#they remind me of my grandparents. my grandpa was always saying he’d do shit but he was slow to start.

[atopvisenyashill]

do u kno what ned’s first mistake was. it was leaving catelyn in winterfell. he should have brought HER south with him.

[hessofather]

Chapter 5: All the Boys Want Me

‼️WARNING‼️: STRONG TRIGGER WARNING FOR SEXUAL ABUSE TO A MINOR AND GRAPHIC LANGUAGE.

Growing up I had more confidence than I probably should have. I would strut my chubby 7 year old body around the pool wearing a tankini that made my butt sag, look the male lifeguards up and down, then do a cannonball in the shallow end, to show them just how sexy I could be. I always assumed that they were drooling over me because, well, how could they not? I knew plenty of grown men that wanted in my pants so I just assumed I had whatever it was that made men go crazy.

Men like my uncle. My mom’s brother. Let’s call him Bobby. My uncle Bobby would stumble into my grandma’s house, high off of whatever pills he could get his hands on that day. He would look at me and say “Wow you’re really growing up! How old are you now 18?” I’d laugh because I thought he was just trying to compliment me and say that thing that all adults tell kids which is “you’re growing up so fast!” “No I’m 5 Uncle Bobby!” I’d say trying to sound sassy while rolling my eyes. He’d grab me into a bear hug and squeeze my ass and say “well you could have fooled me!”

Bobby had a raging pill addiction, one he inherited from my grandmother. It wasn’t uncommon to go to visit my grandparents house and he’d be there slumped over in a chair drooling and murmuring about how the family all treats him like shit. I felt bad for him. He must have been the outcast and felt lonely. I knew what it was like to be lonely so I’d make a point to sit with him and talk about whatever I could think of. Most often times it was about plans I had for my future or showing him my latest moves I learned in ballet class. “I’m turning 6 soon so I’ll be moving up a class in ballet!” He’d mumble something about the government and continue to drool and snore. I’d continue dancing and telling my stories.

Sometimes I’d go over to my grandparents house and he’d be there all day. My grandpa would be taking one of his daily naps after the bar and my grandma would be passed out on Xanax or forcing someone to take her to dollar general for cleaning supplies. Which would leave me and Uncle Bobby alone. One day, when he was only about 50% fucked up with pills, he came up with a game for us to play. It was called Disneyland. Disneyland was a game that was just for the two of us and HAD to be our secret. Otherwise everyone else would want to go to Disneyland with us someday.

The game went like this. For everything I let him grope and touch on me, he’d promise a ride on a different attraction at Disneyland. “This one gets you a ride on the tea cups!” He’d say as he groped my nonexistent boobs. “This one get you Tower of Terror” He’d whisper squeezing my butt. “This one is very special. It’s for splash mountain!” He’d laugh grabbing my vagina. I didn’t really like playing this game because it made no sense to me. How did any of these things add up to rides at Disneyland? I had no idea but the game seemed to make him happy and less lonely, and got me a promised trip to Disneyland. So I continued to play it with him every once in awhile when we were alone.

One day I walked passed him getting ready for dance class. He said “mmm” and smacked and squeezed my ass. I didn’t like it when he did that because he always did it too hard and it hurt. It reminded me of the spankings id get at home and it pissed me off. I’d finally had enough of it that day. I went up to my mom later on and said “I don’t like that Uncle Bobby touches my bottom. He shouldn’t get to smack it if I’ve done nothing wrong.” To which my mom looked at me in horror. She wanted more details but I was afraid to get in trouble so all I told her was that “Uncle Bobby likes to grab my butt when I walk passed him and I don’t like it. I also don’t like it when he says I’m sexy because that’s a bad word.”

I remember that night my aunt and uncle came over to my grandmas house. My mom, dad, grandma, uncle Bobby, and his wife all sat in the kitchen yelling while my grandpa and I played outside. I loved family quality time like this. My mom called me into the house and told me to sit on the couch, then left me alone in the room. My uncle Bobby came in and got down on his knees infront of me and said “Sorry sweety for touching your butt. I didn’t know that that’s a no no spot for you.” I sat in silence, thinking “huh, what about the other spots?” I didn’t look at him. “Can I have a hug now?” I just shook my head no and started to cry. I didn’t know why I was crying until he told me. “I guess we won’t be going to Disneyland since you told the secret.” Which made me mad because I DID NOT tell anyone our Disneyland plans. How dare he say I broke my promise.

For years to come after that the family never spoke of the incident. My mom’s biggest rule was that if my uncle Bobby tried to be alone with me I needed to try my best not to do that. I wasn’t allowed to be alone with him and it was my responsibility to make sure that didn’t happen. When he’d come over to my grandmas house I’d run and hide in my grandpas closet. “Watcha doin darlin?” He’d ask. “Oh I just wanted to sit and think in the dark grandpa!” I’d yell out from underneath a pile of clothes in the closet. I didn’t want to get in trouble so I did my best to make sure I didn’t end up alone with uncle Bobby.

It made my grandma angry though. She’d burst into the closet after awhile “why do you treat your uncle Bobby like this?! He’s done nothing wrong and you act like you’re afraid of him!” She’d seeth between her oddly white dentures. “I’ll get in trouble with my mom. Because he touched no no spots.” “HE DID NOT YOU MADE THAT UP!!!” She’d yell. I hated her. I was a lot of things to her apparently. Stupid. A brat. A bitch. Ungrateful. Stuck up. And now a LIAR? I was a lot of things but I was no liar. THAT WAS A SIN.

Uncle Bobby wasn’t the only man who saw the true sexual beast I thought I must have been as a child. Lots of church elders would sneak in a handful of nonexistent boob when giving me a hug. One of whom took me and a few other girls to the park and to McDonald’s one day. I learned that grownups love to share secrets with pretty little girls. Secrets like what color of underwear we were all wearing, or the fact that you can put salt ON TOP of your ketchup before dipping your fries.

We moved churches a lot growing up. Most of the time it was because my parents would find out a pedophile was targeting me. My parents would tell the church council and they’d get “well he’s been a member longer than your family has been so we can’t ask him to leave.” So we’d leave and find a new one. I felt bad that my parents had to deal with having such a sex magnet of a kid like me. The struggle of being THIS sexy was just too much for the house of god and his men to remain pure. I remember when I was 12 and got an email from a 40-something year old man in the church. It read, “ that dress you had on last week looked SOOO nice. You should wear it more often! ;) -love Mark.” I proudly showed my mom the email to prove to her that the dress was a fantastic purchase choice. We left that church after getting the usual reply from the council. Then my mom threw the dress away.

I got my first real, tax paying job at the age of 16. At Pizza Hut. There I felt free. Free to flirt with all the middle aged men that would tell me what they’d like to do to me after my shift. Free to flirt with my manager for free food. Free to escape the hell that was my house. Free to escape the man I called Dad. I found comfort and friendship at this job. Friends of all ages. A few teenagers that I’d go to Walmart with after our shifts ended and buy ice cream and pajamas. But my best friend was the delivery driver. I will not name him. I simply refer to him as “pizza hut guy” now. He was 32 and I was 16-17. We’d stay up all night talking on messenger video. It started out simple. Just him walking me to my car at night to keep me safe and asking if I got home alright.

It didn’t stay simple for long. I revealed the secret about my uncle to him one night after sneaking some alcohol from my parents. He was so hurt by the information that he cried. I couldn’t believe how good of a guy he seemed to be. He was perfectly nice. He always asked if I had taken my meds, even started to video called me to watch me take them every night. Wow, what a great guy. I’d call him on nights where my dad had been angry and throwing things and he’d promise that someday it would be better. Even if it was up to him to make it better for me. We’d hang out all durning our shifts, even coming in on our days off just to sit in the booth and hangout.

That booth was one of my favorite spots. It felt like it was just him and I, and that I could tell him anything. I told him my deepest darkest secrets and fantasies. He’d tell me his too. We’d laugh and cry and spend all night talking in that booth. Then go home after closing time and video chat until 3am. He’d ask me what color of underwear I was wearing and I’d answer him in Spanish to see if he could guess the right answer. He’d ask to see them so I’d set my camera up and prance around my room to show him. He’d tell me how beautiful I was and how if things were different, maybe he would fall in love with me.

Love. I still had no sense of what that word meant. I knew it was sexual. But also cuddly. Hot, but also comfortable. I wanted it so bad. I wanted to know exactly what love was. And if he was willing to teach me, I was willing to learn. We’d sit on the same side of the booth watching scary movies and cuddling he’d put his hand on my thigh and run it along the inseam of my jeans. Sneaking his hand up higher and higher until I’d call it quits. He’d get sad and say “I just want to make sure you know how it feels to be touched the right way before you end up in a relationship someday and have no idea what you’re doing.” It made perfect sense to me so I’d let him continue. Higher and higher his hand would go on my thigh and I’d giggle and he’d squeeze and smile. Until my manager would eventually walk over to tell us that we need to either clock in and work or order something. He’d snap his hand back into his lap so quickly I would try not to burst into laughter.

One night we had a closing shift together and once we locked the doors he asked if I wanted to sit for awhile before going home. I thought this sounded nice so I agreed. He walked me to my car and sat between me and the open driver door. My car was too small for him to sit in comfortably since he was 6’2” and about 350lbs. So he’d sit next to me on the ground often. He said he wanted to play a game and I was intrigued so I agreed. He said “put your hands on the steering wheel and don’t move them. No matter what.” So I did. He started groping my thighs, breasts, he’d put his hand lightly around my neck, then he’d grab my vagina through my jeans and I got nervous. I started to move my hands off the wheel. “Uh uh uh” he said with a smile. “Lay your chair back” I didn’t want to do that. “Lay it back or we just won’t be friends anymore.” I couldn’t loose him. So I did. He then climbed halfway into my car putting his body weight on me and trying to unbutton my jeans. “ I think I need to go home now.” I said trying to not panic. “Just few more steps until we’re done.” He said trying to get his hands into my pants.

I don’t know what happened in my moms brain that night but she forced my dad to drive her passed the Pizza Hut I was supposed to be closing that night. All the lights were off but she saw my car and Pizza Hut guy’s car still there. Just as he was about to fully climb on me my parents flew through the parking lot and he jumped off me and tried to pretend he was tying his shoe. “Get home. Now.” My mom shouted at me. He got up and just whispered “sorry” to my parents. He got in his car and sped off.

I got home and my mom laid into me about how dangerous my actions were and how I must be leading this man on. How she wasn’t stupid and knew I’d been talking to him every night and how he is expecting me to do things now. I was confused. Shouldn’t she be mad at him? I broke down sobbing. “I just wanted a friend mom. He’s not my friend though. He lied.” She called my job the next morning, told them everything and quit on my behalf. I went to return my uniforms and my manager said “ugh now I have to hire two waitresses to replace you. I can’t even go on my vacation anymore.” And that was it. Pizza Hut guys still works there to this day. I can’t walk into a pizza place and not get sick from the smell now.

I lay awake at night often. I think about all the girls that came before me into these men’s lives. And then I get a gut curdling pain when I think of all the ones that were after me. All the ones that my uncle got to. All the ones in the churches. And all the teenage waitresses at that Pizza Hut. I worry that I could have done something to stop it but when I really stop and think about it. I don’t think it was my job to stop it. I think it was my parents job and they failed me and all the other girls. I think it’s the churches that keep loyal money held higher on the totem pole rather than the innocence of children. I think of all these men who are disgusting, vile, and evil vermin who serve no greater purpose than simply paying taxes and dying.

I do get to revel in a few things though. The man from the church that took me to McDonald’s is now serving life in prison due to having 200 files of child pornography on his computer, some of which were homemade. Pizza Hut guy would be 39 or 40 now and is still a fat fucking Pizza Hut delivery driver. Then there’s my uncle Bobby. He died a few years back from an overdose. Everyone cried at his funeral, everyone but me. I even got a few minutes alone with the body to say goodbye. I simply looked at his disgusting, rotting corpse and said “Hope theres a Disneyland in hell. Have fun bitch.”

[sabraeal]

Climb to the Rooftops

[Read on AO3]

Written for @another-miracle; a birthday fic that is COMING OUT ON TIME would you look at that (though I am definitely doing some fancy footwork to make it work out in both time zones 😂 Yixin asked for the Post-Rescue Tanbarun Tree Scene for WFB, and then I said, I could give you that, but what if I told you about a secret scene instead...

And then Yixin told me to write whichever one was Obi POV

He knows her.

That’s what keeps running through his head’s hamster wheel as he clomps up the student center steps. He knows her; he’s always known her. If he reached out on that park bench, if he’d grabbed her with both hands and just said, don’t leave me--

He would have been laid flat on his ass, courtesy of that mean right hook her dad taught her before he bounced. And there’d be another demerit on his record to boot, one more instance of anti-social behavior to make him even more unadoptable than he already was. Doc was always destined to go to a loving home, complete with cozy hideaways and towers of books, with warm firesides and even warmer grandparents, and he...

Well, he wasn’t meant for anything like that, no matter who he clung to. Sometimes shit just happens, and no wishing on stars thirteen years gone can change that.

It’s good to see her though. He’d always wondered what happened to his muppet girl, whether she’d gone off and had her happy ending just like she said she would. And now he knows she did.

He glances down at the peanut butter canister in his hand. Well, at least for a little while. That’s the thing about happy endings; they don’t really stick.

Obi hesitates, one foot poised over a step up, his hand wrapped around a ruddy safety rail. “Um, Doc.”

It takes her three steps to bounce to a stop, just enough to let her look down instead of up or across. He’s got double vision for a moment: Doc in the here and now looking at him with so much hope and anxiety that he’s half-afraid she’ll shake apart like a Hot Wheel in a blender; superimposed over the little girl in his memory, round face beaming up at him and her worries far behind her.

She’s got more freckles now, though most of them are hidden beneath her coat, fading without the direct application of summer sun. More inches too, though not as many as he’d given her in his head; for once he’d given more benefit of the doubt than nature could provide. And her hair-- well, that’s the same. Red. Fluffy. Muppety, too, if it’s the morning.

“Obi?”

He should really be paying attention to this conversation he fucking started, instead of just staring at her like a creep. “I just wanted to check in.”

“Oh.” She goes rosy under the freckles he can see, shifting the urn from her hands to her elbow. “I’m-- I’m fine. I’m glad that we could find--” one arm juts out, trying to encompass both them and the containers-- “everyone.”

“Yeah, I got you, but I meant...” He angles a pointed look over her shoulder. “Why are we going up?”

Doc’s jaw drops, and he sees it, the way panic crests right behind her eyes.

“Not that I’m suggesting we don’t.” He takes the next step slow, just enough to put them on equal standing. Except it doesn’t, it puts him a little above her; the beginning of really looking down. His heart flutters in the exact way it shouldn’t when he’s carrying human remains. “I’m just saying, if we’re going to carry geriatrics up a few flights, the elevator’s better for their hips.”

He expects her to laugh at that one, or maybe even roll her eyes, but instead Doc breaks out into a full-body Chihuahua tremble.

“Obi.” Her eyes are so big in her face they might swallow him whole. “We can’t take the elevator.”

“We...can’t?”

Her head jerks in the scarcest side-to-side. With one long, steeling breath, she informs him, “We’re going to do something a little illegal.”

His brows raise. “Illegal?”

The urn bobbles treacherously as her hands fly up between them. “Only a little!”

“You cashed in your favor with me,” he repeats slowly, savoring the thrill that zips through him with every syllable. “To do something illegal.”

Doc deflates with all the gravitas of a popped kiddie pool. “I’m sorry, I should have asked if that would be okay. Especially with, um...”

She’s far too polite to say, your presumed preexisting criminal record, Doc just hasn’t realized it yet. Not when she doesn’t know for sure whether it does exist or not. It’d be easy to help her along, but it’s kinda satisfying to watch her flounder, fishing for the pieces of him she does know.

“If it’s a problem,” she says finally, lifting her eyes to his. “You don’t have to--”

“The only problem is how hot that is, Doc.” He wraps a hand around the rail beside her, leaning in close enough that her eyes nearly cross watching him. “Are you gonna get into your old field hockey kit and punch a girl up there too?”

She blinks, heels clunking into the concrete rise. “I don’t think it would fit. The skirt would be too short, at least.”

Are you sure, he wants to say, stretching every last inch over her, but instead he rumbles, “Honey, you’re saying all the right things to me--”

“Hey.” A finger presses into his nose, hauling his words up short like a pileup. “No call list.”

“Ahh.” Her mouth twitches as he pulls back, rubbing at his nose. “Haah. You know I hate that.”

“Then stick to the list,” she informs him pleasantly. “Besides, are you really trying to flirt with a girl in front of her grandpa?”

“Well.” He holds up the tin, giving it an experimental shake. “You think they’d mind?”

There’s a quality to the silence in the stairwell that clues him in to the fact that he’s cocked up real good this time. First with the tomb joke, now asking if grandma might be watching from beyond the grave, objecting to his game. At least he knows he never had a chance; otherwise he’d have to go take his hopes out behind the woodshed--

“No,” she hums, confident. “They’d like you.”

It’s a good thing she doesn’t get it in her head to try the nose trick again; it’d push him right over. He can survive a lot, but four flights is pushing it. “Doc,” he huffs, scratching the bristle at the back of his head, “I don’t think--”

“Well...” She’s thoughtful when she puts her back to him, bouncing up the next couple of stairs. “Opa would. Oma would think you needed to be fattened up.”

He laughs, but even to his own ears it sounds busted up, wings broken. “Sounds like my kind of lady.”

“Ugh,” Doc sighs from one landing up. “She’d love that you said that.”

“That just makes her even more--”

“Don’t.”

RESTRICTED ACCESS, the doors says, bright red letters fading against the plastic sign. ALARM WILL SOUND.

Doc’s been bullish these last few flights, pushing a pace that makes him want to remind her he’s a hitter, not a runner, but now--

Now she shuffles on the stairs, daunted. “Do you think it will really...?”

Obi thinks this might be a private university, funded by mommy and daddy’s pockets to keep their babies safe, but alarms go off all the time. Unless this building has a rent-a-cop watching daytime TV down in the atrium right now, it could take hours for someone to answer the call, especially mid-afternoon on a Saturday.

“Who knows.” He’s not sure what she’s got up her sleeve that involves two dead people and a rooftop-- especially when even Doc is quick to admit it’s got at least a toe on the wrong side of legal-- but it probably won’t look good if they’re interrupted, even by the Diet Coke of the law enforcement vending machine. “Maybe you should plan to keep the fancy speeches to a minimum.”

“Eulogies.” Her thin fingers flex over ceramic, white where they press in. “You mean a eulogy.”

“Gesundheit.”

Doc turns her head, real slow, letting him soak in every drop of her disapproval. Well, that’s one pigtail successfully pulled.

With a breath so deep it makes her pea coat really earn the name, Doc nods. “Right. Okay. I think...”

Obi expects some dithering, some real soul-searching doubts being dragged out for airing right here in the stairwell. Doc likes that sort of thing, taking everything out of her head so she can fold it all up real nice again, but instead--

Instead she barrels across the landing, plowing right through the metal door, a whole stretch of gray winter sky stretching out before her. There’s one blink, two, and then-- well, the sign wasn’t kidding. The alarm does, in fact, sound.

He catches the door with a hand; it’s weighted, ready to swing right back into place and-- if he knows his doors-- lock right behind her. Not that it’d be a problem if he meant to stand around on the stairwell and act as look out; a role he’d be happy to play if that’s how Doc wanted this whole show to run. But right now she’s slumped at the ledge, every last ounce of her usual moxie wrung out.

