#someday I am going to move to an actual city for six months or a year

[elainemorisi]

I do like where I live.

however. urbanization? a Good

[lovelykhaleesiii]

shdhdbsjebh- I loved the modern!fuck boy! Aegon a.u sm!! It just scratches my brain fr 🤭 and bc I can and nonnie said I can, I think I WILL do a blurb so I hope I do it justice!

Aegon Targaryen the second. How do you even begin to explain Aegon Targaryen the second?

Man child? Yes.

Trust fund baby? Yes.

Totally obnoxious? Yes.

And the total bane of your entire existence? Yes.

You've known him since middle school when he dropped into your school when his insanely rich C.E.O father - and his very young, almost too young - wife moved to the big city of New York. You normally weren't the one to judge as you also came from an insanely wealthy family but even then, there was something off about him. The way he would smirk at you if you so much as stuttered a single word durning an important presentation. Or got just one mark down from his on a test, quiz, or even a simple homework assignment. Not that he even would try, he much rather cut school to smoke week or ditch homework and sneak out to clubs where he could easily get in when he was underaged. And you still feel the same about him years later.

"I can't believe your dad actually let you open a speak easy," you say. You and him had unfortunately been paired up for an almost months long project worth eighty percent of your grade and he had somehow managed to drag you from your house to his club he had opened to apparently show his father he could be responsible.

"What?" He says, faking shock. "I do know responsibility. I am going to be the heir someday."

"Oh? Is that so?"

"You know it."

You sit in silence as you begin to watch men and women go on the stage and do basically strip teases. You roll your eyes.

"Oh, come on," Aegon says, nudging you, "you can't tell me you are this uptight that going up there and dancing isn't fun!"

"It looks fun," you admit, "but this project is worth a lot and I don't particularly like you-"

He cuts you off. "I don't particularly like you either, little miss perfect. But I like fun!"

You sigh. " you know...I have moves."

"Really?"

"Yeah!"

Aegon takes your drink and before you can argue, he says, "show me then." But you can tell he is only joking.

"You don't actually think i'd go up there, do you?"

He shakes his head. "Not a chance."

Of course.

"Fine. Guard my drink."

As you dance, you miss Aegon getting up and his eyes following you as you do a dance.

"Who's that girl?" A person asks, just as hypnotized as Aegon was.

He stares you in shock and awe. "I have no idea."

A few hours later, you were now semi-carrying a very drunk Aegon back to your place. Why were you carrying your long time drunk enemy back to your place instead of his own? Well, as fate would have it, your New York pent house was just six minutes walking distance from Aegon's club. Much easier and quicker to get to. You sit him on the bed in your guest room you had set up.

The next morning, as you cook breakfast, you decide to text Aegon and tell him to get the hell out of your house.

You: morning, loser! Now, get out of my house! :)

Aegon: my head hurts.

You: didn't ask plus I don't care. Now. Get out of my house!

Aegon: are you cooking bacon?

You: For me.

Aegon: what? I don't get anything? You wound me.

You: awe, beat my still bleeding heart. The only thing you're going to get is a splash of bleach if you don't get your smelly ass out of my bed and leave!

Aegon: jesus, alright, alright. I'm going. Where is your shower?

You: down the hall to the right. You can't miss it.

Aegon couldn't help it. After his shower, he came out to the kitchen, grabbing a plate. Sure enough, you had enough for two. He smirked as an idea formed in his head. You were currently "burning" the guest room sheets after he had slept in them so you would be gone for at least four minutes....

Just as you placed the truly disgusting sheets into the washer, your phone dings. When you take it out, it's a notification from twitter. @therealaegont has tagged you in (1) post. You roll your eyes as you press on the notification.

It takes you to a post with a picture. A picture of the food he was eating. The food you had cooked. He had tagged your username and put the caption as love it when my wife makes me breakfast :)

You make a disgusted face before going to reply.

Not your wife, fuck face :)

A couple moments after you press send, you hear faint laughing from the other room.

This was going to be a long project.

OMG NONNIE I LOVE THIS !!!! gahhhhd this was so good, is it wrong that I want more ?! that slow burn romance is real & making me feral 😫🥵🥵🥵

[luci-in-trenchcoats]

Best Laid Plans

Summary: When Jensen starts acting strange around the reader, she has a talk with Jared to ease her worries. In doing so, she reveals a secret of her own and may just put an end to her friendship with Jensen for good...

Pairing: Jensen x reader

Square: Friends to Lovers

Word Count: 6,200ish

Warnings: language, angst, more angst, secrets, eventual fluff

A/N: Written for @spndeanbingo​​

______

“Uh, excuse me,” you said, poking Jared in the back as you stood in line at the food truck when you spotted a familiar tuft of hair.

“Hey! What a coincidence. I need good barbecue after work this week,” he said.

“Weren’t you in LA for Walker stuff this week?” you asked.

“Yeah. Stupid producer stuff for a few episodes until I flew back home for filming a couple days back. I managed to sneak away for lunch,” he said. “You miss me?”

“Funny is all. Jensen said you guys were in LA working still,” you said, crossing your arms. Jared cocked his head and you nodded. “Yeah. Obviously that’s not true.”

You got out of line and started to head back for your car, Jared catching up and grabbing your arm not more than a few seconds later.

“Don’t even pretend to lie for him,” you said. 

“Okay,” said Jared. “I know he was really busy doing some voice over work.”

“Why didn’t he fly home with you? Better yet, why would he lie about it? He’s not...he’s being shady lately, Jared. He’s been spending all this time in LA and he’s avoiding me the past few weeks and lying to me. I don’t know what to think anymore,” you said.

“I know,” he said.

“Do you know what’s going on?”

“I do,” he said quietly. “Trust him. I know he’s...not being the best friend right now but trust him.”

“...Does he have a girlfriend?” you asked. Jared shook his head and you stared up at him. “You would tell him me if he did, right?”

“I swear, he is single. He’s not talking to anyone,” said Jared.

“Then why is he being all shady around me?”

“Why are you so concerned about him having a girlfriend?”

“I’m not,” you said.

“Really? Because I remember what drunk Y/N said at the series wrap party nearly six months back,” said Jared.

“I was drunk,” you said. He stared at you and you looked around. He rolled his eyes and grabbed your hand, pulling you over to a picnic bench to take a seat at. He started to eat and you felt his gaze on you. “I was drunk, Jared.”

“Drunk or sober, you love him,” said Jared.

“I love him like you love him,” you said.

“No, no you don’t. Maybe those first few months on set but I saw it bubbling up. Everyone saw it bubbling up. You guys have been best friends for years. The only person who didn’t see what was going on was Jensen.”

“I don’t even work with him anymore. I am very happy doing my voice over work and-”

“You moved to Austin.”

“So did you! You don’t own the whole city. You guys aren’t my only friends here,” you said. “My brother lives half an hour away and our parents are even thinking of moving here so-”

“All I’m saying is you’re connected at the hip with him almost as much as I am. More so now that I’m busy with Walker and he’s doing his different things,” said Jared.

“He’s allowed to have more than one best friend,” you said.

“I know. He’s got other ones besides me, ones long before you or I came into the picture. But none of his other best friends fell in love with him. Get the picture?”

“Forget it. I only asked because we had plans tonight and he wasn’t responding to me,” you said. You stood up and he frowned. “What would you do?”

“Tell him how I felt.”

“I can’t.”

“Why?”

“Because I’ve been getting deeper and deeper for the past three years and he’s never noticed. I’m not supposed to be with him obviously.”

“But you love him.”

“He doesn’t love me like that, Jare.”

“Maybe you should ask,” said the voice behind you. You spun around, Jensen in his baseball cap and his carry on backpack over his shoulders. He gave a small wave and you went wide eyed. “I was on a flight. You kept calling so I got worried and used the find my iphone thing when I landed.”

“How long have you been standing there?” you breathed out.

“Since you sat down I think,” he said.

“I’m going to give you guys a minute,” said Jared. He grabbed his food and left, Jensen taking his spot. He looked down to the table, opening his mouth a few times.

“You love me?” asked Jensen. “More than a friend?”

“Yes,” you said. You swallowed and watched him rub the back of his neck. He gave you a quick glance but you caught no shyness in it and your stomach started to churn.

“Y/N, you’re my best friend and I love you as my best friend. I’d do anything for you. I just don’t...love you in that other kind of way,” he said. 

“Yeah,” you said. The air was still and you looked away. “Something came up tonight. I need to cancel.”

You stood up and heard him right behind you, grabbing your shoulder.

“Y/N,” he said running around in front of you. You couldn’t look at him, not after you’d just told him and it was very clear how he felt about you. “Y/N, wait. Let’s talk about this.”

“I don’t want to,” you said, biting your bottom lip. “I gotta go, Jay.”

You took off towards your car, cutting through a group of people to slow him down and you were pulling away by the time you saw him in your rearview mirror.

“Why’s he have to die?” you said to yourself that night, crying as you watched a movie and stabbing into your pint of ice cream. You took a sip of your wine and wiped off your face, the sound of the key in your door making you jump up. The door opened wide as you held up your spoon, Jensen stepping into the foyer. “Get out.”

“Shouldn’t have given me a key then,” he said, looking around your apartment. “Well now I feel even shittier than before. Sad chick flicks? Wine? Ice cream? You look like hell.”

“Leave your key and go,” you said as he slipped off his shoes and jacket.

“Not happening. You don’t walk out on three years of friendship like that, not us,” he said.

“Jensen. You didn’t do anything wrong. I can’t...I can’t hang out with you though if I know I feel a certain way and you don’t. It’s not your fault. I can’t just pretend it’s all okay though,” you said. You set your spoon down and took a seat on the couch. Jensen settled into his usual spot at the other end and kicked his feet up on the coffee table. “What are you doing?”

“I’ve been seeing a girl,” he said. “Quietly. No one really knows.”

“Oh,” you said. He hummed and you grabbed your blanket. He rested his head in his hand and started to watch the movie.

“We broke up an hour ago,” he said.

“Why?”

“Because I don’t love her. I didn’t even really like her. You made me realize something at the park today. I haven’t been single since I was a junior in high school and in all that time, I don’t think I’ve quite figured out what being in love is like.”

“I’m sure you loved someone,” you said.

“I’m sure I did too. But it’s always been this is my girlfriend. I’ve never thought of any of them as my best friend,” he said. 

“Jensen.”

“I don’t want to date anyone right now. All I want is to be your best friend,” he said.

“I don’t think I can do that.”

“Give me a chance?” he said. “I never wanted to hurt you. The second those words came out of my mouth I knew I did. But I’m a guy and stupid and I don’t want to lose you. So let’s watch a movie and eat and drink like we do when one of us breaks up with someone and in the morning if you still can’t stand to be near me, I’ll respect it.”

“One night won’t change how I feel.”

“I know.”

“I’m sorry but I’d really like it if you left, Jensen,” you said. “I need space. I’m not...I’m not saying maybe someday we can’t be friends again but right now, I really need to be away from you.”

“I understand,” he said. He smiled and stood up, putting his coat and shoes back on. He dipped his hand into his pocket and placed his key on your front table. “Would you have ever told me on your own?”

“I honestly don’t know. I was afraid of this exact situation,” you said.

“We’ll never be the same as it was, will we,” he said. 

“I wanted more than it was, Jensen.”

“Losing you hurts more than any girlfriend did if it’s any consolation,” he said. He left and you got up, locking up after him. You rested your head against the door before you quickly unlocked it, Jensen standing further down the hall by the elevators. He turned your direction as you stepped out.

“Come here,” you said. You slowly walked back to your apartment and you let him inside. You shut the door behind him and quickly pushed him back against it, giving him a kiss. He stared at you after you broke it off, blinking more than a few times. “Now how do you feel?”

“I don’t know.”

“Then go,” you said.

“Why’d you kiss me?”

“Because I don’t think you have any idea at all of what love, a relationship kind of love, actually is. It’s more than thinking someone is attractive or kind. You don’t understand and until you do, you shouldn’t date anyone, Jensen. For their sake and yours,” you said. He quickly left and you went back to your couch, stabbing into your ice cream once again.

“Hey,” said Jared, catching you coming out of the recording studio a few days later. You walked past him and he scoffed. “Why are you pissed at me?”

“Because you lied to me. You said Jensen wasn’t up to anything in LA and he was. You said you knew what he was doing out there. I always knew if it all went south you’d end up on his side. Just leave me alone, Jared,” you said. You walked down the sidewalk to your car, Jared right there with his hand on the door. “Move.”

“For your information, I didn’t know he was seeing anyone. You really want to know what he was doing out there? Talking to network executives about you. He got cast in something and he thought you’d be great for the female lead. I’m pretty sure you’re going to get a call about an audition soon. But you’re right. I’m an ass that only cares about one of my best friends.”

He walked away and you stared after him with a sigh.

“Jared-”

“No. You know, I don’t know what the Hell you said to him but whatever it was, it was out of line. You can’t be angry at someone for not feeling the same way about you. You’re not in middle school, Y/N. Grow up,” said Jared. He huffed and went inside the studio as you slipped inside your car. You sat behind the wheel for a moment, your phone ringing all of a sudden.

“Hi, Zoey,” you said. She went off a mile a minute and you squeezed your eyes shut. “A movie with Jensen? Oh yeah, that sounds great. Set something up and I’ll do the audition.”

You hung up and rested your head against the wheel.

“Should have just said no. Should have said you were taking a break but no, had to say yes like an idiot,” you said to yourself. “Hopefully they hate me and give it to someone else.”

Two Months Later

“You guys have to be loving this! Working together again,” said the director. You glanced at Jensen and he forced a smile. “Alright. You two are wrapped for the day along with Nate. Head on home. We got plenty more work tomorrow.”

You kept a smile on your face until he walked away, quickly separating from Jensen.

“Hey!” said Nate, your other lead for the movie as he jogged over to you both. “It’s not that late. Would you guys maybe want to grab dinner? I don’t know many people in Austin aside from work people.”

“Maybe we can grab a bite over the weekend?” said Jensen.

“I’ll go Nate,” you said, shooting Jensen a look. “Don’t mind him, he’s just old.”

There was a quick flash of anger on Jensen’s face but it was so subtle Nate wouldn’t have noticed. 

“Let me just grab my bag and then we can go get some food,” you said.

“Awesome,“ said Nate. He headed over towards his trailer, Jensen walking over to you quickly. You put your hands on your hips and he did it right back.

“It’s nine. It’s late. What are you doing taking the new kid out on a weeknight?”

“I didn’t realize you had a bedtime, Jensen. Call time isn’t until 9 tomorrow. We’ll both be home and in bed by eleven not that it’s any of your business,” you said.

“I’m not old,” he said. “You want to go out after a thirteen hour day, be my guest.”

“Come with us, don’t come with us, I really don’t care, Jensen,” you said. “It was a joke. We used to go out after filming was done on the show all the time. Don’t be so sensitive.”

“Don’t blame me when you’re exhausted in the morning.”

He left with a huff and you rolled your eyes, ducking in your trailer quick. You caught up with Nate a few minutes later who was all smiles.

“Ready?” you asked.

“Yeah. You and Jensen, you’re not together or anything, right?” he asked. “He seemed…”

“No, no. We don’t like each other like that,” you said. “I’m very much single.”

“Good,” he smiled. You returned it, ignoring the small guilty feeling in your stomach for talking to Jensen like that. “So where can we get a good steak around here?”

“You smell like a bar,” said Jensen the next day as you got coffee at craft services. You grabbed your cup as he walked away, sipping from hi own.

“That’s rude,” you said. 

“Don’t be so sensitive, Y/N,” he said with a smirk. You bumped his shoulder and paused as you headed for set.

“Oh and not that you would care but Nate asked me out on a date tonight,” you said.

“Funny. I thought attraction wasn’t the only qualifier to be in love,” he said, narrowing his eyes. “That’d just be for me. You want to date the guy that just wants in your pants, fine.”

“Shut up,” you said. 

“Back at you, runt.” 

You looked back angrily, Jensen bumping you this time as he went by. You caught up with him and grabbed his arm, Jensen frowning.

“Don’t you dare call me runt. Not you of all people. You know what that means to me.”

“Yeah, I do. Maybe I don’t care about much of anything when it comes to you anymore,” he said. You stared at him and dropped your hand away, quickly leaving. You avoided him as much as you could for the day and were grateful you only had two scenes together. When you wrapped for the night and you were getting ready to go out with Nate again, you gathered up your things from your trailer, spotting a cupcake and note on the counter. You picked it up and frowned.

I crossed a line with the runt comment. I’m sorry. It was wrong. Please stay away from Nate. I get a bad vibe from him. 

-J

“At least you got my favorite flavor,” you said. You took a bite and put the rest away in your fridge. You put on your backpack but stopped for a moment and wrote down a note of your own. You ran over next door to the empty trailer and set it down on Jensen’s counter before popping outside and heading over to Nate’s. “Hey.”

“Hey,” he said grumpily, shoving some things in a duffel bag. “Listen, I just got fired so-”

“Fired? For what?” you said.

“I don’t think your friend likes me very much,” he said. “It’s whatever. I’m flying back to LA tonight. Maybe I’ll see you around someday Y/N.”

He jogged out of his trailer and you shook your head. You walked outside and saw Jensen coming out of hair and makeup with his face washed off.

“What did you do?” you asked, storming straight over to him.

“Bought you a cupcake...I’ll be sure not to make that mistake again,” he said, rolling his eyes.

“Nate was just fired he said.”

“Good.”

“Good? Did you get-”

“Wow. No, I didn’t. I’m glad to see you think so little of me. Outside of a scene, don’t talk to me,” he said. He left and you stood there, throwing up your hands.

“Oh my God, Y/N! Did you hear?” asked Shelby as she came out of the makeup trailer. 

“Nate got fired? Yeah,” you said.

“I’d have kicked his ass,” she said. You raised an eyebrow and she made a face. “The PA? Inappropriate touching?”

“He did what?” you asked.

“Oh he got way handsy with one of the PA’s. Eighteen years old. One of the grips caught him cornering her and he nearly decked him right then and there,” she said. “He’ll be lucky if she doesn’t press charges let alone act again.”

“That’s too bad. She’s okay?” you asked.

“Yeah. It didn’t go like, bad or anything but dude’s a creep,” she said. 

“Sounds like it,” you said quietly.

“I think production might get shutdown the rest of the week while they find a replacement. I’m sure you’ll find out before the rest of us,” she said. You nodded and she gave you a smile. “You okay? You seem different lately.”

“Yeah. Just not used to long days again,” you said. “I’ll talk to you tomorrow if we still have work, okay?”

“Sure thing,” she said. You walked over to the parking lot, catching Jensen waiting by your car with your note in his hand. Slowly you made your way over, Jensen kicking at the pavement. 

“I heard why Nate got fired,” you said.

“I had a bad feeling about him and you didn’t believe me,” he said, holding up the note. “Fucks sake, Y/N. I’m not jealous of him either okay because I know how your head works.”

“Then what?”

