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forehead-enthusiast · 4 years ago

Text

Checkmate

Pairing: Haechan x Reader

Genre: enemies to lovers, fluff but it gets slightly steamy at one point (still totally sfw)

Word Count: 6k

Summary: You and Haechan get engaged, because anything is better than the process of trying to get engaged. That being said, having a fiancé you hate isn’t that much better.

Author’s notes: remember me???????? I’m alive, yeah. I’m super proud of this fic, I think it’s my best ever, so please give it a read!!

Haechan inhaled the overwhelming scent of floral perfume, and barely managed to stifle a gag. His father arranged for him to meet more and more foreign princesses every week, and he wondered where the man even kept finding them. Were there even this many countries? The prince’s surroundings were beginning to blend into a blur of painted smiles and emotionless eyes. He cursed that stubborn old man in his mind, and questioned furiously why it was even so important that he find a bride any time soon. Still, no matter how much he despised it, he knew his father wouldn’t accept anything less.

He looked into the sea of lace gowns and resigned himself.

Maybe he’d just choose someone. Anyone. He smiled morosely, knowing all the women there were only after their shot at the throne anyway. They were here to use him, why shouldn’t he use them too? The apathetic thought left a bad taste on his tongue. Still, in his exhaustion at his circumstances, it seemed more and more reasonable the longer he considered it.

He searched throughout the crowd of giggling princesses, unable to distinguish between their faces.

One after another, they approached him, with candied smiles and words that were far too practiced. One after another, they convinced him a loveless marriage with someone half-decent was far preferable to enduring this a moment longer. One after another, they revealed themselves to be absolutely unbearable, and Haechan grew more and more desperate to find someone that didn’t make him want to throw himself off a balcony after three sentences.

You stood at the back of the crowd, prodded by impatient elbows and sneered at by women hiding their smirks behind fans. You rolled your eyes, unable to understand this need, this hunger to marry someone they’d never met. That was your problem, according to your parents. And your advisors. And your tutors. According to everyone, really. You’d been to so many different kingdoms, trying to seduce unfamiliar princes, but could never bring yourself to actually put any effort into it. The carriage that shipped you to each one was beginning to feel more like home than the castle you’d left.

You watched girl after girl leave the ballroom, looking thoroughly dejected. It was hard not to relish in their failure just a bit, but you dreaded whatever high standards this prince was going to judge you with. You had little to offer. Your background, your kingdom, your land- none could remotely compare to his. Your parents were completely insane to even think you had anything that would make you lucrative as a bride to him.

Maybe they’re hoping he’ll behead me. You chuckled.

Still, the crowd continued to thin, and you couldn’t put off meeting him forever. A few of the weaker-hearted girls nudged you forward, suddenly less eager to meet the sharp-tongued prince.

You sighed, and decided to get it over with.

Haechan rubbed at his temples, barely even looking at the girl who approached him now. He’d made up his mind to find a bride today, but his prospects weren’t looking so good. His eyes caught the hem of this princess’s dress. It was unadorned. He’d go so far as to call it plain. Many princesses were after his riches, but he’d never seen one that was so blatantly poor. Most at least tried to disguise their lack of wealth, so as to make them more desirable in terms of growing power. He half-chuckled, half-sighed. His gaze traced upward lazily, until it came across the first unsmiling face he’d seen all day. It shocked him so much that his hand dropped from his face, and he stood up instinctively.

“Your highness, thank you for allowing me to meet with you today-”

It was the most monotonous, disinterested introduction he’d ever heard, and his heart soared. You hadn’t even noticed he’d stood up. Incredible.

“Let’s get married.”

“I hope- excuse me?”

“Let’s get married. Can we go right now?” The question was directed to the attendant beside him, who sputtered at the prince’s sudden enthusiasm. No one, however, was more surprised at him than you. Your skirts were still clutched in your fists, your knees still bent in a curtsy. You couldn’t even manage to feel happy that he’d chosen you.

If anything, you felt angry.

He was rattling off instructions to his attendant about the wedding he’d already begun to plan, completely ignoring you. You hadn’t even responded to his proposal, if you could call his demand that. You tried to get in a polite word in time and time again, only for him to not even acknowledge you, until you got so sick of him talking you couldn’t stand it anymore.

“No!”

Finally, he turned to you.

“No?”

“I don’t want to marry you.” You ignored the consequences of your words, and avoided thinking about the awaiting rage of your parents.

The prince blinked.

Then he scoffed.

“Of course you do.”

You cocked an eyebrow, your expression not betraying how absolutely pissed those four words had made you. Instead, the first smile you’d shown him spread on your face. It was chillingly false, your eyes boring deep holes into his face as you sweetly replied:

“I’d burn down this castle before I married you, your highness. Good day.”

And with that, you turned and left the ballroom.

Haechan didn’t move for a few moments as he watched you stalk away, a picture of grace even in your anger. The women who remained and witnessed began to whisper, snapping him out of his shock. His head flicked around the room, trying to comprehend what had just happened. Then, just as you vanished around a corner, he took off after you.

He’d been turned down. How? Why? He was rich. He was influential. You were neither. He felt a nagging pang of guilt, but suppressed it. You were poor. His proposal was a generous offer, for you and your kingdom. You were the one losing out by rejecting him. So why? Why was he the one chasing after you? He cursed under his breath as he caught sight of your back.

“You! Wait up!”

You heard him calling, but only sped up.

“I will call the guards if you don’t stop this instant! I-I command you to stop!”

You did. Then you turned on your heel, with a glare that would send armies fleeing, and stomped towards him much faster than he knew a princess could. He flinched as you were suddenly toe to toe with him, taller than he expected. You seemed smaller when he was sitting on his throne. You sneered at his reaction.

“Do you need your guards just to take care of one woman, little prince?”

He flushed, but you didn’t let him respond.

“You don’t even know my name. I’m not, ‘you.’ I don’t know why you want to marry me, but if you want me to agree, maybe learn that first.”

“You-” Haechan fumbled, unused to someone being blunt with him. He flared up, unable to think straight.

“You’re lucky to get an offer like this, you know.”

He saw the way your eyes widened in indignation, but kept digging his own grave as if he’d find treasure eventually.

“You won’t get an opportunity like this again. And, for your information, I only want to get married so I can finally be done with all,” he gestured towards the direction of the ballroom you’d both just left, “this.”

Despite your anger, his reason struck a chord within you. Not that that made your tone any less cutting.

“So I’m supposed to be grateful that you’re using me?”

“We’re royalty. We’re all getting used by someone, aren’t we?”

You bit the inside of your cheek, and he could tell you didn’t find the idea all so repulsive. He pressed forward.

“You’re tired of it all too, aren’t you? Or do you want to keep getting shoved at princes? We’d both get our parents off our backs. It’s a good deal.”

It was frustrating, but your desire to stop meeting spoiled princes was beginning to outweigh your immense dislike of this one. And as much as you hated it, he was right when he said you wouldn’t get an offer as good as this one ever again. Maybe that’s why he chose you, you supposed. He knew you couldn’t afford to say no. (Not that that had stopped you.) It just angered you that he saw you as someone so desperate, so needy, so pitiful.

“...Fine.” You stuck out your hand in impersonal assent. “But. I don’t want to marry you.”

“Yeah, me neither.”

“I’m not done, little prince.” He restrained his scowl and motioned for you to continue. “Let’s just get engaged. That’s enough reason to end all the marriage meetings, and then if it turns out I really just cannot stand you, we’ll call it off. Fine?”

“Fine.”

He shook your hand firmly.

Despite the way you both glared at each other, neither of you could deny how pleased you were with this arrangement.

While you sent word to your family, he went directly to his, who were thoroughly, almost obnoxiously happy that he’d found someone. He forced a grin and made up some lies about how he’d fallen for you at first sight. They weren’t exactly excited about your less than impressive background, but weren’t about to reject the only girl who’d managed to catch their discerning son’s eye.

Within a day, it was announced throughout all your fiancé’s kingdom that he’d found a woman to wed. You managed to laugh about how all the other princesses must be incredibly jealous of you at this moment, but couldn’t quite get over the fact that you were one foot into a lifelong commitment with the rudest man you’d ever had the displeasure of meeting. It was a troubling internal conflict. On one hand, he was the worst. On the other, the same could be said for just about every other prince you’d ever met. So really, it was an overall win that this one didn’t expect you to love or fawn over him.

At least, that’s what you repeated to yourself as you received the list of engagement events you were expected to attend alongside him.

“Do we really have to do this?” You groaned.

“Just shut up and smile, they’re about to see us.”

You reluctantly did as he said, forcing an exuberant grin onto an unwilling face. Your carriage turned into the courtyard, and crowds cheered wildly, as if they actually cared about your wellbeing in some way. You waved gently, relieved your upbringing was so ingrained within you that you could play your role without ceasing your fantasies of punching your fiancé in the face. As you reached your places of honor, Haechan offered a gallant hand to help you down, and you almost admired how well he played the part of a loving gentleman.

It was such a truly lovely banquet being thrown for you, it almost made you feel bad for lying. Haechan seemed to be thinking similarly, and, forgetting to be vindictive, leaned over to whisper jokingly in your ear.

“Poor fools actually think we’re in love.”

You laughed brightly without thinking. Both of you then remembered you hated each other, and stared at each other in shock before looking away sharply. You waved again, happy to be doing something that made sense to you. The hordes of celebrating nobles clapped and called out their congratulations again as soon as they saw you move, not wanting to get on the bad side of what they assumed was their future queen. That was a pretty nice feeling, and you accidentally smiled sincerely.

Haechan, still stunned by the sound of your real laugh, wasn’t prepared to see your real smile. His eyes widened. It was more beautiful than he expected, and didn’t threaten him with cavities the way every woman in his life’s did. If they were processed white sugar, you were honey with all the real sweetness in the world on your face. He hazily tried to remember when he last smiled genuinely. You turned to him with a gleam in your eye, and he took your hand before rationality could persuade him otherwise.

The smile dropped off your face, and your gaze flicked to your intertwined fingers, then to his expression, which seemed even more confused than yours somehow. He looked boyish and bashful, and you wondered if your haughty fiancé had a far more charming twin.

Lucky for Haechan, the crowd cheered yet louder at the sight of your supposed affection, and he tilted his head towards them as if to say, See, that's why. Normally, you wouldn't have believed it was part of his plan, but it was easier that way. You let him lift your entwined hands in some playfully bragging way, and rolled your eyes.

“Alright, so I get the bed.”

“That’s funny. No, I get the bed. It’s my kingdom!”

“You are not being very gentlemanly right now.”

“And you didn’t seem like the kind of girl who’d enforce those kinds of antiquities.”

You scowled, and Haechan looked smug, which only intensified your frustration.

“Fine. Then let’s decide fairly, little prince.” You loved to call him that, just to see him pretend it didn’t irk him. “If I beat you in chess, I get the bed. And vice versa.”

“...Fine, small princ- annoying- um- pret- dum-”

You couldn’t help but grin at his attempts. “Nice try, but I’m not immature enough to be annoyed by a silly nickname.”

Your fiancé grimaced and got out the chess board.

Hours later, you were still playing the first game of chess.

“Y/n… Can we… Can we…” Haechan yawned enormously, which of course prompted you to as well. “Can we maybe… call a truce for tonight? It’s a big bed. We have to be up early for a garden party.”

You wanted to rejoice in his surrender, but your eyes were teary with exhaustion. Instead of the easy win you expected, you’d been in the longest game of your life. It seemed like you two were well matched for one another.

As opponents, of course.

“Fine… But just- just for tonight. We’ll play again tomorrow.”

And with that, you both crawled into the truly extravagant bed, falling asleep before your heads hit the pillows.

Many nights passed, with an unfinished chess game at the end of each. It grew into something of a habit, a nightly chess game, always accompanied by bickering, of course. Neither of you ever managed to truly best the other, with every game ending the way the first did. As they continued, the bickering smoothed into mocking conversations, and sometimes you weren’t even mocking each other, but a common enemy. You would never admit it, but the pair of you started laughing together more often than you did at each other these days.

On some fateful Tuesday, for the first time ever, you saw a clear move to checkmate. The king was unguarded. For the first time, he was vulnerable. It was glaringly obvious, and you snuck a glance at your opponent’s face to see if it was a trap, but were taken aback when you found him already staring at you. He didn’t look triumphant or concerned, but he somehow looked… nervous. Or maybe expectant? And then you realized. He was far too good a player to make an error like this one. He was offering you a choice, from one royal with too much pride to admit they enjoyed the other’s company to another. It would be easy to end this game right now, and banish him to the floor.

You chose another move, and the game continued.

“So what’s on the agenda tomorrow?” You asked, with a tone more befitting of a business partner than a fiancé. The two of you had gotten pretty used to the whole routine of feigning adoration, and typically planned cute moments to perform in advance.

Haechan looked over at you and sighed in a way that might have been more amused than exasperated.

“Would it kill you to sit like a lady?”

You looked down at yourself, eating a biscuit you’d pocketed from today’s lavish banquet, with your legs criss-crossed as you lounged on the bed in your nightgown. The white fabric was hiked up above your knees to accommodate the posture, and catching all the crumbs that fell.

“Aren’t I?”

Haechan couldn’t mask his amiable laugh at that. You felt strangely proud when you made him truly laugh. It was one of the few times his shoulders really relaxed, and he looked like the cheerful boy he might’ve been without the pressure of royalty on his back.

“So… what’s on the agenda?”

Haechan didn’t answer right away. He was still looking your direction but seemed zoned out.

“Haechan?”

He flinched, always shocked when you used his real name instead of a mocking nickname.

“W-what? Oh, we’ve got a ball.”

“Ugh… Boring. You better not leave me alone with all the gossiping hags.”

“Yeah, sure. Uh, for real, could you sit properly?”

“Whaaat, I’m comfy.”

“Seriously.”

That irked you. You were just sitting, and while you hadn’t fully realized it, Haechan was someone you'd grown comfortable being yourself around. You didn’t need another person in your life telling you the way you behaved was wrong, and against your will, you had begun to expect more from him. You felt something too close to heartbreak as you wondered if he was just another person who disapproved of you.

“No, I don’t want to.”

“It’s not a big deal, why can’t you?”

“Because you’re right. It’s not a big deal, so why do you seem to care so much?”

“Can you just do it?!”

“No! Didn’t you get on me for- for ‘enforcing those antiquities’ or whatever? Now you’ve got a problem with the way I sit or how I dress-”

“It’s not- it’s not like that!”

“Then what?!” You flared up at him further, as did he, but he seemed less angry and more... agitated. You laughed mockingly. “Whaaaat are you shy seeing my legs or something-”

“YES! They’re- they’re. Um. Well…” He looked at the floor, and you could’ve sworn you heard him whisper, “pretty,” before he flicked his head back up and stammered the marginally less embarrassing, “distracting.”

Your anger instantly dissolved when he confessed that, and you flushed in a way you didn’t know you could. You stared at the ground, tugging your nightgown gently down. You’d always hated being treated like a lady, but you’d never been treated like a woman, and you found you didn’t hate it quite as much. This might’ve been the first time in either of your lives that the two of you were ever actually lost for words. Neither could formulate some witty remark or snide comment, and you just boiled in the unfamiliar atmosphere neither of you sought to create.

“Uh,” Haechan broke the silence masterfully. “I-I think I’m going to turn in early.”

“Yes. Goodnight.”

“Goodnight.”

You might have climbed in bed early- no chess game for the first time in ages- but you both woke up exhausted. Four feet apart, two fiancés had stayed up late replaying the night in their minds and subsequently panicking.

“G-good morning.”

“Good morning.”

The day whirled by, with most of it being spent simply getting dressed for the evening ball. You spent most of the day slapping your face and reminding yourself of how you used to act around him, and when you heard a knock at your door, you were ready.

He told himself he was, but he wasn’t.

Haechan took a deep breath and let his gaze trail up from your skirt to your face, and he stiffened. He’d grown used to his fiancé looking beautiful in the luxurious dresses she wore daily- even though it stunned him more than he’d admit the first time. This dress was no different, no more extravagant, no, but the pink tinge on your cheeks was a beauty he couldn’t have imagined.

“You look… decent.”

He celebrated internally for managing to say something an unflustered him might have said, although some tiny part of himself wished he could pay you a compliment normally.

Your sigh slid into a laugh, and you found your rhythm in your rapport again.

“And you look just adorable, little prince.”

He glared, but was relieved to hear the dig. He offered you the crook of his elbow, and you clapped your hands to your cheeks once more before taking it. He flinched at the sharp sound, and observed your cheeks grow red again from the impact.

“Youch.”

“It’s not that bad, honestly. I’ve been doing it all day to wake myself up.”

Haechan hummed a response. He couldn’t form words; all his brainpower was focused on figuring out why that statement had just disappointed him so. As he rounded the corner towards the ballroom, though, he shook it from his mind.

You entered the ballroom to the usual thunderous applause. Haechan led you down the immaculate gold staircase, and you clung to his arm, the perfect image of a lovestruck princess. No one noticed you holding on a little tighter than usual tonight. The band struck up a song, and you took the hands of possibly the only person you'd ever considered a friend. He led you to the center of the floor and began to waltz. It was always a satisfying feeling to watch the crowds make way for you. You looked everywhere but at your partner, and aimlessly wondered if you’d even been in this ballroom before. Just when you thought you’d seen every room in the massive castle, you’d be led to a wing you didn’t even know existed. The idle thoughts occupied you, which was probably for the best, since it meant you didn’t notice the way Haechan was looking at you.

The dance ended, and you went separate ways to entertain people who made you feel like your brains were melting. Seriously, one day your mind was just going to leak out your ears and spill onto the polished floors. It was amazing how you could spend hours talking to one person night after night, but half an evening with these sycophants made you contemplate faking your own death.

Finally, your reprieve came in the form of an attendant, whispering in your ear that the crown prince was requesting your presence.

“So sorry ladies, my future husband and I are just inseparable.”

They gave you condescendingly knowing looks, their eyes practically screaming, Just wait a few more years, child, you’ll tire of each other. You had to turn away quickly so they didn’t catch you sneering at them. Whatever. You wouldn’t be with him in a few years anyway, you would have gone your separate ways by then.

Right?

Something about that thought didn’t feel right. Not even sad, just… not right. You thought rapidly as you let your attendant guide you. What was your original agreement? If I realize I… Wait… If I end up still hating him, then the engagement’s off? Those were the terms. Which meant, if you didn’t hate him, then inevitably you’d end up mar-

“Y/n!”

You looked up sharply, not realizing you’d crossed the ballroom already. However, even when looking forward, you didn’t see the person who’d just called your name. Your eyes flitted about, searching for the familiar face. You took a few steps in no particular direction, massively confused, and then suddenly terrified when a hand reached out from behind a curtain and pulled you to join its owner. Not the type to lose composure and scream, you clenched your jaw so tight it almost broke until you saw your fiancé's face shrouded in the shadows of the velvet drapes.

“What took you so long?”

His question wasn’t at all rude, as it once might’ve been. It was one of genuine relief to see you, as if you were his solace amongst all the fools at the ball. You met his eyes for maybe the first time this evening, and they were bright and warm and looked at you the way no one ever did. Like you mattered. Like he wanted you there. Not the facade you put on for everyone, he wanted the real you.

Oh God, I don’t hate him at all.

“Earth to y/n?” He chuckled as you snapped to attention. “Finally, you’re here. Is this the worst ball yet or what?”

“Yes! It’s seriously unbearable.”

“I knew you’d agree. By the way, have you still been slapping your face? You shouldn’t in front of guests, they’ll think you’re crazy.” He teased you over your red flush without giving it a second thought. You hadn’t touched your cheeks in hours. The realization only made you blush even more. He leaned in close, and you stood stock-still with surprise.

“Do you want to vanish for a while?”

“What?” The absurdity of the idea finally overwhelmed all other distractions from your mind. “How can we leave, we’re the guests of honor?”

“Please, nobody cares. They’re all busy trying to climb the social ladder anyway. Besides, we’ve got this great hiding spot.”

You stifled a laugh. “Yeah, squeezing between a window and some drapes is what I call ideal.”

“Hey, it’s got, like, enough room for us!”

That was a bit of hyperbole on Haechan’s part. You both barely fit in the narrow space, and you thanked the stars you hadn’t worn a larger hoop skirt tonight. Suddenly you were back to evading making eye contact again. A hush fell over you as you thought about how incorrect his statement just was, and you both grew acutely aware of how you couldn’t position yourselves in any way that would allow you to put some distance between your bodies. You cursed yourself for not postponing your life-shattering revelation about the man before you until after this little endeavor. Haechan’s mind raced as he saw the red on your skin remain even in the dim light.

You could only avoid each other’s gazes for so long.

He locked eyes with you, and you envisioned pieces moving across a board, your king running out of ways to escape its fate. There was only one end, and you were starting to love the idea of surrendering. You whispered harshly in the sarcastic way that felt comfortable to you, still too prideful to admit your defeat.

“So are you going to kiss me, or am I going to kiss you?”

Haechan answered by pressing a palm to the back of your neck and pulling you towards him perhaps too eagerly. A second later, you’d both pulled away, frantically looking around to see if anyone was peering in on you both. You relaxed when you confirmed no one has discovered you.

“This isn’t... a good time, Haechan.”

“I could not agree more. Way too risky.”

Neither of you waited a moment more to lunge towards each other again. His lips found yours roughly, his breath already ragged with overworked patience. You grabbed his lapels, no less desperate for this moment, your lipstick smearing onto him. Your fists crushed his boutonniere, and his fingers wove into your hair and ruined the curls. There was no party beyond the curtain. You and him were alone, both desperate to memorize the taste of each other, and nothing else mattered but that. His lips parted, and yours followed suit. His tongue just brushed your lower lip, and you felt a thrill run down your spine. Your arms wrapped around his neck unconsciously, trying to get closer to him than was possible, but nothing could stop you from trying. You caught his lip between your teeth, your instincts running wild, and you wondered how either of you had endured up until this point. Now that you’d gotten a taste of each other, it seemed almost impossible not to get addicted. He gripped your hair, his other arm wrapping around your waist and not letting go. It slid down to grab your thigh and wrap it around him, your dress’s layers barely inhibiting him. Every inch of you was so aware of where it made contact with him, and you hungered for more. All facades were shed. You were both just heat and teeth and desire, without a shred of nobility between the two of you. You’d never experienced anything so perfect.

The two of you finally parted, your lips wet and the rest of you looking disastrous. He pressed his lips to your cheek, getting your own lipstick on your face, and you pulled his palm up to kiss it over and over again. Too breathless to continue and too worked up to just stop, you let the clock tick by as you left soft kisses all over each other.

“What are we going to do?” You whispered, half concerned but half amused. Between sentences, you still found places on his face yet unkissed, and remedied them. “We can’t go back out looking like this.”

“What are you talking about? I look great.” You were both too elated to remember you should be worried about your predicament, but he did seem genuinely proud of the pink smears adorning his face and neck, the teeth marks framing his lips, the fierce creases in his lapels. He brushed his fingers on your cheekbones, and looked even prouder of the mess he’d made of you. It felt like a dream to be touching you like this. Even more unreal to know that he was the cause of your disheveled hair and your chapped lips. He may or may not have imagined a moment like this before, late at night when he couldn’t stop his mind from wandering, but it was buried in the back of his mind and nowhere near as euphoric as this reality.

“No, but seriously, we can’t go out like this.”

“No yeah, for sure, you’re absolutely right.”

You managed to escape thanks to the tight-lipped attendant who’d led you to a curtain concealing a prince in the first place, but found yourselves rather tight-lipped too. Once you’d both washed off the lipstick and the teeth marks faded, you didn’t know how to face each other. You just crawled into bed and discreetly squirmed as you thought about all that had happened. What was more embarrassing, that you realized you might, maybe, possibly, have feelings for each other, or that the other person might know about them? It was already late when you turned out the lights, but you both stayed up longer, plagued by worries.

They must be so smug since I was all over them, I’m such an idiot.

God, I can’t believe how intense that was. What if they hated it? What if I was bad at it?

Did they only kiss me ‘cause of how much I was kissing them?

Are we like… friends? They probably don’t hate me, so…

That was really unbelievable.

I think I might really… feel something for them.

I hope they feel the way I do.

The hurricanes of concerns led to a restless night, and a mortifyingly awkward day afterward. You couldn’t even look at each other, let alone speak. Even the servants seemed to notice the tension, and you could hear them giggling when they’d disappear into the corridors. You tried to tell yourself that that was great, that it really sold your act as a couple of lovebirds, but that just embarrassed you all the more. Your fiancé was just as tormented, the blush that was sparking gossip reaching all the way to the tips of his ears.

Eventually, someone had to break the silence. If not with words, then with the slamming of a chess board down on the usual table. And that’s exactly what you did, not that who slept in the bed was something that still concerned either of you. No, now it was just routine, something you enjoyed and shared with each other, and something you were going to use to discuss your current feelings.

“C-come play, little prince.”

Even the nickname didn’t manage to get him to flare up. He walked over, still with the air of importance that was second nature to him, but his pounding heart almost echoed against his ribs. You set up your black pieces and he took the white. He moved a pawn towards you.

“So…”

“Yeah.” You slid a piece across the board. He nodded, his cheeks burning. You both knew what you had to say and what the other person was going to say, but that only made it all the more difficult to verbalize.

“I guess I don’t hate you. As much as I used to.” You said hurriedly, your voice forcibly steadied.

“Oh, what an honor.” Haechan’s snarky response was accompanied by a trembling hand moving a rook. He yelled at himself internally, and attempted to be as honest as he could. “I… suppose you’re not unbearable.” The biting words didn’t sting, nor did they flow the way they once did. It saddened both players, even though it had only been a day since you both had been without the banter of your best friend. Slowly, you started to regret the night before, the ecstatic memories being clouded with the fear that you might lose the most important person to you because of it.

“I-”

“Oh, sorry, you start-”

“No, you-”

“No-”

“Okay, fine!” You huffed, accepting the initiative. You pushed your rook straight forward. “I… have always hated the idea of getting married. Everything about it- the formalities, the responsibilities, the princes, ugh. Awful.”

“Gee, thanks.”

“I’m not done, okay!” Pieces shuffled around the board as you tried to organize your thoughts. “If I… had to marry someone…” Your sentence trailed off, and Haechan leaned forward, ears itching to hear the conclusion. You stared at the board, and he steeled himself. It would’ve been a blow to his persistent pride if he just waited for you to say everything.

“I’m…” What did he need to say first? His mind blanked, and he just let the words fall from his lips. “I’m sorry.”

Your eyes widened, but remained fixed on the game. “For what?”

“For not listening to you. The first day we met. I didn’t… treat you the way I should’ve. I’m sorry for that. But I’m… also glad it happened. If I’d acted differently then maybe you wouldn’t be in front of me. That would be, uh, not ideal. But I’m sorry.”

“Um. Thanks. I’m glad it happened too. Otherwise we might still be pretending to be well-mannered in front of each other.” Haechan snickered, and you did too. You could feel your shoulders relaxing, and he could feel himself growing bolder. He moved his queen across the board, closing in on his target.

“Man, where would I be without my unladylike, insufferable fiancé?”

“Probably whining like a child to some other pitiful creature who deserves better.”

The clouds in your minds began to clear as you exchanged snarky remarks. It felt right- pretty words didn’t like to be forced from your lips. He smiled. You looked up, your line of sight lingering on the lips you knew well before finding his eyes. You left your king unguarded, ready for it to be captured.

“I guess I wouldn’t mind marrying you, little prince.”

“Do it then.”

You swept the unfinished game off the board, feeling like you’d won, and he met you in the middle. He kissed you, barely more composed than the night before, but you had no problem with that. The two of you smiled against each other’s lips, incredulous that somehow you had found someone to love, something you used to believe was impossible. Little bursts of laughter interrupted the kiss as giddiness took over.

“Didn’t I say something like I’d burn down this castle before I wed you?”

“Just let the wedding planner know,” Haechan sighed with joy as he gave in to the temptation of your lips again.

570 notes · View notes

pathofcomet · 4 years ago

Text

and it’s just around the corner

fandom: stardew valley

pairing: sebastian/player (female)

summary: She’s a fool – she tries to tell herself. There’s nothing she can offer Sebastian that would make him stay in this village he so obviously loathes. She’s just dumb enough to have fallen for the man she cannot even bring herself to ask to love her back.

rating: explicit // word count: 25k // AO3

She cannot remember the farm per say, just the proof that she’s been there once: a dusty, yellowed photo of herself, smiling in a pink sundress under the shade of a gigantic oak, 4 years old and beaming. She can vaguely bring back the savour of cranberry jam on her tongue, the authentic, slightly sour taste that only meant home-made. She thinks they had a gray cat, and she can feel the smell of gasoline in her nose, from the long car ride there as a child. That’s all she remembers about her grandparents’ old farm; and anything of that lifestyle is completely lost upon her, or her memories of her grandpa. They haven’t been crazily close either: she was busy pursuing her education too far away to allow proper visits, and the phone signal failed the old man too much to allow even constant communication. When he died, they buried him in the city, next to his wife, and everything about the way he lived his life became hazy and forgotten in the lives of the living.

Which is probably why it is so hard to comprehend what she’s reading now, in her cubicle at work, defeated under her 16th time this month of overwork. Her grandpa was known for being eccentric, which is why she expected to see a card with hey, we all die in the end! or something written on it, and not the dreams of her childhood offered on a plate to her. She stares at the paper, reads and rereads it for 7 times before she’s convinced it’s actually real.

She’s touched at the care in his words, at the oozing affection on that piece of paper. It’s something that she didn’t know she was missing until now. A care sent across generations, to reach her – and when she feels like she needs it most. She doesn’t know if she should scream or cry or laugh.

She looks around: there are only a couple of other workers left in the office at the moment, in the late hours of the night. There’s delivery food all across the others’ empty desks, and a few of the girls switched their shoes, from heels to sneakers. And yet, as she stops, the clanking on the keyboard never ends around her, and the neon light remain buzzing above her, the static noise of her real life nightmare. The sigh coming from a co-worker several seats away is deafening in her ears. As she’s writing her resignation letter, for her boss to find on his desk at the first hour in the morning, she can’t help but notice how her vision shakes, how she can’t quite straighten her back under the pain of hours and hours of being hunched at a desk.

It’s not even the irony of it all, dying in a storm of unfair overworking while those above her wallow in money, that upsets her more. But rather, the way in which she cannot have any satisfaction out of it anymore. As a graduate, she thought she’d find happiness in a corporate job that pays well, but now the comfort of money means nothing when she doesn’t have the time to even spend it, and she can’t even recall what her hobbies are, let alone when’s the last time she did anything else but work, do house chores and sleep.

She cannot recall the last time she met up with some friends, visited new places or ordered online something else but a new pair of heels or a new shirt for work. Gods, now that she hit the brake on her wreck of a life, she can’t stop noticing how pathetic she’s been.

Her hands tremble as she signs the paper, as she tosses her meagre office belongings into her bag, as she pushes the elevator button. She’s already overthinking the decision, but it’s already made and she can only worry about what’s to be done next now. She’s 100% sure she’s not made for this, she has zero knowledge of how to take care of a farm and she still screams when she sees a spider in her apartment. But she’s tired, there’s a tiredness that never seems to let loose, and no matter how much she sleeps on Sundays, she wakes up feeling like she has her hands and feet tied. Even if to only rest for a while, and the whole ordeal would still have been worth it.

Sleep doesn’t come easily to her that night. She reads the letter over and over again, she measures the weight of the keys in her palms, she tries to put puzzle pieces together, from old photos she brings up from hidden boxes. Nothing tells her she made the right decision, though in her old photos, everyone looks so happy while on the farm. Maybe she didn’t even truly get to the end of her patience, just a bad day, maybe she still could have taken it for a while. After all, it’s not like she had that bad of a life. But then, it’s not like it was that good either. And once she started thinking of it, the idea of change became hauntingly tempting. The potential in this new place is infinite, and so, so terrifying.

But a change nonetheless.

She spends the next couple of weeks in a frenzy: selling most of her belongings, keeping only the strictly necessary. She keeps the pictures, of course. A few books, only those that she read during university and she felt like they changed her life, though she hasn’t revisited those stories since. Maybe she’ll finally have the time to, now. She sells or donates all her office clothes, expensive shirts and bags – all gone, because they remind her of some kind of work she never wants to do again in her life.

When she stops to count what’s left, looking at her near-empty apartment, two suitcases and a backpack put aside, she’s overwhelmed at how pointlessly she lived her life up until this point. She has nothing to show for all the efforts she’s made, and she can feel the skin all over her body itch with the realisation, itch for something else to do.

She doesn’t look back, as she’s returning the keys of her rented apartment. She has been paying expensively for the chance to live on her own in the big city, and there’s nothing but bitterness towards that idea anyway. She waits in the bus station with music playing at the highest volume, drowning out an incoming panic attack – as she’s struggling to count up to 10, reassure herself that she’s a grown fucking adult and that she can do something as easy as just moving someplace new.

Still, the scenarios roll in her mind, unperturbed, and she almost throws up thrice before she reaches her destination – and then she almost throws up again, as she’s watching the bus pull away, leaving her alone in the middle of nowhere. The sun is bright, but too bright and her clothes are sticking to her skin, even if it’s barely early spring, and the air is fresh. A fairy-tale start to her new adventure, and yet she feels like crying right then and there, a fain headache booming at her temples from all the anxiety she had to push away.

She’s already exhausted and it’s barely noon. She starts pulling at her suitcases, though the road makes it a tricky and tiring job. Then, just as she’s ready to take her first break, a hand grabs the handle, and she stares up in the face of a kindly looking old man.

Mayor Lewis; she still remembers the face, as he is the kind of person who probably always looked the same. They’ve last seen each other at her grandfather’s funeral, so there’s a bit of awkwardness hanging between the two of them, as she’s allowing him to help her with her luggage.