Maybe she might tell him to stand back, that this is something she’s got to take on alone, but Obi knows every aching line of that pose by heart. A car can keep going for fifty miles once it hits empty, but that just means you’ll never know when the tank runs dry. That’s where she is right now, stalling out at her limit.

And that’s what he’s here for, to push her that last inch over the finish line. Besides, he can’t just stand back, not when he’s grandpa’s ride.

“So.” There’s a shim in a corner-- a naughty thing to have around an emergency door like this, but Obi’s not about to tattle. He’s perfectly happy to wedge someone else’s problem right where the paint’s flaked off the door. “What’s the problem?”

Doc blinks, one hand trembling on grandma’s lid. “W-what?”

He settles grandpa on the ledge, arms folded around him, taking in the sprawl of buildings below. Clarines isn’t as big as one of those state universities, but it makes Tanbarun look like a college playset instead of a campus. Both of them have those stuffy brick and marble buildings they like up here, the kind that say academic and too good for you loud and clear, but whereas Obi’s walked across Clarines for thirty minutes and still never hit the edge, it looks like he could lap this place in twenty. No wonder Doc was miserable here; the real mystery is how she managed an entire year in this fancy rat cage.

“There’s got to be one.” He knows better than to look at her; if he’s going to make her talking about feelings, the least he can do is give her the privacy to have them. “You were all gung-ho a minute ago, ready to do your thing even if you had to punch out a cop to do it--”

“--I didn’t say that,” she murmurs--

“--but now you’re just standing here.” He shrugs, chancing a glance from the corner of his eyes. “Looking lost.”

“I just...” She shifts, head twisting toward him, he doesn’t need to meet her gaze to know it’s wild, desperate. “It doesn’t feel right that they don’t go together.”

It’s his turn to stare now, lost. “O...kay.”

“What if...” Her teeth fold over her lip, worrying at places already worn. “What if I left them go, and they don’t find each other?”

“Ah...?” It seems like a bit of an oversight now, not asking what the plan is, but he ventures, “You mean...the ashes?”

Her mouth twists up, annoyance in every wrinkle. “It sounds weird when you say it like that.”

“No, no, I’m just...” He glances down at the tin between his arms. “I’m just putting things together. There’s nothing wrong about how you feel, Doc. Not like anyone’s really written a book about how this works.”

She looks up at him, so guileless. “Of course they have, Obi. There’s a whole section in the bookstore for it. It’s just that they’re all written by charlatans and quacks.”

Whatever the conversational version of whiplash is, Obi’s experiencing it now. For a minute all he can do is stare, taking in the abject disapproval rumpling her face, and then he-- he--

He laughs. Because this is what he’s into. The sort of person who pumps the breaks and spins the conversation 360 without even a courtesy ‘buckle up.’

“Listen, I’ve been thinking...” He taps the top of the tin, the metallic ting drowned out by the blare of the siren. “What if we just...mixed them? Then when you release them--”

“--They’re already together.” Doc blinks up at him, eye shining like he’s her savior, the center of her world, the answer to her cosmic question--

The way she really shouldn’t, when she already belongs to someone a hundred times better than he’ll ever be. Not when she’d never mean to get his hopes up.

“Thank you, Obi,” she breathes, a smile dawning on her lips. “That’s exactly what we need to do.”

Like all his good ideas, it’s easier said than done. On the ground, it’d been breezy, the sort of gentle push he’d come to expect from New England right before it got its first good snow, but up here--

“Here, take this.” Obi shrugs off his jacket, hurriedly pushing it into Doc’s boneless hands, but it’s too late-- they’ve already lost a bit of grandma. “Hold it up.”

She stares down at it, thumbs rubbing over the leather in a way that makes his shoulders itch. “Hold...?”

He swings out one arm-- the one not holding a geriatric-- yanking it wide. “Like a wind screen. I don’t want to lose Oma’s pinky toe or something.”

Doc blinks, stretching the coat between her hands. “Pinky toe?”

“Wouldn’t that make you cranky in the afterlife?” he asks, shaking more of Oma loose in a lull. “Losing a toe? Or a finger. Like just the last knuckle. A bit of your nose.”

The leather starts to ripple as the wind spins back up, and Doc stomps a foot down on the end of it to keep it from smacking up into his face. He appreciates the effort; it’s hard enough trying to pour from a large container to a small one without his zipper clocking him over the eyebrow. “Would that really matter?”

He shrugs. “To some people, probably. I got plenty of nose to spare.”

Doc mouth curves shyly, hunching down to hide behind his coat. “I think it’s fine just as it is.”

“Haah.” It’d be nice if she could give him a heads up when she plans to make his heart pound like that. “Think you might be the first to think that.”

“I don’t know,” she hums, eyes electric with some mischievous spark in their depths. “Maybe I’m the first to say so, but you certainly weren’t getting any complaints a few nights ago--”

He huffs. “Drunk college girls aren’t exactly arbiters of taste, Doc.”

She fixes him with that steady stare of hers, the one that’s so earnest it makes his heart make a bid for freedom through his throat. “I think,” she says, each word weighed before she lets it free, just like a good scientist, “that they did just fine.”

He smothers a whimper into a sigh. “Maybe your grandparents don’t mind me flirting,” he mutters, hunched over that stupid peanut butter tin, “but I’m sure they wouldn’t like you returning the favor.”

She blinks, head cocked. “Did you say something Obi?”

“No,” he says, just a little louder. “Just talking to myself.”

“You know--” he sets down the urn, wiping the sweat off his forehead-- “this would have been a lot easier going the other way.”

“We can’t.” Doc’s mouth twists up into that troublesome knot. “Opa always said he never wanted to be in one of those big fancy vases. And even if he would never know, I...”

Obi sighs, hanging his head. “Yeah, I know, I get it, just...complaining to complain. You know how it is.”

She stares down at him like he’s a fish on a dock telling her about the dangers of air. He shakes his head, stifling a laugh. Of course Doc wouldn’t get it; she could lose a limb and she’d still be thankful for the other three. Probably point out how much better things were now that she didn’t need to keep track of all of them. He might complain like it was as easy as breathing, but Doc-- Doc would take every last uncharitable thought to the grave.

Haah, give her some time. A few more months around him, and she’d discover some things to complain about. People always did.

“So,” he says, picking grandma back up. “Why here?”

Doc blinks. “Huh?”

“You know, on top of the roof of the campus center at one of the prestigious universities on the East Coast?” He raises a brow. “I know you used to go here, but most people just settle for leaving dog shit on the stoop when they want to send a ‘fuck you,’ you know.”

Doc unleashes a sound that can only be termed a squawk. “What? What do you mean most people--?” She shakes her head. “No, I don’t-- I mean, it’s not supposed to be a, um...”

“Fuck you?”

“Ah...yes. That.” She grimaces. “They met here. And when I tried to think of places they might want to be...”

Her words drift to a stop, but it’s gentle. They don’t abandon her, leaving her high and dry, but she just...stops saying them, letting the wind carry them away.

“I couldn’t think of any place else,” she admits, fingers tightening in the leather. “They always talked about Tanbarun so fondly, and I...I always thought it sounded like paradise.”

“But the roof?” Obi asks, incredulous. “Is it just easier to scatter the ashes, or...?”

“It’s where they met,” she repeats, like that makes any sense at all. “They used to have movie nights up here, played on one of those reel projectors,”

Her gaze swings out over the concrete like she could see it; all the hippy bean bags piled up, big screen pulled down and movie hardly able to be heard over the wind. Not a bad picture, he’ll admit. Wholesome, just like he’d expect out of the people who raised this Precious Moments doll of a person. Doesn’t really explain Mukaze, but well, shit happens. Half the people who raised him don’t deserve the person he’s become either. “Nice story.”

She’s hardly here with him, eyes hazy and distant, stuck in a past only she can see. “That’s what I always thought. I always wanted...” Her voice trails off again, but this time her smile falters, topping like china from a wobbling shelf. “I always wanted to have a story like that too. But it, um, didn’t really work out that way.”

He shouldn’t say anything. He’s not some neutral party, here to give her that impartial, unbiased pick-me-up she wants to hear, like telling her won’t rips a strip right off his back, so-- he should keep his big mouth shut.

But he’s never been good at any of that being smart shit. “It’s not like you didn’t have your own meet cute, it just wasn’t here. It was, er...”

Huh, now would you look at that. He’s never actually asked.

“At a record store,” she supplies slowly, like she has to think on it too. “Between the aisles after I missed my bus. No--” she laughs, more bitter than he’s ever heard her-- “after I chose to miss it.”

“See?” he hums, vibrating the knife deeper. “That’s already a good start.”

Her lips press thin. “I suppose...”

“No supposing about it.” He taps grandpa so the ashes sit flat before he starts another pour. “If I know anything about your Oma and your Opa-- and I don’t know nothing besides what you told me--” and what he saw a decade ago, sitting on that park bench-- “I don’t think they care whether you met your person at a rooftop movie or in a Walmart--”

“Record store.”

“They have CDs too,” he informs her, just as prim as Doc gets with him when she indulged the one pedantic bone in her body. “But the point is, they wouldn’t care where it happened, they just wanted you to find what they had.”

“I...” She deflates, the leather bowing over her legs. “I know. I think they used to worry that I wouldn’t, especially since I wasn’t really, ah...”

“Looking for it?” he offers.

She nods, relieved. “Yes, that. After my parents, I think they expected a much more, um, active interest in...anything. And I wasn’t.”

He doesn’t need to hear her say it to know that there’s more to it than that, that what she means to say is, and I don’t think they understood.

“Well, nothing for them to worry about anymore, is there?” She blinks up at him, alarmed, and he adds, “You and chief are kind of a done deal right?”

“Ah!” It’s hard to tell with the wind slapping both their cheeks red, but he could swear Doc’s blushing. “I don’t-- it’s not-- we haven’t really talked about--” she heaves a heavy, resigned sigh-- “I mean, I...I guess?”

“As done as it can be without getting PR involved.” He gives her the sort of eyebrow Kiki might. “I’m sure that if they’re out there floating on clouds or whatever, or, i don’t know, free energy in the universe, molecules just bumping around...they’re happy for you.”

“Right.” Her reply’s so faint he nearly misses it, but the wind that snatches it away carries it right by his ear. “Yeah.”

“All right, I think I’ve done as much as I can do.” Obi levers himself to his feet, brushing off his lap before handing her the tin. “You ready for this?”

Doc stares down at the canister, jaw set, the same way he’s sure it looked right before she threw herself out a window. Certainly looks the same way it did when she tried to bean Itoya with her purse.

“Yeah,” she breathes, fingers tightening around the metal. “I think I am.”

The wall’s not tall, but neither is Doc; she has to go up on tip-toe to throw an arm over it, the wind already pulling at the ashes laying loose at the top. Her brow furrows, mouth working for a good minute before she manages, “It’s time to say goodbye, I think.”

Obi stares. Sure, he’d said to keep it short and sweet, but if it’s taken this long for the rent-a-cop to hustle up, maybe she can spare the people who raised her more than--

“Thank you.” He’d thought it might be hard to hear her over both the alarm and the wind, but somehow all her words fly true, brightening the air. “For...everything. I don’t really know how you...”

Her breath catches, but her eyes are clear, no tears streaking down her face. “But that doesn’t matter, does it? You did everything and more. But I think...” She sniffs, taking a moment. “I think I can take it from here. I’ll miss you, Oma. And Opa...”

She takes a deep, shuddering breath. “I forgive you. For whatever still needs forgiving. Rest well.”

Her hand tips, just the barest degree, and the ashes scatter, wind whipping them past, twisting high over the quad.

“Hey.” Obi steps up beside her, shrugging his coat on over his shoulders. If it’s a little gritty-- well, good thing Doc thing thinks Oma would like him so much, because part of her might linger until the next wash. “I’m pretty sure it’s super illegal to scatter human remains like this.”

“Oh,” Doc hums, shoulder bushing his arm. “It absolutely is without a permit. I was not joking about the slightly illegal thing.”

Obi grins. “Well good thing that no one ever came to check on the--”

As if summoned by the mere mention of potentially having something approaching good luck, the door bar rattles, accompanied by some creative cursing.

“Who the fuck is leaving this open?” A gruff yet feminine voice demands, as if she might be able to shake down the universe and pick up the answers from what fell out of its pockets if she just rattled it hard enough. “Bill, is it you? God, what did I say about using the roof for your smoke breaks--?”

The door swings all the way open, and there she is, a security guard with shoulders that could have dropped straight from the Lowen family tree. Obi would take a picture if he wasn’t sure that would get him thrown in the campus drunk tank.

She takes one glance at them, then another angrier one. “Who the fuck are you?” 

“UM,” Doc shrills informatively.

“No, wait.” One broad hand waves in front of her. “I don’t care. What are you doing up here?”

Doc flounders in the face of authoritarian disappointment-- which is fine by Obi. This is his wheelhouse, after all. It’s nothing to reach out, cinching Doc’s waist against him, grin wide. “Sex, obviously.”

If it were possible for a body to choose the time and place of its expiration from this earthly dairy aisle, Doc’s mortified stare suggests she might curdle on the spot. “Obi.”

The guard’s glare is a study in skepticism, taking in the both of them, and then the concrete wasteland around them. “Here? With your clothes on?”

“It’s our kink.”

“Please,” Doc mutters against his shirt. “Don’t talk.”

The guard spares them one last weary look and sighs. “You know what? I don’t care. Just get out.”

Doc certainly doesn’t need to be told twice. Obi’s got his mouth open, what can’t you let us finish first about to spill right out, but her small hand clamps around his, and she drags him right off the roof.

“SORRY,” she yelps as they pass. “WON’T LET IT HAPPEN AGAIN.”

“Yeah,” Obi agrees with a grin. “Next time we’ll fuck on some other roo--”

Doc pauses for one moment, just long enough to raise a finger and inform him “DON’T.”

This time he lets her drag him off, grinning.

They’re halfway down the stairs when Doc finally slows, her cheeks reaching a shade of red that looks more lipstick than lobster dinner. Her hand wraps tight around the rail, and it’s not until he saunters down the last couple steps to stand beside her that he realizes-- her eyes are screw tight, breath coming in ragged bursts.

“Hey,” he murmurs, trying to ignore the spark of alarm zipping under his skin. “Did you just realize we could have used the elevator?”

Her fingers, already wrapped tight around his palm, squeeze. “Obi...”

The muscles in his arm lock, the way he’s sure lizard tails do, right before they drop them off and run. “Doc?”

Her head turns toward him, and when her eyes flutter open, they’re bright, clear. “Thanks. For being there.”

“No. No, no,” he murmurs, his fingers spasming against hers. “You’ve got it all wrong. I should be the one thank you for letting me. No one...”

No one has ever asked me to be there, he doesn’t say. No one but you.

It’s too much when she’s looking at him like this, like he’s not just a stand-in but her first choice. Like there’s more to how he feels than some one-sided over-investment. It brings him so close to feeling like someone, like the kind of guy who might be her person--

And maybe he could have been, if he hadn’t let some asshole rip her right out her arms in the middle of the night. If he had a record of being something other than a professional disappointment.

The grin doesn’t sit right on his face when he says, “No one’s ever asked me to get rid of a dead body before.”

Doc blinks, then rolls her eyes. “Come on,” she sighs, tugging his hand. “Let’s go.”

“Back to the hotel?”

“Well,” she wheedles. “That. And I dropped the tin when the guard surprised us...”

“Ah I see.” He slips his hand from hers, grin finally sitting the way it should. “So we’re adding evidence removal and obstruction of justice to our list of crimes.”

She tips a dubious look back at him. “Are you complaining?”

“Doc,” he breathes, pressing a hand to his chest. “I would never. I’m touched that you would even think that I could--”

“Come on, Obi,” she laughs, hopping down the steps in front of him. “I’d like to do this sometime today.”

His mouth curls as he watches her back. “Your wish is my command.”

[missfay49]

That's Not a Cowboy, That's a World War II B-24 fighter pilot!

Ok so listen, are yall ready for the most tragic, romantic love story ever? I got this story second hand from my dad, who heard it from his dad, who i did meet when i was little but he died a few years ago.  My grandma was never around but it always just felt like we shouldn’t talk about it, so i never asked.  But i was doing a family history project for school and he decided to tell me the absolute bat-shit story that is how my grandparents met. Here ya go i guess.

So sometime in the late 1930’s, early 40’s, he’s not really sure, there’s rumors a mysterious woman (my grandma!) is appearing randomly along the northern coast of Germany.  People keep reporting the sightings to the local police because she’s trespassing.  She only ever appears at night and the war is on and people are stressed so somebody claims they saw her transform- whatever the fuck that means!  Word gets back to the secret police and they send someone out to investigate.  She goes on the run from these police like some kind of cat and mouse scene in an action movie, like she’s on the lamb for literal years-  This is not when she meets my grandpa, that comes later.  

Eventually they catch her and she gets sent to some kind of facility, she doesn’t know where but they figured it out later that it was one of the old Luftwaffe air bases.  They made her undergo all kinds of terrible experiments there and then kinda forgot she was there for a few months when shit was really hitting the fan towards the end of the war.  Dad says she had to beg and yell to remind them to feed her sometimes. :(((

My grandpa was one of the guys that found her when the U.S. forces took over the air base during the war.  They’d kept her in a repurposed grain silo and he said there were no ground level windows so she could never even see what was going on outside but she could see the sky.  She told him later she would see the planes flying by and hope they were coming to rescue her.

So they’re getting ready to transfer her to a mobile hospital because she’s nearly starved to death.  She can’t even walk on her own, she’s freaking out.  Come to find out they had stolen all her belongings when she was captured and they were about to send her away without anything!  Grandpa tracked down the containers with her stuff and brought it to her.  All it was was a coat and some coins but she was really grateful.

She was speaking some kind of germanic root language but they weren’t really sure because they had all learned some German words and she didn’t know hardly any of the same ones.  She’d only picked up a little bit of German while she was at the base, and the word “cowboy” that they were always calling the Americans.  Apparently she called grandpa a cowboy and it made him laugh because he was from Texas but he’d never even worked on a farm.  He’d gone into the airforce as soon as he turned 18.  He told her about Texas while they waited for the evac and about the flowers and lakes and nature preserves we have here.  

Well the evac comes and takes her, but grandpa tracks down the hospital where they took her the very next chance he got and yall she was still there!  She’d learned a few words of english by then and after they’ve met and she cries and they’re talking she tells him how much she misses the ocean and asks him to fly her out of there.  He can’t take her right then of course, he was still on duty and his plane belonged to the air force, but he tells her that when his tour was over they’d meet back up and he’d take her to visit the gulf.  She tells him it sounds good.  But then when he comes back after the war ends, she’s gone.  He’s being demobilized and he can’t hang around, so he goes back home alone...  

So he’s hanging around the Gulf when he can, because they talked about it, but he doesn’t hear a word from her until the locals start talking about some woman that kept appearing on the beach.  He starts searching every weekend and he finds her- he saw her on the beach and was running but couldn’t catch her in time.  He said she went into the ocean for so long he thought she might never come back, or that maybe he’d only imagined her there, but then she just came walking back out of the water like it was nothing.  It really was her.  They got married and had my dad and his brother, and then one day she just disappeared.  Grandpa said he wasn’t worried, that she was always something wild and he’d always wondered how long she would be able to stay with him.

p.s. dad says grandpa had some friends in the music industry and this song was actually about grandma

Anyway so i’m finally getting surgery next week to remove the webs from between my fingers.

