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breakingsomething · 4 years ago

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Dawn Station - Part Two

Basic summary: Chase Brody is being kept safe, far away from other people. So he thinks.

Content warnings: gore, body horror, stabbing, emeto, death mentions

Chase Brody is not ok.

Of course he's not. How is he expected to be? Ten people have died, and now he's being told he's next. He's been under police protection for days and judging by the strained snippets of conversation that he's caught from officers, even the others that had been with him are gone. Ten people, they had said. As far as Chase is aware, there were only nine other youtubers who'd been roped into this shit. Who else has this monster that wants them dead killed along with them? Does he even want to know?

He's been in this room for… three days? Four? Fuck, he doesn't remember. All he knows now is white walls, too close around him, with a bed, a tv in the top corner that he doesn't have a remote for, a black bin, a rolling table that's covered in books and other assorted things that he managed to bring with him, and two doors, one of which that leads to a small bathroom and one of which that leads outside. The second door only opens when he's being brought food. No one's telling him anything. He's scared out his mind.

An officer, a pale skinned woman with orange braids and a sympathetic smile, comes in a couple hours after he wakes for the day with breakfast. Toast, cold, with butter slabs and little packets of jam and sugar for his tea. Also cold. "Sorry, we don't have any Weetabix," she tells him with furrowed eyebrows and a sad tilt of the mouth as she clicks the door behind him. "We do have Cheerios and porridge, if you want something more to eat."

It's all he can do not to laugh. "No, thank you," says Chase, in a hoarse voice that hasn't been used in hours. "I want my phone back."

The officer winces. Her eyes are dark, crimson lipstick slightly smudged. Her nametag says "Sarah" on it in violet ink. "I'm sorry," she murmurs, in a voice so soft and falsely sympathetic it makes Chase want to scream. "I don't know if we can do that. We -"

"The others are dead, aren't they?" Chase interrupts. He knows this already. But it's worth saying to see the woman flinch. "All of them. So much for your oh-so-safe "police custody" bullshit."

She attempts to gather herself as professionally as she can, which is seemingly rather difficult. "I'm sorry," she repeats, and something about her tone is more genuine than before. "They are. But I swear to you, Mr Brody, we are doing everything we can to -"

"If I am going to die today," Chase says, interrupting again. "I want to talk to my goddamn family one more fucking time. Please get me my phone."

She stiffens, but gives a jerky little nod. He doesn't smile at her as she leaves. Not much to smile about. But she comes back ten minutes later and wordlessly hands him his slim rose phone, no expression on her face. He manages to upturn the corner of his lips in response.

Once she's left again, he turns his phone on and practically sighs at the sight of his two kids on his lockscreen. Little Connor and Louise, tiny kiddos, dressed up in their pristine school uniforms and grinning cheesily. His heart swells, and he swallows hard as the lump in his throat seems to expand. He can't cry. He's been crying enough lately. To think that two weeks ago, he was ecstatic to be receiving an email from Jack Mcloughlin himself, giving him the opportunity to play his new game's demo early. Look at him now.

Stacy is at the top of his contacts list, but only because he has her favourited still. He's not sure why. It just feels right to have her there. Her picture is a small, grainy image of her face next to a three year old Connor's. He has her looks more than Louise. Louise looks like her dad. She's a daddy's girl. Chase misses her so much it aches, and closes his eyes as he clicks Stacy's number.

She answers almost immediately. "Chase?" she yells, causing him to wince and pull the phone away from his ears. He hears her inhale sharply. "Sorry. Christ, Chase - Where the fuck are you?"

He swallows again, digging his nails into the palm of his hand. His legs are already beginning to bounce. "Police didn't tell you anything, huh," he mutters. "I'm in custody. They're apparently "keeping me safe," but I'm well aware of the fact that the others - Persephone, Rodney, Stanley, and Khia - are. Well." He clears his throat. "Dead."

He says it so matter of factly that you wouldn't know how close he was to tears had you not seen his face.

Stacy shifts, and Chase hears a door slam faintly. Two small voices giggle far off. He bites down on his lip as Stacy talks again. "Yeah. That's… yeah. Chase, I'm sorry. Uh… Jack Mcloughlin's dead too."

Chase sits bolt upright, eyes suddenly wide. "What?"

Stacy sounds alarmed. "I - Yes, did they not tell you? He died maybe two days ago. Same way as all the others. I'm sorry, Chase."

He can't breathe for a moment. Then he's numb and his body settles into cold, unfeeling static.

"Ok," he says flatly. "Great."

"Chase -"

"How are the kids?" he asks before she can finish. He's tired. He's been doing nothing but sleeping and he's tired. "I can hear them in the background, ha. Sounds like a fun time."

He can hear her scratching the space behind her ear. She does that when she's anxious. Nervous habit. She had gotten a little tattoo of a bee there when they were seventeen. It was a dare from their friend Daniel, who had also gotten a tattoo of a crocodile on his left thigh. Chase has a black bear on his right shoulder from the same occasion. When he and Stacy had been together, they would sometimes kiss the other's tattoos and descend into giggles remembering that slightly drunken night back in Ireland. His chest feels tight thinking about it. His eyes glaze over, and he tries to focus on something across the room.

"They're… not great," Stacy murmurs after a moment, making him jump. He had almost forgotten she was there. "Some brat at school told them about - this whole situation. Told them their dad was going to die. Apparently, she made up a song about it."

Chase hisses softly, grateful for another emotion besides grief and missing to focus on. "Fuck's sake. Which kid was this?"

"You know that girl who was making fun of Louise's accent last year and put chips in her hair?"

"That kid again? I thought the school dealt with her."

A sigh. "Apparently not. They came home in tears. I've been keeping them home since then."

Chase shakes his head in disbelief. "Shit, Stace. Can I… can I talk to them?"

She sighs again. "I… I suppose. But - how have you been? I take it its not been great, but are you at least ok?"

What counts as ok? He doesn't know. "I'm not dead yet. So there's something. I guess I can't really say much more than that."

"Papa?" cries a voice on the end of the line, and a grin breaks Chase's face as he recognizes his son, Connor, yelling from somewhere quite close to Stacy. "Is that Papa? Mama, let us talk - Louise, Papa's on the phone!"

Chase can't help but laugh as his daughter also chimes in, two little voices clamoring for his attention. "Calm down, kiddos, there's plenty of me to go round," he grins, pushing his hair back from his face so he can concentrate. "How are you both? One at a time, Louise first."

"Favouritism," he hears Connor sulk, but the boy quiets.

"I'm ok," Louise beams. He can hear her smile, and sees it when he closes his eyes. "I can't go to school cause Megan Penicuik was being mean. We made cookies, though, me and Con-Con! All by ourselves, no help from Mama at all!"

"Now, that's simply not true," he hears Stacy laugh in the background. Chase laughs too, his heart suddenly aching. Something weighs heavy in his chest, but he tries to push it away, feeling sick.

A scuffle on the end of the line, and then it's Connor speaking. "I miss you, Papa!" he cries. "I wanna give you a - a chocolate chip cookie, I have one here." His voice becomes muffled, and Chase hears him chewing. "Yum yum yum. Can we push a cookie down the phone? Like, through the speakers, Mama!"

Chase listens to a small squabble break out, then hears Stacy sigh dramatically. "They're doing just fine," she says, sounding so tired, yet vaguely amused. "I… I hate to say it, but I should probably go. Connor's games club is in half an hour and I haven't gotten ready at all. My makeup's a state." Her voice softens. "Will you be… ok?"

Will he? He doesn't know.

"Stace," he murmurs. His chest feels tight. "I could die. Like, tonight. That's what people are saying. I'm the last one left."

A pause, then Stacy lets out a shaky sigh. "Christ, Chase…"

He gathers his strength. "Listen. Listen, Stace. If I die tonight - I just want you to know how much I love you, ok? Even if we… if we weren't meant to be together anymore. You're one of my best friends, you know? So… take care of the kids. Don't lose yourself. And by god, don't start drinking again."

She gives a choked laugh. "Chase. God, I - Don't fucking die tonight."

He doesn't know how to tell her he won't have a choice.

As soon as the call's ended, he opens up his roommate's contact. He can't stand the echoing silence that seems to go on forever in the minute or so before the ringing starts. He supposes that if tonight is his last night alive, he should say goodbye. Even if it hurts. Even if it makes him feel sick to say it.

He nearly sobs with relief when he hears the line click, and a familiar German accent speak loudly in his ear. "Chase?"

Chase sniffles, laughing softly. "Hey, Henny."

Henrik curses, and something slams. "Mother of God, Chase Brody, do you have any idea - Are you - Fuck, are you alright?"

Good question. "I don't know," he admits, bouncing his leg anxiously, and staring at his chipped black nails. "I mean, I'm… scheduled to die tonight. So probably not. Really, I've been weirdly calm about all this."

Henrik huffs, and Chase can almost picture him getting red in the face, yanking back his hair and staring out the window of their flat with narrowed, pale blue eyes. "They have not done anything about it? Surely it is not possible that a murderer who is killing in patterns cannot be apprehended? You would think that would be easy, especially if you are being held in high security. Motherfucking useless British police. Not that German ones were much better, but Christ -"

Chase cuts him off before he can rant for another five minutes. "How are the others? Are Jackie, Marv and Jem holding up ok?"

Henrik sighs, blowing out his cheeks. "Mhm. Marvin has gone a bit mad. Fucking idiot is spending way too much time online, reading up on your situation. He seems convinced that you are going to die as well. According to Jackie, he spent all of yesterday out of the house and came back saying he had been performing. But Jackie says he had not had any parties scheduled for that day, so he was talking shit."

Chase winces. His friend Marvin is a child's birthday party performer, a magician, and spends a lot of time perfecting fun tricks and illusions to add into his routine. Chase knows how much he enjoys his job. But he also knows that Marvin's habit of spending hours on internet forums and sites, learning things from other performers, can be bad for him. "Christ. I… Goddammit it. How's Jackie coping?"

He hears a microwave go off in the background. Henrik mutters something that Chase can't hear, then keeps talking. "Jackie has been at the gym every day since you were taken in. Overworking himself. He did come round yesterday and, uh, spoke about how scared he was for you. Cried a lot, poor man. I am not good with comforting people, but I tried. He does not know what to do with himself anymore."

This isn't surprising. Chase is well aware of Jackie's habit of overexercising and pushing himself too far when he was angry or upset. "And Jameson?"

Something clatters, like Henrik's rummaging in a cupboard. A fridge opens and slams shut, and then Henrik is back. "He has been round at our flat a lot. Did you know Euan ended things with him? I did not, until he told me the day before yesterday. He was dreadfully upset. The timing was… not great, to say the least. I do not think he is doing too well, but he refuses to accept any of the help I wish to give him. He kept asking about me instead. Really, sometimes I wish he was not such a good actor."

So does Chase. Jameson is never one to be open about his feelings, instead trying to help everyone else first. Chase loves him a lot, but he wishes the filmmaker would be less stubborn and insistent that he was always ok. His heart aches at the thought of Jameson suffering alone, especially now - he and his boyfriend Euan had been so close, as well. The thought that he might never be able to figure out what happened between them hurts. "Me too. God, Hen, me too. Give them all my love though, yeah? Tell Marvin to take some time to do self care, and tell Jackie to take breaks, and tell Jameson to talk to his therapist. And you… don't you overwork yourself either. I know what you're like. Only one cup of coffee a day, dude, remember. Don't make me come over there."

Henrik laughs softly, but there's a sadness to it. "You sound as though you are saying goodbye."

Something stabs into Chase's heart. He tries to catch his breath through the lump in his throat. "Henrik. I'm going to die tonight."

There's a long pause. He can hear Henrik adjusting, rubbing his face and knocking his glasses askew. Maybe he knows his roommate too well. Far too well, maybe well enough that he knows what he'll say next. "There has to be another way."

Chase shakes his head despite Henrik being unable to see him. "No. No, Hen, no. This - this is what's happening, and we can't just… fix it. I wish we could, cause I don't even understand why, and it's so scary, and… God, I wish we could. I have so much left I want to do, and…"

He trails off. Henrik doesn't speak. Chase imagines him pulling the phone away from his face, squeezing his eyes shut and covering his mouth so as not to cry. The image hurts. Chase hurts. He holds the phone tight, aching to be somewhere, anywhere else other than here.

"You know," he says, voice choked as he speaks. "It's ironic how much I wanted to die a few months ago, and now I'm here, and I'm suddenly so scared."

"You are not going to die," Henrik suddenly shouts. There is anger in his voice that Chase knows is not directed at him. "You are not. It will not just all end like that, Chase Brody. I will not let it."

Something hot pricks the backs of Chase's eyes. He swallows hard, his chest tightening, his legs bouncing harder. "Henrik. Henrik, I - I have to go. I have to go. I'm sorry. I love you, dude. You know that? I love you."

"Chase," Henrik practically sobs. "Shit, I love you too. But you are not going to die."

Chase ends the call and throws up in the black bin next to his bed.

Night comes quickly, Chase thinks.

He thinks, because an officer comes to take his phone soon after his call with Henrik ends. He's starting to regret hanging up, but it had to have been what was best. Of course it was what was best. No need to make this hurt so much more than it already does. This is something he has to keep telling himself. No need to make this hurt so much more than it already does.

The officers ask what he wants for dinner that night instead of giving him choices. He gets it. It's a last meal. He takes full advantage of it and orders pepperoni cheese stuffed crust pizza and garlic sticks, his favourite, with barbeque sauce and churros. It all tastes like cardboard. He eats it anyway, because he's bored and his mouth still tastes like vomit and if he's going to die, it's only fitting that he goes out with a Domino's in him.

Before he's even finished eating, an armed guard comes and takes him across the building. It's the first time he's left his room in days, and he's surprised to see how dark it is outside, how little people are around. The few people he does see stare at him, some open mouthed with awe, some with sad eyes like a parent trying to tell their child that their pet fish died. Chase stares at the floor. Stares at the gun tucked into the waistband of the officer in front of him. He's scared, and his heart is racing faster than it has in years, and he thinks he's dissociating a little because he doesn't feel real and his fingertips are numb. Adrenaline thrums through his body, warming him and erasing the painful cold. Fuck, but he's scared. He's so, so goddamn scared.

He's taken to an entirely different room, a slightly bigger one that looks nearly the same, but with wooden chairs sat all around the border. There's no TV in this room. "Sit here," one of the officers says, guiding him to the blue covered bed and gesturing for him to sit. He does so, feeling silly and light with panic. He thinks he's going to be sick again. His breaths aren't coming right and fuck, he might faint from the sudden, overwhelming wave of dizziness that's washing over him now.

One of the officers that has just come in walks over and sits next to him. He's in full uniform, a radio on his vest, a bat strapped to his belt. "Are you alright, Mr Brody?" he asks gently, looking at him with kind brown eyes, and Chase sobs with relief for some kind of comfort.

"H-h-having a p-panic attack," he stammers, shifting on the bed to try and feel something, clawing at his skin under his grey hoodie and desperately trying not to cry. "N-need my - my - my asth-ma in-inhaler, p-please, I can't br-breathe -"

He's brought his inhaler, and he clutches it gratefully, clinging to it like a child. The cold button grounds him. Maybe, maybe if he squeezes his eyes shut tight enough, he'll wake up in his bed at home and be able to get up and shower in a bathroom that's not small or lit too brightly and then he can go downstairs to the kitchen to find Henrik half asleep at the table, three cups of coffee in front of him, wearily participating in whatever Chase's dumb early morning joke is, and then he can eat toast that's not burnt or done too lightly and play his music while he writes or goes on a walk outside. Maybe. Maybe.

The armed guards keep watch over him for two full hours.

Chase Brody is terrified.

It's when it hits the two and a half hour mark that he begins to notice anything different. A faint ringing in his ears. He thinks it's his tinnitus and waves it off, simply swatting at the air around his head like that will help at all. One of the guards notices immediately. "Sir, are you alright?"

Chase nods. He's not, but he doesn't need them dithering over him. Unfortunately, the guard doesn't let up. "Seriously, it's important that you tell us what's happening. Anything at all. Anything that could help you."

Well, that's reassuring. "Strange noise," he murmurs, shaking his hair out his face. "I think it's just me, though, I'm alright -"

But the guard is standing, muttering something into the radio strapped to his chest, and is it Chase's imagination, or are more people entering the room? "What's happening?" he asks, but he gets no response, and he's starting to feel strangely dizzy and tired, like something heavy is dragging his eyelids down. "I don't… h-hey, I don't feel too… too well…"

Someone is speaking to him but the world is already blurring, his head light, floaty. "Stacy?" he slurs, trying to get a grip on the bedsheets beneath him. "Someone needs t'... m'kids, they…"

Chase Brody is no longer in the same room as he was before.

He doesn't know when that changed. He can't pinpoint the exact moment where the walls darkened and raised with pipes and doors and panels, he doesn't know when his bed disappeared beneath him and the floor became sticky and black, he doesn't know when the bright light of his room became a soft blue glow, lighting up the room from behind him. He doesn't know when the room had stretched both ways into a long hallway, lined with slivers of light through the windows. He doesn't know why, when he stands, his legs nearly crumple beneath him. And when he turns - god, when he turns, and he looks out the enormous windows behind him - he doesn't know why a calming sensation of numbness settles over him, burning his skin like pins and needles.

He is staring out at the vast abyss of space.

It's a blackness he's never seen before. It seems to go on forever, and maybe it does, and there is nothing but tiny pinpricks of silver light of gaseous stars piercing the inky nothingness. Nothing but that, and the ball of green and blue that Chase knows, somewhere in his mind. Earth. Earth, where he is and isn't, where his body should be, where he never left, and what kind of nightmare is this? What kind of sick nightmare, he thinks dizzily, his thoughts chugging slowly as though through a thick soup. Everything is spinning. There is no sound, the world is broken, and the space is fucking endless.

Move, says the tiny part of his brain that still has sense. Get out. Get out.

His footsteps echo on the metal panes of the floor, and he resists the tightening urge in his stomach to vomit.

He doesn't know why this place is familiar.

The hallway seems to go on forever. All the doors along the way to the left have small, glowing panels beside them that seem to demand some type of access keycard, which Chase very much does not have. Eventually he reaches one that he can open, and stumbles into a large room with a table in the centre, the walls covered in photos and clippings that he doesn't bother taking closer looks at. There is only one small window in here, over a sleek black couch that seems to have nearly been shredded right through the middle. The table has a bolted down chair and a large pile of papers next to a cracked laptop that splutters weakly as it asks for a password. The room is too dark. Chase slowly walks through it, wincing at the sound his boots make on the floor, wincing at the silence, heart racing with the promise of another panic attack that he pushes down forcefully, gripping his own wrist for support. This isn't right, screams the universe. This is too familiar. This is too real. This is too familiar to be real.

Chase has noticed that everything in this place, despite its immediate appearance of immaculate properness, seems to be slightly out of place. This becomes more apparent in the room adjacent to the one he'd just been in, a room filled with sealed metal crates and boilers that bubble menacingly from their perches on the walls, a room which has clearly been nearly destroyed. Black claw marks have torn out chunks of the walls, wires ripped from the floor, buzzing weakly and sparking from wherever they were thrown after their violent uprooting. Dark red stains splash across the floor like a tragic painting that makes Chase's stomach upturn sickly. A vent on the ceiling hisses, and the man jumps and bolts, all last dregs of courage leaving him in an instant. He knows this is a dream. This is a dream, nothing is real, nothing is real, it must be just a dream.

"I've gone to hell," he sobs aloud, clamping both hands over his mouth as a cry climbs up his throat. "O-oh my god, I've gone to hell."

This is what you get for being a shitty, alcoholic dad and husband, he thinks, and promptly throws up on the floor next to the fresh bloodstains.

The rooms start to blur. Objects to objects, light to light, black walls and coloured glow and sparks, hissing, echoing rumbles, all becoming one in Chase's mind. He's long gone past the stage of a panic attack; he's in a state of utter numb calm, now. In one room he finds a long, black lighter and holds it tightly in his hands for comfort, twisting it round and round in buzzing fingers just to feel something solid against his skin to ground him. Please, he prays softly, wiping sweat from his forehead, struggling to breathe as his chest tightens and the world seems to grow hotter and smaller. Please, let me wake up, let me wake up from this, please.

And then something is standing behind him.

He doesn't know how he knows. It's just a sensation of silent shock in him, of I am not alone, a stabbing feeling as the hairs on the back of his neck rise. Something is there. He feels eyes on him. He can't - fuck, he can't move, and all the emotion in him seems to be rising to a painful crescendo. I am not alone in here. I am not alone in here.

"Who's there," he says in a small, cracked voice, not daring to turn. It's barely a question. "What do you want from me."

Nothing but a low hissing, and, most frightening of all, a rumbling growl that nearly sends Chase to the floor in a faint.

He has to look.

He looks.

It's an… an astronaut.

Neither of them move, and Chase's grip on the lighter in his hands tightens, trying to find some form of comfort, anything. "Why am I here?" he manages, swallowing back hot bile that burns his throat and makes him gag softly. "Why, why, what nightmare is this? Am I dead? Did the killer get me and this is my hell?"

The astronaut is silent.

Fury bubbles in Chase's chest, overriding the fear for a moment. "Talk!" he shouts, perhaps stupidly, but he doesn't care. "Please! What is happening?"

Then things get perhaps even stranger, somehow. A glowing 2D box of light appears in front of the astronaut, hovering in the air, too quiet until black text begins to appear on it, cartoonishly video game like blooping noises playing with each letter. Chase watches in awe. He's unable to speak.

<TheAnti.chr_v09> You are the Player.

Chase reads the words over and over and over.

"My name is Chase Brody," he says, voice wavering with uncertainty, because something here is wrong, wrong, wrong, so ridiculously wrong, and he hates the way things are clicking in his mind. "I shouldn't - be here. I think I'm dreaming and I want to go home."

The text flashes.

<TheAnti.chr_v09> You are <player_variable_BroAverage>. You are the Player.

Chase feels like he's above his body, like nothing he's seeing is real anymore. "Please let me go home."

<TheAnti.chr_v09> I am <TheAnti.chr_v09>. I am the Anti. You are the player. Player objective: escape. Anti objective: kill the Player. Initialization - Upon game startup, play <soundtrack_opening2>, set spawn and character sprites -

Chase can't take this. "Stop it!" he cries, and he shouldn't step forwards so confidently, but he does, slashing his hand through the air in front of him. "Tell me what you -"

The astronaut explodes.

No. No, it doesn't explode; Chase's mind is taking a moment to make sense of it, to rationalize the way the helmet has shattered and there is nothing but sheer white and glowing green eyes, hundreds of them, underneath, the largest one on the being's neck, splitting open with disgustingly inhuman squelching sounds, and the way the suit has torn and a mouth has opened up on the stomach, a gaping maw with knives for teeth and a slimy crimson tongue, and the way rips open along the material and more eyes open, burning red skin like charred meat, black veins rising under its skin. It hisses and cracks and growls and hums and it isn't like anything Chase has ever seen before, or maybe it is, because he knows this monster. He's seen this monster. And fuck, now he knows why this world is familiar, because he's been here, he's played this game. This can't be real. This can't be real.

"Posttraumatic nightmares," he can hear Henrik saying to him, the man's voice comforting. "Nightmares that occur after a traumatic event and can contain, what is the word… recurring themes that make you experience intense negative emotions. Maybe that is why you are having such strange dreams, my friend. You have been through a lot in these past few weeks."

That had been months ago. I thought I got over those dreams. I thought I got over those dreams.

He's running. His legs are already burning, chest already tight, why did he have to have used all his energy on his panic attack? Is the monster still following him? Chase can't turn to check, and the blood in his veins is racing through his body faster than he's used to, his heart in his ears as he flies round a corner, barely able to catch a breath. This isn't real, he thinks. It's another nightmare. Please, this isn't real, this isn't -

And then something wet is snaking round his chest, pulsing in a way that makes Chase gag, and something sharp presses into the skin on his back and a burst of numbness runs over him like cold water, causing his body to go limp against the alien - because it is an alien, isn't it, he knew this already - behind him. Cold heaviness seeps through his veins, combatting the light weightlessness that the adrenaline was giving him. He tries to cough again, to speak as his lungs empty of air, but the alien only grips his arms tight enough to piece his skin with sharp claw-like fingers. A glance down at his chest, and he sees the tip of the bloodstained rod jutting through his skin. It doesn't really register. A light laugh escapes his lips, because it's funny, really, how he's about to die at the hands of a video game antagonist.

No, he's not about to die. This isn't real. It can't be, it's another bad dream, of course it is. But if it's not real, then what happened to Jack Mcloughlin and the others, all of those… all of…

The world spins.

And the world lights up in flames.

Chase had briefly forgotten about the lighter he'd picked up for support, and now he's putting it to good use; one flick of the switch and the alien is alight as though it had been soaked in gasoline, burning orange spreading across its suit, the crackling drowning out the monster's screeches. Its grip loosens on Chase's arms, and he pulls free, and the universe spins as the rod in his chest slips out like it's nothing, leaving a gaping emptiness in him. Please, he screams, in his mind or out loud, he doesn't know. Please. Please.

Please, wake me up.

White light. It floods the whole world, for just a moment, and then Chase's eyes are open and he is gasping for air, hands flying to his chest and feeling nothing but the soft material of his shirt, no pain except for the squeeze of his lungs as he coughs desperately into his sleeve. There are people surrounding him now; the police officers and armed guards from before, helping him sit up, holding a sick bucket in front of him as he throws up the little that's left in his stomach weakly, too much noise but nowhere near as bad as the silence of the Dawn Station. Nowhere near as bad as the hissing creaks of the Anti. Nowhere near as bad as his nightmare, because it was a nightmare, of course that wasn't real - nowhere near as bad as the nightmare that he'd thought was going to kill him.

I lived. I survived the night.

He's had this thought before, but this time, it's met with relief.

"You dreamed about the setting of a video game."

"Not just any video game. The, uh… the new Jack Mcloughlin game, Dawn Station. All the people who played the demo… died. I didn't die. The night I was supposed to, after all the others, I - I dreamed about the game. And the antagonist of the game. It's this, uh, this alien thing, in an astronaut suit. Tried to kill me. Apparently it's weak to fire, although I don't remember that from the actual game, maybe it was a secret that wasn't in the demo we were all sent, but I burned it, and it stabbed me, and I got away, not - not in that order. Does that… does that make sense, doctor?"

Dr. Ross scrutinizes Chase for a moment before turning his chair back to face his computer. The sound of his mouse clicking fills the room, off beat from the eternal clicking of the plain white clock on the plain white walls, decorated only with bookshelves and trays of medicines. Chase has never been in a more boring doctor's office. Usually his therapy sessions have more to look at, but this is a different therapist than he normally goes to, and all he can do is fidget with his hands on his lap and stare out the window at the

earth, the stars, the black abyss of emptiness that Chase could get lost in and never be found

setting sun through the trees just outside the building. The doctor's pen clicks, clicks, clicks. It sounds like the Anti's teeth, chattering against each other as it yawns, its maw opening wide enough for a head to be torn right off. Click, click, click. Chase closes his eyes, the repeating sounds like a mantra. He focuses on that instead. It grounds him.

"You have a history of nightmares."

Chase nods without looking. "I was prescribed triazolam by my first therapist. I took them for a year or so without changes except the lowering of doses a couple of times, because I was getting weaned off them. They helped. Nightmares didn't continue after that."

The other man nods slowly. "Hm. I can imagine the trauma of this recent event that you've been through was enough to bring these nightmares back to the forefront of your mind, especially given the contents of this dream in particular. We may have to ease you back onto medication over the course of your next few sessions here, which should be easier, given that it'll be a couple weeks before we send you home. Is that alright, Mr Brody?"

