#sorry for not posting again for a few days i had a massive migraine :(

[devildom-fashion-week]

BEELZEBUB⸺FESTIVAL

The Festival of Eternal Pig. The Festival of Unlimited Tofu... The Festival of Neverending Agar-Agar?

⸺

— Beelzebub’s outfits || Festival outfits || masterlist —

[peakyblinderswhore]

Hey! Hope you are alright and that you have WiFi. Your last post inspired me if you have time for a request? I just finished my last essay and the chaos is very much present, and i was wondering if you could please write something about the Shelby family being chaotic, but like not life or death type of situation, just family/ sibling chaos! I hope this inspires you and don’t hesitate to ask me if you want me to be more precise, or to disregard this request. Hope you have a lovely day!

A/N: as chaotic as it gets. plus the addition of a life? this whole thing is chaotic evil, messing with my head and trying to keep up with where everyone is before i just say ‘oh look! here they are again!’. thanks for the fun i had writing this @perfectenthusiasttiger

edit: i forgot to say but this request humoured the whole situation that the world is in right now and so i did it before some of my other ones! don’t worry though, more content is always in the way <3

W/C: 1.9k

“Finn!” Polly calls, “Where are you?”

She was rushing around the betting den, trying to get everything she needed to be done in the time frame that she had.

Esme was sat down, her swollen stomach preventing her from too much movement, and counting money laid out on the table.

“Finn, get out here before I pull you out here myself!” Esme shouted, getting agitated the more Polly insisted on shouting after Finn.

People were walking in and out of the den, stopping for no one. Arthur was sitting in his office, legs up on the desk, drinking from a whiskey glass. Mumbling to himself, “Goddamn Polly, yelling at everyone.”

Up at the chalkboard, John was calling out odds for horses and marking them down for everyone to see, “Who’s next? We got more comin’, odds are changing people!”

“Finn!” Polly calls out again.

Esme sighs dramatically and rolls her eyes, moving from her position to stand, earning a few shouts from some of the men in the room who were trying to keep the work running smoothly but without her sitting there counting it creates a bump.

She makes her way towards her husband and pulls him to the side, “Get your brother down here now or get your Aunt to shut the fuck up otherwise I’m going to get a fucking migraine from all of this shouting,” her eyes are threatening and John’s widen, quickly nodding and running off to fetch his youngest brother.

Arthur gets up and walks over to where Polly was standing, “What you need him for, Polly?”

“Get out of the way, Arthur, you’re in the way,” she pushes past Arthur and picks up the betting book with both arms, holding it close to her chest.

Arthur throws his arms up in the air and storms out of the den into the Shelby home shouting after Finn on the way, slamming the door shut behind him so that no one else would follow him.

John comes back, hair ruffled slightly, and Esme calls after him, “Did you find Finn?”

“Finn? I thought you wanted Tommy.”

Esme groans and slams her fist down on the desk she was sat at, gritting her teeth, knowing that she would have to keep listening to Polly. John looks apologetically at Esem but quickly makes his way back to the chalkboard, grabbing the chalk and wiping off some of the old odds for the best being placed.

Moments later, Tommy comes bustling through, dressed in his full get-up with Isaiah following close behind. He tips his cap at Esme, she offers a tight smile before resting her head back in her hands, making her hair look even more stressed than she was.

“Polly, what did you need?” Tommy asks.

Polly lifts her head, confusion written on her face, “What the fuck… no! I asked for Finn; why have you brought Isaiah along with you?”

Tommy sighs and gestures to Isaiah, allowing the boy to step forward, “Thought you might need some help with something and Isaiah was with me anyway, which reminds me, have you seen his Dad?”

“Tommy,” Polly begins, arms on hips, “why the fuck would I have seen Isaiah’s Dad? Have you seen me leave this building all week? No. Fuck off to where you're needed Tommy. Isaiah can stay.”

Tommy sighs and drops his arms to his sides, “Esme,” he turns to face her, “d’you know where Finn might be?”

She lifts her head, eyes verging on wild as she replies, “No I don’t fucking know. Get him here so my migraine pisses off,” she stands slowly and does her best march away from her station.

Tommy brings his lips together, not pleased with Esme’s tone of voice and her leaving her work for someone else but turns his attention back to Isaiah, “Stay with her,” he motions to Polly, “until Finn comes then you’re to find your Dad when he’s finished doing Polly’s bidding.”

Isaiah nods, pulling his cap off. Tommy walks off but bumps into Arthur on the way, he grabs Arthurs shoulders to steady him and holds him at arm's length to get a good look at his brother, “Arthur, why are you walking like that?”

“Polly pissed me off so I kicked a wall.”

Tommy sighs and pats him on the back, “get some ice on it. You’ll be fine later on,” before walking out of the building to go somewhere less chaotic.

“Arthur,” Polly calls, “did you find Finn?” 

She’s not looking as she’s leant over the book, a cigarette hanging out of her lip as she smokes it, a glass of whiskey resting at the side, and flicking through the pages, only stopping to get Isaiah to take some notes on whatever she was looking at.

Arthur stands, ready to burst out in pure anger but holds himself together for a few seconds as he says, “No, Pol’, I didn’t fucking find him ‘cause you dismissed me so I walked off and kicked a fucking wall — which is now swollen.”

Polly sighs, dropping her shoulders and squeezing her eyes shut as she pinched the bridge of her nose with one hand and the other holding onto her cigarette, now half-burnt, “Arthur, put some fucking ice on your foot and the fetch Finn. He’s fucking about here somewhere.”

Arthurs's neck goes red, it quickly seeping up until it reached his face, “Would anyone listen to any of the fucking conversations that go on around here!”

“Just do as you’re told!”

Isaiah stands, not sure what to do as the two quarrels with each other so Polly snaps, “And don’t you stop either, mister.”

Arthur trudges off to fetch some ice and nearly walks straight into Esme, profusely apologising as she glares at him for not noticing her and her soon-to-be baby. Esme has fixed her hair slightly and was carrying a glass of water, “John,” he looks over to her, “we are not doing this,” she points at her stomach, “again if no one is going to mindful of me when I’m this fucking huge, how do you not see me?”

“I said I was sorry, alright!” Arthur calls, arms in the air as he walks back into the Shelby home.

John looks between the two and holds his breath, trying not to upset his wife more than she already was. Normally he would’ve said something back but her being this close to the end of her pregnancy meant her hormones were on an all-time high — and John would never win, he knew that. He turns back to calling out odds for horses and football games, a new addition as of recently.

Esme sighs at her husband’s lack of input but lets him do his work anyway. She sits back down and as she does, Polly asks, “Esme, what number have you got at the bottom of that page you’re working on, love?”

Esme read sit out and Polly nods, “write that down Isaiah,” she then lifts her glass to her lips, before mumbling, “where the fuck is Finn?”

“Esme, did you see Finn?”

Esme grits her teeth, trying not to lose her shit at Polly as she knew Polly would only throw it back in her face at a later date and manages to grit out, “No, Pol’ sorry.”

Isaiah leans back into his seat offering cheeky wink at Esme, “Looking gorgeous as ever today, Esme.”

“Don’t push your luck,” she simply says back, knowing he was taking the piss with her.

He rolls his head back, waiting for Polly to tell him what to do next but she had wandered off into the massive safe in her office, “Fucking Finn.”

She comes back out with a stack of one pound notes and says to Isaiah, “Count those.”

Isaiah looks up at her, eyebrow raised, “Aren’t those already counted?”

“Just do it,” she eyes him, threatening him to say something back to her.

Finn trudges over to where Polly and Isaiah were waiting for him, “Aunt Pol’,” he acknowledged her, “you’ve been calling… consistently.”

Esme lifts her hands up and puts them together, mumbling a quick thank you so she doesn’t have to have as much shouting.

Arthur followed about four steps behind, “Found him, Polly, he was mucking about in the alley for some reason.”

Polly twists her head to face him, “The fuck were you doing in an alleyway — you know what, I don’t want to fucking know,” she walks around the table, picking up the book and clearing some space around Isaiah where he was counting money before dropping it with a thud back onto the table.

“Polly!” Isaiah shouted, disgruntled as all of the money had fallen onto the floor and now he had to start counting again.

“Make yourself useful,” Polly says to Finn, patting him on the shoulder, “count these and add these and don’t forget those,” she was pointing at parts in the book that were supposed to mean something to her but Finn wasn’t paying any attention, he was more focused on knocking the notes, that Isaiah was placing back on the table, off of it.

Polly slapped him round the back of the head, “Pay attention, you.”

Arthur looks at the situation and decides that he isn’t needed anymore and turns on his good foot and begins walking towards his office with an ice bag in his hand ready to be put on his swollen foot.

“Uh-uh, mister! Get back here, you’ve got something to do too,” she throws the rest of her cigarette in an ashtray to let it fizzle out before gripping Arthur by the collar of his suit.

“For fuck sake,” Arthur mumbles, being pulled towards wherever Polly was taking him.

“You,” she says, pulling out a chair in her office, “are going to stay here and elevate your foot where I can see you.”

He grumbles but doesn’t object as it keeps him from doing anything out in the betting den.

“Isaiah, you can go now love.”

Isaiah mutters a ‘thank god’ and grabs his suit jacket before taking off, practically leaving the room in a whirlwind.

“How comes he gets to leave and I don’t,” Finn whines.

“Shut up, everyone else has been doing your work while you mucked about in alleyways doing fuck knows what.”

Right as Polly finishes her sentence, Esme breaks into a scream and hysteric tears begin flowing down her face, the whole of the betting den turns to face her, a puddle of water pooling below her skirts and darkening the fabric she was wearing.

“Oh fuck,” John says.

“Not right now, not right now!” Polly is shouting out orders to all of the people in the room. She orders John to clear the room so that she can get Esme to somewhere much more suitable for her to give birth.

Tommy walks in and calls out, “Why is everyone fighting to get out, isn’t that the opposite of what we’re going for?”

Polly glares daggers at Tommy, Esme’s arm rests on her and John’s shoulders as they carry her out of the betting den and into the Shelby home.

“Oh,” Tommy simply says, “Ada’s here.”

“Where?”

“Right here! How’s everyone — oh,” without another word Ada jumped into action to help Esme as she had once been helped herself.

“Fucking chaos, I’ll say,” Tommy says.

“All day,” Arthur says limping over, “this has been chaos, all day.”

[eyeslikefoxglove]

Episode 4 - Meng Yao has a crush & Foxglove likes to babble

Hello everybody, welcome to episode 4. I slept like a baby last night, but I have a migraine so I may sound a bit incoherent. (Post episode Foxglove here, I’m not incoherent in this, I’m just ranty)

Poor WWX. Funny story, during my first? Second? Year of Med School I fell aspleep on my biophysics notes during exam period, woke up at 9pm when my alarm for my meds started ringing, realised what I’d done and called my mum (who was on a 24h shift at the hospital) crying. In hindsight is hilarious because I had something like two weeks until the exam so I lost no more than a few hours but oh well.

Full disclosure here: I don’t like the Lan sect, LXC, LWJ and the Ducklings excluded I think they’re a bunch of hypocrites. You can’t call yourself righteous and boast about your almost 4000 rules and then shrug when people decide to commit genocide.

Also, 4000-ish rules? Fuck that noise, there’s a post floating around here where some amazing soul translated what they could see of the Wall of Rules and yeah, some of them are in the “don’t be an asshole, don’t hurt yourself or others” vein which, absolutely fair. But things like “dress properly” who are you to tell me what and how I cover my body with? “Don’t be promiscuous” wow thanks for the slut shaming my dudes. “Don’t smile foolishly/don’t smile too much”, “sit properly”, “don’t be too sad”, “don’t be too happy”. You’re telling me these are rules, not guidelines, not common sense stuff. RULES. You’re telling me people get punished for grinning or crying. Fuck off mate.

And we can’t forget the golden example of hypocrisy “Don’t talk to Wei Wuxian” so much for “don’t speak ill of others”.

Is my Western Girl showing? I’m sorry, I’m from Spain and I was raised by the guidelines “don’t be an asshole, don’t hurt yourself or others, don’t take anyone’s bullshit, live and let live, have courage and be kind, we will always love and support you” so some stuff in here is very very grating. I don’t have enough knowledge about the culture to discern if it is because of my modern sensibilities or because my culture is so different.

Oooooohhh I don’t like birds. I mean, I love crows, ravens and birds of prey to an unhealthy degree, but they keep their distance. The other day a pigeon flew into my building and decided that my (very dark) doorstep was the place to have a rest. I screamed like a banshee.

Hey, those two assholes at the back, get the fuck out of here.

LXC protective mode activated.

You will never convince me Meng Yao did not develop a monster crush right then and there.

Oh no. It’s this asshole.

Oh WangJi about to cut a bitch.

Drag him WWX.

MY’s protective mode activated.

And LXC is too done with this shit. Yep, NHS also thinks MY got a massive crush.

WQ aka Qishan Wen’s only braincell.

It’s the One Braincell Trio!

Notice me sempai! Omg JC’s faces.

This is where I dump all my canon-divergence AUs:

Meng Yao stays in Cloud Recesses. He and LXC keep gazing longingly into each other’s eyes.

NHS introduces him to the other two from the One Braincell Trio. WWX takes one look at him and goes “yep, you’re my friend now, I’m kneecapping anybody who fucks with you.” Because there’s no way he wouldn’t be sympathetic to MY after his own childhood (omg, both of them drunk, making terrible gallows’ humour jokes about living poor and mostly homeless while JC and NHS just listen horrified). JC goes into overprotective bro mode with MY. I mean, he still can’t emote for shit but he’s made very very sure that he will cut a bitch for MY and at least he knows MY has a brain, not like someone else he knows.

Shijie makes friends with MY because Shijie is a goddess and MY is so confused because how the hell does someone so kind exist? And she wants to be friends? And she doesn’t care at all about his past? What? MY.exe has stopped working.

Maybe JZX gets his head out of his ass and goes to talk to MY and warn him about what an asshole JGS is, because I refuse to think JZX doesn’t know it. Maybe MY hears him disparaging Shijie and decides that nope, the Jins can fuck right off every single one of them is a rude idiot; it’s ok with him because of his parentage (it’s not ok) but no one touches Shijie. The Yunmeng sibs is where it is at.

And that’s when he unleashes his full Slytherin powers on behalf of his new family. Because he does indeed have a fully functioning brain and shit is going to get really ugly really fast for all the people he loves if he doesn’t try and mitigate the damage somehow.

(A lot of mutual XiYao pinning is going on in the background because I live for the angst ok. LWJ fully approves of him as a brother-in-law tho)

A lot of terrible shit still happens because this is my AU and I want pain, but not only does JGS not have MY’s enormous brain on his side when he tries to seize power, he’s actively working against him (you can’t tell me MY wouldn’t get the kick of his life publicly bringing down and exposing his terrible father).

I’m sorry, back to the commentary.

This two idiots omg.

It’s WQ! Drag him WQ (gently)

I’m going to channel my ballet teacher here for a second: put your hair up! (You bunch of spider crabs, as she would call us)

I mean, JC’s hair is clearly in his face when he’s doing drills and, while the visual of all that dark hair whipping in the wind with the robes (another beef I have, they look like they’d catch on everything) is very dramatic I can assure you it’s fucking annoying. Plus it limits your visual field a lot. Again, I know jack about the culture and people can fly on swords here so why am I complaining about hair but let me live.

I used to have that much hair (then I got a pixie, now I’m growing it back out) and smacking yourself on the face with your own braid hurts.

Shijie knows what’s up with Jiang “I can only show anger” Cheng.

My one track mind when I saw the fish: Anisakis!

I think I would absolutely become a vegetarian if I got dropped in the past tbh. Not only is there no quality control of animal products (hello Trichinella), there’s also no way to do a proper cold storage (hello Salmonella). I’ve read and seen to many horror stories due to contaminated animal byproducts and, while vegetables pose their own risk (hello E. Coli) usually you only have to be thorough at washing and peeling to not have trouble.

5am wake up call without coffee. Fuck that noise.

Wei “I’m a petty gremlin” Wuxian.

I once called WWX a “mad scientist with ADHD” on an AO3 comment and I stand by that assessment.

Ok, but why the turtle caricature? It’s because turtles are “old and wise” like LQR? Is that the joke? Or are they laughing at WWX’s balls?

AW NO PAPERMAN.

“Tell me, what would I get if I added powdered root of asphodel to an infusion of wormwood? // Where, would you look if I asked you to get me a bezoar? // And what is the difference between monkshood and wolfsbane?” It’s pretty much the same energy. LQR is Ancient magic China’s version is Severus Snape down to the pettiness. He tries to catch WWX in a mistake, and when he can’t he dismisses his knowledge (look at Shijie’s face when he says WWX should not be proud to know what he does). He keeps pushing until WWX’s runs into a wall, then uses LWJ to “show him how it’s done” I mean, look how smug he looks and how uncomfortable everyone else is.

“Pity... clearly, fame isn't everything.”

(No, I don’t like LQR and I don’t like Severus Snape either; tragic past and sacrifices do not give you a pass to abuse children don’t @ me, I’m not interested in changing my mind)

And here is where all my “mad scientist with ADHD” hc stem from.

“No screaming in Cloud Recesses.” Screams LQR (yes, I’m 100% that bitch)

WEN NING IS HERE HI WN YOURE SO PRECIOUS.

But intercepting an arrow mid flight is some Geralt of Rivia Witcher bullshit right there.

Detective Wei strikes again.

The scenery is gorgeous my god.

Can we talk again about how this 16-year-old boy reacted to someone sneaking up on him by drawing his sword and attacking? That’s not fucking normal, that’s a common reflex in soldiers or people with PTSD.

(The Netflix translation has him calling LWJ “WangJi” and I die)

Thanks for reading!

[ipaintwithwords]

Christmas Short Story Exchange

Wolves Without Teeth

Fandoms: Life is Strange, Life is Strange 2 Characters: Sean Diaz, Lyla Park, Daniel Diaz, Chloe Price, David Madsen (mention), Brody Holloway (mention) Tags: Post-Redemption Ending, Post-Save Arcadia Bay Ending, light angst with happy ending, mentions of depression/antidepressants, reminiscing, ambiguous/open ending, POV heavy, pretty scenery and dogs and ghosts

And I run from wolves breathing heavily at my feet And I run from wolves tearing into me without teeth

♪♫♪♫♪♫

*

Millions of stars lit up the vast, deep indigo canvas of the night sky along the coast of Oregon. It was a quiet, peaceful night, the kind that was made for intimate strolls and heartwarming conversations and marveling at the beauty of the ocean, hand in hand, barefoot on the shore, accompanied by the light April breeze and the soft whispers of the waves. It was made for campfires and laughter, grilled fish and cold beer, and acoustic guitar covers of songs that people don’t listen to enough on Spotify, even though they really should - it was a night made for moments ephemeral and eternal at the same time, a series of overexposed polaroid images in the sand. 

However, for the young man driving under the endless rows of majestic pine trees, the night was but a spectacular backdrop for his hours spent on the road. Slightly more memorable than the day before, and infinitely longer than any other day of the past week he’s spent driving, one hand on the wheel, the other one either stroking the gentle crosswind with a cigarette between his fingers or buried in the thick, brown fur of the adolescent wolfdog snoozing on the passenger’s seat, curled up like a content, well-fed little roll with her favorite blanket between her front paws. 

That night, he was holding onto the wheel with both hands. Eyes fixated on the highway, his anxiety was skyrocketing in his chest, flooding the back of his mind with dark thoughts and his head with an unbearable migraine, building up slowly but steadily, creeping into his skull, even the empty - and otherwise numb - socket of his left eye. Not that he was a stranger to headaches, but unlike all his past encounters with nasty migraines, this time he had no idea what to blame: the cigarettes, the lack of sleep, all the synthetic food he shoved down his throat the past few days, his ridiculous deadline drawing near by the minute… Or perhaps the fact that for the first time in fifteen agonizingly long years, he was back on a road he never thought will see again. 

The only difference was that this time, he was on his own. There was no comforting presence beside him, no hula dancer figurine on top of the dashboard, no excited chatter coming from a kid high on adrenaline on the backseat. It was just him and the shores of Oregon, his sad music and his snoring dog (who wasn’t exactly the chatty kind, which, honestly speaking, never truly bothered him; he adopted her for the very same reason) and this stubborn, intrusive, demanding migraine that seemed to have made a cozy little home for itself in his forehead like it was meant to live out the rest of its life under his skin. And somehow, it managed to grow even stronger when out of the blue, the music was interrupted by the steady, low buzzing of his phone.

All of a sudden, violent waves of frustration crashed down over him as he took a quick glance at the device’s screen. Tightening his grip on the wheel until his nails started digging irritated crescents into the faux leather, he grit his teeth while staring at his phone, its buzzing resonating in his temples as if someone was trying to drill into his brain. The buzzing lasted for a solid two minutes before the screen would finally turn dark again and the pulsating sensation in his temples quieted down a little - only giving him a few moments of calm and quiet, though, as his phone started ringing again the moment he was about to sigh in relief.

“Oh for fuck’s sake!”, he grunted loudly in anger, waking the peacefully sleeping wolfdog pup with either his hoarse voice or the annoyed dash of his hand as he reached out for his phone to pick up the incoming call and be over with it as fast as possible. He knew exactly what’s coming for him, and he was in the mood for anything but fighting with his best friend on the phone right now. 

“What the fuck, man?!”, hissed a young woman on the other end of the call with a furious whisper-shout, as soon as he pushed the green button. “Are you being serious with me right now? Where the fuck are you, Sean?”, she hissed, and Sean heard a door slamming shut behind her, most likely the backyard door, to be precise, as she stormed out of the kitchen for a smoke.

“You knew I’ll be busy this weekend”, much to his surprise, he magically managed to keep his voice calm and his words collected when he answered after a few moments of hesitation. “I DMed you and I also texted the group chat yest-”

“Yeah, and I thought you’re just trying to back out of going to Walmart with us!”, his feeble attempt of coming up with explanations was met with an angry snap from the young woman. “And I actually can’t believe that we’re having this conversation? Like I can’t comprehend the fact that for whatever fucked up reason, you are actually ditching your own brother’s birthday weekend”, she scoffed, lighting up a cigarette with two impatient click-clacks of a cheap 7-Eleven lighter. 

“I have a deadline, Lyla, and it seems like you’re the only person who can’t accept that”, answered Sean with a deep, resigned sigh, only trying to resist the sudden urge of smoking for a brief second before he rolled down the window and reached for his cigarette case. “I talked to Daniel about it, alright? He was the first person I called”, he murmured under his nose, shoving a crooked cigarette between his lips. “And to be honest, I still don’t understand why you guys insisted on throwing this huge ass party for him for an entire weekend... Y’all know he prefers his PS4 and pizza over twenty of us being all over him for three days, right?”

“Oh, I’m sorry, I didn’t realize it was me who’s about to ruin his birthday! Fuck, man, thanks, now I can see that it was me all along”, Lyla let out a burst of dry laughter, more threatening than the sharpest blades in the world. “You are unbelievable, Sean.”

“I’m doing everyone a favor by skipping, y’know”, said Sean, sticking his hand out the window, unleashing the tiny smoke-dragons of his cigarette into the night. “‘Cause let’s be real, we both know that it’s me who’d ruin his birthday” he added with a shrug, making Lyla snort in disbelief.

“I can’t think of a single reason why his favorite person in the world would do that, so please enlighten me with your wisdom, Sean-Wise”, suddenly, her tone softened, bringing a massive lump to Sean’s throat. 

“The last thing he needs right now is his useless, depressed brother”, he answered quietly, unable to resist the suffocating grip of anxiety on his neck. “And thankfully, he understands that his useless, depressed brother needs to submit an unreasonable amount of work ‘til next Wednesday, so… Yeah. We’re both doing each other a favor, to be honest.”

“Sean, I… Useless? Why would y- What do you even… Hollup for a sec” sighed Lyla, slightly frustrated, as a small voice suddenly called for her. “Yes, baby, what’s up?”, she said, words and smile warmer than the morning sun, and Sean couldn’t help but smile too when he heard her switch to Korean the next moment, most likely reaching for her daughter Hannah, and gently pushing a strand of dark, silky hair behind her ear like she always did. 

“Sorry for that, Miss Thing is getting cranky because she only ate five times today”, Lyla returned to the call after a good minute, and Sean could clearly see her roll her eyes as the door shut close behind Hannah. “So where were we…”

“You were about to give me a Ted Talk on self-love because I called myself useless”, said Sean with a faint smile, before carefully flicking the cigarette butt out the window. Lyla didn’t answer immediately, at least not with words - her silence, on the other hand, was heavy with worry, a calm before the storm Sean knew too well. After all, thirty-three years of friendship teaches a thing or two about another person, especially a friendship like theirs was. 

“You know, I had a feeling this is gonna happen”, when Lyla finally broke the silence, she couldn’t conceal the sad, resigned bitterness in her voice. “At least tell me where you are, man…”

“I’m in Oregon… Driving along the coast, actually”, Sean answered, giving his dog an affectionate scratch behind the ear, and making her turn her all-knowing, golden eyes from the night view on him. “Don’t worry, I’m not alone. Chestnut’s here too.”

“Dude, she didn’t even bark when she heard my voice”, said Lyla, with a very obvious and even more dramatic pout on her face. “But wait, what the fuck are you doing there? In Oregon?”, she asked, and this time, it was her confused frown that Sean could see crystal clear as if Lyla was sitting right next to her. 

For a brief moment, he truly wished she was.

“I’m chasing ghosts”, when he spoke eventually, it felt as if there was someone else talking with his mouth, unseen powers forcing the air out of his lungs and his tongue and teeth to form the words that echoed for a seemingly endless moment in the car and inside Sean’s head. 

And before he could even blink, the echo sunk even deeper, into the darkest pits of his scarred, hurt, lonely soul, as he found himself staring at the unmistakable silhouette of Arcadia Bay in the distance after a slight turn in the road.

*

He spent the night at Otter Point, in his car, right next to the very same visitors plaque he broke down at, for the first time since fleeing Seattle on that nightmarish afternoon all those years ago, to a man he just met - a man who changed everything, although fifteen years later, Sean wasn’t sure anymore that it was for the better. He wasn’t sure whether he’d still be alive at all if it wasn’t for Brody and his golden heart that night, but he was certain of one thing: that compared to all the horrible things that happened to him, to them, death would’ve been but a merciful release.