A redheaded woman is waiting for them in her truck, a bit of a distance away, and she helps them with her stuff. It’s easy to make conversation when friendly people are pushing it forward, and they seem way too enthusiastic about her presence. They don’t even comment about her sneakers, totally unfit for most of the roads in the town, or her outfit, that would rip or get dirty the second she’d encounter a field.

She already has a room prepared at Lewis’ place, there’s no way her old house can offer her proper living conditions just yet. That’s not a jab directed at her, rather at the passing of time and the overgrown state of her courtyard. But there’s nothing mean behind their comments, and they’re even offering all the help they can.

She’s trying to come up with a list of things that she might need, but Robin is already writing one of her own.

“She’s our architect,” Lewis whispers, winking at her in secrecy.

It’s weird and scary and she doesn’t know how to feel about it. Back in the city, she could have crumbled on the sidewalk and nobody would have cared. Here, it seems everyone jumps at the chance to do just that, help and care, and she’s terrified out of her skin. Her thanks are muffled by the weird knot in her throat. When balancing things out in her head, there’s nothing she can give them in equal measures.

The key in her hand feels foreign, but yet it’s that thing that grounds her to the moment, doesn’t let her slip away in that part of her brain that makes her forget things even happened. The house is, of course, a disaster, though someone had the good thinking of covering the furniture. The place is small, and it needs a good dusting, maybe even a new coat of paint. Robin, by her side, is still doing her job.

“Is there anything you want in particular?”

“No, not really. I don’t think so?”

She’s lost and overwhelmed. She’d like to just sit somewhere and start unpacking, maybe go and switch all of her things again actually, because there’s no way she can fit in with these people. But Lewis’ arm is around her shoulder, urging her back the way they came, promising her his special vegetable mix and green tea.

Once finally out of his sight, and comfortably settled in his extra bedroom, she squeezes a pillow close to her chest, hiding her face in it, and starts crying. She sobs – for the grandparents she didn’t properly appreciate while alive, that still left her with so much. For the chance that not many have to switch things around. For the state in which the farm is, and the immense effort she’ll have to put in building it back together. For the pain in her arms, the burn so unfamiliar that it must be only the sign of something new. She’s overwhelmed and scared, and hours pass before she finally falls asleep,

The next morning, she refuses even the breakfast, and immediately heads towards her place, luggage in tow. Mayor Lewis promised he’ll solve the problem of electricity and water running back to the place, so at least she can forget the administrative part.

She greets everyone she passes by, because otherwise the staring just gets too unbearable, and though they’re curious, they also remain polite too. But her courtyard and house are truly disastrous. She’s glad it’s still so early in the year, so the weeds didn’t grow yet on the path towards her door, so at least she can focus on dusting off the room, polishing the floor. She unpacks with nostalgic music blasting from her phone: plates in one drawer, her clothes in the other two. She builds herself a nightstand out of all the books she brought with her, and she washes the curtains by hand, letting them dry out in the sun.

She goes to the town for bedsheets and even more cleaning products, buys a basil plant for the windowsill. The place is small, smaller even than her city apartment, and she has nothing of her own to properly decorate it with, give it a specific charm, so she allows herself to get lost between the small isles of the store, and pick whatever piques her fancy. But this is fine, she thinks. This is, after all, the true definition of a new start.

She watches the sun set from her porch – she thinks she’d like an armchair for the place, it’d make a lovely reading pace if it’s not rainy, and there’s a soft lull from the TV inside, where the weather prognosis for the next day rattles on.

She finds grandpa’s old gardening books, and she starts reading them. She cleans up a small portion of the land, plants some seeds she picked based on Pierre’s recommendations. Gathers wood from the end of the forest that runs almost up to her house, practices splitting it in smaller branches, that she can carry and gather in the small tool shed, for the winter.

During the first night that it rains, she opens her door to a stray, lost dog. She hugs him close to her all through the night, as he whimpers and warms up – and in the morning she names him Max, and buys him dog food and a colourful bowl. She stops feeling so alone, so lost, a purpose forming, even though she can’t quite name it.

When too many days pass with her cooped only at her place, letters and requests for visits start pouring in her mailbox. Sometimes mayor Lewis comes pick her himself, walking around the town with her, stopping to present her to any villager they encounter. She feels like a circus freak being paraded around like this, but she smiles, wonders if Max is getting bored at home or if she could walk through the forest in search of some fruits.

***

Then, when the weather prognosis tells of many sunny days in a row, Robin shows up at her doorsteps, can of paint in one hand, brushes in the other – and her son behind her, to help her out.

She watches him, fiddling on the spot, looking like he certainly doesn’t want to be here and she smiles. Well, that’s at least a feeling that she can relate to, even when in her bed after a tiring day, she still sometimes yearns for everything that this place is not. Max helps. In this case as well, as he runs to the door and immediately jumps on him.

“Max, no!” she chides, though he settles calmly on panting up at the man for pats. Luckily, he hasn’t slammed him to the ground, as he tends to do with her, but that’s still no proper way of greeting strangers. “I’m so sorry…”

“Sebastian,” he says. “There’s no problem, really.” He’s scratching the dog between his ears, absentmindedly looking in through the door, at the small place she now calls home. There’s nothing much in there, but she finds herself growing protective over it anyway, at his gaze.

Max, the traitor, is now cuddled down at his feet. From the side, Robin laughs.

Her and Sebastian move the furniture, as Robin tapes newspaper on the wooden floor. She prepares fresh lemonade for her visitors and helpers before they start painting, and she takes a short break just to water her crops. They do the work in silence, mostly, just her phone turned on to fill up the space – and without mayor Lewis’ fast mouth, she isn’t certain what she could possibly talk about. From time to time, Robin asks Sebastian something – regarding his sister, or some things she asked him about before, which sounds a lot like nagging so she prefers to stay out of it.

She thanks them many, many times before they leave for the day. Especially since it was the weekend, and she’s sure they just threw away a perfectly free day on helping her put together her house. She just feels more and more indebted towards all these people. Even if Sebastian didn’t look her way even once.

***

She starts going to the local library, borrowing books and learning more and more things about the farm. She accepts the quests from the bulletin board, and in exchange she asks for fishing tips or some town history. She starts taking evening walks, with Max, picking up acorns. She gets stronger and better at all the farm work. She places various orders, starting to gather syrup from the trees near her house – and one lazy day, she makes jam, that she then sells.

She starts counting the money, making plans for the farm. She buys two chickens, and the one day when no one in the town sees her, it is because she struggled all the time to build a fence so that they won’t step all over crops and no fox would reach them during the night.

***

Everyone is friendly, showing up at her door with gifts for her new move: a handmade mug from Leah, a beautiful seashell from Elliot, an actual functional first aid kit from Harvey. She suspects the mayor’s doing behind all these kindness acts, and yet it’s with a reverent kind of gestures that she finds a place for all of them in her small house. She starts adding some kind of adjectives to this cast of characters that enter her life.

But with Sebastian, something’s different. She doesn’t know what makes her notice him again; that something that made him stand out from the mass of people she met in the past few weeks. Maybe it’s not even just one single thing, but a mix: like how he is the son of the kindest lady, paler than the farmers or football players, how he doesn’t want to stand out at all, how she has to go out of her way to find him, instead of the other way around.

Most of all, it’s the desperation she can feel off of him. There’s a force in him that cannot make peace with how things are for him at the moment – and it’s the familiarity of it that pulls her in, lets her gaze linger on him for a bit longer, makes her ask about him while smiling in the most innocent way, sipping tea in Robin’s office.

***

They’re not that different; she’s easy to fit in the village life, mostly because she’s so pliable for others, knowing the memory of her grandpa is attached to her as well. She sometimes feels like the older residents of the town look through her, instead of directly at her, and see the ghost of someone else they used to know. And the days pass, things fall together, and yet in her chest, there’s a clock ticking away, counting down the time spent here, because if she was looking for something like belonging, it seems this town buried it away with her grandpa, and things don’t seem that different from how they used to be. She just has dirtier nails now, and some decaying make-up skills.

So she never visits without a purpose, doesn’t get too friendly with most of them. She spends days in a row on her farm, ploughing the land, watering the plants, feeding the animals. Task upon task, she goes through all of them, grateful for how it’s silencing her mind, giving her the time and space to breathe. If she finishes early, she likes to go fishing, the breeze nice against her sun-warmed face, especially as the dusk approaches.

It’s the simplicity of life that lulls her into wanting something more, eventually, tentatively. She visits Robin, as she’s closing the store, so they can share some fresh-picked fruits while watching the sun set. She meets up with the mayor for chess during Sundays, stories of two best friends half a century ago embedded in every sigh, and she wins every time and that’s how she knows he just lets her. When she passes by to drop something for the museum, she spends the remaining afternoon in the library, browsing the collection, reading for the children fresh out of classes that ask her to do so.

But if anyone in Pelican Town would be asked, they wouldn’t be able to tell people that much about their newest villager. In truth, even for those closest to her, there’s an aura of mystery: whatever her life was before, she doesn’t go into details. Whatever and for however long she might remain in their lives, she doesn’t say.

To Sebastian, that’s what makes it easy. He doesn’t expect her to tell him anything, since she’s not pressing her curiosities either. Probably why she opens so willingly, why she creates a routine around his. She always stops at the edge of the river, where she knows she’ll find him in the evenings. They never talk for long, or of important things – but she thinks, the magic is in staring together at the same scenery, feeling much of the same things. After the third time, she asks for a cigarette from him, and she winks at him when he looks just a tiny bit surprised.

This is how it begins. The rest she almost doesn’t even notice.

***

She remembers the Egg festival; she’s sure she took part in one of the hunts back when she was little, though the details are foggy in her mind. She doesn’t remember any of the villagers, but she’s been a very shy child, and not even the promise of bunny chocolates was enough to persuade her back then.

Still, she worked for so long in a corporation, at this point the spirit of competition is embedded into her. She wakes up early, and she wears one of her dresses from before, even if she has to match it with grandpa’s old jeans jacket. She even puts on make-up, manages to water her plants as well before she’s walking towards the town.

She officially meets Maru and Demetrius, as they’ve been so busy during her past visits. Marnie clasps her in-between her arms, exclaims how pretty she is when not trying to imitate her house’s looks, and loudly kisses both her cheeks. Gus waves at her, and keeps presenting various plates to her, and by the time she can excuse herself, she’s glad she hasn’t eaten any breakfast. Jas and Vincent come at her yelling tag! and she spends the next half an hour running around, followed by the sometimes annoyed, sometimes happy smiles of the other villagers.

She buys strawberry seeds, more on a whim, because she was craving for some, and gets herself a cute bunny plush, since she’d had trouble sleeping, and she’s sure Max would appreciate her hugging a non-living thing more. She feels like she fits more, now, that she’s surrounded by everyone else, and she realizes that she knows them all, that they know her back – and there’s no outright hostility.

She greets Sebastian, and meets his friends. She compliments Abigail’s hair, Sam compliments her instead. He’s friendly and outgoing, compared to the other two in his group, but she notices Sebastian’s fleeting smile at the toy in her arms, so she straightens her back even more.

As soon as mayor Lewis starts his announcement, Abigail immediately seems more excited, especially since she is presented as the winner for the past decade. However, by the time the day ends, Pelican Town has a new Egg Hunt winner.

The straw hat doesn’t fit her outfit, and it’s not quite yet a necessary accessory, but she’s beaming at every villager that comes to congratulate her, even if she’s already so old and she shouldn’t be so happy about beating a few 10 year olds. Even Abigail is a good sports and promises she will beat her next year.

Next year – she wonders if she’ll even be around for that long. Her saved-up money is slowly trickling down, as she keeps buying things that she needs, and she has no idea yet how much profit she’ll be able to make at harvest time. She feels better knowing her doubts don’t show to others.

She walks part of her way home with Robin and her family. Maru is happily telling her something about her research, though it goes over her head and she doesn’t understand much of what’s going on. Demetrius and Robin walk several steps ahead, arms linked, and it’s a sweet sight to see, that they can be so close even after so many years.

Then, before she takes her turn to her farm, after everyone else said their goodbyes, Sebastian looks up at her.

“It suits you,” he says, so low she almost misses it, nodding his head at her hat. She blushes under the street lamp, but he’s already turned his back on her and he can’t see, so she can go on her own way and pretend it never happened.

***

She starts going to the mines, even if everyone tells her she better not. But she needs better tools, more resources and something to do on rainy days, so she goes anyway. She comes out late into the night, dirtier than she’s ever been, spider cobwebs stuck in her hair, but her backpack heavy.

The next morning, she struggles packing some presents for Robin and Lewis, for all the help they’ve showered her in ever since she moved. She doesn’t have much to offer, some syrup and a jar of jam, a few eggs. But as she’s going into town, there are three presents that she’s carefully carrying around in her bag.

She stops by Lewis first, sits on his stairs with a steaming mug of coffee between her hands, as he waters his small garden – and they chat about the weather, the fishing days that Lewis has programmed, their favourite Stardrop meal. The days get warmer and warmer, as they’re slowly rolling towards summer, and she’s feeling peaceful, listening to the mayor’s chatter, his grunts as he digs around, his yelling when she offers to help him around.

She drops by Clint to let him examine some of the stuff she found underground, and by the time she reaches Robin’s place, the older woman is taking her lunch break. She’s exclaiming happily at the gift, and invites her to stay for lunch. She helps her with the plates, and while Robin goes to gather the rest of her family, she sends her to get Sebastian.

She has to breathe deep, count to 10, before she has the courage to knock at his door. There’s the sound of something tumbling to the floor, and she winces; more shuffling, and the door finally opens to reveal a somewhat sleepy looking Sebastian. It looks like he hasn’t brushed his hair yet, as it sticks out in odd directions, and in his own space, he’s wearing some old, washed-out t-shirt that is several sizes too large, and sweats. She stares at him, entirely endeared, but also deeply aware that there’s a line she has just crossed by seeing him like this – and she’s not sure she was allowed to.

“Hi,” she says, at the same time he says “Shit”, closing the door on her. She opens and closes her mouth several times, trying to come up with a proper way to reach to this, but her mind coming up blank.

Eventually, she lamely says “Robin said lunch’s ready,” before she leaves for the kitchen again. Demetrius is already seated at the table, looking up at his wife like she hung up the sun on the sky. Maru refuses to show up, as she’s too invested in her research, but there’s the slam of a door from downstairs, and Sebastian eventually shows up, just as his step-father takes his first bite from his plate of spaghetti. Their guest has not yet picked up her fork.

Sebastian is now wearing actual jeans, and his hair looks a bit more tamed. He sits next to her, and the four of them eat in relative silence, though she’s obsessively thinking of her knee, against Sebastian’s, under the table and she wants to fucking swear at herself, for acting like a fucking cowardly high-schooler.

“So, why did you move to Pelican Town?” Demetrius asks her, in the end. She notices him wincing immediately after the dull thud from under the table, and she imagines that was Robin kicking him from asking a question that no one had dared poise to her until now.

She finishes chewing the food in her mouth, swallowing a bit more painful.

“I needed a change,” she says eventually, entirely too vague.

“From? You should tell Sebastian about your city experience, because he’s obsessed with leaving the town.”

There’s a disapproving tone in his voice that makes her wince, but her head snaps up at Sebastian, who looks both entirely annoyed and disappointed. She’d like to press her finger to the frown now so obvious on his forehead.

“Really?” she mumbles lamely instead. Sebastian’s now looking at her, and although across the table his parents are bickering with each other in low whispers, he doesn’t break the eye contact. He just nods at her question, grabs another bite of food – the words won’t make it any better.

She always thought that the people in this town are happy to live here, heck even she’s trying to understand the charm of the place and why her grandpa never left it. She always thought that if there is someone to leave it, that’d be her, in an example of another of her life’s failures. But here’s Sebastian, burning with a yearning for a city just as hers to leave it was.

He takes her back home, assuring her that his lunch break is long enough to allow him to do that. They’re walking side by side in companionable silence. Sebastian, unlike his father, doesn’t ask her anything, so when they reach her property, she hands him her last package.

“Can I?” he asks, a hand already tugging at the ribbon, and she smiles at him. Inside, there’s an assortment of minerals: quartz, obsidians. She’s found them during her time in the mines, and the only thing she somewhat remembers from her dialogue with Maru is that her brother loves this stuff.

“What’s this for?” he says, voice a little chocked, laughing at the end, embarrassed and overwhelmed.

“Thanks for that day,” she says. Then, more unsure… “And good luck for the future?”

“Yeah. Thanks.”

She’s already turned around on her feet, a hand up in the air in goodbye.

The next morning, even if Sebastian never eats breakfast, he makes toast and eats it with strawberry jam, from a jar cutely decorated in stickers, where in cursive, their newest villager wrote for Robin and family <3.

***

She goes to JojaMart to buy an electric kettle; she can’t quite yet afford to get her kitchen built in, so she’s been eating at the Stardrop Saloon or lived on oatmeal and salads. But the mornings are dreadful with instant coffee and cold tap water, so she’s finally investing in something to make her life a bit better. This lifestyle reminds her of being a student in the dorms, and it’s not something she thought she’ll ever return to.

Sam looks around for his managers, and when there’s none around, he stops next to her and they chat by the vegetable stall. She’s frowning at the price, way higher than what they can find in the town and what she sells her own products for.

“Capitalism,” Sam says brightly, tugging at his employee lanyard, and she laughs at him.

“Oh, trust me, I know all about that.”

He wiggles his eyebrows at her, which makes her snort. Shane, his co-worker, turns to stare at them, but he’s not telling them on, so she moves one step closer to him.

“I’ve worked in customer care for Joja Corporation.”

Sam mimics throwing up, turning serious again only when she’s elbowing his side. She’s painfully aware of all the cameras in the store, after all this time away from anything of the sorts.

“But for real, you’re way better in Pelican Town,” he says, even if she’s not yet quite convinced.

But he doesn’t continue pressing the matter. Instead, Sam invites her the next Friday for an evening at the Saloon, where him, Sebastian and Abigail are supposed to play live a few of their songs. She clasps her hands together, and agrees immediately. She used to love this kind of thing: but it’s been so long since she allowed herself to take an evening off, both in her life back in the city, and the life here.

***

She’s already a regular, so Emily nowadays greets her with a hug. Though this time she whistles suggestively at her outfit. Since it’s supposed to be a more special night, she chose a low cut blouse to go with skinny jeans, and she’s no more a formless body buried under work clothes. The only make-up is a very dark lipstick. Her… friends, she supposes, are already on the side, tuning their instruments. Sam grins at her, waving her at the table Gus saved up for them, where he ordered pizza for everyone.

They’re not playing for a long time, maybe half an hour, but by the end, everyone is loudly clapping at their performance. She’s the only one whooping, and Sam is loudly laughing at her embarrassed grin afterwards, runs to fall into her waiting arms and twirls her around in the air, feet not touching the floor.

“Who knew our biggest fan would be you?” he says, helping her pat her hair pack into place.

“I did. I mean, your band has Abigail.”

The girl in questions frowns a bit at her, suspicious that it’s less of a compliment than she tried to make it, turns on her feet as she moves to the music box, tosses a coin in and picks a song. It takes a few seconds for her choice to start loudly booming in the saloon, but as soon as she does, she moves to grab at Sebastian’s arm, dragging him to the dancefloor, though he looks like he’s a lamb taken to sacrifice.

Sam laughs at the two of them, then turns back to his new friend.

“Do you think these two will ever hook up?”

She chokes on the slice of pizza that she’s eating, punching at her chest so she can breathe again. Someone slides in the chair next to her to the table, a hand slapping her hard on the back until she can breathe properly again. Then, frowning, she turns towards the newcomer, because she can’t bear looking at Sebastian and Abigail, together, dancing. She doesn’t think she can look at them without imagining them doing exactly what Sam asked her about, and it’s a shaming thought that she burns down. Shane, the one sitting next to her now, has already picked a slice of his own from their order, and nodded in greetings at Sam.

Sam leaves to talk with Penny, spending enough time as it is in Shane’s company, so Shane moves even closer to her, so he can be heard over the loud music. He’s a bit of an asshole, as he’s looking nowhere else but at her cleavage and the skin she’s showing with her choice of clothes. He’s not even trying to hide it, licking his lips, speaking without even trying to lift his eyes.

“Didn’t know the sunshine and the emo buy are hiding such a beauty between themselves,” he says, snaking an arm around her waist, shoving the second pint of beer he arrived with in her direction. He already smells like the stuff though, which means he’s at least tipsy, if not outright drunk yet. There’s offense in the way he said those nicknames, horrible on their own as well, but she’s sitting between the wall and his body and he’s a man showing interest in her, clearly going out of his way to make it obvious.

She takes several big gulps from her beer, and then turns towards him, smiling. He can’t tell it is strained.

“Well, I’m here now,” she says, and the hand around her squeezes in response. She lets him talk, mostly shit about the town, then shit about himself, and she keeps drinking and drinking, glass after glass of alcohol, because then at least she doesn’t have to reply. In the dark, they must look pretty cosy to the others, because no one else returns to the table – and by the time she remembers she is supposed to have friends around, and looks around for them, her vision is unfocused and she can’t make out the shapes and figures all around.

But she can notice the slightly grown stubble on Shane, how he’s now so, so close to her, his lips brushing against her ear each time he tells her something. She feels like she’s about to suffocate. But he tells her about how beautiful she is, how hard he makes her – and he guides her hand to his pants, where she indeed can feel her effect, and it’s a surge of pleasure and power. She squeezes him through his pants, and he groans in her ear. Her nipples perk up. And then his lips move closer, to her neck, where his tongue is lapping at her skin, sucking against the space. She feels hot all over, in a way that she doesn’t know if she likes or not. His other hand is now fondling with her breasts through her blouse, and she gasps – which only makes him to go at it harder. His mouth finds her, his tongue moving against hers immediately. She’s lost in time, doesn’t know for how long he does it – her body becoming lighter and lighter with each swipe of his saliva against her lips.

Then, a cough from behind Shane. She snaps out of her daze, looks up. Makes eye contact with Sebastian, which feels as effective as a cold shower to her fogged mind. She yanks Shane’s hands off her, but he’s unbothered, turns to look at Sebastian with something like disgust and boredom.

“Can we help you?” Shane says. She hates how the word we sounds from his mouth.

Sebastian doesn’t bother to even look at the drunk guy, instead addressing her only.

“Do you want to go home? The others left already, but it’s getting pretty late…” He stops to stare at Shane, and she wordlessly nods at him. He starts moving instantly, shoving Shane away so he can grab her wrist and help her out of her chair. She needs a few seconds to stabilize herself on her feet, stop the dizzying headache that hit her at the sudden movement.

“Come on, man, what do you think you’re doing?” Shane asks, though he also has troubles standing on his own feet. He makes do with leaning against the table, doing his best to look as menacing as possible.

In his arms, she shudders at the sound of his voice, clutches her fingers around Sebastian’s leather jacket. He doesn’t move away, but he doesn’t want to touch her either, so he just stands still.

“She’s coming with me,” is all he says, and when he starts towards the door, she follows silently. He offers her jacket, which he picked up earlier, before checking on her, and she hangs her head even lower in shame. The cold, outside air is quickly sobering her up, and she really can’t believe she lost herself, just as if she were a college freshman. She burns with embarrassment.

Once out, Sebastian moves a bit away from her, offering her space, though he always extends an arm in her direction when she stumbles on both existent and imaginary obstacles. The silence now is excruciating.

“Say something,” she croaks, her throat hurting from all the alcohol.

“Are you okay?”

His voice is soft, and he stops, looks at her for the first time since the start of all this situation. She knows she probably looks like a mess, lipstick smeared all around her mouth, clothes hanging awkwardly, but his eyes just search hers. She suddenly feels like crying. He must see it too, because he’s moving closer to her.

“Can I-” he tries, sighs, moves a hand through his hair in frustration. “Can I touch you?”

She nods, but he doesn’t move.

“I’ll need verbal confirmation.”

“Yes.”

She’s outright staring at him now, as he makes his way to her, cups her face in between his hands. His fingers are cold against her flushed skin, but it grounds her to the moment. Sebastian’s eyes are moving now, across her face: stop at her jaw, her neck, where Shane sucked painful love bites against her skin, visible even only in the light coming from the street lamps. He hesitates before moving his gaze downwards, where similar marks were left by his fingers against her tits. She feels like used goods, even if there is no judgement from Sebastian.

“Did you want that?” he asks again, sounding deadly serious, so she’s trying to think equally as seriously about his question. It’s hard, her thoughts all jumbled up, a soft kind of edge to everything going on in her head.

“I don’t know,” she answers finally, her head pressing more firmly against his palm. Sebastian’s thumbs are now moving softly against her jaw, and she wants to purr, just like a cat, maybe hang on to him for more of his warmth.

“God,” he says, and it sounds like a swearword. He unglues himself from her, extends an arm that she gracefully takes as they continue on the road to her house. He doesn’t say anything more until they arrive on her porch, though he looks like he’s thinking very hard. She’d like to press her finger to the frown on his forehead.

Max is happily snoring on the warm ground, and she lets go of Sebastian to run the short distance to her dog. She goes on her knees, grabs Max’s head in her hands and coos at him like she would to a baby, talks lovesick nonsense to the dog, pats him all over.

Her voice sounds fucking cute, Sebastian thinks, but instead he fishes something from the pockets of his jacket, bends down so he can press it in her palms. She immediately turns to look at him, eyes big and questioning.

“Take those in the morning, okay? You’ll need them,” is all he says, raising a hand and waving it in a goodbye.

***

Sebastian is right. She wakes two hours later, empties all the contents of her stomach, tears burning at her eyes, and when she wakes again, she thanks all the gods that outside it is raining, because she only gets up to get a glass of water and swallow the pills. Her head is killing her, and her heart aches in embarrassment at the way she acted. She hangs between screaming out in frustration at her own self and complaining about being hangover the whole day, hating herself so, so very much.

She still shoots Sebastian a text, thanking him for taking care of her, in so many ways, the night before. He leaves her on read.

For the next week, she busies herself with work on the farm. She makes another batch of jam jars, which she sends to Lewis for selling. She plants a new tree sapling, harvests strawberries, even builds an ugly-looking scarecrow out of an old broom. She cuts down wood, saves up stacks of it for when she’ll eventually afford Robin’s services. She goes in the mines, once or twice.

Then one of Lewis’ invitations is waiting in her mailbox, for another festival. Spring is coming to an end, already a sweeter, warmer breeze in the air, so the whole town is to celebrate the exact thing.

***

But Pelican Town is a small place, and so it never forgets gossip too easily. On that evening, enough pairs of eyes saw her fumbling in the dark with Shane, and so enough pairs of eyes are now watching her suspiciously as she greets the mayor. She’s wearing some city dress again, though more modest, and ribbons in her hair. She’s forcing herself to smile at everyone she encounters, trying not to seem so affected by the outright cold shoulder.

Sam still greets her, though, grabbing her in his arms.

“Oh, handsome!” she says, and laughs when he’s looking around, to check if anyone else heard her. But he is wearing a suit, his hair is gelled down and he smells like his mother. His eyes are searching hers though, and she thinks Sebastian might have said something to his friend. But thankfully Sam mentions nothing.

She looks behind him, at Sebastian, dressed in a costume as well. Her heart starts beating faster in her chest; his hair is pushed back, and his forehead is now uncovered. He sits relaxed, his hands in his pockets, like he doesn’t really want to be there and she hasn’t seen someone look that heartbreakingly gorgeous.

“You too,” she says. Sebastian raises an eyebrow at her. “Look good, I mean,” she clarifies, and she clears her throat before the awkwardness chokes her.

It’s a big understatement, but it’s the best she can do right now. There’s a small smile that she gets in reply. On the other side of the field, by Robin’s side, Abigail, Penny and Maru look absolutely stunning in their festival dresses, with the flower crowns on top of their heads. They’re laughing at one of Abigail’s stories, and they’re just beautiful and young and entirely enrapturing. She wonders if she didn’t fuck it up so badly earlier, she would have been invited to be one of them.

This time around, there’s not as much mingling with the people as earlier in the season; people are a bit warier, though she supposes she deserves it. She’s busy setting down a mat under a blossoming tree, preparing some kind of picnic and viewing spot at the same time.

“You look beautiful,” she hears from behind her, and she turns around to find Shane. A bit behind him, Marnie is engaged in a conversation with the mayor, and by his side, there’s Jas, who immediately shoves her sandals away so she can step on her mat and sit next to her.

She offers her tea and strawberries, places her own hat on top of the child’s head to protect her from the sun, who squeals in delight that she can show off the winning prize of the egg hunt. Then, she turns back to Shane:

“Is she your daughter?”

“Gods, no. She’s my goddaughter.”

She sighs, relieved a bit. In the morning, Shane looks just scruffy, some kind of sober, but his face is still red and puffy, sign of alcoholism. She knows Jas lives with him and Marnie, and it can’t be a good environment for a child, but she’s heard the rumours that he’s not that much at home anyway. She’s worrying for the young girl, but she also trusts Marnie to handle the subject, not really her place to say anything anyway.

Shane moves closer, his hand grabbing the end of the scarf she’s wearing around her neck, tugging so it comes undone between his fingers. She gasps, palm gluing to the skin there, reaching out for him.

“Give it back,” she all but growls it out, eyes frantically looking around, hoping no one is actually looking their way, since everyone is focused on preparing for the dance.

“I did that, right?” he asks, finally stopping, and she takes back her scarf, hangs her head low, so that her hair can cover her movement, as she ties it back in place.

“Yes, you fucking asshole,” she spits, but doesn’t move away from him.

“I was honest, you know. About you looking beautiful. Then and now too.”

“Thank you,” she says, and stays in place even as Shane gets closer to her. He’s also dressed up, wearing an actual shirt and everything, his jaw freshly shaven. He even looks somewhat attractive, and just like last time, she’s grateful for the attention. Back in Zuzu City, no one bothers with any kind of dating, no one bothers to notice someone else at all – no sweet lies, no prelude, just a dick and a cunt. So this feels new and flattering at the same time.

She sits down on her mat, reluctantly serves Shane too with some of her freshly picked strawberries. Jas moved over to Vincent and Jodi, her hands carefully holding on to the hat that’s still a bit too big for her, so it’s only the two of them in this corner. The music can’t start soon enough, because she can feel stray eyes looking to them.

The dance starts, and she watches, transfixed as the pairs walk towards each other, meeting in the middle in an embrace. Almost immediately the dresses flutter in the air, twirling. There’s an admiring exclamation from somewhere in the crowd, Jas happily clapping along to the rhythm. She looks at Sam, all but drinking up Penny’s laughing face. She looks at Abigail, tightly holding on to Sebastian’s shoulders. She looks at her friends dancing with the girls they have a crush on, and something in her chest rips apart.

“Hey,” Shane says. “Wanna get out of here?”

She nods wordlessly, and he takes her hand. No one looks at them, as they discreetly make their way behind everyone else. Once out the field, Shane breaks into a run through the woods. They stop in a clearing, both breathing hard from their run, and Shane grins at her, before straightening his back, walking purposefully her way and deciding to kiss her. It’s hard and rough, much like he’s been handling her until now too, but she still moans.

His hands are already moving at pulling his belt apart, and he takes her hands and moves them towards his dick.

“Come on, play with it,” he whispers breathlessly, as he’s pulling apart her scarf for a second time today, mouth finding the tender skin, reinforcing the fading marks. She’s feeling needy herself, she’d like him to shove down her panties and eat her out, but she makes do with moving her legs one against the other, seeking some kind of friction, as her hands are moving from his tip towards his balls, slower at the beginning, and faster once he starts grunting in her ear, pumping into her hands.

Then, he grabs at her hair, and she has to bite her tongue to stop from yelping.

“On your knees,” he says, already pushing his weight on her shoulders, and more or less willingly, she gets to the ground. The uneven dirt hurts her skin, and yet she has to ignore it, because Shane is already guiding his dick with his hands towards her lips. She forces herself to open her mouth, hopes he’ll better get down to do the same thing for her.

Her mouth is warm, and she’s fucking good at what she’s doing, sucking hard and taking him all in, like a good bitch, even if tears are forming at the corner of her eyes and her throat is burning. He pulls out, just to slam, hard, back inside her wet, welcoming hole – and in just three shoves, he comes undone, half coming in her mouth, half out just so he can have his fantasy of his cum leaking on her face.

Her dress is stained, and almost all her arousal is out of her. She wipes her mouth with the back of her hand, presses a palm against the painful strain in her jaw. Shane hurries to put his now flailing dick back inside his pants, and he’s not helping her back up.

“Gotta go,” he says, and he’s patting down his pants, where she held onto and left some creasing.

“What?” she asks, suddenly annoyed. “What about me?”

“Solve it yourself, princess.”

He starts walking away. She screams after him.

“Oh, fuck you!”

“My pleasure, next time!” he shouts back, but he doesn’t stop, as he’s making his way back towards the festival.

She shoves the middle finger up in the air, stomping her feet at the same time, shrieking.

“You fucking asshole!”

He chuckles at her tantrum, but he’s spent and satisfied, while she’s there frustrated and fucked over, so he’s not bothering to take her too seriously.

There’s no way she can go back there without everyone else figuring out exactly what she’s been up to. Of course, Shane looks no different than his usual, maybe he’s even surrounded by some post-orgasm glow, but there’s some bleeding from one of her knees, his now dry cum on the front of her dress, and her hair is nothing but a mess. She can’t believe how fucking stupid she can be, and how she fell again in the same old game of “I give you some attention, you give me some sex” that she’s been playing for ages now. It seems like habits don’t change, no matter if she’s in Zuzu City or Pelican Town.

And for what? Just because she felt lonely and jealous, because she felt like no matter how much she’ll try, she’ll never be anything but a passing fancy to these people that know each other inside out?

