#the only thing keeping me up is pure spite as soon as i get that bitch in and put it away im gonna go to bed and immediately pass out
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aro-aizawa · 8 months ago
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the intense battle between me wanting to go to sleep and me waiting up for a package to arrive at a specific time. i am so tired but i want my pakige
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nonbinary-vents · 11 months ago
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Sometimes I accidentally break out of my Tumblr Curated Experience bubble of Jews and I see what’s actually going on in the main part of this site. Posts with hundreds of thousands of notes with such blatant Jew hating whistles (I refuse to call them dogwhistles at this point they’re so clear), stuff that’s ripped straight from the Protocols and Mein Kampf. If you think I’m exaggerating on that, trust me, I’m not— I haven’t read either of the full texts, but I’ve read extracts, and frankly the shit here is indistinguishable from it. I’ll be having a good day, a day where I believe that maybe people are going to wake up in a couple years and realise how horrible this is, a day where I think that maybe one day I’ll be able to trust goyim again, and then that delusion just gets shattered as soon as I see what’s really out there
I don’t know what to do anymore. I thought as time went on and people got bored of their pet activism, things would get better, but it seems like it’s gone in the opposite direction— everyone online has been radicalised into hating Jews. The young western left have become straight up Nazis with a thin coat of progressive paint, and it’s only going to get worse because nobody is willing to listen to Jews. Honestly, I should just delete my account, but I’m not going to purely out of spite. But being online— not just on tumblr, it’s inescapable— as a Jew is willingly engaging in massive amounts of emotional harm
עם ישראל חי. Thats the only thing keeping me going. We will outlive this. We will outlive you
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skylarsblue · 2 years ago
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✦Even. More. Incorrect C.o.D Quotes.✦
Y/N, pinning Soap’s arms with their thighs in sparring: Haha! Eat shit, Scotsman! Soap, struggling: FUCKIN’ ‘ELL, The hell is in your thighs?! Y/N: Pure spite and protein, bitch! --
Someone: Hey Johnny. Y/N: Oh, no, only Ghost can- Soap: Oi! Only Y/N & Ghost can pull that off, it’s Soap to you. Y/N: Yeah he- wait me too? *gaaassp* Ohhh is this what favoritism feels like?! Soap: Pfft, maybe! Y/N: I enjoy it a lot! <3
-- American!Y/N: Fuckin’ git, he’s off his rocker, that one. The entire team: … American!Y/N: *dramatically smacks their hand over their mouth* Gaz: *laughing* Was that genuine?! Y/N: AH, I’ve been conditioned! I’ve been colonized! Soap: COLONI-*WHEEZE*
-- Fem Fatal!Y/N: What th- what is this, a spy movie? You want me to infiltrate by being some eye candy?! Laswell: It’s the best option we have. Ghost: I disagree with this. Soap: Me too! This feels real nasty, I think. Fem Fatal!Y/N: *sigh* Fine, I’ll do it. God gave me these tits for a reason, might as well use’em for somethin’. Gaz: PFF-no no, don’t be funny, this is a bad situation.
-- Graves: No! You can’t, cause if you take it- …you’ll be hurting my feelings :((( Ghost: You know, I was thinking about that. And, the thing is…I really don’t care.
-- (In a ride back to base; just makin’ conversation)
Gaz: Do you find boys attractive? Or girls. That’s one what to check, if you’re not sure. Y/N: *chuckles* You think I’m not sure? Y/N: Everyone’s attractive to be honest, even if it’s just something small. Like, some people have really gorgeous hands. Y/N: I don’t know…I’m a little bit in love with everyone I meet. But I think that’s normal. Gaz: …hm, suppose that’s a fair answer…
-- Soap, laughing: You watch it or might just start fallin’ for ya, L.T! Ghost: …would you like to? Soap: Eh-…huh? Simon: Would you like to? Fall in love with me, I mean… Soap: ….well I-…well, yeah. I wouldn’t mind…if you’d let me. Simon: …I’d let you. Soap: Well then, guess that’s it then. Woo me, Si. Simon: I’ll do my best.
-- Someone: I don't need advice from a team of virgin losers. Y/N: VIRGIN LOSERS?! *grabs Price’s shoulder and motions to him aggressively* You gonna tell me you think this man doesn’t fuck for a living?! HAVE YOU SEEN HIM?! Gaz & Soap: *for the millionth time trying not to laugh* Price: *he’s not encouraging it but he does look kinda smug*
-- Gaz, on TikTok: Everyone’s always like “Kyle how’d you bag a baddie, how’d you bag that baddie bruh-“ I didn’t bag shit. Y/N picked me up from my neck, threw me over their shoulder and I’ve been on it ever since. (Zooms out to show that he is in fact, on their shoulder) Gaz: And I ain’t got no plans on getting off anytime soon-
(This also works with Soap & Ghost)
-- Y/N: Why’s it always you got mommy issues or you got daddy issues? Me personally? Both my parents got me messed up, the side I pick? Is mine. I ain’t Hannah Montana- Y/N: 🎶but I got the best of both worlds!~🎵 Ghost: *he’s laughing on the inside, I swear*
-- Ghost, on the verge of dissociating: Why be sad…when you can just be ✨g o n e✨ Soap: Si, no-
-- Graves: Punch me. In the face. Didn’t you hear me? Y/N: I always hear “punch me in the face” when you speak, but it’s usually subtext. Graves: *huff* Well I- *gets punched so hard he falls over* Y/N: ….that felt good. Ghost: I’m so proud- Price: Stop encouraging them.
-- Soap, bursting into the briefing room: Y/N got into a fight! (Insert running scene) Price: Soldier, what hap- Ghost, sliding up in front of them: Did you win? Y/N: Of course I won. Ghost: Nice. Price: STOP ENCOURAGING VIOLENCE-
-- Y/N, in a vent above a room: Soap, it’s me, the devil! Soap: *wheeze* Gaz: *trying so hard not to laugh* Y/N: I’m here to convince you to do SIN. Come with me. Steal candy from babies and from small businesses! Soap: *WHEEZE*
-- Y/N, passing by: *does that super flirty “up & down” look* Hey König…~ König: Hallo, guten morgen. Y/N: *smiles and keeps going* König, as soon as they’re gone: *deep breath* Ohmeingottohmeingott *tiny scream*
-- Ghost after being asked about his feelings on Soap: *heavy breathing* ……..nextquestion-
-- Gaz, a menace on TikTok: Batches be on the lookout for Captain Save-A-Hoe, cause he savin’ hoes. Price, minding his business: ? Y/N, dramatically “swooning” in the background: I WANNA BE SAAAAAVED *falls* Price, unaware he’s having a thirst trap made for him: ?????
-- (I think bullying Graves is funny)
Graves: Let me tell you how this is gonna work- Y/N: You ain’t gonna tell me shit. Graves: Listen!- Y/N: Suck my dick. Graves: Listen to me!- Y/N: Suck my dick. Graves: Shut up, listen to me! Y/N: Suck my dick, you fuck man. Graves: Listen!! Y/N: Suck my dick. Graves: You will be here and listen to my ord- Y/N: You’ll be here sucking my dick. Graves: Listen to me, now! Y/N: Go fuck yourself.
-- Y/N: I would rather lead my team into a pit of fire, than have them wield guns for your ignorant usurper cunt of a general. Price: *mans is so proud it’s showing in his chops*
-- Simon: Your eyes are like sapphires…jeez…ahem, that’s pretty corny though, huh? Soap, swooning: No, not at all. Anyone would like it…aha… Simon: …uh…is this- Soap: Working? Oh yeah, thoroughly wooed, sir. Simon: Good, good.
-- Price: Please tell me you didn’t drag the boys into this. Y/N: I didn’t drag Soap & Gaz into this! *insert banging on door* Price: Who is that? Y/N: I think you know.
-- Soap: I wouldn’t wish that ‘pon my worst enemy. Unless, of course, we’re talkin’ ‘bout my enemy Philip Graves. Soap: Fuck you, Phillip(/neg), you know what you did.
-- Gaz: So you have feelings for this person. Just rip the bandaid off. Y/N, with daddy issues: It’s Price. Gaz: *inhales through his teeth* Put the bandaid back on.
-- Y/N: …Ghost? You’re into Ghost? Soap: Mhm…thoughts? Y/N: And prayers, Johnny. And prayers.
-- Gaz: Are you straight? Y/N: *chokes on drink* Don’t ever fucking insult me like that ever again.
-- (Some type of escort mission or somethin’)
Price: This woman wouldn’t know how to fix a broken fingernail. Fem!Y/N: Honestly, you lot have to be the most boorish, crude, pig-headed men I’ve ever met. Price: Hey, I’ve seen the high-bred boys you’ve hung out with, princess. I’m the only man you’ve ever met.
(Insert overly intense sexual tension here)
-- König: How does that even make any- *knife sound* König: *looks down at the knife in his thigh* Did you just- *takes knife out* Did you just stab me? What is your problem?!
-- (I’m only using Alejandro cause the dude in the audio had a slight Spanish accent, mans is definitely a feminist)
Alejandro: It’s not natural for girls to fight. Fem!Y/N: Now it’s not natural for a man to be as stupid as he is tall, but mm. Here you stand! Alejandro, in love: …
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paradiseprincesss · 5 months ago
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forever, not maybe | jonathan crane
hello hello! sorry i haven't been posting as much i've been busyyy and a little burnt out if i'm being honestttt but enough about me. when i say "catwoman mask" in this fic - i was thinking of the lace one ariana grande wore for tbim music video lol anyway...i had "off to the races" on repeat while writing this <3
summary: you have a secret life as catwoman that you've been keeping away from your boyfriend, jonathan crane. however, it seems he has a secret life of his own, too...
warnings: smut, p in v, fingering, choking, kissing, swearing, MDNI 18+ ONLY
word count: 3.6k
masterlist
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“i’m working late tonight,” jonathan said over the phone with a sigh.
“again?” you asked your boyfriend, trying to feign the sadness in your voice.
jonathan had been working late night shifts at the asylum for the last few months; so often that you swore he saw his patients more than he did you. naturally, you missed him. all you wanted was to be in his arms again, laid up in bed as he held you and told you how much he loved you.
but the extra time away from him gave you more time for your…hobbies.
of course you felt guilty lying to your boyfriend about your whereabouts or what you were doing — but you couldn’t risk him finding out about you being catwoman.
every time you told him you were going to sleep, you’d really be getting ready to commit a heist, or worse, find batman and reign chaos in the city just to spite him. you’d always tell jonathan the reason you were so tired all the time was because you were having trouble sleeping when he wasn’t there — but alas, it was because you were out on crime sprees until five in the morning.
“i’m sorry, darling. i wish i could be at home with you right now,” jonathan said softly, his voice tinged with guilt.
“i know, jon. it’s okay — i think i'm gonna go to bed now. it’s late,” you replied, trying to sound exhausted as you yawned. “see you in the morning, baby.”
“see you then, darling,” jonathan said softly, “i love you.”
“i love you too,” you sighed, hanging up the phone.
as soon as you hung up the phone, you jumped out of bed and rushed to put on your catsuit. after you threw on your fitted outfit along with the matching mask, you were sneaking out your window in mere seconds, creeping off into the dark, crime-filled city that was gotham.
tonight, you were on the prowl for a certain villain though — the scarecrow.
the two of you had had a mutual distaste for each other. he’d once told you that you were “too morally ambiguous,” as sometimes you’d be robbing banks and committing heists, whereas other times you’d aid batman in the saving of gotham city. you thought he was full of shit, and you made sure to remind him that his plan to poison the entirety of gotham city with his fear toxin would never work every chance you got. 
the two of you had a strange dynamic — always messing with one another's plans and such, but last week, things seemed to have changed between you and him. 
it all started when he came to pay you a visit after you’d robbed two men at gunpoint, stealing their cards and some cash out of pure boredom. you heard footsteps behind you as you were counting stacks of cash, and once you glanced back, you saw the scarecrow himself approaching you in the quiet parkade you stood in.
the two of you never stopped to talk very much, as usually each interaction lasted no more than a few minutes, but tonight, neither of you were in a rush to leave. the scarecrow looked at you through the eye holes of his burlap mask, and for a moment, you felt oddly comforted by his presence. 
“catwoman,” he said, looking down at the cash in your hands, “we meet again.” 
“we meet all the time,” you retaliated, hearing his distorted voice through his mask. 
“we do, yes,” he replied casually, “but i’ve never gotten the chance to speak to you alone like this.” 
“that’s because you’re always interrupting me when i'm busy,” you teased, looking up at him with a small smile. 
you noticed he stopped talking to look closely at you, almost as if he was analyzing you. picking you apart detail by detail, his blue eyes trailing over every single inch of you. his eyes darted over the lace covering your eyes before he narrowed them, inhaling sharply. 
“...has anyone told you that you have a pretty smile?” he asked quietly, and you almost had to get him to repeat himself out of disbelief. 
“did i hear you correctly?” you asked, attempting to clarify what exactly he was trying to get at. “did you just compliment me?”
“it would appear that way,” he said with amusement.
you stood there staring at him for a few seconds, unsure of what to say before you scoffed, waving his compliment off.
“i have a boyfriend,” you huffed.
“a boyfriend?” he teased, his blue eyes widening under his mask. “is that so?”
you hummed in agreement, flipping through the dollar bills in your hands. “i love him. a lot.”
“i see,” he said once more, “i forgot to mention that i saw you last week, by the way.” 
“did you?” you asked nonchalantly. 
“sneaking out of your apartment window at midnight — i wonder if your boyfriend knows what you do when he’s not home.” he teased, causing you to stop what you were doing as your heart raced.
“you know where i live?” you tilted your head to the side to emphasize your confusion, causing him to chuckle softly.
“that i do,” he shrugged, “and dare i say, you really are quite the beauty when you don’t have this lacy little mask covering your face.” 
he gestured to your mask, causing you to roll your eyes which were partially hidden by the lace. “i told you i have a boyfriend,” you said harshly. 
“i can’t help but wonder what he would think if he saw you like this — stealing from the innocent people of gotham city.” you could almost hear him smirking through his mask by the way he talked. “hm?” 
“well — i don’t plan on telling him,” you sneered, causing the scarecrow to chuckle.
“so feisty,” he purred. “tell me about this ‘boyfriend’ of yours.” 
you crossed your arms, still holding the cash in your hand as you let out an annoyed sigh. “he’s a doctor,” you said, not-so-subtly bragging, “and…as much as i wish i could tell him about what i do, i don’t think he’d approve.”
he nodded, taking in everything you were saying. 
“but you don’t need to know the intimate details of my love life — quit asking.” you said, shaking your head as you shook the thought of jonathan out of your mind for the time being.
the scarecrow looked at you with intrigue, taking a step closer to you. as you took in all the details of his suit, you couldn’t help but notice how oddly familiar it looked — you’d sworn that you had seen this exact suit before. 
“you must really love him, don’t you?” he asked casually with a shrug. “well, maybe he knows more than he’s letting on.” 
“i highly doubt that,” you sighed, realizing it was time to head home since jonathan would be back soon. “i have to go.” 
he nodded, looking at you with those strikingly blue eyes before turning around and disappearing into the shadows. you stood there for a few moments quietly, struggling to understand why he felt so familiar yet so distant to you at the same time — it almost felt like you’d known him for ages. 
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once you got home, you quietly reached for your front door before realizing it was locked. you’d made your way out tonight through the window, but when you looked up at it, you realized that there was no way you would be able to climb that high and get through it from the outside. 
“need some assistance?” a familiar voice called from the bottom of your porch stairs. once you quickly turned around in a panic, you saw a certain scarecrow peering up at you.
“what are you doing here?” you asked in a hushed whisper. “my boyfriend is going to see you. he’s supposed to be home from work any second!” 
“relax,” he commented, making his way up the porch stairs. reaching into his suit pocket, he pulls out a shiny piece of metal — a key. “i just want to help you, is that so wrong?” 
as he unlocked the front door and swung it open, you harshly grabbed his wrist, pulling him closer to you. 
“and why do you have a key to my boyfriend's house?” you asked with irritation. 
“because,” he said, his voice no longer distorted, “i live here.”
your grip remained on his wrist as he spoke softly to you, and your eyes met with his brilliantly blue ones — you only knew one person who had eyes that striking. you almost felt silly for not realizing sooner, but to be fair, he’d only come to realize who you really were just last week. 
it all made sense now  — the “late” shifts at arkham, the way he’d sometimes come home bruised and bloodied (which he said was because of his “violent” patients), and the way he’d always avoided talking about work with you every time you’d asked.
he shut the door behind the both of you as you gently let go of his wrist, looking at him in awe as he turned back around to face you. you still had your catwoman mask on, and he was still wearing his scarecrow one. you stared at him in silence, almost at a loss for words before you finally spoke up quietly, your eyes still locked with his blue ones. 
“you’re…” you trailed off, reaching up to tug at his mask, wanting nothing more than to take it off. “you’re the scarecrow…”
“and you’re catwoman,” he teased as your fingers ghosted the edge of his mask.