Death didn’t come for them, however, at least not in its form that’s known to most people. Instead of taking them, it decided to befriend the Wolf Brothers and tag along on their journey, from the suburbs of Seattle to the iron gates of the Mexican border - and after that, the lifeless, ashen grey walls of a suffocatingly small prison cell in Washington. It was there that night too, in Sean’s car, a worn, cherry-red station wagon just like Brody’s, and inside his head, too, buried deep under the quiet, unsteady chaos of his thoughts. It was in every breath he took, every pill he swallowed, every minute he spent awake wondering what is he even doing, and there was nothing, absolutely nothing that could make it go away, that could make death change it’s stubborn mind and to leave Sean Diaz alone, because, throughout the years, it simply grew too fond of him.

And with time, Sean just… Accepted it. He accepted being handpicked by death itself and stopped fighting it because no matter how hard he tried to avoid it, to get rid of it, to pretend that everything was fine, nothing helped; nothing but the acceptance and the handfuls of numbing bitterness he consumed at least two yellow tubes of each month for the past, God knows how many years. Of course, things could’ve been a lot worse, and Sean was fully aware of that - he knew that he was extremely privileged for being able to settle back into society relatively easily after being released from his sentence of nearly two decades spent in one of the country’s biggest federal prisons. 

Frankly speaking, it wasn’t about settling back into society as much as it was about doing something he secretly always dreamed of, even before the story of the Wolf Brothers began on that chilly Friday afternoon, in a completely ordinary, perfectly average October of a past, long-lost life. In fact, if someone told sixteen-year-old Sean that everything that’s about to happen to him will eventually lead to a new life in which he is a comic book artist who gets paid for drawing the weird shit in his head, sixteen-year-old Sean would’ve probably laughed until his stomach hurt and happy tears started rolling down his cheek.

And yet, there he was that morning, on top of a hill above the Oregon coast, moderately enjoying his cheap instant coffee in the back of his station wagon (and after a glance at his peaky-faced reflection in the mirror, extremely judging his lack of self-discipline regarding taking care of his beard) while waiting for his tablet to charge fully so he can proceed with the next strips for the fifth chapter of The Adventures of the Pack. Chestnut was running around in excited circles, chasing grasshoppers and butterflies and occasionally, her tail, not particularly minding either her owner or the breathtaking view of the coast, and along with it, the quiet town of Arcadia Bay. 

At first, he didn’t even think of making a stop at a seemingly insignificant place like Otter Point on his not-so-spontaneous journey - for some much-needed inspiration or for bittersweet reminiscence, he wasn’t entirely sure anymore -, but while going through dozens of maps and routes and painful memories on a sleepless night before his trip, he stumbled upon a picture Daniel sent him for one of his birthdays spent in prison. A picture from Away, to be precise, of a cozy little bonfire and four people with marshmallow sticks in their hands and tipsy smiles on their faces - a picture that kept him up awake for the whole night, with tears stuck halfway in his throat, desperately trying to fight their way through the walls Sean has built around himself. And the moment he saw David in the picture, he decided that after all the phone calls and visits and almost fatherly check-ins from the man throughout the past fifteen years, the least he can do is stopping in David’s hometown for a quick page or two on his way down South. 

“Man, it must be tough being you”, Sean chuckled as he put his empty mug on the small writing desk in the corner of his on-the-go bedroom, looking at Chestnut playing in the dry dirt alongside the road with a wide, amused smile on his face. “Careful, though… I’d rather not break my neck trying to rescue you if you fall down” he added, climbing out of the back of his car with nimble reflexes, the sudden movement answered with excited bark coming from the wolfdog pup. 

“Would you look at that”, said Sean with an impressed little snort, walking up to the fence and bending over to rest his arms on it, eyes roaming the endless, unbelievably blue ocean and the gentle waves washing up against the pale sands of Arcadia Bay’s shores. “Can’t decide if it’s beautiful or the most boring shit I’ve ever seen, to be honest… What d’ya think, huh?”, he raised his eyebrows, peeking down at Chestnut yelping next to him, and giving her a loving scratch behind the ears. “Come, check this out”, he beckoned to the visitors plaque next to them with his chin, patting Chestnut’s side gently as he stepped up to the laminated board, full of colorful images of the local wildlife and the town’s various attractions. 

“Yeah? That’s where you wanna go?”, he laughed, as Chestnut suddenly stood up on her rear legs, front paws propped against the plaque, curious golden eyes fixated on the picture of Arcadia Bay’s imposing lighthouse. “Y’know what, why the fuck not, we got all the time in the world… At least ‘til next Wednesday'' Sean sighed, looking up from the slightly faded photograph to the actual lighthouse in the distance, peeking out from countless majestic pine trees, its bright, white light rotating with a slow and steady speed on the opposite end of the bay on top of a cliff.

There was something strange, something unsettling about the tall, robust tower that Sean couldn’t exactly put his finger on. He found himself staring at the lighthouse as if it held all the secrets, all the answers to all the questions he’s been searching for all his life - he couldn’t move, he couldn’t blink, he couldn’t even catch his breath for what felt like an eternity, even though it was but a mere moment. As if something was calling him, an invisible, eerie force locking his eyes on the lighthouse, Sean just stood there petrified, and if it wasn’t for Chestnut and her eager little woof startling him back to reality, he probably would’ve stayed there like that until sunset.

“Yeah, why the fuck not”, he murmured under his nose, shaking his head like he just woke from a weird dream as he turned away from Arcadia Bay and walked up to his car, trying to ignore the uncanny tingling in the back of his head - and the unmistakable feeling of being watched by a pair of all-seeing, otherworldly eyes.

*

It took surprisingly long to get to the other side of the bay from Otter Point. By the time Sean reached the lighthouse, the sun was high in the spotless blue sky, radiating its warm light so dazzlingly he had to shield his eyes with his hand as he exited the car. He parked the station wagon in a small clearing surrounded by fragrant, sky-high pine trees, at the bottom of a meandrous set of wooden stairs half-eaten by the soil, and began his short hike up to the lighthouse with Chestnut trotting by his side. The forest around them was peaceful and bustling with cheerful and welcoming Spring life; they saw busy bees and chirping birds and dancing butterflies everywhere as they made their way uphill, following the glimmering sunspots on the ground.

“Alright, same rules apply, okay? No running along the edge, it’s rocky down there”, said Sean when they reached the top of the stairs, grabbing Chestnut’s collar the very last minute before the pup could just storm off to explore the uncharted territory. “Stay… Staaay…”, he raised his eyebrows as the pup looked up at him with giant eyes full of excited sparkles, wagging her tail like the clearing in front of her was the last one on Earth to roam.  “Good girl. Run along now, but carefully, please”, he said after a moment or two, as he let go of Chestnut, watching her dart off as a fired arrow with a proud, fatherly smile on his face before following the pup to the clearing.

The lighthouse stood tall on the edge of the cliff, watching over Arcadia Bay like a robust, all-seeing guardian. Seeing the tower up close, Sean felt the same magnetic energy that practically hypnotized him from all the way across the bay, only this time, he felt it ten folds stronger, as he stood there and stared at the lighthouse, tilting his head back as much as he could to take in the breathtaking sight in all its mesmerizing entirety. It felt like he arrived in another dimension where time didn’t work as it did on his own; as if a heavy, velvety curtain fell on the world, closing around the cliff and creating an odd, languid void where the pace of time just wasn’t the same. It was quiet, yes, peaceful, even, but at the same time, the air was strangely disturbed, unsettling and mysterious - and eerily inviting.

After what felt like half a lifetime of staring at the lighthouse, Sean noticed a worn bench on the edge of the cliff. He watched Chestnut sweep across the clearing, very much occupied with chasing something that looked like an azure-blue butterfly at first glance, before walking up to the bench and sitting down on it, turning his gaze towards the magnificent view of the bay below him as he reached for his cigarette case in his pocket. With the first puff of bitter smoke, he closed his eyes, and for a while, he just listened to the waves crashing against the rocks at the bottom of the cliff and the squawking of a few stray seagulls circling around the lantern room, before bringing himself to unzip his backpack and pull out his tablet and sketchbook from the messy depths of it.

He only hesitated for a brief moment before he put the tablet back in his bag, and along with it, his deadlines and professional responsibilities, settling with his trusted sketchbook instead. He preferred drawing on actual paper with an actual pen anyway, and he felt like procrastinating a little before letting his work swallow him in one bite. Flipping through dozens of pages of unfinished drawings until he finally reached a blank page, Sean started sketching Arcadia Bay with strainless ease, his eye constantly moving back and forth between the sketchbook and the view until the chaos of thin, black lines started to come together and he didn’t have to look anymore.

And this is when the time truly stopped around him, as it always did when Sean took the pen. It was just him and his vision of the world under the sun, and of course, Chestnut running around the clearing, her lanky, brown form always somewhere in the corner of his eye. 

“You’re really pressed about this butterfly, aren’t you”, he chuckled as Chestnut ran across his feet relentlessly, making Sean look up from the content little wolf he’s been sketching for a while without even realizing that he started adding it to the drawing. He didn’t even notice anymore, since this was the case with many, if not most of his drawings - as if he was physically incapable of finishing a drawing without wolves in it, or for that matter, drawing for someone who wasn’t his brother. 

“I mean, it’s a pretty fucking stunning butterfly if you ask me”, answered a mischievous voice beside him, completely out of the blue, startling Sean so unexpectedly that he almost fell off the bench.

“De puta madr-!!”, he exclaimed in fright as he turned his head, and the next moment, he found himself staring at a young, slim girl, leaning against the crooked fence on the edge of the cliff. “I mean, ugh  Jesus. Sorry, I didn’t see you there” he added quickly, clearing his throat as he looked the girl up and down, wondering how long has it been since she got there - and most importantly, how in the world didn’t he notice her when she arrived. 

“It’s kinda rare that anyone does, to be honest” shrugged the girl, stepping away from the fence, piercing blue eyes shifting from Sean’s colorless face to the sketchbook in his lap. She was tall and slender, wearing ripped jeans with a leather jacket and a black beanie, electric blue hair framing her narrow, elfish face. She looked like she was in her late teens, early twenties, maybe, and even though Sean was certain he’s never seen her before, somehow it felt like he’s known the girl for his entire life. “What are you drawing? Can I see?”

“Sure, take a look” he said, scooting over a little so the girl could sit next to her. “It’s a… I don’t even know what, that started off as a landscape sketch” he explained, scratching the inner corner of his empty eye socket and suddenly wishing he put on his eyepatch before coming up to the lighthouse. The girl, however, was way too invested in his sketchbook to even notice that there was something unusual about his appearance, and even if she did, she didn’t seem to be taken aback by it - or at least she didn’t feel the urge to stare, unlike most people Sean has met throughout his life.

“This is really cool, dude” the girl said after a while, looking up at him with a wide, impressed grin before turning her gaze back to Sean’s drawing. “Are you like, an artist or something?”

“Artist is an overstatement but yeah, I draw comics for a living” Sean answered, reaching out for Chestnut when he noticed the pup is running towards him. “This one isn’t for work though. It’s a… Gift. For my brother”, he added, his smile suddenly fading with the words, and not returning even when Chestnut wriggled her way in between his legs and placed her head in his lap, staring up at him with giant puppy eyes. 

“Something gives me the impression that he’s the small one”, the girl chuckled, pointing at the younger wolf on Sean’s drawing, chasing a butterfly on the edge of the cliffside looking over Arcadia Bay, next to his bigger, scruffier, one-eyed brother, relaxing under a pine tree.

“I have no idea what makes you say that” said Sean with a faint smile on his face, gently fondling Chestnut’s head in his lap. “The older I get, the more it feels like it’s the other way around, to be honest”, he sighed quietly, feeling his entire chest harden all of a sudden as he took a glance at his sketchbook between the long nails of the strange girl next to her.

“You’re not from around here, are you?” asked the girl bluntly the next moment, carefully closing Sean’s sketchbook and putting it between them on the bench. “I don’t think I’ve seen you in Arcadia Bay before, and that’s pretty shocking considering that we’re talking about a town of 200 people where nothing ever happens…”

“Yeah, I’m just traveling. Thought I’d drive through town and check out the view from here” Sean answered, and as he pulled out another cigarette from his pocket, he couldn’t help but notice the sudden sparks of longing in the girl’s eyes. “You want one?”

“Not gonna lie, I could kill for a smoke… But no thanks. I… Can’t”, the girl gulped, watching with eager eyes as Sean reluctantly put the cigarette in his mouth. “Oh, no, it’s okay, I don’t mind. The smell’s gonna do the trick” she said, exhaling the smoke of the first huff with a strange, almost euphoric smile as Sean lit his cigarette at last.

“Oh man… You got some superior shit right there” she said, her smile slowly growing into a content, wide grin. “But anyway… As much as Arcadia Bay is the most boring shithole in the whole wide world, I hope your trip was worth it in the end.”

“Sounds like you lived here for a while, huh?”, Sean asked, eyebrows raised, to which the girl let out a sarcastic snort. “Oof. That bad?”

“There are no words to describe just how bad, my dude” the girl answered, shaking her head and wrapping her arms around her long legs pulled up to her chest. “I’ve been stuck here my whole fucking life. Wanted to leave since I was fourteen” she continued, the playful cheer suddenly leaving her voice and leaving behind gloomy shadows on her face. “Should’ve gotten the fuck outta here the first chance I got”, she said sourly, planting her chin between her knees and staring blankly in the distance, to a faraway place Sean couldn’t follow her to - and even if he could, he wouldn’t want to.

“So why didn’t you?”, Sean blurted out before thinking twice, but before he could even think of a way to apologize for possibly having crossed a line, the girl laughed out loud and dry.

“Have a wild guess, dude. ‘Cause of love, of course”, she snorted again, only this time, sarcasm was replaced with something much darker in her tone. “I was just waiting for the right time y’know. Back then, I had no idea that no such thing exists. Not for anything, not for anyone. There is just you and time, and time is nothing but a massive fucking trap, waiting for you to get stuck in it” she said, eyes darker than the coldest nights of winter. “Sorry. Didn’t mean to explode like that.”

“It’s okay. You don’t have to apologize for anything”, Sean shook his head, placing his burnt-out cigarette butt under the bench next to the previous one. “I’m just not sure I get what you mean.”

“No worries, I wouldn’t expect you to get it anyway” the girl shrugged, and the next moment, she turned her gaze to Sean, all-seeing blue eyes staring right into his soul. “You know, people hardly ever come to the lighthouse anymore, except when they should be somewhere else. And even if they come, they barely notice me. It’s nice that you did. And that you listened, too. I’m not sure where you’re supposed to be now, but I’m glad you’re here” she smiled, patting Sean’s hand with a surprisingly cold palm briefly, retreating almost immediately as he shuddered next to her.

“Yeah, I’m glad I took a little detour too” he smiled back at the girl before his glance wandered off to his sketchbook lying between them on the bench. “But I think I should get going now. I’d love to stay and chat, but… I’m ridiculously late already”, he added, a concerned frown taking over the upper half of his face, and a bewildered grin the lower, as somehow, at that moment, he realized there’s a chance that perhaps he has given into the nonsense of his own depression slightly more than he should have in the first place. 

“Yeah, you probably are”, said the girl with a playful wink, standing up from the bench and stretching her long arms above her head. “Man, what a spectacular fucking afternoon. I mean, look at the Sun. Such a radiant bitch boss, for real”, she declared lovingly, making Sean laugh out loud for the first time in the past few days, or even weeks, maybe.

“Need a lift?”, Sean asked the girl as they turned their backs on the lighthouse, and started walking towards the staircase leading to the small clearing at the bottom of the cliff. 

“Nah, thanks, but I’m not done here yet”, the girl said, shoving both her hands in the pockets of her skinny jeans. “Got some wandering to do, y’know… Contemplating the beauty of Spring and all” she looked at him with a somewhat shy smile, and Sean decided not to risk crossing any more lines with any more questions. 

“I guess this is where we part ways then” he nodded his head when they reached his station wagon, waiting patiently next to the tourist map of the cliff. “Enjoy contemplating the beauty of Spring, I guess?”, he smiled at the girl, opening the door of the passenger’s seat for Chestnut.

“Yeah, thanks, man. You take care too, okay?” answered the girl, and the next moment, before Sean could say anything, her eyes suddenly widened. “And don’t forget to sketch up a cool portrait of me or something if you got the time, will you?”

“Stop reading my mind, a’ight?” Sean laughed, waving at the girl before sitting in his car, a sudden burst of energy washing over him as the door closed behind him. The urge to drive as fast as he just can was stronger than he’s ever felt it before, but somehow, he managed to control it, closing his eyes and leaning back on his seat for a long, silent moment before reaching for his phone. Swiping away dozens of notifications, he then opened his contacts and pressed call on the first name on top of the list - the only number he’s ever called, really. 

The ringing stopped right after he pressed his phone between his ear and shoulder, and turned the car key under the steering wheel. 

“Hey enano. I’m on my way.”

*

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Hey! Thank you for reading! ❤

This short story is my contribution to a Christmas Short Story Exchange we did with my best friends. (It is also my first ever fanfiction in English!) I was writing for one of my best friends who got me into Life is Strange years ago, so when we pulled each other’s names and I found out I’m writing for her, I immediately knew that I’ll work with the Diaz brothers and Chloe. 

2020 Christmas Short Story Exchange Word count: 5353 | Written December 22nd-27th. I’m on AO3 now! Head over for more fanfictions. ❤

[secret-kkh-fics]

History Repeats | Chapter 1

Due to this not being posted anywhere else yet, please like and DON’T REBLOG my fics.

Chapter Summary:

Rose is horribly ill and exhausted after a bad day. She is surprised when she gets an unexpected visitor who tells her some interesting information and offers her a way to both cure her illness and get back to the Doctor.

Author Note:

Hello! Yet another one I have decided to rewrite. Never actually finished the original of this. I got to somewhere around World War III before I took a hiatus from it and came back a few years later and realised I wanted to update everything to do with it. I ended up both writing the new chapters at the same time as updating the old.

Visitor Through the Void

Dying to Go Home

Rose slowly dragged herself into her house, carelessly dumpling her things near the doorway, and flopping down onto the couch, not even bothering to take off her shoes or jacket. It had been a long, exhausting, and disappointing day. And she was in a lot of pain.

They were certain that the dimension cannon was ready to go this time. The mechanics had been checked a thousand times, and by all rights, it should work. But something was stopping it from working. It was like how after the breach had closed and the jump refused to work. This meant that she would only be able to get back home when the walls between the worlds were weak… and that wasn’t a good thing.

She wanted to go home more than anything, but if the walls weakened, it could only mean that something really bad was happening. And she had learnt the hard and heart-breaking way that not even the Doctor could stop everything.

 It had been just over a year since the painful day she had been trapped in this universe. A whole year of being broken in more ways than one. She’d tried… she really had. She did it for her family’s sake, and for Mikey’s sake, and mostly for her sake. She did it for the Doctor. Because she knew that he would want her to do what she was doing. She knew that she was better than that. She wasn’t just a broke shop girl anymore. They were all worried about her, so she had tried to act like she wasn’t slowly dying.

She had gone to work at Torchwood with Mickey and Pete. It was the closest thing she could get to her old life in this world, and it was also her only chance to get back. She had made a few friends and made an effort to hang out with them and be happy. She played with her new baby brother and spent time with her mother. She had even gone back to school and worked on her A Levels. She lived the fantastic life he had asked of her.

…Or, at least, she tried to live the fantastic life he had asked her to. But it didn’t feel fantastic. Or brilliant. Or anything other than horrible. Alright at best.

She felt as if her mind and heart were slowly being ripped apart. She felt empty like she was missing something inside of her. Some crucial part that she needed to live. Yes, she felt empty and broken from the loss of her Doctor… but it was something else too.

Sometimes she felt as if she were drowning, that her oxygen was being taken away, suffocating her. It was the same feeling, like her lifeline was slowly being dragged away from her. Killing her painfully and slowly. And it was only getting worse.

She was sick. Badly sick. She’d tried to hide it from her family, but they had noticed. They had noticed the fevers and deliriums. They had seen her have the occasional hallucination or seizure. They had seen how most days she was overcome by severe migraines that were at times so crippling she wanted nothing more than to curl in a ball and scream.

But still, she went on as best she could.

She had been to the hospital for scans and tests, but they had all shown nothing wrong with her. Medically anyway. They had noted that her brain scans and DNA seemed a little odd… inhuman. But they weren’t harmful. In the end, she had chalked it up to side-effects from travelling through space and time for years.

Grief could cause sickness. People had died of grief. They had given up, and it had overcome them… Her family thought that grief was the cause. But she knew it wasn’t. She was heartbroken, but she was too determined to let it beat her. People only died of grief when they gave up, and she had far from given up. She refused to. She was not going to give up until she found a way back home. She wouldn’t give up till she was with him again.

 But right now, she was so sick and so tired, the migraine that had been building all day so instead, she fell unconscious within moments of landing on the couch.

  Rose was woken by singing. At first, the song played at the edge of her mind, slowly dragging her back to consciousness. It was a familiar song, an eerie, haunting tune. She’d heard it a thousand times before. She knew it like the back of her hand, and she knew she had found herself absentmindedly humming it many times. But she couldn’t place where she knew it from.

The next thing she noticed was that she was feeling much better. She was able to breathe easier. Most surprisingly, her migraine was completely gone. She couldn’t recall the last time she hadn’t had even a slight headache, but she wasn’t in pain. She wasn’t in pain at all, which was something else she couldn’t recall the last time that happened. For the first time in a very long time, she felt whole again.

Sitting up, the third thing she noticed was a golden light coming from somewhere in the room. She looked over at the source of the light in surprise. It was dark now, probably sometime past one in the morning, and there was very little light shining into her house. So, the glowing cloud of golden dust like energy swirling around in the middle of the room was massively out of place.

She jumped to her feet in alarm, looking for something to defend herself if whatever it was was dangerous. She watched warily as the golden mass swirled through the air gently a moment, before it all started to be dragged towards the centre, pulling it all in so it clumped together, then, with a final flash, it formed into the shape of a woman.

The woman was glowing slightly, and she gasped as she came into being, then immediately fell to the floor. Rose quickly hit the lights, then rushed over to help her to her feet. But she stopped dead when she saw the woman’s face… it was her.

The other her looked younger than she did now, she could only be nineteen or twenty. Sure, to be honest, she hadn’t actually changed that much at all since then, but there was something about this Rose that seemed so young.

Most alarming, though, was that this other Rose had glowing gold eyes. And on top of that, she was wearing an outfit that had been destroyed long ago.

“Oh… that’s a new feeling,” the other her said, attempting to steady herself on her feet. Then she pulled a surprised face, almost as if she was startled by the sound of her own voice. She was still very shaky on her feet and almost fell over again, so Rose put out a hand to steady her. She had to catch her right away when the other her let out a sharp gasp and doubled over. “Oh, and it hurts! That really, really hurts!” she gasped. “How do you humans tolerate this? Just wait until I get my hands on that stupid Master… Wait… hands. I have hands.”

“O-okay…” Rose said in confusion. “Sorry, what’s going on?”

This made the other Rose look up at her, and her golden glowing eyes widened in delight as if she’d only just noticed her. “Rose!” she cried happily, throwing her arms around her. “Thank Rassilon, you’re still alive! I was so worried about you! Oh, you don’t look so good. I was cutting it close, but this was the first moment that the wall between the walls weakened. Goodness, this talking thing is fun! No wonder my Thief does it so much!”

Experimentally, the other Rose began to flex her jaw and pull funny faces.

“Right… So, who are you and why do you look like me?”

“Look like you?” Again, she brought her arms up in front of her and looked at her hands, turning them over as if she would see the resemblance, then she turned around until she managed to catch sight of herself in a reflective surface. Then she let out a small squeal of delight, bringing her hands up to feel her face, poking at the huge grin she found there. “I look like my human!” She, yet again, seemed ecstatic about this. Rose was baffled by the way the duplicate of her had practically claimed her, but it gave her the sense that she perhaps knew her.

“Yeah, you do. So, um… Who are you?”

“Oh, yes. I’m-” She paused as if she couldn’t quite remember. “Oh, what do you call me? You call me a name that’s not my name. I’m blue. We travel… I go-” Rose jumped a mile in the air when the familiar sounds of the TARDIS dematerialising came from the other Rose’s mouth.

“The TARDIS?!” she said in shocked disbelief.

“Yes! Time And Relative Dimensions In Space. That’s it! That’s me. I’m the TARDIS.”

Weakly, Rose backed up until her legs touched the couch and she sunk down onto it, her mouth hanging open slightly. “Oh my god… But-but how? How’s this possible? And how come you look like me?”

“Ooh! It’s quite simple, really,” the TARDIS told her. “There’s a crack in the universe that I was able to squeeze my consciousness through. But I couldn’t just -poof! – get a body. I needed energy and DNA and matter and a whole bunch of other things that would take longer than we have to list! Since you’re the only one who’s ever actually touched me and not just my console, yours was the only DNA I could use. It’s not permanent, though. It won’t last long. And I’m afraid I am terribly weak. I’m using what little energy I have left to do this-” Suddenly, she whimpered in pain and sunk to the ground. As she did, Rose quickly reached out and pulled her down onto the couch with her.

“Are you okay?” she said in alarm and concern. She held onto the Rose shaped TARDIS, running a hand over her head to check her temperature. She seemed normal, but there was clearly something wrong.

“I’ll be okay eventually,” she said, trying for a smile. It was a weak one that Rose knew all too well. She had given that smile so, so many times over the last year. It was how she smiled when she was trying to hide her pain from her family.

“What’s wrong?”

“Oh, just an insane Time Lord – and for once I do not mean the Doctor – has stolen me and turned me into a paradox machine.”

“Oh no. That’s not good.”

“No, it isn’t. But all will be well in the end… I hope. There are a lot of outcomes, but this is the Doctor. Besides, it’s worth it. The paradox has weakened the walls between the universes. It’s the only way I could get here, and I’m so glad that I did.” The TARDIS smiled at her, and this time it was a genuine one. “The Doctor and I can’t live without our human. We hate it. We’re so sad… And you feel the same. But you, Rose Tyler, literally can’t live without us… Or, well, me.

“Literally?” She raised her eyebrows in question. “What do you mean literally?” The words put her on edge, especially since she sensed just how true they were. But, despite the foreboding, she couldn’t bring herself to be anything but overjoyed and excited. The walls of the universe were weak. That meant that the Dimension Canon might be able to work finally. But to one-up that, the TARDIS herself was sitting there in her living room!

“You’ve already noticed it, haven’t you?” the TARDIS asked her. “Ever since I’ve been here, you haven’t felt quite as sick. And you’ve been sick for a long time now, haven’t you?”

“Yeah.” Rose nodded. “Started not long after Dårlig Ulv Stranden. It was mostly just… headaches. All the time. And then migraines. Sickness, seizures, dizzy spells and weakness. Mum was scared it was a tumour or something, but the tests all show nothing’s wrong.”