Click, click, click. Chase nods. Sunlight warms his face, and he sighs softly. "Sounds good, Dr. Ross. When will I be able to see my family?"

The man frowns, his forehead creasing. "Hopefully soon, although it will be slightly complicated, given the circumstances." A breath leaves him, and he tilts his head to the side slightly. His white collar digs into the fold of his neck. Chase keeps his eyes trained on that. "And these are strange circumstances, are they not?"

"They are," Chase mutters. He clenches his fists in his lap. "They are, yeah."

He should have died. He doesn't know why he didn't die. He doesn't even know what it was that killed the others. Really, the nightmare he'd had makes sense. It was easily written off as a traumatic event that had brought back old nightmares. Of course there was no way any of it had been real. That's ridiculous. Just ridiculous. He doesn't know why he's thinking that.

His hand trails down his shirt. Underneath, on the skin of his stomach, is a thick scar that hadn't been there before the nightmare he'd had. Right where the rod had pierced his stomach.

Coincidence. Coincidence.

"Do you have any other concerns, Mr Brody?"

"I don't believe so."

"Good."

Click. Click. Click.

#boop writes #jacksepticeye #chase brody #henrik von schneeplestein #antisepticeye #dawn station

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oliviastan17 · 5 years ago

Text

Stuck (1/?)

Warnings: Language, floofy fluff

Length: 4.6k

A/n: There was so much in this dream that was so specific to me so I made it x ofc. My job, my best friend, my tattoo, my first kiss, etc. It starts off slow but keep reading because it does pick up. I’m a little nervous about this one, not gonna lie! Please reblog and leave comments because that makes me smile! DO NOT POST TO ANY OTHER WEBSITE! Gifs are not mine.Smut will come in later chapters (most likely next chapter)!

Remember this dancing for later in the story!

The elevator doors opened on the second floor to reveal a woman wearing navy blue scrubs with long dark brown hair and the greenest eyes Sebastian had ever seen. She gave him a quick smile as she stepped inside. After she saw the ground floor button was already pressed she leaned against the wall and opened the book she was carrying. She doesn’t have her eyes glued on her phone like most people do and he is immediately intrigued. His curiosity intensifies when he sees that he has also read the book in her hands.

The elevator is working fine until it jerks and suddenly comes to a stop. She stumbled back and he reached to place his hand on her back so she wouldn’t fall. She dropped her book to reach out and grab on to his arm out of instinct.

“Are you okay?” he asked her.

“Um…yeah, thanks. We’re not moving anymore, are we?” she said still holding on to his arm.

“I don’t think so,” he said as he pushed a couple of buttons. None of them lit up and the doors stayed closed.

“Shit,” she whispered as she looked at her watch.

“Should I call for help?” he asked pointing to the phone in the elevator.

“Yeah, I think so.”

Sebastian pushed the elevator call button and someone from the hospital’s maintenance staff answered. They informed the two occupants that it could take anywhere from 1-3 hours to be rescued.

“I need to call my charge nurse,” Liv said more to herself than to Sebastian as she took her phone out of her pocket and dialed. “Hey Sam, it’s Liv. I’m stuck in the elevator and they said it could take 1-3 hours for me to get out…No, I’m not kidding…Yeah, I’ll keep you updated…Okay, bye.”

Liv took a deep breath and then sat down.

“Three hours? I really wish I would have brought my lunch today,” Liv said as she smiled and rubbed her stomach. “I’m gonna need you to distract me from my hunger."

"I can do that. I’m Sebastian," he said as he sat down against the opposite wall.

“Liv,” she said as he glanced at her ID badge with her name and RN proudly displayed.

“So did you always want to be a nurse?”

“Well, when I was a kid I wanted to be a marine biologist but that was going to be hard to do in Arizona you know, so I let go of that dream. Then in college I was just taking like normal pre req’s for pretty much anything and I saw a group of nursing students all hanging out in their scrubs and I thought, ‘Those look so comfortable. I could wear scrubs every day.’ And it turns out I love it so,” she said shrugging her shoulders.

“Wearing scrubs or being a nurse?”

“Both actually,” she said with a smile.

“They do look comfortable. What’s on your socks?”

She lifted her pant leg so he could read the whole quote which was ‘Carpe the fuck out of this diem.’

“Plain socks are just so boring,” she said eyeing his plain black ankle cut socks peaking out of his shoes.

“Yeah, well all my fun ones are in the laundry so…”

“Sure they are,” she said with a laugh and a smile.

"So you lived in Arizona? When did you move here?"

"I was 16. Are you from New York?"

"No, I was born in Romania, moved to Vienna for a little bit and then came here when I was 12."

“That’s so much more classy than Arizona,” she said with a laugh. “Do you still know Romanian or German?”

“Romanian yes, thanks to my mom.”

“Teach me something in Romanian.”

He thought for a moment and then said, “Zambetul tau este frumos.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means your smile is beautiful.”

“Well, thank you but I was thinking more along the lines of something I could say daily,” she replied with a laugh.

“Just thought I’d put that out there,” he said smiling. “What do you want to know?”

“How do you say fuck?”

“La dracu.”

“La dracu?”

He nodded his head yes.

“La dracu, la dracu, la dracu. I’m a strong believer you should know how to curse in more than one language. That way most people won’t know what you said.”

“They probably won’t. It’s not the most common language over here.”

"Do you miss Romania?”

“I don’t really remember what it was like to be honest. I was so young when we left, you know. I went back a few years ago for work and nothing looked familiar. ”

“I've never even been out of the US."

"If you could travel anywhere, where would you want to go?"

"Oh, I don’t know…Australia seems fun. Have you been there?"

"No, I have not. If we ever get out of here we should go," he suggested with a charming smile.

"Just let me know when you're free and I'll request time off.”

He jokingly pulled out his phone and started scrolling, then asked, “How is 2 weeks from today?”

“I need little bit more warning than 2 weeks,” she laughed. “What work sent you back to Romania?"

"I’m an actor and I was there for film festival," he said after taking a deep breath.

"Oh, wow! Been in anything I would have seen?"

"I don’t know. I really haven’t done that much. A few movies, a couple plays."

“Come on. If I looked you up, what would it say was your most successful role?”

“Probably Bucky from the Captain America movies,” he said while he rubbed the stubble on his chin.

“Why are you being so modest? That’s a big deal! Those movies are huge.”

“Yeah, well…..I don’t know,” he said as he shrugged his shoulders and brought his hand up to rub his right eyebrow.

"You know, I took my nephew to see Endgame but I had no idea what was going on. Like people were clapping and cheering and crying. I mean, it was like being at a football game with my family,” she laughed. “Were you in that one?"

He shook his head yes.

"Really?"

"And apparently my performance was memorable," he said as he dramatically wiped away an imaginary tear.

"Oh my god, I'm sorry!” she said bringing her hands up to cover her mouth. “There was so much going on. I barely retained anything!"

"I'm just teasing you. I had a pretty small part. And a wig.”

"Oh, I feel bad now! I’m sure you were great!"

"No, really I'm just kidding. Don't feel bad," he said placing his hand on her outstretched leg for just a second.

"Did you always want to be an actor? Like when you were a kid and stuff?"

"No, I went through an astronaut phase for a while."

“Just a phase?”

“Well, I mean I still think it would be incredible. I think it would be so cool to be up there floating in space and looking down at the earth, you know? Explore places nobody has been before.”

“Serious question,” Liv said and then paused for dramatic effect. “Do you believe in aliens?”

“Absolutely. Do you?”

“100%.”

“There’s no way we are the only living beings in the whole universe, you know?”

“Oh I completely agree,” she said sitting up straighter. “Do you think we are the smartest ones out there or the dumbest ones?”

“Maybe somewhere in the middle. I mean, we’re definitely not the smartest because well, look at the president,” Sebastian said rolling his eyes. “Sorry, didn’t mean to get political. That just came out.”

“You shouldn’t apologize for speaking the truth,” she said giving him a smile that stopped his breathing.

Liv’s phone started buzzing on the floor between them and he noticed the caller ID said Hubby.

“You are not going to believe where I am,” she said into the phone.

“You’re stuck in an elevator. They floated me over to cover for you. You okay?”

“Oh, yeah I’m just sitting here with my new friend Sebastian. Talking about aliens.”

“Is he cute?”

“Actually, yeah,” Liv said darting her eyes to Sebastian. “And I think he can hear you because he is blushing now,” she said with a laugh.

“Take a picture and send it to me.”

“No, Alex I’m not going to take a picture.”

“Bitch, I said take a picture!”

“Goodbye Alex,” she said and then hung up the phone.

“Does your husband always call you a bitch?” Sebastian asked confused. “Sorry, I saw the caller ID.”

“He’s my gay/work husband and yes he does. Bitch is a term of endearment to him,” she explained while rolling her eyes.

“He’s a nurse too?”

“Yeah, we went to school together. You know what, he is actually a huge Marvel fan. Shit, I’m sorry but I am going to need a picture after all. I may not know who you are but I can guarantee you he does. Do you mind?”

“Not at all,” he said scooting over from the other side of the elevator so their backs were against the same wall. He would take any excuse to get closer to her.

“Okay, ready?” Liv asked shuffling closer and holding her phone up to take a selfie. They took 3 pictures total. One normal, one with funny faces, and one he snapped mid laugh after he picked up her phone when she dropped it. She had accidentally said, “Shit! I mean la dracula! No, wait that doesn’t sound right!”

The last one was his favorite. She had her eyes closed, head tilted slightly down and away from Sebastian with a huge smile while he looked at her with an adoring smile that crinkled his eyes. If someone saw that picture they would assume these two were a couple and hadn’t just met less than 30 minutes ago.

“Here you go,” he asked as he handed the phone back to her.

“Thank you. I’ll send one to him when you are safely away. If I do it now my patients might get abandoned for the second time today.”

“Do you-“

He was cut off by the elevator making a very strange screeching noise followed by a loud bang.

“That’s not super comforting,” Sebastian said looking up at the now blinking lights.

“No, it’s not.”

“Let’s keep the distractions coming,” he suggested.

“Why are you at the hospital? Oh shit, that’s probably too personal. Skip that one. Um…”

“No, it’s okay. I’m just here visiting a friend. He’s going to be fine.”

“Oh, that’s good.”

“Hey, I’ve always wondered this. How do you take a blood pressure?”

“Well, you put the cuff on and push the button on the machine,” she answered smiling.

He closed his eyes, tilted his head to the side and smiled. “I meant what are you listening for with the thing?” he said referring to her stethoscope.

“I know, I’m just being a smartass,” she laughed. “You pump the cuff up and watch the gauge while you slowly deflate it. You listen for when you hear the heartbeat and that’s the top number and then the bottom number is when the heartbeat disappears.”

While Liv was talking, she made a few hand gestures and he noticed a tattoo on her right wrist.

“What’s that?”

She pulled up the sleeve of her sweatshirt to reveal an angel made up entirely of delicate swirly lines.

“You have any?” she asked him.

“No. I think I would have a hard time deciding what to get, you know. And didn’t it hurt?”

“It’s not that bad after a night of partying in Las Vegas. Barely felt a thing.”

“That’s another place I have never been to.”

“You’ve never been to Las Vegas? Okay, first we go to Australia, then next is Vegas.”

“Can we go to Japan after? Always wanted to go there too.”

“Oh, yeah! Of course!”

Sebastian wondered why his dates never were as much fun as being stuck in an elevator with her. He could listen to Liv talk endlessly no matter the subject. He wasn’t exactly looking forward to getting out of the elevator and was wondering if he was a bad person for secretly hoping it would take longer than 3 hours for help to arrive. He barely knew her but he was already hooked.

---------

“Okay, I have a question. I’ve seen all these interviews of actors like talking about how weird it is to film kissing or sex scenes. Is it really that weird or do you secretly enjoy it?”

He tilts his head back and laughed.

“No, I wouldn’t say I enjoy them but some are less awkward than others. I kind of compare it to a first kiss. I mean, it can be extremely awkward and uncomfortable and you never know if you are doing it right like the director wants.”

“What was your first kiss like?”

“I’m pretty sure it was bad on my part,” he said with a laugh. “I was maybe 10 or 11. It happened with my neighbor on the way to school and she was a lot older than me.”

“You had game all the way back then? What happened?” Liv asked jokingly.

“I ask myself that all the time,” he said laughing. “What about your first?”

“I was 11 or 12 I think. My crush found a balled up piece of paper my friends and I were playing MASH on and he saw his name in the list of potential spouses. He walked right up to me and asked if I liked him and I said yes and then he kissed me.”

“What’s MASH?”

“You have never played MASH? Mansion, apartment, shack, house?”

“I’ve never even heard of that. What is it?”

“Oh my god, how have you gotten this far in life and never played MASH?” Liv asked as she reached in her pockets and pulled out some paper and her pen. “It’s totally stupid but we’re doing it.”

“It’s not like we don’t have time to kill.”

“Okay, so we need some categories. We need a spouse, occupation, number of kids, pet, where to live,” she said writing the categories down. “And we need 4 for each of these categories. We’ll do mine first so you can see how it’s done. You get to pick two for me for each category but I don’t get to see what you pick so you get to write. That’s how my friends and I did it anyways.”

“Okay,” he said taking the pen from her and ever so lightly brushing his fingers on her skin. “Spouse?”

“I like that guy from The Office. John Krasinski. He seems nice,” she said and then thought for a bit on her second choice while Sebastian wrote in his two picks. “Oh! My girl crush, Kristen Bell.”

“Okay, what about occupation?”

“Professional puppy namer.”

“I think if that were a real job, it would really suit you,” he said smiling.

“And koala wrangler.”

“Practice for when we are in Australia. Good thinking. Number of kids?”

“Eleven and 9.68.”

Sebastian finished writing in his picks and her answers to all the categories. The answers Liv gave him only made her more interesting to him. They were unique and fun, just like her.

“Okay so start drawing a spiral and I’ll tell you when to stop.”

He started to draw and then stopped and counted the amount of lines from the top to the bottom. He went through the all the categories marking out the answer he landed on each time he counted to that number until there was only one left for each category.

“Are you ready?”

“Yaaasss! I’m so ready!”

“Liv, you are a model married to me living in a shack on the moon with our 18 children and our pet alligator.”

“Oh, I love that! I’m a little bummed I’m not a professional puppy namer to be completely honest but I trust the MASH gods.”

“You are too beautiful to not be a model.”

“Look at you,” Liv said as she took the paper and pen he was handing her. “Maybe you didn’t use up all your game on your first kiss after all.”

“Maybe not. Is it working?” he said flashing his charming smile.

“Maybe a little bit. But we need to see who the MASH gods put you with.”

Liv wrote out the same categories for Sebastian and they went through filling each one out.

“Sebastian, are you ready to know your future?”

“I think so.”

“Sebastian you are stripper married to me. We live at the North Pole in a mansion with our 84 children and our pet three-headed lobster.”

“You put down stripper and 84 children?” he asked laughing.

“Yeah, I’m kind of regretting the 84 children. That part really sucks for me. But you must be a really good stripper to provide me and your children a mansion to live in. So thank you.”

“Well, I do what I can, you know?” he said with a little laugh. “It seems like the MASH gods think we should get together.”

“Yeah well they have also thought I should be with Lance Bass and that is obviously not going to happen.”

“You're not going to make this easy for me are you?”

“Where's the fun in making it easy?” she said with a mischievous smile.

He just smiled back at her, licked his lips and nodded his head. He liked a challenge.

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

The next 2 hours consisted of games and Sebastian’s shameless flirting. Conversation came easy and there were no awkward silences. She thought he was funny, extremely charming and handsome. He loved how confident she was and thought she was witty and sexy, even in scrubs. Well especially in scrubs. Liv had stood up at one point to stretch her legs and as she did his eyes went straight to her lower back where he noticed the top of her black lacy underwear peaking out of her low riding scrub bottoms. He only spent 30 minutes thinking about what kind of cut they were. Thirty minutes isn’t a lot of time right?

“Hobbies? What do you like to do?” Liv asked as she drew her line in connect the dots.

“Uh I read a lot, sometimes I write. Uh…go to the gym? Is that a hobby?” he looked up at Liv after his turn.

“Yeah, I think so.”

“Um…you know, hang out with friends, make little short movies sometimes. You?”

“I do yoga or I go for a run almost every day. I go to Target at least once a week and just walk around. I don’t care what you say. That is a legitimate hobby.”

“You just walk around?”

“Yeah, and I buy shit I don’t need and will never use.”

“Oh, I do that all the time so add that one on to my list. What else?”

“Uh, I used to dance.”

“Really? Show me some moves.”

“No, not gonna happen,” she said with a small laugh. “I didn’t say I was good! Besides there’s barely enough room to slow dance in here.”

“Well then let’s slow dance,” he said standing up and offering his hand to Liv.

“I’m perfectly content playing connect the dots.”

“Please? Tell you what, we’ll play rock paper scissors. If I win, we are dancing. Two out of three,” he said kneeling down and putting his hands in position to play.

Liv took a deep breath and she placed her fist on the palm of her other hand. First round, rock beats scissors. Sebastian won. Second round, paper beats rock. Liv won. Third round, paper beats rock. Sebastian won.

He stood up, threw both of his arms up in victory and then offered his hand to Liv. She playfully rolled her eyes, then placed her hand in his and let him help her up.

“We need music,” he said pulling his phone out of his pocket.

“I can’t believe you’re making me do this.”

“Here we go,” he said as “Baby Got Back” started playing on his phone.

He started doing a dance move that showed just how much of a dork he was and Liv couldn’t stop herself from laughing.

“I’m kidding,” he said as the song turned off and “All My Life” started playing.

“That’s just on your everyday playlist?”

“No, I don’t think I’ve heard it since my prom actually,” he said wrapping an arm around Liv’s waist and the other out to hold her hand.

“Don’t move,” Liv said as she took his face in her hands and starred the stubble on his chin. “Oh, it’s just the new gray hairs you grew because this song is old as fuck.”

Sebastian tried to hold back a laugh but couldn’t. “You know, if I didn’t find you so incredibly fascinating, I would really be hurt by that comment,” he said faking being offended while he wrapped his arm back around her waist and then started leading the dance.

“I’m kidding!” she promised him while still laughing. “I actually like your gray patch. The whole salt and pepper hair look is sexy.”

He smiled and licked his lips. It was a habit he had that Liv found unbelievably attractive.

“So you think I’m sexy?”

“Not you. Just this little gray area,” she joked pointing to his chin.

“You like me and you know it.”

“So, your prom. Good memory?” she asked changing the subject.

He laughed at her changing the subject then said, “No, not really. I’ll be replacing it with this one,” he said as he spun her.

“What happened?”

“My date ditched me so I was standing there all alone watching everyone else dance.”

“What a bitch!”

“Like I said, I’ll be replacing that memory with this one,” he said looking down at Liv with a smile. “When is the last time you danced with someone?”

“That bad?”

“No, I’m just curious.”

“I think it was probably at my sister’s wedding 2 years ago.”

“Who’d you dance with?”

“One of the groomsmen. I’ll be replacing that memory with this one,” she said looking up at him.

Sebastian smiled and nodded his head. “See? It’s a good thing I’m making you dance then, huh?”

“There may be an upside.”

Sebastian spun Liv again and instead of continuing the dance he decided to dip her. She wasn’t expecting it and the movement made her grip onto him tighter. Their eyes were locked on each other as he brought her back up. He was leading the dance much slower now to the point where they were barely moving. He darted his eyes to her slightly parted lips and back up to her emerald eyes. Sebastian leaned in slowly and very lightly pressed his lips against hers.

The very moment their lips touched was mind-blowing. A blanket of warmth spread over both of them as they melted together. Her hand was gently grazing the back of his neck giving him chills. The rough feeling of his stubble against her face was surprisingly appealing. He was hopelessly addicted now and wasn’t sure how he was going to be able to stop.

Their lips were moving together like they were made for each other. What started off as a soft kiss eventually turned into a hungry kiss. Liv stood up on her tip toes (she was quite a bit shorter than him) desperately wanting to devour all of him. He bent his knees to dip down and tightened his embrace around her waist before lifting her up. She wrapped her legs around his waist immediately, almost as if they had done this exact move before. He took 2 steps forward and that put Liv’s back against the wall.

If it weren’t for the elevator suddenly coming back to life they would probably still be wrapped in each other’s arms. Instead, the kiss came to an end as their lips left each other. With Sebastian still holding Liv up so that she matched his height, they looked at one another and laughed at how their day had taken such a turn when they both stepped into that elevator.

Liv rested her forehead on Sebastian’s shoulder for just a moment before unwrapping her legs around his waist. Moments later the elevator doors opened to a sea of firefighters and maintenance workers.

“Sorry that took so long. You guys okay?”

“Yes, no worries. We’re fine,” Liv said with a smile as she walked past the group.

“All good,” Sebastian offered while following her.

Liv took a few more steps toward the cafeteria and then turned around.

“We should do that again,” he said with a handsome smile. “Well, maybe not the stuck in the elevator part. Can I call you?”

“Sure,” she said returning the smile and taking his phone to put her number in it. When she looked up to hand his phone back to him she saw Alex walking towards her. “I’m so sorry for what is about to happen.”

“Huh?” he asked.

“Liv! You’re out! That fucking took forever!” Alex said as he finished walking towards her. “Is this the cute guy?” he asked as he turned around to face Sebastian.

“You must be Alex,” Sebastian said.

“OH MY GOOOOOOOOOOD! Do you know who you are?” he asked Sebastian. “Liv, do you know who this is? This is the best day ever! Can I just tell you how amazing you are? Fuck you are so beautiful! You broke the elevator with your hotness didn’t you? Can I get a picture? I need a picture. Let’s take a picture.”

Liv was used to the way Alex spoke so fast when he was excited but she was surprised Sebastian was able to catch any of it.

“Yeah, sure.”

Liv took the phone out of Alex’s hands and took a picture for him.

“Oh my god, I’m touching the Winter Soldier,” Alex said while placing his hand on Sebastian’s chest. “It’s like touching a rock. Jesus Christ!”

“Okay, Alex. Let’s leave the poor guy alone,” Liv said as she removed Alex’s hand. “Thanks for distracting me. Is it weird to say I had fun?”

“No, I had a great time. And not just the last part. I liked the whole 3 hours. I’ll call you,” Sebastian said and then offered a handshake to Alex. “Nice to meet you.”

“You can call me too. I’m way more fun than Liv! Any day, anytime! Or we can text!” Alex offered.

“Bye,” Liv said as she pulled Alex away.

“What the fuck just happened? He’s going to call you? What ‘last part’ was he talking about? Did you have sex in the elevator?” he asked way too loudly in a public place.

“Oh my god! Shhhh! No!” she said walking into the cafeteria to quickly get something to eat.

Alex followed her around asking question after question as she walked around the cafeteria. He finally left her to be alone when she was going to take the stairs up to her floor.

Liv was relieved to have a moment alone. She sat down on the stairs and couldn’t stop herself from smiling. She felt giddy, like she was in high school again and her crush just asked her out.

He’s so cute. I can’t even, she thought to herself as she stood up and began climbing the stairs to her floor. I hope he doesn't turn out to be an asshole. Oh god, what am I worrying about? He’s probably not even going to call. Movie stars date movie stars, not nurses.

Just before she reached her floor she felt her phone buzz in her pocket. It was a text message.

Are you free tomorrow night? –Seb

She responded with a simple yes and a kiss emoji.

Can’t wait.

Part 2

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#Sebastian stan #sebastian stan fanfiction #sebastian stan fluff #sebastian stan x ofc #sebastian stan x reader #sebastian stan x you #sebastian stan fandom #sebastian stan fan fiction

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avengerscompound · 5 years ago

Text

Mixology - Desire and Responsibility

Mixology - A Captain America Fanfic

Series Masterlist Previous //

Buy me a ☕ Character Pairing: Steve Rogers x Reader

Word Count: 2915

Series Warnings: Angst, Character death, Breaking up and making up, past trauma, pregnancy, talk of abortion, smut (vaginal sex, fingering, other things)

Synopsis: Steve Rogers comes into your bar and after a night of flirting you take him home. When he leaves the next day you never expect to see him again.

A/N: This fic was written pre-Infinity War. Here’s where it deviates from canon.

Desire and Responsibility

You stand in the bathroom watching Steve shave. Slowly shedding the disguise he’d been living with for the last year and a half. Each swipe of the razor along his strong jaw bringing him closer to being the thing you hated most of all.

“You’re really going back to Stark after everything that happened?” You ask.

“I have to.” He answers.

It feels like a weight is sitting on your chest. Every breath in you take, takes a monumental amount of effort and it hurts. It hurts so badly. He’d already done this to you once before. He’d promised he wouldn’t do it again. Yet here he was. You felt like the biggest idiot in the world.

“What about us? You said…”

“This is bigger than us.” Steve answers. He washes the last traces of shaving cream from his jaw and rinses the razor off.

You follow him back into the bedroom. “You told me it was me. I can’t fucking believe you’re doing this to me. Again!”

Steve turns to face you. His eyes soften and he approaches you. “This doesn’t need to change you and me. I have to go, but you could come with me. I want you to.”

“Why should I? You told me you weren’t going to be him anymore. You told me you were giving that up.” You shout. Your hands are trembling and bile rises in your throat. A wave of nausea crashes down on you and you rush back into the bathroom, dropping to your knees in front of the toilet and heaving into the bowl.

Steve comes up behind you, pulling your hair back from your face. When you finally think you’ve emptied your stomach of every last thing it held you look up at him. “I’m going to get an abortion.” You say.

Steve stands and the look he gives you is of such hurt. A small vindictive part of you is glad. “Don’t say that. You said you wanted to keep it.”

You get to your feet. “What I wanted was a life with the man I loved. I’m terrified about having a kid. I thought I could do it with you. When I’m with you I’m a better version of me. I can’t do it alone. Why would you expect me to want to?”

You rinse your mouth and head back into the bedroom. “Put on your coat, we’re going for a walk. You owe me that much.”

Steve sighs and follows you.

You walk through the deserted streets of Hannover, all the residence inside celebrating the holiday. You skirt the edge of the main shopping center. Your feet make a soft crunch in the fresh powder snow on the ground.

You reach your destination. The ruins of a small church that had been flattened in World War II. Just the walls remain and a crucifix stands inside.

“You did this.” You say, standing in the middle of the former building.

“I never fought in Hannover,” Steve says.

You laugh. “That was a lovely deflection of blame, Steve. I didn’t know you had that kind of thing in you.” You walk into the only covered area of the church. There is an old bell with an inscription in both German and Japanese. You run your hand over it. “Hannover was a strategic military target during the war. They made weapons here. The whole city was flattened. All the old buildings you’ve been enjoying in the Aldstadt. Leibnizhaus. Marktkirche. They were all rebuilt. Only one building stands that is actually older than you. Think about all the innocent people who must have died. All the children. The women who were carrying their lover’s babies. They were the bad guys though, so I guess that makes it okay.”

“It was war,” Steve says.

You turn to face him. “It sure was. The Germans were doing some bad shit that’s for sure. You’d know. You were there. You made the choice to become a lab experiment and fight against them. You got your best friend killed. You committed suicide from the guilt. Did you joining actually help in the end? Do you think it was really all on your shoulders? Do you think maybe you might have given enough of yourself up?”

Steve puts his hand on your cheek and you lean into it. “I know you’re scared. I wouldn’t do this if I thought I had a choice. Aliens are coming they have …”

“Aliens? Steve? Jesus Christ. They have the technology to travel light years through space. What are you gonna do? Throw your shield at them?” You scoff.

“There are people who have abilities that far exceed mine that can fight. They need a leader. Someone to look to. That’s who I am. It’s who I’ve always been. No, I didn’t single-handedly win World War II. But I gave people someone to look to. To inspire them.”