“I don’t want you to get hurt,” he said. You reached for your door handle and he moved in front of it. “Why are you so angry at me? You won’t even talk to me.”

“I’m not angry at you, Jensen. I’m...I can date and be with whoever I want to. I can go out after work without you. We’re co-workers. It’s all we are,” you said. “It’s all we can be.”

“It’s been two months. Why can’t-”

“Because it still hurts me to see your face as pathetic as that sounds. I wish it didn’t. I wish I could pretend we are exactly as we were and go back to that. But I’m not capable of it. I told you. I need time and space if I’m ever going to get back there with you and two months isn’t enough time for me.”

“Not everything is about you. Don’t even bother,” he said.

“Don’t bother what?” you said.

“We’re co-workers. It’s all we’re ever going to be,” he said. He left and headed for his car, leaving the note behind.

“I see you skimmed over the part about me apologizing for how I acted,” you said.

“You skimmed over that part of mine. Fair is fair,” he said. “You know what? Lose my number. Don’t talk to me outside of a set anymore.”

You got in your car and headed for home, hoping that the movie got delayed indefinitely.

Three Days Later

“Hey!” said Ruthie to you out on the hotel patio. You looked up from your phone, Ruth sitting down in the chair across from you. “I haven’t seen you all convention long! What are you doing out here?”

“Enjoying the fresh air,” you said, forcing a smile.

“I see,” she said. You went back to your phone only for her to steal it away from you. “Texting a new friend?”

“No. I was reading,” you said, taking it back.

“You wouldn’t happen to be out here because of you and the boys not getting along, hm?” she asked. 

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” you said.

“You’ve been noticeably absent from the group chat,” she said. “And not hanging out with the guys, especially Jensen.”

“Been busy.”

“With what? Unemployment?”

“Our movie is only shut down a few months. I’m taking the vacation time,” you said. “Discovering new things.”

“What happened?”

“Nothing!” you said.

“Fine, fine,” she said. “Bri and I are going to have a drink after the show tonight in my room. Your attendance is mandatory.”

“Why aren’t you going out with the guys?”

“Because you need a girls night and so do we,” she said. “It’ll be fun, I promise.”

“Do you still…” said Bri well after midnight and more than a few drinks. “Love him?”

“Yes,” you said, knocking back your margarita. “I don’t even want to anymore. It just hurts like everyday and it’s so pathetic. I thought pushing him away would make it go away and I thought trying to move onto another guy would work but I still want him. I don’t know why I can’t get over him. I’ve dated before. I don’t know why…”

“When you say you love him, do you mean love him right now or I could imagine the rest of everything with him love him?” asked Ruth.

“I’m so stupid,” you said, sliding down on the bed, pulling a pillow over your face. “We weren’t even together! Why am I so upset?”

“Because you love him bad. Like in deep,” said Bri. “He really said he thought of you guys as just friends?”

“Yes. I miss him. I want my best friend back,” you said, pulling away the pillow. Ruth handed you a few tissues and you wiped off your face, all three of your heads turning when you heard a knock at the door. 

“It’s probably the guys,” said Bri. She was out of her seat and you watched her peek the door open a crack. “What? It’s late.”

“We know,” said Rich and Rob. “We got to talk about this Jensen and Y/N situation.”

“No, we don’t. They’re adults,” she said.

“Well Jensen just drunkenly confessed to being in love with her and how he messed up. I think we at least have to get the two of them in a room together to sort this whole thing out,” said Rob.

“Jensen said what?” you said, rushing over to the door. 

“Oh great. She’s been crying,” said Rich, running his hand over his face. 

“What’d he say?” you asked.

“That he misses you and he thinks he might be in love with you and you got to take this all with a grain of salt. He drank a lot,” said Rob. 

“Where’s he now?” you asked.

“His room. He’s not...save the conversation for when he’ll remember it?” said Rich. You nodded and turned back to the girls. 

“Should I say anything?” you asked.

“I honestly don’t know,” said Ruth. “Maybe sleep on it and decide in the morning?”

“Yeah, that’s probably the best idea,” you said. “I’m going to head back to my room.”

“We’ll walk you,” said Rich.

“Thanks,” you said. A moment later you were in the hall, the guys going up a floor with you in the elevator. 

“From a guy’s perspective,” said Rob. “We can be really dumb. Like it’s amazing how dumb we can be. Give him a chance when you talk to him.”

“He doesn’t understand what falling in love is. I can’t explain that to him,” you said.

“Maybe you have different definitions of love,” he said. You blinked and they both shrugged. “There’s a reason this stuff is complicated.”

“Tell me about it,” you said when the doors opened. “I’m right here,” you said, pointing at a door. “Night guys.”

“Night, Y/N.”

You entered the room and lay down on your bed, staring at the ceiling. 

He was drunk and he’d missed you. It’s all there was to it in your opinion.

Three Weeks Later

“Sounds good,” you said, hanging up with your agent. The movie was back on at the start of the next year and in the meantime, you’d gotten another voice acting gig. You felt happy about that for the first time in a while. Slowly things were getting better. Avoiding Jensen had helped. You still caught yourself wanting to send him a funny video or talk to him about something during your day but you knew you’d get there. All you’d needed was a good cry session with your friends it seemed.

There was a knock on your door and you got up for your pizza, smiling as you skipped into the foyer.

You pulled it open and found Jensen there, a blank look on his face. He stepped inside and grabbed your face, giving you a remarkably gentle kiss that went on and on. He broke it off when there was a grunt and your pizza guy was standing there. You took the food in a haze and shut the door, setting it down on the counter.

“What…” you said, Jensen getting right in your face. 

“I have loved you from the second I met you. I have loved you from the week after that and the week after that and I knew deep down there was no going back. You were it. Always.”

“If you loved me then why-”

“Because I want better for you. I don’t want a life where you’re alone because I’m off working over here or you’re working over there. I want you to have everything you deserve and that is a better man than me.”

“I know you, Ackles. If it were just that, you would have told the truth. What is it,” you said. He closed his eyes and his shoulders sagged.

“I had an anomaly in my blood work at my last checkup a few months ago,” he said.

“Jensen. What are you saying…”

“My blood work showed I was sick. Dying kind of sick,” he said. 

“Oh, you dumbass,” you said, giving him a hug. It was tight and he returned it, running his hand up and down your back. “Jensen.”

“I couldn’t say it when I thought I wasn’t gonna be around in a few years. I couldn’t do that to you,” he said. You squeezed him harder and he shushed you. “S’okay. I’m okay.”

“No, you’re not. You said...I wasted all that time-”

“I’ve had a lot of tests done. Some here. Some in LA. They were looking for the cause. Jared’s the only one aside from my family that knew. It’s why he was so pissed with you when we fought but I swore him to secrecy.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?” you asked. 

“I was afraid. Of everything. You pitying me. Leaving me. Of me telling you the truth and setting you up for some kind of horrible heartbreak,” he said. “But in all those doctor’s genius attempts to find something, they never thought to take another blood sample. They kept reusing the same one over and over.”

“What are you saying?” you asked.

“I’m saying I’ve spent the past four months thinking I was dying when they had the wrong blood. It was someone else’s. They couldn’t find anything wrong because there is nothing wrong. I’m perfectly healthy. The only problem I have is finding a new doctor. I found out half an hour ago and drove straight here,” he said.

“So to summarize you thought you were dying and denied you loved me so that I wouldn’t have to be upset when it happened?”

“I know I hurt you. I know...it was easier to push your buttons and push you away than let us be something else and have it ripped away from you so soon. I thought this way would hurt less than the other,” he said.

“You really are a dumbass,” you said with a smile. “You should have told me.”

“I know,” he said. “I wanted to protect you.”

“Do you love me?”

“Yes.”

“Do you know what I meant when I said love is more than attraction?”

“Absolutely. But playing stupid seemed like a good idea at the time,” he said. You rested your head on his shoulder, Jensen’s arms wrapped around you. “Do you hate me?”

“No,” you said. “I’m mad at you for lying and I’m sorry for pushing you away just as much. I just want it back to the way it was.”

“Maybe we can try something different?” he said. You cocked your head and he kissed you again, smiling when you held up a finger.

“Different is good,” you said, Jensen looking you up and down. “I’m still mad at you.”

“Okay,” he smiled.

“Still mad.”

“Okay,” he said again, taking off his coat and shoes.

“Inviting yourself over, hm?” you said.

“For sure,” he said. “You even got dinner for us already.”

“Jensen, it’s not all fixed like that.”

“Okay,” he said, kissing you one more time. “I’m going to keep doing that in the meantime.”

“Hey,” you said, grabbing his hand. “You have a scare like that, you call me. I don’t care if you got an hour left and we had the biggest fight in the world. Call me.”

“I was getting close to cracking regardless of the test results. I heard I may have mentioned something at the last con to a few people.”

“You did. Let’s just hang out and eat pizza like we did the first time you came over my place?” you asked. “Try to be friends again?”

“Yeah. I really missed you, Y/N.”

Three hours later you were laying on your couch watching a movie, snuggled up under a blanket. You titled your head back and Jensen gave you a soft smile, his arm over your waist pulling you back into his chest more. He kissed your temple and you thought back to the hundred million times you’d done this same thing before.

“Why didn’t you ever say anything?” you asked. 

“Because I didn’t know how you felt and the idea of losing you was horrifying. I have had plenty of girlfriends before. I’ve only felt this once and I’m not letting it go,” he said.

“Spend the night,” you said.

“I’ve been drinking. I probably should crash on the couch,” he said. You shook your head and gave him a smile. “Oh. In the...should we really dive into that right away?”

“I just want you close by,” you said. “Nothing more than innocent cuddling for now.”

“I’m very much up for that,” he said. You turned off the movie and grabbed his hand, pulling him down into your bedroom. “All the times I’ve been over here, I’ve never actually seen your room.”

“I know it’s kinda girly,” you said, playing with the hem of your shirt.

“It’s relaxing,” he said with a smile. “I like it much better than my room.”

“Isn’t your house like gorgeous?” you asked.

“I moved,” he said. “About 4,000 square feet now versus the eight.”

“Oh. Well you’re like everybody else now, aren’t you?” you teased. He chuckled and you got an extra blanket out of your closet, Jensen spotting your weighted blanket on the bed.

“Too much house for just me. Never cared for it much. This one is simpler. More of a blank canvas,” he said, taking the soft blanket you knew he liked when he slept on the couch. “How’s your anxiety lately?”

“Not great,” you said. “Better but not great. You’re crap pilled on top of…”

“Top of what?” he asked.

“My dad got released,” you said, sitting on the bottom of the bed. Jensen sat down beside you and you sighed. “It’s been twenty five years, Jay. He got out.”

“Are you scared?”

“No. He’s up in Maine and he has diabetes and cancer,” you said. “He’s in the process of dying.”

“The runt comment,” said Jensen and you nodded. “Y/N, I’m sorry I ever said that.”

“S’not your fault my dad was crappy to my mom and me,” you said. He took your hand in his and laced your fingers together. “She was really happy when she met Charlie. He’s exactly what she needed.”

“He’s what you needed too. You got a real dad and even your little brother a few years later. I’m sorry you had to spend five in a not so great place,” he said.

“Never lie to me again,” you said.

“I promise,” he said. 

“You’re really okay?” you asked.

“Yes. For the hundredth time, I am perfectly healthy. I watched them draw the blood and take it straight into the lab myself.”

“You should call your parents,” you said. “Let them know the good news.”

“It’s late for them,” he said. “I’ll call first thing. Do you mind if I take off my jeans?”

“Of course not. It’s not like I’ve seen you in your underwear before,” you said. He stood and kicked them off as you excused yourself into your bathroom. You exited in a pair of shorts and shirt, Jensen spreading the blanket out over one side of the bed. You walked around and climbed under the sheets, Jensen following after. “Goodnight.”

“Goodnight,” he said. You flipped off the light and the room was quiet. Jensen shifted and your head turned, Jensen’s face closer now. You rolled onto your side and rested your cheek on the pillow, Jensen glancing down. “I’m sorry.”

“I know. You thought you were stopping me from a worse kind of pain. Never do anything like that again and you’re forgiven.”

“I won’t,” he said. “It was a dumb split second decision.”

“It’s okay. I still like you. I’m sorry for how I acted too. I never should have shoved you out of my life for thinking you didn’t have feelings.”

“It hurt and you needed space and time. We would have come back together,” he said. “We did.”

“Because you found out you weren’t sick.”

“I was coming over tonight no matter what the test said.”

“Why?”

“Because I can’t imagine how shitty I’d feel if you didn’t love me back. When I heard you talking to Jared...I’d never felt that happy before. Something about you is just...special.”

“You’re not so bad yourself,” you teased. You leaned over and kissed him quickly. “I’ll see you in the morning.”

“Looking forward to it, sweetheart.”

_______

[enbeemagical]

Happy Aro Pride Day!!

As part of the Aro Pride Collab with @siriuslyremus @mossypebbles @logandeservesbetter @marathegreat @emmytheace @fandom-trashowo, I also wrote a Dragon Prince fic! Part one is complete, part two will be out when I finish it, hopefully soon.

Summary: Aaravos is asexual, aromantic, and sex-repulsed. Inspired by the vast amount of fics where Aaravos makes things spicy very quickly, my being a sex-repulsed aroace, and a what if. Roughly 2.4k words.

PART ONE

Aaravos is eleven years old when the human and elven children his age announce their first crushes. He does not have a crush, so he says it must work differently for Startouches, since they have such long lifespans.

Aaravos is sixteen years old when his caretakers finally realize he is going through puberty and sit him down for The Talk. The physical changes part he's already figured out. He doesn't understand the other part at all. Why would someone want to put their body next to another's in such a way when simple cuddling is likely far more comfortable?

Aaravos does not like not knowing things. He takes a dozen or so books on biology to his room, and spends weeks studying them. He still does not understand. The books seem to say that is enjoyable, but the pictures look rather uncomfortable.

At nineteen, Aaravos finally claims a crush: a shy, curly-haired human boy his age who clearly admires Aaravos. Aaravos enjoys this admiration– and who is to say he does not have a crush? No one else can know what he feels, and for all he knows this is what a crush is supposed to feel like.

The two have been together almost two months when the other boy brings up… physical intimacy.

They do not make it to their two-month anniversary.

Aaravos faces more questions about his intimate life as he gets older, and more beautiful. "How is such a one as you still alone?" "Do you not desire companionship?" "Books cannot provide the same company as another person…." "Have you ever done it?"

For his twenty-sixth birthday, Aaravos gets a cat. He names her Diamond.

Dia never once tells Aaravos that he should get out more, that he will be lonely without a partner. She does not attempt to pull him from his books and his stars. She asks only that he keep her dish full and her box clean, and in return she sits on his lap or his feet as he reads, purring all the while.

He reaches forty, still alone save for Dia, having connected to both Sun and Moon as well as Stars.

"You will be alone forever!" one of his human friends tells him exasperatedly. She is also forty, with a wife and three children. 

"My lifespan is more than twenty times yours," Aaravos replies. "Should I ever desire a romantic or sexual partner, I have much time to find one." He has no intention of ever doing so.

"You'll like it," his friend promises. "Try it someday, Aaravos."

Aaravos rolls his eyes good-naturedly. "Perhaps I shall," he says, with no intent of doing so.

✨💚✨

Despite his best efforts, Dia is only a cat, and a cat's life is not so long as an elf's. His constant companion and forever supporter exits his life on the same day she came into it, and for the first time, Aaravos is alone on his birthday.

He hates being alone. And so, for the first time, he tries sex. Perhaps it truly does work as his friends believe it to. Perhaps it will make him feel better.

He feels even worse afterwards. Dirty, violated. He consented fully to the experience, sought it out even, and he cannot figure out why he still feels as though he did not.

Never again. 

He retreats even further into his studies for a time, refining his mastery of the Sun and Moon, and connecting to Earth, Sky, and Ocean.

Aaravos has been alone for decades. Sometimes he misses other people. Contact with another living being. Sometimes he is content alone, and sometimes he aches with the wish, the need to hear another voice, to touch another being. Elf, human, cat, horse, it does not matter…. Aaravos is lonely.

He returns to society. It is awkward at first, speaking to others after so long. All his old friends are dead, he learns, and though he is sad there is also a spark of something else.

He can reinvent himself. Be anyone he wants to be. He does not need to be the awkward Aaravos he was, the boy whose ears and cheeks turned crimson at the mention of crushes or sex, the young man who was constantly on edge from the feeling of eyes following him, the man who threw himself into his studies as a way to escape constant questions. He can be anyone.

It happens gradually, almost without thought. A woman compliments his beauty, and before he can reconsider he says, "Oh, I know,” adding after a moment’s thought, “I thank you for noticing."

She smiles and nods silently, cheeks flushing.

A one-off interaction, or so Aaravos thinks. But later, when he is at dinner at an enchanting little café in Lux Aurea, another person comes up to him. Putting their hand on his table, they say, "Are you single?"

Aaravos pauses, looking up and quirking one eyebrow. "Why?" He smirks, lowering his eyelids. "Are you interested?" Stars, why did he just say that? What if they think he wants– that?

The human's eyes widen slightly, and Aaravos sees the dark blush spreading over their neck. Did he cause that? The thought gives him a sensation of– of power, of control. He is not the one blushing crimson, not now.

"Maybe I am," the human says in an almost sing-song voice. "Depends on if you are, I suppose."

What is the human getting at? "And what precisely is it you are asking me for?" he returns, voice light. Is this flirting? he wonders. Am I flirting with them?

"May I take you out for lunch tomorrow?" the human says.

They are interested then. Aaravos does not have much money at the moment, which he hopes to remedy soon. In the meantime, he still has to eat, and, well, they offered.

At lunch the next day, Aaravos watches carefully for signs that the human– he has already forgotten their name, so he calls them “starling,” which they seem to like– wants something from him in return for the meal. But, they seem only to want to talk, and listen. He guards his words at first, but they are surprisingly easy to talk to, and he finds his tongue loosening more and more.

He is enjoying this.

He stays in Lux Aurea for a time, continuing to date the human whose name, he finally remembers, is Tess. They help him get a job where he can use his magic: architecture. The new city never seems to have enough architects or builders. Sometimes Tess will take Aaravos out, sometimes he will take them out. 

After a time, he moves into their house. Both of them enjoy this new arrangement, Aaravos especially because they have separate rooms.

Now they are living together, there is much more casual physical contact. Aaravos does not like this, but he does not mind it.

Their relationship lasts about a year of living together before Aaravos and Tess separately decide to tell each other, on the same night, that it is not working out. They laugh at their timing, and agree to remain friends.

✨💚✨

Aaravos begins traveling Xadia then, never staying in one place longer than a couple moon cycles. He finds he enjoys this, the freedom of not being pinned down. Wherever he goes, he will use his skills to barter for food and lodging, or use his magic to gain those directly. He acquires new skills occasionally, and practises these as he goes. “A jack of all trades, a master of none,” the saying goes, “is sometimes better than a master of one.” Aaravos, however, is no human. He has time to master many trades, and he does.

