only he saw.The feeling unnerved him and he hated it.

Kiyoi walked, lost in thought until Hira’s voice pulled him from his musings.

“Kiyoi.” Hira called in that gentle voice.

Kiyoi turned his head to look.

Click.

His face was dead in the lens.

“So Beautiful.” Hira commented with a smile.

****Hira*****

“So beautiful.” Hira whispered in Kiyoi’s ear before licking it gently.

Leaving his ear he traced kisses all over Kiyoi’s face.His beautiful brow, his beautiful eyes, his beautiful cheeks, his beautiful nose. He sucked on Kiyoi’s pink plump lips, his hands snaking under his shirt as he held him against the wall.

Kiyoi’s eyes were closed, his hands roaming the breadth of Hira’s back as he kissed him.

As with any good wine, Kiyoi’s kisses made Hira lose his inhibitions.He became both god and servant to this beautiful man.

6 months ago touching Kiyoi like this had only been a dream, until that night.That night when he came to him at the place where he’d saved him before.That night when the dam of his desire had been irreparably ruptured.

He kissed Kiyoi passionately as he hurriedly relieved him of his jacket and shirt,baring his chest.

Hira’s breath was ragged as he looked at Kiyoi. 

On the way home , he seemed to be in a bad mood for some reason. He always hated when Kiyoi was anything but happy. His star should always be shiny.

The minute they'd set foot in the house he'd grabbed him, showering him kisses.

Hira swept the hair from Kiyoi’s eye before using that same finger to trace the lines on his face,lingering on his lips.

Kiyoi kissed Hira’s fingertips twice before opening his mouth slightly.

Accepting the invitation Hira slipped his index and middle fingers into Kiyoi’s mouth.

Kiyoi swiveled his tongue around his boyfriend’s finger, sucking intermittently with a tease.

Hira could never stand being teased.It drove him mad. His desire for Kiyoi was always on full throttle, teasing him like this would just drive him over the edge.

He pulled his fingers from Kiyoi’s mouth and gripped him by the waist, spinning him in one swift motion so his face was against the wall.

Spreading Kiyoi’s limbs apart on the wall he covered his hands with his, slowly tracing the lines of his beautiful body.He alternated between kissing and licking the length of Kiyoi’s back. He wanted to bite him but he had to be careful since Kiyoi still had some auditions left and he didn’t want to tarnish his skin.

Soft moans escaped Kiyoi’s lips as Hira’s mouth roamed over his body.

Hira kissed down to the waist of his pants before yanking it all down in on swift motion, leaving his body bare.

A blush crept up Kiyoi’s face as Hira reached his hand around and gripped in with one hand.

“Ahh.”

Encouraged, Hira began to move his hand up and down while he bent behind Kiyoi, kissing his buttocks, his thighs, the back of his knee, his calf.

There was nothing for Kiyoi to grab as Hira pleasured him. The walls were smooth, his fingernails could find nothing to latch on to so his hands just contracted on either side of him as he rested his face on the wall.

This was what he’d wanted.

These hands.

This touch.

“Mmm..ahhh.” he bit his lip to try and keep himself atleast somewhat contained but he couldn’t. The more Hira’s hands and lips moved in synchrony,the more intense the feeling became, causing him to lose himself until finally he crescendoed with ragged breaths.

Hira stood at full height, fully clothed as he spun Kiyoi to face him with his flushed face.

This is what he meant. In this moment he was both servant and god. Kiyoi was all his.He would worship every of that beautiful body and attend to it like it was his sworn duty but he would also command it to do his will because it belonged to him.

With eyes never leaving Kiyoi’s Hira undressed, tossing his clothes here and there until they both stood bare before each other, their chests heaving, anticipation heavy.

Hira reached for his camera, his eyes filled with wonder.

This was his world.

These were his eyes.

This was his man.

Kiyoi blushed and stretched his hands towards the lens.

Click.

Click

Click

“Don’t”

Hira gently lowered his hand and kissed it before raising the camera again.

Kiyoi looked into the lens

Click

Click

Click

With each shutter of the lens Hira captured another beautiful part of Kiyoi.

His soulful brown eyes.Click.

His prominent nose.Click.

His plump pink lips that were even more pronounced after being kissed. Click.

His elegant neck. Click.

His beautiful shoulders. Click.

His bare chest.Click.

His hard abs.Click

Hira aimed the camera below Kiyoi’s waist but did not press the shutter.Instead, he put the camera back in place and pulled Kiyoi towards him in one swift motion, his desire set ablaze once more.

They kissed with reckless abandon as they made their way to the bedroom, their lips and hands all over each other.

Hira laid Kiyoi on the bed, his eyes becoming likened to his camera, capturing every inch of him frame by frame.

Kiyoi’s chest heaved as those eyes roamed the length of him.

He wanted those eyes to keep looking at him like that forever. They would be the only thing he’d ever need in the world.

“Kiyoi.” Hira said his name lovingly as he bent to kiss the only star in his universe.

[jayessentialsblog]

Oleksandr Usyk discloses Anthony Joshua's main issue following Daniel Dubois' defeat

Oleksandr Usyk, a boxer from Ukraine, has disclosed that Anthony Joshua's main issue following his unexpected loss to Daniel Dubois was his unsteady footing in the ring.  In front of 96,000 fans at Wembley, Dubois successfully defended his IBF heavyweight title against Joshua in five rounds. Joshua has now lost four times in his professional career.  Usyk thinks that Joshua's worst fault was his clumsy gait, given how risky it was to lean back. He feels that Joshua would be better effective boxing if he moved his feet to take a stride back rather than leaning back. He said, “Not shocked because it’s boxing. Daniel Dubois today was better,” Usyk was quoted as saying by Metro UK. “Anthony had one problem because this position is dangerous – if you want to step back, do it like this , not like this , this is dangerous.” Read the full article

[kitdeferramentas]

◦ all the little details. the texture of their hair, their scars and birthmarks, their unique physical traits / their posture and their gait when they walk / a list of your muse's physical habits

Cabelos: escuros como as penas de um corvo por conta do carvão, mas são castanhos escuros que ficam claros no som. Macios, tão macios, e o leve ondulado só parece quando os deixa grande demais. Excelente para passar a mão, e ele ama.

Cicatrizes: pequenas, finas, e concentradas nos braços. A maioria veio do trabalho das forjas e quando ainda não dominava completamente o poder. Tem mais proeminente na área do quadril, no peito e perna esquerda. Elas mostram a trajetória que a pele foi rasgada e onde a parte metálica permanente começa. Tem outra bem discreta na pálpebra esquerda, ele diz que foi por coçar, mas é do olho mecânico.

Físico: como filho de Hefesto, Kit é encorpado. Tem um físico que assusta, porque não aparenta até começar a usar os músculos. Sério, é uma mudança tão óbvia que os queixos caem. (e é a razão por ser tão popular entre seus 'contatinhos'). Um metro e oitenta e cinco de força de ferreiro comedido, bastando dar um motivo para virar um touro na defesa.

Postura e andar: nada de desleixo ou de curvado. É um andar de quem prazer pela vida e pronto para retribuir o cumprimento de quem acenar para si. Ele descontraído, um tanto pomposo, e cheio de molejo.

Hábitos físicos: usar as mãos para falar, fazer três coisas ao mesmo tempo, sem se confundir. Bater palmas antes de iniciar qualquer atividade, passar a mão na pulseira de Flynn quando está nervoso/incerto.

[clarklovescarole]

January 1937: Parnell Sideburns

Jan. 1, 1937 – Pittsburgh Post Gazette

Clark Gable’s Christmas gift to Carole Lombard a thoroughbred three-gaited saddle horse. 

Jan. 1, 1937 – Austin-American Statesman

Carole Lombard’s intention to give up breakfast in bed and do more riding (on the horse Clark Gable gave her for Christmas).

Jan. 2, 1937 – The Kansas City Times

Lombard, usually voluble, is in the midst of a real romance. Her case with Gable is progressing, one might say. She knows the whole world knows it and doesn’t care. She does suffer a rise in temperature when she finds herself quoted concerning it. 

“I’ve never discussed the matter,” she says.  

Jan. 3, 1937 – Democrat and Chronicle

The arrive of Carole Lombard on any set where she happens to be working is no casual incident. Things may be dull and routine before she comes, but the moment she bursts in upon the company one begins to hear the crackle of electricity. The whole set seems to come to life. 

Amid the shower of good-mornings Miss Lombard makes for her 8-by-12 dressing room on the sound stage. The dressing room is green outside, white inside; always, in the mornings, is fragrant with freshly-cut flowers. 

Sometimes the flowers come from Clark Gable, sometimes from Mitchell Leisen, the star’s director in her current Paramount picture, “Swing High, Swing  Low,” sometimes from herself. 

Jan. 4, 1937: Unusual gifts

An after-Christmas survey of starry gifts discloses the fact that among all the diamond and sapphire bracelets and gorgeous cars and houses and lots exchanged in Hollywood this bumper year, the most unusual gift was received by Clark Gable! 

Gable’s present from his “girl friend,” Carole Lombard, was a two-wheel buggy, with whip and all equipment, together with a trick cane that opens out and measures a horse’s height. A sort of follow-up gag for the old broken-down automobile she gave him several months ago, which Clark had dolled up with white paint and college boy gadgets. He drove it, too. 

So we fully expect to see Mr. Gable dashing down the boulevard in his two-wheeler with his race horse, Beverly Hills, hitched thereto! 

Carole and Clark are the village cut-ups. Mitchel Leisen, who is directing the current Lombard film, “Swing High, Swing Low,” expressed a desire for a horse this year to race at Santa Anita. 

C and C gave him a hobby horse wearing a holly wreath for bridle. Zeppo Marx fared a little better – his Christmas gift from the pair of cut-ups was a decrepit donkey, which he found standing in a forest of hay on his front lawn Christmas morning!

Jan. 4, 1937 – The Boston Globe

Jan. 4, 1937 – Asbury Park Press

The boy who takes around the plug-in telephone from table to table in the studio restaurant is a literal table-hopper. At Metro, only commissary where the meal-disturber can get right into your soup, Robert Taylor, Clark Gable and James Stewart get the most calls (most of the stars lunch in their dressing suites). When Taylor, Gable or Stewart is on the line, romantic gossips figure that Barbara Stanwyck, Carole Lombard or Virginia Bruce is on the other end.

Jan. 5, 1937 – The Gaffney Ledger

Clark Gable has been lunching with Mary Anita Loos, who used to be Francis Lederer’s best girl. But don’t come to any false conclusions. Carole Lombard is still head-woman in Clark’s life.

Jan. 8, 1937 – Standard Sentinel

You draw a blank if you ask Bing Crosby to discuss, for instance, the importance of crooning. He’ll talk golf and horses, though. Carole Lombard is mainly interested in people, but if you ask her what she thinks about one in particular, you get no place fast – that person is Clark Gable. It must be love. 

Jan. 9, 1937: New godparents

Jan. 9, 1937 – Los Angeles Times

Carole Lombard and Clark Gable were relegated to supporting roles in a one-act playlet last night when Dennis Clark Moriarty “stole the show.” 

For it was Dennis Clark’s christening and neither film stars nor anyone else were going to take any honors from the month-old son of Mr. and Mrs. Patrick Moriarty. The father is a screen actor. 

Gable and Miss Lombard acted as godparents for the baby at its baptism by Rev. John Conlon, pastor of St. Mary Magdalen’s Church. 

The baby, born December 6, was named Clark in honor of its godfather. 

Jan. 9, 1937 – Los Angeles Times

Jan. 9, 1937 – Chattanooga Daily Times 

(Sheilah Graham)

Mrs. Rhea Gable is telling people that the reason she does not give Clark Gable the divorce he desires is to prevent his marriage to a certain film star. Is she referring to Carole Lombard? 

Jan. 11, 1937 – The Bristol Herald Courier

When Clark Gable stands beside a roulette table, the other players watch him and forget to bet. Carole Lombard is the coolest of feminine gamblers. 

Jan. 11, 1937: Sideburns for Parnell

Jan. 11, 1937 – News Journal

What! Sideburns on Gable? Clark Gable growing sideburns for his newest role, Parnell, Irish freedom leader, aids Carole Lombard by lighting her cigaret. The camera caught them in an off-guard moment at a Hollywood function. Clark has been linked romantically with Carole recently. 

Jan. 13, 1937 – Pittsburgh Sun Telegraph

Honors now rest about even in the Carole Lombard-Clark Gable practical joke contest, but Carole shortly will prove herself the arch-ribber of the two by carrying the fight to the screen itself. With the aid of Director Mitchell Leisen, she is pulling a gag at Clark’s expense in her new picture, “Swing High, Swing Low.” 

There is a scene in the script where Fred MacMurray and Dorothy Lamour go to a race track and put all their money on a certain horse. The dialogue has been switched so that you’ll hear them yell:”Come on ‘Beverly Hills’! For once in your life, win!” Beverly Hills is the name of Gable’s race horse. He has been kidded plenty about the fact that it never wins. The horse in the picture won’t either. 

Jan. 13, 1937 – The St Louis Star and Times

Where there is Carole Lombard, there is tomfoolery – and most of the time, Clark Gable. The night Clark was to broadcast his “George Washington” skit over the radio, Carole beat him to the studio.When he arrived for work she had decorated his dressing room fit to startle a circus press agent. On the wall hung a huge picture of Washington, and beside it an equally enlarged photograph of Gable. Beneath was a placard which read: “Fathers of our country.” Miss Lombard had also brought in two small fir trees, on  which she and a property man tied scores of preserved cherries. Two small hatchets completed the ensemble.

Jan. 16, 1937 – The Ithaca Journal

Carole Lombard, Hollywood’s No. 1 gagster, has started an epidemic of ribbing which includes even a scene in one of her pictures. Clark Gable is included in the ribbing, too, and it was to him that she recently sent a two-wheeled trash cart, presumably to be driven behind his race horse. She also sent a ton of hay and an $8 mule to Barbara Stanwyck and Mrs. Zeppo Marx, who are operating the Marwyck horse-breeding ranch in San Fernando. Mitchell Leisen, Miss Lombard’s director in “Swing High, Swing Low,” got into the feud innocently enough merely by stating that he wished he owned a race horse. Mr. Gable forthwith sent him a wooden hobby horse. 

Leisen topped the rib by getting all dressed up in jockey clothes of the Gable pattern and colors, and having his picture taken on the hobby horse. The photo, framed and sent to Gable, was captioned: “Jockey Leisen Up on Beverly Hills” – Beverly Hills being the name of Gable’s non-winning nag.

Jan. 17, 1937 – The San Francisco Examiner

Hollywood Gossipers Hit Low Score in Guessing Romances 

The batting average of the Hollywood gossipers, who see a romance in every mixed twosome, is notoriously low and it’s getting worse every year… Carole Lombard was practically engaged to writer Robert Riskin – until she started going about with Clark Gable. 

Jan. 19, 1937 – The Owensboro Messenger

Carole Lombard is still incapacitated, and Clark Gable is running for her.

Jan. 20, 1937 – Monrovia News

Clark Gable and Carole Lombard visited a phonograph shop not long back, and bought one of those newfangled machines that combine radio, home-recording, loud speaker, and play twenty-four records at a time. Gable watched its performance, then said to the salesman, “The darn thing does everything but cook.” At which Miss Lombard snickered, “You might say the same of me.” 

Jan. 25, 1937 – The Los Angeles Times

A new thrill was discovered yesterday by Clark Gable and Carole Lombard. They “truck” in the moonlight. No, it isn’t a dance. 

Gable bought a new, up-to-the-minute station wagon, with radio, upholstered seats and everything. It was delivered to him at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. 

With his makeup still on, he climbed into his new toy and headed for Carole’s home. She was in the midst of her dinner, but Gable couldn’t wait. He loaded her into his shining new wagon and away they went – to go trucking in the moonlight, cold or no cold, and it has become a nightly habit with them now.

Jan. 31, 1937 – Star Tribune

Carole Lombard is suddenly stricken deaf if some new writer lands in our town and asks her when she expects to marry Clark Gable. Carole, one of the grandest scouts in the world, can freeze up to a temperature as cold as California orange groves have been this last week if that question is put to her. 

On the other hand, Clark is equally noncommittal and frosty if he is asked about La Lombard. The subject of his friendship, he feels, is nobody’s business and he is probably right. Both of them have learned publicity can ruin any prospective romance. 

Jan. 31, 1937 – St. Louis Post

Jean Muir and I were having lunch at the Vendome the other day, Jean perfectly turned out in a black velvet suit and the smartest looking cape of the same material falling to the hip line. … 

While we were sitting there Carole Lombard and Clark Gable came in and sat at a nearby table. Carole immediately attracted the attention of all with her large picture hat of black alligator skin and a bag and gloves to match. 

We stopped to speak to them as we went out and Carole told us that when she finishes work on her picture she is going to take a six weeks’ vacation and not go away any place, but just spend her time driving about in a racing sulkey which she has just ordered, and riding the horse which Clark gave her for Christmas. 

The day after I saw them, Gable went to bed with the flu. He is the major casualty of the epidemic so far as the studios are concerned. 

Jan. 31, 1937 – The Des Moines

Jan. 31, 1937 – The Des Moines

Amazing! Probably it’s a romantic gaze Carole Lombard is giving Clark Gable – they’re one of Hollywood’s current romances – but it looks almost as though his sideburns startle even her. 

[conmuchogustoleemos]

Caperucita en Manhattan. Carmen Martín Gaite

Jueves 17 de noviembre de 2022

Tras un largo parón de más de dos años por Covid y por obras de mejora en la Biblioteca Reina Sofía, en la tarde de ayer, con gran satisfacción, reanudamos las sesiones del Club de Lectura “Con mucho gusto”. La primera lectura fue Caperucita en Manhattan (1990), de Carmen Martín Gaite.

Caperucita en Manhattan

Amelia Aguado fue nuestra invitada, en este caso invitada especial por ser la encargada de reanudar las lecturas que quedaron pendientes en 2020. Amelia es jefe de sección del Centro Buendía de la Universidad de Valladolid, encargada de la actividad y difusión cultural en la universidad.

La elección de la obra corresponde a un criterio puramente personal, así se lo solicitamos a todos los invitados al club de lectura que nos han acompañado en estos 8 años de andadura, y así fue en el caso de Amelia, quien apuntó que, desde su primera lectura de Caperucita en Manhattan en el momento de su publicación, ha sido su libro preferido, releído varias veces y otras tantas regalado.

