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some-days-we-get-sundays · 4 years ago

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Ryan, Sophie & Mary go to the beach.

“She gives you butterflies” - A Wildmoore fanfic

“Oh my GAWD, why is it so freakin hot!” Sophie whined. Sophie was lying on Mary and Ryan’s couch with her head on one end and her legs perched up on Ryan’s lap. Ryan had her head thrown back with her hand over her face and Mary was lying on her stomach on the floor and she had a cold rag draped over her neck.

“Well you could take you butt back to your own place, having one less body here would probably make it less hot.” Ryan shot Sophie a glance. And Sophie hit Ryan with a pillow. Ryan was too hot to retaliate.

“My place is just as hot and it has no trees or areas of shade! It’s not my fault the power went out all over town. And hey, you’re Batwoman, why don’t you go find what happened and fix it or something?” Mary rolled her eyes but didn’t look at Sophie and Ryan. She now understood that this was Ryan and Sophie’s way of flirting with each other. At first when they bickered like this and were mean to each other, she thought they really hated one another- and they probably did. But somewhere along the line they started to hate each other less and hang out more. But that didn’t stop the tension. Mary wanted to ask one of them what was going on but she also wasn’t so sure they themselves even understood it. So for now she was comfortable just letting them be annoyingly flirty and oblivious.

“I’ve got it!!” Mary exclaimed and sat up quickly. Glee on her face. Sophie and Ryan both turned their heads expectantly at Mary, waiting for whatever their genius doctor friend had to say.

“Swimming! We should totally go swimming!” Mary waited for Sophie and Ryan to leap with delight at her brilliant idea. That didn’t exactly happen. Ryan and Sophie silently communicated with each other through their eyes- something they started doing a lot lately. Mary patiently waited, watching the cute faces they were making at each other.

“Ok fine.” Ryan said. Mary had not heard any exchange but based on Ryan’s tone, Sophie thought the swimming was a great idea and Ryan did not. But Sophie had convinced Ryan to go along with it. Mary wouldn’t admit this out loud to anyone but she liked watching the dynamic between Ryan and Sophie. She would be jealous of their connection if she didn’t suspect the two had feelings for each other. While she sometimes felt like a 3rd wheel, she knew that what those two had was developing into something deeper than friendship. She sometimes wanted to get Alice in the same room and have her start psychoanalyzing the pair.

“Oh come on Ryan, this is gonna be fun. Beside it’s hot as hell, don’t you wanna get wet?” As soon as the words left Sophie’s mouth, Sophie felt her cheeks get warm. She prayed Ryan would let it go.

“You know what Soph, I do want to get wet, but there are other ways that I can make that happen.” Ryan smirked at Sophie and gave her a suggestive look. Then she replaced that look with her wide signature smile, the one she knew Sophie couldn’t resist. Sophie cracked a smile.

“Somebody needs to get fucked.” Sophie said.

“I’m not the only one.” Ryan shot back. Sophie’s eye brows raised.

“OKAY! Sophie, let’s stop by your place on the way there and you can grab your suit. They said power would be back on in a few hours so hopefully when we come back all our food isn’t rotten. Grab some snacks and water that you have. Ryan go grab your shit that you need from your room and I’ll get what I need.” Mary enjoyed Ryan and Sophie’s dynamic but she didn’t need to hear them making sex comments towards each other. She also didn’t need them to bone each other right in her presence. Maybe going to the beach with these two hormonal teenagers was not one of her more genius ideas after all.

Scene 2: The Beach++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

“Come on you slow asses!” Sophie called from the water. She apparently was a mermaid in her past life and she loved the water. Mary and Ryan were in a spot in the sand that was partially covered by shade.

“We’ll be down in a second!’ Mary shouted back at Sophie, then watched her dive under the water and then resurface, dive under, and resurface. The sun sparkled on the water around Sophie, and Mary lifted her eyes to look at the sky. It was a gorgeous day. Beside her, Ryan was putting on sunblock, pretending not to be interested in watching Sophie. Mary decided maybe now was a good time to just put the idea in Ryan’s head. Or at least show Ryan support. Ryan was a very proud person and her relationship with Sophie and the crows had been, rocky. To put it lightly. Even though Sophie was no longer with the crows, Mary knew how hard it was for Ryan to finally let Sophie in.

“You know, it’s alright if you like her.” Mary started off slowly, she didn’t want to piss Ryan off and make the whole day uncomfortable. Ryan visibly stiffened and then relaxed.

“Who?” Ryan went for acting like she didn’t know what or who Mary was referring to. Mary rolled her eyes.

‘Ryan, you are not that good of an actor first of all. Sophie found out you were Batwoman in point 5 seconds. So let’s leave the acting to Viola Davis, shall we?” Ryan didn’t say anything. Mary tried again.

“Sophie. Ryan, I’m talking about Sophie. It’s ok if you like her. You know like, like her like her.” Ryan was quiet for a second.

“I can’t like a crow Mary. Me and Soph are friends now and that’s it. Do I think she’s pretty, of course, I have eyes. But that would never work.” Ryan clapped the top onto the sunblock and stared out at Sophie. Ryan felt butterflies in her stomach and she absentmindedly put her hand over her belly. She didn’t realize Mary was watching.

“She gives you butterflies.” Mary stated matter-of-factly, she had followed Ryan’s gaze that was still trained on Sophie. They were quiet for a few moments and then Ryan looked at Mary.

“She gives me the whole damn zoo.” Ryan finally said. Mary laughed and shoulder bumped Ryan. “Tell her.” Mary said softly. Ryan gave Mary a, bitch are you serious, look.

“I’m not telling Sophie shit. It’s just a crush, besides I just ended things with Imani, it would be weird to just jump into another relationship. And she already was suspicious of me and Sophie.” Ryan sounded like she was trying to convince herself. “Besides, a crow? Ew.”

“Kay, Sophie is not with the crows anymore, stop using that as an excuse. Second, Luke told me you hated having to keep your Bdub identity from Imani. Just think you wouldn’t have to hide that from Sophie because she already knows.”

“I already know what?” Sophie had walked up on the pair as they were deep in conversation and had lost Sophie among the sea of beach goers; they had not realized she’d gotten out of the water until she was in their face. Ryan changed the subject quickly.

“Um you already know that I can win in a foot race to the water.” Ryan knew that was a weak cover but she hoped Sophie would let it slide. She played on Sophie’s competitive side.

“Girl, now I know you’s a damn lie.” Sophie said. Ryan chuckled and she stood up.

“Ready set go!” Ryan counted off fast and took off running trying to get the advantage of starting off early. Sophie’s longer legs had no issue keeping up with Ryan. They got to the edge of the water and Sophie grabbed Ryan from behind and lifted her. Sophie spun them around and they both went crashing into the water. They wrestled and tussled for a bit. Touching each others mid sections playfully and letting fingers and hands roam and linger longer than what was appropriate for people who were just friends. Mary watched on from her spot in the sand with vivid fascination.

“You know I won, right?” Sophie said slightly out of breath from the running and then the rough housing. They were now wading a little over waist deep in the water. Sophie was half a foot taller than Ryan so the water wasn’t covering her as much. She shivered. Ryan instinctively reached out and put her hands on Sophie. She knew it would not warm her up but she wanted an excuse to touch her again. She started on Sophie’s arms and then put her hands on Sophie’s waist and slowly pulled her closer. It was weird being this close to Sophie, it felt intimate. But natural. Comfortable. Right. Sophie looked down into Ryan’s eyes with a bit of a question mark circling her orbs but she let Ryan continue. Ryan had these deep chocolate brown puppy dog eyes that Sophie could never get enough of and right now they were melting fires into Sophie’s own. She contemplated saying something, but she didn’t know what and she didn’t want to interrupt whatever was happening between them. She thought that if she spoke that maybe this spell would be broken. Suddenly, Ryan pulled herself up slowly and kissed Sophie on her neck. It was one of the sexist kisses that Sophie had ever experienced. She buried her head into Ryan and felt Ryan’s soft wet lips kiss and suck and then give a little bat bite. Then it was over and Ryan pulled back. Sophie’s looked at Ryan, not sure of what was going to happen next. She let Ryan take the lead because she seemed determined.

“I’ve wanted to do that for so long.” Ryan simply said. And then she laughed and put her head against Sophie’s chest. Almost embarrassed now by her own bravado. Sophie wrapped her arms around Ryan and they stood there like that, holding each other. Not fully understanding the magnitude of the situation, but also not wanting to make a big deal or extravagant gestures and speeches. Suddenly they both got drenched with a huge wave. They looked around to see who the culprit was and their eyes landed on Mary who was smirking. They both splashed her back and they all screamed and shouted playfully, trying to see who could splash the other with the most water.

“I told you guys the beach would be littyyy,” Mary said cheerfully.

‘Yeah yeah.” Sophie and Ryan both said in unison.

“Oh also, I better not catch you two having sex on the couch.” Mary splashed Ryan and Sophie and then quickly dived under the water. Ryan and Sophie’s mouths hung open, and they slowly looked at one another, then back at Mary who was getting further away. Sophie thought she heard Ryan mutter, “can’t make any promises” as they raced to catch up with their friend.

#wildmoore #wildmoore fic #batwoman #sophie moore #ryan wilder #mary hamilton

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withoneheadlight · 4 years ago

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ok my head’s still a mess after watching The Wizard of Oz the other day so this is more me trying to put my thoughts somewhere than an actual anything but:

First, let's rewatch st4 announcement:

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A clock. A cabin. A piece of paper (newspaper?). A 'Welcome to Hawkins' sign. ( @memes-saved-me made a clearer image and an amazing analysis in this post)

So,

There’s a cabin in the woods in this movie too, just on side of the Yellow Brick Road, (the road that'll lead Dorothy to the Wizard, and then back home ). There, they find the Tin Man.

The Yellow Brick Road leads to the Emerald city aka, The Lab (episode 1x03):

"Powell: There she is. Emerald City"

There's a bell at the Gate of the city. And where else do we hear bells @atomicblondeweirdo !? and also ('Ding Dong the witch is dead She's gone where the goblins go, Below - below - below. Yo-ho, let's open up and sing and ring the bells out')

In the Emeral City is the Wizard who gives the Tin man a ‘Heart’ except, it's a clock.

and promises to help Dorothy get back to ‘The Land of E Pluribus Unum*’ aka, the title of episode 3x6 and as much a reference of the mf's human pudding as another reference to America. (And there's also an Independence day reference, right when Dorothy's house kills the witch "Then this is a day of independence for all the Munchkins and their descendants!")

In the movie, Kansas looks more like the dreamed place than the dreamed place itself. Nightmarish, even. Uh.

Also, somewhere over the rainbow,

and we got so many other The Wizard of Oz that references and I've been thinking-- what if somebody aka B I L L Y is gonna get out of the upside-down?. Find the lab and going out through it? Through the Gate in there. What if he's actually in that cabin (he knows there's a cabin in the woods, he's "being there" inside El's mind) and he's the Tin Man of this story (because El did help him find his heart, or more like, realize he already had one, same as Dorothy did). What if they're keeping his body somewhere (The Hawkins lab? The Russian lab? What if his body is there and he's actually the other American?) but as so many theories say his 'soul' is trapped on the upside-down? and hdjajhdjqjhdjajdhjajd.

IDK. My brain feels like scrambled eggs right now. Too many pieces i can find a way to fit together. There are so many possibilities that would lead to Billy being alive or at least "alive". Hopefully, I'll be able to keep on rewatching the series this week, now with this movie in mind, but before that! Time to watch the terrifying 1985 sequel:

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(and have nightmares right afterwards bc this one looks actually terrifying and bc im.a.baby)

#not like I'm going to find out anything bc i LOVE trying to find and follow clues but im so terribly bad at it xD #but #it's fun #stranger things theories #stranger things season 4 #stranger things spoilers #billy hargrove is alive #billyhargroveisalive #Billy hargrove #stranger things

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eventual-ghoste · 3 years ago

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TOG rambling

Hello! This post has to do with Andy and some revelations at the end of Force Multiplied. Spoilers I give aren’t super specific but they’re there, and I can’t promise they won’t bite.

This is also in response to a TOG discord question I couldn’t stop thinking about, regarding Andy’s history as compared to Nicky’s, as posited by Em | salzundhonig:

But Nicky's past as a crusader and his growth from his past was well received, surely that'll be the same with Andy right?

I apologize if these ramblings sound like a rant but I swear my intentions are in the spirit of debate/discourse, and they are not an attack on any individuals.

The TL;DR is: Andy has work to do. Hopefully Hollywood and Rucka don’t fuck that up.

Feel free to check/correct/call me out if I’ve misspoke anywhere here (I realize I still have a lot to learn) but IMHO, I don’t think a semblance of Andy’s growth will be well received. Or, at least, I’m not so certain it should be because, in the comics, I genuinely don’t think Andy has grown. At the end of Force Multiplied, she still defends her actions with the “this is how I grew up” argument, and says it was “a long time ago,” and as much as I love love LOVE Andromache the Scythian for her badassery and how she’s a vision of female empowerment, I can’t help but think about how I hear those words all the time from people defending themselves against racist and/or sexist comments from so-called bygone eras.

Wanna know a sad difference between those people and our beloved Andy? They apologize for what they’ve done, or who they were. As hollow as the words will sound, however unforgivable their actions, however self-serving the apology will be— Those Asshats apologize. Comic!Andy never does, not even when confronted by Nile, an African American woman who likely descends from slaves, and has undoubtedly experienced racism and discrimination on a regular basis. It’s been thousands of years and Andy doesn’t even know how to say sorry (if she ever does, kudos to whoever finds a timestamp/panel, and let me know!). Instead, Andy buries the truth of her actions with a load of justifications to the point that she becomes self-deprecating, calling herself “vermin,” concluding she’s no better than the apathetic, selfish, evil POS they hunt. She may have spent the past millennia with TOG, trying to make things right but then—

But then she gives up. She’s tired. She resigns because she doesn’t have it in her anymore to fight the injustice she once willingly and self-servingly participated in. So, on top of being incapable of apology, Andy also doesn’t vow to do better. She doesn’t accede to change.

If there is one reason for why “The Old Guard” is a fucking absolutely shitty title, is that it refers to people who refuse to accept new ideas and progress. We are in a fandom that has four canonically queer characters, three people of color, and two female leads! Maybe the irony is intentional but damn, why is it that Andy, PROTAGONIST #1, hasn’t completely caught up with the program?

And that brings me to why I think Andy’s reckoning will not be on the same level as Nicky’s. Because as popular as Kaysanova is, neither Nicky or Joe are the main protagonists of TOG.

We don’t follow Nicky or Joe (or Booker) into scenes. The men are strictly back-at-the-ranch, supporting characters. We follow Andy or Nile (who also have the most screen time, I believe, but fact-check me). Filmically speaking, we ought to value them with a measure of precedence. Their words and actions matter the most, especially Andy’s by nature of how everyone looks to her for guidance.

So, with all that in mind: How does one reconcile a beloved protagonist with a despicable past in slavery, of all things? In the wake of an international racial reckoning, how is a celebrated, white South African actress going to fulfill that role? How is production going to balance fantasy with reality? How are Rucka and other involved writers (Theron, Prince-Bythewood?) going to alter the original IP, while retaining the nuance of this moral quandry?

Forgive me for the overkill but: How is it going to happen?

I’m well aware that my thoughts are going down a rabbit hole, and I am definitely overthinking this, but as somebody who’s genuinely curious about whether Victoria Mahoney and the rest of the TOG crew will have the guts to confront the issue head-on, or if they’ll take the easy way out. Excise the bits that no one wants to talk about, much less watch in a feel-good film that TOG has become for many fans.

Whatever production ends up doing, I hope that 2O2G doesn’t end on a cliffhanging “pity Andromache” note because, damn, I’m gonna feel real uncomfortable scrolling through fandom posts, reading people defending slavery and giving the same “the past is a foreign country; they do things differently there” spiel, in order to protect a fictional character played by a conventionally-attractive cis heterosexual white woman.

(Also: If the past is so different from the present, why are there still calls for social justice? Why do ALL industries still lack diverse and equitable representation?)

Now, this is where I’ll go back to the original question and say: While I think Nicky functions well as an example for change/growth/redemption, I don’t think his change serves as a good comparison to Andy’s. I say this, even while I’m aware of double standards in gender, and even between the reception of gay characters vs lesbian characters vs etc. (re: I’m open to critique).

My line of thought stems from the fact that, canonically, Nicky always had Joe. The two have seemingly been inseparable from the moment they first killed each other. It’s likely that Joe would check Nicky whenever he said or did something wrong and offensive, and perhaps this symbiosis was mutual.

(I also have a feeling that many people easily disregarded the Christian/Muslim conflict because A) lack of knowledge in BOTH religions and B) the onscreen couple appear very much in love, especially when one is giving a beautiful monologue on the nature of their relationship. When we meet Joe and Nicky, we meet them at their best. Shout-out to interfaith couples who know more about this than my single (and secular) ass does, and might have more to say about this.)

On the other hand: Andy never had someone who was like how Joe was for Nicky. No one ever calls out Andy because A) she’s the oldest, B) she’s the lead, and C) her business card says ANDROMACHE OF SCYTHIA, WAR GOD. Yeah, she had Quynh/Noriko but— at the risk of yelling at Rucka for vilifying a queer woman of color (or praising him for not leaning on the stereotype of Asian passivity? idk, anyone got thoughts on this?)— Noriko is clearly not encouraging good behavior. Neither will Quynh if Netflix lets 2O2G be as faithful to the comics as TOG1 was.

Which means the Law 282 conversation might be…unavoidable? Somewhere along the line, we still end up in the hotel room with Andy, on the floor, pleading for her crew to not abandon her, even though she is the one who abandoned their cause.

This sets up a circumstance in which Fade Away might be spent trying to redeem Andy/Charlize Theron, bring her back to the “good side,” teaching her to be better— thereby highlighting her experience and “salvation,” rather than making a point of her past, and the reality of her actions. In other words, a “pity the white woman” fest.

(Because I’m crossing my fingers that TOG production/Netflix know better) In an effort to prevent that from happening, I wonder if Rucka will combine Force Multiplied with Fade Away for the 2O2G script. Given the series’ track record, I think it is feasible that FA’s release coincides with 2O2G’s, and that it finally resolves Andy. Whether by revitalizing her energy as a do-some-gooder, or finalizing her vulnerability by putting her 6,000 years to rest, thus handing off the reigns to Nile and a new generation of leadership.

The last thing I want to leave off with is: I don’t hate Andy. It’s a credit to Rucka and fellow writers (from film and fandom) that I don’t.

I might not love her character as enthusiastically as I used to, but that doesn’t mean I’m not amazed by her creation. She’s a female lead whose sexuality is not exploited by the male gaze; whose emotional vulnerability is not considered a hindrance to, nor an explanation for, her battle prowess; and whose unabashed queerness is not reinforced by cookie cutter stereotypes. Andromache the Scythian is AMAZING.

That doesn’t mean I’m going to excuse or ignore her most glaring and contemptible flaw. More than anything, I’d love to sweep her past under the carpet so that 2O2G can be problem-free. Like many people, I just want to enjoy a movie without getting triggered.