She makes her way towards her farm stomping her feet, swearing at Shane and mumbling curses all the way. Once back, she draws herself a hot bath and, in the tub, finally somewhere safe, she touches herself, moans out into the air a name she doesn’t dare to even say out loud, and thinks of someone who never even looked at her in any way to indicate she might want her too.

So, she must make do with fucking Shane?

But as she succumbs to her orgasm, moving lower into the water, maybe she can just order a dildo online and leave it at that.

***

On the first summer days, she takes up fishing. She buys a bottle of mead, because she’s heard from mayor Lewis that’s the favourite drink of their local fishermen, and she goes down the beach to beg.

She wants to learn fishing, she says. Just a couple of lessons, whenever he can leave his store and he’s willing to – she really just wants some new hobbies. It’s dreadfully awful to have only three functional TV channels, and only a dozens of books. Even Max is just a dog, and there’s a limitation to what he is capable of. Willy is funny and wise in the way only old men who love the sea can be, but he’s patient in his explanations – and sure enough, very soon, she catches her first fish.

She takes a picture of it on her phone, proud of her achievement. She sends it to Sam, to boast a bit and to annoy him, because he’s currently stuck at his part-time job. Then she goes shell hunting, because she’s too giddy to do any actual work. The villagers recently rebuilt the small bridge on the beach, and it’s lovely to get to take a walk like this. She wants her house to have the same fresh feeling, so she visits Robin for an upgrade.

And she knows she’s paying for the work, but with Robin, she feels like she’s asking for a favour, so she must give something back. And because she feels guilty, for having thought so angrily and jealously about Sebastian and his life, she wants to say sorry in a way, even if he has no way of knowing why she’s doing it in the first place.

Robin’s outside the house, just having come back from an exercise class at Caroline’s. She greets her visitor just a bit more strained than usual, and well – there’s no doubt that if there’s a gossip mill in the town, that’s probably the weekly gathering of middle-aged wives.

The farmer sighs, agrees to wait in the house while Robin takes a shower, before they can discuss about work.

“Is Sebastian home?” she asks, and the older woman makes a dismissive sign with her hand, which means she can go and check for herself.

The door to his room is slightly open, and he actually asks her to come in when she knocks. She greets him from the doorway, suddenly shy when he speaks, suddenly guilty that she’s interrupting him. She sits down on the couch, starts by watching him work, and then eventually she gets distracted by the posters on his walls, and the huge book collection he is showcasing on his shelves. It’s work that she’s familiar with, the stuff she liked to read before, when she used to have time for her hobbies, about worlds that she could escape to only by reading about them in books, featuring magic and dragons and robots.

He doesn’t seem to mind her looking around, as long as she’s quiet. Then, he eventually finishes, and sighs, stretching out his arms.

“Sorry about that, had to finish what I was working on.”

“Ah,” she nods. “And what is that?”

“I do freelance programming,” he answers. “I just want to save up enough to move from here. You know, if I’d gone to college, I’d probably be making six figures right now… but I just don’t want to be part of that corporate rat race, you know?”

“As a rat,” she says, a smile already on her face, “I totally agree with you.”

He looks at her; this is the first hint he gets – of something more about her. He’s heard from Sam, of course, about her actual job in the city, but it’s different to know it from her, to know he has her trust, to hear the defeat behind her voice, even as she tries to hide it with humour.

Then the moment is broken, the ping from his IM breaking the companionable silence between them. Normally, he’d have to explain to people why he is not in the mood to meet up with others, his introversion something out of a freak show with the villagers, but she just nods at him in understanding.

But the next interruption is almost brutal, Robin returning to pass on Abigail’s message, so filled with dismissal at his work, and indifference at his preferences. The easy air about him, as he was talking about a work he clearly loves and his dreams, is now entirely stifled – and instead he, defeated, just accepts all of this, even if he complains. She’d like to press her finger to the frown on his forehead.

This situation makes her blood boil, though: because she’s been in his exact spot. She’s had people look down at her choices for as long as she’s decided to walk her path, out there in the city – and now that she knows what it’s like not to, she can’t take to be the witness to it happening in front of her. Of course, some people will always have something to say, but it should be different with those considered friends – considered family, no?

From the kitchen upstairs, Robin is calling out her name – now, suddenly, she doesn’t really want to go, especially when she knows her presence is soon to be replaced by someone else’s. So, she acts daringly. She touches his arm, as she raises to go:

“You know, I think you’re doing an amazing job, especially considering your conditions. And trust me, it really is better than being a clog in the corporate system, and your work is important, even if it’s important for you only.”

As soon as she came, she’s gone and he loses his chance of asking for more. She left behind another sloppily packed present on his desk, a piece of quartz inside. He gets up, moves to put it up on his shelves – and shit, he wonders if she noticed the other stuff she’s given him, up there.

***

So Robin starts coming around with her carpenter tools, sometimes so early in the morning that she’s welcoming her still in her Disney pyjamas. They drink instant coffee, warm this time – and they discuss recipes that she’d like to try in her new kitchen, or the kind of animals she’ll grow in the barn. She learns that Robin loves goat cheese, and she shares that she absolutely hates peppers. She asks about Sebastian and Maru’s childhoods, she tells of her grandpa’s favourite magic trick.

The sound of Robin’s hammer accompanies her through her motions, as she’s ploughing the land for the summer crops. She didn’t really understand how lonely she has been all these months, just going through what she has to do. It’s nice to have someone to talk to, even if just for a few stolen minutes.

Sebastian drops by during his breaks sometimes, to bring his mother’s lunch, and both women nag at him so much that he ends up eating with them, Max nestled at his feet under the table.

Once, she walks back with him towards the town; she needs to drop by Pierre’s, to order some kitchen utensils – and by Lewis’ house, to leave him a note with info on her next batch of syrup and honey, that she sells for some good prices. He strains himself to walk in a pace that matches hers, even if he just wants to hurry home and take a nap.

She noticed, how tired he looks lately: hair more dishevelled, the slight stubble on his chin, the dark under his eyes. She knows, from Robin, that he spent even more time than usual in his room, refusing to meet even Abigail or Sam. She’d like to press her palm on his forehead, check for any signs of sickness.

“Are you working a lot these days?” she asks, fumbling with the edge of her t-shirt, feeling shy and worried that she might be overstepping.

“Had a tight deadline, but it’s over now.”

He pushes the hair out of his eyes with his hand, pats the pockets of his jeans with the other. He takes out his cigarettes, and then swears.

“Shit, do you have a lighter?”

In fact, she does. Sometimes, when she goes to the mines, her flashlight flickers and dies out, so she started the habit of carrying candles on her expeditions, and always a lighter in her pocket. She offers the fire; she has to stand on her tiptoes and he has to bend down to make it work.

Sebastian looks at her; she’s determinedly staring at the ground. They’re so close that even in the summer heat, she can feel his breathe on her cheek. Once the cigarette is lit, she almost scrambles away, pressing her palms to her cheeks, complaining about the hot weather.

She starts walking faster, afraid of what she might do if Sebastian looks into her face. There’s a small smile on his face that she can’t notice.

***

Pierre’s store is more of a general hangout spot for his daughter, though – Maru is eating her lunch with Abigail in a corner, and she waves at the two of them as she turns towards the counter. Of course, Pierre convinces her to buy several types of flower seeds – and she walks around the town with those in her arms. She thinks she might actually be his best customer. Or easiest, which in his case, it is one and the same thing.

That’s how she meets Evelyn: in the town square, taking care of the flowers. In truth, she never stopped to think about who maintains the town, and now she seems to have her answer. There are many people around; Penny with the kids, playing in the water fountain. Mayor Lewis and Harvey discussing in front of the clinic, Gus sticking a request on the board.

But the old lady spots her shopping, and sits her down on a bench, where she lectures her on the proper way to take care of them.

Then, the tone shifts – and the older woman asks her about the animals she’s growing (they’re well), how she finds Pelican Town (nice) and what’s her favourite flower (hyacinth).

“You know,” she laughs. “I almost married your grandpa.”

She sputters, unsure how to take this wild what-if she’s presented with. Of course, if Evelyn would have ended as his wife, she wouldn’t be here at all. And still, her curiosity gets the best of her.

“What happened?”

“Oh, George – that’s my husband, dear – bought an old farm here in town and moved one day. The next thing you know, everyone was smitten with the new farmer, me included. And by then, your grandpa was already in the army.”

And when he returned from the army, he returned with a wife – that’s a story that she knows. Grandpa met her grandmother at one of the dance evenings organized for young soldiers, and if the story she was told as a child is to be believed, he danced with no one else that night, the next and all the other ones that followed.

“How was he like?”

Sometimes, when it comes to someone you love, it’s hard to consider them from another point of view than the one you were always familiar with. He has always been just her grandfather to her, yet Evelyn here has seen him growing, becoming all those things to all those many people: son, neighbour, husband, father.

“He always worked hard, stirred trouble wherever he went and loved this town like no other,” she says, a faint smile on her face, lost in memories.

That sounds like the old man alright.

“Th-thank you, Evelyn.” Her voice sounds a little chocked. Just a little.

“Psssh, please. Call me Granny.”

The old man takes her hand, squeezes her fingers in hers – and pats her butt when she gets up to go home.

***

“Hey, mom,” she says, pressing the phone closer to her ear. It’s the first phone call she’s making from the landline, and there are jitters all over her skin. She hates that she has to stay still, glued to one spot the length of the phone’s cable. Her brain goes in override.

“Darling!” her mother exclaims from the other side. There’s some shifting, the sound of a door closing, then a sigh. “How are you? How’s Pelican Town?”

She tries not to sniffle outright, tries not to cry that she wants her mother when she’s a fucking grown-up adult, but that really is how she feels. It was all okay, the construction almost to an end, her crops growing beautifully – and then Max gnawed at her only good pair of shoes, and the thing sent her into a spiral of self-pity. She really has no idea what on earth she is doing here.

Instead, she asks: “Did you like living here?”

She is grandpa’s only living child. After her older brother’s death, she simply packed her stuff and moved to a shitty dorm in city, got married in two months and had her almost immediately after. Nowadays, her father is drowning in alcohol and her mother is drowning in work – and she wonders if the first coping mechanism may be more useful than the latter, though her last experience seems to point to a no.

“No,” her mother says. “But depends on what you’re chasing, or what you’re running away from. So, do you like living there?”

She tugs at the phone cord, shifts on spot, looks at Max sleeping a few feet away.

“M-maybe? I don’t know.”

“That’s not a no,” her mother says, ending the call immediately afterwards.

She sits on the same spot, with the tone dead in the background for a very long time, just staring out the window at the setting sun.

***

With the new barn built, she visits Marnie about filling it with the appropriate animals. She’d like a sheep, just because she thinks knitting would be a useful hobby to pick up by winter. Maybe a goat, so she can make cheese and thank Robin properly for all the overtime work she put in finishing her house so early.

Jas is out with Vincent, but before discussing the price of the animal, Marnie hands her the straw hat and her picnic mat. She burns as she takes those from her, not knowing what to say. It’s been two weeks since she ran from the town’s celebration, and even now, she burns with the shame of that day. She starts looking around.

“He’s not-”

“At work, dear,” she says, and finally she starts calculating and writing down something at her desk.

“So you know.”

“Everyone knows,” she says and sounds forcefully cheerful, although she must understand what weight her words have, because the farmer is slouching in a chair, head hanging in her hands.

“There’s nothing going on,” she wails, looking up at Marnie, begging her to believe her – even if she’s just a stranger, asking for a bias against her own blood relative.

“Nothing going on anymore?” Marnie corrects, moves to pat her on the shoulder, signalling at the same time for the young woman to follow her. She nods her head, defeated, and Marnie has to wonder what exactly did this hard-working farmer see in her drunk nephew. She feels relieved to know that she put an end to it. Maybe exactly because she got involved with her good for nothing boy that she feels a bit more forgiving towards her.

She talks her in getting another chicken too, as an apology for having fucked around with her nephew. She doesn’t have the heart to correct this motherly woman that it was, in fact, the other way around. But either way, she’s forgotten.

She knows that because the next day, Penny calls her and asks her to spend the day together with the kids on the beach. She shouldn’t be that surprised to see Sam there too.

***

She asks everyone she gets along with over, after the house expansion is finished. She spent most morning just preparing various recipes, to fit everyone’s taste. Penny arrives first, dropping an apple pie on her kitchen counter and moving around the house to admire Robin’s work. She’s been thinking of doing something about her trailer-living situation for a while.

Abigail and Maru arrive together, with a plate of Robin’s spaghetti. Her and Demetrius decided it’s better to skip the evening, seeing how everyone else there is the same age as their children. She learns that Abigail is supposed to start her second year of university in autumn, and that Maru is going to do her master’s in astrophysics.

She whistles appreciatively, makes fun of her literature degree on the way. The two then huddle together in a corner of the porch, feeding Max stray bits of food and cooing at him when his tail starts wagging.

Sam and Sebastian arrive the last, each carrying a board game in their hands. It’s smart thinking on their side, because she’s not sure what she would have entertained her guests with otherwise. They huddle around the table, filling up plates with at least five different food recipes, passing iced tea and lemonade around. Abigail has this perfect skill of being able to imitate Lewis’ announcement voice perfectly, which in turn makes Sam snort his drink out of his noise. It makes everyone else lose it, and afterwards there’s no awkwardness hanging between them.

Penny helps Sam clean up in the kitchen, and they’re gone for way longer than necessary, though everyone else at the table is polite enough not to comment on it. Abigail and Maru, sitting one across the other, keep looking at each other while the other is not looking, and Abigail might be eating so much chocolate cake that she risks getting sick.

Sebastian sits next to her, smiling softly at a story that Penny is telling, from their time together in high-school. She should, technically, feel left out of the loop, but each time she mentions someone unknown, or a habit they used to have as a teenage group, Sebastian leans over closer to her, and whispers explanations into her ear. His voice, low and smooth, makes her feel like she’s melting down her chair.

Sam and Sebastian go out for a smoke, and she’s following them too, asking for a cigarette from Sebastian, letting her lighter pass around in a circle. The sun has already set, and there’s only the soft buzzing sound of her lamp in the air. The boys are talking about their rehearsal schedule, ask her over sometime, which she happily agrees to.

“Hey,” Sam says, kicking at her leg with his shoe. “Are you single?”

“What the fuck?!”

Sam raises his hands in the air, talking with his cigarette between his teeth. “Don’t shoot the messenger!”

She was ready to punch his elbow, but is now lowering her arm, frowning at him. Behind Sam, Sebastian continue smoking, refusing to get himself involved in this mess.

“Whose messenger?” she asks, though there’s a teasing edge in her voice, clearly proving that she doesn’t believe anything else but his own curiosity brought him to this rudeness.

“Look man – uhm, woman I guess, we’re all friends here, no judgement zone.”

“You just laughed at Maru for liking math two minutes ago!” she points out, this time her kicking his leg.

“You can just not answer the question,” Sam says, pacifying, turning towards Sebastian to offer him his lighter, as he’s already on his second cigarette.

“No, it’s fine.” She feels embarrassed for causing a scene, when it’s not even such a big deal. “I am single.”

She starts walking a bit away, making it seem like she’s inspecting the shrub just next to the stairs.

“So no Shane?” this time it’s Sebastian asking, which is surprising because she did not expect him to care.

“No Shane,” she confirms, her voice a bit weaker than she intended it to be.

Sam punches the air in a victorious movement, grinning at her.

“Thank God, that guy’s a fucking asshole.”

He shivers a bit in the cold night air, wearing only a t-shirt, and with a goodbye thrown over his shoulder, he goes back inside. Sebastian moves his hand in the air a bit, gesturing to his unfinished smoke, but she’s still not making a move to go back.

“But him and Penny… totally a thing, right?”

“Totally,” Sebastian says, and they both burst out laughing.

***

When Abigail phoned to tell her about Luau, she actually mostly whined that summer festivals are the most boring ones, because everyone is so busy tending to crops and making the most out of the long days. The farmer herself was actually taking a break, at the height of the summer heat, with a glass of iced water, but counting down the minutes before she’d be back in the garden, pulling out the weeds and gathering ripened fruits.

She still gets invited to Luau with everyone else; somewhat of a temporary, potentially forever fixture to their group. There’s a gaping hole opening in her stomach when she thinks of this, anxiety bubbling all inside her body making her feel sick. She feels like something terrible surely must happen soon, considering how much joy she gets from all these people.

She has sent some stuff to mayor Lewis, to add to the potluck soup: fresh tomato, some mushrooms, basil. But still, the thing looks completely inedible.

“Are we trying to kill the governor?” she asks, as she’s carefully looking at the bowl in her hands.

Sebastian laughs, turning his upside down in the sand. She’d really like to do the same thing.

“It’s tradition!” Maru explains, frowning at her brother.

“Are we choosing governors based on the quality of their stomach?” she tries again, this time sniffing at the stuff. Its consistency looks absolutely… gluey.

Sam joins the laughter this time, and Sebastian pats Maru’s shoulder in some attempt at an excuse. Abigail is the only one who actually eats the stuff, though her face turns somewhat pale as soon as she is done. The governor looks like he is perfectly fine, and even praises their soup, which makes everyone visibly relax.

***

Maru’s birthday was a solitary thing; just another ordinary working day, celebrated only with chocolate cake in the evening with the entire family. Robin builds her another bookshelf, Demetrius and Sebastian get the money for a new telescope. No other guests are invited, though random gifts still find their way to her mailbox: a stray astrology book, a new case for her glasses.

Sam’s not that different, though they all heard the rumours that immediately after his shift, he visited the museum, and spent a very, very long time there. They meet on Friday night at the Saloon though, so that the band can play and the others can cheer. They’re spectacular, as usual, and when doing something they love, all three of them look younger than she has ever seen them.

Penny is at her side, an arm looped around her waist, and they’re both swaying their bodies on the rhythm of the music. Sam winks in their direction, though the redhead pretends she doesn’t see it.

***

On one of their river discussions, Sebastian mentions frogs to her once; something she’s been terrified of for as long as she remembers. But there’s just such a soft smile on his face, and his voice is so calm: and as such, she thinks to give it a try. Which is exactly why he finds her one day, as he goes to visit Sam, by the river bank, on all fours, staring into the water.

She yelps when he hears him calling out to her, fluttering her arms in the air in a panic. It’s that movement that makes her stumble forward in the water. She doesn’t know how to swim, but the water is low enough to not be a problem, but as she gets up, sitting on her ass in the middle of the river, she scowls at him.

“I hate you,” she says.

He smiles, and with the sun at his back, it’s the most beautiful sight she’s seen. He offers her a hand, which she accepts gratefully, trying to remain as dignified as possible, considering that her clothes are now stuck to her body and there might be some mud on her butt.

“What were you doing?” he asks, and she immediately reddens under his attention.

She mumbles her answer; she’s a terrible liar, so she doesn’t even try. This time, Sebastian actually laughs at her, and she crosses her hands at her chest, both indignant and cold.

“I hate you,” she says again, this time accentuating each of her words. But there’s no fire behind it, so he ignores her remarks. Instead, he unzips his hoodie and, slowly, places it on her shoulders.

“But-” she starts, already moving to remove it, give it back, refuse the help, her natural instinct kicking in. He hasn’t stepped back, and having him so close, she notices the subtle smell of his aftershave, the dark marks under his eyes. She wants to get on her tiptoe and let her fingers run through his hair, so soft from up this close. Then he speaks, the magic breaking, and she moves her eyes down to her shoes, shy all of the sudden.

“Sam’s living real close, so it’s really no problem.”

He’s trying very hard not to move his eyes away from hers, face burning red with embarrassment – and only then does she realize she’s wearing a white shirt, and she’s wet –

“Oh,” she says, lamely, moving her arms through the sleeves and zipping it up. “I… I’ll wash it and bring it back to you.”

“Yeah, don’t worry about it,” he says, before awkwardly saying his goodbyes. Sam will chew him out for being late, and Abigail will frown at him for not letting them know about this ahead of time.

But their new farmer will stand by the river bank for a long time still, looking down at the water, even when Vincent passes her by and laughs at the wet pool that dripped at her feet.

***

She likes taking the mountain path, especially during hot summer days: less people to stop and chat with under the sun, more shade from the trees, chances to see a wild bunny or a squirrel, maybe picking up some wild fruit. She learnt to enjoy these things, that felt like such a chore back in the day, when she was simply a child helping out her relatives. Maybe because, from start to finish, in everything she does for her farm, she leaves a part of herself in there.

She’s as familiar with Robin’s garden as she is with her own, and that’s why it takes her brain a bit to catch up with what she is seeing.

She didn’t even expect to see Sebastian at all, and especially not like… this. Sprawled under his motorcycle, the picture perfect of her dream boy from high-school. It’s then when it dawns on her that she might have some other reasons too, for visiting Robin today, for picking the mountain path, for going to the mines so often, even if she’ll never admit it to anyone else.

For a second, she hates him so much for having been so kind to her, for having taken care of her, for his beautiful smiles and his unending understanding. For having made her like him so much, when this recluse and silent man seems to dislike everything that she is starting to like lately.

She crushes the feeling coming up in her chest; the despair and the need to go and run as far away from him, before they make eye contact, before her beating heart goes into override.

Sebastian heard her approaching footstep though, and as he’s coming up, t-shirt clinging to his chest, she closes her eyes. God help her not to jump this man right here and now.

“Hey you,” he says, the corner of his lips lifting up a bit seeing her.

She waves, taking a deep breath as she approaches him, taking a seat on the outside bench. He picks up the tool that he needed, and goes back to work. She stays put right where she is, watching him.

“You know, it’s fascinating to watch someone do something I know nothing about,” she laughs, thinking of her useless literature degree as well, her dirt stained nails and her dead-end job back in the city, so opposed to his programming skills and the coppery smell of his motorcycle.

“That’s how I feel when you talk about farm upgrades with mom,” he says, and then asking her for another tool – it’s the round one with a yellow handle.

She shifts closer; he gets out from under the metal labyrinth of his bike enough to nod at her in thanks when she hands it to him. But he understands her feeling better than he manages to put it into words, especially since he’s been an outcast in the village for so long; heck he’s not sure anyone else but her even accepts what he’s working, let alone understand it.

But if there’s someone who can get it, it’s certainly the city girl who gave up everything to become a farmer. Much as he wants to drop everything here just for a shot at the big city. It’s the same strangling hope in his voice, that she’s detected the first time they met, when he talks about his short escapades.

He gets up, wiping his hands on a dirty old rag. There’s a dark stain on his cheek that makes him so incredibly cute, and yet the contrast couldn’t be more obvious with his muscles.

“You could come with me next time,” he says, and he purposefully looks at her, digging out her reactions.

She blushes, all red, prettily and opens her mouth to say something, closes it again. Then, with a bit too much eagerness, that makes her seem just a bit too desperate to do the right thing, she says:

“I’d love to.”

“Great,” he says, and this time it’s a full smile that he graces her with.

They move to enter the house now, the sun setting at their back, and he holds the door open for her. She has to squeeze by him, so close that she can feel the smell of oil mingled with his sweat, and the always present soft aroma of soap.

Robin is in the kitchen, preparing hot chocolate for everyone; Abigail is over too, in Maru’s room, the two’s laughter loud enough to be heard from downstairs. Demetrius is in his office, researching something in one of his biology tomes.

She immediately moves to help Robin; now familiar with the layout of her kitchen, with everyone’s favourite mug. His mother yells at Sebastian to go and take a shower before even daring to enter her kitchen, which is exactly the reason why he moves closer to her instead, loudly kissing her cheek.

Robin shrieks, hitting him with the spoon she’s holding in her hand. Their guest watches the scene with a soft smile; she likes it when there’s no bitterness between the two, which is something that comes way easier when no one else in their family is around.

She presents Robin with her first goat cheese; it’s experimental yet, really I have no idea if it’s any good, but she gathers her in her arms anyway, thanking her from the bottom of her heart. She carefully places it in her fridge.

And while Robin goes to Demetrius’ office, forcing a break out of this man as they plan to drink their hot chocolate together, she’s tasked to bringing up the girls’. She knocks, but it still doesn’t feel like sufficient incessant to stop whatever they were doing, because when she opens the door, Maru’s in Abigail arms, having a somewhat lost look on her face. Abigail’s lipstick is all over Maru’s neck, and smeared around her lips, and both their mouths are pulsing red with the pressure of shared kisses.

She blushes under their eyes, hates to have interrupted what she just did. It’s worse than if they were having sex, because the tension in the air is so thick she can choke on it.

“R-Robin said-” she tries, but she’s so embarrassed that she just leaves the tray on the desk, and all but bolts down the stairs.

Shit, she thinks.

“Shit,” she exclaims out loud as well. She’s so wind up she doesn’t hear the footsteps following her, and she almost screams when Abigail’s hand comes down her shoulder.

“Hey, look, let’s be chill about it and keep it a secret, yeah?”

“Of course,” she nods her head. “And I’m really sorry…”

“Our fault for being daring enough not to lock the door. But in our defence, we didn’t think that would happen,” Abigail says, winking at the other woman, before moving upstairs, probably to calm down her lover.

The theme of her life is that she is a big, stupid, idiotic fool. She’s been jealous for months on a relationship that didn’t even exist, and now she feels guilty and embarrassed all over again for what she did when overcome by those emotions. She stands in the middle of the hallway, hating herself so much that she would burst into flames if she had magical powers.

Sebastian finds her eventually, grounds her back to reality with a soft touch against her elbow and a soft call of her name. She startles like she’s been shot, almost jumping out of her skin, before things start refocusing around her. Sebastian, after his shower, smells like pine and mint, and he’s wearing shorts.

“Come on,” he says, slowly guiding her back to the kitchen, where their drink probably went cold already. At the back of his leg, Sebastian has a tattoo: a man lying face down, ten swords hanging above his body.

“That’s cool,” she nods her head at the design, sipping from her hot chocolate.

“Thanks. Sweet sixteen present, teenage rebellion and everything.”

“I ran away from home when I was sixteen,” she says, and Sebastian rises his eyebrows, clearly sceptical.

“For real!” she laughs. “I came here, to gramps.”

“Can’t remember you ever being up here,” he says, but now he’s curious.

“Well, of course, he called my mom the second I entered the house, and next morning she came to pick me up, but still.”

Sebastian snorts at her story, and she’s beaming at him with the largest smile possible, having gotten such a reaction out of him. It seems like it’s so easy for her to rile him up, or to get him involved enough in what she’s doing that he can’t filter his reactions anymore.

He walks her home that evening; she insisted he didn’t need to go through the trouble, since she’s out even later all the time, but Robin pushed, especially since Abigail was to sleep over, so she didn’t need Sebastian to walk her home.

In the end, she had company on the way home.

“Sorry for the trouble,” she says. Sebastian is smoking again, and only shakes his head. They continue their conversation from earlier, about how they used to be as kids and teenagers, periods in time that feels very far-away. Then she tells him of her past job, how she used to want to kill herself every time she entered the building, how there was no more city around her, and just the clutch of overwork and need for money.

She breathes easier here, she says. She hasn’t seen the stars in years, she adds.

She’s looking up at the sky, but Sebastian is looking at her.

She’s seemed lost on that first day, overwhelmed as she looked around at her inherited plot of land, and he’s given her two weeks maximum to survive in there. And here she is, rounding on six months, looking like she’s always belonged.

She hands him his sweater, thanks him again, in that sweet voice that matches her face, but not her personality when she’s swearing. He wishes the road between their houses was longer, longer than to Zuzu City, so long that they could have the entire night at their disposal.

***

“You’re late,” she says, from where she sits on the pier, her feet just a few centimetres above the water surface.

She’s barefoot, and she’s wearing a thin and short dress, and showing so much skin that Sebastian is a bit distracted at first. Technically, they haven’t set a meeting time, but he is indeed the last of the villagers to arrive on the beach for the dance of the moonlight jellies. By now, the others are also grouped together, leaving her alone.

She pats the space next to her. He sits down, yawning.

“Sorry, I was up until 3am reading a new book.”

She lights up then, shoots question after question at him: about his favourite authors and books, hints at the volumes he knows she’s seen on his shelf. They decide to buddy read a book together, and the next day he finds her favourite novel in his mailbox, he sends his instead. His are in pristine condition, while hers are underlined all over, notes scrambled over the margins that he spends a lot of time trying to decipher, corners dog-eared. The first few are a hit and miss, then slowly, as they go through the volumes, writing long texts and handwritten note with their thoughts on it or calling each other late into the night, they start to figure each other’s state, collections growing on each side.

On Penny’s birthday, no one can find the young woman almost the entire day. For that matter, they had the same problem with Sam too.

On Abigail’s birthday, she knocks on the farmer’s door in the middle of the night. The other woman is sleepy, bleary eyed, and she knows that something serious is going on because Abigail doesn’t even make fun of her pyjamas. She opens the door, wordlessly. Makes some tea, as Abigail plops on the rug on the floor, nuzzling Max.

She passes her a steaming cup of tea, sits in front of her in much the same manner.

“What happened?”

It takes Abigail a long time to reply, and when she does, she stumbles over words.

“I-I came out to my parents. Let’s say they didn’t take it too well. Sebastian lives with M-Maru so it didn’t feel like the smartest move, and Sam’s mother already has enough things to worry about. I had no-nowhere else to go.”

She shouldn’t be this surprised when the farmer leans closer, wrapping her arms around her, squeezing her close. Abigail reaches up her hands, tugs at the pyjama top and starts sobbing. There’s a large wet mark on the other woman’s shoulder when she is done, though she doesn’t seem to notice it as she’s running around her house, pulling out a rolled up mattress and building a make-shift bed in the middle of the room. She’s gentle as she moves Abigail to her bedroom, helps her in bed, petting at her hair, and chanting it’ll be okay over and over again.

Abigail’s already asleep when she moves to the kitchen, scrolling through her contacts list. It takes a few seconds before the person at the other end picks up, and Sebastian’s voice sounds muffled. She imagines him for a second, face half-hidden in his pillow, dishevelled hair. Then:

“It’s Abbie.”

The next day, Sam and Sebastian show up on her doorstep at 6am with chocolate cake, and they barely even greet her before moving inside, slamming open the door to the room where Abigail’s sleeping, essentially waking her up. But they also jump on the bed, squeezing themselves in the small space, peppering her face with kisses, even as she screams at them to stop, that they’re gross. But she’s laughing.

Over breakfast (eggs and salad and chocolate cake), they discuss what they should do next. There’s enough space here for two people, and it makes most sense to have Abigail live here for a while, until things calm down a bit.

“Did,” Abigail starts, unsure, playing with a tissue, “Maru tell your parents?”

“Yeah,” Sebastian says, and he feels like he really needs a smoke.

“I guess it went well.”

Abigail ends with a laugh that resounds dry and bitter in the room. Sam’s leaning towards her, holding her hand.

“Your parents will come around,” he says. “They just need to get over the initial shock.”

Except Abigail, everyone else nods. It’s hard to imagine Pierre staying mad at anyone, let alone his own daughter. But Pelican Town is a small enough place that such a thing might take a long time to forgive in the eyes of others. After the guys leave that first day, Abigail spends the entire day in bed. The next one, she joins her host for coffee, asks about the pumpkin patches.

When the Stardew Valley Fair rolls around, she helps the farmer fill Robin’s truck with her products. The older woman hugs Abigail that day like she’s a long-lost daughter, which makes her cry all over again.

***

The Fair itself is nice; the trees around had already started to turn orange, and it gives the place a really cosy atmosphere. Almost everyone in town buys something from her stall, and Marnie even comments that she fits right in. She enters Lewis’ competition with her pumpkins, but she loses to Shane’s chickens, which is a totally deserved win on his side, though she hates to admit.

Abigail makes up with her family that day, because the second she steps in town, her mother drops a crane of jars, swears, and runs up to her baby girl to hug the life out of her, cry and apologize. Pierre is sniffling at his stall, next to her – and she passes him her handkerchief.

Then, because Abigail is Abigail, she kisses Maru in front of everyone. George whistles, loudly and everyone laughs, which ends any discussion on the topic. With this scene, the farmer thinks she has just fallen a bit in love with the man herself.

Shane approaches her, to boast his win.

“Congrats,” she says, though she is pointedly not looking at the bow pinned to his chest. Jas has already been over, stopping everyone and showing it off.

“You’ve been avoiding me,” he says, and she’s glad the stall stands between them, because she knows he would have liked to be much closer than this.

“Glad you took the hint.”

“Is the freak gang that entertaining, little girl?”

There he goes again, with his horrible nicknames and that shit-eating grin. She hopes he’d choke on all the bullshit he’s spewing, some day.

“Yes.”

She sounds firm, serious and soft at the same time. There’s a small smile on her lips as well, and probably it’s that combination that makes Shane realize she’s entirely truthful. So, he laughs. For sure, he must find her stupid and foolish, and yet she only feels relieved as he watches him walk away, shaking his head like he’s disappointed.

As evening approaches, Sebastian stops by her stall. It’s almost empty now, most of her products sold earlier in the day. He sits next to her, smoking, looking at Sam winning the big prize at darts for Penny. She all but swoons.

Sebastian gets up, throwing his cigarette to the ground and stepping on it.

“Do you want to walk around?”

She nods, he helps her up. She asks Pierre to watch over the rest of her stuff, and when they move from stall to stall, her and Sebastian are so close that their shoulder almost touch, though none moves to put more space between them. She keeps stealing glances at him, as he explains to her about his favourite stalls, and how it used to look like back in his childhood.

They eat Gus’ famous burgers, and her heart almost stops beating when he leans closer, pressing a tissue to the corner of her mouth. He starts by looking her in the eye, but then her own eyes drop to the flutter of his eyelids, the curve of his nose, eventually settling on the plumpness of his lips – and his gaze follows suit, tracing the same path on her face. They sit in silence, staring at each other, until Gus’ boisterous laugh makes them both startle.