Carmen Martín Gaite publica en 1990 este cuento largo o novela corta que titula, no de manera inocente, Caperucita en Manhattan. Su argumento se centra en Sara Allen, de 10 años, que vive en Nueva York con sus padres y que lleva una vida normal solo interrumpida por los viajes en metro que hace los sábados con su madre para visitar en Manhattan a su abuela y llevarle siempre la misma tarta de fresa. Tras un capítulo inicial de presentación espacio-temporal y personal de Sara y su entorno, la novela desarrolla el deseo de la niña de explorar aquello que llaman libertad, a través de la visión de la estatua de la Libertad, del recorrido por Manhattan y del encuentro con distintos personajes que le ayudan en su empeño. En las visitas a su abuela y a través de una imaginación muy activa, Sara tendrá la oportunidad de explorar el camino que le lleva a esa ansiada libertad cuando, saltándose las normas, vaga por la ciudad de Nueva York. En su viaje encuentra a los personajes-ayudantes Miss Lunatic y el Sr. Woolf, fundamentales para el descubrimiento del camino hacia esa libertad.

La novela está dividida en dos partes bien diferenciadas: Sueños de libertad y La aventura, que responden al esquema de los cuentos tradicionales, con los que sin duda tiene relación como material folclórico de base, Caperucita roja y Alicia en el país de las maravillas, principalmente. El tema es la libertad y el deseo de poseer la capacidad de decisión para explorar nuevos caminos vitales diferentes a los acostumbrados. También destaca el poder de la imaginación en el personaje de Sara, y todo ello plasmado a través de la reinterpretación y contraposición de los elementos básicos de los cuentos infantiles.

Los participantes en la sesión de ayer no mostraron, en general, entusiasmo por la lectura del texto, que para algunos era relectura. Cuento raro, extraño, sin tener muy claro hacia dónde quiere ir el argumento cuyo final, además, es abierto. Otros disfrutaron más de la lectura y todos reconocieron, sin fisuras, que Martín Gaite escribe muy bien. De este modo, se destacó el manejo del lenguaje en las descripciones de los espacios, de los personajes y en los diálogos. Otros comentarios reseñables tuvieron que ver con la función de los personajes femeninos: de Sara Allen como protagonista y, sobre todo, de su madre, su abuela y Miss Lunatic. La contraposición de dos modelos de mujer, sacrificada, rutinaria y más humilde la madre frente a la abuela, más moderna y liberada, dio pie a un interesante cambio de opiniones acerca de la posición de madre y abuela tanto en el texto, como en la vida. A estos modelos femeninos se une Miss Lunatic, extraño personaje proveedor del impulso necesario para que Sara emprenda su viaje hacia la libertad y actante para el cumplimiento del objetivo.

Por otro lado, se destacó la representación del espacio, Manhattan y la estatua de la Libertad como lugares vistos bajo una nueva mirada en los que se desarrolla la aventura, concretada en Central Park como espejo del bosque del cuento original de Perrault o los hermanos Grimm. Lugares que son personajes, cosificados en la mente de Sara. Destacada fue la importancia de la imaginación, ya que se trata de un cuento fantástico pero ubicado en un espacio real, con precisión espacio-temporal, con todos los personajes nombrados y definidos al contrario de la imprecisión que es habitual en los cuentos tradicionales. Objeto de debate fue también el público al que está destinada la obra, pues Caperucita en Manhattan tiene diferentes niveles de lectura que la hacen accesible a lectores de los 12 a los 100 años.

Como suele suceder, la de ayer fue una entretenida y didáctica sesión de lectura que tenemos que agradecer a Amelia, que nos trajo esta reelaboración del cuento tradicional de Caperucita. La alegría por volver a celebrar las sesiones de nuestro club de lectura animaron el debate y alimentaron el deseo de más libros y lecturas.

[mighty-ant]

future boy, part two

part one/ao3

Casey was the first one aboard the Turtle Tank. 

Abandoned beneath Metro Tower, it was able to maneuver itself out on autopilot now that the Krang vines ensnaring it had their connection to the hive mind permanently severed. Casey was closest, so he was its first stop. 

He took both his chainsaw staff and Leo’s katana in hand—he had no way of knowing where its twin was, but one katana was better than nothing. And Leo was alive to want it back, something Casey couldn’t fully believe until he saw him in the flesh. Saw all of them. 

The construction site where he had left the young Commander O’Neil and Master Splinter wasn’t far to travel, especially by Turtle Tank on the dead silent streets of Manhattan. Casey had to remind himself that the humans were all in hiding, not wiped out by the Krang, not like before. Not like in the future. 

Around him, the walls of the tank groaned as it trundled along at a moderate pace, nothing like the breakneck speed the turtles demonstrated when he first boarded. According to the computer that spoke in Donatello’s voice, the hull was still compromised, though significantly less than before thanks to the self-repair systems. 

In any event, avoiding the tank’s controls altogether seemed the best course of action (gasoline had been so scarce, and working vehicles just as rare, that Casey’d only driven a handful of times and only when anyone older was indisposed). Instead, he made himself useful by seeking out medical supplies. The turtles had been vague about their injuries when Casey asked them to report in. Mikey said they were “gonna need lots of kitty-cat bandaids,” but Raphael ominously informed him that Donatello had already remotely prepped their medbay back at the lair. 

Leo, reassuringly, was Leo. “And can you hurry the pick-up, please? We’re catching Staten Island germs over here.” 

Staten Island, Casey thought to himself as he cautiously poked around in search of a medkit. An Old New York name. He was pretty sure that was where the Krang foundries were in his time. Last he’d seen it, the land had long since been razed and the skies were permanently set aflame by the bellowing forges. What seawater remained in the bay was boiling and noxious. 

It probably didn’t look like that now. Probably. 

Casey discovered a big red button with a white cross on it. Hoping it wouldn’t launch him to the moon or trigger some automatic self-destruct sequence, he pressed it. To his relief, neither of the two happened. 

It seemed that this Donatello was as obsessively overprepared as his own had been.  Casey could only imagine that the mobile med unit springing out of the wall was state of the art. A gurney unfolded with adjustable sides to fit any one of the brothers, as well as cases of bandages, syringes, IV bags, and more, all carefully organized. He even found blood transfusion bags, each labeled by blood type and the names of those who could safely accept it—for the turtles as well as April and Splinter. 

It was an overwhelming supply. Casey and Sensei had raided the ruins of countless hospitals, lost good soldiers in the process, all to bring back what few expired pill bottles and sterile water they could find, only for infection and illness to still claim so many of their numbers. Their resources had been stretched to the point of breaking even before they lost Master Donatello, and after…

Well, the Resistance failed, after all. 

Casey willed himself to refocus. It wasn’t a unit in need of triage, but four turtles, injuries unknown, but presumably none of them life threatening. Leo would likely be priority; no one had given Casey reason to believe otherwise. 

He’d just set aside sterile cloths, bandages, and antiseptic solution to be the first on hand when the Tank made its first stop. 

The ramp opened with a heavy groan, admitting both Commander O’Neil and Master Splinter. Exhaustion visibly weighed the former down in her shoulders and gait, but she moved with alacrity anyway. Dry tear tracks cut through the grime on her cheeks and her eyes were red-rimmed beneath her glasses, but she still smiled warmly when she saw him. 

“Good to see you in one piece, future boy.”

Scanning them for injuries and finding nothing life threatening, a little bit of the tension wrapped around Casey’s lungs loosened. “You too, Commander.” 

She slumped bonelessly into one of the passenger seats, but not before snagging his wrist and dragging him to stand next to her. “Hey, cool it with the ‘commander’ stuff okay? It’s just April.” She smirked, tired but triumphant. “Except when the guys need a reminder about who’s boss.”

Casey looked down at her, his peer now, young and frayed at the edges but round-cheeked instead of gaunt, free of the sorrows carved into her face like grooves in stone. Commander O’Neil had always looked at him with a sort of sad expectation in her eyes, cordial but distant with everyone but the turtles. The only times he ever saw her cry was when they lost Raphael and Master Donatello.

April watched him expectantly, patient and wry, and, most importantly, victorious. Her world was saved. Her family survived. She had her whole life ahead of her. A foreign concept.  

After all that, it was actually pretty easy not to see his Commander in her place anymore. 

Casey managed a crooked smile, tentatively squeezing her hand. “Sure thing. April.”

Splinter bustled between them, on a beeline for the driver’s seat. 

“Chop chop,” he said, his tone jovial but his eyes hard. “We will be slammed on I-95 if we don’t put the pedal to the metal.”

Casey glanced back over at April. “How far exactly is ‘Staten Island’?”

He didn’t have an accurate map of old New York in his head, but if his hunch was right, then Staten Island was far . Too far when the turtles were wounded, their conditions unknown. Too far to make it there and back to the lair with the Turtle Tank in the state that it was, rattling apart around them. 

The way April looked away, scrubbing the heels of her palms against her eyes, cemented the futility of it. 

Then, Casey remembered the katana strapped to his back.

“Wait, Master Splinter! Can you use this?” 

Splinter glanced over at him blandly, and immediately did a double-take. “Leonardo’s katana? How did you…nevermind!”

In a blink, the katana had vanished from Casey’s hand, as well as Master Splinter. The ramp, which had just begun to close, was kicked back open with such force that a dent was left behind in the metal. 

Casey hurried to follow, and April threw herself back to her feet, rushing right out after him. 

“If you had his katana, how did Leo get free from the prison dimension?” she asked as they climbed down the ramp, now hanging a little lopsided. 

Casey couldn’t look away from where Splinter swung Leo’s katana in a sharp, downward arc, slicing a tear in reality that blossomed outward in a glowing blue mandala. “Maybe he still has the other one?” he mumbled as they started for the portal. Casey forced himself to keep pace with April; she had a limp he hadn’t noticed before. Once they were secure, she’d need to get that checked out. “Or-or maybe he didn’t get trapped in the prison dimension at all?”

 “Or maybe we should all stop talking!” Master Splinter snipped, hardly waiting until the portal was fully formed before leaping through it. April crossed next, never once hesitating at the threshold of the otherworldly gateway. 

Unlike Casey, who did. 

The portal rippled, devastating and blue , brilliant as lightning. But it was all too easy to replace it with one blindingly yellow, like a miniature sun floating over the devastation. 

Above him, the skies were as red as the ones he had seen every day for the last seventeen years of his life, tainted and toxic. All over again, he watched Master Michelangelo shatter into fragments of light and then nothing at all (for what? for him? ) and Casey was too far away, too useless to stop it from happening. He felt a sense of impending doom as Sensei gripped his shoulder, the grasp of his prosthesis gentle as it was unyielding. And Casey was undone by Master Leonardo’s expression of bittersweet resignation. 

Come with me, he’d wanted to beg. Please don’t leave me alone. 

But he wasn’t alone. Not really. Not anymore. 

Casey took a step back, breathing shallow. His gloved hands found themselves in his hair, yanking hard, the pain grounding him to his present. His new reality. 

Everyone he’d known, who’d ever known him, was gone. Dead, dust, ash. But there were people here who needed his help now. They didn’t need him like he needed them, but that was okay. This was more than enough. More than he deserved, certainly. To see his once-family alive, together, in a kinder future than the one Casey had left behind. 

That is, he’d see them again if he could just take two steps forward. 

He turned back to face the portal, still so alien to him. Master Leonardo had lost the ability to create portals, or harness mystic energy of any sort, decades ago and Master Michaelangelo died creating his first. Since arriving in the past, he’d traveled through only one of Leo’s portals and it was in the midst of battle, when he couldn’t exactly protest. 

So yeah, Casey might have a few hangups about mystic portals. He could cop to that. 

But all that was left of his family was on the other side, and there was only one way to get to them. 

“Screw it,” he muttered, gearing himself up like he would for a twilight plane jump without a parachute. Lowering his mask, and taking a breath, Casey closed his eyes and threw himself forward.

The mystic energy passed over him in a tingling wave, lasting a split second. Even before he opened his eyes he was struck by the sense of displacement, the disconcerting feeling of being in one place and abruptly finding yourself in one completely different. 

Casey opened his eyes, and the horizon stretched out before him. Manhattan was in front of him now, her smoking skyscrapers jutting up into the crimson sky. This far away, the damage to the city didn’t look too bad. You would never guess that most of it had been on fire. 

There was a breeze here, and the air was different; not cleaner, but richer than that of the closely packed, demolished streets he’d left. He was hit with the strangest combination of smells: brine, gasoline, and smoke wafting off the water, and he wrinkled his nose in distaste. 

So this was Staten Island, huh? Gross. 

But, time to focus. With his mask’s HUD, he did a quick scan of their surroundings. They were overly exposed wherever they were, and the broad, blood red sky looming over them unimpeded was just inviting an aerial assault. There wasn’t a scant inch of cover on the concrete lot they’d found themselves on, if one didn’t count the massive crater tearing up a third of it, and it sent Casey’s nerves skittering like a disturbed rats’ nest. 

Although, at the same time, his HUD also confirmed the presence of 0 hostiles and 6 allies. The Hamato Clan, all in one piece. Together. The clan he’d dared to call his, until a few days ago. 

As he approached the group, he examined them one at a time, cataloging injuries, determining which bruises were old and which were new, and confirming for himself with his own eyes that each of them were alive. 

April was on the ground with Mikey in her lap, so tightly wrapped around each other it was hard to tell where one started and the other ended, even with one of them sporting green skin. She was rocking him slightly, running her hand up to his head and down his shell in long soothing strokes, as the youngest turtle shuddered and buried himself deeper into her embrace. 

The other four were clustered together–or more accurately, Donnie, Master Splinter and Raphael were gathered around Leo, who was lying on the ground but, mercifully, conscious. 

Donnie was examining Leo with his own tech, goggles lowered over his eyes and his hands moving nimbly over Leo’s body, prodding in search of hidden wounds or breaks. Master Splinter had Leo’s head cushioned on his lap, one thin hand rubbing gently over his forehead while the other was clutched in Raphael’s massive palm, who overshadowed them all with his protective bulk. 

But as Casey got closer, he noticed the way Donnie was favoring his right arm, and the dip in his shoulder that was evident even with the distracting mass of his battle shell. Raphael, who was defying the odds by even being there, alive and whole and free from Krang possession, had a crack in his plastron and a gnarled, poorly healing scar on his shoulder. His right eye, the one that the Krang infection had burst out of like the unfurling petals of some ghoulish flower, was mostly hidden beneath his mask but the tears left behind in the fabric marked where the parasite had been ripped away. 

Casey itched to attend both of them properly–Donnie was almost definitely hiding a dislocated arm and Raphael’s eye needed to be treated, flushed out, possibly even bandaged; they wouldn’t know for sure until the mask was off. 

But before Casey could start treating either of them, he had to determine Leo’s status. Which meant he would have to actually look at Leo, like he’d been avoiding doing for the last minute, because part of Casey was still terrified that he would find a corpse in his place. 

But he’d doomed Leo to the prison dimension in the first place. The least he could do was bear witness to the damage his decision inflicted.

Again, he was struck by the differences between Leo and his Sensei. The ‘cosmetic differences,’ as both of them would say. The first one being how much smaller Leo was. All Casey’s life, he’d had to look up to meet Master Leonardo’s eyes. Now, he and Leo were of a height. They were even similarly lithe, shell included. Leo looked every bit the teenager he was, which made it that much harder to look at him now, lying prone and battered on the ground. 

From head to two-toed foot, he was bruised and bleeding sluggishly from dozens of small cuts. His lip was split, and crusted over with dried blood. Splinter had removed his mask (Casey could see one of the blue tails peeking out of his belt), putting Leo’s spectacular black eye on display. It was so badly swollen he wouldn’t be surprised if Leo couldn’t fully see out of it, which was its own set of problems. If Donnie hadn’t already tested him for the mother of all concussions, that was first on Casey’s to-do list. 

Fortunately, for all that he looked beaten to hell and back, Leo’s injuries could’ve been worse considering he probably shouldn’t even be alive, much less conscious and protesting treatment like he was doing right now. 

“Donald, I already told you nothing broke through the skin.” Leo’s voice was strident but slurred slightly. Casey couldn’t be sure if it was on account of his split lip and bruised cheek or a head injury. “Quit poking me and take a look at Raph’s eye, he just yanked krang goo out of it!” 

“‘M fine, Leo,” Raph rumbled quietly, scooting that much closer to the three of them. His free hand was wrapped so lightly around Leo’s shoulder, it was barely touching the skin. “Let Donnie deal with…your whole situation.” 

“‘Fine,’ in this case used to mean ‘in good health and feeling well,’ is an adjective that applies to exactly none of us,” Donnie snapped. “I’m counting no less than eight broken bones between us, with our fearless leader coming out on top.” He faltered then, looking up at Raphael with something apology-adjacent in his eyes. 

Raphael met Donnie’s gaze with eyes gentle and tired, and shook his head almost imperceptibly.  

Leo, unaware of the exchange going on over his head, dazedly said, “Awesome. What do I win?”

Master Splinter pressed a hand against his forehead. “Hush, Blue,” he murmured, before looking back up at Donnie. “Purple, is it safe to move him?”

As Casey approached, he’d been unsure how to greet them. Even acknowledging the dichotomy between this clan and the one he’d known, their faces and mannerisms were still mostly familiar to him. Time was, he’d be right at Donnie’s side, treating Sensei with the medical knowledge that he taught Casey in the first place. Time was, he wouldn’t hesitate to run to them, embrace them, let them know he was safe. 

But the differences were enough to hold him back, make him feel awkward and out of place. They were already a unit, a well-oiled machine, and he was the cog that didn’t fit. 

Casey didn’t want to intrude. More than that, he didn’t know how to. Not anymore. 

So he stopped behind Donnie, a couple paces away, so that he could still see Leo but wasn’t crowding them. He felt stupid the entire time but embarassment had screwed his jaw shut and he resolved to just drink in the sight of them all, here, alive. He thanked Pizza Supreme in the Sky that he still had his mask lowered over his face, sparing some modicum of his dignity. 

Donnie tapped rapidly on his wrist tablet. “Should be. We’ll have to be fast and careful, I wasn’t joking about those broken bones. And his shell, it’s…it’s a bit cracked.” 

All of them, save Leo who was maybe still too out of it, looked more green than usual at that dreadful pronouncement. But Casey knew from experience that while a cracked shell might sound really bad, it had always been treatable, even in the subpar conditions of their caves. 

