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yellow-r-o-s-e · 3 years ago

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it's all unscripted

Word Count: about 2000

Pairing: romantic Lumity, platonic Blight siblings

Characters: Amity Blight, Edric Blight, Emira Blight, also brief Luz Noceda, Eda Clawthorne, and Owlbert

Additional Tags: Canon Compliant, Post Episode, Takes Place Immediately After S02E08 “Knock Knock Knocking On Hooty’s Door”

Warnings: Crying, Anxiety, Bits of Implied Perfectionism, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse

Author’s Note: I literally cannot stop thinking about Amity in this episode. She went through such an emotional rollercoaster, poor girl.

Summary:

Luz was in love with her.

The revelations still sent fireworks through Amity’s heart.

They were even dating now, which was unimaginably cool.

She tried desperately to hold that warmth close to her, fearing it would slip away as she got further from the Owl House.

This—sneaking back home and pretending nothing had happened—was the easy part. It should be, at least.

Read it on ao3 at the link below, or click the Read More button to read on tumblr

https://archiveofourown.org/works/33079672

Amity still felt dazed and jittery when she arrived in front of Blight Manor. Her feet hit the ground with a soft thud, crunching against pink and red pine needles. The concrete steps in front of her house loomed, looking colder and more threatening than she remembered. As she pulled her hood lower over her eyes, her fingers trembled.

It was fine. She could do this.

A headache had snuck up on her. Her forehead and eyes felt like they were burning, and she had a lump in her throat.

Still, she’d had a fantastic night. Nothing could take that away. Luz was in love with her, and they were dating. The memories still sent fireworks through Amity’s heart. She tried desperately to hold that warmth close to her, fearing it would slip away.

This—sneaking back in and pretending nothing had happened—was the easy part.

She turned to the palisman beside her.

“Thank you....” What was his name again? Edalyn had mentioned it, as she was insisting that he should fly Amity home to make sure she was safe, but then Luz’s hand had lightly brushed against Amity’s shoulder, and Luz’s gorgeous face had been right there, so close, and all of Amity’s thoughts had fizzled out to make room for sparkly giddiness.

“Thanks, little friend,” Amity whispered. The wooden owl seemed satisfied and flapped his wings. Then he took off, headed back to the Owl House, where his family was waiting for him. Luz was probably, hopefully, still thinking about her, and she’d be happy to see her little owl friend return safe, and...

A few pangs of inexplicable jealousy surged through her before she wrestled them away. She grit her teeth. This wasn’t how she was supposed to feel. She had been so happy a few minutes ago, it shouldn’t have evaporated this fast.

She closed her eyes and counted down from ten, bracing herself to move forward through the clearing. When she reached ‘one,’ she held her breath and sprinted until she made it inside. She shut the front door as quietly as possible and leaned against the wall.

Then, with no warning or reason, the electric glee came back full force, making her feel unsteady on her feet. She blushed, biting her cheeks to stop herself from smiling, or worse, squealing with joy. That wouldn’t end well for her. Luz’s words echoed in her mind. As much as her instincts tried to dissect the events of the night, as hard as she searched for any downsides or sources of negativity, she still felt like she was floating.

The good feeling lasted a few seconds before it was replaced by guilt, which didn’t even make sense.

“I need to get back home. My mom is going to kill me,” she had said, out loud, like a complete idiot. She had meant to say it to herself, but then Luz was alert and looking at her seriously and oh… oh no. She’d ruined the moment.

“Not…” Amity swallowed. “Not literally. I’ll be fine.” Needing to do something with her hands, she gave Luz a thumbs up.

“Are you going to be…” Luz’s voice was so soft, Amity felt like her heart was cracking.

“It’s totally fine…” Amity laughed, but it sounded hollow, even to her own ears.

“Because, earlier, she did try to kill me, literally, and I don’t want you to be in danger because of me, and-”

Amity groaned, trying to shift her focus to current issues, like getting up the stairs without being caught.

It would be so much easier if she could just feel all of her emotions at once, Amity thought, making her way down the empty hallway. If it was all at once, she knew she’d be feeling overwhelming happiness twinged with only tiny amounts of negativity. Unfortunately, the sheer amount of emotions were too much for her to handle, so they took turns crashing over her in waves.

She managed to slip upstairs unnoticed, and her hands were shaking when she silently opened her bedroom door, but she was pretty sure it was more from the leftover thrill of the night than fear of being caught by her parents.

She closed the door behind her and saw herself sitting at her desk, scribbling at a homework problem.

“What?” She blinked, confused.

The illusion of her dissolved into mist, and she suddenly realized that her brother was sitting next to her desk, looking directly at her. She froze, unable to speak.

This wasn’t part of the plan.

“We didn’t know where you went, but mom came to check on you, and I figured you didn’t want to be caught,” he said in explanation. “You’re welcome.” He smiled.

That made sense. Amity was pretty sure she should feel grateful for the save. Unfortunately, any gratitude she felt was more than cancelled out by the fury that he was in her room, perceiving her, drawing out the already too long night. Ideally the night should have ended twenty minutes ago, when she had still been with Luz.

“Hey, Em, she’s not dead,” Edric spoke into a shimmering circle, no doubt sending some sort of illusion to carry the message to their sister.

In a matter of seconds, Emira burst through the door, out of breath.

No no no no no, she hadn’t planned for this. She didn’t know what to say to them, hadn’t even figured out how she was feeling. She just wanted it to be tomorrow already, so she could be standing next to Luz at school, and everything could be bright and shiny and wonderful again.

“Oh, hey there Mittens,” Emira said, making finger guns. “Glad to see you here. Not that we were worried or anything-“

“Where were you?” Edric interrupted. “You freaked us out. Em was on the verge of telling mom-“

“No, I wasn’t.” Emira leaned against the wall, faking nonchalance. “I’m not a snitch. It was all under control, and I trust you.”

Edric stuck his tongue out at her.

“I’m sorry,” Emira said, “which of us said they thought they saw her get eaten by a worm demon?”

“Oh.” Amity finally found her voice, and their gazes snapped toward her. She slid down to the floor, trying to escape their gazes. “No, he’s right, that did happen.”

“What?!”

“Are you okay?”

And then the twins were talking over each other, pressing for more details, and Amity couldn’t quite breathe, and-

“You’re overwhelming her!” Emira chided. “Look at her face.”

“Like you weren’t also-“

“Shush.” Emira gently nudged her brother aside, sitting down in front of Amity. “Mittens, baby, can you tell us what happened?”

“I’m not a baby,” Amity grumbled. Why wouldn’t they leave? She just wanted to be alone, for Titan’s sake.

Emira rolled her eyes, and Edric shoved her gently.

“Mittens, teenager who is very wise,” Edric said. “Can you tell us what happened?”

“Yeah, um…” Amity tried to think back through the night, searching for an understandable place to start. “Well… you see…” she swallowed. “I…”

And then, she broke down sobbing.

Edric reached out a hand toward her, waiting until she nodded to pull her into a tight hug. She buried her face in his shoulder.

“It’s okay,” he said.

“I know! That’s the problem! It’s not…” Amity hiccoughed, frantically rubbing at her face. “It was good. I’m just stupid. I don’t know why-“

She let out another sob. She was pretty sure she was getting snot all over Edric’s shirt. Good. That’s what he got for annoying her when she wanted to be left alone.

She made several attempts at speech that all came out garbled.

“Take your time,” Emira said.

“Luz-” Amity sniffled again. “Luz thinks I’m cool.”

Edric laughed at that. Amity tried to glare at him but still couldn’t stop crying.

“She’s so cute.” Amity sniffled, out of breath. “I’m gonna throw up.”

“That,” Edric cleared his throat, trying not to laugh again. “That sounds very difficult. How will you ever survive?”

“Shut up,” Amity grumbled, pushing him away from her. She stood up and flopped face-first onto her bed.

“We’re…” she had meant to get it over with, to say “we’re dating” and let the twins react over enthusiastically, but anxiety overtook her and her throat dried up.

"I'm sorry," Emira said, not sounding sorry, "but what does that have to do with being eaten by a worm demon?"

"Luz's dumb bird-worm thing kidnapped me," Amity said with a small laugh, grateful for the subject change. Then, she felt her face go bright red. She couldn't very well tell her siblings about the Tunnel of Love, or she'd be teased for the rest of her life.

"Okay..." Emira sat down next to her, and she fought not to hiss at the intrusion of her personal space. Emira must have sensed her discomfort, though, because she stood back up immediately. "And then?"

"Things... happened. And then Luz asked me hnnmnnmnm," she buried her face in her pillow.

"I didn’t quite get that." Emira said. Even without looking up, Amity could hear the smirk in her voice.

"Luz..." Amity took a deep breath. It was fine. She was okay. It wasn't going to become any less special if she said it out loud.

"Luz asked me to go out with her." It was silent for a second, and she savored the words.

"Woo!" Edric held out a hand to high-five her, and she tapped it lightly.

"Congrats!" Emira said. “No wonder you’re such a mess.”

“You did say yes, right?” Edric asked.

“I’m not stupid,” she said, throwing a pillow at him.

“Someone’s avoiding the question…”

“Yes!” she said. “I said yes, okay. Can I go to sleep now?”

“Hmmm,” Emira tapped her finger against her chin, and Amity groaned.

“Fine,” Emira said, “because we love you so much, and we’re so proud of you, we’ll let you sleep. Just this once.”

Emira grabbed her brother by the elbow and dragged him out of the room, shooting Amity one last smile before closing the door. Finally, she was blissfully alone.

Memories swirled through her brain again. Luz’s hand squeezing hers. Luz’s horrified expression when Amity had tried to fake a smile but couldn’t stop the tears from streaming down her face. Luz’s nervous laughter as she told Amity how much she liked her. Luz’s knee bumping against hers as they sat face to face, theoretically trying to decide what being girlfriends meant, but getting too distracted staring at each other to finish the conversation. Luz kissing her cheek and looking at her so sincerely as she told her “fly home safe.”

Amity’s heart thudded in her ribcage. She might combust if her siblings found out about how stupid in love she’d acted tonight, but she was going to explode anyway if she didn’t tell all the details to someone immediately.