He speaks however he pleases, finding another kind of freedom in flirting with no sense of obligation. He will be moving on in a matter of days, after all; he will not know anyone long enough to care whether they take his flirtations too seriously. And if anyone moves on him, he will simply… move on.

When the constant moving around and learning of new names and customs becomes too much for him, Aaravos retreats back to the Star nexus, where he stays until the loneliness becomes too great to bear. Then he is off again, as charming, flirty, and witty as ever.

He’s stopped keeping track of the years. Sometimes, someone will ask when his birthday is. He has it written down somewhere, but as he never bothers to check, he’ll usually ask the date and say, in great surprise, “Why, it is today!”

Aaravos mostly sticks to smaller cities and villages, whether human or elf. He notices that even the bigger human settlements are dirtier and poorer than the elven ones, and in the cities with both humans and elves, high-ranking humans are rare.

“This is the way it’s always been,” he hears every time he asks.

But it is not the way it must be.

Aaravos knows he can be charming and persuasive. He is beautiful, which does not hurt, but his voice and his intellect are what really matter. His voice is deep and smooth; he knows that when he speaks people hear the truth whether he speaks it or no. His mind is better. He is clever with his words, somehow knowing what his listener wants to hear. How to turn them to his cause. His magic, too, is powerful, a weapon many would kill to have.

And he finally knows why he has been given these gifts.

He journeys to the mountain called the Storm Spire, and requests an audience with Queen Azare. At first, the Dragonguard denies him, but he insists the queen will want to see him, even demonstrating his mastery of all six Primal sources. A guard leaves to ask the queen, and Aaravos waits, cracking jokes and seeing how hard he needs to flirt to make the stoic guards blush (very hard, actually), until the elf returns with the news that Aaravos is to be allowed in under guard.

Apparently this means something different than it seems to, for two elves grab his arms before he can react, and place wide metal bracelets on his wrists. They do not restrict his movement, but they are uncomfortable.

“What are these for?” He raises his arms, smirking. “Not exactly my style. I prefer sterling silver, in case you wish to get me a better gift. Iron isn’t really the best metal to give someone you want to ask out.”

“None of us are asking you out,” one guard snaps, causing a younger guard to blush and mumble something under her breath. “Those are magic restricting cuffs. No one does magic in the queen’s presence without her explicit permission.”

“Hm.” Aaravos draws a quick rune, which fails to even appear in front of him. “It seems they are.” He gives a short laugh to cover his rising panic. Stars, he needs to work on his physical fighting skills more. “Shall we proceed?”

Aaravos learns several things that day. Namely, that the Dragon Queen cares little for the plight of more than half her subjects, and even less for the charms of a certain Startouch elf. Not even his offer of service sways her.

“‘Humans are humans,’” he grumbles to himself as he leaves. “‘Their lives are too short to be changed by any effort on my part, so why should I try?’ Damned stuck-up uncaring spiteful dragoness!”

After that, Aaravos keeps mostly to human villages, staying longer and doing more to help. He cannot do anything about the systems that keep humans below elves, however, not like this.

He retreats to his nexus again, to study not magic, but politics, wars, government.

When he emerges, he finds there is a new dragon queen, this one an Earth dragon. He meets with her, but she claims there must be a reason humans are not equal to elves. If they were truly equal to elves, she argues, they would not be considered lesser. Yet they are, so they must be.

Aaravos points out the flaws in her logic, very nicely, and attempts to leave, only to be flung in jail. He works on charming his way out, but they continually rotate his guard, and that makes it very difficult. Until there is a regular guard. He flirts with her as hard as he can, but she never reacts.

“How can you simply ignore me?” he cries one day in frustration. “Am I so long imprisoned that I have lost my ability to flirt? Or is your heart simply so hardened from being a guard to that cruel queen you do not care?”

She looks at him for the first time since she entered. “I am aroace,” she says simply. “Your charms cannot work on me, Archmage.”

This is a new word to Aaravos. “Ah-row-ace?” he asks questioningly. “I’ve not heard this word before.”

A trace of a smile crosses the guard’s lips. “It’s a relatively new word, coined in the past, oh, fifty or so years. You’ve been here nearly a century, so I’m not surprised. It means aromantic asexual.”

Those words… Aaravos remembers reading them somewhere, but he cannot remember what they meant. He asks the guard, and she is all too happy to explain.

Aaravos enjoys her explanation past only the sound of another voice and the definitions. He feels… seen. The words resonate within him strangely, and he is silent for the rest of this guard’s shift.

He sleeps through the next few shifts, waking when the aroace guard returns.

“I have been thinking about what you said,” he tells her.

“Oh?” She raises one eyebrow at him.

He smiles. “I think I am aroace as well.” The word feels strange in his mouth, but oddly right. Like his name, like the title Archmage, it seems to fit him, settling around him comfortingly. He is not broken. He never was. He is aroace.

How strange, that he should realize he is whole in a place meant to break him.

✨💚✨

[justjeonday]

Remedy | jeon jeongguk

After a disappointing call from his manager, Jeongguk opens up to you about his life as an idol for the first time. No longer the happy and energetic boy you’re so used to, he lets everything out - and his words make your heart heavy with sorrow. 

— 𝔭𝔞𝔦𝔯𝔦𝔫𝔤; jeon jeongguk x reader

— 𝔴𝔬𝔯𝔡 𝔠𝔬𝔲𝔫𝔱; 1,808

— 𝔯𝔞𝔱𝔦𝔫𝔤; PG

— 𝔤𝔢𝔫𝔯𝔢; angst, ᶠˡᵘᶠᶠ, idol!au, jeongguk and reader are friends for now

— 𝔴𝔞𝔯𝔫𝔦𝔫𝔤𝔰; none, just sad jeongguk to make your heart ache :(

— 𝔫𝔬𝔱𝔢𝔰; this is a repost cause I accidentally deleted the original one -.- anyway, this fic is inspired by the meaning behind jeongguk’s solo my time. This was also meant to be a scene in a longer fic I’m planning so if you like this please let me know! I’m really proud of this piece so please enjoy <3

(gif above is not mine!)

Your eyes fall down to the reflection of the city in the black abyss of water beneath you, arms laying against the cool metal railing of the bridge as Jeongguk stands beside you with his shoulder brushing against yours.

The atmosphere had been light all night until just a few minutes ago, when he got a call from his manager. He had suggested for Jeongguk to discontinue with his midnight adventures he’d been having with you, preferably before someone notices it’s him hiding under the bucket hat and black oversized jacket. Jeongguk understands the reasoning of course, knowing it’s only to keep everyone including himself safe - but still he can’t help but to be disappointed.

“What’s on your mind?” You ask as your eyes land on his figure beside you, gaze falling down to study the way he fiddles with his hands.

He sighs, looking up at the sky. “I don’t know, I’m just a little gutted I guess.”

The two of you stand there in silence for a small while, then he speaks again - his voice breaking the silence in your shared bubble.

“Doing this,” he says, gesturing with his hand between the two of you. “It brings some sort of normality to my days in a way, and when we’re out like this I just forget how crazy my life actually is, and it feels so nice to just be with you like this. It feels like I’m just Jeongguk. Not anyone or anything else, not Jeongguk who’s on stage, not the guy who’s good at everything - just me.” He has a small smile on his lips as he finishes, eyes meeting yours.

“I’m happy to know you feel that way,” You smile back.

Yet again, the two of you fall into a comfortable silence - and despite the big city you’re in it actually feels silent, peaceful.

Seoul is never really silent. Behind you on the bridge, outside the walls of your bubble, there’s still plenty of cars driving by even though dawn is slowly approaching. Groups of friends still pass you by, loud from the exciting buzz a Friday night out brings. The city never sleeps and there’s constant sound filling the atmosphere.

However with Jeongguk next to you, every noise, every person fades into the night - and left is just the two of you and the stars.

You tune back in with reality as he speaks again, his tone suddenly a little different than before. “I just get lonely sometimes… living like this.”

Your look up at him, his smile now nowhere to be seen. You watch as he lets his gaze wander over the night sky, the lights of Seoul reflecting in his eyes. His dark orbs create galaxies of their own, stars shining in them just like the celestial bodies in the dark above you. And without realizing, you’ve come to prefer stargazing into them rather than the sky.

He exhales, his parted lips making way for a shaky breath before he continues speaking. “It almost feels like I exist in a different time and space than everyone around me.” He gathers the courage to meet your own gaze, voice weak as he talks.

A feeling of concern starts growing in your chest and your heart starts to ache as you see the sorrow in his eyes, a sight you’ve never seen before. The man in front of you, whom you’ve spent almost every day with for the past month, suddenly feels foreign to you. There’s no playfulness hidden in his features, no witty comments lingering on the tip of his tongue - waiting to be said just before the two of you break into laughter. His warm, dark irises almost seem sombre to you and the dimple you’re so used to seeing next to his bunny smile is now visible in a different emotion as his lips press together into a line.

It breaks you to see him like this.

“It all happened so fast, you know?” He says along with a sigh, looking out over Han River again as his fingers curl around the railing in front of him.

You turn towards him slightly, wanting him to know he has your full attention. You admire his features as he searches for words to say, deciding not to interrupt and just let him speak his mind.

“I started working to fulfill my dreams at such a young age I missed out on so much, and even though I’ve come so far - to a place I never even imagined I could reach - there’s still traces of losses, like something’s missing in here,” he lays a hand over his heart, a crease forming between his eyebrows as he fists the fabric of his hoodie. “It’s a strange feeling to miss something you’ve never known in the first place, something you might never know. I never had the chance to do all the things other guys my age have done, like dating or spending time with friends downtown at an ungodly hour and just messing around and being a normal teenager. Even just the simplest things, boring things, like studying for an exam along with other students and going to study groups.”

You feel your heart shatter into two as you notice his eyes becoming glossy, the stars in them shining brighter before they start fading - the fuel keeping them alive slowly disappearing.

You can’t even begin to imagine what he must feel like, not knowing mundane experiences that close to everyone his age has experience - things that most people experience daily. How lonely it must get when you can’t relate to anyone around you no matter how much you might want to, and the only one who’d really understand what you’re feeling being yourself. No one to turn to who’d be able to help or give advice.

You feel your eyes starting to sting as you stand beside him, but you’re quick to blink the tears away - wanting to stay strong for him when he’s weak. Knowing Jeongguk, if you’d let a tear fall he’d immediately put you first and do everything in his power to comfort you and make you feel okay. But he needs you now, more than he ever has before.

You reach out and take his hand in yours, intertwining your fingers with his. This makes him look down at them, a subtle smile tugging at his lips as he sniffles quietly.

“I don’t want to sound ungrateful because that’s so far from what I am, the life I’m living is more than I ever dreamed of and to have met the six people who now mean so much to me, and have raised me, makes me feel so lucky.” He smiles, eyes still glossy. “And the fact I have so many people supporting me in what I love to do means more than anything. It’s all just bittersweet in a way, but I’m sure my time will come someday.”

Your gaze moves from your interlocked hands to his eyes, and only then you realize he’s crying. Worry blooms in your chest and your hand leaves his to rub over his bicep as you search for his gaze.

“Hey,” you say softly, the volume of your voice barely above a whisper.

He looks down, wanting to hide his face from you but your hands come up to cup his jaw. This makes him look up and turn towards you, a pained expression painting his features. With eyebrows scrunched and his lips quivering he shakily inhales.

The stars sparkling in his eyes just minutes ago have turned liquid, swimming in his eyes before they spill down his cheeks - leaving his eyes dull and empty, like how you imagine space would look like without its galaxies.

“Sorry,” He chokes out, eyes closing to avoid meeting yours as more tears run down his face.

“Stop, just look at me,” you say. After a few seconds of no response you proceed to wipe the wet paths on his cheeks with your thumbs before whispering, “Jeongguk, please.”

At your soft pleading voice, his eyes flutter open.

“It’s okay not to be okay,” you tell him. “It’s okay to cry.”

He nods as you wipe his tears away, only for more to fall as he bites down hard on his bottom lip - his breath erratic as he inhales.

The pad of your thumb comes up to his lips and soothingly skims over the pink of them, making him release the sore skin caught between his teeth to let you caress it softly.

The sight of him like this breaks your heart a little more for every tear that escapes down his cheeks, and all you want to do is make him feel okay. You’ll do anything.

You’d put every single star up in his sky if he asked you to.

Removing your hands from his face, you put your arms around his neck and pull him into your embrace. Before long you feel his arms around your waist, your body ending up even closer to his as he hugs you tightly.

You softly run your fingers through the hair at the nape of his neck and you feel him relax against you at the touch, his head falling to your shoulder as he inhales and exhales deeply to calm himself down and steady his breath.

“I wish I could take it away,” You say quietly, tears yet again stinging in your eyes as you think of his words.

In all your life, you’ve never met someone like the person in your embrace. Jeongguk, in spite of his success and achievements, is the most humble person you’ve ever known. No matter where you are, or what situation the two of you have stumbled into, he never fails to be kind and polite to those he meets.

His heart is so big he apologizes for anything that might be an inconvenience to others when he hasn’t done anything wrong in the first place. Just like right now, how he felt the need to apologize for crying. You’re certain his heart is made of pure gold.

You feel him pause for a moment, trying to figure out what your words are referring to. “Take what away?” He asks, pulling away to look at you while keeping his arms around you still.

“The pain…, the loneliness.”

His eyes linger on you before he pulls you against him again, his cheek pressed against your temple.

“You being here with me is more than enough,” He says, and you sense the small smile on his lips.

You feel warmth spread through your body as you hear his words, hugging him tighter. You shiver as he leans down to rest his face in the crook of your neck, his hot breath making goosebumps appear on your skin before he whispers;

“You’re my remedy.”

[radioactivepeasant]

Fic Prompts: Free Day Thursday

(Full disclosure, this is a chunk of a toshinko fic I wrote a few years ago purely for my own amusement. I may upload it someday, but I haven't decided on that front yet)

She almost turned his offer to escort her home down on the grounds that she was a Nobody and he was going to get swarmed with people asking weird questions.

She didn’t turn him down in the end.

Forever after, neither of them were sure how they’d fallen into discussing personal matters, especially when under normal circumstances neither would be caught dead pouring out their heart to a stranger. Perhaps she’d just needed the catharsis. Perhaps he'd needed the human connection. When they reached her little apartment at last -- at least Hisashi had stayed long enough to help her move -- All Might handed her the umbrella.

“Wh- no I can’t take- what about you?” Inko sputtered.

“Ahaha no worries! I’ll be right as rain!” All Might flashed a peace sign, then broke into muffled giggles. “Wow. That was horrible. I’m so sorry.”

Inko laughed, and All Might jumped away, and that should have been the end of it.

But it wasn’t.

[[MORE]]

A few weeks later Inko found a note taped to her door in the unmistakable handwriting of All Might.

Hoping there have been a few less rainy days in your life lately! :D 

There was even a small doodle of an umbrella with his distinctive eyebrows and smile.

After taking an hour or two to get over the sheer shock of All Might remembering her -- let alone where she lived -- Inko found herself sticking the note to her refrigerator.

Second-guessing herself the whole way, Inko taped a note of her own on her door, a short and sweet heartfelt thanks for him going out of his way to make sure she was alright, and listening to her complaining. After a moment’s hesitation, she added a doodle of her own. A rainbow with his smile.

The note stayed on her door for two days and Inko tried not to be disappointed. Logically she knew it was extremely unlikely that a hero of his caliber would even be in her city, let alone on this end of town, and even if he was, he’d be far too busy for social visits. (Why was she expecting All Might to make social visits?!)

On day three the note was gone and something else was in its place.

It wasn’t carefully written on blank paper this time. It was hastily done, as if on the spot, and on the back of what looked like a grocery list. Still, it was fairly obvious who it was from.

It was no trouble at all, please don’t worry about it! Truthfully, it was nice to get to just talk with someone like that. Actually, I don’t get to do that very often! :D 

Wishing you and the baby the best! - AM :D :D 

Oh lord. The baby. That’s right, she was pregnant. She was literally constructing a human being from scratch!

...okay, it sounded kind of metal when she thought of it like that.

Inko shuffled back inside to make a stiff cup of chamomile and figure out how to organize the very bizarre amount of money Hisashi had sent her. He was as broke as she was, probably, going to that exclusive medical school. But he'd somehow managed to scrape up enough in mismatched bills to cover at least two doctors' visits. And he'd sent a pack of pacifiers?

Bless his heart, but Fujioka Hisashi didn't know much about babies. Inko taped his "sorry I'm an idiot, can we still be friends" note up on the fridge. Then, after a moment's pause, she added the second note from All Might. 

Somehow, the notes became a regular thing after that. He started slipping them through the mail slot rather than taping them to the door, which was probably safer in the long run. And she started hiding hers under the mat, in a plastic bag.

She probably could have just sent the notes to his agency, like every other fan, but she worried that it would be lost among the hundreds of thousands of other letters.

Short “how are you” notes became mid-length “fought an umbrella themed villain today and thought of you, how are you?” notes. Sometimes Inko left letters about everything and nothing, talking about how she saw a flower blooming in a place it shouldn’t have been and it looked so hopeful there that she felt like everything was going to be alright. Sometimes she sent a favorite poem.

Once, about two months in, she’d just barely referenced rent and a doctor’s bill coming at the same time and within a week he’d sent her an envelope with a check to cover both. She’d been horribly embarrassed, and there was an awkward tension in the letters for a week or two until they settled the fact that she wasn’t looking for charity and he only wanted to help.

Three months of letters and Inko had begun to feel as though she knew the Symbol of Peace. Actually knew him. Oh, it was just a silly fantasy, of course, it had to be. No doubt he was barely sharing anything about himself, and he probably did this with other fans too. Or at least, she’d thought that until one of his letters questioned a mention of Mitsuki asking why she was happy all the time now and her not knowing how to answer. Hadn’t she told anyone about the letters?

No, actually, I never told anyone, Inko had written back, I’m not sure why. I’m sure this is a normal thing you do, since you’re so kind, but I can’t help worrying that some people will say nasty things about you if they find out you’re penpals with a pregnant lady. 

The response had come on the same day, a post-it note on her door in the space between getting off the couch and walking to the door. She’d just missed him, evidently.

Had to run, sorry for shortness, it said, But you’re the only one I write to. 

Inko had needed to sit down after that. 

The following morning there was a three page letter resting on the floor just under the mail slot. It was handwritten, as all the others had been, and expanded on the post-it note. All Might was writing to say that while he did try to personally answer fanmail, this wasn’t fanmail. This was a correspondence with a friend (at least, he hoped it was, he was pretty sure it was, he wasn’t trying to overstep any boundaries or anything--). That he felt that he’d come to know her as a person in the last three months, that he looked forward to getting her notes every week. That he didn’t want to make her uncomfortable, not ever, but perhaps it would be best if at some point they could meet and discuss things in person so there were fewer chances of misunderstandings?