[canumoveurseatup-no]

not you

summary: bucky wasn’t supposed to be the one to hurt you. not like this.

word count: 3k (no keep reading tab, did this on mobile, sorry)

pairing: bucky barnes x black!stark!reader

warnings: bitch it’s aaaaannngst- it jumps RIGHT in. (IW and EG didn’t happen)

———

You don’t know how the video popped up. You were searching on your dad’s computer, looking for a specific file that he told you to look for. You clicked a bunch of folders until one came up and played a video-

A lonely dark road and a car simply driving on it until you realize it was your grandparent’s car, Tony always talked about that car. Your dad didn’t keep their gruesome death away from you. You never knew who killed them, no one did. But the video displayed who perfectly. You didn’t want to believe it- but this video was so clear a-and it made sense.

You scooted back in the roller chair and grasped your chest in pain. You weren’t sure what emotion to focus on. You were livid, hurt- you wanted to scream, fight, something.

Your feet carried you before your mind could process where you going and you found yourself in the kitchen where everyone sat. Steve was the first to notice you and the empty look in your eyes.

“Y/N?,”

Bucky turned around to see you struggling to breathe- before he could get up to come over to you, you held your hand up.

“Was anyone going to tell me?,” your voice was so robotic, Friday sounded realer than you.

Your dad frowned but not for long- the way you were acting reminded him of the same way he reacted to finding out... you didn’t even have to say it...

“Sweetheart-,”

“Was ANYONE going to tell me?!,” you looked across the room to see the confused faces of everyone, “is this why you guys went into hiding?”

Mentioning what had happened years ago had everyone going through flashbacks.

“Was anyone going to tell me that my fiancé was my grandparents’ murderer?!,”

Bucky felt his heart clench- as bad as it sounds he never wanted you to find out. All you knew was that Bucky created issues because he used to work for HYDRA and was framed for things that some psychopath did. You never knew what came after. You just knew Steve, Buck, Sam, Nat, Wanda and Vision went into hiding for three years and when they came back, everything was fine and dandy. Everyone came back to the compound and grudges disappeared and you met the love of your life.

It all makes sense now why he was so hesitant to date you to begin with. He had the guilt of killing the people who are important in a child’s life. You never to go experience the love that grandparents brought and it’s all his fault.

“How could you all look at me and know me for YEARS and not tell me?!,” you swiped a glass vase off the counter and watched the way everyone flinched before posting to Bucky, “And you!,” your finger trembled, “How could you look me in the eyes and tell me you love me every day? How could you propose knowing what you did?!,”

Your throat felt raw already. Feeling the affects of your screaming.

“It wasn’t him,” Tony swallowed thickly, “I meant to delete that video years ago, I haven’t looked at that file in years,”

“You have it saved?,” Steve hissed

“You- you choked my grandmother out with the same hands you hold my face with when you kiss me, the SAME FUCKING HANDS THAT ROAM MY BODY WHEN- W-when... we,” you couldn’t even finish your sentence you felt so disgusted for being with him, your grandparents are probably rolling over in their graves.

“Y/N, baby please- try to understand- it wasn’t me,” He stepped closer and you saw the way his shoulders sagged when you took a huge step away

“Don’t fucking touch me,”

Bucky felt tears come to his eyes as you looked at him in the way he never wanted you to look at him. You saw him as the very thing you told him he wasn’t whenever he’d have nightmares or episodes of flashbacks that triggered a panic attack... you saw him as a monster now.

“I- I would never hurt you, Y/N,”

“I don’t know that now,”

“All of that is gone in my head! You were there for the process,”

You looked past him to look at your dad, another wave of anger coursing through your veins, picking up another glass object and chucking it at him

“And fuck you for not telling me! I. deserved. to know!,”

He dodged the cup as it hit the wall behind him and eyes you as you went around the kitchen throwing anything at everyone. Glass plates, pans, you were hysterical and everyone was just dodging your attacks

“Some fucking family this is! I have been living in a goddamn LIE and you all let me!! You all looked at me and lied every. single. fucking. day!!,”

No one knew what to say, no one could fix this.

“I never got to meet them,” you sobbed, shoulder shaking violently, “I never got to experience their love, their embrace that I’ve always dreamt of,” you wrapped your arms around yourself to simulate a sort of comfort that you imagined they would have brought to your life.

“I never got to experience dinner at grandma’s like other kids! I grew up with kids boasting about the presents they’d get from their grandparents- I never got to experience grandma’s cookies o-or always taking grandpa’s change to put in my piggy bank,”

Tony felt a pit in his gut for keeping it from you, you always talked about wishing you got to meet them. He remembers you coming home from 3rd grade upset because they were having a grandparents luncheon and you had to sit alone.

Bucky was freaking out. You gave him peace and a sense of belonging. You showed him what self love was and you showed him how other people didn’t need to be his happiness, that he had to create happiness for himself and others just added to it. Now he was going to lose you for sure.

“You never loved me did you?,” you turned to Bucky and shook your head, “you just felt bad for what you did!,”

“No!,” he face was turning red and he found it hard to swallow, “I love you so much it’s insane. You know how it was for me when I was in the state of the Winter Soldier- that wasn’t me I wouldn’t have consciously done anything I did back then!!,”

You didn’t want to hear it. You had so many thoughts running through your head.. nothing made sense now.

“W-what am I going to tell our child?,” You hiccuped, “They’re going to grow up knowing their father killed their family!,”

The bomb you dropped had everyone looking around at each other in even more worry than they already had to begin with.

“You’re.. you’re pregnant?,” Bucky couldn’t help the swell of joy in his heart but it was soon gone when he realized the circumstances.

You didn’t answer him, you just looked at everyone with the biggest look of betrayal, “You were supposed to be my best friend Steve... y-you knew! All of you di-did,”

“Ms. Stark would you like me to call for medical attention?,” Friday’s voice rang through the dining room. Whenever she brings up a call for medical attention, it’s never good.

“Y/N baby I’m gonna need you to just calm down- for your sake and the baby’s,” Bucky’s voice dropped and he saw another switch flip in your mind

“Don’t fucking tell me to calm down!,”

“We didn’t want to hurt you,” Steve tried to justify the situation but it didn’t do shit,

“He was literally brainwashed, Y/N. H-he didn’t even know who they were when he did it. HYDRA turned him into a killing machine, sure he shared the same body as the Winter Soldier but they are two completely different people... Bucky did not kill them,” Natasha thought those words would settle you but again, it didn’t do shit.

“I- I can’t listen to this,” you turned and walked away but Bucky couldn’t let you just walk away. He was happy you hadn’t taken your ring off yet.

Growing up you always told yourself had you ever found out who killed your grandparents you’d kill em right back but how do you kill the man who you’ve grown to love with your whole being? How do you kill the man who is now the father of the bit of cells that will soon be a human life. You were so confused and shattered.

You stormed in your room and began packing bags, needing to get away from here... far... far away.

“Baby please let’s- let’s just talk this out. Please try to understand,”

“You try to understand!,” you were in so much mental turmoil you couldn’t see straight, “I feel disgusting! I feel like I betrayed not only my grandparents but myself! It’s your fault! It wasn’t supposed to be you! Not you!,”

You threw one item in after another until Bucky snatched the bag away and grabbed your arms in his grasp

“Get off, get off, get o-off!!,” your arms were shut tighter than a storm shelter door. You couldn’t bear to look at him

“You can fight me, hit me, yell at me, just don’t leave, baby please,” Bucky hated the way his voice cracked but you’ve brought so much light in his life he can’t take the thought of you leaving.

Your body fell limp in his arms and he fell to the floor right along with you despite you pounding his chest in hopes to hurt him the same way you’re hurting. You grew tired and just fell against him despite every other part of you telling you to leave.

“How can I ever look at you knowing what you did to them... what you did to me,”

Bucky felt like sobbing right then and there. He doesn’t have an answer- however Tony came to forgive him in a way and understand it wasn’t his fault, he hopes it’s the same for you.

“Knowing what you did to our child...,”

Bucky can only imagine what you’re feeling. He’s feeling the same fear he felt when Tony was ready to kill him. He kinda wished he did... so you wouldn’t be feeling this.

“Baby it- it’s so hard to explain,” Bucky pulled you closer, fearing this will be the last time, he was trying to keep his sobs to a minimum but damn you’re his fiancée and the mother of his child, “I was not.. I was not in control,”

You felt his chest tremble under your own body, you teona tangled, sobbing mess.

“HYDRA... ruined me,” his sniffles were thick and filled the room, “They- they wired me to be a monster... I didn’t have a conscience. I didn’t know what right or wrong was all I knew was the mission reports they gave me... you saw- you saw glimpses of what I had to go through while getting help... going in deep cryosleeps just so people could rewire me and make me human again...,” you felt his thumbs running across the warm skin of your arms and you shouldn’t embrace it but damn- you loved this man, “Just so no one else could get their hands on that journal and try to trigger me to make me a machine again... you have to believe me I never wanted that for me... for us, for our child,”

You sat up and away from him, still not being able to look him in his eyes, “send my dad in here please,”

———

Bucky left your room to find everyone still in their same spots, no one knew what was going to happen, they were stuck.

“She’s asking for you,” he nodded to Tony and it took Tony a bit to even move. But he did so hastily when he realized you needed him.

He pushed the door open to see your room a mess with clothes thrown everywhere. He shut the door behind him and just stood there.

“How’d you do it?,” he saw you sitting in the floor playing with the tag on one of Bucky’s shirts, “How’d you get to the point where you could look at him and forgive him enough to let him fall in love with me knowing what he did?,” you spat the question out like it was poison.

“I understood that it wasn’t him,”

“But it was!,”

“Except it wasn’t, Y/N,” he used his fatherly voice and you looked at him with confusion, how could he pull that voice at a time like this?

“I completely understand where your mind is... mine was there too- I tried to kill him for God’s sake,” he wiped a hand down his face and sighed, shaking his head, “It wasn’t easy, forgiving him. Or Steve- I felt lied to... I only had one person lying to me but you have... everyone lying to you and I’m sorry I just- I didn’t want you to feel what I felt that day,” he sat on the floor by you, wanting to grab you hand but afraid how you’d react.

“They probably hate me for being in love with him,”

“They don’t hate you, you didn’t know,”

“But now I do and I... I should have a heart full of hatred for him but I- I shouldn’t still love him but I do and I- I dunno what to do,” You wheezed for air as a another sob wracked your body

“Because you know deep down... that it wasn’t him you saw in the video... I-it was a version of him... but not the version you know now, the one you’ve come to love,”

“How’d you do it?,” you looked at him with absolute melancholy. How could you go on? How could you go on with your relationship? With your impending marriage?

“Time...,” he shrugged. He knew that’s not what you wanted to hear but that’s what it was. Time and understanding, “Read that journal too... that helped put things into perspective,”

————

So that’s what you did... up late each night reading journals on the Winter Soldier program... reading what they did to people... Bucky specifically, you cried reading most of it and sometimes reading it made you feel like you yourself were becoming a different person... it’s almost like reading it nearly possessed you to become a minion of HYDRA.

There’s be nights where Bucky could hear you crying but he couldn’t give you comfort, you made it clear you needed space.

Tonight was no different. You were sobbing about what to do... so Bucky found himself in the kitchen drinking a mug of cold coffee, hearing you wail was worse than any of his nightmares.

He cried himself. Neither of you could be comforted because it was a hurt only you two knew and could deal with. You got to the mission report of your grandparents and nearly set the book on fire.

You needed air, so you roamed the compound, seeing your room door cracked, arguing with yourself on whether you should go in there and just be with him but you opted for a cup of hot cocoa instead.

Bucky heard the soft pattern of your feet, he knew it was yours, you had the softest patter than anyone in here. His chest clenched and he looked for a way out but you clicked the light on faster than he could run. You yelped when you saw him sitting there and held your chest.

“I didn’t expect anyone to be up,” you mumble and look away from him quickly, heading to make your drink of the night.

He didn’t say anything. He just watched you move around the kitchen and he hoped you wouldn’t leave when you were done... and to his surprise, you didn’t. Grant it, you sat far away from him but you still sat with him.

“I feel like they got in my head simply by just reading those damned journals,” you mutter, circling the rim of your little cauldron mug, “Even by reading it I felt like my humanity was switching off- it brought nightmares,”

“I know- I could hear you crying,” his throat was dry and his cheeks wet from crying that he quickly tried to get rid of any sign of it.

“Everything hurts,” you finally looked at him after not doing so for months... months, meaning you were showing and he was missing it... doctor’s appointments and all, “my heart.. my head.. I see how it wasn’t you but I see... you,” you cursed yourself out for your throat tightening.

“Were you ever gonna tell me?”

“I loved you too much to see you hurt like you are now... that’s why no one did because we were so content a-and I finally had someone who loved me and I finally had someone to love. I saw it as a new beginning,”

You appreciated his honesty.

“I kind of hate myself for still love you,” you blinked tears away and some fell anyway in their own accord.

“I hate myself for letting you love me,”

You hated to hear him say it. He’s come a long way to begin loving himself and his life. Now he’s back at square one.

“I’m so sorry, Y/N,” he shakes his head and sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose to stop the tears.

“I still love you, Bucky. You’re still... you’re still my fiancé and the father of my child,”

He could have fallen to his knees hearing you say that.

“It’s going to take a while to get through and past this but... I’ve talked with dad and read the journals a-and... I’m realizing my Bucky wasn’t... that,”

“I’ll never... never hurt you or our baby,”

“I know,” you nodded and stood up with your mug, walking over to him to kiss his forehead goodnight before going back to your spare room to finish reading.

“Tomorrow at 1:30. Be ready,” you begin walking away but he stops you with a voice of confusion.

“What’s tomorrow?,”

You send a small smile, knowing he’s been missing your appointments and missing the feeling of being a soon-to-be-dad. Now was his chance. You rub your belly and turned to walk away but not before calling out over your shoulder.

“You get to hear our son’s heartbeat,”

——————

someone asked how i get my inspiration for angst and all i can say is that.... i can’t help but hurt my own feelings.

Please comment and reblog!!

tags- @blackreaders-assemble @yournonlocalpoc @retroxvailles @dumbchick @warmchick @hisxblackxqueen @valentinevirgo @here-for-your-bullshit @valkyriesnymph @valynsia @veryhellshdia @chonisberonica @crawlingnightmares @vozit @kamahriii @its-a-fucking-above-me @mbaku-babygirl @xye-weirdo @spideys-wife

[onwesterlywinds]

One Last Step

So still this broken melody And therewith shoulder thee One last step only leaving An empty hearth down by the sea

Content warning for suicide. | Contains spoilers through 5.0.

I.

In the weeks before the Calamity, Ahtynwyb Eynskyfwyn often dreamt of a tempest of mythological proportions. In those dreams, the storm would bring itself to bear against the mighty cliffs of Quarterstone, upon which perched her grandparents' cabin. The seas would rise in a deafening pulse with waves fit to level any lesser artifice, breaking against the wall of stone and sending their spray up into the blustering sky.

And she would stand alone at the top of those cliffs and know, even in her dreams, that naught would ever be the same again.

II.

The Cabinet of Curiosities held a trove of books. Throughout her travels, throughout her journeys through ruins long forgotten and civilizations engulfed in war, she had wondered every now and again what works she would preserve if forced to do so - if the only remaining testaments to a culture were the things that she and others like her could carry on their backs and in their minds.

She had seen Doma's answer; Ala Mhigo's, too, was becoming clearer by the day. But the Crystarium's had taken her by surprise for the sheer breadth of it: thousands upon thousands of tomes encompassing the last vestiges of mankind. Each book contained not only knowledge, but the dreams of those who had carried it to safety and given it up for the betterment of all. Each book had been entrusted to the community and its future, free for any to peruse.

And after no more than a morning of taking stock of the catalog, Ahtyn left the library to explore the Crystal Exarch's private collection.

She scanned the topmost shelf in his study, her heart pounding in her ears, until she laid eyes upon a tome she'd spotted from afar earlier in the week. Though slightly shabbier around the edges, its pages far more yellowed than she had remembered, she could not have mistaken it for the world. Her feet carried her across the room in a daze. Once she lifted the book from on high, she massaged the intact spine; as she flipped through the volume leaf by leaf, she found not a single page missing.

No book in the Cabinet of Curiosities could mean as much to her as this one, for none of the books beyond this room had come from the Source. None of them had traveled across time and worlds in the very subject they depicted - the Crystal Tower - and not a single one had been her favorite companion as a child.

Her eyes filled with tears as they rested upon the opening lines:

Once upon a time, four young Warriors of Light journeyed forth to right the wrongs of Allag.

III.

It had been bound to happen sooner or later. Looking back, she had ignored all signs from the beginning that her first-ever adventuring party had not been meant to last. One of their number had an ego; another prioritized too many commitments back home; another found fault with everything the others did. Ahtynwyb, for her part, had spent too much of her time smoothing over the fissures emerging in their group with each passing day. Regardless of how or why they had gone their separate ways, the excuses for why they would never have been a team worthy of legend brought her no comfort.

And on a more practical note, her lack of a party left her that much further from entering the Binding Coil of Bahamut.

Though if she were in the Binding Coil, she thought, she wouldn't be able to see the stars over Silvertear. She could stare at that dusk sky forever, with its gathered clouds still purple-hued over the lake and the Crystal Tower shattering the horizon.

She would be inside that tower soon enough. That had to count for something.

"Ahtyn!"

Cid made to throw her some sort of bread but then, noticing the book in her hands, jogged it over to her instead. It was a flaky pastry the size of her face, wrapped in paper and filled with spiced vegetables and cheese. "Fresh from the Toll. Figured you could do with a pick-me-up after running around the lake all day."

"Thanks, Cid."

Either Cid hadn't yet seen her teary eyes, or he had enough grace not to comment on them. "What's that you're reading? Something of the Scions'?"

She shook her head. "No, I've had this one for a while. It was my grandpa's." She closed the pages on her index finger, the better for him to see the cover emblazoned with the very tower before them without losing her page. "Just some old stories. They're a little childish, but they've always been kinda nostalgic, you know?"

Cid let out a long, low whistle, then thumped her on the back a little harder than she had been expecting. "G'raha!"

From where he sat at the center of Saint Coinach's Find, the young man's ears perked up in the middle of his swig of ale; he jumped to his feet in a single fluid motion. "Y-Yes?"

"You said the key to the tower was in legends, yes? Something that the ancients wouldn't have thought to preserve via tomestones?" Cid beckoned G'raha over with a wave of his arm. "You're going to want to see this."

IV.

"Find what you were looking for, then, hero?"

She gave so great a start that she very nearly dropped her book. Emet-Selch leaned against the closed study door, examining a nearby desk and all the clutter the Exarch had left lying atop it. Ahtyn opened her mouth to tell him he wasn't supposed to be in there, then, given the nature of her own trespass, thought better of it.

"I did," she replied, cautious of the venom with which he spoke the word "hero." "And now I'm going to stay in here and read. Alone."

Emet-Selch cast a conspicuous glance at the tome's cover and heaved another of his sighs. "Hmph. How very tedious."

She pointedly ignored him and turned a page.

V.

"And you say this book has been in your family for generations?" Rammbroes murmured. He rubbed the back of his bald head, a sure sign that he was deep in thought.

G'raha Tia turned the book over to reexamine the front cover, even holding it up to where the tower stood to their north. It was a perfect representation, down to the positioning of each crystalline turret. "Despite the fact that the Crystal Tower has not been seen in millennia," he said, echoing Ahtyn's thoughts perfectly. He returned the book to her, bequeathing it as gently as one would hand over a tool of one's trade. "Could your family be descended from survivors of the Allagan Empire, perhaps?"

She shrugged. "I guess there's that chance, but... we're farmers on one side, and pirates on the other."

"After thousands of years, one could never truly know where one's ancestors-"

"What I meant was," she interrupted, "I think if we were descended from Allagans, we'd have way more family stories to tell about how we single-handedly saved the world."

