#squandering my last long summer in a while but whatever

[plushri]

I literally don't know how to relax so I'm making my notes for third year...

[glorified-red]

Sometimes u just need Damian to hold u while u cry y'know¿??

I feel this with every fiber of my being, you have no idea.

Actions Speak a Thousand Words

summary: Damian was always a man of little words, but in moments like these, he wished he could do better to comfort you. word count: 1,280~ warnings: self-doubt, self-hatred, Damian sucks at emotions but he's tRyiNg. Light hurt/comfort In honor of summer classes sucking ASS and Damian's cameo in the Pride comic, here's this, because I feel like everyones a little bit tired right now.

You felt a shoulder bump into yours, effectively washing away all your thoughts. You hummed in question, your gaze barely lifting from where it was stuck. 

“You’ve been staring at the wall for long enough that I’ve begun to think it’s personally wronged you.” 

You hummed into the fingers that nestled against your chin, it was subtle pressure but it was enough to keep you from floating away. The hum almost died in your throat, having gotten caught in the heat that taunted you. 

When you didn’t laugh or even budge, Damian grew worried. He attempted to—as you taught him—lighten the mood once more. 

“I could fight the wall for you. It seems as though you’re mortal enemies.” 

You responded that time, but the attempt at banter fell short when your voice was nothing but a whisper. “We’re in the middle of a staring contest, that’d defeat the point.” 

It was Damian’s turn to hum, he tried to sound like he was on board with the idea but the tail end of the noise lifted into confusion. He slipped onto the seat next to you. 

“Are you at least winning?” His gaze attempted to reach yours. Green eyes were at the edge of your vision if you just turned your head to look at him. He felt his eyebrows crease together when your eyes fell from the wall and onto the desk in front of you. 

“I don’t think so,” you whispered, much softer than the last time you spoke. If Damian wasn’t inches away, the wobbles in your voice would have faded into nothing, to never be heard. The lips behind shaky fingers struggled to suck in a breath. 

Damian sifted ever closer to you until he could feel your silhouette against his. He hesitated, if not for a moment. He wasn’t good at this, he was trying to be—god he was—but it didn’t stop the lump in his throat from forming every time he saw you in hardship. 

He started with the first step: “Are you okay?” 

That sentence alone felt like he had said it wrong. He could mimic the exact inflections as everyone, down to the last breath, and he would still feel so out of place saying it. He hated the sound of his own hesitance—why couldn’t he be good at this, just once? He’d watched for years as his oldest brother danced through emotions so effortlessly, even his father had grown in an aspect Damian would never admit he was jealous of. He’d seen it—experienced it himself—yet he could never navigate this as easily as the others. 

You told him he was doing wonderful every time. You noticed his efforts and smiled at his mistakes, told him he was human and that it was okay. But damn, did Damian want to be better for you. You taught him what it was like to feel alive. He wanted to return that feeling tenfold until your body buzzed with his love for you. 

He just didn’t know how. 

The silence between you too lingered for longer than he liked. Every fiber of his being itched to fix the problem, to make sure whatever was making you feel this lost was squandered. But he quieted that part of him; he told himself “later.” Right now, that wouldn’t help you. That wouldn’t help you process this or feel whatever you were feeling right now. He had to give you time. 

So he waited, even as the milliseconds stretched into seconds. He let your brain filter through his question and piece together a response. 

“I’m just tired, Dames.” 

He picked at his pants, feeling the seams roll under his fingers. 

“Do you want to take a nap?” died in his throat. 

“We could cuddle?” slipped from his tongue. 

“Maybe take a break?” seemed impossible to say. 

Those are solutions, they wouldn’t help right now. 

“From?” he settled on. The green from his eyes never left your face for a moment. He was sure you could feel it, the weight of his gaze. It slid from your temples down your nose and across your jaw, tracing each line over and over again so he could see when they shifted. He could analyze your face for hours, it’s how he knew the twitch between your eyebrows was a sign you were trying to form the words on your tongue. 

He knew you. And he knew you wanted to smack a smile on your face and move on, to laugh it off and apologize for everything and nothing all at once. He often did the same, just with a different way of shrugging off emotions. He hid behind a stone wall where you hid behind a mirror. 

It was funny really, how easily you could penetrate his walls and how easily he could see through a two-way. 

“Everything.” Your eyes finally met his and the feeling of his heart sinking wasn’t one he could ever get used to. The sight of tears forming constellations on your lashes was enough for his heart to lurch. He felt it deep in his ribcage and up into his throat. 

He struggled on his next word. The words had to claw their way out of his mouth, enemies of hesitance and anxiety blocking their path. He wanted to tell you everything would be okay; he wanted to say it would get better; he wanted to say something that would help—anything. 

But Damian was never a man of many words, and oh, did he hate himself for it. 

No matter how many times he was told his strengths, he could only ever see the weaknesses, the imperfections, and the traits of him that could be traced back to his grandfather. Even after so long of trying to be better, it was useless. 

He was trying to be someone he wasn’t. 

So he let the words die. He let the resonance turn into a steady breath and did what he was good at: he held you. His arms wrapped around your shoulders and pulled you into his chest. You all but fell into his embrace, your head finding its way under his chin out of habit. It felt natural here, with you in his arms. Damian felt like he could breathe easier as if all his insecurities washed away. 

He hoped you felt the same. 

“I'm so tired,” you sobbed. Fingers clung to his shirt and pulled on the fabric but he stayed steady. He was, and always would be, your rock: the steady force in your life while all else seemed to swirl into chaos. He would always be there for you, despite everything. He was an immovable force and he slowly took pride in that fact. 

His lips pressed into the top of your head, the words hidden behind those lips ached to break through. Instead, he wrote the words into your body and kissed them into your skin in hopes the message was received all the same. 

The pads of his fingers squeezed consonants into your shoulders and slid vowels down your back and up again. His thighs carried the weight of yours and promised strength in return. His chest breathed in your sorrows and pressed affirmations into your heart. 

“I’m here.” 

It was short—that much Damian knew. But it was all he had to say. Every single word trapped in his chest was released in two simple syllables. There was nothing else. It was so simple, yet he overlooked it everytime. 

He could feel your body leaning into his, the way your hands had to convince themselves he was there. He knew you. And he knew this was enough. 

He would always be enough. 

As he was.

Taglist ♡

@anothertimdrakestan

@cherry-dropp

@missredrobin

[happyandticklish]

The Cost Of Pride

Notes: Commission for @ticklystuff! This is coincidentally an idea I’ve had in mind for Chili for a while now, so I’m grateful for the chance to expound upon and finally write it! Sorry it’s a bit late, I had finals and then my work schedule picked up for the summer and my time got a bit hectic ;-; I hope you enjoy ^^

Summary: Childe wants to be tickled, but it seems like no matter what he does, Zhongli just isn’t getting the hint. 

Childe wasn’t used to asking. He had long ago learned the lesson that if you wanted something, you took it. Asking required subjecting oneself to the unpredictable will of others. It was a dangerous game of carefully calculated risk, where you bet on goodwill, a trait that Childe often found lacking in people. No, it was far better to take than to risk the potential for embarrassing failure that came with asking.

Usually, this was simple, in terms of money, power, lives—easy goals, quickly achieved without a second thought. Ever since meeting Zhongli, however, he had learned that some things couldn’t be taken.

The first time it happened, Childe had been caught unawares. He had woken up early to make breakfast for the two of them, something that was quickly becoming a more common occurrence in their lives. Childe had spent the night almost every day for the past couple of weeks, mostly on accident. Running into each other in the street would turn into a conversation and then a date and then the hinges of the door creaking as the two stumbled onto Zhongli’s bed, hands fumbling for purchase.

Neither of them had spoken about what these ‘happenstances’ were. Zhongli hadn’t brought it up yet, and Childe was perfectly content to never acknowledge it if he didn’t have to. Whatever they were, it was nice, and Childe didn’t want to mess it up by trying to force some constricting title onto it.

He hummed as he gathered ingredients, setting them out on the table and twirling a knife in his hands. It was a tune he had heard some of the kids singing last night at the festival (the scene of that particular happenstance) and it had weaseled its way into his brain. He grabbed an onion, positioning his knife to start cutting when—

“It sounds even better when combined with that breathtaking voice of yours; I could listen to you all day long and still long to hear more.”

Arms encircled him from behind, the words whispered softly into his ear. The knife slammed uselessly down onto a cutting board, having entirely missed the onion in his distraction.

“You know, it’s not smart to sneak up on a man with a knife,” Childe advised him, grateful that Zhongli couldn’t see the red creeping across his features. He still wasn’t used to the bluntness that Zhongli delivered his compliments with, handing them out as liberally as the Mora he squandered away. “I’m dangerous, remember? I could have taken you out.”

“And what a sweet death that would have been, to perish by your blade.”

Zhongli really did intend on killing him before breakfast.

“However,” Zhongli continued, with a telling pause. “I think you underestimate me, harbinger. For instance, I’ve learned some of your weaknesses by now. I could easily turn the fight against you if needed.”

Childe raised a brow, glancing back at him. “Oh? And just what weaknesses have you turned up then? I don’t suppose this is going to be a repeat of last night.”

Zhongli smiled, a rare spark of mischief dancing in his eyes that made Childe uneasy. “Mm, something like that.”

And then the arms around him tightened, trapping him as fingers danced subtly against his sides. Childe yelped, dropping the knife to reach back and tug at Zhongli’s grip. It was like his fingers had a direct connection to Childe’s nervous system, however, and quicker than he had expected he felt laughter bubbling up in his throat. Normally, he wouldn’t have let himself be caught unawares like this. Being around Zhongli was making him soft.

He should have hated that. 

He didn’t.

He held feebly onto Zhongli’s hands, biting his lip and wishing he could say something, anything, without bursting into the laughter that so desperately yearned to escape him. He was well-aware that he looked stupid, a grown man in a flowered apron squirming and twitching in Zhongli’s arms, but he couldn’t help it.

“Is something the matter, Ajax?”

The name trilled through him and the softest whine escaped him as his resistance weakened. Tickling was new and exciting and an entirely unforeseen threat, and Childe was quickly discovering that he had no defenses against it. Zhongli’s fingers scribbled over his lower ribs and he slammed a hand over his mouth to stifle the stupid sound he almost let out at that.

There was a low, rumbling chuckle followed by a more focused attack on the spot. “You know, I never expected someone like you to be ticklish. It feels out of character, though I can’t say I’m disappointed. These past few nights, I’ve noticed that you always flinch away whenever my hands stray too close to certain areas. I’ve been developing evidence, and it seems my hard work has been rewarded.”

What was he, a detective now? Childe spluttered over something that sounded suspiciously like a giggle, whacking his hands weakly. “Z-Zhohongli! What abohout, ah, b-breheakfast?”

In an instant, Zhongli had released him, though he planted a small kiss against the back of his head before he fully backed off. Childe gave him a dirty look, its effect weakened by the smile on his face. “Your motivations are so simple sometimes, you know that?”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Zhongli replied innocently, snagging an apple from a bowl sitting on the counter and heading back to the bedroom with a smirk that said otherwise.

That would have been the end of it had Childe’s brain not continued to play that scene over and over in his head until he practically had it memorized. There was something about the feeling of Zhongli’s hands—or no, that wasn’t it. It was more the feeling Zhongli’s hands created. That cross between unbearable and pleasant, like lightning had replaced his bloodstream.

He told himself it was purely out of curiosity. Learning about one’s weaknesses is the best way to defend against them, after all. It wasn’t as though he wanted Zhongli to tickle him. 

No, this was purely informational. 

“I’m bored,” Childe announced conversationally, striding into the living room where Zhongli sat shuffling a very large and very annoying stack of papers. He hardly even looked up at the other’s presence. Childe coughed, loudly, frowning when he still didn’t take notice. He sat down next to Zhongli on the couch, reaching a hand out to tug at his ponytail. “Did you hear me?”

Zhongli’s brows flicked down in annoyance momentarily, but he continued to flip through papers, circling random paragraphs and numbers before moving onto the next one. Childe never understood where he got the patience for that kind of work. He was getting a headache just looking at it. “I heard you, I simply don’t see how that relates to me. What exactly am I supposed to do about it?”

“Well, that’s up to you, isn’t it?” Childe rocked back dramatically, flopping across Zhongli’s lap and forcing him to quickly jerk the papers out of the way. Childe flashed him a dazzling smile, the one he reserved specifically for getting what he wanted, and crossed his arms behind his head with a brazen confidence he didn’t feel. “Entertain me, Archon.”

For a moment, Childe thought it was going to work. Zhongli glanced down at his exposed torso, fingers flexing against his papers like he was considering his next move. Childe waited with bated breath, certain of the wrecking he was soon to receive.

Instead, he was greeted with a face full of papers dropped unceremoniously on top of him.

“If you want entertainment, this should occupy you for the better part of the afternoon. I want you to circle everything before May, and put x’s next to the negatives. You can come get me when you’re done.”

Childe glared after him as Zhongli pried Childe’s form off of him and walked out the door, having secured himself a fun-filled afternoon and Childe extra labor.

After his first failed attempt, Childe only grew more determined to lure whatever mischievous side of Zhongli that had appeared that morning out of him. He tried every method he could think of; his shirts seemed to open wider and wider until his tummy window was more like a door; he stretched for obnoxiously long periods of time, making sure to expose himself as much as possible; simple things like whose turn it was to pay for dinner that night stretched into long, playful arguments as Childe attempted to goad him into revenge.

Yet each and every time Zhongli ignored the signs and merely appeared confused at Childe’s not-so-subtle disappointment. There was no way that Zhongli couldn’t know what he was doing by now, but as weeks went by, Childe couldn’t help doubting that fact. Maybe Zhongli really wasn’t picking up on any of his hints. He could be dense about things sometimes.

Which, unfortunately, meant that it was up to Childe to get what he wanted.

They were sitting in bed when he finally gathered the courage to ask. Zhongli flipped idly through a book open on his lap, some silly fantasy piece that Aether had lent him. It wasn’t his usual style, but Zhongli was never one to have a closed mind. His brows were furrowed in puzzlement as he tried to deduce the appeal of it. 

Meanwhile, Childe lay beside him in bed, frustrated and tense after a week of failed attempts. His leg bounced anxiously on the mattress, and he kept tossing glances over at the other.

“What is it?”

His leg sped up slightly.

“What’s what?”

“Clearly something’s on your mind, I can see it in your face. And your leg.” Zhongli lowered his book, staring pointedly at him. “So. What is it?”

It seemed so simple when Zhongli put it like that, but of course, he didn’t know what was actually troubling Childe. He sighed, closing his eyes as he thumped his head back against the wall; if he was going to do this, he at least wanted to avoid the look of judgement that was sure to be all over Zhongli’s face afterwards.

“Well,” Childe started slowly, desperately hoping the other didn’t notice how red his face was. “I was, ah—well, I wanted to ask you something. But you have to promise me that you won’t laugh.”

Zhongli smiled in obvious amusement, but nodded his assent. “Alright, I promise. Though I’m sure I won’t be surprised by whatever it is—I’ve been around a long time, there’s not a lot I haven’t heard of.”

“You know that morning, a week ago, when I stayed the night after that festival?”

There was a smile appearing on Zhongli’s face, and even though it was what Childe had been hoping for, his stomach squirmed in dread at Zhongli figuring him out. “Yes, I’m aware.”

“You…” He cleared his throat once, twice, three times. “You.... Well. Ah. You tickled me.”

There was a beat of silence. Childe was hoping Zhongli might fill in the rest of his sentence, but his face was innocently open as he waited for him to continue.

“I was wondering if you… well, if maybe you wanted to… you know… do it again?”

Was it possible to blush so hard your face actually set on fire? If so, Childe was pretty sure he was fast approaching that mark.

For a long, terrifying moment, Zhongli didn’t say anything. In the course of those five seconds, Childe managed to think of every possible rejection Zhongli surely had in store for him, trying to decide which one was the least painful. And then—”

“I’m impressed. I thought you’d last at least another week before you finally gave in.”

Childe’s head whipped around to face him so fast it was a miracle his neck didn’t snap. “You knew?”

“Of course I knew,” Zhongli said wryly. “I’m not that oblivious.”

“I didn’t mean—”

“Relax, I’m only teasing. Although, on that subject...”

In a flash, Zhongli had thrown one leg around his waist, straddling him against the bedframe. Childe barely had time to let out a startled yelp before Zhongli was snagging his wrists and tugging them over his head where he pinned them tightly against the wall. They had been in this position many times before, in much different circumstances. Childe swallowed nervously. A quick pull on his arms confirmed that he wasn’t going to be going anywhere anytime soon.

It was a wonderful, terrifying feeling.

“I’ve been compiling evidence,” Zhongli continued, parroting his words from that morning. He rested his other hand against his stomach, and Childe inhaled sharply, squirming nervously under his touch. “Let’s go through the list, shall we?”

“No, we don’t have to actually—heEH!”

Zhongli’s fingers set into action, quickly cutting off whatever Childe had been about to say next with a sputtered giggle. His fingers were quick and deft, similar to his fighting style, as they seemed to almost dance over the trembling expanse of his stomach. 

Childe often slept without a shirt due to the heat he wasn’t used to, but he hadn’t thought to factor tickling into that decision. Everything was so much worse on bare skin, and he clamped his mouth shut to prevent any unwanted embarrassing noises.

Meanwhile, Zhongli began to tick off his list. “There was that time on the couch, when you graciously placed yourself in my lap—even going so far as to lift your own arms up. Not to mention how many times you walked around the house shirtless—you’ve always been reserved about that before now, and yet every time I was around there seemed to be some amount of skin on display.”

He was tracing ever-so-lightly over his lower stomach, nails fluttering against the skin in an unbearable fashion. Childe hadn’t expected something so gentle to tickle so much, and he twitched violently back with each brush of the other man’s fingers, broken giggles slipping out gradually. It was everything he had wanted and more, the electrical thrill of sensation zipping through him and bringing him to life. It was impossible to sit still through, however, and Zhongli’s words certainly weren’t helping.

“And don’t think I didn’t notice the disappointed look on your face all those times you tried to tickle me and I didn’t immediately acquire revenge. I wonder if you were trying to provoke me in the past as well. After all, you do it so often—you must really enjoy this, to go to such great lengths for it.”

His words were matter-of-fact, which was almost worse than if he had been just teasing. A hot flush of embarrassment spread to the tips of Childe’s ears. He would’ve closed his eyes to avoid that smirk, playful and affectionate and annoyingly self-assured, but in truth there was a special thrill in having that gaze directed at him that he was unwilling to give up. “S-Shuhut uhuhuhup!”

“Mm, I’m afraid I can’t, sorry.” Zhongli slowly walked his fingers outwards, crawling up his left side and getting closer and closer to the one spot Childe knew he wouldn’t be able to handle. “There’s just so many examples, I’ve hardly even scratched the surface. Like that time in the parlor when you stole my book and forced me to chase you around the house, or all those training sessions where you allowed yourself to be pinned a bit too easily, or the many, many arguments where you practically begged me to do something about your stubbornness.”

“I-Ihih dihid nahahat n-now—wahahait hohohohold ohoHOHON!”

Devastating touches squirreled between his ribs, digging into the indents between each one and driving Childe half insane. Zhongli was so close now, just barely brushing under his arms, and Childe’s laughter had grown frantic and pleading with desperation.

“All of that, when you could have just as easily asked me.” Zhongli arched a brow, pinching the sensitive skin right before his underarms. Childe yelped, practically slamming himself against the wall in his haste to escape. “I never understood why you make these games for yourself instead of just being honest. There’s nothing strange about liking tickling. In fact, I’ve heard it’s quite common. Not to mention how cute it is.”

Childe blushed, wishing desperately that he could cover his face to hide how stupid he probably looked right now. The word cute rung over and over in his ears, a heart stopping refrain. “It’s stupid,” he mumbled, clenching his hands into fists. “And childish.”

Childe startled as a hand grabbed his chin tenderly, tilting it up to look at him. It was incredible how even that simple gesture made his heart flutter. “Ajax. I would never find anything that you love stupid.”

Childe struggled to find something to say to that, but before he could come up with a sensible reply, Zhongli had set back into motion, nails curling under his arms at long last. Childe shrieked, lurching forward in his hold and burying his face imploringly in Zhongli’s shoulder.

“That being said, I think we should return to the matter at hand, don’t you think? We’ll give your voice something else to do rather than spout such nonsense.”

“ZHOHONGLI! IHIHIT—SHIHIHIT!”

“Tickles?” Zhongli finished for him. “Thank you for the feedback, it’s much appreciated. Although while I’m here, I should do some research. Since you like being tickled so much, it’s only fair to you that I learn the best ways to do so. Now, under your arms seems to be particularly bad, especially around this area by your shoulder blades. I’ll have to return there again, for further inspection. And then of course there’s your stomach—”

“Nonononohohohoho!” Childe snorted weakly as those devastating nails returned to the stupidly sensitive area. His muscles trembled as Zhongli traced their outline, occasionally darting down to scratch at his hips. Each new spot seemed a thousand times worse than the last, driving him crazy in new and wonderful ways. “Ohoho m-my gahahahad, fuhuhuck!”

“Hips appear to be equally as bad, especially to the light touch. However, we’ve mostly tested your torso. I wonder if the same methods would work elsewhere?”

Childe’s confusion was quickly answered as Zhongli reached back suddenly, latching onto his knee and squeezing rapidly. Childe yelped, breaking into fitful cackles as he kicked the other leg in protest.

“NAHAHahahahaAHA nahahat thehEHEHERE!”

“Ah, so it seems a firmer approach works better on the legs.”

Childe shook his head quickly in denial, but his squirming and frantic laughter said otherwise. “Plehehehease, ihihit tihihihickles!”

“Are you asking me to stop, then?”

There was a brief moment where Childe considered saying yes, stopping all of this and ending the torment he’d been chasing for a week now—longer than a week, if he was being honest with himself. A chance to take the mercy Zhongli was graciously offering him. Instead, he shook his head once more, flushing for what wasn’t the first, and certainly wouldn’t be the last, time that night.

Zhongli smiled, melting a bit at the cute gesture, before setting in with a renewed vigor as he moved up to his thighs, an area that appeared to be very sensitive.

“Good. Let’s make up for lost time then, shall we?”

[lambourngb]

a skeleton of something more [2/6]

previously here. malex wip fic. a short serial leading up the premiere.

spoilers for the trailer and promo, will be instantly AU. If I’m going to the trouble of writing a malex fix-it for the season 3 opener, why not fix 2x13 too?

**** THEN **** 

After Alex closed Tripp’s journal, he met Michael’s gaze across the table at the Crashdown. 