Inko had to read it six times before it sunk in that All Might was asking to meet her. All Might was asking to meet her! She was in a daze all through her commute to work and most of the way through her workday. Her boss was forgiving enough to chalk it up to pregnancy and simply remind her to actually answer the phones when they rang. When her lunch break came, Inko wandered down to a small grocery store on the same street as her office -- much better prices than the one in her neighborhood, but an hour was a long trip just for groceries so she tended to use the other store. Still in a bit of a fog, Inko didn’t notice until too late that the canned fruit she was looking for was on a shelf much much higher than she could actually reach.

She could’ve just used her quirk to get it down, but...well, unlicensed public quirk use was illegal, no matter how impractical that was. Inko stretched up with one hand, keeping the other hand on her stomach. The baby apparently disapproved of this sudden movement and was rolling around. He liked it when she was walking, not so much when she was stretching. (And still she hadn’t picked a name for him. She’d tried a few, but nothing seemed to stick.)

“Here, let me-!”

Someone reached up over her head and brought down the can. At first glance, out of the corner of her eye, Inko almost mistook him for All Might. But that was ridiculous, right? His hair was wild and curly, all save two long bangs he’d sort of let flop loose in front of his face. And while he was definitely muscular, he didn’t quite seem to have the same level of definition as All Might. Very close, though. Inko realized she was staring at him and blushed bright red. 

“S-sorry! You didn’t have to do that!” she stammered as he handed her the can.

“Well I didn’t want you to get hurt,” the man said with surprising sincerity, “Sorry if that was awkward haha I’m...bad at social things.”

And that was Inko’s introduction to Yagi Toshinori. He’d clumsily introduced himself and then dashed off blushing the moment her back was turned. Odd fellow. There’d been something strangely familiar about his eyes, though, and she just couldn’t place it. They looked almost like...nah. Couldn’t be.

Four weeks later, one of her neighbors asked her about “the buff American-looking guy” who slipped letters through her door at weird hours and Inko had an epiphany. If it was All Might, they’d have seen All Might. And probably called the presses. But the things in the letters were things that only All Might would know unless someone else had been reading her letters. With shaking hands, she wrote her next letter and slipped it under the mat.

If I met you while you were off the clock, would I still recognize you? 

If she hadn’t been sore and unwilling to move from the couch, she would have waited by the door to see if she could catch her mystery penpal. She fell asleep there, waiting, and didn’t wake up again until her phone alarm went off the next morning to tell her to get ready for work. Grumbling, Inko showered, changed, and managed some form of breakfast. The baby really really hated miso and natto, so she’d been sticking to things like eggs and yogurt and citrus. 

“Come on kid, I miss soup,” Inko groaned as she shoved an orange into her purse for later and bolted. She almost stepped on the folded piece of paper at the door. Already running late, she stuck it into her purse and didn’t even look at it until hours later that day.

Well, you would now, was all it said. 

[punkpoemprose]

December 4th- The Movie Date

Universe: 2000′s AU Rating: G (General Audiences) Length: 1720 Words

Note: This fic deals with Kristoff and Anna waiting in line to see Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix in 2007 because for me the 2000′s were pretty much all Harry Potter all the time. I just want to say that while I’ve always been a fan of the Harry Potter series, I am not a fan of JK Rowling and her TERF ideology. If you like this fic please consider donating to The Trevor Project or another charity of your choice that supports trans folks. Trans rights are human rights.

Also on a less important note: I fucked with the timeline a bit because I wanted the last book to have come out before the fifth movie for the plot stuff I could do with it. Technically speaking the last book came out ten days later than the film, but semantics.

If someone had told him a year ago that he would be dressed up in a wizard costume, standing in line for over five hours just to get seats to see a movie, he would have called them crazy. Of course, he’d heard of Harry Potter, even then. It was a cultural phenomenon and really he’d been meaning to read the books at some point, it was just that he was busy with work or it was hockey season, or something came up and he never really found the time to sit down and read the books. That was, of course, all the excuses he’d made before Anna.

He’d met her mostly by mistake while at work. He’d been working on laying up brick for a new fountain in the city park, and she’d been walking a big fluffy white dog by one hand while texting someone on her Nokia with the other, and it hadn’t ended particularly well for anyone involved. The long story short was that she’d broken her arm, he’d needed stitches in his cheek, and the dog, Olaf, had needed to have chunks of fur cut away after cement dried into his fluffy tail.

It had also, coincidentally worked out very well for at least the human parts of the incident as, once they’d finished arguing over who was at fault, they’d also started talking civilly and despite their aches and pains, had actually went out for coffee after the incident. At the time, a Starbucks had just opened in town and it had been the excuse they’d both used, along with the promise of apology coffee, for their first date.

She’d been easy to fall in love with, and when she’d brought up the kids series and her love of it on their first date, he’d finally had the shove he needed to stop making excuses and read them.  He didn’t end up loving them nearly so much as she did. He’d never been much of a fantasy guy, but still after hours reading the books and discussing them with her, they’d ordered the movies through Netflix and watched them together as they arrived in the mail.

That was six months before they moved in together. Now, while he still wasn’t as into the series as Anna, he could say that he knew as much as anyone who had finished the series in July when the final book came out. He’d needed to stand in line then too, but it had been worth it to bring it home and watch Anna, who had been sick, marathon the book between breaks for NyQuil and sustenance. The snot and tears he’d endured, laying on the couch with her, her head on his chest, had been all worth it in the end, as the hours in line and the silly costume were now.

The things I do for love.

“Okay, so as soon as they let us in, we’ll snag the best seats. You’re on guard duty while I get popcorn because you look tough.”

He snorted, both at the fact that she had a game plan, and because he really didn’t feel like he looked tough at all in his Gryffindor tie (though he’d been told by Anna, and a quiz she’d found on Quizilla.com, that he was much more of a Hufflepuff) and large black robe. In fact, he felt like he looked a little bit ridiculous, but Anna, in comparison, looked lovely.

She’d decided to dress like Fleur Delacour in her Beauxbaton’s uniform, and he knew that he, by association was meant to be Bill Weasley, something which he not only liked the idea of from a romantic sense, but also by characterization. He’d liked Bill in the books, and for what it was worth, he’d also liked Fleur despite the way other characters looked at her. While he wasn’t sure he was quite brave enough to be Bill, he did like his work ethic, the strong sense of right and wrong he seemed to display, and his love for his family. Anna made an excellent Fleur, particularly in the sense that he found her so lovely that she could certainly have some Veela heritage, even if they were fictional.

“I’ll endeavor to do my best,” he said, only half teasing.

“You’ll do fine I’m sure. I mean they’re only selling as many tickets as they have seats, and it’s been sold out for weeks, so once we get our seats it’s not like anyone can make us move or kick us out or something.”

He nodded, “Honestly Anna I think that everyone is just excited to see the movie, I doubt they’re going to fight us on seats too much.”

“But if they do, we’re going to win.”

He laughed at that. There was a glint in her eye that seemed more like they were about to go to battle than that they were going to walk into a movie theater. He loved her competitive nature, particularly when it wasn’t aimed toward him, in their Livingroom, playing Call of Duty. Her bloodlust was legendary when a win was on the line, and “all is fair in love and war” was the law of the land as soon as the PlayStation turned on.  

“So I know you have a rule about soda because whenever you get it you have to pee halfway through the movie, but would you mind grabbing me a cherry coke when you get the popcorn? Because I haven’t had a drink in five hours and I understand the Order of the Phoenix is very important, and I was willing to sacrifice for it, but I’m going to need to drink something soon or I’m going to look like a dementor…”

He trailed off, noticing that Anna wasn’t paying any attention to a word he was saying, but instead was staring off past the pinball machines and crane games that dotted the lobby, straight over to the ticket counter, where a girl, appearing to be around ten, wearing a Quidditch uniform was crying into her extremely frazzled looking mother’s skirt.

“Oh geeze,” Anna said quietly, much lower than when they were explaining their battle plan, “That poor kid. I bet her Mom didn’t think to buy ahead… she probably didn’t realize how popular it was going to be.”

Kristoff frowned, he had a sister about her age, and there was nothing worse than watching her cry over anything. As much as he was wrapped around Anna’s finger, he’d been wrapped around hers first. There were many years, when she was even younger, that he’d bring himself to exhaustion carrying her around on his shoulders, reading her stories, and doing whatever it took to keep her happy. He could only imagine how much more he’d want to please a kid of his own.

“Anna… is she wearing a birthday girl pin on her robe?”

He probably shouldn’t have mentioned it, but he noticed the pink button and crown when she turned and wiped her little eyes.

“It is,” Anna agreed, frowning, “It is definitely a birthday girl pin. I bought Elsa the same one last month… but I don’t think she wore it as proudly as that kid is.”

An announcement was made over the lobby PA system informing the theatergoers that rope drop to enter theaters 1-4 for the release showing of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix would be in just five minutes. When Anna quickly ducked under the rope to the side of them that they’d been standing between for five hours, Kristoff smiled to himself, already knowing where she was going.

***

“’Well, I’m glad you listen to Hermione Granger at any rate’, she said, pointing him out of her office.”

Anna snorted, jostling the book, as Kristoff held it with one hand and played with her hair with the other. Her head was rested against his chest on their couch, and despite the late hour they were both still awake and quite comfortable.

“I love how you’re doing your best Maggie Smith impression when you read McGonagall’s parts. It’s almost like I can see it.”

He leaned forward and a bit awkwardly placed a kiss on her forehead as he flipped the book closed. They’d finished Chapter Twelve and while he would start Chapter Thirteen if she wanted him to, a moment to rest was required before they read any further.

“I’m sorry we didn’t actually go see it,” he replied, “But I’m glad that we found something else to do tonight. That little girl and her mom looked like they’d been given a million dollars when you handed them the tickets.”

Anna smiled at that, her eyes fluttering open. Her eyes were still  a little sad and at odds with her grin, but he supposed that it only made sense that she was still happy and sad about her decision to give up a night she’d been planning for months to a child she didn’t even know.

“Well I mean… I would want someone to do it for our… I mean my kid. You know, if we… I had one.”

The slip wasn’t unnoticed by him, and setting the book down onto the floor, he pulled her in tighter to his chest, wrapping both arms around her tightly. She squirmed a bit in his embrace, laughing at how between him and the blanket she was all but cocooned.

“Someday,” he said, “Yeah, I would hope someone would do that for our kid. Or you know… kids.”

She stopped squirming and instead hummed appreciatively at his comment.

“Maybe,” she said, “A whole burrow’s worth.”

They’d only briefly talked before about marriage and a family, but he did like the idea of a big family. He had many siblings, and he loved being with them even though he often considered himself a bit of an introvert, but he knew that Anna loved people, and she loved noise. He could imagine her happy in a big house with plenty of smiling faces and loud joyful voices to fill it.

“Someday,” he said confidently, thinking of the end of the final book, her sobbing into his shirt over a happy ending with families and friends and young children who were products of love and loyalty, “Someday Anna we will.”

[recurring-polynya]

This is very random but I love the cast of random side characters that you made up (like Seike and Ohno) -- so much so that i am sometimes surprised when they dont actually appear in Bleach?? Anyway love that kind of consistency...would love to see it in my own writing someday skjfjsjsj

Ah, thank you so much! You are a great writer, and this is a very achievable goal!

Ha ha, believe it or not, Seike is actually canon?? I am pretty sure his name only appears in We Do (Knot) Always Love You, but I have always assumed it’s this guy:

Anyway, here are some tips for creating side characters! It’s way easier than you think!

I hate making up characters. I hate it. Much the way all great programmers are very lazy and therefore work to minimize the work they have to do over their entire lifetime, I work very hard to never have to make up anything about my characters.

Here’s a tip for names: I am not Japanese and coming up with Japanese names is hard for me and makes me nervous. If I am naming an important character, I will go to the trouble of giving them a meaningful name and working out the kanji, etc etc (by which I mean I go drop hours of my time into https://japanese-names.info/). If they are a side character, I will look up the Wikipedia article on “Japanese entomologists” or “Japanese Olympic figureskaters” and pick one surname and one given name that have the right “ring” to them. I will usually do a quick Google to make sure that name isn’t the name of an important character in some other anime/video game I wasn’t aware of. Bam. Done.

You can also cheat by naming everyone in Squad 6 Kuchiki, Ohno, or Gotou because they are all Byakuya’s relatives, or having there be six guys named Maki in Squad 11 (there are already semi-canonically 2). If you make a joke about it, everything thinks you’re a very funny person instead of just incredibly lazy.

I keep a spreadsheet. Every time I make up a detail about a character, I try to log it so I don’t have to look it up later. Here’s what the Squad 6 tab looks like:

Be minimalist. The less you make up, the less you have to remember later. Every time you bring in a character, say to yourself, what are they here for? You really don’t need to go much further than that. Ohno and Choei got introduced in one of my first fanfics, because a) I needed some exposition, and b) I wanted to show how Renji interacted with his squad. What I wanted to convey was that most of Squad 6 is lazy snobs who enjoy the benefits of nepotism and Renji’s presence is really cramping their deal: hence, Ohno. However, Renji is very likable, and I also wanted a contradicting voice that thought Renji was cool and fun and livened things up: hence Choei. I made them the 3rd and 4th seats because he would work with them a lot, and I would be able to reuse them. Ohno should be kinda important, so I made him the heir to the largest Kuchiki branch family, which explains why he’s snooty, but also always angling for Byakuya’s approval. Choei’s basic characteristic is his chill bro-ness and lack of ambition, so I made him an extraneous fifth son. He’s on the futsal team, because that gave him additional reason to like Renji. He’s openly gay because gay people are cool and I felt like it. That’s it. Two characters that I have gotten incredible mileage out of. Every story or so, I add another detail if it makes sense to. Ohno is, surprisingly, fond of dogs. Choei’s zanpakutou is a warhammer. Ohno’s dad is a huge bitch, which explains a lot about him without me having to explain anything.

My OC’s are primarily there for my protagonists to bounce off of! Like Plato’s shadows in the cave, they really, really, do not need to have a richer inner life than what our protags see of them.

One of my characterizations of Renji is that he’s very personable and knows everyone. When I’m doing his POVs, I name almost any character he comes across, and often include a fact about them. Conversely, when I’m writing Byakuya, who doesn’t notice people who are beneath him, I will frequently not use names, even on people whose names he should really know, like referring to Kira as “that dour fellow from 3.″ It’s also really interesting, particularly in the case of Squad 6, to examine the way Byakuya interacts with his underlings vs. the way Renji does.

One of the things having bit characters does is to make your world feel bigger. A related thing you can do is to casually namedrop places-- invent a name for the restaurant your characters like to go to, or refer to different parts of your setting like you are describing them to someone who lives there (”up near the art musuem” or “that noodle place north of the Eleventh”). When I write about the Seireitei, I am always thinking about my Local Large City, and how I would describe where things are.

Reuse bit-part canon characters interchangeably with your own! This works very well in confusing your audience as to who you made up and who is canon! As I mentioned, Seike is actually canon, although we don’t know much about him. Ichigo’s lesser-known classmates, like Ryo and Michiru are similar. I tend to think of characters in tiers: in my stories, the protagonists are Renji, Rukia, and to a slightly lesser degree, Byakuya, so that’s my A-tier. The B-tier are the other Bleach characters they interact with the most-- Izuru, Momo, Shuuhei, Ikkaku, Yumichika, Hitsugaya, Ukitake, etc. The C-tier are characters that are of lesser importance in the canon story, but I like them, or they are relevant to the story, so I use them, like Hanataro, Akon, Rikichi, Kiyone and Sentaro, etc. There are also the characters that are important canonically, but just aren’t as important to my stories-- Soi Fon, Kyouraku, etc. Then, there’s the D-tier, which should contain both throwaway canon characters, like, Seike, and your made up cast. If you can keep them at the same level, you’re doing the right thing! If you use any character enough, they can move up a tier! There’s also an E-tier for characters that are just a name and some minor details. It’s good and okay to have these, too! You can think about this in terms of tags, as well: your primary audience is clicking on your story for your A-tier characters, and many people may be clicking on it because they are thirsty for content of your B-tier characters, so try to scale their roles according. You’re trying to make the C-tier characters happen, and your audience is just gonna have to deal with it, so it’s your job to convince people that they are Good, Actually. D-characters are there for flavoring, and I guess if you can make people like them, that says something about you (me, I guess?) as a writer.

When I wrote Between Tides, I cut my protagonists off from their main cast so I *had* to introduce some OCs at the B/C-tier and I hated it and rolled around on the floor wailing about it for 3 months. I have gotten so many compliments on Rukia’s intense, overbearing boss, Sunadori, and Renji’s no-nonsense cooking mentor/witch friend, Mrs. Kuwashima. I have no explanation, except maybe all the anguishing did something. I think I invented them more by feel than anything else-- Sunadori’s role was to get Rukia used to the idea of being a vice-captain, and Mrs. Kuwashima’s role was to let Renji be someone’s soft son for a bit. This is more important than any particular bit of backstory. Mrs. Kuwashima didn’t even have much of a backstory, now that I think about it, and the only reason Sunadori had one is because it tied into the plot.

Also, I am a dialogue-ist, and I let my characters establish themselves through their own voices, rather than trying to enforce personalities from above.

Ha ha, I think that’s long enough. Thank you for this opportunity to bloviate about my own writing. The upshot is, worldbuilding is not just magic systems and fantasy governments, it’s also deciding that the lady who goalkeeps the Squad 6 futsal team is also Byakuya’s cousin who once pushed him in the mud as a child.

[bellemorte180]

The Halfway Point

There is no time limit on grief; but sometimes the words from an old friend make it slightly more bearable.

The Halfway Point 

The halfway point. She didn’t realize she picked it until after she was already on the road. The only thing she could process in her mind was the burning of her mother’s letter, Liz’s final words to Caroline; and never getting to really say goodbye. It ripped and clawed at Caroline’s insides to the point that she just couldn’t stand looking at the town her mother loved so much.

She needed to run.

Call it cowardly or weak but Caroline could no longer bask in her mother’s presence after everything she had done. She needed to get away and for the first time, no one seemed to question her. No one seemed to want to stop her from leaving. Perhaps it was because it was temporary. She would be back; in a day, a week or even a month but she would turn her car back around and drive back to Mystic Falls. Maybe she would make Jo and Alaric’s wedding, maybe she wouldn’t.

For the first time in a long while, Caroline was going to be selfish. So, she drove past the sign heading out of Mystic Falls. She drove down the highway heading south, and it wasn’t until four hours in that she picked up her phone and set a message to a number she never used.

[Caroline 8:32 pm]: Atlanta, Georgia [Emergencies Only 8:33 pm]: When? [Caroline 8:33 pm]: 4 hours [Emergencies Only 8:34 pm]: I’ll be there

Perhaps she should have turned to Stefan. He was still her best friend and he did walk he through everything with her mother and turning off her humanity; he was even there after he switched his back on. But she ruined everything. She forced him to turn off and they did horrible to each other and to their friends. They had sex. Whatever the status of their friendship was, it was irrevocably changed, and Caroline was not in the mindset to deal with that; not yet.