“No, I don’t imagine cellular destructuralisation would show on the technology here.”

“Cellular destructuralisation?”

“Yes, a side effect from being cut off from me, I’m afraid.”

“But… doesn’t that mean that I was… falling apart or something? Wouldn’t that mean I was dying?”

“Yes, yes it does. You’ve been studying!” The TARDIS smiled at her proudly.

“Before the sickness made me have to stop, yeah. H-how come I’m dying?” Really, she ought to be horrified by the idea, but she found she wasn’t exactly surprised.

“Well, you should have been dead already. You weren’t meant to live past the Game Station. You shouldn’t have been able to survive, holding the Time Vortex within you. Only I can do that. And you didn’t… survive, that is. You died, for a moment there anyway. But the Doctor and I, we both loved you so much. We couldn’t let you die. He gave up one of his regenerations to at least take the Time Vortex out of you. He hoped that he could save you, but he knew in his hearts that you would die. You held onto it for much longer than he did, and it killed him after only a few seconds of holding it. There was no way he could have saved you. And he didn’t want to go on like that without you.

He didn’t understand how you survived, it completely baffled him. Though, it did make him overjoyed. He thought that there must have been something very special about you. And he was right. Because no other human would have given up their life to save him like that. No one had ever won the heart of the TARDIS – my heart. And you did, Rose. I love you as much as he does… of course, not quite in the same way, but just as much. I couldn’t stand to see you die… to see the devastation it would cause him.

So, I bonded myself to you… I’ve never bonded to anyone before. Not the way we are. The Doctor and I are bonded. He’s my thief, my pilot, my Time Lord. When he dies, I die with him, but if I die, he will live on. Our bond… it’s both ways. We die when the other does. We can keep the other alive, or we can take them down as well. And with you in this universe, separated from us so completely. We may as well have been dead to one another. Our separation through the Void, it was slowly killing the both of us. I’m a little surprised you’ve lasted the year, but I’m glad. My Human is a fighter.”

“Okay, so… hold on, let me get this straight,” Rose said, holding up a hand to stay her. She could hardly comprehend what she was hearing. She felt as if her world had been flipped upside down by this revelation and her head was spinning. But at the same time, it just made so much sense. She’d always felt closer to the TARDIS after the Game Station, as if she could almost understand her. “So, I’ bonded to you… to the TARDIS, because I died from absorbing the Time Vortex. And because of the bond and being apart, we’re both dying. So, the only thing keeping me alive is being near you?”

“Yes, exactly!”

“S-so, are you taking me home then? Is that why you’re here? To take me back with you?” She couldn’t stop the hope creeping into her voice, but the TARDIS’s sad expression made it leave her in an instant.

“No.”

“No? But-”

“I can’t,” she whispered. “I want to, but I can’t. I don’t have enough energy. And I wouldn’t be able to bring your physical form across the Void without killing you. Besides, you don’t want to go back to where I am. If the Master ever got his hands on you…” She shivered, her face going pale, and Rose had the feeling that she wasn’t just imagining the possibilities, but actually seeing them happen. “Not to mention that most of the outcomes where we all make it out okay, time reverses a year back to the moment I jumped through to here. You would suffer a year of torture and sickness only to be thrown back here to die once more. No, no, no. Not happening.”

“Yeah, no. I’d rather not.” At this point, she was kind of just sitting there stunned on the couch. She was trying to deal with the shock of what was happening, along with information overload, so at this point, she had decided to just roll with the punches. “But, isn’t there some other way? I-I can’t just stay here! Not if I’m just going to die! I’m working on something, a Dimension Cannon. It’s supposed to teleport you between dimensions, but it’s not an exact science of where and when you land. Also, I don’t think it works unless the walls of the universe are breaking down, and I probably don’t have time for that, do I?”

“No, I don’t imagine you would. But there is something we can do. We can stop it!”

“…Stop what?” Rose asked when the TARDIS didn’t elaborate.

“Canary Wharf. The separation. We can stop it from ever happening. You never leave our home universe. This timeline would cease to exist, and the three of us can continue travelling the stars. The Doctor and Rose Tyler, in the TARDIS… as it should be.”

Rose’s eyebrows rose high. “What? How?! How would we do that?!” she said eagerly. She trusted the TARDIS beyond anything, the same as she trusted the Doctor. And it was a good thing that it was the TARDIS who was pitching her this idea because, at this point, she was willing to do anything to return to her home universe if it meant being with the Doctor in the TARDIS again. At times, she had even been willing to cause a paradox… Oh no. “It won’t cause a paradox, will it?”

The TARDIS smiled at her. “No, no it won’t. Paradoxes are caused when time is disrupted, but we won’t be disrupting it… we’re rewriting it. It will be a completely natural occurrence. See, the only part of you I can take back is your mind. And not only that, but the only way to ensure we don’t disrupt anything important is to take you all the way back… Back to the time you first stepped foot on the TARDIS.”

Rose started. “Wait, so I’m pretty much going to have to relive my life from after I first meet the Doctor? The whole two years?! …Or was it three?”

“Yes, that’s right.”

“But… but I can’t do that!” She shot to her feet and began pacing restlessly. “I can’t just… do it all again knowing what happens. I can’t do nothing when I have the chance help people I couldn’t before. I can’t let innocent people die! And what about me? Young me? Do I just… take over my own body. What happens to the old me?”

“Rose, calm down. It will all be fine,” the TARDIS tried to soothe her. “Trust me. You’re not going to take over your own body, more… merge with it. You’ll still be that same wonderful nineteen-year-old girl… but at the same time, you will also still be this brilliant woman you are now… Oh, I’m not explaining it right. This would be much easier if I wasn’t using words. How do humans explain things so easily all the time?” Rose just shrugged. In her experience, explaining things wasn’t always easy, even for people who did talk all their lives. “Hmm, well, you will see what I mean soon anyway. As for saving people you couldn’t before… that can certainly happen. Most of the time anyway.”

Rose stopped her pacing, and her eyes brightened. “Wait, really?! What about causing paradoxes?”

“Well, that’s like I said. We’re rewriting, not disrupting. You can change what you like, so long as it doesn’t change the timelines too much. There are still certain things that brought us to where we were, and we still need to keep all that the same. And there are certain events, the deaths of certain people that shape the history of the universe. But so long as it doesn’t affect those, you can save whoever you can. I would never ask you not to help people when you can.” Another smile touched her lips. She was so glad that her Rose hadn’t changed and was just as passionate. That her time here in the parallel word hadn’t hardened her or worse.

“But, how would I know if I was changing something important or not?” Rose asked, looking a little panicked. “What if I change something, and – and… we end up not going somewhere we’re supposed to go! Or the Doctor decides he wants to take someone else instead of me! What if I screw it all up?!”

“Rose, relax,” the TARDIS found herself laughing. Oh, she liked that. But seeing her Human so panicked over it was quite adorable. She had every faith that Rose would do this perfectly. “I’ll be with you in your head. I can help. Of course, you’ll have to figure most things out on your own, make your own choices. But I can send you mental nudges and hints. Besides, I’m not your only tool. We have a bond, you took on the entire Time Vortex… Haven’t you noticed it yet? That feeling that you know what will happen if you decide to do something.”

“Y-yeah,” she said, thinking back. “Almost like I’m… guessing what can happen before it does. Mum kept telling me I should get a lottery ticket. Course, Dad always told her that was silly since we’re kinda really incredibly rich here…”

“Yes, exactly. Our bond had started to change your mind before you left. Had you kept travelling, it would have changed even more.”

“Seriously?” The idea pulled her up short. So, what? She would have become… psychic?

“Oh yes!” The gleeful tone that the TARDIS used with her own voice was so reminiscent of the Doctor that it made Rose grin. “There’s a couple of other things too. The Doctor can’t know. I know you won’t like the idea, and I don’t overly like it either, but the Doctor can’t know about what you’re doing. The longer you can keep it from him, the better. I fear that if he finds out, he might end up changing things too drastically.”

“But… what if he figures it out? He’s not just going to not notice. It’s the Doctor.”

“Hmm, that is true. I suppose it might be alright, depending on what he finds out and when. Of course, I will try and hinder his attempts. Oh! One other thing!” Here, the TARDIS grinned one of Rose’s cheeky tongue in cheek smiles. “When he asks you to travel with him… turn him down again.”

Rose baulked. “Wait, what? Why?!”

“So that he asks twice, of course. He did it last time. He’s never asked anyone to travel with him twice like that before. Usually, he offers once with the occasional ‘you sure’, and that’s it. But he went back five minutes later and asked a second time. He wanted you to travel with him so badly, it’s no wonder he fell for you so quickly. He thinks about that a lot.”

“Oh.” Rose couldn’t help the butterflies that fluttered madly about every time the TARDIS told her that the Doctor loved her, or mentioned how much he cared. It soothed like a balm, especially when she thought back to his cut off words on the beach. There were still times, even now, even being so sure what he was going to say, that she doubted he could ever love her back. She was only human, after all… But, no. She was more than that. Not just because of the TARDIS, she had always been more than just that.

Only, now she would be able to live well beyond human years since she was bonded to the TARDIS in a way that not even he was. Her eyes suddenly lit up. She knew that that was one of the only barriers that ever stopped them from becoming more. He’d practically admitted as much the time she’d met Sara Jane. She would live as long as the TARDIS!

“Hold on!” she gasped. “So, you die when the Doctor does?”

“Give or take a few years,” she replied with a nod.

“And I live as long as you do…”

“Yes.” Now the TARDIS was grinning, knowing that she had caught on.

“I can live as long as he will…”

“As long as everything goes alright and nothing happens to either of us, yes. You will.”

“…Oh my god, I’m going to live for hundreds of years!” she cried. She’d vaguely known this when the TARDIS told her, but the implications were now only just hitting her.

“You won’t age,’ the TARDIS assured her. “Not past a few more years anyway.” Then she finally seemed to notice the overwhelmed expression on Rose’s face. “I’m sorry. I had to bond us. It was the only way. We couldn’t lose you.”

“Do I look like I’m complaining?!” she cried, a disbelieving laugh bubbling up from her. “I just… Oh god. I think I just need time to adjust to it, yeah. It sounds… insane.”

“No more so than anything else you’ve seen since you met the Doctor.” She sounded confused by Rose’s bafflement.

“Yeah, but… nothing I considered impossible ever really happened to me, you know? Not like that, anyway. Or, at least, I didn’t think I had.”

“Oh, Rose Tyler, you have no idea-” The end of her sentence was cut off as she let out another sharp cry, doubling over with her arms curled around her middle in pain. Rose rushed to her immediately. It had been so long since that had last happened that she’d completely forgotten the TARDIS was in pain. “I’m fine, I’m fine,” the TARDIS gasped, sitting back up straight.

“You sure?” she asked, holding her steady. “What’s happening?”

“I believe… we are running out of time. I can’t hold this form much longer before it breaks back down into energy. We need to go now.”

“N-now? But what about my family?” Rose asked. “Won’t they wonder what happened? I can’t just not say goodbye.”

“It won’t matter,” the TARDIS said, trying for a small, reassuring smile, though it looked far more like a pained grimace. “We will be – hopefully be – completely cutting this reality, this timeline from existence. With any luck, you will never fall and never had the need to say goodbye to them at this point in time. And you will see Jackie and Mickey very soon. But we must go now. If I don’t get you back, we both die.”

Rose nodded firmly. Hearing those words, she imagined how devastated the Doctor would be without her or his beloved ship, and her already pretty firm resolve hardened. “Yeah. Yeah, okay. Let’s do it. I want my Doctor back.”

The TARDIS smiled tiredly. She could practically taste her Human’s excitement, and that gave her the energy to pull them both to their feet.

“Good. Now, just remember, when you get back, we won’t be linked physically like we are now. Not until you absorb the Time Vortex again. But we will still be linked mentally. We can do this.”

Rose nodded, and the TARDIS placed her hands on her temples. She closed her eyes like she was concentrating, and Rose felt a harsh jolt in her mind as if she had just been shoved off a cliff…

And then she was gone.

Author Note:

As seems to be the rule with my rewritten scenes, this chapter almost doubled in length. From 2,404 to 4,691 words (4 → 8 pages). I was really proud of this update. Not just in my writing skills, but also in how I explained things a little clearer and made it flow nicer.

The original can still be read on fanfiction.net if you are interested to see how it’s changed.

Chapter Index  |  First Chapter  |   Next Chapter >>

[fulltimeviking]

Hoppípolla

Summary: Hiccup is a semi-stressed out chief and Nuffink is just a hyper active ball of energy wanting to play in some rain puddles with his Dad - Takes place a year before the epilogue in httyd 3 and is based off of a Sigur Rós song. 

Imma be real with you chief - this is 100% unapologetic fluff, written purely for the reason that I just needed some more fluffy fics about the Haddock family in my life and decided to provide some myself no matter how badly written or rusty my fanfic writing skills are 🤷🏻‍♀️

Also forgive me if it seems a bit unpolished or kind of rushed, I’ve been trying to get this done for weeks and yesterday I finally put my foot down and decided I was going to finish it this week, and I managed to wrap it all up this evening. I’m also lowkey drugged up on medication atm so I wrote the last paragraph and edited the entire thing through half lidded eyes, so if you see a spelling mistake, that’s probably why. 

Anyway I could make up excuses about my writing and keep putting off posting this all day but I’m going to stfu now - I hope you like it!

“So you have all the plans? Nothing else you need or-” “I’ve got everything I need to start right here” Fishlegs patted the scrolls “I promise you’ve got nothing to worry about chief, I’ve got it all under control” “right” Hiccup sighed a little, another weight off his shoulders “great, thank you”. 

A passing storm had done some wreckage to a few houses and whatnot and everyone else had been preoccupied with their own reconstructions, the chief being left with the bulk of it all, but his council members had been willing to help out and for that he couldn’t be more grateful.

Nuffink was sat down fidgeting with the hem of his oversized tunic, swinging his legs on a chair ten times too big for him in the Ingerman’s living room, it wasn’t an anomaly for the chief and chieftess to bring the kids on errands with them and at this point Zephyr and Nuffink were fully accustomed to it. That didn’t stop them from being boring sometimes though, especially when the rain had calmed down and there were over a hundred puddles outside with his name on them. “Nuffink?” Hiccup called from the door “we’re done now!” the little boy perked up and slid down from the seat, running to the to meet his father who picked him up and rested him on his hip “now what do we say?” he asked him as they stepped outside. Nuffink looked blank for a second “umm- oh, thank you for letting me sit in your house Uncle Fishlegs”

“Awwww the pleasure is all mine little guy” Fishlegs cooed “you’re welcome round any time” “thank you again” Hiccup said “they just grow up so fast don’t they?” the ingerman carried on “Little kids, I swear he was getting carried around like a baby not that long ago” he said a little tearily “… you okay there?” “yep!” he answered too quickly and rubbed at his eyes “it’s the humidity… because of the rain, and allergy seasons coming...  makes my eyes misty” he shuffled awkwardly for a second before quickly turning on his heel and going back inside “see you around chief!” he didn’t wait for a response as he shut the front door hastily behind him.

“Well” Hiccup looked at his son with a smile and Nuffink showed off his own toothy little grin “guess we’re heading home now bud” Hiccup moved to start walking down the steps but Nuffink wriggled around in protest “I want to walk!” he insisted “okay okay” his dad chuckled and put him down “hold my hand while we walk down the stairs though, yeah?” he offered his hand and Nuffink instinctively took hold of it - just one of the upsides to having such a cuddly child “don’t want you to faceplant in the floor again” Hiccup mumbled under his breath cringing a little at the memory - stairs had never been such a menace.

He kept his eye on his son as they walked carefully down the slippery stone steps, the little boy walking one at a time and looking intently at the big rain puddle at the bottom. Hiccup grinned “big step down here buddy, you’ll have to jump!” Nuffink’s face lit up instantly and Hiccup kept hold of his hand, helping him jump up a little higher so he splashed down hard into the puddle, making him giggle in delight. He let go of his father’s hand and ran ahead, splashing around in all the massive rain puddles the small storm had left behind, the actual rain now just mere droplets so he didn’t need to worry about the boy catching a cold.

The two stayed that way for a while, Nuffink running ahead and splashing in all the puddles before him, his dad not too far behind with a small smile on his face that he couldn’t contain.

Maybe it was just because he was still a relatively new parent, only 5 years in the game and whatnot - but Nuffink although a little quiet, was an adventurous and turbulent kid, and seeing his offspring so joyful and carefree made him ridiculously happy. “Daddy!” the 3 year old snapped him from his thoughts and tugged on his sleeve, pulling him as best as he could towards the small pools of water ahead of them “oh no, no can do buddy” Hiccup pulled back a little and laughed awkwardly - he always tried to deny it when his wife, or his friends, or his village accused it of being so, but he had to admit he really hated to say no to either of his children.

Nuffink cocked his eyebrow, puzzled “why?”

“Because I could hurt myself”

“Why?”

Hiccup knelt down to his level and pointed at his prosthetic “because of my leg, you know my fake leg?” Nuffink nodded knowingly “It’s metal see” Hiccup gave it a knock to prove his point “so it makes it easier for me to slip-” “I won’t let you slip!” he insisted and took a tight hold of his father’s hand, pulling him along. The chief nearly fell forward on his face but caught himself last minute, walking hunched over at a low level as his youngest child dragged him onwards “I’ll hold your hand daddy and you won’t fall!” “Nuffink!” Hiccup tried to sound firm but laughed heartily instead, great job Hiccup, very disciplinary, he thought. Without warning the toddler gave him another tug and pulled his father into one of the multiple shallow puddles on their path home. Before his dad could get in a word of protest Nuffink grabbed at his free hand, jumping up and down. Hiccup sighed, though truthfully he had no intention of not indulging him, he took a slightly tighter hold of his hands as he raised him up and let him drop back down with an almighty splash “Again!” his son kept demanding eagerly grinning “Okay! Up again!” Hiccup obliged everytime and lifted him up. One time he lifted him with a bit more gusto, and dropped him down hard sending water up in both their faces making Nuffink laugh and wipe at his face with his hands.

Hiccup forgot that it was his son that was the small support that kept him in one place as he took a step forward, accidentally placed his prosthetic on a small rock in the floor and slipped, landing on his backside in the water cursing and making his son laugh even harder. “Oh it’s funny is it? my pain is funny to you?” He joked as he moved onto his knees and Nuffink giggled “it is?!” Hiccup said in pretend shock and the young boy shrieked in laughter “oh my gods, of all people, my own son!” he dramatised “the betrayal!”

Nuffink pulled at his arm “stoooppp” he whined guiltily “I’m sorry” “Buddy I’m just joking” He smiled reassuringly and ruffled the boys dampened hair “okay” his son was unable to hide the mischievous smirk on his face before completely splashing his father in the face and running off “what- you tricked me!” Hiccup said in disbelief, albeit a little impressed. Oh yeah, he’s his mother’s son. He gathered himself and set off in a careful run so he wouldn’t slip, and tried to catch up to him, the two laughing ridiculously. They carried on like that for what felt like nowhere near enough time, messing around in the rain puddles, Hiccup enjoying it almost as much as his son, but more because he was spending time with his child and less because he enjoyed getting splashed in the face with cold water.

Every time there was a long puddle Nuffink ran straight at it and went sliding on his tummy, his dad only a pace behind him ready to help him up so the little boy could set off looking for more. Whenever Hiccup thought he was going to slip and fall again he’d slide to the ground on his knees before his prosthetic got its chance, Nuffink took to habit of using this opportunity to kick a bit of water at him and even though it barely reached him, Hiccup would act appalled, get up and catch him by his arms and swing him around, his boots skimming the water on the ground and the boy screaming in delight.

His father couldn’t wipe the stupid smile off of his face, it’d probably been the most relaxed  and happy he’d felt in a while - although the storm was passing, it was a big one and probably wouldn’t die out for another few days or so if the elder was right, and she was always right. The thought gave the young chief a migraine, he hated to admit it, it felt like admitting defeat in a way, but the workload seemed to pile up easy for him so easy these days and he’d be lying if he said it never got on top of him.

Then ironically enough, it was the thing that should have been one of the most stress-inducing things that turned out to be a source of relief. Zephyr and Nuffink. Not even just playing, but spending time with and being around his children made him feel like he himself was a young boy - spending time with his own father… it dwindled as he got older, the war between dragon and viking taking its toll. They grew apart. From the minute Hiccup found out he was going to become a father with his first he had had been slightly fearful of history repeating itself, but hearing his youngest laugh and watching him look up at him with those familiar green eyes made him 100% certain of one thing. He would never let that happen, not in a million years.

He shook his head and scoffed at himself. Thor almighty, he was turning way too soft.

The wind started to pick up - it blew by not too bad but enough to make Hiccup and the boy shiver in their drenched clothes. Hiccup looked up at the sky and saw the storm clouds getting darker, covering up the what would’ve been a nice sunset. He grimaced, more bad weather meant more damage to occur and more work to be done, though the toddler’s sniffling snapped him back to his current situation. Nuffink’s clothes were entirely soaked through, his boots making funny sounding squelching noises as he walked and his long-ish blonde hair hung dripping down his face.

Hiccup stopped and knelt down to try sort him out a bit, he brushed his hair back with his fingers so it didn’t hang over his eyes and tried to wring out the bottom of his tunic best he could without taking it off him and making the poor bugger shiver any more then he was.

Nuffink wasn’t one to complain too much, he was a relatively well behaved child, but the look of discomfort on his face at being wet and cold was unmistakable, the puddles suddenly seeming a lot less appealing then his warm comfortable house. “I think we better hurry on home now bud” his dad noted as the rain started again. Hiccup took off the fur chiefs cloak he wore and wrapped it snug around Nuffink before picking him up to carry him -  it was so big on him it hung down by such a margin that if you looked from a distance you would think he were carrying a baby “better not catch a cold eh?”

The chief picked up the pace, sticking to the dry bits of grass as the rain picked up and came down heavier, fortunately the bulk of the storm only kicking in once they finally entered the Haddock household.

Zephyr was sat at the table, drawing something in one of her many little notebooks, whilst Astrid tended to dinner, which by the look of their seemingly clean little kitchen area, must have been prepared by somebody else (thank odin). The boys presence became known when Hiccup shut the door behind him hastily before any rain could fly in, Zephyr looked up from her drawing and laughed a little at the sight of them “aha! Momma look! They’re all wet!” the girls mother turned around and stared a little

Astrid stood back, taking in the sopping wet mess before her, hands on her hips looking them both up in down in question “what in Thor’s name have you two been doing?” Nuffink tugged on one of his dad’s braids as he nuzzled his head into the crook of his shoulder, tired from his days ventures. Hiccup looked at Astrid with a daft grin “puddle hopping”.

[chronically-autistic-dinosaur]

This is an EXTREMELY long post, but there you have it:

With the exception of the first photo, these tests were taken in March. I took the same tests back in November and I took them even earlier than that as well. I got nearly the the same results. I score high for Aspergers. I’ve had questions and concerns for the past 5 or so years about whether or not I had ASD (certain things stuck out to me) and so I started to do some research. I did those tests, talked to some people, and looked into my childhood and realized the signs were always there. Now, I could pay almost $3000 and get my diagnosis on a piece of paper, but what’s the point of that? I’ll still get the same results on the tests. The diagnosis will just sit in my medical file and unless I plan on getting government benefits, I don’t see the point. Yes, I was diagnosed when I was 12. No, I don’t have it in writing anywhere (that I know of). My testing was done as part of a clinical trial I was in and the results of those are never made public or put in a medical record. It sucks, but that’s how those things work. My parents know my diagnosis and I know. That’s enough for me.

Yes, I hit every developmental milestone, but most of us with Aspergers do. We don’t normally have the speech and language deficits that those elsewhere on the spectrum will have. It’s why we are usually misdiagnosed/diagnosed later in life. We are more intelligent than most people. My IQ is 120 (according to all the free tests I’ve done here and the over the years). Now that’s not genius level, but it IS higher than normal. I was reading proficiently at 4 years old. By the time I was in Kindergarten, I was reading at a grade 3 level and could comprehend what I was reading. We have excellent memory recall. I can retain information a lot easier than most. I could name the capital cities of most countries (and if given a few minutes, I could still remember). I love reference books and text books and I was the same way as a child. I’ve always been smarter than my age, which is common for Aspies.

In the language category though, I DO have minor echolalia. I will mimic/repeat what people have said to me. When a customer tells me they are paying with debit (or whatever their payment method is), I will repeat what they said. I’ll repeat numbers back when someone is telling me them. I’ll repeat phrases I hear on TV or movies. It may be immediate or it may be a delayed response somewhere down the road. I use words and phrases out of context. I’ll print something or a receipt will print and I will say “perfect” or “excellent.” I heard the word somewhere and I’m now repeating it in a situation. I talk to myself. And I’m talking full on conversations. Extremely common in those with ASD. I did it as a child as well but it would have been chalked up to “oh she just has an imaginary friend.”

I have very particular interests. At the age of 5, I was reading medical dictionaries and encyclopedias. I love anything medical. I love true crime and serial killers. My favourite TV shows are either medical or crime related. In grade 2, I knew the name of every dinosaur and what period they lived in. If I’m talking to people and they don’t like either of those things, the conversation is over. I could go on and on about my interests and not get bored. This is another ASD trait.

I also inventoried my Halloween candy. I did this every year up until I stopped trick or treating. I organized my teddy bears and inventoried them as well. In fact, everything in my bedroom was inventoried. I had a massive Barbie doll collection and I would spend hours setting everything up in VERY specific spots. It would stay like that for months and the Barbies wouldn’t get played with because I didn’t want anything to get touched and wrecked.

Stimming. It’s a coping mechanism. It’s how I deal with the world around me. Stimming calms me down and can prevent a meltdown. As a child, I chewed things. I chewed my sleeves on my sweaters and the collars on my t-shirts. I sucked on my fingers/hands. I still chew. I chew on hoodie strings. I chew my nails (which I also did as a kid). I play with my hands. I bang my fists against my legs. I play with headphone wires. I also do the stereotypical autistic clapping of the hands. It’s the most obvious of my stims, but what can you do? 🤷🏻‍♀️

Sensory Processing Disorder. This is the most common sign of ASD. In fact, anyone with autism will have SPD to some degree. This was actually the first thing I started researching since a person can have SPD without being autistic. After doing my research, that wasn’t my case. I have mild-moderate SPD. I have always been a picky eater. I eat foods based off of their texture. It’s why I eat a lot of processed food. It has no texture. I don’t like sticky foods like fruit because I can’t stand having sticky hands. In fact, I can’t stand having dirty hands in general. I eat finger food with a fork and a knife for this exact reason. My food can’t touch (unless it’s a stir fry or something) I can’t have tags in my shirts. I don’t wear belts. I don’t wear tight clothing. I don’t like being touched or hugged. It’s uncomfortable. This is also common in people with ASD. As a kid, I was forced to hug because in a NT (Neurotypical) world, that’s what you do. So I learned to fake it. I get window seats on planes so the flight attendants and other passengers can’t touch me. I wear noise cancelling headphones so I can block out most of the noise outside. It can be a tad overwhelming at times. I am sensitive to bright lights, high pitched sounds and certain smells. My brain doesn’t have a filter to properly filter out all the different senses so overload is a thing and always has been. My migraines are more than likely because of sensory overload. As a child, my sensory overload may have disguised itself as something else, though.