G'raha squinted at her, then at Rammbroes, who was chuckling somewhere over her shoulder. "She's described Roegadyn culture in a nutshell for you," Rammbroes specified.

VI.

"But how can you throw together two whole worlds without things getting smushed?" she had asked her grandfather once during the climax of one of his stories. "Wouldn’t that hurt a lot of people?"

"Sometimes," he replied. "But other times, it’s just what everyone needs. Ye know what the stories say happens when there’s nothin’ but light. Sooner or later, the darkness comes back, and then what’re ye left with? Ye’ve got to have some some darkness to balance out that light once in a while, aye. Because it’s not light that brings the heroes home at the end, Liveen - it’s balance."

VII.

"What is it that so captivates you about that book, then?" Emet-Selch asked some twenty-odd pages later. She had no idea if he'd ever left the study at all - but strangely, even after his constant pestering in the Rak'tika Greatwood, she found him something of a welcome presence. There was, after all, no danger of him revealing her.

"It reminds me of my grandpa. And of a lot of friends."

He let out a noise that might well have been a yawn. "How quaint."

"I thought you were supposed to be a big fan of stories like this one."

"This may surprise you, but omniscience is not among my many talents. I'm afraid I don't know the first thing about it."

"Sprawling epics, dramatic motivations, tragic flaws. I thought Solus ate that shit up." The mention of that name caused him to stop examining his gloves and start actually looking at her. "At least," she continued, with some smugness, "that was what I heard on the Prima Vista."

Emet-Selch's lips twitched into a brief smile as he let out a barely perceptible chuckle, leaning to rest against the nearest wall with folded arms. "So my grandson's suspicions were well-founded: you did meet with Jenomis after all."

"I have."

"He spoke truly. I never will say no to a well-constructed story - particularly not from a master of their medium, as Jenomis is. It's fitting that you were able to bear witness to one of his performances. I can only imagine his resultant works will be better served for your collaboration."

Her eyes were too busy tracing the next line of text-

For why would the hero have thought to look for the villain in her own shadow?

-to immediately register Emet-Selch's words. By the time she did, they took her somewhat aback. "...I think that's the nicest thing you've ever said to me."

VIII.

"Hey. Alphinaud."

The crunching footsteps to her right slowed but did not halt. The fulm-deep Coerthan snow made it difficult for them to traverse side by side, but despite lacking her long stride, weather-resistant armor from the Crystal Tower and overall affinity for the cold, Alphinaud had always preferred to keep an even pace with her on the road whenever possible.

"You okay?"

Alphinaud did not stop, even surpassing her on the wooded trail. He made some small noise to indicate he was paying attention but otherwise did not turn to look at her.

"Don't worry. It should start to warm up once we get closer to Mor Dhona, especially around the next hill."

He gave another noncommittal nod, though he shivered a bit through his tunic.

"I wanted to ask you something," she continued. She followed in his steps, mostly so as not to leave him behind - but also, if she had learned anything over the past few weeks, it was that eyes and ears truly were everywhere, and that a misplaced shout could be fatal. "While it's just the two of us." The understanding that Haurchefant would be too overbearing to take part in such a delicate conversation would have to go implied.

"G-Go on," said Alphinaud.

"What Ilberd said, back at the Observatorium, about the prisoners he'd taken into custody." She waited. "About how they would be thoroughly interrogated."

"Do you find fault with his methods? If so, allow me to raise your concerns with him. I imagine he would be amenable to finding an alternative method of..." He trailed off, presumably to search for an acceptable word.

"Gathering intelligence?"

"Precisely."

"You're well within your rights to ask him what his methods actually are, Alphinaud," she said. "And to tell him to stop, if he goes further than you'd like. But if he's one man operating alone, without your oversight-"

"Thank you, my friend," Alphinaud snapped, "but I would rather we speak of something else for the remainder of our journey."

They continued their trek back to Mor Dhona in utter silence.

IX.

The waves over Quarterstone had ebbed since the Calamity, but the ocean still reached a far greater height than she remembered from her youth. She would never get used to such a view, even less so now that her grandparents' house no longer stood: it had been drawn over the cliffs not even a year after their family had relocated to Moraby, its foundations too weathered to withstand the constant onslaught from a changed world.

Grehswys merely sipped at her wine, looking as much at the road on which they had traveled as she was at the horizon they'd memorized throughout their shared childhood. At length, she passed the bottle over to Ahtyn, and she took as long of a swig as she could get away with.

"There's one thing I've come to appreciate about adventurers," her sister said. "You've learned how to talk about shite like this. Most of you, at least."

"What do you mean?"

"You've met folk from all over the world, right?"

"Right."

"So you've had to describe this to them, if it ever came up. What it meant to you, that is, and what it meant to lose it."

Ahtyn racked her brain and was surprised to recall several such conversations: with the Leveilleur twins, with Mupal, with Sairsel, with a full bar at the Sandsea on at least a couple occasions. For something that she had thought of as some great weight, she had brought up the topic more than she'd thought. "I... I guess so. Yeah."

Grehswys shrugged. "That's what's so horrid about staying here. We all went through it, but... we just keep it bottled up. A story everyone knows but never tells."

X.

The void was wearing on her in subtle ways. Or perhaps it was that the creatures she'd fought here had been stronger than any others she'd encountered throughout her adventures thus far.

But the Cloud of Darkness was fading with each passing second. Devoid of its summoned monsters, devoid of immediate purpose, the air in the void was beginning to grow stale - heavy. All around and above her lay a roaring expanse of abyss. It was dizzying to be so entrenched in the dark, save for a ripple of aurora to mark a semblance of light at the end of the tunnel, or a silver lining, or some other grandiose metaphor she didn't have the energy to engage with.

"Right," said Aoife Mahsa beside her, waving a hand in front of her own face. "So... what now."

Ahtyn took as deep of a breath as she could, though the burgeoning void was constricting her lungs with a sickly sweet sort of taste. "Find a way back to Hydaelyn," she said, and ran further toward the aurora. "I'll find G'raha and Nero!"

"Yes!" Aoife replied, bounding in front of her before she could protest. "WE find a way back to Hydaelyn, with G'raha and Nero! You're really on the ball, aye!"

"But Aoife-"

"Don't you 'but Aoife' me!" the bard scolded. "I'm not leaving you alone in here! Besides - if you got lost in the void, Cid and Baithin will each give me at least one lecture!"

Her eyes suddenly stung, and this time, she didn't have any light to blame it on. "Okay," she said, and stepped straight into the oblivion stretching out before them both. "So uh... dibs left void?"

XI.

Ahtyn knelt in the black sand to gather up the last of her belongings from the camp, the better to hide a sudden spike in her anxiety - the first distress she'd felt since wandering along the coast of Valnain more than a moon ago. With Ultima defeated and the Orbonne Monastery cleared of its haunts, Hrjt would have no cause to leave her home for the foreseeable future.

And Ahtyn had yet to overcome an inability to remain in touch.

Her movements stilled over her pack as she considered her impending return to the life of a solo traveler; then a slender finger tapped her twice on the shoulder. Ahtyn turned to find Hrjt's outstretched hand, and Eternal Wind clasped in it.

"You forgot this in my robes," Hrjt said.

There was such earnestness on her companion's face, without a hint of mischief or irony, that Ahtyn couldn't bite back her chuckle. "Okay, sorry. This isn't my strong suit."

"What isn't?"

"I should've just been direct. Hrjt, it's a gift."

"But-" The ends of Hrjt's ears twitched as she frowned. "Oh, no. I couldn't. You said this book was your favorite."

"It is! Which is why I think you should have it."

Hrjt gestured outward with her other hand - the one holding her staff - toward the remaining visible stretch of black coast. Through the heavy fog, Ahtyn could barely make out the dark tides forming a powerful rip current stretching far out into the Valnard Sea - and for once, the sight did not make her wistful for La Noscea.

"Ahtyn," said Hrjt, firmly. "This is how I live. I won't be able to keep it safe or dry with me."

"That's fine," she replied, even as the wind cast a fine spray across her cheek.

"You wouldn't wish to leave it to someone? A future child, or a pupil? Besides, what if I never have the chance to read it?"

"That's shite and you know it; you'll get at least four hundred more years than me."

"And what should happen if I'm instead captured by a voidsent and become lost to the lightless abyss forever?"

Recognizing her deadpan jest for what it was, Ahtyn grinned. "That's just depressing."

"There is, as you would say, a non-zero chance."

"Okay." Ahtyn held up both palms in surrender. "If you really aren't sure, I'll take it back."

She waited, unsure if she had been too pushy from the first. As Hrjt hesitated, her eyes gleamed with a sort of shyness Ahtyn had yet to see from her. "If you're sure... I'll keep it as safe as I am able. I promise."

"I'll visit you again soon," Ahtyn said, and meant it.

XII.

She could not reconcile the sight before her with the weeks of intimacy she had come to take for granted. The aether tugged at her senses; it sparked in the air like diamond dust as Ysayle Dangoulain made her descent against the sickly green sky. She fell faster than gravity, faster than flight. And yet time itself slowed as Ahtyn watched her from the airship, with Cid's hands pulling her back at the arms and the sounds of her own screams deafened in her ears.

She had never, never been able to reconcile the vibrant woman she'd come to know with the dead-eyed primal she had once fought, so long ago, when she'd still been convinced that doing so would bring about Eorzea's salvation. For all of Shiva's conjured majesty, she could convey none of her ideals except to those already devoted. They had had countless conversations during their Dravanian journeys; they had spoken in Ishgardian and Common and tongues long since lost to other mortals, sharing in the wonder of their blessing and burden, partaking together in the joys of being understood as equals. Shiva's summoner was far more wondrous bereft of her power. Ahtyn doubted, even now, that the same could be said of herself.

It was none of it fair. Ysayle was not meant to be the one to fall-

The hull of the Agrius froze, then shattered, then exploded - and soon the flames from the dreadnought's engine melted every last trace of ice. Ysayle's aether, too, was beyond her reach forever.

XIII.

"There are so many things I don't understand," said the young Minfilia, staring out across the hillside at the ribbons of Light pouring over Lyhe Ghiah. "But most of all, I've been wondering... how you manage to do it all on your own."

It was a question she'd been asked time and time again - only this time, she didn't wave away the girl's concerns. She didn't deflect with humility, insisting that the Scions had been at her side all the while or some such. Someday Minfilia would have to tread this same path, as her namesake had before her. Honesty would be the kindest possible gift.

"Well," she began, and the word hung in the air for a little while. "It helps that I've always been the type to want to save the world. Even when I was your age. Mostly I wanted someone, anyone, somewhere down the line, to know that someone tried to make things just a little bit better." She didn't say that when she was Minfilia's age, that desire had usually manifested as an abstract, foolhardy vision of self-sacrifice. "And when it's something you've grown up feeling, when it's that innate to you-" Twelve, and she thought she'd had it bad with merely a preference for books; from what Urianger had divulged, Minfilia had spent her childhood locked in a tower with only a name and a responsibility. "-it's usually less about finding the will to go on and more about... not burning yourself out, or spreading yourself too thin. I'd say that's the hardest part."

Minfilia nodded in the direction of her knees. "It must be difficult," she murmured. "Thancred's told me only a little of what you've done, but I... I can't begin to imagine it."

"It helps when you can be yourself in the day-to-day," she admitted. "Though of course, that's much easier said than done." It was why she had never come around to feeling comfortable in Ishgard: the more Edmont and Aymeric and all the rest came to revere her, the more she wondered if any of them had ever truly known her. "Aside from that, I try to vouch for others as often as I can. It relieves some of the pressure, it helps make some real allies, and... and sometimes it gives people another hero to focus on for a bit. Much as people don't want to hear it, it's not healthy to rest all your hopes and dreams on one person."

From beside her, Minfilia took in a deep, shuddering breath.

"D-Don't get me wrong," Ahtyn stammered. "I'm not saying I think everyone has to be strong enough to look after themselves. That's not a charitable way to think about things, and it doesn't account for all the people who haven't had a choice - like people from occupied territories." She was rambling now. "And there are some real advantages to having a single hero, like being able to take decisive action when it matters most. But I've seen it go wrong: once people get it in their heads that one person, one being can fix all of their problems, they'll go to all sorts of lengths to make it true."

She breathed in deeply, staring hard at the Light. "And honestly, I thought it would be different here in the First, when I heard people resented their Warriors of Light. I thought it'd mean they'd rely less on heroes and more on each other. But I still see it with the Exarch, and with you, and-"

She took one look at Minfilia's wide eyes and finally had the sense to curb her thoughts.

"I'm sorry. I really didn't mean to get so heavy, and none of this is your problem, and... and I don't know how much it makes sense. Long story short, it's just... it's something that gets me because it's..."

"...Because it's not fair," Minfilia finished.

XIV.

Ahtyn had come face to face with a siren before - the creatures that sang to sailors of their purported destinies. Once she had seen a captain walk into a siren's arms against the heeding of his crewmen, and the gory aftermath that had come of that scene had haunted her dreams for nearly a week. And as a song foretelling her own destiny rang out through the reaches of Azys Lla, she wished she could know its promises to be false.

The Goddess regarded her with heavy-lidded, dispassionate eyes.

It’s not light that brings the heroes home at the end, Liveen.

And then the scales tipped.

For a moment she was weightless. She fell through the golden air, watching Sophia grow ever further from her. When the others righted, she did not; with another lurch, with her own balance stymied, she tipped backward over the edge.

"AHTYN!"

A hand, small but strong, grabbed her at the wrist. It hoisted her, perhaps with the added strength of others, upwards and upwards until her feet regained their purchase on the platform and A'zaela Linh's worried face returned into view.

"Thanks!" she called. Sylvan Rain and Crimson Bull were holding off the primal in her momentary absence, pushing back against the Goddess' Daughter with their shoulders and no shortage of will to keep her from reaching Arae'sae and Nivelth. And still, for a moment, she merely stood. For the briefest of instants, the primal's call had granted her a vision clearer even than the Echo, though now it faded from her like water in her hands. She made to charge and then, in a terrifying second, realized she could not find her shield; only when A'zaela handed it back to her did she raise her sword to provoke the Goddess to face her again.

"How's that for judgment?!" she cried. "Now come and get me!"

XV.

No one spoke in the Ocular. Not even a plate of the Exarch's famous sandwiches could tempt them into conversation after their discoveries in the Qitana Ravel. For all their earlier bickering, Y'shtola and Thancred cast identical glowers of fatigue. Alisaie sat cleaning her rapier with single-minded dedication; Alphinaud paced from one end of the hall to the other. Urianger thumbed through a tome Ahtyn didn't recognize from the Exarch's private library. Minfilia pivoted her gaze from one Scion to the next, always folding and refolding her hands in her lap.

"Maybe this is hypocritical," Ahtyn said at length. "But I don't think this really changes anything."

They all turned to her.

It was wishful thinking, but if she had to continue to ponder in silence the possibility that she could be tempered, she would likely lose her mind.

"I agree," drawled Emet-Selch from out of nowhere behind her. "Listen to the hero. Continue your course." He took a bite of a sandwich and, presumably unsatisfied, set it back down onto the tray. Only Minfilia had the energy to glare at him.

"What I mean is," she continued aggressively, "if it's true that Hydaelyn is a primal, then anything we do to try to change or mitigate that fact could have serious consequences for the Source, if not other worlds."

Urianger nodded his agreement. "This matter requireth deliberations with our esteemed colleagues in the Source."

She opened her mouth to promise that she would raise the topic as soon as she could, but the Light suddenly heaved in her chest. The wave of nausea cut off any of the promises she might have made, any reassurances that the foundations of their worldview would remain intact.

XVI.

Even with the power surging around and through him, she held out a hand. She held out a hand as though doing so could undo all that he had schemed and dealt throughout the past half year, as though she could pull him from that precipice through her own sheer will.

Instead Ilberd Feare stared directly into her eyes, his eerie grin widening, as he stretched out the hands that held the eyes of Nidhogg and leaned further and further backward-

"COWARD!" Alphinaud screamed.

The Griffin gave one last tip of his head - a nod in her direction, it seemed - and she was seized with a horrific calm as he fell from Baelsar's Wall.

XVII.

The knock, quick and quiet, came upon her inn room door at nearly three in the morning. She staggered out of bed in a flash, halfway to grabbing her pauldrons. It could only be another Eulmoran attack, or some other initiative that required her urgent participation, and Captain Lyna would just have to get over her dishevelment. Then she threw open the door and found Alisaie in a robe and nightgown, carrying a pillow.

"May I borrow your floor?" Alisaie asked, conveying somewhat more consciousness than Ahtyn had expected, given the hour.

"Uh, yeah," she grumbled, albeit before she'd fully processed the question. "Of course."

Alisaie slipped inside, kicking off her slippers with enough force for them to land yalms apart. "It seems neither Alphinaud nor I can sleep. Only he insisted on making cocoa, and conversation-" Ahtyn could not determine from Alisaie's tone which of these she held in greater disdain. "-and I simply didn't have the heart to tell him I wasn't remotely interested."

Despite the proposal she'd agreed to, Ahtyn shepherded Alisaie toward her bed and took the floor for herself. There was more than enough room for them to share the mattress; then again, she had experienced all too often Alisaie's sleep-kicking during their expeditions in Gyr Abania and the Far East, when she or Lyse would have to share accommodations with her. The sight of the smallest among them enjoying her own sleeping mat was one that had never failed to bring Gosetsu to fits of his boisterous laughter. One by one, the memories of their adventures flickered through her head, bringing with them the crushing realization of how much of Alisaie's life she had missed while they had been worlds apart.

With the both of them settled and the lights long extinguished, Ahtyn whispered, "How are you holding up, really?"

She had expected a groan of frustration, or a muttered curse. Instead, Alisaie rolled over and stared in the general direction of her voice. "As always, I'm worried for you. ...I suppose that's why I can't sleep."

XVIII.

Her first thought, exhausted as she was from the interdimensional battle with Shinryu and the mere sight of Zenos lying dead in a pool of his own blood, was that Lyse looked beautiful with her arm stretched aloft. Her second thought was that Lyse had an incredible singing voice, and so did Ashelia Riot, though the latter was leaning the entirety of her weight against her husband and trying to look inconspicuous while doing so.

And as she stared out from atop the ramparts of Cotter Tor, she had never been prouder to stand among a crowd. For once, for once, all was put to rights. She did not quite know how she had come to stand here, beside Arenvald and the pennant, with a throng of Ala Mhigans far below. Between her and those people - the people whom she had played her own part in protecting - there lay a drop of half a thousand fulms.

"Ahtyn!" Lyse clasped her from behind at the shoulders, giving her a little shake to pull her from her reverie. The others behind her had begun to disperse back into the royal palace. "We're regrouping back at Porta Praetoria. Unless you need a minute?"

She shook her head. Better to look into Lyse's eyes than to peer into that empty, dawn-hued sky; better to have Lyse's hands on her than to trust in her own feet not to take her over the edge.

XIX.

It was easiest to take hold of his hand, crystalline though it was. They both needed the fresh air, but there was little to be found, even on the tall cliffs of Kholusia: she could scarcely smell the sea over the tinny smog from the dwarven forges.

But the Exarch did not appear to mind. He recovered slowly but steadily from his moment of collapse, his breathing growing more and more regular the longer they shared their simple contact.

"Construction on the Talos is proceeding apace?" he asked.

She nodded. They lapsed then into an easy, comfortable silence, presiding together over the Light-strewn sky. Soon, if all went as planned, that Light would be gone - contained amongst the vast sea already rising within her.

"It still doesn't feel right to me," she said at last. "None of this does, without the wind."