“shut up,” you blushed, “and take this off.” 
you gestured to his mask, but he shook his head as he stared at you through the eye holes. “i have an idea,” he suggested, “why don’t you make your way to the bedroom and wait for me, if you’re not too tired.“
“you cannot possibly be suggesting what i think you’re suggesting—”
“i am,” he said lowly. “...if you want to.”
without another word, you bit your lip and nodded, making your way to your shared bedroom excitedly. it was almost thrilling, the way he was commanding you and telling you to behave. it’s not that jonathan wasn’t bossy during sex (or in general if we’re really being honest here), but the added excitement of knowing your smart, calm, doctor boyfriend had a not-so-innocent side made it so much better.  
you sat obediently on the edge of the bed waiting for him. he eventually joined you, still in his scarecrow mask and suit, eyeing you down. 
“i’m sorry i didn’t make it clear,” he stated, “but i wanted you waiting with nothing on.” 
“but you’re—“ you tried to protest, as he was still fully clothed. 
“be quiet,” he growled, grabbing you by the throat, “unless you want a taste of my fear toxin, hm?” 
you swallowed, nodding as the grip around your neck made you dizzy, and you did as you were told to do. he watched you closely, looking at you through those eerie eye holes of his mask as you undressed hastily.
“slower,” he said, “give me a little show, won’t you sweetheart?”
you almost choked on your words when he spoke — you were enjoying it, though. something about your usually calm, collected, gentle boyfriend acting like this was triggering something primal in you. 
as you stripped down into nothing but your bra and underwear — which were matching, by the way — his pupils went wide at the sight. you sat back on the bed in your lacy undergarments, and he took a few steps closer, not yet getting on the bed with you.
“you really are perfect, you know?” he spoke softly, even though he looked rather intimidating, but it had you rubbing your thighs together.
“light of my life,” you breathed. “that’s what you are.” 
“is that right, my darling?” he asked, his voice giving away that although he was acting tough and composed — he was crumbling because of you. “are you forever mine?”
“forever yours,” you replied with no hesitation. 
jonathan made his way over to you, grabbing your face gently as he stood at the edge of the bed.
“i love you,” you whispered, and his grip on your face softened. 
“darling,” he rasped, “lay back on the bed for me.” 
you do as you’re told, laying back on the bed as he joins you, his hands immediately snaking behind your back to unclasp your lacy bra. 
“angelic,” he breathed, speaking softly. “how are you real?” 
his last words were so quiet, you barely heard him through the burlap mask covering his head. you were sprawled out on the bed, back resting on the pillows as his hands reached to tweak your nipples softly, causing you to moan quietly. he was hovering above you, propped up on his arms and studying your every reaction as he took in the way your body responded to his touch. 
suddenly, his hand brushed up against the lace of your panties, teasingly dragging his fingers across your skin. you let out a soft whine, shifting your hips slightly out of habit. “please,” you whispered, “touch me — scarecrow.”
as the words left your mouth, he was tearing your underwear clean off of you, causing you to get incredibly turned on — as if you weren’t soaking through your panties already. 
jonathan brushed his fingers against your sticky folds before slowly inserting one of his fingers into your tight hole, causing you to let out a vulgar moan as he toyed with your cunt. 
he continued to stare down at you as your back was pressed into the pillows, giving him a perfect view of your face as he watched from above. you let out a mewl as he started to pump a single digit in and out of your dripping cunt, your cheeks flushed a pretty pink shade.
“m-mm, oh my god—!” you moaned, feeling him curl his finger in a way that made your back arch. he let out a low hum before inserting a second digit, causing you to gasp. 
“jon,” you breathed, “f-fuck, yes—“
“i know, darling,” he cooed, watching you as he pumped two digits in and out of your tight, warm hole. “it’s a lot for your tight little cunt to take. i know, but don’t worry — i'll get you nice and stretched out before i bury my cock inside of you.” 
his filthy words caused you to tighten up around his fingers, making him let out a low chuckle from behind his burlap mask. “someone likes it dirty, hm?” he teased, and you let out a breathless moan. 
“c-close,” you managed to choke out. 
“who owns you?” he asked, fucking you with his fingers as he rubbed that spongy spot inside of you. 
“you!” you whimpered, “fuck, you do—“
your release hit you, hard and fast, as you clenched around his fingers. your vision was clouded with stars, pure ecstasy running through your veins. jonathan watched you like a predator watches its prey, his eyes running all over your body as he studied you through the eyeholes of his mask. 
you lay on the bed breathless, your cheeks flushed still, as he looked down at you sprawled out against the soft pillows. you could hear him breathing heavily from behind his mask — it almost gave him a power trip to see you like this; fucked out and submissive to him as he was dressed up as scarecrow. 
you let out a huff, closing your eyes for just one moment before they shot open again to the sound of his belt being unbuckled. you rubbed your thighs together and whined softly, causing jonathan to let out a low groan as his cock sprung free against his stomach, hitting the white button down shirt he wore.
he gave himself a few strokes before lining himself up with your dripping entrance. 
“how badly do you want it, baby?” he teased, rubbing his cock up against your slit slowly. 
“so bad,” you whined desperately, “please, jonathan—”
“try again.” 
“fuck, please! please, scarecrow…” you begged, hoping you’d get what you were wanting after fixing your mistake. 
it seemed to work because before you could whine anymore, you were letting out a filthy moan as he rammed himself into you, breaching your tight hole. even though you’d just taken his fingers, you hadn’t been able to fuck him for a few weeks, due to work and all — so you were taking a little longer than usual to adjust to his size. 
“m-my god, s-slow down—” you breathlessly gasped, feeling his cock pounding your cunt mercilessly as he set a fast pace.
“you can take it,” he assured you, still fucking you harshly as his hands come to grip at your throat. “keep squeezing my cock. fuck — like that.” 
you could feel him stretch out your drooling hole as you mewled, unable to form any proper sentences or get any real words out from the way he was fucking you. jonathan kept a firm vice around your neck, causing you to struggle for air slightly as his normally bright blue eyes turned about fifty shades darker. 
you didn’t know what was turning you on more — the fact that he was still dressed as scarecrow, mask and all, or how roughly he was drilling into your sopping cunt right now. 
“o-oh my god—” you whined, looking up at him breathlessly as he continued to squeeze the sides of your neck. “i-i can’t…”
jonathan was for sure having an ego trip right now — the way you were completely at his mercy as his cock pounded against your cervix, creating the perfect mix of pleasure and pain. the way you looked at him like he was your entire world — because he was — even while he was fucking you stupid. just everything about you had jonathan tripping out on ecstasy, pleasure, and dare i say love?
“what is it, my darling?” he cooed mockingly, cutting off your air supply once more with a harsh squeeze to your neck while he was balls deep in your cunt. “use your words, darling — you can do it.”
“c-can’t breathe,” you managed to rasp, your hands clawing at his, “let— go—”
satisfied with your begging, jonathan let go of your throat and placed his hands harshly onto your hips. his fingers dug into your sides as he continued to plow your pussy with no intention of stopping until you were ruined.
he could see the fear in your eyes — even if it was mixed with arousal — and it brought him closer and closer to the edge with every thrust. you, along with jonathan, were close to coming undone as well, your eyes rolling into the back of your head as pleasure consumed you.
“come,” he growled, “show me who owns this tight fucking cunt.” 
you let out a choked moan as he rammed his cock into you so deeply that you stopped breathing momentarily, before letting yourself tip over the edge. your release winded you, causing you to scream his name so loud that your neighbours would definitely know who was fucking you right. 
“jonathan! f-fuck!” you squeaked out, creaming on his thick cock. 
“scream my fucking name,” he said lowly, “that’s right — god, you feel so good.” 
he let out a low groan as he felt your walls tighten up around him, and he watched your every move as your orgasm washed over you. you looked so beautifully fucked out and mindless with every fleeting moment — it was perfection. 
it didn’t take long for jonathan to come after seeing you like this for him, and he let out a low groan, giving you a few more harsh, deep thrusts before filling you up completely with his sticky cum. he looked down at you quietly as he propped himself up above you on his arms one more, taking off his burlap mask and tossing it to the side. 
you gave your boyfriend a soft smile, letting out a huff of air as you rested your head on the satin pillows behind you.
“wow…” you said, trailing off into a soft chuckle. 
“i love seeing you all ruined for me,” he told you, brushing a strand of hair away from your face. “you’re something else, you know that?”
he helped you get cleaned up afterwards, making sure to be extremely gentle and caring towards you despite almost breaking you in two just minutes prior. after he had you tucked into bed, he placed a kiss on the top of your head as you snuggled into the covers.
“i’m going to go shower,” he said casually, “go to bed, sweetheart. you’ve had a long night.”
“mm,” you mumbled sleepily, “come to bed afterwards.”
“i will,” he assured you, placing one more kiss on your head, and another softly on your lips. “...i love you.” 
“i love you too,” you said softly, yawning as you found comfort in the sheets. “goodnight, scarecrow.” 
your sleepy words caused him to let out a quiet chuckle as he admired you. the light from the moon illuminated your face dimly as it casted down on you through the bedroom window. 
jonathan sighed to himself happily. 
you may have been catwoman to the outside world — sneaky and conniving — but to jonathan, you were just…you. those so-called claws of yours were nowhere to be seen as you slept peacefully in your shared bed, dozing off under the moonlight as you waited for him to come back to bed with you. 
“goodnight, sweetheart,” he said softly.
but you were already fast asleep — dreaming of him like always.
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@fauxcongenialite @ceruleanrainblues @o0laura
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7ndipity · 1 year ago
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Take a Chance on Me
Yoongi x Plus Size Reader
Summary: You and Yoongi met during his enlistment and quickly became friends, but what happens when your friendship begins to grow into something more?
Word Count: 1.3k
Warnings: Swearing, mentions of insecurities and anxieties
A/N: A massive thanks to @bethanysnow for requesting this idea and for obsessing over it with me!😘 I’m so excited to work on this as a drabble series, I hope you’ll all enjoy it!
Masterlist
Requests are open
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‘Okay, you can do this, it’ll be fine.’ Yoongi repeated to himself, fingers drumming anxiously against the steering wheel as he waited to pick you up from work, trying to quell his nerves before he spotted you jogging across the parking lot towards his car.
“Hey, Min.” You greeted him as you slid into the passenger seat.
“Hey, Y/n.” He said, feeling a smile tug at the corners of his mouth in spite of himself, your presence alone managing to calm him, if only a little bit.
It was remarkable almost, how in just a few short months, you’d come to be such an important part of his life.
When you’d first met following his public service assignment, he’d been a bit hesitant of getting too close with anyone around him too quickly, but you’d managed to worm your way into his heart almost instantly.
He still remembered the first time he realized how much he liked you; he’d made some dry, sarcastic remark that no one else had really reacted to, unsure if he was being serious or not, but you had let out a quiet burst of laughter that had immediately set everyone else at ease. It was just a little thing, but it had played over in his head for the rest of the day.
He hadn't even known that much about you at the time, except your name, your department, and that the sound of your laugh was one of the best things he’d ever heard.
Before long, he had started finding more and more excuses to come by to see and talk to you, even if it was just for a minute as he brought some forms for somebody else to sign, eventually asking if you wanted to hang out together outside of work as well.
You’d known who he was of course, in your own words it was impossible not to, but you’d never treated him differently because of it, something he’d come to appreciate more and more as you’d gotten to know each other.
You were so bright and warm and funny, and had a way of putting him at ease that few others had ever managed, he found himself easily charmed by you, and it was honestly your friendship that had made the rather jarring shift between his lifestyles bearable, if not almost pleasant.
But more recently, he’d begun to realize that his feelings towards you had grown beyond those of purely a friend.
Yoongi craved you, he wished there was a better word or phrase to convey his feelings for you, but that was the best he could come up with. He craved your presence, your comfort, the sound of your laugh when you found something he did cute or funny. He found himself missing you constantly, even if he’d just seen you, wanting to wrap his arms around your plush figure and keep you close at all times. It was like he was addicted, and frankly, it scared the shit out of him.
“You okay?” You finally asked, pulling him out of his thoughts. You’d noticed he’d been quieter than usual, having barely spoken the entire car ride to your place, stirring up your concern for him.
“Yeah, I’m fine. I-uh, wanted to ask you something.” He started, scratching at his palms nervously.
“Okay.” You said, eyeing him curiously, making him fidget even more.
Fuck, it would be easier if you weren’t staring at him with those fucking eyes, he thought. They’d been one of the first things he’d noticed about you, one of the first things to put a chink in his armor.
He had spent the previous night laying in bed, trying unsuccessfully to come up with a more eloquent way to put his feelings into words, but as soon as he looked up at you, everything seemed to shrivel up and drift away, like leaves on the wind, leaving him with only the simplest of thoughts and question in his mind.
“Would you… go out with me?” He asked softly.
Your eyes went wide. “What?!”
“Will you go out with me?” He repeated.
“But, w-why?” You asked, flabbergasted.
“Why do you think? I like you, a lot.” He let out a huff of laughter, running a shaky hand through his hair. “Fuck, honestly? I think I might even love you, but I know that’s way too much out of the blue. I just know that I want to be with you, as more than friends, if you’ll have me.” He finished, glancing down at his feet awkwardly.
It was quiet for a long moment as you stared at him, stunned, letting his words sink in.
“I don’t… get it.” You said slowly.
He blinked, “What do you mean?”
“I mean, why me? I’m not exactly your type.”
“You don’t know that.” He interjected.
You scoffed. “C’mon, Yoongi, be serious,” You said, skepticism clear in your voice.
“I am being serious.” He said, looking at you with utmost sincerity. “You’re one of the most amazing people I’ve ever met.”
You shook your head in confusion. You’d seen the type of people that Yoongi spent time around in his line of work, and they were very different from you; thin, beautiful, perfect. Not that you didn’t think you were pretty in your own way, but compared to the idols that he was typically around, the idea of you and Yoongi just didn’t make sense to you.
“But I’m just… me.” You said, the last part coming out almost as a question, not understanding his logic.
He smiled. “That's why I like you. You're open and honest and kind, you don’t hide behind some front or mask, and you don’t put up with anyone’s shit. You’re smart, and funny, and beautiful-”
“But I’m-” Your hand went as if to gesture to yourself, but he was quick to catch it in his own.
“Hey.” The sudden sharpness in his tone caught you off guard. “Don’t you dare try to sell yourself short, you hear me? When I say you’re beautiful, I mean it.”
You bit your lip, mind racing. You wanted to believe him, but there was that nagging voice in the back of your head that kept saying it wouldn’t work, something was going to go wrong.
“I thought you weren’t supposed to date though?” You pointed out. “What if someone finds out?”
“They’ll say ‘good for them’, otherwise I don’t give a fuck.” He said firmly. “What I do outside of that building is none of the company’s damn business.”
You smiled at that, but said nothing, still thinking.
“Look,” He spoke again, this time much softer. “I realize that this is a lot all of a sudden, and you don’t even have to answer today, you can take however much time you want to think about it, I’m just asking for a chance.”
It was quiet for a moment before you spoke again, softly. “Okay.”
He looked up at you. “Okay?”
“I’ll go out with you.” You clarified.
“You will?” His eyes lit up.
“Yeah,” You nodded, grinning at him.
He beamed, letting out a relieved sigh before leaning across the center console and pulling you into a hug. “Thank you.” He mumbled against your hair, wrapping his arms around you tightly.
“I like you too, by the way.” You said.
“I was kinda hoping, given your answer, but thanks.” He chuckled, smirking at you.
“Ugh,” You shoved against his chest lightly, but he was giving you no room for escape. “You could’ve just said it back.”
“I’m sorry, I’ll do better next time, okay?” He asked, grinning at you.
“Fine.” You grumbled, feigning annoyance.
“Can I make it up to you?” He asked.
“Maybe. What did you have in mind?”
Instead of answering, he leaned closer, pressing his lips softly against yours.
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thedeviltohisangel · 9 months ago
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All The Things I Did (7): I Thought About Thinking It Through
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a/n: ok so the first blurb of the sleep talking interlude has been somewhat negated so I apologize but promise it is worth it. heavy shit this chapter as we get the full story on sidney landry. but john might say the L word...
warnings: mentions of domestic violence, mentions of character just wanting it all to stop
When John walked into the pub that night, the sounds of an angel laughing reached his ears but the cause was making his fists curl. Cass was seated at a table in the back corner with a man, who he presumed was Mr. Foster, sitting across from her. Her chin was in her hand the way it was whenever he told her a funny story. Her smile was as soft as candlelight as she nodded along to whatever he was telling her. Swears he felt his blood boil when her hand brushed against his across the table.
“Hey, baby, I didn’t think I was going to see you here tonight.” His annoyance was washed away as she turned to greet him with a smile. She said his name and brought him in for a kiss, John using her proximity to press a few more to her lips.
“John, this is Captain Will Foster. We went to spook school in Maryland together.” John kept one arm around the back of her chair as he shook the man’s hand. 
“Major Egan, it’s an honor, sir.” 
“Hear that, Cass, some people think it’s an honor to meet me.” She rolled her eyes as she took a sip of her soda. “You’re the one who’s going to keep an eye on my girl in Berlin?”
“I’ll do my best, sir, but this is Cass’ operation. I’m just here to do what she tells me.” Cass blushed and ducked her head. “Lieutenant Cooper graduated top of our class. Highest marks the entire year.” 
“It’s not that impressive,” she began. “Not like I can fly a plane.”
“None of that,” John stated as he gripped her chin between his fingers. “You are the smartest, most gorgeous, most impressive woman that has ever walked this earth.” She smiled in spite of the ridiculousness and let him pull her in for another kiss. 