“Let someone else be that, Steve. There are other people they can look to. Other people can put on that uniform.” You plead. “I need you.”

“I can’t. I can’t just sit back and let the world get conquered. How would that help us? You need to stop being selfish and think of other people for a change.” Steve snaps.

“Or maybe you need to be a little more selfish.” You start to walk off on him and he grabs you by the elbow.

“How’s this for selfish then? If I do this. I go back and help. I just do the right thing. I clear my name and they clear all the names of the people who I had exiled and put into danger. Wanda, Sam, Clint, Scott. They all get to go home. Bucky gets his name cleared. They help clear him of his brainwashing. I get to have my best friend back. Not only that, you’re safe. We don’t have to run. We can stop and have this baby in safety. We can raise them like normal people and not fugitives.” Steve implores. “Please just trust me. I’m not abandoning you again. I just need to do what’s right.”

Stark sends a Quinjet and several soldiers to collect you and Steve. At first, you’re sure that they’re there to arrest him, but they are all respectful and defer to his authority.

Your first stop is Wakanda. It takes half the day to get there even in the jet. You throw up so many times thanks to a mixture of morning and motion sickness that you’re eventually just vomiting up the water they keep trying to get you to drink.

You spend most of the trip with your head in Steve’s lap as he holds a cold compress against your forehead.

When you arrive in Wakanda you attempt a bow to King T’Challa. You are so weak at this point it just comes out a wobbly nod of the head. You’re taken to a medical wing and given an IV of saline to rehydrate you while Steve retrieves Bucky.

Steve comes into the room followed by his friend. Bucky is wearing white cotton and his hair is cut short. He also has a prosthetic arm, made of black metal plates that shift against each other as they move. Steve introduces the two of you and sits on the side of the bed. “How are you feeling?” He asks, his fingers stroking through your hair.

“Better.” You say.

“I’m not sure what we should do right now. Should I leave you here come back when you’re able to travel more easily?” He asks.

“No. The doctors gave me some sedatives to take and something for nausea.” You say. “I’m not letting you leave me behind.”

“But the baby…” Steve says.

“Is fine. We’re both fine. We’re coming.” You say.

“Baby?” Bucky says, softly.

Steve smiles up at his friend and his hand runs over your stomach. “That’s right. You’re gonna be an Uncle, Buck.”

You start giggling and they both look at you confused. “Sorry. That’s the name of a movie. Just pretend I’m not here.”

“I can’t believe you’re having kids before me,” Bucky says. The way Steve looks at him as he talks, it’s like he is seeing his best friend for the first time. “You aren’t married though?”

Steve shakes his head. “I couldn’t get married if you weren’t there to be my best man.”

“Jeez, Stevie,” Bucky cringes. “Your mom would box your ears if she knew.”

“We live in a different world, Buck. Different rules.” Steve laughs. “We’ll put it right as soon as we can.”

You leave Wakanda accompanied by T’Challa. There are four more stops to collect each of Steve’s fugitive friends. You sleep for most of it. The sedatives having knocked you right out.

When you arrive in New York, Tony is waiting on the landing pad with James Rhodes and a bunch of military men, all with their weapons raised. You stay on the plane as Steve steps out onto the ramp followed by the others.

“Tony. We’re friends here.” Steve says, calmly.

“He is no friend of mine.” Tony snaps, gesturing to Bucky.

“You know that wasn’t him. Not really. We’re all here to help. Get them to lower their weapons.” Steve says.

Tony makes a quick gesture and the men all lower their weapons. Steve walks towards Tony and offers him his hand. “I think you need to fill us all into the threat.”

The others file off and FRIDAY the new AI guides you to Steve’s old quarters. You take a shower and then sleep off the last of the sedatives.

Steve wakes you and the sun is just beginning to set. The light outside his window is a vibrant orange blending into purple.

“We leave tomorrow.” He says. “You can stay here. That’s what I want for you. There is a medical staff and it’s protected. You’ll be safe.”

“Okay.” You say.

He leans down and kisses you on the forehead. “I’m not going to lie. This is going to be dangerous. I might not come back.”

“Please don’t say that.” You say, tears threatening to break.

“It’s true. I will do everything I can to make sure I do. But this threat… it’s nothing like I’ve ever faced before.” He runs a hand through your hair, twisting a lock around your finger. “I want to marry you. Will you marry me?”

You laugh. “I already said I would. Twice now.”

“No, I mean right now. I want to marry you right now.” He says.

You feel like maybe you should feel something right now. Excitement? Terror? Frustration? Something? It’s almost like all the feelings are just canceling each other out and all that’s left is calm. “Okay.” You agree.

There is another flight. This one to Las Vegas. Most of the Avengers come with you. You find a chapel and Natasha and Wanda help you dress in a floaty, pale blue dress that you already own, and fix your hair and makeup.

The Chapel provides a bouquet of small pink roses. You follow Natasha down the aisle. Steve is standing next to Bucky and Sam. They are all wearing simple black suits. He is smiling and looking at you like no one has ever looked at you before. The way people always talk about but you’ve never really experienced before.

The vows are said. They’re just those standard back of a cereal box set. You barely listen, too caught up with how completely in love with Steve you feel right now. You almost forget to say ‘I do.’ Steve has to nudge you and you both laugh.

When they get to the ‘you may kiss the bride’ part, Steve does not hold back. You were sure he’d chicken out in front of his friends and all you’d get was a brief peck. Instead, he dips you and kisses you so deeply and with so much love it takes your breath away.

Tony had booked a private banquet room at Caesar’s Palace. You can’t drink, but you watch as most of the others get completely wasted. Not because they’re celebrating your wedding. They’re just letting off steam before they go to their imminent deaths.

You start to wane early and ask Steve if you can leave soon. He agrees. He can’t get drunk and watching his friends do this last breath in death rattle is depressing for him. You go to use the bathroom just before you leave and Tony bails you up at the door.

“Mixology.” He says.

“Mr. Stark.” You reply.

“You’ve been harboring a fugitive with my money?”

You roll your eyes. “My money.”

“I don’t understand. How could you take him back after what he did? How could you forgive him?” The way he talks tells you this is more about him than you. You take his hand in yours and squeeze it.

“People get angry and people get scared. That’s what makes us human. Do you think he’s a bad man?” You ask.

Tony shakes his head.

“Do you think he meant to hurt you?”

He shakes his head again.

“Captain America is a real shit head. Steve’s not so bad. But he’s human. Might be worth giving him a second chance. I know he’ll do the same for you.” You say.

Tony looks away from you and when he looks back it’s like he’s a completely different person. “Rumor has it that you’ve got a bun in the oven.”

“Is that what you’ve heard?”

He laughs. “No need to be coy. Look, whatever happens. I’ll make sure they’re looked after. You don’t have to worry.”

“Just try and bring him back. That’s all I want.” You say. He nods and you let his hand go. “And Tony, when you get back, invest in therapy.”

Tony laughs. “Why would I need to? I’ve got you.”

After throwing the bouquet and Wanda catching it you and Steve head up to a honeymoon suite. Steve lifts you and carries you over the threshold. He sets you on your feet. He leans down so his mouth hovers over yours.

“Mrs. Rogers.” He says.

“Steve.” You reply. His mouth connects with yours and the world stops. There is nothing else except the two of you. You wrap your arms around his neck and cling to him.

Eventually, he pulls away from you and you gaze up at him, light headed and woozy.

“If you’re too tired we don’t have to do anything. I understand.” He says.

“Steve, I may never see you again. I don’t plan to sleep tonight.”

His mouth is on yours again and you pull him back onto the bed with you. He scrambles to remove your dress.

He fumbles with the zip as you start shedding his clothes from him. “Just tear it, Steve.” You complain.

He grabs it by the neckline and tears down. You scramble to remove your bra and then return your attention to him. He latches onto your breast, sucking your nipple into his mouth. They are so sensitive that it sends a shock wave right through you. Equal parts pleasure and pain. Your hands grip the sheets as you arch up and cry out.

Steve slips his hand into your panties and rubs the tip of his finger over your clit in small circles as his sucks and bites at one nipple and then the other. All you can do is hold onto him as an orgasm rocks through you.

Steve crawls down your body, pulling your panties from you, his mouth never leaving your skin. When he reaches your pussy he laps at you, from the entrance of your cunt to your clit. Broad swipes of his tongue, drinking from you. He pushes two fingers inside of you and strokes them inside of you, drawing your wetness out so he can have more.

He tongues your clit and bites at it as his fingers press and drags along your g-spot. Your legs tremble and pressure builds like hot lead in your stomach. You come for a second time and thrash away from him, trying to escape it.

He starts to make his way back up your body but you push him back so he’s sitting. You get up shedding the ruined material of your dress and lower yourself down onto his cock slowly. When he as filled you as much as you can take, you start to move as one. You maintain eye contact as you roll your hips in his lap and he thrusts up into you. You come together. Each crying out the other’s name.

Despite how near exhaustion you are both mentally and physically, you and Steve manage to make love four more times that night. Working in bars has allowed you to be able to push through that level of exhaustion when you need to. Tonight you need to.

At around three in the morning, there is a pounding on the door. Steve hurriedly pulls on some pants and answers it. Tony is standing there completely frantic.

“They’ve broken through the first line of defense. We have to go.” He says. “There’s a chopper waiting to take you back to the compound.” He adds, addressing you.

Steve quickly pulls on his remaining clothes and comes to kiss you.

“I love you, Steve. Please come back.” You plead.

“I’ll do my best. I love you too.”

And with that he is gone and you are once again alone.

// NEXT

#steve rogers #steve rogers x reader #captain america #captain america fanfic #fanfic #fanfiction #reader insert #smut #angst #mixology #desire and responsibility

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tams-writeblr · 5 years ago

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The Rise of Skywalker - Ending Fixer upper

So, um, I kinda did a thing? I was super disappointed by the ending of The Rise of Skywalker and I couldn't really get over it, until I fixed it. Just for me, just for my own peace of mind. It's not good. English is not my first language, I initially wrote this in German and it's a little better there. I wrote this in between going to the hospital (my dad is still hospitalized after his stroke on Dec. 21th) and work and taking care of my mother so it may seem inconsistent at times since I sometimes could only write two sentences before hurrying to the next appointment. But I have the urge to share this, somehow. I don't want that writing to go wasted and maybe, just maybe someone out there feels better after reading this too. Shout-out to all the great fan fiction writers out there, that made the time after TROS more endurable especially to @shruggyben that's trying to fix the whole mess that TROS is in their fan fiction.

Word count: 4.569

#BenDeservesBetter

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Ben's torso collapsed feebly on the ground.

Rey didn't have the slightest chance to catch him but her hands were right at his chest and neck. “Ben! What's wrong with you?“

But Ben Solo couldn't answer. Her words only got through to him like through a long tunnel. Well, seems this is the end, it crossed his mind. But he wasn't afraid of death. He got ready to become one with the force. Maybe he would finally be reunited with his mother, for sure with Luke. And maybe, if he allowed him to, he would finally be able to speak to his grandfather Anakin. The force wrapped comfortably warm around his heart and his soul. Using the last of his strength, he got a glimpse of Rey beautiful, gracious face. No, he didn't want to see tears on it. Of course, Rey, she won't be lonely without me, will she? She does have her friends. She was ready to die for those people up there. They'll be good to her, right?

“Of course they'll be good to her. But nevertheless Rey will be lonely without you. Have you already forgotten what Palpatine just revealed to you?“

Ben twirled around. Without any warning he found himself within a blazing white light. He couldn't identify a room and the voice he had heard was unknown to him until now.

Behind him stood a young man with wavy brown hair.

Ben's lips parted and he gasped for air in disbelieve. „Are you … Anakin?“

The man nodded and smiled softly. “Finally you are listening to me. I'm impressed by you capabilities. If only I had had half your abilities and half your dedication, maybe I could have saved your grandmother Padme from death too.”

“I wanted Rey to live. She deserves it more than me. But … I don't want her to be lonely. She will get over it, won't she?”

Anakin looked down. “You are two pieces of the whole. Do you know the term ghost pain? When I was alive I lost all my lips and even with the best prostheses I got, I kept on feeling pain in places that weren't even there anymore. And I fear, that Rey will feel that too.”

“No!”, Ben screamed at this grandfather, his idol, at the top of his lungs. “I won't allow that! Send me back to her! She must not suffer! She doesn't deserve this!”

“No, she doesn't.”

Ben froze. Without turning his head he set his eyes on a second person that appeared out of nothing on Anakin's left. “Mother”, slipped out of his mouth. Red spots spread on his cheeks, endless pain mirrored from his face.

“That's why I am here.” Leia walked towards her son. Her face was full of determination – and love. “Ben, I have seen this day coming when I finished my training as a Jedi. I swore off the force to protect you, to protect my then unborn son. I collected my energy all my life for this moment. Give me your hand.”

Hastily Ben grabbed both hands of his mother. “I'm so sorry. There are so many things I need to tell you.”

But Leia shook calmly her head. “This is not the time for that. Rey is worried about you. But bear in mind, my son, when you need me, I'll always be there for you.”

“All of us.”

Ben looked up watching into the faces of dozens of Jedi, whole generations of them. They all nodded cheering at him. In the front row Anakin and Luke Skywalker.

“And now take my force and be there for Rey. She needs you.”

Ben's eyelids started flickering and his brown eyes opened.

“Good gracious Ben, are you alright? I was so afraid you'd die!”

Ben found Rey's worried glimpse. She had tears in her eyes but hadn't started crying yet. Ben smiled. “No, rubbish. It just crossed my mind that I have to face your friends now. And for them I'm still Supreme Leader Kylo Ren.” Painfully he sat up. Too bad, his mother wasn't able to heal his broken bones.

“Of course I'm going to explain everything to them. When I say it's okay, they'll accept that.”

But Ben only shook his head. “No Rey. I don't want that. They are right. I've done so many unforgivable things. I'm the last one, that's gonna forgive me. I have to receive my just punishment.

“But you've been possessed by the dark side - “

“But I have let myself be seduced by the dark side”, he cut her word harshly. “I can’t shuffle out of my responsibility.”

Rey yielded some inches away from him. He had never been so harsh to her before. “I am not going to accept that”, she said determined and got on her feet. Troublesome she walked over to one of the dead Sith guards and ripped his cloak. “Leave your clothes here and escape. You shouldn't struggle finding a ship in this tumult. I am going to tell everybody that you saved my life and became one with the force. Only someone with a really pure heart can become one with the force. And if they need evidence, they'll find your clothes here. I don't think that anyone will come check, but we should play it save.” With her face averted Rey held out the long, black cloak to Ben.

Ben ran his fingers through his hair and pulled his brows towards his hairline. “You want me to get undressed? That's not quiet the right moment for that, is it?”

Rey countered his words with a strict view of her eyes. “It is not the time for some Solo-joke! I did explain my plan to you, didn't I? To calm you, I'm going back to my ship and return to the resistance's base.” Her eyes got softer when Ben finally took the cloak out of her hand. “I am going to find you.”

“I know”, Ben answered and looked after her, as she vanished form the cave system. Painful he got out of his clothes and wrapped the heavy cloak around his body. It had to look natural, if really somebody came to check Rey's story, so he draped his clothes like he had died lying on the ground, like he almost did. Should he tell Rey the truth someday? He limped his way back, had no idea how he managed to climb the iron chains back to the top and reached the surface as the last ship of the resistance made his jump into hyperspace. Around him, everything was in flames. It smelled like spilled fuel and burned, organic material. Soon Ben found an X-wing that was taken from the sky by Palpatine's force flashes. The pilot was sadly decreased but the ship was in a good enough condition to not call it suicide to fly off with it. So Ben pulled her out of the cockpit and took of her helmet – red seven was her identification. Ben closed the green eyes of the pilot and put on her helmet. Then he got into the ship and hasty started all systems. But where should he go? Soon the resistance would be the new government of the galaxy, so it had to be a remote place. His mind crossed Jakku for a second. That place was so remote that even Emperor Palpatine couldn't find Rey there for over ten years.

“Tatooine”, suddenly rang Luke's voice in his head. “Go to Tatooine and find Owen and Beru Lars' hut. I was raised there. So the hut more or less yours anyway. I wasn't found there for nineteen years, while still carrying my fathers last name.”

“Tatooine”, Ben murmured. “Yet another desert dump. If Rey would be happy with that?”

“I thought it's you going into exile?”

Ben rolled his eyes. “I don't wanna talk about that now, uncle Luke, okay?”

Uncle Luke chuckled knowingly and vanished from Ben's head.

“So it's Tatooine!”

Ben landed the X-wing ungently yet safely on Tatooine's desert ground. Two suns stood high on the sky and burned into his pale skin. Life on a space station had taken its toll. His bare feet touched the hot sand. Not a soul was seen anywhere or … Was that a market back there on the horizon? Clunky he dragged himself through the desert, still the pilot's helmet under his arm. The market seemed to never come any closer and Ben was more than once assured, he wouldn't make it. But finally, mobilizing all of his left energy, he reached the last stand before the desert began.

An old lady served the stall and sold strange dried fruit.

“Please”, Ben panted. “I need your help.”

“Watcher!”, gasped the old lady. “Young man, sit down!” With impressing speed for her age she placed a stool right behind Ben, so that he only had to dump down. “Here, take a sip!” She placed a bottle with some red liquid on his lips.

Ben took a tiny sip and looked intensely at her. “I'm looking for the hut of Owen and Beru Lars!”

The old lady pulled her eyebrows up in surprise. Then she pulled her arms confidently into her sides. “First, you need a doctor. You are lucky, my friend Maisie owns a medidroid. I'll take you to her.” With that, she turned over her shoulder and shouted at an other stall owner: “Hey, Butchwaa! I've some small emergency over here. Could you please shut down my stand?”

Butchwaa, a humanoid, winged life form, made an approving noise in a language Ben didn't know and the old stall lady helped Ben back on his feet.

While they walked over the market towards a small settlement, she pointed at the helmet in Ben's hand. “You're from the resistance?”

Ben nodded briefly. “Yes, you might say that.”

“What happened to your stuff?”

Awkwardly Ben realized that he still was only wrapped into a single cloak and avoided the lady's glimpse embarrassed. “I can't talk about that right now.”

The woman nodded understanding and took him quietly to a small, dark mud-walled house.

Ben, where are you? Rey sat in the middle of a roaring celebration, her eyes closed, her mental hand pulled out to the farthest edges of the galaxy but she didn't get a response. It was so strange, usually she could always feel Ben at the back of her mind but now there was only emptiness.

“Rey!”, Finn's voice took her out of her meditation. “You should also have some fun!”

Rey opened her eyes and saw Finn, Poe and Rose standing under her den and waving with some beer jugs up to her. Finn even held two jugs in his hand, one of them was for her. Rey slowly came down to them, a small smile on her lips. She took a jug out of her friends hand and took a deep drag out of it, then she smiled labored at her friends. “Yes, it's a good day for the galaxy.” She let her view run over the celebration resistance fighters. All of them were happy and danced, drank and whispered sweet nothings to their loved ones. Only one of them let his shoulders hang even with the big golden medal, that he always dreamed to have, hanging down his neck. “Excuse me for a moment”, Rey murmured and pointed at Chewbacca with her chin. She paved her way though the celebrating folks and knelt before the Wookie.

A sad buzzing left his throat.

“I know, I'm so sorry for you, that they all left us.”

Chewie whined for a heartbreaking half of a minute and then dropped his head into his hands.

Rey looked at her hands. “Well, you know … About Ben …” She struggled with herself, could she really include him in her secret? “Ben isn't dead Chewie. I'm in contact with him. He went into exile and he's going to tell me where he is. Would you like to join me, when I got to Ben?”

A deafening relieved whining left Chewbacca's throat and Rey quickly told him to be less noisy.

“Nobody must know about it. I haven't heard of Ben yet, but I'll leave tonight. There is something else I need to do. So you'll join me?”

Chewie nodded quietly, relief and real happiness was on his face. He snatched behind his back, where he had left his bear jug. The beverage in there was already flat but he touched her jug so hard, that half of her beer slopped around.

Finally it was a happy party for even the last members of the resistance. They celebrated until deep into the night and when a small stripe of light scratched the horizon, Rey was already back on her feet.

She trailed her way through drunken bodies and overtired soldiers and finally reached Finn's den.

He was asleep on his back with his mouth wide open and his arms spread away. Loud breathing sounds left his throat. Rey had to smile. She would miss him the most, he was her best friend. She put her hand into her leather bag where she carried Luke and Leia's light sabers and the old Jedi writings with her and pulled the tiny blue fragment of a crystal out. It was a part of Luke's kyber crystal, broken from the big part of the crystal during her fight with Kylo Ren. The fragment of course was too small to fuel a light saber but if Finn was only half as force sensitive as Rey thought, he knew what to do with it. Rey leaned over her friend to place the crystal into his hand when his blanket moved.

The dark haired head of Poe Dameron came twenty centimeters out of the blanket, still a comfortable smile on his lips, his face snuggled at Finn's broad chest.

Rey wasn't surprised at most amazed. Smiling she placed the crystal between Finn's fingers and turned away from her friends. On quiet soles she sneaked through the sleeping resistance fighters.

Chewie was already at the falcon, eagerly standing at the ramp, the engine running. He asked her with a quiet roar to hurry up.

Rey stepped next to her co-pilot. “Chewie, set our course on Endor. I have to go get something there.”

The ramp of the falcon closed behind the two that left without looking back.

Chewie let the falcon fly off on half power. Him and Rey didn't want to risk being noticed and followed by someone.

But of course their action wasn't unnoticed. A former storm trouper opened his eyes as the falcon rose from the surface. Finn rubbed his eyes in disbelieve and noticed the crystal fragment in his hand. He looked at intensely it for a moment and then looked behind the falcon. Take care, Rey, he thought and pulled the crystal at his chest. We'll meet again for sure. He buried his face in his best friend's hair. Poe still was his best friend,, no matter what happened between then tonight right? Finn looked once more back to the falcon, that than made his jump into hyperspace.

“Hyperspace jump successful, autopilot activated”, Rey resumed, pulled some flip switches and stood up from the pilot's chair.

Chewie road pleased and tried to stand up too, but a muted beeping from the engine room stopped him.

“Did you hear that?”, Rey asked.

Chewie got energetic on his feet and almost ran Rey over as he passed her. He pulled the engine hatch open and pulled without effort an in protest piping BB-8 out of the shaft.

“BB-8, what are you doing here?”, Rey asked terrified. On BB-8 piping her facial features fell. “What do you mean, you listened in on us and preferred to follow us? What about Poe?” Again BB-8 piped his answer nervously. Rey’s face got soft. “Oh, of course, Poe now has other responsibilities and doesn't fly as much as you used to, but that doesn't mean he likes you any less. But to be true, I'm actually glad you're here, we didn't take a board droid with us …”

Chewbacca murmured apprehensively and BB-8 beeped in protest.

“I know you won't betray us BB. But you must not overreact when you find out where we're about to go.”

“Rey!” Ben startled up from a deep almost coma-like sleep.

“Good evening, my name is ZB-29, I'm your medidroid in charge. I splinted your multiply broken leg as well as stopped an inner bleeding. Against the broken rips only helps quiet and relaxation, I am afraid. I therefore ask you to stay in bed for the next five to eight days.”

Ben looked skeptically at the medidroid. An old, outdated model with rusty hinges but he hadn't expected more. And he didn't intent to listen to ZB-29. He pulled the blanket away and found his legs covered in ugly brown trousers.

“Please young man, remain laid down. Such a behavior is not beneficial for your healing. Lay down or I have to call for my master.”

“Just call her”, Ben murmured and tried to stand up but his splinted leg failed to hold him.

In this moment the old lady from the market and her friend, who introduced herself as Maisie, entered the room. “What did I tell ya, Anuk, he already tries to get lost. Nothing is so hard as a man's ingratitude!”

So Anuk was his rescuer's name. “I didn't want to get lost and I am very grateful for both your help. But I really need to go. I have to find the hut of Owen and Beru Lars!”

“Oh my, Lars, I haven't heard that name in centuries”, it slipped out of Maisie's mouth. “Beru and her man have been very good to me and my Jericho when he had that attack on the field back then. How long ago is that horrible story? At least thirty-five years. She and her man have been killed in such a horrible manner and their foster son vanished. He is reputed to have become a hero of the republic but he was never to be seen around here anymore. Anyway, new or old republic, Empire or first Order, out here that doesn't matter. We don't feel a difference here. I'm turning one hundred years soon, boy, I've seen so many systems come and go. Of us, nothing ever changed. We don't care who takes our taxes. Senators, Grand Morffes or Generals, for us as small system, nothing ever changes. We've always been the last ones of the food chain.” “Geez Maisie. He only wanted to know where the farm of those two is. Nothing about your political views. Once you feel better, boy, we'll take you there, okay? Anyway, what's your name? How do you know the Larses?”

Ben looked briefly at his hands. “I'm Ben, Luke's nephew.”

“Nephew?”, it slipped out of both women's mouths. “I didn't knew Luke had any siblings.”

“A sister”, Ben answered and smiled at Anuk. “My mother.”

Anuk and Maisie returned his smile. “Very well, then get some good rest, Ben. The farm of the Larses is empty for more than thirty-five years, it won't run away within a week.” The two women left Ben alone only with ZB-29 at his side.

Rey, Ben sent his thoughts back out traveling. Rey, I'm on Tatooine. Come here in a week. I'll transmit the exact location where we'll me to you later.

A week passed surprisingly fast and finally Rey landed the falcon on Tatooine, the planet, that looked so shockingly like the place she grew up on. Almost with disgust she left the falcon into the boiling sand, felt the heat of the soil through her canvas shoes.

BB-8 didn't like the sand either as he got stuck in the Sand again and again.

“A desert planet of all things”, Rey murmured an Chewie howled assuring. She had landed pretty near to the Lars moisture fare. Surprised Rey noticed, that the sand had taken over more than half of the main building. It must have been abandoned for a very long time. Sadly there was nothing to be seen of Ben. Rey killed some time with sand sledging on a metal plate and inspecting what was left of the Larses household. Then she finally heard steps above her head.

“I'm sorry, I'm late. The medidroid wouldn't let me go.”

Immediately Rey's eyes welled up in tears. “Ben”, she gasped and levitated with the help of the force the dune up.

Ben walked with a stick, wore rundown brown clothes that were way to short for him and sandals of which his toes came out. “The people around here, have been really generous to me. They took me in like I was one of their kind and shared everything with me, they could do without.”

Rey hugged Ben happily. “I'm so glad to see you. I was worried sick, when I didn't hear of you for more than a day.”

Ben places his giant left hand on Rey's hand and lightly kissed her hairline. “I was pretty much incapacitated. But ZB-29 has put me back together pretty well.”

Rey gave him her bright and shining smile and Ben forgot all the pain that had pestered his body before, the stiff leg the probably stayed like that forever and the countless new scars he had taken. This smile, this warm loving welcome, redressed him for all that. He hoped to see that smile every day for the rest of his life. Did he deserve to be happy? Probably not. But Rey did. And as long as he was the one to bring her happiness, he had a reason to be alive.

“I've got them with me”, Rey remembered impetuously and dug in her big leather bag. She pulled out Luke and Leia's lightsablers.

“You want to do it here?”, Ben asked, not without a hurt glimpse at both sabers.

Rey nodded. “Yes, I will be nice, to have them near us, wouldn't it?”

Ben wasn't quite sure about that. Jedi-relics were known to attract the force ghosts of their former owners and he didn't know if he really wanted to be haunted by his crazy uncle for the rest of his life. But he agreed with a little nod. He was physically just not able to disagree with Rey.