She passed Georgia’s Stateline a little after midnight. She did not stop, not once. She kept going until she was within Atlanta’s city limits. She stopped her car a few blocks down from the SkyView Ferris Wheel. When she was a little girl, her father had always promised he would take her on it in order to fight her fear of heights.

He never did.

Part of Caroline wondered if she should have told him a location to meet her, but she knew he would find her. He was uncanny like that; to know where she was and what she needed. Instead she just sat on the first bench she saw, overlooking that giant Ferris wheel. She waited and it was not long before she felt his presence sit beside her. He said nothing at first, just letting her stare off into the distance and Caroline had never been more grateful.

“When I was six years old, there was a founder’s festival in town. They had this Ferris wheel and I was terrified of it. I refused to get on it. The thought of going up that high, looking down…I was sure I was going to fall.” She laughed lightly but there was no joy in her tone. “My father promised to bring me here. He promised to take me to the very top and that we would look down together. He said that there was nothing to be afraid of.”

“And did he?”

“No. He didn’t. He broke almost every promise he ever made.” The tears started lightly; slowly. She didn’t notice them at first, not until he reached out and wiped them from her cheeks. “I always relied on him and he never came through. When I was turned into a vampire, he tortured me. Literally chained me to a chair, took off my daylight ring and burned me with the sun.” She could see his fist clenching in anger. He had not been aware that her own father tortured her; it was before he really knew her. Despite his anger, he remained silent. “It was my mom who saved me. Tyler was there but it was my mom who held a gun on my father, a man she loved until her dying day, in order to save me.”

“She was an impressive woman. She didn’t back down from a challenge. She was strong and willing to do anything for you, even to invite a one-thousand-year-old hybrid into her home if it meant saving her daughter.” Caroline shot him and look, and he gave her a dimpled smile. “Admittedly, it was my fault, but it still impressed me, nonetheless. As did her daughter.”

“Klaus?”

“Yes love?”

“Thank you. For coming.” Klaus just reached over and took her hand into his. It wasn’t sexual or anything romantic. The last time they had been together was wild, passionate and a memory they both looked back on fondly; one that they knew would someday be repeated in the distant future. She looked over to him and it was as though the dam broke inside her. “My mom is dead.”

The tears flowed down her cheeks and Caroline could no longer control the emotions coursing through her. It became harder to breath; feeling as though there was no oxygen left for her. There was a clutching hollowness in her chest that she wanted to claw at. She wanted to rip her own skin from her bones; burning it until there was nothing left. The darkness was filling her up inside and there was no light at the end of the tunnel.

The hollow feeling that she had been holding in since the moment she turned her humanity back on consumed her. All the emotions she wanted to get past flooded her. She told Elena that she would turn it back on in a year, when the worst part was over. What she did not realize that she only stalled the inevitable. Those emotions would be there no matter how long she had that switch flipped. If anything, the nauseating feeling of loss was worse than it had been the day of the funeral.

At some point, Klaus pulled Caroline onto his lap. He cradled her to his chest, kissing the top of her head and whispering sweet nothings to her; hoping that perhaps he brought a small amount of comfort to her. He could not remove her pain and he would not even attempt it. He understood grief; all he could do was be there and be what she needed. With Caroline, it was impossible for him to be selfish.

Longer than she was willing to admit, she let herself be held by him; taking in the scent he provided and the comfort he was willing to offer. Klaus was never the villain of her story and she would never admit it to those back in Mystic Falls, but Klaus understood her better than anyone.

Except, perhaps Liz Forbes.

“How are you Sweetheart?” Klaus whispered to her once the tears subsided. His long fingers where drawing invisible lines down her back. His mere touch brought her back from that black void she had been in moments earlier. She buried her face into his neck and nodded, still unable to speak. She wrapped her arms his shoulders and just brought him closer to her. He just rocked her until she told him to stop. He would sit on that uncomfortable bench until she told him to move; even if it took a hundred years.

“Why does it hurt so much? Why does it feel like someone dug into my chest, ripped my heart out and lit in on fire in front of me to watch?” She sniffled, bringing the back of her hand to her nose. It was unattractive but she didn’t care. Klaus reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a handkerchief that Caroline would have bet anything actually belonged to Elijah. “It did not hurt this bad when my dad died.”

“Can I tell you something, even though you don’t want to hear it?”

“Okay.”

“There is nothing I can say to take your pain away. There is no magic spell or words that will erase the pain.” He kissed the top of her head. “You lost your father and you bounced back far stronger than anyone expected you too because that is who you are. But the truth is, you still had you mother to fall back on; and she was the constant parent in your life. Your father broke every promise he ever made to you, but your mother was your backbone-even all those times she stayed late at the station. She would have burned hell itself to save you. That kind of love never dies Caroline. The pain you’re feeling now, it will never go away. That kind of grief will live with you, but the magic trick is learning to live with it; and learning to live despite of it.”

Caroline nodded. Klaus was right, this was not what Caroline wanted to hear. She wanted him to tell her that one day she would wake up and everything would be better. That the world would right itself and that she could go home one day to see her mom, sitting at the kitchen counter drinking a strong cup of coffee because she just pulled an all-nighter at the station. Yet, it was never going to be that way again. Her mom was gone, and that empty part of Caroline would remain.

Yet, it was better than the empty condolences she received at the funeral. It was better than Damon’s eulogy and Elena’s voice of understanding. It was better than Stefan’s persistent need to fix her or even the never-ending casseroles sent by countless people in town. They all meant well, Caroline knew that, but it was not what Caroline needed to hear. She knew they tried but she shut them out, turned off her humanity and refused to listen to anything they had to say. Even now, that she had her humanity back, she could not stand to see their pity and sympathy. In truth, Caroline did not know what she needed; she just knew that Klaus was that she wanted in that moment.

“Can’t you compel me to not feel the grief?”

“I could, but I won’t.”

“I knew you would say that.” Just as Klaus knew her request wasn’t genuine. “No offense but your parents were really shitty. How did you become the expert in grieving the loss of a parent?” Caroline asked causing Klaus to chuckle.

“Because I am a father myself.” Klaus replied simple and Caroline almost smiled at that. Looking at him now that her tears had dried on her cheeks, she could see that no matter what happened in his life; Klaus loved his daughter. “I understand everything Liz did for you because I hope to one day be as good of a parent as she was to you.” He leaned in closer. “But if you say that to anyone, I’ll have to rip your heart out.”

Caroline gave a sad smile, knowing that Klaus was rarely this honest or open with anyone; but she knew they had a bond that went beyond a simple bracelet, a gorgeous dress or even a tryst in the woods. They had an open understanding with one another, and they would always be honest with one another. Caroline sent a watery look to him and the tears began to fall again. Klaus just held her hand, allowing the fresh round of tears to subside.

Out of the blue, Klaus stood and turned towards her. He held out his hand and without thinking, Caroline placed hers into his. He pulled her into his arms, and she looked up at him with curiosity burning in her eyes.

“What are we doing?”

“I’m showing you that there is nothing to be afraid of.” With that, Klaus pushed off the ground and Caroline suddenly found herself at the top of the Ferris wheel. Quickly, he broke open a door to one of the black containers and ushered Caroline inside. It was dark inside but with her vampire vision, Caroline could see perfectly. She took a seat on the bench and Klaus sat down beside her.

“What do you see?” It was a loaded question; they both knew that. There were skyscrapers and lights filling the city despite the fact that it was the early hours of the morning. If she listened, she could hear the sound of the highway, ambulances racing down the busy streets and even the voices of people who were enjoying the late night.

“Life. I see life.”

“See. Nothing to be afraid of.”

“Actually, I think your wrong. I think life is the scariest thing out there. Because without it, we wouldn’t have the monsters, the pain and all the terrible bullshit that comes along with it.” Caroline said and the corners of Klaus’s lips turned upward. “But what is even scarier than all of that is the good moments. The laughter and joyful events. A dance or a tryst in the woods.” That made Klaus’s cheeks burn ever so slightly. “They are all terrifying but worth every minute.”

“And that is why you’re Caroline Forbes. The woman who will one day take over the world.” Klaus replied and Caroline gave her first genuine laugh he heard since the moment he sat down on that bench. He put his arm around her shoulders, and she rested her head against his chest. They stayed in that small compartment, swinging on a ferries wheel that was not moving, and just watched the city below. Neither were willing to move, but she knew that come morning, Klaus would have to get back to New Orleans and back to his daughter. Yet, there was something else she needed to get off her chest.

“I slept with Stefan.” The words came tumbling out and Klaus shifted slightly to look at her; raising his eyebrow. He did not seem angry or hurt. If anything, he seemed amused instead of jealous. “Oh, don’t look at me like that. I’m sure you haven’t been a boy scout. You’re the one with a baby. Not me.”

“No love, I most certainly have not been a boy scout.” Klaus chuckled. “I’m merely surprised. Stefan is just not someone I would have seen you choosing. That is all.” Caroline gave him a confused look. It was true, when she was human, she wanted nothing more than for Stefan to notice her; or anyone to notice her really. Yet, here she was back at that point waiting for the guy to notice her. “Do you love him?”

“I don’t know.” She looked down at her hands and played with her daylight ring. “I turned my humanity off. I killed a bunch of people and forced Stefan to turn his off as well. We pretty much went on a spree together, fucked and then he got his emotions back. Even after everything I did, he was still the patient Stefan, trying to…I don’t know. Get the old me back.”

“Caroline, there is no getting the old ‘you’ back.” Klaus replied gently. “That girl you were before your mother died is gone. You changed, grew and learned in the only way life can teach you. I am not the same man I was a thousand years ago, and you will not be the same girl in a thousand years to come; but no matter who you become or what life teaches you; you will be magnificent. No matter the size of the body count.” She gave him a watery smile. “Do you regret it?”

“Sleeping with Stefan?” Klaus nodded. “Yes. I do.”

They both could read between the lines. No matter what Caroline’s feelings where for her best friend, the manner that they first slept together would always be a mistake to her. It would be something she would always regret. Yet, they both knew that the time Caroline and Klaus spent together in the woods behind the Boarding House would be a treasured memory. The petty side of Klaus was proud of that fact and Caroline would allow him to have that.

They said nothing more on the subject of Stefan or anything at all. They just sat in silence, watching the sun rise over Atlanta. Soon enough, the rays lingered over them and they knew they would have to leave the Ferris wheel, or they would have some serious compelling to do. Much like before, Klaus took Caroline into his arms and jumped from the compartment and softly landed them on the ground.

He held out his hand and Caroline happily took it. They strolled the now busy streets until they reached her car. She stood beside it, unsure of what she should do. Should she get into her car and drive off? Head back to Mystic Falls or to parts unknown? Klaus could sense her uncertainty.

“The offer stands. You will always have a place in New Orleans. It is one of my favorite places in the world.” Caroline started to laugh, his dimpled grin only making her laugh harder. It felt cathartic. “There is food, music, art, and culture. I would love to show it to you.”

“Play the step-mom alongside you and Hayley?” She smirked at him. “Tempting but I’m not ready for that.” Klaus held up his hands, not offended because he knew the answer before the words left his lips.

“Well then, I do have a private jet at my disposal. Say the place and I will have you jetting off on your very own adventure.” Alone. The word was unspoken but they both knew what he meant. She was not ready for Paris, Rome or Tokyo. Yet, he was offering her a way to deal with her grief in a way she would not have in Mystic Falls.

“Thank you but no.” She took a deep breath. “Alaric is getting married and I think they would like it if I was there. I think I’ll take a small road trip, make a few stops but slowly go back to Mystic Falls.” She took a deep breath. “I’m not done with Mystic Falls just yet. Maybe one day I’ll take you up on that voicemail, but I think I need to have a few more…. I don’t… experiences first?”

“Of course. Just know you’re always welcome in my home Caroline.” Klaus leaned in and kissed her cheek. He slowly turned and walked away. She watched him retreat from her. She was about to get into her car when he froze and turned towards her. “The day of your graduation. I meant what I said. Tyler was your first love. Whatever you decide you feel for Stefan, I still intend to be your last, however long it takes.”

Klaus flashed off then and Caroline was left standing in the middle of Atlanta with a sad smile on her lips.

In the end, when Caroline gave birth to her twins, she would think back on Klaus’s words to her; about what it meant to be a parent and what they want for their children. She ended up marrying Stefan; a human Stefan. One that died to save Elena on the day of their wedding. She helped Klaus track down his daughter and save her from the hollow. He helped her scourge the earth to prevent the merge between her daughters. In the end, when their children were all grown and the two of them sat in a small café in Paris, fingers linked together, Caroline would replay his words to her.

No matter how old she became or how long she lived; the memory of Liz would always linger in the back of her mind.

The trick was learning to smile in spite of the grief that would always remain.

A/N: So. I was trying to write something happy (part 2s of my one shots from Klaroline week) but I'm really not in a place emotionally to write anything of the sort. I tried and failed. Hopefully, I can finish the light and fluffy stuff I started...or even work on "Maybe One Day" but it's just not coming. This however, flowed. Just Good Business flowed and I think it's because I can relate to what the characters are feeling compared to writing something happy that brings a smile to peoples faces. I’m just not there yet. Hopefully you all can deal with my angst writing because I'm afraid that might be all you're going to get for awhile.

[mirovoi1]

REFLECTIONS OF A JAILBIRD

It can be quite hard to force myself to concentrate on writing when myriad distractions abound: I have the internet, snacks at hand, and a curious mind that prefers wandering than getting stuck into the arduous task of gathering my thoughts and organising them into one structured essay.

What is worse is that there are also myriad birds outside my windows that are eager to show off how free they are - while it is me that is cooped up inside an aviary. And this has been my daily life for months already here, in the middle of Istanbul.

The world has surely been turned upside down.

And my state of being has now too.

Have you ever been to prison without being involved in a crime?

The laws of lockdown have worked; they have successfully restricting my body to the house, but it has also set loose thoughts and emotion; and the things that stir inside an idle being.

In fact, I am usually the opposite: a busy body with a braindead head – not a rioting soul in a dead body.

Thus, has been a rare chance to engage in some very unique, albeit testing, self-reflection and what I have observed is that my own mind is actually hell-bent on getting away from me.

Out of due respect for public health, I have not really been anywhere for a full three months. And during this home-sentence, I have been battling with another prison: a mental prison consisting of high walls that forbid me from doing any proper constructive written work.

The summer warmth has arrived in Istanbul; finally replacing the long, wet winter - the heat and sunlight have come and replenished the empty hole that is known as ‘lockdown’. This is a very good change in events. Weather does alter one’s mood.

The uplifting summer-scented air has called me to begin writing down a few notes to share with you all. Although, however lovely days of sunshine and birdsong may be, it seems my newly-found prison-life has offered some useful (and dire) insight into how many lives are lived.

*

Morning after morning after morning, I wake up in the same fashion, with the sound of pigeons outside my bedroom window. They sit there and mumble the same stuff at each other. I get up for a coffee. The sparrows chirp like mad in the big leafy trees from morning till dusk and I am always here to hear it. Now that all forms of unnatural noise have subsided over the past weeks, the world has revealed that there are even chickens living on the banks of in front of the apartments opposite me.

Who would think chickens exist in a city of fifteen million people? Well, I believe it. It is hard not to believe it when their bleating is sometimes all that is left over now that cars and engines sounds have left the room. Right now, it is a bird’s world and I feel as if I am the only living creature that sits around stagnating all day.

Those birds are busy with their lives and I am the one who is sat in the bird cage waiting for some sort of seeds to appear in my bowl.

*

During my lifetime, I have always wondered how come old people so often tend to be miserable.

I was confused as to why oldies were always angry when kids’ balls come over their fence. I thought that old people should know that life goes along better when the world is a tolerant and friendly place - after all, judging by their bent posture and wrinkly skin, it could be safe to say that they have been around for a bit and should be aware of the tricks of the trade.

The world over, I have been yelled at by grumpy old people – usually for noise or some other form of unruliness. But my anticipation for some eventual grey-haired wisdom to save the day always fell through as they most often would revert back to their own form of unruliness – that being their decrepit emotional composure in the face of something minor.

I always liked to imagine that someday, I will become the seemingly only old man in the world who is patient, kind and unconcerned with little things that are of no apparent bother. I thought I would be the kindest granddad who would come out of his house, and instead of shouting with a stick in hand, he would come with a packet of chocolate biscuits and tell the kids just how great they are doing with their soccer skills.

But now I get it.

A silent, idle life, void of real things to do and people to talk to just makes people become dank. Now I understand. A rattle in the refrigerator has the power to really piss people off. I never knew of that rattle when my life extended beyond these four walls.

In a tiny little world, tiny little things just appear so big.

Now I realise, I too, in the future, am capable of becoming an angry old man.

*

In Istanbul you often have company from giant seagulls which are a key part of the infrastructure of this giant port city. Istanbulites love to feed animals, and these massive birds easily get their beaks into heavy pieces of stale bread. They do not want to share their findings with others and so they fly onto the rooftops and drop it, hack at it and throw it around in order to break it into smaller, edible size pieces.

I live on the top-floor and often have to deal with them stomping around on my roof. I have a rooftop sky-window that I can open up and be part of the goings on up there, but they are too busy to care. They are very happy. I am not though, and I give them the evil stare from under the window pane. And, again, they are too busy being happy to care.

*

May is the month of Ramadan and at times some very rhythmic Anatolian music seeps out from behind some bushes somewhere near where those chickens live. There is also drumming at 2am each night. Sometimes I hang myself out the fifth-floor window to try to get a piece of the vibe. I always found the concept of music to be extremely fascinating. Music is such a human thing.

I admit I have felt a bit self-conscious before dancing in front of other people, but I have to say that I feel downright embarrassed doing so in front of animals. So, I don’t. I am sure animals understand the pleasure in moving around and having fun, but the style we do it in… well, I don’t know about that. We must look absolutely ridiculous. But it is Ramadan, and it is a time for celebration.

There is a family of crows that lives in a branch – rent-free – just opposite my biggest windows in the lounge area. I enviously watch them coming and going, and taking turns at sitting on their babies. They screech and caw, as I do when I think I am singing.

As I hum along to these sudden outbreaks of traditional folk tunes, I wonder why we humans feel the need to offer a bit of our own noise to an otherwise good-enough piece of music. We also like to move our bodies along with to the beat, as if that was called for. If you can get past your own two feet, that is, then this timely shuffling is generally known as ‘dancing’.

So, it seems that adding some singing, some lyrics, and well, ultimately some sort of mouth and body movement to the music, it just makes it all come alive.

*

We humans make order of our thoughts through speech. We navigate our world through the use of the mouth; through words; through language, through lyrics, through conversation, through stories, constantly feeling the need to incessantly release some form of mouth-made noise with/to/towards/at other people: we engage in civil, amicable chitter-chatter; we emit our oral vibrations out of rage at poor kids who have lost their ball over the fence, we thrust our noises into the music as we groove along in tow…

…and somehow this makes us feel better about the world.