“Careful, John, or all this is going to go to my head. Then I’ll be truly insufferable.” 
“I have never once complained about your company.” As it always did, the rest of the world sealed itself off from the space between them. As soon as they had their eyes on each other there was nothing else that mattered. “Can I get you a refill?”
“Yes, please.” John kissed her forehead and was off in the direction of the bar. 
“You and the Major, huh?”
“He is…a welcome surprise. I saw him get off a plane one day and couldn’t shake the look in his eyes.”
“Curiosity killed the cat but satisfaction brought it back,” Will replied with a swig of his beer. “You always were good at learning everything about your target without giving up even a hint of yourself.”
“John’s not my target. He’s my-” She stopped. What was he? Was there a word to describe their relationship status? Partner seemed too severe and official. Boyfriend seemed too trivial. “Mine. He’s just mine. And I’m his.”
“Simple. That works.” Oh, if he only knew. The feelings they had for each other, ability to express them agnostic, were simple. They were pure. They were real. They were warm and comforting and made her nerves tingle. But the world around them was so complicated. The lives they led as individuals were complicated, how were they supposed to twine them together? “And to think you were a runaway bride when I first met you.”
“Runaway bride?” John chose the perfect time to return. Catching the one part of that comment that Cass felt in her chest. “You?”
“It’s an exaggeration of the circumstances.” Cass transitioned to damage control. The topic of why she had left South Carolina in the first place hadn’t come up between her and John. And she had wanted to keep it that way. There was no use pouring salt in her old wounds.
“Oh, come on, Cass. Engaged to marry the big time banker’s son and fleeing the engagement party to enlist in the OSS? It’s an incredible story.” For the second time that day, John found himself furious with the tone someone was using to speak to her. She had fully retreated into herself, focused on the condensation rolling down the side of the bottle, her hands shaking in her lap at the reminder of that night. 
“Doesn’t seem like she wants to talk about it, Captain.” There was authority in his tone. It was protective. Purposeful. No room to misinterpret his words. “You okay?” It looked like she was having trouble breathing. As if the amount of trauma trapped in her chest was suffocating her. 
“No. I just need some air. Alone.” She doesn’t think she could look John in the eye. Not when he now knew the awful truth. Not when she was now nothing but damaged and spoiled goods. John watched her walk away with a clenched jaw. 
“Major-”
“I don’t know what the fuck happened in South Carolina, Foster, but if I ever hear you mention it again it will be the last thing you ever do.” John drained the rest of his whiskey and slammed it on the table. He didn’t wait for a response. He meant the words he said. And Will knew it.
----
“There’s more than one of them,” John mocked as he sat across from the RAF officers. “I can see more than one of you, too. I could knock all of you out.” Cass hadn’t come back into the pub and John had just drowned his anger and worry in amber liquid. Buck and Veal helped settle him down as he yelled he could do it in only one punch.
“You want to get Major excited? Baseball. Specifically the Yankees,” Curt offered.
“Really? I would have thought it was the little poppet who left close to tears.” No one tried to stop him when he stood this time. 
“Say that again,” he threatened. 
“Why don’t we make a bit of sport out of it, Major?” 
“I’ve got him, John, let me take care of him,” Curt reasoned. Really, they were all afraid John might kill him. A better man would know when to step aside. Let a more level head prevail. But John wasn’t in any particular mood to take the high ground. 
“Not this time. People in this goddamn pub need to stop talking about her.” They all milled outside and John tossed his blazer into the grass. He wondered if Cass would appreciate the gesture or be repulsed by it. If she ever believed violence was the answer or always chose to think her way out of everything. He ducked the weak hand of the Brit as he thought about the way she looked earlier. The way she had hid herself from his gaze and his touch and requested she be alone. He didn’t like the hole in his chest that she left whenever she wasn’t near.
His fist landed square on his target’s face and the sickening crunch of breaking bone echoed throughout the night air. He pictured Harding’s lovesick eyes when his Cass entered the room. Pictured Foster and his words quelling the fire inside of his Cass in an instant. Pictured this pompous asshole watching his Cass walk from the pub with a shake to her shoulders. Cass was a deity that mere men were not meant to get too close to. John didn’t even believe he deserved the way she looked at him. The way she touched him and comforted him and made him feel at home in a faraway land.
“You good, Bucky?” The others were cheering and laughing and slapping him on the shoulder but Buck looked concerned more than anything.
“I gotta protect her, Buck. I can’t let this place take her from me.” He couldn’t even feel the wounds to his knuckles or the blood of another man trickling down his fingers. “I’ll find you guys later.” John ignored their groans and pleas and grabbed his jacket from the ground before heading off in her direction. His north star. He would always follow her home.
----
He knocked softly against her door, Mary not hiding her eye roll at his disheveled uniform and bloodied knuckles when she had begrudgingly let him in, his forehead landing against the wood as he waited for her to answer.
“You found me,” she whispered softly as she cracked the door open an inch. 
“Always will,” he replied sincerely. “Can I come in?” She nodded and opened the door wider, John closing it behind him as she sat on the edge of her bed. He looked around and noticed a packed bag on the floor and a stack of envelopes on her desk. The one on top looked like it was addressed to her parents. 
“I’m sorry I didn’t come back after…” John shook his head.
“You were upset. He shouldn’t have said what he said.” Cass chuckled drily and looked at the ceiling. 
“You have my back, just like that? Without even knowing what it was he was talking about?” He sat down in her chair, elbows landing on the top of his thighs. “What happened to your hand?” She surged forward and held his hand in hers with a delicacy that made him shudder.
“I was having your back.” Not asking any further, she opened a drawer and pulled out a first aid kit. “And to answer your question, yes. It doesn’t matter what he was talking about. If it made you uncomfortable, it needed to stop.” He didn’t wince as she cleaned the blood from his hand, kissing each knuckle for extra measure, and wrapping a bandage to seal in her love.
“I appreciate that, John, but what he said was true.” He winced now. 
“About being another man’s bride?” The thought made him sick. The thought that Cass was already someone else’s. That she hadn’t told him and let him fall in love with her and share in those sacred moments together. That maybe that was why she so rigidly didn’t want him to say so. 
“I was supposed to be. Before I left for training, I was engaged.” She paused and waited for his reaction. Waited for him to be angry or upset and tell her she wasn’t worth the trouble. 
“And I’m sure you left for a reason, Cass.” His desire to understand her almost hurt her chest. It reminded her exactly why she had left. Why Sidney Landry was most certainly not the man she was meant to marry. “You don’t have to tell me. I don’t want to drudge something up if you’ve already gotten over it.”
“No, if…if me and you are going to be me and you, you need to know. You deserve to know.” John leaned forward to hold her hands, kissing the back of them with all the love he could muster. “His name is Sidney Landry. His father is the biggest banker in the state and they’ve been looking to get their claws into my family’s business for decades.” Her hands shook slightly and he squeezed them tight.
“I’m here,” he whispered. “I’m not leaving.”
“By all accounts it was an advantageous match. They were wealthy and powerful and Sidney could have any girl in Charleston that he wanted but for some god awful reason he wanted me. My mother was so delighted. She had found a man who was willing to try to tame me.” A tear rolled down her cheek and John’s thumb wiped it away. 
“Cass…”
“I had no choice but to say yes and let him parade me around like some blue ribbon. I was so miserable every second I was with him. He would grab my arms so tight they bruised everytime we went somewhere. He would say the crudest things about me having his children. I spent months just wanting it all to stop.” The tears were coming in full force. Her hands grasping John’s like he was her anchor in the storm. His own eyes were swimming with emotion as he watched her exorcize these demons from within her. “One night he had been drinking so much I couldn’t understand what he was saying. But he was so angry I wouldn’t let him touch me. So angry that he…”
“You don’t have to tell me,” he repeated, “I know all I need to, Cass.” John already knew he was going to kill Sidney Landry. Didn’t know when but he knew it would be slow. 
“His hands were around my neck and I thought he was going to kill me. I hit him as hard as I could over and over before he stopped. I ran and I ran and I ran until I couldn’t breathe.” 
“You ran all the way to London, huh?” he said in the hopes of getting a smile to crack across her face. It worked. 
“I thought I ended up here because I was running away from him but maybe I was really just running to you.”
“That sounds about right,” he murmured as he stroked the top of her cheeks. “What you went through…You are so fucking strong, Cass. You deserve to be happy and to feel loved and protected.”
“I’m so damaged, John. I’m not meant for a life of teacups and doilies and standing there silently. No one is going to want this version of me.” Now that he knew the truth, she expected him to run too. To find a simple girl who could be the wife he deserved and the mother to his children he deserved. 
“That’s not true, Cass, because I,” he swallowed and held her face between his hands, steady and strong, “because I love you. I am so fucking in love with you, Cassandra Cooper. I love every last bit of you and I love this version of you and know I’ll love every version that comes after.” She kissed him ferociously, not able to get enough of him even with no distance between them. “Come home with me when this is all over. Do me the honor and make me the happiest man alive.”
“I will, John, I will.” He kissed her with a groan, eager to lock this promise between them. “John, you need to know that I leave for Berlin in the morning. The operation it’s…it’s…others have tried and they haven’t come back.”
“I’m not letting you say goodbye,” he reasoned. “Not when you got me thinking about an after.” Oh it was so cruel and dangerous for the universe to do this to him. Give him the one thing he’d been wanting only to have her live her life on the same edge he did. 
“If something happens to me, I need you to know I feel the same way you do.” She just needed to get through this. If she could survive Berlin, she could survive this whole thing. She could love John Egan wholeheartedly and unabashedly. She could find the courage to go back home if he was with her. “When I went to see Harding this morning, I went to turn down Berlin.”
“Turn it down?”
“I would have rather been here with you than anywhere else. No matter what those consequences were. But then I saw Buck’s letter and I was so angry.”
“I know. I deserve that.” She shook her head.
“No, you don’t because here I am doing the exact same thing.” 
“Hey, you’re not going to need those farewell letters on your desk, okay? You’re going to go to Berlin, kick someone’s ass or steal state secrets to end the war and you’re going to come right back home to me. Just like how I am always going to come right back home to you.”
“Forever and ever?” she asked. 
“Forever and ever,” he promised. “You going to let me hold you while we try and get some sleep tonight?” 
And that was how Mary found them before the sun rose the following morning. John protectively wrapped around Cass from behind, their fingers interlocked at her middle. And they both studied each other for a few more minutes until Mary said it was really, really time for Cass to go. John not wanting to forget a single thing about this very moment. Cass not wanting to forget a single detail about the face of the man she loved. The face of the man she was fighting to keep safe. 
“Don’t get distracted by thoughts of your love for me while you’re flying,” she teased as he pecked her lips a few times. 
“I am going to fly so much faster with that admission off my chest.” She giggled and fell back into him easily, her plane whirring to life behind them. 
“If you do, I might let you show me how much you love me when I get back.” That twinkle of mischief was there that he loved so dearly. 
“Is that so? You better hurry then. I’m a patient man, Spook, but not when it comes to loving on you.” 
“Cass! We got to go! Weather’s moving in!” Her heart dropped along with her smile as she turned back to John. The part she was dreading.
“I’ll see you when I get back,” she said, her fingers tracing the contours of his face one last time. His knuckles brushed her cheek and he kissed her one last time. 
“I love you. You come back to me in one piece. That’s an order, Lieutenant.” 
“I’ll do my best, Major.” She pulled him by the front of his jacket for her own last kiss. To tell him she loved him without saying the words. Those would be for after. 
She walked backwards until she couldn’t anymore. Her hand pressing to her lips before she released it into the wind, John catching the sentiment with ease. He had never felt such torment watching a plane take off as he did in that moment. It was carrying everything he held dear off to a faraway place. 
“Please come back to me, Cass.”
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moreespressoformydepresso · 5 months ago
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Guess who started plagiarizing their own AU’s?
I got another fix-it with ✨angst✨ because I was thinking about how much Nero Price hates the districts for forcing him and his family into cannibalism and it made me think: “if starvation made him hate them, could it make them start to fight for them?” And then I thought about my starvation fix-it AU (featuring @spiralling-thoughts) and this was born.
Instead of the starvation happening before the games, it happens during the games, which takes place about a week or two later than it was supposed to due to rebel activity (read: Sejanus and a few good mentors fucking shit up for Gaul). The premise here is simple: these extra weeks gave the tributes the time to bond (and also none of them died because Sejanus Does Not Agree With That) and now none of them can stomach killing one another. So what’s the other option? Uhm… waiting until fate decides the victor? So once they’re finally thrown into the arena and the buzzer sounds they run into the tunnels like they did in canon (but with more kids), but the big difference is that nobody gets out. Some get a weapon just to be safe but the few kids that run into one another don’t really do anything. Think the Foxface-Katniss interaction at the start of the 74th Hunger Games. Lucky tries to get everyone hyped up every single time only to be sorely disappointed when they stare each other down only to sprint in the opposite direction mere seconds later.
At first, Gaul isn’t particularly bothered by how hilariously she’s being proven wrong because they can just starve out the tributes and surely they’ll start swinging at each other soon enough right? This might even be better than how things usually go! Except then the kids start to notice some are getting more food than others and they’re not about that. Coral sharing with Mizzen and Tanner is written off by their alliance, but then things start escalating. It starts with Lamina calling a clearly starved Wovey over and giving her all except two of her food packets. Then Lucy Gray and Jessup (who does not have rabies and neither does Reaper because Brandy (who is in the pack with Coral and Not Dead) threw the rabbid raccoon away a little further) trade their water for Sol and Hy’s food. Treech considers stealing Dill’s food and water but decides to help her consume it instead and somehow this keeps Dill from dying (Felix. The answer is Felix. He used his presidential family card to sneak antibiotics into her water bottles). Then before anyone knows it the tributes are all keeping tabs on who’s eaten what and they start rationing out so everyone gets the food they need. The older kids tells the younger ones that they’re deliberately feeding them more because growing you know? But the Capitol sure notices. When we get to day five, Gaul decides that enough is enough and orders a full stop to all sponsor gifts to try and force the tributes to start killing each other.
They do no such thing.
Instead, they start doubling down on their decision to stick this thing out together and start catching any rodents they can to feed to the youngest kids while ignoring the slowly growing hunger within them. Do those Capitol bastards really think they can get to them with starvation? Please, this is their daily jam. They’ve gotten this far, a little hunger won’t break them now. So they wait. They wait and they survive. It gets harder and harder for the older tributes, who are allowing themselves to starve for the sake of their younger companions and are slowly running out of fuel to keep going, but not once do they comply with what they know the Capitol wants from them. At some point it becomes pure shared spite more than anything.
Meanwhile, the Capitol citizens watch this go down and have their view of the world shaken up considerably. These kids know just a little too much about dealing with extreme food shortage for this to be their first rodeo. The delusion that the districts haven’t suffered as much as the Capitol did during the siege is completely shattered when the kids start sharing their best starvation cope tactics that make it clear this is a regular occurrence for them. Slowly, more and more information is shown to them as they watch the kids they saw as violent beasts be nothing but caring and kind to one another. It hits especially hard for the Price family, who spent so much time loathing the districts for their decision to resort to cannibalism only to find out that the Capitol has pushed the districts right to that edge for years. How can they call themselves better when they’ve done the exact same thing they resent the districts for? When they’ve arguably done worse because they’re punishing innocents? That last line of thinking becomes particularly unavoidable when the younger kids start taking up more screentime. Why do they do this? Because the older tributes are starting to succumb to starvation. They all look skeletal and half-dead, but the oldest tributes have given up so much food that it’s clear they can barely move. They do a good job of hiding it around the younger kids but once they’re out of sight under the guise of searching for more insects and rodents to eat they collapse and curl up to fight off the hunger pangs. When the young kids are asleep all the older ones clearly sag as their energy depletes. It reminds the Capitol citizens of how they’d hide their fatigue and physical deterioration from their kids and loved ones, desperate to hold it together, only to break down once they were alone.
When the first tribute stops being able to move, the Capitol has had enough. Perhaps Marcus, Coral, and Reaper scream their lungs out at the camera over the hypocrisy and cruelty and then mockingly asking the Capitol what they’re gonna do about this show of rebellion. This refusal to fight. Starve them? Kill them? What more can they do?! That’s the final straw. The more sympathetic citizens refuse to watch for even a second longer. They do the one thing the Capitol feared:
They rebel
Maybe they force the government to get the kids out. Maybe they get some peacekeepers on their side and storm the arena first to make sure not one more innocent life is lost. Either way, they realize that silence isn’t any better than being the monster. Seeing suffering and standing by is just as cruel as causing that suffering in the first place. If they storm the arena they bring easily digestible food and liquid calories to avoid refeeding syndrome or nausea from overeating so they can start helping the kids readjust and heal. Of course there’s a lot of distrust from the kids at first, but they’re in no position to refuse food. So they take it, and for once the oldest kids don’t mind eating first because who knows what these Capitol assholes put in it? Of course it turns out it’s not poisoned so they start to accept it a little more openly while the politics are handed and arrangements are made to get the kids back home. Gaul tries to stop this, but nobody listens to her anymore. Her lab’s destroyed under “mysterious circumstances” and as her career comes to a fiery end, she herself does too. When legal repercussions for her heinous actions is threatened by the parents of several academy students she endangered, she attempts to flee the country. What chance of winning does she have when one of the litigants is President Ravinstill himself??? Felix was a little upset about Dill’s pain and he wasn’t about to let it slide but since persecuting her for the hunger games wouldn’t work due to law changes not working retroactively this was the next best thing. Either way, certain people (the mentors) caught wind of the fact that this vile monster of a woman was trying to escape the consequences of her actions and they decided to remain one step ahead by becoming the mysterious circumstances credited with her disappearance. By which I mean she came to a slow death in her home. Possibly through invisible toxic gas, possibly through burning to death, possibly through her own predator muttations given her scent to hunt down. Who knows? Better question is who cares? The mentors have become closer to their tributes and their friendships last well beyond the fixing of all the problems in this mess of a country and all’s well that ends well.