She mumbles her thanks, looking at her plate, too afraid to look at Sebastian.

They play darts too, though she only manages to hit the target only once, and only on its furthest ring.

“Sam rigged this game, didn’t he?” she asks, which makes him smile.

Sebastian pays for his turn, raises his eyebrows at her when she’s expectantly watching him. He throws the first dart while still looking at her, and it hits bull’s eye. She screams in delight, clapping her hands together.

He moves his hand to the back of his head, embarrassed at her reaction, even if he so desperately wanted it in the first place. He asks her if she wants any of the prizes, but she shakes her head. As cheesy as it might be, for her it’s enough that she can enjoy the fair, and that she can do it alongside him.

***

When she counts her savings the next day, it’s not as much as she would have liked. So she starts going to the mine again, because she can sell well everything that she finds in there, and for a couple of weeks, it works out just fine. Until it doesn’t anymore.

She knows the place is old, but the crack of the stair giving way under her weight was not an expected problem. The lurking animals and the unmapped areas, sure. But not the wooden step of the stairs.

It takes her by surprise, and she doesn’t have fast enough reflexes to find another footing, so she falls all the distance to the ground. She lands on her side, and there’s a terrible crack in the shoulder that makes getting up so, so painful afterwards. She’s bleeding heavily from one of her knees as well, and several bruises are already blooming on her legs and arms.

Her flashlight also went out on impact, so at first she is disoriented, her head booming with the sound of her fall. Then she gets scared, her heartbeat in her throat, and before she can even think more of her wounds, she forces herself to count up to 100, as slowly as she can, bringing her breathing back to normal, forcing her body to refuse the incoming panic attack just yet.

No one knows she’s in the mine right now, so technically even if they were to notice her disappearance, it will take a while until they find her. And it was already dark outside, judging from the last time she looked at her watch, which makes searching for her unsafe until at least tomorrow morning. She can’t just stay here and wait for someone to find her, even if that is all that she truly wants to do.

She winces when she finally raises to her feet. She’s unstable and everything hurts, but she’s most worried about her arm. She tried to pick up her discarded flashlight, but the movement hurt so much she left out an agonized wail.

Tears start biting at her eyes when she bumps into the stairs, after fumbling through the dark for it. She tries not to think of all the steps until the surface, and then her walk back home – and instead tries to take it one step at a time. She can support her weight only on one arm, and her legs hurt each time she raises them, the skin at her knee ripping open a bit more with each move of her leg up. She takes it one at a time, stops often to breathe deeply, give some part of her body some respite. She struggles even more when she finally gets to the broken stair, and she has to cover twice the distance.

When she eventually collapses on the ground at the entrance to the cave, she can smell the fresh night air, and she can hear the rustling of the leaves, and she starts crying. Somewhere down there, where the mine caved in, trapping workers under the stones and dirt and in unending hallways, is the body of her uncle. Of course, she could have easily shared the same fate today, if she would have been a bit higher, if she would have fallen on one of the sharp stones littering the lower floors instead.

She forces herself, again, to just breathe. But even as she makes herself stand up and walk the long way home, her mind is drifting further and further away, the pain now more dulled at the edge.

That’s why she doesn’t catches when someone calls out her name, doesn’t realize she’s not alone anymore until said person catches her arm to make her stop. Unfortunately, it is her hurt arm, and she shrieks, tears pooling at her eyes, as she’s stumbling away.

Sebastian stares at her, mouth agape, looking like he’s just seen a ghost. He moves his eyes over her body, taking in her state, though he’s unsure in some spots, if the stains on her clothes are blood or dirt.

“Shit, you need to see a doctor,” he says, moving closer again, but she flinches upon his approach.

He passes a frustrated hand through his hair. Dumbly, she wonders what he is doing out here, by the river, in the middle of the night.

“Can I touch you?” he asks. He’s still keeping his distance, though he’s looking at her in a strange way, like she’ll fall off her feet at any moment. Although she nods, this time more aware, more in tune with her surrounding, this time around he approaches more slowly, careful with his movements.

She leans onto him, sighing in relief.

“This will hurt,” he says, and before she has time to think about it, he gathers her in his arms, head at the crook of his neck, her good arm around his shoulder, as he starts carrying her. She just whimpers pathetically, at his chest, blushing furiously and trying not to overthink the gesture, or her weight, or the fact that they’re stopping in front of Harvey’s clinic at fuck knows what time.

Harvey answers on the second knock, looks at the state she’s in and simply mumbles I need my coffee, allowing them inside. Sebastian is still carrying her the flights of stairs up, before finally setting her down on a bed. He’s breathing hard by now, but he’s not complaining. In the light, she can see how wild and panicked his eyes are, how deep his frown is as he searches her body for wounds.

Now that they can see, her shoulder is at a weird angle.

“I’ll have to set it back,” Harvey says, sipping loudly from a fresh cup of coffee, sitting on a chair next to her bed. He looks up at Sebastian, checks the time on his wrist watch. “You can go if you want to.”

“I’ll stay,” he replies almost immediately, making her shiver on the bed, a movement that both men catch. “If that’s okay with you.”

She nods, pleading with Harvey to let him stay, to which he agrees. His job is not made any more difficult, since Sebastian looks perfectly healthy, the weird sleep schedule aside. She doesn’t notice when Sebastian moves, shifts so he can sit next to her on the bed, wrapping his fingers around hers.

Harvey descends like a shadow above her, snapping her bones back in place. She squeezes Sebastian’s hand in her good one, so hard that his bones crack, her fingers digging in his skin until they draw blood. But she only inhales sharply, letting out a string of soft curses, teeth grinding together in pain. When she looks at them, she feels only betrayed, because they both clearly knew what was to come, and did their best to make it as fast as possible.

Harvey hands her a glass of water and some painkillers, and only then does she realize she’s still holding onto Sebastian’s hand. She lets go slowly, smiling at him, patting his hand in silent thanks, though Sebastian cannot smile back at her.

“So what happened?” Harvey asks, moving on to cutting open the leg of her pants, cleaning up the cuts, disinfecting her wounds.

She speaks, evenly, though her panic shows through in some parts, and Sebastian rubs calming circles on her back with his palm. She leans into his touch, swaying in place, eyes fluttering closed, opening them again at a slower and slower pace.

“You should sleep here tonight, so I can monitor your condition,” Harvey says, and Sebastian rises, helping her lay down on the bed, covering her with the blanket, as she’s already fallen asleep.

The two men move downstairs in silence. The clock on the wall shows 4 a.m.

***

She wakes to Granny knitting on a chair next to her bed. It’s such an odd image that it takes her a while to recall all the events of the night before. Then, she startles upright.

“Easy, darling, all’s good,” Granny says, though she didn’t even look up at the younger woman.

She learns that Marnie visited her farm earlier, feeding her animals. Abigail took Max to her place, Penny came by with pie. And Sebastian is downstairs, on his 3rd coffee of the day, not having gone home since he first dropped her at the clinic.

Granny smiles to herself when the patient looks longingly at the door, her skin on fire.

***

Harvey keeps her for one more night, though she is feeling alright, and she insists so to everyone coming around to check on her. She thought Robin will pick her up, something that she agreed to after much pestering from the woman, but instead the one waiting for her in front of the clinic, leaning on Robin’s truck, is Sebastian.

“Mom had something come up,” he says, moving to get her backpack, filled with the stuff from the mine and some clothes that Abigail picked for her. He opens the truck’s door for her.

“I could have just walked,” she says, though her leg is still stiff.

He shuts the door on her, and until he joins her in, she has time to mull over what exactly she wants to say.

“Thank you,” she beings. “For everything and I’m sorry.”

She fidgets on the spot, as he starts the engine and begins driving.

“Why are you apologizing?” his voice is soft, the corner of his mouth tilted up just the tiniest bit.

“For all the trouble?”

It sounds more like a question,

“You know I’d gladly be troubled for you.”

She does not know that, in fact. She turns to look out the window, at the stretch of trees on the road to her farm, and she wonders when she became such a person to others.

When they arrive, she invites him in, but he politely refuses. She needs to rest. But he does walk back to the car, fiddling with the gloves compartment, coming back with something in his arms. He presents it to her, carefully wrapped, and watches attentively as she opens it, catching her reaction.

In her hands, she has the first volume of what she knows is Sebastian’s favourite comic.

Abigail will tell her, later on, that before he came to pick her up, he drove all the way to Zuzu City so he could pick a copy for her. So on an autumn rainy day, she makes herself a cup of tea, and curls in her bed, opening the book.

She takes her sweet time, searching every detail in the art, rewriting particular quotes in her journal. Then her thoughts fly without her even wanting to, to a particular someone she’d like to have next to her, to explain her favourite parts. She’d like to have him by her side more than that though, as she wakes and works, a person that makes it so much easier for her to just be.

She’s a fool – she tries to tell herself, hugging the book close to her chest. There’s nothing she can offer Sebastian that would make him stay in this village he so obviously loathes. She’s just dumb enough to have fallen for the man she cannot even bring herself to ask to love her back. But the image is now stuck on a loop in her mind: stray sun rays filtering through the curtain, and Sebastian in the door frame, with her mug of coffee in his hands, offering it to her as she wakes.

She tortures herself with thoughts like this afterwards, whenever she finds a moment of respite in her work, as she hurries to sell the last of her crops, to preserve the mushrooms, fill the sill with grains for the animals and the storage outside with wood.

***

The first time she gets out of her property after the accident is to attend a dinner on Robin’s birthday. In the town here, it’s not a big deal, so she feels particularly honoured to have the older woman invite her.

However, Robin sends Sebastian to pick her up. She’s on the porch, bundled up in her favourite sweater and a shawl, petting Max, when he pulls up in her courtyard on his motorcycle. He’s wearing a leather jacket, and as he moves to get her helmet, she’s only staring at the way his muscles are straining under the material.

He helps her put it on, clasping it under her chin, his fingers lingering on her skin, and they stare in each other’s eyes for a few long seconds. Then, he holds out a hand, helping her get up, and guides her arms around his waist.

She’s basically glued to his back, and she wonders if he can hear how loudly her heart is beating. He tightens his hold against her arms, signalling that she should hold on tighter, and she does, even though she closes her eyes to will the embarrassment away.

Robin welcomes her with an enthusiastic hug, and she’s delighted to see Abigail has been invited as well, and she’s now sitting next to Maru at the table, discussing something with Demetrius. She’s sent her present in the mail earlier this day, more goat cheese and a few quartz pieces, and the redhead thanks her happily.

When she passes Sebastian on the hallway, she stops for a few seconds to thank him for the ride, warmly clasping his hand in hers. Then just as quickly she lets go, joins everyone else in the kitchen.

Most of the conversation is just the parents dotting on the newly formed couple, though there is a passing comment of the pumpkin soup currently served being Sebastian’s favourite food, so she makes a note to ask the recipe from Robin the next day. There’s an anecdote about how Demetrius and Robin first met, though it makes both their children cringe at how young and lovesick they still sound recalling it. Abigail talks about her studies, Maru continues, though their degrees are vastly different.

The farmer turns to look at Sebastian.

“What about your work?”

The conversation stills, a bit awkward. No one ever asks what Sebastian is doing, since freelancing is such a grey area in their mind – though they fail to see that almost everyone in this town is the goddamn owner of their own work.

“Well,” he starts, playing with the food on his plate. “Actually I’ve got a promotion recently and a really big project coming up.”

She clasps her hands together, beaming up at him.

“That’s wonderful, isn’t it?”

Everyone at the table nods politely, Robin even congratulation her son. But he thinks of her question, and lately the answer seems to be no, because each of his successes brings him closer to leaving Pelican Town, and he’s not sure he wants to anymore.

***

By the end of the evening, everyone is more or less tipsy, made soft by the drink and the warmth of the house. Robin insists that she should sleep over, afraid to let her return home this late. She almost puts Sebastian and Maru in one room, but the daughter refuses so vehemently, that Sebastian instead just tells her he’ll take the couch. Their mother stares for a long time after both of her children, as each turns to their guest, and instead decides to retire for the night, together with Demetrius.

That’s how she ends up sitting on Sebastian’s bed, as he’s searching for a towel and some clothes for her.

“Maru is leaving next spring for a research program,” he explains. “That’s why-”

“She wants to make the most out of it,” she continues.

“Yeah.”

He understands the feeling; it’s why he’s more often than not out of his house these days, afraid that one day he’ll have to root himself out of this place, and he will leave many things behind to regret. And many people he will miss.

He throws the clothes in her direction, points her to the direction of the bathroom.

She’s feeling more awake after the shower, and she’s drying her hair with a towel as she enters his room again. She wears one of his hoodies, but on her it looks almost like a dress, coming down halfway to her knees, sleeves rolled several times over. The sweatpants are equally as large.

“I like your socks,” she says, wiggling her toes, an ugly, green gooey face dancing with the movement.

She’s way too freakin cute, Sebastian thinks, though he only smiles at her as he passes her to go and take a shower. When he returns, she’s snuggled in his bed, a comic book in hands, the sequel to the present he’s given her before. She doesn’t hear him come in until he plops on the couch, and then she looks up at him, cheeks immediately flushing.

“Aren’t you cold?”

He’s wearing a tank top, loose enough around the chest area that she can see his collarbones. She knows she’s staring, yet she can’t tear her eyes away from the skin of his arms, or the taut stretch of his top against his chest. When eventually, finally, she moves her gaze up to his face, he’s smirking, clearly having caught her in the act.

“I never get cold,” he replies, shrugging, though he tenses the muscles on his arm, and her gaze immediately snaps back there.

He’s outright laughing right now, which makes her turn her back to him, pulling the blanket over her entire body and mumble an embarrassed good night.

But she has a very, very hard time falling asleep.

***

“I don’t wanna go,” she whines at Sam, pulling at his clothes, dragging him away from the maze.

He just laughs, tugging her harder instead. His little brother scared her as soon as she arrived for Spirit’s Eve, and since then she refused to leave his side, on edge all the time.

The town is decorated in skulls and supersized spiders, and Abigail took to walking around with a witch hat on and a sword in her hands, which everyone agreed was cool but also relatively worrisome.

She swears, loudly, clinging even closer to Sam’s arm, when Sebastian joins them, carrying two glasses of punch. He chuckles, but still passes one of them to her.

“You don’t celebrate Spirit’s Eve in the city?”

“Well,” she says, taking a large gulp of her drink. “There it’s more about getting shit-faced in a club, and less about your heart going for a run when you turn the corner of the street.”

“Amen, sister,” Sam yells, grabbing her glass and downing it all in one go.

“Hey!” She punches his shoulder.

“It made you laugh though!” he says, leaving so he can get her a refill, and well, he’s not wrong, because now she feels way more at ease than before.

Sebastian shifts closer to her, for which she is grateful.

“Is it really that bad?”

“I just hate jump scares,” she whines, again. “And I’m sure the maze is filled with them.”

“You know you don’t have to do it if you don’t want to, right? We can just sit on a bench and watch the skeletons.”

“We?”

He’s pressing his palm to his neck. “Well I’ve cleared the maze every year, so.”

So they sit, together.

***

Back in the city, she can never tell when it will snow anyway – but here in town, the air is crisp and cold for days before. Robin shows up one early winter morning, and helps her isolate the house as much as possible, around the windows and the doors, so that no cold seeps in, so that all the warmth stays. She might need to renovate the house next year, but for now, it will have to be enough.

Robin sips at the coffee she’s been offered, and pretends not to see Sebastian’s books sprawled all around the farmer’s house, on the kitchen counter, on the bed, next to the TV. She also equally doesn’t comment on one of Sebastian’s jackets hanging on the back of the chair that the young girl is currently occupying. Robin takes another sip, and smiles in her cup.

Back in the city, when it snows, it never piles; part car fumes, part all the people walking around doing their business. But here in the town, when she wakes up one morning, all she can see around her house is a wide expanse of whiteness. Max runs past her, jumps into the snow, comes back in so wet but so happy, that she doesn’t mind having to towel him near the fire from the fireplace.

But she’s left with too much time on her hands; she watches Queen of Sauce almost obsessively, following along in her own kitchen, surprised when her food is actually good. She starts knitting, phoning Granny each time she stumbles through a row. She reads, almost obsessively. And she does go to the mines, but for shorter periods now, scared of not repeating her injury, even if the Adventurer’s Guild repaired the broken stairs.

Then Sam calls her over one day and welcomes her to the world of DnD, him and Sebastian more or less forcing everyone else to start a new campaign with them. It’s the happiest she’s seen them both, so she tries to keep up with the characters, stops to ask about plot holes. They explain things in tandem, finishing each other’s sentences, for almost an entire hour, because you see, this race can’t have this magical power. Sam pulls out his guide, passing it around so that everyone can look up the kind of character they want to create.

That first evening together, that’s all they do in fact: filling stat sheets, searching reference pictures on the internet. And they eat Jodi’s delicious snacks, gossip a bit about Marnie and mayor Lewis’ affair, that the whole town knows about but somehow only the two of them missed this detail.

They turn it into a weekly meeting, rotating their meeting place through all their houses, sometimes the Stardrop Saloon in the days when they know it’ll be more empty and calm. They fight imaginary battles, Sam’s voice guiding them through cities and enemies and friends, saving each other’s asses and forging alliances. It’s the best fun she’s had since arriving in the town, though if anyone were to tell her this a year ago, she would have laughed directly into their faces.

They break the tradition only once, when instead they decide to go ice-skating. Each winter, if the temperatures are low enough, the lake freezes, making it a perfect rink. To be fair, it’s her favourite sport – probably only sport that she’s so excited to do, that she jumps on the spot as she waits for her turn to lend a pair of skates.

She’s looking a bit ridiculous, wearing 3 different layers and one of her grandpa’s padded vests, a beanie on top of her head. Sebastian finds her just really cute. She skates around holding one of Maru’s hands, Abigail the other – because she’s the only one who doesn’t really know how to do it.

Then Sam starts a game of tag with Jas. So they start chasing each other around, yelling when they’re caught only to start again. Penny almost trips, but Sam’s catches her hand and stabilizes her, even if he’s it now. Abigail and Maru skate around holding hands, working more like one person than two separate ones, though Abigail lets go only when it’s her turn to chase someone; and she’s fast as a flash, her turn over in under a minute.

She touches the farmer’s back, and she’s left in the middle of the frozen lake, trying to think who to go after. Her intention is to go after Vincent, his voice shrill with happiness when he realizes he has to run away from her, but her skates catch in the ice.

She only has time to gasp out a swearword, preparing to fall flat on her face. But there’s an arm around her waist, though the angle is awkward and her weight too heavy, so both of them fall to the ground.

She blinks, trying to make sense of the new position. She didn’t hit the cold ice, instead Sebastian’s body cushioned her fall. She’s on top of him, hands on either side of his head, and she’s staring into his eyes. She’s so close that she can feel his chest heaving.

“You good?” he asks, a hand moving to settle around her waist.

It snaps her out of it. “Shit, I’m the one who should be asking that.”

She’s trying to get up, though she’s embarrassed and fumbling, and her first movement just positions her ass on Sebastian’s thighs and crotch area. He shudders, inhaling loudly – and she can feel him stir under her.

“Oh,” is all that she can say, eyes blown wide catching his. Though there’s something more there: curiosity, and a growing interest.

“You guys okay?!” Sam’s voice is distant to her ears, though she waves a hand in the air, to both show that they’re okay and ask for a break from their game. Sebastian says nothing, looking up at her like a man found guilty of murder, face flushed, though he hasn’t moved his hand from her waist.

She grinds her hips, pushing harder against Sebastian’s body, watching in fascination as he’s squeezing his eyes shut, a frown on his forehead.

“Stop,” he says, sounding wound up and chocked.

So she does, rolling from on top of him, pulling herself to her feet, smiling when offering him a hand up. Though he’s not smiling back, he takes her hand.

***

“Happy birthday!” she shouts, when Sebastian opens the door to his bedroom, holding up her present to him.

Behind him, music plays loudly, and she can see Sam and Abigail arguing about who gets the last slice of pizza. She’s the last to arrive, but that’s also partially because outside there’s a real blizzard. Penny comes to hug her in greeting, and she high-fives Sam. Most of the time, they just drink and joke around, chatting about random things, his oldest friends telling tales of Sebastian.

After a couple of hours, Sebastian catches her eyes, motions towards the outside. Sam has given up smoking, being more of a social smoker, just like her. But since he got together with Penny, a fact to which they finally admitted after merciless teasing from Abigail, he quit.

They stop in the hallway, putting on their coats – and she hands him the present again, though he hasn’t noticed her coming up with it.

“You might find useful what’s in here.”

So he opens it to find a matching hat and scarf, in a dark navy. They’re clearly handmade, and handmade by her he suspects – and he’s touched by the time and care she had to put in her gift. Nestled between the material, there’s also a frozen tear.

“God, I-I love this. Thank you.”

She beams at him, obviously relieved. He puts the frozen tear carefully in the pocket of his jacket. She helps him with the scarf and the beanie, her hands lingering on his shoulder for a second afterwards, admiring him.

Outside, in the courtyard corner where they’re smoking, there’s a snowman. Sebastian almost feels like kicking it when she mentions in passing that it’s cute.

“I built a snowgoon but Demetrius made me get rid of it, yet Maru’s cute little snowman still stands…”

He didn’t mean to sound this bitter. She shifts, coming in closer, taking his empty hand in hers.

“If I just disappeared, would it even matter?”

He means it like a rhetorical question, just for himself – but she’s strengthening her grip on him, forcing him to look at her. She wants him to understand that she’s entirely serious.

“It would matter to me.”

***

It’s drizzling, a mix of snow and rain, weather suddenly warming up. On the beach, anyway, snow never piles up, and when Sebastian turns around, he finds her standing a few feet away, staring out into the sea. She is drenched, shivering lightly with each gust of wind, and now that her concentration has been snapped by his movement, she’s staring at him instead.

He gestures her closer, and she stops by his side. Now, closer, he can see that she’s shivering more violently than he initially though, and she’s certainly not dressed properly for the weather.

“What are you doing out here?” he asks, softly, pushing some of her hair behind her ear. She closes her eyes, head leaning toward his touch, and he finds himself cupping her cheek without thinking too much about it.

“What are you doing out here?” she counters, blinking up at him.

Maybe it’s the absolutely pathetic state that both of them are into that makes him answer honestly to the question. Or maybe it’s the fact that it’s her.

“Looking out at the bleak horizon… It makes me feel like it’s worthwhile to keep pushing on.”

He shrugs, trying not to look as serious as his statement. Lately, he’s been having more reasons to believe that same thing, but old habits die hard, and there’s a particular calmness in being somewhere where no one else is. Or, he thinks, looking down at her, almost no one.

“I just like the sea,” she says, and any awkwardness that he still felt dissipates with her admission. The water is raging, stirred on by the storm, crashing violently against the pier, and they stand in silence, his hands carefully petting her hair, pulling her closer when she shivers again.

“Fuck, do you want to catch your death?”

He undresses quickly, placing his jacket over her shoulders. It doesn’t make much of a difference, but it’s more waterproof than what she’s wearing, and also carrying his warmth. He pops open the umbrella he’s carrying, and with an arm around her shoulder, pulls her to his chest.

“You know,” he starts, his palm rubbing circles on her back. “I would normally feel anxious doing this with anyone. But somehow, you’re the exception.”

Her head turns, chin resting on his chest so she can look up at him.

“I want to kiss you,” she says, and Sebastian chokes on whatever he wanted to say before. “Can I?”

She’s on her tiptoes now, her lips so close to his that their breathes are mingling, yet she’s giving him the choice of covering the remaining distance. Which he does, hungrily, almost desperate for it, both hands cupping her cheeks as their mouths clash. The umbrella falls into the water, and yet they don’t care enough to notice it.

They stop for a moment, coming up for air, and then they’re back at it, and despite the fire growing at the pit of her stomach, the kiss is languid, exploring, tongue pressing against tongue. Slight movement, a change in their position to deepen the kiss, her fingers now playing in the hair at the nape of his neck, his hands at her waist.

He kisses her like he never kissed somebody else, and went hungry for it all this time. His fingers move under her sweater, and the sudden cold touch makes her break apart. His touch turns comforting, pressing against her skin, and she sighs. Their foreheads meet.

“Fuck, I wanted to do that for so long,” he breathes and she laughs.

“We are two idiots, right?”

“Big idiots,�� he nods, and she takes his hand in hers, starts pulling him in the direction of her house.

***

She starts the fire in the house, as he’s slowly undressing layer after layer. In the bathroom, the bathtub is filled with hot water, waiting for him. He’s down to a t-shirt and his boxers when he cups her elbow in his hand.

“Join me?” he asks, voice a bit strained, but firm.

She can only nod, dazed, not trusting that this is not just a dream, afraid that speaking will ruin the moment. He sits down on the edge of the tub, gesturing for her to come closer. She’s standing in front of him, and he’s gentle in guiding her out of her clothes, letting them drop to the floor. He strays from his purpose sometime, to press a kiss against her hip, or at the tip of her fingertips.

When she eventually ends up stark naked, his eyes are hungry, but his touch not, as he guides her inside the hot tub. She sighs in pleasure, closing her eyes. She opens them again when she hears the rustling of clothes, to watch him undress. He’s a bit slow, a bit shy, joining her inside the tub. The water almost spills over. She tries not to think of his cock, the precum leaking. She tries to ignore the uncomfortable heat growing between her legs.

She helps him shampoo his hair, he washes her back. They go off track from time to time, kissing lazingly for a long time, his hands massaging her breasts, her teeth grazing his neck. Until she moans, a loud sound. Until he gasps, her name caught between his lips.

Then, with ease, he helps her out. They share one, large towel, huddling together until they reach her bedroom, giggling like children. They’re almost to the bed when he stops, looks at her.

“We don’t have to do anything.”

He’s a liar, because his cock is pulsing with want and she can feel him against her hip. She pouts.

“But I want you.”

He kisses her pout away, pushes at her shoulder until she falls to the bed with a yelp, hands wrapping against him, taking him down with her. She’s laughing, pleased with having him on top of her, when his mouth moves downwards on her body, kissing against her collarbones, sucking at the skin, biting at the skin, until there’s a dark mark behind. He throws her a pleased grin, moving lower yet again.

Sebastian takes one of her nipples in his mouth, a hand moving up to tease the other. Her hands immediately wrap in his hair and she gasps. He pulls at the sensitive area, with his teeth and his fingers, licking it better immediately afterwards, and she writhes under him. He kisses his path downwards, though his lips kiss at her hips, he bites at her thighs, always circling around where she most wants him.

“Seb,” she whines. “Please.”

He stops his ministrations to look at her, frowning and pouting, hair dishevelled against her pillows, her body flushed all over, his marks so obvious against her skin. He feels himself growing at the sight, though he smirks at her.

“Please what?”

She blushes.

“Please eat me out?”

It sounds like a plead and a question and a prayer and a command all at once, and he’s on her in the blink of an eye, tongue lapping at her folds. Her back arches, but his hands are keeping her in place – and he maintains a constant, slow rhythm.

Until he doesn’t, one of his fingers entering her in full, with ease. Sebastian chuckles.

“You’re so wet, baby.”

Her walls squeeze at the nickname. He adds another finger; watches, transfixed, as it disappears inside with the same ease. He starts pumping them inside her, and the sound of her wet pussy taking it all in is so hot, that he groans.

Buried down in her to the knuckles, he opens his fingers apart. She moans, pushing down, searching for more, more, more. He scissors her, spreading her wide – and his head moves lower yet again, lips kissing against her clit at first.

Then, he adds a third finger. He can feel her stiffen under him, so he pulls her clit in his mouth, rolling his tongue around it, just as he starts pumping his fingers inside her. Now her hands are holding on to her sheets, and she’s mumbling some curses, halfway lost to her pleasure, moans louder and louder as he speeds up.

He raises his head just for a second, to chuckle against her heated pussy.

“Come, baby.”

So she does, and he continue pumping inside of her, letting her ride her orgasm. She still sighs when he pulls out his fingers, immediately missing the feeling of being filled up with him. He moves to pepper her face with kisses, petting at her now sweated forehead.

“You did so well, baby.”

He’s teasing her, knowing how much she likes the nickname. So instead she looks down between their bodies, his cock against his navel, leaking – and looking like the most beautiful dick she has ever seen in her life. It’s not the biggest one she’s seen, but he’s thick and she’s never wanted to taste something more than the cum that’d spill out of it.

Still staring, she moves her hands to grab it, her fingers dancing over it, starting with his leaking tip, spreading his precum all over his length, before stopping with a slight squeeze at its base. Sebastian shivers over her, eyes closed, mouth open in an unspoken prayer, because he’s not sure even god can help him now.

Holding his dick in her hands, she helps him adjust at her entrance. At first, he teases against her cunt, pressing his cock between her folds, rocking his hips back and forth as they both moan in tandem. She’s already dripping over the sheets again.

He grabs at her hand, fingers entwined.

“You ready?”

“For that dick? Born ready,” she says, chuckling, but not moving her eyes away from where he’s starting to push inside her.

“Fuuck,” he says, just as she moans, only the tip in. The stretch is painful, but so fucking delicious and she’s a blabbering mess begging for more, pulling him closer with her free arm. He slams inside her, forcing the rest of his length inside in one go, and she swears. He kisses at her eyebrows, at the tip of her nose, apologizing softly.

“Tell me when to move again,” he says, and true to his words, he seems content to just kiss her, tongue at her neck, words whispered and lost in her hair, but making her shiver nonetheless just because there’s the hot breath so close to her skin. She’s trying to adjust to his entirety of him inside her, not hurtful but not entirely comfortable just yet either, and his mouth now licking at her hypersensitive nipple seems to slowly do the trick.

“Move,” she says, and he does.

He’s slow at first, almost frustratingly so, pulling out almost entirely, before slowly filling her up again. She moans, drawn out sounds, with each movement – and she almost doesn’t notice when the speed picks up, when she starts moving her hips to meet his actions. They’re a mess of grunts and moans, gasps and swears – and he squeezes so hard at her hip when she comes again, the orgasm washing over her with an intensity that it’s almost blinding, that she’s sure he’ll leave bruises.

Sebastian looks like a man in pain, inside her as she’s coming back to herself after the orgasm. She kisses his cheek, hands rubbing against his chest muscles.

“Do you want to cum all over me?”

He almost trips with the haste that he’s pulling out of her. She’s waiting, on her back, tongue lolling out of her mouth. Sebastian rises on his knees – it’s embarrassing that he only needs two more pumps to come. Most of it falls on her tits and neck, though she’s happily licking every bit that she can reach with her tongue, swallowing it all like a good girl.

“Fuck,” Sebastian says, falling next to her on the bed. “You’re so fucking sexy.”

She beams at him, getting closer. They kiss for a while, bored and tired and messy, teeth clanking together, tongue at the corner of the mouth. There’s a string of saliva between their lips when they separate.

She gets up, goes to the toilet, returns all cleaned up, before coming back to the warmth of the bed, dragging the covers over both of them. Sure, the sheets are dirty, but that’s a problem for her future self, because right now, all she wants to do is snuggle at Sebastian’s back, an arm draped over his waist. So that’s what she does.

***

When they wake, they fuck on the kitchen counter, the angle hitting her just right. Truthfully, half of her butt is in the air, her legs wrapped around Sebastian’s torso, as he snaps his hips up in her, deeper and deeper each time. She’s never been so glad she doesn’t have neighbours in her entire life. Maybe because it’s been so long on her part, or because Sebastian is really just that good, she’s loud – and she loves to feel him stirring inside her, with each of her moans and praises.

“So good,” she gasps, fingers digging almost painfully in his back, and he proves his point by ramming into her, ripping a sob of pleasure out of her.

He’s wearing a condom this time around, so there is no mess to clean up, and they drink their coffee afterwards – talking about this and that, not even skimming the topic of what they’re doing, or why.

He kisses her goodbye though.

And on Winter Star, while she’s getting ready for the feast with everyone else, Sebastian comes by. He welcomes him warmly, and he sits on the side of her bed, watching her finish her make-up and doing her hair, and though he doesn’t move, she keeps catching his eyes in the mirror, looking at her every movement hungrily.

“We’re not fucking after all this effort I just put in,” she says, pointedly plucking her lips and applying a bright, red lipstick.

“I want to take you out on a date,” he says, ignoring her childish theatrics, but shaking his head with a soft smile.

“Sure.”

She tries to sound nonchalant, but her heart is beating in her chest. As much as she’d like to have him bend her over the table and take her like a bitch in heat, she’d much prefer him being her boyfriend while he does so.

“Good, let’s go then.”

“Now?” she yelps, when he grabs her hand and walks her towards the entrance.

“Now,” he says. He helps her putting on her beret, she straightens the scarf around his neck. “I’ve already called Sam and told him we won’t make it to the feast.”

“You did? What did he say?”

“To have condoms on me,” Sebastian says, face serious, which is why it makes her snort.

“And?” she’s wiggling her eyebrows at him. “Do you?”

He slaps her butt as she’s getting out instead of a reply. She turns at him, the slightest darkness in her eyes.

They go for a ride, promise not forgotten. They drive for a long time, and when they finally reach their destination, he tells her to keep her eyes closed, keeps his palms against her eyes as he guides her steps.

When he moves his hands away, she gasps. Spread ahead of her, the lights of Zuzu City against the usual darkness of the night. Sebastian moves next to her, grabs her hand in his.

“I come here when I want to get away from everything and just… think.”

He’s been doing this a lot lately, ever since she came to the valley, became his friend. Torn between his dreams of the city and the familiarity of home, he came here often thinking about what he should do.

He’s fumbling with his cigarettes, before eventually lightning one. Leaning against his motorcycle, she’s still looking out at the landscape in front of them.

“It gives such a strange, sad feeling…”

She’s almost saying it to herself. She doesn’t understand why he is showing this to her, and she can only think of how much he wants to be a part of those lights shining in the distance. She knows, if he is to walk that path, there’s nothing she will do to stop him.