Resigned, she sat up, and crept out of her room. Her siblings were still standing in the hallway, whispering excitedly. Edric noticed her first, tapping Emira’s hand to get her to look.

“Mittens?” she asked.

“I’m feeling every emotion,” she admitted, “and I can’t sleep, and I need you to come back actually,” she mumbled, not meeting their eyes.

“Sweet,” Edric said.

It wasn’t even a teasing remark, but Amity still blushed. She was screwed, she knew. Still, with their eyes on her, the hurricane of emotions that was tugging at her felt a little less heavy and a little more manageable. She was lucky to have them as her siblings, not that she’d ever tell them that.

“Aww, is she too in love to sleep?” Emira asked.

“Shut up,” Amity said, blushing even harder.

“Okay, okay, I’m shutting up. It’s your turn to talk,” Emira said. “Tell us everything.”

#lumity #the owl house #toh #toh spoilers #knock knock knocking on hooty's door #fic tag #my fic #amity blight #edric blight #emira blight #blight siblings

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lovehoperomance · 4 years ago

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A quote from one of my fave shows (well...Kinda. Can you call it a favourite if you quit twelve seasons in?) popped into my head the other day that was particularly pertinent to how I was feeling. I didn’t think much of it at the time but later I realised it had been many, many episodes since I heard the quote and my memory’s not good at the best of times. I realised I had remembered it for a reason, even if I didn’t consciously know why. The quote was this:

You do what you can, when you can, while you can. If you can’t, you can’t - Miranda Bailey (Chandra Wilson), Grey’s Anatomy.

It sounds simple enough but it’s something I and a lot of people struggle with when perfectionism and a lack of self belief takes over. When you feel like you are a bad person or are bad at things in general, any time you feel overwhelmed or under the weather can be proof of that. Feeling like you need a break or to slow down stops being a warning system and starts to become a trigger for negative thoughts.

We live in a society of “push through” and “get on with it” and “don’t complain because someone always has it worse than you.” And there’s a time for that. There’s a time to challenge yourself and test your limits and achieve things purely because you held on the longest through the most amount of pain. But there’s also a time to step back, to say no, to forgive yourself for being human.

You do what you can, when you can, while you can. And if you can’t, you can’t.

She was talking about someone who didn’t want to have a baby and the guilt she felt about aborting it. But to me, it applies to any situation in which you feel guilt or shame or self loathing because you didn’t meet some impossible standard you set for yourself.

Here’s some things that have happened to me lately that I know were signs I wasn’t coping, and needed a minute to recuperate, but that I took as signs of weakness:

I had dreams that the world was ending every night for a week.

I let my blood sugar drop so low at work, I could barely walk up the stairs to get a hypo treatment.

I spent an hour of my shift feeling like I might burst into tears at any moment.

When someone told me I was being difficult and paid more attention to my mistakes than how hard I had tried, I not only believed them, I did the same.

I slept for hours and hours and still felt like I was carrying the whole world on my shoulders as I got out of bed.

I thought that it mattered whether my problems were objectively bad, whether someone else might handle them better, whether I “should” be strong enough to deal with them. But by telling myself that, I was pummelling myself so hard into the ground, I’d never get up if I didn’t stop. I needed to take a moment. I needed to forgive myself for not being perfect in order to let the things go that I couldn’t change and try again with the ones I could. Because you can’t make changes when you’re holding a gun to your own head. And you can’t take a breather when you’re convinced all the strongest people are holding their breath too.

You do what you can, when you can, while you can. And if you can’t, you can’t.

People will push you. They will let you be a perfectionist because it benefits them or because they can’t tell the difference between a high achiever and a broken one. And when they point out things you did wrong, or make a big deal of them, you won’t be able to cope because you’ve already been pummelled by your own brain. You’ve fought the wars of 10,000 men in your own head and they don’t see it. They can’t.

So stand up for yourself. Be your own navigator, your own spokesperson. Trust your inner voice when it tells you something is too much because the more you stop and and recharge, the better you’ll feel when it’s time to try again. Don’t be perfect. Be a phoenix, rising from the ashes. But only when you’re god damn ready.

#mental health #perfectionism #forgive yourself #grey’s anatomy quotes

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hitsuhinalover · 5 years ago

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Hitsuhina day 2020

A/N: A word ‘challenge’ was mentioned so I had to write a fic where I used all of the prompts ‘:D Actually it wasn’t using all of the prompts that was difficult (just my perfectionism) but I don’t know how it seems to a reader. I especially want to note that I didn’t write both angels and shrines in the same story out of disrespect to any existing religion. Also, the ending was supposed to be happier (I got bad news and then didn’t feel like writing something very happy), sorry about it. I hope you’re all well and able to be where you want to be.

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“Matsumoto will be up and about in no time and then you’ll be transferred back to the healing wards,” Hitsugaya announced, marching along empty streets without even looking if his partner was following him or not – which, judging by the echo of rapid steps and slightly labored breathing behind him, she was doing. Streets lights were far and few between, coloring his hair and wings with warm yellow hue only for moments before he dived back into darkness, yet she knew where he was going. Whether he wanted or not, they had a bond – a bond that made them too good a battle pair for higher-ups to pass the opportunity to put them on patrol together. And maybe there was also a fact that he wouldn’t leave her alone, not in proximity of a possible enemy, no matter how pissed off he was.

“Hey, don’t make it sound like I should be on a hospital bed right now,” Hinamori huffed. “First of all, I didn’t get so hurt as badly as you two because I arrived later. Second, I’m a field healer, which means I work more outside of the healing wards than there, as you already know.”

As Hinamori said that, she had almost reached him, for which she had to stumble a step backward when he suddenly twirled around, a frown furrowing his eyebrows. Automatically, Hinamori’s wings fluttered to balance her, the fact that certainly didn’t pass by Hitsugaya’s sharp gaze, like neither did a deep blush that her cheeks acquired.

Why was it nowadays so difficult to be around him? It wasn’t his fault, she knew it, for he continued being the same person as always, worried about her well-being. If there was someone at fault, it was her. His proximity had begun to produce physical reactions in her she didn’t know how to interpret, how to deal with. Was it fine her cheeks flushed red when he looked at her, or was there a medical condition involved that had nothing do with him? Why would she stumble when he walked too close if there was nothing else than plain ground? Deep down, she feared she knew why. But if a realization were a person, she was continuously turning around when they came from the opposite direction, taking stairs instead of lift, blocking their number.

Because their bond was worth fostering, and not only because they fought well together. Despite difficult moments, for most of time their friendship was so easy. A wave of warmth washed over her when her mind transported her back to a moment a week ago, to the night neither of them had had to patrol, their laugh still ringing in her ears. In her company his usual frown disappeared (or at least very often), substituted by a slight smile, a teasing smirk or a small chuckle.

They had walked through the part of the town that was almost void of demonic and thus angelic activity too, hardly passing by any patrols, talking or just enjoying a silence they wasn’t used to associating with nights, stars usually witnessing a clash of blades instead of their casual hanging out. In outskirts of the town, moments before they had been about to turn and return, they had stumbled upon a shrine. In contrast to other shrines that worked as outposts to angels and helped to keep demons at bay, the shrine’s once bright colors had been dimmed, the same way its magical protection. When demonic activity had reduced in that part of the town and soared in others, there hadn’t been time or resources to take care of that particular shrine. Once it had served well, then discharged and forgotten.

Up until the moment Hinamori and Hitsugaya had found it.

Since it was a beginning of the spring, they hadn’t had fresh lavender, the flower that worked against devil, to recreate the protection the shrine had had, but they had planted seeds in the soil around the shrine and decorated it with dry lavender as a temporary protection until the plants would have grown. If Matsumoto had been there, she would have scolded them for using their night off for doing something that they could do in working hours without no one being able to say anything, instead of – well, it was better ignore Matsumoto’s suggestions what to do in their free time, she sometimes had funny ideas about Hitsugaya and Hinamori’s friendship.

Yet in their opinion – Hinamori voicing her thought aloud and a corner of Hitsugaya’s lip rising in agreement –, it had been the best use of their time because the company had changed everything. Though Hinamori had somehow managed to bang her head, scratching the same area on her forehead that a demon would injury the following day, they had had fun.

His fingers brushing the injury, almost faded into a sole memory, brought her out of her thoughts, sadness in his gaze trapping her and crushing her heart. Then he dropped his hand and turned to look at the same shrine they had visited a week ago, when it still had been in an area ignored both by angels and demons, before they had noticed a great amount of demonic activity there and sent Hitsuagya’s patrol into trap. Some parts of the shrine were burnt, tips of lavenders black, still reflecting the aftermath of the battle.

It could have been worse. Still, Hinamori didn’t like the tightness in Hitsugaya’s shoulders, the way he suddenly seemed to dodge her gaze.

When Hitsugaya finally talked, she almost felt a need to pinch herself to make sure she was dreaming – or having a nightmare, to be precise. “Do you ever feel that everything you do is in vain?”

No, Hinamori wouldn’t have given Hitsugaya the prize of the most optimist person, but asking questions like that, sounding like he was giving up, it wasn’t something he used to do. No matter how many times he fell, the Hitsugaya she knew stood up time after time. But everyone had moments of weakness sometimes, like when Hinamori had run to help wounded Hitsugaya ignoring a high presence of demonic activity near, in contrast to all the training she had had.

“Hitsugaya,” Hinamori said carefully, her eyes fixed on him to observe the tiniest change in his posture, “it wasn’t your fault.”

If possible, his posture tightened even more. “No? I couldn’t protect you.” His voice was composed by shards that tore Hinamori’s heart, shards of self-loathing, anger, sadness. She took a step forward, reaching out with her hand, almost dropping it but finally taking hold of his sleeve and leaning her head against his shoulder, feelings his tense muscles. “You’ve protected me many times in past,” she comforted him, “and I can protect myself, too. But sometimes we commit errors and luck isn’t on our side,” her lips tried to form a smile even though his desperate gaze were still on the half-destroyed shrine.

“I know,” Hitsugaya whispered. “Matsumoto and I would have died if you hadn’t come, but...I just...when I saw you...”