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deutoplasmic · 4 months ago
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AVERAGE WORKDAY AS A VICTIM OF CAPITALISM
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kawanishi takumi x gn! reader. 1.7k words. fluff, coffee shop au, meet-ugly.
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Usually, people consider having a job to be a solidification of a status in society, a contributing member of the economy, the responsible taxpayer living their best life. People also usually consider that having a good job means that you feel more happier, more fulfilled, more societally adaptive, more content with how fate happens to play out.
You say usually, because you are 5 seconds away from just finding your manager Sho and outright resigning. It's only the promise of sweet, sweet money that keeps you together after you clock into work, take a couple of orders, and serve a table – only for some woman to sniff her drink, frenetically slam it down on the varnished wood, and screech something along the lines of this iced latte tastes like full cream milk, I know it's full cream, stop lying to me, and I ordered skim! Her furious spittle keeps flying all over the tabletop and the cute decorative succulent you watered earlier today. Someone’ll have to clean it up later and it sure as hell won't be you.
Just in case she’s actually right and you didn't just bungle her order, you glance across the room to confirm the bottle of milk just used for her drink. And. It's most definitely skim. When you look back at her frenzied state, there is definitely not a single chance on Earth that she'll listen to you – or anyone, really, except maybe Sho. He’s always had a penchant for calming down aggravated customers, which would be really useful if he was here right now. But he's not, so you just get to relish in a spray of saliva, loud shrieking, and your increasing urge to just blow up on her. You definitely have to ask for a pay rise soon or something.
The woman yells out one more thing about disgusting coffee beans – you decide not to mention that to Sho, considering he likes to pride himself on his nitpicked 1000-time-tested internationally-sourced coffee selection – and in all the joys of working in the food industry, cathartically throws her drink at you. Or launches, which is a better word for how fast it hurtles toward you.
Unfortunately, you are not very skilled in the art of catching high-speed coffee cup-shaped objects, so you have to make do with the power of determination and spite. Making do, however, ends up constituting of you trying to grab the drink from out of mid-air. It also happens to constitute your expertise ultimately failing you, as the ridged edges of the cup bounce off your fingers.
And into this back of this poor neighbouring guy’s white graphic T-shirt, which is at just the right angle for a considerable amount of latte to splash all over itstaining the fabric a milky brown that creeps outwards and clings to his skin like vine tendrils you keep trying to pull off but just end up sticking again.
Everyone else in the cafe is silently staring at you and the guy, catching every single movement as the guy slowly turns around. Having a job makes you more content with how fate plays out, you fatalistically think, happier and more fulfilled. To your immense dismay, you can't just stand there and consider quitting as a viable option just yet, so you struggle but manage to splutter out a “sorry for the inconvenience, sir, we can pay for the cleaning”. There is no way you're going to even glance at his probably very shellshocked face out of pure shame after this extreme loss of dignity.
He does not respond, leaving the cafe to just slowly and awkwardly start chattering to each other again. After the woman awkwardly realises nothing else is going to come out of this, she just hisses out something unintelligible – probably something like “never coming here again”, which, y’know, good riddance – and storms out the cafe to the cheery jingle of some windchimes.
The guy is still silent. Someone dings the bell on the counter. You decide to just risk it and go to sneak an apologetic look-
“Is everything alright?” Sho, the saving grace of your sanity, walks outside the kitchen curiously with his hands dusted with some pale white flour. “There are some customers waiting- Takumi?”
You swivel to fully face the Takumi guy. And he's staring right at you. And he is very, very cute. And you just spilled coffee on him.
However, there is no rest for mildly-above-minimum wage pay workers, so you snap to attention. “Sho, I accidentally spilled a drink on his” – you stiffly gesture in the direction of said man – “shirt. Is there any chance I can get it cleaned for him?”
Sho looks at you before laughing. You have definitely made a fatal error and you’ll be fired right now, right here, and you’ll have to dig up your resume from the depths of somewhere to go on the arduous task of job-hunting.
But then. He just goes ahead and waves you off kindly. “No, Takumi’s a friend of mine – I’ll just do it myself. In the meantime, do you mind getting the spare shirt in the storeroom for him to change into?”
There is absolutely no way he said that. As you hastily nod in acknowledgement and speed over to the storeroom, you catalogue whatever that... situation was that just unfolded.
First, you fumbled a drink horrendously. Second, you got this poor guy’s shirt ruined. Third, you probably-most-definitely jeopardised the Google rating of this cafe. And fourth, you somehow managed to not get fired after this crazy debacle, just to make up for your horrific luck today.
As soon as you get home, you are going to go to sleep and pretend nothing happened today. Absolutely nothing. Not at all. Right now, though, you grab the shirt neatly folded underneath some dish towels, and take some sweet, sweet time to close the door. Sho’s busy wiping up all the coffee on the floor, so you hand over the shirt to the Takumi guy whilst emphatically not making any eye contact, and shuffle-run back to the counter to get to serving the small gaggle of people waiting there. Hopefully, you’ll never see him again and you can forget all about doing latte DIY on his shirt. Hopefully.
Your shift thankfully ends without any more fiascos, and life is looking up for you. It’s so consolidating, in fact, that you have to remember that you have another shift tomorrow just to keep your hopes down. Goddamnit. Definitely no rest for mildly-above-minimum wage workers.
-
When you clock in the next morning, everything is as usual. The table of the incident is clean. There are no mysterious coffee stains on any fabric. Maybe, you desperately hope, everything will be fine today!
After making a slew of drinks for regulars and newcomers alike, you’ve almost shoved the events of yesterday out of your mind. That is, until you’ve just served a latte (you refuse to acknowledge the type of drink) and the assistance bell rings. You look up from the counter and towards the customer. It’s a guy in a shirt that looks very familiar, and when you take in his face, you realise just exactly who this is.
He grins awkwardly at you. “Uh, hi?”
Your head starts frantically sounding emergency sirens. It’s Takumi. The guy you just spilt coffee on yesterday. It is so over. You are so over. Autopilot, however, kicks in and saves you from making a fool of yourself. “Um. Welcome. What would you like today?”
He helplessly stares at you for a few seconds, before pulling out a kind of crinkled neon-pink sticky note from his pant pocket. “May I please have your number?”
Sorry. What. “Sorry, what?” you echo in shock, stress removing the formality of your speech. “Huh?”
“Oh. Um. I, uh” – he squints to read the words on the paper – “thought it was worth a shot?” There’s a sad and very pitiful expression on Takumi’s face, which is too much for you to bear, so you hastily clarify what you said.
“Uh, sorry. I assumed you wouldn’t want anything to do with me after I ruined your shirt?”
“Ruined?” His eyes are very wide in bafflement. “Don’t worry, Sho’s very good at cleaning out coffee stains. Actually, I was grateful you spilled it on me, because otherwise I wouldn't have-”
You stare at him. He stares back at you, before caving in and looking away. When he realises you’re not going to say anything else, he frantically apologises. “Sorry. Was that too much information? Uh, I shouldn’t have trusted Keigo-”
“You’re fine,” you assure him awkwardly, grateful for the few customers inside. “Don’t worry.” This Keigo character clearly didn’t brief Takumi well enough if whatever's going on here is any clue.
“Oh. Cool. Um. Can you- we- go- guh. Can I get a hot chocolate? Medium please,” he blurts out so fast that you almost struggle to figure out what he ordered, but you're luckily versed in the art of deciphering drinks from mumbles. It's a skill you've developed from this very job.
You scribble his order down on a cup, professional 'I am just a calm, composed, paid worker at this cafe' mode activated again. "Anything else?"
"Uh." He consults the sticky note again before looking at you with so much hope that his face can probably be used in one of those tests where you try to identify someone’s emotions. "Can I um. Can I say your number again?"
His optimism is so inspiring, it's so obvious he doesn't work in the food industry. Why not, you impulsively decide. Why not.
“Sure,” you tell him indulgently, and the way he looks at you almost makes being a mildly above minimum wage worker worth it. Almost. Because now you have to ask him to pay for the drink, but you also don't want to ruin the moment, nor do you really want to put it 'on the house' since it'll be deducted from your paycheck, so you're kind of just standing there at an impasse.
Such is the life of a victim of capitalism.
"I'll make that for you right now," you sigh in defeat, and try to ignore the way your heart thumps a little too hard and fast at his excited smile.
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alice-angel12x · 2 years ago
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Life + Death is a Balance
Death Au + Origin Au
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In the beginning, there was only Time and Space. Space created a realm for them to exist in, but Time was not satisfied with just that. Time asked Space for Something to Happen, but she was content with simply existing and sleeping. Time was tired of the unchanging darkness, so gathered some of his power and poured it into a small being.
The antlered being opened his eyes, revealing emerald pools.
"W-what am I?" the new creation asked Time.
"I shall call you... Life. And you will fill this void with anything and everything. Whatever your little brain can imagine," Time said simply.
Life looked around and saw nothing about empty darkness. So letting their magic flow for the first time, Life focused all his power in one spot. When suddenly it exploded and created a Big Bang!
And light filled the void for the first time. Space awoke to the sudden brightness, and questioned Time what he had done.
"You would not entertain me, so I made my own entertainment. I promise not to bother you anymore. As long as Life is around and all that he creates," Time bargained with a smirk.
For a while, Space didn't see anything wrong with this arrangement. However, as things went on the Void started to fill with all of Life's creation, and Space complained to Time about the tight space.
"Well I can't stop him, I guess you're just gonna have to make more Room," Time said simply.
"Can't you control your own creation?!" Space growled.
"Well, I wouldn't have had to make him if you did more with your energy. So do what you were meant to do and Expand," Time said coldly.
So she did just that and made more room, but Time made no attempt to retrain Life. So the young begin kept creating, forcing Space to create more room. Soon Space had to make dimensions and an alternate universe to contain everything.
Space eventually had enough and decided to do something to something to get back at Time. So she two made something. Something stronger than Life.
"Who am I? And what is the purpose of my creation?" The new being asked.
"You are Death, and You are going to destroy all Life," Space ordered. "Destroy everything."
"Of course," Death bowed.
And thus the long war between life and Death. Death would senselessly destroy all life World by world. At such a rate that Life couldn't keep up. So much room was reclaimed, finally giving Space time to rest.
Life had enough and laid a trap for Death. When Life finally got Death where he wanted them, he sealed away a large portion of Death's power. Death could no longer destroy the world in one blow like they used to.
With Death's power weakened, they had to become smarter. So they created the pledge, Monsters, and disasters. But to really spit in Life's face, Death twisted Life's creations. Animals began to eat one another, and humans and other intelligent beings turned on each other.
Life had enough of Death and planned to finish this war once and for all. The two fought, destroying things around them in their battle. Sadly a small elf caravan was unfortunate enough to be in the line of sight of the beings.
Death saw them in the distance, and Space's words echoed in their ear. Death with all their might shoved Life to the ground and pinned them with their sword.
Life noticed what Death was about to do, and cried out for the Elves to run. He begged For Death to leave them out of their fight, but they slaughtered them all without an ounce of pity.
Life watched with pure horror as Death ripped through the mortals. "Your A Monster!" Life cried out in sorrow and rage.
Death Just stared down at Life and ran off to cause more Havoic. But Life would not just let this go, so he cursed Death to be feared and hated by all things that live. So to spite Life, they created the underworld. To hold all the souls they collect and take from Life.
Life tried to create other godlike beings to aid in the fight with Death, but it did little to help. Other than serving as eyes for Life, they mostly liked ruling over the mortals of their surviving worlds. Some even ally themselves with Death, some by choice and a few for other reasons.
With some helping hands, Death was able to spread destruction at a faster rate. So in one final attack Life, managed to trap Death and impression them deep and a lifeless planet. Of course, this also greatly weaken Life too, as he retreated to his home to recover.
Time didn't want his fun to end, so after a while, he weakened the barrier just enough. As he did so, he whispered promises in the underworld gods' ears, that they could become the strongest if they could take Death's power. Only one Underworld god did not buy into those words, and that was Hades.
But when the others freed Death, the god immediately attacked the weakened Death. Luckily, Death managed to escape but was left badly hurt and vulnerable.
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After managing to escape to another world, Death sat down in a lone forest and winced in pain. But Death knew they were not alone. Though they knew they can't be killed, they were so weakened a mere human could overpower them in this state.
So they sat and glared as the bushes began to shake and rustle, only to stare in confusion as a human child stepped out. What Made Death even more confused was that the child wasn't frightened by them.
They were scared of something behind them, as the little girl ran and hide behind Death. Before Death could even possess what was happening, two vicious wolves appeared from the bush. The leading one jumped and bit down on Death's arm. Death glared and grabbed the wolf by the throat and used it as a club on the second wolf.
With a pained cry from the wolves the two beasts quickly ran, tails between their legs. the Little stared in awe as Death turned to look at this strange child.
"Your... So... COOL!!" The girl awed as she hugged them.
(Death.Exe has stopped working)
Death didn't know what to do, think, or say at that moment. The warm feeling in their chest was something foreign to them.
"Ah, your hurt! Don't go anywhere, I'll ask mommy for healing potions. I'll be back as soon as I can," The Little girl promised as she dashed off the way she came.
Death still hadn't said anything as they just watched in confusion.
"What...was that?" Death asked themselves as they placed a hand over their chest. the source of the warm feeling came from.
And as the girl promised she returned with some healing potions. Sadly before Death could even turn down the offer, the little girl shoved a bottle into Death's mouth. The girl smiled proudly as she believed she was saving someone, but Death eventually spat the bottle and the potion.
"Wha! No, You have to drink your medicine!" The little 9-year-old scolded.
"No," Death smirked as the little one huffed in frustration.
"I don't want you to die! Please take the medicine?!" The girl began to cry.
With a sigh, Death decided to be nice for once and pretend to consume the potion. The little girl smiled as sat next to them and began to talk about everything and anything.
"Oh, what's your name? Sorry I forget to ask sometimes," The girl smiled.
"I don't have one, call me whatever you like," Death said simply.
"Okay! Hmmm, I'll call you Y/n," The girl hugged.
And long after Death got better, the little girl continued to seek them out. Death watched as the little grow, and as her friend she showed everything the world had to offer.
For the first time ever, Death would down and smell the roses. And when the little girl would leave for the night, death would continue to explore and observe everything.
One day, the girl didn't come. So Death snuck to the edge of the village to see what was happening. As they got close they could feel a wave of sadness throughout the village. With little power, they recovered and transformed into a Nightingale. From the wall, they could see a parade of injured warriors.
The little girl later would explain how there was a bigger town nearby, trying to "Bully" them into giving them all their food. Sadly things got bad and now they were fighting. Her father went out to fight and died.
A heavy and cold feeling tightened inside their chest. Later that night the girl and Death walked along the hollowed grounds of the burial. Many know widowed wives were still at the graves, crying over the soil of their loved ones.
Death soon saw the little girl do the same. With a new pair of eyes, for the first time saw the consequences of what they brought. The wails and cries of the mournful filled Death's ears.
'Am... Am I ... Am I Evil?' Death silently asked themselves. 'My master said that this was necessary. She said to destroy everything.'
"What's wrong Y/n? Is your dad buried here too? Or other loved ones?" The little girl asked.
"Loved...ones?" Death asked. "No, I have no such thing. And... I don't deserve to be loved."
"Well!" The little one jumped up and hugged Y/n. "You have one know. And Mommy says everyone should have at least one."
Death slowly and hesitantly patted the girl's head, but the girl had to let go eventually. Cause Death had no body warmth whatsoever.
As the "little" Girl grew older, she would share her dreams and wishes with Death. Y/n smiled slightly as they watched her grow older, found a loving husband, and eventually formed the family she always dreamed of.
As Death wandered the forests, the once little girl called out to them. She had her newborn daughter with her. She said she wanted to Y/n to meet the new member of Y/n's loved ones. Death stared down at the new mortal, and the baby stared back.
Daughter-like mother, the baby laughed and reached out to death, wanting to be held. Death cringed a bit as they stepped back a step, but the girl handed the baby to Y/n. Death held the baby and was stiff as the baby reached up to them.
They were internally panicked when they felt a pair of tiny hands on their cheeks. Death looked down to see the baby smiling as examining them. As they stared suddenly their vision started to blur as something fell from their eyes.
"W-what is this," Death panicked as they handed the baby back to its mother.
"Oh my, I don't think I've ever seen you cry before," The woman gasped as she tried to wipe Death's tears.
"I don't understand what's happening?" Death gasped as they tried to get rid of their tears.
The woman just smiled and pulled Y/n(death) into a warm hug. This time Death was quick to reciprocate, but they did have one question.