Sebastian gets close to her, slings an arm around her shoulder. His gaze is still fixed to the city out in the distance, but when he speaks, it’s all just for her.

“The city used to draw me in… but now I’m finding myself happier at home in the valley.”

Her head snaps up so fast that it almost hurts. She doesn’t trust herself to say anything, afraid she’s overstepping, afraid she actually misunderstands whatever is going on, afraid to hope too much.

He turns to her, knuckles slowly caressing her cheek.

“You’re the only one I ever brought to this place. You know what I’m trying to say, don’t you?”

She shakes her head; wants to hear it. He leans down, pulling her close with his other arm, covering her sound of surprise with his mouth, kissing her. She doesn’t think she’ll ever get used to his kisses; he’s a passionate but patient kisser, drawing out the movements for as long as possible, biting and licking at her lips, smiling smugly and lazily at her when he is done.

“I want us to be together. For real.”

She jumps in his arms, the move making him stumble a bit, but they’re not falling. She looks in his eyes, the gaze as touching and passionate as it’s ever been.

“I love you, Sebastian.”

“Wha-”

But she kisses him.

***

She’s obsessed with saying those three words. Now that she has the right to say it, it blooms out of her at his every gesture. She says it out loud without embarrassment or care as to whoever else can hear it. She says it as good morning and as good bye. She says it when he stays the night, and when he asks her over to play a new game together. She says it in front of Maru and mayor Lewis. She says it when he comes inside of her. She says it when he lets her borrow his sweater. She says it when he calls her in the evening after work.

It makes him dizzy with how wanted she makes him feel.

It’s the middle of the night and they’re waiting, alongside everyone else from the city, for the clock to strike exactly 12, and the fireworks to blast into the sky. She’s holding onto his arm, chatting happily with Sam about a cover song they’re planning. Her weight, next to him, is something new to get used to – but she’s always fitting herself right there with so much ease, that it seems almost natural.

The countdown begins, mayor Lewis’ voice booming across the square. At 8, she joins in. At 3, he does too. The fireworks blast with a loud noise, and she squeezes herself closer to him, her eyes to the colouring sky, her lips to his ear.

“Make a wish, babe.”

She closes her eyes, thinking of everything she wants in the upcoming year. He looks at her.

“So, what did you wish for?” he asks.

She tugs at his jacket, kisses him.

“You.”

#stardew valley #stardew sebastian #sdv sebastian #sebastian x farmer #sdv farmer #sdv fanfic #i think this is the first part and i might do a 2nd one with them being domestic pieces of fluff #i'm so tired i 'm so glad this fic is DONE #hope you enjoy ~#my writing

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idealnreal · 4 years ago

Note

Please overanalyze the shadows in his palace I am begging you.

@appleyjuiceboy / jester owns my braincells of course i would do this for u

Okay so i think its best if i go about the order of shadows we meet in the game so. I’m not going to go into the persona/shadows in maruki’s palace. I’ll leave that for some other day. Now! Lets hope i can remain fully coherent.

1) The fluffy haired noodle shadow we meet for (ka)sumi’s awakening

First off, look at the design of this shadow--it has the fluffy hair parted to the right like maruki, its androgynous figure, and that swirly face mask as well! The mask has two eyes, and it even looks like theres a smile there, lopsided.

We have never seen any other palace shadow taking a similar shape as the palace ruler (except maybe the yaldaboath palace). Shadows are meant to emulate what the ruler thinks of as protectors of their heart. Maruki doesn’t trust anyone other than himself with this secret. And particularly at this phase of his distortion -- there are no scientists, to attendants, no patients. Just an empty, beautiful palace -- with possibly only one type of shadow and protector. The type that represents himself.

(Also androgynous/nb maruki confirmed ?? yes)

Okay then lets look at what this shadow says to Kasumi.

Shadow: ... Heresy. You dare to spurn our lord’s mercy. Accept yourself... Our lord laments the foolishness birthed from your pain.

Having the context that Kasumi is Sumire here ... Because this scene comes about because Kasumi sees a cognitive version of herself (Sumire) blaming herself -- and so, a part of her is probably trying to remember that she is Sumire. Thus ‘spurn(ing) our lord’s mercy’. And yeah accepting herself as Kasumi instead of trying to remember that she is Sumire.

But most important is the fact that Maruki’s palace shadows refer to him as a religious or god-like being (’our lord’s mercy’ calling back christian themes). Someone who is merciful and, most of all, does feel grief over one’s pain. Painting an ideal picture of a loving and caring god, ala abrahamic religions. This is a running theme with all the shadow’s dialogs. Let’s put a pin in this for now.

These design shadows are seen again later in the container room of the palace. They’re slightly faster. The container room is a strange one -- because it doesn’t quite fit in with the rest of the laboratory/hospital/garden of eden thing going on. While yes labs and hospitals do have storage areas, i cant imagine them being a container warehouse like this. I do headcanon that this is a storage area for the pain and suffering that Maruki has taken on from other people in order to heal them, due to his hyper empathy -- but i’ll analyse the room some other time. For now it’s interesting that the Maruki-like shadows are now relegated to this specific and really dark section of the palace.

Like the throne room/centre of eden that the Maruki boss fight takes place in -- He resigns himself to the darker gloomier parts of his palace. And the same goes for these shadows. This is where he belongs.

Also abso-fucking-lutely we’re going to talk about how this shadow transforms when it ambushes you:

Skin suit opening up to reveal fangs and rows of teeth, and a formless monster inside. Maruki ... dude ... are you okay? If these shadows are meant to emulate him -- is this how he sees himself sometimes? HHh boy...

2) First lab coat wearing shadow at the start of his palace investigation

Prior to this, while we understood that Maruki was a researcher, it was never a defining feature of him. Like the first thing that came to my mind on Maruki was that he was just the school counsellor and snack purveyor. Now this entire researcher, scientist, side of him is in full display. And this is the most common type of shadow we see, some which are violent, and others are non violent. Maruki sees scientists as the main residents of his palace -- his drive towards investigation and discovery, to puzzling out the intricacies of the human heart, human mind, and human pain. To better further his ability to heal. But there’s also a sort of cold, methodical nature to these scientists. Their ‘healing’ is methodical, based in science.

This coupled with the religious reverence and ideology that their dialog suggests, is a nice contrast. Experiments, data, research, are people’s salvation. Not the simple belief of a deity or of a higher purpose -- but science. Science, in many ways, becomes part and parcel of their religious belief.

Shadow: Those guises ... You aren’t among those who desire salvation. Leave. You are unwanted intruders. Do not disturb our lord’s research-- this world’s salvation. Why do you willingly strive for self-suffering? Why are you reaching out to your own pain?

So here -- the shadow wants them to leave the palace well enough alone. To leave Maruki to his research, and to allow this reality to exist. They don’t want this to end violently and it seems like they’re okay with the trio not ‘desiring salvation’. And when the trio refuse to leave, the shadow asks them why they want to suffer. It’s something inconceivable to them. Maybe even challenging their resolve-- to reconsider their current path, which will only lead to more pain. Also ‘salvation’, ding, on the christian theme counter. Deliverance from above from sin, even redemption. Not for one person, but for the whole world.

We see this type of shadow again before the scene in the auditorium.

Shadow: You are misguided. Do not search for pain. Only tragedy awaits you beyond here. [After defeating it] Such a fool, rejecting our lord’s mercy. In that case -- witness it for yourself.

Same themes. Delicious. Lets move on now shall we.

3) Hastur -- the shadow that appears with Maruki at his reveal as his second-in-command / bodyguard

I don’t think i’ve talked about how much i love the lopsided smiles on these masks. Because i love it. it’s just the right amount of unsettling and creepy. fUCk. And the twitching, twisting, and the weeping blue paint that Hastur’s shadow form does before transforming is /chefs kiss. I wanted more.

Anyway, onto Hastur’s design. Not a labcoat this time, just an ordinary looking white suit with no tie. This is the only time we see Maruki have a bodyguard shadow -- something else he relies on. Hastur’s presence in this scene only shows how deeply afraid and uncomfortable Maruki actually is with intruders in his palace. This experience is a reminder that someone had come into Rumi’s parents house to kill him years ago (a theory for another time). Like that incident years ago, he doesn’t resort to violence here -- he did and does try to negotiate. But when that didn’t work, at least now he has something that can fight for him.

( It is only in the second infiltration when we see Maruki actually take a more active role -- but I won’t get to that here. )

Hastur: Stubborn imbeciles, rejecting our lord ...

There is a running theme here, unfortunately. The shadows again cannot comprehend why anyone would choose to reject Maruki’s salvation, why anyone would choose suffering. And words like ‘foolish’ ‘misguided’ and finally ‘imbeciles’ here are all used to describe those who choose to reject it. While i do think Maruki only bends reality if the person wishes it (subconsciously or consciously), and does accept that there are people who won’t accept their wishes being granted and is aware of the reasons why-- He cannot fully understand or emphatise with it.

4) These deformed Maruki-like shadows guarding the control room

Jesus christ above, i don’t like these, because they contrast with all other designs as these are more brutish and deformed. There’s used as gatekeepers at certain points of the palace, in the first control room, and later on in the brain-pod-room (my brain cells are stopping to work now excuse me) before the garden puzzle portion, at his final will seed and the entrance to the garden of eden.

We know Maruki isn’t a brute strength kinda person. And yet we see these few who’s only purpose is to defend certain things and areas with force. Its uncharacteristic, but at the same time, given the things that these shadows are defending -- it makes sense. No cunning, no wit, no negotiation, no compassion -- just forcefully defending very important parts of his heart and his work.

Shadow (at the control room): So you dare defy His Excellency. You shall not interfere with our master’s work!

Shadow (brainwash room): Foolish rebels! You won’t take one step past here!

Shadow (entrance to garden of eden) : You?! I can’t believe you’ve made it so far ...

I had to do a double take on this. I think this is the only time this title ‘His Excellency’ has been used in the palace. While it is used for catholic bishops and that sort -- its mostly used in the context of heads of state, ambassadors-- more secular roles. The other times this shadow speaks is also similarly less reverent, less religious orientated. Of course this makes sense if the only function of these shadows is to use force to defend. They’re not the scientists or the first maruki-imitation shadows -- they’re not as devoted, and they dont have to be.

5) Finally, these limbless noodles

This one is found during the horticulture portion of the palace. I can’t exactly figure out why. And as far as i can tell, they only appear in this portion of the palace.

As far as the design goes -- these are probably the most unhuman like. Slender, androgynous with only a mask. I’ve got nothing. Braincells ran out. Sorry!

(Haha androgynous maruki go brr)

SO! That’s it. thanks for coming to my ted talk and following me down this rabbit hole. I need to go and drink some fuckin tea.

#(( jester being a real bro here #(( enabling me and my insanity #f: notes #c: the self #takuto maruki #(( slides this into the main tag #appleyjuiceboy #p5r spoilers

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raidbossmadi · 4 years ago

Text

People Like Us: What’s in your Head

If we were to step into your characters' psyche, what would it look like?

Sloane

When you enter Sloane’s psyche you step into a vast forest, trees so large you cannot see their tops and canopies so thick you cannot see the sky between them. However this forest is neither dark or uninviting. Bird songs punctate the background noise and you can hear a stream somewhere in the distance. Walk for long enough and you’ll eventually stumble on the old cabin Sloane called home on Eden-4. You can find the present version of herself there tending to her daily business, Persephone curled up in the corner of the room watching Sloane work.

Just outside the cabin is an impossibly large painting sitting on an easel, on it the world turns into childish scribbles. If you approach it you’ll find that not only can you step into it but when you do you also turn into a childish scribble version of yourself. Sloane’s childhood lives inside this easel, the innocent young girl who never knew she was going to become a Siren. You’ll find that this part of her psyche operates a lot like a children's picture book,Child Sloane doesn’t think in words she thinks pictures, concepts, colors. Mommy and Daddy are green and calm one moment but can turn red and angry. Things grow and shrink here with little regard for actual proportion. If you encounter Child Sloane she’s very trusting, she assumes you're a friend. You are a friend? Aren’t you?

Or perhaps you see the stone bricked path leading to the right of the cabin, as you walk down it the sound of the forest disappears and a thick fog covers the sides of the path. The only way to go is forward. If you look out into the fog you might be able to make out the shape of something you aren’t sure what and it never gets any clearer. All you know is it is massive, it is ancient, and it is sleeping. You stay on the path and soon enough you’ll be in the dream of Vanagard, an old abandoned temple with a fountain in the middle that runs despite all logic saying it should have stopped years ago. Leda and Steele can be found here sitting on the edge of the fountain or walking around the temple proper. You get the feeling that this is something you could never fully comprehend, but you feel at peace here. Steele will not talk to you, you are not Sloane, She is here for Sloane. Leda is more chatty, you get motherly vibes from the moment you start talking to her, she wants to know what your relation to Sloane is, oh you’re friends? Make sure she’s not working too hard, she’s doing her best.

Maybe the sounds from just beyond the forest call to you and walk abruptly into the Pandoran desert. There are so many people here, a crowd that stretches on forever and they are loud. They turn to you, their eyes are flowers and vines spill out of their mouths yet still they talk, still they beg for absolution. You press on through the never ending crowd until you meet a wall, the Cathedral of the Twin Gods towers over you and towering over it are two silhouettes the only defining features on both red and blue siren markings.

“What’s the Password?” Shadow Tyreen asks her mouth full of razor sharp teeth, you stumble and guess things you know are important to Sloane, Flowers,Vines, Persephone. Shadow Troy laughs gilded fangs ever present. “There is no password shitweasel, but good try.” His mechanical arm lifts you up by the scruff of your shirt and puts you over the wall. You realize now the wall has no gate, the only way in was to be brought over by the shadow twins, they are protecting the temple only they decide who goes in or out. Inside the temple things are much more welcoming, the people have faces and you recognize them. They wear the outfits of temple priests but their all Sloane’s friends, you see yourself among the priests and get a feel for what Sloane’s idealized version of you is like, it's all your best qualities. You walk into the throne room, it’s bathed in pink light and upon the dais sit idealized versions of Tyreen and Troy. It’s a little off putting to be fair, these are manifestations of what Sloane loves about each twin, they are far far friendlier than either twin would ever be in real life. Tyreen says things like “Dear brother, would you mind fetching Sloane, she’s running late for our date.” batting her eyelashes and talking in a too sweet tone. Troy is much the same, there's no tension here no anger or sadness. Everything in this temple is the best of Sloane’s life since joining the CoV and it’s welcoming enough you almost don’t want to leave.

But when you do and find yourself back at the cabin, it’s probably for the best that you don’t investigate the gated garden, as you step towards it the sky darkens and a chill runs through you. This gate creaks open and if you ignore your better judgement and enter anyway you’ll find that the garden is overgrown, weeds and giant thorny vines have taken over what was once clearly a vegetable garden. Continue on and you’ll watch as the vines destroy and overtake anything in their path. You come across a young Sloane covered in cuts and scrapes.

“I don’t wanna go! Don’t let them take me!” she cries but as you reach to protect her the vines spring from behind wrapping around her legs and midsection pulling her kicking and screaming back into their mass. Continue forward and you find bodies of scientists wrapped in the tangle, syringe or scalpel still in hand. “This is for your own good.” you hear them say as you walk past along with Sloane’s protests. You will continue to encounter the young Sloane desperate for you to save her but the vines will always win.

Eventually you come to a throne of thorns towering over the landscape,built on the bodies of all the people she’s ever killed, and on the throne, literally one with it, her legs lost in the tangle of vines sits the queen of thorns; Sloane but her markings replaced with thorny vines that cut into skin and bleed constantly. This seems of little consequence to the queen of thorns who merely laughs and fills her chalice with the spilling blood. Her smile shows gilded fangs and when you look her in the eyes, you know that all she wants is to see the world burn. To see humanity laid low for its treatment of her. But she cannot leave the throne, it is her prison and you feel safer knowing that this creature, this aspect of Sloane will never see the light of day.

Tyreen

Entering Tyreen’s psyche is entering a place that you cannot easily make sense of. It is a vast Eridian ruin with hallways that curve upwards and stairs out of Escher painting.

In the center you find Tyreen sitting idly on a sofa that looks entirely out of place. She’s picking her fingernails or her nose, being casual really. What’s really off putting is the fact that every so often an image of Nyriad flashes into existence around the room. She doesn’t say anything but she’s there just long enough to unnerve you.

If you follow a hallway long enough it’ll lead you somewhere, like Nekrotafeyo. Hostile and cold, the mantas are three times larger than they should be but when they get near you they turn to dust. Young Tyreen sits outside the ramshackle shack her parents built poking bugs with a stick. If you go inside the world turns grey and you feel a tangible sadness wash over you. Leda and Typhon sit vigil at the sides of a bed and in the bed, a sickly young Troy. He’s so small, and he’s getting smaller and smaller.

You go back outside Tyreen’s a teenager now and Troy’s there too despite having just been in the house. He’s chained to her at the wrist she looks at it and promises she’ll find a way to get it off, that they’ll be free one day.

Again if you look closely enough around the edges, Nyriad steps in and out of existence.

Or perhaps you see the neon city of Promethea stretching upwards higher and higher. Do the buildings ever stop? People walk past, they walk through you, you don’t exist to them. Tyreen sits on the street corner begging for food, shelter, for help. No one notices her.

Again Nyriad flickers into being.

The way to the great stone temple of Vanagard is shattered. You can still walk the steps but they are shaky and uneven. The fog is thick here and in it you can hear the pained noises of a creature beyond. The temple is shattered in two when you get there, literally half of it flowing into oblivion.

“Not your fault... Shouldn’t be like this...We aren’t a monster…” The words of Nyriad fade in and out. She’s more solid here than anywhere else but you can tell she can’t stay in one place. Her image flickers and vanishes when you try to get close to it.

Beyond the sofa that Tyreen sits on in the middle of her mind scape is a door and when you open it the darkness of the ruins is bathed in golden sunlight. You walk in and find a room made of gold. Women nude save for their faces which are covered by the solid white masks of the handmaidens. They lounge on daybeds and chaise lounges holding grapes and offering them to you. There is however one person with a visible face, Sloane, who sits demurely on a throne dressed in a lavish gown. Everytime to you try to reach her though the throne gets slightly farther away. It’s not until she laughs at your attempts to reach her and approaches herself that you get any closer to her. Like she willingly has to choose to want to be close to you for that to be allowed to happen at all.

The atmosphere changes when Sloane steps off the throne though, all the other women disappear, the gilded chamber turning to a comfortable house instead.

You thought you were heading back to the main chamber but instead you find yourself in a black empty void.

“T-Ty….help me.” You hear Troy call from all directions. His pain is palpable in the air. You aren’t even sure what direction you're going in but the cries for help get louder.

“You lied to me! You lied, again Tyreen!”

“No! That should have worked! Why didn’t it work? This was a mistake we never should have left…” you think that the space might be shrinking. You feel walls you can’t see closing in around you. Just before you can be compressed into a cube the blackness explodes.

Towering above you is a massive vault entrance. An eye peers out of the vault inhuman and angry, the destroyer. Tyreen stands at the base of the vault so small in comparison.

“I understand. We could be gods. That would save Troy. Thank you.” She whispers to no one in particular. Nyriad stands behind her shaking her head frantically, her vision misinterpreted; she tries to touch Tyreen to get her to turn around but fades from existence before she can.

You stumble out of the void you found yourself in and follow instead an iced over path walking down it you end up in a statue garden in winter. You look at the statues, they're all Tyreen’s friends and family. She sits in the middle of them all crying, she never wanted this to happen. She reaches for the one of Leda, but it cracks and crumbles as she touches it.

“Can you ever forgive me, mother.”

Troy

When entering Troy’s psyche you find yourself in an editing room with only one computer turned on. Troy sits at it working away cursing under his breath. Something about nothing ever turning out quite the way he wants it to. If you try and approach he’ll put up a hand and push you away. Can’t you see he’s working?

A screen lights up despite being off a second before you walk towards it and fall into the screen. You’re on Nekrotafeyo, at least you think you are? Chunks of it open up in gaping holes in the sky and ground visual representations of the holes in his memory. They leak sweat and blood, it’s getting hotter out here. You have no choice but to run for the shack at the edge of it all.

Inside you are very small. An ant, while everyone else is so much taller, Typhon, Leda, a young Tyreen perched on the bed. All the giants speak in soft whispers.

“He’s getting sicker you know.”

“He’ll be alright.” Leda promises.

The temperature in the house is rising again. You climb the tree sized bed post to get to the top. You see Leda cradling her young son in her arms offering him her siren energy. The house begins to cool again things seem calm and serene almost. You’re no longer ant sized, you can make it out of the house again. The computer is waiting for you.

Falling back through the screen you notice things have changed, You’re on the bridge of the Centurion now. Troy stands next to his sister desperately trying to break free from the chain that binds them left wrist to left wrist it’s blue on her end and red on his.

“I don’t want to do this Tyreen! You lied to me! You lied to me then held this” he thrusts the chain at her. “Over my head. What kind of loving sister does that. Oh you’ll die if you don’t come with me, what the actual fuck Ty?”

“I… I didn’t mean it to hurt you. You don’t understand now but you will Troy, you will. This is for both of us.” Tyreen begs as she talks the chain morphs into a two headed snake sinking its fangs into both of them but neither seem to notice this.

The stone stairway is missing every other step and you have to take care not to fall into the fog. It seems hostile like it knows it should be here. The other half of the Vanagard temple is here but it’s a collapsed heap on stone and rubble, the fog covering most of what remains. The broken half of the Eridian rune that sat above the door flickers with red light every so often but it is swallowed by the fog. Take care as you leave, you wouldn’t want to fall.

The cathedral is a medieval castle, with everyone in time period appropriate clothing. Peasants begging for an audience with their king, the broken and forlorn being allowed in to speak with him. You note that half the castle staff are all disabled in some way but this does not seem to hamper them, they are valued here. You walk into the king’s chamber Troy sitting on a regal throne, a gilded crown on his head and a matching golden prosthetic replacing his oversized one.

“I’ll send what help I can.” He tells the serfs before sending them away. Tyreen is seated next to him though she’s snoozing away letting her brother deal with the diplomacy.

“Troy!” A high pitched voice comes from the window and in flutters a pixie Sloane who lands on his shoulder. “You’ve been working so hard all day, you should come out to the garden and relax.” She says in a singsong voice poking him on the nose.

He laughs and agrees with her, shaking Tyreen awake and then all heading out to the garden.

You try and follow after but find yourself instead in a junkyard. Hundreds of broken toys and robots all piled up on each other.

“Broken.” The wind whispers. “You’re broken. You will never be anything but a broken little man.”

Troy sits in the middle of it all, but only the left side of him. The right is a void that he claws at desperately. The void pulls in anything to close to it including you as you try and get away but it takes you anyway.

You find yourself back in the editing room but now Sloane is there, perched on his desk. Sunlight shines from behind her as she smiles and asks what he’s working on. He answers and she laughs at the light spreading across the room enveloping him. Flowers start blooming in the cracks in the tile.

You get the feeling everything will be ok in the end.

#borderlands 3 #Troy Calypso #Tyreen Calypso #Sloane the Siren #People Like Us #My Writing #My Hcs #The Queen of Thorns #My Art

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sondepoch · 5 years ago

Text

Day 6

10 Days (Jumin Han x Reader)

You didn't expect to find yourself locked in an engagement to Chairman Han, but with your own mother forcing you into it, you have no way of denying her. But as time continues and things change, you begin to develop affections for your fiance's son: Jumin Han. But the sad truth is that there's nothing either of you can do to stop the marriage, and you only have these 10 days before your future becomes reality. 10 days with Jumin Han.

Day 1 | Day 2 | Day 3 | Day 4 | Day 5 | Day 6 | Day 7 | Day 8 | Day 9 | Day 10 | ✔

MASTERLIST

BREAKING NEWS: C&R Chairman Han to wed BC-Sonic's Corporate Heir?!

After a tip from an anonymous source, it has been newly confirmed that corporate heir (F/N) (L/N) has is engaged to C&R's Chairman Han, and has been for the past eight months! Looking through recent media footage, several sources have discovered multiple pictures and instances of these business lovebirds on various romantic getaways in these past few months. There has been a noted increase in sightings over the past few days of the lovers as they prepared for what we just learned is their approaching wedding date—a short four days from today!

"They wanted the wedding to be a private affair," A reliable source, wishing to remain anonymous, has informed us. "They were worried that if the media caught wind of their plans, then their relationship would suddenly be under scrutiny. But now that the date of the official wedding is so close, no one can keep the surprise any longer!"

The wedding is currently set to be in a private location, the two business typhoons wishing to keep the ceremony as intimate and secretive as their discreet relationship thus far; but now that this news has reached the media world, every outlet in Korea is abuzz with excitement for their future!

There is currently an interview scheduled with Chairman Han on the 12th, just after the wedding. Tune in to this outlet channel to watch the interview LIVE as he reveals all the exciting details of the relationship he's managed to keep secret for so long and stay tuned for a followup article to reveal all the juicy details!

With the number of times you've reread this article, you should be able to recite the whole thing from memory, but your mind simply cannot. You can't process it. Your brain can't begin to comprehend the utter, ridiculous possibility that this is real.

You drop the phone Jumin had handed to you on the table, leaning back in your chair. For once, he doesn't say anything and leaves your mind to process what you just read.

They got so many details wrong, you think. It's the media, shady and unreliable, so the severe drought of truth in the article was rather unsurprising. But the sheer confidence at which the information was delivered made even the lies seem convincing.

Eight months. They said I've been with Chairman Han for eight months.

If not for the severity of the situation, you would scoff at that fact alone. The two of you have been engaged less than eight days, and the 'multiple' pictures showing the two of you together weren't linked anywhere in the article, an obvious nod to the fact that you two had yet to even meet each other during that time.

But the biggest lie is even more troubling.

The words still bounce around in your mind, numb and daunting. Wedding date. Approaching.

You swallow.

Four days from today.

You close your eyes, shutting them before any tears can form and escape. You don't need Jumin to see you cry again.

But the man can practically read your mind.

"(Y/N)," He murmurs, placing a comforting hand over your trembling one. "Don't..."

But even Jumin can't complete the sentence.

Don't what?

This article isn't the only one popping up on headlines today. There are at least a dozen other articles, all quoting the same anonymous source, and you're quite confident that, if you turn on the television, you'll see features talking about your love life there, too.

The article said it.

All of Korea is abuzz.

And there are only a few people in this world who have the power to do such a thing.

You clench your jaw. Anonymous source. After meeting with the woman just yesterday, what other person can this mystery person be?

"Why would my mother leak these details to the public?" You ask, voice breaking in the middle.

Jumin knows the answer.

He also knows that you know the answer.

But you want him, you need him, to lie to you. To tell you that maybe it isn't true. That you aren't going to be marrying Chairman Han in four days. That your mother didn't inform the media as a cruel Checkmate against you, tying you down to the future that the world now expects of you.

Jumin is quiet.

You clench your fists, too horrified by the situation presented in front of you to even relax as the man squeezes your hand tenderly. You close your eyes, trying to think and find a way out of this situation.

And ridiculous as it seems, there's only one thing you can think of.

Something stupid.

Something you should have done a long time ago.

Pulling yourself out of Jumin's arms, you force yourself into a standing position, hoping that the assertive pose will give you the courage you need as you dial Chairman Han's number. The moment he picks up, you don't even give him the chance to bid you his usual "Hello darling," cutting straight to the point.

You take a deep breath.

"I don't love you."

***

Somewhere, in the distance, your father watches the scene playing out before him in the afterlife. Heaven is supposed to be a place of joy, he's been told, but ever since arriving here, he has only been brought misery at seeing all the paint that befell you after his death.

A tear slides down his cheek.

He's so proud of you for having the courage to tell your betrothed the truth: of your unwillingness in this godforsaken marriage.

But then another tear slides down, and another, and the man is quietly sobbing as he continues to watch the scene before him.

It's too late for you, he knows.

It's too late.

***

"I know, my darling."

Your eyes widen at Chairman Han's words, turning to Jumin in shock. The man seems just as surprised as you are at the words, though on his face, confusion overrides everything else. You can hear the gears turning in his head as he thinks: his father knows? This can't be happening, right? This can't.

"But in time, you will come to appreciate me as much as I do you." Chairman Han continues. "There's no other solution. Your mother sees it as much as I do, and while it will be difficult at first, things will definitely sort out. You will be happy in the end, my child. Truly."

Silence.

You know that Chairman Han is waiting for a response from you, but you can't think of anything to say. He knows you don't love him, and he still intends on continuing with the engagement?

In your state of shock, Jumin takes over.

"Father, what is the meaning of this?" His voice is controlled, but there's no mistaking the raw fury that lurks in between every word. "Surely you do not intend on marrying a girl who is unwilling?"

"She may not wish it now, but in time she will see that this is the best thing for her," Comes the Chairman's response, loud and clear. "If anything, Jumin, you should be the one to understand my situation here. You know of the...issues C&R has been facing, the very reason why I'm in international waters right now!"

"That?" Jumin's nostrils flare, and your ears perk up. C&R is facing issues? You knew that Chairman Han had left because of something serious, but what could be so ridiculous that the only solution he sees is marriage?

"As an independent company, C&R's stock will drop five days from now when the press statement and the details of this data breach get released. We need as much positive PR as we can get right now—this is to benefit your future, my son."

And then, it clicks.

Everything.

Your mother, she seeks to torment you. To return to you all the pain that you caused her when your father protected you from a drunk driver and lost his life. That's why she's so on-board with this situation.

On the other hand, you'd thought that Chairman Han wanted to marry you because he had taken an actual liking to you, and perhaps he had. In the beginning.

Now, it's obvious.

It's not a marriage Chairman Han seeks.

It's the cushion that the marriage will provide.

Marrying you, to him, will be a safety net.

Linking BC-Sonic and C&R will automatically ensure that his company doesn't go under, no matter how large the scandal caused by the data breach C&R suffered. Moreover, the current benefits that both BC-Sonic and C&R are facing are immense, the amount of media coverage going into investigating the details of your supposed "love life" only further advertising both companies and raising their value.

The rise caused by the media hype around your two companies will offset any losses that C&R takes when the public learns of this data breach, and the empire that Chairman Han has worked so hard to build will be safe.

And on top of that, he gets a pretty and young wife out of it.

"Father, you cannot be serious." Jumin looks terrifying now, pure wrath dripping into his every word. You wish that Chairman Han could be here now and see his son in front of him, see the distress that he is causing. "Do not marry (Y/N) for the sake of your business."

"Our business, Jumin."

"I would rather have no company to inherit than to inherit a company that was saved through you ruining an innocent girl's life."

"Goodness, Jumin! I am not ruining her life," Chairman Han defends. "She may not love me today, but she definitely will in the future. You know I will treat her well. I'm telling the truth."

And angry as Jumin is, you're shocked to find that even he does not contest that statement—though you're not sure if that's because it's the truth or because the man's judgment is being shrouded by the fact that he's dealing with his own father.

"Father, if it is the PR that you seek..." Jumin's voice wavers uncharacteristically, his tone desperate. "Please let her marry me instead. It will have the same benefits you seek."

You know you should pretend to be surprised, but you're too tired to put up an act. These past six days have shown you an entirely new world with Jumin, a world that you never want to leave.

You love him. And you know he feels the same way.

No doubt, you adore the idea of spending the rest of your life with him.

"You love her?" Chairman Han asks.

"Yes." Jumin doesn't hesitate. His father, however, does.

It's a long time before the man's response finally comes, but the weight of his words seems to sink your entire world. "I'm sorry, my son. Your hand in marriage is to be saved for separate business pursuits, and the public already knows about the two of us, and..."

You tune out the rest of Chairman Han's words, only aware of the fact that, other than Jumin, no one is on your side.

And now that Chairman Han has made his priorities clear, nothing can save you from your future.

"Please, put her back on the phone. This wedding will do no harm to any of us—it simply quickens things. (Y/N) and I were to marry from the very start, and we're going to be doing just that."

Jumin bites his lip, internal conflict glowing darkly in his grey eyes.

You can see his turmoil over having to accept his father's words or fight against them. Your heart softens. Just as weak as you are in front of your own mother, Jumin seems to harbor the same soft spot for his father.

You sigh.

Jumin has done so much for you.

It's time for you to accept that this is beyond your hands.

Gently, you take the phone from him. "Fine," You murmur into the microphone. You keep the words coming steadily, not giving Chairman Han a single chance to interrupt you. "I will marry you in four days. Send me the details over text, and please have all arrangements ready. Do not call me until then, do not contact me until then. Say what you will to the media—I'll marry you. But, Chairman Han, I do not love you."

You hang up the call, somewhat shocked that you even had to courage to say those words. They were so bold. So unnaturally bold, coming from you.

Then again, nothing about this situation is natural.

Closing your eyes, you slink back into your seat.

So much has changed over the course of these past few days.

Too much.

Just yesterday, when your mother had left the apartment, you'd been so willing. You'd truly accepted your fate. Resigned yourself to the fact that your life would be spent with the Chairman, as your mother wished.

You knew that you would have to marry Chairman Han.

But now, things are happening too quickly.

And...

"I don't want to marry him, Jumin." Your voice is small as you say the words. "I don't want him."

I want you.

"I know," Jumin murmurs. For once, he doesn't fight back or try to offer you any way out of the situation, now that he, too, knows how futile it is.

Fighting against one parent was one thing, but for both to be in on it?

Nothing could have prepared him for this, just as nothing could have prepared you.

"We have three days," You murmur quietly to Jumin. It's a silent proposition.

Three days until the day of your marriage, three days for the two of you to bask in what you both recognize as newfound love. Why, six days have already been wasted—you don't want to sacrifice even a minute.

Jumin turns to you, eyes focused. "I'll take these days off, then." He comes close to you, pushing a strand of hair behind your ear. "You do want this, correct?"