“I know,” said Hinamori this time, a tremble cursing through her body as an imagine of Hitsugaya on the ground flashed in her mind, his blood bright red on his wings and hair, his grip of his sword’s halt loosened. The anger and fear – love – that moved her before her mind had time to evaluate the situation. The understanding of their feelings for each other as she listened to his words and wrapped her arms around his waist, supporting him the way he always supported her. “I know.”

#momo hinamori #toshiro hitsugaya #hitsuhina day 2020 #hitsuhina fic #hitsuhina #bleach

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pleasantly-weird-devil · 4 years ago

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OKAY SO you know that line that Horde Prime has where he looks at Mara and goes something like: "I must have fought her. But I don't remember her. All their faces always disappear"

Or something like that, I don't remember exactly.

AND THEN he goes "goodbye, my oldest enemy."

And that line is SO POWERFUL and yet it falls kind of flat with me.

And I just figured it out.

They don't really flesh out that history. They don't show us anything from Prime and Mara fighting, or even meeting.

They could have shown us some memories from that former body he went to, so we KNEW what history him and She-ra have.

If they did that, we could've seen him take notes of possible weaknesses and his old hatred of her. But even better:

Imagine we saw a memory where Mara as She-ra fights Prime and manages to get the planet to disappear into Despandos before Prime could get to Etheria. Imagine we saw his anger, his frustration. And then imagine him deleting the memory.

We KNOW he remembered her, but actively chose to forget, so she couldn't be a threat anymore.

We see his perfectionism and need for control. Him confronting Adora in her vision, him telling her she won't matter, it would all be a last attempt to convince himself he's still in control.

I don't know, I just think his and Adora's/She-ra's relationship could've been fleshed out a little more. I understand they had a limited amount of time and I still LOVE the fifth season. But I just thought of this and had to share. It got a lot longer than it was supposed to, oops

#spop #shera #she ra #s5 #catra #shera s5 #spop s5 #horde prime #adora #mara

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artificialqueens · 5 years ago

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star. (Branjie) -- meggie

A/N: Thank you @formercongressman and @theartificialdane for reminding me of FACTS. Thank you to @katiehoughton and multifandomgeek for betaing. Fic takes a village, and it do be a fact that I have the greatest one. Please let me know your thoughts here or over on my blog @artificialmeggie.

TWs for tattoos, perfectionism, and discussion of Brooke’s disgusting feet.

Summary: Vanjie’s always been better at words than Brooke. It’s natural, a part of him just as much as his brown eyes or tan skin. Take the way he throws shade and rattles off quips and nicknames. Brooke’s already lost count of how many have been bestowed upon him. “Twinkletoes” is the latest. OR how Brooke got that blue star tattoo

Word Count: 1,471

They meet in Chicago at the beginning of August, two weeks after Drag Race is over and a week after they saw each other last.

They spent the entire first week after filming wrapped in an L.A. hotel room, finally finally together the way they’d been denied during filming—kissing and fucking and talking and ordering up room service and even, every night, going on actual real-life dates to restaurants and ice cream parlors and cupcake shops.

Vanessa says it first on the first night they’re in Chicago, and that’s where it all starts. Brooke’s just fucked him into the mattress after they meet at the airport and spend their Uber ride groping each other (they left their driver five stars and a sizeable tip, so it’s fine; they don’t feel too bad about it). Vanessa’s skin is slick with perspiration, and they’re both still panting as they lie next to each other, wry smiles playing on their lips as they stare into each other’s eyes. Brooke doesn’t think he’ll ever get tired of this, doesn’t know how he could ever get tired of someone looking at him the way Vanessa does.

Then Vanjie’s grin bursts into a full-blown smile and color blooms pink on his cheeks and he looks at Brooke like he has a secret.

“What?” Brooke says.

But Vanjie ducks his head, still grinning. “Nothin’. It’s nothin’. Just kiss me, Twinkletoes.”

He does, but he isn’t dropping it. “I don’t believe that for a second. What is it?” Brooke’s smiling now too because Vanessa’s joy is contagious; his light spreads into Brooke’s very core, warms him up from the inside out.

“I just…” He rubs his face, leaves a speck of gold glitter by his eye. Brooke finds glitter everywhere now—in his suitcase, in his shoes, pressed into the lines of his palm—he thinks it must come from Vanessa’s fingertips. He loves it. “This sounds fucking crazy, okay, I fully get that, but…”

A sigh.

“I think I’m in love with you.”

Brooke huffs out a breath. His feelings for Vanjie are real, he knows that. And he’s read enough to know that science says you’ll know whether or not it’s love by the time you’ve been with someone for six weeks. They passed that mark during filming. So he has a decision to make… and, honestly, Brooke’s never been great at making decisions. He’s an over-thinker, an over-planner. It’s a… whole thing.

“See‍?” Vanessa laughs a little, but it’s humorless. It falls flat in the muted browns and oranges of the hotel room walls as he shifts his weight in bed, rolls away from Brooke to get up. “Told you it was crazy.”

“No,” Brooke says suddenly, reaching out for Vanjie’s hand, wrist, neck… anything he can anchor to, hold tight to in an effort to keep him at his side. “It’s not crazy. I… just…”

Vanessa shakes his head. “You don’t have to say it.”

Brooke shrugs. “You know how I feel, though, baby‍. Don’t you?”

Vanjie’s always been better at words than Brooke. It’s natural, a part of him just as much as his brown eyes or tan skin. Take the way he throws shade and rattles off quips and nicknames. Brooke’s already lost count of how many have been bestowed upon him. “Twinkletoes” is the latest (and probably Brooke’s favorite, if he’s being honest). It’s half-joke, half-read.

Brooke has awful feet—it’s a dance thing. He’s lost his big toenails more times than he can count. He’s broken toes. He’s fought blisters and calluses and tried every tape and padding in the book, and they help, but nothing totally alleviates the pain, the stress. His toes are ugly, the bones warped and twisted from years of supporting his weight. He’ll never be a foot model (he’s made his peace with it), but he is a successful professional drag queen who still gets to dance for a living at 32. It’s a fair trade.

So maybe he has disgusting feet, and maybe Vanjie likes to tease him about it, but he knows it’s light-hearted. His nickname makes him blush a little. Makes him feel like this thing of which he’s always been so ashamed (because no matter how hard he tries he’ll never be perfect) doesn’t bother Vanessa so much that he can’t still love him.

Vanessa loves him.

Brooke becomes fully aware he’s been silent for far too long to maintain their delicate comfort with those three words suspended in the air. He clears his throat.

“You know? Right?”

Vanjie nods and smiles, but it doesn’t quite reach his eyes. “Sure thing.”

So Brooke kisses him deep, winds his hand between his legs, strokes him until he’s hard. Then presses wet kisses down his torso, flicks each nipple and circles his navel with his tongue before sucking him fully into his mouth.

So what if Brooke can’t say it? With Vanessa’s fingers twisting in his hair and his breath whistling through his teeth as he gasps, Brooke can feel it. That’s all that matters. Right? It’s about actions. It’s about intent.

Vanessa doesn’t need to hear it. Brooke goes out of his way to show his love every day.

That’s gotta be enough.

* * *

The next day feels… Weird. Vanjie is subdued, quiet, even, despite Brooke’s efforts to turn them back into what they’ve been.

They hang out with Steve. They shop. They visit the Bean and Lake Michigan, take cheesy tourist photos, introduce Vanjie to deep-dish pizza; but in the back of Brooke’s mind, he can’t shake the feeling that something shifted between them last night in a way for which he’s solely responsible.

So they bid Steve farewell after dinner and walk back to the hotel hand-in-hand down the street lamp lined sidewalk in the humid night air.

Brooke clears his throat. “So about last night…”

“Yeah…” Vanessa barks out a laugh, waves it off. “You know, don’t worry ‘bout it, baby. I shouldn’t’ve said nothing.”

They take a few steps in silence, then Brooke draws in a deep breath. “It’s not that. You know I can’t do words like you.”

“Bitch, I know. I’m the most eloguent bitch around.” Vanessa deflects when he’s uncomfortable or embarrassed. Brooke can relate. But just like so many other things, Vanessa uses words while Brooke relies on other means. Words just don’t come easily for him.

They stop, and Brooke reaches for Vanjie’s other hand. Takes it tightly in his own, pulls it to his chest. “You do know how I feel about you, right? Even if I can’t say it yet. You know… Right?”

Vanessa smiles at him, brighter than last night, but still sadder than Brooke wants to see, and tiptoes up to kiss him. “Of course, Toes. I know.”

They resume their walk, and a brightly lit neon sign a few doors down catches Brooke’s eye.

It’s about action. It’s about intent. And maybe he can’t do words, has never been able to do words. But he always finds something else.

* * *

“Bitch, you are crazy,” Vanjie says later that night when Brooke unwraps the bandage from his foot. “I still can’t believe you did that shit.”

Brooke shrugs, eyeing his newest tattoo—the blue outline of a star on the big toe of his right foot. Twinkle. He’d let Vanessa choose the color; imagine his surprise when it hadn’t come out red or orange.

“Guess I thought it might make my feet prettier.”

“Only thing making those feet prettier is amputation,” Vanessa quips effortlessly. Words come so easily to him. Brooke wishes he had an ounce of that. “But I guess it doesn’t hurt.”

“Do you like it?” Brooke asks quietly after a moment, waiting for Vanessa’s answer with bated breath.

Vanjie scoffs. “You’re the one that has to live with it for the rest of your damn life.”

“It’s for you. It’s… You know.” Brooke sighs. “Just because I can’t say it yet doesn’t mean it’s not true.”

Vanjie braces himself against the headboard and leans in, kisses Brooke deeply, moans into his mouth at Brooke’s favorite decibel. When he pulls away (far too soon for Brooke’s taste), he rests their foreheads together.

“You know…” he says quietly. “Words are a lot less permanent.”

Brooke chuckles. “True. But they hurt a lot more.”

Vanjie climbs into Brooke’s lap, drapes his arms around his neck, places careful kisses around his jaw.

“Maybe you’re right, Toes.”

Brooke thinks a small amount of ink on his foot to remind him of the first man he’s ever really loved is a small price to pay if it makes him remember feeling this way every time he sees it.