I want to see Quynh and Andy kiss and make up. I want to see Joe rocking Those Shorts, and a cheeky shot of Nicky appreciating his ass. I want to see Nile welcoming Booker back to the family again. Some form of group therapy would be chef’s kiss.

But something about glossing over/removing slavery from Andy’s narrative reeks of dishonesty, and reminds me that the (Hollywood) movie industry is full of people who do not want to be tainted with negative perceptions. Understandably, appearances are their livelihood— but that particular truth is something they still have to reckon with.

#the old guard #tog #vi rambles

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scenes-in-between · 4 years ago

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Trust No 1 (Part three)

“Who authorizes you? I mean, what gives you the right? Who ARE you?!”

“I’m the future, Agent Scully. And I risked my life being here.”

“Well then why do it? I mean, why meet me?”

“Because you can reach Mulder. Mulder needs to know what I know or he may have no future. Perhaps no one will. Another car is parked on the main road, half a mile out. If I see that you haven’t contacted Mulder in the next 24 hours, I disappear and you never see me again. Do you understand, lady?”

Scully stalks away, seething. All of the theatrics, all of the waste, and for what? A two-minute conversation that raised more questions than it answered? What was the point of any of it?

Scowling, she pulls her phone out of her jacket pocket - because apparently it was absolutely necessary to blow up her clothes and her gun and inspect her watch, but Mr. Mysterious had no qualms about letting her keep her phone? - and punches the speed dial for Monica Reyes. Monica picks up immediately.

“Dana! Thank god. We’ve been trying to reach you all day. Where are you?”

“At the end of a very long and very stupid wild goose chase,” she grumbles. “I’m sorry I couldn’t get in touch earlier. How’s William?”

“He’s just fine. John’s in the kitchen right now heating up a bottle for him.”

“Agent Doggett stayed with you?” she asks, surprised.

“Not the whole day,” Monica says. “After that couple left, he went to the office for a while, but then he came back a few hours ago when we still hadn’t heard from you. Seriously though, where have you been?”

Scully answers with a groan, then gives an abbreviated account of the day’s events as she continues making her way back to the main road. Her foot catches on something in the dark and she stumbles, cursing. Of all the times to be without a flashlight…

When she gets to the part about the car and the remote detonation, Monica says, “Holy hell, Dana! Do you need one of us to come get you?”

“No, he said there’s another car parked up the road. I’m heading toward it now.”

“But are you sure that’s safe?” Monica presses. “What if it’s rigged to explode, too?”

“Whoa, wait, what’s rigged to explode?” Scully hears Doggett say in the background, and she shudders at the thought that she spent the entire day driving around on top of a bomb. However, the fact that she’s still alive right now is a fairly good indicator that she’ll be able to get home safely.

“If he wanted me dead, he had ample opportunity,” she says. “No, what he wants is for me to contact Mulder, which I can’t very well do if I’ve been blown up. I’ll be fine.”

“You’re sure?”

“I’m sure.”

What she’s not sure of is exactly where she is right now. It became harder and harder to track her relative location after she left the interstate. The very notion of spending who knows how many more hours on the road fills her with a mix of exhaustion and dread, and she’s angry all over again at the phenomenal waste of time today has been.

“Maybe you can help me figure out where I am, though,” she says. “It was too dark to read the street signs, the last couple of turns he told me to make, but I was on Route 17 going north for a while, somewhere between Norfolk and Fredericksburg. It’s not much to go on, but it’s all I’ve got at the moment.”

“I’m on it,” Monica tells her. “Can I use your computer?”

“Of course.”

“Here, you can talk to John while I pull up MapQuest.”

Ahead, Scully can just make out the bulk of a vehicle in the darkness. She reaches to unsnap her holster out of habit and grimaces when her fingers catch nothing but the fabric of her waistband.

In her ear, Doggett barks, “What in the heck’s going on? Where’ve you been all day, and why is Monica talking about things being rigged to explode?”

Scully sighs. “I’m going to let her fill you in on the details because I would just as soon not go through it all again right now. Short answer is that I’m fine, just tired and frustrated. I’ll be on my way home soon, hopefully. I want to thank you, though, for helping to look after William. I really do appreciate it.”

“Well, you’re welcome, but I didn’t do all that much. I’m just glad you’re okay.”

She approaches the car, again wishing she had a flashlight. It’s too dark to see anything through the rear windows, but the front of the car at least appears to be empty. Cautiously, she reaches for the door handle; it’s unlocked, and the interior light comes on when she opens the door. There’s a piece of paper on the driver’s seat.

“Son of a bitch,” she murmurs, picking it up.

“Agent Scully?”

“You can tell Agent Reyes that I don’t need her help after all. I’ve been left a map.”

“A map?” Doggett asks. “So where are you?”

Thirty miles. She is all of thirty miles from Fredericksburg. It is going to take her less than two hours to get home. It could have taken her less than two hours to get here. Of all the stupid, pointless, absolutely and completely asinine...

“Just a bit southeast of Fredericksburg,” she says tightly, glancing at her watch. “I should be home by nine.”

“All right then. Be careful.”

“Yeah.”

***

This isn’t the first time Monica has been asked to watch William, but it is the first time she’s had to try and put him to bed.

And he is not having it.

She’s never seen him like this. She’s never felt him like this; William’s energy is always vibrant -- she’s known that since the night he was born -- but it’s usually contained, like the potential energy in a compressed spring. Tonight, it’s like a storm, howling around him as he wails in her arms.

“I don’t know what’s wrong. Should we call Dana?”

John chuckles at her, evidently unconcerned, because of course he can’t feel what she feels.

“There’s nothing wrong. And there’s nothing she could do even if there was. He’s just tired.”

“No, John, I’m telling you, something is--”

“Here,” he says, holding out his hands. “I’ll show you.”

She passes the squirming baby to her partner and steps back, nerves jangling. John gathers William against his chest and starts to walk around the living room, gently bouncing him while murmuring softly. At first, Monica can’t hear what he’s saying over the sound of William’s cries, but as the boy gradually quiets, John’s words become clearer.

“There you go, easy does it, your mama’s gonna be home soon, don’t you worry, atta boy…”

He’s asleep within minutes, energy storm subsided. Monica shakes her head, a little abashed at having so comprehensively misread the situation.

“You were right,” she says quietly.

“Eh, nothing I hadn’t seen before, that’s all.” He doesn’t meet her eyes, his gaze still trained on the top of William’s head as he slows the bouncing to a gentle sway. “Luke certainly did his share of fussing.”

She didn’t know him then, of course. She’s only ever known him as a grieving father; this is the first time she’s gotten a glimpse of what he was like as a dad, and it makes her unexpectedly emotional.

“I’m gonna see if I can go put him down,” he says, and she nods, watching him go before turning to pick up the few scattered toys and take William’s dinner bottle back to the kitchen.

***

By the time she has retrieved her own car from where she left it parked this morning, after stewing on the whole drive home and running through the day’s various cryptic conversations over and over, Scully has come to three conclusions.

Number one: nearly everything that man claimed to know about her, he could have learned by bugging her apartment and going through her garbage bins. What did he really give her that was concrete? Knowing her clothing size seemed eerie at first, until she remembered the receipts she’s thrown away from a handful of recent shopping trips. Her childhood clown phobia? She and her mom were laughing about that in her living room a month or so ago. The rest of it -- resting heart rate, ATM pin, college boyfriend, et cetera -- was only specific enough to seem unnerving without actually proving that he knew any of it.

Her emails to Mulder would require some additional access, but that could be as simple as someone following her to the cafe. It’s probably one of the “regulars” that she -- blithely, it would seem -- dismissed as a potential threat.

Number two: while her apartment has definitely been under surveillance, apparently for quite a while, Mulder’s has not. The “one lonely night” the man mentioned? She’s reasonably certain he was referring to the night she asked Mulder to stay after the IVF failed, and that was not their first time together. If, as he said, the events of that night surprised him, then he could not have known about what they had already been doing at Mulder’s place. Or, for that matter, what they had been doing at her place before that night. So now she also knows approximately when the surveillance actually began.

Number three: if this man genuinely does have useful intel about super soldiers -- and that is an extraordinarily big “if” -- then it may in fact be worthwhile to call Mulder home. The idea terrifies and thrills her in almost equal measure. On the one hand, there is nothing she wants more than to have him home. Nothing. But on the other, if she has miscalculated, and calling him out of hiding only ends up getting him killed, she will never forgive herself.

In the end, it is Agent Doggett’s words from yesterday that settle the issue for her. If we know who these super-soldiers are we can go after them. This is somebody giving us a way that can make it safe for Mulder to come home.

How else are you going to get him home?

It’s a risk, possibly a big one, but ultimately, it’s one she has to take. He has been gone for almost seven months. This is the first time in those nearly seven months that there has even been a chance he might be able to come home. If she lets this chance go by, how much more time will pass before they get another one?

She walks into her apartment having made up her mind. There is a giddy, fluttery feeling in her stomach that is only temporarily eclipsed by ravenous hunger as she steps through the door and the smell of Thai food envelops her. Reyes and Doggett look up from where they’re sitting, at her kitchen table, takeout cartons amassed between them.

“Hope you don’t mind, we got takeout,” Reyes says, standing. “We didn’t know if you’d have a chance to eat, but if you’re hungry, there’s a bunch left.”

The last thing she ate was a bag of almonds from the gas station, hours and hours ago. To say she’s hungry is a massive understatement.

“Mind? I could kiss you both right now.”

Doggett’s eyebrows shoot up to his hairline, and Reyes laughs. “I’ll get you a plate.”

Scully nods. “I’m just going to change and wash up.”

On her way to the bedroom, she grabs a plastic bag from the closet. The likelihood is slim that there will be much in the way of usable trace evidence on the clothes she’s wearing, but it would be irresponsible not to even look. She opens the bedroom door quietly so as not to wake William; by the soft glow of the bedside lamp, she can see him sleeping peacefully in his crib, and she smiles, some of the tension from the day melting away. Though she would love a shower, she's too hungry, so she settles for changing into sweats, carefully folding and bagging the "borrowed" outfit, then washes her hands and face before heading back to the kitchen.

Doggett and Reyes have tidied up their dishes and are in the process of putting on coats and shoes.

"We'll let you get some rest," Reyes says, though she’s looking at Doggett when she does. “Whatever else you might have to tell us about what happened today can wait until tomorrow.”

“Unless,” Doggett adds, in a tone that sounds like he’s continuing an argument from earlier, “there’s anything you think we need to know now. Or if you don’t feel safe staying here alone, knowing that this Shadow Man may well have eyes and ears on you.”

“Is that what we’re calling him?” Scully asks, arching one eyebrow. “Look, I appreciate the offer, but I’ll be fine. As violating as it feels to be surveilled by some NSA creep--” she emphasizes the words, fully assuming that she’s being listened to right now “--I don’t have any reason to believe that William and I are not safe here.”

“Well I still don’t like it,” Doggett says, frowning. “Why don’t you let us post a couple agents out front, just in case?”

“I really don’t think that’s necess--”

“That’s a good idea, actually,” Reyes interjects, then drops her voice to a murmur. “Especially in light of what happened this morning. We know you can take care of yourself, Dana, but we also don’t know exactly what we’re up against, here. Maybe the answer is to try and watch the watchers, find out who they are, see if we can figure out who else the Shadow Man is working with.”

Scully sighs but has to admit that’s a sensible course of action. Either the knowledge that she’s being watched over will deter this so-called Shadow Man and his associates, or it won’t, in which case they could be exposed and identified.

“All right,” she agrees.

“Good,” Doggett says. “I’ll take first watch until I can get someone else over here.”

As soon as they leave, Scully makes herself a plate of food and takes it to her computer desk. If the Shadow Man is able to access her emails even when she sends them from the internet cafe, it seems pointless to wait until morning to write to Mulder. The giddy feeling from earlier comes rushing back as she types.

Mr. Hale,

I am overjoyed to tell you that circumstances appear to have changed. Exercise caution, but put the plan in motion. I cannot wait to see you.

All my love,

Dana

She clicks “send” with her heart in her throat, wondering where Mulder is and when he’ll be able to read her message. How long it might take for him to make the necessary arrangements and begin the journey home. He could be in her arms as early as tomorrow, a notion that seemed impossible just 24 hours ago.

She powers down the computer -- according to their plan, his next communication will come via text message from a burner phone -- and picks up her plate to finish eating in the kitchen. A glance out the window as she stands up reveals Agent Doggett sitting in his truck across the street, cell phone held to his ear. She sighs, regretting the additional work and worry she’s given her former partner but also deeply grateful that he’s got her back, he and Reyes both. She appreciates them more than she can say.

With any luck, all of this will soon be over. Mulder will come home, the Shadow Man will give him the information they need to take down the super-soldiers, and things can go back to… well… “normal” for them, anyway. It’s maybe too much to hope for, but right now, she will allow herself to be comforted by the fantasy, at least for a little while. When she finally crawls into bed, later, she falls asleep with her cell phone on the pillow beside her, imagining the sensation of being wrapped securely in Mulder’s arms.

***

“Holy shit,” he breathes, reading her email for the third time.

The library’s just about to close, and he had checked his email one last time before leaving, more out of impulse than any actual expectation that there would be anything there. The surprise of a new email was immediately eclipsed by the surprise over its contents.

Home. He can go home. He and Gibson both, even. No more hiding in the desert. No more ache of longing binding his stomach and keeping him from sleep. It almost sounds too good to be true, but she called him Mr. Hale, the code phrase they established before he left so he’d be able to tell a genuine summons from a trap. This is the real deal.

Which means the threat is past. Maybe Skinner cut a deal, hell, maybe Kersh did. Who knows? Who cares?! He gets to go home!

The grin on his face is massive as he logs off and heads for the door.

***

“You’re leaving," Gibson says, before Mulder has even closed the front door behind himself. "You promised you wouldn’t. But I guess I shouldn’t have expected you to keep that promise.”

It's still weird, Gibson knowing what he's thinking about before he's even said anything, but it doesn't throw him for a loop the way it used to.

“No, we’re leaving, Gibson. Both of us.”

Gibson scoffs. “You know I’m not going anywhere. It’s not safe. You might be able to outrun them if they catch us, but I--”

“Scully said it’s safe. And yes, I’m sure the message really was from her.”

Gibson stares hard at him and Mulder thinks as forcefully and loudly and clearly as he can.

We can both be free. I swear. I will protect you.

“I believe that you believe that,” Gibson says finally. “But I don’t think either of us knows for sure whether that’s really true.”

“Look, I know you’re scared. And you’re right that there are no guarantees. But for the first time since I left Washington, there is at least a chance that it’s safe for us to get out of here. If we don't take it, I don't know when another one is gonna come along. Do you really want to hide here for the rest of your life?"

"If it doesn't mean dying horribly and having my head karate chopped off by an alien replicant? Yeah. I'm fine with that."

Mulder’s thoughts flicker, involuntarily, to Dr. Parenti’s severed head in a jar, to the gash in Skinner’s forehead, to his own memory of being hurled across Parenti’s lab by Billy Miles.

“Exactly,” says Gibson. “I’m not letting that happen to me.”

“I trust Scully,” Mulder says, thinks. “She wouldn’t call me home if it wasn’t safe. She’s too smart and too cautious to take a risk like that.”

This, at last, seems to convince him, if only somewhat. He may not trust Mulder’s judgment, but he apparently trusts Scully’s, at least enough to finally sigh and say, “Okay. I hope you’re right.”

Despite Gibson’s reluctance, it takes almost no time at all to pack. They don’t have much to take, not bothering with spare clothes. Mulder shoves the stuff he printed about Mount Weather into his backpack, along with a little food, the fake IDs from the Gunmen and all of their remaining cash. They’re out the door and on the road in less than twenty minutes.

On the way to the train station, Mulder stops to gas up the motorcycle and buy four prepaid cell phones from the convenience store. Two hours later, as they’re getting ready to board the train that will take them eastward, Mulder types Scully’s number into the first phone and sends a single-word text message.

“Midnight.”

Once the message sends, he opens the back of the phone, pockets the battery, and tosses the phone in a garbage can.

#x-files fanfic #TXF: Trust No 1 #scullyfic #mulderfic #gibson praise #monica whalesong reyes #john doggett #msr #mulder on the run #a/n: this installment of scenes in between was originally going to be in two parts #and then it turned into three #aaaaaand now it's gonna be four #there are just too many gaps to fill in #hopefully no one minds ;)#i promise it won't take me as long to finish and post part four #as it did to finish and post part three

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bamon4bamily · 4 years ago

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TVD 9x16 - What happens in Vegas... (part 1 of part 2) Enjoy!=)

Cut to – a few hours earlier. The Mirage Resort & Casino, three-bedroom villa.

Bonnie opens her eyes, head pounding, confused as to where she is. Unbeknown to her, she is lying on a huge inflatable shaped as, let’s just say a male part, in the middle of their villa’s private pool. She turns her head, to see if she can recognize the place… Bad call, woman overboard.

She quickly rises from below the water and manages to make it to shore. On one of the deck chairs, a familiar face… Bonnie thinks to herself, I must be hallucinating, why is Katherine here? She wasn’t invited. Has to be Elena, but… she’d never wear those tacky shoes… She’ll have to come back to that later. For now, she wants to make sure everyone else survived. She walks inside the villa… it’s apocalypse now.

There’s no way they could have caused so much damage. It was supposed to be a chill girls trip, with some partying, of course, but not to that scale! She hears a sound, sounds as if it comes from the afterlife…Could she be hearing ghosts? Wouldn’t be uncommon to her… but the voice, she knows that voice. She searches, trying to follow the sound, seems like the source is coming from a closet. She opens it… inside, Elena, dressed like a nun, empty bottle of champagne on one hand, a dildo on the other… Maybe, this one is Katherine? Elena wouldn’t be holding that… One thing is for sure, she can now confirm there are two of them there.

BONNIE: Elena?

ELENA: Bonnie… I think I’m dying.

BONNIE: We might actually be dead… otherwise, why would Katherine be here?

ELENA: Katherine?

BONNIE: (As she helps her get out of the closet) I’m pretty sure she’s passed out in the pool patio….

ELENA: (Looking at the aftermath) Holy mother Mary… what the hell happened last night?

BONNIE: I know I’m psychic, but I have no freakin idea.

ELENA: Was I holding, what I think I was holding…?

BONNIE: Yep…

ELENA: (Grabs and shakes her head) I don’t think I want to know why…

BONNIE: … or why you’re dressed like a nun, for that matter. I know I don’t!

ELENA: (Looks at her attire) Oh, god… definitely don’t want to know! Where’s Caroline?

BONNIE: Not sure, let’s check out her room. Hopefully, she’s sleeping like a baby…

ELENA: Somehow, I doubt it...

(They go into the master bedroom to see if Caroline is there. The room is in order, complete opposite of the outside scenario. It seems Caroline is in fact, sleeping in her bed, comfortably covered head to toe).

BONNIE: (Sigh of relief) Ah, thank god! At least one of us had some sense in them… (They approach the bed, just to make sure she’s alright. Bonnie peeks under the covers… Holy shit! (She takes Elena’s hand and immediately teleports out of the room).

ELENA: (Really dizzy from the teleport and the hang-over) Bonnie, you really need to give me a heads up when you do that; especially when I’m in this state! What happened?!