Master Michaelangelo had been the most recent culprit, just shy of two years ago, when he took a bad fall off the side of a crumbling skyscraper while escaping some Krang droids. His mystic chains helped slow his fall, but only just, and in a lastditch effort he’d tucked his head and all his limbs into his shell just before he hit the ground. The impact had been tooth-rattling, even as a bystander, and Casey feared finding Master Michaelangelo shattered into pieces, like an egg or shard of glass, fragile things from an old world he knew only through snatches of imagery and word of mouth. 

Master Michaelangelo lived of course, though the fractures in his shell had been extensive, keeping him confined to base for an entire month. He would complain in the days and weeks to come, in that merry way of his, of his shell never quite fitting the same way after that. 

In the case of Leo’s shell, Casey was positive that at best, they’d only need to keep the wound clean and prevent infection. At worst, resin would seal up any cracks that were too big. 

But seeing how worried they all were, facing these sorts of injuries for what he could only assume was the first time, he couldn’t help but speak up. 

“We still have Leo’s katana,” Casey began quietly, not wanting to disturb but eager (read: desperate) to get them all out of the open and into their secured lair, where there were medical supplies to be had. “We can open a portal right here, we’d barely have to move him.”

The three of them startled as if he’d shouted–well, Leo blinked a few times with his good eye, which was better than nothing. 

“Casey, there you are.” Donnie craned his head around, scanning him up and down through his goggles. “Good. We were about to send out the search parties.”

Casey winced, reluctantly raising his mask. He looked down at his gloved fist, at the readout on Donnie’s tablet, the hazy horizon, anything to avoid looking at Leo or Raphael’s tattered mask. “S-sorry, I was scouting the–”

“Casey!” Mikey cried, cutting his stammered lie short. 

Casey's mind dropped into the harsh lines of battle readiness; he whirled around at once, snatching his chainsaw staff off his back. Only, he faltered when instead of a threat all he saw was Mikey launching himself away from April and directly into Casey. And Casey, who wasn’t expecting to catch 100-something pounds of teenage box turtle, fell hard on his backside. 

A chorus of worried cries rose up from the family. 

“Mikey, careful!”

“Your hands–”

Master Michaelangelo had always been generous with encouragement and good cheer, patting Casey on the back and slinging an arm over his shoulder during their rare victories. Now, Mikey’s arms were wrapped around Casey’s middle, yanking him into a hug without reservation. Casey hadn’t been embraced like this since he was small enough to hide in his mom’s munitions bag, when he still needed the protection of others. 

Overwhelmed by the proximity of another person, it took Casey a few seconds to wrap his head around what Mikey was saying–or rather, repeating. 

“Casey, Casey, Casey, you were right! I did it!”

With a speed he typically reserved for disarming bombs, Casey carefully laid his hands against Mikey’s shell. It was a glancing touch, light enough that he could barely feel the outline of Mikey’s scutes beneath his gloves, but he wasn’t about to apply more pressure. What if he jostled an injury he hadn’t noticed?

“Did-did what?” Casey managed to stammer out once he regained the ability of speech. “And what was that about your hands?”

“Ooh.” Mikey winced, looking bruised and apologetic as he leaned back. Casey found himself missing the hug, foreign as it was. “Right. I kinda forgot about that. Sorry.”

Casey followed Mikey’s gaze downward. “Forgot about what–”

And oh boy, that was a lot of blood. 

“Oh boy, that’s a lot of blood.”

Starting at Mikey’s fingers and trailing halfway up his forearm were precise lines cut into his skin, jagged and thin as cracks in glass. They wept blood, not profusely, but in a steady stream that smeared over Mikey’s hands and arms and probably stained the back of Casey’s armor as well. 

A glance over Mikey’s shoulder revealed April, watching him with her expression pinched in worry. There was blood staining her filthy hoodie where Mikey had embraced her, and Casey was relieved he’d recognized the source before he saw her and drew the worst conclusion. He’d lost too many friends to invisible gut wounds that revealed themselves too late. 

Mikey’s injuries, while alarming, could be bandaged and treated. Better with actual bandages, but what Casey had on hand would do for now. 

“This is just temporary,” he stressed as he detached his cape and swung it off his shoulders. Movement behind him had him glancing back, and he was relieved to see Raphael lifting Leo into his arms with utmost care and the help of Donnie and Master Splinter. Focusing back on the task at hand, Casey tore his cape into two long strips. 

Mikey cried out in dismay. “But, Casey! Your rugged cyberpunk survivor look!”

“I don’t know what that means.” 

He bundled Mikey’s hands in short order–the tattered remnants of his cape made for poor bandages, but at least Mikey wasn’t bleeding all over the place anymore. Gently gripping Mikey by the elbows, Casey guided him back up to his feet. 

“How’d this even happen?” Casey asked quietly. There was something about those wounds, something familiar, that shot a frisson of dread down the back of his neck, trailing like the touch of cold fingers. 

Mikey brightened at once. “I told you! You were right about me, about my mystic hands! I-I saved Leo! I opened a portal right to him.” 

Casey had started moving away to help April up too–he hadn’t forgotten about that ankle of hers–but at Mikey’s words his stomach took a sharp, downward plunge and terror choked him like rising bile. 

 “You did what? Are you okay?” He grabbed Mikey by the shoulder, harder than he meant to, but all he could hear was Master Michaelangelo’s roar of mingled pain and determination, all he could see were Master Michaelangelo’s hands breaking into fractals, the reassuring wink he tossed over his shoulder before his body shattered into light and then nothing at all. 

Raphael knocked Casey out of his spiral with a question, his voice laced with sharp accusation. “Is there a reason he shouldn’t be?”

Again, as he had in the Turtle Tank on their way to Metro Tower, Casey floundered. What was there to say? In my time, I watched your little brother harness the same mystic energy, sacrificing himself to send me here. I don’t know how he survived this time. 

How do you tell someone that you know how they’ll die? Or would have died, now that the world would never know the full, unleashed, endless terror of the Krang. It wasn’t Casey who made Master Donatello sacrifice his last battle shell for Michelangelo, or Raphael take the blade intended for Master Leonardo. If it were up to Casey, Master Michaelangelo wouldn’t have welcomed death with a smile on his face, and Sensei would’ve leapt through the time gateway in Casey’s place instead of facing the blazing incineration of a Krang deathray alone. 

But Casey was the messenger, the harbinger of doom, and so it felt like he was to blame for every word of death and calamity that spilled out of his mouth. 

They die. Everybody dies fighting the Krang. 

Leo was the only one who knew. Because Casey was angry enough, disappointed enough, to throw the truth down at his feet, accusation and warning both. He regretted some of his harshness now, having seen where it led: Leo bloody and broken, cheating death that he’d accepted willingly. But damn it, they used to be his family too, and he wasn’t going to let anyone put them at risk, not even Sensei, young and untried as he was. 

And besides, the future was being rewritten with every passing moment. The future that Casey knew, the world he’d been born into, would never come to pass, and only he was alive to remember it all. 

But how to explain all of that to Raphael, who managed to loom from ten feet away and never had the chance to consider Casey anything but a stranger?

The voice that rose to his defense was maybe the last one he expected. 

 “C’mon, big bro, Mikey’s fine. I’m fine, you’re fine, even Donnie’s fine. Let’s go home before I get up and open a portal myself.” Leo’s voice was weak, and he joked with a shadow of his usual flippancy, but it was a relief to hear anyway.

“Yeah, right.” Raphael rolled his eyes, not trying too hard to hide the relief that bowed his shoulders. And without further complaint, he listened, hefting Leo just a bit higher in his arms. His heavy, scarred gaze moving off of Casey felt more like a boulder being lifted from his chest, and he breathed more easily once freed of the weight of it. 

Casey patted a concerned looking Mikey on the shoulder and moved to finally help April to her feet. Behind him, he heard the now-familiar crackle of another portal opening. 

“Here, lean on me,” he said softly. It was strange giving her instructions, having known her his entire life as his commander, someone he could turn to in times of need, but never the other way around. But while this April was clearly battle-tested, she’d never been in a war or suffered its injuries. She accepted his help without complaint, wrapping an arm around his shoulders and wincing around a smile. 

“How’re you still standing after all that?” she asked. 

Casey dropped his mask over his eyes, doing one last perfunctory scan of the area as he waited for the turtles to all step through the portal first. He knew logically that the Krang hive mind had been severed, Krang Prime and Subprime were imprisoned or dead, and the Sister was still crushed beneath the weight of a wrecking ball. Casey knew all this, but experience had taught him that you could never be too careful. 

He flipped up his mask and gave April what he hoped was a comforting smile. “Lots and lots of practice.” 

Crossing a portal was easier the second go-around, especially with April’s slight weight hanging off his shoulders reminding him of his responsibility, and why a second freakout was unacceptable. A slight tingle and then the air was still rather than smoky, the muted lights of the Lair and sturdy concrete ceiling a greater relief than he would’ve expected. 

That relief turned to icy dread when an alarm started going off. 

Again, Casey dropped into battle readiness without a thought. He pushed April behind him and stepped out in front of Raphael, who still carried Leo, in the same motion. His hockey stick was in hand and whirring to life before he realized Donnie had laid a quelling hand on his shoulder. 

“Sorry, sorry, that’s me!” April cried. She let go of him and hopped forward on her good leg, lunging for a slim, white communication device on a nearby cluttered table. “My bad. It’s my parents, I’ve got…ooh nelly. 65 missed calls. I told them to get out of the city as soon as someone dropped the news about the end of the world on us.” She sent Casey a pointed look, and he hesitated again, wondering if he should apologize. Not for the warning of course, but for disrupting their lives, safe and whole as he’d never known. 

The reality of his own isolation hit him like April’s wrecking ball, and he almost staggered. Thankfully, Donnie stepped forward to herd them all along. 

“Isn’t that dandy. And you can give them a little ring to let them know you’re alive from inside our medbay which has excellent cell service, you’re welcome.”

They crossed the Lair quickly, Casey turning back to April to help her make the short trip. He listened for Leo’s breathing, only able to see the crown of his head from within the spiked cradle of Raphael’s arms, relieved to hear it steady, if hitched with pain. Broken ribs were tricky to doctor in patients with plastrons and hard shells, and with any luck Leo’s were only cracked. And all things considered, Leo seemed to have good luck in spades. 

When the doors to the medbay slid open, Casey actually faltered at the entryway. 

If he thought the Turtle Tank had a well stocked medkit, it had nothing on the real thing. Gleaming surfaces with plenty of lighting, cabinets and sterile refrigeration units lined the walls alongside cots and IV stands and chairs. 

He doubted any of them had ever needed to stitch themselves up with only flickering candlelight to see by, or splashed a bottle of rum into an open wound (medicine was hard to come by in his world, but alcohol had been plentiful) in the hopes that it would prevent infection, and now they’d never have to. And Casey was glad. 

He guided April to a chair while Raphael deposited Leo on a gurney, lowering his head carefully onto the pillow. Casey risked a glance, and while Leo’s eyes were closed, his expression was pinched and pained. Not unconscious. That was good. 

Donnie, Mikey, and Master Splinter followed close behind, gathering around Leo’s bed. Donnie was already issuing orders, calling up various scanners that either emerged from his battle shell or the nearby cabinets. 

“Let’s see here…one broken arm, one broken leg, nice and even. Countless abbrassions, bruises, and probable concussion, pending a full evaluation.” Donnie wavered as he delivered Leo’s injury report, trying and failing to maintain his usual veneer of dispassion. His one good arm waved around imperiously, dictating his medical drones like a composer, though no one seemed to have noticed that he kept his right arm pressed close against his side. 

Casey frowned, taking quick stock of the others’ injuries and triaging them in his head, as he’d been taught. Pushing aside his fears of interfering, he glanced down at April with an apologetic smile. Her ankle would have to wait. 

“Will you be okay for a few minutes?”

She wiggled her communication device, one of many that proliferated this time. A cell phone, maybe?

“Go help them out,” April said kindly. “I’ve got a quick, stressful phone call to make.”

With her support, Casey made a beeline for Leo’s gurney. Donnie had somehow managed to stick Leo with an IV one-handed, hooked up to a bag of saline solution. Dealing with Leo’s fractures, both of bone and shell, would be next–an involved process, but Leo’s injuries could’ve been so much worse. 

Donnie would know what to do (just like how Master Donatello seemed to know a lot about every little thing), but Casey knew that doctoring his own brothers had (would’ve?) irrevocably damaged something in him. Sensei had been their medic, but when Master Raphael was lost and most of Master Leonardo’s arm with him, Donatello had been the one to amputate what remained. 

Leo’s injuries were nothing like that, nowhere near as catastrophic, but if Casey could keep Donnie from feeling anything resembling that strife, well, he just had to butt in didn’t he?

Donnie was shining a penlight in Leo’s eyes, checking his pupil response, when Casey joined them.  

“Any nausea? Dizziness? Do you know where you are?” he was asking. 

“You’re stealing my lines, Donald,” Leo muttered. “Respect the fanny pack, man.”

Master Splinter squeezed his uninjured hand. “My son.”

Leo sighed dramatically, only to wince when he probably twinged one of the cracks in his plastron. “M’ head hurts,” he muttered, squinting up at his gathered family. “The lights aren’t helping.”

“Medbay, dim overhead lights to 70%,” Donnie ordered without looking up from where he was now prodding carefully at Leo’s plastron. He didn’t look too worried as he leaned back; the cracks must not be as deep as he feared. “Priority’s gonna be setting these broken bones and getting them in casts.”

“Which you can’t do with a dislocated arm,” Casey said firmly, taking the first opening he could. 

Predictably, the rest of the family exploded in dismay. 

“What the– Donnie! You got it from that last Krang punch didn’t you?”

“Purple, why didn’t you say anything?”

“Omigosh, look at your arm! Are you okay? Does it hurt?”

“Don, you need to get that fixed,” Leo grunted, and tried to push himself up, like he was in any state to be administering first aid rather than receiving it. Fortunately, Master Splinter kept him flat on his back with a gentle push. 

“I’ll get Donnie’s shoulder fixed up,” Casey said, locking down his earlier hesitation. His experience was needed here, and that was all that mattered.  “We’re all hurt, but we need to be smart about this and get everyone triaged. April,” he glanced back, and her communication device was back on a nearby counter, having ended the loudly whispered conversation he’d been distantly aware of. “Can you clean up and bandage Mikey’s arms properly?” 

She nodded at once, her eyes lightning eagerly at the task. She must’ve known that meant treatment for her ankle was postponed again, but he understood the desire to be useful when an injury left you down for the count. 

“You bet. Can you grab me some supplies, Mikey?”

When Mikey hesitated, glancing uncertainly at Leo, Leo tugged him down and bonked their foreheads together affectionately. “You know where the gauze and saline are at,” he said, nodding Mikey along. 

Mikey screwed up his face in a determined expression and marched off to gather the necessary supplies. Casey watched him go, pleased that his hands seemed the worst of his injuries. 

He turned back to those who remained clustered around Leo’s bed. “I’ve set all kinds of broken bones before, so, Leo, if you don’t mind, I’ll take care of that.” He looked just to the left of Leo’s face, and saw him nod. “Good. Master Splinter, can you clean and bandage the cuts on his face? And Raphael, take a seat so he can look at your eye next.”

Raphael startled when the attention landed on him. “Me? N-no, Raph’s doin’ fine. Focus on helping Leo.”

“Leo’s injuries are priority right now, but recovering from Krang possession is a big deal,” Casey said gently. He’d already scared them enough with his doomsday talk. “Not many rebels were able to resist their parasitic effects and survive.” 

The medbay went silent, and Casey was flooded with instant regret.

Donatello’s expression was shuttered, Leo looked sick to his stomach, Master Splinter was staring at Raphael like he was afraid his oldest son would disappear right before his eyes. Mikey looked like he would’ve already thrown himself across the room to wrap Raphael in a hug if it weren’t for April’s careful grip around his elbows as she cleaned his cuts. Raphael, for his part, was frozen in place, eyes wide and horrified, looking like he was ready to bolt. 

Casey Jones Jr., open mouth, insert foot. So much for not scaring them again. 

“But you are okay, Raphael!” he rushed to reassure, already imagining their faith in him as a medic crumbling to ash. “Once you’re cut off from the hive mind, you’re not at risk of repossession. The Krang would have to capture you again.”

This time, Casey wisely didn’t mention how few of those who survived the separation also retained their sanity. 

“Over my dead body,” Leo growled, sounding so unlike the confused, whining imposter in the rubble beneath Metro Tower that Casey almost looked over to confirm that they were still one and the same. Although, he couldn’t help but share the sentiment. Casey had watched this family die enough times already. 

The tension around Raphael cracked and fell away with an incredulous huff, and he finally took a seat on a nearby gurney. “Too soon, little brother,” he shook his head. 

With everyone able to breathe easy again, Casey motioned Donnie toward another empty gurney. Donnie rolled his eyes but laid down without any more complaints; his arm must be even worse off than he’d been letting on. 

After Donnie directed him to the drawer where he would find a sling, Casey returned to carefully but firmly grip his wrist and bicep, so as to roll his dislocated arm back into its socket. This sort of battle wound was so common he would usually fix them up in the field with a quick yank and a swig of the nearest flask of rotgut, if there was any to be had. He’d dislocated his own arm enough times that exchanging it for a robotic replacement to save further time and effort became a running joke. 

But the war was over and they had the luxury of time to heal the right way. 

“Where’d you say you got your medical license?” Donnie squinted up at him in a poor attempt to disguise his nerves and gritted teeth. 

“Don’t worry. My sensei taught me everything I know.” 

Casey waited for Donnie’s nod before he continued. He wondered if, in some small, cosmic way, by treating Donnie he was paying back Master Donatello for the long hours of teaching, training, and company. 

Maybe. Maybe not. Master Donatello would probably tell him you didn’t quantify time with family, then get embarrassed by his own sentimentality and order Casey out of the lab. It was a bittersweet thought. 

“All except for Leo, the overachiever, we got off relatively unscathed. If you don’t count all the trauma we’re gonna spend next season unpacking.” 

Donnie made this pronouncement standing over the pillows and mattress spread out around the medbay, before dramatically slumping onto the nearest nest of blankets. His theatrics were hindered slightly by the sling and heavily bandaged shell he had to be careful not to land on. Mikey, already asleep, snuggled close. 