His golden-brown eyes were heavy with pain, the reminder of how his mother’s story had ended was still fresh between them despite the span of months since the fiery end of Caulfield. What had resulted in being the fiery end of them, even though Alex hadn’t known it at the time. The look of sleeplessness in Michael’s face reminded Alex, that outside of this small piece of Nora, he had the weight of Maria still in the hospital recovering from the pathogen Flint had released. The press of the Deep Sky ring in his pocket warred with the hesitation to place one more burden on Michael, would the abacus of their fragile friendship balance out?

He flashed to that last argument in Michael’s bunker, a disaster of his own making, thinking he could believe in his father, but thankfully harm was averted at Crashcon. That recent memory was motive enough for Alex to decide. Whatever happened next, he needed Michael on the same page with him.

As Isobel moved to leave the table, explaining to Michael that she needed to check on Max, Alex held Michael’s gaze deliberately. Then he folded his fingers down, until the last three fanned out in a downward W. 

“After what happened with Maria, maybe you should come with me, Michael. You can help me shake some sense into Max,” Alex heard, tuning back into Isobel’s voice. Her eyes moved back and forth between them, a crease of suspicion wrinkling her upturned nose, as she stopped on him. “It’ll be a good distraction.”

Without looking at Isobel, Michael’s eyes remained trained on Alex’s hand. “No, thanks, I’m good here. I’ve had my fill of stubborn ass people who don’t want to listen to sensible advice from me, so I’ll catch up with you later, Isobel.” 

She made a dismissive huff but did not argue, leaving with the barest semblance of a polite goodbye to Alex, but that was typical Isobel Evans. Michael waited until his sister was on the other side of the door, before speaking quietly, his gaze finally moving up from Alex’s hands to his face. “I haven’t seen you flash that sign to me in years.” 

“Glad to know you haven’t forgotten it.”

“You, making the ‘wait for me, I want you now’ signal? Nah, that’s been burned into my brain over the years.” Michael said it with a faint trace of bitterness. “I guess news travels fast, Maria only dumped my ass this morning.”

Alex winced and looked down, swallowing the surprise and spark of hope that welled in his throat at that disclosure. It was better to concentrate on the unique talent he had of stepping on landmines around Michael, than wonder about what had happened with Maria. It looked like he was still good at causing harm without intention, judging by the stung bite in Michael’s voice. “Fuck, I’m sorry, I didn’t know. I wouldn’t have-”

“No, I’m sorry,” Michael cut off his apology firmly with a wave of his hand, calling a time-out. Alex waited, his teeth pressed into his lower lip as Michael rubbed his eyes with a weary half-smile. “I’m being an asshole right now, and that’s not fair to take it out on you. It’s been a shitty day already, and — anyway, … you definitely know how to get my attention, Alex.” He tilted his head, self-deprecation on his face, “for better or worse, you’ve always been good at that.” 

It had been the sign they had developed whenever their paths had crossed over the years while Alex had been on leave in Roswell, but it had started that summer after high school. After Michael’s hand had healed poorly from Jesse, the last three fingers had been left frozen in a claw, it had been a shared fuck-you to his dad to use it to form their own secret communication. A three-fingered W, turned upward meant it wasn’t a good time, and he would find Michael later; turned downward, well, that meant it was safe to approach him, and it had often ended in a hurried blowjob in his car. Perhaps he should have used more care in using it now, but Michael wasn’t the only one running on the fumes of insomnia and stress. “Sorry, I needed to talk to you, and I wanted to make sure you didn’t leave with Isobel-”

“It’s fine, really. It’s not a bad memory either, remembering that we had our little secret language.” Michael wiggled his fingers in reassurance, his left hand still wrapped with a bandanna. “I can make that signal a hell of a lot easier now, too. But anyway, what did you need?”

There was still a voice inside Alex’s head that said ‘you’, no matter how long it had been. He shoved that down deep, along with his curiosity about Maria, and concentrated on his purpose. “Your advice on something, and then if it’s not too much to ask, your help.”

“Anything.” 

Alex blinked, nonplussed by the easy acceptance. 

Michael gestured encouragingly, “seriously, anything, just tell me what’s going on because the way you’re hemming and hawing, it is freaking me out.” Suddenly, all expression washed out of Michael’s face as a horrible thought occurred to him. “Did you get deployed or something?”

“Not exactly, not how you’re thinking,” he winced at the earned glare from Michael as he continued to stall while the words still tripped and fumbled around his mouth, heedless to the mounting frustration between them both. He sighed, and regrouped. Pushing the closed journal aside, Alex dug into his pocket and laid the signet ring on the table before Michael. “Let me start at the beginning, I found this in my dad’s things.” 

“Jesse never seemed like a jewelry kind of guy to me.” Michael picked up the ring, examining it closely with a sarcastic smirk. “Other than parading around town with that wedding ring, when everyone knows your mom left him back during the Bush years, Dubya that is.”

“My father is all, was all, about appearances.” Alex placed the photo of the group on the table, sliding it over to him. “That ring marked his membership in this paramilitary group called Deep Sky. Every man in that photo worked at Caulfield, at one time or another.” He tapped his finger over the face of his father, then moved it to the right. “That’s my dad, and that is Ricky Long.”

Michael frowned, pulling the picture closer to squint at the faces. “Wyatt’s dad?”

“No, Forrest’s.”

“Nazi guy? Seriously?” He rubbed at his chin, the stubble longer than usual painting his jawline. Alex dragged his eyes away with effort as Michael considered that information. There was a reluctant understanding in his eyes, having recalled that Forrest Long wasn’t just ‘Nazi Guy’ to Alex, but someone who had expressed interest in Alex. Personal interest. “I guess that’s something you guys have in common then, dirtbag dads.” 

He didn’t look thrilled to admit that to Alex, but it was a mark of how far they had both come as friends that Michael had said it anyway regardless. It was kind of him. It was the same type of empathy Alex had extended toward Michael, when he had expressed interest in Maria. Cut open, bleeding under his skin from all the ways he had squandered his own chances, he had said something similar to Michael once upon a time. That was what love was all about. Then he had kept saying it, until he believed it most days because wanting Michael to be happy was the easier ask.

It was a gracious sentiment that was entirely wasted by Michael when it came to Forrest Long. 

“It would be, uh, something to bond over, if I hadn’t noticed that Forrest wears the same ring now.” 

Michael’s eyes sharpened. “Family heirloom or do you think he worked at Caulfield?”

“I don’t know, but he is an ex-Army vet.” Alex tapped the photo of the members gathered together, “That was part of what I’ve been looking into, identifying everyone who worked at Caulfield right until the end. As for Deep Sky, I don’t know if it’s military service, Caulfield, or a family legacy that ties every member together, I just know that Dad kept in touch with those who were involved at the prison.” 

“Makes sense, Jesse was able to get a hold of the atomizer and pathogen that Charlie developed from somewhere. For all of his strutting around at Crashcon with a uniform on, that didn’t look like it was an official use of government property.” 

“Right, it definitely wasn’t, and before you tell me to leave it alone-” Alex began, remembering Michael’s response to the investigation into 1947. He had considered Alex’s actions back then to be an act of futility, something that could only hurt by being revisited. The past being the past, unable to be altered. 

This time Michael cut him off, “No, I was wrong about that. I, um, I finally realized that just because I don’t see you connected to that place or the rest of your family, doesn’t mean you don’t. And while I wish that you didn’t, Alex, if digging into this gives you some sort of peace over it, then do it.”

Alex looked down, feeling the weight of relief that Michael understood. After his father’s body had been removed, after the questions and lies had been spun, he had spent the entire night sleepless over having been made into an effective weapon to force Michael’s compliance. Helena had known where all the weak spots were thanks to Flint, and had armed herself with a depowering agent. Once Flint was recovered, there was nothing stopping him from employing a similar tactic in the future.

“If anyone’s going to destroy me, it might as well be you.” Michael had once declared with a bold carelessness that had infuriated and terrified Alex at the time, but that was nothing compared to now having a lived experience to back it up. His mind had easily used the memory of Maria’s collapse after the faintest exposure at the Crashcon and had exchanged her with Michael, being torn apart molecule by molecule, by an invisible threat.

Give him an enemy that he could see any day, especially one that bled. 

“I’ve been fighting so long, I don’t know what peace looks like anymore.” Alex held out his hand for the ring, and Michael gently laid it in his palm, brushing his fingertips over Alex’s skin. A lifetime of controlling himself kept the reaction off his face as he rubbed his thumb over the raised emblem of Deep Sky. “But I have learned recently that when something seems too good to be true, it is.” 

Neither of them mentioned Jesse and his performance from the last few months, but Michael frowned again, “Wait a second, you think Forrest targeted you on purpose?” 

“A member of a secret paramilitary organization just happens to ask me out after I was involved in the destruction of Caulfield? You really think that’s a coincidence?” Alex raised his eyebrow skeptically at Michael, before looking out the window to watch the pedestrians on the street. 

“I think you’re the hottest guy in Roswell, so I’m not surprised he asked you out.” Michael flushed a little when Alex turned back to stare at him in surprise over the flattering comment. “Seriously, you’re a catch, but I will agree, it’s not a good look that he’s got that ring. But maybe it’s crap he wears because of his dad, and he’s got no idea he’s parading around?”

“You’re being awfully generous.”

“Isn’t that what you want? Because last time I checked, you were the one telling me that I should have faith in people, even if they give me no reason to.” Michael flattened his hands on the table, drawing Alex’s attention to the bandanna on his hand again. That damn fight kept echoing between them to Alex’s dismay, but Michael didn’t let him linger over it, “While I stand by what I said about Jesse, ‘cause he messes us both up, all I know about Forrest Long is that he is way too interested in Nazi history and he has good taste in guys.” Michael wetted his lips, nervously to tack on, “I also know that I trust you, and your instincts, so if you say there’s something not right about him, then I believe you.” 

“There’s something not right about him,” Alex repeated seriously.

“Then I believe you, so what do you need me to do?”

“He wants to get close to me for some reason, probably related to what I know about aliens, so I’m going to let him. And I need you to back me up in case something goes wrong, and maybe use that lock pick you have in your brain?” Alex waited until Michael nodded in agreement, feeling the swell of gratitude at his support. Anyone else would probably think he was being paranoid, or that this was a delayed reaction to his father trying to kill them, but Michael, for all of his previous counter-arguments, had never truly believed in the good of humanity. Maybe in a few days, Alex would feel guilty in relying on that. Maybe in a few days, his suspicions about Forrest would be eliminated.

“He’s involved in running the open mike night at the Wild Pony with Maria, so I thought maybe I could perform a song or something? He drives a Prius, and while he’s listening to me sing, you could slip out mid-song and insert this into the code reader of his car.” 

On the table was a small device that mimicked a thumb drive, small and black. It was the type of technology that Alex had used in the Air Force, tracking terrorists abroad. It had taken a fair amount of searching to purchase the equivalent stateside to have on hand. Michael picked it up curiously, turning over his hands.

“It’s designed to download the GPS history of his car,” Alex explained, before rubbing the back of his head in thought. “That’s how I uncovered what my dad was up to, first by tracking his movements. If I let Forrest take me home, I can gain access to his laptop and phone.”

Michael furrowed his brow in concern, “You’re really willing to go that far? And what if he is involved in something shady, what then?”

“My father and brother both used me to get to you, there’s really nothing I wouldn’t do to keep that from happening again and if it means playing along with this guy, letting him lead me to the members of Deep Sky? Then I will.” If anything, his words only deepened the concern on Michael’s face, but Alex had been committed for a long time. Since the red level threat. Since the short ride to the recruitment office. Maybe as far back as his guitar going missing in the music room.

“I’ve slept with guys for worse reasons.”

CONTINUED HERE

[sabraeal]

The Most Perverse Creature in the World, Chapter 11

[Read on AO3]

You had been concerned this evening-- no, that was too mild a description to contain how you waited outside the castle gate, alone and shrouded beneath the anonymity of your black lacquer. It had been anxiety that plagued you, every inch of skin alive and shivering with your nerves. You trusted Obi implicitly-- he had given you no reason to not these past weeks. Despite the reputation that recommended him for this business--whatever it was-- his behavior at the bawd house reminded you less of an unrepentant rake and more of a small boy made to sit and do sums in the summer.

But even so, your ladies had placed their trust in you. They had little choice; a woman of ill repute would be laughed out of the council, branded a greedy whore, but you--

Well, you were a widow above reproach. A countess in your own right, no matter what scandal brought you the title. Where their words would sink like oil in water, yours would rise as air, right into the upper echelons of the court, perhaps even into the king’s ears themselves. That didn’t mean that they’d listen to them, but yours at least had opportunity, whereas theirs--

Theirs would be laughed at, ridiculed for daring to speak above their station. You held their hopes in your hands, and to ask them to trust a new man, sight unseen, vetted only by the prince’s messenger felt like a favor too far.

It was good then, that as large as this Sir Lowen might be, he had all the gentleness of a princess from the pages of a storybook; the sort that might see animals eating out of his cupped palms, should he offer them. The instant he squeezed into your carriage, an apologetic dark shadow, your fears had eased, steady with the knowledge that the girls would be like kittens in his hands.

Your instincts were correct; hardly a breath has passed since he entered the boudoir, and already your ladies are eating out of them. Or perhaps, more accurately, trying to entice him to eat out of theirs.

Tsubaki may have spoken first, but it’s Himawari who stands closest. She uses every inch of leverage it gives her as she saunters closer, raking Sir Lowen with a speculative gaze that leaves no doubt as to what she’s measuring.

“Sorry, petal,” Himawari purrs, placing a finger right on his sternum. “But I’ll be handling this one.”

“That’s not fair,” Tsubaki whines. “Kikyo, tell her that’s not fair.”

“I...” Kikyo’s mouth works, and she tears her gaze off the prince’s aide with a flush. “I don’t think milady brought him here for any of that business.”

“Aw, come on now.” Himawari’s wide mouth breaks out into a wider smile, the sort canaries might see before they flew to the great coop in the sky. “It’d be a pity to waste milady’s coin.”

If skin could burn then Sir Lowen would be a bonfire. “P-please, ladies, I’m not here for anything like that!”

“I changed my mind.” Himawari turns a hard, thoughtful look on him. “I’d let this one handle me.”

“Well,” Obi drawls, having entirely too much fun, “now there’s some high praise.”

Sir Lowen shoots him a dubious glare. “Is it?”

“Well, none of them have ever offered to handle me on milady’s dime,” Obi informs him, mouth twitching at the corner. “You must have a certain...I don’t know what.”

“A third leg?” Tsubaki offers, quickly shushed by Kikyo.

“Please,” Himawari snorts. “Milady couldn’t pay me enough to put up with you.”

Obi presses a hand to his chest, scandalized. “I’ll have you know I’m a very generous--”

“You’re a pain in the ass,” she informs him. “You say you want to be handled, but there’s not a pair here you’d trust to do it. You couldn’t take a direction if it was dipped in gold and had your name carved in it.”

At once, the shy maiden melts away from Sir Lowen, replaced with a grin so satisfied and familiar you wonder which face it came from first-- Obi, or this man.

“Why, Obi,” he says, deceptively friendly. “I didn’t know you were taking me to a palm reader.”

Obi huffs, chin tilting up and arms folding tight across his chest. “I don’t think she’s interested in your palms, mister.”

Himawari’s brow tics, speculative. “Depends on where he plans on putting them.”

“I wasn’t--” Sir Lowen’s high ground turns to quicksand beneath his feet-- “I only meant--”

“If you are all quite finished bothering Sir Lowen,” you inform them, ignoring Himawari’s gleeful ‘hardly’-- “we have very little time left if we do not wish to squander the opportunity his name has afforded us.”

Kikyo bounces to her feet, leaving an empty space on the bed. “Ah, right. Sir Lowen, if you wouldn’t mind...”

He coughs, the red on his skin appearing uniquely painful. “I couldn’t...not...ah...”

“Oh!” Her fingers flicker in the air, all nerves. “Ah, then, perhaps this chair? If that would suit?”

“It would,” he allows graciously, the tension in his shoulders finally deflating. “I’ll just...stay here for the evening. I guess.”

“Don’t feel like you have to, sir,” Tsubaki purrs, rolling onto her back. “There’s plenty of room here on the bed.”

“There certainly will be, when I kick you off of it,” Himawari replied, leaping over to tweak the girl’s cheek. “No room for little girls while the adults are, hmm, talking.”

“The chair is fine!” he yelps, availing himself of it pointedly. “There! Hardly...hardly any different than a night in the palace!”

Obi’s lips give a dangerous twitch. “Well, I’m sure these ladies could change that if you only--”

“Obi.” You may not have had any child of your body, but you have raised a boy just the same; you know the precise octave in which one may raise their voice and insinuate trouble. He jolts at the sound of it, eyes rounding to innocence. “If you would...”

“Ah, right.” His shoulders hunch as he slinks toward you, a cat scolded but entirely unrepentant. “Well, mister, don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.”

Sir Lowen’s head snaps up, eyes wide and white as he catches the open door. “Obi! You can’t--”

A large hand presses to your spine, scurrying you through it. Obi leans back, head poking through the gap. “Enjoy yourselves, ladies.”

“Obi--!” The door snicks shut behind him.

You frown, glancing at the door behind him. “Are you sure you two are friends?”

“The most bosom companions.” His teeth flash white in the hall’s dim. “Now let’s go see to your entertainment for the evening, my lady.”

You have never had reason to stray long in the brothel’s halls; Obi usually sees to it that your trip involves only the briefest stint through the back stairs, quickly and quietly depositing you in a room within moments of your arrival. So as your eyes adjust to the bare light, you cannot help but stare.

“Stripes?” Your fingers rise to trace the paper. It’s hard to make out their color in the dim, but you squint anyway, shuffling close enough for your slippers to brush the wainscoting. “Green stripes?”

“Well, not everything can be hand-painted cocks and balls.”

You nearly laugh, only tamping down when you see how his eyes have bulged, how stiffly he’s standing before you. Obi hadn’t meant to let that gem slip from his lips.

“Of course not,” you say, deceptively mild. Behind your veil, Obi can’t see your lips twitch. “I’d expect there to be quite a few cunts as well.”

You may restrain your laugh, but Obi doesn’t, a wheeze bursting from his lips. “My lady...”

It’s not until his shoulders ease, body hanging with its usual boneless grace, that you realize how tense he’s been. After that little scene in Tsubaki’s chamber, you half expected him to be prancing through the halls, giddy as a schoolboy he hung yet another of his bosom companions out to twist in the wind. But instead he’s...nervous.

“Obi.” His name hoists itself through the air with the heft of a feather, but he flinches nonetheless. “Is something wrong?”

His mouth opens, but closes just as quick, mouth curving in a rueful grin. “I wonder...”

You nearly call out to him again, his name right at the edge of your lips, but Obi’s voice startles you instead. “Come on, my lady, it’s this way.”

The door he stops at must be the one-- who else would have delicate violets painted in clusters along the jamb?-- and he hesitates once more, hand poised just above the knotless wood.

Gold eyes cast you one last long look, but you cannot read the message in it. There is too much regret, too much pity, too much of everything, and you would ask, you would take your gloved hand and hold him back, but--

You’re too late. His knuckles fall, a sharp rap, and suddenly he’s the Obi you expected to see once more, grin spread too wide on his angular face, the shadows clinging to him as if he might disappear if you took your eyes from him.

“Custom’s here,” he calls out gruffly, the perfect imitation of one of the brothel’s bouncers. Quieter, he turns to you, door creaking open as he says, “Good luck, my lady.”

You shore yourself up, becoming the implacable widow behind a facade of bombazine. “Let’s hope I don’t need it.”

This is not what you expect from a prostitute’s boudoir.

Gauzy rose curtains flutter between whitewashed posts, stirred by the door’s closing. They match the ones over the windows, a massive bank of glass settled over a seat meant to sit two, buried in pink striped cushions. The knobs on the vanity gleam golden, matching the subtly shimmering vines on the wallpaper, interrupted only by sprays of violets and roses.

It’s a child’s room; the very same you might see for a beloved daughter among your set. Save for the flowers, it could quite practically have been your own before you left it for your marriage bed.

Your hands clench where they hang knitted before you. Perhaps that is...part of the fantasy. Just as Himawari’s room is done in dark woods and deep hues to match the tastes of her clients, this might be much the same. A girl who catered to the illicitness of making love in a lover’s childhood room-- or, you cannot help but think, one that might be bound to do a man’s bidding, like a child might.

“Oh sir.” A pale shadow moves behind the curtain, as delicate as the voice that  slips through the gauze. It’s a soft one, high-pitched and sweet, a part played to the hilt. “I’ve been so excited to meet you.”

You startle, heels bumping back into the door. You’d braced for confrontation, not seduction; even if this Sumire has never once seen a glimpse of Sir Lowen, there is no conceivable way that she could mistake a window in her weeds as the prince’s foremost aide. But thin as these curtains are, she can see just as much of you as you can see her-- nothing above a vague impression of color and shape.

It is not to last. Slender fingers slide through the seams, pushing the cloth aside. “I do hope you’ll take care of--”

A sweet face peers out between the curtains, chestnut hair pinned back and curled just like a little girl’s-- because that’s what she is. By her size, her proportions-- if she’s had her courses, she can count them but months, not years. Fourteen, at the most. At the least--

Your mind refuses to speculate. How can it, when all that fills it is an angry buzz, as harsh as the cicadas in summer. You had thought Tsubaki young, but this, this...

Her full mouth crumples into a child’s pout. “You aren’t Sir Lowen at all.”

And a good thing, too. Gentle as that man may be, you doubt he would take this with any sort of subtlety. “No. You may call me Countess Bederin.”

Those large eyes go wide, rounding until you can see white around the iris. “B-bederin?”

Your mouth curls. “I see my reputation precedes me. I suspect the girls have spoken about me.”

The girl-- Sumire, the madam’s favorite flower, sniffs, her coltish limbs folding over her. “They don’t need to tell me anything. I know all about you.”

It has been years since you’ve had a child in your home, but you recognize the prideful hook of that mouth. Less they don’t need to tell me anything, then, and more they wouldn’t tell me anything, even if I asked.

She settles back on her heels, eyeing you askance. “You’re the widow that comes around here to talk about, ah...?”

“Taxes, mostly,” you admit. “Working conditions as well. May I have a seat?”

With all the primness and pretension of a lord’s daughter, Sumire draws her spine straight, seating herself at the edge of the bed with ankles crossed. She would look every inch a girl born to it if it weren’t for her sullen pout-- or her negligee, one strap slowly slipping down her shoulder. “If you must.”