BONNIE: Definitely not Caroline…

ELENA: Who, then?

BONNIE: A cop … all tied up, face cover n’all…

ELENA: What!!! Are you sure?

BONNIE: Pretty sure…

ELENA: Is he… dead?

BONNIE: I think he was breathing, just seemed like he was passed out, but I’m not going back in there to verify.

ELENA: I’ll take a look… I’m sure it can’t be that… (She goes back into the master bedroom, not even a minute in, and she’s back). Well… it’s a cop! But he’s alive, thank god!

BONNIE: Did you see his face?

ELENA: Hell no! Just made sure he wasn’t dead, and got out of there.

BONNIE: (Starts to panic) Oh my god; oh my god, oh my god! We kidnaped a cop!!

ELENA: Maybe it’s a stripper? It’s probably a stripper…

BONNIE: Either way, we kidnapped somebody!

ELENA: Well… at least we didn’t kill them.

BONNIE: No, but we’re kidnappers!!

ELENA: Calm down, Bon. I’m sure there is a logical explanation for all of this…

BONNIE: Elena, I woke up floating on a penis! Katherine is passed out in the patio, wearing nothing but stripper shoes, and I mean, nothing! You are dressed like a nun and had a dildo in your hand! Lexi is hanging-upside down from that chandelier! We kidnapped a cop, or a stripper! And who the hell knows where Caroline and Radka are! Perfectly logical!

ELENA: Wait… Lexi is hanging from where?

BONNIE: Look up, I just spotted her… (Lexi drops to the ground).

LEXI: (Looking utterly confused) Where am I?? Oh no… is this another version of the other side? Not again… Can’t be peace… since you are here (referring to Elena) …

ELENA: (A tad irritated with her constant subtle insults) I’m too hung over to reply with a snap…

(a few seconds later, Katherine walks into the villa, makes her way into the open kitchen…)

KATHERINE: (Looks at them and shakes her head) You call me the crazy bitch? You are all borderline insane!

(As she pours herself some water) Want some?

BONNIE: Uhm… why are you here?

KATHERINE: Duh, you invited me.

BONNIE: No we didn’t.

KATHERINE: Yes you did… and (looks at the mess), if I can find my phone, I can prove it to you.

LEXI: Maybe you should put some clothes on first…

KATHERINE: (Realizes she’s naked but doesn’t really care) Oops…

ELENA: We would never invite you, Katherine. Cut the crap and tell us why you are really here.

KATHERINE: Actually, Elena, you were the one that invited me; so, rude!

ELENA: That’s ridiculous!

KATHERINE: Fine, I’ll show you the proof; my phone has to be around here… somewhere.

BONNIE: Just, please, put something on, for god’s sake!

KATHERINE: Fine, Bonnie! Gees, such prudes! (She finds a robe nearby, puts it on, and looks for her phone. As she looks amongst the debris, she finds another casualty, passed out under a piece of furniture). Well… found Radka! The good news, she is breathing. The bad… ain’t no way she is waking up any time soon… she’s completely out.

ELENA: (To Bonnie on the side) There’s no way I invited her, right?

BONNIE: Before last night, I would’ve said, hellz no! But…

KATHERINE: Well… it’s going to take a bit longer than I thought to find my phone. And, shouldn’t we be focusing on more important issues? Like the fact that the bride is MIA!

LEXI: (To Bonnie and Elena) Hate to admit it, but she’s right.

ELENA: Also…we seemed to have kidnapped a stripper, or a cop…

BONNIE: Okay, okay, I’m sure we can figure this out. We just need to retrace our steps; does anyone remember anything about last night?

ELENA: I remember we had a spa day… then we came back to the villa, got all glitz & glammed, opened a bottle of champagne to kick-off the night. After that, I’m at a blank…

BONNIE: Well, the original plan was supposed to be… a spa day, followed by dinner at Le Cirque, drinks at The Cosmopolitan, closing with, and against our will, that Britney Spears show at Planet Hollywood… But I also checked out after our kick-off cheer...

LEXI: I vaguely remember Le Cirque… something about a clown?

ELENA: (To Katherine) I’m going to play along because we really need to figure out what’s going on… You said I invited you, when was that?

KATHERINE: You sent me a WhatsApp around five, I think…

ELENA: Aha! You are lying! That can’t be true! No way you would have made it here on time!

KATHERINE: You do remember your best friend can teleport, right? Bonnie was the one that got me here.

I must say, I was reluctant at first, but there was no way I was missing the opportunity to mess with Caroline. Anyway, I joined you guys in your little cheer, and then, lights out… That’s the last thing I remember.

BONNIE: … I think she’s right… I’m getting flashbacks of you and Caroline cracking up, the Salvatore house; Katherine complaining she hadn’t had the chance to pack; the cottage; Kai…

LEXI: Yes… I remember Caroline talking about a prank…

ELENA: (To Bonnie) Wait, did you say Kai?

BONNIE: Did I?

LEXI: You did…

BONNIE: I don’t know; I’m all messed up! I’m just saying things as they come. But that’s not important now. So, back on track. I say we first check every single corner of this place; maybe Caroline is here… if not, we’ll check the spa, the pool, the shops, etc…

KATHERINE: Well, if we want to make it back in time for the love fest… which I could care less, we should probably find a faster strategy. Lexi and I can search the larger area, vamp our way through the hotel. And you two (referring to Bonnie and Elena), can look here. (To Bonnie) Unless you can do your witchy woo to find her faster?

BONNIE: My powers are all over the place, don’t want to risk it. So, and I hate to say it, your original plan sounds like a good idea.

KATHERINE: I’m full of good ideas, Bonnie (winks).

BONNIE: (Rolls her eyes) Just meet us back here once you’ve searched the place.

(They search everywhere, Caroline is nowhere to be found. They teamback at the villa)

BONNIE: Any luck?

LEXI: Nop. She isn’t in the hotel, that’s for sure.

ELENA: Well, she isn’t here either.

BONNIE: Great, back to square one…

KATHERINE: (Completely off topic, looking at Elena up and down) I’ll never get tired of saying it, I really am much better looking than you.

ELENA: (Triggered by her comment) Please, you wish. Or did your slut brain forget you lost two men to me? Ouch…

KATHERINE: One, actually. I never loved Damon. But I’ll say this, because you need to hear it. It’s quite sad that your insecurities led you to marry the first man that paid any attention to you, after you lost Damon to Bonnie. Which, and let’s not kid ourselves here, was way before they got together. Anyone with half a brain would know that Damon fell in love with Bonnie in that prison world, he was just afraid to admit it… Ouch!

ELENA: Bitch...

BONNIE: Katherine, shut up, or I swear…

LEXI: Wow, wow, wow, wow… ladies, chill! We are going way off topic, and into dangerous territory….

KATHERINE: Just saying, your wedding ring is tacky.

ELENA: What the hell are you talking about?! What wedding ring??

KATHERINE: You really ain’t that bright, are you? The one on your finger, Einstein.

ELENA: What?! (Looks at her finger, she’s in fact wearing quite a tacky ring. Turns to Bonnie) No…. Please tell me I didn’t….

(she takes the ring off, it’s engraved, the inscription reads: No matter how forbidden, our love will last forever. Sister Mary Chapel.

Looks nauseous) I think I’m going to throw up (runs into the nearest bathroom).

BONNIE: (To Katherine) I know you are soulless… but why would you say that to her?

KATHERINE: Because it’s true, Bonnie! You people really need to learn to be more honest with each other.

BONNIE: You’re gonna talk about honesty, really?

KATHERINE: When it comes to the people I care about; I couldn’t be more honest… Anyway, I do believe we have a lead… Guessing that place can give us some insight about last night. So, let’s wait for Sister Mary Elena to get it out of her system, and go to church, god knows you all need it. I’m gonna go change, and I figure my Doppelgänger should do the same. And you (to Bonnie), should probably put on some dry clothes.

(They slip into something more decent, and off they go).

They take an uber to the place; it is definitely not what they were expecting. Not your typical Vegas wedding chapel; on the the contrary, it’s quite sober and elegant.

They go inside, it’s empty…

They walk around to see if they can find someone, or any indication that they were there last night. Just as they are about to give up, Katherine spots something strange inside one of the confessionals.

KATHERINE: Ladies, I think I found something… (they go check it out). Isn’t this (shows them a bracelet) Barbies?

BONNIE: (Takes it) Yes, this is Caroline’s. So… we were here… Why would we come to a church?

LEXI: (Teasing) Maybe we were feeling regretful, wanted to confess our sins.

KATHERINE: What the hell… (she sees a very strange lever, definitely not fitting with the decor; she decides to pull it… the confessional door closes, and descends into the unknown…)

LEXI: Uhm… might still be really hung-over, but are we going down?

BONNIE: We sure are… down a rabbit hole…

ELENA: I have a real bad feeling about this…

KATHERINE: Come on, have some sense of adventure, might be fun!

ELENA: God, I swear I’m going to kill you.

KATHERINE: (Sarcastic) You wouldn’t dare take a life in the house of the lord, would you? I don’t think he would approve, Sister Mary Elena.

ELENA: Well, you’re already dead, so… (just as they’re about to go at it again, the door opens…) Holy mother Mary…

TVD 9x16 (part 2 of part 2) coming next. Hope you stop by, read and enjoy! =)

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hereidinathoreauwrites · 4 years ago

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Chapters: 1/1 Fandom: Zoey's Extraordinary Playlist (TV), Come From Away - Sankoff & Hein Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings Relationships: Zoey Clarke/Joan Characters: Zoey Clarke, Joan (Zoey’s Extraordinary Playlist), Annette (Come From Away), Beulah Davis, Beverley Bass, Claude Elliott Additional Tags: Crossover, Angst and Tragedy, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, two people end up stuck together somewhere and oops they're in love, Developing Relationship, mentions of 9/11, the author is clearly just mashing together two things they very much enjoy and seeing what happens, Zoey and Joan are closer in age, college!Zoey, Gander (Come From Away), References to Come From Away Summary:

For Zoey, it was a return home from a study abroad program, back for her final semester at San Francisco State. For Joan, it was a business trip meant to fix her marriage from imminent destruction.

But when history crashed across the world on that fateful day, their lives were thrown together as they took refuge in Newfoundland and tried to cope with tragedies personal and global.

ZEP and Come From Away crossover. Because I said so.

She just wanted to get home.

Zoey Clarke tripped on her way to her seat, nearly smacking an angry-looking dark-haired first-class woman in the face. Mumbling an apology for the near-mishap, Zoey darted towards Economy, face burning.

It had been six months. Six glorious months of baguettes, and croissants, and the view across the Seine, and coding with her French classmates in two languages until the early hours of the morning. But she was finally going back home to California.

Zoey finally settled into her seat (an aisle seat) and threw her backpack into the overhead. She carefully tucked her computer case under the seat in front of her.

She’d barely settled herself before the cabin address began.

“Ladies and Gentlemen, welcome aboard this American Airlines flight 846 nonstop service from Paris to Los Angeles. My name is Captain Bass. We have an estimated flight time today of roughly 11 and a half hours and we are due to arrive in LA at 2pm local time on Tuesday, September 11th. Please sit back and enjoy your flight.”

Zoey closed her eyes as they taxied; nervous but a small part of her relieved.

She’d be home soon.

***

Meet you in LA.

Joan Bennett scowled at the SMS on her phone screen. That’s it. That was all he’d been able to muster up. Skipping out on their anniversary in Paris entirely for some stupid reason. He hadn’t even called.

She sat back in her seat as the cabin address came on, eyes already closing as the standard pre-flight information was given.

LA was his last chance. If Charlie couldn’t buck up and actually give a damn about their marriage this time she was going to…

Joan pursed her lips, resolve faltering. You’d be all alone. Despite his many, many shortcomings, Charlie was still a warm body alongside hers (on the nights he was actually home). He was still a partner in this unfriendly world. And the thought of being without him…

She drifted into an uneasy sleep as they took off towards America. Towards the man she didn’t know how to love.

“L…ladies and g…gentlemen…p..please, please fasten your seatbelts and put your tray tables up…we are preparing to land.”

Zoey blinked awake, confused. Were they in LA already?

Glancing around, she saw several others looking just as confused as she was. Zoey glanced at her watch. It had barely been five hours since they’d left Paris.

“What’s happening?” She asked the man next to her.

He just shook his head.

Zoey tightened her seatbelt and sat back, heart racing as the plane began a slow descent. She glanced over her neighbors and saw a tiny strip of land surrounded by vast ocean.

They weren’t falling. But something about this just didn’t quite feel right.

***

The plane touched down and Joan stared out the window. This wasn’t LAX. It was some rundown airport surrounded by trees.

“Where the hell are we?” She demanded.

“Newfoundland.” The flight attendant informed her, seeming distracted. “Nothing to worry about madam.”

“Any idea when we’ll be on our way?”

But the woman didn’t answer her. She vanished into the cockpit.

Joan heard hushed voices and some kind of chatter on the pilot’s radio.

She frowned and pulled out her cell phone.

As she dialed a number, she glanced out the window again.

It was then that she registered the dozens of other planes lined up in haphazard rows. And the long line of cars beyond the airport, stretching out along the winding country road.

What was going on?

***

Seven hours later, Zoey felt like she was losing her mind. She’d tried to ask the flight attendants questions or chat with her neighbor but no one seemed to know anything or be willing to share if they did. No one around her had a phone so she couldn’t even call her parents to let them know about the delay.

Her unease had only grown when the captain announced that complimentary drinks were going to be provided. Alcoholic drinks.

In Zoey’s limited experience, businesses only gave alcohol away on holidays and during the shittiest of circumstances. She doubted it was a holiday in…wherever-they-were Newfoundland.

As her fellow passengers got drunker, they got louder. And the plane only got hotter and more stifling.

An hour after the drinks, someone finally cracked open the airplane door. It did little overall but something was better than nothing at this rate.

Zoey couldn’t take it anymore. She needed to move. She needed to plug herself into her code and block out all this madness.

Her neighbor had joined the drunken revelry at the back a half hour ago. Scooping up her computer, Zoey wriggled out of her seat and made her way towards first class. There might be more leg room up there at least. And it was further from the drunk singing.

***

Joan wanted to kill somebody. They’d been sitting on the ground for over seven hours by this point, not including the five hour flight beforehand. And still, no one was telling them what was going on.

At least the free vodka was taking some of the edge off. But if she didn’t get off this plane soon, she was going to lose her mind. Or strangle a flight attendant.

“Excuse me…?”

Joan turned and saw the klutzy redhead from earlier pointing at the empty seat beside her. “Do…do you mind if I sit here? I need to get some work done and the back of the plane is filled with a lot of singing drunk people.”

Joan eyed the stranger, seizing her up. She was younger than Joan by maybe a decade and looked even younger in her bright shirt. An even brighter cardigan was tied around her waist. Her smile was soft and hesitant, like she was afraid to offend or even exist.

Joan shrugged. “No, of course not.” She was way past the point of caring. They were stuck in a plane in the middle of nowhere. Not like things could get much worse.

The woman took Charlie’s empty seat, giving Joan a soft smile.

“I’m Zoey.” She was clutching a laptop like it was a lifeline. That was the only reason Joan engaged with her.

“Joan.” She replied.

“H…how are you doing?” Zoey asked, her face pinching in concern.

Joan sighed. “Wish I knew what was happening.” She bit her lip and swigged the rest of her vodka miniature. “And worried about someone who was flying today…I wish I could tell him I’m in…Iceland!”

“Newfoundland.” Zoey’s face immediately fell as Joan rounded on her at the correction. “Sorry! Sorry, I didn’t mean to correct you!” The young woman gave a sheepish smile. “I’m hoping you’re one of those people who laugh when awkward people say stupid things.”

Joan couldn’t help but smile. “It’s fine. Don’t mind me, I’m just frustrated.”

Zoey nodded and Joan had to admire her empathy, especially under these circumstances. “Where were you coming from?” Zoey inquired.

“London.”

Zoey tilted her head, interest apparently piqued. “Really? You dont have an accent!”

Joan laughed. “I’m not from there…I’m…just working there. I haven’t developed the accent yet.” She gestured at the laptop. “How about you? What are you working on?” She normally wasn’t one for small talk, especially with strangers. But there was literally nothing else to do at this point so why not? Besides, Zoey wasn’t the worst option on the plane. Not by a long shot.

Zoey blushed and placed her laptop on the tray-table. It was a fairly expensive model but a few years old and clearly well-loved. “I’m actually a student.” She admitted. “Senior at San Fran State. I was coming back from a semester abroad in Paris. I’m studying computer science with a minor in languages.”

“Really?” Joan found herself turning towards the young woman, actually interested. What were the odds? “What are you going to do with that?”

Zoey gestured at the computer. “I’m working on my thesis: a piece of software for instant translations on emails and instant messages. I’m starting with English to French but hopefully I’ll be able to expand it.”

Joan was intrigued. “Well…this may be your lucky day…” She smiled. “I work for Google.”

Zoey’s eyes lit up. “Really?”

The next two hours flew by. They talked about everything: job prospects at Google, the finer coding points of Zoey’s software, life in London, and dog breeds. For a time, they were both able to put aside the trepidation and frustration of the long wait inside the plane.

They only stopped when the captain turned on the intercom and the voice of the president filtered through the plane.

“My fellow Americans…”

They listened in confusion at his words: talk of victims and brave Americans rescuing their fellow citizens. Joan bit her lip, worry starting to creep in. What had happened? From the sound of it, some kind of natural disaster or explosion. But there was no way to get information while they were stuck here. Her phone was dead and anyway, there was…no one to call.

Joan turned to Zoey and was startled to see the younger woman trembling.

“Hey…” She gently touched Zoey’s shoulder, unsure if the action was welcome. “Hey, you okay?”

The younger woman smiled in gratitude but it seemed forced. “Joan…I know we just met…but…” She swallowed hard, seeming like she was looking for words. “I just…I’m all alone and I dont know what’s happening and…”

Joan touched her shoulder once more. “It’s fine.” She assured her. “I’m…alone too. You can stick with me until we figure things out.”

Zoey seemed relieved.

***

Joan briefly lost track of Zoey during the madness of disembarkation. The younger woman had slipped back to her seat as they heard they were leaving, needing to grab her bag. For all the long hours they’d been stuck, once word came down that they were finally getting off, leaving took very little time.

Joan was ushered down the aisle before Zoey reappeared. They finally left their plane and were herded through the darkness into the airport.

Joan swore it was older than she was - probably a relic from the Cold War…or World War II. Thankfully, they didn’t spend long inside.

The local soldiers guided them towards a line of school buses; keeping some flights together and splitting others up indiscriminately.

Joan glanced around as she shuffled along, wondering where Zoey had gotten to. Wondering if the vibrant young coder had fallen out of her life already. It was a shame if she had…Joan had rather liked her.

She followed other passengers from her flight onto a bus and claimed a seat about halfway down. It was cramped and squeaky. But at least it wasn’t a plane. She sat there for 20 minutes, one hand on the other half of the seat in a halfhearted attempt to save it.

But just as every other seat on the bus filled up, a familiar redhead climbed aboard. Joan’s heart jumped.