Vanessa etched into his skin.

Vanessa etched into his soul.

#rpdr fanfiction #brooke lynn hytes #vanessa vanjie mateo #branjie #fluff #smut #meggie #tw tattoos #tw perfectionism #concrit welcome #submission #canon compliant

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intruderzim · 6 years ago

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Zim Has OCD: The Movie

i’ve wanted to write abt this for the longest time, so here i am Doin It!! (apologies for how messy its written, my thoughts are all over the place & im not the best at articulating them)

one of the reasons zim is such an important character to me is because of the mental illness symptoms he exhibits explicitly in the show. as someone who has fought a long battle with ocd my whole life, i know a lot about how this illness works & see a lot of it in zim. whether or not the crew intentionally created this character with mental illnesses in mind, this is what i see, based on my observances & a lot of speculation.

(buzzfeed unsolved voice) so with that, lets get into the theories

cleaning obsession:

the first piece of evidence as to why i believe zim suffers from ocd is obvious: his cleaning obsession. in canon, he needs everything to be clean ALL THE TIME. if a single thing is out of order, or not perfect & clean, it freaks him out. this is such a central part of his character that there was a whole EPISODE dedicated to it! in addition to this, i also believe he absolutely cannot concentrate if things are dirty in the /slightest/. he probably needs everything to be Clean Always, & when gir comes in covered in dirt & shit its just. devastating. his base is the only safe space where /he/ has control over everything that comes in and out, & a place that he knows for SURE is clean. he can control everything in it, therefore its safe!! which is also why going to school must be so stressful, as its FILTHY & when things are dirty they are Not Right. its hard to explain but when you have ocd, the distress you have over small things is magnified to the EXTREME. & zim definitely has the kind of reaction someone with ocd would have to those triggers. one of zim’s biggest triggers is the need for things to be clean, & its why he spends so much time making sure his one safe haven is free of germs.

zim has a definite phobia of germs as well, which doesn’t necessarily HAVE to go with the cleaning obsession, but the cleaning is a compulsion to cancel it out.

if zim gets preoccupied about something being dirty, he absolutely cannot relax until it is fixed. he couldn’t do anything until the entire base was deep cleaned, destroying every germ & mopping virtually every inch of the place! its very ocd thinking: all or nothing. it can’t be a “little” dirty, its always THIS IS HORRIBLE & TERRIBLE & FILTHY if there’s even a little dust. something i used to struggle with a lot was that i couldn’t use my electronics as i was scared i’d make them too dirty; even if my hands were clean. i couldn’t touch my computer or my phone because the very thought of leaving fingerprints on it or somehow else making it dirty was too terrifying to face. maybe zim would have a similar experience, not wanting to do certain things in his lab in the case he would “ruin” his equipment, if that makes sense?

zim also wouldn’t wanna touch things that are even remotely dirty that another person has used, this is dumb but like using someone elses headphones (which is complicated cuz ANTENNA) or wearing someone elses clothes, its just. Beyond disgusting to him

perfectionism:

zim is the kind of person who needs things to be “perfect” & if they’re not perfect, then it might as well be worthless. im positive zim needs everything in his lab to be absolutely how it “should be” & if there’s one thing out of line, it’ll mess up his whole thought process. & if it does, he’ll spend hours ruminating abt it.

zim obsesses for sure, over dib, & over his mission. he really REALLY wants to do a good job, & the way his mind thinks to accomplish this, in addition to other things is to obsess. zim is a huge perfectionist & he wants to be sure he is doing well, & to be perfect in the eyes of his empire. a lot of this ties in to his self worth issues, but some of it could have ocd to blame. he wants his inventions to be perfect, his projects to be perfect, his plans, etc. there can be no room for error. if something doesn’t go exactly as planned, its automatically the Worst & even if there is a small flaw, something no one else would notice, zim will, & it will bother him immensely. he wants to live up to his full potential & erase any indication of his “defectiveness” so if something is a little wrong, then its a big deal to him.

a lot of this next part is my own speculation but i like to think zim engages in compulsions as well?& it would only make sense to me as someone who’s lived it that zim’s ocd would branch out to other aspects of his life as well,since thats just the nature of the illness. zim could have “safe numbers” & do things a certain amount of times in order to be safe & “right”. having a safe number would also mean having a bad number that he’d avoid at all costs, so just like little things, maybe the amt of times he taps his foot, or blinks, or thinks abt something, itll always have to be the safe number & never the Bad Number.

im sure he’d get ocd intrusive thoughts as well, like hurting the people he cares about, things along those lines. thoughts that are inherently ocd intrusive. except sometimes he actually ACTS on these, he’ll get the thought “hmmm i could literally destroy half my home planet” & then actually GETS INTO A MEGADOOMER & DOES IT???

i definetly don’t think jhonen meant to do it, but he’s written a character who exhibits So many symptoms of ocd, & while zim isn’t rly supposed to be that much of a sympathetic character (ur supposed to look at him & think, oh ur Rly Stupid & u do a lot of dumb things) but what i see is a v severely damaged person who is behaving the only ways they know how. & i wish the show could go into deeper introspection abt it, but i know it wouldn’t because thats not the style of the show.

anyways. thats my two cents, you can take it or leave it. a lot of it, probably most of it is my personal hc but it means a lot to me if you’ve read this far & perhaps see what i see!

#invader zim #long post #ocd zim

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the-nysh · 7 years ago

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Hey, since you talked about your feelings on td//dk and kr//bk (which were super interesting to read btw!) do you have anything to say about opinions on k//cchako?

Hey there! :) And thank you! So let’s see…Uraraka andKacchan. I see fan content of them on my dash fromtime to time, but it rarely garners any deeper thought, so I often just scrollpast with little to no reaction. Simply put: I don’t harbor enough investmentor interest in them as a ship. Even so! Yes, I still have opinions about them, so I’ll try to go in depth here.

From their limited amount of canon interactions together, therewere actually two noteworthy scenes of them that I really liked. 1.) During theirmatch in the Sports Festival, and 2.) the databook omake situated after Deku andKacchan’s fight vs All Might. (However, in both cases, their interactionsrevolved around Deku, so…)

I liked their match in the Sports Festival because it wasone of the first times we get to see another side of Kacchan – an important one thatreveals some of his honor code. Fighting seriously against a girl, thateveryone else in the audience assumed was ‘weak and frail’ based onappearances, and therefore automatically judged their match barbaric andunfair…well. Aizawa (Dadzawa), and Uraraka herself, proved them wrong. Urarakaproved her grit and Kacchan treated her as a legitimate threat regardless ofgender stereotypes. (Actually, he approached their match seriously and cautiouslybecause he thought she had a planfrom Deku.) Further acknowledging herstrength with the ‘what part of her was frail?’ comment too.

It’s herewhere I thought, ‘nice, this is a guythat can be trusted, because he earnestly puts his all into the things he’sserious about and expects the same -the best-from his opponents in return.’ (If they don’t,he interprets that as them underestimating or looking down on him.) Without anyother ulterior factors swaying him, there’s a steadfast consistency and honorto that kind of focused mindset, both in how he handles himself and impartially approaches thethings that matter to him, which makes him predictably trustworthy in the long run. (Also meaning, if there’s ever anyfault/betrayal in that mindset, it’s a break in character…which ayyy, Deku willtake notice! ;D)

However, I took the Sports battle and these establishing traits(Uraraka’s grit and Kacchan’s honor) as separate strengths respective to each character, rather than anything shippy.Because Uraraka ultimately fought for herself (and her parents) while Kacchanproved he’d take any girl (anyone)seriously if they show proper worth and challenge respect. So it wasn’thim showing special treatment for Uraraka in particular, but an example of hishonest and impartial competitive sportsmanship.

Now we have Uraraka thankful that Kacchan took herseriously, and therefore she’s unafraid to confront/approach him on her ownterms -as equals- later. Which is good! :D And it’s why I like the omakecontent of them so much, where she questions him about his behavior in the endof term test:

Uraraka: “It’s like you’re intimidating (Deku) because you’re scared and wanthim to go away from you.”

It’s greatbecause her intuition can clearly read through him: Kacchan purposely singles out and keepsDeku at bay because he fears how Deku makes him feel. Like, boom! She totallycalls him out. ;D BUT…I didn’t read this interaction of theirs as shippy either,because it revolved around Deku AND showed how much Uraraka is in support of their reconciled friendship. She WANTSthem to get along! (If anything, it makes hermore like their wingman… So ayy, bothshe and Kiri would be supportive of their repaired relationship!)

So, from these two canon interactions (only one was a significant event in the manga by the way…), I see the potential basis for a refreshing m/f friendship, where shecan mentally joust and bicker with him without any major consequence. However,as a romantic ship, no; it’s not enough to convince me.

Aside from how limited their canon interactions are, and howin both cases they revolvedaround Deku…the two of them have other canon characteristics to consider. Notonce has Kacchan ever shown interestin any girls in ��that’ way (or really, invested interest in anyone other than Deku)…and Uraraka hasher utterly transparent feelings for Deku to resolve. Already, that starts themin separate, opposed lanes with respect to their connection to Deku. So whenconsidering them as a ship instead, Ihave to repeatedly ask myself howthey’d ever manage to merge onto the same lane, and what that would even entail,narratively.

Because what wouldit mean? Would Uraraka’s feelings for Deku simmer down to sisterly affectionsof support and admiration, leaving her to choose the immediate second option:Deku’s riv–…wait a sec, what aboutKacchan’s feelings for Deku? (This is writing off that same elephant in the room issue I talkedabout in my previous post…) Are theyboth actually rivals for Deku’s affections?! XD Would Uraraka choose to bewith Kacchan, for the sake of helpinghim ‘get over’ his feelings for Deku too?? WAIT hold on. This is the SAME thingI talked about with kr/bk: it is notUraraka (or Kiri’s) business, or even their responsibility, to forcibly butt-in with the hopes of ‘changing’ or ‘fixing’ Kacchan’s problems/bad behavior FOR him.Except in Uraraka’s case, there’s theadded, antiquated gendered trope of the ‘good girl’ saving the ‘bad boy’ at theexpense of her own wellbeing. Sacrificing her own happiness to care for him fulltime. Which…oh no. Urarakadoesn’t deserve such a harsh fate like that. And Kacchan is not there to become a ‘pet project’ to coddle and change at theexpense of his feelings either. Theseare all some of the main arguments against the ship that I’ve seen, and I agreethat I’m definitely not interested in seeing a one-sided/harmful relationshipdynamic perpetuate like that…but I still have one final, personal dealbreaker.