The Exarch's face gave no movement that she could see, but she could sense the smile in his words. "Then if you have a moment yet to spare, I would ask you to indulge me with a tale from your people - Eternal Wind, wasn't it?" As he turned to her then, she could see his grin in full. "Perhaps it would put both our hearts at ease, given the impending juncture."

It did not matter that he could easily have known of her connection to that book through any of the Scions, or learned it from gazing through the rift to the Source.

She knew then who he was for certain.

Her grip on his hand had grown so tight that it had begun to ache against the crystal. "Thank you," she whispered. "For everything."

And then she burst into tears.

"Oh, no no no," G'raha Tia murmured. His hood visibly shifted as his ears went flat. He reached out with his free hand, his hand of flesh, as if to touch her shoulder; instead, his hand lingered somewhere above her pauldron. "I'm so sorry, my friend; I-I never meant to-"

"I just-" She was sobbing now, as hard as she had cried alone at the banks of Silvertear Lake after she and the rest of NOAH had said their farewells to him. "Whatever happens next - no matter how it all ends - I want you to know h-how much it means to me. All hundred years of it! Everything you've done, everything you've been through... gods!"

He did not confirm her praise. As she rested her head upon his shoulder, still weeping for him alone to see, he laid his own head against her - his lips brushing mutely against her temple.

XX.

Tucked three-quarters of the way into Eternal Wind lay a strip of dyed Dalmascan paper, with words written lengthwise upon it in a hasty scrawl:

For the Ironworks.

May her light guide our journey home.

Hrjt Brotin

XXI.

"My dear, beloved sapling," Feo Ul crooned.

But she was beyond such praises now. All the different parts of her lay fractured. Here, atop the watchtower and brimming with sacrifice, she was neither savior nor warrior nor woman. She could not be anything, let alone the one thing she needed to be. She could scarcely maintain her consciousness without focus, let alone a process of thought, let alone the weight of her disparate memories. She was fit for nothing save destruction, save an Ascian's machinations.

"You are lost - confused - and have precious little time to gather your wits."

Time was not what she needed. Oh, to rule from Lyhe Ghiah forever would be a wondrous dream, a blissful reprieve - and yet it would be an ending, and one she was unworthy of at that.

"Stand very, very still," said the king. "Think not of where you need to go, but where you are right now at this moment. At this time, in this place..."

Ahtyn breathed in deeply. She let Feo Ul's words flow over her, like a steady breeze to greet the waves of Light breaking over the ramparts of her body. A single tear slipped down her cheek; Feo Ul swiped it away with the point of a single finger. The gesture, surprising in its intimacy, provoked an unexpected chuckle.

"I'm still here," she whispered. "And I still have you." And the twins, and Ryne, and all the other Scions. Her family, Hrjt, every friend whom she had ever known and loved. G'raha. "I know what comes next. But I'm... I'm so afraid, right now. And it feels silly to be so afraid." What would happen to the Light if she burst from all the fear and sadness and guilt?

Feo Ul shook their head. "It isn't silly at all at all, my sapling. But as you set off for who knows where, making even more of a mess of that aether of yours - remember that you have withstood this before, and you will surely do so again." They laid their hands upon her cheeks, flitting close enough to touch their tiny forehead against hers. "And know too that for all the miseries you have endured, you give back joy in equal measure."

XXII.

[Let us debate today the topic of our colleague's newest collection.]

The tide of Light had carried her to the deepest reaches of the Tempest, to a place where shades treated her as one might treat a misbehaving child. She sat staring at her own feet in the Hall of Rhetoric, a means of grounding herself against the aether's pull.

The masked, robed figure sitting opposite her gave a grandiose gesture with his arms. [It is an outrage, and a danger to young ones such as our guest.]

[The work is certainly unconventional,] his identical partner agreed. [Yet a danger? It inflicts no pain, and it neither incites nor promotes harmful behaviors.]

[It serves as a call to action and is therefore inflammatory by its very nature and purpose. Its themes are like to instill ideals of nonconformity within the most impressionable.]

[My friend,] the masked figure beside Ahtyn said, [it sounds to me as though you oppose the mere idea of this work. Have you yet read it?]

[Er... no. I have not. But I have heard enough from those I trust to know that it challenges the very fabric of the society we all labor so hard to uphold.]

[And yet these trusted friends and many other noble souls have read it, and are presumably no less patriotic for having done so. It seems to me, therefore, that this work is but a touchstone for a broader debate: that of censorship, and if some individual ideas deserve to be curbed in order to better provide for the needs of all.]

[What's this work about?] Ahtyn asked. She could not follow the conversation, even as she recognized each and every one of the arguments they made.

The figure across from her held a finger to his lips but otherwise ignored her. [You know I am all in favor of creation as self-expression,] he insisted. [But creation necessitates responsibility. We employ the Bureau of Architects to ensure that a patent is not accessible to those of insufficient skill and understanding. There is no such way to determine whether ideas could or should be similarly judged to ensure that those of weaker wills do not take it upon themselves to... to act upon ideas which they do not fully understand.]

[You raise a valuable point, my friend,] the specter beside her acquiesced. [Perhaps we shall discuss this matter with Emet-Selch. He is ever impartial with moral quandaries such as this.]

With their final debate settled, with their purpose served, the two figures faded into peaceful obscurity.

XXIII.

"You truly don't remember."

The more the Light surged within her, the more she wanted to, even as she feared what else that remembrance might bring. Her ramparts already threatened to crumble amidst the Ascian's private hell; were they to fall now, were the Light to overtake her, she would be lost.

"Look at me when I'm talking to you, girl."

The words filled her with rage, as they always had, but neither could she tie them to any particular memory - and so she stared up, trying to summon anything more than a growl of pain in her throat.

"Well, retorts never were your forte." Emet-Selch knelt, the better to grasp her chin and tilt her face up toward his, forcing eye contact. Beads of sweat borne from pain obscured her eyes, nearly blotting out her vision. "And neither was irony, apparently. That you of all people should forget."

A new crop of Light rose in her gut, burning like bile as she spat it out onto Emet-Selch's Garlean boots. "Tell me." For words meant as an order, they rang pathetic from her lips. "Tell me who I was." Who I am.

He rolled his eyes and stood, dragging her up only part of the way before releasing her to crumple once again onto the crystal floor. "You were full of potential, most of it wasted. Just as you are now." He swept an arm wide, across where she lay half-broken upon the cold aetheric surface. "You could have been something, had you applied yourself - had you cared one whit beyond your own stupid dreams! You could have saved all of us. But no!"

"What did I do?" For whatever great sin she had committed, she had no doubt that it contributed in no small way to these people's destruction.

Emet-Selch's arms fell; his shoulders slumped. "What did you do?" he repeated, incredulous.

When he turned, he turned to face her without a hint of mischief in his eyes - only a mad grief.

"You created stories. Long, long ago, you wove a tale about a hero's journey - and from that tale sprang every other legend of heroes and journeys these sundered worlds have ever known."

The next breath she drew in was painless, steadying. Filling.

Emet-Selch drew himself up to his full height, coughing into his fist before adopting an orator's pose. "'A hero leaves her home, with the knowledge that naught will ever be the same again. She is tested, time and again - by monsters, by enemies, by allies, by the great and irrevocable struggles taking place in the world and in herself. She endures an ordeal graver than any other, something she has worked towards perhaps without ever knowing it, and in so doing sacrifices a part of herself. And when she returns home, if she returns home, she is changed - not in the way she hoped but in the way she needed.'" He sneered down at her, at the Light pouring out from her. "Is this the glorious homecoming you always imagined, my dear? Is this the necessary change you so envisioned for yourself, at long last... Sappho?"

Over the Light, over even the humiliation and fear and regret, that name triggered within her an ancient knowing. She staggered to her feet. Cold, unfeeling aether burst from her spine like wings, like a Passage of Arms given form.

The others could not save her now, for there could be no saving her. For all her insistences, she was the only one. There could only be this end - her end.

"You could have saved them!" Emet-Selch screamed, even as she transformed further into the broken creature he had sought for his own ends. "It was not enough for us to beg to you, oh, no. You decided you alone wanted no part in creating our savior, our god. And so we were left to summon Zodiark without your guidance."

He laughed so loudly and for so long that the sound doubled him over, even as she found the will to stand tall. By the time he composed himself once more, his voice was as soft as death.

"But you were correct on one point," he seethed. "My world will have no need for heroes."

XXIV.

At the end of days, the world needed a hero. Amaurot had chosen Zodiark.

Against her fears, against her protestations, the ritual would be performed on the morrow.

She stared down at the burning city, at the end of days. She wished she could evoke pity or grief for her people. She wished she could summon anything but her own worthless guilt.

A stillness emanated from the horizon, the first vestiges of Zodiark's lightless dawn. She tore off her mask to greet it.

They had used her own words to justify it. At the end of days, a savior comes. Would that she had never written at all.

With that thought etched into her mind, Sappho stepped from Amaurot's tallest cliff.

XXV.

"This world is not yours to end." Ahtynwyb Eynskyfwyn, the Queen Light, drew her sword against the Dark. "This is our future. Our story."

"Very well," said Hades. "Let us proceed to your final judgment. The victor shall write the tale, and the vanquished become its villain!"

???

And when she sat down upon her bed, aching and purposeful and devoid of every last obligation but one, she opened up a spare notebook to its first page and wrote:

Once upon a time, a young Warrior of Light journeyed forth into a realm reborn.

I tell you someone will remember us in the future.

-Sappho, Sapphic Fragment 2

[ramheavenandhell]

Last Christmas…

AN: Decided to write a cliché angsty/romancey Christmas fanfiction for you guys. I hope you like it :) Warnings: Rick/Morty, heartbreak and angst, but Happy Ending Summary: "Last Christmas, I gave you my heart…" Maybe this year, Morty gets a nice present in return. (And no, this isn't a song fic.)

Last Christmas… Christmas was different this year somehow. Jerry had been decorating the house on the outside and inside and was more excited about the season than the rest of the family combined. However, that was completely normal. No, it had nothing to do with the childish and spirited family father. The problematic rather rested with the oldest and the youngest of the household: Rick and Morty. Though, if Summer was honest, this all had started last year already. She had no idea what exactly had went down between the two and at first, she had assumed that they had been in a fight. After last year's Christmas Eve, the two had been avoiding each other for a while. However, even after starting to act normal again a few weeks later, it was undeniable that whatever had happened had changed something permanently in their relationship. So, it must have been something more than just a petty argument. Summer was the only one who had even noticed this though and she tried to question her brother about it without any success. Getting her grandfather to share any information about it would be an impossible task – especially since this seemed to be some emotional stuff – and so she didn't even try to make the futile attempt. As such, she could only watch Morty constantly spacing out. It was obvious that while he had been holding it together the entire year that whatever had happened last Christmas was starting to resurface in his thoughts again. While the change was less subtle in Rick, he also acted slightly different and probably also couldn't help but be reminded of it again. If she would just know what had happened, she might have been able to help them, but as things were, the two would just have to deal with their problems themselves. Summer just hoped that they would get this resolved soon because it seriously bothered her to see them like this…

Again, Morty stared into nothingness as he sat on the couch, only being ripped out of his thoughts as his sister elbowed him gently in the side. He could read worry in her face and gave her a reassuring smile to show that he was fine…even if he didn't feel fine at all. He couldn't really help but think about last Christmas again, now that the festive days were returning. Last year he had wanted to give Rick a special present…but it was a mistake. Morty had given his heart to the man and was rejected rather harshly. "What the fuck, Morty! I'm you grandfather for fuck's sake! What's wrong with you?!" It had taken him such a long time to muster up the courage to confess his love to Rick and he had honestly thought that his feelings might be returned or he wouldn't even have attempted to do that. For a long time he had been searching for hints that his grandfather maybe loved him, too, and after some more disastrous adventures that they had been through, he had been convinced that his feelings hadn't been entirely one-sided. However, he had been wrong. And he had ruined their relationship because things weren't the same between them anymore after that. He wished that he had some sort of invention with which he could just erase last year's Christmas. Not only erasing Rick's memory of it but also his own. Surely, his grandfather had a gadget like that somewhere in the garage, but Morty hadn't really dared to look for it. He sighed once more as he wallowed in regret and self-hatred for having done something stupid like that and wondered how many years it would take before he would finally not feel like shit on Christmas anymore. Maybe that would never happen… For now, he would have to worry getting through this season while trying to act normal in front of the rest of the family. He wasn't doing a very good job though since Summer seemed to notice that something was off with him. Thankfully, she stopped questioning him about it. There was no way that he could tell his sister that he had confessed his undying love to their grandfather and sulked now because he was shot down. He couldn't ever tell that to anyone!

Rick was the last one to join the family at the table for Christmas dinner. He threw a quick greeting to their guests – namely Jerry's parents and that one dude that was also there over the last years, though he never got why nor did he care – before taking a seat. His eyes fell on Morty who sat right next to him and avoided eye contact at all costs, looking like he wanted be anywhere but here right now. Of course, Rick knew that it was solely because of his presence that the boy felt so uncomfortable. His daughter and the idiot were blissfully unaware of their son's squeamish behavior. It was probably for the better though. Last year, his grandson had told him that he loved him. And not in the cute way that grandkids love their grandparents. No, he meant in a far more intimate and romantic way. And Rick had…reacted rather harshly. Which was the reason why Morty was acting the way that he was now. The thing was that he hadn't really meant to hurt the boy and he really regretted that he had yelled at him like that. He was sure that it was for the best though, that Morty didn't really know what he asked for and that he needed to see that they couldn't do this. That it is wrong! However, seeing his grandson suffering through the entire year as he did, even if they still went back to their adventures together, made him think that maybe he was the one in the wrong this time. They hadn't talked about this since, but Rick thought that they really needed to. He wanted to clear this up properly and he'd do it this Christmas.

Morty wearily followed Rick into the garage. His grandfather had told him that he had a special present for him and needed to show it to him here. It eerily reminded him of last year, when he was the one who told Rick the same thing and gave him his heart right here only for it to be broken. Yet it was obvious that this was just an excuse to have a talk under four eyes with him. "Morty, we need to talk." Rick started. "About last year." Oh no! Morty didn't want to talk about that. He just wanted to forget that it had ever happened. Why did Rick have to rip open that old wound? "Please, Rick. Just don't…" "No, Morty. We are gonna talk about this and we're gonna talk about it now." Rick interrupted him. He quickly took a gulp from his flask before he began. "Listen, Morty. Grandpa doesn't give much of a crap about morals. Heck, I keep preaching to you how those are only stupid social constructs. But that doesn't change that there's laws on this planet and you're my grandson so this—" he was gesturing between them "—is not accepted. And—" "Yeah, I get it, Rick!" Now it was Morty's turn to break through his grandfather's monologue. "It's wrong and I'm gross. I know that! You're not telling me anything new here, Rick. And I'm sorry, okay? But I just can't help how I feel!!" The boy turned away and was angry with himself for feeling tears welling up in his eyes. Great time to get emotional like this and then right in front of Rick on top of it! Even if Morty tried to suppress it, Rick could hear a sob. Seeing his grandson cry was always something that he felt bad about, but this was just heartbreaking. It wasn't his intention to hurt Morty, he just wanted what was best for him and felt like he needed to get this clear. He needed to bring his point across that this wasn't just okay, that it wasn't accepted on this version of earth and that being together wasn't simple and wouldn't be all rainbows and sunshine like he thought Morty was probably expecting. However, it was a dumb assumption that the teen wasn't grasping the full impact that this sort of relationship between them would have. Rick knew that Morty valued morals and was always intent on acting "righteous" or behaving in accordance to the social norms that he grew up with, but he was aware of the consequences that being together with his grandfather would have. And despite knowing and even despite being given the cold shoulder by Rick one year ago, Morty still loved him. And that knowledge moved something inside Rick. Even if he had always kept telling himself that he didn't care about the boy, tried to drink himself into oblivion every time when his thoughts about his grandson wandered south, even if he lived in denial about his emotions towards him, he couldn't deny anymore that he liked having Morty around. He wanted the boy to be around him. He needed Morty. Fuck it, he loved him!! And he was done with pretending that he wasn't and holding back any longer! "Morty, look at me." The boy only shook his head and refused the request, his shoulders trembling slightly as he still tried to hold back anymore sobs from escaping. Growing slightly frustrated, Rick grabbed his arm and made him turn around to face him. However, Morty still didn't look at him, head held low and his eyes clenched shut tight as tears were streaming down his cheeks. Rick's fingers covered the wet tracks as he grabbed the soft round cheeks and angled Morty's face upwards. Whatever the brunet had expected would happen, this wasn't on his list. His eyes snapped open in shock as he felt something touch his lips and saw Rick's face right in front of him. After they parted again seconds later, Morty's brain was still short-circuiting. "Wha-wha…?" "W-well, M-Mo-Morty…" A slight flush appeared on Rick's cheeks as he became flustered over the emotional "crap" that he was about to say. "L-last year you gave me a-a very special present and I'm sorry that I reacted rather-that I was being an ass about it. So anyways, th-this year it's my turn make up for it and to-uh to give you a special present in return…i-if you still want me that is." Morty looked at him stunned and it took a while until what Rick had said was fully processed by his brain and finally reached home. When it did, a bright smile broke out on his face that made Rick's heart skip a beat and he flung his arms around his grandfather's neck, pulling him down in another kiss. Without hesitation, it was returned. Their lips slid together, moving in massaging motions, pressing so tightly together as if they never wanted to part again, as if they wanted to fuse together and become one. The teen was sure that he had never been as happy as this in his life. This was the best Christmas gift that he could have ever wished for. Everything that had happened last year was forgotten and he was sure that every Christmas to come he would remember this wonderful moment – he was going to cherish this precious memory for all eternity. After few minutes of making out, they pulled apart again, but Morty still held onto Rick. "I love you." He whispered dreamily, despite having to catch his breath again. He was so glad that he could finally say these words without feeling ashamed. However, what came next was an even better present. "I love you, too, Morty." Rick replied without stutter, hesitation or making an awkward face while saying it. It was honest. He really meant what he said and Morty could clearly see that in Rick's eyes. This year's Christmas was truly the best!

AN: This was a byproduct of being tortured by my coworkers with having to listen to 20 different versions of WAM's "Last Christmas" for several hours over the course of several days. And please don't feel offended if you like that song, but I have to say that I was so overexposed to it the last years that I started to develop feelings of aggression for it -_- Also sorry, that the story is so short. I still hope that you liked this little gift. Wish you all a Merry Rickmas!!

[mitchmarnier]

BLOOD IN THE WATER

summary: “That’s ridiculous,” Ben said, feeling his hands shake around the pen he was using. The accusation made the back of Ben’s neck break into a sweat though his body had never felt so cold. “We’re not at war.”

Tozier looked up from underneath his messy fringe, a humourless smirk sliding across his face. “You’re a fool if you believe that.”

[or: after the gruesome murder of his younger brother, Bill Denbrough is determined to bring about the end of the string of crimes in Derry no matter the cost. As stories unwind and fall apart, there’s only more questions as everybody’s lives hang in the balance.]

chapter count: 3/20

chapter warnings: mentions of past character deaths, mentions of hate crimes, mentions of past statutory rape, 

[Read Full Story on AO3] [Playlist]

Taglist: @honkhonkrichard, @hufflepuffkaspbrak, @reddie-for-anything, @saddhippiee, @reddiesetrichie, @wowdidiask, @emmieliabedelia, @beepbeepbitchard, @lemonadeandrice (if you want to be added, message me off anon!)