“Zoey!” She stood and waved to her, guiding her towards the empty seat. “I thought we’d lost you.” She was very glad she hadn’t.

Zoey shook her head, clutching her bag in one hand and her laptop case in the other. “No…No I just needed to get an emergency prescription filled….” Her eyes widened and she shook her hands. “N…nothing serious! It’s not like…I’m going to go crazy because I…I’m off my meds…” The younger woman deflated slightly. “I…I’ll stop talking now…”

Joan chuckled. “It’s fine.” It was…kind of endearing actually.

Zoey settled next to her. “Did you find out about your husband?” She asked. “Was he flying today?”

Joan stiffened. “Do you mind if we just dont talk about that?” She had called Charlie moments after they first landed. The conversation had barely lasted a minute before her battery died. He was safe. And he didn’t seem to care about…whatever had happened or wherever she was. But Joan was more concerned with her utter lack of relief about that revelation. Maybe once she knew just what the hell was going on, she would actually feel glad that he was safe. But right now…

“How about you?” She asked Zoey, finding she was genuinely interested in her companion’s state. “Did you manage to get through to your family? In San Francisco?”

Zoey’s face fell. “No. The pay phones were all out of order…and no one had a cell phone…I just…I just wish we knew what was happening!”

Joan was filled with a resolve so intense that it erased all thoughts of her husband. “I know. I’m sorry.” She squeezed Zoey’s shoulder, utterly unconcerned at how quickly that action had become commonplace for them. “I’ll help you find a phone as soon as we get…” She glanced up, out the bus windows and into the darkness surrounding them. “Wherever we’re going…”

Zoey smiled in thanks. They didn’t say much for the rest of the bus ride. But neither did anyone else.

***

The bus took them to a school gymnasium. Hundreds of gym mats, air mattresses, and army cots had been laid out in long rows along the floor. Some had pillows or blankets but most did not. Joan was glad she’d grabbed her airplane blanket but this still looked terrible. Were they really going to be staying here overnight? Surely they could find a better hotel. She’d gladly share with Zoey if it got them both out of here.

A woman greeted them as they ambled in, identifying herself in a thick accent as Beulah, a staff member of the school. She directed them to grab a spot for themselves and that once they were settled, they could come back into the cafeteria and watch the news on several old television sets.

As eager as she was to know just why the hell they were here, Joan decided she’d rather have first pick of the beds.

Through it all, Zoey clung to Joan’s side. She took the air mattress next to Joan’s, tucking her computer between their beds. Joan waited for her while she carefully covered the case with her blanket.

Then they went into the cafeteria.

It seemed like everyone from their flight and beyond was there, crammed into the space, trying to get a glimpse.

Joan managed to push her way through to the front, Zoey trailing behind her.

Then they finally saw.

They all stood there in front of the TVs, taking it all in in stunned silence.

Smoke, steel, dust. A plane appearing out of nowhere and…

Joan couldn’t look away. She felt…lost, untethered. Any sense of safety she’d had the privilege of ignorance about was shattered forever.

The same footage was on an endless loop, like some kind of cruel flipbook. It should have been a movie. But it wasn’t.

When the first tower fell, a collective gasp went up around the room.

Without thinking, Joan reached for Zoey’s hand. The younger woman was pale and trembling but she gripped Joan’s hand so tightly she felt her tendons re-arrange. In that moment, Joan was so glad the coder had chosen to take Charlie’s seat.

This was a history-defining moment. And all they could do was assure the other that in this moment when they could do nothing, when they were stranded thousands of miles away from all the chaos and death, they were not alone.

Some time later, after someone had turned the news off in frustration, Zoey finally let go of Joan’s hand. She turned away and pushed her way out of the crowd, towards the hallway.

“Zoey?” Joan followed her, unwilling to let her out of her sight again.

She found her collapsed against the wall. The young woman looked shaken, like her world was crumbling.

Joan kneeled beside her and placed her hands on her shoulders. “Zoey, what is it?” She asked, as gently as she could.

Zoey shook her head and swallowed. “My…my brother, David…is in law school in Manhattan…” She looked up, face pale. “What…what if he was there?”

Joan didn’t have an answer for her.

Zoey looked down. She wasn’t crying, it was more like…helplessness. Or a despair so deep it had rendered her unable to move.

Watching her, Joan felt the true weight of their situation settle heavily on her shoulders. They were stuck here in wherever Newfoundland, while there…people were dead, people were dying, the wreckage was burning.

It could have been any of them.

She could have been in the towers, visiting on business like she had been a year ago. The terrorists could have hijacked their flight and flown it off-course. Zoey could have been in Manhattan, visiting her brother. Zoey’s brother could have been on the ground.

They couldn’t do anything…couldn’t call people, couldn’t go home, couldn’t seek revenge, or help the wounded.

Zoey gave a tiny sound, something like a gasp but fainter, more vulnerable.

Joan fixated on it. It was something. Something she could do.

Maybe if she could just help this poor girl find out about her brother, everything would somehow be okay.

***

Zoey barely slept.

It felt like every time she closed her eyes, she was seeing smoke engulfing New York City streets she had walked a mere year before. The sounds of people screaming and sirens blaring echoed in her head. The creaking of her air mattress sounded too similar to the crunch of concrete.

Finally, she gave up. Wrapping herself in Joan’s airplane blanket, she staggered towards the gym doors and forced one open. A blast of cool Canadian air whipped past her, bringing her body back here, back to this strange place. Far away from there. Far away from David.

Wherever he was.

Her lip trembled as she thought of him. When was the last time she’d called? The last time she’d said she loved him? When had she last heard him laugh? Why hadn’t she cherished those moments?

The cold had stopped helping.

Now it was inside her. It was consuming her.

***

As dawn broke, a woman named Annette brought Zoey a cup of coffee. She was sitting in a chair by the edge of the room, exhausted and still lost in horrible thoughts about David. Joan was nowhere in sight, having slipped out early in the morning for unknown reasons. Zoey missed her.

“Mornin’ hun.” Annette greeted, “you hungry? We got breakfast down in the cafeteria.”

Zoey shook her head. Her stomach was empty but the thought of food nauseated her. And the televisions were still on in the cafeteria.

“Well then, do you need to change?” Annette asked, “I can get you some clean clothes if you want.”

Zoey almost refused but then she realized that these were the same clothes she’d put on the day before yesterday, underwear and all. Suddenly, it felt like they were melding into her skin. She nodded and Annette patted her on the hand before getting up to grab her a change of clothes.

It was a relief she hadn’t known she needed. But at the same time, the strangeness of it just made her miss home even more. And think about how far away she was from David and from San Francisco.

Zoey had just finished putting on the fresh underwear, slightly too big jeans, and was pulling on a plaid shirt that clashed horribly with her hair when Joan finally returned.

The older woman cocked her head at the outfit but all she said was: “Is your hair different? You look good.”

Zoey chuckled, fingering the hasty ponytail. “Thanks. It’s just super unwashed…” She wrapped her arms around herself, feeling like a different person. “Are we leaving?”

Joan shrugged. “No one seems to know.” She was still wearing the same clothes from the plane and she was fiddling with something in her pocket. Her hair was also pulled back but into a severe bun that Zoey immediately envied. Zoey opened her mouth to tell her about the free clothes but Joan seemed preoccupied. She jerked her head towards the door Zoey had stood in front of the night before. “Zoey, come with me…”

Joan led her outside the building, one hand in her pocket, the other clutching Zoey’s tightly. Zoey followed, silent but alert.

As they stood in the chilly air, Joan finally pulled out her other hand.

A cell phone. A fancy, expensive, international phone.

Zoey gasped, eyes sliding from the device to Joan’s face.

“I finally got a chance to charge it.” Joan said, sounding apologetic. “I…I wanted to make sure you got to use it first, before I offer it to the others.” She held it out to Zoey. “Go on, check on your family. I’ll be just inside if you need me.”

Hands shaking, Zoey took the phone. Her stomach was in knots.

“Wait,” She called as Joan turned to go inside. “Stay? Please?”

Joan nodded. She took a few steps back, far enough to give Zoey some privacy but never letting her out of her sight.

Her heart thrumming, Zoey dialed the number.

***

Joan watched intently as the coder used her phone. Her eyes traced Zoey’s path as she spoke rapidly with someone on the other end. She folded her arms tightly as Zoey stopped pacing and her face pinched with sympathy as she saw the young woman place a hand over her chest.

After a few moments, Zoey hung up and made her way back to Joan.

She braced herself.

“He’s…he’s okay…” Zoey let out a shaky breath. “David he…he’s with my parents in San Francisco…he wasn’t in New York when it…” Her lip trembled, a single tear dripping down her face.

Unsure what else to do, Joan only held out her arms.

Zoey fell into her embrace, her small form shaking with relief as she sobbed.

***

The next two days were torturous.

There was nothing to do. Nothing but wait. Wait for a phone to be available in the hallway. Wait for the news to show the clips again. Wait for the word that they were leaving.

While knowing that her family was safe had taken some of the edge off, Zoey still found herself anxious, jumpy and unable to sleep. She stuck by Joan like a barnacle.

Joan seemed to notice and would try to distract her. On the second morning, after finally managing to stomach some food, they risked going outside for a walk and explored the town together. Joan had finally caved and accepted a gift of clothing from Annette. She was bundled up in a sweater that was far too large for her and jeans she constantly complained about. They talked more about Zoey’s thesis, about Joan’s favorite parts of London. Anything but the dark cloud hanging over the world.

For a brief moment, Zoey convinced her to open up about her husband and learned the sad truth: after 6 years of marriage, Joan was getting divorced.

Joan didn’t seem sad about it.

Some of the local kids invited them into a yard they passed and spent an hour playing with Zoey’s hair, putting her messy locks into braids and plaits. The youngest of them eventually convinced Joan to sit and receive a single sloppy braid. Zoey had to laugh at the ridiculous hairstyle. Joan did not take the braid out.

As they walked back to the school in the quickly dwindling sunlight, Zoey reached for Joan’s hand again. Joan took it without a second thought, her thumb rubbing Zoey’s hand soothingly.

It was a simple gesture. But to Zoey, it grounded her here.

She barely knew this woman. But she was here. And she was amazing. She’d spent all day just talking to her, distracting her from the horrible state of the world and the remote location they were stranded in.

Zoey hated to think that Joan would tire of her and leave her all alone again. She desperately tried to think of ways to pay the woman back for her attention and came up blank.

She didn’t want to be alone. And she didn’t want Joan to be alone.

But was that enough?

***

The following night, (after another day spent walking with Zoey, this time along the coast) Beulah invited them all down to the local Legion building for “some drinking and some fun.” Which was probably a good call: there had been several loud arguments over phones that day and even a brief fight between several of the passengers. Everyone was on edge and stuck in place. A little drinking could only help at this rate.

Joan wasn’t going to go; it didn’t feel right with everything that was happening. She didn’t want to celebrate: she’d finally decided that her marriage (it it had ever really been that) was over. She’d be going back to London alone if all this ever ended - to an empty flat and a demanding job and a cold bed. It felt wrong to be upset or even happy over such a thing when the world was still reeling from Tuesday.

But then Zoey piped up and said: “I’m only going if Joan is going!” and just like that, she was slipping on her borrowed shoes (heels only got a woman so far in this place) and following the crowd down towards the Legion building. As soon as she stepped inside, Joan knew it had been the right choice.

The night was insanity in the best way. Over 400 people from all over the world were celebrating together: drinking, dancing, even swimming in the river! And then the instruments came out.

Joan had never particularly cared for fiddles or accordions. But after two beers, she forgot that.

Lost with Zoey among the strangers from around the world, Joan forgot all about her aversion to dancing and her image: she tore up the dance floor with jig after mindless jig. Of course, the fact that Zoey was pulling her along and laughing and holding her hands certainly helped with that.

It was a new feeling for Joan: enjoying spending time with someone. And having someone enjoy spending time with her. Charlie had never seemed to care for their date nights, he more put up with them for the promise of sex.

But Zoey clearly enjoyed being here. And more importantly, she enjoyed being her with her. So Joan let loose.

As the night went on, the locals decided it was time for a ceremony.

“We needs a couple of volunteers!” Mayor Claude declared, “Who wants to be Newfoundlanders?”

Zoey snatched Joan’s arm and dragged her forward, not giving Joan enough time to bring her drink along. “Us!” Zoey cried, “we wanna be Newfoundlanders!!”

Joan, already a little tipsy and way too engaged in Zoey’s enthusiasm could only nod along.

Claude beamed at them. “Where are you two from?” He asked.

“California!” Zoey shouted, drowning out Joan’s murmured answer.

“What part of California are you from, ma’am?” Claude asked Joan.

“No! No!” Zoey waved her hands. “I’m from California.” She pointed at Joan. “She’s in England!”

Claude chuckled, “wait…now how does that work?”

“How does…what work?” Joan asked.

“Well how does your marriage work?” Claude inquired, “with one of you in California and the other in England?”

Zoey and Joan exchanged a quick glance, both of their faces red. Joan only just realized how close together they were standing. And in borrowed clothes and no makeup, the age difference between them seemed invisible to onlooking strangers.

“Uhhh...we’re, we’re not married…” Zoey told him. Joan was having trouble forming words.

Claude laughed again. “I’m sorry,” he apologized. “I thought you were…” He regarded them, seeming to read something in their embarrassed silence. “Well…” He raised an eyebrow at them, “would you like to be?”

Zoey’s face lit up. “Well why not?!” She cried. She seized Joan’s hand and lifted it up into the air. “Whoooooo!!!”

Logically, Joan knew it was the alcohol talking. Zoey herself had said earlier that she’d never had more than one beer at a time before and yet she’d watched the woman down two beers in quick succession that night.

Nevertheless, Joan, her face on fire and a stupid grin that she couldn’t justify on her face, went and got the woman two more beers.

The actual ceremony of becoming a Newfoundlander was a bizarre mix of local culture and sorority hazing.

Joan stuck by Zoey’s side as they sang a long upbeat song, tasted local food, and knocked back a horrific rum that burned her sinuses clean off.

But then came the cod.

It was a large, slimy thing that stared at them with big, dead eyes. Two local men were needed to hold it up.

And to Joan’s horror, the final part of becoming a Newfoundlander was kissing this dead fish.

“I’m not kissing a fish!” She declared.

“I will if you will!” Zoey promised, her face a pleasant shade of red from the alcohol. It was hard to dismiss that face. Joan eyed the thing distastefully as another volunteer puckered their lips and kissed the scales.

But they’d come this far…and it couldn’t be worse than kissing Charlie after sushi night, could it?

“Oh my god…” Closing her eyes, Joan pursed her lips and leaned forward. She pecked as soon as she felt something cool and slimy and darted back, retching.

It was worse. But only barely.

But when her turn came, Zoey balked. “I can’t do it!” She exclaimed, covering her face with her hands.

“Come on, I did it!” Joan protested, elbowing her forward. “Pucker up!”

“You gotta kiss a cod, it’s a vital part of the ceremony!” Claude insisted.

But Zoey backed off again, shaking her head and giggling. “I can’t do it!”

Claude chuckled. “Okay, I tell you what. I’ll make you a deal.” He pointed to the cod. “Either you kiss this fish…” His finger slid to Joan. “Or you kiss this English-woman that you’re ‘not married to’.”

Zoey didn’t even hesitate. In a single motion, she launched herself at the taller woman and wrapped an arm around her waist.

Startled, Joan could only catch her. Since she wasn’t wearing heels, their faces were mere inches apart. Zoey pressed forward. Their lips met and held in a glorious kiss. All around them, the room erupted in yips and cheers.

Zoey broke away after a second, grinning stupidly and completely red in the face. Then, as if nothing had happened, she grabbed Joan’s hand and pulled her back into the crowd of dancers.

Joan couldn’t stop looking at her the rest of the night.

***

The word finally came down early on Saturday: the FAA was going to open the airspace back up.

Captain Bass got in contact with their flight and informed them that they’d be leaving as soon as it was possible so they shouldn’t travel too far from their shelters.

Zoey managed to convince Joan to take one last walk with her. She’d heard about a nearby geologic marvel called the Dover Fault from Annette and thought it might be the perfect last hurrah.

They clambered up what felt like several thousand stairs carved into the cliff, panting and assuring the other that they were okay.

Finally, they crested the edge and gazed out from the overlook. The ocean crashed into the rocky inlet, scouring the ancient rocks.

“This is incredible!” Zoey called. She beckoned Joan forward. “Look! I can’t believe we’re here!” But as she stared at the gorgeous view, Zoey felt her smile start to slip away.

“I can’t believe we’re leaving…” She lamented. It all felt like a dream that was drawing to a close.

“…I don’t want to go…” Joan murmured.

Zoey turned back to her, “What did you say?”

Joan shook her head, smiling. “Oh nothing…I’m going to uh…” she held up her disposable camera that she’d purchased in town. “…to take some pictures.”

Zoey nodded. “O…okay.” She stood aside to give Joan a better shot.

She was a bit of a light-weight but Zoey remembered the night at the Legion in snatches: lively dances, delicious rum, and shouting that she wanted to be married to Joan. She remembered launching herself at Joan out of desperation to not kiss a slimy sea creature. She remembered her stomach and chest filling with fire as their lips met.

But Joan hadn’t said a word about it. Hadn’t even indicated that she remembered any of it. They continued with their walks and their discussions of technology and little things.

They didn’t talk about the kiss.

Zoey realized Joan was still pointing the camera towards her and took another step back. “No…stay where you are!” Joan called, eye still in her camera.

“Really? I’m blocking your shot!”

Joan smiled at her. “It’s perfect.”

The shutter clicked, capturing the moment in time.

Zoey felt like she should say something; tease Joan about her taking her photo or ask her if she had really meant what she’d said.

Staying here…it was a ridiculous idea. They were only here because of…because of the tragedy. They had lives of their own to get back to. But the more she thought about it, standing there on the chilly edge of a cliff on the edge of the Atlantic, going back to her life in California felt…empty.

Logically, she knew that once she was back she wouldn’t feel that way. Her family was there, and her friends, and her thesis that needed completion. There were things she loved and fulfilling work to occupy her time.

But Joan wouldn’t be there.

Zoey stared as Joan slowly lowered her camera, the device whirring to indicate it was out of film.

Joan would return to her incredible job in London, working long hours and finalizing her divorce. As the days returned to normal, she’d forget all about the redheaded college coder she’d briefly known in this place. Zoey knew she was unremarkable; a mere blip in Joan’s life. A chance encounter.

They stared at each other, standing on the edge of this chasm that marked a time when tectonic plates had unexpectedly crashed together and then separated forever.

Zoey never wanted this moment to end. If the world had stopped spinning right then and there, she would be happy.

***

They barely made it out before the hurricane made landfall. Pack-up was hasty and haphazard, with no one sure if they should keep the borrowed clothes and no one knowing how to thank the people of Gander for their incredible compassion and hospitality.

Joan and Zoey scribbled a hasty thank you across the wall closest to where their air mattresses had been. They wrote it in three languages: English, French, and binary code. Then it was back onto the buses and back to the ancient airport.

The winds were picking up and it had begun to rain as Captain Bass taxied the plane down the runway.