Which is how Kacchan (my fav) ultimately becomescharacterized. And it relates to his ‘honor code’ established IN his fightagainst Uraraka too. Consider how Hori likely designed Deku and Uraraka to bethe ‘obvious’ endgame het pairing…with them having ongoing, mutual crushes oneach other (truthfully, I really only see fledgling, one-sided flustered admiration/envyfrom Uraraka’s side…) Now then, HOW does this make Kacchan look in turn, forhim to step in between them like this? If he knows they’re friends who like each other, would he really purposely step in to sabotageDeku’s chances with the object of his affections (Uraraka)? No way, not even outof potential spite against Deku or something. It would betray the very consistent and steadfast ‘trust’ about hischaracter that I talked about before.

Because Kacchan’s a gruff asshole ingeneral, but THIS (essentially ‘stealing’ Deku’s crush) would be an underhanded dick move of a whole new lowfor him. Completely at odds with his established character development. He outrighttells villains how he despisesunderhanded tactics like cheating and lying! Doing something like this would contradictand destroy his own ideals. Even if he somehow had a crush on Uraraka (which would already be a stretch andsuspension of disbelief, since he��s never shown any interest in girls likethat anyway) he’d do everything in his power to stay in his own lane and continueaiming for his goal as the top hero. Kacchan lives by his own strict standards andperfectionism in his drive to become the best.He’s an asshole, but not that other kindof asshole. Whenever I see shippy fan content of kac/chako being together atthe expense of Deku, this is the kindof asshole it makes Kacchan appear to me, which is a mischaracterization Ican’t tolerate. It’s a reason I haven’t seen other people talk about, but it’s alwaysbeen in the back of my mind, and probably the main reason why the idea of theirship rubs me the wrong way.

Whew, but thankfully, I don’t see any signs from Hori that they’llbecome endgame. (And it’s why most fan content of them slides past like water off a duck for me.) Truthfully and honestly,I really want Hori to step up Uraraka’s game, to make her a fully fleshed out characterand therefore, a viable contender in either of the boys’ hearts. Because atthe rate she’s going…she’s falling behind to the wayside compared to how Hori’sdeveloping Deku and Kacchan’srelationship. And she’ll have a tough time displacing the lifelong feelingsDeku has had for Kacchan, unless she does something drastic. (Ayyyy so where’sthat one traitor theory~)

Honestly, using Uraraka (or any girl actually) as shipfodder for the boys, just because of her gender, is something I’m not a fan of.I would rather be a fan of Uraraka based on the merits of her own character,and not from her designation as a satellite love interest to anyone. But IF Urarakahad to end up with anyone endgame, I would muchprefer her with either Iida or Tsuyu. Both of them are loyal and good friendswho would treat her with respect and provide needs in the way she deserves.

Alright! I think that covers everything. This actually got alot longer than anticipated. XD Thanks for reading!

#Anonymous #replies #bnha #kacchan #uraraka #shipping #meta #this one comes to about 1500 words #honestly longer than i expected :O #but i think that covers everything i like; prefer; and observe about the characters

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enniewritesathing · 7 years ago

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Hi, has John ever taken training too far? A bit like Brian has been over doing studying. (If so how did Brian react/reason with him?)

Oh, absolutely.

(under cut bc it’s a pretty long read)

a little context: John’s training has always been intense, but it was the right amount of intense and scaled properly to his skill level. He’s been competing since he was 7, turned serious around 10 years old. And because of this, he’s had this mindset of that if he’s not about to pass out during training or anything like that, he didn’t train hard enough.

John feels like this when he loses a match by TKO or KO, and even have draws. There’s always something that can be improved, that he can do more because if he doesn’t, then his opponent has a chance to win.

And so, John trains and trains and trains. He has to be perfect. Three rounds, five rounds, doesn’t matter. It brings out the killer instinct in him. Don’t let it be for a tournament or for a World Cup. He pushes himself, and then pushes more. Sometimes to the point of complete failure. This includes training while still recovering from an injury. If it’s something he can tape up, John will wrap/tape it up and keep going, because he may have to fight through pain through a match.

(There’s an infamous match that John fought and won, but at a cost, but I’ll put it in a seperate post. Let’s just say he had no right in winning it.)

Not to say that there’s mental effects of taking it too far. John has giant mood swings. He gets irritable and very snippy. He’s mean and far more stubborn than he normally is. Anxiety and fear creeps in. He starts to get horrible nightmares about fights, half imagined, half of which he has fought and lost. Sometimes, he even wakes up screaming. A more subtle thing he does is isolate himself.

Brian’s reaction to John’s overtraining, he doesn’t mince his words at all; he’s blunt about what kind of damage John’s doing to himself with no proper rest or resuming training too soon after a fight. In fact, he has made it law for John to rest a minimum of 72 hours – doing absolutely nothing and I mean nothing except bedrest and meditation. It’s enough time for him to get out of fight mode, calm down, and return to ‘normal’.

Brian reasons with John through escalation, meaning that bad shit/consequences will happen to him if he doesn’t stop the path he’s going on. The risk of injury during training too hard with little/no rest and even as far as spraining, breaking, or even dislocating a limb or joint, or pulling a muscle, etc etc. His body will break down much faster to the point of that he won’t ever be 100% and will stand to be at a greater risk for an injury-ending career or something that will take a long time to recover from.

And because John is stubborn during this phase, his answer is basically “I can handle it. If I can’t, I will make myself handle it.”

Brian lets John know that his behavior during this time/occurance is unacceptable and upsetting and worst of all, selfish because of how he isolates himself. It’s always been a sort of contention between them, that John has a “I have to” mindset.

It’s not until an incident that Brian found John unconscious – but not the way you’d expect. John’s at the heavy bag, standing up, but as Brian approaches, there’s something very wrong. His hands are gripping the bag to the point of white knuckles (and John never practices without his handwrap). He’s drenched in sweat, his hair free and sticking to his face. He’s breathing hard – and it’s the type that’s oddly mechanical, like he’s concentrating. His amber eyes wide and blank, staring at nothing. There’s no response as Brian calls out to him, not even as he touches his shoulder.

John turns his head to look at him, slowly. His eyes... he’s not there at all. It’s the same look he has when he sleeps with his eyes open. He’s gone somewhere.

Not a moment after John collapses.

When he comes to, he’s in the ER. He’s dazed and confused as he looks at his surroundings, mainly wondering why he was hooked up to monitors, numbers he can sort of parce out. When he sees Brian – he’s relieved but he’s also angry at him (and it’s rare that he sees him outright angry so it’s like ‘ah congrats, John you fucked up big time’).

The doctor tells him that John has basically trained himself into extreme exhaustion and that he almost fried his body doing it, so his brain literally flipped the switch off on him. John only remembers the lead up to it, that he was doing clinches and just stopped.

After John was released, they returned home. Brian didn’t speak to him for a day. When he did, he spoke in a very quiet voice, and it amounted him telling that what happened scared the absolute shit out of him.

“John, I don’t want you to die over this. Why do you push yourself like this?”

John doesn’t respond, but he does take those words in. There’s plenty reasons why he does: to be the strongest there is, to be the absolute best, to bring glory to him and his family name – as those before him, the promise he made to Jacob before he died – to continue fighting as long as he can… it’s complicated to say the least and very ingrained to him, the “I have to” part. He’s done it since for 15 years (and counting). It’s literally a part of him. It’s a loaded question too.

He answers, in earnest, “Because I imagine my opponent trying to take everything I love away from me. I promised myself… I have to be stronger and faster than them. Or else, I lose everything. I lose you.” And he says this every time he’s asked. Brian knows that John’s lost a lot growing up, and protects things and ideas near and dear to him. He understands the perfectionism, the anxieties, the fears. Do what it takes to be the best.

Brian nods in affirmation. “Okay,” he says. To tell him to be careful seems empty at this point because John is stubborn. He’ll back off but it’s the matter of when that he’ll return to back where he was before like it didn’t happen.

John knows that he’s hurt Brian with this incident. And that’s a promise he made to him when they got together. And he never breaks promises, or does so unintentionally (such as this). He realises that Brian keeps him in check so that incidents like these don’t happen, just like he has to pull him away from studying too long. Brian was protecting him; he didn’t trust and listen and there was a serious consequence to that.

So – John rearranges his training. They’re still intense instead of back-to-back-to-back, they’re every other day, so the next is light/recovery day, and even adds a complete rest day that’s spent meditating. It forces him to slow down and take a look at things and put them into perspective. He doesn’t tell Brian this but instead shows him, and through that, puts Brian at ease that he won’t do something so stupid and dangerous again.

He catches himself going back to old habits from time to time, but he’s changed his training for the better.