You nod your head.

You don't just want this. You need it.

And then Jumin's lips are on yours, as tender and delicate as the very first time you'd kissed.

You kiss back with a strange sense of solemnity, noting how this kiss is different from the previous ones. It's sad, the tear stains on your cheek moistening Jumin's own face. It's pained, with the knowledge that the two of you won't have the rest of your lives to continue kissing and loving each other. It's yearning, yearning for more of each other and more time to appreciate each other.

But most of all: it's helpless.

Because at last, the two of you have come to terms with the truth: you're soon going to be sealed away in marriage to another, and Jumin will meet a similar fate.

You can't belong to each other.

But, perhaps, for these next few days, you can forget that truth.

You gasp lightly as Jumin wraps his arms around your waist, murmuring the word "Jump" huskily into your mouth. You don't waste a moment in complying and wrapping your legs around the man as he walks you to his room, pressing you against the wall. He keeps you pinned upright with his body, kisses trailing lower and lower until his mouth is settled over a familiar spot over your neck.

He sucks.

Your moan is breathless as it leaves your lips.

Jumin continues, slowly pulling articles of clothing off of you until you're entirely naked for him, only your underwear separating him from unleashing all his lust upon you. His eyes are hungry, starved for contact and starved for you as he gazes down upon your exposed form.

You can't belong to Jumin.

But for these next few days, that doesn't matter. For these next few days, you're his, and he's yours.

And as he tosses you onto the bed, crawling on top of you to continue leaving love marks all over your body, you can already sense that he plans on showing you all the love and lust and passion and happiness of your would-be life together in the short time you have remaining.

So with thoughts of Chairman Han and your mother pushed far to the back of your mind, you yank Jumin by his tie and pull his lips back onto yours, savoring the contact.

For these next three days, nothing will be able to pull you from him.

Nothing.

MASTERLIST

Day 1 | Day 2 | Day 3 | Day 4 | Day 5 | Day 6 | Day 7 | Day 8 | Day 9 | Day 10 | ✔

Word count: 2.8k

Notes: i havent seen my best friend in over a month and i hate it

Comment & Like

Next Update: 5/06/20

I do not own the rights to Mystic Messenger or any of the characters within it.

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saintheartwing · 4 years ago

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Jeremy Spoke In Class Today

Author's Note: I've had this story idea in mind for years. Today, I finally wrote it out. So...trigger warning. The follow content isn't for the faint of heart. The story you're reading is going to contain violent imagery. Harsh depictions of violence and death. I write this story not to make you disgusted, but in inspiration from a very famous song about this very subject matter, and as a warning to all who may be on the verge of becoming their own Jeremies.

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"I want you to tell me what happened."

The air is sultry, choking the life out of those that sit in the room. It's quiet. Still. Uncomfortable. Every single person that's been in this room has to tell him what they saw. It's just them and the cop. The cop is trying to go easy on them, he speaks quietly, softly, carefully. There's a social worker just to his right, in case any of the children start to cry.

None of them have yet. That's good.

Right?

The first interviewed had blood splattered all over his right eye. It doused his glasses, his black jacket, a splotch falling on the dark blue undershirt he wore, with the "meh" looking cartoony face atop it. His black hair is slicked up in a scythe, his skin paler than usual. He's quiet and somber as he speaks.

"I would…see him drawing in class. Stuff he'd taken from home."

Dibbun Membrane kneads his hands together in his lap. His breathing is shallow, but he speaks all the same.

"Drawing pictures of mountaintops, with him on top. Lemon yellow sun, arms raised in a "v"." Dib confesses as he bits his lip, and looks down at the desk. If he closes his eyes, he can still see them, and see himself. He sees himself peering to the left, looking at Jeremy. Jeremy, who's got so little hair that the kids tease him for going bald so early. Jeremy, who has the kind of fat, sort of ugly nose. Who's got small ears, and a kind of skinny frame. Dib can see him, drawing at his desk, drawing himself as king of the mountain.

And the dead lie in pools of maroon below.

"I know he talked about…how his dad didn't pay attention to him. We had that in common." Dib goes on. "I'd bring it up to him too. My dad can't even remember exactly when my birthday is. The last time we ate out together as a family was when it was my birthday last year. My sister's having her's coming up soon, then it'll be mine. Every other meal, there this…robot. It asks us in our Dad's voice if we love him, and we gotta select "yes" on the screen before it lets us have our food." Dib confesses. "So I told him "How sad is that? I've had a dad replaced with a TV screen that keeps asking for love and can't show it"."

"What did he say?" The cop wants to know, though, deep down, he really isn't sure he wants to.

Dib sighs. "He said "Yeah. Sucks. But I'd rather have that than a Dad who IS there…and even though he's looking at you, he isn't seeing you". That's what he told me. His Dad never actually talked to him. Doesn't ask ONE question about how his day or week's gone. And his mom's no better. She doesn't care. She's only there every once in a while, she's always working, like…some kind of lawyer, I think. She's some kind of lawyer. And then there's the birthday gifts."

"What did he get?"

"A card and a little check." Dib sighs. "I know a lot of kids who'd love that, but there's never any parties. And they don't even put anything in the card. Not even their name. He showed me that too when he showed me the check. I think he used the checks to save up for that…for what he brought in to class." Dib murmurs as he rubs the back of his neck, feeling the air choking his throat again. "So his dad isn't paying attention, and his mother doesn't care. So what does he have left? Isn't it sad when I'M his only real friend and we're only really…like, we just talk sometimes at Recess or lunch. That's…wow. I mean…just…" He trails off.

There's silence for what seems like ages. Then he speaks up again, and says the same thing the other boy said, the one with the bad black hair, the green skin, who didn't have a nose or ears.

"Then one day he attacked Ms. Bitters."

"He attacked a teacher?"

"We all remember picking on the boy. Zim especially. He was a…what's your term? Lightweight? Pathetic. As Torque Smacky put it, a "harmless little fuck"." Zim goes on. He's wearing his normal dark maroon shirt, three small stripes across it, dark pants, boots, gloves. He looks oddly…cold. He's usually smug in class. Or frowning. His face is different. It's almost expressionless. It is as if he's trying to comprehend something but can't.

"How did he attack Ms. Bitters?"

"We had no idea we'd unleashed a lion." Zim goes on. "He was yelling at Torque. Torque had insulted him again. Jeremy actually does something Zim approves of, and kicks him squarely in the face. It's glorious, his nose is broken on the spot." Zim nods firmly. "Torque begins tearing the kid's hair out as they tumble about on the ground, and Jeremy, in turn, begins biting Torque wherever he can. Ms. Bitters slithers her way onto the playground and everyone turns silent. We had all been cheering and jeering, laughing, pumping our fists into the air, the cry of "Fight, Fight, Fight" stops at once. Zim sees her forcibly lift Torque and Jeremy off the ground. She shakes them, first Jeremy, then Torque. She's turning to Torque to admonish him after she's got Jeremy in one hand, but it isn't a good grip, and he breaks free, and then it happened."

"He bit her?"

"He bites her on the chest." Zim rests his hands on the desk he's sitting at, faint dust motes wafting through the air about him as he speaks. "I've never seen her look so…astounded. Jeremy is screaming. "I hate you, I hate you, I hate you", and he punches her in the face, and her glasses shatter. The skies are all cloudy and it looks like it might rain, and she just stares at him. Zim can SEE the slowly building rage. She's going to kill him on the spot. It was amazing. I'd never seen such raw fury in two human faces before."

He almost sounds…intoxicated. Impressed.

"I was just…astounded by it. He gets hauled off, by his arms, into the school. He's got detention for a week. We find out he even got a paddling from Ms. Bitters, and as he walks by me in the hallway a day later, I look down and see his pants have been ripped. Ms. Bitters had been paddling him so hard that morning that she tore his pants and he can't go home to get new ones. So I laugh. I sing that human song, "I see Paris, I see France, Zim can see your underpants". Something like that."

The green-skinned child rubs his cheek. Not two hours ago, blood was dripping down it, splattered over his left eye to drizzle down his cheek and onto his shirt and his arm. Jeremy's blood.

"He hits me with a surprise left hook. He almost breaks my jaw. MY jaw." Zim speaks. "I had no idea humans could hit so hard."

"…it is a mortal sin."

Sara can barely bring herself to speak. She's from a very Catholic family and she commonly dresses as a nun. She's been clutching her rosaries and fumbling with her words and she won't look the cop in the face.

"He's done a mortal sin. You cannot ever, ever, EVER do such a thing. I don't understand why you'd damn yourself to Hell like that, he-his…his head. His head!" She murmurs. She grips the rosaries so tightly, her knuckles whiten. The cop almost thinks they're going to pop right out of the skin. "There was…yellow stuff. Not just…not just the blood, and all that pink but…yellow stuff. Wh-where does the yellow stuff even come from?"

"I understand this must be very difficult for you to talk about." The cop tries to say, Sara feeling the tears springing to her eyes.

"So much of it." She murmurs. "So much of that…yellow stuff. And…and the yellow stuff, it…it got all over the blackboard. They will never erase that. We will never, ever forget this." She whispers out.

"Did Jeremy ever talk to you or anyone else in class about his problems at home? Did he ever talk to anyone about being…mad? Or very angry? Or sad? Did he ever bring up weaponry?" The cop wants to know. Nick has that…odd expression on his face. He, like Jeremy, is missing a good chunk of his head. His skull needed surgery, his brain, like Jeremy's, exposed. But he has a polymer plate from the surgery, his brain is still intact. It isn't in pieces, splattered in splotches like a Pollock painting. Nobody's sure how Nick got the injury to his head, evidently there was some kind of drill that got stuck in his skull, and he had to be rushed to the hospital with a probe removed from his cranium. It's a miracle he can talk. But his smile is unholy. He's…

Laughing.

"Jeremy hardly ever spoke. But Jeremy spoke in class today! Jeremy spoke in class today!" Nick laughs. His smile is horrifying, his laughter sends chills down the cop's spine. "Spoke in…spoke in. Yeah…spoke in class today."

He knows he won't really get much else out of him. The cop dismisses him. He's the last child to be interviewed. Ms. Bitters remains oddly silent. She's waiting outside to be called in, but hasn't said a word. When it finally is her time to speak, when he asks her what happened, her voice is creaky and croaky and she seems miles away.

"I've never, ever had this happen." She takes off her glasses, rubbing them on a hankerchief in her pocket. "Ever. This sort of thing never happened in my day."

"When did you realize he intended to do what he did?"

"He said he had something from his parents that he had to give to me. He'd left it in his locker, he said. He walks out of my room. Five minutes later, he's come back. I don't see what's in his pocket. I should have realized something was wrong. Nick starts….laughing. Just this creepy, foul, laughter, and then, THEN as he raises his arm up, pulling his hand out of his pocket, he says "I've got what I came for." He puts the gun in his mouth, and then his upper head vanishes, and everything's all red and pink and…some…yellow stuff."

She can't say any more. The room is dead silent, and still. It's gone cold, too, as the pitter patter of rain turns into a low roar against the windows. The cop doesn't say anything as Ms. Bitters once again cleans her glasses and then looks out the window.

"It just got…everywhere. I didn't think that somebody could small could have so much blood in him. He's still standing upright for a good…twenty seconds. And we can see parts of his skull have flown up into the ceiling tiles. Then one of them falls out, and when it hits the ground, he collapses, and his blood is pooling out, and it's soaking into Dib and Zim's shoes. And that's when I hear Sara screaming, and Nick is laughing, and he keeps saying "Jeremy spoke in class today". Over and over and over…"

The boy's parents are being informed of what's happened. Neither of them have any explanation for how Jeremy got hold of a gun. They didn't even seem to be aware he even HAD been being paddled at school. Evidently Jeremy was supposed to tell his parents of his punishment. Whether he did or didn't isn't known, but the cop is fairly sure Jeremy did. They just weren't really listening.

The crime scene is a mess. Jeremy's desk even more so, scattered pictures lying inside, with the boy atop a mountain, arms raised in a "v", and the dead lay in pools of maroon below.

How do things get so bad that you resort to this? Why did nobody speak out? Reach out? Could anything any of the children have stopped this with some kind words? Or perhaps it really was all on the fault of the parents?

The cop doesn't know.

The children, however, do. Or at least…Dib does. And he'll remember what happened that day, and take it to the grave. He will never forget the way Jeremy's head vanished in the flash of the gunfire. The splattering of blood on his glasses, the bone fragment that shot up, up into the air, and plunked off his desk and onto the floor below. He can't forget that horrible, insane laughter from Nick. How Zim looked so...stunned. Almost broken.

Dib wonders if Zim's ever actually seen a dead body before in his life. Dib had, when his mother died. This was different.

He's not going to forget. Not ever.

He will always remember the day Jeremy spoke in class.

And he's going to have a little talk with his father. Before it becomes his turn to talk in class.

#horror #drama #invader zim #Zim #Dib #school #tragedy #Pearl Jam #fanfiction #fanfic

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cookietherookiesworld · 5 years ago

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Ramblings of an Addled Brain

“My thoughts are stars I can’t fathom into constellations.”

Yup, that’s a Hazel Grace quote. I’m confident that most of us must have read the book or watched the movie or both. The characters effortlessly made their way into our hearts. The Fault in Our Stars undoubtedly has some of the most beautiful quotes and this one right here is emotionally important since I could relate to every bit of it. (Yes, many of you find it overrated.)

When Hazel Grace muttered these lines, I could feel the accuracy hit my bones. How often have you caught yourself feeling unable to express your thoughts, your opinions, your feelings? How many times have you let your inner turmoil take control over you? How frequently have you wanted someone to just comprehend, make sense of what you’re feeling? I’m sure that most of us at some point have gone through similar predicaments.

It’s quite rightly said that you are your thoughts and vice versa. Our thoughts precede our actions. Even the most impulsive actions have their seed sown somewhere within our subconscious. But we don’t necessarily have an explanation for it. It just naturally comes to our realization.

Expressing my thoughts is something that I’ve never been the best at. I’ve always found the task of putting words to my feelings a struggle. My mind is often preoccupied with a plethora of thoughts. They range from intense subjects like contemplating life and existence to the most insignificant of things such as the consequences of wearing a red top instead of black to a casual outing. There’s no in-between.

There have been times when I act moody and distant and people often ask me why I feel that way. And all that I can bring myself to say is, “I don’t know”, “it’ll pass”, “just like that”. How can I explain something so complicated and not just limited to one particular thing? It’s intricate like a bundle of intertwined wool that cannot be detangled without getting impatient. And burdening someone with my arbitrary perspectives is the last thing that I would consider.

Have you ever realized that there might be a chance that the reason you’re incapable of sharing your feelings is that you’re insecure about them? Self-consciousness about your thoughts and the fear of letting people in to see who you are acting as hindrances? Afraid that people would get an insight into your beautiful mind and it’s functioning? Because I sure feel this way. And I want to let you know that not one of you is a burden and those who make you believe that in any way don’t deserve to be a part of your journey or get a peek into your soul.

Some thoughts come and go from my brain and there are so many that I don’t have a track of. Some impact our thinking immensely and get embedded in our minds while some fade away without a trace. There’s no concrete reason or explanation for their existence. They just do. Some paint a beautiful picture leaving us in awe while some just remind us of how twisted and human we are.

I think it’s pretty normal if you’re unable to express your feelings. Although if they’re eating away at your brain and disrupt your peace of mind, I’d insist you talk to someone about it for talking is therapeutic. Sometimes, all you need is a person who just listens to you.

Constellations don’t have a shape; we give them one. Similarly, our thoughts are like stars and we have the liberty to sculpt them according to our own will and make them winsome in our special way.

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bluepenguinstories · 4 years ago

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Happiness Overload Chapter Fifty-Seven

As I fell, I couldn’t help but smiled. Not at first, but after the initial shock of falling passed, I was really able to take in the moment.

Those two really are the real deal.

It was just as Dr. Michelangelo had said (yes, I was listening in). Their love was at a level I could not comprehend, a power so great that, gah! Yes! That was it! The oft rumored ‘power of love’! I’ve heard of such things!

While my love was for art itself (not that women weren’t beautiful, though I was more interested in the aesthetic beauty than any kind of emotional evocation. So long as I could paint a beautiful picture, that was all the love I needed), theirs was unparalleled!

Thud!

I hit the floor as if I were a blot of ink and a pile of popsicle sticks were the canvas. Pain meant little to me. After all, what was art, if not pain?

No. There was no need to answer that. Instead, I allowed my ears to absorb the surroundings; Every little fixture, movement, heartbeat. Two bodies (the gay baby jail had been moved off the stage, as it was no longer needed), two muses. Two little pieces of inspiration that would provide me the answers to any question related to art and pain. All I needed to do was listen.

All I could think about was how weak I had been to fall into such a trap like that. That I couldn’t figure out a way out, and that I even gave in to the delusion. Even after I woke up, the effects continued to linger, if only a little.

“Yes! We got her!” Coriander cheered. She sounded triumphant, as we watched Dr. Lynch...and whatever other names she might have had, fall, along with her tower of popsicle sticks.

“Good job!” I managed to reply. Despite the blurred vision, if nothing else, I could tell from the vibes that we were victorious. No, not we. She was. “That was badass!”

She looked back at me. “It was?”

Why do you sound surprised? You’ve always been cool.

I laughed. “I don’t know! But if people can call me that, I don’t see why you can’t be!”

“Was I admirable, too?”

Of course. You’re getting better all the time.

I nodded, then started to lose my balance.

“Velvet, are you okay?!”

I watched as my arms swung around, as if I weren’t the one doing the swinging. As I managed to stand back up, I grinned, folded my arms over my hips, and looked her way. “Of course! What, are you worried about me or something?”

She looked away. “Are you going to hold it against me if I say yes?”

Oh my god. So cute.

“Yes! In fact, I will! Every chance I get!” I couldn’t help but let out a laugh. But then I shook my head. “Sorry, I got a little carried away. We’ve got more pressing matters to deal with.”

Coriander nodded; one moment, we stood next to each other, triumphant. Then, I blinked, and it must have been the longest blink ever, as between those few seconds, she had sprinted toward the mad artist and pinned her to the floor. There seemed to be a passion to the way she was positioned on top of her. Or maybe it was just my thoughts drifting elsewhere.

God, I wish that was me.

No, that passion was anger. Pure, unfiltered rage.

“I’ll kill you!” Coriander screeched. “How dare you?! Huh?” Coriander tightened her grip. I watched her let go, only to reach for Dr. Lynch’s throat instead. That snapped me out of my trance.

I got over there and pulled Coriander away. It was a much heavier task than I thought it would be. She kicked and thrashed about and I heard her seethe.

“What are you doing, Velvet?” She struggled to break free. “She tried to kill you! To kill us! Let me at her!” Then, the one on the floor started to cough.

“H-Harder…” Dr. Whoever wheezed.

Coriander groaned. “You know what. I suddenly feel gross.” I let go of her. “But seriously, why Velvet? This person is our enemy! We should kill her! She’s not good after all, she’s not going to help us, she’s just going to keep trying to get us killed!”

“I know, but we need to stay calm if we have any chance of getting through this. Besides,” I rubbed my forehead. “I still don’t feel very well. I’m not Peak Velvet right now.”

Like it or not, my current state was NOT what Peak Velvet looked like.

Through awkward motions, I stroked her hair. After a few expended sighs, she calmed down.

“At least tell me where my backpack is,” she growled.

“Tell us if there’s a way out of here, too,” I added.

As if she would know. If she had, she wouldn’t be in there, would she? “Backpack, no. Way out, yes,” wheezed the art hoe.

“What?! You took it from me and here you are, defeated, and you can’t give it back! I ought to kill you, I don’t care! I ought to beat you senseless!” Well, that didn’t last long. At least I managed to calm her down, for, what? A minute at most?

Dr. Lynch/Dr. Bob Ross leaned up and smiled with the same kind of smirk that I would give Coriander when I wanted her to ravish me.

“My back hurts…” She winced, then went back to giving such a sly, evil look. I noticed that she was holding up a device in her hand. “You broke the button that would’ve been able to give it back when you threw that gun at my popsicle stick tower. Shame, too, all that hard work to build such a magnificent sculpture,” she shook her head, as if it was some fucking tragedy. “Ah, but that’s the beauty of art. You can put your all into your work and watch it get easily destroyed.”

“All it takes is a click or two to delete an important document,” I found myself sympathizing.

“See, you get it!” Popsigirl beamed. “Ah, right! An exit! Look behind me!”

Both Coriander and I looked past the defeated intern. There was a tunnel, which we had failed to notice before.

“I didn’t realize until I was done building my popsicle stick tower, but it ended up blocking the exit.”

“Wait. If there’s a way out, why are you stuck in here?”

No, better question: Why am I trying to apply logic to this equation? For that matter, I’m now expecting her to say “I’m not stuck in here with you, you’re stuck in here with me”. Great.

“At the end of the tunnel is a door. Need a code, and I don’t know it.”

Oh, then that’s perfect for me!

“Let’s go, spiced Kimchi,” I turned to Coriander.

“Fine, but let me at least grab the gun,” Coriander scrambled.

As I walked toward the tunnel, I turned my attention to the mad artist.

“By the way, if you come after us, if you try anything to hurt her in any way, I swear, I won’t be as forgiving,” as sincere as my threat was, I felt like I was about to pass out again at any moment. So I felt like I had to add, “it doesn’t matter how little energy I might have – if you try anything, I will end you.”

In response, all I got from her was a thumbs up.

Oh well, I’ll take it.

With that, my seasoned companion and I departed through the tunnel.

Names can be difficult, can’t they? Can’t just stick with one, especially if it doesn’t fit for all situations. As my dad would say, “a different name for each learned medium”. Then, with all the media art could encompass, I could have a near-infinite amount of names. But life didn’t work that way, not really. For us humans, we are every bit a piece as any other. Our lifespans cannot accommodate for a near-infinite amount of names.

That was okay with me. Names have their meaning, but some believe if a word is repeated enough, it starts to lose its meaning. So, with that in mind, why was “love” the subject of many a work of art. Hell, it was even a subject in my inner monologue!

There was little I could do at the moment, what with my bad back. It was the worst feeling one can have when the desire to create was overpowered by the inability to do anything. I was left to stew in my thoughts. Such a thing was never good. Over time, left alone, like a painting, thoughts take on a life of their own.

What else could I do? Those thoughts of mine turned to the past. Specifically, back at Flashbulb University.

Most days in the cafeteria was spent studying the various students/interns/human shields/aspiring corporate slaves (take your pick of titles, they all meant the same). Their beauty was something I sought to capture more and more of. Not just their features, but ways in which their deepest selves could be translated into ink.

Dr. O’Keefe and Dr. Pollack approached me with a glow and vigor that I needed time to capture. If I could get them to stand still for just a few minutes…

“I have the biggest crush on you!” Dr. O’Keefe announced, as if it were any surprise; I knew how those two eyed me. I looked up.

“Can you hold that pose?” I got out a wood block. Work was about to commence.

“I have an even bigger crush on you!” Dr. Pollack leaned in. He had a face full of acne in such an intricate way that I just wanted to connect the dots. Perhaps it would have made a shape…

“Quite the dynamic. If I could make a suggestion, Dr. Pollack, you should stand in the background with an angry expression on your face while Dr. O’Keefe, you should lean in and hold out your hand as if you were holding a rose. Then, I will turn my head away, and deny the both of you.”

The two of them gasped. I predicted which would speak up first…

“Why couldn’t you just reject us outright?” Dr. O’Keefe was the first to speak. Just as I predicted.

“Because, it’s all about the art of rejection.”

“Also, I thought you said you had an appreciation for the female form!”

I nodded. “That is true.”

“But wait! I thought you said you preferred the abstract!” Dr. Pollack argued. “So that means me, right?”

That was my cue. I erased the image of a cafeteria in my mind and replaced it with a stage, which I proceeded to take to as I got up and placed my hand over my chest. My eyes closed, my head up, so began my (external) monologue:

“For so long now, the two of you had been holding in such feelings, while I, feigning ignorance, took to my paintings. But now you come to me, wishing to know the answer. Do I like you, or you? The truth, I love the art, not the artist. For that reason, we are incompatible.”

“But why?” Dr. O’Keefe seemed confused. How unfortunate. I thought I couldn’t be any more clear. “Don’t you like women?”

“Aesthetically.”

“But don’t you like contrast more?” Dr. Pollack argued.

“Ah, I see what this is,” I paced. They wanted me to educate them. “Attraction does not mean interest. You would do well to know that. For the record, on the subject of sexuality, I am a cubist.”

Each of them nodded. It seemed they finally understood. However, my monologue was left unfinished. That needed to be corrected.

“O’Keefe, I love your paintings of flowers that resemble...begonias. As for you, Pollack, I just adore the way your paint seems to lack any sort of structure, as if you just threw some against a canvas. But, as people, I find you two uninteresting.”

“Um,” Dr. O’Keefe spoke up. “You do realize we’re not actually Georgia O’Keefe and Jackson Pollack, right?”

I blinked. I should have known that, but…

“You aren’t?!”

They shook their heads in unison. “Most of us here aren’t even famous artists. You’re an exception.”

For lack of another expression, I too shook my head.

“No, being famous means nothing. Long after the artist dies, the art will remain.”

Yes, that was the whole reason for the recollection: those two, the ones who expressed such strong love, Velvet and Coriander. Neither fame nor infamy interested me, but the act of artistic expression itself. That was why I lived. To that end, I wouldn’t mind dying in order to create something beautiful.

We had been walking through the tunnel for some time, but at last, I couldn’t take it. I dropped to the floor.

“Velvet!” My beloved cried out.

My beloved...who would have thought? But then, even with all the teasing, it doesn’t feel bad to think of her that way.

“I’m fine. I just need to rest a bit,” it sounded more like I was trying to reassure myself than her. For whatever reason, I felt about ready to break down. Maybe that was what I needed. Maybe then I would wake up and be back to my old self.

“Okay, but we should hurry. What if she shows up again?”

Shit. That was something I didn’t want to consider.

“Then I’ll...I’ll think of something. I’ll figure something out. I always do, don’t I?”

“Right,” she replied, not sounding any more assured than me.

“You sound worried,” I pointed out.

“What? Me? Worried? Why?” I heard her slunk down next to me. “Maybe it was because when that weirdo had us separated, I wasn’t sure if you were going to make it out of there. I shouldn’t have had any doubts, because you’re you, so sorry about that.”

Hearing that made me tighten my hands into fists and I found myself lowering my head.

“No…” I muttered. “I don’t think I would have made it out of there if not for you.” I really was glad for that, but at the same time, it hurt. “I’m sorry.”

“What? Sorry about what?”

“You were right. I shouldn’t have trusted that person. We should have left then and there. Found another way.”

“Yes, well…”

“Also,” I continued. “You were right all those times you said we needed a plan. I thought that something would come last minute and it would all fall into place, and technically, that happened, but even still...I don’t know what I’m doing. I act like I’m so bold, but I’m a nervous wreck.”

She snapped her fingers in front of me. “Hey. Hey. We did what we could with the information we had. It’s just one of those things that no matter how much we could have prepared, we might not have known what to expect. But you know what? You’re doing great.”

That should have been the rousing speech I needed.

“Jeez, I feel like I’m the Velvet in this situation,” she groaned. Then, I couldn’t help but burst into laughter.

“What?!” I kept laughing.

“Well, it’s weird cause aren’t you the tough and mature one or something? I think I’ve had to encourage you twice now. Not that I’m counting.”

The laughing fits wouldn’t stop. I slapped my knee.

“I need encouragement sometimes too, you know?”

Despite the dim lighting of the tunnel, I could see her face go red. She must have noticed as well, as she turned away.

“Well, I’m not saying I don’t like it. In fact, I think it’s cool that I can be there for you.”

Right. That was probably why that woman separated us, trapped us in her little boxes.

“Verse was right, too…”

Her words echoed, the ones she spoke when she was trying to convince me against going.

They would rather experiment on you or torture you than kill you.

“What do you mean?” Coriander leaned forward.

“If this is just what one member is like, then just imagine fighting a whole organization of folks like that. Can we really handle it?”

Silence tore into me. That dream, hallucination, movie, whatever you wanted to call it started to linger on my mind as well. How it started off so fun, but then at the end…

How long has it been since I thought of ‘her’? No, more than that, ‘she’ said that I was still my old timid self.

It all stung. To be reminded of such things. Not only that, but to have such a drop in confidence that I couldn’t seem to shake. The culmination of it all formed into little beads of salt.

Those soon went away. I felt Coriander’s soft hand brush across my face.

“What are you doing?”

“Beats me! I just couldn’t think of what else to do!”

There she went again, able to bring a chuckle out of me, and she probably didn’t even mean to. In response, I held her hand.

“Thank you.”

Again with the blush. She let go and looked away. “I just didn’t like that funk you were in. That’s all.”

I picked myself up and stretched. I even grinned for good measure. She got up as well.

“So? Feeling better?”

“Hell to the yeah. I’m ready to kick some bubblegum!”

“Jeez,” she grimaced. “Just how old is that reference?”

I shook my head. “Never mind that, let’s keep going.”

That’s right: all I have to do is put on a face. Sure, she can usually tell when I’m lying, but so what? I don’t need to have all my energy back. It doesn’t matter how confident I am. All that matters is that I act. Act in every sense of the word

Drafts swept below, which intensified into a gust, and what descended were a pair of what looked like life-sized marionette dolls with those old Victorian Gothic dresses. They shimmied about and threw themselves at the two of us. I tried to brush the one that had flung against me aside only to find the thing heavier than I expected.

Then I’ll just have to rush it…

I rammed myself into the figures, elbow out and all, and knocked them to the floor. Coriander, meanwhile, bashed the doll over the head with the gun.

“What in the fuck?” I mouthed the words. I still felt dizzy, but I knew that I would do whatever I could to carry on. As I looked down on the floor, I noticed that they weren’t dolls. Not quite. Once I looked back up and saw who stood ahead of us, I had my answer.

How did she get ahead of us so fast? I couldn’t help but wonder, even if it may not have done me much good to wonder such things.

“You!” Coriander shouted. “Strike three! You’re out!” She opened fire, but a group of dolls appeared out from the walls and took all the hits instead.

“Wa! Ha! Ha!” Cackled the oh-so-evil resident artist.

“Didn’t I tell you? If you try anything, I will kill you,” I growled. “So if you want my advice, stand aside.”

Instead, she just gave another laugh. “Wa! Ha! Ha! I don’t mind that one bit! Don’t you know the quote? ‘Find what you love and let it kill you’! But please, call me Dr. Geppetto. I like to make dolls as a hobby, you see.”

“Yes,” I glanced down. “I see. What’s with these? Why do they lack faces?”

“They’re manikins! Pure, unfiltered wood! Bendable! Over a hundred possible poses! Perfect reference material! Just like the two of you!”

“The only reference material you need is a therapist!” Coriander shot back.

I think all of us could use one of those…

“I could provide that for you!” Dr. Geppetto sounded much more self-assured than she had any right to be. “Artistic therapy!”

Gag commencing in 3...2...nope, never mind. It didn’t happen. False alarm. Oh well, I kinda expected that kind of thing from Dr. Artist. What I didn’t expect was to be grabbed from behind by one of her manikin dolls.

“Velvet!” Coriander cried out.

“Not this time!” I said, without a shred of certainty. But nonetheless, at first I struggled to break free, but then I realized that was pointless. So instead, I leaned back and flipped the doll over, bringing us both to the floor. As the doll collapsed, I got up.

Amidst the struggle, I failed to notice a wall erect from the floor, separating Coriander and I from each other.

I pounded my fists against the wall, to no avail.

Damn it! Her plan must not have been to capture me; she knew I could and would break free. No, she just wanted to create some distance between us.

Please don’t let there be any more poison gas. No more dreams.

“Sorry, Ms. Fabric! You should have known it wouldn’t be that easy! You’re in the headquarters of The Flashbulb, for crying out loud! You’re in the belly of the whale!”

Yeah, she was right, but I wished that she wasn’t. It really would have helped if she was genuine about helping us.

I kicked the wall.

“Yeah, it’s my own fault! But I thought things would be better than this!”

“We’ll figure something out, right Velvet?” Coriander called to me from the other end.

I nodded. “Right. But until then, you have my permission to bust her up.” I growled those words. Never did I think I’d hate such an experience as I did.

Popsigirl (no matter what name she used, all I could see was ‘Popsigirl’) started to run off as soon as I cracked my knuckles. She must’ve known I meant business.

“That’s right! Run!” I chased after her.

Don’t lose your head. She’s already proved she’s willing to throw traps at us, even now.

In spite of that reminder, I figured that as long as I had that gun, it wouldn’t matter. No, that wasn’t right. Thing was heavy and it wasn’t like I should’ve expected to carry it forever. So as soon as I lost sight of her, I started walking. There weren’t many places she could go, so again, I figured I’d run into her sooner or later.

Even when that time comes, keep your eyes peeled. You have no idea what she’ll do.

My self pep talk was all I had at the moment. Velvet suffered a blow of confidence, but I still couldn’t help but think of her as the greater one. She could hack things, and she was also physically tough. Me, on the other hand, I was good with assembling hardware, but I wasn’t that great on the physical side.

“Let’s see...first I’m going to get my laser backpack back, then I’m going to reunite with Velvet, then we’ll kick ass,” I started listing off the agenda on my fingers. Then, when I looked up, I saw it: the door to the exit.

But if I’m already here, then where would Popsigirl be?

My answer must have lied with the door on my right. It said ‘art supply room’ on it.

Bingo.

I made my way through the door.

Be cautious. She’s probably watching you. She wants you to come in here.

The room was much less dark than the tunnel had been. It blinded me to the point that I had to cover my eyes with my arm just to carry on.

“Come on out! No more games!” I shouted.