No one had cared about assigned seats for the flight back. Joan’s feet had followed Zoey into the Economy class and they had taken two seats in a row near the back. No one joined them in their row. Despite the utter lack of anything resembling personal space, Joan couldn’t have cared less. It was where Zoey was. And that was the only place she wanted to be.

As they picked up speed, Joan reached for Zoey’s hand but recoiled a second before she grabbed it. What was she doing? Trying to hold onto this moment? Trying to stop them from leaving?

It was too late now.

They were leaving. And she was going to return to a newly-empty life a continent and an ocean away from Zoey’s warmth and light.

The first hour of the flight was silent. Zoey kept opening her mouth like she wanted to say something but she never did. Joan didn’t know what to say. Or if she should say anything at all. Every possible thing she could say felt inadequate.

But as Captain Bass gleefully announced over the intercom that they had crossed back into US airspace, Joan glanced over at her companion. Zoey was crying, silently and intensely, as if she just couldn’t stop.

Joan immediately wrapped an arm around her shoulders. She leaned in, aiming for Zoey’s forehead to give her a comforting kiss.

But the plane jostled at the exact moment Zoey turned towards her.

Joan’s lips grazed the corner of Zoey’s mouth instead of her forehead.

Zoey gazed up at her, eyes wide and hopeful.

Her heart leaping, Joan shifted the angle of her mouth.

Their lips met again. And this time, they simply didn’t stop.

They kissed and canoodled for hours at the back of the plane. All around them, Joan was aware of cabin addresses and their fellow passengers drinking and sharing stories of their stay. But all she cared about was Zoey. Wrapping her arms around Zoey, playing with Zoey’s hair, kissing Zoey as often as she could. Zoey was real. These feelings were real. And like the Dover Fault, she would remain real no matter how long it was after they parted ways.

At one point, not long after Captain Bass had announced that they were now flying over California, a flight attendant paused alongside their seats, tongs ready to hand out hot towels.

“Cold towel?” She asked, smirking.

Blushing, Zoey hid her face in Joan’s neck. Joan couldn’t stop smiling.

***

But of course, they had to part ways.

There was a measure of relief among all of them as they safely touched down in LAX. If she was being honest, Zoey had been carrying a tiny knot of fear in her chest the whole flight home, a small part of her convinced their journey would end the same way as all that footage on the news.

But as soon as they were safely on the ground, that knot of fear became a hard ball of dread.

“So…” She faced Joan at the baggage claim, laptop clutched in one hand, the other hand clasped tightly in Joan’s. Zoey knew her family was anxiously waiting outside and that Joan had a connection to send her back across the Atlantic to London leaving soon.

But neither of them wanted to move.

“So…” Joan echoed, trying to smile but failing.

“So, you’ll call?” Zoey asked.

Joan squeezed her hand. “As soon as I get back.”

She leaned forward and pecked Zoey on the lips. Despite the hours of frantic making out they’d done on the plane and the drunken kiss at the Legion, it felt like their first kiss.

Joan smiled one last time and let go of Zoey’s hand.

And then Zoey was all alone.

***

Joan’s flight back to London passed like a dream. Since she’d been hastily rescheduled onto this flight (having missed her original days ago), she was stuck in Economy. And despite the fact that there were literally only six other people on the plane, she still was not permitted to move up to first class. But she hardly cared.

When she finally opened the door to her flat, she swore it had all been a dream.

Her belongings were still exactly as she’d left them, barely any dust to mark the passage of time.

So far away from New York, London bustled about as normal below her window, the fear still internal and existential for now.

But as she unpacked, Joan found the camera.

She dropped everything and ran out to find a 24-hour photo developer.

Within two hours, she held living proof that it wasn’t a dream.

Zoey, standing on the edge of the Dover Fault, her red hair flying in the ocean wind, her smile soft but fondly directed towards the lens.

Joan stroked the print, tears forming in the corner of her eyes.

The flat was so empty.

***

“Hi.”

“Hey”

“How are you?”

“Good…my advisor says if I can finish my report by the end of November, I can graduate as planned.”

“That’s great!”

Zoey paused, unsure what else to say. She would call just before bed, knowing that it was about the time Joan woke up. But life got in the way and the calls had dwindled from a few per week to one per week when they were lucky. And even then, their conversations, which had flowed so effortlessly in person, barely lasted an hour before one of them had to go.

Zoey had found it increasingly difficult to remain optimistic the past few months. Everyone was just so afraid all the time. David had transferred from Manhattan to a California law school, not wanting to be so far away anymore. He’d refused to fly and instead carpooled across the country with his girlfriend Emily. Her parents spoke in hushed voices when they thought she couldn’t hear and her father increasingly watched the news over anything else.

Zoey found herself crying more often and thinking increasingly about how lucky she’d been. But that was always quickly followed by guilt. How dare she celebrate finding Joan and a small bit of happiness in the chaos when so many people were dead?

And while she didn’t feel alone, Zoey still felt unsettled. She’d told her parents about Joan but they still didn’t seem to get it. They hadn’t been in Gander. They hadn’t known the feeling of being stranded and yet feeling at peace amid all the horrors.

“Zoey?” She hadn’t spoken in awhile.

“I…I miss you.” Zoey admitted, her voice small. “I miss Newfoundland. And I know…I know we cant go back but…”

She couldn’t finish her sentence. She couldn’t tell Joan how some nights she slipped out of her dorm room and walked to the pier just so she could close her eyes and imagine she was back in Gander, Joan’s hand in hers as they looked out over the ocean. She couldn’t say just how much she needed Joan here - as she had been at the beginning of this terrifying new world - to be at her side and talk to her, hold her hand and provide comfort in the darkness.

Joan listened intently, unsure if Zoey was crying or just at a loss for words. She wanted so badly to be there. Her life since Gander had been nothing but work. Endless hours at Google and a few spare hours with her lawyer. Her flat was starting to feel stifling.

She dreamed of Gander, of long walks with Zoey, of crashing continents and salty air. She longed for a warm embrace, for soft lips on hers. Her thoughts formed dangerous plans that had her terrified. Suddenly nothing of her old life made sense…and she cared nothing for it.

“J…Joan?”

Joan sighed down the line.

They couldn’t do this. It wasn’t going to work if they were a continent apart.

“Zoey…I’m going to move to San Francisco.” She said it softly, giving those dangerous plans more leverage.

Zoey’s breath caught. “Joan…”

She barreled on. “I applied for a transfer to the main Google office…don’t try to change my mind.” Joan beseeched her, knowing Zoey was about to protest. “The divorce papers are signed, my bags can be packed in a week. I’m coming to you. If you’ll have me.” Her voice was heavy with meaning. The kind of meaning that expected an answer.

Zoey let out a shaky exhale, clutching the phone cord tightly in her hand. “Yes. Yes Joan.”

***

One year later

Joan gazed out over the bands of ancient rock. Now that she was really looking, she could see the bits and pieces that stood out: parts of another that had been left behind during an intimate collision.

“Remember the last time we were here?”

Joan turned to the voice, smiling. “Of course…” She wrapped her arm around the shorter woman, pulling her close as they stared over the Dover Fault. “I never wanted that moment to end.”

Zoey took her hand, finger rubbing the smooth plane of the brand new golden band around Joan’s finger.

“It didn’t.”

Because like the continents, when the world had crashed together in a moment of upheaval, they had found some small, beautiful thing to cherish from the chaos.

#zoey x joan #zoey's extraordinary playlist #come from away #crossover #angst and tragedy #Emotional Hurt/Comfort #the crossover no one asked for #the author is clearly just mashing together two things they very much enjoy and seeing what happens

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noonmutter · 4 years ago

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Personal shiz. Just putting most of it behind a thing in case you don’t wanna read it.

I remember a post that floated around my dash a while ago--a few days, a few weeks, who the hell knows, everything blurs together now--about long absences and how they should be allowed to go unmentioned sometimes as a general rule of friendship. And I thought about it for awhile, but I couldn’t really get behind the sentiment, at least not on its face. Not without some caveats. Taking a hiatus, going away, leaving for a while; these are fine. Absolutely fine. Sometimes you gotta unplug before you go insane. “Ghosting,” on the other hand--disappearing without a word, even through a proxy, without even a minimum of “life is bad, I’ll be back someday”... That sucks. It always sucks. Even if they come back, even if you let it pass, it still sucks. And that feeling is valid, too.

I’ve been online since I was nine years old; I’m 33 now. I am a child of the internet as it was becoming something people did, instead of something people referred to. And something I got used to as I was chatting with friends I’d never met (most of whom I never would meet) was the simple fact that one day, many of them would stop showing up. Sometimes people just completely disappeared. Here today, chatting about video games and common early teenagery bitching about how nobody understands you, gone tomorrow like they never were. Hell, one of the saddest stories/memes/greentext/screenshots-from-4chan/whatever a lot of people ever saw was a guy talking about his buddy on Xbox who would speak in broken English, helping the guy play games and pointing out solutions in Portal 2 coop, and eventually saying ‘bad times friend ahead,’ warning that he might have no computer and no home. Promises he will return. And then his friend never got back online again.

And that’s fair. Life happens; it sure as hell happened to the guy in that story, real or fictional. The internet was not the sum total of one’s life. I know that, you know that; most people know that. That’s sort of transmuted to the opposite in the last few years, and 2020 in particular. The internet is everywhere, in almost everything, all the time now. It’s entirely possible (and in 2020, likely) to spend no time in the physical presence of another human being while still socializing with numerous human beings all day. Hanging out happens online as much as it used to in a park or a restaurant.

For many years I managed to just take the disappearances in stride somehow, it didn’t upset me. Of course, it upset me a bit--obviously, I’d lost someone I considered a friend and that I thought considered me one--but I wasn’t angry or bitter. Just sad. Thinking about it it was probably a very low-key form of grief. I used to get pangs when I’d read log files of old RP from a decade or more ago, coming across names I barely remembered until they were right in front of me, and suddenly my memory worked again for a few minutes while I reminisced to myself. So I made myself get rid of those log files after a few years, and it took a fair bit of weight off me. I still miss those people, but...bad idea to just keep reopening a wound.

At some point in adulthood, though, I stopped being able to just let the disappearance of friends roll off me. I don’t know when that happened; I just know that it did. Nowadays, it is my worst fear that somebody I love talking to, and who hopefully loves talking to me, will just stop, and disappear, and I’ll never know why or what happened. Maybe I develop more real attachments to people these days than I did as a teenager. Maybe that shift from “using the internet” to “being online“ significantly changed how much depth my online relationships have and I care more because there’s more to care about. Maybe I’ve just been burned too many times by the shitty ones, the gaslighters and the stalkers and the wierdoes. I don’t know.

And what bothers me most about this, the lessened ability to just let go and be okay in the silence, is that I have no idea how normal it is to be broken up by it. But I do know it fuckin’ sucks, and I do know that there has to be a limit somewhere. At what point is it no longer being a good friend who’s patiently waiting, and some form of delusion to be sitting back and hoping they’ll pop up again? Am I just missing people I care about, or is this some wierd codependent bullshit that I need to solve on my own?

This ramble has no point. I’m just feeling like shit and missing old friends and needed to write it down.

#personal

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hlvrai-loving · 4 years ago

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Something Lacking

Joshua held his legs as he sat on the grass, silently watching the newly-recovered crow peck at a bowl of raspberries and blueberries. He'd figured it was only fair, giving it something to help it get back on its feet. It was his window the poor thing flew into after all.

"... You know, someone in my class, he used to get a lotta crows at his place..." He spoke softly to the bird, as though it could understand or respond. "I always thought he was pretty lucky, getting all those birds there. I figured they must really like it there, to fly over every day and eat whatever they could find... Must've been a paradise for them..."

The corvid bit back a few more berries, cawing before it went back for more. Joshua sighed, staring up at the cloudy sky. It still felt like it was getting colder, day by day, despite how weather usually was in New Mexico. Even during the winter months, he stood by the fact that it was never this cold before.

"... Anyways, I guess his dad kinda got fed up with them for ruining his lawn or whatever. He set up a bunch of things so they'd fuck off, but... well, they ended up being the neighbors' problem since it was closest to the other house. Neighbors complained to the dad, dad complained back to them. Like, what a big mess for a couple'a birds, am I right?"

The crow stared at him for a few moments, only to caw and flap its wings. Joshie gave a ghost of a smile. "Feeling better? Good enough to fly off yet, lil guy? Heh..." He wouldn't say he was still feeling stressed exactly, not entirely at least, but there was a large part of him that felt... anxious about heading back into his room. About going through more and more messages. About looking through more and more files. About... about finding out things no one should ever know. The words one of the messages spoke seemed to ring through his head endlessly. "Maybe they just stopped existing."

Despite the absurdity of it all, the thought itself sent chills up his spine. Whatever might've happened in that sector all those years ago... was he really ready to see through it all to the end?

Was he really ready for whatever consequences finding the truth might have?

He ran a hand through his hair, taking a deep breath. He was too far in now to give up, wasn't he? If he was going to be watched, tormented, threatened, he might as well make the most of it. Can't be too sure any of it would go back to normal if he suddenly stopped, can he? At least continuing on didn't make all the crap he was going through completely meaningless, right?

"... A lot of problems would be so much easier if I were like you. Could just fly away, maybe to wherever dad is. I'd actually be doing something worthwhile..." The crow stepped over to him as he spoke, eyeing him and letting out a few calls.

Evidently, it was still hungry.

Josh sighed. "I don't have anymore, sorry." The avian bobbed its head a few times, calling out louder and louder, before suddenly running off and taking flight.

"... Hm." He watched it for a bit, pushing himself up to head back inside when it was out of sight.

Josh shut the door of the garage behind him, cringing slightly at how loud it was. After finding the bird dazed and thankfully uninjured, he'd decided it'd need food and energy of some kind to make up for the stress it must've been going through. Seeing as the garage was closer to the kitchen than the front door was, it made sense to him at the time to go through here, even though opening the door to the damn thing probably took the same amount of time it would've taken him just to run through the front and to the kitchen anyways. Would've saved him from having to hear it again, that's for damn sure.

With that done, he turned to head towards the inner door, and that's when he spotted it. On the bottom shelf, nearest to the door, was a metal box, shut tight with a sturdy-looking lock. That... wasn't there before, was it? He's almost positive he would've noticed it before among the rest of the items, it wasn't like this place was used by anyone these days. It didn't even seem to have any dust on it...

Cautiously, Josh reached out and took it. It wasn't particularly heavy, whatever was in it didn't seem to move much when he tilted it. He wasn't exactly dumb enough to try shaking it, whatever's in there could be fragile after all.

"What the hell..." He muttered, looking around the shelves and drawers for a key. Of course, he came up empty. Whatever keys there were in here were old and much less sleek in design than the box itself was. Still, he made sure to try, just in case. Yet, no matter which one he tried, not a single one would fit.

Josh groaned in annoyance, slamming the box back onto the shelf. Another pointless loose end to add to his ever-growing list. Just another pointless item to piss him off when he's already stressed.

However, his anger quickly vanished as he froze, having heard something past the door. It was soft, faint, but repetitive. Footsteps, he realised, and they were getting louder.

The boy's eyes grew wide as he took a quick glance around the room, desperate and trembling as he searched for somewhere to hide. Finally, his eyes settled on a large wooden board propped up against the wall, just the right angle for him to hide behind and still check on whoever entered, hopefully without being seen. As quickly and as quietly as he could, he hid within, figuring he'd take a peek once he was sure they weren't looking.

The door slammed open not even a moment later, causing Josh to silently cower.

He heard them stomp in, rummaging through a toolbox as loudly as they could. Next, they made their way to the center of the room before stopping, perhaps weighing their options. Then, after what felt like an eternity, they spoke.

"... Come on out, fucker! I know you're in here! If you come out now, I'll letcha keep your kneecaps!"

And it was at this moment that Joshua's fears bubbled away into annoyance. You're kidding, he thought, You've gotta be fucking kidding me. It was the absolute furthest possibility from his mind, but his ears couldn't have deceived him. Just to be certain, he took a look.

And there, wielding a large wrench from one of the toolboxes, was Allen. It was nobody but Allen.

"Jesus fucking christ!" The smaller boy exclaimed, exiting his hiding spot. Allen whipped his body towards him as soon as he spoke, the menacing face he wore fading into a jovial smile once he recognized him. "You damn near gave me a heart attack! What the fuck are you doing?!"

"I heard the fuckin, the garage door, loud as shit! I thought somebody broke in!" Allen chuckled. "The fuck you doin' in here?"

"Hiding!" He retorted, "I thought you were-! Wait, why are you in my house?!"

Allen shrugged slightly. "Well, you weren't picking up your phone or answering my texts so I came over to check on you. One of the windows was open so I kindaaa... maybe came in through it?"

Josh gave an incredulous stare. "... You saw I wasn't picking up so you just... broke in?"

"Hey hey hey! It's not breaking in if the window's open, got it? Besides, I made sure to lock it once I was in." The taller boy corrected, the wrench still tightly gripped in his right hand.

"How long have you been in my house for? Were you jus-"

"Look look, you can ask me this later, alright? I came here for two reasons. First was to make sure you weren't, y'know, dead or something. Second was, uh... to ask you something."

He couldn't believe it. His heart was still hammering in his chest, his body still trembling just from this light scare, and what for? Just a question? Just to check in?

But then he noticed. On Allen's back was his schoolbag, seeming full to the brim and holding on with a single strap. His knuckles were scraped, his jeans a mess of dirt and small tears. Al ran a hand through his messy hair, tugging at a few of his crimson streaks, seemingly unconcerned.

"... Man, heh, this is like, wicked embarrassing." The taller teen chuckled, glancing away from Josh. "Could I... y'know, crash at your place for a bit? Not-mom 'n pops are being pretty... eh, unrad right now, so I don't exactly wanna head back while they're still mad, ya feel?"

He didn't know what to respond at first. Sure, this wouldn't be the first time Allen slept at his place, but the circumstances this time, they... They were unfamiliar to him. But, regardless of all that, he found himself fretting over what might happen if he refused. Where Allen might head instead and how he'd feel... He came to Josh first, most likely, and he wasn't close enough with their other friends to ask them for something like this.

Ultimately, it was probably no surprise that, with a gentle smile to his best friend, he said yes.

"Of course, I... I getcha. I'll have to check back in with mom when she returns, but you can stay here until then, alright?"

Allen gave a big smile, his eyes seeming to light up at the confirmation. He pulled Josh into a tight hug, surprising him with the sudden affection. "Thanks. I'll owe it to ya later." Then he pulled away with a playful laugh. "Anyways, let's get the hell outta the garage. Gotta bed to set up, don't we?"

It seemed too sudden, making light of the whole thing as if it were nothing more than a sleepover, but that tended to be how many interactions with Allen went. All Josh could do in response was smile slightly and nod.

"Yeah, you'll have to put that away though. Don't need any rust in my room." He referred to the wrench of course. Al glanced down at it and rolled his eyes.

"Nyeh nyeh, whatever, neerrrd!" He plopped it back into the toolbox with a clang. With that done, he sped over to the door. "Race ya to your room, NERD!"

"Hey! No fair!" Josh called back, chasing after him with a soft laugh.

The locked box on the shelf was already nothing more than a distant memory as he ran.