#ennie answers #feelslikedokidoki #the tl;dr version - yes and it's way severe because John pushed himself way too hard #to say that brian was angry at him is really an understatement -- he was furious but he only let John know by vibe #and John knows vibes #but he has absolutely pushed himself to the brink and then some #it's scary what John is capable of doing #oc: john #oc: brian #oc pair: healing hands #a text post #non sims #long post #sorry this took so long to do lol

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yeaahishowedupatyourparty · 4 years ago

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Chapter Five: Blythe Radicliffe

“This is absolute mania,” Anthea muttered from behind her over-sized sunglasses. Why she was wearing them inside the car was a mystery to Blythe. Their family Range Rover had blacked out passenger windows and given that she was adamant to sit with Blythe, rather than up front with her husband, they really were unnecessary. In Blythe’s opinion, they should have had their chauffer meet them at their garage on the Amethyst Mainland to drive them but Anthea had claimed, “It would look too out of touch. The nation needs to see their Founding Families as one of them, not above them.” She couldn’t argue with that, even if it meant she was fuelling a false reality. However, now they were stuck in a backlog of traffic that lumbered along Ellison Street and all the way up to the Capital Roundabout where detectives, officers and journalists still swamped the Amethyst Theatre. Overnight, the iconic building had become a crime scene with its marble pillars wrapped in harsh yellow caution tape. Blythe swept her low ponytail over her shoulder and leant back against her seat, cautious of dishevelling her carefully constructed appearance. She’d opted for the ‘humble, devastated lover’ look with fitted jeans and a tucked-in, white raglan sleeved blouse. Make-up was no, but she felt a pair of pearl earrings were acceptable. It was all about balancing subtlety with superiority. She watched as the world rolled by at six miles per hour; it’d been turned upside-down in less than a day, yet it was still somewhat recognisable. Young city workers clutched their morning coffees, strutting up from the docks and tram stations with a new found importance. Mother’s with strollers of obnoxious proportions sat at coffee shops, relishing in the post-school run calmness. The King was bullet-riddled and dancing with death in a hospital ward, but life went on apparently. “I just cannot believe that somebody would do such a thing.” Blythe tried not to look too annoyed at her mother’s feeble voice. “The son of Duke Benard and Duchess Greta, of the U.S and Canadian Settlement, was one of the additional twenty-four injured last night. He passed away this morning.” “Awful,” Henry muttered. Tufts of ginger hair were just about visible above his headrest. Blythe had almost forgotten that other people were injured during the incident. Between the panic surrounding King Gabriel’s condition and the events that unfolded in Adrienne Kioni’s bedroom the night before, anybody else had become an after-thought. They were additional, just as her mother had said. The weight of Anthea’s firm hand on her forearm pulled Blythe from her stare, “Remember Blythe, if you are asked about your relationship with King Gabriel today, you have to answer those questions. I don’t care how long it takes.” Blythe kept her eyes fixed on her mother’s hand, watching the protruding vein run under the surface of her skin and disappear under her vintage engagement ring. “This is a better opportunity than any to give our nation something positive to rejoice over; a blossoming royal couple...” We’re not a couple, but Blythe knew better than to make the mistake of saying those words aloud again. Instead, she turned to her father with the hope that he’d interject and tell Anthea she was being insane. How could she be pitying parents who had lost children so tragically in one sentence, and then pawning off her own daughter for publicity in the next? But Henry’s eyes remained on the road. “Maybe it’s better not to comment?” Blythe suggested. Debating with her mother over anything that involved her imaginary relationship with King Gabriel was the equivalent to repeatedly prodding a cobra with a stick, but she masked her nerves. “It could seem tactless.” “Oh, please. You’re the daughter of a founding family; everything you do is tactful.” A fleeting laugh of disbelief left Anthea's thin lips before they settled back into their usual down-turned pout. “It’s business as usual, Blythe. You’ve worked too hard to win the attention of the King to drop the ball now. Your father and I have been securing your place in the royal court our whole lives.” What if I never had the ball in the first place? Or, what if Mai Hamasaki snatched it out of my court fair and square? In one swift and telling movement, Blythe moved her hand from underneath Anthea’s and turned her attention back to the window. They were approaching St Taylor’s Hospital. The automatic doors at its entrance were shielded by an army of reporters who loitered in wait for the latest updates. It was a lot calmer than the scenes on television, but they still forced passing pedestrians to walk in the road and some of them had even parked their news vans in spots reserved for ambulances. “Here, Blythe,” Anthea said before Henry opened the door for the two of them. Reaching into the boot of the car, she over pulled a generous and well-arranged bouquet of flowers; red roses to symbolise love and passion, and gladioluses for strength and integrity. “Pretty,” Blythe said as she took them, admiring how their colours complimented one another so well. Learning the meaning of flowers and how to use them for the appropriate occasion was commonplace in Amethyst, at least amongst the upper-class. She doubted there was much need for etiquette classes in public schools, especially those on the mainland. By the time they parked against the pavement, the blizzard of reporters had already recognised their car and began yelling unintelligible questions between the repeated chants of Blythe’s name to gain her attention. Two security guards who had been made aware of the Radcliffe’s visit in advance headed towards them and fought through the swarm with ease, creating a clear pathway for Anthea and Blythe to walk whilst Henry parked the car elsewhere. Blythe took the lead. “Blythe, how do you feel about the Independence Day tragedy?!” Blythe clutched the flowers against her chest and smiled politely in spite of her thoughts. What did they expect her to say? Absolutely delighted? “Blythe, Blythe,” a striking blonde woman called out, getting as close to her as security would allow. Devon Steepleson; a popular reporter for The Wire. Her eyes shone with determination. “Will you and King Gabriel be announcing your relationship after such a horrific incident? It really puts life into perspective, doesn’t it?” Devon tracked her as she reached the hospital entrance, barging past other reporters who were desperate for a similar interaction. It really puts life into perspective, doesn’t it? “It does,” Blythe replied after sitting with the question for a moment. She gave herself a second too long to think out her answer. “I’m ready to support the King every step of the way in his journey back to good health and, of course, in leading our nation.” “Is that a confirmation of your romantic relationship, Blythe? Will you be leading the nation too?” The noise, chaos and ever-narrowing pathway amongst the frenzied reporters were white noise compared to the strength of Anthea’s stare penetrating the back of her head. Blythe could feel the pressure of her eyes pressing against the top of her neck, trying to plant a simple, three-lettered lie into her mind; y e s. Blythe’s shoulders relaxed in gratitude as the pull of the automatic doors invited her into the hospital’s reception. Gracefully, she turned to meet Devon’s lurking gaze, “Thank you,” she smiled, giving an obligatory wave to the rest of the crowd before stepping into the building. She watched on as her mother continued to talk to Devon, presumably writing over her words and adjusting the narrative to ensure it hadn’t been derailed. Her father often said that it was perfectionism, but Blythe would sooner call it insecurity...perhaps even desperation. Anthea knew that she would never be anything more than the wife of Thomas Radcliffe’s predecessor. She wasn’t part of the British founding family by blood, she came from a long line of merchants and successful business owners. She should’ve been thankful that she was a part of elite society at all. Blythe’s scowl softened at the sound of another voice in the room, “Welcome to St Taylor’s, Your Highness.” She turned to see that both gentlemen behind the sign-in desk had rose to their feet and bowed in her presence. That was one of the perks about being amongst commoners; they treated her like she already sat upon the throne. “Good morning, Otto. Good morning, Stephen.” After multiple visits to the children’s ward with her publicist, Blythe had become familiar with most of the staff at St Taylor’s Hospital. To them she was the founding daughter who humbly gave up her time to visit and read to sick children. They adored her. “I presume you’re here to visit the King?” Otto said, already making himself busy at his computer. Blythe gently clasped her hands together and made sure her smile stayed in place, “Yes, is he awake?” “I’m not sure, Your Highness...A limited amount of staff are allowed into the Agate Suite and I’m not one of them. Although, her Majesty, Marianne de Beaumont, has been here since the beginning of my shift.” Blythe hoped the quirk of her eyebrow wasn’t too much of a reaction. She’d always admired the King’s mother and had drawn a lot of inspiration from her days as Queen consort. Everybody loved her. Even after her husband passed away and Gabriel took the throne, the people of the Amethyst Islands held her close to their hearts. That was true power. After finally pulling himself away from his computer, Otto rose to his feet and approached Blythe with caution, “Allow me to guide you to the Agate Suite.” “Thank you, Otto.” Blythe glanced back at Stephen, who was still sat looking hazy and starstruck behind his desk. Her voice snapped him out of his trance. “Would you mind telling my mother to wait here when she comes through? We don’t need her upstairs. I’d hate to overwhelm the King.” “Of course,” Stephen managed. Blythe’s heels clicked against the pristine tiled-floor as she followed Otto towards the elevator, gifting herself a few moments to bask in her smugness. “Those are beautiful flowers,” he said as he hit the button for the top floor. “Thank you. I chose them myself.” The floor of the Agate Suite fell short of Blythe’s expectations. It was the one place in the hospital that she’d never seen and had always imagined it to be lavish. Instead, light wooden lino flooring laid in the place of deep, jewel-toned carpets and the walls were the same clinical white as the one’s downstairs. To the right was a glass door with a floral-patterned curtain drawn across it for privacy. The rest of the room was assembled with mauve chairs forming a horseshoe around a coffee table littered with magazines and tinned biscuits. “Good morning, Your Majesty,” Otto said, giving another low bow as he’d done downstairs, “Her Highness, Blythe Radcliffe of the British Settlement, is here to see the King.” “Thank you.” Marianne remained in her seat but sat up to attention with slender shoulders and an elongated neck. Blythe recalled the tweed, buttoned dress she was wearing from one of her winter visits to the Swedish settlement. After the ANC had published pictures of her wearing it, they became popular with women from all over the kingdom for many winters to follow. It was only when Marianne's soft pink lips lifted into a soft smile, emphasising the roundness of her cheeks, that Blythe remembered to curtsey. “Your Majesty, I’m so extremely sorry.” She hated that she couldn’t recognise the sound of her own voice; it was awkward and clumpy. “I appreciate your condolences, Blythe,” Marianne replied in an accent sprinkled with French influence. As Otto silently retreated back into the elevator, she rose to her feet and embraced Blythe in a short-lived