Social Interaction. Those with ASD struggle with social skills. I can count on one hand how many friends I had in school. And I’m going from Kindergarten to Grade 12. And I no longer have regular contact with these people. I was able to copy (common for those with ASD) those around me and make friends that way. But I had no idea what I was really doing. Making friends is hard when you have ASD. I lack the social skills needed to talk to people. I was shy. I liked playing alone because it was easier than talking to people and I could be off in my own world. To this day, I still don’t like talking to people. I have to rehearse what I’m saying before I say it. I don’t like talking on the phone. I will use self serve checkouts if I only have a few items. I use the self serve kiosks at McDonalds so I don’t have to speak to an employee. I have learned to adapt in a NT world and I have a job that requires me to talk to people. But it’s repetitive. I say the same thing to each customer. If I have to deviate from that system, I’m flustered. I do not make eye contact with people. It’s unnerving. I look past people. I struggle with reading body language. I avoid most large social gatherings. I’m not trying to be anti-social. But having to deal with all the people and the noise gives me anxiety and overwhelms me. Even in school, when ever there was some event in the class, I would try and be in the back, so I wouldn’t have to interact with anyone.

Emotions. I struggle with empathy and sympathy. Not ALL those with ASD have issues with those but I do. I have a hard time feeling sorry for people or knowing what people are going through. I don’t know why people are crying sometimes. I don’t know what to do when people are crying. Even as a kid, I could hurt my siblings and it wouldn’t bother me that they were in pain. I simply didn’t care. I also don’t express my emotions correctly or know WHEN to correctly express my emotions. It’s why I threw tantrums as a child. It’s one of the reasons I saw a counselor in Grade 3.

Meltdowns. These are different then tantrums. Meltdowns happen when I get too overwhelmed with everything (sensory overload or stress) and I shut down. I CAN go non-verbal but that is extremely rare. I also suffer from shutdowns, which are milder forms of meltdowns.

Routine and Structure. Another big sign of those with ASD is routine. This is one of the the things that stuck out to me the most before I even started doing research. I always had a routine. And it couldn’t be changed or it would cause major problems for me. I have morning routine and it doesn’t matter where I am, I follow it. I have another routine for my Monday and Friday shifts. If it deviates at all, we could have a meltdown depending on how much of a deviation there is. I don’t recall much routine as a child, but I imagine it was there in some form.

Those with ASD have sleep problems. I wake up 3-4 times a night and I remember being this way even as a child. I am never tired though. 4 hours of sleep has always been sufficient for me and the research I have done on ASD and sleep shows this to be a common thing. I also have to sleep with my iPad on. I can’t have complete silence or darkness when I sleep. I can recall sleeping with my light on when I was younger.

Now how did I go so long without any of this being noticed by teachers or even my parents? Well I was born in 1989. Autism was not a big thing back then so it wouldn’t have been on the radar of anyone, really. My mom did tell me that I’ve always had behavioural issues and “strange and odd” behaviour since I was a baby/child but again, autism was not the thing it is now so there was no reason to have me tested when I was really young. Same as in school. It was chalked up to “behavioural issues” or “bad parenting.” Females are more commonly misdiagnosed or not diagnosed at all because doctors still hold the belief that only males can have ASD. Females are also better at masking their ASD traits than males. I have been masking the majority of my life. It’s how I’ve been able to keep the same job for 10 years. It’s how I managed to make the friends I did. I can appear NT even though I am not. Masking is also physically exhausting and I am trying harder to NOT mask.

Being part of an Aspergers group on Facebook and being a part of the autistic community on Tumblr has really helped me. It lets me know there are others JUST like me with the same things and that I am not alone.

“I have autism. It’s a part of who I am.”

[courtorderedcake]

Roses (A CS AU)

My late contribution to @csmarchmadness.

I haven't been able to or feeling up to writing lately, and struggled to push this through before I began having health difficulties. It is only with the support of @shireness-says, @ultraluckycatnd, and @doodlelolly0910 that even this is done, and I have the utmost gratitude.

Cat has practically rewritten it to not only make sense, but to read beautifully, and she has been unknowingly the shining light in many a dark day.

I don't know if I'll finish this, or the two other pieces in this anthology besides what I'm finally finished with for @cssns, but if I decide to let it die I will post everything I have as continued notes on here and eventually Ao3.

I believe that with these and the last few stragglers in my WIP folder, I am done with the Fandom and giving up writing in general, and thank the organizers of CSMM for the amazing experience.

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Roses, A CS retelling of Tam Lin

By Courtorderedcake and ultraluckycatnd.

Rated M - - - - chapters 1/??

If there was one trope in fairytales that Emma hated, it was the lonely orphan who found parents and lived happily ever after in a beautiful castle. Her first problem with it was that while she hadn’t met any royalty, she doubted that most of them lost track of their children that often. Or, if they were separated, that a prince or princess would be placed in a crowded Boston orphanage. Her second problem was that there were only so many countries in the world, and even less with a missing monarch. Even diplomats and billionaires were few and far between in that category.

So, on a rainy April afternoon when she returned to her apartment, she did not expect to see a fresh faced courier waiting for her. Although she wasn’t old by any means at 28, the boy looked about 12 with his baby face as he asked her to sign for the letter. She gave a scribble, handed him a wadded bunch of bills from her bag, and stumbled inside to peel off the dress underneath her rain slicker.

Kicking off her heels, which were most likely ruined from the rain, she collapsed on her couch. With a wiggle, the skin tight red number was off and she basked in the freedom of being nude as she searched her floor for a clean t-shirt and a pair of lounge pants. Looking at the letter, she picked it up and placed it between her teeth, paused to put her hair in what she hoped would resemble a ponytail, and pulled to rip it open. Letting the envelope fall to the floor, she grabbed her thick rimmed glasses to read the small script.

Her roommate, Mary Margaret, came out of her room. “Emma? It’s 4 am, did you just get back?”

“Mmmmyar.”  Emma replied, scanning the text. Her husband's family crest and name, long discarded after his death, was printed on top of the document. She shuddered at the golden medallions adorning a darkened shield, and the scaled, lizard like, dragon that curling around it.

“Well… OK, but do you want some coffee? David's here and we're getting up early to -”

“Holy. Fucking. Grilled cheese and onion rings.” Emma breathed heavily, staring wide eyed in shock at the papers in front of her.

“What are you swearing on such sacred foods for?” Mary Margaret quirked an eyebrow in amused concern.

“I've just inherited an estate valued at £800,000.” Emma flicked her eyes up, mouth a thin line. “Neal's family's fortune, home and grounds apparently. Things I never even knew about.”

“Well.” Mary Margaret sipped her coffee, looking completely nonplussed even if Emma knew on the inside she was bursting - it was how she had earned her nickname Snow Queen after all. “That would do it.”

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The estate reading took place in Scotland through a crackling speaker box, Emma's eyes racing around the office the entire time. It was stunning, as were what seemed like all the buildings during her trip to gain the deed to her home. This office in particular was what Emma imagined when reading Peter Pan; a gentleman's study and den, complete with whiskey decanter and cigar box to her left as if she had gone back in time. The tall shelves were lined in books with gold leaf letters and rich leather bindings, the panels of dark wood mixed with verdant jade paint and damask almost making up for the unsettling stuffed deer heads.

Cringing, Emma turned back to the box. The voice on the other line was thickly accented with a rolling brogue which Graham assured her in his own was common, and had obviously been in a bad mood long enough for it to be a defining quality.

“Ye don't be wanting Carterhaugh, lass. T’place is cursed, hallow in the way tat echoes, not t’way of blessings.”

Her lawyer smirked, teeth white and extremely straight. Emma had liked Graham since she had met him, and this was insight into his character. Taste in wall decorations aside, he respected her agency enough to not let this man continue to try to stop the change in ownership. In her experience, lawyers were far too careless and rude.

“My client will determine its worth.” His tone was calm and well practiced, even through his own clear lilt, but Emma could hear the edge there just under the surface. He had the heart of a forest hunter; not a threat until prey was too well ensnared in a carefully laid trap. This man on the phone, a Mr. Seáìnns’, had been fighting tooth and nail to keep her from her inheritance, throwing obstacle after obstacle in her way for months now.

At first it was as simple as he refused to understand that Emma wanted to know the family that had abandoned her husband, wanted to feel the last connections she had with him or any family she could, but it quickly devolved into more. Emma was subject to constant harassment by calls and letters, envelopes filled with shredded paper or scribbled notes she could not read, all from this this crazy older man in the village that Carterhaugh laid in. This didn't do much more than annoy her, as well as the post office, customs, and the garbage disposal crew. It escalated to him crossing a line when he tried to prove she was not the proper heir, insinuating Neal was a bastard, and further when he tried to declare the estate a historical landmark.

Emma hadn't even seen the damn mansion or castle or whatever an estate was considered. It seemed to vary between every property she had compared what little information she had, the repeated ridiculous notion of having her own ballroom driving her and David giddy with excitement. Mary Margaret rolled her eyes, but David pulling her away to dance made a smile crack across her face. They'd discovered over beers that a ballroom didn't make a home a palace, a question neither David, her, or Mary Margaret had ever thought they'd be asking.

The sound of sputtering rage brought her back to the present.

“You bloody ridiculous ‘n hateful creatures! I know what you are doing, what you're playing at. You can try to find me, but I know your games, and I know this woman is either demon or worse! She'd kill ye before even looking, smile on ‘er face. Calling her client… Yer client doesn't know her ken folk have cursed me, an m’wife, and took -” The line crackled, an electronic whining mixed with metallic pops. A dial tone replaced the man's voice and Graham’s smile faded.

“Well. It seems like your new residence has eccentric neighbors, doesn't it?” Graham laughed, and Emma felt his hand slip into her own. She flinched, pulling away from him and he gave her a sad smile. “Sorry, I -”

“It's alright. I… I'm just not looking for anyone.” Rubbing her palms together to do something with her hands, she pushed away the feeling of wrong that came over her at someone's touch. “I don't think I'll be ready for some time.”

Graham nodded, gathering papers together from his desk. He waited a few long, drawn out, silent minutes before asking, “How long has it been since Mr. Gold's -”

Emma's tone was short, frustration defined in every syllable. “It could have happened yesterday, but it was 2 years ago. We got married fast, it was a blur. It's a difficult topic for me.”

“I'm so sorry I -”

“Can we please see the estate?” Pinching her brow as a migraine set in, Emma heard Graham clear his throat and stand.

“Absolutely. It's a few hours from here, if you'd like to get lunch and car pool -”

“I'll take my car. Lead the way.”

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Driving through the small town of Carterhold, Emma could see why locals may be wary of change. The town was a sleepy and picturesque village, stone homes with thatched or moss covered rooftops that stood sparsely around a small town center. From there, through the foggy clouds that swirled through a dense forest, trees climbed up the slope of a massive hill, emerald fingers that reached for the plains leading up to Carterhaugh’s imposing presence, and its perch on the cliffs over the sea. The wind shifted, and it was gone, swallowed again by mist, but Graham was already making the slow ascent up a winding road.

Emma heard a thud, jerking the steering wheel as someone barreled into her bug, broad shoulders and crazed eyes under matted hair barely visible through her wet windows.

“What the -”

The words had barely left her mouth when an unmistakable voice was yelling at her, rambling incoherently as he pounded on her door.

“Ye kinnit go to Carterhaugh! Ye kinnit have it ye bloody witch or fairy demoness! ‘Tis on Hallowed and protected ground, guarded, an ye haven't a clue what I will do to protect it from you, ye - ” The face of Mr. Seáìnns was lit by lightning, thunder from his fists against the passenger door and the sky. Emma felt panic in her chest, heavy and leaden.

Slamming her foot on the accelerator, Emma let the bug lurch into its unused highest speeds as she flew up the road to Carterhaugh.

The driveway was curved elegantly behind an imposing metal and stone gate, mossy spheres capping the tall towering structure. The manor itself, even in its disuse, was stunning. A fountain stood before large wooden doors, framed by windows that traveled in neat rows up walls choked in ivy. Two wings on either side curved off from there, both facing the sea and woods, a domed roof on one side for a solarium, another for a ballroom. It was both imposing and impossibly inviting, a mystery that was decayed beyond unraveling.

And it was hers.

Graham helped her inside, the lights crackling in refusal to turn on in the storm as they stood in the atrium, dripping on the stone parquet.

“It's fine, I have a lighter,” Emma shrugged, pulling it out of her jacket pocket. “I always carry one. As a kid I was afraid of being alone in the dark. I somehow always seemed to end up there, either hiding or being forced somewhere, so it helped to make my own magic light to fight away shadows. Probably silly…”

“Not silly at all. It's a common fear based on instinct. Predators lurk in the dark, so your brain says that light is safe,” Graham said simply. “Smart to have it on you to start a fire too, or warm up in the wilderness.”

Emma's lips tightened as he continued on about the practicality of the lighter. She turned, expecting him to get the hint, but he followed her while continuing on about the merits of different wood to burn or oils to keep to sustain a good burn. Emma found herself wishing for a nice birch branch just to whack him with. As her annoyance peaked, the lights flickered on.

“Well. No candles I guess, but let's get you a fire started in the hearth, and then I'll be on my way.” Graham paused, and looked down, shuffling his shiny leather shoes. “Unless… I can stay if you like, until you get used to the place or have someone to stay with you, you know, because it's a big older house and -”

“I think I'll manage.” The words crept out more icily than she wanted, but he nodded with a sheepish wave of his hand.

“That's fine. Just call if you do find you need something. I'll get someone out here, and then be out myself in an hour or so. I don't want to see you get swallowed up by a house this big.” He smiled and Emma returned it genuinely, touched by his offer. If she didn't know how men dangled kindness in the face of women like her to get something in return, she would have taken him seriously. But Neal… Neal had ruined her.

The fire in the hearth was easy enough to start, even without special wood. Taking off her boots and coat, she gazed into the flame and planned out her course of action. Her sparse belongings were in the bug, and furniture would be delivered as soon as she took stock of what remained and measured for new pieces. Sighing and rubbing her temples, Emma rolled out her sleeping bag. She was asleep as soon as her eyes closed.

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In the morning, light flitting through the windows and the chill of the fire's death woke her up far earlier than her usual time. Wandering out to the bug, she dragged her luggage inside, pulling on extra socks and layering her sweaters. The effect was comical, but warm. Her stomach growled, but the kitchen was a quick - and musty - find. Sticking to pop tarts instead of whatever the swamp like gloop in the sink was, Emma set to work making a written game plan.

Calling contractors would wait until reasonable hours, but she mapped out who she would need while taking stock of furniture, books, tapestries, busts, and paintings. To her surprise, much of the home was in decent condition, and she easily found a bedroom suite that overlooked the sea cliffs from a secure balcony, a fireplace with stone carved boats in its inlay, an almost modern bathroom, and to her absolute delight, had a storybook fairytale four poster bed. The linens were almost new, the pillows fluffy , and it smelled of sea salt, leather, spice, and rum. If she didn't know how alone she was, the room would seem almost home to someone.

As normal waking hours approached, Emma went outside to survey the gardens and landscape. Most of the plants were dead around the house itself, but the gardens and connected solarium were wild and overrun with blooms. Down the hill, wildflowers in rainbow spectrum danced in the wind, their colors like an eruption of the Crayola crayons Emma had to share in school.

Something moved out of the corner of her eye, and a dark shape made its way around to the front of the manor. Emma grabbed a rusted shovel from a garden bed, and crept towards where the intruder had gone. She found the man looking curiously at her bug. He was tall, dark hair blowing in the wind, scratching his neck in confusion. In his hand was a hook.

“Don't touch my car and I won't have to hurt you, buddy!” Emma yelled, wielding the shovel in her hands like a baseball bat. The man turned, surprised.

Blue. The first thing that Emma noticed was how blue his eyes were; how clear and beautiful the blue she saw in those eyes reflected the color of the sky above. The eyes that currently were gazing at her in confusion.

“Who are you?” he asked, raising his hands above his shoulders, as if she were police. In his left hand was not a hook, but a three pronged garden trowel. Some impression she made, thinking about urban legends this late in life.

“Better question, Alex Trebek, is who the hell are you?” Emma snarled.

“I’m the, er, gardener, madam.” He waved the garden trowel in the direction of a nearby wheelbarrow. There was something off in the way he spoke, the accent strange to her. “Killian. Killian Jones.”

“Gardener?” Emma would had refused staff had she known they existed, and had made sure that she was for the most part alone. He shouldn't be here, especially not with her. Anger boiled over to cover her fear. “You’ve done a great job of things.” Gesturing at the dead plant life around the dilapidated manor, she watched his eyes narrow. “You’re truly magic with landscaping.” This comment brought a dark smile to his face that left her feeling like he was in on the punch line of a joke she hadn’t heard.

“Well, if you’d contact the ruddy owner and let him know to add to the budget for gardening...” The Irish accent was evident in his voice now, the clear definition between Scottish and it what had been off to her ears as she watched his cheeks reddening. Emma gave him a wolfish grin.

“I think that can be arranged.” She extended a hand towards him which he appraised with lips curled back. “Emma Swan. Official new ‘ruddy owner’ of Carterhaugh.”

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[raybansandcoffee]

Los Angeles, When Will You Save Me? - Chapter One: Welcome Home (Joy Williams)

First off, I am so sorry about the delay in getting the first official chapter of Los Angeles, When Will You Save Me? posted. Winter has been hell. The weather in Iowa has been so spastic I’ve basically had a constant migraine since January. My oldest cat was sick off and on which has resulted in $200 in vet bills in the last month, thankfully none of it is life threatening. I’ve decided that running my own business and trying to fulfill my creative need by writing isn’t enough and have been working on launching a podcast with a close friend of mine. Then February decided to go out with a fucking bang and a panic attack as one of my closest friends was diagnosed with cancer which led to an incredibly dark period for me.

I need to find solace in my writing but this story was too heavy, too real for me to do that so I started writing something different. One of the hugest parts of my anxiety is perfectionism. I don’t like doing something if I can’t make it perfect. Today I realized something incredibly important:

Done is better than perfect.

So here it is, a completed chapter one. I hope you enjoy it and can’t wait to hear what you think about it.

Again, thank you for sticking with me through all of this.

Chapter One: Welcome Home (Joy Williams)

“Did you sleep at all last night?” Harry asked as he walked into the gym. I was just finishing a ride on my Peloton and he looked prepared for his morning work out. 

“Not really.”

“Hey Harry,” Dad called through the video chat we were doing while we did the ride together.

“Good morning, Marco. Should I blame you for the reason my girlfriend didn’t sleep last night?”

“That’s not my fault. Blame that Horcrux of hers. I got an email from her at 3:30AM, your time not mine.” It was currently 6:45 so Harry knew if I slept it was for only a handful of hours.

“Evie,” Harry said in his concerned tone of voice.

“What? I had a lot of work to do.”

“I’m gonna bow out of this conversation now. Have a good day. Love ya, Bambina.”

“Love ya, Dad.” The video ended and stepped off of the bike. I got on my tip toes to kiss Harry. “Good morning.”

“Good morning. You should’ve slept last night.”

“I missed the staff meeting yesterday because of the follow-up appointment Pops had with his cardiologist. So I had to read through the notes, get back with some of my staff on things and get prepped for a few conference calls and meetings that I have today.”

“Does this mean you’re leaving the house to work?”

“No, they are all with the New York and London teams. So they are video chats.”

“Everlee.”

“Just stop. I’m working from home again today. It’s okay.”

“You’re eventually going to have to go back to normal life.”

“I am back to normal life,” I argued. “Just an altered version of normal life.”

“Keep telling yourself that.” He was frustrated with me but he was being as supportive as he could be. “I have a meeting with the team to plan our recording sessions today. I’d like for my manager to attend, but we aren’t having the meeting in this house.” I hesitated. 

“What time is it?”

“It’s a lunch meeting.” I scrolled through my schedule on my phone. 

“I can do a lunch meeting.”

“Good. Now go shower, you smell disgusting.” Harry smiled as he kissed me. I walked out of the gym and into the morning air. A few steps from the gym and I snuck into the kitchen to find a fresh pot of coffee.

“Good morning, Everlee,” Linda said. She handed me the breakfast I’d gotten in the habit of eating every morning.

“Hey kiddo,” Pops called from the island where he was enjoying a cup of coffee, reading through the news on his iPad and eating breakfast. I walked towards him and gave him a kiss on the cheek. “Done with your morning workout already? It’s a bit early for you.”

“Yeah, Dad and I scheduled a Peloton ride together.”

“You two are having way too much fun with that.” I’d gotten one for Dad’s birthday for him while also buying one for myself.

“Hey, at least I’m being healthy.”

“Which I love,” Pops replied. “Are you going into the office today?” 

“Nope. I’ve got conference calls and video meetings. Though Harry is dragging me to lunch with the team he’s selected for his album. They are discussing the recording schedule.”

“When does he leave for Jamaica?”

“End of the month.” I slid into the seat beside my father. 

“You prepared to be apart again?”

“Not really. But it’s our life. We will always have time apart because of our careers.”

“I’m sorry, kiddo.” 

“Eh, it’s life. I better go shower though. My first conference call is in an hour and it’s a video conference.” I groaned as I stood up. 

“I’ll come down and see you a little later.” I kissed Pops on the cheek again before walking back outside and through the deck and outdoor area to the guest house. I slid the door open to find Harold curled up on the couch. He meowed at me. 

“Good morning, bud.” I scratched his head a little bit. “Mummy is gonna go shower.” As I headed towards the bathroom the cat jumped down off of the couch and followed me. It had been an adjustment period for us. Harry and I had been sharing his 4 bedroom, 5 bathroom, 4,400 square foot home near the Sunset Strip, sure Ty and Eliza had been living with us but they were rarely there because of work and their relationships. Once Pops was released from the hospital I moved into the guest house I’d lived in at his house in college. I refused to be away from him. Harry, not wanting to be away from me, packed up his stuff, the cat, and most of my things to move in with me at my father’s. 

It had been an adjustment the first six weeks that we’d been here but we were starting to get into a groove. I’d get up in the morning, work out, shower, get some work done, spend time with my father, and we’d all have dinner together. Harry was almost acting as Pops’ personal trainer. They’d play tennis, basketball, go on hikes, swim, and spend time in the gym that was in the house. I’d even witness Pops doing yoga with Harry which was something I never in a million years imagined I’d see. 

I’d been refusing to leave the house to go to work at the office. Kammi and Cameron were, of course, supportive of it. They knew I needed to be home with Pops for a while. For the most part, everyone had been really supportive. When Cynthia found out that I’d been using the coffee table that was near the couch in the guest house, which was essentially a really nice studio apartment, she showed up and went to work. The guest houses on the property were right next to each other. They were all rarely used except the one Pops had converted into a gym when he bought the house, in fact, the one Harry and I were living in hadn’t been used since I lived here in college. We even found some of my stuff still in the closet. She put the bedroom furniture of another guest house into storage in the house and within 48 hours designed and put together a dream office for me. Unlike my office at SME, it was all white, calming, and very serene. Harry had put me in a car, driven me to the Apple Store and told me to buy everything I needed to have a home office. I’d always just functioned off of my laptop when I was at home because I’d had roommates and nowhere to have a desk. I even went overboard and bought two iMacs so that if he was in there with me he could be on a computer as Cynthia had put two desks in there. There was still comfy furniture so if someone was there with me or if Harry or Pops came out to hang out while I worked they didn’t have to sit in a chair at my desk or if I needed to relax for a few minutes between calls I could. Kammi would occasionally come and work with me here so we could spend some time together and I could get some face time with people that weren’t my father, my boyfriend, Linda, Cynthia, Rachel or the twins. 

It had been nice to have Cynthia and the girls around the house again. It gave the house life when they’d all show up for dinner or a Saturday by the pool or on the horses. It was almost as if we were a family again. I had been pressuring Cynthia to talk to my father. I heard her in the hospital telling him he wasn’t allowed to go anywhere because she needed to talk to him. Here we were, six weeks later and she’d said nothing. He just thought that because he’d nearly died everyone was afraid to leave him alone. I knew that it was because she was hopelessly in love with him but still afraid to tell him that.

As I stood in the shower I heard my phone vibrate on the sink a few times. I tried to ignore it. It wasn’t even 8:00 yet. Everyone had been doing really great about not contacting me outside of normal business hours. They knew that if they did I’d work 24/7 which was unhealthy and a habit that Pops, Cameron, Kammi, and the Board were trying to break me of. Mom and Dad had made a trip out when Pops was first released from the hospital. They wanted to make sure I was okay and that Pops was okay. The boys were able to come with them and against my better judgment, Pops pushed me out of the house to spend time with them. It was nice to see them and spend time with them for a while. Mom was concerned and still is, about the fact that I’d moved home with Pops. She didn’t want me to give up my life to take care of him, but she got it. She knew it was temporary, I just wanted to be close to him in case something else happened. I had gone far enough to outfit every room on the property with one of those damn Amazon Echos so that no matter where he was I could talk to him. Harry wasn’t a huge fan of it but he knew that his girlfriend who dealt with severe anxiety needed to be able to reach her father wherever he was to settle her anxiety.

I got out of the shower and towel dried my hair before getting dressed. I’d chopped my hair short a few weeks ago. My stylist told me that it was something she’d been anticipated after she heard about Pops. Evidently, it was totally normal for people to go through massive changes in their physical appearance after traumatic experiences. She was also placing bets on how long it would be before I appeared back in the salon asking for extensions because of how much I loved having long hair. I must admit, it was easier to get ready in the morning and often times I just allowed my hair to air dry and embrace the slight wave my hair had naturally. Knowing I was going to lunch with Harry and his team I put on a pair of skinny jeans that were a little ripped and a vintage tee that Harry had bought for me recently. I would normally work in clothing that fell in the athleisure category since I didn’t really leave the house unless I absolutely had to. I grabbed my laptop off the coffee table, my planner, Harold, and a few other things before heading towards my office. 