"Why aren't you terrified of me?! I was cursed to scare everyone away?" Death sobbed.
"I'm not sure. It's probably My unique magic, which protects me from curses," the woman answered with a shrug. "And you could have hurt me all these years, but you didn't."
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Sadly Time had other plans. While Death was roaming the world, taking in the beauty of it all. When they suddenly felt a sudden large amount of flaming life being snuffed out.
Death tried to get back to the town, but a lesser being of the underworld blocked their path. Yet, Death made quick work of it and ran towards the town. As they got onto the familiar path toward the town.
"Y/N!" the woman cried as she ran, covered in soot and blood.
She was running with her child in her arms, fear in her eyes. But upon the sight of Y/n coming to her aid, she smiled as she reached out for them. When an arrow to the heart snuffed out her candle flame of life.
Death reached out and caught her and the baby before they could hit the ground. Death looked down in horror as the woman lay lifeless and her baby cried out for her. The soldiers that were hunting the two froze in their tracks at the sight of the stranger, a wave of terror washed over them as Death slowly looked up at them.
Yet before they could even scream, Death had finished them off. Sadly this was not enough to quell their blazing fires of wrath. They hunted down the enemy soldiers and went on to the village itself. When Death's wrath finally went out, nothing of the enemy village remained.
As Y/n returned to the woman's village, they saw the great damage to this once-peaceful town. The only survivors were the children of this town, whom the enemy was planning to enslave.
Y/n knew that they couldn't help with their curse as strong, and Life was never going to lift it. So they had no choice but to plead and beg to Time and Space.
Space simply chastised her creation for suddenly deciding to slow down on their purpose. She tells them because of this, the void is starting to fill again. So Y/n turned to Time and pleaded for his help.
Time uncharacteristically of him decided to help Y/n this once. So he made a pendant that would repress the curse for about 3 decades. Though once time is up, the pendant will need to restore itself for at least a century or two.
So with this tiny aid, Y/n quickly returned to the village and rounded up all the children. They helped them mourn by burying the dead and staying for the day.
But Y/n knew what would happen if they stay for too long. After some convincing Y/n managed to get the children to follow, and far away from the enemy and their allies.
And they found this place, which will later in the future be called Harveston. Y/n would stay with the children and raise them as best they could. Teaching them, raising them, Playing with them, and even giving the children each individual attention.
As the children and town grew, and Y/n's time was about to end, the woman's daughter, now 29. Meet with Y/n at the edge of the apple orchard.
"Y/n, you've been distant lately? What's wrong?" The girl asked.
"I'm dying?" Y/n lied.
"W-what! No, you can't die. We all still need you, I need you," The girl teared up. "Is that why you made Pierre mayor?"
"He is a kind heart boy, with a good head on his shoulders. I know he will do whatever it takes to protect you all," Y/n explained.
"We all lost our parents. And You show up, give a chance at life, and being a parent to us all," The said, getting choked up.
"I wish your mother was here. She was a good friend and dreamed of having a family, an amazing daughter," Y/n reminisce.
"What was her name?" The girl asked.
"Her name... Was Reine Felmier. So your full name is Marie Felmier," Y/n smiled.
"W-would I be everything she hoped if she were here?" Marie asked..
"You would surpass what she could have ever hoped for," Y/n said gently.
A week later Y/n "Died". Leaving the town's people devastated, but when the dust cleared Y/n quickly left the town. With 30 years of new experience, Y/n new things had to change. So the first thing they did was erase the underworlds, and either let souls wander their world, or turn them into stars to light up the night sky.
Life noticed the sudden lights in the vast darkness of the void, and could only stare in wonder. As he stared out into the void.
"Look Out! It's Death!" The Jerrys cried out for their boss.
Life gasped as he got into a fighting stance, but Death just stood, not even raising their blades. The Jerrys gathered the souls and ran away from the scene
"Sir Life, I have not come to fight. Simply to apologize and discuss some things," Death said, but Life quickly tackled them and pinned them down to the ground.
Sadly Life was not too keen on listening, not after the many time Death had tried to trick them in the past. He quickly began to press the end of his staff at Death's neck.
"Don't you dare attempt to fool me again!" Life growled. "And Even if this was genuine, I would never accept it. Not after all the terrible things you've done."
"I know. I corrupt your creations, I create things to make them suffer, and for I time I took without thinking. And I understand that you will never forgive, and I am truly sorry. I simply wish to discuss an important matter with you," Death tried to reason, but Life teleported Death far from his home.
Saddened but not surprised, Y/n was left with no choice but to continue on. And to attempt equilibrium, to sadly kill off to make room for new life. Yet this was difficult since Life just kept making more and more without restraint.
Space hated that her creation was becoming docile and soft. So she called to the remaining once underworld gods and granted them powers on pare with Life and Death. She commanded them to pick up the slack.
So the 6 gods turned their sight on the tree of Origin, at Life. So, like a hurricane, they stormed the home of Souls and Life.
---------------------
(200 years later
Life hung by his wrists as sharp chains of obsidian bound him to the ceiling. The gods of chaos stormed the tree, destroying the little souls that had yet to live. Captured life and dragged him to a long-dead world, deep in its cold core.
The Obsidian chains dug into his tan olive skin as ichor ran down his arms. The cruel beings tortured the god of life. They whipped and ripped at his skin, hammered off his antlers, and forcibly possessed his body. Forcing him to create an abomination of destruction, and releasing them on worlds.
Life could hear the horrified screams of the mortals as they are snuffed out. He tried to call for help from Time, but he never answered. Life hung his head as he tried to think of another way out, but the enchanted chains blocked his powers. The other gods turned their back on their creator. Wanted some sort of selfish gain out of his death.
His aids at home didn't have the strength to compete with beings like his captors. As he hung there a terrible and sad thought came to his mind.
'If I were to die, Time could simply make another... Another being of Life, so why waste his efforts. I knew Time only saw me as a tool for his own amusement. Space hated me, and never told me why when I asked her. Instead, she just created someone to destroy me. I'm valued by no one,'
As he was about to give up, the scream of bloody murder caught his attention. A god of chaos lay dead at... Death's feet. Death slowly approached Life, as he quickly shut his eyes waiting for the worst.
When suddenly with a crack, he felt his body fall. Only to suddenly feel a pair of cold arms catch him before he could hit the ground. Life looked up to his enemy, but black spots filled his vision as he eventually passed out.
____________________________________________________
Pt. 1 ends here
to be continued. Part 2 here
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sensei-venus · 1 year ago
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Omg! Please! As soon as Lawrence!Reader is strapped down on the car, Robby and Miguel think they're in the clear, but then she starts babbling on about how God knows what!
Bonus points if it's shit neither of them want to hear nor should know about lol
- and anxious gemini bound to get her wisdom teeth out
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(Unedited) (Blood,Spit, Lawrence!Reader donky-konging Miguel and Robby in the dentist parking lot because she can, Miguel regrets trying to help, Robby wants to escape his violent sister for once.) ( @gemini-sensei )
“I hate you the mostttt- you and your fucking lush baby curls.” Reader said though a full mouth of cotton balls.
Her hands where stuck under her ass in the seat in hopes of keeping them to herself for the ride. Robby actually grimaced as he watched his sister from the front seat. It took over twenty minutes to even get her into the van and another ten to actually get her strapped in. The whole time she tried to drag them into the van and slam them against the hard plastic of the walls. She was able to smash Robby’s face into a window and then body slam Miguel into one of the back seats, knocking the air out of him.
Getting the Lawrence girl into a car after having her wisdom teeth removed seemed to be almost impossible.
Even with the help of Miguel it was still a challenge.
Miguel being called to help was a long shot. Bring Hawk would have been a nightmare, Demetri would probably never shut up, and Sam would be to worried. None of them would have been able to help try and corner the girl. She was still very loopy from the mass amount of drugs the dentist pumped into her. That did nothing to stop her from having her usual violent outbursts. If anything it only made her more unpredictable. Honestly it was scaring the hell out of Robby. And she was his sister at that.
Miguel was the only choice he really had.
Robby tried his best to ignore the gross red blood tinted drool that threatened to escape her lip. She looked at him but he couldn’t tell if she was looking at him or though him.
“Don’t you fucking dare-“ was all he was able to get out before Reader blew a fat bloody spit bubble his way. Miguel sat in the passenger seat in pure disgust. Watching the girl blow blood at them out of spite was one of the grossest things he had ever seen. He could handle a little bit of blood, but this was just nasty.
“You let them fucking steal my teeth you assholes. I’m going to steal your teeth.” She slurred before looking out the window. Her eyes glazed over , still loopy from the laughing gas and pain meds the dentist had given her. All of them jay sat in silence. The only sound was the ac going in the car.
Miguel slumped in the seat, slinging down in a heap. His eyes slowly moved to look over at Robby “Who thought this was a good idea? Letting you of all people take her home after getting her wisdom teeth take out.” Robby basically growls out “You already know who. Johnny didn’t want to do it because he didn’t want to hear her whining after the meds slowly started to seep out of her system!” Miguel slowly turned his head. His eyes locking with the dirty blonde.
His eye twitched a little in annoyance “Have you meet your sister? She’s a fucking hardass who likes picking fights. You thought she was going to be quiet after they got her high off her ass on pain killers?? Her teeth are gone dude. You think she’s happy.” Reader kicked at the back of Robby’s seat, soon turning to Miguel’s to do the same thing.
“Pay attention to me!!!” Reader whined from the back seat. Her hands still stuck under her butt as she looked at the two boys. Soon her eyes started to well up with tears. Both boys looked at each other for a split second. That was all it took before Reader was crying in the back seat, fat tears rolling down her chubby cheeks and red spit spilling down her chin. It dripped onto her thick thighs and stained her pants. Her chest hiccups with sobs as the minutes tick by.
Both guys freeze up as the violent and shit talking girl they know crys. Not even Robby can remember the last time he witnessed his sister cry over something. Maybe when they where kids as she fell at the skate park. Scraping her knee so bad it scared over.
Miguel wanted to hide away and get as far as possible. Reader crying was not on his too do list what so ever. Her crying had to be some kind of bad sign of some kind. He looked to Robby for some kind of plan.
“Hey it’s ok, why don’t we go get some ice cream? You always like ice cream, and it might make you feel a little better.” Robby says in hopes of calming her down.
“What if I call Tory and ask her if she wants to come over and play some video games with you? You love it when Tory comes over to hang out. I bet she would love to come over today.” Miguel thinks on his feet.
Reader slowly starts to calm down. Her heavy sobs start to slow but her lips still tremble. Eyes puffy and hot form the salty tears. Cheeks hot and flustered. Robby quickly grabs a hand full of napkins from the glove box. With them in hand he reaches back and gently wipes the mix of drool and bloody spit from his sisters face. She doesn’t do much and just lets him.
“Ok…” she says in a defeated tone of voice. Big eyes find their way to her brothers.
“Can Tory come for ice cream too?? Please??” She whimpers as she falls back into her seat. Slumping back and finally showing some sign of defeat.
In a instant relief fills Miguel and Robby.
Thank fucking god for Tory and ice cream.
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justkending · 2 years ago
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Finding Memories. Chapter 21.
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Series Summary: Waking up with little to no memory of her past, and being saved by a group of individuals who call themselves heroes, sends a long time captive for a whirlwind trying to find some form of grounding in this world she quickly learns runs on chaos. But she’s not the only one trying to figure out her forgotten backstory. Bucky Barnes, along with the other Avengers, can’t help but sense that there is a lot more to the whole situation than a diagnosis of amnesia. Her background slowly starts to come forward in pieces of her past and hidden information discovered. Who is she? And why was she in the room they were meant to destroy?
Pairing: Bucky Barnes x Enhanced Reader 
Word Count: 2600 (On the dot;))
TW: Torture, cussing, gore, PTSD, triggers.  
A/N: I finally sat down and forced myself to get a chapter out! I needed to get this chapter written in order to find some motivation, so I hope you enjoy! 
Chapter 21:  
Nothing was said and no sound came from Y/N’s direction. Her eyes were locked on the screen as if she were analyzing every detail in the video. 
“Y/N?” Bucky asked, moving some so he was in her peripherals. 
“He’s still alive?” she asked.
Everyone looked at each other, silently communicating whether or not to tell her. 
“He’s still alive,” Tony answered realizing lies would get them nowhere.
“And we don’t know where he’s at?” She was still staring at the image of his face as it replayed over and over in front of her. 
“For now,” Bucky answered. “We’ll have something soon though. Don’t worry.”
She seemed to snap out of it some and looked back at Bucky before down at the table. 
“I don’t have a name for him. No one called him anything besides Doctor or Sir,” she said under her breath. “His face is more in my memories than his name.” She froze, her head snapping back up. “I need to talk to Gabriel again.”
It was getting late and they had been hit with new information and facts since the beginning of the day. Bucky didn’t like he could see that she was clearly burning out, but the adrenaline and pure spite of the situation was what was fueling her at the moment. 
“Why do you say that?”  Tony asked.
“He’ll know more of what we need,” she replied. 
“I thought you said no memories sparked with him,” Tony was confused. 
“Yeah, well… Things are coming back to me,” she huffed. “Excuse me a moment.” 
She made her way out the glass doors and seconds before Bucky followed, Nat stopped him. 
“Uh uh,” she looked at him. “She’ll be fine.”
And he knew she was right, but his patience toward this day was growing thinner and thinner. 
She was planning on going into the bathroom to take a second, but she knew Nat or Wanda would follow her in within the next minute and she needed more time than that. 
So she scoped out a supply closet and made sure no one followed or saw her go in.
Since last night, she hadn’t really been on her own for longer than 20 minutes and that one time was when she took a shower and was changing. Besides that, there was constantly someone supervising her. 
Right now, what she needed more than anything was a second to collect her thoughts and not feel like she had to shush them. Her head had been screaming at her with new things coming forward every few minutes. 
It happened a few times after the attack, but once she saw the things Wanda brought back, new flashes of things kept coming and forcing themselves to the surface.
She didn’t remember hunkering down in a corner on the floor, but she was now in a ball with her knees in her chest and her hands covering her head as it throbbed trying to keep up with the memories flooding back. 
“It’ll only ever happen once, so don’t think for a second you’re getting out again,” a voice hissed at her and she recognized it as the one who was calling her Pet earlier.  
She cringed as she watched his hand come up and harshly grip her jaw before throwing it back down in a manner meant to hurt her. 
“Hartly, up security and make her next cell impenetrable. If she gets out again, it’ll be your head on a pike next time,” he threatened looking furiously to the side. “And you’ll see a side of torture you never even knew was possible.”
She could hear her struggle from the extra straps they had fastened her under and the mumble of her lips being covered, but all that did was provoke the scientist more. 
“Keep it up. I like seeing you squirm…” 
Another memory took over and it was her somewhere that wasn’t familiar. Usually, it ranged from her cell, to the facility halls, to the operation room. But here… She looked to be on the streets of a city or town. 
She was by herself, nothing was familiar to her besides the language they were speaking. She wasn’t sure how she knew it and could understand it, but she could make out the accents and fluency of French. 
She tried to pull details from around her, but nothing made any connections to her.
She seemed weak and small compared to those walking around her, but they didn’t seem to pay mind to her presence. She must have been wearing something to blend in and wasn’t visibly distraught enough to bring attention to her, so when was this?
A different flashback started fighting for control again.
This time it was Gabriel, but he was sick in bed and was being nurtured by Y/N though all she had was a damp towel and a water bowl to use to dab away his dried blood along his shoulder and arm. 
They had cut him up and dislocated his shoulder in some experiment and had thrown him into the cell with four items. A needle, floss, a washbin, and a rag. They were being kind in giving them the rag at least. 
“When we get out of here, what should we do?” he said in a tone so soft, if she wasn’t sat right next to him, she wouldn’t have heard it.
“What do you mean?” she asked, focused on the wound. 
“When we escape,” he chuckled, but it just caused him to cough. 
“Don’t say things like that,” she stopped instantly and looked to the cell door. “If they hear any whispers of us trying to escape, they’ll make our lives even worse.”
“I wasn’t aware it could get worse,” Gabriel rolled his head weakly. “I mean I don’t remember the last time I saw a ray of the sun hit my skin. I think dying trying to escape may be worth it.” 
“Don’t,” she stopped again and looked at him. “I don’t like when you say things like that.”
“What? Dying?” 
“Yes. Now stop,” she tried to refocus on the wound and dabbed lightly around the cuts. 
“You really think staying and fighting in hopes we get saved is a better way of life than just ending it?” he laughed but he was hysterical and drugged up on things she couldn’t even label. 
She ignored him and went to rewet the rag. 
“Your silence alone shows me that you’ve at least thought of it.”
“If I had, I never truly considered it,” she shook her head. 
“How much longer until you do?” Gabriel asked. 
“What?” she looked at him with furrowed eyes. “Consider dying for my freedom?” 
“Yeah.”
She remembered this moment and remembered what she really thought to answer that question, but worried that if she said it out loud, it would be true. 
She thought of ending things every day. Grabbing a syringe and overdosing. Moving when they’re operating at just the right moment to create a cut that they couldn’t fix in time. Those would be the only things her body wouldn’t heal quickly enough to survive. She wanted it all to end and dreamt something would go wrong every time she was at that table.
But instead, she said. 
“I wouldn’t leave you behind. And I hope you wouldn’t do the same to me.”