hug, dosing her in the light, flowery scent of her perfume. “And how is your family? I’m yet to check in personally with any of our founding families.” Blythe shrugged and bit back the temptation to reply with, No less messed up than usual. “We’re all just concerned for the King.” Marianne took the flowers from Blythe and placed them by one of the chairs on the left-side of the room beside a table that was consumed by beautiful arrangements. Blythe fiddled with her bracelet as she watched her bouquet blend in and become dwarfed by an extravagant bouquet of white daisies. Marianne gave an effortless chuckle that was betrayed by the sadness in her eyes, “His room is already too full, we’ve had to start filling this area too now.” “Is he any better?” Blythe looked towards the glass door, suddenly feeling anxious about what was waiting for her on the other side. “No better than when he came...” Marianne sighed and retreated back to her chair. She folded her hands in her lap and crossed her ankles. “He was hit three times, they managed to remove the bullets the night he came here but, I believe a lot of damage has been done.” It was all starting to feel too real. Up until that point, King Gabriel’s condition was only as critical as Blythe’s imagination would let it be. Now the words of Marianne had sharpened the image of him laying helpless in his hospital bed, and he was just on the other side of the door. Perhaps his features wouldn’t be softened and at peace as if he were just sleeping. The pattern of his breathing would be different and his exposed chest would be wounded and sore. “But he’ll pull through?” Marianne rose to her feet. “He’s his father’s child, de Beaumont’s always pull through.” The embarrassment of how crass her question had been prevented Blythe from watching as Marianne approached the glass door. Instead, she fixed her gaze on the floor. If there were ever a time to feel frumpy and classless, it was in the presence of the petite and immaculate Marianne de Beaumont who, even in the worst of scenarios, radiated poise and beauty. “Gabriel currently has another visitor,” she said, catching Blythe off guard. “But you can go in too, she has been here for a little while now...” She? Marianne’s eyes stayed on Blythe as she moved towards the glass door and lifted the handle. The closer Blythe got; the more she noticed it. Through the teary eyes lined with long, dark lashes there was a glimmer of knowing. Almost as if she saw something in Blythe that everybody else failed to. It made her feel nervous...exposed. “Thank you, Your Majesty.” Blythe ignored the tremble in her hand as she pulled back the curtain and took her first glance at the Agate Suite. “What’re you doing here?” she blurted. She’d imagined this moment in a thousand ways since the news broke. Perhaps she’d walk into the suite and as if by magic, Gabriel would stir and she’d be the first thing he saw as he opened his eyes. Or, maybe she’d spend his last moments with him before his monitors went into a frenzy and she was ushered out of the room. Deep down, she’d convinced herself that the visit would be exactly what anybody would expect; silently watching him exist in a place between life and death as she sipped a coffee like it was a regular Friday morning. Apparently, she hadn’t explored every possible outcome, though, because she found herself in her worst scenario yet; standing face-to-face with a scruffy Mai Hamasaki. Then again, she never looked particularly front-cover-ready. “Visiting the King...” Mai replied. Whether she’d meant to sound patronising or not, it was enough to instantly rub Blythe the wrong way. If their circumstances had been different, she would’ve had no problem in making that clear. Blythe forced her jaw to unclench as she approached the bed where Gabriel laid, “Clearly.” Her eyes skimmed over his motionless body and felt surprised when no particular emotion surfaced. He looked asleep; there was no personality or depth to his features and he was fully-clothed in button-down pyjamas, not a bullet wound in sight. She tried to react and look sad for Mai’s sake but as always, her mind was too busy and ticking with questions. “When did you get here?” “I woke up early to beat the press, I’ve been here since five.” As soon as Blythe’s eyes glanced over to the clock above the window, she knew Mai had caught her. “I know a four-hour visit is probably excessive, I’ve just been...reflecting. It’s all too overwhelming.” God, don’t cry. Blythe watched as Mai sucked on her bottom lip, causing her lipstick to fade slightly. She was wearing ‘Secrets of the Tropics’ from the Amethyst Collection, a coral shade that did nothing for her complexion. “Were you invited too?” Blythe frowned. “Invited?” “I mean by Marianne; did she ask you to come today?” “Oh, sure. Of course.” Silence. Blythe diverted her eyes back to Gabriel and finally she felt something harsh and twisted in her chest. Why hadn’t she been personally invited to come and see him? Were things between him and Mai serious enough for her to get a formal invitation first? The photographs of the two of them sneaking around on the beach like love-sick teenagers resurfaced in her minds-eye. She didn’t want Gabriel but she’d made it clear that she was available. Yet, he still picked Mai. Weak, frail and forgettable Mai Hamasaki. She watched as she sat in the armchair on the opposite side of Gabriel’s bed. Blythe hardly noticed the whirs and beeps from the machines, doing their best to fill the awkward silence, her head was suddenly too loud. “So, be honest with me here. Girl to girl,” Blythe said, lifting her eyebrows and forcing her features to soften. “Are you the Fairy Godmother? Did you send those pictures as a way of...I don’t know...claiming your territory?” “No,” Mai replied immediately. Her eyes reflected panic and discomfort as she kept her gaze fixed on King Gabriel, as if there was a possibility that he could somehow hear them. Her fingers lightly traced the hem of the sheet underneath him. “I have no idea who took those.” “No idea at all? Why was it such a secret anyway?” “I... We just wanted to be certain about things.” Mai looked deflated but Blythe was just getting started. “Are you together?” “I guess we were heading that way?” “So, you wanted to be Queen Consort eventually?” There it was. Suddenly the quiet irritation bubbling in Blythe’s chest and dancing along her nerves made sense. This wasn’t about King Gabriel at all. Mai ran a distressed hand through her hair, “I guess...I didn’t really look at it that way.” “Of course not,” Blythe said. Her eyes finally fell back to Gabriel, skimming over his flushed complexion. He looked ugly. Maybe he’d always been and she’d just never taken the time to notice. It wasn’t like all her years of flirting and chasing him around ballrooms were for his benefit. She would’ve done it to anyone with his title, regardless of how they looked. Reaching over Gabriel’s bed as if he wasn’t even there, she brushed her fingers over Mai’s before taking her hand in a loose hold. “Did you love him?” It was all too easy. She waited patiently as the flimsy emotional barriers that Mai had built around herself began to collapse, allowing everything to surface on her face. Her upper lip stiffened but tears began to trickle down her cheeks. She looked like an over-exaggerated cartoon character and Blythe had to bite back to urge to laugh. “Oh sweetheart, it’s ok. He’ll be ok!” she exclaimed softly, even making the effort to join Mai on her side of the bed. Blythe draped a comforting arm over her shoulder, testing the waters, before pulling her into a tight hug. “You two are really serious, then?” “I just felt guilty about being so unsure,” Mai wept, “It’s taken all of this for me to realise I want him.” Blythe perched her chin on Mai’s shoulder and let her sympathetic smile drop. Instead, she stared at a bouquet of Snapdragons and red Anemones on the windowsill. “Maybe it’s a sign. Being Queen Consort is a big responsibility...” Clearly that was the wrong thing to say. Mai let out a strangled and delicate sob, “I would’ve been honoured to serve with him. We had so many ideas...” Who gives flowers of deception and death at a time like this? Blythe thought to herself as she continued to study the bouquet. Some of the Anemone petals fluttered as a fresh breeze circulated the room. It was probably a lady-in-waiting or an uneducated staff member, they don’t know any better. Inhaling slowly, Blythe carefully placed her sympathetic mask back on her face before she pulled away to look Mai in the eyes again. “So, if he were to ask for your hand in marriage...” “I’d say yes,” Mai snivelled, “A thousand times over.” She hesitated, her watery eyes filling with caution as she looked at Blythe. “I know you liked him too and I’m so sorry you had to find out about us the way you did last night.” Blythe forced herself to responded with a care-free shrug that took more effort than it should have. The humming of the machines was suddenly the only thing she could focus on. 1...2...3...beep...1...2...3...beep...1...2...3...beep... It was the lullaby of the heart monitor. The same monitor that would support the King in returning to good health. The same monitor that would see him walk out of the Agate Ward and back into the palace to sit on the throne. The same monitor that would give the King the opportunity to make Mai Hamasaki his Queen Consort, rewarding her more power and respect than a lifetime of selfless and well publicised hospital visits could ever give Blythe. “Don’t apologise, we can’t control the actions of others, can we?” she said. Mai said nothing, but her cautious expression dwindled. 1.. 2.. 3..beep...1...2...3...beep...1...2...3...beep... Blythe tilted her head and gave Mai’s hand another squeeze, wondering if it was obvious that she wanted nothing more than for that stupid machine to fall silent. It was nice to be back in comfortable territory. A suited doorman bowed in response to Blythe's entrance and it was only when she heard her heels clip against the polished marble floor that she realised how much she’d missed the sound. Walking on pavements and lino floors all day just didn’t have the same effect. “Welcome to The Orchid, do you have a booking?” a waitress asked, trying not to look too stunned at Blythe’s arrival. “Radcliffe, table for two at five o’clock.” Blythe recognised the girl who’d been placed at the front-of-house; choppy dyed red hair and a pointed and pierced face. She was a scholarship student who was in the same year as Blythe in school. Elodie Sanders, was it? Either way, she was living proof that it took more than academic brilliance and an edgy haircut to make it in the world. She waited patiently as 'Elodie’ typed away at her computer and scribbled something on to a clipboard while Lucius and Noel scanned the area. After giving each other the ‘all clear’, they retreated and placed themselves at either end of the archway that separated the dining room and the foyer. Apparently, Anthea’s strive to seem relatable and grounded only applied to situations where there’d be journalists and camera lenses. She’d given Blythe the silent treatment all the way back from the hospital, yet she still insisted on her travelling back to the mainland armed with a chauffeur and their family’s guards. “Just this way, your dining partner has already arrived,” the girl who might have been called Elodie said. She refused to look Blythe in the eye and for good reason. If the roles were reversed, Blythe knew she’d be mortified to wait on someone she once shared a classroom with. Remaining a few steps behind her to avoid having to make small talk, Blythe allowed herself to float into the feeling of relaxation. Effortless piano music danced around the room, putting a cap on the volume of the guest’s mumbled conversations. A sleek wall fountain trickled quietly at the far end of the room. Behind it, the rippled silhouettes of kitchen staff rushed back and forth with trays and plates, swerving each other in a perfectly-timed tango. Elodie led Blythe to a small booth at the back of the room which had a great view of the rest of the restaurant and there, in a black tailored suit with his arm draped over the back of his chair, was Lorenzo Contarini. “Blythe,” he greeted, placing his half-empty scotch glass down on the table and rising to his feet. “Hard