“I don’t,” you assure her. You’re not so old that standing for the duration of this conversation would harm you. “I would prefer to be invited, rather than impose.”

Her eyes widen before she drops them down, giving a begrudging nod. “Fine then. Over there. But you should know I don’t have any complaints.”

Her hand juts out; you follow its line to an overstuffed chair tucked in a corner. It’s pink as well, though not striped, its velvet worn bald in places. Your nurse had a similar one-- no, you had a similar one in your old room, a big wing-backed monument you’d climbed as a small thing, right into her lap until you got too big for it, then up the back itself. That is, until you’d fallen from the top and knocked the wind clean out of your chest. You’d taken your stories from the floor, after that, leaning your head against her knee as her finger stroked through your hair.

Your jaw sets as you sink into its cushioned depths. This furniture might share a shape, but you doubt Sumire has experienced the same sweet memories.

“Of course,” you manage through your teeth, “but that is valuable information as well. I am looking for as complete a picture as I can create when I make my recommendation to His Majesty.”

It’s an overstatement of your power to be sure-- the only time His Majesty would hear your opinions would be shortly before they were torn to shreds by the teeth of the council-- but it has the desired effect. Sumire’s small chest puffs, chin tilting up, eyes sparkling. You’ve made her important. No, you’ve made her words important.

“I should tell the madam you’re here,” she says, words crisp, threat idle. “So she can throw you right out for...for...ah...sedition.”

That would require the brothel to be a country and the madam its head of state-- a metaphor that might work if it did not require you to also live within it as well. Still, it was a poor point to quibble with a child, not when a girl like her could never afford to spurn a lady who has a king’s ear. At least, not when she could dream of putting herself in his bed. This was all a bit of theater, a way for her to cast the illusion of an equal field.

It is ground you can afford to cede. “You might. Or you might allow me to have your ear first, before you decide. The choice is yours.”

Sumire’s small feet still against the footboard, her body stiff and still with a hungry kind of wariness. You doubt she has ever been given such a choice before, paltry as it is.

“Very well.” Her voice takes on the clipped cadence of the upper crust; an affectation to your ear, but a good one. She’s been trained, at least, the streets scrubbed clean from her vowels. “Though there’s not a thing you could offer me that the madam won’t give if I ask.”

Besides a childhood, you don’t say.

“I’m not here to make any offer,” you tell her, as gentle as you are able. “Only to be a listening ear.”

Her head cocks, a sparrow offered seeds from a strange hand. “What do you mean?”

You stifle a smile; even if she cannot see it through the veil, she’ll hear it in your voice. Still-- she’s taken the bait, even if she hasn’t hopped up into your fingers. “My purpose is not to propose, but to listen. There is a proposal among the lords that would require all those engaging in acts considered...superfluous to the point of procreation for money to pay a certain extra consideration to the crown.”

Sumire blinks. “What’s that all mean?”

“They want to tax you for every act of sexual congress that does not involve, ah--” you flounder for the words; she may be a professional, but she is also a child, and oh, Obi might have teased you for asking, but he’d certainly have ideas-- “the insertion of a man’s member into your, hm...”

Secret garden, your nurse would have said, but that seems too pale, too flowery--

“Cunt?” she offers, so innocent, as if there were no other word.

“Yes.” Were the madam to stand before you now, you could choke the very life from her and feel no guilt. “Quite.”

Her small face rumples, wrinkled up in thought. “So if I let a john take me on hands and knees, would that cost extra too? Or only if he’s got his cock outside my--”

“Ah!” It had been too much to hear this from Tsubaki’s mouth, but an actual child’s is far, far worse. “Yes. I am afraid that anything that is not with a man top and a woman beneath--”

“But I am--”

“-- And, ah, facing him,” you add, hurriedly. “Any of it would be considered a...lewd act, subject to the tax.”

Sumire doesn’t speak, not at first; instead she merely sits with the knowledge, shadows rolling across her face in intervals.

“Well,” she decides, finally. “The madam handles all that for me. So I need not worry about any of this business.”

Frustration could grind your teeth to stubs, but you take in a breath, let it out. She would hardly be the first woman to place her trust in fiscal matters where it did not belong. Too many of your own acquaintance would say the same of their accounts; what use was it to balance books or be money-minded when their fathers, their brothers, their husbands all took care of such things. As long as there was enough credit to draw at the modiste, a woman needed no notion of how it came to be.

That had not been the education your father gave you-- you and your brothers alike learned to keep ledgers. It had been your cramped hand that wrote in Bederin’s, yours that tallied columns that no longer came to sums you could account for.

You cannot blame a woman for wanting to keep herself innocent of the things men might do, when they only amounted to numbers in the end.

“May I ask,” you begin, sliding your pencil from its place in your notebook’s binding. “What is the percentage the madam takes from your earnings?”

Sumire stares. “What do you mean?”

“The madam takes a cut of your earnings, does she not?” Your fingers tighten painfully around your pencil; it takes effort to ease it. “Part of your keep. For room and board and her private business. Do you know how much it is?”

She was always a child, but suddenly Sumire seems quite small indeed. “No, the madam...handles all my money.”

The lead pauses on your page. “Do you see any of it?”

“I...” Her brow furrows, doubt seeping into the shadows of her face. “She gives me pocket money. From my accounts. She says she puts it all away for me until I’m older.”

You have known plenty of young ladies with the same story. Your father had been of the old school where a woman took care of a manor’s accounts while its lord saw to its improvement-- but that philosophy was unpopular among men of the court. A good, obedient wife never handled any of their allowance; they merely took what their lord husband gave them for pin-money and never questioned its amount. That is, of course, until their creditors came. Even a title could only protect so far.

“Do you know the amount she takes from the other girls?” you ask, knowing full well the answer. “Perhaps we can extrapolate from there. Make an estimate,” you clarify, seeing confusion cloud her face.

“No,” she sniffs. “They don’t tell me anything. They’re jealous.”

There is some truth to that perhaps; Tsubaki certainly acts as though they are rivals for a mother’s love even if she hates the parent in question, and Himawari has made no secret that she doesn’t appreciate the pomp and circumstance around the search for Sumire’s custom. But still, it’s not the whole of it, though to say so would certainly fall upon deaf ears.

“You know,” you hum, setting your pencil back in its binding. “We want to have a larger meeting. One where the girls voice all their ideas. Where we can begin to see what needs should be met, should I bring a counter proposal before the council.”

Her mouth curves into a frown. “The madam won’t like that. She won’t let you do it.”

Your heart flutters in your chest, an anxious tattoo that rattles in your ears as you say, “That’s why we don’t plan to tell her.”

Sumire’s face takes on a petulant cast. “What if I did? Then you all couldn’t. Madam would like that.”

“You could,” you admit. “But if you came to it, perhaps you might know better what the madam keeps for you.”

From you, you mean, but you doubt she’s ready for that conversation. Not right now, when the idea of betrayal is so new.

The temptation is clear on her face, but curiosity shutters tight behind pride. “No one would want me there. They don’t like me.”

“I would want you there.” You set aside your notebook, letting nothing come between you but your veil. “I think you have important things to contribute.”

Her eyes widen, but only for a moment. The next she shakes her head, tossing her curls proudly. “I could still tell the madam, even if I go.”

“I trust you.” You want to at least, but she’s so young, and the madam is her world. Her protector and abuser both.

“The others won’t.”

“That may be,” you agree, “but it only takes one to convince others. I’ll be the first.”

Sumire eyes you warily, both dubious and hopeful, and you wish there was some way you could prove it, some way you could give her the assurance every child deserves. You drop your eyes to your lap, veil pooling on your hands--

And you do. Your fingers trace the lace edge, and it’s with an exaggerated motion that you lift it, the breeze from the widow caressing your bare cheeks.

Sumire’s jaw falls slack. “Why...” It closes as she leans closer, surprise etched in every plane of her face. “You aren’t ugly at all, miss.”

That’s not quite the reaction you expected. “Ah...thank you. I suppose.”

She hesitates, then gives you a quick, pained nod. “I’ll come. But I don’t promise I’ll keep quiet after.”

“I could expect no less,” you murmur, veiling your smile once more. “We all have to do what’s best, don’t we?”

You leave the room more troubled than you entered, but lighter somehow still.

“Did what needs doing?” Obi asks, levering himself out of the shadows.

“Not yet.” Your mouth stretches into a determined line. “But I’ll see it’s done.”

[curekibouka-writing]

Forgo-able (Tropical Rouge Precure one-shot fanfic)

Summary: How much can you pay for power to protect those dear to you?

Word count: 2783

A/N: I usually don’t write for ongoing seasons but since this is an AU I’ll just go for it. So… I’m not too satisfied with episode 17, La Mer’s debut episode deserves better. Therefore I decided to tweak it because I’m just that bastard who will do anything to make angst out of everything. ☆〜（ゝ。∂）

*This fic is also on FF.net, Quotev and AO3

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“Have you children heard of the legend of the wish-granting sea witch?” said an aged yet gentle voice, Laura recognised it as the voice of the kind old lady in her neighbourhood. Then she found herself seated among fellow merfolk children, eager to hear the evening tale. 

“This is an old legend, much more ancient than myself. Once upon a time, dwelling in the darkest, most unsightly corners of the ocean was a very powerful sea witch. Should merfolk or other creatures have desires they could not quench through ordinary means, they knew she would lend an ear.”

“That’s mighty nice of her!” a boy chirped merrily. 

“Well… perhaps, as long as you can pay the price. For if she were to grant your wish, she asked not of trifles in return. She snatches nothing short of your best possessions. You, the one with the book, might have to forsake your quick wits. And you, sweet child, might’ve had your lovely eyes gouged out. 

“It is said that the sea witch discovered a way to preserve her soul before she passed away. She is now one with the water, lurking around nooks and crannies. And if she happens upon a greedy creature, she would surely lure them with her beautiful voice, in hopes that one day she may be paid with a body, a host, or even a life.” the old lady finished with an ominous undertone. 

Most children shivered in fear, inwardly swearing to never be blinded by greed or desires. But young Laura was not intimidated. 

Confidently pounding on her chest, she declared, “Who needs a shady sea witch to grant wishes? I’ll be a queen in the future, and I’ll make it happen myself!” 

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Laura removed her hand from her chest, but she found that something was obstructing it. Slowly she came to her senses, opening her eyes, and concluding that she must’ve been dreaming of her childhood days. 

But why was she unconscious in the first place? 

She found her answer soon enough, for she was lying in a pile of stone debris. 

She shoved the rubbles off of her, promptly recoiling as a stinging sensation oozed out from the flesh of her hands. 

Looking at the black and purple bruises on her pale, delicate hands, now she remembered that she had been captured by the Witch of Delays, and she had been thrashing on the dungeon gate, demanding to be freed. 

Certainly Manatsu and the rest were on their way here by following the bubble pictures she left behind, she would get out of this dreadful place one way or another. 

But how embarrassing would it be for a future queen to let a mere gate stand in her way? You see, she had a duty, a noble one at that. She must retrieve the Aqua Pot, without it, the Precure would have no means to recover stolen motivation. 

In other words, those girls are simply hopeless without her. And she cannot have them being defeated so soon, they still have much to do, in order to secure her future position as queen. 

But if the bruises were indications of anything, it was that more thrashing on the gate wouldn’t get her anywhere. 

As she brushed away the last bit of rubble on her, she finally realised that something must’ve broken enough to make this much wreckage. She quickly whipped her head up, and there she saw a literal glimmer of hope — light seeping through a hole in the thick walls. 

Right now she could care less about why the walls were broken, she slipped through without a second thought. 

If she continues to find openings to swim up, she’d find her way back to the Witch’s chamber in no time. She’d sneak away with the Aqua Pot when the Witch is sleeping, then she’d return to the surface and reunite with the others as soon as possible. 

She just wasn’t expecting it to be this soon. 

Clashing and clanging noises pierced through the rippling water from the far end of the corridor, and Laura’s first instinct was to avoid whatever disaster ensuing there. But then she heard those familiar voices, shouting. 

“Arrrrgh this is never-ending! We need to go find Laura and we can’t get anywhere like this!” 

‘Manatsu!’ Laura inwardly exclaimed, her lips curling into a relieved grin, ‘They’re here!’ 

“Papaya! Got a plan?” 

The usual nonchalant voice came in an exhausted huff, “His attacks are too quick, it’s taking me everything just to dodg—“ 

Her sentence was cut off by the sound of the floorboard collapsing in the wake of Chongire’s oversized pincers, most likely the culprit behind the wrecked dungeon as well. 

Laura knew full well her top priority was to recover the Aqua Pot. But how would Manatsu put it? “Do what’s most important right now!”, was it? 

And right now there was nothing more important than letting these girls — who had ventured all the way to the depths of the ocean for her — know she was safe. So that they could stop fighting and stop searching and everyone could return in one piece. 

With that in mind, Laura snuck behind the half-demolished walls, biding her time to reveal herself and grab everyone and go. 

But witnessing a certain seahorse creeping up behind Cure Summer with his weapon in hand, she paled, and screamed, “SUMMER!!!” 

The Cure’s ears perked up, whirling to Laura’s direction at once, “Laura!? Laura!! You’re okay!” 

“NO! Summer! Behind you—“ 

A blast of water swept Cure Summer across the area and slammed her into the back wall. And while the rest of the team was distracted, Chongire flung them at a stone pillar, cracking it in the process. 

“No…!” Laura exclaimed, but before she could hurry to them, she found Butler’s cane at her throat. 

“Such a headstrong little mermaid,” the seahorse commented flatly, grabbing her wrist, “Now back to the dungeon you go. Can I leave the rest in your claws, Chongire-san?” 

“Ain’t feeling it… let’s get it over with quickly.” 

“NO! STOP IT! ” Laura kept screeching as Chongire closed in on Summer, and as Butler dragged her away, “Let go of me! Mark my words, you all will pay for this!!”

Swinging down his pincer, Chongire dealt a heavy blow right on Cure Summer’s head. A string of bubbles slipped from Summer’s lips, her transformation dispersed with them. 

Shutting her eyes, Laura snapped her head to the other side, breath hitching. But once she did, she couldn’t hear the horrid battle noises anymore. Instead… 

“My my, what a poor unfortunate soul,” a beautiful voice resounded around her. So captivating it was that it sent chills down her spine, yet it honeyed her ears at the same time, “Come, child, tell me how might I be of help.” 

Her eyes shot open, but she found her surroundings dark and hazy. “Who are you? Show yourself!”

“There’s no need to be afraid,” the voice soothed, and Laura felt an urge to do as it said, “Besides, are you certain your time should be squandered on this? If my eyes didn’t fail me, I seem to recall seeing your companion on the verge of death.” 

“If you know that then send me back to them this instance!” 

“Oh but what can you do, little mermaid? What power do you have?” 

None. Laura gulped down the word before it was spoken. 

“Now what if I grant you your wish?” the voice giggled shrilly next to her right ear, and she felt two shining golden eyes boring into her, but she saw nothing as she spun around. 

“…you would?” she probed tentatively, unsure of what answer she was expecting. 

“Why yes, dear, I can give you power, power the same as your companions, nay, even more potent… As long as you pay the toll to cross the bridge, of course.”

“But I’ve nothing I can give.” 

“You belittle yourself, child! I see you have quite the dazzling pride in yourself, quite the humongous dream you work hard to achieve. I see those as fine payment, yes, I shall have you go about your life without them, yes yes, so reimburse me with—“ 

Laura was certain there was nothing within sight, yet when the next words were enunciated, she felt a hand lifting her chin, and she felt if she gazed upward, she would’ve seen a monster. A beautiful, humane, yet monstrous monster. 

“Your tail.” 

“My tail…?” she breathed, “But then how would I—“ 

“Yes, yes, you have to battle, don’t you? And it wouldn’t do if you can’t move around. So I shall give you human legs instead. A sweet deal, isn’t it? Am I not such a saint to grant both your wishes at once?” 

“My tail…” she repeated. Yes, being human seemed fun, but being human forever was a whole other story. She’d be sacrificing her home, her identity, and most of all, her dream…

“Come on, dear, I don’t have all day,” the voice pressed, “And neither does your companion. What is there to hesitate?” 

By all means, she agreed. The most important thing right now is none other than to save her friends. After all, she cannot have them being defeated so soon, they still have much to do. There is still a myriad of human delicacies they must let her sample, still a few club activities that she hadn’t proposed to them, still many beautiful scenery they must bring her to see. 

In all her haughtiness, she declared, “So be it! But try as you might, you will never take away my dream. You can take away the means I use to achieve it, but never my spirit. This dream is mine and mine alone, and I’ll make it happen myself!” 

“But,” she balled her hands into fists, her bruises slightly aching from the tension, “what queen would sit by and do nothing when those who fought for her are suffering? If I don’t even have the power to protect my friends, how will I ever protect my people? So take my tail as you wish, and grant me the strength I need!” 

“The deal is sealed!” the voice announced, delighted. Laura felt an excruciating twinge at her waist, as if her body was being torn in half, and it plunged her mind into a haze. Before she knew it,  she felt a bizarre tug in her lower limb— no, she realised, two limbs. 

A stone with a quaint shape dropped into her hands, cracking to reveal shimmering pinkish and bluish colours. She glanced at the ring with similar hues on her middle finger, and with a somewhat relieved smile on her lips, she shouted fiercely, “Precure! Tropical Change!” 

She was returned to the battlefield, with everything as it was as if barely a few seconds had passed. She effortlessly broke away from Butler’s grip, while everyone was stunned by her transformation, she bolted to her fallen friend. 

With a roundhouse kick, she sent Chongire tumbling, crashing into Butler. Now she held Manatsu in her arms, and knew that she didn’t have a moment to waste. 

With a wave of her hands, she manipulated the current to create a vertical column of water, an upward rapids in the middle of the ocean. 

“Everyone, retreat!” she called to the other three Cures, “I’ll send you back to the surface in no time, but hurry!” 

Papaya seemed to still be recovering from the previous attacks, so Coral took her hand and led the way, nodding a ‘thank you’ to Laura before they were gone. 

“Y’all ain’t going anywhere!” Chongire charged at Laura, claws raised high, knowing that her hands were too full to defend herself. 

A battle cry whooshed by from her left side, then she saw Cure Flamingo countering Chongire’s attack with a punch of her own, followed by a swift front flip, gaining momentum to deliver a fierce kick to the giant crab’s shoulder. 

“Let’s go!” the redhead urged. Together they traveled up the water column, reaching the surface in less than a minute, leaving behind a razed battlefield, their Aqua Pot, and a few sentiments the poor little mermaid had yet been allowed the time to savour. 

Manatsu regained consciousness quickly after they arrived at shore, albeit followed by a series of hacking coughs. Nevertheless, the Cures all heaved a relieved sigh as they stroked her back to mitigate her pain. 

“Laura…? You have legs!?!?” was the first thing Manatsu exclaimed after she could breathe smoothly again. 

“I’m human now,” Laura elucidated, grasping at her own elbows and realising her fins were not there. 

“How?” “Why?” 

“Because…” she glanced at Minori for a split second, “To fulfil a certain wish, something else — something precious — may need to be given up.” 

She appeared reluctant to continue explaining, so Sango quickly shifted the topic, “Did you manage to retrieve the Aqua Pot?” 

“No… and Kururun is presumably still in it,” Laura briefly shivered at the thought, “But none of you is in any condition to infiltrate their lair again, especially not Manatsu. Rest well tonight, we should discuss this in the morning.” 

There were affirmative nods as they turned around to leave the shore. But Laura stood still. 

“Laura? Aren’t you coming? Hey, you can crash at my place if you want!” Manatsu offered enthusiastically. 

“Thank you,” Laura replied with a small smile, “But I… I want to stay here for a while.” 

“Okay! Then I’ll sta—" Manatsu began, but was held back by Asuka with a commanding hand on her shoulder, “I’ll sta….stand and wait for you at the beach entrance!” 

Laura nodded half-heartedly. She meandered along to the shoreline, then onto a small breakwater that came into her sight. 

The uneven stones in the structure felt like knives against her bare feet. Or was she just imagining things, because it was that painful to be surrounded by the ocean knowing that it was no longer where she belong? 

She sat down on the outer rocks, soaking her legs in the sea, the coolness of water permeated her flesh as the velvet waves caressed her aching feet. 

In the world below, the water embraces her, it’s with her wherever she goes, the current leads her way and the tide clears her path. Likewise, her aspirations had always dictated her direction, always kept her motivated in a straight route. 

Perhaps she’d strayed far, too far. Now there was no return. And now all that remained were sea foam clinging to her legs as the waves left her behind, ephemeral, untouchable. 

It wasn’t as if she regretted her choice, and yet for some reason a droplet trickled down her cheek. She perceived it was salty when it reached her lips, and she convinced herself it was but sea water dripping from her drenched hair. 

She so boldly proclaimed that she would not give up on her dreams after all, and a queen must never go back on her words. 

Moreover, a queen must always carry herself with dignity and grace, even if nobody was around to see her tears. 

But more than anything, today, for the first time, she felt the weight of a life. When she held Manatsu in her arms, she felt paralysed, she felt like sinking, she felt a predator chow down on her lower limbs and she had to fight for every second because if she were to be late for even one— 

She shuddered, haling her legs out before something pulls her into the water, before fear pulls her into a trance. 

As queen, she would be entrusted with thousands upon thousands more of those weights, plagued with choices and… and sacrifices much more harrowing than something merely affecting her own well-being. 

Then there’s no room for lingering on a price already paid, is there?  

She picked herself up, trodding on the rocky path from which she came and letting the little knives stab at her feet. Surely this pain would become a valuable lesson in her becoming a queen as well, a reminder that no success comes for free. 

Surely she’d learn things on land that she could not under the sea, things that’d help her return with the confidence to be a better queen, one that knows of ambitions, and risks, and how to do what’s most important. 

And so she shall never forget the day she left the ocean, the day she was severed from her roots, the day she took yet another step closer — not farther — to her dream. 

“Wait for me, oh great ocean, I will come back to you,” she muttered as the sea breeze ushered her onward, “I swear on the name of Cure La Mer.” 

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The End

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A/N: Just wanna clarify that this sea witch is NOT Ursula. I know I made a ton of Disney references (and I even have a sentence specifically pointing at Flotsam and Jetsam), but I want this sea witch to be unnamed like in Hans Christian Andersen’s original tale. I made the references for a reason, but the sea witch's identity is up to your interpretation. 