After a lengthy care process, everyone’s wounds were cleaned, sutured, and bandaged, with rest as the final remedy. The turtles, sans Leo who was restricted to his bed in the medbay where all of Donnie’s tech could keep an eye on him, lumped all of their bedding together in some sort of unspoken decision not to sleep alone in their individual rooms. They didn’t try to hide how shaken they still were, often stopping whatever they were doing to lean on each other for support. 

Casey busied himself by checking their defenses, paranoid because he knew that the Krang had breached the lair earlier. Only thanks to years of practice was he able to spot Donnie’s various traps and security cameras, all of them intact. He found the old subway tunnels empty, echoing with an eerie stillness broken only by scurrying rats and leaking pipes. In the wake of the almost end of the world, not even the city’s functioning trains seemed to be running.  

He came back to find that April had rolled herself over to the kitchen in a desk chair on wheels–to avoid putting stress on her sprained ankle, now bandaged–and was cooking “grilled cheeses” for everyone. 

Casey couldn’t even remember the last time he’d eaten. The last 48 hours had been a nonstop race, running and falling, jump, duck, launch your grappling hook, brace yourself, slingshot the missile before anyone else can get hurt; acting on instinct and adrenaline. Before all that was the final raid that ended with Sensei shoving him out of the way of a drone’s sickle-shaped blade, taking the blow meant for Casey, before they briefly escaped the Krangs’ sight by slipping into the ruins of a sewer tunnel. 

And before all of that, he’d broken off a few pieces of charred rat leftover from supper the night before. 

These “grilled cheeses” smelled like nothing he’d ever eaten. In his initial mad dash through the city, he’d skirted various street vendors bartering similar foods: hot and steaming, rich with unfamiliar spices and flavors. But there hadn’t been time then, not with FIND THE KEY. STOP THE KRANG pounding through him like a second heartbeat. 

Now, April was shoving a plate into his hands with two gold squares on it that smelled so good Casey was half convinced he’d died and gone to heaven. Cheese heaven. 

“There you are,” she chided. “I had to beat the guys back with a stick to make them get in line and you just wander over ten minutes later?”

“I, uh.” Casey felt his ears go red and it was hard to tear his eyes away from the food on his plate. He’d never even seen real cheese before. Bread was no less rare. He had to resist the growing urge to stuff it all in his mouth right then and there, manners be damned. “Sorry, I was checking, uh…”

She waved away his apology, already turning to drop another pad of butter on the pan. It gave off a hiss and a concentrated, sweet aroma. “You can relax, Casey. Eat, take off your armor. We’re safe here.”

His grip tightened on the plate, so much so he was almost afraid it would shatter in his hands. Everything in this world was so fragile. 

“I…right. Do you…are you gonna want help getting back to the others?”

April shook her head, laying two slices of bread in the butter. Casey struggled to focus on what she was saying and not the food. “No, but thanks. I’ve gotta call my mom and dad for real this time, not just a minute ‘don’t worry, I’m still alive’ check-in.” 

Casey nodded, and turned to leave so he could find a corner to quickly devour his meal in. But as she watched him go, April’s smile slipped into a troubled frown, trapping him in the doorway. He saw a question building behind her eyes, more hesitantly than it had for the others, and he hoped she wasn’t about to ask him about her future self too. 

Commander O’Neil and Big Mama had stayed behind while he and Sensei forged ahead through the sewers; Casey would never know what happened to them, but he could imagine. 

“I didn’t even think…” April began haltingly, though he could barely hear her through the roaring in his ears. “Casey, did…did you leave your parents in the future?”

Relief rushed through him, almost intense enough to leave him weak-kneed. An easy question, though the answer still stung. “No, my mom died years ago. And I never knew my biological parents.” 

April didn’t look any less disturbed. “Then who were you–”

Something was burning. 

Casey jerked his head up to attention, and April noticed a second later. 

“Aw crap, the bread!” 

April hadn’t added cheese yet so there wasn’t much smoke, and she moved the pan onto another grate before the charred pieces of bread could completely burn down to nothing. Casey only felt a little bit guilty when he used the distraction to slip away and wolf down his grilled cheeses (even a little cold and soggy, they were the best thing he’d ever eaten), trying not to think about what April’s next question would’ve been. 

But he did take her advice, and removed his armor. For repairs, though, not relaxation. 

The turtles were sleeping in shifts. Leo had to be woken every hour to make sure the symptoms of his concussion weren’t getting worse, and Raphael was on duty now. Technically, he was the only one on duty, as he’d yet to wake up Donnie or Mikey for their turns. 

Casey glanced over as he sat down at a low table across from the medbay, where the turtles had eaten their own grilled cheeses judging by the crumbs and stack of empty plates. Raphael was sitting beside Leo’s gurney, his bulk nearly eclipsing him, casts and all. They spoke too quietly to overhear, and Raphael helped keep Leo’s hand steady as he drank from a glass of water. 

Casey looked away and focused on removing his armor. 

He dropped it all carefully on the table: his purple, geometric pauldron, gloves and grappling hook, knee pads with faces etched into them, and the mask he’d painted with red streaks to match Sensei’s the day he formally joined the Hamato Clan. 

The chainsaw staff he kept strapped to his back was last to go on the table, but he left his cuirass strapped to his chest. He was willing to trust the lair was secure, but he wasn’t stupid. Besides, it was helping keep his cracked ribs in place. 

He removed the small pouch on the back of his belt where he kept his toolkit, and picked up his grappling hook to inspect first. This routine was a familiar one. Master Donatello had drilled into him the importance of proper maintenance for all his tech, lest a flaw go unnoticed and betray him in the middle of battle. It was almost too easy to replace the soft overhead lights of the lair with the single, flickering lamp of his old work table and imagine the bustle of their latest base at his back, a hundred different voices and faces separated from him by the curtain over his doorway. 

For the grappling hook, Casey unspooled the entire length of tensile steel rope, all 30 feet of it, and tested the launching mechanism on the inside with a flashlight between his teeth and a magnifying glass and screwdriver in hand. The rope itself was nearly unbreakable, so he had to make sure that the release was working too. Better to risk losing the rope than find himself permanently and fatally attached to whatever he was fighting. 

Once that was done, he wound the rope back into the grappling hook and set it aside for his mask instead. The mask was modeled after one his mom used to wear, only tricked out with Master Donatello’s usual amount of gadgetry. Casey scrolled through his HUD, searching for any errors or damage he might’ve missed in the midst of battle. He was going down his checklist (nightvision, infrared, targeting) when he noticed a shadow had fallen over him. 

Casey looked up at Raphael, grateful that his mask hid the widening of his eyes. He didn’t know what it was that made this younger Raphael seem so much bigger than the Master Raphael he’d met at seven years old. 

For the first time, the similarities between them overlapped–Raphael’s bandaged right eye and the eyepatch Master Raphael had worn over his. But the moment was short lived. There would be scarring around Raphael’s eye, but his vision was safe. The Krang parasite hadn’t been attached to him long enough to cause permanent damage; survivors under possession for a week or longer had been considered lost causes. 

Raphael nodded at the length of bench beside Casey. 

“Okay if I sit?”

Casey balked, flipping his mask up. “Yeah, no, of course, I’m sorry.” He started gathering his equipment into a more neatly organized pile, embarrassed by how carelessly he’d made himself at home. 

Raphael waved a hand at him as he sat down heavily on the bench. “You’re fine, man.” 

For a few minutes, neither of them spoke again. Raphael stared at his sleeping brothers–the two in the blanket nest and Leo in the medbay–rubbing the knuckles of his unbandaged hand. Free of the usual wraps, they were littered with scars, new and old and small and deep. In the silence, Casey busied himself with repairing some loose wires in his mask’s left socket. 

“‘M sorry I accused you of knowing Mikey would get hurt,” Raphael said at last, turning fully to face Casey, in light of his bandaged right eye. “If it weren’t for you, me and my brothers might not’ve made it.”  

Casey jerked back a little in surprise. One of the last things he needed was an apology, and the last thing he wanted was gratitude ; Raphael’s words were sounding dangerously close to the latter. 

“I didn’t do much, really.” Casey shrugged. “I barely got here in time to warn you.” 

And even then, his warning still came too late. Casey remembered well the gelatinous, organic chrysalis they found Raphael trapped in, how his brothers had to carve him free, and how he turned against them, writhing in agony as he fought the unnatural metamorphosis warping his body and mind. 

Guilt that had been sitting dormant rose up the back of Casey’s throat, fit to choke him, hot and thick as blood. “I didn’t…I didn’t know that would happen to you. You getting captured. That didn’t happen in my time.” He felt Raphael’s eyes ( eye ) on him, and he stared down at his mask, unable to face the penetrating weight of that gaze and any blame it might hold. “I just…I didn’t want you to think I led us there, knowing it would happen.” 

A nudge against his shoulder had him looking back up, just in time to see Raphael pull his hand back, big enough to crush Casey’s head if he wanted but gentle in spite of that strength. Or maybe because of it. 

“No hard feelings,” Raphael said firmly. “Really. Besides, uh, Leo already told me.”

“Leo told–” 

Against his better instincts, Casey whirled around, as if Leo would be there waiting and ready to back up Raphael, that they really didn’t blame him after all. Of course, Leo was still in the medbay, prone and knocked out cold from the painkillers Donnie had given him. 

Casey turned back, embarrassed, then doubly so when he realized he was still holding his mask, repairs clearly forgotten with his tools abandoned on the table. He dropped it (carefully) among the rest of his armor

“How…how is Leo?” he asked, offhanded in a way that made his teeth ache. The rebellion had never called for subterfuge like this. Besides, Casey might’ve been the one to set Leo’s broken bones, but it wasn’t like either of them had been up for conversation at the time; one overwhelmed by pain and the other by guilt. 

Raphael sighed deeply, long and slow, like the bellows of some powerful forge. “He’s alive,” he said plainly, scrubbing a hand over his face, mindful of his bandaged eye. “I didn’t think we’d even have that…” his voice shook, and he cleared his throat sharply. “But we’re all together, so we’ll be able to keep Leo from pulling any more hero moves on us.” 

“A-agreed,” Casey replied lamely, knowing Raphael couldn’t possibly be including him. After all, he closed the portal. Everyone would’ve heard Leo begging him to and known Casey obeyed . 

Raphael seemed content to keep sitting where he was, a brick wall practicing his breathing techniques, and Casey was determined not to disturb him. 

Ducking his head, he looked down at his hands trembling in his lap. What he needed to do was keep busy. His hockey stick-shaped chainsaw had a few spokes missing and others chipped, courtesy of his battle with the Sister and every other Krang drone in their way. He could replace the titanium chain, but he only had the one spare, and he couldn’t count on the Donatello of this time to be willing to share his lab space or materials. He’d have to make do with what he had and scavenge the rest, like he always did. 

Retrieving his tool kit, Casey set out to do just that. 

It was the work of a few minutes. He removed the saw’s current chain and carefully folded it into his weapon’s kit before pulling out a new chain. After a bit of fiddling and tightening with his screwdriver, the new chain was fitted. He wasn’t about to run the chainsaw in the shared space, with half its occupants asleep and all of them injured, but he was confident the replacement would hold. Maybe he’d go back into one of the tunnels to test it out. 

Casey was folding his tool kit back up when he felt the weight of curious eyes over his shoulder. 

He hesitated only a beat before glancing back at Raphael. But Raphael wasn’t looking at him. 

Casey’s armor had caught his attention, gathered in a pile separate from their owner. He wondered how easily Raphael recognized his brothers’ influence in each piece, and if it was strange seeing it all in the hands of a stranger. The hockey stick, designed by Casey but built by Master Donatello. The faces on his knee pads that Master Michelangelo created the stencils for. The markings on his mask, to honor his Sensei. Casey carried his family with him wherever he went, even across space and time. 

Raphael chuckled, half-awed, but mostly sounding tentative. “Heh. You really did know us in the future, huh?”

Casey nodded, reattaching his grappling hook to his glove for lack of anything to do with his hands. He could guess what Raphael was really thinking. After all, Casey carried his family with him, but there was one member who wasn’t represented. 

“Everyone except you,” he admitted quietly.  

“Me?” Raphael leaned back, not looking hurt by the exclusion but he didn’t seem surprised either. More understanding. Unknowingly or otherwise, he had nearly followed in Master Raphael’s footsteps and been the first brother to fall. 

Casey shrugged, smiling weakly at the face he’d known from the Hamato family shrine longer than he’d ever known it in person. “I knew you the least. I…didn’t really get a chance to know you, before you were gone.”

“Huh,” Raphael responded thoughtfully. For several long heartbeats, that was all he said. Then he turned to face Casey fully. “Raph,” he said, holding out his hand. “Nice to meetcha.” 

It felt like it took Casey a small eternity to get his throat working, and even then his voice came out hoarse. “Casey Jones,” he said, taking Raph’s hand. Once, it had been Casey Jones of the Hamato Clan. In his heart, it always would be. “Right back atcha.” 

Raph grinned, his snaggletooth catching the light.  Casey thought it might be the first time seeing him smile outside of a photograph. It made the bruise-like shadows under his eyes seem less dark by comparison. Casey wondered if he could somehow convince Raph into joining his brothers in rest. Maybe a word in April’s ear. 

“So. Casey Jones,” Raph cajoled, looking much more at ease, though not without that undercurrent of exhaustion none of them could shake. “What’s your plan now that there isn’t an end of the world to stop?”

Casey felt his stomach swoop, like taking that first step into empty air before the plunge and snap of his grappling hook catching him. “Plan?” he repeated dumbly. 

Find the key. Stop the Krang bounced unhelpfully through his head. The plan had always been survival. Move, adapt, overcome. There had been no questioning it, because the answer was obvious. 

But maybe it wasn’t so obvious anymore.  

Before Casey could start to truly question his place in this world, he felt the floor beneath him start to tremble. 

His uncertainty shoved aside, he jumped to his feet and ripped his hockey stick off the table. It roared to life in his hands, the new chain working perfectly just like he knew it would. 

Raph was on alert beside him, arms already glowing with mystic energy. “Casey, what–”

“Something’s coming,” he snapped, not looking away from the entrance to the lair and the darkness of the subway tunnels beyond. Too open, too much space for a full-scale ambush.  “Does anyone else know the location of your base?”

“Base? Uh, not really. Todd, I guess, April, obviously, April’s parents. Oh, and–”

The rumbling had intensified, before finally manifesting as a tide of churning purple tentacles roaring over the subway tracks. But Casey knew Krang, and these weren’t Krang in origin, overly organic and glistening. These tentacles were more regimented. Synthetic. Familiar. 

“WHAT is going on here?” a deep, annoyed voice demanded, definitely waking everyone in the lair and probably all the humans in the borough miles above them. 

A goat yokai was disgorged from within the tentacles, which peeled back around him before disappearing into the ground. He loomed in front of the turnstiles, over six feet tall and glowering with narrowed, yellow eyes. He wasn’t scarred, wore a white and blue kimono instead of battle armor, and his hair was burgundy instead of gray. But Casey would recognize him anywhere. 

“Commander Draxum,” he growled.

[wingsofhcpe]

whumptober day 6- collapsing/definitely just a cold

fandom: shadow & bone

pairing: fivan [ivan x fedyor kaminsky]

rating: T+

additional warnings: possible main character death (but not really)

other notes: METRO 2033 AU (book-canon)

you can also read here: https://archiveofourown.org/works/34208404/chapters/85572847

Upon their return to the tunnels that evening, Ivan notices Fedyor has been lagging behind, stumbling at the back of their group as if struggling to keep up.

“Are you okay?” He asks, falling into step with his husband and holding out an arm to steady the other man’s gait. Fedyor smiles and nods, the filter of the protective mask making his breathing sound heavy and ragged.

“Perfectly fine, lyubov. I’m just tired.” He assures him, although there’s something in his voice Ivan cannot quite decipher. Still, it’s not unheard of for the rangers that venture to the surface to catch a cold in the nuclear winter that has befallen their city, and even underground, the cold and humidity result in even the healthiest, most robust of the survivors to sport a nearly constant sore throat and a permanently runny nose. He and Fedyor had been lucky enough to not have fallen sick for the better part of the last five years, but if it happens now it’s not like it’s going to be the end of the world. That, Ivan thinks to himself, has already kind of happened anyway.

They walk the rest of the way in silence, eyes careful to remain glued to the ground while they pass by the vicinity of the Kremlin tower- the rumours of soldiers falling into a trance and disappearing into the depths of the ruined building, as if drawn to it by some sinister power (or most likely a mutation of some kind, Ivan thinks), never to be seen again, are enough to keep even the most reckless of them from testing their luck. Ivan very much doesn’t want to become the dinner of some oversized mutated horror to which radiation has granted some supernatural hypnotising power, so he keeps his eyes low, watching the rubble and dirty ice crunch below his heavy boots. Fedyor, next to him, is following the same old habit. They trudge ahead, soldiers following a familiar path home. Whatever that word means for each of them; safety, warmth, the welcoming arms of each other.

It feels like hours, but it is only a few more minutes until the group reaches the safety of the tunnels. They scutter back under the ground like rats, the old automatic staircase long since dead and creaking ominously beneath the soles of their boots. Aleksander and Zoya do a quick sweep of the first level- the most dangerous one, as it’s completely exposed to the wild, inhospitable world above. Monsters may be lurking in every little shadow, or a trap may have been laid by the peculiar bandits who ally themselves with none of the Moscow Metropoliten, and live within the bowels of the tunnels themselves, without ever coming in contact with what’s left of civilisation. Ivan didn’t know that when he first became a ranger, a soldier who ventures outside in look of supplies or lost artifacts of civilisation, and his first mission to the surface would have ended with him in pieces inside the oesophagus of some otherworldly beast, had Aleksander and his shotgun not intervened on time. He hasn’t made the mistake of brazenly striding across the open space ever since; in fact, he’s usually among the ones that help scan the front before allowing the rest of the group to pass, but tonight he’s made an exception, staying at the back with Fedyor.

“I really am fine.” Fedyor says quietly as soon as everyone has crossed to the true underground, and the protective metal doors have slid shut, keeping monsters and radiation away from the civilians that live in the station-towns below. “You don’t need to fuss.”

“Mhm.” Ivan hums. “I believe you.”