Her mind brought her back to the same memory of her walking the streets, but she was in a different part of town now. She was looking up at what seemed to be an abandoned building and was waiting for the right time to sneak by without someone seeing her. 
She got in without catching the attention of anyone and started to investigate the place. 
She realized it was a small motel-type building that had been bankrupt and abandoned. Only random pieces of furniture remained with the scattered litter of what was probably from squatters. 
She turned into a room and saw a mirror splintered and leaning on an empty and beaten dresser. 
She turned slowly to see her own reflection, nervous about what she would see. In front was a pale, sickly, and lost girl. 
No one she recognized. And in that memory, she knew that version of her didn’t recognize herself either. Whatever they had done to her, physically or mentally, showed. It was a depressing and sad realization. One that made her step away and avoid looking back into the shattered glass. 
She continued to search the place and while turning into another room, felt a hand on her shoulder. 
She quickly jumped back and raised her hands into a pose to shield herself from an attack, but the person who had surprised her was thrown through the wall that divided the room. 
Both her hands came up to cover the scream she knew would follow and she muffled it just in time. 
Frozen in shock, she didn’t know whether to approach the body or to run in the other direction, but something in her was telling her she couldn’t just leave him. So after a few seconds of processing what could have just happened, she took carefully and calculated steps toward the damage.
She wasn’t sure what caused the damage, but it didn’t take much to deduct that she was the reason for the giant hole that took up more of the wall than the plaster itself. 
She heard a groan as she walked closer to the debris and the man that was on his back looked to be ok besides the impact from the wall. She didn’t really know what to look for, because on the outside he was pretty unscathed from the hit.
She looked down at her hands and could feel a weird tingle throughout them like the power that had escaped them was still reeling to get out.
The man groaned, sitting up somewhat and she quickly ran in the other direction. Partially because she didn’t know what the man would do, but also not trusting she could hold herself back from doing it again. 
“Y/N?” 
A muffled voice came through her thoughts, but she wasn’t sure where it was coming from. Was it another memory? 
No, it couldn’t be because she hadn’t had that name until she got here.
“Y/N? Are you ok?” She looked up seeing that Wanda was coming in and carefully moving to her. 
She realized she was even more curled into herself than when she came in here and her hands were tightly cupping her ears to keep external noises out. 
“It’s ok. It’s just me. I came alone,” Wanda reassured, knowing Y/N was worried others would see her and quickly overwhelm her with trying to help her. “What do you need from me?” 
She wasn’t sure how to answer that at the moment, but she knew Wanda would be her first pick in this scenario. 
“I-I keep seeing things,” she stumbled out, not moving anything besides her hands. 
“What things?” Wanda lowered herself to her level and sat crisscross in front of her. 
“Memories, but they’re coming without any warning and I can’t control them,” she cringed as her headache came back after going just a few minutes without letting said memories come up on their own agenda. 
“Maybe you just need to let them come,” Wanda shrugged. “I can try and relieve some of the pain and tension if you want.” 
Y/N thought about it and came to terms that the best way about this would be to let them come as they pleased. Fighting it was just making things worse and more unbearable. 
“Ok,” she nodded, taking a deep breath before Wanda took her hands. Almost instantly another came to her. “Shit.” 
She grunted as each one felt like it was trying to rip out of her skull to escape. 
“Breath,” Wanda coached. 
“You could do what?” Gabriel's voice came through the vents this time and she could tell he was sick and injured when he coughed violently after his shocked question. 
“I don’t understand it at all. They thought I was under an aesthetic and were explaining all the new findings in my blood sample.”
“So they think they found a new mutation?” 
“Supposedly…” She wasn’t as excited as Gabriel was. 
A new mutation meant more power to most and a chance at freedom if it was strong enough. 
But she couldn’t muster up an ounce of it and didn’t know where to even start to learn how to use it, which is exactly what they wanted. 
“Have you tried to do anything with it?” Gabriel coughed again through the vent. 
“They have me extra dosed up on sedatives. Even if I did have the energy to try, I wouldn’t know what to even be looking for,” she sighed looking at her beaten body only covered with a thin hospital-like gown. 
She remembered how they would keep her in that type of dress if she was going to be back on the table soon after. No point in changing a prisoner if you were going to turn around and continue the torture. 
“Punch a wall. See if you can make a force field. Scream and see if the ground shakes,” Gabriel listed. 
“Two of those things take a lot more stamina than I have to give,” she chuckled lightly. 
“Ok and the third one?” 
“The third one is ridiculous. How does one just know how to make a force field?” she couldn’t help but let out a weak laugh again.
“You’ll never know if you don’t try,” Gabriel hummed softly.
Next thing she knew, she was thrown into one last memory that showed her in the same abandoned hotel from earlier, in a new room, crouched in a corner like she was in the supply closet present time. 
But in the memory, she was looking at her hands, never being able to pull her eyes back from them after witnessing what they just did to the man in the other room.
“H-How?” she said under her breath, turning and looking at her hands from different angles. 
Then it was like Gabriel's words from the memory before processed and she looked back around the room debating on her next move. 
“You’ll never know if you don’t try.” 
She took a shaky breath and lowered her knees from her chest. 
She dramatically threw her hands in front of her and closed her eyes scared to see what would happen, but the feeling she had earlier never took over again. 
She peeked out of her shut eyes and looked to see if any more damage had occurred, but the room seemed to be the same. 
She tried it a few more times with the dramatic hand movements and not even a spark caught on. She was growing slightly frustrated and kept trying different combinations of hand gestures and nothing happened each time. 
Eventually, with a push of anger to spark her power, she saw and felt the tingle from earlier. 
A small purple haze formed in front of her, but no bigger than a softball. 
“Holy shit,” she said to herself, eyes wide toward the space that had changed colors. 
She took a trembling breath to prepare for her second attempt and tried to mock the movements from before. 
Sure enough, the spark seemed stronger this time. It only got a little bigger, but she felt she actually had the control to keep it there instead of it disappearing a second later. 
Snapping out her memories, she looked wide-eyed at Wanda. 
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sleptwithinthesun · 1 year ago
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here is another installation in the t/ourette's au!! there is snz this time, and 5K words of it (+ a fuckton of plot. help) :D i hope you enjoy!
cw: neither f/oreman nor h/ouse are exactly kind to c/hase in this. there's nothing explicitly against him, but some of their choices and thoughts shouldn't be repeated. also, i know nothing about the medical stuff. forgive me for any inaccuracies
"And where have you been?"
Foreman glances up from the medical journal he's been occupying himself with to watch Chase walk in, already wearing his lab coat, which is strange enough on its own for a three-in-the-morning page from House. Even stranger is the fact that he's later to arrive than House in the first place, who is proudly notorious for almost never being on time to work.
"Surgery," he replies, practically collapsing into his seat and accepting the file Cameron holds out to him. He smiles tiredly at her, even as his shoulders jerk upward and his eyes squeeze shut.
House ignores the tic, spinning in his chair to face the whiteboard, marker poised to write. "Symptoms include nausea, vomiting, jaundice, and fatigue. Patient came in because of the jaundice. Thoughts?"
"Jaundice indicates that the liver's failing," Cameron points out.
"Duh," House says. "Patient's a light drinker, she's in college, but nowhere near an alcoholic. Check the liver for cirrhosis, and we'll go from there." He flaps a dismissive hand at them, already forcing himself up on his cane and limping toward the door to his office.
Foreman doesn't even bother waiting for him to leave, just rises from his chair and follows Cameron and Chase down to the patient's room. About halfway down the hallway, Foreman breaks the silence to ask, "Think she's going to have cirrhosis?"
"If her liver's failing? Yes." Cameron speaks with conviction.
"Not necessarily," Chase interjects, neck twisting sharply to the side and forcing him to grab onto Cameron's shoulder for a second to keep his balance. He pauses to reorient himself, blinking sheepishly. "Sorry."
"Not your fault. You okay?" she asks. He nods, hand dropping back to his side, and sighs quietly.
It takes a moment, but he eventually speaks again. Foreman's noticed that about him; whenever Chase has a particularly bad tic, usually resulting in him drawing attention to himself, he tends to lapse into silence for the following handful of minutes. Cameron once explained to him that, according to Wilson, he's been doing it since even before she joined the diagnostic team, and it's a habit neither they nor Wilson see him breaking anytime soon.
"Could be hepatitis," he says quietly, voice a bit strained. "Although, type A wouldn't result in cirrhosis of the liver."
Cameron nods in acknowledgement, then pushes the 'down' button for the elevator. It's not even three-thirty in the morning, and in pure spite of the fact that Foreman's been working as a doctor for the past six years, the one thing he'll never get used to is the complete lack of a sleep schedule. He stifles a tired yawn behind his palm, then runs a hand down his face to try and wake himself up.
It doesn't work. He slumps against the side of the elevator once they're all inside, closing his eyes for a moment. He opens them again to find Cameron glancing at him sympathetically, lips curved with an odd little half-smile. "Any chance it's an easy diagnosis?"
"Knowing House? Never." Foreman rolls his eyes playfully at her.
"I don't know why House didn't just have us get a liver biopsy," Cameron continues as the elevator doors slide open again. "I mean, that's the easiest way to determine cirrhosis."
"And it's also unnecessary if we can get a CBC and run a panel for liver enzymes." Chase follows closely behind Cameron as they exit. She's the only one who actually knows where they're going; Foreman only remembers the floor number, and Chase barely got to look over the file before they were leaving the conference room.
Foreman glances back at him. "We should probably get an image, too. MRI or CT scan?"
"MRI," Chase says. "Better contrast resolution."
Cameron nods her agreement, then pauses outside a room, seeming to check the number. A moment later, she's pushing open the sliding glass door and smiling softly at their patient.
"Ms. Davis?" she asks, breaking the stillness of the room.
The girl in the bed laughs. "I'm nineteen; my mom is Ms. Davis." Foreman takes note of the honorific, storing the information away to share with House later. "Please, call me Audrey."
"Audrey," Cameron corrects, walking over to her bedside. "I know that it's late, and that you've had a rough couple of hours, but we need to run a couple of tests."
"We can expedite them," Chase offers, and Audrey's face crinkles with confusion, likely at Chase's accent. Either that, or the subtle tic presenting in the muscles of his face, which Foreman's pretty sure Chase doesn't even realize he's doing. "It's late. We haven't been slammed with an emergency, and most of the equipment is open."
Slowly, Audrey nods. "Where're you from?" she asks.
Chase blinks, startled. "Uh, Oz— Australia."
"Cool," Audrey says enthusiastically, her brow smoothing out a bit. She attempts to sit up straighter in her bed, smoothing a few strands of hair away from her face. "You haven't been over here very long, have you?"
She's flirting with him. Foreman rolls his eyes at Cameron, who just sighs and leaves the room to get the consent forms. Audrey's gaze trails after her as she leaves, and then, she states, just as plainly as if she were talking about the weather, "You're not dating."
Chase splutters. Foreman laughs. It's always teenage girls; something about Chase's accent, floppy hair, and general demeanor just draws them in, like a moth to a flame.
"No," Foreman says, chuckling. "They're not dating. Let's get you prepped for these tests. Dr. Cameron's getting the consent forms now, you just have to sign them." He starts checking her IVs; IVIg, saline, metoclopramide. The stand's going to have to travel with her.
Audrey flops back into her bed. "What're you going to do to me?"
"Nothing major. Take some blood and run an MRI scan," Chase says, having finally regained his voice. His cheeks are still tinged pink, and Foreman holds back a smile at the sight.
"It'll be quick," he promises, moving to the drawers and pulling out a needle and the necessary vials. "In fact, we can do the blood draw right here, once Dr. Cameron returns with the paperwork."
"You rang?" Cameron says, a clipboard and pen in hand. She passes them both off to Audrey, pointing out where to sign.
Audrey hands the paperwork back to Cameron a minute later, who then leaves the room with Chase to schedule the MRI. She holds out her left arm. "How much do you need?"
"Three vials," Foreman says, grabbing a rolling stool and bringing it over to her bedside. Placing said vials in his pocket, he sets the needle down on the tray next to the bed and starts feeling the crook of Audrey's arm for prominent veins. Nothing.
The tourniquet goes around her bicep, the needle into her arm only a minute later. Unlike most of their patients, Audrey chooses to watch as her blood fills the vials with an odd sense of fascination.
"You interested in biology?" Foreman asks.
"No way." Audrey grins at his expression, teeth flashing in the awful blue tinge of hospital lighting. "I took the pre-req. Reminded me of how much I hate it."
Foreman pulls the needle out after filling the last vial, then presses a small gauze pad to the inside of her elbow before taping it to her skin. "Dr. Cameron will be back to get you for the MRI shortly," he says, then leaves the room.
-
Chase is humming under his breath when Cameron slots the images from the MRI up onto the lightboard for House to see. "No cirrhosis," she sighs.
"Doesn't mean anything," House says, pacing across the room.
"Her liver is failing, and no cirrhosis doesn't mean anything?"
House pauses. Instead of answering Cameron's question, he glares right past Foreman at Chase and snaps, "Can you stop?"
Immediately, Chase quiets. His lips press together, and the already barely-audible humming ceases entirely. House nods, and the discussion flips back over to the patient. Still, glancing back at Chase, Foreman can see the vague flicker of his vocal cords. Despite the attempt at subtlety, it's clear he's struggling to suppress the tic.
"—testing her," House is saying when he brings his attention back to the more-important discussion at hand. "Liver enzyme panel will be back when dawn breaks. While you're waiting for that, you three can go on a little field trip. Go break into her dorm."
Chase nods and leaves the room without a word. Cameron's gaze trails after him before she follows, and House raises an eyebrow. "What's up with him?" he asks.
Foreman sighs. He wasn't sure about Chase from the moment House informed him that his new coworker had Tourette's, and weeks later, he still can't tell if the younger doctor should even have been allowed to become an intensivist in the first place. Constant, high-pressure situations cannot be good for someone prone to anxiety, especially when that anxiety can manifest in them killing someone because said person was too busy jerking their head around.
He's a neurologist. Despite what Chase thinks, Foreman is far from ignorant about what his condition entails, and he knows that what Chase is letting House do to him every meeting is going to screw them over in the future.
After sending a passing glance toward House, Foreman follows Chase and Cameron out of the room. "You want to drive?" he asks Cameron, who shrugs, keeping pace with him.
"I don't mind," she says, "if I can stop for gas on the way back."
Foreman nods, and switches topics back to the case. They've both learned better than to let Chase drive, after the first and decidedly final time. "There's not much privacy in a dorm room," he comments. "We're probably better off questioning her roommate and RA."
Chase, lagging a few feet behind them, asks, "Do we have a copy of her schedule? It might help us narrow our search."
"How, exactly?"
"We check the classrooms," he says, then lets out a jerky exhale, shoulders tensing up and eyes squeezing closed for a second.
Cameron, at least, is unfazed. "We don't usually check our patient's places of work, just their residences."
Chase isn't giving up. "She's in college," he counters. "It's more than likely that most of her time is spent outside of her dorm. We can ask other students in those classes if they've noticed anything weird."
"Other people would be sick, too," Foreman snaps at him, and Chase's entire face screws up for a moment. He opens his mouth like he wants to say something, but it's swallowed by a hum, the same tic House told him to suppress. Frustration passes over his features, and he goes quiet.
"It's worth looking into," Cameron says, her voice breaking through the sudden tension. "We can't check every classroom, though. Princeton's campus is way too big."
They lapse into silence after that, occasionally interrupted by Chase's humming tic. With how repetitive it's being, and how soft it is whenever he lets it out, it's clear that he's still trying to suppress it. Idiot; neither Foreman nor Cameron are going to yell at him for it.
Chase doesn't protest when Foreman claims the passenger seat. Instead, he leans against the window after buckling his seatbelt, letting his eyes slip closed for a moment. It's still pitch-black outside, aside from the streetlights and other establishments along the road. The dirty remnants of their recent snowfall are still pushed up against the curb, half-melted and refrozen into misshapen blobs. Cameron's attention flickers to their surroundings whenever they hit a red light, and she comments, "It's weird to see everything so... still."
Foreman huffs out a slightly-bitter laugh. "That's probably because, like most people, you're not awake at five in the morning."
"We're doctors," Cameron says, flicking her blinker on and glancing around the deserted road before turning left. She's a good driver, which is to be expected from a woman like her. Surprisingly relaxed behind the wheel, but he supposes that after seeing Chase drive, anyone would gain some confidence. "We work more than fifty hours a week, on average. Our sleep schedules revolve around the amusement of our boss, and unlike most people, I am woken up at five in the morning at least once a week." The smirk that follows that statement is surprising, but welcomed.
"Fair enough," Foreman concedes, then, realizing there hasn't been any input from their resident Aussie, glances at the backseat.
Chase is asleep, chest rising and falling steadily. With a start, Foreman realizes it's the first time he's ever seen Chase without a tic rippling underneath his skin, begging for release. He's oddly relaxed in sleep, muscles slack without any of the tension that normally binds him together. Even stranger, Chase somehow looks even younger than he normally does, with the strain gone from his face.
"Chase? You okay?" Cameron asks, obviously having noticed Foreman's sudden quietude.
"He's asleep," Foreman says, turning back to face the road again.
Cameron sighs and presses her lips together, sympathy blooming across her face. "He's probably exhausted. We can let him sleep."