And so he watched her from a distance as she knelt down into the sand and placed the lightsabers next to each other. Then she placed both her hands above them and the sabers started to sink to the ground. Deeper and deeper they sank into to chilly, almost damp soil. Rey was adamant that they gave his mother and uncle a symbolic grave and bury their lightsabers there. That was a typical Rey idea, how could he have said no to that?

Rey slowly turned around and faced him. There were red dots on her cheeks but she didn't start crying yet. “There is something more I have to show you, well actually more than one thing …“First she took a grip into her bag again and pulled out a completely new lightsaber. The handle was beautifully done and from a dark material with a ring on the one end being the fuse. Rey turned the ring and a yellow light-sedge evolved.

“Yellow?”, Ben breathed doubtfully. “But yellow lightsabers … “

“Are made of refined, red kyber crystals.”, Rey ended his statement. “It's your kyber crystal. I've been on Endor to get it. It's your, if you want it. I can build myself a new lightsaber.”

But Ben only shook calmly his head. “No Rey. I don't need a lightsaber anymore. I don't want to be a warrior anymore.” He pulled his hand around her wrist and she deactivated the light-sedge again.

“Good, then I'll keep it for me for now. I hope it brings me more luck than you.” She clipped the lightsaber on her garment as she always had done with Luke's and looked shyly at her feet. “You should know, that I haven't been alone on Endor. And I'm not alone here.” She quickly looked at Ben and pointed at a place behind him with her chin.

Puzzled Ben turned around. Who should Rey take with her? Wasn't it her plan that he went into hiding? And then he recognized Chewbacca, standing next to the falcon.

BB-8 was standing next to him, beeping in stir.

Chewie protested against BB-8's objections with an unnerved barking and kicked the small round droid to the side. After that he sprinted to his good-son and pulled him into a might and hearty hug only a Wookie was able to perform.

“Chewie”, Ben gasped and dropped his stick to return the Wookie's hug. “I'm so sorry for everything … “

Chewie cut vocally his words. He didn't want to hear any excuses. Of course the loss of his best friend still did hurt but having his good-son alive and well was enough for him for now.

“He would like to stay here with us. And BB-8 too. It'll take him some time to get used to you, but he promised to stay quiet about our whereabouts.”

Ben looked leery down at the little droid that still beeped nervously and carefully kept his distance from Ben. He would have to keep a close eye at the bucket.

“So that's our new home”, Rey noted and walked back towards the main house. From that point she could see a local woman walking past them in a distance with her pack animal.

When she noticed the foreigners too, she led her beast away from the invisible path the were walking and came towards them. “How unusual to meet new people around here”, she stated in her native dialect. “But it's also nice, to see some new faces. Who are you?”

Rey turned over her shoulder to look at Ben, Chewie and BB-8. Surprised she noticed Luke and Leia's force ghosts standing right behind them. No one except from her had noticed them yet. “My name is Rey and they are Ben and Chewbacca.”

“Rey and Ben … “, echoed the native woman. “And further?”

There Ben stepped next to Rey and took her hand with a proudly swelled chest. “Skywalker, Rey and Ben Skywalker.”

Chewbacca hollered pleased and offered to help the native woman to carry her goods bring home what she accepted gladly.

Slowly the two suns of Tatooine sank behind the broad horizon. “Do you think you can get used to this place?, Ben asked, still holding Rey's hand. “I know that you hate desert planets.”

Though Rey shook her head, her eyes fixed on the two suns. “No, I don't hate them. I'm coming from such a planet. They are exactly my line.” She looked at him with a smile. “We only have to get the farm free of the sand.”

Ben nodded and smiled. He didn't know that the future would hold for them, but with Rey at his side, he knew he could face all adversities.

#ben deserves better #star wars #star wars: the rise of skywalker #star wars: tros #fan fiction #star wars fan fiction #reylo #rey of jakku #ben solo #rey skywalker #ben skywalker #chewbacca #bb-8 #rey x kylo ren #rey x ben #tros spoilers #tros fix it

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awackyphdinadorkable · 5 years ago

Text

Snippety snip 2 for that Pearl Harbor AU I keep obsessing about... for reasons.

Why do I keep doing this to myself? Oh, right, because I am a biatch for Cherik as kids and being all sweet and corny. And I did it again, even after I already cut out that first snippet. Either way. I keep purging those snippets until my mind stops obessing about it. So you’ll have to deal with it until my brain catches up to the news. Cheers!

Erik looks out the small window from their living room. It’s dark outside, but he can make out the outlines of the mansion, framed by the lanterns shining like fireflies about to flit away, though they never do. He sighs, then grimaces when the mist of his own hot breath against the cold window clouds the glass.

His eyes drift back down on the small rectangular package in his hand, wrapped in brown paper and with a blue bow on top. His mother did most of the wrapping for him because Erik’s fingers wouldn’t work the way they normally would – because he is good at crafts, he really is. Paper is no metal, though, which makes it harder to control at times than most people would tend to think, if they even knew what that meant in the first place.

He was grateful for his mother being so helpful, she always is, because she just silently took the box from his hand and wrapped it for him without ever losing a word about it, well aware how embarrassed he would have been if she had made him ask for it.

Maybe this was a bad idea from the start, though, considering.

Charles’s parents seemingly invited all of the high society to the occasion. Erik’s mother and the rest of the staff had been fussing all week to get everything in order for tonight, which left Erik briefly wondering whether the President would also attend.

For the record, he did not.

Nonetheless, Erik watched with great fascination as one fancy car after the other rolled up the hill to the estate. He could hear the metal roar all the way to their small house.

And no matter how closely he pressed his face against the glass of the living room window, Erik knew from the moment on the cars wheeled past the big iron gates that this world out there is by no means his world, despite the fact that it’s only a few hundred feet away. He doesn’t fit in. Charles does, though, which gives Erik any urge to throw the little box away and go to bed early. Because it is those days that make him feel different, that make him feel like he doesn’t belong right where he wants to be, where he feels he belongs every single day safe for this one of the year.

Erik knows that people would give him not just one odd look if he were to just show up at the estate, dressed in plain clothes those people wouldn’t even use to work in the garden with, which is stupid enough. And after that, he’d probably be thrown out, because Erik does not belong to those people with fancy cars and even fancier clothes, no matter the occasion.

Charles doesn’t make the difference, though, he never did.

When Erik came to Westchester, he was instructed not to come to the mansion unless ordered. He was supposed to keep up with his language lessons, to go to school, come back, and not cause any trouble around the property otherwise. Erik’s mother reminded him that they were very fortunate for the position, even more so because Kurt Marko actually pushed for Erik to attend school and paid extra for his studies to be sure Erik caught up, which was not at all common for an employer to do.

Erik understood that much even at such a young age. They were very fortunate. The money was enough to provide for them and start over new after they had to leave everything in Germany behind.

So yes, Erik showed his best side and stuck dutifully to the rules he was given. He didn’t want to cause his mother any more trouble than that which they had escaped back in Düsseldorf after his father died and they had to find a way to fend for themselves in the Americas.

His orbit, his little world, became the small house at the far end of the property which was given to them as lodgings for his mother’s work in the mansion. Erik either sat inside, tried to focus on his language books and form the words still unfamiliar to his tongue. And if he did not do that, he played in very close periphery to their house, built himself toys out of wood and wire. He listened to the buzzing of the insects on hot summer days and waited for his mother to come back from the mansion, day in, day out.

This orbit expanded vastly one afternoon when Erik roamed through the vast garden of the estate, pretending to be a pilot, only to fall, nose first, into the dirt. When he looked up, he saw a dark-haired boy, a little younger than him, and eyes bluer than the sky itself. The boy stared at him with wide eyes, rubbing his side with a wince.

It took Erik a number of seconds to remember his mother talking about the two sons of the family who lived in the large mansion, which Erik always found a ridiculous waste of space. Charles and Cain. By the looks, it could only have been Charles. No matter which one it was, though, Erik was sure to be in trouble because he was given orders not to interfere with them. Ever. At the same time, he knew there was no escape now that the boy had seen him.

Mentally, Erik prepared himself for the worst, which is why he muttered a hasty apology with a bowed head: “I… I am sorry. I did not see you.”

He briefly wondered how he had to address the boy. Was he some “lord” or “little mister” or did you address even boys by their last name if your mother worked for them? Erik didn’t know by the time, and everything made him want to run, so to escape giving a wrong answer, but his feet wouldn’t move.

“No, no, I’m sorry. I was not paying attention.”

That was the one answer Erik did not prepare himself for, neither could he brace himself for the kind smile and the sympathetic gaze that made those blue eyes impossibly more vibrant.

Erik was still fully convinced that he was in for some trouble, because rich boys always made trouble to his mind, at least from what he heard his mother recount about the older one who only ever cursed her whenever she came into his room without knocking first.

“Are you hurt?” Erik asked dutifully.

The boy only shook his head with a smile. “Not at all. You?”

“No.”

“Then I am relieved,” the boy sighed in relief, only to stare at him. “Oh.”

Erik frowned. “Oh?”

The boy struggled to his feet, then, a book falling out of his lap and onto the ground. He wiped his hands over his back to get rid of some blades of grass before stretching out his right hand to Erik. “I’m Charles Xavier.”

“Erik Lehnsherr.”

“You are from Germany, right?”

“… Yeah,” Erik said slowly, not liking to be called upon it, after all, he was trying his best to catch up on his language lessons as he was told to do. “I am still learning the language.”

“Oh, you must be very talented, then.” The boy beamed at him.

Erik could do nothing much but stare. “Talented?”

That was nothing Erik associated with himself. He wasn’t dumb by any means, but talented? Erik always tended to think being talented meant to be exceptional at something, and he couldn’t say of himself that he was. Yet, there stood a boy who, from what he had heard, was as bright as a star can shine. And that boy was complimenting him on his language? None of it made sense to Erik. And yet, it made him want to ask questions where he was so used to ducking his head and swallowing down any kind of curiosity he may have had.

“Why yes, you speak English very well already,” the boy explained. “By contrast, I can’t speak German at all.”

It was only then that Erik looked at the book lying on the grass, which turned out to be a beginner’s guide in German language learning. But it couldn’t possibly be that Charles had picked up that for his sake. That was out of the question.

Right?

“I… I suppose you’ll learn it fast,” Erik said, not daring to meet the other boy’s gaze any longer. “I think I ought to go. Mama doesn’t want me to be late for dinner.”

“Oh, sure, I didn’t mean to keep you from it. Sorry another time for making you fall. It was nice meeting you, Erik,” the boy assured him quickly, and Erik would have thought that he saw disappointment in his eyes, but that couldn’t possibly be either.

Right?

“It was nice meeting you, too… Charles.”

That day changed everything for Erik going forward.

That boy’s smile changed everything, it made Erik’s orbit larger with every day passing until it reached way beyond the fences of the estate, to the point that only the sky was the limit.

Because ever since that day, Erik caught glimpses of Charles wherever he went. It was as though he only now noticed that boy’s presence, as though he only materialized now that Erik took notice of him. It left the young boy wondering whether Charles had been watching him without his notice much longer than he’d taken notice of it.

At first he was irritated by it, because it felt like Charles was watching him. He was, in fact, as Charles admitted to him later, but it was because he sensed Erik’s hesitation and didn’t want to bother him.

Charles kept sitting in the grass, reading German language books while Erik pretended to play without noticing the other boy’s presence. That went on for about a week. Then Erik couldn’t take it anymore, and just blurted out asking what Charles was doing there, sitting in the grass, watching him instead of playing himself. Because Erik couldn’t imagine the boy had any shortcomings in toys and whatever else to fill his days with the delight of playing whatever game he could think of.

Why would he bother watching Erik play?

Erik was surprised by the shock in the younger boy as he bowed his head, the mob of dark curls falling into his blue eyes, looking straight-up miserable within seconds. “I… I didn’t mean to bother you, Erik. I am sorry. I just… I can also go elsewhere if you preferred.”

“That’s not what I was asking. I want to know why you don’t play yourself.”

“You amaze me,” came the reply that did nothing to lift Erik’s confusion. He had to take a moment to think of that word. He remembered to having read it not long ago. Amaze. Amazing.

Oh.

“How?” Erik asked bluntly. First talented, then amazing – Charles kept attaching meanings to him that Erik didn’t know belonged to him, but to the younger boy they seemingly did. And it left young Erik wondering whether Charles had the rights of it, because he was so bright and clever already at that age – how could he be wrong?

Right?

“You can play on your own to have fun,” Charles answered. “I can only read on my own to have fun.”

Erik had to ponder that for quite some time because he always thought that rich boys had to have fun playing because they had all those fancy toys and such whereas he had only his imagination and a bunch of sticks and wire.

“Well, you could always have a friend over to play with you,” Erik suggested.

Charles’s lips curled at that, before settling into a tight grimace. “I don’t know any boys my age. And Cain doesn’t… we don’t play. Ever.”

Erik found that all very curious. He always thought rich boys had a bunch of friends, even those fake friends that only ever stayed around for the money and nice gifts, but here sat a boy about his age who had everything and yet had no one other than himself and his books, for what it seemed.

Erik himself chose to be mostly on his own because the children at school made fun of his accent or pestered him about his faith. But he was friendly enough with some of them to play with during the breaks. He even played over at their houses from time to time, though he hardly ever felt like it. That was never any trouble. Yet, here sat a boy who was smart enough to read such big books already at that age, and he seriously didn’t know how to play? Who didn’t have anyone to play with? It boggled Erik’s mind even more than some of the stuff in his curriculum did at the time.

“… You can join… if you want, that is.”

He could see the lights go up in the other boy’s eyes, but Erik could also spot the restraint he put on himself, so not to show too much excitement. “I don’t think I know how to play the game, though.”

Erik shrugged at that. “I can show you.”

The smile that met him shone brighter than the stars in the sky on a clear night. “You mean that.”

“Sure.”

“You really are amazing, Erik.”

Ever since that day, they played together on a daily basis.

And their worlds kept growing as they allowed the two to overlap.

Charles burst open like a flower does with the first sunbeams of spring, giggled until his sides hurt and smiled so much that his eyes smiled, too. And Erik found himself doing the same, unable to hide from that joy he suddenly found orbiting in his little yet expanding world.

He enjoyed playing alone, alright, but that was until he started playing with Charles, which was so much better. Charles liked many things Erik enjoyed. He was always one to praise Erik for his crafts and imagination. And the things that Charles enjoyed that didn’t really interest Erik? He found himself doing what Charles had done before – and still did on occasion – to watch. Erik lost count of the hours he’d spent watching Charles read, devour page after page.

However, on most things, they agreed – when it came to playing games. And so they spent hours pretending to fly over moist grass. They climbed the tree right by the small lake that Charles said his grandfather planted, and played hike and seek, a game Charles always won, no matter how well Erik tried to hide.

Over time, Erik’s orbit became very large, to the point that he could hardly make out its limits anymore. He played in Charles’s room, they stole from the kitchen to have picnics on the roof, he went in and out as he pleased, and because Charles called him his friend, no one questioned his presence in the mansion, safe for some odd glances he got from Cain until he left for boarding school for good.

So no, Charles never made the difference, he dissolved any feeling of Erik being other at the estate.

He showed interest in Erik when most others just ignored him or didn’t even register his presence. Charles was eager to learn German phrases from him, insisting that languages ought to be spoken not just read in order to be learned. Charles wanted to know all there was to know about Sabbath and Chanukah, the city of Düsseldorf, wanted to learn to make toys just like Erik, the ones with nothing but wire and wooden sticks. He smiled at the splinters in his hands and the fine red tears in his pale, freckled skin, all the more cheerful once he finished his first toy and was eager for Erik’s approval. Charles gave Erik the feeling that he was a very special person when normally, he felt like most people hardly ever noticed him.

Where Erik tended to feel like one tiny star amongst millions, Charles made him feel like he was the only star in the sky around which Charles’s world revolved.

By contrast, Charles’s stepfather barely took notice of his presence, as did Charles’s stepbrother. Erik hardly ever saw Charles’s mother, and Charles made a habit of it to bring toys to Erik’s house rather than bring Erik to his house – at least when other family members were around.

In the early beginnings of his orbit’s expansion, a lingering fear told Erik that Charles was ashamed of having him in the house, but he realized rather fast that this was entirely wrong: Charles was ashamed of this large house and its emptiness. He was ashamed of the lack of warmth in the way the rest of the family treated one another. Over time, that shifted, because Charles found that Erik brought warmth to the house, which was part of the reason why they ended up playing about as often in the mansion as they did in the small house at the far end of the property.

Thanks to Charles, Erik found his orbit so much larger yet very much tied to that boy’s smile, that boy’s presence.

Yet, Erik’s orbit shrinks whenever Charles is called back that mansion and he knows he can’t follow him. While they still steal into each other’s rooms more often than they should, Erik knows that on certain occasions, he is not wanted there, isn’t welcome, is not a part of Charles’s life. Because he is not like them. He is different, even when Charles won’t make that difference.

Charles seems to fit wherever he sees fit, though. He can be right in Erik’s orbit, but he knows how to handle himself around adults all the same. Erik saw that, too, one time when Charles and he had played longer than they should have, as the family expected guests. Charles hid Erik in the brushes while charming them so Erik could sneak away. Charles knows how to make others the same as himself and thus come into his orbit. Erik can’t do that, though. And it makes him realize that, in the end, no matter how close he feels to his best friend, Erik is not like Charles, not entirely, not enough to be around him all the time.

Erik is pulled out of his thoughts by his mother calling out from the kitchen. “Ich dachte, du wolltest Charles das Geschenk geben, bevor der Tag vorbei ist.“

Erik told her that he wanted to give this gift to Charles before the day was over, yes. That was before he started fussing with the wrapping, however, before the cars rolled up and he found his orbit shrinking until it was a painful throb in his chest.

The plan was to sneak over to the mansion early on, maybe even before Charles woke up – Charles loves to sleep in – and then surprise him with the gift. Erik would have been the first in the morning to greet him and wish him a happy birthday. And the more he entertained that thought the more intrigued he became by the idea. Erik found his confidence fleeting, however, as he saw deliveries being made to the mansion early in the morning and Charles standing by the large open door, already dressed in fine clothes, seemingly ready to welcome the guests as soon as they arrived.

Normally, Erik gives Charles a small gift the next day. The younger boy is always very, very thankful for it, completely overjoyed, in fact. Erik wanted to change it this time, because this is a special gift, and he wanted Charles to have it on his birthday, not the day after, but he found himself drifting more and more out of Charles’s orbit as more and more rich people found their way into the gardens, into Charles’s orbit.

Sharon Xavier had invited a great many, important – or at least important-looking – people to attend the garden party meant to celebrate Charles’s birthday and his most excellent grades guaranteeing Charles to obtain his high school diploma even a year earlier than expected, and they expected him to graduate very early anyway. Now turned thirteen, of that his stepfather is convinced, Charles will be the youngest student to ever attend college in the school’s history. Of course that called for celebration. But that celebration lies far out of Erik’s orbit, shrinking his little big world to the confines of the house all over again, leaving Erik to look out the window instead of going to where he would much rather be, to see the light that made his universe so much bigger and so much brighter.

Erik has no doubt that Charles will exceed even those expectations and excel in every subject. Charles is outstandingly smart and athletic. No small part of Erik is proud of Charles and his achievements, is proud of being that boy’s friend.

And yet, when Erik heard of the prospect of Charles graduating even earlier than he would have anyway, he had to swallow hard. Because that means Charles will be out of his orbit even sooner. He will go on to college and ease into new orbits, new worlds. And while Erik knows that Charles will remain his best friend – and will see to it that Erik knows this – he also knows that distance between them will inevitably pull their worlds far apart. And then his world will shrink to the house again – for all days of the year, every other year.

“Willst du nicht gehen?” his mother asks, peeking her head out of the kitchen into the living room, drying a pan. Yes, he wants to go, but no, that’s nothing he can do, can he?

“Vielleicht doch lieber morgen, Mama,“ he tells her. Perhaps it’s best to stick to tradition after all and only go there tomorrow. It worked before, why shouldn’t it now?

She shrugs at him. „Wie du meinst. Ich glaube, Charles würde sich trotzdem freuen, wenn du es ihm heute noch gibst.“

Erik knows she is right about that. Charles would be happy to get it today. He is always happy about any gift Erik ever made him, but thankfully, his mother might be pushy in her own, calm way, but she wouldn’t ever force him into going.

“Es ist schon spät.“

Being too late is a passable enough excuse, isn’t it?

His mother gives him a look. “Das hat dich noch nie abgehalten, mein Schatz.“

She is right yet again, the way she always seems to be: No, it being late never hindered him from going. Erik knows that this is just another cheap excuse he wants to tell himself, so not to feel like he is failing himself – and Charles.

Yes, he wanted to go earlier, but no, he somehow couldn’t when he saw Charles up early, dressed in a fine suit jacket and knickers, the hair neatly combed, looking so much different from the boy he tends to roll over the grass with until both are positively disheveled and dirty.

Yes, he says that he wants to wait until tomorrow, but no, he wants to give it to Charles now. Even though a voice tells Erik that it’s stupid and that Charles likely received much better gifts than the one Erik put together with the limited resources he had – and failed at wrapping, if not for his mother’s aid.

Yes, his mother is likely right that Charles would be enthusiastic if he brought it today. Charles would be enthusiastic about Erik gifting him a handshake and a piece of gum. Maybe even just the handshake. He’s too kind, simple as that. But no, she was right, it being late never hindered Erik from sneaking into the house to see Charles.

So why did it now?

That would be the point where Erik would ask Charles for help to solve this paradox, but Charles is not here to help him with that. Charles is up there whereas Erik is glancing out the window, clouding his vision with his own hot breath.

Erik turns around when he hears his mother walk into the living room, having finished cleaning up the kitchen. She puts her hands on his shoulders, offering a kind smile. “Ich gehe jetzt ins Bett. Es wird ein langer Tag morgen.“

“Gute Nacht, Mama.“

“Schlaf gut, mein Schatz.“ She kisses his forehead. “Bleib nicht zu lange wach.“

“Werde ich nicht, Mama.“

His mother grins at him, winking. “Und schließ das Fenster.“

Erik bows his head, hiding a smirk of his own. Charles had been right about that after all – his mother certainly knew about their antics of sneaking into each other’s rooms, but then again, mothers always seem to know. Safe for Charles’s mother, perhaps, who is too busy with her own problems, as far as it concerns Erik, though he is not supposed to say that around Charles because he wants to see the good in everyone and everything.

His mother disappears before Erik can protest, leaving him to stay by the window, looking out to the world now containing his orbit, considering what to do next, whether to keep on the same plane Erik followed year after year ever since Charles and his smile and his bright blue eyes became the center of a new and exciting universe.

The movement comes before the thought, and before Erik knows what’s going on, he is walking up the hill, over moist grass that tickles his ankles as he goes. His heart pounds louder and louder the closer he comes the mansion, but Erik swallows it all down because he made a plan and he is supposed to stick to it, right?

Right?

The young boy does quick work to find his way up the drain, courtesy of his ability to control metal, swiftly landing on the windowsill and pulling up the glass with a flick of his wrist.

“Erik!”

He finds himself momentarily frozen when his eyes fall on Charles sitting cross-legged on the bed, his eyes finding Erik at once. The sheer excitement in his tone leaves Erik wondering how Charles can make him feel like he is right where he belongs with no more than the raise of his voice. No one can say Erik’s name to make him feel like that, really. That is only possible in Charles’s world.

“Sorry for being late. I didn’t want to come before all the fancy people were out of sight,” Erik lies as he slips inside, hoping that Charles won’t pick up on it, and even if he does, be graceful enough to ignore it.

“They would not leave,” Charles huffs, throwing his head back, leaving his soft curls to fall into his eyes. Erik can tell that Charles spent at least quite some time ruffling up his hair after Sharon certainly seemingly forced him to comb it straight to the sides. Charles hates that and is normally very vocal about it, arguing that it’s against his nature as he has a tendency to run his fingers through his hair – and since his hairs grow on his head, he should be allowed to make that call. His mother tends to disagree on the matter, as she does on so many other things.

“I suppose they wanted to get all of the champagne, huh?” Erik snorts.

“And the caviar and the lobster and the Belgium chocolates… You don’t want to know how many people I had to listen to, thinking to themselves how smart they are for having brought extra bags just to get some extra caviar. One would think that rich people like them can buy their own, but no.”

Erik makes a low gurgling noise in the back of his throat. “That sounds like fun.”

Charles rolls his eyes. “It’s like Christmas for me!”

Erik smirks, but then lets his gaze wander about the room he normally knows inside-out, having spent many, many hours in here to recognize every item and memorize its exact position. However, looking around now, it seems that things are somewhat out of order. Chairs were pushed back, and the small table they tend to pull into the middle of the room to play chess at seems vanished.

That is until Erik gifts over gifts over gifts piled up in one corner of the room, likely having buried underneath their chess table and the chairs. His mouth falls open silently for a moment, but then Erik gathers himself. “Wow. Large booty you got this year, Charles.”

“It was a lot of people, so yes, it is quite a pile, though I’d rather had an actual pirate’s booty with a treasure chest and a quest than this festivity,” Charles comments, wrinkling his nose. “Which, again, only leaves you wondering why they are so eager to steal caviar off a buffet. They can afford all these gifts but can’t seem but get as much of that black stuff as they can.”

“Humans are weird.”

“Tell me about it.”

Erik keeps studying the elaborately wrapped presents with golden cords and perfectly tied red ribbons, feeling all the more inadequate about his own little thing that would quickly disappear in the mass of large gifts. Erik left it sitting in the pocket of his jacket, finding the edges of it poking his sides almost painfully much now.

His attention quickly turned to Charles, who is still dressed in that fine suit jacket and knickers, looking like any English boarding school students.

“Did you grow tired of unwrapping them or why are there still so many left?” Erik comments, cocking an eyebrow at the younger boy.

“I didn’t unwrap any,” Charles answers, barely moving his lips apart as he speaks. Erik can tell that there is something deeply upsetting Charles about them. It would explain why Charles chose to sit on the bed, as far away from the gifts as possible and why he keeps eyeing them as though one of those packages may decide to eat him any minute now. However, he wants Charles to say it himself instead of guessing, so he just plays along for now.

“Why? That’s the big deal about wrapping them, isn’t it?”

Charles shrugs his shoulders. “I already know what’s in them.”

“And nothing you enjoy?”

“Nothing that means anything,” Charles sighs, letting his head fall forward so that his chocolate curls cover his eyes almost completely.

Erik frowns. “What now?”

Charles gesticulates at the boxes with both hands before running them through his hair nervously. “There is something in there, but they are empty. Those people give me a gift because it’s good tone and because they want to show off their wealth. They try to outdo one another with gifts. With how much they cost or how pricey they look. To me, those are all empty boxes they might just as well have given to themselves instead of me. They aren’t really for me, they are for my parents to see.”

“You know, you sound a bit ungrateful right now,” Erik teases, but he is quick to regret that when he sees Charles’s shoulders slump in defeat. “I know. I am sorry.”

Erik rolls his eyes at him. “I was just joking, Charles.”

“But you are right. I have all these things, but I don’t want them because they mean nothing. That’s… decadent. I know all that. But… those boxes feel like ghosts, and I’d much rather have them gone.”

The older boy grimaces at that. While he cannot really fathom it, Erik knows that Charles’s abilities make him see the world very differently than most other people see it. Charles knows when someone lies to his face. He knows when someone means it when they wish him a happy birthday. He knows how much care went into a gift, how much it means to the person gifting it. He knows when people are lying to his face and he has to pretend not to know it. He has to smile back even though he knows the others don’t actually mean it.