Still, he’s got a strange, nagging feeling about it. It’s not the first time he’s seen Fedyor struggling- most soldiers do, in fact. Their equipment is heavy, and roaming the wasteland aboveground takes a vastly emotional toll on them as well; having to constantly keep an eye out for dangers, the slightest noise causing panic among even the most seasoned of them. And then, there’s the distance they must cover- it grows longer every day, as the supplies and leftovers that can be found near the entrances to the Metro diminish each year. Ivan prefers not to think of the inevitable- of the time when all of it will eventually run out, and no matter how far they go, how many dangers they face, there will be nothing left to salvage. He thinks that only then, will the old world truly be gone. But you don’t get far in life if you keep thinking of the future, distant or otherwise. You take one step after the next, thinking only of the now, of today, of survival. This is something all of them know. Those of them that refused to adjust to the rule, perished long ago.

“What’s the matter?” Fedyor asks, nudging him with his elbow to draw his attention and thus jostling him out of his thoughts. “You look troubled.”

“It’s nothing.” Ivan says carefully. He can tell Fedyor is tired, and he doesn’t want to burden him with his own miserable musings. Fedyor has always been the optimist between the two of them- the one that has always believed that, sooner or later, the radiation outside would fade. The world would become habitable again. They’d reclaim their previous lives, whatever that meant, since both of them had barely been in their teens when the apocalypse struck. Ivan himself doesn’t remember much of it, but Fedyor does, and even after so many years together Ivan doesn’t know whether he’s jealous or not. Half of him wishes he could remember his mother’s face; the other half is glad to be blissfully unaware, every time Fedyor wakes up crying quietly, face buried in Ivan’s chest. He doesn’t often talk about what reduced him to this state, but Ivan knows. Fedyor remembers everything about his family -his parents and all six of his sisters-, including the way all of them died. He has never told Ivan how, or even when, and Ivan hasn’t pressured him to do so. He knows well enough how gruesome and traumatic it must have been, so he focuses on comforting instead of asking. “Just wondering what’s for dinner tonight.”

Fedyor makes a face, one that Ivan can see now that they have all removed their gas masks. “The same as every night, probably. Rotten carrot stew and mushroom tea.”

Yeah, well. It had been the same for twenty whole years, and still Ivan still can’t fathom how he’s stomaching it every night. He makes a disgusting noise, and Fedyor bursts out laughing- only to stop abruptly and cough loudly into the crook of his arm.

“Fedya?” Ivan’s heart skips a beat again, this stupid nagging feeling rekindled upon hearing the rough, dry sound that comes out of his lover’s mouth. Still, Fedyor just sucks in a deep breath and laughs again.

“Calm down, you mother hen.” He teases with a poke on Ivan’s shoulder. “Just choked on my own spit. Happens to the best of us, believe it or not.”

“I suppose.” Ivan rolls his eyes and doesn’t prod the issue further. They fall back to joking and conversing about the strange book in another language Fedyor found buried under the rubble, about the mutated butterfly that scared their latest recruit -poor Alina, she’s a child really, compared to veterans like them- so bad she almost tumbled into a hole in the ground, about the myth of the Kremlin, about the songs Zoya shared with them every night while David strummed an old, ragged balalaika. It’s not until well after debriefing and dinner, when they’re both huddled safely together in the little barricaded, tent-covered alcove that has become their home, furthest from the tracks, that Ivan’s worry resurfaces.

“You’d tell me if you weren’t feeling too great, right?” He asks quietly, voice softer than anyone other than Fedyor ever hears it. Fedyor hums and nods, nuzzling his face into the crook of Ivan’s neck. He’s already half-asleep, making tired, adorable little sounds as he clumsily cuddles Ivan.

“Course I would…” He murmurs, words slurred to the point Ivan barely understands them. He smiles fondly and places a kiss on Fedyor’s forehead.

“Good. Sweet dreams, my love.”

He has nothing to worry about- he can trust Fedyor. He would know if the latter was lying. Besides, a cough shouldn’t be enough to worry anyone, even with the medical progress of humanity has somewhat regressed after the apocalypse. And Fedyor would never lie to him. Ivan is sure of that.

-

It turns out, however, that Ivan was wrong about Fedyor for the first time in their shared lifetime. Because Fedyor lied.

It’s only a week after that they’re sent to the surface again, one of the scouts having brought back concerning information about a nest of mutated amphibians thriving too close to the station’s entrance for comfort. They should be exterminated at the earliest possible convenience and that is, of course, a job for Aleksander and his trusted, courageous rangers. So out they go again, masks and guns and all. None of them is as talkative as they usually are during an exit, though; a direct confrontation with a nest of irradiated monsters is no easy feat even for the best of the best, and it’s not rare for encounters such as that to go terribly wrong. Entire squads of rangers have been wiped out like that, and although Aleksander’s group is heralded as the elite, the ones who have never suffered a single loss even when facing up to flying terrors, it’s still not something to be taken lightly. The soldiers are quiet, and only Zoya’s voice echoes among them as she directs them to where the scout had pinpointed the location of the nest.

It’s tough work, as expected; none of them dies, but one of the younger soldiers damn near loses her entire arm when one of the senior beasts chomps down on it. Ivan is the one that shoots the thing right between the eyes at just the right moment to prevent the girl from suffering a debilitating injury, but she is still quite shaken, and he cannot find it in him to blame her. Luckily, however, most of the amphibians are hatchlings or juveniles, the nest having only been briefly established. It makes for an easier job than it would have been, had the nest been populated mostly by adults, and Ivan has learned to count his blessings. He’s about to order one last sweep of the area before they leave, just to be certain, but then he hears Zoya shouting.

“Fedyor? Fedyor!”

Her voice is dangerously close to panicking, and Ivan swerves around so fast that he nearly trips over the mutilated carcass of a juvenile amphibian. His eyes are scanning the area before him before he’s even done fully restoring his balance, eyes searching frantically for Fedyor. He detects him eventually; curled up on the ground, rifle haphazardly discarded a couple of feet away from him as if it slipped out of his grasp. Zoya is kneeling next to him, her hands pressed onto his chest as she presumably checks for a pulse. It’s only a few seconds until Ivan throws himself to the ground next to the younger woman, hands reaching out to assess Fedyor’s vitals himself.

“Is he injured? Did you see him fall?” He asks breathlessly, and Zoya shakes her head.

“He was with me the whole time. I didn’t see any of the creatures attack him directly, but he just… he just collapsed. I don’t know what happened to him.”

Fedyor is indeed uninjured, at least externally. There are no visible tears or damage in his protective equipment, his mask and filter are intact, but his heartrate is erratic, and the thermometer attached to his uniform is showing his temperature to be abnormally high, even for someone being winded from the battle. His breath is coming out shallow and heavy, fogging against the glass of his mask. Upon closer inspection, Ivan realises that it’s also speckled with blood.

“It’s on the inside,” Zoya says, having detected it herself “so it can’t have come from the mutants. I don’t understand.”

Cold, unbridled fear laces Ivan’s insides like the permafrost of Siberia, stealing his breath to the point where he nearly starts to wheeze.

“It’s- he’s been coughing for the past week.” He hears himself say, tongue twisting and stumbling over the words. Under any other circumstances he would have been ashamed for Zoya, his fellow second-in-command, to see him undone is such a manner, but presently he cannot be bothered with it. “He told me it was just a cold so… we just left it at that.”

“A cold doesn’t warrant passing out and spitting blood.” Zoya says, voicing the exact thought that had taken root in Ivan’s mind, but he had still been too afraid to voice. “Has he been having any signs of a fever this past week?”

Ivan racks his brain, trying to think. Fedyor might have been a bit warmer than usual to the touch, every night when they fell asleep cradled in each other’s arms. But his body temperature had always been a little higher than average -to the point where Ivan often called him a living, walking furnace-, so none of them had made a comment about it. That, Ivan belatedly realises now, regret filling his every pore and bursting from his skin, had been a mistake. He should have asked. He should have pushed more. He should have told Fedyor to rest or to see a doctor.

He shouldn’t have trusted Fedyor to watch over himself; he was the type of person to watch over everyone else, his Fedya, but never took care of himself in the same manner. Ivan shouldn’t have believed him, when he’d said he was fine.

“What’s going on?” Aleksander’s voice brings him back to the present, out of his guilt-riddled musing. The steady, familiar sound of it grounds Ivan, if only for a moment.

“He passed out, sir.” He says quickly, getting up on one knee. “We think he’s sick. He needs a doctor.”

Aleksander’s cold, lightless eyes inspect Fedyor’s unconscious body for a few seconds, then eventually he nods. “Ivan, can you carry him? I know of an entrance that leads to Komsomolskaya Station. It’s abandoned, but we can get through it we’re careful, and it’s shorter than the way back home. There’s a sub-unit of rangers in Komsomolskaya, so they’ll have a doctor ready to examine him.”

Ivan’s mind makes a quick mental sketch of the map of the Moscow Metropoliten; their home base is located at Kurskaya station, which is where they got out of on their way here. However, they have moved quite far from their entry point. If his intuition is correct, they must be somewhere near Semyonovskaya, which belongs to the Baumansky Alliance, a group of stations that are less than friendly towards the rangers of the Hanza Ring, the wealthiest and strongest section of the Metro. So they cannot get in from there, but if the entryway Aleksander is suggesting is closer to  Komsomolskaya than the way to their home station, then Ivan is ready to follow no matter the risks. They can’t risk being out in the open with one of their soldiers unconscious and defenceless, and whatever may hide at an abandoned entrance to the underground can’t be worse than the mutated night terrors that roam the ruins of Moscow upon the descent of darkness. They have to risk it- it’s far from ideal or completely safe, but then again, nothing is these days. Between Scylla and Charibdis, they have to choose something. Besides, there’s no real reason for a group of flesh-eating monsters to have made a nest in an abandoned station- these creatures moved to wherever they smelled the largest amount of warm-blooded food, and so they couldn’t have possibly inhabited the old entrance.

“Are you sure you can you lead us here, sir?” He says decisively after a moment, and Aleksander nods with a little bit of disdain in his dark glare.

“I wouldn’t have suggested it if I couldn’t, Ivan.” He says harshly, and Ivan’s shoulders tense. He has spoken out of line, that much is obvious even to him. Worry over a fellow soldier being hurt doesn’t normally excuse it, but Aleksander knows of the relationship between him and Fedyor; perhaps he will be forgiven as soon as they’re back under the safety of the ground. For now, Ivan cannot preoccupy himself with that, too. Worrying about his husband is enough.

He hoists Fedyor up on his shoulders, arms lodged under the other man’s thighs to keep him steady. They’ll both be sitting ducks if something attacks them, but Ivan trusts Zoya and the rest of the squad to cover for them in case the worst comes to pass. As if to assure him of it, Zoya slings her rifle off her shoulder and tucks it under one arm with a finger poised near the safety, ready to open fire at a moment’s notice. Ivan gives her an appreciative nod, which she returns. And with that, they start marching.

Just as Aleksander promised, the way to the abandoned entrance isn’t long. It’s filled with debris, however, as no group of rangers had bothered to maintain the path in many years. It would have been a treacherous landscape to navigate under the best of conditions, and Ivan stumbles awkwardly under Fedyor’s dead weight, certain he would have fallen a dozen times by now had it not been for Zoya grabbing his arm and steadying him. It doesn’t get easier when Fedyor shifts a little, groaning and coughing and making Ivan’s heart convulse with worry. He’s still unconscious, but it’s obvious by the sounds he’s making that he’s in a considerable amount of pain. Ivan wants to stop, he wants to cradle Fedyor in his arms and kiss his brow and tell him it’ll all be alright, but he knows it’s not possible. It would be suicide to stop now, and barring anything but the most pressing of emergencies, they must continue onwards until they’re safe again.

In the end, they make it. The old entrance is deserted, just as Ivan had predicted; no reason for predators to lurk around a passage that no living creature of considerable size and nutritional value uses anymore. There are other forms of life clinging to it still; a giant spider waiting patiently on its net near the furthest corner; a group of mutated rats watching them from the shadows with their hackles raised and eyes glowing ominously; and a slimy sort of shapeless biomass clinging to the right side of the wall, its tentacle-like appendages shifting curiously and prodding the air in the group’s direction. But none of these life forms is worrisome enough if you know they’re there- they do not attack and they do not chase you, and as long as you stick to a clean path away from the walls, there is nothing to fear from them. Besides, a lonely giant spider and a group of rats are easy to deal with a round of rifle fire or with a grenade, mutations or no. The biomass is another matter entirely, and Ivan isn’t even sure it can be permanently exterminated, but so long as they stir clear from the surface it occupies, it’s unable to harm them. So, in they go.

The way through dark, abandoned tunnels seems even less welcoming than the world on the surface, but Ivan consoles himself with the fact that in there, at least, nothing can swoop on them from above… probably. He wouldn’t like to test that theory, and apparently neither would anyone else, because they hurry past the rusty tracks and rubble-strewn ground as fast as humanly possible. Finally, after what seems like hours, the lights of the outpost to Komsomolskaya wink at them from the depths of the tunnel, and with a last burst of speed, they’re finally back to true safety (or as true as that can be, in the world they live in). The soldiers keeping watch at the outpost recognise Aleksander by the mere sight of his face as soon as he removes his gas mask, and let them through without a fuss. One of them is kind enough to point them directly to the infirmary wing as soon as her eyes fall on Ivan and his load. The watchmen keep a safe distance from them, however, and Ivan cannot find it inside him to blame them- nobody knows what’s wrong with Fedyor, and it’s not unheard of for mysterious epidemics to break out nowhere and ravage entire stations in mere weeks. These days, people trust only what they know. Everything else is seen as immediately and irrevocably dangerous.

The infirmary wing is more of an open space strewn with cots, and less of a proper wing. It’s stationed in the middle of the tracks, under one of the more impressive archways that had once been the pride of the Russian Underground. The tiles that make it up are cracked and mouldy, but their colours still shine dimly under the light of the electric bulbs that are strung everywhere. It’s one of the few places of real beauty left in the world, and Ivan allows himself to feel a little soothed by it. His worry returns tenfold, however, when a nurse dressed in white sprints up to them with a concerned expression on their face.

“What’s the matter?” They ask, eyes traveling nervously from Aleksander -clearly a superior officer- to Ivan, to Fedyor’s unconscious form. He’s fallen silent again during their trek through the tunnels, and Ivan doesn’t know whether that’s a good or a bad thing. He supposes he’ll find out soon enough.

“One of my soldiers passed out while we were on the surface.” Aleksander, clearly the only one with his wits still about him, explains briefly. “We were sent to eliminate some monsters, but he doesn’t have any visible injuries. He just collapsed.”

The nurse cringes a little and takes a step back, much like the watchmen at the outpost did earlier. Ivan’s empathy has just about ran out, however, because he glowers at them.

“He’s not infected with anything, for fuck’s sake.” Then he reconsiders, and ads, “nothing out of the ordinary, at least. We’re thinking it might be a bad bout of pneumonia. You deal with that here all the time, right?”

The nurse, clearly intimidated out of their wits, nods rapidly and mutters a string of desperate apologies before gesturing them to the nearest cot.

“Put him here, and remove his equipment.” They instruct, and Ivan bites down whatever annoyance he might be feeling and does as told. When the outer layer of Fedyor’s uniform is gone, he removes his own gloves and places a hand on his husband’s flushed face; he’s burning up, and he seems to have difficulty breathing.

Just pneumonia, Ivan tells to himself as he moves back, allowing the nurse and the doctor they had summoned examine the patient. It’s just a cold gone very bad, because Fedyor is an idiot with the self-preservation instincts of a rotten beetroot. He’ll be fine after a couple of weeks of bedrest, that’s for sure. And he’ll appreciate the time off. Doesn’t he always talk about needing a break?

The terrible feeling is still there, however, choking Ivan. Because there’s one thing worse than pneumonia when you’re a ranger- something that awaits all of them, sooner or later, albeit it’s usually later. Still, accidents happen, and exceptions are known to exist. If that’s the case, then…

…don’t think about it. Don’t think about it. It’s not the radiation. He’s fine. Aleksander has been venturing outside ever since he was thirteen and he’s still as healthy as they come. Fedyor is fine.

He feels a strong hand clasping his shoulder, and he doesn’t need to look to know it’s Aleksander. For all his strict, intimidating exterior, Aleksander cares for his soldiers greatly and he’s been shown to be extremely perceptive when it comes to their emotions. He’s not a man of many words, but then again neither is Ivan. That gesture between them is more than enough; Ivan nods thankfully and closes his eyes, leaning against the nearest wall while the doctor examines Fedyor.

It’s minutes, hours, years before the man in the white robe finally looks up and clears his throat. Ivan jerks up, shoulders straight and face impassive even as his heart is about to burst right out of his chest and hit the doctor straight in the face. He braces himself and looks up- and the pity he sees in the doctor’s eyes yanks the floor right out of his feet.

“I’m very sorry, sirs.” The doctor is saying quietly, looking between Ivan and Aleksander. “Your comrade… he’s in an advanced stage of radiation-induced lung decay. There is nothing we can do other than try and make him as comfortable as we can, for whatever time he has left.”

A dim ringing noise is sounding in Ivan’s ears. His vision is blurry, and while part of him is aware the doctor is still speaking, he cannot decipher the words. All he can see is Fedyor, his Fedya, lying pale and wheezing in that stupid, bedraggled cot, with a threadbare white blanket pulled over his legs and chest. His Fedya, sick with radiation poisoning. His Fedya, dying.

Aleksander’s hand is on his shoulder again, and Ivan realises with a start that he’s fallen on his knees, staring at the stained, cracked floor tiles. Aleksander is in the middle of saying something to him, but Ivan doesn’t wait to listen to his superior. He’s back on his feet a moment later, fingers curling around the doctor’s robe and eliciting a terrified squeak out of the nurse, who scuttles away as if afraid they’re going to be next. The doctor tries to push Ivan away, but his grip is a vice.

“You will save him.” Ivan hisses between gritted teeth, staring right into the doctor’s terrified eyes. “I don’t care if you have to fight the Devil himself to do so, you will save Fedyor.”

“There’s not enough medicine in the whole Metro!” The doctor fires back, standing his ground despite his fear. “Only potassium iodide can help him now, and stocks have been rapidly diminishing. Ever since the accursed atomic bombs fell on Moscow, demand of it has skyrocketed, and most stashes were lost when the whole world aboveground went up in flames, in case you didn’t notice, sir. So unless you can pay me thrice your weight in bullets or consumables, there’s no way I’ll be able to procure enough to treat him.”