[uk-news-talking-politics]

Herd immunity could cost hundreds of thousands of lives

By Dr Dominic Pimenta

In early February we heard reports of an increasingly virulent pathogen marching inexorably across the world, from Wuhan to Iran to Tenerife to Italy to London. We weren't sure exactly how deadly it was, or how many people might be infected, or what we should do about it. Scientists and politicians were at odds, and the widespread conversations ranged from dubious scepticism to nail-biting concern. The idea we should lock down to combat the spread, when it became clear that cases were rising locally and hospitals and deaths were rocketing, was equally controversial.

The hospitals were initially overwhelmed. We had some of the worst excess deaths in the world, and all too quickly we were looking back and wondering if we could've done things differently.

Six months later, it seems we have gone the long way round to intellectual nowhere. Here we are again, watching hospitalisations and deaths creep inexorably upwards again, edging closer to that critical limit in the North West once more. And once again Sage and politicians are at odds about what to do, with widespread division and distrust among the general public.

On both sides of the Atlantic, the science of what we should do next appears fractured. Last week, the 'Great Barrington Declaration' was announced with a lot of pomp and circumstance. Its signatories are all outspoken academic sceptics of lockdown measures. Their main thrust is that further lockdowns should be avoided. Instead, we should go pursue 'focussed protection' of those at most risk, while everyone else goes back to normal life.

It's a tantalising prospect, especially as we face lockdown once more. Across the Atlantic, the White House is reportedly embracing the same thinking. But it's a proposal that flies in the face of months of global public health measures.

So, is the science really divided? In short, no. Under the PR, through the fog of data, the fundamentals have not really changed. The scientific consensus remains the same.

In a letter published today in The Lancet, leading epidemiologists, public health academics, virologists, biologists, healthcare charities and doctors from around the world reaffirmed this consensus. It's titled the John Snow Memorandum. It addresses this manufactured divide in scientific opinion as exactly that - a "dangerous fallacy unsupported by scientific evidence". I am a signatory to the letter in my capacity as a former covid ICU medic and chairman of the Healthcare Workers Foundation (Heroes).

These are our views on the pandemic. Firstly, lockdowns are a last resort. The measure has undoubted impact on the economy and mental health. However, these effects are mitigated by proper use for a time-limited period, to establish effective 'pandemic control systems'. These are systems which, in the UK at least, we didn't establish the first time. We squandered our time over the summer with malfunctioning apps and failing test and trace.

There is a critical threshold at which these systems will work again, but we are currently well above this. Bringing cases back into this threshold, and overhauling this system, is the best strategy to suppress the virus and return to near-normal life, as they are doing in New Zealand.

Secondly, the alternative proposal from the Great Barrington Declaration is deeply flawed - scientifically, ethically and practically. The basic premise of generating herd immunity in a lower risk population has no basis in the current scientific knowledge about covid. There is no evidence that we can generate lasting immunity from natural infection, and we have already started to see documented cases of re-infections.

Worse, even in a population at low risk of death, we don't know the long-term health effects on morbidity. Long covid affects a significant proportion of mild cases with long-term debilitating health conditions - fatigue, heart and brain problems, and inflammatory syndromes in children.

The vulnerable proportion of the UK is approximately 30%. So asking this portion to shield in 'focussed protection' immediately hits a few massive stumbling blocks. The economic impact of removing a third of the population of society in the long-term would be equally disastrous as any national lockdown measure and the shielding wouldn't be limited to just the 30% - many would be in intergenerational homes, workplaces or childcare where the true number that would have to effectively shield would be far higher.

It isn't practical to shield 22m people from everybody else. How could this possibly be enforced? We have already seen cases rising in the younger at-risk groups and spreading to the older population. The most likely real-life outcome of 'focussed protection' would be failure, with the resultant colossal loss of life and economic impact as we try to lockdown with a much higher level of community virus.

And even if it did work, it would be for nothing. Herd immunity, no matter the other problems with it, cannot be generated at all if such a high proportion of the population aren't infected.

None of these questions have been answered, and yet as a strategy - despite the risks of hundreds of thousands of unnecessary deaths and massive morbidity - it has been championed as a viable and 'scientific' option on both sides of the Atlantic. It is anything but.

Whatever we decide to do, public opinion is vital in ensuring the success of any measure to control the virus. John Snow is considered the founder of modern public health science, after studying and successfully halting a cholera outbreak in London. He demonstrated that there are real-life interventions into the spread of disease which can save lives. With this memorandum the latest generation of the global community of public health scientists continue that spirit.

Taking effective, clear and evidence-based action is the only way out of this pandemic. Let's hope it isn't too late.

[shadowphoenixrider]

Second part to this.

Snug as a Snom was a warm, homely cafe, that seemed almost completely empty for what would soon be the beginning of the lunch rush. Katla let Kabu do the talking to the owner, who only spared a mildly interested glance to the young woman. She gestured for them to sit in a booth that was tucked away, well out of sight from the main cafe floor and windows.

Katla sat down first, scooting along the seat towards the wall and wriggling out of her coat. Kabu sat opposite her, shrugging out of his bench coat. As he did, however, his scarf suddenly wriggled, opening its eyes.

“A Sizzlipede?” She exclaimed, as the little bug uncurled from the gym leader’s neck, scuttling down his chest.

“I find that few scarves compare to the warmth of a Sizzlipede.” Kabu smiled, petting the creature as it wandered onto the table. “That reminds me. How is your own Sizzlipede coming along? I haven’t seen it in any of your gym matches.”

“Oh, she’s coming along fine.” Katla smiled, silently glad that their argument had briefly been forgotten. She traced her fingers along her belt until she felt the tell-tale criss-cross of a Net ball. She tugged it free, and released the Pokemon within onto the floor beside them.

Kabu’s eyes widened, a smile tugging at the corners of his lips.

“Ahh, she’s evolved into a fine Centiskorch,” he said, the no-longer petite bug Pokemon swinging her large head around to look adoringly at her trainer.

“Yes.” Katla smiled. “She’s become a key staple of my team, actually. Now she’s my first choice if I need a fire or bug type.” She reached out to pet Centiskorch, rubbing her flat head, tracing the markings there with her fingers.

“Skorrr...” The Pokemon rumbled, leaning into her touch.

“You’ve certainly bonded tightly to one another.” Kabu commented, eyeing the Sizzlipede peering curiously up at its bigger counterpart.

“Yeah.” Katla nodded. “I love her very much.”

“Korr!” Centiskorch cried, before she scuttled forward, head dipping down as she tried to clamber onto Katla’s lap.

“Oh no no honey!” Katla pushed the Pokemon back down. “Not right now! There’s not enough room for you up here.”

“Centi...” The Pokemon looked up at her trainer with the most pathetic expression it could pull, her fiery antennae drooping.

“I know sweety. We can have cuddles when we get back.” The trainer sighed, running a hand over the Pokemon’s head. “I’ve gotta talk to Kabu about something important, okay?”

Centiskorch looked sadly up at her, but returned to her Pokeball without complaint. Katla looked back to see Kabu returning the Sizzlipede to its ball too, his good humour gone.

An awkward silence hung between them, broken briefly by the waitress serving their drinks. Katla stared at her cup of tea, willing the words to come and half-wishing she’d brought Hop along as back-up.

“I presume we are here to discuss the contents of my letter.” Kabu spoke, mercifully rescuing them.

“Yeah.” Katla nodded. Let’s cut to the chase. “Kabu...About what you said about me throwing the matches...”

He winced, eyebrows briefly knotting.

“Ah, yes. I’m sorry, Katla, I should never have insinuated that you were doing anything of the sort. It was incredibly insulting to both you and your opponents,” he said.

“You shouldn’t apologise for everything you said about it.” Katla spoke slowly. Kabu’s silver eyes immediately snapped to hers, their stare boring into her. “I never deliberately threw or sabotaged my matches. But, after our fight...I thought about it. It was the first time I’ve ever done that, really.”

She folded her arms, resting them on the table, unable to meet his gaze.

“I might not have been consciously performing badly, but I...I can’t guarantee that I was at my best, that I was pulling out all the stops. Like when I’d start losing I’d just...go through the motions, let it happen. Lose in the middle of an Elite Four challenge, that’d be it. I wouldn’t try again, I’d just walk away for good, pretend it never happened.”

She sighed.

“I don’t know for sure, but...you might have been right. I might have been scared of becoming the Champion again that I never pushed myself, never really...tried, with my heart and soul and everything behind me.” Katla closed her eyes for a moment. “Maybe...Maybe that’s what happened with Diantha, in Kalos. I was fighting the champion, doing well...perhaps the thought I might finally be doing this spooked me, and she just...Well, she’s the champion, and as soon as I let up on the pressure she took advantage and then...” The trainer shrugged, pulling herself upright again.

“So yeah. I think you had a good point, actually, and I don’t want you to apologise for it.” She managed to drag her gaze up to meet Kabu’s. “You’re the first person who’s ever really...pinned me down on it. I reacted badly to it all, and I’m sorry. I know you just wanted to help me. You didn’t deserve what you got.”

Kabu’s face was a mask, even his eyes unreadable. The silence between them stretched out for a while before he spoke again.

“Thank you for your honesty, Katla,” he said, his tone and gaze softening. “Are you planning to continue with the Gym Challenge?”

“Yeah.” She nodded. “I owe it to myself, and to Hop.” A wry smile pulled at the corner of her lips. “I promised him I’d wouldn’t go easy on him in the Semifinals. He was worried I was going to let up so I wouldn’t have to face Leon.”

One of Kabu’s eyebrows quirked up.

“Ah, so your secret has been revealed.”

“Yeah. I wanted to tell him sooner, but...things got in the way, so I told him now.” She glanced down, managing a smile. “He was really understanding, actually. He’s...He’s a really great friend, more than I deserve. For his sake, I gotta do my best. He deserves nothing less.”

“And of Leon...?”

“I...” Katla hesitated. “I don’t know.” She glanced down at her drink. “I doubt I’ll beat him, but there’s that ‘what if’ in the back of my mind. I mean, in my last League I actually got to the Champion, and I did well. It’s possible I could do so again, maybe even...”

Kabu titled his head, his expression kind.

“You’re still worried about becoming Champion again.”

She nodded.

“Yeah. It’s still in back of my mind. But...it’s been so long. I was eleven when I became Champ the first time. It’s been fifteen years, and I’ve grown up a lot. Had more experiences. I might...I might be ready for it now.”

There was the soft hiss of clothing as Kabu leaned forwards, resting his hands mere inches from her own.

“Perhaps.” He spoke. “But Katla, I want you to know, that if you become the Champion, you will not be left alone. All of the Gym leaders, including myself, will be here to support you, as will Leon. He would not leave anyone to take his place without standing by them to let them gain their footing. And even then, he would be ready to aid you in any means necessary. As we all would. As...I would.”

She glanced up at him, noticing that despite his calm expression, Kabu seemed unsure.

“Whatever happens, I will be here for you,” he said quietly. “Whether you become Champion or not, I will support you. I would do anything in my power to help you.”

Unbidden, she recalled his words from the letter, and what he had uttered in the flustered exchange in Hammerlocke, when she’d been too hurt and angry to register them. “You are one of the finest trainers I have known, Katla. I care about you, and I don’t want you and your potential to be squandered. I want the best for you, whatever that may be.”

Her heart quickened its rhythm as she considered her next move.

“Kabu?”

“Yes?”

A deep breath.

“You...you said in your letter that you care for me, and that you...admire me, right?”

“Yes, I did.” Kabu’s face was inscrutable, but he was completely, utterly focused on her.

“Well,” Katla licked her lips, trying to get the words right, “I think...I think I feel the same way. I, I’ve had a crush on you, ever since we met in Galar Mine Two. I mean, you’re handsome, good-looking, enough to make anyone do a double take if they saw you. But you’re also kind, gentle, really supportive - warm, even.” She had to glance away for a moment, unable to hold his gaze.

“I know I had to beat you in order to continue my Gym Challenge, but a part of me wanted the battle to keep going, you know? Just to stay a little longer with you. It’s been the same every time - I like when you’re with me and I wanna just keep being with you. Even if it’s just to talk like this. Maybe not even talking. I-I mean when you met me in the Wild Area and we were just standing together watching my Pokemon, it was...it was great.”

She glanced back to him. “Our argument messed me up. I-I know you said you didn’t want me burdened by it, but I was, pretty badly. I felt like I pushed away the kindest, most supportive man I knew, over something as childish as ‘I didn’t like that he pointed out a thing’. It was like I’d torn a little piece of myself out and thrown it away. It bothered me a lot.”

“What I’m trying to say is that...I have feelings for you, Kabu. I’m not...quite sure what they are, or how deep they run, but they are there. And...” Another breath, her heart drumming feverishly under her sternum. “And...I think you might have some feelings towards me, too?”

The gym leader’s eyes were wide, and he was clearly surprised (if not a little shocked), though his expression softened after a couple of seconds. Katla could almost see the gears turning in his head as he processed her words and...was it the light, or was there the faintest hint of a blush on his weathered cheeks?

The silence seemed to last for an hour before Kabu spoke again, his voice so quiet she could barely hear him.

“I...I do,” he said, his gaze darting away shyly. “My curiosity has...become more than that. My admiration has deepened, my care...gone further than I had expected it to go. I did not want to mention it to you in my letter, as...” He swallowed, returning his gaze to her. “Katla, I’m sure you are aware of our difference in age. You are young and spry, with the whole world at your fingertips. My summer days have passed. I cannot offer you what a partner your own age can offer.”

“I know.” Katla nodded. “But I’ve not got feelings for them.” She reached out, gently resting her hand on his. “I’ve got feelings for you.”

Kabu blinked, and now his shock was as clear as a sunrise.

“K-Katla,” he stuttered. “Are you....are you sure?”

“I don’t know how deep the feelings go, but I’m sure as my heart beats that they’re for you.” She replied, pulling her hand back slightly. “I’m willing to explore how deep they go for you...if you want to.” She smiled weakly, her nerve wavering. “I mean, I know how it is, me being a challenger, you a gym leader, and the media and all. I know we couldn’t have this open or anything. I-I mean if you even wanted to-”

Katla’s descent into nervous babbling was swiftly silenced when Kabu’s hand took hers, rough with callouses, yet warm and gentle.

“I do want to,” he said, smiling in a way that made her heart skip a beat. “Whilst you are right about us having to keep this between the two of us, I want to explore this every bit as much as you do.”

“Really?” Her face flushed, both at his touch and the realization that this was happening.

“Yes.” His smile widened kindly. “I hadn’t considered it, assuming that your feelings towards me ran a different course. I didn’t want to create an expectation for you to return my feelings, either.” His expression became serious. “Katla, you mustn’t go along with this because you think you should. I am aware you aren’t a child, but I have a responsibility to not use my influence for power.”

“That’s why I didn’t initially do anything - with you being a Gym Leader, I thought you’d have either have no interest in me, or, well, the power difference would make it awkward.” She explained. “But Kabu, I wouldn’t be here if these feelings weren’t my own. Heck, like I said, I didn’t think you’d even feel anything towards me.”

“And I thought I was perhaps misreading the situation.” The worried lines of Kabu’s frown were smoothed away. “It appears we were at an impasse, until our...disagreement. Fate appears to have a sense of humour.”

“Yeah, but it’s a bit of a shitty one.” Katla grumbled. “I still wish I could take those words back I said to you.”

“And I to you.” Kabu replied, raising his other hand when she opened her mouth. “No, I will not have you apologising again. Both of us said things in the heat of the moment that were uncalled for, and we both regret them. Now it’s time for us to move on, and see where this path will take us.”

The trainer closed her mouth, and despite feeling a little ruffled by his words, she nodded.

“True enough.” She glanced down to their hands, still curled around one another’s. It felt nice, and it seemed to act as a grounding point as everything began to sink in. Turned out, he liked her as much as she liked him. And they were kinda of sort of dating now.

And I thought coming face to face with a legendary Pokemon was gonna be the most unbelievable part of my life! She thought wryly to herself.

“You will be challenging Gordie soon, I presume?” Kabu asked, bringing her mind back to the present.

“Yeah yeah, I just gotta do a bit more training and suss out who I want to take into the match with me.” She nodded. “You gonna watch the match?”

“Of course.” Kabu smiled. “I wouldn’t want to miss it. Luckily the chairman is very particular about other matches not clashing with more high profile ones. Which means I will have the good fortune to watch this one live, if no emergency demands my attention elsewhere.”

Katla blinked, momentarily dumbfounded.

“Uh, you’re, you’re gonna be in the crowd?” She stuttered, feeling her face burn with a blush. “W-Wow, talk about pressure!”

“You’ve coped admirably with the pressure of the crowd so far. You will have no trouble.” The gym leader assured her, placing his other hand on top of hers. “Immerse yourself within the battle, as you have before, and you will forget my presence entirely.”

“I don’t know, Kabu, you’re a very unforgettable person.” Katla was surprised and delighted to see the older man’s face flush pink, and he glanced away shyly.

“You are very kind,” he said softly.

“I’m telling the truth. I mean...” Katla tugged at her hoodie, showing the fire type leader’s symbol emblazoned on its breast. “When that’s the first thing you’re greeted with in Motostoke, it kinda burns it into your mind.” A weak grin. “No pun intended.”

“Were your feelings toward me the reason you chose that particular hoodie?” Kabu asked.

“A little, but if I’m honest, I liked the colours more.” Katla admitted. “Always been a fan of black and red colours. Just...serendipity that your logo happened to be on it too.” A small smile. “A happy coincidence.”

“Indeed.” Kabu leaned back, the hand on top of hers retreating. “I apologise, Katla. I don’t mean to distract you from your training any more than I have to.”

“No, it’s okay, I like spending time with you,” she said, feeling her face heat up again. “And we needed this chat. But I do need to get back to it at some point...”

“Of course.” Kabu smiled, and he squeezed her hand before reluctantly pulling his hand away. “Perhaps best we part now, then.”

“I suppose.” Her smile was lopsided, as was her shrug. “Thank you for..all of this, Kabu. And paying for it too.”

“It was my pleasure.” His smile was so warm and genuine, Katla felt her heart do a little somersault in her chest. “I should thank you for...giving me a chance, after everything I’d said.”

“Hey! Thought we weren’t apologising any more!” She raised an eyebrow at him, briefly forgetting who she was speaking to. “It’s in the past now. We’ve made up, and we’re, well, dating now, I guess? Anyway - you’re forgiven, stop saying sorry. And let me pay my share of anything next time.”

He didn’t appear to be offended - indeed, his laugh thrilled her right down to her toes.

“Fair point! You have me there.” His eyes seemed to gleam with mirth. “You are every bit as fiery as in your battles.”

“Oy, flatterer.”

“It’s not flattery if it’s truth.” Kabu replied, and she swore he was trying to stop from smirking.

“Uh huh.” Her eyebrow arched at him again, slowly sliding back down her face as he released Sizzlipede from its ball again, the little Pokemon clambering up his shoulder to resume its place around his neck.

“I wish you the best for your upcoming Gym Challenge, Katla,” he said, pulling his bench coat up over his shoulders. “I look forward to your match.”

“Thanks, Kabu.” Katla smiled, gathering her coat together as well. “I’ll do my best. Take care of yourself too, yeah?”

“I will. Farewell.” And with a small nod and smile, the Ever-Burning Man of Fire disappeared out of the cafe.

---

Hop: Yo, Kat! How’d go?

Katla: Pretty damn good! You were right Hop, I shouldn’t have worried.

Hop: What’d I tell you!

Hop: Soooo?

Katla: If I tell you, you gotta swear to tell no-one. I’m serious, don’t blab about this, or I’m gonna get into so much trouble.

Hop: I won’t even tell Lee, promise. Cross my heart.

Hop: WAIT HOLD UP

Hop: Does that mean that you and him are...

Katla: Yeah.

Hop: HOLY SHIT CONGRATS

---

Melony: How did it go, Kabu?

Kabu: Much better than I expected.

Melony: I told you it would be fine. ^^

[thatsadorbsyo]

∞

Woof… okay… here we go.

Landon @ Urien

If I Think They Are: Ugly || Plain || Alright || Cute || Freaking Adorable || Pretty || Beautiful || Hot || Stunning

“When I first met my lord, I found him pitiable. There was some pit in my stomach, some type of primal disgust at what and who he is. I have never been more wrong in my life, and I thank god every day that I was able to see my error in judgement. There is no one more beautiful than my lord. There is none more stunning. No one on this star could possibly compare. None can follow him. None hold a candle.”

If I Would Go On A Date With Them: Not even if we were the last two one earth || No || Maybe || Eh….Sure || Yes || WILL YOU MARRY ME

“That’s a curious thing to think about. I go everywhere with Urien. We live in the same manse. We frequently share a bed. I am often his companion to formal functions. But none of this could be called a proper date. He’s a married man, after all. I am a consort, a companion, but not a date. Never a date. That would be improper.”

If I Trust Them: Not At All || Not Really || Kind of || Yes || With My Life

“My god is the only man who holds a greater stock in my soul than Urien does. I trust Urien with every piece of me. My heart, my mind, my body. I am his. Every part of me belongs to him, excepting what our god takes for his own.”

If I Care About Them: Not At All || Not Really || Kind of || Yes || Deeply

“I love him. There is no other word for it.”

If I Would Sleep With Them: Not Enough Alcohol in the World || No || Maybe if I were wasted || Maybe || Eh…Sure || Yes || TAKE YOUR CLOTHES OFF NOW!

“Anything he wants. Any time he wants. Any way he wants it. I am his–his to use, his to share, his to command, his to pass around, his to hoard, his to covet, his to abuse, his to neglect, his to lavish, his to punish, his to reward. Anything. Everything.”

My Comfort Level With Your Muse: Keep a Distance || Okay You Can Stand There, But Don’t Touch Me || Let’s Get Coffee and Talk || Let’s Cuddle || I Can Change In Front of You || Let’s Take a Bath Together

“My lord has seen me in every light that it is possible to see another man. I have nothing to hide from him. Nothing at all, not even my bones, my guts, my beating heart.”

If I See You As: A Stranger || An Acquaintance || A Friend || A Close Friend || My Best Friend || A Crush || The Love of My Life

“He is everything to me. He is… he…” Landon’s voice trails off to nothing, a long, pregnant silence. “He will be the death of me. This wanting, this yearning that I dare not name, it will be the death of me. And I will welcome it when it comes, for I truly believe that this is why I was spared. This is why I did not die in the unforgiving Coerthan snow when that dragon opened my body like a tin. Because I… because my death… it is his. It belongs to him, as do I.”

Landon @ Elias/Crane

If I Think They Are: Ugly || Plain || Alright || Cute || Freaking Adorable || Pretty || Beautiful || Hot || Stunning

“Crane is a man fit to burst with squandered potential, and his looks are not spared in this regard. He could be so much more than he is. He could be so much better than he is. The way he shrouds himself, it’s difficult to truly see him.”