“Please, I’m just a humble dollmaker!” Dr. Geppetto’s voice called back. “Making dolls is my hobby! I’d be happy to make you one!”

I ground my teeth. That word…

No. It’s just one word. Nothing to be bothered about.

“Stop that! Just give me my backpack and I promise not to use it on you!”

“I’d be happy to!”

My heart jumped. It felt like the air was about to be sucked out from me.

“S...Stop!” I huffed.

Just a few steps forward, I bumped into something. I uncovered my face to find a tall doll, hung from the ceiling by a string around the doll’s neck.

This one looks different. It’s not a manikin…

I pushed past it, only to be met by more. They must have been stuffed dolls. Like, five foot tall Raggedy Anne dolls or something. As I brushed past more, I noticed their faces. Yes, they had faces: freckles, short blue hair, and a backwards cap. It was me.

“What the hell?” I whispered.

I pushed them aside. “What kind of sick joke is this?!” I yelled.

More than that, where did she find the time to make these?

No more of those life-sized dolls were to be found, but in its place was an endless expanse of shelves on both sides of me, each with porcelain dolls sitting on them. I glanced on either side. Both sides were identical dolls, but on one side, they each had long, red hair with some kind of form-fitting outfit. On the other, short blue hair and casual clothes.

“Which face would you prefer?” Dr. Geppetto’s voice entered once more, though she was nowhere to be found.

I’m not going to answer. I’m just going to move forward.

As I took my next step, the doll’s faces turned to face me, then, their mouths opened and music played out.

“Me and you, and you and me, no matter how they tossed the dice, it had to be. The only one for me is you, and you for me, so happy together…”

Why that song?

“So happy together...so happy together…”

“Stop that,” I groaned.

Instead, the volume grew louder, as those three words looped.

“Stop...stop…” I tried to keep forward and cover my ears, but I could feel its intensity. The dolls around me, their faces. It was like they were drawing closer.

Get it together. Together. So...together.

I ran. I thought I could escape the sound and their faces, but it persisted. Then, I bumped into more of those life-sized dolls with my image and they stared down at me. I fell over. I tried to get up, but my arms shook. The intensity of those three words being sung kept me from getting back up. No, not three words. Just one.

“Stop!” I yelled. “STOP!”

Tears filled my face. I found myself crouched on the ground. I felt like I was about to lose my breath and pass out, but it didn’t happen.

“What’s the matter? You went from acting all tough to getting like this,” Dr. Geppetto’s voice broke through. That’s when I realized that the music had stopped.

“You!” I tried to grab onto her leg. I’d squeeze so hard that it would break her bone and make her lose circulation. But that didn’t happen. I couldn’t see her well. Everything was a blur.

“Wa! Ha! Ha! You can’t even reach me right now!”

“Why are you doing this?” I wheezed. It was the best I could muster.

“Doing what? I’m just doing what makes me happy! You’re the one on the floor.”

Again. It had to be deliberate.

“Do you know?” I asked while wincing.

“I would like to hear about it. It doesn’t make me very happy seeing you like this.”

“There was an incident...months ago…” I tried to explain. I didn’t even know why I bothered. “I was on the verge of death...my resentment...I thought the only thing that would make things better…no, I didn’t think that. It wasn’t me. I lost control.”

That memory. I didn’t want it to resurface. But all those forced images, I couldn’t block them out, either.

“It wasn’t you? Why wouldn’t it be? She took the life you knew from you. One where you were comfortable. Then, even though she was an enemy, she was all anyone around you would talk about. How great she was with technology. How she was able to break in, and out, of the most impenetrable places. Of course you would both admire and resent her. Then, when pushed to such a place, wouldn’t it be natural to want to steal her face and take it as your own, as that was the face of the one who got all the recognition from your peers? Despite working so hard, it wasn’t you who got the recognition, it was the enemy.”

“SHUT UP!” My voice shook. I shook. I didn’t want to think about those things anymore. “That wasn’t true. I never wanted to feel those things! I was made to feel them! And I lost control because…”

“Because you were cloned several times with the angel in you and conditioned to think that way, yes, I know.”

I knew it. She’s doing this on purpose.

“How?”

She paced about the room. In her hand was a stick, as if she were a conductor.

“Then, with all that concentrated amounts of that entity within you, it was only a matter of time before you overloaded. All it took was enough bad experiences to really twist you up. Your body wanted you happy, and you weren’t having a very happy time.”

“Use some other word…”

“But saying it makes me so happy!” She laughed again. “But enough with that. I saw your profile. Saw footage of what went down. That’s when I knew what I’d do with you. What really strikes me is that the whole thing wasn’t planned that way. Yes, you were conditioned, but so was most the rest of the world. Everyone was supposed to be all sunshine and rainbows, but instead, it all grew to be too much and now your Earth is having a breakdown of its now. None of that was planned, but doesn’t that make it more beautiful? When things just fall into place like that?”

I gave no answer.

“But it must be so hard for you: finding out you were a copy in a series of copies. Unsure of who the ‘real’ you is.”

She knows. She knows and she’s toying with me.

“Well, I’m here to tell you,” she continued. “I don’t think it matters who the original was! Who cares if you’re a copy of a copy of a copy? Maybe it feels as if your existence was a mistake, but I don’t think there are any mistakes! I think you’re a happy accident!”

I growled and tried to swipe at her, but she skipped over my hand.

“Whoa there, mighty lion. I’m just trying to help you. I think you’d be very happy, happy, happy, happy, with my help.”

“Stop.”

“Don’t get me wrong, I’m an artist. If there’s anything I hate, it’s counterfeits. That’s why I don’t like children, is because they’re just copies of their parents. But then again, there’s something beautiful about copies, don’t you think? The way they try to replicate the original, yet you can tell there’s something just a little bit off. Hell, my mustache is a fake,” she ripped it off. As if I really thought it was real to begin with. “Then there’s you…”

She took her stick and whacked my hand with it. I cried out.

“Yes,” she continued as I felt the sting and seethed. “You really took on a life of your own, didn’t you? So that’s why I say don’t worry about it!”

“You’re sick,” I muttered.

“I am? Sure, I’ve swallowed paint before, but it was the non-toxic kind. Plus, last time I visited the Medical Department they said I was healthy. Though hard to say when that was, seeing as time doesn’t really serve much of a function in this place. All I know that they haven’t let me see anyone in a long time. Ah, but that’s art for you. Sometimes you just need your space to let out your creativity.”

“That’s not what I mean by sick,” I scoffed. With emphasis on ‘coffed’. I felt like I was about to hack my lungs out. Maybe it was me who was sick. “Art isn’t everything.”

“Wrong!” She hit me again. It should have been so easy to avoid. I cried out, and she continued to pace as if it were nothing. “There is art in everything. Sun Tzu, The Art of War. Peace itself is an art, as it needs a certain degree of creativity to achieve. Literature is an art. Religion itself is an art, as you need a basis for belief, you need to create a set of rules to abide by, a mythology. Same goes for society. Ah, yes, and what do we live in? A society. Thus, we live in art. Art lives in us, as well. It takes the act of creation to create us, after all.”

She continued her spiel, with or without my involvement.

“Art is the absolute, but it also goes beyond the absolute to the possible and impossible. There are those who think that math and art are incompatible, as they use different parts of the brain, but wrong! Math is an art! It is the creation of numbers that we are able to formulate. Geometric figures factor into both art and mathematics. maps, statistics, perspective. All a necessity.”

“Why are you even obsessed with art? I thought you guys were all scientists,” I found the words escape me.

“Because: art is a math, art is a religion, art is how we communicate, but what is art? Art is a science!”

“Oh, you’re a real work of art all right...”

I struggled, but managed to pick myself up. I lunged at her. She jumped out of the way, then hit me across the back. I fell against a shelve of dolls, which knocked over and fell on me.

“Ow…”

She walked over, lifted my head up, and leaned in.

“This makes me happy. That you still have some bite.”

She pointed her stick up as a screen descended. “Ten-hut, soldier. Here’s an educational video.”

The video on the screen played: there I was, but it wasn’t me. It was me from a past life. Many past lives, if I had to guess. The original “Mavis”, or whoever her name might have been instead.

“Oh my god! I can’t believe in the actual Area 51! This is a dream!”

Sgt. Michaels stood by. I half-expected him to comment on his mustache, but instead, he announced: “you were selected from a pool of candidates to fulfill a certain task.”

“Ooh! What task?” It was odd seeing “me” so excited about something.

“Just the other day, someone broke in and stole a ship. This kind of thing is unheard of. Now, regardless of if she ever shows up again, we need intel on her so we can find her and kill her. We can’t have her leaking the stuff she’s seen to the public, and we must recover that ship.”

“Ugh, so no aliens?”

“No. This is an air force base.”

“Suuuuure. I bet you tell everyone that. So where are they? Downstairs?”

He didn’t look amused. Instead, he shoved a folder into “my” hands.

“This is all the intel we have on her. She posed as a soldier and went by the alias Pvt. Jo-Ann. Perhaps that’s some kind of clue.”

“I” burst out laughing. “You know she only used that name because yours is Michaels, right? She probably figured ‘one craft store reference for another’ or some shit like that. Jeez, that’s hardly a clue at all!”

Again, he did not look amused. “Just get to word, cadet,” he said.

The next scene, “I” was in “my” little room, watching security feed on several monitors and complaining about my predicament.

“Man, when they told me I’d be stationed here, I thought I’d get to see aliens, but instead they have me looking up information on this person who probably has no intention showing up here again and doesn’t even really matter in the long run. Like, I’m a typist. I can invent gadgets. But instead here I am doing useless tasks.”

The original me slumped over her desk and complained further. “How am I supposed to pick up cute girls when I leave if I never see any aliens?”

“Mavis, report your findings!” The commanding voice of Sgt. Michaels came in through the speakers of one of the monitors.

“Yeah, uh...so this ‘Jo-Ann’ person matches the same face and voice of someone who was in the CIA who went by the name ‘Velvet’, last name redacted. I should probably clarify that it said redacted in brackets, not that that was her actual last name.”

“We know what redacted means, Mavis.”

“Right. So, anyway, this ‘Velvet’ person totally just leaked some documents then bailed. Kind of a ballsy move, if we’re being honest here. Not to mention, she’s this totally cool hacker apparently and I mean, she stole a ship from here for crying out loud! That takes guts.”

“She’s an enemy of the state!”

“Which state, though? Nevada? I’m guessing this one because that’s where we’re at, but maybe she’s an enemy of Colorado? I don’t know.”

“The United States! How are you this smart, yet this dense?”

“I don’t know! Quit patronizing me!”

“Is that all you have to report?”

“Yeah. That’s all. Nothing else.”

The chat ended, and the original Mavis let out a deep sigh. “Jeez, Velvet. Why’d you have to give these guys so much grief? You’re so cool, but I guess I shouldn’t say that out loud.”

“Huh? Did you say ‘Velvet’?” A voice I didn’t recognize came in.

“Who’s there?” That Mavis demanded. “I’ve got lasers, so you better not try anything.”

Someone dropped down from the ceiling. After she stood up and dusted off her pants, I noticed: she had purple hair and wore a tuxedo paired with corduroy pants.

The lasers which normally lay dormant propped up above the monitors turned their attention to the mystery woman.

“Identify yourself.”

“Relax, I work here. Name’s Violet.”

My eyes widened as I heard that name. The same story Velvet had told me before. I was led to believe that Velvet and Violet were the same person. But that couldn’t be. There was a time where I suspected the original me might have been Violet, but no. That wasn’t it.

“How do I know you didn’t just sneak in here?”

She reached into her pocket and showed a badge. “Anyway, not like it’ll mean anything. I’m leaving this place.”

“You mean you’re resigning?”

She shook her head. “More like going MIA. But first, what was this about a ‘Velvet’ person?”

I turned away. “That’s classified information.”

“Fine enough. I just thought it was interesting because I used to date someone named Velvet back in high school. Probably not the same person, though.”

“Red head? Lanky arms?”

“Hmm...too vague. Do you got a picture.”

If it were me, I’d have found that suspicious, but then again, that person technically was me. Or someone I was based on. I watched as that Mavis handed Violet a picture.

“No way…” Violet mouthed. “That’s her all right. Why so interested, anyway?”

“Not me. Michaels. Apparently this ‘Velvet’ person broke in and stole a ship. Now everyone’s freaking out.”

“Wow. That doesn’t sound like her at all. Sounds more like something I would’ve done, actually. Or used to do.”

“What do you mean?”

“Oh, I used to break into buildings and stuff just for fun. Or run off places. I was a bit of a free spirit. Velvet on the other hand was more of the opposite: reserved, liked to hide herself away. Never could quite understand how I could just do such risky things. Still, I guess people change, huh?”

She put her hand on her chin. “Actually...now that I think of it, maybe she went looking for me.” She let out a bit of a laugh. “Funny thought, but if I recall, it was her first relationship and she was pretty nervous, but she seemed more serious about it than I did. I tried to warn her that I’d run off sooner or later, but she was so convinced that we’d stay together.”

“Ugh. First I don’t get to see aliens, now I have to listen to relationship drama. Not what I signed up for. Sheesh, Velvet, you sure have been pain in the ass.”

Hey! Watch it! That’s your future girlfriend you’re talking about, past me! I mean, you’re not wrong, she is a pain in the ass, but still!

“Well, if she was looking for me, guess she didn’t find me. Neither of us knew the other was there. Maybe she thinks I’m dead. If she doesn’t, maybe she should.”

“Why do you say that?”

“For starters, she probably wouldn’t like what I’ve become. I mean, joining the military? Really?”

“Well, she joined the CIA, so not like she’d have much room to judge.”

“Ha. That’s a good one. Anyway, I’d rather be thought of as a ghost than a recyclable corpse.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“Trust me, you don’t wanna stick around. I’ve seen some things that you don’t wanna be a part of. You want my advice? Try to break out as well.”

“Hey!” That Mavis pointed at Violet. “You’re just trying to make me paranoid. Well, it won’t work. I’m making lots of money here and I ain’t about to throw that away.”

“What good is such a promise if you aren’t ever allowed to leave? You can never spend it, either. It’s just something to hang over your head.”

Mavis gave no reply to that. She sat in silence until she finally said one word: “Go.”

“What?” Violet looked taken aback. “You’re not going to kill me?”

“I don’t have anything to do with you.”

The clip ended there and the screen faded to black.

Dr. Geppetto let go of me and I fell onto the floor. Not only that, I was still trying to process what I saw.

“So, you see, that was the original ‘you’. If that’s how you wish to see it. Furthermore, you were not Violet, as you may have believed, and yes, Violet existed, and we knew she escaped. As for what happened to her...not important. This is about you.”

“All you’ve been doing is breaking Velvet and I down.”

“Yes! I’m helping you two realize your potential! Sometimes you must break your work to see it come to fruition. You know the saying, ‘kill your darlings’.”

“What is your end goal with this? Huh?”

She waved her stick around, as if it were a magic wand. “Simple: I want to recreate that scene. The one where you broke down and wanted to rip Velvet’s face off.”

I shook. I didn’t want to remember that moment. I wanted to block it completely from my memory.

“...That...won’t work,” I managed to say.

“Oh?” She sounded surprised.

“I’m free of that creature. It won’t happen that way. So all you’re doing is torture.”

“That’s okay! We can improvise!”

I gasped and yelled out in pain; hooks attached themselves to the skin of my arms and dug in. Attached to the hooks were strings.

“Now, while we’ve been having this nice little chat, I’ve set up an obstacle course to keep your little friend Velvet busy. So don’t worry, she’ll be totally exhausted by the time you two meet up again, so feel free to go all out!”

I had nothing more to say. No rebuttal. It wasn’t as if I was about to go along with her plan, and yet it felt like I already had. Both Velvet and I fell into her trap. Not once, but twice.

“Don’t get me wrong. I am helping you. But in order for you to become real, first I must make you a puppet.”

There was no way that things would play out the same as before, but she didn’t seem like the type who could be reasoned with. I considered a sort of prayer, to myself and myself only.

Please, Velvet. Hang in there.

Then I closed my eyes.

#happiness overload #writing #fiction #tw: torture #comedy #drama #psychological horror #horror #art #we live in a society #geppetto

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trylonandperisphere · 5 years ago

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ASK POLLY APR. 1, 2020

‘I Don’t Think I Can Handle 18 Months of Isolation’

By Heather Havrilesky

Hi Polly.

So the world’s falling apart. I’m seeing quotes from experts that predict this will go on for 18 months or more. I don’t think I can stand the stress and isolation all that time. I have mental-health challenges, so I think I might crack. And I’m not sure our infrastructure can endure it either. I have a medical condition that’s stable and doesn’t put me in danger of COVID-19. However, I worry the strain on the health-care system will take away my treatment, leading to a slow death. And then there are the usual worries about things like food. Will the supply chains hold up six months or a year from now? How do you see all this happening and not start looking for an exit? I’m willing to admit that I’m weak or entitled. People around the world deal with this all the time. I don’t think I have it in me. How do I find some strength and hope?

Feeling Weak

Dear Feeling Weak,

On any day of your life, a million terrible things could happen. Every morning, you have to force all of the awful possibilities out of your mind. You do this because there is no alternative.

I’ve always been a very fearful person. I’ve always been sensitive to the fragility of the human body and the myriad ways lives can be ripped apart. My dad died when I was 25 years old, and it made me even more fearful. Then I had a baby.

Imagining all of the bad things that could happen to the baby almost sent me over the edge. I felt like someone had removed my liver and now I had to hand my liver over to other people, and ask them not to drop it or neglect it.

One day I came home, and my husband was holding my liver in one hand while stirring a boiling pot with his other hand, all the while talking to my stepson in an animated, cheerful fashion.

I freaked out. “You are going to kill me,” I said. “Calm down,” he said. “Stop being so overdramatic.”

My heart started racing even more (Pro tip: The words “calm down” are never calming!), but I washed my hands and then took the baby away from my husband. And then through gritted teeth, I said something like this: “You are going to listen to me very closely. Don’t talk. Just listen. I am in a very, very particular, unfamiliar, fragile place. I have never felt this way before. I’m going to have to describe it to you. You are going to have to listen. You do not have to understand or believe that I am remotely sane. You can continue to believe that I am irrational. But if you do not listen closely and respect and honor my needs around this fragile feeling, this marriage will end. Period. This is not negotiable.”

I wasn’t someone who threatened to end my marriage, ever, just to be clear about that. I needed to communicate clearly that we were on perilous terrain.

We retreated to the bedroom and talked for a long time. I told him what I needed in order to raise a baby with him. He told me the reasons he thought I was nuts. I told him that I was fine with him thinking I was nuts. He could continue to do that. Of course my views were not utterly rational. Rational was not the point. Calming down was not the point. He needed to understand how high the stakes were for me. Even if there was a .0001 chance that my baby would drop into the boiling water, the stakes were too high for me to endure those odds. He didn’t have to understand my feelings, he just had to operate as if he had the same feelings, for my sake.

It took a lot of persuasive talk, and tears, to get my husband on my side. It was exhausting. But by the end of our talk, my husband got it. He agreed to behave in ways that were guided by high stakes and my irrational feelings and to never say the words “Calm down” to a woman whose liver you’re holding. And if ALL OF THAT sounds nuts to you, that’s okay. These were the conditions I knew I required in order to raise a baby with someone who was more careless than I was in every way. These were the things I needed in order to share a house with this man and trust him to raise a family with me.

After that, I felt better. And my husband never told me to calm down when I described the toddlers who get left in the car or run over by a clueless grandparent backing out of the driveway. He took on the low-odds possibilities until he was worrying about them himself. I turned him into a slightly neurotic, hyperaware parent. I formed him into a seismograph, in my image. Call it twisted, I don’t give a fuck. It worked. We were aligned. We fought less. We kept our kids relatively safe from harm. Maybe we became obnoxious. Maybe we were paranoid. I still don’t care. I didn’t feel alienated and alone in my marriage, because I dared to get very, very specific about my needs.

And once I knew I had someone on my side, I started to calm the fuck down. I made a resolution to keep all of the looming threats in mind without INTERNALIZING and VISUALIZING and LOSING SLEEP OVER the millions of ways a baby could die or become injured. Any time I went from safeguarding my kids to picturing something awful happening to them, I learned to stop myself.

Doing your best to avoid disaster is practical. Repeatedly imagining disaster, on the other hand, is wildly impractical. Once I realized how jittery and anxious I was feeling, I steadfastly refused to indulge my imagination when it came to my baby. I resolved not to become a pile of nerves quivering on the floor. I wanted to breathe and feel happiness and survive parenting without being transformed into a shadow of my former self. I wanted my kids to be aware of danger but not paralyzed by fear at all times.

Mistakes have been made, that goes without saying. But the decision to never fixate on terrifying outcomes when it came to my kids was very important. I could still fixate on bad outcomes FOR ME. But that was (and is) a world apart from doing it about my kids. Eventually I didn’t have to try anymore. The second I pictured something terrible, it was just: NO. CAN’T.

Everyone is different. Everyone experiences different conditions as threatening or scary or paralyzingly awful. We all have to respect these differences while relentlessly standing up for our own needs and asking for exactly what we want from the people who are closest to us. That means becoming a tiny bit shameless, I should add. It took a shameless amount of assertiveness and belief in my own particular sensitivities as a seismograph to ask my husband to behave as if he, too, were a seismograph. I had to get very specific. I also had to let go of the need to be right and seem rational. I had to own my role as the Chicken Little of the family.

“Pretend the sky is falling with me,” I told my husband, and he did. It was an act of love and solidarity. I was so grateful for it. It kept us glued together at a vulnerable time, when we could’ve fallen apart for good. I didn’t have to hate myself for being a chickenshit or a seismograph. I could relax because someone was on my side.

That story probably feels pretty divorced from your circumstances, but it’s not. For you to feel comfortable safeguarding yourself while also refusing to fixate on the millions of horrible outcomes that could befall you specifically and all of us generally, you need to stand up for the particulars of your mental health. You need to look closely at your specific emotional challenges as a human being, and you need to say: This is how it feels for me. I feel like I want to find an exit. I feel like I can’t survive this. I feel like I am not strong enough.

Here’s the suicide hotline for anyone who’s been feeling that way: 1-800-273-8255. Commit to reaching out to someone when you’re feeling bad. Everyone is struggling right now. We’re all in the same boat at some level. It’s important to understand that moments of extreme darkness will come and go, and things could get a million times worse and still be survivable. Put your faith in human connection: It makes all the difference.

If you have close friends or a partner or a family member who can listen to you describe your very specific Chicken Little–flavored needs and desires and align themselves with you, and show solidarity for your (sometimes irrational!) experiences of what this moment means, then call that person or those people. Open up to them, and explain your needs, and get them to understand.

But let’s be clear: Finding people who will join you where you are is very, very hard. It’s hard for all of us, always. If it feels impossible? Guess what? You’re not alone. Try your best. And if/when that fails, I want you to write everything down for you, until you clearly comprehend who you are and where you are and how you’re feeling right now.

This is not about descending into darkness in any permanent way, mind you. This is simply about painting a picture that someone else might understand, a persuasive portrait of how you’re experiencing this moment. This is you saying to yourself: YOU ARE HOLDING MY LIVER OVER A BOILING POT OF WATER. This is you crying and telling yourself: I DON’T KNOW IF I CAN DO THIS. DO YOU FUCKING GET THAT?

This is you making your needs crystal clear. This is you standing up for who you are, without shame. Does that really matter, all alone in your apartment as the world crumbles around you? YES, IT DOES.

This is you saying: I deserve to have my needs met. Think about all of the times you were treated like your needs were irrational, like you needed to calm down and shut the fuck up, like you needed to stop being so in the way, so inconvenient, so absurd, so laughable, such a wreck. I’ll bet you can think of a lot of examples.

Use this moment to get your own back. Take this opportunity to say to yourself: I don’t fucking care if I’m fragile and irrational. I’m going to honor my needs without shame.

Don’t skip this step, even if it seems beside the point. Honor your needs, without shame. That’s number one.

Number two is: Protect yourself. Take very good care of yourself. Feed yourself well, exercise, get plenty of rest. Stay aware of the threats so you can do your best to avoid those threats. Put energy into making yourself feel as healthy and resilient as possible.

Number three is: Resolve not to fixate on the millions of terrifying possibilities you cannot control. You can make this choice now because your peculiar needs matter. Remember? You’re honoring your needs without shame now. One of your needs is this: Avoiding the terror here. You said it to me for a reason: You aren’t strong enough to hold these terrors inside your head for 18 months. So don’t do it.

Are you strong enough to survive for 18 months in isolation? Yes, you are. You’re strong enough as long as you’re honoring even your most irrational needs without shame, being very safe and careful in areas that are within your control, and letting go of all of the circumstances beyond your control, as in banishing them from your fucking head permanently.

Cormac McCarthy’s The Road (Read it if bleakness makes you feel stronger. If not? DO NOT READ.) is about a man who’s struggling to survive in a post-apocalyptic world. As the man and his son travel south toward the ocean, looking for food and shelter, the man tries hard to avoid big questions and unknowns that might threaten his ability to survive. Because he has a boy to take care of, he becomes extremely practical. He protects his boy and he keeps moving forward, no matter what. There’s a sense of calm beauty underneath the horror of every word McCarthy writes. Showing up for whatever comes next is beautiful. You don’t have to be a hero. You just keep moving.

I probably wouldn’t have sat my husband down and insisted that my irrational view was going to need to be honored, back when we first had a baby together, if I weren’t convinced that our ability to raise a baby and stay together depended on it. It took something bigger than myself to force me to finally stand up for my very specific needs and persuade another, very skeptical human being to hear me out and get my back.

Today, you’ve been faced with a challenge that’s much bigger than any challenge you’ve faced before. The stakes are high. This enormous calamity dwarfs you and exists outside your thoughts and feelings completely. You have to treat yourself with extreme care under these conditions. This is an opportunity for you to finally stand up for what you need at every level, in a very concentrated and intense way that is fully justifiable and concrete. This is a chance for you to design a map that you can use to navigate this disaster and every other disaster to follow this one, guided by your very irrational, specific desires. This is your time to learn to blot out the parts of the world that are just too gigantic and out of your control for you to metabolize, and focus on what you can actually control and have influence over instead. You have to avoid big questions and keep moving forward. You’re about to achieve a sense of mastery over your life and your understanding of yourself, while letting go of what you can’t control in a permanent way. These high stakes are a blessing disguised as a curse. Take this blessing.

What sustains you? What can you create, every day, to bring you life, to build up your strength? What beauty is lurking underneath these terrors? As Ranier Maria Rilke wrote, “No feeling is final.”

The path before you is simple. You wake up in the morning and you put Chopin: Nocturnes in your headphones and you look for joy. You embrace every tiny glint of beauty and every scrap of hope hiding in this small, enclosed life. You surrender to the reality of this “borrowed time and borrowed world and borrowed eyes with which to sorrow it,” as Cormac McCarthy put it. You eat this divine silence, this dark longing, this lonely sweetness, this solitary dread. You sit in your quiet garden and welcome the weather, good or bad. No feeling is final. You are strong enough.

Polly

#ask polly #heather havrilesky #advice #mental health #self care #personal essays #corona virus #coronavirus #covid-19 #isolation #sars-cov-2 #pandemic #this is deep y'all

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maddiviner · 6 years ago

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I’ve watched other witches shudder at the idea of plastic or even processed metal inside a witch’s circle. It isn’t natural, they say. Some claim that, to truly feel the witch power, you must immerse yourself in “nature” entirely.

You must eschew modern constructs. You can find the most powerful witches sitting beneath a tree in a forest, or meditating on mountaintop. So goes the prevailing wisdom of the 21st century Craft.

To me, such assertions raise more questions than they could ever hope to answer.

What defines “natural” in the context of magick? Why is “nature” and a preference for this “natural” ideal so important to so many of us? Most of us live in cities or suburbs. why do so many witches long for an almost pre-agrarian atmosphere for their magick?

The current is not unbroken. Even those of us who study history for a living can’t hope but comprehend what life was like for our ancestors.

Yet, we still have the concept of a pristine and supremely spiritual Time Before. We long to live unencumbered by modern concerns like taxes and WiFi.

Where did the Time Before originate, though?

We have to admit that it doesn’t originate in the files of historians. What we know about the life of the average person in pre-industrial society paints a grim picture.

If anything, the image of ancient paganism stems from the pastoral aesthetic. It owes more late Romantic period literature than anything earlier. In other words, it is a modern invention disconnected from the very era we see it as portraying.

It is clear that we have a habit of fetishizing mass-produced notions of nature and the past. This is to our detriment. Spirituality must be imminent in our actual environments.

This must include urban landscapes of pavement and steel.

We cannot ignore diffuse suburban sprawl that stretches as far as the eye can see.

We must not discount the deep rhythms of the cities we call home. More writing on the subject of urban witch power, flight, and spirit work would benefit us.

Cities do have spirits.

They exist in symbiosis with citizens, spaces and architecture, the land, water, and sky. In my view, city spirits are akin to the genius loci of the ancient world and the Faery faith.

They also have much in common with the more recent concept of egregores or group minds. You can view them as one or the other, or as an amalgamation of the two. I favor the latter perspective.

The notion of urban spirits is not without a colorful (though oft-ignored) history. The idea is present both in popular culture, and in certain occult traditions.

Christopher Penczak writes of urban spirits in his book, City Magick. He uses the term “deva” here. He ssuggests that these entities follow the pattern seen elsewhere

In this way, Penczak is right in comparing them to the “deva”-entities of theosophy. I have, of course, interacted with this sort of urban spirit.

They’re multifaceted to the point of having separate personalities for different functions. This mirrors what Penczak says about so-called “overlighting” spirits in an urban context. Like Russian nesting dolls, smaller functional spirits partake in the city spirit itself.

As is the case with many spirits, city spirits desire your efforts and attention. You must be willing to learn as much about the city as possible. This includes it’s history, natural geography, and inhabitants. It’s usually best to seek the city spirit through flight first. Then you can enact conjuration.

Of course, you must also make a proper introduction of yourself. Getting to know such a spirit can be a months-long working. In my experience, a witch naturally harmonizes with the city’s spirit.

We become part of the underlying pulse of energy after living there for a few months.

Even then, it’s necessary to signal to the spirit your intent to communicate. A reciprocal relationship must begin. City spirits, like many others, often respond well to offerings.

This can take many forms. It may include gifts (monetary or otherwise) that support the city’s interests. It can include actions like picking up litter and other improvements to the city proper.

The Krakow Working, as I like to call it, was one of the most intense magical experiences of my life so far. I performed it on the Summer Solstice of 2016.

I had relocated to Krakow in May after eloping with a Polish man I’d met on a Tarot forum online. My goal was, of course, contact and a reciprocal relationship with the spirit of the city of Krakow.

Preliminary research eats up a lot of time, but the more you know, the better. I began making small offerings with the intent of benefiting the city and its residents. My flights while in the city were into Byzantine, maze-like and shifting, landscapes.

I came to know the smaller spirits of the city first. There were the water spirits of the Vistula river. There were the egregores of the brooding communist-era apartment buildings.

These all helped to build a bridge that would ultimate lead to a relationship with the city’s spirit itself.

I realized that you can connect with these urban spirits through traditional symbols. Because of my flight experiences in Krakow, I will always consider that city to be female. I also experienced it as Saturnian, and thick with the active energies of Air and Fire.

These ideas are a bit of what you might call “unverifiable personal gnosis,” though. It’s likely that other witches might come to different conclusions. Still, I sought to connect with Krakow on my own terms, and, as spirits often do, she spoke to me in my own language.

I set aside a few hours each week in the month before the solstice for scrying. It was while scrying that first broke through and garnered the city’s attention.

After weeks of planning, at dawn on the Solstice began conjuration. I simplified the methods of the Lesser Key of Solomon as my template. I had received a sigil of the city while scrying, and found that she did indeed respond to it.

I made promises to the spirit of the city, and she made promises in return. That ritual on the Solstice irrevocably altered the way I view cities and spirits. She gave me a more nuanced awareness of my urban surroundings in a spiritual context.

Over that summer, my approach to witchcraft began to change. I stopped seeking some kind of (aesthetic) notion of natural purity in my practice. I began to connect with my environment in full.

I developed a new understanding of my own role in our strange post-industrial society.

To me, a witch’s power stems from connection. The web of Wyrd connects all reality. A witch, though, must be able to discern the connections. A witch’s power alters this web in accordance with their will.

This can be very difficult if you’re seeking a semi-mythic bygone experience. We’re better served by building connections where we stand. We must grow where planted, whether it’s city, suburb, or countryside. We, as witches of the 21st century must be open to these experiences. We must allow interactions with urban spirits. How else can we connect with the city and suburb environments where so many of us live?

This means that a recontextualization of the agrarian witchcraft aesthetic is necessary. There’s no reason to toss the mythic history of magick out the window, of course.

But, we need to admit to ourselves that much of our fascination with the past is just a matter of aesthetics.

We must face the rustic image of witch power as an aesthetic choice, not an innate reality. If we can do that, the door opens to many new and exciting magical possibilities.

Do not neglect where we are in favor of where we once were!