“Alexa, turn on my morning playlist,” I said as I slide the door open and walked into my office leaving the screen door open so I could enjoy the morning air while I worked.

“Playing Evie’s Morning Playlist on Spotify,” the computerized voice replied. I plugged in my MacBook Pro and woke up the iMac while I got settled in at my desk. I had a routine every morning. First I’d turn on the morning playlist I’d made on Spotify and then turn on the giant TV that hung on the wall with CNN on with it on mute with closed captioning so I could stay up-to-date on the news while I worked. Then I look at my calendar and updated my to do list in Wunderlist so I knew what my tasks were for the day. After that, I’d check my email and see if there’s anything I need to add while prioritizing what I needed to reply to and when. I would always send out the morning update to my team with everything that I needed by the end of the day. I’d become surprisingly productive and followed this same routine every morning. 

Living without an assistant a few feet away had been a challenge at first. I debated back and forth on if I wanted to have Eliza working here with me every day, we’d even tried it for a week and gave up. Sharing the office space with her wasn’t productive for me and it had seemed incredibly uncomfortable for everyone involved. I wasn’t keeping the hours I normally did. There wasn’t a cafeteria so if you wanted to eat it was in the kitchen in the main house. I’d adjusted, she hadn’t. So she went back to work at the office. I think the amount of time Harry spent in the office with me bothered her a bit. He’d been a great help, often bouncing ideas with me when I needed human interaction. He also spent time working on his stuff while I worked, which was surprisingly nice. Since we’d set the space up as an office for both of us he was in here with me for part of the day most days. Though on days that Kammi came to work with me he’d hand off his desk and work from the couch if he felt like invading girl time. We even tried Eliza spending a few hours here once a week until a week ago when she asked if she could stop doing that. She said it wasn’t conducive to her work style. I could respect that. The work life I had set up now wasn’t for everyone. But that meant her job was shifting because she wasn’t really working for me anymore. Harry had suggested I look at getting a personal assistant, someone that could help with some of the stuff that Eliza had done that kept me organized but more specifically someone that could help me with things like running errands and making sure that my personal life was organized. I knew that what he was suggesting made sense but the fear of Eliza’s reaction had me hesitating to start the search for one.

At the request of Cameron, Kammi, and the board my responsibilities had started to shift because of the change with Pops. We’d temporarily promoted Pops’ #2 to take over his management roles and some of mine had shifted to several of my top employees in LA so that I could be the daughter I needed to be. It had been a challenge, I wasn’t always the best delegator but I trusted the people beneath me and knew that they were not only capable of taking on more but also deserved the chance to shine. I’d been so impressed by their work. I met with the once per week. Sometimes it was in a coffee shop as an excuse to get me out of the house. Sometimes they came over to the house and we’d hang out on the deck, enjoy some of Linda’s delicious food and the gorgeous view from my Pops’ house. And I’d even tried going into the office to meet with them once, that had been a nightmare. The second I walked in the door everyone was in my face. I hadn’t been in the office in two weeks at that point and Pops hadn’t either so everyone wanted to know how everything was going. It had been extremely overwhelming. I’d actually locked myself in my office and had a panic attack as soon as I made it through the building. It was too much being there and having everyone ask questions and try and get time with me. After that day I’d been afraid to go back into the office. 

I’d not disclosed that panic attack to anyone but my therapist who I was now seeing twice a week. She was trying to prepare me mentally for the idea that someday I’d have to go back to work in the office while also working through the emotional repercussions of all of the changes happening in my life. Processing my father nearly dying had been hard. I didn’t talk for two days and had remained relatively quiet until he got out of the hospital and I started living with him again. My relationships with my friends and family had changed, which she told me constantly was normal. I’d experienced something extremely traumatic and only those who felt that same kind of trauma would get what I’d gone through or at least try to be supportive. I’d found myself growing apart from people I thought were essential to my existence and closer to people that at one point in my life I’d wished didn’t exist in my life. Harry had started joining me for one of the appointments with me each week. We’d struggled initially after my decision to move in with Pops. Living in a guest house together had been quite the adjustment. We’d fought a few times, once to the point that I slept on the couch in my office. I woke up the next morning to Harry sleeping on the floor beside me. He started crying and telling me that he was done fighting, he wanted to do whatever he needed to do to support me. That was when we decided he’d start joining me with my therapist on occasion. The experience initially had tried to pull us apart but honestly, we were closer now than we had been before.

“Hey there, buddy,” I said to Harold as he jumped up onto my desk looking for a few scratches behind his ear. He immediately meowed back at me. He was an extremely talkative cat. I loved that he was so happy coming to my office with me during the day. Sometimes he’d lay on the couch but most of the time he’d occupy a spot on my desk so that he could be part of everything that was going on. Sometimes he’d try to jump into the view of my video conferences. My staff and clients had become big fans of Harold’s appearances. I saw the request pop up in the corner of my screen for my first video chat, this one was with the head of my department in London. It would likely take about a half hour. In an hour I had one scheduled with the head of the department in New York. They’d each stepped up immediately taking over the weekly staff meetings that I usually video conferenced in for. Today they’d touch base with me to let me know how the staff meeting had gone. Then this afternoon I’d touch base with the staff in Chicago and LA that were handling the offices for me. We were working towards a quarterly meeting at the end of next week that would be held here in LA. As soon as the video chat with London ended a new request came in, this one from Kammi.

“Hey,” I answered as I leaned back in my chair with my iced coffee.

“Happy Monday!” she said cheerily, she had clearly had more coffee than I had so far.

“You’re still too fucking cheery in the morning.”

“Sorry, not sorry. How is the morning so far?” 

“Not too bad. The video conference with London went well. The portion of the staff that will be here next week for quarterly meetings is excited.”

“Are you?”

“Fuck no,” I replied laughing. “I hate quarterly meetings. If I get a second of sleep between now and the end of next week I’ll be surprised.”

“You clearly didn’t get any last night,” she said. I’d emailed her at 4:00 this morning. I shrugged. “I know that they prescribed you sleeping pills. You need to take them.” She and Harry clearly talked about that last night when she, Nick, and Ty joined us for Sunday dinner.

“I hate that you and my boyfriend share everything. Nothing is sacred.”

“No, certain things are sacred. I don’t tell him what you tell me unless I’m super concerned for your safety.”

“I know. Thank you for that. How’s the office today?” I asked.

“Strange,” she replied. “Ty is lonely so he keeps coming in my office.”

“Why is he lonely?”

“They moved Eliza off of your desk, she was officially done at the end of the day Friday.” I frowned. “Yeah, it’s fucking weird. Until they determine where she’s permanently going to be she’s working the front desk.”

“Ouch. That’s the worst assignment. I feel bad.”

“Don’t,” Kammi ordered. “You gave her a chance. You did everything you could to make your current situation conducive for her and she couldn’t make it work. That’s not your fault. Ty is having a rough time with it though.” We’d recently promoted Ty. He wasn’t just running Kammi’s desk anymore, he was the person who was placed in charge of all of the executive assistants in the office. It had been Pops’ assistant before but with his change, she decided it was time to retire. She’d been planning to retire at the end of the year so Pops’ agreed to pay out the remainder of the year so she could start retirement early.

“Tell him I’m sorry.”

“Don’t apologize, Ev. It’s not your fault,” came Ty’s voice. He appeared behind Kammi and sat on the back part of her desk. “She’s been a real bitch to deal with lately. When I told her that if she wasn’t going to work to accommodate what you need we’d have to move her she got super pissy. She stopped staying at the house a week ago.”

“Is she staying with you?” I asked Kammi.

“Nope. Neither of us has any idea where she’s staying. Honestly, even Joe has no idea where she’s been staying. She also turned off her location on ‘Find My Friends’ after her fight with Ty. Well technically after the fight with Joe when he defended Ty.”

“I wonder why she’s getting pissed at you guys?” I hated this. I got that my life had been disrupted but seeing how everyone else’s lives were changing because of it was hard to deal with. 

“Here’s what I figure,” Ty started. I could tell by his tone and body language that I should get comfortable as he was going to explain what was going on in detail. “She’s not sure how to handle what you’re dealing with. I mean how the fuck long did it take her to come to see you and Jimmy when he was in the hospital?”

“Four days,” I said. It had been four days after they landed from the East Coast before she came. Ty had made Kammi, Nick and Joe stay out of the hospital the night they got home because of how fucked up I was. They showed up about two hours after Pops woke up. Joe had made excuses every time he came that Eliza had come down with a cold and didn’t want to get Pops sick. She showed up looking like she felt great and made no mention of being sick. I’d never asked what really kept her away, I honestly didn’t want to know. 

“Exactly. It took me about four minutes after I found out to get in a car and get to you. Kammi was on a plane within four hours. Then when she gets back and you declare you’re moving out of the house and not only did you move home with Jimmy but so did Harry she saw that you were in a relationship solid enough that he was willing to give up literally the best house I’ve ever lived in to move into the guest house you started living in at 16 just so he could be with you. Then when Maureen decided to retire and the board decided that I was the one that would replace her she was pissed. She ranted for like two fucking hours about how she thought that she was better suited for the job than I was, which by the way she’s fucking not. I pointed out to her that she never wanted this job.” He was right, she hadn’t. She’d told me initially she expected she’d have the job for like six months while she got settled in LA and then she’d be gone because she’d be acting and bartending. “She, of course, got fucking pissed that I pointed that out, so when she told me that she was going to focus on her ‘acting career’ I told her that the only reasonable thing I could do until she showed she was fully committed to her job was put her at the front desk because there was a crew of people who worked the desk. If she decides she’s done then I’ve got back up. It’s not like putting her on someone else’s desk. If she decides she hates it and leaves then I have to fucking rehire someone or train someone from the front desk. Which, by the way, Harry told me last night that he wanted you to hire someone that could do some of what Eliza did but more personal assistant type shit. I’ve got a few candidates from around here that I think would work. You say the word and I’ll get meetings set up.”

“What would I do without you two?” I asked. I could feel tears pricking my eyes.

“You’d be super fucking lonely,” Ty said. I laughed.

“True story,” I replied.

“We are working from your house tomorrow,” Kammi said. “I’m dragging Ty with me.” He normally stayed in the office when she came to see me during the week. It gave him a chance to do the managerial stuff he needed to do. 

“Yay!” I cheered as I picked up Harold and made the cat cheer too.

“It’s mainly because I miss the cat being my roommate,” Ty tried to get out without laughing. “We can talk more about what you’d be looking for in an assistant tomorrow.”

“Okay. I’m just afraid to look for one.”

“Why?” Kammi asked.

“I don’t want Eliza to get more pissed than she already is.”

“That is not your problem to worry about,” Harry said as he slid the screen door open. 

“Hey Harry,” Kammi and Ty said in unison. He came to my desk and sat on my lap. 

“Hi, miss you,” he replied.

“You saw us yesterday. You’re lying that you miss us unless you’re really tired of living with Ev in The Tiny House.” Kammi had started referring to our living situation as The Tiny House, it made me laugh because while we were living in a much smaller footprint than we were before the reality was we had everything we needed and a few steps away was everything you could ever imagine in the main house. She just couldn’t understand how we were making it work. She wanted to kill Nick most days because of the whole shared room thing. It didn’t help that they also lived with Joe. 

“I do miss you both. Am I allowed to work in the office with you all tomorrow?” 

“Of course, Harry,” Ty answered. “Evs, if you can’t find an assistant that works for a while, Kammi and I have decided that I can come out once a week to help you make sure that your schedule is put together for the week, that all the meetings are confirmed. I can handle the extra responsibility for a while.”

“I love you both so much. I’m excited for tomorrow now,” I said. “But I’m getting the 10-minute warning for my New York meeting.”

“Enjoy that,” Kammi replied. “We will see you at 8:30 tomorrow.”

“Yay!!! Bye!!” I ended the call.

“Ty is going to help you find an assistant?” Harry asked as he went to sit down at his desk.

“He is. He’s evidently been scouting people from the pool in the office for me today.”

“So what was it about Eliza?” 

“Her last day on my desk was Friday.”

“We knew that was coming.”

“We did. But Ty told me today that he told her last week that he couldn’t move her onto someone else’s desk knowing that they may have to quickly find a replacement knowing that she wasn’t fully committed to the job.”

“She’s not fully committed?” Harry asked.

“Evidently not. So she’s on the front desk.” I saw him cringe. “Exactly. It’s the worst job in the entire place. The phones ring non-stop, she won’t have a guaranteed daytime schedule anymore because everyone has to work in rotations. I fear that she’s going to fucking hate me for this because somehow it’s going to end up my fault.”

“It’s not your fault but I understand why you’re uneasy about it.” Eliza had been difficult to deal with and that was being polite. I had done so great and not flipped out on her about everything, but I knew that if she said anything about her new job that was even remotely negative that it was a risk. I got it, my life and job changing was causing her job to change. I wanted to scream when she’d complain about that. I didn’t ask for this change in my life. I’d go back to being a workaholic in a heartbeat to change the fact that my Pops had a heart attack. She was being selfish, which wasn’t totally abnormal, but was pretty shocking considering everything that had happened. 

“I just hate when there are problems. If there’s an issue between two people in The Circus it makes everything awkward and weird. We had this problem once before.”

“What happened then?” Harry asked.

“Weirdly enough it was Eliza and Nick. He made an admittedly funny but very bad joke when we were all drinking at the condo one night. She’d been on a bender and had a different guy come home with her every night for like 10 days. She got pissed and didn’t talk to him for almost a month.”

“Ouch. What do you mean bender? Like drugs or drinking or just men?”

“Honestly, I don’t even know. I tried not to ask because I was worried about her but knew that if I made any comments she’d do the same thing to me that she was to Nick. She’d broken up with some guy that she thought was the one, they’d been dating for maybe three or four months but she is often times crazy when she’s in relationships. There was so much tension among the whole group. It just sucked.”

“I’m sure everything will work out in the end.” Harry was attempting to calm me knowing I was about to get on another conference call. He stood from his side of the desk and came over to me. He bent down and gently kissed my lips. “Whatever happens remember that I love you.”

“I love you too.” One more kiss and he headed back to his side of the desk and slid on headphones knowing that my conference call would likely bore him to death. Everything went well and was over in less time than I expected. I kept working until Harry decided we needed to leave for his lunch meeting. It was an incredibly nice day in LA so when I made it up to the driveway with my stuff I found him sitting in my Jeep with the top off. He had sunglasses on and his goofy smile plastered across his face. I threw my bag into the back and climbed up into the passenger seat. “If I didn’t know better I’d think you were this born and bred California surfer in this thing. Tan skin, wayfarers, and a floral shirt. You look just like the boys I brought home from the beach in high school.” He laughed loudly at the last comment.

“I’m sure I do. It’s easy to get a tan like this if you leave your office for more than a short walk to the house or gym every day.”

“Shut up. Not all of us have time to lay around in the pool or run shirtless on the horse trail.” 

“You could have time, you can take a break every once in a while.”

“I know. We both also know that I’m not very good at taking breaks. I took time when Pops was in the hospital, I can’t now. Too much work to do.” He reached his hand across the car and grabbed mine. Our fingers interlocked as he brought it to his lips kissing the back of it. His rings felt cool against the inside of my fingers. After his lips left my hand he returned it to my lap so he could focus on driving. He expertly navigated his way through the area my father lived into the restaurant that his lunch meeting was at. 

I zoned out easily these days. It didn’t matter if I was alone or with a group of people my mind would wander and I’d lose track of everything else happening around me. This happened most frequently in a car, thankfully it was usually only when I wasn’t driving, though that had happened once. I got home and sat in the driveway sobbing until Harry came out to find me and asked what was wrong. I was terrified that I’d driven from an appointment across town to the house and had no idea how long it had taken or how I’d gotten home. That was the first week we’d been living here. I hadn’t driven much since then. Harry or Sam took me everywhere. It was odd. I missed driving. I missed the freedom of being in a car alone but I understood why Harry had decided to hide every set of car keys to every car that either of us or my Pops owned. This ride was like the rest. I stared blankly at the scenery and watched the world fly by. I could hear Harry singing along to the radio but couldn’t pinpoint the song which was rare. 

“Evie…Ev…Everlee Mae Scarcello.” Harry snapped in front of my eyes breaking me of the trance. “Where were you at babe?”

“Sorry,” I replied.

“Don’t apologize. Are you okay?”

“Yeah, just a long day and I’m a little overwhelmed right now.”

“Call Ty and have him cancel your afternoon,” he suggested. I’d been up late the night before working as I had been most nights. I was often lucky if I got more than a handful of hours of sleep at a time. I hadn’t slept a full night since I’d been in France with Harry for the final time.

“I can’t do that.”

“Then I will.” He grabbed his phone from where he usually threw it into a cupholder and I watched as he hit Ty’s entry in his favorites. They’d been communicating so frequently that I was pretty sure he’d rearranged it so Ty was the easiest entry to click. 

“You can’t do that,” I protested.

“I can and I am.”

“Harry this is my work and my life. You can’t do this.” He glared at me and I quieted. He could do this. Cameron and Jimmy had given him this power when they all realized that I was struggling. He did it often which had initially pissed me off. “Hey Ty,”I heard him say. He grabbed my hand and laced our fingers together. “Yeah, we just got the restaurant. She’s out of it. Can you reschedule her afternoon?” His thumb rubbed across the back of my hand as he listened to Ty. “I’ll let you know later today how she’s doing for tomorrow. I need to get her to take the sleeping pills her doctor gave her so she can sleep. Her day tomorrow is just you and Kammi here, right?” I don’t know how I got so lucky to have Harry in my life. I was an absolute fucking mess most of the time and he was doing everything he could to help me navigate through and survive it. “Okay, I’ll talk to you later and see you in the morning.” He hung up the phone and I turned to look at him. “Ty canceled the rest of the day. When we’re done we are going to go do something to help you relax a little.”

“Okay,” I responded quietly. I held his hand once out of the car as we walked into the restaurant. I tried to put on my best happy face and not appear like the fragile shell of a human I was right now. He’d been delaying this album for too long all because of me. I felt immensely guilty and was pretty sure that his team hated me for it at this point. 

“Hey Ev,” Mitch greeted as he hugged me. 

“Hey, how are you?” I asked.

“I’m good. We are all happy you could make it.” He and Harry had instantly bonded when they met in spring. He was a great guy and an incredible musician. I’d really enjoyed watching them form this really amazing musical bond. They often sat with drinks on the deck at Pops house with guitars, notebooks, and a laptop. I’d sit in my office working, with the door open, listening to them and the sound of Harry’s voice as it drifted into the room. I’d hold off as long as I could before grabbing my laptop of iPad to go sit with them and listen. More than once I’d found Pops out there with them. 

The lunch meeting was great. Harry was getting so excited for them to take off to Jamaica. I tried to stay out of their plans for that. I knew that the teams were anxious to leave and that having to put off the trip more than once was inconvenient, to say the least. But they all had been the kindest people through the process. Hell, the first week we’d been living with Pops after he’d been released from the hospital Jeff, Alex, and Tyler showed up at the house with the most amazing spread of food and tried to help us all relax. My father was really enjoying the amount of life that everyone brought to his house, despite the heart attack and everything that had happened he seemed to be the happiest I’d seen him in years. 

“Are you going to come with us for a while?” Jeff asked. I snapped out of my wandering thoughts when I realized he was talking to me.

“I don’t know. Right now is a difficult time for me to leave. I have so much work right now that I will probably remain attached to a laptop for the next 12 months solid. You’ll have to keep this guy in line for me,” I said as I squeezed Harry’s shoulder with my hand. He bent his head to the side kissing my fingers. 

“I hope she can make it for at least a visit or two while we are gone,” he added. He had really been trying to convince me that I could come with. That working remotely was possible because I’d been doing it from my laptop at the house for the last six weeks. He knew that it wasn’t just about work, it was about leaving Pops. They’d be gone for a minimum of a month but likely 6-8 weeks if things were going well and they wanted a bit more time. Leaving home for that long seemed terrifying. What if Pops got sick again and I was gone? What if he needed me? What if he got lonely? As if he knew I was thinking about him I saw my phone light up on the table with a text from him.

Message with Pops

Pops: Are you done working for the day? I stopped in your office and you weren’t there?

I’m at lunch with Harry, Jeff, Tyler, Alex, and Mitch.

Pops: Ahh the boys club. You always did tend to fit into those groups.

As I sit here listening to them I feel like I’m in a parallel universe. This is what life would’ve been like if I hadn’t quit Designated Hitter and hadn’t forced Kyle to start drumming in that band and sent him on tour. 

Pops: Oh god. That would’ve been pretty terrifying. Okay…what I was actually texting you about. I just got off the phone with Cynthia. She and your sisters are coming over for dinner tonight. Evidently you girls need to get to work on planning a baby shower.

Shit. I forgot I was supposed to call Kayci to set up lunch this week. I’m the worst sister ever. Fuck. Do you need me to pick something up?

Pops: Nope. Linda has everything covered. You’re also not the worst sister ever. You’re busy, they get it. Just prepare Harry. He usually seems a bit overwhelmed when you five women are all in a room together. Oh and Kourt is bringing her new boyfriend. Though Cynthia tells me that Kayci is pissed about that because her boyfriend just broke up with her? I can’t keep up with all of you. Rachel has at least had the same guy since she was 6.

It’s because she’s weird. Kayci and Dylan did break up over the weekend. How did you not miss her sobs? She sent out the Bat signal to the sisters and everyone arrived at the house at about 12:30 Friday night. I felt bad for Rach and Harry. We all ended up a bit drunk, well except Rachel because well pregnant. Harry I think slept in my office most of the night. Rachel slept on the couch, Kourtney passed out in a lounger on the deck and we found Kayci on the floor of the bathroom using a towel as a blanket. It was a mess. 

Pops: I did wonder why they were there Saturday morning and why Kayci didn’t leave until Sunday night. You’re a good big sister.

I try and because I’m the one willing to drink with her and because Kourtney likes to lecture her for smoking pot. I, of course, can’t. 

Pops: You’re still a good sister. Your three sisters and three brothers are lucky to have you.  Speaking of sisters…Kayci just walked in looking for you. She said she’ll be waiting in the pool. I think she hates her roommates and this is just an excuse. Now stop paying attention to me and participate in your meeting. You worry that Brit when you zone out.

I know. It happened on the way here again. I swear he’s never going to let me drive a car again because I can’t be in one right now without having any clue what is going on. Also, Kayci does hate her roommates, with a passion. I’m surprised she hasn’t moved into the other guest house or back into her old bedroom. Okay…okay, back to work. I’ll see you both when we get home.

“What was that?” Harry whispered to me.

“Pops. Evidently, Cynthia and the girls are coming over for dinner. I flaked on my sister duties and didn’t text the girls about setting up a lunch to plan Rachel’s baby shower.”

“Shit. You were supposed to call them this morning.”

“I know. So be prepared, dinner with my family tonight.”

“Good, you know I love them. And you. Mostly you.” He kissed me quickly before falling right back into the conversation with everyone at the table.

Message with Kayci Grant

You okay, sis?

Kayci: I’m fine. My roommates are annoying. And fucking Dylan called me drunk last night.

Please tell me you didn’t invite him over.

Kayci: I didn’t. I’m not THAT fucking dumb. He was trying to apologize but I knew that he didn’t mean it. He was drunk. He just wanted to get laid. I kept telling myself what you and Rachel told me Friday night. He doesn’t deserve me. I deserve so much better than him and someday I’m going to find my person and it’s not Dylan.

Definitely NOT Dylan. No one that cheats on you deserves a second chance. You are a first class, five star, James Beard award-winning, four months to get a Monday night reservation level catch. He doesn’t even deserve to be handed out through a fucking drive-thru.

Kayci: You are the best. Also now I’m hungry. Tell the Brit to hurry up the fucking meeting and get you home.

I’ll do my best but he’s currently in the process of planning a trip to leave me and record an album so I’m feeling a little woe is me.

Kayci: If you need a roommate while he’s gone I can come live with you and Harold. 

Oh, I know you would. We will be home soon. I’ll text when we are on our way.

I slipped my phone into my purse and tried to focus back in on the conversation. They settled on dates to head to Jamaica for the third time since starting this process and we were back in the car headed home. Harry was always so talkative when we left. He loved the guys that were part of this team. It was like a dream for him. They supported every, single, idea and decision he had. He’d lay in bed at night gushing to me about how amazing they were making work. I loved listening to him ramble on and on and on about how different this experience was already from everything else he’d experienced and they hadn’t even taken off for the bulk of their recording.

“So I have to warn you, Kayci is at the house already.”

“Good, there’s no way you can go back to work if she’s there.”

“I know. I’m honestly surprised that she hasn’t asked Pops if she can move back into her old room. She hates her roommates. She can afford to live without them but they were her best friends when she was in school. They are all still in school and she’s working so life is different for them.”

“Also when you consider that working for your sister is essentially playing dress up, at least how the roommates view it, they seem pretty judgmental.” The twins had turned 22 three weeks ago. Harry had drug me out of the house to spend time with them while they celebrated. It was the first time I’d met Kourtney’s boyfriend Max and the first time Harry had really met anyone outside of the twins, Rachel and Luke. Her roommates had been a nightmare. They did judge Kayci. She’d met them when she was a student, she had decided to take some time off from college after her freshman year because she was offered a fairly large modeling contract and had started working on her music. They hated that. They were all still struggling through their senior year and hoping to get into grad school or law school and here was Kayci getting paid to fly around and put on expensive clothes. They were bitter and jealous. 

Kourtney had opted to get her own place when they went to school. She lived in a super cute studio in West Hollywood so it wasn’t like her sister could move in with her. I had suggested that she move back home with Cynthia but it was not an option for Kayci. When it was just she and her Mom they argued constantly. They were so much alike. Their arguments were ridiculous and often that they agreed with each other and hated it. She also had been with Dylan for almost a year so she barely stayed with her roommates until the last month or so when he had started making excuses that she couldn’t be there which turned out to be because he was cheating on her. I knew if she asked that Jimmy would give her the final guest house or even let her have her old bedroom back. The house was big enough that it was one of the few times growing up that the twins hadn’t been forced to share a bedroom. 

“Yeah, it’s a bad situation for her.”

“I’ve thought about telling her to just move into the house until we get back but the idea of having she, Eliza, and Ty alone there is a little unsettling.”

“Eliza isn’t staying at the house.”

“Where is she staying?”

“I don’t know. Actually, no one does.”

“Do you have any ideas?” he asked. He was concerned, I could tell. Despite how things had been going lately we all still cared about Eliza, though I’m sure she’d say we didn’t.

“No idea, honestly. Maybe an ex, maybe someone she worked with when she was bartending, a friend from one of her acting classes, or some new guy. She also could be staying in a hotel for all I know. She and Ty got into a fight and he’s not seen her since other than work and there she’s essentially ignoring him.”