If I Would Go On A Date With Them: Not even if we were the last two on earth || No || Maybe || Eh….Sure || Yes || WILL YOU MARRY ME

“This is laughable. This is a joke. The only place I’m taking Crane is six fulms into the dirt, where an abomination like him belongs.”

If I Trust Them: Not At All || Not Really || Kind of || Yes || With My Life

“Do you trust the plague? Do you trust a summer cold? Do you trust the diarrhea that spreads through a barracks with alarming virulence? No? Then why should I trust the Crane?”

If I Care About Them: Not At All || Not Really || Kind of || Yes || Deeply

“We are fated. I care about him only in that he meets me, faces me, and accepts his fate.”

If I Would Sleep With Them: Not Enough Alcohol in the World || No || Maybe if I were wasted || Maybe || Eh…Sure || Yes || TAKE YOUR CLOTHES OFF NOW!

“Crane deserves to shatter his teeth fellating the haft of my lance. He deserves to dine on the filth that lives between the treads of my boot. He deserves the cleansing touch of fire, burning away the rot that festers inside of him. Crane knows what he deserves, and he knows exactly where to find it.”

My Comfort Level With Your Muse: Keep a Distance || Okay You Can Stand There, But Don’t Touch Me || Let’s Get Coffee and Talk || Let’s Cuddle || I Can Change In Front of You || Let’s Take a Bath Together

“Crane is so inept that I have little to fear from his presence, as unpleasant as it is.”

If I See You As: A Stranger || An Acquaintance || A Friend || A Close Friend || My Best Friend || A Crush || The Love of My Life

“Have you ever met your archnemesis, the antithesis of your soul, the–what did Miss Okuni call it–the diametric opposite of everything that you are and choose to be? Have you ever met him and found him fundamentally lacking in every regard? Do you know how infuriating that is? How disappointing? My only hope is that he grows into someone worthy of this rivalry. I will not hold my breath.”

Makoto @ Elias/Crane

If I Think They Are: Ugly || Plain || Alright || Cute || Freaking Adorable || Pretty || Beautiful || Hot || Stunning

“It’s a begrudging kind of… like… you can acknowledge that a guy is attractive while still mostly loathing everything he is and says and does.”

If I Would Go On A Date With Them: Not even if we were the last two one earth || No || Maybe || Eh….Sure || Yes || WILL YOU MARRY ME

“Does he even go on dates? Is he capable of that kind of imagination? I’m trying to picture a nerd like that trying to summon the personality necessary to spark romance, and I’m coming up blank.”

If I Trust Them: Not At All || Not Really || Kind of || Yes || With My Life

“Maybe before the whole Ink business, I would have said that I trust Elias to have my back in a fight. But now? With everything going on? I don’t know. It’s complicated, isn’t it? I trust him in some ways.”

If I Care About Them: Not At All || Not Really || Kind of || Yes || Deeply

“Fuck, man, it’s complicated! It’s so complicated. It would be easy to say that I don’t, but then he goes and does this dumbass shit like beat himself senseless and act all pathetic in a way custom fucking designed to tug at your heartguts. He’s shown me things. Things I didn’t think anyone else could ever understand, much less relate to. That counts for something.”

If I Would Sleep With Them: Not Enough Alcohol in the World || No || Maybe if I were wasted || Maybe || Eh…Sure || Yes || TAKE YOUR CLOTHES OFF NOW!

“I don’t do that anymore. I don’t do that so don’t… don’t fuckin’ ask me. Don’t tempt me. There’s a part of me that regrets not making him suck my dick when I had the chance. Like, this really small part of me, yeah? But there’s a much bigger part that’s deeply fucking glad that I kept my promise to my partner about it, and I feel like that’s the important thing. That’s important. That’s the thing to focus on, not what disastrous decisions I almost fuckin’ made.”

My Comfort Level With Your Muse: Keep a Distance || Okay You Can Stand There, But Don’t Touch Me || Let’s Get Coffee and Talk || Let’s Cuddle || I Can Change In Front of You || Let’s Take a Bath Together

“There are parts of me that this guy understands that I didn’t think I could ever really talk to someone else about. I can’t explain it. It’s something you have to experience… something you have to see for yourself. Elias–Crane, whoever, who the fuck ever–he saw me, and I saw him. Inconvenient as it is, this is a simple fact.”

If I See You As: A Stranger || An Acquaintance || A Friend || A Close Friend || My Best Friend || A Crush || The Love of My Life

“I feel like we owe each other something. I feel like we’re not finished with each  other. He told me that I’ve got some part to play. Some thing that if he can’t do it, I’ll have to do it instead. I still don’t understand it. I don’t know what to make of it. I don’t even know if I want it, but here it is fucking is whether I want it or not.”

Maya @ Elias/Crane

If I Think They Are: Ugly || Plain || Alright || Cute || Freaking Adorable || Pretty || Beautiful || Hot || Stunning

“He has that… disheveled and wiry thing going for him. It’s a bit messy, a bit fucked up. He was plain before, but he’s only gotten better and better looking recently.”

If I Would Go On A Date With Them: Not even if we were the last two one earth || No || Maybe || Eh….Sure || Yes || WILL YOU MARRY ME

“Crane and I are… friends. We’re friends of a sort, a very curious sort, but whatever else may hold true, it remains a platonic friendship. I believe that we could have great fun on an outing, but I don’t hold my breath for the spark of romance.”

If I Trust Them: Not At All || Not Really || Kind of || Yes || With My Life

“Crane has made promises to me, promises that I hold sacrosanct. I would not have made the sacrifices that I have–I would not have drank the ink from his own lips–if I didn’t believe with every fiber of my being that he would keep them. Crane would die for me, as he would for any of the Flock. I like to think I would do the same, if necessary.”

If I Care About Them: Not At All || Not Really || Kind of || Yes || Deeply

“You cannot share what we have shared–what I have shared with all of the Flock–without caring for one another.”

If I Would Sleep With Them: Not Enough Alcohol in the World || No || Maybe if I were wasted || Maybe || Eh…Sure || Yes || TAKE YOUR CLOTHES OFF NOW!

“Our arrangement is deeply, mutually satisfying, and deeply, mutually platonic. It’s nice not to have to be alone. It’s nice not to have to sleep alone. It’s nice to know that your needs will be met, despite the turmoil in your life. I miss him. I cannot say that I need him in that regard, but nevertheless I miss him so much.”

My Comfort Level With Your Muse: Keep a Distance || Okay You Can Stand There, But Don’t Touch Me || Let’s Get Coffee and Talk || Let’s Cuddle || I Can Change In Front of You || Let’s Take a Bath Together

“Crane has seen me at my very lowest, and not only has he scraped me from the grout on the floor and put me back together, but he did it with such gentle, knowing kindness. There are few that I trust on the same level.”

If I See You As: A Stranger || An Acquaintance || A Friend || A Close Friend || My Best Friend || A Crush || The Love of My Life

“The closest of friends. We are family. That is why I’m here, that is why I chose to be with Crane, why I chose to join the Flock. Lovers will leave you. Colleagues will take jobs elsewhere. Friends will grow distant. Family is forever, and that is no more and no less than exactly what Crane promised me. To be kept. Forever.”

[lakewoodranchmovers]

New Moving Hacks That Work

New Moving Hacks That Work

New Moving Hacks That Work: From purging household items to loading your valuables, moving an entire household isn't a simple process. Thankfully, with the help of these smart moving ideas and techniques, it's about to get a wee bit easier. Here are 21 oh-so-easy moving tips and tricks that anybody can utilize when relocating to a new home. Best of luck and have fun moving! Look for complimentary moving boxes at recycling drop-off points. Do not dish out your hard-earned money for cardboard boxes. Rather, try to find free moving boxes at your regional recycling drop-off points. Chances are, you'll be able to discover plenty of cardboard boxes that have actually been tossed by neighbors. Other locations to discover complimentary moving boxes consist of Craigslist, Nextdoor.com, Freecycle, book stores, liquor stores, workplaces, and U-Haul Box Exchange - just among others. For more advice on discovering complimentary moving boxes, check here. Reuse initial boxes for electronics and devices Speaking of moving boxes, do not forget to reuse your old ones. From the TELEVISION to the blender, the majority of electronics and small devices come provided in cardboard boxes. If you occur to still have these boxes, we advise recycling them for the move. Not just does this guarantee that your items will fit perfectly in the box, but it likewise saves you from needing to invest money inboxes. Set up a Good Will or Salvation Army pick-up for free Purging heavy furnishings, old clothes, and other home products? Try scheduling a complimentary donation pick-up with a regional charity such as Goodwill, Salvation Army or Habitat for Humanity. Having them pick up your contributions will save you from having to transport whatever yourself, which indicates you'll have more time to concentrate on the relocation. New Moving Hacks That Work Obtain quotes from at least three different moving businesses Don't hire the first moving company you speak with. Instead, attempt to get quotes from a minimum of three businesses to compare rates and services. When speaking with a moving business, make certain they are correctly licensed and guaranteed. For more advice on what to ask your mover when interviewing them, inspect here. Have lots of water bottles on-hand when moving Given the large number of jobs involved when moving, it's simple to forget the basic things - like the fact that you and your movers will need a great deal of water on moving day (particularly during the summer season). So come moving day, we suggest bringing a pack of bottled water with you to the brand-new home. Trust us - your movers will thank you. Take images of your personal belongings before packing them Hiring movers? Prior to packing your personal belongings, be sure to take "previously" images of all delicate and/or valuable items. If the mover breaks or damages your products while moving, you may need these pictures in order to file a claim and get compensation. Select a mid-week, mid-month move date The easiest way to conserve cash when moving is to opt for a mid-week, mid-month moving date. Proceeding the weekends when demand is greatest will certainly be pricier. Moving business and truck rental rates tend to be lower Monday to Friday. They likewise tend to be lower in the middle of the month instead of the first and last weekends. Place a fully-charged iPad or another iOS device in a box to track your relocation Hiring a moving business to manage your long-distance relocation? Depending upon how far you're moving, it could be a week or more until your possessions are delivered to the brand-new house. To monitor where your things are at perpetuity, attempt positioning an iPad inside among packages that are packed onto the truck. You ought to have the ability to use the "Find My iPhone" tool to track where your iOS gadget is at perpetuity, which will likewise inform you where your belongings are located. Color-code your moving boxes and family items with post-it notes Don't squander cash on expensive moving labels. Use simple colored post-it notes to color-code your boxes when moving. For instance, position a pink post-it note on anything you wish to donate and a green post-it note on anything you wish to sell. Place orange post-it notes on boxes consisting of cooking area products; location blue post-it notes on boxes including office products, etc. Use foam pouches for plates, bowls, and glasses Covering products in plastic wrap and cushioning takes time and a lot of packing tape to protect. Instead, attempt using basic foam pouches to hold everything from dinnerware to glasses. All you have to do is slip the item inside the foam pouch and place it inside a box. You can find an example of a foam pouch here. New Moving Hacks That Work Bring a door stopper with you You'll require to keep the front door open on moving day in order to bring items in and out of your house more easily. You may likewise need to keep a back door or interior door open throughout the day. To make your life easier, we suggest bringing a door stopper with you to your home on moving day. Location heavy items in small boxes While it's tempting to place heavy products in large boxes, it's always best to put them inside small boxes rather. Not only will this will make it simpler to bring the boxes, however it will likewise avoid your products from falling out the bottom and breaking the box. Things boxes consisting of fragile items with pillows and blankets Eliminate two birds with one stone by packing moving boxes including fragile items with pillows and blankets. This will offer extra cushioning for products and avoid them from breaking, while also allowing you to pack more of your items inside the boxes. Flatten boxes after relocation and store for later on Planning on moving once again in the next few years? When you've finished unpacking, we extremely suggest flattening all boxes and conserving them for your next move. This will avoid you from having to purchase or find boxes later. Save donation receipts for tax season Contributing household products to charities such as Goodwill or Habitat for Humanity? Save those donation invoices! Come tax season, you ought to have the ability to claim a deduction on your income taxes utilizing these invoices. Make certain the moving truck has a parking area Do not forget to book a parking spot for the movers Without it, you might wind up ticking off your neighbors and getting a parking ticket. Likewise, don't forget that time is money. If your mover's waste important time looking for an area to park their large truck, then your move will eventually cost more in the end. Get extra money to tip movers. Lots of people pick to tip their movers for a job well done. If you plan to tip your movers (assuming they do a good job), we suggest heading to the ATM the night before to recover the cash. For guidance on how much to tip movers, check here. Inspect cabinets, drawers, appliances, and closets prior to vacating When leaving, it's easy to leave things behind. We advise confirming all kitchen cabinets, bedroom closets, drawers, and devices (think: your refrigerator) prior to turning over the keys. Rekey your new house as soon as possible From handymen and cleaning services to friends and family, there's no informing who was provided a copy of the secrets from the previous owners. For security purposes, we recommend restoring your entire house prior to relocating. All you have to do is call a locksmith to come out to your house to alter the locks. They must have the ability to do so in a matter of hours. Usage Lakewood Ranch Mover's Moving Planner tool to arrange your move Get organized for relocation by utilizing our detailed Move Planner. Our tool supplies customizable moving lists, individual jobs list, useful recommendations, e-mail tips and plenty of vouchers to get you organized. Load a moving day basics box Don't relocate to a brand-new home without a moving day essentials box or bag. This box needs to consist of anything and whatever you may need on moving day (and the following couple of days). Fundamentals might consist of toothbrushes, medications, toiletries, clothing, crucial documents, child requirements, toilet tissue, paper towels, cleaning spray, trash bags, a tool package, family pet food, mineral water, wallets, and additional shoes. For a full list of what to pack inside your moving essentials bag, check here. New Moving Hacks That Work: Curated from our partners at Moving By:Marian White Read the full article

[kaibacorpintern]

@emblematik requested “yuugi + datebook” and i was like “hm interesting” and then a few minutes later i was like “oh shit... IDEA.” 

no joke: i wrote 90% of this on my phone. i just checked the word count and it’s 2000 words. lol. casual rivalshipping, but it’s not about that. post-DM. enjoy the feels x

MONDAY, 8:26 AM

Yuugi sat cross-legged in the soft, shallow cradle of his bed, half-asleep, phone in his hands. Anzu was on the other end of the video call, wandering through the New York apartment she shared with four other girls.

“ -- so they come bursting out of the egg, and that's just how the show starts. It gets loonier from there. But it means every week, she has to make another big-ass papier-mâché egg for her guest performer, and this week, that’s me. Hey Tiff, love the space buns,” Anzu said, turning to someone out-of-sight, and Yuugi heard a voice call back, in a cheerful sing-song, thaaank youuu!

“So you're helping her make the egg?” Yuugi said.

“Yeah, she calls it 'laying the egg.’ Performance artists are so weird,” she said, as Yuugi grinned with delight. “Anyway, gotta run. Can you do next Sunday?”

“Let me see,” Yuugi said, leaning over to swipe his weathered datebook off his night stand, the pages dogeared with almost a year's worth of use. A blank datebook he'd filled out from June to June with every notable hour of his life, using a pen he kept tucked in the binding. He'd spilled water on it a few months ago and the pages had crinkled as they dried. Now it refused to sit flat, with gaps that rippled between the pages.

He held the phone in one hand and flipped clumsily through the datebook with the other, spreading it open on his thigh. After that Sunday, there was one blank week left in the datebook. “Nope, I'm booked. Let's just do Monday again.”

“Works for me,” Anzu said. “Love ya! Bye!”

“Love you too, have fun laying your egg,” Yuugi said, and she flashed him an exasperated grin. The screen went black, and a dreamy silence descended on Yuugi’s bedroom once more. Yuugi flopped back down into bed with a contented sigh, tossing the phone onto the nightstand. He held the datebook over his head, his week carefully penned in. Class, his shifts at the game shop, and on Tuesday, he was seeing…

TUESDAY, 6:37 PM

“Fuck,” Jounouchi said, staring in bafflement at the cards lying face up on the playmat between them. They sat at a long, wooden table on the airy patio of a cafe, with vines flowing thick along the walls, the cards illuminated in the soft, inviting light of the lanterns strung across the space. “How did you win? When did you win?”

“A few turns ago,” Yuugi confessed, idly churning the ice of his Italian soda with his straw. “But you had me on the ropes for a while there. If you played your Time Wizard combo a turn earlier, I would've lost.”

“Damnit! I knew it,” Jounouchi said, thumping his fist firmly on the table. “I keep forcing myself to wait. I just don't wanna blow it again, like Nationals.”

“I think your nerves are making you doubt yourself,” Yuugi said. “Your instincts are strong. Just listen to them, and you'll do fine.”

Jounouchi, gathering up his cards from the playmat, glanced up at him, the lantern light giving his faint blush a rosy glow.

“See, how the heck am I supposed to attack you when you say things like that?” he said. “Maybe I should get a practice duel with someone who actually pisses me off. Hey, ask your pal if he'll duel me.”

“My pal? Is that what he is?” Yuugi said, lifting an eyebrow as he reached for his phone; then he changed course, tucking his hand into the messenger bag at his feet and ferreting out his datebook. He checked the date. “I'm seeing him tomorrow, actually. I'll just ask.”

“Perfect. How's your Sunday looking? Honda said he’ll have my Duel Disk fixed by then.”

“I have plans already,” Yuugi said, dropping the datebook back into his bag and leaning back in his chair.

“Oh, okay, Mr. Popular. Don't forget I leave for the tournament Friday after next. That's in your book, right?” Jou said, and Yuugi hummed in reply. Mm-hmm. Then Jou leaned forward, resting both elbows on the table and his chin atop his hands, fixing Yuugi with a roguish look. “Who is Kaiba, if not your pal?”

Now Yuugi couldn't help but blush, his skin warmer than the summer air. “Uh, he's…”

WEDNESDAY, 9:57 PM

Sitting next to Yuugi on the couch, one bent leg tucked underneath him and one arm slung over the back. Studying the screen of Yuugi's laptop as Yuugi scrolled through the lines of code he'd abandoned, several days earlier, at dawn, surrendering to the frustration of a long and fruitless all-nighter. Lucky for him, Kaiba liked nothing so much as telling people they were wrong, why they were wrong, and how to stop being wrong.

Kaiba leaned closer, frowning intently, his force of presence buffeting Yuugi like a wave. A good wave, dense and heady, fragrant with his cologne. He had many, many things to say about object-oriented programming, all of which Yuugi had listened to very carefully, and none of which he'd actually heard.

“I found your problem,” Kaiba declared.

“Thank God, this assignment is driving me nuts,” Yuugi said, sighing with relief. “What is it?”

In response, Kaiba reached out and shut the laptop with a firm whap. “You’re distracted.”

“I am not,” Yuugi said.

“Tell me what I just said about using global variables.”

Yuugi bit his lip, scrambling through the last five, ten, fifteen minutes for whatever Kaiba had said about global variables, and found… nothing, except a keen awareness of the way Kaiba was staring at him now, leaning his cheek against his loosely curled hand, a wry smile tugging on his lips. 

“Uh,” Yuugi said after a moment, realizing he’d fallen neatly into the usual trap. “Don't?”

Kaiba snorted. “When is this due?”

Yuugi leaned forward, momentarily escaping the weightless swell of feeling in his chest, and plucked his datebook off the coffee table from where it lay beside his textbooks. “In a week.”

“Alright. I have a few hours on Sunday or Tuesday. When would you like to waste my time next?” Kaiba said, with a sort of laid-back disdain.

“I think I’ll squander your Tuesday,” Yuugi said, tugging the pen free, scribbling a note. He set both laptop and datebook on the coffee table and settled back, deeply, breathlessly aware of Kaiba's gaze on him, tracing lines of fire up and down his body.

“So,” Kaiba said, a low, teasing growl, his mouth inches from Yuugi's ear. “What is so distracting to you?”

“Nothing,” Yuugi said, smiling, about to vibrate out of himself with impatience. “You have my full attention.”

“Good,” Kaiba said, and the next thing Yuugi knew he was swept up in a dark rush of warmth, Kaiba pressing a kiss like a hot, wet star to the curve of his neck. He fumbled blindly with one arm, catching Kaiba by the back of his head, pulling him down as he twisted and fell backwards along the couch.

He huffed, a wordless plea for mercy, as Kaiba mouthed along the shell of his ear, making scandalous suggestions with his tongue, clearly enjoying himself.

“Problem solved,” he said smugly, and Yuugi groaned, laughing.

FRIDAY, 4:13 PM

A gentle chime broke through the cool, quiet air of the game shop. Yuugi, wandering the shelves with his scanner, conducting inventory, pulled his phone out of his back pocket.

RYOU: finished writing my new campaign!! want in?

YUUGI: duh

what days are u thinking?

RYOU: sundays? that's when everyone else is free

YUUGI: i can do sundays, but not this sunday

RYOU: not a problem. we can start next week. any plans?

The question turned over in his chest like a stone, a tremendous weight, heavy and slow and dull. Yuugi stood motionless, staring down at his phone, the scanner dangling in his limp hand and the silence of the store falling over him like a shroud.

But he shook it off. Ryou had given him the idea.

YUUGI: I’m going to the park with my datebook, you know the one

RYOU: oh

please send him my best

YUUGI: i will!

is this the space campaign you were telling me about?

Pulling out of the subject like pulling a boot out of the mud, with staggering release. Yuugi resumed his task of taking inventory, stopping every so often to answer Ryou's excited texts about Eldritch horrors and homebrew campaigns.

That night, he lay in bed and discovered the stone was still there, cradled in his straining ribs. So he opened the skylight in his bedroom, inviting the summer night to flow in. It sprawled open above him, hot and dark and flecked with stars, vibrating with the hum of cicadas hidden in the trees. The summer spinning its promise into a refrain. Every new day, each blank page of his datebook, beckoning him forward.

SUNDAY, 11:00 AM

Yuugi awoke to a bright, beautiful June morning, sliding his feet into the secret pockets of cool still tucked away between the sheets. The skylight in his room revealed a clear, hot sky.

He flew through the rest of the morning, as light and taut as a kite, unburdened by exhaustion or idleness. On a whim, he opened his laptop, giving a quick eye to his assignment; Kaiba wouldn't bring up global variables for no reason… and the solution presented itself, like a closed fist turning over to reveal the prize in its palm.

He didn’t cancel on Kaiba. They’d waste time some other way.

Buoyant, he left the house, with his datebook and a lighter in his bag. There were two stops to make before the park: first, a cafe, for an iced coffee, and second, the neighborhood bookstore, where he bought a brand-new blank datebook.