#jfreeman #joshua freeman #hlvrai joshua #ask joshua freeman #mostly just for my ask blog but i hope you enjoy it anyways #not my best work but itll have to do

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seven-oomen · 4 years ago

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Hi, Ben! Sending this this way because it’ll probably (definitely) be too long for an ask. That whole Venom/TW has me cackling and wishing I’d seen Venom and could visualize it better.

Also totally picturing Peter’s wolf manifesting a la Venom (I see this in a lot of fanart, don’t know how often it happens in the film), and it’s this little black wolf-like creature somewhere between his alpha form and a regular wolf, with glowing blue eyes and a slightly too long panting tongue.

Also, an internal (hopefully) argument: (Peter and Noah talking while waiting to see the mayor.)

Wolf: PEEEETTEEEERRRR… WE WANT THIS ONE PETERRR…

Peter: No, love.

Wolf: BUT HE JUST SMELLS SO GOOD, PETER…

Peter: No, this is neither the time nor the place.

Wolf: JUST ONE LITTLE TASTE, PETER…

Peter: For the last time, not right now!

Wolf: PLEAS-

Peter: NO!!

(How much of this Noah can follow or is confused by is up to you.)

Also, I don’t know the specifics of what drives the lobster scene, but I’m just picturing stuff like Peter randomly grabbing squirrels out of trees to munch on, or wandering into the Sheriff’s station and forcibly climbing into Noah’s lap (he usually remembers to shut the office door at least, and if any of the deputies notice they’re just like “fucking Beacon Hills, man”, so once Noah figures out how to do his paperwork around the wolf in his arms he just rolls with it), or being the one to bring in Erica and Isaac because his wolf was trying to be helpful and “THIS ONE SMELLS SICK, TOO!” (Isaac tries to insist he’s fine, but the wolf just keeps yelling “SADNESS IS ALSO A SICKNESS!”). Having occasional arguments with the wolf that just because Chris and Allison smell vaguely like Kate, it doesn’t mean he can kill them.

Also, if Laura wants to play at being alpha now, I hope she plans on apologizing for abandoning her uncle and leaving him to die instead of taking him along so that they could heal him together and not let him stay trapped in a haze of grief and rage and agony for years. And somebody needs to do that claw ritual thing if only to ask Talia “hey, quick question. What the actual, ever-loving fuck?” re: all the memory stealing.

Anyway, even knowing as little about one of the sources as I do, I second that the idea is hilarious, and has definitely helped distract me from the fact that my phone decided not to charge overnight and was dead as a brick this morning, and the resulting anger issues.

Hope you’re feeling better today! Take care! *Hugs!*

I’m feeling a lot better today pain wise today, it def feels like my body kinda caught up like; wait a second.. we’re not supposed to be doing this anymore. I mean it’s still there just not painful.

As for the Venom thing. GIMME!! I hadn’t considered it physically manifesting like that but that would honestly be really funny. I personally thought of it more as a spectral image of his wolf form that appears and that only he can see.

(Because Venom manifesting can be seen by everyone around Eddie, and I honestly think it’s a lot funnier to have a spectral wolf bugger Peter because that would make him seem more deranged.)

Noah (and the rest of the room, lol) only heard the last NO! and everyone is kinda staring at him at that point so he has to find a quick way to make that seem sense.

Peter: “Don’t try the deviled eggs they’re honestly not that good.”

*Cue an entire room of people eyeing the eggs suspiciously.*

Noah has to hold his laughter because holy shit that was both the worst and best thing he’s ever seen. It’s a good thing he likes this asshole.

The lobster scene in Venom is mostly about Eddie trying to show Anne (his ex) what’s going on. So in this case it would be Peter trying to show Noah or Chris who set the fire and that he has proof and people should listen to him but he’s rattling to something nobody else can see and people think he’s lost his mind. And honestly just so HUNGRY. So he randomly grabs a squirrel out of tree and starts eating it raw/alive.

People are DISTURBED. Especially Stiles/Liam/Allison. And Peter’s just eating and rattling and has pure chaotic energy and someone has to get him to calm down. So either Chris or Deaton or maybe Noah has to come in and get Peter to let go of the squirrel and come back inside for a nap.

For reference this is the scene in venom:

And yes, that is Dan carrying Eddie out in a deleted scene. So imagine Chris, Deaton, or Noah having to do that for Peter.

And oh god I can just imagine all the fucking deputies being like; “Oh hey Hale, yeah door’s open, it’s fucking Beacon Hills, go right in.”

Bahahahaha omg that’s the best.

Noah’s so tired but he’s so used to the snugglewolf, he allows it.

And Laura has sooooo much to atone for but she knows that and I feel like she’d try her best to do so. She knows she fucked up, she knows what she did was horrible. And she tries to atone, she apologizes and tries to be there for Peter now. (I also feel like Laura was like, 17? When the fire occurred. So in a way she was a kid too. It doesn’t excuse her but I also understand her.)

And oooh boy.... Talia will be questioned so much by Peter and her kids. The amount of anger and resentment they share over their mother/sister. They will chew her out in the memories. And when they figure out Jackson and Malia are Hales too, oooooffff. Haven’t decided who their father is in this universe though. A part of me wants to say Chris, because that’s who I usually default to, but it might also be fun to consider Noah?

For extra pain: Talia stole one last memory of Peter and Noah and the birth of their youngest son Theo. For consideration. Don’t know if i’d put that in but if you want to amp up all the drama, there’s a way to do that.

Anyway this ask has me coming up with all sort of wonderful ideas while I wait for the delivery of my Christmas present. (Spiderman Miles Morales). And I thought I’d share before I tackle your other submission. Feel free to add anything or send more asks if you want. <3

Hope your day will go well B!

#B #ben says stuff #peter hale #teen wolf #venom verse #my convos with anon #submission

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paulfwesley · 5 years ago

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Lost and Found - an Ethan Ramsey x MC fanfic

Pairing: Ethan Ramsey x f!MC (Dr. Claire King).

Chapter Rating: T

Word Count: 3000+

Description: Claire’s friends suspect that she’s dating someone and want to know who. They come up with a good plan to try and figure out who.

Disclaimer: Characters, storyline, and parts of the dialogue are taken from Pixelberry’s Choices’ Open Heart. They fully own the characters, dialogue, backgrounds, etc. MC Claire King’s background is my own creation, based off of MC in-game’s personality.

Author’s Note: Hello! This is my first Open Heart and Ethan Ramsey fanfic. This is an Ethan x MC fanfic in the sense that Claire is pursuing Ethan, but it circles mostly around her friends. Please let me know what you think!

Claire feels the chest underneath her head shift, and she groans in protest, turning her face so she’s burying her face in his chest. Ethan runs his hand delicately along her bedraggled blonde hair. “Claire,” he whispers her name.

“No,” she mumbles, snuggling closer to him. The sunlight hits her eyes, and she furrows her brows. She lazily opens her eyes, and the alarm bells go off when she realizes that it’s day. “Oh my God,” she stutters, throwing herself off of Ethan’s chest.

“What’s wrong?” he asks, watching her naked body slip out of the sheets. She leans down and picks up her bra. She slides it on hastily and jumps out of bed.

“I’m not supposed to spend the night,” she says quickly. She searches for her panties on the floor and finds them under the bed. How the hell had they gotten under the bed? Whatever.

“It’s okay, Claire,” Ethan insists. “Really, it’s fine.”

“I know, I know,” Claire says, and she shrugs her panties on and then reaches for her shirt that Ethan had tossed across the room last night. “I just… I can’t be late.”

“I’m sure it’ll be okay,” he assures her. He raises his brows at her. “Something tells me that your attending will be okay with it.”

She winces at the reminder that Ethan is in fact, still just Dr. Ramsey while they’re at the hospital. After winning her trial in regards to Mrs. Martinez, she and Ethan tried being just colleagues. Clearly they failed, but they decided to keep things quiet, at least until she finished her residency. At that point she’ll become a senior fellow and be studying to become an attending, so at least she and Ethan will be on a more even professional level. Hopefully people won’t be so judgy at that point. There’s the little detail that she’s still on his diagnostics team, but hopefully they’ll become one of those power doctor couples, like Derek Shepherd and Meredith Grey.

“It’s not that,” she says, but she’s giving him a cute smile, which he mirrors at the sight of hers. “I didn’t come home last night. I always come home before my roommates wake up.” She walks over to his side of the bed (she still feels a tingle in her stomach when she refers to Ethan’s bed as having sides, because that implies that she has a claim over half of his bed) and looks for her jeans. “Shit, where are my pants?”

“I think you lost them somewhere in the living room,” he answers, pointing to the doorway. “Why is it so important to go home before your roommates wake up?”

“Because they don’t know that we’re together,” she explains. She runs out of the room and finds her pants on the couch where Ethan had taken them off. She grabs them and starts pulling them on as she runs back to Ethan’s room. He’s still lying in bed, all naked and sexy and sleep-tousled. All she wants to do is crawl into bed next to him and pick off where they left off last night, but she’ll be really late. “And they can’t know that we’re together.” She hopes on one foot as she puts her legs through the holes. “If I come home in broad daylight, they’ll ask questions. More and more until I cave and answer and then this?” She gestures between the two of them. “Will be done. And I can’t let this be done.” She buttons her jeans. Claire grabs her watch off of the side table. “Shit, I can’t make it back home in time to change my clothes.” She slides the watch onto her wrist. “I’ll just change into my scrubs at the hospital.”

Ethan grabs her wrist and pulls him to his chest. Claire protests but she’s giggling as he drops open mouth kisses to her throat. “You don’t have to go anywhere,” he murmurs against her skin. “You can stay right here. I can put in a good word for you with your boss.”

He moves lower down her chest, his lips hot and hard. Claire tips her head back and lets out a moan. She dips her head and kisses him, long and hard. Over and over again. Ethan’s fingers creep up her shirt and he’s about to pull it off, but Claire comes back to her senses. She laughs and pulls away from him, moving his hand away from her shirt. “I really have to go.” She kisses him one last time before finally tearing away from him. She pats his cheek. “I’ll see you at the hospital.”

***

“Five, four, three, two, one!” Elijah says, pointing to the doorway.

“Elijah, you’ve done that four times now,” Jackie points out, pulling a banana out of her locker. “She’s not going to walk through that door before rounds start.”

“You don’t know that!” Elijah protests. He wheels over to Sienna. “She could be walking through the hospital right now.”

“I’m telling you, it’s gonna be the walk of shame.” Bryce pulls his scrub top on. “Claire is never late to work. I bet you it’s because she got lucky last night.”

“You know, she has been acting weird lately,” Sienna says from her spot on the bench. “Maybe she is seeing someone.”

“‘Seeing someone’ isn’t the phrase I used,” Bryce points out. He bends down to tie his shoelace.

Jackie frowns at him. “What are you even doing here, scalpel jockey? This part of the hospital is reserved for those who can talk to their patients for longer than the five minutes before they’re put under anesthesia.”

Bryce gives her an unimpressed look. “I’m here to enjoy the Walk of Shame: Claire King edition, just like the rest of you.”

“So what if she’s seeing someone and having sex with them?” Sienna wonders. “There’s nothing wrong with that. She’s an adult. If anything as her friends we should be happy and supportive.”

“We’re not saying that, Sienna,” Bryce says. He leans against the locker beside Jackie. “I’m just saying that she’s clearly dating someone that she doesn’t want us to know.”

“What makes you say that?” Elijah asks.

“If she didn’t have a problem with us knowing who she’s dating, she’d tell us,” Bryce points out. “The fact that she’s not, that she’s sneaking around, coming home late, being late for work, means she doesn’t want us to know who it is.”

“So you think she’s having scandalous sex?” Jackie wonders. “Maybe it’s a gynie.”

Bryce scoffs. “Please, Claire has more standards than to resign herself to someone from the vagina squad.”

“Well then who could it be?” Elijah wonders.

Bryce’s brow is furrowed, then his eyes light up and he claps his hands. “All right, first person who finds out who Claire’s dating gets fifty bucks from the rest of us.”

“Fifty bucks, huh?” Jackie rubs her chin, then nods. “What the hell? I’m in.”

“Me too!” Sienna says. “It’ll be fun to get Claire to open up to one of us.”

“Fifty bucks is fifty bucks,” Elijah says. He cracks his knuckles. “You’re all about to fifty bucks poorer.”

“So we’re on?” Bryce clarifies.

“We’re on,” they all chorus, and just in time too, because Claire comes barreling through into the locker room. Her blue eyes are wide and wild and her hair is sticking up in different directions, and from the looks of it she’s still wearing her clothes from the previous day. Her friends all swallow their knowing smiles and turn away as she screeches to a stop in front of her locker.

“Have Zaid and Ines showed up yet?” She asks hastily. She pulls her top over her head and tosses it into the locker, then grabs her scrub top.

“No, you’re good,” Jackie answers. She crosses her arms over her chest and looks over to her roommates, who are all staring at Claire. Jackie clears her throat and asks, “So where were you last night?”

Claire pauses for a second but then she resumes pulling her pants on. “I was out late.”

“So late you didn’t come home?” Elijah asks.

“I came home,” she lies swiftly. She grabs her lab coat and pulls it on. She takes her stethoscope out of her pocket and wraps it around her neck. She lets out a low growl of frustration as she shifts things around in her locker. “Where the hell is it?”

“Where the hell is what?” Bryce wonders.

“My blue scrunchie,” Claire answers. She looks over her shoulder at her friends. They’re all staring at her strangely, but she ignores it. “My favourite blue scrunchie? I always wear it. It’s the only thing that can keep my hair out of my face properly.”

“Sorry, don’t know,” Sienna replies with a raise of her shoulder.

“Damn it,” Claire curses. She peeks into her locker again, but their pages all go off.

“Incoming trauma,” Elijah says what all their pagers say. He tucks his back into his pocket. “Let’s go.”

***

Most of the incoming traumas are surgical cases resulting from a multiple car pile up, so the diagnostic interns let the surgical intern take the patients. Instead the rest of them check on the patients whose injuries aren’t surgical, who need stitches or bump checks or concussion exams. By the time they’re done, Claire heads to a quiet hall and slumps against the wall, dropping down to sit.

After a minute or so Elijah appears, stopping his wheelchair in front of Claire. “That was a doozy, huh?”

“Yeah,” Claire mumbles. Her stomach growls, and she rubs at the gnawing pain. She missed her breakfast and a quick glance down at her watch shows it to be almost eleven.

“So are you dating somebody?” Elijah asks bluntly.

Claire blinks at him. Several alarm bells are going off in her head. Does he know? Does he know somehow? She and Ethan have been so careful! “What?”

“You just… you didn’t come home last night,” Elijah replies sheepishly. He figured that a direct approach would be the best one, but judging on the offended look on Claire’s face she doesn’t appreciate it. “And I know you’re lying, because I spent the night passed out on the couch after reading a medical journal. I didn’t hear anyone come in or out.”

“So the only conclusion is that I’m sleeping with someone?” she asks. “What if I went to go visit a friend?”

Elijah gives her a look. “Claire, you practically live at this hospital. You don’t have any other friends.”

“Ow,” she says, holding out her hands in offence. “That may be true but no need to just put it out there like that.”

“Sorry,” Elijah mumbles. “Are you, though?”

Before Claire can think of an excuse to give him, her pager beeps. She lifts it to her face to see that it’s in fact her boyfriend Ethan Ramsey paging her. She pushes herself off of the ground. “Gotta go, Dr. Ramsey’s paging me.”

“Oh, okay,” Elijah says as she walks around him. He turns his wheelchair around. “Hey, maybe we can continue this talk-”

But Claire’s already gone, lost in the sea of other medical practitioners down the hall.

“Later.”

Damn. He’s going to be fifty bucks poorer, huh?

***

Ethan had paged her to debrief her on a new case (and okay, to sneak a few kisses here and there in his private office) but once they’re done Claire decides to get some lunch before afternoon rounds. She missed breakfast because she slept over at Ethan’s and then didn’t have the time to grab anything. It’s been a year but she’s still not one hundred percent behind the hospital food, but she has no choice. She stands in line and grabs a sandwich, a salad, and an apple. She pays for her meal and then collapsing at a table.

Claire’s about to dig in when Sienna slides in the seat next to her. “Hello, sunshine!” she greets brightly.

Claire holds up a finger. “Wait.” She picks up her sandwich and takes a large bite. She chews and then swallows, then nods and turns to her friend. “Okay, now I can talk.”

Sienna giggles, picking up her own fork. “Hungry today, are we?”

“Starving.” She takes another bite. “I didn’t have breakfast this morning.”

Sienna perks up. Perfect segway. She twirls her fork around in her hand a couple of times and asks, “Why not?”

Claire freezes momentarily but recovers quickly and takes a sip of her water. “Running late for rounds. Just didn’t have the time.”

“Why were you running late?” she asks. She scoots her chair closer to Claire, and Claire frowns and pulls away from Sienna a bit.

She looks Sienna up and down. “Personal space, please?”

Sienna pouts but moves away from Claire. “Okay, will you answer me now?”

“I was just caught in traffic,” Claire lies quickly. She picks up her fork and jabs at her salad. “Nothing else.”

“Really?” Sienna whispers. She leans close to Claire again. “You can tell me, you know.”

Claire, intrigued, also leans forward a bit. “Tell you what?”

“If you’re seeing someone!”

Claire drops her fork in surprise. “What?”

“I’ve been wondering for a while now. If you’ve been seeing someone. You’ve been a lot happier than you’ve been in a while. I was just wondering who.”

Was she and Ethan really that bad at hiding their relationship? Maybe not, because as far as she knows it’s only Claire that’s being asked about her relationship status.

She opens her mouth to try and come up with a good lie when someone slams a tray down next to them. Both she and Sienna jump in surprise, and then look up to see Ines and Zaid sitting down at their table.

“Claire! Sienna! Mind if we join you?” Ines asks, already scooting her chair into the table.

“For the record I wanted to sit elsewhere,” Zaid volunteers without anyone asking. He picks up his spoon and picks up some soup, slurping on it gently.

Ines swats his shoulder. “Zaid, manners!” she scolds, but she turns back to Claire and Sienna. “Anyways, I wanted an update on your patient in room 324.”

Claire lets out a relieved sigh and dives into the information on Kelly Long, the patient in room 324. She’d dodged yet another bullet.

***

After lunch are the afternoon rounds, and Claire has hers with Jackie which frankly she’s relieved about. After her stressful trauma morning and then Elijah and Sienna hinting that they may know that she’s dating Ethan, she’s glad to have Jackie by her side, who never pries into her personal life.

They’re walking side by side, charts in their arms, when all of a sudden Jackie asks, “Do you think Bryce is hot?”

Claire fumbles with the files in her arms in surprise. “Why? Are you interested in him?”

“What?” Jackie scoffs. “God no. Too much penis for me.”

Claire chuckles. “Then why are you asking?”

“I’m asking for you,” Jackie clarifies, and Claire’s face drops. “Do you think he’s hot?”

“Did Bryce ask you to ask me that?” Claire wonders. Her stomach squeezes at the thought. Sure, she made out with Bryce her first day as an intern, but after that the two had become good friends, and then she fell for Ethan and made sure Bryce knew that what they had between them was strictly platonic. Or so she thought.