“What is all of this about?” 

“Her demotion.” And again the wave of guilt washed over me. Eliza had been my best friend since she was about five hours old. I hadn’t had a pleasant conversation with her in weeks.

“This isn’t your fault. I know you’re internalizing a lot of blame. Stop doing that.”

“I’d like to point out that I hate that you can read my mind,” I replied turning to face him in the car and smiling a bit. “It’s annoying because when I’m trying to have will power you make me fail.”

“I personally love that it’s my newest superpower. So how can I help you with not blaming yourself?”

“I don’t know.” I didn’t honestly have a clue. “I want to fix everything but that’s what I’ve always done. Eliza and I have always been close but we’ve also always fought. She has a wicked jealous streak and can be incredibly vindictive when she wants. At this point, I’m sure she’s jealous that everyone’s focus has been me because it was my Pops that almost died. She doesn’t like when the spotlight isn’t on her.”

“I’m sorry, Evie. You don’t deserve this extra stress. She also should know that she needs to be a better friend but I’m beginning to see that she isn’t really capable of that. I hate saying that because I know how much she means to you but you deserve better than to be treated like this.”

“You’re right. I don’t deserve this. But honestly, there’s not much I can do about it right now. I am just going to give her the space she so clearly needs and keep plugging away at everything I’m doing to make life better for me, for us, and for my family.” He squeezed my hand in his.

“I’m proud of you for how strong you’ve been through all of this. It hasn’t been easy to watch your Pops go through everything and you’ve been the most incredible daughter through it all. If we’re being honest, I don’t even completely mind that we gave up our dream house in the hills to live in a guest house. Getting to build a relationship like I have with your Pops has been pretty great.”

“I love you. Honestly, I don’t deserve you.”

“Yes, you do.” He plugged in the code to the gate and pulled to where we left my Jeep in the driveway which was next to where Kayci’s Mercedes was sitting. We got out and started to walk to the back. “I’m gonna let you have some time alone with your sister. Okay?” I nodded before he kissed me and walked towards our guest house.

“Kayci,” I called as I walked towards the pool. I found her on a raft, her foot anchoring her to the side where a beer sat on the edge. She was staring at her phone.

“Hey sis,” she called back.

“Drinking already?”

“I needed a beer and Pops always has my favorite here.” Her favorite was a random craft beer we’d found at a dive bar on a sister road trip that we all went on to celebrate the twins turning 21 last year and as a last hoorah of the four sisters all being “single” or at least as single as the four of us could all be at once. The bar had told us where we could find this beer and Pops always kept it at the house for the random warm days that everyone ended up in his pool because he was so proud that the girliest of his girls found a beer she could drink. I, of course, would drink anything as long as it was cold. 

“He does always have it. He’s a sucker for his girls.”

“He is. He looks like he’s feeling great,” she said. I sat down on the side of the pool and took a drink from her beer. 

“He is. We had an appointment at his cardiologist Friday and they are really happy about his progress.”

“Is it totally weird to be the person who that stuff with him?” Kayci asked.

“Completely. Like I’m not ready to be a parent and here I am essentially parenting my parent. I’m stressed out beyond belief and work isn’t helping.”

“What’s going on with work?”

“Well, the Eliza bullshit is getting worse.”

“How so?” 

“She refused to come work from here with me. Ty is in charge of all of the assistants now and he informed her that my assistant will need to be willing to work remotely from ‘The Compound’ until I return to the office.” Ty had jokingly referred to my Pops’ place as The Compound since his first visit here in high school. “So she got moved to the front reception desk until a more permanent decision could be made on a placement for her and now he and Harry are plotting to put together a job description for me that is half work assistant/half personal assistant. She and Ty got in such a blow out fight that she’s moved out of the house and none of us know where she’s staying.”

“She tends to be reactive like that. I remember when she would come out with you for spring break and shit she used to be so fucking evil to me and Kourt. I am pretty sure it’s why we were evil back. I apologize now that you were collateral damage in that whole thing.”

“I appreciate that. You were young and annoying then, I can forgive that. Now you’re just annoying.” She splashed me with water as I took another drink of her beer. I heard the door from the house open and glanced to see my father walk out and towards us.

“I saw you out here drinking your sister’s beer and thought you might prefer your own.”

“Thanks, Pops.” I took the beer from him before he sat down on a chair not far from me. 

“So she’s just talking to no one?” Kayci asked. I nodded. “That’s super bitchy. I mean I have always just tolerated her because she’s one of your best friends but this is like way out of line. You have been more than fair and have given her a life that let’s face it without you she’d never be able to afford. She’s paid less for housing in your penthouse than I do for my bedroom with my shitty fucking roommates. She’s flown around the world like ten fucking times with you and gets to do some of the coolest shit. Hell, I’d kill for that job and we know that I essentially have no desire to have a real job in life because as my roommates like to say I get paid to play dress-up. She’s so far out of line that getting to keep any job is too nice.” I tried to give visual clues to Kayci to get her to shut up about it but clearly, I was failing.

“What’s out of line?” Pops asked. He knew nothing about what was going on at work. We’d all been trying to shelter him from the stress for the most part and only fill him in on the extremely important things.”

“Everything going on with Eliza,” I said.

“Oh, like how she tried to use her P Card for the Marilyn Monroe Suite at The Roosevelt?”

“She what?!” I asked.

“She still had a credit card for company expenses. She was an authorized cardholder on your account and you hadn’t answered the call, I was the second contact. I got a call from the credit card company one night for unusual charges about a week ago. They said the charge was at The Roosevelt so I called over there and talked to my contact since we often use it for client events. They sent over the security camera footage because it was on your account and I was worried your card or Eliza’s had been stolen. There she was with giant sunglasses and a headscarf trying to hide her identity checking into the Marilyn Monroe suite for an undetermined amount of time.”

“First of all, where the hell was I? Second, did you decline the charge?” I asked.

“You were busy with your sisters cooking dinner, it was Sunday. Your phone had been sitting next to mine. I didn’t want to worry you so I deleted the missed call and voicemail. I called Eliza, told her I was declining the charge and asked why she was checking in there. She lied about some bullshit. Said that a friend was coming in for a while and she wanted to have some privacy from Ty. I told her that it didn’t matter, she couldn’t use her P Card because that was theft. I told her that I wouldn’t turn her into our legal department and let her keep her job but that if she was trying to run from her problems I wouldn’t be paying for them. She made me promise not to tell her parents as she sobbed on the phone. Something is going on with that girl, she didn’t sound like herself. She sounded strung out so I changed all of the locks on the Malibu house, your penthouse, and this place the next day. It’s why you and Harry needed a new code last week. Ty changed the locks at your place so you’ll need new keys and new codes when you head home. She knows if she needs help she can come to me, I made that clear. But I also made it clear that she would no longer be living off of you if she wasn’t working for you.”

“Fuck. This is worse than I thought it was. I need to try and sit down with her, don’t I?”

“Probably at some point but give her some time. She usually figures shit out after a week or two. I mean how many times has she given you her resignation and then decided she was staying?” Pops asked.

“At least a dozen times.”

“So let’s allow this to make it one more time and give her another week before you step in. Ty and I can handle the rest of it.”

“I can’t believe you were keeping this from me,” I said as I turned to look straight into his eyes.

“You’ve been handling all of the hard stuff lately. I thought this could be my turn to handle the tough stuff. I told her that night that she sounded high and offered to send her to rehab. She denied it and hung up on me.”

“I’m sorry. I’ll try not to get involved but if she’s using I might need to step in.”

“No, you don’t. If she’s using and needs help I’ll help her or I’ll call her mother and father. It’s our jobs to be parents, not yours. You’ve been working to take care of literally everyone in your life. You need a break and a vacation.”

“I’ll second that,” Harry said as he walked up to the pool. He bent down to kiss the top of my head before going to sit beside my father. “Speaking of vacations, we settled on a schedule for recording.” 

“When do you leave?” Pops asked.

“Two weeks. I’m trying to convince that daughter of yours that she’s coming with me for at least a few days in the beginning.”

“I think that sounds like a great idea,” Pops said. “How long will you be gone?”

“The plan is 4-6 weeks before heading back and finishing between here and London,” Harry excitedly answered.

“Well, if you need her father/boss’s approval you’ve got it. Take her the whole damn time for all I care. It’ll be nice to have a break from her.” I threw the lid from my bottle of beer at my Pops.

“I’ll take care of Harold,” Kayci said.

“That’s just your excuse to figure out how to move home,” Pops replied laughing. “If your living situation is really that bad you can stay here until you figure something out?”

“Are you serious?!” Kayci looked stunned. Pops didn’t joke about this kind of stuff and she knew it as well as I did.

“Of course I am. I actually talked to your mother about it yesterday. She was going to take you shopping to try and figure out what you wanted to do to that last guest suite down by Evie and Harry. If my girls need somewhere to come home to my girls have a home here.” Before he knew what was happening Kayci had jumped out of the pool and engulfed my father in a giant hug. “Welcome home, Kayc."

There was a lot in that chapter. I know it may not make the most sense but neither does anything happening in Evie’s head right now. She’s trying to navigate her relationships in this new world after her father’s heart attack. Having one of the most important relationships struggle is hard on her. I speak from experience on this. It’s part of the reason it was very important for me to tell these parts of Jimmy’s recovery and the way it has an impact on Evie’s life, not just his.

Last year as I helped my mother through the aftermath of her diagnosis my relationships struggled. My brother and I fought over everything. My sister-in-law tried to pretend as if she was willing to be there but only when her schedule wouldn’t allow it. I had friends who disappeared off of the face of the earth, one of them being one of my closest friends. She always claims that I’ll let her know when I need her. A little over a year ago as I prepared to move home with my Mom for the first time in nearly 20 years I told her that I was done coming to her and telling her when I needed help. Friends don’t have to cry out to friends. They are just there for each other. They check in. They show love. They care. It wasn’t my job to point out that my life was in shambles to everyone around me. 

I wanted to show the struggles that a major life change can cause on relationships through this story. Unlike me, Evie doesn’t share any siblings with Jimmy. Eliza was the closest thing. As the struggle in their friendship imitates the real-life struggle in my friendships it became harder and harder to write. It’s part of why I needed a larger time to write this than I initially expected. It was hard to see the reality of my life played out on the pages of my fiction. But it was necessary, as your priorities in life shift so do the relationships in it.

I did find my voice again and have been working on another story that I’m unlikely to publish, at least here as Harry is not the lead male. For those curious Michael B. Jordan is. Finding my voice there helped me find my way back here. I am hopeful that chapter two won’t take nearly the amount of time that one did.

I hope you enjoyed this. Feel free to send your thoughts over. As my brain was scattered writing this I’m sure it’s not up to my normal writing standards but I would still love to hear from you.

xx AM.

[yuki-setsu]

12 Days of (Lance) Whumpmas! - Day 10 [Headache/Migraine]

pour one out for my sleep/posting schedule, they’re both a mess :) :)

part of the 12 Days of VLD Whumpmas hosted by @vldwhumpmas2017! you can still submit up until january 7th, so check out more info on the challenge here if you want to participate!

Lance felt the headache coming before it hit him. It had been creeping up for the past two days, the irritation and exhaustion prodding at him until he woke up that morning, a slight pressure building up in his head. It was small and nagging, and Lance didn't doubt it would get worse sooner or later. Which was terrible timing, given that the team was heading down to planet Esyxia for an alliance celebration once everyone was ready. He sat up in bed, blowing out a sigh. This was already feeling like a long day.

By the time he'd gotten into his armor and made his way to the bridge, the others were already waiting on him. Allura gave him a slight look for his tardiness, which Lance pointedly ignored. She turned back towards the group once Lance found a spot next to Hunk, explaining their plan for the day. Esyxia had planned grand festivities to celebrate Voltron, and all they needed to do was enjoy themselves. Be polite, engage in conversation, respect their culture, blah blah blah. Lance felt a slight throb in his head, as if it was reminding him it was still there. He sighed again, slumping his head lightly on Hunk's shoulder.

Hunk reached up and ruffled Lance's hair once Allura turned around to focus on landing the Castle. Lance usually loved the gesture, but today, it only irritated his headache, and he grumbled.

“What's up? You usually love this kind of stuff.” Hunk said, voice light. “Big parties, being the center of attention, all that jazz.”

“Head hurts.” Lance groaned, running a tired hand across his face. “Really not in the mood today.”

Pidge snorted. “Is this your first time getting a headache or something? You're lucky.”

Lance straightened up, a scowl on his face. “It's not just a headache! This one's gonna be annoying, I can feel it in my bones.”

The Castle rumbled as it touched upon the planet. Allura glanced over her shoulder at Lance. “I'm sorry your head is hurting, Lance, but please do not let it affect you once we meet the Esyxians. We must show proper courtesy befitting the Paladins of Voltron.”

“I hate to say it, but Allura's right.” Shiro said, an apologetic smile on his face. “You can rest afterwards, but try to work through it for now, okay?”

“It's just a headache,” Keith mumbled, although he clearly said it loud enough for Lance to hear.

Lance bristled, but he ignored the jab. His mood was bad enough already, and he knew getting into a fight with Keith right now would only ruin the entire team's atmosphere. So he just nodded, ignoring the steady pounding that pressed behind his eyes.

It didn't help that the Esyxians seemed to literally glow. They probably didn't, but they had this sort of radiance about them that drew anyone's attention. All of them donned bright clothing, garbs and dresses that sparkled with even the slightest movement. Even their skin was a pale yellow, smooth and gleaming with silver-white hair like the moon. They were stunning, Lance already knew. But his headache throbbed whenever he stared too long, and he could only manage a few seconds of eye contact at a time before turning his gaze to the floor.

They gathered in a large sort of dining hall, and Lance welcomed the muted brown of the walls with a relieved sigh. Excited chatter spread through the room at the sight of the Paladins, and Lance forced a smile as he passed by a few, waving for good measure. One figure stood alone near the front, her smile radiant and dress shimmering. Lance recognized her as the one who initially contacted the Castle and invited them down for a celebration. She'd introduced herself as Luz back then.

“Fellow Esyxians,” Luz began. “We gather today in honor of a great partnership. The Paladins of Voltron and the Princess of Altea have arrived at our invitation.” She glanced over at the group, nodding her head slightly. “May they accept this as a token of our gratitude.”

Lux stepped forward, reaching for an orb at the nearest table. It glowed the second her hand made contact with it, and with a small whisper, it floated up towards the ceiling, exploding in a beautiful shower of sparkles before it hit the top. More murmuring filled the room, and Lance glanced around to see every other Esxyian had their own orb, all of them floating towards the ceiling at various speeds. And in the next moment, it was like the room had become a mini fireworks show, except the sparks weren't a fire hazard.

It was beautiful, it really was. Lance tried his best to focus on the sight, but the collective explosions combined into a resounding boom that left his ears ringing and it was just too bright. His headache flared up angrily, painful stabs in his head that made him want to curl up on the ground. White spots danced in his vision, and he was pretty sure those weren't from the fireworks.

Lance groaned, doubling over as one hand gripped his head. It was almost unbearable at this point. Someone grabbed at his shoulders, trying to straighten him back up. He didn't have the strength to resist, squinting his eyes open to catch Hunk staring at him.

“Lance? What's wrong?” Hunk's voice was worried, but it was also pretty loud. The happy chatter in the room died down at Hunk's question, and Lance could practically feel every eye in the room turn in his direction. Even the sporadic explosions stopped, and Lance was grateful for the lull in noise.

Lance ducked his head, hand still pressed against his temple. He was trying—badly—to knead away the growing pressure, but it only seemed to worsen instead. “Sorry, can I... step outside for a bit?”

“Are you feeling sick?” Hunk pressed.

“A little,” Lance mumbled, shutting his eyes again. “Head hurts really bad. I don't like the lights.”

An audible gasp ripped through the crowd, and Lance stiffened at the noise. The horror was almost palpable, even if Lance wasn't looking.

“You... You dare insult our light ceremony?” It was Luz's voice, no longer holding the cordial tone she had before.

Lance forced his eyes back open as he looked towards where he knew Luz stood, scrambling to explain himself. Allura, however, beat him to the punch.

“I deeply apologize, he means no malice,” Allura spoke, equal parts caution and respect. “Our Blue Paladin is unfortunately not feeling well and—”

“That is no excuse,” Luz hissed. Her face was contorted, angry. Lance flinched, looking away from the heated glare. His head throbbed, oblivious to the situation. “Our light ceremony is sacred. Wishing to leave in the middle of it desecrating to our tribute.” A slight pause. “Put the Blue Paladin in isolation until the festivities are over. He will not partake in this joyous event.”

Hunk's hands tightened on Lance's shoulders just as he whipped his head back up, so quick it had his vision wavering. He spotted the crowd starting to part just towards his left, the path easily leading towards him. Panic temporarily overrode the pounding headache, and he glanced over at Luz once more.

“Wait, I—I'm sorry, I'll stay. I didn't mean to...”

Luz's response of cold, unyielding. “You will go in isolation or this alliance will end before it has even begun. Be grateful it is mere isolation and not a physical punishment for your insolence.”

The silence was heavy, and Lance couldn't find the words to argue. The lack of response from the rest of his team was just as telling. Of course they wouldn't sacrifice an alliance just because Lance had a headache. He expected it, but Lance still felt his chest tighten with panic when an arm grabbed at his, unceremoniously dragging him off.

Hunk's hands fell away easily, although he looked pained to do so. The others stood behind him, similar looks of discomfort and worry in their expressions. But no one made a move to stop him from getting taken past the doors. That itself hurt more than his headache did.

Lance could barely get his thoughts together again before he felt the hand shove him into another room. He stumbled forward onto his knees as he heard a door slide shut behind him. He tried to take a look around, but the resulting pain in his head had him shutting his eyes with a groan.

The room was completely white. So white it was blinding. He didn't get a good look, but he was pretty sure there wasn't a single dirty speck anywhere. It was the worst kind of room he could be in right now. He bent over, ripping off his helmet and trying to shield his eyes against his arms on the ground. It was better, but his headache was already way worse. It was almost like his head was ready to split open, and he bit back a moan.

He wished he could control his helmet visor and activate it to blackout his vision again, like they'd done once for Lion bonding. He just wanted it darker. His head swam, and Lance forced the nausea crawling up his throat back down. He was so close to throwing up.

It was like his head was condensing and getting hammered at the same time. Lance felt exhausted, and he fell onto his side, curling up as he shut his eyes tight. Even behind his eyelids, he could feel the brightness filling his vision, insistent and painful. He brought a slow hand up, resting it weakly against his eyes in a slight attempt at filtering some of the light out.

How long had it been? Surely not long. How long would the celebration last? Lance didn't doubt it wouldn't be over anytime soon. His stomach clenched anxiously at the thought, and he brought his other hand up against his stomach in a weak attempt to calm it. His mind unhelpfully chose to remember the expressions on everyone's faces back in the hall. He'd been so stupid. Keith was right, he should be able to handle a headache. He almost ruined a new alliance because of this.

His head throbbed in a cruel rhythm, as if something massive was trying to force itself out of his skull. He choked out a sob, feeling tears slide down his face and onto his floor from behind his hand. God, it would be embarrassing if they walked in on him crying.

Time passed by, and his headache was still relentless. He didn't dare try to move, too afraid at the possible onslaught of light should he shift his hand. He wished he could fall asleep, but the constant throbbing in his head made it impossible. So he just lay there on his side, miserable and drained.

Even more time passed, and Lance gave up on trying to feel better. He was just tired, and he wanted to sleep. Each new thrum of pain sent another wave of nausea in his stomach, and he it took all of his energy to keep it down. He deserved this. Allura and Shiro had even asked him to try his best until the ceremony ended, and he couldn't even do that much.

All of a sudden, he heard a door slide open before footsteps stormed inside. Lance flinched at the sudden noise, trying to curl up closer inside himself. Whoever entered had other plans, and hands scrambled to get Lance into a sitting position. Lance felt his hand fall away from his eyes, and he whimpered, instantly turning to bury his head against the person holding him up. He felt the familiar cold material of the Paladin armor dig painfully against his face, but he didn't care. The celebration must have ended, Lance thought distantly.

“Lance? Talk to me, buddy. Can you hear me?” Shiro's voice rumbled close to Lance's ear, and he stiffened, the guilt rising up like a fresh scar.

“I'm sorry, I'm sorry,” Lance babbled, voice trembling. “Was my fault, I'm sorry.”

“Lance...” Shiro suddenly sounded really sad, and Lance's chest tightened in panic. Had he said something wrong again? “Don't—don't apologize. I should be doing that. How's your head?”

Lance went rigid, breaths ragged. He was too afraid to speak. Too afraid to be honest. What if the Esyxians punished him again? The terror only intensified the throbbing against his forehead. He wanted to say he was fine and get it over with, but the words died in his throat. It felt too dry.

Shiro sucked in a breath, and Lance felt him move just slightly before he heard the door close again. Or did it open? Another hand was suddenly in his hair, gently carding through the sweaty locks. “You can tell me, Lance. It's just me and Hunk here. The others are outside. You won't get in trouble this time.”

How Shiro knew what Lance was thinking was beyond his comprehension. He choked out another sob, feeling more tears slip past his closed eyelids. “It hurts. Really bad. It's too bright, I'm sorry. I can't—”

“Hey, hey.” Hunk spoke, soft and sad. Lance couldn't understand why everyone sounded sad. They should be angry. “This isn't your fault. We shouldn't have ignored you when you said your head was hurting and we definitely shouldn't have let you get taken away like that. This is completely on us.”

“N—no,” Lance tried to squirm away from the hand in his hair, but he was too tired and couldn't quite make it. “It's just a headache, I should be able to... I don't know why...”

“It looks more like a migraine, dude.” Hunk said. “And those suck. Really bad. I wouldn't be able to handle that light show with a migraine, either.”

Lance's head squeezed painfully at the mention of the light show, and he shuddered. “I'm sorry.”

Hunk let out an unhappy noise before Shiro whispered, “Let's get him back to the Castle first, this room isn't helping him get better.” Lance felt Shiro shift his grip before speaking again, this time a bit louder. “Lance, we're gonna need you to put your helmet back on. You can keep your eyes closed, okay? We'll be out of here in no time.”

Lance nodded weakly, lifting his head away from Shiro's chest enough for Hunk to carefully slide the helmet back on. His head jostled at the movement, he felt his vision swim behind his eyelids. But when Shiro move to lift Lance, he pushed back, albeit weakly.

“I'll walk.” Lance mumbled, trying to peek his eyes open slightly. The bright white prodded at his headache, and he held back a groan. He pushed himself onto his feet, swaying a bit until Shiro steadied him by the arm. No way in hell was he going to embarrass Voltron anymore by getting carried back to the Castle over a headache. Migraine. Whatever.

“Lance,” Shiro started, reluctant. “Are you sure you—”

“I can walk.” Lance cut in, firm. “It's not like the headache broke my legs or anything.”

“...Alright.”

Shiro still kept an arm on Lance, probably just in case. Lance didn't fight it, glad that his legs were at least working. He heard the door slide open as he stepped back out, glad the headache lessened even just a bit the second they left the isolation room. The first thing he saw in the hallway was Allura's worried glance, which wasn't helping his guilty conscience at all. Pidge and Keith didn't look any less concerned, eyeing him and then looking towards Hunk, as if expecting an explanation.

“Sorry for missing the festivities, Princess. Won't happen again.” Lance said, voice coming out weaker than he'd intended.

Allura started to shake her head, glancing over at Shiro before looking back at him. “Let's head back to the Castle, first. We can discuss everything later.”

It was a long and quiet trek back to the Castle. They didn't encounter any Esyxians on the way back, and Lance wasn't complaining. He just focused on walking and withstanding the painful pulses in his head. It was a relief once he felt himself back within the Castle. Most of the tension left his body and he slumped over, feeling Shiro's arm tighten on his in alarm.

“I'm fine.” Lance started before anyone could ask. “I just... Could I go to my room for a bit? I'll hear the lectures later. Please.”

A conflicted expression ran across Allura's face. “I... Of course, you should get some rest. We will debrief once you're recovered.”

Lance nodded, relieved. He started to leave, insisting that he could make it back to his room on his own. Coran, who'd come to meet them on the bridge, seemed to notice something was off, but he didn't say anything. Shiro or Hunk would probably explain, anyways. Lance left before anyone could stop him again.

He reached his room and shut the lights off the moment he stepped inside, sighing at the darkness that filled his vision. Way better from the bright colors he'd been dealing with all day. He shed his armor off, shakily changing into his pajamas before he slid into bed. His head melted against the pillow, soft and cushioning. The pounding in his headache slowly turned into dull throbs, and although it took a bit longer than he wanted, Lance drifted off into an unsteady slumber.

Lance jerked awake when he felt something cold press against his forehead, eyes blinking open in surprise. His vision took a second to adapt to the dark, but he made out Pidge crouched by his bed, jumping when he caught her gaze.

“Sorry,” Pidge whispered. “Didn't mean to wake you.”

“What're you doin'?” Lance mumbled, the cool sensation on his head actually feeling quite nice.

“Something cold for the headache.” Pidge said, adjusting the cloth carefully. “It should help.”

She was right, though. Definitely helped his headache. He sighed, relaxing under the blankets again. That is, until he spotted something by his door.

“Uh, am I hallucinating or is Keith also here?”

Pidge straightened up and glanced over. “Nah, he's here. He wanted to say something, so I'll leave now.” She looked back towards Lance, her expression too difficult to see in the dark. “Feel better, Lance. Sorry for not doing anything to help back then.” She marched out of the room before Lance could get a reply out.

There was a brief silence in the room before Lance saw Keith slowly make his way over, his movements almost nervous. Yet even when he reached the bedside, he didn't speak.

Lance cleared his throat after a few seconds, feeling awkward. “If you're here to rub it in, can I take a rain check? Kind of really tired at the moment.”

“What? No,” Keith stammered. “I just... wanted to apologize.”

For a moment, Lance wasn't sure he heard right. He probably didn't. “Um... What?”

“For saying it was just a headache. I didn't know it was that bad, but I shouldn't have said it either way. All of us were upset when that Esyxian ordered you in isolation. Allura even asked to end the celebration early because she was worried.” Keith huffed in irritation. “I know they won't apologize for it, but you didn't deserve that.”

Lance's brain struggled to process what he heard, mind too muddled to think properly. “It was just a headache, though.”

“It was a migraine, according to Hunk.” Keith countered, arms crossed. “Those are worse. And the fact that you were in that kind of room too...”

Lance shifted uncomfortably. “Don't know why you're apologizing, dude. It was my fault.”