Then he began the long, pleasant walk down to the park, his phone on silent. The whole of Domino was cast in a drowsy summer light so smooth and liquid he wanted to cup it in his hands and drink it, to feel it run sweet and pure through his veins. Neither his mind nor his route wandered from their destination: the plank bridge in the park.

It sat in an isolated corner of the park, a leafy, overgrown grotto dappled with sunlight. The long pond slowed to a mirrored stillness here, cooled by the shade of the trees. Insects hummed in the foliage. As Yuugi stepped onto the plank bridge, the hollow thunk of his foot sent some small, shy creature plunging for safety into the water, leaving only ripples behind.

He knelt on the plank bridge and opened the old datebook, taking a moment to transfer the last remains of his schedule into the first week of the new datebook. His class schedule, his work schedule, his weekly call with Anzu, Joe's tournament dates, the new campaign. All of it carefully penned in.

Then he leaned over the edge of the plank bridge, seeing his reflection on the surface of the water. It was harder with mirrors: they were too crisp, too defined. They showed him nothing but his own face. But if he unfocused his eyes a bit, if he took a deep breath and snapped the last piece into place and made a wish, the face on the water wavered. Just enough to believe.

“I miss you,” he said, to the water. “I miss you every day. I still feel you… gone, here.”

He made a fist, motioning to the center of his chest. An absence with weight; a nothing and a something all at the same time. The kind of puzzle Atem would love.

There was nothing else to add. He’d said most of it already, last year and the year before. They would see each other again, some day, and he had long since understood that he was not meant to wait and he was not meant to run. He was meant to stay right here, in the heart of his own life, and feel it beating.

Yuugi readjusted, sitting cross-legged on the bridge. He flipped through the datebook, going backwards to the beginning. The memories burst open inside him, as raw and fresh as a ripe fruit, swollen with color and feeling. Deadlines for that art history class. Flying out for Anzu’s solo show in December. His first date with Kaiba, sometime in March, although neither of them realized it was a date until the morning after. CHAMPIONSHIP!!, on a weekend in September, when Jou had swept the Pan-Pacific. The pages were as crisp and dry as autumn leaves; they'd burn well.

He turned to the first page.

“Here’s what you missed,” Yuugi said, and began to read.

[z-wonderland]

Pride, Love, Hunters and Vampires/2

Fanfiction 

Part 2

Elijah Mikaelson x Elena Gilbert

ft. Kennett

a/n: this is my tvd/to version of Pride, Prejudice and Zombies.Yeah, Elijah Mikaelson is sort of Mr Darcy. LOL

Thanks for reading. xoxo

________

Valerie and Stefan returned to the house a while later, finding Elena packing.

"What has happened? The maid said that you had a visit. That - Elijah Mikaelson came to the house" the witch said and now saw Elena's case open, already half filled with her clothes. It meant that she was ready to leave-

"Please, don't tell me that you are leaving?" Stefan, the witch’s husband said.

"What has he done? Has he hurt you in some way?"

"He has done nothing." Elena replied."I - need to leave. I had some news from Caroline that there was trouble in Baton Rouge and I have to go."- the huntress pointed to the letter on the table. But Stefan knew Elena too well, and knew that this was not the reason she was in a hurry to get away.

"I somehow doubt that Caroline would send a word that she needed help. That is not in her nature."

Elena looked at the man, knowing that it would be in vain to continue hiding the truth behind her sudden wish to leave.

"Count Mikaelson and I had a disagreement. I just don't wish to see him if I can help it. And there is no avoiding the dinner with the Fells." Elena said.

"Please, don't go." Valerie said in an almost pleading voice."Whatever happened we will make sure to keep you away from the Mikaelsons."

Elena sighed and reluctantly agreed to stay, knowing how important it was for her friends to have her there.

¤¤¤

Elsewhere

Still feverish from Elena's rejection, Elijah rode for hours to calm his injured heart.

As he finally got back to the Mikaelson Mansion, he entered it like thousand devils were chasing after him. He passed his hat, gloves and coat to the footman in a brisk manner. He then ran up the steps, now followed by his  sister Rebekah who had emerged from the side room as she heard the footman greeting the vampire. Elijah look shattered like he came out of carnage. The blondesped fast after her brother, imploring him to tell her what was the caused him to be so distressed.

"My dear sister, not now. I wish to be alone." Elijah said as he came up to his room. 

"You are in such dreadful state of delirium, dear brother. I have not seen you like this since our brother Finn had been cut down by the witch-huntress. Please tell me that nothing happened to Niklaus. I could not bear to lose another brother." Rebekah begged, on the verge of tears.

Elijah turned to his sister, looking at her in a very serene manner. "Niklaus is fine. It is nothing like dreadful like that. I have - I have had an unpleasant accounter, that is all. Nothing for you to worry your pretty little head over. It trully is nothing that cannot be dealt with."

Him giving her a little smile, reassured the blonde and she  now nodded a little, her heart calming.

"I have some correspondance to deal with and I must get on with it. When I finish, I will have tea with you in the drawing room." Elijah said.

Rebekah nodded pleased about the prospect that her favourite brother will spend some time with and then exited his room, closing it behind her.

Elijah drew a long deep breath, and undoing his tie he slang it on the bed. The delirium seemed to return the moment Elena's words shot back in his head-

"You are mistaken, Mr Mikaelson, if you suppose that the mode of your declaration affected me in any other way, than as it spared me the concern which I might have felt in refusing you, had you behaved in a more gentlemanlike manner."

“Gentlemanlike manner” the vampire sifted and splashed his face with some water to try and cool down. But his pierced heart now burned like it was hit by a myriad of hellish suns and he now wiping his face,sat down at the table and got a piece of paper and started writing a letter.

Some half an hour later he rang for the servant and he asked him to take it to the Salvatore house and hand it to Elena personally.

And as the man delivered the letter, Elena went to the small parlour and opening it, read the following- 

"Dear Lady Gilbert, 

I am not writing to renew the setiments which were so disgusting to you, but to address the offences you accuse me of. 

I did not intentionally wound your friend. It was the most unfortunate consequence in protecting my dearest brother. Kol's feelings for Miss Bonnie Bennett were beyond any I have witnessed in him, or indeed thought him capable of. 

The evening of the dance in Mystic Falls, after overhearing the elder coven talk of how there was nothing better than to place a witch in the nest of the most eligible vampire bachelors, and in one family in particular, it being us, the Mikaelsons.

 I persuaded Kol of the unfitness of the match, despite the obvious belief that a witch and vampire could not marry, as there is one truth my family had kept hidden for centuries and that is the fact that my mother and my father came from both sides. If I wounded Miss Bennett's feelings it was unknowinlgy done. 

As to your other accusations of having injured the DeMartel siblings and Lucian Castle- no sooner than my father had written his last Will and Testament, as he loved them as if they were his own children, leaving two estates to them in case of his death as we fought the LaRue witch coven at the time, my father, my mother and my brother Finn were struck down. I have acted upon my father's Will.

 They squandered it, whereupon they demanded more. I refused and he severed all his ties with us. Last summer, Lucien Castel started a relationship with my fifteen year old sister, convincing her to elope.  As you know, we, my brother Niklaus and myself were battling the wolves and the the dark vampires in the north of the country, we were unaware of their

liaison, until a letter had arrived from my sister that she was about to get married. Lucien's prime target was her inheritance and the Mikaelson blood, which he intened to use selling it to the Bayou witches, revenging himself on us was his additional target. 

Fortunately, we were able to stop them. I hope this helps explain and perhaps mitigate my behaviour in your eyes.                

All I have done was to protect the one thing I value the most, my family. In all my life  I have learned this -

of all the weapons in the world I know now LOVE to be the most dangerous one, for I have suffered a mortal wound. When did I fall so deeply under your spell Lady Gilbert, I cannot fix the hour or the spot, or the look or the words that have laid the foundation. I was in the middle before I began. What a proud fool I was. 

I have faced the harsh truth that I can never hope to win your love in this life. I will find solace battling the hybrids in the most northern part of the country.

I wish you all the happiness of this world,

with sincerests of thoughts,

Always and Forever,

Elijah.

Elena now got up taking her coat and ran out of the house. Stefan followed her asking what had happened. But Elena just shook her head without giving the man and answer. As she got to the stables, she asked the servant to prepare her horse. The servant went and she now turned to her friend. But she said nothing.

"Tell me what is the matter?" Stefan was not letting it go-”It’s Elijah Mikaelson, right?”

Elena nodded, but still said nothing.

“Something is going on between you and him. He and his whole family are nothing but misery.”

"Please Stefan, not now. I will tell you later. I have to go. I’ m sorry" the huntress  then mounted the horse, the servant brought to her and rode off in a haste.

Valerie, who came from the garden, now asked her husband why Elena went off like a fury.

"I don't know, my love, but it is nothing good." Stefan replied.

"There has always been trouble with the Mikaelson family. I just hope it is nothing deadly." Valerie remarked.

"I hope so, too. For Elena's sake." Stefan said and now took the basket from the witch.

The man and the woman then walked back to the house holding eachother under the arm.

¤¤¤

Elena rode with her heart bursting out of her chest, hoping that she would find Elijah at the Mikaelson Mansion. Arriving there, she rushed in the house, forgetting her manners, demanding to see Elijah.

"The Count Mikaelson is away." the footman, who opened the door said to her. 

“What do you mean - away? When? He couldn’t have,” Elena said agitated,”he probably has told you that he does not wish to see me. But, I need to speak to him. Urgently”

Klaus, having arrived not long before Elena, having heard the commotion, now appeared from upstairs and telling the footman that he would now speak to the lady, asked the huntress why she was so eager to see his brother.

"I need to speak to him. It's a matter of utmost urgency." Elena said in a great huff.

Klaus looked at the brunette inviting her now into the Parlour and said-

"Whatever it is you can say it to me and I will be happy to pass on the message."

"I wish to speak to him - alone. In private, if you don't mind." Elena said.

"Whatever it is, it will have to wait as Elijah has left for business to the North." Klaus said.

"Business?" Elena let out perplexed.

"Yes. Why would that be such an unusual notion?"

"Because- his letter stated something completely different." Elena now said.

"His letter?" Klaus looked surprised that his brother would have any kind of correspondence with her.

"Yes. An hour or so ago, I had received a letter from him-" Elena replied and then stopped for a second, now tearing up- guilt rising in her chest. She turned away for a moment, drying the eyes off with a finger.

"I did not know that you and my brother share correspondence?" Klaus said somewhat worried now.

"We don't, but- it is - what it is," the huntress shook her head."Anyway- in the letter he states that he is travelling up North to fight the hybrids."

Klaus could not believe what he was hearing, as well as the fact that Elena knew about the hybrids.

"I am not who- I pretend to be." Elena now said to the vampire. "I am a huntress."

"You are - what?" Klaus looked at the brunette wide-eyed.

"Yes. But now, this is the least of the problem.You have to go and stop him. I would do it myself, but I can't travel North till the spell is cast on me." Elena said-"and if he dies, I don't wish to be accountable for it."

"Why would you be accountable for it?"

Elena now told Klaus about Elijah's proposal and her refusal, which obviously brought on the decision to go North.

"Oh, no!" Klaus now said knowing his brother being capable of doing such a mad thing. He now stormed out of the parlour.

___________

Klaus spared not a second to ride after Elijah and stop him from going to the most Northern part of Louisiana.

Elena left the Mikaelson house immediately after Klaus had left the Parlour. There was nothing more she could do at the present moment but to hope that his brother would catch up with him and persuade him to return.

As she arrived back at her friends' house, she was met by her brother Jeremy, who had no good knews from Mystic Falls.

"The Martin witches are dead, as well as Sheila Bennett." Jeremy informed his sister.

"What? How? When did this happen?" Elena was beside herself as she knew how much Bonnie loved her grandmother, but she was equally sad for her friends,Luka and his father Jonas.

"We can't establish what magic it was, and if it was the dark magic the vampire-witches used. They were slaughtered in their own house. Sheila Bennett was with them." Jeremy explained. "Bonnie had a vision and we fear that the Dark vampires are on the rise again. They are preparing an attack on Mystic Falls. I need you. I can't do this on my own."

"Yes. We have to leave immediately." Elena said. She now turned to Valerie asking her if she could send her clothes off to Mystic Falls on.

"I am going with you." Stefan then said.

"No, Stefan. You have to stay." Elena said and the man, who was once a hunter himself, disagreed.

"You can't come with us. You have to look after Valerie, especially now that-"- Elena stopped there as it was not her place to tell the man that his wife was expecting a baby. Having glanced at Valerie, the witch now told her husband what she had shared with her friend that very morning.

"I suspect that I am pregnant." Valerie said. "I have yet to confirm it by a doctor, but I am quite sure of it. I hope you are not cross with me as I have shared it with Elena first, before you."

"How could I be cross? This is the most wonderful knews ever." Stefan said now warmly embracing his wife. 

Jeremy congratulated them on the news and then looking at his sister, urged her to get ready to leave as soon as possible.

And so, not long after they were away to Mystic Falls, that lay in the heart of Louisianna.

¤¤¤

Sometime in the night, Klaus managed to find Elijah in one of the Inns just before the Northern border. As the Inn keeper showed him where Elijah took up the room, he went straight up to his room, entering it without knocking.

Elijah shot out of his bed taking his sword and pointing straight at his brother. Seeing that it was Klaus, he put the sword down and asked astonished to see him there. "How on Earth did you know where to find me?"

"Miss Gilbert told me of your silly intention." Klaus said.

"Elena? I mean - Miss Gilbert talked to you?" Elijah was astounded to hear it.  

"She has also told me about your proposal of marriage. I must say that this has come as a great shock I must say. What were you thinking? Do you know what she is?"

"I do. I know very well who and what she is." Elijah said.

"Someone must have worked some strange spell on you to act in this manner! I cannot comprehend that her refusal hit you to make such a mad decision to abandon everything, especially your family?!"

"I was - I was overcome with emotions" Elijah said gulping and his brother now saw that this cut the vampire deep.

"You are truly in love!" Klaus stated.

"You have no idea how profoundly I feel for her." Elijah said now falling on the chair.

Klaus knew how reserved his brother was and that he would never give into his feelings if they were not genuine.

"But to do this! This is suicide. This is wrong, no matter how much your heart is suffering."- Klaus said and sat down on the neighbouring chair-"at least she had some sense to come over to the house to alarm us."

"She came to the house?" Elijah  now asked.

"She did indeed." Klaus confirmed. "She is not completely heartless. I must say she was very - distressed. A tear had escaped her eyes."

"What are you saying?" Elijah could scarcely believe what his brother was saying.

"Whatever you wrote in that letter to her, it had moved her intensely." Klaus said.

Elijah now got up, hope striking his heart again.

"Maybe she had a change of heart." Klaus said.

"Maybe." Elijah said.

"Come brother. Let's leave. Let's go home and - well, try and win your Lady back." Klaus said.

Elijah nodded in agreement, and the brothers left the Inn soon after.

¤¤¤¤

Week or so later, in the North-western border

Elena walked in the house which her fellow Hunteress, Hayley Marshall-Kenner was occupying.

"I have put some tea on. It was a rough night." Hayley said to Elena, who had blood all over her.

"Thank you. I will take a bath and soon will meet you down. How are you?"

"I am - I don't know what I am. I miss- Jackson. I hate that I have no word of him still. It has been days now- and -"

"You fear the worst" Elena concluded.

The Huntress nodded and added "You are lucky that you are not attached. Because - the pain - the pain of not seeing him - maybe ever again- is unbearable."

"Yes, I guess- it is somewhat - easier. But, I have a brother, who is keeping watch on the eastern western border and - I know how it feels."

"I am sorry, I completely forgot about your brother." Hayley said.

"It is fine. You have a lot on your plate." Elena said and then excused herself and went to the bathroom. Her mind now wondered away, but not to her brother, but to the vampire that crawled up in her heart. Elijah Mikaelson. His letter was wedged in her heart and his words would rise up out of nowhere all the time

'I was in the middle before I began.'

Was she also in the middle before she began feeling for him too. She could not tell. As their first meeting was not a good one. His face miserable, disinterested, bored by the company he was surrounded with, even though he was polite and entirely civil. And yet, somehow, after they have been introduced, they seemed to have always end up in each other's company.

Flashback

Josephine LaRue, a dear friend of the Mikaelsons now seeing Elena approaching, said-

"My dear Count Elijah Mikaelson you must allow me to present this young lady to you as a very desirable partner. You cannot refuse to dance, I am sure, when somuch beauty is before you." She took Elena's hand and presented it to Elijah, who was not unwilling to receive it. But Elena instantly drew back, and said with some discomposure to the old witch-

"Dear Lady LaRue, I have not the least intention of dancing. I entreat you not to suppose that I moved this way in order to beg for a partner."

Elijah, with grave propriety, requested the honour of her hand, but in vain. Elena was determined. She looked archly, and turned away. Her resistance had not injured her with Elijah, for he was thinking of her with some complacency, and Elena knew that already having overheard him talk with his brother, who had already urged him to dance with her earlier.

"She maybe a beauty, but underneath this sweet facade there is nothing that could tempt me. I do not have time for idle girls."

How she resented him saying these words. It was a wretched beginning. And now her heart was the opposite. Now, her heart thought of him warmly, wondering if his brother had managed to persuade him to return and not go to the battle field. Deep inside she prayed that he was well and that nothing dire happened to him.

As she finished bathing, she got dressed and went to take tea with her friend.

"I have put the fire on." Hayley said. "Please help yourself with some tea. I have to talk to my steward for a second."

Elena nodded a little and poured some tea for herself, taking a sandwich as well. As she had a sip and a bite she sat down on the bench in front of the fire. The warm, cosy feel made her feel relaxed. She looked at the gleaming light and the play of the flames, drifting away -

"Elena"- Elijah said as he appeared at the door -"I can't stop- I can't stop loving you and came all the way here to tell you- that you are my all."

And then she opened her eyes snapping out of her daydream, looking at the fire. 

"Elena, are you all right?" Hayley said as she sat down next to the the Huntress.

"Yes." Elena replied shortly. Her heart restless from the dream she had for a second there. She then turned now asking the woman what she was holding in her hands.

"This is a list of the dead hybrid witches. I have so hoped that it was a note from Jackson."                 

"He will be fine." Elena reassured her fellow huntress,so to speak.

"Have you not - got someone?" Hayley now asked.

"Me? Ahm- no, not really." Elena replied with a sigh.

"But you are in love, are you not?" Hayley asked.

"I - I think I am. Yes, I am, but we - can't be."

"I am sorry," Hayley said and added,"Oh, how I miss Jackson. I really hope is all right. I would not able to continue living if something happened to him. I should not have let him go."

Elena now comforted Hayley, her own thoughts with Elijah.

¤

New Orleans, days after

Elijah said goodbye to his sister Rebekah, who went shopping with her dear friend Camille. Klaus entered the house and went with Elijah to the Parlour.

"Any news?" Klaus asked.

"None." Elijah replied."Nothing comes or goes beyond Mystic Falls. The Army has cut all the correspondence and they are not letting anyone through still. Especially our kind."

"I know. They are afraid that we could get infected," Klaus said,"the imposed Quarantine is for a good reason."

"I just hope she is fine." Elijah said worried.

"Well, one thing is for sure, she is one woman that can look after herself."- Klaus said.

"That I do not doubt." Elijah said and looked through the window longinly, drifting away in his own daydream.

"How could I ever make amends for my behaviour?"

"Elijah, please-"

"My dear Elena, you coming to the house has taught me to hope as I scarcely allowed myself before. My affections are not changed, but one word from you would silence me on this subject forever. If however, your feelings have changed-"

Gif by mindxheart                 

"My feelings- oh, my feelings - they are - changed. They are very changed."

A footman now knocked at the door, walking in with a notice for the Mikaelson siblings.

Klaus took the note and as he read it, his face changing into a very grim one.

"What?" Elijah said.

Klaus passed the note to his brother and as Elijah read it, his heart stopped a beat. "No, dear Gods,no!"

"Dear Count Mikaelson,

 it grieves me to have to write this note to you. All the North-eastern front has been overtaken by the Hybrid Witches and the Hybrid Clans. I am sad to tell you that my dear friend Elena has perished with all the other Hunters. 

Sincerely, Valerie Salvatore." __________

[hollowsentinel]

Willow Schnee’s Good Day

Have fic derived from a fic derived from a fic that only exists in chat logs. Though now that I think about it, there aren't a hell of a lot of nods in that direction…

Oh well, it's based on @faunusrights's Cam!Frapp AU that I don't think has any content on Tumblr. Also conversations on Velvserver. Mostly conversations on Velvserver really. Thanks for the idea. I'm gonna shut up now.

NOTE: contains implied sexual abuse

In Willow's opinion, waking up was the second worst repeating event of her life. Either soberiety or a hangover gripped her when dawn arrived. If the world felt particularly cruel, she woke up in Jacques' bed, having mistaken it for her own. Or worse, thinking him to be the man he tricked her into seeing. She thanked her lucky stars that his desire for her company weakened with her descent into alcoholism. The nights when he would call for her "companionship" were few and far between, and Jacques never desired her presence beyond their carnal acts. Thankfully, she didn't require the bottle to forget the loveless affairs. Jacques' selfishness and lack of skill handled that nicely. Not that she wouldn't help her mind in forgetting anyway.

Sadly, that lack of memory appeared to have made an unwanted expansion. Wine was absent from Willow's bedside and so too was the reason for it. She supposed one of the servants could have cleaned up or thought to "help" her. Klein knew better than to deprive her without reason, and the others should have been briefed. Perhaps it was one of her children's birthdays. No, she hadn't completely lost track of the date. Not yet. Winter's twenty-second was due in the coming month with Whitley's fifteenth to follow two months later (though Jacques would no doubt delay any celebration to consolidate it with his own fifty-fifth two weeks later). Weiss' eighteenth had passed earlier that year. Wait, was it her own?

A check of her calendar confirmed it. It was her fiftieth birthday

Joy.

Willow took a breath, exhaling gently, not sighing. She wondered if her wish of the last twenty years had finally been fulfilled. A few taps sent her scroll crawling through the obituaries for two names, leaving her to work through a miserably sober morning.

Routine carved into Willow's body deep enough that she could manage it blackout drunk carried her through the morning, making her presentable in the event someone surprised her with a visit. It kept her nourished and fit enough to outlive Jacques and his parents, and it permitted her pleasant surprises such as untouched mail left for Jacques while he was off running her father's company into the ground. Notably, there was a credit card bill that she knew was due shortly. Perhaps this day wouldn't be so bad.