I can honestly say I am utterly embarrassed to be a human. But, the innate, instinctive need for talk and movement dictates our psyche. The necessity for social interaction with other people and physical interaction with our environment is indisputable. This is the source of a large part of our health. And without it, well…

We humans are a group mammal after all – perhaps more so than the feathered ‘free-folk’ outside that even feel free enough to crap all over my windowsills. But it is obvious: being around people and engaging in meaningful conversation regulates our mood and emotions so that we can avoid entering the otherwise guaranteed free-fall to hell…

…where a lot of us are right now.

All of this has now become starkly clear as I sit in here doing the opposite of what a healthy person does. All the animals accentuate the fact that they can get more done in life now that us human-beings have ceased to be part of the furniture; and we are not around anymore to bother them. Unless I decide to dance behind the glass or something - and that could bother a soul or two.

I mean, if you have to be a human being, then you also have to know how to meet a human being’s needs. That is not to say I dance, but it does mean one needs to be able to think well, speak properly, and move more.

This may seem obvious and straightforward, but I can assure you… it is not.

Just as one may think six months at home would be heaven, and when it comes around you realise it is actually a nightmare. Human beings may sit around in their homes dressed in clothes with their fancy gadgets, but can assure you, we do not always really understand what it is that we need. Nor do we properly see things for what they are…

A lot of us have never learnt to think, nor learnt to move, nor learnt to speak. Properly, that is.

*

Over the years, I have had a number of students who could fall under the category of ‘depressed’; or ‘hell-bound’ would be a better way to put it.

There is a thing called clinical depression, but this dispiritedness is often just simply an environmental, psychological, physiological or sociological inadequacy or imbalance. Sort of like a form of vitamin deficiency that comes good again with the right adjustments.

That is basically to say… yes, as it seems, a lot of melancholy folk typically seem to lead a full-time lifestyle of lockdown.

Try that! What a bloody existence…

I have observed many teenagers of mine who regularly take part in physical activity in their daily lives, be it sports or dance, are generally much more mentally and emotionally healthy – not to mention physically so. They tend to hold onto less negative energy and have a lighter, bouncier kick in their way of being.

Those that have good social, conversational and inter-personal skills tend to have these similar healthy characteristics. In short, those that are well-equipped to meet their simple human needs fare well in the world.

But this species of well-equipped kid is actually depressingly rare. A huge number of adults do not qualify either. That has frustrated me for a long time.

*

Normally at this time of year, I would be busy preparing for the summer holidays for when my students and I hit the long road with our backpacks on.

This year, that is not going to happen though, which is a pity because we were planning for some very exotic locations (Cuba, Madagascar…). And it is also a pity for some of my students that are, and/or have always been full-time-lockdown-lifestylists who would greatly benefit again from a couple of weeks-long de-shackling from the mundane.

However, this virus has offered me a very unique opportunity:

With the ditching of my passport and car-keys and the forgoing of my usual travel-lifestyle, I now get the chance to exist on this great planet in another fascinating way…

By being in prison, experiencing the psychological state of depressed prisoners, getting to know and understand the inner-world of many of my students, rehearsing for when I am old, and getting to write about it all.

More unfortunate is getting to brush up on my knowledge about myriad aspects of birdlife and how damning similar it is to ours. Even more unfortunate than that is the succumbing to the fact that I am capable of using words like ‘myriad’ myriad times in a six and a half page-long essay…

13 May 2020

(Period of lockdown from Covid-19)

(Some Photos from Around My Place in Istanbul)

[ourimpavidheroine]

An Anniversary

Five years ago today, the 13th of February, 2015, I published, all in one shot, a piece of fanfiction called Please Excuse My Penmanship.

I hadn’t, at that point, written - never mind published - any fanfiction for over fifteen years. I had written some X-Files fanfic back in the day but I’d lost it; my backup floppies disappeared when I moved to Finland and, like just about everyone else back then, the places I had posted it to online disappeared without warning. (Toss a coin to your Archive, oh valley of plenty.) I’d been pretty torn up about losing my fic that way, which put me off writing. Time went on; I had twins in 2002 and they both turned out to have non-verbal autism and different flavors of ADD/ADHD and my life got very complicated and very difficult for a lot of years there. Writing for pleasure wasn’t even on the table.

By 2015 my life had settled a bit. My wife was disabled and suffering from severe and untreated depression and the kids were in special ed and a lot of therapies but we were managing. I had watched Avatar: The Last Airbender with my kids (on DVD - they were too young for it when it first aired) and had gone on to watch The Legend of Korra with them as well. 

I really liked Mako as a character; he was too internal and complex for most of the kids watching, however, and wasn’t well liked. Most fans saw an inflexible jerk who caused and fucked up a love triangle; what I saw was an autistic man who was suffering from pretty severe PTSD. He grabbed my interest. I related.

I really liked his dynamic with Prince Wu, despite the fact that he was a really annoying character. Queer-coded as fuck, although the showrunners were plainly ignoring it. And I started to headcanon who they would be as a couple. How to make Wu less annoying while still making him canon Wu? How to humanize Mako while still acknowledging his autism and PTSD? Headcanon was all it was, though, a way for me keep myself occupied. I’ve been writing stories inside my head as long as I can remember. It’s what I’ve always done.

I read a post on here on Tumblr where the OP stated that there was no such thing as a good Letter Fic; I thought to myself, Bet I could do it. And so in the end of January 2015 I sat down at my PC and started to type up all of my headcanon.

I went back and forth with Wu. What I first started to write was too clumsy, by half; I tried to stick to his endless slang and it was as annoying as it had ever been on the show. I knew if I stuck to that shallow, silly, stupid, canon Wu he wouldn’t be interesting to read. I struggled with it for a time until I remembered something.

My maternal grandmother told me a story once about a girl from Mexico. Claudia was her name; she was a year older than my mother. Her own mother had died when she was born; her father, who was one of my grandfather’s business partners in Mexico, had left her in the care of her grandparents, who were extraordinarily wealthy denizens of Mexico City. At some point the adults involved thought that it would be a great idea to send this girl to stay with my mother’s family to learn English; in return, my mother would then go and stay a summer in Mexico City to learn Spanish. (Which she did; she’s fluent to this day.) Claudia had no English at all but my grandmother had working Spanish and I guess they all figured it would be enough for this poor girl? 

The first day Claudia arrived in San Francisco my grandmother kindly showed her into the bathroom and told her to take a shower. My Grams realized about ten minutes or so later that the water hadn’t turned on; she went to check on her and there she was, sitting obediently on the toilet seat, fully dressed, waiting for the maid to come and undress her and turn the water on for her shower. 

She had no idea how to do either of those things for herself. She had never, at the age of thirteen, undressed herself or operated a shower. And there it was, the opening of my story. Wu remembers arriving in Republic City on the run from the Red Lotus, checking into the hotel, and having no idea whatsoever what to do next. And I thought to myself...What if he isn’t actually stupid? 

And there he was. My Wu. Just like that.

I wrote feverishly for a week, drawn into the story that was sitting in my head, waiting to be told. I didn’t have a Betareader; my wife liked my writing but rather tersely told me that TLOK wasn’t her fandom and she wasn’t interested in reading it, something that hurt me pretty deeply, especially since my X-Files fanfic was how we’d actually connected in the first place. 

(She was, at that time, in the process of slowly dying of heart failure, but I didn’t know that then.)

I wasn’t going to publish it. I just wanted to write it, to see if I still had it together after a seventeen year hiatus. Wuko wasn’t at all a popular ship; after the show finale a couple of months prior all the fanfiction being feverishly written and published was Korrasami. (In fact, I checked AO3 at the time and found exactly two Wuko fanfics, both of which were one-shots and not to my particular taste.) I went back and forth with it and then thought, Fuck it. I’ll just do it. And maybe no one will read it but at least I’ll have done it. I read it through one more time and then, on the thirteenth of February, took a deep breath, told myself to stop being a coward, and posted the entire fic at once. 

I got my first comment, and I was elated. And then I thought to myself, Well, fuck, you may as well write some of the other stuff in your head. You might learn something about yourself as a writer on the way.

Then, a few months later, on the seventeenth of June, my world fell apart. My wife, staying at our summer cottage with our twelve year old twins, died of a heart attack while the kids were off playing and I was here at home, getting ready to travel down the next day on the train to meet them all for the summer. My daughter was the one to find her; she was long past saving at that point. Family friends brought the children, our pets, and our car the two hours back home as I collapsed on the floor of our flat and rocked myself back and forth, wordlessly keening, my hands trembling uncontrollably.

The next year was unspeakable. I was a widow at forty-six; I was living in a foreign country with two disabled children, with no family or friends nearby and an imprecise grasp of the language. My wife had told me she had life insurance; she lied. I was flat broke. My grief was deep and whole and devastating; my children were traumatized and barely functioning. I had no one to help me, and I’d cook meals at midnight so my sleeping children wouldn’t hear me sobbing in the kitchen.

And I wrote.

And I wrote.

And I wrote.

I wrote out of desperation; I had to do something to keep me tethered to this world. I wrote of love and families, of a traumatized child from the street that was my daughter’s age, full of bravado and choked fury. I wrote of an autistic boy growing into a man, bullied and shunned, aching to be free, much like my own. 

I took my children to more therapists. I took myself to a therapist that turned out to be homophobic; I found another one. I made dinners; I cleaned the house, I walked in circles around my living room, whispering over and over to myself, You’re okay you’re okay you’re okay you’re okay, before making another phone call.

And I wrote.

In August of 2018 my daughter attempted suicide and was hospitalized. I was trying to write I Do Not Ask The Night For Explanations and I had to stop. I had severe panic attacks whenever I tried to work on it. I brought her home and I cut my work hours down to four hours a week so that I could be with her at all times; she wasn’t safe to be left alone. I cared for her. I cared for her twin, who was terrified, unable to sleep, afraid that if he wasn’t watching her she’d try it again. I fought until I got them different therapists. I stopped sleeping. My health suffered.

And I wrote. When I could. It was, without any doubt at all, the only thing that was keeping me going during that time. I would tell myself that I had to keep going, that I still had so much of this story in my head, I needed to get it out. Sometimes I would write while sobbing. Sometimes I would sit here at my desk and nothing would come. I just kept going, though.

It’s better now. She missed most of last year of school and is making it up this year and doing so well. Her brother is at a new school and has, for the first time in his life, made friends. I was able, in December, to actually leave them for three days; the first time I had been away from them since we lost their mother. 

They’ll be eighteen this summer and we’re finally able to breathe. We’re moving forward, the three of us. We’re still broken, but we’re making something new out of the pieces instead of trying to put them back together.

My writing is what saved me. It wasn’t about how many hits/comments/kudos I got; I appreciate every single one I get, believe me. But the writing was making me hold myself accountable, making myself get out of bed, get dressed, brush my hair and teeth, sit down and try. Sometimes that was all I could manage; the writing just wasn’t happening. But it gave me a goal when I needed one. And boy, did I need one.

Thank you all for reading. For those of you that have been there since the beginning and those who just started reading now. For those who faded away from the fandom over time or who left because they didn’t like how the story was going; I wish you well and thanks for reading when you did. Thank you for the hits and the kudos and the comments. You may not have known you were helping to save me, but you were. So thank you.

I am not done writing yet. I am not oblivious; I know I am so far in AU territory now that you’re for all intents and purposes reading original fic. That’s okay. It’s the story that was in my head, that is still in my head. Maybe someday I’ll try to publish it and maybe I won’t, and I’m fine with that. I’m not ready at this point to do what’s necessary to take it past fanfic and that’s okay. It has served and is continuing to serve its purpose for me; if you all enjoy it then that’s just biscuits and gravy, as my Great-Aunt Margie used to say.

I wrote us all a little anniversary ficlet; this takes it full circle for me. (And then back I go to Wu and Qi’s wedding!) 

Mind the warnings at the bottom if you think you need them.

Chapter 132: 252: Wu

[theawkwardterrier]

things left behind and the things that are ahead, ch. 30

AO3 link here

Peggy comes home from work and finds her husband crying at the kitchen table.

The newspaper is open in front of him. The countertops are in more of a state of disorder than Steve usually leaves them. She finds herself stepping quietly, the way she would at a crime scene.

“Steve?” She waits, making sure he has heard her, before she touches his shoulder. He still startles a little.

“Peggy. Hi.” It lacks the joy that he sometimes still has at greeting her or even the typical tenderness; the words come flatly from him instead, as if he isn’t entirely registering saying them. Only as he wipes his eyes with the sides of his hands does he seem to actually pull himself into the moment. He shoves his chair back. “Peggy. Shit. You’re home.” She typically gets a little twitch of pleasure hearing him curse, a reminder that they are beyond the surface politeness he feels is correct for strangers or acquaintances, but today it only registers for her as properly panicked. He shifts his gaze quickly toward the counter, where a pan of fish and vegetables sits neatly prepared beside a cutting board that still has a pile of peelings on it, half a lemon sitting beside a knife.

“It’s alright, I’m early, no need to get up.” She moves to put the food in herself, noting the time on her watch as she does. Since he started learning to cook, Steve has always been very precise about the practice, spooning flour into measuring cups instead of scooping it and making sure the oven is fully up to the proper temperature before placing anything inside. That he says nothing as she slides the tray inside means either she isn’t making a mess of things, or he hasn’t entirely realized what she is doing. “I had those meetings in the city, which took longer than anticipated, of course, and by the time I was on my way back, it seemed a waste to go back to my office for only a short while before coming home.” She does not mention that she is barely early at all, only fifteen minutes before her expected arrival, and he does not seem to notice, which is odd in itself.

She’s seen him cry before, happy tears at their wedding and as they fell asleep beside each other the night after she told him she was pregnant, hard or sadder ones after Bucky’s fall, at George Barnes’s funeral last year, quietly where she couldn’t see after she was no longer pregnant anymore (and then second time, too). But she was expecting it then, or at least expecting some sort of reaction; now, after all this time, after all that’s happened, seeing him weeping is something of a surprise. He was actually his usual self before she left this morning, joking as he handed her the marmalade, kissing her lightly at the door, and she has returned to find him like this.

Seating herself behind him, she places a hand on his forearm atop the table. “Will you tell me what’s happened?” He’s barely opened his mouth to protest when she fixes him with a look. “Clearly something has, and it is important, and I should know.” She rubs her thumb over his broad wrist. Her nails are dark blue today, matching her suit, and against the cuff of his gray shirt, they remind her of tears or rain or the sea. “You’re crying, Steve.”

He pushes out a chuckle, one note, watery and worn. “I guess I am.” The newspaper, as he shifts it toward her, has the grayed look and blurry-edged letters of one handled too long. “I was waiting for the oven to heat up, so I sat down to read the paper and I ran across this.” He points to a tiny item on page four of the Times, barely two inches high, from the AP wire. Greek Explosion Kills Six, reads the headline.

“That’s quite sad,” Peggy offers gently, after she’s skimmed the details (an explosives factory in Serres, six deaths, nearly a hundred injuries, significant property damage).

“Yeah, it is,” says Steve. “But the point is that I didn’t know about it. It would have been the easiest thing in the world to have an inspector come in, to have extra precautions in place, something so that six people wouldn’t be dead.” He stares down at the tabletop, not angry as she might have expected, but something closer to ashamed.

She says, with just the barest hint of admonishment, “Darling, there will always be things that you cannot fix; sometimes you will not know about them or they will be too complex or impossible to alter. And you certainly can’t expect yourself to have memorized the entirety of the New York Times archive.”

“But I’m the only one who could have.” The edge of the paper crumples beneath his spasming fist. Steve has always - nearly as long as she has known him - been very conscious, very careful, of his strength, eventually automatically so. She has never worried about his touch on any part of her in the heat of passion, never thought twice about his superpowered hands taking eggs from the Frigidaire or picking apples in the autumn, stacking and washing and putting away their delicate gilt-edged wedding china.

It strikes her, then, how much worse it is than she thought.

“You are in a unique position, yes,” she tells him, still calm, selecting her words mindfully. “And you have done with it the best you could, the best which could be expected.”

“No, I haven’t.”

“Steve—”

“I haven’t!” He stands, hands shoved into his pockets. “We saw that this spring.” His voice lowers. “And last month too.”

“If you have advance warning of a murder, you have an obligation to do something about it,” Steve said, and he meant it. Especially a violent, horrible murder, especially a child’s murder, even one that had enormous and international ripples. It was not this boy’s job, Steve said, to teach people lessons about right and wrong that they should have known anyway, that they would learn someday regardless if they were ever going to be willing to learn them.

Things went perfectly: older cousins had, through an untraceable chain of acquaintances, been offered good summer jobs in Chicago and therefore had no reason to encourage excitement or incite jealousy about a family trip down south. A large but anonymous donation which no one ever bothers tracing back to Howard Stark guaranteed that this year’s Nebraska State Fair would be one to remember, offering further incentive to travel there in addition to the opportunity for driving lessons. Emmett Till joined his mother on her trip to Omaha, and no one except those who loved him had reason to remember his name. Steve and Peggy gave a donation of their own, large and even more anonymous, to the NAACP.

As September opened without any mention in the headlines, Steve slept soundly for the first time in months. He did not dream of blood or of those weeks when Peggy’s eyes were shuttered even to him. He did not play over and over behind his eyelids that April day when he, still leaning into the reassurance of the successful polio vaccine testing and its broad public release, had opened his paper, read the name Cutter in a small type headline, and felt a freeze go through him from crown to feet because he had forgotten this part of the history, forgot until he was reminded, forgot until it was too late.

Finally, with Emmett Till safe, he breathed fully for the first time in months, as if he had reached a plateau rather than forcing himself further on an endless climb.

Peggy felt the change in him with relief. She had never expected Steve to be heroic or endlessly inspirational with her, had liked that even when she was still merely Agent Carter to him there was already a trust there; he had confided in her even then, not afraid of seeming weak, not afraid that she would doubt him because she had heard his fears. The way he had taken all of this so very personally had been worrisome, but even more than that, the way he did not talk to her about it hurt.

At the beginning, just after she had lost the first pregnancy, she had been somewhat relieved by it, that he not burdened her with his pain when she was still reeling from her own grief, the surprise of it, its power. Only later did she realize how much she had come to rely on the openness between them but that she did not know how to ask for it - she had never needed to before.

Then the second hit came, the Cutter incident, and it pulled him only further into himself. She knew that it kept him up at night, knew that he was reading obsessively about the new safety measures being put in place and the talk of lawsuits, knew that he had sent out dozens of small payments of his own to the families affected, that he was becoming more and more focused on making sure Emmett Till would stay alive - but she did not know any of this because he told her.

She always knew that he would be there for her when she needed it, but her worry was little about that at all. As time went on and he continued to keep some part of himself from her, she began to wonder if she would ever again see her husband as she had known him. But then he began to appear again, Steve with his true and gentle smiles, his ease with the neighbors, his sharp-eyed consideration, the opinions that he stuck to and those he would debate on late evenings: her Steve, easing himself from beneath the guilt back into being.