"It's hasn't even been two hours since House called us; he shouldn't be crashing yet."
"He was attending a surgery before all this," Cameron reminds him, her gaze remaining focused on the road in front of them. Luckily, Princeton University isn't too far from PPTH, and Nassau Hall comes into sight after a handful of moments.
It doesn't take Cameron long to find suitable parking. "Do you want to wake him up, or should I?"
Foreman snorts. "He's not seven. Watch, this'll be enough." His boots crunch softly against the frozen grass, and he pointedly looks into the back windows until Cameron follows his gaze, then loudly shuts the car door.
Chase startles, jerking awake. Immediately, a tic forces his head to the side, and he glares at Foreman through the window before unbuckling and sliding out on Cameron's side.
"Not funny," he murmurs, once he comes into earshot. His accent is thicker with the remains of sleep clinging to him, making it harder to understand him than usual. He shivers a bit in the cool nighttime air, breath making clouds in front of him. "Can we go inside, now?"
-
The birds were just starting to sing by the time Foreman crossed the parking lot with Cameron and Chase, and glancing outside now as they make their way up to the fourth floor, dawn is already spilling across the sky.
Cameron drops their patient's file on the conference room table. "Negative for hepatitis A, B, and C."
"Liver panel come back yet?" House asks.
"No. It could be cancer," she suggests.
"A tumor, or multiple tumors, would have shown up on the MRI. Might be hemochromatosis, or Wilson's disease," Chase says, slumping into a seat. He presses his fingertips against his temple, wincing slightly.
Foreman interjects, "Maybe we're thinking about it the wrong way. Maybe it's not the liver malfunctioning because of a condition, maybe it's the liver malfunctioning because of what's going into it."
"We tested everything we got from her dorm," Cameron protests, "and it all came back negative for toxins."
"There's no way we got everything she came in contact with. Princeton's got a big campus."
"That's what I was saying earlier, but you both said other students would've been sick, if that were the case." Chase's elbow jerks back, and he sighs. "The problem is with her liver, not inside of it."
He twists away from the conversation, then, and preses his face into a raised shoulder. Shuddering softly, he releases a barely-audible "h'ksh!" He sniffles, and looks up to see House glaring at him.
"That's not a tic, is it?"
He shakes his head slowly, cheeks rosy with what Foreman assumes is embarrassment. "Just a sneeze."
"Bless you," Cameron murmurs. Chase flashes a half-smile at her.
"Do a biopsy of her liver," House says, staring at the whiteboard. "Foreman's right, it probably is inside of her. Question her for any symptoms that she might have chosen not to mention earlier. And see if she's been taking a high amount of over-the-counter painkillers recently." He pops a Vicodin, then, and raises his eyebrows at them, imploring them to go.
The weight of exhaustion is settling down on all of them, but no one bears it more obviously than Chase. His tics are coming out slower, less forcefully, as if he can't quite keep up with the pace they normally set for him. The motion will jolt through his body, and then Chase will actually become aware of it. Every tic has an echo, almost, where it comes out subdued and then Chase puts the effort in, repeating the action.
"You okay?" Cameron asks softly, and Chase nods.
"I just want to be done with this case," he responds.
Behind Chase, Cameron shoots Foreman a concerned look. The eldest doctor simply shrugs, and says, "The quicker we finish this, the quicker we'll figure it out."
Chase nods, then shudders again with another contained sneeze. "eK'sch!"
"Bless you," Cameron says once more.
"Thank you." Chase sniffles, then wrinkles up his nose, scrunching it twice. Foreman can't tell if it's a tic, or in response to the sneeze. Either way, Chase shakes his head, then says, "I'm going to go and get a room for the biopsy."
They watch him disappear down the hallway, white lab coat gradually blending in with the other doctors'. "Did he seem... off, to you?" Cameron asks, brow furrowed.
Foreman shrugs. "He's probably tired."
Cameron frowns harder. "He slept in the car on the way to Princeton and back."
"Ten minutes doesn't replace eight hours. Nor does it account for that surgery he assisted," Foreman points out.
Anything left of Cameron's argument dissolves when they arrive at Audrey's room. She's asleep, but stirs the second Cameron pushes her door open. There's an emesis basin on the floor next to the bed, freshly cleaned.
"Hey," she says, pushing herself up on her pillows. Her brow furrows as she takes in the two of them. "Where's the other doctor? The one with the accent?"
"Getting a room," Foreman says. The snark is unintentional, honestly, but he still can't get over the fact that it's always the college girls that have crushes on Chase.
Audrey's clearly unsatisfied by the half-answer, but at least she's got her priorities straight. "Do you... know what's wrong with me, yet? What did the tests say?"
"You're negative for hepatitis," Cameron says, looking at the monitor. "We're going to do a biopsy to rule out a couple of other possibilities, like hemochromatosis."
Audrey's eyes widen. "It's not serious, is it? Like, I'm not going to need surgery?"
"You shouldn't," Foreman comments, taking in her worried expression. Only half of their patients immediately jump to surgery, either expecting the worst or the best. "Why?"
"I've got a volleyball game in three days. Can't miss it."
"Your roommate mentioned something about you being on the varsity team," Cameron says, pulling out the paperwork for consent to a liver biopsy.
Audrey grins, taking the clipboard when Cameron offers it. "Yeah, Sammy's never been real interested in the sport. I love her to death, though." She rolls her eyes playfully at them before her tone sobers. "It's tough, y'know? My coach is already pissed that I'm missing practice because I'm in the hospital."
A sudden thought barges its way to the forefront of Foreman's brain. "You have a practice bag?"
"Yeah. Why?"
"You keep it in your dorm?"
"Usually. I think Margo—one of my teammates—has it right now, although I have no idea why." Audrey looks at them. "Does it matter?"
Cameron glances from Audrey to Foreman, catching on. "It might."
"We've seen a lot of high school and college athletes take ibuprofen before their practices or games, just so that they can keep going," Foreman says. "It works in the moment, because you can't feel the pain of exerting yourself. Usually, it's warned against because athletes can't realize when to stop pushing their bodies."
"In other cases, though, an excess amount of ibuprofen is taken in over a long period of time. This can eventually lead to liver damage," Cameron explains.
Audrey closes her eyes and leans back against the pillows, her hands coming up to cover her face. Her voice is pained when she admits, "I've been taking two pills a day for almost two months, now."
Foreman looks over to Cameron. "I don't think we're going to need that biopsy."
Cameron's already moving, taking the clipboard from Audrey and taking out her pager, most likely to let Chase know of the change. Less than a moment later, she's shoving it back into her pocket and gesturing at Foreman. "He'll meet us at the labs. We've still got a vial of her blood left to run a test."
"House is going to be so annoyed," Foreman says, leaving the room and shaking his head in disbelief.
-
"We're treating you for ibuprofen overuse," Cameron explains, barely an hour later, attaching a bag to the IV stand. "This is going to flush your system, and you should be good to go."
"That's it?" Audrey asks, staring up at Cameron in shock. "Really?"
"Yep," Foreman says. He barely catches the sound of Chase repeating the word to himself quietly; a tic. "That's it."
Cameron warns, "Don't take this lightly. You can't take ibuprofen with repeated use, or you might damage your liver again."
"It's best for you if you stop taking NSAIDs completely for the next few months," Chase says. "That'll allow your liver to—to—to—"
Chase pauses to take a breath, clearly frustrated with the palilalia. His jaw snaps shut with an audible click of his teeth, and his head bobbles a few times, eyes glazing over. Foreman doesn't even realize what's happening until Audrey yelps.
"Oh, my God," Cameron breathes, surging to her feet.
Foreman ends up kneeling down on the floor right beside Chase, turning him onto his back and checking to make sure he's breathing. "Should've gone home," he mutters, glancing over to Cameron, whose concern is worn like a badge of honor.
Chase groans, his eyes fluttering weakly. Contrary to popular belief, unless they're slipping into a coma, most people only remain unconscious for a handful of seconds after fainting. Any longer, and brain damage is almost guaranteed.
"Are you okay?" Cameron asks, working with Foreman to get Chase up to a sitting position. It's not that hard; Chase isn't very heavy, and he's willing to work with them. Her fingers brush across his forehead and she freezes almost comically before putting the back of her hand against his skin. "You're burning up."
"Why didn't you tell us you were sick?" Foreman demands.
Before Chase is able to respond, angry beeping fills the room, joined by the sudden, desperate sound of choking. "She's asphyxiating," Cameron breathes, and rushes to shout, "We need help in here!"
The next minute is a blur. Foreman rushes to intubate, Cameron's pushing a cc of epinephrine, the nurses are frantic, and Chase is still on the floor, apparently feverish. The epinephrine kicks in, and slowly, the beeping of the alarm stops. Audrey stares up at them, eyes wide and pupils blown with fear.
"Not the ibuprofen," Cameron says, breathless.
"Not the ibuprofen," Foreman agrees.
There's a moment of silence where they're both clearly wondering what they're dealing with, if not overuse of ibuprofen.
Then, Chase groans, and their collective attention immediately switches back to their coworker, with the nurses able to handle Audrey for the time being.
"I'm fine," he mutters, already struggling to his feet. "Just need to... catch my breath." He punctuates the sentence with shoulder jerk.
"You just passed out, man, that's not exactly the definition of fine," Foreman says, pushing down on Chase's shoulder when he actually makes an effort to stand. "Stay down, man."
He gestures at the nurses. "We've still got a patient."
"What is it about the words 'you just passed out' that confuses you?" Cameron asks. "You didn't hit your head, did you?"
"Why are we fondling Chase in front of the patient?"
House's voice cuts through the room, and Cameron and Foreman both turn to look at him, Cameron with indignation and Foreman with sheer disappointment.
"I'm not—" Cameron starts.
"Zip it. I'm trying to get rid of the patient," House says, then limps over to Audrey's bed.
"I'm sorry, who are you?" Audrey asks, her voice slightly raspy.
"I'm surprised you haven't been experiencing lung issues before now," House comments absently, looking at the detached IV bag of heparin that's no longer flowing into her veins. He sighs, then looks at her. "You have alpha-1 antritrypsin deficiency."
"What?"
"This is... Dr. House," Cameron says, interfering, and gives House a questioning glance. "AAT deficiency?"
He shrugs innocently. "It was on the liver panel."
Of course it was on the liver panel, considering that it took half a day longer than it should have to come back. The one thing that actually would have let them know what's wrong with her.
"The NSAIDs will clear out of your system normally. Try not to take any more, or you might end up right back here. And take it easy on the sports." House gives her one of his tight-lipped smiles, the ones he does only for politeness, then looks back over to Chase. "Why was she fondling you?"
"He passed out," Cameron replies shortly.
House's eyebrows shoot up in genuine surprise. "Why?"
"He's sick." Foreman gently hauls Chase to his feet, who sways the second he's upright and shakes his head violently enough to nearly send him right back to the floor. Foreman's hand clamps down tightly on his shoulder, keeping him on his feet.
"I'm fine," Chase repeats, but it's clear he knows he's defeated.
"Clearly not," House snarks. "One of you, drive him home. Or ask Wilson to do it. His lunch break is soon. Either way, we're done here." Unexpectedly, his tone softens, just a bit, when his gaze lands on Chase. "Get some sleep."
And then, he's leaving, cane tapping softly against the floor in a rhythmic pattern.
Cameron exchanges a look with Foreman. House is right; Chase is in no state to drive, not when he's practically on the verge of fainting again and nursing a fever of what Foreman guesses is nothing lower than one-oh-one. Cameron's place is only ten minutes away from the hospital, but in the complete opposite direction to Chase's. On the other hand, Foreman lives a bit further, but Chase's place isn't much of a detour for him.
"I can take him," he offers. "You finish up here."
Cameron nods, then murmurs, "Feel better," to Chase as she goes to console Audrey, who's looking more than freaked out.
Chase is quiet aside from the occasional tic as Foreman leads him down the hall to the diagnostic conference room so they can gather their stuff before leaving. Wilson's leaving House's office just as they walk in, and looks at Chase with sympathy in his expression.
"House said he passed out?" he questions.
Foreman nods his affirmation, shedding his lab coat as Chase hums. "Foreman's taking me home."
Wilson nods. "AAT deficiency?"
"We didn't get the liver panel back," Foreman says, rolling his eyes. "I'm assuming the tech didn't send up the printout like we asked."
"At least House didn't try to, I don't know, inject her with ursodiol." Foreman glances over at Chase, who now has his messenger bag slung across his chest and his wearing his jacket, beanie stuffed into the pocket. "You ready?"
"Yeah," he says, blinking hard. "Thank you."
"Don't mention it." Foreman nods at Wilson. "See you tomorrow."
"Drive safely," Wilson says, and goes back to his office.
Chase stays pretty close to Foreman as they head down the elevator, in spite of his initial protests that he was fine. He's always seemed like one of those doctors whose body would give up long before his brain did, kind of like House. But with the case ending abruptly, there's really nothing else they can do until House drops another file onto the conference room table.
The second they hit the cold air, though, Chase ducks away from him to bury a handful of sneezes in the elbow of his coat, becoming harsher as they progress. "h'ksHh! iK'schh! ih'gxXt!" The last one comes out slightly stifled, and Chase's shoulders tense up to his ears while both his elbows jerk back, the movement half-aborted, followed by the heel of his palm coming up to smack him in the chin. Foreman can hear it when his teeth slam together.
"Woah, you good?" Foreman asks.
Chase nods, breathing softly. "Can't sneeze and tic at the same time," he says, by way of explanation.
Foreman takes a second to piece that bit of information together. "Wait, so if you sneeze, it basically makes your tics worse?"
"Pretty much," Chase sighs. "My tics usually feel... heavier, I guess, when I'm sick. They're harder to get out, even though I need it."
"...That sucks, man," Foreman says. Chase huffs out a laugh, ticcing again while they walk through the parking lot.
"Yeah. I'm kind of used to it though, you know?" He pauses at Foreman's car. "You sure you want to drive me? You're going to have to get me tomorrow morning, too, because my car'll be here."
"It's fine. Whatever keeps you off the roads."
Chase sighs in agreement. "Believe me, I don't like it either."
They're referring to Chase's driving tic, which makes him wiggle the steering wheel. It's not much, but it was enough to catch both himself and Cameron off-guard the first and only time they let Chase drive to a patient's house. With a start, Foreman realizes this is the only time Chase has actually talked about his tics, bringing them up casually, like they're a normal part of his life. Which, he supposes, they are. They're just abnormal to the rest of them.
His thoughts are interrupted by Chase sneezing again. "eKh'sch'h! Sorry. Change in temperature." He blinks, half of his face twitches, and then sneezes again, more contained. "hk'tt!"
"Bless you," Foreman says. Chase is probably slightly delirious, he says to himself. That's why he's being open, for once.
He backs out of the parking spot, and takes Chase home.
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jamiesfootball · 1 year ago
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2, 11, and/or 30 for the ask game!
2. Favorite part of writing.
Aside from putting characters in situations, it's a dead tie between 'finding increasingly specific ways to describe something' and 'finding ways to sneak in jokes'.
11. Describe your writing process from scratch to finish.
Ooooh-OOOH. OH. Ok ok jot that down- what was that? Oh, okaaaay. Huh. That's a good start- what do you mean there's more? That's, no. No, I said we have other things that we're working on- okay, no, you're right that is a really good idea and it would be emotionally satisfying, Alright, I'll jot this down, but then we're definitely writing it this time, ok? We are going to focus, we will not leave another project unfinished- where are you going?
It's like that. But here's a more coherent answer.
Step 1- I have an idea. Perhaps it's a scene. Something I would like to see happen, out of pure need or a spiteful malaise from not seeing it happen, whichever.
Ex: I saw Mom City and the Finale and decided I hated what they did with Jamie's dad. I thought up a scene where Jamie and Roy talk about that.
Step 2- I spin the giant wheel in my brain. Without consulting me, it finds an unrelated topic. I then hold the first bit - the THING I want to write - up next to the second bit. I cross my eyes until I figure out what pattern exists between the two that my brain wants me to use.
Ex: The scene with Roy and Jamie talking about Jamie's dad + Roy going to therapy = There are two angry men in Jamie's life. Both of them have taken a step towards becoming better, but I only believe that one of them means it. Why?
Step 3- I start figuring out the whys. I think about which scenarios will strain the narrative. I find the uncomfy bits of dialogue that other authors skip over, and I make the characters talk about it at length until I figure out what the problem is. Slowly, a form comes together in the shape of a narrative. I usually have my climactic moments drafted from the start. I usually have a beginning. If I do not know the end, I find it soon enough. The rest I build with sticks. If dramatic moment one happens, what caused it? What tracks need laid to get me there. I sketch those in. Eventually, I have an outline.
Ex: The dissatisfaction from the end of season three becomes where the post season fic starts. The climactic bits breed out of the Roy Jamie conversation I began with. An ending takes shape- this is the final goal, the place I'd like my character to be. From there I work my way in, tying the moments together, until I can say 'yeah, that looks like a full story'.
Step 4- By exploring all of these scenarios and building a narrative architecture, a theme starts to emerge. I use that theme, and reflect it back on the vague bits I don't have written yet.