Erik understood by now that Charles is not just ashamed but afraid of emptiness. He finds that in abundance in the house, which made him cling all the more to Erik’s presence in the mansion once he found the confidence to join him there instead of just playing outside all those years ago. Charles is afraid of empty spaces that should have meaning but bear none. They are like black holes threatening to swallow him. And in that way, Charles not wanting to have anything to do with these gifts should actually not come as a surprise at all.

“There was not a single person at that party today who… who was there for my sake. There was no single kid my age. Kurt invited a bunch of teens who go to Bard College, to show me off and to make me want to go there. Mother presented me like… like I was some new dress she’d just bought in Paris. There were only adults who wanted champagne and attention,” Charles laments, unable to hold it back anymore.

Erik finds himself strangely glad for Charles sharing that with him, though, because it means that Charles trusts him enough to show those sides he either wants or was taught to hide from other people, now fancy people or not.

Charles rubs his eyes. “And I had to greet them all and thank them for coming and make conversation and talk about how much I love studying and answer their foolish questions about how I can know that much at such a young age and ignore just how many of the men called me Charlie or Champ or Chuck, trying to act like we were friendly.”

“Charlie.” Erik can’t help but grin at that, well aware of Charles’s aversion to be called anything other than his name.

The younger boy narrows his eyes at him. “You call me that once, I swear to God, Erik.”

“I won’t,” he assures him quickly, holding up his hands.

“Then I rather would’ve had things like last year when no one came,” Charles sighs.

Erik makes a face at that. “You had the flu last year, that’s why no one came.”

He hated that entire week because Erik was not allowed anywhere near Charles, so that he didn’t get sick himself. That was one of the longest periods of time he was left not just without Charles but worrying about Charles, which made it all the worse. By day 8, Erik couldn’t take it anymore and just sneaked in to read German fairytales to a still recovering Charles – and Erik never got sick of it, this way or the other.

“And it was quiet and no one called me Charlie,” Charles sighs almost wistfully. “And you read stories to me. That was so much better than listening to one guy boasting about his handicap in golf. And for the record, it’s not as good as he says it is.”

The older boy offers a soft smirk. “You are a party pooper.”

“Maybe I am,” Charles sighs wearily, but then looks back at Erik with that bright smile shining brighter than any star Erik ever saw. “I am glad you came by, though. This is definitely the highlight for me today.”

“Highlight,” Erik repeats, feeling the poking in his side all the more presently now. Many years passed since the day he quite literally stumbled over Charles, but to this day, Erik finds himself amazed at what meanings Charles keeps attaching to him, making Erik see things in himself that only Charles seems to know how to bring to light.

Charles rolls his shoulders. “Well, you normally don’t come on my birthday. Today you did, though. So this is rather special, right?”

“Right,” Erik says, chewing on his bottom lip pensively. “Well, you know your parents wouldn’t want to see me around.”

A cheap excuse again, Erik knows, but he is still trying to process the thought that he is Charles’s highlight of the day, which only ever makes him feel worse for having waited that long, for having kept Charles waiting that long, to be more precise.

“I know. And it’s stupid. And I know you don’t like being around those people either,” Charles ponders.

“Neither do you,” Erik snorts.

“Which tells me that birthday parties are entirely overrated. I should only ever celebrate the day after my birthday,” the younger boy concludes.

Erik furrows his eyebrows at that. “Why?”

“Because that’s the day you come and wish me a happy birthday,” is the simple yet all-revealing answer. And while Charles would not know, Erik likely would have to thank Charles for solving the paradox he couldn’t figuring out on his own.

“… So, birthday for you would be better if I winded up to the occasion,” Erik asks cautiously.

“Very much so,” Charles agrees, nodding his head. “But I understand that you’d rather not. It’s just a date anyway. One day in the entire year. And thankfully, I normally see you on any other day, for which I am more than glad. Those days make up for that one stupid day most certainly.”

Erik suddenly doesn’t know how to smile because he wants to smile so desperately, but it’d be straight-up ridiculous and foolish, he knows that, too. So instead, he focuses on the poking in his side, reminding him of why he came here, why he wanted to change the direction of his orbit just a bit, to maybe gravitate a little closer to where he wants to be every day of the year, and not every day safe for one.

“By the way, I expect you to help me unwrap all of these tomorrow and sneak as much as possible to charitable causes,” Charles informs him.

“Why do we have to do that in secret again?” Erik wants to know, absently patting his palm against the chest, right where the present sits right before his ever beating heart.

It is another habit of Charles’s he never quite understood. When Erik comes by to wish him a happy birthday, Charles always tells him that if there is something Erik would like for himself, he is free to take it. As for the rest, Charles always asks Erik for help to get rid of most of it, sneaking it to orphanages or giving it out to surprised classmates at Erik’s school.

“Because Kurt is obsessed with money. And Mother will forget about it after she had her morning drink. So that means we have to make this disappear before Kurt can ask questions about it,” Charles explains.

Erik shakes his head. “Your family’s weird.”

“You don’t have to tell me, but I suppose it’s as you say, that’s just how humans are,” Charles sighs. “I’d rather not have to hide these things, but I don’t want to have another fuss. Fusses are… never good for Mother.”

“And you by extension,” Erik argues. It is one of those things Charles likes to forget, or rather, wants him to forget, but Erik certainly does not and won’t ever. Ever since he learned of what Kurt did to Cain and still does to Sharon when he is having one of his mood swings, Erik knew not to hold Kurt Marko in any kind regard, even less so once he saw what a toll it took on Charles. Because he can’t help but feel their pain, share in their suffering.

Once Erik learned of that, he learned to hate Kurt Marko. Charles doesn’t want Erik to act upon his anger, however, still trying to find a better solution, hoping to find a way to stop Kurt from acting that way entirely, but Charles doesn’t have that ability and perhaps even if he did, he couldn’t because something tells Erik that Kurt Marko is simply a bad man, and some bad men are beyond saving, simple as that.

What drives Erik near mad, though, is how Charles developed the tendency to act like he doesn’t suffer from this just because Kurt doesn’t let his anger out on him physically. For a boy as smart as Charles, Erik sometimes has to wonder how he can be so blind to this most evident truth. That is no paradox, that is plain obvious, but Charles won’t see it. Instead, he only ever seems to see hope returning to him when Erik finds him those nights and offers comfort his family can’t or won’t give to him.

But Erik will, always.

Charles says nothing, just licks his lips and looks at some dark corner in his room. Erik learned by now that money can’t buy you everything. It certainly can’t buy you a good and kind family, even though Charles would be one of the few rich people Erik knows would be deserving of it.

“Either way, will you be helping me?” Charles asks, hoping to lift the mood again, for what it seems.

“Do you even ask?”

Charles smiles at him faintly. Both know he will. They always help one another. It’s just the way their universe works. It’s just that simple.

“Thank you.”

“Oh, I almost forgot…,” Erik says. No, he didn’t forget, he couldn’t ever, but he lacks better words to say it with instead, so that will have to do. Erik reaches into his jacket to retrieve the small box, grimacing at the wrapping which got a bit dented, and the ribbon now hanging on the gift in a rather slanted way. Erik knows there is no going back anymore, however, which is why he simply adds, “Uhm, this is for you.”

Charles beams at him so brightly that Erik squints his eyes for a second. He takes the gift from Erik’s somewhat shaky hands and unwraps it with the same childlike enthusiasm he seemingly reserves for Erik’s presents alone.

“It’s nothing much, I just…,” the older boy mutters, but before he can talk his gift down, Charles retrieved it from the box and holds it against the cool light of the moon filtering through the window.

“Oh my God! This is absolutely stunning! You really are talented – and creative! I mean, look at that! This is amazing!” Charles shouts in sheer delight. He holds the little airplane Erik crafted from metal above his head, studying it intently.

Erik winces at every bump he knows to be in the middle as Charles runs his fingers across it, but then the younger man is up to his feet and hugging him so tightly that Erik finds the air knocked out of his lungs.

“Thank you, thank you, thank you. Thank you so much. This is the best gift ever!” Charles mutters against the fabric of Erik’s jacket as the younger boy keeps his nose tightly pressed against it.

“You… you’re welcome,” Erik whispers faintly, awkwardly tapping his palms on Charles’s back as the other boy keeps holding on, radiating with every bit of himself nothing but happiness and light, so much so that Erik can see candle lights flicker up before his eyes.

Charles smiles at him and Erik completely forgets any limitations that were there earlier, in his little world, because once he is with Charles, they are no more.

“And you made that yourself?” the younger boy asks as he pulls back to look at the airplane again, eager to seemingly memorize every detail.

“I am still learning, but…,” Erik says, but Charles cuts him off before he can finish, “You truly are talented. I now have something absolutely singular in the whole world. Thank you so much, Erik. You really are the best.”

“It’s nothing,” Erik argues, chewing on the inside of his cheek.

“It’s surely not,” Charles argues, shaking his head. “This is a great something. It’s… everything.”

Erik smiles at him, pushing any thought aside about how his mother is going to tell him that she told him so in the morning. For now, none of it matters, because Charles smiles like Erik wants to see him smile all the time, every day for the rest of their lives. Because that smile opened up his world until it became his world.

“Will you stay over?” Charles asks, tilting his head to the side.

“If you want me to.”

The younger man grins at him. “Do you even ask?”

“Not really,” the older one smirks back.

“Good, then how about you grab that present over there and unwrap it for me while I find a spot to put this beauty here?” he suggests, not really bothering to wait for a reply as he already busies himself finding the perfect spot for the little airplane.

“Why am I supposed to unwrap this?” Erik asks, frowning.

“It’s the only passable gift I’d mean to keep for myself,” Charles informs him, calling over his shoulder. “It’s a chessboard with metal chess pieces. You can move them with your mind, which should be a nice training for you, right?”

“Sure.”

Erik watches as Charles roams around to find the perfect spot for a small gift that means so much more to Charles than Erik ever could have dared to hope. He turns his gaze away before Charles can notice and instead does quick work to free the chessboard from the large bow and the red wrapping paper. It is, in fact, a very fancy chessboard and the metal is singing to him instantly, making Erik eager to train, but far more importantly, play with it.

With Charles.

“Against all odds, this just turned out to be my best birthday yet… I suppose thirteen is my new lucky number, then,” Charles muses as Erik sets up the chess pieces, already moving a few pieces with his abilities, even though he still needs to work some more on the smaller movements, the ones that require more finesse and attention to detail. But he is getting there. He already made an airplane, which means this is only a matter of time.

And Charles will certainly make sure of it that Erik will get a lot of practice.

“If you want me to, I will come up on your birthday next time,” Erik offers.

“I’d very much appreciate it if you did.” He sits down cross-legged across from Erik as he shrugs out of his jacket and unbuttons the top of his white shirt. Charles gets rid of the tie, which leaves him looking much more like the Charles Erik knows best, free and smiling brighter than the stars can shine, nowhere near a black hole as his entire world appears before him, morphing into a checkerboard wherein they can decide the way their worlds are meant to turn.

“Since it’s your birthday, you get to make the first move.”

“How considerate of you, Erik.”

“I’ll go easy on you.”

“No, you won’t.”

And neither one would want it to be any other way.

“Happy birthday, Charles.”

And just like that, Erik finds that his world is right where it should be, now also on the one day out of the year it used to be far away and out of reach.

Because his world is right within reach, making the first move, smiling so brightly that Erik knows that there is no way either one is going to sleep tonight.

And he is already looking forward to Charles’s lucky number fourteen.

#cherik #charles x erik #charles xavier #erik lehnsherr #cherik au #x men au #fanfic #fanfiction #snippets #something fanfic like #because it just keeps ghosting through my head #and it won't stop #halp

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kaesaaurelia · 5 years ago

Text

up and running

For @whumptober2019 day 22: hallucination.

A continuation of/conclusion to day 2′s fic here.

This is a fic about an OC (Vehuel, Principality of Chicago) during the Great Chicago Fire. There’s also a lot of Michael, and Heaven being a generally toxic work environment.

Content warning for FIRE EVERYWHERE, major destructive disasters, and (not medically realistic -- these are angels) traumatic brain injury + treatment of same.

Vehuel made her way northward slowly, trying to help all she could without being burnt up herself, gently pushing people westward if she could. Now that she knew Michael was here she was less worried about having her miracles cut off, but the fire was spreading so quickly and there were so many people. She pushed through the crowd, keeping children with their parents, healing burns and cuts, and plaguing pickpockets with sudden fits of conscience.

People were starting to run into the lake, and Vehuel hesitated as to what to do about them, but then Michigan Avenue caught fire and there was nothing for it but to leave them there. She realized suddenly that the fire was a few blocks from North Avenue, and here she was, nowhere near the church, so she ran west, praying (in an informal way, knowing that she couldn't answer such a prayer herself) that she wasn't leaving the people in the lake to drown or boil. She remembered the crowds at the docks in Lisbon, and reminded herself that no great wave would come out of Lake Michigan. Or at least, probably not.

Michael was standing on the roof, looking out over the city in a resigned sort of way. The flames were only a block away now.

"I'm here!" Vehuel called from the ground, feeling like she was absolutely ridiculous not to be able to fly.

Michael flitted down to meet her, though. "Quite a fire," she said, and frowned. "I don't think my miracle is going to hold it off."

Vehuel, soot-stained and exhausted, could not imagine what she could possibly say to this. "But how?" she asked; those were the only two coherent words she could come up with.

Michael was silent for a few moments. "Have you heard of Peshtigo?" she asked, finally.

Vehuel shook her head.

"It was a town, but it burned down yesterday. The whole town. Two thousand people are dead."

This was not at all helping Vehuel's urge to cry. "I'm sorry."

"Well, it's obviously not your fault," said Michael, frowning at her.

It wasn't obvious to her. She should have known this would happen, it was one of her towns so of course it was going to be destroyed; she should've influenced the city government for better fire safety, or slowed building, or something.

She remembered, queasily, all those building projects she'd helped along for the sheer delight of showing up Cerviel, that smug asshole, who had a New York-centric view of the solar system. How close was Peshtigo? Should she have been checking up on that instead of indulging her stupid competitiveness?

"There've been a few other fires today," said Michael. "Near here, geographically. This is the only place of any real significance, of course, but..." Michael continued talking, but Vehuel had a hard time listening, because a town of two thousand people was of real significance to those people, and now they were all dead, and they weren't even Vehuel's people, but really, all people were Her people, so they were significant, weren't they? But Michael hadn't meant that like it sounded, of course. Michael was brusque by necessity, and very important and busy and probably shouldn't even be here, and certainly didn't have time for Vehuel's philosophizing, and she was the only person in Heaven who'd ever listened to Vehuel so really, Vehuel owed her everything. "...to hunt up any evidence of a demonic firebug. What do you think?"

"Ah." Vehuel did not panic. "I think -- that -- maybe? But it hasn't rained for a long time, and it is prairie and forest up here. Could just be natural."

"I'll keep that in mind," said Michael, and she sounded like she actually would. The fire was almost upon them, and people trailed past. Many carried belongings -- hopefully their own, but Vehuel had seen looting on her way here. "And I think it's time to evacuate this church. Go in and hold the walls, Vehuel; I'll get the people out."

Vehuel walked straight through the wall of the church, and found an out-of-the-way place in the aisles to stand and keep the walls up. She watched Michael, unseen by humans, nudging them into greater efficiency, reminding them of things they'd forgotten, keeping people from being trampled underfoot. Vehuel was good at that kind of thing, but it was a relief not to have to think just now. No quick calculations about how fast someone could run, no moral conundrums about which person to save, no care to be taken to avoid startling the horses or the humans. Just bricks to protect.

And she cried, finally, wiping tears off her face and got soot in her eyes, which made the crying worse, of course. She let down the miracle that made her seem unremarkable to human eyes anywhere she went, and put everything into the walls. A few people stared openly at her; at a guess, this mostly-German congregation did not contain many colored women who dressed in men's suits. (Eventually, a man approached her and offered her a handkerchief, which she waved off.)

The church emptied out, and Vehuel could feel flames licking at the walls. She pushed back against them, leaned into them, but it was no use, because

the church was burning and everything was on fire, everyone was on fire in their All Souls' Day finery. The ground kept shaking and the flames rushed up over the pews, and it was all Vehuel could do to save a few people from being trampled as they fled. She tried to calm the ground, foolishly, but she couldn't stop an earthquake once it had hit, and it had hit hard. Flying over the town, she saw that there were fires springing up everywhere, walls coming down, people pouring out of churches, headed to the docks -- good. They would be safe by the water, away from walls, she was certain. She tried to keep the church from falling down around them, but it was too much to ask of reality, to ignore the ground buckling beneath, and the walls came down

right on top of her, and her whole left side was -- on fire? Was that fire? She couldn't even tell anymore.

"Why didn't you leave?" someone asked her, and she didn't know what to say. There were people inside! There was an earthquake! she wanted to say, but -- but -- everything hurt so badly she couldn't think. Someone was pulling her out from under the rubble -- someone was telling her she should have run -- someone was being, frankly, very annoying, and she tried to tell them to shut up but she couldn't seem to move anything.

She decided, to preserve whatever sanity she had left, that she didn't really need to be conscious for whatever was happening now. Either she would be discorporated or she wouldn't. It was in God's hands now.

"Oh, no, you don't want to go in there," said the Archangel Michael. "That's the infinite frictionless surface, we'll never get you out of there. Looks fun, though, doesn't it? Come along, my office is this way." She smiled, and led Vehuel further into the central offices of Heaven. She caught a brief glimpse of several angels skidding across a blindingly white floor, using their wings to balance.

There were so many other angels here, and so much light; it was strange and amazing and terrifying, and so unlike her posting in the far reaches of space. Everything looked so perfect, so correct. But it also hurt her eyes, so she closed most of them.

Michael sat down behind her desk, and Vehuel tried not to fidget, sitting in the seat across from it. She stared at the nameplate. Who is like God? Definitely not me, she thought. That was the point, probably. "You had some concerns about the behavior of light?"

This was it. She could say what she'd actually come here to say, or she could talk about the wave-particle glitch. She took a breath. "Actually. It's about my supervisor? Lucifer. He's...

There was too much light, and Vehuel tried to keep her eyes closed, but somebody was standing above her, telling her to do something she couldn't quite make out.

She felt the prickle of a medical miracle settle over her, and suddenly the jibberish resolved into "Vehuel, wake up, please?"

Everything hurt like Hell and she absolutely did not want to be awake right now. Still, an order was an order. She opened her eyes, or tried to. Something was wrong. Her left eye wouldn't open. "I'm awake," she muttered. She tried to focus. Was that Raphael? Possibly. She didn't entirely remember what Raphael looked like. Honestly, it could be anyone with a face.

"Good, good," said possibly-Raphael, although she could barely hear him. "You need to be awake for a while, I have to rebuild some parts of your brain."

"Are you Raphael?" she asked. "I can't tell. He has a face, you have a face, so I'm thinking... probably?"

The angel gave her a tight, worried smile. "Yes. We've met. You're in here every few centuries."

They probably had, but Vehuel was having trouble recalling specifics. "I feel really calm about this," she said. It seemed unusual, that she should be calm.

"That tracks," said Raphael, grimacing.

"I don't remember being calm about anything, ever," she said. "I think maybe I was calm once in 1450 BC, and then my island exploded. Should I be concerned? That doesn't seem like a good calmness result."

"You might be experiencing some memory issues," said Raphael, who was looking kind of upset now. "It's probably because you're missing half of your brain because somebody let an entire church that was on fire fall on you." He sounded a little hysterical.

"Oh, don't be dramatic, Raphael, it was just one wall," said somebody on the other side of her. "And it's not half of her brain. A third at most."

Raphael glowered at whoever-it-was. "Michael, this is ridiculous, we can't just send her back," he snapped. "She needs a full recorporation, or at least -- at least let me get her out of this body while I fix it. Send her somewhere nice on holiday! This is Heaven, there's got to be somewhere nice. Damned if I've been there, though."

"Don't even joke about that," said Michael, darkly. "How long would it take to fix the body without her in it?"

"About a year to do it properly. Maybe six months if I push the miracles to their limits. Got to do testing, see that all the connections connect up right; it's easier with her in it but it's harder on her."

"We don't have time for that," said Michael. "We need the city up and running, so we need her up and running."

"You seem really upset about this," Vehuel told Raphael. "I think, I think probably if I'm going to have a doctor they should be more calm about it than I am. Maybe you should take a break?"

"You stay out of this!" Raphael snapped. "Michael, how long do we have?"

Michael sighed. "I'd like to get her back in a few hours. This wasn't supposed to happen."

"Well, obviously it did, so on some level it was," said Raphael. "A few hours, are you -- you know what, never mind, I'll just -- I'll see what I can do. Get out of here, Michael." Presumably, Michael left. "Some people," Raphael muttered, "could use a full brain replacement."

"Is this going to hurt?" Vehuel asked.

"It's going to be... it's going to be odd," said Raphael. "I'm sorry, we don't usually do these with the inhabitant still in the body the whole time. For reasons I will not go into, because if you had your whole brain they would probably worry you."

It wasn't like she had anything better to do. "Okay."

"And you won't be able to speak or understand things for a while," said Raphael. "See, if I could take you out of this body it'd be fine but -- never mind. A few hours? A few hours! I can't believe..." And then the medical miracle fell away and he was speaking gibberish again.

It was definitely very, very uncomfortable. Vehuel had had worse deaths, but none of them had ever felt as itchy and invasive as an archangel remaking her brain. Intermixed with the discomfort, though, were strange little fragments of sensation. She heard a song that had been inescapably, obnoxiously popular one year in Pompeii, so much so that somebody had rewritten it to be about his campaign for city council. (He had not won.) She tasted, vividly, the food at the best uttapam place in all of Vijayanagara, a weird little hole in the wall she used to go to after wrestling matches, and then, centuries and oceans apart, felt the press and the sound of the crowd at a chunkey match in Cahokia. She saw the brilliant lights of the central bulge of the Milky Way galaxy, and the terrible darkness forming in the center, and thought, Oh fuck, what are we gonna tell Lucifer?

"Vehuel?" It was Raphael. "Vehuel, can you understand me?"

"Yeah?" She remembered where she was. She remembered what had happened. "Shit shit shit I have to go, why can't I move? Is it over? Am I done? I need to get back down there, there's a fire."

"Ah. Yes, you're definitely back," Raphael said. "Don't try to move, I still have to put your skull back on. And your arm. And your wings." He sighed.

"Okay but I have to -- the city's on fire, the whole thing is --"

"That's exactly what I thought you'd say," said Raphael, unhappily. "I think it would be best for both of us if you were asleep for the rest of this."

"But --"

Raphael waved his hand over her.

"You will have to make him trust you," said Michael. Vehuel nodded. "You will have to..." She paused, as if feeling out what words she might use. "You will have to say things that aren't true. Can you do that?"

Vehuel didn't think she was very good at making people trust her. She was good with fire and gravity and dust; other angels were more difficult. But she had some experience with untruths. Which she probably shouldn't admit to. "I think so," she said.

"Good," said Michael.

"Um. What if -- what if he -- what if he finds out early?" Michael looked at her sharply. "I mean! I mean I wasn't planning to fail, but what if I do?"

She'd expected a bland reassurance; she wasn't meant to fail, so she wouldn't. Michael did not give her that. Michael manifested, from out of nowhere, an infinitely thin line with an arrow at the top. "This is something called a weapon." She handed it to Vehuel, or tried to.

Vehuel looked at it skeptically. "That looks like a ray. Like on your diagrams." She gestured to the scratchpad in front of Michael. "Or a line of force."

"Well." Michael paused, looking a bit embarrassed. "Well, it is a line of force, really, but it's -- it's pointy, see?" She jabbed the weapon into the wall, where it stuck. "It should hurt him."

"Hurt him?"

"An unpleasant feeling. He won't want to keep having it. You'll be able to hold him off and get back here. But I'd like the rest of them here too, if at all possible. And once they're all here, I'll see to them personally."

Vehuel took the weapon, and turned it over in her hands. "Well. All right." That sounded fair. Michael would yell at Lucifer and everyone else, and they'd stop making terrible, frightening plans, and everything would be good again.

"Heaven is counting on you, Vehuel," said Michael.

She nodded. "I -- I actually did have a problem to report about the light waves, though?"

"I'm sorry, I think I've got a meeting to go to," said Michael. She made a face. "I think it's about ions. So fiddly! Later, you can tell me what's wrong with the light waves." She smiled, and showed Vehuel out.

Vehuel opened her eyes. All of them. All of them. She closed thirteen of them. Way too bright.

She remembered about the fire again, and sat up, and nearly overbalanced and fell to the floor. "The fire!" she said, not that that would help anything. She looked around, and saw Haniel, Michael, and Raphael watching her.

"Don't worry, we sent some rain," said Haniel, looking very concerned. "I'm sure that'll help! Don't you think? Anyway, you can relax. You don't have to go back right away. You can rest." She patted Vehuel's shoulder.

"She's needed for the rebuilding," said Michael. "She's very good at rebuilding," she added.

"I am, I really am! Let me go back!" said Vehuel.

Haniel glared -- actually glared -- at Michael. Haniel had never glared in her life. "I'm sure the humans can manage for a month or so, Michael, they're not idiots. Well, they're not complete idiots, anyway."

"That's true," said Michael, considering. "We could have Cerviel check in on Chicago from time to time --"

"No!" said Vehuel. "No, no, absolutely not." Cerviel was not touching her city. He'd probably forget to add alleys when they rebuilt.

"No, definitely not Cerviel, he's very busy," said Haniel. "What about... we have someone in Los Angeles, don't we? Can't we send them?"

Michael frowned at this. "It's a long way to travel, though. Do you remember who we have there?" she asked Haniel.

Haniel frowned. "I..."

Vehuel decided to cut that line of thought short before it got anywhere worrisome. "No, no, Michael's right, LA's too far to travel," said Vehuel, "and it'd be cruel to him to make him deal with Chicago weather. I have to go back. Just for a few years. Come on, I've been through worse."

Haniel looked unhappy. "That doesn't mean --"

"Well, I'm glad that's settled," said Michael. She turned to Vehuel. "Good luck with the rebuilding! I know you can handle it." Then she left.

"I still think this is a terrible idea," said Raphael.

Haniel shrugged at him. "Apparently she's made up her mind." She turned to Vehuel. "Really, though, if you need some time..." She looked hopeful.

"No, no, I -- I can't let Michael down," said Vehuel.

"Vehuel..." Raphael sighed. "The day you let Michael down I will shake your hand and get you a box or a basket or a bottle of whatever weird disgusting human thing you like best, all right?"

Vehuel blinked at him. "Thanks? I guess. But look, I really have to go." She got up to leave. "But thanks!"

The surviving population of Chicago clustered raggedly in a few places along the lakefront and on the prairie north of the city. They were drenched and burnt both, and many of them had lost everything; even if not, many of them had lost family.

Vehuel went from cluster to cluster, shepherding lost children back to their parents when she could, and healing burns -- except on pickpockets, because she was so tired of pickpockets by now -- and miracling up food. The ruins of the city were so hot she could barely stand to fly over them, even at a great height, but she did, once.

And she remembered -- but did not see -- the population of Thera, saved by too many miracles and still homeless and terrified but alive. She recalled Lisbon after the earthquake and fire and tsunami, and the reprimand she'd earned from Gabriel when she'd allowed the prime minister to have the corpses burned rather than backing the church to make sure they were buried -- she'd seen Pestilence lurking in the ruins and would give him no foothold. She'd earned that reprimand, and she was proud of it.

She remembered guiding that idiot Aeneas for a while. Not her proudest achievement, but she'd managed to get him where he was supposed to be. (And promptly gotten lost again for several years on her way back to Troy. What had been wrong with the Aegean sea back then?)

Looking over the ruins of Chicago was difficult, and looking at the ruins of its citizens was even harder, in some ways. But it was still a city. It was just a city without a lot of buildings, for now. And she was going to have to do her best with it.