Keith snorted. “For what, getting a migraine? You didn't ask for it.”

“I know, but still...”

“You're not winning this one, so just accept the apology. You're gonna get plenty more from the others during the debriefing.”

Lance groaned, his headache buzzing uneasily at the thought. “Ugh, great.”

There was a short silence before Keith spoke again, a bit quieter. “Do you feel a bit better, at least?”

Hearing Keith sound concerned for his health felt odd, but Lance didn't dislike it. “Um, yeah. Better than before. I'll probably be good by tomorrow.”

“Are you thirsty?” Keith didn't let Lance answer, already reaching for the water pouch Lance didn't know was lying near the bed. “Here, drink some water and then go to sleep.”

Lance actually was thirsty, and he slid himself upright with a grunt. The cloth fell onto his lap, but Keith grabbed it and handed Lance the pouch in exchange. He took a few long gulps, enjoying the refreshing sensation through his body before slumping back against the pillow, exhaustion settling back in. He felt the cloth on his forehead again, and his eyes fluttered shut.

“Night, Lance.” Keith said quietly.

“Night...” Lance mumbled.

Sleep came easier this time around.

[thisisthewayitis2021]

The snail's progress.

I'm sorry it has been so long. There are no dates on here I have noticed so I can't remember when I last posted. It has been over a week though.

So much fatigue last week. Trying to schedule anything is impossible.

It is August 16th 2021 today. Just a brief summary; last week I was out for the count Monday until Wednesday. Staring at the sky again, not even able to listen to the radio or watch tv on Monday. And I had had an optical migraine on Sunday night. I had tried to do some brain training on Sunday morning. I had downloaded some apps including Lumosity and Cognifit. 5 in all. I have now deleted all but Cognifit and will only do 3 x 10 minute sessions a week. Not do three ten minute sessions from multiple apps one after the other to try to build up my skills in a crash course. Such a stupid idea but I am so wanting to get better. It won't happen if I try and do that though. I just seize up so can't anyway. I am hoping Cognifit will help, in baby steps. At the moment I'm fine for the first 5 minutes then I fall apart and I can't do anything. My score was 158 out of 1000 the first time. It's pretty depressing but I will stick with it. It's interesting though as I can feel the different layers/areas of my brain that don't work. For instance I'm much better now again at listening to a story, can hear and understand. And I can express myself in writing again pretty easily which is brilliant. So happy about that . Much better than verbally. But reading about processes and following a story is more difficult. I can't remember a sequence of shapes if it is presented to me, for me to repeat a few seconds later. And lots of other processes which I can't remember to tell you! The app is so clever, being able to target specific areas. It was developed by neuro scientists, that's why I chose that one, rather than the others. I'm taking Gingko bilobo and CO Q10 too which are supposed to help. This morning it was about the same.

I spoke to a manager at work last week. My fit note runs out on the 24th, in a week's time but the fatigue and the lack of concentration and thinking processes mean that I won't be able to go back to work. I just can't do anything and I am not going to recover by next week. They are brilliant and have said that I must only go back when I am fully better. I do think the fatigue is a little better though. But that is because I am not taking my dog out now. I have walkers so am not exhausting myself so much and can potter about at home in short bursts.

I was excited that my son Leo was coming to visit on Friday. He was coming for the weekend, one night at mine and one at his dad's. With me all day Saturday, then his dad Mark came to pick us up on Sunday evening and and we went out for a meal, Mark, Dad's partner Melanie and Leo. Really lovely (we all get on well). Then he stayed the night at M&M's. Mark had picked me up on Sunday at midday. I went for lunch with them before Mark dropped Leo off at the train station and took me home. I was really flagging by then, was conscious of my eyes wanting to close at lunch. I was in bed by 8.30 but it was so worth it. I'd been really conscious of resting and sleeping between activities. And so far today I've been ok. Well, I slept for two hours during the morning but that's normal. No extra effects I mean so that's great.

Back to being on my own all week and trying to keep positive. It's so dull and I can feel very lonely. I am missing some of my friends. I can completely appreciate that some are very bound up in their busy lives and their own relationships. I have some brilliant friends who ring me up and pop round, and I meet one every Friday in a pub garden for a bit (or inside now as it is cooler). Some have drifted though. I feel sad about that. I need people at the moment and to feel that they care. It must be really hard if you have long covid and are in a house full of other people though. I couldn't cope with that. I know I'm not great company and I can only manage about 1 1/2 hours max of conversation. Just being with someone is lovely for a short time though, I don't need to talk. it just so helps with my mood and that contact is so essential. I do have lovely proactive friends who are very caring though and I know that some people just aren't that proactive and haven't got the capacity emotionally. Perhaps people just don't want to be around someone whose dad died recently and is not well. I have still got my sense of humour though and am outward looking at the world, and care about them. I think I'm pretty good company still actually lol. But it's ok. Anyway. I mustn't let it get me down.

Life will be back to normal one day. I don't cope with crowds well... too much sensory stimulation. But I need to try every now and again or I will have such trouble with getting back to normal. I want to go to busy pubs and gigs and go to town at a weekend. On Saturday we went to town to a restaurant and I had to hold Leo's hand walking from the carpark to the restaurant as there were so many people and it was making me so anxious. A crazy Saturday night. It was only 6 pm but the pubs and bars were full and it was like a massive hen party in town! I had been on my own with my dad during lockdown in a rural setting, and once back home after he passed away, on my own. Not being able to go out or to work because of the long covid...or even into town on a quiet afternoon as I have been too exhausted to get there.... well it hasn't helped. I like my own company.. need it really, at least half the time. I have always said that I couldn't be in a 24/7 relationship where you are together all the time as I am very independent. But it doesn't mean being on my own so much is what I want.

But hey, I'm very resilient and practise mindfulness and go outside when I feel low. The fatigue is so restrictive though. And my crazy spaniel makes me laugh. Anyway, that's enough for today. A bit of a kip then I will watch another episode of Beck. I find a drama and get into the story. I need to try and book another eye test. The seventh as I keep cancelling. Melanie has said she will take me as I can't go on my own. It's just too much to try and do. Crazy. I have got the large print Jack Reacher that my son bought my dad for Christmas. So will try that.

[frolwriting]

A Whole New World: Bloody Mary Part 1

Hey guys!  I’m sorry I haven’t posted this week.  I came down with Bronchitis, and it was also my birthday week.  I am SO close to 100 followers.  I seriously only need 1 more follower, and then we’ll have a giveaway for the postcard.  Anyways, I hope you guys enjoy the chapter!

Fandom: Supernatural

Episode: Bloody Mary

Warnings: Blood and death

_______________________________________________________________________

We were in the Impala headed off to a weird case. I knew what this case was going to be. I was really terrified for this case. This episode always scared me. I had fallen asleep in the Impala because again I wasn't sleeping all that well again. I woke up Dean pulling into a building's parking lot. "Where are we?" I asked sitting up. Just then Sam jarred awake as well. Me and Dean looked at him concerned. He looked terrified for a second.

"I take it I was having a nightmare." He said.

"Yeah, another one." Dean said.

"Hey, at least I got some sleep. Kate did you get some sleep." I gave him a look, but I nodded when I saw Dean looking at me as well.

"You know, sooner or later we're gonna have to talk about this." He said. I didn't know if he was talking to Sam or me or both of us, but I nodded either way.

"Are we here?" Sam asked changing the subject.

"Yup. Welcome to Toledo, Ohio." Dean said. Sam grabbed the newspaper that was on the dash and looked at the obituary section. There was one circled.

"So what do you think really happened to this guy?" I asked.

"That's what we're gonna find out." He paused a second. "Let's go." We get out of the Impala and walk up to the building. "We're headed to the morgue. We need to see the body for ourselves." We walked around for a bit till we finally found the morgue. We walked in to find two desks, but there was only one person there. I looked at the name on the desk to make it not look suspicious when we say we're looking for the other man.

"Hey." The man said.

"Hey." Dean said.

"Can I help you?"

"Yes, we're the med students that set up an appointment." I said instantly.

"Sorry?" The man asked.

"Did Doctor Figlavitch not tell you?" I asked sweetly. "We called him. We're working on our project down at Ohio State. He was supposed to show us the Shoemaker corpse."

"Well, I'm sorry, he's at lunch."

"Oh well he said-" Dean started. "Oh, well, you know, it doesn't matter. You don't mind just showing us the body, do you?"

"Sorry, I can't. Doc will be back in an hour. You can wait for him if you want."

"An hour? Ooh. We gotta be heading back to Columbus by then."

"Yeah." Sam said.

"Sir, these guys have put this off for way too long. I lost my dad and haven't been able to do this for a couple of weeks. I had hoped these two would at least do this part of the project, but obviously they didn't. Didn't you have some project partners that just drove you nuts like this?" I said getting some fake tears to come up.

"Oh, I'm sorry to hear about your dad." He paused. "Yeah, I can show you the body." I smiled slightly.

"Thank you so much." The man got up and we headed into the part where all the bodies are. I didn't know if that sob story was going to work. The tech pulled the body out. Everything but the eyes looked normal. Eyes actually meaning no eyes.

"Now the newspaper said his daughter found him. She said his eyes were bleeding." Sam said. The tech put the sheet back on the man's head.

"More than that. They practically liquefied."

"Any sign of a struggle? Maybe somebody did it to him?" I suggested.

"Nope. Besides the daughter, he was all alone."

"What's the official cause of death?" I asked.

"Ah, Doc's not sure. He's thinking massive stroke, maybe an aneurysm? Something burst up there, thats for sure."

"What do you mean?" Sam asked.

"Intense cerebral bleeding. This guy had more blood in his skull than anyone I've ever seen."

"But the eyes. What would cause something like that?" I asked.

"Capillaries can burst. See a lot of bloodshot eyes with stroke victims."

"Yeah? You ever see exploding eyeballs?"

"That's a first of me, but hey, I'm not the doctor."

"Hey, think we could take a look at that police report? You know for, uh…our project?" I asked.

"I'm not really supposed to show you that." Sam pulled out his wallet and gave the man some money. He showed us the report, and then we left.

"Might not be one of ours. Might just be some freak medical thing." Sam said.

"How many times in Dad's long and varied career has it actually been a freak medical thing and not some sign of an awful supernatural death?" Dean asked.

"Uh, almost never." Sam said.

"Exactly."

"All right, let's go talk to the daughter." Sam said.

"Hey good job with the sob story earlier." Dean said bumping me lightly.

"Bringing up memories of projects for anyone makes them feel bad for you."

"All right, let's go talk to the daughter." Sam said. We then headed to the house where the man died. I looked at my outfit and thankfully I was wearing black. The guys on the other hand were very much underdressed.

"Kate did you have a feeling we would be doing this?" Dean asked looking at me.

"Kind of." I said as we head towards the backyard. A man pointed towards us out as soon as we walk out. We walk up to who we saw was the daughters of the man.

"You must be Donna, right?" Dean asked as we got to her.

"Yeah." The older said.

"Hi, uh-we're really sorry." I said not really sure what to do because I don't know this girl too well.

"Thank you." She said.

"I'm Sam, this is Dean and Kate. We worked with your dad." Sam said. Donna looked at one of the girls and then back at us.

"You did?" She asked.

"Yeah. This whole thing. I mean, a stroke." Dean said.

"I don't think she really wants to talk about this right now." One of the other girls said.

"It's okay. I'm okay." Donna said.

"Were there any symptoms? Dizziness? Migraines?" Dean asked.

"No." One of the younger girls turned around toward us.

"That's because it wasn't a stroke." She said.

"Lily, don't say that." Donna said.

"What?" Sam asked.

"I'm sorry, she's just upset."

"No, it happened because of me."

"Sweetie, it didn't."

"Lily." I said kneeling down to her. "Why would you say something like that?" I asked.

"Right before he died, I said it." She said getting more upset.

"You said what?" I asked.

"Bloody Mary, three times in the bathroom mirror." She paused. "She took his eyes, that's what she does."

"That's not why Dad died. This isn't your fault." Donna said.

"Hey, I used to do that all the time when I was little. Nothing ever happened. You saying Bloody Mary in the mirror three times did not kill your dad. Plus it was you who said it, not your dad, right?" I said.

"No, I don't think so." She said. I smiled and patted her shoulder.

"We need to get going. We just wanted to stop by and say our peace." The girls nodded. We left and decided to go check out the bathroom for ourselves.

"The Bloody Mary legend…Dad ever find any evidence that it was a real thing?" Sam asked.

"Not that I know of." Dean said. Dean walked in while Sam and I kneeled down to check out the blood.

"I mean, everywhere else all over the country, kids will play Bloody Mary, and as far as we know, nobody dies from it." Sam said.

"Yeah, well, maybe everywhere it's just a story, but here it's actually happening."

"The place where the legend began?" Dean just shrugged and opened the cabinet.

"But according to the legend, the person who says B-" Sam stood and looked at the mirror and closes the door. "The person who says you know what gets it. But here-"

"Shoemaker gets it instead, yeah." Dean said.

"Right."

"Never heard anything like that before. Still, the guy did die right in front of the mirror, and the daughter's right. The way the legend goes, you know who scratches your eyes out."

"It's worth checking in to." We walk out into the hallway to see one of the girls from outside in the hallway.

"What are you doing up here?" She asked.

"We-we, had to go to the bathroom." I said.

"Who are you?"

"Like we said downstairs, we worked with Donna's dad." Dean said.

"He was a day trader or something. He worked by himself."

"No, I know, I meant-"

"And all those weird questions downstairs, what was that? So you tell me what's going on, or I start screaming."

"All right, all right. We think something happened to Donna's dad." Sam said.

"Yeah, a stroke."

"That's not a sign of a typical stroke. We think it might be something else." Sam said.

"Like what?"

"Honestly? We don't know yet, but we don't want it to happen to anyone else. That's the truth."

"So, if you're gonna scream, go right ahead." Dean said.

"Who are you, cops?"

"Something like that."

"I'll tell you what. Here." Sam said as he pulled out a notebook and pen and wrote down his number. "If you think of anything, you or your friends notice anything strange, out of the ordinary…just give us a call." He handed her the paper and we left. "Let's head to the library to see what we can find." Me and Dean nodded. We got into the Impala and left. We went in, and I noticed it was pretty dark in there. They must have terrible lighting in this place.

"All right, say Bloody Mary really is haunting this town. There's gonna be some sort of proof-like a local woman who died nasty." Dean said.

"Yeah but a legend this widespread it's hard. I mean, there's like 50 version of who she actually is. One story says she's a witch. Another says she's a mutilated bride, and there's a lot more."

"All right so what are we supposed to be looking for?" Dean asked.

"Every version's got a few things in common. It's always a woman named Mary, and she always dies right in front of a mirror. So we've gotta search local newspapers-public records as far back as they go. See if we can find a Mary who fits the bill."

"Well that sounds annoying." Dean said.

"No it won't be so bad, as long as we…" That's when we noticed the computers had out of order signs on them. Sam chuckled. "I take it back. This will be very annoying." I sighed. It was this case where they had to do things old school. We searched long for two hours, when I noticed that Sam had fallen asleep. I smiled. I wanted to do that, but Dean would get frustrated if I fell asleep as well. We grabbed tons of records and headed back to the motel. After a while, Sam seemed to start whimpering in his sleep. I went to wake him up when Dean put a hand on me. He shook his head and went back to researching. After a while, Sam jolted awake. "Why'd you let me fall asleep?"

"Cause I'm an awesome brother. So what did you dream about?"

"Lollipops and candy canes." Sam said sarcastically.

"Yeah, sure."

"Did you find anything?"

"Oh besides a whole new level of frustration. No. We've looked at everything. A few local women, a Laura and a Catherine committed suicide in front of a mirror, and a giant mirror fell on a guy named Dave, but uh, no Mary."

"Maybe we just haven't found it yet." Sam said falling back on his bed.

"I've also been searching for strange deaths in the area, you know…eyeball bleeding, that sort of thing. There's nothing. Whatever's happening here, maybe it just ain't Mary." Dean said. Just then Sam's phone started ringing.

"Hello?" There was a long pause when he finally jumped up. "Come on something came up with Charlie. We need to go." We hurried out of the motel to go where Charlie is.

[keiraelaine]

2017

This year I learned the compassion and caring that I’ve always felt shame for lacking. I learned how to listen and show up when someone tells me how they feel and I’m working out the kinks with making caring space for myself in relationships. I learned that I am worthy and I found love and I learned that I need to care about myself in order to take care of myself. I started learning how to do that. Long long post below. 

January: I flew into Green Bay like someone who doesn’t have any sense of self-preservation. I ignored the signs. Or, I worried that I was too anxious, and that it wouldn’t work because I couldn’t just trust a person. I was out of theory though, and I felt like I could breathe easier than I had in a year. Benson stopped me in the hall, surprised. Jan. 20 sucked. Landlord continued to not do his job. In coding, I felt like I was actually learning a cool thing. I spoke to no one. AfAm Writers seating was straight up segregated and we were intimidating. I learned more about the world at BGH than I did anywhere else. I suppose I felt shame, but I was away from the con. I couldn’t make myself care about getting out of bed. The voice search was frustrating, because no other students really showed up. 

February: I learned what I want to do with my life from a candidate. I had a reason to make myself get up in the morning. I offered crumbs because that’s what I did best, ask for nothing and feel anxious. We had one good night. People suggested walking away. I scared myself by not drawing a line and allowing some major bullshit. I should have known because every white girl I’ve been with couldn’t ignore me in public if she tried. My new friends showed me what respect looked like. In coding, my attendance and attention faltered. One night, I threw my phone. An apartment opened up and it seemed perfect. It took weeks for me to figure out he and we were going to stay unhealthy. I felt ignored and unimportant. My writing in AfAm was exemplary. My friend got really, really hurt by a shitty boy. I got hurt by a shitty boy too. I felt shame.

March: The coding project loomed just in time for me to realize I knew nothing about Java. The random girl in my class who I worked with made me laugh from my belly. The boy in our group was MIA and sexist. Cue the hardest project of my life with a partner who was brown but not a lesbian. I kept wanting to give up. I slowly figured out I thought and was afraid to think she was cute. My friends tried playing matchmaker. ACDA was magic and disappointing and educational all at once. I came back and made some quip about morning finals, and I gave back shit that wasn’t mine. I moved! I observed girl choir and thought it was impossible. I got a biopsy and was not dying. I passed coding barely, and AfAm with flying colors. I was nervous about history and about scenes, and anxious about the boundary I drew, but it turns out the Ignore Boring Girls in Public game continued regardless of how I tried to communicate. Some people I thought were friends knew and decided to not have my back. I decided to kiss the girl I wanted to kiss instead of waiting for some bullshit that would never not hurt. 

April: After kissing the girl I wanted to kiss, who was brown and not a lesbian and also cannot do Java, I went to the library with her, and then to breakfast, and then to a movie, and then back to bed! Beethoven haunted me. History started good and so did Race and Ethnicity, but RE went downhill fast. It was more 101 than I could even consider sitting through. They put me in with an orchestra and I sang well. I figured out that anxiety was now a loud, disruptive thing that I had to deal with every day of my life because of the shit I picked up from useless boys and men, especially theory. I apologized too much. I loved my new apartment. I was afraid to like this girl, but I pulled a Torres and UHauled faster than I thought proper. We said things to each other that were honest and caring at the same time, and kissed in my office.I stopped being afraid. Kadihjia left and I felt lost and angry and resentful. Spring scenes were fun!

May: Spring scenes continued to be fun because I barely had to speak to the directors, and thank god. They made me a witch with a knife and put me in white make-up. Choir became insufferable. I wanted to be in Cantala. I thought about dropping RE. I thought about dropping everything but singing and poems. Melissa gave me the tools for an excellent imitation poem and continued to trust me for reasons I can’t fathom still. I made friends with the Academy! They and Julie grew my brain bigger than I thought possible. I felt angry all the time. Every day. I learned jaw tension and migraines. I learned my recital rep. I wrote good program notes, and my mom came to visit. I didn’t weep this time. I sang very well. My people were there. My girlfriend was there, because that’s who she was. I looked elegant. Campus went to shit. My friends got hurt. I felt afraid.

June: I shaved the side of my head and rebleached the blonde bit and we three got tattoos and had a sleepover. My friend group kind of went to shit and I decided to not have friend groups anymore. I took an incomplete in history and then passed that shit like nobody’s business. I was so proud of myself. I worked an office job that seemed totally fine before it started sucking my soul out. Anger ran my life. Reunion weekend was a time for singing and remembering and confusion, but mostly a time for singing. I grew to resent the people I worked with. I missed my girlfriend but I trusted her, and missing someone you trust is a whole different game. I tried out veganism and yoga and both were good. Gaycation!

August: I scheduled box braids and tried bullet journaling and I got box braids and I felt Real. I felt ready and real and beautiful and worthy and loved. Except at work which continued to be bullshit. I worried about theory, but I knew I could at least try with a new professor. Still angry always. I felt like I could spend a good long time with my girlfriend. 

September: I thought all my classes would be exciting except theory. Turns out, a good teacher and an excellent therapist make theory perfectly good, and a teacher who doesn’t care to decolonize the classroom can make interesting content insufferably boring. I felt angry and anxious and safe. Facilities fired me. I had the worst panic attack of my life about my refund, and I felt angry at a white woman I typically trust more than most folks. PEDAL hit the group running. 

October: It was affecting me that half the queer Black women at school left. Anger abound. I was ready to slap some smiles off white girls’ faces. I was ready to schedule an actual fight with Richard. I was ready to drop Sonja’s class. My homework was getting done but I couldn’t say anything to a professor without also saying sorry. I did jack in my independent study. I thought about I wanted a Black Studies MA. 

November: Melissa convinced me about MFAs. I figured out that all I could do was give the best presentation in the class I wanted to drop. I took my hair out and panicked about it. I realized I needed to shave it off, so I did. Nothing I have ever done is as freeing as that I figured out that some white middle class women love technicality more than anything else. I learned that I can’t yet glare a shit-eating grin off a white face. I learned that I have trouble listening to my own needs, again. I learned that I’m allowed to work on it, that I’m allowed to feel overwhelmed and need to be comforted and held. I wanted to go home. We planned Costa Rica. I shaved all my hair off.

December: Straightness was a weight on my chest. I passed every single class. I got an A in music theory. I earned the grade of ‘A’ in MUTH 252. It felt unbelievable, like a miracle but also like a birthday, like a matter of course. I missed Rebecca. I had a massive breakdown about grad school. Melissa showed up for that anxiety. Girl choir was indescribable. I had a short quarter-life crisis about music education. I sank into a week-long lesbian unrequited shame melancholy and wrote some poems and asked for help and pulled myself out of it. I got into a professional choral ensemble. I applied to Cave Canem. We moved. I fell in love with our new house. We made a plan to go home to the sun after school lets out. I fought with my brothers and I broke down crying in the car and I ate real Mexican food and I apologized and made up with my brothers and I jumped in a cold pool and I worried about the future. On Christmas, I was Black for the first time. I had a panic attack about coming back. I had another panic attack about coming back. Anxiety sat like bile in my throat the entire time I was in the air. I came back and spent time with a really wonderful human, and I cleaned and reorganized everything, and I ate cookies, and now I feel like I can do this next six months, even though it’s so much bullshit. I realized that I need to make small changes this year that will give me ease in small ways. Lotion, swimming, sleeping, water. I graduate June 10. 

Resolutions:

Say no to things that distract me from my goals. 

Swim often. 

Learn to cook a few things!

Make some money. 

Fix my nails. 

Read one whole book for pleasure every month. 

Keep the apartment and garage clean. 

Do laundry on a schedule.

Do mornings on a schedule. 

Work more on apologizing. 

[subukunojess]

Gravity Falls: Omniscience

Okay... hopefully this works. This is my first time posting up my stories here. I know that this AU is probably unlikely, but I had fun writing this. Actually, I originally did this one-shot for a college assignment where we had to write a fanfiction of basically anything we wanted and I took it as an opportunity to write for my GF AU. Hope you guys enjoy this~

           Stanford watched the metallic bus drove down the dusty road back to Piedmont, California as it passed a large sign that read “You are now leaving GRAVITY FALLS”. The bus got smaller and smaller until it disappeared amongst the trees. He sighed, continuing to stare at the evergreen as the wind blew on his body, foretelling the official end of summer.      If someone were to tell Stanford Filbrick Pines that thirty years after his youth he would save the world and reunite with his family, he would’ve scoffed and continued his research. A six-fingered freak becoming a hero? It was absurd!      Truth be told, his brother Stanley was the real hero. Unlike his nerdy twin, Stan still believed in family and he put his own life on the line for it. It helped that he had a mean left hook too.      Still after the regret and torture he was put through a week ago, Ford couldn’t help but wonder that this outcome of events seemed too easy.      “Hey Poindexter!”  A warm hand touched his shoulder, snapping him out of his daze, “You asleep or somethin’?” Ford blinked, his view foggy as he adjusted his glasses, trying to focus on his brother.      “I’m sorry, Stanley.” Ford apologized, “I don’t know what came over me. I guess this feels so unreal, you know? Dipper and Mabel are okay. We’re together-”      “Yeah, I here ya.” Stan nodded, putting an arm around Ford’s shoulders. “I can’t believe it either! But what matters is that it turned out great in the end. Now, let’s go home, swindle some people one last time in this town, and get me out of this sweater until we set off for adventure!”      The researcher smiled softly, “You didn’t change your optimism at all, nor your randomness.” He elbowed his brother with Stan returning it with his own. With that, the rest of the day passed by with the breeze. While Stan was giving his employee-turned-manager some last advise of running the Mystery Shack, Ford decided to take a stroll around the shack. He found himself staring at the massive hole on the ground known as the bottomless pit.      To think that he threw his three journals, the three books that documented the mysteries and tragedies of Gravity Falls and the Pines family, in this pit! He had wanted to destroy the remaining physical mistakes of his past, but Dipper convinced him that they would be more useful if they were found by someone who wanted to dream and explore like he did. Now that he reconciled with his brother and dropped the books into the pit, it felt that Stanford was starting his new life with a blank slate. He still had his suspicions, but that was what brought him trouble to begin with. He needed to forget about it and focus on the present.                                                             ~~~      The following few days, Stanley and Stanford made preparations and travelled west to start their paranormal adventures across the seas. Stan managed to buy a boat waiting for them at the coast. It wasn’t a big yacht or anything fancy, but it wasn’t a sailboat either. The brothers didn’t care. It was sturdy and simple, the dream boat of their lost childhood. They named it the “Stan-o-War 2” and headed out of the harbor towards the Pacific Ocean, hoping to reach an anomaly found at the center of it. During those days, Ford tried to keep up with his brother and went along with everything, but once in a while he had migraines at random moments. He would shrug it off when they disappeared since they weren’t too drastic.      One day after sailing for several days, the boat stopped to rest as Stan went on deck to fish while Ford wrote some notes on a journal. In the middle of his writing, a sharp pain suddenly overcame his brain as if sharp claws were slicing his head piece by piece. He dropped his pen and took hold of his skull with both hands, hearing ringing in his ears. He opened his eyes and was about to call out to his brother, but noticed the water in front of them bubbling rapidly before a massive black tentacle came out of the surface. Ford held his breath before he suddenly ran for the wheel and started the boat quickly, trying to get away. Stan almost fell out of the boat, but he pulled himself back up, losing his fishing pole.      “What’s the big idea? I almost caught something!” The brother exclaimed, disappointed at his lost catch. Stanford ignored him. As he drove on to avoid the tentacles, his perception started to change.      Skies of blue flashed back and forth to blood red. White clouds turned black. Calm waters were now waves of torture crashing against their ship. Ford squinted, trying to get the images out of his mind. The wheel seemed to disappear constantly at his touch.      “Whoa, Ford! Keep your grip on the wheel!” Stan exclaimed, staggering on the bouncing deck. Hearing those words, Ford woke up from his trance for a second, breathing heavily. His right eye started throbbing continuously, causing him to press on it with the palm of his hand.      “There’s nothing to worry about…” He reassured, more to himself than to his brother, “I can control it. I got this!”      “No, you don’t. Give me the wheel!” Stan came from behind, pulled Ford to the side, and firmly held the wheel. “I don’t know what’s gotten into you, but you’re really losing your mind, Sixer!” Ford was about to interject when he suddenly caught on the name.      “… What did you just call me?” He muttered.      “I said Sixer! It’s your name iSN’t iT?” The image of Stanley was replaced by a large yellow triangle floating, staring at Ford with its one eye gleefully. He knew it all too well.      “Bill Cipher… We-We defeated you before! Y-You shouldn’t be here!” Stanford backed away, stuttering. His brother now became concerned. He grabbed Ford by the shoulders and shook him a bit.      “Snap out of it! That stupid triangle’s not here. I should be the one getting headaches, not you! It’s not real, Ford! It’s not REAL!” Ford hyperventilated, Stan and Bill switching places back and forth in his view. His mind was playing tricks on him. He closed his eyes and shook his head, whispering for the thoughts to go away, but they overwhelmed him. All of a sudden, something slimy encircled his waist, making him open his eyes. Two black tentacles had a hold of him. From behind him, a massive Bill Cipher was in the water, roaring, “TIME’S UP!” The tentacles pulled their target, dragging him into the ocean.      “STANLEY, HELP ME!” Ford grabbed his brother’s hand, refusing to let go. The tug-o-war abruptly ended with a simple tug from the tentacles and Ford found himself calling his brother’s name as he was forced into the ocean, red water filling up his lungs.      Then everything turned black.