Ex: At this point I have realized that the entire impetus of the post-season fic is to stack ammo in the discussion of 'should Jamie's father be allowed back in his life?' The answer is no. What began as a simple comparison in step 2 has now become a multi-armed demon, fleshing out the motivations and backstories of every character it touches. The theme is family--born, found, and made--and so now every other character (Roy, Colin, Isaac, Sam, Keeley, Dani) has their family history being dragged into the light to serve as an example.
Step 5 - Legos. I have my outline (the sketch). I have my themes (the paint). Now I have to write it. Fuck. This step lasts forever.
Step 6 - I just keep trying. Because the story exists already, you know? It's not told, but it exists. I just have to keep putting in the work to make it into the physical world.
Step 7 - I print the things out and I scribble on them until I feel better. Then I take the scribbles, and I put them back into step 5.
Step 8 - Repeat steps 5-7 until you are out of legos. Then you are done, for now.
Step 9 - Walk around in a daze, feeling like you're about to cry. Keep repeating to people, "I can't believe it's over." It is never over. That feeling never truly goes away. You are forever surprised that you created something.
Step 10 - Become annoying to everyone you know by blogging about it online.
Ex: In progress
30. Favorite line you’ve ever written.
Oh, I have lots. Shameless self-plug though, everything I wrote about Moe on his quest to do spoken word poetry in chapter 1 of the post-season fic was a goddamn delight. Up to and including the Machiavelli quotes.
One of my other other favorite parts goes to Isaac in the epilogue. It is the bookend to Moe's poetry. I'm literally so excited about it.
Actually I take that back. I just realized I do have a favorite line, and it's a stupid one.
Right now my favorite line is a running joke, wherein I the author put in the placeholder '[whatever Higgins said]' into Roy's internal monologue about being a better person. This in regards to the scene in the finale where the Diamond Dogs talked about learning how to be better, not perfect. Higgins made some good points. I meant to go back and pull the quote from the episode. It was going to be in italics, the way you do when you're bringing back quotes into an internal monologue.
The only thing is I, uh. Did not do that. The more I thought about it, the more it made sense that Roy, who got the gist of what Higgins was saying, maybe didn't necessarily jot down the exact phrasing in his head, the way he does with other lines (the ones that are detrimental to his emotional health and well being.) Also it made me laugh. So now it's just peppered in sometimes, when Roy is trying to be a better person.
'Whatever Higgins said.'
Like I said at the start- I love to sneak in a joke.
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taterturnspages · 2 years ago
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ALL RHODES LEAD HERE BOOK REVIEW
Genre(s): Fiction, Contemporary, Romance
TW: loss of parent/grief
STAR RATING: 5/5
SPICE RATING: 3/5
SYNOPSIS:
Aurora De La Torre knows moving back to a place that was once home isn’t going to be easy.
Starting your whole life over probably isn’t supposed to be.
But a small town in the mountains might be the perfect remedy for a broken heart.
Checking out her landlord across the driveway just might cure it too.
READ THIS IF YOU:
Have a soft spot for big, grumpy, blue-collar men
Enjoy nature and spending time outdoors
Need a lil found family trope goodness
Enjoy plot-driven romances (but don’t worry, this is still very character driven also)
CHARACTERS:
Aurora De La Torre:
I always love when characters in books have depth and their past is discussed in a way that gives us (the readers) an understanding as to what led them to present day. Aurora had JUST that. She had struggles from her past that she was fleeing from (rightfully) and just wanted to start over at the only place she knew as home. She had goals while still not entirely sure what her future held, which I think is relatable for most people. I know the whole “finding themselves” trope gets a little cliché, but I think Mariana Zapata wrote this flawlessly in Aurora.
Aurora is perseverant and determined to claim what is rightfully hers throughout this entire novel, even if it’s not easy. Tough hike? Tough SHIT, she’s set on getting through it. Coincidentally, I think this is her biggest strength and biggest weakness. Throughout the novel, Aurora often desperately needs help but refuses it as a way to build her character, even if she’s miserable; which, to me, is the tell-tale sign of a strong female main character and I eat that shit up every. single. time. But don’t be fooled, when Aurora is offered help or assistance, she takes it with gratitude.
Aurora is troubled in several different ways from her past, but none of those things inhibit her ability to be a decent person. She’s not spiteful to the universe (although she has every right to be) and she treats everyone with respect as long as respect is given to her. I think she is the absolute model blueprint for my favorite type of FMC.
Tobias Rhodes:
I’d say “don’t even get me started on Rhodes”, but please, get me started on Rhodes. THIS MAN????? Perfection. Absolute unfettered perfection. Tobias Rhodes, too, has a past and it creates so much depth in his character. Seeing how he acts and why is so important for me in a grumpy x sunshine romance because otherwise the MMC comes off as just being irritated at everyone and everything purely because he’s allowed to.
Rhodes tends to keep people at a distance until he becomes comfortable due in part because he is protective over his son. Watching him unfold throughout this book was probably my favorite aspect because he was the gift that kept on giving. Every time him and Aurora interacted there was just a small glimmer of something new in his words and actions each time. You just can’t help but fall in love with him yourself once he starts showing his sense of humor, selflessness, and empathy.
If your love language is acts of service, then OH BOY are you in major luck with this book. Rhodes shares his love in multifaceted ways, but acts of service is his BREAD AND BUTTER YA’LL. You won’t be disappointed.
PRAISES, CRITIQUES, AND MY THOUGHTS:
I really, truly, HONESTLY have nothing bad to say about this book. I grappled for hours before sitting down to write this review for something even slightly bad about this book and I just couldn’t think of anything.
Mariana Zapata has been crowned the queen of slow-burn romances, and after reading this book (my first of hers) I can attest that she was crowned appropriately. This book is pretty lengthy at a whopping 559 pages, but I was never bored while reading this. If things weren’t actively happening, then things were being built up for something to happen soon. It really is a gift for an author to be able to write 559 pages of words that don’t bore the reader.
There was banter, yearning, and tension (SO MUCH TENSION!!!). The characters meshed together flawlessly and confirmed for Aurora that she made the right decision returning to Pagosa Springs. After being chewed up and spit out by her ex-husband’s family, she deserved to be surrounded by a group of people that cared about her and I am so over the moon that she got exactly what she deserved. Found family tropes in books will never cease to make me smile.
This book was recommended to be from a post that I made about wanting romance book recs with an MMC that resembled Luke Danes from Gilmore Girls. Luke Danes and Tobias Rhodes are two pieces cut from the same fabric so if you’re a Luke Danes stan then just know ‘All Rhodes Lead Here’ will not disappoint you.
I can always tell that a book was a five-star read for me when I find myself instantly thinking about how no book could ever compare to it. I think I’m going to be looking for Tobias Rhodes in every romance book I read in the future and that should speak for itself.
READ THIS BOOK IF YOU KNOW WHAT’S GOOD FOR YOU!!!!!
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medicinemane · 4 days ago
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I'm so fucking sick of my mom
This may all end up sounding very callous, but... when you cry fucking wolf for years and make me play therapist after years of saying shit like "good luck ever getting married, because who could ever love a loser like you?" (it was deserved of course... I missed soccer practice)... it burns through all my sympathy
I come downstairs after she shouts, as always like she's hurt, and... she's sobbing because she dropped the CO2 detector
And here I'd have more sympathy if she wasn't always also shouting any other time something goes wrong so I have to come running... only for it to be like... she dropped her fork, which warranted screaming like someone was stabbing her... it burns through me
And... I've said we'll get her a new mattress as soon as she gets into physical therapy so we can get an expert opinion on what's gonna be good for her back, but... maybe I'd be rushing it more if she hadn't racked up $3-4k of credit card debt
Or also if she hadn't been fucking impulsive and gotten the wrong sized mattress because taking 2 seconds longer to make sure you're ordering a twin instead of a queen is too fucking hard, so it sags over the edge of her adjustable frame (which I had to set up solo for her cause she can't help, it's not like I don't take steps to try and... make shit better for her)
Meanwhile I have some kind of pinched nerves in both my shoulders that make my arms go between tingling and hurting (not constantly, but often... like now) and... I just have to fucking deal with it
No, what's making me mad is that literally everything is always about her. This pain? She's reacting exactly the same to it as to someone saying they don't like something about something she submitted to an anthology
And she's saying how she doesn't think she'll make it through the weekend and it's like... you said the same thing about when the furnace was out last year, meanwhile even once it was working again I was having to use gloves in my room cause of how cold it was but that didn't matter cause it wasn't about you (thank you storm windows and attic insulation, you've made it quite warm this year)
And... as always... I will be forced to go down there and make my day all about her and drag her kicking and screaming and forcing me to... and see, this is the other really really really really really really really really big fucking problem for me, is that she basically forces me to constantly be a combination of therapist, and parent, and most revolting of all treating me like a fucking spouse which is the part that makes it so I can't fucking be close to any family end the people I like... it's so fucking bad for me and messes me up something fierce
And in spite of that I'm gonna have to go down there and fucking fix this like I always do, and the fact that I can't lay hands will mean that it won't be good enough (it wouldn't be even if I could cure her of literally everything, nothing is ever good enough)
But I'm going to have to go down there and make my day all about her
This isn't about her being sick or a burden or something, this is about /her/ specifically and how she treats me all the fucking time making it hard to... to want to be in the same room as her (especially because anytime I ever suggest anything she fights it, like when the car battery kept dying and it was the end of the world, and no we just needed to get a charger that would always be plugged in and how dare I keep saying "let's talk to the mechanic" and... oh... hey... the battery disconnect they suggested was great and she'd always wanted to go to the mechanic... and whatever happens here will be the same)
I'm just so sick of it... I'm so sick of... of being forced to exist purely to take care of my mom. Whatever else anyone might say, she makes sure that that's my only role in life
(It's also like when I was going on that trip, which stressed me out, and how she made that about her too constantly hounding me to give her my friend's phone number and let google track my phone so she could track me like a creep)
...so yeah... I guess that's my day. It was a pretty whatever day, and I'm tired and have a bit of a long day later, but I was thinking about doing more minecraft, but I guess I have to go fix my mom's fucking... everything, as she sobs at me and makes me play therapist and nurse and parent and everything while spending all the money and making everything about her
Remember, if she goes a day without her decaf coffee it's a crime, but if I go a week without eating properly who gives a fuck?
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softersinned · 2 years ago
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@xfindingtrouble said: ♫ for ellis
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"creature" by penny and sparrow
Every drop that I bleed It's a gift you give me Let me spend my skin on you Kiss me, whisper, make me new I'm a creature for your love
what they have between them is the deep and selfish kind of love. it's the transcendent kind, too. they are both possessive of one another in a way that can border on obsession, and that's true pretty much every step of the way: they are each other's best friend, better half, whole heart. and even at their worst, even when they hate each other a little bit, they'd do anything for each other, and they wouldn't hesitate to suffer if it means the person they love most in this world won't. they're both rogues; they both do a lot of fighting that's up close and personal, and pretty fucking dirty. how many times have they taken a hit for each other? how many times have they taken a hit they really couldn't afford to take for each other?
it's in her choice to use magic for him, too: she doesn't think, she just acts. she accepts his anger and his feelings of betrayal and she accepts that she's opened herself up to incredible danger: not just from him (though she trusts he wouldn't intend to hurt her like that, no matter how angry, accidents happen), but from the rest of this party, only one of whom she knows at all. so she takes a few extra hits in battle that can divert attention from him. she swallows her fear. she keeps asking, because someday the answer to do you trust me? will be yes again. they just have to get there. and in the meantime, she can bleed (metaphorically, literally) if it makes his own bleeding a little bit easier to bear. it's a little unhealthy! it's a little dehumanizing! and i don't think either one of them would have it any other way than with that intense, unconditional devotion.
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"till forever" by joy williams
We're beginning to finally see one another We grow stronger, we grow stronger for breaking apart We grow stronger for breaking apart together... How you move me, how you move me to love you I keep choosing to love you again every morning
obsessed w the idea of them becoming better for having that period of deep anger and hurt and distrust. obsessed w the idea of them knowing each other better because they've gone through that and made the active choice to love each other in spite of it (in some ways, because of it). there comes a point for them where the anger and the secrets just stop mattering in the face of the bigger issues: the world practically ended, and they survived it together. and now they're making a future in what's left of the world.
this one is pure amaranthine to me. it's them getting to know each other again in astoria's home, rather than his; it's them getting to know each other with an idea of who each will be for the rest of their lives; it's them having the opportunity to love and trust each other again, now that they've both had the time to heal. i love, too, the element of choice that's always so powerful for them: they could separate. it would be really easy. but they both know they won't, because there's no universe where they make the choice to leave each other. there's a wonderful sort of finality to them.
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"wasteland, baby!" by hozier
And that day that we'll watch the death of the sun to the cloud and the cold and those jeans you have on And you'll gaze unafraid as they sob from the city roofs Wasteland, baby, I'm in love, I'm in love with you And I love too that love soon might end, be known in its aching, shown in the shaking Lately of my wasteland, baby Be still my indelible friend, you are unbreaking, though quaking, though crazy, that's just wasteland, baby When the stench of the sea and the absence of green are the death of all things that are seen and unseen Are an end but the start of all things that are left to do Wasteland, baby, I'm in love, I'm in love with you
finding a selection of lyrics to quote and not just gesturing vaguely at the whole song was, frankly, torturous. my beloved hozier described this song as a love song for the end of the world (which, to be honest, is the name of the playlist i'm going to make for them sooner or later), and there's nothing more appropriate for them. they fall in love with each other again while constantly facing down the potential that everything is ending. not just the potential, but in some cases, the certainty. they look over the wreckage of the blight, the darkspawn civil war, the mage rebellion, the false calling, the inquisition, and they survive through it, somehow. they don't just survive through it, but time and time again they find an opportunity to know one another better, more intimately than they've ever known each other before, and to love each other better than they have before, which is a feat in and of itself given that they love each other so dearly, and so wholly.
i keep coming back to the images of them in their own little bubble while the world seems to be crumbling around them, sharing a moment of tenderness that's both in clear view of the rest of the world and still wonderfully private: ellis holding her after they find her in the snow after the destruction of haven to help warm her again, astoria throwing her arms around him when he gets back to the vigil after he defeats the mother and neither one of them letting go, the two of them watching each other with sweet, private smiles on their faces as she's getting her tattoo, the same smiles they'll share years down the line when he marries her in the laws of her hold.
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"new year's day" by taylor swift
Don't read the last page But I stay when you're lost, and I'm scared, and you're turning away (But I stay when it's hard, or it's wrong, or we're making mistakes) I want your midnights But I'll be cleaning up bottles with you on New Year's Day
it wouldn't be an ani playlist without at least one tswift song. this is, i think, one of the most profoundly beautiful love songs she's ever written, and she's written a lot. astoria and ellis both are really profoundly important people, to each other but even more than that, to the world at large. he stopped the blight. she's the herald of andraste. they are surrounded by people politicking and lying and playing games; they do plenty of that themselves. and they are at each other's sides through the heroism and the last ditch efforts, during all the moments of glory and failure, but more important than that, they're together when things settle down and they're left with the very real and often tedious tasks of rebuilding.
i think a lot about the relief astoria would feel when she realized that ellis stayed to protect the city, despite knowing she was in the vigil. i think about that all the time. and i think about astoria knowing that at least this place she loves, her home, is being protected by the person she trusts most in the world. i think about them rebuilding the vigil together - astoria cataloguing every bit of damage meticulously while ellis talks about the adjustments they'll need to make - and them rebuilding the city together - the two of them filthy and sweaty in a public show of support to the survivors of the attacks. i think about astoria watching him in those moments and falling more and more in love with him. i think about them closer in the aftermath, and trusting each other more and more - astoria bringing him the elfroot ointment for his cracked hands, buying him a new journal when the one he's working on is mostly filled. little gestures to one another that say i know who you are and i love you even when nobody else is looking but us.
sidebar: please clap. i chose one tswift out of the like. six i usually have at the ready for them.
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"a case of you" by joni mitchell
I remember that time you told me You said, "Love is touching souls;" surely you touched mine 'cause Part of you pours out of me in these lines from time to time Oh, you're in my blood like holy wine You taste so bitter and so sweet, oh I could drink a case of you, darling, and still be on my feet Oh, I would still be on my feet
this one always slips away from me but the second i listen to it, i think about them. it's equal parts tragedy and love, which i think is perfect for them during the blight: that anger and betrayal, even if they know eventually it will pass, is painful, and they live through it regardless. they love each other enough for it to be worthwhile. they are, at this point, a piece of each other: and while ellis is experiencing his very understandable crisis in faith, astoria is in many ways rediscovering hers through him. she thinks there's something genuinely holy in him, in all the pieces of him he thinks are broken: it's a desperate and hungry and absolutely incomparable devotion between them, and she thinks that perfection is impossible but there isn't a goddamn thing about him that doesn't make her think that there's something bigger than them in the universe.
i love the lyrics "go to him, stay with him if you can, but be prepared to bleed" too, for them: they both have to accept one another's imperfections and failures in an honest way, and accept that it won't ever be perfect. and i think during the blight there probably are moments when astoria's mourning what they've lost and fucking miserable for it, because how is she supposed to live without him? how is she supposed to survive without what they had? she learns eventually that the answer is by creating something stronger, but there are definitely moments she thinks it's gone for good.
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honorable mentions, because if you get to cheat so do i: "daylight" by taylor swift, "like real people do" by hozier, "to be alone" by hozier, "wedding song" by anais mitchell, "one and only" by joy williams.
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