#whumptober2019 #no.22 #cw: fire #cw: injury #cw: brain injury #cw: surgery #text #fiction #kaesa op #my ocs #good omens #michael good omens

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theoddcatlady · 6 years ago

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Surrogacy

The reason this bullshit is happening to me is because I tried to to do a nice thing. That’s all there is too it.

Emma was the daughter of one of my mom’s friends. We knew each other as kids but our friendship was mostly we were forced to play with each other because her mom was over or my mom was visiting her and I got dragged along. After middle school, when I could finally watch myself, we didn’t even try to keep in contact.

But now there’s this brilliant thing called Facebook, where you can reconnect with anyone from your life, from your second grade teacher to that girl you used to play together with as kids. Or you can stalk their page to see how much better their life is than yours.

Emma was the one who sent the friend request, and because I didn’t want to be a bitch I accepted it. Emma Buddy was now Emma Smith, she’d gotten married to her highschool sweetheart and they’d both been raking in enough dough from their jobs to afford a yearly cruise. Last year’s they’d gone to Alaska. I didn’t even know there was cruises for Alaska.

But I figured what the hey, I’ve done okay for myself, gotten published a few times in various magazines, I had a German Shepherd named Bailey that could sit up on command and would fetch me tissues whenever I sneezed. I was fine.

Then Emma sent me a message.

Hey, Jennifer! It’s been such a long time since we’ve talked, I’m sorry we’ve drifted apart. You wanna meet up sometime next week for coffee so we can catch up?

I’m horrible at finding nice ways to say ‘I’d rather not thanks’ so I ended up saying sure, expecting us to make plans that we’d never follow through with and then we’d go on with our own lives.

We ended up meeting at a nearby cafe next Saturday.

Emma had grown up from the awkward pigtailed child with a stutter to a beautiful woman with a great smile and a contagious laugh. I had to tell my very gay heart to calm the fuck down as she was happily married to a man.

Said man was a guy named Adam, and he was an optimistic, upbeat fellow that worked as a doctor. They lived in a great neighborhood, with a nice backyard and plenty of space for the kids.

It was when she brought up kids that her laugh seemed to fade and she curled into herself, staring at her Chai Tea. I asked her what was the matter, expecting her to tell me that she was worried about how her career would fair with children or that she was having a little trouble conceiving.

A ‘little trouble’ was an understatement. Emma had found out just a few days prior that she would never have children naturally. She might’ve had everything in her life perfect for a baby, but her womb was never going to let that happen. Adam was also crushed by this news but he was already searching for alternatives- adoption, fertility treatments… and surrogacy. You can see where this is going.

Before I even thought about it I offered to be her surrogate. Around the edges I come off as rather rough, but if I can help someone, there is nothing that will stop me from offering that help.

Of course my help isn’t always accepted, but Emma wrapped me in a crushing bear hug and thanked me.

The process itself was pretty boring so I’ll just skip all that, but lucky for everyone involved my womb was ready for the whole ‘baby making’ thing and once everything was all set up, I was set to carry Emma and Adam’s baby.

The first few months were as expected- morning sickness, sudden bursts of crying, tender boobs, basically your average pregnancy. Emma and Adam were incredibly supportive, they handled all the doctor’s appointments, covered all the costs, and I got two new friends out of the deal.

Then I cut myself and all hell broke loose.

Emma and Adam were over having tacos at my place, I was dicing tomatoes and I’d just turned to laugh at a joke Adam made when the knife accidentally caught my thumb. I’m a klutz, so I just swore and shook off my hand, asking Emma for a bandaid.

Both of them went quite pale before Emma sprung up and had me sit down, asking Adam to get the first aid kit. I laughed and told them to calm down, it was only a cut, but Adam seemed about five seconds away from driving me to the emergency room.

My cut was cleaned and bandaged, and I was given strict orders to remain still and to avoid aggravating the wound as much as possible. Again, I insisted it was just a cut, but Adam looked dead serious as he made me swear to be careful. For a moment, I felt a little panic in my chest, but it faded as soon as Emma brought me a plate of tacos.

What, I’m pregnant, and I was hungry. Besides, I reasoned they were just nervous for my safety. They’d already confided in me that Emma had miscarried twice and I knew losing this baby would crush them.

A week later, I attempted to remove the bandage and get on with my life, the cut wasn’t too deep and it should’ve long been healed.

It looked just as fresh as it did back then. The moment I twitched, the wound burst open again and my hand was soaked in blood. Bailey, who’d just been napping on the other side of the room, shot up to her feet and growled. I’d never heard her make that sound before, she was such a gentle dog and she’d never been aggressive before.

I managed to bandage myself back up but I did call Emma and let her know what happened and asked if I should go to the doctor about this. Emma scolded me about removing the bandage but told me it wasn’t necessary to go to the doctor. Whenever she and Adam came to visit he’d make sure it was all right. She told me that wounds ‘don’t heal the same when you’re pregnant’.

At that point I burst into tears again but I blame that on the hormones.

After that I became incredibly paranoid about getting hurt again. I didn’t shave because I didn’t want to deal with a shaving cut, I let Emma handle the knives for chopping veggies when she came to visit, I was very careful. No matter what I did, that cut didn’t heal. In fact, it seemed to get worse, no longer resembling a cut but more of a gouge, ripping back open if I so much as peeked at it.

I was concerned, yeah, but I didn’t think it was something to panic about yet. Like Emma said, wounds take longer to heal when you’re pregnant, and I was pregnant. Emma was more of an expert on this than I was.

Then I began having the nightmares.

The first time I was surrounded by dark figures, it was so unbearably hot. I was tied up and face down while they all just stared and laughed at me. A voice hissed the words ‘devil’s wife’ into my ear before a red hot brand was pressed against my bare thigh. I screamed and cried as it burned, I know you’re not supposed to feel pain in your sleep but I did, I truly did.

When I woke up the next morning, exhausted and my throat feeling like sandpaper, there was a bruise right where I was branded. One of my neighbors knocked on my door and asked if I was all right, they’d heard me screaming last night.

I don’t know why they didn’t think of calling the cops if I was screaming bloody murder, but some people just don’t want to be involved I suppose.

There were more nightmares, more than I can count. I was whipped. Burned alive. Skinned. I’d wake up with injuries I’d have no memory of getting, bruises and scrapes that I’d have to immediately bandage up before I bled everywhere. Bailey used to sleep in the same room as me. Not anymore. She would remain outside the door and wouldn’t come in until morning.

People at work were genuinely concerned I was in an abusive relationship with how the bandages and bruises popped up. One even offered me a safe place to stay. I declined, saying I was just having bad dreams and that I probably needed to be tied down for my own safety soon enough.

I joke about that to Emma and she took me seriously. I threatened to clock her one if she actually put restraints on my bed. I then burst into tears again and told her how sorry I was for threatening to hurt her, that she was a good friend and I was being horrible, but then Emma screamed.

I was crying blood. It wasn’t that my tears were tinted red, I was crying literal globs of blood down my cheeks. I looked in the mirror and I looked like a fucking horror film.

I’m not going to lie to you- if I hadn’t already been past that point, I would’ve gone for an abortion and not felt guilty about it. Okay, I would’ve felt a little guilty, but clearly my body wasn’t as ‘baby ready’ as the doctors said it was.

I’m staying at Emma’s and Adam’s house now, ready to pop in little over a month and I think I’ve been had.

I don’t think I’m carrying their baby. I think I’m carrying something else. The nightmares have only gotten worse. When I sleep in Emma’s and Adam’s bed, sometimes I get a good night’s sleep, but it’s a toss up. Adam once said he’s doing all he can to protect me, but Emma shut him up before he could explain further. I think he’s feeling guilty about what he’s done to me. I’m not sure if Emma is.

At night I stare at my giant belly and wonder what’s truly inside. I feel like hell, constantly woozy and queasy. I know I’m going to give birth soon.

And I think the part that scares me most is that last night Adam confirmed what they’d thought might been the case earlier on.

I’m having twins.

#horror stories #scary stories #creative writing #creepypasta #writers on tumblr #my stories

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lyricalafrica2 · 5 years ago

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Technology and survival tactics.

Well, what a whirlwind month. I'm now solely trying to write my blog from my phone. I'm also having trouble accessing photos downloaded from my camera, so I may have to do that separately. After allowing someone to look through photos on my ipad and having dropped it on concrete, it's never been the same. The screen flickers faster than a humming birds wings. To say I'm upset is a bit of an understatement. When you're so far away from home and it's been a reliable means of working and keeping up to date with everything, it is a huge loss!

I will try to update you with some visuals in due course!

So here I find myself in Zimbabwe. After a few days turned into a week at Vic Falls. Extended as I was really at a loss of what to do. I'd spent so long just hanging around, waiting for people to make decisions, I thought perhaps I was due a little time to just please myself and so I set off.

The falls were spectacular as I remembered them. Such magnificence and such force behind them, it's hard not to be affected by the energy.

It took me two whole days to actually get to the national park, after deciding to have a lie in on the first day after a long 7 hours on the bus from Lusaka. I opted to do an afternoon walking safari with the rhinos. A good decision as far as I was concerned. The experience wasn't busy with copious amounts of tourists and to encounter the whole herd at the one time, with a 14 day old calf, was just something so incredible! Again, a little teary eyed. I will never tire of seeing such animals. They're obviously under 24/7 protection with armed rangers who keep track of them and ensure that they are kept safe and well within the park.

The trek wasn't so long, but the guide was pretty keen to educate us on anything we came across, from impala middens to mopani trees and the pumbas that eyed us from a distance.

I was in my element. I do just feel utter peace when I'm around animals. Whether they're cats and dogs or lions and elephants. Respect them, give them their space and don't underestimate them.

I stayed at the same backpackers as last time Livingstone backpackers. A lively establishment, pretty much unchanged from the previous time where I met my lovely bunch of Norwegian Friends. I pretty much had the dorm to myself, until a German girl Lucy checked in. We got along and so hit the falls together the following day. It was a relief to have a bit of company by that point. Cliques and groups had formed through the volunteer scheme there and being a bit of an introvert around newbies, I'd say hello, but inevitably end up doing my own things.

To spend long in Livingstone, you need money. The activities don't come cheaply, so I chose wisely. I chose the rhinos over the devils pool. At $105 to go and perch on the edge, which I have already done, came literally rather steep. If money was no object then fair enough, but I'm very happy I chose the rhinos, why wouldn't I!?

I ended up going to the falls twice after realising that during full moon there was going to be a lunar rainbow. Slightly anticlimatic even for the locals this time. It has been known to shine much brighter and be more vibrant, but still it was there, if not in all it's glory. Wet and cold, I returned with a small group I'd become acquainted with at the backpackers, eager for the warmth of a hot chocolate.

It was around this point I met Jesus, hailing from Wolverhampton. Even more appropriate was that the couple who I got talking to, who had just booked into the lodge, swore by him. Sorry, I'm not taking the pee, but I had to laugh at the irony. They were very sweet and seemingly took me under their wing for a day or two until I fled the nest that was the backpackers. Sending me on my way with a bar of chocolate and a few other treats for my onward journey. I had made the decision to follow Jesus (or Matt the bearded, named Jesus because this is what the locals called to him as he walked the streets 😏) to Zimbabwe. I figured rather than lounging around the backpackers waiting for things to transpire, I'd take matters into my own hands. Jesus seemed clued up as far as the whole travel thing went. He'd already done the whole west side of Africa including the Congo and Nigeria, and the tip of the continent in S.A. Now he

was venturing back up through central africa, having covered namibia, botswana, a little of southern Zambia and next stop Zimbabwe. Our stories tallied in the fact that we were both overworked, unfulfilled in some way back on home turf and drawn back to Africa, just not in the fact that I could grow a beard of such magnitude.

I arrived in Livingstone Zimbabwe, a day after Matt, on my way across the bridge over the National park (the one where people dice with the health and safety of Zambia, at the end of some stretchy umbilical chord, holding them onto life) I took the usual pictures and selfies. Stopping only momentarily, so locals wouldn't think I was an opportune customer for their wares. I made it through the boarder unscathed with a smile and a cheery greeting and onwards to the meeting point.

My luggage as little as it was, was heavy and I was feeling it through my shoulders and neck. But with the backpackers apparently being five minutes away, it seemed unnecessary to give into a taxi, especially as I'd made it this far.

Well, that was in my head, until a friendly local who had just returned from Zurich to see his family, insisted he give me a lift up the hill. When I walk like that, I'm usually on a mission and I guess it showed! Once I got there, I was pleased he had stopped me. We had a short, but friendly exchange in the five minute ride.

Next piece of the jigsaw was to fathom out the currency of Zim. So for those of you living blindly to the affairs of Zim, apart from the leaders of said country, Zim doesn't exactly have a straightforward currency.

They have blackmarket bond, US dollars and ecocash. Eco cash is a fairly new way of doing things in that, you can buy a simcard for your phone with a company called econet. You buy airtime to concert to data or calls etc, then you can also load it with bond, bought with US dollars. So depending upon the current rate, the deal can be better or worse. If your bought eco rate is better that that of the shop rate, you use your phone to purchase through ecocash. If the eco cash rate is higher that the rate you bought the ecocash for, it's often better to buy with dollars.

If you go to the cash machine in the unlikely event that your foreign card works, you will receive bond, but be charged by you bank in dollars. You can buy bond with dollars if you wish from random floating around the street, but their rate rarely seems to budge above 9.5, even if the official rate is higher. It's to put it crudely, a bit of a headfk. Coupled with the regular load shedding or power cuts due to the low water of Kariba dam, it can make life taxing for citizens of the country. It's true, their country is in a wee bit of a mess and once you get past the ones who make untimely assumptions about you as a foreigner, people are generally lovely and very helpful.

I had a chat with a girl who insisted I take her back to the uk as she loved the "chilly weather". She loved the idea of swimming in the sea. Hmm I thought. I wonder how you'd feel on New Years day? She asked for my necklace. I told her it was a birthday present from my mum. She seemed to understand the significance. We had a brief light hearted conversation before I caught back up with the others.

I'm saying others, I've gotten way ahead of myself....

I've failed to tell you about Man Biscuit arriving later on the same day as us. The first class overnight train to Bulawayo 🤔 the fact that the basin looked initially like a fold down bedpan and that's where I thought the smell was coming from. The buffet dinner that we served ourselves carrot sticks dipped in.. yup more peanut butter. It's all part of the journey so to speak. At times you don't think you can take anymore and then something happens, good or not so and you still come out the other end and hopefully smiling!

So Matt (Jesus) and I decided to go exploring once we'd freshened up from the long journey. We found a lovely cafe with a beautiful garden that did good coffee (always appreciated!) and cake and from there, we worked our way around the inner city blocks until we got to the National Gallery. Big tick from me, that this was a mutually agreed must see. The natural history museum was also on Matt's list, but by the end of the day, we bypassed that in favour of food.

The surprise came when after having a good look around the gallery, I went to see the artists who had studios. They are set off a little garden/courtyard in the center of the building. They are on two levels, and there are probably around ten studios in all. There were only maybe 3/4 studios open that day, though I only made it into two. After opening my mouth and saying how I wished I had a studio, the lady artist, asked if I was also an artist. I said I was and that I really missed my practice. She said that she could put me in touch with someone who I could chat to about it. Uh oh, what have I done? She seemed keen, not just to give me a number, but to find the person for a face to face conversation. Well we did, we talked and at the end of the conversation we were taking about a residency! My only thing was finding suitable, safe and financially agreeable accommodation. Even at the backpackers, it chews into your money quickly. I've always been a one for buying more into experiences than things, (she says this as she watches her ipad have a meltdown and wishes she could be writing her blog on it, rather than thumb typing on her phone...)

And so, why would I pass up on a opportunity to do a residency at the National Gallery? I submitted all I was asked, so I waited for the official, "everything is cleared" and obviously to find a room. It was that evening, when we got back to the backpackers in my semi stunned state, that Man Biscuit arrived or Johannes, from Germany. He had also been on the road for a while and so two became three.

Our little jaunt out the next day saw the three of us hiring a car to take in Matopos National Park, it is a large, rather dramatic park. I liken it in some ways to Yellowstone, for it's large rocky outcrops and almost fosilised trees. The park contains many points of interest, including 360degree views from apex points, cave paintings and war memorials. There are also white rhino and giraffe in this park. The game park another 21 kms down the road has more, but come the end of the day and our mileage limitations with the car hire company, we decided against a trip there too. We'd seen impala by the time we got back to the exit. Lovely, but slightly disappointing, given the promise of rhino. We were starting to think they'd been hidden in some unreachable corner of the park, unaccessible to out little fiat. Only tar roads was our mantra for the day. As a last gasp, we managed to talk a ranger into taking us to see them, having spent most of our dollars on park entry another 60 was going to be a hefty chunk. There were other guests eager to see them from another lodge, so we basically just tagged along, after they'd stalked the bush for an hour trying to locate them. Amongst these guests was an impressive young irishman, cycling across the continent on his own. As lean and lythe as serious cyclists are. It reminded me of my considerations of doing the same one day.

Once we got word, we trekked maybe around a kilometre to the site where a mother and her 14 month old calf stood in the bushes, just grazing away and minding their own. Again, just one of those life defining moments. The mother had her horn removed and her ears were tagged. It's an expensive business to do that and the process takes around 2 hours to complete. It's sad that it has come to not allowing an animal to retain what is rightly theirs, in an attempt to keep them alive. In some cases they're killed anyway by poachers, if they've been following scent trails for days, only to find a hornless rhino, what use is that? And so to reduce their chances of wasting their time again.... well you get the picture, its tragic! I hope though this mother and calf at least get to see out their years. They truly are magical beasts!

And as the sun dipped lower in the sky, and the golden glow lit up the landscape, they backed off further into the bushes.

Their eyesight typically isn't so good, but every now and again, the rangers would give a certain pitched whistle, if they started to look at all unsettled or got too close. Apparently, they think its a bird and this distracts their attention away from their visitors. It was over all to soon and as we made our way back though the bush, catching our legs on thorns and having rogue branches snap back on our shins, your mind turns to the fact that this is someone elses norm. This is their life. 0600 till 1800, six days a week. Trekking through the bush, being near these beautiful beings, taking in this visceral life.

We gave the rangers a lift back through the park, before heading for town. We needed food! We pulled up in a darkened street next to an oxfam truck. We decided to move on from the dubious area after a couple of guys scoped out the trunk as we opened it to grab our wallets. I didn't feel easy, a gut wrenching, not happy came over me, even before we parked up. And there it is, after previous experiences, sometimes you just have to listen. That feeling, this dis-ease it's usually there for a reason.

Again, so much more has happened since that point in time. I have found a new abode with a beautiful family, I am fully immersed in gallery life with opportunities literally pouring out of the woodwork. I still miss my people and I've done a public talk as an artist 😱 been disgustingly ill, found the yoga retreat from heaven where I regularly hang upsidedown like a bat..... and so much more.... but, I think for now, I've given you enough to mull over!

Whatever next? Answers on a postcard, the most imaginative wins... I've sure as hell stopped trying to plan or predict!

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em-be-lievable · 6 years ago

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Split-Brained

A/N: Aight, I know this isn’t what y’all wanted but in light of recent events I’ve found myself getting triggered and wanting to vent with Patton to cope. Thank @virge-of-a-breakdown for inspiring me to purge my feelings in fic form (also if you haven’t read their fic ‘The Invisible Language’ you really should because it’s great 10/10 would recommend not reading this self-indulgent garbage and reading that instead kkkkkkkk) No explanations, we project our problems on our favorite characters like men.

(Song pairings for this fic are: Girl Anachronism by the Dresden Dolls, Flagpole Sitta by Harvey Danger, and We Know Where You Sleep by the Paper Chase)

Words: 3255

Warnings: mentions of psychosis, disorganized speech, memory loss, visionary/auditory hallucinations, paranoia, mentions of hospitalization, mentions of medication, mentions of gaslighting and abuse, kinda sympathetic deceit (If you count making him a dog being sympathetic- Deceit has become my own personal meme guys, I’m sorry.)

Ships: LAMP/CALM (Because you should know by now if I can shoehorn in a healthy, supportive, polyamorous relationship I 100% will)

Summary: Patton was ‘Split-brained.’ If people were computers, then he would be a pc still running with windows 98, dial-up internet. It wasn’t bad, but it was something he had to live with every moment of every day.

Recovery was a game of chance. He could go into a psychosis tomorrow, and never get out of it, or he could wake up a week from now and never have another symptom again. Medication kept him functioning, and therapy helped him deal with the worst of it. But both could only do so much with the chemical war in his brain. That was just the volatile way life was for him, and he had long since learned what to avoid and how to make the best of living day-to-day

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Waking up in the morning always had to be the hardest part of the day for Patton. Getting to sleep was tricky in its own right, but it didn’t compare to the struggles that were coming back into consciousness. Morning was when his mind was the loudest.

Remy was actually the one to wake him up. The black and tan german shepherd barking, and nosing him until he came to. He couldn’t even be mad at the dog- after all this was a service Remy had been task trained to do. It wasn’t the puppo’s fault that auditory hallucinations of his phone alarm kept waking him up until 4am (eventually rendering him immune to the very real sound of his actual phone alarm now in the daylight hours. He’d have to change it again.)

“Danger. Don’t leave. Not safe. Stay. We’re not alone. We’re in danger. Don’t leave. Don’t move-”

Prying himself from the warm cocoon of soft blankets, Patton pet and praised the dog for performing his task, before getting up and sleepily stumbling to the bathroom. Once he was in there his eyes darted to the vibrant pill case one of his boyfriends, Roman, lovingly decorated for him. It was Logan’s suggestion, having the case be brightly colored, and in plain sight on the counter would make it easier for Patton to remember to take his medication- and Ro was all too eager to support his partner however he could.

Pat was grateful for his three, wonderful partners- but he couldn’t shake the intrusive thought of him being a burden on them. They did so much to help him out- Logan leaving him little reminder notes, and checklists all over their shared apartment, Virgil constantly responding to frantic phone calls and texts to give reality checks, and Roman always taking breaks from work to take Patton to therapy, and appointments with his psychiatrist (going alone gave him a lot of anxiety.) And despite their constant reassurance that they wanted to be there for him, he couldn’t help but let the negative thoughts creep up into the back of his mind.

He looked down at the multicolored tablets in his hand. “Poison. Don’t take it. It’s poison. They’re trying to change you. These are going to kill you. They’ll just turn you into a zombie. Don’t trust it. Poison-”

Sipping on a glass of water, he popped the pills in his mouth and swallowed before they could reach his tongue. The whispers were on a tirade again, but it had been a long time since he stopped really listening to their opinions on medication. He couldn’t always tune out, or ignore what they were saying; but he was getting better at managing his responses to it.

The voices weren’t always scary, sometimes they were just odd. Most of the time they just echoed thoughts he had. As Pat stepped in the shower there was an chorus of “Water. Warm. Shower. Water. Hot water. Soap. Shower. Warm-” that eventually cascaded into white noise. Before he started taking his antipsychotic medication they would talk to him, or amongst themselves and it would get so loud he couldn’t hear his boyfriends shouting directly into his ear. There also used to be more ‘types’ of voices too. Some he’d hear like people were speaking next to him, others were more like thoughts that didn’t have his voice or would have really weird accents. Then there were the really bizarre ones that felt like a tingling in the back of his head. He couldn’t ever make out what they were saying but he could always tell if they were mean or angry.

But, if he was being honest, auditory hallucinations were the least troublesome part of his mental illness. When he was first getting diagnosed they were terrifying- but now they were just annoying. Just a low thrum softly filling his head as he got out of the shower, got dressed, and began the trek downstairs to the kitchen.

If he had to pick the most troublesome part of his disorder, it’d be the stuff that you never saw portrayed in media. Hallucinations were just the tip of the iceberg- and out of every movie about a person like him he never saw the part where they addressed the other stuff. Things like memory loss, fractured thinking, compulsive behavior, or disorganized speech patterns.

“Coffee. Stirring. Cup. Warm. Hot. Coffee. Mug. Warm. Cup-” It was honestly irritating. Then again the only time he saw people like him in media was in horror films. But even then they had perfectly coherent Hannibal Lecter type people who just occasionally see stuff. The reality was much less pretty- if it wasn’t for Logan’s lists everywhere, and Remy, he wouldn’t remember to brush his teeth, or eat. On a good day he only had a minor stutter, and on bad ones he couldn’t talk at all.

He remembered he tried to explain it to Virgil once. He and his emo boyfriend couldn’t sleep and were chatting on the couch when Virge asked him what it was like. Patton, not being the best at explaining things, had decided to show him. So he found a few of Logan’s unused note cards, and asked Virgil to write out a thought with each word of it being on a different note card.

“Okay n-n-now lay it out in o-order.” Patton instructed, earning a raised eyebrow from the emo as he quickly laid out the sentence in order on the coffee table. Once he was done, Patton took the note cards and scrambled them- shuffling them up so they were completely out of order.

“N-now lay-lay it out ag-agai-again.” He said, handing back the cards and watching as Virgil sifted through the cards to find the first word, then the second, and so on until the whole sentence was on the coffee table in front of them.

Patton explained that while neurotypical people had their thoughts in order, like the first deck of note cards, his were constantly scrambled. So he has to put everything back in order before he does anything. That the metaphor applies to everything- talking, actions, thoughts. It was why he physically froze when he couldn’t remember what he was doing, or why sometimes he’d stare at his boyfriends looking for an answer for a question he forgot to ask. If people were computers, then he’d be a pc still running with windows 98, dial-up internet.

“But what about the…” Virgil paused, taking a moment to find the right way to phrase his question, “...other...stuff?”

Patton thought that was a bit more tricky to explain. He could spend the rest of his life talking out the small nuances of the ‘other stuff’ and only scratch the surface of what it entailed.

It was the way him, his thoughts, and his feelings felt like separate entities and not one solid person. It was going for a walk at 1pm and coming back at 9:30 with no recollection of where he went, or what he did. It was his mind latching onto a statement like ‘does Ohio even really exist’ and ruminating on it so much that he became convinced nothing was real anymore. It was loving people, but simultaneously not being able to trust them and avoiding them. It was flipping the light switch on and off because there was a dark figure in the corner when the lights were off but if he flipped the switch EXACTLY 26 times then it wouldn’t come after him, or his family. It was taking pictures of things with his phone to send to Virgil so he could ask if Virgil saw what he was seeing. It was existing in two separate realities at the same time and constantly having to figure out which one was the real reality and which one was just his illness.

It was staring off into his coffee cup for a half an hour while his service dog barked to snap him back into the moment- like now.

Patton shook his head, trying to refocus. His chronic ‘spacing out’ (to put it lightly) was why Logan no longer let him use the stove. Speaking of Logan- Patton padded his way to the refrigerator where his wonderfully intelligent boyfriend had made a whiteboard checklist for him. In Logan’s neat, almost font-like handwriting there were various tasks written in sharpie with little boxes next to them for Patton to check off every day. When the others returned from their jobs they’d double check it, and remind him of what he didn’t do yet.

“Marker. Blue. Smooth. Marker. Drawing. Write. Blue. Draw. Marker-”

Picking up the magnetized expo marker Pat went down the list. Medication? Check! Brushing teeth? He’ll do that after he drinks his coffee, and eats breakfast. Shower? Did he take a shower today? Patton reached his hand to feel his hair- it was still damp, so he must have. Check! Breakfast? He should do that. He wasn’t allowed to use the stove without the others in, but it was unlikely he would do any serious damage with a toaster, right? Right. Plopping a piece of bread in the machine, he got out some crofters, and butter before going back to the list while he waited. Put out food and water for the pets? Aw, shoot. That’s probably why Remy was barking.