Bullets, the form of currency used in the Moscow Metropoliten. One of the things the rangers are primarily focused on scavenging whenever they go aboveground. A ranger’s pay is good, but it’s nowhere near that good. In fact, Ivan is aware that even if his whole unit scrounged up their monthly wage of bullets together, it wouldn’t be enough to procure the medicine. Not when it was, quite literally, more precious than gold in their society. With so many people becoming contaminated by radiation each year, potassium iodide had become just as essential as potable water in most stations.

Ivan lets go of the doctor and steps back, suddenly aware of how fickle this hope is. How truly rotten the world they live in is. There’s nothing he can do to save Fedyor, his husband, his only family. There’s no hope. Fedyor’s kindness, his smile, his optimism is going to be extinguished like so many others that die within the bowels of the Metro every damn year. It was only a matter of time before death’s ever-present hand came for one of them, too. Ivan had just believed they’d have a little more time. That maybe Fedyor’s naïve daydreams about one day returning to the surface, to life as it once was, weren’t all that unrealistic and unachievable.

But they had been. Even Fedyor himself must have known that, in the end. Even someone as sweet and radiant as Fedyor will eventually be broken by their grim reality. Perhaps that’s what saddens Ivan more than anything else; not the prospect of death itself, but the fact that Fedyor will die knowing he’d been wrong. That there is no hope for any of them. That he wasted his time on silly dreams of a future none of them ever really had.

Fedyor deserved better. So much better. But there was nothing Ivan can do for it now. He can only stay, until the very end. A selfish part of him hopes that the end won’t come too soon. That there’ll be some time for him to try and find the medicine his beloved so desperately needs to survive. But deep inside him he knows it’ll be for the better, if Fedyor’s end comes quickly and painlessly. If his suffering isn’t prolonged until there’s nothing left of him but the memory of pain and sorrow. Ivan might have not been able to save Fedyor, but he wants him to at least go as painlessly and peacefully as possible. Even if his death will leave Ivan himself broken, without hope of ever recovering from it.

Aleksander and the doctor leave him after exchanging a few quick words, and Ivan is thankful for it. He wants to be alone right now, excluding the presence of his still-unresponsive husbands. He settles in a rusty metal chair by Fedyor’s bedside, and takes the latter’s hand into his own. It warm and clammy with sweat, but Ivan lifts it up and kisses the knuckles. Finally, he lets the tears fall.

“I’m sorry. I should have known you weren’t okay. I should have said something. I should have tried to save you.”

Words won’t be of any help, not at this point. But Ivan hopes, at least, that Fedyor knows he’s loved, cherished. That his death won’t go unnoticed. That he’s important, so important to Ivan. That if he could, Ivan would reverse their positions in less than a heartbeat.

He hopes Fedyor knows how much Ivan truly loves him.

It’s hours before Fedyor finally regains consciousness. During that time, Ivan has cried until he has no more tears left to spare, until his eyes burn and his mouth is dry and sticky with nothing but bitterness, until the only thing he can do is press Fedyor’s hand against his forehead in a pitiful attempt to just feel him there.

“…Vanya?”

Ivan nearly jolts out of his seat, heartbeat skyrocketing. For a moment, he’s not sure what’s happening. He’s not sure whether or not he’s dreaming, and he dimly wonders if part of him believed Fedyor was never going to wake up again.

But here his dumbass of a husband is, looking at him through fever-glazed eyes, his cheeks flushed with fever and his mouth speckled with dried flakes of blood, and Ivan is suddenly so angry he could have torn a flesh-eating mutant beast in half with his bare hands, without breaking a sweat.

"Why?” He barks, voice breaking in despair, and thick with bitterness as more tears he didn’t know he still possessed spring up to his already-reddened eyes, choking onto the regret of not having seen the signs right in front of him. “Why did you hide it? Why didn’t you tell me, Fedyor?"

Fedyor's eyes flutter a little with exhaustion, but his blood-speckled lips twitch into a weak, tired smile. The same smile that made Ivan fall head over heels for him so many years back.

"What good would it have been, moya lyubov? It would only make you sad. There's nothing..." Fedyor pauses, coughs; his face twists with pain that drives shards of ice into Ivan’s heart, fresh blood bubbling up in his mouth. "... nothing anyone could have done. If my time's up, it's up..." "Don't say that!" Ivan grits his teeth, fighting the losing battle of keeping his tears in check. "I'll find a way. I’ll sell my soul if I have to. I won't let you die!"

"I'm glad..." Fedyor sighs, a trembling breath coming out of him as if even talking exhausts him beyond words, as if it’s an effort to keep his eyes open, "I'm glad I got to spent so much time with you, my Vashenka... I have so many fond memories of us. I’ll take them with me… I won’t be lonely, whatever awaits me on the other side."

“No.” Ivan chokes back a broken, pitiful sob as he moves from the chair, kneeling to the floor next to Fedyor’s bed. He bumps his head against Fedyor’s shoulder as if jostling him hard enough will wake them both from this awful nightmare. “Don’t talk like that, my heart. There’s still hope. Isn’t that what you always say to me? That there’s always hope, even in the darkest places? Well, you’re my hope, Fedyor! So- you can’t die! I won’t let you!”

He knows he’s sounding very much like a spoiled child whose parents won’t get him what he wants, but he’s past caring. And why should he, after all? The world has taken everything from him- his family, his city, his home, any hopes for a normal way of life. Why shouldn’t he be pissed and angry and terrified and broken, that he’s losing the one thing that made this foul existence worth living?

Belatedly, Ivan realises Fedyor’s shoulders are also shaking as he, too, cries.

“I’m sorry, Vanyusha.” Fedyor chokes out, tears gliding down his flushed cheeks. “I’m sorry, I-I wanted to… to see the world with you. I wanted to live to see the day when we could go back. When all of this would be nothing but a distant nightmare… but- but I… I was stupid…”

“No- No, Fedyenka-“ Ivan cups Fedyor’s face on both his own large, calloused hands, bringing their foreheads close, “You’re not stupid, you were never stupid. That light, that hope you always had within you, that’s what kept so many of us alive. You can’t give it up now, my love. Don’t decide to be a realist now- not now, of all times. God damn everything, Fedyor, you made me believe there’s still something worth fighting for even in the ruins of a nuclear holocaust. You can’t let yourself wither away now.”

Fedyor sobs and lifts up a hand, using whatever strength he still possesses to drag Ivan in for a desperate, hungry kiss, as if it will be their last. And it might as well be- Ivan doesn’t know how much time they have, until Fedyor’s lungs cease to function. So, Ivan kisses back as if that’s his last chance to do so. He tastes the copper tang of blood on his beloved’s lips, slips his tongue into Fedyor’s mouth as if his kiss alone can heal his husband. Only when Fedyor starts to struggle for breath, chest heaving with another bout of coughing, does he draw back. His fingers tangle themselves in Fedyor’s dark brown hair, and he caresses the latter’s head until the fit has passed.

“Ivan…” Fedyor rasps tiredly after a few heavy, painful breaths. “Will- Will you forgive me…? For lying to you?”

“Of course.” Ivan sniffs, swallowing back another sob. “I will forgive you anything, my heart, so long as you promise not to give up. Not yet. I’ll find a way to scrounge together enough for the medicine you need, even if it’s the last thing I’ll ever do.”

Fedyor smiles a little again. His face is tired and haggard, but that smile is as genuine and loving as it has always been.

“I… I’ll try. For you.” He whispers, and Ivan forces himself to accept that for now, that is enough. It’s better than nothing, it’s better than Fedyor surrendering himself and waiting for death to come and claim him. It might not be much, but it’ll have to be enough.

It’ll be alright, it’ll be alright, it’ll be alright.

Suddenly, Ivan realises why Fedyor clung to his naïve optimism for so many years. Because without it, one loses one’s mind.

“…Rest.” He whispers, forcing himself to believe that his hopes won’t be for naught. “You need to conserve your strength, Fedyenka. I promise I’ll stay with you.”

“You should rest, too.” Fedyor murmurs, his voice hoarse, and Ivan lets out a sigh- really, of all the times for Fedyor to worry about everyone other than himself. Still, it’s true that Ivan is exhausted, too. The battle with the mutants, however brief, the trek to the old entrance while carrying Fedyor’s weight, the grief and fear and despair, it’s all taken a great toll on him.

“Lie next to me?” Fedyor whispers before Ivan has time to assure him that he can last a bit longer. Ivan tenses a little, throwing careful looks around; unlike the Russia they used to know, relationships between the same gender aren’t exactly rare in the Metro, and they’re certainly not illegal, but they’re largely frowned upon. How are you going to help repopulate the human race if you can’t have children with your significant other? Both he and Fedyor have had to deal with a lot of nasty comments and even a physical assault or two- or rather, attempts on physical assault, because no matter how much of a macho straight male you consider yourself to be, going up against two fully trained military rangers isn’t going to end up in your favour, even if said soldiers are gay (or in Fedyor’s case, bisexual). The infirmary is an open space with nothing to hide them from prying eyes, but Ivan realises that he doesn’t give a flying fuck. Let them come and yell at them and try to push them apart. See how that works out for them. Ivan isn’t going to deny his husband the simple pleasure of lying next to him, not when they’re both losing everything anyway.

So he does as asked of him, and crawls under the pitiful excuse of a blanket. He wraps Fedyor in his arms to keep him warm even if the blanket doesn’t, murmurs sweet nothings to him and kisses his brow until Fedyor succumbs to a deep, fitful slumber. Ivan holds him as he coughs and whimpers in his sleep, ever-vigilant. And he doesn’t let himself lose hope.

Hope that, no matter what, he’ll find a way to save Fedyor.

[fleckcmscott]

Watch What Happens - Chapter 15

Chapter links: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14

Summary: Arthur, an aspiring comedian, has struggled to find normalcy and compassion his entire life. Y/N, a hard-working paralegal and transplant to Gotham, has just been put on a case for the Wayne Foundation. When they meet, unexpected sparks fly.

Chapter warning: Swearing, Angst

Words: 3,671

All he had wanted to do was meet his father.

Arthur had always wondered what he'd done to make him leave. Maybe it had been his condition. Or, somehow, his father had instinctively known he was mentally ill. Penny had been right when she’d said he was an unwanted bastard. But Arthur still longed to find out who his father was. After his mother's confession, he'd been determined to meet him as soon as possible. Nervous excitement had filled him as he searched all his pockets until he scrounged up enough money to take a train to Wayne Manor.

A copy of City Metro News had lain on a nearby empty seat, and he’d grabbed it to study during the ride. There'd been a photo of Wayne's other son. Arthur recognized him from the news. He didn't look happy, almost hiding behind his father's form. His dark hair and apparent shyness reminded Arthur of himself. There wasn't much he remembered from when he was that age. But the boy's posture had evoked a time when Arthur had hidden in a teacher's closet because his laughter wouldn't fucking stop, even after he'd gotten a ruler across the knuckles.

Walking from the train station to the mansion, he'd done his best to make sure he looked presentable. He'd fixed his hair and looked to see if he'd missed any buttons on his dress shirt and brown cardigan. If he was going to meet his father after thirty-five years, he was going to make him proud. He'd checked his pockets for the red clown nose and magic wand he'd brought to entertain his half-brother with.

Arthur's gait had turned into a stroll as he walked along the brick wall surrounding the perimeter of Wayne Manor. He'd peered over the barrier, astonished at the size of the place. If he had been allowed to grow up with his father, he was sure his life would have been different. It certainly would have be easier to care for his mother. And he'd have his own bed to sleep in.

Even as he’d thought about these possibilities, he’d realized he didn't want anything from Thomas Wayne. He hadn't gone there to ask for money the way his mother always did. Warmth and decency were what he’d sought. If he pressed his luck, maybe he could get a hug, too.

And answers. Penny's history had always been a mystery to him. It would be nice to learn more about her.

He'd felt some solace when he spotted the boy from the photo. Younger children were easy for him to interact with. Usually, they accepted him without question. When the child had spotted him, Arthur ducked behind the wall and put his red nose on, then peeked back up and smiled, continuing towards the entrance. The boy had followed, leaving his backyard jungle gym to take a closer look.

The boy and Arthur had stopped about ten feet from each other, on either side of a closed, wrought iron gate. After performing a magic trick, which the kid didn’t seem to understand, Arthur had knelt down on his side of the barrier. He hadn’t expected to be so moved at meeting his half-brother. Hands on the bars, Arthur had asked the boy's name. The boy hadn't hesitated to give it; Arthur gave his name, too. He thought he may hugged Bruce if he could have. But the gate prevented that. He'd had to settle for pushing Bruce's mouth into a smile with his thumbs. The boy had still been smiling when Arthur let go.

Then the butler had ruined it.

Thinking back on it, Arthur grew despondent. When the man said there was nothing to tell, Arthur had been confused. Why would Penny lie about who his father was? She didn't have anything to gain from that. But when the man had called his mother delusional and sick, he felt anger burn in him. It had grown while the butler continued denying everything.

Arthur's darker impulses had gotten the better of him when the man had told him not to make a fool of himself and laughed. It had happened too fast to stop it. Rage coursed through his entire frame as he'd reached through the bars and grabbed the man by the tie, then the neck, and squeezed. "He left me!" he'd yelled, feeling pathetic even as the words left his mouth. He'd been shaking, watching the man struggle to drag his hand away.

A movement over the man's shoulder had caught Arthur's attention. The boy, his brother, was standing there, staring at him with wide-eyed horror. His heart lurched. He'd made Bruce smile two minutes ago, and now he was afraid of him. Arthur had stopped suddenly, letting go of the butler. Then he'd run. As fast as he could, he'd run away from the gate, the manor, and the terrible idea to go there. Distressed, he'd hopped on the next train home, not even thinking to buy a ticket.

Now it was calm outside of Gotham General's emergency room. Arthur was glad for the silence. Sitting with his legs crossed on the metal bench, he brought his cigarette to his mouth and took a long breath. He adjusted his legs, as they'd started falling asleep. It was getting harder to stop his outbursts - today had been particularly tough. What would Y/N think if she knew what happened? Her eyes, which had seemed to reflect want and affection that morning, would instead be filled with fear. Like his brother’s. He couldn't stand the possibility. He screwed his eyelids shut.

Footsteps were approaching. Arthur felt his body relax a little, relieved Y/N was finally there. He straightened his legs and looked up, ready to spring to his feet and take her into his arms-

But two police officers were approaching him.

Fuck. The butler must have called Gotham PD after all.

"Mr. Fleck. Sorry to bother you,” one policeman started. “I'm Sargent Eckhard.” Eckhardt gestured towards the other officer as they stopped about a yard in front of Arthur. “This is my partner Officer Corrigan."

Arthur didn't move, looking up at them, trying to conceal his nerves.

Eckhardt continued. "We had a few questions for you, but you weren't home. So...we spoke to your mother."

It took a few moments before Arthur understood. "Oh..." His brows knit together. "What did you say to her? Did you do this?"

Corrigan spoke, waving his hand. "No, no, no. We just asked her some questions and she got hysterical - hyperventilating - then she collapsed. Hit her head pretty hard."

Arthur punctuated his words with a shake of his head, his voice strained with aggravation. "Yeah, the doctor said she had a stroke."

"Sorry to hear about that." Eckhardt said with some sympathy. "But like I said, we still have some questions for you." He looked down at his notes. "Were you at Wayne Manor earlier today?"

There was no point in denying it. He'd been stupid enough to give the butler his name. He focused on the ground as he answered. "Yeah."

Eckhardt continued. "They said you bothered their son."

"I didn't bother him." Arthur looked up at them. "I did a magic trick. Part of my act. I'm a party clown." Trying to keep his anger from growing, he puffed on his smoke.

"I see." Eckhardt paused. "They also said you assaulted the butler when he told you to leave."

Before Arthur could come up with an answer, a car pulled into the parking lot and stopped. After a few moments, Y/N exited it, waving goodbye to whomever the driver was. Anxiety made his shoulders ridged. It would only take a couple seconds for her to be next to him. The cops needed to leave before she saw them. She was too smart - she'd know something was up. "I wouldn't. That's horrible." He pushed himself to stand.

Y/N walked around the policemen and hugged him immediately. The relief he'd hoped to feel when he saw her was spoiled by his annoyance. She'd really shown up at the worst time. But her voice quieted him. "I'm sorry," she said. "How is she?"

He gave a quick nod. "She's sleeping."

She turned to the policemen, a confused look on her face. "Can I help you? Were you the ones who called the ambulance?"

Corrigan shook his head. "We just needed to speak with Mr. Fleck." He turned his attention to Arthur. "Don't go near the Waynes or Wayne Manor again. All right?"

"Yes. Okay." Arthur flicked his cigarette away, avoiding Y/N’s gaze as he grabbed her hand. "Now, if you don't mind, I have to go take care of my mother."

~~~~~

The hospital room was small and dimly lit, but he was glad his mother had gotten a room with a single bed and a window. Arthur sat on the twin padded chairs at Penny's bedside, staring at his clasped hands. It was all his fault. His mother being in the hospital, maybe dying. He'd selfishly neglected her. He hadn’t just left Penny alone all night so he could finally fuck a woman (something he'd been planning to do again), but he'd also left most of the day after they'd fought. What if she died before he could apologize? What if yelling at her was the last interaction they would have?

After he and Y/N had gone inside, they’d headed to the nurse's station to grab the paperwork he hadn't been able to complete on his own. Thankfully, they’d been able to find a quiet, private space to work on it. There had been so many questions about Penny's medical history. Y/N had been surprised at how little he knew. He tried to explain that Penny never liked going to doctors and didn't talk much. All he could say with any certainty was that she didn't take medication and needed help at home.

There were a lot of phrases he hadn't heard before. And it was hard for him to pay attention, his mind filled with guilt and questions of when he could bring Penny home. But Y/N had been patient as she clarified what a living will was, what advanced care directives were. Even after he'd understood, he didn't know the right answers. He'd felt like an idiot. But his mother had never discussed it. They never discussed anything.

Y/N was running her hand up and down his back soothingly. The beeping of the monitors and sound of the ventilator were deafening. Worry gnawed at him. And he felt awful. "I've been the man of the house for as long as I can remember," he said quietly. "I- I've never lived alone before."

Y/N scooted closer to him and put her other hand on his thigh. "You won't be alone, Arthur. She's going to be all right."

After a minute, he moved to slowly put his arm on the back of her chair, grazing her shoulders. With the wall heater right behind them, the position felt awkward, but good. She snuggled up to him and sighed. It didn't take long for her head to grow heavy on him, her body to slump against his side. He looked at her sullenly. How could she have fallen asleep when he needed her so badly?

He frowned at himself in disgust. She must have had a long day, he thought. And I didn't ask about it. Carefully, he tucked a stray hair behind her ear, then adjusted himself so he was in the corner of the chair. Looking back and forth between Y/N and Penny, the only two people who mattered to him, more than even himself, he sighed. Losing either of them would tear him to pieces. He hoped he had the strength to prevent it.