“Oh, no,” Jackie backsteps.

Claire sighs in relief. “Good. Bryce and I are just friends.”

“Good to know,” Jackie says with a smirk. “I can cross him off, then.”

“Cross him off what?”

“The list that I made about who you’re hooking up with,” Jackie answers.

Claire whips her head to look at her in surprise. “Excu-” she starts, but she’s cut off by the sound of her smacking right into wall. She drops all the charts in her hands, and the papers fly out everywhere. Her nose gushes blood, and she pinches it to keep more from coming out.

Jackie makes a face. “Ooh, that’s got to hurt.”

Claire stares at Jackie in disbelief and lets out a tiny groan of pain.

***

Claire winces as Bryce pulls on a pair of gloves. “Come on it’s not that bad, you big baby,” he says with an eye roll. He grabs the forceps in the kit next to him, and then uses it to pick up a piece of gauze.

“Is it broken?” She asks. She really doesn’t want to go home to Ethan with a broken nose. Having a broken nose would really deter the hot sex she’s anticipating tonight. Broken noses are not sexy.

“I don’t think so.” He blots at the blood around her nose. “The blood’s already stopped, so it’s probably just bruised.”

“Thank you, doctor,” she says with a silly grin, but that grin contorts as he dabs at a particularly sensitive part. “Ow.”

“Sorry,” he says. He pauses to move some hair strands out of her face.

She groans and tucks her hair around her ears. “Sorry. I can’t find my damn scrunchie.”

“Did you check the lost and found?”

“No, but I should.” She winces again when he wipes under her nose. “Ow!”

“Sorry!” Bryce says again. “How’d this happen, anyways?”

“Ran into a wall while talking to Jackie,” she replies. “I was surprised by what she said, and I wasn’t paying attention, so I ran into the wall.”

“Surprised by what she said?” Bryce repeats, and his mind goes to the bet that he and his roommates made earlier in the day. Damn it. Jackie was at least getting somewhere if Claire was so surprised by what she said she ran into a damn wall.

“She asked me a question,” Claire clarifies. “I wasn’t expecting it. Ergo, nose bleed.”

He drops the forceps and used gauze into the metal bin. “Okay, so I don’t think you need an x-ray. There was minimal blood and minimal bruising, so I think you’re good.”

“Great,” Claire says. She hops off of the exam table. “I’m going to go get a pain meds prescription.”

She heads towards the door, and Bryce realizes that this may be his only opportunity to find out who she’s dating. So he blurts out, “Wanna have sex?”

Claire pauses with her hand on the door. She looks over her shoulder at Bryce. “Excuse me?”

He nods around at the empty exam room. “There’s nobody in here, will probably be no one in here for a while.” He looks behind him at the exam table and gestures to it. “There’s a bed.” He looks back over at Claire. “Wanna have sex?”

Claire furrows her brows at him. “Bryce, I’m gonna say this as nicely as possible.” She turns to face him and puts her hands in her pockets. “I’m not interested. I only like you as a friend.”

“And you’re seeing someone,” Bryce adds.

“And I’m seeing someone,” Claire nods, and she realizes the mistake she’s made. Her eyes widen and her hand flies to her mouth.

“Ah hah!” Bryce points to her with his finger. “Who are you sleeping with?”

She drops her hand from her mouth. “So not your business!” She opens the door and storms out, shutting the door behind her.

Stupid! Stupid! She thinks to herself as she strides down the hall. She was so close to accidentally revealing her relationship with Ethan. Multiple times! In one day. Ugh, she never should’ve been late for work this morning. That was the last time she stays over at Ethan’s.

And she still misses her scrunchie.

***

It’s the end of the day, and all of the interns are hanging out on the stairs by the nurse’s station. Claire is standing at the nurses station, scribbling something down in a chart. She looks up at her group of friends, then turns her nose up and looks away from them.

“I guess we deserve that,” Bryce says, leaning against the rail.

“You’re not the one who accidentally made her break her nose,” Jackie mumbles, sipping from a juice box she stole from a patient’s tray.

“So did anybody end up finding out?” Sienna asks.

“I didn’t get anywhere,” Elijah says. “You?”

They all shake their heads. “I really thought I’d get her to open up,” Sienna says. “We’re dolphins!”

“I don’t know what that means, but it would’ve been nice to have something to tease her about,” Bryce says. “I wonder who it is, though.”

Claire peers up at her friends sitting at the bottom of the staircase. She shakes her head at them and hands the chart to the nurse. She pockets her pen and then stalks over to them. “I don’t know what got into everyone today,” Claire starts. “But my personal life is off limits to you guys. You’re all my people, my family,” she continues. “But that doesn’t mean I have to tell you all the details of what or who,” she gives them all a pointed look. “I do in my private time.” She crosses her arms over her chest. “I love you all. But what I’ve got going on with this person is fragile and new and I don’t want to mess it up or jinx it. So please.” She clasps her hands in a prayer position. “If any of you care about me like I hope you do, you’ll keep your noses in your own business. Are we clear?”

A wave of shame crosses the face of her roommates in turn. They all shift uncomfortably but eventually nod.

“Good,” she says.

Just then, Dr. Ramsey passes by the group. He nods at them all as he does, coming to a stop next to Claire. “What’s going on?”

“Nothing,” they all chorus.

“Nothing? Really?” he repeats. He glares at them all, including Claire, but she knows that his annoyance at her is just for show-mostly. “This is a hospital. There is always something going on. And if there’s not, then why are you hanging around here, on the stairs?” He waves at them and then places his hand in his pocket. “Go!”

They all scramble to their feet, and Claire moves to follow her friends. Claire looks over her shoulder at Ethan, just in time to see him bring his hand out of his pocket, holding…

Her eyes widen to the size of saucers and her eyes shoot up to her forehead. “The hell?” Ethan says as he examines what’s in his hand.

Bryce, Jackie, Sienna, and Elijah all also turn to see what’s got Dr. Ramsey so perplexed, and their jaws all drop comically at the same time at the sight.

Ethan shakes his head and holds the thing out to Claire. “King, drop whatever this is off to lost and found on your way home.”

Claire swallows back her dread as she takes her blue scrunchie out of Ethan’s hand. Now that it’s back in her hand, the memory of where it went floods her mind. She and Ethan had been fooling around in a supply closet, and he pulled her scrunchie out of her hair to run his fingers through it. She’d thought it was so hot, and then she reattached her lips to his. “Of course, Dr. Ramsey,” She stammers.

He smiles at her and pats her on the arm before walking down the hall. Slowly, Claire turns around to face her friends, the dread and horror unable to leave her face.

They’re all staring at her with a look she’s sure she has on her face right now, but they’ve also got confusion mixed with it.

They all stand there for one minute. Then two. Then three.

Finally, Bryce opens his mouth. “So who’s getting the fifty bucks?”

#choices #choices: stories you play #playchoices #pixelberry choices #choices: open heart #open heart #choices fanfiction #choices fanfic #open heart fanfiction #open heart fanfic #ethan ramsey #dr ethan ramsey #ethan ramsey x mc #ethan x mc #myfanfics #alinasfanfics

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ahyperactivehero · 5 years ago

Note

Aaah! So many great prompts!!! I wanna ask them all! But I'll chose just one right now. How about 70 (for ineffable husbands of course)

Hoooo boy thank you so much for the prompt request! hopefully this will do it justice!

70. “After everything we’ve been through, you still don’t think that I love you?”

It had been such a normal night, really. Wine, food, long discussions of playwrights who had long since passed on and far too many movie references that went right over Aziraphale’s head.

“So you’ve seriously never watched James Bond?” Crowley asked, sounding far more scanalized than any demon had a right to sound. “Seriously?”

Aziraphale shrugged. “I read one of the books-”

Before he could even finish his sentence, he’d been cut off by a long, drawn out groan from Crowley.

“That’s not the same thing! I love you, angel, but we really need to get you up to date with today’s media.”

Aziraphale froze, staring at Crowley in shock. Crowley, meanwhile, seemed to not even have noticed what he said, instead gearing up for another long rant about whatever movie it was that Aziraphale must see.

It shouldn’t be strange for friends, especially friends who’d known each other as long as they had, to say they love each other. And maybe to other people, it wasn’t. But neither one of them even regularly acknowledged their feelings of friendship for each other, much less something as deep as love.

It was Aziraphale’s turn to cut Crowley off now.

“I love you,” Aziraphale said. He could feel his face heat up, feel the still semi-shocked expression and smile that was slowly forming on his lips as he watched Crowley for a reaction.

The reaction had been almost instantaneous.He froze, his rant about how cool James Bond was long forgotten.

“You don’t love me,” Crowley said, his words bitter and harsh. It was strange to hear that tone coming from Crowley, who was usually rather optimistic for a demon (or for anyone, for that matter, no matter how much he denied it).

Aziraphale blinked at him, clearly trying to process his words. “What do you mean?” he asked.

A bitter laugh fell from Crowley’s lips as he leaned back into the couch, his eyes completely obscured by those blasted sunglasses. “Exactly what I said. You don’t love me. You can’t.”

Frustration rolled off of Aziraphale in waves. “Now listen,” he said, pushing himself up out of the chair he was sitting in. His wine glass wobbled, threatening to spill red wine all over some of his books that were stacked there, but a quick miracle prevented it from happening. He couldn’t even tell if it was from him or Crowley.

“What on Earth would make you think that I couldn’t love you?” Aziraphale asked. He leaned forward, hoping that a different angle might allow him to peek behind Crowley’s glasses, but he had no such luck.

Crowley seemed hesitant to answer. He let his head dangle over the back of the couch, and his neck seemed long and almost broken at the strange angle. Flashes from the Garden came to Aziraphale, just the quick glimpses he’d managed to catch of Crowley in his snake form before he’d introduced himself to Aziraphale.

“Dunno,” he said, though his tone seemed to imply otherwise.

“After everything we’ve been through, you still don’t think that I love you?” Aziraphale asked softly.

Crowley stiffened and lifted his head back up to look at Aziraphale. He didn’t seem to be angry or hurt or anything else just sort of… empty.

“I know you care about me,” Crowley said carefully. “You would’ve smitted- smote- whatevered me long ago if you didn’t.” He picked at the black nail polish on his fingers, just to give his hands something to do and his eyes somewhere else to look other than Aziraphale. “But that’s not the same thing as love.”

Aziraphale knew that he had been less than kind to Crowley during different parts of their relationship over the years (what, with pointing out the fact that he was a demon with a startling amount of regularity), but he’d had his reasons for doing so. Part of him had done it because he’d believed that that was the way it was supposed to be, different sides, mortal enemies all that, while another part of him had believed that he would be saving Crowley if he’d done it. No one in Hell could accuse him of anything if Aziraphale made sure that both of them could keep up appearances.

But still, to hear that Crowley didn’t even believe that Aziraphale could possibly love him hurt him far more than he would care to mention.

They’d left Eden together, witnessed civilizations rise and fall, sailed the high seas for each other with pirates, and just recently, discovered that they’d lost the antichrist, found him, stared down Death and the literal Devil, evaded Heaven and Hell, and started the rest of their lives together.

Didn’t any of those things mean something to him?

His hands reached out to grab Crowley’s, to wrap them within his own so that he could squeeze them tight and hopefully make the idiot understand.

“Crowley-” he said, his voice cutting off about halfway through his name. “I love you. I have loved you. I will always love you.” His thumb ran across the back of Crowley’s hand, tight circles that he used to try and convey all of his words to the demon. “I’m sorry if I ever made you feel like I didn’t or that I couldn’t possibly. Because it’s you. It’s only you, and it’s only ever been you.”

Watching Crowley absorb his words was a bit like watching a computer buffer on the slowest internet settings possible. Eventually, his brain seemed to catch up with everything else, and he leaned his head forward to rest it on top of their intertwined hands.

“When did you realize?” Crowley asked, his voice cracking. Aziraphale could tell that he was crying, or at least near tears, but he didn’t call him out on it.

“I think I realized it somewhere during the eighteenth century,” Aziraphale said. “I was so scared to lose you after you mentioned wanting Holy Water and I think that’s what fully made me realize it.” He squeezed Crowley’s hands again, feeling his own face began to heat up. “Do you remember that night in the church? With the Nazis?”

Crowley snorted, a wet sounding snort that spoke of tears. “Yeah, how could I forget? Your dumbass almost got us both discorporated.”

Aziraphale sniffed and turned his nose up just a bit. “I’m not the one who dropped a bomb on us, my dear.”

“If I hadn’t, we would’ve died either way.”

“Even so!” Aziraphale said, bringing the conversation back around. “That was the night that I realized you might actually love me back. Or that you at least cared for me far beyond what I had always assumed you did.”

“For Somebody’s sake, why’re we such idiots?” Crowley asked, lifting his head up so he could meet Aziraphale’s eyes.

Aziraphale, finally having enough of not being able to see Crowley’s eyes, reached over and gently took his glasses off. His yellow snake eyes stared back at Aziraphale, tears still falling from them as a small laugh came from him.

He’d planned to answer Crowley, really he had, had thought up a million and one ways to say they weren’t stupid or anything, but all thoughts immediately went out the window as he stared at Crowley.

Without even planning to, he leaned forward, his lips coming to rest gently against Crowley’s. It was soft, so light that he wasn’t even sure that he was actually kissing him at first, until Crowley reached over and pulled him in closer.

He couldn’t stop the smile from spreading across his face when they broke apart, and from the look on Crowley’s face neither could he.

“I love you,” Aziraphale said, putting as much love and adoration into those three words as he possibly could.

“I love you, too, angel.”

And they came together again, their lips pressing close as the night went on. Later, Crowley will remember what he had been trying to say about James Bond and Aziraphale will lean over, and kiss him just to distract him again. And it will work.

#jekkiefan #good omens #good omens fanfiction #good omens fan fic #ineffable husbands #my fics #storm writes

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blackleatherjacketz · 6 years ago

Text

My Brother’s Keeper: Chapter 5

Negan x Reader

Summary: Your brother runs away from the Sanctuary and you pay the price.

Warnings: Prude-shaming, Slut-shaming, Sibling rivalry, Mentions of sex, Hot coffee, Spot the Hamilton reference, Angst, Anger, Fear, All that good stuff!

Read the rest of the story HERE!

Tags: @rasa1945 @annablack1102 @genevievedarcygranger @letsby @negans-network @negansdirtygirll @collette04 @mblaqgi @flames-bring-a-ton-of-ash @irrelevantwriter

“How long have you known?” The truth of your sister’s knowledge stung like a freshly open wound even though it didn’t surprise you. She’d always been the most secretive, the most manipulative, the most controlling of your siblings. You looked Natalie in the eye, her hazel irises expanding as she avoided your stare.

“A week or so,” she finally admitted.

“Natalie, you should have told me,” you paused in disbelief at your sister’s treachery. “Negan has scouts from here to Timbuktu watching the roads to the other communities. Did you think about that?” You walked past your father who couldn’t stop staring at the goodbye note Alex had written him, speechless on his bunk.

“And risked you blabbing your mouth to Doctor Carson or anyone else who walked into the infirmary?” She rose her eyebrows accusingly. “I don’t think so.”

“I don’t blab my mouth!” You defended, folding your arms across your chest.

“No, but you’re a bad liar, and so is dad. I couldn’t risk telling either of you.” She pointed to him.

“Hey!” He interjected, looking up from the letter. “I can keep a secret!”

You both pursed your lips, rolling your eyes as you remembered all the times he verbalized his innermost thoughts at the most inappropriate times.

“Alright, I’ll give you dad, but why didn’t you go just with them? Why are you still here? You hate it here.” You took a few steps forward, leaving only a foot of space between you.

“Somebody had to take care of him.” She nodded toward your father. “You’re already maxed out on points with your job, so I thought that when Negan found out they’d escaped he’d want…” her eyes darted over you nervously. “I thought that he’d want more from us.”

“And you thought that he’d want you, huh?” You swallowed hard, her confidence never ceasing to amaze you.

“Well yeah, I mean, what else could I do? I majored in cosmetology, I can’t…” she glanced around the room frantically, “Fix people when they’re hurt or build structures for the Sanctuary. I’m not like you and dad, okay?”

“So you were just going to… what? Fuck your way out of this like you fuck your way out of everything else?” Years of resentment began to manifest itself as anger, fanning a flame that burnt hot on your cheeks as your words became more candid.

“Looks like you beat me to it.” She tilted her head, glancing at your fresh bruises. “I was surprised you even remembered how to spread your legs at all.”

Your mouth fell open as your sister’s words hit the air, cutting you deep.

“Okay,” you started, putting a cautionary hand in the air, “It wasn’t even like that, and just so you know, I’ve spread my legs plenty.”

“Oh yeah? And how long ago was that?” Her eyes widened in judgement. “Negan needs someone with experience, not someone like you.”

“At least I haven’t slept with half the sanctuary already!” You couldn’t believe you were being prude-shamed by your own flesh and blood. “And just so you know, I’ve been focused on my career, doing my part to keep the whole family be safe, not trying to get my rocks off every chance I get!”

“That’s what I’m trying to do!” She screamed desperately, her jugular vein distending in her neck. “We can’t risk you getting overwhelmed with intimacy like you ALWAYS do. If anyone was made for this, it was me.” She clenched her jaw as she stared you down, her expression as dire as her words. “This is life or death, and we can’t mess this up.”

“Girls,” your father interjected, standing up. “Your mother’s out there with your brother somewhere. The last thing she’d want you to do is fight.”

“We’re not fighting, we’re having a conversation,” you whispered through gritted teeth. Those very words were often uttered by your mother after hours of screaming between them while you and your siblings huddled together at the top of the stairs.

He gave you a knowing glance and continued, “This has to stop.” He folded the piece of paper in half, in fourths, then in eighths before putting it in that tiny little pocket in the front of his jeans. “Negan made his choice, and we have to honor that.”

“I will if she does,” Natalie hissed.

“Alright,” you smirked, exposing both palms. “I’ll see you guys later.”

——————-

You tried your best to distract yourself, to put that horrid conversation in the back of your mind as you opened the latest novel Alex had lent you: Clear and Present Danger. Jesus, that sounded a little too close to home, didn’t it? You soldiered through the first few pages, not being able to focus on the words in front of you at all. You felt yourself reading the same sentence three times over before actually registering what it was trying to say. Nothing against Tom Clancy, but you just weren’t in the mood to read.

God, you missed movies.

Instead you decided to get some air, to change the scenery of these bland concrete walls to help improve your mood. You pushed into the heavy metal door at the end of the hallway, its hinges squeaking loudly against the rusted metal of the frame as you walked through the threshold and into the wet summer heat. The hum from the electric light in the corner of the building mixed with with the buzz of batted wings as moths and mosquitoes battled for dominance in an ambient summer chorus. At least these bugs would bite and suck your blood without judgement.

You let the door slam shut behind you, hearing it catch on the cinder block that kept it open for whoever else was out here. You were hoping to be alone for a few minutes but with the Sanctuary’s security protocols, the likelihood of that was very slim. Whoever was out here would be light years better company than your sister or that book.

“The hell are you doing out here?” The female Savior turned to face you, her M-16 at the ready. Oh thank God, it was only Laura.

“Can’t sleep,” you confessed, feigning to raise your hands in surrender.