Recapping the marker, Patton moved to fill the dog’s food and water dishes. Telling Remy to shake before he set down his food dish.

“Dog. Noise. Crunch. Food. Dog. Soft. Warm. Hairy. Dog. Woof. Noise. Dog-”

The service dog had actually been Virgil’s idea, and one that Patton was wholly opposed to at the start. It wasn’t like he didn’t want a dog- he did! He loved dogs! But a service dog was a whole other animal (pun intended.) Getting a service dog meant he actually had to admit he had a disability, and Patton didn’t really feel like he was disabled. Sure, certain things were harder to do, yeah. And he had to navigate around obstacles his mental illness provides- but disabled seemed like a stretch. If he’s being honest it still seems like a stretch; but after an hour of Logan listing him all the ways the service dog could help, and how common service dogs had become in the mentally ill community, Patton finally agreed.

There was another reason though, with the dog came the addition of having to explain what his disability was. And Patton...didn’t like having to tell people. He barely liked even associating himself with the word. He was…..split-brained. He had the big S. But the stigma that surrounded it didn’t apply to him. Every time he opened up to a close friend they always expressed how they couldn’t believe it given how ‘normal’ Patton seemed- definitely not what came to mind when someone thought ‘schizo.’ What if people didn’t believe him? Confrontation was never really his thing.

It was actually Roman who supplied a solution. If Patton was getting a dog, then Virgil would too. That way when they went out together it wouldn’t be as weird. That’s how the small yellow Tibetan Spaniel, Dee came to be Virgil’s emotional support animal. Unlike Remy, Dee wasn’t trained to task, he was just there to comfort Virgil when his three boyfriends couldn’t. And all the love and pampering made Dee into something of a complete mischievous diva. The little fluffy dog had a habit of appearing out of nowhere and yapping very loudly right behind Patton. Especially when it came to the horrendous offense that was feeding Remy first. But Virgil had taken the little puffball to work with him today so Patton was safe from any yappy startling.

Patton chipperly checked off the task from the list with the expo marker, recapping it and moving to the living room where his laptop sat. Holding down on-site jobs was, frankly, unrealistic for him. But he managed to still stay on his own two feet by freelancing. It wasn’t easy (and required so many reminder notes) but with Logan’s organizational help he was able to work in his own way, and remain (relatively) independent. Which was a godsend compared to spending the rest of his life living with his parents.

Don’t get him wrong, Patton loved his parents, and they did so much for him. Life couldn’t have been easy with a split-brained kid, and they had been pretty patient with him early on with his first few psychoses. But (why was there always a ‘but’) they still had ticks, and expectations he couldn’t meet. He’d recognized too little too late that they were gaslighting him to make their lives easier. Every now and again, when they’d say something that’d upset him, he’d try talking about it only to be met with ‘I never said that’ or, ‘are you sure that’s how it really happened?’ And Patton believed them because he couldn’t really trust his own perception that much. Their distaste were in the way they presented himself to other people too. “You probably shouldn’t tell them about your….disorder.” They’d lecture in car-rides going to social gatherings that Patton loathed. “It isn’t that we’re not proud of you! Other’s just might not be so understanding-” Their words always echoed in his skull, quickly becoming fodder for his mind to latch onto and use against him. He couldn’t stand the way they grimaced whenever he was brought up in conversation. All the times his mom uttered the hushed words of “Patton’s…...different-” made him want to scream out.

‘Just say it. Say what you’re thinking. Crazy. You think I’m crazy.’

He knew he scared them. Living with them always guaranteed the looming threat of hospitalization if he displayed symptoms they weren’t comfortable with. They always felt the need to walk on eggshells so as not to disturb him more than he already was. His illness became a weapon against him more often than not- a way to discredit him and excuse their own actions. Even with all the tips and tricks he learned to covertly hide; pretending to be talking on the phone when he was arguing with the voices, or practicing proper empathetic faces in the mirror to use when talking to people. Locking himself up in his room whenever he was having a psychotic breakdown, or visual hallucinations, and doing everything in his power to not react to the loud auditory ones. It never seemed to be enough though, and he was always met with glazed over eyes, and disapproving frown of his mother whenever he forgot something and did it several times over, or had too much disorganized thought to speak properly. They just wanted him to be normal, to get better. But unlike other mental illnesses, recovery was a game of chance. He could go into a psychosis tomorrow and never get out of it, or he could wake up a week from now and never have another symptom again. Medication kept him functioning, and therapy helped him deal with the worst of it. But both could only do so much with the chemical war in his brain. That was just the volatile way life was for him, and he had long since learned what to avoid and how to make the best of living day-to-day. But his parents never seemed as satisfied with that as he was. And more often than not it had a negative impact on his mental health, and he found himself getting worse while staying under their roof.

It was Roman who noticed the effect his parents had on Patton, and convinced him to leave. At first Pat dug his heels in. He really didn’t believe Roman knew what he was signing up for. Yeah, they had all been dating since sophomore year of high school- but Patton had done everything in his power to keep the worst of it from his boyfriends. He could take a lot, but he couldn’t take them being scared of him too. It took months of convincing, the final straw coming with Patton’s most recent hospitalization.

He had developed some kind of allergic reaction to a medication he was on, but in order to find out which one he had to be slowly weaned off all of them. They checked him into the hospital, stuck an IV into him, and closely monitored him as he slipped in and out of psychosis, and got wrapped up in some bizarre delusions. But despite his incoherence and strange behavior his boyfriends didn’t leave his side. They took shifts, ensuring that Patton was always with someone he knew. Logan constantly pelted the doctors with questions on the doctor’s care choices. Virgil brought all of Patton’s favorite stuffed animals and blankets for familiarity. And Roman played all of Patton’s favorite disney movies whenever the room was silent. They learned as much as they could about Patton’s situation. How to handle his delusions and what to do when he had episodes of low empathy, or isolation. It was a breath of fresh air for Pat to have his illness embraced, and not met with the usual disdain he got from his parents. He could have almost cried when Logan didn’t get mad when Patton explained that he didn’t want to eat dinner with them because he was convinced it was poisoned, or when Virgil didn’t find it upsetting when Pat had set up a little ‘nest’ of towels, pillows, and blankets in the bathtub because it felt like the only place They™ couldn’t get him. There was even an instance where Pat thought that Roman had been replaced with someone who looked identical to roman, but wasn’t Roman. The actor didn’t tell him it wasn’t true, or refuted Patton’s pleads for the ‘imposter’ to return his boyfriend. He simply went along with it- telling Patton he was going to return Roman before making a show of leaving the bedroom and re-entering thanking Patton for having the clone return him. (He also explained what he did to Patton later when the split-brain was in a better state.)

It was so nice to not be treated like the burden he thought he was. Their love showed in every one of the caring acts they did for him, trying to make his hectic life a little more manageable in any way they could.

“Patton?” A rough voice broke through his thoughts, making him turn towards the door. It was Virgil, a fussy Dee wriggling in his arms.

“Virgil. Calm. Boyfriend. Love. Virgil. Trusted. Boyfriend. Roommate. Dog. Dee. Virgil-”

“Hi honey, you’re home early!” Patton chirped, a well practiced smile gracing his lips. Virgil raised an eyebrow at him, setting Dee on the floor with little ‘clip clip’s’ from the toy dog’s claws.

“Pat, it’s 4:30, I always come home around this time.” Patton’s face dropped, as he turned back to the laptop he’d been staring at. When had it gotten so late?

“Uh, Virge- could you read this for me and make sure it makes sense?” Patton hummed, trying to reread over the email he was going to send but not quite processing the words. Virgil stalked over, glancing at the screen and humming.

“Sorry Pat, it’s complete jibberish.” He purred, rubbing his boyfriend’s shoulders. “Wanna help me with dinner and we’ll take a crack at writing it after?” “Sure.” Pat said with a sigh, as he closed the laptop and stood up to join his boyfriend. Living as a split-brain was difficult, but living with three amazing partners made it manageable.

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Endnote: This was way longer than I intended it to be. Sorry, I had a lot to say.

#em writes #vent fic #patton sanders #ts sanders sides #lamp/calm #virgil sanders #roman sanders #logan sanders #Please for the love of all that is good read the warnings

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verdant-gardens · 6 years ago

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The End | Nata | Endgame

Nata almost spoke up again in argument with what Trik had to say, she almost snapped and lashed out at Yasu, Karl, and Jet for their responses, she almost thanked Sora for reaching out to her and defending her, the same with Jack, but…

Instead she simply leaned a little into Sora’s comforting touch and kept her focus on the butterfly in its cage. So what if half the class was willing believe Trik? She had no way of knowing if he was being truthful or not, but any shard of trust she had in him had been irreparably shattered. It seemed that, at last, whatever rose-colored glasses she had been looking at Trik through had vanished. She related to him too much, she clouded her judgement, and it was too late to undo what’s been done. What did it matter if she was wrong or not? What’s done is done, as was said. She could not change the past; she could only control her present. No one else had died…at least there was that semblance of comfort.

“I am sorry.” Was all she uttered. To who it was intended, she never made clear, and she never would. Was she sorry to Kotone, for possibly failing to truly avenge her? Was she sorry to Trik, for doubting him? Was she sorry to her friends, for possibly falling short of her promise to solve everything? To Sora, for needing her comfort again?

As the submarine opened, Nata found herself overwhelmed by the sheer volume of people who were waiting for them. Well…waiting for her classmates. Aside from the uneventful check for injuries on Nata from the EMTs, there was no one out here waiting for her. Whether her father knew, whether he had been arrested or not…he wouldn’t have been here waiting for her anyway. She wouldn’t find out until later that his crimes had come to light, when she was asked to answer questions about him…at least there was some justice to be found. It didn’t change much, for her, though.

For the time being, she simply stood there, numbly taking in the sensation of sunlight on her skin as her classmates each had their own heartwarming reunion. One hand remained loosely gripped on the handle of her suitcase, while the other arm cradled her tree and butterfly. They were safe. Her friends were safe. A sigh of relief escaped her as she made a point to locate the families of each of her friends—those who had been waiting here. Her friends weren’t alone…they must have felt so relieved. She was happy for them.

When the Rolls Royce pulled up, Nata found herself watching from a distance as Trik’s twin stepped out. She didn’t move, she didn’t smile, and she didn’t step closer to meet this infamous twin; she only found herself tightening her lips and remaining a silent observer. She’d fulfilled her promise, as far as she knew, but instead of feeling any sense of pride, she only found herself pushing down the lump in her throat. She would never know, for sure, but that doubt would linger. The longer she watched the reunion, the worse she felt. Their laughs could be heard, even from her distant vantage point. They were so genuinely happy…and something about it only succeeded in making Nata feel deeper and deeper grief. They hadn’t been separated forever…Trik had survived, just as she promised. The twins would likely rarely be far apart, ever again. She should be happy for them…she should be celebrating the fact that her friends get to be with their families, that her friends get to go home. And yet…

Why couldn’t she have that…?

She touched her cheek and realized she’d been crying again. She was so tired of crying. She was tired of hurting, of powerlessness, of loss, of doubt…she furiously rubbed at her eyes and turned her back on the reunion, feeling the first and only ever stings of bitterness hit her heart. Not because of the doubt, not because of the lies, not because of any hatred for Trik…it was an ugly, selfish, unnecessary bitterness that she could only try to bite back once she realized it was there. Even if she still had her notebook tucked away, full of every piece of evidence she’d found…it didn’t matter. Nothing would change, what’s done is done, and even if her gut was somehow right, and she had missed something…she could never bring herself to pull those twins apart. After the police questioning…she’d simply lock it all away and go back to being the strong survivor she’d always been known as. There was no need to dwell, or to speak of what could have been. It would only make the bitterness worse.

Before this game, she never cried about Dima or her mother. Before this game, she trusted her father. She was okay with moving more than once a year. She was fine to be the one to shoulder the Lukin legacy. She never found herself envying those who had what she did not…most of the time she never even knew what she was missing out on.

This changed everything for her. Whatever false sense of security and confidence she had was challenged. She knew what she was missing…she knew what she’d lost, why she’d lost so much, and she knew exactly what grief truly felt like once more. Was it really worth it?

Why her? Why any of them?

She found herself straying further from the crowd, toward any open spot with grass and shade, so she could sit and be alone for a time. Forcing her breaths to ease, forcing her eyes to dry, she pulled open the door to the butterfly’s cage and ever so gently reached inside to coax it onto her hand. As she removed it from its small prison, she took one last look at the patterns on its wings and felt its legs securely holding onto her. With a gentle puff of air, she blew on the butterfly and encouraged it to take its first flight to freedom.

At least she could say that, for all the lives lost here, something beautiful came from it.

At some point as she was sitting, TERU approached her with an excitable smile and the kind of optimism she had almost come to rely on by the end of the game. As insistent as ever, they invite Nata to meet their family. Only seeming a little surprised by the request, she agreed to follow.

This is Nata, she lives with us now. Er… can she live with us now?

Sure, she had been talking with them for some time about getting an apartment together. Some part of her imagined that it wouldn’t actually happen. Something would get in the way, someone would change their mind, something would happen. But to just hear that suggestion, that promise being kept and acted on, it was enough to slowly and carefully pull Nata back down to the ground for a while. There were still people she could trust…there was Sora, there was TERU…she wasn’t…entirely alone.

Thank god, she wasn’t entirely alone anymore.

Post-Game Summary:

Following the events of this game, Nata feels…very lost. She stays with TERU’s family for a while as things are sorted out, and with her friend’s coaxing, she agrees to return to Hope’s Peak to finish her education. She does not take it upon herself to reach out to most of the other survivors, with only a few exceptions, and any events where she believes Trik will make an appearance are quickly avoided. She can’t bring herself to face him for quite some time, unable to reconcile her feelings of betrayal with how strongly she had projected herself onto him. She may eventually respond to the letters he sometimes sends, but she never truly opens up to him as she once did.

Nata eventually goes on to get an apartment with TERU, who introduces her to all sorts of anime and things she had never before considered engaging with. She keeps her promise to them by continuing her metalworking out of her small bedroom workshop (until they are able to find her the proper space to work more properly.) Some survivors find handmade metal trinkets in their mailboxes, if she is able to find a proper address to send to. A Jackalope mug, more flowery jewelry than one could possibly wear all at once, and each gift seems even more fine-tuned than the last. For the first time in a long time, she doesn’t need to move unless she wants to, and she even has friends to hang out with.

She earns money on the side by translating English, Japanese, Russian, and German documents through an online service—her countless hours of study in Verdant Gardens had not been for nothing, and with the first round of proper schooling she’d ever had in her life, the language barriers are a distant memory.

Despite everything, she’s happy. She isn’t alone, she is free to make her own choices, and for the first time in a very long time, she feels loved. As with many of the other survivors, Nata is plagued with nightmares at times…memories of her lost friends, memories of those awful days and those dim, dangerous hallways, visions of flowers and explosions, and dreams of what could have been if things had gone differently. She would, however, avoid talking about such things unless she absolutely needed to.

She would remain strong, steadfast, and above all else she would show the world that the sole heir to the Lukin name had not only survived…but thrived.

#vg ch5 #vg endgame #nata #submission

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moskat-22 · 7 years ago

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Wedding Crasher - A Cardverse AU Short Story

It was silent inside the bedroom chamber. Nothing could perfectly describe the sense of dread, betrayal, and fear that coursed through the newly wed's veins. The young King stumbled backwards until his heels connected with the bed frame, tripping him. Wide violet eyes stared at the other, clearly expressing the hectic emotions that ran rampid within the man's mind. This couldn't have been happening to him, not today. The silhouette before him smirked devilishly, yet made no move to approach him. Instead, the other stayed perfectly still, cackling.

"What's the matter, Ivy? I thought you loved me."

"Y-You are an imposter! Where is my bride?! What have you done with her!?"

Crimson eyes narrowed due to Ivan's hostility. Glaring from behind the wedding veil, the imposter huffed and crossed his arms over his chest. The Joker could respond with a multitude of answers just to rile him up; she was kidnapped, she had other plans, she abandoned you for another pretty rich boy, the answers were endless. They weren't true, but even if he told the truth, the Club probably wouldn't believe him. "Relax, relax, it's just a small prank. Elizabeta's fine. You can stop accusing me of murder now."

Ivan was fuming. He was tricked by a Joker, by Gilbert of all people. Sure, the citizens thought he was marrying Elizabeta, he even fell for it, but discovering it was just a prank hurt. The Russian didn't marry his desired lady, no, he was legitimately married to the Joker. To add the cheery on top of the cake of pain was the fact that the albino didn't even seem sorry for crashing his wedding. Pushing himself back onto his feet, the Club marched over to where Gilbert stood and grabbed him by the collar of his dress. Furious violets clashed with sly crimsons, both sides shielded by the veil hanging over the German's face.

"Bring Lady Elizabeta back this instant, Joker. I will not be made a fool of by your shenanigans."

"Easy, buddy. I said she's perfectly safe. There's no need to be upset, it's just a fun prank." Ivan's arm shot out towards the window, gesturing to the large crowd who showed up for this event. "...ok, so the people were completely convinced I was your bride, what's the big problem?"

"Gah! You! You are the problem!" Ivan snapped, jabbing his fingers into Gilbert's chest. He backed the albino into the wall, earning a yelp from said male. The Joker began to fidget nervously, starting to tremble in his high heels.

"N-Now hold on a second, let's talk things out! I-I can make it up to you, please don't burn my skin off!"

The platinum blond loomed over the jokester, obviously skeptical. Leaning on one hip, it was Ivan's turn to cross his arms. Gilbert has been known to cause trouble throughout the four kingdoms, but it was never his intention. There must have been a reason for this sudden bride swap. The Club sighed, dragging his hands across his face. He had no choice but to hear the other out. With a wave of his hand, the Russian signalled he's willing to hear what Gilbert had to say. The Joker immediately perked up.

"Oh, thank you! Ok, so, I've been meeting with Elizabeta lately and—"

"WHAT."

"Let me finish!" Gilbert hissed, pressing his hand over Ivan's mouth. "Gott, she was right, you really do need to loosen up." The German smirked when he saw violet eyes soften up. Removing his hand from the taller male's mouth, the Joker waited for a moment to see if he would speak. When he heard no questions, Gilbert resumed his speech. "She was the one who planned this whole thing. Elizabeta saw how hard you were trying to impress her, and as sweet as the attempts were, she just wanted you to be yourself. She thought that you would lighten up if me and her swapped positions during the wedding. I only tagged along with it because she was certain it would make you laugh. But, I guess it failed in the end."

Ivan stepped back to give Gilbert some space. There was guilt written all over him, his body language was dripping with it. It would have been nice to have been informed or something along those lines, now the Club just felt awful. "I-I'm sorry for how I acted. It didn't feel much like a prank, it felt more like a set-up for a coup d'etat." The young King bowed respectfully, mostly to hide the fresh tears that formed in the corners of his eyes. To be tricked in such a way, on their wedding day too, Ivan wasn't sure about this marriage anymore. He worked so hard for Elizabeta these past few years, and this is how she repays him? A simple "please be yourself" and a pat on the back would have been better than this treatment.

Gilbert reached out to comfort the newly wedded King, but retracted his hand just before he could touch the other. Ivan needed some space, that was apparent. Excusing himself, the albino made his way over to the bedroom door, dragging his feet. However, before he could turn the doorknob, a soft kiss was pressed against his cheek. The Joker spun around in time to see a faint blush crawling over Ivan's cheeks. "Wh-What was that for?"

"Ah, I don't know? You just looked sad, I didn't want you to leave feeling like you've ruined my life."

"W...well, I mean, I kinda did? We did just get married. T-Techically you and Elizabeta did, I was just filling in for her."

Ivan chuckled behind his hands, smiling for the first time since his wedding vows. The Club took Gilbert's hands into his own and lifted them to his lips, pressing gentle kisses to the front of each hand. He stood up straight and gave an even louder laugh when the German's face heated up. "Don't get the wrong idea now. Those hand kisses were for my Queen." Ivan watched Gilbert with analytical eyes as the other mouthed an "oh". He gave it some thought before leaning again, startling the Joker with a kiss on his lips. Neither moved for a few seconds, simply remaining still. Gilbert coughed into his fist only when the kiss ended.

"W-Was that also for your wife?"

"That one's purely up for you to debate." Ivan giggled sweetly. He rocked on his heels as the albino mentally argued with himself, watching the German's arms and hands move animatedly. Gilbert groaned and Ivan laughed again at the Joker's struggle. Ivan and Elizabeta were properly together by morning, with Gilbert apologizing again for the mix up from yesterday. The three had a good time, for all the trouble it was worth. While the wedding didn't go as planned, it was a wedding worth remembering.

#cardverse #aph russia #aph hungary #aph prussia #random short story #enjoy #rusprus #rushun

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kittyprincessofcats · 7 years ago

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Thor Ragnarok Thoughts & Opinions

Heavy spoilers under the cut! You’ve been warned.

The bad

I liked the movie overall, so I thought I’d start out with the few things that bugged me...

- Hela being Thor and Loki’s sister. Now, I don’t really mind this idea in and off itself, and I get why they didn’t want to make her Loki’s daughter like she is in mythology, but making her their long-lost sister did raise a few questions for me: First of all, does that mean we’re never going to see Angela in the MCU? Because honestly, I’d sell my soul for a movie about Angela and Sera. I mean, come on, Thor and Loki’s older sister they never knew, who’s a badass lesbian and literally goes to Hel to save her equally badass trans girlfriend... If Hela was supposed to replace that storyline, I’d be dissapointed. The second thing that bugged me about Hela being Odin’s daughter is that she doesn’t look like him at all? Her whole aesthetic with the black hair, green clothing and horns was very Loki-esque and I didn’t quite see the point of that if she’s not supposed to be (biologically) related to Loki? Did Loki just happen to randomly have very similar looks and a very similar fashion sense as the long-lost adopted sister he never knew? Also, I always had the headcanon that Loki’s looks (black hair while the rest of the family is blonde etc.) contributed to him being an outsider in Asgard, so I’m not quite sure how I feel about one of Odin’s biological kids literally looking the same. Also, this made me wonder if we’re ever going to see Lady Loki in the MCU. Because that’s another thing I really wanna see.

- The scene where Thor electroshocks Loki and then leaves him behind while he’s in pain. Enough said.

- That BruceNat bullshit again. This was why I didn’t want Bruce in this movie. I get that the writers couldn’t just ignore stuff that happened in Age of Ultron, but god, why did they have to remind me of that abomination of a movie?

- Am I seriously supposed to believe that Doctor Strange, a mortal, is more powerful that Loki, an actual god? Nope. I don’t buy it.

- Where was Sif? (Also, holy shit, did they really kill off the Warriors Three just like that?)

- So how did Loki survive in TDW?

The good

Now, on to the stuff I liked!

- Loki writing theatre plays about himself and having them performed in front of all of Asgard. This was something I didn’t know I needed until I saw it. Honestly, that was easily my favourite scene in the movie, hands down. It was definitely a funny scene, but it was so full of little things that made it meaningful. First of all, I’d like to note the fact that the play was only a little bit more dramatic than what actually happend. Loki didn’t even change that much about how he ‘died’. Also, I love that Loki finally gets to tell his own version of his story to the people of Asgard. Not Odin’s or Thor’s version, but his own. And people are finally listening to him and appreciating him. I get that the scene was meant to be funny, but I mean this in a completely serious way. Also, can we talk about Loki including his Jotun heritage in the play and therfore making it public to all of Asgard? And how the Asgardians are just fine with it? They don’t think it makes him a monster or anything less than their prince? And that must be so healing for Loki to see as well? He’s staring to accept himself and that’s so beautiful???

- Also, I found it really touching how despite everything Odin’s done to him, Loki clearly still loves him. First of all, he didn’t kill him at the end of TDW, and only banished him to a retirement home on Midgard instead? I’d say that’s surprisingly merciful. And then, even in his play he doesn’t make Odin the bad guy, and instead shows him as this loving father who’s “heart melted” when he met Loki? (Granted, that might have something to do with the fact that he’s currently impersonating Odin, so portraying him as a villain or tyrant might have backfired, but still.)

- Odin’s death scene actually made me so emotional?? I really didn’t expect that. Odin’s my most hated character in these movies and I thought I’d just be happy when he died, but they managed to make his death so sad and sweet?? He told Thor and Loki he loved them?? And Loki made that face and you could tell how much it meant for him to hear that, despite everything Odin’s done to him?? And then he praises Loki’s magic and says “Frigga would have been proud”?? And Loki looks like he’s about to cry?? And... that scene was just so full of feels I’m????

- The grandmaster hitting on Loki. That clip we know from the promos where the grandmaster is obviously giving Loki bedroom eyes is one thing. But then also later Loki says something like “I won the grandmaster’s favour” (not sure what exactly he says in English since I had to watch the German dub). And then there’s that scene where Loki wants to leave when he sees the Hulk and the grandmaster suddenly stops him by getting into his personal space and saying “Where do you think you’re going?” with that seductive smirk... Yeah, they probably had sex at some point.

- Which brings me to the next point: I love how this was the first Thor movie that at least hinted at Loki’s queerness. It still wasn’t explicit, unfortunately, but at the very least it’s clear that Loki understood the grandmaster was hitting on him. (@MCU writers: Make him bi in canon, you cowards!)

- Everything about Valkyrie. Awesome badass character, super intersting & likable, awesomely played. Having more women of colour in mainstream movies is always great, and Tessa Thompson saying she wanted to be faithful to Valkyrie’s bisexuality from the comics gets a big thumbs up from me. (Again, sad that it wasn’t explicit, but I’ll take what I can get.) Also, that woman who died in front of her in the flashback? Was her girlfriend. I’ll fight you on his.

- Thor saying he wanted to be a Valkyrie as a kid before finding out they were all women. Precious <3

- Seeing Thor and Loki’s brotherly relationship and hearing more about their childhood. Also, Thor saying he’s always loved snakes.

- Loki calling Bruce by his first name, while even Thor calls him “Banner”. I’m not gonna lie, I used to really ship Loki and Bruce back when the first Avengers was released, so that was just a nice little detail I liked.

- Heimdall being a badass. (That moment where he greets Loki with “I saw you coming. Welcome home”??? MY HEART)

- The whole lovestory-plot and earth-plot from the previous Thor movies just not being a thing. HALLELUJAH. (Also: “Sorry Jane dumped you!” :D)

- The fact that there was no love story in this at all. Hell yes. Thor and Loki got to focus on their brotherly relationship instead and Valkyrie got to be a badass female character without needing to be shoehorned into some romantic subplot. Good shit.

- Loki actually coming to save the people of Asgard?!?!?! He could have just abandonend them, but he came back and helped make sure everyone was safe?? I honestly wouldn’t call him a villain anymore at this point.

- Loki’s proud smirk when Thor discovers his powers. He’s like “That’s my bro!”

- “If you were really here, I might even hug you.” “I’m here.”

- Loki standing by Thor’s side in the end? They’ve come so far <3

And there’s probably more but that’s all I can think of rn

#Thor Ragnarok #Ragnarok spoilers #Thor 3 Ragnarok #Thor #Loki

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wickedvillainy · 7 years ago

Text

Negan: Take Me Back To The Start (Part 1)

✳ Whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same. ❈

-⊱ What made Negan, Negan ? Frankly, I have no idea, but here’s my shot at it. Nothing contained in this story is official information, I just followed my inspiration and the very few informations we have on the character so far. ⊰- ➹ P.S: I do not read the comics.

➸ Plot: This story is set somewhere after the apocalypse began and before Negan became the one that we know now... And maybe, just maybe, the reader has a lot to do with that night and day transformation.

✧ Warnings ✧ : None... Yet.