                                                          ~~~      This was the moment Ford was waiting for. Stanley dropped down to his knees, his eyes closed and his face frozen as if he were sleeping. After the old twins were trapped in a pyramid cage and were forced to watch their grand-niece and nephew run away from the one-eyed beast all over the fear-a-mid, they devised a secret plan. All they had to do was switch clothes, pretend to be the other, let Bill into Stan’s mind, and then Ford would erase his brother’s memories with Bill trapped inside.      Ford was hesitant going through with this plan. What if Cipher caught on early at the ruse? There were many possibilities that this plan could fail. However, it was the only plan they had and Stan insisted on it. Once it started, the brothers could never turn back.      Ignoring the kids, Stanford took off his brother’s red fez from his head and prepared the memory gun. It was now or utter destruction. As Ford dialed the name “STANLEY PINES”, he focused on his brother. If he went through with this, Stanley won’t remember anything about his life again. As he stared at the grey hair, the square glasses, the shaven chair, it was like looking at a reflection. He was shooting himself.      Ford aimed, his arms trembling as he closed his eyes, turned his head to the side, and pulled the trigger, a light blue laser blasting on Stan’s forehead. What he didn’t notice was Stan’s eyes suddenly open at that moment, glowing a cat-like yellow. The next few seconds moved on like minutes. Ford was pounced upon by his brother, his weight pinning him down as his wrist was grabbed by cold hands, causing him to drop the gun.      “Nice try, Six-Fingers!” Stan laughed, his voice hoarse and crackling with fire as it was joined with a loud, high-pitched voice. “You gotta do better than that to bring me down!”      “You’re supposed to be trapped in there, Cipher! Let my brother go!” Ford struggled to get free, only to wince as his possessed brother applied pressure, almost crushing his bones.      “Bill!” Dipper and Mabel exclaimed in terror, which quickly changed to anger, “Leave our Grunkles alone!” The two charged at the demon in hopes of ramming him down. Bill scowled and used one of his hands to snap his fingers. The children immediately dropped to the floor and iron bars burst from the ground, entrapping the twins in a cage.      “Kids!” Ford screamed, forcing his arm to stretch out towards the cage. Bill noticed and elbowed the arm hard when his arm raised up and punched his own face all of a sudden, freeing Stanford.      Ford dragged himself backwards, glancing up. For a moment, Stan’s eyes turned back to their normal brown as he cried out with his familiar voice, “Forget about me! Just stick with the plan!”      The brother frowned and focused on getting the memory gun, crawling towards it as Stan punched himself repeatedly, fighting Bill for control. Both sixty-year-old men fought on. After what seemed to be an hour, Ford managed to reach the gun. He grabbed it and sat up straight, aiming it again at Stan when he froze at the sight before him.      Stanley’s eyes pieced with golden ferocity, snarling with a switch-blade army knife against his neck. His face was covered in bruises. He roared, “Don’t get any ideas!”      “You wouldn’t dare…” Ford narrowed his eyes, thinking it was a sorry excuse for a bluff.      “Oh, I WOULD dare! Make any more moves and my hand will slip! If I’m going down, you’re all going down harder!” To prove it, Bill slightly pressed the shining metal on the neck, a cut forming and revealing blood.      “Stop!” Ford barely choked, having seen enough. Tears weld up in his eyes, “I’ll do whatever you want. I’ll do anything! Just please… please don’t hurt my family! They’re all I have left!”      Bill was silent, staring at Ford in disbelief. Seeing him genuinely cry and beg for mercy, the demon smirked. “That’s better. You know what I want. We both drop our weapons and you give it to me.” The mortal obliged. Slowly the two dropped the gun and the knife, staring each other down. Ford stood up tall and took a deep breath, taking it all in before he told Bill the equation...                                                        ~~~      Ford woke up with a forceful gasp, his head resting on top of his arms. He panted heavily as waves of orange and brown filled his vision. Was it one of those long nightmares that lasted for eternity? He expected that would be the case, that his brother would come into his room and greet him casually like it was a normal day.      “About time you woke up from that dream! I was beginning to worry about you!” A voice laughed mockingly. It was too good to be true. Ford’s eyes widened, having remembered seeing the same orange and brown colors in textbooks and telescopes. He was staring right at Saturn as he rested on its rings. He let out a cry and stood up… well, floated up, looking at himself. Instead of the brown coat and red sweater he always wore, he had a long black overcoat, a yellow sweater, brown pants, and fancy black shoes on his body.      Sitting on Saturn was Bill, now a planet-sized triangle floating above it. He continued, “Here, I tried to wake you up from your dreams and you wouldn’t budge, so I just came back from eating Pluto!” Seeing the look of disbelief Ford gave him, he added, “Relax, no one would notice! Pluto wasn’t a planet anyway!”      Hearing that, it was all coming back to him. The plan failed horribly with Bill about to end his brother’s life. Seeing the only person who truly cared about him about to die, Ford couldn’t take it. He gave in and helped Bill take down the weirdness force field. In moments, Bill and his gang of unusual freaks he called friends grew into the overlords of the universe, bringing chaos to the surrounding galaxies. However, the triangle didn’t forget his promise to Ford. He made him an immortal being as well, giving him abilities one would dream about and taking away his human limitations. Under specific conditions, North America was spared the insanity and wrath, letting the remaining Pines family believe that they won. When they were awake, Ford would be there, pretending to be there as if nothing happened. It was illusions and nothing more.      As Ford became silent, Bill talked about how he broke some universal laws and how he played dodgeball in a meteor shower with his friends. The new immortal didn’t pay attention, but did make out one sentence or two, “And don’t worry about my guys. I sent them off to claim galaxies of their own. The milky way only belongs to you and me, the head rulers of the universe!”      Ford wanted to punch Bill right in the eye, his hands tightening into fists. Acting so smugly as if everything was all fine and dandy. Always interrupting his time with his family in order to wake up into reality! However, he couldn’t do a thing. If he rebelled, it was back to the Pines family being dead at Stanford’s feet. After a while, he spoke up softly. “Bill, I want to see him again…”      “What? But you just did that now!”      “… I want to see him when I’m awake.”      Bill just shrugged and rolled his eye. “Fine! Just this once… besides, I want another go at our new form!” With that, Cipher closed his eye and glowed yellow, merging his body with Ford’s. Stanford gagged and moaned, feeling his forehead and right eye burn as blue fire came out of his body and went to his neck and wrists, becoming glowing blue chains and shackles. He opened his eyes with his right eye yellow with slanted pupils. Now fused and ready, he made his way to his old planet. As he got closer to Earth, he could hear the agonizing screams of humans in his mind getting louder, but for today, they don’t matter. He needed to see Stan. He stopped in front of Earth, towering over it as he gazed upon it. The Earth now had red oceans instead of blue. Except for North America, all of the other continents were broken and scrambled all over the place. Moving towards the back, Ford searched the Pacific Ocean until he found the small boat, zooming in on it. It was on stand-still, bobbing up and down the calm, crimson water.      Stanley’s body was sprawled on the deck, unconscious but breathing slowly. He was alright. His brother was alright. In awe, Ford slowly reached for his brother with his enlarged hand. Before his six fingers could break the atmosphere, a sudden force slapped his hand away. His brother appeared before him as a young child, glaring at him.      “You promised, Ford!” Stan growled, tears in his eyes, “You promised me we would always stay together! How could you?!”      That did it. Tears of blood streamed down his cheeks steadily before the giant let go of Earth and flew to Mars. He wailed at the top of his lungs as he pounded his fists on the red planet, dust flying everywhere. He found himself crying and laughing with Bill at the same time. He lost everything; his normal life, his family, his brother. For all eternity, he was forever bound by Cipher, cursed with omniscience.

[thegloober]

The Yankees and the 2018-19 Offseason Calendar

Fan Confidence Poll: October 29th, 2018

(AP Photo/Seth Wenig)

Last night the Red Sox clinched the 2018 World Series championship with a Game Five win over the Dodgers. That is now four titles in the last 15 years for the BoSox after zero titles in their previous 86 years. The Dodgers are still looking for their first championship since 1988.

Anyway, now that the World Series and the 2018 baseball season are over, the 2018-19 offseason is officially underway. There are a ton of important dates and deadlines coming up these next few weeks, plus some not so important ones as well. Here is the offseason calendar and what each of these dates means for the Yankees.

Today, October 29th: The start of free agency, kinda As of 9am ET today, all eligible players became free agents. Players used to have to file for free agency, which was a waste of everyone’s time, but now it happens automatically. Eight Yankees became free agents this morning: Zach Britton, J.A. Happ, Adeiny Hechavarria, Lance Lynn, Andrew McCutchen, David Robertson, CC Sabathia, and Neil Walker. They aren’t able to sign with new teams just yet, but they are free agents. There are now 32 players on the 40-man roster.

Wednesday, October 31st: Option decisions due Generally speaking, all option decisions are due three days after the end of the World Series. Some contract stipulate other dates — my go-to example is the Phillies having to making a decision about their 2011 club option for Jimmy Rollins following the end of the 2009 World Series — but three days after the World Series is most common. I should note Masahiro Tanaka announced he wouldn’t opt-out a day before the deadline last year. Announcements could come earlier.

The Yankees have one option decision this offseason: Brett Gardner. They hold a $12.5M club option for Gardner next season with a $2M buyout. It is a net $10.5M decision. If they decline the option, Gardner gets his $2M and becomes a free agent. If they pick it up, he’s back next season with a $12.5 salary. My guess is the Yankees will decline the option and look to re-sign Gardner at a lower salary to play a more part-time/platoon role. We’ll see.

Friday, November 2nd: Qualifying offer and disabled list activation deadline The qualifying offer has been set at $17.9M this offseason and the Yankees only have two free agents eligible for it: Sabathia and, if his option is declined, Gardner. None of the other free agents are eligible for various reasons. The Yankees won’t make either Sabathia or Gardner the qualifying offer. They’d both accept it in a heartbeat. Sabathia could come back at something similar to his $10M salary this year. The Yankees wouldn’t decline Gardner’s $12.5M option only to turn around and give him the $17.9M qualifying offer, you know?

Also by this date, all players must be activated off the 60-day disabled list. The Yankees have four players on the 60-day DL: Ben Heller (Tommy John surgery), Jordan Montgomery (Tommy John surgery), Jacoby Ellsbury (hip surgery), and Clint Frazier (post-concussion migraines). Once these guys are activated, the Yankees will go from 32 players on the 40-man roster to 36 players on the 40-man roster. It’ll be 35 if Gardner’s option is declined.

Saturday, November 3rd: The start of free agency, for real The five-day exclusive negotiating period ends this coming Saturday and free agency will officially begin. Saturday is when free agents are truly free to negotiate and sign with any team. Keep in mind MLB free agency is a marathon, not a sprint. There typically is not a rash of signings on Day One. I do think we’ll see some second and third (and fourth and fifth) tier free agents sign earlier than usual after what happened with free agency last winter — Eduardo Escobar already re-signed with the D’Backs — but probably not this early.

Sunday, November 4th: Gold Glove winners announced The Yankees have three Gold Glove finalists this year: Gardner in left field, Tanaka at pitcher, and Aaron Judge in right field. I can’t see Judge beating out Mookie Betts. Gardner and Tanaka could win though. The last Yankee to win a Gold Glove was Gardner in 2016. The last time the Yankees had multiple Gold Glove winners in one season was 2012 with Mark Teixeira and Robinson Cano. The Gold Glove winners will be announced during a live ESPN broadcast at 9pm ET. I guess MLB doesn’t want anyone watching.

Sunday, November 5th: Awards finalists announced MLB has been announcing three finalists for each of the four major awards (Manager of the Year, Rookie of the Year, Cy Young, MVP) for a few years now. They’re trying to generate some buzz during a slow time of the year. Judge’s injury takes him out of the AL MVP race and Luis Severino’s second half fade takes him out of the AL Cy Young race. I can’t see Aaron Boone finishing in the top three of the Manager of the Year voting either. Count on both Miguel Andujar and Gleyber Torres being among the three Rookie of the Year finalists though. It’ll be surprised if it’s not those two and Shohei Ohtani. The awards finalists will be announced during a live MLB Network broadcast at 6pm ET.

Tuesday, November 6th to Thursday, November 8th: GM meetings in San Diego Carlsbad, actually, but close enough. The GM meetings typically cover off-the-field stuff. I suspect improper use of electronics (sign stealing, etc.) will be a hot topic this year after the Astros were caught red-handed during the postseason. (Their excuse was they were monitoring their opponents electronically to make sure they weren’t using electronics improperly. Come on.)

Off-the-field matters are usually the focus here, but, whenever you put all 30 GMs together in one spot, deals can and do happen. The John Ryan Murphy-for-Aaron Hicks trade went down at the GM meetings. The groundwork for the three-team trade that brought Curtis Granderson to the Yankees was laid at the GM meetings way back in the day. Even if some deals aren’t completed at the GM meetings, they will surely be discussed, and possibly revisited and completed at a later date.

Thursday, November 8th: Silver Sluggers announced If Silver Sluggers are your thing, this is the date for you. Judge’s injury and Gary Sanchez’s poor year mean the Yankees don’t have a serious Silver Slugger candidate this year.

Thursday, November 8th to Thursday, November 15th: MLB Japan All-Star Series As they do every few offseasons, MLB is sending a team of All-Stars (“All-Stars”) to Japan to play a series of exhibition games against Nippon Pro Baseball All-Stars. So far seven players have committed to the event: Ronald Acuna Jr., Rhys Hoskins, Yadier Molina, Carlos Santana, Eugenio Suarez, Chris Taylor, and Christian Yelich. Don Mattingly will manage. Here are the game dates and locations:

November 8th to 11th: Tokyo

November 13th: Hiroshima

November 14th and 15th: Nagoya

I have to think MLB would love to get a Yankee on the roster. The Yankees are the sport’s most recognizable team and they’d help create buzz. Didi Gregorius would’ve been perfect for this event. He’s got a great personality and he spends every offseason traveling and making fun videos. Didi would’ve been great. Too bad he got hurt.

From MLB’s perspective, Judge would be ideal here, though he had the wrist injury in the second half may not want to push it. Perhaps MLB could convince Giancarlo Stanton? Eh. The rest of the roster will be announced sometime soon. I mean, this thing starts next week, so it has to be soon. The last Yankee to participate in the MLB Japan All-Star Series was Mike Myers in 2006. For real. Jason Giambi and Bernie Williams were part of the 2002 team. These games will all be televised live on MLB Network.

Update: The MLB roster was announced this morning. It includes no Yankees. So much for that.

Monday, November 12th: Qualifying offer decision deadline Players used to get seven days to decide whether to accept or reject the qualifying offer. Now they get ten. How very kind of the owners to give players that after receiving massive luxury tax concessions from the MLBPA. Anyway, the extra three days give these free agents a little extra time to shop around for a deal before taking or declining the qualifying offer. Again, the Yankees don’t have any qualifying offer candidates this year. This deadline means nothing to them. They’ll just monitor who rejects the qualifying offer and is attached to draft pick compensation. (The Yankees will have to give up their second highest draft pick and $500,000 in international bonus money each time they sign a qualified free agent this winter.)

Monday, November 12th to Thursday, November 15th: Major award winners announced It Manager of the Year on Monday, Rookie of the Year on Tuesday, Cy Young on Wednesday, and MVP on Thursday. Andujar and Torres both have a chance to be named Rookie of the Year. Maybe they’ll tie in the voting and be named co-Rookies of the Year! That’d be neat. But yeah, Ohtani’s gonna win. Sorry folks. All the awards are announced live during an MLB Network broadcast.

Andujar and Torres. (Presswire)

Wednesday, November 14th to Thursday, November 15th: Owners meetings in Atlanta A bunch of rich guys get together to talk about how rich they are and figure out ways to get even richer. They squeeze in some baseball talk if time allows. Nothing exciting happens here from a hot stove perspective, usually.

Tuesday, November 20th: Rule 5 Draft protection deadline The Yankees got a head start on their Rule 5 Draft protection this year when they called up Chance Adams, Justus Sheffield, and Stephen Tarpley during the season. Also, Rule 5 Draft eligible prospects Cody Carroll, Juan De Paula, Josh Rogers, and Dillon Tate were traded away at the deadline.

Generally speaking, college players drafted no later than 2015 and high school players drafted no later than 2014 are Rule 5 Draft eligible this winter, as are international free agents signed no later than 2014. Here are the Yankees’ notable Rule 5 Draft eligible prospects:

Catchers: Jason Lopez

Infielders: Diego Castillo, Dermis Garcia, Kyle Holder, Hoy Jun Park, Brandon Wagner

Outfielders: Trey Amburgey, Pablo Olivares

Pitchers: Nick Green, James Reeves, Erik Swanson

The Yankees will have four open 40-man roster spots once free agents are removed from the roster and 60-day DL guys are activated. It’ll be five spots if Gardner’s option is declined. I think Holder and Swanson are locks to be added to the 40-man with Amburgey, Green, and Wagner on the bubble. There’s always a chance for a surprise 40-man roster addition too, like Jonathan Loaisiga last year. He was much more highly regarded than I know I realized.

Keep in mind the Yankees can’t just load up their 40-man roster with Rule 5 Draft prospects. They have eight players becoming free agents, right? Well, those eight players have to be replaced, so those roster spots will be needed.

Monday, November 26th to Thursday, November 29th: MLBPA executive board meeting in Dallas The MLBPA is preparing for a labor war. The union made two high profile additions in recent weeks, which suggests they’re ready to dig in and make some demands in the next round of Collective Bargaining Agreement talks. Fortunately the current CBA does not expire until December 2021, so a work stoppage is not imminent. But this is the MLBPA’s first executive board meeting since the free agent hell of last offseason. Their CBA planning starts in earnest here.

Friday, November 30th: Non-tender deadline The non-tender deadline is usually December 2nd, but December 2nd is a Sunday this year, so MLB moved it up to the prior business day. On this date teams have to tender their pre-arbitration and arbitration-eligible players a contract for the 2019 season. They don’t have to sign them, they just have to make a contract offer. Players who don’t receive a contract offer become free agents. They are considered … wait for it … non-tendered.

The Yankees could be in for an interesting non-tender deadline. Would they non-tender Didi Gregorius rather than pay him a projected $12.4M to rehab from Tommy John surgery next year, only to have him become a free agent after the season? Would they non-tender Sonny Gray and his projected $9.1M salary if they can’t find a trade partner? What about Tommy Kahnle? Is he so far gone that the Yankees dump him and his $1.5M projected salary?

Aside from those guys, I think the Yankees might try the non-tender/re-sign trick with Heller. They’ve non-tendered young players coming off injury and re-signed them to a minor league contract several times in the past, most notably with Domingo German and Vicente Campos. Heller’s rehabbing from Tommy John surgery and the non-tender is a way to get him off the 40-man roster and keep him in the organization without exposing him to waivers.

Monday, December 9th to Thursday, December 13th: Winter Meetings in Las Vegas The busiest week of the offseason, historically. This is when most major free agent signings and trades will take place. That was the case for years and years and years. How will things play out this offseason? After last winter, I could see teams waiting out free agents because it proved to be so effective last year. There were some great bargains to be had in January and February. In all likelihood the Winter Meetings will be packed with hot stove action (if not trades and signings, then at least rumors) because the Winter Meetings are always packed with hot stove action. Should be fun.

Monday, December 9th: Hall of Fame Today’s Game committee announcement The Hall of Fame replaced the old Veterans Committee with four “eras” committees a few years back: Early Baseball (pre-1950), Golden Days (1950-69), Modern Baseball (1970-87), and Today’s Game (1988 to present). The committees meet every few years in irregular intervals to vote on players who fell off the BBWAA ballot, and this winter the Today’s Game committee is up. It’s hard to know who will and who won’t be on the ballot, but the folks at Hall of Stats came up with some names. Former Yankees David Cone and Jimmy Key are among them.

Thursday, December 13th: Rule 5 Draft As a reminder, players selected in the Rule 5 Draft must remain on their new team’s 25-man big league roster all next season, or be placed on waivers and offered back to their original team. The Yankees had multiple players selected in each of the last three Rule 5 Drafts and one only (Luis Torrens with the Padres last year) stuck. Even with an underwhelming crop of Rule 5 Draft eligible prospects this winter, it wouldn’t surprise me if the Yankees have multiple players selected again. Upper level bullpen arms like Joe Harvey and Raynel Espinal could interest a team enough to get a Spring Training look.

The Yankees have not made a Rule 5 Draft pick since taking Cesar Cabral and Brad Meyers in 2011. Depending on their 40-man roster situation offseason, I think the chances of the Yankees making a Rule 5 Draft pick this year are better than they have been in years. Maybe they’ll look for a live-armed last guy in the bullpen type or a corner infielder to compete with Luke Voit and Greg Bird at first base in Spring Training. Probably not, but maybe!

Friday, January 11th: Deadline for teams and players to submit salary arbitration figures The player files what he believes he should be paid in 2019 and the team files what they believe the player should be paid in 2019. It’s important to note the two sides could still agree to a contract of any size after filing salary arbitration figures. Generally speaking, most arbitration-eligible players sign before the filing deadline. The Yankees signed all their arbitration-eligibles before the filing deadline last offseason. The same will probably happen this year too. That’s usually how it goes.

Mid-January: BBWAA Hall of Fame class announced Voting results for the 2019 Hall of Fame class will be announced sometime in January. This is a big Hall of Fame year. Know why? Because Mariano Rivera is eligible. He’ll be on the Hall of Fame ballot for the first time this year. Rivera’s going to get voted in, of course, I just wouldn’t expect it to be unanimous. There are 400-something ballots cast each year and inevitably one of them will exclude Rivera. That’s just the way these things go.

Mo. (Al Bello/Getty)

Andy Pettitte joins the Hall of Fame ballot this year as well, though I think he’s a borderline candidate at best. He’ll clear the 5% threshold to remain on the ballot next year but I don’t see him coming close to the 75% needed for induction. Former Yankees Roger Clemens (7th year), Mike Mussina (6th), and Gary Sheffield (5th) return on the ballot. I hope Mussina gets in. His voting percentage has increased from 20.3% to 24.6% to 43.0% to 51.8% to 63.5% in his five years on the ballot. Hopefully he gets over the 75% threshold this year. Here’s the full Hall of Fame ballot.

Friday, February 1st to Wednesday, February 20th: Arbitration hearings The Yankees went to what is now a rather infamous arbitration hearing with Dellin Betances two years ago. Prior to that they hadn’t gone to an arbitration hearing since beating Chien-Ming Wang in 2008. Lots of teams these days are “file-and-trial” clubs, meaning they cut off contract talks after filing salary figures and go to a hearing. That’s designed to put pressure on the player. I don’t think the Yankees are a file-and-trial team though. They signed Aroldis Chapman and Nathan Eovaldi after the filing deadline but before a hearing in 2016. Seems Betances was a special case because the two sides were far apart. As always, I’d bet against a hearing. They’re uncommon and both sides try to avoid them.

Saturday, February 23rd: Grapefruit League play begins The Yankees open their 32-game exhibition schedule with a road game against the (groan) defending World Series champion Red Sox. They play their spring home opener two days later against the Blue Jays in Tampa. The Yankees have not yet announced their reporting dates (those are usually announced in mid-November), but, based on the last few years, pitchers and catchers will report ten days before the Grapefruit League opener (Wednesday, February 13th) and position players will report six days before the Grapefruit League opener (Sunday, February 17th).

Thursday, March 28th: Opening Day! The 2019 regular season beings on March 28th — actually, it begins March 20th in Tokyo, where the Athletics and Mariners are scheduled to play their first two games of the season — and the Yankees will be at home to take on the Orioles. The home opener was snowed out last year and twice in the last three years. I really hope that doesn’t happen again.

Fan Confidence Poll: October 29th, 2018

Source: https://bloghyped.com/the-yankees-and-the-2018-19-offseason-calendar/