“You never have trouble sleeping.” She loosened the grip on her weapon, letting go of it completely to let it hang by the strap on her shoulders. “You wanna talk about it?” She jested, turning away before you could even answer.

“Not really,” you whispered.

One of the perks of being a nurse at the Sanctuary was earning the inherent trust of most of its residents. Workers and Saviors alike all came to you and Doctor Carson in their times of need, putting their lives and comfort in your hands. Laura was one of those people about a year ago, getting shot in the stomach by a vagrant traveler when she hobbled into the infirmary covered in blood.

You remembered stitching her up while Doctor Carson was busy with an amputation next door, feeding her antibiotics and a few extra painkillers when no one else was looking. Ever since then she’d always looked out for you, grabbing extra medical supplies and candy when she went out on runs. She even went as far as bringing you a new stethoscope one time. You guessed she was the closest thing you had to a friend in the apocalypse.

“Good.” She walked over to the picnic table and picked up a thermos full of piping hot coffee. Despite the sticky heat that surrounded you both, she pursed her lips around the metal lid, blowing on the black liquid to cool it down. Taking a tentative sip, she smiled as the jolt of caffeine rushed through her veins, offering some to you in return.

You took the gift from your friend, hoping it would keep you awake long enough to avoid your bed until your sister’s words left your memory. ‘I’m surprised you remembered how to spread your legs at all’ … unbelievable! The coffee was bitter, and no help in washing away those awfully fresh memories. Maybe what you needed was a stronger drink, something with alcohol in it.

“Simon said he couldn’t find your family at Hilltop; they just got back.” Laura took her thermos back from you, sipping again before placing it gently on the picnic table.

“Thanks,” you replied somberly, knowing of only one other community they could be at. “Hopefully they find them soon.” You lied through your teeth, even to Laura whose kindness set her apart from the rest of the Saviors. You’d take your peace of mind any way you could get it.

“Negan will probably search The Kingdom tomorrow. He sounded pretty pissed that Simon didn’t bring them back tonight.” She leaned her back against the table.

“Yeah, I figured he would go there first,” you whispered, hoping he was miles away from any community Negan had on his radar.

Negan… Negan… oh shit, didn’t he say he was going to stop by tonight? Shouldn’t you be in your apartment graciously waiting for him to come over and…

“You should try to get some rest,” Laura interrupted your thoughts. “He’ll want you on your A-Game tomorrow.”

#negan #laura twd #negan x reader #negan fan fiction #the walking dead #twd fan fiction #negan's thirst squad

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arotechno · 6 years ago

Text

The Origins of Aspec Discourse: History and Reflection

Disclaimer: If you’re an exclusionist, just block me. Don’t reblog this post or come into my inbox with your unwarranted opinion, because I will just block you instantly. This is an intracommunity post so aspecs can know our own history, and it is not about you or what you have to say about aspec people. We are beyond the point of civil discussion.

Disclaimer 2: I’m an aro blog but my asexuality is really going to come through on this post more than anything. I don’t have much info here about aros specifically. Given the amount of aro erasure that exists, this should not be a surprise.

On the Arocalypse server, we’ve been having a lot of discussions lately about the discourse, its origins, and its implications. As someone who found the aspec community before the discourse started and watched it tear my community--and myself--apart over the last few years, I feel the need to put all of these puzzle pieces together so that we, as a community, can know where we’ve been, and hopefully determine where it is we’re headed.

History and Origins of the Discourse

Because of the way tumblr’s search function works or has worked in the past, it is difficult to pinpoint the exact origin of the discourse. The earliest usage of the tag that tumblr will show me comes from 2014, and the post in question (which I will not link as I do not have the OP’s permission; you can find it yourself if you’re that curious) alludes to intracommunity discussion, nothing about the discourse as it is referred to today. The earliest instance of that comes from 2015, which lines up pretty precisely with my own personal recollection of when things really went to shit.

But it didn’t start then, not even close.

Courtesy of unofficial aspec historian @aphobephobe, here are a few accounts of the history of ace discourse, so I don’t have to restate it all myself (this should go without saying, but warning for aphobia throughout the links below):

(1) How the ace discourse stemmed from and evolved alongside other types of LGBTQ+/queer discourse

(2) A rough timeline/how the discourse escalated on both sides

(3) A history of the terms used to refer to non-aspec people

All of this is speculation, but the spark that truly ignited the first wave of ace discourse as we know it today may have been The Trevor Project’s addition of asexuality to its training materials and the firestorm that erupted from there. Aphobes and TERFs like galesofnovember were outraged that the Project would create suicide hotlines for ace people, and tried to convince them not to. Rightfully, aces and aros were horrified, and that is likely what ignited tensions beyond the existing invalidation and arguing.

Interestingly, I don’t remember seeing any of this in 2013 when I joined tumblr, or in 2014 when I first discovered asexuality and aromanticism. Most of the people who were involved in 2010-2012 era discourse aren’t involved anymore, often due to burnout. The second wave, the one we’re living in right now, is the one I remember kicking off in 2015. This wave was likely sparked by the #GiveItBack campaign. After GLAAD insinuated that the A in the LGBTQ+ acronym stood for ally, aspecs pushed back against this and campaigned for GLAAD to correct its mistake. The organization listened, and this may have been the catalyst for renewed hostility between aspecs and non-aspecs. The rest is history (detailed recollections of how anti-aspec arguments evolved can be found in link 1 above).

Reflection

Over the last four years, I have watched ye olde discourse come back with a vengeance seemingly out of nowhere and take what I knew to be a welcoming community on the rise and eat it for breakfast. We talk about the Aro Renaissance and us coming back from the dead, but the truth is there’s been a target on our backs from the beginning. The arguments have just devolved, worsened in hostility, become circular. While 2010-2012 era discourse reads to me as less organized and less widespread, 2015-present era discourse comes across as the same systematic, formulaic discourse that tumblr is famous for; there is no nuance, and everyone involved is left feeling emptier than they did going in.

That’s not to discount its profound impact, especially on young or questioning aspecs; on the contrary, the discourse seems to have actually worsened over the years. I don’t know when dealing with this became an everyday struggle for aspecs, but no matter how hard we try to pretend we’re pushing through it, it always seems to come back down on us, harder.

The arguments involved in the ace discourse have devolved so much and become so repetitive that all potential for reasonable discussion was thrown out the window ages ago. I don’t mean to imply that the discourse was ever well-intentioned, but in the beginning there could have been some kind of mutual understanding. But those days are long behind us now.

Over time, the discourse has spread beyond tumblr. It isn’t just about tumblr drama anymore, and even the language we use to describe the discourse has changed over time to reflect that. In fact, if tumblr’s search function is to be believed, the earliest usage of #ace discourse wasn’t until 2014-2015. Tumblr has a tendency to wrap these kinds of conflicts up into neat and tidy bows, where someone could ask you for your opinions on x, y, and z discourse and you could be expected to have an answer. In 2015-2016 or so, no one even used the terms exclusionist or inclusionist, at least not as widely as they’re used now. We called people who were arguing against aspecs “ace discoursers”. Now, the exclusionist/inclusionist dichotomy, to me, suggests several things.

(1) The argument has devolved into a never-ending debate over whether or not aspecs, by virtue of being aspec, are part of the LGBTQ+ community. When you ask somebody about ace discourse, that is what they’re going to think of. But that angle destroys all of the nuance and ignores the seven or eight years of baggage that this “debate” carries with it. The discourse has never been just about who’s LGBTQ+ and who’s not. It has roots in prejudices that go so much deeper than that. It’s based in arguments that go so much deeper and get so much nastier than that.

(2) It turns the ace discourse into a piece of identity politics that you can be expected to have a stance on, regardless of your involvement. A lot of aspecs don’t want to come anywhere near the discourse or call ourselves inclusionists because it reduces our struggle to just exist in peace without being mocked, scrutinized, erased, and harassed at every possible moment to an opinion that can be changed if you debate with us enough.

(3) It makes it easier to treat the two sides of the discourse as equal. Most people involved in the discourse now weren’t involved in 2010-2012. Exclusionists are able to assert their cause as a noble one by presenting us as being on equal footing and claiming their goal is to protect the LGBTQ+ community while ignoring both the community’s history and the history of the complex and long-running discourse that they have stumbled into, one based explicitly in TERF rhetoric. Going back to my first two points, this isn’t a simple cut-and-dry “debate” between two equal sides. There is a history here that the exclusionist/inclusionist dichotomy sweeps under the rug in order to package it as something either more trivial (so aspecs are easier to mock) or as something more digestible for the uninitiated (so the discourse continues to spread beyond tumblr).

Sometimes I wonder how much of our collective aspec history got lost in the mix. I wonder if we became so focused on defending ourselves that we forgot how to make ourselves better. Sometimes I fear that somewhere along the way we lost some aspect of our radical and unapologetic origins in order to seem unimposing. There are a lot of discussions that get started now that would have been resolved years ago had none of this happened and put our community development on hold. Imagine where we could have been by now. I can only hope that, with the knowledge of how we got to this point, we can make it to wherever it was we were going.

I was reluctant to make this post, as staying quiet has always felt safer than speaking my mind. But I have been silent for four years, and I could not watch this go on anymore without saying something. Perhaps I needed the closure.

Making a change takes courage and it takes solidarity, and I think that might be what the aspec community needs most of all right now.

If anyone else has further documentation to contribute to the cause, especially if you were around 2010-2012, I’d really appreciate that. For now, I’m going to retreat back into the shadows and go back to not touching the discourse with a 10-foot pole.

#aro #aromantic #ace #asexual #aspec #disk horse #aro history #ace history #long post #i am going to regret this post #salt

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evolutionsvoid · 6 years ago

Photo

Back when I was updating and posting the Furies, DarkSideDuck made mention that their backstories and lives sounded like a teenage drama and I thought that was pretty hilarious. That concept got stuck in my head so I decided to goof around with it and make this. What I imagined was a show that was exactly like one of those high school teen drama shows, but all the characters are these monstrous god-beast things. Everything in the show would remain the same, with all the buildings, vehicles and everyday gadgets staying human-sized and designed for human use, but the people were just monsters for some reason. No explanation would be given and no attempt would be made to try and make things grounded in reality. How does a two headed turtle creature fit through a doorway? No clue, it just happens. How can a massive snail beast riding a raft of bubbles drive a car? Doesn't matter, she just does. The entire show focuses on a group of girls who attend the same school: Ka'Ran High School. These 7 ladies (technically 8, but two of them are fused together) are just your average teenage gals who are just trying to make their way through high school and life. Bad enough that they got to deal with school drama, homework and that darn principal, but they also have to put up with their super controlling and buzz-killing parents! Lame! But as the hits keep coming and life keeps throwing curve balls, this group of gals finds help and care from each other, which is what gets them through this crazy world known as high school. But that is only if their parents don't kill them first when they find out who dented the car! WHOOOOOOOOOOA! Cast: Ter'Mora: High school and classes may be a pain in the butt, but Ter'Mora prefers it much more than being at home dealing with her parents. Her folks are incredibly uptight and overbearing, always keeping tabs on her and refusing to let her have her own life. There are some days it feels like she lives in a prison, as her parents practically keep her locked in the house whenever she is not at school. With drama both at home and school, Ter'Mora just wants to get through each passing day and hopefully find some freedom when she graduates. She mainly keeps to herself and does her best to stay unseen and unheard. This quiet, lackadaisical life, however, gets turned upside-down when her old childhood friend Tsundra suddenly shows up! The crafty runaway shakes quite a few things up for Ter'Mora, as she now gets dragged into crazy situations that her parents most definitely wouldn't approve of! Though Tsundra can cause some headaches and may get her in trouble, Ter'Mora enjoys the time spent with her. Perhaps this old friend may be the key to unlocking those prison doors and at last setting Ter'Mora free. Tsundra: Though she may be found hanging around the high school, Tsundra doesn't actually belong there. She is less of a student and more of a runaway, as she fled the clutches of her parents and drifted to this little town. Now she just wanders the streets and looks for any way to get by, even if it calls stealing a thing or two. She occasionally will get a job, but sooner or later her attitude and lifestyle causes some trouble! If that happens, she doesn't worry, as her smooth talking and sly thinking always gets her out of a jam. During the day, she often shows up somewhere on the school grounds, blending in with the student body. She does this mainly to avoid unwanted attention, as the town's Svlranix keep a lookout for any kids skipping class and she certainly doesn't want them catching her! The other reason she does this is to hang out and socialize (and con some folk for a free lunch), which is how she found her old friend Ter'Mora. Back when they were kids, Tsundra and her family lived in this very town and the two were inseparable friends. Sadly, Tsundra's folks took her away and moved elsewhere, shattering that beloved friendship. After all these years, Tsundra assumed that everyone in the town forgot her and that Ter'Mora moved on. Upon their first meeting, though, she found this was hardly the case! The two now work to rekindle that special friendship, but unfortunately Ter'Mora's strict parents often get in the way. Tsundra cannot stand the way Ter'Mora lets her folks control her, so she tries to find ways to toughen her friend up and get her to stand up for herself. Trouble and wacky adventures usually ensue with these efforts!

Vortess: The very picture of rebellious teen, Vortess has no love or care for things like rules and curfews. Trouble is her profession, as she is always finding a way to stick it to "the man" and thumb her nose at the "authorities." This hardcore, punk lifestyle can be seen in her all-black wardrobe and by the fact she got piercings without asking her parents' permission! WHOOOOOOA! When at school, she can either be found in the halls skipping class or in the principal's office (mostly the latter), as she refuses to be a part of "the system." Not only is she a pain to every adult in town, but she frequently picks on other students at school, mainly the nerds and any one who follows the rules. Outside of school she can be found in any alleyway or any place where it looks cool when you loiter. Pretty much any graffiti found in town belongs to her and her "gang" (there is like only two people in it), and she has been known to go on the occasional joy ride with somebody else's car. Vortess wants to always be cool and tough, no matter the time and place. Even if she is out of her element or doesn't know what she is doing, she will always try to keep the cool persona up. This often leads to her doing dumb weird things to impress others, or saying things that make absolutely no sense because that is how cool people talk. She is also currently dating Elkaz, but she would never admit that because the "boyfriend girlfriend thing" is something only losers do. They just like to hang out a lot and do the same things together, it is nothing serious or stupid like that SHUT UP!

Typhin: The main gossip girl of Ka'Ran High, no juicy info ever escapes her ears. She is always on the prowl for the latest info and drama that she can use for her own plots. It also doesn't help that she is the head of the school paper, which is a role she takes WAY too seriously. If she gets her hands on a real juicy piece of gossip, she will be sure to slap it right onto the front page. That is unless an interested and charitable person is willing to "convince" her not to do so. This leads her to be the master of blackmail and also the top person on the "Do Not Let This Jerk Any Where Near You" list for practically any student. This doesn't bother her, as she has some ingenious (and possibly illegal) ways to gather information and find out humiliating secrets. Her insidious and conniving ways makes her despised by most, but very few are foolish enough to take her down. This is because she most likely has info on them that she will leak out to all if confronted, a fact she is quick to point out every time. She also is under the protection of Magalya, head cheerleader and top girl of all Ka'Ran High, and no one wants to cross her. It is rumored that Magalya took Typhin into her clique to ensure the sneaky reporter never said a bad thing about her and so that she could focus her attacks on Magalya's enemies. Magalya: Not only is she the head cheerleader and most popular girl in school, but she is also the most feared. Magalya carries a lot of power when it comes to social standings and the school food chain, and she won't hesitate to use it on those who tick her off. Some may be fooled by her cheery, rah-rah attitude when she is performing, but when off the field she is a rather foul-tempered mean girl. It doesn't take much to irritate her, and she will make her annoyances quite vocal to the offending parties. Those who truly anger her will face extreme punishment. This can lead to her either turning her posse on them, using Typhin to publicly humiliate them or resorting to some good ol' physical violence. As a star athlete, she is quite in shape and deceptively strong, so don't think picking a fight with her is a good idea. Most students work to stay on her good side or at least be so insignificant that she doesn't even acknowledge them. Those who seek to be in her good graces hang around her like flies, showering praise and agreeing with every word. This is a risky maneuver, though, as one misstep can easily result in becoming her next target. Rumor has it that Magalya is dating lead quarterback, Grkhan, but many think that is a rumor made by Grkhan himself, as she only refers to him as "that idiot." Avla: From her enthusiasm and naivety, one should immediately know that Avla is not from around here. She is in fact the new student at school, as her family just moved into town from some far away place. She is eager to learn and way too happy to be at school, which has quickly led to her being labeled a nerdy loser. She has a love for study and books, which makes her a favorite to the teachers and a target to the students. Vortess is one of the folk who see Avla as an easy target, and she frequently picks on her. No matter the bullying, though, she seems to always be optimistic and looking to make new friends. This effort to make friends often backfires or makes her a target for ridicule, but it has worked in her favor once. Strangely enough, Avla wound up getting into the good graces of Ter'Mora and Tsundra, but not for the reason she thinks. One day she cornered the duo and tried to get into conversation with them. After some talk, she asked if they wanted to have a sleepover at her place, which was weird because who has a sleepover when you're in high school? Though the two were ready to blow her off, Tsundra came up with an idea. If Ter'Mora could convince her parents to let her go to this innocent sleepover, than it would be the perfect cover for her and Tsundra to ditch Avla and hang out all night. They agreed and Ter'Mora eventually got her parents to let her stay the night at Avla's house (but only if Avla's parents were home and watching). When dropped off, the two were surprised to find out that Avla's mother was actually a rather cool and chill person (ya know, for an adult). She let the trio do whatever they wanted, and she was quite the nice and understanding person. In the end, the two abandoned their idea of skipping out and actually stayed there the entire time. Now they have taken Avla under their wing, but mainly because they want to use her place as a way to escape the folks and chill out. For Avla, she thinks that they are now best of friends, and is unaware of their other motives. Funny enough, though, Tsundra and Ter'Mora wind up being really good friends to her while trying to pretend to be her friends. Felor and Drogue (not pictured because no space): These two twins are the right and left hand of Vortess, which isn't saying much since they are one of the few members of her gang. While they are trouble makers just like their leader, they mainly do this out of bumbling and buffoonery. The two are not the brightest pair and they make things worse out of their desire for pranks and jokes. Much of the pranks they pull are petty and stupid, but they find it absolutely hilarious when people fall for it. While Vortess prefers trouble that is more rebellious and destructive, she has recruited this duo because they are easily impressed by her. The two are in awe of her cool attitude and think that hanging with her makes them cool as well. Not only do they work as Vortess's cronies, but they often play the role of hype men for her. They do, however, often mess things up for Vortess, but she never truly punishes them as they are two of the few people who actually hang out with her. Oddly enough, Felor and Drogue seem to have a fine relationship with their parents, which constantly baffles and annoys their leader. To Vortess, parents are lame tyrants that should be blown off and ridiculed, and Felor and Drogue pretend to agree with this. At the end of it all, though, the twins get along just fine with their folks and they are always apologetic when they get caught causing trouble. And that is the end of that! Nothing really to add or say, as this was just some dumb fun doing a dumb thing! Enjoy!

#monster #creature #high school #art #drawing #dumb stuff #fury #titan

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