A loud noise resounded, making you jump awake. It came from the roof. You sighed, you should have followed your instinct instead of listening to your fatigue and sore legs, this abandoned office wasn’t a safe place to spend the night.

You grabbed the knife you always had at your belt, and tried to hold your breath a moment in order to listen carefully to the noises above your head. It seemed to move, faster than a dead-head would, yet the noise it made was similar to something heavy being dragged on the flat roof.

You looked through the window. It had been cleverly condemned by wooden boards but the space between them allowed you to peek outside. It was night, the reflection of the moon was shining on the old cars aligned in front of the small building. You squinted your eyes, hoping to see what was moving on the roof in a reflection but obviously it was too dark, and your eyesight wasn’t that good to distinguish anything helpful.

There was another loud sound and then silence fell back all around you. You tried to convince yourself that a dead-head had somehow mysteriously ended on the roof, but you knew deep down it was unlikely. Your stomach tied in knots and you held your knife tighter. Not hearing anything was worse than you had expected. Now you couldn’t tell where your enemy was or if he had even bothered sticking around. Because that thing that had provoked that noise was your enemy, dead or alive. It was just how the new world was, and you were trying your best to get used to it. You couldn’t trust anyone. You couldn’t show mercy. Not anymore...

You wanted to fight, whatever it was, you promised yourself that if it ever passed the door, you’d attack it before it could possibly hurt you. Taking a deep breath, you placed yourself on the side, hoping to be hidden behind the door if it was opened. That’s when you heard heavier footsteps, as if someone was circling the office. You glanced at the window, sure that you had seen a shadow quickly passing by from the corner of your eyes. Your heart started pounding fast in your chest; you were ready, knife in hand, to attack.

The knob slowly turned, it was so discreet, you knew it wouldn’t have been enough to wake you up and the thought made you shiver... It wasn’t even safe to sleep anymore.

The door opened, slowly, and you held your breath. Your first instinct would have been to hide, or try to runaway, but when the silhouette of a man entered the office, you were seized by an adrenaline rush. Unsure if he was dead or alive, you aimed for the head.

You moved, swiftly and, like you had been taught, you planted your knife in the temple of your opponent. Instead of the blade going right through the head, the man moved, proving that he was indeed alive. You hadn’t been able to kill him on the first try but you weren’t going to give up that easily, not this time. He turned around to look at you, he was pressing his hand against his bleeding wound. Then you saw him move his other hand, he was holding a baseball bat and was getting ready to use it against you. A baseball bat! That was a good idea, as silent as a knife but with a wider range to attack and reach the enemy.

It proved itself efficient, as you felt it hit your stomach, causing you to fall to your knees with a whimper of pain. You were upset, you knew you should have been able to dodge it, but the darkness of the office had made it too hard to evaluate quickly enough. And there you were, lying on the dusty carpeting, holding your ribs as you fought to catch your breath back.

The man approached, and you felt like your death was near. A sensation that you had experienced way too many times lately... You saw him rise his bat once again and, deciding to take a chance, you let go of your knife, and your ribs, in sign of surrender.

“Stop... Please.” You begged, out of breath.

The man stayed still for a second, before reaching for something in his pocket. Suddenly, you were blinded by a bright light.

“Oh, shit.” You heard him say.

You tried to protect your eyes with your hand. You couldn’t see anything.

“Sorry.” His low voice said again, and he pointed his flashlight in direction of the ceiling.

Your sight recovered, you dragged yourself to the nearest wall. Your knife was still on the floor but you had a plan B. You drew your gun and pointed it at him, aiming between his two eyes.

He didn’t seem that surprised, nor was he panicked.

“I have one of those too, sweetheart.” He simply said, using the hand holding the bat to lift his shirt up and show you the gun tucked in his pants.

“But mine is aimed at you right now.” You remarked, trying to sound as menacing as possible.

“Good point.” He admitted, he then turned his back at you. “I’m sorry, I didn’t realize that you were a woman right away. I wouldn’t have hit you. Think you’ll be okay ?”

You didn’t reply anything, focused on your target. He turned to look at you, clearly waiting for an answer but since you were stubbornly silent, he decided to move on with the small talk.

“So ? Are you here alone ?” He asked, taking another look at the abandoned office.

“No, I’m with a whole group. And they’ll be back anytime now.” You threatened.

“Really ? And where do they sleep ? On that pillow over there?” He asked, pointing at the miserable pillow you were sleeping on a moment ago with his bat. “Relax, I’m not gonna hurt you.”

That last sentence didn’t change your mind the least, and you kept your gun on him, ready to shoot as he walked around the small space. He put the flashlight on one of the desks and used his free hand to press against his temple again. Then, he took a look at his palm and noticed it was as bloody as the side of his face was.

“You got me good.” He simply declared, and you could have sworn you saw him grin for a second.

Slowly, you got up, your eyes fixed on him. You wanted to use your gun at your advantage so instead of letting your fear paralyze you, you gathered all the courage you had left and took a few steps in his direction.

“What about you ? Are you all alone out there ?” You asked him, faking confidence in your tone.

“No, a german shepherd has been following me for a few miles now.” He answered, casually.

“And where is he now ?”

“He comes and goes, he only really approach me when I have food in my hands, the rest of the time he keeps his distances.”

“Wise animal.” You remarked.

“That’s what I always tell him.” He smirked.

He sat down on a chair, his gaze slowly scanning the multiple papers hanging on the wall in front of him.

“A vehicle wrecking yard. That’s clever. You must not get bothered often, what would anybody hope to find here ?” He remarked.

“I don’t know, you tell me.” You snapped.

“In all honesty, I was looking for a car that could work, had planned to spend the night in one of those carcass but it got a little chilly.”

“Trying to find a working car in a wrecking yard, that’s stupid.” You stated.

“Desperate times call for desperate measures.” He shrugged. “Now will you put that gun down ? It’s slightly infuriating.”

“Why would I do that ? I don’t know you.” You replied.

“I’m trying my best to break the ice though!” He said, getting up so quickly that you almost pulled the trigger on him. “My name’s Negan.”

He took a few steps in your direction and you backed off until your back hit the wall. You felt your entire body starting to tremble, your hands started shaking and you knew you had lost your focus for good.

“I’ll take that if you don’t mind.” He said, as he gently took your gun away, leaving you defenseless.

You held back your tears. You were scared, of course, but also upset. You had sworn that you’d never let yourself be at a man’s mercy ever again, and yet, the story was about to repeat.

“Just to be clear here, you’re not held hostage, you’re free to go if you wanna. I just don’t want you to shoot me during the night.” He explained, before putting your gun next to his under his shirt and picking up your knife from the floor.

He sat back on the chair, wincing as he once again touched his bleeding wound. You looked at the ajar door, and then back at him. You were left without defense, but couldn’t decide what was the most dangerous for you. Going out in the dark without a weapon and dead-heads walking around or staying in the security of the office with a stranger that hadn’t killed you yet ?

Once again, you sat down on the carpeting, making sure to keep enough distance between you and him. He glanced at you, but didn’t say anything, placing his bat on the desk.

“What are you ? A baseball player ?” You asked, carefully.

“Sort of... Not really.” He replied, changing his mind along the way and you felt like he didn’t want to talk about it for some reason, he even attempted to change the subject. “I think I’m bleeding out.”

You didn’t reply anything. You couldn’t say that you were sorry, he had deserved it. If anything, you regretted not killing him right away. A moment went by, the room was plunged in silence, still barely lit up by the man’s flashlight. You watched him, trying to stop the bleeding with his hand and failing. And for the first time, you saw what he looked like when he was worried.

A few more minutes went by until you took a deep breath, breaking the silence, and got up, walking towards your pillow under a desk on the other side of the small room. You opened up the dirty pillowcase and grabbed the roll of bandages you had hidden in there, alongside a few painkillers and a cereal bar.

Again, you felt like it required every ounce of courage you could find in yourself to walk to the man. You could feel your hands shaking as you unrolled some bandage in front of him. You teared it apart, and firmly pressed it against his temple, hoping to stop the bleeding. You realized how deeply you had cut him, and for a brief moment, you finally felt sorry about it.

You took a better look at his face. Half of his beard was stained with his own blood. He was looking down, making it seem like his eyes were closed as you carefully took care of his wound. Eventually, you took of the blood soaked cloth and replaced it with another one, still firmly pressing on the wound until it finally stopped bleeding. Then, you tied some bandage around his head in order to protect the injury and prevent it from bleeding out again. You were left with an empty roll and you loudly sighted, remembering the herd of dead-heads you had to fight in order to retrieve that and a few outdated painkillers from an infested drugstore.

“You didn’t tell me your name.” The man finally said, and even if he didn’t mention it, you knew he had noticed how much you were trembling from being so close to him.

“That’s because I don’t want to.”

“Alright...” He replied, glancing at you as you took a step back, once the bandage secured.

He looked at you from head to toe, it was quick, but it was enough to make you uncomfortable.

“I hope I didn’t hurt you too bad. Let me take a look, see if your ribs are broken.” He started, immediately lifting your shirt up to reveal your stomach but you backed off again, heart going wild.

“Don’t touch me!” You almost screamed, tears filling your eyes.

He seemed surprised by your reaction but lifted his hands up in sign of surrender.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to...”

You turned your back at him, finding shelter under the desk, next to your pillow. He didn’t say another word and you stayed quiet too. You didn’t dare to lie down, too afraid that you might fall asleep if you did, and spent the entire night, eyes wide open, listening to every sound the man made as if it was announcing imminent danger, waiting for morning to pierce through the sealed windows.

To Be Continued...

#negan #twd negan #fanfic #negan imagine #twd imagine #the walking dead #the walking dead imagine #the walking dead fanfiction #imagine #series #smut #one shot #part 1

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weepingstar · 8 years ago

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The Urge for Going

{ sorry i’ve been gone for such a long time <3 }

Credence spends much of his childhood moving from place to place, listening to his mother’s singing, packing their shared suitcase, finding somewhere new. She tells him that life isn’t worth living unless it’s in constant motion, always changing, always chaotic and free.

Credence’s time with Mary Lou proves this, his entrapment at the church suffocating and terrifying. The flighty bird in his chest constantly beating it’s wings, attempting to fly again.

It is Mr. Graves who makes Credence want to stay.

Read on AO3

The coast of Italy, rivers of France, boats, hostels and small apartments above restaurants, Credence and his Mama had travelled ever since the day he was born. Credence had vivid memories of her suitcase, cherry red and scratched but reliable all the same, remembered how his toy lion and his favourite scarf were always the first things to be packed into it.

Credence had grown up learning to allow languages to wash over him, to appreciate the lull of German and the trill of Italian, the quick utterance of French and the music of Spanish, he was glad of this when it came to drowning out the noise of New York city in his teenage years.

His mother had been kind, most of all, and the best singer he’d ever heard, could ever dream of. She would sing in bars and pubs and restaurants for pennies. Credence sat on a step listening, watching other children play until his eyelids drooped and he tugged his Mama’s sleeve to go home.

Mary Lou had told him at six years old that he would forget his Mama, that he would learn not to be sad, to be quiet and good and not cry and be so moody. To be grateful and obedient and recite his prayers properly and stop asking for Mama.

They’d never stayed anywhere for much longer than a few months, Mama would tell him when it was time and he would follow. He could see it coming, her nose twitching in the breeze or the void enthusiasm in her voice when she sung. When he woke up his scarf and lion would be resting in the red suitcase, his Mama absent from the space beside him.

“Time to go, bunny. Hop hop!” Credence usually did not feel like hopping when he’d just woken up, but his Mama always said that a new place is a new adventure, new friends to make and jobs to do and places to see. She would ask him if he knew there was a floating city where people travelled around on boats, or dark forests with fairytale castles where princes and princesses lived, or great cities which glittered at night and played music until the morning.

It was the great glittering lights that Credence and Mama found in New York. Mama would sing for hundreds of people there she said, Credence could go to school for a while if he liked, and then they’d move on to other places, somewhere warm and near the sea. Unfortunately, New York did not have such things planned for the two of them. Mama’s singing had attracted many people, like she said it would, but the unattended child she brought to her performances caused a stir - oh, just my little brother, oh he’s no trouble, such a darling, just wants to see me sing! His Daddy is just at home - yes he says it’s fine I sing here-

It was always Mama who had the urge for going, never Credence, he always followed, never led. But when people started to frown and ask him questions he very much had the urge, the urge to run down the street and across the bridge all the way to their safe little room they rented. He does run, into the night and with strange men following after him, his mother frantically calling after him.

He hides in a park for the night, cold and shivering and scared, no Mama to hold him tight and no blanket or lion. He goes back to the bar when he thinks it might be safe, but Mama isn’t there. When he finally returns home it’s to two policemen who take him with them to an imposing building. Credence feels his urge for going rise up again as a piece of paper in front of him is stamped WARD OF STATE and he’s given scratchy clothes to wear. The urge is near constant after a few days on an unfamiliar bed in a plain white room, a strict lady called ‘Matron’ bosses him and a few other children around. He cries for his Mama and screams and throws little tantrums but they’re barely taken notice of. One day he doesn’t scream, just tugs on Matron’s sleeve and asks her quietly when his Mama is coming to get him, the woman purses her lips and she tells him sternly that his mother wasn’t fit to look after him, and he’d best just forget all he knew about her.

Mary Lou had taken him and received a rare smile from the Matron who told Credence she was a very good woman to take him on, a very good woman indeed. Credence soon found out she was nothing of the sort of course. At the Second Salem Church the children made fun of his funny voice and whispered that he was a filthy gypsy, his mother an unmarried whore. Credence had stopped talking to hide his funny voice, and had stopped telling stories of the fairytale castles and the floating city and he’d stopped talking about Mama. The urge for going was always there but stamped on frequently. Because where would he go?

When Credence had let his need to leave guide him, Mary Lou had found him within hours of running away, all seven attempts, and he’d been caned in front of the whole congregation. The urge for going had changed from a suggestive breeze in the right direction to a chaotic and panicked craving for an escape, leading Credence to unplanned break outs, silly decisions. Leading Credence back to the church, not back home.

Credence and his Mama used to lay on top of a canal boat, or out on a balcony above a quiet street, or even in fields when it was warmer and they had nowhere to stay, and look out at the sky.

“Isn’t it wonderful, Credence?” Little Credence nods, “Why have a silly house and a dull job in a boring town if you could have this?” Mama had stretched out her arms to try and encompass the whole sky, her delicate fingertips waving and tickling the stars. Little Credence didn’t know, couldn’t really imagine what a silly house or a dull job entailed, could imagine boring towns aplenty as he’d stayed in them.

“That’s why we’re travellers, bunny… No one to answer to, we can hang our hat anywhere and call it home.” Credence didn’t particularly understand what Mama meant, because she didn’t often wear hats, they made a strange imprint in her black curls when she did, so he’d never seen her hang a hat anywhere.

“You don’t like your beret, Mama…” She’d laughed so loud he hadn’t been able to list the many failed headwear attempts he could recall.

“Not like that, silly.” Mama had cuddled him close then, still giggling from time to time and stroking his hair back from his face.

“I don’t have to answer to anyone, Mama?” Credence bit at his lip, knew his mother didn’t particularly like him bringing up certain subjects.

“No, bunny, no one.” Apart from Mama, was unsaid.

“So I don’t have to answer when people ask where my Daddy is?” Mama twitched her nose at this, her eyes narrowed a little.

“No.”

“Would you answer if I asked you?” Credence said quietly, twisting the hem of his sleeve in his fingers.

“Bunny, I’ve told you before,” Mama sighed and turned her face towards him, “We’re better off without him…” Mama looked at Credence for another few seconds and went to bring his head to her chest, “We just need each other, no one else. Don’t we?” The tone of her voice, the slight helplessness panics Credence.

“Yes Mama! Just us! I don’t- I wouldn’t-” Credence struggles a little with his words, floundering, his usually stoic mother a little too unsure for his liking, “We don’t need anyone else. I don’t want anyone else, Mama.”

Mama smiles easily then, suddenly herself once more, she kisses Credence’s brow and whispers, “That’s right, Credence,” sighs against his soft hair, “Please don’t ask again… Alright?”

Credence never does, and so, years later, when he finds himself in the hands of New York’s child protection, he has no answer, not even a lie, to tell the people who ask where his father is, who he was, why he left his mother. Not a word in her defence, he’d fibbed at first and pretended she was his sister, like they did sometimes, but that had only irritated the police and the suited lady from the orphanage.

Later still, Credence comes to realise, through Mary Lou’s preaching on sin, through children’s cruel words in the church yard, why people had been so concerned with Credence’s young, unmarried mother, with his lack of schooling and his strange habits and accent. Comes to realise his mother was right, that people would look to judge you on anything just to distract from their own faults. Credence had once asked if he could go to church like the other children, she’d told him that wouldn’t help, it wouldn’t make anyone like them more or hate them less. She had said she wouldn’t socialise with people who went to church once a week to act holier than thou and then treat people terribly for the rest of the week. Credence often thought this when he was being screeched at by Mary Lou, or sneered at by one of the other adults at the Second Salem Church. His prayers and his obedience did not make it easier and it did not make them like him anymore.

Time drags by and as soon as Credence’s memories start to fade, his spirit dim even more, Mr. Graves appears. It’s not an acquaintance that strikes Credence as important at first, he was never one for friends truly, too quiet now, too shy, but Mr. Graves surprises him.

Credence had been very wary of Mr. Graves at first, he emitted the same aura as the people who took him away from Mama the first time. Fingers covered in paper dust, long nights with too much coffee, ink blotted against your sleeve and never properly cleaned. When Mr. Graves had tipped his head and crossed himself upon entering the church he had further suspicions. However, the third time he spoke to Credence, late afternoon in November, he surprised him. It was dark already and despite the lights of New York, in their shabby part of town you could just about see the stars.

“As long as you have somewhere to hang your hat, and the stars, then what else could matter, hmm?” Graves had gestured up at the sky, other hand deep in his pocket.

“What?” Credence had stopped walking along the cobbled street, looked to Mr. Graves suddenly so vulnerable in that moment, almost at risk of crying.

“As long as you, um,” Graves gestured again, vague now, “Have somewhere to call a home, and a view of the stars, well,” Graves scratches at his head a little, embarrassed, “What else matters?”

Credence blinks several times to clear the tears that had surprised him so suddenly, “Yes… That’s right.” Credence smiles again, and carries on walking with Mr. Graves.

After a few more paces passed in silence, “You don’t wear a hat…” Credence grins at his shoes, his stomach lurching a little at his cheek.

“No, no,” Graves huffs a laugh, “It musses my perfect hair, Credence.” Graves watches a little in awe at Credence’s trill of a laugh which bubbles down to little surprised hiccups. From that day on Credence makes a special space in his heart for Mr. Graves, thinks Mama won’t mind a man that just wants the stars and someplace to hang his nonexistent hat.

Apart from that one example, it was not the similarities in Graves and his Mama that he saw, it was the differences. Mama had always told him that you could never belong to anyone, and no one to you, but Mr. Graves’ hand on his arm, or the back of his neck made Credence feel differently. Something about how he stood so firm in the wind that his mother would follow, her cheeks pink and her nose in the air like she was sniffing out a new home for them, makes him want to hang back with him. Mr. Graves likes customs and tradition, will chivalrously open doors and pull out seats for a lady, while his mother loathed such treatment. Mr. Graves had been in New York most of his adult life, he tells Credence one day as they’re walking together, Credence’s back bowed from the pain of the belt, while Mama had always said that staying in one place too long was too close to death. Mr. Graves could not sing, Credence discovered when he came to the carol service, Mama could.

Credence could never be sure why it was that Mr. Graves had taken a liking to him, had healed him, had whispered that all of the magic his mother had told him about was real. Could never be sure why his healed wounds tingled long after the older man had left Credence, well into the night, a phantom touch. As Credence starts to carefully blow the dust away from his painful and treasured memories, the urge for going returns. Repressed for years, shoved under the carpet, growling and spitting whenever Mary Lou beat him, as another year passed and he still was in the same rickety bed, same rickety church, same rickety life.

The urge for going scares him like it never used to, it might have gotten him into trouble but it’s never something he’d wished away. He wants to stay now, he wishes he could - he’s finally found someone who won’t make fun of how he rolls his r’s or ask too much about his past, only patiently listen when Credence offers some information. He would like to stay with Mr. Graves. But he can’t.

The words “We don’t belong to anyone, and no one to us, bunny,” echoes around his head, his mother’s voice clearer than it’s been since he was a boy. Credence is reminded of when a gentleman especially sweet on his mother had proposed, said he wanted her, wanted Credence too, she’d smiled and accepted, but left before the sun was up the next day. He’d never understood, saw how she cried in the morning light as they boarded a train to Belgium, because she’d liked him very much. She’d taken a deep breath and dried her tears, and told Credence that people like them couldn’t be trapped, grounded, bound, it just wasn’t in their nature.

He sees Mr. Graves smiles, feels his broad, warm hand on his neck, on his cuts and on his waist. Remembers every instance of Mr. Graves buying him food, taking him new clothing, which appeared already worn so Mary Lou wouldn’t notice it was new. Remembers how Mr. Graves had suffered through lecture upon lecture of the ungodliness of magic, the need for a purge, just to speak to Credence afterwards. He sees his Mama’s sweet gentleman, sees his own sweet Mr. Graves in his place and he panics.

He never got his scarf or his lion back, never let himself think of where they ended up, especially doesn’t let himself think about where Mama ended up. Credence packs a small little satchel used for transporting the church’s flags and leaflets to the other side of the city, he waits until everyone is in bed and then he raids the donation tin as quickly and quietly as he can. Thoughts buzzing around his head of sin and pain and how he can’t bear to leave Mr. Graves and how he doesn’t know where he’s going and then how he could go anywhere. His mother’s voice urging him on in his head, you must go, you must leave.

Credence stumbles out, takes a night tram to the docks and plans to travel by boat somewhere, anywhere, as far away from his Mr. Graves and all the twisted feelings he brings, the strange hurt in his chest, so unfamiliar to him and unkind in it’s abuse. He sits at the docks with his bag full of stolen coins, a blanket and a change of clothes and he looks out to the horizon, thinks of how his mother used to love to see the end of the world, know there was something else at the end of the horizon. Tears escape as he so desperately wishes he’d been more like her, untamed and free, not scared, not bound to someone, not belonging to someone, not clinging to another.

“A bag full of money and nothing else is a little suspect, Credence.’ Graves’ warm voice murmurs beside him. Credence jumps out of his skin and almost drops everything down a slat in the boards and into the sea. “Why are you going?” Credence feels every drop of hurt in Graves’ voice, lets it burn him like acid.

“I have to… it’s- I was never meant to…” Credence looks down at his feet, closes his eyes and tries to quiet his mind, stop the tears from coming. Resolutely doesn’t think about how he’d liked how unmovable Graves was, certainly didn’t allow himself to think that perhaps he’d never felt safe moving around so often, never settled, never quite felt right. Does not think that Graves is safe, and makes him feel so, that Graves is stable and secure and all of those words Credence knows Mama would disapprove of. She liked change, chaos, movement, dancing, faster and faster and faster until the two of them inelegantly fell from their feet, Credence sent off to Mary Lou and his mother to God knows where.

Graves hasn’t said a word still, appears to have been looking very hard at Credence for a while now. Credence bites at his nails. “I would like for you to stay, Credence.” The hand that feeds him reaches down and rests on Credence’s neck - possessive, his Mama would say, calming, Credence corrects her - Credence swallows to rid the lump in his throat. “I want you to stay.” Graves affirms, stroking a thumb up the tense line of Credence’s neck. “Stay, Credence.”

Graves gets to his feet and takes up the bag of stolen money, waits a moment until Credence picks himself up, and then takes his hand. “Thank you.” Graves whooshes them away in a whirlwind that Credence has become somewhat used to, he silently returns the money to its rightful place with his wand, letting it stack itself, and then instead of installing Credence back in his rightful place, he draws him to the door and apparates off again.

Graves’ home is not rickety, it does not make him feel caged in or trapped, it is light and spacious and he has a garden where tulips bloom in the Spring, just a month after he begins his stay there. His urge for going doesn’t become stamped down as much as it just disappears. What replaces it is the presence of Graves, the fact that Credence knows what time he will return home, knows what to expect, what not to expect. Graves has never raised a hand to him, and Credence is certain he never will, Graves likes to make decisions for Credence, which doesn’t feel like an act of possession or arrogance, but a burden lifted from his shoulders.

One day in early April, the sun is out but there’s still a chill in the air, Credence scares himself. For whatever reason he thinks he might go outside, might just go to glimpse the blossom at the corner of the garden, look up at the sky and stretch his arms. The door is locked. What frightens Credence at first is not that the door is locked, but how quickly he accepts this - he thinks oh, how sweet, that Graves had thought to keep him safe, that Graves didn’t want him wandering, and then an shard of ice pierces his heart. What on Earth would Mama say?

Credence starts to panic and to fuss, puts down his tea sharply on the kitchen counter, wraps his arms around himself and is appalled at how completely at ease he feels at being kept in. The beating of his heart too much like a flighty bird trying to take flight and failing. Feels his own betrayal sharply, feels nauseous with how vivid the memory of his Mama is in that moment, frowning, disappointed, just like she had when he’d cried on the stairs of their flat in Madrid. She’d grabbed his hand and marched him off, “Credence, please none of this, not now, it’s time to go - say goodbye, bunny! No crying!” Her sing song voice strained and warped over his wailing, no Mama, stay, no Mama, I hate this, no Mama, please!

He tries to dredge up the need to leave, the instinct he’d had somewhere inside him all his life but it falls flat. His efforts heavy, slamming back down as soon as he raises them up again. “Credence, what’s happened? What’s wrong?” Graves, appearing mysteriously as always, he should be at work, comes to him and worries immediately. Pulling Credence this way and that, removing Credence’s thin arms crossed tight against his chest, pressing a palm to his forehead.

“You locked the door!” Credence accuses, squeezing his eyes shut, sure this is how his mother would have done things.

Graves pauses, “Of course, Credence. I want to know you’re safe while I’m away.” He says it so easily, Credence whimpers.

“I’m not yours, you know! I-I don’t, I don’t belong to anyone!” Credence spits it out, feels so lonely once the words are out in the open, has sealed his fate, has ruined it. Can’t help but gasp and let a few tears escape, nervously twine his fingers together as he waits for it all to be over.

“Don’t be ridiculous, of course you do.” Credence’s head jolts up at this, “You’re mine and I’m yours, that’s how it works, Credence.”

“No… I-“ Credence stumbles, “You don’t-“ Floundering in how simply Graves had put it, how perfectly opposite.

“You aren’t obliged to do anything, Credence. If that’s stay here with me, then so be it,” Graves purses his lips, flexes his hands and balls them into fists, “but you also don’t need to do everything like your mother would. Alright?” Silence rules after Graves’ question, Credence more in shock that Graves brought her up than at anything else.

“You don’t know-“ Credence’s hand flutters around his mouth, unsure and scared of what might tumble out of it.

“She would want you to be happy, Credence, surely,” Graves clenches his jaw, softens his tone, “Please?” Graves carefully peels Credence’s hand away from his mouth, angles his head to the left and places a chaste kiss on Credence’s lips. Credence seems to collapse inwards like a dilapidated building, held up on nothing, ready to fall, hollow, presses his mouth against Graves’ again, clings to his lapels for support.

“You can’t-“ Credence had begun to hiccup, “You can’t leave me,” hiccup, "now, now that,” hiccup, “You’ve said,” hiccup, “Okay?”

Graves smiles, holds Credence close, “I won’t.”

#fantastic beasts and where to find them #fbawtft #fbwtft #gravebone #gradence #percival graves #credence barebone #long post #fic #ficlet #writing #fluff #HAPPY ENDING OBV #angst-ISH??

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