Hiding behind the excuse of ensuring Jacques wouldn't squander the Schnee fortune over interest charges, Willow opened up the bill and began to puruse his purchase history. It was short, a sign that it was for his personal card rather than the business card he so loved to abuse, but that only served to damn him more. Statues and busts of himself, books that he only wished to possess in a show of superiority, porn, a car he didn't even know how to drive, a new computer with specifications far beyond his needs—

Wait.

Willow scanned the document again. There, between the books and car: a subscription to a porn network. Her jaw went slack. Had the world finally seen fit to gift her with the start of clear justification to divorce Jacques? No, no, she couldn't be so hopeful, not after everything she had been through. There were other possibilities weren't there?

Jacques… would never buy a subscription for himself, and even if he did, he wouldn't do it in a way that so directly traced back to him. It was beneath him at best and unfit for a man of his status at worst. The timeframe felt suspicious as well. Hadn't he called her to his bed that week? It certainly happened within the month. While far from clockwork, it had felt the way it had before and there had been no unnatural distance between then and the last time he took her to bed.

So… what? Willow furrowed her brow as she pondered the mystery. While Jacques was unloving, he wasn't unfaithful. At least, not in word or action. Any hint of infidelity could ruin him, and he guarded his status with the kind of fervor one would expect a decent person to use for their family. It was next to impossible for Jacques to make such a foolish mistake.

If it was a theft, it a was a brief one. Something that Jacques wouldn't notice on first blush. Perhaps Weiss? She certainly hated Jacques, having grown close to Willow's father before he passed and learning of what the SDC had once been. Even so, Willow was sure Weiss was more interested in usurping Jacques' position and restoring the SDC rather than poisoning his image and potentially dragging the company down in the process. She didn't have much time as Whitley grew closer to adulthood, but there wasn't enough pressure to stoop to this. If she simply wanted a subscription, she would have used her own funds squirrelled away from prying eyes. Wait, she opted to stay in Vale over the summer. She couldn't have even if she wanted to.

Winter was absent, busy in the military. Though she too disliked Jacques, she was too law-abiding to try this sort of underhanded tactic. Never mind the fact that she hadn't visited in months and likely wouldn't for several more at soonest.

Whitley was too young… wait, no, he was fourteen and was raised in Atlas. She hadn't given him the talk. Had Jacques even given him the talk? Was it the same abstinence-only drivel that dominated the whole of Solitas? Whitley had the opportunity and means to do it. Jacques was in and out of the manor, and her son had been left behind several times, deemed too young, inexperienced, or in some cases a hindrance for several outings. Online purchases only required information. If Whitley had copied it down at some point, he could have used the credit card with no one the wiser. The miniscule price of the subscription would hide in the shadow of the other purchases. It would make enough sense for someone Whitley's age, wouldn't it?

Were there any other possibilities? Klein would never, and woe to any other in their employ to make the attempt. Such a minor purchase would be unthinkable when weighed against ongoing employment.

Willow took a breath and gathered her resolve. She forced herself to accept it: Whitley purchased a porn subscription with Jacques' credit card. Something had to be done. She was his mother, and Jacques would be furious beyond all reason. If he could scar Weiss and threaten her with blindness over something as meaningless as a lost duel, then who was to say what would happen to Whitley. Even so, there was no ignoring one fact: this would be awkward.

"Whitley," Willow addressed. Her son froze, unused to hearing her voice, much less sober. The steel in it, something she hoped would mask her discomfort, seemed to strike her son into blank obedience. What had Jacques done while she drowned herself? No, that was a matter for another time. The past could not be changed, and if she didn't act, he might not have a future. "Would you like to explain to Jacques what you used his credit card for?"

"I— I have no idea what you're talking about, mother," Whitley stuttered. He clasped his hands behind his back, wringing them if Willow read his elbows correctly. "I'm sure that I've done not— er, no such thing."

"Really," Willow deadpanned as she shook the itemized bill that she collected, encouraging it to unfold, taking the seconds it resisted to calm her nerves. "So then it was Jacques who paid for a subscription to the—" She checked the bill to confirm the name. Who named this? "Sex Centre?"

Whitley gasped, playing the fool even as a cherry red blush spread from ear to ear. "Father did what now?" He paused, expecting Willow to repeat herself. To his credit, her son held firm even as the silence passed from 'contemplating a synonymous phrase' to 'waiting for her disbelief to sink into him.' That he could resist Willow's flat stare at all deserved a trophy. Or maybe she had become soft. It had been years since she showed her spine. His act dissolved slowly, but before long he hung his head and asked, "What will be done with me?"

"If I have my way, nothing," Willow answered. "That's not to say you won't be punished," she added before Whitley could gawk at her response. "You will be giving up the credentials you used and losing your scroll, but Jacques won't hear of it."

"Why?"

"I know you have enough of a grasp of him to realize that it won't end well," Willow stated. Whitley must have noticed the undercurrent of disappointment in her expression— a different brand from Jacques, but bearing the same message: you are better than this. She hoped it was true. Sometimes she saw Jacques in him. At other times, she saw a boy clinging desperately for any sense of control he could manage to take. He had none of Jacques' ambition, the defiance Winter used to escape, or the independence that Weiss used to straddle the line between rebellion and obedience. In lieu of that, she saw an imagination that surpassed her daughters'.

And it showed Whitley something terrible. Whatever he came up with made him as pale as a corpse, embarrassment giving way to raw terror. He cleared his throat. "May I— May I clear my history first?" he requested, his breath hitching.

"You may." While not something Willow ranked high on her known desires, avoiding learning of her son's kinks suddenly shot onto the list, somewhere above divorcing Jacques and below avoiding sobriety.

Whitley hurried, tapping out the commands before presenting Willow with his scroll. "The username is father's separated with underscores and fully capitalized," he noted. "The password is 'Sch3esAreTehBe5t' sans spaces, with the first letter of every word capitalized, 'the' misspelled to T-E-H, the first E in our name replaced with a three, and the S in 'best' replaced with a five."

For a moment, the information stunned Willow. "You used Jacques' name?" she confirmed, checking the interface and finding JACQUES_SCHNEE displayed proudly on the user profile. "You used his name." On a porn network, she left unsaid.

"Is that a problem?" Whitley asked meekly.

"How much have you used this account?"

"Um… I've… watched several videos."

Willow picked a video at random, checking for what she could do. "No comments? No ratings? Downloads?"

"No! None of that!"

Whitley yelped when Willow pulled him into a tight hug. "Thank you for this gift." It was the best she ever received. She would give Remnant a Jacques né Gelé that they would hate for years to come. Even if it was derided as a phony account, if she could convey even half of how vile he was through fake comments, even as a parody, then it would be her victory. She hoped that screenshots were still a thing. The company's public relations department and legal would do anything in their power to strike the source from the networks and web servers, but screenshots on personal computers and circulated on forums were forever. Four Seasons would eat it up.

"You're… welcome?" Whitley ventured. He remained stiff in Willow's arms, unsure of how to handle her sudden physical affection. In the end, he settled on patting her on the back. "Am… am I still in trouble?"

"You're being deprived of your personal link to the internet until I erase every track you've left for Jacques to trace back to you," Willow reminded her son, even as she kept him in her arms. It felt good to hug someone that wasn't composed entirely of garbage now that she actually felt the urge. "You'll be a step away from any messages or calls you receive for a short while too." At last, she released her son. "Though I suppose that's a good excuse for you to join me and learn your mistakes."

"Um…"

"No child of mine is going to be so easily caught," Willow said.

For the first time since her marriage, Willow went to bed satisfied. Spending time teaching Whitley the basics of hiding his data trails had been exhausting. It had taken a while for her son to stop thinking of the experience as a punishment and look at it as a learning experience, but once he had, it had been nothing but questions and confusion. Some of it was her fault having forgotten what it was like to not have ingrained security habits.

In spite of that, she and Whitley enjoyed the experience. It was almost as if they were family. A call from Jacques cut the dream short, but Whitley resolved to ask for the promise of more lessons before he rushed away with a new scroll in lieu of the one Willow had taken.

By the end of the day, he even wished her a happy birthday and sent along notice of a gift he acquired with the skills she imparted.

The rest of Willow's day had flown by as she dusted off her skills and severed the trail leading between the porn account and Jacques' credit card. That his finances were handled by the Schnee Dust Company made it both easier and harder, though not as much of the latter as she had initially feared. It sparked some concern in her. She hadn't lifted a finger in nearly twenty years and she could break through SDC network security from home on unoptimized hardware and tools she cobbled together from memory? Something wasn't right. She set her concern aside. She had bigger, more immediate plans, and they required the account to remain open and disconnected from the Schnee family, even if it bore the name.

Better still, when Willow's scan of the obituaries finished, she found one Gaspar né Gelé dead. Happy birthday to her indeed. One down, one to go.

Satisfied, Willow curled up in her bed sober. Tomorrow, she would play.

[johneetries]

To begin...

Hello. I’m bipolar and manic depressive. I discovered these things as a result of a suicide attempt. There. Now the hard part is out of the way. Let’s get into it.

Being diagnosed with a mental illness was one of the most normal and foreign events I’ve ever experienced. Was it a surprise? No. Was it easy to digest? Double no. Being diagnosed with bipolar was a very somber “aha” moment. But before that moment could happen, a misdiagnosis inevitably happened first.

I spent this past summer working in middle-of-nowhere, South Dakota. Classic one liners about small Midwestern towns couldn’t even do justice to how desolate this place was. There were no traffic lights. No easily recognizable grocery chains. And worst of all, no Taco Bell. The events of my summer consisted mostly of two things: working and drinking. I was working over seventy hours a week. The first month I was there, I had two days off. Total. My post shift activities started simply with a beer at the bar once the restaurant was closed. Then a six pack would find it’s way home. Six became twelve. Twelve became eighteen. Eighteen became thirty. Liquor started being added to the mix. If it came between buying food or booze, I chose booze every time. Sleep became less and less until almost nonexistent. Toward the end of my time there, I was averaging between thirty minutes to two hours of sleep a morning. And I stress morning. I would generally stay up drinking until the sun had long risen. Every single night. As I reach the end of this paragraph, I can see how clear the warning signs may have seemed. But they weren’t. I was riding the wave of a bipolar high.

For the unversed, bipolar disorder exists in a spectrum of highs and lows. During the highs, the symptoms are rarely seen as symptoms. In my case, I perceived that I was feeling good. Great, even. I was putting in long hours at work and doing a damn fine job, at that. So what if I wanted to stay up drinking all night? As long as I was still functioning at work, there’s no problem. You can see how easily I was able to sway myself. Hard work equated to hard drinking. Simple math from a complicated brain. The longer the highs go unchecked, it can lead to mania. Which it did for me. Occasionally drinking all night turned into every night. And quickly. I isolated. I self-harmed. I stopped eating. The crossover from my highs to my lows were blurred. But when the lows hit, they hit hard.

Keep in mind, at this point in time, bipolar disorder was not on my mind at all. I boiled it down to simple and incorrect equations like excessive booze equals better mental state. Being a warm and welcome individual in the workplace subdued the self-hate that was growing. The whole “fake it till you make it” mentality used inappropriately. You keep your demons waiting outside your gate long enough, a few things will happen. One: more demons will show up. Two: they will grow irritable from being ignored. And three: they’re going to eventually smash that gate down and flood your castle.

My demons demolished my castle and its outlying kingdom. In one perfect storm, I completely lost my footing. For a multitude of reasons I could never describe or put into words, I decided to kill myself. And that is where I would like to leave that. While I am thankful that my attempt was unsuccessful, I will never feel the desire to talk about those moments in great detail. I know why I did what I did. I know the headspace I was in. I know the abuse I put myself through to get to that place. That is all that matters for anyone else to know. The explicit details and play-by-play of that night are mine. And mine alone. For selfish reasons, I keep that frame of thinking to myself. But for even more selfless reasons, I don’t ever want anyone to know what I was fully thinking in that moment. No one should have to ever understand how it feels to be ready and willing to take your own life. No one. There is no lower feeling than falling asleep for what you believe to be the last time.

Scratch that.

There is no worse feeling than waking up after falling asleep for what you believed to be the last time. The moment my eyes opened and I awoke cold and alone on the street, I knew that everything would change. And it did. Through a series of darkly humorous events, I eventually landed in a mental facility in Sioux Falls. Where I was held for twenty-four hours and within that time diagnosed with very base depression. A diagnosis I could have made for myself years ago. The doctors answer? Medication. Prozac. Two-hundred milligrams.

Now, I’m not sure if this a common mistake or one that was specific for me. But Prozac made me worse. Noticeably worse. It wasn’t until I started going to therapy and was diagnosed with bipolar and ordered to immediately stop taking Prozac that I started to feel better. The way it has been explained to me is antidepressants can often increase bipolar symptoms. Now for me, I was on a serious run with the lows. And Prozac was making those lows plummet further than I was ready for. It was explained to me that bipolar requires a mood stabilizer to be treated effectively. Again, not sure if this common treatment or was specific for me. But after enough time on a mood stabilizer, I could see how it was helping. But I’m jumping ahead.

Upon my release from the mental hospital and my return to Phoenix, I did eventually find therapists to see. Where I was asked a series of questions. Questions that I knew would lead to bipolar diagnosis. So when my psychologist suggested I might have bipolar, I was pretty hesitant. The questions were too obvious and handpicked for such a diagnosis. It wasn’t until he had me meet with his colleague, a psychiatrist, that things came into focus. She asked me much more specific questions. And based on my answers, she started asking questions that seemed tailor made for me. The more I answered, the more she asked. Never once did she stop to tell me I definitely had bipolar. She asked so many questions that I eventually hit my “aha” moment. I sat there in silence as it all soaked in. I’m bipolar. This is for the rest of my life. I have to do something about this. When I looked up, she was just looking back at me. Seemingly dissecting my brain through whatever my eyes were telling her. And from there we started discussing medication.

After six weeks on proper medication, I started to notice a difference. The symptoms of bipolar weren’t completely gone. But they became mild. I was balancing out. I was thinking more clearly. In the midst of all this clarity, it became important to me to not hide my mental illness. I wasn’t planning on being brash by walking around with a megaphone shouting “I’M BIPOLAR” to every passerby. But I also wasn’t going to keep quiet about it like I had some dirty secret. Because the truth of the matter is this: There are so many others like me who live with the knowledge of their illness every day. People who carry the burden of orange bottles in medicine cabinets. People who pay professionals to declutter their brains. Then there are the people who have yet to be diagnosed. The walking wounded limping their way through life. Ignoring the signs and unknowingly self-destructing.

I’ve walked both paths. I know exactly how they both feel. To be honest, neither one is great. But the fact is plain: I dodged suicide. I got a second lease on life, and I don’t want to squander it. So I’m trying to better myself and my surroundings. Maybe I’m getting things right, maybe I’m not. But I’m trying. I’m not staying on the course my life was on that got me to suicidal ideation in the first place. I’m branching out and doing things differently. And I sure as hell will not be quiet about mental health. Anyone who stumbles across this that struggles with their own fight with mental health: you are not alone. While your illness is a part of who you are, it does not define who you are. You define who you are. No battle is ever won without a fight. So fight for yourself. Fight for a better tomorrow. Fight to stay alive. Accept your reality. Own it and move forward. No one makes a better you than you. In the face of all that haunts you, live your life. Even if it feels impossible. I assure you, it is not. I am thirty-two and completely starting over. In the wake of my attempt, everything in my life has changed. For better or worse, everything has changed. I’m taking what’s left of the time I was allotted on this planet and trying to enjoy it. I hope you do the same, friends.

Until next time,

J.

[dollsted]

The Wolf

The woods are lovely, dark, damp, and deep. They hold many things and take to your grave the secrets that you keep. The earth beneath their roots have bellyfuls of swollen meat, the crows are circling above, savoring the sweet treat. They dive and soar gliding on a stale breeze, they move effortlessly down through the bough of the trees. And when they are perched upon your shuttering frozen shoulder, the gleam in those witch cauldron specks, wait patiently, sinisterly eyeing you until you draw your last forsaken breath. And when you finally feel all hope drain from your body, your final thoughts are that of you wish to be no creature’s meal, but if only you would have told someone, that you were to wander within the dark wood, but now you still. Paralyzed by regret, as the crows lunch lies beneath his talons, finally dead. It gives a hearty triumphant caw! Snapping its beak into waning warm flesh, the last thing one saw is the spindly arms of the trees, mockingly pointing at another victim that will decay beneath its depths.

The book lay lazily against the tiny frame of a woman lulling beneath a large juniper tree. Here her long lashes fanned over her rosy cheeks as bits of sunlight filtered through the rustling leaves coyly tempting her to wake. It was safe to doze during the day when the world was still being warmed by the suns noon zenith, but as twilight began to ascend the preview of what was to come in the following months reared its ugly head in the teeth of the night’s icy temperatures.

As the woman laid unaware of the time fleeting from her and apex of the day squandering in a threatening gloom of icy fingers, she was blissfully unaware of any of it. But the breeze that bit at the parts of bare skin peeking from her dress, and the flashing dying embers of the sun above the tree shook about to get her attention, all signs went unnoticed with no avail to her waking. The trees watched her as if someone plucked her from one of the tales in her book and gingerly placed her here making sure to fan out her chestnut hair, paint her lips the color of pale roses, and thoughtfully completed the ensemble of the sleeping beauty by giving her the task of falling asleep to a good read and propped the book pages down against the gentle fall and rise of her chest.

But with cold comes the cruel hissing upon the wind which lashed its forked tongue into her ear causing her to bolt upright with a start. The world was far dimmer than when she had set out that afternoon determined to get through these morbid poems for the sake of having something to do other than sew and cook. The light was a lens and she knew that any moment now it would wink and there would be no more light until twelve more hours when morning would creep through her shutters. Urgency got her to her feet. The book protested when the pages met with the ground with an oomph.

She saw the pale thumbnail lazily look upon her at the base of the trees and a smattering of stars was yawning awake in the blue and black sky. She touched the skin upon her bare throat realizing she could no longer afford to leave her house without the protection of a shawl or jacket. Now more than ever she wished to have the heavy fabric in her hands when this afternoon it had been too hot to even think on it. She straightened herself making sure all her bindings upon her corset were secure and hadn’t come lose for she was guilty of being one to toss and turn in sleep. She found it suspicious that she had lied this still as if the trees had weaved a foreboding spell upon her as she dreamt. Then again as she gazed upon the title on the spine of her book she dashed that thought away and knew her silly spell had been all the working of that poem she read before she fell into a nice slumber.

She felt something crunch as she moved and plucked the few leaves that had crumpled into her hair before making for the trail. The summer equinox had been fighting on with every last might it had and Lily was grateful for it. She was dreading the winter. Two winters ago her village had almost starved, it had dragged on miserably and despite the large amount of food they had all stashed away, the brittle cold stayed stubbornly though March and just barely petered out to the middle of May. Normally March was when the snow gave its retreat and they could begin the plowing season or hunting but that year had been so miserable and terrible that hunters who went out in search of game were lost to the cold or buried beneath the squalls of storms.

Since then, she hated winter. The only part of it she liked was during the silent snow falls or when she would wake to the mornings of golden sun allotted to peak through the ribs of the forest showcasing the frozen thatches that clung to the limbs. They glittered and dazzled reminding the forlorn that there was something more other than this chaos. She prayed the meat wouldn’t be too frozen this year to thaw when the scrape of their bellies would be hungriest. The frost was brief to those who worked the ungodly morning when the first rays of light hadn’t yet settled upon the earth and they spread world that the frost had begun. She felt the weight of those rumors now as each thicket of grass crunched beneath her flats with a satisfying crunch like fresh lettuce plucked from the fields.

She could see the little chilled bumps of the snow that coated each blade like lace. Her breath plumed around her and her body began shaking. Not from the darkness of the wood. She could hear the last few people working the fields and coming back from a day’s hunt barreling to the village. She couldn’t help but smile thinking of the giant magnetic force that called upon all her people once the night threatened to cast its veil over the hardworking hands seeking sanctuary in their homes. The constant hum of axes breaking wood over and over at all hours of day until now had driven her mad. She knew it was for everyone’s hearth to keep them warm but they had been preparing for this since winter broke in March as expected and now it was almost November. She supposed they wouldn’t stop until the first blanket settled. Her and the other women collected peat to start the fires and she could smell the damp earthy substance stocked in her friends’ homes every time she entered to deliver whatever she was assigned to that day. Lily was known as their main delivery woman. She always had her signature red cape and hood so those who needed her could pick her out and beckon her to their hearth. She was also famous for the large woven basket she practically had fastened to her arm.

She worked just as hard as the others and was always kept busy so it was no surprise to any of them when they saw her slip away to the wood for a bought of peace every once in a while. She was always being hounded over. Deliver this bread here, give this peat to these thirty homes, make sure this list gets to blah blah blah. At least she was getting exercise and tokens for her hard work. She enjoyed the tailor the best. He always fashioned her practical shoes to wear for every occasion. After enough deliveries he generously offered to make her custom shoes of her choice. She had asked him for boots lined with the softest fur from rabbits to keep her feet warm. He had imported the lining of seal skin to decorate the base of her boot to keep from any of the water from seeping into it. The fat from the animal had definitely kept her little feet heated and never once had any slick cold snow saturated into her boot. Her socks and stockings were always humming with warmth.

The flats had a rubbery material that kept her feet comfortable for the hours she had to spend walking and standing but also put a spring in her step. She also had a pair for mud, for deep snow, and even for the summer time. Now he was probably the wealthiest man in her village thanks to her advertising the magic that each pair she wore protected her from the elements during any occasion. His work became advanced. He graduated to tougher hides like cow, moose, and sometimes lining them with parts from animals that had the most fat for winter like bear. It kept ones foot insulated and toasty. So now she was thankful she was gaining ground to get to her home.

She placed the Tales of the Dark Marrow of Mother Marrow into her basket and pulled out a scone one of her earlier deliveries gifted to her. She munched at the buttery texture of the crumbling delicacy and wondered to her home at the outskirts of the town. Unlike its twin to the east her village didn’t have a giant wall to greet her. The torches were lit, candles in windows guttered at the rising spouts of wind trickling through the drafty cracks of windows, and a large glow illuminated her path a stark thirteen feet in a giant halo. Her people welcomed the natural beauty of the land they had built upon and didn’t fear the things with teeth that lurked in the woods like their twin to the east.

There were rumors that drifted to them when friends and family made their way in the summer to trade what our land could not provide and whispers among the people told of a grand story about a wolf or bear dragging off with straggler children who were not within the safe confines of their homes during the night. Since then a giant wall had been commissioned. I remember my neighbor taking a leave of absence to help with its construction, but he brought back another tale about its origin in which someone was said to have seen a giant swooping creature like a witch come down from the bough of the trees and steal away babies in the night to sustain their immortality.