#magick #witchcraft #witch #witchblr #occult #spiritwork #spirits #krakow #eliza.txt #city #urban #modern #postmodern

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get-a-new-lease-on-life · 6 years ago

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A New Lease on Life - #59

WELL. It's been about a donkey's age since I've been able to update this. Normally I'd apologize for the wait…but…well, honestly, I've been beating myself up enough as it is and it's not like it happened out of the blue. Kinda-brief update for anyone wondering: I've warned about an impending grief hiatus since my uncle Bob's cancer diagnosis, and the hiatus came to pass in December. Uncle Bob finally lost his fight to cancer after two years of treatment and fading. The end came on rather suddenly but after the deathwatch he went peacefully and without pain. His death really messed me up, especially since I was already suffering from depression. Our first Christmas without Bob was also our last Christmas with Granny Chance, his mother and my grandmother…she suffered a massive stroke in January and died soon afterward. In the space of a month, my family and I lost two members, one right after the other. In a word, the whole situation has been FUCKED and it's still not completely over. There are good days, and bad days…and, to quote a certain Del Toro film, "Then there are the really bad days." Between those, we're all slowly working our way through the fallout and healing process. This chapter is the first I've been able to finish since SEPTEMBER, largely because all of my stories are currently in plot-required angsty-dramatic phases and I CANNOT WRITE SAD SCENES when I'm depressed. It's entirely IMPOSSIBLE, they always come out farcical or they just don't flow. It SUCKS. TBH, I don't know for certain if I'm going to be able to catch up to my previous writing abilities or pace anytime soon but I'm certainly going to try. Also, quick note if you're reading this on Tumblr – they recently enacted a WORDBLOCK LIMIT on text posts of 100 blocks. Yeah. We're now limited to 100 paragraphs including the title. If the chapter's low dialogue and has no notes, that's fine, but if not? Well, we're just screwed because THIS ONE ran 86 ¶s WITHOUT the notes, glossary, and pre-story stuffs. I'm not sure yet how I'll be handling that limit for good, whether that means posting links to sites without the bullshit limits, posting long chapters in pieces, or linking to the separate posts with the notes and glossary, but I'll figure it out in time. For now, I’ll be including the NOTES at the end and you can find the GLOSSARY at FFnet or AO3. Check out Spotify for a playlist centered on this arc - features suggested listening for this chapter and the next few, and much, much more. Lastly, I'd like to take a moment to thank everyone for their patience and understanding, and give a shout-out to some wonderful people who've made this new chapter possible. This chapter is dedicated to Wolf, Newt, and Ihlni for their invaluable support and kind words – to my hubby Cold for letting me ugly-cry on him without complaint and never failing to remind me that life has to go on – to my ma-in-law for teasing me about earning a nasty hangover instead of acknowledging that I looked like death-on-the-rocks and was obviously crying before I answered the door – to my mother for being a bloody SAINT and to my father for intentionally being an asshole when someone to fight with was just what I needed – to Wanda Farmer on AO3 and vbt22220 on FFnet for their encouragement in reviews, the folks on Tumblr who offered kind words when I needed them most, and to all you wonderful people who've stuck by me, read my stories, and are still reading after all this time. Above all, though, this chapter is dedicated to the memory of Granny Chance and Uncle Bob – may they ever rest in peace.

Suggested Listening: Fuel "Hemorrhage [In My Hands]," Paramore "The Only Exception," Prince "Purple Rain," Survivor "I Never Stopped Loving You"

59: A Matter of Honor

The Lair, November 19th - around noon

Donatello wasn't known for being a fool; regardless, he felt rather foolish anytime the obvious failed to register until it was staring him in the face. This was just such a time. He didn't recall sequestering himself in the lab much less falling asleep at his workbench, but the proof was self-evident: a crick in his neck, a strand of insulated wire still stuck to his drool-sticky cheek, and sweat-smeared glasses half off his face. It took a moment of tired lip-smacking and searching to comprehend the facts—ah, right, he pulled an all-nighter to complete the vital signs monitor for Kimber's visit. From what he could see, the device was, indeed, completed. Too tired to consider the absurd picture he must make, he peeled the wire trimming off his cheek and set it aside.

What woke him? He searched his memory, found nothing, then turned to more closely examine his surroundings. A plate of now-cold PopTarts and a cup of coffee (helpfully covered with a cracked saucer) waited a safe distance from his elbow. Right - it was Saturday. This time last year he easily lost track of the days between all-nighters and the sleeping-binges that always followed them. Now he had a weekly reminder in the form of too-sweet coffee and half-burned pastries, courtesy of the confusing woman whose scent still clung to his skin. How blessed he felt in this moment…

The moment ended with a familiar sound—a sleep-slurred phrase he could recognize anywhere but never quite understood. Ya been away too long he got, and he recognized the terms sook, e'en, and nip though he wasn't fully certain of their context.* Beyond that the half-Celt tucked into the cot may as well have been speaking Greek for all he knew. The oft-repeated tease fell short in a particularly nasal snore. Donnie hoisted himself out of his chair with a chorus of protesting joints and slowly rounded the workbench. Silently, he regarded his sleeping woman, soaking in all the silly little details that caught his eyes—the freckles spattered across her skin, the flash of faded ink peeking up over her drooping neckline, the stubborn silver cowlicks sticking up at odd angles from her loosely bound hair—anything to remind himself she was still alive.

He shook his head in weary defeat. A full week after their desperate flight from Willsdale and every time he woke he still half-expected to find Amber cold to the touch, lifeless and painted in blood. Perhaps, he considered as he gathered her in his arms and made his way to their bedroom, this was one scar which would only be healed with time. Perhaps, he considered as he lay her across the neatly tucked quilt and curled up behind her, he could only conquer his fear of Amber's death by focusing on her life. Even as he tugged her flush against his plastron and groin and nuzzled into her neck, he couldn't erase the memory of her: bruised, bloody, and broken, and rapidly fading in his arms. He shuddered and sucked in a steadying breath of her scent.

She wasn't dead, she was alive now…it was enough…right?

Red Fern Florist, Noon

Normally, Red Fern Florist was a calm place – a quiet and classy establishment that just so happened to be run by people who didn't care about being quiet or classy. This, alas, was not a normal day, not even in the slightest.

Abilene Whitaker manned the register, eyes focused somewhere beyond the neon-streaked pages of her textbook and not registering a word. The backroom echoed with near-constant racket—crashes, curses, objects falling or being thrown… Abby sighed, pinched the bridge of her nose, and dragged herself off of the barstool to investigate. Sure enough, Mercy was stocking the shelves a tad too roughly…if by roughly one meant throwing the bags of supplies around like a spandex-clad steroid junkie at a WWE grudge-match smackdown.

"Alright, that's enough," Abby snapped at her blonde subordinate; Mercy froze, embarrassed grey-blue eyes meeting Abby's over a lean, hunched shoulder. "You've been stomping around and slamming things all afternoon. What on earth could be so horrible you've gotta torture the mulch?" Mercy cringed, fixing guilty eyes on the bag of mulch in her grip. Caught. "Well?" The blonde uttered a sound halfway between a groan and a growl, snorted, then slid the bag onto its shelf with more care than necessary.

"My man's ex is comin' by tonight," she admitted under her breath. "She's stayin' a few days."~

"WHAT?!" Abby squawked in protest. "He's bringing his ex over?! Aw, Hell naw! Girl, you drop that boy before I find him and punch him in the man-fritters!" Man-fritters?** Mercy couldn't help it – she sniggered at the visual – but her laughter faded into regret when she registered the rest of Abby's threat.

"No can do," she sighed, "it's kinda unavoidable." Abby crossed her arms, scrunched her lips into an almost exact replica of Leo's 'pissy leader pout,' and waited for an explanation. Mercy rolled her eyes, spearing her fingers into her hair and yanking. "Kimber…well, she's like me an' Amber," she explained under her breath. "Remember I told ya Amber…uh…went home for a few days? Well, she almost…um…didn't come back. Bitch-nipple's comin' over to see how long any of us can stay home without that happening. She invited herself, we voted, Raph lost, she won." Abby took a moment to let that sink in.

"Your guy tried to vote her off the island?" A grim nod from Mercy. "They broke up before she left, right?"

"…and she left before he an' I met," Mercy added even as she rolled her eyes.~ All the code-talk really got on her nerves but they had to be mindful of the security cameras. Abby leaned against the doorframe, lean shoulders at a sharp slant, and hazel eyes puzzled behind her fuchsia-streaked hair.

"You think she wants him back?" she asked quietly. "He won't…" She sucked in a nervous breath. "What if she tries to win him back?"

"You're kiddin', right?" Mercy scoffed. "He dumped her! He's been angsty as fuck over breakin' her heart, yeah, but I know'im—she could make all the moves she wants, he ain't gonna budge."~ Not to mention Kimber's still dead she added in her own head then shook it. After all, she was dead, too. The whole situation stank like a crappy soap opera. "I trust'im, Abbs," she added under her breath. "Raph chose me, not the Jersey-Devil-wannabe…jealousy's pointless when I already know the end result, an' that end result is he's with me."

Abby watched her a moment, scrutinizing and studying; just as suddenly as she issued the threat against Raph's genitals, she smiled. "You're a strong woman," the neon-haired clerk remarked lightly. "I ever heard one of Cherie's exes asking to stay, I'd bash the twat's teeth in. You need anything, you give me a call, alright?" Mercy nodded, halfway between a cringe and a grateful smile, and went back to the stocking. "So how are things going between you two, anyway?" Abby added taking up her share of the lifting. "You never bring him by, you never tell me much about him…how's he treating you?"

Mercy paused, brow furrowed, and scrambled for an answer that didn't make her sound like an absolute sap. She couldn't find one. "He makes me wanna listen to Faith Hill, watch him sleep, an' punch his ex in the teeth," she grumbled. The heat in her cheeks went nuclear at Abby's excited squeal.

"Oh-em-GEE!" the younger practically shrieked. "You love him!" Mercy shot her a sour glare.

"Woman," she groused, "shut yer ass – the bullshit's leakin' out."

The Lair, shortly after dusk - 00:00:00

Two weeks ago, Kimber Bryant faced down Leonardo and demanded the opportunity to make right the trouble she caused his family. Now she stood in the hallway, practically quaking in her mud-stained canvas sneakers, unsure how to proceed. It didn't exactly help that Leo was still glaring at her from behind and her other escort, Donatello, kept fiddling with the tablet strapped to his left forearm.

"Now remember, you've gotta keep the leads from getting tangled," the genius rambled without ever once looking at her. "A little perspiration shouldn't cause any unwanted interference—I insulated the outer casing well to deter any outside condensation or humidity finding its way into the monitor's internal components but there are limits." Kimber rolled her bottle green eyes over at Leo in hope of rescue from Donnie's babbling but received only a glare. "It's not fully water-tight," the genius continued with a shrug and 'meh' expression, still without even glancing her way, "so we'll need to cover it with a water-resistant dressing when it comes to bathing but other than that it—"

"Today, Donnie," Leo grumbled. The younger startled out of his thoughts, fingertips still poised on the holographic chart projected over his tech-tab. He blinked a few times in rapid succession as though refreshing his memory then turned to Kimber in question. From the looks of it, she seemed ready to chew her ankle off to escape the lecture. She really was so very different from Amber…how could they possibly be the same person underneath it all? Could a person's history and past choices really have that big an impact on their personality and attitude?

"Uh…right," he uttered with a wince. "Anyway, it's natural for your core temperature to fluctuate a certain amount over the day but if it drops too low, I'll get an alert. We may not have much time to get you back…so…" he trailed off in hopes she'd pick up the slack.

"Don't get comfy," she finished sourly. "Yeah, I got it. Git lawst."~ He crinkled his nose at her demand but said nothing; instead, he rolled his eyes in defeat and took off toward the lab.

"Remember our agreement," the eldest warned under his breath as he shouldered past her. "You have one chance, and you're to stay—"

"I got it, I got it," Kimber snapped in response. "Go dig t'at stick out'a ya ass before it gets stuck up t'ere."~ Other than a deep-chested growl of warning, Leonardo said nothing—he just stormed past her to some destination she didn't care to know. Rolling her eyes at his attitude, she made her way toward the light at the end of the hallway. The closer she came the more clearly she heard a familiar voice—a voice that still haunted her fondest dreams and worst nightmares.

Familiar laughter led her into the living area where two people were cuddled up on a lumpy sofa. The larger wore a familiar boyish grin that stole the breath right from her lungs. In her grip, the duffle-bag strap slid loose—sweaty palms, she realized. A fluttering, weightless sensation filled her veins—oh, no… 'Gawd dammit…why've I gotta still love'im?'~ She choked around the damned butterflies doing barrel-rolls in her gullet. Steeling her nerves, she shook off her mushy thoughts and turned the corner. 'It don't change nothin'—dead's dead, an' he never chose me anyway. It's better t'is way.'

Raphael…he looked so much the same and yet so different. His eyes shone with laughter where they once burned with distrust; his posture was relaxed where he always kept up a front before. Tucked into his side and 'narrating' the boxing match with absurd faked voice-overs was a tall, lean woman with short messy blonde hair. Kimber's lip ached to curl in a sneer as the blonde loosed a raucous laugh but she fought it back—Raph wasn't hers. If this…this woman in his arms was enough for him…well, she'd respect that. She only ever wanted to see him happy and by God, she'd do so, no matter how much it hurt.

One moment, everything in Mercy's world was perfect. There was a decent match on TV, Raph had 'bullied her' into not-cuddling with him, and for the moment they had no other obligations. As it always seemed to, though, everything fell apart in a single breath…a breath that carried a perfume of vanilla, sugar, and musk. The smell wasn't entirely unpleasant but it was strong enough to make her sinuses burn and her head hurt. Why must so many people marinate themselves in perfume and cologne?

As Mercy and Raphael turned to greet the newcomer in unison the arm around her waist slackened—bright golden hazel eyes widened—full, scarred lips fell slack in dismay. Those lips formed a single word—a name Mercy spent hours cursing that afternoon—but no sound came forth. Torn, she held her silence, eyes darting from Raphael to the stranger and back again almost desperately. She knew this moment would come, she just didn't realize how much she'd want to scream obscenities when it did.

The stranger broke the stare first, bottle-green eyes flustered behind their impeccable smoky eyeliner. She reached up to her modest neckline, grabbed at the pair of worn metal dog-tags at her chest, took a deep breath, then looked up again with a weak smile. "'ey, Raphie," she murmured in a voice still thick with smog. "Long time no see, huh?" The hulking mutant couldn't even get out a single word; he just nodded, his chin and lips unnaturally stiff. Even as he stared down Kimber Bryant he clenched his fingers even tighter to Mercy's waistband. Mercy glanced down at the sight of his three-fingered hand anchoring her in place by a belt-loop. Just that morning, she woke up with that hand tangled in the hem of her nightgown anchoring it at mid-thigh. She had nothing to fear.

She pried Raph's fingers loose, stretched an imaginary crick from her neck, and rolled off the sofa to her feet. "I'll catch up later," Mercy remarked with an entirely faked smile and made her way to the side door. "Compost prob'ly needs a turnin' 'bout now."~ On the way past, she silently took in what details she could, mentally comparing them. The other woman was her height but beyond thin and into skinny. Her hair was coarse—naturally red from the looks of it but with a texture similar to unraveled jute twine. A sharp glance told Mercy the other had practically no ass; no competition there. She rolled her eyes, punched in the security code to pass through, then let the door drift shut behind her.

Before she could get anywhere a pair of large, powerful hands snatched her by the shoulders, spun her about, and pinned her to the tunnel wall. "Why you leavin'?" Raph demanded sharply. His voice was barely below a shout but as so often before, Mercy saw underneath that posturing—she saw the suspicious shimmering in his eyes, the nervous tic in his jaw, the vulnerable hunching of his shoulders, and the lurching of his throat and plastron from frantic heaving breaths. Fear was the one thing he really had no reason to feel in this case but it was written all over him. She cupped his squared jaw, thumb tracing the scar splitting his lip.

"I ain't leavin', ya meathead," she corrected as he covered her hand with his in a frantic grip. "You were friends, right? Ya never got to say goodbye. I've seen how this's been tearin' you apart an' I'm sick of watchin' it."~ Her lips curled in a tease but it was entirely true—she was beyond sick of having another woman in their relationship, even a dead one. "Ya need closure, I get that—I'm backin' off so you can get it. Got it?" Raphael said nothing—he just stared back, visibly searching her words for subtext. When he finally spoke, what he asked made no sense.

"Why?" he demanded in a near-deadpan. Mercy wrinkled her nose but before she could speak, he continued. "Why're ya testin' me like dis? What've I done ta deserve dat?"~

"Testin' you?" Mercy shook her head and scoffed. "I'm not testin' ya, Red," she promised. "I know you and I trust you—you're not about to cheat on me with anyone, much less a dead chick, right?" He shook his head in agreement and his eyes softened; he belatedly released her hand, choosing instead to cup her cheek.

"I wouldn't do dat to ya," he confirmed gruffly. "I'd never…I promised not ta hurt ya an' I meant it…but…" He faltered, flustered and struggling to find the right words. "Dis ain't right…ya ought'a be pissed at me fer even lettin' 'er come here…heck, if dis happened to any other guy, he'd get slapped fer lettin' it happen!"

"You're not any other guy," Mercy reminded shortly, "an' I'm not any other gal. Jealousy won't help anything, it ain't healthy, and you weren't too keen on her comin' over, to begin with. I've got no reason to be mad at'cha, an' especially no reason to hit ya."~ Her eyes drifted back toward the side door, now closed, and she sighed. "I don't like it," she admitted as her hand drifted down to his thick neck, "but I know you need closure an' I trust you enough to not interfere."

Raphael said nothing—what could he possibly say?—instead, he took a step back, eyes wide. This wasn't the first time she professed her trust in him, nor would it be the last, but this utterance seemed the most improbable of all. Wait…no, there was one other moment even more unexpected—a recent moment, the moment he first witnessed Mercy Ross fall apart at the seams, right there in his arms.#

Tousled blonde hair spilled across his pillow like scattered straw. Unpainted lips, swollen from friction, panted around gasping breaths. Work-roughened fingertips clawed at the equally tough skin of his bare scalp and shoulders as he unleashed all his pent-up frustration on her finally bared skin.

"I trust you," she'd promised only moments before. "When are ya gonna start trustin' yourself?"

"Ya shouldn't trust me," he'd blustered, but despite his denials, he caved to her temptation. He knew from the first breath it would take weeks to clear her pheromones from his lungs; he'd never forget the taste of her or her keening cries of completion. When the madness left her eyes and the fire dulled in his blood, Raphael knew he'd never be able to see his Mercy the same, nor would he ever cease to be humbled by her seemingly unshakable faith in him—trust he couldn't recall doing a damn thing to earn.

That July, Raphael took a chance on happiness in the middle of an open rooftop—a single kiss followed by countless more, all sound-tracked with heavy metal. Ever since then, anytime he fell to the temptation of Mercy's lips, he lost himself completely. He wanted her—he needed her—he craved her—she was the air he breathed, vital to his very survival and responsible for every beat of his heart. Far below the filthy streets, in a dark passage forgotten by the world in general, he stole her lips and breathed her in reverence.

He loved her—loved her beyond the limits of his fears and follies—and that was why she knew he wouldn't let her down.

"So you two, huh?" Raphael ducked his head to avoid Kimber's eyes, hoping she couldn't see the traces of stickiness at his lips or the tenting of his patched trousers. She said nothing, choosing instead to examine the worn red tweed of the sofa arm she perched on.

"What of it?" he retorted slumping onto the seat at the opposite end of the couch.

"Looks like ya found a good one, 'at's all," she shrugged. He studied her silently a moment, searching for signs of deceit. In his heart, he knew this stranger was Kimber—his Kimber, the friend he threw away over his insecurities and fears—but her appearance was largely unfamiliar. Kimber was always on the chunky side of curvaceous but with an undeniable sex appeal. This new body was built like a scarecrow - all long limbs and frizzy hair - but underneath he could see the same sensual confidence Kimber had before she died. That sensuality was all Kimber - Amber lacked it completely, always coming across somewhere between odd and awkward. This woman, though visually unfamiliar, was definitely Kimber. Something in her eyes spoke of mischief…and regret. "Fer Gawd's sake," she swore under her breath and turned an acidic glare on him. He refused to meet it, locking his eyes on one padded and splayed knee. "I know t'a drill—I'm dead, not stoopid."

"Ya were never stupid, Kim, jus' stubborn an' naive," he protested but she waved him off.

"T'en quit lookin' at me like t'at." After a moment of resistance, he finally bit the bullet—he met her eyes. "Yeah, like t'at," the redhead grumbled, "like I'm gonna jump ya if ya take yer eyes off'a me or somethin'. I may be livin' in a homewrecker but t'at don't make me a homewrecker." This time, she was the one to hide her eyes.

A long, tense silence filled the room, broken only by the occasional sound from the Lab or utility room. In this unexpected but overdue moment, despite the drastically different appearance, Raphael saw Kimber as she was when they first met—not the over-confident temptress with the venomous smile and devil-may-care attitude but the lost, lonely, frightened runaway searching for her place in the world. Her new body was thirty-five if it was a year old, but she'd never looked more like a child to him than she did now. The night she turned Lefty and Northpaw over to the police and fell apart, Raph let the wrong head do the thinking and her heart suffered for it. So much heartache came from that one bad call—Kimber's death, too, was a result—how could he ever make it right?

"Rah-fay-el." The quiet – almost reverent – utterance of his name startled him from his brooding. Kimber faced the far wall but her eyes were locked on his askance. "Tell me t'a truth…did ya ever love me?" He blanched; she scoffed and picked at the faded red tweed covering the sofa. "I know we was close," she clarified in a soft tone void of accusation, "friends to be sure, but did ya ever love me like I loved you?"

He didn't answer—he couldn't answer, not around the painful lump in his throat. For so long, he wondered the very same. Loving Kimber, after all, would have made his betrayal a crime of passion rather than a bad move made in paranoid self-defense. Despite all his brooding introspection, though, he always came up with the same answer: he could have loved her, but he didn't…if he'd kept his head, maybe, someday, he could have loved her, but he didn't. "Exactly." Kimber's near-whisper broke his train of thought. "I knew ya didn't love me," she admitted even as her shoulders drew tight and her painted lips stretched in a sort of sneer. "I always knew it, I just t'ought…eh, no matter. I'm not gonna fuck up yer life again."

"I think ya got dat backwards," Raph pointed out dryly. "I fucked up yer life—I'm why yer…" He faltered, his throat clenching around the word as though to prevent him from voicing it. "Ya know," he settled for with a weak half-shrug, "like dis." Kimber watched him silently, eyes sharp enough to cut away his protective façade.

"Say it," she challenged. He flinched; she slid off the armrest and stalked over to face him, arms crossed in defiance. "Say it, Raph," she ordered, "ya know what I am—ya know t'a word, so use it. I'm…" She trailed off, one eyebrow cocked in expectance.

Raphael cringed. Of all the times he wished it was possible to completely withdraw into his shell, this was one of the worst so far. Weary hazel eyes drifted from Kimber's dirty canvas sneakers up her faded jeans and cotton blouse, up to her unimpressed eyes. "Yer…dead," he whispered as if confessing some great sin.

"Exactly," Kimber harrumphed and jabbed him between the eyes with one clear-lacquered fingernail. "Dead folks an' live folks jus' don't mix, ya muck-brained mawron.~ It wouldn't work an' I ain't about to waste my time tryin' ta make it work. Capiche?" He nodded, glaring up at her retreating back.

"Den why'd ya come back?" he asked, letting his hand fall back to his knee. "Dere had to be anutha way to test Don's theory, so why'd ya volunteer?"~ Kimber stilled in her pacing, carefully arranging her words before they could all spill out without concern for her feelings.

"I never got ta say goodbye," she admitted in a near-whisper, "not ta you, not ta Daron or Lefty, not ta anyone who mattered…but I've neva been t'at big on goodbyes anyhow, ya know?" Her voice cracked on the last words and she took a moment to compose herself. When she spoke again, she turned to the side as though watching him over her shoulder but her eyes remained hidden. "I made a lotta mistakes, Red—a lotta stoopid decisions t'at hurt a lotta people—an' much as I wanted to just stay dead, I lived ta regret every one'a t'ose decisions. T'at's why I came back…t'a fix t'a shit I broke an' atone for my sins. If t'at means stayin' here fer t'ree days while you an' Blondie play suck-face, so be it."

"Ya know you're puttin' yer life at risk, right?" Raph reminded, ignoring the suck-face comment. "Donnie ain't sure about da timing on dis thing, ya know. He an' the braided nutcase passed five days in her world but they weren't gone a whole three days, here. Who's to say ya'll have a full three days here? Who's ta say ya won't drop dead in an hour, or three hours, or even a minute from now?" He shuddered at the thought, his mind helpfully supplying several months' worth of nightmares to choose from, most of which ended with Kimber dying in his arms. "Ya froze, Kim, an' dat ain't an easy way to go; are ya really willing to risk goin' through it all over again?"

"It's my choice," she reminded with a stern expression reminiscent of an unimpressed schoolmarm. "No one asked me ta make t'at choice. Besides, see t'is?" She tugged her neckline aside to show him the small plastic device hung from her neck and the line of wire trailing down to her armpit. "T'is lil' t'ing's monitoring my core temp—we've got t'is covered. Trust me?"

Raph considered the plea a moment—for it was, indeed, a plea in every sense of the word—then gave a slow, reluctant nod. "I don't like it," he admitted in a throaty rumble, "but it ain't my job ta like it." There was much more to say, but for the moment, he hadn't words.

"Nope," Kimber agreed with a sly grin. "It's yer job ta help me give Daron a heart attack. What say we give'im a visit from t'a Livin' Dead Girl?" It was just a tease—just another excuse to ignore the elephant in the room—but for the moment, Kimber didn't care. She had more important tasks to focus on—messes to clean up, mistakes to correct, sins to atone for, and honor to regain. For now, the rest could wait.

The Lair - 00:35:00 and counting

Time stops for no man, people often said, and the same could be said for women. Never mind that Amber's cantankerous counterpart was staying in the Lair for the weekend…lurking around every corner…stinking up the place with her perfume…just waiting for a chance to bitch-slap Amber back into her place at the bottom of the food chain…

Amber shuddered at the thought and firmly shoved it into the back of her mind. Kimber Bryant made Amber all kinds of nervous but her presence didn't excuse Amber from her chores. There was too much to do—laundry to put away, studying to do, dinner to prepare— Something soft and furry brushed against her calf, startling her from her thoughts. "Right," she muttered as Kirk bypassed the laundry basket at her feet and hopped up onto Donnie's bed. "Gotta clean the litterboxes an' feed Kirkland too." After a mrrruhl of warning and a superfluous butt-wiggle said feline launched himself right into a pile of folded undergarments and began viciously mauling a sock big enough to double as an oven mitt. As he lay on his side, wrapped around the sock and kicking like a homicidal kangaroo, Amber sighed and shook her head in whimsical defeat. After how much she'd missed him she couldn't really be upset with the little murder-machine; cats, after all, would be cats, and socks could be darned.

"It's inevitable, Kirk," she teased as she hung a pair of patched canvas trousers in the frame-and-fabric 'closet.' "You're just gonna have to get used to sharing me with Donnie. I know I'm Mom but he's mine - you can't resent him forever." With an adorable cotton-muffled urrrr, Kirk glared at her over a mouthful of beige knit as if to say watch me. Ah, the jealousy of spoiled cats.

"Honestly, I'm lucky to have Donnie," she added to herself, doubts and worries filling her thoughts between wire hangers. Back before the dream connection was confirmed—before Donatello confronted her with his old Tonfa and confessed the name of her dead classmate—Amber could fool herself he wasn't the same Donnie she grew up with. She could tell herself that he didn't know all her dirty little secrets. He didn't watch her fall apart over the last few years of her life, partly from illness and her and partly from depression and apathy. He never heard how her poor choices in college may have led to the death of a classmate. He never knew she routinely slaked her carnal needs in impersonal encounters so her time with him in dreams could be focused on more important things than her hormones. If this Donnie wasn't her Donnie, then the mistakes of her past were only a secret to keep.

The problem was…now she knew this was her Donnie…and by the sounds of it, he remembered everything. Amber paused, fondling a strip of worn purple fabric. Even after countless washings, every one of those masks smelled strongly of his oddly comforting blend of coffee, machinery, musky exertion, and spice. "How can he even look at me, Kirk?" Amber murmured into the sweet-smelling fabric. "I screwed up with him so many times…I gave up on him, I – I gave myself up to other guys…how doesn't he hate me by now?"

This last question seemed the most perplexing. Sure, the purpose of those impersonal booty-calls was to shut up her hormones so her scant time with Donnie could be put to better use, but she always regretted them afterward. Regret, though, didn't count if a person intentionally committed the same crime over and over again, and she was guilty—guilty of closing her eyes, mentally replacing the other men with Donnie, and crying herself to sleep after they left. Regret was a weak word, really; what she felt wasn't weak. After all the time she spent hating herself for the infidelity, the idea that Donnie didn't hate her for it made no sense.

The dead silence tore her from her ruminations; odd, considering Kirk had a habit of 'answering' her every time she spoke.## After a quick glance at the bed, it was all she could do to keep from laughing. The little furball was out cold, wrapped around her favorite bra and snoring into one generous cup. The battered sock sprawled on the floor half under the bed—the enemy was vanquished. Chuckling at the absurdity, Amber crouched to retrieve the sock but paused when she noticed something wedged between the mattress and box spring. A warped silver wire binding, traces of green beyond the rings…surely she was mistaken, but it wouldn't hurt to check…right?

Amber tugged the notebook loose and promptly cringed in recognition. It was her journal, the one she hadn't written in for months then misplaced. Why was it jammed under the mattress like a nudie magazine? Curiosity drove her to investigate and she quickly discovered the litany of notes scribbled upside-down in the back. She quickly lost herself in the writing—questions and memories, hopes and fears Donatello couldn't bring himself to share with her, all centered around their years apart. Though she didn't dig too deeply, there wasn't a single word of blame or judgment anywhere—nothing that indicated resentment or disgust. Amber almost missed the sheet of loose-leaf that slipped out and fluttered to the floor—almost. The pencil-scribbled contents might have made her stumble if she hadn't already seated herself before. "I met my lover in a dream," she whispered in recognition.^ "That poem…I thought I lost it...I guess Donnie found it?" Soon enough, she hit the final lines:

Mibbe someday he will see – Someday the truth I'll tell. For now, I've only memories, And dreams I shot tae Hell.

Or, rather, those should have been the final lines—they were the last she wrote. Someone, however, clearly thought the poem wasn't finished and added their own verse…in pen…neatly printed by a familiar hand straddling the border between calculating and persnickety. "No way," Amber muttered thickly as she scanned the added verse, wide-eyed and breathless. "Naw fookin' way!"~ No matter how she protested, the words remained clear, impossible yet obvious. Still marveling at their presence—and at the subtext—she never heard the soft ticking of a distant clock, or the even softer inhale accompanying.

Dreams can sometimes fall apart, And memories can fade. The truth you shared can't change my heart… Your lover-friend I've stayed…

I'll see you in our dreams.

There was no stopping it, no holding back: Amber crushed the paper to her pounding heart in elation. He remembered. He understood. He loved. Perhaps, even…he forgave?

Sometimes emotions are too powerful for words; fortunately for Amber, squealing unintelligibly required none.

UP NEXT: (Currently in-progress)

Chapter List

- The vital signs monitor – At first I wasn't quite sure if such a device was on the public market, at least aside from 'smart' devices like FitBit and such, so I did what I do best: I researched the fuck out of it for funzies. Turns out there are more varieties out there than I expected, each monitoring different signs in different fashions and to different accuracy levels. Since Donnie's never been the sort to simply COPY others' ideas, we can safely assume he's combined the best of several devices. The result is a small electronic monitor [about the size of a 9-volt battery] hung from the neck by a lanyard, which measures core body temp by way of leads attached to an adhesive-backed electrode stuck in the armpit. We can also assume fitting the device on Kimber was incredibly awkward because she intentionally MADE IT awkward.

* Full statement including what Amber's snoring cut off: "Ya be'n 'way too long 'gain, ya sook—nae be'n by fer a nip'er a bosie. Wha's a lass ta think?" – This little bit of Scotchness is a routine in-dream tease from Amber. You've been gone [from our dreams] too long again, you old softy—you haven't even come by for a kiss or cuddle. What's a woman to think?

** Man-Fritters – Alas, I cannot claim authorship of this little snigger-inducing euphemism. That honor belongs to author Mimi Jean Pampfiloff in her Accidentally Yours series. While the first two books were pretty recipe [if you know what I mean] they were HILARIOUS recipes. I'm not ashamed to admit that the scene in the first one where the heroine belts out 80's pop hits to keep sane made me laugh so hard I spewed my tea, CHOKED ON IT, then spent the rest of the day CROAKING. It was WORTH IT. (That said, the author also used a lovely little nonsense-word coined by my IRL friend Autumn back when we were in high school but didn't notate it. I'd encourage Autumn to stop starting word trends without first seeking a copyright but that'd mean I'd have to pay her every time I stole her stuff, heh.)

Also: Abby has no accent. She's intentionally warping the Oh, Hell no! in hopes of showing Mercy just how upset the news makes her.

# Implied smut – The encounter referenced here didn't make it to in-story occurrence BUT it took place during the Absolutes arc, which took up too much time-and-space for the intended back-and-forth between worlds. It's written up and included in the "Gallery of Memories" as The Blonde and the Beefcake and it can be found HERE.) It's almost entirely lemon, BTW. ;P

## Kirk tends to 'answer' Amber every time she talks to him – I am SO not basing this on our cat Heiferlump. Nope, not at all! …fine. Yes. Heifer responds to EVERYTHING she hears, no matter who says it, and it's rare to find someone she can't bait into answering back. She's particularly adept at getting my father to argue with her and routinely tries to argue with the microwave beeper. O_o It's awesome.

^ The Poem, "Dream Lovers" – I've not posted the entirety of the poem in any chapters or even the GoM installment of the same name. NOW, however, you can find the entire poem in comic format HERE, on this story's Here on Tumblr, OR on DeviantArt. The comic includes Donnie's additions and a small blurb of backstory leading to this scene, and the Tumblr/AO3 posts include a glossary for the many odd words used in the poem. For convenience's sake, I've included the translation of the included verse below.

Again, since Tumblr’s decided to be an ass about wordblock limits, see FFnet or AO3 for the glossary if anything throws you off.

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