They went away together in the summer, convinced each other into trying unfamiliar seafood dishes, laughed at the ridiculously broad-brimmed hat Peggy had brought to shade herself from the sun. His hand pressed itself against the still-warm skin of her back as they laid down to sleep and she relished the feeling. When she lost the second pregnancy the next month, he hid his tears again but did not fade from her the way he had before.

And then October began, and new headlines came: a series of attacks by two white policemen in Alabama, shooting into one house, sending threatening notes, setting fire to another house, all because people were beginning to sign petitions supporting desegregation of the schools and the local dairy. A next door neighbor had sustained a bullet graze when the shots went astray at the first house. The second home had burned quickly and terribly and entirely. The parents who had signed the petition had not even been home. Firefighters later found the children - fourteen, eight, and five - trapped together on the staircase.

Statements by witnesses said the two officers had only stood by and watched, laughing, getting into their patrol car to drive away as the firetruck’s sirens came to the corner. Despite the bravery of those witnesses taking the stand, pointing to the two men sitting with lax, slouching posture at the defendants' table as rows of uniformed officers sat behind them, despite the momentary hope as the grand jury indicted the pair, despite the photos of those three children on every front page in the country, the jury deliberated not even two hours before acquitting.

Her Steve went away again. Oh, he was still there in some ways, lending his artist’s hand to placards and his height and voice to protest marches, taking on more commissions in order to simply turn around and donate the money, sitting up late to talk with her about the recommendations she should make now and to plan with her for the future. But so much of what she loved seemed hidden by time or distance, some fog of life, something essential to Steve slipping away from him and from her as well.

The last week or so had been a bit better. They had gone to a film. Steve consulted her on what tactics to take to make Winifred consent to letting him contribute more than a single pie to their Thanksgiving dinner. Peggy had begun to relax, tentatively, into hope.

And now there was this.

“I should hope that you weren’t expecting to be able to control everything,” she says, and is surprised to find her tone not only firm but snappish. She is not yelling, not yet, but she isn't quite restricting herself to that controlled admonishment that she does so well.

Steve picks up on it right away; his spine snaps straight. "Of course not," he says, near-controlled right back. He walks to the counter and begins clearing it, movements overly sharp as he brings out the trash bin and scrapes the cutting board into it. "But I'm not talking about things that are out of my control, I'm talking about making mistakes." He finishes with the garbage and pushes the bin back with his foot, picks up a rag to wipe the counter.

With a coldness she does not know she has ever used with him, she asks, "And what mistakes would those be?"

"Peggy—" He is all tiredness suddenly, her knife-edge politeness cutting at him. She can see the slump to his shoulders, the way he rests his weight on his arms as if he can't quite hold himself upright anymore. His fingers squeeze tightly around the rag still in his fist. "I tried to make a difference and it didn’t help. I tried to do something right so a family wouldn't know the pain of losing their child, and three children were lost."

"You act as if one action had direct consequences on the other. Do you believe that without the Till case, these officers were somehow emboldened to do what they did? For all you know, the Selma murders occurred in the other world and were overshadowed by the murder you prevented."

"But that's just it." The rag drops to the counter as he turns to face her. His arms are spread outward rather than crossing themselves over his chest as she might have expected. His face splays open as well, and even as her heart turns at the pain there, she welcomes the sight of it, too, the openness here in front of her. "I don't know enough to know. I should have prepared more, should have remembered more." He shuts his eyes tightly and then opens them again, waiting to face her judgment. "There are thousands of kids who got sick because I didn't pay enough attention. Some of them died because I didn't remember well enough. There are all sorts of other people who I can't help at all - can’t get people to accept that it’s rape even if it’s the husband doing it, can’t convince GIs it’s okay to get themselves help if the war still keeps them up at night, the lead and tobacco and asbestos people putting up ten thousand obstacles to regulation, greasing palms, while people are dying right now, not to mention it’s impossible to even fucking touch anything to do with the Church—"

"You cannot fix everything. You will never be able to. But there are others who will live better lives, who are alive or will be alive because of what you did remember, what you've done, what you've helped me to do." She pushes her chair back and stands slowly, coming toward him still speaking. "What you've done, you have never done alone. I've been right beside you making the choices, most often giving the orders, in fact."

He protests, because although he sees her clearly, he always loves her, "But this isn't about the choices we’ve made, it's about my mistakes," and she cuts him off. She is right in front of him now, close as an embrace, but he does not offer it to her or to himself.

"You are a human being and you are allowed to make mistakes." She touches his jaw, his temple - light, fingertip touches that he still seems to shy from. She looks into his eyes. "We have more important roles than most people, and it makes our mistakes larger, more consequential. But if we blame ourselves so harshly for making mistakes, we will stop doing anything, we will lock ourselves away and refuse to make choices in the event that we make the wrong ones - or we make the right ones, and things go wrong anyway. I trust you to be my partner in this, I always have, because I know the heart of you." She swallows and finds that her voice has gone shallow. "I miss you, Steve. The world doesn't know it, but if you can't get past this, it will miss you too."

"It's just—" and his voice shakes. He does not say that it is all harder than expected, that he isn’t certain he is up to the challenge. Instead, words nearly breaking, he tells her, "This has just been a really shitty year, you know."

She laughs, though it is frail and does not sound like her usual laughter. "It truly has been. And we might have more like it before we're through. But the only way I can see walking through them is with you by my side. And when we have victories and good moments, I need you by my side for those too."

"Are you sure that after all of this—"

"Yes."

"—that you even want me—"

"Yes," and she puts her palm over his heart.

"I really put you through it, though," he says. He wraps careful fingers against her wrist but does not pull her hand away, only rests them there. "I know that you didn't sign up for—"

"A husband who is the most human person I know, even if he's a bit more than that? A man who has such a sense of responsibility, such tremendous nobility, that he will torture himself over each error and every decision?" She comes somehow closer. Her face is against his neck. "I knew exactly who I was marrying."

She kisses his throat softly, then moves away, wiping swiftly at her eyes. She checks the time on her watch and takes the pan from the oven.

"This will keep," she says, not a question but closer to an order. She isn’t even certain it’s true; they might end up eating beans on toast for supper - which she will prepare, thank you - and leaving the fish out for one of the neighborhood strays. "I think we should take a bath together before we eat."

"You do?" he asks dubiously. She is already unpinning her hair and walking toward the stairs, trusting that he will follow.

"I do. You see, I'm not entirely certain that you have truly absorbed the message that you are allowed to be human with all that entails. I think I can be further instructive in that area, if you'll only go run the water, please."

“You’re pretty stubborn, you know.”

“Yes.” She glances at him over her shoulder, fingers moving toward her jacket buttons. “It’s one of the reasons you married me. Now come along upstairs and we can review some of the others.”

Their bathtub is larger than most, but Steve is tall and broad and Peggy is no dainty flower herself. Still, they curl themselves somehow into the steaming water together. She settles herself back against his chest, skin on skin, and he rests his cheek on her hair.

“Thank you,” he says into the humid silence of the bathroom. “For before. I—”

“It’s alright.” She picks up one of his damp hands and kisses the back, securing their fingers together. “You know all of that, anyway. You just needed a reminder.”

“Thank you for being my reminder.”

“If you’ll only talk to me—”

“I will—”

“—then I always will be.”

“Always?” he asks, and the ache in his voice matches the one beneath her ribs. She does not speak for a moment.

“For a good long while yet,” she says firmly, once she can, and they both have to be satisfied with that.

More chapters here

[advernia]

the world in her heart, her heart in his hands

assorted sidenotes for the fic i made in response to an anon-sent aesthetic prompt! oooh boy, i sure took long on this one lmao...... _(:3 」∠)_

prompt #7: steady notes coming from a guitar nearby, fireflies dancing around the clearing, two sleeping bags close together, and a bright full moon briefly covered by a cloud.

so the core idea i had when i saw that prompt got requested was based on jonah’s say i do! route: he says that one day, he wanted to go to the land of reason + see the place alice was born and raised. tbh idk how the prompt even led me to that, but the imagery vibes i got from the prompt hinted of something like freedom. or something like lovers secretly meeting in the woods, which i sort of went by.

OKAY SO I SWEAR I FINISHED WRITING THE PROMPT (day zero!!!) EARLY (by my standards) LMAO.............. like, maybe a week after i got the ask or so? but then when i went about proofreading it i felt that it was... lacking??? i can’t explain it myself, but i didn’t wanna post it yet until i got that feeling cleared out - i tried revising + adding, but it didn’t help so i just started thinking about expanding the fic instead...

thinking about the scenes really took longer than i thought?!?!?! i wanted this request up early but i was stumped on what kind of scenes i wanted to see + how their lengths were gonna be.... plus i was thinking if i should go solely on narration + description........ or maybe more of dialogue...... then i jumped to holy shit what’s my timeline gonna be what cultural whatnot am i gonna emphasize and i think i fussed over those aspects rather than picturing the actual scenes LMAOOO.......................

great disclaimer: i have NEVER stepped into the uk..... or england + london for that matter ahahaha GET REKT tho i want to someday huehuehue....... i heavily relied my research on maps + history websites + train timetables to help me get through the touring parts so do forgive me if i messed up somewhere + butchered history haha..... i was thinking to make things vague, but since i’m always in for emphasizing the differences between cradle + land of reason, i decided to get a little technical with it......

i have to admit that i wrote most of the fic during breaks in work hELLA RAD........... i’m doing my job properly, i swear........ it’s just that when i already have a stable idea of what i want to happen, the scene becomes clearer in my mind. i wanted so! badly! to add scenes of jonah pronouncing words and looking at various things funny!!! jonah and his attempts to communicate with londoners!!! fussy jonah poking around a boutique, him being fascinated + studying displays of gun shops, or him accidentally offending the royal guard + constables LMAOOOOO but i couldn’t seem to write anything satisfactory involving those ideas........... ಥ_ಥ

back to the issue of timeline, i was picturing the london in this fic to be around the 1860s or smth.... but then i remembered that in edgar’s dramatic end letter, he mentions his fascination with electricity aka lightbulbs......... which were, like...... discovered early 1800s but only became common in 1882 ahahaha....... when i realized this i was already writing day 18 oOOPS so i just decided to go on and wing it I’M SORRY _(:3 」∠)_

on timeframe, i know that it’s very highly unlikely that jonah would take a vacation for two months. i bet the mere concept of a one-month vacation is enough to give him a heart attack LMAOOOO but let’s just say that red army told him to take his time in the land of reason, especially when they learn that jonah plans to formally meet alice’s parents. when he hears about this, lancelot tosses in the suggestion of proposing to alice while they’re in the land of reason, so that jonah can tell her parents about that too. jonah thinks it’s a fantastic idea..... so he decides to accept hot damn, a two month vacation!

whole route & lengths of stay (points streaked with red are mentioned within the fic minus nottingham whoops sorry):

london [16 days bc IT’S A BIG CITY LMAO (day 30 - 14). rides a morning train going to bristol on the 14th, arrives there midday.]

bristol [5 days (day 14 - 9). leaves bristol on the morning of the 9th to walk all the way to glastonbury, arrives there come late afternoon / evening.]

glastonbury [4 days (day 9 - 5). leaves midday of the 5th to walk their way to alice’s village, arrives there around sunset.]

alice’s village / ‘actual wonderland’ lmao [5 days (day 5 - 0). located somewhere in between bridgwater, taunton, and glastonbury. month 1 of vacation has ended.]

day log commentary!

thirty. arrival in the land of reason through falling - routes where alice does go back don’t feature her falling down london’s sky, so maybe she’s just... spit out from the hole????? idk haha so i altered it anyway!!!!! the landing scene was initially like this: jonah lands first, he catches alice in his arms, they banter a bit....... and then they suddenly remember the suitcase only for said object to fall right on jonah’s head LMAOOO....... it’s a cradle magical object that looks like a regular suitcase but will always be as light as a feather despite it’s contents + it has GREAT CAPACITY so jonah is actually okay!!!!!! i decided to scrap that scene concept though haha!

twenty-nine. does the hole to the land of reason only open around midnight or smth???? i’m sure it doesn’t, but i went with jonah + alice leaving cradle minutes before twelve o’clock, so when they arrive in london jonah gets to see the big ben signal midnight. is that planned on alice’s part? maybe. on another note, i’m assuming that a high-ranking officer + noble like jonah is definitely used to traveling to other countries so he’s definitely not one for homesickness, but i like the thought of him always feeling all sorts of uncomfortable on his first nights away from home - he doesn’t make a big deal about it bc he gets better three days in or so. idk, it just seems fitting for someone very particular like him.

twenty-seven. if luka’s hair is fucking dyed, my god (no wonder i found those light ends of his hair sorta funny), then here’s jonah excuse to adapt another hair color with the help of magic crystals LMAO - i always stick with a reality ensues standpoint, so his ikeman looks aside, i’m sure londoners would find jonah’s hair color (heck, maybe even his eye color) very unique. alice can’t deal with all that sudden attention lol but she somewhat proud that the man who has effortlessly captured the attention of the people of her world too is the man she proudly calls her lover ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

twenty-three. now that i think of it, what exactly does cradle mean when they say the land of reason? are they simply referring to the city of london, or earth as a whole??? most likely the latter, but i’m pretty sure no one except blanc (and possibly ray bc that globe in his room lol) know exactly how large the land of reason is. anyway, not gonna lie, i wanted jonah + alice talking about novels by maybe the likes of charles dickens, thomas hardy, george eliot or h.g. wells. heck, maybe jane austen and charlotte bronte too!!!! but i had to scrap that bc gaps in understanding cultural & historical references + use of language, figurative and non-figurative.... it’s a shame about the last two though - i’m sure jonah can somehow probably relate to the society depicted in their books since the red territory sounds like your typical breeding place of victorian era nobles lmao!!!!

eighteen. sometimes when people learn / gain a deeper understanding about new things, they have the urge to brag about said knowledge to others - of course jonah wants to show alice what he knows about her world so far haha! calling a train a mechanical beast tho lmao..... he refers to it that way, but i think it’s his target of fascination in london!!! noise and possibly environmental issues aside, it’s very convenient + efficient and can cater to all, but what he finds most impressive that it’s a man-made locomotive!!! that’s something worth incredible praise!!! ( ᐛ )و

fourteen. actual train ride!!! hmmm.... i think jonah only panics maybe a good thirty minutes in when the train starts moving??? alice tries to calm him down by pointing at the passing scenery out the window + idle chatter until jonah finally relaxes himself.... but then he starts to panic slightly again when alice suggests that they look around the train and he’s like: is that even remotely safe??? what about our baggages, can we leave them unattended??? hey, i saw you snicker - how dare you laugh at me!!!

nine. according to google, an estimate of a walk starting from bristol going to glastonbury is 8h 25min. that’s for the present time though - would’ve it been shorter or longer in the past??? idk, but definitely one’s pace during the walk affects the total time, lol. since railroads only started out around 1830s + i made alice a village girl, walking really is her way to go. pedestrianism was still a thing around the 19th century!!! her stamina in other routes tho lol (ﾟ⊿ﾟ)

six. here’s my self-indulgent thing of wanting to add a dance scene, pt. 1 LMAOOOO -   the steps in the scene aren’t really from a certain folk dance in england, much less from glastonbury itself... i did look up on england folk dances, but i couldn’t pick one that i wanted to incorporate into the scene so i went with describing some random steps on the top of my head _(:3 」∠)_ ..... maybe someday, i’ll write a proper one..... on another note though, i suppose jonah can adapt quickly to folk dances, but he may come off a bit stiff at first in line / column dances where there’s the switch of partners??? i mean, there are formal 19th century dances that have that same concept, but.... the finesse + personal boundaries are all there lmao -  he’s not against the casual intimacy + show of obvious joy in folk + common dances though, it’s just more of that he’s not used to the informality of it all, i think.

five. plot twist: alice does lead jonah to her home, the cottage on a hill like she always described, but what he doesn’t expect is when she solemnly says that she’d introduce him to her parents she leads him to the back of the hill and in the foot of the hill he finds himself staring at her parents’ gravestones as she’s smiling sadly with a bouquet of flowers in her hand OH WAIT WRONG GENRE WASN’T THIS SUPPOSED TO BE FLUFF LMAO - kidding aside, i do hope cybird catches onto the idea of a story event of chosen suitor going to the land of reason with alice to meet her parents or smth!!! they did do a travel event in the jp ver, after all.... but i’m not keeping my hopes up haha....... _(:3 」∠)_

zero. self-indulgent thing of wanting to add a dance scene, pt. 2 - tho it’s in the latter part along with the prompt lmao!!! hmmm, i’m pretty satisfied with how this one turned out tho i had a little problem arranging the first half - the rest i relatively left untouched even after i added the rest of the days to the fic. hopefully, does well as a nice end to the fic itself..... tbh, the thought of summer dress alice + casual shirt & pants jonah both barefoot & running around like children in moonlit woods (don’t do this in real life folks) made me smile a lot. give me more soft-and-not-so-tooth-rotting-fluff scenes, cybird

also!!! since the prompt involved a guitar, i had a certain track on repeat lmao - you can listen to it here, and it’s the second to the last track titled umibe ni yurete (swaying in the beach)! (ノ^∇^)

and that’s all that i’ve got today!!! thank you very much for reading + hope you’re staying safe & well wherever you are!!!!（｡≧◇≦）ﾉ

[ponderinqs]