Lily had shuttered at the thought and begged him not to go into any more detail. How could a human being come up with such disgusting and disturbing details? I unlatched the heavy bolt to my door slipping inside and making sure to lock myself inside and lock it. I wasn’t afraid of the things in the wood more than certain people in our village. Though we were peaceful like every large group we had those who still found ways to cause trouble and turmoil within the ranks of our society. I preferred my privacy. But when you delivered things to every nook and cranny of the place you reside in people sometimes hold you captive in order to talk or vent their frustrations. In a way it was nice having all these secrets that I wrote down in a leather bound journal hidden in a small slot on a very high beam of my ceiling. But holding terrible secrets was also dangerous. I was once approached by one of the Bucksy brothers, three in total, the oldest and largest one wishing to sequester information on a black smith. When burning his fingertips over the fire hadn’t worked to loosen his tongue he decided I would be better to squeal. I insisted on my innocence and I was thankful for my neighbors return that day for her kept a suspicious eye on Buck as I shut my door feigning to be tired from the days work.

I told Rika about what had happened, this being my neighbor, and he vowed to be there as much as possible when he wasn’t spirited away to other parts of the village to work. I prepared to cook a nice stew, Rika had left a rabbit hanging on the slot of my roof dangling terrifyingly in my face when I returned home. I set to work on shearing away its poor little limbs and carving it into chunks and cubes letting the meat cook in the fray of bubbling veggies I plucked the night before. Next I chalked my hands with flour letter the sour dough bread rise in the brick over, the small mouth yawning when I opened the door and slid the pudgy jiggling frame against the stone and closing it once more. I gathered my gooseberry jelly readying it with a butter knife and sat to wait for all my food to work in harmony.

I pumped a bath from the little lever in my bathroom and slid into the confines of the hot water after making sure the chimney from the hearth where my fire was baking the soup was open beneath the tub and the flames licked at the belly of it warming it until I killed the vent by switching it off and slid scrubbing away the skin of the earth I collected during my afternoon nap. Rika had helped me construct my home and told me where I could lead little pipelines like arteries to a heart beneath my home in order to make things a little easier for a spinster to work herself. He was my childhood friend, my mentor, as he worked her came home and tutored me in the ways of men. In return I taught him to read and write as we grew up and even traded certain secrets about certain corrupt people here. I trusted him to keep them as much as I trusted my dog at the time of his life, to stay by my side and warn me of intruders of animals prowling the grounds.

We learned behind our doors, keeping silent when we knew the tutelage of converting ours secrets to one another would be viewed as immoral and blasphemy. Women were meant to do the mending, cooking, and washing. Men were meant to do the labor, the hunting, the hard work. But our exchanged advanced our limited scopes and we better understood the boundaries we were forced into.

I enjoyed inventing things the most. In the confines of my home I had learned that a lady could shave the hairs on her legs and underarms by fashioning the tip of a man’s razor blade and carefully filing the tilt of the blade to an angle in order to get closer to the skin. With a steady surgeons hand I stroked up along the grain of the follicles and sighed contently stroking the tips of my fingers over the silk left behind from the razors bite. In the summer I didn’t dare hide the nakedness of my legs like the others did with long skirts, or bulky wool stockings. In fact I was one of the rare few who allowed her skirts to barely brush against the calf of my knee. Men gawked, women scowled, and all the while I was a wonderful liar claiming I had always been less…blessed with hair. I giggled thinking how ridiculous this all sounded but couldn’t help it.

My people were not ignorant as to think women were witches, but the village also being repressed with certain ways of thinking also made it a fine edge to keep in line. I did my duty without complaint, without rumor, and without causing unnecessary drama so therefore any of my other strange habits weren’t brow raising. Rika and I heavily leaned on one another for that. I would claim he got me wood and I paid him in meals or pennies, and in turn his house was cleaned by me scrubbed and organized. But the reality was we both did the domestic duties to our own households. I could hear the angry gurgling of water, the hissing of flame as the tears bubbled from my pot, and I pulled on my slip grateful the shutters were facing away from the neighbors view. It clung to my drenched form as I pulled the lever holding the pot away from the hearth. It fluidly held the pot outside of the fanning flames which angrily simmered back down and the bubbling surface smoothed save the heavy soup and chunks peaking from the top.

Now to wait for it to cool. I scooped a hearty portion out as well as turning the vent off over the burning coals of the brick oven and letting the bread stiffen out before settling into my chair Rika had gifted to me for my name day five years ago. He had plumped up the frame with goose feathers which now were formed to the shape of my rump and my legs rested on the ottoman as I flipped through the book of poems I had stashed in my basket. My large red cape was resting on the peg by the fire. The poor worn thing needed a bath of its own that morning before I departed to the hairline of the woods

I never was one for being scared but I had taken an interest in fashioning my own poems, so I studied the only book we had at the library. Mister Driskell had pleaded for an educated woman like me to quit the foot traffic business and work in his shop. There were a handful of educated women here aside the ones determined to forsake their education to open bakeries, and shops. Forever destined to live a life of powdered palms and greased elbows. I preferred the freedom of lazily being beckoned to the dregs of the wilderness. Even here in my sanctuary most of what was outside was here inside. I had found a few tools used by the Indians of the north, scattered at the heart of the forest. I found rocks with unique surfaces, crystals, shells, antler bones the felt still clinging to the abandoned skulls of the deer.

I found my favorite poem of all. Not the one about the poor little bird sitting upon a branch minding her own business eating berries when a cat sneaks up and eats the full little bird, the one about the yellow eyes in the wood. I found wolves to be beautiful when they weren’t in packs and starving. She caught glimpses of strays or forsaken rogues as they roved the floor of the forest. Their stark coats contrasting against the earthy tones, others defied the colors of nature itself. Some seemed to be sculpted from the clay of the roots beneath them barely keeping them visible until they blinked or moved. They were curious about her as she was about them. She sketched them and gave them names. Her favorite she called yellow eyes. He had dark black fur the color of the sky at midnight, but those blazing gold orbs that pierced through her drew her in. She wondered what instinct he followed. Where he’d been. He liked to visit her during the spring and winter. She was expecting him to be here soon. When the snow would cling to his contrasted soft coat and gingerly lay upon his black lashes of tar.

She found the poem in her book symbolized him perfectly and that was what she called him. Upon closer inspection of her getting up early one morning and waiting to watch and put to paper anything more on this particular subject, she was drawn to the large paws. Most of her kind would claim them to be large paws of a killer but she was drawn to the faint tuft of white curving along one of the pockets of his toes. His large onyx claws protruding from the white like a black sleet mountain against a December morning. But she needn’t look to that to know it was her wolf. She could just tell by the understanding stare they now came to share whenever he was passing through. Usually he was on the scent of a moose from the night before, but in the wee hours of the morning when she’d open the hatch to her shutter and peer out at him three tree links in, he would pause and look at her. Nose slightly twitching as if he caught her scent on the wind suddenly. His ears would perk, his mane along his throat shook as he let the tangle of rain mist away and he continued on with his prowling. She watched the gentle sweep of his tail scrape against the forest floor and giggle when a leaf would drag along with it.

She spoke aloud:

“ Be wary when you walk into the wood, for you might not like what you find, be careful what you see in the wood, for you might not like what you catch in between the trees. Be wary of the large things with teeth, the larger the berth the quieter its feet, beware of the ancient things born from roots, it doesn’t matter the soft tread of your boots. Be cautious of the hearing of the wind itself, for your fear carries upon its shelf, beware beware oh do please take great care to have a pointed object of your own, because the hunger that aches in the ancient things is unshakable and it lives within its skin, it creeps and quivers to the bone. It acts on instinct, it does not rationalize with logic, oh dear little stranger be wary not to wander, because while your thoughts are jumbled with the things you must ponder, the thing with teeth it sees you always and it knows how to creep. Watch your step the forest is against you, one wrong move and a snap of a twig and you’ll be dead before you can even rationalize it. Watch oh watch and when you have to squint, remember the things that tear you apart don’t have to think, they don’t strain to see, they come upon you with vengeful need. Oh watch oh watch where you go because if you get lost, it doesn’t need to know, if you can’t find the direction of your home, the thing following you merely continues to roam. “

The title appropriately named Yellow Eyes. And that was the name she had given her wolf.

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The spinning of stars and the rise of the moon pulled like the tides at the aching chest of the beast that sat panting beneath the juniper tree. His muzzle was pressed to the ground which was still pressed by the weight of one of the animals that lived in the large huts outside his home. He knew that scent. It was made of the same things he was made of. But the animal smelt like the wildflowers he ran through during the hot days. He enjoyed the shade they offered and the scent wasn’t too bad either. Even if it was arduous and potent and hurt his nose a little, he knew the other enemies that could creep up on him would find it just as distractingly annoying and move on. So when his matted self, collapsed beneath the sweeping petals and leaves of the flowers he found it easy to sleep.

He pawed it the ground raking over the earth to find more of her smell buried beneath but it faded with the turn of his paw. He ground his nose until the dirt clung to the wet perspiration of his nose, which he sneezed away in a fit of ten snotty exhalations. His head was spinning, like the strong winds that he felt would be coming very soon. Their shrieks assaulted his ears and when it was deafening to hunt outside he saddled himself inside an abandoned cave or overturned roots of a tree. The depression allowing his body to fold into a lump circle as his tail fanned over his face. He enjoyed the laziness of his day today and was excited when the familiar smell drew him to this very spot. She was here. He knew she was female but still was unsure what kind of animal she was. She walked like a feline yet didn’t have hair like one…she wasn’t bulbous like a bear, or grumpy like a moose. Her kind were always smelling, looking, and sounding different. Some were angry at his presence, others fearful, but hers was at ease. Maybe she was like him. He also knew she was female based off her pheromone trail.

Today he could tell she had bathed in the dirt like he sometimes enjoyed rolling in, sometimes the patches could be stinky but those days were for when his enemies wanted to hurt him, but for some reason she stayed a long time rolling in this dirt bath. He wondered why…there were no other hairless animals that followed her, no dangerous smells, but her scent was very strong here which meant she had been here for more than one arch of the sun in the sky. But why…? He followed the odd smell of her feet that had strange hooves on them, sometimes they were furry like a bears…but this one was stinky like the animals in the large wood stacks had made them. He watched her slip into her stack of tree trunks and limbs and waited for her to open the square part that showed her face but she never came. He could see in the cracks of the wood illuminate and knew she was in there but dared not go closer. That man with the large sharp thing was outside by her log pile breaking down more saplings.

He didn’t like the things that glint. Perhaps they plucked large teeth from creatures that were taller than the trees in his home and fastened them to sticks? During a close call when he was a pup one almost bit him. He wondered why the animal didn’t use his teeth after he bared them but instead swung the giant tooth that was curved and a pale silver bit into his side. The pain it brought made him forever cautious. His mother had warned him of such things. ‘your snooping will get you into trouble. Just stay away from the hairless squirrels’. But on his own observation they were not small like the little creatures he could catch and kill. These things were bigger, meaner, and brandished monster teeth. He least liked the long sticks that made noise like thunder and was followed by a terrible bite that ripped through muscle and bone. But nothing had been by him and yet white hot pain ripped through his shoulder blade forever causing a small niche over the curved wing. But she did not have any of those things. She did not yell at him to move on, did not have monster teeth or long sticks made of thunder. She watched him as he had once watched ‘the giant squirrels’ as a pup. And he loved her distinct scent.

When the glow had dimmed and the homes went quiet, he dared to approach and sniff at the border of her stick home. As he arched his head to the sky he could smell the faint remains of something that was dead. The little string that fluttered in the wind still holding strong smells as it whipped in the wind. Whatever was there was probably eaten. There were logs piled along the outside wall which he wondered why one would hoard logs? Sure squirrels hoarded nuts, and owls mice, and bears fat for the winter, but why would she want all this? He wondered if it was surrounding something in its center and gingerly poked his nose against the hard edge of one of the rings. One log toppled from above his head threatening to crush his skull but he was quicker and darted from it. Don’t disturb them he thought as he continued his perimeter search.

He smelt the last place she was at and put both pads on the door butting his nose to one of the slits in the large flat log taking in deep breaths. She was definitely in there. He wanted in. He wanted to smell her, to relish in the feel of her fur. Maybe…he could roll on her to capture some of her pheromones. He could also in turn rub off his and let the other males that surrounded her know he was in his care. But he didn’t understand the magic they used and couldn’t make the flat wood budge. There was a distant soft song calling him on the wind. His ears perked. He recognized that scrape, those little thumps. Rabbit. Just like what was hanging on that string. Now he was hungry for that, his stomach rumbled and he knew it was time to fill it so he stalked off once more into the wood vowing to come back before the winds would hold him up somewhere warm until it was safe to hunt once more.

a03 : f0rce0fnatur3 

[spanglerscribbles]

Sticky Notes on My Face.

Considering what is going on in the world at this point, I thought I’d share I bit of my personal history regarding a certain psychological battle (albeit still ongoing) that I’m sure many of you will relate to. No politics here. This will be a safe space. Plus, I need to write this out and get it off my chest. I figured those who read this will get a better understanding of the human being behind the screen and/or find out more about themselves after reading my story. 

I want you to pay close attention to this next paragraph. 

I’m the first born child in my little family, and soon became an older sister to my baby brother after 3 years of waddling on planet earth. As I grew up, I was homeschooled. Despite the social stigma regarding this private system, it’s made me who I am today. I would go back and do it all over again. I was raised by my mom and dad, my mom being a highly esteemed worship leader at our local church, and my dad being on staff at said church as the kid’s ministry pastor. I would have been around 10 when they got these positions. I followed after my mom’s footsteps and joined our youth group’s worship team as a singer. Later, I began to discover a more creative side of myself. I’m an artist, in the general term. To narrow it down, I am in the visual arts, dappling in graphite and digital mediums. But to be even MORE specific, as I grew older I became a conceptual developer, character designer, digital illustrator, graphic designer, animator, screen writer, and creative director, to name a few. I am now a graduate of Kalamazoo Valley Community college, with a degree in animation with honors. Currently, I am nearing the end of production for my first collaborative, animated short film that will release in the coming months. 

Wonderful. Now that I’ve talked about myself, I want you to do something for me. Count all of the titles I have stated in the segment above. Adding the obviously worded statements plus the one’s loosely mentioned… that’s 17.

17 titles mentioned about myself. Out all those 17, which stood out to you the most? Which sounded more appealing to you? Were they intriguing? Relatable? Likable? 

Whether we like it or not, we are all labeled. There will always be some aspect of us that people identify with as soon as our name is mentioned, and it will always have a name. 

I want you to think up a list of all the titles and labels others have given you or that you’ve given to yourself. Think up as many as you can. A contractor, Pastor’s kid, singer, university student, doctor, engineer, couch potato, foodie, pretty, ugly, football player, band geek, hyper, emo, conservative, liberal… 

It could be a small list or an extensive list. Think of all of yours? Great. 

Who would you be if they all just went away? 

Photo by Kelsey Wilson

Are These Labels What Really Define Me?

I want you to go back to the list of my own titles. There were plenty to choose from such as homeschooler, worship leader’s kid, pastor’s kid and artist. Those were the labels I was known for growing up. 

When my family moved to Michigan and started going to our awesome local church, I had to start my life over. I was a fresh face, a newbie. I had to start making new friends, but I didn’t know how. I grew up with friends already by my side back in Indiana. Meeting new people and befriending them was a foreign concept to me at the time. 

But soon, kids and adults alike began to address me as Karen’s kid or Brad’s kid… since my parent’s faces were quickly becoming well known in the community. Which, for some reason, made me popular. I befriended other PKs (pastor’s kids) while my dad was on staff. I remember two or three kids in particular I gravitated towards during those first few years in the mitten state. We would often stay in church all day on Sunday because of our parent’s pastoral obligations, so we would run up and down the office space and just be goofy kids. 

I was homeschooled from 1st grade onward, which was another label I was recognized for as I went into middle school. I never went to co-op, or went to many outside classes with others in the homeschool community, so all of my friendships were cultivated in our church’s youth group. Everyone knows once you go into middle school, things start to change… everywhere. Kids start to judge things they don’t understand a little more harshly than before. So a lot of the kids I tried to be friends with picked on me for having that label. So for a long time, I tried to suppress that and make my PK status more prominent. 

But I was in middle school now and my dad wasn’t overseeing these grades. So that title was only visible to a select group of kids along with the adults in my life who respected my parents. With my credibility gradually declining, I had to find another title that would help maintain what social status I had. So I started bringing my sketchbook to youth group with me. 

Kids were drawn to me like a moth to a flame. It was like I had these sticky notes on my face that listed all the titles I had in my possession that molded me into this appealing museum piece. I was shocked to see so many kids I’ve never met just walk up to me and gawk at my drawings. I did’t even need to initiate anymore… I just had to create interesting things to gain the interest of others. Almost every week I would come in early, sit down on the couch, just draw whatever come to mind, and let people come my way. From then on, I was known as the artist. I would post art on Facebook, I would create more drawings on my off time to show off on social media and in person. This went on, and it worked. Until life decided to not go my way. 

Photo by Gregg Lawson

Loss of Self.

It was the summer of my last year in middle school. I remember my family sitting down at the dinner table and my dad telling us the news that he was leaving his position as the children’s pastor. Soon after that, my mom stepped down from the worship team after singing in every morning service for nearly 5 years. Just like that, 2 prominent titles that the world identified me with were gone. I wasn’t the pastor’s kid anymore. I wasn’t the worship leader’s kid anymore. 

I panicked. I literally had anxiety attacks over this for months. I had no idea how this would affect me and my friendships and other people’s perceptions down the road. It got worse once I transitioned into high school. 

I was friends with all lower classmen, besides a few guys I hung out with in my same grade. But they changed drastically in short span of time, and seemed as though they did’t want anything to do with me. I was in the midst of an identity crisis, and I had to figure out someway to make myself appealing to these new, older, taller group of students with the only positive label I had to my name. 

I worked my butt off to be known as the creative artist. 

I didn’t bring my sketchpad with me as often as I used to, but I drew almost every day. I honed my skills, and got better. I posted more online, I made more friends over seas because of my art. I had a batch of “online friends” to brag about to people. I wrote stories to draw more characters about. I did everything to make myself look as impressive as a freshmen could with the talent that I had. 

Come sophomore year, I gradually found my people. I clung to these new friends every weekend, because they were the only ones that accepted me. I drew for them. I made art for them. I tried to appeal myself to them as often as I could. In hindsight, the smothering of creative adulation was farfetched and unnecessary, but back then that was the only thing I knew to do to maintain a relationship. 

So I got better. I drew more and more. I wrote creative stories, and built magical worlds with my visual talent. I made all of my work known to people. Creating art began to transform into an obligation than a pleasant pastime. Once I graduated high school and my friends parted ways, it crashed on top of me like a dump truck. The friends I thought I had weren’t intentional about keeping in touch. They found new labels, and were drawn to those of the same name. I was left alone, on my own path. All the work I poured into art was squandered. It meant nothing. Even in the midst of working towards my animation degree, I had no passion for it. Not only did I lose my love for creativity, I lost my identity. 

Photo by Chris Holt

Who Are You, Really?

Freshman year of college was a rough time for me. In the midst of change, I had to take a few steps back to rediscover myself. My whole perception of love and friendship came out of the mindset that I had to perform. I felt I needed to create more content, to live up to my artistic title in order to get the admiration I wanted from the people around me. Because that was what I was known for. That was who I was. 

But was it really? 

It was’t until a year later I went to a conference with dozens of like-minded creatives, passionate about their craft as well as their calling that I began to understand. I had conversations with people that were twice as old as me who had been dealing with these same issues. There were professionals in the industry who talked about these things. It was then I knew I wasn’t alone on this journey of self discovery… but it doesn’t have to be as complicated as one might think. 

So what if all my labels disappeared? I was no longer an artist. I could’t sing. I have no talent to speak of. I was’t pretty, but I was’t ugly. Not athletic or smart. No notable works to be mentioned. I have done nothing to entertain the masses or add to society. Who would I be then? 

To my surprise, I’m more than all of those labels combined. I went back to my roots. The foundational truths of God’s Word that I was raised on. It’s amazing how we can go throughout life and sometimes forget or completely disregard what the Bible says about God’s love and promises. 

  In Romans 8 it describes us as heirs to God, adopted into His family through faith in Jesus. Going on it mentions we have a purpose in His plan as His children. 

I am a new creation. 1 Corinthians 5:17

I have not a spirit of fear, but of power, love and a sound mind. 2 Timothy 1:7

I was bought with a price. 1 Corinthians 6:20 

I am a light. Matthew 5:14 

I am blessed.  Ephesians 1:3 

I am an overcomer. 1 John 5:4 

I am more than a conqueror. Romans 8:37 

I am loved. Romans 5:8

The list can go on and on. There are so many places in the Bible that state God’s opinions about me. The kicker is that he thought of these things before I was even conceived. Before my heart started beating, before my eyes saw the world, He loved me. I didn’t have to do anything to earn it. He loves me, because He loves me, because He loves me… just because. 

  I didn’t do anything.   

Do you know how much relief I felt when I was reminded of that? There was NOTHING I could do that would make Him love me any more or any less than He does right now. He’s always been in my corner, I was just too blind by my own warped mindset to perform and succeed to gain admiration from others. In reality, it was far simpler than what I imagined. 

Photo by Luke Spangler

The Love that Defines You.

I didn’t need to put sticky notes listing my accomplishments and my titles all over me. Those are just things I happen to be called or that I happen to do. Those can come and go. Life has a habit of shifting your perspective that way. But what I know for sure, where my foundation lies and what I am grounded in is the fact that I’m loved by the Creator of the Universe.   

You may be reading this with one or two or fifteen labels spinning in your mind that you’re known for. You may feel the pressure to uphold those titles because you feel that if those sticky notes fall away, you would be left with an empty canvas that no one would love or admire. 

But know that in the very heart of it all, the treasure of your being is the unconditional love that burns inside you. The Love that wants you to prosper in life. The Love that had a plan and a purpose for you before you were born. The Love that loves your abnormally large nose, the one dimple on your left cheek, your bushy eyebrows and frizzy hair. The Love, that no matter how screwed up you are, or what awful things you may have done, or how many people you’ve hurt,  He is there by your side, willing to walk life out with you as you rediscover yourself in Him again. 

No matter how others see you, know without a shadow of a doubt, you will always be loved by the One who wanted you here in the first place, just because you’re His creation. 

Cheers, 

Hannah Spangler