Mike Hanlon tucked the small, crooked wing back against the duck’s shaking body and held him closer to himself. The small bird quivered slightly and Mike frowned for a moment, having to wonder if the shaking was him or the duck. Mike’s father entered the kitchen with a load of groceries in both hands and crinkled his brow at his only son.

“What’s that you got there, Mikey?”

“A duck.”

Will Hanlon looked at his son for another moment before sighing, smiling slightly. “You always were a regular old Fern Arable, son.”

“That was a pig,” Mike said, smiling softly down at the now-sleeping bird in his arms. “This is a duck. We have enough pigs anyway.”

“That we do,” Will placed the groceries on the counter and began to unload them. The feeling of discomfort and sadness that had been sitting in his stomach all afternoon returning now that Mike had another moment alone with his thoughts. Those same, disturbing thoughts. “They found another body today.”

Mike noticed his father’s stature stiffen, the way it always did when Mike brought up the string of murders. Will Hanlon hated talking about the Derry Murders in way that was different than other parents in town. The other adults in Derry didn’t want their children brining it up as they liked to pretend that nothing was happening as best they could. Slap on a curfew and act as though anything that happens was then out of their control. The mayors own son was murdered, and everybody just shrugged their shoulders and went on about their everyday business.

Will Hanlon was a much better father than most in town, Mike had known this since he was old enough to know anything. Something about these murders settling deep within Mr Hanlon’s bones and a part of his father shut down every time it was brought up. In any other situation, William Hanlon was open and would answer questions that Mike had ever had about anything in his life- until last spring, when kids started getting killed.

“The Corcoran boy, right? Edward, was it?” Mr Hanlon shook his head. “A damn shame. Kid’s been through the ringer already. Ain’t nobody deserve that but after all that boy had been forced to go through.”

Mike nodded solemnly. He’d gone to school with Eddie Corcoran since he’d been switched into public school once high school started, a whole four years ago, but Mike had always kept to himself. A bit of a loner, by choice he supposed. He knew, though, of course about Eddie’s father and the death of his little brother just the year before. In a town like Derry, it was impossible not to hear about terrible things that happened to other people. Mike supposed that enough people, in time, would just chalk up Eddie Corcoran’s deaths to the same as his brothers- anything to continue pretending that the curfew was helping jack shit.

“Yeah, it’s…” Mike started but Mr Hanlon quickly closed the doors to the cupboards and looked expectantly to his son.

“Can you finish putting the groceries away?” Mr Hanlon asked, rubbing at his temples. “I think I need to take a nap. I feel a headache coming on something awful.”

“Yeah, Dad, of course,” Mike said, quickly setting the injured duck back into its tissue box bed as he stood. Mr Hanlon patted him on the shoulder once as he walked past, and Mike tried to make the quickest work of the groceries that he could.

“You know why he won’t talk about it, don’t you, boy?”

Mike jumped, and turned around to find his grandfather moving slowly to sit at the table. He had a big leather bound notebook in his hands and he looked more lucid than Mike had seen him appear in many months. Grandpa Hanlon’s diagnosis of Alzheimer’s was all but official, though Mrs Hanlon always said he didn’t have quite enough symptoms for doctors to give it the name it deserved. Mike was watching the old man struggle with things that he never would have imagined his grandfather would, but now the man that sat at the kitchen table looked so much like the grandfather Mike had grown up with that he almost forgot about his deuterating brain cells.

“I…” Mike shrugged, rolling a can of gluten free gravy between his hands. “I supposed because it makes him uncomfortable. All those kids getting killed.”

Grandpa Hanlon hummed, opening up the notebook and sliding it further across the table. “It does make him uncomfortable but not just because of those poor kids… because it’s happened before.”

Mike crinkled his brow, leaving the groceries discarded behind him as he moved to sit across from his grandfather. “What are you talking about?”

“Thirty years ago, there was a string a killings. All young teens, just like now.” Grandfather Hanlon patted the notebook and Mike reached out to take it. Inside were several newpaper article dated between 1990 and 1991, all about deaths of students from Derry High- northside and southside alike. Mike frowned deeply, flipping through them. There were twenty one in total, Mike stopped at the one… the only one that seemed to have been a leading story in the paper.

LOCAL TEACHER ARRESTED FOR ILLEGAL RELATIONSHIP WITH UNDERAGE STUDENT

Mike raised his brow and looked up at his grandfather. “What does this have to do with the murders?” Mike rang his finger tips across the man’s face, admitting to himself that there was something sinister to this man. The image itself appeared as though it were taken directly out of a yearbook, the teacher in question just smiling at camera but just the smile brought a deep chill to Mike and brought goosebumps up around his arms.

“That has everything to do with the murders, my boy.” Grandfather Hanlon said deeply. “That man is Robert Gray, and he killed all those kids back in 1991. And would’ve have gotten away with it, too, if he hadn’t been caught messing around with that poor, young girl.”

“What girl?” Mike asked, his voice coming out barely above a whisper.

“Goodness, I couldn’t tell you her name.” Grandfather Hanlon shook his head. “It was so long ago and my memory isn’t what it used to be. She was only fifteen, couple years older than your father was back then, and they kept her identity very hush hush.”

Mike nodded. “What happened to her?”

Grandfather Hanlon sighed. “I don’t know, most people believe that the poor girl just changed her name and moved from Derry. It would make sense, given what he was.”

“You don’t believe that?” Mike asked lightly, rubbing his thumb into the old newspaper. Grandfather Hanlon sighed, shaking his head.

“I’m not sure how the girl could have been with this evil a man, and not know what he was.” Grandfather Hanlon said. “But I can’t pretend to know. They found all the evidence for his other crimes while searching his house for the rape charges and we know the girl never testified against him.”

“She could have been afraid.” Mike said, but he too had a slight twinge in his stomach that told him there was much more to the story than simple fear. “Why does Dad have all this stuff?”

“Because Robert Gray went to jail for twenty one murders, but your father and I know he committed at least twenty four.” Grandfather Hanlon said darkly, a look coming across his face that Mike had never seen on his before. “Your father was only eleven, guess he was too young for Gray’s type but I’ll.. I’ll never forgive myself for leaving town that weekend.”

Mike swallowed harshly. He knew that his aunt and uncle had died when his father was very young, while his grandparents had been away for the weekend. The only explanation to it he’d received had been “an incident” but the deep, dark words in his grandfather’s speech made Mike want to throw up.

“This Gray guy… he killed them?” Mike asked, forcing his voice to stay light. He pushed the newspaper ridden notebook away from him, reaching for his duck and pulling the small animal close to his chest.

Grandfather Hanlon nodded. “Your father and I have always believed so but… Robert Gray was never tried in their deaths, despite the similarities in them. The Derry Police had ruled it a hate crime by the next morning, and that’s they’d had to say about it. Robert Gray never faced justice for my baby’s deaths, and your father has never truly gotten past that.”

Mike squeezed his eyes shut. “Is that why Dad hates talking about the deaths now? It reminds him of what happened?”

“Partly.” Grandfather Hanlon said lightly. “Though, my boy, if I can be honest with you- there are enough common actions in these crimes and those of thirty years ago that even a man with as poor a memory as I can say that it leaves me with unease.”

“You think the same person is doing this?” Mike said, hearing an irregular pitch in his voice. “I thought you said he was arrested.”

“Arrested and dead.” Grandfather Hanlon said, the smallest hint of a smile tugging at the old mans’ face. “Bastard took a plea to escape the death penalty but it did him no good. Would’ve lived longer waiting on the Green Mile than he did going into the lions den. Robert Gray didn’t live to see 1992, If there’s anything they hate up there in Shawshank, it’s kid killer and worse- kid fuckers. Robert Gray was both, and doomed from the moment he walked into that building.”

Mike nodded, digging his front teeth into his bottom lip. Grandfather Hanlon tapped the notebook and nodded at his grandson. “You read these.. read them, Michael. Know your enemy. No gangster is killing these kids.”

Mike nodded in response, keeping eye contact with his grandfather until the man stood and shuffled from the room.

There was burning curiosity deep in Mike Hanlon’s stomach and knew that, with the new information, there was no way he’d be able to just sit on this and let bad things happen. He knew that he wouldn’t be able to do this alone… and he knew the exact right people to help him.

xxx

“Benjamin Hanscom, please report to the journalism office, immediately. Benjamin Hanscom to the journalism office.”

Ben gathered up his books and walked from the classroom, feeling the eyes of his classmates staring at him as he moved. There was nothing Ben hated more than having attention drawn to him, and he could feel Stanley Uris’ eyes burning into the back of his neck. Ben knew only where the journalism office was because the guidance counsellor had tried to encourage him to write for the school paper when he’d first moved to Derry. He’d known it was because of his aunt and mother, so Ben had refused.

He came into the open office door, and frowned at the two other students that seemed to be cooing over a small duck in Kleenex box. He recognized the boy as Mike Hanlon, whose family ran the farm on the edges of town and Ben wasn’t sure he’d ever seen him interacting with other students anymore than Ben himself did. The girl beside him was Aurora Morgan, who ran the Derry High Harold and was- in truth- one of the prettiest girl that Ben Hanscom had ever seen.

“I’m…” Ben scratched the back of his neck. “I was called here, I don’t…”

“We called you, Ben Hanscom.” Aurora said, voice high and sweet like a song. Ben felt his face turn pink and forced his eyes down to the small duck in Mike’s hand. “We need you.”

“Need me? I…” Ben shook his head, swallowing harshly. “Why?”

Aurora and Mike smirked at each other.

“We’re going to solve a murder.”

[not-poignant]

3 and 12 :)

3 .favorite line/scene you wrote this year

There was definitely more than one, so I’m just going to pick one from a fic. This is from chapter 2 of The Wind that Cuts the Night, and it was when I knew I was writing a 9~ chaptered fic, and not a 3 chaptered fic. It was when both of the characters really came alive for me and might not make any sense if you haven’t read the story and I don’t even care:*

They lay facing each other on Elliott’s bed. Both fully clothed, though Alex had stolen off to the bathroom to wash his face off, because he could feel the way his skin was drying tight and sticky, though by the end, Elliott had probably licked him clean. For a dude that hadn’t kissed him for ages, he sure liked to use his mouth.

Alex wondered if that meant Elliott would one day return the favour. If Elliott could take a dick all the way down his throat.

‘What would your grandparents say?’ Elliott said quietly. ‘About this?’

‘They’d be mad because of how we talk to each other,’ Alex said. It was the one part he’d really let himself think about. The rest was…confusing. Scary. Elliott was currently holding Alex’s hand in his own, and stroking it. Alex thought it was kind of girly – Haley would shove him if he ever said that out loud – and he thought it was kind of nice.

‘And?’

‘They’d be weird about it,’ Alex said. ‘But maybe then…fine. I don’t know. Grandpa’s never had an issue with that kind of stuff. Grandma – I mean I always talk about girls with her, and she talks about wanting grandkids and shit. They don’t have anyone else but me. And she’s already lost her daughter. So…’

‘Your mother,’ Elliott said. Alex winced, and Elliott slid his fingers between Alex’s. ‘I’m an orphan too.’

It took a moment for Alex to process what he’d just heard. When he did, he went from staring past Elliott’s shoulder into the dimness of the room, to meeting Elliott’s gaze in shock.

‘What?’

‘It was a long time ago,’ Elliott said. ‘And simple, really. There was a car accident. I was in the back, nary a scratch. Dad was killed on impact. My mother…she hung on, two weeks, and then she went quietly. I was ten.’

Alex knew it didn’t matter how long ago it happened. And he knew there was no such thing as ‘simple’ when you were an orphan. He knew that waiting while a parent hung on was the worst thing, and that nothing had touched him in the same way ever since. Even his dad, even then.

Fingers turning, he gripped Elliott’s hand hard, and thought of all the platitudes he’d heard and all the things that had meant nothing and tried to search for the ones that had stayed. He was left with syllables trickling out of his mind, and an empty space of hollow air that sounded a lot like the storm building up outside.

‘I’m sorry,’ Alex said. ‘I mean- It sucks to be an- It sucks to lose your parents.’

He thought Elliott would make fun of Alex then for not being ‘eloquent’ enough, or whatever. He thought Elliott would quip, or brush it off, or do some other thing. Instead, Elliott leaned close enough that Alex could feel his hair, could feel the warmth of his face and the easy pressure of his breath.

‘She was a poet and a florist,’ Elliott said. ‘When she was younger, she used to be embarrassed by her favourite flower, but as she grew older, she accepted it. Embraced it. A classic, you see.’

It was a shaft of pain straight through him. Alex tried to shake his hand free – the one he’d crushed the rose with – but Elliott wouldn’t let him. And then Alex tried to move off the bed, horrified with himself even though he hadn’t known, because he’d still sort of known. It meant something.

‘Stay,’ Elliott said, pulling him back.

‘Shit, Elliott,’ Alex managed, the words too small in his mouth.

‘Wait, stay,’ Elliott said. ‘I’m sorry, I didn’t mean-’

‘How can you even- I’m not- I shouldn’t have even-’

‘Stay,’ Elliott said, insistent, pulling Alex back and lying half on top of him, staring down at Alex’s face, eyes bright.

‘I am like him,’ Alex said, his voice breaking. He squeezed his eyes shut at what that meant, what that could mean going into the future. He tried to ignore the way Elliott slid a hand beneath Alex’s head, the way Elliott pressed his forehead to Alex’s, but it was difficult. Even Elliott’s hair was touching him.

‘No, not really,’ Elliott said, his voice soft. ‘I wouldn’t have told someone like him. For whatever it’s worth, I like you, and I owe you an apology for not seeing the line between…the teasing and…some of the other things I said. I still don’t really know that line, Alex, I hardly know anything about you that I don’t first learn from the town.’

‘I just…crushed it,’ Alex whispered. ‘The thing that reminded you of your mom? I just-’

His voice splintered, and he was mortified to find himself crying, because he was the one who had done the wrong thing and he hadn’t earned a shred of what Elliott was giving to him now, which felt real, and not like a prelude to some witty verbal backhand that left him stinging.

Elliott said things to him, soothed him, told him he wasn’t like his dad and then, when Alex was trying to calm himself down by just holding his breath so he couldn’t sob, Elliott said:

‘Oh, Alex, no. I have the worst timing. You’re so beautiful. Don’t cry.’

Of course Alex chose that moment to start crying again.

*

12. favorite character to write about this year

Actually a toss up probably between Elliott from The Wind that Cuts the Night (I have never written a character like him before and I will absolutely write a character like him in the future in my original stuff lol), and Jack Frost from The Golden Age that Never Was.

Elliott in particular, is so many things I’m not familiar with in some ways. He’s extroverted. He talks too fucking much. He’s pretentious, he’s crude, he flirts, he’s filthy. Most of the Doms I write are generally...way more reserved, and Elliott was like pouring out a stream of consciousness in dialogue (his stream of consciousness, not mine), and as a result, I wrote some of the most fun dialogue with him. Alex was like, so good to write as a perspective character, but Elliott was fun.

Jack Frost - we’ve gone from chapter 20 of The Golden Age through to 43, where we stand now. We’ve had 23 chapters of major character growth from him and it’s been an incredible experience writing him going from ‘yeah the Tsar is pretty awesome’ to becoming one of the biggest members of the Resistance, at least in spirit. Having him sort of sexually mature, spiritually mature, politically mature, while keeping all the things about his fundamental character that I love (his back-talk, his snark, his ability to see the fun in things, his hope, his determination, his understanding of the ‘little people’ which in this is both children and peasants) has been like...oh, I don’t know how to describe it. This story has become so much more than I ever thought it would be, and I am somehow more proud of it than I am Shadows and Light, and frankly, I never thought that would happen.

I mean fuck, there’s a note in one of the early chapters like ‘if you’re expecting something like Shadows and Light I’ll be disappointing you.’ And now I feel like The Golden Age is actually...y’know, I’m just super happy with it BUT WE’LL SEE HOW IT ENDS FIRST before I make that call officially, lol.

*

From this meme!

[reactingwithexo]

Can You Keep A Secret ? - Sehun (Part 12)

A/N: I know

Part 1 / Part 2 / Part 3 /Part 4/ Part 5 / Part 6 / Part 7 / Part 8 / Part 9 / Part 10  / Part 11

“What is wrong with you? How could you even say that?” you made sure you showed your indignation to the guy beside you.

“Come on, you can’t be serious , there’s a lot of people out there who agree with me” 

“Well, there were a lot of people following Hitler also”

He rolled his eyes and let out a chuckle, “you’re really dramatic, I didn’t think you’d take this Ron, Hermione and Harry thing so serious”

“Excuse me” you blocked his way and he kept on walking, making you walk backwards, but still trying to prove your point, “how would you say that Hermione and Harry would be a much better couple than Hermione and Ron ? That’s like, messing up with the whole ecosystem”

“Even J.K Rowling has said it herself that she should have made them a couple y/n”

“I need facts”

He let out a sigh at your response and quickened his pace, while staring at you, moments later he was laughing and you just kept staring at him.

“What is it?”

“You take things so seriously, it’s cute”

You can’t fight the hint of a smile that appears and you get back to walking beside him.

It’s been three weeks since the night that Jungkook asked you for a shot to get to know him better, you knew he was interested in you but you still couldn’t shake the feeling of nervousness when he complimented you or got just a little bit too close, but at least you felt confortable with him in general, he was simple yet endearing and you didn’t have to argue about everything.

You promised yourself you would stop comparing him to Sehun, who has been giving you annoyed looks since the party as he would always see you with Jungkook, they were completely different people and you don’t even know what you and Sehun were and are.

Later that night, as your mom called you for dinner, she asked you to answer the doorbell and you found, considering how lucky you are, Sehun standing there looking as natural as ever.

“What the hell are you doing here?”

“Well hello to you too, I’m a guest”

“A guest? Are you seriously making up excuses n-?”

You heard your mom exclaim beside you “Sehun! I’m really glad you could make it”

Sehun smiled and winked at your surprised face, he came in and you shut the door.

“I invited him over for dinner sweetie, isn’t that wonderful?” , your mom said as she hugged Sehun and he smiled at you “yeah Y/N, isn’t that wonderful?”

You gave him your best fake smile and answered “Marvelous I would say”

“I have to go check how your father is dealing with the food, I’ll be back soon kids”

You and Sehun nodded at your mom as she walked away , Sehun looked at you and asked “Why is your mom nicer than you?”

“That’s because she doesn’t really know you”

“Why did you decide to hate me so much?”

“I’ve already told you I don’t hate you… I’m surprised your parents are not here with you”

“I didn’t even tell them about this, I didn’t want them searching your house for something”

You nodded but still asked “And how do I know you won’t do this?”

He let out a chuckle and shook his head, “that’s offensive”

“I don’t even know anymore, is it?”

“You know I wouldn’t do anything to harm you or your family”

“Ok, nevermind”

Your mom called you two and dinner was served, apparently your dad did a good job and Sehun mocked the fact you were the only one in the family without any cooking skills, the dinner supprisingly went friendly and it reminded you of how a couple years ago Sehun would eat at your house at least 3 times a week.

He’d catch glances of you actually smiling at him, something he hasn’t seen in a while and it hurted him knowing it was partly his fault he couldn’t see you that happy often.

After dinner he went quiet and you asked him “are you alright?”

He looked at you and nodded “yeah, I just hm, I need to show you something, do you think you can come over?”

“Hm, yeah sure, tomorrow ?”

He shook his head and said “no no! It has to be now”

“Now? Sehun, it’s getting late”

“I know..but no one is home and that’s the only way I can show you”, he could see you were hesitant and he continued “y/n..it is important, I think you deserve some answers and we won’t have a chance soon again.”