Talking to the Moon. -L. Ackerman

author’s note: this is a levi x reader as childhood friends! warnings: mentions of death but that’s all :) genre: childhood friends, fluff, some angst?? word count: 2,383 --------------------------------------------------- From the memories of being a child that you can remember, he was always in the picture. Every single memory that you can possibly recall, there he was. It wasn’t a bad thing per say. Your families grew up next to each other after all. You moved in a year or two after he had moved in with his mom. Kutchel was her name. You remember her bringing over a fresh batch of homemade brownies with a little sidekick next to her. “Oh, hello! I saw that you are our new neighbors, so I couldn’t help but make you all feel welcomed. I’m Kutchel, and this is my son Levi.” Kutchel ruffled up Levi’s hair, making him groan in response. “Moooommm.” He immediately caught your attention. He was unusual looking for a kid. But, maybe it was a good thing. After being introduced to your brand new neighbors, everything took off from there. The two mothers were often found at the town’s park with their two kids. You and Levi grew closer and closer each and every year. When Levi was twelve, and you were eleven, devastating news fell upon the hands of the small children. Kutchel, the sweet lady who always gave you such a warm smile, died. She was silently fighting cancer, but told not one person about the fatal disease. Levi took the news pretty heavily, and ran away. It took you and your mother exactly a week and three days to find him. He was absolutely filthy, considering he was hiding in an abandoned shopping center. Your mother took him home and gave him a bath and of course, food to eat. He lived with you both for four years in the extra bedroom across from yours. He became a brother to you. Kids at school made up rumors, saying that his mother left him with you because she didn’t love him anymore, or that you both were actually siblings. They were different every day. After the four years, Levi was sixteen and you were fifteen. Things were definitely different. There was a weird tension between you two. You couldn’t put your tongue on it, but something felt weird in your stomach every time you looked at Levi. You for sure thought it was just guilt from his mother passing away, but then you came to the conclusion that they were in fact butterflies. It was no doubt that you two had feelings for each other. I mean, growing up and going through everything together? There was going to be some type of love there. You meant to tell Levi how you felt, and so did Levi. He was planning on telling you he loved you the day his uncle took him away from you. It was a Sunday evening when the doorbell rang. Your mother thought it was her friend, but it ended up being some weird man with a hat and a beard. He barged through the house and stood by the door. “Where is he?” The man spoke loudly, startling you and your mother. “W-Who are you sir? And who are you referring to?” Your mother stared at the man with terror in her eyes. “Levi, you shit! Where is he!” As soon as Levi heard his name from his room, he came downstairs and stared at the man with widened eyes. “Kenny..?” He approached him slowly. “Ah, there’s the bastard. Come on, we’re leaving.” He grabbed Levi by the arm and started dragging him out the door. “Levi! No!!!” You screamed out to him, only to have him look back at you. “I’m sorry, (name).” Was the last thing you ever heard come out of his mouth. He had a phone, and you always tried to call him. Everyday after school, you called him about ten times. But, you gave up after three months of trying. Where could he have gone? Is he okay? Who was that man who took him away? Those questions never stopped running through your head. Countless breakdowns and panic attacks at night never seemed to stop. It was all his fault. One night, you went onto your roof. You stared up at the sky and talked to Levi. “Levi.. I don’t know where you are or what you’re doing right now, but I miss you. It’s been a course of six months since I last saw you. When will you come home to me? I- I never got to tell you, but I like you.. Do you like me back?” You spoke to the stars as if they would somehow turn to Levi and he would give you the response you so desperately craved. Levi did the same exact thing that night. He went onto the roof of his worn down apartment complex and looked up into the starry night. “(name), I wish I could change the past. I knew that someday we would be separated, but I never knew it would happen this soon. Tch.. I never told you my feelings either. I hope that you’re okay.” A total of nine years had passed since that day. Levi was long forgotten by now. You had graduated and moved to New York City for your career in painting. You started to paint when you were seventeen and realized that you were incredible at the hobby. You were given a job opportunity here and you decided to take it. Some of your work would be plastered onto a wall in an art museum. It felt so surreal to you. You picked a couple pieces of art that were special to you to put up in the museum. One in particular was a starry night with a girl, no less than fifteen years old, sitting upon a roof and looking up into the sky. It always reminded you of that night. After the workers mounted the few art pieces to the wall, you were able to take a glimpse at your magnificent artwork. Tears pricked at your eyes when you finally realize your dream of being an artist came true. The art show was tomorrow, so you had to take a cab home and get some good rest. You stopped at a small corner store before heading home, being in the mood for chocolate milk. Your mom always made it for you and… him. But you still loved it nonetheless. After paying for your drink, you exited the store and began to walk along the sidewalk to find a cab. It wasn’t until a sudden force almost knocked you off your feet. You turned around and watched a woman with brown hair and glasses struggle to stand up. “Oh my, I am so sorry!! I wasn’t looking where I was going!” She apologized several times and you just smiled. “It’s alright, I appreciate your apolog-” You were cut off by a man catching up to the woman. “Oi, four eyes, let’s go. Stop talking to strangers.” His raven hair and steel eyes reminded you of someone from your past, but you brushed it off. This isn’t some cheesy fanfic, (name). This is your life for crying out loud.   “Okay, shorty. Let’s go. Sorry again ma’am!” She waved and jogged to catch up to the man, who’s eyes were glued onto yours. He looked shocked for a split second, before returning to his cold expression. You shook it off and found a cab before heading home. The next day was filled with anxiety. You were a nervous wreck on your way to the art show. You were bouncing your leg up and down while fidgeting with your fingers. Once you arrived at the museum you paid the cab driver and headed up to your exhibit. You were offered plenty of drinks and free food, but your appetite was long gone. You were wearing a simple red dress, fitted to your body, and some red heels. Not too much heel, or else you would fall flat on your face. The art show was three hours in, and many people stopped to look at your exhibit. They gave you plenty of warming compliments about each piece on the wall. When nobody was around your paintings, you walked over to the food and grabbed a few items to keep yourself in check. Three Hours Before Levi had planned to stay inside today, but when Hanji came bursting through the doors of his apartment, he had guessed she had other plans for him. “Leeevvvviiii!!” She came jogging into the living room, causing Levi to give her a glare. “What is it, shitty-glasses?” He picked up his tea cup and took a sip before placing it back down onto the coffee table. “So you know that art museum in Times Square? Well…. There’s finally going to be an art exhibit there! There hasn’t been one in over six months!! We need to go Levi, you’ll love it!” She tugged on Levi’s arm, causing him to click his tongue. “Fine. But only because you won’t leave me the hell alone.” He stood up and got dressed before the two of them took a cab to the art museum. It wasn’t too packed, but the place was nice and welcoming. While walking around, he lost Hanji and just sighed. “That dumbass..” He said under his breath while walking through the various paintings that were plastered up onto the walls. He approached a few that caught his eye. It looked like more of a beginning who had painted it, but overall was really good. While looking at each painting, one made his heart skip a beat. It was of a small child, perhaps around the age twelve, sitting on a swing with a girl. The boy wore mostly black, and his hair was raven colored just like his own. Their backs covered up their facial features, which gave the painting some sort of mystery to it. Another painting caught his eye. A young teen girl, sitting on a roof, while looking up into the starry sky. It felt oddly familiar to him, but he couldn’t quite tell as to why. The painting was labeled ‘Talking to the Moon’ and the artists’ name was nowhere to be seen, which gave him yet another mystery. These paintings seemed as though they came from the painter’s memories. You were heading back to your exhibit after eating a few sushi rolls when you spotted a man at your paintings. You rushed over to him, when you realized you had seen him before. From last night! That lady that ran into you, he was there too! You walked up to him and smiled. “H-Hi sir. Sorry.. I usually greet people that come over here but.. I was finding food.” You blushed shyly. “Tch. What’s the meaning with all of these anyway?” He asked, not looking at you yet. The voice sounded so close to home that it was almost scary. “Oh, hah, they were just some random memories I came up with in my head.” You laughed nervously. That was when he took a look at you, and his eyes widened. You caught the expression, and suddenly all of your childhood flashed before your eyes. “(name)!! Put that nasty thing down!” Levi laughed while running away from you. You were holding a worm while chasing Levi around your backyard with it. “Sometimes I still think, what if my mom was still alive?” Levi said while you two sat in his room one night. “Hey, she still lives on!” You pointed to his heart. “(name), we might get separated one day. I just want you to know that if or when we do, we will cross paths again. I am sure of it, okay?” Levi engulfed you into a hug while you cried. “You think so?” You sniffled after pulling away from the hug. “Oh yeah, I’m sure of it. Now let’s go eat some ice cream!” You both laughed on your way to the kitchen. Tears filled your eyes, a few escaping and falling down your cheeks. “L-Levi..?” You said quietly. “(name).. It’s really you, isn’t it?” He let his lips turn into a small smile. You wiped your tears and wrapped your arms around him tightly. “Oi, you’re suffocating me.” He said, muffled. You pulled away and laughed. “Sorry.” “You said we would cross paths again, and we did. Levi..” You found yourself crying yet again. “Hey, brat, stop it.” He wiped the fallen tears on your cheek with his thumb. You blushed and hugged him again. “I never gave up on you. I called you every single day after school for-” “For three months. I know. My uncle wouldn’t let me answer the phone. It was torture to me, trust me.” He interrupted you suddenly. You pulled away from the hug yet again. “Levi.. these pictures.. they aren’t just random memories. They are the memories that I remember of us.. The starry night one, I remember I was on the roof and I was trying to talk to you after you left.” You sniffled as you took a minute to recall your past. “I did the same. I thought that one day I would wake up and this would all be a dream but unfortunately it wasn’t.” He looked into your eyes. “I never forgot you. When I saw you last night, I brushed it off because there's no way in hell that would be you, right? But I guess it was.” He grabbed your hand and squeezed it. “That night.. I uh.. I was going to confess before my uncle took me away,” He continued. “But I never got a chance.” He brought your hand up to his lips and kissed gently. “(name), I love you. I always have loved you. From the moment you moved into that fancy ass house of yours, I always loved you.” Your eyes widened. “Levi..” You stared at him before he crashed his lips onto yours. Everything moved in slow motion. It felt like you two were the only ones in the museum. You wrapped your arms around his neck and deepened the kiss. After all these years of talking to the moon and waiting for him to reappear in your life finally paid off. You pulled away from the kiss slowly. “Levi, I love you too.”

[welllpthisishappening]

Ok, so I screenshot this because this is going to get long and a little rambly and not really a response to the ask, but mostly I just needed a place to put some of my thoughts and that requires a read more. 

Ok, part two. First of all, anon, you are a delight. I also have a lot of Lover feelings, specifically about the song Lover which I have played more times in the last six days than I would like to admit. But also! About London Boy. Which is some kind of catchy I didn’t know existed until I listened to that song approximately sixteen times in a row. 

Ok, part three. Here’s where this gets a little absurd and I have rewritten this seventy-four times in my head to try and not get super melodramatic, but I am stressed out and, well...it’s going to get melodramatic. Here we go:

This all starts a couple days ago when I was talking to my mom. She wants to get a dog. This has been going on for literally months. Going to adoption agencies and agreeing to getting dogs and then deciding she doesn’t actually want the responsibility or the cost and it’s...it’s a whole thing. At some point in the conversation she told me I should get a dog. 

Not for the first time, I informed her that we cannot have pets in our apartment and I have no plans of moving any time soon. She responded with:

Well, someday you’re going to get a house and then you’ll be fine. 

This very specific sentence has been playing on loop in my head since then. Because, like, I know she didn’t meant to be insulting. I do. AND YET. 

You’ll be fine. 

Oof. 

OOF. AGAIN. JUST FOR EMPHASIS.

The perpetual loop of those words has left me thinking a lot about expectations and what we’re supposed to be doing. Like, according to society. As I mentioned before, I am stresssssssed out. Work is...it’s a mess really. A vaguely sexist, incredibly exhausting, unorganized mess. Which is not great for the way I operate. 

I color code. I schedule. I don’t change things on the fly. 

AND YET. AGAIN. 

I am nearly 30 years old, have worked in my field since I graduated college and it’s been good. I won awards. I interviewed Serena Williams once. Mickey Callaway and I had a detailed conversation about the future of St. John’s basketball the other day at Citi Field. It’s good.  

But somewhere in the deep, dark recesses of my mind I’m like...what now? Because when I was a kid, everything was laid out. Schedules. Plans. Go to this college. Get this job. BUY A HOUSE SO YOU CAN GET A DOG AND YOU’LL BE FINE. 

It’s not going to happen. 

And that’s partially for very millennial reasons and partially because the world is a challenging place, but it is MESSING WITH MY HEAD. 

Obviously since I work in sports Andrew Luck retiring suddenly because football wasn’t the joyful thing it used to be was a huge story. And it really resonated with me and my mind on loop. Because we put these expectations on ourselves. We grow up with the expectation that you’ll do certain things and be certain things and that is insane. It is. I’m not saying we shouldn’t have goals, but to suggest that the only way we’ll be fine is if we meet certain goals is insane. And not healthy. 

Like. At all. 

How does this circle around to the ask? Well, it doesn’t entirely, but in my spiral of impending 30-years-old’om, I’ve started to consider the stuff I do outside of work too. Fandom, being one of them. And fandom has been very kind to me. People have read hundreds of thousands of words that I have written, which just blows my mind. AND YET. That obnoxious voice that reminds me of expectations and meeting certain markers and if you don’t, you have failed is very difficult to silence. 

I write for me. For my own sanity and my own enjoyment, slamming on keys to tell a story that I want to read. But sometimes, and recently, the story I want to read doesn’t seem to be one a lot of other people do. Which is both fine and sucks tremendously. Because I did grow up in a house with goals and expectations and color coded homework schedules and talking about my Lord of the Rings obsession too much when I was thirteen ended with getting yelled at. And I don’t say this to spark pity - I know my experience isn’t unheard of. But it also leaves me certain eventually I’ll overstep. I’ll talk too much or hyperfixate for too long and people will be like...

Shut up, Laura. 

Also not healthy. 

So the short answer to a story that is already way too long is that I’m trying to take a step back from some of this. I will absolutely keep writing, but whether or not that goes anywhere is a totally different thing. Because sometimes the best way to temper expectations is to walk away from them for a little while.  

[jswdmb1]

This Must Be The Place

“There was a time before we were born

If someone asks, this is where I'll be”

- Talking Heads

Most people that I have met have some place in the world where they would always prefer to be than in the place where they live.  It’s always interesting to hear the description of what such a place means to different folks.  It may be somewhere they once lived that they moved on from.  It could be somewhere they have never been, but know from pictures, TV, etc. and they know that it is just the place for them to be.  Often, though, it is a place where they have vacationed, and may continue to do so, and usually it goes back to their childhood. My place fits that last description.

The first question that comes to mind when this conversation comes up (including the one I have in my head with myself), is why don’t you just go live there?  There is always a reason like it’s too expensive, or we have family here in wherever it is we actually live, but I find those as flimsy covers for the truth. It’s really that we are all just too scared to get up and go.  As I get older, I’m finding the excuses that I make for not living in my place less and less convincing to the point where I’m not sure I can hold out a whole lot longer. At a minimum, I need to begin a transition process that gets me to where I want to be and I have started thinking hard about how to make that happen.

It may help if I tell you where I’m going.  My place is a secluded chain of lakes that straddle Wisconsin’s border with the upper peninsula of Michigan.  We (my wife and kids are just as enamored of the place as I am), love this place so much that we named our dog after the namesake lake of the chain – Cisco.  I was introduced to the chain in 1982 on a trip with my father.  He had a friend that owned a fishing cabin on one of the fifteen lakes that is on the Wisconsin side (on the right, or southeast shore of West Bay Lake if you are looking at the map above).  My dad had been going up there since the early seventies and the cabin was strictly a guys’ fishing destination – or at least that’s what he told me as I got a bit older and I started asking about where he went two or three times each year. The descriptions of the house and its surroundings were always made to sound rugged and only for the hardy, which I found hilarious because even at a very young age I knew my dad was neither. I was too smart to fall for such simple tricks and started haranguing him to take me there at around the age of seven.  For whatever reason, ten became the magic age for me to be able to handle it (according to both him and my mom), and late that summer off we went.

Just getting to the place is a fantastic adventure, especially when you are ten and haven’t ventured any further into nature than the local forest preserve for a picnic. You drive straight north up U.S. 51 past Madison into the great Northwoods country of Wisconsin.  As you drive, the trees get thicker and thicker. Once you leave Wausau, which is the last city of any significance, the canopy overhead begins to slowly get darker (going up at night makes the effect even more dramatic).  In Minocqua, we stop for groceries and pretty much say goodbye to “city” life (it’s funny that as small as Minocqua seems on the drive up, it feels like Manhattan a week later on the way back).   From there, it is about another hour deep into the forest travelling on windy county roads.  To get to the house my dad’s friend had, you turned down a private road that headed literally into a swamp.  At that point, you can see nothing around you but trees until finally cresting a small hill and seeing the cabin.  I have never forgotten the joy of that first trip of just getting there and the wonderment of how you could travel so far into nothing and find so much.

Once there, the next amazing sight was the view of the lake from his deck perched high above it (almost all of the shore from these lakes is upland creating fabulous views and lots of steps to the docks).  The next day, we loaded up the boat (an old Alumnacraft with 15 hp motor which is still my boat of choice when I fish) with gear and bait and we headed out for the day. I am not a good enough writer to adequately describe the beauty that is seen during a boat trip on the chain.  All I can say is that I have been on these lakes hundreds of times, and I never once have not been left in complete awe. The only other place in the world where I had the same feeling is the Grand Canyon (just without all the tourists and that whole scared of heights thing I have).  The natural beauty of the place is so intense, that it will make an atheist or agnostic (I’m the latter) really think about that stance.  It is a work of art in nature and it is impossible to apply any sort of randomness to it, which draws you to the conclusion that something greater than us is out there coming up with this sort of majesty. Yes, it’s that good.

Once you are out on the lakes, and settle into a spot, the day melts away into a combination of fun and relaxation.  The fishing is very good for those that want it, and we caught baskets full of perch, bluegills, and the occasional walleye when we were more serious about it (now, I mostly drop a line in once in a while to catch a smallmouth bass or two and release it).  Swimming off the boat or the small beach at the place we now stay is always a top attraction for kids and adults alike.  At night, after a sunset cruise, attention turns to the campfire or one of the many games that are brought out seemingly just once a year (lots of cards and the occasional epic game of Risk on a rainy day).  After all of that, a good night’s sleep in the quiet air of a secluded place and then you get up and start it all over again.

As I mentioned in the previous paragraph, we no longer stay with my dad’s friend who passed away many years ago and his old cabin has been long since replaced by a new house.  As much as I miss the old place and the people that aren’t with us up there anymore, I’m always grateful for the gift that was given of exposing me to an environment I may have never found on my own.  I am now at the point where the place almost feels as if it is my own as I explore it more and more.  While I can navigate nearly the whole chain literally in the dark, the purchase of some inflatable kayaks a few years ago gave even more opportunity to see a couple of the harder to reach lakes that I hadn’t seen in years.  I am looking forward to my next trip when I plan to set foot in all fifteen lakes at least once in a trip for the first time (one lake, Helen, I have never seen).  It’s just another example of what keeps drawing me back for more and why someday I want to be here for more than just a week or two.  How exactly I get to that point, I am not sure, but each year I come back with a stronger feeling that it is going to happen.  I could easily see at least finding a way to be there a few weeks a year in the near future before committing to something more permanent.  My main excuses are the kids (still in school) and the weather (the winters there are brutal, but maybe I could live there May-October and find something warm for the other six months).  I think the reasons have been legitimate to hold me back so far, but if I am still using them in a few years, I need to be called out on that.

One time when I was telling someone about where I vacation, they asked why do you drive so far passing so many other lakes just to get there?  To me, that’s like asking why do you drive past so many houses to get back to the one where your family lives.  It has become as much of what I call “home” as any place I have ever been. I miss it so much that I started writing this within hours of my return from a recent trip and I’m already planning a trip back with my wife in the fall.  I recognize that this may not be the place for everyone, but if you take your place and substitute it I think you will know what I’m talking about. Ultimately, it is a place where you can be not just comfortable, but at peace with yourself and your surroundings. Maybe you are already in that place, and to that I say bravo.  I’m not there yet, but I will be someday and I’m not going to wish days away until that happens as the place I am in isn’t so bad either.  Isn’t the old saying that “home is where the heart is”?  If that’s true, I guess anywhere that you are is the best place possible.  I’m going to try that for now….but if I only had a lake outside my backdoor…and I boat…and a gorgeous sunset at night (see picture below taken last week by my wife).  I’m allowed to dream aren’t I? Shouldn’t we all?

Cheers to you and your place,

Jim