day at work?” Blythe took a closer look at his appearance; his dark hair was dishevelled and he’d loosened his tie to undo the top button of his shirt, but it somehow made him look even more handsome, in a rugged kind of way. Any other man would’ve looked like a slob, not Lorenzo. “I just got off,” he admitted. The two of them exchanged a brief and awkward hug before sliding into their respective sides of the booth. They were more than aware of the indiscrete stares that had tracked Blythe’s walk through the dining room. It came with the territory. However, the last thing they needed was a headline about how Lorenzo was cheating on one founding family daughter with another... “Well, in that case, thank you for making yourself available,” Blythe said. She watched as he draped his arm back over the top of the plush seat and reunited with his scotch glass. Lorenzo Contarini really was a man who’d been brought up being told that he could have whatever he wanted in the world. Blythe had a theory that all of the women who fawned, gushed and giggled over him, declaring how much they wanted him, actually wanted to be him. She knew that because she’d been one of them once upon a time. It was an old crush that she’d almost completely eradicated until she found herself in moments like this. Sitting in his proximity and watching him radiate the power she’d spent her whole life desperately chasing. He was somebody without anybody else, and that made him special. Snap out of it. “I need a favour from you.” “You mean to tell me you didn’t just want an evening of my company?” Lorenzo’s words left his lips like honey oozing from a jar. His voice was thick and docile, smothering any background noise from the rest of the room. “I’m hurt.” The smirk tugging at the corner of his mouth said otherwise. It was dangerous. Blythe preoccupied herself with sorting through her bag. “Are you still in touch with your friend at The Wire? The one you met at university?” Lorenzo leant forwards to rest his arms on the table, “Christopher...” “Right, Christopher.” As she sat up, Blythe looked boldly into his dark eyes with the edges of an envelope pinched between her fingers. “I need him to publish some photographs, preferably by morning.” The subtle quirk above Lorenzo’s eyebrow told Blythe that she had him hooked. Not that it surprised her at all. When he was on the arm of Selena Álvarez, he was the full package; charming, chivalrous, the perfect gentleman. Blythe doubted there was a woman under thirty who didn’t dream of being swept off of their feet by him. But you don’t just secure a high-profile position in parliament while in your mid-twenties without getting excited by a little bit of foul play. As perfect as he appeared to be, Blythe knew Lorenzo wasn’t a stranger to stepping over a body or two to get to where he needed to be. They had that in common. “If I’m being entirely honest, it’s a favour for a friend.” Blythe held his gaze, keeping her eyes soft and patient. The last thing she needed now was for him to see through her and realise it was a little more devious than an honest favour. “Which friend?” “Mai Hamasaki of the Japanese Settlement,” Blythe said. “You consider Mai Hamasaki a friend?” He laughed into his glass, finishing the last of the brown liquid. Blythe forgot he witnessed her showdown with the Hamasaki sisters the night before. “We made amends,” she snapped, “You must promise not to say anything.” Lorenzo took the envelope from her, keeping her eyes locked in a curious gaze that soon became confused as he fished out the photographs. “What is...” he muttered, leaning back to make out the two murky figures in the pictures before the penny dropped. He raised his thick eyebrows, looking back at Blythe with unmasked surprise. “The pictures with King Gabriel?” She gave a slow nod. “It surprised me too. Mai feels what with everything that has happened, it would be tasteless for her to announce their relationship herself, but she wants it out there...and as you know, somebody already has them anyway. It’s only a matter of time.” The critical look on Lorenzo’s face made Blythe’s nerves freeze over. Manipulating Mai’s perception of her was like toying with soft clay in the palm of her hand, but he was different. Silence filled the space between them as Lorenzo flicked through grainy photograph after grainy photograph, using his thumb and index finger to rub over non-existent stubble that coated his prominent cheekbones. Blythe cleared her throat, “I think the idea is that the news is ‘leaked’, so that it looks as though Mai had no control over the information surfacing at such an inappropriate time.” Lorenzo continued to study the photographs. “Nobody needs to know your part in this.” She immediately kicked herself. That was not something she should’ve said but her desperation to get a response was too strong. Finally, Lorenzo’s eyes met hers again. He toyed with the corner of one of the photographs, curling it under his fingertip. “Is there a reason she hasn’t asked me herself?” Blythe rolled her eyes. That was a question she could definitely bluff her way through. “Have you met Mai? She’s shy. Probably the shiest of all of us.” “And you don’t have that problem,” Lorenzo said, his lips slowly curling into a smile, “so she asked you?” It was like playing a game of poker whilst blind-folded. Blythe was confident in her chances of winning, but not when she couldn’t see the cracks in her opponent's expression. “And King Gabriel? He would approve of the publishing?” “According to Mai,” said Blythe, answering too quickly for her own liking. Lorenzo didn’t seem phased. “She said they were planning to announce the relationship this week anyway.” There was another silence as Lorenzo slipped the photographs back into the envelope one by one, his eyes lingering on Blythe’s with the same smile that’d curled on to his lips beforehand. It made her feel lost and weak; the worst feelings in the universe. “I don’t believe you,” he said as the last picture hit the bottom of the envelope. Placing it flat on the table, he used both hands to slide it back over to her side. “These pictures would cause chaos. You make no sense.” The restaurant had begun to empty; city workers who stopped for an early dinner before taking the ferry home were filtering out, making room for the wealthy date-night couples and tipsy girls in sparkling dresses and novelty tiaras branded with a tacky ‘18’ or ‘21’. “Making sense has nothing to do with it,” Blythe said. She looked at the envelope that sat in front of her on the table, refusing to cave in and put it away. “Sometimes things are simply what they are.” “And I don’t trust you.” It was her turn to relish in the tension. Blythe reached forwards to pick up the complimentary bottle of Southern Heath sourced directly from her own settlement island and watched as the deep, mulberry liquid filled the glass. “You think I trust you? Remember, I know what I know.” Lorenzo paused, staring at a spot in the middle of the table where Blythe had laid her metaphorical ace card, and released a heavy sigh. "You can’t hold that against me forever.” Shadows cast by the evening lighting in the room swept over his features and the first cluster of new diners arrived through the archway. “I’m not sure you even know the full story.” “Does it matter?” Blythe smiled deviously. “If everybody knew what I know, you’d be done for.” “Blythe...” “So, publishing a few pictures, with the consent of both featured parties, suddenly doesn’t sound like such a big deal now, does it?” Sweeping her hair over her shoulder, she traced her finger around the rim of her glass. There was something satisfying about seeing such a mountain of a man crumble. He ran his hands over his face, “Fine.” “Fine,” Blythe echoed. The adrenaline from getting her own way coursed through her veins and made everything sparkle like the chandelier that hung above their heads. “And you’ll make sure they’re published first thing tomorrow mor-” A vibration interrupted her. “Wait,” Lorenzo said, holding a finger up to her. He slid his phone out of his jacket pocket and leant back in his chair, not even bothering to leave the table. Blythe was hardly surprised. After their conversation, she doubted she’d have the pleasure of witnessing his charm and etiquette for a while. “Hey, what is it?” Whoever was on the other end of the phone made Lorenzo sit upright. His shoulders lifted from the comfort of his chair and stiffened with the rest of his torso. Blythe tilted her head and took a mouthful of wine as she watched the colour drain from his face. It was something she would’ve relished in if she knew she’d caused it, but the alarm in his voice made her blood turn cold. Too cold for even the smoked cherry liquid running through her veins to thaw. “Where do I need to be?” For the first time that evening, Blythe watched Lorenzo acknowledge the rest of the room. His eyes cautiously surveyed it from left to right, circular table by circular table; starting with the excitable women in a colourfully cheap array of cocktail dresses by the wall fountain. One of them wore a ‘BRIDE TO BE’ veil and a neon pink sash with far too much pride. Definitely not regulars. Across the hall sat an older man with thinning white hair who Blythe recognised immediately. It was Alfred Bergman, the Chancellor of Exchequer and a native to the Swedish Settlement. He was in a suit similar to Lorenzo’s; except he wore it more rigidly. Lazily stirring his appetiser, he stared over his wife’s head with a bored expression as she spoke with bejewelled and animated hands. They were regulars. Lorenzo noticed him too and raised a hand in an attempt to catch his eye, but changed his mind in less than a few seconds and turned away again. Blythe frowned. “Do you have a free car on the mainland right now?” he asked and bowed his head. Dark locks fell forwards to shield his eyes and block his voice from travelling into the territory of unsolicited ears. Blythe leant forwards and tried to gain his attention again. “What’s happened?” she mouthed. Nothing. “No, I’ll get there myself.” When Lorenzo looked back up, his eyes stared directly into Blythe’s. They were hollow and emotionless but the words he was holding back swirled around in their darkness before he even had the chance to unleash them. Blythe’s breath lodged in her throat. She knew something bad was coming but she wasn’t prepared. Prickly heat danced over the back of her neck and on to her cheeks. She needed to know more but the air remained firmly in her throat, supressing all of her questions as Lorenzo threw a roll of cash on to the centre of the table and snatched up the envelope. “I’m leaving now,” he said to both her and the person on the other end of the phone before putting it back in his pocket. “Lorenzo. Who was it?” Blythe’s voice was feeble, but this time she didn’t care. Blurry clouds of brewing chaos fogged her vision. She didn’t dare to stand; the muscles in the tops of her legs had already gone into flight mode. “Raymond.” Lorenzo finally said. “You need to go home, Blythe.” “What’s happened? Where are you going?” The ball of air lodged in her throat had dispersed and now the words were spilling from her lips faster than she could manage. “What did he say?” Lorenzo put a hand flat on the table and looked down at her, “The Royal Port is down.” The Royal Port is down.

Those five words distorted time. They cut a clean line between time before and after them, making sure nothing would be the same again. They echoed across the Amethyst Ocean and in the households of every founding family. They haunted the halls of the Amethyst Palace. Blythe had no idea how much time had passed between Lorenzo’s words and Noel whispering them in her ear again as he and Lucius escorted her out of the restaurant towards a blacked-out Jaguar. “Your Highness, the Royal Port is down.” Blythe swallowed as her heels clipped against the pavement outside The Orchid. The crisp evening breeze painted over goosebumps that had already formed on her arms. Nobody in the regular bustle of the city knew it yet, but one of their twelve crown princesses walked amongst them. Nobody in the haze of glowing streetlights and fast-moving bodies bowed at her presence, but tomorrow they would. The Royal Port was down. King Gabriel was dead.

#janeysprojects

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