“ok, right I.. let me see if my mom is ok with it”

He waited as you talked to your parents and they were fine with it, your mom loved Sehun anyways so it wasn’t that hard.

5 minutes later you two were in his car heading off to his house, you could tell by his facial expressions that he was worried and by the way he’d scratch his neck and gulp softly that he was feeling anxious.

“I already know you’ll say nothing but , What’s really going on?” You asked.

“I’m just thinking… I don’t know if we should be doing this, I shouldn’t show you this, it will only be more dangerous to you, maybe we should go bac-”

“No! Don’t you even think of doing that, you said there’s no one there, whatever it is that you’ll show me, I can handle it and I won’t tell anyone, you know that.”

“I’m still unsure but if I started this, guess I should just finish it”

“That’s my boy”, you said jokingly 

He smiled and seemed to soften a little “It’s been a while since you’ve used your playful tone with me”

You smiled a little and said “I guess we haven’t gotten that many opportunities to be playful lately”

“Or you are spending your opportunities with that guy”

You rolled your eyes “really Sehun? you’ll just throw Jungkook in the conversation like that?”

“Jungkook, right, that’s his name”

“Don’t act like you’re too superior to know his name”

“But I am”

“Shut up”

“Why do you guys are everywhere together now?”

“Don’t be so jeaulous”

“I’m not, I’m just wondering, you’ve never been too much of a people person”

“We used to walk everywhere together too”

“Yeah but we’ve known each other for a long time now, it’s different”

“How?”

“You’ve known each other for a month?”

“So? We clicked”

You saw him rolling his eyes and he continued “so you forgot me that easily?”

“One: There’s nothing to forget”

He side glanced you with his eyebrows up.

“What?! There really isn’t”

“Y/n…please”

“Ok fine, nothing OFFICIAL to forget”

He smirked as you let out a sigh and continued “two: it’s not like we’ve stopped talking or anything”

“Ok , whatever”

“What is it? I can see you are holding something back”

“I don’t like him y/n, there’s something wrong with him, I just know it”

“There’s only one thing wrong with him in your head Oh Sehun, and that is that he isn’t you”

He let out a tsk and said “you’re being too full of yourself y/n, I’m serious, something is off with him”

“Can’t you accept the fact that a guy who is not involved into some deep shit is interested in me?”

“No, I can’t”

You hit his arm as an answer and he whined.

Soon enough you were at his house and as you sat down the couch, he was looking serious again.

“Y/n.. I’ll show you something that regards not only your family but your whole family, you have to promise me for your own sake that you won’t share this information with anyone”

“Sehun, it’s okay, don’t worry”

He nodded and after a few minutes came back holding a laptop , he opened it up, clicked some files and there you had it , a whole report on your family, it had up to 200 pages and you looked stunned at Sehun.

“I know.. if you want, I can leave you alone so you can read it in private”

“No! It’s fine, I’m actually scared right now”

“It’s okay y/n,just remember you are not your family, you are you.”

You frowned and looked at him “what do you mean?”

“You’ll understand after you read it, of course you can just now read it and we can go back to your place”

“Mm no, I know I have to do this”

 And there you had it, right at page 3, it started to unravel the truth, as you expected , it had to do with your late grandpa, turn out the medicines he created were just a disguise, there was something much darker behind it, apparently him and a group of friends from the area (including Sehun’s grandparents), were all working together to create a drug that would generate the biggest dependence on people all ages in seconds but would be demonstrated in the softest ways, and the only place there would be some sort of relief for this would be a ‘pharmaceutic’ industry managed by the same business partners.

You couldn’t believe this, your house, your school, a large part of the stuff you owned were due to your grandfather’s money… and now you knew it was all based on a terrible and sick idea , you wondered how much of this your parents knew about, if anything at all, your father and your grandfather seemed pretty close for a long time, possibily he could have known something? or not, this is not the type of info you can just forget after learning.

Sehun noticed your eyes averting the screen and you seemed startled, a hint of panic in your expressions, he put his arm over your shoulders and said “I know it is a lot, we can talk about it if you want”

You looked at him and asked “Does it get worse?”

He nodded and you let out a long sigh to continue reading, as you got to page 55, it was too much and you had to close the laptop in front of you.

You learned something even worse about your family.

Sehun just patiently waited for you to say something, but still held you close, “I can’t believe this….Sehun, how am I supposed to live with this?”

“Well, I live with what my parents do, and think about it like that, they are the heads of the whole thing, your family was just a piece of the puzzle?”

“Are you kidding me? They are letting people die as we talk Sehun, they are making trillions out of people’s diseases, we have to do something”

“Y/n, we can’t”

“We have to, wasn’t your uncle going to help you with your parents or something like that?”

“Y/n, I had to be with my parents, or else you’d be in danger”

“Sehun, it’s okay, you can go if that means helping people”

“I can’t, don’t joke like that”

“I’m not”

“You don’t understand what would happen to you and your family if I broke this deal with my parents.”

“It doesn’t matter! Maybe we even deserve it”

“Don’t talk nonsense, you didn’t do anything”

“Yeah but if it means saving people and families”

“Y/n, this is not your responsibility.”

“Whose is then? Maybe we can leak the story for the press or something”

“You’re naive to think the press is not involved in all of this either”

 “Well, what do you expect me to do? Just live spending family money based on stealing people’s way of treatment?”

“For sometime, yes”

“How can you say that? Sehun, if you have someway of stopping this , you have to do it”

“I said I can’t y/n”

“I’m giving you total permission to go, you don’t have to stay because of me, i’m sure my parents can protect me”

He shook his head and said “I’m sorry y/n, there’s nothing I can do, I have to stay”

“How can you be so selfish?”

He looked at you and he seemed hurt by your question.

“Selfish? You’re saying i’m being selfish? This is much bigger than us y/n, even if i left, it wouldn’t change a lot”

“You don’t know that, you never tried”

“What am I supposed to do? We haven’t even finished school yet”

“There’s always a way… I guess I have to go , thanks for showing me this I-”

“Wait”, he held you where you were before you had the chance to get up, “you can’t just leave like this, y/n, this is very serious stuff, you can’t let your emotions guide you this time, make worth of the trust I gave you while showing you this, continue reading if you want, or we can do something else, whatever you want, just stay over to think about it for a while”

You decided to listen to him this time and you just kept your position while trying to process everything, suddenly you caught youself getting emotional and tired, so you hugged Sehun.

“I’m sorry I’ve been so rude to you since you came back, I was just mad that you left me”, you said with your head on his shoulder.

He let out a chuckle and said “It’s fine, you don’t have to apologize, there’s no way you would know anything about this”

“I should have realized though, I thought I knew you the best out of all people”

He laughed at you pouting without knowing and said “i’m serious, it’s okay babe”

You looked up at him with a surprised expression when he said that “what?”

“What?” he said , not noticing what he just said.

“Did you just call me babe?”

“What?” he laughed it off and uncounsciously turned his head to the side, something he always did to shrug the feeling of embarrasment off. “Y/n, you’re getting delusional”

You laughed loudly and said, mimicking him “it’s okay babe”

“Don’t call me that”

“Why not? It’s sweet”

“Shut up”

“I mean, it’s not that I don’t like the nickname but, it just sounds weird coming from you”

“And why is that?”

“You’re just not babe material”

“What is that even supposed to mean?”

“Nevermind babe”

He gave you a stern look and you couldn’t help but laugh.

He warned you, “If you keep being like this..”

“What? You’re going to kiss me?” you laughed afterwards.

“No, i’m not that nice, I will though, do something else”

“Oooh, I’m so scared”, you said distracted by how you were hurting from laughing so much that you didn’t notice he was coming for you, then it hapenned.

Tickling.

You struggled but you couldn’t get out of his grip,he knew that was your ultimate weakness and he made you fall off the couch and roll on the floor,almost pleading for mercy as he laughed at you.

He wasn’t stopping anytime soon as he was having too much fun with this , so maybe it was just a consequence of your emotions but  you figured the only way of stopping him would be closing the gap between you two and kissing his lips.

The fact that he did stop tickling you being the last thing in your mind, you felt that feeling you always did when you two kissed, that it just felt right and always special in someway, as if you are always waiting for it, it was still a soft kiss as he hovered over you making the kiss longer and slower, it felt as if time had stopped and nothing else mattered, your brought your fingers up to his hair and you lost track of how long you two stayed just kissing each other and not letting the feeling getting away because you knew that’s how you were always supposed to be.

Sehun pulled away from the kiss, breathless, messy hair and a spark on his eyes to ask you “do you wanna stay over?”

“I don’t know if I should”

“It’s late enough and your mom hasn’t called you so I guess she wouldn’t mind” he murmured next to your ear and that gave you goose bumps as he kissed down your face to your neck and collarbones.

“Okay, fine, I’ll just text her”, you said and Sehun smiled at you.

Your kisses grew deeper as did your touches, it was all too intense by the time you were straddling him on the couch and a full makeout session was in store, the smell of his cologne, the smoothness of his skin , the softness of his hair and the gasps you’d both swallow of one another , all these sensations felt as if they were being surpressed for a very long time.

As the night rose by, neither of you found yourselves pulling away and that could explain how he was willing to stay for you and you were willing to accept him now that you knew you were in the same situation.

Only if you knew the choice you had to make somewhat later.

A/N: Omg this was huge, I’m sorry if it is confusing, I’ll probably explain more about it as the story progresses, I might end it at part 15 but we’ll see, hope you guys like it and i’ll update sooner, promise!

[arana-aranehn]

Just Venting.

I shouldn't have called my sister a slut, and she shouldn't have done what she did either. I don't want to say sorry even though I really am because I know she isn't (she never is). She'll just fucking glare at me all self fucking righteous and act like she didn't do anything at all, she always does.

I was just telling mommy that I still don't find being run up a tree by my grandpa I was so scared, sprayed with a water hose while it was 43°F out and windy, having a large branch tossed up at me that scraped my arm, and a brick that barely missed my head.... funny. All because grandma wasn't going to marriage counseling with him and he was trying to force me to go. And my sister butted in and said "Well you almost killed me TWICE."

.... I know that, but she decided to be horrid and accusatory. Like, it didn't happen all before either of us were teenagers, the first time I was only 8. I never meant to hurt her either of those times, not at all. The first she name called and I pushed her after she got out of my face when the anger kicked in and she hit the bed frame and I remember it it was awful and I didn't mean to. We were both screaming because of how much blood there was. The second was supposed to be a game, see how long we could hold our breath in the toy box. You knock when you can't and the person has to get right off so no one gets hurt. She was laughing on top when I started banging cuz she wasn't and I was scared and angry (i thought she was trying to kill me) and I kicked the lid off with her still on it.

I just wanted to breathe!

And she fell hard and hit a tv in the corner of the room. I was just happy I could fucking breathe and didn't notice she'd gotten hurt until my little brother freaked out. So, I HATE when she brings it up like I'm some sort of MONSTER deserving absolutely hellish karmic justice. Like every bad or complete shit thing that happened to me since I deserve.

Molestation? Deserved. No friends? Deserved. Beaten up? Deserved. Bullied?? Deserved. Verbal abuse for two years living with our grandparents? Deserved. Losing a loved one and I cried? Deserved. Hated by someone I cared about? Deserved. Betrayed? Deserved.

And I'm not overexaggerating this. She's said it. For all of that. Just by reminding me I hurt her.

It could've... killed her, y'know? I didn't mean to, I didn't want to. Didn't like or want her being hurt so bad. Never did. Never. But it doesn't matter to her. She's content to act and insist that I did and treat me shit for it.

I just try and forget about it when she's not throwing it at me. I don't want to remember a little toddler's blood in my mouth, or what it feels like to suffocate while she's laughing because she thinks my fear is funny.

She doesn't want to though. Doesn't want me to either. We get along for a few months then she reverts back to.... well, herself. And throws it at me when I least expect it.

Like last night. I decided to try eating dinner with them, with my family, again. It always goes badly. I wanted to try though, I love them.

And all I did was explain to my mama that it wasn't funny to me, even in hindsight 3 yrs later, that I was practically tortured as I hid way up in a tree with a water hose, with my grandfather throwing things at me when it didn't get me down, on a cold evening then locked out of the house to freeze. Because I was scared that if I came down he'd hurt me really badly. He was really angry. He hurts when he's angry.

And she turned like a fucking snake and spewed that poison at me with that self righteous thing she does. And I just.... yeah. I just... I wanted to just hurt her back so fucking bad.

I wound up losing my appetite and throwing what was left in the trash then going back upstairs to hide. My mom left a minute after the yelling started, Reba left after she realized that I wouldn't allow the last word to be a muttered "bitch" or "cunt" under her breath. Then she went to where mama was and my brother sided with her.

And I've decided that eating with them was, once again, a terrible idea on my part.

[mousewitchy]

Breaking Up With Your Parents

So, last week the parent drama came to a head on the twins' birthday. Everyone wanted to Skype the kids and say Happy Birthday. We were happy to allow my mother and my husband's father and stepmother to do so. There's a huge backstory here, including my extremely emotionally abusive childhood, but I'll try to summarize. My father and stepmother had my kids confused and convinced that they'd done something to make Grandma and Grandpa to not like them the last time they visited. Literally, 90% of the visit to the children's museum my parents had gotten the kids all excited about was spent saying, "I don't know, honey," and "I'm sorry, sweetie," as they followed me around and begged to know where Grandma and Grandpa were, why they weren't with us, and why they wouldn't play. Don't even get me started on the drinking. When I called him out on it, my father gave me a list of bullshit things he'd "done" with the kids (ate breakfast, eaten lunch, read A book to them), and then asked who should have hurt feelings since they wouldn't hug him goodbye. Motherfucker, they gave you exactly as much as you gave them. Ask me how 3-year-olds (at the time) make sense of people showering them with affection for 5 minutes and then ignoring the shit out of them? By deciding they've made a mistake, that's how. Then there's my MIL, who's language and verbal abuse over Christmas literally traumatized my girl for nearly 3 months. If we mentioned Christmas, she'd curl face down on the floor and refuse to be spoken to, looked at, or touched. When the kids have asked about it, the best answer I can find to give is: "Sometimes people just aren't very nice, sweetie. And that's not your fault." My newly 4-year-old daughter recently finally made sense of the way my MIL spoke to and about everyone (including me) by deciding that Grammy being that unkind and using words like that means Grammy doesn't love her. And you know what? I'm okay with that. Because that's not what love sounds like. Maybe in a few years, we can have a conversation about how these particular grandparents love them as well as they possibly can, but that they have their own problems, and we're sorry but that's not very well. And, most importantly, that's not the kids' fault. In the meantime, I might be being called everything under the sun; the parents mentioned might be feigning total confusion and begging us to explain what they did wrong; but FUCK THEM. I am not going to let that woman tell my daughter how much she "loves" her and confuse her all over again. NO NO NO. For anyone out there struggling with something similar, I want to offer this advice as something I learned in therapy: It's not your job to give abusive family members a list of grievances. It only plays into the victim complex and if you've called the behavior out before (as we have) then they already know what they've done: they just want you to look petty. It's not your job to make sense of the situation for them or make it any easier on them. If you want to be kind because you want to BE a kind person, that's perfectly fine. But you don't owe abusive family kindness. Do it because it's what you want to be, not because you want to appease someone who will never be appeased. I repeat: if you've called the behavior out before, YOU HAVE ZERO OBLIGATION TO EXPLAIN ANYTHING. When they pretend not to know what is wrong, that's called gaslighting, and they'll use it to shift blame to you. Don't fall into that trap. Politely explain that what you want to say and don't argue what you know is true--it helps to have a script and someone to squeeze your arm when they hear you getting pulled into that argument. Be kind to yourself after. It's a painful decision. It's a painful enforcement. Put all their text conversations to "Do Not Disturb" and set their ringtones to the Imperial March, if that helps. Block them if you need to. Have a friend or partner available to remind you that yes, what you saw and experienced was real. Your parents are only pretending not to know what they did. It's a manipulative move designed to make you doubt yourself. Have them remind you of this often. You're going to experience the stages of grief with regard to that relationship if you haven't already, and that's okay. It's healthy. Have that trusted someone remind you that you are doing the hard thing your parents never did: you are experiencing the pain of change and breaking the cycle. I'll add to this, maybe, as I think of more. But basically, this fucking sucks, it will probably always suck--but it is also not our fault. We have a responsibility to protect our children and their emotional health and to be honest, I feel like a physical weight has lifted, this was so far overdue.

[thewritingambition]

Grandma is Coming to Visit

(originally posted on Reddit)

I was fortunate enough to have my paternal grandparents in my life well into adulthood. My grandma Yesenia was a lively woman, always energetic and active even in her seventies; she was from a generation of women who lived through immense struggle and always taught me to value the people and things I was lucky enough to have. She was also a loving woman who liked to bake and spent most of my childhood trying to fatten me up, with quite a lot of success, I might add.

She was only 19 years old when she married my grandpa Vítor, who was your typical grump. Not a mean-spirited man, mind you, he was affectionate and gentle, especially with his daughters and granddaughters, but retirement hadn't been kind to him. Forty-five years after working as a surgeon, he'd been pushed into retirement when his hands became less steady. Being completely uninterested in becoming a family doctor, he resigned himself to watching TV while indulging in his newfound hobby: complaining. He hated the shows on TV, the new generation with their fancy gadgets, the idiots who ran our government, and so on

Mostly, we all tuned him out. Even grandma, with her endless patience, would sometimes say, “Honestly, Vítor! With such disposition, it is no wonder the kids don't come around as much as they used to.” Though I'm pretty sure that was her passive-aggressive way of making us all feel guilty for not visiting more often.

They formed sort of an odd couple: my grandfather a towering, lanky man who was a little rough around the edges, always cursing under his breath, and my grandmother a petite, delicate lady who believed speaking above a whisper was unladylike. Despite all of their differences, they still managed to make their marriage work for 56 years, though we could all see that grandpa Vítor was becoming a little worse for wear every year. Grandma, on the other hand, continued to be beautiful and vivacious. There was an eight-year gap between them and we all knew it was very likely that grandma was going to have to spend the remainder of her years alone.

When grandpa was hospitalized with a serious case of pneumonia, I was well into my twenties and my father called me to say this was it. In all likelihood, grandpa Vítor might not survive the night and we better say our goodbyes.

I rushed to the hospital, tears in my eyes, ready to say goodbye to one of the people I loved the most in the world. However, once I approached the room, I heard a bit of a commotion inside and my uncle all but ran out the door, his face flushed.

“What happened?” I asked, though I could already imagine I had been too late and grandpa was now gone forever.

“I tried to tell your grandfather that, if he was only sticking around for us, that it was okay. He could let go, you know? We don't want him to be in pain.”

“Oh, god. Is he...?” I trailed off.

My uncle sighed. “He told me to fuck off with my emotional bullshit and go find him a fucking doctor.”

Turns out my grandpa was even more stubborn than we'd first thought, and that was saying something. Do you think he was going to give the doctors the satisfaction of saying that smoking two packs a day and a lifetime of eating red meat had taken a toll on his health? Like hell he would! He came out of that hospital two weeks later and went home practically flipping the doctors off.

The very next week, grandma passed away.

You know, when my grandpa got out of the hospital, I thought they were going to manage another decade or so together. The fact that my grandmother left immediately after was a particularly cruel twist of fate, facilitated by an unexpected heart attack. One moment, she'd been in her garden, tending to her flowers under the sun – the next, she was clutching her chest and shouting for the maid to come and help her.