~~~~~

When she blinked awake, it took Y/N a few bleary seconds for her to realize she wasn't at home. No. Her back ached because she was laying on a set of chairs at the hospital. Arthur and Ms. Fleck were there. And policemen had talked about the Waynes. She swept her hair back from her face and pushed herself up, wincing, and looked at her watch. Damn. She'd been asleep for almost an hour. Looking around, she didn’t see Arthur. His jacket was draped over her, though. He couldn't have gone far. Stretching, she stood and looked around the room.

She'd spent a lot of time in hospitals in the year before she'd moved to Gotham. They were all quite similar: florescent lighting, tiled walls, that same anti-septic smell. There was a strange comfort in the familiarity. Ms. Fleck's form was small in the bed, her arms stuck with IVs, face almost entirely enveloped by the ventilator mask. The electrodes for the heart monitor were visible through her hospital gown. Y/N wondered if she was cold. She stepped to her and pulled the cover further over Ms. Fleck, bringing it to the top of her chest.

As Y/N continued to observe her, watching the slow rise and fall of her chest, she felt the urge to talk. It was silly. She barely knew this woman. And the one time she'd met her, Ms. Fleck had hurt her son. But maybe talking would help her recover. For Arthur's sake, at least. "I hope you don't mind me being here," she started. "Arthur's here, too. But you probably know that. He hopes to see you again soon." Her brows lifted as she continued. "I want you to know your son is a wonderful man. I'm fortunate to have met him. I-"

When she saw Arthur enter the room out of the corner of her eye, she stopped and turned to him. He approached the foot of the bed, two paper cups in his hands. "I got some coffee," he said, offering her one. "They didn't have any creamer. Sorry."

She took it gratefully and sipped at it. "Thank you. I'm sorry I fell asleep. You should have woken me up."

He dismissed her apology with a wave. "Has anything changed?"

"No. But she seems stable."

"That's good," he said, taking a drink.

After some silence, save for the sound of a monitor, Y/N decided to try to lighten the mood. "Well, tonight didn't turn out how we'd planned, huh?"

Arthur stared at her. First she thought she'd misjudged the timing of her remark, but then he chuckled, blushing, and brought his hand to his face. "No."

His laugh relieved her. It was good to hear before she had to start questioning him. Y/N put a hand on one of the bed's safety railings and closed her eyes. The policemen who'd been talking to Arthur when she arrived had been in the back of her mind since she'd gotten there, as well as their comment about the Waynes. "Arthur, I need to know. What were those officers talking about?"

His brow furrowed. After half a minute, he responded. "My mother wrote Thomas Wayne another letter. She keeps asking me why he isn't answering. I wanted to give it to him." His eyes darted to hers, then back down to Ms. Fleck.

"They called the police because you wanted to drop off a letter?" Y/N asked.

He went back to the chairs they had shared and sat stiffly. "I don't know why," he said softly, studying his coffee. "I didn't go inside. I waited at the gate." He pursed his lips, his face still pensive.

She suspected there was more to it - she'd have to find out the rest later. But his explanation was enough for the moment. Her thoughts went to the newly filed motion and a lump formed in her throat. Patricia was right: there was no way she could tell him about it now. Not with the stress he was experiencing. She would be needlessly piling on. Maybe Renew Corp. wouldn't send their letters his way, and she could continue to work in the background.

But she still felt the need to warn him. "Stay away from them, Arthur. They're powerful people. Gotham depends on them for too much." His only response was a nod and his eyes fluttering shut.

Music from the television appeared to suddenly draw his attention. Though she wasn't a regular viewer, Y/N recognized it as the opening theme to Live! With Murray Franklin. She watched his features soften, his eyes light up. The break from the tension he'd displayed most of the night would do him good, she thought. She settled next to him and finished her coffee as the monologue went on, more interested in Arthur's reactions than the show itself. When he scooted forward and reached out to hold his mother's hand, she gave him a smile, half-listening to the TV.

"...in a world where everyone thinks they could do my job, we got this videotape from Pogo's comedy club right here in Gotham. Here's a guy who thinks if you just keep laughing, it'll somehow make you funny. Check out this joker."

At the sound of Arthur's laugh, Y/N's eyes shot to the television, a hollow ache forming in her chest. There was Arthur, almost completely washed out by the spotlight on his pale skin, stumbling his way through his opening. Who had recorded this, she wondered, and which asshole had given it to NCB studios?

"Oh my god." Arthur said, then moved to stand in front of the TV. He was smiling. And when the clip was done, he let out a short, genuine laugh and clapped once. The joy on his face hurt her heart. He didn't seem to understand he was about to be mocked, that he was going to be laughed at, not with.

Murray spoke, then, mugging for the camera. “You should have listened to your mother.”

Y/N felt remorse for every time she had laughed at an oddball being made fun of on television.

"Let’s see one more," Franklin said. "I love this guy."

She closed her eyes, wishing she could shut her ears, too. If only the television had been broken or the antenna was out.

"It’s funny. When I was a little boy, and told people I was gonna be a comedian, everyone laughed at me," the recording of Arthur said. "Well, no one's laughing now."

Franklin didn't miss a beat. "You can say that again, pal." The audience roared.

Y/N got to her feet and went to Arthur. The corner of his mouth twitched; his whole frame was frozen, his jaw clenched. She reached out to take his closed fist in one hand, wrapping her other arm around his back. "You didn't deserve that."

He went to grab his jacket from the chair and hurriedly put it on. "We should go," he said. "It's late."

Y/N turned to him, squinting. "Are you sure? I don't mind staying long-"

"No, please. Let's just go," his said lowly. He left the room, not waiting for her, his coffee cup on the windowsill.

Buttoning her coat, she followed, catching up to him as he waited for the elevator. "Arthur-"

"You should go home," he said, leg bouncing.

She tried to take his hand, running her thumb over the back of it. "Come back with me. You shouldn’t be alone right now."

"I'll be fine."

"You don't have to push me away," she said, shaking her head. Though she spoke tenderly, it was impossible to keep her frustration out of her voice. "I wish you wouldn't."

His expression turned crestfallen. After they went into the elevator, he took her face in his hands and kissed her lightly. "I'm sorry." he said, pressing his forehead to hers. "Please don't be mad at me."

"I'm not mad." She held onto his wrists. When she looked up at him, his eyes were shining and wet. The usual puffiness under them had gotten worse. "You look exhausted. Have you slept?" she asked.

"No."

She traced one of the bags with her thumb. "Is there anything you can take that will help?"

A snort left him and he backed away from her. "You don't have to worry about that."

"What does that mean?"

He bit his lip, frowning. "I- I wanted to tell you this morning, but-"

She winced. That was deserved. "Tell me now."

After a little while, he closed his eyes. "I stopped taking my medication. The city cut the funding for it."

Y/N sighed, feeling as though she should have known, given her affected cases. Gotham Department of Health budget cuts had been all over the news, too. He had been moody, but she’d chalked it up to all that had happened with Pogo’s, his mother, and herself. Now she didn’t know where to attribute it. Her mind began working on how to help. She knew a few doctors through work. Maybe there were other programs. If she could-

"Please. Just go home. I'll be all right," he insisted. He was gazing into the distance, his hands in his pockets. Y/N cocked her head, torn between respecting the boundary he was drawing and letting out the pushy side she'd warned him of. But she didn't want to scare him off.

After they stepped out of the elevator, then exited the hospital, she grabbed his arm and pulled him towards her. He nearly stumbled but caught himself on her shoulder. He looked at her in consternation. She ignored it. "Come by if you want to,” she said. “I'll be at work all day, but tonight and tomorrow after the benefit I'll be home. Hell, stop by my office for a break."

Arthur lowered his head and nodded. "Okay."

"I’m here if you need me." She pressed her lips to his cheek. "And if you don't call me when you get home, I swear-."

"I will." The answer was so quiet, she almost didn't hear it. His eyes flicked to hers long enough to know he would. Then he withdrew gently, the corner of his mouth lifting before he turned and walked away.

Tag list (Let me know if you want to be added!): @harmonioussolve​ @clowndaddyfleck​ @sweet-nothings04​ @stephieraptorr​ @rommies​ @invisiblewispofwhimsey @let-the-stars-fall-in-the-abyss​

[rabbitcruiser]

Global Running Day

Global Running Day has celebrated annually on first Wednesday of June. This year it falls on June 6 and it is a day to celebrate the sport of running. Participants of all ages and abilities pledge to take part in the type of running activity by adding their names to the Running Day website. Global Running Day is the evolution of United States, started in 2009 and race organizations throughout the nation. The inaugural Global Running Day held on June 1, 2016. More than 2.5 million people from 177 countries pledged to run more than 9.2 million miles. New York City, Bill de Blasio, declared June 1, 2016, to be Global Running Day in the City of New York. Boston Marathon winner Meb Keflezighi led a run from the Boston Run Base with the group, and the Atlanta Track Club organized a “run around the clock” event, where at least one person from the Atlanta metro area would be running every hour of Global Running Day.

History of Global Running Day

To bring the people together who love Running, this Running Month was established and describes a particular gait of movement in general; both feet leave the ground at some point. Also Running always happens at the same speed, even in the same person. Jogging and Sprinting is considered forms of racing, but distinctly differ from a run. Human beings cannot always run. Admittedly, it was a long time. When Australopithecus is Our first upright ancestor kept evolving, we gained the ability to have a long-striding run nearly 4.5 million years ago. It was vital to our existence as a species as we engaged in what is known as ‘persistence hunting,’ where catching the prey often involved days-long hunt to track and wear the animal down until it could no longer flee, and collapsed from pure exhaustion.

How to Celebrate Global Running Day

Celebrating Global Running Day is simple and exciting.  It is also a day for everyone around the world to celebrate the joys of running. For those of you who think of running as physical torture, or who believe that a jog on the treadmill is about as exciting as watching paint dry, no, I’m not sarcastic: running really can be fun. Participation is easy just pledge to take part in any racing and Running day celebrations is more fun with others and listed ways that can celebrate with others either locally in the Cities, also with us wherever in a virtual format.

Source

[bibliotechnician]

University

@emeraldcitystalker

The Library was currently inaccessible. She wasn’t sure why, but Shit was stirred up enough that he feigned calmness until she had entered before chasing her back out. Rather than risk herself in the confines, she’d opted to leave for now. It had taken a moment for her to decide what she wanted to do, go back to Polis or do what Stalkers did best. 

The answer was clear.

Which was how she ended up more than halfway across the ruins of Moscow, running from a particularly persistent demon. A lesson in vigilance, scrumbling about in a pile of debris for something useful had dislodged it from its nap. With a morbid laugh, she entertained that she too would have chased someone halfway across the Metro for disturbing a nap. Even through tunnels. Maybe...

She waited for the sound of wings to fade, the shadow on the ground to leave her sight, before looking out from the shelter she had taken made of an eroded upheaval of asphalt. The demon flew not too far away, perching on top of a ruined building, and watched down below with twitching head and sharp eyes. 

A look around was given to assess her next move. Staring a demon down didn’t work as it did with her preferred mutant, all it did was make you an easy lunch. Running without a plan into sight was also not a good idea, the result was much the same and she wasn’t too keen in feeding any mutants, surface or tunnels alike.

Her next point of safety was an open freight container some ways away, teetering on the edge of an embankment. It probably wasn’t the sturdiest or the best place to hide from a monster big enough to push it over, but it was something that got her closer to a more sturdy shelter.

She looked up toward her tormentor and waited for it to bounce around the edge of its rooftop perch, turning its attention away from her, before scrambling out of her hole and making a run for the container. The sound of a roar and wings flapping spurred her onward faster, bolting through the open end of her next haven and sliding to a stop on the far end. She looked over her shoulder to see if the beast had diverted course, her eyes widening as she noticed it still coming. There was no time to grab any weapon, all she could do was grasp hold of the support bolts at the back, press herself to the wall, and hold on tight.

There was a deafening clanging noise and she felt the container go airborne, the feeling of weightlessness brief as it collided with the ground under the embankment. Such force jarred her grip into letting go and causing her to roll with it along the ground until it stopped.

It took a moment for her equilibrium to return to itself, the dizziness of striking her head against one side fading away just enough to dig in and change her filter out. There was still a fog in her head as she stood up, stumbling toward the open end, the bent door still attached to the hinges creaking ominously. She had to find a better place to wait out this attack, but it would be harder now that she was trapped in a trench.

Looking around quickly made her head hurt, a few cracks in the acrylic faceplate throwing light at odd angles in her face and exacerbating the headache. All she had to do was avoid any more strikes to her head and she could get out of here with minimal damage. Thankfully, she didn’t hear or see the demon at the moment, and a second look around proved it wasn’t nearby. While it worried her a bit, maybe the thwak to its own head scared it away.

Her attention shifted to her surroundings, looking slowly around for somewhere to fortify herself long enough for the demon at least to lose interest. Then she could get back to Polis and get the treatment she needed for her bumps and bruises and potential concussion. Nothing stood out to her, as she scanned the horizon, paying especial mind to sound as she exited the container in full to look behind it. It was only then that she saw what looked like an intact building at the other end of the trench, large and widely intact. It reminded her of the Library in how it dominated the scenery around it, and the Library in her mind triggered a feeling of safety.

Her mind was made up, she walked slowly away from the container, seeking out several other temporary hovels in her path as a just in case. She was mindful still of what was happening around her, looking up and around to see if anything hostile was nearby, and especially trying to locate her tormenting demon.

She moved from hiding spot to hiding spot along the trench toward her destination, the haze finally lifting enough she could think somewhat clearly. At the least, she knew that staying in the open was a bad idea and was using the geography and human-made debris in the trench as cover. After a while, she was almost certain that the demon had scared itself off, of which she was grateful and decided to relax a little.

It was a bad idea to relax, evident when she was almost to the building in her sights and the unfortunately-familiar roar and flapping of wings sounded close behind her. She didn’t have time to look, seeing the shadow engulf her was all she needed to get her to move. She felt her heart practically stop as the overflow of adrenaline into her system kicked in, time seeming to slow down for half a second while she dodged the beast’s talons by inches. 

Using its delay to fly off and turn back around, she ran. The building wasn’t too far ahead now and once she was inside, she could easily defend herself. The flight toward it was harrowing at best, using what she could to her disposal and ducking under and around things when she could to deter the overly-persistent demon.

Almost .... there.....

Over the slope of the trench’s far end, using some sort of half-primal mindset to her disposal to employ all four limbs, rocketing her up over the lip in record time. Over the top of old concrete barriers, one that she ducked behind when she knew it was too close in time to see it miscalculate the distance between her and the frankly massive structure just after her spot, coming in to land instead and sliding itself over more crumbling concrete. Up the broken stairs toward the front doors behind columns, into the ruined lobby beyond, and pulling the Preved from her back. A check to see if it was loaded properly before the bolt was replaced and she aimed outward and waited.

She heard the scramble of the demon as it got back to its feet, the awkward gait of it gallumphing along in her path, saw the grotesque head of the monster come into view, spot her, and try to get through the broken door frames. It was a determined creature, she had to give it that.

It got just close enough to her, she could see every individual tooth. No one, she was sure, had been this close to a demon’s mouth and lived, and she was certainly going to live. The Preved was aimed directly at the back of its throat and the trigger pulled. There was a roar that drowned out the sound of the demon’s own, followed and overlapped immediately with the ear-piercing squealing of the monster as it took the bullet directly in its mouth. It wasn’t enough to kill it, she wasn’t surprised, and she backed up when it started to flail and writhe in an attempt to turn around. The sound of it tearing doors about was cacophonous at best, mixed with the pained cries of the winged beast, she had to back further up to alleviate the sheer pressure it put on her hearing alone.

Eventually the demon freed itself back outside, skittering along and crying, trying to fly and partially failing and falling back down.She sighed as soon as it was silent, leaning against the side of an old office desk and slipping down, putting the rifle across her lap.

“Make that little ass think twice, now won’t it...” she muttered to herself, taking a fast moment to breathe.

Once she had calmed enough to think again, she unloaded the spent casing from the Preved’s chamber, replacing it with a new live one. She pulled herself up against the desktop, stumbling once. Well, that wasn’t good. She knew it wasn’t just exhaustion or her adrenaline finally leaving, it was that smack to her head earlier giving her grief. She was going to have to get home and fast before it got worse. Normally, you were supposed to sleep off small concussions, she knew, but doing so here was dangerous.

The filter in the mask was replaced again before she shouldered the Preved, tightened the strap down, and started slowly on her way further into the building. The new goal, now that she had survived a vehement demon, was to get to one of the upper floors and assess her location, maybe plan a way home. In order to do that, however, she needed a good vantage point, at least three floors up, if possible. Enough to see a good portion of Moscow and pick out familiar landmarks to go by.

The further she went in looking for a staircase, the weirder it began to feel. Winding hallways were reminiscent of tunnels and it took every ounce of control she had to ignore the claustrophobia trying to close in on her. It was cramped to her, it was strange. It was intensely uncomfortable. There was a dog...

Wait. What?

She stopped in her tracks, backed up slowly to look down the hall she had just passed. If she was hallucinating, she was going to be in real trouble. But no. Sure as shit, sitting in the middle of the hall not too far from her, was a dog. Or rather, something slightly reminiscent of a dog. It had the body for one, twisted just slightly in different ways so that to someone who had grown up underground without contact with real dogs, it would be fairly unrecognizable. But to her, who owned one, it was very familiar. Eerily so, right on that edge of uncanny valley.

Whatever it was about her at that moment, it caught the creature’s attention. It turned its head to look at her, getting up and starting to trot at her. For a moment, she thought maybe she should pull the Tikhar from its spot at her side, but on second thought, she noticed the body language was ... different from the standard surface mutant. Whereas there was aggression and predatory behaviour in many mutants, this ungainly creature almost as big as she was showed only a sort of reverence, with a wiggling whip of a tail and its head lowered in a familiar act of greeting.

It was a dog.

She slowly reached a hand out toward it, ready to pull back in case it tried to take fingers with it, and was wholly shocked to her spot when it bumped against the proffered hand with only intent to nuzzle. She let off a small nervous chuckle at the revelation this is what it wanted, scruffing to where the ears were.

“Well. You’re not so bad, then. Are you.” she said to it, watching with amusement as it flopped about and made a few pleasant whining noises.

Movement caught her attention from down the hall behind the creature. A second dog had appeared from seemingly nowhere and, at the promises of pets and attention, came lopping along to say hello. And a third manifested. A fourth. A fifth on the far end of the hallway. The first one pushed against her rather roughly, the second doing the same, all wiggling back ends and pleased happy fanged faces.

By then, she had stopped petting and was starting to back up. These things weren’t exactly aggressive, but something about the way they were acting was ... unsettling at best. They were still something dangerous, the rustle of her metaphoric hackles causing her to do the one thing she knew how to do.

She embodied a Librarian, drawing herself up and squaring out to make herself seem a lot bigger and more menacing. It might not work on a demon, but it might work on these things.

It gave them cause for pause, especially when she stared straight at them, but the spell didn’t last long. She had to lower most of it to get away, releasing her eye contact long enough to run in any direction. By now, she was so turned around that she didn’t even know where she had come from. God damn, she hated buildings like this...

The stare tactic lasted for a few crucial seconds, long enough to put distance between her and them. Though it wasn’t long before the warbled baying of the mutated hounds reached her ears, followed by the sound of them making a run after her...

[abhikasach-blog]

Time Traveller

Time traveller, yes I have become one. Last evening I visited 1930s of somewhere. Last year, same time I was somewhere else which can easily be 2030s of here. This back and forth in time is magical. Some five years ago when I landed (drove) to this village, the first pan shop I stopped at was playing a cassette of a movie from 70s. This village is locked in time in a strange way. Some parts of it is pre independence and some advanced pockets have reached the 80s. After a month when I went to a city, the street lights were hurting my senses and the motion sensor lights caught my attention and I imagined the century when this village will see something like this. Often times I imagine the look on the face of the ba (old man of the village) if he would ever see a mall or travel by a metro train. It's as big as NASA finding a house in Mars. Some people never get a chance to travel at all. There are many such trees in this village.

Years ago, during my first interaction with a group of women of this area I was asked in the local dialect “whose are you?” I touched my forehead to feel the horns, lock or any symbol which gave them a hint that I was either cattle or a metal suitcase travelling with an owner. Having found none I told them I did not understand their question. “who do you belong to”, “sorry” “who is your husband/father/brother/son?” Son? Now that took me by surprise. Living here I came to know that even if seven or seventeen women have to go from one village to the other, the only mode of transport apart from the vehicle is a male person, it really doesn’t matter if he is just six years old. They are allowed to travel, it reminds me of that iron knife some people keep under their bed to ward off evil.

So last evening I was craving human interaction, my eyes wanted to see flesh, of course appropriately covered. They wanted to see the shadows of the people as they walk. My ears wanted to eavesdrop to conversations I was not party to. I wanted hear emotions, expressions, tones. I wanted to see, smell, and hear at the same time, which the gadgets have taken away.

I drove up to a village a few kilometers away and parked my car at the bus stop. I started walking in the narrow alleys which wind deep inside like the arteries going to some internal organ. More like those fine branches drawn from one of the branches when one doodles. My feet kept taking me deeper into the village. Sound of drums from quaint little temples were coming from almost all directions. These temples were made either under old trees, or were just a piece of stone. As I approached one such temple, there was only a pujari and no one else, he was still absorbed in beating the drum to the loudest. The entire village was echoing with beats from different corners.

There were two children on the street, as I looked at them I was reminded of my childhood. Just before dinner time my mother would realise there is no salt, and my brother and I would walk down to the closest shop to get it. On our way back from the shop we would have looked like these two, with gait in their strides, tossing their heads to some silent music. Laughing like they are watching a Stand up comedian in a bar. Settling some deep life changing conversations oblivious of the fact that salt has to reach the pan on time.

As I moved further down the lanes, there were matchbox size shops. Without selling anything through the day the old men were holding the fort of their little shops, busying themselves repairing or rearranging inventory. Disinterested crows and bats were sleeping on the trees. A solo slipper was left behind to become a part of the road.

I peeped in a silver shop which seemed to have some activity. In the shop was a man, who looked like he was in his early 90s, he was getting his walking stick repaired, yes it was a pure silver walking stick. He was crouching near the silversmith and instructing him in details, I interrupted them asking the price of a toe ring, well they didn’t have time to engage with me, some millions were on fire at that moment. Sitting there, I kept marvelling at the difference between need and want . A stray cat attracted my attention and I followed it to narrower lanes.

Houses in these lanes had as much dirt on their walls as there was on the mud path I was walking on. Some of these houses have not even been opened even once in the last fifty years. The windows have fought time, got injured and opened themselves to see some life, but only to see the locked attic of the houses in front of them. Some torn kite hanging on some or a dead bat on others. Only in years of good monsoon does the earth from these windows and those attic walk down the lanes surveying the other lanes collecting the mob of mud from all the houses.

After an hour or so I traced my steps back to the hub of the village. There used to be a very enterprising guy who kept provisions of 2018, I thought I must buy some cheese. When I reached the place where his shop was, only a closed door met me. I asked the neighboring shop “where is that guy” his remark “whatever he used to keep is available here” had the underlined hatred which is very visible in the country these days and it was completely obvious that like most of the people from ‘other religion’ his only option was to leave the village. Some people need to travel to live. It reminded me of a conversation I had with a friend. Once we were sitting and I was telling him that when people ask me about my caste and religion I tell them I have none. His reply was “it's easy for you to do that as you come from the privilege of your birth in a certain family, if I do jj same it will be read as cowardice, or a plea of inclusion”.

An unaccompanied woman walking in the village this late in the evening attracts audience. How they were looking at me reminded me one time when I and another friend had accidently drove into a naxalite village. It was three in the afternoon and there were very few people on the street. There was a man apparently repairing his cycle and keeping an eye on my car. As we approached the man and asked him the way out, he responded “I am new here” we moved further down on and there was a man washing his auto rickshaw. There were two three children playing with a tyre and a stick. They had the same look in their eye as the cycle man, the auto man and a couple of women we had crossed on the way. The women had the same piercing look but they refused to talk to us. We stopped near the auto guy and asked him the way out. He responded “I am new here”. After some 30 minutes we hit the highway, but the look in their eyes follow me still.

So, while I was standing there, I knew everyone was observing me, its less intimidating than how I felt in that trip. If you have seen any Guru Dutt movie, or a movie of that time, imagine a village market from there. People were sitting together in groups of three and five, discussing important things, there was this one man six feet tall, well built and he had a noticeably sharp nose. He was absorbed in the newspaper which had arrived a few hours ago with the bus that comes from the city. As he heard my voice he turned around and acknowledged my presence. I sat with them on the stair of the shop and we started talking about education. The old man on the edge of the stair kept peering through his broken spectacle without moving even an inch. Another person asked me,”since you are a teacher I want to ask you a question if you promise that you won't be offended”. I told him I can promise him that I won't be offended but the nature of the question will determine whether he would get an answer or not. He asked me “why are the people from your State so short in height?” It was easy, I told him about how genetics and geography along with nutrition and chance work on people’s physical built. The man with the broken spectacles just moved enough to readjust his glasses.

This person who was reading the newspaper told me that he teaches veda and upanishads to young boys holding residential camps. For him education means educating the young men and boys about the veda and the richness and exactness and applicability of all of it in present day. Well, you have to remember we were in 1930s and it was making complete sense to him. He actually looked like a freedom fighter. He spends millions of rupees annually to conduct these residential camps where more than 400 boys stay for a week in each camp and learn the vedas. He wanted to understand my perspective on education. I had recently, as a time traveller touched the meteorite iron which is billions years old. The children in the village only get to read one passing sentence about it in their textbook. Whereas the children in that city of that country have the luxury to see it, touch it and feel it. They also know about the vedas and the richness of the culture of not only India but also other countries. When I ask the children of this village about the country they live in, they happily name the state. These saplings need to be transplanted soon otherwise they will end up as trees here.

After talking to them for a while I went to the shop and bought the cheese cubes, which the shopkeeper had stored in an ice cream freezer. As I left the place I heard the old men started a fresh conversation on what cheese is.

As I approached my car I met someone from 1970s and as I reached the car there were more people from 2018. Finally when I reached Ayaad I came to my timeless zone of here and now.

[yowlthinks]

Yep, learned this as a teen, it is mostly in the determined gait and a murderous expression. What makes it murderous is that you look THROUGH the person. Like focusing on a point just a meter or so behind them, looking right through. That makes people feel like you are a bit out of your mind and not to be trifled with. Highly recommended for crowded places when in a rush, dodgy neighbourhoods and Moscow metro 😉

On a separate note, I am shocked to read people would not swerve to let a wheelchair pass...

[drweieu]

Today, 16/03/2021 Mardi, #Brussels . around 17H I was waiting for #metro in the station #ArtsLoi . there was a drunk man on the opposite side, zigzag gait and slipped down towards the tunnel. his head hit by the rail, bleeding. My god! maybe he lost consciousness, that many women on the platform screamed ‘Monsieur Monsieur Levez’, he had no reply. Some people pushed the parlophone trying to got the staff in contact, some ran to the ticket selling Center trying to find ppl help, some took photos, the metro was just 1 min away! A young boy, #Chinese , wore green sports clothes FLIED into the tunnel (he was so swift that I didn’t even see how he jumped down), he and the other women on the platform together pulled the poor man up. I don’t know this #hero ‘s name and job, I don’t know where he came and where he gotta go, I just wanna address him a thumb up, 🔝 man, bravo! https://www.instagram.com/p/CMfh17SBeiX/?igshid=ktl99efo3po7

[365lite-blog]

How to be a heartbreaker

Pairing: Jihyun(V) x reader/MC. Genre: Comedy, Romance. Plot: (Y/n) broke up with her boyfriend. One night, she gets drunk with friends and, on her way home, she meets Jihyun. She gets confused and believe they are on a date. But because she is afraid that he would hurt her, she decides to play by the heartbreaker rules. And it is dramatic. Disclaimer: Drunk MC.  A/N: Please, drink with moderation♥ I do not know how I came up with this scenario.

High heels made her presence sophisticated, attractive, as they could be heard anywhere she wandered. Nevertheless, she sighed as she stumbled, frustrated fingers brushing her hair as a response of incoherence. Her mind was already a chaotic mess and now, as if it was not enough, her stomach was indisposed. If she began throwing up, she had no idea if it would be her dinner or her heart that would come out. Really, she had drunk too much in the hopes of moving on. So many fishes in the sea, they said? She was still far from agreeing with that ridiculous statement.

Aquamarine locks flied in the air as the doors of the metro opened, welcoming the cold wind of autumn. Beautiful ocean eyes were glued onto the tiny screen of the camera he had in hands, struggling to discern the image as he was trying to judge if it came out as he had originally desired. To be honest, more than a decent capacity of sight, he needed inspiration. Something that would excite him, give him the flame he lacked to create art again. Deep down, he hoped he could fall in love again, for he knew he only felt alive when being in love and devoting himself to the person his heart claimed. Speaking of which, just as if his prayers were granted, his intact sense of hearing favored him with the distinct sound of unstable heels and he turn his head only to be greeted by the sight of a drunk young woman trying to proceed her way to the vacant sit next to his. He grew worried as she came closer, therefore aware that she looked as drunk as the scent and gait suggested. But before he could offer his help, she fell onto the sit, jolting his shoulder before moaning a vague apology as she flunked to meet his face. A hiccup shook her upper body and she sighed once more before bumping her occipital against the glass behind her in an attempted to rest for a while. The photographer slid his sunglasses down the bridge of his nose, allowing the gesture since there was not enough light to hurt his cornea and stayed silent for a moment, taking her full frame in a sense of true appreciation of art. He though she was beautiful. No. Mesmerizing. His eyes cuddled her bare thighs, followed by her modest breast, soft neck, perfectly sculpted jawline and the cutest nose he ever saw. How he had wished to photograph her right in the instant. Even drunkenness suited her as it left her cheeks in an adorable strawberry tint. She was a piece of art on her own and he longed to immortalize her existence.

 Air left in between her parted lips for the hundredth time already and she soon fell asleep, alcohol crushing her brain for some non-restorative sleep. In a matter of minutes, after being swung from left to right a dozen times, her head fell on the shoulder of the man at her other side. The stranger grimaced, impatience giving him allures of a apathetic human being. He was about to jerk her off, not giving a care about her deplorable state, but Jihyun pre-empted his rudeness and gently shifted her head so she would be resting on his own shoulder. Innocently and obviously still napping, she took his arm in between hers and snuggled closer to him. Almost a millisecond later, his face went hotter and he pulled his sunglasses back up as if it could have hidden his reaction. Following this event, he decided to close his eyes for a moment too. When he opened them again, he found himself being scouted by a pair of hypnotizing iris. For how long had she been watching him? But, as he adjusted mechanically his glasses again, she smiled coyly and went back to rest on his deltoid. Half an hour later, he arrived at his station. What was he supposed to do? He was concerned enough that her friends let her leave alone so he, obviously, could not do the same. Even if he knew nothing about her. With that conclusion in mind, he mildly shook her hand on his lap, causing her to yawn in response and look back at him with half closed eyes.

- We should get off here.

She scanned her surroundings and got up with him, clearly not aware of the situation in which she found herself. How could she binge drinking so much she could not even comprehend what was happening? Thankfully, he was the one she met before anything bad could occur. After walking for a few minutes side to side in a surprisingly peaceful silence, he discerned the lights of a taxi and was about to call for it when the girl clung on his lifted arm to pull it down. She was not pleased by his gesture and her entire face transformed into a moody winsome expression.

- You cannot leave me now.

Her actions made him look at her with astonished eyes. He really had to call a cab for her but, if she was being stubborn, maybe sending her home alone was a bad idea. Against all ethics, he decided that she would be safer at his house and headed in that direction. On the road, a grin was plastered on his face while she was playing a game on her own, failing to walk only on the lines even if she was seriously trying to. Sometimes, he had to catch her hand to prevent her from falling and, in the mist of confession, he felt like a knight next to her. But she was more charming than a princess. Anyways, they managed to reach the apartment building and (y/n) stopped abruptly at the door, making Jihyun wonder if she finally realized where she was, only to be shut by her next move. Her fingers adjusted the collar of his coat as she bit her lip in reflection.

- Thank you for tonight.

Her voice was low, hinting an attempt in being seductive and Jihyun had to refrain a laughter since it was evident that she could not remember a thing but tried to fake it. What happened next though, left him speechless. There she was, softly kissing him as if for rewarding him after her statement. Unconsciously, his hand took shelter on her waist. He was far more enjoying the kiss than he would have expected. But she was also drunk so he knew where to stop his pleasure. They parted briefly after, Jihyun still being light-headed and secretly admitting he wanted more of it. Resulting in self-awareness and shame for his mental behavior. He could definitely not get attached to her. She headed to the door before gasping loudly. She could have understood her situation now, right? No. She complained that she could not remember the passcode and chose to press on the bells of every name figuring next to the lock pad, claiming that some neighbor would help her. He ran to her and opened the door quickly before anyone could see who made a ruckus in the middle of the night. When they entered his apartment, she threw her heels in the void and took a few steps as she scanned the place.

- I do not remember having such a cool home. I am so drunk.

At least, she knew it. He was about to enter his living room when she turned around to face him and chuckled.

- You know I am not going to have sex with you tonight, right?

Well, she was not blunted with her words. That was for sure. Fortunately, that was not his plan either so any misunderstanding was out of the way for now and he could calm his concerns a bit.

- I know, I will sleep on the couch.

He believed she would have a better rest if she slept in comfort so he had no problem in letting her sleep in his bed. Therefore, he smiled politely and headed to the bedroom so he could take extra sheets for himself. She followed closely and sat on the edge of the unfamiliar bed, watched him as he opened a closet and took out two blankets.

- You are a gentleman, I appreciate that.

She gestured him to come closer and, when he did, she pulled him so he tripped and landed on her. Not wasting a second, she kissed him once more. This time, running her phalanges in his azure hair. It took him a moment to restart his brain and, in the meantime, he kissed her too, leaving the mark of a burning desire on her cold lips. She was toying with him, he could see that. It seemed as if she wanted him to desire her just so that she could reject him afterward. The possibility that she drank to forget a boyfriend came in his mind and he felt sad for her. But when he came back to his senses, he got straight up and, for once, was pleased to be on his way to blindness because she looked way too desirable in this position and it would have been worse if he could have seen her clearly. She definitely got what she wanted out of him.

- I should leave you to sleep before doing things that might trouble you… Good night.

With that said, he fled out of the bedroom and headed straight to his living room, forgetting the blankets he left behind and never thinking about them again for the rest of the night.

A couple of hours later, he was still struggling to fall asleep. Disrupted by her presence, he got up and took his phone to look at the weather for the next day. He was being selfish, he knew it, but maybe he could photograph her. He was aware he might want more after getting to know her but he would think about that risk later. For now, he only wanted to do, with her, the only thing he was good at. After putting his phone down, he pondered which camera he should take and got lost in the process of deciding which type of photo would suit her best. That was the only thought that finally relaxed him enough to drift off in the arms of Morpheus and have a quiet night for once.

The next morning, he heard a scream followed by rushing footsteps and smiled kindly, keeping his amusement once again to himself, as the girl froze when she entered the room and saw him making breakfast.

- I am so sorry, she said. I broke up with my boyfriend and my friends thought it would be great for me to have fun, so I ended up drunk and at some point, I thought we were on a date and I did not want you to play with me so I decided to play with you instead but you were so kind and hot and now I feel bad… Oh my god, I am so sorry, I will leave now. Thank you for letting me stay.

How could a human speak so fast and without taking any breath? Her face was hot red and her gaze was glued to her agitated fingers. She was in a really embarrassing position but it only made her look cuter, to be honest. He forced himself to stay calm instead of cracking an entertained smile and served the pancakes in a plate. He assuredly heard her calling him ‘hot’. This made his day.

- There is no need to be worried. Take a seat, I made breakfast and there is medicine for your hangover.

He placed the plate on the empty spot in front of her and took his own as she sat nervously, muttering a shy thank you. As she did not seem to have hesitated in staying, he took this as a good sign and seize the opportunity right away.

- Now that you are sober… Do you have something planned for today?