The worst part is that, for a brief moment of panic, no one in my family knew what to do. We hadn't prepared for her to be the first one to go. She had always been so lively and healthy. My grandparents had had five children, all of whom had married and given them a total of thirteen grandchildren, ages seven to 31, and no one knew how to proceed. We had all expected to bury grandpa Vítor first, and then we'd tend to a heartbroken but otherwise strong widow who had long accepted that, being eight years younger than her husband, she might outlive her spouse. She had her children to live for, her roses, a loyal group with friends with whom she knitted every Friday afternoon.

Grandpa Vítor had one person in the world that he could tolerate, having outlived his closest and dearest friends. He wasn't just heartbroken, he was destroyed by his wife's death. There hadn't been a dried eye at the funeral, but our grief was mixed with a healthy dose of worry and sorrow as we watched grandpa Vítor sob over his wife's remains.

“My love, my life... oh god... oh my life...”

He spent the following week crying in his favorite armchair, the spot on the couch my grandmother had once occupied now empty. As for the rest of the family, we barely had any time to grief as we pondered about what to do with grandpa now. He couldn't stay by himself in that old big house with no one but Maria, their 55-year-old maid, to look after him, but moving him away seemed almost cruel at that point.

His five children took turns sleeping the guest bedroom, promising to keep him company until he got used to his situation, or at least until they felt it was safe to suggest he relocated to a home. No one dared to make the suggestion, though. How could we? His only companion, his entire emotional support, the woman he had loved faithfully for 56 years had ceased to exist in the blink of an eye. He was in so much pain.

As it always is with these things, though, the pain dulled over the next six months. He wasn't used to the loneliness, he'd still turn lachrymose whenever we brought up my grandmother, but he'd complain and grumble as he used to, louder and angrier than before. It was annoying at times, but it felt good to see him go back to his normal self.

It had been eight months since my grandmother had passed away when dad called me. He'd traveled from Veracruz, where we lived, to Mexico City that week for work. He was supposed to return on Friday to spend the weekend with his father, but his business trip had to be extended for another five days.

“I'm meeting with the contractor on Monday, Lídia, there's no point coming back for the weekend,” he told me. “Can you please keep your grandfather company while I'm away? Roberto already said he can take over on Monday.”

I'll be completely honest, I'm not the best at dealing with grief or other people's emotions. My reaction to seeing people crying is to leave the room and give them some space. My brothers are a lot better at handling emotional outbursts than I am. Besides, I had been extremely busy because I was a month away from moving to Toronto. My father knows this and trust me, I was not his first choice for the job.

Still, I felt guilty about leaving grandpa like this. Chances were we might not see each other again once I left Mexico. It would be good to sit with him one last time, just the two of us, make some memories to take with me to my new life in Canada.

I packed a small bag and headed to the home he'd shared with my grandmother for over half a decade. The maid let me in and I sat with grandpa in the TV room, where he spent most of his time nowadays. I noticed that tonight he had been almost smiling and not paying attention to the TV at all.

“You seem to be in a good mood, grandpa,” I said, trying to sound chipper. These anything you said might set him off on a rant or make him burst into tears.

“I am, beautiful,” he said in his tired voice, sounding somewhat dreamy as he spoke. “Tonight is going to be a good night.”

“Yeah? Is Maria cooking your favorite meal?”

“Maria can't cook for shit,” he said, harshly. He had never been one to measure words. “I should kick her out of the house.”

I eyed the open door to make sure Maria was nowhere near the room. Not that she hadn't probably heard any of this before. My grandpa and her often engaged in a battle of wits and that woman had the patience of a saint.

“Okay,” I said, cautiously. “Then why are you so happy?”

He too eyed the door as if he was afraid Maria would listen, then leaned closer to whisper to me with a big smile. “Your grandma is coming to visit me tonight.”

I blinked at him, confused. “I'm sorry, what did you say?”

“Grandma is coming to visit me.”

I opened my mouth, then closed it again, unsure of what to say. Had my grandfather been developing dementia? Should I be worried? And if so, should I burst his bubble and make him miserable all over again by reminding him that his wife had passed away eight months ago?

“Grandpa,” I said, very gentle, “grandma Yesenia... she's not... around anymore.”

“Oh, I know,” he said, still in a good mood. “But she's coming to visit me anyway.” He winked. “She couldn't stay away from me for long.”

I was stunned for a very long time as he turned back to the TV to watch his telenovela like we'd been doing a moment before.

I excused myself and went to talk to Maria. I asked if grandpa had been saying any strange things lately.

Maria said, “He's complaining about my cooking again, but that's just how your grandpa is.”

“No, I meant, about grandma?”

“No, not really. Why?”

I shook my head and told her it was nothing. I'd have to tell my dad about this. He'd know what to do.

That night, we ate dinner together – I appreciated Maria's cooking a lot more than grandpa did – and I asked him if he'd like me to read to him before bed. He said I didn't have to. He was very tired. He didn't mention grandma again.

I stayed up another three hours, browsing the internet until I became too tired to stay up. I approached my grandpa's room to check in on him, see if he needed help getting up in the middle of the night. His legs were not what they used to be, but he was too proud of a man to walk with a cane or to ask for help.

I rapped my knuckles gently on the door, saying, “Grandpa? Do you need to use the bathroom?”

I listened for his answer, probably something along the lines of, “I'm not a fucking invalid, Lídia,” which was the usual response.

Then, I heard his voice, very quietly whispering, “Oh, my love, my life...”

I frowned and pushed the door open to look inside.

“Grandpa? Is everything-”

I started screaming. There was someone in there with him. The room was dark and I couldn't see them very well but I could tell they were tall and menacing. Instinctively, I reached for the switch and turned the lights on.

The sudden brightness blinded me for a moment and when I opened my eyes again, I saw her. It was only for a second, not nearly enough to register what was going on, but I thought... I thought I'd seen my grandmother. She was wearing the dress we had cremated her with and her face was livid but beautiful. Hell, she looked alive. For a moment, I even forgot that she was, in fact, dead and had been so for almost a year.

In the blink of an eye, however, she disappeared and I was left staring at the empty space she'd left behind, eyes wide open.

“No!” grandpa shouted, all but jumping out of bed. “No! No! No! No! What did you do? You stupid girl, what did you do?”

I was too shocked for words. I stood there, staring at the spot where my grandmother had just been, stammering excuses and questions that made no sense until Maria came running, wrapped in a shawl.

“Doctor Vítor, what is the matter?”

“She sent my wife away!” he shouted. “Stupid girl, what did you think you were doing?”

She tried to calm him down even though she couldn't really understand what was happening. Seeing that I was making him upset, she asked me to go back to my room, that she could handle things herself.

I waited outside the room. Thirty minutes later, Maria came out and told me he had managed to fall asleep again.

“I saw grandma,” I muttered without warning. I had to get it out of my chest.

Maria looked at me, taken aback. “You what?”

“I saw grandma Yesenia. She was there, standing over his bed but...”

That made no sense. The silhouette I'd seen before going for the lights, it had very clearly not been my grandmother. Grandma Yesenia was a small woman, that thing was tall and downright menacing.

Maria was still looking at me, suddenly looking pale.

She said, “Lídia, these are not things to joke about.”

I didn't correct. I couldn't even think.

Maria shuddered and crossed herself, then told me to go to bed. I did as I was told, but I couldn't sleep. As soon as the sun was up, I called my dad and relayed the story to him.

“And you're sure you saw your grandmother?” he asked me once I was done.

I thought about it. Having had time to mull it over, I wasn't so sure anymore.

“It was all so fast,” I admitted. “I know there was someone in the room and I thought I had seen her but... I don't know.”

“You know, sometimes our minds play tricks on us.”

“I know, dad.”

“It's possible that grandpa got into your head and you just filled in the gaps with your imagination.”

“I know.”

He paused for a moment.

“There is, of course, the possibility that it was your grandmother.”

I didn't say anything.

“I know how that sounds,” he said. “It wouldn't be the first ghost your grandfather has ever seen, though.”

That surprised me. Not that my grandfather had seen a ghost – or ghosts, as it turned out – but rather that they'd kept that from me. It may sound strange to hear this, but supernatural occurrences aren't as taboo in Latin America as in other places. Several of my friends from Mexico had had some run-in with the paranormal. Ghostly apparitions were not something I would immediately dismiss, though I was on the fence about the whole thing and would much rather find a reasonable explanation to why I saw my dead grandmother in the room with my grandfather.

“Grandpa doesn't like talking about it. You know how he is, he's a practical man. I suppose ghosts don't really fit his view of the world. But my mother told me of a few strange occurrences, mostly when he was young.”

“Such as...?”

“Apparently, he came home crying one day, saying that his father, who'd been dead for two years, had tried to lure him into the graveyard, promising him candy or something of the sort.”

I shivered. “Christ.”

“She implied it was something that happened quite often when he was a child. She even said dad once insisted that a little boy from that same graveyard had tried to follow him home. But he was just a kid and they lived a few blocks away from the graveyard, you know? That could've been just his imagination.”

“I suppose. And since then, there's nothing?”

Dad paused again. He took a sharp intake of breath, then let it all out as he said, “I know he didn't go into the morgue when he worked at the hospital.”

“No one likes the morgue dad, even if they work with dead people.”

“I know, but I asked him about that. He was a surgeon, you know? He's seen plenty of dead bodies. It made no sense to me that he'd be afraid of the morgue.”

“And what did he say?”

Again, dad took his time gathering courage to answer. He finally told me, “He said the dead would follow him home. I don't know, he was a little tipsy at that point,” he added, almost apologetic.

“Maybe this is not a bad thing, you know?” I said. “I mean, if that means he can speak to his wife again-”

“I don't really like to mess with this sort of thing, Lídia,” he interrupted. “Listen, regardless, I'm coming back next week and I'll talk to him. I'll take him to a doctor to make sure everything is alright. You know his health is not what it used to be.”

I didn't insist. I guess I didn't really want to hear about the subject any more than dad didn't want to tell me about it.

I met grandpa for breakfast. He had since calmed down but sulked through the rest of the day while ignoring me. He made no mentions of grandma or ghosts or anything really. When I offered to read to him, he gave me an ugly look and said nothing. In retrospect, maybe I should have said something, but I didn't.

That night, after supper, I went back to my bedroom to play some video game on my computer. I needed something to distract me from the thought of that shadow standing over my grandpa, or little ghostly boys crawling out of their graves to chase my grandpa home. Much like my dad, I don't like to think about the supernatural very much.

It was around 1 am and I had been playing for quite some time, overhearing my grandpa snoring from the other room and feeling my eyelids becoming heavier and heavier. I was so tired that when I tried to reach for the glass of water beside my computer, I accidentally unplugged the chord and the screen went black.

There, reflected on the dark screen on my computer, I could see my grandmother behind me, staring at me from the ajar door. Except that she didn't look much like my delicate, loving grandmother Yesenia. Having the chance to look at her, I could see that her face was definitely hers, down to the very last wrinkle, but still, it wasn't. She was angry like I had never seen her in life, the expression on her face almost feral.

I didn't move a muscle, hoping she hadn't realized I'd spotted her, but she did. Her face contorted into something ugly, almost demonic, and the door slammed shut.

I jumped to my feet, sending the laptop to the floor, and I lounged myself against the door. It was locked and it wouldn't budge.

From the other side of the corridor, I heard my grandpa's soft voice waking up from slumber, saying, “Oh, my darling! My dearest!”

“No!” I shouted, at the top of my lungs. “Grandpa, that is not her! Don't let her in!”

There was a moment of silence. Then, an agonizing shriek pierced my ears, loud and terrified like I had never heard my grandpa's voice before. It only lasted a second but it froze me to my bones.

I kept banging on the door until Maria came to rescue me.

She asked me how I had managed to lock the door from the outside but I didn't answer. I pushed past her and into my grandpa's bedroom. He was lying still under the covers, mouth wide open, eyes staring at the ceiling. Behind me, I heard Maria gasp and look away.

The story that ran through my family was actually a source of great comfort. More than one person had come to me to say at least it was a good thing that he had gone peacefully in his sleep, and his wife – or some version of it – had been there to guide him to heaven.

It was a beautiful lie and I didn't correct them. I had been the one to go into his bedroom and find his body and that was not the face of a man who'd passed over to the other side peacefully. The look on his face had been nothing but pure horror. My grandpa Vítor had died screaming and I knew that the thing I'd seen in my doorway hadn't been my grandmother. It was only a simulation of her, a sheepskin the creature had shed just before taking my grandfather away from us.

I thought back to what dad had told me that morning, to the stories that he now refused to repeat to me. I thought of the dead following him home and I wondered what had taken him from us. I don't have an answer for that and I'm not sure I really want an answer because, of all the possibilities that have crossed my mind, nothing scares me as much as thinking that, whatever that thing was, it took him to place where he won't be able to see his beloved wife ever again.

[anderleerose]

I get it.

I never used to get why holiday season is the worst time for people battling with depression. In my life we’ve almost always managed. Last year I ended up at my step mom’s for christmas morning by mistake because she was too scared to drive. I don’t even remember thanks giving. A few years back the big box of ornaments we’ve always had was stolen in a move. And yeah, we’ve never replaced them. Same with the tree, that was in the box too. So for the last 2-3 years we’ve had a charlie brown tree basically. A few ornaments we got at the dollar store and a handful we managed to keep somehow. The tree itself came from my best friend and it’s about two feet tall. I know it’s dumb and superficial but the tree has always been important to me so that’s been upsetting the last few years. 

Holidays have been weird since after my dad passed(Colon cancer in 2016) but we’ve been managing. Mom went into rehab in the summer of 2017 and she’s over a year clean now. But bi-polar and acute psychosis are a nasty pair on their own. Add drug(prescription) and alcohol abuse to that list and you’ve got a mess. She’s been in the psych hospital three time since getting out. The first time was some six months ago. The second was less than a month ago and the last time was for nine days, she got back four ago.  So I’ve been alone, a lot, lately. She left suddenly and I’d already been having a shitty day, got a message that was incomprehensible and then later a call that wasn’t much better. Last time she went in with suicidal thoughts and hallucinations. She seemed better for all of three days. This time there’s been no improvement. She slurs so much and only shares a fifth of what she’s thinking and then doesn’t tell you when she’s jumping to the next conversation. Not to mention her serious memory issues. It’s just my mom and I. And things have gotten really bad. We get a thousand dollars a month from the government in disability and death benifits but for the last four months we’ve only gotten our food stamps. We’re on section eight and we still can’t afford to live here.

 For the majority of my actual childhood(I’m 18 now) we’ve lived in transitional homes. For a few short occasions we were flat out homeless, and once or twice we lived with her partners. Once with her drug dealer who was neglectful to me and I wasn’t fed unless mom was home. But we’re sort of on our own now. Her bridges were burned when she went to rehab. Her parents are abusive and with just as many mental issues. And things aren’t getting better. Part of the reason we aren’t getting enough income to keep floating right now is because of my attendance. School has never worked for me, I’m dumb, I’m aware of this and I get so sick of people telling me I’m not. I can never get myself to go because I’m either sick or just too fucking tired to get out of bed. So I’ve gone two days in the past three weeks. That’s it. Two days. Mom has a job, sort of, she works weekends as a doordash deliverer with her friend who has a car(we don’t) but she’s constantly missing because either her or that friend are just ‘not up to it today’ My grandparents(from my dad’s side) Gave us a thousand to at least get out of debt and that was only last month.

I’m already sort of estranged from them because I don’t know how to talk to them. Mom accidentally let it slip and they know I’m trans. My grandpa ignored it(It’s what he does best when he’s not shouting_ and my grandma told her they still accept me and that was around the same time they gave us the thousand and I still haven’t called them because I don’t know how to talk to them. Everything is falling apart, and usually people like to think of the good ole days but I don’t have those. There’s always been a problem. I’m already brushing over some much traumatic bullshit. Rape, verbal abuse, so much shit had come from the situations I was put in growing up that school just feels so pointless. I want to get a job to make things better but I already know I can’t handle both. 

I want to drop out, try later, get a job somewhere close by for now and just fucking pray that does anything good but I’m scared I’ll never get an education period. There’s a lot of pressure on that. My dad was a genius. The real sort, wrote scary realistic sci-fi and knew what he was talking about. My little sister is just as smart, she’s only eleven now and she reads at a senior level, she’s been able to build(With minor instructions) computer circuts since she was about eight. She’s so much fucking smarter and I don’t even understand simple math. Intelligence and kindness was all that mattered to my dad, he’d always been so fucking disappointed when I showed him an F grade, and another and another because no, it never got better. Everything has been permanently falling apart and it feels like it’s all on my shoulders now. My mom’s only fifty and because of how fucked up she is she’s essentially senile. 

I was never taught a damn thing about how to take care of myself so my teeth are falling out. Literally falling out. And we can’t even go to the dentist because there’s too much on our plates. She handles all the medical stuff and I don’t know how to step in even though my pills have been wrong every time she’s filled them for the last few months. I haven’t taken any of my medications in a week because now she can’t even find what happened to the prescriptions. The only shit I’ve got going for me is some minor writing and drawing skills but I never have the motivation anymore. And now with the holiday season, all these ads showing up everywhere I look, everyone talking about plans. All I can think is how I already skipped over Halloween this year(Even though my best friend have always done it together since middle school) because I just couldn’t do it. There’s food in the house but barely, I’m well aware it’s gonna run out soon like it always does so I often choose not to eat. That’s a habit I’ve had since we first applied for section eight. I’m diabetic, you’re not supposed to not eat. But I can’t get myself to eat anything when it feels like there’s nothing there. 

And I just keep thinking there’s no way we’re doing anything for thanksgiving this year. The school sent home with me some giftcards to get stuff but I know it’s never going to be enough. And then christmas is just around the corner. I get it now, the reason it’s so miserable is because all those ads do is serve as a painful fucking reminder of everything you don’t have. And it’s shoved in your face with people laughing and saying “but it’s chrismas, don’t be a grouch!” but that just makes it worse because now you’re not allowed to be upset. And it’s the worst possible time to not be. I keep losing my train of thought while writing this because there’s so much going on. And that adult abuse services or whatever it’s called(Essentially CPS) has now been called on my mom and we’re 95% sure it was her old best friend who is an absolute monster to her kids and has been screwing with our lives for months. The worst part is I’m pretty sure we’re going to be separated because things are BAD. And I feel so fucking selfish because for the most part I’ve stopped caring. And lately my mind has just been so nasty to me. People dropping off after saying they’re there for me, a friend I’d considered truly close telling me I’m bad for his mental health, an emotional burden, and that we were never friends. Penny(My only constant boyfriend for the last few months. I’m poly-amorous, not a cheat) never has the time of day for me, even when I’m telling him about all the crap going on. I haven’t been to counselling in over a month because I’m terrified to use ‘safe transportation’ like we used to. They leave you there for hours and there’s no better option so they just can. All of that isn’t helping, obviously. 

I don’t know if I’d call this a cry for help or some bullshit, really I don’t think anyone’s going to fucking see this anyways and if they do who the fuck even knows if anyone goddamn believes me because I’m eighteen and there’s noooooo reason to have any strife at that age. Bullshit. I’ve always had issues with being talked down to or being told ‘oh but there’s always someone who has it worse’ is that meant to make me feel better? I already constantly tell myself my problems are stupid and no one cares. I’m sick and tired of people pretending to care too. No, you don’t, none of you fucking do. The teacher’s only care about my attendance and I’m tired of them pretending that it’s anything more than that.  

I’d just like to finish this by saying I’m not suicidal. I’ve never been suicidal but I just want to disappear right now. Don’t want to live in fucking reality.There’s honestly still so fucking much more to talk about but I’m done. The worst part is knowing nobody’s going to read this just feels fucking worse. There’s my dumb rant that no one’s going to bother reading and if you do sorry for bringing you down. So yeah, I get it now. the holiday’s are the worst times to be alive.